Part 3 | Darkness Fell: Interview with Sarah Rice

0:06 Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime podcast. Or 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 a very extra special episode for you today.

1:04 I know that you've been listening to the episode about our wonderful elderly couple that was tragically murdered by someone that I don't even want to say his name right now, But you've been listening to the episode episodes, and so I just really got wrapped up in this one. And when I tell you wrapped up, what I mean is I looked at the pictures of our victims and something just tugged at me about Granza. I liked her, I liked her spirit, I liked her essence. I liked everything that I was learning about both of them as as people in our society and and just great contributors to the world. And so after watching a video that I saw online, I said, you know what, I want to talk.

1:49 I want to talk to Granza's family. I want to. I want to. I want to connect with them and see what they have to say and if I'm missing something or if there's more that I should know. And I had the absolute privilege and pleasure of getting in contact with Granza's daughter, who was so wonderful and kind and said, well, maybe you should speak with my daughter. She's been the one that's really been the forefront of our family during this entire experience. And so she put me in touch with her daughter, Sarah, And today I have Sarah with me and we're gonna do a little chatting about this case. And I think that this is going to be super important to people who maybe haven't had much experience in the justice system, that it might be eye opening that it's not just about when the crime occurs, because there's a whole lot that's gonna happen afterwards. But before we start, let me introduce y'all to Sarah Rice. And I want to say good morning and thank you so much. Good morning, how are you doing.

2:45 I'm good. I'm feeling excited about this. I love talking about Granza. So let's do this. Let's do it. And I don't know about you, but the first time I spoke with you, I just felt this this connection. I just feel like you're a friend and you just very easy to talk to and and I think you're a great testament to the woman who Grandza was because I can see through you. You know what kind of light you know that she instilled inly got the treat. Yeah, so look, let's start thereat. Yeah, so tell me. I know I covered her in the episode to you know, but you knew her. It's your grandma, not mine. So can you just give us, give us a little taste of Granza and mister Chip and uh, what are we missing out on?

3:31 Tell us about about her? I mean I could talk about them for days. My grandsa was, I mean she was everything. She was, you know, just like everybody else's grandma. I guess right, Like I just looked up to her so much throughout my life and I spent a significant amount of time with her when I was a youngster because my mom and dad were divorced, and so my mom, who lived in another state, would fly from Hawaii to California and we would spend that summer with Grandza at her home with my mom and my brother and I and we just how do I describe her? And like I mean, you said it, you know when we were talking about Grandza, where she got that name, you know, because she was just fucking cool, Like she just was, and she had a way about her when she walked in the room, like you really felt like she was the person everybody's looking at. She just had a way about her. And as a little girl, you know, this little eight year old girl just always like, oh my god, my Grandsa was so cool, you know, she was the fonds to me. Grant. She didn't wear a leather jacket, but she wore a white urtin like with jeans and a belt and her little, you know, high heels that she always had on. But she was she was like a confidant for me. Like I grew up in a very religious, like evangelical household, whether it was my mom or my dad, and Granza was like

5:02 my voice of reason because she she also had some Christian aspects to her, but she was also just very earthly and believed in all kinds of goodness. Like at the end of the day, she was just she just wanted to be a good person. And what an amazing thing too, because we live in a world where not yeah, not everybody has that. And I didn't mean to cut you off. I apologize, but I just to her credit. You know, there's a lot of things that we don't you know, in the world. We may not agree with people on, but at the end of the day, if you're a good person, good versus bad, as long as you're on the side of good, you know what I'm saying. And she just had that that vibe.

5:46 Man, we had it she you know, and she was a human right like we all make our mistakes and we all, you know, have regrets. Well I don't know my regrets. But at the end of the day, she just wanted us to be raised to good humans. And she always had like the most profound wise advice to give her her grandkids, her children, and I just I loved getting it from her. I like loved getting that like the grandza energy, the fill Like I just like wanted to be around her. When I when I met my wife, I said, oh, you wait till you meet grandson. And she's like, what do you mean, because she was all like, I'm Argentine and we're very affectionate and you know, blah blah blah.

6:33 And I was like, wait, wait, you getting grands a hug, right, the grands of hugs were. Oh my god, I mean, but you got a hug from Granza and you she didn't let you go. It lasted hours because it was she would embrace you, and then you when it gets awkward, and she'd embrace you just a little bit more, and then it was the she'd hold your hand. Yeah, And so you sat with her and you were embraced the entire time that you were with her, unless she went up to get a cup of coffee or whatever. Yeah, but it would come back and it was the hands were being held, you were sitting together, she was holding you, she was stroking your hair. Whatever, and you felt loved and you felt heard and seen and just really made you feel. And I know that feeling because I lost my own grandmother recently. But I can just you walked in the room, and I think we can all identify with that that you walk into the room of this person who from the minute you were born, adored you, loved you, cared for you, accepted you, and wanted you to be the best that you could be. And she had in your grands I had that feistiness, I know because I was looking at the pictures, and I know this is not about my grandmother, but I just see, you know, when you see that light through somebody, and she makes me think about the time that multiple times. But one day I was having a really hard time in my early twenties and just things weren't going right. And I went to my grandmother, you know, for that advice, and we're talking and she was just sitting there all jeweled up, and she would be in her you know, her turtle next too. She was just like that, and she's looked at me and

8:03 she said, well, but it's the best advice she ever gave me. I think she looked at me. She said, well, baby, all I can tell you at the end of the day is that if they're going to continue to give you a bad time, then you just tell them to kiss your ass. Yes. And I said, you know what, if my grandmother told me that, then damn it, it must. Be good advice. And I feel like she would have said that yours grandson was. All about that. She would be she would chuckle, she would do this little chuckle and she'd be like, oh, they're so stupid, and just like. It's the Southern bless your heart, ye, bless her heart. No, oh, darling, just fuck them. Yeah, I mean, if they can't take a joke, then I mean I feel you on that same level. So I hope that the listeners just through this understand how this is just a loss and we're not We're not not talking about mister Chip. Mister Chip was in your life as well a little bit right when they got.

8:56 Married, and but you years they were together. Seventeen years, and so I mean devoted to one another too, very very loving and together through it all. And you walked him down the aisle, right. I did, my brother, and I walked her down the aisle. That's so wonderful. So when all of this took place, can you tell me, can you think back to whenever the news was broken to you finding out initially versus when the whole truth was exposed to you. Can you kind of walk me through what was that like? It was all a shock, I mean, clearly a shock, right, But my mom had called me on a Monday morning and she left me a voicemail. And my mom and I are really close, and my mom and I talk every Thursday. It's just our thing. We do coffee talk every Thursday morning. So for her to call me on a Monday was alarming. And my phone was actually on my passenger seat of my car, and I was driving in a blizzard snowstorm from where I lived in Boulder, Colorado, and I was heading towards Denver and I see my phone and I'm like, oh, miscall for my mom. That's so bizarre. And so I grab it right, and I'm not driving very fast, like You're like.

10:18 Never been in a blizzard, never, I've only seen snow want so slobery. Yeah, I would be scared. You definitely want to pay attention. Yeah, And so I grabbed my phone and I called my mom imediate. I didn't listen to the voice mouse, it was just like, called my mom immediately, and she's like, honey, what are you doing? And I was like and I could hear like a tremble in her voice, and I'm like, I'm driving in a snowstorm. And she's like I'm going to need you to pull over, and I'm like, I'm not in a position to pull over on a hill. It's slippery, I'm going really slow. She's like, I'm going to need you to pull over, and I'm like, and I'm going to need you to tell me what the hell's going on? Because I could sense something and immediately, my my gut reaction was something happened to my brain. And it took me probably a good five minutes of wrestling with her to tell me and for me to get off the freeway, and eventually I did, and I was like, She's like, I need you to drive to Patty's work, my wife and be with her because I have to tell you something.

