The Shooting of Baron Li

0:06 Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime podcast where I tell stories of real crimes with real victims, whose cases are so shocking that many are left wondering how is this even real? I use my experiences in law enforcement corrections, and combined with my years as a criminal justice educator, dig deep into complex cases of evil acts, some so evil many feel they are unspeakable. Warning Unspeakable as intended for mature audiences. If you are easily offended, then I'm not your girl. Listening discretion is advised. Hey y'all, kJ you're back for another sort of unspeakable? How are you doing?

1:01 What's going on? I got a pretty good one for you today. This one I wrote all week and I'm just tickled by it because I think it's I think it's an interesting one, and it's not something that's kind of like. Your typical story. So come with me, if you will, to Bellevue, Washington. Where are my Washington people at? Before I actually jump into it, did y'all see? I know everyone's watching now with that airplane crash that you know, God rest their souls, all those victims and those plane in the planes in Washington that hit the river and the helicopter and just the tragedy of all of that. Well, what if I told you a friend of mine that works in law enforcement was on a plane and I was freaking out. I thought, oh my god, he was on the plane in Washington. You know, I always go worst case scenario.

1:44 But he messaged after the plane crash and said it wasn't me. I've landed on the ground and it stressed me out. So I just want to tell everyone that you are in my thoughts and you're in my prayers. If you were affected by that plane crash, if you know or any of the people on that plane, that just a tragedy. We don't have all the answers at the time that I'm recording this, but my heart and my prayers and my I guess just everything, it's with you right now if that was something that affected you. But we're gonna go to Bellevue, Washington in this case, and that is the fifth largest city in Washington. It's referred to as a city in a park because this area of Washington has over one hundred parks within its limits.

2:29 So sounds beautiful. I've never been there. If you're from that area, reach out to me. Let me, know, what's it like? Do you like it there? But it sounds amazing, sounds like a great place to be. And one thing that I was interested in is the fact that this city's crime rates are consistently low. This is a great place to raise a family from everything that I researched, and so when crime rates are low in an area, it's always shocking when something goes down there. So this happened to also be the home of forty eight year old Baron Lee. And Baron was originally from Hilo, Hawaii, And he's sporting that typical black hair and that tan skin. And when you are looking at Baron, he has a kindness about him and it just shines through in photographs.

3:14 I have met people like this that they just I hate saying someone lights up a room. I hate saying that because it's just tied with the fact that somebody's gonna die. But he has a kindness about his face, and when he smiles, it just is so warm and so inviting. He's super sociable, a man who was unafraid to put himself out there in regard to people and community, and it's just no surprise that he was really successful in his car sales career. He was likable. That's a job where you have to be like. Nobody wants to think of a sleazy car salesman. They want to think of somebody that's gonna be true and right and personal and knows what they're talking about. And barn was that guy.

3:57 He had just been promoted to sales manager at Beer Toyota and. He was doing great. He was the American dream, you know. He was just out there and killing it in his neck of the woods, clean cut, trustworthy. That's a great combo to having a man, don't you think. And that, my friends, is Barren Lee. Now. Not everything had been perfect in his life, though, And I don't want to make it sound like he's just this guy that everything went great. He had been through a lot in his life, and some things that he went through even the strong of us of us would take heart. So as a child, he experienced really tough times that would eventually leave him in the care of the state. He would become a foster child, and without his birth parents to love and care for him, he really had a hard time, you know. And you can't blame kids for that. When a kid is put in foster care. And then someone you know, they're angry, they're mad, will know shit, their life has been upended, you know, everything they're used to and even if their parents suck, even if they have the shittiest parents on the earth, that was still their parent and they still love them for what they knew them to be. And through a child's eyes, I'm sure this is very difficult. So he was put into foster care. And you know, maybe that's why as he got older and he grew up, he became such a kind hearted and understanding person and he very much could identify with other people and their struggles

5:29 and the emotional turmoil that people can go through. I think that's a beautiful thing when you know, I'll tell you this, when you meet somebody and you see a beautiful light about them in whatever regard it is. Maybe they're always willing to help, Maybe they're just always kind, Maybe they always come at you with a compliment, maybe they're just they go out of their way to open doors. When you meet somebody with a light about them like that, you can trust that they are healing something within themselves that they lacked. So it makes sense to me that Baron grew up to be a kind hearted and compassionate person. He also, although he made it through foster care and he grew up, he also had been through a pretty trying divorce that left him with the sharing of custody of his baby boy named Eric. And this Eric is a ar ik just interesting fun fact, not the typical spelling.

6:20 But he loved his baby Eric with every ounce of his being. But Eric's situation was also marked by tragic circumstance because Eric was born a healthy, bouncing baby, but within days of his birth, things began to change. Unbeknownst to his parents and to the doctor's baby Eric was lactose intolerant. Now, this isn't common in newborns, and I did do research on this. I'm not an expert. I'm not giving medical advice or anything, but this is not as common in newborns as I guess maybe I would have thought it was. And so it went undiagnosed for a week. But by then baby Eric had been consuming milk that essentially was poisoning him for that first week of life, and in the most tragic of circumstances, this led to severe neurological and muscular damage that would alter Eric's life forever. So he was diagnosed along with that lactose intolerance, which this was interesting to me, but if you're born with lactose intolerance, these may not be the proper medical terms, but my understanding of what our research is that even a mother's breast milk can poison the baby.

7:33 That's bizarre, you know what I'm saying, because it's to me, because we're. Built for that. That's what we're for, is to create the nourishment for our babies. But even that was problematic for baby Eric to consume. So on top of that, he was also diagnosed with dystonia and cornectorus, which was a billy rubin encephalopathy illness, and so all of that combined would cause damage to baby Eric and so he would require on the clock care for the rest of his life and he is completely dependent on the care of someone else. Lucky for Eric, though, his mama and his daddy were never gonna let him down until his mother did. Sharon was his mother's name, Sharon and Baron. And I know that's kind of funny. Their name's rhyme, but hey, shout out to miss Mary if you're listening.

