The Cheat Sheet: Advice and Admissions

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[00:03:14] [SPEAKER_00] I'm Kevin, and on this week's cheat sheet we're going to talk about a variety of cases from all over. Content warning this episode includes discussion of murder and domestic violence. And this week's cheat sheet is a little bit different from usual, isn't it?

[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, it is. The division of labor is totally off. Normally we do half and half. This week, you did everything.

[00:03:46] [SPEAKER_00] I did everything. And why was that?

[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_03] I'm very busy covering the Jared Bridegan trial. Today is opening statements the day we are recording. So that will be out. And I would encourage everyone to listen to our Jared Bridegan trial coverage. It's going to be going on for weeks. We're not going to do it every day, but we're going to be doing all the high-level updates. Right.

[00:04:05] [SPEAKER_00] So I'm doing all the cases. And don't worry, people. I got your message loud and clear. No happy cases. It's not allowed. I thought people might like that. Is it a change? I spent a lot of time trying to find happy true crime cases, which is hard to do. I think I found a couple. I told you one on a walk the other day that made you smile. But people don't want that. People don't listen to us to be happy. They listen to us to be sad and miserable. That's true.

[00:04:33] [SPEAKER_03] That is what we bring to the party. I would say I think you can always bake in one that doesn't have a completely grim and disastrous ending to a normal cheat sheet. I just don't think it belongs as a specific segment. I think it's something that you can throw in at your own discretion. But we don't need to be. There's enough toxic positivity in the world, folks. We don't need it in true crime. That's my attitude.

[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_00] Well, the people have spoken and they want our show to just be a joyless, grim death march.

[00:05:03] [SPEAKER_03] Well, that's what it is for us. So why shouldn't it be different? You know, I'm just kidding. Yeah. It's one of those things where, you know, I think you just it's like a little that goes along with I've liked some of the stories that ended a little bit optimistically that you've picked out in the past. I think you could still do that. I just I don't think we need to like plaster on happy faces at the end and be like, here's what's good. It's like, yeah, we were we wanted to know what's good.

[00:05:28] [SPEAKER_02] We wouldn't be listening to something called the Murder Sheet. Something obviously went very bad that this exists.

[00:05:34] [SPEAKER_00] Well, I got the message loud and clear, everybody. So message received. No happiness here.

[00:05:42] [SPEAKER_02] OK, sounds. You sound so crazy. All right. Are we moving on? Let's move on.

[00:05:48] [SPEAKER_03] My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist.

[00:05:50] [SPEAKER_00] And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney. And this is the murder sheet. We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases.

[00:06:01] [SPEAKER_02] We're the Murder Sheet.

[00:06:03] [SPEAKER_00] And this is the cheat sheet advice and admissions.

[00:06:51] [SPEAKER_00] Let's start in Massachusetts. And my source for this is CNN dot com. Is Massachusetts like the Bay State?

[00:06:57] [SPEAKER_03] I have no idea what it is.

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_00] Have you spent much time in Massachusetts over the years?

[00:07:03] [SPEAKER_03] No.

[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_00] You're not like a Bostonite?

[00:07:06] [SPEAKER_03] No. Thank God. I'm from New York. So we have a real rivalry with Boston. You know, it's very heated.

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_00] You told me you went to Harvard.

[00:07:16] [SPEAKER_03] No. No. Good Lord. I went to William and Mary, which is we were beat out by Harvard for being the oldest school in the country. A lot of resentments around that.

[00:07:26] [SPEAKER_00] I thought you told me you'd like to while away many a summer at the Fenway Park.

[00:07:30] [SPEAKER_03] No, no, no, no. All I can say is my my my dad worked in Boston for a while, but I've never been to Boston except on a layover. I think some of the colonial history, I think, would be pretty cool and would love to explore that. So I've always wanted to go to Massachusetts for that colonial history, even though my interests, frankly, lie more in Virginia. But I think it's still cool. But no, never been there.

[00:07:57] [SPEAKER_00] It sounds like a little Massachusetts curious. Yeah. A little tantalized. It's a little mysterious.

[00:08:01] [SPEAKER_03] Just a little bit, you know, just a little bit like it's different. So never been there, though.

[00:08:07] [SPEAKER_00] Well, we should have read that.

[00:08:08] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, I suppose we should.

[00:08:12] [SPEAKER_00] This is a case involving a teenager in Massachusetts. I apologize if I mispronounce his name. Arjun Aravind, a 17-year-old who has been charged on two counts of murder, two counts of assault and battery on a family or household murder and some other charges. This is after his mother and his younger brother, a 14-year-old, were found dead in their home.

[00:08:40] [SPEAKER_00] And one thing I found interesting about this that I wanted to get your take on is it turns out that prior to allegedly committing this crime, this young man had used AI. More specifically, he used chat GBT to search out fantasy stories and ideas about killing his family.

[00:09:09] [SPEAKER_04] Oh, man. Yeah.

[00:09:12] [SPEAKER_00] So what do you think of people using AI in that way?

[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_03] I could see. I mean, I'll say his mother was Suda Venkatesen. She was 45 and his younger brother, 14-year-old Siddharth Aravind. And, you know, I always like to say the names of the murder victims on this just to, you know, their lives mattered. I think that this is really dangerous for somebody who is obsessively thinking about murdering somebody.

