Crime Wire Weekly 9/11/26 | Clancy Verdict, Crooked Jess, and Trading Children For Monkey’s

0:16 All right, folks, welcome back. This week on CrimeWire Weekly, we are talking about a therapist who was booked after allegedly sleeping with a rehab patient in Massachusetts. The Lindsay Clancy murder trial collapses into a mistrial after the jury deadlocks on whether she was criminally responsible for killing her three children. And in a brand new segment, We're going to call any given Saturday. We're going to give you the latest in what occurred during week one of college football today. as it relates to the crime. In West Virginia, a high school principal is charged after a recording pen turns up in a girl's locker room. In Illinois, prosecutors say a mother who had been very invested in the Lindsay Clancy trial texted friends about the case just hours before she murdered her two-year-old son. In Missouri, a foster mother sent a child to Texas to In exchange, get this for a monkey. She is arrested and she's in a lot of trouble. We're going to cover that. In Pinellas County, Crooked Jess lives up to that nickname after she takes undercover buy money and vanishes. In Florida, a man gets taken in an engagement scam that goes from proposal to nightmare. And on the true crime time machine, we're going to go back a quarter century since 9-11.

1:49 Welcome to Crime Wire Weekly. I'm Jim Chapman. And there is no Kelly Jennings. Kelly is under the weather today. Look, I'm not going to let you go without your weekly dose of CrimeWire Weekly. So I'm going to do this one solo today. I'm going to ride solo. Hopefully I'll entertain you enough to keep you around. And we're going to start off in Florida. And we're going to start off with a lustful lawbreaker. Mmm. Mmm. All right, so a Florida therapy intern is accused of running a months-long secret sexual relationship with a client inside a locked-down men's rehab.

2:50 including during sessions. She is accused of inventing cover stories so that this guy could walk out the door and more encounters could occur at her house, at her mother's house, and even in a hospital. So Michelle Rabora, who is 32 of Pinecrest, Florida, she was working as an intern in the capacity of a mental health therapist. This is at a rehab, a drug rehab facility called New Hope, This is in Homestead, Florida. The facility is a nonprofit accredited program that provides residential substance abuse and behavioral health treatment.

3:30 It's largely for adult men, including uninsured, underinsured, and homeless clients. Now, residents live under restrictions, and that's key here. and leaving the property requires authorization. Now, New Hope describes itself as the only residential substance abuse treatment facility of its kind for single men in South Miami-Dade, and that closed setting is central to these allegations. Investigators say Rabor did not just cross a line professionally, she also helped get the resident off the property so the two could leave and meet elsewhere. Now, the victim is a 42-year-old man who was both a patient and a resident at the facility and who was assigned to Rebora as her client. According to the arrest report, he told investigators the two were involved in a romantic and sexual relationship that started in June of 2025 and ran through September of 2025, so about three months, while he was still under her care.

4:37 He said they had sex, During therapy sessions at that facility, he also said she facilitated alibis on his behalf, giving him cover so that staff would authorize him to leave the restricted campus area for sex with her. And those off-site encounters, authorities say, happened on multiple occasions. It happened at her home in Pinecrest. at her mother's home, and at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. Investigators say she told him to keep the relationship secret because disclosure could affect her ability to work as a therapist. Now, important to note that consent is not a legal defense under Florida's psychotherapist misconduct statute. And the statute covers people who provide or purport to provide mental health counseling, not only fully licensed practitioners. And that's important here because she was an intern.

5:34 She wasn't fully licensed. And I guess she was going to try to use that as a defense of her not breaking the law. An intern acting as a therapist. can still obviously fall inside that definition. So some later reports have said authorities also looked at allegations involving a second client and that she faced more than one related count, but the most detailed public report that I could find still centers on that 42-year-old resident and that June to September 2025 timeline. Now, the relationship did not surface because staff walked into a room, like you would think, and saw them having sex. It actually surfaced after it ended.

