Mother Daughter Murders - Largo, Maryland

Summary

Podcast Summary: Small Town Murder Episode: Mother Daughter Murders - Largo, Maryland
Release Date: August 14, 2025

Hosts: James Petregallo & Jimmie Whisman

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Introduction to the Case (00:01 - 05:00)

In this gripping episode of Small Town Murder, hosts James Petregallo and Jimmie Whisman delve into a chilling double homicide case in Largo, Maryland. Two distinct mother-daughter pairs—Dolores and Ebony DeWitt, and Karen and Carissa Lofton—were brutally murdered, shaking the serene suburban community. Despite local police suspecting a serial killer, FBI profilers assert that the crimes are unrelated.

Notable Quote:

James Petregallo [00:01]: "Terror runs through this comfortable leafy area as two different pairs of mothers and daughters are murdered."

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Community Overview and Initial Reactions (05:00 - 15:00)

The episode paints Largo as a predominantly Black, upper-middle-class suburb with a high median household income. Despite its outward tranquility, the murders have instilled fear and confusion among residents.

Key Points:

• Demographics: 86.6% Black, median age 39.8, median household income $88,799.
• Community Sentiment: Neighbors express unease, with increased participation in neighborhood watches and heightened home security measures.

Notable Quote:

Jimmy Whisman [10:12]: "Nothing else happens here. This is a really leafy suburban, you know, upper middle class type of place."

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Detailed Timeline of the Murders (15:00 - 60:00)

Dolores and Ebony DeWitt Murders (January 2009)

• Background: Dolores DeWitt, a dedicated nurse, lived with her two daughters, Ebony (19) and Courtney (17), after separating from her husband.
• Incident: On March 15, 2009, Courtney returned home to find her mother and sister missing. Shortly after, Sybil Felton reported her Nissan Maxima stolen and later discovered the burned bodies of Dolores and Ebony in the trunk.
• Investigation Findings:
  • Cause of Death: Strangulation.
  • Evidence: Bleach stains indicating attempted evidence cleanup, beech tree leaves not native to the area, and lack of forced entry.
  • Suspected Method: The killer likely used another vehicle to abduct and transport the victims before burning them in Sybil's car.

Notable Quote:

James Petregallo [35:37]: "The alarm was disengaged at 3:30 in the morning. Something had to disengage it."

Karen and Carissa Lofton Murders (December 2008)

• Background: Karen Lofton, another nurse, lived with her daughter Carissa.
• Incident: On January 26, 2009, both were found dead in their home, shot execution-style.
• Investigation Findings:
  • Cause of Death: Gunshots to the head.
  • Evidence: Presence of six spent shell casings from a Glock 17, no signs of forced entry, suggesting an inside job or someone familiar with their security routines.

Notable Quote:

James Petregallo [23:45]: "There's nothing broken...Clearly someone went in here to murder her and then took a couple of very specific things."

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Introduction of the Suspect: Jason Thomas Scott (60:00 - 145:00)

Background:

• Education & Employment: Jason Thomas Scott, a 27-year-old UPS employee with two master’s degrees in Information Systems Management and Computer Science.
• Criminal Behavior: Engaged in multiple burglaries and home invasions, using his access to UPS databases to scout targets meticulously.

Criminal Activities:

• Modus Operandi:
  • Preparation: Utilized UPS resources to identify homes receiving valuable packages.
  • Execution: Broke into homes during late hours, often with accomplices, using sophisticated tools and techniques to avoid detection and evidence.
  • Evidence Handling: Wore gloves, used ski masks, and carried burglary kits to minimize fingerprints and DNA traces.

Notable Quote:

James Petregallo [108:37]: "He would identify a target, then spend weeks or even months stalking them."

Arrest and Trial:

• Capture: Arrested in September 2009 after cooperation from his accomplice, Marcus Hunter, who provided evidence linking Scott to the murders.
• Legal Proceedings:
  • Proffer Interview: Scott confessed to numerous crimes, including the DeWitt and Lofton murders, during a proffer interview, expecting protection.
  • Trial: Initially resulted in a mistrial due to prejudice from admitted evidence. Subsequently, a plea deal was reached.
  • Plea Agreement: Scott entered an Alford plea, maintaining innocence while acknowledging criminal responsibility for the DeWitt murders, receiving an 85-year federal sentence.

Notable Quote:

Jimmy Whisman [124:44]: "You're a tsunami of crime."

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Impact on the Community and Victims' Families (145:00 - 170:00)

The murders and Scott's trial have left lasting scars on Largo’s residents. Families of the victims grapple with trauma and loss, while the community grapples with heightened fears and mistrust.

Key Points:

• Family Trauma: Kirk Jr., father of Ebony, succumbed to alcohol poisoning at 28, a direct consequence of the emotional toll from the murders.
• Community Response: Increased neighborhood vigilance, enhanced security systems, and the establishment of memorials like Butterfly Kisses clothing line in honor of the victims.
• Public Perception: The case serves as a catalyst for law enforcement agencies to refine profiling and investigation techniques, especially regarding organized and technologically adept criminals.

Notable Quote:

Karen and Carissa's Family Member [160:26]: "We wanted justice for the murders, not just the other crimes."

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Conclusion and Reflections (170:00 - End)

Hosts reflect on the complexities of the case, highlighting the intersection of meticulous criminal planning and the challenges faced by law enforcement in apprehending such a sophisticated offender. The Largo murders have become a seminal case study in criminal justice programs, emphasizing the evolution of criminal behavior in the digital age.

Notable Quote:

James Petregallo [169:02]: "This is a terrifying individual who utilizes intelligence, planning, and technological sophistication to commit heinous crimes."

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Final Thoughts

Small Town Murder expertly navigates the labyrinthine details of the Largo, Maryland double homicide case, offering listeners a comprehensive understanding of the events, the perpetrator’s psyche, and the profound impact on the community. Through meticulous research and engaging storytelling, James Petregallo and Jimmie Whisman shed light on one of the most disturbing criminal cases of recent times.

Notable Quote:

James Petregallo [157:17]: "He is a very bad man, this guy. He's a serial killer."

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Note: For those interested in experiencing the full depth of this case, tune into Small Town Murder’s latest episodes every Thursday.

Transcript

[James Petregallo]

This week in Largo, Maryland. Terror runs through this comfortable leafy area as two different pairs of mothers and daughters are murdered. But FBI profilers say they're not connected, even though local police think that they may have a serial killer on their hands. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello everybody and welcome back to Small Town Murder.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yay.

[James Petregallo]

Oh yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petregallo. I'm here with my co host.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I am Jimmy Wissman.

[James Petregallo]

Thank you folks so much for joining us today on another absolutely insane edition of Small Town Murder. We have a wild show for you today. Just absolute madness going on in the in the burbs over here. It is crazy stuff. Before we get to that very quickly, shut up and give me murder.com is where you go not only for all your merchandise but for all your tickets to live shows. And we have live shows in the fall. Now keep in mind we there's a bunch of holds and stuff they give us. So some of these are going to be released. So if you are looking for a sold out show and you've been looking for it for months, keep checking because we will release. They're not a ton of tickets but a few that they give us. We'll release them. So there will be right now though the ones that have tickets available. There are a few in San Diego from our holds. So get Those also Seattle, D.C. philly. So get your tickets now. Shut up and givememurder.com Grab yourself a T shirt while you're there to wear to the show. That said, definitely. Also listen to our other two shows, Crime in Sports, which we just did a really long seven part series on the i5 killer so you don't have to like sports for that. And also your stupid opinions where we talk all about people's reviews of things and it's the craziest show that's ever happened. You think Small Town Murder is crazy? You should hear people complain about like an enchilada they didn't like. It's amazing. So check that out. And also get yourself patreon. Patreon.com crimeinsports just like the name of that other show you should be listening to. That's where you get all the bonus stuff. Anybody $5 a month or above, you're gonna get so much. First of all, hundreds of back episodes of bonus stuff you've never heard before immediately upon subscription. Then you get two new ones every other week. One Crime in Sports, one Small Town Murder and you get them all this week. We're gonna dip back into the disaster lot here for crime and sports, we're gonna do some theme park disasters and also some industrial disasters. Stop getting on the roller coasters. And then for small town murder, it's prisoner dating game time. Hey, it's that time of year again. Everybody I'm sure is very excited. We're going to line up four bachelors, four bachelorettes for Jimmy. The only thing they have in common is they are all incarcerated for violent felonies. So he's going to pick one. He's going to pick one of each based just on their descriptions that they put out there on their dating profiles. And then he's going to get to find out what they actually did. So choices have consequences and Jimmy's going to find that out. So there we go. Patreon.com CrimeInSports and you also get in addition to all that, all the shows we make, crime in sports, your stupid opinions, all the small town murders, all ad free on Patreon too.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Who can beat that?

[James Petregallo]

Can't beat that. And you can take the RSS feed and put that into whatever player you like to use as well. You don't have to listen on there. So check that out. And you get a shout out at the end of the show too where Jimmy will mispronounce your name. We couldn't give you any more, I'm telling you. So that said, disclaimer time. Here we go everybody. This is a comedy show. It is where comedians and jokes are going to be made and people are going to die. You might think that's weird if you never heard the show before. You might go, what the hell are you going to do with that? But there's certain little couple of rules you put out for ourselves that kind of make it a little more digestible and I think you'll like it. First of all, we don't make fun of the victims or the victims families.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why, James?

[James Petregallo]

Because we're assholes. But we're not scumbags. See how that works? That's how it is. It's real easy to get on board with here. That's it. If you think true crime and comedy should never ever go together, you might not like the show, but you might like the show because you might go. You might go, this is what I'm looking for. I don't want to hear someone go and then her head was cut off and removed. It's a little creepy and it seems it's too much. It's almost a little murder porny sometimes not Bill Curtis we're not doing that. No, we're not doing that. Well, if I was Bill Curtis, I'd do it. Because that's.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'd do it. I'm not Curtis.

[James Petregallo]

Not Bill Curtis. That's what we say here. So, yeah, there you go. I think you're gonna have a good time. If not, no complaining later. That said, I think it's time everybody to. What do you say? Clear the lungs and arms to the sky. Let's all shout shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Here we go.

[James Petregallo]

Let's go on a trip, shall we?

[Jimmy Wissman]

We are.

[James Petregallo]

We're doing it. We're going to Maryland this week. We're going to the. It's the middle panhandle in Maryland. Maryland, if you look at it, is made up of three panhandles. This is the middle one. This is the. It's Largo, Maryland, L, A, R, G, O. And it's the southern panhandle there. It's southern part of the middle panhandle. It's about 30 minutes to Washington, D.C. about 45 minutes to Baltimore, and about 30 minutes to Bethesda, Maryland. Our last Maryland episode, which was the Serial Killing Schizophrenic Cannibal. You should listen to that episode if you haven't. Episode 573. This is in Prince George's County. See, you know exactly where that was named after. Anyway. They don't leave a lot to be questioned.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Possibly a prince.

[James Petregallo]

Perhaps George. Perhaps. Maybe Prince George. Area code 301. Largo is named after the Largo plantation that was owned by the Beale family. And the plantation is believed to be named after Largo Bay in Scotland.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Got it.

[James Petregallo]

So that's where that comes from. It was sold to a guy in 1745 and I don't know, they just took the name from there. The Prince George's county was formed from land in two different counties, and they just kind of put it all together on St. George's Day, April 23, 1696.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Got a St. Anna Prince. This is lovely.

[James Petregallo]

St. Anna Prince. So this is an old county, almost 100 years pre revolutionary War. So the county was named after Prince George of Denmark.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Which seems odd. The husband of Princess Anne and the heir to the throne of England.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

That's how that worked. So, so weird how different countries would have monarchs that weren't even born there. It's a strange thing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. How do you do that?

[James Petregallo]

Like, Richard the Lion Hearted was French. He wasn't even English. But like, he became King of England hated him. Yeah, I think in Men in Tights that's what Richard Lewis is playing. Right? I believe. Isn't that probably right? Or is he playing his brother that's trying to overtake him while he's on the Crusades or some shit? I don't remember. We're talking about Mel Brooks movies in historical context here. This is probably not the best way to do it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Movies were. One of the best jokes in there was about Abraham Lincoln who didn't even exist.

[James Petregallo]

Didn't even exist yet. One of the best ones was a bunch of guys rapping.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh yeah, it's pretty good too.

[James Petregallo]

Dave Chappelle busting a rap.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay, hey.

[James Petregallo]

Reviews of this town here. Let's find out what other people think here. There's four stars is the first review. I've been an active member of my community for many years. Largo is a nice community in Maryland that has remained civil for extended periods of time.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What is.

[James Petregallo]

I don't know what that. You know, we can go two, three years without savaging each other in the streets with clubs and fucking machetes and shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

For Christ's sake, guys.

[James Petregallo]

What are we talking about? 3 stars. Relatively quiet neighborhood. Food, places. Could be better. Okay. School, School system. Overall, it's a nice place to live. But it could be better. Which is the ultimate three star review. Not bad, but could be better. Now improvements maybe. That sounded one way. And now here's another three star review. The community of Largo is growing. Exclamation point. Multiple communities are available for luxury apartment style living. And Largo's about 25 minutes from D.C. and Bowie. Or Bowie. Or Bowie. I don't know. Great shopping communities with stores such as JCPenney.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Is there a Sears there too?

[Jimmy Wissman]

JCPenney and the last Montgomery Ward.

[James Petregallo]

That's where JCPenney is now. Is there? Because it sure shit isn't anywhere else.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There's still one in Phoenix. Oh, is there nearby. My house. Yeah, it's in the mall.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, okay. Dsw. Gotta have that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I didn't even know that still exists.

[James Petregallo]

That's what I was gonna say. That's insane. And Ashley Furniture are located in close proximity. Oh, so the town's fine. They got an ashley at a J.C. penney, so you should be able to get by.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You got mass produced garbage furniture.

[James Petregallo]

Man. Wegmans. A premier grocery experience in quotes. What Grocery experience?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Who has ever called the grocery store an experience?

[James Petregallo]

I think Wegmans calls it an experience. That's why it's in closest to Brian. Yeah, it's all I can imagine. I located in the city to accommodate the varying dietary needs and tastes of patrons. This place is definitely worth a shot. Okay, that is not a ringing endorsement. And then here's two very different two stars here. Here's another three star. That's very different than those three stars. There were several crimes committed in the area a few years ago, including robberies, invasion of privacies, and even a murder. Since then, I believe the sense of safety in the community has improved. An added plus is the fact that several police officers do live in the area. They're talking about our case today, by the way.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, really?

[James Petregallo]

Nothing else happens here. This is a really like leafy suburban, you know, upper middle class type of place. Like it's not a. Or you know, blue collar, but, you know, professional jobs type of deal. Nurses and people like that live here. Cops, nurses, that sort of thing. So it's not an area that's used to, you know, extreme bouts of violence.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, it is fascinating how that group of people most of the time keep it between the lines, but when they veer outside the lines, holy fuck, do.

[James Petregallo]

They drive it off a cliff. Shit gets crazy. You end up in a small town murder episode. That's what happened. That's the whole. You just said the point of why I came up with the idea for the show, that was exactly it. It was like, wow, small town people, everything's fine. But when they snap, holy shit, it's on. It's on now. And then finally, two stars. No nice restaurants in the area. And ones that are don't stay for very long. I guess ones that are nice area does not contain the nicest friendliest customer service nor does it provide kind or patient customers. So both the people behind the counter and in front of it are both assholes is what they're saying. So it's gonna be rough. People in this town. 12,003. So not a big place to be. That close to two major metropolises here. 54.3% women, which is very high for any place. Over a thousand people really. It's usually pretty close to even. Median age here is 39.8. It's about a year older than the national average. It's about 40% married here. It's usually 50, 50. Got about an average divorce rate here, that sort of thing. Race in this town, 3.9% white, 86.6% black, 3% Asian, 3.4% Hispanic. So it's like mostly black.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wait, what?

[James Petregallo]

Say that it's 86.6% black.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Black really?

[James Petregallo]

Yes. Yeah. 3.9% white. Wow. Yeah, it's like an upper middle class black suburb, basically. I like it would be the best way to put it. Average unemployment here, median household income is way higher than the national average, 88,799. So that's usually about 69,000 in the rest of the country.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This is marvelous.

[James Petregallo]

It's a very nice area. The cost of living here, 100 being regular average here it's 121 little bit high. And the housing is 120 out of 100. So it's very high. But the median home cost here, $310,000. So that's actually lower than the national average.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's not bad.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, not bad. So if we've convinced you. Damn it. You're going to Largo, we have for you some information here with the Largo, Maryland real estate average, two bedroom rental here goes for $1,980.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That is high.

[James Petregallo]

Excessively expensive.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That might be $700 more.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, it's really expensive. So I don't know if you're renting, that's not the best place you might want to buy. Here is house number one. It's a condo or an apartment, but I think they're calling it a condo because you can buy it. Nobody wants to buy an apartment. But you'll buy a condo.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, you'll buy a townhouse, but you're not buying a fucking apartment.

[James Petregallo]

Either way you hear people fucking through the walls. So same shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And if your AC goes out, it's fucking on you.

[James Petregallo]

It's on you. This is a one bedroom, one bath, 787 square foot joint. And it's just a room with a bedroom. I mean, it's really not a big place. You don't get any land or anything. 135,000 bucks for that though.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's not so bad.

[James Petregallo]

Which is. Yeah, it's a small place, but if you're a single person looking for something.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Reasonable, you need some money and you.

[James Petregallo]

Need a little flat, something on the side here, you know.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, for palace.

[James Petregallo]

Well, people in D.C. i'm sure there's plenty of fuck pads going on. That's probably why the rents are so high.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'll bet you're right.

[James Petregallo]

This is like some sort of bet.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You're right. Secret minutes away.

[James Petregallo]

Dc, Dally and suburb, where they're like, oh, all the apartments in Largo are owned by congressmen. Let's see Here is a four bedroom, two bath, 1600 square foot. Nice little family, nice family home.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Garage, single car garage. I like that little spot right there with the slanted roof.

[James Petregallo]

It's nice. Bushy. Nice bushes and grass and all that kind of thing. 0.25 acres, so not a huge lot. 439,900 bucks for that, though.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay, that's a bit steep.

[James Petregallo]

It's a little pricey. And then here's a nice brick house. This is four bedroom, three baths, 1720 square feet. It's all brick. Yeah, pretty nice. Nice hardwood floors.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Nice well appointed.

[James Petregallo]

Nice backyard. This house is $535,000, though.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's a lot of money.

