← Serialously with Annie Elise
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Annie Elise
This episode of Serial Less ly is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are all things that people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full, owning a home and more. Plus you can count on their great customer service to help you when you need it. So your dollar goes a long way. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save on car insurance, Progressive Casualty Insurance company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. Hey true crime besties. Welcome back to an all new episode of Serial Asleep. Hey everybody. Welcome back to an all new episode of Serial Lessly with me. Annie Elise. Happy Thursday. That feels like a Monday. I swear, I feel like this week has been dragging. I don't know if it's just me, I don't know. I've had a busy week and so you would think that with a busy week it would feel like the week is over sooner, but for me I just kind of feel like it's still the beginning of the week, if that makes sense. But anyway, I'm not here to complain. I'm here to talk with you guys. So hopefully you're having a better week than I am and getting ready for the weekend today. Let's see today in headline highlights. We have got so much to go over. We've got updates in the Ruby Frankie case because Jody is actually challenging her conviction now. There's talk that she wants to change her plea entirely which, like, get a grip, lady. Are you for real right now? Like, be so for real. So we gotta talk about that. Lori Valow is back in the news. Lori, Lori, Lori. And let me just tell you, this woman is honestly like the true definition of batshit crazy in my opinion. She's representing herself now in the trial that she's. She's on trial in Arizona for the murder of her ex husband Charles, or former husband Charles, I should say. And I don't even know where to begin. I mean, they went started the week off with jury selection. A friend of mine was in the courtroom and there weren't cameras in the courtroom for that piece of it, but she was in the courtroom and she was texting me telling me how Lori was challenging all of these things, challenging on the basis of bias and like, just. I don't even know what we're going to expect from this trial. I just hope that Charles and his family gets justice at the end of it because this woman is putting everybody through the wringer like, it's time to just lay down. It's time to lay down, Laurie. So I'm gonna break out down everything going on there. There's also some new cases that are honestly just disgusting and horrifying. One has to do with a child who got into his mom's apple juice or apple juice that she left exposed and there was a meth inside of it. Another one has to do with a father who woke up in the middle of the night and the mother was stabbing their four children. I mean, truly evil people. Which, speaking of evil, okay, remember the stepmom who held her STEPSON Captive for 20 years? Allegedly. I'm saying allegedly because obviously she hasn't been convicted of it. And she, like, was neurotic and looked crazy and like 20 years of just pure hell. Well, she's been let out on bail. She made bail. And he's kind of asking now, like, why is she even allowed out on bail? Like, could it. Isn't that a flight risk? Could she possibly be a danger to herself or other people? New photos have also been released from the inside of that. That house, which, I'll just be honest, they look really, really bad. But you also do have to take into consideration that the house was set fire. So a lot of it, I think, is fire damage as well. But that doesn't excuse some of the other contents of what's going on in this house. So we just have a lot to talk about. I'm gonna keep this intro short and sweet, though, because I know sometimes I can ramble and some of you like it, some of you don't. Actually, I'm sorry, ADHD going off right now. I do have one more announcement. I am going back on tour. I believe it's going to be starting off in July. And I'm really excited about this because we are making this a much larger scale tour. So we are hitting, I think, what, 23 cities in total, and we're still finalizing a lot of them. But here, let me actually just read off to you some of the cities that are in the mix right now of discussion and you can let me know, like, yeah, yeah, go to that city. Or like, no, Annie, you don't have anybody who listens to you in Charlotte, North Carolina. So both we got Boston, New York, Philly, Washington, dc, Charlotte, Nashville, Raleigh, Atlanta, Orlando, Tampa, Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Francisco, L.A. portland, Seattle, San Diego, Phoenix, the UK. My UK peeps. I don't see Canada on here, but we did talk about doing Canada too. So it's not finalized dates are 100%. But I just wanted to let you know I've seen a lot of comments saying, are you going back out on tour? When's that going to happen? And we are planning it for, I believe probably June or July. So stay tuned for that. But let me know in the comments what city and maybe I'll even, maybe I can put a, I don't know how I can put a poll up with that many options, but I am curious to see like where the bulk of you guys are. I feel like I know from my analytics, but I always want to know where you guys are at. Where are you guys listening in from? Where are you sneaking in and listening from? Okay, now I'm really going to shut up for reals. Now. Let's start with the father in Sydney, Australia who woke up in the middle of the night to find his wife stabbing their children. And this just kind of takes night terrors to an entirely new level. But he woke up and he found his 47 year old wife stabbing their three children as they were asleep, which I don't even know how you respond in a moment like that. I would imagine you just go irate, you freeze. I, I honestly don't even know. Now this father, he was thinking very quickly on his feed because he jumped into action. At first the detectives say that what woke him up was that he hear his children screaming, which imagine that horror in and of itself, right? But then when he went to investigate, that's when he saw his wife stabbing them. So he, like I said, he jumped into action, he grabbed the knife away from her and then he called 91 1. Now as I said, all three kids were asleep in their bedrooms during this attack and they are 10 years old, 13 years old and 16 years old. They all unfortunately suffered stab wounds and the 10 year old boy had two stab wounds while the 13 year old girl had three stab wounds and the 16 year old girl one stab wound along with topside, not superficial cuts, but nothing that was like too deeply penetrated. But as if this wasn't so disturbing and heartbreaking already get this, the 16 year old girl is a paraplegic. Can you even wrap your mind around that? First of all, what kind of mother, father, whomever would do something like that to somebody who literally cannot even defend themselves in any sort of way but your own child who's sitting there defenseless, who then imagine that fear in her mind when she sees her mother coming at her. And I know she was asleep, but then obviously she woke up at some point and the father Even heard the screaming. But it's like she