You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand, KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. This is Unsolved with Steve Gregory. Welcome to our special edition Holiday Homicides. In the next couple hours, we're going to review some homicides that happened during the traditional holiday season, beginning around Thanksgiving and
going through Christmas and ending New Year's Day. Typically, overall crime tends to slow down during the holiday season, but when there's a murder during the holidays, it attracts more attention because it's unusual, especially because it's a time of celebration, family and self reflection. But if there is a planned connection, a premeditation between the holidays and a murder, that makes it even more heinous.
Sociologist and author Richard Gels says there are three primary reasons for holiday violence. The first, money, which impacts a struggling family during the holiday season, spending on Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas dinner, gifts, and it's worse if the couple or the family have been struggling for a long time. Number two, something Gels calls forced intimacy, with most stores and restaurants closed and relatives who are already stressed out feel an obligation to be together all day and that
stress can compound. And the third reason, he says, is the happiness gap. Gels says that all the TV advertisements, all the TV specials are about how loving and wonderful families are and how life seems so bliss and wonderful, which of course is a bit of a myth. So we're going to walk you through some cases that happened from Thanksgiving to New Year's and while some have apparent motives, others don't, but they all have one thing in common.
They're one of the holiday homicides. And caution, some of this material is very graphic. Our first case comes out of Knoxville, Tennessee. Thanksgiving twenty sixteen, twenty eight year old Joel Michael Guy Junior traveled from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, back home to Knoxville, ten where he reunited with his three sisters and their parents for Thanksgiving festivities. At the end of the evening, the three daughters, who all lived in Tennessee, returned to their homes.
Junior was left alone with his parents, Joel Guy Senior, who was sixty one and Lisa Guy, who was fifty five. Junior and his three half sisters attended what was to be the last event at the Knoxville House Thanksgiving on Thursday, November twenty fourth, twenty sixteen. Now Here is some background on all of the principles. Joel Michael Guy Senior was a pipeline engineering designer.
Now Lisa Guy. The mom was a human resources account's payable administrator. The son, Joel Michael Guy Junior, graduated from the Louisiana School from Math, Science and the Arts in natchetochis in twenty oh six. He previously attended Hanville High School. He'd never worked and had always been supported by his family. Junior was described by others as distant, an outsider, never bothered to establish a relationship with anyone in or outside of his family. His mother doated on
him and bragged about him quite a bit. He spent a semester at George Washington University, then attended Louisiana State University. As a student. He lived in Baton Rouge until the murders in twenty sixteen. He wanted to become a plastic surgeon. The Guys had recently sold their Knoxville house and planned to retire and move out of town. They also planned to stop providing money to Junior. Now, in the event of the parent's death, the son was to
receive five hundred thousand dollars in life insurance money. Prosecutors say Junior hatched an elaborate plot to stab both parents, dismember and dissolve their remains clean, and burn down some of the house, as well as framed the father for the crime. Again, another warning, some of this is very graphic. So let's go back to November twenty sixth. Officials say that's when Junior attacked and killed his father with a knife in a second floor exercise room while his mother
was out shopping for groceries at Walmart. The scene showed evidence of a struggle, with torn blinds, blood on the wall and corner, and an overturned bowflex machine. The mom, Lisa Guy, arriving home. She entered through the front door, dropped the groceries on the floor of the foyer, proceeded upstairs. She was attacked then killed with a knife. Nine of her ribs were severed. Now, this all started because Lisa's boss was suspicious of her
absence from work and called police for a welfare check. At first, Knox County officers Stephen Ballard and Jeremy McCord found a seemingly empty house on Golden View Lane. The property had been for sale, remember they were retired and wanted to move out of town, but there was no real estate lock on the front door. They found that the doorknob of a back door had been removed
