Episode 342

Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is not intended for all audiences.

Listener discretion is advised.

Shouldn't happen.

It shouldn't happen, And anyway, I just wanted to be known that I didn't kill John.

Welcome to Season thirteen, episode three hundred and forty two of Sword and Scale show the reveals that the worst monsters are real. In the early hours of May eighteenth, twenty seventeen, in Parma Heights, Ohio, a working class suburb twenty miles south of Cleveland, which sounds like a lovely place, I might add, like the rest of the state. Burrow Road cuts through the town in a long stretch of strip plazas and small storefronts, hair salons, nail studios, pizza shops.

We're here, Hi, it's in Carmania. I'm not going to say it's an emergency, but I was driving to work and I noticed that the door on a beauty shop is totally smashed on Pearl Road. The address is sixty four twelve. It's called Classic Studio and their front doors is totally smashed. I mean anybody can go inside.

At this point.

Okay, I noticed yet, and I Turnerrund went back, thinking did I really see that?

And sure enough I did so.

Okay, with God, I'd recorded a.

Few doors down. He does it again, another front door smashed, this time at the Nail Studio. Instead of taking the whole register, he opens the drawer. This one has fifty dollars inside, but it doesn't matter. Any amount of money is worth it. He's desperate. The glass crunches under his boots as he walks away, leaving two shops in ruins behind him.

And I'm the store manager here. Just count drug mark right next to us. There is a it's sixty four eighty eight your road. There's the Spine Nail place right next to the drug mark here that I'm I'm in charge of. There's the glasses broken out on the front door here at the Nail and spa place.

All right, I believe we just clear it there.

Oh oh, okay, I'm sorry. I just I didn't know if anyone was out or anything.

I believe the address is.

It's just sixty four eighty eight on the door here.

Okay, then that's a different one.

It's called Spy and Nails.

By sunrise, both storefronts are cordoned off with yellow tape. Patrol officers sweep glass into piles while the owners pull up the surveillance video. A white male short with a bald spot and tattoos on his arms. The time stamp on the camera is wrong, but they already know the crimes happened overnight. The owners are terrified, and one vows to shut down the business. She wonders how this could

Okay, all right, do you have any day parmaitches here to speak with you? No, well, I had a couple of breakings in my city at his spawn ales and then another Classic care studios.

You know anything about them? No, nothing at all?

All right, why I get surveillan's video of the vehicle and the person breaking into their business. Okay, so let me pull this stuff up here. Recognize that person looks like it could be all right.

So let's do this.

Recognize them Pa twos Yeah, huh yeah, do you remember doing this or No?

Tom seemed like your average guy next door. He just didn't have that typical criminal look about him. If there even is such a thing. You look more like a dad sitting on the bleaks of his son's football game. And Thomas did have a son, a good kid who unfortunately had to be raised by Tom's sister. During the last fifteen years he was in prison for aggravated robbery. So looks can be deceiving, that's what they say.

Anyway, you're running, you take a cash register from the one place and some cash from the second place, okay, and then you're in You're in a white jeep that looks like it blowing to you your son, but registered to your sister.

Maybe okay, okay, But a more more recent photo of be would be this. What the hell happened to it?

Yeah?

Smash the window?

Did you do that?

Ever? Yeah?

Okay? What happened?

I mean, just went off road? Did a true branch?

Did you mean to go off road? Or was it kind of yeah, okay, trying to hurt yourself or what?

No, just just went off was off road on the spot where we used to go off roading.

So you're just gonna go out there and be like maha or what? I don't know. I don't know, man. I appreciate you being honest.

Tom tried to be a good dad. Well maybe not, but he really did love his son and old habits die hard that included going on benders, robbing businesses, and off roading. This time, it just happened to be that he had no vehicle, so he took his son's jeep and damaged it.

How messed up were you during this time?

I don't know, sir?

Okay, all right, but well there's you know what.

Unfortunately you know, due to this and the video and stuff, I got half of you. And then how it got to you is we actually the news of hold of it because I put something on our Facebook page and then your sister did action want to call it and said, hey, listen, that's my brother in my car.

