Let's Go To Court! - 86: The Suicide of Tyler Clementi & a Discovery in a Cooler
Episode Date: September 11, 2019Tyler Clementi was a smart, talented young man with a promising future. But shortly before his freshman year at Rutgers University, Tyler’s randomly assigned roommate, Dharun Ravi, discovered that T...yler was gay. Dharun he tweeted about it. He IM’ed his friends about it. He seemed obsessed. When the semester began and Tyler invited a date back to the dorm, Dharun and his friend Molly Wei spied on Tyler and his date via a webcam. Once again, Dharun tweeted. He encouraged others to tune in. What Dharun did was unspeakably cruel. It didn’t take Tyler long to find out. When Justin Rey showed up at his storage unit in Lenexa, Kansas, with his young daughters, it didn’t take long for police to show up, too. Police worried about the girls. They were dirty. They didn’t appear healthy. When police asked about the girls’ mother, their concerns grew to full-on alarm. Justin pointed to a cooler. Inside was the dismembered body of his wife, Jessica Montiero. Justin had a hell of an explanation. And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases. In this episode, Kristin pulled from: “The story of a suicide,” by Ian Parker for The New Yorker “Witness: Viewing Party Planned,” by Gene Racz for The Courier-News “Ex-classmates testify in trial,” by Gene Racz for The Central New Jersey Home News “Webcam witness: First, pair tried to contain it,” by Geoff Mulvihill for the Associated Press “Student says he helped set up webcam,” by Geoff Mulvihill for the Associated Press “Man testifies about his relationship with the late Rutgers student,” by Jonathan Allen for Reuters In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “Dad charged after police say investigation revealed more than human remains at Lenexa storage unit” by Megan Dillard, Fox4KC ““You don’t forget things like that:” Witness describes bringing suspect and two young girls to Lenexa storage unit” by Megan Dillard, Fox4KC “Outburst in court-Man whose wife’s body was found in cooler yells about Johnson County injustice” by John Pepitone, Fox4KC “Court documents offer graphic details of inside of Lenexa U-haul where police found man, two children and wife’s remains” by Makenzie Koch, Fox4KC “Man charged in Lenexa storage unit case named a suspect in California murder” by Makenzie Koch, Fox4KC “Attorney for man charged with dismembering wife files motion saying Justin Rey is unfit to withstand trial” by Fox 4 Newsroom, Fox4KC “In unusual fashion, man accused of dismembering wife’s body in KC files handwritten motions to dismiss charges” by Fox 4 Newsroom, Fox4KC “Man found in Lenexa with wife’s dismembered body is competent for trial” by Tony Rizzo, Kansas City Star “Prosecutors allege child porn found on phone of man who once said he cut up wife’s body” by Associated Press, Fox4KC “Trial begins for man found in Lenexa storage unit with kids, wife’s dismembered body” by Shannon O’Brien, Fox4KC “Man found in Lenexa U-Haul with kids, wife’s dismembered body takes stand in trial” by Alana Laflore, Fox4KC “Man discovered in Lenexa U-Haul with kids, wife’s body found guilty of child endangerment” by Makenzie Koch and Zac Summers, Fox4KC “Justin Rey sentenced to nearly 9 years in prison for child porn possession, child endangerment” by Andrew Lynch, Fox4KC “Man skinned and dismembered wife so badly cops couldn’t tell if she was male or female” by Jimmy McCloskey, Metro
Transcript
Discussion (0)
One semester of law school.
One semester of criminal justice.
Two experts.
I'm Kristen Caruso.
I'm Brandi Egan.
Let's go to court.
On this episode, I'll talk about the suicide of Tyler Clemente.
I know.
And I'll be talking about a storage unit, a cooler, and a horrifying discovery.
Oh God, I can guess what's in the cooler can you it's not mousse
stew it's diet pepsi what could be worse okay you take it off
did you just point at me and tell me to take it off excuse me hey i'm sorry guys if you are uh tired of waiting for you know an episode each week and
you want something to fill your space i didn't mean that to sound so creepy we've got some
bonus episodes over on our Patreon.
New one out now.
And then if you sign up to be a patron, you also get access to our previous bonus episodes.
So you get the Timothy McVeigh trial.
You get the case about the Playboy model who took a naked photo of a woman in a gym and body shamed her.
You get a gruesome hammer murder and a disappearance of a teenage girl.
And, uh... Well, you don't get a hammer murder,
but, you know, like, anyway...
You also don't get body shamed
by a Playboy model, so...
Maybe you do.
You know what?
Sign up for the Patreon
and I will body shame you.
Oh, no!
That's a terrible perk.
People are like,
you're not a Playboy mom.
Wow, Christy.
Think pretty highly of yourself, huh?
I'm waiting to hear back from Playboy is the thing.
Norm, is that your phone that's going off?
Yeah, what are you, whistling over there?
Cut it in post.
Norm, this is like day two of your job.
I didn't have it on Do Not Disturb.
It is now.
Please continue recording the podcast. Is this your first cell phone ever? is like day two of your job i i didn't have it on do not disturb it is now please continue the
recording the podcast cell phone ever is this like 2002 and you don't know the norms like know the
norms know the norms oh boy kristen knows the norms yes she does inside and out Ew, inside. I'll open that head.
Now he's embarrassed.
Now he doesn't know what to say.
You didn't think about that, did you?
What it would mean for me to be inside you.
I was thinking just like French kissing, but you're going to the butthole.
Okay.
French kissing your butthole. French kissing your butthole.
French kissing my butthole.
No, I know it's 2019, but that's not me.
I'm a holdout.
I'm more of a 2017 gal.
Hey, could you guys like start the podcast?
Well, I mean, we're going to have to like cool it because, you know, we're going to talk about a horrible case.
Anyway, if you would like more gems like that right there, if you haven't gotten enough of us, head on over to Patreon slash LGTC podcast and sign up today.
Support us.
Damn it.
No, please.
today support us damn it no well please this comes from mostly an amazing article by ian parker for the new yorker called the story of a suicide basically everything i say here until we get
to the trial is a retelling of a of ian's amazing article it's so good excellent tell us a terrible
case i know see i followed this so closely.
It seems like you followed it super closely.
Norman, I don't know.
Never heard of it ever.
Was gaming at the time, I guess.
I'm always gaming, but the name did sound familiar.
Okay.
It was the fall of 2010, and Tyler Clemente was on the cusp of a major life change.
In a few days, he was going to leave his home in Ridgewood,
New Jersey and start his freshman year at Rutgers University. So obviously, Tyler was a very smart
kid. He was also a super talented violinist. And he had a secret. He was gay. But he decided that
before he went off to college, he'd come out to his parents. So he did. His dad was gay. But he decided that before he went off to college, he'd come out to his parents.
So he did.
His dad was supportive.
His mom wasn't.
Wow.
Yeah.
It's usually the opposite.
Yeah.
I would have guessed the opposite too.
Really?
Yeah.
I don't know where I got that stat from.
I don't either.
It's not like a real statistic.
I would have just guessed the opposite.
He later sent an IM to a friend
saying that his mom
basically completely rejected him. So, you know, obviously bad stuff happens here. So I just want
to kind of put in a little word for his mom. His mom has since said that she obviously struggled
with the news. She's also said a few things. She said she learned that homosexuality was a sin
from her church, and that she also felt betrayed that he hadn't told her sooner.
Which I think those two things kind of contradict.
Obviously, if you've got a mom who thinks that it's a sin, you're probably not going to want to tell her too early.
But I do want to say his screensaver was the playbill for Fiddler on the Roof.
So how soon did he have to
tell i mean right right got a great mystery i okay i've had this experience with like friends
who've come out to their parents and they did it kind of late in life the parents were just
shocked and it's like yeah really i had a co-worker who um like didn't tell me for a long time.
And then it just kind of, like, came out in conversation.
We were actually playing, like, a little get-to-know-each-other game in a group.
And his answer kind of revealed it.
And he was like, oh, my gosh, I guess that says a lot about me.
And I was like, the last time I was in your car, the Wicked soundtrack was on.
So it was no mystery.
So I knew.
So anyway, Tyler is out.
Freshman year is right around the corner.
And Rutgers began sending people information about their new roommates.
They didn't appear to give full names.
It was just first name, first initial of your last name and then
maybe like an email address so you could get in contact with each other meanwhile across town
a very confident young man named darun ravi was sitting around in plainsborough new jersey
dying to know everything he could about his new roommate.
All he knew was that the guy's first name was Tyler and his last name started with a C
and his email address was
keybovio at yahoo.com
Okay, I'm going to spell this.
K-E-Y-B-O-W-V-I-O
So according to the New Yorker,
that's like a bunch of musical terms.
I don't know.
Anyway.
Key.
Bow.
Violin.
Oh, thank you.
Violin bow.
This is why you guys are here.
So Darun pulls up his Google machine and he types in Key Bovio.
And he found a bunch of stuff that he didn't like he found posts on different forums and
message boards he discovered that tyler was into violins and he had
asthma no and that he asked a bunch of basic questions about technology.
And so this guy's just like a super stud, right?
Hey, he drives a BMW, so I think he's doing okay, all right?
So Darun was getting all this information, and he was just beside himself.
His new roommate was...
not cool.
This whole time, Darun was IMing with his friend Tam.
They were both making fun of Tyler,
and finally Darun discovered that Kibovio
had posted on some discussion areas of a gay porn site,
which I didn't know there were discussion areas of porn sites.
I did not either.
I guess these people read Playboy for the articles.
I don't know.
So Darun was stunned.
He told Tam, fuck my life.
He's gay.
And then he was like, WTF, WTF, WTF, WTF.
He was just like, oh.
Yeah, what will he ever do with himself he'll probably have to get
dressed in the bathroom every day okay this is my favorite thing when people okay the other thing
i read and i'm struggling i'm not making fun of daroon for not having luck with the ladies but
i did read that he didn't have a lot of luck with the ladies but so you're not having luck with the ladies but you assume that the one gay dude you
know is gonna be interested in you yeah exactly and i think a lot of people are like this oh yeah
they're like any gay person must be constantly checking me out oh i think i think gay dudes
are checking me out all the time Is that not how it works?
I don't think that's how it works
Then Darun hopped over to Twitter and was like
Found out my roommate is gay
Oh my gosh
Why?
Well you have to let people know
I don't think you do
You have to
Kristen, is it a conspiracy theory that you think daroon was
questioning his own sexuality okay you know what i read something on twitter the other day that
made me feel like a total asshole i read some someone said and this wasn't even directed at
me even though i've been very open about my opinion that anyone who is super homophobic
and i mean like really really homophobic the super homophobic, and I mean like really, really homophobic,
the super homophobic people are all secretly gay.
That is what I strongly believe. Yes.
So someone, and I wish I had written this down
because they put it eloquently,
but basically what they said was
they don't like that opinion
because it puts the responsibility for oppression
on the oppressed.
And I was like, oh, shit, they're right.
Oh. But at the same time... on the oppressed. And I was like, oh, shit, they're right.
But at the same time... You're not willing to give up that belief yet?
Well, no, I hate myself for it,
but I still think anyone who runs a conversion camp
wants to make out with dudes.
Oh, for sure.
Yeah.
So now I'm kind of conflicted.
Uh-huh.
Not super conflicted.
No, I am super conflicted.
Now I feel like I...
Anyway, okay.
All right.
Darun was not impressed.
According to his research, his new roommate was nerdy, gay, and poor.
Oh, humanity!
So, okay.
I feel like I should say here.
Darun had a BMW.ler didn't have a car
tyler lived in a very wealthy area i just want to throw that out yeah and he's going to rutgers
yeah and but darun lived in like a very very wealthy area so poor is relative in the new
yorker article they like broke it down like it's you know tyler said he was like the 27th wealthiest
and darun's was like the 17th wealthiest obviously i'm i didn't memorize it but you know tyler said he was like the 27th wealthiest and daroon's was like the 17th
wealthiest obviously i'm i didn't memorize it but you get the idea no one's poor here yes
although if they were it would certainly be a good reason to make fun of them no
daroon continued his research he turned to facebook he found a Tyler C. who was gay and was going to start at Rutgers that fall.
