Ben Adair (4:00)

Are you walking or running?

Joe Loya (4:01)

No, I'm walking. You're walking. I'm just another person walking between cars in the parking lot. I'm trying to blend in. But I do turn around, and I notice towers run out of the bank. And as soon as they run out of the bank and they get to the curb, they don't look up and see me. What they do is they immediately come out and they start turning their head left to right, and they start looking in the cars that are driving by. Why? Because they assumed, like on tv, that there was a getaway driver. And I'm in one of those cars. Because they're buying into the hype. They're buying into the old story. They're buying into some false sense of what happens when I'm. The reality of what happens. Like, that was something. I was invisible. I was looking right at them, and I might as well have been a fucking ghost because they could not see me. They never looked up. They didn't. And I just walked away casually. Later on, I would continue to do that, and I would always look around, and I was marvel at that. But I remember that was the first time where I was like, whoa, I'm right here. What the. How come you can't see me? You know, it was really strange. It was an interesting thing on human psychology, you know, to understand that that's what was going on. I got.

Ben Adair (5:36)

So at the end of the last episode, you just told your dad's new girlfriend all about the abuse and the trauma that you and your brother Paul were suffering. And then you picked up a knife. You're at Sizzler. He picked up a steak knife. And you said, the next time your dad hits you, you're gonna stab him in the neck.

Joe Loya (5:54)

Yeah.

Ben Adair (5:55)

I mean, how. How did she respond? To that. How did she respond to you and your brother telling her all this stuff?

Joe Loya (6:01)

Yeah, she was really shocked. And when I handed the knife, the first thing was like, no, put it down. Violence doesn't solve anything. Which is very sweet, but. And then I realized, you can't tell my dad what happened. You can't confront him. You're not. You know, in my head, she's not strong enough. So she tells us she's going to figure it out. She's the adult, but she won't tell him. But she's such a sweetheart. She has no idea who she's working with. She's not an actress. She's not a good liar. In fact, that's the thing that's beautiful about her. She's an honest, transparent woman. And what we. The information we had just given her devastated her. Like, it's just, what. How do I process? Good people like that don't know how to hide those feelings.

Ben Adair (6:45)

But she believed you. She thought you were telling the truth.

Joe Loya (6:47)

Yeah, she knew we were telling the truth. And if. Even if she did, she still had to process the fact that these boys are telling her some really terrible things about this guy. I had to give her pause. And that's all my dad needed. He could feel the molecules between them shift, man. There's a thing, and especially if you're an insecure man who's trying to control situations, you pick up. You're always picking up the vibe. Where am I losing Hold. A week goes by. We would always go to the laundromat. We would wash clothes. And he. It was a disco era. Like, polyester pants, velour clothes. And it was just weird, weird fashion time. And, you know, he used to go to disco and he used to love to dance. My dad was a cool little dancer dude, man. But we were poor, you know, he had gone bankrupt. We were struggling.

Ben Adair (7:43)

Had he lost his job, like, since.

Joe Loya (7:44)

Yeah, yeah, he'd lost his job.

Ben Adair (7:46)

Oh, wow. Okay.

Joe Loya (7:48)

We go to the laundromat, It's a Sunday, and I fuck up and I dry his clothes. I threw his clothes in the dryer, and they're not supposed to be in the dryer. They're not supposed to be at that temperature. Or I somehow ruined a big chunk of his wardrobe and, you know, accidentally. But he was. He was very angry. Obviously he was angry and I was frustrated. I'd be frustrated, too. You ruined half my shitty wardrobe. I'm going to be pissed.

Ben Adair (8:13)

Well, especially your nice disco clothes.

