Killing Dad: The Crystal Howell Story - S2 Ep7: The Miscreants Take Control of the Legal System

Episode Date: September 5, 2023

This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Visit now at BetterHelp.com/killingdad to get 10% off your first month.  Personal letters from Duc Huynh before he takes matters into his own hands. Alvaro plays games with the legal system and his execution. What becomes of the Miscreant family of killers, will one walk free?

Now, now your ideas don't have to wait. Now they have everything they need to come to life. Dell Technologies and Intel are creating technology that loves ideas. Love expanding your business, evolving your passions. We push what technology can do. So great ideas can happen right now. Find out how to bring your ideas to life at Dell.com. Welcome to now. The following episode contains extremely graphic material. Listener discretion is advised.

Welcome to part seven of our exclusive series, The Miss Grants. From two savage murders, robberies, a shootout at a gun store, a high-speed chase, a nine-hour hostage standoff, and an unexpected surrender. Alvaro and Duck are in custody facing 80 felony counts. Maria is in jail, charged for the murder of her four-year-old son Ben after a botched prison formulated suicide pact. It was clear that duck and alverro didn't mind dying. They were not afraid of dying and they didn't care how many people died or were injured along the way.

They had no feelings whatsoever at all about any of their victims. What will happen to the family of miscreants and what about the victims left in their wake? I damn sure believe in the death penalty. And I believe it's for people like him. Oh. I'm a dreamer than time ago. Oh, I'm a dreamer than time ago.

I'm a dreamer than time ago. I'm a dreamer than child girl. I'm a drinker than child girl. Avro Calambro and Duckwyn have been extradited back to Reno, Nevada to face trials with the weight of their offenses carrying a punishment of death. I present over a series of several weeks to the grand jury, two cases. One is what I'll refer to as the U Hall murders and the T&L gun robbery case, indicting Alvaro Clambrone and Duckwin for a multitude of serious violent offenses out of those two incidents. And then I have a separate and distinct case, which is now presented to the grand jury,

charging Duck, Wynn, and Leah Calambrow with the death of their son, Ben, for the suicide pack, originating from Duck, from the L.A. County jail. So, jurisdictionally, even though he's sitting in Los Angeles, the law is regarding the jurisdictions of crimes is very broad and permits the prosecution in Reno for a agreement, a conspiracy between the two to take the life of their son, albeit in their minds to meet it, fall meet in heaven and take their own life. So from their perspective, there would be no one to prosecute because they'd all be dead, but that doesn't happen. Maria decided to face trial and was quickly tried and convicted for the murder of her son and for use of a deadly weapon, giving her two life sentences in an avatoprism. We reached out to Maria who responded with a letter in return. She wrote,

I received your letter and in regards to an interview, I have no comment. She wrote, I received your letter, and in regards to an interview, I have no comment. 29 years later, she plans to remain silent. Prosecutor David Stanton was going for the death penalty for Ovaro and Duck. In doing so, he needed to gather victims for a penalty phase, if convicted. For this, he had to talk to their hostage in Los Angeles, the Hall of Records Security Guard, Veronica. My purpose was calling her in the penalty phase. And I explained to her as I do to all my witnesses and under circumstances like this, what a penalty phase is and what the position of the state in Nevada was regarding the prosecution of

our Ovaro and Duck Wim. And her response was kind of interesting to me. She says, to be off the bat, I'm not sure I want to come. And I go, can I ask you why? And she goes, I don't believe in the death penalty. And I've had that several times in my career before then and since then, where you encounter as a prosecutor seeking the death penalty in a case and lo and behold one of the witnesses that you want to call to make that presentation for a jury to make that decision. One way or another, they don't or hesitant or flat out don't want to participate in the process. And her response after I kind of gave this presentation was what surprised.