And Darun was like, there can only be one.
So obviously this is my new roommate.
At this point, Darun and his buddy Tam start having a very enlightened discussion about the LGBT community.
They did not.
Tam was like, hey, didn't you meet a cool gay guy during orientation?
Carter, right?
So here's the direct quote.
He wrote, if gay people were like Carter, there wouldn't be a problem with gay hatred.
It's the fags like this guy that just cause all sorts of trouble.
I'm sorry, what?
And Daroon's like, know i know right i kr
that's disgusting yeah yeah as long as everyone's like acting like they're straight or they don't
make me uncomfortable then they're fine like as long as i'm cool with them then they're cool we wouldn't have any
problems that's so terrible yeah okay this is good sorry then later darun is like he would be
born in january what a gay month you What? You know, I often do
think of the months and think, which one's the
gayest? And it is definitely January.
What is it about January that is just
so gay? It just seems like
it likes other dude months.
So I read that part of the article and I was cracking up
because that is like the dumbest thing
I have ever heard. What does that even mean?
I don't even know.
It means they're just homophobes and really, really stupid.
That's the only logic there.
Oh my gosh, he would be born in January.
What a gay month.
Then Darun reached out to his other good buddy,
BigEagleFan75.
And BigEagleFan75 was very concerned about the gay roommate thing yeah i actually
think that july and august are probably the gayest months why do you say that because they're named
after julius and augustus caesar and those romans were oh well yeah banging dudes left and right so
okay well we're gonna have it here first i think we need to get into contact
with darude big eagle fan 75 was very concerned about this gay roommate thing the eagle was like
that dude's gonna blow you in your sleep yes yes because people can't control their sexual urges it'd be like if you were you
know accidentally rooming with a woman and you know you just never know if you're gonna wake up
and she's blowing you no that is not how it works just because he likes guys doesn't mean he has no
he has any interest in blowing you at all well and non-consensually yes so without
your consent and then you're gonna wake up and like the one person has shown who's shown any
interest is just blowing you like constantly it's every night's a blow job that's so ridiculous well
he was born in a gay month so so what do you want to do?
Then he said, what if he wants you?
Won't that get awk?
And by the way, these kids could not spell out the word awkward, so they said awk.
It's kind of like how I can't say child molester, I have to say chillmo.
They just don't have the time.
So Darun said, he perhaps would.
Why would it be awk?
He'd want me, I wouldn't want him okay so like maybe daroon's like i don't
know coming to terms trying to be a decent human being eventually daroon and tyler emailed each
other and of course tyler looked him up and saw that daroon had tweeted about having a gay roommate.
Yeah.
I can't even imagine how that would feel.
Yeah, that's terrible.
But on a Saturday in late August,
it was time for Tyler and Darun to move into Davidson Hall on Rutgers campus.
Right off the bat, things were uncomfortable.
Tyler IM'd his friend hannah yang and he said that darude and his parents seemed so indian first gen american-ish then he was like they defs own a
duncan a dunkin donuts yes they definitely own a dunkin donut yeahuts? Yeah. Huh. Yeah, I feel very weird about this whole thing.
Yeah, very good.
Yeah.
I didn't even know that was a stereotype.
I did not either.
I guess we don't have enough Dunkin' Donuts out here to stereotype.
That's interesting because I was going to say, how would Darun feel if he looked up
Tyler's Twitter and was like, oh, man, I just found out my roommate's whatever.
Indian.
I just found out my roommate's Indian.
It's the same thing.
Yeah.
Tyler and Darun didn't discuss Tyler's sexuality,
but Darun obviously knew, and Tyler knew that he knew.
And so in a move that I can only describe as the most awkward thing ever
daroon arranged his dorm furniture so that he would have like a private hidey hole to change
clothes in okay tyler referred to it as his cubby again can you imagine rooming with someone and be
like i mean you'd be so tempted to just be like, look, dude, I'm not interested.
I'm not looking at your dick, bro.
Yeah.
You don't have to get into your hidey hole.
Yeah.
And like.
I'm good.
Fold yourself into a pretzel while you change your undies.
Yeah.
At one point, Tyler told his friend Hannah that Darun's webcam was pointed right at him and he felt like he was being
watched. Tyler and Darun rarely communicated, but things were going pretty well. Tyler was
obviously a lot more quiet than Darun, but he had been offered to join the Rutgers Symphony,
which was a huge deal, especially for a so tyler gone to an lgbt meeting
at rutgers he went on a dating site he met a dude the guy was 25 and from here on out i'm going to
yeah yeah 25 what do you think what do you think he's 18 right yeah
i don't love it i don't either well too old yeah and yeah really at that point it's
huge life experience gap yeah he's just out on his own like for the first time at college and
this guy's like probably had his own apartment for four years yeah tyler came out 15 minutes
ago this guy is like a well-seasoned oh i wasn't thinking that i didn't mean it like
like he's like tyler just came out he's probably never dated right exactly and then this guy has
probably been in relationships right i'm just making assumptions about this guy that's not
really fair but i mean i think you can make an assumption about someone who's 25 versus 18 yeah and yeah but anyway um from here on out i'm going to refer to him as mb
okay before tyler invited mb over he texted daroon for permission to use the room
then on september 19th tyler was expecting mb to come over again so he texted daroon again asking if he could have
the room to himself and daroon was like sure and he went out to play ultimate frisbee
but daroon was a little dense uh because he came back to the dorm at like 9 p.m okay you don't
know how things work uh-huh like why do you think he wanted the room
yeah he got his shower stuff and tyler was like um so are you uh coming back to this room
and it wasn't until that very moment that daroon put together that tyler wanted the room for more
than like i don't know an hour and you know maybe not just because like he'd met such a good buddy
so daroon is like oh my stars i mean this kid like he flips out over tyler being gay but like
doesn't make the connection that like hey hey, I've got a guy over.
I'd like the room to myself.
Yeah.
Come on, honey.
So Darun leaves and goes across the hall
to his friend Molly Way's room.
Quick backstory.
Molly and Darun went to middle school
and high school together.
They'd apparently been friends for a little while,
but then in high school,
Molly started to think that Darun was just like full of shit i can't imagine why um after all he was just a
cool teenager with a lot of very believable life experiences for example he was on billboards all
over india oh he's one of those. What? Like,
accomplished? No, he tells lies
about things that are, like, impossible
to verify. Well, he was
also a famous snowboarder in
Canada. Oh, uh-huh. And
he had been the captain
of an all-black basketball
team. Okay. I thought he was
Indian. Yeah, well, he was
the only Indian guy on the team everyone
else was black he was the captain and you know what they won the state championship okay they
made an exception for him because he was so good i don't know why you guys are laughing at his many
accomplishments anyway molly said that she and darun stopped being close in high school.
But when she got to Rutgers and their dorms were like right across the hall from each other, they start talking again.
So Darun bursts into Molly's room and he's like, why does my roommate want the whole room to himself?
Then he went back to his room where he met Tyler's date.
And he came back to Molly and was like, oh, he's's super old what if he steals my ipad what yep oh my gosh this guy's ridiculous oh my roommate is gay what if something else is
going on like i'll i assume the something else he means is sex which is like dude of course
that's what he wants the room for if it were were a guy and a girl, you would not be like, what might happen?
You'd be like, hey, dude, hang a sock on the door.
It's cool.
Like, yeah, he would think nothing of it.
Yeah.
They had to find out what was going on in that room, Brandy.
They had to know.
Mm-hmm.
on in that room brandy they had to know so like a total fucking creep darun had set his eye chat so that it would automatically accept incoming calls which why the fuck would you do that so
basically what would happen is the video would just automatically start recording
oh my gosh yeah or not recording is not the video would just automatically start recording. Oh, my gosh. Yeah.
Or recording is not the right word.
Just playing, right?
It would automatically get video?
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Connect.
It would automatically connect to video.
Right, okay.
And he had his computer monitor set as dark as it would go, so it could record video.
I'm sorry.
It could connect to video.
Mm-hmm. I'm like, it could connect to video.
I'm like, I'm like the old 25-year-old in this story.
So it could connect to video.
Make fun of me for not knowing how to access a Google Drive.
Did you like that I left that whole thing? I haven't heard it.
Oh, I did leave it in.
So you could be right in front of it
and not know you were being recorded
by the way the new yorker article also said that like and i didn't write this part down
but daroon in high school created some like app or did some weird well yeah he's obviously a
technology guy because he was upset that tyler was not right right yeah but let's call him what he is he's an av geek clearly okay and yet
he's mad that his roommate's a nerd these are the worst types it's always recognize their own
yes nerdery i always think the meanest people they're never the cool people it's always well
sometimes sometimes they are but i mean a lot of times it's like dude we're kind of on the same level how about you cool
it you know but no so he i should have written it down he created everybody drink it's not in
kristen's notes he created this thing where that where like you would install it on your computer
and it would automatically take pictures with your webcam of you whenever it wanted to.
That's weird.
Yeah, it's creepy and gross.
And so apparently some of his friends did it, but they said it was, like, super obvious.
Like, all of a sudden your webcam would take a picture of you.
Like, nobody really felt it.
But I'm going to call this a pattern of behavior.
Yeah.
Gross.
Okay, so anyway. He's also a voyeur, huh? Mm-hmm. AV geek voyeur. I'm going to call this a pattern of behavior. Yeah. Gross. Okay.
So anyway.
He's also a voyeur, huh?
Mm-hmm.
AV geek voyeur.
Voyeur?
Voyeur.
Voyeur.
Voyeur.
Voyeur.
The words lost all meaning.
So Darun goes over to Molly's computer.
He opens her iChat, calls himself.
And then there they were watching Tyler and MB.
Oh.
There's some debate as to what they saw.
Darun says that Tyler and the other dude were shirtless.
Molly says they were fully clothed.
But they both agree that the two of them were kissing.
They said they watched for literally two seconds
and turned it off.
They didn't know what to do. They were
so uncomfortable.
So what did Darun do
with this shocking information?
He probably tweeted about it.
He sure did.
He tweeted, roommate asked for the room till midnight.
I went into Molly's room and turned on my webcam.
I saw him making out with a dude.
Yay.
What's the point of that?
What is the point of that tweet?
Bragging about how creepy you are.
I walked down the hall today and got a soda out of the vending machine.
What year?
Yay.
What's the year?
2010.
So this is early Twitter when people didn't really know what to put on there.
So yeah, they would tweet everything.
That's the dumbest tweet.
Everything.
I think it's just like super, super creepy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's horrible.
I think it's just like super, super creepy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's horrible.
At some point, Darun left the room and like five girls came in and they heard the story.
Okay.
Yes.
You're right.
It is horrible because it says something about him.
It says that he doesn't think what he did is wrong or creepy if he's bragging about it on Twitter.
No, Tyler's the butt of the joke.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Like, Darun doesn't see that that was weird or creepy that he webcammed in to see what his roommate was doing.
The weird, creepy thing was that Tyler dared to make out with a guy.
Yeah, that is.
Yeah, you're right.
That is horrible.
Yeah, I absolutely hate it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It to me at first, it was just like a dumb tweet.
Like, who cares?
Yeah, no, it's I no it says so much more than
that it does yeah so these five girls walk into the room and they wanted to watch the live feed
i guess it's not a live feed i'm struggling with the terminology daroon would hate me obviously
i'm very poor very nerdy so So Molly turned it on for them.
Well, Molly called.
Called the, you know, whatever.
I almost said called the webcam.
I'm sorry.
Molly fired up the internet machine.
I don't know how it worked.
I think they got a cardboard box that looked like a computer and then they all walked in.
So once again, they claim they watched it for like a second or two.
And at that point, Tyler and the dude had pants on, but no shirts.
