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- [00:00]
Anya Cain
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Kevin Greenlee
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Anya Cain
Seriously, I'm about to go shopping there and I don't even know what to choose. They've got 100% European linen shorts and dresses from $30 Luxe Swimwear for the beach or pool, Italian leather platform sandals and more. I will keep you all updated on what we get.
- [00:39]
Kevin Greenlee
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Anya Cain
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Kevin Greenlee
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Anya Cain
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Anya Cain
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Kevin Greenlee
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Unknown Speaker
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- [03:08]
Anya Cain
Content warning this episode contains discussion of murder. So today on the Cheat Sheet, we're going to be doing four cases. Those cases took place in Alabama, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Indiana.
- [03:21]
Unknown Speaker
And not only that, I know I'm not happy about this. And Anya, before the program made it clear that she's not happy about this. But at the end of the show, I don't think we have any choice. I think we have to talk about Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal.
- [03:36]
Anya Cain
Yes.
- [03:37]
Unknown Speaker
So we're not happy about it either, folks.
- [03:41]
Anya Cain
Okay, My name is Anya Cain. I'm a journalist.
- [03:45]
Unknown Speaker
And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney.
- [03:47]
Anya Cain
And this is the Murder Sheet.
- [03:49]
Unknown Speaker
We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews, and deep dives into murder cases.
- [03:55]
Anya Cain
We're the Murder Sheet and this is the Cheat Sheet. Nighttime and nurses it.
- [04:46]
Unknown Speaker
Well, Anya, if you would allow me, why don't we start down in the great state of Alabama? And my sources for this case are KGNS and whnt. And the reason I picked this case is that it highlighted to me that things are always a lot more complicated on the human side of some of these things than we realize. Often when things are portrayed on television or in the media, it's just in very, very broad strokes. But the people in these cases are human beings dealing with complicated feelings and interior lives. And it's just sometimes it's important to be reminded of that this case involves a man named Brian Mann, who was recently convicted for attempting to murder his wife, Hannah by causing her to ingest massive amounts of lead. Pardon me, which is lead, as we all know, is incredibly toxic. I believe the safe level of lead you can have in your body is like near 10. And when she, when Hannah man ultimately went to the hospital, her lead levels were in the 80s. And she was in such bad shape, Anya, that the doctors had to temporarily, temporarily paralyze her because if she moved, it could throw off some of the things and the pressure on her brain.
- [06:31]
Anya Cain
That's horrible.
- [06:33]
Unknown Speaker
Just a horrible thing. He discouraged her from going to the hospital. And as we say, he was convicted of this crime. She was the first witness. And it struck me again, pardon me, after the verdict came down, she told the press it was tough. And I'm going to read to you what she's quoted as saying, quote. It's not necessarily a win for either side, either way, the outcome, because the families, we have children, it's tough. It's tough either way. If he's, if he wasn't convicted, you know, you want justice be. To be served, but also you don't want to see someone go away a long, long time that you've known and cared about. And it just, it just strikes me this person is the father of her children. So, of course, it is far more complicated than we think. This is a person that she loved who not only tried to kill her, but is now going to be going away for a long time. And her children are. It's just. Yeah. What do you think?
- [07:46]
Anya Cain
She's awfully forgiving of this guy. She even says, like, I hope he changes. I don't think you should assume anyone is ever going to change after they do something like this. They might, but you can't assume that. And I don't know. I think it's for this. I think it's safer for his family if he's away from them. And anyone who would do this to their wife is just an unbelievable coward.
- [08:08]
Unknown Speaker
Obviously it's completely indefensible, but I'm just thinking, I feel so bad for her to someone she loved did this to her and just dealing and processing with all of those, those feelings and having these obvious mixed feelings about it all and having to struggle with it. And this is the father for children.
- [08:34]
Anya Cain
Yeah. It reminds me of the Angela Craig case where she was murdered or, you know, she is alleged to have been murdered. She died from poisoning in 2023 and her husband is alleged to have do it. And he was like sending her all these comforting texts when she was feeling sick. So it's like, yeah, it's terrifying to think that someone so close to you would, would do this and then upend your life even if you survive.
- [08:56]
Unknown Speaker
And there are some, obviously there are some injuries that the court system is not set up to remedy. And I hope Hannah Mann is getting some help, getting some therapy to help her deal with these complicated feelings, because I, I imagine it is extraordinarily difficult. And in these sit. It's not just a simple minded desire to have revenge. You have all of these things at play. And I have so much sympathy for her. And as you say, she's clearly a very forgiving person, a very kind person. And this man clearly did not deserve her.
- [09:41]
Anya Cain
Yeah, absolutely.
- [09:43]
Unknown Speaker
He put a bunch of insurance on her and so that was basically the motive. If she had passed away, I think he would have gotten like a million dollars.
- [09:50]
Anya Cain
My goodness. Sick. Well, she's definitely a better person than I am that she's so forgiving so quickly. But yeah, I hope he. Do we know like how long he's going for or like, is there a.