[James Petregallo]

Just had a price cut too, so.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, that's good.

[James Petregallo]

Things to do in this town is the. And find a lot to do around here. Honestly, I think you're so close to Baltimore and D.C. it's. You just know to get in the car and drive somewhere. Yeah, I found the downtown Largo Festival sounds great. And their mission, it says, is through engaging cultural experiences, interactive activities, timely resources, and inclusive programming, we aim to bring upscale. An upscale experience. Foster connections, inspire collaboration. It's just every buzzword that exists.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Foster connections, inspire collab. It sounds like somebody's fucking resume. Encourages growth. Yeah, I hate that shit. I hate when they say welcome, opinions, stewardship. They use words like that. It's just fantastic. These buzzwords promote a sense of pride among residents. All that kind of shit you can expect. Live music, food trucks, art activations. I don't know what that is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What's an activate?

[James Petregallo]

Activate the art. Yeah. Why? That's scary. Retail vendors, game and experience trucks. Those trucks, you go in and shit them.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Stupid things for teenage boys.

[James Petregallo]

DIY and urban garden demos and a farmer's market. And then there is the Montpelier Farms Fall Festival.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Hell, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Montpelier is the capital of Vermont, so I don't know what the hell they got going on here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Must be a person, right?

[James Petregallo]

I'm not sure. Yeah, Montpelier's got to be somebody's last name. It says, welcome to an exciting day at our fall festival. Packed with fun and perfect for photo ops. That's what this farm is. It's just like, take come here and your Instagram page will be popping. Yeah. Savor delicious treats, refreshing drinks, and shop at our farm markets. Dive into the farm festivities with adorable animals, exhilarating playgrounds. Exhilarating playgrounds. What a weird combination of words.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Slide is windy.

[James Petregallo]

A trike track, barnyard basketball. Got me. I'm scared. I don't know.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Chickens. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Giant hill slides. Ride on pig races.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. And so much more. There's also the pigs alone. A 7 acre interactive corn maze, a pumpkin corn maze, hay rides, animals. What else? Kid corral. A corn pit. What the fuck is a corn pit?

[Jimmy Wissman]

I suppose they dry it out and let you like a ball pit, but.

[James Petregallo]

Just you like, you swim in it and you're like, yeah, corn nuts. I don't know. Pig races, Puzzle mania. Pumpkin bowling soon. Bowling with pumpkins. A roping range, right? A penalty paddock for everybody fucking up while you're doing the corn pit. I guess you got to be put in the penalty paddock. A hay in play, I don't know, a tug o war, a mini hill slide, photo ops and a public bonfire. That's what they got for you. Crime rate in this town, what we are interested in here, property crime about one quarter above the national average. Little bit of property crime, violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and of course assault. The Mount Rushmore of crime is slightly above average as well, but pretty close to the average.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, Slightly above but pretty close to the average. Now that said, let's talk about some murder.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Let's do it.

[James Petregallo]

We balls do we have a wild case today. Okay. And not even a case, a story, an unfolding event. It's nuts. Let's start in 2008. Yeah, okay, 2008. Just to set the scene of Largo very. I've said it in the opening. Leafy is a good way to put it. A lot of trees, everybody's got a yard, happy suburb, kids riding bikes and shit like that. It's, you know, kids is just booming that they got the. Oh, it's gonna happen cone. Cone set up in the cul de sac so the kids can play, you know what I'm saying? One of those joints.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Turtle with the flag.

[James Petregallo]

Oh yeah, he's there. Oh, you know it. That fucking, that little turd. It's on the sign, you mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

My neighbor had one. He's an. He's like a 65 year old man, had no kids ever and had that fucking sign out just to slow people down.

[James Petregallo]

That's ridiculous. I used to like by my house when I was a kid, there was a deaf kid area. It said, yeah, yeah, deaf kid area. And the graphic was an open mouth with sound coming out of it. Like a face with sound coming and a kid just playing with a ball turned the other direction. But like silhouettes of that. That's what that means. You'll yell and he'll ignore you. I guess. So now this area includes there's Largo and there's also Upper Marlboro, which is kind of considered the same thing as Largo. Like, a couple of those houses in the real estate report were from Upper Marlboro. They're all connected, these little places. And Bowie or Bowie or whatever the fuck it is. Like I said, not a rough area. This is, you know, kind of professional people live here type of deal.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

One of the people living here fits the bill for that is Velma Patrice Artist Butler, or Artis. I'm sorry? Artis. Like Artis Gilmore, the old basketball player. 1s Artis Butler. Vilma is her first name. V I l m a 2008. She's 46 years old, and she comes from a good family. Has a sister and two brothers, and she was married to a man named Timothy, but they divorced. So she's a single mother, has three kids, works hard. Always thought to like all the neighbors. Keeps her lawn cut in suburbia. That's the ultimate compliment that you can get from your neighbors is the house. Always. They keep the house looking nice. That's all that you know about your neighbors. It's either the people who look like slobs or the people who keep their yard nice or whatever. I don't know my neighbors.

[Jimmy Wissman]

People that are keeping my property value up and the people that are a blight on it.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, exactly. People you want to leave and the people you like to stay. She's considered very friendly. Always waves at all the neighbors. Just a nice lady. Her three kids are Christopher, Christina and Nicholas. And she has a couple different jobs. She's a nurse, first of all. That's her main job. And apparently at some point also. I don't know if it's at this time, but sometime around here, she was working for Toner Express USA as a business development manager. So she does that. She does nursing. So she's a professional lady now. In 2008, her daughter Christina had just left for college. By the way, she named one kid Christopher and one kid Christina.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I remember that.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. That's crazy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Chris, Chris and Nick.

[James Petregallo]

Chris, Chris and Nick. So she was big Christmas lady. She loves it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, I don't know. That's all I can imagine.

[Jimmy Wissman]

St. Nick and a bunch of Chris.

[James Petregallo]

Christmas and St. Nick and all that. It. So anyway, her daughter had just left for college, so she's kind of alone in the house now. She's empty nesting at this point, at 46. So she's raised her kids upright, got them off to college, and now she's like, ha, Now I can sit Back and relax. And unfortunately she doesn't get to do that for too long. On June 24, 2008, at 4:45am Firefighters are called to the area. They arrive around that time neighbors had called and also told them that not only is the house on fire, around 4am before the fire started, I heard popping noises as well. Like bullets, some kind of popping noises. You know, this is a nice neighborhood because they don't refer to them as gunshots. They refer to them as popping noises.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't know how much Jiffy Pop she's got in that house.

[James Petregallo]

Who knows? You know what I mean? Who knows? Anything could be possible. But I've lived in shit neighborhoods where any popping noise is a gunshot. And you know that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And then you live in nice neighborhoods and you go, what was that? What was that noise? Was that a gunshot or was that. Was that fireworks?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So there's. They get there. There's no sign of any forced entry, by the way. That's one thing. So that's a good sign. The house when they get in there is ransacked, but not in a frenzied way.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

You know, like if you picture in your head like a crackhead at 4 o' clock in the morning just tearing shit up, ripping drawers out and dumping them and shit like that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

That's not how this has gone down at all. There's things missing, but it's very. Things are taken. One thing from over here, one thing from over there, very specific and seem like. Seem like somebody was looking for particular things at the time. Now they find Velma in the house. She has been shot execution style in.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The back of the head, damn it.

[James Petregallo]

Which is. It's not like she's gone astray of some drug dealers or something. She's a 46 year old fucking nurse, you know, single mother nurse. And she's got no involvement in anything crazy. So this is really weird. They don't think it's a robbery gone wrong or somebody that was really mad at her, looked like somebody went in here to murder her and then took a couple of very specific things that they wanted on the way out. Very odd. And the house is intentionally set on fire afterwards, which makes sense normally. What a coincidence would it be if you went into a house, stole some shit, murdered somebody, left and then an electrical fire started 20 minutes later. That'd be remarkable.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Or the candle that she left out.

[James Petregallo]

She left it too close to the curtains. That's not your fault. Yeah, it's weird. So the investigation, they get into it. And there's no leads. There's no forensic evidence in the house whatsoever. There's no suspects, there's no motive because they don't think the things that were stolen amount to murder. Motive, that's robbery, that kind of thing. No forensic evidence. No fingerprints, no hairs, no fibers, which the fire helped a lot with that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No bullet, huh?

[James Petregallo]

No, they got a bullet. That's it though. So that's all they have.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Anyway.

[James Petregallo]

They have nothing to match it to. So just a dead nurse and, you know, and some popping noises. They have nothing else to go on here. So this is in June, and then months go by and nothing else happens in 2008, they can't. It's just a very, very cold case. So by fall of 2008, here, the next, you know, that fall, a few months later, now more shit starts to happen around this area. In Upper Marlboro and in Largo, there's a series of burglaries that are just mind boggling that people can't wrap their heads around. This is not people breaking in, stealing a couple of things. This is our specifically targeted burglaries that are very strange. They would know exactly what they. They would take. They'd take electronics, TVs, that kind of thing. But they'd also take weird shit that burglars don't take.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Like what?

[James Petregallo]

Number one car keys, which sometimes a burglar might take that for a later thing. Also personal photographs.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, wow.

[James Petregallo]

They'd go through their photo albums and there'd be pictures missing from the photo albums.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Weird.

[James Petregallo]

Think about how much time someone has to spend in a house to go through your photo albums and take the pictures they want.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, right.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. To actually look at the bong. I'll take that one and I'll take this one. Just weirdly personal items that are not resale, they don't have any resale value. Just made no sense at all.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Just a memory.

[James Petregallo]

Exactly. The things that are only valuable to us have been taken.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And the car keys is like, perhaps they can come back and take the car later. But if they don't, in the event they don't, that's such a fucking nightmare. To have to go to the dealership and get her.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, it's the worst. It's a nightmare. You don't want that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And they're so expensive.

[James Petregallo]

They're so goddamn expensive. Especially when everything was actual keys. You know what I mean? You know, now it's.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There were always those weird keys.

[James Petregallo]

Yes. Yeah, exactly.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It didn't look like a key it was like a square key with like a groove through that. You would.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, you hit the button and it would pop open. You had a Volkswagen like that little switchblade pop over.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Stupid little blade key.

[James Petregallo]

So the burglaries all happened between 10 and 3am as well. These weren't during the day when families were out, people at school, people at work. If it was 10am and 3pm, that would make a lot of sense because that's when a lot of these burglaries happen. But this was when they were asleep. So this person went into people's houses and meticulously went through all their shit for hours while they slept. Wandering around while you're sleeping, that is disturbing at best. Holy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Imagine CGPAP is just humming.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, Hopefully. Maybe that's why you don't hear anything. So, hey, everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you how to dress better with stitch fix.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, stitchfix.com I mean, let's.

[James Petregallo]

Let's. Let's be honest here. Let's lay it on the table. Shopping isn't great. No, it's just not as fun as it should be or as you would imagine it might be.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't know how to do this.

[James Petregallo]

You ever just wish someone would tell you what to wear? Because that's where I love it. That's where we're at. We talk about it all the time. That's what we want. We're just too busy to shop anymore. We still want to look half decent. We have to present ourselves in public and everything. But that's why we love Stitch Fix, because your stylist sends you clothes that fit your vibe, body and budget. Shopping without the hassle. Absolutely. Bring it to me, please, because I need that. All you have to do is this. You take a quick step. Style quiz. Share your size, style and budget and get matched with a real human. A stylist who gets your vibe and wants to help you dress better. It's really good. I like this Stitch Fix. I got some cool stuff that I was like, oh, thank you, person who guided me here, shopper. I appreciate your styling ways here. So the stylist is great. It's no risk. All style. You get a personalized fix box straight to your door. Try it all on in the comfort of your home. Shipping and returns are always free, no subscription required. Plus get a free try on for your first fix. Get started today@stitch fix.comstm to get $20 off your first order and they'll waive your styling fee. That stitch fix.comSTM now back to the show. But basically it avoids. And the 10am and 3am is an interesting thing because it's people that work night shift don't come home until 5 or 6am so it's like avoiding those people. It's a very specific time they're doing it. So through the fall of 2008, into the winter of 2008 and early 2009, these burglaries became worse.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What do you mean, worse?

[James Petregallo]

Well, it started out with people waking up and just finding items missing and wondering what happened in their homes. But now there's more burglaries. Ones where families are being woken up by a masked man holding a gun to their head. Now.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, my.

[James Petregallo]

Home invasion. That's full on home invasion at that point. And forcing them to give out over their debit cards and PIN numbers. And then he would take their car keys and drive away in their car.

[Jimmy Wissman]

In their car.

[James Petregallo]

In their car.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Walked there, Ubered, rode the bus. No, it's too late.

[James Petregallo]

It's crazy. So, yeah, you wake up at 2am with a gun to your head. Give me your debit card, give me your PIN number. And then you watch your car drive away. Oh, but you're alive.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, but it's still like crazy violating because everything come back in email.

[James Petregallo]

Shattered. Shattered. Your whole sense of security is shattered at that point, obviously. So this is what's been going on in this neighborhood. And we'll talk about some of the specific cases that happen, because even more disturbing things happen than just being. Than just the. Give me your PIN number. Yeah, we'll talk about it. Some very disturbing things. That gets put on video. That's insane. Okay, January of 2009. Let's talk about the Lofton family. L O F T E N. Like Kenny, the old baseball player.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So he have an O N. Oh.

[James Petregallo]

He was Owen, wasn't he?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, he was.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, he might have been. This is Ian. Kirk Lofton is the dad. Karen Lofton is the mom. Kirk and Karen, both K's. They have sons as well, named Kirk Jr. And Keon K I O N. And then they have a daughter named Karissa as well. Carissa's the youngest. She's born in 1992, so she's a teenager at this point in time. And Karissa, man, she's a fucking fighter. This Carissa, she's had some serious problems. While she was very young, like toddler, she had open heart surgery to repair a valve problem. There's nothing sadder than a small child all in a surgical. That's the saddest fucking thing in the world. It's horrifying.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Any small child going under for surgery.

[James Petregallo]

They just don't look right in a hospital bed. No, they just don't. They're too little. It's the eye, they shouldn't be there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's the tubes that really fuck it all up.

[James Petregallo]

They're in the middle of doing a very adult thing and it's creepy. It would be like watching a kid. It would be like watching a kid like, you know, extract ore from a mine or something to be like that. You shouldn't be doing that. You're too little to do that. You're like four. That's too little.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And any baby having heart surgery, it's like that should be reserved for a 58 year old man who smoked, drank and ate bacon for the last 30.

[James Petregallo]

Years, led a shit life and is a dick too.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And this poor kid.

[James Petregallo]

No.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Hasn't even had any opportunity to fuck this heart up.

[James Petregallo]

No. It's as strange as watching a kid jackhammering out the road in front of your house. Why is he doing that? That's weird.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Jesus Christ, David, your diapers leaking?

[James Petregallo]

Jesus, come on. You had shit in your pants for two hours. You got to stop. But Karissa came back stronger than ever, though. She recovered from this. And she is known as having a really good spirit and a real, you know, way about her because. And I think that'll do that to you if you know that you've overcome something that'll do that short fucking life.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is and just enjoy it and have.

[James Petregallo]

A great time and you've been told how lucky you are since your whole life also, I think that might make you feel like that you shouldn't even be here. Shouldn't even be here right now. No. So the family at this point in 2008, early 2009, Kirk Senior had moved to Georgia because he and Karen had broken up.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

So Kirk Senior moved away. And I don't know if they waited till the kids kind of got old enough because two of the kids are out at college and Carissa is planning on college and going to go soon, and Karissa's going to move down to Georgia to go to college where her dad is. So that's the plan. So at this point, though, Karen is a single mother with three kids because he's all the way down there. She's a nurse as well here. One of her colleagues described her as probably one of the best nurses of her time. Her time. Her time. She's the Willie Mays of nurses.

[Jimmy Wissman]

A real generational nurse.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, we all know about her. The next generation looks up to her, but that's how they're looking at her, at her job.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Fascinating choice of words, but all right, I'll take it.

[James Petregallo]

Weird, right? That's what I mean. It's a strange thing to say. She was really, really obsessive about home security. After Kirk Senior moved out especially, she became very, very into home security. And even Kirk said when he was there, when he would leave the house, she would check the back door, check the windows, make sure everything was locked up.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The windows.

[James Petregallo]

The windows, make sure they're locked. Everything. This is in the 10800 block of Southall Drive here. Now, on January 26, 2009, there is a 911 call, and Carissa is the one making it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

The teenage daughter, okay? She's so fucking polite. This is what makes it even more heartbreaking. Here she's on 911. You hear 911 calls all the time, and they're like, yeah, what the fuck? Hurry up. What are you doing? She says, quote, ma', am, I've been shot.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Carissa's been shot.

[James Petregallo]

Yes. And she refers to the 911 operator as Ma', am, which is just insanely polite for a teenager. Ma', am, I've been shot. My mother has been shot. I'm bleeding to death. Please hurry.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm bleeding to death. She recognizes that.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, she's bleeding out. She's. Please hurry. So the. Obviously, the cops are rushed over there. It's a two story. Nice home. Yeah, you know, really nice. And they got there within five minutes. The cops do less than five minutes. They got there. Number one, the front door is locked. Oh, okay. Front door is locked. No signs of forced entry. Obviously. There's nothing broken and anything like that. They do find a window on the side of the house that is closed but unlocked.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Okay. Now, an officer crawls through the window because they're banging on the door. Nobody's answering.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, God.

[James Petregallo]

So there's a cop, gun drawn, crawling through the window. He goes to go open the front door to let the other cops in. So they gather themselves all together, they go through the house room by room, and they see nothing. They see nothing. Nothing is ransacked or anything like that. Then they find that both Karissa and her mother are shot to death. They're both dead. Carissa died, and that means she was bleeding to death.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She knew.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, she knew what was going on here. They've both been Shot, dead. And yeah, detectives arrive at the scene a short time after this and they call detectives right away, Homicide. They found Karen mom had been crouched down in a corner of her bedroom, trying to protect herself. She was just balled up, don't hurt me type of thing, you know, in her own bedroom. It's horrifying. She'd been shot and killed in the upper portion of the home, in her bedroom. And they conclude that Carissa had been shot in her own bed. Her body is found under the covers and everything. She got shot, called 911. Probably had her phone next door. Called 911 and never got out of bed, though.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, Jesus.

[James Petregallo]

Bled out in bed. So the cops are looking around here? No, like I said, no signs of forced entry, just a one unlocked window. The alarm system had been disengaged at 3, I believe, 26 in the morning.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So it was engaged at some point?