At some point in all this, Tyler noticed that Darun's webcam appeared to be on.
He saw the green light.
So he went over to Darun's desk and the green light disappeared.
The next day, when Tyler read Darun's tweet from the night before, he felt violated.
He talked to a friend about it and his friend was like, you need to talk to Darun.
But Tyler said, I guess, but it's not like he left the cam on or recorded
anything he just like took a five sec peep lol so i want to pause here some people hear that
and they're like oh he didn't really mind no i think he went through a range of emotions
the first one is trying to downplay this because and the article goes into this like
when this kind of stuff happens to you you don't want to be like you know what i'm the victim here
yeah this other person's a perpetrator something horrible has happened it's easier to just be like
well you know this isn't a great situation but i i can work
my way through it so it just took tyler a little bit of time before he processed what had happened
and the more he thought about it the more upset he became finally at around four in the morning
tyler got onto the rutgers university housing website He wanted a new room.
So I guess you have to list your reasoning, obviously.
And he wrote, roommate used webcam to spy on me.
Which, could there be a better reason than that? Yeah, no kidding.
Tyler was pretty conflicted, though.
He was worried that he would get a new roommate and maybe this new roommate would be even worse.
Worse, yeah.
would get a new roommate and maybe this new roommate would be even worse yeah or that maybe the university wouldn't feel like this was enough to get him a new roommate so then they'd have to
have like this awkward discussion together and then it would be even weirder for the rest of
the semester or the rest of the year however long then on september 21st ty Tyler decided to invite MB back over. He texted Darun about having the room
to himself. And Darun said, sure. And of course, Darun texted Molly and was like, he wants the
room again. And she was like, what the fuck? So at 639pm, Darun got on Twitter. He tweeted,
anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat me between the hours of
930 and 12. Yes, it's happening again. Later, he texted his friend Michelle, who was studying at
Cornell. He told her, I have it pointed at his bed and the monitor is off so he can't see you.
It's set to automatically accept. I just tested it. It works. Be careful. It could get nasty. Why?
Why?
I don't understand.
Like, why you would want to do that to someone?
Like, what the big deal is
if you're interested in seeing two people banging get on the internet yeah plenty of it available
i don't think he wanted to see two people banging yeah i think he wanted to yeah i think he wanted
to humiliate his roommate and i don't think he would have done it if his roommate was straight yeah yeah i think it's just like really really nasty homophobia yeah but i just can't even like
i just can't even understand that no no it's awful yeah have you heard this story norm
are you recognizing this no wow oh my gosh Oh my gosh. When this came out, I was just like, ugh.
Well, I'm sure you're going to get to this, but does Tyler just, he's aware that his roommate
is spying on him with a webcam.
Yeah.
So does he cover the webcam?
So here's what he does.
You know, Darun does that tweet.
Tyler saw it and he was like, that's it.
So he went to his RA, and his RA was like, wow, that's awful.
Please get this all in writing to me.
And if you want to sleep on my spare bed tonight, you're more than welcome to.
But Tyler said no, and he went back to his room, and he unplugged Darun's computer.
That parts up for debate, debate though i'd love to tell
you daroon's side of the story uh he says that he changed his mind about watching tyler oh no hey
hey he changed his mind um and he disabled the webcam himself brandon yeah he's a good guy yeah
yeah he was all on his own but um and this may contradict what I'm saying right now,
but the next day, a friend texted him about it,
and he said, it got messed up and didn't work, LOL.
So, yeah.
If you disable it yourself, you don't say, it got messed up and didn't work.
That's what you say when someone unplugs your computer.
Yep.
work that's what you say when someone unplugs your computer yep things were i'm sure tense between tyler and darun but there's no record of them fighting the next day darun left the
room for a little bit and when he came back tyler was gone tyler got on a train to new york
and headed for the george was Bridge. And a little bit before nine
o'clock that night, he made a Facebook status. Jumping off the GW Bridge. Sorry. He jumped off
the bridge and died. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Five minutes later, Darun sent Tyler a text.
Five minutes later, Darun sent Tyler a text.
So I'm paraphrasing a little, but it basically said,
Hey, on Sunday I showed Molly my webcam.
And oopsies, we saw you and your friend.
And I told people what happened because I wanted their advice.
No, that's not what you did.
No, not at all.
That's not at all what you did. And by the way, he claims that he didn't see Tyler's Facebook post to the next day.
I do not fucking buy it a bit.
I think he saw it immediately, was like, oh shit.
And this is him trying to cover his ass.
So there's more.
Then about the incident a few nights later, he said, and this is a direct quote,
I turned my camera away and put my computer to sleep so even
if anyone tried it it wouldn't work i wanted to make amends for sunday night i'm sorry if you
heard something distorted and disturbing but i assure you all my actions were good natured
then he said i've known you were gay and i have no problem with it. In fact, one of my closest friends is gay.
Okay.
Classic.
Classic line.
There it is.
Classic bigot.
I was waiting for it.
That's the textbook bigot line.
Hey, one of my best friends is one of you.
And he and I have a very open relationship.
I just suspected you were shy about it, which is why I never broached the topic.
I don't want your freshman year to be ruined because of a petty misunderstanding.
It's adding to my guilt.
You have a right to move if you wish, but I don't want you to feel pressured to without fully understanding the situation.
Oh, it's adding to my guilt.
Adding to my guilt, yeah.
Wow.
Yeah, I think this is such cover my own ass bullshit.
I believe that it's adding to my guilt line is true.
Well, sure.
Sure.
But who in an apology, such a big apology is warranted there.
And who in an apology talks about their own guilt?
Yeah.
By this point, word had gotten out about Tyler's death.
They hadn't found his body yet.
Police came and talked to Darun and Darun was like, oh, something happened to Tyler.
came and talked to Darun, and Darun was like,
oh, something happened to Tyler?
Well, let me describe that 25-year-old dude in great detail,
because he seems like a sketchball.
Then Darun got on Twitter.
He deleted that first tweet about watching Tyler with his webcam.
I think this part is so weird.
So he deletes the first tweet.
Then that second one, he kept that up uh the one where he was like tune in between 9 30 and midnight blah blah but then he tweeted
everyone ignore that last tweet stupid drafts
what oh because if it was a draft that'd be fine. That wouldn't be wildly inappropriate or weird at all.
Why wouldn't he just delete both
tweets? I don't know.
I have no idea. So
it could be that he
was like, well, I can't totally deny
it, but maybe if I just minimize
it, so I delete one.
Norm, thoughts?
He's just an idiot okay deep thoughts with norm
no this guy this guy's a pos like yeah not point of sale he's a piece
thank you i think a lot of people work retail and they were very confused by that
pos no he's a human being so it took a few days for tyler's body to be discovered
he was actually discovered by a gay guy going on a walk
in the meantime police began piecing together what happened they talked to molly and this is just
these kids i mean i think of rutgers is such a good school and it is a good school but my god these kids
were dumb as fuck everyone but tyler is dumb as fuck yeah so police talked to molly and at one
point during like a water break or something daroon texted her So here's their exchange. Daroon, did you tell them we did it on purpose?
Molly, yeah, well, that we didn't know what we were going to see.
Where's Tyler?
Daroon, because I said we were just messing around with the camera.
He told me he wanted to have a friend over,
and I didn't realize that they wanted to be all private.
Molly, OMG, Daroon, why didn't realize that they wanted to be all private. Molly.
OMG, Darun, why didn't you talk to me first?
I told them everything.
Oh my gosh.
Of course you did.
You tell the truth.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You only have to get your story straight if you're lying.
Yeah.
Tell the truth and also...
Don't do douchebag things.
Okay, I'm'm gonna say something
obviously tell the truth obviously don't even do this stuff yeah but also come on if you're
gonna be a criminal if you're gonna do something that's bad you should probably know that the
police are gonna access your text so don't be like oh my gosh how do we not get our story straight? I told them everything.
Gosh darn it.
Golly gee willikers.
Soon, word got out about this story.
People went nuts.
Everyone was horrified.
This was unspeakably awful.
Ellen DeGeneres spoke out.
Politicians spoke out.
And the story did get spun a little bit.
A lot of people thought, and this was my memory of it, that Tyler had been recorded having sex.
Having sex.
I thought the same thing.
And that it had been, like, broadcast.
Which, you know, some of these articles are like, a lot of people think it was this horrible thing.
And it's like, no, it's still.
It was horrible as it was.
It was very, very bad.
Thank you so much.
There was a lot of talk about what to charge Darun and Molly with.
This was a high-tech, modern-day crime.
I hate this stuff, when the laws can't keep up with what's going on.
A lot of people called this a hate crime.
They wanted Darun and Molly to be charged with manslaughter and Tyler's death.
But some people said that this was just invasion of privacy.
I think it's definitely a hate crime.
I think so, too.
Yeah.
And this got a lot of debate because people were like, well, a hate crime is when you burn a cross in someone's yard.
A hate crime is when, like, you, I don't know know maybe go into a gay nightclub and you start shooting people and it's like i
i just think there can be a wide range yeah because again i don't think he would have done this
yeah if he was having a girl over to his dorm room one editorial i read said that if it had been an ugly girl daroon would have done this
because yeah which i think what what that's a weird take uh yeah i thought it was a super weird take
i just think this was clearly to humiliate him and it was clearly about daroon wanted my other
look at my sideshow roommate. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Not a human.
Yes.
My roommate is not human.
Look at this freak of a roommate that I have.
He likes dudes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
In the spring of 2011,
Darun was indicted on two counts of second degree bias intimidation, amongst a bunch of
other things. Witness tampering, tampering with evidence, being a super douche, which is a felony.
Yeah. According to me. In all 50 states. Yes. And abroad. My laws, no limits. No bounds.
So these were big charges with a lot of jail time attached.
He was facing 10 years in prison.
But none of the charges were connected with Tyler's death.
So I think the prosecution was worried about an argument that like,
well, Tyler had been suicidal for a while they did find some kind of emotional
notes on his computer they found photos he'd taken of the george washington bridge which i
don't think that's proof of anything i don't either and i think a lot of teenagers write angsty stuff
granted i didn't read the stuff but i anyway so at the same time how do you prove that somebody else impacted
somebody's suicide it's yeah very similar to the conrad roy yeah case it is yeah tyler did leave
a note which has not been released so i do wonder what was in that um but at the same time i just
think the timing of all this oh yeah no i yeah i believe that
they impacted his suicide yeah i think it's a difficult court argument yeah sure i believe
that michelle carter impacted conrad roy's suicide yeah have you watched the documentary
you gotta watch it you think i'm gonna feel sympathetic for her when I watch it. No, not sympathetic.
But it might not feel so cut and dry.
I think my criticism of Dateline in 2020 and those shows is like,
they are so black and white.
There is the evil person, there is the good person,
and there's not a lot of nuance.
But in that documentary, there's more nuance.
I don't think it's going to change your mind. Yeah, I't think it has it okay okay nancy grace just calm down don't you dare call me
nancy grace nancy grace on this look nancy i'm just asking you stop calling me nancy
how dare you insinuate that i am nancy grace your eyeshadow today is just as beautiful as Nancy Grace. Wow!
Dang.
I'm just kidding.
Now I'm being rude to Nancy Grace.
But I am kind of like,
do you have professional makeup and hair on that show?
Come on.
Wait, are you being rude to Nancy Grace or are you being rude to me?
Are you insulting my eyeshadow?
Oh, that was a joke.
No, your eyeshadow looks great. That was just a joke because Oh, that was a joke. No, your eye shadow looks great.
That was just a joke because I knew that would offend you.
It did.
That was me being a long-term friend, knowing what your weaknesses are,
and kicking you right in the eye shadow.
So a few weeks later, Molly took a deal.
The prosecutors agreed to drop the charges against her if she would do community service, undergo counseling, and testify against Darun.
What do you think of that?
I'm not surprised.
Yeah.
I'm not really surprised either.
Yeah.
Well.
