We are back, because I'm playing with a lot of games between one game and one...
It's a good game for Bono, Sponos and that's why I'm playing with the game.
Oh, the last two of the heroes are in the Russian. Finanthes are not so exciting as well, but we'll give our best. Conto, the game is ready and the name is Gründung, Puchal. Hello, hello, hello and welcome back to an all new episode of Serial Islay. With me, you're host Annie Elise.
Happy Thursday. I hope all of you had a nice weekend, long weekend, if you celebrate the fourth of July and having a good week so far, coming to you from New York once again, joined no surprise. Surprise. Amy of Aaron Dale is here with us today, and if you're watching the video version of
this, you've already known for about 45 seconds, because it's one camera angle and that's been like, oh, we're working with back. I know.
“Yeah, could you just get out of the frame and then scoot in?”
So, welcome back, today we are going through everything breaking this week in the true crime world. As a reminder for any of you new listeners, the way it works over here on Serial Islay is on Monday. I do a full deep dive with you guys.
Pick a singular case, we go to the trenches of Hell and you know, research every single corner of it, do the full deep dive, and then on Thursdays, we come in, headline highlights together, where we're breaking down everything happening in true crime. And let me just start by saying this before we get into today's cases. I have been receiving thousands of tags, DMs, emails, messages, wanting my take on what's
going on in Ohio right now, the House of Horses, here's what I will say.
It is coming. It's not going to be today, but it might be tomorrow, or it might be the next day. It's coming very, very soon, the thing is, because there are so many minors involved and because of the graphic nature of what happened there, and many of you may not be familiar with this, some of you might be, but I don't want to go off on a tangent too hard, but because
of how sensitive this situation is, there is a lot of information that is not available to the public, such as body ham footage, certain not police reports, but certain affidavits will leave it there.
“So before I speak on it, we have been wanting to gather everything, so that's what we've”
been working on behind the scenes for over a week now, sourcing interviews with people connected to the case, getting a lot of that information that is not public yet and going through with a fine tooth comb so that when I do speak on it, I can give you the whole story. And if you're like, Annie, I have no idea what case you're even talking about, oh, what, what are you even saying, just wait, it's going to be horrific a few more days, and
it'll be ready for you. Okay, now before we jump in, I did want to share some exciting news with you guys, because it's that time of year. I've already seen the messages start trickling in, but our annual subscription sale is officially here.
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Also, if you are an Apple podcast listener, and you just want every single episode, completely add free plus bonus episodes, this is also for you. We only run this promotion once a year, and it gives you our lowest pricing of the year,
“which is why I think so many people are asking like, "When's it coming back?”
When's it coming back?" Well, now, it is. And for my Patreon users, like I said, you can choose the tier that's right for you, depending on which tier you join, you'll get access to things like BTS content, bonus content, extra episodes, our 24/7 group chat, giveaways, merch discount, so much more.
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“I want to start with this because this first case that we're going to talk about is actually”
a quick little update to a case that I already have talked with you about. It's been a
little bit of time. I first discussed it back in, gosh, September of 2025, so some of you
are OGs and may be familiar. Some of you who are brand new listeners may not know the backstory, so I'll give you a little bit of a recap. But it's an update that I know a lot of you have been waiting for, and so I wanted to just at least touch on it because this case was absolutely devastating from the very beginning. So like I said, I originally covered this back in September of last year, but it all started
in August of 2025 in Oklahoma. And this was after an 11 year old little girl had been rushed to the hospital because she had just given birth. She had delivered a baby at home with
“absolutely no medical care, no support, nothing. And when the investigator started looking”
into what happened, not only how did this 11 year old little girl get pregnant, but why did she deliver this baby at home? Why did she not have access to a health care team to anything to protect not only herself, but the baby as well? What they found was that this entire time she had been living in what they described as quote horrific conditions. The home had no running water. It had animal feces all throughout it. And then six children living there
ranging from two years old to 11 years old. All of them living there under those conditions, most without clothes and without basic necessities. Now at first, the girl's parents tried to claim that they had no idea that she was even pregnant. They had no idea how she got pregnant, they had no idea that the father was. They, you know, just neglectful and had no insight into
“anything. She hadn't seen a doctor in over a year. She had no prenatal care, nothing. However,”
as investigator started looking into what was happening, as it always does, the truth started
coming to light. A DNA test was done and it showed that there was a 99.9% chance that 35-year-old Dustin Walker, who, by the way, was this little girl's stepfather, was the biological father of this child. Investigators also said that the girl's mother, Sherry, and her grandmother, Michelle, either knew about this pregnancy or should have known about the pregnancy and more than that what was happening inside that home. The grooming, the assault, everything happening at the hands
