Beating First-Degree Murder Charge with Alien Lizards | Barbara Rogers Case Analysis

hello this is dr grande today's question is can i analyze the case of barbara rogers just a reminder i'm not diagnosed in this video only speculating about what could be happening in a situation like this if you enjoy this video please like it subscribe to my channel and consider supporting me on patreon i will put the link to patreon in the description for this video i'll start with the background including the timeline of the crime and then i'll move to my analysis this case starts on july 15 2017 42 year old barbara rogers and her 32 year old boyfriend steven mineo live together in a double wide trailer located in toby hanna pennsylvania at 2 38 a.m barbara called 9-1-1 she told the police that her boyfriend forced her to shoot him she said he grabbed her hand and made her hold a 45-caliber semi-automatic pistol then she pulled the trigger later she said that he urged her to pull the trigger which she did so we see the story changed a bit there when the police arrived they found steven dead from a single gunshot wound to the head his body was on the floor and it looked like the gun had been pressed directly into his forehead when the discharge occurred barbara rogers had a long and complex story about what led the couple to this disastrous result here's the story that she gave to the police some of which was supported by other evidence stephen was socially withdrawn he spent a lot of time online in the early 2000s he became fascinated with a woman named sherry shriner she was a social media personality and podcaster who represented herself as a prophet servant ambassador and messenger of the most high god sounds like she was really busy i guess some of those must have been part-time jobs sometimes when people claim to be a messenger of the most high god what we find out later is that the words most high just got moved around like it would be most high messenger of god shiner claimed to be the granddaughter of king david from the bible she had a special knowledge about the end of the world she believed that she would lead the 144 000 chosen ones during the apocalypse which sounds a lot like the lori vallo chad daybell case she had access to a special substance called orgon that she could use to kill alien lizard humanoids and zombies i guess oregon is like the generic version of the substance the brand name version would be something like zombie be going the reptile people and the zombies are part of the new world order which is determined to take over the world the alien lizards are particularly insidious they wear suits made of human skin and have lethal intent shriner believed that all celebrities were actually alien reptiles in disguise which is their only belief that had a chance of mainstream acceptance at some point shriner took a special interest in steven they communicated online in 2011 barbara came into the picture she was also interested in alien lizards barbara and stephen connected through their shared interest in these different stories they dated online for a while then moved to tobihana pennsylvania they lived isolated from the rest of the world interacting only through the internet in 2017 the couple ran into a problem barbara had posted a picture of steak with minced garlic on facebook apparently sherry shriner wasn't too happy with this she declared that barbara rogers was a vampire a witch and a reptilian super soldier shriner was essentially saying that the photograph featured red meat if barbara wanted to eat that she must have been an alien lizard i guess that's a common dietary selection for alien lizards shriner said what kind of christian girl goes around eating raw hamburger meat shriner thought that barbara was inhabited by a demon lizard or both shiner said that if she had both barbara was no match for that kind of supernatural strength steven became concerned that barbara was in fact an alien lizard so he was being influenced by sherry he started to believe it too perhaps this whole time he was living with a lizard he called a friend who was familiar with biblical prophecy and asked her if she believed barbara was a lizard the friend told stephen that barbara was not an alien lizard person schreiner apparently rallied her troops her many followers and had them issue threats against barbara rogers steven responded by posting material online designed to expose shriner he accused her followers of being mentally sick shriner's followers said that they would feed barbara to their queen and drink her blood i guess they'd have to drink the blood first then feed her to the queen they sent photographs of the residents where barbara and steve lived to the couple implying that they knew where they lived and they would hurt them barbara told stephen to turn off his computer meaning disconnect from the internet create some distance there for a while but he would not on july 15 the day stephen died he was arguing online with two of shriner's followers barbara and steven decided to get away for a while they went to a bar to relax they had a few drinks they stayed there until it closed when they returned home at about 2 am stephen and barbara went out into the woods behind their residence to shoot a 45 caliber pistol when they went back inside the house stephen was still upset at least according to barbara he didn't want to be alive anymore but he didn't want to bring an end to his life by himself because he thought he would go to hell this is when he put the pistol into barbara's hand pointed it at his head and told barbara to pull the trigger for him after pulling the trigger barbara waited 20 minutes before calling 9-1-1 after listening to barbara's explanation about what happened the police charged her with murder less than a year later cherie shriner died of a heart attack so unrelated to the story with barbara and stephen barbara