2-year-old’s body found in jaws of alligator; Father executes 7 family members after facing divorce

a word of warning this podcast explores graphic and disturbing stories and includes some strong language it therefore may not be suitable for our young listeners or other folks who may find it disturbing hello and welcome to True Crime daily the podcast covering high profile and under the radar cases from across the country every week I'm your host Anna Garcia our cases this week are all about fathers accused of doing the unthinkable murdering their children and then the mother of those children in one case a Utah father obsessed with the perfect family image takes the lives of his wife his five children when he fears it is all slipping away from him the wife who police say endured years of abuse had just filed for divorce and had taken the children to be with the grandmother police say after he killed everyone in the house he wrote a suicide note blaming his wife for everything and then he killed himself even in his final moment of life this man did not have the courage to own up to his own evilness but first a father in Florida is accused of stabbing to death the mother of his son and then tossing that baby son of his to alligators according to police and police say that he did this after that beautiful young mother through this man a birthday party the mother was found dead first then there was an Amber Alert issued for the toddler I am sick even reporting this part but the baby was found in the mouth of an alligator the medical examiner has not determined yet if that baby boy was still alive when his father allegedly tossed him to the alligators we are recording this on Wednesday April 19th of 2023. Our Guest today is the one the only Allison trizzle a criminal defense attorney a friend of this show a friend of mine Allison is also a legal expert you see all the time on television on Access Hollywood and KTLA and we are just so happy you're here Allison how are you I'm doing well and you know I love being here and I love doing this show with you um it was great I was I was at a baseball tournament for one of my boys and and one of the dads came up to me and said I didn't know you do True Crime daily I love that podcast and so in homage I'm using Oh My True Crime daily mug today oh my gosh you know mine burst into pieces when I poured hot water into it oh well I hope that doesn't happen today no let's hope not so on I'm using the Perry Mason um giveaway that I got from the show which is the Mason Dairy um that's cute the milk bottle I use it as a water bottle that was so cute I love it I I I'm still waiting for my replacement mug I don't know who I have to know on this freaking program to get a mug well Anna you can't take mine you can't take mine because so far mine's still intact right here exactly I love that I love it that is so hilarious I guess I just got the one bum one oh my goodness I'm so happy you're here we have some really horrible horrible stories and um I think it's important that we always when we have information about cases we try and figure out what went wrong and and where the system failed you know and this first one I don't really see the system really failing in this one but in the second one with the Utah dad obsessed with his image I think the system failed I think there were a lot of failures in that one right and one of the things that I love about your show is that what can your listeners do who are in similar positions to protect themselves and what are the signs what do you look out for and I think in that second story that we're going to cover um there were signs there were signs that um were missed by DCFS um and and even even things that the the mother did herself um where if you're in that position please make different decisions yeah to save everyone because you see the escalation of things yeah and sadly when there is a high level of domestic abuse family abuse it is always at that time when the the the the abused the wife generally is about to leave or is leaving right oh it is the most dangerous moment right they've they've finally made that decision they filed the restraining order they filed the divorce papers or and that's when they're they're most vulnerable okay so let's get to our first case which is honestly horrific this is out of St Petersburg Florida where a toddler was found in the jaws of an alligator and his mother stabbed over a hundred times Allison when I first heard this report I heard it kind of backwards because it made national news when the baby was found in the jaws of an alligator so at first I thought oh my God a toddler who wandered away and was snatched by an alligator right yeah yeah I actually I heard the same story and I thought oh my gosh another reason that Florida is a dangerous place to live your Toddler goes goes wandering off and an alligator snatches them away but when I heard um that this was um as a result of where his uh according to the police um of something that his father did to him um horrific just horrific oh it's it's it's impossible to believe honestly it is so the man who stands accused here is 21 year old Thomas Mosley he faces two counts of first-degree murder for the stabbing death of 20 year old passion Jeffrey and then the death of their son Taylin Mosley the one found in the jaws of the alligator now police say that Thomas Mosley took his son to this body of water and tossed two-year-old Talon to the alligators as I said at the top of the program the medical examiner has yet to determine the cause of death so we do not know if this baby boy was alive when police say his father tossed him into this Lake good yeah I I um I read that as well and I think that the autopsy will be very uh revelatory but I am not sure if it would change the charges I mean this is an interesting legal issue for me he tosses this child who's still living into the lake um and is that a premeditated act knowing that this child's either going to drown or be eaten by an alligator I think he still would be facing the same charges even if it the death didn't come at his hands my belief is the charge should be the same this is first degree murder it is premeditated there's no way that it could end well for this toddler under these circumstances but what really gets me and it's the moral part of this is if that baby is alive at the time that he is tossed the level of Terror and the depravity that it takes to do that to an innocent little baby is beyond anything I can stomach well and I'll tell you know Florida is a death penalty state and if any case um screens um of a of circumstances where the death penalty is appropriate you can be sure that if the prosecutor asks for the death penalty and during and he and he is convicted and they have this penalty phase that's going to be a conversation that the prosecutor is going to have with the jury that can you imagine the depravity of someone who throws their child to their death I can't I can't and then the image I mean the image of that alligator with this two-year-old because you know two-year-olds are not that small right they're about what two feet tall probably right something like that so the image of this toddler in the jaws of this alligator and we will hear from the police chief describing how the baby was intact when it was dropped and how the when uh because there was this Amber Alert that was issued the mothers found dead and now like where's the toddler and it wasn't until the next day that the toddler is spotted and the toddler spotted again in the mouth of this alligator and the police shoot the alligator drops the toddler but it's too late the level of evilness that has transpired here the death this child this baby has faced and then I'm just gonna say the trauma for anyone else who saw this including the officer I mean I cannot imagine anything more terrifying to see this to just see this and feel like ah right right absolutely all right now I am going to say and I