The Laredo Triple Axe Murders

0:06 Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime podcast. Or I tell stories of real crimes with real victims whose cases are so shocking that many are left wondering, how is this even real? I use my experiences in law enforcement corrections, and combined with my years as a criminal justice educator, dig deep into complex cases of evil acts, some so evil many feel they are unspeakable. Warning.

0:51 Unspeakable as intended for mature audiences. If you are easily offended, then I'm not your girl. Listening discretion is advised. Hey, y'all, kJ you're back for ad other episode? What is going on? What is going on? Jimmythy? You love it when I say what is going on? Don't you? Yes? I do. Jimothy is here with me because we got some big news, and I hope that you're as excited as I am. I'm not gonna lie. It actually does make me uncomfortable to have to, like, not have to, but to ask for people to vote for you. Yes, I hate that vote for me, but I want you all to know I'm running for president and I want you I'm just kidding, No, I'm not. But I've been nominated. The show has been nominated for a couple of awards and so several Jim is here, He's going to explain it all because I will screw it up. Yeah. So People's Choice Podcast Awards is around the corner and voting has actually started for the People's Choice Podcast Towards. Let me tell you a little bit about the People's Choice Podcast Awards. It is the oldest awards ceremony in podcasting. I think it started somewhere around the land late nineties. And what I really like about it is it strictly relies on the votes of fans. See, you don't have a panel that's sitting there and you know it's six people and they're choosing who wins these awards. The fans actually vote. It is complete fan interaction. Last year, over twelve million votes just for the Podcast Awards. There's ever a

2:28 nod. I guess that I love to accept. It's that people, the people who listen to it, enjoy them. True. That's right. You can't buy your way into it, you can't influence means nothing. It's the people. It is the fans saying this is my favorite podcast, no matter what genre it is. And Kelly and Unspeakable a true crime podcast by Kelly Jennings has been nominated for several this year, including Best True Crime Podcast, Oh Frow. She's also been nominated for Best Female Host. I was shooting for Best Male Host, but I'll take it. I'm so touched. I can't believe it. Yeah. So, And also the Adam's Adam Curry People's Choice Awards. You can vote for Kelly for that. Everybody that's nominated in every category is actually up for that award. It's just a It is actually the biggest award of the night, and Kelly is one of the selections there that you can vote for. Can you believe it? This has only been two years, right, and to I can believe it? You're a good storyteller. Well, well, hey, I'm honored that I'm allowed to tell other people's stories because they're you know, it's real life. And but to only have done this for two years and I tell people this, I'm just being completely honest. I've been teaching for you know, seventeen years, and that's a big part of it too. You've been podcasting your whole life,

3:59 just recording it. That's called I might have been fired by now. I'm thin've been recording everything, but but no. But to have been teaching that long, and you know, to have devoted so much time professionally to that, and then to do your passion, your passion and to be recognized, you know, in the first and second year means everything. I hope I'm doing justice for these victims. I hope I'm telling their stories correctly. And I want to thank every single listener for your feedback and your participation and for your continued support. Yeah. Absolutely, and we'd love to have you go vote. Yes. It's easy, yes, and we're going to talk about the steps there. Look with the Podcast Awards, it seems like a lot in order to get the vote. It's really easy. You go to Podcast Awards dot Com and it'll bring you to a sign up page. Now here's the key. Last year, Kelly one most influential podcast. There were five that you could choose from. Kelly was one of those five. Out everybody in the world, y'all, So that podcast. So when you go to that page, if you signed up last year and you voted for Kelly or anybody else in the Podcast Awards, you don't have to sign up again.

5:13 You just log in using your credentials and you know how it works at that point. However, if you've never done it before, you go to Podcast Awards dot Com. You're going to sign up. There'll be a button there it says, you know, sign up, and it'll ask you your name and your email address, and there's a little box at the bottom and it says, check this box if you want to be considered in the final voting. You definitely want to check that box. Let me explain. So this initial phase of voting, you're basically voting for who wants to be in the finals, and there's there's ten that are finalists at the end, and so you vote for whoever Kelly and all those gorgeous I just told you. And uh oh, incidentally, this dude right here is up for one I know, right, So we always forgot to mention mine. My god, Jim, she always forgets me, y'all. Look, we have a running joke on this. I'll share this another time, but it's funny. Idiot and people so much and it doesn't come across. But my podcast Exposed is also up for Best Storyteller Any Drama Series, so you can pack for that too.

6:31 That's that's on there. Hey wait, I gotta say this real quick. So you know how y'all you call me the unspeakable one. Yes, well yesterday you don't know this because I deleted it, but I said congrats to the exposed one. Sorry like that Candless one. Candless look even better. So so she's so funny. But uh, at any rate, you go, you put in your credentials if you have them. If not, you're gonna sign up. You're gonna click that box and it's gonna bring you to a page and that page is gonna have uh, basically best Asian Podcasts, best true crime podcast, et cetera, all the way down the list.