6:17 According to the arrest paperwork, Rabora broke things off. And after that, the 42-year-old client went to the administrators and reported what he described as a forbidden affair. New Hope fired her, notified the appropriate agencies, and cooperated with police. So it sounds like this dude got the red ass after this girl dumped him. And so what's he do? He goes to the freaking... you know, people in charge and says, I've been screwing this girl and she's been breaking the law by doing it. I mean, come on, dude, just get over it. Rabora turned herself in this past week. She was booked on Wednesday, this past Wednesday, and she appeared in court and bonded out on a $ 5, 000 bond.

7:02 After she bonded out, she declined to discuss the case, saying the questions should go to her lawyer and that the situation was quote, kind of weird. and that she did not want to add anything. Now, this is more serious, y'all, than it may sound. She's getting charged with a second-degree charge of sexual misconduct by a psychotherapist, which is a third-degree felony in Florida, and it carries up to five years in jail. So, pretty serious situation. Now... All of this was consensual, but if you've heard me on my podcast exposed, especially when I cover those bad teachers, even if a student is 18 years old and he's fully down with having sex with this teacher and the consent age in whatever state I'm covering is 18, guess what?

7:52 Still against the law. Same situation here. This is someone considered a person in authority and that could take advantage of a person, especially in a rehab type situation, sexually. And so you can't do that. It is against the law and you can get five years in jail. So we'll see what happens there. But pretty wild case going on and definitely a lustful lawbreaker in Florida. All right. So now we're going to go to the story that has made all the news this week. Y'all, when I was researching articles and subjects to cover for this week, I probably came across, I don't know, a thousand articles in one way or another related to the Lindsay Clancy trial.

8:38 Of course, big news, a mistrial has been declared. We're going to talk about that. So Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial this past Friday in the Lindsay Clancy murder case after jurors said they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict in the killing of her three children. This is after a week of deliberating at the Pliesmouth Superior Court in Pliesmouth, Massachusetts. Now, the mistrial followed a dramatic dispute over an alleged 11 to 1 divide, with Clancy's defense arguing a lone holdout juror had acknowledged doubt but was refusing to properly apply the court's instruction on reasonable doubt.

9:21 The alleged holdout is believed to be one of the three male jurors on a 12-jury panel after defense attorney Kevin Reddington repeatedly referred to the unnamed juror as a male inside and outside of court. The other jurors know they were robbed by one man, he said, for whatever his agenda was, who stole seven weeks of the life of these other jurors that were so attentive, so beautiful, so wonderful, and listened to the evidence, he told reporters after leaving the courtroom. And you can see how defeated they were sitting there. And I got a funny feeling they could go on for another week if they had to, so I hope this guy... can sleep well at night. Now, also speaking outside of the courthouse was Tim Cruz. He was the district attorney and he acknowledged the victims in the case. Finally, we get some acknowledgement there. The Clancy's children, five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson, and eight-month-old Callen. Quote, it's our job to make sure the victims are not invisible. I am a father and a grandfather, and I cannot imagine the hell this entire family has lived through. Clancy's attorneys made an emergency appeal to the state Supreme Court in in an attempt to stay the mistrial and force further inquiry into the juror. Justice Wendlandt denied that request last Friday afternoon, clearing the way for Sullivan to formally declare a mistrial. Clancy has been charged with first degree murder

10:53 in the January 2023 deaths of her children, each whom had been strangled with exercise bands. The trial centered on whether she was legally responsible for her actions at the time and the defense argued it wasn't due to postpartum psychosis. Her attorneys argued severe mental illness left her unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of what she was doing or unable to conform her conduct to what was required by the law. And that's important. I want you to really think about that. Prosecutors maintain Clancy remained criminally responsible and pointed to evidence they say showed planning, purposeful behavior and awareness of what she was doing before, during, and after the killings. Now, during the trial, Clancy's former husband, Patrick Clancy, testified about the day of the killings, which happened while he was running errands that included picking up the children's stool softener at CVS and takeout for dinner. They spoke on the phone while he was out. Under state law, once lack of criminal responsibility is properly raised, prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt the defendant is criminally responsible. The mistrial means the case ends without a verdict and claims he was neither convicted nor acquitted. Prosecutors can seek to retry her but have not yet announced if they will. Sullivan said he wants the case retried sooner rather than later, suggesting new trials could potentially take place later this fall.

