Rotten Mango - #228: She Was Frozen Then Sadistically Lit On Fire While Alive by Evil Friends

Episode Date: January 11, 2023

The 3 men sat in front of the priestess. She was their spiritual godmother. The one that was to help them stay protected in life. She peered into a crystal bowl filled with water. Her wrinkled face changing rapidly, her eyes darting about, it was as if she was watching a silent movie in the bowl. She told them that bad bad things were happening around them. She saw a spirit. She looked up and indicated the spirit was behind them. The men jerked their heads and saw nothing. “She’s there. The woman. She’s following you, her spirit wandering around, what you did to her… it’s bad. She will now follow you wherever you go.” The 3 men left with chills. How did she know what they did to Kim? They wondered if the spirit behind them was on fire… because that’s what they did to Kim. 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

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 coverage 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. Batting Bataboo Welcome to this week's main episode of Rotten Mangle. I'm your host Stephanie Sue. I've never heard of Centeria until I started researching this case, and I hope that I'm getting it right. I googled it a billion times,

I've watched YouTube videos on it, I even went to TikTok because sometimes Google tells you one thing, and actual practitioners are like, that is not what it is at all. But Centeria is a Caribbean. Well, a lot of sources say it's really started in Cuba, but it's a pagan religion derived from religions in Africa. It's often described as a mixture of African religions and Catholic

Principles it's practiced by hundreds of thousands of people not only across the world But heavily practiced in New York City which I note a lot of people claim and well no a lot of ignorant people claim that Centuria is witchcraft and I find that to be very telling of a person that is accusing. Okay, it's not very different from any other quote to mainstream religions. In the sense that there's a belief that's held. Believers practice certain guidelines. And generally speaking, they carry faith with them as a way of protecting themselves in their current life, their afterlife. You get it.

The religion centers around worshipipping ancient African gods. And those who carry the faith believe that you can perform spells, rituals. I don't know if these are the right words to use. That's what my research pulled up, but it's more like carrying out a guided practice. And I know all religions have some sort of guided practice, whether it's communion, you know, so don't be calling it witchcraft. So you do that to win the favor with your protectors, the saints and the gods that are protecting you. It's to help guide you through life, protect you from devastating hardships, and even help you accomplish your biggest dreams and goals.

At the root of Santeria, at least to my very, very extremely limited knowledge, it seems that believers just want to be good, do good, and be protected in the process. And just another disclaimer. As long as people are not committing crimes, hurting others, or in their in good ethical standing, why does it matter why? Why does it matter what faith they hold that guides them to have these types of morals? We could all use more good people in our lives. Now, because Centria is a Caribbean religion, many practices call for Caribbean ingredients, which are next to impossible to find in New York City.

Sometimes you can go to a Centeria store, purchase herbs, spices, whatever you need, and sometimes if you're really lost, without direction, you can consult a spiritual godmother. In this case, there is a woman named La Madrina. She lived on the lower east side of Manhattan, and her door was always open. She was a beloved figure in the community. When you walked into her house, you were hit with this strong smell of incense.

She had these huge altars of colorful statues. My grandma was super Catholic, so she had a ton of altars in her apartment. I can already visualize it. Lemadrina had these colorful statues of saints, gods, goddesses. She would place offerings of fruit, rom, cigars at their feet. And Lemadrina moved around the apartment with such ease. It looked like she was almost floating.

She would wear these flowy white dresses. The only reason you could hear her moving about was because she had several strands of colorful beads around her neck. Sometimes they would be criss-crossed around her waist and chest. L'Madrina had seen a lot in her time. She had seen people coming to her for all sorts of guidance, where their family had fallen gravely ill, some people lost their livelihoods. Maybe they wanted their one-sided love to be reciprocated. She had seen a lot of things, but these guys sitting in front of her were the worst that she had ever seen in her life.

Three of them. She led them to a white table with a crystal bowl filled with water. And again, I'm not entirely too sure if this is a common practice for centriote practitioners, but this was for La Medrina. She gazed deep into the water and she let it ripple. Her eyes were darting about the bowl and her wrinkled face changed rapidly. She was smiling then she looked horrified. It's like she was watching a silent movie that nobody else could see. She told them I see bad bad things happening all around you. I see spirits behind you. And she whipped her head up and all three of the men, they whipped in unison, they jerked their heads back,

and they saw nothing. And they stared back at her and eyes wide, she told them, a woman, she's following you. Her spirit is still wandering, this is a very, very bad thing. You did something to that woman. The woman will now follow you wherever you go. They all glanced at each other. How did she know?

Lemadrina explained to them that each of them had spiritual guides that watched over them, and today she saw that none of them had come. They had all deserted these three men. One of them, his guides left, and Lemadrina warned, your guide is no longer with you, he's no longer protecting you, you's no longer protecting you, you are completely on your own. Then another one of the scared guys in front of her was told that his spiritual guide was dead, he was burned alive, and your fate will be the same.

She urged them to all wear her multi-colored strings of beads around their neck at all times, they needed all the protection that they could get, and she ordered them to have a spiritual cleansing, a ritual bath. It was an exorcism of the bad spirits, they were to do it to the tea as per her instructions, or it wouldn't work, and they would have to do it alone. All three guys walked out of their innitages, with one thing echoing in their minds. Lama Jirina had said the woman spirit was on on fire and they wondered if the spirit was Kim. The one that they had sadistically lit on fire not too long ago. She was alive when they doused her with gasoline and threw a match on her.

And now Lama Drina told them she was following them around everywhere. Hmm, how does she know? Yeah. As always, full show notes are available at Rottenminglepodcast.com, but there is an incredible read on this case. The most comprehensive, gut-wrenching deep dive that you're going to find. The book is called Burned Alive by Kieran Crowley. This is the type of book and the type of case that's just going to stay with you for a long

time. After doing the research, it was one of those cases where I would get random flashes throughout the day and I just couldn't help but shut her because the details are so gruesome and they would just rush back over me and it was so...it's like looking into the eyes of pure, pure evil. Like that's what this case feels like. So please go give that book a read. And with that being said, if something happens to me,

give this tape to the police. These were the last words Joey Negron would ever speak to his aunt and uncle. The two people that raised him that meant the most to him. They were confused. He shoved a cassette tape into their hands and Joey's uncle tried to reason with him. Joey, what's going on? You don't seem like yourself. You need to go back to church. All will be right when you go back to church. Joey burst into tears. This is very unusual from someone like Joey who likes to talk about how he's a hard ass, you know.

And he cried to them, I can't. I can never go back. God can't forgive me. I've done something so terrible. I'm going to hell. Joey, that's not true. You have to go back to church. God can't forgive me. I've done something so terrible. I'm going to hell. Joey, that's not true. You have to go back to church. God can't forgive anything. Anything that you've been through. Joey shook his head. No, almost a panicked man or any declared again. No. I can't go back. I can't go back. God can never forgive me.

And he left his confused and stunned uncle and aunt with a cassette tape in their hands. And he went home to try and protect himself one last time. Not for the younger people because that tape is audio. Yeah, it's like an audio recording, yeah. He went home to protect himself, not that he deserved it, but he still had that undeniable self-preservation taken side of him. He filled the bathtub with water, filled it with the herbs the centeria priestess, Lama Dreenad, given him.

He soaked in it for as long as he could before he drained the water. He didn't dry himself. That was important. That would defeat the whole protection spell. He threw a white robe over his body. He gathered his clothes, the same ones that he wore three months ago. And he tried not to look at the part of the zipper. On the jacket. The zipper had broke. The metal teeth of the zipper had been ripped out. She had done that. She had done that. She had done that to try and save her own life. The metal zipper fragments would forever be lodged underneath her fingernails. He grabbed all the clothes that he wore that day and he went to the closest bridge and threw them all over the bridge. Then he reached into his pocket, picked up a bunch of silver coins and threw those into the river. It was for the river gods.

It was also the river gods. It was also ordered that any time he crossed this bridge ever again, he would have to give offerings to the river god, almost like a spiritual toll, if you will. This was Joey shedding the ghosts of his past and he hoped that Kim would finally leave him alone, but Gild is not that easy to relieve. Joey stuck his hand in his pocket to clutch the colored beads. He was supposed to wear them around his neck for protection. That is what Lemadrino ordered, but Joey chose to keep them in his pocket instead. Maybe that's why it didn't work.

Not too long after, Joey was walking into his house from his parked car. He had just gotten home from an outing. I mean, everything was supposed to be perfect. At least as perfect as Joey's own guilt would let him feel. He had his girlfriend's four-year-old son in his arms, and towanette, his girlfriend, had gotten out, and it happened so fast. A car pulled up, someone jumped out the passenger side, aimed a gun and fired, and it was like someone took a picture of them. It was a bright flash of light, and then darkness again.

And before they knew it, the car skidded down the road, and Joey had been shot to death. He didn't even have time to register, he was being killed. It was instantaneous. It seemed someone wanted Joey dead. They knew the guilt was eating away at Joey. Any moment now, he would become the weak link that would end all of their lives. Joey had to go, so they killed him.

They shot at him at such close range they literally scorched his hair and scalp as well as the insides of his skull. It was honestly a merciful killing. It was instantaneous, much more merciful than the way that Kim and Tanako's had died. She had spent days chained up in a basement starved without water, without even shoes, stuck with no cover from the sub-freezing temperatures in New York, her body over the course of a few days, painfully, achingly, slowly froze.

She was frozen stiff, but she was still alive. Then to complete the cold-hearted devilish murder, they poured gasoline all over her frozen body and lit her on fire while she was alive. First frozen, then burned, murdered. Tommy Antonacos was a very successful businessman, even by New York standards, which is kind of incredible. Tommy was 50 years old and he made his fortune in insurance real estate. He owned a long island from called Vista Systems of Ron Concoma. Sorry, I don't think I'm saying that right. Ron Concoma,

were they sold mainframe computers to Fortune 500 companies? I don't know what that even means, but it sounds very, very lucrative. He worked closely with his brother, Joseph Anton, and the two of them, they made quite a name for themselves. So you would think, if you asked Tommy, hey what's your biggest accomplishment in life? Maybe he would talk about the struggles of how he became a business owner, maybe he would talk about the huge contract he signed, he would do none of that. Without skipping a beat, Tommy would say he was the most proud of his 20 year old daughter, Kim. Tommy was no longer with Kim's mother, Marlene, but they were both co-parenting. They were just

different. Tommy and Marlene, even the way they looked was so different. Tommy was half-grick, half-italian. Marlene was like this all-American woman. I mean, that's not why they broke up. I'm just giving you a way to picture them, right? They broke up because they just didn't mesh well. So they divorced, they start co-parenting Kim. Tommy mainly got Kim on the weekends, and he cherished every single moment. He's the type of that that you knew never to make plans

with him if Kimmy was in town, because there is no way that Tommy would rather spend time with anybody in this world other than his daughter. It was so cute, he planned every single weekend to a T. Friday nights would be like Chinese take up movies, Saturday, pancakes for breakfast, the mall, arcade, whatever Kim wanted, he was doing it for her. He called Kim every single day that they weren't together. The highlight of his entire day was talking to his daughter.

Which I think says a lot about their relationship because they spoke every single day on the phone even when Kim was going through that teenager, Anxsty, rebellious face. Like she never felt too cool for her dad. The love and respect, so mutual. Kim was like his pride and joy. He lived his whole life for his only daughter, his only child. He spoiled her rotten. Even for a huge communion party, he rented out a space at Central Park. The kids were riding around in horse-drawn carriages, Kim had the dress of her dreams. They hired a famous singer, Tony Bennett, to personally sing for Kim. Even Kim was shocked.

And even though she grew up around all this money and privilege, she was a really humble girl. Her whole belief was, you know, having money is to make your life easier, but also to make your loved ones' lives easier. So she was super generous, and that sadly would be the reason for her death. Later as a teenager, Marlene remarried, moved to Florida, and Kim made the difficult choice to stay with her dad in New York City. And he was over the moon.

He was like, yes, please move in with me, but she negotiated with him. She's like, dad, promise me you'll never remarry. Because Kim took Marlene's remaring really hard. It was tough for her to see her mom move on. She didn't want to see her dad move on too. Tommy agreed. He pinky, pinky promised.