You know what I mean?

So kind of let us see you. But I had some previous things allowed to you. It looks like you had a history of Brunswick can readily called me. He says, Hey, listen, I know that guy. You might you might want to give him a call. Everything he did is what he used to do when they used to deal with you a lot.

Huh.

So what mean when you were you were in jail for a little bit, you get out and what happened.

I just I don't know, man, I just got how and things weren't like I thought it was going to be.

You know, I had nowhere to go, Okay, no family was helping here.

What my mom passed?

You know, a lot had changed in the fifteen years he was on the inside, y'all see shawsh ink right. Think about how smartphones didn't even exist in two thousand and two. Everybody was still using a flip phone. There was no social media, at least not like today. Facebook launched in two thousand and four, YouTube in two thousand and five, and Twitter in two thousand and six. Instagram came around in twenty ten, and uh, I won't even

My mom struggled for the last three or four years before she passed, trying to keep the house afloat and still help my sister with bills and with her kids.

And as soon.

As my mom dies, you know, I told my sister well here to take my money and paid a banknote all on borrowing money against the house or her court.

Her husband had allowed.

It to go into such disappeared that she didn't want to fuck with it all, and so she led the bank habit. And uh yeah, I told her, I said, you know, I feel like you.

You don't spit on her grains.

You know what I mean?

You should have let him.

You should have let the bank habit four years ago instead of moving them on the roll of stretch.

She didn trying to.

She was the only one that ever had a solid career and a working a steady work, you know what I mean, with good money. So you know she's painting like everybody's cell.

Phone bill, everybody build baby.

Sit or certain sys have got a good relationship or no. No.

His sister took over the money, and according to Tom, she mismanaged it. She also failed to get the car Tom had wrecked from the impound because it was too much trouble. Tom was pissed because the car belonged to his son, Tommy and still had some of his personal belongings in it. According to Tom, his sister helped raise Tommy and had been a good fluence, but ever since their mother passed, she was all about herself. His sister,

It was like usually every time he went to rehab, this stuff would come out. Missy does everything well, Missy has a job, Missy went to school. I paid for it. He always, I guess, felt like I got everything. But in reality, my grandparents were draining their bank account for him, and their whole life revolved around him. And then what was going on? But he always and he still will and recently that when my mom died, he wrote Tommy letters the same old stuff like Missy got.

This, and his sister Missy remembered that their mother practically enabled him.

She was always their form, and even if he stole from her, he could still come home. I don't her backward. I think I told you when I found out when she died, that she had all these check cashing and stuff. When I'd found all the.

Receipts commissary and to people like Latasha, Maquisha and some of my brother's crowd, you know, and Akron and Youngstown and you know wherever, and it was always, well, he needs hygiene products.

It's like he doesn't need three hundred dollars.

We've all experienced someone in the family like this, right. It always seems like the one who gets in trouble the most, or is the least productive, gets all the attention, doesn't it. Yeah, Fuck the productive one who pays his bills and minds his own business. Let's focus all of our baby bird attention on this idiot over here that

I don't see your son wanted to be baitchful against you at all, you know what I mean.

I think he just wants to had around, you know what I mean?

Unfortunately, listen, and like I said, I mean, this mom was letting me stay.

There and until I got a place and.

That didn't work out for the roll, and then she kind of wanted to start a relationship again.

And then when I didn't.

Because I had a girlfriend, she kind of flipped on me.

Okay.

And then, like I said, my sister, you know she enhurges.

Was that girlfriend, the girl we were looking for that was missing?

Oh have you heard?

Do you know where she's at? By any chance?

It's just an old friend of mine, Okay.

Still never heard any content of anything where she could be. She I don't know.

She was like when I was writing from jail, we lost contact, but she's stayed in touch with my mom.

Okay, so when my mom.

Died, she kind of come back in the picture.

Then her mom died, then she took off the Texas and came back and her and her friend actually picked me up from jail.

But who was it?

Who was her friend that came with you?

An old, same old guy, John John Mayn. Yeah.