7:15 When you click the toolbar, it's gonna bring a menu up and it's gonna have the people's name that have been nominated. All you got to do is go scroll down to Kelly Jennings unspeakable, scroll to the end, Yeah, unspeakables at the bottom, Yeah, and click that and uh and there's your vote. You don't have to vote for everything. There's a bunch of different categories. You only have to vote for what you want to. When you're done, you scroll to the bottom of the page. You click submit and that should be all you have to do. Also, on my Facebook page if you go look if you're on Facebook. I keep putting up little all right, I don't keep but I've put a few little images up there to show you, tell you the names of the categories and to do There's also one box at the beginning that says you get to type in by name who would be the top influencer for you. Yes. In podcasts, you would have to actually type Kelly Jennings in that box, So you would do that one if you want to, if not, put somebody else. But I would love if you'd put Kelly Jennings in that box and then go vote for me in Best True Crime Podcast, Best Female Hosted Podcast, and the Adam Curry People's Choice People's Choice. I would be so honored and I would appreciate your time. It takes less than five minutes and it means the world to me. Yes, yes, absolutely. And look for Jim in drama and storytelling, the best storyteller in a drama. Yeah, I said it in the wrong order. That's all right, either one for me for either

8:45 one of those. So yeah, check that out and please vote. And look. The reason that box is so important is if you are selected, they do a random selection at the end of the voting process US, which is a month long. At the end of that voting process, they do a selection and randomly people get chosen to vote for the actual winner. So the voting you're doing now will put Kelly and I into the finals of the Podcast Awards. There's tost ten in those particular particular genres. At the end, you're voting for the overall winner. So if you're selected, you'll get an email that'll say, hey, you get to choose the overall winner.

9:30 If you do not check that box, you're not considered in that final slate. We need you in the final slate. Yes, best fans in the world. Yeah, I'm sorry that's so wordy, but we want to make sure we do it right because learning curve, that's right, and it's hard to understand if you don't, if you've never done it. So thank y'all so much for everything, genuinely from the bottom of my heart right here in South Louisiana, thank you so so very much. Thank you Jim for being the producer extraordinary that's gotten us. Do they have us for producer extraordinary that I'll suggest it best extraordinaire? All right, awesome. Well, thank you Jim for explaining that. And I'm gonna jump right on into this story, which is going to be right out of Laredo, Texas. It's Laredo Texas.

10:16 I mean, come on, if you watch television any Wild Wild Wests or any you know of the Cowboy movies, you're gonna think about Texas, home of the good old cowboy, the spiritual man, and land, lots of it. There's farm and ranches and the oil industry and of course the churches. Right so, with its adobe houses and church buildings and mission bells and plazas, Laredo has retained much of that feeling of the frontier and the influence and the language of Spain and Mexico. It's real apparent whenever you're in Laredo now. Laredo was also the home of thirty three year old James Smiley and J. M. Smiley was a Baptist minister and a restaurant manager from Laredo, Texas. Physically speaking, he was a little on the chunkier side.

11:07 And hey, I'm not hating, okay. My favorite people are shade in the summer and heating the winter, okay. But he wasn't mean, he wasn't that chunky, but he was a proverbial teddy bear. I guess, if I had to put him in a category, he was a white guy. He had the thicker, dirty blonde brown hair, the edges receding just a little bit in the corners. He was a godly man, and he put his words and his faith into testable action. He was a first Baptist church member, and he was called Jim to his friends and to his family. Everyone said that he had a great personality and that he was downright funny. He was kind, He was funny, and he was a man of his word doing submission work with orphanages. And he was a missionary, and he wanted to be out in the field spreading the word and being a good example for the church. He actually used a lot of his own money to fund many of the projects that he did on these missionary trips. And he poured himself into the youth of the area. And this isn't well stated or confirmed anywhere, okay, but you kind of get the feeling that many of the children and teens that he helped to care for were likely here illegally, and that maybe they were grasping for help in whatever means that may be.

12:28 And again I'm not saying that in a negative fashion. I'm saying I want you to just really get a taste for what this guy was about. He wanted to help people, you know. To me, it seemed possibly that a lot of these teens were sent over without an adult to oversee them, but trusting in God and the Church to help these young people get somewhere in life and to be successful. Jim loved people. He loved helping others, especially the needy ones, the ones that without support would fall through the cracks. And I admire people that those that help people who have nothing to offer in return, those are my kind of people. I love it. He was involved heavily in the youth groups. He was said to be the person that would give the shirt off of his back, and the teens loved him for it. And that's why people were absolutely stunned to wake up one day and find out that Jim Smiley had been killed. But not just killed, y'all, no, No, he had been murdered in a triple axe murder. There were three victims that had been axed to death and Jim was one of them. So everyone that knew him is going, Who in the world would ever have an issue with Jim Smiley. The church didn't know, and certainly no one else could come up with anything, you know either that not even an enemy. You know, It's like everyone's just kind of looking at one another, going, I don't even know what a point of finger.

14:00 Jim had even opened his home to two young men who had nowhere to go. Their names were Ruben Martinez, who was twenty years old and Daniel Duennes, who was fourteen years old. Both of them, based on my research, were from Mexico. And I have to take a moment right now. I have to tell you something as a listener that I searched so incredibly hard, I mean hard to find more information on these two young men, and I simply could not find anything. And it pains me because these guys. I want to tell you who they were. I want to tell you about Daniel, I want to tell you about Ruben, but I just don't have anything. And that kind of is what lent myself to that thought that maybe they weren't here, and that's why we don't have a lot of records on them. But I will tell you that they existed, they mattered, and they were young men trying to get somewhere in the world. So when Jim wasn't responding to calls and he didn't show up for his appointments, police went to the home where they found Jim, Reuben, and Daniel dead.