Joe Loya (8:16)

My disco costume, so. But we come home and he's mad, you know? You know, gives me the slap in the face. Go to the room. We can feel he's angry. And he starts washing dishes. And then he calls me to the kitchen. Very strange. It's all this tension. And he says, hey, by the way, I talked to Susie and she told me what you said. And instantly I'm like, fuck. She couldn't keep her mouth shut. We are in trouble. And then he does this thing where he's like, but it's fine, I get it. You needed to do it. He just goes, total Joe magnanimous on us, right? And there's a thing when you're a kid, you want your parents to be righteous, man. So he says that he's fine with it, and all he needs is for me to be honest and admit that I talked to her about what happened. I confessed to him. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I did. And it's the first and last time I ever confessed to a crime. And the reason is because he immediately gets mad. And he was fishing. He didn't know shit. He was playing me. So he got what he wanted. And then he grabs a teapot and I. Oh, shit, I gotta run. He throws a teapot at me, hits me, bangs up against my. My arm or something. I would go running in the bedroom. And then it's on like Donkey Kong, man. He starts beating the out of me and he beats me with everything. I mean, it's like, teapot was in there and a hamper, you know, later on, the police reports would say, you know, fractured bones and concussion.

Ben Adair (9:56)

Jesus.

Joe Loya (9:57)

Yeah, Rib and an elbow. So, yeah, and I mean, I'm getting a good beating. I'm vicious beating, man. One of the worst. And then he leaves the house and goes to break up with Susie by phone. And when he goes to break up with Susie by phone, he has to go to a 711 because we don't have a phone. We're poor. And so he leaves. And I tell Paul very quickly, get in the bathroom. Because it clicks in my head, this is the time I need to stab him. I said I would, and now I'm gonna do it.

Ben Adair (10:34)

So you were thinking back to, like. Did you actually think about, like. Yeah, your time in the restaurant? Like I said I was gonna do it.

Joe Loya (10:40)

Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm now feeling like I'm swimming in morbidity, man. I fucking got fear, I got confusion. I got a concussion. I'm getting beat. It's like a fucking fugue state. It's all in here. Oh, you did do the knife thing. Oh, he humiliated you. Oh, you don't like feeling that? Now's the time to do it. Okay. What? Where's the knives? I don't know. Paul, he's in the bathroom. I protect him. But like, saw us all swimming in that, right? And I had already declared it so that I have something I can. Even though it feels like it's a miasma, there is something I declared and I put down in the ground, I can grab for and say. I said I would stab him next time. And that's what I latch onto in all of that. It's like, okay, that's the thing will get me out of this moment. This is what you do. You declared it, let's rock it. And so I go get the knife and put it under the pillow. He comes back and he stands in the door. He's looking at me and he's ready for round two. And ready for round two means. I could see he's on the balls of his feet, his neck is loose, his. Oh, his just fucking body's electric, you know, his shoulders are loose, he's ready to put in work. He looks at me and then he looks over in the corner and he sees a weight set. Old shitty weight set. It was the kind that had the weights were, were cement, but wrapped in plastic. And it's this long bar. And he starts, he walks over there, locked eyes on me, menacing me, like, haha, I got something for your ass. And he goes over there, he starts to disassemble the weight. Now the thing, the assembly that locks it in, it's a big piece of metal, it looks like a big piece of steel. And then there's the bar and then there's the weights. If he hits me with any of that shit, I'm fucking through with money, that I'm gonna be injured no matter what.

Ben Adair (12:27)

I mean, hitting you with any of those things could kill you.

Joe Loya (12:29)

