Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.
I heard screaming and stuff, so I just love I couldn't say the little lead from that lady's house.
Hello, and thank you for joining us. This is season thirteen, episode three hundred and forty what three hundred and forty seven of Sword and Scale show that reveals that the worst monsters are real. It's March first, twenty fifteen in Niles, Ohio, Yeah, Ohio again. Niles is an aging steel town in Trumbull County. The narrow streets are lined with ranch and cape cod homes where families have lived for generations. On Lafayette Avenue.
The houses sit close together, with alleys running between them and neighbors that notice when something is out of place. Just before dinner, a teenage boy stumbles home and into the front door. He's not hungry, and he's not thirsty either. In fact, he's already had too much to drink and he's a drunken mess.
Nine one how much emergency?
Hi?
My trin came home and said he got jumped by several people and he's not actingly okay.
Where did the sthroom? I'm not five or two off yet, He says he was at Feeder Park, okay, and he has blood on his hands and stuff.
Her voice echoes through the house as she speaks to the dispatcher. She's not in panic. He doesn't look injured, but he has blood all over him and he's not wearing pants. He's been staggering through the neighborhood in his underwear and a T shirt.
He has blood on his hands, yeah, and on his shirt.
And he's like coming in and out of it.
How old is it he's fifty? Well, he's fifteen. Fifteen?
Yeah, he's not.
Okay, so you need an ambulance?
Yeah, all right.
I want you to come down to the station when he's done, okay, and file a report. Okay, not stay on the line.
So far, his mom doesn't seem to notice somehow that his breath also wreaks of alcohol, or at least she doesn't report this.
How is done? He's fifteen? He said he was jumpy when he said he's not acting right?
What do you mean?
He's like playing on the bathrooms floor, and he tried to lift up his head and his eyes rolled back and he throws himself back down and Kayley goes to talk to you. He mumbled, and he has blood on his hands and his shirt.
Her son, Jacob LaRosa, tells her he's been attacked by some other teenagers.
That's a Nile that will call on the line. At five oh two, Lafayette, fifteen year old fun was it a fight and came home and she said he's not acting right.
The Niles squad car pulls up quickly. It's only a short drive to the station. The Lafayette houses are cluttered tightly in a neighborhood where officers can cross yards and alleys in seconds. Inside, he finds Jacob on the bathroom floor. An ambulance gets there in just minutes, and they whisked Jacob away to the hospital, where he's interviewed.
Wond if I come in? No, no, sir, Come.
Sir, Jacob. How are you good? Sir good? My name is Lieutenant Atkins.
Don't conquer move yet, okay, yeah, you could still finish young lady first though.
Okay, I'm don't you're moving, so you're gonna screw up your test, buddy, don't.
Talk, don't move.
That nurse wasn't playing games and didn't have the time for her drunk patient.
Normal, my mom, she's on the waiting room. These guys came up, game up. They meant they got it.
Happens.
The streets can be violent, especially in Ohio.
Tell me, tell me how did you end up here tonight?
Well, this this kid dere Gaius and Vonte Jackson, they play a gun.
They gone to my end.
Reason what was the other guys?
Sa Ry Davis and Vonte.
Yeah Jackson.
They believe going into my head. They were making me a drink.
I got a card.
I told him I was just scared.
Where were you with these guys?
I was on the street of lost. Yeah. I told him I want to go oh. I was just scared. My mom wanted me. I wanted to make up excuse. So they believed me that I needed to be okay. I wanted I told him so why they let me also block, I told him all the time to go get I was gonna steal something.
So I told him I was to steal something, but I lied to them. I went straight to my house and they told me to get the cars.
So I went to anyone in the room listening, it sounds like he was being held at gunpoint and told to rob somebody or something. So, according to Jacob, he lied just so he could go home where his mom was expecting him. The officers have more questions, but all of a sudden, Jacob passes out.
You all right, still, there would be Jacob Jacob.
Yeah, hey, Jacob, need to talk to the lieutenant here.
Oh how you doing today? Good?
Well?
Well, this kid he made me get a car.
He had a gun.
Which kid had the gun?
Derek Davies, Who kind of gun was it? It was not even one?
Me here, okay, we'll color black black black.
Wife had a grip on it the bottom where we have it.
In your hand. What kind of car were they in? They're in a great car. You know what kind it was? It was like it was it was a jeep. Yes, it was a jeep. Jeep. It was a jeep. Okay, it was a great jeep. And wait wait wait, you had l a bald egel on top of it. I want to on the hood on the hood on the hood.
Got that. Jacob's account of what happened was only getting more interesting.
Okay, so they made you get in the car, They made me drink what do you make you drink.
It made me drink would keep for loco. I did not want to do it. I wanted to be happy. I wanted to be roll over.
