This episode MA contained content of a graphic nature, including descriptions of physical and sexual violence against adults, children, and animals. Listener discretion is advised.
Hi, this is Tanya. Hi, this is Shannon, and we are Crimes.
And Consequences, a hardcore true crime podcast.
Hey Shannon, Hey Tanya. You sounds so far away. Then how are you doing?
I am mentally far away, just getting ready for the holidays and making my list and checking it twice.
And oh yeah, that this mid decem madness of like, especially if you're hosting people. So you got your menu and then you got the gifts and you got the decoration. It's madness, it is, and it's all good.
You know.
I'm starting a new job. That dad is so crazy. Yeah, so it's you know, I had to give notice at my job and it's just.
Been a lot.
So it's a whirlwind in a new year's coming. It's going to be a year of the horse in the Chinese calendar. That's exciting the horse. So yeah, oh, and I wanted to tell you before we get started, because I do want to hear your story, natch. Really, but for Thanksgiving, Tanya had brought me over a plate she had hosted, and I am so food motivated.
So I was asking her what side er.
Menu, and she told me, and she's like, I'll save you a plate, and she did and she brought it over and then her and her daughter had made some apple jam or apple preserves. Let's tell you, Tanya, you and Ursula, Well that was so good. It was kiss I have carbs are my heroine, right, yes, if in another world I'm bent over with a bagel in my hand, a half eaten bagel, just out of it. Thank you, my friend, you are welcome. So yes, very good, very good. Now, girl, tell me what story you go?
Oh my god? So yeah, Before I get into it, I would just like to say hello to Rose. She works with my husband, Hi Rose, and I just wanted to give her a little shout out. She's one of our newest fans. But I would also like to remind everyone to hit the subscriber follow button on whatever you're listening to. And this story is a local story. It happened in Dearborn Heights and it's just extremely, extremely sad, so as all of our stories.
Yes, all right, I'm check that box, but sure it's sad. Check it's tragic.
Check you know so. At first glance, nothing about Dearborn Heights seems extraordinary. The houses on Runyon Street do not announce themselves. They sit close together, modest aging, their facades, softened by time and neglect. In summer, the lawns grow uneven and stubborn. In winter, the wind moves through the gaps in chain link fences like a warning no one has learned to hear. This is not a street that
expects to be remembered. But in the early morning hours of September twenty one, twenty sixteen, that house became ground zero for a tragedy that would shock a region, expose systemic blind spots in the justice system, and raise one of the most troubling questions in American crimes. What happens when a convicted killer walks free and then commits murder again. This is the story of Gregory Green, a man whose capacity for violence was demonstrated once and tragically again. Nothing
about Gregory Green's criminal history is subtle. In nineteen ninety two, he strangled his wife. She was pregnant and her name was Tanya. According to court records, he pleaded no contest to second degree murder in her death. The details preserved in court records and police summaries are clinical in the way violence often becomes once it's processed by institutions. Second degree murder, domestic dispute, cause of death, strangulation. But strangulation
is not impulsive violence. It is not a single blow thrown in anger. It's sustained. It requires proximity, pressure, and time long enough for the victim to struggle long enough to understand what is happening, long enough for the perpetrator to stop and choose not to. Gregory Green was convicted and sentenced to fifteen to twenty five years in prison. At the time, the sentence was received as appropriate. There was no public outcry, no sense that justice had failed.
The system did what it was designed to do. It removed a violent man from society and placed him behind concrete and steel. The story could have ended there, but prisons do not end stories. They pause them. By the mid two thousands, Michigan's prison system was under pressure overcrowding, budget constraints, and a growing emphasis on rehabilitation shaped parole decisions across the state. Risk assessments became formulas, violence became data.
Human behavior was reduced to probability. Gregory Green was not a disciplinary problem behind bars, he completed required programs, He maintained acceptable conduct. He aged out of the demographic most statistically associated with impulsive violence. On paper, he improved, and paper, in the end, is what parole boards rely on. In April two thousand and eight, after serving approximately sixteen years for the murder of his first wife, Gregory was released.