of the stepfather against this 11-year-old little girl, which when you do the math and break that down, who knows how far back it truly started, but even just the pregnancy itself, she would have most likely been 10 years old when she conceived. And I say conceived as, you know, just the medical term, but you guys go what I mean. So prosecutors said that they later even learned that her grandmother was telling people that the baby's father was supposedly a 12-year-old boy that she used
to babysit. Saying, "Oh, no, there's other little 12-year-old boys to come to the house. We would babysit them together. They must have been exploring and, you know, what sort of looking for, not exploring, I'm experimenting, thank you." And, you know, he's the father, but obviously in those declarations knowing that her granddaughter was pregnant. So once investigators pieced everything together, the arrests, of course, came pretty quickly. Dustin, her mom, and the
grandmother were all arrested on August 23rd, 2025. Dustin was charged with child sexual abuse and child neglect. Her mother was charged with child neglect and her grandmother was charged with six counts of child neglect. Now, is if that wasn't shocking enough? Her mother was also pregnant with her 7th child at the time when all of this came to light. And now, the reason I'm doing the update
now is because 10 months later, we finally have a major update. On June 29, Dustin was sentenced
to life in prison. This is after he pleaded guilty back in March to the charges that he was facing and more than that, the abuse of a child under the age of 12. Walker faces one count of felony sexual abuse and six counts of felony child neglect. His attorney Ben Hill figure says they entered a blind plea, meaning there was no agreement beforehand with the state. Normally, we will have a plea agreement when we go to plea our clients, but in this case, I didn't feel there was one
that we could get that would be useful or helpful in any way. So Dustin took what is called a blind plea. And we don't really hear about these two often, but they do happen. Usually when someone takes a plea, it's in exchange for something, whether that's the death penalty being removed from the table, a lighter sentence, whatever it may be. However, a blind plea is not that. It means that there
Is no plea agreement in place when he pleaded guilty.
he was also sentenced to an additional 27 years for the other six charges that involved the other
“children who were living in this horrific home and under these conditions. And the judge ordered”
that each of these sentences run consecutively, which means that Dustin will serve the 27 years
for all of the child neglect charges first before his life sentence even begins. Now, as for the
mom and the grandmother, they each pleaded not guilty back when this case first started. So their cases, they're still moving slowly through the court system. So I will definitely keep an eye on those, let you know where all of that shakes out. But at least this monster is locked up, put away. I'm hopeful that these, the mom and the grandmother are also going to be equally held accountable when their time comes because, I mean, when you think about it, too, obviously this was something
in my opinion that was ongoing for years. And the fact that there were also so many other children living in the home who's to say that there were not actions like that against those children and that that wasn't, that that may have even been the goal. And we've seen like,
I'm so, and I get it, he's the step daddy's not the biological father. But I am so sick of these
like, incestual cases that we haven't talked about. And the incestual cases, but also these people around that are watching this happen and are aware of it. Yeah. And just a lot of saying anything, I know. It's disgusting. I know. I don't understand. I know. It's bad. All right, this next one is actually an update to a case that I covered last week during headline highlights regarding the murder
“of Caroline Pena. Caroline, if you remember, was a mother of five from Del Rio, Texas, which is a small”
town outside the border of Mexico, who was stabbed to death in broad daylight. Originally, was thought to have happened in this intersection near a sonic drive through. Police had arrested three women in connection with the attack, 21 year old Kitty Mia Diaz, her 19 year old sister Amaya Cookie Diaz, and 21 year old Kiendra Renee Faz. And at the time, though, if you remember, there were a lot of unanswered questions regarding what actually happened and what the motive was
and how this all kind of came to be. Well, some new details have come out in a probable cause of the David, and it's giving us a much clearer picture of what actually unfolded that day. According to the newly released information, officers were dispatched around 210 pm on June 25, after Caroline had shown up to the Valverde Regional Medical Center suffering from multiple
“stab wounds. Witnesses had told police that she had been attacked at a home just five minutes”
away from the hospital, and that's where this investigation took a major turn. Investigators went to the home, and there they actually found surveillance from a camera that had captured the entire attack. And on this surveillance footage, Caroline was seen driving up to the house in a black Dodge pickup truck. Then just a few minutes later, Kitty and Amaya pulled up in a black Chrysler 300. Police say that Amaya got out of the passenger seat,
holding what they believed was a knife before confronting Caroline. Investigators alleged that she then stabbed Caroline in the back, and almost immediately there was blood on the back of her shirt. Now from there, police say the surveillance footage shows Kitty and Kiendra getting out of the car, rushing over and beating Caroline before all three women got back into the car, and then drove away. After the attack, Caroline was then taken to the hospital where she later succumbed to her
injuries and passed away. Now investigators were able to track that car that Kitty, Amaya, and Kiendra were in back to a home about two miles away. And by the time the officers got there, they say that Kitty and Amaya had already changed their clothes. And in fact, one of the shirts was found inside of a washer. Both women had appeared to have just showered as well because their hair was still wet when the police got there. So obviously, they were trying to clean something up.