In that clip they were talking about the mother of Tom's son. When he got out of prison, he was hoping to stay at her house, but that didn't work out because she wanted to rekindle the relationship and he had long since moved on with two different women. Forty nine year old Regina Capo Bianco was one of them. About fifteen years earlier, she had signed up for a prison pen pal program where she met Tom. Yeah, she

Anyway.

Regina had been living at home with her mother, but at some point in their friendship, her mother also tied, leaving her without a home. Her life took a downward turn into alcoholism. This was the last thing Tom needed, and besides, he had already started seeing someone else. These inmates can really pulse a puss, if you know what I mean. When Tom was released, Regina was living with

And one one what's the address of the emergency?

So we have a neighbor across the street and they just got home and there's a lady that's like on the ground and can't get up, and they're like hovering over her. So in the front yard, in the front yard. Yeah, she's an older lady in her fifties with dark go brown hair. Wait, they're picking her up and carrying her into the room into her white female waite female. So can barely stand up, so they're walking or in carrying her.

Now, it's one thing to get a little carried away for your fiftieth birthday, But when was the last time your neighbors called nine one one on you because you were passed out in your yard? And I hope you weren't in your fifties?

Sure, three joke ahead Regina's birthday.

She apparently had too much.

Drink, but she was up, walking around and talking, able to answer some simple questions. So she's been a durle guy ar and keep an eyeron for the night before me.

Coppy Tom remembered warning Regina to get up that day, but when she wasn't able to, he and John literally had to drag her into the house.

On her fiftieth birthday.

She got trashed and was puping up her faked teeth, and I'm like, come on, Regina, I'm like an old lady and saw that, and I told her too, I'm like, please get up. You know you're laying in your puke. I'm like, it's nice area. Someone's gonna call the police. No, sooner than I said it. They're coming a couple of farm tops. And yeah, so it looked crazy like you got an older guy and you got this guy tattoo's

You don't know, She's always been like that.

She's a good heart, good girl through writing, like as much as we wrote.

In prison, Regina may have had a good heart, but she was a wild card. Though he did stay at Regina and John's a couple of times since he got out, he mostly bounced around hotels with his current girlfriend. He was right to steer clear of Regina as much as possible. The last thing he needed was to get roped into

It was late.

June twenty seventeen in Parma Heights, Ohio, a Cleveland suburb with a reputation for safety not violent crime. In the last few weeks, police responded to a string of late night burglaries. The suspect, Thomas Nuff, was quickly caught. He admitted to everything, saying he was broke and desperate. Hotels were getting expensive. Tom had just been released from prison

Miss her every day.

I miss sending her pictures of the girls of my grandkids.

And calling her.

That was all taken from me.

Anne Berkeley, can't do that anymore.

I call Regina Reggie.

Reggie had a contagious laugh. If you would ask anybody what they remember most about Reggie, it will be her laugh.

The police had been to her house already, but they didn't execute a full search. Neighbors had seen stickers on the door about a potential foreclosure and just assumed John was evicted. Now weeks had passed, they go back, and what they find inside is worse than anything anyone's imagined. What they walk into is a hoarder's nightmare. Trash banks, boxes, rotting food. The air is thick and sour, the kind of stench you think is garbage until you realize it's not.

Dog.

The search stops here. I think it's kind of cute. Imagine a Doberman talking like that. Anyway. Fortunately, agents come prepared with full protective masks and oxygen tanks. This is a full hazmat situation we got going on. They enter through the back door of the ranch home, past the shattered window, dead flies, carpet the floor. The second bedroom is by far the worst. Flies swarm in the air, the stench pools in the room. Maggots wriggle in a disgusting puddle at the foot of the bed, a puddle

How serious certainly last going on with him, and we understand that we time to talk about it yesterday. So yeah, I understand if things don't come back to he at certain times, but we just want to have that line of communication of what good we can get through some of this information today.

Most of it.

Alicia was working at the same prison that Tom was serving time in. Tom was attractive to her for some reason, probably for the same reason why some women right to inmates, some particular crazy bitches take that extra step and get a job at the prison. It's one hell of a world we're living in, I'll tell you. Maybe it was the bad boy prisoner thing. Maybe it was his charming gift of gab who knows who cares. Whatever the case, he was writing to multiple women, including Regina, and they

I just want to clarify some things that I wasn't direct with Okay, okay.