8:24 You know who you are. But my friend Mary. Her sister's name is Dora. And guess what her husband's name when she got married. Guess who she married. Guess who? Dora married? Barney. I'm not laughing at him, I'm laughing with him. But can you imagine Dora and Barney showing up to your kid's birthday party and it's not them? But anyway, shout out, miss Mary, you know I love you. But Sharon and Baron had gotten married in what was a whirlwind romance. Sharon was young, she was only eighteen, and Baron was ten years her senior, so he was older, but they were in love and it just was a whirlwind romance and they took a leap of faith. So they got married in twenty ten. Eric was born shortly thereafter, and that love, that hot, intense, oh you know, like just that new falling in love feeling, it really would be short lived and their differences would just become too much to handle. So the marriage soured in twenty fifteen, and that's when Sharon went and she filed for divorce from Baron.

9:20 But Baron is not one. Of those dads that's just gonna go okay, Well, I'll get him every other weekend. No frickin' way. Baron wanted custody of his baby boy, and this would turn into your typical battle of the exes. Unfortunately, and we all know the drill here. You know, both of them are saying the other one's shitty. Both of them are claiming that they're bad parents. And something I hate about that is when someone gets divorced. Two people get divorced, and then all of a sudden they start saying, how shitty the other person is. Well, baby, you married, you had the kid. With them, so maybe let's both take a look in the mirror and figure out that we both probably or screw up. But either way, not one to be easily deterred. Baron continued on with his life and they were sharing custody of little Eric, who, by the way, fun fact, Eric's middle name is Dragon and his daddy calls him by that. That's his nickname, so he calls him Dragon, and that's kind of interesting. I've never met someone with a name Dragon. So I did have a neighbor one time, who's last who's named his child vicious?

10:19 That's a true story, vicious. Wow, But this baby's name is Dragon, so you know, when I say that his mother let him down, what do I mean by that? Well, when Eric was six years old, the courts would have to intervene because they would determine that Sharon was an unfit parent. And for a court to say you are an unfit parent, if you've ever watched the court systems, you're given hella opportunity, hella opportunity to get your shit straight. So for them to finally come down and say, all right, look, you're not what's in the best interest of this child. I want you to understand how bad you probably are doing with that kid. And one of the main things that was cited in the court decision was neglect. They said neglect was cited as the cause of the ruling, and Child Protective Services had even taken Eric from her and placed him in foster care because they were so concerned for his well being. So I'm sure that was a shot in the heart to Baron, who himself had experienced that as a child, and now his own.

11:18 Child was set in foster care. So Sharon had still been given overnight visits because like I told you, they're going to try to do everything to reconcile this issue and to have custody of your own child as the goal of the courts. But it was too. Bad and that was eventually revoked and she was limited to supervised visits of the baby. Now I know people want to know more, I will tell you this. I dug I reached out to people which I can I can touch on later. I just didn't get anything back. Nobody responded to me as this is a touchy case by the time that I'm recording this, but all I know at this point is neglect was cited. So Baron had been continuing to fight for custody of Eric since their divorce started, and it took him nearly two years for that to take full effect with you know, combination of hers being Sharon being cited as a neglectful parent.

12:12 So it may have taken time, but finally the court saw the truth and Baron was awarded custody of young Eric in May of twenty nineteen. So just how devoted was Baron to his young son, y'all this would be proven by his willingness to. Uproot his entire life and move. He was willing to move to be closer to Eric's home and where Eric had been living for the past few years. Rather than say no, he comes to me, Baron was willing to go to his baby boy, and that just speaks volumes to me about his dedication to his son. So he had moved all the way from Nevada, and I know people from there always say it's Nevada. Well, I'm sorry, I can't do it. I say Nevada. It's kind of like I say Raymond Noodles and everyone jumps on me for that because it's the Ramen noodles. Sorry, my ignorance is showing, I say Raymond. Okay, now you know, all right.

13:02 But he moved all the way from Nevada to Washington to ensure that custody of Eric. And it wasn't just him that was moving because since his divorce from Sharon, Baron had gotten back into the dating life and he had struck gold, absolute gold. He met a woman named Dede, and it was almost love at first sight. These two clicked from the get go, and Dede felt the same when she met Baron and they dated for a while. This was not another whirlwind romance. They dated for a while and then they had decided to get married. So Dede had also previously been married and she had two children from that previous marriage. Those babies' names. I say babies, y'all, I don't care if you're thirty years old your mom's you know, ninety, You're still a baby. So when I say babies, they weren't infants. But her children were Ethan and Sophia, and these kids loved Baron. They were excited to have him as their stepdad. They took to him quite quickly, and he even became extremely close to those step children, literally to the point that he genuinely considered those his children. Baron was so invested in these kids and he wanted them to know that they could count on him, and the kids were so invested in him that they actually started to call him dad. Although they did know their real dad, they started calling barn dad.

14:31 So Baron indeed, he did everything to ensure that this blended family was loved and cared for, and this included little Eric, who came to live with them. But once they moved to Washington, life was good. The kids settled in nicely, the family was going well. Eric was stable, he had a great network of care surrounding him. And shout out to all the parents out there who have children with special needs or that are medically fragile. Because you're the real MVP. I'm telling you you are a gift to this earth because I see those types of students at school. I'm telling you, I'm not qualified for it. I'm not good enough. But I see special education teachers and teachers that come in to take care of these kids with special needs, and it's a gift. And God doesn't give those children to just anybody. I have to just say that out there.

15:23 If you're dealing with children that require that level of intensity and care, you're doing it and we are better for it. As a community. So, as I mentioned, the. Crime rate was very, very low in Bellevue, so it was beyond alarming when neighbors of the same apartment complex where Barren and his family lived heard rapid gunfire going off in the early morning hours of July tenth. It was so unusual that majority of the people that were questioned about it or that called in to nine one one about it, said we. Thought it was works, but it's gunfire. Oh my god.

16:03 So it was July tenth of twenty twenty when these calls started flooding into the nine one one center and it was just after eight am, and everyone's saying, there's rapid gunfire. They're screaming, we need help. We don't know what's going on. And most people, and I guess you know, I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but most people stayed indoors. They didn't go running out there to see what's going on. But not every neighbor stayed inside. One went out to investigate. And that was the case of a neighbor that lived next door or right next to Baron, and her name was Christa. So Christa went out there when she heard the screaming because she knew in her gut somebody needs help. And she was horrified to find Baron Lee lying next to his car and literally pouring blood from multiple gunshot wounds. So Christa, recognizing the severity of this, she jumped up and she ran inside. She went and grabbed her first aid kit that she had, and she started pulling the gauze out and applying pressure to his chest to try and stopped this bleeding that was just gushing.