12:26 Clancy is due back in court September 29 for a status hearing trial assignment in defense Rule 25 motion. All previous bail orders remain in effect. The mistrial followed a trial that focused extensively on Clancy's psychiatric condition in the months and weeks before the children died. Juries heard testimony about her treatment by mental health professionals, psychiatric medication, anxiety, depression, insomnia, and other symptoms that were documented before the killings. On January 24th of 2023, authorities responded to the Clancy's home and after Patrick Clancy returned, found his wife seriously injured outside of the house, and the couple's three children were found inside. Corr and Dawson died that night. Callum was taken to the hospital and died several days later. Lindsay Clancy did survive after jumping from a second-story window and suffering injuries that left her paralyzed. and in a wheelchair.

13:26 The prosecution and defense offered sharply different explanations for what happened before the children were killed, and the defense had argued that the deaths occurred after months of worsening psychiatric symptoms and treatment and that Clancy's mental condition had deteriorated beyond the point where she could legally be held responsible. Specifically, the defense contended that Clancy heard a male voice commanding her to kill her three children. Dr. Philip Resnick, a forensic psychiatrist, said it was almost as if she was a puppet. Quote, not only did she hear a command, but she felt her body was taken over by an external force where she was in a dream state and did not have control of her body. It was almost like she was a puppet and someone else was pulling the strings. However, prosecutors rejected that claim and their experts argued Clancy deliberately created an opportunity to be alone with her children and intentionally killed them. Gregory Saithoff, a forensic psychiatrist at the University of Virginia who consults with the FBI, told jurors Clancy's self-described auditory thoughts hallucinations were very unusual. Quote, what was significant to me is that she had not spoken about hearing voices before any of these mental health professionals, psychiatrists, nurse practitioners, etc. This was the first time she reported that, and then she experienced an auditory hallucination, according to what she told me. So that was unusual. And then what

14:57 was very unusual was the fact that the voice stopped with the strangling of her youngest son. Paula Musgrove, Lindsay Clancy's mother, also told jurors about the mental health problems in an October 2022 text message Lindsay Clancy asked her mother for help. Quote, mom, will you please come up and stay with me? I'm really sick. Something's wrong. I have horrible insomnia all night and I just don't know how I'm going to get through the day. It's really scary and I don't want to be alone. So I don't want to go really super deep into this. I'm going to tell you this. It's look, I'm a dude, right? I'm not female. I know one thing postpartum depression is certainly a real thing. I have people that are close to me that have experienced that certainly not to the extent that they killed their children, but it is hard for me. And even people I know that have had that to wrap their brain around doing something like that.

16:00 I think this is horrific. I think this is tragic. Um, I am, again, a guy, so I can't relate. And I'm not going to talk out of school here and act like I know a whole bunch of shit about postpartum depression, because I don't. But I can tell you one thing. If you kill your three children, it's hard for me to imagine you should ever be let out of jail for that, at the very least. And I'm just going to leave it at that, because Kelly is going to be doing a kind of a series on this entire case. And I don't want to say anything that she, not that she doesn't want me to say, but I want her to be able to tell that story.

16:45 So I'm going to leave it at that. But as of now, it looks like this thing likely will be going back to court. It's hard for me to imagine that they're not going to retry her again. All right, got a new little segment for you today. It is called Any Given Saturday. And look, last week or this past week was opening weekend of football season. You knew they were going to have some crazy stuff go down all over the country. I'm going to bring you some of the more wild things that did occur. I'm going to tell you I was at the LSU game where they totally destroyed Clemson. And that's no disrespect to Clemson.

17:26 One thing I'll say is they never quit. And they certainly had every reason to quit. I mean, it wasn't a close game by any means. Over 300,000 people tailgating in Tiger Stadium. And 100, I think the official was 103,524 people inside of Tiger Stadium. Me and KJ both went. She has season tickets. I don't have season tickets, but I definitely got tickets to this one. went and had a phenomenal time. So I'm going to tell you about some of the wild things that happened all over the country in this crime report. And we're going to start off with the Texas A & M- Missouri State game at Kyle Field. Now, 61-year-old Manuel Ramirez of College Station, he was arrested in Section 338, and he was charged with invasive video recording, which is a felony in Texas. Off-duty Brian O'Connor, Brian, Texas, which is a city, not a name, officers working security were tipped off by a witness who saw him recording under women's shorts when they found him near a handicap ramp. He was still holding that phone up.