and I say it on every show I'm I'm on right that um he is presumed not guilty Mr please presume not guilty Mr Mosley may have the reports that he had some significant mental health issues which may come into play at some point and maybe use as mitigation later in in his trial or in the death penalty um but the evidence that the have that they have linking him to the crime is substantial I mean this is this is not a case where um the police are were searching for a long period of time to figure out who was the last person with her um and um there is allegedly physical evidence left behind at the scene that links Mr Mosley to this killing I'm waiting on surveillance videos because my hope for the purposes of getting Justice is that they will pick up traffic cameras surveillance cameras cameras at the lake which will piece in the timeline and who was where and who was visible uh so I'm hoping we don't have all that information yet but I think that will certainly help to tell the rest of what happened here and I always say this absolutely your innocent until proven guilty I think where I become when I start seeing what we have not in this case yet but when you have clear surveillance or security camera videos that show either crimes in the process of being committed and the people or the person being kidnapped it really does strengthen the case oh of course it changes everything uh for me yeah I'm sure you're going to walk through sort of what the police have released so far in terms of the evidence and everything um but for me strength of case is always DNA evidence DNA evidence surveillance footage witness testimony what they saw what they heard what statements was left what statements have been made by the defendant in the case but also Google searches so computer searches I I um you know there's a very interesting case that I've been covering about um a man accused of killing his wife and in his computer are will this toxic substance come up on an autopsy how much time can you get for this I'm always blown away at the level of incriminating evidence people leave behind it's incredible yeah it is amazing so um what's also interesting about this case is that this all happened after the victim the mother here passion was kind enough to throw Thomas a birthday party for his 21st birthday right nice enough to do this for him um her family was there police say that this is how he repaid her kindness with this level of evilness and depravity passion Jeffrey had attended High School locally according to her family she was an honest student a dedicated mom um when she was on her break from her job she would FaceTime her son and that's an important key part here because she was so close to her family that when she didn't respond to the typical daily Face Time the family's like wait a minute something's going on here right and so the last time the her family saw her alive was at this birthday party so they believe police believe that on the day of the murders which would have been March 29th passion okay throws the birthday party and everyone left her apartment at about 5 15 in the evening according to cell phone data obtained by police Thomas left the home at 8 42 PM that evening and then went to the lake which is I guess south of downtown St Petersburg later that evening at 903 Thomas Mosley arrives at his mother's house which is 10 blocks from the lake and Thomas's hands and arms were covered with knife marks so bad so bad that he had to go to the hospital this is the thing that kills me this guy takes himself to the hospital because he is injured let's take care right we've got two people dead a woman and a baby but this guy he's got to go to the hospital and get treated so I know they talk about his mental competency well I do believe he was competent enough to know he was injured and needed medical attention I have no compassion here no compassion I know I know you don't and look it is gruesome and it is awful um it is it's been awful I'm not you know a mental health defense is not something that a defense uh uh defense legal team can just slap together there has to be documentation there has to be prior history of mental illness um we we haven't I have not seen anything about that um and you know what would that look like what does that mean if he has a mental health defense um he had to um you know there's certain things to establish a mental health defense and the level the bar especially in Florida it's real high yeah uh there were some issues I believe at his first appearance the judge felt that he was not being responsive to him wasn't sure if he was medicated and that could have been we don't know we don't know the details of that but uh the judge already was a little concerned about how um present he may have been but we don't know why so the the party and the murders take place on March 29th on the 30th the following day passions family cannot reach her so they know that this is not normal and I love families that are so reactive so quickly because time is always of the essence there's no we're not waiting days we're like right on it she's missed her call something's wrong let's go over there so they go over to her apartment building they asked the manager to open up the apartment but already they've seen a trail of blood coming out of the apartment which is already not good we already know that something very bad has happened and when the family gets in there they find her dead and stabbed a hundred times she's in the bathroom and the child is missing and the child is missing and the family would know that there is a toddler the manager everyone would know that a toddler lives in there so now massive search is on you've got really you know two different levels of crimes you have the crime scene where they're trying to figure out what happened and who did this to her and now they're trying to figure out where's this baby time is of the essence and there are times where there is a a custodial dispute we've all heard this story right there's a custodial dispute and whether it's the man or the woman that person kills the spouse kills the girlfriend and then kidnaps the child so there was really a question here is you know was he so mad at her but loved his son so he takes the son and kids naps the Sun and you're right time is of the essence and we don't know so far nothing's been revealed about an issue over custody or anything like that we don't know we have no idea what motive is here either there's a lot that we don't know but the facts that we do know so far are horrific they're just horrific so some of the evidence you you mentioned this Allison that you thought was very interesting so there's the authorities say that they found a bloody shoe print that came from a slide a sandal that had the Gucci Insignia on it the GG what's so it was ah it was a bloody footprint and they say all the you know friends and family say that um Thomas had a pair of Gucci slides that likely would have had that same Insignia I don't know how valuable that is why it is let me tell you why it's very valuable to me and concerning it would be one thing if he if there was his footprint in the house but it wasn't a bloody footprint he there's a very logical reasonable explanation that he was there he was like meaning meaning and there's if there's no blood it's an innocent explanation well of course he was in the house but by having blood it means he was there after blood was shed um okay so that is very significant to me because it eliminates his defense of I have no idea what happened I left the two of them and everything was fine well everything is not fine if there is a bloody footprint something has happened and he has stepped in the blood okay so there'd be no way of saying it's like that couldn't be from an earlier from your birthday party you know I know you're all over the apartment but it can't be from the birthday party because no one was bleeding them correct so then as we said that Amber Alert is