17:02 Out of his chest. Baron was shot everywhere, but it seemed like that chest wound was just pouring out blood. And Christa never wavered. She was calm under the immense stress of what she was looking at. She continued to apply pressure, and another neighbor who saw that it was Baron on the ground, ran to go tell Dedie, oh my god, Baron is outside and he's shot. Never underestimate the power of a good neighbor. She jumped in and she's doing everything that she can. DEDI runs out there. She is stunned and then ultimately just confused because it just didn't make sense. Why would my husband be shot? Don't we aren't these people?

17:42 This doesn't happen to us. So she runs out there and she sees Baron laying there. The sight looked grim. This was not like a little flesh wound through the toe, you know. This was some legit damage done to him. And the nine one one call is heartbreaking to listen to because Baron, you can hear him. He is screaming in sheer terror. And what was he yelling? I have to tell y'all that what he was yelling it sounded like something out of a movie script. He's going, I can't feel my arms. I can't feel my arms, I can't feel my fingers. But then he shifts immediately from what he can't feel, and as he's getting weaker, he's screaming, get Eric, get Eric, Get Eric, and his mind just switched to his child, a father's final plea to protect his baby cub, who, by the way, wasn't even outside.

18:35 But Eric was on his mind, and as Baron's life was draining from him, he used his last bit of energy to ask the people around him, get Eric. Help Eric, as he's dying on the ground. And this is a true testament of a loving father. Now to note step children, Sophia and Ethan, they were away, they were visiting their grandparents at the time. They luckily weren't there, but Baron that he wasn't worried about them. It's just that Eric was there and he wanted his baby protected. So police and medical immediately are sent. They're en route. They get there within minutes of the phone call, and when they got to Baron, they immediately began removing his clothing to see this chest wound and to do what they they were needed to do. Incredibly, though, the more clothing they removed from him, the more gunshot wounds they found.

19:29 Not one, not two, not four bullet wounds, not seven bullet wounds, but nine gunshot wounds to his body. He had two bullet holes in his right chest, He had two holes in his right bicep, one in his left elbow, one in his left hip, one of his left thigh, and one in his right thigh. Think about that. He literally is shot everywhere from head to toe. So he's literally bleeding to death. They load him up in the ambulance and as they're doing life saving measures, everyone was EMTs included, they're just praying, Oh my god, I hope he lives to get to the hospital. So they're doing everything they can. Baron was alive whenever they made it to the hospital, but he would need immediate surgery to survive. Now, in the meantime, police are still at the apartment complex and they're addressing the scene, trying to make it make sense. And one shooter or one caller excuse me, one caller saw the shooter running away from the apartment complex towards this overpass road.

20:36 But I want to kind of explain it to you. So this area is kind of hilly, and there's an overpass with a road on top, but it has a tunnel that goes underneath, and so This tunnel, though, isn't like a super tunnel. It's a big tunnel and you can walk through it, and so traffic drives over that. You can walk under this tunnel. It's nice, it's pretty, and then it comes out and it leads to a shopping center from the apartment complex. So that caller saw the shooter running that direction. Additional witnesses pointed police into that tunnel where they too had seen that shooter run. So it seemed like a really good lead that multiple people were saying we saw him run that way. So they bring in canines which did or were able to gather a trail and that sure enough, it went straight through that tunnel, and they followed the dog, and the dog picked it up. It goes into that parking lot of the shopping center, but then the trail stops abruptly. Now, when a trail, when a dog is on a trail and then it just stops right there and the dog has nowhere else to go, that's usually a pretty good indicator that the suspect got into a car and drove away, Otherwise the trail would have continued, if that makes sense. So they believed, okay, well, this is good This is good news. This means the active shooting situation at least is over. But the bad news now is that the shooter could be anywhere. They could be long gone because it's been time now since this occurred.

22:05 So without much else to go on, police would have to employ a different tactic to drum up some leads other than you know, someone shot him, which they already knew. So this apartment complex, it's big, y'all. It's got thirty five buildings within the complex. So this is gonna start with some good old fashioned boots on the ground checking and talking to people. I guess that'd be the best choice in the moment, boots on the ground. So they go around and they're canvas in the area. They're talking to everyone saying, Okay, what did you see, where were you, what time was it, and of course do you have cameras because any footage would be great, and we live we live in a time now where damn near everybody's got cameras somewhere.

22:46 It's just a matter of figuring out where they are. But for all the police didn't know, there was one thing they were certain of, and that was the fact that when they saw Baron before he was put into the into the ambulance. Baron had all of his jewelry still on him, He had his wallet on him, he had everything of value still on him, so they were confident. Police were confident robbery was not the case here. They also felt that it was pretty obvious to this point that Baron was targeted though for some reason, but it wasn't robbery. So that was kind of the hunch that they were running on at that time. And the shooter even took the extra steps to try and hide his involvement with the witnesses because or hide his involvement that the witnesses picked up on because they all said something that was kind of strange. The shooter took the time a few seconds, I guess, but took the time to pick up some of the spent casings before he took off running.

23:44 That's bizarre. In broad daylight, you shoot somebody and then you take the time to stop and pick up bullet casings, that's weird. But he didn't get all of them. They police were still able to find three or four of them, and these were three eighty The weapon was a three eighty three eight caliber, so a couple of vehicles nearby had also been struck with the bullet holes in them, and so the police knew the weapon type at least, and they gathered those couple of casings and they. Sent those off to the lab for testing. So as far as people that may have wanted to kill Baron, police questioned Dedi to kind of get her thoughts, because obviously she knows him the best, and she could really only come up with two people that they as a couple couldn't get along with. But she was adamant neither one of these two she felt were capable or were wanting to kill Baron. Okay, and this is going to be super obvious people. It's going to be the ex wife of Baron, Sharon Kelly, and then Dede's ex husband named Armand so Sharon and Baron had been arguing about Eric a lot and Armand hated Baron because he felt like Baron had two tied of a relationship with his children, typical.