[00:09:42] [SPEAKER_03] Am I saying, like, chat GBT inspired the murder or put the murder in his heart or whatever? Not necessarily. But when you have this tool that can allow people to kind of fixate on something and tantalize themselves with these fantasy stories that are just easily accessible, he doesn't have to sit down and write it all out himself. He can have this entity, this AI do it for him.

[00:10:09] [SPEAKER_03] I think it's potentially dangerous in the hands of a disturbed mind. And, you know, I think this is probably not the last story like this. It can give ideas. It can give tips. There are supposed to be safeguards in place that kind of shut the conversation down when things get violent. But obviously one workaround in this case was that it sounds to me like if it's like fantasy stories, theoretical ideas.

[00:10:35] [SPEAKER_03] He's not necessarily like searching how to kill my mother and brother. He's probably posing like, oh, how can I have a, like, give me his pitch for a fictional story where this happens. And he's talking around it and it's giving him what he wants. And it's probably like whetting his appetite and revving him up. I mean, it just seems really dangerous to me.

[00:10:55] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, and this article mentions that the state of Florida has earlier sued OpenAI who run ChatGPT saying that there's no parental oversight. Young people get addicted. They lose their critical thinking skills. And it helps, as you say, wrap people up to commit pretty serious crimes.

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_00] It's always difficult for me to figure out where the line is in things like this. In other words, is ChatGPT, is AI creating this sort of behavior or is it just another tool used by people who would have done things like this anyway? What do you think?

[00:11:38] [SPEAKER_03] I think mostly the latter. Mostly these are people who would have done things anyway. But with the important caveat that, like, maybe he wouldn't have specifically killed them if, like, if that played a role in his worsening disturbance and kind of like, now I want to do it. I want to do it more. You know, I think there would always have been something off about this person. But would he have literally done this crime? I don't know.

[00:12:03] [SPEAKER_03] I think most of the people who are reliant on this in terms of, like, you know, and that we see appear in murder cases have issues. It's not like this is a perfectly, you know, functional, healthy human being who's coming into this and just, like, snapping. But, you know, the people who are drawn to this sort of thing, you know, I think it worsens them and maybe makes a bad outcome more likely.

[00:12:30] [SPEAKER_03] And I also think, like, we're just beginning to see, like, what the psychological ramifications are going to be for people's over-reliance on AI in general. We're going to see less critical thinking. We're going to be seeing less reasoning, less logic when you throw this into the mix. I also think another thing for AI is the ease of use. Like, there was a story out of the Washington Post about how a woman in Wyoming, her stepfather, used a Grok chatbot.

[00:12:59] [SPEAKER_03] Grok is Elon Musk's AI service to take her childhood photo and turn it into child sexual abuse material. And, you know, for his own sexual gratification. And would child sexual abuse materials, you know, exist without Grok? Yes, of course. They have existed for many, many years. Before the Internet, they were in print.

[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_03] But is it easier than ever for someone like that woman's stepfather to take Grok and do that? Yes. And the ease of use and the frictionlessness of the use is what I think it also makes it such a crisis. It's not saying, oh, there wouldn't have been child predators. It's saying, like, this gives the child predators the ability to basically do anything they want.

[00:13:48] [SPEAKER_03] And the people who are these wealthy billionaires and, you know, people who are very connected at the upper levels of our society seemingly don't care about that at all. Like, that's fine for them, you know, that people are being harmed by this. And I think that's disgusting. And I think people should be appalled.

[00:14:07] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, and one thing I think is interesting is that I think in at least some of these cases, a person might have a deranged or crazy thought that in the ordinary course of events might then just go out of their head. But if they're able to take that thought and share it with an AI program that's not going to shame them for it and, in fact, kind of rev them up, as you said earlier, I could see how that could have a disastrous impact.

[00:14:36] [SPEAKER_03] These chatbots are designed to be accommodating and validating, you know, and when I see people, like, send us, like, oh, well, here's what it thinks about this case. I'm just like, I don't care what it thinks about this case. Like, why are you sending me this? Don't. Like, I don't want, like, I don't want to hear it, you know? Like, if you use it for, like, research or pulling different things, whatever, okay, fine.

[00:14:57] [SPEAKER_03] But, like, if you're telling me conclusions that a robot thought up because of what you were putting into it and it's telling you what you want to hear, why are you wasting my time by sending me that? I don't care. You know? And that's, like, innocuous compared to this.

[00:15:11] [SPEAKER_04] This is, like, people died.

[00:15:15] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. So we certainly keep an eye on that and whether or not there's any legal determination that the AI may or may not have played a role in that. You do not need a crowded, cluttered closet overflowing with a bunch of pieces you never wear to be stylish. You need our wonderful sponsor, Quince.

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[00:20:15] [SPEAKER_00] Should we move on to the great state of Florida?

[00:20:17] [SPEAKER_03] Yes.

[00:20:18] [SPEAKER_00] Florida is not known as the Bay State. Is it the...

[00:20:22] [SPEAKER_02] Sunshine State.

[00:20:23] [SPEAKER_00] I can't talk. The Sunshine State. The Sunshine State. My source for this is fox13news.com. This is another instance where a cold case gets solved decades later, but it's different from what we normally hear about. Typically, when we hear a cold case being solved, what happens?

[00:20:45] [SPEAKER_03] DNA.