15:11 So Jesus Torres, he was the assistant chief of Laredo PD. He became the lead investigator in this case, and he was stunned by the extreme level of violence used to kill the sleeping, unarmed people in this case. Their heads were bashed in, smashed, cut and sliced. And as the police walked through the crime scene, they said, geez, I mean, there's no forced entry. It wasn't like these were some you know, bandidos or something that came busting down the door. It wasn't like Jim was involved in drug sales and you know the cartel was after him. So when I say no forced entry, matter of fact, the police believed that the suspect to have done this must have used a key. And I'll tell you that that's not very far fetched because because most homicides are committed by people who know they're victims, these guys had been horrifically stabbed and axed to death, and they were all found in the very same spot where they looked to have gone to sleep the night before. Jim was in his bed, Reuben was found on the couch, the couch in the living room, and Daniel was in another bedroom in the bed. The pure horrificness and the level of violence at the scene was something that even the most seasoned investigator was repulsed by. And it's like, make it make sense. That's something that I say a lot, But the truth is, in crime and murder, it usually doesn't. It

16:42 doesn't make sense, and that was the case here. Police really had no leads to go on. Also, this scene was three separate rooms, so this took time, and it wasn't a spontaneous event. This wasn't some surprise attack and then run out not expecting someone to be home. Case in point, this is the actual scene the investigators came upon. Jim's home was in a decent area of town at the time of this case, and it looks to be an average middle class home. It's brick and then it's got an open carport that extends off the front of the home towards the road. It's an average home if you think about the mid nineties. Okay, it's an average looking, middle class home. The inside of it looks like a man lives there. And I mean that with all due respect. Okay, it had everything necessary for a home, but it was missing that what I would call quote unquote woman's touch if you looked at the decoration. So he had what he needed, it just you know, was a it was a man vibe going on in the bachelor pad. In the living room, police found twenty year old Reuben, who was the first one believed to be killed due to the proximity of the entryway. Now, Reuben lay on this blue couch.

18:00 He's in his white boxers, and he's covered only on his top half with something that looks like a blanket or a jacket. I'll post pictures and patrons so that you can go look at it. But imagine a twenty year old male. He's lying asleep on the couch. One leg is straight out, the other one is kind of bent and just resting on the back of the upright of the couch. He doesn't even look to have known what was coming or to have even had time to respond. So once the blanket was removed. Investigators found wounds that were beyond necessary to incapacitate someone. He was stabbed in the chest and in the stomach area with a knife, and then he had axe wounds around the head and the neck. Fourteen year old Daniel who was found deceased in one of the spare bedrooms. He too had been attacked with an axe and suffered overkill slicing and axing of his upper body in his head. He was found lying in the bed on his right side, and he was still wearing his little acid washed blue gene and he had his socks on. It seems as if he did what all young boys do that he threw his shirt off. He threw it on the floor. He jumped in the bed, not even bothered enough, you know, to change clothes.

19:10 And it made my mama heart sad looking at the photo because it's these little nuances that make these people real to me. You know, he's the typical fourteen year old boy. He's on his right side. Both of his knees are slightly bent, but one foot extends out a little further than the other one and it's just hanging off the bed. And his head is still laying and resting on the pillow where he laid down to go to sleep. He too has a blue and pink striped blanket, but only over his top half. And it's very obvious that he had no idea what hit him. Literally, police did feel like he tried to put up a fight at first, but was very very quickly, if not instantly, knocked unable to fight, I mean almost instantly, because he just collapsed right back down. It looked like in the sleeping position where he was raising up. The last body that police found was that of Jim Smiley himself, and he was still in his bed under the covers. His hands are resting neatly on his side, kind of on the side if his stomach in a pillow, las kind of leaned over his stomach as well. He has on a white T shirt and he's in his blue pinstripe boxers. He was clearly attacked with no idea and immediately incapacitated by the axe blows about his head. And we know this because there is absolutely positively no sign of struggle. You can tell in the photo he never knew that someone was even standing over him. There was something though, that caught investigator's eyes in that bedroom. Remember, Jim was a man of God. So when doing the video of the walkthrough of the crime scene,

20:45 when they went to the night stand, you can see like there's a tissue box and some lotion and a magazine and stuff that you would typically have on your nightstand. But why was the cross on his nightstand turned upside down? A white crucifix was turned upside down, like vertically standing upside down on top of a US news magazine with the bottom of the cross in the air. A gold Jesus crucified on that cross was upside down. So was this something to pay attention to. Well, anyone who knew Jim would say, hell yeah, maybe not in those words, but yeah, write scrim it from the rooftops. Jim would never have his cross upside down, not Jesus.

21:30 So police took note and wondered, does this play a role in the motive of what seems to be these unprovoked killings? Okay, this got weird for me. I'm not even gonna lie to you. Okay, y'all know that I'm not one who's gonna entertain some satanic bullshit. Okay, I don't you know, like just f Satan and all of that. I don't want any part of it. But in the spirit of learning, I ended up going down a very dark and deep rabbit hole about Satanic ritual possibilities in crime scenes, and I thought, you know what I need to I should enlighten the listeners on what this is about, because y'all people are nuts and I was uncomfortable reading all of this, so I researched innocently at first. Okay, I went through the Catholic websites, other Christian websites, and I wanted to be very practical in how I explained, you know, the upside down Cross, and a lot of the things I found on these websites was that they kind of rebuffed the idea that the upside down cross is Satanic, because even according to Christianity dot Com, the upside down cross in Christianity is linked to the martyr the martyrdom of Peter the Apostle, and so, according to Catholic tradition, when Peter was sentenced to death, he requested that his cross be turned upside down because he didn't feel worthy of being crucified in the same way that Jesus was crucified. Now, I personally prefer this explanation because the

23:07 next set of shit I'm about to tell you doesn't jib with me. The it's giving off an aura I don't want any of. But when you're trying to understand evil, unfortunately we have to think like evil ones do. So that's when I really thought to myself self, you don't need to be on these Christianity dot com websites. You need to be on some more devious stuff to figure this out. So that's when I found myself literally reading a forty something page manuscript written for understanding and investigating cases with Satanic involvement. And this trips me out because I'm telling you, I'm not want to entertain the idea.