But maybe this dream of minimizing some of this so that it's oh, I did lesser issue.

I avoided, I minimized, irrationalized, I did all the defense mechanism.

Guy, Now it just comes down to telling us the truth.

On paper, Alicia didn't look like the kind of woman who'd ever be connected to a double homicide. She was a mental health worker, and she was married, But somehow she was charmed by this asshole. After his release in April twenty seventeen, Alicia became more than just his girlfriend. She was his driver, his banker, and his safety net. When parole rules barred Tom from living with her, she paid for his motel rooms. When he needed money, she wired it, and when he called her in the middle

We discussed about initially me getting the phone call from Thomas, and he called me, and he did say to me, if I ever meet you with now, and I know he gave me, this is where I'm going to tell you.

Just okay. I know he gave me directions at some point. And here's what I see.

When I'm driving and I'm crossing over Meander, I'm on the phone with him and he tells me Regina and John are dead.

Okay.

That helps spark so memory of the conversation, that of him telling you when you got there, was there anything more?

That there's more?

Okay.

So it's accurate with him with the hood coming out and he gets in my car where I tell you, I me park where I tell you and does let me say this The story I was supposed to tell was that he got into a bar fight for the finger, because he says to me, all you know is that I got into a bar fight for the six Okay.

So that's what I told you.

Tom's version started with his relationship with John. He felt sorry for John because Regina was taking advantage of him. What started as a partnership had turned into a one way street that ended with Regina being the only happy partner. She came and went as she pleased. She took John's money and did little in exchange. She even started seeing other guys and bringing them back to the house.

So when I met John, you know, he might have been a dirt bag and a lot of things, but I just took him as an old hippie, nice guy. He was going to get kicked out of the house soon, but he needed someone to motograss.

And first of.

All, you know, I want everybody to know that, you know, I've never had any sexual relationships with Regina. We met in two thousand and five his pen pals, and for about a year and a half we kind of were writing a lot and had ideas of getting out being together. Of course, then I felt a lot different than I knew now about what I wanted.

In life and a woman.

And she's always been super wild and told me a lot of crazy stories I never realized. And of course she's probably progressed and got worse, you know what I mean. So I never realized, you know, like until her fiftieth birthday, how she was drinking.

If he wasn't convinced at her fiftieth birthday party that she was an out of control partier, an incident that happened at a gas station confirmed it she'd been drinking. He says she came out of the restroom with toilet paper hanging out of her pants. When he politely brought it to her attention, she says, watch this, and she pulls it out and plasters it on the chest of a little old lady who's walking pie. Gross.

So we didn't talk for a while, you know, a few weeks, and I ended up when I needed a place to stay, and I knew that, you know, they were still entertaining that idea when I was in jail. So I called her up and she said, well, you know, she was mad at me, but I said, hey.

You know, what are you mad for? You know what I mean, the way you were acting, and I can't have that.

Well, so I had met John a few times and he had confided in me that he kind of wanted her out, but she told him like, welly I get mail here, so you got to evict me. And then he was kind of like, well, I've known her for a while. I kind of love her. But at the same time, he's like, you know, she don't talk my dick no more.

She don't do this.

And for her, you know, she i'd seen her drunk, like you know, you can't get it hard, real nasty, you know, what I mean.

So I'm like, I feel bad for him.

You know, he felt bad for John, so he started coaching him on how he could get rid of Regina by evicting her. It would be a bonus that he'd get to live there with John. In effect, he planned to replace Regina. Tom said he didn't have much, but he would help him in any way he could, just not sexually. John wasn't getting that anyway.

Ended up, you know, taking some of my stuff there because you know, she didn't know it.

At the time, but John was going to try to birthday.

He took some stuff there, okay, all right.

