The Cheat Sheet: Bail and Birds

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00] I'm Anya and today on The Cheat Sheet it's going to be the East Coast and then we're going to go out West. So we're going to go to New York City, Washington, D.C. and then out to Nevada and California. Content warning, this episode contains discussion of intimate partner violence as well as murder. All right.

[00:00:18] [SPEAKER_02] It's already November. Wow. And I know you like to devote your month of November to planning for my birthday, which is, of course, on December 6th. There's a lot of festivities, a lot of moving pieces, lots of things to get prepared for because it's always a gala event, which is the highlight of the social season at Murder Sheet Central.

[00:00:46] [SPEAKER_00] That's true. It really is.

[00:00:48] [SPEAKER_02] So, and you like to keep it a complete surprise. So you devote your month to that. So if people notice a little bit less of you on social media, if you're on the podcast a little bit less, it's because you've rented an office downtown and you're going there and you're just planning every last little detail of my birthday. Because, of course, I deserve no less. December 6th.

[00:01:13] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah.

[00:01:15] [SPEAKER_02] So this is what I expect.

[00:01:18] [SPEAKER_00] Wow. It's getting really sad. Should we go ahead and hit the music?

[00:01:23] [SPEAKER_02] Well, aren't you excited? My birthday coming up in just a little over a month.

[00:01:26] [SPEAKER_00] I'm so excited.

[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_02] Actually, literally a month. This is November 6th. You're down to your last 30 days.

[00:01:33] [SPEAKER_00] I love you very much and I'm very excited to celebrate your birthday with you.

[00:01:37] [SPEAKER_02] How was your Halloween?

[00:01:39] [SPEAKER_00] I don't know. We're recording this before Halloween.

[00:01:42] [SPEAKER_02] So hopefully it went well.

[00:01:45] [SPEAKER_00] Hopefully we didn't like die or something. Otherwise, this would be pretty ironic.

[00:01:49] [SPEAKER_02] Well, wouldn't that be cool? It'd be like a message from beyond the grave.

[00:01:53] [SPEAKER_00] Harry Houdini it.

[00:01:54] [SPEAKER_02] It could like go viral because this is the dead people's true crime podcast.

[00:01:59] [SPEAKER_00] Podcast doesn't do anything to go viral.

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_02] Should we have like a... There's like... Should we have like an episode ready to go for after we die? In the event of our death. Yeah. And then boom. And then our heirs could make a fortune.

[00:02:16] [SPEAKER_00] There you go. Wow. You're really thinking of everything. Yeah. Your birthday plans and this morbid stuff.

[00:02:25] [SPEAKER_02] What if I die on my birthday?

[00:02:27] [SPEAKER_00] No, you're not allowed to die.

[00:02:29] [SPEAKER_02] That'd be a heck of an episode.

[00:02:30] [SPEAKER_00] I've made that very clear.

[00:02:32] [SPEAKER_02] That'd be a heck of an episode.

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_00] What the hell am I going to do if you... You're just, you know, you just... Here's an idea. This is the plan. You stay alive and you have a nice birthday.

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_02] Well, here's the thing. I can tell why you're worried about the idea of me dying. And that's because you're scared that if you die, you can't celebrate my birthday anymore.

[00:02:50] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_02] But you still can. You can still have the big December festival for my birthday. So that should make you feel better.

[00:02:58] [SPEAKER_00] Okay. That doesn't make me feel better for the record, but I appreciate you trying. Shall we proceed? Yes. My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist.

[00:03:08] [SPEAKER_02] 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. We're The Murder Sheet.

[00:03:20] [SPEAKER_00] And this is The Cheat Sheet. Bail and Birds.

[00:04:08] [SPEAKER_02] I'm trying to do a little bit of a different reading with the We're The Murder Sheet. Keep it a little bit spicy. We're The Murder Sheet.

[00:04:15] [SPEAKER_00] Bark out the we're. Yeah. Or, yeah.

[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_02] Whisper it. Variety is the spice of life.

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_00] That's right.

[00:04:23] [SPEAKER_02] Keep them guessing.

[00:04:25] [SPEAKER_00] I'm glad you're having fun with it.

[00:04:29] [SPEAKER_02] Don't I have fun with everything? Isn't my life an endless party? At least I think it is. It's going to be even more of an endless party when your birthday plans come to fruition.