24:58 Dislike between say X's. These two seem obviously like suspects too, and so the police went immediately and checked on both of these two people that DDE spoke out about. But it really just didn't nothing came from it. The detectives went to Sharon's home and they talked to her and they said, look, we have a situation in Bellevue. Do you know anybody in Bellevue? And her answer was, the only person I know in Bellevue is my ex husband. And we don't talk. I don't like the guy, we don't talk. She didn't have any information to add about the shooting, and they really didn't get much from her. That was kind of like it was what it was. When they checked up on armand he wasn't even in the state of Washington, like the entire state. He wasn't even there when the shooting occurred. They were very quickly able to rule him out as well, so that didn't really pan out to much now. Back at the hospital, the extent of Baron's wounds was detailed to his wife and to the police. He underwent several surgeries. He was in and out of consciousness, but to their apps salute Frickin' amazement, he was still alive. He didn't die on the table.

26:06 Doctors were able to remove three bullets during surgery. Three of them, though, that were still in him, were too dangerous to remove from the body. They just gonna have to stay in there. And then the other ones had been through and through shots of his body. His right arm was shattered because it was hit multiple times as he had thrown it up to try to shield himself or defend himself. He was going to require future surgeries to repair that damage. He was shot in his side and that was going to require him to need a hip replacement. These are some pretty big damn. This is some pretty serious damage done to his body. He was in pain literally everywhere.

26:47 He was bruised up. He was sutured and stapled from head to toe. But amazingly, the doctors felt like he may pull through this. Eventually he was conscious enough to speak to the police and he was able to detail what happened to them. I mean, this isn't this is great, y'all. When I tell these stories too often, the person's. Dead on arrival. Baron woke up from surgery and was able to talk to the police, and that is a fricking win for all of us so far in this story. So he says, look, I was walking to my car. I was headed to work. It was early eight o'clock in the morning. He said, I heard a boom that I thought was a firework. So I looked to my left, but I didn't see anything.

27:29 And then when I looked back to my right, the shooter was already right up on me. He ran up on me, and he was shooting the entire time, and with every step, the shooter continued to just unload this pistol as he got closer and closer and closer to me. When he shot him in the arm, he said, that's when I, you know, like kind of at first, he said, he shot me in the arm. I turned to try to run towards my car, almost instinctively, like let me get in the car so I can get away, and the shooter just kept running up to him, he said. At one time, the shot then hit the back of his right legs as he was opening his door to get in. When it hit his right leg, it just caused him to collapse right there and fall. And then the shots just continued to ring out, and Baron said, I turned and I faced the shooter and that's when he point blank shot me.

28:17 In the chest. Boom boom, And then he said, just shots continued to ring out. I was hitting multiple times. It was just a whirlwind of just scary, and that's when the shooter just ran off and the horrific assault was over in just a matter of seconds. But the damage was just unbelievable. So they're like, okay, well, well who was it? Who was it? Baron says, look, I wasn't able to see the shooter. I don't know who it was. But he did have a few pointers for police that he wanted that he was very adamant about. He said that shooter had to have been waiting for me because the driveway and the roadway that led up to where his car was it was really long, so if someone would have been walking in approaching him, he would have seen him from a distance.

29:02 This person had to have been waiting and hiding for him. Baron was also adamant that the shooter was not his ex wife, and they're like, okay, well, how do you know if you couldn't see it? And his answer, honestly, y'all, it kind of maybe it tickled me, maybe laugh because when they said how do you know it wasn't your ex wife, he goes, oh, no, that shooter was too skinny to be her, and considering it's his ex that was like low KEI kind of savage, you know, I asked too skinny to be her anyway. Maybe you're laughing with me, maybe you're not, but all in the good fun. Baron survived and he kind of like. Was savage in the moment, all right. He also didn't know was the male or was the shooter male or female? He honestly couldn't tell because of how the person was dressed. But he did say the shooter was skinny and lanky, and the police at least had this working knowledge that it wasn't either of the exes that shot him.

29:58 So who was that mas to kill a car salesman? Now? Right now, someone is going, oh, hell, I'll get that I bought a lemon. Okay, I get that, but like you're not willing to go kill somebody over it? I mean shit. So investigators at the scene locked up because they found a good camera on a business near the apartment complex. And y'all, if you own businesses or if you get a camera for your house, they are no good if you get a shitty camera that's pixelated and that you can't make out the faces. So don't get a camera unless you get a good one. That is like my solid advice to you if you want to catch somebody, because all cameras are good for is catching them after the fact. Get a good camera. There's no point in getting one if not. Well, they found a good one at this business near the apartment complex, and painstakingly the investigator sat down and they watched the tape and they focused in one a Maroon f one fifty that showed up about an hour and fifty minutes before the shooting took place. Because when they're watching it, they can see it go down to the park right that tunnel they had tracked through, but this car drove over the overpass and they saw it go down to the parking lot and park. Then a few minutes later, someone is seen walking towards the area of the shooting. Now in the moment, they're not able to see exactly where the truck parked, but it's obvious that it parked at some point, and they believed that that person that was walking towards the

31:30 area of the shooting likely came from that car. Now, this person's wearing jeans and a white shirt looking top. But this video was a little bit blurry because it was far away and it's not high deaf or anything. Then after the shooting, you see that same person, or believe to be that same person, running back towards the location of where the truck was. He's got his hood up while everyone else seems to be looking the direction of the shooting and dialing nine to one one. So that's what we call the So remember that lost scent trail that the canine like lost it, Well, it turns out the scent was lost at the exact spot.

32:11 Where the truck was believed to be parked. So circumstantial at best, but they're kind of building something here. Now. The focus was to find that maroon truck that the shooter was believed to have gotten into. So police start looking at. Area cameras to see in you know, right in that area, do we have any cameras at any other businesses that Mike could pick up travel of this vehicle. And they were able to pick it up as it was traveling away from the scene and it was going down Maine highways and main roads. And this would prove a super fruitful task that they go to find these cameras because they were able to determine that the truck they were trying to follow was super easy to pick out because it had custom details on it. This is like when I was in high school, the boys, right, it was really cool to go get your last name tattooed between your shoulder blades. And I always thought that was stupid because when they fight, what a boys do? They rip their shirts off, and then you have a fucking license plate with your name on the back of your shoulder blades like that was always comical to me. It was always the one who wanted to be badasses. But then let me just go ahead and put my name on my back so cameras can see who I am. But anyway, that's kind of the situation here. And when when they're following this truck through the video, they can tell that there's a diamond plate cap around the truck bed. And then it also had tinted headlight covers, so it was super easy to pick out on film as they watched it travel from place to place to place.