18:41 He was actively recording a woman standing above him and police said her underwear was visible in the video. The victim was told on the spot and chose to press charges. His phone was seized. He's not an A & M employee. He was working the game. He was kind of like a contract company that does custodial stuff at the stadium. And of course, they fired him immediately. And the university police, they issued a blunt statement saying invasive recording, uh, is not going to be tolerated here. And this gentleman was arrested. And I'm going to tell you something that occurred that I saw at tiger stadium while walking around, while people were tailgating this past weekend, there's a, there was two young ladies, uh, maybe 22, 23. They were walking, uh, down basically a pathway in between a bunch of tailgates.

19:40 But there was hardly anybody there. This is like nine o'clock in the morning. I got there early because I wanted to watch College Game Day, which was in Tiger Stadium. Beautiful girls, absolutely gorgeous. There's a guy, he's apparently already drunk and he like beelines it out of his little tailgate tent where he was setting up and it was just him under that tailgate. And he says something to him. I'm sure it was something, you know, hey cuties or some sick shit like that, that you're going to harass these pretty young girls and you're like 60. So they kind of laughed that off. They kept walking. He walks in the middle of the pathway, picks up his phone and starts recording them, you know, basically recording their asses.

20:24 That's what it looked like to me. And I'm like, what is he doing? I said it loud enough that I knew he would hear me. And he saw me coming towards him. And man, when I tell you he put that phone down and hauled ass, he like ran into the middle of his tent over there. And I was with my wife and I really did not feel like getting into it with this guy at that particular time. But I wanted to let him know I saw what he was doing. If there would have been a cop right there, I would have told him. But yeah, I was saying as loud as possible, this guy is a pervert and recording girls and they don't even know it when they're walking in front of him or when they walk past him. So you got to be really cognizant of that. We'll move on to the next one. A Gamecocks freshman goes from scout team honor to 4 a.m.

21:16 arrest in a street racing charge. South Carolina's true freshman tight end Camden Ramsey says, He played six snaps in the Gamecocks' 57-0 opener over Kent State. But at 4 or 2 a.m., he got in some trouble, and he was actually booked for racing on a public road. He was released a few hours later on basically a personal recognizance bond. And South Carolina law treats racing on a public road pretty broad. uh and so you can get in different trouble depending on what you were doing he was apparently rolling man going over 100 miles an hour running red lights all that stuff so he could get six months in jail but interesting that a player actually got arrested at four o'clock in the morning the night he and he played in the game i mean he wasn't just a uh He was a true freshman, but he wasn't someone that just rode the bench. I mean, he played some snaps for South Carolina. Now, there wasn't a whole lot of crime arrests that were reported beyond that.

22:22 I'm sure there was some out there, but they did have some interesting stories. And one of them. included arch manning who actually ate the turf before kickoff and that this is a clip that's went viral but you know a lot of these teams now including lsu when they come out they have these fog machines and they run out through the fog and it looks really cool well arch manning who is the starting quarterback for texas okay and he's a manning right he's running out there he Goes kind of into the fog and a fan reaches out. It looked like to tap his shoulder pads, but they actually grabbed him. When they did, they pulled his ass down and he went face first and just face pointed into that turf. And I mean hard, bruh. And then at the same time that he did that, he tripped over someone. It's pretty crazy in the clip because he just absolutely disappears into the fog. You see him one second and he went down so hard. I thought he was injured at that particular time. Fortunately, he wasn't. If you're a Texas fan, fortunately, he wasn't anyway, but. He got up, finished the game, and actually had a pretty good game. But that was an interesting clip that went viral.