Okay, when you said they made you smoke the smoke cigarettes or maybe it's a little.
They made men. We didn't make me drink.
You said they made you smoke weed.
No, they made but they made me drink. I told I want to. I want to.
They made They forced me to sunk the weed. But I didn't. Again, I say shaw like our probation officers said to me to do Okay, I call away, callaway kid. With these guys, I was, I was down. I look way that they track me. They to me, they tracked me.
Peer pressure. You've been there, right, just trying to do the right thing, mind your own business, follow all the rules. And then some kids your age pull guns, pour vodka down your throat, and shove weed at you. You try it, but like Bill Clinton once famously claimed, you don't inhale no one.
There's no way I go to leave. I was trying to ram, but they got me.
They got me.
Okay, I'm sorry, please right.
Jacob, I'm just talking to you right now, Thank you. Okay, so they make you get in the car. Where do you guys go?
We go do Dollar in General?
Okay? On Avenue?
Yeah, the way up there? Wait, way down there. You know where you're going to?
Uh?
What is it called? Johnny Eagle? You where's at? You know how?
You go down to donag and you go across, you go, we turn, you turn right and you go all the way up to Robbins. Yeah, we're going all the way up to Robbins. And they're having a car and they're saying that they're gonna be beat me up.
I was scared. I always wanted to call him mom. I want to make sure my mom's safe.
How old are these guys.
Like seventeen, eighteen years old? Nineteen? Yeah, I didn't want my mom. I didn't want to go to the school there.
The more questions the officer asked, the harder it was for Jacob to spit out his version of what happened. His words turned into sobs, his sentences trailed off, and what little sense he did make only raised more questions.
They're going to go to the littler General.
Where do you guys go?
They're all making me either conser tree, maybe.
Buy a bottle off.
I get a little dollar so they can have they can buy a bottle of loco.
All is a dune and he.
Wants to sparko And now I was a Sparko and my freaking I want a fad.
I want to be a good kid. I want to be a good kid.
He wanted to be a good kid, a great kid. But that wasn't how the first fifteen years of his life had gone. He wasn't going to be nominated for Altar Boy of the Year anytime soon. Good kids don't come home drunk and coherent and covered in somebody else's blood. After all, good kids don't spin stories to get out of serious crime, and great kids don't leave a dead body in their wake. On March thirty, first, twenty fifteen, fifteen year old Jacob LaRosa Dagger's home in a Niles,
Ohio neighborhood. He's half dressed, bleeding, and wreaking of alcohol. His mother calls nine to one one, convinced her son's been attacked. At the hospital, Jacob claims that teenagers with guns trapped him, but his slurred lies can't hide the truth. Something way more gruesome happened that afternoon. And just across the street, the evidence was waiting. Marie bel Castro was a ninety four year old widow with kids, grandkids, and great grandkids. Her great granddaughter Lena called her Gigi.
Gigi is like a really sweet person. She was very spiritually in tune with herself and religious to the degree of one to be just like Jesus, and she always gave back. She was very kind hearted, and I think, you know a lot of people the state kind is for weakness, and I think what happened to her was kind of tragic in the sense that the expression kind of came true to itself with what had happened to her.
And I think it kind of proves that no matter how good your intentions are, no matter how kind you are, there's always gonna be some jerk that's going and try and effect that destroy that.
Marie was born in nineteen twenty to immigrant parents from Italy. Her dad was a carpenter who came to the US at the age of eleven. Marie herself married Fred Belcastro, a member of the Army Corps. In World War Two. Marie also helped with the war effort, working at Packard Electric making tanks and military equipment. She was like Rosie the Riveter, but in real life this is her grandson, Brian Kirk.
She was her housewife and the Italian American community at Niles was very close knit. In fact, I've heard wonderful stories about the Italians banding together with other minorities.
It was a very different time in American history. Back then, just getting into the United States was a different process than it is today. Irish, Italian and Jewish families traveled weeks by ship and cramped spaces, hoping they didn't die along the way. They came to Ellis Island with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. They stood in long lines, went through humiliating medical inspections, bought language barriers, and hoped they wouldn't be turned away. No jobs were waiting,
no handouts, no safety nets, certainly no welfare. All they had was each other and in Niles, Ohio, the Italian families banded together with other newcomers to find their way in a city that didn't always welcome them. They faced suspicion and prejudice, but they worked long hours in the mills, raised families, and built communities of faith and tradition. That held them together.