- [10:03]
Unknown Speaker
Sense he was just recently convicted? One thing that I thought was interesting was the defense chose not to present any, any witnesses of their own after the prosecution closed their case. And the defense attorney said, well, we didn't think they'd prove the case. But you know, maybe on hindsight, on second thought, maybe we should have presented some defense witnesses.
- [10:28]
Anya Cain
It's usually a good idea too. Although of course it's not the defense's burden to prove what happened. So that's their right to do that. I imagine if there's a really weak case against your client, that's a super powerful thing where you're just like, we're not even going to respond to that.
- [10:41]
Unknown Speaker
It's a power move.
- [10:42]
Anya Cain
That's a power. If it works. If it works, it's a heck of a power move. And I could see that working in instances. But in a case like this, reading about it. Yeah, I would imagine you'd want to put some witnesses on there to explain how she had so much lead in her.
- [10:58]
Unknown Speaker
As you correctly point out, it's not up to. The defense does not have the burden to prove anything. So you don't have to do it. You can just basically through the process of cross examining the state witnesses, you can say, well, I've punched enough holes in it, but that does not always work.
- [11:18]
Anya Cain
Absolutely. Well, are we ready to go to Minnesota?
- [11:22]
Unknown Speaker
Sure.
- [11:23]
Anya Cain
Well, you probably heard about this one. So my sources for this are Wired, the Washington Post, the Star Tribune, the Associated Press, the Detroit Catholic, the Minnesota Reformer, and a press release from the Department of Justice. And yeah, this is a pretty horrifying situation. Obviously we're a, you know, we're a country where, you know, we elect our legislators to pass laws on our behalf and, and that's the way the system's supposed to work.
- [11:53]
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, this is the case we followed closely over the weekend and I imagine much many of you did too.
- [11:58]
Anya Cain
Yeah, I was, I was following this very closely just, just as a, as a news consumer just being like, what the heck is going on? So this, I'll kind of describe what happened and then we can talk about some of the kind of fallout from it and whatnot. So. June 14, 2025, it's 2:05am and there is a 911 call that directs police officers in Champlin to a residence. And the basically what happened was a woman called and talked about how a masked person had come to her family's door and you know, was allowed in because they identified themselves as a police officer. The person comes into the home, is wearing this terrifying mask and the victims immediately realize a police officer wouldn't be doing that, try to shove him out, but that, that this attacker screams something like this is a robbery and shoots the two parents. And so it's a, I think it's an adult child and, and the two parents and these were not just any random people. This was mini Minnesota State Senator John Hoffman and his white wife Yvette and their daughter Yvette. I believe John was shot like nine times, Yvette was shot eight times. Yvette actually threw herself on her daughter to block her from getting shot by this man. And they're, you know, badly injured. Obviously. Police respond to the house and they're brought to, you know, the hospital and police kind of are start looking into this. They find surveillance footage shows a Ford SUV with police style lights in the driveway of this residence and this guy in a blue shirt, a tactical vest with a badge and a gun kind of going into this house. So unfortunately it did not end there at you know, the police kind of in the area. This starts spreading. They get the idea we should probably start checking on other politicians that live in the area just in case. This is not an isolated incident because again, you know, like this is very concerning as you can imagine. So they go to Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. They get, you know, these, these, these police officers get there around 3:35am and they find again a Ford SUV with these police style lights parked outside. And they see this guy who's still dressed as a police officer. So there is an exchange of gunfire between police and this gun man. The police shoots an adult male who comes to the door of the home that they're at in Brooklyn park and then disappears inside the residence. I believe they sent in some sort of drone or device and were able to see that there was, you know, this, they, the police officers grabbed this Guy who's been injured in the door. And they send something in, and they see that there is a woman also deceased in the residence. And the man who they tried to rescue also, you know, died. So the woman deceased in the residence was Melissa Hortman, and her husband Mark was. Was the man in the doorframe. And she had been the speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives previously. She was still a state representative. And, you know, they were killed along with their Labrador retriever, Gilbert. So just a horrible thing. This sparks off, obviously, a huge manhunt. And it's since come out that this guy, this gunman, also went to the houses of other legislators in Minnesota. In one instance, it appears that the legislator was just not home. Maybe they were. They were out or on vacation or something. And then in another instance, it turned out that the. There was already a police officer there. So police search this suv, and they find that the SUV is registered to a guy named Vance Luther Bolter. And they also find a. What has been described as a manifesto. They find kind of these crudely made flyers for the no Kings protests. That is a protest against the President Donald Trump's administration that occurred recently. And they also find a list of people, you know, and addresses. It seems like people to hit next, including other Minnesota lawmakers, prominent Democrats, prominent Democratic politicians, and abortion rights activists. So it's beginning to look like a politically motivated assassination.
- [17:20]
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, I think that's clear. Let me first jump in really quickly and make a small correction.
- [17:25]
Anya Cain
Oh, please. I'm sorry if I mess anything up.
- [17:27]
Unknown Speaker
You said that the dog was a Labrador. My understanding is the dog was a golden retriever.