He had been denied parole four times prior, mainly due to concerns over the nature of his violence and apparently absence of remorse. However, he was eventually released due to being a model prisoner, and he had letters of support submitted to the parole board from a pastor and family members. There was no public notice, no community warning, no press conference, just a man stepping back into the world, but the crimes that would define his legacy were yet to come.
Upon release, Gregory met Faith Johnson, the daughter of a local pastor. Friends would later describe her as warm response devoted to her children. She was working, surviving, building a life in a city that rarely made survival easy, and when Gregory met her, he didn't introduce himself as a murderer. He introduced himself as someone who had paid his debt.
The language of redemption is seductive. It allows people, especially people who want to believe in good outcomes, to imagine that time alone can sand down the sharpest edges of violence. Faith believed him. They got married. They built a family. Faith brought two older children into the marriage, nineteen year old Chadney Allen and seventeen year old Kara Allen, and then together Faith and Gregory had two daughters, five year old Coy Green and four year old Kayley Green. Neighbors
described them as quiet, hard working people. In the months before the murders, friends saw nothing outwardly alarming, but private violence, as so often happens, doesn't always reveal.
Itself to outsiders.
Faith had previously filed for divorce, and records show she had sought a personal protection order in twenty thirteen due to troubling behavior by Gregory, a petition that was denied under then existing standards of evidence. Still, despite past dangers and attempts to seek protection, the family remained together until the early morning of September twenty one, twenty sixteen. To outsiders,
there was nothing remarkable about this family. They looked like thousands of other families navigating blended households and financial pressure. Despite past danger and attempts to seek protection. Like I said, the family remained together later, though neighbors would recall tension, raised voices, doors closing too hard, an atmosphere that felt heavy. But domestic violence rarely announces itself in ways that feel actionable to outsiders. Communities, particularly in cities like Detroit, are
conditioned not to interfere. Police involvement carries its own risks. Silence becomes a form of survival, and so the moments passed. On September twenty first, twenty sixteen, It's early morning, before daylight, and inside the Green home, a quiet violence unfolded. At around one fifteen am. Gregory Green called nine one one and calmly reported that he had killed his family. When officers arrived, he was waiting on his front porch and
was immediately taken into custody. Inside the home, investigators found a scene both methodical and disturbing. Green's two biological daughters, coy H five and Kaylee four, were dead upstairs. Autopsies showed they had been killed by by carbon monoxide poisoning. Authorities found evidence a car in the garage had been rigged to fill with exhaust and a plastic tube connected to it before The children's bodies were later removed and
put back inside the home. In the basement, his two stepchildren, nineteen year old Chadney and seventeen year old Kara, had been shot execution style. His wife, Faith Green, was found bound with duct tape and zip ties, cut with a box cutter, and shot in the foot. Officers described her as conscious but critically injured when they entered. The efficiency and brutality of the killings shocked even seasoned investigators. These were not random acts of rage. They were executions, According
to the medical examiner's report. Graory bound and gagged his wife first and sat her down on the basement couch. He then shot her in the foot and slashed her across the face several times with a box cutter. Then he brought a step children, Kara and Chadney, to the basement where Faith was. There, he forced Chadney to tie his sister's wrists with white zip ties and duct tape. Afterward, Gregory bound Chadney in the same manner and put him on the floor next to his sister. He then executed
both teens while their mother was forced to watch. Chadney, who was six foot one and two hundred pounds, he was wearing pajamas. He also had abrasions on his face and right foot. His thighs and feet were also bound with duct tape. He had been shot in the left ear and twice in the back besides her wrists. Kara, who was five 't five and one hundred and fourteen pounds, was bound at the thighs and ankles with duct tape. She had been shot in the top of the head
and twice in the back. Each child lost their life in a different way, but all understood the violence of the same man. They were grandchildren, siblings, teenagers with lives ahead of them, and children just beginning to understand the world. Their deaths were not just statistics, they were futures stolen. After the killings, Faith Green survived physically and emotionally scarred. At Gregory's sentencing hearing, she delivered a harrowing statement that
reverberated far beyond the courtroom walls. Standing before Judge Dana Hathaway, Faith expressed a grief that was intimate and searing. Quote, there's no punishment that fits the crime. She said, not even torture and death would be justice. Your justice will come when you burn in hell for all eternity for murdering four innocent children. End quote. Her words were a rare public articulation of personal trauma, Raw, earnest and devastating. She continued quote, you are a con artist, You are
a monster. You are a devil in disguise. She conveyed the endearing emotional toll, explaining that the horror had altered her life in ways that might never heal. When news broke that the suspect was a previously convicted murderer, one who had killed his pregnant wife decades earlier, the story changed shape. This was no longer just a crime.