So I took my blue bin and had my clothes in it, okay, And I had it like a duffel bag that had like my little homemade tattoo shit in it, lived brown tan bag. And you know, I wasn't like trying to like move in or nothing yet. I didn't know what the status was going to be as far as John getting her out of the house. I kind of was like, I'm not gonna lie to you. I said, you know, I can get you good, bud, I'll keep you smoking, I'll give you fifty bucks a week, but

That's I guess why she loved the fuck out, you know what I mean?

And you know, I hear them outside yelling and arguing, and the dogs are barking and the little you know, they're loud, and I'm like, I could hear it outside.

So the day this all went down, John had confronted Regina. She laughed it off and said she was going to go out and meet a guy at a bar and they might come back to the house. While she was out, John had fallen asleep, so she texted Tom asking him to put the dogs away because she was bringing this guy back. Tom didn't want to be around for that, so he says he left.

Well, I just chose to leave, you know. I took a walk in the neighborhood, so I didn't want to be there listening to him in a sex whatever was going on. Well, I had come home and whoever the guy she had there was gone, and hearn John were arguing, and she's drunk. I mean probably didn't take her musk get drunk anyway. She's such a little person, you know what I mean. And they're fighting and I'm out in

I didn't know what was said.

And I came in and Regina was attacking him with a knife, and I stopped her. I actually got pictures. It took me to believe me. As little she is, she was pretty strong, you know what I mean. And I had a little mark here where I had a little cut, and I got a bunch of cuts on my hands trying to pull the blade from her. And that's actually how I ended up cutting my fingers so bad.

This is when the lies started. Every person he saw got a different explanation for why he got this cut on his finger, from his own son, to his ex at the house with his son, to his girlfriend Alicia, and finally to the police who interviewed him the night of the burglaries. By that point, his finger was barely hanging on After he tried. I had to superglue it gross, but he knew it was bad because it was trending green and starting to smell funny, you know what I mean.

I know shit happened.

It shouldn't have happened, And anyway, I just wanted to know that I didn't kill John.

The one part of the story that always stayed consistent was that he didn't kill John. He freely admitted he killed Regina, just like he freely admitted several weeks later that he robbed the salons, but he was adamant he didn't kill John.

And none of this shit was planned or premeditated or anything. But I ended up ripping a knife from Regina and I threw up in a chair and she took off, and I went a night checked John and he was still making sounds and on the floor, and she ends up coming back with another knife, and I don't know, regular stayed nice whatever from the kitchen, and that's when she ended up. You know, staffn't have me cut my

Tom maintained he never met for any of this to happen. He just wanted to get out of prison and start over, be a good dad, continue his relationship with Alicia, except she was still married, and get back to what he loved to do. Tattoos, of course, but he also loved drinking and talk it. Those two traits somehow led to him committing crimes that involved the very people he loved most. In the aftermath of those crimes, even his youngest son.

It was my phone. I was letting him borrow it for the night that night. The next morning I woke up, my phone was gone, my kids were gone, and my jeep was gone, and I didn't talk to him for a couple of days.

Tom Son thought he was helping his father, but every time tom took more. The next morning, Tommy's phone, his jeep, and even his trust were god.

When he did move there, he cut his finger open, and he said it was from the hedgehog with my mom and my ample said it was too clean of a cut to be not a hedgehog, but like hedge clippers. And my mom and my ample said it was too clean of a CUTZ. I think it was from a knife for a glass or something.

What do you think.

I'd like to believe him, but I don't know. I haven't seen a cut like that before. It was cut pretty bad. Yeah, it was like hanging off and stuff.

Oh jeez.

Yeah.

He said he was going to try bluing it back together, but when he was in the hospital, they just took it off for him.

Tommy Junior would later learn the truth, if he didn't already suspect it. The story was shady, so was his story about why he needed Tommy to buy him duct tape and garbage bags for the finger. Poor Tommy. Since his dad got out of prison, he was invading all aspects of his life, and Tommy led him because he loved him.

Yeah, since he's been out, my life's been so stressful, Like I've been.

Afraid at my house, an't you afraid?

I don't know if like he got dropped off by someone and he owes them money and they're gonna like come inside or something. I don't know, Okay, I just don't know. Like I thought I knew him a little bit, but I guess I didn't.