23:39 And that's really all I got for you on any given Saturday, but a pretty wild first weekend in the football season all over the country. And every week I'll bring you some interesting stories. like that with this segment throughout football season. All right, let's go to West Virginia and a high school principal has been arrested and charged after allegedly placing recording devices in several changing areas designated for female students at the school. These devices were discovered at Brooke High School. This is in Wellsburg. Eric James was arrested in connection with this incident last Thursday. James, who is 53, has since been charged with two felony counts of breaking and entering and one felony count of intentionally intercepting communication. In a press conference, Brooke County Sheriff Richard Beattie said that a school custodian initially discovered the device and he said it looked like an ink pen while he was cleaning. The employee soon realized it was a recording device, at which point he immediately took the device to authorities. Beatty said investigators promptly swept the school and four devices were found in total. Two in the area where the school's dance team changed clothes, one in the girls' varsity locker room, and a fourth in the girls' PE locker room. The sheriff said authorities quickly identified

25:10 James as their suspect and said, get this, this is how they knew it was him. When we opened the first device, there was actual footage of him setting it in place and adjusting the camera angle to be sure he was getting what he was looking for. He also added the investigation is ongoing. Brooks County Superintendent Jeffrey Cook said the school district had been made aware of the recording devices the previous afternoon, saying, our main priority is our kids. The kids feel betrayed. I think we all feel a little betrayed. And we're fully cooperating with law enforcement and will continue to do that. James is currently being held on a $ 100, 000 bond. And a preliminary hearing is scheduled for September 14th. And yet another thing, y'all, that you have to watch out for with this technology going to where it's going. I mean, it looks like a pin. And I actually researched what those things look like after I came across this article, and I mean, you would never know unless you were looking for it, that this was a recording device and you picked it up because, uh, from what I understand, uh, doing research, they are heavier than a regular pin, but unless you picked it up and you just saw it in passing, it looks like a real pin according to the pictures that I saw. So, man, you gotta be with your head on a swivel and disgusting, uh, that a high school principal, the most trusted person at the high school,

26:41 is the one you got to watch out for. Just crazy. And this guy's in a lot of trouble for this one, I promise you. All right, let's go to Illinois. And y'all, this is one of the problems that comes out of high profile cases that we're going to talk about right here. And it is absolutely stomach-turning. An Illinois mother is accused of killing her toddler, a two-year-old, shortly after texting friends about the Lindsay Clancy murder trial. Corey Walsh, who is 40, was charged with first-degree murder last week. Now, the charges are in connection with the death of her two-year-old son.

27:22 Officers with the Frankfurt Police Department responded to a residence after receiving a report of an injured, unresponsive child. And when officers arrived, a neighbor was performing CPR on that child, later identified as two-year-old Barrett Walsh. The child, also known as Bear, was reportedly hanging from a rafter in the basement by his neck, and his feet were above the ground when the neighbor found him. And that is Oh, that's so infuriating. Prosecutors allege that Walsh believed Barrett was the antichrist and the devil. After Barrett was located, responding officers found Walsh upstairs in a bathtub with non-threatening, non-life-threatening knife wounds that were believed to be self-inflicted. Witnesses later reportedly told police that Walsh had recently become very invested in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial and that she had been actively discussing the case in group text messages hours before the killing. An attorney for Walsh said she was a married mother of four and was experiencing a psychotic episode.

28:31 This is a tragedy for the Walsh family, obviously, whom are mourning a child. The attorney said Walsh remains in custody and is being held for medical treatment. Disgusting. You know, every adjective you can think of. But this person is now seeing all of the attention that was on this case and how so many people are feeling sorry for Lindsay Clancy that she wants some of that attention. That's my opinion on it. I don't have much more to say about it, but just... horrific. How could you hang your own two-year-old son? Let's go to something a little bit more light, and that is Pinellas County. Of course, I've covered a lot of Pinellas County cases. This is in Florida, and I'm going to tell you about Jessica Sanchez, who is 41, and she's known on the streets as Crooked Jess. Okay, so that right there, the nickname alone should tell you a lot. She was supposed to be the middle woman, if you will, in a Pinellas County shooting Office buy and bust. In March, an undercover deputy gave her $ 60 and he sent her toward a house.

