Betrayed by Blood

0:06 Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime podcast where I tell stories of real crimes with real victims whose cases are so shocking that many are left wondering how is this even real? I use my experiences in law enforcement corrections, and combined with my years as a criminal justice educator, dig deep into complex cases of evil acts, some so evil many feel they are unspeakable. Warning Unspeakable as intended for mature audiences. If you are easily offended, then I'm not your girl. Listening discretion is advised. Hey, y'all, kJ You're back with an other episode of Unspeakable, and I hope that you are listening right now because I owe so many people a thank you and a hug, because I want y'all to know my mama went and got a pet scan done. And would you believe it if I told you that her cancer is gone? And I am so excited. We did not expect good results, and she has gone through a lot. We've been in the ICU a lot and things were not looking well and then all of a sudden, God is good all the time.

1:30 But I don't think that would be the case. Without all of your prayers and all of your kind words and all of that making it happen. So please right now, if you don't have anything good that happens today, know that you are the difference in my life and in my mama's life, and for that I am extremely thankful. Now I am going to jump into this episode and I want you to come with me to Medford Organ And this is going to be back a couple of years in twenty seventeen, and it was about five thirty in the morning when i'll eleven year old Sierra Fryar awoke to some strange sounds coming from the living room. Now, when she heard these sounds, she didn't quite know what it was. So she sat up and she listened. It was almost like instinctual that she did not get out of her bed, but she got quiet and she listened, and what she heard was her dad yell out the F word and then this pinging or this dinging sound that she said, repeated about eight to ten times. And so she sat there because she knew that this was not a sound that she normally heard. She could not identify what it was and it really scared her. So as she tried to understand what the sound was of the pinging. Then all of a sudden, she heard glass shattering, and the sounds terrified this young girl so much so that she decided to hunk her down in her bedroom until it just all stopped, until there was silence, And all of that took place about thirty minutes later. But

3:02 during that gap, she also heard sounds of things moving around and something was going on in that living room, but again she was too afraid to go check it out. But thirty minutes later she decided to venture out into the house and to try to see what those sounds were. Now, all of the lights were off in the house at this point, and she tiptoed down the hall into the living room, which was also still somewhat dark, and although not fully lit, she could still see that there was something on the wall behind the couch. She could also tell that there was something spilled on the couch itself, all the way to the right hand side, on the cushion.

3:45 So she walked up and she reached down and she pressed her little hand into that cushion when she felt her hand sink into something sticky and thick. It was a liquid, So she pulled her hand back quickly and was like what is this? She goes over and she finds the light switch and she flips it on, only to realize that her hand was covered in blood. So her eyes immediately just opened wide, looked at her hand, and then in shock, she looked up, and that's whenever she realized that behind the couch, that stuff on the wall, it was blood spatter, some of it even extending up onto the ceiling above her, and it was all over sprayed on the walls. Obviously, this was a huge issue, and so she called out to her family, but nobody was answering her. The only other person that was there was her little sister, younger than her, and so other than this, nobody's responding to her. In the house was quiet, So usually she would have expected her older sister Ellen and her dad Aarin, to be home, but they were both gone, and if she weren't seeing this all with her own eyes, she would not have believed that this was really happening. This is not real life, this cannot be real life. But in a moment of clarity, Sierra realized that she and her little sister they had to get out of that house and they had to go find help because something is very very wrong. So the two of them set off and they eventually made it to their mother's house and got inside and then told

5:17 her exactly everything that I just told you. To this point. They were scared, they were worried, sick about their sister and their daddy. And by six forty two am, just roughly, you know, an hour later, their mother was on the phone and had dialed nine one one in a panic, begging. The police to please go over. To her husband's house or ex husband's house and check on these people. See what is going on now. Based on what her younger daughter had told her, something had happened to one of the people that were missing, the husband or ex husband and the daughter and they were missing. So she's like, please rush over there, please, if anything, find my child. You know, I'm terrified. So police were dispatched and they immediately arrived at Aaron's home within minutes to do what we call a welfare check, to lay eyes.

6:04 On these two people. So Aaron and the girl's mother, her name was Maggie, they had made the decision a year prior so, in twenty sixteen, that they were going to divorce, and in the settlement of it all, joint custody was awarded for both of the parents, and both mom and Dad I want you to know they loved these girls fiercely and they worked together to raise them, although not now as one family unit. Dad Aaron had moved into this small two bedroom house, but he made every effort to give his three girls space of their own, although it was really a limited square footage to do so. In now, in twenty seventeen, Sierra had decided that she wanted to live with her daddy full time, and she was really a daddy's girl.

6:49 He did, you know. He filled that hole in her heart and she wanted to be with him full time, which he happily accepted. He thought that was great and he was like, yes, baby girl, you can move in and I'd love to have you all the time. So when the other two girls would come and they would stay at the house during his time with them, Elle Ellen, who went by Ellie would sleep in her dad's bed and because of that, he would sleep on the couch whenever they were there. The other two girls, the younger girls, they would take the other bedroom, which was Sierra's full time bedroom, and they would stay together. That was the kind of daddy. He was His girls came first and whenever they came over, they all got their own space and he would sleep on the couch. And he was a pretty chill dude.

7:33 He had just turned fifty and he liked to do things like playpool. He was known to go down to what was called the local Peer twenty one and that's where he had made friends there. He even won awards in that pool league, and people liked him. He wasn't known to have a bunch of enemies. He loved to watch NASCAR, and as far as work was concerned, from what I understand, I think that he was a handyman of sorts. So anyone that needed help, he was there. He was that guy and he would go assist them. He did have this tough look, okay he did. You put eyes on him, and he had a tough look about him, a bald head, a masculine style, but he had a heart of gold. According to everyone that knew him, he was just a nice guy. So when police arrived to this house, they didn't really know what to expect.

8:26 They approached the home with caution, but just walking up the sidewalk to the door, there was a trail of blood leading to it, which police immediately noticed. And bodycams were rolling as all of this took place, and they announced their presence at the front door. An officer kind of peeking in the front door and his hand instinctually went down to cover his firearm on his hip, just ready for a quick draw if necessary, because they didn't know who was in the house, if anyone was in the house, really, but when they called out complete silence, nobody answered, and so the officers slowly and methodically made their way inside of the house and they cleared the home able to determine that no one was remaining inside of the house, and the investigation from that point it began.