33:39 Additional footage was able to be pulled. From a different location and it had perfect angles and they were able to zoom in and they could get a windshield view through the truck. They could tell number one there were two people in the vehicle and the passenger appeared to be wearing what the police thought that shooter was wearing. He had on the white tea and when they zoomed in they saw this very identifiable gold chain around the passenger's neck. They could tell that he was a thin, white person, male, but nothing else super identifiable. So it was a good shot, but it wasn't just, you know, a perfect shot of the face. They couldn't make out the driver though, because the angle of the camera at that location it was dark and shaded on the side where the driver was. But this was a great lead. They just needed to get a clear shot of the license plate. That would really be the only thing that they could do was try to find that license plate unless they wanted to have every cop in the area just looking for this maroon truck, and that would take a lot of resources in a lot of time.

34:42 So they continue the investigation and they would eventually get the exact frame shot that they were looking for on the truck, a clear shot of that license plate, and when they zoomed in, they hit pay dirt. They could read it. So they ran that plate and it came back registered to a fifty six year old Arthur Mendez of Mount Bingo. So Arthur was now going to get a visit from the police. But rather than just go knock on the front door and be like, hey, did you shoot somebody, they decided that they were going to take a different angle at this, and they decided that they didn't want to just jump in and clue him in on their suspicions of him. So instead they set up an undercover little operation and they just kept watch on his house from a distance to see could they confirm that that was in fact the.

35:28 Correct vehicle too. So in the meantime, while they're watching the house and waiting to see if that vehicle is going to show up or not, police got or investigators got it curious as to who, just who was this Arthur Mendez, And so they were like, there's got to be a connection if it's him, between him and Baron. So they went to none other than social media, and that's where they found out a lot about this guy. He was married, he. Had children, and they also realized very quickly that he was a heavier set, Hispanic man, and he had a dark black beard, and he did not match the profile of the passenger at all. But again, we didn't know what the driver looks like. That one's still unidentified. So they're like, okay, well, what is the connection between him and Baron Lee? So they searched high and loath, but they could not find any connection, like none, not even a like poof in the wind that maybe they crossed each other while walking through Walmart. Nothing, not even a common friend or workplace. So this was bizarre. People don't just go shooting people with no motive, especially if they're not gonna rob them, Like, why would you just run up and shoot this random guy? So this was clearly an orchestrated hit. But what were the police missing? There had to be some type of link all in all.

36:46 Looking through his stuff, all Arthur seemed to be about was working and loving his family. He loved the Broncos, he was absolutely devoted to his wife. Arthur was a good man, at least on social media. It didn't fit. So they kept watching the home and the truck, and sure enough, it does pull up to the house. As they continue to watch, they figure out that Arthur's son was actually the primary user of the truck, So maybe Arthur wasn't the police officer's target. Suspect at this time, maybe it was his son. So they started looking into the sun and his name was Quincy. But Quincy was only seventeen years old. He was a teenager. He has a short, kind of buzz style haircut. His ears are a little bit lower and they kind of stick out a little bit. But a good looking kid. He had no obvious connection to Baron Lee either. So police continued to follow Quincy and try to gather intel on him without his knowledge, to see what could they find out about Quincy? So what did they find out? In the meantime, They found out that he went to Mount Vernon High School and he had a job. He worked at a tire shop, which they did take photos of him working at the tire shop. His social media, he had a pretty good presence online of social media. The boy loved his mama, was unafraid to take pictures with his mama and post him online. He loved his family. There were

38:16 lots of family photos. Good looking family, smiling, nicely dressed. He did not seem like a thug or someone who would be out there just shooting people. He loved playing football. He was like his dad. He was a fan of the Broncos. He liked fast cars, everything you expect in a seventeen year old boy. He had posts of Paul Walker and the Fast and the Furious. He had Star Wars, you know, the main guy, I Am Not your Father, Darth Vader and a lightsaber. That was the kind of stuff that he posted. He also had those photos that are really typical nowadays of teenagers where he's like posing in the mirror in a bathroom and doesn't clean off the counter.

39:00 That is my pet peeve guys. If y'all are gonna if y'all are listening to me teenagers and y'all want to pose in a bathroom mirror, clean your counter, okay, mama. And me gets frustrated. But anyway, he was showing off his abs in one selfie in the bathroom mirror, so he took care of himself. He enjoyed wrestling. He had photos with military inspiration. He wanted to join the military. Now I went and looked myself, okay, and I'm gonna be completely transparent. There was also a fuck the Police post a time or two, but he comes across as a teenager trying to be edgy and cool, not a straight up gut or rat run in the hood. You know, he just he was trying to be cool.

39:41 His online image was nothing that you would write the FBI about, is what I'm getting at. He just seems so average. Five days after the shooting of Baron, police were still following Quincy, and Quincy went to a gas station where another team was with him, and the thing that caught law enforcement's attention was the fact that that boy was wearing a gold chain around his neck. Coincidence, possibly gold chains are common, but it was something that had them eyeing closely on that second team. Another thing as they were watching him now that got their attention was the way that this other teenager rode in the truck, because it was something that they just couldn't look past.

40:21 When he got in, he would take the seatbelt strap and he would move it from the traditional position and he would flip it underneath his arm, and it just wasn't a common way that he did it. So it happened to be just like the way that the shooter also had his arm tucked into that seat belt in the photographs, the still shots that they got from the traffic cameras. So it was at that point that. Police believed that that second team may have been the shooter of Baron Lee and Quincy may have been the getaway driver. But they needed to id that second team, so they made a trip up to none other than Mount Vernon High School and that's where they asked to speak to the admin. They wanted to see did the administration recognize these two boys. So at this point they brought photos to of the two suspects to see to show to the admin, and the admin was like, yeah, we absolutely know those two boys.