29:49 And it was described in the arrest affidavit that this was a place that facilitates crime. transactions of illegal narcotics. So a drug house, right? The deputy watched her walk to the property and then she disappeared into the backyard and he waits a little while. And an hour later, guess what? Crooked Jess still ain't come out. The officer wrote, it was more than a reasonable amount of time to wait for her to process a drug transaction and And so his conclusion was pretty quick. He said, I think she's got no intentions of coming back to facilitate this transaction so we can make this bust. And what made matters worse is not only was she gone, but the drug money was gone. She ran off with the 60 bucks.

30:41 Crooked Jess, nowhere in sight. So it actually took deputies several months before they finally caught up with her. And she was arrested this past week and booked on misdemeanor theft for taking the buy money. Now, during the arrest, the officers did find a piece of aluminum foil tucked in her undergarments. Lab testing showed it had fentanyl residue on that particular piece of aluminum foil. And of course that added a possession of drug paraphernalia charge to her. Bomb was set at $ 650 and she was held in lieu of that amount. The court records show she has a pretty long rap sheet, drug possession, prostitution, and narcotics.

31:24 But one thing you can't find anywhere on the internet is how she got the name Crooked Jess. Now that sting never produced a crack purchase. It only produced a $ 60 loss and a bunch of embarrassment for the Pinellas County deputies as she ran off with that $ 60. Crooked Jess, don't trust her. Anyone with that name, don't trust them. She's going to run off with that money, and she's going to get hurt some fentanyl with it. All right, another story out of Missouri is really going to blow your mind. A Missouri woman is accused of trading a foster child for, get this, get ready for it, a monkey.

32:04 And what is even more unbelievable is she was allowed to remain out of prison after a judge suspended her seven year sentence for child endangerment. So let me tell you about it. This past week, Lincoln County Judge Thomas Frawley, he sentenced Brenda Deutsch to seven years in prison, but he suspended the entire sentence. She was instead placed on three years of state supervised probation. And this is Missouri, y'all. Frawley also revoked her foster parent license, called her reprehensible. and apologized to people who testified about alleged abuse. Deutsch pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of a child in the first degree, two counts of abuse or neglect of a child, and all of that was dismissed during her plea agreement. Now, the count to which she pleaded guilty accused her of, get this, knowingly creating substantial risk to the girl's health by sending her to live unattended in a Texas home with unsanitary conditions. Texas Child Protective Services ultimately intervened and removed her from that residence. At sentencing, Frawley emphasized Deutsch's conviction concerned that particular placement, saying she did not abuse anyone, engage in pattern of abusive behavior, or trade a child for a monkey. Deutsch's biological daughter, Brenna Johnson, and a former foster child did speak about abuse during the sentencing, And the prosecuting attorney told the

33:37 court his office had received numerous allegations against Deutsch, but were most concerned or the most concerned conduct was too old to prosecute under the statute of limitations. So on November 26, 2024, the Missouri Department of Social Services, they get an anonymous report alleging that Deutsch was physically and mentally abusing this girl. During a forensic interview, the girl said that Deutsch hit her with objects including shoes, wood trim, and a paddle. And she also claimed Deutsch did not give her enough food and sometimes donated her clothes to the Goodwill. Now, on February 6th of 2025, a school resource officer looking into the girl's absence learned she was from Texas. During the investigation, the officer was told of a rumor the girl had been traded for a monkey.

34:32 The Texas woman that was caring for the child told investigators she was helping Deutsch because Deutsch and the girl were not getting along. The woman later said she no longer wanted to care for the girl, but Deutsch refused to pay for the girl's return flight. Deutsch later told investigators she had purchased a plane ticket for the girl, but the Texas woman could not take her to the airport, causing the ticket to go unused. The woman subsequently left the girl with another person while she went out of town. Y'all, this is a... just a child and so far we're two people have left her just wherever they could leave her so to sum this one up all this information goes to the court and she gets seven years probation that's it way to go Missouri and we wonder why people continue to do stupid shit like this This is a great example of it. All right, let's go to Florida.