23:51 But I'll have to share some of the manuscript with you because I'm going to tell you about it right now. But I also I'm going to post the whole manuscript on my Patreon so you can go see it. It's crazy, but in the manuscript it even gives examples of cases that were worked already for comparison and understanding, and the power of the influence of Satanist groups is discussed. In one of the examples that caught my eye, and it was talking about a school aged boy that joined a Satanist group at the age of nine and at the age of thirteen, so just a few years later he skinned a small dog and drank its blood. This is a thirteen year old and then later he developed this penchant for eating skin peeled off of the fingers and feet of other people who would let him. Okay, so this is this is some weird, dark stuff, and if you don't think it's weird and dark, seek help. But it talked about what is the profile of someone likely to take part in Satanic rituals and murder and the typical profile and by the way, don't go think, don't go holy water and everybody you know, Okay, but this is what it was kind of reduced down to.

25:18 It's said that this would be an intelligent, curious, usually male person. They have low self esteem, alienation from family religion, They're creative, possibly seen as an underachiever, and either middle or upper middle class, with difficult times relating to their peers. So it kind of gives you an idea of where these people would fall into if you're trying to come up with who might be the suspect here and when investigators are at the scene or at scenes where they think that it might have some type of satanic meaning, the investigators are encouraged to look for things like missing body parts, branding, iron or burn marks, wax drippings on the victim or on the ground. I'll go into a little more depth in a little bit, and then human or animal feces consumed or found on the victim, and also blood letting. Now, none of this, and there's other things too, but those were kind of the main ones. None of this was found at the Smiley scene. Really, the only thing found was or that was even noticeable or jarring, was that upside down cross. So in this manual it talks about the inverted cross of Satanic justice, which that sounds like a oxymoron or something if I've ever heard at Satanic justice. But it's often times if it's in a ritualistic killing, going to be carved into the victim's chest. This was not done,

26:49 and when used in such a case, the victim is usually seen as a trader. Well, Jim would be, I guess considered a trader because he loved God and was a follower of God. The center vertical line in the image, which again i'll post you can look at it indicates the man's present, the horizontal line indicates eternity, past and future, and then there's an arch which is supposed to indicate the world. So the inverted cross appearance symbolizes the epitome of anti Christian theology. That's kind of the thought behind it. Another thing that made them think about this maybe be in Satanic was the Roman symbol of justice was a double axe in the upright position. The representation of anti justice is inverting the double bladed acts. And again, these guys were killed with an axe. So this is literally another world. And I'm telling you, the more you read about it, the more some celebrities that are up in the news seem to possibly take part in this type of stuff.

27:55 But that's another episode for another day. I'm not gonna get all into the conspiracy theories stuff, but I'm telling you this manual uh brought some stuff to light for me. All in all, while the killer may have turned the crosses upside down, there was nothing more than that found to suggest a Satanic ritual. So investigators did their job and eventually the investigation had police finding themselves on the doorstep of a man named Manuel Flores Senior. And to be a little more specific, his name was the honorable Judge Manual Flores Senior to be exact. So who was this mister Flores, this judge Flores. So he began practicing law way back in nineteen seventy five. He had been a district judge for twenty years, and he had been a circuit court judge for four years. What could a judge possibly had to do with a triple axe murder with the side of Satan. Well, this is what it was. What it was like when they got to his house. This is kind of what mister Flores was about farm life. He has horses and land. When you look at him, he's everything you expect of a judge. He's nice, clean cut, gray haired, gentlemen with glasses. And one morning, when he was having his morning coffee, two officers knocked on his door and he opened it. He was very surprised to see officers there, and they said,

29:26 look, long story short, we have a triple axe murder that happened, and the axe that you own is believed to be the weapon used. So you can imagine the judge standing there, blinking his eyes going excuse me right, clearly stunned and not knowing what they're talking about. Police then followed up with we'd like to speak with your son. So Judge Flores had a son, seventeen year old named Milo. Now, Milo was brought into the room and he was asked, do you have an axe or does your dad have an axe? And he said yes, and they said where is it?

30:07 And he said, well, two of my friends borrowed the acts. They asked to borrow it, and then they brought it back and it's in the shed by the woodpile. Now side story real quick. I just thought of this when I'm in class and were when I'm teaching, the students will say, Miss Jennings, I need to ax you, and I'll say time out. You better say the right thing because if you want to ax me, that's a felony. If you want to ask me, that's different, and they always roll their eyes and I'm like, oh my god, stap it. So anyway, that's my pet, Peeve, don't ask people. It's a felony. But either way, the judge went out there with his son, they got the axe and they handed it over to the police.