11:21 And I'm like, I'm not doing that. You need to tell me right now, Like enough with the bullshit, tell me what's going on. And she was like so apparently, and she was so calm. Apparently there was a burglary gone wrong and there were two dead bodies and Granza is one of them. And I mean whenever, no, like I don't remember crying, I don't remember. It was complete utter shock. I was shaking, physic shaking, and I was like, what, what the hell? Like, what happened and she's like, I don't know, we don't know anything. Burglary gone wrong, and there's two dead bodies. So immediately my my thinking was somebody broke in their house and either shot them or hit them with a bat. That was, for some reason that stuck in my head, right, nothing to the severity of how they died. And you know, I get to my wife and I see her in her She wasn't working in a restaurant. I see her inside and I call the restaurant and I'm like, I need you to come outside, And it was like as soon as I saw her, I was like, like Grand's has been murdered.

12:42 Like no, I said, Grants, something happened to Grands and Grands is dead, something on those lines. And I don't remember much that happened over the next course of a few hours. I do recall calling my boss and because I was like, well, I prop got to call her. Yeah, And that was me sitting with her. I was on a purple couch and I was like, you know, and I never called my boss and I didn't necessarily enjoy talking to my boss, and nor was she Like we didn't have a scheduled call. So she's like me and I couldn't get the words out, and I was just like, so, something's happened. Something's happened. And all of a sudden, I'm like, my my grandmother was murdered.

13:28 She was murked. Like it like clicked, Oh my god, she was murdered. I could not stop saying it. I was just like, she was murdered. She was murdered. And my wife took the phone from me, and then there was the rest of the conversation that I wasn't a part of because I had lost it at this point. The realization that she was murdered how I don't know, but she was murdered. Just the fact that she was is just something that you would never in a million years think you would put with your name of your grandmother. Like, right, they don't go together, Yeah. It doesn't, not in my life. No, no, no, no, no, no, that's other people, not me. No, And it doesn't it doesn't click. It doesn't click for a long time, like unders like you because you don't get to see them too, right, Like you're just like there's all these missing pieces. So it was, you know, I flew out that day in the snowstorm. We were actually one of the last flights to get out of Denver before they shut the airport down for three days.

14:28 So it was it was quite wild. I know, my wife was you know, they kept de icing the plane. They had to de ice the plane like three or four times in the process, and and she just kept handing me drinks, which was great because I don't remember. Yeah, I was just numb. I just felt numb. I yeah, it was just wild. It wasn't until I got to Sacramento and my mom picked me up at the airport and we embraced and it was just I think we all just sat in silence. It was so bizarre. It was like a weird energy. There was like whenever I flew to Sacramento, I was going to see Granza, like I was going to see my mom, which was pretty new because my mom had lived in Hawaii most of my life. But I was she was picking up Grandza wasn't picking me up. And it was there was just a weirdness about all of it.

15:19 And it wouldn't be you know, months until we found out, you know, how they died. Oh, it would be it was that long. Well, so we got the death certificate a few days after they died. It was about I guess seven days, and my mom was on the phone with a corner and she was like, listen, I'm gonna need you to tell me how they died. And the corner's like, I cannot do that. She's like, you're going to see their death certificate when it comes and and my mom's like. You're gonna tell me what was She was the corner saying that I don't remember if it was a hero she corner, but she was the corner's saying she couldn't tell your mom because of the ongoing investigation, or was it because she just couldn't vocalize it to.

16:07 Her she could do. She just was like trying to be really gentle with my mom. And in that time, my mom was like, I don't need anybody to be gentle with me. I need the facts and I need you to be straight. And I think that the corner, you know, like, if I had, if I my personal opinion, if this was my mom, she was just really trying to protect my mom. And she's like, well, okay. Well so before you tell me that the police did say okay, they were murdered, but they didn't tell you how at that point, they just said they're murdered. Nothing because we were interviewed, I got you, you know, like the investigation was going on for two months after.

16:54 And they really thought family might have been involved because of the brutality and because of how personal it seemed. Right, But. Yeah, that I guess what they thought. I guess from a police perspective because of like how it goes so many other times that it is people really close to you, that maybe that was just kind of how you know, you work inside out. But I know how offensive it must have felt. Yes, Actually I don't know. But still to this day, like I really try to have a lot of grace with the police department and the FBI, but at the end of the day, like, yeah, they miss something. It's a lot of things that I'm like, how the hell did you miss that? But so they were also very traumatized as well. You know, like I can't even imagine walking into that home.

17:50 They had to see me everything. Was pristine, right, you They literally there's video evidence they're walking through and they're recording everything, and then you get to the bedroom and yes, there was some splatters and stuff on the wall, but everything was pretty isolated to the actual bed itself. Because they never even were able to get up. I mean, it all took place right there in the bed, and there is vicarious trauma. Just you know, imagine seeing that they. So, yeah, so that was kind of the limit there. So whenever your mom is talking to the corner, that is why the corner's kind of like trying to be gentle because it was so bad. And she said, so, it was the first time we heard that they had been stabbed. Step to death. Cause of death was multiple stab wounds. And I said, I looked at my mom and I was like, because they only say multiple if it's more than twelve twelve, And so she said that multiple means more than twelve, and so I just assumed thirteen.

18:57 Yeah, why would you assume more? I think it would be more than that. How could it be? Yeah? How could it be more than Yeah? Would anybody think it would be more than that? And I don't mean to be morbid right now, but whenever I was, And please understand, I'm just explaining to my listeners kind of my method sometimes when I'm writing, because I'm trying to understand something that is so foreign to me that I would never do to somebody. I mean, unless I had that's all I had to protect my children, then damn right, I go wild. Okay, But I picked up a butter knife, just a butter knife in my house, and I just was sitting there and I started just doing. This to really grasp what it means.

19:42 Sixty seven right, sixty seven times. You can't just saying that, like doing it changed something like to understand. And I don't mean that in any disrespectful way at all, but that's I get that. It's you know, a steak, right, how many how many bites can you get when you cut a steak? Right? I'm like, oh, okay, so I had steak last night. I was like, well there's one, there's two, Like it's constantly in my head, right, And I have a really hard time with knives, Like, no matter what, I have a very very hard time with knives. So there are times where I use my fork to cut steak because I just can't do it.

20:27 You just don't think about that. That how far reaching around? Yeah, me too, Yeah, And to think about that was sixty seven times for Granza, yeah, and then there's sixty one times for chip. So one hundred and twenty eight. I think about how many reps you do at the gym, right, like I do arm curls, right, and that's ten or twelve and I'm tired, you're exhausted, yes, or you know. I could go on and on for days right about all the different things and how the number thirteen affected me so deeply for months that I would be at the gym and I'd be counting and I couldn't count past thirteen. I could not say the word after thirteen.

21:19 And I remember being in therapy and being like, I don't know what it is. I can't anytime I'm counting, and I do it a lot. We all do it, you know, just like you're like, look at all the little ants and you're. Like, yeah, yeah, how. Many bugs are in my office right now? You're like you're constantly counting. And I told my therapist and shot So I had to do some work around the number thirteen because I didn't know how to get past it, because that was in my head thirteen times each. You didn't know that I did it. That wasn't even. Six months, how long? How many times? So tell me that how did that come about? So what's going on at that point that it would be revealed to you.

22:05 So they had made an arrest two months after which you talk about you in your podcast, and we had to go through a preliminary hearing in this September of twenty thirteen, and it was just like the to set the basis of the what he was being charged with. So again, all we know is that there was a murder, and there was They were stabbed to death thirteen times each. That's how that's how you go into it. And you don't even know this kid. You've never laid eyes on him, you don't. I saw him on the news. He had long blonde hair. He kind of looked like, you know, I.

22:47 Don't know a member of Hanson the band, Yes is what said. That's right, totally didn't listen to them, but yes, long shaggy blonde hair, real soulless face, and scrawnie. He was really tiny in the in the video that I saw or the news clip, and so we knew that we would probably see him. And this was the first time for a lot of people, right, So even the courts, the victim's advocate that was really on our side the whole time. But there were a lot of just like missed pieces. So they said, okay, beat a court by eight thirty. Court starts at nine sharp. There's no guarantee you'll have seats because it's a small courtroom and there's going to be a media and.