issued um and the baby is then found the day after the mother's found so what we're looking at is literally two days after when police believe the murders happened is when the baby's found and can I add one more piece of evidence oh please as the police are executing their search warrant going through the house they find a bottle of cleaning fluid that contains a bloody fingerprint and according to the police that fingerprint belongs to Mosley and that would be damaging although could he make an argument oh I was at the birthday party I cut my finger because the man is covered with like a Thousand Cuts on his arms but obviously not from the birthday party could he make that argument it's like hey the reason I was cleaning something up is I cut myself yeah he could make all those arguments and the question is is a reasonable jury going to say oh yeah that's believable but who is the person that then came and did and and stabbed someone a hundred times and you happen to have these um gashes on your arm your hands they're so serious that you need to go to the hospital so you're connecting the dots that's what police do right that's what an investigation is you're putting these pieces of a puzzle together and you have a cleaning liquid why do you need a cleaning liquid with a bloody fingerprint that the police say belongs to him you have a slide uh footprint with a Gucci Insignia family and friends say that he was wearing those slides at the party with blood on it um so you're putting the case the prosecution is putting their case together yeah absolutely and of course there were enough people at the birthday party who could testify he had no cuts on his hands and that no one was injured at the time because this happened later on so um the police chief of Saint Petersburg Anthony Holloway held a news conference when they confirmed that the baby had been found in the alligator's mouth here's a clip of that it's with great sadness I have to inform you here today that tail and body has been found because my condolences going out to the family and to his loved ones we are sorry that it had to end this way through investigative Technique we were able to find an area around Dell home park that led to investigators to that area the detectives had been there all afternoon and while they were there they were spotted an alligator with an object in in his mouth as the as the detective got closer they fire one round uh to the alligator the alligator dropped the object that he had in his mouth and we were able to retrieve taylon's body intact the father Thomas Mosley is now being charged with two counts of first-degree murder I can tell you now that taylon's Mom Miss Jeffries her body was stabbed multiple times until the melchizem has a chance to look at Taylor's Body we cannot tell you the cause of death I would like to thank all the law enforcement agency that assisted us today or since Wednesday and a special thanks to our detectives here at St Pete Police Department these men and women have worked tirelessly since Wednesday at 2 30 trying to find Taylor hoping for tailing for a better outcome but again that didn't happen Allison this became a national story that we said at the beginning that we heard it as an alligator with a baby and then when you start going backwards and you hear the crime that was committed here and the two lives that were lost it's it's much bigger than that you know it's so much bigger and that's why I love your show so much because you really unpeel the onion because the headline of the story was an alligator had had you know this baby in its mouth but the real story is so much more tragic and awful um and it's two lives um and a crime that we hope to prevent so yeah I agree with you I mean that's how I heard the story was um a child was found in an alligator's mouth without knowing the full details of what how that came to pass so Thomas Mosley has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder he was charged on March 31st he was booked in to the Pinellas County Jail on the following day on April 1st we're going to show the booking photos and also a photo of him being wheeled in on a wheelchair so he's got his hands and his arms bandaged like a mummy both of them really thick bandaging around them um as a result of the injuries that we don't know where he says they were sustained but clearly they were sustained somewhere and then you have someone with a hundred stab marks so connect the dots there reports indicate I'm sorry wait and can I say something interesting about that and so many of the crimes that we cover um people will go to Great Lengths to cover up any injuries that they have right they'll I mean they'll go to Such Great Lengths to cover them up or if their car is spotted they'll they'll repaint their car they'll do all these things here this man actually took himself to the hospital right took himself to the hospital um and comes to court bandaged up um with you know looking like a lobster um and is are the people in the gallery and people saying oh my God those are the hands that were used to hold this the knife that stabbed this woman 100 times um wow again I don't know what defense he's gonna have here um the reports indicate that at the time he was not working um and there were some signs of mental health issues though publicly that hasn't been explained he made his first court appearance on April 1st and he did that via phone from Saint Anthony's Hospital and the judge reportedly had trouble communicating with him believing he may have been under the influence of medication it seems perfectly logical we will of course follow this case for you because there's a lot more here a lot more our next case is out of Utah and it is equally horrific and disturbing as our first case now what's different about this case is again it's a father charged well in this case the father is dead now but this is a father who was obsessed with his Public Image what people thought of him and then he commits a mass murder of his family because there's no no other way to describe this and then he kills himself but before killing himself you know he leaves this you know really in your face Fu kind of suicide no blaming everyone his wife his family and everyone for all his problems and you know what other choice did he have ridiculous ridiculous the reason we believe here the motive was that the wife was divorcing him had served him with papers but really his entire life was falling apart as we're gonna see Allison absolutely I mean this I I think the serving of the papers was the proverbial straw um or the match um but his life was in shambles um regarding his job he had been spiraling for for a while it seems yeah yeah so he killed seven people this was back in January what is new here and the reason we want to talk about this case is that the police did a comprehensive investigation and then released the report of their findings of this crime which we don't always get especially when there's no one to charge because basically it was a murder suicide so there's no one left to charge in this case but I am grateful that the police have released this information because I believe it's important that we learn and understand because there are a lot of people dead here and sadly this has a lot of similarities with other domestic violence situations but I think it's important we know what happened why it happened and where the failures were right I mean there were signs here and I think that if we walk through them and if even one person listening says oh my gosh I'm going through that right now they may make a different decision um than this uh then this poor woman did yeah and it appears that there were warning signs two years earlier um um so many of the experts including you Allison who come on this program when all of a sudden we have someone who um either a young person who snaps at school um you know kills a teacher kills a girlfriend or an older person no matter the age all of