Sword and Scale Nightmares - One Thousand

Episode Date: March 2, 2023

The report of what appeared to be a body on the front porch of a home in small-town St. Johns, Arizona triggered an investigation that would be quick, but not without a myriad of twists and turns. This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5863198/advertisement

A November 5, 2008, two police officers in a small town called St. John's Arizona were dispatched to a home where collars reported seeing what looked like a Halloween decoration left out a few days too late. But collars were most concerned about how realistic this decoration looked. Responding officers would soon realize the single piece of leftover decor was not a Halloween decoration at all. Welcome to Sword and Scale Nightmares, True Crime for Bedtime, where Nightmare begins now. St. John's Arizona is a tiny little town in Apache County with just over 3,000 residents. It's a little blip on the map north of the Apache National Forest. The town's motto is the town of friendly neighbors, and quite literally, everyone knows everyone. On November 5, 2008, Debbie Neckle was celebrating. She'd just been promoted to Detective at the St. John's Police Department the day prior.

This was her second year in the department, which in the line of police work is not very long at all. Given that her new title was so fresh, Debbie was understandably nervous about the responsibilities that entailed. Before her promotion, Debbie worked as a school resource officer, so the types of situations she dealt with involved scuffles between kids. Now, her job would be to respond to real crime scenes. She knew she had entered the big leagues, and she was about to get a taste of how gruesome reality can get.

On this particular Wednesday, a little after 5pm, someone called the police department to report hearing shots fired, and then seeing something strange on someone's front porch. It looked like a dead body. Now this was only a few days after Halloween, so Debbie and her partner, Sergeant Lucas Rodriguez, weren't totally convinced this call would even amount to anything. But they strapped up their bulletproof vests and jumped in their cruiser. Debbie in the passenger seat and Sergeant Rodriguez driving. So as they're driving their lights flashing through the streets of this quiet town, Debbie's looking at the window, waiting for the house to emerge. She's a little nervous, but you know, how bad could it be?

This was probably just a leftover scarecrow that had gotten blown over by the harsh winds that they'd had over the last few days. Nothing to worry about. On the corner of 15th place west and 7th north, they see the house. It's a blue, two-story single-family home sitting close to the street. It's got a little front yard and a truck parked partially up onto a small gravel driveway. As the police cruiser pulls closer, Debbie sees what the caller was referring to. Even from that distance, she could tell this was not a piece of decor. This looks real.

She squints her eyes and realizes that the lump on the porch is, in fact, a dark, complex male wearing a heavy, car-heart jacket lying face down. They see someone else too, a frightened little boy standing outside the home waiting for law enforcement to arrive and help them. Debbie quickly realizes that she recognizes this child. Living in the neighborhood herself, she knew him as the happy child who jumped on the trampoline with his cousins, and always yelled, have a good day, Mrs. Neckle, when she left for work. This kid was Vincent Romero's son.

He's standing alongside an adult man and a teenage boy. They seem to be hovering over him in kind of a protective way. Debbie looks at Rodriguez as they're sitting on the street in front of the house. They're both wide eyed because they're realizing this might not be such an easy call after all. Rodriguez opens his door first, telling Debbie to stay behind while he assesses the victim and scopes the area. Debbie stays in the passenger seat looking out the window. She's getting progressively more and more nervous now.

Her partner is in this house with a real dead body on the front porch, and now she's thinking about what else might be inside. For all they knew, the murderer could still be hiding in the closet. Pretty soon after that, Debbie hears shouts coming from the house. She opens her door and starts towards the porch, noticing blood droplets on the sidewalk as she makes her way forward. Rodriguez pushes the screen door from the front of the house, opening it from the inside, being careful to avoid this dead man lying on the door's path. Debbie sees her partner's face and knows it's bad. Rodriguez yells out to her, informing her of another dead body on the stairway to the second floor.