Yeah, so, yeah, so I'm like, what the fuck? This is a whole new level of improvised savagery for this dude. He's mad. So, ah, this is what I hate about telling this story. You see, I know this, this is what I do when I go in the bank. Same thing. He's menacing me. He wants a. He's, he's, he's lapping up my fear and it's just empowering him to do some crazy, right? So I'm sitting in the bed and then I reach underneath my pillow, pull out the knife. I stand up and I look at him and he's like, oh shit. And then he like Puts the weight down. And, you know, I'm holding the steak knife, but I'm only holding it. And then he, like, starts walking to me slowly saying, put it down, put it down. Or give me the knife. Give me the knife. I'm like, fuck that. I'm not giving this dude the knife. I know I have only this move right here. I run at him, charging him. Put the armor good, attack him. I come up and come down, and he puts his arm up and he blocks me. I'm like, oh, shit. He doesn't block me by grabbing my arm. He just blocks me with his arm so my arm can kind of slide up and over. And he's like, oh, shit. And I get it over and he turns his head and I stab him in the back. And it goes into his muscle right next to his spinal cord in his neck, and I stab it in and I'm in there. And then I start twisting to try and break it off. And he's like, ah, you killed me. You killed me. I mean, I'm putting in work, and he knows I'm putting in work, and I believe I'm trying to kill him and he's gonna die, and I'm fucking a beast in this moment. He falls, I stand over him, and I say something, like, fucking dramatic. I don't say, this is what your evil hath wrought kind of shit. But I said, like, that's what you got coming, or you did this to yourself, or you killed yourself. Something like that. I'm out, and I go to the bathroom. My brother's already out at the front door. Say, joey, what'd you do? Let's go run. And he runs out without me, ahead of me. And I'm running down the middle of the road and on Fremont. And then I'm like, okay, he's gonna pull. That dude's a monster, too. I start worrying, like, oh, he wasn't dead when I left, so maybe he pulled it out. No, what if he's coming with that knife? Oh, like, I started feeling that. Like, what if he lives and pulls it out? We're dead if I. I didn't actually make sure he was dead. So I said, let's go this street. So we're still going to my Aunt Gloria's house, but we're going up another road. And we take the long way instead of the straight Fremont to her house because I didn't want to get in the car. And coming, getting. We finally make it, sneak across the highway and get over there, my Aunt Gloria's and I'm like my dad. I killed my dad. I killed my dad. She calls the cops. She was my dad's closest sister, but she calls the cops.

Ben Adair (15:58)

We'll be right back.

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Ben Adair (18:13)

So Joe, what happened next?

Joe Loya (18:17)

Cops come, they take us and I'm calm at the police station. I'm sitting there like, you know there's a movie where Kevin Spacey is Kaiser.

Ben Adair (18:37)

So Usual Suspects.

Joe Loya (18:38)

Usual Suspects. I'm like one of those cool ass Usual Suspects where I'm just sitting there. I can almost picture my knees, my legs crossed. I'm sitting there smoking a cigarette, all casual and cool because I'm not smoking a cigarette. My knees lays aren't crossed. But I am so pumped from what happened and feeling the power of that when you kill somebody. And for a moment I thought my dad was dead. I killed him. That was a different power when you do that and you talk to people who kill people. And I had friends who would say, you know, the, you know, the only thing stopping that man from being dead right now. And I say, no one, they would say, my decision. And to be a man who that's true to like, you know, the only thing that I'm standing like sitting here looking at and say, you have no clue. But the reason you're alive is because right now I choose to not kill you. That's a powerful way to move in the world. For a moment I could feel that, oh man, I'm the kind of guy who now can just say, you, you're done. You, I let you live longer. You, you're done. You know, that kind of thing. And then they take me to interrogate me. The police officer wants to hear my story. And as I start telling him my story, thinking that I'm telling him how I was abused and he tried to hurt us and I did it out of self defense. And then he starts asking me questions. And very quickly I start realizing from the kinds of questions he's asking me, like, why didn't you run away? Why didn't you call anyone? So you got the knife and you waited in bed. You waited on your bed with it under the pillow, hiding. And I realized he's painting a picture of me, of laying in wait. Because the portrait he's painting in his head is, you know, he's like, you didn't have to stab him. You could have called us. And like, he's painted this as attempted murder. And I realized sitting there, I'm smart enough to kind of get the impression that you probably beat the fuck out of your kid. And you don't want. You don't like me, you don't like what I represent. Because we ain't taking shit from people like you. And you're backing my dad's play. I just told you what he did. And he, he's not looking at me like I'm an abused kid who tried to defend himself from his father who came back for round two. But for one, when I'm sitting there telling the story about how I killed my dad, I felt like fucking King Kong. I was like, or maybe David's the better analogy. I fucking took out Goliath, right? Like, I I'm a badass. Like, I can start looking at this cop like you're a fucking piece of shit for backing my dad's play. I'm starting to like recognize this, maybe even starting this at the beginning of like, oh, you're authority figure. Fuck you. Oh, you authority figure could give each other cover to do shit like this to us. Fuck you. I do remember resenting the fuck out of that guy very fast.