you say the same thing and it really makes me think you all say there's no way that this just happened and this this person's mind exploded this day and it happened there had to have been something and other warning signs and you all are right I mean these things do not happen in a vacuum someone does not wake up in the morning and say today I'm gonna kill every member of my family I'm going to kill I'm going to execute All My Children I'm going to kill my my wife I'm gonna kill my mother-in-law um you know this is this has been building for years and um I hate covering I I it's very difficult when you cover a case and you say oh my gosh along the way someone could have intervened here someone could have intervened there a different decision should have been made here and even in my own practice even in my own practice where I'm a criminal defense attorney and I'm defending people I see Miss opportunities because I also represent people who are mentally ill and and I see missed opportunities when um the mental health system prematurely release them or declared that they weren't a danger to themselves or others um and so I think it's important for listeners and for the public to understand signs and know what to do when you see something that's disturbing absolutely so this all happened on January 4th of this year it was right after the holidays we also see a lot of these types of family murders taking place around holidays these things are triggers so 42 year old Michael height murdered his wife 40 year old Tasha his mother-in-law which would have been Tasha's mother Gail Earl who was 78 years old then killed his five children Macy who was 17. Briley who was 12 twins Ammon and Sienna both seven Gavin was four all of them were shot in the head very deliberate execution style like there is no oh this was an accident no no no he attended Mass uh this was a very calculated murder-suicide plot oh disturbing and then that letter that he writes really undoes really undoes me and we'll get to that so police believe that his wife filing for divorce days earlier was as you said the final straw here for this man who had just lost his job his world was completely falling apart but instead of owning up to his contributions to this situation that he finds himself in he just blames everybody else and before this massacre occurred two years earlier Michael height had been investigated by the Utah Department of Child and Family Services back in August of 2020. the allegation was the child was unnamed here the allegation was that a teen daughter reported that her father was physically and verbally abusive she claimed that he shook her he choked her he yelled at her yelled at um the mother and called them both stupid this is from the report that's been released the teen then told police that she was scared but she wasn't physically injured she told them the teen said that her father took her mother's cell phone away to keep her from leaving so that to me paints a picture of there's a lot going on in the family that he's very controlling based on this Young Person's testimony what does the father respond to the police tells the police his daughter is quote malvi she's mouthy what is this 1950 where do you get these words from malvi this is how you describe she's a teenager all teenagers are mouthy right but I mean she's she's describing very specific incense of abuse I mean she she is describing to them um as clear a picture as you can get and it's my understanding that it was Tasha who sort of downplayed it and said well you know he's never really he would never do something to really harm us he's been working on himself trying to make things better and though that those are the things that I want us to sort of slowly focus on and that is when your child is telling you something when your child sees the abuse that you're suffering and they're telling you that they're suffering to listen listen to the child hear what they're saying if they're the one that's reaching out for help um listen to that listen to that yes but the others outside of this family who should have been clearly listening the police the investigators from you know Protective Services they decided that there was insufficient evidence to proceed or to charge yes yes that was a failing that was a failing that's a failing huge Because by the way normally when the police do intervene and charges are filed one of the conditions of a resolution in the case is Anger Management domestic violence counseling and those types of things that provide the abuser with some tools to deal with their anger some Outlets some resources can make all the difference mm-hmm yeah I mean all too often when I'm handling Advanced violence case um it seems that the quote victim in the case has forgiven them and is then angry at the criminal justice system for wanting to pursue charges against the person that she or he loves and um Sometimes the best thing that can happen for somebody is that as a condition there they are forced to attend anger management they're forced to attend domestic violence classes and they see that this is a pattern that goes on with them and here are the tools to deal with that when you're feeling that way yes and it you know could it have been could it have saved this situation and his family we don't know the answer to that question but clearly he was feeling a lot of stress from a lot of areas it wasn't just his family that he had issues with he was having issues at work everything around him he's having Financial issues everything around him was failing so if anyone needed help he clearly needed some help and there should have been intervention to protect that child at all costs I agree with you she lists it is it's a laundry list of moments and incidents that have happened to her at the hands she said of her father they aren't vague allegations they are not vague allegations of a teenager who doesn't like that her parents say she has to be home by 10 a.m p.m right you know that that that to me was uh was very telling very very telling exactly but we're not now we don't know if this is the same same team we have no idea but in what police have released as part of this investigation is then on December 8th of 2022 go ahead the reason I do think that it is the same teen me too it's because well it's also because in at the time of their death there was only one teenager is the daughter Macy the the next youngest was Briley who was 12. so at that time in 2022 she would have only have been 10 years old so I do think that it was her but continued yes so we think it's the same but we don't know because it's part of the first um part of the report she was unnamed the teen was unnamed but then December 8th 2022 so it's two years later but it's one month before the murder so that gives you the context here the Department of Child Welfare receives another complaint this time from Macy the 17 year old detailing allegations of abuse so again Macy began um recording video recording her father's Behavior which she found offensive and odd and she kept a hidden phone in her room to record not just her dad but what was going on in the world clearly Macy was a very clever young woman who knew it was important because if the police didn't believe her two years ago I believe Miss Macy learned this time this time I'm getting the evidence and the cops are going to believe right that is right she is the unsung hero to me in this case yeah applied to be and what what what is so sad is that one month before their murders again another opportunity to save this young woman and her siblings and her mother and her grandmother an opportunity once again ball dropped and and it's it's horrible she she even told a friend of hers that um in addition too much complaining to the authorities that she he had been documenting her father's Behavior as part of helping with the mother's divorce but what I don't understand is and and this is something that really bothers you Allison