It was a failure.
One of the most anguished questions that followed the crimes was not about motive. It was about how could this happen?
Twice?
The question shifted from what happened to how was this allowed to happen? Gregory Green had not hidden his past. The system had known exactly who he was. He had already served sixteen years in prison for murdering his first wife. He had been denied parole multiple times before he was released. Then he married the daughter of a pastor who had
advocated for his relief. Yet despite this history and multiple warning signs, including domestic trouble and worse violings, Green was free to live with his family and ultimately kill again. This case forced advocates and officials to revisit how parole decisions are made, how evidence of past lethal violence is weighed,
and how domestic violence often escalates without effective intervention. In the wake of the murders, Wayne County Prosecutor Kim Worthy said, quote, there is nothing that better illustrates the silence of violence than this case. It was a confluence of events that led to the deaths of four beautiful children. End quote. The sentiment underscored a sobering truth. Violence does not announce itself all the time, but when it's already killed once,
it deserves to be taken seriously. In early twoenty seventeen, Greg pleaded guilty to four counts of second degree murder, torture, assault with intent to do great bodily harm, and a felony firearms violation. He admitted wrongdoing in the deaths of Coi, Kaylee, Kara, and Chadney, and the torture and attempted murder of Faith. Under a plea agreement, Green was sentenced to forty seven to one hundred and two years in prison, with eligibility for parole not until he is in his nineties, so
effectively a life term. The sentence reflected not only the brutality of the crime, but also a belated acknowledgment of the risk he posed.
Faith.
Green's life carries on under the weight of incomprehensible loss. She has spoken publicly about migraines, nightmares, and emotional scars that will never fully fade, realities that extend beyond any prison sentence. Neighbours remember the children as a vibrant and beloved community. Members organized memorials, Friends recalled smiles and birthdays
that should still be happening. The tragedy left a mark not only on a family, but on how a community thinks about domestic violence, parole policy, and what second chances really cost when they go tragically wrong. Gregory Green will never walk free again. But this story is not just about punishment. It's about the way we weigh hope against evidence, rehabilitation against risk, and optimism against history. When a life is crossed, the darkest threshold once should the system trust
it will never cross it again. Faith Green survived, her children did not. Their names, Coy, Kaylee, Chadney, Kara are not just headlines. They were young lives, full of promise, erased in a moment of deliberate violence by a man the system had once released. And the question that remains heavy and uncomforting is this how many warnings have to become tragedies before we learn to listen. This is not a story about monsters. Gregory Green did not evade the system.
He complied with it. He completed its requirements, He met its thresholds, and he was released according to its logic. That is what makes this case unbearable. The danger was known, the violence was documented, The outcome was predictable. Today, Runyon Street looks like any other Detroit block. Children ride bikes, people mow lawns. Life continues, but places remember, They remember
in ways. Humans don't always articulate in the way silence settles, in the way neighbors avoid looking too long at a house they know you well. Some stories do not end, they simply stop being told. Now, Gregory Green will die in prison. That is the legal conclusion, but the moral conclusion remains unresolved. How many warning signs are enough, how many lives must be lost before pattern outweighs optimism. This was not fate, This was policy, and policy, unlike fate,
can be changed. The question is whether anyone will change it. And that my friend.
Tanya, my god.
Now the nineties, right, So he kills his Tanya, his wife or his okay, his wife and their baby in utero, and he gets what seven to fifteen years now.