Okay, Tommy had a right to be afraid. His dad was a criminal murderer. The only thing the police didn't know was exactly why he murdered.

We think you know more to someone's telling us.

Sitting there conversation, things were brought up about what your dad did. That we're pretty serious and if he told you what he did, then we need to know.

Tom He did tell me he heard two people. Didn't say he killed anybody.

He said he heard him, though, tell us what he told you.

He said that he heard him, and he said he cut his finger on the hedge clippers, and that he.

Was trying to fight him back, and.

I was it.

He told me that he took Regina.

They got her a hotel, and then two black people came and were beating them up, and that he was trying to defend themselves.

Say that again, when was this Did he give you any time frame on when this happened.

He said it happened late at night, late at night, and they were sitting He was in the He said he was in the basement cleaning, and that he heard John Yellen and he went upstairs and he started like trying to fight him with him, and then they left.

And that's what a couple of black males, he.

Said, two black men. He didn't he didn't use those words. He used they.

Raised this turn for them, okay, And then he was fighting with these blackmails and he.

Said, that's how he had a scratch on his head. He said, that's how he got a scratch on his head was from them.

This was just one more version of Tom's lies. And when he couldn't cover his tracks with his lies, he simply told Tommy not to look. Like the time he asked Tommy to pick him up at John Mann's house, this time it was to get rid of the dogs inside.

He went back to the house, he went in and grabbed the dogs. I didn't see the dogs, he told me not to look, and we drove out there. He hadn't pulled around the side of the street, and he shussed them out. Yeah, he just told me they were John's dogs and that he didn't want him anymore. Knew that John was going to hurt out early, kill him and get rid of them, so he was going to give him a chance at life and just let him go.

The detectives didn't want to have to press Tommy. They knew he was a good kid. In fact, one officer had also been Tommy's rugby coach and had nothing but great things to say about him. Somebody did something right, but it sure wasn't his dad.

And the last thing I want to see is anything. And this isn't trying to pit you against your dad, but you're in this position.

Sadly.

He put you in this position, he did, and it's sad, and we feel for you, you know, I do. You know what I think of you, and it's wrong, but I just want the truth one hundred percent, and you walk out of here, and you know your conscious is clear.

If I tell you, guys now, tell us now, you're not Eddie Trump.

He said he killed him, kill Regina John.

Just Regina He said he was in the basement cleaning and he heard John upstairs screaming, saw Regina stabbing him, tried giving the knife away from him, and then he said he took the knife and stabbed her.

Tommy's story matched the version his father gave police that Regina had attacked Jawn, that Tom wrestled the knife away and stabbed her. There were no other people at the house that day, black white or otherwise. If they could just get Tom to admit to killing both Regina and John, it was their gut feeling, and the coroner's reports backed it up. John Man's body was pierced with multiple sharp force injuries, including to the neck, ribs, collarbone, and defensive

You know, I've always tried to tell him, even though I've done fucked up shin or I've been in jail, I always try to.

You know, do the right thing.

A lot of things that you know I did with past it was reckless, you know, out drunk and doing stupid shit and just being wild.

But you know, for the most part, you know he knows.

To do the right thing, you know, so that's I just if I can only be that example to him, you know what I mean, that's what I want to do for him.

What he wanted to do for his son and what he actually ended up doing were two vastly different things. By May seventeenth, his life was spiraling. He was walking around with a finger that was barely hanging on, and his freedom was also barely hanging on. In the weeks that followed, Tom didn't lie low. He went right back to his old ways. He broke into two salons, leaving a trail that would put him back on police radar. At the same time, he told everyone a different story.

I don't want your son to be around this, but right now, he is smack in the middle of it.

You know, listen, I know, but that's why as much as.

You know, if he's telling us, you can fight it in him, then you know you killed two people, and then you know you're confiding in him.

As both both the people we found in the house.

Okay, I told him the black people.

And then when I ended up telling him the truth after the truck incident, I told him what it was, and I told him I was just embarrassed because I had killed the girl, and.