- [17:32]
Anya Cain
Golden retriever. It was a golden retriever.
- [17:34]
Unknown Speaker
One thing we talk a lot about on the show, on different episodes, particularly of Cheat Sheet, is how people in the system tend to take it a lot more seriously when there is an attack on the system. Like if someone is trying to kill a witness in a case, or if someone's trying to kill a prosecutor or a defense attorney in a case, because things like that challenge the functioning of our system, and it strikes the heart of who we are and how our system operates. And it really seems to me that the same principle applies here. If you are targeting people who are politicians and who are making policies and you are killing them or terrorizing them based on your opinions of their views, you're really perverting the system in a really disgusting way that needs to be taken very seriously indeed.
- [18:38]
Kevin Greenlee
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Kevin Greenlee
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Anya Cain
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Kevin Greenlee
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Kevin Greenlee
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- [19:58]
Anya Cain
Like forgetting to put in the music.
- [20:00]
Kevin Greenlee
I think one time we accidentally set a Tuesday episode on a Monday.
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Anya Cain
Sometimes we recorded in a library and ended up sounding like we were trapped down a well.
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Kevin Greenlee
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Anya Cain
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- [21:29]
Anya Cain
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- [24:09]
Unknown Speaker
Yes.
- [24:10]
Anya Cain
And people spreading that. I mean I saw a senator was posting stuff about this. I mean it was just like have some decorum, Jesus. Like these are people who are colleagues of your peers like to be jumping in on that and kind of like, haha, this guy was friends with Tim Walls. Just people are broken. If people are doing stuff like that in the wake of something like this, they're broken because it's completely free to everyone. And a good thing to just wait and learn more about the guy as more reporting's done on him, as his friends and family are coming forward and saying here, here's what was going on with him. Like we, there's, there's no benefit to just racing to assume something about anybody in the wake of these. And I see, I see both sides do this to a certain extent. I feel like sometimes when there's like a tragedy and a perpetrator, everybody's like, oh man, I hope it's the other side. And it's like, like that's really toxic in my opinion. What do you think?
- [25:09]
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, I agree. Certain behavior needs to be strongly condemned no matter which side it's coming from. And yeah, maybe it's worth having conversations about the division and the strength of the rhetoric.
- [25:24]
Anya Cain
A note about some of these conspiracy theories. People are pointing out that Vance Bolter was on a sort of statewide kind of panel that was about like workplace development and things like that. And he had been appointed to that by Tim Walsh, who's a Democrat. He was the vice presidential nomination for the Democratic Party and he's the governor of Minnesota. And you know what, what they kind of didn't like grapple with. And also, you know, as, as we all know, everything's a conspiracy when you don't know how anything works. This guy was on this workforce development board. He had been appointed by the previous governor, Mark Dayton, who was also a Democrat. So it's not, it's like he's not like Walls's hand picked guy. He was reappointed by Wall. So it was like he's on the board, he's, you know, there's no, no objections to him staying on. Let him stay on like, like that. That's not, that's not like being in with the governor. That's Just those boards tend to be bipartisan. They. And they should be, right? I mean, like, don't we want that, don't we want like a bipartisan situation here? It's not usual for a Democratic governor to go into something like that and just say, okay, I'm going to kick everyone off who's a Republican, and I'll.
- [26:38]
Unknown Speaker
Be honest, it's reasonable. When you see that someone was appointed to the board to have questions, how was this person appointed? I'm curious about that because a lot of his so called qualifications, he claims to have all this experience running security companies that seem to be fictitious. So how was he appointed? Were there personal connections there that we don't know about? Is reasonable to have questions, but I don't think it's reasonable or fair to jump to conclusions before we have answers to those questions.
- [27:10]
Anya Cain
The problem was I didn't see people asking questions. I saw people just stating like, he's, he's a, you know, he's one of Walls's guys. People were saying inaccurately that this guy Bolter's wife Jennifer was a Walls intern, which is not true. That a woman with the same name was. But it's a different person. People can have the same name. So it's like when I see stuff like that, it just makes me feel like, wow, people are, we're just awash in disinformation at this point. Like people are just trying to shape a narrative for their own sick agenda and it's, it's disturbing. So it's really important for it's, it's important to note this when people you disagree with are doing it. But it's also incredibly important to note this when people you agree with politically are doing this. Because just because you agree with them politically does not mean that they're good faith actors who are doing things in an honorable and correct way. And it's really important when it's your own side to kind of step back and say, okay, no, we don't need to do this.
- [28:11]
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, I've seen this in True Crime too. Yes. The real test of whether or not you stand by your ethics and your standards is not whether or not you hold your enemies to those standards, but whether or not you hold your friends to them.