[00:20:46] [SPEAKER_00] DNA. DNA. Somebody tests DNA and oh my God, it's this person who is dead, but they were in prison for something else for similar offenses. Now they know we... Now we know they did this too. In this case, a guy calls up police and says, guess what? Back in 1987, I now realize I killed someone.

[00:21:13] [SPEAKER_00] What occurred was, at least according to him, this is Gary Edward Glowax. He was using drugs. He breaks into the home of Melissa Ellison in December of 1987. He commits a burglary. He hits her with a log. He says he was, as I said, he was using drugs at the time.

[00:21:39] [SPEAKER_00] He actually broke into the house because he wanted to look for things he could sell, presumably to get money for drugs. He found this woman in a room with her baby. And as I said, he strikes her with the log. He picks her baby up, places it on a couch, then goes back and looks for money.

[00:22:06] [SPEAKER_00] And then shortly thereafter this, he's arrested for an unrelated crime. And at least according to him, all this time, he wasn't aware that the woman died. But he subsequently, just within the last few months, he saw some retrospective article about it, realized he had killed her.

[00:22:30] [SPEAKER_00] It sounds like he got that information in March of this year, decided to wait a couple of months because he wanted people to get through the holidays first. I'm not sure I follow that because I'm not sure I understand what holidays he was referring to.

[00:22:45] [SPEAKER_02] But July 4th?

[00:22:46] [SPEAKER_00] I don't know. But then this month in August, he's gone to the police. He's not only confessed, but he has provided details that were not publicly known before this and says, I did it. So he has been charged. What do you make of all that?

[00:23:03] [SPEAKER_03] Well, looking at his picture, it certainly looks like he did drugs for years. He got that hollowed out look. I mean, is he pleading guilty at this point?

[00:23:12] [SPEAKER_00] Uh, that's not clear. But since he's confessing, I would imagine so.

[00:23:18] [SPEAKER_03] I guess like what he did was horrific and brittle. I have seen so many cases of people like not taking any accountability for the horrible things that they've done that I guess I'm glad that he at least came forward after all these years. I'm not sure. It's a little hard to believe that he wasn't aware that she was dead. But if he's been in some sort of drug haze for all this time and in and out of prison, I guess maybe that could be possible. I just don't know.

[00:23:44] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. I don't know what to think. It's on one level. It sounds hard to believe. But if you're high on drugs and you leave this residence and then go somewhere else to write another residence or whatever looking for drug money and then you get arrested and tossed behind bars, maybe you're not following the news carefully.

[00:24:02] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, I can see that. I mean, she's just so sad that she's like a young mother with her baby. It's it. I mean, it's really horrible. Like she lost her life just because this guy couldn't, you know, stay off drugs and get his life together. I mean, it just is horrible to see someone pay the price for just somebody who's a waste of space like that. Because I mean, like, I guess I'm not that sympathetic when I see the details of how brutal this was and, you know, that it happened in front of her 13 month old baby.

[00:24:30] [SPEAKER_03] You know, like, again, I a lot of people are addicts and deal with stuff and they're not being violent towards others. You know, like the idea that addiction is some kind of excuse is nonsense because then all addicts would be going around murdering, you know, young mothers for for money. Which they're not. And, you know, that's that's him.

[00:24:49] [SPEAKER_00] I certainly don't have sympathy for him. I am to a certain extent grateful that he is confessing ending the uncertainty that the family has after all of these decades later.

[00:25:03] [SPEAKER_03] I will give him credit for that because I do think that is rare and becoming, you know, it's certainly rare because I people are incentivized to lie. People are incentivized to just hide things. And so I don't know, maybe this is a change of heart and a conscience. And, you know, that's that's to be celebrated, even if it's many years, frankly, too late.

[00:25:29] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. And as I say, it's also just rare that we see one of these cold cases solved by something other than DNA. Yeah. So let's go on to Missouri, which is the show me state. Don't we have a lot of listeners?

[00:25:45] [SPEAKER_02] We have a lot of listeners in Missouri. I don't know why.

[00:25:49] [SPEAKER_00] And you murder sheet central. You're always saying you want to get back to Kansas City.

[00:25:55] [SPEAKER_02] Everything's up to date in Kansas City. They've gone about as far as they can go.

[00:25:59] [SPEAKER_00] You love Kansas City. You've never been there, but you're very interested.

[00:26:04] [SPEAKER_02] I'm very strongly interested. That's true. It's not a joke. It's not a bit. That's actually not a bit at all.

[00:26:12] [SPEAKER_03] Yep.

[00:26:14] [SPEAKER_00] Don't they call it the City of Fountains?

[00:26:16] [SPEAKER_03] They call it the City of Fountains. Well, yeah, I think I was the one who told you that.

[00:26:19] [SPEAKER_00] I think I told you that because I'm basically there.

[00:26:22] [SPEAKER_03] Well, I'll say this. If I have a very odd, out-of-place, you know, special interest in something, it's usually because I'm writing some really terrible fiction about it.

[00:26:36] [SPEAKER_02] So that's all I'll say about that.

[00:26:40] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. I would disagree with the word terrible, but you do have...

[00:26:43] [SPEAKER_02] Awful, embarrassing, cringy.

[00:26:45] [SPEAKER_00] You have a delightful piece of fiction. So bad you blacked out? In the works about Changi.