30:49 At that point, the police asked the judge, we want to further interview your son. Do you have any objections to that? And the judge was honest. He said, I'm worried. Yeah, I mean yeah, he's an attorney and now they're wanting to talk to his son about a triple axe murder. He didn't lie. He said, yeah, I'm kind of worried about that, but son, you need to speak What is going on? Why are the police at my house looking for an axe? Why are people murdered? And why are you being brought up in it. So Milo explained to the police that they and I'm saying it on purpose, they they were talking about trashing a house and doing something bad to someone who appeared good but was actually bad. So the police are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa whoa? You know, back up, who is this? They?

31:34 I need you to explain? And this is where I was like, of course, storytelling cannot be that simple, because this may surprise you, because it was confusing to me at first when I was trying to write this episode that the they he was speaking of were two other friends, and the two other friends have the exact same first name and the exact same middle name. They are both named Miguel Angel, and then one of them is Miguel Angel Martinez and the other one is Miguel Angel Venegas. So to make this story not be confusing as I continue to tell it, I'm gonna refer to one of them by first name and one of them by last name, so you can keep up with who's who. So Milo began to explain, how you know the acts that they're saying may have been used to murder three people, may have been hours, but I didn't have any part in it.

32:34 He says that early in the afternoon a few days prior that Milo's friend Miguel met up with another friend, Venegas. So again, these are the two Miguels. What I'm gonna call one Miguel, and i'ma call the other one Venegas. So Venegas was sixteen years old and Miguel was seventeen years old, and they knew each other from school. They had classed together. Now, when you're looking at the two boys, Miguel comes across as mild mannered. He's believable, but clearly troubled. And so when you look at the photos of him from that time, he has a big smile, he looks clean cut, he looks like every knucklehead I teach, you know, and they're your book photo. When you look at Venegas, he comes across as wild and he an agitator. And in his photos he looks dirty, he looks unkempt, he looks smug, and you would assume troubled. Now, Kelly, you shouldn't judge people. You know the book by its cover. Well, I am, because I want you to know that's part of the interpretation of who are these kids by what you see? You know that you're looking to see what do they look like? What do they look like? They're about? So that night that was in question, a party was happening at Milo's house, the judge's son, and so Miguel invited Venegas to go over to Milo's house. Now Milo was seventeen. Now remember dad's a judge.

34:05 They had some money, so Milo didn't actually live in the house with his parents. He had his own apartment behind the parent's house. So they had a little bit of money. The kids knew that, But the kids also knew something else that the judge may not have been quite aware of. And the kids knew that Milo also had access to drugs. So I guess the judge may have not been watching his own nest quite as closely as he was his courtroom. So I know most of us go, okay, great, some kids are smoking weed. Eh, hold your horses, because when they got to that apartment that was unsupervised full of seventeen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen year olds, they were not only smoking marijuana, but they're doing lines of cocaine at sixteen and seventeen. And I don't know about you, but it's scary enough just getting in a car with a sixteen year old learning to drive. I can't imagine one all hopped up on freaking cocaine and the decision making there. So when Venagas would get high, and he did, and he did a lot of drugs, he would get very, very animated.

35:12 He was loud, rambunctious, he kind of got wild. So it was close to midnight on that night of the party, and Venegas was hyper as usual, and he kept saying, how you wanted to go tear up a car or a house or just go tear something up. So all of the boys agreed, Yeah, let's go tear some shit up. Let's go get into some trouble. Now. Supposedly there was no real plan per se. They just were gonna head out to go tear up some shit. Now. They agreed upon the house of a man named Jim Smiley. Why did they pick Jim Smiley. It wasn't at random. They didn't just go driving down the road and say, hey, let's go tear that house up. No, they picked Jim Smiley's house because Milo and me get Well had both been there before. So police are like, well, why had you been there before? What do you have to do with this guy? I mean, this is not looking very good for a judge's son to have the acts that killed people and then to say you've been in the house of the murder victim, you know, And he said, well, I was there before.

36:19 Because Miguel had worked for Smiley in the past. When he was fifteen years old, Smiley saw Miguel and said, you know, you look like you need help. It was clear that Miguel was disadvantaged. Miguel did not have a father figure, and so Jim Smiley offered to help him. Now, he even gave the keys to his house. A copy of the keys to his house to Miguel and said, son, you're welcome to stay at the house if you need. Jim Smiley gave Miguel rides, he fed him, he did everything that you would think someone who was trying to take care of a teenager would do. Milo also admitted, well, Miguel had the key and so we actually stole stuff from him before too. So, if I'm being honest, I'm not real big on Milo either. I don't want him.

37:08 Just because you're the son of a judge doesn't make you any better right than anybody else. So he said that they had made a plan to go in and to go tear up the house to possibly take some stuff. They were gonna go steal some stuff, but that venagus became really animated and was really big on no, we need to tear some stuff up. We need to destroy it. Let's go just tear everything up. And that's when they started saying we need to get we need to get an axe or give a baseball bat, or maybe we should get a gun. You got knives, like we need all this stuff. Well, when all of that started happening, Milo kind of was like, I don't know, I don't know about all that. So, you know, the boys continue to kind of mull it around, they're doing drugs, and Milo finally was kind of like, okay, well let's go. If we're going to go, and the boys were like, all right, well, get us a gun, and Milo said when they asked for the gun, he told him no, and they said, well why not, We know you have one, and he said, yeah, but I can't get into it. My dad has it and it's locked up in his and his gun safe, which come to find out, was not true. The gun wasn't locked up, but Milo didn't want to give him the gun, like his gut was telling him, I don't know if this is a good idea. So, you know, Milo said at that point the two boy other boys were kind of freaking him out and