- [28:25]
Anya Cain
There's people, I might look at their stuff and I'll say, wow, I agree with their conclusions on all these cases, but I look at the way they conduct themselves and I look at the way they do things and I think, ugh, yikes. I don't want anything to do with them because that reflects badly on me at that point, you know, so it's like we have to do better than this. And again, to see like a sitting senator, like jump in on this and just, I don't know, it makes me sick. Anyways, they got Bolter. He's crawling around in a field. And it turned out, you know, the Washington Post did a bit of a deep dive on his background, just from a middle class family in a place called Sleepy Eye, Minnesota. He was raised Lutheran with the Evangelical Lutheran Church, which is a very mainstream denomination. Converted as a teenager to born again Christianity and started displaying, you know, more of a radical zeal. He's like preaching in the park, living in a tent, as Kevin said, a lot of seemingly inflated work credentials. And, but he had a family. And what people said about him was, yeah, we knew he was a Evangelical Christian. We knew he was a fan of President Donald Trump, we knew he was a Republican, but he seemed like a pretty normal guy. Like, people weren't saying, oh yeah, he was so extreme. They were just like, yeah, he's just a, he has his own opinions. Didn't show anything to us that would lead us to believe he was capable of any of this violence. So it really doesn't seem from what we're hearing in these early days that there were a lot of red flags. People could have different opinions. Right? You can disagree with someone, that doesn't mean you think that they're going to do anything bad. Everyone has a right to their opinions. So, you know, but it seems like he was, you know, increasingly involved with stuff that may have been, you know, very anti abortion and that may have motivated some of this. So we'll be, we'll be monitoring and seeing what happens. I want to read to you something from the Hortman's adult children. It's a very sad statement. Again, the Hortmans were both killed, as was their dog Gilbert, who was a golden retriever and apparently was. They both worked with their, you know, they were both, they were devout Catholics. They, I think Melissa was, did work with, you know, teaching kids about our faith. And you know, to me, when like I see someone like this bolter guy running around and possibly being motivated by religion, you know, the Hortman's were the actual Christians in this situation. I mean, they were living their lives. They seemed to be really lovely people from people who knew them. And this guy's going around thinking that he can play God and take other people's lives because he can disagree. You know, he disagrees with Them on politics and like, you know, I think if you do that you're going to hell. So I think I want to remember the Hortman's because they just seem like terrific people. But this is a statement from their kids. Quote, we are devastated and heartbroken at the loss of our parents Melissa and Mark. They're bright lights at the center of our lives and we can't believe that they are gone. Their love for us was boundless. We miss them so much. Our family would like to thank law enforcement for their swift action that saved others and for the coordination across communities that led to the arrest of the man who murdered our parents. We'd especially like to thank the officers who were first on the scene to our parents home and their heroic attempts to rescue our mom and dad. Our parents touched so many lives and they leave behind an incredible legacy of dedication to their community that will live on in us, their friends, their colleagues and co workers and every single person who knew and loved them. If you would like to honor the memory of Mark and Melissa, please consider the plant a tree, visit a local park and make use of their amenities, especially a bike trail. Pet a dog. A golden retriever is ideal but any will do. Tell your loved ones a cheesy dad joke and laugh about it. Bake something. Bread for Mark or a cake for Melissa and share it with someone. Try a new hobby and enjoy learning something. Stand up for what you believe in, especially if that thing is justice and peace. Hope and resilience are the enemy of fear. Our parents live their lives with immense dedication to their fellow humans. The strategy must become a moment for us to come together. Hold your loved ones closer. Love your neighbors. Treat each other with kindness and respect. Best way to honor our parents memories is to do something whether big or small to make our community just a little better for someone else. End quote. So yeah, I think that's, that's what should carry the day here. Not any stupid politically motivated conspiracy theorizing it should be what these people meant. And obviously you know all the best to the Hoffman family. I hope they both recover from their injuries soon and just horrible. But you know, I'll be curious to see what, what this guy Bolter's deal was as this case pens. Obviously you know he's been charged with murder and such and now I imagine is awaiting trial. But like what can motivate somebody to do this? I just don't even understand.
- [33:12]
Unknown Speaker
Let's go to New Hampshire and my source for this is indepthnh.org and this is this involves a case where a man, Jason Rothi, or Jason Roth, died inside New Hampshire State Prison's psychiatric unit. And a correctional officer, actually, I suppose I should say a former correctional officer named Matthew Miller, is accused of killing him, basically because he supposedly placed his knee on this man's back for almost two minutes. And I wanted to talk about this because I think it's interesting sometimes to get just a quick peek at how, for lack of a better term, the sausage can get made in some of these cases, because it turns out there was only one nurse on duty at this unit during this incident, and the prosecutors wanted her to testify, and she was asserting her Fifth Amendment right not to do so. The Fifth Amendment, of course, is the right that all of us have. We can't be forced to provide evidence against ourselves. We can't be made to self incriminate ourselves. That's just a basic right we have as citizens. So then the question becomes, if you really want a person to testify and they can't be made to testify against themselves, what do you do? And what you do is what the Attorney General in the state of New Hampshire did. This is Attorney General John Farmella. He wrote a letter basically giving this nurse, Jennifer Fitzgerald, a deal which says that anything she says in her testimony cannot be used against her in any prosecution. So that means the testimony she gives, she's not incriminating herself. And I know sometimes people aren't happy when people make deals like that, but I think they are an important and crucial part of making the system function. What do you think, Anya?