They were both arrested and Kiendra was arrested shortly after all three were charged with murder
and held on a $5 million bond. Now investigators believe Amaya was the one that was holding the knife,
but all three women were facing charges because under Texas law, which I actually love this law, someone who helps encourages or participates in a deadly crime can be charged as the same person who's accused of actually causing those fatal injuries, which we've heard this before. After getting a search warrant for the home, investigators say they found Kitty's pink halter-style crop top sitting inside the washing machine, real clever. It actually reminds me of
someone which I want to talk to you. Sure, yeah, exactly. Say last, exactly. And because of that Kitty has now been hit with an additional charge of tampering with physical evidence. But still for the motive, they still don't understand. That is the missing piece and they don't understand.
The affidavid says that Kiendra told investigators that Caroline showed up to...
for a fight, but police haven't confirmed exactly what led up to that confrontation or how these
“women, in fact, knew each other if all three did know her. According to the Del Rio police chief,”
investigators are working through a good amount of possible motives and are making sure every lead is fully investigated before drawing any formal conclusions. But at this point, the police don't expect any other additional arrests. Kitty, Cookie, and Kiendra are still each
being held on those $5 million bonds. And Kitty is also facing that additional $50,000 bond
on the tampering with evidence charge. So while investigators now know how this attack happened, they still don't exactly understand why or, again, any of the additional details. But it does sound like there's quite a bit of information out there and that they're going through it. So the answers will come about. My question was who took her to the hospital? Like was there another fourth person did she have time to call or... Right, because then witnesses at the hospital say they saw
what happened. Yeah. I want to know who owns the house that they pulled up in front of or was it a
“random house? Do they know each other? Or was this road rage where then Caroline say followed them,”
not making it okay, obviously. But like because how they're saying she was looking to start a fight, like got pissed because of road rage and then like pulled over at a house or I don't know. Like which maybe that's not it at all. Maybe they do know each other and maybe at the time of this episode releasing, even more information will be out. But I do like I'm curious what that connection is if they really knew each other or not. And I actually don't think I don't stand by my theory
from last week. What was your theory? That it was maybe a gang thing. Oh yeah. It doesn't really sound like that. Yeah. It does sound like they were kind of... I don't know if they were hunting. Is the right work but it's like you get out of the car with a knife already and then you have like backup. Well if I mean backup they could have all three but it was in the middle of the day they could have all three just been like not joy writing but like even if they went to Sonic to pick up food or
something not like intentionally having backup. But yeah I wonder what the connection is. That's interesting. And who took her to the hospital. Yeah. You guys know that I am such a creature of habit, literally routine, habit, all the things and when I
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Okay, so this next case. It's one that isn't brand new. However, it is making a ton of headlines
“right now because there has been a very big turn of events. And when I first read about these”
updates, I almost couldn't believe it, but I'm so happy that they finally have some like forward momentum going. But back on December 11th, 2025, 20-year-old Ethan Vernon left work to go visit his girlfriend, 24-year-old Sarah Haining. This was at her home in Athens, Ohio. Now,
it wasn't supposed to be anything out of the ordinary. However, later that night, Ethan never made
it back home. By the next morning, his mom Glenn and knew that something just wasn't right. So she started calling hospitals, law enforcement agencies, friends, people that they knew just trying to figure out where her son was. Then, while searching online, she came across a Facebook post about a pickup truck that had been found burned on the side of the road about 12 miles from his girlfriend Sarah's house. So the authorities went out, they wanted to check out this truck,
“see where it was, see what was going on. And when they started looking a little bit closer,”
