Killing Dad: The Crystal Howell Story - S2 Ep8: A Movie Plot Twist Ending to The Miscreants

Episode Date: September 12, 2023

It’s time for the families of Peggy and Keith to watch Alvaro get executed, hear his final words. Also shocking announcement for Maria serving life for killing her son and a bizarre twist of fate for the heroic gun store owner who escaped a shootout with Alvaro and Duc in the streets of Reno, Nevada, injury free.

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investigating family murders. All three miscreants were locked up after committing unthinkable murders. Duckwin annoyed with the prison system that the latest execution took his own life in prison by hanging himself. Maria, who had a four-year-old boy named Ben, with Duck, who was 20 years older than her, was serving life for killing their son in a failed family suicide pact. Now the families of Peggy Crawford and Keith Christopher prepare to wash Alvaro die by lethal injection.

You're listening to the final chapter of Killing Dad Season 2, The Miscreants. I'm Melissa McCarty. And I'm Kelly McLear. And now, the conclusion of the miscreants. The night before Elvaro Calambre would be executed, he was given his last meal. He ate steak, rice, and apple pie. Detective Rondrier, who spent the most amount of time with Ovaro, said, he's a rare breed of man, one with zero remorse and empathy for human life.

I think that he's an example of why we have the death metal. Because there is a born-to-world, and he's a perfect example of somebody that has relived this and relived this and we've got to know how many times he's gone over in his mind what he did to these people. And as you heard and say, there's no emotion there. Basically his comments were like, hey, it is what it is. I'm going to forgive me and that's it. It is what it is. I'm God's going to forgive me and that's it. And it's like you have no remorse for what you do. None. Absolutely none. And you figure, well, God's going to forgive you, so therefore it's okay for what you do. It's okay for all the evil that you do.

Hey, I can do it. Because you know what? My way out is I just go to God and thank God. Please forgive me for what I've done. And so God will forgive me for there. I'm fine. Okay, no, I have not seen people with that kind of mental set in my career where they're evil like that. There's not a lot of them. The day of Alvaro's death is cemented in David Stanton's mind as he was the prosecutor who successfully tried the death penalty case. I remember looking around the room.

It's a dark room where the witnesses are standing and then through the glass, the journey where the inmate is laid and the execution process takes it place is lit. And so it's kind of a, it would be kind of like an operating room that's illuminated, but that the spectators are in darkness. And I remember looking around the room because of myself and Keith and Peggy's families were the first one to enter. And so we went all the way across the room because of myself and Keith and Peggy's families were the first one to enter. And so we went all the way across the room. It's kind of a broad bay window kind

of a setup. And the glow from the lights was illuminating everybody's space that was in there. And once again, you know, by law certain people are mandatory witnesses, members of the press and so forth. And then there's invitations made. And I'm looking at the faces and I knew almost everybody in there from this whole process. But I also, it was struck me that I was the only one there that had been to the scene. And I found that an important part of the debate on the death, which I think is very healthy to have and should be vigorously done both in legislatures and in courtrooms and in public discussions.

in courtrooms and public discussions. Stanton was then 35 years old witnessing the first execution of his career, one that had a profound impact on every decision he made moving forward for years to come. It was extremely tense and nervous, I think, by everybody, because it was, where do you go, what do you stand, what's going to happen next? I mean, there's no person coming over the intercoms, telling you what's about to happen, or what's your witnessing. And so there's this, you know, and then the people are in all the witnesses are in a, in this one room, are in all the witnesses are in this one room and the very nature of your background to why you're in the room was compelling.

I mean, from on the one hand, you have the victims' families who are so raw with emotion on many different levels. But now they've had years since their loved ones had been murdered and that boiling rage that's underneath there is now mixed with that you're about to watch the person responsible die right in front of you. And I mean, not more than five to eight feet away from them. And then you have other people that are there that are just witnessing it for the public, members of the media who have probably never seen anything

remotely like this. And then all of a sudden the door opens up and in walks Alvaro, and he has handcuffed to what's called a belly chain. So it's a set of hand costs that are then attached to a belt, a leather belt that's placed around the waist. And he walks in and he begins looking from his left to his right and I'm all the way to his right as he's looking and he just slowly glances through the room and then he comes to what I believe was me and he nods his head and I thought that was it caught me off guard number one And the next thing he did was he turned his hip kind of parallel or perpendicular to the table. And then he hops up on the table.

And what normally happens is there's a stool there to stand up and then the correctional officers assist because you don't have a lot of movement with your arms and your legs and they assist you in laying down. But you know Alvaro didn't know any better and obviously because of the position we're in and the position he took about not pursuing his appeals, he was in my opinion that day and then the years leading up to it, prepared to die for what he had done. The years of waiting boiled down to just minutes, watching Elvaro take his last breath.