And it was hard to think about it. A lot of women were throwing themselves at Tommy. Not only was he a successful businessman, but he was genuinely a really, really good charismatic guy. Yes, he had girlfriends, never bought them home, never made Kim feel uncomfortable, never left Kim to go hang out with a woman. Anyone that came into his life romantically, they knew the deal.

This was a man that you would never be first place in his life. That spot would only and solely be reserved for his daughter and there was no way around it. So it hit Tom pretty hard when at 18 years old Kim is like, okay, I love you but I'm gonna move out. He's like, what? I think it's tough because Tommy knew that Kim was somewhere responsible. She would be completely fine if she moved out, but he was so protective over her. That was his little girl. And he's thinking, why? I mean, your college campus is closer to me than Brooklyn. Why do you want to move to Brooklyn?

Why can't you just stay with the commute? It's not that bad. But Kim was determined to get a taste of that independence. And he agreed, but there was some more negotiation. OK, he's ever the businessman. She wouldn't be able to pay for her whole rent, since she would be a student studying business management. But he's don't wanted her to learn the value of money.

So she would at least have to contribute some money for rent. And what's really interesting and really respectable is that Tommy could easily afford to get Kim the most luxurious place in Brooklyn, like a penthouse in Brooklyn. But he felt like he would be robbing her of that feeling of accomplishing more and more in life and seeing your situation change and your home change.

That was all something that he felt she needed to experience. So the guy spoiled her, yes, but he was a great father. Side note, Kim did get along with one of Tommy's girlfriends. Not like in the sense that he had multiple girlfriends, but just the woman that he was dating at the time, Gina, she was a furniture business owner, so Kim got a job there as a bookkeeper. And she liked Gina, she liked her job. That was one part of the deal with Kim moving out. There were other parts.

Tommy wanted to be involved in Kim's hunt for an apartment. He wanted to scope out the place, scope out the landlord, make sure it was safe. He wanted Kim to have a two bedroom apartment, you know, so her mom Marlene could visit and stay with her, and he was gonna buy her a new car so she could drive to school and back. It was like an episode of HGTV. There was a lot of requirements for this one and they found the almost perfect place. It was a ground floor apartment of a three-story house on a very quiet cute street near um Karnese beach. It's in Brooklyn and the neighborhood was known to be safe. Tommy loved the fact that the landlord lived on the second floor. He was retired, elderly disabled veteran and his favorite activity was to sit on his favorite chair and stare at the window looking at the street. So Tommy was like,

okay, this kind of seems perfect, right? This is my jam. The only problem was there was no connected garage. So Tommy rented a basement garage from a family who lived right across the street. And it's like a residential street. So it's not like a big street. And Kim could park her new white Honda Accord there that he just bought her. And wait, there's more. Tommy bought Kim a cell phone and a pager. So pagers were a lot more popular back then because cell phones were still pretty expensive. Basically, you paged someone to call you and they'll get a phone and call you.

You can send messages here and there, but you can't really talk on it. So basically nobody had phones back then, mainly pages. Kim got both. So this is very expensive and she got a new puppy. Tommy gifted her a pit bull puppy that she would name sugar. Finally, the man is like, okay, dog phone car, elderly retired veteran. Okay, this is perfect. Check, check, check, check.

This is the only way that I know that my daughter is going to be safe. Of course, he was still going to call her every single day. They would grab dinner at least once a week. And since her dad only lived 10 minutes away from her college campus, they would stop by and grab lunch with each other all the time. That's almost like being a good dad. And you want to watch out for your kid for their first apartment. That's almost like being a good dad, and you wanna watch out for your kid for their first apartment.

That's almost like everything you could possibly do, right? I don't know what else you could do to ensure her safety at this point. He did everything right, and it's like, you know, I guess some protective parents would be like, you're not leaving, but I think letting your kid grow is so respectable, you know? Yeah, it worked for about 15 months.

Tommy was just adjusting to Kim moving out when he gets a call from Gina, his girlfriend, Kim's boss. It's around 3pm lunchtime. Maybe she's taking a break from work. He picked up and Gina sounded stressed. Tommy is Kim with you? No, Kim is not with me. Isn't she working? Kim never came into work. I got a call from her friend April and Kim never came home last night. So side note about April. April was one of Kim's closest friends and she had just moved into the spare bedroom in Kim's apartment. April was going through it. She had a baby with a man named Josh Wattouras and her mom hated Josh. So April's mom gathered up all

their things, kicked the three out, including the kid. They had nowhere to go. They did have an apartment but it was being renovated. So long story short, they were basically stranded and Kim is not the type of person to let any of our friends be stranded. So they temporarily moved in. I mean, this is a big deal. You have a two bedroom apartment that's three additional people, including a little child living with you. At 20 years old, I can't think of a single 20-year-old who'd be like, yeah, I want a kid in my house. For free. Why not? So what happened the night before when Kim didn't come home? Tommy gathered that Kim was with her other best friend, Liz. They went out dancing,

they left the house around one. Those last time April saw Kim. Liz said they went to try Becca at a party. Left around 4am, they didn't drink much. Kim drove Liz home, which is about five minutes from Kim's place in Brooklyn. And Liz assumed that she drove home after that. Like Kim never mentioned any plans to meet up with someone after dropping off Liz. She didn't seem in a rush to get somewhere after dropping her off. Nothing to indicate something was out of the norm. And that's-

So just the five minutes wait from home. She was missing. Missing. Wow. That was the last time anyone had seen Kim. April actually called Gina early in the morning. And April was like, hey, I just want to know if Kim made it to work because she didn't make it home last night.

I thought maybe she slept over at Liz and went to work. I can't really get in contact with her. Gina didn't immediately call Tommy because she's thinking maybe it was a while night. Like, I mean, think about it. I don't want to ratter out to the father that she had a long night with someone that maybe he wouldn't approve of. Like that's not a great way to make an impression on your boyfriend's daughter. So she waited and waited. And when Kim didn't show up till 3 p.m. Gina's like, okay, sometimes Kim can be late, but she's never a no-show. She will call me.

Tommy immediately felt his stomach drop. Like, you know when you go down a roller coaster? He dropped everything, hung up, jumped in his car, started driving to Kim's place. All he could think about was Kim. He drove faster and faster, and it took him a second too long to register that there were flashing lights behind him.

In office, her pulled him over for speeding, and Tommy tried to reason with him. He's like, please, I have to rush to Brooklyn. I have to find my daughter. She's missing. The officer was in an understanding mood. He let him go with the warning. He's like, just take it easy. Tommy would not take it easy. He's bet all the way to the apartment and rang the doorbell. Look, Tommy knew he had heard from Kim that a couple and their young son were staying with her because they were down on

their luck. Tommy was actually glad when he heard this because it was just more people to watch over Kim. But he had never met them. So this is not an ideal situation to be banging on the door, sweat dripping down his brows, panic in his voice, wears Kimberly! Josh Torres was the only one home, April was now at work, and he's like, oh hi, who are you Kim's not home? Do you know anything about what's going on here?

When's the last time you heard from her? She called last night to say that she was going out, and we haven't heard from her since. I found her phone book and I've been making calls to her friends to find out if anyone's heard from her. She called last night to say that she was going out and we haven't heard from her since. I found her phone book and I've been making calls to her friends to find out if anyone's heard from her. I made like 40-50 calls. Everyone's calling back except some guy that's written down as Psycho. I've met him like once. Tom's entire heart dropped. His breath hitched. Psycho? He's a really bad guy. At one point he was kind of obsessed with Kim. She was kind of scared of him.

This was the first time out of all their daily phone calls Tommy had ever heard of an obsessed guy named Psycho like none of this is sounding good. Did you check to see if her car is in the garage? I don't have a key. So together, the two of them, they practically sprinted across the street to the owners of this garage.

They asked for them to open it up and Kim's car wasn't in there. Tommy had seen enough. He hopped back into his car, drove to the owners of this garage. They asked for them to open it up, and Kim's car wasn't in there. Tommy had seen enough. He hopped back into his car, drove to the nearest precinct, and demanded to report Kim missing. I always think reporting someone missing is like the most heartbreaking thing because your heart is racing.

The whole world feels like it's crumbling. You can't think straight. Everything feels like there's a giant timer taking away in the back, and you can't let yourself think about what happens when that timer runs out. It feels like the world is no longer even orbiting. And then you walk into a police station and the cops are giggling.

And the receptionist is moving slowly. They're taking it easy, adjusting their belts before sitting down and taking a sip of their coffee and going, so it's going on. That detached and mixed-matched energy, I think it would drive me insane. And that's exactly what happened to Tommy. NYPD basically told him, sorry dude, she's not a minor, she's not mentally or physically disabled, she's not a danger to herself, we need 24 hours before we file a missing person's report.

Maybe she's out with a guy, you know you're her dad, she probably doesn't want to tell you. Tommy's like no, she would never, he refused to leave. He asked to speak to another detective, another one, and then another one, and then another one. And finally, Tommy sat down at Detective Phil Tricola's desk, and Phil had no reason to take Tommy's case. None of the other detectives before him did. But Phil felt a little sympathetic.

So he's like, okay, I'm gonna start investigating right away, starting with Liz. The best friend that came went out to try back away last night, the last person to see her live. Liz was a great witness. She could describe every single piece of clothing and jewelry that Kim had on. Liz provided in-depth descriptions of any and all identifying

marks on Kim's body. For one, she had two tattoos. One was a scorpion, Kim was a scorpio. And the other one was a tattoo of a naked man and a woman, and their bodies were entwined in the shape of an infinity symbol. So while Detective Phil is gathering up facts, Tommy refuses to just sit around. He starts calling around asking everyone to help him find Kim. They were all riding around New York to try and see if they could find her car anywhere.

Their heads were turning anytime they saw any girl with long, dark hair. Their hearts were pounding at the sight of any white car, particularly any Hondas, which there's gonna be a lot of Honda quarts in any city. Meanwhile, Josh was calling up everyone in Kim's notebook, and sure enough, everyone eventually picked up, except for the Psycho Guy. Josh is like, I feel like we gotta find this Psycho Guy. Tommy's like, yeah, I think we do. And he responded, I just don't like the way that this looks.

Who said this? Tommy. I don't like the way this looks. Yeah, like this, you know, the whole, it doesn't make sense. There's no logical reason for her to be gone. That night, Tommy called his attorney and the FBI. And even then, there was no way he was sitting still. He went back to the parking garage looking for clues

And I guess it's father's intuition because he found a clue on the ground was the tiniest little glint Tommy pointed at it and Josh was with him right Josh rushed over to pick it up and oh my god an Earring is a gold seashell. Tommy was certain that it belonged to Kim Which meant that she had made it home all the way into the garage probably parked her car and then she and her car were taken which meant that she had made it home all the way into the garage poly park to a car and then she and her car were taken. Tommy immediately called Detective Phil but he wasn't having it. Detective Phil is like the thing is Tommy, she could have lost that earring months ago. No but I already called Liz.

She was adamant that Kim was wearing gold seashell earrings last night. Are you positive? I'm positive detective. Okay I'll tell you what. I'll put out a bulletin, a bowloat for Kim's car. Anyone in the city is going to know that we're looking for that car. In fact, all 50 states are gonna get a bulletin for that car. And we'll even get a helicopter in the air to try and find her car in the city.

It's the most logical route. Finding someone in New York City is nearly impossible. Finding a car may be a little bit easier. Kim hadn't used any phones and credit cards to indicate where she was. Okay, well that's not entirely true Kim's phone was used, but the police didn't think it was used by Kim near the JFK airport Kim's phone Pinked someone was calling 611 customer service. It's that they were trying to um get her password to her phone Like forgot password on phone

So yeah things weren't looking great the police try to go down the tried and true to Avonio of boyfriends and partners and love interest, and there were a lot of problems in this arena. Kim was a beautiful woman with thick curly black hair full eyebrows full lips and she had these big brown eyes. So yeah, guys were practically falling at her feet wanting to date her, marry her, but Kim was not into any of them. She just wasn't at a stage in her life where she was looking for something serious. I think she was really smart about dating.