wakes up and she can't defend herself and she just is, you know, laying there as a victim, waiting, having her mother inflict this on her. It's horrible every way you look at it. Now thankfully, paramedics were treating all of these kids at the scene and then they were immediately taken to the hospital where doctors were able to successfully get them into stable condition. Now when the authorities got to the home at around 5:15am they realized that the mother had also turned the knife on herself and stabbed herself multiple times. So the whole thing looked like it was some sort of attempted murder suicide type of situation. Which is really interesting because anytime we have seen cases in which familicide, especially when it's the mother's doing and family annihilation, very rarely is a weapon like a knife used. And I say that because, and I don't remember, I'd have to look it up. I don't remember the exact statistics. But I do know that women, whether they are going to take their own lives or they plan to take their children's lives and then their own, they statistically do not do it in an overly violent way. Usually they will either use means of suffocation, the bath, drowning, sometimes a gunshot or pills poisoning, things like that. Where it's almost like I think this is not the right expression but it's the only way I know how to describe it. But more of like the silent killer, right where it's not as gory, it's not as violent. So now hearing that this is being investigated as a possible murder suicide situation and that she was using a knife on not only her children but herself, that definitely takes this to a different level in my opinion of what kind of situation this is and what's was really going on in her mind. I don't know. I obviously I don't know her reasons, I don't know the motive. We are going to talk about some of it in a moment here, but it's just the reason I say all of this is because it's something that we don't often see. It's usually one of those other more silent, even hands on. Yes with, especially with suffocation and drowning, but not as gruesome. So anyways, she attempted to take her own life but she they intervened in time and then she was taken to the hospital to be treated and she's now in stable condition. As of right now she has been charged with three counts of grievous bodily harm to a person with the intent to murder. Now, like I said, we are still unclear of the exact motive. But what a lot of people are, of course, wondering is how the heck did this even happen? It was a complete shock to the entire community. And the police also had said that this was the very first time that they've ever responded to this address. They've never gone to this home for any sort of domestic situation complaints, CPS investigation, nothing. The neighbors also described them as generally really nice people. The detective on this case has also spoken out and said they wish they knew that this family was going through something so that possibly they could have intervened before all of this came to a head and before all of this happened. The neighbors also have said that, yes, the family usually did keep to themselves. They were pretty quiet. But they also said how they would come over for Christmas and celebrate the holiday. They would bring cookies, chocolates for the kids and be warm and welcoming. Just nice neighborly stuff. So it seems as though, as of right now, from what we know, it seems like this happened out of nowhere, just baffling and very, very sad. Now, the only detail that the police have released about this attack is that before the stabbing, the mother was allegedly acting erratically, and that is their direct word, erratically. I'm not throwing that out there. So we don't know if that was maybe some sort of mental or psychotic break, if there was something else that she was maybe suffering from with underlying issues. I don't know. They didn't really elaborate on what that means. The police also ended up finding the weapon inside the house, which was a bloody kitchen knife. The woman has been refused bail, but she is set to appear in court this week. So the police are taking this case as a potential attempted murder, and we will see what. Where it goes and what we learn. And I guess it also kind of just goes to show you really never know what's going on inside somebody else's house. Even your neighbors, right? They can be warm, loving, inviting, happy, and you never really know what somebody is struggling with, what is going on inside that house, what might be happening behind those walls. That is, you know, like this woman who helped her stepson captive allegedly for 20 years. It's like. And I don't know if that's where I get the intrusive thoughts. I think I talked about this the last week or maybe the week before, but I don't know if it's normal or not, but it is something that I think about all the time. No matter where I am, if I'm driving down the road or in an unknown, like on vacation or even on a flight. Something that always enters my mind is how many people in these houses that I'm passing right now are being held against their will. How many people on this plane have killed somebody? How many people on this plane, plane are here with somebody who is sexually abusing them. And I don't think that's healthy at all. Like, don't get me wrong for even a split second, guys, I know it's not healthy. I'm unfortunately think it's probably more common than I realize, which I really hope not because I hope people aren't having those thoughts like me all the time. But I did see somebody tell me recently when I mentioned this, they're like, annie, that's a form of ocd. You get intrusive thoughts. Like you can definitely get on. I think they had said you can get on medication or like seek help to correct that. Which I don't know if it's necessarily to the level where it's like, it's, you know, affecting my day to day, but it's. I only bring it up because, I mean, it's like it's something that always is in the back of my mind. And it kind of goes back to this case too. Again, you never know what's going on behind closed doors in somebody's house. And it's a really scary thing to think about. Now let's talk about this other case with this five year old boy who drank this apple juice that was apparently laced with meth. Because this is like a worst fear come true. Not that I think my son is ever going to get into like laced meth apple juice. I'm not, you know, smoking meth or have things laying around. But like it is like a new fear unlocked because it just shows that, I don't know, I don't know. Whatever, I'm going to shut up and stop talking. So this case happened in Florida and like I said, it was a five year old little boy and he unfortunately died after this happened. He drank this apple juice that had methamphetamine in it. The mother in all of this was arrested last week and she's now facing a manslaughter charge. But let's rewind a little bit. So the mother is 37 year old Heather Opsinks and she lived in Riviera beach, which is a city in Florida. She lived actually in the Sands Hotel, which is kind of like a hotel motel type of area. And that's where she lived with her five year Old son. But apparently one day Heather just left a bottle of juice open in the fridge and this