they made a heartbreaking discovery because there was a body inside this truck. The body was so badly burned that it couldn't be identified at the scene. So because of that, DNA testing was done. And after 11 weeks, the testing confirmed that the burned remains belonged to Ethan. Now, his family had said at the time that they already knew or at least had that gut feeling that it was Ethan, but just heartbreaking kind of fool that feeling of losing hope and just knowing
in your gut that that is your loved one. But, and his mom even said, "We knew, but we didn't want to believe it." According to investigators, Ethan's body was found in the back seat of the truck, and there was a gun in the front seat of the truck. Now, unfortunately, because this fire had caused so much damage, the medical examiner could not determine exactly how Ethan died. Investigators said that the circumstances were suspicious, yes, but at the time, there wasn't
enough evidence to officially call it a homicide. With a gun in the front seat, it could have possibly been self-harm. It could have been something else. It was too difficult to get the manner of death, cause of death, everything just kind of rolling into one. So the detectives got to work. And over the next several months, they served more than 50 search warrants. They also collected cell phones, online account records, went door to door talking with people in the area,
looking through as much CCTV footage as they could find in the area, and just really trying to build not only a timeline, but figure out who was he last with? Where was he last seen? Is there anything suspicious on surveillance and try to piece together what truly happened to Ethan? Meanwhile,
Ethan's family never stopped believing that somebody was responsible for this, that this was a homicide.
They knew that this wasn't an accident, they knew that this wasn't self-harm, it just wasn't possible. Well, now, more than six months later, police say that they have finally reached a huge turning point in their investigation. And this is what I had to like go back and double chat because I couldn't even believe that I was reading this right. But on July 1st, authorities executed a search warrant at a home in Athens. And when they did, they took three people into custody. Ethan's girlfriend,
Sarah, her dad, 65 year old Randy, and her 63 year old mother Beverly. Wow, I know. A grand jury indicted all three of them on multiple felony charges, including murder, arson, tampering with evidence, gross abuse of a corpse, and obstructing justice. Now, according to prosecutors, Sarah, his 24-year-old girlfriend, she was indicted on 49 counts in total. 44 of those were for repeatedly giving false information to the investigators so that she could hinder the investigation. She was also charged
with destroying or concealing physical evidence, tampering with evidence, arson, gross abuse of a corpse, and murder. Her dad Randy was indicted on 11 counts while her mom Beverly was indicted on nine. So like I said, they were a charge with a slew of things, all three of them. Investigators, I will say this though, still haven't said exactly what they believe happened to Ethan, or what evidence led them to these indictments. So there's still why there is forward movement. There
are still a lot of questions left unanswered. But after months of waiting, Ethan's family is
finally one step closer to getting those answers, and hopefully getting the justice that they've
been looking for. It's just figuring out what happened, how did why would his girlfriend be involved,
“how did she enlist her parents to potentially help her with this and help with the cover up?”
What truly went on? And you know what, there's going to be a digital trail, no matter what,
Because I think that young kids are stupid enough to where they're going to G...
their her search history, I'm sure is probably riddled with things, text history, who knows,
“but also I would imagine while some adults are savvy and smart, if this was a quick cover up,”
because it's not a calculated murder, they're boomers, you know, they're not going to be savvy enough to not know to like do a single Google search. So I'd imagine, especially with this many charges, that they have a lot of evidence, it's just a matter now of piecing together. Not even what happened, but like, why did this happen? Was he lured there? Was it an accident? Then they tried to cover it up to protect their daughter so that she didn't like lose the rest of her life, you know? But my point
is I'm happy that Ethan's family finally has some answers, although that's got to be a devastating
blow to know that this was, yeah, that this was so close to home, and it was his own girlfriend and her parents involved, but I will definitely be following this closely, and I'll let you know as soon as we have updates. I'm curious to know because it took a while for them to make that
