Rotten Mango - #173: Miryang Middle School Girls Sexual Assault Case

Episode Date: June 19, 2022

Middle schooler Alice got off the train with excitement bubbling in her chest. She was meeting 17-year-old Peter for the first time. She had no idea that she would be ambushed by Peter and his friends, dragged to a local motel where she would be gang r*ped by more than 40 high school boys. They filmed the entire thing. Her torture would last a year. The boys blackmailed her into coming back for more assaults. Just when she thought the nightmare was over - the police kept asking her “why did you go back unless you liked it?” Full Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome to this week's mini-sode of Rotten Mango. I'm your host Stephanie Sue. And Alice had just gotten off the train in South Korea. She was over the moon bubbling with excitement, but also she was nervous. This would be the first time she would meet Peter in person. They had been talking online for a while now and who knows? Maybe they'll even hold hands today. I mean, she's only 14 after all, but when she gets off the train, she's taken to a nearby motel, knocked unconscious, and she wakes up to see 11 boys surrounding her. No.

This would be the start of a year-long torture of Alice. On the other side of the world, in the United States, 30-year-old Jennifer hops off a bus. She had been flirting with her boyfriend Ricky for the past few months and she was going to spend the weekend with him. She had no idea that she had been texting Ricky's other girlfriend, Angela. Angela didn't appreciate Jennifer quotes stealing her man and she had big plans for her that weekend. Plans that didn't include Jennifer getting out alive. So as always full show notes are available at RottenMinglePodcast.com but I'm just just gonna get into these cases because they're so intense, they're infuriating, and it really talks a lot about herd mentality.

That's kind of the topic of both of these cases. What is herd mentality? And why is it so dangerous? What's going on? And just a quick trigger warning. I know we don't do a lot of these because I mean, this is a true crime podcast. So everything's kind of a trigger,

but this is a lot heavy on sexual assaults, gang rapes, torture. Just the most vile people in the world are involved. And it's really unsettling, especially this case, because did you know that porn is banned in South Korea? Well, okay. He's looking at me all curious. Well, not exactly.

Don't freak out if you have plans of visiting South Korea or maybe you even have plans to move from what I can tell, it's legal to watch porn. But in the country, it's illegal to produce, distribute, and sell pornography. Oh, then we're good. So more often than not, South Koreans actually find themselves watching foreign porn. So porn that's not involving South Koreans, right? And because they can't have any made in their country. I think the most popular would be Japanese-produced pornography, just because it's just readily accessible.

There's a lot of different websites that's easily accessible for Koreans, and it's kind of an interesting aspect to the case. A lot of people have speculated online that because South Koreans have been watching Japanese porn and this is a very interesting connection that is made. I don't know how I feel about it. They said that Japanese porn frequently features fake gang rapes. I know it's on strange and it sounds like I'm saying this whole case is a Japanese porn problem and that's not what I'm saying at all. I think it's just people trying to understand the nuance of the case. For example, America seems to love stepbrow and step sis genre, you know?

Which fun. The similar to like video game promotes, you know, violence, for example. Yeah, that's the same kind of idea. I don't think- Yeah, it's like, what are you saying? Yeah, so a lot of people say Japan has a lot of porn genres and one of them being a group sex situation with a lot of men and usually just one lone woman. And for the purpose of this video, the woman doesn't seem to be having a blast a lot of the times.

She in fact she might be trying to cover herself up. Now listen, I don't want to get into the ethics of porn. The only thing that I know is as long as it's produced legally and ethically and everything is consensual, everyone is compensated, I typically don't care how taboo the genre might seem because, again, it's like saying violent movies influence generations to be violent. I think violent people are violent. Period. But there has been some online discourse that maybe because of Korea's

never-ending want to censor pornography. Because there has been a lot of backlash, a lot of South Koreans saying why? I mean, this is a democracy. Why can't we just have porn? Like, this is so weird. But maybe the government's never-ending want has actually created a bigger problem. Of young boys being influenced by gang rape porn. That has been a topic of discussion online. I don't really agree with this sentiment, but I do think it's kind of an interesting thing to think about. I just, I don't know, I have a hard time believing that what you watch motivates you to be evil. But also why does what's censoring made them more violent? Like how the, how does, what's the connection between that? If they're not censored, does that make these boys less violent?

So I guess the thing is, people are saying that a lot of them have been gravitating to Japanese porn, and this is a genre of Japanese porn that is heavily popular. But they can still act, you know, watch them even if it's legal in Korea. That's so weird. It's just a weird, I think what is happening is people are using this almost as a comforting thought. Because oh, maybe the boys were influenced by porn. And I think it's just hard for anyone to wrap their heads around the idea of how 40 plus boys, mainly high school aged boys, took part in the violent gang rape of a 14 year old

girl for over a year. And the truth is, the answer is probably not porn, it's rape culture. And when I say boys, I'm not emphasizing boys to make you feel like, oh, they're just kids. They'll grow out of it. They don't know better. I'm saying boys because how terrifying is that?

That they're not even 18, and they are some of the most vile humans to walk this earth. That's terrifying. What happens as they get older? Let's talk about Alice. That's not her real name, but she's anonymous, right? Alice grew up in Uri-san, South Korea. Uri-san is kind of near the bottom of the peninsula. It's from what I hear a beautiful place to visit with unmatched seafood. It is a super nice coastal city, but unfortunately, Alice didn't really have a nice childhood. Alice's dad was this abusive, toxic, scary guy. He would just get drunk, come home, and fly into these drunken, violent rages. And initially, he would just take it out on his wife.

And his two daughters, Alice, and her younger sister, they would just hide in the closet. They probably felt fear that they were next, but they also probably felt so hopeless because I mean, you're watching your mom get beat. You want to save her. You want to do something about it. But eventually, Alice's mom, she can't take it anymore. She feels like she has to leave. There's no way for her to come out of this relationship alive.

She's got to go. So she divorces her husband and moves to his home, the capital. And she left her kids. So now Alice is dead. He would go out more, get drunk. He feels rejected. He feels abandoned by his wife. Like, are you kidding me?

Now I have to be a single parent. I have all this pressure on me. And he would turn all of that rage and all of that stress and anger to his two daughters. He would start beating them. And by 2003, Alice, she's 14 and she's kind of going through a lot. She's feeling lonely. She's confused. I'm sure that there was a lot of upset feelings towards her mom because why did you leave? Why didn't you take me with you? You knew that I didn't like that. You probably knew that he was going to start hitting us. Why didn't you take me with you? You knew that I didn't like that. You probably knew that he was gonna start hitting us. Why didn't you do anything?

But overall, she just kind of felt lonely. So like, any teenager at the time, she goes online, seeking friendship and companionship. She would go on these MySpace chat rooms and just make friends. None of it was anything serious. It wasn't that extreme. And that's where she meets Peter.

He's 17, so three years older, but he was so sweet. They just kind of had the same interest. The more that she talked with him, the more it seemed like he understood every feeling that she was going through. So what started as this innocent friendship, it kind of turned into an innocent relationship. Like they're young. They kind of have feelings for each other, but nothing was explicitly stated from what I can tell tell, it was like, hey, you wanna be my boyfriend, you wanna be my girlfriend? It's kinda like they were both dancing around the fact that they like each other.

And in January of 2004, Peter's like, hey, do you wanna come meet me? It's kinda crazy, I mean, I just really wanna meet you. Alice is probably giggling, giddy, but also hesitant and nervous. Peter lives about 30 miles away. She would have to take the train to Miryang, and that's not a big deal. The train is safe. So Alice decides, you know what?

OK, I really like this guy. I feel like I need to see him in order for this relationship to kind of evolve. She gets on the train. I mean, what 14-year-old girl or what 14-year-old kid wouldn't go? Now, side note, trains in South Korea are not like trains in the US.

They're really safe. Well, relatively safe. It's not uncommon to see high school kids taking them to get to and from school, to see them going out with their friends. It's like seeing high school kids on the train in New York City maybe, but it's even more common in South Korea.

Now, not that it makes a big difference in the story because you guys and I are not victim blamers, but you get it. So she gets on that train and she's so excited to meet this boy in person. She's looking around the train station. She's like, hello, where's the sky? And I know what you're thinking. She's not going to see a handsome young 17 year old boy.

Maybe she sees a gross 50 year old man staring at her, just wiping his sweat off his forehead, heaving at the sight of her. I don't know, maybe that would have been been safer because the next thing that happens to Alice's she gets hit on the head with a steel pipe at the train station. Yeah 17 year old Peter was there with 11 of his male friends all of them were from medium high school they were high school kids they Alice out, dragged her to a local motel, where they all proceeded to gang rape her. Again, when high schoolers assault and rape people, I know there's a lot of rape apologists, especially their own parents a lot of the times, will be like, they're just a kid, they didn't know any better. I actually have the opposite feelings.