and installed on the front door. Through the front door, they could see groceries on the floor, including perishable items such as bacon, sausage, and ice cream, and through the hole left by the missing back door knob, they could sense heat and a strange smell coming from the house. An officer used a garage door opener in one of the cars to gain access to the
house. Now. When they first walked, they found a table with the wallets from the parents and a sledgehammer on top, and then another table with long guns. Downstairs, the stove was on and the contents of a pot were boiling. At the bottom of the stairs were the grocery items that were seen earlier. The officers went up the stairs and they heard a barking dog. They looked down a hallway and they saw the father's hands on the floor
and discovered the dismembered corpses in solution in a bathroom. Among other items investigators found upstairs were sewer line cleaner, a bag of baking soda, drain cleaner, hydrochloric acid, hydrogen peroxide, bleach, and a bleached sprayer and drain opener. Investigators say they also noticed a note in an open suitcase with the name and address of a Louisiana Ace hardware store with a notation about sewer line
cleaner. Investigators soon discovered the father's hands were removed at the wrists and left nearby on the exercise room floor. The head of Junior's mother was removed. It was carried downstairs, placed in a pot on the stove, and heated. At the trial, the forensic examiner testified the head was not just severed, but broken off with force. Both the mom and the dad also had their arms and legs disarticulated, that means broken apart from the joints. The
father was disjointed at the waist, the mother at the knees. Their limbs and torsos were placed in a bin full of chemicals to dissolve. Each body had a large gash inflicted after death so that the chemicals would more quickly seep into the body's main cavities. Now through all of this, Junior had sustained several cuts to his hands, including a deep cut to his left thumb. Later that afternoon, he was seen in Walmart in the first daid section buying
bandages and ointment for the wounds to his hands. He also purchased alcohol and hydrogen peroxide. On that Sunday of the Thanksgiving weekend, Junior drove back to
Baton Rouge to have his wounds treated at the Student Clinic. Now by the time that the officers had discovered the scene, they put out an all points bulletin the FBI Knox County Sheriff's Office in the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's office placed Junior under surveillance for a few days, and they eventually apprehended him on the twenty ninth as he was entering his car in an apartment complex in the Baton Rouge area. In fact, surveillance footage caught him on several cameras buying the
supplies he would later use to murder and try to dissolve his parents. He used cash for every transaction and self checked out most of the time. He bought the supplies for the murder as early as November seventh, that's the premeditation. He purchased several of those items at ACE Hardware, muriatic acid, food grade hydrogen peroxide, and then on November eighteenth, he was seen in a
home depot buying bleach sprayers, extension cords, and a timer. He was at a sporting goods store on November nineteenth buying a knife, and on the twenty first, he was seen at a Knoxville Walmart buying a plastic blue tote bag large enough for the dismemberment bodies to dissolve in. They also found a meat grinder in the trunk of his car. During the investigation, detectives also found what they called a book of premeditation. It was a handwritten journal found
in the junior's backpack. It contained detailed notes outlining his intent to murder and destroy the remains of his parents. Now Here are excerpts of one page. Again, folks, it's it's graphics, but this gives you an idea of just the heinousness of this crime. One of the pages had the following notes, get killing knives quiet multiple Get carving knives to make small pieces. Get sledgehammer to crush bones. Bring blender and food grinder to grind meat. Get
bleach denature proteins. Does not matter where they're killed. Just get rid of bloody spots to prevent evidence of time of death in parentheses, not the mattress or couches. Next point, get rid of bodies inside house. There in my DNA already there. Then he has written and crossed out. Open up doggie door to provide entryway he needs to be not intruder. Flush chunks down toilet in parentheses. Not garbage disposal. Next point, get plastic sheeting for
disposal process. He writes this down then crosses it out. Get hollow point bullets just in case will be seen buying bullets. Just use computer room gun check to make sure there are bullets. Last resort, he's not alive, to claim her half of the insurance money all mine in parentheses five hundred thousand dollars. Flood the house, covers up forensic evidence, turn heater up as