[00:26:51] [SPEAKER_03] No, it's not in the works. I haven't worked on that in years, but that is why I know a decent amount about Kansas City.

[00:26:57] [SPEAKER_02] Not a lot, but certainly interesting going there. Sounds like a great city.

[00:27:02] [SPEAKER_00] Great barbecue. You know, they call it the City of Fountains. The baseball park there is full of fountains where there's at least one. And I remember thinking, gosh, that's nice. See, I've been there. I've visited Kansas City.

[00:27:17] [SPEAKER_02] Kevin, that's nice from Kevin. Not every city can achieve that. I'm not going to lie.

[00:27:25] [SPEAKER_00] Right? As opposed to you, because you love all the cities.

[00:27:28] [SPEAKER_02] I love all the cities. That's not true at all.

[00:27:31] [SPEAKER_03] That's not true. Some cities are nice to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. And then other cities are like, yikes. But I'm not going to call them out because I'm not going to alienate those cities.

[00:27:41] [SPEAKER_00] The cities that you hate to visit may think, oh, I'd love to live here. Because they always say it the other way around. So I'm just curious.

[00:27:49] [SPEAKER_03] Indianapolis. If you don't love car racing, you know, it's kind of like, ah, interesting. Thanks. But I think it's fun.

[00:27:58] [SPEAKER_02] I mean, I love living in this area. So maybe that.

[00:28:01] Yeah.

[00:28:02] [SPEAKER_02] What? I'm going to piss off all the Indy people.

[00:28:05] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. That noise you hear is all.

[00:28:07] [SPEAKER_03] All the mobs coming.

[00:28:09] [SPEAKER_00] They're friends. They're yelling. Like, subscribing.

[00:28:11] [SPEAKER_03] You know, I just, it's fine to visit. It's just, to me, it's not like, oh my gosh, I got to see the Indy 500. Because that's just not my thing. But I think it's a cool, I mean, I'm impressed with the scope of it. But it's just not my thing.

[00:28:27] [SPEAKER_00] So my source for this is komu.com. And this is the story of the death of 37-year-old Destiny Dunn at the hands of what appears to be her partner, Nicholas Ayers, a 35-year-old. He's been charged with second-degree felony murder and first-degree domestic assault.

[00:28:53] [SPEAKER_00] He contacted police claiming that they'd gotten in some sort of fight while they were in the shower. Apparently, his claim was, well, I told her I was going to leave her. And I guess she was so taken aback by that news, she fell in the shower. Which he said that when you see her, it's going to look like I beat her up. But by the way, I didn't do that.

[00:29:21] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah.

[00:29:23] [SPEAKER_00] Also kind of a suspicious...

[00:29:25] [SPEAKER_02] So he did it.

[00:29:26] [SPEAKER_00] Kind of a suspicious statement. When police arrived, they found her deceased, unfortunately, with bruising and marks all over her body. They take him into custody. He admits that they've gotten into fights. But says they were all accidental whenever we got into physical fights. So they get his phone via a warrant.

[00:29:55] [SPEAKER_00] And on this phone, they found a video he took two days earlier, which shows him assaulting her.

[00:30:08] [SPEAKER_04] Oh, no.

[00:30:10] [SPEAKER_00] They also find a video of her lying still in the bathtub. She's barely moving. And this is basically the condition she was later found in. This video was taken a few hours before they found her dead. In another one of these videos, you hear the sound of her groaning. And he's just pacing and says, I'm going to call 911.

[00:30:39] [SPEAKER_00] I have to because I'm not going down for manslaughter. So I think it's interesting that he made these obviously unconvincing claims that he didn't do it. But then the fact that the evidence which really proves otherwise was video taken by him on his own phone. That's an interesting touch. What are your comments, if any?

[00:31:09] [SPEAKER_03] Most criminals are not very smart. And he obviously did this. And I feel very bad for her that she died in such a setting with someone who was supposed to care about her, you know, not only inflicting these injuries, but not getting help in a prompt manner. It's very sad. And it's like, yeah, I mean, the consciousness of guilt that it takes to say, yeah, it looks like this, but it's not that, you know.

[00:31:37] [SPEAKER_03] And also, like, they can tell based on the way your injuries are if it was a fall or if it was a beating. Like, there's going to be things you see in both of them that don't add up. So at that point, it's just like he knows enough, like, I'm going to need to cover for this, but he doesn't realize, like, it's already too late.

[00:31:59] [SPEAKER_00] Shall we move on to our final case?

[00:32:02] [SPEAKER_03] Let's do it, Kevin.

[00:32:03] [SPEAKER_00] So this case takes place in a very special world we call newspapers. Yay! I found this in the mercurynews.com. I'm sure you'd probably find it a million other places. Anna, you're well known as being a young woman. Am I? Do you remember, you know what Dear Abby is? Yes. What is this Dear Abby I speak of?

[00:32:29] [SPEAKER_03] It's an advice column that I think is, like, widely syndicated where people write in, here's my problem, Abby. And then the so-called Abby writes back some advice about, okay, here's how to deal with that situation.

[00:32:43] [SPEAKER_00] First of all, a minor digression. Wouldn't you agree you give great advice?

[00:32:50] [SPEAKER_04] I feel like I do.

[00:32:52] [SPEAKER_00] So maybe we should have a segment on the show. We can't do my happy idea. Maybe we should have a Dear Anya where people write to you with their true crime-related quadries.