[00:04:39] [SPEAKER_00] The thing is you hate parties. In real life. So my source for this one is CNN. And this has happened in Washington, D.C.

[00:04:51] [SPEAKER_02] For a minute, I thought you were saying your source for me allegedly hating parties was CNN. They did a big story on it.

[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_00] Wolf Blitzer is on the case. Jake Tapper is weighing in on your hatred of parties. I don't know if you hate parties. You're just not the biggest party guy.

[00:05:07] [SPEAKER_02] Jake Tapper is doing some sort of, I guess they call them graphic novels. He's doing the art for it.

[00:05:14] [SPEAKER_00] What? Yeah. Oh.

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_02] So that takes a long time to do. Good for him, I guess. God bless him. Yeah. I saw that because, of course, I always keep my finger on the pulse of the comic book community.

[00:05:25] [SPEAKER_00] You are a comic book community guy. I didn't know he was. So that'll be interesting. But yeah. So this is D.C., which is one of my favorite cities. No offense to all the other cities, but Washington, D.C. is great if you are on foot and using the metro. If you're in a car, it's a different story. But when you're there, I just love it. The history and it's beautiful and it's really cool. Unfortunately, something very bad has seemingly happened there not too long ago.

[00:05:54] [SPEAKER_00] I'm going to summarize the big parts of this case, but I would really strongly everyone recommend the CNN article. I think it's really well done. It's a very gripping and well-written feature. And I think you're going to get a lot out of it. And I don't want to completely cannibalize their work. I would like, you know, go read it. Chelsea Bailey and Diane Gallagher, who did this, came out with it on October 12, 2026, did an excellent job, I thought.

[00:06:21] [SPEAKER_00] So let's give them a click or two. So this is the case of Antoinette Forbes. And this is a young woman. She's a mother, had a 10-year-old son, and is living in Washington, D.C. The article gets into a lot of her life and just is the special kind of person she was. But she had some problems in her life.

[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_00] So in 2015, she first got in a relationship with a man named Russell Ashford. He was somebody who had extensive military background and experience and also worked in the intelligence community. A lot of people do in the D.C. area. That's pretty commonplace. People working for government, you're going to run into people in the intelligence community. And in 2015, they're dating and she gets pregnant.

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_00] And they decide she wants the baby and they maintain separate homes as they're raising the child, although they remain in a relationship. Her friends have basically alluded that they felt she was basically acting as a single mom and that this man, Ashford, was not particularly supportive of her, at least according to them. During COVID, Forbes breaks up with Ashford. Ashford, so Antoinette is done with him and tells her family members block him.

[00:07:42] [SPEAKER_00] And then in the date given is June 9th, 2021, there's an incident where Ashford goes into the Chevy Chase Maryland home where Antoinette lives with her son and beats her in front of their five-year-old son. And, I mean, she gets permanent life-altering injuries from this.

[00:08:10] [SPEAKER_00] And it's a horrific case where the boy ended up wandering out into the street or, you know, outside as this is going on. And neighbor comes in and witnesses part of this. This neighbor witnesses Ashford punching Antoinette as she lies senseless on the ground. So it's like a pretty well-documented event.

[00:08:35] [SPEAKER_00] In 2020, so as a result of this, he's charged and pleads guilty to first-degree assault. I mean, it's just really horrific to do something like that in front of a child, the child you share. It's just, I mean, this kind of intimate partner violence is extremely brazen and disgusting, in my opinion. What do you think?

[00:08:59] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, it's horrifying. It's horrifying. And the fact that a child was there just makes it that much worse.

[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_00] So, you know, he pled guilty to this first-degree assault. Prosecutors asked for a 25-year sentence with all but four years suspended, meaning that he would serve four years. Not the full 25 years, but four years. And instead of that, Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge David Lease gave him 15 years with nine, all but nine months suspended. So he served five months. So, you know, significantly less than four years.

[00:09:35] [SPEAKER_00] And given the severity of this incident and the fact that there were witnesses and it happened in front of a small child, I question that. I question that judgment, frankly. It doesn't really seem like that's keeping anybody safe. Or forcing accountability. By 2022, as a result of that, Ashford was released on probation.

[00:10:00] [SPEAKER_00] And now CNN reports that when they look at the court records, they believe that the judge was taking Ashford's military service and his history of post-traumatic stress disorder into account. What do you think about that?