9:13 They jumped right in. Detectives showed up, and they walked through the home and they noted everything or anything that really caught their attention. Now, I'm gonna tell you this, and I'm not saying this as a negative at all. We all live in our homes, Okay, I myself included. If you went in right now, you'd see dishes, and you'd see kids, stuff everywhere. Whatever. Well, this home was no different, and it wasn't the tidiest of homes. So when you're looking for evidence. It might be a little more difficult to me though, looks like a man that lived in a home, and it looked like a man lived there without the persistent influence of a woman. That is how I'll describe the house. There was a Nascar memorabilia adorned all over the walls, like beer beer signs on the walls. And organization wasn't the best. Now, the curtains and the furniture. He had all of that, but it didn't match. And I say this, I hope you can tell listening. I have a smile on my face. But it was just a very guy house, all right. But even in the chaos, things were still easily noticeably problematic for starters. The kids were absolutely right when they told their mother that the wall was covered in blood. It was very obvious that there was cast off blood spray all on the wall behind the couch, and it did extend up over their heads up to the ceiling now above them, where the blood spatter continued.

10:42 There was a broken light fixture up there well. On the ground. Right below was broken glass on the carpet, which obviously must have originated from the light fixture up above on the ceiling. Now the couch, which was like a grayish material, was soaked in blood on the right side, and that blood had even poured down to the floor below right in front of that seat. And so what I'm trying to tell you is that this was an extensive amount of blood that was found, so much so that it probably was incompatible with life, although at that moment we could not tell you one way or the other. That would have to be something that would be estimated.

11:23 So from the couch, there was also that blood trail that I mentioned, and it went from the couch all the way through the home, out the back door, through this small alleyway behind where there was a back gate, and then once it went through that gate, it stopped. No more blood anywhere else. Now where the blood stopped, the police were like, okay, this was probably where a car had been parked, which was pretty much validated by the fact down in the dirt there were fresh tire tracks in that dirt, and you could see it leave and go away, traveling away from the home and then take off to the road. So what started out as a welfare check would quickly shift to something that was obviously war sinister, and the situation would be upgraded. At this point, it was believed to be a possible kidnapping based on what they knew about the family dynamic. At this point, they believed that Aaron was probably not the main target here and that Ellie was likely whoever had done this had come to get So let me tell you about Ellie and why they thought that. First of all, she was only fifteen years old. She was a little girl, and she was a cute, tiny little thing. She had brown hair, freckles on her little face. She was a sophomore in high school, very bright, she was taking ap classes, and she was a devoted member of her high school marching band. Extremely musically talented. She could play multiple instruments,

12:57 which I find incredible. Anyone who can do that shout out to you. My brain can't do it. But she played everything from the saxophone to the piano. So she was very good at this. Now, these are the people that are missing. What in the world could have spawned this? Was it on purpose? Was it not? And so they're kind of leaning towards this looks like it might be a kidnapping, considering they're both gone now. Both Dad and Ellie had cell phones. This is excellent. We all know this as true crime listeners. Cell phones are a great way to locate somebody, but there was an issue here. Both of their cell phones were located in the house, so tracking them down via location or pinging those phones it wasn't going to work because they were at the house. So in a quick check of nine to one one call history to that house, there was nothing notable. There were no disturbances or anything.

13:52 At that house. However, police did learn that the family had been spooped about a week prior to this day events. Whenever they had a situation where they thought that someone had tried to break into their house, now they never called police, so there was no police report of this and the event never nothing really ever came of it, and that was that. So when that was brought to their attention, they noted it, but again nothing ever had come from that. Nothing was stolen, and nobody was hurt. It was like it was an attempt to break in. So that possible lead quickly went nowhere, and so the search was now really focused on trying to locate this missing daddy and his daughter and time was passing. Guys, every minute meant that someone was injured from that home and likely not receiving medical care. I think we could all agree that, you know, you don't go in there and do something to somebody and then go bring them to the hospital.

14:46 Not the typical. So one thing that was obviously missing from the home was Aaron's silver Mercury Marquis. So this was a four door style sedan vehicle that should have been parked out behind that gate. They also knew that Aaron had been home all night and that he had not loaned his vehicle to anybody, so the vehicle should have been there. So whoever had that car was obviously believed to be involved in the Friar's disappearances. So as such, the detective started canvassing the area. Their goal here was to look for any camera footage or witnesses that may have been up early that morning in those hours and maybe saw something, and this would prove a fruitful thing for them to do.

15:33 There was a neighbor that did have cameras and they were able to pull footage, and that footage panned right down on that back little dirt road that was behind that gate of the alleyway of the Friar home. And so as they watched the footage. Sure enough, Aaron's car was seen exiting the driveway, and this was around five point thirty that morning, but it was too dark to see who was inside or to see, you know, id the driver as the car drove away. It did how I've, however, now established that the vehicle had left, and it gave a starting point on a timeline of when things likely took place. So the younger sisters who had been in the house, they continued to speak to police during their interview time when they're trying to figure out what had happened, and Sierra mentioned to them that she had also seen someone outside of her window after the dinging sounds took place, but there was a little gap between it, and she was so scared in the moment, But now as she's thinking about it, she was pretty sure that she could id one of the two people she saw outside of her window. She said both of them were male, and one of them she was pretty sure was her sister's boyfriend.

16:55 His name was Gavin, and she knew him, and she said, I'm telling you, I think it was Gavin that I saw outside of the house, But the other guy she did not recognize. At all. So police obviously were interested in this, and they were able to identify the boyfriend's full name as Gavin McFarland. And once they confirmed that, they started searching for him. They wanted to lay eyes on him, and they did so by pinging his cell phone for his possible location. Sure enough, they hit pey dirt. His phone was showing just a few miles into town, and so seventy or so officers were deployed to go out and assist in finding this boy. Boots on the ground efforts, get out there, start riding these roads.

17:42 We've got to find this kit now. During the search of the area, an officer that was on patrol looking for Gavin would locate Errand's missing vehicle. Now, no one was in it. It was pulled over and parked off on the side of the road, but sure enough, that was the car that they were looking for. So the officer pulls in, gets out, and goes to look at the vehicle. But the exterior of the vehicle was immediately identified as possible evidence to something terrible that had happened, because as the officer approached the rear of that car, it looked like bloody handprints on the back of the trunk, like where you would put your hands up to push down on the trunk, very readily seen on the car on the right side of the bumper, the back bumper portion.