35:34 And I have got a scam that you're going to want to hear about. And we cover scams on here from time to time. This one really unbelievable. So we're going to talk about a Georgia man who believed he was engaged to a female Florida sheriff's deputy and was absolutely shocked when a phone call revealed his supposed fiance was actually a man from South Carolina. So this deception came to light after the Athens County police officer instructed the victim to to call his fiance, whom he knew as Haley Morello. When the victim placed the call, the phone of 25-year-old Caleb Mills allegedly began ringing. The victim's photograph appeared on Mills' phone under the contact name Hubs.

36:23 Police then told the victim that Mills was allegedly the person who had been posting as his fiance. The police report said the victim was in shock. I bet he was. Investigators said Mills used photographs taken from the personal Facebook account of a real female sheriff's deputy in Florida to construct the Haley Morello identity. He maintained fake social media accounts and used technology that actually altered his voice to sound like a woman during the phone calls. The victim had never met his purported fiance in person, but allegedly sent money and allowed her, which is actually him, to use technology. his car. Investigators said Mills and the victim exchanged vehicles as part of the scheme. Now, the victim's family had become suspicious of the relationship and tried to convince him that he was being catfished. And that's what they call this. And this created significant tension between those family members. And they reportedly conducted their own investigation and identified Mills as a person they believe was behind this fictitious activity. Now, Police responded to a family dispute at the victim's apartment, and during the response, the supposed fiancé participated by speakerphone and identified herself as a law enforcement officer.

37:44 The following day, someone claiming to be the victim called police and complained that this guy's family was harassing him. The caller also complained about how an officer had treated the supposed fiancé. The same person called again four days later to ask what action the police had taken. Investigators allege Mills had placed both calls while posing as the victim. Should have left all that shit alone, but this moron is calling the police trying to get people in trouble when he's catfishing somebody. A police supervisor became suspicious because the calls came from the South Carolina area code rather than the number that police had on file for the victim.

38:25 An investigator went to the victim's apartment, saw his vehicle arrive. When the driver got out, the officer recognized him as Mills, and Mills identified himself as Alex Morello and claimed Caleb Mills was his brother. The officer later asked the victim who had his car, and the victim responded his fiancée had had it. The officer then instructed him to call the fiance, prompting Mills' phone to ring. Police also suspect Mills may have stayed inside the victim's apartment without his knowledge while the victim was at work. Of course, he was arrested for identity fraud and other alleged abuse. the department then took to Facebook to urge people to use caution when someone they have never met begins requesting money, gifts, or other items. And y'all, that seems like freaking common sense.

39:15 You would not believe how much that happens. But unbelievable story out of Florida. And this guy was actually using a voice changer to sound like a female. So just because you talk to him, don't mean they are who they are. There you have that. And I got one more for you today. And then we're going to wrap up this episode and we're going to jump on the true crime time machine. And we're going to go back to probably in my opinion, the most horrific episode, day that I can recall, and that is September 11th of 2001.

39:55 Of course, today, if you're listening to this on the regular drop, marks a quarter century since the morning that absolutely changed modern American history. For those that lived through September 11th of 2001, the images remain immediate. A crystal blue sky, Two towers burning, a field in Pennsylvania, and a hole in the side of the Pentagon. For a growing share of the entire country, roughly 3 in 10 Americans were born after that day. 9-11 isn't a memory to them, but it is a lesson. The 25th anniversary has become a test of whether a nation can keep a wound from fading into abstraction. The attacks were carried out by 19 hijackers affiliated with al-Qaeda. Four commercial airliners, all westbound from the northeast, were seized mid-flight. At 8.46 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11 struck the north tower of the World Trade Center between the 93rd and 99th floors. 17 minutes later, United Airlines Flight 175 hit the South Tower between floors 77 and 85. At 9.37 a.m., an American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the western face of the Pentagon, and at 10.03, United Airlines Flight 93 dove into a field.