[00:10:15] [SPEAKER_02] I'm not happy with that sentence. And, yeah.

[00:10:18] [SPEAKER_00] Who cares that he served in the military? I mean, I appreciate everyone who served in the military. Thank you for your service. That doesn't entitle anybody to get out of jail when they're violent towards people in front of their children. Who cares? You know, I'm sorry. Post-traumatic stress disorder does not excuse this. Maybe it goes away toward explaining some behaviors.

[00:10:38] [SPEAKER_00] But a lot of people, including members of our military veterans, suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder who do not lash out at others. And who do not inflict intimate partner violence on others. So, I don't know. Anyways. This, you know, this guy, I mean, he did retire as a commander. He worked in intelligence. You know, all these things. There was a ton of people coming forward vouching for his character. Ex-wives.

[00:11:07] [SPEAKER_00] You know, people coming out of the woodwork to say, you know, what a great guy he is. You know, he just needs help. And he's ordered, you know, as part of this, you know, as part of getting out, you know, domestic violence counseling, mental health evaluation, no hostile contact with Antoinette or their son. And, you know, that, like, all that sounds good, right?

[00:11:30] [SPEAKER_02] That does.

[00:11:32] [SPEAKER_00] But, I mean, if someone's, you know, it's like, it sounds good if someone's willing to try to change. But I think a lot of people just aren't, really. So, it's kind of like a bit of an honor system, right? Like, don't come out and do anything bad. Hope you don't. Like, I mean, you could hope someone in that situation is like, wow, I did something really horrifying. I need to work to make amends.

[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_00] But a lot of people in this situation, they're a coercive control type abuser and they're just not willing to change. And if they're not willing to change, then that's a problem. So, July 9th, 2026, Ashford went to the court and asked them to say, you know, instead of doing the conviction, can we do probation before judgment and end his probation early?

[00:12:20] [SPEAKER_00] He basically wanted to get his security clearance back so he could go back to intelligence consulting. Definitely a guy you want in a sensitive position like that because he obviously exercises such excellent judgment, right? Definitely so happy someone like that is working to keep America's, you know, interests and secrets safe. But Forbes came out against this. Antoinette Forbes is like, I had permanent injuries. I had to get all these medical procedures.

[00:12:47] [SPEAKER_00] You know, I do let the guy back into my house sometimes to for the sake of our son to show, you know, that we can co-parent him. But like he still intimidates me a lot. And. You know, that's, you know, like basically her lawyer also said also he's keeps contacting her friends and his son's school. And, you know, Ashford's attorney, of course, is like, oh, those aren't that big of a deal. And those weren't documented with probation. So we can't do anything about them.

[00:13:15] [SPEAKER_00] Judge Lease ended up giving him what he wanted and granting him probation before judgment over the objection of the prosecutors. And. That basically threw out the conviction in a way like it, you know. Like it in effect removed his conviction. And. You know, but it didn't necessarily end his probation, though. And again, they said, don't contact anyone hostility or anything like that. But.

[00:13:41] [SPEAKER_00] But yeah, there was a there was an incident where he showed up to his child's summer camp seemingly and was very aggressive with a camp counselor. So, I mean, they were just like red flags here, I think. And. So. Anyways, this all. Ends up with. Labor Day weekend. And. At this point. At this point, Antoinette is living in Washington, D.C. And. She.

[00:14:11] [SPEAKER_00] Like at some point. She's seen. I believe her last sighting. May have been. Like. I think. Early September. And. She. Talks to one of her sisters on FaceTime at one point. But. At some point. I've seen different dates reported. She is. She is. Reported missing. And. September 11th. Then Ashford comes out of the world.

[00:14:39] [SPEAKER_00] Word work and files for emergency full custody of his son, claiming that Antoinette is now missing. He took the kid without any permission to Beaver, Pennsylvania, seemingly.

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[00:16:26] [SPEAKER_02] There is nothing quite like having pieces in your closet you love and knowing you can count on for any occasion, except maybe giving someone else that same feeling. This holiday season, Quince is where we are finding those pieces.

[00:16:40] [SPEAKER_00] And there are just so many to choose from, like their high-quality down outerwear and cozy cashmere gloves and scarves. And their 14-karat gold earrings and bracelets are an easy way to polish any look, making them thoughtful gifts for anyone in your life.