18:33 There was also blood drip patterns that just dripped out and down and then gravity kind of pulled the blood underneath the car bumper. So are you thinking exactly what I'm thinking and what the cop was thinking. Probably so, Oh my god, Aaron and his daughter might be in the trunk. So they popped the trunk, but it was empty. They were not there. So minus a few things like johnper. Cables or tools you would have in. Your vehicle trunk, it was empty. But it was very obvious that someone had been in the trunk because the carpet was soaked through with blood. So the vehicle was taped off. This is now a crime scene and after photographs and everything was done in the car was processed, it was sent to the crime lab for further processing, and attention was now focused on finding Gavin in the flesh.

19:31 Now realize all of this is happening in just hours of the nine one one call. It's progressing very quickly. So as officers continued to search for him. Incredibly, he was located walking down the road in town with another friend. So police find them pull over and they're like, look, we need you to come with us, and they take them into custody. They explained, we've got to go down to the police station. We need you to answer some questions. And both of the these guys agreed, yeah, okay, we'll go down there. They were both very pleasantish. I say ish, because you know teens sometimes aren't the nicest, but they were pleasant ish. And the friend of Gavin, I have to tell you, this guy was really quirky, jovial, but it just wasn't normal. And there is bodycam of this so you could view it yourself and come up with your own conclusions. But it wasn't jovial, like funny, little happy dude.

20:31 It was just like off. I don't know the word to put to it, but it was just off from what normative behavior you would expect. But the friend identified himself as Mike Smith, and he continued to be very talkative during the ride down to the police station. He was just chatting it up with the cop. Now, during that conversation, he told the cop that he wanted the cop to look at him, and so he's like, look, man, look, look, look, and he pointed out to the cop that he could dislocate his own wrists, and he was basically implying, without saying, that he could take the wrists of the cuffs off if he wanted to. But then he laughed it off and he was like, look, since you're a nice cop, I'm not going to do it, but I just want you to know I can. So the CoP's like, well, don't do that.

21:16 Man. He's like, I won't, I won't. You're a nice guy. But then he continued to chat during the drive, and he told the cop that he had just started his own company, which he described as a protection agency of sorts. So he's telling him about this new company that he's wanting to start up or that he had just started up. And so finally, though they arrived at the jail, the boys were separated and they would be interviewed separately to see what, if anything, they knew about the missing daughter and father. Dulo Well, for starters, police would realize very quickly that Mike was not his real name. This dude that they had been talking to that was very jovial, but off was actually twenty two year old Russell Jones, the second he had given a fake name. Now, very talkative guy, somewhat smug.

22:07 He has on a. Black tank top, and again all of his interactions are just off. It's not the behavior is weird. He has really short bangs that are cut almost like the Zuckerberg guy from Facebook, and easygoing. Like I said, very talkative, but a strange bird. So as the interrogation was just about to start, Russell asked the detective, hey, man, can we just can I catch a cigarette real quick before we start whatever this interview is. He said, I speak better, I talk better after a cigarette, and the cops like, no doubt, let's do it. So he takes him outside into the sally port where he gets him a cigarette and they start doing what they called smoking and joking.

22:50 They were just you know, bullshitting and catching a drag and just chit chatting about whatever. But Russell just starts saying, look, man, I have nothing to hide, which is a weird statement right when you're being interrogated for something that you are supposedly not going to know anything about. But he then just word vomits it right there. He said, early this morning me and Gavin went over to Ellie's house to secretly move her out. Because she was in a bad situation. And he just flat out stated that right there in the sally Port and basically he goes on to say that her dad wasn't the good person that people made him out to be. And he's going on about this when the detective looks at him. He's like, all right, dude, real quick. You know we're pulling camera footage from all over that house. We are getting footage from surrounding homes.

23:40 So if you're about to start something here, don't come at me with your bullshit. I want you to just tell me the truth. You started this, and just is everything that you're telling me the truth, because if not, you're starting to waste my time. And obviously we have a situation here. And that's when Russell looks at the detective and kind of cocks us head to the side and he says, well, ninety five percent of what I've said is the truth, but five percent is a lie, and it's almost like he's joking about it. So the cops looking at him like, I have no clue what is the truth, And I sure as hell don't know what the five percent lie is going to be. So he says, look, man, let me just get down to it. I would really hate for someone to, you know, stumble upon the dead body or the injured body of Aaron Fryer.

24:24 So if you know where he is, or where Ellen is or any of this, could you please just tell me? Because time is a ticking. If you know where he is, can you please just bring me to him so that we can try to figure this out. And without hesitation, no no thinking, no nothing. The guy looks up. And goes, well sure, just like that, well sure, and the tech detective is like, is this dude for real or is he nuts? You know what is happening here? He said, sure, I'll take him. Let's go. So they load up in the car. They drive roughly to one miles towards a rural mountain road and they're just driving along when all of a sudden, rustle just yells stop.

25:07 And kind of scares the cop. The cop slams on the brakes and he's like, right here, right here. So they put the car and park and they get out and they walk to the edge of the road, which understand again, it's a mountain side type road. So there is like a deep kind of drop off off the side of the road, and so they walk to the edge and they look down and sure enough, there is a green blanket tarp looking thing, and it was like tangled up in a downed tree. So it looked kind of like someone had tossed whatever this was off the side of the road, but the tree had caught it and stopped it from rolling further down. Now, I want to be clear, there's no body seen. It's just like this wrapped up tarp. So additional officers carefully made their way down this steep embankment, turning their feet sideways and kind of walking down as they could. They put on their gloves, and then when they get to that tar, they begin to gently start trying to pull back and unwrap to see what exactly was inside of the tarp. And then eventually one of the officers kind of slightly jerks back and he's like, yep, it's him, and he looks up at the detective Russell had actually just brought them to the murdered body of Aaron Fryer.

26:24 And while we can rejoice here, just a few minutes into this episode, you're like, what the hell, like, what is happening here? This was almost too easy to be true. But the body of Aaron Fryar was just located within hours of the initial nine to one one call. And this guy apparently was telling ninety five percent truth five percent a lie, and it was up to the cops now to figure out what it was. So Ellie's mom, as you can imagine, she's on pins and needles, wondering where her daughter was, and she was dying for any information that may lead her to her baby girl. When police advised her at this. Point, look, we hate to have to tell you this, but we have recovered your ex husband's body. And she on that revelation of information almost she just almost fell apart because now her daughter, you know, they recovered the dad, not the daughter. And then now she's looking at her other two little girls, going, oh my god, how do I tell them this? How do I tell them that their daddy's gone?