Both men had been shot to death with a 22-caliber weapon, one of which was a familiar neighbor, Vincent Romero, a little boy's father. Both bodies were still warm. While Rodriguez secured the area, Debbie went around the neighborhood asking if anyone had seen or heard anything. At this point, more officers were arriving on scene, so they split up across the neighborhood and started knocking on doors. The people who lived in the house right across the street confirmed that they heard several shots right around 5pm.

Throughout this long night of witness interviews, police summarized that the two men were 29-year-old Vincent Romero and his friend 39-year-old Timothy Romance. They also learned that Vincent and Tim were not only friends, but co-workers and part-time roommates. The two worked for SRP, or Salt River Project, a power company in Arizona. Vincent and his wife owned the house and allowed Timothy to rent a room so that he could be closer to work during the week. The little boy who was found standing in the front yard when Debbie and her partner arrived on scene was a year old Christian Romero.

He had run to a neighbor for help and they called 911 and stayed to wait with them. So Debbie is just shocked. That such a crazy tragedy could strike her tiny little neighborhood. She feels bad for this poor child, This kid who's just lost his father So she has to find out if he saw or heard anything She sits down next to the kid and says, okay Just tell us from the beginning Christian starts to explain that his stepmom isn't home on Mondays and Wednesdays

She works until five starts to explain that his stepmom isn't home on Mondays and Wednesdays. She works until 5. And so he got off the school bus and walked around the neighborhood for a while, waiting for her to get home. When 5 o'clock came and went, he figured he'd make his way back to the house. He says that as he approached, he saw a truck parked out front. And started to call out Tim. Are you home?

Then Christian tells them about the car that went past him as he approached the home. He says, it seemed it could have been leaving his family's house. He describes the car. It's a white car with no hubcaps on the back. So the police are like, we gotta send out a Bolo immediately, meaning, be on the lookout for this vehicle.

Christian goes on to tell them that when he got to the front porch, he saw Tim lying face down. There was a lot of blood and even bits of brain. Little boy continues, explaining that once he sought Tim's body, he started to yell for his father Vincent, but got no response. He says he carefully opened the front door and went inside, still calling for his dad, and then he saw him, lying motionless on the stairway. At this point, Debbie is thinking, holy moly, thank goodness this child didn't get home just a few hours earlier.

He could have been killed too. Debbie knew they'd have to get Christian in for a forensic interview in the morning. First, they'd have to deal with Tanya Romance, Tim's wife. Tanya lived far enough from the power plant that it made more sense for Tim to stay with his friend during the week. Tanya, though far away from the crime scene, had some information about the previous day that Debbie hoped would shed light on why two people had suddenly been murdered. On the following day, police had a better picture of the time surrounding the shootings. This was all thanks to Tanya Romans, who gave Officer Debbie Neckle a valuable tip.

Tanya and Tim Romans were high school sweethearts. They had two daughters together and Tim acted as the coach in any sport his daughter played. Despite his demanding career, Tim was an attentive father and husband. Back in November of 2008, Tim was running a room at his friend Vincent Romero's house so that he could be closer to this particular job site. It would be a temporary living arrangement. Tim planned to stay for about a year. He had only been living there for a week before the shootings. His wife, Tanya, worked as a schoolteacher a few hours away from St. John's. Tanya explained to Debbie that on a daily basis Tim would call her when he got off of

work. He would talk to her for a while, let her know his work day was finished, and tell her his plans for the evening. On November 5th, around 5pm, Tim does, as he always does, and calls her. They chat on the phone for about 3 minutes, Tim's complaining about having to work through the upcoming weekend. There were tensions at work between upper level management and subordinates, and Tim was kind of tied up in all of it. All of a sudden, Tim says, hold on, something's going on. So, Tony asks him, are you okay?

And he's like, yeah, something's going on in the house. She hears the change in Timm's voice, and she hears another voice in the background. So she asks Timm, who's voice is that? Who's there with you? And Timm tells her it's Christian, since 8 year old son. Tanya is getting worried at this point. She's talked on the phone with Christian numerous times and formed kind of a long distance relationship with the child.