As I mentioned, sixteen to twenty five.
Oh, sixteen to twenty five, thank you, so he served fifteen and now sixteen to twenty five. That kind of does seem like I think of life expand even though we can live to be a hundred, you know, ninety, but a thirty year sentence for taking a life you know the bulk, Okay, I can kind of. But what he was able to get out and prey on a woman who uses you know, who lives probably I don't know faith, but it sounds like a woman who walks
by faith and she're a daughter of the preacher. Yeah, so she's gonna walk her talk, yeah, and I should.
He wants to see the good in people, you know, the being able to have a redemption like you know, people deserve a chance, people deserve the opportunity to redeem themselves. So I'm sure he was a redemption story.
You know, she probably wanted to help him be the hero of his own story. As you know, a lot of people men and women do for their partners that aren't very good for them. They in whatever, I don't think like for him to be on parole, so he has no remorse, and this is why he gets denied four times. But what I find so wild is when Faith was filing her restraining order, she couldn't get one. A past murderer, his record alone, his violence isn't my free pass to get a restraining order.
I know just from being a lawyer. I don't do a lot of criminal cases and stuff, but I have been, you know, adjacent to people who have needed the personal protection order and stuff. And the law says you have to be an immediate danger. So if you can't show immediate danger, and what exactly does that mean, then your ppo might not be granted. And I tell people all the time, the law is reactive, it's not proactive. And that's one of the problems of the story is that Okay,
we had the reaction. He killed his wife, he went to prison, that was the proper reaction. Only now he gets let out and there's really nothing done to be proactive. And like you said, she goes and tries to get this protection order. And the fact that I'm married to somebody that murdered his wife and I'm his wife, now, like that should be.
Enough, right, thank you.
I don't hear what he did, right, Like, I don't care if he put a gun in her face or if he just said I'm gonna kill you bitch. What is the immediate danger? I think the immediate danger is living with a man that killed his wife, and now you're exhibiting violence toward me.
Huh huh No, that's I mean.
I feel terrible because to me, the story, you know, faith sounded like you said, she lives in faith. I'm sure she believes in I'm sure she's a Christian, and she believes in people trying to find the good in people. And she loved him, you know, she had kids with him, They had this life. And I know people that have been in domestic violence relationships like, okay, it'll never happen again. You know, you get an apology, You get a sincere what seems to be apology. You know, I promise I'll
do better next time. You know, I'm sure she wanted to believe him.
You don't stay and try to work it out.
You don't drop the divorce to try again if you don't really want it right or you know, or have at least some kind of game plan to you know, succeed. We don't make up things so we really dive bomb, you know, we make it up so we can make it through. And for him to tie her up and kill her kids in front of her is, Yes, the most diabolical thing right up there, right up there with Judas kiss. Yeah, the lowest, lowest level of hell there is one. He's fucking going, what a piece of shit?
And I say, there should be like maybe some things where, you know, the rage rooms that they have, maybe we have rage prisoner like rage beatings of prisoners like I don't know you, I've heard what you did, and I like to enter the ring with me.
I know, I wish should we in this kind of justice sometimes? You know, Yeah, it's it's part of the whole. No cruel and unusual punishment is loud, you know, it's it's unfortunately a constitutional right we all have. So all of the vigilanti justice that happens in prison has to happen, you know, off the record.
Yes, it other prisoners. It's heartbreaking. It's a's ziabolical, it's so cruel.
Yeah, and you know he he had to think about that. Oh he has he had gotten saying yeah, houstdon't wake up that night and be like, Okay, I'm just gonna kill everybody and then kill everybody.
No, he was methodical. He took the older kid, you know, he took her first.
Oh, having the kids tie, having you one tie that is terrible. Not alone Koy and Kaylee in the car, just so cowardice. Yes, it's just I don't understand that. Like I try to get in his brain and it's just fucking jumbled, and you just want to you know, why are you?
I always why are you here?
I know what?
But it's like one thing too.
I would imagine it's one thing to strangle someone, Like if I strangled someone, I was upset to death.