went to trial in march of 2019 she was convicted of third degree murder and later sentenced to 15 to 40 years in prison now moving to my analysis barbara rogers had a mental health history she was in the united states army for eight years before being discharged for medical reasons she suffered from bipolar disorder but at the time of the shooting she was not on any medication normally medication is part of the treatment for bipolar disorder in the months leading up to the murder barbara's use of alcohol increased dramatically barbara clearly had a number of conspiratorial beliefs and was heavily invested in the cult operated by sherry shriner as far as barbara's trial the jury did not believe that barbara rogers premeditated the murder and they did not believe that she intended to kill thereby eliminating both first and second degree murder the jury went with third degree murder instead which is any killing with malice that is not first or second degree murder under pennsylvania law malice is defined as wickedness of disposition hardness of heart cruelty recklessness of consequences and the mind regardless of social duty barbara rogers appealed her third degree murder conviction based on a few arguments i'll go through each argument she made as well as the response from the appeals court starting with the first argument the verdict went against the weight of the evidence the court found the evidence supported the conviction the jury was not instructed about involuntary manslaughter meaning they really didn't understand this as an option they could not convict her of that charge which of course would not be as serious as third degree murder here the appeals court said that a charge is only presented to the jury when the evidence reasonably supports such a verdict in this case there was no dispute that barbara fired the fatal shot she knew the gun was loaded she intentionally pulled the trigger and she knew a bullet would come out of the barrel right so she understood how the firearm functioned she also knew that stephen wanted to die her next argument was that the statements that were made to the police should have been suppressed barbara argued that she had been drinking was under emotional distress and had not slept enough prior to her interview with the police the court ruled that her choice to waive her miranda rights was voluntary barbara's last argument was that she felt like the sentence was unnecessarily harsh considering she had served in the military and had bipolar disorder the appeals court found that these factors were taken into consideration her sentence was fair barbara's appeal was unsuccessful so what do i think happened in this case was this actually first degree murder as opposed to third degree murder here's what i think happened of course this is just my opinion it's just a theory sherry shriner was kind of a mother figure to steven but boundaries were being crossed she wanted to have control over him when barbara came into the picture sherry viewed her as competition they were fighting for the same man cult leaders do not like competition sherry starts threatening barbara stephen takes barbara's side but still has his doubts about whether barbara is a lizard person or not barbara starts to worry that stephen is going to flip sides and go back with sherry he's having some doubts again about this whole lizard situation on july 15 2017 barbara's anger becomes intense stephen is on the floor and is possibly impaired he had toxic levels of a drug called mitrogynin in his system and his bac was .15 barbara retrieves the firearm and shoots him in the head she waits for 20 minutes as she tries to figure out what she's going to say considering the evidence doesn't look good for her she decides to pretend stephen had a cult leader dispute induced death wish this case does really seem like it should have resulted in a conviction of first-degree murder or second-degree murder so premeditated or spontaneous but either way intentional i think this is an example of how a colorful explanation can sometimes motivate a jury it becomes like this entertaining distraction the facts in this case were straightforward barbara admitted she pointed a gun at her boyfriend's head and pulled the trigger she was the only one with him in the residence this is a case involving a defendant with poor critical thinking skills managed to come up with a defense that was largely successful considering the circumstances third degree murder is a lot better for her than first or second it's almost like she stumbled on this defense by accident simply recounting this tale of alien lizard humanoids demons and the apocalypse somehow this nonsensical narrative helped her it's almost like when two people are fighting and one person is randomly waving their arms around and they manage to deflect incoming strikes it's not intentional but sometimes it can be effective it's incredible that barbara's bizarre experiences with a cult leader somehow aided in her defense in a way barbara was able to shift some of the blame onto sherry shriner like the whole argument between sherry and steven create a situation where steven no longer wanted to live this may be one of the few times when these nonsensical beliefs actually accomplished anything for someone who believes them or perhaps or the jurors influenced the others that juror could have been a celebrity and therefore an alien lizard humanoid those are my thoughts on the case of barbara rogers please put any opinions and thoughts in the comment section they always generate an interesting dialogue as always i hope you found this analysis more sensational than an alien lizard person thanks for watching

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

Views: 85,787

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Id: 1VlqoNudarc

Length: 12min 36sec (756 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 25 2021