38:38 acting really bizarre and strange even for being high, and so he kind of just wanted to get them out of the house. Well this does make sense to me, and the fact that what he ended up doing next was saying, okay, look, you can go in my barn and if there's something in there, you can have that to bring with you to tear up the house. So that's when they all went in there and they picked out the acts, and then you know, they did get a knife and they got into Milo's car. So the plan at that point was Milo was going to go drop the other two off about two blocks from Smiley's house and then he would come back and pick them up because it was going to be quick. They were just going to go in. And now they were talking about possibly stealing a bunch of cash that might be in the house. And so this is kind of gray. You don't really know what happened here. He said, he said, he said, but they were going to go steal some cash too, And so I don't know whether it's because it started taking so long, or if Milo chickened out, or if it really was that he didn't want to be around him anymore. But Milo did that exactly that he drove two blocks, he let him get out of the car, but then he rolled out. He didn't stick around. He left. So you know, I could buy the statement at that point, considering the fact that he didn't stay. And in the eyes of a seventeen year old, I could see how you could be peer pressured and not want to look like a total, you know, lame, but you didn't want to go be a part of doing all that, and so he just said, I'll drive you there dump them off. The thing is, though, Milo said that they were

40:13 just wanting to go trash the house and get rowdy. So my question was, then, well, then why do you need a gun? You know, if you're just gonna go get rowdy and trash a house where supposedly maybe nobody's home, why do you need a gun. Then that's part of that premeditation that we always talk about. So police said, okay, they kind of got an idea of what was going on, and that's when they went and they tracked down the two miguels to start questioning them and see what they had to say. And what they found were too young and smug lit samva bitches. And it wasn't long before what happened was actually laid out on a platter basically for the police, with a few discrepancies between the two. So Venagus explained. This is where he starts. Okay, he says, man, my mind was warped at eight years old. This goes way back.

41:05 I've always had trouble. I'm like, okay, and that's when he says, because I've known since I was eight years old, that I'm the son of the devil. Okay, wow, you know, and so obviously what comes to mind is what, yeah, that cross. So this was like adult blues clues just now, and what comes to mind, that's right, the cross. I've even left room for you to answer me, and I'm in a room by myself. But the upside down cross right, the satanic stuff. Well, wait a minute. He says he believes he's the son of the devil, and he's believed that since he was eight years old. So then he goes off and starts telling the story about when he was growing up, how there were black widow spiders everywhere all over where he grew up, and so what he would do is he would go get a jar and he would take off his shirt and say, well, I can prove I'm the son of the devil. I know, because he would go fill up the jar for all that he's black would spiders, and he would take off his shirt and he would dump them all over him. And he says, none of them ever bid me. So I knew I was the son of the devil because not even these black widows could get me. And at thirteen years old, he moved from Warez, Mexico to Laredo, Texas. That's whenever he met Martinez. They met their sophomore year in a pre algebra class.

42:22 So they're like, okay, so you're the son of the devil, you move here, black widows. How do we get to ax murdering three people? And he says, well, we were snorting cocaine on the night that we were over at Milo's house. And he says, but Milo started hinting to the fact that you know us too, Miguel's were basically muchin and that we owed him something. Now, Milo never brought that up conveniently, but he's like, you know, we're poor, we don't have any money, we don't have anything. And that's when Martinez said, well, hey, I've got the keys to this guy's house. We could go steal a bunch of cash and get you some money to pay you back for the dope and all that that we're using. And to me, I actually believe that because, again, when I'm curious about why did they bring a gun if they were just gonna go tear some stuff up, seems like that story makes a little bit more sense to me. So they're like, well, how are we going to scare them to get the money from them? And that's when they were like, well, let's get a gun. Let's get a gun, and Milo said no, I mean the gun's locked up and my dad's safe. So I kind of see a seventeen year old here talking big shit and then when it comes down to it, he don't want to be a part of doing the big shit things. He just wants some money.

43:35 So he said. That's when we asked Milo, loan USh your knife then, and he said, fine, no problem. And so that's when they went out to the shed and they got a knife, and they got an axe and they got a baseball bat. Well, this is when Venegas says, you know, well, why don't we just kill the dude then? And I don't know how you jumped to that, That blows my mind, but he says, why don't we just kill the dude then? And Venegas claims that Milo says, man, you won't do that. You're not gonna do that, you know, And he says it was almost like it was a dare or something, and that's when he says, so I had to man up. And then he says this and it's so cringey to me, he says, because I come from a muchiest duck culture. What in the actual fuck does that have to do with murdering innocent people? Is that what makes you macho? You have to follow through with every dare. Okay, well, then I dare you to go get a job. I dare you to pass high school. I dare you to become a physicist. Like what the fuck muchiese duck culture, No, bro, you don't go hurting innocent people. But that's his claim, So he says, so I was basically dared to do it. And that's when Venegas says. He was doing hallucinogens all day and now mixed with cocaine. He was feeling real angsty. And so when that's when they got to the idea, you know, or that's