23:32 Gadiyata which right right then and there. I know that there's more than I could. We could go on for days, but that right there should be mandatory in my opinion that the family. I mean, I know there's a right the media and all that kind of stuff, but it is a court of law and it is affecting people. Yes, but that's what we were told were They basically said, there's like fourteen seats. We had like ten of us. Yeah, it's going to be seting room only, you know, especially with media in there and his family, right, yeah, I would assume there's going to be people. So we get in and this is this will trip you out, Kelly or piss you off. We got in at nine o'clock and there was another hearing prior to ours of another murder case, this elderly couple who had taken an elderly handicapped man that they killed. That we had to sit through for an hour and a half before the break and hear about this other murder.

24:38 And you're just I'm sure that was exhausting. You're not even in your own Oh no, I. Was just like. It's almost like you have to laugh to keep from crying. Like, seriously, Wow. I was looking around. I have my wife and my mom. How was this every day? How is this my great aunt? Like, what the what's happening? Yeah? And so after the break or at the break, the victims advocate came to us and she was like, I'm so sorry. I did not know this was happening. And she's like, come back at one. Okay, we'll go one by. One, we'll go have lunch, we'll go do the whole thing. Now, this part is significant because it kind of leads into finding out, and I think it's important for me to share it. It's also in my book. We'll talk about later.

25:29 But so we come back at twelve thirty after lunch, we all ate together and talked about how crazy the morning had been already, and we're in this hallway and we are in this old courtroom, like built in the eighteen hundreds, really narrow walls, definitely not like handicap accessible, big like wooden pillars, marble floors, gorgeous, right, and we are in this hallway and three feet across from me is his dad and her little entourage of peers. I don't know if they were friends of his or just friends of hers or family.

26:09 Members, like teenagers, like young fingers, teenagers. Okay, And here's us on one side, and there's like ten of us, right, and then there's them on the other side, and there's no talking between, but there's laughing and there's giggling, which is feels very mocking. Right like there it's the dad doesn't say, he's very stoic, kind of just looks like an asshole, but he's he's just standing there just like my son didn't do this. And then there's the teenagers. It's like and it took me everything to not say something, but I didn't. I kept my composure. Well, God bless you, because I think I would have been escorted out.

26:50 I know me wait, because this is what they did. The elevator opens and outwalks two bailiffs, okay, and then behind the bailiff bailiffs is DM. And for the record, just some my listeners know she doesn't prefer to say his name because we're not. She doesn't want to and that's fine, and I that's wonderful. So DM is our murderer, okay, yes, yeah. So DM is in his little tie and shirt and he's shackled. He's got his hand shackled, his feet are shackled, and he's shuffling behind the two bailiffs and then there's also a bailiff behind him. This is the first time we're seeing him. And where do they choose to walk him?

27:35 Right and funny, right. In the hallway in front of us. And the whole time he's got his head down and he occasionally looks up at his sister's dad gives him a little head nod, and it was like fuming fury, and I could feel it. I was like lunging, but I realized that my mom was doing the same thing, and I reached my arm and I pushed my mom back and I was like, I got this. And then in the same instant, my wife put her arm around me. He knows, she knows, like the audacity that they did this in front of us.

28:18 Do you know did they have I'm just curious, do you know if they had back alleys in the in the courthouse at that time. At this time, I don't know what they have at the end of the day that they chose to do that they never did again. Yeah, it was one time I did see him in a cage and that that brought me a lot of joy. Yeah, yeah, well I ain't no doubt. Yeah, I'm so and I'm not. I'm just sometimes I'm trying to work my brain around through like but these are the small things, which it's not small, but I'm just saying in terms of procedure and process, these small things that if you're not the victim directly affected, that it may not cross her mind that that's an issue, and it just.

29:00 It could have turned into something more, you know. And right, God, you've got your mom's back and your wife has your back, and hopefully someone's got your wife's back to and I'll just won't be a chain link. Of security on each other because you know. Yeah, So, so we. Get we eventually get into the courtroom and this is where we find out the details. Right. So they have a deputy up there, and the deputy is the man who first initially went into the home and he kind of describes the scene. He doesn't you know, he just says deceased victims. He doesn't refer to them, he doesn't say what he saw. He just said too deceased as far as I remember, okay, right again, all my memory.

29:44 Not right, and you get that grace though, yes it is what you remember. We're getting. So then they call the coroner up and she's up there, and she's very gracious, and she speaks very clearly, and it gets to the point where she's, you know, setting the scene basically, and then you know, she takes the deceased bodies, she takes them to the morgue, and then she has to do the autopsy. And then she reads her autopsy report. I'm thinking thirteen, that's all I'm thinking. I'm holding my mom's and holding my wife's hand. And she proceeds to say, Victim one died by multiple stab wounds.

30:33 And the judge stopped her and said, I need you to reread that and state how many. So she then proceeds very calmly and graciously, and she says, Victim one, female, aged seventy six, died by multiple stab wounds. And the judge says how many and she says sixty seven. And it was like I can't even describe the silence in the room like it was. I mean, we're all like, did she just say sixty seven.

31:18 Or did she say six two seven? I know my brain would have been going, wait, did she say six two seven seven or six seven? Yeah? Like I know, but. She's sixty seven. And I looked at my wife, and I looked at my mom, and I mean, I mean complete and utter shock, Like I don't know that I was able to speak. I just had to sit with that. I don't I don't remember much after that, because I do remember them saying victim to mail eighty seven sixty one stad Woods and then doing the math right under twenty eight twenty seven stood out to me. I mean, that's just what it was. She was stabbed more. But knowing, you know, the severity of it all, like.

32:10 It's just yeah, I can imagine you would just almost loose, like at that point everything would go whom you know, and like, I. Mean, it was. I don't even think that the media that was in the room knew how to address it, like it wasn't. I know that the city in itself was like, we do not want to talk about this, We do not want this in the news. We do not want to share that this teenager was capable of doing something like this because it was it was totally on the hush hush. The media really kind of disappeared after that, and because that was that was a lot.

32:50 This is now a sixteen year old kid and and he looks scrong. I mean, I just remember me like, he's so scrawny. But you know, there's the shock fact, like two o'clock in the morning and you know, you wake up to somebody trying to kill you, and you know, like, it's just nuts, It's all nuts. It doesn't make any sense. It is absolutely in line with the fact that we never know what a killer looks like, we never know what a killer sounds like. We never know, and it goes along every type of crime, a rapist, day whatever. There is no guy that jumps out of the bushes dressed in you know, well, I know he was dressed in black, but like the proverbial dressed in black like in movies and stuff like that. This is a sixteen year old sitting in a high school chair that is capable of this. And while some people get turned off to uh, I guess my podcasting style and that I am that graphic. I don't know what it is that puts a burn inside of me though that No, no, no, no no, we're not just gonna say that she was raped.

33:53 We're not or we're just not gonna say that, oh she drowned. No no, no, no no, we're going to back it up and we're not just gonna say, oh, sh was stabs multiple times. That's a fricolutely not because if you want to understand why people are so angry, I mean, I never even knew Grandza, and I'm so angry to think about what she went through. And mister Chip as well, I'm not. But you know, you're. Yeah that if you can't handle it, if you don't want to hear it, not that anybody wants to, but if you if you're not willing to hear what happened to these people, then I don't think that you fully understand the gravity of what outcomes need to come as a result in terms of like punishment or severity or whatever.

34:37 Because you can't pigeonhole what happened to this couple, your grandparents. You can't pigeon that hole that into one sentence. They were murdered. No, no, no, no, no, no, let's get it real, real, down to the nitty gritty. They were eviscerated. They it would become an anatomy lesson, Like what the fuck do you want to talk about? He did all that, like you said it yesterday in your podcast, where he was finished and he got off the bed, well at least he thought he was finished, and he took a breath, and then he was like, I'm. Going back for more, right, And those were his own words that he described it that way. That wasn't that wasn't me trying to be salacious. That was not me trying to Yeah.