[00:33:05] [SPEAKER_03] I don't think we need to do that either. You give great advice. I do give great advice. I feel like sometimes people don't listen to it. And then it kind of blows up. And I'm like, hmm, well, probably would have. I mean, but I'm not going to say I told you so. I mean, I'm never going to say that. But I'm going to be thinking it loudly. But I...

[00:33:24] [SPEAKER_01] You'll be telling me.

[00:33:25] [SPEAKER_03] And I'll be telling you. But I... Not to that person. I think, you know, I think I give pretty good advice. I'm not really always great at taking my own advice. So that's a problem. I don't... I don't feel like... Also, the thing is, I stay in my lane. There's certain situations where I have no idea. So I'm like not going to give advice on that. You know, so I'm like... There's just specific things.

[00:33:48] [SPEAKER_00] So for instance, if I said, oh, Anya, what sort of carburetor should I be looking for in my next car?

[00:33:54] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. No. Can't help you. You know?

[00:33:57] [SPEAKER_00] But true crime-related advice, relationship advice, here on.

[00:34:01] [SPEAKER_03] Well, I don't... I mean... I feel like certain things I can give you advice. And I... You know, I often do. I'm the oldest sister. I'm the oldest child in my family. So unsolicited advice from me is... Is, you know... It's... I'm not happy that I'm like that. But I'm kind of like... You know, that's kind of what I do.

[00:34:25] [SPEAKER_00] I'm going to read this Dear Abby letter.

[00:34:28] [SPEAKER_03] Okay.

[00:34:29] [SPEAKER_02] Where is this going? I'm scared.

[00:34:31] [SPEAKER_00] I'm going to read you the advice she gave. And I'm curious. As part of the question, she just completely ducks. And then I'm curious. What do you think of her advice? Would you... If you weren't going to duck what she ducked, what advice would you give? I'm just curious because, again, you're celebrated in story and song for giving wonderful advice.

[00:34:50] [SPEAKER_03] I have a feeling this is going to be advice that I would not want to touch because it sounds like it's going to be wild. But I don't know what it is. I haven't read the letter.

[00:34:58] [SPEAKER_00] Dear Abby, I'm writing for advice on how to be supportive of my adult children in light of a crime allegedly committed by their mother. She was arrested for first-degree murder. The victim was my children's younger half-sibling.

[00:35:13] [SPEAKER_04] Oh, my gosh.

[00:35:14] [SPEAKER_00] I'm especially challenged dealing with my daughter. She is supporting her mother in this. She says she has already lost a sibling and doesn't want to lose her mother, too. That mother was always critical of psychotherapy. Not only did she doubt it, but she criticized anyone seeking mental health support. Abby, now she's pleading not guilty by reason of insanity. How do I support and counsel my daughter? Oh, my goodness. Managing the repercussions. Dear managing, women in the right minds do not kill their children.

[00:35:44] [SPEAKER_00] Sometimes people are critical of mental health care because they're insecure about their own status. As upset as you are about this, your daughter has every right to support her mother through this tragedy if she wishes. The most effective way you can support your daughter would need to refrain from questioning her choice to be there for her mother.

[00:36:00] [SPEAKER_00] And note, she completely ducks answering the part about how do you deal with the other kids who might have an issue with one of their siblings supporting the woman who was accused of killing their half-sibling. So what do you think of this advice?

[00:36:16] [SPEAKER_02] I don't think much of it.

[00:36:19] [SPEAKER_00] What would D.R. on it say?

[00:36:20] [SPEAKER_03] Okay. First of all, listen, guys, I'm like the biggest hate-all-the-men-for-all-the-crime-they-do person in the world. But the idea that, like, women who hurt their children are always basically insane is not true. And frankly, I think it's minimizing of women and how multifaceted women are. You know, some women who harm their children are insane legally. Others have mental health issues and are not definitionally insane.

[00:36:49] [SPEAKER_03] She seems to be responding, like, to me, like, you know what I'm saying? Like, if someone's in a psychotic mode, I don't think they're responsible for their actions when they are killing somebody, including their children. If someone is not psychotic but, like, gets depression really badly or has bipolar disorder, they also might have mental health struggles. But does that justify the killing? Does that make them legally insane? No.

[00:37:16] [SPEAKER_03] So, first of all, I feel like she's starting off badly misinterpreting. I feel like she's badly, you know, explaining. Like, he's saying she's pleading not guilty by reason of insanity. That's a very specific thing. And Abby just seems to be confirming that, yeah, women are, you know, don't invalidate mothers who kill their children. You know, it's like, that's a valid mental health response. I mean, like, I'm not saying she's literally doing that, but I get a little sick of that.

[00:37:42] [SPEAKER_03] I feel like I get sick of that because I think it's extremely insulting to people who do have mental illness. Like, it conflates. I don't think people realize they're doing this, but when you're saying that you're conflating psychosis and mental illness with violence against one's own family that, you know, I don't know. It seems to be a lot of people who deal with actual psychosis or disorders, rather, where psychosis is a symptom.

[00:38:12] [SPEAKER_03] They're not killing anybody. Like, are some people who kill people psychotic? Yes. Do you have to be psychotic to kill somebody? Absolutely not. And I would say that probably most people are not psychotic when they're killing somebody. They're not legally insane. I don't know. I just feel like we've gotten into this thing where it's like, well, if a woman kills her child, there must be something wrong.