She was looking for anything serious. She dated a bunch of guys that weren't really husband material. They weren't bringing home to a protective Italian father material. They were like bad boys from the clubs, but she never got attached. She never got serious. What was the harm in just casual dating? A lot of times the guys would find themselves for the first time in their lives, broken up by Kim. Julio Negrone was one of those guys.

Julio went by the nickname Jay, but we're gonna call him Julio. So Julio met Kim through Josh. Side note, Julio and Josh are best friends. And if you're like that last name sounds familiar, Joey Negrone is very different from Julio Negrone and they have no blood relation. They just have the last name. Julio and Josh were best friends. They grew up around

each other. Julio grew up in poverty and life had dealt to him some shitty cards I'm not gonna lie. There was almost like a K drama when he met Kim. She's this carefree, gorgeous young heirs to a huge business. Julio never even for a second thought that he had a chance with someone like that. Not only is she from a wealthy background but she was beautiful, sweet, fun, but more importantly, Kim made Julio feel like an equal. Something that even someone would just a tiny bit more than his socioeconomic class would not have done for him, but here was Rich wealthy Kim doing it, just being a decent human,

and he was just mind blown. He adored her, and he claimed Kim really didn't feel the same way. Yeah, he was great to Kim. Nice yes, but Kim never really felt that love. She thought his tattoos were cool. He had a broken heart tattoo on his chest with the word mom on there. Yeah, I know. But after a few months, Kim was kind of bored of him.

So she broke up with him nicely, suggested that they see other people and Julia was devastated. Again, Kim dated a lot of guys from clubs that had never been broken up with a day in their life, so he's shocked, confused. He tried to give Kim space thinking, no, like, she's gonna come back.

She can't resist all of this. You know, she's gonna come crawling back to me. Kim did not. The next time that he saw Kim, she was with a guy named Sean. Uh, really tall handsome black guy. And he was like, what the fuck? Why? What just happened? He stayed up all night in bed thinking, what does this guy have that I don't have? Sean was also poor. He actually grew up in more poverty than even Julio, and the guy sold weed to support himself. Julio is like really salty about this guy. and Kim actually really liked Sean.

Maybe one of the boyfriends that she actually liked but they broke up because Sean couldn't stop cheating on her and their breakup was mutual. And after they broke up, Kim saw Julio a few more times, almost like a rebound. For her, it was super casual. They were just hanging out. But Julio, it was hope that she was going to come back to him. So that's a lot more people now added to Detective Phil's list. We have Sean, Julio the Gellisex, and some guy named Psycho, Psycho the Stalker.

So Psycho was obviously a nickname. This guy was Russian. Here's a few clues on why everyone called him Psycho. He had the word together tattooed in the front of his neck and the word together, tattooed in the front of his neck, and then the word forever tattooed on the back of his neck. So connect tattoo, front and center? Yeah, look, he was one of those thin, pale, skinny guys that had that, okay, not to be offensive, I'm just giving you information for context clues.

He kind of had that like MGK vibe about him, do you know what I'm talking about? Just kind of like, like that's definitely aesthetic that some people are very drawn to. Anyway, he met Kim at a party, bought her a very, very expensive bottle of champagne which is super overpriced at a club, and then asked if she would go on a trip with him to Florida.

She was super confused. She's like, I just met you at this club. Why would I go to Florida with you? But she thought, you know what? I was gonna go to Florida to meet my mom. So I'll just hang out with you in Florida, but I'm not gonna stay with you. Like I'm not gonna live with you.

I'll just see you in Florida. So she's like, okay, sounds good. It was during the Florida trip that she started realizing exactly why everyone called him psycho. For one, the first day of the trip, he was like, you're the one for me, I love you. You're the girl that I've always dreamed of.

So they're in Florida hanging out. Yeah, and she's like what? I did this like my second time meeting you He also introduced her to his parents and professed her that he loved her so much he even pulled out a ring a ring Oh my god, no no no like two days He put on a ring and proposed and then forced her to go shopping with him Where he bought her two thousand dollars worth of designer clothes and then tattooed Kim on his thigh. Kim was freaking terrified. I mean this guy was some sort of super creep. What if he didn't take no for an answer? So she smiled, took the ring, but when they got to New York City, she gave them back the ring and had him drop her off at April's place.

This is before April moved in with her. Kim didn't even want the guy to know where she lived. So she freaked out. For the next few days, he called non-stop. He was obsessed. But it seemed like he got the hint. After a few days, he just vanished. She was so relieved. And then a few weeks later, she went to a club, saw a guy that had the same eerily similar MGK vibe as Psycho, and he walked up to her and he was like, are you Kimberly? Yeah, we know you Kimberly. I know where you are. And then he walked off to her and he was like, are you Kimberly? Yeah, we know you Kimberly. I know where you are. And then he walked off and she was terrified.

I mean, she lived on edge for a while because of it, but nothing seemed to come of it. That was in January and now it was March and Kim is missing. Whether you're doing a dance to your favorite artist in the office parking lot, or being guided into Warrior I in the break room before your shift. Whether you're running on your Peloton tread at your mom's house while she watches the baby. Or counting your breaths on the subway. Peloton is for all of us, wherever we are, whenever we need it.

Download the free Peloton app today. Peloton app available through free tier or paid subscription starting at $12.99 per month. 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 gonna 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. I would suit up in my uniform and we're going to want some drug dealers, and I know how to do it really well. 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 bad guy man, but I love being that dirty mother f***er. Kim's roommates, friends, April and Josh, they were urging the police that Psycho was really dangerous. They needed to find him ASAP. Time is of the essence, which I mean, they're not wrong about that sentiment. And without a name to go off of, they're racing against time to find Psycho.

Meanwhile, Tommy's brother, so this is Kim's uncle, Joe Anton. He starts getting involved in the search, and this is pertinent later. But a strange rumor starts circulating amongst Kim's friends and acquaintances. Basically, anyone who knew her, that the mob was involved. So Joe and Tommy, they're both half Italian, and they look look very Italian if you look at pictures of them and Joe and on shows up at Kim's house, which is kind of like the center of the Kim's search party all her friends are gathered there and all these dudes show up in suits But not like finance pro suits. I'm talking super meaty guys Italian accent and everything like shirts

Yeah, open. Yeah, and some chest hair and a gold chain. And they're like Italian. So everyone's like, oh, that doesn't like look like your typical office worker. And with Joe and Tommy's whole vibe, everyone joke that they were involved in the Gambino family mob. One of the most powerful mobs in New York. Another thing that fueled the rumor was the Gambino family were notorious about hating outsiders. There's like a whole section in New York where you can't rent or own a place unless you had mob connections. But allegedly, the brothers,

Tommy and Joe had a business there. So how did you even rent the space? So ding ding ding, they must have had mob connections. Listen, it was a strange rumor. Even stranger was the fact that everyone started speculating that maybe Kim was targeted because her dad was in the mob. So maybe Tommy had fucked with the wrong person, and now Kim had been taken. Even detectives got wind of this rumor, but nobody believed it was a viable theory. The detective said there was nothing to indicate that Tommy was part of the mob, and usually the mob doesn't kidnap the children when shit goes down.

If Tommy did something, he was gonna get a bullet between his eyes. That's usually how they do it. The police. So who are those men? Are they just friends and families? Yeah, friends and family and employees. They just dress certain way that people say, oh, that's definitely mom.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. It's very interesting. Yeah, the police believed that it was more likely a car jacking gone wrong or a scorned lover. Speaking of a scorned lover, the police got a hold of Psycho's name, looked him up in the system and it wasn't looking good. This guy had a record.

In fact, he was in the middle of a charge. He had gotten out on bail after being charged just one month ago for a whopping a 12-year-old girl. They found Psycho, they brought him in. He seemed confused. Maybe it was an act, but he kept asking, wait, who is she again? They're like, you don't remember the girl whose name

you had tattooed on your leg. That makes a whole lot of sense you weirdo, we're not buying it. And Psycho lifted up his pants and he was like, wait, no, that's not a name, it's an acronym. They looked at the tattoo. There was a period between the K. I am. Okay.

No, like what is it stand for? I mean, it's just Kim though. And he said, it stands for kick it, Mike. My best buddy's name is Mike. And Mike kicked drugs, so I got it in honor of him. They're like, the cops are like, what? I mean, he could have easily tattooed the periods on later after Kim was missing.

But their read on psycho was that he was just too chill, too calm, too helpful, but not in the suspicious way. Like, he seemed super nonchalant. He was like, yeah, cute cops, I didn't do shit. But you know, guilty to proven. So I'll see you in court. Like, yeah, he just seemed very, like it wasn't giving the response

that criminals usually give when they're caught. Or even questioned. It was just like, I don't care. You can ask me whatever you want because I had nothing to do with it. So they were gonna keep an eye on him, but their gut told them it wasn't him. But Tommy, the dad, obviously he wouldn't let it go, would you? I mean, can you blame him? This is his daughter.

He kept telling the detectives that kid kidnapped my daughter. I know that he did. Josh told me that he saw that kid and his friends driving up and down Kim's block the night that she went missing. Phil was confused like none of this was making sense. Either psycho was innocent or he was the best-am liar that these seasoned detectives in NYPD Not even freaking a small town in Georgia NYPD had ever seen and no offense. None of the cops thought he was smart enough to be the best liar they had ever seen. And then a phone call. While Tommy was at the police station, they get a phone call.

The detective picks up. What do you have? We have a female whiter, Hispanic, and our 20s block hair, Scorpion, tattoo on her hip. Detective Phil's phone dropped from his hand. In his 12 years of working for the station, this was the worst news he had ever received. Not that he had an dealt with homicide cases before, but Tommy was right there staring up at him. On Phil's desk was a smiling happy photo of Kim at the beach and on her hip, a tiny little scorpion tattoo clearly visible. The detectives put Tommy

in a room and a bunch of them came in to talk to him. Tommy said he knew that his baby was dead when they walked in. There was just something in the way that he looked at him and he knew that Kim was gone. They told him, we have a body. Tommy started pulling up photos of his daughter basically asking with pleading eyes, like is this the body that you guys found?

Is this one hurt? Is this hurt? This is what she looks like and they had a look away. They had a tell Tommy, we can't use those pictures. Why can't you use these pictures? I don't understand. They try to tell Tommy, we can't use those pictures. Why can't use these pictures I don't understand? They try to be as gentle as possible, but there's like no way to deliver a message like this, because your daughter has been burned. The girl we found we can't identify her with pictures. We will need her dental records.

Tom's entire world crumbled in around him. So what the hell happened? Less than 12 hours ago, around 3am, there were dogs going crazy. One dog in particular just wouldn't stop barking. And the owner of this dog was like, come on, it's a schnauzer. The dog is a schnauzer named Baby. And Janette, the owner is like, baby, shut the hell up.

It's 3am. I'm getting sick of you. Go to sleep. The dog would not go to sleep. Just kept barking up a storm, it's like the dog knew something that she didn't know. Their neighbouring house, the neighbour's house, had a bright orange halo around it and black fumes engulfing it on a quiet street, in queens. Firefighters rushed to the scene and tried to get in.

The fire was coming from the basement, but they had tried to open the door and they found a refrigerator was blocking it. Someone blocked the basement door with a refrigerator. They moved the fridge out of the way and rushed to the source of the fire. They saw her. A figure next to a metal pole, and it was clear even in the fire they could see the body of a young woman. They put out the fire and her body was beyond saving.

It did not take a detective to know that something was wrong. For one, it's a really sad fact, but firefighters are pretty knowledgeable and aware of how humans tend to react when they're stuck in a fire. Most of the times, they'll find badly burnt bodies, and usually they're all in the same defensive position. Feet all position, hands up near their face, almost like a boxer. But this body, her hands were stretched behind her back. Strange, it's not even a comfortable position let alone a defensive one when you're trapped in a fire.