27:27 What do I do here? Please? You know, help me? And then her mind immediately went back to Ellie. What if Ellie's dead? Who has her? What do they want with her? You know, she's fifteen years old. Help. Well, there was something that mom didn't know at that moment that police were now going to clue her in on and that was when they had located Gavin and Russell walking down the road. Ellie was actually with them. Ellie was alive and well and just hanging out with these two friends. So when this was also now revealed to the mom, she didn't know whether to cry tears of joy or to be pissed off. You know that she had not been alerted to this news sooner she's over here dying thinking something's happened to her daughter. And for the last little while, police actually had Ellie at the station. Now I'm not going to go deep into this, but i will tell you that they hadn't told the mom that they had her yet, not to be mean, but more of as a strategy to see the reaction of mom when they said they found the husband's body.

28:39 And you know, sometimes strategy is necessary to kind of read people because they don't know who is involved with this ex husband. It's an ex wife, you know, So the case was still unsolved and it's getting stranger and stranger by the minute, and so they had withheld that information to see her reaction and then they believed, all right, we can go ahead and tell her that we also have the daughter. Not only is she alive and well, but she's in a holding room and she's gonna be interviewed. So for the moment, though, Russell was the main character of the investigation. So they're now back at the station after he has alerted them to where the body was, and they wanted to keep him talking, all right, so they did what many of us do with children. They bought him some McDonald's to keep him happy. They bought him some McDonald's, and then they brought him and placed him into the interrogation room to eat alone, by himself.

29:39 There is no one else in the room. And that is when the bizarre really started ramping up, because before police even asked him any questions, there was not even a cop in the room. He is by himself. This Russell fella started rambling on. He looks up and he starts talking to the cameras while alone in the interrogation room. Well, obviously police are listening in, and so what I'm gonna do is I'm going to play you some of his ramblings because I want you to take a listen for yourself and see what you derive. From Russell chatting it up all alone in the interrogation room.

30:24 You're listening and Mike conversations, aren't you. I can still twist your little big don't piss me off, so we can play it the easy way or the hard way. Gavin and Ellie are to be released to me and mister Ford. You want the whole story because I did miss a few parts. And you're listening in my conversations, aren't you? Camera off? I don't care if you're a fed or not. I can still twist.

31:10 Your little eye. You do know, I know you're listening right, so listen here. I know you're looking directly at me, aren't you. Let's make it e though, do do do do? Before you release Ellie to her parents or parent? You are to release her to me? Do I make myself clear? No, it's not a thread. Don't take it as soup. Don't take it out of context. All right, But if you're one of those two timing donate eating piece of crap that don't like rules, that think they are a high. School bully with a badge, but I eat high school bullies for breakfast. Did you get all that Gavin was only protecting Ellie.

32:07 Because the salt her father did the morning of the incident. I know the tops twisted little pathetic rule game. I use reverse psychology, which. Makes me be able to make you think it's not Gavin but in fact your own kid, by reverse psychology making you looked like a lunatic. You want to play hard ball? I played baseball when I was younger. Hum, I'm not the one with the donut fetish. I know you're twisted games boy.

32:54 Ellie and Gavin are to be put in this room with me, and I'll give you a. Total of hmmm, let's seven o'clock. Shall we two hours? So we can do this the nice way and we negotiate, or we can do it the hard way and I can release my bipolar Oh magdno, that farm eio five.

33:34 Little bags eating at the traw ei eio. Right now, wrong one and I'd really hate to get hurt by a cop. I gave you, guys what you wanted. Normally, it would take about twenty four hours to get missing persons report. If there isn't evidence of blood, then if the person's missing for a total of forty eight hours, that's forty eight. Hour mystery dummy, then you do your little search. Paffe. By then, Gavin, me and her would be in California.

34:20 So hopefully you're just as confused as the rest of everyone that was involved at this moment. And you know, what do you do here? What do you think about this? Well, I can tell you what I thought about it. It reminded me. I've referred to this before. It reminded me of the Supreme Court justice who was once asked about, well, how do you know what child porn is in this case that they were deciding, and the Justice simply answered, Look, I can't put into words exactly verbatim what child porn is, but I damn sure would know what it was if I saw it. And the reason I say that is because, Honey, in the same spirit of that notion, I may not be a psychiatrist or a psychologist who can define with perfection what being off your friggin' rocker looks like, but I would know it when I heard it. And I'm pretty sure I just heard a guy that's not playing with a full deck. There is something amiss here. So after all of his ramblings, the interview did get underway, and you know, now with two people actually talking together, and Russell was very clear that he did not want to serve as a witness against his best friend Gavin.

35:39 But at the same time he was adamant that he did not kill Aaron Fryer, that he was simply there and helped dispose of Aaron's body. Also, he was clear that Gavin had done this murder all on his own, but that Gavin did it because he says he was provoked. Into this murder. So when he expanded on that, he said that Aaron had pulled a rifle and pointed it at Gavin, who then killed Aaron in self defense. So this was now being framed out as a battle of man versus teen, and the teen felt like he had no choice but to kill this man to save his own life. You know, what would you do if someone told a rifle and pointed it at you. Well, now is the time for the interview of Gavin, who had been waiting in a hold holding cell.

36:31 What would he have to say? Well, let's talk. About Gavin for a minute, so I can kind of give you his vibe. He is the. Kind of kid that wears a leather jacket, a beanie black pants. He has glasses, He has a social media profile where he describes himself and these are his direct quotes as a Leo Taken, Darth Vapor, sexy as fuck, and one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. Now, he was a high school dropout, but the vibe that he tries to give is that he wants to be seen as like dark and mysterious, edgy, you.