“arrest, and if there's all these these charges and perhaps evidence, like what took so long,”
was where they not even do she not on the radar at all, and then something came forward, or have they been looking at her the whole time. I'm sure they've been looking at her for a while because the fact that they're saying so many of those charges are from multiple fall statements and lying to the police to hinder the investigation. I'd imagine she had been interviewed, probably multiple times, and lifting stories maybe. Yeah, and in the grand scheme of things, what that's six or seven
months, it's long, but it's not like a crazy amount of time when you think about it, because they are gathering evidence, and they want to rock solid case, and to charge three people. It's like you want to make sure that your stuff is like concrete, but I guess we'll figure out the why soon. What are these family cover-ups? Family titles? Yeah. Okay, this next one,
“I'm not just saying this. This is like out of a horror movie. It doesn't even feel real, and it's one”
that we saw a lot of DMs coming in, and actually we have a team member that lives very close to this
area, and I said this is unfortunately not the first case of this happening. This all started as
one family's relaxing summer vacation, and like I said, ended in what feels like a horror movie. On the evening of June 28th, people enjoying a summer day at Lake Matoon in Illinois, spotted what looked like part of a human arm floating in the water. Now, first they thought it was maybe a dead fish, and they were going to move it away from their boat, but as they got closer, they saw that it was actually a man's arm. I'm like getting the visual right now looking over
the boat, and thinking it's like, what's that face like, a bass fit? Like a big fish floating. We'll wait till you hear how they figured out it was an arm. Okay. Oh my dad handed me an or from the boat, and he said, "Hey, there's some dead fish coming by. Why don't you get those away from us?" I said, "Okay." But after getting a closer look, I was like, "I don't something's not right," and I got looking closer, and I saw it's the tattoo. One of the
boaters, Sami Flynn, immediately called 911 and the Marina, and dispatchers told her to use an or to keep the arm from floating away until the authorities arrived. So imagine you're with your family on a boat, and those are the instructions given all while this is probably very shocking. Sami later said that that whole thing felt unreal, like something you would have seen in a movie
that you could never even imagine happening, and listen to her account here. Unreal. You see
in movies, you see it happen at other places, but not this close and not to you, or your family friends that are with you. I don't know if, you know, it'll be a while before we come back to this lake, because this is one of the lakes that my mom and her friend, they take this boat out on the lake, this lake a lot. So it may be a while for the happens. Investigators found Sami and her group on the water and quickly noticed two distinctive tattoos on the arm. One showing a skeleton holding a green
bay packer's helmet, and another, which was made up of either letters or numbers. The next day Illinois State Police released photos of these tattoos, hoping that somebody would recognize them, and they would be able to help identify the victim. And amazingly, it did not take long. Within just a couple of days, the authorities confirmed that the remains belonged to 38-year-old Del Wayne Turner, a Plainfield Illinois. Then almost as soon as they figured out who the victim was,
the investigation took another shocking turn. On July 1st, authorities arrested 26-year-old James Adam and 62-year-old Robin Turner, and they were both formally charged with concealment of a homicide and dismembering of a human body. And investigators have already said they're expecting additional charges to be filed as this investigation continues. Now, for us, a lot of people were wondering
How these two suspects were connected to Del Wayne, and some earlier reports ...
was his mother. But on July 4th, James's cousin Crystal tried to clear up the rumors in a Facebook
“post, and actually there's a lot of stuff on Facebook in these community posts. According to”
Crystal, James was Del Wayne's younger brother. She said that after their own mother was murdered 12 years ago, Del Wayne became James's legal guardian. She also made it clear that Robin was not Del Wayne's mother, but was actually get this his wife, despite their significant age difference. So Del Wayne is a reminder, 38- Robin 62. Okay, let me make another following this. James is the 26-year-old. So it was James 26, and Robin 62, who murdered and dismembered him.