And she said, yeah, I get that. I really appreciate you explaining it to me like that. And she goes, you know, I don't want one guy to get the death penalty, but fuck that other guy. And I go, because she didn't remember duck and alvero by name, but obviously she knew there was an older guy, which was duck wind and a younger guy, Alvero Colambro, and she proceeded to tell me during this lengthy hostage standoff that Alvero was always nice, never threatening, not mean, or whatever. He was just a guy holding her at gunpoint, but duck at some point, according

to her, grabbed her breast while they were in the hostage situation, and that really upsets her. And rightfully so, but it was kind of an internal chuckle to me when she burst out and said, yeah, fuck that other guy. And so I said, well, thank you very much. Welcome to the witness train. Duck and Avara were quickly sentenced to death. It was a victory for prosecutor's stand to include Duck in this verdict, because Duck didn't physically kill anyone.

So they both got a death sentence for Keith, and they both got a death sentence for Peggy. It was pretty obvious that only one of them probably killed both Peggy and Keith and when I mean by killing them I mean physically committed the acts that took their lives and I knew it from the first several hours And I knew it from the first several hours being at the scene that that probably was how this occurred, that one person killed both of the victims. So when it comes to applying the death penalty,

the law is very strict and specific about when and under what circumstances you can and cannot speak to death penalty, if the evidence shows that they didn't physically take someone's life. They may be legally convicted of the murders, but they're not actually the person pulling the trigger of the gun. Or in this case, using a hammer and a pry bar, the mechanisms, the weapons that take spaghetti and key slot. And so that's a very intricate thing that was applied to here, I think based upon the evidence, applied to duck. And that was part of the jury instructions to the tree judge panel. And both Alvaro and duck by two different panels were convicted by their pleas, but then

also both sentenced to death for Keith and Peggy's murders, as well as convicted for all the other crimes that were part of the U-Haul and the T&L gun robbery. Avaro and Doc didn't put up much of a fight over their death sentence. Both Duc and Avaro wanted to pursue their state of pellet rights, and then once those appeals had run their course, then they both did not want appeals to continue. They both wanted to die by execution by operation of law. Listen to Doug speak for himself, telling Detective Drear in their taped police interview,

why he wants to die. I'm sorry about a boy. My wife will do it for nothing. I tell you to do that. I go home, I talk to my staff. So you've got to do my son to forgive you. Forget about your son. Let's forget about Leo. Let's forget about it. What about those people now? What should happen to you about hanging in about the boy? We give things. Okay. What should happen to you? We will Dox's death request was made and repeated to anyone who would listen. We've obtained a letter Duck wrote to the judge. It reads, Dear Judge, my name is Duck Wynn, and I wish to plead guilty to the U-Hole murder.

I am doing this because I took my brother to U-Hole. I feel bad for my wife and guilty for my son's death. I did not kill anyone at you, Hall, but I was there, and I feel responsible for the death. I feel responsible for my son's death because my wife and I talked about suicide. He was too young and should not have died. I want the death penalty with my brother as soon as possible. I hurt people and I want to pay for my crime. I feel God will forgive me if I do this.

I'm not crazy, but I feel this is the only way I will have peace within me for the things that have happened because of my actions. Respectfully, duck-win. This episode is brought to you by Better Help. So Kelly, I don't know about you, but my entire life I've struggled with insomnia. I used to have the worst racing thoughts, anxiety. It would be so debilitating in effect every aspect of my life, like professional, personal, literally counting the seconds every night, trying to sleep.

Oh, Melissa, I am the same way. I will run through my whole day in my head, what I did right, what I did wrong, how everything fell apart. I'll even think about incidents and that happened years ago. I can't sleep and it is just, it drives me bonkers.

You just cannot shut your brain out. But it turns out there's a great way to make those racing thoughts go away. And that is to talk through them. Therapy gives you a place to do that. So you can get out of your negative thought cycles and find some mental and even emotional peace and sleep. That's right. And you know, whether you need better coping skills or you are seeking a way to silence those racing thoughts, therapy might be right for you. You know, it helps you become the best version of yourself

and it isn't just for those who've experienced major trauma, it's just for people that really want to get a better hold on the day to day. Well, and who doesn't want to be the best version of themselves, right? So why not give better help a try? It's entirely online and it's designed to be, you know, convenient and flexible and suited to your schedule, no matter how crazy that may be. All you have to do is fill out a brief questionnaire and it matches you with a licensed therapist in your area or anywhere else as long as they match, right? And you can

even switch therapists any time you want at no additional charge. So get a break from your thoughts with better help. Visit betterhelp.com slash killing dad today to get 10% off your first month. That's better help. H-E-L-P dot com slash killing dad. Ducks' attorney felt differently. During yet another hearing over his death sentence, Stanton had an unforgettable encounter with Duck. And in federal court, no cameras are allowed. So, uh, if they're So the core rooms are very large.