35:31 It's perspective, it's I didn't think about it that way. So when I heard your words, which were his words, it also just put me back into that. Like, you know, you think about how long one minute is, right, what can happen in one minute? He was there for roughly half an hour, right, and what he was capable of doing. I mean you talked about it. You know, he was trying to take out the eye and you know, looking at the forehead. And he even said, and this is small in comparison to everything else, but the fact that he even bragged that he punched mister Chip after he was deceased.

36:14 What in the world. Yeah, you know, I avoid if I see a dog hitting the road, I avoid hitting it again. It doesn't matter that it's dead. I mean, you don't that, you know. And he just seemed so aloof but yet so filled with the excitement, which is a horrific word to use. But the dopamin words, his words, not mine. This is just unhinged. It's absolutely unhinged, unwarranted. And that's part of the you know, I struggle, and I just want to tell you this as a as a friend, I guess, even though we're new friends. But I sometimes struggle with the fact that I don't want to retraumatize victims when I tell their family stories because I fully recognized these these are not stories, these are your life. But in the same time, I want people to know this is what happened to this wonderful human being, both of these wonderful human beings, because that's the reality.

37:13 You know, you watch a forty eight hours episode or you watch a forensic file and wow, there was an hour of the you know, meat and potatoes of what happened. But there are long standing, small yet huge things that encompass these cases, and here we are. How many years has it been since this happened. It's been thirteen years, and here I am still talking to you like it happened yesterday. Yeah, it wouldn't be like this, so oh correct. Yeah, you're a lot of work and I only work done. Yeah you mean like mental like some therapy and some uh. Talk about this. I have. I have done a lot of work to be able to I still am very affected by it. I still it. Yesterday after listening to your podcast, I had to take could I had to take a moment and it lasted most of the day.

38:04 I'm so sorry. I want you to know not your no, I. Don't want you to apologize because you just said it. It's important for people to understand that it is not just one word. It was. The way in which they left this world is something that actually does happen. I used to say, really up front, it's the night. It's an actual nightmare that it. Like I remember as a kid. I don't want the Boogeyman to come out from underneath my bed and kill me in the night, or you know, I go to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and like, Ooh, there's gonna be somebody in the house like that shit is fucking real, and it happens, and you don't think it's going to happen to you. I would never think it would have happened to me, and it did.

38:48 And yeah, like and if it happens to you, it happens to me. Is how I feel like you We are you know what I'm saying. We're all in this community together, and these animals are running amongst us, and so when it when it happens to you, I don't care. That's all the way in California. I feel like it's happening to me and to my grandmother, and I put myself in your shoes, and that's why I get so fiery about it and why I get to go into the detail. So I wanted to ask you this. So, prior to this, and I don't mean any like personal like situations, but prior to this, did you have any involvement in the justice system, like as far as knowing someone who was a victim or anything like this at all? So you came into this zero zero experience and was it anything like once?

39:39 Okay, that's about it, And what was the case a lawyer. I mean, I didn't get selected, So you didn't even get selected, No, And gosh, if I ever do, I'm kind of excited. Girl. I was just in a jury selection pool for a massive trial and I never got to get up there because they dismissed our whole panel because someone said something they shouldn't have. But I was so ready, girls, I was going to weigh that evident. But yeah, so you you had no experience. So my question is, did it in any way come across like were you dumbfounded by how different the experience was than what you thought it would be? Is? Oh, yeah, I was thinking, like in my head, I've watched s v U right, Special Victims Unit, and I've watched Boston Legal back in the day, was like one of my favorite shows. So I was anticipating like quick, yeah, like it's like like a slam of the gavel and these big moments. It was so long and tedious and all these you know, like I grew up in student leadership, right, so we had the gavel and we had like bring the meeting to order and you're out of line and blah blah blah, and you know, like there was always like the I appeal.

40:57 But were teenagers, right, right, So you don't you don't realize that that you're trying to quickly close this book and there is no quick to anything in a court of law, and specifically of something of this magnitude. Yeah, and you know, still finding things out to this day, like thirteen years later. Like you have to understand too, that being in court doesn't mean you learn everything. You learn what they need to talk about in order to prove guilty or innocent, right, So you don't you don't get all the details. And I'm sure you were having to bite your tongue at some points too when they would be presenting stuff and you're like, you know more about your grandza than they do. You know, they're doing their best to prosecute or or to defend, and then you're thinking to yourself, wait a minute, there's more to this or they should know, you know, I don't feel like they're they're fully grasping who she.

41:49 You know, you have to talk a lot about grands and ship, you know, like you talked about their housekeeper. She was there. But other than that, they didn't subpoena any family members to get up there, and they did that intentionally, like it was thought out to be. You know, there were subpoenas for his family and people that had to get on the stands. But if any of our family was subpoena, then we wouldn't be able to be in the courtroom. And really none of our family had anything to do with it. Yeah, you talk about how wonderful they were, but at the end of the day, that's. Not going to do anything right because it doesn't matter if they were wonderful or even if they weren't. I mean, you don't murder people like that. I mean, that's just I mean, yeah, we're not.

42:30 There for them. Unfortunately, we're there for him. Right, yeah, the Lord to him. Yeah, but there there were definitely times where you were you know that when he described killing grandson Chip in his confession and they played it in court, my mom and I chose to sit separately in the courtroom. We were there for a good five and a half weeks. She sat in the front row on one side, and I sat in the middle with my wife and this woman Mary, who was Chip's stepdaughter, and we just kind of kept our distance intentionally for I think I don't even remember why we did it.

43:11 Intentionally though, well for your own reasons. Yeah, just yeah, that's okay. There was a point where they start to play the confession, right, and it's five hours, right, so we have to like give through like the whole first three hours of him just like bullshitting with the the FBI agent. And then it becomes the part where he just starts to describe. And there was something beautiful that happened in the courtroom and my mom rose. She stood up, and she held her head up high, and her hands were clenched on the side of her and she just held them and she looked up and listened, and I knew what she was doing. And everybody in the courtroom was like, what the hells have a name? Would she have a gun?

44:01 Like she was she The bailiffs were all on alert. And she did it to honor Grandza because she couldn't be with her mom when she died. This was the only way that she could be with her mom and show her honor and respect and be a part of her crossing over. And it was one of the most powerful things I've ever witnessed in my life because she held that and that you know, everybody was I mean, the jury was watching the and nobody knew who we were because we weren't allowed to interact with people, right and very clear, like we don't talk to the jury, we don't talk to a media, Like there's we are, They don't. They have no idea that we're family. I would you know, they probably put.

44:50 Yeah together, right, because sometimes when you go to a courtroom, I don't people think it's like a wedding, you know, visa groom and the That's not the case. But I'm sure they figured out you weren't going to go sit behind him necessity, right, I would assume you sat on the other side. So, yes, I didn't be next to him at all. And he was right in front of my mom. Yeah, so she's like over it. And she had a bodyguard too that she had hired for the trial because she just needed somebody that could ground her and he. Your mom, Yeah, your mom hired a bodyguard for herself. Yes, she needed somebody that was not family, that was not related to anything that happened.

45:35 A neutral party to yeah. Just and he was a five time black belt. He was like the six foot five giant of am and but he was had a very calming presence and he just kind of like held the space for her. That never occurred to me that that would be something to even do. But I find it extremely interesting because she recognized. She needed to feel safe. Yeah, and you're and you're also to her credit, just like you said, sitting three feet away from that guy's family too. And I'm not I'm not saying they would have done anything. I'm just saying you need that safe space, that comfort to know you've got someone who's got your back.

46:23 And and I would need someone probably to I know myself. I'd want someone to stop me from doing something stupid. I know myself. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So power to your mom. Hey, you tell your mama. I said, power to you mama on that mood. But that's that's very, very very interesting, And it takes a very strong person you included you, your wife, your family to take to take all you fell on, all the swords because Granzo is already in heaven and gone and you're having to hear it, see it, smell it, taste it, relive it over and over and over again. And that's a test cement to your strength too. I hope that you know that, and you're doing so much grand and. Grandson instilled this in me, like she prepared me for this.