so apparently Tasha the mom when she discovers Macy's hidden phone somewhere around Christmas she confiscated it Natasha confiscated it don't just tell me that it bothers me it makes me absolutely crazy and I'm going to tell you why I'm going to tell you why um and I know that she has died and I am so sad for her I'm so sad for the mother um that she has passed however I feel that she was very complicit in her husband's Behavior toward their children and that she aided in the abuse when she took a phone away from Macy and confiscated it who me when Macy the explanation that Macy gave was I was trying to help in the divorce proceedings she was she had been silenced in 2020 and now when she was trying to do all that she could to get away from her father and help her siblings help her siblings um and apparently there was one that said that they didn't want to live with the father that they wanted to be with the mother um and the mother confiscates the phone when I read that section Anna I thought my God this this 17 year old was trying to protect not just her mother but her younger siblings everyone she was trying to protect everyone and get everyone out of there my question is and this is always the absolute hardest in these cases of such severe abuse while absolutely the mother taking away that phone and police say they never found that phone but I do believe that they found evidence because you can always find that digitally that is it possible that the wife was so severely abused herself yes but she was only capable of what I would call like one step forward three back I have an attorney for a divorce I'm filing for divorce oh my God give me the phone what are you doing you can't have that phone your father's gonna get mad do you know what I'm saying it's like look I think that's why that's why shows like this and conversations like this and examples like this are so very important because um if there is a woman or a man who is saying wow my child has told me how awful it is to live in this house I need to do everything I can to protect my child that's why it's so important absolutely I mean you know battered women's syndrome is a thing is a real thing they um you know study after study is that when you're stripped of your basic Humanities um and you you literally are brainwashed to believe that you are worthless um you behave accordingly and you can't think straight you just can't think straight and so I wonder if these are all pieces that we're seeing of the mother's attempts to free herself from the situation making again strides in one area and then backtracking in the other I think again that's why I think this report is so important and this conversation is important that just because everyone's dead and you cannot charge anyone does not mean the investigation ends we need answers yeah I agree we all need answers so so um on December 19th so we're going going forward but we're not yet at the at the date of the murders on December 19th DCFS caseworkers went to the um height home and that's where Michael's wife Tasha detailed an incident in which her husband through the couple's seven-year-old to the ground the caseworker filed a report and intended to follow up with Tasha on January 5th and that would have been too late so again we have all of this stuff going on where you see the mother trying to do the right thing but then as we find out right before Christmas she takes Macy's phone away it's just this constant yo-yoing then on December 21st um you know I want to know what DCFS plan of action was so you know there are times where caseworkers will say this is a volatile home I am concerned I'm going to remove the children from the home um that that happens a lot Anna there's incidence of abuse they come they hear it and they remove that they remove the children from the home almost immediately so um was that a missed opportunity um I certainly don't want to blame the caseworker I mean you know there's but this was a situation where the mother came forward and was said that they that the husband was being physical this is the third time Allison there's the one in 2020 there's the one in earlier December that Macy made herself and now there's this one that the mother made on behalf of this I mean that is now three yeah and they're escalating in the month of December you've got two in the month of December how how this didn't you know rise to the occasion of someone saying this is an emergency I do not get I do not get this yeah okay so then um on December 21st we're moving along here getting closer to Christmas Tasha was working with an attorney to get the divorce papers in order Tasha again this is the mother says to the divorce attorney but I don't want him to be served before Christmas okay I don't know if that means she doesn't want to you know ruin Christmas for Everyone I don't but once again it's like one step forward three back so this is not an uncommon um this is not uncommon I hear this that well we just need to get through the holidays for the children and then I'll deal with life okay that that's not an uncommon theme the problem with that is it the pro because of some Christmas carols and some uh you know holiday love I mean the problem still exists and if you're concerned that this person is dangerous that is not going to be suspended just because it's Christmas time and you know there's some caroling and and Christmas presents under the tree so I I it's those type of I I can't do that right now or I can't split the family up right now um I I hear it I hear it a lot um but again wow wouldn't this have been different if she served him then and took the kids with her else and they left the house well and then when she did try to take the kids away we're gonna get to that you know he talks to her and she comes back with the kids and her mother it just never ends so and by the way I don't want anyone here I don't want anyone that's listening to this thinking for one second that I am attributing blame for the death no no I'm a mother because I I absolutely am not I mean this man is such a monster this man um even after he has he has shot all of his entire family he leaves behind a note he's such a coward that look what they've done to me how could they do this to me I am simply I am simply pointing out things that we all should be made aware of because God forbid this is happening in your home or you know somebody that is happening in their home these are the Red Flags we're talking about yeah absolutely absolutely so now on December 22nd so we're moving along here A lot's going on in December December 22nd Michael reportedly told a friend that he left his job at Allstate but then someone else said that no he was actually terminated with cause for a policy violation we don't know the details of this and Michael indicated to someone else then that that infraction would make it very difficult for him to ever get another job and that as a result of this he was not going to get his Christmas bonus again money job everything is crashing down around him family everything so he gives all these different reports to people because Michael's all about image all about image everything's fine I'm going to start a new business and he apparently even convinced Tasha of that because she had shared with others that oh no Michael's starting his left All-State and he's going to start his own business right um he sold it no that's not what happened that's not what happened so whether she knew that I don't believe that she knew the truth I guess he continued to lie to her so he's he's having these pressures on the side December 27th again we're now past Christmas Michael gets served finally with the divorce papers two days after Christmas and it he gets served at the Allstate office Michael acknowledges that he had received the divorce papers um and then he tells the wife reportedly that he wants her out of the house when he gets home but the children are supposed to stay so basically he's saying