They're, in my opinion, grossly overdone, very dramatic lots of wood paneling, not practical and certainly, in my opinion, not resembling the amount of work product that's done and that's more built by egos than it is by sweat. And so it's a huge courtroom, courtroom packed, news media, public, and at the table is duck-win. I hadn't seen duck for probably a year or more. He's surrounded by lawyers. I'm sitting at the opposite table table and Duck has now leaned back in his chair and he's looking right at me and I'm kind of initially taken back and goes, hey Dave, how you doing? And I go, uh, duck, I'm doing well, thanks for asking. And he goes, now, duck has a very staccato voice, and he has a very strong accent.

And he kind of looks at his handcuffs, and there's a large security presence in the courtroom. And he looks at me and he goes, he kind of waves his hands at the whole courtroom and he goes, what the fuck is all this bullshit? And I go, why? He goes, this, this whole thing, it's all bullshit. And I go, Doc, it's just part of the, part of the process. And he goes, man, it's bullshit. He goes, look, you tell the family, I deserve to die and they have a right to watch me die. That's the only thing I can give them. I don't have anything else, but I want to give them that opportunity to watch me die.

They deserve that. And I turned and looked at them and I said, doc, I appreciate that. And I'll be telling them exactly what you said. And turn around, we have the hearing. And to me, the changes of this case and how it affected my career, the same thing about Alvaro and the fraud that was attempted on the court to claim that Alvaro was incompetent to wave as a pelerite. I felt the same thing for different reasons when it came to duck. Duck

was not crazy. He was a sane, logical person, obviously incredibly violent and narcissistic and pathological, but he's not in any way since a crazy or not thinking proper. He rationally knew exactly what his station in life was, because what he told me was exactly true. But he didn't have much to live for at that juncture. And as both Duck and Alvera, I think concluded is they did not want to live the rest of their life in prison.

That's not the way they were wired. So as I speak to you today, I have respect for duck because of not only that he said it, but he, in my opinion, knowing the entire case, as I think I do, he actually truly believed it and wanted to give the family the one thing that he could give him. Frustration was mounting over the red tape for his execution.

The delays caused Duckwin to take matters into his own hands. To me, it was such a distortion of the process that it denied him his own lawyers denied him. The one thing that he wanted to give them because then three weeks later, I get a phone call. And they told me duckwin killed

himself and his prison cell in England just one year after the violent rampage. I never perceived it as the easy way out. I perceived it as he was just frustrated with this system, wanted to be executed, but couldn't get that to occur. So he took his own life. Another layer of tragedy, because if you were to believe, as I do, that the victim's family are entitled to watch that execution, if they want to.

They're entitled to that. That's part of justice to them and our system. But when the system becomes to the point where it's strictly obstructing the death penalty for political reasons. That's, I thought, what is a disgrace and a blumish on the system, that duck couldn't give the only thing he could give to the family so that they could have justice. And I thought it was a low point in in jurisprudence and criminal justice. What the shocking end to Duckwyn's life, dead by hanging, and his wife Maria serving life in prison,

the last of the Miss Koreans family is Alvaro. Although he waived his rights, it was not an easy submission. In 1998, a date was set for his execution death by lethal injection. Two days before, his mother, Lydia Calambrough, filed a precedent setting next friend, appeal and federal court to contest his execution, saying he was not competent. The judge denied the request and set another date for Elvaro to die. His mother then sued the prison warden and attorney general to stop it. The Supreme Court had a ruling stating that one who's condemned as mentally ill cannot be put to death.