I think it's terrifying that when you're in high school at a time of such confusing innocence and figuring out who you are and being insecure and having all of these emotions you're dealing with, you do something like this. I think I'm even more scared to see what kind of adult you'll become. I don't think that this is, oh, kids will be kids. What are you saying? I was worried about pimples in high school. In this situation, a lot of people were more terrified that they were high schoolers, rather than adults. Because how do you make sense of that? How do you make sense of 11 high school boys

gang raping a 14 year old girl? Well, 11 high school boys and a high school girl. She later joined. She was one of Peter's friends, and as the only other girl in the room, she did not help Alice. In fact, she filmed the whole thing on her phone and a video camera. She just went in and got all the angles.

I mean, I don't understand. So after the gang rape, they sit around Alice and they're staring her down and they threaten her. If you tell anyone about this and if you don't do exactly what we say from now on, we're going to leak this video. This is kind of where society has failed Alice and every other victim. In this moment, Alice and every other victim should be able to say, okay, fucking do it.

That's like showing the world to yourself committing a crime. It's like uploading a video of yourself committing a home burglary. Why would I be embarrassed that my home was burglarized? You should be embarrassed that you're disgusting while criminal and you're going to jail and you're stupid enough to upload it. Do it, everyone's gonna stand behind me. What are you talking about? But you know that's not the reality. And you know Alice couldn't say that, because that's just not how the way the world works.

Even though what these 11 boys deter was cruel and illegal, the shame and stigma of being a victim of sexual assault was worse than any sentence that these rapists would ever receive. Alice did not tell anyone what happened, because if she did, she would be ruining her own life. So she would forever be that girl who was asking for it, or she would be considered damaged goods. Oh, she's too broken today, she's probably too fragile to hire, oh, she'll never be a

normal human again. And Alice was so distraught, she couldn't stand up against society or her rapist. She just had to keep quiet. So when her rapist texted her, next time come here at this exact date, at this spot, or will leak the video, she felt like she had no choice. So for the next 11 months, Alice would periodically return to Miryang, where each time she would be gang-raped by about 7-10 male high school students. The police report suggests that it may have been as many as 24 boys at a time. Over the course of the next 11 months, she may have been raped, gang-raped as often

as once a week. Sometimes it would be in motels, sometimes on tennis courts at night. The high school boys took turns rating her and degrading her by assaulting her with different objects, and they filmed the whole thing. They took photos of her so that they could blackmail her forever. They would blackmail her each time to come back to media and to subject her to more gang rapes and assaults, but they also extorted her for whatever money that she could get out of her father. And they told her, next time, you need to bring us another girl.

If you don't, we're gonna leave the photos and videos. At the end, the boys are the ones that fault, and everyone else just becomes victims, but it is difficult to justify what happened next. Alice brought her 16-year-old cousin to be gang-raped. She felt like she had no choice. And later, she brought her 12-year-old cousin to be gangred. She felt like she had no choice. And later, she brought her 12-year-old sister. Now, everyone said that Alice's younger sister wasn't gangred, and she was only physically assaulted, while Alice was gangred.

But still, I mean, that doesn't make anything better. Suddenly, the high school boys are not any nicer. And eventually, Alice was like, I can't do this anymore. I, this is never going to stop. I don't even know how much longer. Is months, is it years, is it forever? Am I ever going to live a normal life? Am I ever going to be free? She had no answers.

And she feels so depressed. She ends up swallowing a handful of sleeping pills and she prayed and prayed that it would take her life. Now, her aunt happened to be there and she called the ambulance just in time. So Alice was really close with her aunt happened to be there, and she called the ambulance just in time. So Alice was really close with her aunt. Her aunt would actually try to take Alice and her sister as often as possible. She knew that their dad was just bad bad news. She just didn't have the time or the funds to take the girls all the time. She did her best though.

She knew that in order for Alice to try and end her own life, something terrible must have happened. Something so bad. And it's not like she's just sad, it's not about her parents divorced, I mean, something really bad must have happened. So she sits her down and is like, what is going on? You can tell me. And with enough pride, Alice starts kind of opening up. She starts telling her everything about meeting Peter online, going to Mediang, the initial

gang rapes, all the high school boys, how she brought her cousin. Now, I don't know if this is the daughter of the aunt or if this is a different cousin, but she told her everything. Her aunt picked her up, held her hand, and walked her to the police station. They filed a report. Now, the aunt is a very smart and protective aunt. She forced the police to sign an agreement that would promise to keep Alice's identity protected. Even Alice is on knew the stigma of being a victim. Now the agreement is signed, but that doesn't mean that there's not going to be any police mistreatment. Because what happens to Alice in the police station is just so fricking traumatic. First, the police interview Alice for 12 days.

Now, you would think that a female officer would be interviewing a female victim, especially a minor. But no, the police are like, well, shit, we don't have any female officers working this case. And we don't really want to assign one, because that's like paperwork and stuff. So, you're just going to have to talk to one of us nice men. Yeah, well guess what, these nice men, they didn't even believe Alice. Yeah, they were one of those guys. That main police officer that was taking the report, he sat there across from this little girl who had been repeatedly traumatized for the past year and he would ask her questions

like, are you sure you didn't leave them on? I mean, it just, it just doesn't make sense for me because, okay, Alice, think about it from my perspective, right? Are you sure you didn't want it because you kept going back, you know? You didn't have to go back. You weren't like held hostage. Listen, it's like if I don't like the food at a restaurant, I wouldn't go back, but that's just me, you know?

You kept going back. And these boys, they're gonna be leaders of the community one day. And you have to be honest with us because we can't ruin their reputation if it's you know if they didn't do anything He said that yeah, maybe you're just embarrassed listen. I understand I have a daughter too and this is very Scary to me because I don't want my daughter to turn out like you He straight up said he doesn't he scared his daughter will turn out like Alice the male officer accused her of lying and said that

Mian Yang was a good community, so nothing like this could feasibly happen, which means that she was lying. He straight up said, weren't you girls showing your asses to the boys? And you kept going back because you liked it. Listen, my hometown is Mideon and this is going to destroy the reputation of the town and that's just not fair. And if that wasn't bad enough, they made Alice identify her rapist in a lineup. Now, standard police procedures typically dictate that a victim shouldn't come face to face

with their attacker because, yeah, common sense, I don't know, we love to see some common sense. So that's why police stations have one way mirrors or something of that sort. Not this one. The police put Alice in the same room as her rapist. But the police argued, whoa, don't get mad, it's not that traumatic because the rapists had their backs turned. Which like, how are you supposed to ID them anyway? Alice ended up having a panic attack ran out of the police station in tears. Oh, but it gets worse. She's leaving. She's terrified. She's trembling. And the rapist kids, families are outside waiting for their kids in the lineup. They knew she was the victim. They stood there glaring at her. Some even got up in her face and said, let's see if you can sleep well after crying to the police. You better watch out.

They were essentially threatening her and the police did nothing about it. They did arrest 44 boys in connection to the gangroves. Out of the 44 boys, 35 of them were still in high school. These are high schoolers. I mean, how can someone be so young and so evil and so vile and cause so much destruction in high school? When people say, oh, that was high school, like, you know, there's two young, they don't know that they're making a mistake. I always wonder, how old are you? Like, do you not remember yourself in high school? Because yeah people make mistakes in high school a lot of them but rapes not one of them. That is not a mistake, but I guess the police didn't think that because even after all those

rest only seven boys would receive any prison time and the prison time wasn't even prison time. It was in a juvenile detention center. Three of the kids would be indicted without detention. 20 of them were sent to juvenile court but later released after being found not guilty by the court. So that leaves 14 boys. Now these boys decide, hey, before we get sent to Juve, I really don't want to go, we should get together and put our heads up against one another and come up with a plan and I'd see you. Each one of us 14 boys are going to gather money from our parents and offer it up to Alice.

In exchange for her signing some kind of agreement that we'll say, oh, she's going to stop talking about it and we're going to get a small slap on the wrist. Now they knew that they needed to approach Alice right now because she was extra vulnerable. She was only given a single month of PTSD in patient treatment before the doctors essentially told her, fuck off and fend for yourself Which who on earth thinks one month is enough time to process and heal from a years long worth of trauma I it doesn't even make sense to me People think years to heal from one instance of trauma

If even yeah, so the 14 boys their approach her while she's still in inpatient treatment Where she's incredibly emotionally vulnerable and she has no idea why the boys are even allowed in there. She's at the hospital. She has no idea why she's facing her rapist while she's trying to get over her PTSD and the rapists are coming in a group of 14 at that. Like that's... can you imagine how traumatizing that is to see them again in a group? How are they even allowed to visit her? Well, because Alice is a legal guardian, her own abusive father signed off on it. Unlike Alice, he wanted to know how much the boys were going to offer. You'd say, come on, we can't just turn it down.