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[00:17:20] [SPEAKER_02] I bought their pearl snap denim western shirt in denim blue, and I wish someone had gotten that from me as a gift. I wear it all the time now, both for everyday events and for fancier things and get-togethers. I think any guy would love getting this as a Christmas gift.

[00:17:34] [SPEAKER_01] Of course, when it comes to gifting, Quince has a lot more than clothing. Think leather bags, hotel-quality bedding, chef-grade cookware, and five-star luggage.

[00:17:43] [SPEAKER_00] Basically, plenty of ways to find something special for everyone on your list. Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to Quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was the murder sheet. It's the best way to support the show. And so he is arrested September 12th in Beaver County in Pennsylvania.

[00:18:13] [SPEAKER_00] And friends, you know, investigators swoop on Antoinette's house. They're removing evidence. And, you know, he has not been charged with her disappearance. That's where things stand at this point. At this point, one of her sisters has custody of her son. And, you know, I think the police have not identified a person of interest.

[00:18:36] [SPEAKER_00] Obviously, when you have someone embracing a coercive control dynamic, when you have someone, you know, who's conducting intimate partner violence against somebody and there's tensions over like a recent situation where she asked for him not to receive what he wanted. I mean, that's all highly concerning to me. And I can only hope that they find Antoinette, but it just seems like a really grim and bad situation.

[00:19:06] [SPEAKER_00] So read the CNN article. It's got even more information, but it's it's really disturbing. And it's just sad to see people become involved with someone that they should be able to trust. You should be able to trust your spouse or the. You know, your co-parent, you know, your father or mother of your child. You should be able to have some level of trust there. Even if the relationship doesn't end well, you can still be amicable. But some people are just not willing to do that.

[00:19:35] [SPEAKER_00] They just want to exert control over other people and they lash out violently when they don't get their way. And I think those people don't deserve any leniency from the court system. I think this stuff should be taken a lot more seriously. And a mental health evaluation and counseling is all great for somebody who actually wants to change. But at a certain point when there's repeated violations, that's not really indicating that somebody wants to change. And I just wish judges would. I don't know. Take that into account.

[00:20:04] [SPEAKER_00] I'm all for rehabilitation. And I think people can change. And I think even intimate partner violence abusers could possibly change. But, like, this woman is missing now. And this child, this 10-year-old, is without a mother right now because, you know, I don't know. Maybe it's not connected. But it seems, like, very suspicious to me.

[00:20:28] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, it seems suspicious to me as well.

[00:20:30] [SPEAKER_00] So am I going to New York now?

[00:20:33] [SPEAKER_02] Go to New York, your home state.

[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_00] This is my home state.

[00:20:36] [SPEAKER_02] Empire State of the East.

[00:20:37] [SPEAKER_00] Most sources are ABC7 and CBS News. And this concerns a very sad story. 63-year-old Elise Hill. This is an older story, but it's one I wanted to cover. And I just, I don't think we fit it in anywhere. And I was just like, I think we should talk about this because I think it's important. You and I, sometimes when we were living in Brooklyn, we would mostly go to Fort Greene Park where we live near. And that's a cool, that was a very cool park. And we would also sometimes cross over into Manhattan.

[00:21:06] [SPEAKER_00] And I think on a couple of occasions, Elise, I took you to Central Park. That's a very cool, very cool place. I love Central Park. Lots of cool things to do and see there. And one denizen of Central Park who lived there for a number of years was Elise Hill. She was 63 years old. And when I say she lived there, I mean she lived there. She was homeless. And she was living in the park. She lived in a gazebo in what's called the Ramble area of the park.

[00:21:35] [SPEAKER_00] And, you know, she went by Lee Rogers. She also went by Francis Lee Rogers, but her name was Elise Hill. She was described by people as somebody who clearly harbored a lot of conspiratorial thoughts that pointed to people like that. They thought she might have a pretty serious mental illness. And, of course, we know, unfortunately, there's a huge comorbidity between homelessness and people being severely mentally ill.

[00:22:01] [SPEAKER_00] Like, a lot of you have homeless people who are technically homeless, but they're, like, living in their car and they're between jobs. And that contingent, I think, is not necessarily this way. But people who are, like, living rough on the streets, there can be a lot of people who are just suffering from undertreated or untreated mental illness. And it's very sad because they can't help that and or drug addiction. But people felt she was mentally ill.