37:15 Know type thing, And. He gives me vibes of somebody who doesn't quite get what cool is or what. Being badass is. So he's trying to simulate what he thinks it is, if that makes sense. It's not genuine. It's kind of cringey, what the pictures he takes, and that he's trying to be all dark. Sometimes he has color in his hair, like you'll have green bangs or something like that, and then he has the beanie kind of laying off the back of his head. So in Gavin's interrogation, he flat out says, look, Aaron hated me, but he didn't know why, and that was his biggest gripe. He said that everything was fine, that he had been he used to be Ellie's boyfriend, and that there had been a sudden switch they had gotten along fine, and all of a sudden, Aaron just hated him. It was out of left field, okay, And he said, look, I mean I can prove this to you. Just a month ago, I was at home and all of a sudden, someone was beating down my door, banging and screaming and acting crazy, and I realized that it was Ellie's dad.

38:24 He said, I called y'all. I called the police because I was so scared he was threatening to kill me. I called you go. Look, you know there will be a report of this. I'm telling you the truth. He said that Aaron had continued to threaten him that he was going to kill him, but Gavin was just really at a loss as to why. This was now the case. He was weepy, He was very weak during the interrogation, but he did talk now. He also said that Ellie had been being abused by her dad, and he said that he was physically abusing Ellie, which was horrible enough.

39:06 But then he opened up and he said, look, Ellie told me something a few days ago, and it just set me off in anger because Ellie told him that allegedly she had been laying in bed pretending to be asleep. And that her dad had come into the room, laid down naked next to her and began masturbating on her, and she just pretended to be asleep through the entire event. So police, as they're listening to this or going okay, we're kind of starting to get the gist of what's going on here. Is this possibly a motive for this confession that he's giving that there was problems? So police felt like it was all starting to kind of make sense as to as far as putting the case together. Now, Ellie, like I told you, was also in custody, and that's when her interrogation would begin. But it went more bizarre than the others in ways. And I'm just gonna cut to the chase here. But Ellie is brought in. She is in this cute little blue spring little dress, and she's got on a red coat with fur on the hood, little flat shoes, you know, just looks like a little girl.

40:21 She's in cuffs. But when they seat her in the room for a moment before they start the interrogation, she's very. Unemotional and stowic. She just kind of sits there. It's like she's just staring at the wall and you can't quite necessarily read. I guess what's going on, but she is extremely flat and stow it well. The interrogator comes into the room and very quickly on the interrogator says hello, and then she says, what is your name? And Ellie looks up at the and the investigator and says, I don't want. To tell you my name. I'm not going to tell you my name.

41:04 Eventually, though, she does get a name out of her but she says, okay, well, my name is Rain, and I have the right to remain silent. Now, when you're watching her do this, you're almost like taken aback, because she went from just that stoic stare off to almost like her eyebrows are raised. She seems snotty, and she seems very indignant and defiant in what she is saying. She goes, I would like to know why I'm in handcuffs and why I am being detained. And this is coming out of the mouth of a fifteen year old who first of all, is lying about her name. Name's not Rain, it's Ellie. The detective already knows that. And after she says I'd like to know why I'm being detained, she follows up with I have a right to know.

41:54 It's bizarre, it's very demanding, and it's very controversial the way that she's. Going at this detective. So the detective says, you know. What, you're right, let me go ahead and read your rights and all that and then let's, you know, do our thing here now. Ellie says that when she had left the house, the last time she left her dad's house, everything was fine. Well, she's alerted to the fact that her dad was missing at this point, and she responds with that's disturbing. That's your response to your dad is missing. And she then looks up and goes, well, I don't I mean, maybe he's out looking for me because I left the house. Have you know, kind of thought about that.

42:36 She then was told well, no, there's also a lot of blood at the house, and she says, well, I didn't know about that. I don't know anything about that. But then she continues to just bold face lie. She tells this detective that her name was Rain and she says that she is eighteen years old. She tells her that she completed high school, she graduated, which is a lie. The fact that she said she was eighteen was a lie because she was a sophomore, and it's just crazy. It's just crazy weird that you would just bold face lie about those things. So why kind of becomes the issue here? Why would you lie about those things? Well, she's asked more basic questions about when they picked her up, what was going on, and she said, I was just walking with my friends. But then she becomes evasive and she says, I don't want to give you their names.

43:27 They are my friends. So they don't really get anywhere with that, and then they say, well, you know your dog is also missing from the house as well. This seems to grab her attention. She's like, oh my god, what now she had this little dog and his name, which I don't get. Was sparkle Beak. Okay, sparkle Beek is missing, and this just seems to tip her over the edge. Oh my god. And she's a whispering, that's my baby. Where is my dog? Where is my dog? And the because like, we don't know where your dog is. We kind of think you might know where your dog is. Because none of this is making sense. We know that you're lying, so why, well, she says, well, do you have the detective ass do you have a boyfriend? And she says, no, we broke up.

44:19 What's his name? His name was Justin Well. The cop knew that was a lie because Gavin was the ex boyfriend or the boyfriend however you want to look at this, not Justin. So everything, all in all, it was pretty obvious at this point. It's a long invest interrogation. I'm just summing it up for you. But they realized that Ellie was not going to be truthful all the way around, nor was she going to talk about anything that was going to be of any help to the police. All it was doing was digging. A deeper hole for her as to why are you lying about things that are very basically proven to not be true. But after hours of interrogation, after even given time to take an nap on the floor because she said, I'm very tired, I've been up for twenty four hours straight, they gave her all of these leniencies. Investigators finally got Ellie to admit that Gavin and Russell had done something to her father. Now, her explanation was that Russell had killed her father with a machete. She put off this victim vibe that she was just terrified about what had happened.

45:27 She was scared whatever. So while she was adamant in this information that Russell had killed her dad, it just didn't make sense. And the reason is because the autopsy of Aarin would show that that could not be the case. Because Aaron's autopsy showed that he had five distinct fractures to his skull which had caved in his entire head and his brains, Like his head was demolished. So while the head was demolished, it had not been cut and demolished. It was more like blunt force trauma with something had caved in his head.

46:09 It was not done with a machete, as she was saying, now, at the scene where the body of Aaron had been located, obviously they had photographed everything, and I will put these pictures on Patreon for you. I know people are gonna ask me. And one thing that they had photographed while they were there was a baseball bat that they had found up in a tree like it had been thrown end over end but got caught up in a tree. So when police were speaking with Russell, Russell was very clear that not only had he not killed him, he had said that Gavin had killed Aaron, but his words were that he had beat him with a baseball bat, so they checked that off the list as not one of his lies. Because now this is starting to make more sense. But again, everybody's kind of telling misinformation as they go, so they're kind of getting the picture here of who's involved, but why or what is going on, it's just not it's not completely jiving. So obviously police do what they do, and they started cutting cutting warrants.