We have to at least consider it. Here are the boys out. It was roughly $40,000. Which yeah, it's a lot of money, but I would rather watch my repissed burden and hell. And Alice felt the same way. She said she would have never taken the money if her dad didn't force her to sign the agreement. So that he could take the $40,000 and the boys were given a slight just the tiniest little slap on the wrist. And Alice's dad, he bought himself a house. Alice's dad actually died a few days a few years years later, due to alcohol abuse-related health complications,

which honestly serves him right. Now, here's where it gets him furiating. In South Korea, as soon as you turn 18, all your past transgressions are essentially erased. And you can start your life, your adult life with a clean slate. So not only has the identity of the 44 boys been protected, but their police records are now clean.

They can get a regular job, live a regular life, and no one in their lives would ever know that they assaulted and gang-braved multiple girls. It's absolutely insane. And get this. Aside from Alice, her sister and her own cousin, the monsters admitted to assaulting two other girls, unrelated to Alice. It's unknown if the police were able to find the two other girls if they got help, but we know that there's at least five victims, maybe more. Later in live Alice said she really regrets signing that agreement. She felt pressured by her dad.

She was released from her treatment and she went to go live with her mom and soul. And she's trying to go back to this normal high school life, but I mean, it's hard. One time a mother of one of the rapists found out what school Alice was going to approached her on campus and asked her to sign a petition to help lessen the sentence of her son. Someone get this lady and throw her in jail. Mothers of sons like this, I will never understand. I will never understand. I think that sometimes, moms of sons like this, they forget that they themselves, they themselves are a woman. I'm like, are you crazy?

Alice did not sign the petition, but she had to drop out of school the next day. The whole thing was just trauma after trauma after trauma, and Alice said she felt like she was living her life part time. Everything that she did was a constant battle, she had to fight with herself to even get enough energy to leave the house. Basically, she was severely depressed. She developed a severe binge eating disorder. She couldn't hold down a job.

She was struggling. And it was so rough for her. There's even a 2013 movie based off of this case, and it shows a young sexual assault survivor trying to assimilate back into the high school life after her trauma. But we're not even done with this case yet, because the police are on a mission to make you and to make me hate them all.

The police add insult to injury because they refuse to apologize for their god-offal behavior. It starts getting leaked, I mean, the public is starting to find out, wait a minute, what did you do to Alice? Like, what did you say? Because we're getting these reports

that you were saying some crazy stuff to a victim of a gang rape. Some of the police officers commented that Alice was, and I quote, a naughty girl. They stated that they thought Alice was responsible for her own rape. And in a big press conference, the police are asked to address some of these

derogatory comments like, what were you thinking? Do you really believe this? And these are some of the responses from actual police officers. One of them said, wait, why should we feel sorry for the victim? I mean, don't you feel like we're the victim right now?

We're getting attacked for something we didn't even do. Another. I, this whole thing, every single person is... Oh. I don't even know what to say. I'm so speechless. There's not one single person with one brain cell or even the slightest tint of morality and a soul, like not a single person. Another police officer said,

well, nobody should freak out because the parents need to raise their daughters well. They should raise her well and make sure that this kind of thing doesn't happen to her. This kind of thing, you mean premeditated gang rape? You mean parents need to raise their sons well? You mean society needs to punish men and boys who rape so that they have consequences for their actions? Like, is that what you mean?

I hope that if these police officers ever find themselves victims of crimes, that this is the same logic that'll be applied to them. Why were you driving your car to run errands? Were you trying to show off your car? Then why do you drive your car? I mean, it doesn't matter because you shouldn't have done that. So wait, you're telling me you got a car wash

right before this happened. I mean, who were you trying to show off your car to? You were looking for attention. Why would you get a car wash unless you wanted people to look at your car? The outside was sparkling and clean. Why would you do that? I mean, you're just asking to be car-checked at that point. Are you sure you weren't asking to be murdered? Maybe they got the wrong signals. Maybe you didn't explicitly say, oh, I don't consent to be murdered right now, because I don't know. You were probably

caught up in the moment. I get it. You were scared. But how would the killer have known that you didn't want it unless you phrased it exactly like it? I mean, screaming no could mean anything. What if they're like, she means no pickles on my burger please? You just never know these days. What if comparing car insurance rates was as easy as putting on your favorite podcast? With Progressive, it is. Just visit the Progressive website to quote with all the coverages you want. You'll see Progressive's direct rate. Then their tool will provide options from other companies so you can

compare. All you need to do is choose the rate and coverage you like. Quote today at Progressive.com to join the over 29 million drivers who trust progressive, progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates comparison rates not available in all states or situations. Price is very based on how you buy. Why would you break into these apartments? For money, for drugs, whatever was in there. Why aren't you afraid of getting caught at doing this?

No. Who's going to catch us? What a police. It was the height of the crack era. And instead of locking up drug dealers, some New York City cops had become them. This is the inside story of the biggest police corruption scandal in NYPD history and the investigation that uncovered it all. Did you consider yourself a rat? 100%. I saved my soul just like everybody else does.

Listen to and follow the set, an Odyssey originals documentary podcast series available now in the Odyssey app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your shows. I'm not a big guy, man, but I love being a 30-month-old-f**ker. Another police officer said, When a girl comes wagging her tail, every boy will definitely fall for it. If that logic is true, why do men have power?

Why do you think men get up power? I mean, this is what this man specifically thinks. It makes no logical sense to give power to people who, quote, fall over for a wagging tail. Whatever that means. Another officer, even though the police were told to keep Alice's identity a secret, her last name was leaked because one officer got

Jorang at a bar, started talking about the case, ranting about the case, about how it was Alice's fault. And at the end, he turned to the waitress and said, you remind me of her. What does that mean? That's terrifying. Yeah, what does that mean? You were just saying that Alice was asking to be raped. So what does that mean? The waitress was terrified and a decent person. She reported the whole incident to the police. Guess what happens? The officer in question was temporarily

suspended, but he received a paid suspension, A.K.A. he got a vacation before coming back to work as normal. The guy got a vacation. The police were not the only rape supporters though. There was a girl named Sun Mi Huang, yeah I feel listening fuck you. Her name is Sunni. She was friends with the boys and she stayed friends with him after their arrest. But later on in 2012 she became a police officer. When the internet found out they

were shocked, especially after text messages between Sunny and her friend were leaked. Sunny was talking about the gang case and she said, did it all get sorted out? I've heard that apart from three people, everyone else came out fine, meaning no jail time. And she said those girls were ugly anyway, so good work. What do you mean? Which she's texting someone else? Yeah, like one of the work. What do you mean? Which she's texting someone else? Yeah, like one of the boys. What do you mean good work? Good work assaulting them?

Good work that you didn't get jail time. And nobody will be uglier than a person who talks like this about rape. What are you saying? So Sunny comes under fire for everything that went down. And her apology was very much expected. It was nothing new. It was your classic internet apology. I was young and dumb.

I regard what I said. I'm a new person now. I was your classic internet apology. I was young and dumb. I regret what I said I'm a new person now. I don't even recognize her her application to become a police officer was then leaked and it looked so bad on Every single person involved she wrote on her application to be a police officer I'm a very honest and diligent person. I know myself well I think about crime from the viewpoint of criminals as well and in the case of sexual sexual assault, I am able to consider both victims as well as criminals, and whether the victim did not walk around in a manner encouraging to be assaulted. Please choose me for this position, I can do some martial arts as well. Nobody walks around in a manner encouraging to be assaulted. So even after that awful application, the police chose her, they accepted her.

Alice's mom ended up suing the police department for a defamation. She won. Alice got about $30,000. Alice's mom got $10,000. And it's something, but it doesn't even come close to compensating what happened to Alice. And those gang members, they're free.

They're living amongst the crowd. Nobody knows who they are and how does anybody involved even sleep at night, especially the police department. A big topic of that case was herd mentality and herd mentality is interesting because it's everywhere. So it's not just the extreme cases like we're talking about today, but herd mentality exists on every corner of the internet and every community and every friend group, there is always a little bit, if not too much, of herd mentality.

Psychologically speaking, it feels right to be with the majority. There's something called argumentum ad populum, and it's the natural human belief to think that if the majority thinks the sky is blue, then the sky must be blue. Because how can the majority of people be wrong? This is actually a fallacy, but there's also confirmation bias at play. For example, the sky is blue, but it's not blue because a bunch of people think it's blue.

So have you guys heard of the Chinese proverb? It's three men make a tiger. So it starts with a man asking the king. This is the story, right? And he's just asking the king about how he takes reports and what he believes to be true or false because there's always people whispering in the king's ear about everyone. Oh, you shouldn't trust your right hand man. You shouldn't do this.