How do I say this?
Say it, and if it's bad, we'll cut it.
She would not have been involved without Darun.
Yeah, true.
I agree.
So I think the deal is okay.
Yeah.
The chances of her being involved at all without Darun are like nothing.
Yeah.
She would not have had access to his webcam and stuff.
Yeah.
So to, and I think that they need her, they need her version of things.
Yeah.
To be able to convict him.
Plus Darun's Twitter.
Oh, that's true.
Yeah. But he deleted the most, that Twitter. Oh, that's true. Yeah.
But he deleted the most.
And that's a permanent delete.
That's right.
That's a permanent delete.
No one ever sees that again.
It's just swept from the internet.
Norman can tell you all about it.
Then he explained that the other one was just a draft thing.
I think he'd been hacked.
Do you remember when people used to always say that?
I was hacked.
I was hacked, I swear.
I guess enough people said that that people were like, okay, no one's buying that.
But prosecutors didn't seem to want to go to trial with Darun.
They offered him a plea deal.
If he would plead guilty, they'd give him three to five years in prison.
Mm-hmm. he said no wow
here's a quick relevant piece of information if darun were to be convicted he risked being
deported because he had been born in india okay so yeah the stakes were super very very high for him
yeah a few months later the prosecution comes back again.
They're like, all right, how about this?
No jail time, but you have to do a shitload of community service.
Daroon said no.
What?
I can't believe this.
First of all, why the fuck are they even offering him that deal?
No jail time?
I don't know.
The fuck out of here.
I hate that they offered it to him.
And he refused it because he was innocent.
No, he's not.
Oh, oh, ask his attorney.
He was 100% innocent.
100% innocent.
He was just a young, dumb boy who made
a bad choice.
I believe that he made a
bad choice. I think he knew
he was making it, and I believe
that makes him,
let me check, guilty.
Let me just go through my love here uh yes let me see uh
guilty yes in the spring of 2012 his trial began in their opening statements the prosecution said
that darun was mean-spirited and malicious yes they said this was not a prank accident or mistake correct daroon did what he did
so as to set tyler apart as gay or different but the defense was like whoa whoa whoa he's not a
bigot he's not a criminal in fact when he did all this stuff he was barely 18. He was practically a fetus.
He was practically a fetus.
Defense attorney Steve Altman pointed out that Darun never recorded or broadcast anything.
Again and again, he referred to Darun as a boy.
Just a young, sweet boy.
Like Norman does.
Yeah, you guys, Norman refers to himself as a boy,
and it's the most disturbing thing of all time.
Norman, defend yourself.
I'm not on trial here.
I'm trying to live my life.
Do you want to tell people why you refer to yourself as a boy?
Is there a reason?
I think it's a funny word.
Do you spell it B-O-Y or B-O-I?
B-O-Y.
In her opening argument, the prosecutor... Creamy boy.
Ghost.
You should tell the creamy boy story.
What's the creamy boy story?
I wanted a cream soda.
I wanted a...
Yeah, tell them the story.
I'm not telling this story.
To Kristen's point, I do say the word boy too much we also have this funny thing where we like make little like nicknames for things
yeah so i've just i've used it so much i wanted a cream soda
we were sitting in the living room and i was like hey i'm gonna go i'm gonna go get a creamy
boy do you want one?
And I meant cream soda.
I wanted a cream soda. And we were like, what?
Any normal person hears, I want a creamy boy in the basement.
It sounds like you've got people chained up down there.
I mean, there was a Kansas City serial killer who did exactly that, Norman.
Chained up creamy boys in his basement.
Fair point.
I will not refer to cream sodas as creamy boys anymore.
Thank you.
We appreciate that.
Thank you for attending our TED Talk.
Never thought we'd have to ask that.
In her opening argument, the prosecutor kept referring to MB as Tyler's guest.
But the defense referred to him as a and i am quoting
scruffy shady looking old homeless creepy older dude what yeah which my god the guy ends up
testifying at this trial so i'm sure he showed up and was like, thanks a lot. I heard all you said about me. By the way, I'm only 25.
And I'm the victim.
So, you know, Darun was totally right to be concerned about having such a shady character.
Hey, hey, he wasn't anti-gay.
He was anti-creep.
Okay.
Okay.
He was just looking out for Tyler. He was just a young boy who was afraid of creeps.
No. No.
Nope.
The prosecution began calling witnesses, and they called a bunch of college students, obviously.
If he was worried about Tyler, worried about a creep in his room, he should have had a conversation with Tyler about that and not tweeted, hey, everybody, log on to check out my gay roommate and his friend no i and i think the argument they're
trying to make they're not even trying to make like oh he was concerned about tyler i think
they're trying to say he's concerned about his stuff his ipad yeah his things his things his
things and his stuff and you know his things all survived this story so good for him i hate this dude so much i don't know if it's
coming through yeah no in my eyeballs in my body language in my voice
so they're calling all these college students and at one point the prosecution asked one of
the students to describe mb and she was like sure he was italian looking and and again i am quoting older than a college
student but not obscenely old and at this point the entire courtroom busts out laughing because
it's like god he's 25 holy cow a lot of the witnesses talked about being invited to watch
the webcam it's not a webcam why do i keep saying that well it's kind of a webcam anyway you guys get it about being i don't understand technology
on cross-examination from the defense these witnesses all said that darun
wasn't homophobic they didn't think he was homophobic.
He clearly is.
Yeah.
This part drives me crazy.
Although maybe, if you put a different inflection on it, maybe that tweet was like, I just found out my roommate's gay!
Yay!
Yeah, I don't think so.
I don't either.
I also think, frankly, I think a lot of these students were homophobic themselves.
So you're asking a homophobe if so-and-so is a homophobe.
No, they're just like me.
No, they're just as huge asshole as myself.
Molly Way took the stand and she walked the jury through her role in this whole shit show.
She said that Darun never intended to humiliate Tyler.
Bull.
Boop.
Yeah.
First of all.
Then what's the intention?
What's the intent? Exactly.
What other possible intent is there?
Yeah.
To get in on some hot action?
Because that's available on the internet whenever you want it
yeah this is just there that is the intent the prosecution called michelle huang to the stand
she was the student at cornell who daroon had told to tune in to the viewing party
so the prosecution had her go through all of her texts some of them i've already read so i'm not
going to rehash those but at one point after darun described the older guy she told him to be careful because the guy might wind up in his
bed again not every gay person wants you no and darun said what do those people i guarantee you
do not walk down the street thinking every person of the opposite sex wants them.
So why do they think that when the person is now homosexual?
I don't know.
That is the most ridiculous thinking.
Yeah.
I would like a smidge of their self-esteem, please.
Yes.
Good Lord.
Can you imagine?
Everybody wants me.
Oh, no.
Another man in my family.
I can't even leave my house.
So Darun told her that he'd set up his computer to let him know when people were in his room.
And then he said, yeah, keep the gays away.
Okay.
So, okay. Just, you know, I i'm gonna say it again for the cheap seats he says yeah keep the gays away and then at the same time claims not to be homophobic right
so then the defense jumps up for cross-examination and defense attorney steve altman asked michelle
if she'd ever had a discussion with darun about homosexuality
she said no he asked if she'd ever heard him say anything bad about homosexuality
or if he'd ever exhibited any bias against homosexuals and she said no it's like
what
drives me crazy.
You literally just gave examples of that.
Oh, but what?
No, no.
No, never said anything bad.
What have you heard?
Did you hear him say that?
Yeah, keep the gays away.
That's not homophobic at all.
Okay, yeah, driving me crazy a student named lakesh oha told the jury that he'd helped darun
position the webcam so that it would capture tyler's bed great and he admitted to lying about
that to authorities later the man identified as mb testified at this point the judge told
reporters that mb could not be photographed because
he was so old-looking.
I'm just kidding.
What?
No, he's a victim of the crime.
That's why he can't be photographed. I just think it's so funny
that all these students are like, ew!
Oh my god, he's so old!
Yeah, when you're 18, 25 is
very old. It does seem old. But it just hurts
my feelings to hear that now.
Way past 25 now.
MB talked about how he and Tyler met on a dating site,
and he talked about how when they were having sex,
he noticed the webcam pointed at the bed.
He told the jury,
while we were being intimate together on the bed,
I glanced over my shoulder,
and I noticed there was a webcam
turned toward the direction of the bed the only reason it stuck out was being in a compromising position and
seeing a camera so he said when he left that night he noticed that like five people were
watching him and it was super fucking weird yeah in total the prosecution called nearly 24 witnesses.
Nearly 24? Does that mean 23?
Wow.
Okay, so the article said two dozen.
I don't know what they said nearly.
About, approximately, half a witness stood up.
You know what?
I'm giving all these college students partial credit for reading their homophobic texts but not admitting to homophobia.
So I'm going to count this down.
Twelve witnesses.
When the defense took over, they called a bunch of character witnesses.
They called seven friends who were like, yeah, Darun wasn't homophobic.
No.
Why?
What do you ask?
But prosecutor Julie McClure got up and was like, did the topic ever come up in conversation?
And they're like, no.
She said, did you talk to Darun a lot while he was at Rutgers?
And they were like, no.
The defense wrapped up their case by showing the jury a 45-minute video of Darun's interrogation.
And his attorney asked them to watch that video and watch Darun and determine whether he seemed to be mean-spirited with the intent to hurt, humiliate, or intimidate.
That's, well, that's terrible because he knows he's in fucking trouble at that point.
Well, and he knows that Tyler has committed suicide.
He should be feeling terrible at that point.
He should be filled with remorse.
So, yeah, I would assume the mean-spiritedness would be gone.
Then he read Darun's final text to Tyler.
The one where he said, I know you're gay and I don't have a problem with it.
Which, no.
Immediately after.
Yeah, he sent it after Tyler had posted that thing on Facebook.
Again, Darun was facing 10 years in prison and possible deportation.
The jury deliberated for 12 hours.
They found him.
Guilty?
Yep. Guilty on all 15 counts.
Wow.
A month later,
he received his sentence.
30 days in jail.
What?
Three years probation,
community service,
$10,000 fine,
counseling,
all with the possibility
of this being expunged from his record.
Wow.
Wow.
Yeah.
That's garbage.
That is.
I was shocked.
Yeah.
That's not justice no
i think this is a matter of
not understanding what homophobia is if we can't all read those texts or hear this story and
understand that that's homophobic yeah then some people are
holding their own homophobia and just saying well this amount's okay yeah that amount that that kid
has that's fine yeah judge glenn burnham didn't think daroon would reoffend didn't think that he
truly hated tyler but the one thing he did hate was daroon's lack of remorse he said i heard this
jury say guilty 288 times 24 questions 12 jurors that's the multiplication and i haven't heard you
apologize once wow um the judge was also pissed that darun didn't acknowledge MB's existence in this letter that he'd written before sentencing.
So apparently, MB, the only living victim in this case, had offered to write Darun a letter that would help him avoid getting deported.
Wow.
Because, and I'm with him on this.
I don't think Darun deserved to be deported or anything.
Because, and I'm with him on this.
I don't think Darun deserved to be deported or anything.
But MB, after all of this, was willing to help Darun.
Yeah.
And even after all that, Darun didn't acknowledge him.
Wow.
On May 29th, Darun released a statement.
Oh, no.
Are you ready for the remorse? I am not ready.
It read. I'm so sorry this happened to me.
Yeah. I accept responsibility for and regret my thoughtless, insensitive, immature, stupid, and childish choices that I made on September 19th, 2010 and September 21st, 2010. My behavior
and actions, which at no time were motivated by hate, bigotry, prejudice,
or desire to hurt, humiliate, or embarrass anyone, were nonetheless wrong choices and
decisions.
I apologize to everyone affected by those choices.
Great.
He should have been deported.
You think so?
Yeah.
Why?
Because he committed a crime.
He's not a citizen?
Well, I mean, I'm sure he had dual citizenship.
I don't even know how that works.