- [35:34]
Anya Cain
Well, so what's the upshot of this? Just so I'm understanding it, does that mean basically no one will go to prison for the death?
- [35:43]
Unknown Speaker
No, the upshot is she's not charged. Yeah, the upshot is she can now be made to testify because what she says cannot be used against her.
- [35:53]
Anya Cain
Okay. Wow. Yeah, it is kind of a weird situation, isn't it? Like, I mean, this isn't usual.
- [36:02]
Unknown Speaker
So does that mean it's not unusual? People, in order to get witnesses to testify, sometimes you have to make deals. And if a person has a right not to incriminate themselves, which we do in this country, you can give them a deal. Well, guess what? You're not going to incriminate yourself.
- [36:19]
Anya Cain
Right. Right.
- [36:23]
Unknown Speaker
What do. What do you make of it all? Are you okay with deals like this?
- [36:26]
Anya Cain
Yeah, I'm okay with deals. I think people make a big deal about immunity deals and they just don't understand how anything works. Like, I. I think that's A. Whenever I see someone complaining about that, it's like, okay, well, let's actually look at it and see if it makes sense. I mean, you would. The system would collapse in two minutes without immunity deals or, or plea deals or whatnot. It. It doesn't mean a soft on crime approach. It doesn't mean it's unfair. It's just that that's the nature of the situation. I understand that for people who are, you know, affected by that emotionally, I understand that. But it doesn't mean that they're bad. I mean, that's kind of.
- [36:59]
Unknown Speaker
It also doesn't mean in any way that this nurse, Ms. Fitzgerald, is, did anything wrong that night in the unit. I, I would know that if, if I was the only nurse on duty when someone died and that death resulted in criminal action, I would be pretty wary about going and offering testimony because you never know what might happen.
- [37:24]
Anya Cain
Yeah.
- [37:24]
Unknown Speaker
So I think she's just being smart, asserting her right not to self incriminate. And I think the Attorney General made a reasonable deal.
- [37:33]
Anya Cain
Yeah, I think so too. I think so too. I have a nurse one too.
- [37:38]
Kevin Greenlee
Wow.
- [37:39]
Anya Cain
So we kind of. And mine's from a listener request and thankfully in my situation, no one died. You did one that I feel like reflects upon the dangers to psych patients. Obviously in this situation it's in a, you know, corrections unit. Right. But, but you're. But your one is like, you know, if someone's outburst is not properly contained, they could be killed. Right.
- [38:03]
Unknown Speaker
Basically.
- [38:03]
Anya Cain
Right. Mine is more of the dangers to nurses working in some of these environments where you do have people who are lashing out. So it's kind of interesting, kind of an interesting dichotomy. One of my sources for this is the region news source. I also had one from the Indiana Hospital Association's press release and statement from the American Nurses Association. So, you know, I think it's no surprise that I view people like physicians, nurses, physicians, assistants, and people who are working on the front lines of healthcare. They have a pretty tough job. One thing you hear from people when you talk to them is that there is a perception, whether it's correct or incorrect, that, you know, maybe over time something has shifted a bit. Maybe people are a little bit more feral, I guess would be the word. You know, and then some people say no, it's always been like that. So there's a disagreement on that. But, you know, there's this sense that like, you know, people who are on the front lines of healthcare might be the recipient of like just really vicious anger. Verbal abuse on the milder side of things, and then on the more severe side, harassment, sexual harassment, and then in some cases, actual assault or violence. And I think, you know, there's probably a lot of causes for that. I don't think it's controversial to say that our healthcare system feels broken for a lot of people and feels fundamentally unfair. And so many aspects of it are just like, incredibly frustrating. The wait times, feeling like you're not getting adequate career, you know, and that's all incredibly frustrating on the patient side of things. But hopefully most people would agree that that doesn't mean it's okay to take out anger on individuals who are not responsible for a failing system. They're just trying to do their jobs. So, you know, that's, that's something to think about. And another thing we hear from nurses sometimes, because I've, we've talked to people about this in terms of violence in hospital settings. You know, like, adults don't get to hit people when they're mad like that a toddler is told off not to do that. You know, an adult might end up going to jail. So nurses feel, though, when they're into some of these situations that their management in these hospitals, in these clinics don't necessarily have their back. They're kind of asked, well, what could have you done differently to de escalate? And it's like sometimes nothing, or they're told to just, you know, suck it up and finish their shift. They're not given resources to cope from trauma. They're discouraged from pressing charges in instances where things rise to the level of violence. And there's a sense that, you know, management needs to offer some more concrete support. Now. I think there's also, in fairness, there's different levels of culpability from the patients who might be inflicting violence. There might be people who are just being angry and are awful and they have terrible personalities and want to take it out on somebody. Right? I mean, like, that's definitely possible. There might be people who are addicted to drugs, and that's prompting more irrational and erratic behavior. And there might be people who are in a mental crisis, a mental health crisis. So