41:22 That's Quincy and that is Joseph. Good. So the school admin added to it, though they didn't just say yeah, that's Joseph and Quincy. They also said these boys are not troublemakers, they don't have a record of being trouble makers, and they didn't have anything bad to say about these kids. Trust me, trust Mama Jay. Right now we know the troublemakers at the high school. This is way more under control than I think a lot of people would realize. I teach it the largest high school in the state, and my principal, who I'm obviously not gonna name, but my principle, could I promise you he is so hands on he's an excellent principle.

42:05 My principle could sit down right now if you handed him a piece of paper and he could write down the top thirty kids that are disciplined, problems with no hesitation. I stand on business when I tell you that. So for this admin to say they're not troublemakers, that says something. These kids have. Not been in our office. They're not fighting, they're not doing all these things. And remember we're talking about kids that the police believed went and shot somebody and tried to murder him on the side of the road. Now, at least they had names to work with, so police knew about Quincy. Now they wanted to look into Joseph. And Joseph was a pretty low key teen. And what I mean by this is that he did not have much of a social media presence online like a lot of teens do. He was a handsome kid. If you look at him, he kind of has like a James Franco look about him. And he also, like Quincy, was wanting to be edgy and cool, and you know that's all.

43:03 Kids, they want to be cool. His ears were pierced, he had diamond studs in both of his earrings, both of his ears. He wore a gold chain. He has short hair, like a traditional boy's haircut that's short, and then his hair is curly, kind of wavy on top. And this is a kid that really cared about his appearance. He cared what people thought about him. You and I at forty years old would probably look at him and call him a little punk kid, but not a murderous one. This is not someone you would go, oh, yeah, that's a thug. That's a problem. So the link between two seventeen year old teens and forty eight year old Baron Lee still was not making sense, and nothing that the police were finding out was making that any easier or more obvious. Why would two teenagers that are seventeen years old in high school, playing sports and loving cars want to go shoot a car salesman, a almost fifty year old car salesman. So, based on what police knew about the boys, they weren't convinced that these two teams were the ring leaders of this organized attempted hit on Baron Lee. They did think they were involved, but they didn't think that they were calling the shots.

44:14 This just wasn't their speed, It wasn't something that these two boys they believed would have taken on for shits and giggles. Something else was at play here. This was a hit and someone else had ordered it. Somebody else was calling the shots here. The issue now was if police arrested them without knowing more than they were afraid that the boys would clam up and that they wouldn't talk and so they wouldn't be able to get to the bottom of it. So police decided to get a search warrant for their cell phones first to see maybe if they could find an electronic trail somewhere, maybe some communication or something that would link them. They did not arrest them at the moment. Now, this issue that they're trying to monitor through the cell phone, it's not the movies, y'all.

45:05 It takes time, it takes manpower. You have to not only get this data extracted, but then you have to go through it and figure it out. So the police would patiently watch, they would review the phone data, and it would take two more months for anything to happen that would get the ball rolling again on this case. And this would come in the form of an email that it face value wasn't anything but a detective on the case, had his curiosity sparked by this email, and so he decided to start doing some digging. So Joseph Good had an iCloud account like most of us do, and it got a communication from a company called Brickhouse dot com. It wasn't a solicitation email or a junk email either. It was an email that had to have been forwarded to this account, and it was forwarded to Joseph from Joseph at another account, and that forwarded email contained a link to a log in, and that log in was for a GPS tracking web page.

46:18 When looking further. Into this, the detective noticed that Joseph had accessed that link the night before the shooting happened, and a quick search found that this was a company that specialized in security via dashcams and GPS trackers, So this wasn't overly odd. But what was strange to the detective is that a seventeen year old is typically not going to invest in a dash cam for themselves. Maybe their parent would, and even with GPS, you know, maybe a parent would invest in GPS to track the vehicle, but not a seventeen year old. They're not going to do this. That's not a typical kid thing. So the site boasts GPS trackers, and I even went I looked because I was curious, like, is this like some big, huge, like business type tracker or what is it? And the price range is from nine dollars and ninety nine cents up to sixty nine dollars super affordable. And the log in to the tracker platform provides a dashboard like you could you could manage notifications, You can set up and create alerts on your iPhone so you can kind of see in real time whatever it is that you're tracking or the video that you're monitoring from a dash camp. And so this would be great for companies that may have lots of assets out there and they want a track where their trucks are or where their trailers are.

47:39 Or something along those lines. So why would a high schooler need a tracking GPS device? And that's when the light bulb was like, hmm, maybe he was using it to track Baron Lee with so, leaving no stone unturned, the detective decided to do a quick follow up on this because the detective says to himself, well, Baron's car is still an evidence right there on our lot, because remember it had bullet holes in it, an evid it's a piece of evidence that would have to be documented in all of that. So he goes out to look at the car out on the police lot and. The evidence lot. He goes up there, he walks around, he looks underneath the car, underneath the car, and sure ass shit, as I sit here today, a brick house GPS monitor was laying on the ground underneath the car.

48:28 Call it dumb luck, call it whatever. I'd rather be lucky than good any day, but call it dumb luck. But they realized when they looked under there, and they couldn't believe they saw it on the ground. They get under under there and they look and there's a bunch of duct tape under the back bumper. And they realized, oh my god, this was originally taped underneath this back bumper and it must have fallen off while the car was sitting in evidence. So they picked it up, they photographed it. I have pictures of it. I'll put it on Patreon, and they it to the lab for fingerprinting and to see if they could pull DNA off of it. The neat thing about the GPS monitor is that this would have had to have been bought online because of where it was located and shipped to someone, so that's perfect, there's going to be a paper trail. So detectives obtained a warrant for brick House and they requested copies of not only their their billing but also any registration records of any devices that would have been purchased. Whoever bought that tracker would be there somewhere, and all of that information. So the detective goes through their records line by line, and it takes time. They're going through it, going through it, when a name finally jumped out at detectives and that was a purchase made by none other than Sharon Kelly, Baron's ex wife.

49:52 But the tracker. Had been purchased back in twenty fifteen, so they're like, okay, well she must have had for a while hmm. But that's when they looked at the activation records and it wasn't until June twenty sixth, two weeks before. The shooting, that it was activated. And then what a kawinkie dink But that exact same device was deactivated on July fourteenth, just four days after the shooting of Baron. Lee call it what you want. But ding ding, ding ding ding. That's what we call a clue.