He was born in India.
His brother was born in the United States.
Was he a citizen? Again, i think he had dual citizenship i assume or no maybe he was here
on a student visa yeah maybe that's how that worked i don't know he's guilty of a crime like
that i mean apparently people don't think it was such a bad crime. I think I'm just pissed.
Yeah.
It's so ridiculous.
I think he deserved, I think five years jail time would have been fair.
I think you take into account how young he was.
Yeah.
Facing 10 years, I think five years would have been fine.
I think it's either he gets jail time or he gets deported.
I think what he got is not nearly enough.
No, no.
Whatever he got is not enough.
Him being deported or not, I don't know how I feel about that.
I need to think about that more.
But I think he didn't get anywhere near enough.
Well, I'm sorry.
We have no time for you to think.
You have to give your answer now.
And ICE is waiting.
They're going to make it.
They're waiting for our consensus.
Tyler's parents heard this apology and they were having none of it.
They called it no apology at all.
They said it was clearly a public relations piece that Darun hadn't written himself.
That's exactly what that sounds like.
Did his mom write it?
What it sounded like to me was the opening
and closing arguments from his attorney yeah about how oh he's you know very made some very dumb
decisions oh bad decisions not full of hate i'm not a bigot i'm not this i'm not that and to not
mention the people you hurt yeah i'm very sorry to anyone and everyone who may have been impacted in some way.
If only there was, you know, someone specific I could mention.
Yeah.
To me, that says you're not really sorry.
Yep.
I completely agree.
Darun served 20 days of his 30-day sentence.
Couldn't even serve the 30 days?
Are you fucking kidding me?
Good behavior.
He was free to go.
ICE announced that they would not deport him.
But we're not done here.
The prosecution appealed.
They thought that Darun got off too easy.
I agree.
But Darun didn't think he got off easy enough.
So the defense appealed, too.
Holy shit.
They wanted his conviction thrown out.
And it was.
What?
So, Darun had been convicted under kind of a weird statute.
Under that statute, defendants can get convicted if the victim reasonably believed
that they were being harassed or intimidated because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. But fairly
recently, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that that law was unconstitutional. I believe it was
declared to be kind of like too vague. Too vague, yeah. So Darun's convictions just go bye-bye.
But he could still be retried on 10 other charges.
On October 27, 2016, he took a plea deal.
He pled guilty to one count of attempted invasion of privacy.
Attempted.
Yeah, how?
No, you did it.
You did it.
You did it for sure.
He got time served and everything else was dropped.
Holy fucking shit.
And that's the story of the suicide of Tyler Clemente.
It makes me so sad.
Yeah.
Because Tyler, Tyler seemed like a good kid.
I mean, he seemed like someone with a promising future.
And, ugh. that was terrible thank
you i'm i'm sorry that that was that whole thing was terrible and what made it even more terrible
that there was that there was no justice yeah 20 days in jail for that you've got to be kidding me
okay are you going to
lighten things up a bit?
No, I'm not.
Well, damn it.
My case is gruesome.
Oh, that's right.
You have the cooler.
What?
Full of Diet Pepsi.
I think you consider
that pretty gruesome.
I would be devastated
if someone was like,
hey, I got this cooler
full of ice cold beverages.
You want one?
And then I open it up and it's just Diet Pepsi.
I might murder someone.
Justifiable homicide.
And then you got the cooler right there.
Especially if they were like, hey, I got Diet Coke over here.
Yeah, because some people don't distinguish the difference.
They're just like, yeah. Some people don't distinguish the difference they're just like yeah some people
are monsters yeah if i was like walking along and i was at a barbecue let's say i was at a barbecue
and i was like oh my gosh i just sure could go for a diet coke right now and someone was like
yeah i got a cooler full right over here i was like great and i go over to their cooler i'm all
excited and they open it up and it's just full of ice cold diet pepsi can we can we talk about
some some positives to come out of the tyler clementi case you got positives i do okay in 2013
uh a collaboration between rutgers administrators and clementi's parents uh they created the tyler
clementi center on campus is a research center to make sure something like this does not happen again.
Wow.
That's awesome.
That is awesome.
What's your source on that?
Diverseeducation.com.
All right.
Should we talk about a horrifying discovery in a storage unit?
Yeah.
Is this like that show Storage Wars?
It is not.
This case is local.
Well, God, how many terrible things around here have happened in storage units?
I mean, yeah.
Now, local where?
Where did it take place?
Wouldn't you like to know?
Start talking.
Start flapping those lips.
It was Tuesday, October 24th, 2017.
Oh.
When a man and his wife,
we'll call them Jim and Pam
because they have remained anonymous
throughout this case.
The office?
Yeah.
Aw.
So they were eating lunch at The Well.
Oh.
In Waldo.
A popular bar and grill
in the Waldo neighborhood
of Kansas City, Missouri.
Yeah, the well.
Okay.
Shout out to the well.
Shout out to the well.
Maybe they'll send us some coupons.
Pam took notice of a man and his children nearby.
The three looked to be in rough shape.
The man was dirty and very thin, and he looked very tired, like he'd been through a lot.
And then his two daughters didn't look much better.
One looked to be about two, and her hair was matted and missing in places.
And the other couldn't have been more than a few days old.
It was a newborn baby.
Pam and Jim felt for the man. He looked like he needed
help. As the couple finished their meal, they kept an eye on him. He looked like he was waiting for
someone, perhaps his wife or the mother of the children, but no one ever showed. As they prepared
to leave the restaurant, they passed the man and asked him if he was okay, and he confirmed what they had already suspected.
Jim and Pam learned that the man's name was Justin Ray, and that he was, in fact, in need of help.
childbirth. And he was waiting on some money to come in from the military. But he needed to get his children back to Arizona as soon as possible. He asked Jim and Pam if they could possibly
give him a ride to Union Station to catch a train. Jim and Pam looked at this poor man who
just lost his wife and was doing his best to deal with that
and care for these two little girls. And they just knew they had to help him. Jim and Pam agreed to
take Justin and give him a ride. And then in classic, if you give a mouse a cookie fashion,
Justin had another request. Could they first give him a ride to his storage unit?
Oh no. In Lenexa, Kansas.
So he could pick up some things and then they could take him to the train station.
Jim and Pam were too far in at this point.
They'd already agreed.
And so they agreed to the additional stop.
So for people who aren't.
Yeah.
Okay.
Worth noting.
Yeah.
A stop at this storage unit is way out of the way.
Yes.
It's the complete opposite direction.
It's in a whole nother state.
Yeah.
The well to Union Station is like 10 minutes.
Lenexa and then Lenexa to Union Station.
Yes.
From Waldo.
That's like an hour round trip out of the way.
Yeah.
When you're talking about, yeah, from the well to Union Station, yeah, you're talking 10 minutes.
If you're talking the well to Lenexa the well to Union Station, yeah, you're talking 10 minutes.
If you're talking the well to Lenexa, then to Union Station, yeah.
Yeah, that's a lot of time.
Absolutely.
But the kind-hearted Jim and Pam put the two girls in their grandkids' car seats and headed off for the storage unit.
Upon their arrival at the U-Haul in Lenexa, Kansas on Marshall Drive.
Oh.
You familiar?
I think I am. It sits right on that frontage road along I-35 just before you get to 95th Street.
So you know where Costco is on 95th Street?
So the U-Haul sits just before you, just before you get there, right along I-35.
They get there.
They follow Justin through the glass doors of the self-storage building
and through a maze of hallways until Justin stopped in front of a unit and unlocked the door.
Justin pushed the door of the unit open to reveal a space that was overcrowded and messy, but also looked as if someone had been living in it.
Oh, no.
looked as if someone had been living in it oh no justin explained to jim and pam that he and the girls had stayed there for a couple of days after they'd been asked to leave their previous residence
for his inability to make rent jim watched as justin pulled out a plastic storage tote
followed by a gallon jug of urine, and finally a large cooler on wheels.
As Justin wheeled the cooler toward the door of the storage unit,
Jim couldn't help but notice that there was a trail of brownish liquid
leaking out of it.
He wanted nothing more at that moment than to just tell Justin,
hey, man, sorry, but Pam and I got to get going.
Good luck finding another ride to the train station.
Good luck with everything.
Deuces.
Yeah.
But he just couldn't.
This man needed help.
He was too far in.
He was just going to help him.
I would start questioning.
You would? Yeah, i'd be like what
is this what's going on i will call the police right now i i that's freaking weird i think the
addition of the two little kids yeah and the two kids looking awful yeah i i would call the police. Jim and Pam are like, what the fuck is going on?
This is awful.
Too far in.
And so they head back through the maze of hallways,
out of the self-storage building,
with every intention of letting Justin put that cooler
with the mystery liquid leaking out of it into their car.
No word on the location of the jug filled with urine at that time.
Well, he didn't take that out.
I mean, he pulled it out of the unit at first.
I don't know what he did with it.
Why would you pull that out?
I don't know, Kristen.
I'm not going anywhere without my jug of urine.
I'm not worth a thing in the morning without my jug of urine.
But as they exited through the glass doors of the building
they were met face to face with members of the lenexa police department
immediately the police officers separated jim and pam from justin yeah they were like pulled to the
side police surrounded justin they started talking to him asking him a bunch of questions Jim and Pam from Justin. Yeah. They were like pulled to the side.
Police surrounded Justin.
They started talking to him, asking him a bunch of questions.
And Jim and Pam are like, the fuck is going on here?
And so police kind of asked Jim and Pam a few questions.
They determined that they don't know this guy.
They give them all the information that they had.
They'd met this guy at the restaurant, decided to give him a ride, everything.
That's all they knew.
And they were like, you guys are cool.
Go ahead, you're free to leave.
Talk about a weird situation to end up in.
You just want to have a nice meal at the well.
Yeah.
I know.
Right?
I know, and then you try to do something nice.
Nice.
Yeah.
That'll teach you.
Yeah.
So who had called police?
How had they wound up here?
So there's a,
I compiled the information
from this episode
from a bunch of articles
for Fox 4KC.
Okay.
And there's a little bit
of information in them
about this,
but not much.
But I have a little bit
of knowledge
of the inner workings
of U-Haul. And so this is what I believe happened. And this is kind of what the article says.
Justin had told the employees at U-Haul that his wife had died recently. And they thought it was
super odd the way that he brought it up like randomly in conversation. And then he seemed to be hanging around
his storage unit a lot.
And so what I believe happened
is that the manager saw this as like a red flag
and was like, I think that dude's living in his unit,
which is like when you rent a unit,
you sign that you will not live in your unit.
And so I think that he thought
that Justin was likely living in his unit
and so he probably told his employees the next time you see him here just call the police yeah
and so when he had arrived they employees had automatically just called the police and were
like we're gonna let the police yeah with him. Yeah, that makes total sense. This dude's super sketchy. Okay. So police show up and they're like, hey, man, getting some reports.
You've been hanging around a lot, spending a lot of time in your unit.
Mm-hmm.
What's up?
And he just, you know, was like, no, you know, I'm just, you know,
I've been spending the usual amount of time here,
and I'm getting ready to head back to Arizona where all my family is,
and just about to catch a train, actually.
And they're like, okay, cool, cool.
So the manager says that you mentioned your wife died recently.
And he's like, what?
Huh?
And he seems like real confused by that question.
And so the police are like, where's your wife?
And at that time?
No.
Justin?
No.
Motion to the cooler.
No. No, no? No. Motion to the cooler. No.
No, no, no.
Well, at least he's honest.
Yeah, he was.
And he told the police that his wife was inside that cooler and inside that rubber tote.
Ew, what?
Yeah.
The manager was correct.
His wife had recently died.
She died during childbirth.
Or she had committed suicide immediately after childbirth.
Oh, my God.
Got some conflicting stories on that one.
He kind of told the story differently each time he told it.
Uh-huh. And then, uh,
he didn't really know what to do with her.
Because he'd murdered her.
No, no, no.