47:07 Yah. And you know, in the beginning, I didn't know what was happening, but it took me through therapy and some you know, just some other things. You know. I had a kid a month a year after Grandza's death, a year and a half, I guess, and she she brought so much light and energy in a positive way. And I named her after my grandsa. So it's I have that that's like a fuel of like you know, Granza lives on because she, my little tiny human. Is so court in and of itself. Was this just whole event and experience that was not something you ever anticipated like it. You know that it would be in the movies they wrap it up in thirty minutes, you know, But you've got real life here and that's nowhere near.

47:52 So but tell me about this. I kind of got a chuckle about this, and I touched on it in the episode, but I want you to talk about it with the listeners. But you got letter from jail, from two criminals, from two inmates that wrote you a letter. Talk to me about that. So, yeah, we had to go through a later trial like a retrial fitness hearing a couple of years after, and well, I guess we'll talk about that. In a minute. Yeah we will. But that's okay. We'n go all over the place. Our listeners are used to me. That's fine. So there they had to transport him from his prison in San Diego, California, to back up to Davis for this hearing, and he was in the hallways of the jail, right that's up there, and there were these two gentlemen who Latino. I don't know if they were gang or anything like that. I just know that they were Latino, and they saw him in the hallways and decided in that moment to show honor and to show respect for their elders because they knew him, and they knew of him, they knew the story, they knew what he had done. And in their culture, uh, they believe in honoring elders. There's so much respect. And as a code of honor to my grands and to Chip, they took matters into their own hands.

49:20 So he got a little tuna, we call it. He got a little tuna. I mean, they they definitely did some work on him, and and I mean that with uh, you know, all due respect, like he's in jail, and he probably had some handcuffs on. I don't know, maybe maybe they didn't, maybe it was intentional. I mean, but at the end of the day. The next day we had to see him in court and he was definitely a little banged up. Yeah, bruised and uh a black eye. Oh well, what we don't like we don't like violence. Now, we don't like we don't we don't like it now? Like what what you don't like that? Oh? And so it was a few months later, after everything had been said and done, we had heard from the DA that he got a little banged up in the jail.

50:07 Well there's a fo you know, yeah, I mean, it happens, all right. Well, so you know I worked in prison. Just you know that I worked at Angola, right, all male maximum security penitentiary. And the thing is this, there's there's honor amongst criminals in a in a way in their code, okay, And so I'm not saying everything's great, but there is a code. And you don't touch children, you don't hurt women, and you don't mess with the disabled or the elderly. I mean, that's just the code. And so if you're going to. Get out of prison too. Right, Oh yeah, absolutely, but you're right, touche toh. But to that, but to that point that even people who have murdered people like over drug her or over some other stupid ship, they still recognize you don't do that, Like there's a there's a line too, because because they didn't, they didn't have any culpability in all of this, and so hey, if you got to tune up, you got to tune up.

51:02 But then they wrote you a letter, right. They did. So we didn't think anything of it after the fact, Like it just kind of came and went, and my mom received a letter in the mail addressed to her and to myself, and it went into this this whole thing about we see you and we want to honor. We went and did what we did because we honor our elders, and we just imagined that it was our grandparents and what we would have done had it been our grandparents. So it was just simple and genuine, and I just remember feeling so wonderful because we hadn't received any letters, not even from like the murders family, and an apology, nothing like nothing years later for something as small as a little ass whooping in prison, in mental and mental lot.

52:07 But even without that ass whooping, the fact that two people that were not even family or family and honestly, we're on the wrong side of of you know, I guess the law still had the Hey, let's talk about humanity, had the humanity to tap into it and recognize that Granza and mister Chip, you know that that's that's crossing the line. I mean, so that's very interesting. And I don't want to sit here and be like, you know, O, violence is great all kind stuff, because it's not. But sometimes, damn it, it feels good to know that someone got what they deserve. Yeah, okay, just. The idea that we see you, Yeah, like you couldn't you know, Like, I'm not going to promote violence. I'm not going to teach my kids to knock somebody out and them, but like you definitely have to put on your guard, right, Like I was standing in that hallway ready to pounce on that little tiny twerp. But you know, at the end of the day, like it just felt good that we were seeing.

53:05 So then okay, so he gets convicted and he goes to prison, right, and then we move into and I covered the whole like the law change and the proposition and all of that, but you were never It was very clear because I looked at the panel as far as what I saw that the panel of people who went up to make this law, make this proposition and make this change, it told you who all was on like, uh, you know, the committee or whatever. And I didn't see any victims, advocates or anything on there. And I'm not I'm not attacking these Yeah, I don't want to. I don't want to just totally attack because I think we both agreed in previous conversations that they had good intentions maybe with what they were trying to accomplish, but didn't think it through all the way, like the full because it was supposed to be for non violent offenders, correct non violent offenders with a drug chargers or something and try to whatever. But then when you start talking juveniles, it kind of circumvented the whole you know thing there.

54:13 So when you first heard about it, how'd you find out number one? And number two? What did you try to do to combat that? So when we found out about Prop. Fifty seven, and that was in February of twenty eighteen, I was this is where my law degree comes in a law degreed. I didn't ever sign up to. Get hey, but they have those at the School of Hard Knocks. I hear that you can get a law degree to the School of Hard Knocks. Yeah. I never knew I needed to know law as much as I did once this all happened. And I'm not professing that I'm any. I am not a lawyer, yeah, and I don't have I don't have an expertise in it.

55:00 Nor should you have to be, though to understand our laws. Therefore, the people there should be a book that's like law for dummies, Yeah, you know, like just to understand the basics. It could be just like courtroom stuff. Or there's no how to do this. You just have to figure it out. There's no manual. And I was on fire when I heard this. I was like, what the actual and I'm like, I need to know. I need to understand what this proposition is. Okay, So so I do my research and I'm like, okay, so it doesn't it seems pretty harmless. We just have to basically do this fitness hearing and it's a ninety nine point nine percent chance that it'll everything will just work out and be fine. Ninety nine point nine seems perfect.

55:50 It's not, but if it feels like it, it feels like And that's how we're going into it because our DA is feeling really confident, like you know, we did we checked all the boxes, and my understanding was it was now, you know, the juvenile judge needed to determine if he should have been tried as an adult and if he's not, if he shouldn't have been tried as an adult, then then we would have to do a retrial and he would be a juvenile conviction, which he could be a free man in a matter of four years. So you know, I'm wavering on the side of like, no, we should be good like we should. He should be in prison. What he did right, It was doing what he did. There's no way in hell anybody's letting this man out. But law is law, right, so we have to like check all the boxes. So we're going into the summer of twenty eighteen and the TEDx talk comes out.

56:53 And y'all found out about that Ted talk from how from the DA. The DA called us and they were like, hey, there's a video, and unfortunately we hadn't really addressed like that. Who should find out first in the family. I should always find out first in the family. My mom should never be the first person anybody calls, because anytime my mom is called, it is very traumatic and she can't wrap her head around it or hearing anything, and she panics and she goes into her meltdown in big time. And I also have the PTSD, but I am a little more level headed around it because it was my grandmother.

57:38 This is her mom. This is like, I have to protect my mom the best that I can. And so they called my mom first and we established right after. Yeah, it always goes to me first. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To their credit, I would like to say, to their credit, though, I would like to say it sounds like they were very involved in updating you and letting you very in. My phone was constantly ringing. When Amanda called, who was our DA? I knew that was important and I needed to pick up a Flora Valdez called it. I don't know if you need to take their last names out, but they would. When she called, I knew something was prevalent. I needed to pick up an answer.

58:19 So a note to DA's out there that it really meant a lot too that you knew, like, please, thank you for not, you know, for being abreast of keeping us up to date on everything, and so you don't. Need to do that. I think that they knew they needed to do it with us. Yeah, I mean, it's good public service too to prepare you. And so they called you and said, there's this video out, yes, just be prepared. Or you know. Prop fifty seven is allowing a juvenile offender to have a rehabilitation opportunity, and he was selected to be a part of it, and there's a video, and I there's no way in hell I'm watching that video.