[James Petregallo]

Yes. So it's been disengaged. So something had to disengage it. Something had to happen to make the alarm go off at 3:30 in the morning. Which is an odd time for, you know, two ladies in the house to just turn alarms off.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, you don't. Unless it goes off, you don't shut it off.

[James Petregallo]

Exactly, exactly. And it was just completely turned off? Not just. Yeah, not just, you know, turn the actual alarm off. They did find six spent shell casings from a Glock 17 handgun scattered throughout the house. So not even right by there. They were kind of all over the place, which is also odd. You'd imagine they would be where the gunshots were, you know, where they happened. Nothing appeared to be stolen. Okay, so this just makes no fucking sense. This is just someone came in here, brutalized the, butchered these two women, shot them to death in their own bedrooms and then just left. Just. They felt like doing that more than the other.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Did they both get three? Do we know?

[James Petregallo]

I'm not sure the exact amounts of each, but it's but six.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Well, we've only got six shells.

[James Petregallo]

It doesn't mean it could be more. Yeah, could be more, could be less wounds. Who knows? So they're like, why would this happen? Why would someone come in here in the middle of the night to kill these two? Who? Neither of them have any enemies or anything like that. It's not like they're. You know, Mom's a nurse, right? She's not a. You know, she doesn't, like, deal coke on the side or run a. Some sort of bookie empire or something. She owes people money. Like it's nothing like that. She's a normal lady. So it makes no sense at all. They did feel like that the intruder must have fled through that open window. Like, however they got in is irrelevant at this point, and we'll try to figure it out. But we think that's how he got out because the front door's locked, so he couldn't have left and locked the door.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So let's hope that cop was smart enough to use fucking gloves. So I would fingerprint that fucking window.

[James Petregallo]

I would hope so. But who the hell knows here? So they also. They end up getting no fingerprints. So whether.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Nothing.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, nothing. Either the killer wore gloves or that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Guy'S belly wiped him clean.

[James Petregallo]

Wiped it all clean. So they're wondering, is that how they got in through the same window? Was the entrance and exit the same spot? Now, their security system had been activated that night, but was turned off within minutes of the break in.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, so it did. It went off.

[James Petregallo]

No, it didn't. It was turned off before any.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, okay. All right.

[James Petregallo]

So they did not. They don't know what that means. Karen or Karissa had to disarm the security system for this to happen. Or they are. The intruder had to know how to disarm the security system, one of the two. So they were wondering also if that didn't happen, how did they get into the house without setting off the alarm?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

So was it. You know, it's a weird thing. So the investigators, they learned that Karen. Karen's a school nurse, for Christ's sake. Always. Always the target of massive retribution. A school nurse, obviously. Poor lady. She and Carissa had gone to church on Sunday, January 25, and Carissa had later gone to work at her job at the Golden Corral.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, Carissa.

[James Petregallo]

Carissa's last day on earth was church and Golden Corral.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Golly.

[James Petregallo]

She had to smell Golden Corral.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And then. Oh, man. Family members said she was seen leaving the restaurant at approximately 9pm when her shift ended. Now, they're unable to figure out how Carissa got home from work. Usually her mother picks her up, but it doesn't seem like Karen picked her up that night. So they don't know what's going on here. So police at this point are focusing on someone who knows them at this point. Yeah, they're saying this is a friends or family close to these people type of murder because nothing has been taken. No signs of forced entry, no motive, no evidence of theft. This is someone had it in for them in some way, shape or form, obviously, because I Mean, they say it's not just random. The police chief said the area is pretty quiet. This is not normal for us here. Now, the first thing they look at is we'll talk about is the husband, the Kirk Sr. But he's. He was in Georgia, so definitely not him for sure. So that was the first one. Oh. Marriage ended. Where's the husband? Oh, he's in Georgia. Okay. Fuck. Now, there also, 12 days earlier, about five miles away, there was another double homicide. Not the first one, not Vilma, a different one. Another double homicide in a gated community of million dollar homes in Upper Marlboro. So very nice area in that case. Eunice Ba, who was 36, and Seth Idu, who was 40, were killed in their home there. Seth had been stabbed to death and Eunice had died from a gunshot wound to the head. Fascinating.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Weapons. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Separate means of murder, which is odd. Now, according to the police chief, despite public speculation of this, there's nothing to indicate that these are connected. These two separate murders. Not connected. The guy's name is Chief Hylton. He says this is an isolated incident. This is not a serial killer. We're pulling out all the resources, doing everything forensically that we can understand. We just have two assholes. They're different assholes, but they're. Yeah, they're assholes nonetheless.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Now Keon becomes a suspect. 20 year old son becomes a suspect, which is strange. They bring him in for an interrogation. Yeah, and you know, he said you're asleep at your girlfriend's house. You get a call that your mother and sister have been murdered. You raced to your house to find police tape and body bags. That's what he said. He was like, this is crazy. He said it felt like a nightmare or a dream. Now, during the interrogation, the officers let him hear a snippet of Carissa's 911 call, which is horrible. And then they accused him of causing it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Ah.

[James Petregallo]

They said, you're the reason why.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Welcome home. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. And he will later say, Keon, quote anyone who's accused of anything they haven't done, they're going to be upset. When I'm in the interrogation room and I'm hearing them accusing me, and I'm just trying to process, like, did this really happen? Like, did my mother and sister really just get murdered? Are you guys really accusing me of doing this? Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

He said I was upset. Like, you're not going to state it's me. I didn't have anything to do with it. You can do whatever you need to do. It's not going to be me. He said that was his.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, that's his stance. Official stance. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Say whatever the fuck you want, but I didn't do it. So. Yeah, which is what innocent people say because his alibi completely checks out.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

He was at his girlfriend's house all night with multiple witnesses there to confirm it. Not just his girlfriend. So people that don't live there. Even so it's not Keon. They really thought it was Keon.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really.

[James Petregallo]

Now the evidence here, they don't have any. No fingerprints, no DNA, no witnesses, no motive.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Just shells.

[James Petregallo]

Just shells and two dead ladies who never did a fucking thing to anybody. So it makes no sense. Kirk Sr. Said this is just heartbreaking. To be a 16 year old girl and be in the comfort of your own bed and a monster like that comes and takes your life from you. He said that whoever did this had to have known about Karen's security habits as well. Had to. He said she took that really seriously. She would make sure the back door is locked, things of that sort. She would make sure the windows are locked. She was always a stickler for those things. He said, I know how safe Karen was. Karen would not let anyone in the house at 2:36 in the morning without. She would have had the alarm on.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So yeah, she's not turning that alarm off at 2:30 in the morning for a stranger. It's not happening. Now they start looking at how sophisticated this killer might have been. Because at first they thought it was just a family member and that's why it was, you know, if Keon came over and just turned the alarm off, that would make all the sense in the world. We know. It's not that. So now they're like, do we have somebody that's sophisticated enough to know about the security system and not even a theft? That's what I mean.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Just for murder.

[James Petregallo]

The mob doesn't do hits this well. They really don't. That's. This is like crazy. So they said someone is that sophisticated to force Karen to disarm the alarm system, knowing it's on, knowing her habits. They said, but that is not what people who break into houses do. It's just not that level of sophistication. You know, only an ex husband or something would do that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And you don't murder just willy nilly like that. It's not there.

[James Petregallo]

No.

[Jimmy Wissman]

To kill a nurse and a school nurse, for Christ's sake.

[James Petregallo]

That lady school nurse and a teenager always retires.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You know what I mean?

[James Petregallo]

Yes.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The longevity of A school nurse. They stick around so long.

[James Petregallo]

So long. No, they stay till. They stay till they don't know what medicines are. When the kids have. We had a really old one and some kid had, like. I don't remember what kind of medicine, but she wouldn't. It was like a prescription he had to take, and she wouldn't give it to him because she didn't know what it was. It was like a big deal. He had to get his mom to come in and, like, it was crazy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Well, in her defense, James, she's been around since laudanum was a fucking.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that's the problem. That was it. She's like, I was gonna give you a bottle of laudanum, but it just.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You know, I had cocaine, but I don't know why you want dimetap. What the hell is this? Pepto Bismol.

[James Petregallo]

Do you want to feel good or not? That's what I'm asking you. Because I can help you. March of 2009 comes around. Okay, now, Dolores Smith DeWitt is her name here. We'll talk about her. D E W I T t. She's born September 8, 1966, making her about 42 years old here in March of 2009. She is. Guess what her profession is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is she a nurse?

[James Petregallo]

She's a nurse.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

She is a nurse. She's the oldest child of six brothers and sisters. She grew up in North Carolina. She married her high school sweetheart. She worked through college to become a licensed practical nurse. She then remarried and enrolled in college and completed her bachelor's degree in nursing. So she's doing all that. Her daughter said, mom's motto is always do what you got to do now so you can do what you want to do later.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's a solid fucking motto.

[James Petregallo]

Probably the greatest thing you can teach your kids.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Is do shit you don't want to do, and later on, you'll be able to do shit that you feel like doing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Absolutely.

[James Petregallo]

100%. Instant gratification is a much shittier gratification, I assure you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Anybody that you're embarrassed seeing you do what you're doing will not remember this when it's time for you to do what you want to do.

[James Petregallo]

Absolutely fucking not. This is a hard thing. This is the number one thing that's impossible for kids to process, though.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Because you don't have any concept of time. In a long fashion, if you're 16, you can't think about 25 years from now. You're not even 25 years old. How the hell are you supposed to imagine that?

[Jimmy Wissman]

25 years. Fuck, I haven't even done that yet.

[James Petregallo]

I want to have fun now.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm only 16, and this feels like fucking forever.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. And a lot of teenage 32, just a lot of teenagers think, well, I'm not going to live to be 30. I don't know where they think they're going to disappear to a crazy, crazy age. It sounds like, oh, Christ, I'll never get that far. So it's real weird. But anyway, they said that that's what she did. That's what Dolores did here. And she said, her daughter said she always put her kids first. She saved every penny she had so she could get decent housing and stuff like that. Her brother Robert said he remembered when she scraped together $3,000 years ago to buy a Nissan so she could drive her kids around. And when she stopped renting and bought a home in the Largo area where they lived, she was very proud because she had to really scrimp and save. But she wanted to provide her kids with a nice environment, with a good school district and all that good stuff. What everybody wants of their kids, really.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The hope.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that's what you're going for. So both daughters had graduated from high school. She's got two daughters. We'll talk about them. They both graduated from high school but live at home still. Okay. Now they. One, they go to school. They have jobs. She has a job. So there's all sorts of, you know, there are three adult women in the house, so they're going in a lot of different directions. So a lot of times they're not home. You know, they don't have a lot of family dinners because they all have a bunch of shit they're doing and stuff like that. But every few weeks they'd get together and go shopping and get their hair done. Courtney said, nice. Both daughters and Mom.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So like once a month they do that. Now, Ebony is the oldest daughter. She's 19. She graduated from Largo High in 2007, and she was working at Comcast in Largo. Comcast, the cable company there. And had recently received her medical assistant certificate or certification from Sands College in Washington, D.C. she's following mom's shit. She's following Mom's stuff, and she's working her way through school and stuff like that. These are kids that have been given a solid background of how you do things. You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Wissman]

The blueprint is, you don't take shit from me. You go get a job and work your way through it.

[James Petregallo]

Exactly. You'll figure it out, make your own money. It's a good thing. So, Ebony, everybody says she's the life of the party. She's real lively and has a lot of energy, and that's kind of her deal. Everybody knows her as that, which is good for a nurse.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's great.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, you like a nurse with some energy. Oh, boy, that fucking. They come in all dour and shit. You're like, listen, I'm stressed. I think I'm dying. Yeah, Pretty sure I'm dying. Can you pretend that life is good for me, please?

[Jimmy Wissman]

I wouldn't come in here if I didn't think I was dying. So you know what the deal is? Fix, make, not die.

[James Petregallo]

I bet that's gotta be hard, though, because I bet there's some people who are like, what are you all fucking cheery for? I'm dying over here. So you really can't win, I think, if you're a nurse.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Smile.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. I think after a while, that's why they just play it down the middle, because you never know it's going to piss off. Nice.

[Jimmy Wissman]

As big as my fucking prostate.

[James Petregallo]

Perfect. Huge. I got a blockage, you see, about the size of your smile. So they describe her as that. They said that she was also. She has a serious person she's dating as well. So she's in a serious relationship, real close to her family and all that kind of thing. Now, Courtney is 17 here, and that's the younger daughter, so she's there, too. Now, Dolores had been a nurse for nine years at Bradford Oaks Nursing and Rehabilitation center in Clinton, which is, I believe, a lot of elderly patients is what she deals with. Sounds like a lot of. Yeah, everybody said she's very passionate about working with elderly patients. And, yeah, they said that she would go. She'd show up at work even if she, you know, because she had migraines sometimes. They said she'd show up at work even if she had a migraine. She wasn't missing her day because she had people counted on her. She was very responsible here. And she would basically go all around the. The center there where she worked, always singing songs from the gospel station she had on. Oh, so she's belting out Jesus tunes while you're. While you're there. So I figure. Fluffing a pillow.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, just singing it.

[James Petregallo]

So now, the DeWitts were robbed, burglarized in December of 2008. This family, their neighbor, Kay Walker, who lives across the street, said that it was about December 2008, and this neighbor said Quote, they had purchased a Wii, a brand new television and one other item, an electronic item. And about a week later those items were stolen.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yep.

[James Petregallo]

They said someone had broken in through a window and only those items were stolen.

[Jimmy Wissman]

All the coolest electronics of 2007 of to the.

[James Petregallo]

But the shit they just got right. All the new shit was stolen. None of the other stuff was stolen, which is odd. So yeah, that was, that's really a who's who of 2008 technology. There really was a couple TVs in.

[Jimmy Wissman]

2008 because my kid threw the fucking Wii controller through it.

[James Petregallo]

I remember hearing about that. That was fucking funny. Well, that was when you're first kind of getting. People were buying the flat screens and you know.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

That was when they were mainly plasma.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. And they were fairly inexpensive then too.

[James Petregallo]

That was like they were getting there point.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Where they were starting to be like, well, I don't know, $300 isn't so bad for him to learn a lesson.

[James Petregallo]

Hey everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you a little bit more about soul.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, getsoul.com.

[James Petregallo]

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[Jimmy Wissman]

Now back to the show.

[James Petregallo]

So, March 15th, 2009. Courtney, the youngest daughter, the 17 year old. Yeah, she was staying somewhere else the night before. Okay. She arrives home here she gets. She arrived at the Largo metro station a few hours earlier, just after 10pm on March 15. It's a Sunday night. She spent the weekend with her friend. She sent her mother, Dolores, a text message asking for a ride home. Because she's a 17 year old at a fucking train station at 10 o' clock at night.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's not a good place to be.

[James Petregallo]

Dolores does not respond to this text message, which is not like Dolores. I mean, she'd be sitting there waiting for her kid to text so she can go pick her up and bring her home. So she just walks home, Courtney. She has no other recourse here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So she walks home. 9700 block of Cedar Hollow Lane. The house is on. She came in the house and said her sister and mother weren't home. Where the hell are they? It's ten o' clock at night. They should be home. It seemed like they should have been, but they're not. The lights are on. Ebony's jacket was near the door, which in the winter is a thing. And her mother's car is in the driveway, yet they're not in the house. So what happened? She's like, this is like they disappeared or something. So she called out, no response. Where the fuck are you to? What's going on? She said, when I got home, I don't remember if I had to disable our alarm or not, but I just go in the house. And that's something you don't remember because you do it by habit. That's like saying, did you turn your directional on when you turn? I don't think I did. I don't fucking know.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't know if I shut the garage door every time I leave.

[James Petregallo]

That's what I mean. That's why people go, did I turn the stove off? Or every woman always says, did I turn the curling iron off? Yeah, because it's just habit. You don't remember doing it. So I do that sometimes. I'll pee. I'll leave the bathroom and go, did I flush the toilet? And I'll go back because you don't remember, because it's, you know, it's just out of habit. So anyway, she said that I go in the house and I see my sister's jacket on the back of the chair. Everything just looks normal. It just looks like they weren't there. My mom's car was in the driveway. Everything looked normal. It's just that they, like they weren't there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's disappeared. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So she goes upstairs to check the bedrooms. They're not there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No.

[James Petregallo]

No. We're not finding bodies on the floor. They're not there, period. But in Ebony's room, she finds two spots in one area where there's bleach, has bleached the rug. So there's two bleach spots on the carpet that weren't there to begin with.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

She said at that point she went into her own bedroom and she said, quote, that's when I got the feeling that you need to get out of this house right now. Yeah. Something bad is going on. Something has happened, and I don't like it. So she fucking ran out of the house, jumped into her car, which she didn't have at the train station and went over to her boyfriend's house and just called Ebony and Dolores over and over and over again and never got an answer.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Okay. So she calls the police to say, I don't know where they are. They're missing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There's bleach in the house. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Don't know. Yeah. I don't even know if she mentioned the bleach at the time, but yeah. So 3:45am that night. This is March 16, I guess that morning. Okay. A woman named Sybil Felton calls the police to report that someone has stolen her Nissan Maxima.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's a good car.

[James Petregallo]

God damn it. Yeah, they stole my Maxima. Damn it. I traded in the Altima. I upgraded and they stole my shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They just started to look good now.

[James Petregallo]

Mm. Not bad. Yeah, they went through the 90s. They looked pretty cool for 90s cars.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They started to get cool. Yeah. Then.

[James Petregallo]

And then early 2000s were bad. They look like shit. They look like Sentras or something, like crap.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The rear tail lights looked like kick panel speakers. It looked so dumb.

[James Petregallo]

Ugly as shit. And then they got better.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. And then they started to get good. Now they're maybe the coolest they've ever looked.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, they are cooler now. Yeah. So she made this call to 911 or to the police, I should say from outside in her own driveway at 3:39am wow. She's staring at her empty driveway going, there used to be a car here. I should call somebody to report her. 2005 Maxima has been stolen. So she told the emergency dispatcher that I have to fly to Europe later today. And I left home with my boyfriend at approximately 2am to run an errand. And when I returned, she's running errands in the middle of the night. I don't know what errands you can run. Besides, going to Walgreens is available at the middle of the night. So she said when she returned, her car's gone.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, no.