different levels of culpability there. I think we can all agree that someone who's just being a jerk is probably more culpable than someone who's in the middle of some kind of mental health crisis. Doesn't mean that the behavior is any less traumatic for the people who are experiencing it. But it's, it's certainly, you know, it's something to consider. Um, and the incident I'm going to talk about that a tipster sent in to us happened at a community hospital in Munster, Indiana, which is in Lake County. It's. It's owned by Powers Health and it has about 458 beds and the medical staff is close to 600 strong. And it's the hospital in Lake County, Indiana, with the most admissions. But what we've heard is that there have been a couple of different assaults on night shift nurses there. And the latest one involved a man named Abdullah Adi. Abdullah Adib. He's 25 and he's been charged with two counts of battery on a public safety official on April 3rd 30th, 2025. So I read the probable cause affidavit from Munster police Department police officer Tyler Niven, and this is what happened. Basically, Adib got out of his room and he grabbed a nurse at the nurse station, slammed her on the ground very hard. She hits her head. Then when a. When another nurse, the first nurse he attacked was a woman, a nurse who was a man approaches him to try to kind of get him under control, he puts that nurse in a headlock and a chokehold and is basically strangling. I mean, like, he's basically like choking him out so he can't breathe. And then finally security comes and restrains him. And, you know, he had to be sedated, so he was left in the care of the hospital. And then it happened again May 5, 2025. Another Munster Police department officer, Jacob Mousch, he comes in and it turned out Adib had chewed through his right wrist restraint and punched another nurse in the chest. He's since been transported on May 19 to Bria of River Oaks in Burnham, Illinois. This is a nursing home with 309 beds, corporate owned. And there's also a filing in there that kind of says a lot to me. It's from 2019. It was a relative being appointed his guardian because he's disabled. So it's just like one of those things. I saw this and someone asked us to report on it. I'm like, this is just such a tragic situation all around, you know, like, this guy is disabled. It's not a good situation. And then he's attacking nurses. It's like, it's not really. It's like, I don't know. What do you do about a situation like this? Yeah, it's tough, isn't it? It's tough, like. And then you can say, we'll send him to prison because he did crimes which yeah, I'm. He probably will be. But at the same time, when you look at what you were talking about in New Hampshire, you know, the psych ward there, somebody died and it's like, like where do you put people like this where they just can't be in society because they cannot behave themselves. Like they just can't do anything. And, and you know, people are like, oh well maybe, you know, he was just in a, like it, like at a certain point where you're like attacking everyone inside, it's no, you're the problem. But like, you know, if he's disabled, it kind of, I don't know, it's just like what do you do? And it's not any of these nurses fault and I feel horrible for them. You know, it's just a bad situation. We need, we need more long term solutions for people who can't really get along in society. I think that's my opinion.
- [44:58]
Unknown Speaker
Yeah.
- [44:59]
Anya Cain
And for people who I think are detoxing from drugs. But in this case it sounded like it was more on the disability sides of things. Well, I mean one thing I did find was the Indiana Hospital association, you know, and this was sent to us by tipster. They came out with a press release and they passed something that elevates penalties for attacks on staff in Indiana emergency departments. But I'm going to tell you, like signage asking people not to assault your employees is not enough. I really hope these hospitals have these nurses backs. That's what's important. Important. That's a hard job. I would like to see long term care facilities for people who have these behavioral problems where they can't manage in society, where they're not just thrown in prison because there's an understandable reason for the way they're acting, but that we pay the people who work there a ton of money to compensate them for having to deal with these people. I think that is the way forward and it's going to be very expensive. So no one wants to do it. But that's my opinion. What do you, that's your two cents. What do you say?
- [46:03]
Unknown Speaker
It sounds like that's the way things look from Kane's Corner.
- [46:05]
Anya Cain
I don't think we need to be. I don't think it's right that people who are like mentally ill or disabled or impaired in some way are being basically thrown in prison because like it's just punishing them for having something wrong with them. But at the same time what we have now is just doing that. It's basically just using prison as a way to get, you know, get them and contain their behavior. But it's more like they should just be in a place where they can be taken care of from the jump and then we don't need to go to prison.
- [46:38]
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, the mental health system in this country is very badly broken.
- [46:42]
Anya Cain
It's shattered on the floor. It's a mess.
- [46:46]
Unknown Speaker
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- [47:46]
Anya Cain
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Anya Cain
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Unknown Speaker
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Anya Cain
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Unknown Speaker
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- [48:30]
Anya Cain
That's join Mochi.com with promo code AUDIO40.
