Speaker 1: Falling in love is the best feeling in the world.
Speaker 1: You see stars, you feel giddy, But sometimes that makes
Speaker 1: you do crazy things, and sometimes that means murder. Just
Speaker 1: because the story starts out with once upon a Times
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it ends happily ever after. Welcome to Crazy
Speaker 1: and Love, a production of Katie Studios and I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Today's guests are true crime producer Jeff Shane and Chris Graves.
Speaker 1: Episode thirty seven, The Case of the Jealousy, the Voicemails,
Speaker 1: and the literal broken Heart. Her whole life, Sarah Ludiman
Speaker 1: had played it safe. She worked hard in school, participating
Speaker 1: in multiple sports, and was involved in the church. Those
Speaker 1: were the eighteen year old priorities. But as your senior
Speaker 1: year in Penelli's Park, Florida began, Sarah couldn't help feeling
Speaker 1: that she was entering adulthood and that she was on
Speaker 1: the outside looking in. Sarah yearned to go to parties,
Speaker 1: break some rules, and above all, made a boy who
Speaker 1: made her heart swim. Sarah was an only child and
Speaker 1: her parents had been married for over thirty years. Her
Speaker 1: father was a cab driver and her mother was a
Speaker 1: surgical nurse, and the pair had moved from New York
Speaker 1: to Florida when Sarah was born to keep her safe
Speaker 1: and warm. The pair doated on Sarah and showered her
Speaker 1: with endless love, but despite that, their daughters seemed to
Speaker 1: have low self esteem. Although she had brains, beauty, and
Speaker 1: a killer sense of humor, she dealt with some weight
Speaker 1: loss issues. These, in turn plagued her with insecurities. Sarah
Speaker 1: saw true love at home with her mother and father,
Speaker 1: and in the books she read and the show she watched,
Speaker 1: but she wondered if it would ever be hers. All
Speaker 1: of that changed in the fall of two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: when Sarah was struck with cupids arrow. After meeting nineteen
Speaker 1: year old Josh camecho Josh was everything Sarah wanted, and
Speaker 1: to her surprise, he seemed to feel the same way.
Speaker 1: For the very first time in her life, Sarah no
Speaker 1: longer felt like an outsider. Perhaps her feelings could be
Speaker 1: encapsulated best in a MySpace photo she posted of herself
Speaker 1: with Josh. The caption underneath it read, quote true love
Speaker 1: when you look at him and you can see her
Speaker 1: entire future in his eyes. Here's Jeff. So here's what
Speaker 1: we know about Josh Camacho. He was a well known
Speaker 1: cool guy in the area. He was known for having
Speaker 1: a string of girlfriends and a tough guy attitude. But
Speaker 1: despite being so different than Sarah, the pair really seemed
Speaker 1: to click. There were rumors around town that Josh just
Speaker 1: us girls for rides in cash, but Sarah wouldn't hear
Speaker 1: any of it. But can you really blame Sarah for
Speaker 1: feeling the way she did. Romantic love is an addiction,
Speaker 1: and your first love is your first dose, the best,
Speaker 1: most elusive high you feel, the one you always chase.
Speaker 1: The results of the Harvard study we were looking at
Speaker 1: strongly suggested that because love provides a kind of chemical
Speaker 1: feedback in our brains, were creating this chemical response may
Speaker 1: eventually become our human drive or motivation to stay in love.
Speaker 1: And the way we put this into context of this
Speaker 1: story is that Sarah might not have even loved Josh specifically,
Speaker 1: but just the idea of being in love. Chris, what
Speaker 1: do we know about how the people in her life
Speaker 1: reacted to this new relationship. It's often that the people
Speaker 1: closest to us sometimes hear little alarm bills when some
Speaker 1: of this stuff is going off. We're young, we don't
Speaker 1: necessarily have the best taste sometimes, but I mean they
Speaker 1: were they were in love. But her parents didn't necessarily
Speaker 1: take to Josh. They were worried about her. They could
Speaker 1: see this relationship wasn't good for her, but they also
Speaker 1: loved her and wanted to be supportive. I think it's
Speaker 1: kind of hard for parents, right, They see this and
Speaker 1: they think it's wrong, but they don't want to drive
Speaker 1: their daughter away by completely not supporting her. Right, It's
Speaker 1: a fine line. Yeah. I think they wanted to be
Speaker 1: there and make sure that they could catch her if
Speaker 1: she fell, or be pleasantly surprised if they were wrong. Right,
Speaker 1: So instead of acting angry and potentially driving a wedge,
Speaker 1: they kept Josh close by. And you know, Sarah's dad
Speaker 1: went to the extent of taking him to baseball games
Speaker 1: and had him over for family dinners, trying to get
Speaker 1: him to be a part of the family a bit, probably,
Speaker 1: and to keep a watchful eye on him. And it
Speaker 1: was also a little bit of keep your friends close
Speaker 1: and your enemies closer, that kind of thing. So they
Speaker 1: hope the relationship would fizzle out, but it kept ongoing
Speaker 1: and that plan didn't seem to work. Sarah was more
Speaker 1: in love with Josh and this bad boy image more.