My grandfather suffered a stroke in the seventies, and my grandmother became a bus aide and then a school bus driver. She was quite short, about four foot nine, and so the idea of her driving a big bus was pretty funny to us. But she did what she had to do to thrive and survive, and she was a product of that Great Depression era. She had a hip side to her, and by that I mean she was plugged into the culture. She loved stand up comedy. She liked
comics like Ron White and Lewis Black. When I was six years old, I remember watching Saturday Night Live on her living room floor, something that my parents would never let me do.
Brian says that even though his grandmother was a devout Catholic, she didn't push her beliefs on anyone and didn't get stuck in the dogma. When Brian and a friend visited her on their first college break, the first thing she did was offer them twenty bucks to go buy some beer.
She gave me the freedom to make mistakes, and she was just a very funny woman with a very advanced sense of humor. In a different era, she could have been a college professor. But in nineteen twenties, Ohio, you know, the child of immigrants and relatively poor, she didn't have the same opportunities that young women have today. But a learned woman, a smart woman, and.
A really good Italian cook, I might add, Who wouldn't want a grandma like her? The thing Brian remembers most is her humor and her laugh, things she inherited. He went on to become a comedian.
I remember doing Howard Cosell impersonations at age six for her friends and neighbors on the sidewalk in Niles. So she was my first audience and her laugh was wonderful and infectious. And the last conversation I ever had with her was on an iPad, and she asked me if I had any new impressions, and I gave her one. I told her about a new character that I was learning, and she was up to the end, always looking to laugh.
Ninety four years old, and according to her family and doctor, she would have easily lived another ten years. But on March thirty first, twenty fifteen, her laugh was silenced. That afternoon, Marie's daughter walked into the house on Cherry Avenue, the one that Marie's father had built for her with his own hands and found what the killer or killers had left behind.
Nine.
Well on what you Emerjacay, I'm at five on nine Cherry Street, Niles. I'm Marie Belcast's daughter. I just walked into her house and I finally found her. She looks like she's all smashed and there's lead in every room. House was ransacked.
How old is sheha?
How old? Yeah, she was ninety four. I think she's dead. She looks she's been twisted.
She's twisted in.
Here in the bedroom. And I saw an ambulance when I walked in and saw kind of stuff I saw on the amblys one walk above. So I ran up there and I said, I need someone. I thought maybe they went to the wrong place and maybe she called them, But I think somebody came in. I know somebody came in here.
The ambulance she saw just across the street was for Jacob.
Did it any time you go to a house or on Cherry Street the old lady who.
Lives behind you A ry guy.
Okay, I just got an answer. The house behind you on Cherry Street, the old lady that loves back there, did you go to her?
House, No, ma'am, no, sir. Okay.
Did any of those guys go to that house?
Yeah?
But I told him I'm not going in there. They left, they started.
I heard screaming and stuff, so I just left. I couldn't the old lady's house.
Were you inside and left or no?
I left, I couldn't. I just heard screaming, so I left. Where do you hear screaming from the old lady's house?
Okay?
But were you outside?
Were you in the car? Where were you?
No? I was in an alley, but I ran. I ran home that one on my what's it called the swing thing? The swing swing thing, the swing set, the swing set? Yeah, okay.
Jacob said he ran home as the boys who held him at gunpoint went inside Marie's house. He said he only heard the screams whether he was inside the house or not. Marie was indeed screaming, and what her daughter found was the end of a struggle. No one should ever have to fight, especially a sweet old woman. Back at the scene, an officer steps through the side entrance at five o nine Cherry. The door frame is splintered,
the lock has been forced. Evidence of violence is pervasive in multiple rooms in the living room, the floor is stained with blood, especially in front of a recliner where the struggle started. It's not a single pool. It's smeared, soaked into the carpet, streaked a cross furniture, and spattered on walls. On the couch more stains. He sees fragments of bone sections of Marie bel Castro's skull lying on the floor among the blood. We interviewed Chris Becker, the lead prosecutor on the case.
The corner indicated that she had been beaten so brutally that he could not determine how many blows had rained down on her head.
A trail of bloody drag marts leads into the dining room. More blood on the floor, another fragment of skull. Shards of her hearing aids lay in various places, and one is broken and lodged inside her ear canal, a detail the coroner would later say he had never seen before in over eight thousand autopsies. The officer follows drag marks, smeared lines of blood leading away from the front rooms,
through the kitchen, down the hallway. Along the baseboard of one wall, there are more fragments of skull and brain tissue. In the guest bedroom, he finds the body. Marie Belcastro, lies twisted on the floor at the foot of her bed. She is faced down. Her pajama pants are gone, her shirt is soaked in blood. Her arms are contorted, with one pinned under her and the other bent Unnaturally. Blood has pooled beneath her and saturated deep into the carpet.