50:33 So it looks like the police hunch that the teens weren't likely calling the shots was spot on. This information, combined with everything else, was more than enough probable cause to effect an arrest on all three of them, Quincy, Joseph. And Sharon. But the decision was made that they were going to go get them, but they were going to arrest them all at the same time, even though they were in different locations. And the thought process here was if we get them all at the same time, then they won't have the opportunity to tip each other off. Or to create any type of story. So Swatt arrived at Sharon Kelly's apartment complex to take her in. But luck was actually on their side because they show up swat, you know, guns blazing and everything, and she just happened to walk outside right whenever they pulled up, so they're able to just rush her and grab her take her into custody.

51:22 No incident. That's a good day. Joseph Good was being tailed and they were able to stop him while he was driving off of a main road up up a dirt road. Again, they pull him over and they take him into custody. No incident, and Quincy Mendez was at home and Swatt pulls up. But that's when a neighbor looks out the window sees swat surrounding the house, and that neighbor is alarmed and makes a phone call to Quincy's mom. Quincy's mom lived, excuse me, worked like just a few minutes away from from the house, and the neighbor's like, look, swat is surrounding your house, and I think they're gonna arrest Quincy. So she was just a block away. She flies home and she's all up in arms. What is going on here? You must be making a mistake. She's worried and scared for her kid, and I'm gonna tell you as I don't blame her, Okay.

52:19 She's like, oh my god, what is going on here? A Swatheam's trying to take my teenage boy and she's freaking out. But Quincy does end up giving up peacefully as well. So all three suspects are now in custody, but they were no closer to knowing exactly what went down, so they did do a search of all three. They got warrants, and they did a search of all three homes and it started to paint a story that kind of makes sense. So when investigators searched Sharon Kelly's residence, what they found included a new rifle still in the box, and then there was a safe she had which had multiple firearms, but there was not a thing which was that caliber that Baron was shot with. They also found an unopened burner phone, which I've explained in previous episodes, but that's a phone that's cheap, that is not tracked or signed up under a name, and it's one that people usually used so that they can quickly burn it or get.

53:15 Rid of it or throw it away. They also found police they being police that there were two prior police reports that Baron had made in the past years where he was upset and he was claiming that Sharon had tried to run him over. He was like, this girl is trying to run me over. But in the moment, I guess it just people sometimes exaggerate things. Oh my god, my X tried to run me over, and then they're like, no, I didn't. I was pulling out of the driveway and you know, so a report was made, but I don't think much came of it. But now those two old reports are seeming to be much more serious than just that type of fighting X situation, and the items in her home seemed indicative of a plan, but she had not yet fully put into motion. Now this is circumstantial again at best, but plausible, And that's when cell phone communication became important because investigators were still looking through cell phone data and a few weeks after the shooting. Weeks after the shooting, there was a communication between Joseph Good and Sharon Kelly, and he's asking, Hey, are you gonna pay me the money you owe me?

54:27 And her response to him was direct, quote job unfinished, will need to complete unless it resolves on its own in the next month end quote. Joseph replies, quote you sure. I'm pretty sure I finished it well end quote, and Sharon responded quote unfortunately end quote. Another communication came through later that detailed how Joseph says, Okay, fine, I'll do it again. I'll go back and do the job again, but I need some money upfront because I have to pay. My getaway driver bingo.

55:07 So they searched Joseph's home, and when they searched his home, they did find a cell phone. They had various ammunition they were able to find, but the thing that was most important to them to collect was they found that infamous gold chain, a absolute match for the video photo and the photos from the shooter. That chain exact match. The search of Quincy's home did result in police finding a three eighty, but when that gun was tested, it was found that it was not the gun that shot Barren, and Quincy's mom said, no, that's my gun, and a three It is a little gun if you're if you're not familiar with guns. So police still had enough to know that he was the getaway driver. And when you're looking at the photos that they took during evidence collection in the house, it's just a testament to how hard it is to parent because right there on his wall is a framed picture of Jesus, like right there in the photograph, framed on the wall, And he was so young to be making horrible decisions, even though you can tell those parents tried to raise him, right those parents, he had been taught better. You can see it in the home. So all were booked and charged with attempted murder in the first degree. Almost immediately the teen started talking and The main question they were asked is why the hell are y'all even involved in this? How do you even know Sharon? Why would you even get involved in something like this. It sure seems off that Sharon,

56:39 you know, in her late thirties, is communicating with seventeen year old boys. And it quickly made sense though, because that's when Joseph admitted that he was friends with none other than Sharon's teenage brother. She had a younger brother, and all of the boys, all three of them went to the same high school. They all went to that high school together. Basically, at some point, Joseph Good was approached by Sharon while they were hanging out with her teen brother, and she offered Joseph thirteen thousand dollars to kill her ex husband. And that's a lot of money, especially to a teenager. And he saw gold, he saw dollar signs. He then went and he recruited Quincy with the promise of paying Quincy about five thousand dollars if he would just drive him so he could quote this was in a text cap someone and empty the clip end quote all right, that in and of itself has a little thug deliciousness to it. I ain't even gon trip until you and pretend it doesn't cap someone and empty the clip. But it also sounds like a punk ass kid who's not really in.

57:50 Living in the real world here. And I don't mean that he didn't know better. I'm saying, like, what are you doing, bro, cap someone and empty the clip, douchebag? That's total dB move. But the phone records would also be looked at in terms of towers and location, and sure enough it proved that the boys did do a round trip from Mount Vernon to Bellevue on the day of the shooting of Baron Lee. When Baron ended up living, Sharon, I promise you had no intentions of him surviving again. Hence all that other communication and the stuff that they found at her house and that brand new rifle that was still in the box. She had everything that she needed, like I just said, and she certainly had the weapons and all of that to complete it. Sharon's initial claims of not knowing anything or knowing anyone in Bellevue other than her ex also weren't flying at this point because guess what she failed to mention. She said, I don't know anyone in Bellevue, but hold on a minute, she.

