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Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime podcast where I tell
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stories of real crimes with real victims, whose cases are
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so shocking that many are left wondering how is this
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even real? I use my experiences in law enforcement corrections,
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and combined with my years as a criminal justice educator,
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dig deep into complex cases of evil acts, some so
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evil many feel they are unspeakable. Warning. Unspeakable as intended
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for mature audiences. If you are easily offended, then I'm
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not your girl. Listening discretion is advised. Hey, y'all, it's
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kJ You're back for another episode of Unspeakable. How's it going?
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What are you doing? You know? I got to tell
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you something that happened to me in my own life
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this past week. And we went to a wedding, okay
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in Florida, and so we're sitting there. It was kind
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of like on the beach at this little bar thing. AnyWho,
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We're just standing there. My husband was in the wedding
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hanging out, and the preacher walks over and says, well, hey,
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during the wedding, you want to come stand next to me,
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and my husband, being the sweetheart that he is, said sure,
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I'll be there, and she said, I bet you will.
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And I'm like, what is going on here? And so
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she said, all right, so when the vows start, you're
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gonna do this, You're gonna do that, you can do this,
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You're gonna do that. And my husband's like, okay, okay, okay,
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and I said hold on a second, stop and they
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both looked at me, and I said, do you think
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he's the groom and she said, well yeah, I said,
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he is not the groom. That's the groom. And I
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pointed over to his cousin, who, by the way, they
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look just alike because their dads are identical twins. And
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she looked back at my husband and looked back at him.
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She's like, oh my god. I said, honey, you are
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not You may be a preacher, but you are not
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gonna take my husband and marry him off to somebody else.
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You better watch your back. And she laughed and I laughed,
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and I was serious. So then after the wedding, I'm
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standing in the aisle and we're, you know, all talking
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or whatever, and she comes walking down and she bumps
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into me and I'm like, I know this preacher. Later, lady,
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don't want beef with me. We are at a wedding,
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and so she turned around and I said, first of all,
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you tried to marry off my husband. Now you want
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to bump into me, you better watch your back. And
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then she busted out laughing because she now I was
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just playing, and I hugged her and she said, you
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have just been such a joy. I said, I'd like
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to say the same about you, and then we laughed
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again and she walked off. Anyway, y'all better watch a'all's
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husbands if y'all go to weddings, because someone will straight
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up try to try to marry them off. Hey, I'll
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tell you what. I'll put pictures on my Patreon of
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my husband and his cousin, so y'all can see how
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much I'll like they do look and you know it
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was an honest mistake, but you better watch it all
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right now. I spoke about this case in the past
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during another podcast about how much I hated this man
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in this in this particular case, and then I realized
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I never actually did the whole case. So I'm gonna
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do it for you today. It gets my blood freaking boiling, Okay,
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And you know when we listen to cases about children
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getting hurt and how you're like, that's just a whole
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different level. You just don't go there. To me, this
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is this falls along those same lines, and so it
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caught my attention for a multitude of reasons. And this
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one isn't one that made huge waves necessarily in the media.
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It's certainly one that's not in the news today. But
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the motive and the continued behavior after the fact really
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lends itself to why I am the way that I am,
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Why the why I think the way that I think?
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Whenever I'm presenting cases to you in the podcast. This
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is just a prime example of it. But this one's
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going to go back to nineteen ninety nine and it's
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going to take place in Joplin, Missouri. This was the
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home of twenty eight year old Jason Johnson. His friends
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called him JJ. When I tell you, Jason was a
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kind Christian athletic better than the average joe. It's sports.
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I mean, just looking at him, you can tell that
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he was somebody and that he definitely was going to
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make a mark on the world is looking at him.
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He's a leaner, He's like an athletic black man that
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he kind of gives you the feel of like boys
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to men. Do you remember when they were at their
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their peak, that clean cut, fresh haircut. He just had
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that thing, that that it factor about him that just
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made him. You just knew he was somebody. He was educated.
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He was a psychology student at Missouri Southern, and he
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came from a very close family. He had two brothers,
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Brian and Darren, and his parents. I cannot tell you
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enough about his parents. Just listening to these guys talk,
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these are the best people saw of the earth, godly people,
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well dressed, articulate, Their home was manicured. Their essence about
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them just screams success. And Mom was very involved with
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her boys. She worked short hours when they were younger,
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so she could spend a majority of her time with
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her boys. She wanted to be a homemaker and be
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very involved in her children's lives, and something about her
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She always had hot breakfast on the table for her boys,
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and she always had dinner for them at night. They
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knew that they were loved and that they were taken
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care of, and they were wanted, and they were needed
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in her life. And Daddy, by the way, he was
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there too. Daddy was there to support and take care
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of his boys. All the boys played sports, he was
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in church. He was just a good kid overall, and
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when mom was talking about him, she would say things
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like he was always smiling, and he he was loud
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when he laughed. He had that boisterous laugh that when
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you heard it, it made you laugh because it just was overwhelming.
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He was always with his mama when he was younger.
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He was a mama's boy. And she said that something
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that was always was precious to her about her son
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was that if one of his friends was having problems,
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he would call his mama and ask her to pray
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with him for their friends. And something I've learned, you know,
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in my lifetime, is that a friend who's willing to
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pray for you is a really good friend. Now, when
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he was little, they did learn that he had some
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learning disabilities. He was struggling. He was not doing well
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in school, so they got him tutoring. They actually pulled
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him out of public school and put him into private
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school for three years to kind of assist in his
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growth and make sure that he got a more one
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on one opportunity in the classroom. And once he got
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back on track, they figured out what some of his
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disabilities were in the learning in a learning environment. Afterwards,
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he excelled. He excelled in everything he played soccer, baseball, basketball, football,
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and football was his main love. And I'll tell you this,
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I know this about kids. We all know this. If
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they are in sports as a pretty good indicator that
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they will do better in life. Now, did I just
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say if your kid doesn't play sports, I'm not going
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to do all life. I did not say that. What
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I'm saying was sports teach our kids a lot about
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trusting in others, team building, working, hard, work, ethic, sacrificing, right,
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putting in time. Sports are just an absolute wonderful pathway
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to adulthood to teach you about a lot about life.
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He was a Parkway North High graduate and he then
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went on to the University of Cincinnati. But he wasn't
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there very long before he called his aunt, not his mama.
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He had called his aunt. Was talking to his aunt,
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and at eighteen years old, he was crying to his
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aunt because he wanted to be home with his family.
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He did not want to be stuck in the dorm.
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And a lot of his friends would go home during
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the holidays because a lot of them were local, and
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he couldn't he was home, and so he really wanted
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to come home. When his mama and his daddy found
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that out, they drove straight up there to get him
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right then and said, ain't no way, my child is
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not going to feel like this. And so right then
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he came home. And then he transferred to Missouri Southern,
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and while he was there, he worked at some different places,
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including the Gateway Youth Center because he loved kids. He
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loved interacting with them. They loved him. He was fun
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and they liked to be around him. He was a
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great role model for these kids. And he also worked
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at a place called the Finish Line where he was
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selling shoes and he just loved helping kids pick out
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their shoes. And he would like joke with the parents
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when they would come in and say, don't let this
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kid just come get shoes from anybody. They to come
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see JJ, right, He's going to get him the fast shoes.
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So I think his character screams from what his life
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was like and the things that he did, and the
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fact he wanted to come home during the holidays. So typically,
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and I think you know me, if you've been listening
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to my show, if this is your first time. You
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may not know this about me, but normally I will
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give you such a great description about the characters in
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these stories which I had to use even use the
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word character. They're real people, the players in these stories.
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But race is not typically something that's of any consequence.
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It's not something I don't even think that I normally
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would bring it up. But in this case, it's gonna matter.
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Jason was a black man and he was in a
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predominantly white area. But don't get it twisted. It's not
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what you think that. This is not going where you
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think it's going. This wasn't an issue because Jason was
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raised with people. Jason was raised to look at a
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person and determine if they were worthy of his time
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or not, ba on their heart and how they treated him,
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Like all of us, I would think and hope was
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how we were raised, right. I mean, obviously Jason could
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see color in people, but it made no difference. Matter
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of fact, majority of Jason's friends were white. So I
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know you're like, well, why are you even bringing this up? It?
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Trust me, it's gonna matter. But even to bring it,
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bring it up. Jason's best friend, his name was Jerry Coble.
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Jerry was white, okay, so he interacted well with other people.
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The friendship group that he had, white people loved him.
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They're good people. Good people love good people. So Jason's
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birthday was September the twenty ninth, so on October the second,
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he and a few of his friends, Andrew Martin and
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Mark Wolfe. They met at a Joplin restaurant to celebrate
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his birthday, just a little bit late. So, you know,
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dinner was typical guy talk, sport, girls, whatever that whatever
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it does guys talk about. I don't know, I haven't
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gone to a I've never been a guy, but I
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assume that it was, you know, talking about work and
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plans and you know what guys talk about sports. They
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had a beer or two, you know, just a good
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time sitting at a restaurant, and afterwards they decided, you
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know what, let's go downtown. Let's go to a club,
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a nightclub, let's go, let's go have some fun. But
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Jason wasn't driving, and so when they left the restaurant,
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he went and got into Andrews nineteen ninety six Ford
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F one P fifty pick up, and Mark Wolfe followed
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them in his Camaro. Now, they decided on the way
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to the bar or to the club, that they were
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going to swing into a gas station, but only Jason
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was going to go inside. The other two guys waited
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out in the car, and so he goes inside and
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he picks up a forty ounce beer and a can
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of chewing tobacco. While Jason is waiting in line, there's
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approximately seven or eight other patrons in the store, and
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this includes a woman that's standing directly in front of him,
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and her name is Tammy Lawson. In the timeframe, it's
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just before ten pm, and all the people are just
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standing there patiently waiting, you know, they're waiting for their
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turn to check out or whatever. And there is closed
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circuit television of this instance, and it looks like an
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average exchange and a gas station. Between all of the people,
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there's nothing of any noticeability happening. I've watched the video.
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People are standing in line, then they pay, then they leave.
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So Jason paid for his items and then he returned
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back to the vehicle. So he and Andrew drove off,
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and Mark continued to follow behind them in his car,
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and eventually they came to a stop at the corner
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of Fifth Street and Joplin. So when they come to
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the red light and they stop, another vehicle pulls up
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alongside their vehicle, and then a man starts yelling at
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Jason through his open window. So the car that pulled
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up pulled up on the passenger side of the vehicle
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that Jason was in, so somewhat surprised by what was
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going on, Jason is hearing this man yell whatever at him,
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and so he responds back. So they kind of start
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exchanging words for a few seconds, and it was almost like,
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you know, there's no video of this, obviously, but it's
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almost like you get the gist that Jason was kind