They will later discover there's so much blood that it is dripping through the floorboards into her finished basement. He gets down on his knees, careful not to disturb the scene, and sees her crushed face. The injury measures almost five by one and a half inches. It's not a fracture. The bone and tissue are completely carved in. Nearby, he spots the murder weapon, a maglite flashlight, stained with blood. There are also bloody shoe prints marking the carpet. The
house shrieks of iron. Every room he passes through has signs of a violent struggle. A veteran with decades on the force, he freezes for a moment. In twenty four years of law enforcement, he has never seen any thing like this, and this could have been his grandmother. He thinks to himself. Meanwhile, Jacob is still in the hospital being questioned. His drunken version is starting to crack. It already blamed the murder on two other young men or kids who held him at gunpoint and then decided to
let him go. So he's running through all the alleys with no pants and ends up at a playground.
And what did you do there? I hung out? So he came back.
I seen blood all over him, the blood all Oh my blood, Oh my god?
Did you see blood all over Davonte Jackson?
Davante Jackson, has Davante white or black?
He's black? Okay? How about this other guy with his name again, Davy?
He is white.
Middald mid donald's. Every assume the morning he would be hanging out mc donald's.
Oh my god. No, in a car, black car. It's the right license place on far looks like a race car. Okay.
So you weren't in the house at any time with them. No, So I won't find anything of yours in that house because they guys up there right now looking for stuff in that house. Nothing in there is gonna come back that's yours, right, no, sir, And you're not gonna have any blood in there. You're not gonna have anything in there, noir, Okay, because I want you're being honest with me right now.
I'm completely august. Thank you, Aunt the same my life took you.
Thank you, God blessed you.
In the hospital, Jacob was safe, he only had minor injuries, and he was grateful, even thanking and blessing the officer and the nurse who were helping him. He'd make it home after all. But across the street, Marie belt Castro was lying dead in a heap of blood, while Jacob blamed two boys with guns. Investigators canvas the neighborhood. They questioned everyone who might have seen somebody, anybody really going into or out of Marie's house that afternoon. No one had.
Why are the neighbors saying that they didn't see anybody over there but you?
Oh huh, Well.
A couple of the neighbors over there said they saw you coming out of the house. Why would they say that?
Yeah?
Why would the neighbors say they only saw you come out of the house.
Ah, there was first act over there.
They were saying that because it was true. But Jacob's lies kept coming, along with new names.
Jackson when did he come on scene? I thought it was DeVante and the other guy, the white guy.
No, it is t I think Jacob.
Let me explain something to you. You watch TV a lot, You watched TV all.
Yeah.
Have you ever watched CSI or any of that where they do crime scene stuff?
Yeah?
Yeah, Well I got my crime scene guys up right now. And your story isn't adding up to what you're telling me. And see, I'm up here trying to help you out and get you in front of this so that you don't end up with a bigger mess than it could be already. And I don't think you're telling me the truth because your story keeps changing a lot, and I've got witnesses up there.
Jacob's story kept shifting, full of names and details that led nowhere. By then, investigators already knew this wasn't some random encounter. Jacob had been in and out of detention for years, with probation officers and judges trying and failing to rain him in.
He had been just been released from the Juvenile Justice Center about five hours earlier. He had been literally in jail till about he was released. I think we found out about eleven o'clock. We had video of at eleven in the morning, and of course Marie was murdered sometime between four o'clock, between like three o'clock and four o'clock, because we had people that had been to her house and seen her after the lunch hour during the lunch hour, so we know she was alive at least during say
one or two o'clock. And Jacob what he did was he broke into her house. There was video of him in the alley. Ob security from the neighbor actually showed him in the alleyway. He broke into the house. He obviously committed the murder of Marie, beat her in three different locations and at that point then he rifled through her purse. He went down to the basement where this was an older, kind of nineteen fifties built house. There
was an old little bar dout there. I don't think Marie Bilcaster had used that bar for a number of years. But there were some liquor bottles that he ended up taking, and he was seen on the video in the alleyway with those bottles. They actually were recovered and a couple of those bottles of alcohol had his DNA on the bottle.
That wasn't the only place they found DNA evidence. When Jacob was in the hospital, nurses noticed blood in his underwear. When they took him to the restroom to urinate, they discovered that his penis and groin area had blood and it was Marie. Later the police would confirm this by recovering the washcloth the nurse had used to wipe him.
He eventually drug her to a bedroom where he attempted to rape her. She was still bleeding at that point, but you know, for all intents and purposes, she was brain dead. We know for a fact that he had her blood on his penis because we were able to swab that and get that information, or you know, get that evidence.
This wasn't the story of a troubled kid who just needed another chance. Prosecutors said Jacob had already burned through every chance he'd ever been given, and what he did to Marie bel Castro proved he was beyond redemption. Sorry to say, but sometimes it's just time to give up and put a bullet in their head for a couple thousand vaults through their body. I mean, what do we need these people for anyway?