58:53 Did know someone in Bellevue other than her ex. It was her son. You you weren't gonna mention that your beloved baby boy lived in Bellevue. She never brought him up. That again, was a red flag. And at the point that that was going on, she still had visitation rights to him. So you a liar because it wasn't just your ex that you don't talk to. Your baby was there and you never mentioned that to police. So when it was all said and done, Quincy and Joseph would both be charged as adults. In this case. Sharon was initially held on two million dollars bond, but the judge took one look at the situation and the judge felt that she was just too dangerous to even provide an opportunity for release before the trial, and so her bail was revoked altogether because the judge and the prosecutors in this case felt that she was going to continue to make attempts on Baron's life, and so they revoked her bond altogether. And it wouldn't be right if I didn't talk about all that Baron went through to this point, trauma of being hunted down and shot nine times, numerous surgeries, loss of work, and his mobility, pain literally from head to toe, and months of being bedridden during his recovery process, fifteen months before he could even think about returning to work. And then you add on top

1:00:23 of that months of rehabilitation. And I want to point this out too. There are heroes all over stories like this, And thank God for Baron's amazing wife, she can't be left out of this, who demonstrated amazing strength, holding down the household, making the children feel safe and not afraid, handling business through arguably the worst time in her life, and she took care of those kids, Eric included. She set it up so that Eric, who has these complex special needs, would be taken care of to the fullest as well as nursing her husband back to health. That is a warrior. That is an absolute warrior in my eyes.

1:01:07 And Baron, this bro, I'm telling you, he's a cool cat. Okay, he's a cool dude. Refusing refusing to let his kids in, all of them, refusing to let them worry, and he didn't want them to be scared. The day after he survived his surgeries in the hospital in incredible amounts of pain, he insisted. He demanded that he get help to stand, and he stood in his hotel, in his hospital room, and he took a picture smiling through intensive pain, so that his wife could send it to his kids to show them I am okay, I'm gonna be okay. What a man, what a daddy in every sense of the word.

1:01:52 Baron's character also, his character will shine through in this case. Love character. When people have it, they have integrity. Because Baron told prosecutors that he was willing to take lower sentencing for the teens because he didn't want to see two teenagers' lives, their entire lives thrown away. And I know you're like, why they tried to kill him? Amazingly and that's the only word I know to use. Incredibly unhumanistically. The anger and the fear that Baron experienced as a child in that foster care system that would play a role in the grace he felt should be extended to Quincy and Joseph. Baron told that prosecutor when I was a teenager, I screwed up.

1:02:51 I made bad. Decisions, I was angry, I didn't think straight. And he recognized that part of him in these two boys that he didn't know, even the one that shot him nine times and tried to wipe him off the face of the planet. That reality that Baron was raised in, that foster care, and that anger that he had. His pain became his strength, and his strength turned into ultimate grace over these teen boys. He even took the steps of meeting with the parents of those teen boys who tried to kill him, and he wanted those parents to know I do not harbor ill will towards. Quincy and Joseph.

1:03:32 My only hope is that they will recognize this massive mistake that they made, but also see the massive opportunity that they have to turn their lives around and still make something of themselves. I don't want them thrown away. I don't know people like that quite often, I don't know if I have that in me, and I try to be a good person that's beyond that is so aware, that's so aware of the complexity that of a teenager. But Quincy Mendez pled guilty to assault in the first degree and he got eight years and ten months, which left him eligible for release in twenty twenty eight. Joseph Good pled guilty to attempted murder and unlawful possession of a firearm, which he got twelve years and eight months, and he will be eligible for release in twenty thirty two.

1:04:28 Both of them also are lucky in the regard that they're getting to serve their time at a juvenile detention center rather than being shipped off to a big boy prison where they would absolutely become targets because of their young age. So why was Sharon this question Probably you're wondering, why was Sharon so adamant that Baron needed to die? Why was she so adamant he needed to die? And this is another light bulb that goes off. Was it because he got custody of their son and she was mad about it? Did she hate him that much that she was willing to hire people to murder him?

1:05:10 Really? Well, the answer is sorta, because it turns out that Eric's condition from birth was deemed to be the result of malpractice. Baron and Sharon had filed a malpractice lawsuit years ago and they won it. The winnings for Eric had been put into a trust. That trust was to be used for Eric's lifelong care. The value of that trust at the time of the shooting was nine hundred thousand dollars. Whoever was deemed to be Eric's custodial caregiver would have had access and control to almost a million dollars.

1:05:58 With Baron dead, she believed that she would get Eric, which would have put her in the money. That's what this was about, the money. Sharon took a plea deal, she got solicitation of attempted murder in the second degree, and after everything that happened, she was sentenced to thirteen years. Thirteen years, y'all, I cannot say that that's enough in my opinion, No freaking way. She's eligible for release in twenty thirty three. The good news, I can tell you, if you're just disgusted by that as I am, the good news is that by the time she's eligible for release, Eric will be eighteen, and so his trust would be protected from her. So there's no way even there's no reason for her to I guess if that's what motivated her. Ultimately, there's no reason for her to continue to try to kill Baron because she can't touch the money no matter what. But Baron is a walking miracle today, no wheelchair, no long term disability, nothing.

1:07:05 Nine shots, some of them at point blank range, and they missed a vital organ, all nine of them. He is healed, he is thriving. He's even been referred to as the Asian fifty cent because he's been hit with a few shells. But he don't walk with a limp, you know what I'm talking about. I love that. He also, though now serves as a board member for a nonprofit and that's called Route twenty one or Route twenty one, and that is a nonprofit where they pay former foster kids to mentor current foster kids. He is investing in the community and he's being the change that he wishes to see. And I'll say this over and over again. That is a true influencer. That is someone making a difference through action. I am Baron Lee's biggest fan.

1:08:04 Now sharing. On the other hand, she doesn't strike me as someone who's gonna do much with herself. She sucked as a mom, she was horrible as an ex wife, and she was downright callous to try and take away Eric's daddy, whom he not only loves but he depends on for everything. And the one man that was willing to do it all for that child. And the fact that she thought about hiring teenagers as a hitman. She thought that was a good plan that in and of itself tells me everything that I need to know about this woman. So, whether she's mentally ill or just playing stupid, I'm not sure. But the chances of her accepting that all of her problems are self induced, that's probably pretty slim. But good luck to whoever the person is out there who's tasked with that job, because my ass has neither the time nor the crayons to explain it to her.