Right, but now you have fetus.
That's also a part of this package, the unborn child right that should make you off limits, like sacred somehow if you weren't sacred in the sight of the person before you, carrying another life should make you super sacred, right some kind of And Nope, he just is went and did them both in one thing. It is time came out, no feeling played a woman. How terrible, Tanya, this is terrible. And I used to live in Dearborners, dear Born in Dearborne Heights. Yeah, I loved Dearborn. I
absolutely love Dearborn. I don't really know about Dearborn Heights as much, but the community, that darkness. I always tell Brooke, I'll be like, look at that house. I wonder what really goes on in there.
I know it's true.
Yeah, you just never know the evil that lurks behind the door.
And doing this podcast, I remember I went to my parents' house and my dad had the front door open, and I was.
Like, I am the door open. You know.
We just did a story where the family, you know, and I started going off.
I'm like, never do this, don't do this.
Oh, I know, I am such a I am such soso paranoid, you know. I mean, I consider like my neighborhood relatively safe, but my doors are always fucking locked. I see the alarm system on my house. If my alarm is on and you crack a window, it's going off, right, So I mean, you know, I think like hammers around my house, all the cameras I have around the house, and you just never fucking know.
So, but good story. I'm so sorry for faith in the whole family. My gosh, that's good.
I can't even imagine living my life with all of my children gone. No way that is, you know.
It's really amazing. And talk about your strength.
Just honestly, she beyond Yeah. I hope the rest of her life she just has blessings all the time.
Absolutely, Yeah.
I hope. I hope she's been able to get some therapy and find some sort of you know, joy in life, a.
Great support system, just someone to make you smile.
Yeah, strong family maybe hopefully. Yeah.
Right.
It's so sad and tragic. But I remember this story. I saw a show about it. Like I keep a list of cases on my phone, you know, if I'm watching like some kind of true crime story, and then I'll put like a little note And I had found this one in my notes and it was oh yeah. So then I started researching it again and I was like, ah, you know, being a lawyer and like realizing how the justice system just fails people all the time. I mean,
I do see it. And like I said, I'm not even a criminal lawyer, so I can only imagine the shit that they see.
But oh my goodness, it's just mean, like how do you fix it?
How do you fix this kind of issue? You don't? Do you just decide, Okay, is it not rehabilitating the prisoner? Are we just is the prison just for punishment? We need to just decide.
It's fank you right in any kind and maybe.
Change the sentencing, you know, like if I rob a bank and I didn't hurt anybody, you know, maybe make that sentence a little bit less and that way when I get out, you know, it's not necessarily a violent crime, you know, like just have if you come at a violent crime, I don't feel like you should be back in.
No, you've played your card. Like we're all able to be violent. All of us have the ability to be extremely island. And if you're going to play your cards violent, right then we know who You don't have control over it your week and you can't be with other strong people who are able to control right, their tiger, their anger, that would make them if you can't, if you go out, that's your first knee jerk reaction is to take a life.
What are they doing with Epstein's island? Ship them over? Yeah, bye, bye bye.
I know, live amongst yourselves, honest, but thank you so much.
Well, thank you very kindly for listening, and thank you everyone. Since we are entering the holiday season, Shannon and I are going to take a little break. We'll be back at the first of the year, just so that we can enjoy our families, get some episodes in the bank. So we're just letting everybody know that we will have episodes the first full week of.
January, January twenty twenty six.
Yeah, can you believe it.
It's a long way from nineteen seventy girls.
I know, I know, ma'am, but I.
Just wanted to warn everybody that there won't be any new episodes for two weeks.
And we'll see you in the new year.
Yeah, we'll see you in the new year, and we'll have more tragically horrific stories to tell you.
Yes, I'll bring them to you. Yeah, all right, my friend, all right, you guys.
Have the happiest of holidays you too, Joy and peace in your families.
Yeah, at this time and all of next year.
Absolutely everybody. A wonderful, happy merry Christmas, a joyful New Year, and we'll see you in January.
See a girl, love you, love you ye bye,