Ben Adair (21:44)

So you're sitting in the police station and you, you thought that you killed your dad.

Joe Loya (21:48)

Yeah.

Ben Adair (21:48)

What are you feeling towards him in this moment?

Joe Loya (21:51)

Some point in that. In the precinct, I learned that he was alive because when they went there, he wasn't there. He's not dead on the floor in there. So we do learn that. I do learn that eventually. And the adrenaline all goes away and all of a sudden my fucking arms and ribs, it hurts to breathe. Because if you've ever had fractured ribs, you know, the tissue around it gets swollen and then your lungs are pushing up again so it's hard to breathe. I start having problems and I explain that I'm having problems. So they take me to the doctor, the hospital, and I get to the hospital, that's when they find out all the things about me. Major concussions and fractures and bruises and all like, I'm a mess. I've been abused and it's no longer attempted murder. Clearly it's self defense.

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Joe Loya (23:07)

Bring the boom.

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Ben Adair (24:53)

The change was big and immediate for Joe and his dad, Joe Sr. Let's hear from Joe Sr. Now, do you have. You know, I wanted to ask, do you have a scar?

Joe Loya Sr. (25:08)

Yes.

Ben Adair (25:08)

Can I see it?

Joe Loya (25:13)

Like.

Joe Loya Sr. (25:15)

Right there?

Ben Adair (25:16)

Yeah, I can see it. Your hair doesn't grow back where it is.

Joe Loya Sr. (25:21)

Yeah. My barber for years would ask me, where'd you get that? I said, I was jumped by 15 Kung Fu guys and I came out of fight with only this. But you should see them. I wasn't in the mood to discuss it.

Ben Adair (25:41)

Right.

Joe Loya Sr. (25:43)

Let me back up to give you the background a little bit.

Joe Loya (25:46)

Okay.

Joe Loya Sr. (25:47)

Okay. So I'm going out with this girl at the time, and I really treated that relationship totally different. And Joe had at that time, the habit of every. Anywhere and everywhere he went. He told him how badly he was being mistreated. He told it to people at church, he told it to friends, he told it to family, you know, and this particular time, she wanted to spend some time with the boys. She liked them a lot and they liked her. So they went out together and spent the day together. I think she took them out to eat in a movie or stuff, and they spent time and they. And of course, it was time for Joe to get to say something about me. And I had this great reputation with her, right? And what happens, he goes and tells him, oh, my dad has been a brutal man. And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Just like sticking up to your relationship. And the night she dropped him off and the next day she came over and she was really, totally. I'd never seen her like this totally different person. Very, very, very standoffish. Very matter of fact, she wasn't. There was no affection whatsoever. And these were all things that she did. And I started putting the pieces together. So what happened is that I. I told him, I know you talked to so and so he's like, stunned, right? And that set me off. And I. I did hit him again in the upper torso. And I said, just get out of here. Get out of here. So I made myself go for a long walk. I took about a mile walk. When I came back, there's Joe with a knife. And I. I made the worst mistake possible. I told him, joe, it's all right. Don't. Don't use that knife. Please. Give it to me. Give it to me. I'm not angry anymore. Give it to me. And I kept walking, you know, forward, my fault. And I kept walking forward. And I said, I'm not going to hurt you. This is it. This is the end of it. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not angry anymore. I had an hour to walk and think about things. And after I went towards the bed and he. He was walking backwards and I was walking forward and he fell back on the bed. And I jumped on him and said, give me the knife. It's all right. It's all right. And he moved up. He moved his body and. Close to the edge of the bed. And I rolled over. And then I felt something warm in my neck. I felt something warm in my neck. And then I felt. I knew he stabbed me. And then the next thing he does is he turns the knife. I was shocked. And I said, that asshole, you know, I said to my. To myself, what an asshole. He turned the knife. And then it hit me. And then it hit me. He didn't stab you. You made him stab you. Think of all that. I went. My memory went right back to when he was a little baby on that high chair, just loving to see his daddy. The one that told me that he loved me. As long as counting goes. He was a little child. I was so proud of what happened. You treated him that way. We're here because of you, Joe. It was my moment of clarity. So what if they didn't obey you always? So what if they were the kids? They were. They were still loving kids. So what about all this crap that you made important that wasn't that important? They were important. I thought of his mother. How I let her down. And I swore then I would change. It's a long. Been a long journey. You can't go through all of that stuff. I don't consider that Joe stabbed me. I consider that I put that knife in his hand and told him to do it. How could he trust me? How could he believe I'm not. I didn't intend to do anything but just take the knife and put it down and talk with him and let him know it'll never happen again. No, I'm. I'm the culprit here, not him. And I take full responsibility for that. Things changed after that. Joe became more difficult. And I knew that. I could see his attitude. He was empowered. But you know what? He had every right to go through that again. Had I treated him differently, we wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be experiencing what he had to experience. They have a saying, payback is a you know what? And I was getting mine and I had to shut up and take it because I created this. I had to reach out and I had to be the one that let him know that I loved him and show it, not just say it. Let them know. Yeah, I would make further mistakes, but none of them would include what had happened that day or days before that. That chapter, so to speak, ended then. And there was a horrible five, six years.