Del Wayne was the James. Yeah, but it was James's older brother and legal guardian, because our mother was murdered years ago. And then his wife and his son, his son, brother. Wow, is that because there was a relationship with the son brother and the mom? Well, well, well, 26 and 62 come on. No, I know, it's wild. I like an older man,
“but like, well, and you have seen the photos? No. You need to see the photos. I'm going to”
Google the photos. Keep going. You talk while I Google the photos. So Crystal, Del Wayne's cousin, said that Del Wayne was last seen during the first week of June, and that the family still has no idea how his remains ended up in Lake Matoon. Investigators also recovered additional evidence from the home where Robin lived that they believe is connected to the case, although they haven't said exactly what it is that they found. I don't like it. I got the pictures. Okay. You know,
I know. Here's the thing, though. I will say this, and we'll obviously have the photos on screen for
those of you watching YouTube. Let me describe it for the audio listeners. It's not as bad as I thought. Really? I mean, it's not good. It's not good, but it's not as bad as I got the 62-year-old woman. She has what looks to be platinum blonde hair right around to like her mid-chest area. She looks 62, but not like a hard 62. I'm kind of looking at the same photo. Yeah. I mean, maybe I'm just being a little nice, I guess. And then he looks kind of just like, he looks like an
average guy. Your average duck dynasty kind of guy, right? Yeah, I mean, yeah, he does. Do you think she looks like a rough 62? I may be because I've seen been looking at all the photos from the Ohio House of Horrors that like does that as a revolt to me. She does look a little evil and like
“trying to be young. I mean, people look older. They do. That's why we look so nice. Okay. It's the”
Botox. I still think 26 and 62 is crazy. No, I know. I can't even imagine. Yeah. So for now, both Robin and James are in custody while investigators are continuing to piece together what happened to Del Wayne. And like I said, authorities are expecting there to be more charges based on the evidence. Del Wayne's family has since made a statement saying that he was somebody with a huge personality
and an even bigger love for the Chicago Bears. They said he was always the loudest person
cheering the games and making people laugh and was the kind of person that would always go out of his way to help people who needed it. Hey, guys. Okay. I'm recording this after we filmed the episode for this week, but wanted to give you an update that just came out in this case because it is truly wild and unbelievable. So court documents have now been released and they give us a much clearer picture of what investigators believe happened to Del Wayne. According to those documents,
police made the biggest break in this case on the night of June 30th when a man called into the Illinois State Police and told him that his half-brother James Adams and his sister-in-law Robin Turner had just confessed to killing and dismembering Del Wayne. He told investigators that James admitted quote, "I killed Dale." He is in the freezer. And when detective's interviewed him, he said that James and Robin claimed Del Wayne had been physically violent a couple of weeks earlier. James allegedly
said that he grabbed the knife and stabbed Del Wayne multiple times killing him. And according to the witness, James and Robin then decided to dismember Del Wayne's body put it in a freezer and later dumped most of the body parts in Lake Matoon. So it was that nine-month-long call that is what actually set everything in motion on that case. Now as we talked about earlier, investigators had already started looking into this case after Del Wayne's arm was found floating in Lake Matoon,
but these new court documents say that it wasn't just the arm that was recovered from the water. Over the next couple of days after that, authorities actually found several black trash bags full of human remains in the lake, as well as weights and concrete that investigators believe were used to keep those bags underwater. So as investigators are working on trying to figure out how these body parts ended up there, it was actually surveillance footage and licensed plate reader cameras
that helped them piece together what happened. Police say that James was caught on surveillance at a
Walmart in Matoon buying weights, duct tape, and a change of clothes before p...
in the store bathroom and throwing the old ones away in a dumpster. Detective's also say
“surveillance from among the Nards, show James and Robin buying 20 bags of concrete just a few days”
earlier, and licensed plate reader cameras tracked their truck heading towards Lake Matoon with large tote bins in the bed. Those bins were later found abandoned in the ditch less than a mile from the lake. Then, get this, when investigators searched the family's home, they found Del Wayne's head, neck and torso still inside a freezer that had allegedly been sealed shut with duct tape, covered with a blanket and weighed down with cinder blocks. They also said they found blood-like
stains throughout the entire home, Del Wayne's cell phone inside the truck, and it looked like parts of the home had even been recently remodeled. Police also searched Robin's phone, where investigators say they found text messages between her and James talking about cleaning supplies. According to these court documents, one message from Robin said, "Be sure to fully delete
“everything." Detective's also said, they found Google searches dating back to his earliest”
June, including things like asking if you can die from different kinds of overdoses. Do you have a body involved and concrete message? So when Robin was questioned, she said that on June 30, James told her that he and Del Wayne had had a fight about sports cards a few days ago, and Del Wayne said that he was going to stay with a friend. She told investigators that when she came home, he was gone, but that she did notice a faint smell of bleach throughout the house.
James told her that he had stabbed Del Wayne multiple times and put his body in the freezer, and when James was questioned, all he said was, "The one thing I'll say is that I did it, but I did it out of self-defense. I will tell you guys that." So at this point, James and Robin are still in custody on charges of concealment of a homicide and disnumbering of a human body, but again, investigators say that more charges are expected to come as the case moves forward.
So we will certainly keep you updated as we learn more, and hopefully we will get some more answers on the motive to this crazy crime. That's really sad. I mean, Chicago's bare fan, yes, but also he had a packer as tattoo. So pick a team. No, it's interesting because they say they don't know how his remains ended up there. I'm sure that's part of the evidence they're collecting is they probably threw him in the lake. Yeah, but they're not putting him in the area. So like
and he wasn't seen since the first week of June, and this was the end of June. So
“and is it confirmed that son brother and wife were romantically connected?”