When they get closer, they see remnants of burned duct tape on her wrist and forearms. The worst part is that the girl's body, other parts of her skin were covered in red blisters, which means that her heart was pumping blood to the afflicted areas, and her body would only do that if her heart was pumping which means she was alive So you're like, okay easy find the homeowner find the tenant and you most likely have the killer It's a bit trickier than that The house belonged to an elderly woman named Ruth McCook and it was practically an abandoned house Ruth had a bit of a sentimental gene about her. She lived in that house for God knows how long

She raised her kids in that goddamn house. And as she got older, you know, life hit her pretty hard. She had diabetes, they had an amputated leg. Ruth had a move in with relatives who would take care of her, and she refused to sell her house in Queens. She had spent her whole life there, she'll be damned if she sells that house before she dies. Every day the kids would come to her,

mom, you got to sell that house. And she would yell at them, I raised you in that house before she dies. Every day the kids would come to her, mom would sell that house, and she would yell at them, I raised you in that house. End of discussion. She even insisted that the electricity be kept at 55 degrees, which that's very cold yes, but the house was empty besides furniture and some non-centimental stuff, to heat it above that during cold New York winters in March would have been a waste of money and energy But she didn't want anything horrible to happen in that house Every first Friday of the month her son Wayne would go up in there and pick up Ruth's social security check

He would sometimes stroll inside to make sure everything was all right more or less in order all of Ruth's stuff was You know in this house, but none of it was a value and Every first Friday of the month He would call his mom and plead once more without success. Please, mom, you gotta sell that house. Now, February of that year, Wayne noticed a basement window had been broken. And the spare key to the house near the front door was gone. But he didn't think to do anything of it because he thought, my mom has already sunk so much money into this house, the last thing I'm gonna do is sit here and pay for a new window, or even a locksmith

to change the keys. Besides that, I mean, again, there's nothing of value in the house. This was in February. Kim was killed in March. She was actually in that moment. In the house, the first Friday of March when Wayne went to visit. But he never went into the basement. He had no idea that just below him 20-year-old Kim and

Tanaqos was bound gagged tied to a chair with her arms around a metal pole and she was barely alive. He genuinely had no idea, like there was no suspicious noise, nothing to set off any alarms, and now Kim was gone forever. She was dead. But the police were gonna use this information to their advantage to try and bring justice to this case because clearly she had been murdered They had no leads so they started with all of our friends the detectives asked Kim's friends to come to the station And they didn't tell them why didn't tell them that Kim was dead They wanted to gauge every single person's reaction in real time because sometimes that is the most telling

Yes, April and Josh the couple's roommate the couple roommates were the first one called in, as well as Julio, her ex boyfriend. April was first. And her reaction to the news was strange at best. Like, I'm just going to be honest, I'm not a good reactor. I smile when I get really, really bad news because I don't know why in my head. I'm like, if I smile, this is not true. Like this is not real. This is not happening. But hers was this even stranger, if I can judge. The detective said, we found Kimberly. Someone burned her and she's dead. April was pissed and she said, you motherf***ers, why don't you tell me on the phone? Why did I have to come down here?

You could have just told me on the phone. It wasn't even a normal response. It was so unexpected. It wasn't even a fake sad response. it was just bizarre, I tell you. The detectives did nothing but glancing at each other like, are you seeing this right now? The precinct is only 10 minutes from where April was living, so it's not like she had to drive across the country for news that she could have been told over the phone.

And then she randomly burst into tears. And she said she wanted to go home or she wanted Josh to be in the room with her. So they call and Josh into the room. And as he's walking in, he's telling the detective, all preachy, I'm gonna do anything to help his assistant this because I'm looking to find the people who did this. He walked in, sees April crying, he's like,

why are you crying? And while the investigators study their body language, April told Josh that Kim was dead, and then she tearfully added, Kim was a sweet girl who had all the toys and money, but she wasn't stingy and would share what she had. I mean, I guess that's nice, but it's genuinely so bizarre. The detective later turned to Josh and asked for his birthday, which they had already asked April. So it's not like they were singling him out out of nowhere, but he jerked up like, what do you need my birthday for?

Josh reluctantly told them, and then they asked if he had any nicknames that he went by and he said KQ KQ Stance for King quality, okay Joshua Torres King quality if you consider length to be a good thing Then he had a quality police record. He was only 22 at the time, but he was already involved in sex trafficking When he was 17 he would go around recruiting eight- old boys in the neighborhood to make some money He would pay them 20 bucks and turn around and sell these little boys to pedophiles that were paying 200 for each session with each kid Yeah, I didn't even pocket a hundred and eighty dollars. He did this for almost six months before he was arrested and tell me why Tell me why he got no jail time instead of straight up sex trafficking of a minor, his official charges were, quote, promoting prostitution. Can you repeat what he did one more time

because I've never heard some teenager tell us that. He was like, hey kid, you want to make 20 bucks? And then he would kidnap them, sell them to a pedophile for an hour, and make 180 bucks. And I don't know if this was because he was a minor. He was not charged with sex trafficking of a minor. He was not charged with sex trafficking of a minor He was not charged with statutory rape or any of that. He was charged with promoting sex work

He got no jail time. He was the middleman in a child trafficking scheme He got no jail time. Then a year later he gets arrested again for our robbery the charges were dismissed a year after that He gets arrested for rape an unlawful imprisonment of an underage girl. Would you look at that another sex crime? Crimes against children, and he got a whopping 60 days in jail, 62 freaking months for raping a minor. Then this is wild, okay?

Then the year after, he was arrested for carrying a gun. Yeah, he didn't have a license to carry. He got 18 months in prison and 3 years of probation. Tell me how the fuck he got more jail time for carrying a gun than literally waping and facilitating the rapes of countless minors. So Josh is clearly a shitty person. But why was he so kind and helpful to find Kim? Like maybe he's just a menace and terror to children, maybe he's like a stellar friend

other than that. What if he treated all adults with a ton of love in respect like his baby mother April? Let's talk about their relationship real quick. April was the only one that works. She paid the bills, cooked the food, paid the grocery bill, and it's 2023. I'm not trying to insinuate

that the man has to be the breadwinner. But Josh did nothing at home, like he was in a house husband. He did nothing but cheat on April. He never helped watch their kid, never did a load of laundry, never did the dishes. he did nothing but cheat on April. He never helped watch their kid, never did a load of laundry, never did the dishes, all he did was cheat on April. But does, does him, being a deadbeat father and asshole make him a killer?

No, especially since he had an alibi for when Kim disappeared. His alibi was April. And as for the night of the fire, the night that Kim was killed, Joshua's with Giulio, Kim's ex-boyfriend and they were hanging out all night long. So the police could do nothing, but watch his suspicion as Josh and April walked out. There was just something, there was something about Josh. He was bit off, and it didn't help

that his name kept coming up. Other friends of Kim's that were interviewed, and they would later say that Josh was strange. He basically held tours like the Hollywood tours, but with Kim's murder house. So he announced to two of his friends, Kimberly is dead. They found her, somebody burned her. Do you wanna see where she was in that house?

So two of his friends who would later tell the police, the story they said, we had never met Kim once in our life. So we were just trying to support our friend, Josh, who had lost his friend. So we definitely did not wanna see the house, but Josh kept insisting he was almost pleading with us. He's like, come on, I want to see what's going on.

So the two went with Josh and it was strange. Maybe it was an understandable way to deal with grief though, right? Maybe it would give Josh closure. Maybe it would, um, he would be able to believe the murder if he saw the murder house. Now here's a strange thing. Get this. When Josh gets to the house, we'll rather on the way to the house. His friends realized he never used a map, never referred to a written set of instructions or directions, never looked for street signs, never stopped to ask for directions.

He drove all the way from Brooklyn to Queens, to that house, and then parked his car in front of it, and sure enough it was a house with police tape. And he said, like some sort of sick tour guide, that right there is the house where she was held. Then they drove all the way back to Kim's apartment and at this point, Josh was no longer living in Kim's house. April's apartment had been renovated so they moved in and Kim's house was this gathering spot for all of her grieving friends and family. Josh pulls up and he finds April, his girlfriend, Julio, his best friend, Kim's ex-boyfriend, and Sean, Kim's other ex-boyfriend, and he's like, hey, we should all go to the house where Kim was killed. Like, he had just gotten back, mind you. And they all initially refused. They're like, why would we want to go there?

But Josh keeps urging them, like, let's go, let's go. So once again, he drove everyone there, and when he parked him for the house this time, nobody got out. They just stared out the car window, and then Josh drove everybody back to Kim's place. The weirdness doesn't stop there. The next day, Kim's good friend Tara told April that she wanted to see the house where Kim was found. I guess Tara had been a really close friend and she was heavily involved in the search so far, so it was kind of like getting closer. I imagine that maybe I would want to go there to see that this is not a house that I walked by a million times to see that. I don't know why, because if I had walked by it a million times, all it would do would

destroy me. If I hadn't, I would still be destroyed. I don't think it would alleviate the grief, but I think humans do things that we don't really make sense. So Tara wanted to go. And Josh was like, all for going to take you there. So the three of them, Josh, April and Tara, they get into the car and Josh turns around from the driver's side, looks Tara in the eyes and is like, hey, I heard you had a video

camera, can I borrow it? What, why? I want to tape the scene. It was such a strange request, Tara refused, because I mean, why would she? So he just silently went back to driving and they arrived at the house. Tara glanced at the house from inside the car and asked to leave. It was quite emotional for her. Now this is the third time that Josh has gone to the house. He would go another time, a fourth time,

alone. And this time he said that he didn't stay in the car. He walked right in, passed the police tape downstairs to the basement, and he claimed that he just... he wanted to see for himself. And then he did something that for a while, nobody would know about, and how they known it would have had the hairs on their neck stand up. Josh smirked, brought out a can of beer, popped it standing in the middle of the basement, raised his beer in almost a great gatsby-esque fashion, cocked his head to the side and said, sorry Kim. The next day was Kim's funeral, and it was just a heartbreaking day for almost everyone.

Kim's parents couldn't stop crying, Their eyes were perpetually bloodshot, but both of them were trying to stay strong, because even though they're the most broken ones, they wanted to bring comfort to all of Kim's friends who were young, and they didn't want these kids to be traumatized for the rest of their lives. Marlene even comforted Julio Kim's ex. She gave him a big hug and told him,

Julio, you know what's gonna be all right. Yes, I'm sorry, Marlene, I offer you my condolences. Julia finally worked up enough nerve and approached Kim's coffin. Sean was there, looking at smiling photos of Kim. And the two X's start crying in front of the coffin. Tommy walked over and between them, put his arms around them both. Try to comfort them and he said, don't worry about it. It's going to be alright.

I promise you, we're gonna get these guys. We're gonna get him. Julio's voice shaked in rage. Yes we will. And when we do, I want to crack at them. Julio sobbed all day long. Julio was crying for Kim for the cruelty that took her away from the world and for him.

But he was also crying for himself. Joshua Torres didn't shed a single tear at that funeral. He had once claimed Kim was like a little sister to him. Actually, he claimed Kim was like a little daughter to him. He claimed he wanted to get to the bottom of this, and yet here he was at the funeral, not an ounce of emotion. But we'll get back into that. The day after the funeral, Kim's car is found, a abandoned, in a rich neighborhood in Long Island,

like it was bizarre, it just parked outside of a house since the day that Kim went missing. And yes, the whole town and city were looking for that car, but none of the residents really thought anything of it until day after day they saw that nobody had driven that car away. What's eerie about all of this is that detective Phil lived a few blocks away from where the car was found.

So he drove past that car twice a day to get to and from work, but there were trees that blocked him. Literally, if it had been parked one space behind or one space forward, he most likely would have seen that car. So the police rushed to the car and there was no evidence in the car. And that itself was suspicious. Someone had clearly wiped all the prints,

even leaving very obvious cloth white marks on the windows. There were no prints found on the car, and the only thing they found was a gold seashell earring in the trunk. Another neighbor came forward to say that after the car was found, she was looking around her yard and just inside the fence, a row of duct tape was found. Someone had parked the car, wiped away all the fingerprints and decided to throw the

duct tape over someone's yard. I mean, I don't know what they were hoping. Did you hope that duct tape would just spontaneously compost, compost in like 0.2 seconds? But the tape had no prints. So again, no leads, no evidence, except a tiny tiny little lie. Joshua Torres, the biggest, the best big brother in the world, the one who helped Tommy Kim's father by going through the phone book and calling everyone, will a few lies started to come out about Joshua. First, he didn't call anyone in Kim's phone book, he called like five people.