[James Petregallo]

And she's looking at this as just a pain in the ass. Now, if you have to travel, especially out of the country and now your car's missing, you're gonna have to deal with that the whole time you're there and talking to the cops and all that shit. So she's just like, this is a big hassle, man. So when she is talking to the 911 operator in the driveway, all of a sudden she screams and hangs up the phone. Oh, which 911 operators don't like it when that happens. Well, the operator called back immediately to ask if she was okay and do I need to dispatch somebody there now? Cybill Felton said, yeah, I'm okay. The reason I shrieked and hung up is because I just saw my car drive by my house.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why would she hang up?

[James Petregallo]

I don't know. There she. To go chase it. She went to go chase it. Yeah, she literally said she was. Went to, like, run to the end of the driveway. I think you could stay on the line. I don't know why you have to hang up on that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, don't. Don't hang up.

[James Petregallo]

But she said she saw her car just drive by her fucking house. She's like, that's my car.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She was so scared.

[James Petregallo]

They said, how many people are in? She said, I can't tell. And I don't have a description of the driver too. It's four o'clock in the morning. It's dark out here. I have no idea. So 15 minutes later, wow. 911 gets a call that there is a fire two blocks from here. Okay, There's a fire, a car fire. Oh, fire to extinguish it. And when they get there, it's her 2005 Nissan Maximum.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's. Damn it.

[James Petregallo]

Yes. They put the fire out and she's pissed, obviously, you know, fuck, this thing's gonna be totaled. The bad part is then they pop the trunk and they Find two bodies inside this trunk.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Did you leave those in here?

[James Petregallo]

Eunice, are these yours? Sybil.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sybil, right.

[James Petregallo]

Sybil. Is this why you're going to Europe, by any chance?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is this why you needed to flee the country?

[James Petregallo]

Now fire has burned these two people beyond recognition. Okay, they said that their. There's a number of missing person reports. The detectives think it's possible that these might be the bodies of two teenage girls from Anne Arundel county who disappeared earlier this month. Because they're both females, they're both black females, so they're like, that's who disappeared. This looks. Size wise, it looks about right. So they said. But obviously we have to ID the bodies when they get back. The dental records on the bodies. It is Dolores and Ebony DeWitt. It's not the missing teenage girls.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So this. This lady's car has been stolen and people were burned in it.

[James Petregallo]

People were burned in this car? Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, my God. And these.

[James Petregallo]

So think about the wit. Think about how odd that is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. It's been months, right?

[James Petregallo]

No, no, it's been two hours.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right?

[James Petregallo]

It's been a couple hours. That's it. So she. They. The. The. The other daughter, Courtney, got home that night, needed to get out of the house, left the house, they're not there. She found a bleach stain in an empty house with mom's car out front and the jacket and everything like that. This lady gets her car stolen and now they're in the back of a burnt out car. This all happens in one night. That's insane. That's crazy. Now it turns out that Sybil's house had been broken into a couple weeks earlier and burglarized.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But somebody took the keys.

[James Petregallo]

She didn't notice. They took her spare set of keys she just had in her junk drawer. She didn't even notice them. So someone went through every drawer and was like, I'll take those car keys and I'll come back weeks later and take this car, put two bodies in the trunk and burn it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, this just got real complicated real fucking fast. Yeah, real fast.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, it sure did.

[James Petregallo]

Now, inside the DeWitt home, investigators find traces of both Dolores and Ebony's blood mixed with bleach. Okay, so there is evidence here that they've been attacked inside the home. And the killer definitely tried to clean up some evidence before transporting them. Now, autopsies show that both women had been strangled to death before being placed in the car and set on fire. So at least they were dead. They didn't burn to death in A trunk. That's nice. They said they've been. They didn't. Couldn't tell really when this happened because they said with the fire. They said maybe 24 hours before you found them. We're not sure. You can't. The fire really fucks everything up when. When there's char involved and everything. So inside the car, they find some trace evidence. This is the first evidence they've had of anything anywhere. So it's good it included beech tree leaves. B, E, E, C, H. Beech tree. Beech tree leaves that were embedded in their clothing that didn't burn. There are no beech trees in the area where this car is. Oh, no beach trees around the area of the house that the car is from. Sybil's house. No beach trees around here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So where the fuck did this car go and come back from? This is crazy. So now they're like, holy shit. The bodies were taken from their. These people were taken from their house to another location. That's where the beach leave, then back here in the car and burned. This is what passed her house, Drove right past it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Crazy. It's fucking crazy. So they're like, does this killer have, like, have a staging area? They have somewhere where they take them but not leave them.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Was he or she gonna put that car back in that lady's driveway with bodies in it?

[James Petregallo]

Probably, that's what I would assume. But maybe not, though, when we care about other things. So this is insane, though. They're like, what? This is diabolical.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Like, certainly, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Holy shit. So now also we're talking multiple sets of mother, daughter. It's crazy. Mother, daughter, nurses, nurses with teenage daughters. What's the odds of that? So the police later find a witness, Ebony's boyfriend, who said he had dropped Ebony off at home at about 1:30am okay, so we know that Ebony was alive, but it's weird because I'm not sure when Courtney got home, but she was calling at 10 to get a ride home. So did it take her three and a half hours to get home?

[Jimmy Wissman]

How far was that walk?

[James Petregallo]

That's what I mean. It's odd. So the boyfriend was the last person to see her alive, but he's not a suspect. Apparently, he had an alibi. Now, here's a witness, a guy named Frederick Colvin, who was staying with his mother at her home near the address where the burning Nissan had been found. By the way, this Nissan pulled into a random driveway and set on fire.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It was in somebody's home, someone's driveway.

[James Petregallo]

They didn't do it just on the curb.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, God.

[James Petregallo]

They pulled into the driveway to do this. So he told reporters that, you know, and the police that he'd been awakened by a loud noise on the night of the fire. He said, I just heard booms, like maybe thunder from far off. And then we just came to the window and looked and saw lots of police cars. Now, that could have been the tires popping. In a fire, those tires pop. They're big. They sound like gunshots. Now, another neighbor named Jerome Jones said that his wife thought that she heard some gunshots. They said she heard some noise, some shooting noises. Pow, pow. Basically, that's all she heard. He said the car was all burned up and there's nothing but ashes. So that as we'll find out when we find out the autopsy results there, they weren't shot. No, no. So I think those are the tires that they heard. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Gas tank or anything, Something.

[James Petregallo]

Now, some reactions from around the area here. A neighbor named Becky Ringenson said, a tragedy. It's a terrible tragedy. It's scary to live in this neighborhood now. And they said because the case, the case is close proximity to the scene of the Lofton murders, the first mother, daughter pair that were killed. The chief here said that he's got to rethink his earlier assessment that this might be somebody, a serial killer now.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

He said, this is a very strange case. This is very unusual for this community. It's just so bizarre. It's just not normal. They don't normally get weird shit like this. So it's like I don't usually have to investigate things. This is usually I just pull somebody over, give them a ticket, and go on my way. So, timeline of events here. They are baffled by the location. Basically from the time Courtney returned home. Basically, where were Dolores and Ebony from the time Courtney returned home at 10pm until 2am, which is the earliest time that this woman said her car could have been stolen again, couldn't have been stolen before that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

Because she was in it. She was home, she saw it when she left to run errands, came back and it was gone. So that was at 2am she left and it was there. So they knew that Dolores and Ebony didn't drive themselves away from the home in that timeframe. Since Courtney found their car parked in the driveway, they said it seems likely that they had already been abducted by that time. And if so, it seems likely that the suspects or suspect had used another car until the time where they stole Sybil Felton's Nissan Maxima. So they had to have had another form of transportation to get them away from the house to then go to that car. They said it also thought it was really weird that the driver of the car was able to drive past Felton's house, park the car in the driveway of a vacant house, set the car on fire using an accelerant and escape the crime scene on a dead end street without being seen by anybody in a less than a 10 minute time frame.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Dead end street. What? You got to be so comfortable there.

[James Petregallo]

That's. Yes, exactly. That's exactly what they're thinking. And this is like I said, the window was 10 minutes from the time.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That you got to know what goes on there. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

She saw the car drive by to the point that the cops got to the fire. It's a ten minute fucking time.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Holy.

[James Petregallo]

So it's not very much time.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They just left.

[James Petregallo]

Someone knew. Exactly. And someone was very good and efficient at what they were doing. Now they found out that Dolores and Ebony's purses are missing. Okay, okay. One was a multicolored fossil purse, very 2009. And the other was a black patent leather purse with a large Cadillac emblem on it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Hell yeah.

[James Petregallo]

They said they couldn't release details about the contents of the purse or whether the victims credit cards had been used or bank accounts accessed. They said that the earliest earlier break in at the DeWitt home when the car keys were stolen or not the car keys they had. Yeah, they had shit stolen. DeWitts from before, they said. Oh, that was their television and Wii and all that shit. They said in which their TV and video game system had been stolen did not appear to be connected with the homicides. They said that's just pure coincidence.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They're just a random act.

[James Petregallo]

They're just super unlucky.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. They get robbed and murdered and two.

[James Petregallo]

Separate events within weeks by different people. One cop said the smallest minute details sometimes bring these cases to conclusion. Somebody in the community saw something. Someone walking down the street, a dog barking. Anything would greatly assist. We're still following up with everything we have. Somebody somewhere knows something and that person needs to call us. Now they can't help. Even though they say nothing's connected, they can't help but start connecting. Well, at least comparing murders. Compare and contrast here. Now there's parallels and differences in these murders. We're talking about the Lofton murders and the DeWitt murders, not Vilma from earlier, just these two. Now because they're both victims were nurses in their 40s. They both had teenage daughters who were killed with Them. That seems on purpose.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Both crimes happened on Monday mornings.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, really?

[James Petregallo]

Yes. Sunday night into Monday morning. Both families lived in cul de sacs as well, which is interesting and within a few miles of each other. Both crime scenes look to be the planning. Look to be off the charts on both of them. Lots of planning, very careful. And both cases seem to involve the killer having detailed knowledge of the routines of the victims. They knew when they were home. They knew when their alarms were on, when they were off, when they were doing things.

[Jimmy Wissman]

A cul de sac is often. Is oftentimes feel safe. Because if you're gonna go in there and do some bad shit, you got the opportunity to be seen twice.

[James Petregallo]

You have the opportunity to be seen from every angle.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right. And every.

[James Petregallo]

Every angle but the other in a fishbowl.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The other positive side for that guy or gal who wants to commit crime is that that shit's secluded. There's nobody here but your neighbors, and if they aren't looking, you're in trouble.

[James Petregallo]

Four houses in the circle, that's all you can see. But if everyone in there is asleep, you're far away from everything. Exactly. Now, they also look at differences in the cases, and that's what they're concentrating on. They said, number one, the Loftons were shot. The DeWitts were strangled. Those are very different methods of murder that usually the same person isn't really doing that often. The Loftons were killed in their home. The DeWitts were taken from their home, killed somewhere else, and then burned in a car. So that's very different as far as everything. The MO of the whole thing. Yeah, the whole MO is different. Also, the Lofton house was left intact. Nothing was attempted to be cleaned up or anything. Whereas the DeWitt crime scene had bleach stains and everywhere. So it doesn't seem like there's. They're the same.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They don't have anything except for the over. You know, I mean, things that just glaringly on the surface, yeah, they know.

[James Petregallo]

What happened, essentially, but they have no evidence that, you know, the. You know, someone wouldn't glean just from reading one report. Basically, they put up a $25,000 reward because a lot of times that will shake loose a couple of tips. They get squat from that. Nothing, nothing, nothing. No usable tips. So from then on, they start going door to door in these neighborhoods.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Stop it.

[James Petregallo]

That's how much nothing they have and how.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm Officer Desperate.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, hi, I'm Officer don't know what the fuck I'm doing. Do you got A I'm investigator.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Don't have a goddamn thing.

[James Petregallo]

Detective. Ain't got shit. Can I ask you two, three questions? So they go door to door in the neighborhoods, asking for just DNA samples. They're just knocking on doors going, can we have your DNA?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Hi. Will you spit in a cup to clear you based on your own accord? Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And then people were doing it because they're like, yeah, we want to catch who the fuck did this. Well, it's in their neighborhood. So, yeah, they do it. They get nothing from this. They had no DNA to compare it to, but they're just. Maybe for the future. But they get no clues. They get no anything that they didn't already know. They collect approximately 200 pieces of evidence, and now they go take all of this that they have, which is really nothing, A big pile of steaming nothing. And they go to the FBI and say, can you get us a profile based on all of this nothing? Because the profile evidence isn't really the thing. You don't need a blood sample or something like that. You're looking at the crimes and trying to see if they're connected and see what the profile for each of these murders would be. So according to the lead investigator, the profiler said, these are not the same murderers that are doing this. No, they said these are very different murderers. The differences that are between them are so specific that it's not the same person. They said that the profiler said the similarities, just the nurse and the daughter and those things were, quote, just weird coincidences.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Said the world is a weird place. Every once in a while, weird shit happens. The numbers come up and it happens. Sometimes you pull the slot machine and three cherries comes up. What are you gonna do? So they said that they would not. They wouldn't really say much. They said nothing's ruled out. But they said the fundamental differences in the killings and the mos are the important thing. Are so different. One detective said, we've got the pieces to a puzzle. Now we just need somebody to tell us where the pieces go, to tell us why it makes sense. Yeah, this is. They're really perplexed in the Lofton case. They said, you know, victim shot. The killer seemed to be considerably more organized than the killer in the DeWitt case.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Broke in, very clean. One lady on her floor, another one in her bed. In and out without a trace, they said, whereas the other one, you know, bleach on the floor, kidnapping him. It's a totally sloppy or different deal. Now, the police continued to keep the details of the DeWitt case from the public, but they later report that Dolores and Ebony had been asphyxiated before. So they strangled. They released that before their bodies were torched, obviously. And they said that the killer had seemed much more disorganized or all over the place in his actions than the Lofton murder. So they said that eventually they told the press that the DeWitts were dead prior to being placed into the Nissan Maxima and set on fire. They also tell. They also say that investigators believe the suspect or suspects had fled the scene by escaping into a nearby backyard and running into the woods. And a canine unit discovers a scent trail along that route as well. Oh, they don't know of who, though. Kids do that shit too.

[Jimmy Wissman]

True. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

If you live in a neighborhood with backyards and woods, you're running through them into the woods all the fucking time. When I was a kid, that was constant. So they said they were lucky that they weren't caught. There was a lot of unnecessary risks taken, meaning the escape here. Now, despite all these theories and all this type of shit, they don't. Again, they have nothing. What do you do? So people freak the fuck out in this neighborhood. Now, they don't only think that there's a first. They were like, oh, it's a serial killer. Now they're being told, no, no, no. It's multiple lunatic murderers. Not just one that could get in a car accident or change his mind or move. We got multiple. So really be careful. One neighbor said, I have daughters who are driving now, and I'm afraid for them. I tell them to lock their doors when they get in the car. I don't want them walking alone at nighttime. So they've taken this cul de sac, Kids riding their bikes in the cul de sac, and turned it into. Roll them up, lock them down.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, there's so many serial killers in.

[James Petregallo]

This neighborhood, crawling with them, for fuck's sake.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What is in the water?

[James Petregallo]

So Ebony's father, Craig, said, I have nightmares some nights. I wake up in the middle of the night crying. Some nights, it's like it just happened. I think I have to live with it for the rest of my life, I think so. He said also to see that they had. Now, this is interesting. We'll talk about it. But he said to Basically to see that she was burnt up and all that, in my mind, it tells me that she was tortured. That's what he's saying now. May 26, 2009. A gun store named JC Arms is in Woodbine, Maryland. Is burglarized. Oh, what would that have to do with this? Right? What's the difference? You can't get any more different than kidnapping a mother and daughter, taking them out, killing them, doing all that, then robbing a commercial business.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Unless it's only nine millimeter ammo that's been taken.

[James Petregallo]

Just Glock 17. Shit. Yeah. So in this robbery, 39 guns are stolen.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, shit.

[James Petregallo]

Which is an arsenal, including assault rifles. Assault rifles, silencers, and just a shitload of ammo.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They have suppressors in this building.

[James Petregallo]

They have suppressors at JC Arms. So jc, when you steal a bunch of. A bunch of shit from the. From a gun store, then the feds get involved. Yeah, that's not a local crime anymore. The ATF gets involved, to be more specific. So the ATF gets a tip. Okay, this is interesting. Gets a tip that somebody is selling stolen weapons out of a UPS parking lot.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Nice.

[James Petregallo]

UPS United Parcel Service parking lot of where the guys there work. Okay.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So one of these informants makes contact with an ATF agent and they set up an undercover operation. An undercover agent arranges to buy four guns in the UPS parking lot through this informant. Okay. They arrange to meet this guy in the parking lot. Now the guy. The guy shows up to sell him the guns. It's four stolen assault weapons at this point. And the purchase is being recorded, by the way. Obviously they've got a camera and a fucking mic on. And the seller explains to this undercover officer that, yeah, I understand the risks of what I'm doing. He said, quote, you have to think, because whoever gets caught with that, there's gonna be. I mean, it ain't like no bodies.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So, I mean, you're gonna get caught. You're gonna be fucked because it's stolen. But it's not like there's bodies on the gun, so don't worry about it like that. So July 1, 2009, the ATF agents arrest two men for this. For the robbery of the gun store and the subsequent selling of the guns. The one man they arrest was in the UPS parking lot with stolen guns when they arrested him.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petregallo]

Not good. These two men are Marcus Hunter and Jason Thomas, or Jason Thomas Scott. Scott is born February 21, 1983. He's 27 years old at this point. A little bit about his background. Very stable, middle class, family, grew up in. Shouldn't be selling guns in a UPS parking lot. His parents would not approve. Nope, grew up in this area. Loving, supporting parents. No abuse, no neglect, no trauma. No. Was never molested. Nothing bad happened to the guy. Just had a nice easy life. One neighbor recalls. He's a little weird though. Said around 10 years old. Quote, it started as him being a peeping Tom, leading to videotaping people and leading to breaking and entering. That's what one person said of him, which a lot of that could be. Bored suburban kid, you know what I mean?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure.

[James Petregallo]

That that happens too. If they're not stealing a bunch of shit. Sometimes they just break in to show how cool they are. Like idiots. So anyway, his family, he had a good family, they were very interested in education and he took advantage of that. He went to community college and then went to the University of Maryland where he earned two master's degrees. Wow. Nobody with a master's degree should be selling guns in a UPS parking lot.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No, you should be doing so well.