No. Okay, so that's just me speculating. Yeah, but still, if they were not romantically connected, what on earth would motivate you both to team up against him and kill him in less? There is a romantic. No. He's what? My name's put the life insurance. Well, and I was just thinking, yeah, I mean, once this all uncovered, it'll be interesting to see what actually happened and what the manner of death is, but I mean, and what an ultimate betrayal it was because if he was aware of
what was happening and if there were secrets uncovered, like this could be huge, I know, but so sad and who knows if there's other situations happening in that area? I mean, well, while we're on the topic of betrayal. Okay. Well, let me tell you about this next case, because this next case is right in our backyard at the moment out of New York, and it's one that has left a family completely shattered. It is so awful, and it makes me physically ill thinking about it. So on Monday
morning, June 29th, around 845 a.m., 911 dispatchers received a call from a 31-year-old man named Joseph Horner. He was asking for an ambulance for a "dead woman" inside his home. Now, when
first responders arrived, they found a 25-year-old Victoria Castle unresponsive. They immediately
started CPR before then rushing her to the hospital. Unfortunately, though, she was pronounced dead less than an hour later. Now, Victoria wasn't a stranger. She wasn't a friend. She was Joseph's sister-in-law, and she lived in the downstairs apartment of the house, while Joseph and his wife lived upstairs. Now, I don't know the exact layout of the house, but for anyone who's unfamiliar with New York, and again, this may not even be logistically the setup. But oftentimes, if you're in a brownstone
or version of, there is like a redone downstairs apartment level in the basement level that you can either rent out, mother-in-law quarters, things like that when I first moved to New York, I rented out the whole bottom floor of like a lovely couple who owned the actual house. And so it's not uncommon, and this was also family. So it's not like they were renting it out to a stranger. So I'm just trying to paint the visual of like what the setup could have looked like. So anyway,
As I said, Joseph and his wife lived upstairs, and Victoria, the sister-in-la...
Family and friends described Victoria as incredibly bright, lovely, sweet, beautiful. She was a PhD
“student at Stony Brook University. She was studying geosciences and just had her entire life ahead of her.”
And as for Joseph, he was a tenured elementary school music teacher in the ocean side school district, who, according to the district, he was really well-liked by both students, co-workers, faculty, all of the people. He had been married to Victoria's sister for three years. And he seemed like a pretty normal guy, but investigators say that what happened that morning was anything but an accident. According to prosecutors, Joseph told the police that his wife was away on a
bachelor at party. So he had asked Victoria to come up to their level of the house and help him move a piano in the upstairs area of the home. However, once she was there, he allegedly grabbed her from behind, put her in a chokehold until she lost consciousness, took off her clothes, and then sexually assaulted her. Then he called 911 on himself, changed clothes and waited for
“the police to arrive. Now, here's where it gets wild as we get into motive and what really”
transpired because prosecutors say that Joseph admitted everything at the scene to the investigators. He didn't try to lie. He didn't try to say it was some stranger who came in and burglarized the house or attacked her. He admitted to everything. They also said that this was not something that just was a crime of passion and happened on impulse. Prosecutors alleged that Joseph had been obsessed with Victoria since 2017, which that was just a year after meeting her and his now wife.
He said that he used the opportunity of his wife being away on that bachelor at party to finally act
on these very sick urges that he felt toward Victoria. And you may have seen this in your feet already being dubbed as the obsessed brother-in-law case, but think about that. He marries this woman, all the while, marries her after becoming fixated on Victoria. After meeting Victoria and his wife still goes forward with marrying Victoria sister, all the while, while being fixated and obsessed with Victoria, then offering to have her live in the home with you, probably watching her, stalking
her, who knows if you like kept tabs on her, watch her show her dating, went through her underwear drawer and looked none of this is proven. I'm just saying like somebody who like that
who's like building up these urges and they're festering to where then he finally acts.