Most of them being friends of Kim's that he potentially was interested in dating, including an ex-girlfriend. Remember, he kept telling everyone, I called everybody at an only psychoderm pick up. He called like five girls. The police got a hold of Kim's pager records and they found that Kim's pager was at home the night she went missing.

She took her cell phone out. She left her pager at home and that pager tried to pager Joshua. But if Joshua's at home, like he said, fast asleep with April, why would someone from inside the house try to reach him? And it couldn't be him because he's sleeping. So would April just wake up in the middle of the night and be like, let me use Kim's page to page Joshua, even though I see him sleeping in my bed right now. It was weird. A few other tiny little lies that turned out to be explosive or

Josh claimed that the night that Kim died, the authorities were able to pinpoint a time of death, basically when the house caught on fire. And Josh claimed he had been home around 1am that night, which meant that he would have been home before the fire started, so he couldn't have possibly set the fire. Well, a few friends casually mentioned without realizing that they were destroying Josh's alibi, that Josh came home that night around 2.30am. And when the police asked Tommy about why he was so adamant that killer was Psycho, Tommy said,

well Josh told me when I first got there that this guy Psycho had been bothering her and he thinks he's the one that did it. So it seems like Josh was trying to shift the blame to somebody else. And even indirectly sent the cops on a wild hunt to catch Psycho. And since we're on this topic,

Tommy realized something that was odd. While he was searching for Kim with Josh, he had driven past his church, Tommy's church. So he went in to pray, and so did his girlfriend Gina who was also there. Josh is like, I'm gonna wait in the car. Tommy thought at the time that this guy's just not religious, but in hindsight it just seems off. What did you say? It's about time the police have another chat with Joshua? Well this time they wanted to be sneaky with it. A little goofy if I'm being honest. They asked Josh to come in and talk to them, routine questioning, everyone's being asked to come back in. So Josh walks waltzes straight into the police station and he's greeted like the MVP of the detective team. You know,

they're smiling, shaking his hand, thankful for his time. Oh, thank you for the help through the investigation. Interesting thing to note, the police said that they were sad to see April couldn't make it with him. And Josh responded proudly, you know, my baby mother's at work. He never referred to April by her name in conversation. He only referred to her as my baby mom. That should be enough red flags. So the investigators, they sit him down

and they ask him some innocent questions. Josh went on and on about how Kim is like a little sister to him, oh actually, more like a daughter figure. Whenever she had a new boyfriend, he would pull that guy aside and threaten them, tell them, you better treat her right or you gotta deal with me. So noble. The police were asking Josh to run us through the night that Kim disappeared. Okay, well I woke up, April went to work, Kim was at school.

I was cleaning up around the house. I walked the dog, then I went to the renovated apartment that I have with April and I was just cleaning up there and came back to Kim's around 12 a.m. went to sleep. Please, are you sure you were home all night? Yeah, we watched a show and I went to bed. You sure you didn't go out for anything at one point to the store?

Nah. Are you sure? Not even for milk for the baby? Nah, I don't do that shit. Literally Josh looked disgusted at the idea that a man would go to the store to buy milk for his own child. Meanwhile, he said that he was a father figure to Kim and that he was super protective. You're not a father figure to anyone.

Not even your own child, you idiot. But this was actually a good sign in the investigation. The detectives picked up, Josh was a raging macho man with an alpha male tiny peen complex. So they leaned into it. The two cops played desperate, they said. Listen, me and my partner, we got this case. We're not getting anywhere, we're stuck.

Our boss is breathing down our neck. Like, what do you think happened? And just like that, Josh was trapped in his own ego fortress. That made him feel superior to NYPD cops. He could teach them a thing or two. He was one of the boys. In fact, he was the leader of the frickin' boys. The detectives were coming to him.

He was in control. He had the power. He had the knowledge. And immediately his demeanor changed. He squared his shoulders. He crossed his arms, and he starts addition out questions like he's the sheriff in charge. Well, you got the car. You get any prints from the car?

Yeah, we got numerous prints. This was half true. They got a ton of prints but most of them were Kim, so they were useless. If you have fingerprints, then how come you don't know who it is? Sometimes it takes six months for the prints to come back, but as soon as they come back, we'll know who it is. Another lie. They were hoping that Josh was dumb enough to think that fingerprints took six months to come back, but as soon as they come back, we'll know who it is. Another lie, they were hoping that Josh was dumb enough to think that fingerprints took six months to come back.

But the thing is, Josh, we don't think that psycho did this. I think you're right. Here's what I figure happened. There were three guys. The cops laid an on-thick. They asked like a student, asking a professor or a mentor. Wait, three guys? Why three guys?

Josh explained, they need their own car and someone to drive Kim's car. So far that's only two guys, but the detectives didn't question it, they just let Josh talk. Look, the dads loaded. They came up behind her in the garage, threw her on the floor, put her in the trunk of the car. They had at least two cars.

They went out to Long Island, one following the other, got to Queens. The house they kept, they called it a sweet house. Seriously? Yeah, this is his theory of what happened, but it's basically what happened. Yeah, why? This is so bizarre. Yeah. It's said that a lot of, well obviously, I'm sure you guys have picked up all the killers get trapped a lot by their own egos a lot, and it sounds dumb until you're a killer with a very large ego. And it's like, you can't even help yourself.

Okay, okay, that makes sense. Yeah. I guess why that she can't help it, but keep going back to the site. Yes. Like, why would you even do that? Just freaking lay low, right? Yeah. But they can freaking help it.

And it's so public. He's like, hey, everyone, let's take a field trip. It's not even just like, I'm going to go alone with nobody knows. I see, I see, I see. Oh, it gets worse. So they're like, what's a sweet house? A house that they had been to before. They had to burn the house because they don't wanna have to kill her.

But you know what shit happens? The shit went bad. They had to burn the house to get rid of fingerprints. It was all over money and the shit went bad and they panicked and they had to kill her. But you ain't gonna get them because these guys are tight. These guys are gangsters. They ain't gonna talk to the police.

They're not gonna give each other up. Josh said that last part, almost as if he was talking with pride. The cops smiled and they kindly added, well, I hope you're right because in our experience if there's more than one of them, one gives up the rest. Nah, not in this case, they're too tight. And then Josh went on a whole rant trying to tell the cops that Tommy was involved in the mafia, so the mafia probably did this. Now the police went in and they asked for Josh's beeper number and he was confused and then they asked him all innocently. So I guess the confusing thing is for us, you know, we went through Kim's page of records

and she paged you from inside the house, but she wasn't home. But you were home. Suddenly, the guy that never went to get milk, claimed he went to the store for milk that night. That's why he was beeped. It was probably April. He was in home for a second. That was all. And then Josh got pissed. And he realized that the cops were almost accusing him after he had helped them. So he sneered at them and said, hey, if I was involved in this, I would have fed her and she would have been released.

With those words, his grave had been dug. Police never released this information to anyone, but when Kins autopsy was done, the medical examiner found Kim's stomach empty, since the day that she was kidnapped. She had not been fed four days. Nobody knew that Kim had been starved before her death, except for the police and her killers. He said I would have fed her. Wow. If Josh knew, she had not been fed, he was guilty. But the cops did not have enough evidence to arrest him that day. So after all of that practically sinisterly admitting

he had killed Tim, Kim, he was able to walk free out of the police station. But the police were trying to do everything to slowly ruin this guy's life so that they could arrest him. They brought April into the station, showed her all of the logs that Josh dialed. Remember when he was calling all of Kim's friends? In reality, he called like five girls.

They were hoping that April would put two in two together, but she was just pissed. She literally screamed. He was calling that bitch. Josh called them the next day to complain to the detectives that they were quote, a fucking up his life. He hinted that April is kicking me out now. You guys fucking up my life, I ain't talking to you no more. But to put a stop to it all, Josh was like, fine, I'll take a polygraph. He thought if

he could answer all the questions truthfully, they would stop bothering him. And I quote, fucking up his life. Now you're like, wait Stephanie, I thought this guy's guilty of something. That's why you've been obviously so ungracefully hinting at this episode, you know, the whole time. So Josh thought that if he smoked a ton of lead, it would mess up his results. Like, everything would be scrambled and nothing would be usable. There would be no baseline because he's high out of his mind. That didn't work. There was a baseline, and then these are the questions that he lied on. Did you set Kimberly on fire, which resulted in her death on March 4th? Did you take part in the plan that resulted in Kimberly's death on March 4th?

Did you take part in the plan that resulted in Kimberly's death on March 4th? Did you take part in the plan that resulted in Kimberly being reported missing on March 1st? Did you take part in the abduction of Kimberly? He answered no to all of them and they all indicated untruthfulness. Now you guys know how I feel about polygraphs, I don't love them, and neither do the courts. A polygraph is not irrefutable proof of guilt so the cops still couldn't arrest Josh, but they were more adamant now that they were barking up the right tree. And the polygraph did help, in the sense that after the polygraph, Josh was not arrested. He didn't know that he thought he passed it, genuinely.

So he got cockier and cockier. He was so arrogant at this point, he started telling anyone who would listen that he had kidnapped Kim. I'm serious! He started talking to random people about how Kim's dad had money, so the plan was we, we don't know who he is yet, but he said we were going to ransom her but the deal went south and she had a burn. He was laughing while he said these things, he thought it was hilarious, he thought he was badass, then he would throw lit matches at people and he would say flame on, like he thought

it was a super villain trademark. He did that non-stop so people would associate that with him and he would say flame on. Like he thought he was a super villain trademark. He did that nonstop so people would associate that with him and he felt invincible and cool and also that's like some shit that you think of in middle school Josh you're kind of lame. In all the cops all they could do was watch. Josh did ask that he passed his polygraph and thought the cops were no longer interested in him. The only struggle in his life at this point was watch. Josh did ask that he passed his polygraph and thought the cops were no longer interested in him. The only struggle in his life at this point was April. April broke up with him through a matter of the house. You know, job, you know, money. Is he gonna get a job?

Payzone bills? No. He's gonna find a new girlfriend instead. 25-year-old Ricalm and Talvo, better known as Blondie. She was very beautiful, had strawberry blonde hair, big blue eyes, she had four kids, and she was looking for a prince charming in her life. Her husband, the father of her children, was a drug addict. He contracted a fatal disease, presumably through shared needles, and he committed suicide. She was never really over it, and Josh knew how to play up that sympathy card. He would sit there and tell her, you know, I know what it's like to have someone die.

It disgusts me to think that he could be talking about Kim. So, Blondie was perfect for Josh. She had a nice apartment money in the bank, a blue motorcycle that he was using, and Blondie was allegedly out to get a good chunk of cash from an insurance settlement. So he's sweet talk to her into a relationship, and soon enough, he's moving in. Not that he stops seeing April though, so April kicked him out but they were still sleeping with each other. And Blondie had her suspicions. Josh would always claim that he was going to go help April with their son but she felt like something fishy was up. And this would be the reason everybody gets caught, because Blondie is like, I think Josh is cheating on me. Just wait, okay, she's going to be very pertinent later.

Now two things to note before we talk about what actually happened to Kim. The first being that most of this story comes from the testimony of somebody involved, so it's worth noting that they might definitely downplay their whole involvement in this. Now the last thing to note is that it all started with a dream car, an infinity. KQ and BQ, King Quality being Joshua Torres and BQ being Best Quality was Julio Nick Rohn. Yes, Kim's ex-boyfriend that was sobbing at her funeral. They were cruising around New York City.

They both grew up very impoverished in a rough neighborhood and they had this level of hunger that a lot of people didn't understand. Instead of using that hunger to fuel them to achieve more, they almost had this strange reaction. They hated those who had, yet they wanted what they had. But they didn't want to put in the work. They were entitled.