45:07 when they got dropped off by Milo at Smiley's house and they're like, okay, well, then what happened when you got there? So he says, well, when we got dropped off, we both walked over there. You know, Milo's still driving around, so we go walk off and go look into the windows of the Smiley's house and he says, and that's when we see three guys. Well, I don't believe that, and I'll tell you why. It's because I know the layout of the home and how the three guys were killed, and all three of them were asleep. So there's no way in hell you look through one window and you saw all three guys. So that's bullshit, and I'm gonna stand on and die on that hill right now. But then he goes and that's when I said, man, this is probably a sign that we could give some souls to the devil. He says, I saw one guy on the couch. I pumped myself up, and we go into the house. We use the key. The guy started to wake up. I looked at him, and then he just went back to sleep. So when he kind of rolled over or whatever and went back to sleep, that's when I knew the devil's got my back. And that's when I grabbed the axe and started striking him with it and killing him with it. And then so the cop said, okay, well what did Martinez do? And he's like, oh, I don't know, man, because you know, he wasn't standing there while I did it. Martinez wasn't standing there when I did it, And so He's like, well, the police were like, well, where was he and he says, oh, he was outside puking. And then he came back in the house and said I don't want to do this. And that's when Venegas says, dog, you

46:37 know, if we don't do this, the devil's going to kill us. We can't leave this house. You can't go out of this house again, or the devil's going to kill us. He did say that Martinez did. He told Martinez, you know you got to stab him one time too. You're in on this. And so Martinez had stabbed him, and that's I guess when he got sick and he went outside and started puking. Well, when Martinez was like, I don't think I can do this. I don't want to be a part of this, he said, basically, get out of my way. I'll do it. So that's when he went to the second bedroom and says that he started overpowering this fourteen year old. And he said, I didn't know he was a kid when I went in there. And I'm here to say it doesn't matter who he was, it doesn't matter how old he was. You don't go stabbing people, you idiot. But He said that the kid jumped up and was like, hey, man kind of sat up on the bed because I guess he heard the struggle. But he said, I quickly got the axe and overpowered him and took him down.

47:29 And that's when I went into Smiley's room. And we didn't call him by Smiley, but for the story purposes, I'm telling you that's when I went. He went to the other room, and he grabbed the axe and Or still had it, went to town chopping up that man's head, and then noticed the cross and said, oh yeah, I got to turn this upside down. So the police are like, okay, so you just slaughtered three people for what though, to give their souls to the devil? That's it, because what about all that backstory we just heard about how they owed money and all that kind of stuff. And he's like, oh, well, yeah, we did take some stuff too. That's real convenient to me and the storytelling. The devil made you do it in one instance, but then there's also robbery in the other. So he's like, oh, yeah, we took a TV, we took some rings. Oh yeah, we also stole his car. Okay, then the devil this wasn't all about the devil. Maybe that was part of it in your mind, but you went to go take things that weren't yours. He says, yeah, but I mean I was happy because I wasn't going to die now because I had to appease the devil. I killed all these people, and now I'm not going to die. And he said, it makes sense to me to take those three lives. Other people may not get it, but it makes sense to me. I didn't want the devil to kill me. He genuinely believed that he did what he had to do as the way he tells the story, but he says that he shares the blame with Martinez. He says, now, I may have done all this killing, but Martinez is the one who

49:00 came up with the location. I did the killing, but Martinez came up with the location, so he's just as guilty as I am. So police ask him about that, Well, how did y'all come up with this location? And that's when he claims that the whole reason that Martinez chose that house was because and this is a direct quote, he says, Martinez said he's just some and then he calls Smiley a derogatory term for a gay man. So basically he claimed that Smiley was a pedophile and abused boys. So that was kind of new. That had never been mentioned before, Nor had there ever been an heir of anything like that brought up, even by people that knew James Smiley. But that had never been brought up before, not even a hint of anything along those lines ever, And so I think he was just trying to insert that, honestly, to almost legitimize why they went in to do this to this innocent man. But because I mean, other than that one statement, nothing has ever been said explained. I think it's total bullshit and it's excused by evil people to try to bring shame, and you know, cause that somehow the victim brought this on themselves, and I just I personally don't believe it. There was never any indication of such an act.

50:29 No one has ever made any other claims of this. There was nothing, absolutely positively, nothing ever found ever of that any of anything of that nature with Jim Smiley, and I want to make sure that's crystal clear whenever I'm telling this story. So when Miguel was questioned, this was his explanation of the things. Once they looked in the windows. He said, I wanted to leave, but Venegas insisted that we go and so police are like, so why did you go in if you didn't want to go in, And that's when he says, well, I was scared of Venegas because he started talking about Satan and wanting people in the house's souls, and it just got really, really out of control. He never mentions that he said anything about Smiley possibly abusing him or anything. He never says that. He said, we went in and there was a guy on the couch asleep. We couldn't tell who he was or anything. And he said, that's when Venegas picked up the axe and just cracks him in the skull with it. And that's when I started feeling sick. He made me stab him the guy in the stomach with the knife, and so he did it, but he said it made me sick. I went outside and started puking, and he said.