41:23 in Pennsylvania after passengers and crew stormed the cockpit. Investigators later concluded the plane had been aimed for Washington. The South Tower fell at 9.59 a.m., 56 minutes after it was struck. The North Tower collapsed at 10.28 a.m., and by afternoon, lower Manhattan fell was a gray landscape of dust, steel, and paper. The official death toll, 2,977 victims, not counting the 19 hijackers. Of those 2,753 that died at the World Trade Center site, there were 184 at the Pentagon and 40 aboard Flight 93. Victims would range in age from 2 to 85 and came from more than 90 countries.

42:12 The attack remained the deadliest terrorist event in American history and the greatest single-day loss of rescue personnel in the country. 343 New York City firefighters, 23 NYPD officers, and 37 Port Authority officers among them. The Twin Towers defined the lower Manhattan skyline for nearly three decades before they were destroyed. The response remade American government and daily life. Within weeks, the Patriot Act would arrive. Within months, the Department of Homeland Security and airport security were federalized. The wars that followed in Afghanistan and Iraq lasted two decades, cost thousands of American lives, and consumed trillions of dollars. Osama bin Laden, who orchestrated the plot, was killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan in 2011 and and the United States withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021. Security officials note there has been no attack on U.S. soil comparable since then. An FDMY World Trade Center health program report released this month found more than 12,000 department members certified with at least one 9-11 related condition. More than 600 Fire Department of New York firefighters and EMS members have died from World Trade Center-related illnesses since the day itself. And that's not something you typically think about. Now, with this being the 25th anniversary

43:45 this year, the Ground Zero ceremony will include a seventh moment of silent after the sixth that marked the plane strikes and the collapses, and that's dedicated today. to those lost from the 9-11 related illnesses. So they are coming around to recognizing that now. Also, the National September 11th Memorial and Museum will hold its annual commemoration on the plaza in Lower Manhattan. This starts around 8.30. Family members will read the names of 2,983 people. Vice President J.D. Vance is expected in New York, along with former presidents Bush, Clinton, Obama, and Biden. President Donald Trump plans to attend the Pentagon observance as well. Something smart that they did. They barred political speeches, and I think that's a great thing to do.

44:37 At the Flight 93 National Memorial, the National Park Service will hold a morning observance and afternoon ceremony at the Wall of Names, where 40 marble slabs stand for the passengers and crew who fought the hijackers. And they have a walk scheduled that evening as well. Where the towers once stood, two square voids now hold water. and the names of the dead are actually cut into bronze around those pools. And at dusk on Friday, today, if you're listening to this on the regular drop, the tribute of light will rise again over lower Manhattan. These are two vertical beams. They go four miles high, and they're visible for 60 miles. For the first time, the installation will be broadcast live nationwide as part of a Disney Network special, and it will include performances by Laney Wilson, As well, the beams that stand in for the towers will be broadcast live at that time as well. So a lot of things going on. And look, for me personally, all of us who were alive in 2001 and of any age where we could really grasp what was going on, we remember where we were. I remember at that time I was working a little health food store. that actually sold smoothies and things that a friend of mine owned.

46:01 And I was helping him out with running that store many years ago, obviously, 25 years ago. And I remember someone coming in and they said, hey, did you see a plane that hit the World Trade Center? And my thoughts were like everyone else's. Well, that had to be a horrific accident. And I'm thinking this was a small plane, you know, like a private plane someone was flying. And turned on the television in there and saw this was an actual airliner with hundreds of people on it. And I'll never forget when that second plane hit. I'm like, there's no way these were both accidents. And then the day from there just went downhill, right? You heard about the Pentagon getting hit. You heard about the plane going down in Pennsylvania. And it was a day none of us will ever forget. And I hope nobody ever forgets.

46:55 forgets or realizes or feels like this has become something that we can, I don't know if the word is go soft on, but you need to always stay vigilant because there are people out there that they just don't care. They want to kill and they have evil in their heart. And it's important for us to always remember the victims that died and what happened that day. And how America rose up after that with resilience that we have here in the United States. Just a tragic, horrific time. And that is your true crime time machine story for today.

47:42 And that is it for me. I hope I kept you here until the end. Hopefully, not hopefully, she will definitely be back next week. Kelly, get better soon. And to everybody out there, my name's Jim Chapman, and this has been another edition of CrimeWire Weekly.