The 25-year-old had some last words right before he was put to death. He said, I regret it. When asked if he was ready, Elvaro nodded his head yes. Yeah, well, number one is the execution process takes a very short period of time, like a matter of seconds. You can see the body kind of react to the medicines or the fluids that are entering his body and then no movement whatsoever. So some people may, when I read accounts of three minutes later, they're pronounced dead,

someone comes in with a stethoscope and makes some medical findings and then the pronouncement formally is made. But it's very quick. Kickstart a fresh fall routine with Hello Fresh. Hello Fresh handles all the meal planning and shopping to deliver everything you need to cook up a tasty meal right at home. They do the hard part and you get to take the credit. A busy fall schedule doesn't always leave you with time to spare and with HelloFresh. You

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their methods that made it unforgettable. I would not suppose for a moment that the families and loved ones of these victims thought it was any less heinous than any other motor. Obviously, the victims and people who lose their loved ones and murder rightfully believe that it's the worst crime that could ever be perpetrated against them. This was in the method of death perhaps separated only by its gruesomenness and the protracted creative time. Sometimes the inflection of a single gunshot wound might appear a little more sanitary, a little quicker, but certainly involved a lot less suffering by the victim. So in that respect, this was certainly very, very ugly. In fact, I don't know that I worked many cases that would be more gruesome than

necessarily." The brother of Keith Christopher commented directly after the execution saying, quote, I thank him for standing up and taking responsibility for what he did. At least he was man enough to accept his punishment. The father of Peggy Crawford also commented after the execution saying, it won't bring closure though. Closure means everything is back to normal. We can never get Peggy back.

But the person who killed our daughter is dead. And yet another bizarre twist in a series of events that played out like scenes from a movie and at times taken from scenes of movies, there is another killing that of a local hero. And I'm going, oh, that's really tragic. So I flipped back to the first page to look at who was the person killed and I about fell out of my seat. Stanton routinely reviewed death reports of all kinds coming out of the Reno area. It was just one of his many responsibilities

as deputy district attorney to conduct an overview of investigations. A few years after Duck and Elvaro were both dead, he's reviewing various death reports. And so I kind of go through, you know, I don't look at the name really closely, I just go to the facts and just see if there's anything about it and you know nine times out of ten there's nothing about the case or the circumstances that strike any bell with me or cause any interest for

me to then look into that death further but as I'm looking at this, the facts of it are that a group of tourists from Southeast Asia had come to Reno and went to a gun store and had gone out in the desert with automatic machine guns, and we're shooting in the desert, which is something that some gun stores throughout the United States have as kind of a business besides selling guns and whatever, and usually people are interested in what I would consider exotic.

So large bore rifles, 50-cal rifles, or fully automatic weapons, something like that. And so they're out there with a rather difficult and machine gun to operate. You have to fire them and know how to handle them because they're a little skittish, especially when they're fired and full automatic. And these gentlemen are out and the investigation indicates that gentlemen is firing the machine gun and out of a bush jumps a jack rabbit and he begins to track

the rabbit with the machine gun firing it and kind of loses track of where he is and who's around him and instead of stopping the arc, as now as he's swinging his arm, filing this machine gun, he's now going towards the people in his group that are standing around him. He's so wrapped up into shooting at this rabbit and he ultimately swings the arc, still firing the machine gun at full blast and strikes the guy, the person

that's out there with him and I'm going, oh that's really tragic. So I flipped back to the first page to look at who was the person killed. And I about fell out of my seat when I see that it's a young big limb, the owner of TNL guns. And so I immediately called the homicides and detectives from Reno Police Department. And I go, fellas, I just read this report. Are you kidding me? Is it who I think it is that died? And they said, yep, it's him. And I just felt that all that he had been through and how close he had come to death

when by these two guys robbing him and him not getting down on the ground at gunpoint. And reminding the grand jury that if you get on the ground at gunpoint. And reminding the grand jury that if you get on the ground you die, I thought it was bitter irony that he died in the fashion we did. That unforgettable scene outside Zhang Biklin's gun store in Reno, Nevada, where he stood tall and brave, faced a face with

Alvaro and Duck before the shootout. Yet another tragic ending in the twist of the Miss Koreans. This blew my mind when I found out. Did you know that over 80% of people have subscriptions they've forgotten about. Seriously, think of how many free trials you've subscribed to that you've probably never canceled. Are your subscriptions draining your wallet? So the average person has around 12 paid subscriptions, and they might not even remember subscribing to half of those.

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is that of Maria Calambre. She was young and sucked into the crime life by Duck, a man 20 years her senior. Duck had a stronghold on her, one powerful enough to declare the family suicide pact, and for her to carry out his wishes, I'll be it failed. It's a loss she will forever be haunted by. Maria was sentenced to life in prison,

but 28 years into her sentence, in 2022, she was released. Maria is now 53 years old, the only miscreant to see the light of day, and that has another shot at life. This has been season two of Killing Dad, the Miscreants. Thank you for letting us share this unbelievable tale of events, one that has forever scarred those who lived through it. The Miss Koreans is the story of two men, whose lives were shaped by American television

and movies, and who carried out the most heinous of crimes. If you didn't hear it first hand, you might have thought these tales were from a Hollywood movie. But for the victims and their families, this tragic tale is all too real. And our heartfelt sympathies go out to everyone the Miss Grant's actions have touched. We thank Blake Chow for his first hand account of the memorable SWAT standoff, and to the hostage Veronica who shared with us her story. We were humbled and privileged to speak with detectives Drear and Jenkins and Deputy District Attorney David Stan. We thank them for their loyal, heavy-hearted, and diligent service they provided their communities over the years.

You can find Kelly and myself on Instagram for any further questions. Thank you for listening to The Miss Creates. Oh, hello. Meet Optima Health, your friend for Medicaid coverage. Like any true friend, we can help make life a little easier, with discounts on healthy food and gift cards for pregnancy and child checkups. We include vision and medical help 24-7. See more benefits at OptimaMedicade.com slash hello. It's time to say hello to Optima Health. A health plan you can count on.