bottle had methamphetamine in it, which I don't know if this was intentional. And I'm not very well versed in the drug world, guys, I'll be honest. But from what I do know and from cases I've covered, I've never really heard of drug users lacing their own juice or food with drugs. I feel like usually they're just like smoking it from the pipe or the foil or however, whatever drug it is, you know, using it, however, is the most potent. So I don't know if this is like something that people do or if maybe this was intentional and she laced juice, of all things, with the intention of her child taking it. There was. Which case was it? Oh, gosh, what was it? Was it Victoria Martins in New Mexico? I think that it was. And it was a little girl and her mother was giving her meth. And so. And I don't know, again, I'm just gonna be honest, guys, and take this for what it is. I'm not very well versed in drugs. From what my understanding is, when you give somebody meth, they are like super hyperactive and awake all hours and, you know, very high energy, which I don't know why you would want to give a child that. If I'm going to be honest, like, if anything, I feel like you're trying to get the kids to calm down and go to sleep at a decent hour. But I do now. Something is coming back to me. I think that when I covered that case of Victoria Martins, and I believe that's the one it was, I'm pretty confident, like 98% certain. I feel like I remember hearing that. Is it that for children it has the adverse effects? I don't know if that's entirely right, but almost that it is more of something that calms them down, which I could be wrong. But my point in all of this, and I apologize for the rant, is do people just put meth in their juice and put it in the fridge, or does it seem like this was something more deliberately done? So after this open juice bottle was left in the fridge, the 5 year old was left with a babysitter while Heather was allegedly outside of this hotel room washing a cooler. So the child went into the fridge looking for something to eat or drink and then drank this apple juice. But he knew that something was wrong because he immediately spit this juice out and complained it to the babysitter, saying that it tasted Weird. But all of a sudden the 5 year old then started shivering, sweating and shaking. Then his head hung down and his body went stiff. The babysitter also noticed that he was very, very cold and that there were rashes forming all over his skin. He then, and this is very graphic, guys, so I apologize, but he then started throwing up black stuff and having seizure like symptoms. Then Heather, the mom who was outside washing this cooler once she noticed what was going on and came back inside. She waited an entire hour for whatever reason before calling 911. She waited a full freaking hour after witnessing her son shivering, slumped over, throwing up black stuff, looking like he's having a seizure, and did not call 911 for an entire hour. So the authorities finally got the phone call at around half past five. And, and in this call she said that he was no longer breathing. After the paramedics arrived, they tried to treat him, they tried to do everything that they could. He was taken to a hospital, but he unfortunately was declared dead. He did not make it. Then after he died, Heather was tested for drug use and she tested positive twice for meth. The little boy also tested positive for meth. And this is just so reckless and senseless, obviously on this, like I'm just gonna call her a deadbeat mother's behalf, like, why are you, why are you using drugs in the first place? But even if you are struggling with drug use, why are you leaving things in open containers where your child, your five year old child could get into it? In my opinion, he never even stood a chance. I mean, literally, he just went to the refrigerator trying to get a drink, he knew that it tasted weird, he spit it out, yet he still ended up ODing on meth. It is just so despicable and incredibly sad. Then once the police went and investigated this actual hotel room where they were living, it didn't stop because there they found six meth pipes among many other drugs. And despite all of this, Heather heavily denied using any kind of drugs except mushrooms. As if, you know, that somehow is any better. So as of right now, Heather is being held in Palm Beach County Jail and her bond was set at $100,000. She might have the possibility of being released on bond as long as she doesn't have any contact with any of the witnesses in this case. But given their circumstances, I'm not trying to judge, I'm just being honest. I don't know if she'll be able to make bail. We'll see. She also apparently has a daughter. So as if this wasn't horrifying enough, right? So she was a mother of two and she is supposed to be due back in Court on April 22. So we will see what happens here. Now let's talk about another mother of the year or mother of the of hell I guess you could call it. And we're going to revisit that case that we talked about briefly with the mother who held her stepson Captive for 20 years alone, allegedly. And I don't know if you guys remember this, but a couple of episodes ago we did cover this story and he was held hostage in the bedroom for 20 years by his stepmother, allegedly. And now there have been some new updates. But as a quick little recap, the stepmother's name is Kim Sullivan and she was originally arrested on March 12 after there was about a month long investigation into alleged abuse of her stepson. She allegedly had held him hostage in the second floor bedroom for over 20 years. And the abuse allegedly started from when he was just 11 years old until now when he was rescued at 32 years old. He also just to level set how bad this abuse was.32 years old, I believe he's 59 in height and he only weighed 60 something pounds, 68 pounds I believe to be exact. She only gave him a couple glasses of water a day, two sandwiches a day. He even had to urinate, not using the toilet, but like through straws that he linked together and then put out of the window to then be, you know, leak into the yard. Just so cruel and so unhinged. So this had gone on for years and years and years. She had yanked him out of school in the fourth grade and then started homeschooling him. And that's when all of this began. And it was pure hell. He hated it. So much so that he finally decided to set fire to his own bedroom as a means to be rescued and escape. Even telling the police later that he would have rather died than continue with what was going on inside that house. So he ended up using a piece of paper, some hand sanitizer and a lighter to spark this fire. And I guess that makes sense because anything with alcohol in it usually tends to spark the fire. So I would imagine that the hand sanitizer was the. What do you call it? Not the deterrent. What would you call it? I can't figure it out. But you know what I'm talking about. Like what would help spark this fire so or spread it, I don't really know. But he wanted to just be free. So this is what he did. The fire spread all throughout the house. And then it ultimately forced his stepmom Kim to call 91 1. And here is that 911 call for you guys, just so that you can hear it one last time. It's very short.