But Jacob had a long history of behavioral problems, and he had bombed out of a number of programs that were designed to help him. He didn't respond well to any treatment. He was in a treatment facility called the smith House Quest for about three months in late twenty fourteen, and if you recall, this murder happened in March thirty first of twenty fifteen, and while he was there, he made threats against residents, was caught masturbating. He'd punched another
juvenile there. He was found to be in the computer room and admitted that he liked to look at women and masturbate to them. He used another inmates computer there to send sexually explicit emails to a teacher. So he had a long history of behavioral problems and sexual deviation and violence.
Even his own parents were afraid of them.
Now he had a little bit of a difficult start. His parents were divorced, but by all accounts, his mother was pretty good to him. His other siblings were pretty decent kids. They didn't commit these type of crimes and didn't even come close to committing any types of crimes. At one point was committed or sentence actually for a domestic violence when he threw a Mason jar candle at his seven year old sister and a hit her in
the eye, and she required eighteen stitches. At one point, the stepfather said, we had to put padlocks on all the other children's bedrooms doors because Jacob would steal anything and everything and then sell it for drugs. So all the children had padlocks on their bedroom door so Jacob could not get in there and steal anything from them
that he could use to sell. The father also told us in a written statement and a recorded statement, I believe that he was so afraid of Jacob and his violence that he was sleeping with a gun under his pillow. That's how bad Jacob was.
Even with that history, what drove Jacob on March thirty first to still unclear. He had been released from juvenile detention only hours earlier, full of restlessness and agitation. Maybe he was simply looking for a dopamine hit. He'd been diagnosed with ADHD as a child, but of course most people with ADHD aren't violent, most people in general aren't violent.
Maybe he was looking for money or alcohol. Things he knew Marie kept in her home, offered him meals and snacks before and even gave him loose change, but her daughter was clear those small acts of kindness happened only on the porch. Marie never let them inside.
I have no idea what Jacob's motive was. He never stayed in it. He never gave the police any information. Of course, he deflected and lied, and you know, even lied about where he got the blood on his clothes from to his own parents. But it's clear that he was sexually deviant. There's a long track record of him having sexual fantasies and deviations and masturbating and looking at pornography. And the other thing was he's clearly as a violent
track record. He is just one of those individuals that if you were beside him, he didn't care for his broad daylight, because Marie was killed in the middle of the afternoon. If he wanted something, which maybe he wanted the liquor in this case, or maybe just you know, had sexual fans and wanted to, you know, have some kind of sexual fantasy with a woman. He knew Marie was ninety four years old and lived basically in his backyard,
and he could take advantage and enter her home. And you know though that could be part of the motivation too.
Whatever Jacob's reasons. The evidence left little doubt. His bloody shoe prints tracked through Marie's home, a mag light, flashlight stained with her blood, DNA all over the scene and on Marie. Neighbors saw him wandering half naked and drunk, his body smeared with Marie's blood. By the time investigators finished collecting evidence, there was no question who had been inside five h nine Cherry that afternoon and who had not. Jacob left the hospital that evening after being treated for
minor injuries. They went back home, hoping he had somehow convinced the police that not only was he innocent, but that he was also a victim. By this time, his family was beyond suspicious. They already knew what life with him was like.
His siblings are you know, normal human beings, are normal people, and he just put this whole family, including his mother and his siblings obviously by you know, causing the injuries to the sister. He just put him through hell. You know, the fact that they had the padlock the bedroom doors, the fact that the stepfather had to sleep with a gun. I mean, this kid was just just the devil incarnated inside this house and in this whole neighborhood.
Just after midnight, deputies surround his house after hearing from dispatch that he's threatening suicide by cop. Spotlights flood the house. A PA system booms his name, ordering him out. Jacob hesitates. He tells officers on the phone he's worried about his dogs, and then he's quiet. Minutes drag on, as Jacob's parents coach him. Finally, Jacob steps into the doorway. He edges forward, but then backs up. The officers keep calling him. At last,
he walks into the open. He doesn't fight, He just says, I'm going to jail, Well Dave.
After spending all day yesterday trying to sit a jury in this case, Jacob LaRosa himself pleaded no contest to charges named in an amended indictment. This morning, Now Judge Wyatt McKay found LaRosa guilty of the charges, including aggravated murder, aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary, and attempted rape. The charges stem from the brutal attack on ninety four year old Marie Belcastro inside her Niles home back in March of twenty fifteen.
Now LaRosa was arrested shortly after the crime and has been held on three million dollars bond at the Juvenile Detention Center ever since. But now that he's eighteen and convicted of the crime, he'll be more moved over to the Trumbull County Jail.