Clearly they're must have been some escalation going on in the last week. When you're living with someone, you're around their laundry, like you said everything, so you see all of their behaviors. It's so incredibly sick. And imagine not that she should feel any sort of guilt whatsoever, but imagine what her sister is feeling in these moments. Like her sister killed by her own husband because he was sexually fantasizing about her. He couldn't. He wanted to act on these impulses
in these urges. Like it's so devastating and tragic. So Joseph was arrested on scene and he was charged with second-degree murder. He has since pleaded not guilty and he's being held without bail, but if convicted, he is facing 25 years to life in prison. After his arrest, the ocean side school district announced that he had been placed on administrative leave effective immediately. Meanwhile, Victoria's loved ones are left grieving the loss of this young, beautiful woman whose life
bright future, education, everything was ripped away from her and just tragically cut short. Selfishly cut short. That I mean, there's so many things that are terrible there, but you portrayal as how you started, but yeah, I can imagine you come home from your trip after being with your friends and then it's like you found out not only that this terrible thing happened and you lost your sister, but that your husband was at his hands and he planned this whole thing.
And also, you had all this time to like come up with this plan and your best plan was come help me move a piano. I mean, not that that's relevant, but I just figure like he's so sloppy about it. It feels like this was something he clearly had been thinking about. And just not well thought through. It also doesn't really sound right now, at least, that there's any remorse. The fact that he admitted to it right away is that this is something that I was going to act on. It seems like it's like one of
those things where like, I hate to sound so cross. Like, all he was thinking with was his dick and like he was going to do this no matter what and maybe he didn't intentionally mean to kill her. Maybe he was doing that until she lost consciousness so that he could act out the assault and then it went
“to far who knows. And then that's why he called the police or maybe he did have every intention to kill”
her. I don't know. It's discussed. And that's wild. Yeah. Okay. So now before we wrap up the episode, we are going to do our phone booth confessed to your BFF/ask for advice. As a reminder, if you
Are brand new and you haven't listened to one of these when we were at Crime ...
when we weren't at the booth, we set up a phone where you could leave a message and either leave a confession or ask for advice. And so at the end of each headline highlights episode, we have been playing one of those and responding appropriately. So let's go ahead and play it. Hi, Annie. And Amy, this is
Jamie. I met you here at Crime Con. It was amazing. You guys are incredible, of course, beautiful,
but incredible and so nice and person. The cases I cannot get over like unbelievable are the two Michaela's. The one, of course, with her dad, of raping her and torturing and all that stuff. And then how he gets off, like, how is that possible with her committing suicide? It should be more proof. Anyway, that just is so heartbreaking and unbelievable. And the other Michaela as well. And I love your information
“and your whole entire cereallessly, cereal, usly and tenta life. Hi. I remember this person. She was”
a volunteer at Crime Con super sweet. And she came out to our booth like during one of her breaks, because she was so excited to meet you. Yeah. I'm just going to say this, I agree with all of your sentiments. And I know this isn't an ask advice or confess, but I agree with you. That is a case that I have not been able to stop thinking about either. We talked about it a little bit last week.
How it was basically a slap on the wrist. And for those of you who aren't familiar with this case,
go listen to the episode last week, last Thursday. You'll hear all about it. It is disgusting. This father is a predator. He, I don't want to say, had sex. He sexually assaulted his own biological daughter for four hours in such a violent, horrific and brutal way that she had to be physically carried into the ER by her uncle. Then she tried to claim that it was consensual. He had been feeding her booze all night that they both agreed to this, which, hi, when you're under the influence
and you're underage, you cannot consent. I don't care what anybody says. And the fact that this is like a whole incest thing as well. It's disgusting. She ended up taking her own life over it. And now this guy got a slap on the wrist a year in jail, which will probably be out in a couple
“months because of overpopulation in California and the jail system and on the registry for I believe”
20 years. But like nothing close to a just punishment. And so this is definitely one that keeps me up at night as well. And warning, if you are going to go listen to that episode, I just want to give you a huge blanket warning right now. It is so incredibly difficult to listen to when you hear all of the details. And so yeah, we talked about it last Thursday. And again, I think I did a deep dive on it like a month or so ago when it all happened. So all right, guys, that is it today for
headline highlights. Thank you so much for tuning in with us. I will be back on the mic with you
first thing Monday morning with an all new case, cough cough. You probably know which one it is
based on the beginning of this episode. So make sure you tune in if you are not following the podcast yet.
“All you have to do, open your podcast app, press the little follow button if you're watching on”
YouTube, press the subscribe button so that you do not miss the new episodes. And other than that, that's a wrap. That's a wrap. Stay safe, be nice, don't kill people and stop having sex with family. Period. Amen. Why do I even need to say that? Period. All right. Bye. [BLANK_AUDIO]