No, Kristen.
She either committed suicide,
or, I'm sorry,
I don't think you're supposed to say committed suicide anymore.
You're supposed to say completed suicide
or died by suicide.
Oh, okay. Well, when someone dies by suicide anymore you're supposed to say completed suicide or died by suicide oh okay well when someone dies by suicide you call the police no see yes somebody in under normal circumstances might do that uh-huh but see justin was worried because he had these two little
kids to take care of and previously i believe it was when he lived in California, the state had taken away his children.
He had four other children.
I believe it's four.
Four other children that the state had taken away.
And so he was worried that if he called the police, they would take away his children.
And he couldn't let that happen.
And so.
They don't take away your kids because your wife has died by suicide.
Yeah, but they might misread the situation.
So let me just clear things up by putting her dead body in a cooler.
Uh-huh.
Okay.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
So they're like.
Nothing can go wrong there. Okay. Great. Great. Yeah. So they're like, nothing can go wrong there.
Okay, great.
Great.
Okay.
So she's in the cooler, huh?
Oh my God.
Excellent.
These poor cops.
They're just like, man.
Yeah.
They're like,
can we get some backup in here?
So they arrest him.
No.
What?
It was all a big misunderstanding.
And then things got a little bit crazy for the next few months while they tried to piece together what had happened.
So at the time of his arrest, that newborn baby was like two or three days old.
Oh, my God.
Four at most, I think.
Yeah.
It was truly a newborn baby baby it was malnourished
yes um and so was the two-year-old they were taken into protective custody actually i believe
it was like one of the paramedics who came and checked the kids out fostered them immediately
yeah wow yeah um so
eventually what they are able to piece together is still kind of questionable because of the state
of the remains there was no way to determine cause of death because jessica just Justin's wife, had been dismembered beyond any kind of dismemberment you've ever heard of before.
Her internal organs were dismembered.
Her body was dismembered.
She was skinned like a fish.
Oh, my God.
And parts of her were missing, the parts that would not fit into the cooler.
Oh, God.
This is disgusting.
Yes.
It, in fact, is.
And he's trying to act like, oh, just for convenience sake, because it would be such a pain to call the police.
He couldn't leave her behind.
And if the police came, they might misread the situation.
So this is what he had to do.
Uh-huh.
So she had, again, he told this story two different ways.
In one version, she had died during childbirth.
It was completely, she gave birth,
they were living in a motel in Missouri near the Royal Stadium.
Oh, God.
Yes.
Oh, God, those are terrible.
Yes.
She did a home birth in a motel?
She gave birth in the bathtub.
No.
And he used a paper clip and some string to tie off the umbilical cord.
And then she died in the bathtub.
Well, I would believe that anyone who gave birth in a Missouri hotel near the stadium would probably die.
But I also think he's a murderer.
So what can we do?
And then he became so worried that they would think that he murdered her, that he had no choice but to dismember her.
So he did that.
He fit what he could into the cooler.
The rest he flushed down the toilet or boiled on the stove of this motel.
So this guy's definitely not mentally all there, right?
That will be addressed.
Okay.
My guess is no.
Yeah.
So in another version, she gave birth, lived for a while,
and then was so depressed by the state of her life that she then took her life soon after delivering her child.
At some point, though, she did make it out of the bathtub, I believe, because he took pictures of her dead body.
No.
With the children propped up with her.
Oh, my God.
Oh, what the fuck?
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
How have I not heard this story?
I don't know.
This is insane.
It's insane.
Is this one where you've made it up?
No, this is 100% real.
This is not a prank?
This is 100% real.
This is horrible.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This is 100% real.
This is horrible.
Yeah.
So, because they aren't able to prove her cause of death, there's a bunch of questions about what they can charge him with. likely died in Missouri, and then was transported to Kansas.
That causes a whole other slew of jurisdictional questions.
And so he's been arrested in Johnson County.
They charge him in Johnson County with one count of child endangerment.
But they set his bond at $1 million because they intend to probably add murder charges on that.
It isn't until later that they figure out that there's no way to prove cause of death.
And so murder charges will never come.
Whoa.
Yeah.
whoa yeah so at a hearing on november 2nd 2017 that's kristin's birthday for everybody keeping track
justin made several outbursts in court to express his displeasure with the bond amount he screamed that his rights were being violated
and he told the judge that there was no proof that he'd done anything wrong
this is a direct quote from him in court you are talking about law and justice and you guys are
doing so much illegal stuff like what the most wealthiest county in the united
states and they think they're going to get away with it it's not right i have religious rights
parental rights marital rights my wife kills herself and you take our children it's totally
illegal and wrong well yeah if that were what happened that would be wrong but it's not and
what what does his religion have to do with this so he will argue that he is a christian scientist
and that because of that he could because of his religious beliefs he could not seek
medical care for his wife okay he had to pray for God to heal her.
Okay.
That still does not explain why you wouldn't give the cops a heads up that you've got a dead body in your motel room.
Right.
Mm-hmm.
He said that he was being slandered based on their assumptions, assumptions that were not proven.
Most assumptions aren't, but OK.
He continued and he's yelling this in the courtroom.
And the judge was writing it all down.
Like, oh, I've changed my mind.
Oh, my gosh.
I'm so glad you pointed that out he said
i have media here that is nationwide basically an oj simpson case for something that's not proven
nor even happened under assumptions and not probable cause there was no miranda rights read i got slandered to my name
i've got illegal searches and seizures illegal tampering with government documents
lying on government documents illegal chaos he took a law textbook. And just picked out keywords.
Yes.
He said that he never was living in that storage unit.
So that charge of child endangerment is just unfounded.
And he also yelled in the middle of the courtroom that he was not mentally unstable.
Oh, well, I'm going to give him a list of things you shouldn't yell.
Yeah.
So at this hearing, this is like his, it's either his first or second hearing.
Okay.
And he had attempted to hire a lawyer and that lawyer was present at the hearing. And he was like, yeah, nope, I will not be representing him.
Oh.
And then the public defender,
who was then assigned to him,
was like,
yeah, weird thing here, Judge.
My office has a conflict with this case,
so I'm not going to be able to represent him either.
The conflict is a really big thing.
I really don't want to do it.
My mom called.
I have to go home.
Yes, exactly.
So both of these
attorneys are like no
absolutely not
in the meantime the autopsy results
come back
they look into Justin's
account of what he says
happens they gather
surveillance video from
the motel where Justin and the kids were living
and they talk to the motel employees and this is what they find out from the day that they believe
they left the motel and headed towards the storage unit. Justin called the motel front office that morning,
pretending to be his wife.
He disguised his voice as a woman's voice
and said that they would be checking out that day.
And then surveillance video captured him dressed as a woman.
Oh, my God.
This sounds like budget Mrs. Doubtfire.
That is not fooling anyone.
Leaving the motel room,
pushing the baby in a stroller,
the two-year-old
walking next to him
and him pulling
a large cooler
behind him.
At this point,
the prosecutors determined that the only charge they were going to be able to
charge him with were the child endangerment charges.
And then they added a charge of abandoning a corpse.
This had to be so frustrating.
Oh yeah.
Yes.
Because the logic tells you one thing happened but yeah yeah if you can't determine
cause of death yeah oh you're screwed yeah so in the meantime jackson county prosecutors are
weighing the possibility of charges um since that's where her death occurred they're like
at the very least should be able to charge charge him with dismembering a corpse.
So they're over there in Jackson County weighing those charges.
Johnson County is moving forward.
November 24th of 2017, the new public defender for Justin Ray files a motion saying that he is unfit to stand trial.
He said in the motion, it said,
unfit to stand trial.
He said in the motion, it said,
based on the defendant's apparent inability to fully understand the legal proceedings against him
and because of the defendant's demeanor
when discussions of the case are attempted with him,
the attorney has good faith to believe
that the accused is unable to effectively assist
in his defense due to a mental or physical condition.
Okay.
So the public defender asked the court to order a psychiatric evaluation and examination
in order to determine whether he was competent to stand trial.
So they've got that going.
In the meantime, the press and investigators start looking into Justin Ray's background.
And it turns out that this is not his first involvement in a death investigation, missing persons investigation.
So a friend of Justin's went missing in 2016 when he went on vacation with justin
never came back they had not no one has seen or spoken with him since friends of this man This man, his name was Sean Farrell, Farrell, F-E-R-E-L, started texting him, calling him, no response, no contact.
Finally, they open a missing persons report and the police start an investigation and they determine that several thousand dollars have been racked up on this guy's credit cards in the time since he's been missing.
And so they look into those charges, and when they check surveillance footage,
Justin's got the credit cards.
Justin's the one making the purchases.
He's seen making purchases at Walmart, Walgreens, and a Flying J gas station.
At one point, he's even seen in disguise
making these purchases, though it is clearly him.
Yes.
Months go by.
And this is happening in, like,
this investigation's happening in Palm Springs and months go by and they find out that in Los Angeles.
So they're close, but two separate police departments in Los Angeles.
Justin Ray had been involved in a police in a police in a car accident.
And the car that he had been in was his friend's.
Yes.
Oh, my God.
And when they asked him about this, they asked him about Sean's whereabouts.
He said he didn't know at first.
And so police look into this car that was involved in the accident.
They find blood in the trunk.
And it comes back that it's the missing man's blood.
But Justin has a perfectly reasonable explanation for this.
I'm sure he does.
When they were on vacation, his friend died of natural causes causes how old was this friend uh i don't
know that but 80 uh no no didn't just like 35 so he died of natural causes and due to their religion
uh-huh he couldn't transport the body back he had to cremate him right there at that time and so he burned his body you mean he
took it to a professional no no he cremated it himself oh as per his religion right
yeah and several points of these articles they're like christian science has said that this was not
part of their practices yeah i'm sure there are a lot of Christian scientists who are like,
no, we'd go to a crematorium.
Hey, don't drag us down in this one.
Exactly.
To this day, the body, the remains have never been found.
Yeah.
So now California is looking at Justin Ray for murder,
possible murder charges.
Oh my God.
Moving forward through the system.
It's December of 2017 now.
And a judge has ruled that Justin is incompetent to stand trial.
Yeah.
And he orders him to a state hospital for 90 days of treatment.
It'll go for 90 days of treatment. It'll go for 90 days of treatment.
They'll reassess, hopefully move back into heading towards trial.
A couple of months after that ruling came down, Justin submitted several handwritten motions to the court.
I bet those were great.
Eight in total.
They were written on notebook paper.
And one asked for all charges, as well as the mental evaluation, to be dismissed.
Why not?
Hey, go big or go home. He said, in these motions, he said, I am sorry for any and all of my outbursts in court.
Please forgive me, Your Honor.
I just lost my wife to passing on.
Then all of this.
Lost her to passing on.
I've never heard it phrased like that.
Then all of this.
I have children to save, and I'm being forced to be apart from my two-year-old and newborn children, and we just lost their mother.
No, they are better for it, buddy.
Not for her.
No, no, no.
I'm sorry.
I realized how that sounded.
Yes.
To be apart from him.
Thank you.
I'm sorry.
I realized how that sounded.
Yes.
To be apart from him.
Thank you.
Among the motions were a motion to retrieve evidence, a petition for habeas corpus, a motion of appeal, two motions to dismiss, a motion to subpoena somebody, a motion for a change of venue.
Did you say a motion to appeal?
A motion to, yeah, a motion of appeal.
To appeal what?
I don't know.
He's basically throwing any motion he's ever heard of at the judge.
Because, yeah, two motions to dismiss. The locomotion.
Yeah, exactly.
Two motions to dismiss, a motion to appeal, and a motion to change venues.
He's like, hey, any of these sound good?
Come on, judge, give me something.
Oh, my God. Like, hey, any of these sound good? Come on, judge, give me something.
Oh, my God.
And in these articles from Fox 4, you can actually see, like, a picture of some of these.
And it's just handwritten.
In the District Court of Johnson County, Kansas, motion to dismiss.