[James Petregallo]

Absolutely. He has two master's degrees, one in information systems management and one in computer science. He should be able to translate that into something.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It should be fine. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

He also studied forensic science in high in college as well. Took a lot of classes in criminal justice and forensic sciences and things like that. He's very interested in that stuff. He lives with his parents in Upper Marlboro. So 27, still lives with his parents. Two master's degree. If I sent my kid to two fucking master's degree and they're living in my house, they better be like designing another wing or some shit. Because I'm sorry, I didn't pay for two fucking master's degrees. So you could live in the same goddamn room you jerked off in from the time you were 13 on.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Do you have a masters in living with your parents? Why are you here?

[James Petregallo]

Why are you here?

[Jimmy Wissman]

What the fuck?

[James Petregallo]

Oh, man. So that's where he lives. He works for ups. So not only does a man with two fucking master's degrees, is he dumb enough to sell guns in a parking lot? It's in the parking lot at his job, right? Anywhere else you sell the guns is fine, but not at your job. That's the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard in my life. He has no criminal history whatsoever, by the way. He works for ups. Not doing some computer systems management, He's a driver. He just gets in the truck and fucking says, here's your brown asshole and throws it at you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Double registered Brown helping for you.

[James Petregallo]

That's it. As coworkers had no idea he was selling guns in the parking lot. His family never suspected anything like that. Neighbors describe him as a quiet, studious young man who works with his. Or lives with his parents and works a normal job. Couldn't be more regular suburban cat. Now. He loves true crime, by the way.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Oh, God. He loves it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Can't get enough of it.

[James Petregallo]

He loves it. Cannot get enough. Obsessed with it. He watches like he like at the time would record CSI so he could watch it over and over. Early adopter really into everybody. No, not at all. Early adopter would be like 1880s to.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Be that into it.

[James Petregallo]

That's normal now. That's not even early anymore. Yeah, people are nuts with this shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Well, I guess TiVo. Yeah, TiVo was.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, yeah. He didn't have to get a tape out or anything. It's just a digital recorder.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, it's just a click.

[James Petregallo]

Get that. Yeah, for taping shit. You really had to be.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, you had to give a fuck.

[James Petregallo]

You had to figure out how to program the goddamn thing, which is a whole other issue.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Figure out how to set the clock in the first place, which you would.

[James Petregallo]

Need two masters for, so that actually works out perfectly well. You need degrees.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's got masters of video production. That's hilarious.

[James Petregallo]

No shit. Now back to the gun shop robbery. Here, Scott, Jason Thomas Scott, had an accomplice named Marcus Hunter. We also mentioned they were both arrested. They had driven to a gun store in Woodbine, Maryland, stole. 39 firearms, silencers, a shitload of ammunition. After the burglary, Scott was selling the weapons out of the parking lot where he worked, which is wild in its own but. So, yeah, they got an undercover agent to make the purchase. And when they got the purchase, they traced them all back to the gun store burglary. And there is Jason Thomas Scott fucked. And so is Marcus Hunter. So July of 2009, they search Jason Thomas Scott's house to see what else he's stolen and what he's got in there. Stolen guns. During this, they find 16 more stolen firearms.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, the idiot.

[James Petregallo]

Along with what they described as a burglary kit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, he had a whole kit.

[James Petregallo]

He had a whole Ted Bundy little kit here. Bolt cutters, screwdrivers, pry bars, ski masks, black clothing, flex cuffs, and a police scanner with earbuds, all in one bag. Yeah, that's a burglary kit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Ted Bundy's club box.

[James Petregallo]

Exactly. Well, remember we said with Ted Bundy, all that shit, if you had that all in a house, if you had a four bedroom house and all that shit was in there, scattered around and different places, not a big deal when it's in one bag. Very big deal. Huge deal at that Point becomes way different. They also found what they called a rape kit as well.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, no.

[James Petregallo]

With gloves, condoms, lighter fluid and a camera in it. Lighter fluid?

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't like that.

[James Petregallo]

They also found night vision equipment, bulletproof vests that he had.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's a creep.

[James Petregallo]

Multiple cameras and recording devices of different sizes and all that kind of shit. External hard drives and flash drives containing hundreds of hours of surveillance footage of other people's homes. All of this during one of the searches of his residence. They found a flash drive that contained photos of a naked, clearly underage female.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, no.

[James Petregallo]

With a pillowcase over her head.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, he's going to jail already.

[James Petregallo]

Yes, this was from. Which connects, they believe, to a June 13, 2009, Fort Washington incident in which a young woman and her mother returned home to find a man holding the young woman's younger sister at gunpoint.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, Jesus.

[James Petregallo]

They told the cops that this man ordered the older sister into a bedroom when she got home, forced her to take her clothes off, took nude photos of her and sexually assaulted her as well. In one of the videos. Wow. Scott accidentally goes in front of the camera while wearing his whole deal. Ski mask, dark clothing, and all that kind of shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petregallo]

Terrifying.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. They get to see him dressed up to do whatever he's doing.

[James Petregallo]

I mean, they assume it's him because it's his flash drive and shit, but then they find more videos, hours of video footage at his house that showed him engaging in some crazy shit. Let's check it out. He would sneak up through all the places through these neighborhoods. Pitch black cover of night. He'd have a video camera and he'd film people through their windows as they got dressed for work, went to bed, just moved around their houses. He just sat outside people's windows for long periods of time, filming everything they do. Like a fucking creep. Like a fucking creep. Wow. Now, Marcus there, the co conspirator, he described Scott here as sensitive but crazy. He said that Jason Scott enjoys stealing car keys from houses and returning later to steal the vehicles. Yeah, that sounds familiar. They said he didn't keep the cars. He would abandon them in driveways of vacant houses. He just did it for the fun of it. Just for funsies, that's all. That's it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Just parking it somewhere else is a joke.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, he likes doing this shit. He's not gaining anything. He's not getting any money from it. He just likes to do it to.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Fuck around, fucking with people and making.

[James Petregallo]

People psychotic like a teenager would do or like the Manson family would do. Go rearrange people's furniture and shit. The creepy crawlies. That's what he's doing. He's creepy crawling. So this is weird. Um, he would. So he had all this hours of footage on these people in their own homes, which is fucking strange. Now the atf, when they find all this shit, they go, well, this has nothing to do with stolen guns. This is a whole separate thing that we have nothing to do with. So they then contact the local police and say, you might want to look into this because we got a whole bunch of weird shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We got him on this shit. We'll hold him a while. You guys can develop whatever the fuck is going on with this a while.

[James Petregallo]

Is not even close to saying it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's in a lot of trouble.

[James Petregallo]

He is in a lot of trouble, as we'll talk about here. So that's when they start looking into. They get this evidence and they're like, holy shit, this guy was looking in people's houses. Let's see if he's. Any of our victims houses are on here, any of that shit. Anyway, they offer him. This is. The federal government offers him a proffer interview.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay, what's that?

[James Petregallo]

Okay, a proffer interview is a. Basically you make a deal ahead of time that whatever's said in this interview, they call it Queen for a day is what it's called. You come in, you tell me every fucking thing you did wrong. And there's limits as to what we'll charge you with of it. Basically. Okay, is how this is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We'll do like 20% on any charge you admit to right now.

[James Petregallo]

You've seen it on the wire all the time. Yeah, they would bring people try to bring guys in for a proffer all the time. It was a try to get them to tell. Yeah, it's a proffer interview. And they even say use Queen for a day as multiple times. So I missed the legalese of that shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Fuck am I doing?

[James Petregallo]

What am I watching? It's a passive experience for Jimmy watching tv, not real engaged. So this was a deal where Scott could confess to crimes with the promise that his statements wouldn't be used against him directly in court. They can't take a statement he makes here and then put that in front of a jury. That's part of the deal.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Or use that as like a tool to investigate further, to prosecute him harder.

[James Petregallo]

Yes, but normally when they do this, it's because they think they are going to roll this person into somebody bigger. That's why they're doing it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, Got it.

[James Petregallo]

We won't use this against you, but we can use it against the people you're telling on.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay. Yeah. You're clearly a low level dirtbag who's your boss.

[James Petregallo]

That's why it's queen for a day, because it's like immunity for a day. Basically.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Show us Terry Danza.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. While you're sitting here, you could tell us anything and we can't fuck with you for it. It's all fine. So, yeah, it's a meeting between criminal defendant and prosecutor. And with law enforcement, there's. They agree to provide cooperation about crimes. And like we said, usually you get reduced charges and sentence and someone else who's bigger than you gets arrested and. Yeah, yeah. So they want him to provide information to the prosecution even if it incriminates him because he's going to get some leniency. Now the agreement is. It's a written doc. They write it all down. It's a, it's a official shit here. Problem is, while the agreement offers protection against use of the statements, the prosecution can still use the information to pursue leads and gather additional evidence. So you have to be real careful what you say here. And then that shit, it's not like it's fruit of the poisonous tree. If you, if that shit leads to more crimes, you're in trouble for those crimes, period.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, we're giving you 20% on the gun theft. It's the rape that we're going to hit you hard on.

[James Petregallo]

Exactly. That's exactly what it is. So you're getting hit, banged on the rape. Pardon the pun.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, we're gonna really stick it in and break it off on the rape.

[James Petregallo]

We are, we are gonna go right up your ass with that rape charge, let me tell you. So the idea was that Scott might lead them to other criminals involved in weapons trafficking or even organized crime if he sold, depending on who he sells it to. There's bigger fish out there to fry than some dickhead rob in a gun store. So they thought they were dealing with a mid level arms dealer who might have some info for them. He took the deal happily. Jason Thomas Scott. Yeah, no confessions can be used against him. But he didn't really understand that local prosecutors could use the evidence differently. This is on federal gun charges. So during the proffer interview, he confesses to a shitload of crimes. I mean, and he likes confessing to it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He loves it bearing his soul. This is all the times that I've got one over on you guys.

[James Petregallo]

This is. Want to hear how smart I am.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right I'm going to tell you this.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that's exactly what it is. I'm look at all I did where nobody fucking caught me.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You guys didn't even know.

[James Petregallo]

He confesses to 28 residential burglaries.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Nine armed home invasion robberies. Guns to people's fucking heads. Nine times. Nine times.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Jesus.

[James Petregallo]

Nine times. So the gun store burglary in Woodbine.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

He also admits to the sexual assault of multiple home invasion victims.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Does he know? He doesn't know.

[James Petregallo]

I don't think he knows that. The local prosecutors are going to be much more interested in shit like that and creating child pornography during home invasions. Because he was filming underage girls doing this shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh boy. That one, like the gun charge and that one alone, Never getting out.

[James Petregallo]

Never getting out. And you use these guns to break in and sexually assault people and shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So it's extra bad.

[James Petregallo]

So he provides them with a three page list of 40 homes he'd burglarized, complete with addresses and details about what he'd stolen. He remembers all this shit too. That's the other thing. He loved it. He was like meticulously walking him through it. Cause he was bragging. He loved this shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This is a hobby. And with most hobby, think about your car. You know what I mean? That Corvette. Anytime anybody talks to you about it, you're like, you're so jacked to talk about it or.

[James Petregallo]

You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Listen to a story that they have about one that they wrote in. That's what this is. This is 71.

[James Petregallo]

Poor man, he's so into it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But there's no rape, robbery and child porn parking lot to go talk about it in.

[James Petregallo]

Nothing. No. There's no other comic to go talk about how shady the whole process is. There's no. He doesn't have that like a comic does to go talk to another one. So they said that he also described how he broke into the trains. The train store, the gun store. There's a train involved in it. That's why he broke into the train store. He broke into the train store. It's got all of them. He did it while a train was going by on track. So they didn't hear anything. Yeah, that's old school. I mean, people used to shoot people under fucking overpasses when they did that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Thunderclaps and shit.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. So that would mask the sound of breaking glass and power tools.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

He understood that this would be, you know, important for him. So he's very smart. They said his attitude was wild. He wasn't remorseful he wasn't nervous.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This is awesome.

[James Petregallo]

He was into this. One of the federal agents said, he's saying to you, criminal justice system, I am smarter than you that I was able to be successful with these crimes. I am good at what I do, and I'm better than you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He thinks he's the vibe they got born. And the only way you're gonna catch him is if he tells you he's him.

[James Petregallo]

If he tells you now, you just gave him immunity. So, shit, I'll tell you everything and brag about it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He doesn't know them.

[James Petregallo]

He was walking the investigators through all of how he did it. If you do it this way, that, like he was teaching a class, basically is what he thought in his mind. Now, they couldn't be used against him, his statements in federal court, but they do provide investigators with a pretty good roadmap of how to find shit against him. Now, Marcus Hunter, his partner here, Hunter was his accomplice in a lot of these burglaries and home invasions. He wasn't alone for a lot of these. Now, when investigators bring him in for questioning and tell him the scope of what's going on, he says, oh, I'll cooperate. Oh, you can't. And how I will. Whatever you want. Whatever he's getting, keep your cheeseburger. I don't want any of that shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm a vegan.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. So he began cooperating and he. After a few minutes, he talked about the guns. They talk about that. Then he brings up the spooky house.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What is that?

[James Petregallo]

They go, what the fuck's the spooky house? And he got all weird and he's like, man, the spooky house, man. And they're like, what is that? What are you talking about? And he said, it's an abandoned mansion in Upper Marlboro that we use as a staging area for crime.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That they go to the spooky house and chit chat about it and then.

[James Petregallo]

Get after it and bring their spoils back there. This is his staging area. They were wondering if this criminal had a staging area. Yep. They'd meet there, divide up stolen shit, plan future crimes. It's their clubhouse. It's their little clubhouse.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And dispose of evidence. This is where they put a lot of evidence in the spooky house as well. Now, they search the spooky house and they find all the physical evidence they need to connect him to some murders here. Okay? They find the charred remains of a blue sweater matching the one that Ebony was wearing when she disappeared. What the they found burned fabric from seven brand jeans matching the ones worn by Dolores. So she paid 190 bucks for her jeans.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Nice pair of jeans.

[James Petregallo]

She's doing okay for herself there. They found beech tree leaves. Oh, that matched the leaves found embedded in the victim's clothing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Where were the beech tree leaves from there?

[James Petregallo]

From that man, from that house. From that house. That's where they were from. From that yard. They had beech trees there. They also found blood evidence linking the location to the crimes. Blood of the victims, things like that. This is where the murders happen.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Takes them here, kills them, stuffs them, strangles them, stuffs them in the fucking trunk. Takes them out. Stuffs them in the trunk of another car. Yeah, takes them there, steals that car. It's crazy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Unbelievable.

[James Petregallo]

So, wow. Marcus Hunter provides more information too. He told the investigators that about a month before the DeWitt murders, he and Scott were running through yards after committing a burglary when Scott stopped and looked into the DeWitt house, specifically at 19 year old Ebony. He liked her.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

He fucking. As they were running. Think about, you're running from a crime you just committed and you're like, ooh, look at that piece of ass. I'm gonna stop and check it out. What, are you kidding me?

[Jimmy Wissman]

He coming back here one day, that's what he did.

[James Petregallo]

Who the fuck would notice anybody while they're running from cops? So he'd been stalking the DeWitt family for weeks. He stalked these people for weeks. He also places him near the Lofton house within an hour of those murders. You know, the murders that aren't connected, the Loftons and DeWitts, because they're so different. Well, yeah, no, Scott. This guy confirmed Scott had a stolen Glock 17 handgun during one of their burglaries. That's the murder weapon for the Lofton cases, one of his. Then he also. He's the guy who called him sensitive but crazy and talks about the car keys. He likes to steal them from homes and return at later times and leave them in driveways. Cops also said that that's what happened to the woman who reported the Nissan Maxima. He had broken it and stolen that. Now, Marcus Hunter said, quote, you gotta watch how you talk to him. For some reason he says he's crazy and weird and sensitive.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So you set him off, I guess.

[James Petregallo]

Or not set him off. The prosecutors called him a pip, or the cops called him a pipsqueak. Jason, Jason, they said he's just some little pipsqueak. Like that's they. That's. They never Thought for a minute looking at this kid.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He was a bad man.

[James Petregallo]

No, they were like, oh, he's a fucking. He tried to make a couple extra bucks with these guns. What an idiot. Then they got him in there and he's unloads all this shit. And they're like, the pipsqueak did all this. What the fuck? So Maryland law requires ballistics. Ballistics testing for all handguns sold in the state. They gotta have a sample of your gun.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So they can match it to. Shit. So they're able to match the stolen weapon to the shell casings found at the murder scene. As one detective said, as far as that handgun goes, I think it was the nail in Jason's coffin. We knew that he stole that weapon. The murder weapon.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. And he. They. The co conspirator here, Marcus goes on to say that at one point, Scott, Jason Thomas Scott, had told him that he needed to get rid of the serial numbers on the guns. Because he said, quote, the ATF is looking for these.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

So you gotta do that. Now. Here's how he planned the murders. Let's get into this. This is disturbing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

He was using the UPS database to.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Scout people as he was driving around.

[James Petregallo]

Or at the office, whichever one.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What the fuck?

[James Petregallo]

Can you imagine this given? Using his access, he could identify households that were receiving valuable packages like a Wii. Like a Wii and a big screen TV and a bunch of electronics that are coming in. So insurance claims, expensive electronics, jewelry. All of this information was available to him through ups. So he is just. That's what he's doing at work, scouting targets to burglarize. His job is just there to give him a leg up on this. Basically. Yeah, he was. Then he went beyond like just, I'm looking for money and shit. He was doing huge, comprehensive background checks on victims by using all sorts of shit. He'd look at property records, who told him that, would tell him who owned the homes and when they'd been purchased. He looked up their social media profiles, looked at family structures, looked to see if he could find out when people come home and when they don't. And then he'd go stalk them based on what he found out on social media. So when you post everything you do on social media.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Stop it.

[James Petregallo]

Stop it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Knock it off.

[James Petregallo]

He know. He knew when they were out of work, out of town, on vacation, he knew all that shit. So that's absolutely fucking nuts. He would identify a target, then spend weeks or even months stalking them.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petregallo]

He drive through the neighborhoods at different times of day and night to note the patterns of activity.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He is literally doing everything you do to stalk.