Ben Adair (32:27)

After the stabbing. The boys stayed away from their dad. Abuse like that casts a long and dark shadow.

Joe Loya Sr. (32:34)

Paul spent time over there with my sister a lot. He would stay for nights in her garage because he had two jobs and he'd come home late and he was. He had two jobs and he was in school. Right, in high school. That's been. That's Paul all the way. Hard worker. Joe, on the other hand, went to live with friends, with friends. He went with another family.

Ben Adair (32:56)

That's right.

Joe Loya Sr. (32:57)

Okay.

Joe Loya (32:58)

And.

Joe Loya Sr. (33:01)

It was a time when I missed them. I knew I had to go through this. I had to prove to them that I cared for them, I loved them, that I knew that I had done a lot of wrong.

Ben Adair (33:16)

But believe it or not, neither Joe nor Paul cut off ties with Joe Sr.

Joe Loya Sr. (33:23)

Joe came out to visit me a couple of times. Paul was the first one to come home. But then Joe decided he was going to come home as well. And I was happy to have them both. And it was a different dynamic in the house altogether. I had basically learned to just take a hands off approach, let them experience whatever it's supposed they're supposed to experience. Don't get on their cases about things. Have more levity in the house. Don't be threatening in any way, form or shape. It was an interesting time. Joe tells me that he was cocky and he could sense that I had changed and I was really trying, but he was going to punish me. He wasn't going to, you know, put some mental pain on me. Which he did. But again, I deserved it. That was my that's what I had to go through.

Ben Adair (34:23)

As soon as he can, Paul joins the military just to get out of there. Joe sticks around East LA and starts falling into crime.

Joe Loya (34:33)

I never blame my dad for what I did at all. None of my crimes. I say dad, when you punch me in the mouth. You did alter my imagination about how effective violence could be. You did do that. But I don't blame him for whatever I did. I just never do feels feels weak. Something happened that day. I started becoming terrible. This thing that was awakened in me was brilliant in a way in that I changed my story so dramatically. The arc of my story story changed, the propulsion of my story changed and the direction changed. From this point of brokenness and pain and even fuzziness because of the concussion, what I was able to draw up to make happen, I tried to kill that man that day. I failed at killing him, thank God. But that's what I was trying to I was trying to turn myself into a murderer. That that day, this was the thing that put me on the path trying to murder my father. Father.

Ben Adair (35:57)

You are listening to The Burden Season 4 Get the Money and Run the Burden is produced by Orbit Media. Get the Money and Run is produced by Western Sound and Acast Studios. Next. Stay tuned for episode four Life and Crimes.

Steve Fishman (36:15)

Thanks for listening. Remember to hear all episodes all at once and ad free. Subscribe to True Crime Clubhouse on Apple Podcasts. It's worth it. You'll find other gripping true crime series there also ad free. If you want to hear Ben talk about this episode, check out the teaser. It's in the Burden feed.

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Joe Loya (37:10)

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Joe Loya Sr. (38:06)

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