How do this, right? So king, if one civilian came up to you and reported that a tiger was roaming the streets, would you believe it? Would you believe there was a tiger roaming the streets? The king replied, no, I would not. Well, king, what if two civilians reported it that day? I guess I would think about it. Well, king, what if three civilians reported

seeing a tiger that day? The king replied, then yes, I would believe it. There must be a tiger roaming the streets. But your majesty, the idea of a live tiger roaming the streets is absurd. It's never happened before. Yet you're saying when three people tell you it's true, you will believe it's true that this has happened?

The king nodded at him and said, I understand the story. This was the story that the man used to urge the king to not listen to every bad rumor he hears. But after a short little business trip, when the man comes back, he was no longer in the good graces of the king. Meaning, the king fell for it again. The king believed every rumor about this guy. With no evidence, he assumed if enough people told him the man was bad, then the man was out to get the king. But even though there's no evidence, he had to believe it because three men make a tiger. It's fascinating, and it still happens today to everyone. Has anyone

ever spread an nasty rumor about you? And I remember hearing this phrase for the first time, not even that long ago, like on social media, and it's the most infuriating, shocking phrase of my life. When you say, hey, can you stop spreading this rumor of, for example, that I slept with you because it's not true. I know it's not you, no, it's not. And there's not even evidence that says it. So everyone believes you and it's not true. And someone just says, when there's smoke, there's fire, saying that the rumor couldn't have come from thin air. What?

Which is like, yeah, no shit, Becky, the rumor didn't come from thin air. Someone started it. I mean, have you ever thought that maybe there's an arsonist among us? It's just so strange because it's not logical. It's not evidence-based. It's just where there's smoke, there must be fire. So this is kind of the same as going with the majority. You have this belief of like, well, it can't be coming out of the

near. All these people can't be thinking one thing out of the near. It must be the right thing. It's such a strange dismissal. It's almost as if people already want to believe something and now they're just justifying it. And that's what her mentality is. Gustav Lebon is often considered the father of crowd psychology. Lebon believed that crowds were not groups of individual people, but rather they should be considered their own consciousness. It's their own, almost like their own sociology. He believed that when an individual joins a crowd, they undergo a profound psychological change.

They no longer operate as an individual in a crowd. They almost sacrifice themselves for the goals of the crowd. The crowd creates its own collective unconsciousness, and because majority of the people in the crowd are mediocre, the ideas of the crowd must be dumbed down. And charismatic leaders must do the dumbing down and must rile up the crowds to get the reaction that they want. And it makes it seem like the crowd is doing something fantastic, or that the person joining a crowd is so selfless because, you know, they're get sacrificing themselves for the goals of the crowd.

But not really. LeBan said, in a crowd, every sentiment and every act is almost contagious. Like when you see someone else and everybody else doing something, it gives you a big sense of purpose and you want to do that thing as well. The enemy of being in a crowd provides almost a hypnotic relief. So an individual, if they have these deep down wants and desires to create chaos, for example, and they join a crowd, they're going to use the enemy aspect to really fire up people to cause that chaos. If they did it alone, they would have otherwise faced a ton of consequences, but now they

almost feel protected by the crowd because being in a crowd defuses the responsibility of your actions. And it just feels good knowing that everyone else is thinking the same thing you are. But what happens when you gather six monsters, put them in a group, and let herd mentality run over a hundred miles an hour? That's the story of Jennifer Doherty. She was born in one of the oldest towns in Pennsylvania, Mount Pleasant, and her childhood was actually quite pleasant. It really was. Her mom and her stepfather described her as being incredibly fun and loving and kind and just lovable. She had this childlike

innocence about her, and this stayed with her way into her teenage years. Jennifer actually had some kind of cognitive impairment that stopped her at the mental age of 13. So while her body continued to grow and age, her personality was frozen at 13 years old. So she kept this innocence, she kept this naiveness that you would expect from a 13-year-old, even the while she blossomed into this adult. So despite her special circumstances, Jennifer really wanted to be independent. She saw all of her friends, everyone her age grow up, leave the house, get their own place, and just really experience adulthood. And she wanted that for herself. I mean, of course she did.

So now, obviously, every parent has anxiety. Just thinking about their kids moving out, fending for themselves. Parents are typically overprotective by nature and good parents, you know, they typically mean well, but Jennifer's parents, they had additional reasons to worry. They just felt like Jennifer was too trusting of everyone, but she kept begging to move out, so her parents told her, you can, but we're going to keep tabs on you. Your finances, your bills, we want to make sure that everything is running smoothly. We're going to heavily be involved in your life still Okay, so they come to this agreement and one day in February of 2010 Jennifer asked her parents if she could travel to Greensburg to spend the weekend with a new friend named Peggy

Jennifer said that she met Peggy at a local community center and she just wanted to have a fun girls weekend She didn't have a lot of friends at her age, she's 30 years old now, so her parents are really happy to hear that she's becoming more independent in her own way. I mean, this is what Jennifer wanted for a while. So the morning of February 11th, Jennifer already had her bags packed, she left a note for her mom. It's at mom, I hope you have a good day at work, I love you very much, we'll talk sometime later. She left Peggy's contact information, and Jennifer was just really respectful of her parents. She wanted to be independent, but she also knew that she loved them and they liked it when she left notes, you know, in the contact information. Jennifer was just kind of the kid that always wanted her

parents to know that she loved them and they really appreciated that. So she helps in her dad's car. He drives her to the bus station. She catches a bus to Greensburg. And the whole time, she's excited, okay? It's clear that she's stoked for the weekend ahead. Now, Jennifer's parents were under the impression that Jennifer was spending the night with her friend Peggy, well, not exactly.

Jennifer was actually meeting up with a 23 year old guy named Ricky Smernas. Listen, Jennifer was a teenage girl that hard in mind, and even at 30, if you have a bit more protective parents, maybe you would lie to them when you're going. It's not that you wanna lie, it's just you really like this guy

and you wanna make sure that they're not gonna say no. Jennifer meant nothing bad by not telling her parents exactly who she was seeing. I mean, she was going to Greensburg, and to be fair, Peggy was going to be there. Jennifer and Ricky had been dating for a few months at this point, so it's not like a random stranger that she just met on the internet.

They'd been talking for a while, and she was really in to him. But the problem was, Jennifer was too trusting, and Ricky was too manipulative. He liked taking advantage of her, stringing her long. He just really liked the attention. That's why he liked her.

I mean, when you look at it objectively, Jennifer's 30, Ricky is 23, but she has the mental age of a teenager. So in that context, this is actually quite a predatory relationship with Ricky being the predator. And I can say that with confidence because Ricky had another girlfriend on the side and she was 17 years old. Her name was Angela Maranucci and she's a huge part of this story. But first I have to tell you about Ricky.

Ricky, there's a lot to unpack here. Ricky had a hard life. His mom was a drug addicted sex worker. His dad was a gang member. I mean it's not the ideal parenting duo. Not the sex work part, obviously, but the drugs and the gang stuff. That's not something that you want to bring into an environment to like raise a kid. On top of that, Ricky was sexually abused as a kid. It said that his dad and his uncle

were incredibly sexually abusive. And most of the time, Ricky was sent off to live from foster care home to foster care home. I mean, it was clear to everybody, including the foster care system, that Ricky was exhibiting extreme signs of early childhood trauma. The kid had to go to therapy at just four years old. I can't imagine how much you have to traumatize a four-year-old to the point where the state is like, you, we're gonna pay for therapy for this kid. By the time that Ricky was six, he had already tried alcohol, weed, cocaine, and heroin. What?

How you ask? Well, his great loving parents gave him. I mean, you're talking about a kid that's been sexually abused cannot learn to heal because they're an unstable drug-ridden environment, and Ricky probably had attachment disorders, and the drugs themselves are detrimental to his physical and mental development. I mean, things are not going well, this is not going to end well. By the time that Ricky turns 10, he's already had over 120 separate therapy sessions, which I'm assuming were provided by the state because I just don't see his parents caring enough to bring Ricky to therapy and pay for it.