to her you go Children's Day and the mother's like oh no no no no so she grabs the children and she goes to her mother's house yes yes yes okay so all so now this is all going on between Christmas and and when the everyone is murdered so what happens Michael shows up at his mother-in-law's house of course Michael knows where his mother-in-law lives and he's asking his wife to go for a drive so they can have a talk fearing for her safety she told Michael to leave shuts the door stop for a minute yeah um another a rather red flag legal advice of giving people legal advice okay when you see this person's blood boiling when you they're asking you to go for a drive um that's the time that I I want people to seriously think about getting restraining orders going getting the court involved getting restraining order does it stop everybody all the time now does it stop some people yes it does does it put the police on notice that there's big problems here yes and at that point when she knew what he's asking yikes right I mean the implication you go let's go for a drive um I I want people to think when someone's asking you to leave that safe space so the mother-in-laws or the mother's house at that point is a safe space for her and her children when they're trying to pull you from there do you call the police to let them know do you try to get a person absolutely do everything whatever you need to do you got to call the cops right away you shut the door on his face and you call the cops and you get down to the court and you get a restraining order and at this point she's got an attorney a divorce attorney so it should not be a stretch that this is now getting very serious so once again sadly as we see in so many of these cases on the evening of December 31st Tasha and the children return to the home that they share with the with the husband the father and they take Tasha's mother the grandmother mother-in-law with them I guess their feeling is well if Grandma's around he's not going to do anything didn't work out that way did it I mean no and and the thing is I you know there's this cycle of abuse right there's this that is so well known to people where um the abuser commits the domestic violence and then begs for forgiveness and Promises to change and he or she is going to work on that they're going to work on it and you you mean everything to them and then there is a sense that um you know I I can't live with the I can't live without you I need you you need me and there is that reconciliation right that that reconciliation period and somehow Tasha believed that if she brought her mother to act as a buffer um things would be better and so again my my my sort of insight into this my insight I've been doing criminal defense for almost 30 years is um unless there's real and event intervention and help unless there's real counseling there right there's real domestic violence counseling anger management um that person's not going to change and so when you go back into the house you are invent you're inviting trouble and she wasn't doing it alone she was bringing all of her five children with her yes and her mother and so so they come back on the 31st which is a Saturday night and the next morning they all go to church this is the part I I mean there were a lot of straws I think this one probably for Michael publicly was the last one so they go to church on Sunday morning and Tasha says to Michael you're not allowed to sit with the family at church this is where she draws the line that day you will not sit with us in church so he interprets this as being publicly humiliated right yes yes Public Image right very very important to him so a report we have read says it to to Michael um the public perception of his family as the perfect family meant everything and I think Tasha knew that so well that at church she's like uh yeah she was gonna punish him and so she punishes him and says oh yeah we're going to church but you can't sit with the family I will publicly shame you you know this will be how I respond to you but the thing is she was dealing with someone who was clearly unstable so it was a very dangerous move here so Michael then police went through his internet search and as you said you know Google reveals everything here so he does all these searches around December 30th everything's happening around the time that she came back and he's looking up things like what does a gunshot sound like how loud is a nine millimeter how loud is a 40 millimeter if you hear a single gunshot in your neighborhood at night would you immediately recognize it as such and would a neighbor hear a gunshot in a garage very specific Allison very damaging very I mean you know if uh if he had lived and he had been charged with this murderer you can bet this would have been a key piece of evidence absolutely so then on January 2nd Tasha told her attorney that Michael had removed firearms from the house and she told her attorney that Michael had moved into the basement and that he wasn't planning on leaving okay so now you have a situation where it's he's not leaving the house so the following day this would have been January 3rd I'm out Anna one second go ahead yeah so that's actually very that's very telling and that's that's really sort of an important issue is the Firearms Tasha had inherited some firearms from her father they they were a house that kept Firearms um I think one was in her bed stand and he had removed it um if if there had been a domestic violence report that had been followed through on a restraining order the restraining order would have uh one of the conditions of that would have been to to remove all firearms from the home um pending the outcome of the case so those that's another thing it's another level of protection that the court will give you um is is removing firearms from a a very volatile dangerous situation we're getting much closer to the day of the murder so the following day this would have been January 3rd Michael left his secretary's paycheck on his desk along with all the paperwork for his living trust what I don't understand is who's going to be left because everybody is about to die I don't know why the living truck who there's nobody left so then here's the other weird thing this guy does he according to this report he records a video of himself begging his wife to work things out with him saying quote I feel like you are backing me into a corner no Michael no you have put yourself in this freaking corner he also sent numerous text messages he says I want to talk I want to talk and she's not responding the wife's not responding so then a neighbor told police that they heard what sounded like fireworks fireworks at the home at about 3 30 a.m on January 4th but that no one called police I guess his Google search gave him the confidence to go forward with this yeah I was thinking that I was absolutely thinking that yep and that's what happened yep that's what happened and then at 11 A.M that day a welfare check was requested by her therapist because Tasha didn't show up for her appointment that morning and said she never misses the appointment she napped business and wasn't answering her phone so she knew something was going on and obviously she would have information about how volatile things were in the home that's why the therapist called the police right right the therapist even says that the therapist says look I'm given the situation she just served and went to divorce papers he won't leave the home I'm concerned and that is where everyone finds the massacred family 's dead he's dead it's unbelievable it wouldn't have made a difference by the way because we we know the timing of the gunshots was in the middle of the night but essentially the police go to the house and um no one answers the door and so it's it actually was not the police that made the discovery this drives me crazy Allison go ahead finish it because it's horrible please leave nobody answers the door and the police