59:03 Why would I watch a video that would honor him? And my mom just didn't. She just was like, what video? And she googled it and she watched it in its entirety. And I still to this day have not watched it. I refuse to. I can't even read I can't even read it. I have seen snippets I have, you know, forty eight hours. We did it at Crime Con. They had parts of that that they played on the stage, and it's just I don't want to hear his voice. I don't want to. I don't want to honor any of his words. And to put him on a stage. I don't I don't want to get off task here, but to put him on a stage seems so. Like tone deaf in regards to this Marriotte Formoh because in okay, in theory, I can understand that we do need to. We don't need to, but we we could take the opportunity to see that there is good in everybody and some way, shape or form however where And I went and I looked at her website. I went and read through everything, and I've got to tell you it was just so like read the room, ma'am. Read the room, because while you're over there throwing glitter and finding brilliance in people, time out for just a second.

1:00:16 Because if you don't acknowledge what someone has done and then you want to quote unquote tap into their brilliance, uh, well then I find that to be the most unbrilliant. I don't know what the word would be, but I don't understand because they never reached out to you. She never asked, and I know maybe don't want to ask permission, but she never said, is this something that you would like to maybe have a rebuttal ted talk to or both sides or. Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, sure, sure I do. Because I think and I want to say this. I don't know if you've ever watched the Ted talk that the Columbine shooters other did Sue Cleebold. I was very interested in hers because she wrote a book.

1:01:08 About everything that happened. But she was very clear, every dime of this book will go to mental health, training, counseling, whatever. This is too in no way to make money off of what my son did. I'm not going to make a dime. And then when she got up on the Ted Talk, she apologized profusely. It was genuine, it was I didn't know. I you know, I've tried to apologize to these families. I know they don't some accept it, some don't, But this is what I did wrong as a parent, and this is what I think. How you know what he did wrong? Blah blah blah. I thought that that Ted talk was amazing because she accepts responsibility in the way that she can. To throw this guy on that stage and say, let's not look at what you did to these people, let's tap into your brilliance is the sickest thing I've ever heard.

1:01:59 Yeah, and to be that naive to not I mean, had she looked into him, I think that she would have maybe reconsidered and giving him a stage of in in any capacity, and to post it on YouTube, of all things. Like YouTube is everywhere. It's all over the world. Anybody can watch this, right, it's everywhere. And she gave him a platform to talk not about what he did, but about his brilliance inside right and about humanity. So he knows about humanity, right, So go ahead, I.

1:02:41 Was gonna say. And this is where I think I got frustrated him. I don't think my listeners know this, but I do. So that's why I want to talk about it. But instead of the gracious thing of being like, you know what, maybe I missed the boat on this one or whatever. I was told that you, she blocked you. She blocked you and your family from any type of contacting with her. Can you tell me anything about that? Yeah? So we At first, I'm not mad. I am upset at the fact that we were not considered. Okay, and you have a right to do whatever you want and create whatever program you want, but I think that there is a level of responsibility that you have to own.

1:03:25 And I wanted to make sure. She knew that not to mention. That's part of rehabilitation. By the way, you can't reb rehabilitated. And if you don't accept and state exactly. Acceptance is one of the hardest levels. Okay, we're on the same page. Yes, So I contact her through LinkedIn, through Facebook, through whatever social media was around at the time. I sent her the same letter with each thing. I was blocked immediately, no response, nothing, crickets. I wrote the mentor was this guy name? I want to say it was Jim Johnson. He was also a part of the brilliance inside. He was the mentor that was helping DM do his speech.

1:04:11 And I could have the name incorrect, but I'm pretty confident it was Jim something allegedly. Allegedly, that's okay. There you go. Allegedly. So Jim responded, but it was very much on this on the path of this is how we found out that we don't do any research about what they had done because we don't want to focus on their crime. We want to focus on their rehabilitation. And then I was blocked after that because he didn't want to continue that conversation. There were two hundred people in that audience in the prison, two hundred people that stood up for DM and gave him a standing ovation after his you know, humanity talk, and.

1:04:58 That half of was fabricated great of course, or unvalid to. Sound brilliant, right, You just need he needed to figure out how he can manipulate the system into getting out off this new proposition that had passed, and he needed to look pretty right. He needed to show these people that he was he was a good citizen in prison, and he was he was doing all this work and changing and so that was the message that we were trying to get to this woman. And ultimately our goal was to get the video taken down because nobody needs to give him any kind of spotlight. And especially that timing was horrible, Yes, horrible, terrible.

1:05:43 So do you know how hard it is to get a YouTube video taken down? I have no idea. It's virtually impossible. And that's what I was told over and over again ted X. We contacted ted talk right because ted X is like a sub category of tech, and they actually responded and said that they were going to do everything in their power to have help us get this removed. So kudos to them doing the right thing, respecting the victim that hey, that puts a feather in their cat for me. They responded within hours of our first response to them, our first notification to them, and we within forty eight hours of my wife and I working relentlessly to get this video taken down. We have a really good friend who works for Google, and all of a sudden it's just disappeared.

1:06:40 I find that to be wonderful. I think that's a great win. But there should be a learning lesson in this for everybody that I get the project that they were trying to do. I do in and of itself. I get the project that you were trying to do, but they missed the boat. And one of the biggest things here is that failure to accept that you've hurt some A simple apology just saying I'm so sorry. That you are hurt by this. We will learn, we will grow, and we would love to have your input maybe in a future project. Something would have been the right thing to do. The idea of like the warden or somebody who has to approve the prisoners doing these programs, which I am all about rehabilitation. Yeah, if you are capable of it, we know that he's not capable of it based off of his hair assessment, like he's incapable of rehabilitation.

1:07:36 And that's the thing about a psychopath of his level and his aptitude is that he was intelligent. He scored high on intelligence tests, but he also scored off the charts for being a psychopath. His skill in life, if you want to give him the brilliance is to deceive, coerce, manipulate, and charm. There's your skill. Why don't you make the video on that? But you know, and you yeah, right, maybe I'll make the video now and it'll be called brilliantly psychotic on the inside. But so, and I don't want to go off from that. But this is something else that people need to think about because I'm guilty of it too, not thinking about the long term effects that this can have. But then you give this platform to this guy, and there's something that people need to know that in prisons, the foundation of rehabilitation today currently is victim offender dialogue. It is the foundation where these offenders have the if they want to move forward in rehabilitation and in these programs that even if let's say you were not willing to accept a letter from him, which I don't think you would.

1:08:42 But let's say that you were not willing to well, what they'll do then to say, you know what, They're not ready. To hear anything that you have to say. However, step one is that you will write a letter that one day if they want it, expressing your whatever it is that you would like to say, and they put that in their jacket or their file and it's there. So guess the hell. What if your whole project here is about rehabilitation, then maybe this is a suggestion ask the wardens, ask whoever is in charge of these programs. Have they even taken the first step of that victim offender dialogue to apologize? Because if you're not willing to apologize, I don't need you on my damn show. That's not rehabilitation. And so that knowing the insides and the outsides, I think is so incredibly important here to your to your point that you know, so he didn't reach out.

1:09:35 He believes that hurt people, hurt people. Hurt people. Yeah, but you know what, I honed in on something I don't. I don't think you have heard this part yet. He says, I learned something so profound hurt people, hurt people. But then his verb verbiage changes in the very next line. And I want to make sure I tell you this because he says not all of us are evil. And I was like time. Time out because nobody said anything about evil. You said, hurt people, hurt people. And then what you're saying is that evil people hurt people. That's what you're saying, which. Is just just dotting the eye and crossing the t of what's going on. So if you pay attention to language, which is a psychogy, and I'm not lecturing to you, I'm sorry. I know you know this, but to the listener, this is part of what a psychopath does. Is they use their language to control, conceive, and or deceive and all these things. It's it's paint by numbers. If you look at his at his speech, you know. So as far as the penalty that he did get, or that's what you did to work to try to combat the first proposition, you did get that scrub from the internet.