[James Petregallo]

Okay, this house, they leave for work at 2 o'. Clock. This house, they leave for work at 8 o'. Clock. And he would have been a great private investigator, first of all. Yeah, you know, he looked to see when they come home, when were the kids home from school, when did they go to bed at night? That's what he wanted to check. This person, do they watch. Do they watch fucking the Tonight show, or do they go right to bed? Do they do some work in bed first? Do they dick around on Facebook for a while? What do they do at the time? So he knew when people would be vulnerable. He knew when shit was gonna be there. He also was doing the reconnaissance was crazy. He'd sneak through the neighborhoods with video equipment, film, filming people through their windows as they moved around, like we said. Also, that way he knew all the internal layouts of the house. He could go over them and, like, game film. These people sleep in that room. This guy sleeps on a couch downstairs. So be careful. When you're in the living room, you can wake him up. He knows where they kept valuables because he watches them take shit off and put it away and put it on in the morning. If they have a security system, do they arm it when they leave or not? All that shit. And he knew how to not leave evidence as well. He always wore gloves to prevent the fingerprint evidence. This is shit. He told his partner here he used bleach to destroy DNA traces that might be there. He wore dark clothing and ski masks, obviously, so no one knew who he was. And he carried the flex cuff so he could control everybody, cuff them up and have a gun to their head. He carried a police scanner with earbuds during every crime, which allowed him to monitor law enforcement communications in case somebody called the cops saying. And they saw him going into a house. If they were dispatched, he'd know immediately he could take off. He also would. He would turn off his phone and remove his battery before committing crimes, for the most part, eliminating that source, too. So he knew this is. If you're a true crime aficionado enough, you know all the things you get caught with. So, wow. He stole them from the dealer because he wanted good guns. He didn't just want whatever he could steal from someone's house. And they said that was the burglary. It was to get money, but it was also to have the weaponry he wanted as well. He gets two birds with one stone here. Now the Videos, they find, show that he really enjoyed inflicting psychological horror on the victims. He loved it. He would wake them in the middle of the night. This is on film.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He would record himself waking them up.

[James Petregallo]

Absolutely. He would hold them at gunpoint, force them to comply with what is called increasingly humiliating demands and have it all on video. He thought that was great. In one that we know about, he forced that girl, like we said, into the back room as soon as she came home, made her undress, but. And then he's seen on the tape, though, so that's not good for him. His home invasion technique here, he would wear dark clothing, a ski mask, black Nike gloves, and always carried a black North Face backpack with a flashlight and burglary tools in it as well.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

So all blacked out. He used the scanner and the earpiece. He carried a handgun, wore a holster and everything. He was official. He would steal money, computers, computer shit that goes with it. Flat screen TVs, guns, whole safes.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The whole safe. We'll deal with it later.

[James Petregallo]

Deal with it later. Debit and credit cards, cell phones, cars, you name it. He would also cut lines to disable security systems. He knew which security systems could be disabled simply by the power being cut to them. The phone line being cut, that would connect it to other things, all of that shit. He carried bolt cutters and pry bars and window punches. He carried window punches like a fucking. Like a French cat burglar or some shit that they're gonna steal art from a museum or a tow truck driver.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Who might see somebody stranded on the side of the road.

[James Petregallo]

This is. Yeah, one of the two. Whichever your desires are, I guess if.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You' everyone's less fucking terrible to be.

[James Petregallo]

You want to help people or steal a Picasso. Either way, this is the way to do it. So that's fucking crazy. That way he could get in quickly, quietly, with nobody knowing the difference. That could surprise people. He would also. He would, you know, it's crazy to wake them up with a gun to their heads. And then he'd put the flex cuffs on them. And then he'd be like, okay, now we're gonna do some weird shit here. He would, by the way, he would send Marcus Hunter to withdraw the cash while he remained at the house to make sure it was true.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

That's when he would do all of his weird stuff. But he would make sure that they gave him the right PIN based on that. So this guy would come back. During several of these home invasions, he forced victims to remain restrained for hours while he would search their homes bit by bit. Not just random. Like we said, this was methodical. He would go through everything. The pictures, family pictures, documents. He'd go through your file cabinet looking for documents. Yeah, all day. He's got all night. Just loved it. I think he enjoyed this as well. I think he's just nosy, too.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's double majored and he's doing this shit.

[James Petregallo]

Double fucking mastered. Nevermind.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Majored double mastered. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. He. At one point, during one case, he found a photograph of a teenage girl during a home invasion, then used the UPS database to access that access to identify and target her specifically.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, God.

[James Petregallo]

She didn't even live there. She was just somebody else that happened to have a picture there. He then tracked her down three weeks later, broke into her home and sexually assaulted her while recording it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

It's a lot, man. He confessed to the sexual issues, sexual assaults. He appeared in the video he recorded, and it's audible as well. You can hear his voice. They discovered the images in question in his residence. The thumb drive containing the images also contained Scott's homework assignments for school. What, so he can't even say, this isn't my flash drive. He's got his fucking college papers on there with this.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Same one with footage of robberies.

[James Petregallo]

Dude, they're like $11 for a big one. Like, have one for your murder stuff and have one for your fucking schoolwork maybe.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Unbelievable.

[James Petregallo]

Jesus Christ. And the camera contained photos of Scott's car and living room as well. So it's him. It's his. Here is some specific invasions and how they did them. September 23, 2008. Scott and Marcus Hunter broke a sliding glass door of a home in Upper Marlboro. Once they got inside, Scott, who had a gun, extensively beat and dragged a female victim through the house, just unmercifully walloped on this poor woman. He then forced her into the downstairs area where Marcus Hunter was holding her husband at gunpoint.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

That's what you want there? That's horrifying. They obtained their ATM cards, and Hunter left the residence and withdrew money from their accounts at a nearby machine. Then Scott remained in the residence, holding them at gunpoint. When Hunter returned, they stole the couple's 2007 Cadillac Escalade and drove away, not even to keep it, just for fun. In April 3, 2009, they entered a home in Bowie, or Bowie, or whatever the fuck it is, Maryland, through an unlocked basement window. Make sure all my basement windows are locked, by the way. They found a husband and wife sleeping in an Upstairs bedroom with their youngest child.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, shit.

[James Petregallo]

At gunpoint, he ordered, Scott orders the family, including the three children, or the three, three children and a visiting cousin into the children's room. Got their ATM and debit cards. And Scott demanded the PIN numbers from the victims and sent Marcus to withdraw money from their accounts. Once he returned to the residence, Scott was still holding everyone at gunpoint. They stole various items. They went through the house and picked out exactly what they wanted, then stole their 2004 Mercedes S500 and took off.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Good choice in car.

[James Petregallo]

So he's going to these places with high end cars he can steal and then just drive away and then leave them somewhere. On May 23, 2009, Scott and a different accomplice, this guy trusted multiple people with this information.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

It's like on one hand he's a master criminal, but on the other hand he's not a criminal. So he doesn't get that if you involve other criminals, they're gonna tell on you. Yeah, but he doesn't get that yet.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, they're not really. They're not really good. He's the. He's clearly the fucking you do with. You do what he says. He's going in and waking people up with their baby at gunpoint. I'm not crossing that man.

[James Petregallo]

No. And it's weird that they want to. It's just so strange that he, you know, he. He wants somebody there with him just to help him round people up and shit like that. He can't do it all and he can't go get money out of the ATM and do all this on his own, I guess. So. This dates May 23, 2009. Scott and Terence Alexander Cook break into another home in Upper Marlboro. Breaking a basement window again. Once inside, Scott kicked and beat a female juvenile at gunpoint while pulling her upstairs from the upstairs hallway into a bathroom. Scott and Cook also ordered the mother into the same bathroom, then stole property and a handgun and. And a 2004 Lexus LS430.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's a nice car.

[James Petregallo]

He keeps taking. He wants to drive away in style. That's one thing we'll say.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He just really has. He likes nice cars.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, my God. The gun shop robbery. Scott had researched the dealer using the choice point database at Landover UPS facility where he worked.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, he knew what they had.

[James Petregallo]

He knew what they had. He knew what they were getting in stock, for Christ's sake. So he could go, oh, he was picking his shit out ahead of time. I'm getting this shot. He Knew exactly what he was doing. Wow, that's incredible. Now like we said, we know he sold a bunch of the firearms. He also specifically targeted young lady that he went after was a 17 year old. He broke into her home in Fort Washington on June 13th by throwing a cinder block through the rear patio door.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's a.

[James Petregallo]

The least sophisticated way to break into a fucking place. BTK did that once.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Incredibly reliable.

[James Petregallo]

Works. It always works.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Just about every time.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. Once he got in there, he held a 12 year old girl at gunpoint. You know, because a 12 year old is very threatening.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

You get a 12 year old girl you got to keep a gun on her because at any point she could like, you know, like chop your throat, you know what I mean? You'll fall to the ground and then she'll do some like ninja shit to you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The old 12 year old girls are the 12 year old at 2 in the morning, she's up to no good. She's a bad girl. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

In her own home, she's up to no good. Held her at gunpoint while when the child's mother, 17 year old sister and 5 year old brother of arrived, Scott ordered them into a bedroom at gunpoint. Then ordered the 17 year old into a separate bedroom where he brandished the firearm, forced her to undress and placed a pillowcase over her head as we know what that one is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You know the, the common thing that these, none of these homes have a couple of dogs, but. Dogs, but also men and awake and alert men.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, near home invasions do a couple, Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

A couple of them got guys in their, in their sleep. But yeah, you're catching them unsuspecting and, and mostly with children and women. That's what a fucking, what a pussy.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, but no, most of the home invasions there was guys present, the husband was present.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, most of them so far. Yeah. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

I mean but the murders.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No, the murders are just the women and their daughters.

[James Petregallo]

Exactly. That's what he's like. Oh, I'm going to get all in that shit. When it's just those to. It's disgusting. So that Terence Alexander Cook, who is one of his accomplices, he's gonna plead guilty to a state gun crime in Prince George's County Circuit Court involving a home invasion robbery committed with Scott and he is sentenced to. You sir may fuck off. Nine years in jail. That's a long time with five suspended or, I'm sorry, all but five. So five, four years suspended. He's got a five year sentence for.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That, for that robbery. Jesus.

[James Petregallo]

For home invasion.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

That's how much they want him to flip on somebody else.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Beat people.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. Now the cops through all this, they can't help but compliment Scott.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

They called him a brilliant criminal who studied forensic textbooks, and he changed his MO on purpose. And it worked. It made an FBI profiler go, not the same guy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right? Not the same guy.

[James Petregallo]

He did. He did that on purpose. He knew that they would have a profiler, and he knew that that would throw them off the set. He did it on purpose so that they look at everything through such fucking rigid eyes that they just go, oh, can't be the same guy. Because it's different mos. Because those are the rules.

[Jimmy Wissman]

These don't overlap because they can't.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

When. You know, in reality, they might.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So if the guy wants it to.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. They're just so into what they've been told.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So they haven't tried Hunter yet, huh?

[James Petregallo]

No, no, no, no, no. He's gonna. He's gonna get a deal, too. Same thing. He's gonna get the. Because he. He completely flipped on him and told everything. He's gonna get about the same deal as that guy there and hopefully.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Hopefully be kept someplace else away from him. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Now, the cops, they do. They called him a brilliant criminal. They said, that's amazing. They said that he was so well versed in forensic science techniques that he was able to clean up crime scenes and use his knowledge to confuse detectives and deceive an FBI profiler. So the police chief said, while I don't want to glorify his intellectual capacity, I will tell you he's a challenge to us.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

It's so rare that smart people commit crimes that it is hard to catch them. That's the thing, smart people. Part of being smart is not wanting to go to prison and understanding consequences for shit you do and so you don't do them. That's part of being smart. So that's why most smart people don't do crimes.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And understanding that you like to do some certain things, and those things don't get done if you have to be in a fucking jail cell.

[James Petregallo]

And if you're smart, you can usually make your own way without having to resort to crime. Not always, but that also is a thing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Figure it out. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So September 2, 2009, is when he's finally arrested for the DeWitt murders. Before that, he was just. He was, like, on bail for the gun. For the gun charges. His co workers are surprised. They didn't. They said that he was. This is the Funniest thing. Quote, he was quiet. Mostly kept to himself, which is every.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Do it.

[James Petregallo]

That's the hackiest serial killer joke. I was quiet, kept to himself. I don't know. I didn't expect this one for a reason.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. One co worker said, quote, he always came to work.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Well, yeah, because if he did it, it would raise flags, you idiots.

[James Petregallo]

That's the thing. Also, he needs those databases to look up. He loves it. He said he was never anyone that caused any problems. If you asked him to do something, he did it. He was extremely fast at typing. I don't know what that has to do with any of this.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Minute we're through the roof.

[James Petregallo]

I mean, really impressive.

[Jimmy Wissman]

His Mavis Beacon score was crazy.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, you have no fucking idea. He fucked Mavis Beacon. That's how he gave it to her. Good. I don't know if that's a woman or just a name or what.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's a game.

[James Petregallo]

It could be two last names for all I know.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But it's a computer thing where you learn how to compute.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, yeah, I know that. I remember.

[Jimmy Wissman]

All right.

[James Petregallo]

I didn't know if that's a person. Yeah, yeah. If that's the name of a person or two last names or what I.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Think is Jay Leno's wife's name.

[James Petregallo]

Yes. Mavis. She's not funny and neither am I. That poor lady, she's got. I feel bad for her.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Who? I don't. Nobody knows what the fuck she looks like, do we?

[James Petregallo]

No, but she's got, like, severe, horrible dementia and shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, really?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, no.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Well, that's positive. She doesn't know that, J. Lo.

[James Petregallo]

She doesn't? Well, no, no. He can tell the. He can tell the same jokes over and over like he always does, and she'll think they're fresh. He's coming into the house going, how'd you hear about this Monica Lewinsky thing? This guy, you know, the president, he was going down, she. And she's like, wow. Really? That happened to President Clinton. He got a blowjob. Crazy. I didn't even know.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

He's like. I could just repeat material from late 90s. I usually go through late 90s. That's my sweet spot.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I showed her this great movie with me and Mr. Miyagi.

[James Petregallo]

That's pretty good. We sat here. Jimmy and I sat texting back and forth one night while we watched this terrible fucking movie from the late 80s starring Jay Leno and Mr. Miyagi. It was the weirdest fucking thing. It was terrible.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Such a bad movie.

[James Petregallo]

We definitely recommend it. You definitely want to see it. This guy goes on to say, as far as employees go, he was pretty good. Now that you think about it. It's scary. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What are you talking about, man?

[James Petregallo]

I mean, now that I really roll it around for a minute in my mind. Jesus.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That roll around your mouth a little while?

[James Petregallo]

That roll around your mouth, baby? Billy Bobble. Bonkers.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Feel good, don't it?

[James Petregallo]

Feel good? Don't let that roll around your mouth for a while. Feel good, don't it?

[Jimmy Wissman]

God damn.

[James Petregallo]

Now here's another thing. There have been other UPS employees recently or employee murders in the last few years. Is it UPS doing this to people?

[Jimmy Wissman]

What can Brown do for you?

[James Petregallo]

What can they do is get you to murder people. Let's go over a few in the last five years. Just in 2024, Rianne Jalipa Fontanosa. That's a name a UPS employee on disability leave was accused of tracking down and fatally shooting a CO worker. Expedito. The guy's first. Is there a better name for a UPS driver than Expedito?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Do it fast.

[James Petregallo]

How fast will it be there? We're sending Expedito right now. Oh, okay. I'll be expecting him soon then.

[Jimmy Wissman]

His mom's pregnant. She's like, oh, I feel like this is gonna be a fast one.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that's why he popped out. He was like the eighth kid she had and there was like she was in the car on the way to the hospital.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Make a U turn. I'm fine.

[James Petregallo]

He's just sitting on the floorboards. He's sitting on the Weathertechs down there and they're going, we're so glad we got weather tech. This would have ruined the car.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm already done. Let's go.

[James Petregallo]

Holy shit. Expedito. Expedito. Cuesta de Leon in California. Also in 2024, Alonzo Pierre Ming Mingo, a former UPS worker, was charged with murder in the killings of three people in Minnesota.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Jesus.

[James Petregallo]

In 2020, Elijah Bertrand, who was riding with UPS delivery driver Nathan Burke as his helper. He wasn't even a full on driver.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He was just learning the ropes.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, go put that on a porch. Was found guilty of fatally stabbing the guy who he was helping in Connecticut.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's had enough. I want to drive.

[James Petregallo]

Fuck that. Yeah. He's like, I know how an opening can come up here in this job.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You lift the fucking boxes. Let me drive.

[James Petregallo]

Bullshit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

My back hurts.

[James Petregallo]

I just heard of a root opening up. Maybe I could get that in 2023. Danny Ray Ellingford, a former UPS driver, was found guilty of three counts of vehicular homicide after falling asleep at the wheel of his tractor trailer and causing a fatal crash in Washington State.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Is it UPS that's doing this? I gotta ask my. I actually talked to my UPS driver cause we've had the same one the whole time I've lived here. He's a nice guy. I talk to him all the time. I'm gonna ask him. How many of your co workers have murdered people? What's going on?

[Jimmy Wissman]

One of my kid's best friends. Dad.

[James Petregallo]

Are you scared?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. He's a upstream. And they make great fucking money.

[James Petregallo]

They do great. Why would you happy as fuck.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, they should not be mad at all. They got a great gig and he.

[James Petregallo]

Brings like the big things of corn for the deer and all that. He throws it down. He's like, yeah, you guys have a good one. All right there. Yeah, that's all right.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's throwing salt licks on your fucking patio.