And then he writes his case number in the corner.
Yeah. And he tries to do it in legal speak.
Which I'm sure makes it so good.
Yeah, so his motion to dismiss included a couple of arguments.
I'm sorry, did you ever watch it?
I'm sorry, why?
This is making me think of, have you ever seen It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
where Charlie tries to be a lawyer,
pretends, do you know what I'm talking about?
And he tries to do his legal speak.
This is a Daryl Pitts cycle reference.
Do you remember that episode where?
Part of my favorite parts of It's Always Sunny is when they try to talk to that lawyer.
Yeah.
And they try to get a case going and he's just like.
And they're working so hard to sound smart, but they're just not.
Yeah, and that lawyer is just shutting them down all the time.
It's a very Daryl Pitts reference.
Among his arguments for his motion to dismiss were that it was a violation of the speedy trial statute.
Well, how fast did he want this thing?
Exactly.
statute well how fast did he want this exactly that also it was a failure to provide the defendant a speedy trial under the sixth amendment of the u.s and kansas constitutions i'm glad he clarified
because i'm sure those judges would be like a speedy trial what we had no idea um also that prosecution herein is based on the ground that of the lies of slander of and then he lists people
he lists um the names of two lenexa police officers who slandered who slandered him sure
that's right sure i'm totally with him and then he puts in parentheses, with no proven facts, just their lies.
And then he finished with, it's so difficult to read some of the stuff he writes because it doesn't make sense.
Due time is of an essence.
I have children in need of my care and need to have all this cleared up so I can stand trial or we can work out a plan.
Oh, my God.
Dude, what world are you living in?
Yes.
At some point, they reassess him and it's determined that he is now competent to stand trial.
How?
I don't know.
Okay.
determine that he is now competent to stand trial how i don't know okay and then on november 2nd 2018 your next birthday why is all this shit happening on my birthday you know what this is
why i've never heard of it on my birthday i don't read the news on november 2nd 2018 They add two new charges. Two charges of child pornography.
No, ew.
Yes.
So this is so ridiculous how this got added.
So he is talking to anybody and everybody who will listen to him to try and prove his innocence.
This is all an accident.
None of this is all.
It's all based on lies.
Herein.
Wherefore art.
In due time.
Yes.
And so he gives his phone to investigators and he's like, look through it.
I will show you.
She died of natural causes.
I took pictures of the babies with her.
Pictures of the baby.
You can see in the pictures on my phone.
Look through it.
You will see that she died of natural causes.
So he gives them his phone, which is filled with child porn?
They look through the phone and they find a few pictures of minors.
It's questionable how old they are definitely under 18 um and it's deemed child
pornography it's like screenshots of websites and like one of them's for like a google search for
child nudist you um and like children's nudist camp things like that. Ew! As if that's a thing. Right. Oh gosh. Yes.
Well probably on Jeffrey Epstein's
island or whatever. Probably.
Pedophile island. Yeah.
Oh my god. So they're like
alright so we'll be adding two
charges of child pornography
on top of that. Finally
the trial begins in
January of 2019.
Did they have it in 2019?
Because they were like, oh my gosh, this speedy trial stuff.
The speedy trial stuff.
Thank you for pointing that out to us.
We totally forgot.
Here to for herein, we will have the trial.
On the first day of the trial, the prosecution kind of outlined how they would lead the jury to find that justin was a criminal and was not
caring for his children and possessed child porn on his phone um the defense argued that justin
while not a great parent i mean yeah his actions weren't criminal oh You're right. He might not have been a great parent.
We're not talking dad of the year here.
But what crime is he committed, I ask you?
Well, child porn for one.
I mean, what?
He's not a great kid.
The trial moved pretty quickly.
It only lasted about three days.
lasted about three days um testimony was given from the housekeeper and the managers of the hotel where they stayed do you want to know what hotel it is yes i had never heard of it
wood spring hotel the wood springs hotel sweet wood spring suites i guess by the stadiums yeah
kansas city stadium wood spring suites this is where who was staying this is where the family By the stadiums? Yeah. Kansas City Stadium.
Wood Spring Suites.
This is where who was staying?
This is where the family was living.
So it's like an extended stay hotel.
This, I will say, is actually much nicer than what I was picturing.
But I bet these pictures are pre-dismemberment.
As a 3.4 out of 5 on Google.
New thing that brought the score down?
One of the reviews says, roaches and sketchy people sleeping in cars. Rooms smelt weird.
Dirty towels and sheets, etc.
Ew.
And this dude chopped up his wife in the room next door.
Oh no, allegedly.
That's some slander, I think.
So a housekeeper, a manager from the hotel testified they said that they had seen Justin leaving the hotel dressed as a woman wearing a raincoat and a wig.
Wow.
Does he fool anybody?
And that he was seen dragging a cooler with him him which we now know had the body of his
wife inside um he also left a shit ton of blood behind in the room there were bloody sheets
there was blood in the bathtub there was fucking blood everywhere
uh next to testify were employees um at the-Haul and the family,
the Jim and Pam who took them.
Oh God.
Poor Jim and Pam.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
They were like horrified about what had been in there and they were like,
we were just trying to do a really nice thing.
And somehow this is from now on,
we'll never do a nice thing again ever.
They just write checks.
They're like, we go to charity luncheons.
We go to charity balls.
We do not go up to random dudes anymore.
I'm trying to help out.
The manager of the U-Haul testified, and this is kind of what I talked about before,
that he believed that Justin and his kids had spent the night there because an alarm had gone off overnight.
Okay.
And it was like his unit that was accessed there.
He also testified that it was winter.
It's January.
Remember when this happened?
January?
It's October.
Man, January.
What a gay month.
Am I right?
It was October when this happened.
And that overnight temperatures had dropped to
like the 40s and that the units weren't really temperature controlled to some degree they were
but it still would have gotten very cold inside kids oh yeah i've totally lost my place give me
just a moment classic brandy uh yes so the manager of the u-haul testified that
it was a very dangerous environment for a newborn baby and a two-year-old absolutely
can you imagine like i guess this is my job right now to testify
the craziest part about all of this and i don't know if it's the craziest part this whole fucking
thing is crazy is that justin both testified in his own defense and in his own defense i don't
know what word i just said in his own defense and he also represented himself for most of his trial
no so when asked while he was on the stand about those child pornography charges oh my god he said
that there was no chance that those were his that at the time stamp on those he would have been
sleeping and there's not a possible chance that he would have ever accessed that kind of that kind
of website ever and he never would have screenshot anything from there
when asked who possibly
could have been responsible for that.
He said the only other adult
who would have been with him
was his wife,
but she never would have
accessed that either.
He then, on the stand,
said that he believed
that the police must have
tampered with his phone
and planted those images on there.
I mean, why not? mean why not you're saying all kinds of ridiculous your defense is i was asleep at the time that's not gonna fly
yeah why not accuse the police of slander and whatever else you want to his reasoning for why
it could not possibly have been him that looked up those images?
Other than I'm not a child molester?
It's because he's a Christian scientist and he doesn't have sexual desires.
That's not part of being a Christian scientist!
What?
Yes!
As part of his religion, he doesn't have sexual desires and he would never look at porn of any kind.
Again, I believe that the Christian scientists were like, um, Sarah, could you please stop referencing us?
I mean, I know next to nothing.
All I know about Christian scientists is is right that they they don't practice
modern medicine correct that's all i know too yeah okay well that we've exhausted that's my entire
knowledge also not very horny no in fact they have no sexual desires at all so what was his
reasoning for having so many children i mean he had a he had like six kids they still had to
propagate species kristen okay i see so that was just him doing his duty that's right oh great yeah
on january 31st 2019 a johnson county jury after eight hours of deliberation eight hours yes
found justin ray guilty on all charges I'm shocked it took that long.
I am too.
Were they holding out for lunch or something?
I don't know.
He's found guilty on January 31st, 2019.
Of course, he continues to file like a million motions.
Everything's delayed.
He was finally sentenced on June 28th,
which is my mom's birthday of 2019.
So just at the beginning of the summer.
Yeah.
He was sentenced to 104 months in prison.
So just over eight and a half years.
And he must register as a sex offender.
I'm not.
Okay.
I guess I'm as satisfied as you can be
with that
yeah
but
I think that dude's a murderer
for sure
that all
well so that all
just wrapped up
he is still facing
the dismemberment charges
in Missouri
and the possibility
of those murder charges
in California
okay
I was gonna say
his buddy in California
oh yeah
he for sure
murdered that dude
yeah hey don't slander him allegedly allegedly California. Okay. I was gonna say, his buddy in California. Oh, yeah. He for sure murdered that dude. Yeah.
Hey, don't slander him.
Allegedly. Allegedly.
Allegedly. And, uh, that's
the case of a horrible
discovery in a storage unit.
Can you imagine being Jim and Pam? No!
Oh my god, no. Do you think they've
ever, do you think they've gone back to the
well? Probably
not!
You don't remember this happening?
Not one bit.
I've never heard of that.
Are you kidding me?
And now, when we go to the well, I'm going to be like...
I'm looking around.
Oh my god.
Yeah.
That was nuts.
Nuts.
Norm?
Wait, I have a case update real quick oh okay before we before we
bring in norm it's on my case that i did last week oh dartmouth murders oh my gosh okay so i
ended with saying that jim parker had uh submitted a motion for early release He has served about 18 years of his sentence. And he was asking for early release.
And that they hadn't and he just did that, like this summer, I believe.
So the prosecution, I guess, went and talked to the daughters of the two professors. And they were like, we don't want to have to go through
this anymore. And so the state wrote Jim Parker a letter and was like, hey, the family's asked
that you not put them through this. And he withdrew his bid for early release and said,
okay, if they don't want to go through this, I won't put them through it. And so he withdrew his
motion for early release.
Wow.
Yeah.
That's amazing.
Yeah.
I have another positive for the Tyler Clemente case.
It's been on my mind this whole recording.
Okay.
Another positive is his parents formed the Tyler Clemente Foundation.
And it is to prevent bullying through inclusion and the assertion of dignity and acceptance as a way to honor the memory of tyler that's cool that's cool that's really cool
they've been they've been doing good stuff you were bothered by that huh yeah i really was yeah
yeah that's a terrible case that ravi dude's a pos yeah point of sale. Piece of shit. Yeah, I have nothing positive to say.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, just the punishment did not fit the crime.
20 days in jail is...
It's nothing.
It's nothing.
Yeah.
Well, are you guys ready for some questions?
Yeah, so do you want to tell people what you did?
You went on our Discord.
So I went on the Discord, which you can join the Discord by...
Yeah, Kristen, tell people how they get in the Discord.
Yeah.
So you join us on Patreon.
I believe the Discord is at the $5 level.
We've also got a $7 level.
For $5 a month, you get to join our Discord.
You get to listen to a ton of our bonus episodes we
got three right now right yeah i mean we're kind of killing it we are we get a monthly bonus episode
vote on topics and then at the supreme court level which is seven dollars you get all that
plus a sticker with our lovely autographs on it yeah you get inducted into the Supreme Court. And Norman, take it away.
So before we get to questions,
I do want to update on our listeners' homework from last week,
which was guess how much the pitcher of margarita was at lunch.
That's correct.
The answer is $30.
And Norman was pissed.
Norman was so pissed.
Not at all gracious about it. No, Norman was so pissed. Not at all gracious about it.
No, he was so mad.
I just wish he would have just said, do you want a pitcher?
It's $30.
Someone in the Discord guessed the right price.
Someone did guess that value correctly.
Hold on, let me find her name real quick.
Well, and I don't know that $30 for, he said it was the equivalent of like five margaritas.
It doesn't seem that bad.
Yeah.
Alyssa guessed the price correct. Congrats to
Alyssa. Good job on our Discord.
You get a gold star.
What was her other homework?
To stab a Capri Sun in the butt.
And stab it in the butt and see how
much easier that is. Did you do it? I didn't.