That's when I told him the truth of the matter.

No, I want to bring this thing back up from this machineer. Okay, it says you me and your failed. They say you'd stick John. All right, So I want to talk about some similarities and some stuff in the injuries of both.

I want to talk about that.

This is gonna be exactly what I was told, all right, Okay, Regina stab wound in the back, two stab wounds to the right side of the neck, crushed Adam's apple. Right corotid artery was cut her left hand near her index figure. The webbing was cut.

Cause him down.

The defensive booms caused this sharp force injury and a crushed damn sample, neck compression, strangulation.

All of these injuries included or were in addition to the stabbings, and the polygraph had confirmation.

Didn't you mentioned that?

Uh?

You know you several times that John was over there making gurglings as they did, and stuff like that. Okay, this machine says that you had had stabbed John. Yeah, okay, something. John had one stable right here? Did you help him stop every by doing it?

Is it the one?

Did you do one stay up woman of John to help him out, to put him out of measurement?

If you did that, you couldn't understand.

If I did.

Detectives kept giving Tom an out. They told him maybe it was an accident, an act of mercy, self defense, and maybe things got out of control. Any of those versions could have given him a softer landing, even a shot at claiming self defense. But Tom wouldn't take it. He stuck to his one line over and over. I didn't kill John.

You've got to.

Help yourself out in this. You gotta tell us what the hell happened in that house?

You know.

He brings up a good point. I'm gonna let you explain him to about it. Where he thinks something happened in the argument. I'm gonna let him go ahead with that. You know, it brings up a good point as we talked, You don't, Mike, wouldn't be getting beat up with you.

Tell me a little bit about your your stepfather right right and your mom abusive relationship, Yeah, something about.

Hap him quite frequently.

Well, when we were younger.

You know, what's your feelings on that.

I just loved my mom and I hated him at the time. You know, even though there was times where he was a good guy and I liked him, you know, for certain things, he would drink and used drugs, and you know, he took all his aggression on her, and you know, she's just such always a good person and.

Being a kid.

You know, that really hurt you know, I want to see her go back to him.

You know, how did that make you feel? It hurt me, you know, make you angry? Well, sure, I mean it wouldn't be angry. You know I was angry that. You know she put up with it, but I mean obviously she felt it.

You know, she loved him and worked through it, you know, and they'd separated for like a year and we got back together.

And what do you think should happen to somebody that beats their their wife or their girlfriend?

George, no woman to jump one with you.

What do you think should happened to somebody?

I mean, I don't feel like they should hie, you know, I mean I could understand why some women do that, you know, because they feel like there's.

No other way out.

They feel tripped.

Yeah, you know, I feel like, you know, women even deserve that to when a man does that.

You know what I mean, that they should be able to.

So, so what was John doing in Virginia? What was John?

He wanted her out?

What really happened?

He wanted her out? He wanted her out?

Was her? I don't know her.

I don't know.

Did you see him?

I never seen him, Herbert.

Did she tell you here's her?

No?

She told me many stories about punching on her boyfriends.

You know what I mean. She never said John heard her. You know, she said he was dirty and never changed its clothes.

And I think you know that he. I think she could fighting and.

You were trying to protect her, and then she get angry with you for what was.

Going on with your Joss. Is that what happened? Listen? Man, I get it.

This was their best hypothesis. It was the only time they'd seen Tom get this emotional, other than when he was talking about his son. They had tapped into his past to find a trigger. John was abusing Regina and Tom was going to stop him. But Regina was used to the chaos and abuse, so she tried to stop Tom.

You do realize come Monday morning during this ring to me, he's gonna be there. They're gonna paint you his monster, don't you Yeah? Do you want them to paint.

Do you want you're gonna have any money?

The difference is if we if we can tell our story. We're gonna have news conference.

We're gonna give a press conference Monday morning before you're raingment. We're telling everybody you're here, you're being arranged. The news is gonna be there. How's it gonna be? You know what I mean?

Did you sit in this chair with us?

Did you talk to the detectives, and did you tell us everything that happened one hundred percent to the team.