[00:38:33] [SPEAKER_00] Because what she's saying there is women of their right minds do not kill their children. So she's basically saying if a woman kills her child, it's automatically not guilty by reason.

[00:38:42] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, which is nonsense. There's some really evil women out there. Like, women, men do not get a, you know, monopoly, a complete monopoly on violence or selfishness or, you know, whatever prompts people to harm those who are supposed to be closest to them.

[00:39:04] [SPEAKER_00] Do you have any advice on how someone should handle it if one of their adult children is supporting someone who is accused of killing one of their siblings or the other siblings are not supporting them?

[00:39:17] [SPEAKER_03] I think she's right in the sense that, like, you can, I mean, your daughter is her own person and needs to make her own choices. And you can validate that without necessarily, like, echoing it if you don't support the ex-wife. Like, you can still, like, acknowledge that, like, I still support my daughter. And that's her choice to make. As for, you know, I guess I'm supportive of my adult children in light of a crime allegedly committed by their murder.

[00:39:49] [SPEAKER_03] I'm not really seeing anything where he's actually expressing that much concern about what the other siblings will think. But if there's issues around there, I think it's just like, hey, you all have to do what's right for you. Like, you know, I'm your dad and I'll support you.

[00:40:03] [SPEAKER_03] I think when it comes to what I would say to somebody in this situation is, like, just remember you can support the person and even love the person while not excusing their behavior, not making excuses for them, not enabling them, not perpetrating lies on their behalf, not acting like, oh, they're innocent and they were railroaded. You can cut the nonsense and say I love you anyway.

[00:40:33] [SPEAKER_03] And I would argue that that is real love because it's unconditional. You're dealing with someone who's done perhaps one of the worst things you can do in the world. And you're saying, I still love you and I will still talk to you. And by doing so and having you in my life, I'm supporting you. And it doesn't require you to jump through hoops. You can just acknowledge the truth head on. They did this awful thing. And yet I still see them as a human being who's worthy of my love.

[00:41:00] [SPEAKER_03] And I think we can love people and embrace honesty. And I think that's a lot healthier than what I see people do, which is go into conspiracy theories while saying, you know, the person I love couldn't do this. Well, they did.

[00:41:16] [SPEAKER_03] You know, I'm going to tell you, like, I think one big thing in true crime is, like, you see families that are dysfunctional are from the beginning usually talking around issues with one of the family members, usually the violent one, usually the abusive one. And they're kind of all swinging around that and not talking about it. And, you know, like, we're not going to acknowledge the elephant in the room.

[00:41:42] [SPEAKER_03] And then you see that pattern continue when they get on these true crime podcasts and act like, oh, they were just such a marvelous husband and father. And then you find out, like, there was all these issues. And, like, you know, you just see these dysfunctional family dynamics play out again and again. And these are often the worst people because usually they've been enabling the person for years or talking around the issue or ignoring it or burying their heads in the sand for years. So then they do that when they, you know, explode and kill somebody. But you don't have to do that.

[00:42:11] [SPEAKER_03] You can literally just love the person. And I find that really beautiful. I find it like if someone's like, you know what, I know they did this and I still love you. I think that is beautiful. It's hard to understand for a lot of people because it's like, how could you love someone who did that? But to me, that's love.

[00:42:25] [SPEAKER_00] Also, it's obviously fine and completely understandable if in that situation you said, no, I can't love you anymore. I can't talk to you anymore after what you did.

[00:42:36] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. The lack of forgiveness is also understandable. I would just be telling if that was, you know, if that was someone I knew, I would just be like, just remember you can acknowledge the truth and not disrespect your half sibling by, like, pretending like this didn't happen. While also still loving them. And it's ultimately your choice. And if that gets to the point where you can love them from a distance and you don't want to be in contact, that's also okay. Like, whatever you want to do is okay. Just be truthful to yourself what you want.

[00:43:02] [SPEAKER_03] But I don't think you should be shaming the young woman or the girl, I don't know how old she is, for wanting to have a relationship with her mother despite what her mother did. As long as you're, like, you know, cognizant of that. And, you know, frankly, the mom being critical of psychotherapy and saying anyone who seeks mental health support is bad and also being, like, mentally unwell herself. Yeah, that tracks, you know. Like, but that doesn't mean she was legally insane.

[00:43:31] [SPEAKER_03] Maybe she was. I just, I don't think that Abby should be assuming that. Would we say, like, let's say, like, women and men are, we're all human beings. Would we say any father who harms his children isn't in his right mind? No.

[00:43:47] [SPEAKER_00] Sounds like.

[00:43:48] [SPEAKER_03] Because we know some men are selfish, evil, and bad.

[00:43:51] [SPEAKER_00] So you think Beer Abby is being a little bit sexy.

[00:43:54] [SPEAKER_03] I think that women are subjected to a lot of misogyny in society to this day and in some ways rape culture. But one thing we benefit from as women a little bit is that there is still this kind of, like, chivalrous. Women are delicate. Women are weak. Women are gentle. Women are, you know, bred to be mothers. And all women are natural mothers. And they're going to do such a great job and blah, blah, blah. And it's like, yeah, it is.