[00:22:30] [SPEAKER_00] But one thing people said about her was that she was super knowledgeable about birds. She was kind of a part of the bird watching community there. She knew all the birds. She knew all about nature. And she also was a really, really good artist. Like, she made all this art of the different nature and birds in the park. And it's really, I mean, it's nice to see if you get a chance, you should look at it. I mean, she had talent. And, you know, it's just it's like a tragedy.

[00:23:00] [SPEAKER_00] But unfortunately, the tragedy was compounded when she was found dead in the park in that gazebo. And it looked like she had suffered head trauma, had been beaten to death with a stick. And a guy was busted for it. His name's Jonathan Robles. He's 36. And he was also homeless. And police say that they believe there was an argument between them. And he turned himself in.

[00:23:27] [SPEAKER_00] And he also was charged with so he was charged with murder and criminal possession of a weapon. And to me, this just underscores. You know, this matters not because a lot of people kind of took to memorializing her and her art. And I think they should. I mean, that that's so humanizing. And I think that is necessary when we're talking about people who might kind of be dehumanized just by the way they're living and by society and whatnot.

[00:23:54] [SPEAKER_00] But I think to me, it's not just because she was an artist and someone who was, you know, interested in the birds. She was a human being. And she should have never been left in this state. I just don't think it's merciful or compassionate to be having people be unhoused, homeless, living on the streets, left to fend for themselves. And then, like, this happens a lot. You have homeless people killing each other.

[00:24:24] [SPEAKER_00] I mean, it's it's it's horrible. Or you have people deciding, you know, they want to target a homeless person because they're vulnerable. A lot of serial killers and things like that. They'll target the homeless. It's just I just feel like at some point, like we got it in our heads that it was compassionate to, like, let people just destroy themselves like this. And I just don't think it is. I think it's horrible.

[00:24:50] [SPEAKER_00] I think it says something really it's very cold and uncaring. And I'm I get that there's issues about people's rights and not keeping people locked up. And you want them to be out in the community. But, like, I don't know. It just seems like what we have right now isn't right either.

[00:25:09] [SPEAKER_00] And it's like if we have to throw money at it by having good places for these people to be and maybe they're not allowed to leave if they're not going to take their meds, then I just think that would be a better outcome for them. And maybe she could still do her art and bird watching instead of, like, being dead because she was just ran into the wrong person or got into a fight with the wrong person. It just I don't know. And who knows? The man who killed her. We don't I don't. It's not much about him that I found. But maybe he was mentally ill.

[00:25:40] [SPEAKER_00] But it's like we're just. We're just letting it devolve out there. And I just listen. Crime is down. I think that's all great. But I just think this kind of thing is something that needs to be addressed. For the sake of all of society, but also for the sake of people who are in this kind of crisis, it's not it shouldn't be normalized.

[00:26:03] [SPEAKER_02] It should not be normal.

[00:26:04] [SPEAKER_00] And people need to stop passing the buck. You know, it's like, oh, well, this happened. We need to think radically about how to fix this and how to make it so that these people are not suffering like this. They are suffering. You know, I know some of them choose to live like this because they want the drugs and they don't want to go sober. But that's still suffering in my mind. And I don't think she was a drug addict. I think she may have just been mentally ill. But it's like it just thinks it's a cold to leave people out in the cold, I think. And, you know, I don't know.

[00:26:33] [SPEAKER_00] I would like at the same time, like saying like, well, let's just give them houses. Some of them won't stick with that program because they'll go back to the streets and maybe something at some point should be like non-voluntary. And I just think that would be a better way of doing things if they could figure that out. But I know it's political hot potato. It just makes me sad. Like looking at her art, it's just like, man, like she really didn't deserve none of them deserve this. It's just not right. But anyways, that's my whole rant.

[00:27:00] [SPEAKER_02] Okay. Let us move on to the great state of California. My source for this is CBS News. And I just wanted to highlight this case because it's actually we see variations of the same sort of story over and over again. It involves a man named Thomas Ivanetti.

[00:27:24] [SPEAKER_02] He has been charged with the October 23rd death of his wife, Alicia Ivanetti, and dissuading a witness from reporting a crime. And what makes it especially heartbreaking is obviously just the fact that he committed this act of domestic violence against his wife is horrifying enough.