Speaker 1: Each day, Sarah's parents noticed a change in Sarah. Her
Speaker 1: grades started to slip, her behavior was different. She even
Speaker 1: transferred schools to be closer to Josh, which that's a
Speaker 1: pretty big move, pretty bold. So the parents at that
Speaker 1: point wanted to intervene, but what could they do. She
Speaker 1: was eighteen, so she's now kind of out of their
Speaker 1: sphere of being able to do anything legally. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that must have been self frustrating for her parents. They
Speaker 1: felt like they knew bath But you know, what can
Speaker 1: you tell a teenage girl about her love life? Not
Speaker 1: a whole lot, Well, especially once she's turned eighteen. And
Speaker 1: oftentimes at that age, when we're told something by our parents,
Speaker 1: oftentimes we think we know right and we don't really
Speaker 1: listen to our parents. Yeah. I think also, girls always
Speaker 1: want to date a bad boy because they think they're
Speaker 1: going to be the girl that will change him and
Speaker 1: he'll change for them. And I imagine Sarah probably had
Speaker 1: seen her fair share of romantic comedies and where it
Speaker 1: kind of always works out. I imagine she felt that
Speaker 1: it would work out for her in the same way
Speaker 1: it did in all those You know idyllic movies. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: she you see the bad boy or the broken boy,
Speaker 1: you want to be the one that kind of fixes
Speaker 1: him or brings them to the good side. From looking
Speaker 1: at this, you know, and her parents were probably seeing
Speaker 1: him dragging her to the darker side, considering her grades
Speaker 1: were dropping, she's changing schools for him, and her behavior
Speaker 1: was getting more erratic. It sounds like Sarah was proud
Speaker 1: of her relationship and did what any teenager who is
Speaker 1: in love does, post about it incessantly. As is unfortunately
Speaker 1: true with all social media, you never quite know who
Speaker 1: is going to see those posts. That autumn, Sarah got
Speaker 1: a comment from someone named Rachel Wade. Sarah didn't know Rachel,
Speaker 1: but the girl's words struck a chord. Under a picture
Speaker 1: of Sarah and Josh kissing, Rachel had written, I'm his girlfriend,
Speaker 1: Who the hell are you? Sarah was devastated. She confronted Josh,
Speaker 1: but he denied everything. He and Rachel had dated, he said,
Speaker 1: but they had broken up months ago. Sarah believed him,
Speaker 1: but couldn't help wondering who was Rachel Wade. So, Chris,
Speaker 1: what do we know about this building love triangle between
Speaker 1: Josh Sarah and Rachel. Well, Johnshu told Sarah that he
Speaker 1: and Rachel had been broken up for months. The truth
Speaker 1: was that he and Rachel were still dating and had
Speaker 1: actually been dating since the summer before he had even
Speaker 1: met Sarah. So really, Rachel's kind of right because Sarah's
Speaker 1: the new girl right in that love triangle, not that
Speaker 1: Sarah knew at all. This is Josh playing the field.
Speaker 1: Josh is two timing Rachel and he's two timing Sarah.
Speaker 1: The girls looked at each other as the enemy, and
Speaker 1: Josh has the conquest the the bad boy at the
Speaker 1: center of this that they both wanted, and Rachel and
Speaker 1: Sarah would fight over Josh. So Rachel started coming for
Speaker 1: Sarah online on the photos that Sarah would post, Like
Speaker 1: there was a photo that Sarah posted where she was
Speaker 1: at the beach. Rachel commented, why would you wear that
Speaker 1: to the beach? Don't you know you're fat? I mean
Speaker 1: that must have hit Sarah like a ton of bricks.
Speaker 1: As we mentioned earlier, she she'd already had weight issues,
Speaker 1: like self esteem issues with her weight, so for another
Speaker 1: young lady to say that to her about a beach
Speaker 1: photo that probably sent her spinning. I would assume um. Rachel,
Speaker 1: because she's a young lady herself, would have known that
Speaker 1: that it would hurt quite a bit, probably one of
Speaker 1: the most hurtful things she could do to Sarah, and
Speaker 1: on such a public form, to like my Space where
Speaker 1: everyone can see the comment, probably stung even harder. But
Speaker 1: it's not like Sarah just sat back and I hope
Speaker 1: this would go away. She actually fought back in a way.