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Unknown
Okay. Oh, my God.
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Annie Elise
Ma'am. What?
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Unknown
The tv. I don't know. My. My son, he was in his room, and I don't know, he did something with the tv. I was sleeping.
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Annie Elise
When the authorities arrived, Kim was just standing right out front of the house, holding her dog in her arms, not her stepson, and just standing there, being more concerned about herself and the dog. The police, of course, went inside, and that's when they rescued her son. Now, Kim, who is 57 years old, faces multiple charges, including kidnapping, assault, and you name it. So far, she has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges, and she also posted bail of $300,000. So now she's apparently just walking free until her court date. She has been ordered to wear an ankle monitor, but she's not under house arrest and nothing like that. They're just monitoring her movements. Now, in a question and sentiment that I fully, completely agree with and understand, the assistant state attorney said that he met with the son, he met with the victim, and the man's first question to him was, quote, why is she out walking around when I was locked up in a room for 20 years? Which. Fair question. Fair question. Why she was even allowed bail and given bail? Like, I don't understand. Because maybe she's not a danger to society. Maybe you can argue that. Maybe you can argue that she's not a flight risk since she has the ankle monitor. But also with how much evidence I believe they have gathered against her, I think it's pretty clear that the charges will stick, that she will be convicted of this, even though she's saying that it was all the biological fathers doing that. She just went along with it. Which, spoiler alert, the biological father died a year ago. So why didn't you set your son free after that, then? But I think anytime you grant somebody bail like this, I don't know, it just rubs me the wrong way. And, look, I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a judge. I don't make the rules. But if there's ever any indication that somebody has abused a child or that they have inflicted some element of torture or cruel and unusual punishment, I think bail should be off the table. I. I think you err on the side of caution and protect those victims. And I don't know. That's just my opinion. And Maybe you guys are going to disagree and come for me in the comments and be like, annie, like, you're a psychopath. What are you even talking about? But that's just my opinion. Like, she allegedly abused this kid, who's now an adult, for 20 years, holding him captive in a bedroom. That's worse than solitary confinement, in my opinion. You know, like. Well, I don't know, actually. Let me think about that. Because solitary, it's like, you literally. I don't know, it's probably. It's the same thing. It's literally like the exact same thing almost. So I don't know. I just. It really makes me mad. And where is the justice in that? I mean, I know she will go to court one day. There probably will be justice. I would imagine she will be convicted. But where's the justice for this kid now? Even though he's an adult, I call him a kid because he's been held allegedly since he was a kid. Like, she's allowed to walk free, and he was locked in that room for 20 years. How does that at all work? How does that math add up? I don't know. But like I said, Kim, along with her lawyers, are completely denying all these allegations, and she's saying that it's shocking. It never happened. I never did this. It was all my former husband, his biological father. But no. Okay, like, get real. Now, of course, one of the big questions in all of this is people are wondering how this could have gone on for as long as it did without anybody noticing. Family members have said that they did used to worry about him, but his father and his stepmom just really isolated themselves from the rest of the family. They stopped going to family events, birthday parties, holidays. So they didn't really think twice about it, which I can only imagine for him. He probably felt so forgotten, so alone, right? Going years without seeing any of your extended family and nobody coming in to check on you or worry about you or wondering if they've even tried to check on you or worry about you. I would imagine that you would just feel left and just defeated, deflated. However, on March 26, which was when Kim had her first court hearing, the victim's biological family was seated in the courthouse, and they have started speaking out on this situation. Heather Tessman is apparently this man's half sister, and she said that she had been searching for her brother for 14 years, that it wasn't until the news came out about him escaping this house of horrors that she finally learned the truth about her brother. What was going on. And now his biological mother also has spoken out, and she has been so incredibly shocked to learn what happened to her son. Tracy said that she gave up custody of her son when he was just an infant and that that's when he began living with his father and his stepmother. Tracy said, though, that she never stopped looking for him, that she always wanted to be a part of his life, but she was never able to find him. Tracy and Heather had no idea just how bad his living situation had become. And to their knowledge, he was just living with his parents. But here's a snippet from an interview with the two of them, and I want you to take a listen.
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Unknown
Things didn't work out between the two of us, and I was thinking that I was giving my son a better chance at a full life. If I had known what I just can't fathom. I have no words. There was a park that I was told Craig would actually take him for walks. I would park there and be there for hours just trying to see if I seen him. Never seen him when he turned 18.
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Annie Elise
Did you try more?
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Unknown
Absolutely. High school yearbooks. I know I started there. Nothing in Waterbury, Nothing in Woolcott. I didn't have any reason to worry because as far as I knew, he was with his parents, living his life. What were they doing? Were they waiting for him to actually die? What were they gonna do then? I'm gonna be there for my son. I'm gonna be there for my brother. Gonna stare daggers through his skull.