This is the weird thing. If this is state provided therapy, then I imagine just by the sheer number of therapy sessions that either one, Ricky was super lucky and his situation is almost a miracle that he was given a good support system because we know how the public care system is. I mean, they have its fair share of problems. They never have enough money for a kid. They're not brimming with money, resources. If they're sending this kid to that many sessions,

it's a miracle or two, they probably realized this one needs help. And if we don't get him help, shit's gonna hit the fan. And they were right. At just eight years old, Ricky was diagnosed with PTSD, as well as DID, Disassociative Identity Disorder. Now, typically DID is a severe trauma response. It might happen when you're going through a situation

that's too intense. It's so intense that you can't even process the trauma. You can't even defend yourself. So your consciousness is kind of broken between your regular self and another personification of you that's gonna live through that trauma instead of you. It's not that simple, but to put it simply, it's for your brain to shield your conscious self

from the abuse that you're undergoing. It gives you a way to face a situation and try to cope with it. Your brain is just way to face a situation and try to cope with it. Your brain is just trying to keep you safe and trying to keep you sane. So Ricky was diagnosed with PTSD and DID, as well as 40 other disorders. Now, as a side note, I don't think

that Ricky had 40 disorders. I think that he just saw therapist after therapist and each one would decide, nah, I think you have this one. And they would just add it to a growing list of disorders. So likely not 40, but something was definitely not okay with Ricky. Now, it's not going to be surprising to see that Ricky would grow up and have an extensive criminal history, which included robbery, sexual assault charges. And this is where Angela and Jennifer come in. Growing up, Ricky does not have any parental

lover affection. Now, it's often said that when you grow up feeling deprived of that from your parents, you might crave tremendous love as an adult, not just love, but almost borderline worship. You want people to love you unconditionally and you're incredibly insecure. So you almost feel like people's love for you is going to stop at any moment. You need that unconditional love and that's the only thing that will make you somewhat fulfilled. But it's very interesting because unconditional love is almost never given to any adult in any relationship. Typically unconditional love is reserved for children by their parents and that's it. Because I mean you're like, yeah, I love my partner. I unconditionally love them. Even if they, I don't know,

lost all the hair on their head and went bald and turned into a thumb, I would still love them. Yeah, but what if they were a rapist, you know, which is still up, it's like, come on, there's conditions to this love. So in Ricky's case, he just really enjoyed having two girls swooning over him, which was Jennifer and Angela. He found that the two of them were super easy to manipulate.

I mean, considering their ages and their life experiences, yeah. So Ricky just relished with the two girls fighting over him. He loved that attention. He created this toxic love triangle for himself, and I mean, I think we can see how this is going to go wrong. When Jennifer gets to Greensburg, she believed that she was meeting up with Ricky and Peggy and spending the weekend with Ricky mainly. But in reality, Angela, Ricky's other girlfriend, the 17-year-old, had taken Ricky's phone and was texting Jennifer. She's like, come to Greensburg, come, we'll spend the weekend together, it'll be fun, I miss you. So that's where she went. So Ricky doesn't know? He knows, but he's okay with it. Because again, he's like, oh, this will be a great weekend where they're just fighting

over me and my attention. Why did Angela do that? She was jealous. I mean, a few days ago, she had overheard a phone conversation between Ricky and Jennifer. She wasn't supposed to hear it, but she did. Ricky promises to marry Jennifer. I doubted, he probably told her this to keep her interested in him. But when Angela heard it, she flipped her shit.

Ricky's trying to explain all this and Baybatto mean it, I just feel bad for Jennifer. That's the only reason I said it. Like, I mean nothing but it, I'm just helping her feel better. But Angela didn't care. She screamed at the top of her lungs. I'm gonna kill that bitch. And she meant it.

So when Jennifer got off the bus in Greenspark, she was met by a group of people. Three couples is kind of the easiest way to meant it. So when Jennifer got off the bus in Greenspark, she was met by a group of people. Three couples is kind of the easiest way to describe it. Ricky and Angela, the 17-year-old girl, the other part of the Love Triangle, Peggy Miller, the woman that she was telling her parents she was meeting, and her fiance, Robert Masters. Melvin and his pregnant girlfriend, Amber. Now, it's a lot of names, okay, but they're all important to the case, so I have to mention them. Ricky was like the glue of the group.

Ricky had met Melvin in prison, and like Ricky, Melvin had a really rough life. His dad was a drug addict who spent most of his early years in prison, so Melvin just did not have a father figure growing up. And it seems like his mom was barely in the picture, and when Melvin was just five, he fell out of the moving vehicle and suffered a traumatic head injury. A lot of people that knew Melvin said, after the car accident, he just... He wasn't the same. His personality had changed, he developed learning disabilities, and things just went downhill

from there. Now Melvin and Ricky are friends, and Melvin brings along his pregnant girlfriend Amber, which this is her first time meeting the whole group. So it's like she is, it's not like she was buddy-buddy with all of them prior to all of this, Amber is also new to the group. Amber herself was nervous because she wanted to impress Melvin's friends, she wanted them to like her, and when Jennifer stepped off the bus, Amber was over the moon. She's like Jennifer, is that you?

So Jennifer and Amber had attended West Place, a facility that provides services to people with mental disabilities. So the site of Jennifer made Amber instantly feel comforted. Just to have a familiar face felt so good. Wow. Yeah. The two of them start reconnecting,

they're hitting it off, giggling. And again, it seems like Jennifer has no idea that Ricky is dating Angela as well I'm sure Ricky told her the same story of oh, she's 17. She's so young. She's she has like a schoolgirl schoolgirl crush on me I can't turn it down because she's like this little 17 year old minor who keeps chasing after me I'm sure he fed her some sort of spiel like that and I think she just assumed Angela was kind of tagging along because she was obsessed with Ricky. Now Jennifer thinks that she and Ricky are in a romantic relationship and their relationship is serious and this 17 year old girl is not even a part of the picture.

So of course when Amber is asking her like oh my god what brings you here? I imagine Jennifer is like well my boyfriend Ricky invited me to spend the weekend and maybe Amber had asked, are you guys serious? And Jennifer responded, with, yeah, we're getting married. Now, I'm not sure if that's the exact conversation, but it is mentioned somehow to Amber that she Jennifer was going to marry Ricky. And Angela overhears this.

And she's furious, just beyond angered. Amber said that you could cut the tension between Angela and Jennifer in that moment. The tension was palpable. And as they're walking, Jennifer decides, you know what, guys? I'm actually going to stop by the library real quick and read some books. So she splits away from the group. Yeah, she just goes to the library to hang out. And I guess Ricky felt bad for Angela because he starts holding her hand and reassuring her. And from there, the group kind of disperses to do their own thing for the rest of the day. Now Melvin and Amber had rented a hotel room.

Angela, Ricky's other girl, went out to hang out with them. Melvin and Amber remember that Angela was calling Ricky non-stop and being like, what are you doing? You better not be with that bitch Jennifer. And eventually the three of them decide, let's go join Ricky to see what he's doing. So Ricky was at his cousin's dingy second floor apartment. It was one of those apartments that constantly has people coming in and out, probably doing drugs and then leaving.

Like you know the vibes, the doors are never locked, the bathrooms are atrocious. You just show up and it's a hangout spot. And you don't know why people keep coming because it's like the filthiest place in the world, but it's just kind of where people gather. Well, when Melvin and Amber arrive, Peggy and her fiance, Robert, are already there, partying it up. Now, Angela is 17, so she's like,

I gotta go home for a little bit because my mom's gonna get mad, and I'll come back later. Now, at some point, Jennifer joins the group. She's done with the library. She's been there the whole time. And now when Jennifer walks in, she's happy, and she's comfortable.

I mean, she's been here before. She's familiar with the place. She's comfortable with these people. She feels safe. Now, the next part of the story comes from, well, the killers. It's kind of hard to take the word for what happened. They claim that out of nowhere, Jennifer came onto Ricky. They want us to believe that Jennifer was throwing herself on him,

trying to unzip his pants right then and there in the middle of the living room with everybody else around. I don't think that this happened. I think more likely, Jennifer maybe wanted a hug or a peck on the cheek at most, and Ricky rejected her, which is fine, but for some reason he got angry, very angry. He didn't seem to do anything about it, thankfully, and the night passes.

Angela doesn't come back, everyone goes to sleep, and the next morning they wake up. Now Jennifer was supposed to go home the next morning to actually go to a doctor's appointment, but she decided to call and cancel it so that she could keep hanging out with the group. She calls the doctor and for some reason, this just triggered Melvin and Ricky. Ricky, her supposed boyfriend and Melvin is just some dude that she just met, so why the hell are they pissed? Either they're the most caring people in the world and they want her to be responsible

with her doctor's appointments. Yeah, I doubt it. Or they just didn't want her around anymore and her deciding to stay longer just made them angry. It's feeling very much elementary school. So because the two guys, Ricky and Melvin, they just start screaming at Jennifer because they're mad. They're like, why aren't you leaving? Just full on arguing with her. Ricky even grabs his cell phone to call Angela and says, Hey, Jennifer was coming on to me the whole night last night while you were gone. Angela is getting mad.

Like what did she do? Now Ricky claims he said, Oh, nothing, nothing. She was just trying to hit on me. But I don't believe that. It makes sense that Ricky would continue to fire up Angela. He loved getting this type of attention. He loved making her jealous because he just felt that validation when she was extra protective, extra aggressive over him. It's speculated that Ricky told Angela that he had sex with Jennifer, not because he wanted to,

but she forced it upon him. And he felt bad to say no. Now, I don't think that they had sex. I do think that Ricky told Angela a lie. I think that he lied that they had sex. Because Angela reportedly ended the conversation by saying, nobody sleeps with my man. They hang up and Angela immediately starts getting ready to head over to Ricky's apartment.