[James Petregallo]

Give a shit. He's happy as hell. He's the nicest delivery driver. We have a guy. So then they find. They talk about the other victims here of him, which. Including of Scott, which is the teenage girl he sexually assaulted in June 2009 and recorded on video with the pillowcase on her head. And she didn't know she was being recorded. She had a pillowcase on her head. So she had to find out that he had this footage of her the whole time as well. And during legal proceedings, she's going to be forced to relive all of this shit and everything. They. He's caused a lot of psychological damage and families. He's held at gunpoint at 3 o' clock in the fucking morning. One victim, Shirley Grooms, said when you have absolutely no control over a situation when you're totally helpless, it's kind of hard to describe, but it's a bad place to be in, I would say with a. With a fucking stranger holding you at gunpoint.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'll do it for that. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So they also connect him to. Through the searches, they connect him to a 2007, December 2007 burglary in Mitchellville, a June 2008 burglary near Kettering and a May 2009 burglary in Bowie, as well as other crimes. So they're still also investigating whether he is responsible for the June 2008 killing of Vilma Artis Butler as well, the first woman we talked about whose home was set on fire. They are concerned also that he may Be responsible for many more unsolved murders in Washington, D.C. texas, and Florida. Places he was known to have frequented both for work and for personal reasons. He's doing shit there. There's no fucking way he's going anywhere and not doing this stuff. This is what he does. Following all this. Following his arrest, neighborhood watch programs saw a 60% increase in participation in the area and home security systems. You couldn't get one because sold out. Three months is the close. Nearest time we can get you in. Fucking booked. Totally booked. Installing security systems. And there were people who literally. Single mothers with teenage daughters just moved. They just moved.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Just got the fuck out of town.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Single mother, teenage daughter. That's who he's going after. Goodbye.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Which is crazy. And wow. So you can't help but think that first murder of Vilma Butler, did he think that the teenage girl would be home? Was it at a time when one of her daughters was normally home, you know what I'm saying? And he thought she was home, but she wasn't. And so it was just her. We don't know. So he's indicted for the DeWitt murders. That's what they have him on. Even though the Lofton murders, he obviously did. And same thing with the Vilma murder. So the state's attorney here says, clearly this was a gruesome double murder that really shocked the community. I hope that this incident will help bring some sense of calm to the community. Meaning it was indictment, not incident. So, yeah, and this was the. If you're gonna try one, this is the nastiest one. You want to try this one. Because he kidnapped them, took them somewhere else, murdered them, put them in the trunk of a stolen car, set it on fire. It's die a fucking bolical to do that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's pretty fucked up. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

It shows what a arch fucking criminal this person is. Now, asked if he would agree that Scott is a serial killer.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Prince George's County State's attorney said that he can't characterize him as that at this point. He said ethics rules prohibit me from making such statements during ongoing investigations.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So what is he saying there? I mean, he just doesn't want to comment.

[James Petregallo]

He's saying, yes, but I can't say that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

Ethics tell me Ethics dictate that I'm not allowed to say that he's a serial killer means he's a serial killer.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I mean, ethics are one thing, but words mean things. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Well, he would have. There'd be no ethical difficulty in him saying no. He's not a serial killer. So he. If he wasn't a serial killer, he could have said, no, he's not. Yeah. So the ethics, ethical part is to say, yes, he is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

Which is what he thinks. He called the case just a gruesome double murder that shocked the community. They asked for updates on other mother daughter killings and he said that investigations are moving forward. It's okay. He said that he'll be seeking life without parole because the death penalty is not an option in Maryland. And they also said he didn't know whether that Jason Knew the DeWitts or not. Didn't know that that was personal. He said, this is the chief now. Police chief said, the case before you I think is going to be a case study for many law enforcement agencies in the future is what he said. Because this is the new type of criminal. Someone who knows all the investigative techniques. I mean, anybody with an inter. With fucking Internet access, anybody with a phone in their pocket could find out every last little bit of crime scene details and how they're investigated. He also said this was an individual that were. That was very well versatile. Read. A studious person that studied the policing system, knew the policing system, knew about his craft. He called it a craft.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Gross.

[James Petregallo]

Almost like an art. A craft?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Wow.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's a hobby.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Do you look at murder as more of an art or a craft? I've heard it described both ways a lot.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They could have just as easily said his crime, for Christ's sake. It's his crime.

[James Petregallo]

Crime is the. Yeah, but like in a more nebulous thing, like John Douglas always says, if you want to figure out the artist, look at the work type of thing. Like he looks at that as their art, basically.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's how they consider it, for sure.

[James Petregallo]

Whereas craft is more. I'm doing this to get it done and to have that utilitarian thing. It's not just my feelings or whatever. Yeah. Craft.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Are they Van Gogh or are they Bob Vila?

[James Petregallo]

Exactly.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, Vila. Shelf or a Van Gogh painting? Which one? So he said he knew about his craft. This is a very bad guy. That's an understatement. I think a very bad guy. He's a very bad man, this guy. A very bad man.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Not good.

[James Petregallo]

I think this. Not good. I don't like him. I think this individual is going to become one of the most infamous criminals in the history of the United States. He's a serial killer.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There you go.

[James Petregallo]

So there is no ethical for the prosecutor. There's some ethical shit for this. There's no ethical things for a police chief. He's like, fuck this guy. He's a serial killer.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's a piece of shit.

[James Petregallo]

He also characterized him as a hardcore criminal that just preyed on the community. Now the federal trials are going to come up. First they have him, they think airtight on some multiple murders, but the feds have him first. Now, basically the problem is he's looking at life in prison on the federal charges. Right. So state murder charges aren't really going to increase the punishment that much. So they're like, this is going to be a challenge. Number one, they're not going to get him to confess to anything or do anything because not like they can help him or give him any kind of deal on it or whatever.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So, I mean, the bummer is that if he, if he. That's crazy too, because he's going to serve fed time first there, obviously. Yeah, that's a. That's a fascinating bit that if you do get paroled for life from. In a federal. You're going to go do state time now. That's why.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, yeah. Now you got life in state too, coming up probably. So July 2011 is the federal trial.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So time has passed here. They charge. They give him 11 charges total. Now, that is way less because, I mean, he confessed to 28 burglaries and nine home invasions, so that's just whatever. But they chose to focus on the cases where they had the strongest evidence besides his confessions. You know, where there was physical stuff, they could connect him to electronic shit, they could connect him to videos, they could connect him to everything like that. Now he says prior to the trial, his lawyer moves for his shit to be suppressed, suppress the evidence seized from his home and carry.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Which is everything.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

Basically, they said that the affidavit supporting the warrant did not establish a significant nexus between his alleged criminal conduct and the items to be seized, which is the most ridiculous thing ever. They suspected him of breaking into a gun store. So they searched his house and found stolen guns that were then connected to other crimes. There's. That's just, you know, if you walk into a house, if someone's supposed to have stolen property, and you walk into a house, you have a warrant to search for stolen property, and they have four corpses in their living room. They're still allowed to charge you with fucking murder. They can't be like, oh, well, you were looking for the guns, so, you know, the bodies don't count. They were right there. Yeah. So the court says, get the fuck out of here? I don't think so. Now, the worst evidence they have against him, I mean, worst for him, best for the government, obviously, was the video recording he made of himself sexually assaulting a minor. That's not. Okay.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's a problem.

[James Petregallo]

Forcing her to undress. The video, should they play in court a video of him forcing her to undress at gunpoint while her family was fucking tied up in other parts of the house.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You don't really have to have her testify when you have that, right?

[James Petregallo]

I don't think so. But, I mean, yeah, you do, because you want her to get up there and say how horrifying it was, and you want that jury to really want to put this guy away forever. So at one point, that's when he stepped in front of the cameras and they got a clear image of him. And they said, though his demeanor during the assault was horrifying, he was just calm. And they called him business.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Like, yikes.

[James Petregallo]

There was no. He wasn't, you know, a drooling fucking psychomaniac. You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Wissman]

He was worse.

[James Petregallo]

This is way worse. This is way creepier to me. Way more dangerous anyway than some snarling animal person.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I mean, animal is like, certainly like that dude Duncan, that. That was naked telling girls what he's going to do to him, and then with their blood all over him, he's screaming into the wilderness. That's fucking horrifying.

[James Petregallo]

That's horrifying.

[Jimmy Wissman]

With this on tape in your own home while he's just like, now take him off. I'm going to do some things.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. I'm going to take pictures of it. It's. It's up, man. Wow. It captured his voice also as he gave commands, providing audio evidence that you cannot explain away. Obviously, that wasn't me. They described the video as the smoking gun that tied him to the crimes in addition to his own confession and the video, which, to me, that's enough, I think.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

He confessed to all this, and I got it on tape. Here's a video showing you do it. I think you're guilty, but they said, let's put some more on there just in case. Ballistics evidence linking weapons found in his home to crime scenes. DNA evidence from victims found on his clothing and equipment. Cell phone records placing him near crime scenes at the time of the attacks, before he started popping his battery and shit out. Testimony from Marcus Hunter, his partner there, detailing his role, Jason's role in the mastermind of the whole thing. It's all his idea. I mean, this Marcus guy, he didn't have all the surveillance equipment and UPS computers to check, so has to be Jason's, because they tried to blame him. You know what I mean? His defense was like, what's all this Marcus Hunter guy? You're like, no, no, no. Also physical evidence from the spooky house as well. Okay. Now, his defense is. What do you think his defense is? What would your defense be if you're an attorney?

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm crazy. I don't know.

[James Petregallo]

He's. Look at him. He's nuts. The defense was he was struggling with his sexuality and had confessed to multiple crimes he didn't commit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why?

[James Petregallo]

The confessions were bullshit. Quote, because he was looking to be socially accepted.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So he's gay.

[James Petregallo]

Said he's struggling with his sexuality. So maybe he's ambivalent. No, no, no, no, no. He's gay or he's sexually ambivalent, which made him look to be socially accepted. Therefore, he participated in. He confessed to tons of grinds. No, no, no. He confessed to crime.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, he didn't even do it.

[James Petregallo]

No false confessions. Yes, false confessions. Because he's sexually ambivalent and wanted to be socially accepted by the cops. And the best way to get the cops to like you is to be a murderer and a scumbag.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Tell him you're a bad guy.

[James Petregallo]

That's the last thing you're socially unaccepted at that point. But basically, the nerd defense. Your Honor, my client's a nerd and he just wanted the cops to like him, so he just gave them the info they wanted, which is crazy. So it's a three week trial.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Okay. And the jury comes back and they find him guilty of all 11 counts. Three counts of carjacking. Taking vehicles by force during home invasions. Because it's a carjacking, even if you're not in it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure.

[James Petregallo]

If they take your keys out of the car, it's a carjacking. Still. Four counts of using a firearm during a violent crime. One count of theft of firearms. That's for the gun store burglary. One count of sexual exploitation of a minor. Creating child pornography during a home invasion. One count of unlawful possession of a stolen weapon. One count of unlawful possession of an unregistered silencer. Can't have those. Unless they're.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's the two worst ones. Probably the silencer and the child porn. Those are really bad charges.

[James Petregallo]

I mean, the child porn and the. Using a firearm during a violent crime is probably a bad thing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's pretty bad, too.

[James Petregallo]

The sentencing. The judge calls Jason Thomas Scott Not. He did this. He is this, quote. A tsunami of crime, he called him.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You are a tsunami of crime.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. An uncontrollable wave of crime. You are just. That will absolutely take out a beach community.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You just come in, then you go out, then you come back. It keeps happening.

[James Petregallo]

And Malibu was decimated. That's what happened. You just destroyed it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No more Indonesia.

[James Petregallo]

Nope. You put out the wildfire and then took the houses away.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

He also said that he showed no indication that he would ever rehabilitate. At least not in this lifetime. You, sir, may fuck off. 100 years in federal prison.

[Jimmy Wissman]

100 years is a round, nice number.

[James Petregallo]

A hundred years is pretty good.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You're gonna do 100.

[James Petregallo]

100. Yeah. That'll take the breath out of you if you get hit with that 100. Now, family members of the victims were present here. They did invite them all and everything. And they all express. Expressed relief that he's not gonna be free and he's gonna, you know, be put away. But they were also pissed off. But this is nothing you can be pissed off about. It's the way the law works. I get they're upset, but they were mad that the federal charges didn't specifically address the murders, which it's not. A federal crime, is the problem. That's a state crime.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Talk to your. Talk to your sheriff.

[James Petregallo]

The rest of the shit's federal. That's not federal. One family member said, we wanted justice for the murders, not just the other crimes. Like, it's fine that he's going away, but we wanted him to know he's going away for that. Now, during his confession, he mentioned the other states, remember, that he went to during his employment with ups. They started looking into and investigating all these places that we talked about before. Now, the state wants to try murder charges now, right? They're under a lot of pressure to get him put away for murder. You know what I mean? So they look at the cases. And the Lofton family case, Vilma, they have no evidence on. They know it's him. They're pretty sure it's him because no one else was doing this at this time. They're even pretty sure about the other two. Remember the other two we talked about that Weren't Lofton and DeWitt? They're pretty sure that he did those two, but they don't have any evidence of it at all. The only thing they have physical evidence that you can show a jury is the DeWitt case, because that is. They have the leaves connecting him. They have all that sweater and the jeans, I would think. The Lofton case. Connecting a gun in his possession to the fucking casings on the floor, that should do it too, I would imagine, right?

[Jimmy Wissman]

And the bullets in the people.

[James Petregallo]

And the bullets in the people, that would make sense. But I guess at that point he might be able to try to blame that on one of the co conspirators. Because of the gun. Well, I wasn't holding the gun. He had the gun. And it could confuse the jury a little bit. So instead they're going to just do the DeWitt case because they have physical evidence from the spooky house, including DNA and things like that. Charred clothing matching what the victims were wearing. Beech tree leaves embedded in the fabric. Blood evidence. All of it found in the abandoned spooky house. Marcus Hunter's testimony places Scott at the scene of the murders and described his behavior before and after the crimes. Cell phone records showed his phone in the area during the relevant time period. Yeah, it's a lot. So the defense team here, he's got a really good defense attorney. I don't know if his parents provided this or what, but there's a guy named Harry Traynor is his defense attorney. He had been practicing law since 1979. So he was around for fucking over 30 years. Was involved in a lot of high profile cases. He was co lead counsel in the defense of the first federal death penalty cases in Maryland and the Northern district of West Virginia and has defended more than 28 death eligible murder cases in Maryland state court. So he's the guy you want if you got this here. He was elected a fellow of the American College of trial lawyers since 2001. Has an A rating from the, from some fucking service that rates lawyers and was selected to the best lawyers in America every year since 2006. Couldn't have a better guy for a murder case for you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Absolutely.

[James Petregallo]

Now, October 2012, just before the murder trial is scheduled to begin, Scott's attorney files a motion for a mental competency evaluation.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Good move.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. The motion claims that Scott was currently unable to effectively assist in his own defense and needed psychological abuse evaluation to see if he was fit to stand trial. You gotta throw some shit at the walls and see what sticks type of thing like who knows, what else are you gonna do? They have so much evidence on this case, it's pretty fucked. Now while he's undergoing evaluation, we find out what the real reason for this was, which was just to kill some time before the trial without actually having to get a continuance, which we're all Kind of all used up. At that point, his defense team started reaching out to the prosecutors about the possibility of a plea agreement. Oh, yeah, that lawyer's a great lawyer, but he's not an idiot. He knows when he's. He knows when he's cooked. You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Like, he knows when his back's against the wall.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Like, I don't. How the fuck do you defend this? You know what I mean? What do you do? So the prosecution is open to the idea.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. They said, well, he's already serving 100 years in federal prison, so he's not going to be released no matter what happens here. A plea deal would spare the victim's families the trauma of having to do this whole shit in a lengthy trial with a good attorney who's really going to drag everything through the mud. And it's going to be painful for them. It's not going to be an open and shut thing. And in addition to that, it would guarantee a conviction without risking a jury trial. Now, the family victims families here, they're not happy with a plea deal. No, they don't want it. Which I, I mean, I get from one side, but then from. From a realistic side, though, you know what I mean? What do you want to sit there and go through all that for when he's already going. It's not like, oh, he'll go free otherwise. That would be one thing, but. Doesn't make sense. But they want him to be held formally accountable, which a plea agreement would be that it would be guilty to. You get to. That's the only way you're ever gonna get him to say, I killed those people.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

That's what I don't get. If you go through a whole trial and he loses, he's not going to admit to it because he's got appeals then after that, so.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right. And he wants to not have to do this time.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, exactly. So I don't get. I would rather have the guy admit he did it in court and have him go away forever. To me, that's way better than having a. Some kind of circus. But you don't think straight too, if you get dead family members. And it's hard to, you know, you're not thinking straight. You want blood, you want. You want to kill somebody. So he is found competent to stand trial in early 2013. But the plea negotiations are still going. Apparently they break down because 2013, we're going to have a trial.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really.

[James Petregallo]

We are. We're having it in the openings here. Prosecution laid out Their case against Scott, they said that he broke into the homes, searched for victims using the UPS database. They hinted at his meticulous track covering. Hinted at it, but not too much. In the DeWitt house, they said, we found examples of bleach stains, evidence of bleach stains. They said that hours before he allegedly killed these two, also, he broke into another home with a woman inside. As he was preparing to leave, he turned to the accomplice and said, let's take her with us.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petregallo]

And Hunter said, no, no, we're not taking her with us. And he said, oh, okay, cool. And then he took these two with him hours later.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petregallo]

He was doing this more than once a night, man. That's crazy. I don't even know what the fuck to say about that. After that encounter in March 2009, the prosecutors detail that the accomplice dropped Scott off near the home of Dolores DeWitt and Ebony. So he's saying, I dropped him off over there. And then they found the charred remains. They found the seven brand jeans, the gray sweater that at the spooky house that they used to, you know, divide up the loot from the burglaries there. They said also they found the beech tree leaf, one beech tree leaf on Dolores's remains. That's what connected this whole thing. One leaf. They said no eyewitnesses would connect him to the slayings. But other evidence together, quote, forms a neon arrow pointing at the defendant like it is obvious, like it is, you know, fucking vacancy, vacancy right here. Absolutely fucking go over there. Now, the defense acknowledges that his client committed break ins. There's no denying that he's. Yeah, that's what he does, he said, but he never admitted to killing anybody. And the prosecutor's evidence, because he's saying basically he sat down, gave this long, detailed confession, didn't talk about this, and he was giving stuff up. So, you know, he said that evidence, prosecutors, evidence connecting him to the DeWitt killings is largely circumstantial. He also urged the jurors not to delve too deeply into the other crimes. Don't look too deep. Which just makes you want to look even deeper when someone tells you that, hey, don't look into that. It's not important. It isn't. Let me decide. He also said that while Scott might have broken into Holmes in Largo, there was no direct evidence linking him to any killings. He said it would be easy for someone to make that jump, an improper jump, that because of all this other stuff, he must be A person of bad character. Yeah, I'd say he's a person of bad character if he held a child at gunpoint and fucking made herself, made.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Her undress and did whatever else he did to her.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. That is horrifying. Wow. The prosecutor said that Scott most likely took the spare key to the Nissan Maxima at an earlier break and then used her car to dispose of bodies. But the defense says no, no, no, no, no, saying that the key was the only item taken during the break in, apparently removed from a kitchen drawer. And he had, he said Scott would not have known where to find the key. And it was more likely taken by someone who the Maxima owner knew personally and was in their house and knew where the key was. Not the fact that he methodically goes through homes and takes fucking pictures out of photo albums that he wants. Nevermind car keys in a drawer. So three weeks into the testimony. This is a long trial. Things get fucked up.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh.