Josh pointed at a car, a wine-red infinity Q45. At the time it was around $45,000. Now, if you calculate inflation, the car is no longer in production, but if you calculate inflation, it'd probably be like $70,000 cars, a luxury vehicle. Josh pointed at it, and he just said, I want that car, that's my dream car. But Josh was broke, can you knew it? Drullio knew it? And Josh said, you know, I got a plan though, to make some dough. I'm thinking about taking Kim and asking her family for ransom. Like, think about someone

telling you this about your ex. Drullio laughed and he claimed he thought Josh was joking. He claimed he had no idea that Josh was serious, but Josh was definitely serious. He had a whole play and worked out. He even reached out to a few friends, Joey Negrone, again, no blood relation at all to Julio Negrone, and Joey had a best friend named Nicholas LeBready. So the four of them were now suddenly

gonna be ransom kidnappers. Kim's roommate, Kim's ex boyfriend, and two random people that had never met Kim a day in her life. Let me give you a background on all of them. So Nick LeBretty was the youngest of the group. He was 19 years old. But what he lacked in age, he made up for an experience. At just 19, Nick was a promising criminal. And he was a bit different from the other three. Josh, Julio and Joey, I know a lot of Jay's, okay? They all grew up in really rough conditions. But Nick, oh, very privileged background. His mom was heavily involved in democratic politics. So she always used that as leverage to get Nick out of trouble. Side note,

the only indication of trauma that I could find on Nick and it is pretty bad, okay, it's definitely traumatic. Maybe this sent him down the road of crime? He was young, he was playing with his nephew, his sister son, and they were playing with a loaded gun. I don't know how they got that gun, but the gun went off and killed Nick's nephew and Nick blamed himself for it. And it seemed like he never got over it. Admittedly, it is not an easy thing to get over, but... Nick would use this to get out of trouble. He used this as the reason to justify all of his crimes.

For example, as a teenager, he committed arm-droppery with his friends. Broke into a home at 9 in the morning, shoved his loaded gun into one of the woman's mouths, and threatened to blow her brains out in front of her four-year-old son. And then he demanded cash. He was the scum of the earth, but he wasn't very bright. The whole break-in happened in broad daylight and nobody even had to call the cops because the break-in itself was witnessed by two cops that were nearby. Nick and his cohorts were arrested. The family was unindered physically. They were looking at some serious time, up to 25 years in prison. But Nick's mom pulled some strings and Nick was out.

It was disgraceful, honestly. Even the prosecutor got fed up and yelled at Nick's lawyer, what are you gonna do when you get him out and he kills someone? The victims of the armed robbery were so terrified they fled the country, uprooted their lives, left the country, not even the state, because he's out. Yeah, and the mother has the power.

Yeah, to get him out. To get him out. To get him out. Goverment. Nick's mom had a congressman, Adolfis Townes, write a glowing letter about Nick's wonderful character and personally asked the judge for leniency. I hope both of them are proud for being corrupt excuses

of human beings, and I hope both of them are kept up at night knowing that there was blood on their hands. I hope every time they close their goddamn eyes, they think about it. Nick got off with no jail, just probation for armed robbery, and completely destroying an entire family's lives, and sentencing them to a life of trauma and PTSD.

So anyway, Nick gets out, and his 26 year old best friend, Joey Negron, his whole support system, picks him up from prison that he spent like one day in while he was waiting to get out. Joey came from a completely different background from Nick. He was born in a dysfunctional home. Joey's parents seemed incompetent of being adults, so a lot of the times Joey was taken care of by his aunt and uncle in Brooklyn. They were super devout Catholics. I will say that they were really good to Joey Like they really try to raise them right they integrated him into their community and for a while Joey was Stable around them, but when he turned 15. He's like, I'm gonna move out

He met a girl named Antoinette. They never got married, but they lived together for almost a decade So technically Antoinette became his common law wife. She had a son from a previous relationship and Joey stepped up He virtually adopted her son. He didn't have to do that, but they had a special bond, the boy called him dad. A lot of this kid's upbringing was credited to Joey being around and being a really good father figure. Like Antoinette was so proud of her boyfriend.

Fine, you know, we all see our partners with rose tinted glasses, but how proud can you be of someone who is a self-proclaimed kidnapper for hire? That's what Joey and his best friend Nick claimed they were. They said they would kidnap family members of drug dealers and force the drug dealers to pay a ransom. Because what are they gonna do?

Go to the cops? There is like no part about that that sounds smart. What are they gonna do? Go to the cops? No, they're gonna kill you. They're gonna kill you. Unfortunately, we don't know how much of these tales or tall tales or the cops, no, they're gonna kill you. They're gonna kill you. Unfortunately, we don't know how much of these tales or tall tales or the truth,

but we do know that Joshua Torres reached out to him for help on his plan to kidnap Kim for ransom. And we know Joshua's criminal history of basically sex trafficking children, and Julio, he had a record too, the ex boyfriend. His was very plain compared to everybody else's. It paled in comparison. He was arrested for robbery, petty larceny,

and directing drug customers to drug dealers on the street. So practically, petty crime compared to the other three. So that's how the group is formed. Joshua Torres, the ringleader, Julio, the ex-boyfriend, these two are best friends. Then the other kidnapper best friends, Joey and Nick. They all had their own jobs in this. Joey was to secure a sweet house, aka the location that you keep your victim hostage other kidnapper best friends, Joey and Nick. They all had their own jobs in this. Joey

was to secure a sweet house, aka the location that you keep your victim hostage while you wait for the ransom. You would imagine that you want this place as far away from you as possible? Well, Joey's mother-in-law, Jeanette, and her little puppy, baby. Yeah, they lived in a quiet little neighborhood in Queens, and the house right next to Antoinette's mom's house, so Joey's mother-in-law's house, was not lived in. Remember Ruth, the little old lady? Yeah, that house. So Joey went over under the pretense of seeing his mother-in-law, broken to her neighbor's

house, stole a pair of spare keys, and then they had a meeting. Joshua was like, okay, I want you guys to all meet up, a block from the 69th precinct, which is so arrogant, that's the very same precinct that would be investigating Kim's death later. It just felt... blatant. Josh sat them all down and was like, look, I got this all dreamed up. We're gonna find the perfect night, Kim's gonna go out to the clubs. When she gets back home, Joey and Nick are gonna be waiting for her. Grab her in the parking lot when she opens the door, snatch her out like the miniature park's her car.

Throw her in the trunk, drive her car, and the car you came in to the sweet house before we do we got to get some you know handcuffs some duct tape and we're good So finally March first happens Josh had used Kim's Pager to beat his pager because Joey and Nick didn't have a pager Josh had given them his he used Kim's pager to Page his own which explains why the police were confused about that and that was the sign like tonight's the night So they rush over to Kim's apartment and they're ready to spring into action. They're waiting in the dark in their quiet little car. Around 4 a.m. they finally heard it.

Kim's car coming down the road blasting music. Nick and Joey jump out of their cars and sprint towards the garage so they can get in while the gate is open. As soon as Kim shut her headlights off and got out of the car, the two men jumped her and it happened so fast she didn't even have time to react. Joey grabbed her, pinned her arms behind her, covered her mouth, she didn't even get a chance to scream. Kim fought for her life. She broke a few of her nails fighting back, ripped off some of the metal teeth from Joey's

jacket zipper in the process. They were lodged underneath her fingernails. That's how hard she fought. An earring fell off in the parking lot. The other one would come off in the trunk. The two men wrapped her head in ducts' shape around her mouth and eyes so she couldn't scream or see through her in the trunk and they drove to Queens. Kim was kicking and screaming. Nobody could hear her. The louder she screamed, the louder Nick played music in the car, so nobody could hear. March is really cold in New York.

Nobody was out at this hour, and nobody would give this car playing obnoxiously loud music in England's any second thought. Nick drove to Queens and eventually turned into the street with the house. They made sure nobody was out, and when the coast was clear, they hauled Kim out of the trunk into the garage, then later to the basement. They had already placed a wooden chair next to a basement metal pole. They threw Kim on the chair, pulled her arms back behind the chair, plus the around the metal pole, and then handcuffed her. She was unbearably uncomfortable, there was really no way for her to escape.

Then they took off Kim's boots so that she couldn't make any stomping noises. Now this is where everything starts falling apart. The basement had concrete floors. This is March 1st in New York. Do you know how cold that is? Neither of them cared to think of how cold Kim would be. They didn't even think to protect her feet. They were just in socks, thin socks.

They didn't give her a blanket. And I know you might be like, yeah, well, kidnappers aren't really known to be hospitable staff from the four seasons. Well, this all comes into play later. Nick and Joey were in charge of keeping Kim while the other two Josh and Julia her ex worked on the ransom. But Nick and Joey were genuinely dumb. Dumb and evil is like a bad combination. So they removed her shoes, took her phone and stole any Julia value, then ripped off the duct tape from her mouth.

So she can't see them but she can talk now. And Kim is a gutsy Brooklyn kid. Like Tommy's her dad. She didn't scream. She didn't wind her bag. She spat at them in a sarcastic tone. What? You want my pocket change? If you're gonna mug me, why did you bring me here? And they smirked and told her, your father owes us money. And she's shut back at them. My father doesn't owe anyone money. He pays his bills. They shoved a lot of gauze in her mouth and I guess it was hard for them to realize that 20-year-old Kim had more guts in character than these self-proclaimed bad boys had.

And they taped it over again. Kim couldn't speak. She could only let out a muffled, low-moaner murmur. Nobody could hear her and she couldn't hear them. Nick and Joey had taped her ears as well. So basically, eyes, ears, mouth is covered. She only had a tiny space between her nostrils to breathe. And she couldn't even be sure that she was alone.

All she knew in these moments was that the adrenaline of the kidnapping was washing away and soon all she would feel were pain. Her contacts would start to get itchy underneath the duct tape dies. They would start to burn. She would feel the metal zippers lodged underneath her fingernails, which is honestly akin to like an ancient type of torture. In slowly,

she would feel so cold. Her feet and hands would feel icy, like ice picks were stabbing into her and soon they would go numb. Her whole body went through phases. The first phase she had goosebumps everywhere and she started to tremble a little. Her skin looked pale. That's the first stage of hypothermia. Then her body temperature would drop a mere tiny four degrees, which is really terrifying to think about humans and their body temperatures. A mere four degree job and Kim's body had officially entered mild hypothermia. She started to shake. It was intense, uncontrollable, so painful. She could do nothing to stop the shaking. The shaking hurt.

Her teeth were clattering nonstop. She was shaking for so long and so hard and so uncontrollably that her whole body was exhausted. She was in and out of consciousness. The only reason she would wake up was from searing pain. Her contacts slowly started to feel like they were grading against her eyeballs and she started to feel thirsty and so hungry. And for 36 hours, she had been exposed to sub-freezing temperatures and entered the final stage of hypothermia.

Her thoughts, her breathing, her pulse, they would all slow down. First she might feel drunk, then she would most likely begin to hallucinate. Talked to relatives and friends who were not there. And then finally, the last stage. She would feel really warm, said in the all her frustration, pain, terror. It would all be gone, and she wouldn't be shaking anymore. She might have felt calm.

Her body temperature would have fallen further and further, and she might have felt like she was gonna go to sleep, like she was pleasantly going to sleep. Her pupils would dilate even though she had no light for days. Doctors with experience in hypothermia say that a frozen victim is not considered dead till they are warm and dead, because sometimes hypothermia victims will fall into almost a frozen state where if with the right attention, with the right type of tools and doctors, they can be thought.

They can slowly be warmed up, thought slowly. If you do it suddenly, it could lead to heart attack and death, but if you do it ever They can be thought. They can slowly be warmed up. Thoughts slowly. If you do it suddenly, it could lead to heart attack and death. But if you do it ever so slowly, controlling it, there is a chance the victim could be saved. So Kim fell into a coma. That Friday when Wayne Ruth's son came into the house to get her, the Social Security check. Kim most likely never even heard the key.