She wants to confront Jennifer. Meanwhile, back in the apartment, Ricky and Melvin are starting to get aggressive with Jennifer. They start bullying her. They take her purse. They start rummaging through it, invading her privacy. I mean, she's so confused and scared. These are people that she trusted, at least Ricky.

But now he's turning on her for what? She has no idea. They essentially rob Jennifer. They take her money. Her car, it's her phone, everything. Then they get mouthwash and toothpaste from the bathroom, and they pour it all over her clothes. And her purse.

It's like they were trying to humiliate her. They were destroying her stuff, laughing at her while they did it. She's outnumbered, feeling vulnerable, and she most likely can't leave. I mean, how could she leave? Her stuff is being ruined she has no money. And if she tries to leave, are they

going to get more aggressive with her? Before anything else could be done the situation just escalates to physical violence. Again, I don't know what happened on that phone call with Angela, but it's like the two hyped each other up to do something horrible. At one point someone picks up an empty soda bottle and hits Jennifer over the head with it. And at this point Jennifer decides, yeah, enough is enough. Jennifer stands up for herself.

And this triggers Melvin, the dude that she just met. He becomes more aggressive. He grabs Jennifer by the shirt, throws her up against the wall, and starts choking her. He doesn't let her go unconscious. No, he just does this to scare her. And when he's done, when he gets the reaction that he wants, he drops her to the ground. She crumbles onto the floor in tears. I mean, she's terrified, she's confused.

She had no problems with these people. They never fought. She has no idea why they suddenly hate her, why they want to hate her, why are they doing this to her? Whatever the real reason, it was just the beginning. Because when Angela got to the apartment and only got worse. It's hard to say what Ricky and Melvin's problem with Jennifer was, but it was clear what Angela's problem was. She hated Jennifer. And once she gets there, it's like her mentality goes full force.

Things are escalating and one by one, everyone in the group is turning on Jennifer as if they each have their own problem with her. Which none of them did. But it's like they want to join the majority, they want to feel this emotion. So the abuse towards Jennifer just gets worse and worse and worse. Now remember Amber, the one that Jennifer had known prior to this Melvin's girlfriend? She's there too? Yeah, the one that's new to the group that was so excited to see a familiar face in Jennifer.

Well Amber and Angela, Ricky's 17 year old girlfriend, take Jennifer to the bathroom so Angela can confront her for quote stealing her man. Now, in the bathroom for whatever reason, Amber starts pushing Jennifer into a metal towel rack, face first into a metal towel bar, like those metal bars that you hang your towel. Now Amber has no problem with Jennifer, none at all. Jennifer never did anything to anger Amber. In fact, yesterday, Amber was so happy to see Jennifer. There was no reason for her to be aggressive with Jennifer, other than herd mentality.

And maybe Amber herself being unstable. So Amber is slamming Jennifer hard into the metal towel rack. She caused chest and head injuries and all the while, Jennifer is begging them, pleading, protesting, please, I didn't come on to Ricky, please. I don't want anything to do with him. I can leave right now and you guys will never see me again. I just, I didn't come on to Ricky, please. I don't want anything to do with him. I can leave right now and you guys will never see me again. I just, I don't want him. I swear, Angelic, you can have him.

I mean, you would think that this is the best case scenario. This is exactly what Angelic wants to hear. This resolves the issue. Their fight would be over. Jennifer would never be in Ricky's life anymore. And she can hold Ricky's slimy gross hand, and they can write off into the sunset together. But of course not.

That is not good enough. Angela wants to take it a step further. She stands there, listening to Jennifer's pleas, and tells Amber, I actually heard Jennifer saying she was interested in your man, Melvin, too. She told me that she was gonna steal Melvin from you. This makes Amber even more furious

because she's pregnant with Melvin's baby. And now Jennifer is terrified she's pleading, you have to trust me, I would never do that please. I just met Melvin yesterday, why would I do that? I'm not interested, I can leave right now, you guys will never see me again. At some point Melvin comes back into the bathroom, drags Jennifer out. Now at this point Peggy and Robert are still there. But they're not...

Everyone was there? Everyone, all six people. But they're not really partaking in the torture. I mean, they're doing nothing to stop it, but they're not directly doing anything, which is not an excuse I'm just letting you know what's going on. It's mainly the two couples, Ricky and Angela and Amber and Melvin. So they rush out, they decide to grab a bunch of spices from the kitchen. With a bunch of quick cooking cooking oatmeal They dump it all over Jennifer's hair and they pour water all over her The spices are getting into Jennifer's eyes and she keeps telling them please stop please my eyes are stinging I just want to leave but the group laughed and they said no You're stinky so you have to go take a shower

So they forced Jennifer to take a shower and at this point Ricky gets a call from a guy named Robert They forced Jennifer to take a shower. And at this point, Ricky gets a call from a guy named Robert. Now, Robert is the actual tenant of the apartment. He had sub-leasted to Ricky and Ricky's cousin, and Robert called to say, hey, I need to come pick up a few things. Now it's not really that important to the story, but we just need to know that someone is coming to the house, and they can't let them see Jennifer. So they forced her into the attic to hide.

And when Robert arrives, a big fight breaks out between him, Ricky and Melvin Which I mean, I don't even know how Ricky and Melvin managed to get into a huge fight with Robert When they knew that they were holding someone hostage in the upstairs attic Like it would be in their best interest to just get Robert the hell out of the apartment ASAP before that he could hear Jennifer But they straight up just get into a fight with the guy and it was a big one big enough that the police were called to the house. And unfortunately, the police didn't come into the apartment so they never saw or heard Jennifer and neither did Robert. But I think it just goes to show what? Now the group has complete control over Jennifer again and this time they bring her back down and they forced her to take off her PJs

When she did they threw her PJs out the window into the freezing February air I imagine that they did this to make her feel even more helpless I feel like it's psychological because I mean with that many people It would have been so easy to control her and make sure she doesn't get her hands on any piece of clothing or her clothes ever again. In fact, I feel like it goes against their best interest by throwing her clothes out the window because of a passerby notices. It's technically evidence that she was there, but they did. They threw her clothes out the window.

Then they took hair clippers and they sheared off her hair, just shaved it off. It was a cruel, messy job. They basically gave her a crew cut. In certain parts, her hair was shaved down to her scalp. It's possible that the hair cutting may have been Angela or Amber's idea in an attempt to make Jennifer seem less attractive to them. They were psychologically torturing her all the while they're playing into their own insecurities and trying to make themselves feel better. And I guess the haircut did something for the group because they wanted to humiliate her even further. The group made Jennifer clean up her own hair clippings. And she was crying while she's

doing this and she's asking them why, why are you doing this to me? Angela says why? Jennifer, because you're ugly and no one will ever want you. Apparently nobody told Amber and Angela that a bad haircut doesn't make someone ugly. An a nasty personality does. So Melvin grabs Jennifer, throws her on the living room floor, grabs a dirty sock, stuffs it in her mouth, and brutally rips Jennifer while the rest of the group watches. And at this point, Angela, the 17 year old, is having the time of her life. She's having way too much fun. She feels like this is what Jennifer deserves for trying to take her man But she's got to go home. She's got to pick up her prescription medication and she probably has to beg her mom to ask if she can sleep over

So Ricky Melvin Amber and Angela the main tormentors They all leave the apartment and they leave Peggy and her fiance Robert in charge over Jennifer to watch her Now this is a very awkward situation. Up until this point, they were mainly bystanders, which, I mean, up until this point, I don't know how you can just be a bystander to something like that. I understand that they're outnumbering you, but I would just be like, hey guys, I gotta go home real quick and I would rush out and immediately call the police, or I would grab a vase and like threaten to kill someone to make them stop, right?

They're not innocent. They're not innocent, but this makes it worse. You would think that they would be sympathetic towards Jennifer and they would want to help her, and it seemed like, okay, maybe initially they did. Robert felt bad enough for her he wanted to give her clothes. To help her, you know, not be naked, but Peggy for whatever freaking reason decided that she chose to call Ricky and the others and let them know, hey Jennifer was trying to escape and I stopped her.

Yeah, no, she's trying to escape. She's just been tortured, tormented, and assaulted. Why did Peggy call the group to tell them that? It's like she was trying to be a teacher's little pet. It's speculated that Peggy was scared that if Jennifer got away, she would be the next one. She was one of the more passive ones in the group and the other dominant group members would easily turn on her. But I still don't see how that's an excuse. I mean, you guys are all adults. And here's what you could do, you and your fiance, because your adults could put Jennifer in your car

and drive to the police station. And you could be witnesses to her story. And you would never have to see the rest of the group again, unless maybe you're testifying in court and Jennifer would get justice. but that's not what happened. The others would come back home and they were angry that Jennifer had tried to leave, which they knew this courtesy of Peggy's brown nose and call. So what do they do?