She could only imagine what kind of, you know, accident could have occurred. She asks Tim, what is it? What's happening? And Tim just keeps repeating, I don't know. Tanya hears Christian's voice in the background. She can make out a little bit of what he's saying. And it sounds like Tim, hurry. Tim hurry up, something's wrong with dad. Tim, come in the house, something's wrong. Then, Tonya hears Tim's voice again. Tim tells her, look, Christian's Christian,

something's wrong, it's Christian. I got to go. I'll call you later. And the phone line clicks. Tim never called Tanya back. All throughout the night, Tanya tried to get a hold of her husband, but he didn't answer. Eventually, she went to sleep, but woke up with this tremendous anxiety at around 3am. She grabbed her phone and saw there was a miss call from her mother-in-law's house.

She figured, okay great, he made it to his moms and he's calling to let me know. So she went back to sleep. It wouldn't be until the next day that someone got Tanya on the phone to let her know what had happened. As soon as law enforcement told her that Vincent and Timothy had been shot around 5 p.m. she went to go look at her call records. Sure enough, Tonya saw that her conversation with Tim the day before had occurred right around 5 p.m. occurred right around 5 p.m. And so she calls up the police and says, you need to talk to that little boy. He knows something. He was there when something bad happened to my husband, she says. Make sure they talk to him about this. So Debbie Neckle and her team get Christian into a small room to conduct a forensic interview. He starts at the beginning. He tells them the same thing as before.

He got off the bus, walked around the neighborhood while he waited for his stepmom to get home from work, and headed back toward the house around five, where he discovered the bodies. Debbie questions him about that timeline. If Tanya Romans heard him in the background during her phone conversation with Tim, something wasn't adding up. So she asks him, Christian, why would Tanya say she heard your voice in the background of her phone call? Then Debbie begins trying to explain the concept of gunshot residue in a way an eight-year-old

could understand. She asks him if they might find some of this smoke as they called it, on his clothing. At this point, Christian is getting visibly nervous. Debbie is worried about this kid. She thinks he may have seen something and has been told to keep quiet. Christian explains when he went into the house there was a lot of smoke, and he picked up a gun and put it in the closet. So that's why there might be some smoke on his clothes. The cops are puzzled by this. They know you do not get gunshot residue on your clothing by walking through clouds of smoke produced by a firearm. That's just not the way it works.

They explain this to Christian and ask him. You think there's going to be a little bit of smoke on your clothes or a lot? Christian shuffles in his seat and tells them a lot. He then goes on to tell them that he had actually shot the gun. After seeing Tim's body on the porch, Christian says he picked up the gun and began shooting at that white car with the missing hubcap as it sped away. They press a bit harder and ask Christian, is there any chance that the gun went off accidentally and hit him? Christian responds, yeah, I think that's what happened. That's how the gun smoke got on my clothes. He then goes on to explain something very disturbing.

He's obviously scared he's going to get in trouble. He's only eight years old after all. But Christian tells officers that both his father and Tim Romans were still alive when he got to the house. And that he shot them both once to put them out of their misery. Christian says that both men had already been shot by the assailants leaving the property in the white car. He didn't know what else to do, but then they're suffering. This is something he had learned many times on hunting trips with his father.

After hearing this, the cops sat in their chairs in silence for a moment before asking the boy. Christian, do you think you might have been mad at your dad? Christian pulls his hood over his head and tucks his knees into his chest, so he's sort of curled up in a fetal position on the chair, and he nods his head, and says that he was mad at his father. The night before, he hadn't brought his required papers home from school, and his dad was upset at him. Christian got spanked for it, and he was angry about that. There was some speculation about whether Christian was being abused by his father, who shared joint custody with his ex-wife, Christian's biological mother, Aaron. Now, Aaron thought her son had become a little more withdrawn in the months prior to the shootings.