At some point very.
Shortly, Jacob pleaded no contest but would be sentenced as an adult. This meant that for the charges of aggravated murder, the court could impose the maximum penalty of life in prison without the possibility of parole. The death penalty was off the table because he was a juvenile when he committed the crime.
When they were trying to see the jury, they couldn't get people to have any sense of fairness or impartiality on the question of Jacob LaRosa because they had all heard about the murder and they all had a very strong opinion about what should happen to LaRosa. And it just shows you the goodness of the man on the street who when presented with something very black and white and clear cut, like the murder of a helpless old lady, they know what to do.
And this is part of what Chris Becker had to say in his closing arguments at Jacob's sentencing He.
Had beaten her in the living room and in the dining room, and parts of her skull were found in both places. Her hearing aids had been basically beat out of her head. That's why I refer to Jacob Leosa as just an animal. Is he is? He should be locked up forever.
You know.
My grandfather used to say all the time, if you act like an animal, you should be treated like an animal. And Jacob Rosa is clearly an animal.
Of course, the defense team didn't see it that way. They saw him as a child of fifteen with his whole life ahead of him, just a little baby boy, just ready to go out into the world, you know, such a bright future ahead And that was exactly the problem. What other heinous crimes would he commit with an entire life ahead of him? Remember, in the hospital, Jacob was grateful his life had been saved, but only hours earlier he had snuffed out the life of a sweet old lady and then lied about it.
God bless me, Why would I do?
We saved him on life? You got me hearing you guys sayed my life.
Okay.
It's hard to believe that Jacob would be capable of believing in God. It does take a certain amount of humility to admit there's a higher power, and it's even hard to believe that he was truly grateful for anything except himself. His life.
Jacob, for whatever reason, whatever wires were crossed in his brain, whatever happened to him, something got into him and made him this animal that ended up taking the life of a wonderful by all accounts, ninety four year old woman.
Oh, she was a very nice lady.
She'd do anything for you.
I can't understand anybody would want to hurt her, really, because she'd do anything for you.
She'd go out of her way for you.
Jacob's life had been spared once already, or at least he pretended to see it that way. But now it was really on the line, like for real, real. He couldn't be given a death penalty because he was a minor, but he would be eligible for life without parole, and that's exactly what Marie's family was hoping for. Would the justice system spare him or would a judge know what to do? As Marie's grandson Brian pointed out, fortunately, Attorney
Becker didn't have to prove motive. Some people on this earth are just sociopaths and that's all they'll ever be.
The good news is I don't have to prove motive, and thank goodness, he never told us what his motive was,
because I don't think there's any real reason. You know, you can always understand why maybe someone who's homeless or a drug addict may steal something because you know, I'm hungry or I have a drug addiction, But this is a case where you're just dealing with a psychopath who's a violent sexual predator, and he's like, I say, you know, I still believe this day he's one of the one of the people that I have prosecuted, and there's a number of them, but he is definitely one of the
people that probably should have got the death batalty, but because he was under eighteen that the US Supreme Court has prohibited that. But he certainly should be dying in prison.
At the sentencing hearing, Marie's daughter spoke, wanting to remind the judge exactly what she found the day she walked in on what Jacob had left behind.
I'm seeing splattered on the wall and mom's curse dumped. So I go into the first bedroom and there she was on the floor, and I knew, and I put my hand on her head, and I put my hand on her back, and her back was still wet.
It was wet with blood.
Jacob tried to seem remorseful, but some things you just can't fake.
I'm sorry for what I did, and I hope pray Mary Lekasho's family everyone else can reach down deep in their hearts and forgive me. I am sorry to the people I hurt and let down. I am sorry to my family that I heard for so long. I'm sorry to the people I bullied, disrespecting, stolen from. And I'm sorry to the court system for everything I've done. I'm sorry to the staff I disrespected in the past.
The thing is her name was Marie, not Mary, but he was either too stupid to remember it or he just didn't give a shit, and the list of people he disrespected kept rolling out of his mouth more like a fifth step from a chronic double, a regular making amends because they have to, rather than anything resembling real remorse. Even more damning than his robotic apology was what he
said to a jail inmate while awaiting trial. This quite possibly explains his motive According to him, Jacob said that he was at a party with friends and they were drinking. They ran out of alcohol, so he said he was going to go find some more, and he knew that this old lady had alcohol at her house, so he went there to take it, but he couldn't find it. He said he saw her sitting in the living room and he just grabbed the flashlight from the table and
hit her with it. He said she fell over and started to scream, so he kept hitting her until she stopped. Then he dragged her to the bedroom. He was going to try to rape her, but he couldn't get it up, so he just left her there on the floor.
The prison term of life without parole in the State Peen Institution.