leave please leave and so it is concerned neighbors yes who entered the home through an unlocked door there's an unlocked door and by the way I mean just just to be clear on the legal issue here and these were exigent circumstances where the police did not have to have a warrant to enter the home they get a call they get a call from what they would have known as a reliable source which was not an anonymous phone call it's the therapist I'm a therapist who says I'm concerned for the safety of my patient here's what I know so they had it they had accident circumstances to enter that house without a warrant but they leave they leave now I do think that the damage was already done meaning the death had already occurred but um it's another failure Allison it's another failure of the system and that's what bugs me about all this I agree so finally the police do go in um finally because the neighbors go in and find this and they're wearing body cameras and as part of the release of this report they also released the body cameras and so we're gonna play this clip for you and I know some of you are only listening and not not watching on YouTube so um what you're going to see here is the police walking through the house room to room there is commentary as they go from room to room which you will hear so here's the clip well okay check in this room back here making good uh I'll check in here okay okay one more guns right back ahead one victim boys get down here make yourself known two four six doors in the right hold right there got it one more on top Blood on the bed [Music] did you find the wife uh yeah one more down here good afternoon's clear check in this room got a gunshot or sorry I don't know that but it appears to be nobody else Allison it is very disturbing as they go from room to room and they're calling out that someone is dead yeah it's awful yeah I mean literally they're making discoveries of of a gunshot to the head in every one of the children's bedrooms yeah it was it was really really horrible um they then find Michael who's dead in the basement which is where they keep a home gym and that's where he was living so his body's on a sleeping bag there's a pistol between his legs he suffered from a self-inflicted gunshot wound and I please help me here he has he has stuffed in his ears what to muffle the sound fire was that for himself or is he's killing everyone in the house no as he's I mean I took it as as he's killing everyone in the house he didn't want his own years to be affected with this with this and the father in the first place it's unbelievable the narcissism the narcissism ah worried about his own little eardrums oh excuse me as you're blowing everybody's brains out in your house it's Unthinkable Unthinkable oh God so he leaves a note in which he takes no responsibility for the murders instead he blames his family insisting that he would quote rather rot in hell then put up with another day of this yeah yeah that's this guy see and okay I I got it a statement like that Anna this was his attitude and people knew it I mean this was not something that came that that formed in his mind that day and that's why when we're talking about red flags when people are they're you know they when they're coming up with these crazy paranoid theories about life and this one's out to get me and that one's out to get me and there is no truth to any of it I want us all to be aware of it and hear it and hear it for what it is and recognize that that is odd behavior that could potentially turn into something lethal yes the the red flags were there he actually describes himself in his letter as quote an honorable good man no you are not a good man no you're not honorable you are a disgrace you are despicable you are evil you are cold-hearted and you're a coward you didn't like this life he could have just left agreed agree wait and then he goes on and he says quote it's the words he uses this is nonsense and I can't handle it for one more day we will not be a burden on society I keep asking for help and you won't listen see no you know I that struck me that struck me as very very interesting I I don't know what that means was that that the his family was asking had had he because it from all reports he had never reached out to help for help he had never acknowledged that he had done anything wrong so that was an odd sort of uh PostScript to this horrific tale horrible horrible you know what he is just he blames everyone but himself for his own problems you know blaming everyone it's like I I'm disgusted by this man I am absolutely disgusted by this man he is a complete coward he didn't have to kill his entire there was no reason for this he could have if he didn't like it he could have left he could have done whatever that's on him but he didn't have to take everybody I mean let's certain let's Circle back to the beginning of the conversation which was he he felt the control that he had over his family had slipped away and he couldn't take it don't take it no he could not Services were were held on the 13th for the family and um I'm sorry we're seeing just too many of these cases right now and I think I always ask the question in in this program what would Justice look like in this case there can be zero Justice there's no way there will ever be any justice here but hopefully with the discussion and the revelation of what happened and when it happened in a chronological order perhaps maybe this will give someone the strength or the knowledge to maybe learn from this horrific experience but there's never going to be Justice for this family possible in this case you're right you're right but I um and I've always loved this about you I've always loved how important it has been for you because I've known you for a long time now not just as a result of this show but in life um to get to the bottom of things and try and make a difference moving forward and so what that's why this story that has no happy ending that has no criminal conviction um is so important still it is it is and please let's remember this family and have a moment for them it is time to take a break here everyone and just it's been a very very heavy program it's time for our comment section these are the crime cases you all are talking about on social media here's our producer will Updike who has a disguise on today he thought Allison and I would not recognize him yeah I know who you are I'm fresh out of contacts I I so I got glasses on I got uh yeah I got a hat on I'm trying to go as Incognito as possible here I guess uh but we got a heck of a case for you this week um just a bizarre set of circumstances so we have a stolen bus eventually a nude man we got a dead deer uh just all the elements to a to a common story piece here uh so this one comes out of Dillsburg Pennsylvania where a 25 year old man is now in custody after allegedly stealing a school bus and leading police on a chase now how this all came together was uh according to the Carroll Township Police the morning of April 4th officers were notified that a school bus had been stolen in Abbottstown Pennsylvania so I'll officers later in the day they reportedly see this school bus in the parking lot of a Rite Aid and the lights are apparently turning on and off intermittently in in the bus um so the the bus eventually leaves this parking lot and uh police catch up with it to perform a routine traffic stop and now apparently initially the bus comply it pulls over the side of the road but then apparently it pulls off onto Route 15 which is like a a kind of like a highway over there and it's winding in and out of traffic Lanes um it then leaves the highway at some point driving over a berm and according to police this nearly flipped the entire bus over uh but the driver was able to regain control they continue on to Gettysburg Road uh and the driver of this bus are suspect here Tony Saunders at some point decides that the bus getaway isn't going to work uh he he flees the bus