She was most likely in a coma. Meanwhile, Josh was pretending to look for Kim, you know, the concerned best friend, big brother figure. Now, we know what you're thinking. Wait, didn't Josh want ransom money from Tommy? How is he gonna get it when he's helping Tommy look for Kim? So the day that Kim went missing,

Josh drove to a pay phone in the city, pretending to be out looking for Kim, and he called Tommy's phone, his landline in his statin' island home. So Tommy, obviously, anyone with a brain, not even a brain, but just everybody that statinine land home. So Tommy, obviously, anyone with a brain, not even a brain, but just everybody that knew Tommy wasn't home. Like, everyone would assume Tommy is out looking for Kim.

Josh Fricka knew it. He had just been helping Tommy look for Kim, but he called the landline and clicked on an audio recording. It was his voice that he had sped up three times so he sounded like a chipmunk. And it basically said, have you hugged your daughter lately? $75,000. Your money or your daughter lately? $75,000.

Your money or your daughter? Why $75,000? It covers his car and the fees for the other kidnapping, uh, cohorts. So after playing the audio tape, Josh put the phone to his ear, expecting to hear Tommy freaking responding, asking questions, but instead it was silent.

So he's confused and hung up. Basically to put it simply, Josh was playing an audio recording to someone's voice mail expecting a response and being confused when he didn't get real-time feedback. And when he did it, instead of figuring out that he was a fool, he just kept repeating it, kept calling back, kept playing the tape

to the answering machine. And sometimes he didn't play the audio tape. He would just stay silently waiting for Tommy to respond. So all Tommy got on his answering machine because they re-recorded over each other. And a lot of people were leaving messages of like their condolences of like how can we help you know. So he just heard two that were weird, silent calls. And he thought maybe Kim was trying to reach him so he sent it to the police and they

found out it was coming from a pay phone. So let's get one thing straight. Tommy would have gladly paid any amount of money for his daughter. But he had no idea there was a ransom out for his daughter because the person demanding ransom was a fricking idiot. Meanwhile, Josh would meet up with the others and he would make fun of Tommy and bash him for not paying ransom. This was all recorded by Joey by the way, and Josh sat there doing mocking imitations of Tommy, the greeting father, and he would literally put on a voice like this and say, I don't know how this happened, I just want her to be okay."

He's mocking Kim's grieving father, and then he would snap back to reality and he would say, so it seems like he would pay the dough for his daughter, I just don't know why he's not responding. Julia would ask Joey, is she okay, where is she, is she warm, did you feed her, yo, you gotta put a blanket on her, she's gonna die. So that was Joey's main job was to take care of Kim I mean it made sense because he procured the house and his mother-in-law lived right next door But the truth is Joey never took care of Kim because he was a self-serving coward who started to get paranoid He had heard rumors of Kim's family being connected to the mob and he knew if the mob got involved Joey was as good as dead

So he's like if I get caught going in at that house and someone pinpoints me to that house, the mob is gonna kill me. Marlene came's mom had gone to a psychic and the psychic said that she believed all the kidnappers name started with the letter J, which is so creepy because Josh Joey, Julio, but Nick also sometimes went by the nickname Little J, like Little Joey. So all of them started shitting their pants and Joey was the most paranoid of the group. He felt like the mafia, the cops. They were all coming to bust him, the psychic even. So why risk going to seek him?

It would only draw more attention to him and nobody else. That's why he started doing these audio recordings because he's thinking if I'm going down, I'm taking everybody with me. Oh, she's secretly recording. That's the tape that he gave us. Yes. Oh my gosh. But he would go to his mom and mom's house just to keep an eye out from next door.

And every time her dog kept barking, it just made him twitch nervously. It's like the dog knew. So after two days, Tommy failed to post ransom and Josh was growing impatient. He came up with a new plan. He wanted Joey to take him to the house so he could save her, be a hero.

Maybe Tommy would be so grateful he would pay him out of thankfulness. Joey refused to tell Josh where the house was. He didn't trust Josh. And that just made Josh feel even more on edge. Kim's family are connected to the mafia. He's not posting the ransom. Maybe the mafia had other plans. Maybe they had bloody plans for the perpetrators and then the psychic. I mean, it was just so stressful. But at the same time, Joey was really bizarre. So Joey is the only one in the group before that had remorse, even in the group before including Kim's ex-boyfriend. Julio did not have remorse. So you're like, okay is Joey a good person? Why don't know because he's weird. He too wanted a new car like Josh, but he was more humble. He didn't mind taking Kim's Honda Accord. So against

the group's plan to put Kim's car into the junkyard to be scrapped, Joey drove it to an affluent neighborhood where he assumed nobody would be looking for her car. He parked it hoping that when it all blew over, he would be able to change out the plates and keep the car. Very, very confusing how he thought that this was gonna work, but in his mind, he's like, it's gonna work.

But he did wipe down all the prints and he threw away the duct tape which is fine but why throw it in the yard where it could easily be found. On top of that, Nick and Joey kept Kim's purse, found her phone and were so excited to have a free phone they called customer service from that phone to try and get the password taken off. It didn't work. All they managed to do was get a cell tower to pin Kim's phone near JFK airport in New

York. That Friday night, the guys get together and they decide we got to release Kim. They were going to end it. They drove all the way to the house, Julia claimed that he stayed in the car and the other said that they were going to go into the basement, throw her in the trunk of her car and release her in maybe Central Park in New York. And yeah, everyone was pissed because they wouldn't be compensated, but what could they do?

Wait for them off yet to come kill them? Now here's the first training part. When they went down there, they found Kim Comatose. Her head was tilted back. She didn't look like she was breathing. Nick announced, I think she's dead. Josh kicked her in the shin so hard you could hear her bone crunch and she didn't react. Kim was like a frozen lifeless statue. Nick got out of his knife and tried to cut the duct tape off of her face and he slipped. The knife sliced her cheek and she didn't scream, she didn't react at all. So they're like, oh my god she must be dead.

Josh tried to find a pulse on her wrist. Nothing. Side note, she did have a pulse, she was still alive, it was just too faint for these two idiots to find it. Nick started panicking. What do we do? Just pick her up and take her outside, we can dump her somewhere. So they tried to lift her but it's like lifting a hundred pounds of frozen meat. She was frozen to the chair. Immediately they start turning on each other.

Josh blamed Joey for not taking care of our yearsables, take care of our feed, her like put a blanket on her. Nick wondered if they should carry her out with the chair, but in the end, Josh called the shots and he screamed, no fuck it. Burn the whole place, there's no way our prints are gonna be leading back to us. Just burn the house with her and get rid of all the evidence we can't get caught. So the four of them rushed to the nearest gas station, fill up an empty container of gas, rush back downstairs where Julia refused to enter the basement.

And everybody called him a pussy. So Josh, Joey, and Nick go downstairs. And they decide that Josh and Nick are gonna set Kim on fire. Joey and Julia would have a refrigerator ready to push up against the basement door so that when everybody makes it out There's this refrigerator blocking the door so that when firefighters come they can't put out the fire Apparently they didn't realize that firemen are capable of moving a fridge downstairs Nick undead Kim's handcuffs Josh pulled a piece of duct tape that bound Kim put it into his pocket like a souvenir And this is so sick. He crouched down to Kim's face and said, I'm sorry I'd had to end this way, but life sucks.

Shit happens. And he kissed her on the forehead. Step back. Doused her head and upper body with gasoline, drenching her clothes as well, to get a match and tossed it on her. They had poured so much gasoline on her that she burst into flames and a mushroom obscenely rose to the ceiling above. It filled the basement with black smoke.

The only solace we can find in this case is that Kim had felt none of this. She felt no pain when Josh kicked her shin when Nick cut her head. She didn't feel the flames. Kim herself was gone. So she was alive, but in a deep, deep, dreamless sleep, and her brain was too cold to feel any pain. And within seconds, the smoke reached her lungs and her body quickly died. The four killers drove off in their car and for a while it was silent before Julia and

the ex-boyfriend said, we messed up, this wasn't supposed to happen, she was supposed to be alright. They drove around, throwing away the handcuffs, breaking them in half, throwing them down a storm drain sewer, and eventually they ended of the night at Dunkin' Donuts. Joey was the first one to break the silence, and he said, I think it's a good idea for us to stay away from each other for a while. The next day, the news was overtaken by headlines. Kinep victim torched a life.

When the guys were at the news, they started blaming each other. It was Josh and Nick's fault for thinking she was dead. It was Josh's fault for the whole plan being initiated. It was Joey's fault for not feeding her and having her freeze to death almost. Julio for not being a good ex-boyfriend, Josh literally was like, if you were a good ex-boyfriend, you would have protected her. Which is like, what? So they're all starting to turn on each other. Josh was pissed that Joey didn't get rid of Kim's car like he was supposed to, like they had agreed. And not only that, Kim's body was only halfway burned. Her lower body was fine, including the scorpion tattoo on her hips so she would easily

identified. But Julio thought to himself, we did a bad job. I'm not the one that's set on fire. Nick even taunted Julio, insinuating that he raped Kim before they killed her. Which isn't true because the lower part of her body was, it was fine, there was no signs that she was sexually abused. Everyone was on edge. Josh even started suggesting that they have to kill Kim's dad, Tommy, before he puts out a mob hit on them, and yeah, they would be too scared to attempt such a thing. Julio said he was really sad around this time.

But it's not because he loved Kim. You don't do that to somebody that you loved. He felt sorry for himself because he didn't want to spend the rest of his life in prison. Meanwhile, Joey Nick Growne was a bit different from the rest. I'm not saying that he's good or any better, but he was slowly being eaten alive by the guilt. He claimed he truly never wanted someone to die. He never thought that Kim would even freeze to death in those conditions. He basically felt like he had killed Kim, which like you did,, um, yeah, he didn't realize she would die. Joey felt so overcome with guilt that he even placed an anonymous film call to the police. And he basically was like, yeah, it's Josh and a guy named Julio. And a third

guy named Jose, he's about 25 years old, which side note, Joey was 26 and Jose is his legal name. Joey was his nickname. The cops froze because the anonymous caller said that they heard three guys talking about how they took him from money, but shit went bad and they had to kill her. Those were the exact words Josh had used in an interview, but nothing came of it. So it did seem like Joey felt guilt, but he wanted to preserve Nick, his best friend, and he had self-preservation. But that anonymous phone call would basically sign his own obituary. The cops later interrogated Josh

and they brought up a guy named Jose. They were like, we know Jose's in on it, and Josh was immediately suspicious. Not that Joey would turn himself in, but he is like, you did some shit where you fucked up. Like obviously they know it's you. Maybe you went around telling people that you were involved. Maybe you did something either way, they're looking at you in obviously they know it's you. Maybe you went around telling people that you were involved. Maybe you did something.

Either way, they're looking at you. And the minute that they find you, I don't think that you're going to not snitch. I don't think you're going to sit there and take the fall by yourself. So the minute that Josh heard that, he even goes to Nick. Joey's best friend, the one that he's trying to protect. And it's like, either Joey gets a soul or we get him. And Nick is like, yeah, let's get him. But before we talk to that, let's talk about La Medrina.

Because Nick would take Josh and Julio to go see La Medrina. Nick and Joey used to love going to see La Medrina. Every time before they kidnapped a drug dealer's family member, they would visit her, obtain these war beads to wear under their clothes. And the war beads were supposed to protect them from the police, bullets, and anything. Now, they didn't go before kidnapping Kim because

they thought Kim is like a 20 year old college student. It's not a big deal. They didn't need protection. But now, now everything is falling to shit. They're trying to kill Joey, the three of them go, and she guesses the whole spirit and everything. Now, they felt like they were really screwed, but in reality, Joey had already gone and told Lumadrina everything that he did, like confess to his sins. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Now Joey also did another thing, Joey was busy, he had taken a bunch of audio clips of

Josh Julio and Nick talking about the murders, and in his desperate need to still save himself and Nick, who he had no idea was going to betray him. He decided to record over all the parts with Nick and himself talking, so it just turned into sound bits of Josh and Julio talking, but it's unconnected. He would later hand this tape over to his aunt and uncle, but the fact that he recorded over his own voice and Nick's, made it inadmissible in court. So while I agree, Joey was being eaten away by guilt, and that is more than most killers we talk about, he's still trying to find ways to save himself

till the very fricking end. Joey tries to move on with his life. It's not really working. That night that he was murdered, it was the birthday party of his little baby boy that he shared with his girlfriend, like not by blood, but you get it. And he was gunned down in front of his own home

when he came home. It was a miracle the child was asleep and un-injured. Both their bodies dropped to the ground and it speculated that the shooter was Josh. And the getaway driver was a friend of Josh's named Redrum for murder, spelled backwards. When Nick and Julia found out they had no reaction to Josh because they knew that they were next if they ever came close to cracking. Josh would actually talk about Joey's murder. He said, I smoked his ass.