1:10:41 And then came about thirteen ninety one House Bill thirteen ninety one, which. Was Senate Bill thirteen ninety one. Excuse me, what's that? I meant? Senate Bill I mispose, so you're sorry. Senate Bhil thirteen ninety one was basically waiting in the in the back ground. Once Prop fifty seven came into effect, they were like, Ooh, now's the time we're gonna put this one out, and Senebil thirteen ninety one basically took the law out of the district attorney's hand put it into the judge's hand, but then said, but if you're fourteen or fifteen, you'll never get tried as an.

1:11:22 Adult ever, no matter ever what you. Do, no matter what the crime, no matter what the crime. So you could go into a school and you can shoot up anybody and everybody that you want, and if you're fourteen or fifteen, you will be no matter what, free at the age of twenty five, with no parole, with no history, with nothing. You got a clean slate. When you're twenty five, you could be in a gang and you could go shoot up somebody. You're fourteen or fifteen, you're out at twenty five, Like it's ludicrous. Oh yeah, Chris, blanket law across for everybody. Doesn't matter what type of crime it is.

1:12:05 It could be I'm it could be Grandza. Oh it could be it could be Grandza. He So they decide they're going to put this in front of the Senate, and the House signs off, the Senate signs off. So next on August thirty first, that bill goes to the governor. Governor Jerry Brown receives Senate Bill thirteen ninety one. He has thirty days to sign it into place. So I found out on the thirty first of August and my Da called me, and she her name's Amanda Zambor, and we are friends now because this united us on a front that I never thought I would be capable of doing or you know. So she calls me and she's like, I do not want to tell you this, Like shit is real right now, and this I cannot guarantee you that he's going to stay in prison. I cannot guarantee anything because of what this bill is doing. And because we had this fitness hearing that was now in place because of Prop. Fifty seven, which was scheduled for October first, So timeline August thirty first, October first, we have thirty days for that governor to sign that bill into effect and then hope if he doesn't sign it and he vetos it then we're okay, because we'll do the fitness hearing, he'll get tried as an adult and YadA YadA.

1:13:36 I assume ain't going assuming. Right, So I said to Amanda, what do we gotta do? And she goes, well, right now, we're doing a press confidence on the seventh of September. And I said, I'm going to be there. I'm in Colorado. This is California. I'll be there. She's like, oh my god, yes please. And I said, who's at the press commence. She's like, all the news outlets are going to be there. We're going to talk about this bill and how it's going to affect. And I said, who else will be there? She goes the four district attorneys who are opposed to it because they've already been stripped of their responsibility to determine if it is a juvenile or an adult case, right, because that got put already got put into the judge's hands with Prop. Fifty seven. So these four das were the four das that had the most cases I guess that are going to be affected by thirteen ninety one.

1:14:30 And there's like nine, there's. Not a lot nine. That's nine too many out of. Like me that sixty thousand cases or whatever it was, it was a crazy number. Out of sixty thousand cases, only nine were going to be affected by this law. And of those nine cases, they're all pretty bad. I can tell you every single family member. I can tell you every single story behind the families that are victims to these types of heinous crimes. And so we're gonna we're doing this press conference and I well, like I need to understand this bill, and here comes law for dummies again. I'm all right, I know what Prop fifty seven is. I'm now an expert of thirteen ninety one and I'm speaking to the state of California. That's what I'm doing.

1:15:19 So locally so people can see how important this case is. It's everywhere. Even though it's in California, it can happen anywhere. Because we just had a shooting here at our mall in Louisiana. Well, there was a kid that was not the shooter, but was you know, tied into the mix and being searched as he thought he was a part of it. We still don't have all the answers on this one, but regardless, when they arrested him, he had drugs and guns and all of that, and he was put in our jail. Well, it just so happens. That he had been arrested just prior to that in school as a young teenager because he had a gun that quote unquote went off in a classroom and then they thought it was appropriate to take off, you know, his ankle monitor before he even went to court for that.

1:16:02 So to think that there's a blanket law that these that these my point is that juvenile judges. I'm not saying anything bad about them, but when you put all of this in one person's hand, one bad decision can lead to more victims. Yes, you know, So. I just relate to what you're saying because it's happening right now and we're seeing it. Just because you're a kid doesn't mean that you're not capable of horrendous things, right, because if you would have shot somebody in that classroom in California, if he would have shot somebody in that classroom because he's a young teen, it wouldn't even matter what if it was your kid.

1:16:42 Yeah, that's crazy. And for like a like thinking about a gang, right and like they could the gang members could use the youngest gang members to do the biggest crimes because it doesn't matter. You're gonna get out in ten years. You'll be fine, and you'll be a martyr and you'll be a big dog in a gang and blah blah blah blah blah. You're going to represent you know, Like I'm not trying to be enable, like gangs are a legit thing. No, I know, Come on, Like, how come I, the non law person, Yeah, is like aware of the capacity. How stupid this law is, And like I get Prop fifty seven, I would have voted for it. I would have voted for it hands down. I think it's important to really dial into the factors of why a juvenile is tried as an adult. Of the people that were in the state of California at the time of this, nine juveniles are being tried as an adult. Nine. That's not a lot of people. It's a small percentage. So of those nine, let's be smart about it. Yeah, how did they commit those crimes?

1:17:50 Right? Right? And the fact that but and to me, nine there were nine juveniles that were capable of doing it. Like on the other side of it, I'm like, there's not just this isn't one in one hundred years. This is nine right now that these cases are affecting. So you become an advocate for this, which you didn't plan on doing. But I wanted to veto this law. I had. I was going to do anything and everything to veto this law. And so I really became the face of SB thirteen ninety one. I love it, and with my wife's brilliance expertise when it comes to technical things. Shout out planning, and you and I aren't those technical people. I'm not. We've got a petition going. We had over ten thousand signatures on the petition to all about just vetoing this law. We got to get rid of this law.

1:18:38 We got to make sure Jerry Brown knows that he should not sign this into law. And then you know, we've got time, but we're you know, he has thirty days. He could do it any day, so we need to get in front of him. The faster we can get in front of him, the better. So then we plan a rally and it's a peaceful protest is what we called it, because it wasn't to cause a big scene. It was to let people know that this could affect them, the citizens, This could affect them, so we flew again to California. I think I flew to California three times that month. Which I want to point out, all of this is a financial investment on your part to have to take off work, to fly to do all of this. Yes, yes, And I do want to point out through all of this, I worked for this company that was incredible and they from day one never asked me to put a vacation day in. They never asked me to put in bereavement nothing. They for the entirety of the trial, for the entirety of all the times flying back.

1:19:39 And forth, amazing. They were an incredible company. Their name was Noodles and Company, or is Noodles in Company? But they were really pivotal because it wasn't just me, it was my wife as well who also worked for this. That's people loving people, That's what that is. Yeah, it was a really incredible company to work for. So I I'm out there for the third time for our peaceful protest, and this was September twenty seventh of twenty eighteen, and we stood in front of the Capitol. We all had T shirts made, we had and I had a picture of Granza just like this angelic picture of Granza and it said vetosb thirteen ninety one. We had the petitions, we had banners, we had posters, we had all nine families represented. Every single family came and talked about their individual who they'd lost, and I mean we became a family. We're still all connected, we still talk on Facebook and Instagram, and we are all still very rooted because of this experience. And we had a ton of representation there. We had forty eight hours had picked up our story in the beginning of September, and we're like, we're going to be there. We're going to be we're going to record, we're going to interview people, we're gonna do all things. So and then the news was there because you know, I'm like, let's get everybody. Yeah, So we had a lot of representation there. And then forty eight hours somehow pulled some strings and got us into the Governor's office. So at one point during the rally,

1:21:09 we marched to the front doors of the Capitol together all I don't know sixty of us that were there, and in the process of. Singing, I wish it was sixty seven of y'all just say that it was sixty seven of. Y'alls roughly, and we marched in to the courthouse and it was this, you know, Sacramento Capital. It's like huge. And we get in there and everybody asked me to be the representative to go to speak to the governor. And I took the petitions because we had so many signatures, and I stood at the doors of the Governor's office and I turned around, I looked at everybody and I said, I'm doing this for Granza, I'm doing this for Chip.