high as it goes speeds decomposition. Bleach reacts with luminol just like blood doubts area with Bleach, Big Sprayer, lie Lye, trash compactor, question mark body, gives times of death, alibi, don't have to get rid of body if there's no forensic evidence on the body, and then in cap in all caps his fingerprints and DNA. Junior was a atually apprehended, as I
mentioned, after a bunch of surveillance from multiple agencies. He ended up leading not guilty, but he filed a motion that he be given the death penalty if he's ever convicted. Junior's defense council presented no evidence on his behalf. The trial took four days. Junior was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. He was also convicted of abuse of a corpse. Currently he's imprisoned
at last Anyone Knows at the Northwest Correctional Complex in Tiptonville, Tennessee. Coming up another holiday homicide, but first, this is Unsolved with Steve Gregory on KFI AM six forty. You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand, KFI AM six forty live and on demand everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory and this is a special edition of Unsolved. We're highlighting some of the holiday homicides from southern California and around the country. Murders that have happened
between Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's. As always, if you have a comment, story, idea, or a tip from any case we've ever highlighted on the show, simply press pound two fifty on your cell phone and say the keyword unsolved. Or if you're listening live on the app or on the live stream, just press the red microphone on the iHeartRadio app and record your message. The next case comes from Chicago, Illinois. It's called the Valdez's
Early Christmas Present. It's Christmas Eve twenty thirteen. Here is an excerpt from an Associated Press article published December twenty fifth, twenty thirteen. At six fifty two in the morning, an eighteen year old man was taken into custody after police found a decapitated man early Christmas morning in the northwest side Hermosa neighborhood.
Officers responding to a homicide call found the decapitated forty one year old man at about two five am inside a basement apartment in the twenty five hundred block of North Kildare Avenue, police said. Police said they also found a knife on the scene. An eighteen year old man was standing outside the building and was taken into custody, but his relationship with the dead male was not immediately known.
Police said the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office confirmed the death, but were withholding the man's identity as of one pm, pending notification of his family. Charges were pending against the eighteen year old. Police said that was the original story that went out over the Associated Press wires on December twenty fifth, twenty thirteen. We know now that the eighteen year old was Alexis Valdez, a young man who just six months prior had moved in with his aunt and his
aunt's boyfriend, Sylvestri Diaz. Valdez was allowed to move into the apartment in the twenty five hundred block of North Kildare on the condition that he go to school, work and contribute to household expenses, but eventually Valdez stopped working, which prompted Valdez and Diaz to get into an argument, one of many. Valdez was told he would have to move out if it continued this way. On Christmas Eve, while his aunt was at a Christmas party, Valdez and
Diaz began drinking, even going to the store to buy more beer. Prosecutors say Valdez hit a hammer by a door, and when the two men got back from the liquor store, Valdez smashed Dias in the head several times. Valdez then shut the windows, closed the blinds, and put on some loud music, maybe to mask the sounds that Silvestri might have made while being stabbed repeatedly. It was also reported that Valdez was celebrating, even jamming out to
the music. He used a butcher knife to cut off Silvestri's ears, nose, and mouth. He also cut off the man's arms and used his bare hands to pull his eyeballs out. He then decapitated Diaz. Valdez then left the head, ears, and nose on the very bed where Diaz and his aunt slept, because he said he wanted to leave his aunt an early Christmas present. Valdez eventually came exhausted from cutting up the body and called nine to
one one to report a dead body. When the nine to one to one operator asked Valdez if he had tried CPR, Valdez laughed and told the nine one one operator that Diaz had been decapitated. When officers finally arrived on scene, they said they found Valdez standing outside of the apartment complex, saturated in blood. He confessed to the murder and said if his aunt had come home, she too would have been killed. Valdez had no known criminal history.
He was sentenced to thirty three years in prison. Before we get on with more holiday homicides, I want to give you an opportunity to submit your name to a list of very exclusive people that'll be invited to an in person taping of Unsolved with Steve Gregory. We do this only a few times a year, and it's a very exclusive event. We only invite a handful of listeners because of the nature of the hate