[00:44:24] [SPEAKER_03] It's like it's sexism by another name. But it's more positive equalities attributed to women. I'm guilty of this. Because I'm often railing to you behind the scenes of, like, why are men committing all the crimes, all the violent crimes? Not all the crimes in general, but all the violent crimes. Like, it's a huge amount. It's a huge discrepancy between men and women in violence. And I get mad about it because I'm like, stop killing the women.

[00:44:46] [SPEAKER_03] But at the same time, to act as if, you know, no woman ever would ever do this unless she were legally insane is just, like, stupid. Like, there's bad women, too. And there's women who make selfish choices, you know. And there's women who get furious at their kids and abuse them to the point where they die. And those women are not necessarily legally insane. And I think it's insulting to people who actually deal with some of these mental health issues where they do go.

[00:45:14] [SPEAKER_03] They basically have issues where that could lead to them being legally insane. I just think, you know, we have to be really careful when we talk about that. And I just feel a lot of people just are like, woman does crime, either not guilty or must be mentally ill. And I just, there's something, like, demeaning about it in a way. It benefits some women. But, like, at the cost of, I don't know, it's like infantilizing.

[00:45:40] [SPEAKER_00] Wow. And I just looked. Dear Abby, we missed it. We all missed it. At the end of last month, she announced she was retiring. Oh. The column is continuing, but it's going to be written by an editorial team.

[00:45:54] [SPEAKER_03] There you go. I mean, listen, I like to read Dear Abby. I think sometimes I'm not, like, up and up on it enough to be like, oh, I always agree with the advice or I don't. And, like, I certainly think the advice at the end about, like, you can support your daughter no matter what is good. It's just that I guess that the first bit rankles me. But I can understand why people think that.

[00:46:13] [SPEAKER_00] So do you think she somehow got word you're going to slam her?

[00:46:17] [SPEAKER_03] No. It's not true. I have nothing against, I don't know who is behind this column, but I have nothing against Abby. Okay, well, I have nothing against her. But I'm just saying, I'm just saying certain times, like, sometimes you kind of see these little things come out when people are talking about something that they, you know.

[00:46:35] [SPEAKER_00] Do you think if you came out and, like, condemned the common cold, it would turn out that the common cold was so scared, it would have vanished a month earlier?

[00:46:44] [SPEAKER_03] I'm not condemning Dear Abby. I also think, like, to the extent that she's saying anyone who kills anybody is not right in their mind. And, yeah, that's fair. I mean, at least a lot of people are. But, like, to me, the issue is that we're talking about not guilty by reason of insanity. And that's a very specific thing.

[00:47:05] [SPEAKER_00] It's narrow. What did it feel like to just lean back, put your feet up, and turn the wheel completely over to me?

[00:47:13] [SPEAKER_03] Can we do this every week?

[00:47:17] [SPEAKER_02] Well, maybe so. I like this new way of doing things. I can get used to this.

[00:47:22] [SPEAKER_00] The music picked out of the cases. No. You see which one.

[00:47:24] [SPEAKER_02] I want to do things. Or I don't have to do any work. You could just take the reins of the podcast. Do it.

[00:47:33] [SPEAKER_00] So you like Kevin being in control.

[00:47:35] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. Well, for a cheat sheet, sure.

[00:47:40] [SPEAKER_00] Kevin in charge of your days and nights.

[00:47:42] [SPEAKER_02] Oh, gosh. Yeah. I wouldn't mind doing this every week. But, you know.

[00:47:47] [SPEAKER_00] So it was a good experience for you?

[00:47:49] [SPEAKER_02] It was great. I was just, like, on a little roller coaster.

[00:47:53] [SPEAKER_00] You didn't know what was going to happen with that? No.

[00:47:54] [SPEAKER_02] I don't know what's happening. I'm just showing up. And now I've got to go back to watching this trial. So, you know. But it definitely. I appreciate you doing it. I appreciate you working so hard this week to help me.

[00:48:06] [SPEAKER_01] I'm a saint.

[00:48:07] [SPEAKER_02] You are a saint. You're a little gentleman.

[00:48:10] [SPEAKER_00] Can you tell our dear friends, the listeners, like, what if they say, oh, I don't get enough murder sheet. Oh, I don't like ads. I like to get my episodes even sooner than I do now. Are they just out of luck?

[00:48:25] [SPEAKER_04] Yeah. Sorry, guys. No, I'm.

[00:48:31] [SPEAKER_03] Nothing we can do for you. If you go and subscribe to us on Patreon or Apple, both are at the $5 level. And Patreon, you could subscribe more if you want to support us more. But they're all the same benefits. That's you're going to be getting Apple on Apple and Patreon. You're going to be getting extra episodes or premium content weekly. You're going to be getting early episodes. So if we get something done, we're going to send it to you first. And then everyone else gets it a little bit later when you get ad free listening.

[00:49:00] [SPEAKER_03] So no ads, no interruptions. And if you're on Patreon, you can attend our live streams. And if you're on Apple, you're going to listen to the live streams and get that exclusively. And so it's really fun. We really appreciate all the folks who subscribe on Apple and Patreon because you really make it possible for us to do this work. It's like really so crucial for us. And it helps us, you know, do this job. And we just are very, very grateful. It's fun. Fun community. I really feel like I've gotten to know a lot of the folks there.