We haven't gotten any feedback on that yet.
But I assure you, it is
much easier. easier okay three questions
these are from the discord i'm just going to randomly choose some um first one is from
lily what do you do for fun when it's been raining all damn day so i'll let each of you
provide an answer i'd binge something on Netflix.
That's what I do when it's been raining.
What's the last thing you binged?
Dead to Me.
Oh, I love that show.
Oh my gosh, it's so good.
Norman's grandma recommended that to me.
It's so freaking good.
Kim recommended it to me.
She watched it, loved it so much.
Kim is my sister.
Loved it, watched it, watched it, loved it so much that she turned around and watched
it again immediately after.
And she was like telling me that I had to watch it.
And I was like, I watched the first episode and I was like, while I was watching it, I
was like, yeah, it's pretty good.
It's entertaining.
And then like something happens and I was like, what the fuck?
And then I had to keep watching.
Yeah.
So what I do when it's raining out, I love, I've been getting into recipes lately.
Oh, yeah.
Doing different recipes.
Tell us about the delicious French toast casserole you made.
Okay.
Uh-oh.
Okay.
This makes me so mad.
So I've been trying out different recipes.
And there's this website.
I'm not going to say the name of it because I do like it for the most part.
But they did you wrong with this one. They did me real dirty. Okay. It was called strawberries
and cream French toast. How delicious does that sound? And it was like this big casserole thing.
You like cut up a bunch of, um, I think it was like hollow bread.
You chop you.
So you cube that up, cube up some cream cheese, cute, like cut up some strawberries, put that
all in a casserole, you know, cover that with more bread.
Then you mix up a bunch of eggs and milk and maple syrup and pour that over it.
Let it set for 24 hours.
Then you pop it in the oven.
Then you take it out. You pop it in the oven then you take
it out you cover it in powdered sugar and more strawberries i mean the whole house smelled
amazing yeah it looked amazing norman was like dancing around in anticipation of eating it
tasted terrible it sucked it sucked and i burned my hands getting it out of the oven so that's what I do for the training
by the way there were
hot blobs of cream cheese
that just sounds disgusting to me I don't like hot cream cheese to begin with
so no thank you
yeah I agree
there are very few hot blobs of anything that I'm gonna like
but I mean the cream
next question from Hex Positive
it's directed to Brainy but I mean the cream. Next question from Hex Positive.
It's directed to Brandy, but I want Kristen's opinion too, just because
you guys are
long-term friends.
Brandy, please
tell us what your favorite
shampoo and conditioner is.
I need a professional's opinion.
I've got a couple recommendations.
How long do we have?
So I am in love with the Amika line.
We carry that in my salon.
It smells so good.
I think it's the best purple shampoo on the market.
So if you have highlighted hair or blonde hair, it'll keep those brassy tones out.
It's amazing.
It also smells so good and then
i also am a huge fan of the verb line um it's a fragrance free but still smells clean without
having any added fragrance it's sulfate free it's cruelty free um it's i love their ghost line they
have a it's super weightless but really moisturizing those are my all right those are my two
recommendations kristin no let's just stick to brandy's recommendations so you're gonna second super weightless, but really moisturizing. Those are my two recommendations.
Kristen?
No, let's just stick to Brandy's recommendations on this. So you're going to second that?
Well, I can't second it.
Well, no, no, no.
Actually, you gave me some Amika stuff, and it is amazing.
It's really, really good.
Shout out to Amika, sponsors of the podcast.
Oh, my God, we wish.
I cannot recommend the shampoo, conditioner, body wash all in one.
Well, that's on you.
That they sell in the men's grooming aisle.
Yeah.
Do you remember I bought that one time?
Well, yeah.
We were on a trip to Colorado and I bought it.
I was like, look, in one bottle I can do three things.
No, that's never.
It destroyed my hair.
I don't care.
It's like a handyman who says, oh yeah, I do everything.
You don't do it all well.
Yeah.
That's.
Jack of all trades, master of none.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's exactly right.
Well, and also like, I feel like shampoo and conditioner do two totally different things.
They do.
So how can you do it all in the same bottle?
Okay.
Last question.
We'll just do three each episode.
I think that's a good number.
Kristen Brandy, this is from Islezer.
Islezer?
What are your pet peeves?
Not using a blinker when you're driving.
That drives me fucking nuts.
All of a sudden, you're slowing down.
What the hell are you doing?
Oh, you're turning.
Great.
I should have just known that.
There are lots of things that piss me off.
I'm very easily irritated, I think.
I was rubbing my thumb earlier, and it made this noise.
And Kristen was like, oh my god.
Stop doing that.
You would not stop.
Oh, I don't like it when my husband calls himself a boy
or says i'm gonna go get a creamy boy hate that no something i really really hate
when i'm at like the grocery store or someplace and someone has pushed the cart back to their
car they've unloaded their groceries and they've got the cart they see that the cart storage area
is that's the cart corral yeah is like i don't know too many yards away and so they're like well
i'm just gonna leave it here i can't stand that i think you can tell a lot of person by their cart
corral behavior absolutely take it take it all the way in make sure it goes in nicely with that
cart in front of yes yeah what else do i not like
oh knuckle popping is my other one oh god no i can't handle it absolutely not you don't like
when people speak in a fake british accent i hate that we've talked about that before you know what
i also hate when you're talking to somebody this doesn't't happen often, but when it does, I'm like,
are you aware that you're speaking to someone?
They start digging around in their ear while they're talking.
That's weird.
I can't.
I can't.
I feel like the DP would probably do that.
Yeah, it does seem like something my family does.
DP does a lot of weird things.
Okay, so I have similar.
Blowing your nose
at the dinner table.
Disgusting!
Disgusting!
Because I already can't handle
mucus.
Don't say it.
I thought I was taking one
for the team by saying it for you.
I appreciate it.
No, but how hard is it
to go to the restroom?
Just like get up and walk away.
Yes!
Don't do it in your napkin
right at the table.
And it's always a cloth napkin, which is like, God.
Someone has to touch that later.
You can't.
I think we should move on.
Okay, we can move on.
Tiffanyized wants to know, what conspiracy theories do you believe or maybe sort of believe?
Ooh. Ooh. conspiracy theories do you believe or maybe sort of believe oh oh you know i'm super anti-conspiracy
theory i mean i think a lot of people say they're anti-conspiracy theory but you seem like the type
who believes a lot of stuff i'm easily persuaded exactly so what is it um was 9-11 a conspiracy
yeah i i hate that conspiracy i do too yeah i do too see here's here's my problem with conspiracy
theories is i think that they, there's so many about
like tragedies that they completely, they're insulting to the victims.
Yeah, absolutely.
Like the Sandy Hook stuff.
Oh, that makes me so mad.
That makes me like physically angry.
Yes.
Yeah.
And same with the Holocaust.
People who say that didn't happen. That's terrible. Yeah, no. Go F yourself. Yes. Yeah. And same with the Holocaust. People who say that didn't happen. That's terrible. Yeah, no. Go F yourself.
Now my belief that maybe Jeffrey Epstein, I don't know,
was offed.
You know, Bill Clinton visited Jeffrey Epstein
that morning and gave him
a gift. What's your source?
We don't know what the gift was, though.
Interesting.
I just heard it.
I heard about it.
On the internet.
I believe that...
This is going to make me sound like a weirdo.
What?
I believe that the government knows more about extraterrestrials and stuff than we.
Area 51?
Mm-hmm.
Are you going to storm it with me?
No, I'm not.
But I do believe.
I think it's so arrogant to think that we're the only beings in the universe.
I agree with that.
It's crazy arrogant.
So I believe that the government knows.
You think the government.
What do you think they know?
I don't know what they know.
But I believe that they know more than they let the public know.
Oh, come on. I do do you ever watched ancient aliens no oh my gosh my dad loves ancient aliens yeah it shows cool i don't love it but like they make a few good
points on there sometimes but what do you think the government knows? They. Well, I don't know, Kristen, because I don't know it.
But I mean, you think that they know that, okay, on this specific planet.
No, no, no.
I think Brandy's just saying that the government has encountered.
Yeah.
Like alien life forms.
Yeah.
And like has like video or like photographic evidence of a UFO.
Huh?
Yeah.
Something like that.
Yes.
And they don't tell us because why?
They don't want to freak out the public.
Cause mass hysteria.
Hmm.
Okay.
Don't you remember that show ALF in the 80s?
That's a documentary.
That's a documentary.
Yeah.
It's real.
That was filmed live in front of a studio audience.
I'm amazed.
Residential Canadian Mark wants to know,
ladies, what are your takes on putting ketchup on burgers?
I love ketchup on a burger.
What is that?
Is that controversial?
It is in the gaming historian community. What? You don't put ketchup on? I? Sure. What is that? Is that controversial? It is in the Game and Historian community. What?
You don't put ketchup on? I do not.
I think it is a sin to put ketchup
on a burger. Wrong. No, no, no. You do
ketchup and you do some mustard, too. Yeah, ketchup
and mustard, you make, like, mix this together
and it makes a delicious sauce. I'm not a fan of ketchup
on burgers. Wrong. Well, what do you put on
burgers?
Lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese. I do
put mayo.
I think mayo is great on a burger.
Mayo's almost as bad as mucus.
Don't get me wrong.
I like ketchup.
I just don't like it on a burger.
I think it's too sweet.
Don't give me that homemade ketchup, though.
I'll flip a fucking table.
It's just a tomato splattered.
Yeah.
There you go.
It's ketchup.
Do you know that one place you took me was?
I didn't take you.
Yes, that place we just went to. Where? Where Kristen had to get up and get me the real ketchup. Do you know what that one place you took me was? I didn't take you anywhere. Yes, that place we just went to.
Where?
Where Kristen had to get up and get me the real ketchup.
They came out with that ketchup, and I went to dip a fry in it.
That was just a pureed tomato.
You couldn't handle it. To be fair, that was bad homemade ketchup.
It was terrible.
That wraps up the question portion of the Let's Get It For You podcast.
That was awesome.
I loved that.
Yeah, thank you.
I love that.
I think that should be every week.
Yeah, I love it.
I think you guys should answer three questions.
Perfect.
Well, let us know, folks.
What do you think?
Three questions a week?
If you enjoyed it and you think we should do it.
And then if you want to get in on that Discord, you know, head on over to Patreon and, you
know.
Join.
Join, as they say.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Please join the Patreon.
These margaritas are not cheap.
While you're on your internet machine if you'd
also like to find us on social media get on your webcam we're on twitter we're on instagram
we're on reddit we're on youtube you know what listener homework sign up for the patreon
thank you for that assignment norm um and while you're at it subscribe to our podcast wherever
you listen to us and then head on over to Apple Podcasts, leave us a rating, leave us a review.
And then if whatever platform you listen on allows you to leave us a review, do that there, too.
And once you've done all that.
Hold on.
Before you get to that, I just want to tell people.
I feel like in some ways we are so dumb about podcasting.
We truly did not know how important it is to ask you guys to
subscribe to us so guys if you aren't subscribing to us what the fuck are you even doing no well
wait is that about i thought we were doing like a good cup bad cup
guys let me help you out okay i'm on your side here just subscribe to us all right subscribe to us yeah and leave us a rating
leave us a review and then join us to join us next week is this your first time on the podcast
yeah subscribe and also join us next week when we'll be experts on two whole new topics
podcast adjourned oh my god and now for a note about our process i read a bunch of
stuff then regurgitate it all back up in my very limited vocabulary and i copy and paste from the
best sources on the web and sometimes wikipedia so we owe a huge thank you to the real experts
for this episode i got my info from the article the story of of a Suicide by Ian Parker for The New Yorker,
The Associated Press, The New York Times, and a bit of Wikipedia.
And I got my info from several pieces for Fox 4KC,
as well as the Kansas City Star and Metro US.
For a full list of our sources, visit lgtcpodcast.com.
Any errors are of course ours, but please don't take our word for it.
Go read their stuff.