51:46 That's when Venegas kind of showed back up in the doorway and said that he had stabbed somebody else in the house in another room, and Miguel said, I want to go. I'm ready to leave, and Venegas took the axe went back down the hall, and apparently is when he started acting Smiley in the other room and he said, I have to do this. Satan needs his soul. So to me, it seems like both of the guys have the same story, and it seems to me that Venegas is absolutely the most culpable one in the story. Now, Miguel still went Miguel did stab the fourteen year old boy on the couch. But if we're just looking at this and you know, participation, I guess Miguel doesn't seem to have done as much as Venegas. Doesn't make it right. Just letting you know their stories kind of drive in that way. So that's when the teens both work to take the TV and they steal Smiley's car, which, by the way, if you were so ill and so moved and so scared, I don't think I would have been able to function to continue to steal and then to drive away in someone's car. But that's what they did, and they drove straight back to Milo's house because when they went out there, they said Milo wasn't waiting for them like they expected. But that caught me a little weird, because if you did How did you know Milo wasn't out there If you were carrying all of this stuff and you stole the car, That doesn't quite make sense to me. It seems to me like you went in there and

53:17 you knew we had a car, and you took the car, and that's why Milo possibly left. Well, they he says, we left though. We went to Milo's house, he says, Venegas spoke to him, and then we left the house again, both of us, both Miguel's. They rode around all night, They went to other teens houses, went and partied with some other teens, and then that was kind of a rap on the night. Milo then asked to speak get to Miguel the next night, and so when they spoke, Milo was telling Miguel, I'm kind of worried that Venegas is going to say that I did something when I left and I had nothing to do with this. I'm really worried. And and you know, he's like, well, I don't know why he would implicate implicate you.

54:02 You weren't here, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Well, at that point the police had what they wanted. Basically, both of these boys these Milo and I don't I shouldn't call them boys their teens. Both of these teens confessed and had said that they were there, they did this. Milo had left them there, They stole a car, and so people kind of started jump into conclusions the same one. I did, you know, how come this judge's son, you know, conveniently was never arrested when the other two were. But the judge spoke up and said, listen, I in no way could save my son from prosecution if he was a part of this. There's nothing I could do to have influenced this. Now a lot of us are rolling ryes, going sure, sure, sure, but guess what ended up happening. There was a man named oj Oj Hale. He was an investigator for almost fifty years at the District Attorney's office in Laredo.

55:01 He was acting as the lead investigator for the prosecution in this case. And he says, look, there's no doubt when you go room to room doing the same thing over and over again to multiple people, there's no doubt of your intentions. You can't act like this was just spontaneous. You know, sometimes when you are high on drugs and doing all sorts of stuff. Those hallucinations can have voices, you know, create voices that tell you to do stuff. I mean locally, we had a guy years ago that was hallucinating after doing drugs and he cut his own child out of his pregnant wife's stomach. And this investigator, so, I mean, it does happen. But this investigator for the prosecutor's office was like, you know, if you believe in God and God believes in the devil, then you know that the devil is out there. So both Miguel and Venegas were arrested for the triple axe murders. Miguel Venegas was too young for the death penalty because he was only sixteen years old. Now he's clearly the ringleader, but because he was sixteen years old, he got the benefit. He accepted a plea deal for forty one years in prison. He never had to testify, he never had to explain, and he never spoke publicly about the murders, which I find very convenient. And he was housed at the Texas Department of Corrections the Cofield Unit.

56:27 But I did something find something else out about this prick that you might not know. Venegas has been locked up right. Ever since these slags happened, except for two years when he escaped the juvenile detention center at gunpoint. He held people in December of nineteen ninety three, and he got to stay on the loose for two years until he was found in Monterey, Mexico, and they imprisoned him on the escape conviction until he was convicted on these or pled these on these triple murder cases. This is a bad dude, very bad. Joe Rubio, who was the district attorney and prosecuting attorney, said there was no evidence ever found of Smiley offending boys. He said he was an outstanding citizen and there's no evidence whatsoever, and it's unfair that this shadow was placed on him. Miguel Martinez would become the youngest defendant on death row.

57:29 He was offered life in prison if he would just plead guilty, but he said he wouldn't take it, and so he was ultimately convicted and given the death penalty because remember he was seventeen. Now I will tell you fast forward. In two thousand and two, his death sentence was commuted to a life in prison sentence, and the prosecutor himself spoke up and said, I think it unfair that the lesser of the two defendants was the most culpable yet got lesser sentence just because of his age. I'd have to agree on this. Not that I'm trying to say that, you know, how much you participate should reflect whether you're punished or not. I'm not, but this guy admittedly killed three people and got forty something years just because he was a little bit younger than the other guy who stabbed and stole and was put on death row. I think they both should have been put on death row if you want to be honest. But credibility came into question. You know, drug users and alcohol, all of that's common in teens. They didn't kill until it was said that the Nagas wanted to take their souls, and Milo was never there when that shift occurred. And that's why Milo was never indicted and was never charged with the murders. Even a grand jury who looked at Milo's all the evidence failed to indict Milo. The Texas Rangers looked over the case,

59:00 and the FBI looked over the case too, and all three came to the same agreement that they did not feel Milo knew that the murders were going to occur, and he did, in fact, try to not participate by leaving and by not giving the gun. Miguel has been eligible for paroles since two thousand and six, but is denied each time due to the severity of the crime. I will tell you this, Accusing an innocent man of being a predator when all he ever did was help young people makes me angry. And knowing that Venegas said he wanted to kill people because he was dared and he's a macho man pisses me off. Both of these killers are weak, and they cast off blame rather than taking responsibility for their actions. So they had a bad childhood, So what we all do. They had daddy issues, great, so do the rest of us. We don't kill people.

1:00:07 Are you really going to sit here and say the devil made me do it? Really? Because when the devil whispered to me before I'm coming for you, I whispered back, Bring it on, because I'm just as clever and I'm twice as pretty.