47:15 They cut them for the homes of these people, all these people involved. They had a warrant for Walmart as well as to get phone records in So I'm going to break this down for you real quick. As far as the warrants are concerned, let's start with those. So when they went to Gavin's house, they found some really damning information inside of a notebook. So it always is bizarre to me how people write things down, Like if you're gonna do something or plan something, why do you write it down? Like, I don't know, I just wouldn't do that. But all right, so there are these notes that are written and it's written in like teenager handwriting, and it says once everything is in place, attack your dad, lay low until he is asleep. Take whatever is useful. So then there's a paper that said plan b get keys for the house next door. Gavin becomes Rep. Dash payee, get RV in my name, get RV fixed batteries and tires, load RV, get stuff from my storage. Get Ellie, take out mister Fryar quietly, take out my dad. Go back to Ellie's dad's house, get guitars, her dog and alcohol.

48:39 Get dad's life insurance. And then written in this checklist right there was basically a plan once they were at the house to attack the dad. Basically it says Gavin would be in the back of the house, and then it was worded me on the side by the light. So obviously, if he's saying Gavin in the back of the house, me by the light, that means Russell was the one writing this. So they are now like, okay, that makes sense. And then underneath that it says Ellie opens the windows. So now we're starting to see how all of this is playing out and that this was definitely something that was planned. Now, what was even more insane here is that it says take out mister Fryer and then take out my dad, which police now realized was a second murder plan right there in black and white, and that by my dad meant Russell's dad. Now why do I think that? Well, there was like this little manifesto that was written there and it says Russell Jones Senior, which is the dad, and it says for eighteen years of disrespect, usury, false accusations, quote unquote too far, punishments, stealing of items I bought with my money, manipulation, not listening with true ears of understanding, I charge you with this.

50:11 So it is okay. So that's his gripe with his dad, and then in the list of things to do, they're gonna also murder his dad. Because he's mad at his dad. All right, Well, guess what you know, spoiler alert, his dad wasn't dead. So they were never able apparently to follow through with that second portion of the plan. Now, there were some other warrants, like I told you, they were issued as well, and this was going to be one for some some. Video at Walmart. So when the murder apparently was completed, they knew that these kids all went together to Walmart because they were on camera there and they bought junk food, Ellie bought hair, and after they went to this walmart, they then went to a third location. But before I tell you that, the behavior in the walmart is so off putting because they're just shopping around. But at one point, Gavin looks up where he knows there's a camera and he starts like sticking his tongue out, like like playfully, or like he's trying to be cool or something like that. And I need you to understand that police believe that the body of Aaron Fryer was in the trunk of the car while all of this was happening, because of the timeframe that this was taking place.

51:35 So after they buy these. Things, they then went to the disability office because Russell was in fact on disability, Russell the junior, the younger one, and so he said that he needed to go pick up a check. He had told them that in the interrogation room, but again they didn't. Know what was real or what wasn't. Well, sure enough, they were able to get video of that, and when they're watching this, all three of them are actually going to go pick up this check. So they start looking back at that list of things in the plan B that was laid out and the second thing on the list said Gavin becomes Rep.

52:19 Dash pay Yee. Well, when they talked to the people at the disability office, they confirmed that the three of them had been in there and that they were trying to change the person who got paid from Russell and that the money would go directly to Gavin, and that had actually alerted them that was very bizarre to them, and so they had taken note of it, and from what I understand, they had even called law enforcement to kind of say, something weird is going on. Well, as they continue to watch this video, at one point, you see you can't hear anything, but you see the three of them get into an argument. You can just tell that they're in an argument. All three of them storm out the front door of the office and then they sit there and it's like Gavin and Ellie are looking at Russell, and Russell's got his hands out like he's trying to plead his case about something, and then Ellie kind of throws her hands up, shakes her head, and she storms off and walks out. Well, from what we understand, or what they understood, is that they must have gotten in an argument there because the office would not change Gavin to be the paye of.

53:24 That disability check. Okay, so they have kind of like this timeline going on here. Well, then that's whenever they got the warrants for the phone records. Now, this would really turn things on its head because when they're looking at the phone records, this opens up a whole lot of a whole lot of communication between the three of them. But there were a couple of texts from Ellie's phone to Gavin that kind of switched things up a bit. So while she's. Being this young, lying, but little, you know, soft spoken thing up in this interrogation room, what if I told you some of the texts from Ellie read as follows, we have to make sure he's dead by the time we leave his house. Another one said you want to kill him now, don't you? And then another one said you can kill him in less than a minute. Right, Okay, So obviously there's a whole lot more going on here than she's a victim and that these guys you know, had had had killed her dad and she didn't have anything to do with it, and blah blah.

54:38 Blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah. So police are now kind of getting the picture here, they're they're they're really starting to figure out, uh, what's going on. And Gavin eventually, now I'm talking a long time under an interrogation, he eventually would fold. Okay, by fold, I mean he would explain this in totality that a whole lot had actually gone on. And it's going to have to back up to the week before the murder ever even occurred. So Ellie was not at home, and Ellie had attended a band event. While Ellie was gone to the band event, do you remember that attempted break in that had occurred a week before that I mentioned that went nowhere and they never called the police. Well, this would now start to really really matter. See Gavin and Russell they were the two that had attempted to break in to Ellie's house and they had tried to break in through Ellie's bedroom window. Why because they were going to break in and kill her dad. Now they were messaging Ellen the entire time and letting her know what was going on, keeping her informed. So she's over there play in the saxophone, but also watching as her dad is supposedly going to be murdered. But the problem was that once they got inside of the house, they realized that Aaron, who now had a new girlfriend. The girlfriend was in the house and actually asleep, so it scared him off and they took off running and they

56:09 left the house. And never committed the murder. Aaron was none the wiser, okay, so he left the house. He then went and he picked up Ellie and her two sisters from the band event, and they he took his girl's Halloween shopping together, showed him a nice time, I guess, getting their costumes and all that, and then he took the girls to Burger King where they had dinner together and had a good time. And then they all had come home and sat together and watched a movie together in the living room. He had no clue that two teenagers had tried to break into his home to come and kill him, but he did know that someone tried to break in.