- [48:36]
Kevin Greenlee
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Unknown Speaker
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- [48:47]
Kevin Greenlee
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- [49:13]
Unknown Speaker
That's R a K u T E N. Your cash back really adds up anyways, so let's move on. I think, think frankly, one thing that in a non true crime setting that always frustrates me is when like people do their little viral schemes to get people talking about their products and then people fall for it and start talking about their products. And with that said, that is literally what we are about to do. And I felt like our hands were tied here. I felt like we have to talk about it. We have to talk about it. And the whole point of what they're doing is to get people to talk about it. As you may or may not know, there is a cereal, Cinnamon Toast Crunch. It's a fine cereal. It's a fine product. I've certainly seen you enjoy Cinnamon Toast Crunch on many an occasion.
- [50:08]
Anya Cain
No, I don't need it that often. No, I don't.
- [50:12]
Unknown Speaker
I guess you're not under oath. So it's a fine product. So like the little mascots for them are like talking pieces of cereal. And so they've now started doing ads where they've done at least two where one of these talking little cereal pieces talks about, oh, I have like a problem. I can't help myself. Basically I have to kill and cannibalize the other living pieces of cereal. There's like one, one ad where he like stalks a piece of cereal and then kills it. And another one, he opens up his refrigerator and there's like pieces of I guess deceased cereal in there and he eats them. So it's like cereal, it's true crime. We have to talk about it. What are your thoughts?
- [51:02]
Anya Cain
Well, you randomly showed this one of these ads to me last night and got really excited about it and was basically jumping around and hooting and hollering about it.
- [51:11]
Unknown Speaker
Again, obviously we're not under O.
- [51:13]
Anya Cain
And I found it very disturbing and it would make me less likely to want to eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch in the future. To be honest, I thought it was in poor taste and just disturbing.
- [51:23]
Unknown Speaker
This comes from the world's number one Cinnamon Toast Crunch fan. Again, we're not under oath.
- [51:28]
Anya Cain
I'm a cornflakes gal.
- [51:30]
Unknown Speaker
So.
- [51:31]
Anya Cain
Yeah, but it also goes, why would they do this. I don't understand. It was upsetting.
- [51:36]
Unknown Speaker
They were doing it to get people to talk.
- [51:37]
Anya Cain
Yeah, well, you're like, you know, you're simping for the big cereal now. It's embarrass. I don't.
- [51:44]
Unknown Speaker
Robin Hood of the cereal company. You want to attack big cereal by going and stealing cereal and then giving it to the downtrodden.
- [51:53]
Anya Cain
I want to steal the account from whoever their marketer is for this because I just don't. It was, it was creepy. I didn't like it. I don't want to feel like I'm dealing with predatory cereal. Just give me normal cereal.
- [52:06]
Unknown Speaker
I have to admit, this also reminds me of a long standing problem I've had where often mascots for food products are like a living representation of the food itself. And there is something disturbing about that. I know I'm a little bit older than you, so you may not recall this, but when I was a little boy, McDonald's had commercials where there was like, there was a character called Mayor McCheese, which was a character with like a mayor's sash and stuff. Seemed mostly human except for the fact that his head is a giant cheeseburger. And so even as a child, I looked at that and said, my God, they're telling us that the cheeseburgers that are served at McDonald's are the severed heads of a creature. And I don't want to go to McDonald's and eat a severed head. Yeah, I watched those ads. I said, you know what? I'm gonna switch to filet of fish.
- [53:06]
Anya Cain
See, I. I do know about Mayor McCheese because you talk about him a lot.
- [53:10]
Unknown Speaker
Again, you're not under oath.
- [53:14]
Anya Cain
Welcome to my friggin life, people. I, Yeah, I was in college, we would go to this burger place locally. I don't think it exists anymore. And there were like all these cow pictures, like not cartoon pictures of cows. I mean, like photographs of cows all over the walls just staring at you. And it was like, what's the goal here? Like, just makes everyone uncomfortable. But the, but the, but the cinnamon toast crunch ones, I, I don't, I don't know what they're. There's a, there's a real darkness to those ads. There's a real dark energy. Mayor McCheese strikes me as just. We weren't really thinking this through. You know, this.
- [53:53]
Unknown Speaker
Are there cartoon mascots representing living food that makes you rethink eating the product?
- [53:59]
Anya Cain
Well, I don't care for, I don't care for the lucky charm situations like.
- [54:04]
Unknown Speaker
This because you're a proud Irish woman.
- [54:06]
Anya Cain
Well, let's go over, like, let's steal from an Irishman. What is this? What are these kids working for Oliver Cromwell? I mean, like, what's going on here? It just feels weirdly anti Irish. Don't care for it. But as far as other ones, I like, you know. You know Tony the Tiger, he's just there to, like, encourage people to do sports or whatever, you know. Well, he's not a bunch of sugar cereals now you're going to like trying to burn off your energy.
- [54:28]
Unknown Speaker
He is not a living piece of cereal.
- [54:31]
Anya Cain
Well, I don't really focus on this stuff as much as you do.
- [54:34]
Unknown Speaker
It's. It's not like I'm focusing on it. It's not like I'm staying up late with.
- [54:37]
Anya Cain
What about your shrine of maric cheese in the corner over there, Kevin?
- [54:41]
Unknown Speaker
That's great.