Showing no remorse, The now nineteen year old Jacob LaRosa was given the maximum sentence allowed by law for the aggravated murder of ninety four year old Marie Belcastro, and on top of that, thirty additional years for charges of aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery and attempted rape, all stemming from what happened inside bel Castro's Chair Avenue home back in March of twenty fifteen.
But this is Ohio, and in Ohio, sometimes up is down and down is up, and sometimes even a sentence of life without parole doesn't really mean life without parole. Jacob Loosso was fifteen years old living with his mother on Lafayette Avenue in Niles, Ohio. On March thirty first, twenty fifteen, just out of juvie, he came home drunk, barefoot, and covered in blood. Across the street, his ninety four year old neighbor, Marie bel Castro, was found beaten to
death inside her home. The evidence was overwhelming, Jacob's bloody shoe, prince, the maglite flashlight, Marie's DNA in his underwear. He was arrested within hours, charged as an adult, and in twenty eighteen sentenced to life without parole. But this is Ohio, and that sentence wouldn't hold.
The Ohio legislature then passed Senate Bill two fifty six, which retroactively gave defendants such as Jacob that were serving life sentences with no parole eligibility after serving twenty five years. It was an absolute I can't even put a proper adjective on how awful this legislation was. Not only for the victims, but for the state of Ohio, and it was done for political purposes.
Isn't that always the case? Is there really any justice when lawmakers negotiate, make deals and set themselves up to win the next election by sabotaging the rest of us am I a little jaded, maybe, or maybe I'm just spitting some truth.
Matt Dolan, who his family owns the Cleveland Guardians, is a horrible, horrible legislature and everyone that voted for this did a horrible job of looking at the facts. And anytime you retroactively let monsters like Jacob l Rosa give them a benefit, it's just horrible. And our Ohio legislature did a horrible job on the passage of Senate Bill to fifty six.
This was a law that basically said anyone who committed a crime while under the age of eighteen and was given life without parole was given a get out of jail free card. Maybe not quite free, but they are now allowed to see parole after twenty five years. Some idiot thought that'd be a good idea to just set an upper limit, no matter how horrendous the crime. Ah, why because you're just a little baby just a little baby, just your little tiny baby, just in you. No baby, Sorry,
let's get back to it. In Jacob's case, he would be in his early forties if led out, plenty of time to commit. Who knows what I mean. He killed me, a rebel castro over alcohol, within eight hours of being released from juvenile detention. Do you really think he's going to be reformed somehow?
Not to sound dramatic, but that hit me harder than the murder, to be honest, Because not to minimize it, but she was ninety four years old. I knew that that call would come someday soon, ish, I didn't realize the manner of death. It was hard, but it was also People lift you up in prayer. When someone in your family gets murdered. I think there's a combination of shock and prayer and the Holy Spirit that just enveloped
our family for weeks and still does. But when the Ohio legislature retroactively changes a law given your loved ones killer rights that he didn't previously have, there's no hallmark card for that, there's no prayer chain for that. There is the shock that the party that you supported all your life. I'm a lifelong Republican and it was my old Republican buddies in Ohio. I used to work for the Ohio Republican Party. I raised money for Governor Mike DeLine.
When your own political family betrays you and basically says, which is what SB. Two five six did, it said, you have to go to parole hearings every five years your.
Own political family. Let's be clear, there's no such thing as a political family. There's nothing familial about politics.
Well, it happened because a lot of these Republicans are the typical rhinos. They you know, they want to save money at the at the state penitentiary system. They you know, they pander to a lot of special interests. And in this particular case, like I said, it was led by some very wayward legislators that you know, took the bait of this poor little kid. He's going to have to
spend the rest of his life in prison. It wasn't just Jacob, it was a number of individuals that were serving life sentences, but every one of them deserved it.
The law doesn't guarantee Jacob's release, but it guarantees something else. Marie's family will have to keep showing up every time he asks for parole, to remind the board of what he actually did, and they'll have to do this reliving the murder for the rest of their lives or until he finally gets released. Talk about punishing victims.
It was such a betrayal, such a punch in that got such a hard thing to fathom, and you contrast that with the security of a life without parole sentence, and it's night and day. We have been fighting ever since we learned about it. We had one victory a
couple of years ago. They changed that time from five years to ten years, so it's parole hearings every ten years, which is certainly more manageable than every five years, but at the same time, to force a family to defend their safety against their loved one's killer, when prior to that you don't have to, is I think cool.
Imagine losing someone you love the murder, then being told you're going to have to stand in front of a parole board every few years to explain why their killer should stay in prison. That's the reality Maurice's family now faces, and they're not alone because when lawmakers decide to water down sentences and add upper limits, it's a gift to all those hardcore criminals out there, and it's a punishment
to all the families of victims. Brian has a message if you want to understand just how big this problem really.