They rally each other up about how fucked up it is that Jennifer tried to escape and they beat her up. And it's crazy because it's like they're standing around saying things like, can you believe she tried to escape? They're saying these specific things to rile everyone else up. And it's like this escalation and then this big explosion. Jennifer was exhausted. She had been enduring abuse for the entire day. She's humiliated, beaten, raped, and it's still going on. And the whole thing is only escalating further. The group forces her to take some of Angela's prescription medication.

They told her it was a mild pain killer. It's going to help with your headache. But of course it wasn't. It was Sarah Quell, a powerful anti-psychotic medication. They forced Jennifer to take a large dose and they wanted to leave her in the living room so that they could sleep. They knew that if she took this much of this medication, she probably didn't have the strength to escape. Jennifer did not attempt or didn't manage to escape. At this point, she may have been so scared and so broken that she was terrified,

or maybe it was the drugs or maybe a combination. The drugs caused dizziness, headaches, especially for someone who isn't supposed to be taking it in the first place. Jennifer was unable to escape and not a single, not a single person there. There are six people there. Not a single one of them tried to help. Not one left to call the police, nothing. I mean, if something happens in a split second, I can understand. You feel like that just, it happens so fast you don't know what to do. But when something takes hours and hours, if not days to accomplish, you have so many moments where you could easily say something, alert someone, do something.

In the morning, Ricky Melvin, Angela and Amber, they need to leave to get something. And they again, leave Jennifer and Peggy and Robert's care. Now this time the group explicitly told the couple, if anybody lets Jennifer leave or even tries to help her, bad things are going to happen. So the two watch over her and they make sure that Jennifer doesn't escape. Now when the other four get back home, Angela decides to accuse Jennifer of drinking a soda from the fridge. She's like, oh my god, she drank my soda from the fridge.

First of all, it's a ridiculous accusation. Jennifer was being watched the whole time, Peggy and Robert said that she didn't drink the soda, so not only did she not drink the soda, but she was in no shape to be drinking soda. She was in no shape to be getting up to the fridge, picking one out, popping it open. I mean, she was so exhausted, she was injured, she was just laying there. So of course Jennifer denies drinking the soda, but it's not about the soda, is it? Angela accuses her of drinking the soda when it wasn't hers, just like how she slept with and

tried to date men that weren't hers. Honestly, it could have been about anything. Angela just wanted a reason to start attacking Jennifer again. So the whole group, they start torturing Jennifer. It's kind of like, the whole group wanted to do this. They thought it was fun. They thought it was exciting. They got off on it, but one of them needed to provide a reason so that they could all save face in front of one another.

You can't just hate someone and torture them from no reason, then you're a low life loser for being a hater. You need some sort of reason to hate this person. So the group doesn't feel like heartless little losers. They feel justified. Angela gave them a reason, and it was incredibly dumb. It was incredibly superficial, and not even believable of a reason for them

to be mad at Jennifer. But again, you don't need a good reason. You just need a reason. So Angela goes up to Jennifer, pushes her on the ground, and starts hitting her. Jennifer, like anybody else, starts defending herself. She wasn't trying to hurt Angela.

She was just trying to protect herself. And in the process, she accidentally needs Angela in the stomach. Angela stops beating on Jennifer. Yes, Sinshok. She looks down at her stomach where she was just lightly Angela stops beating on Jennifer. Gasp, sen shock. She looks down at her stomach where she was just lightly neat and she looks around at her friends. Oh my god, Ricky.

Ricky, can you believe that she just did that? Did you see that? I was pregnant with your baby. I was. I just didn't tell you that. And Jennifer just killed our baby. She killed our baby. Can you believe it?

Wow. First of all, this was news to everyone. Angela never mentioned being pregnant before and I honestly doubt that she was and even if she was I seriously doubt that Jennifer caused her to miscarry right then and there and I don't even know how she could have known in that Instant there was no blood nothing no evidence of a miscarriage, but nobody cared It was just another excuse to keep the torture game going. Now Ricky had the reason to crouch down, put his face right up to Jennifer and say, why should you be allowed to live when you killed my child? Come on everyone, family meeting, which like calm down you're not in the mafia Ricky. And during this family meeting that included everyone but Jennifer, Angela demanded Ricky

choose between her and their unborn, miscarried child and Jennifer. It felt like the meeting existed for the sole purpose of everyone getting on the same page of hyping themselves up. Melvin and his girlfriend Amber take Jennifer into the bathroom and Amber was very upset. She was hard-brain extreme hatred towards Jennifer because Melvin had raped Jennifer and Amber witnessed it And in Amber's mind the rape was not rape and it was Jennifer stealing her man I mean the whole thing is beyond messed up Amber believed Jennifer stole her man because her man raped Jennifer I'm sorry. What kind of logic is that?

So when the couple got Jennifer in the bathroom, they grabbed a metal towel rail like the thin steel pipe part and they beat her on the head with it over and over and over again. In the whole torture situation just spirals at this point, the group decides to degrade Jennifer by forcing her to drink pee. And it wasn't just any pee. It had to be Angela's pee because, and I quote, pregnant pee is stronger. I don't understand. Angela who isn't even pregnant urinates in a cup and they forced Jennifer to drink it. She's gagging, she's crying. They managed to force it down her throat, and I guess they weren't satisfied enough with

this because they make another concoction. It included Angela's urine, her feces, and some random spices that were taken from the kitchen mixed together in a cup. It included Angela's urine, her feces, and some random spices that were taken from the kitchen. Mixed together in a cup. They tried to force it down Jennifer's throat, and I mean of course Jennifer is refusing to swallow it. I don't even think it's like she wants to refuse it. It's how do you swallow something like that? But they continued to beat her and slap her and yell at her until she finally complies.

She swallows every last drop of the disgusting concoction. Then the group had so much fun that they make another one. This one included water, a lot of bleach, cigarette butts, and some of Angela's prescription medication ground up. Now Jennifer again refuses to drink it and they beat her until she agrees. Anytime that Jennifer would gag, Angela would beat her mercilessly. They made her swallow every drop of the disgusting drink. Now this next part, they do it to torture Jennifer mentally

and to dehumanize her because it just doesn't make sense. They grab a thing of Christmas lights and they tie up Jennifer's legs with it. Angela orders the lights be plugged in and she said and I quote, plug them in, I want Jennifer to look like a Christmas tree But for some reason there was a problem they I don't know if they got the plug part tied in wrong They weren't able to plug it in the lights were broken so Angela demands fuck the lights

And they start removing the light bulbs and just using the Christmas wire They tie her perwrest her ankles. They even get a garland around her feet They painted her face with nail polish. They decorated her body like a Christmas tree. And this is so shocking, but they celebrated by taking turns kicking her in the stomach. I guess they argued that the kicking of the stomach was an irrational vile behavior, but in fact it was poetic justice since Angela was pregnant and Jennifer was pregnant. Yeah, they just made up this whole new thing.

Now they claim that Jennifer was pregnant, and since both of them were pregnant with Ricky's baby, and Angela lost her baby because of Jennifer, Jennifer should lose her child too. The whole thing is weird. These pregnancy narratives have no basis at all, and honestly, it's just an excuse to be cruel to Jennifer. I don't think anyone thought either of them were pregnant. They were just high off their own cruelty. They were beating Jennifer with anything that they could get their hands on.

They used a vacuum cleaner, a crutch. I mean, Jennifer was completely broken. She was sobbing and crying and just begging to go back home. She was begging for her parents. Ricky decides to call another family meeting. And this time the question was, should Jennifer live or die? We should all vote. You get one vote each. If you think Jennifer should die, raise your hand. Every single

person voted that Jennifer needed to die. Then it settled. Ricky leads the crowd back outside and he goes straight up to Jennifer and asks, do you want to die? Jennifer obviously says no, I want to go home. Well, you tried to kill my child, Jennifer. I can't let you go home after that. At this point, someone in the group has a genius idea. Wait, let's not kill her. You know, because then we'd be killers and people look for the killers,

we need to make our death look like a suicide. Yes, have a right to suicide that are right now. So they rip a crumpled piece of paper from an old notebook and they force her to write a suicide letter. It said, I haven't been happy for a while, and I also feel like everyone would be better without me on this earth. I will always love my mom and stepdad no matter what, and I will always love the rest of my family. My nieces and nephews would be lucky to have a better aunt than me. I'm done with life, goodbye, Jennifer. The whole thing is just heartbreaking because the fact

that Jennifer died thinking her family would believe that she committed suicide, she died thinking that no one would know the truth. But Angela was not in the mood for sentimental moments. She told Ricky, just kill the bitch. Melvin and Ricky dragged Jennifer to the bathroom. They keep the lights off, throw her in there, and they start arguing, what would we do? Ricky hands Melvin an eight inch Jennifer to the bathroom. They keep the lights off, throw her in there, and they start arguing.