[James Petregallo]

A detective prosecuting or testifying for the prosecution mentions that Scott was connected to, quote, several other crimes, information the judge had specifically ruled inadmissible as it's prejudicial. The defense immediately moves for a mistrial, arguing that the jury had been irreparably tainted by hearing about his other activities. The judge agrees and declares a mistrial. Okay, now the victim's families were like, we just sat here for three weeks hearing all these murder details. This is crazy. So now when they have a plea deal in the works, the family says, go ahead and fucking do it. Go ahead. Just we, you know, I think. And this makes sense too, to me personally, I think they went to the trial expecting something out of it, to feel a certain way and just felt dissatisfaction. Right.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This is what we wanted at all.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, we wanted him to just be excoriated. The whole time he's got like an attorney saying he's not guilty. That's frustrating if you know the guy did it. Yeah, yeah, that's gotta be frustrating for the victim's family. So rather than put them through another trial with the risk of another mistrial or another acquittal, because again, it's a fucking minefield of shit. You not allowed to say. And if this one says it, it's a lot. So they decide to offer him a comprehensive plea agreement that would resolve all the outstanding murder charges at once. The deal is structured as an Alford plea, though, which means you're not really pleading guilty. See, that would be dissatisfying. But it acknowledges prosecutors have the sufficient evidence to convict him. This allowed him to maintain his innocence while accepting criminal responsibility. That would be frustrating. See, like the Co Burger situation, I could see the families being mad. If that was the deal where he didn't have to say he did it. Where he still says I didn't do it but I'm accepting criminal responsibility. He had to say they had to go through. Did you go through and stab this girl and do all that? He had to say, yes, I did. That's over. This guy didn't have to do that. So under the terms of the plea agreement, he would plead guilty to the murders, just the DeWitt murders now, not the others. And he would receive an 85 year state sentence.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Prosecutors would drop the charges of the murders of Karen and Carissa Lofton. Prosecutors would drop the charges in the murder of Velma Butler. And the state would waive or Scott would waive all rights to appeal his conviction as well. That's a big one. No appeals. Scott would be required to serve 80% of his state sentence in addition to 85% of his federal sentence. So basically 85 years and 75 years he's gotta do. He's gotta do about 160 years before he's gonna get out of a chance of parole.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay. So he's gotta do the fed time first and then start that other.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, and if he survived 85 years in federal custody being a 30 year old, which is unlikely, probably not. Then he gets to go there. Now sentencing, the judge says, quote, I can't imagine or understand the cruel and cold blooded nature of, of Mr. Scott's acts. You, sir, may fuck off. Like I said, 85 years to be served consecutively with the federal sentence. He's dying in prison. Period.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

The state's attorney defended the plea agreement saying it provided closure for the families while ensuring that he's never going to threaten anybody ever again. He said, we have removed, we believe a ruthless killer from the streets. They got a serial killer put away. Great. Yeah, good deal. The families sort of concur. Dolores DeWitt's family said they had, they were relieved that the case was finally over and that he's never going to be free. They said this has been. Because this is 2013. It's been years.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Four years of this shit. Multiple delays, a mistrial. And the plea agreement is that means they can finally put this behind them. And families of the, of Karen and Carissa Lofton and Vilma Butler though, felt betrayed that their murders weren't involved in that too.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay. Yeah, I can see it.

[James Petregallo]

They said they were Pissed. They'd waited more than four years only to be told that they're never gonna be prosecuted. And they said, does this mean you'll prosecute them if you find more evidence? And they said, no, this is it. It's done. So Kirk Lofton Sr. Said, we never had our day in court. He was going to spend the rest of his life in jail anyway. So I guess they assumed, why spend money to satisfy the family? And that's really what it is. It's the state versus, meaning the entire state, not your family. And it's. They do what's best for the whole state. And if he's put away forever and we're gonna save millions of dollars, that's the best for the state. You don't feel great about it. But that's not really what. That's not what the justice system is about.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Laws and shit.

[James Petregallo]

Well, it's for everybody, not just for victims. It's not a personal vendetta force. Yeah, it's not. It's for the state, so. But, I mean, it's totally understandable why he would feel that way. Obviously. Now, Keon, who'd been a suspect in the fucking murders, this poor bastard, he says he's really pissed off. He says, there's still a very empty void in myself and my family's hearts because we don't know. We didn't get that satisfaction that the DeWitts got of a trial and a killer that admitted. And he was found guilty of their crime. We didn't get that. Well, they didn't get that either. He didn't admit it, and he wasn't found guilty. It's an Alford plea. So he just said they had evidence. Ebony's father had a little different perspective. This guy is a nice man, I would assume, judging by what he says here. Quote, I used to hate him for a while, but I had to get over that. At first, I thought I used to want him dead. I pray to God that while he's locked up, every time he closes his eyes, he sees them as he left them. Now I just feel like, no, what he's got is the best thing for him. I don't want to give him any real estate in my mental space. So he's where he needs to be. Healthy. Healthy. He did some therapy, that guy is what that is. So he can appeal federally, and he does. Oh, he's allowed to appeal federally because there's no deal. There's.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What's he going to do?

[James Petregallo]

Three points of error here that he points out. One that the court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence seized pursuant to the supplemental search warrant. The whole thing, he was trying to get done pretrial. They said that the the affidavit supporting the warrant that authorizes the search or seizure Must provide the magistrate with a substantial basis for determining the existence of probable cause in light of the totality of circumstances. To establish probable cause, the facts presented to the magistrate need only to warrant a man of reasonable caution to believe that the evidence of a crime will be found. The standard requires that the supporting affidavit make it clear to a responsible person that there is some nexus between the items to be seized and the criminal activity being investigated. He contends the affidavit accompanying this didn't do that. Specifically, that there is insufficient connection between the crimes listed in the affidavit. Possession and sale of stolen firearms and possession of firearms and all of that with the other shit clothing which can be used to commit burglaries, Certain electronic devices, burglary tools, scanners, financial documents related to acquiring and disposing of proceeds from burglaries. Anyway, they say that's basically horseshit. They said a federal firearms licensee named JC Arms was burglarized. Many of the firearms were stolen from that location. The affidavit notes the agents who secured the residence and car Saw various burglary tools in plain view when they executed the search warrant. So there's that also that this and also the Supreme Court held that many. That the officers may draw inferences based on their own experience in deciding whether probable causes exists. There has to be some leeway for a human being to make a human decision. Basically. Also, number two, that the court abused its discretion in allowing one of the somebody to testify, one of the agents to the county police, Sergeant Stauffer, to testify as an expert regarding the relation of certain tools in Scott's possession to burglary. So basically, he testified as a burglary expert, and they're saying that he shouldn't have been an expert.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay, he's not an expert.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, he testified saying that about the bolt cutter, screwdrivers, pry bar, black cap, black gloves, ski mask, hammer, binoculars, flashlight and window punch. Saying that these are burglary tools. I've done burglary a long time. And they said he shouldn't have been admitted as an expert. Which is completely up to the judge, by the way. There's no standard of expertise. But they found out that he's worked on the force for 15 years, investigated and supervised the investigation of more than 2000 burglaries and made more than 100 arrests involving burglaries. Attended two schools where he received training in identifying burglary tools. He's their burglary guy. He's the guy. And also number three, that the court should have declared a mistrial due to the government's discovery violation. So that's tied to point one of this. Okay? Now they say, keep on keeping on, fuckbag.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, Stick around.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, Eat shit. How about that? Now, this has had some serious impact on these families, as you can imagine. Courtney feels horrible. She came home to find.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Too late.

[James Petregallo]

Them gone. Yeah. And she said, my family was everything to me. My mom, my dad, my sister. I didn't have a worry in the world. And Kirk Sr. Chris's father, said that Jason Scott, we feel like he didn't just. He wasn't just responsible for two murders, he's responsible for three. Because my family and my son, Kirk Jr. Never recovered. Speaking of Kirk Jr. 2019. Kirk Jr. He was struggling with depression and alcoholism for years after the murders. He ended up at 28 years old, dying in a hotel room from alcohol poisoning. Drank himself to death in a fucking hotel room.

[Jimmy Wissman]

28.

[James Petregallo]

You gotta really try to do that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

28.

[James Petregallo]

Suicide. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You gotta live like Janis Joplin and Amy Wine.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You got to be jamming yourself full of all kinds of shit.

[James Petregallo]

That poor kid Kirk Senior, said he died from alcohol. Jason Scott definitely played a part in it. Jason Scott, he's responsible for three murders. He said there's that. He said he went through a very dark period. He was drinking, very depressed and everything for years. Craig McDonald here, Ebony's father, said that he has nightmares that never go away. He said, I have nightmares some nights I wake up in the middle of the night crying. Some nights it's like it just happened. He said, though, I try to help somebody every day in the name of my daughter. So he volunteers with young people in the way of honoring. As a way of honoring ebony's memory. He sounds like a real nice guy. That was the guy that said, I hated Jason at first, but now I'm like, you know what? What the fuck, man? I'm not gonna let this bother me. Yep. He does an annual remembrance where people around the country wear green because that was Karen and Carissa's favorite color. And pray for them. He also launched a clothing line called Butterfly Kisses in memory of Carissa, who wanted to be a fashion designer. Overall. Now this case has become a teaching tool for criminal justice programs all over the place. And law enforcement too, because. And for UPS to stay off the computers now. He. Yeah, because this is one of these things where you can't take the differing MOs as concrete evidence type of thing. Like everything you've heard before, it's evolved. Essentially.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The public is well aware of how you do what you do. And really bad guys are gonna try to combat what you do.

[James Petregallo]

Absolutely. Police departments now received training on recognizing patterns in seemingly unrelated crimes. Especially when those crimes show evidence of planning and technological sophistication. They said that his case has contributed to research on what experts call organized defenders. Criminals who use intelligence planning and technological sophistication. His case is frequently cited in academic literature about the evolution of the behavior in the criminal age. That's one of the things they said too. It wasn't just the different MOs. It was organized and disorganized. He said this killer organized, that killer disorganized. These are two different killers because not only is our MO different, their whole.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sloppy and one's not. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. So the case demonstrated the importance of interagency cooperation and information sharing. And federal agencies have updated their procedures for handling cases where suspects have access to computer databases through their employment as well.

[Jimmy Wissman]

As.

[James Petregallo]

He is in Tucson in federal prison.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is that right?

[James Petregallo]

Absolutely. Go down and visit him. It just says Tucson federal prison. So I'm not sure. Is Florence a state. Florence a state prison too? I think it is. They indicate that he's been a model prisoner.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Of course he has.

[James Petregallo]

Because he's a nerd. The only things he ever did wrong was all of this crime shit. Everything else. He doesn't want anybody to know what a bad guy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

UPS loved him.

[James Petregallo]

He loved him. He's a quiet compliant and causes no disciplinary problems because he's a pussy. Also. That's the other thing. He's probably just avoiding getting stabbed. His earliest possible release date is hilarious because. Yeah, he'd be like over 100 on the federal stuff. And then. And he's got to serve 85% on that and 80% for the Maryland thing. He's fucked. It's. He's done. So even with good time credits and all that. They're saying he wouldn't get out before he's like 140. So he is done. So. So there you go. Everybody there?

[Jimmy Wissman]

2183.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Jesus Christ. There is Largo, Maryland and there is some wild fucking case of a serial.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Killer who's never that. Why is that not. You know what I mean? That's.

[James Petregallo]

He should be everywhere.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It was so recent like the cop.

[James Petregallo]

Said, he's gonna be one of the most famous serial killers in the. You ever heard of him?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Never heard of him. Did this almost 20 years ago.

[James Petregallo]

Isn't that crazy? So anyway, if you like the show, get on whatever app you're listening on, give us five stars. It helps so, so much. Don't know why, but it does. So get in there and do that. Head over to shut upandgivemerder.com get your merch, get your tickets to live shows. We have a few that we released that were our holds in San Diego. So San Diego, if you've been looking to go, there are a few tickets available right now, so grab those. There's also Seattle, D.C. and Philly. So get your tickets for all of those. Seattle in October, D.C. and Philly in December. So check everything out there. Shut up and give me murder.com. listen to our other two shows, Crime in sports and your stupid opinions. And then get yourself some Patreon, everybody. Oh, also follow on social media, Small town murder on Instagram, Small Town pot on Facebook. Patreon.com crimeinsports that's where you get all the bonus material. Anybody $5 a month or above, you're gonna get so much shit. Hundreds of bonus episodes you've never heard before, immediately available upon subscription, binge away. And on top of that, you get new ones every other week. One crime in sports, one small town murder, and you get them all. This week we're gonna do for crime and sports, we're gonna talk about more disasters. So amusement park disasters, industrial disasters, whatever we can come up with. Then for Small town murder, it's prisoner dating game time again, everybody. Oh, baby. Our favorite time of year. You know how that goes. Jimmy's gonna pick from four bachelors and four bachelorettes who only thing they have in common is their proclivity for violent felonies and getting caught for such. So there's that. He picks from just their description with them telling you how wonderful they are. And then he gets to find out what they did later. And that's the fun part, what they look like and all that shit. So it's so much fun. Patreon.com crimeinsports and you now get all the shows, crime and sports, your stupid opinions, both Small town murders, all ad free on Patreon. And you can take that RSS feed and put it into whatever app you listen to podcasts on so you don't have to learn a new app or figure that out. It's awesome. Get that. And in addition to all of that. You also get a shout out.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There you go.

[James Petregallo]

And that happens right now. Jimmy hit me with the names of the people who would never, ever, ever videotape us while torturing us. Jimmy hit me with them right fucking now.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This week, executive producer Christy Hines, Kyle Norweg, Gary Howard, Jessica Shelton, Ali Deutch and Amanda. Thank you all so much for everything you do. You're fantastic. Other producers this week are. Peyton Meadows, Happy Birthday, Barnyard. Barnyard is. I hope it's a great day. Janice Hill, Happy Hour. Checking in in Galveston, Texas at the beach. You better. If it gets cloudy, get the fuck out of there. Exact Tax Solutions. Bill Thrash. No, that's Bill trash. Panda Clawson, Shakai 9000. Jessica Lynn. Katie would know the last name. Heather Zawell. Zawis Slack. Zowie Slack. Oh, boy. Bever, Bever, Bever or nail us. What did I do? Is that Beverly? And I probably. I think it's Beverly. Whoops a daisy. Heidi Allen, Amelia Bibbles, Michael King, Mark with no last name. Dion with no last name. Jen, Paper, Pap and Papenhagen. Don T. Kelly Truesdale, Jelena Bogich. Bogich Dina with no last name. Alex Kubeska, Ta, Melissa or Melissa maybe Jenny Martin Vex with no last name. Jason, Mick, Rodney Hogan, Colby Hansen. Heed. Nope, that's head. Maybe it's me. Oh, head Asshole. There it is.

[James Petregallo]

Maybe it's he.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's not Heed. It's Head Asshole. Yeah, you get it. M, J and L. Those letters. Tracy Wood. Allie would know last name. Travis 77, Anna Nelson. Drusilla. Drusilla. Drusilla, that's right. Karen Clark, Jerry Rothman and Nikki M. Nicholas Loney, Kristen Wells, Frank Caiello, Brooke and Emberly. Joseph Carney, Katie W. Cecilia Bowen, Jake Larras Leaf, Leif. Leif Ruana, Stacy Z. Chris Riley, Lisette Marte. Maybe Marty. Mindy Brashear, Nathan Cowan, Jesse Jessa, Jesse Rimland, Alex Carter, Lift Heavy, run long. Angela McBryer, Christy Reed and Katerina Nemetz. Aaron, what a Ron.

[James Petregallo]

Having some troubles today.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That is Aurora. But then Aaron at the end there. PB8.

[James Petregallo]

The Aurora and Aaron.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Perhaps it's two people. Hanni Hayne, Schmeichel. Schmeckle is her name. Schmeckle.

[James Petregallo]

Hey, Schmeichel. Thank you. Schmeichel.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Haney. Hani Elizabeth Thornton, Melinda Franks, Ashley Martinez, Carla McDonald, Cynthia with no last name. Chantel Chambers, Vincent Quigny, Aaron Gunther, Alicia L. Lee Taylor Lord Travis Baroker, the first of his name. Kale Cavender Jess with no last name Jeremy St Hillier Hillary Hillary Meg Norris Lil Bit Batty Ray Jane Wolf Kate with no last name Bethany Bolt Kate with a k and an 8 Colin with no last name Ashley Howard Jana with no last name Chiquita de Jesus Ashley Rain Paula For Sane Friesen A bald Stang Brian Bailey Justin with no last name Eliza Jane Kira Pritchard Steve Hayes Tara Bush KT with no last name Brian Greeley TDOC 72 cake with no last name or it's a shoe or steak but it could be cake Courtney with no last name Edward Sizzler Sizler Brandy Kemp Alyssa Mize Dana Dana Mueller Chris Harris Kelly Stewart Grace Johnson Danny Carpenter Maggie King Jacqueline Price Aaron Buell Tobias and Sarah Jalen Gardner Maura Carney Dorothy Collins Aaron Kettle Yep Amanda Led in Leaden Shannon G Courtney Diane Robert Wojtek Hellboy 2112 Danielle Charles Leanne Carter Summer Pike Smith Johnny with no last name Lori Wiley Catherine Venaga Venaglia Is that right? Matt Adelano Karen McDonnell Marty Rice D with no last name Julie Gallagher Andrea Dule Cassandra Maloney Jerry King Shane Vowell Sarah Woods Jamie Curtis or without the Lee JC Corral Coral with no last name the Chojin the Chojin One Nathaniel Stevens Jackson no last name JDC Sam Richardson Alexander in Uganda John Madden oh how about that from the dead. There he is. Is a VI AD8 Paul Christofferson Richard John Schmidt Brendan Wiley Willie Willie Jill E April Davis Shay Grant Richard Bologna Balogna Baloney Desiree Carey Angelina with no last name Chris Reskratt Rex Rexrat Harris Jesus Maddie Matty Kelly sid Jenkins Webby 1978 Fran Strouch David Benefil Benefael Benefil Ben Possibly the dog food David Hunt Kayla with no last name Blake Malone Ginny Ginny Gilbert Ginny Gilbert Ivan Solis P Just the letter P Andrea Razzo, Rich Bergen, the video games show podcast Heather Schaebel and all of our patrons. Thank you all so much.

[James Petregallo]

Thank you everybody so much from the bottom of our hearts. We cannot thank you enough for all that you do for us. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Tell your friends. Keep listening. Keep telling everybody about it. Keep coming back and seeing us head shut. Upandgivemerder.com if you want to find out where to follow us on social media, drop down menus, take you where you need to go and until next week everybody, it's been our pleasure.