And she worried about Vincent's parenting techniques. She knew for a fact that Vincent had spanked Christian the day before. Christian allegedly kept the tally of his spankings, promising himself that the 1,000th spanking would be his last. The night before the shootings, his mother remembered that he had gotten five spankings. Others knew Vincent Romero to be a loving father, a regular church goer, and an overall upstanding citizen. He had a great job, a house, the and his wife, saying in their church's choir, and Vincent often took his son hunting, hiking, and outside to play sports on a regular basis. Debbie Neckle, being a former school resource officer, knew of no disciplinary actions against Christian.

CPS had never been called to this household, and Debbie never saw or heard anything strange coming from the home either. Remember, she lived in the same neighborhood and often saw Christian playing outside. Oh, my there. Remember, she lived in the same neighborhood, and often saw Christian playing outside. No one could fathom how a double homicide could possibly have been pulled off by a third grader. W.

Debbie Neckle was completely shocked by the possibility that Christian Romero could have murdered both his father Vincent and his father's friend Tim Romans. How could a tiny 8-year-old be capable of something like this? And with a single shot bolt-action rifle nonetheless. It seemed impossible. She thought she knew this kid or at least knew that he wasn't the trouble-making type. But the more she talked with Christian, the more it became clear. This child was capable of unspeakable atrocities. So Christian doesn't get off the bus and walk aimlessly around the neighborhood on that

Wednesday afternoon. He goes straight inside the house and grabs his gun. It's a youth model 22 cricket rifle gifted to him by his father for family hunting trips. He had even taught Christian how to use it, and now Christian was well practiced with the motions. Bolt goes up and back, bullet goes in, push Bolt forward, and down. Then he waits for his dad and Tim to get home. Because of his age at the time, this case is very heavily shrouded in red tape. The next stretch of time is a bit unclear, but we know that Christian goes upstairs to the master bedroom to get his gun, and he probably has the bullets in his pocket.

His father comes home, still dressed in his work car heart overalls, a red heart hat, and goggles. Christian loads a little bullet into the chamber, shoots his father on the stairwell. He reloads and shoots him again, and again, and one last time. According to police, one of the four shots went straight through the top of Vincent Romero's hard hat. The others appear to have hit him in the chest, arm and up through his jaw. If these shots occurred inside with the door closed and Tim Romans was still outside on the phone with his wife Tanya, it's entirely possible Tim wasn't able to hear the shots

inside the house. The 22 caliber rifle like the one Christian used makes more of a popping sound than a high powered rifle. It's likely that Christian then called Tim inside, which is what Tanya heard on the phone. Once Christian got him walking toward the front door, he shot at Tim, one shot, then another, then four more. Christian is calm at this point, nudging the bodies with his foot to make sure they're dead.

He puts the gun on top of the dog's kennel and runs to a neighbor's house, telling them someone just shot his father and Tim. Now police in this case wanted to charge Christian as an adult. After all, this wasn't a case of a child playing around with a gun and hurting someone by accident. This was planned and methodically carried out. Even the cover-up seemed planned. The state wanted to go for two counts of first-degree premeditated murder, but Christians'

team settled on a deal that allowed him to plead guilty to negligent homicide in the death of Timothy Romans, and the murder charges for his father Vincent's death were dropped entirely. The prosecutor's reason for allowing this plea agreement was that he felt it wasn't in the best interest for the boy to acknowledge what he had done. Christian looked so small in that courtroom. The security belt had to be wrapped around his waist three times. around his waist three times. He sat in shackles while his family cried. Part of the plea agreement included treatment for Christian, with evaluations at the ages of 12, 15, and 17 years old. Sealed records won't allow anyone to access the details of those treatments or whether he's shown any progress over time.

In December of 2017, Christian Romero signed paperwork freeing him from probation. The last legal reminder of what he had done when he was just 8 years old. Nowadays he lives in the free world, a 24 year old with more than one skeleton in his closet. If you enjoyed the show, please consider joining plus at swordandscale.com slash plus. But if you can't, consider leaving us a positive review on your preferred listening platform, sweet dreams and good night.