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Annie Elise
So as of right now, we are waiting for the stepmother, Kim, to get back in the courtroom and see what happens with these charges. But like I said, she's not currently behind bars. Now, the community is, of course, definitely coming together and rallying for this man. They are all on his side and I am hoping that he is able to get justice, that he will have a healthy road to recovery, that he can start to heal from all of this. And it will definitely be a case that we are keeping a close eye on. This episode of Serial Less ly is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are all things that people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full, owning a home and more. Plus, you can count on their great customer service to help you when you need it. So your dollar goes a long way. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save on car insurance. Progressive Casualty Insurance company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. Alright, so just when I thought we've had enough of Lori Vallow after that bizarre Dateline interview with Keith Morrison, she's back. Which I guess we kind of knew she was going to be back because we knew she was going to be facing these charges in Arizona, but she is back. The infamous doomsday mom, Lori Vallow. But just to give you a little background, if you don't know who Lori is, she's a woman who is a psychopath. Okay? In my opinion, she was married five times, which, fine, who cares? Whatever. She has three kids. She was a former beauty pageant contestant. And then she became this like radicalized LDS member thinking that the second coming was coming, that she was reading all these books, thinking that she was one of the 144, 000 who were going to help bring us into the new world. What? However you would describe it, I apologize, it's not my exact forte in terms of knowing what all the spiritual terminology. And she got like swept up and wrapped up with this loser creep Chad Daybell, which, honestly, Google him and you'll understand why I'm describing him that way. Just look at his stupid sorry face. But he was also very much of this. He wrote books. He always talked about how he was the pro, like, not a prophet, but kind of like that, where he had all these conversations with God. He told Laurie how they had met in previous lives, how they were now set out on this mission to bring or be the 144, 000 that ushered people into this whole new world. All of these things. And coincidentally, of course, everybody else was the enemy who wasn't Chad or Laurie. Their kids were the enemies. Her husband Charles was the enemy. His wife Tammy was the enemy. Everybody else, but they were, you know, the exalted beings. And it's just awful because in all of this they ended up deeming her two children as what they called zombies. And I don't know if I'm getting a little mixed up on the terminology. Did they also call them. I know they called oh, demons. Demons and zombies. I was gonna say suppressed being, but I think that's more Scientology, but very cult like behavior nonetheless. So Lori was convicted of murdering her two children because that's apparently what you do, right? You think your kid's a zombie and you murder them. Like a true psycho sociopath. She was also convicted of conspiring to murder Tammy Daybell, Chad's wife, because Tammy died coincidentally. The two of them, Lori and Chad got married two weeks later. But spoiler alert, they bought wedding rings on Amazon even before Tammy died. It like these morons. I mean, I'm glad they left a digital trail. And it took a long time to get justice, but it finally came. She was sentenced to life in prison. Chad was sentenced to the death penalty. Thank God. Get him off the face of the earth. And it's just been nightmare after nightmare. But now she's back in the courtroom because she also is being charged with conspiring to kill her fourth husband. The husband before Chad, Charles Valo. Now, I know that that was a lot. I just threw a lot at you. So let me rewind a little bit to understand exactly how we got here. So by the time that Lori married husband number four, Charles, back in 2006, she had kids from her past marriages. One of them was Tyler Ryan, and then one of them was jj, who actually was adopted through their family. And I'm not going to get into all the inner workings because I think you guys already know everything. So in 2013, after she had been married to Charles, for gosh, what is that, four, five, six, seven. Seven years, that's when she met Chad Dabel. And like I said, he was also Mormon. He had these radical beliefs. They focused on reincarnation, the apocalypse, the end of the world, all of these things. And they just immediately fell for each other, clicked, and were in love. But then, of course, things started spiraling. Laurie got very, very into all of this doomsday stuff. And in that her marriage to Charles was starting to fall apart. He was the evil one. She called him by saying that his body had been taken over by a new spirit net. Was it Ned Spirit Stark or Ned something? Ned Stark. No, that's Game of Thrones. But, like, had renamed him, saying, it's not even Charles in your body anymore. It's now this new evil spirit. And so her Chad and her brother Alex Cox, who I believe was more like her henchmen in a weird way. He, like, idolized Lori. And it was honestly kind of give. Gives Game of Throne vibes if I'm going to be real, if, you know, you know. But they basically conspired saying Charles needs to, you know, be killed. He can't. We need his life insurance policy. We need. He's evil. All of these things. Charles was very scared. He was seen calling the police on body cam footage where he said, like, I'm worried that my wife is going to try and kill me. Here's all of the concerning things that she has said to me. All of this is documented. All of it is on record. And this is a clip I want to play for you where he's speaking about her while they were still married, before the divorce was even filed. As much as I could, but it's.
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Unknown
Got to be really, really bad lately.
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Annie Elise
She's out, right? Says, I'm Nick Schneider. I'm taking over Charles's body. And Charles have been killed. I'm going to kill you.
- [34:02]
Unknown
You're murdered today or tomorrow, I'm gonna have. I can do it. Or I've heard she does pretty, so blessing she does.
- [34:12]
Annie Elise
So who's Nick Schneider? So then fast forward. And one day in July, Charles went over to pick up his son JJ from Lori's rental home. Because they were estranged at this point, they had been living apart. She had been in Hawaii for weeks. All of these things. And her brother Alex was at this house. Then a fight broke out between Charles and Alex, allegedly. But it ended in Alex shooting and killing Charles. Now, Alex claimed that he shot Charles in self defense and also that he didn't feel bad for shooting him because remember, Charles was, quote, a zombie possessed. He was attacking, he was abusive, all of these things, but he claimed self defense. Now, one of the most telling parts about all this, and again, if you want the full deep dive, guys go way back. I'm just trying to give cliff note version. But one of the weirdest things about this is on the day that Charles was killed, Lori is being notified and she is seen on interrogation and body cam footage. And she's very casual, talking about how she was going to have a pool party, talking about how, oh, I hope the neighbors don't think we're causing a fuss. Like nothing that you would expect from a now widow or a grieving wife. Former wife, spouse. And just take a listen to this little snippet.