He was gonna flip. I knew where he parked his car and I waited on the block for him to come home. When Joey pulled into the garage, he got out with his baby and he was walking up the block. I creeped up behind him. When he was about to turn the corner, I hit him and I shut him in the back of the head. Boom! Joey had the baby in his hands at the time and he fell on top of the baby.

She turned around and I walked away and I looked back once. I heard and when that scream. I know the bitch saw me but I'm not worried. I ran back to the car, jumped in the passenger seat and the guy took off. He said I got ready to the gun, I took it apart, they never gonna find it. I had to kill Joey because of the fingerprints. Keep it to yourself. If he's anything, I'm gonna kill you next. If I can't get you, I'll get what's closest to you. Who is he talking to? Nick, Julio, and a bunch of friends. He's like telling everyone. So Antoinette saw him. Yeah. But she kept quiet. Yeah. And she went into hiding with the relatives. It's actually

even at Joey's funeral. She was getting threatened. She would get threatening letters like you're next. I'm going to kill your whole family. You won't be able to talk to anybody because you'll be dead. So now both Kim and Joey were dead. Kim innocently murdered. Joey, I don't know. I mean, all I'll say is that I'm not going to be crying for him because he's gone, but I will say out of the three or out of the four, he was being eaten alive by remorse, more than even Kim's own ex-boyfriend. So maybe if he had lived, maybe he would have done the right thing, but the too late thing of going to the police and confessing to everything, but still, we don't really care.

Near the end of August, so Kim was murdered in March, the killers are still free. Near the end of August, Blondie was in bed with Josh when he got a call from April. And this sent Blondie over the freaking edge. She screamed, she keeps calling you and you keep running out to call her and you're probably still seeing her. And if that's the freaking case, I don't want to be involved with you anymore because I don't trust you Josh literally couldn't afford to break up with Bundt blondie literally He he couldn't afford his own place. He was munching off of her and he screamed at her the only reason I go over there Is because the police are investigating me for something. She's like like what?

I can't tell you what's going on, but you probably won't like it Blondie had no idea that Josh was involved in the murder of Kim She probably thought that he was involved in some sort of drug dealing. So she hit him back and said, if I can't trust you and you can't tell me why the police were looking for you, then I can't be with you. And Josh blew a fuse and started screaming, they're looking for me because I killed somebody. And he sat there detailing everything that he did to Kim and Joey, everything. He even whipped out a piece of tape the tape he took from Kim's body before he lit her

on fire. And Blondie asked, But why? Why would you kill the girl like that? You have no remorse? What's wrong with you? And he smirked. Why should I feel remorse? Do you? I don't know feeling for nobody. The bitch deserved it. She deserved what she got. She shouldn't have died like that. Yeah, but the shit went wrong. It was over money.

We did it before. But the shit got fucked up. Blondie screamed, are you crazy? Like are you sick in the head? And Josh was pissed now. No, I'm not crazy. You're the one who's crazy. Are you gonna tell somebody? Because I'll kill you too. Blondie was scared but not scared enough to leave.

In fact, she still felt jealousy that he was seeing as April. Look, all these people need to get a life. Side note, she would eventually try to break up with him, but more so out of jealousy that he was still sleeping with his ex, then not really what happened to Kim and Joey. And that point, she wanted to go to the cops because she hated Josh for cheating on her. And Josh was pissed. He chased her down, banged her head around, grabbed her by the hair, threatened her, you better keep your mouth shut or you're next. He screamed at her, you can be tied up and

burned to if that's what you want. For basically an entire day, Blondie tried to run away and get to the cops to tell them everything, but he would just chase her down. He was screaming at her, punching her, brutally beating her. At one point, he got a shovel and banged her face with it. And he was screaming, if you're gonna call the police, I'm gonna fucking kill you. He did this in front of her kids. They were crying, begging him to stop. He did this in broad daylight in front of her house, in front of a friend of hers, family, neighbors. He was kicking her over and over, beating her with a shovel until she was a bloody pulp.

And the only reason nobody tried to defend Blondie was in a car park right next to them where Josh is very terrifying friends waiting in case he needed backup. His very bizarre, for someone who didn't want police attention was doing a lot in broad daylight in front of a ton of witnesses. Finally, he just shows how bling he has gotten. Yeah, the ego is like uncontrollable. Finally, he stopped and he whispered to Blondie, don't worry, I'll be back to finish this. I'm going to destroy your life and you won't be walking around, you'll be dead.

He even pointed his gun at her at one point. And finally, Blondie was able to get a second alone and rush to the police station and confess to everything. After six long months, Josh and Nick were arrested. Which Josh went from being snitches-good stitches and tough guy gangster never turns on his buddy to suddenly admitting a ton of things pertain to the case. He claimed the whole thing was Giulio, his best friend's idea.

Giulio wasn't arrested? He turned himself in. Which side note, the prosecution gave Julio basically a dream deal to testify and get the littlest time in prison, mainly because Blondie could no longer be a star witness. During this, before the trial, let me tell you, first of all, they like to have people involved because it's harder to hear say them basically. If I'm a third party, it's like he said she said I was told by somebody who told somebody this and it gets a little bit trickier.

So it's better to have somebody that was there during the events. But more than that, before the trial, Blondie was arrested for, she went to Ecuador to visit some friends and then she came back into the United States and she had stashed like $130,000 worth of heroin in her vagina. Basically the jury was not going to find her credible. Oh, yeah, maybe she cut out a deal or something. Yeah, so she was given 15 years in prison and her credibility had just gone down the drain. Like the defense attorney would have ripped her to shreds and the jury would not believe a single word that she said.

So Julia was now the star witness and, you know, he had been there. He only got two to six years in prison because he agreed to cooperate I think they tried to go easy on him because he wasn't there when she was kidnapped he wasn't Technically there when she was on fire, but I still don't really yeah, yeah, it's Too low mm-hmm Josh Planned not guilty meaning he's saying I didn't do this. They're going to trial Josh was tried first and he had no idea Jio. His childhood best friend was the start witness. The prosecutors did this to really startle him during the trial.

And at one point, he got up in a very intelligent moment and he screamed because Julio was talking about how Josh poured gasoline all over Kim. Josh jumped up and screamed, you were there too! Indicating he did it. He was there. Yeah. Which is you just played not guilty. Put your like I was there and I did it too and you helped me. Yeah. So everyone's like, what just happened? Are we dumb or is he dumb? Of course, he was found guilty. And even during his statement, he was sarcastic in a mock lawyerly voice because I guess he just really talked like that, right? He addressed Kim's family and he says, my condolences to

Kimberly's family for losing such a precious jewel in such a hideous way. It's now apparent that Tommy thinks I'm responsible for the murder of Kimberly. This case has proven that the district attorneys used unsupported evidence and manipulated witnesses to seek conviction for public notoriety and they were never interested in the truth. Throughout this trial, we've heard many people testify and commit perjury except for Tommy, the injustice along with tainted information provided by the media made it impossible for me to receive a fair trial.

Everyone rolled their eyes. He was sentenced to 25 years to life and another 8 to 25 years for Arsene. The earliest he can be paroled is in 2053. He will be 81 by then and hopefully he will be dead. Tommy said about his conviction. Instead of him getting the death penalty, this is better. Let him suffer for the rest of his life. I hope every day is a nightmare, the same kind of nightmare that he gave my daughter. Nick LeBretty was sentenced to two days before Kim's 22nd birthday. He got the same sentence, but he's dead now. Again, no one's crying.

So while in prison, a lot of people hated Nick. His cellmates hated him, attacked him. Kim's case was pretty high profile, and they thought that he was really sick and twisted for doing that to a woman, a 20-year-old girl too. Like a lot of these dudes probably had daughters that were around that age. Yeah, they only treated Nick that way, not Josh. I think Josh is probably getting some shit.

Yeah, but Nick was also very young compared to Josh and his cellmates attacked him. He survived the attack, but he died from AIDS complications later. So you can put two and two together. What the purpose of that attack was for? Joina Grone received a death penalty for his part in Kim's murder. He was shot, he was murdered.

And Julia would only serve two years in prison, but he told the author of this book that his life is over. He works two jobs to stay afloat. He works as a maelstrom at night. And because it was a high profile case, he's a snitch and a killer, and he says he lives his entire life looking over his shoulder. He's depressed. He had a wife and son at one point. His wife was killed, his son died of terminal illness, and he said, for me, I guess, this

nightmare will live on till my last breath. When my number comes, I'll be waiting for it. I live life for today, and I never look forward to the next day, because I know sooner or later I'll meet my fate, but I guess I'll always be ready to go out. I live in a gangsters paradise. He said that Kim was his soulmate and he lost her because of what people call friendship and loyalty. I would call it cowardice and evil. The disrespect. Yes. How dare you. Act like you lost the next girlfriend. Yeah. How dare you call her your soulmate. Yeah And he said, it's something that has me waking up in a sea of loneliness every night and feeling so cold to the touch that I begin to believe I myself have joined her. So cold to the touch that I

believe I myself have joined her. I literally like whenever I hear about these like criminal statements, Literally, like whenever I hear about these, like, criminal statements, the urge to literally slap them across the face. I mean, obviously I want to do worse things to them, but like you know the feeling of like, shut up. You have no right to even talk. Joshua's verdict came over on what would have been Kim's 22nd birthday. And Tommy would later tell reporters, I have no life. Kim was my princess. If she hadn't moved out, if she hadn't had an extra room, there are so many ifs. She would have been 22 today.

This conviction is a bittersweet birthday present to give a daughter, but it's all I have. At least now she can rest in peace. I knew she was there in the courtroom waiting for the guilty verdict. Tommy's story is very sad, by the way, so after Kim died, a huge part of Tommy died. He visited Kim's grave every single morning, with flowers, candles, stuffed animals, everything Kim liked, and he would just sit there and talk to her. He believed that she could hear him, and he promised her over and over again that her killers would rot in prison. Tommy did everything, even before the killers were found, he posted his own rewards.

He went with wads of cash to the most dangerous neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens. And he would just ask anyone if they knew where Kim was and he would bribe them with money. The police told him, that's suicide. To go into those types of neighborhoods with money, they'll kill you for 40 bucks. They will. He didn't care. At one point, a bunch of people tried to trick Tommy into giving them money.

They pretended they had information about Kim, and their plan was to jump Tommy. But he was smarter than that. He could see a second guy hiding in the bushes, and when he popped out, Tommy beat both of them with his flashlight. And the only reason he probably didn't hurt them more was because they kept screaming,

we're just crackets, please, we just need some money. And finally, when Kim's murders were convicted, Tommy felt empty. He would still visit Kim every single day, but eventually he passed away in 2005, just 10 years after Kim. And he was very young. It was cancer, but all of his loved ones said that it was heartbreak that caused the cancer in the first place, because all he did was blame himself. All he did was ask himself, where did I go wrong? I should have never let her move out.

What if I hadn't bought her a new car? Maybe I messed up. Maybe she didn't need that second bedroom. Because if she didn't have it, they couldn't have moved in with her. Tommy was as much of a victim of Josh's Kim was. And my entire heart breaks for him and for Kim. I don't even know what to say. What are your thoughts? I mean it's just the pure evil. It really is like looking into the eyes

of pure evil this case. So please, please stay safe. And like I know this sounds so somber to say, but even those that you consider friends, sometimes you have to watch out for them. Just always be cautious. And I'll see you guys on Sunday for the mini-suit. Bye. consider friends, sometimes you have to watch out for them, just always be cautious. And I'll see you guys on Sunday for the mini-suit. Bye!