56:53 All right. The whole time, Ellie is acting like everything's fine, no problem, okay, Well, after that happened, obviously, there was the failed event the. Very next week is Whenever. Gavin says that he was basically given no choice and that he had to kill Aaron because two days before, which would have been a Saturday, is whenever Ellie confided in him that not only had her dad been physically abusing her, but that's whenever she had told him that he was basically sexually abusing her. So that is why he had no conclusion he had to go do it.

57:33 Obviously he didn't, but that was kind of how it was explained. So when Ellie made the accusations against her father for the sexual abuse, which I do want to let you know, was never verified to be true in anything that was put out there, her sisters said. That that never happened. It never happened to them, and no friends of Ellie ever said that she confided in them that her father was sexually abusing her at all. Now she was going around saying her dad's was too strict and he had too many rules and all of those things. And then in her interrogation she said their father was like beating her in things of that nature. But she also lied about her name and her age and everything else. So you can decide what you want to believe in all of that. But whenever she broke the news to her boyfriend two days before the murder that he was sexually abusing her. That is when everything went into play, and that is whenever Russell started his protection agency. So they started making all of these notes in the notebook. And that second thing about making Gavin the payee, and the reason that they went down to the to the Disability office that have him changed as the payee is that was part of the business model because you know, he was the protection agency and they're you know, they were changing the money out because they knew they would probably have to go on the run after they enacted their protection agency.

59:05 Vengeance on this horrible dad. So they made all of these plans and part of that was that they were gonna have to you know, steal money and do all of those things. So this is how they broke it down. Whenever they went in that night, Ellie acted like everything was fine and she was going to go off to bed. At some point, the guys it was about five o'clock, five thirty in the morning, they went sneaking up to the house. It was still very very dark. Ellie did open a window and allowed Gavin to come in through the back of the house. Now Russell did stay on the outside of the house and he did have a machete. He had armed himself with a machete, and that is where Ellie got that information when she was trying to blame the murder on him, not her boyfriend.

59:47 So he stayed outside in case, you know, he had to do some kind of dramatic backup plan if things went awry. Well, when Gavin went to go in, he knew that the dad was going to be sleeping on the couch because the dad always slept on the couch whenever Ellie was there. And by the way, I just have to say this real quick, if that is the case, don't you think if he was going to molest or rape or do something to his own daughter, he would have slept in the bed with her and not on the couch to give her own space. That's my own opinion, but you can decide what you want to decide there. Well, when he came into the house, he liked to dress with like combat boots and clothing of that nature. Well, he went to go sneak into the living room and when he did that, he accidentally kicked a trash can, and because he had those combat boots on, it made a loud noise. Okay, so he scampers off to the back of the house and goes and he hides in the back bedroom.

1:00:37 Well, it woke up erin. Well. Ellie, realizing that he was awake, kind of made herself known and was like, oh, sorry, I need to go use the bathroom. And she even said her own words that heard. Daddy looked at her and said, quit spook in me like that. After that break in, you know that it makes me nervous. Sorry, daddy, right, and she goes out of the room. Well, whenever he starts snoring again and is asleep on the couch, that is whenever everything started kind of unrolling. So they had waited about an hour okay before the attack happened, and the whole time, by the way, they did tell investigators that they were professing love and marriage to one another while they were waiting for the daddy to start snoring. So whenever he fell back asleep and he started snoring again, that's whenever Ellie handed Gavin.

1:01:31 The baseball bat. The whole reason that there was a baseball bat in the house is that Aaron had gotten it to use as protection against anyone who may try to break in and hurt him or his daughter's because of that previous break in attempt. So she hands him the bat and said take him out, ready when you are, and then she stayed kind of further back. While all of this was happening. Russell was outside, still standing there, his back up with the machete. And that's whenever Gavin goes into that living room. The dad is dead asleep, snoring, and he takes the baseball bat, he raises it over his shoulder and he slammed it down into the head of Aaron Fryer. Obviously this woke him up, and that's whenever he screamed, oh fuck, which is what the younger daughters heard, which, by the way, his younger daughters listened to him be murdered.

1:02:27 Because after that first swing, that's when Gavin started raising the bat above his head with full force and just bashing it down, a metal baseball bat, smashing it down over and over, over and over on that man's head till he crushed his skull in and his brains and everything were just smashed in and he could not do anything. It was over before it started. And he was swinging the bat with so much might that when he raised it up. Over his head. He hit the light fixture with the bat, that's why it shattered, and the glass slammed down on the floor, and he continued to swing, causing all the blood spatter to go up and down the walls, up on the ceilings, and then he slumped over, which is why the blood began to pull on the couch, pouring out of his head and onto the floor. Now the little girls are hiding in the back and they've heard it, the pinging noise, obviously the baseball bat slamming down on her dad's head.

1:03:25 Then when that stopped, she heard the glass break and she acknowledged, so it's making perfect sense. Then she said she heard things moving around like a dragging sound. Well, yeah, that's because they went and opened the door and Russell came inside. Now, let me tell you something. Everybody wants to be a fucking badass till it's time to be a badass. Because whenever Russell came inside and was doing his protection agency things, one look at the condition of the skull and face of Aaron Fryer after taking a baseball bat to it over and over again. It made him sick. It freaked him out and scared him. He ran to the bathroom sick. Yeah, it was that bad, he said. The face of that man was so scary looking.

1:04:09 But then he got his composure. He came back out and they laid him out on I believe it was a tinker bell blanket, and then put him in that other green tarp thing rolled him up, and once they did that, Gavin held the head and Russell grabbed him by the feet, and that's when they started pulling him out that whole direction I told you about where the blood trail went through the backyard up to the gate, and they put him in the trunk of his very own car. When they did all of that, they were walking back and forth. That is when the little sister Sierra looked out of her window and she saw Gavin and Russell walking by her window. Thank god she did not see her daddy being carried out. That would have been just It's bad enough what happened, but thank god she didn't see it. So once they put him in his car, they Ellie by the way. She was so traumatized and a victim by this. She managed to rifle through his things and get his wallet so she could get the cash out of it.