[00:27:48] [SPEAKER_02] Is at the time he did this, he was on bail for an earlier assault on his wife. This happened back in, I believe it was in May of this year. And that was adjudicated on May 19th at that time.

[00:28:11] [SPEAKER_02] This article says, quote, a judge set his bail at $1,000 over objection of the district attorney's office and ordered him not to contact his wife or return to the family home. In quote. We see this again and again when people who commit these domestic violence acts, they escalate and they do them again and again.

[00:28:37] [SPEAKER_02] And you can't trust people in this situation if the judge says, okay, we'll let you out on bail, but be a good boy and don't go hurt your wife. We can't really trust them not to violate what the judge says. And I'm not sure why the wife in this case didn't report that he was contacting her to authorities.

[00:29:05] [SPEAKER_02] Maybe there was something more to the story. Maybe he just showed up at the house this night. But the fact is that she is the victim and the system very much let her down. And it was a mistake to put this man on bail. And if he was on bail, he obviously should have been under much closer supervision.

[00:29:24] [SPEAKER_02] And I earnestly hope that we see less and less of these stories and that people begin to accept how extraordinarily dangerous the scourge of domestic violence is. And the people come to understand how it invariably escalates.

[00:29:43] [SPEAKER_00] You know what we need to do as a society? What? Start treating domestic violence, intimate partner violence like we treat child molesting. In the 60s and 70s, you see all of these serial killer cases where people target children where it's like, yeah, he was molesting these kids. Then they let him out. Oh, don't do it again. And then he was molesting these kids. And then they let him out. Oh, you're on probation. Don't worry about it. And like inevitably they kill seven kids. You see, like there's a bunch of cases like that.

[00:30:11] [SPEAKER_00] And at some point as a society, we decided, oh, we need to protect kids from people like this. And also just because they say they're not going to do it again doesn't mean that they're telling the truth. And we decided let's have a lot more forcible laws around this. And I'm not saying that the laws around that are perfect. They're not. But also there's a societal revulsion towards child molesters that I think is appropriate that, you know, we don't want these people around.

[00:30:37] [SPEAKER_00] And, you know, even if they're out, their names are listed and there's all these things. And I think we need to start looking at this kind of violence in a similar way where these people have a sickness and they're going to continue to do it. Maybe with a lot of extreme counseling and interventions and work, they can change. I'm not going to like say that's impossible for an abuser to change. I think it might be. But it takes work.

[00:31:06] [SPEAKER_00] And that work is not done like in these early moments. It usually could be done like through sentencing and like, you know, being in prison and going to counseling there or whatever, probation. It's like, you know, like, yeah, we need to treat it like. Also, when you're dealing with an abuser and they get into a legal situation, right, isn't that like that kind of stress is probably going to prompt them to act more explosively, right?

[00:31:34] [SPEAKER_00] Like so it's like that's a dangerous moment. And I think judges need to maybe the law or judges need to, you know, friggin reflect on that of like, yeah, it's escalating right now. This is probably the most dangerous time for this victim. If they're.

[00:31:50] [SPEAKER_02] Especially I can imagine that the perpetrator in these instances must imagine, oh, my problems would go away if my victim. Yes. Didn't testify or didn't want to push press charges. And that gives them a motivation to try to exert even more control on them, which invariably leads to violence.

[00:32:11] [SPEAKER_00] I'm just going to say, like. I just I know it's not popular. I mean, I don't know. It's not popular in some circles, but I'm I'm all for like withholding things like bail and, you know, from people with charge with this type of crime. Like, I don't. Why do we need that? You know, and if they've been wrongfully, you know, accused or whatever, then one would hope that would just be reflected in a case falling apart or whatnot. But like, yeah, letting people out in this instance. I don't know. Maybe there's a compromise to be made there.

[00:32:40] [SPEAKER_00] Maybe it doesn't need to be black or white. But it's just like we see this happen so many times. And I don't know. I think it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a very commonplace kind of crime. You see this everywhere. This happens to everyone in any. It doesn't matter your race. It doesn't matter your socioeconomic status. It can happen to rich, poor, middle class. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Honestly, it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman.

[00:33:10] [SPEAKER_00] Women can inflict violence on men. It's more common man on woman, but it also can happen in couples that are women to women or to men or whatever. It doesn't matter. Like this is just universal. It's a universal problem. And it deserves. An acknowledgement that people who are perpetrating these kinds of crimes are not right and they're not necessarily going to follow by the rules because they feel that they should be able to control their victim and they're not going to stop.