So the investigation now started into whether Elvaro was mentally fit cannot be put to death. So the investigation now started into whether Alvaro was mentally fit to be executed for the violence he inflicted. Prosecutor David Stanton. The federal public defenders filed the petition claiming that Alvaro was incompetent to make that decision and they did it on his behalf via his mother. And what I don't have any problem with the appeal professionally or personally.

But what I had a problem was that the basis of the appeal was a fraud. It wasn't true. They had Alvaro's mother was not sophisticated in the areas of law or the intricacies of the legal process in any way, shape or form. And the affidavit that she signed was clearly prepared by the lawyers and wasn't remotely a true expression of her thoughts and feelings, but more importantly, at its core, it was alive because she said that she had talked to Alvaro and that by that communication could tell that he was not of sound mind. And I had known, because Alvar, is now housed on death row.

And obviously anybody that communicates with him is documented either by phone or in person. And we conducted the very easy investigation that she had never communicated with her son, either by phone or in person. And so I knew that the affidavit prepared for her and signed by her was at its core fraudulent. And I was very offended by that whole process.

It was quite clear to me that Alvaro was being manipulated by those around him, specifically the legal team that was attempting to prohibit or prevent his execution to present evidence to suggest that somehow he was mentally incapable of making the decision to wave his federal appellate. If you want to drop the references, they will get you referenced. The SiriusXM app is home to your personal podcast library. Subscribe today and get your first four months free on the Serious XM app. Enjoy hundreds of expertly curated podcasts including Serious XM exclusives ready to

be explored, tales of true crime, a less celebrity hosts, and so much more. You'll find something to binge on every day of the week. Visit seriousxm.ca for offer details. Serious XM. Everything you want to hear lives here. Thanks. When Alvaro was subjected to mental health evaluations, his report showed he played along with the claim that he was mentally insane.

He told an evaluator he didn't suffer from hallucinations, but that he heard someone calling his name with anger, and he decided to stop drinking water, saying, if you don't drink water, you burn out, then boom. Alluding to suicidal ideations. The examiner said Alvaro doesn't understand the concept of death, and all questions relating to his execution were responded by him citing Bible verses. It was enough to cause delays

for further psychiatric evaluation. In another report, Alvaro said to officials he was hearing voices and thought he was a vampire. He was placed on two anti-psychotics, then later refused to take them, saying the voices have disappeared. When Detective Rondrieur heard about Alvaro's mental statements and evaluations,

he wasn't buying the insanity claims either. Because I read the psychologist report on him claiming how mentally he only was or whatever and how he really doesn't have a high IQ as to their where he couldn't be responsible for this crime. But fortunately, myself and Joe Dipscancy, when we interview him, he walks us through everything. He knows what he is doing, he describes what he is doing. We go over the fact of whether or not he had any alcohol and any drugs, anything. And he says absolutely not, he doesn't want to do any of that when he's going to do something like that

because he wants to have his mind straight. He wants must know what he's doing. So he describes that perfectly about how an individual like him is very sane. He's very aware of what he's going to do. He's very well aware of what he does do. He has absolutely zero remorse for what he does. The final psychiatrist exam, the one to determine if Avaro should die or not, was done by a man working in a different jurisdiction in Las Vegas. He drove to Carson City Prison and sat with Avaro in a small room with a picnic-style table bolted to the floor. Avaro refused to speak for 45 minutes. Prison guards finally persuaded him to talk.

Now the fourth mental examiner, Alvaro, is facing, says Alvaro calmly repeated, he has already answered all of the court's questions and he never asked to be brought back in for this ongoing evaluation. Alvaro then stood up and walked out of the room. The examiner, after reading boxes full of evidence, then deemed Avaro competent, referring to testimony of him telling the former evaluator he made up being a vampire and hearing voices because he was tired of the court process

and thought questions around his mental health were silly. Now, five years later, in 1999, a judge once again said a date for El Varo to die. Coming up on the conclusion of the Misscreants, there's another unbelievable twist in store for the Misscreants and their victims. And I'm going, oh, that's really tragic. So I flip back to the first page to look at who was the person killed.

And I about fell out of my seat. I'm a kid with a child, I'm a kid with a child, I'm a kid with a child