- [54:43]
Anya Cain
I remember there's like, a bird who also, like, lives in the McDonald's world, right? There's like a bird, and then there's the Hamburglar, and then there's the grimace. What's his deal? Who knows? And then there's the. Yeah, Ronald McDonald, obviously, the clown, but that's all I know about.
- [54:59]
Unknown Speaker
So you're mocking Ronald McDonald. He's just a clown to you?
- [55:01]
Anya Cain
He's a clown. Yeah. Yeah.
- [55:05]
Unknown Speaker
I think you're just a little bit younger than me, so maybe.
- [55:07]
Anya Cain
Oh, just a little bit.
- [55:08]
Unknown Speaker
So maybe you missed the golden age of cartoon mascots.
- [55:12]
Anya Cain
What kind of reforms was he bringing to McDonaldstown? Like, did they ever talk about his platform or anything like that?
- [55:19]
Unknown Speaker
The whole McDonaldland saga is an unhappily litigious one. I don't know if people are interested. I'm not sure that people are clamoring for, oh, let's hear about the McDonald's.
- [55:33]
Anya Cain
I think most people have probably turned off the podcast at this point, but.
- [55:36]
Unknown Speaker
McDonald's land, they were sued by Sid and Marty Croft because they claimed that some of the McDonald's Land's characters were derived from some of the Croft show characters. I think maybe Grimace. Was he derived from, like, HR Puff and stuff? That may have been the allegation.
- [55:53]
Anya Cain
Oh, my gosh.
- [55:55]
Unknown Speaker
Are you familiar with the Croft shows?
- [55:56]
Anya Cain
No, I don't know what the.
- [55:58]
Unknown Speaker
No, I think I know what we're doing tonight.
- [56:00]
Anya Cain
No, you showed me some of them, but no, that's not from my time. Sid and Marty Croft, your H and.
- [56:05]
Unknown Speaker
R Puffin stuffs, your magic mongos, your Electro woman and Dinah Girls.
- [56:11]
Anya Cain
Jesus. So. So. But going back to the. Why we're on this tangent. What did you think of this commercial? What'd you think of it? Do you like it?
- [56:24]
Unknown Speaker
I recognize what the point of it is. People are just awash in commercials. Most of us just automatically tune them out. If you are a big corporation and you want to get attention for your product, you try to do something a little bit different to make people talk about it. Maybe that's like a snarky Twitter account. Maybe it's something a little bit dark like this. Maybe. You see this? Oh, I remember seeing these cartoons cereal pieces when I was a kid. Ha ha. Look what they're doing with them now. You know what? That cereal was good. So I, I don't really look at it as, oh, is this a piece of media I like or enjoy? I think it's a potentially effective marketing tool.
- [57:04]
Anya Cain
Well, I'm not even going to be stealing this brand of cereal after what I saw. That's, that's.
- [57:09]
Unknown Speaker
Maybe that's the whole point.
- [57:10]
Anya Cain
Maybe this was, this was actually a psyop to get me to stop stealing their product. I like that. It's all about me, right? The commercials are talking to me directly. Kevin. No, I, I, I, I. Yeah, I didn't, I did not care for this. Not one whit.
- [57:29]
Unknown Speaker
So are we done?
- [57:30]
Anya Cain
I think we're, I think we're finally done. All right, bye, everybody.
- [57:35]
Unknown Speaker
Thanks so much for listening to the Murder Sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us@murdersheetmail.com. if you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.
- [57:55]
Anya Cain
If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com. if you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www. Buymeacoffee.com murdersheet. We very much appreciate any support.
- [58:19]
Unknown Speaker
Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for the Murder Sheet and who you can find on the web@kevintg.com if you're looking to talk with.
- [58:30]
Anya Cain
Other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the Murder Sheet discussion group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much. We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening. So we want to shout out one of our wonderful sponsors right now, and that sponsor is Happy Mammoth. This is a wonderful natural wellness brand we've been using it, and it's been terrific. They're a great solution if you feel like you might be dealing with some hormone disruptors. I mean, that kind of happens to everyone. It's in the air. It's in the food. It's in lots of different products.
- [59:13]
Unknown Speaker
So it's really reduced your cravings.
- [59:15]
Anya Cain
Yeah, for me, it's. I mean, I get kind of nuts about my cravings sometimes. I will, you know, suddenly really want Macintosh apples, which aren't even in season, and various other things. We all know I've been stealing a lot of cereal recently, or allegedly, I should say. And so to kind of help beat that, I've been using their hormone Harmony supplement. It's just a supplement. You take it a couple of times, you know, couple doses. And I feel like it's boosted my gut health, to be honest. It's also something that women who are in perimenopause or menopause, they can use it, and it's gonna reduce your hot flashes. You're gonna have more energy, get to sleep better. So it's really good for women of all ages. But for me, the gut health element of it has been really special. So if you're interested, for a limited time, you can get 15% off your entire first order@happy mammoth.com, just use the code msheet at checkout. That's happy mammoth.com and use the code msheet for 15% off today.