Is, the best resource I could recommend is a mouthful. It's the National Organization for Victims of Juvenile Murderers NVJM dot org. They're going to find state by state status on bills that might impact innocent people. They're going to find studies and links to books, and they're going to find stories, and they're going to find an article that
I wrote when my grandmother was killed. And when you're a legislator, I understand you have a lot of bills to read and digest and understand, but I think a simple litmus test ought to be does this strengthen the innocent and punish criminals or does it do the opposite. And if you're a believer in goodness and you're doing the people's work, you want to help victims and not criminals. So that's a nice little litmus test for any legislator
that is confused. As far as Ohio goes, I have a feeling that the next governor, Vivek Ramaswami will be receptive to overturning or doing what he can. The problem is, I guess once you give a class of people new rights, it's very hard to then take them away.
Yeah, think about that for a second. The bigger the government and the more money it spends on stupid ideas or programs that aren't working, the harder it is to undo the mess they create. It becomes one big, tangled, bureaucratic mess, and instead of fixing it, the next guy comes and spends more of your money, adding another layer of laws on top of it. But Brian and his family have actually taken action because for them it's personal.
Well, twenty twenty one, our family did sort of an RV tour of Ohio. We visited thirteen county courthouses and did interviews with the press and just sort of raised awareness about Senate Bill two fifty six. It was really nice. We met all kinds of regular folks, some riff wrath everybody talked to, from homeless people to clearly people who are showing up for probation drug tests. You know, when you're at a courthouse, you see all kinds of folks.
Right you're filing we're here to file documents. Oh, I'm here to file urine sample. I met a guy who was in prison with La Rosa who was out, and when I explained to him what we were doing, he said, oh, my gosh, Like I've never met anybody who thinks it's a great idea to undo the sentence of a judge, to give killers a second, third, eighth chance.
Brian's daughter, Lena, Murray's great granddaughter, is a very young adult, but has a surprising amount of common sense and wisdom that many of us don't have. Here's what she said about the changing law and what her family has gone through.
Just how hope in a time of darkness and conflict, Because I think having hope and unity with every community there is, I think that is the strongest form of expression. That is the perfect way to fight in the face of the very ones who control us, which is the government.
We need to really wake up and realize, like we're not divided on either party.
We're divided because of the people trying to divide us. We need to stay focused, not let us just like not let them distract us. I just feel like it's humanity versus insanity, and it's not even about party versus party. I think it's both parties versus the government. That's what I feel.
But this is really about Marie Belcastro, a sweet grandma who didn't deserve to die in such a monstrous way. No one does. We asked Brian and Lena what Jigi would have said today if she were still alive.
You find yourself in a position to fight for something, don't stop fighting for that. So that's what I'm getting in her, and I think she would say that would like love and you know, with all the kindness in her heart and lust from her head, you know, because she was the kind to me with her heart, not her mind.
Murray lived for ninety four years in Niles, Ohio. She was a mother, a grandmother, and a great grandmother. She was the kind of neighbor who baked cookies, who gave kids a few coins for their help, and made people laugh with her humor. She had seen hard times, she had raised a family, and she had outlived so many of her peers. Only for this to happen to her. She deserved to live out the rest of her years in peace in the home her dad built for her
and her family. Instead, her life was cut short in the most brutal way imaginable by a snot nosed kid hew bent on ruining lives, including his own. Still, while parents were putting padlocks on their bedroom doors and neighbors were placing surveillance cameras, Marie was giving him cookies and love on her front porch. She was a woman defined by her laughter, her love, and the simple good things
she left behind. At her ninetieth birthday party, she told us herself how she wanted to be remembered.
You love my.
Son, Shine, my only son. Shine.
You make me.
When skuys are great?
What would you like to be remembered for?
Were all the good things that I might have done, which I don't know too my name were not bad things?
Marie, though Castro, will live on the minds of those who knew her for all the good things she did. Jacob LaRosa, however, will never achieve anything. This is a waste of human flesh, a waste of space, a waste of oxygen. The fact we have a criminal justice system that pities, feel sorry for, and even defends him instead of the real victim is what the actual crime is here. Why are we gonna fucking wake up out of this haze of suicidal empathy for literal monsters. I got nothing
else to say about it. I'm disgusted, literally disgusted by how we treat actual victims for the sake of appearances. Fuck this shit. I've been doing this for thirteen years for you. Can you do me a quick favor and head on over to YouTube dot com Slash Sword and Scale TV and subscribe. Would you mind? Would it kill you? Could you just? Could you just please kindly? Thank you? See you next week. Stay safet,