1:05:07 They stole some other stuff. They took her dog all of those things, remember sparkle Beek. Because she had no idea where the dog was. And then they drove off into the sunset to go live their lovey dovey lives. As they drove off, that's when they went to Walmart. Now here's something that caught the attention of investigators. While they're at Walmart, they didn't just buy candy, junk food, and hair dye. She also bought a pregnancy test. Why is a fifteen year old. Buying a pregnancy test? Well, very interesting here. It's because she told Gavin she was pregnant. When did you tell Gavin you were pregnant? She had told Gavin she was pregnant two weeks prior to the murder. So now it kind of makes you go, huh. So now, wait a second, Wait a second, Wait a second, Gavin, I need you to know this. Gavin was nineteen years old, Ellie was fifteen years old. So the math ain't math in here as far as the law is concerned. And probably, I would say, in the mind of her daddy, no wonder.

1:06:20 Her dad wanted to beat the fucking breaks off of this nineteen year old. He had allegedly impregnated his fifteen year old daughter, which, by the way, is illegal. I hope we can all agree on that this is horrible. So when they went and they spoke by the way to one of Ellie's friends, Ellie's friends who was no longer a friend with Ellie, she gave them some information that I want to interject here. They were like, why are you no longer friends with her? And her best friend of many many years said, I'm not friends with her anymore because of the lying. She lies too much, And she said I felt like she betrayed me because one day I'll just line this up for you. About a few weeks prior to the murder, she got a phone call from Ellie and Ellie said, listen, I'm gonna be in trouble. Please, can you just cover for me with my dad please? And the friend thought she was doing the right thing, and when the dad called. When Aaron called the friend and said, hey, is Ellie spending the night over there, she told him yes, she has been staying at my house. The reality was that she had been sneaking out and she had been sleeping over at Gavin's house, and Aaron knew it that Daddy knew it, and that is the reason it now makes sense that he went over and was beaten down Gavin's door because he was onto it now and he was furious and he wanted that boy to stay away from his daughter, and he had even vocalized this to some of his adult friends that this boy was no good and that Ellie had been doing really good in school and that

1:07:50 he was just now dragging her down. And then to find out that he's nineteen years old dating his sophomore daughter, I'm sure he did come unglued, and that is why they had to enact this plan to kill him in their minds, to kill him and to get all this money and to get everything lined up and to run off into the sunset and to go be together. And the reason behind this, the real reason behind all of this, is because Gavin was nineteen, Ellie was fifteen. And whenever Aaron found out, because Gavin had been telling people that Ellie was going to have his baby, Aaron came on glued and. He was going to go to the police about this.

1:08:32 And what happens when you go to the police and a nineteen year old is having sex with a fifteen year old and has allegedly gotten her pregnant. What happens they go to jail. You cannot convince me otherwise on this one. You just can't. He even cried during his interrogation and said that Ellie was carrying his baby and now to find out that the dad was abusing her sexually, he felt like he had to go protect his unborn baby as well as his baby mama. But when he entered the home, okay, and he went and he did all this, and he beat the hell out of. Him and he killed this guy. I don't think the motive was just because of this unborn baby. It's because he didn't want to go to jail. And that's why Ellie was in on this. She helped to plan her father's murder and had it laid out so she could just go be with a nineteen year old man. That is what happened here. And by the way, Ellie was never pregnant. Sorry, she wasn't pregnant. No wonder she had to buy the pregnancy test after the murder because he believed her up until that point. I'm not saying he didn't believe her then, but she wasn't pregnant.

1:09:39 She was drama and she was drumming up the drama so that they would go through with this murder of her father, and they did. It's sick. So Gavin Curtis McFarlane nineteen years old, he was arrested. He was charged with murder, robbery in the first degree, tampering with evidence, rape in the third degree. Russell Jones the second, who was twenty two years old, he was charged with murder, robbery in the first degree and tampering with evidence. And Ellen Rose Fryer fifteen years old, was charged with murder, robbery in the first degree and tampering with evidence. All three of them would go on trial, and as you can imagine, all three of them were convicted.

1:10:23 Gavin got twenty five to life for what he did, Ellie got twenty five years, and then Russell, his charges I believed were amended and brought down to more like conspiracy charges, and he was given a total of fifteen years in prison for his role in this murder. And while that's. Great and all, I can't help but think about the fact that patricide is so not normal. It's not normal for someone to want to kill a parent. But then to be fifteen years old and think that a guy that you think you're in love with is worth killing your father is just to me, it's the most mind blowing of things that can happen. And another thing that really aggravated me, And maybe this is a more personal thing, but you know, I worked my ass off to pay for my master's degree that I got. I worked my ass off to pay those bills, and you know, I had to go to work and school and all of that at the same time. And while Ellie has been behind bars, she has been given the opportunity to not get just one, but two master's degrees while she is behind bars. And while I'm thrilled that she would continue education and try to better herself, who paid for that?

1:11:36 You know what I mean? Who paid for that? Because nobody paid for mine? And so I just that kind of aggravated me as well, that those types of opportunities are extended. But I guess we have to help let people better themselves. But whatever, Okay, Now, while there was an interrogation, I want to tell you that Ellen brought up Romeo and Juliet Laws out of her own mouth. She brought it up and was talking about Romeo and juliet Laws in her interrogation as if that was going to make a difference in a murder case, specifically of her father, and I kind of scoffed at that. I couldn't help but laugh, because, like Juliette was thirteen, you know what I'm saying, Like, let's not romanticize questionable judgment twice, baby girl, Like that's not going to justify what has happened here, And for you to even bring it up is asinine. Your daddy tried to save you from yourself, and look where that got you.

1:12:26 You wouldn't listen. You didn't want to take the advice of an older person who cared about you, who knew that this was a bad situation, but you couldn't see that because you were so consumed with a wanna be bad boy that was really cringey. By the way, and a daddy's love for his daughters is something that is special to me. It's something that so many kids lack in this world today. And you had a dad that was trying to show you that this was a huge mistake, and he no matter what he did, it didn't matter to you, and you threw it away for what for what Your love story here is seriously lacking. And just so you know, your Romeo, your stud muff and your night and shining armor that you were lying to the entire time. He folded like a napkin when he was questioned about the situation.

1:13:22 So I just want to point out, you fucked up your own life. You destroyed the lives of other people. You took the life of your father. Your two younger sisters no longer have a daddy, so that you can run off and go screw a nineteen year old. I hope you're proud of yourself. And on that note, I have seen Romeo and Juliette and I have read it, and the real Romeo took poison. Bro Okay, your dude, he couldn't even take responsibility.