[00:33:40] [SPEAKER_00] They're sick in the head. They're not going to stop. And it just saying, well, be a good boy now is not going to work. It just I mean, it might work in some cases, but it's not a very good guarantee. And it's, you know, a piece of paper, like a restraining order or whatever people get in these situations isn't going to stop someone from coming to your house and killing you. So, yeah, I'm it's disgusting. I wish there was I wish there was a little bit more like anger about this stuff.

[00:34:05] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, there needs to be absolute fury.

[00:34:07] [SPEAKER_00] I think people feel like, oh, you pick a bad partner. That's kind of on you. But it's like this should piss off anyone because it could happen to anyone.

[00:34:13] [SPEAKER_02] So I want to tell a story that happened in Las Vegas involving a 53 year old woman and her husband. So she contacts police and says something horrible has happened. And some masked men who are armed with knives. Do a home invasion. They come into my house. They attack my husband and myself.

[00:34:43] [SPEAKER_02] They say that we want her husband to see her suffer and they menace them and her husband is dead. So the police investigate. And right away they start seeing problems. One of which is there is security footage of the house, which shows no one coming or going from the apartment.

[00:35:13] [SPEAKER_02] I said house. No one is coming or going from this residence. That's certainly an argument against these masked men coming in a pretty strong argument. The woman, her wounds seem to be very, very superficial while her husband's wounds were fatal.

[00:35:32] [SPEAKER_02] The knife used in the crime that killed her husband is identical to the ones in the couple's knife block. So there's a lot of things here that don't make sense. The wife says, oh, I don't have any friends or family. But later she calls detectives and say, you got to talk to my friends and family so they can tell you what a great person I am. So.

[00:36:01] [SPEAKER_02] She's been arrested and charged with his murder. His name is Nima Amadi. And I think this is interesting because, first of all, I think any one of us can easily cite instances where a person commits a crime and their reaction is to concoct a story. Oh, it was somebody else. It was mysterious people breaking in.

[00:36:24] [SPEAKER_00] It was hippies.

[00:36:25] [SPEAKER_02] It was people doing a carjacking and then disappearing. It doesn't work.

[00:36:59] [SPEAKER_02] The average person isn't going to think of, oh, surveillance footage is going to show whether or not people came in. The average person isn't going to think of, oh, this knife matches the knife in my own knife block. You can't get away from it. You just end up making things worse for yourself. What are your comments, if any?

[00:37:16] [SPEAKER_00] Well said. I think, no, you're absolutely right. People who do this are really stupid. I mean, people, anyone who does murder is probably stupid. But I think, you know, you'd have to be so stupid in this day and age, especially to do this with all the surveillance and all the DNA and all this other stuff. I mean, but I just think, you know, the people who are kind of, I don't know, not particularly skilled are going to be the ones who are, you know, doing stuff like this because they're not thinking about that. And, you know, it's like the Dunning-Kruger effect.

[00:37:44] [SPEAKER_00] It's like they don't realize it's a stupid idea. They think, oh, I'm so smart. But, yeah, get divorced. I don't even, like, I can't even imagine wanting to inflict violence on someone else. And, like, how do you live with yourself? Like, whatever grievances you have with a spouse or whatever or partner, like, it's like that was someone you loved. You want to hurt them? Like, just if there's, like, an emotional thing or, like, you're done with the relationship or they're driving you crazy or they cheated on you, just leave.

[00:38:11] [SPEAKER_00] You know, I mean, it just, I don't even, I just don't even know how you get here. Or it just doesn't, it's just alien to me, to be honest. And I, yeah. And this is, again, a good case of, like, women can hurt men, right? Again, this, it's largely and appropriately, I think, contextualized in the context of men harming women. I think that tends to be the more likely dynamic. But that doesn't mean it's the only dynamic.

[00:38:38] [SPEAKER_00] And that doesn't mean that if you're a man and you're experiencing symptoms of a coercive control relationship, you should be, you should be very aware of that and alarm. Because oftentimes the last, the last gambit for an abuser controlling you is to kill you. And possibly themselves. But certainly, certainly you. So, it's something to watch out for. And it's, yeah, it's horrible.