- [35:26]
Unknown
Yeah. And then I was kind of turned around and we were all right there in that room, except for the kids had been outside by that time. And I heard the gunshot. So you heard the shot? Mm. Do. Did you actually see. See the shot or did you just hear it? I had gone around to the kitchen to get away from him and so back around. So I don't know if you went in the house. I didn't. So I'm like a little bit of a disadvantage. Yeah. So I didn't see. When I didn't see the shot, I heard it. And then I came back around and I saw that he was on the ground and was freaking out. And so I. I was just freaking out. And it just went into mama and I'M like, I've got to go to get JJ to school. Gotta get to the kids. I just felt like I gotta get to the kids. And so I just went outside and to see if they were in there. Okay. I didn't want them coming back in the house when all that was going on. And got JJ in the car, and he was trying to come in, and Tyler was, like, looking at me with, like, the crazy eyes, like, what just happened? And I told her to get in the car and we're going to take J.J. to school. And I slept.
- [36:42]
Annie Elise
So now that Charles was out of the picture, that's when she moved to Idaho with Chad, with her two children. And then we know what hellish activities came from that, right? So now we know that she has already been convicted of the murder of her two children and for every all the horrible things that they did there, Chad as well. But now she's also being charged with the death of her husband, Charles, because, yes, he was shot by Lori's brother Alex, but she's being charged with conspiracy to commit that murder. She's also being charged with attempted murder of a man named Brandon Boudreau, who was the ex husband of Laurie's niece. And her niece is also involved in this whole weird cult situation. So the conspiracy to commit murder charges and the attempted murder charges are being tried separately. And Laurie, who has denied all of these past charges, is also pleading not guilty to these ones. But the craziest part about all of this is she's representing herself in court. And she. I don't want to say she's done a good job because it hasn't really even kicked off in a big way, but she's definitely a lot smarter than I think I was giving her credit for even just kind of her legal jargon and what she's saying. I don't think she's going to convince anyone on the jury. I truly don't. But I got to give it to her. She's actually, like, kind of holding her own in terms. It's comical, and she's definitely messing up a lot, but she is kind of holding her own more than I probably would ever be able to. She also has been studying case law a lot during her time in prison, which has really helped prepare her for this. She said that she was having trouble communicating with her legal team while she was in prison. So because of that, I guess she thought that it was, you know, time for her to take it upon herself and just represent herself, which I don't know. But this is what she said to the judge about her communication troubles. Take a listen.
- [38:25]
Unknown
In discovery, I have interviews with police on every single one of the witnesses that are on my list. Okay? So I know that they had their addresses. I know that we were trying to get the addresses to them in the quickest way possible. And where I am at the jail, the communication is very difficult for me to get a hold of my investigator, to get a hold of my paralegal. I'm 23 hours a day locked down. If I don't have WI fi, I don't have a phone. If I don't have battery, I don't have a phone. I don't have access to get to people. So I understand that. I understand the time constraints, constraints, and we're doing the best that we can.
- [39:03]
Annie Elise
So jury selection happened earlier this week. Cameras were not allowed in the courtroom for that, but cameras will be in the courtroom, to my knowledge, for the rest of the trial. So we will definitely see what happens. If you guys want me to be on this and give you guys trial updates, I certainly will. We did it for her first trial, but I what I didn't really have plans to do with this go around, but if you want me to, I definitely can recap it for you, but let me know. And in the meantime, while we're waiting for everything to kind of kick off and get another conviction for this lunatic, you can always go back and watch that dateline that she did with Keith because you'll kind of just see she. It's kind of how she's representing herself. It's very. It's mirrored very similarly. She's aggressive, she's making some sort of baseless claims. She's just very hyper strong, of course, denying all the accusations, acting as though she knows best and that everybody else doesn't even know what she has seen and bear witness to when she spoke with Jesus, all the things. So you can go take a listen now. Let's talk about another cult mom who is on my shit list, and that's Ruby Frankie. And we're not only going to be talking about her today, but also her counterpart, Jody Hildebrandt. Disgusting Jody Hildebrandt. And I'm sure it's no surprise to you that we're still talking about the infamous Ruby Frankie, who's the family vlogger turned actual devil. But what's interesting to see is that her children are actually speaking out with the media. In the past couple of months, Ruby's oldest son and her daughter have appeared on Good Morning America. They've been advocating for themselves on social media as well. And what are they advocating for? Well, it's the downsides of family vlogging. Sheri and Chad Frankie have said that families vlogging their little kids is not only unethical, but also dangerous. And they've said that they definitely will not follow in Jodi's footsteps. Footsteps. Sheri has also talked about how it basically makes your family a full time job. Always making the kids pose for the camera or broadcasting their private lives for views and just really exploiting them. It also forces your kids into this lifestyle which they don't really even have a say in. Sheri also said, quote, there is no such thing as a moral or ethical family vlogger, which I think is really powerful. But take a listen to this. I mean, Ruby clearly would, you know, smack us, flick our lips, whatever. I think Jody brought out the worst in her and that's how it got to, you know, where it's ended up.
- [41:22]
Unknown
I do think that family vlogging and like, family content is unethical.
- [41:29]
Annie Elise
Now, Chad has also appeared on Good Morning America. And while he says that he definitely does see a family in his future, he definitely will not ever do family vlogging. He says that he has learned from his mom's mistakes and that he doesn't ever want any other kids to go through the same thing that he and his siblings went through. And here's a clip from his interview. Take a listen.
- [41:48]
Unknown
I eventually want to have a family and I've learned from my mom's mistakes. We're shutting off social media, we're shutting off the cameras. I'm not going to be using any kid as an employee. At what point did it all change? I think once companies started coming to us offering big money for scripts. Be excited to tell them where your name came from, even if you have to fake it. Fake being happy. Okay. I don't know if I can right now. It was a chaotic, chaotic experience.
