Sean Michael Crane (12:41)
Yeah, absolutely, man. Well, I'm here in Santa Barbara, California. This is where I, I grew up. Beautiful beach town north of la. It's different, you know, than most of California. We got like our own little protective bubble here. But I grew up, Chris, with all the opportunity in the world, man. I wanted to be a professional baseball player. Love sports, love surfing. Was always out doing stuff as a kid. And then I started realizing, you know, my parents were struggling big time. They were battling addiction. And I started seeing things at home that were traumatic. You know, my, my parents fighting or my mom overdosing when I was a little kid, just being lifeless on the floor. And this became a reoccurring theme in my life, man. And then at 14, both my parents just pretty much left my life. My dad went to prison. I came home one day and he was blacked out with a pistol. We didn't know what he was going to do. And the cops came and there was this standoff and he surrendered. Thank God he didn't get killed in front of us, but he went to prison. And I was a freshman in high school, trying to figure out who I was as a young man. And then I lost my father, right? And so shortly after that, my mom just fell apart. Her addiction got the best of her, stopped coming home, and I really lost both my parents, what felt like overnight. So I went from this kid with tons of dreams and ambition and goals and felt fully capable to pursue them, to a kid that felt broken and ashamed of my life. And I went through this really dark period from 14 to 23, where I just wanted to numb that feeling out. I had so much pain and anger and resentment towards my parents. So I started smoking weed with kids that were getting in trouble. I started drinking with them. I stopped going to school. Before you know it, I can, I became this completely different person. And throughout my adolescence, I didn't apply myself to anything. Barely got through high school. Worked for my uncle's tree service business out of high school, climbing trees, learning what it meant to earn a dollar, though, which was really important. Like, I know there's a lot of blue collar guys that probably listen to this podcast that started doing manual labor at a young age, and I respect the hell out of those guys because I did that. My. My family comes from a blue collar background, but I still had those. Those wounds, man, those deeper afflictions that I hadn't dealt with. And I was still numbing myself with drugs and alcohol. So that led me, man, to a party lifestyle where I was chasing girls. I was a wild man. I was never a bad person, but I was definitely making bad choices. And so one night I go to this party here on the mesa in Santa Barbara, California, if anybody's been here, it's like this iconic area on the beach. It's beautiful, mansions, everything. And I'm just there to drink, socialize, and have a good time. And I've been to a lot of those parties, college parties, right at the end of the night, there's usually a fight or an altercation. I would get involved in those. I would be watching those. You know, it was like a typical thing at that age. And so this night, it was different, man. These two groups of guys started squaring off with each other. And I was right there watching the fight, getting too close, wanting to see what was going on. And when the fight broke out, I got tackled from the side. And I'm like wrestling with this guy, you know, thinking that they're jumping me. I thought, damn, dude, I was too close to the fight. These guys are jumping me. They're going to start stomping on me and stuff. So I'm throwing punches at this guy, trying to stand up, and when I do, he just laid face down on the ground. And I thought, okay, that's. That's really weird. You know, this is like split second stuff. And my friend that I went to the party with is calling me over to the street. Sean, let's go. Let's get out of here, man. Let's go. And as I get up to him under the street light, I'm just covered in blood. Like, my face is drenched, my shirt is dripping off me. And I freaked out. I was like, dude, what the hell? And his eyes lit up, you know, he's like, what did you do, man? What did you do? And I told him I didn't do anything. I don't know what happened. What are you talking about? And he starts running away and he's like, let's go, let's get out of here. And I follow him. And so we go back to his house that night and just pass out. We're hammered. And the next day I wake up like the worst feeling in the world. Like a nightmare when you wake up. But, you know, it's a real. A real thing. I get my phone out and I Google, you know, fight on the mesa. And it said two men had been stabbed. One was in critical condition in a coma. So in that moment, I knew my whole life was going to change. And as naive as I was, I thought the cops were going to come question me and try to press me for information, and ultimately it would work out somehow, you know, I had no idea that they were actually looking at me as the prime suspect, which they were. And so what they did is they came that day with AR15s forensic unit dogs, and they arrested me and they charged me with attempted murder, and they booked me into the county jail. I was 23, facing life in prison. So in that moment, it felt too surreal to even grasp as a reality. You know, it's like, this is not happening. This is a mistaken identity. They don't have all the information. Surely I'm going to get let out of this place, you know? And I remember the first day I went to court and I walked in and there was all these photographers for the news press and all these, you know, news press members writing stuff down, taking my picture and I'm all shackled up, walking in in front of everybody and the first thing my lawyer said to me, she came over all panic and she goes, hey, the judge and the district attorney are talking right now about amending your charges to homicide. The victim's in a coma. He's been in a coma a week and a half. The rumor is that he's brain dead and he's not going to make it. And that's when I was like, damn, dude, this is, this is no joke. Like this is a nightmare that I'm not going to be able to escape from or wake up from.