[00:49:30] [SPEAKER_03] And I love chatting with them on the lives and kind of hearing from them on Apple. But yeah, it's something we really appreciate when people want to support us. And we hope that you're getting kind of a fun deal out of it with some extra stuff. I would just say that, like, don't subscribe to both. You're getting the same thing on both. They're separate services. So it's just basically, do you want to be on Patreon or Apple? And the only difference is you get to go to the lives on Patreon. We're not doing that at this point on Apple, but it's pretty much the same thing otherwise.

[00:50:00] [SPEAKER_00] But if you want to subscribe to both, that's fine. I can live with that.

[00:50:03] [SPEAKER_03] Kevin, I don't want to. We're not grifters. Okay.

[00:50:06] [SPEAKER_02] I'm not grifting.

[00:50:08] [SPEAKER_00] What if a listener were the option? I don't want Kevin and Anya. I just want the ads.

[00:50:15] [SPEAKER_03] Is that an option? Yeah, that actually is kind of an option. So if you want that, then if you go to murdersheetpodcast.com and at the top bar click discounts. So murdersheetpodcast.com slash discounts. All of our discount codes are actually listed on there. And you can go check them out. And honestly, I recommend you do. Listen, some might call me cheap.

[00:50:41] [SPEAKER_03] I like to consider myself thrifty or at least, you know, I love a deal. And some of these things are really good deals. And you can just plug in the code or use the link or whatever. And they also really help us because when you support our advertisers, you are supporting us. And our sponsors mean the world to us. So if you can support them, that means a lot to us and tell them we sent you. But yeah, you can definitely go check that out if you don't want to deal with any of this, but you want to just get some discounts.

[00:51:10] [SPEAKER_03] And that website is also good. You can check out some of the press we've had over the years. You can check out our episodes. You can check out events that we have coming up. Right now, we don't have any coming up as far as listed, but there might be some in the future. And it's really it's a great website. Oh, and I totally nerded out recently and created.

[00:51:33] [SPEAKER_03] You can click up their case library and that has buttons for all the different cases we've covered in any sort of depth. And so that way, if you're interested, you can go listen to the beginning. So, you know, we do a lot of episodes. So this way you can be like, oh, like, let me listen to like their their miniseries on Harold Allen's murder. And you can go back to the listen to the beginning of that or Idaho or Delphi or any of that Temujin Kenzu.

[00:51:59] [SPEAKER_03] So feel free to jump in there and and have some fun or you depress because it's sad, a sad topic. But either way, it's organized.

[00:52:11] [SPEAKER_00] So is that it?

[00:52:13] [SPEAKER_02] You're the you're the you're good. You're the maestro. So you tell me you're the maestro.

[00:52:18] [SPEAKER_00] The cane train when I'm at the wheel. What is it? The Kevin Carr, the Greenlee General. I don't know. Like the General Lee from the Dukes of Hazzard. Is that how you see me?

[00:52:29] [SPEAKER_03] Do I see you as a Confederate? No. But also the fact that your mind went there is really bizarre.

[00:52:34] [SPEAKER_00] We're talking about a general.

[00:52:36] [SPEAKER_03] You think a general would just like be a leader, not like, oh, you're going from general to a specific Confederate general to a car from a fictional TV show that's been off the air for decades named after a Confederate general. So the fact like I just you just skid it off.

[00:52:53] [SPEAKER_00] You're talking mountain road there. If you're talking about vehicles and you call a vehicle the general, most people are going to think of the generally.

[00:53:01] [SPEAKER_03] I don't. No, I would think of actual generals in war because.

[00:53:09] [SPEAKER_00] But what if you're like a good old boy?

[00:53:11] [SPEAKER_03] No, no, no.

[00:53:14] [SPEAKER_00] You know what? It beats all you ever saw.

[00:53:15] [SPEAKER_03] Oh, my God. Are you wrapping the.

[00:53:18] [SPEAKER_00] With the law since the day they were born.

[00:53:21] [SPEAKER_03] Listeners can't see.

[00:53:22] [SPEAKER_00] Breaking the curve. Oh, my God.

[00:53:25] [SPEAKER_03] I'm hanging my head in shame right now.

[00:53:27] [SPEAKER_00] Somebody the mountain might get on.

[00:53:29] [SPEAKER_03] But the law never will. Well, thank you for that. That just brought this down. That this. In a way. Oh, no. No, no, no. Enough. No. No. OK. We're going to. We're going to. We're going to go. OK.

[00:53:41] [SPEAKER_00] A little bit more. OK. Thank you.

[00:53:44] [SPEAKER_03] Thank you. OK. I'll be getting him help shortly. Sorry, everyone had to hear that. It's pretty, pretty disturbing. But yeah. Oh, now he's. Now he's sat back all proud of himself. Just just brought this show down into the gutter.

[00:53:56] [SPEAKER_01] But that's fine.

[00:54:09] [SPEAKER_00] Thanks so much for listening to the murder sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us at murdersheet at gmail.com. If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.

[00:54:29] [SPEAKER_03] If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com slash murdersheet. If you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com slash murdersheet. We very much appreciate any support.

[00:54:53] [SPEAKER_00] Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for the murder sheet, and who you can find on the web at kevintg.com.

[00:55:02] [SPEAKER_03] If you're looking to talk with other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the Murder Sheet Discussion Group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much. We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience, as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening.