The Laredo Triple Axe Murders

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Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime
podcast. Or I tell stories of real

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crimes with real victims whose cases are
so shocking that many are left wondering,

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how is this even real? I
use my experiences in law enforcement corrections,

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and combined with my years as a
criminal justice educator, dig deep into complex

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cases of evil acts, some so
evil many feel they are unspeakable. Warning.

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Unspeakable as intended for mature audiences.
If you are easily offended, then

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I'm not your girl. Listening discretion
is advised. Hey, y'all, kJ

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you're back for ad other episode?
What is going on? What is going

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on? Jimmythy? You love it
when I say what is going on?

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Don't you? Yes? I do. Jimothy is here with me because we

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got some big news, and I
hope that you're as excited as I am.

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I'm not gonna lie. It actually
does make me uncomfortable to have to,

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like, not have to, but
to ask for people to vote for

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you. Yes, I hate that
vote for me, but I want you

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all to know I'm running for president
and I want you I'm just kidding,

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No, I'm not. But I've
been nominated. The show has been nominated

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for a couple of awards and so
several Jim is here, He's going to

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explain it all because I will screw
it up. Yeah. So People's Choice

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Podcast Awards is around the corner and
voting has actually started for the People's Choice

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Podcast Towards. Let me tell you
a little bit about the People's Choice Podcast

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Awards. It is the oldest awards
ceremony in podcasting. I think it started

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somewhere around the land late nineties.
And what I really like about it is

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it strictly relies on the votes of
fans. See, you don't have a

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panel that's sitting there and you know
it's six people and they're choosing who wins

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these awards. The fans actually vote. It is complete fan interaction. Last

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year, over twelve million votes just
for the Podcast Awards. There's ever a

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nod. I guess that I love
to accept. It's that people, the

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people who listen to it, enjoy
them. True. That's right. You

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can't buy your way into it,
you can't influence means nothing. It's the

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people. It is the fans saying
this is my favorite podcast, no matter

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what genre it is. And Kelly
and Unspeakable a true crime podcast by Kelly

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Jennings has been nominated for several this
year, including Best True Crime Podcast,

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Oh Frow. She's also been nominated
for Best Female Host. I was shooting

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for Best Male Host, but I'll
take it. I'm so touched. I

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can't believe it. Yeah. So, And also the Adam's Adam Curry People's

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Choice Awards. You can vote for
Kelly for that. Everybody that's nominated in

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every category is actually up for that
award. It's just a It is actually

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the biggest award of the night,
and Kelly is one of the selections there

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that you can vote for. Can
you believe it? This has only been

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two years, right, and to
I can believe it? You're a good

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storyteller. Well, well, hey, I'm honored that I'm allowed to tell

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other people's stories because they're you know, it's real life. And but to

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only have done this for two years
and I tell people this, I'm just

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being completely honest. I've been teaching
for you know, seventeen years, and

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that's a big part of it too. You've been podcasting your whole life,

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just recording it. That's called I
might have been fired by now. I'm

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thin've been recording everything, but but
no. But to have been teaching that

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long, and you know, to
have devoted so much time professionally to that,

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and then to do your passion,
your passion and to be recognized,

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you know, in the first and
second year means everything. I hope I'm

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doing justice for these victims. I
hope I'm telling their stories correctly. And

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I want to thank every single listener
for your feedback and your participation and for

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your continued support. Yeah. Absolutely, and we'd love to have you go

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vote. Yes. It's easy,
yes, and we're going to talk about

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the steps there. Look with the
Podcast Awards, it seems like a lot

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in order to get the vote.
It's really easy. You go to Podcast

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Awards dot Com and it'll bring you
to a sign up page. Now here's

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the key. Last year, Kelly
one most influential podcast. There were five

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that you could choose from. Kelly
was one of those five. Out everybody

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in the world, y'all, So
that podcast. So when you go to

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that page, if you signed up
last year and you voted for Kelly or

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anybody else in the Podcast Awards,
you don't have to sign up again.

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You just log in using your credentials
and you know how it works at that

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point. However, if you've never
done it before, you go to Podcast

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Awards dot Com. You're going to
sign up. There'll be a button there

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it says, you know, sign
up, and it'll ask you your name

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and your email address, and there's
a little box at the bottom and it

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says, check this box if you
want to be considered in the final voting.

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You definitely want to check that box. Let me explain. So this

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initial phase of voting, you're basically
voting for who wants to be in the

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finals, and there's there's ten that
are finalists at the end, and so

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you vote for whoever Kelly and all
those gorgeous I just told you. And

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uh oh, incidentally, this dude
right here is up for one I know,

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right, So we always forgot to
mention mine. My god, Jim,

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she always forgets me, y'all.
Look, we have a running joke

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on this. I'll share this another
time, but it's funny. Idiot and

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people so much and it doesn't come
across. But my podcast Exposed is also

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up for Best Storyteller Any Drama Series, so you can pack for that too.

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That's that's on there. Hey wait, I gotta say this real quick.

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So you know how y'all you call
me the unspeakable one. Yes,

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well yesterday you don't know this because
I deleted it, but I said congrats

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to the exposed one. Sorry like
that Candless one. Candless look even better.

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So so she's so funny. But
uh, at any rate, you

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go, you put in your credentials
if you have them. If not,

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you're gonna sign up. You're gonna
click that box and it's gonna bring you

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to a page and that page is
gonna have uh, basically best Asian Podcasts,

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best true crime podcast, et cetera, all the way down the list.

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When you click the toolbar, it's
gonna bring a menu up and it's

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gonna have the people's name that have
been nominated. All you got to do

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is go scroll down to Kelly Jennings
unspeakable, scroll to the end, Yeah,

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unspeakables at the bottom, Yeah,
and click that and uh and there's

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your vote. You don't have to
vote for everything. There's a bunch of

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different categories. You only have to
vote for what you want to. When

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you're done, you scroll to the
bottom of the page. You click submit

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and that should be all you have
to do. Also, on my Facebook

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page if you go look if you're
on Facebook. I keep putting up little

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all right, I don't keep but
I've put a few little images up there

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to show you, tell you the
names of the categories and to do There's

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also one box at the beginning that
says you get to type in by name

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who would be the top influencer for
you. Yes. In podcasts, you

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would have to actually type Kelly Jennings
in that box, So you would do

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that one if you want to,
if not, put somebody else. But

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I would love if you'd put Kelly
Jennings in that box and then go vote

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for me in Best True Crime Podcast, Best Female Hosted Podcast, and the

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Adam Curry People's Choice People's Choice.
I would be so honored and I would

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appreciate your time. It takes less
than five minutes and it means the world

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to me. Yes, yes,
absolutely. And look for Jim in drama

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and storytelling, the best storyteller in
a drama. Yeah, I said it

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in the wrong order. That's all
right, either one for me for either

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one of those. So yeah,
check that out and please vote. And

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look. The reason that box is
so important is if you are selected,

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they do a random selection at the
end of the voting process US, which

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is a month long. At the
end of that voting process, they do

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a selection and randomly people get chosen
to vote for the actual winner. So

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the voting you're doing now will put
Kelly and I into the finals of the

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Podcast Awards. There's tost ten in
those particular particular genres. At the end,

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you're voting for the overall winner.
So if you're selected, you'll get

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an email that'll say, hey,
you get to choose the overall winner.

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If you do not check that box, you're not considered in that final slate.

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We need you in the final slate. Yes, best fans in the

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world. Yeah, I'm sorry that's
so wordy, but we want to make

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sure we do it right because learning
curve, that's right, and it's hard

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to understand if you don't, if
you've never done it. So thank y'all

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so much for everything, genuinely from
the bottom of my heart right here in

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South Louisiana, thank you so so
very much. Thank you Jim for being

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the producer extraordinary that's gotten us.
Do they have us for producer extraordinary that

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I'll suggest it best extraordinaire? All
right, awesome. Well, thank you

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Jim for explaining that. And I'm
gonna jump right on into this story,

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which is going to be right out
of Laredo, Texas. It's Laredo Texas.

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I mean, come on, if
you watch television any Wild Wild Wests

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or any you know of the Cowboy
movies, you're gonna think about Texas,

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home of the good old cowboy,
the spiritual man, and land, lots

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of it. There's farm and ranches
and the oil industry and of course the

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churches. Right so, with its
adobe houses and church buildings and mission bells

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and plazas, Laredo has retained much
of that feeling of the frontier and the

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influence and the language of Spain and
Mexico. It's real apparent whenever you're in

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Laredo now. Laredo was also the
home of thirty three year old James Smiley

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and J. M. Smiley was
a Baptist minister and a restaurant manager from

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Laredo, Texas. Physically speaking,
he was a little on the chunkier side.

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And hey, I'm not hating,
okay. My favorite people are shade

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in the summer and heating the winter, okay. But he wasn't mean,

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he wasn't that chunky, but he
was a proverbial teddy bear. I guess,

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if I had to put him in
a category, he was a white

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guy. He had the thicker,
dirty blonde brown hair, the edges receding

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just a little bit in the corners. He was a godly man, and

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he put his words and his faith
into testable action. He was a first

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Baptist church member, and he was
called Jim to his friends and to his

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family. Everyone said that he had
a great personality and that he was downright

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funny. He was kind, He
was funny, and he was a man

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of his word doing submission work with
orphanages. And he was a missionary,

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and he wanted to be out in
the field spreading the word and being a

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good example for the church. He
actually used a lot of his own money

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to fund many of the projects that
he did on these missionary trips. And

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he poured himself into the youth of
the area. And this isn't well stated

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or confirmed anywhere, okay, but
you kind of get the feeling that many

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of the children and teens that he
helped to care for were likely here illegally,

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and that maybe they were grasping for
help in whatever means that may be.

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And again I'm not saying that in
a negative fashion. I'm saying I

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want you to just really get a
taste for what this guy was about.

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He wanted to help people, you
know. To me, it seemed possibly

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that a lot of these teens were
sent over without an adult to oversee them,

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but trusting in God and the Church
to help these young people get somewhere

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in life and to be successful.
Jim loved people. He loved helping others,

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especially the needy ones, the ones
that without support would fall through the

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cracks. And I admire people that
those that help people who have nothing to

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offer in return, those are my
kind of people. I love it.

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He was involved heavily in the youth
groups. He was said to be the

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person that would give the shirt off
of his back, and the teens loved

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him for it. And that's why
people were absolutely stunned to wake up one

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day and find out that Jim Smiley
had been killed. But not just killed,

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y'all, no, No, he
had been murdered in a triple axe

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murder. There were three victims that
had been axed to death and Jim was

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one of them. So everyone that
knew him is going, Who in the

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world would ever have an issue with
Jim Smiley. The church didn't know,

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and certainly no one else could come
up with anything, you know either that

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not even an enemy. You know, It's like everyone's just kind of looking

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at one another, going, I
don't even know what a point of finger.

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Jim had even opened his home to
two young men who had nowhere to

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go. Their names were Ruben Martinez, who was twenty years old and Daniel

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Duennes, who was fourteen years old. Both of them, based on my

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research, were from Mexico. And
I have to take a moment right now.

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I have to tell you something as
a listener that I searched so incredibly

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hard, I mean hard to find
more information on these two young men,

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and I simply could not find anything. And it pains me because these guys.

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I want to tell you who they
were. I want to tell you

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about Daniel, I want to tell
you about Ruben, but I just don't

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have anything. And that kind of
is what lent myself to that thought that

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maybe they weren't here, and that's
why we don't have a lot of records

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on them. But I will tell
you that they existed, they mattered,

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and they were young men trying to
get somewhere in the world. So when

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Jim wasn't responding to calls and he
didn't show up for his appointments, police

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went to the home where they found
Jim, Reuben, and Daniel dead.

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So Jesus Torres, he was the
assistant chief of Laredo PD. He became

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the lead investigator in this case,
and he was stunned by the extreme level

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of violence used to kill the sleeping, unarmed people in this case. Their

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heads were bashed in, smashed,
cut and sliced. And as the police

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walked through the crime scene, they
said, geez, I mean, there's

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no forced entry. It wasn't like
these were some you know, bandidos or

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something that came busting down the door. It wasn't like Jim was involved in

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drug sales and you know the cartel
was after him. So when I say

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no forced entry, matter of fact, the police believed that the suspect to

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have done this must have used a
key. And I'll tell you that that's

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not very far fetched because because most
homicides are committed by people who know they're

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victims, these guys had been horrifically
stabbed and axed to death, and they

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were all found in the very same
spot where they looked to have gone to

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sleep the night before. Jim was
in his bed, Reuben was found on

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the couch, the couch in the
living room, and Daniel was in another

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bedroom in the bed. The pure
horrificness and the level of violence at the

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scene was something that even the most
seasoned investigator was repulsed by. And it's

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like, make it make sense.
That's something that I say a lot,

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But the truth is, in crime
and murder, it usually doesn't. It

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doesn't make sense, and that was
the case here. Police really had no

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leads to go on. Also,
this scene was three separate rooms, so

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this took time, and it wasn't
a spontaneous event. This wasn't some surprise

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attack and then run out not expecting
someone to be home. Case in point,

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this is the actual scene the investigators
came upon. Jim's home was in

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a decent area of town at the
time of this case, and it looks

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to be an average middle class home. It's brick and then it's got an

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open carport that extends off the front
of the home towards the road. It's

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an average home if you think about
the mid nineties. Okay, it's an

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average looking, middle class home.
The inside of it looks like a man

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lives there. And I mean that
with all due respect. Okay, it

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had everything necessary for a home,
but it was missing that what I would

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call quote unquote woman's touch if you
looked at the decoration. So he had

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what he needed, it just you
know, was a it was a man

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vibe going on in the bachelor pad. In the living room, police found

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twenty year old Reuben, who was
the first one believed to be killed due

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to the proximity of the entryway.
Now, Reuben lay on this blue couch.

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He's in his white boxers, and
he's covered only on his top half

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with something that looks like a blanket
or a jacket. I'll post pictures and

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patrons so that you can go look
at it. But imagine a twenty year

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old male. He's lying asleep on
the couch. One leg is straight out,

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the other one is kind of bent
and just resting on the back of

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the upright of the couch. He
doesn't even look to have known what was

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coming or to have even had time
to respond. So once the blanket was

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removed. Investigators found wounds that were
beyond necessary to incapacitate someone. He was

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stabbed in the chest and in the
stomach area with a knife, and then

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he had axe wounds around the head
and the neck. Fourteen year old Daniel

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who was found deceased in one of
the spare bedrooms. He too had been

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attacked with an axe and suffered overkill
slicing and axing of his upper body in

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his head. He was found lying
in the bed on his right side,

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and he was still wearing his little
acid washed blue gene and he had his

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socks on. It seems as if
he did what all young boys do that

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he threw his shirt off. He
threw it on the floor. He jumped

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in the bed, not even bothered
enough, you know, to change clothes.

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And it made my mama heart sad
looking at the photo because it's these

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little nuances that make these people real
to me. You know, he's the

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typical fourteen year old boy. He's
on his right side. Both of his

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knees are slightly bent, but one
foot extends out a little further than the

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other one and it's just hanging off
the bed. And his head is still

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laying and resting on the pillow where
he laid down to go to sleep.

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He too has a blue and pink
striped blanket, but only over his top

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half. And it's very obvious that
he had no idea what hit him.

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Literally, police did feel like he
tried to put up a fight at first,

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but was very very quickly, if
not instantly, knocked unable to fight,

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I mean almost instantly, because he
just collapsed right back down. It

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looked like in the sleeping position where
he was raising up. The last body

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that police found was that of Jim
Smiley himself, and he was still in

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his bed under the covers. His
hands are resting neatly on his side,

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kind of on the side if his
stomach in a pillow, las kind of

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leaned over his stomach as well.
He has on a white T shirt and

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he's in his blue pinstripe boxers.
He was clearly attacked with no idea and

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immediately incapacitated by the axe blows about
his head. And we know this because

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there is absolutely positively no sign of
struggle. You can tell in the photo

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he never knew that someone was even
standing over him. There was something though,

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that caught investigator's eyes in that bedroom. Remember, Jim was a man

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of God. So when doing the
video of the walkthrough of the crime scene,

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when they went to the night stand, you can see like there's a

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tissue box and some lotion and a
magazine and stuff that you would typically have

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on your nightstand. But why was
the cross on his nightstand turned upside down?

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A white crucifix was turned upside down, like vertically standing upside down on

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top of a US news magazine with
the bottom of the cross in the air.

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A gold Jesus crucified on that cross
was upside down. So was this

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something to pay attention to. Well, anyone who knew Jim would say,

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hell yeah, maybe not in those
words, but yeah, write scrim it

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from the rooftops. Jim would never
have his cross upside down, not Jesus.

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So police took note and wondered,
does this play a role in the

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motive of what seems to be these
unprovoked killings? Okay, this got weird

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for me. I'm not even gonna
lie to you. Okay, y'all know

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that I'm not one who's gonna entertain
some satanic bullshit. Okay, I don't

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you know, like just f Satan
and all of that. I don't want

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any part of it. But in
the spirit of learning, I ended up

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going down a very dark and deep
rabbit hole about Satanic ritual possibilities in crime

284
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scenes, and I thought, you
know what I need to I should enlighten

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the listeners on what this is about, because y'all people are nuts and I

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was uncomfortable reading all of this,
so I researched innocently at first. Okay,

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I went through the Catholic websites,
other Christian websites, and I wanted

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to be very practical in how I
explained, you know, the upside down

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Cross, and a lot of the
things I found on these websites was that

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they kind of rebuffed the idea that
the upside down cross is Satanic, because

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even according to Christianity dot Com,
the upside down cross in Christianity is linked

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to the martyr the martyrdom of Peter
the Apostle, and so, according to

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Catholic tradition, when Peter was sentenced
to death, he requested that his cross

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be turned upside down because he didn't
feel worthy of being crucified in the same

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way that Jesus was crucified. Now, I personally prefer this explanation because the

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next set of shit I'm about to
tell you doesn't jib with me. The

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it's giving off an aura I don't
want any of. But when you're trying

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to understand evil, unfortunately we have
to think like evil ones do. So

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that's when I really thought to myself
self, you don't need to be on

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00:23:26.119 --> 00:23:32.039
these Christianity dot com websites. You
need to be on some more devious stuff

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to figure this out. So that's
when I found myself literally reading a forty

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something page manuscript written for understanding and
investigating cases with Satanic involvement. And this

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00:23:47.400 --> 00:23:49.920
trips me out because I'm telling you, I'm not want to entertain the idea.

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But I'll have to share some of
the manuscript with you because I'm going

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00:23:55.240 --> 00:23:56.440
to tell you about it right now. But I also I'm going to post

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the whole manuscript on my Patreon so
you can go see it. It's crazy,

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00:24:02.440 --> 00:24:07.720
but in the manuscript it even gives
examples of cases that were worked already

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for comparison and understanding, and the
power of the influence of Satanist groups is

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00:24:14.640 --> 00:24:17.680
discussed. In one of the examples
that caught my eye, and it was

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talking about a school aged boy that
joined a Satanist group at the age of

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00:24:22.720 --> 00:24:29.079
nine and at the age of thirteen, so just a few years later he

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skinned a small dog and drank its
blood. This is a thirteen year old

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and then later he developed this penchant
for eating skin peeled off of the fingers

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and feet of other people who would
let him. Okay, so this is

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00:24:52.400 --> 00:24:57.079
this is some weird, dark stuff, and if you don't think it's weird

316
00:24:57.079 --> 00:25:03.160
and dark, seek help. But
it talked about what is the profile of

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00:25:03.240 --> 00:25:10.839
someone likely to take part in Satanic
rituals and murder and the typical profile and

318
00:25:10.880 --> 00:25:12.839
by the way, don't go think, don't go holy water and everybody you

319
00:25:12.920 --> 00:25:17.160
know, Okay, but this is
what it was kind of reduced down to.

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It's said that this would be an
intelligent, curious, usually male person.

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00:25:25.480 --> 00:25:32.000
They have low self esteem, alienation
from family religion, They're creative,

322
00:25:32.200 --> 00:25:37.880
possibly seen as an underachiever, and
either middle or upper middle class, with

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difficult times relating to their peers.
So it kind of gives you an idea

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00:25:44.799 --> 00:25:48.039
of where these people would fall into
if you're trying to come up with who

325
00:25:48.160 --> 00:25:52.960
might be the suspect here and when
investigators are at the scene or at scenes

326
00:25:52.960 --> 00:25:57.319
where they think that it might have
some type of satanic meaning, the investigators

327
00:25:57.319 --> 00:26:03.119
are encouraged to look for things like
missing body parts, branding, iron or

328
00:26:03.160 --> 00:26:07.720
burn marks, wax drippings on the
victim or on the ground. I'll go

329
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into a little more depth in a
little bit, and then human or animal

330
00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:19.200
feces consumed or found on the victim, and also blood letting. Now,

331
00:26:19.400 --> 00:26:22.720
none of this, and there's other
things too, but those were kind of

332
00:26:22.759 --> 00:26:26.640
the main ones. None of this
was found at the Smiley scene. Really,

333
00:26:26.720 --> 00:26:32.440
the only thing found was or that
was even noticeable or jarring, was

334
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that upside down cross. So in
this manual it talks about the inverted cross

335
00:26:36.839 --> 00:26:41.279
of Satanic justice, which that sounds
like a oxymoron or something if I've ever

336
00:26:41.279 --> 00:26:45.519
heard at Satanic justice. But it's
often times if it's in a ritualistic killing,

337
00:26:45.599 --> 00:26:48.640
going to be carved into the victim's
chest. This was not done,

338
00:26:49.359 --> 00:26:53.240
and when used in such a case, the victim is usually seen as a

339
00:26:53.319 --> 00:26:56.680
trader. Well, Jim would be, I guess considered a trader because he

340
00:26:56.720 --> 00:27:02.359
loved God and was a follower of
God. The center vertical line in the

341
00:27:02.440 --> 00:27:06.160
image, which again i'll post you
can look at it indicates the man's present,

342
00:27:07.240 --> 00:27:12.759
the horizontal line indicates eternity, past
and future, and then there's an

343
00:27:12.960 --> 00:27:18.440
arch which is supposed to indicate the
world. So the inverted cross appearance symbolizes

344
00:27:18.519 --> 00:27:22.680
the epitome of anti Christian theology.
That's kind of the thought behind it.

345
00:27:23.279 --> 00:27:29.119
Another thing that made them think about
this maybe be in Satanic was the Roman

346
00:27:29.240 --> 00:27:36.960
symbol of justice was a double axe
in the upright position. The representation of

347
00:27:37.039 --> 00:27:41.319
anti justice is inverting the double bladed
acts. And again, these guys were

348
00:27:41.440 --> 00:27:47.519
killed with an axe. So this
is literally another world. And I'm telling

349
00:27:47.599 --> 00:27:52.160
you, the more you read about
it, the more some celebrities that are

350
00:27:52.240 --> 00:27:55.599
up in the news seem to possibly
take part in this type of stuff.

351
00:27:55.599 --> 00:27:59.160
But that's another episode for another day. I'm not gonna get all into the

352
00:27:59.200 --> 00:28:04.680
conspiracy theories stuff, but I'm telling
you this manual uh brought some stuff to

353
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light for me. All in all, while the killer may have turned the

354
00:28:10.519 --> 00:28:15.440
crosses upside down, there was nothing
more than that found to suggest a Satanic

355
00:28:15.680 --> 00:28:25.240
ritual. So investigators did their job
and eventually the investigation had police finding themselves

356
00:28:25.319 --> 00:28:30.640
on the doorstep of a man named
Manuel Flores Senior. And to be a

357
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little more specific, his name was
the honorable Judge Manual Flores Senior to be

358
00:28:37.400 --> 00:28:41.759
exact. So who was this mister
Flores, this judge Flores. So he

359
00:28:41.839 --> 00:28:47.039
began practicing law way back in nineteen
seventy five. He had been a district

360
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judge for twenty years, and he
had been a circuit court judge for four

361
00:28:51.279 --> 00:28:55.880
years. What could a judge possibly
had to do with a triple axe murder

362
00:28:55.920 --> 00:29:00.880
with the side of Satan. Well, this is what it was. What

363
00:29:00.920 --> 00:29:04.559
it was like when they got to
his house. This is kind of what

364
00:29:04.599 --> 00:29:10.519
mister Flores was about farm life.
He has horses and land. When you

365
00:29:10.559 --> 00:29:12.720
look at him, he's everything you
expect of a judge. He's nice,

366
00:29:14.359 --> 00:29:19.039
clean cut, gray haired, gentlemen
with glasses. And one morning, when

367
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he was having his morning coffee,
two officers knocked on his door and he

368
00:29:23.640 --> 00:29:26.440
opened it. He was very surprised
to see officers there, and they said,

369
00:29:26.880 --> 00:29:32.599
look, long story short, we
have a triple axe murder that happened,

370
00:29:33.200 --> 00:29:37.640
and the axe that you own is
believed to be the weapon used.

371
00:29:37.839 --> 00:29:41.480
So you can imagine the judge standing
there, blinking his eyes going excuse me

372
00:29:42.400 --> 00:29:48.480
right, clearly stunned and not knowing
what they're talking about. Police then followed

373
00:29:48.559 --> 00:29:53.359
up with we'd like to speak with
your son. So Judge Flores had a

374
00:29:53.480 --> 00:30:00.480
son, seventeen year old named Milo. Now, Milo was brought into the

375
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room and he was asked, do
you have an axe or does your dad

376
00:30:03.960 --> 00:30:07.640
have an axe? And he said
yes, and they said where is it?

377
00:30:07.720 --> 00:30:11.960
And he said, well, two
of my friends borrowed the acts.

378
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They asked to borrow it, and
then they brought it back and it's in

379
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the shed by the woodpile. Now
side story real quick. I just thought

380
00:30:21.799 --> 00:30:25.799
of this when I'm in class and
were when I'm teaching, the students will

381
00:30:25.799 --> 00:30:27.920
say, Miss Jennings, I need
to ax you, and I'll say time

382
00:30:27.960 --> 00:30:32.680
out. You better say the right
thing because if you want to ax me,

383
00:30:32.799 --> 00:30:34.480
that's a felony. If you want
to ask me, that's different,

384
00:30:34.480 --> 00:30:37.519
and they always roll their eyes and
I'm like, oh my god, stap

385
00:30:37.599 --> 00:30:38.920
it. So anyway, that's my
pet, Peeve, don't ask people.

386
00:30:40.240 --> 00:30:45.119
It's a felony. But either way, the judge went out there with his

387
00:30:45.240 --> 00:30:48.799
son, they got the axe and
they handed it over to the police.

388
00:30:49.440 --> 00:30:52.799
At that point, the police asked
the judge, we want to further interview

389
00:30:52.839 --> 00:30:56.880
your son. Do you have any
objections to that? And the judge was

390
00:30:56.920 --> 00:30:59.559
honest. He said, I'm worried. Yeah, I mean yeah, he's

391
00:30:59.559 --> 00:31:02.240
an attorney and now they're wanting to
talk to his son about a triple axe

392
00:31:02.279 --> 00:31:04.279
murder. He didn't lie. He
said, yeah, I'm kind of worried

393
00:31:04.279 --> 00:31:10.160
about that, but son, you
need to speak What is going on?

394
00:31:10.319 --> 00:31:12.279
Why are the police at my house
looking for an axe? Why are people

395
00:31:12.359 --> 00:31:17.839
murdered? And why are you being
brought up in it. So Milo explained

396
00:31:17.839 --> 00:31:22.440
to the police that they and I'm
saying it on purpose, they they were

397
00:31:22.480 --> 00:31:29.240
talking about trashing a house and doing
something bad to someone who appeared good but

398
00:31:29.400 --> 00:31:32.519
was actually bad. So the police
are like, whoa, whoa, whoa,

399
00:31:32.519 --> 00:31:33.920
whoa whoa? You know, back
up, who is this? They?

400
00:31:34.279 --> 00:31:40.640
I need you to explain? And
this is where I was like,

401
00:31:40.759 --> 00:31:45.519
of course, storytelling cannot be that
simple, because this may surprise you,

402
00:31:45.559 --> 00:31:48.400
because it was confusing to me at
first when I was trying to write this

403
00:31:48.440 --> 00:31:53.519
episode that the they he was speaking
of were two other friends, and the

404
00:31:53.559 --> 00:31:59.960
two other friends have the exact same
first name and the exact same middle name.

405
00:32:00.519 --> 00:32:05.400
They are both named Miguel Angel,
and then one of them is Miguel

406
00:32:05.440 --> 00:32:09.160
Angel Martinez and the other one is
Miguel Angel Venegas. So to make this

407
00:32:09.200 --> 00:32:14.599
story not be confusing as I continue
to tell it, I'm gonna refer to

408
00:32:14.720 --> 00:32:17.400
one of them by first name and
one of them by last name, so

409
00:32:17.440 --> 00:32:22.640
you can keep up with who's who. So Milo began to explain, how

410
00:32:23.920 --> 00:32:29.640
you know the acts that they're saying
may have been used to murder three people,

411
00:32:30.160 --> 00:32:34.440
may have been hours, but I
didn't have any part in it.

412
00:32:34.839 --> 00:32:40.359
He says that early in the afternoon
a few days prior that Milo's friend Miguel

413
00:32:42.240 --> 00:32:45.759
met up with another friend, Venegas. So again, these are the two

414
00:32:45.759 --> 00:32:47.079
Miguels. What I'm gonna call one
Miguel, and i'ma call the other one

415
00:32:47.160 --> 00:32:53.039
Venegas. So Venegas was sixteen years
old and Miguel was seventeen years old,

416
00:32:53.359 --> 00:32:57.839
and they knew each other from school. They had classed together. Now,

417
00:32:57.839 --> 00:33:01.559
when you're looking at the two boys, Miguel comes across as mild mannered.

418
00:33:02.559 --> 00:33:09.319
He's believable, but clearly troubled.
And so when you look at the photos

419
00:33:09.319 --> 00:33:14.119
of him from that time, he
has a big smile, he looks clean

420
00:33:14.240 --> 00:33:16.720
cut, he looks like every knucklehead
I teach, you know, and they're

421
00:33:17.200 --> 00:33:22.680
your book photo. When you look
at Venegas, he comes across as wild

422
00:33:22.400 --> 00:33:27.759
and he an agitator. And in
his photos he looks dirty, he looks

423
00:33:27.880 --> 00:33:31.880
unkempt, he looks smug, and
you would assume troubled. Now, Kelly,

424
00:33:31.920 --> 00:33:36.799
you shouldn't judge people. You know
the book by its cover. Well,

425
00:33:36.839 --> 00:33:39.440
I am, because I want you
to know that's part of the interpretation

426
00:33:39.559 --> 00:33:43.960
of who are these kids by what
you see? You know that you're looking

427
00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:45.359
to see what do they look like? What do they look like? They're

428
00:33:45.400 --> 00:33:52.799
about? So that night that was
in question, a party was happening at

429
00:33:52.279 --> 00:33:59.480
Milo's house, the judge's son,
and so Miguel invited Venegas to go over

430
00:33:59.720 --> 00:34:05.240
to Milo's house. Now Milo was
seventeen. Now remember dad's a judge.

431
00:34:05.319 --> 00:34:08.079
They had some money, so Milo
didn't actually live in the house with his

432
00:34:08.239 --> 00:34:15.280
parents. He had his own apartment
behind the parent's house. So they had

433
00:34:15.280 --> 00:34:19.519
a little bit of money. The
kids knew that, But the kids also

434
00:34:19.639 --> 00:34:22.639
knew something else that the judge may
not have been quite aware of. And

435
00:34:22.719 --> 00:34:29.239
the kids knew that Milo also had
access to drugs. So I guess the

436
00:34:29.320 --> 00:34:32.000
judge may have not been watching his
own nest quite as closely as he was

437
00:34:32.039 --> 00:34:37.079
his courtroom. So I know most
of us go, okay, great,

438
00:34:37.079 --> 00:34:39.599
some kids are smoking weed. Eh, hold your horses, because when they

439
00:34:39.679 --> 00:34:45.440
got to that apartment that was unsupervised
full of seventeen, sixteen, seventeen,

440
00:34:45.480 --> 00:34:49.840
eighteen year olds, they were not
only smoking marijuana, but they're doing lines

441
00:34:49.880 --> 00:34:54.199
of cocaine at sixteen and seventeen.
And I don't know about you, but

442
00:34:54.239 --> 00:34:58.119
it's scary enough just getting in a
car with a sixteen year old learning to

443
00:34:58.199 --> 00:35:01.320
drive. I can't imagine one all
hopped up on freaking cocaine and the decision

444
00:35:01.360 --> 00:35:07.360
making there. So when Venagas would
get high, and he did, and

445
00:35:07.400 --> 00:35:12.000
he did a lot of drugs,
he would get very, very animated.

446
00:35:12.039 --> 00:35:15.760
He was loud, rambunctious, he
kind of got wild. So it was

447
00:35:15.800 --> 00:35:19.480
close to midnight on that night of
the party, and Venegas was hyper as

448
00:35:19.559 --> 00:35:22.400
usual, and he kept saying,
how you wanted to go tear up a

449
00:35:22.440 --> 00:35:27.159
car or a house or just go
tear something up. So all of the

450
00:35:27.199 --> 00:35:30.239
boys agreed, Yeah, let's go
tear some shit up. Let's go get

451
00:35:30.280 --> 00:35:36.400
into some trouble. Now. Supposedly
there was no real plan per se.

452
00:35:36.480 --> 00:35:39.559
They just were gonna head out to
go tear up some shit. Now.

453
00:35:39.639 --> 00:35:47.079
They agreed upon the house of a
man named Jim Smiley. Why did they

454
00:35:47.119 --> 00:35:52.119
pick Jim Smiley. It wasn't at
random. They didn't just go driving down

455
00:35:52.159 --> 00:35:53.280
the road and say, hey,
let's go tear that house up. No,

456
00:35:54.000 --> 00:36:00.519
they picked Jim Smiley's house because Milo
and me get Well had both been

457
00:36:00.519 --> 00:36:05.239
there before. So police are like, well, why had you been there

458
00:36:05.280 --> 00:36:07.639
before? What do you have to
do with this guy? I mean,

459
00:36:07.639 --> 00:36:09.639
this is not looking very good for
a judge's son to have the acts that

460
00:36:09.760 --> 00:36:15.599
killed people and then to say you've
been in the house of the murder victim,

461
00:36:15.039 --> 00:36:19.079
you know, And he said,
well, I was there before.

462
00:36:19.559 --> 00:36:23.320
Because Miguel had worked for Smiley in
the past. When he was fifteen years

463
00:36:23.360 --> 00:36:29.639
old, Smiley saw Miguel and said, you know, you look like you

464
00:36:29.679 --> 00:36:32.719
need help. It was clear that
Miguel was disadvantaged. Miguel did not have

465
00:36:32.760 --> 00:36:38.239
a father figure, and so Jim
Smiley offered to help him. Now,

466
00:36:38.679 --> 00:36:43.599
he even gave the keys to his
house. A copy of the keys to

467
00:36:43.639 --> 00:36:45.840
his house to Miguel and said,
son, you're welcome to stay at the

468
00:36:45.880 --> 00:36:51.320
house if you need. Jim Smiley
gave Miguel rides, he fed him,

469
00:36:51.360 --> 00:36:53.719
he did everything that you would think
someone who was trying to take care of

470
00:36:53.760 --> 00:36:59.920
a teenager would do. Milo also
admitted, well, Miguel had the key

471
00:37:00.119 --> 00:37:05.679
and so we actually stole stuff from
him before too. So, if I'm

472
00:37:05.719 --> 00:37:08.000
being honest, I'm not real big
on Milo either. I don't want him.

473
00:37:08.440 --> 00:37:13.960
Just because you're the son of a
judge doesn't make you any better right

474
00:37:14.000 --> 00:37:20.960
than anybody else. So he said
that they had made a plan to go

475
00:37:21.039 --> 00:37:25.199
in and to go tear up the
house to possibly take some stuff. They

476
00:37:25.199 --> 00:37:30.280
were gonna go steal some stuff,
but that venagus became really animated and was

477
00:37:30.400 --> 00:37:34.440
really big on no, we need
to tear some stuff up. We need

478
00:37:34.480 --> 00:37:38.079
to destroy it. Let's go just
tear everything up. And that's when they

479
00:37:38.119 --> 00:37:42.800
started saying we need to get we
need to get an axe or give a

480
00:37:42.840 --> 00:37:45.000
baseball bat, or maybe we should
get a gun. You got knives,

481
00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:50.880
like we need all this stuff.
Well, when all of that started happening,

482
00:37:51.079 --> 00:37:54.559
Milo kind of was like, I
don't know, I don't know about

483
00:37:54.559 --> 00:38:01.079
all that. So, you know, the boys continue to kind of mull

484
00:38:01.119 --> 00:38:07.000
it around, they're doing drugs,
and Milo finally was kind of like,

485
00:38:07.159 --> 00:38:08.800
okay, well let's go. If
we're going to go, and the boys

486
00:38:08.800 --> 00:38:12.599
were like, all right, well, get us a gun, and Milo

487
00:38:12.719 --> 00:38:15.480
said when they asked for the gun, he told him no, and they

488
00:38:15.519 --> 00:38:19.199
said, well why not, We
know you have one, and he said,

489
00:38:19.280 --> 00:38:21.679
yeah, but I can't get into
it. My dad has it and

490
00:38:21.719 --> 00:38:25.320
it's locked up in his and his
gun safe, which come to find out,

491
00:38:25.400 --> 00:38:29.679
was not true. The gun wasn't
locked up, but Milo didn't want

492
00:38:29.719 --> 00:38:30.960
to give him the gun, like
his gut was telling him, I don't

493
00:38:30.960 --> 00:38:36.599
know if this is a good idea. So, you know, Milo said

494
00:38:36.599 --> 00:38:38.840
at that point the two boy other
boys were kind of freaking him out and

495
00:38:38.880 --> 00:38:43.199
acting really bizarre and strange even for
being high, and so he kind of

496
00:38:43.239 --> 00:38:45.880
just wanted to get them out of
the house. Well this does make sense

497
00:38:45.880 --> 00:38:50.079
to me, and the fact that
what he ended up doing next was saying,

498
00:38:50.079 --> 00:38:52.039
okay, look, you can go
in my barn and if there's something

499
00:38:52.079 --> 00:38:53.559
in there, you can have that
to bring with you to tear up the

500
00:38:53.559 --> 00:38:57.559
house. So that's when they all
went in there and they picked out the

501
00:38:57.639 --> 00:39:02.559
acts, and then you know,
they did get a knife and they got

502
00:39:02.559 --> 00:39:07.960
into Milo's car. So the plan
at that point was Milo was going to

503
00:39:07.000 --> 00:39:12.719
go drop the other two off about
two blocks from Smiley's house and then he

504
00:39:12.719 --> 00:39:15.119
would come back and pick them up
because it was going to be quick.

505
00:39:15.280 --> 00:39:17.480
They were just going to go in. And now they were talking about possibly

506
00:39:17.519 --> 00:39:21.000
stealing a bunch of cash that might
be in the house. And so this

507
00:39:21.039 --> 00:39:23.079
is kind of gray. You don't
really know what happened here. He said,

508
00:39:23.159 --> 00:39:27.079
he said, he said, but
they were going to go steal some

509
00:39:27.280 --> 00:39:32.519
cash too, And so I don't
know whether it's because it started taking so

510
00:39:32.679 --> 00:39:37.719
long, or if Milo chickened out, or if it really was that he

511
00:39:37.760 --> 00:39:42.760
didn't want to be around him anymore. But Milo did that exactly that he

512
00:39:42.880 --> 00:39:45.079
drove two blocks, he let him
get out of the car, but then

513
00:39:45.639 --> 00:39:52.880
he rolled out. He didn't stick
around. He left. So you know,

514
00:39:52.519 --> 00:39:55.400
I could buy the statement at that
point, considering the fact that he

515
00:39:55.440 --> 00:39:59.320
didn't stay. And in the eyes
of a seventeen year old, I could

516
00:39:59.320 --> 00:40:01.159
see how you could be peer pressured
and not want to look like a total,

517
00:40:01.239 --> 00:40:04.960
you know, lame, but you
didn't want to go be a part

518
00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:07.880
of doing all that, and so
he just said, I'll drive you there

519
00:40:08.440 --> 00:40:13.519
dump them off. The thing is, though, Milo said that they were

520
00:40:13.519 --> 00:40:16.159
just wanting to go trash the house
and get rowdy. So my question was,

521
00:40:16.199 --> 00:40:19.920
then, well, then why do
you need a gun? You know,

522
00:40:19.960 --> 00:40:23.199
if you're just gonna go get rowdy
and trash a house where supposedly maybe

523
00:40:23.239 --> 00:40:27.320
nobody's home, why do you need
a gun. Then that's part of that

524
00:40:27.360 --> 00:40:30.840
premeditation that we always talk about.
So police said, okay, they kind

525
00:40:30.880 --> 00:40:34.239
of got an idea of what was
going on, and that's when they went

526
00:40:34.280 --> 00:40:37.360
and they tracked down the two miguels
to start questioning them and see what they

527
00:40:37.360 --> 00:40:43.599
had to say. And what they
found were too young and smug lit samva

528
00:40:43.639 --> 00:40:50.760
bitches. And it wasn't long before
what happened was actually laid out on a

529
00:40:50.800 --> 00:40:54.800
platter basically for the police, with
a few discrepancies between the two. So

530
00:40:54.960 --> 00:41:00.760
Venagus explained. This is where he
starts. Okay, he says, man,

531
00:41:00.840 --> 00:41:05.239
my mind was warped at eight years
old. This goes way back.

532
00:41:05.400 --> 00:41:08.480
I've always had trouble. I'm like, okay, and that's when he says,

533
00:41:08.920 --> 00:41:13.119
because I've known since I was eight
years old, that I'm the son

534
00:41:13.159 --> 00:41:19.880
of the devil. Okay, wow, you know, and so obviously what

535
00:41:19.920 --> 00:41:23.320
comes to mind is what, yeah, that cross. So this was like

536
00:41:23.320 --> 00:41:28.559
adult blues clues just now, and
what comes to mind, that's right,

537
00:41:28.679 --> 00:41:30.800
the cross. I've even left room
for you to answer me, and I'm

538
00:41:30.840 --> 00:41:36.280
in a room by myself. But
the upside down cross right, the satanic

539
00:41:36.320 --> 00:41:37.840
stuff. Well, wait a minute. He says he believes he's the son

540
00:41:37.840 --> 00:41:39.920
of the devil, and he's believed
that since he was eight years old.

541
00:41:40.719 --> 00:41:45.360
So then he goes off and starts
telling the story about when he was growing

542
00:41:45.400 --> 00:41:49.440
up, how there were black widow
spiders everywhere all over where he grew up,

543
00:41:49.480 --> 00:41:51.559
and so what he would do is
he would go get a jar and

544
00:41:51.559 --> 00:41:54.320
he would take off his shirt and
say, well, I can prove I'm

545
00:41:54.360 --> 00:41:58.320
the son of the devil. I
know, because he would go fill up

546
00:41:58.320 --> 00:42:00.239
the jar for all that he's black
would spiders, and he would take off

547
00:42:00.239 --> 00:42:02.519
his shirt and he would dump them
all over him. And he says,

548
00:42:02.559 --> 00:42:07.480
none of them ever bid me.
So I knew I was the son of

549
00:42:07.480 --> 00:42:10.599
the devil because not even these black
widows could get me. And at thirteen

550
00:42:10.679 --> 00:42:15.719
years old, he moved from Warez, Mexico to Laredo, Texas. That's

551
00:42:15.760 --> 00:42:21.840
whenever he met Martinez. They met
their sophomore year in a pre algebra class.

552
00:42:22.360 --> 00:42:23.880
So they're like, okay, so
you're the son of the devil,

553
00:42:24.000 --> 00:42:27.679
you move here, black widows.
How do we get to ax murdering three

554
00:42:27.719 --> 00:42:30.880
people? And he says, well, we were snorting cocaine on the night

555
00:42:31.800 --> 00:42:37.880
that we were over at Milo's house. And he says, but Milo started

556
00:42:37.920 --> 00:42:42.960
hinting to the fact that you know
us too, Miguel's were basically muchin and

557
00:42:43.000 --> 00:42:46.760
that we owed him something. Now, Milo never brought that up conveniently,

558
00:42:47.400 --> 00:42:51.840
but he's like, you know,
we're poor, we don't have any money,

559
00:42:51.880 --> 00:42:53.760
we don't have anything. And that's
when Martinez said, well, hey,

560
00:42:53.800 --> 00:42:58.159
I've got the keys to this guy's
house. We could go steal a

561
00:42:58.159 --> 00:43:00.840
bunch of cash and get you some
money to pay you back for the dope

562
00:43:00.880 --> 00:43:05.239
and all that that we're using.
And to me, I actually believe that

563
00:43:05.480 --> 00:43:07.400
because, again, when I'm curious
about why did they bring a gun if

564
00:43:07.440 --> 00:43:14.360
they were just gonna go tear some
stuff up, seems like that story makes

565
00:43:14.400 --> 00:43:16.199
a little bit more sense to me. So they're like, well, how

566
00:43:16.199 --> 00:43:19.079
are we going to scare them to
get the money from them? And that's

567
00:43:19.079 --> 00:43:20.800
when they were like, well,
let's get a gun. Let's get a

568
00:43:20.800 --> 00:43:22.320
gun, and Milo said no,
I mean the gun's locked up and my

569
00:43:22.400 --> 00:43:27.639
dad's safe. So I kind of
see a seventeen year old here talking big

570
00:43:27.679 --> 00:43:30.519
shit and then when it comes down
to it, he don't want to be

571
00:43:30.559 --> 00:43:35.199
a part of doing the big shit
things. He just wants some money.

572
00:43:35.960 --> 00:43:39.519
So he said. That's when we
asked Milo, loan USh your knife then,

573
00:43:39.559 --> 00:43:42.760
and he said, fine, no
problem. And so that's when they

574
00:43:42.800 --> 00:43:45.519
went out to the shed and they
got a knife, and they got an

575
00:43:45.559 --> 00:43:52.199
axe and they got a baseball bat. Well, this is when Venegas says,

576
00:43:52.519 --> 00:43:57.440
you know, well, why don't
we just kill the dude then?

577
00:43:57.760 --> 00:44:00.239
And I don't know how you jumped
to that, That blows my mind,

578
00:44:00.400 --> 00:44:05.880
but he says, why don't we
just kill the dude then? And Venegas

579
00:44:05.920 --> 00:44:10.480
claims that Milo says, man,
you won't do that. You're not gonna

580
00:44:10.559 --> 00:44:13.679
do that, you know, And
he says it was almost like it was

581
00:44:13.719 --> 00:44:16.760
a dare or something, and that's
when he says, so I had to

582
00:44:16.880 --> 00:44:20.559
man up. And then he says
this and it's so cringey to me,

583
00:44:21.880 --> 00:44:28.400
he says, because I come from
a muchiest duck culture. What in the

584
00:44:28.559 --> 00:44:36.639
actual fuck does that have to do
with murdering innocent people? Is that what

585
00:44:36.719 --> 00:44:42.159
makes you macho? You have to
follow through with every dare. Okay,

586
00:44:42.239 --> 00:44:44.480
well, then I dare you to
go get a job. I dare you

587
00:44:44.519 --> 00:44:45.960
to pass high school. I dare
you to become a physicist. Like what

588
00:44:46.000 --> 00:44:50.880
the fuck muchiese duck culture, No, bro, you don't go hurting innocent

589
00:44:50.920 --> 00:44:54.400
people. But that's his claim,
So he says, so I was basically

590
00:44:54.480 --> 00:44:58.719
dared to do it. And that's
when Venegas says. He was doing hallucinogens

591
00:44:58.719 --> 00:45:04.440
all day and now mixed with cocaine. He was feeling real angsty. And

592
00:45:04.519 --> 00:45:07.280
so when that's when they got to
the idea, you know, or that's

593
00:45:07.280 --> 00:45:10.960
when they got dropped off by Milo
at Smiley's house and they're like, okay,

594
00:45:12.000 --> 00:45:14.679
well, then what happened when you
got there? So he says,

595
00:45:14.679 --> 00:45:16.880
well, when we got dropped off, we both walked over there. You

596
00:45:16.880 --> 00:45:22.320
know, Milo's still driving around,
so we go walk off and go look

597
00:45:22.360 --> 00:45:24.480
into the windows of the Smiley's house
and he says, and that's when we

598
00:45:24.519 --> 00:45:28.679
see three guys. Well, I
don't believe that, and I'll tell you

599
00:45:28.760 --> 00:45:30.599
why. It's because I know the
layout of the home and how the three

600
00:45:30.599 --> 00:45:32.760
guys were killed, and all three
of them were asleep. So there's no

601
00:45:32.800 --> 00:45:37.800
way in hell you look through one
window and you saw all three guys.

602
00:45:37.199 --> 00:45:40.760
So that's bullshit, and I'm gonna
stand on and die on that hill right

603
00:45:40.760 --> 00:45:45.400
now. But then he goes and
that's when I said, man, this

604
00:45:45.559 --> 00:45:49.119
is probably a sign that we could
give some souls to the devil. He

605
00:45:49.159 --> 00:45:52.280
says, I saw one guy on
the couch. I pumped myself up,

606
00:45:52.880 --> 00:45:55.039
and we go into the house.
We use the key. The guy started

607
00:45:55.039 --> 00:45:59.280
to wake up. I looked at
him, and then he just went back

608
00:45:59.320 --> 00:46:04.599
to sleep. So when he kind
of rolled over or whatever and went back

609
00:46:04.599 --> 00:46:07.000
to sleep, that's when I knew
the devil's got my back. And that's

610
00:46:07.000 --> 00:46:14.199
when I grabbed the axe and started
striking him with it and killing him with

611
00:46:14.239 --> 00:46:16.480
it. And then so the cop
said, okay, well what did Martinez

612
00:46:16.519 --> 00:46:19.280
do? And he's like, oh, I don't know, man, because

613
00:46:20.480 --> 00:46:24.159
you know, he wasn't standing there
while I did it. Martinez wasn't standing

614
00:46:24.159 --> 00:46:27.280
there when I did it, And
so He's like, well, the police

615
00:46:27.280 --> 00:46:28.719
were like, well, where was
he and he says, oh, he

616
00:46:28.800 --> 00:46:32.800
was outside puking. And then he
came back in the house and said I

617
00:46:32.800 --> 00:46:37.360
don't want to do this. And
that's when Venegas says, dog, you

618
00:46:37.400 --> 00:46:39.360
know, if we don't do this, the devil's going to kill us.

619
00:46:40.440 --> 00:46:44.440
We can't leave this house. You
can't go out of this house again,

620
00:46:44.480 --> 00:46:47.360
or the devil's going to kill us. He did say that Martinez did.

621
00:46:47.519 --> 00:46:51.119
He told Martinez, you know you
got to stab him one time too.

622
00:46:51.159 --> 00:46:53.360
You're in on this. And so
Martinez had stabbed him, and that's I

623
00:46:53.360 --> 00:46:58.400
guess when he got sick and he
went outside and started puking. Well,

624
00:46:58.440 --> 00:47:00.800
when Martinez was like, I don't
think I can do this. I don't

625
00:47:00.800 --> 00:47:01.639
want to be a part of this, he said, basically, get out

626
00:47:01.679 --> 00:47:05.400
of my way. I'll do it. So that's when he went to the

627
00:47:05.440 --> 00:47:09.719
second bedroom and says that he started
overpowering this fourteen year old. And he

628
00:47:09.760 --> 00:47:12.480
said, I didn't know he was
a kid when I went in there.

629
00:47:12.519 --> 00:47:14.800
And I'm here to say it doesn't
matter who he was, it doesn't matter

630
00:47:14.840 --> 00:47:16.400
how old he was. You don't
go stabbing people, you idiot. But

631
00:47:17.320 --> 00:47:22.039
He said that the kid jumped up
and was like, hey, man kind

632
00:47:22.039 --> 00:47:23.719
of sat up on the bed because
I guess he heard the struggle. But

633
00:47:23.760 --> 00:47:28.960
he said, I quickly got the
axe and overpowered him and took him down.

634
00:47:29.559 --> 00:47:34.199
And that's when I went into Smiley's
room. And we didn't call him

635
00:47:34.199 --> 00:47:36.880
by Smiley, but for the story
purposes, I'm telling you that's when I

636
00:47:36.920 --> 00:47:39.119
went. He went to the other
room, and he grabbed the axe and

637
00:47:39.679 --> 00:47:44.800
Or still had it, went to
town chopping up that man's head, and

638
00:47:44.880 --> 00:47:46.760
then noticed the cross and said,
oh yeah, I got to turn this

639
00:47:46.840 --> 00:47:53.960
upside down. So the police are
like, okay, so you just slaughtered

640
00:47:54.000 --> 00:48:01.440
three people for what though, to
give their souls to the devil? That's

641
00:48:01.480 --> 00:48:06.880
it, because what about all that
backstory we just heard about how they owed

642
00:48:06.920 --> 00:48:07.960
money and all that kind of stuff. And he's like, oh, well,

643
00:48:08.000 --> 00:48:12.239
yeah, we did take some stuff
too. That's real convenient to me

644
00:48:12.280 --> 00:48:15.199
and the storytelling. The devil made
you do it in one instance, but

645
00:48:15.320 --> 00:48:19.960
then there's also robbery in the other. So he's like, oh, yeah,

646
00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:22.840
we took a TV, we took
some rings. Oh yeah, we

647
00:48:22.880 --> 00:48:27.320
also stole his car. Okay,
then the devil this wasn't all about the

648
00:48:27.360 --> 00:48:29.760
devil. Maybe that was part of
it in your mind, but you went

649
00:48:29.800 --> 00:48:32.320
to go take things that weren't yours. He says, yeah, but I

650
00:48:32.360 --> 00:48:37.119
mean I was happy because I wasn't
going to die now because I had to

651
00:48:37.119 --> 00:48:38.400
appease the devil. I killed all
these people, and now I'm not going

652
00:48:38.480 --> 00:48:43.079
to die. And he said,
it makes sense to me to take those

653
00:48:43.079 --> 00:48:45.880
three lives. Other people may not
get it, but it makes sense to

654
00:48:45.880 --> 00:48:49.599
me. I didn't want the devil
to kill me. He genuinely believed that

655
00:48:49.719 --> 00:48:52.880
he did what he had to do
as the way he tells the story,

656
00:48:52.159 --> 00:48:58.079
but he says that he shares the
blame with Martinez. He says, now,

657
00:48:58.119 --> 00:49:00.480
I may have done all this killing, but Martinez is the one who

658
00:49:00.480 --> 00:49:02.840
came up with the location. I
did the killing, but Martinez came up

659
00:49:02.880 --> 00:49:07.559
with the location, so he's just
as guilty as I am. So police

660
00:49:07.559 --> 00:49:12.159
ask him about that, Well,
how did y'all come up with this location?

661
00:49:12.599 --> 00:49:16.079
And that's when he claims that the
whole reason that Martinez chose that house

662
00:49:16.679 --> 00:49:22.639
was because and this is a direct
quote, he says, Martinez said he's

663
00:49:22.840 --> 00:49:30.559
just some and then he calls Smiley
a derogatory term for a gay man.

664
00:49:32.400 --> 00:49:43.880
So basically he claimed that Smiley was
a pedophile and abused boys. So that

665
00:49:44.039 --> 00:49:46.119
was kind of new. That had
never been mentioned before, Nor had there

666
00:49:46.119 --> 00:49:51.079
ever been an heir of anything like
that brought up, even by people that

667
00:49:51.199 --> 00:49:55.199
knew James Smiley. But that had
never been brought up before, not even

668
00:49:55.320 --> 00:50:01.159
a hint of anything along those lines
ever, And so I think he was

669
00:50:01.199 --> 00:50:06.639
just trying to insert that, honestly, to almost legitimize why they went in

670
00:50:06.719 --> 00:50:08.960
to do this to this innocent man. But because I mean, other than

671
00:50:08.960 --> 00:50:14.639
that one statement, nothing has ever
been said explained. I think it's total

672
00:50:14.679 --> 00:50:20.239
bullshit and it's excused by evil people
to try to bring shame, and you

673
00:50:20.280 --> 00:50:23.400
know, cause that somehow the victim
brought this on themselves, and I just

674
00:50:23.480 --> 00:50:28.960
I personally don't believe it. There
was never any indication of such an act.

675
00:50:29.280 --> 00:50:32.719
No one has ever made any other
claims of this. There was nothing,

676
00:50:34.280 --> 00:50:42.639
absolutely positively, nothing ever found ever
of that any of anything of that

677
00:50:42.760 --> 00:50:45.679
nature with Jim Smiley, and I
want to make sure that's crystal clear whenever

678
00:50:45.719 --> 00:50:52.119
I'm telling this story. So when
Miguel was questioned, this was his explanation

679
00:50:52.159 --> 00:50:55.760
of the things. Once they looked
in the windows. He said, I

680
00:50:55.840 --> 00:51:00.719
wanted to leave, but Venegas insisted
that we go and so police are like,

681
00:51:00.760 --> 00:51:02.559
so why did you go in if
you didn't want to go in,

682
00:51:02.920 --> 00:51:07.199
And that's when he says, well, I was scared of Venegas because he

683
00:51:07.239 --> 00:51:12.000
started talking about Satan and wanting people
in the house's souls, and it just

684
00:51:12.039 --> 00:51:15.719
got really, really out of control. He never mentions that he said anything

685
00:51:15.760 --> 00:51:22.440
about Smiley possibly abusing him or anything. He never says that. He said,

686
00:51:22.559 --> 00:51:25.239
we went in and there was a
guy on the couch asleep. We

687
00:51:25.239 --> 00:51:29.400
couldn't tell who he was or anything. And he said, that's when Venegas

688
00:51:29.440 --> 00:51:32.360
picked up the axe and just cracks
him in the skull with it. And

689
00:51:32.400 --> 00:51:38.519
that's when I started feeling sick.
He made me stab him the guy in

690
00:51:38.559 --> 00:51:44.119
the stomach with the knife, and
so he did it, but he said

691
00:51:44.159 --> 00:51:46.559
it made me sick. I went
outside and started puking, and he said.

692
00:51:46.559 --> 00:51:50.480
That's when Venegas kind of showed back
up in the doorway and said that

693
00:51:50.519 --> 00:51:54.320
he had stabbed somebody else in the
house in another room, and Miguel said,

694
00:51:54.360 --> 00:51:59.559
I want to go. I'm ready
to leave, and Venegas took the

695
00:51:59.599 --> 00:52:04.519
axe went back down the hall,
and apparently is when he started acting Smiley

696
00:52:04.679 --> 00:52:07.400
in the other room and he said, I have to do this. Satan

697
00:52:07.519 --> 00:52:13.679
needs his soul. So to me, it seems like both of the guys

698
00:52:14.239 --> 00:52:19.159
have the same story, and it
seems to me that Venegas is absolutely the

699
00:52:19.159 --> 00:52:27.000
most culpable one in the story.
Now, Miguel still went Miguel did stab

700
00:52:27.079 --> 00:52:30.199
the fourteen year old boy on the
couch. But if we're just looking at

701
00:52:30.239 --> 00:52:37.360
this and you know, participation,
I guess Miguel doesn't seem to have done

702
00:52:37.360 --> 00:52:40.880
as much as Venegas. Doesn't make
it right. Just letting you know their

703
00:52:40.920 --> 00:52:45.719
stories kind of drive in that way. So that's when the teens both work

704
00:52:45.840 --> 00:52:49.400
to take the TV and they steal
Smiley's car, which, by the way,

705
00:52:49.440 --> 00:52:52.880
if you were so ill and so
moved and so scared, I don't

706
00:52:52.880 --> 00:52:54.519
think I would have been able to
function to continue to steal and then to

707
00:52:54.599 --> 00:52:59.079
drive away in someone's car. But
that's what they did, and they drove

708
00:52:59.119 --> 00:53:01.679
straight back to Milo's house because when
they went out there, they said Milo

709
00:53:01.800 --> 00:53:06.440
wasn't waiting for them like they expected. But that caught me a little weird,

710
00:53:06.639 --> 00:53:10.519
because if you did How did you
know Milo wasn't out there If you

711
00:53:10.559 --> 00:53:15.400
were carrying all of this stuff and
you stole the car, That doesn't quite

712
00:53:15.400 --> 00:53:17.119
make sense to me. It seems
to me like you went in there and

713
00:53:17.119 --> 00:53:20.559
you knew we had a car,
and you took the car, and that's

714
00:53:20.559 --> 00:53:25.239
why Milo possibly left. Well,
they he says, we left though.

715
00:53:25.599 --> 00:53:29.639
We went to Milo's house, he
says, Venegas spoke to him, and

716
00:53:29.679 --> 00:53:34.159
then we left the house again,
both of us, both Miguel's. They

717
00:53:34.519 --> 00:53:37.639
rode around all night, They went
to other teens houses, went and partied

718
00:53:37.639 --> 00:53:39.920
with some other teens, and then
that was kind of a rap on the

719
00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:46.119
night. Milo then asked to speak
get to Miguel the next night, and

720
00:53:46.199 --> 00:53:52.679
so when they spoke, Milo was
telling Miguel, I'm kind of worried that

721
00:53:52.800 --> 00:53:55.480
Venegas is going to say that I
did something when I left and I had

722
00:53:55.519 --> 00:54:00.920
nothing to do with this. I'm
really worried. And and you know,

723
00:54:00.960 --> 00:54:04.000
he's like, well, I don't
know why he would implicate implicate you.

724
00:54:02.920 --> 00:54:07.360
You weren't here, blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah. Well, at

725
00:54:07.360 --> 00:54:09.559
that point the police had what they
wanted. Basically, both of these boys

726
00:54:09.599 --> 00:54:13.079
these Milo and I don't I shouldn't
call them boys their teens. Both of

727
00:54:13.119 --> 00:54:16.320
these teens confessed and had said that
they were there, they did this.

728
00:54:16.800 --> 00:54:22.159
Milo had left them there, They
stole a car, and so people kind

729
00:54:22.159 --> 00:54:25.599
of started jump into conclusions the same
one. I did, you know,

730
00:54:25.960 --> 00:54:32.360
how come this judge's son, you
know, conveniently was never arrested when the

731
00:54:32.400 --> 00:54:38.440
other two were. But the judge
spoke up and said, listen, I

732
00:54:38.719 --> 00:54:45.280
in no way could save my son
from prosecution if he was a part of

733
00:54:45.320 --> 00:54:49.280
this. There's nothing I could do
to have influenced this. Now a lot

734
00:54:49.280 --> 00:54:52.800
of us are rolling ryes, going
sure, sure, sure, but guess

735
00:54:52.840 --> 00:54:57.480
what ended up happening. There was
a man named oj Oj Hale. He

736
00:54:57.559 --> 00:55:00.840
was an investigator for almost fifty years
at the District Attorney's office in Laredo.

737
00:55:01.320 --> 00:55:06.960
He was acting as the lead investigator
for the prosecution in this case. And

738
00:55:07.320 --> 00:55:10.960
he says, look, there's no
doubt when you go room to room doing

739
00:55:12.000 --> 00:55:15.880
the same thing over and over again
to multiple people, there's no doubt of

740
00:55:15.920 --> 00:55:19.480
your intentions. You can't act like
this was just spontaneous. You know,

741
00:55:20.360 --> 00:55:23.239
sometimes when you are high on drugs
and doing all sorts of stuff. Those

742
00:55:23.559 --> 00:55:29.119
hallucinations can have voices, you know, create voices that tell you to do

743
00:55:29.159 --> 00:55:32.880
stuff. I mean locally, we
had a guy years ago that was hallucinating

744
00:55:32.960 --> 00:55:37.760
after doing drugs and he cut his
own child out of his pregnant wife's stomach.

745
00:55:39.199 --> 00:55:42.159
And this investigator, so, I
mean, it does happen. But

746
00:55:42.239 --> 00:55:44.920
this investigator for the prosecutor's office was
like, you know, if you believe

747
00:55:44.960 --> 00:55:47.280
in God and God believes in the
devil, then you know that the devil

748
00:55:47.320 --> 00:55:54.639
is out there. So both Miguel
and Venegas were arrested for the triple axe

749
00:55:54.760 --> 00:56:01.599
murders. Miguel Venegas was too young
for the death penalty because he was only

750
00:56:01.639 --> 00:56:07.239
sixteen years old. Now he's clearly
the ringleader, but because he was sixteen

751
00:56:07.320 --> 00:56:12.559
years old, he got the benefit. He accepted a plea deal for forty

752
00:56:12.559 --> 00:56:15.599
one years in prison. He never
had to testify, he never had to

753
00:56:15.679 --> 00:56:21.400
explain, and he never spoke publicly
about the murders, which I find very

754
00:56:21.440 --> 00:56:27.480
convenient. And he was housed at
the Texas Department of Corrections the Cofield Unit.

755
00:56:27.880 --> 00:56:30.079
But I did something find something else
out about this prick that you might

756
00:56:30.079 --> 00:56:37.679
not know. Venegas has been locked
up right. Ever since these slags happened,

757
00:56:37.079 --> 00:56:43.840
except for two years when he escaped
the juvenile detention center at gunpoint.

758
00:56:43.920 --> 00:56:46.519
He held people in December of nineteen
ninety three, and he got to stay

759
00:56:46.559 --> 00:56:53.199
on the loose for two years until
he was found in Monterey, Mexico,

760
00:56:54.480 --> 00:57:00.880
and they imprisoned him on the escape
conviction until he was convicted on these or

761
00:57:00.920 --> 00:57:06.360
pled these on these triple murder cases. This is a bad dude, very

762
00:57:06.400 --> 00:57:10.199
bad. Joe Rubio, who was
the district attorney and prosecuting attorney, said

763
00:57:10.239 --> 00:57:15.159
there was no evidence ever found of
Smiley offending boys. He said he was

764
00:57:15.199 --> 00:57:21.679
an outstanding citizen and there's no evidence
whatsoever, and it's unfair that this shadow

765
00:57:21.800 --> 00:57:28.480
was placed on him. Miguel Martinez
would become the youngest defendant on death row.

766
00:57:29.000 --> 00:57:31.119
He was offered life in prison if
he would just plead guilty, but

767
00:57:31.159 --> 00:57:35.920
he said he wouldn't take it,
and so he was ultimately convicted and given

768
00:57:35.960 --> 00:57:39.519
the death penalty because remember he was
seventeen. Now I will tell you fast

769
00:57:39.519 --> 00:57:43.599
forward. In two thousand and two, his death sentence was commuted to a

770
00:57:43.719 --> 00:57:49.440
life in prison sentence, and the
prosecutor himself spoke up and said, I

771
00:57:49.440 --> 00:57:53.679
think it unfair that the lesser of
the two defendants was the most culpable yet

772
00:57:53.719 --> 00:57:59.440
got lesser sentence just because of his
age. I'd have to agree on this.

773
00:57:59.519 --> 00:58:02.480
Not that I'm trying to say that, you know, how much you

774
00:58:02.559 --> 00:58:06.559
participate should reflect whether you're punished or
not. I'm not, but this guy

775
00:58:06.559 --> 00:58:12.599
admittedly killed three people and got forty
something years just because he was a little

776
00:58:12.639 --> 00:58:17.079
bit younger than the other guy who
stabbed and stole and was put on death

777
00:58:17.159 --> 00:58:21.400
row. I think they both should
have been put on death row if you

778
00:58:21.400 --> 00:58:25.639
want to be honest. But credibility
came into question. You know, drug

779
00:58:25.719 --> 00:58:32.800
users and alcohol, all of that's
common in teens. They didn't kill until

780
00:58:34.039 --> 00:58:39.079
it was said that the Nagas wanted
to take their souls, and Milo was

781
00:58:39.239 --> 00:58:45.960
never there when that shift occurred.
And that's why Milo was never indicted and

782
00:58:46.079 --> 00:58:52.360
was never charged with the murders.
Even a grand jury who looked at Milo's

783
00:58:52.920 --> 00:58:59.800
all the evidence failed to indict Milo. The Texas Rangers looked over the case,

784
00:59:00.320 --> 00:59:05.320
and the FBI looked over the case
too, and all three came to

785
00:59:05.360 --> 00:59:08.719
the same agreement that they did not
feel Milo knew that the murders were going

786
00:59:08.760 --> 00:59:13.880
to occur, and he did,
in fact, try to not participate by

787
00:59:13.920 --> 00:59:20.320
leaving and by not giving the gun. Miguel has been eligible for paroles since

788
00:59:20.360 --> 00:59:24.719
two thousand and six, but is
denied each time due to the severity of

789
00:59:24.800 --> 00:59:31.639
the crime. I will tell you
this, Accusing an innocent man of being

790
00:59:31.639 --> 00:59:37.519
a predator when all he ever did
was help young people makes me angry.

791
00:59:38.880 --> 00:59:45.239
And knowing that Venegas said he wanted
to kill people because he was dared and

792
00:59:45.280 --> 00:59:52.400
he's a macho man pisses me off. Both of these killers are weak,

793
00:59:52.840 --> 00:59:58.599
and they cast off blame rather than
taking responsibility for their actions. So they

794
00:59:58.639 --> 01:00:04.119
had a bad childhood, So what
we all do. They had daddy issues,

795
01:00:04.239 --> 01:00:07.960
great, so do the rest of
us. We don't kill people.

796
01:00:07.760 --> 01:00:10.800
Are you really going to sit here
and say the devil made me do it?

797
01:00:12.920 --> 01:00:16.239
Really? Because when the devil whispered
to me before I'm coming for you,

798
01:00:16.840 --> 01:00:21.079
I whispered back, Bring it on, because I'm just as clever and

799
01:00:21.119 --> 01:00:35.239
I'm twice as pretty.