What would we do? Ricky hands Melvin an 8-inch knife from the kitchen. Now, I can't do it, Ricky, you do it. I can't do it either! In the end, Melvin grabs a knife, stuffs a rag into Jennifer's mouth and asks her, are you ready to die? And he stabs her multiple times repeatedly in the chest, her neck, and the side of her body. and he slices

her throat. One of the stab wounds pierces Jennifer's left lung and her heart, and it causes severe internal and external bleeding. But Jennifer doesn't die. Melvin leaves her bleeding profusely on the bathroom floor. She's gasping for air, and he runs out to the living room, and he announces to the group, dang, this bitch ain't dead. What?

Angela jumps up. Well, you need to kill her. I want her gone. Just kill the bitch. I can't believe she's not dead. What the hell? Melvin hints the knife to Ricky, who goes into the bathroom to quote, finish Jennifer. He walks in, sees her on the ground barely alive, and he slice her wrists.

Because remember, they're supposed to make it look like a suicide. I would say it's a bit too late for that. And he walks out. And he announces, she's still not dead. So the whole group goes to the bathroom and they can see that the life is slowly seeping out of her. And the last thing that Jennifer hears is Angela Ranting to Ricky, asking him, what the hell did you even see in her?

And calling her the R word. Melvin starts to get angry too. And he says, God, the bitch ain't dead yet. I guess all of this hyped up the group again. They really feel like pea brain animals, don't they? They're hyped up and angry again and they decide we gotta kill her. So Melvin grabs a Christmas light wire and starts strangling her. And that's how they killed Jennifer, with Christmas lights.

And then they have yet another family meeting, to discuss what to do with her body. Robert Peggy's fiance has the brilliant idea to dump her body on the train tracks. Oh yeah, the police will never find out. Angela said, no, no, no, we don't do that. We should burn her in front of a church. Or wait, no, let's leave her in the trunk of a car.

They're getting the movies? Oh, but that gets that hard because whose car would we use. Yeah, just classic amber. Absolutely foolproof. Ricky shuts everyone down because he has his own light bulb moment. He says, no wait, I know what to do. We just put her in a trash can. Ricky figures out his idea as the best so he starts taking initiative.

He leaves the apartment to steal a neighbor's trash can and they place Jennifer's body into a trash bag And then they place her body head first into the trash can Ricky and Melvin try to get some of the blood off from around the apartment And then the two of them take the trash can with Jennifer's body and just dispose of it They literally just dispose of it Jennifer had arrived at Greensburg three days ago and had suffered horrific abuse at the hands of six different people For two days nearly three days ago and had suffered horrific abuse at the hands of six different people for two days, nearly three days straight. They drive our body to the Greensburg Salem

middle school and they just put the trash can there. Yeah, very sophisticated criminal work. I guess they decided that no one will notice and if they do, there's no way to bring it back to them. Even though they just stole their neighbor's trash can to do this, the whole thing is bizarre. I said they were evil, I never said they were smart. When the two guys get back to the apartment, they pass out and they go to sleep. No more Jennifer, no more jealousy, no more problems, they can all sleep peacefully. The next morning, Jennifer's body was discovered and the pathologist who conducted her autopsy that they were shocked.

Not only did Jennifer's body appear bizarre with the garland and the Christmas light still tied up around her But she had so many injuries. Her system was pumped with medication including Anti-depressants, anti-psychotic meds. Some of the drug levels alone in her body were enough to cause death. Jennifer had also consumed a large amount of bleach. It's likely that she would have died even if they didn't stab or strangle her. Yeah, nobody believed it was a suicide. The autopsy shed more heartbreaking details. The main one being that Jennifer was conscious for almost all of her torture. She was conscious when she was being humiliated, beaten, raped, stabbed, and even when she pled out.

She would have finally lost consciousness when they started strangling her. So for nearly three days, she was conscious for all the torture. Thankfully it didn't take long for the police to piece together the story, and most of the Greensburg 6 is what they're called. They were arrested the same day that Jennifer's body was found. A neighbor had called the police saying, oh my god I just saw on the news, someone was dead. Well oddly enough I heard begging noises and screaming coming from a neighbor's apartment

for like two days straight. Which like thank you good smarratin but you didn't think to call when it was happening? So with that tip the police were able to get into Ricky's apartment and I mean it's obvious that it happened there. The amount of blood was shocking. The blood all over the carpets, even the metal pipes they beat Jennifer with, they had blood all over them. It's almost like they put the evidence, laid it on a bloody silver platter for the police. At first, the five adults were arrested. Angela

was not even considered a suspect because she was 17 years old. They brought Angela in to talk to her, just in case she knew anything about the murders. They were treating her like, like just a witness, but Angela had no idea. She thought the police suspected her. So she brilliantly implicated herself by saying, I didn't kill her. I mean, sure, there was some drama because she wanted to steal my man. Maybe I punched her once, but that was it. I didn't do the rest. So you might have guessed the group does not have a story.

They just immediately start turning on each other. No, he did it. It wasn't me. No, she did it. No, that wasn't me. It was this person for sure. Every single person in that group led not guilty except for Amber. Amber had done some horrific things to Jennifer like slamming her into that towel rack, kicking her in the stomach. I mean, God knows what else. But I guess in the end, she had somewhat of a conscious, she pled guilty, and she asked to help provide evidence for the prosecution.

Initially Amber did not get a plea deal, though later she was allowed to plead guilty to third degree murder instead of first degree, like the others. She avoided the death penalty, and she will not be eligible for parole for at least 40 years. So it kind of seems like Amber genuinely wanted to provide evidence for the sake of her own conscious. She still sucks, but there you go. Those are the facts.

Now, Amber was the star witness. Her testimony was the nail in everyone's coffin. Meanwhile, Angela is not doing herself any favors. A lot of inmates came forward to say, Angela was bragging in prison about how she killed Jennifer. She bragged about how good of a job Ricky did with cleaning up the murder scene, so they were all going to get acquitted. At at this point the scroll is delusional When she was served food one of the inmates around her said oh god, it looks like dog shit an angelist said that's fine

I feed dog shit to our words and On another occasion Angela said does anybody need something to drink because I give bleach to people to drink So Angela's playing tough guy in prison, but in court she's 17-year-old Angela, and she's so innocent, and she's trying to win sympathy, which just isn't a good look when your inmates are literally testifying against you. Angela's mom tried to do some image cleanup.

She testified that Angela was 15 when she was hit by a truck, and she suffered a traumatic head injury. She was depressed, she was abusing alcohol and marijuana. So maybe it's possible that the head trauma was responsible for her violent behavior. But again, it's not an excuse. Another cellmate testified that Angel had asked her, hey, how do you fake being crazy?

Listen, Angel has a lot of problems. A normal person just doesn't do what Angel had did to Jennifer. But she literally lured Jennifer to Greensburg, with which hints at pre-meditation. She lied multiple times to hype up the group to be more cruel towards Jennifer. I mean, the whole thing is just evil.

But because Angela was still a minor, she wasn't given the death penalty. She was given life without parole. And to this day, apparently, she's very annoying in prison. She allegedly loves telling inmates about what she did to Jennifer. She loves reliving her crime and it gives her a sense of thrill. And I guess that's all she'll ever have in life. Ricky and Melvin were given the death sentence. They were the ones that did most of the physical

violence aside from Angela. They were the ones that participated in murdering and disposing of Jennifer's body. They're both on death row, but they've been there for over a decade. It's unlikely that they'll ever be executed. Peggy was given 35 to 70 years in prison. Robert Hifiance, 30 to 70 years. Those two were largely passive and everything, but they were absolutely complicit in the crime. On at least two occasions, they had the opportunity to help Jennifer and alert the police and move her to safety and move themselves to safety if they felt like oh it's gonna be next me next they voted for Jennifer's death they are not innocent because they weren't involved first hand they could have stopped it and that's the story of Jennifer and the

Miriam gang rape case I think her mentality is a very scary thing I think large groups of of anyone, there's always going to be people that take it too far. And they don't represent the whole group, but it's still scary. And I think what's scarier is what happens when you have a group where each person wants to take it too far. Where each person wants to do the unthinkable. Where each person wants to do the unspeakable. I mean, what happens when you get a herd of monsters? How do you stop them?

Not said for today's episode, and I will see you guys on Wednesday for the main episode. Stay safe. Bye.