- [42:25]
Annie Elise
So lots of yelling, lots of snapping.
- [42:27]
Unknown
And lots of timeouts in the corner.
- [42:30]
Annie Elise
Now you can hear the heartbreak in his voice. And it's very, very sad that it took all of this to finally come to a boiling point for change to actually happen and for people to recognize what was not only going on with this family, but the dangers of family vlogging as a whole. I don't know if you saw the Hulu docu series that was titled the Devil in My Family, the Fall of Ruby Frankie, but it showed a ton of the footage behind the scenes. What was going on in that house. Sherry also released her book called the House of My Mother, A Daughter's Quest for Freedom. She released that in January, where she gave more of a personal, firsthand account of what she witnessed, what those days were like with Ruby and Jody and what really transpired over the years. But it's sad that it took all of this to really bring light to what I believe is a much larger issue, and that is family vlogging. However, on the brighter side of things, because all of this has been exposed, the Frankie family is one of the main reasons that a new law just got signed in Utah. It got signed on March 25, and it's meant to protect child influencers or victims of family vlogging. And basically, this law gives adults the right to erase any content from the media once they turn 18. So anything that is posted by their parents, or anyone in their family for that matter, once the kid turns 18, it's their right to scrub it off the Internet. The law also forces the parents to set money aside for the kids who they are posting online. So while it's not a perfect law, because I think in a perfect world, we would say they can't even post their children online to begin with, at least there are now protections being put in place that were never there before, because before people could just video their child all day, every day, getting money, monetizing off of it, getting brand deals and never giving a scent of that to their child, and never even allowing their child to have a say in what is being posted online, what private moments are being shared, any of it. So now, at least there are certain protections, although not the best that are being put into place, such as being able to scrub their stuff from the Internet once they turn 18, making sure that there is money set aside for them from whatever they were a part of. And I don't know, it's something, right? It's a step in the right direction. Ruby's ex husband, Kevin, who. Y'all know how I feel about him, right? He also testified, though, in support of this law. And look, although I have my personal opinions about Kevin, which, if you don't know what those are, I did do, like, a deep dive just into Kevin recently where I kind of drag his ass a little bit because he's trying to say he didn't know how bad it was, that Ruby is the evil one in all of this, and he just wants to protect his children, which, to me, I'm kind of like, no, I call on that because you were there when A lot of this was going down, maybe not to the extreme level in which your son was finally rescued from, but you certainly were inflicting this kind of punishment and behavior and lifestyle when you were with Ruby. And you documented it. You put it on camera and put it on the Internet too. So in my opinion, like, you don't get a pass. You do not get to escape by this. So. But regardless, my point in saying that is, regardless, whatever my opinions are about him, I do hope that the Frankie children find a way to come out of this in a healthy way, healthy and healed, and that they're able to move on with their futures. But I just can't imagine, you know, how you even begin to heal from that. Now, as I said regarding this case, there is also a brand new update regarding Jody Hildebrandt in all of this and this vile, disgusting human being, Jody Hildebrandt. As if this woman wasn't on my shit list or my nerves enough, she's now challenging her conviction. So if you don't remember, Jody pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse. She was sentenced to four consecutive prison sentences of one to 15 years, which I kind of take issue with anyway, because that means on the lighter side, she may only serve four years in prison. Yet on the high side, it could be 60 years. But it's like, that's a pretty big swing, right? Same for Ruby as well. But anyway, now she's saying she didn't know her rights when she entered that guilty plea. You know what? Look, chick, take it as a win. You on the low side could only be serving four years. Now you're gonna have the audacity to claim you didn't know your rights and you're challenging the plea. Be so for real right now. I mean, give me a break. She's even calling the plea agreement that she willingly entered into unlawful. Unlawful, which, Hi, Jody. Do you know what else is unlawful? Abusing children, holding them captive, restraining them, ruining families. That's unlawful. Not you actually paying the price for what you did. I mean, come on. But Jody is saying she didn't understand the full nature of the guilty plea and that her lawyer wasn't completely honest with her about everything during the hearings, during the plea, during all of that. And this is a statement from a prosecutor in the case. Take a listen.
- [47:22]
Unknown
We weren't expecting this from. From Jodi, but I. I can't say that we're super surprised either. I'm super confident that the entry of.