Which right now I don't believe. Okay, And your son is going to watch this news conference. Sure, you know what I mean? Your son is gonna watch this news conference.

Pretty soon he may be watching it with you somewhere else because of the trouble he's in and Alicia as well. They're both in trouble right now with this. Too much is going on because you put them in this position. The only way for you to help them and not

Would you rather just have them him be known as my dad made a mistake. He fessed up to it. He did, He did jak who he is. I still talk to my dad in jail. Do you want Dad or do you want everybody going on look at as a monster?

If Tom had accepted their version of what happened, would he have gotten away with it? I mean, there was no way he wasn't going back to prison. He robbed two salons and killed a woman. These were indisputable facts. But was it chivalry gone way wrong? Or was it a premeditated attempt to secure a place of his own.

It's possible.

No one will ever know, but the jury would seal his fate. No matter what. Tom would probably spend the rest of his life in jail. But Ohio also has the death penalty, which is a good thing, but they should use it a lot more. The relationship Tom wanted with his son was never going to happen, at least

There was, of course, a jury recommendation that the sentence of death be imposed. The court finds by proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the aggravating circumstances the offender was found guilty of committing outweigh the mitigating factors. Therefore, on count two, the sentence of death will be imposed upon the offender.

This met Tom's son lost to father.

Well, and that's what I hope just by being you know, straight up with you guys, it the things that you can control to help with, you know, I appreciate.

So I'm not here to fuck nobody around or be a bad guy.

And no, no, nobody's nobody's things said at all. You know what I mean.

I'm saying, it's enough to have to live with my faults and all the mistakes I've had in the past and letting my family down, and you know, not being there through my son's high school years when you know other people had her dad's there at the football game.

And because of Tom's actions, he would never get the chance to go to one of his kid's games and walk him out onto the field. But his son wasn't the only one who suffered. Two lives were lost. Regina may have been a bit of a wild card, but she mattered to her family, to her friends. She was a person and no matter what her life choices, she didn't deserve what happened to her.

This monster took my sister from me.

My heart is broken.

I don't know if I will ever reap here.

I miss her every day. She would not get to see her sons get married, she would not get to call her Grandma.

And his.

Oh because of trying to help somebody that I told her that I thought.

She should stay away from.

I have.

Horrible visions, and I hope someday will get out of my head of the murder.

And no one should ever have to have these visions of a family member. I am glad he has the death penalty. I think he deserves the death penalty. He's had a chance to plead for his life, and I'm sure my sister pleaded for her life that.

He chose to ignore.

John Man's son and sister both gave incredible heartfelt statements, and John's son spoke for more than ten minutes.

My dad was a goofy, bright and sensitive man. He loved the Cleveland Browns, watching Mash re runs, and doing community theater. He had a full scholarship offer from Heidelberg University in astrophysics. He ended up floating into electrical contracting from his interest in solar power. He loved the idea of cheap, renewable energy. He even studied to be an architect because he thought it would help him develop solar powerselves.

You took my dad from me.

You robbed him of the golden years of his life and the time we had together. I miss him terribly.

He proceeded to lay out how Tom had failed as a man, as a human being, and as a father. He sympathized with Tom's son and thanked him for his bravery and enduring the trial and doing the right thing by testifying against his own father, whom he loved. But then he's surprised everyone.

You do not deserve to live. You do not deserve a humane death. You butcher two people for reasons I cannot begin to comprehend. I have wanted you to die, yet I am faced with the reality that it will not and cannot be enough. In order to heal, I must accept this and find a way to reconcile it. Against my own a feelings. I will continue to beg for his life to be spared. However, if possible, I want you all to hear it from a man that wanted him dead, as a son to a man whose

Of course, Tom is appealing, and the legal fight will go on for years. But what lingers isn't just the courtroom drama and a peals. That's the contradiction. Tom wanted to be a good father. He wanted to prove he could do right by his son. He stayed in touch, leaned on him, even dreamed of settling down in a house where they could reconnect. But instead he fell back into every pattern he swore he'd left behind, the lies, the violence, the selfishness that burned through everything in his path.

Stay safe,