on foot uh and and during this police chase Saunders is reportedly you know he's he's running through high traffic areas and reportedly taking his clothes off I don't know if he thought that this would Aid in the speed of his Escape I'm not really quite sure what was going on there uh but police catch this you know now now nude foot fleeing man he's take get into custody allegedly he confesses to stealing the bus uh to officers he said that he had stole the bus after crashing a BMW not sure they didn't indicate if that was also stolen if that was his vehicle um and he told police also during this interview that he had stolen this bus because he was placing a dead deer in the back of it which he planned to use as fertilizer for his garden direct quote uh so he's Springtime you know it's important you know everything's blooming we need we need fertilizer absolutely yeah the plants the plants need food apparently but he's he he was arrested and booked into the York County Jail on charges of fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer receiving stolen property resisting arrest and reckless driving um yeah this Alibi is kind of like what what interests me in this case uh I you know I I don't know I I don't know if that was true like in in whatever state of mind he was if that if that was truly like where this was coming from I love the idea that idea that's like Frogger right he's going over the way avoiding traffic while stripping down naked yeah Frogger is exactly right in Disguise I don't know you know I mean you know most of us do like well we put on glasses we wear a hat this guy goes and strips naked usually you put on more clothes for a disguise right different clothes yes exactly I know it should have gone wig for this episode too really we really could have thrown people off um we got a lot of comments on this one X pinup girl said no one can say he's boring or lacks imagination yes I gotta agree 100 I don't know what kind of life you leave but and he's a gardener right that's right like if if you're truly going to these lengths for your garden um I'm a little bit impressed uh we got a lot of people curious about the state of this guy's Garden rimati said I want to see his garden he seems really passionate for it which uh yeah I I I I wonder if it's like I wonder if it's like flowers or if there's more if it's vegetables or herbs or what he's got going on there Philip why I said dudes vegetables are going to come out tiny and y'all are just laughing at him um I I yeah I don't know the the difference that a dead deer makes in gardening I'm I'm terrible at house plants I have succulents that I can barely keep alive uh but maybe I'm missing the dead deer aspect of it like maybe that is where I'm going wrong with all those plans usually when I you know I go to the garden store dead deer compost is usually not on the Shelf okay yeah okay all right maybe this guy knew something I do I love the fact that he uses that as the the you know the the carcass as the reason that he needed to steal the bus yes right yes yeah a school bus and was it in the BMW before like I'm just having trouble kind of moving the deer Yeah well yeah like putting together the timeline of like so when did the deer enter the thing like did he hit the deer with the BMW right right and now what do I do yeah is this like a whole weird cause and effect thing that I my mind just can't get to the same and that his did Diana said dear oh dear good pretty good uh Haley M had my favorite comment though they said it was all Fawn and games till he got caught good one love it love it wow but uh yeah that that'll do it for this week's comment section good luck to everybody out there who's gardening I you know I hope you don't have to do anything this extreme um but I you know what's with spring coming it feels like we're finally out of winter here in Southern California so uh yeah the poppies aren't Bloom poppies have gone crazy I even see poppies on the side of the freeway and you know it is the law in the state of California you are not allowed to um step on cut or touch a California poppy so don't be cutting any of those poppies because that's an offense that means no picking them yeah do not make your own bouquets also I covered a story really early this morning about covering potholes you know we have all those everywhere because all the rains it's crazy yeah it's like illegal to cover the pot you cannot go on a public road and cover why not Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to cover one of his potholes and I will give him credit yeah that was actually a service drain that they were working on oh my gosh but you know I honestly I appreciated the fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger got out there and is like I'm sick of this I'm covering these damn potholes okay maybe it wasn't the best example of a pothole but as far as I'm concerned Arnold can come to my street anytime and I gotta add one thing before we end I learned that in Oakland California there's a group of people called the pothole Vigilantes and they go out in the middle of the night and they fill potholes and then they put up signs saying well if you'd like to donate um you know if so we can keep this going and in the middle of the night they fill the potholes in the street that is so cool how do I join them I love that I know some of them are getting so bad I'm worried I'm gonna like I'm gonna bottom out my car or something going over one of these but with this outfit you could join this vigilante let's start one down here I think that's what one of the guys maybe that's you will oh my God will you're the pothole vigilante of Southern California Allison it is always such a pleasure um so fun to be with you and always I miss you when you're not here and I'm so excited when you're here that we like talk forever when we do the longest podcast no I mean look I I have always loved what you do and I have such respect for you always always um and I think you do such good work and these were heavy hard cases such important tells yeah I think so I think that they are and we always try to do a variety of cases on this program and I am so appreciative of all the times you said during this podcast here's another moment where maybe if you're in this situation you should try this call the authorities get a restraining order go to the court you know so these are all really important tools for all of us to try and stay as safe as we possibly can and keep those around us safe and Allison we just we also love your commentary I know you're obsessed with the Lori valo case and we didn't do that today because every day is crazy is crazy day in court with her she's gonna be in court for weeks maybe months so we'll we'll look back we will we will we'll loop back on that yeah Allison where can people find you and keep up with all of your analysis on all these cases so I run a criminal defense practice out of Los Angeles name is Allison treason I um and the legal expert for KTLA in Los Angeles and I have a segment with Mario Lopez on Access Hollywood it's shown weekly on access access daily so I am certainly around and about covering Prime and interesting stories and but one of my very favorite things to do is to jump on a podcast with you and I love that the the you know the other family members from your son's baseball team are listeners and fans I love that I know I love it I love it love it love it love it okay so you can find me at energy news on all social that's Anna with one n you can get this podcast episode in all of our podcasts wherever you get your podcasts you can subscribe to our YouTube channel you can subscribe to our newsletter at truecrimedaily.com until next week I'm your host Anna Garcia and as we always say don't do crime

Channel: True Crime Daily

Views: 332,334

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Id: d-fG-x7d_oE

Length: 77min 40sec (4660 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 21 2023