[00:39:07] [SPEAKER_00] It's just, I mean, it's, I don't, yeah. This is why I always, people say, I mean, we've, we've, we've had joking conversations like this, Kevin. But people say, like, oh, would, you know, you study crime a lot and you report on crime a lot. Like, you know, like, what would the perfect murder look like? It's like, I have no idea. Because you never know what flock camera is going to be out there. You never know what surveillance camera is going to be out there. You never know. Like, I do think people can still get lucky.

[00:39:31] [SPEAKER_00] But it takes a lot of stuff going wrong for the police for that to happen anymore. And you can get lucky. But I, I, I wouldn't bang on that.

[00:39:41] [SPEAKER_02] I wouldn't bang on that at all.

[00:39:42] [SPEAKER_00] Especially if you knew the person and they like, you know. And again, it's always the, like, it's always, oh, yeah. You know, they were brutally stabbed to death and I have a couple of paper cups. Yeah. You know, like, it's like, yeah, that, that doesn't make any sense. Why, why would that happen? So, it's a shame that this gentleman died.

[00:40:03] [SPEAKER_02] Yes. Anya, I was hearing that there was some sort of rumor that you and I offer some sort of premium option for our listeners. Is that true?

[00:40:14] [SPEAKER_00] I can confirm that, yes.

[00:40:16] [SPEAKER_02] Well, give me the details of this.

[00:40:18] [SPEAKER_00] Well, on, if you subscribe on Apple for the premium subscription and if you subscribe on Patreon at the $5 and up, you get monthly, not monthly, you get two, two live streams a month. And with Apple that's posted and then with Patreon you can actually be commenting. You get early episodes, a lot of early episodes. Sometimes we finish an episode, but it's so that we got a bit of a backlog so it comes

[00:40:47] [SPEAKER_00] up for everyone later. You're going to hear that right away. And we also have ad-free episodes and we have a weekly exclusive murder sheet episode for the premium listeners, for the murder sheet.

[00:41:00] [SPEAKER_02] What you're describing, I think I would pay like what, $1,000 a month for that.

[00:41:07] [SPEAKER_00] Wow. Well, you can get it just for $5 a month.

[00:41:10] [SPEAKER_02] That seems to be quite a bargain. And you know, maybe, who knows, maybe I might go and increase the price on that to $1,000 at any time. So if you're curious about this, maybe you should lock in that price. Wow.

[00:41:25] [SPEAKER_00] That's not going to happen, guys. Don't worry. I'm not going to let him do that. I'm not going to put up with these hard charging tactics on our listeners. But yeah, no, we appreciate it. It makes it possible for us to do this work. So we just are incredibly grateful. We love our patrons and our Apple subscribers. So we just appreciate them. So thank you if you are one.

[00:41:46] [SPEAKER_02] I hope people have a great weekend. I know you have a working weekend ahead because you're going to start the planning for my birthday. But everybody else, I'll be relaxing.

[00:41:54] [SPEAKER_00] I will say this. We do have a cool event coming up in November. November 19th at the Jefferson Events Center in Franklin, Indiana at 7 p.m. sharp. I will be interviewing Dr. Lindsay Fitzharris, who is a New York Times bestselling author. And it's going to be about her new book, The Sleuth Hound, The Case of the Real Sherlock Holmes. Guys, it's history. It's mystery. My favorite combo. It's like chocolate and peanut butter. So I think this is going to be a really cool conversation.

[00:42:24] [SPEAKER_00] She's a great author. I'm so excited. Like, I'm going to fangirl. It's going to be weird, but it's going to be great. It's going to be amazing. So come. I think everyone who can register with their Johnson County Public Library card by November 12th. They'll, you know, those ticket holders will be given a copy of the book. I think it's like the first hundred ones. And there are also going to be books for sale there from Morgan Stern Books, which is a great, great bookseller. So, yeah, we're excited. Kevin's going to be there to support me.

[00:42:54] [SPEAKER_00] I'm a little nervous, but I think it'll be really fun.

[00:42:56] [SPEAKER_02] You'll do great.

[00:42:57] [SPEAKER_00] Thanks. All right. But anyways, that's all. Thank you guys so much for listening.

[00:43:02] [SPEAKER_02] 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 dot com. If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.

[00:43:21] [SPEAKER_00] 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.

[00:43:46] [SPEAKER_02] 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.

[00:43:56] [SPEAKER_00] 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.