- [47:31]
Annie Elise
Her plea will hold up and. And that she won't be able to show that she knowingly and voluntarily didn't entry. Now, look, I'm sure that Jody will never stop trying to manipulate the situation in some way, right? I've even heard and been told from people very close to this whole case and people in this case that she's still running connections, her cult from prison. So I don't think she's ever going to stop trying to manipulate things and spin the narrative. That's just the kind of woman that she is. However, we'll see if this holds any water, right? We'll see what happens. Ruby is still currently serving out her four consecutive prison sentences as well, which again, could be anywhere from four to 60 years in total. I hope 60, but we haven't really heard any new developments with her yet. I'm sure we probably will. I hope not, but I'd imagine we will. And I guess we'll just go from there. Lastly, there appears to have been a Nicole Kessinger spotting over the weekend. I know, I know, I know. Guys, I was just as floored as you were because we haven't seen Nicole Kessinger in the wild since 2018, when everything first went down with Chris Watts. And for those of you who have no idea who Nicole is, let me just give you a little bit of a rundown. Nicole Kessinger was Chris Watts mistress. And Chris Watts is the horrific family annihilator. I'm sure you've heard of him. But we, probably a year ago, maybe a little less than that, did a full on deep dive into Nicole Kessinger. Because it's my personal belief, and I know a lot of you agree with me, some of you don't, that's okay. But it's my personal belief that Nicole knew way more than she let on. Because when we analyzed her, I believe it was a four hour interrogation. We looked through her cell phone records where she pinged all of these things. There was a lot of evidence, in my opinion, that tied her directly to either maybe not being involved in the planning and execution of this, but certainly knowing what was going on or helping with trying to cover it up. And what was so weird is when she went in for questioning, she immediately brought her dad in the room with her, who has a lot of connections with law enforcement. And it just felt really weird. Right? And again, things with her phone pings where she said that she wasn't at Chris's house yet. In all of her history, for the entire time they were having the affair, her phone only pinged at the tower near his house whenever she had admitted to spending the night or being there. And then sure enough, we see a phone ping from the morning of the murders. She also didn't clock into work until like 3pm that day. She only stayed for, I think it was under an hour. And she just called when she got to work, she called her spiritual guru. Then she left. I mean, a lot of weird stuff which I actually will link in the show notes of this episode, the full deep dive I did on Nicole. And maybe we should do another one soon. Let me know in the comments if you want another one. But I will link that old one. But anyways, apparently she was spotted over the weekend in Montana. Now it's a very quick video you. It's really hard to catch, but she's at a funeral of a family friend, allegedly. So she's walking down the. What would you call, I guess the procession, almost looking like she's exiting. And I don't know if it was a fixed camera that was maybe live streaming the service or if somebody in the, you know, viewing the funeral and the service recorded her for some reason. But you see her walking out and it hasn't been confirmed that it's her. But of course the sleuths online are they, they are going wild. And when you pull a side by side, at first I didn't know because the person in this video is a little bit heavier than Nicole was. But then again it also has been what, seven years? So she's a little bit heavier. She has the same kind of hair. But when I like, of course did my detective work, which you know, his Internet detective at best. But I did screenshots of many pictures of her in the past with screenshots of this side by side to where I was literally doing like the mirror imaging where you layer pictures on top of each other. Because I wanted to step so psychotic. I know, but I wanted to see if the attributes were the same and her hairline looks the same. The exact location in which her hair is parted, which isn't on the side, isn't on the middle, but it's somewhere in between. She also kind of has like this little tiny cowlick looking thing, the eyebrow arch. I believe this was Nicole. Now what's interesting, and I've heard this theory, but I've never put much weight into it. And I want to be clear, I'm not putting a lot of weight into it now either. But what I did see is a lot of people commenting on these viral videos of her now of this particular video. But that has been shared, you know, everywhere and saying that they believe that she is the mother to Chris's child. Now, again, that is super sensationalistic or whatever word I'm looking for. You know, I'm talking about salacious. But people say she was pregnant then. That's why she went into. A lot of people say witness protection, just flew off the radar. We never heard from her because she was pregnant with his child. I don't know if that's true. I don't. That would mean that she would have now, what, a six year old, I would imagine six or seven. I don't know if that's true. But it got people talking about it again. And I want to be clear too, people weren't just making that assertion because of the weight gain. Because obviously, yes, you gain weight when you are pregnant, but she obviously isn't pregnant anymore. I think that just unfortunately, hey, I'm a woman too. It comes with age. It just happens sometimes. But they were commenting about how they do believe that she had father, mother fathered God, mothered Chris's child. Again, I don't know if that's true. Maybe it is. But we know that we have not seen any sight of her, not a sighting, not a picture, not a video in seven years. So as you know and can imagine, the Internet went wild. Now, for those of you listening to the audio version of this, I will link the video on my Instagram so you can watch it for yourself. My Instagram handle is at Underscore Annie Elise, but I don't know, we'll see. Again, let me know if you want a new, fresh deep dive into Nicole. Not necessarily everything that that monster Chris Watts did, but Nicole herself, because there's a lot of weird stuff when you really dig into that woman. But I will link the other existing deep dive for you too. All right, guys, that's it for this week's headline highlights. Sorry, I know I was kind of all over the place a little bit there for a minute, but hopefully, you know, I was able to convey the gist of it. I will be back with you on Monday with an all new deep dive into a case. It is a doozy. It's one that I thought I knew all the details about and then when I really got into it, I realized I didn't. So we have that on Monday. We, of course, have our deep dives throughout the week over on our YouTube channel, 10 to Life. And if you ever feel like you need more content and you're running out of things to listen to, we have a whole library right now on Apple podcasts and on Patreon, where you can listen to about 80 extra deep dive episodes that are exclusively there for Apple subscribers or for Patreon members. And we've talked about some breaking cases that are going on in the news right now. Like last week, I talked all about the doctor in Hawaii who tried to push his wife off the cliff. He's the anesthesiologist. And not only did he try to take a selfie with her and then push her off the cliff, but then he took a rock and hit her, allegedly 10 times in the head with it. He also tried to inject her with two different syringes. Then he fled on foot. She luckily survived. But I break down that whole case because apparently back in December, he started accusing her of having an affair. Then he started monitoring her text messages, her phone calls, like, all sorts of stuff. So that I released last Friday. We also have a bunch of other cases with, like, scam artists, best friends who plotted murders of their best friends, some of the other breaking cases that are out there. So you can go take a listen and you can see all of those titles and what's available on Patreon again or even on the Apple podcast app. All right, other than that, I am going to sign off. I am about to go record another Deep Dive episode for you that I will be airing very soon. And until the next one, guys, be nice. Don't kill people, don't join a cult, and stay away from connections with Jody Hildebrandt. For real. All right, guys, take care. I will talk with you soon. Bye.