1:21:57 And I looked at each person who was representing I'm doing this, or Maddie Middleton in Santa Cruz, I'm doing this for Dido Mendez of Tracy, California. And I literally just went down the aisle of saying their names and honoring them and through my tears, and I walked in that through the doors and I was greeted by like I don't know ten officers and the governor's assistant. And I went into this room and I was like so overwhelmed with just the reality that we could do this. And his executive he didn't come, of course, I don't even know if he was there, but his executive assistant was there and she was like, her name was Gabby, and we just started talking and I'm like, we're here because we really believe that this bill should not go into place, and if he could you help us by vedoing this bill. And I just kind of like went into it a little bit with her, and I handed her the petition. I was like, here's a hard copy of it, and we're just really hopeful that he's going to do the right thing in this and she said thank you. She shook my hand, and then I walked out and we all walked out together like this team.

1:23:07 And I was like, we've done everything that we can't there's nothing else we can do, right, It's all it's a waiting game. And so this September thirtieth came and I'm at my mom's house. I'm still in Sacramento because it's last minute. It's like eight twenty four pm. And we get the notification on her phone that he's signed the bill. He signed the bill into law, and his response to us, the families that the nine families was it's going to be okay, because what will happen is every year, after the individuals are twenty five years old, they still have to stand before parole and the parole board will determine if they have our you know, able to go back into the community. Okay, So then if they do get to go back in the community, the DA still has the opportunity to make some stances, but for every two years, so the rest of their life, they have to stand before.

1:24:11 Parole board, which means for every two years, for the rest of your life, my life. You're going to be my. Mom's life, and the rest of my wife's life and all. Of those, and God forbid something happen to you the rest of my life because I'm on Grands's team. I'm in Grands's gang. I'm creating Grands's gang, all right. And I will be there every. Day for the rest you know. Ever, so so we fell into this category now where he will not be tried as an adult. But we had a little time, a little window. This was now September thirtieth. We had three full months because it wasn't going to an effect until January first, So our fitness hearing started the next day October first. So fancy it all worked out and the judge had an opportunity. He knew this bill. The judge when we started the when he called the thing into you know, hit his gabble, he said, I am very aware of what's going on in the news right now with SB thirteen ninety one, and I am an advocate of continuing in this process with the fitness hearing.

1:25:23 And it was like, because we have thirty we have three months. He could still be tried as an adult because the fitness hearing covers us until the end. Of I Got you, I Got you. Does that make sense? Yeah, I got you. So then he decides we're doing that. We're doing the fitness hearing. So for the next two weeks we basically have a retrial. It's not a trial. It's like we're just going to dive into all the things that he did and why we determined that he was best fit to be tried as an adult. So it was a little more graphic, a little more ainus when it came to the nature of the crimes, the torture part, you know, learning that my grandson, you know, defended herself and fought for her life and that she wouldn't die. Oh god, that is that wrecked me. She just that lady just she just thought old lady just wouldn't die. And then a week into it, he took the stand, and in him taking the stand, he wanted to talk about his rehabilitation and the things that he had done, which was only the ted X top thing, and he talked about the same things. You know, he had hurt. You know, he had hurt people, and he was sorry that he hurt people. But he didn't say, I'm sorry I killed her grandmother. I genuinely am very sorry that I did that, and I am a changed man. No, he did not say that. He's like I heard people as he looked

1:26:53 down at the ground, you know, I'm sorry I hurt people. So, you know, then the judge ruled in our favor and he should have been tried as an adult. And basically at the end of the fitness hearing, he said, case closed. So he's done. He's cooked. He's he's cooked. He does not fall, he will not fall into SB thirteen ninety one unless an appeal goes into his favor. And so he tried for three full years of appeals. And I read through him. I read through them everything I could find online. But luckily the right side of things prevailed. So he is in prison. And I did I did say on Patreon, and I have a picture of his current doc status and all of that which I mentioned. But before we close, I do want to talk about your book real quick because I'm very excited, and I fully expect a signed copy and I'll.

1:27:59 Pay the postage get it, Okay, fully expect because I want to read it. But can you tell me just real quick about the book and the plans and when it should get out, come out and all that if you know? Yes, So, I actually I am speaking with my PR person today to determine an official published date, so that is in the very near future. I have been promoting it. It is complete, it is in a place where we're working on the final touches such as the cover and the layout, now that kind of stuff. It is a true crime narrative slash memoir. It's its own entity of a book. I don't have never read anything like it, because I do a different thing. The book title is will Be sixty seven Times, and it's the story of murder and grief and the radical power of showing up.

1:28:56 Oh. I love it. It's a love story to who Granza was to me and you know who she was in this world. It's the story of grief and losing somebody that had such an impact on my life. But the most important thing was how I found my superpower, and that superpower was instilled in me by her and all the things that she had taught me through my life to be able to show up for her in a way that I have been able to do in the last thirteen years. And it's that journey. It's it is not It is not an easy read in a sense of there are graphic details. It is a true crime. I mean, I'm writing this because it is a true crime, but it's really about how she showed me how to be this person and how to still be alive and well and present, and how she lives through me every day. And I think that as hard as it is to read in certain parts, it's so so beautiful. It is a beautiful book that represents who she was in this world to not just me, but to everybody that saw her. You know, people used to tell me all the time around her funeral, your grandson was my best friend, and I was like, she's my best friend. Everybody thought she was their best friend, and that was the woman that she was. She made you feel like you were the only person that mattered

1:30:27 in the room because she believed. She believed that and to share that piece of her with everybody. Like I remember being a little jealous at the funeral, being like, well, but she was my best friend. But no, like she had so many people that she impacted. And she may not have been, you know, a president of the United States, even though she thought I'd be. She didn't have a ton of success in her life when it came to her a career. She was an engineer, a technician that worked at pack Bell in the phone company. Right. She it wasn't fancy. She didn't have a fancy car. She didn't have an elaborate house, even though I thought it was, like I thought it was the best place in the world to go to her cozy cottage. And she always had a Christmas tree out like she there were things that she did that just were like beautiful things of recognition, right, but not something you write a book about. And so I wrote a book about who she was. And you know, like she was the woman that sat on the couch at the end of the day with a scoop of ice cream or a glass of wine, like Chip rubbed her feet and they watched crime shows because that was their thing. They loved crime.

1:31:46 You know. I always said that when I was in the courtroom, she was sitting next to me holding the space because she didn't want to miss anything. It was her show. She got her own show, right, yeah. She did. Well you know why she was there. But she Hey, that's okay, everybody's here. I need to be here. I want to tell you. Uh, oh, did you push a button? Can you hear me? Oh? No, Grandsa, that's twice. No, h.

1:33:16 She's here. Okay, I'm never using this microphone ever again. Him my life. So sorry.

1:33:56 I mean, she just wanted me to tell you that she's present, you girl. Well listen. I just want to let you know that this book is something that I truly look forward to reading. I'm gonna read every single word of it, and it better be signed, because I expect that from the author in you, And as soon as it's available, please give me the information. I know that all my listeners would love to read it. And I just appreciate all of your time that you've taken today. I know it's been a while, but to explain everything to me and to be my friend and to let us know everything about Granza, and if anything comes up in the future that has to do with anything that might affect this case, let me know because I'd love.

1:34:40 To call you. Get a call, don't you worry? Awesome? Well, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart, and please share my love with your wife and your mother and everyone else and let them know that I just appreciate everything that they've opened up and given me a look into their lives, your lives. Thank you so much. Can I do a little plug? Sure? Hellow me at Sarah Rice's Underscore author on Instagram and you'll get more details about the book and when that kind of when. It's all coming out, I'm gonna follow you too, Okay, I'll do all right. Well, hey guys, thank y'all so much for listening. I'm gonna have more episodes coming up. As always, it's gonna be victims first, remember that. And I hope that this episode has impacted your life the way that it has mine, and that you'll think further whenever you go to vote and you go to support any type of changes that may be made in your area, in your neck of the woods in terms of true crime.

1:35:33 But until next time, I am Kelly Jennings and this has been unspeakable. Thank you, Kelly,