Speaker 1: She continued to antagonize Rachel by posting photos of her
Speaker 1: and Josh when they were together, knowing that Rachel would
Speaker 1: see them, and in turn, Rachel would then do the same,
Speaker 1: posting photos of her and Josh when they were together,
Speaker 1: knowing that Sarah would see. Most of this happened online,
Speaker 1: but the fighting started to happen in real life. One time,
Speaker 1: Sarah and her friends went to the Applebee's where Rachel worked,
Speaker 1: and asked to be sat in her section. Once they
Speaker 1: were at their table, they complained, sent the food back,
Speaker 1: made a mess, generally just making Rachel's life miserable. We're
Speaker 1: going to take a break. We'll be back in just
Speaker 1: a moment. You know, it strikes me with some of
Speaker 1: this because right now there's a boy at the center
Speaker 1: of this Josh and the two girls. Instead of going
Speaker 1: after Josh, who's the one who's in the wrong, he's
Speaker 1: the one who's two timing both of them. They're going
Speaker 1: after each other. And we've read that at least in
Speaker 1: one case. I think it's Rachel was in the Disney
Speaker 1: Princess movies. You know, this is something that we're kind
Speaker 1: of conditioned, as you women, when we're watching those movies,
Speaker 1: that that the ultimate goal is the prance or the guy.
Speaker 1: So I think this is playing out in a really
Speaker 1: bad and negative way with the story. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: from the outside looking, and it's so easy to say
Speaker 1: Josh is the jerk. These two girls are both being
Speaker 1: played they should really come together and break up with
Speaker 1: this guy. But I think when you're in it, and
Speaker 1: you know, putting yourself in Sarah's position, She's in love
Speaker 1: with Josh, and so she wants to maintain that relationship.
Speaker 1: This is her first relationship. She's putting a lot of
Speaker 1: weight into it, and so Rachel is this outsider trying
Speaker 1: to break in, and so what she's trying to do
Speaker 1: is stop that at all costs. I don't agree with it,
Speaker 1: but I get it. No, I don't agree either. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying there's also social pressures that I think are
Speaker 1: coloring how these girls are responding. For sure. Well, I
Speaker 1: wonder to what Josh is thinking in all this. I mean,
Speaker 1: probably knowing what it's like to be a you know,
Speaker 1: high school boy. It's it's pretty fun. I would have
Speaker 1: thinked to have girls fighting over you, and I imagine
Speaker 1: probably friends at school. We're making it worse too, and
Speaker 1: adding fuel to the fire. Well, also, if he's a
Speaker 1: bad boy, it's probably adding to a street cred to
Speaker 1: have two girls fighting over him. Not to be outdone,
Speaker 1: Rachel got Sarah's phone number and started calling her. Take
Speaker 1: a listen to some of these disturbing voicemails. Next message,
Speaker 1: please tell me, Sarah, why you would be a dumbinos
Speaker 1: just to put a brand new picture you and Josh
Speaker 1: at the beach. Seriously, I told you to watch back
Speaker 1: and not to chill with him. Now you ask his mind,
Speaker 1: and I'm guaranteeing you I'm no murder you. I'm letting
Speaker 1: you know that now because you know what Josh might
Speaker 1: have played me. But bitch on gonna play your ass
Speaker 1: out to watch your fat bitch it on the can
Speaker 1: kill you. I wear on my lights, watch out your
Speaker 1: window when I get off for tonight. You jump, bitch.
Speaker 1: End of message, next message. It's so funny how you
Speaker 1: talk and you want to sit there and say that
Speaker 1: my man without your ass house. Then tell me what
Speaker 1: he was wearing tonight. Sarah, you're a dumb bitch for real.
Speaker 1: If you're in line, I'm gonna find you and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna beat your ass. If you're not lying, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: find you and beat your ass. Okay, you keep playing games.
Speaker 1: You're apathetic, little bitch, and you're a little girl. Honestly,
Speaker 1: what do you have this going for you that Josh
Speaker 1: wants to you? What we're me for? I got a job,
Speaker 1: have my own place. Seriously, he could get anything he
Speaker 1: wants for me, anything, not to mention that I would
Speaker 1: probably ten times better than you. And you run your mouth.
Speaker 1: You still got your mommy and daddy's curfew, bitch, For
Speaker 1: God's sake, what do you Why do you run your
Speaker 1: your mouth? And why are you that pathetic? Please do
Speaker 1: leave it on your mind space, because that's o You's
Speaker 1: just like you and him are, so keep talking, Sarah,
Speaker 1: you stop. You haven't relearned your life and yet, but
Speaker 1: I'm gonna teach you it. I'm telling you now with me, Sarah,
Speaker 1: psychonical action and I'm telling you now, I'm going to
Speaker 1: show you psycho with me for a long person the
Speaker 1: one thing that I care about, because I'm gonna teach
Speaker 1: you how to go up roma quick. Holy Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was getting uncomfortable listening to those messages. I can't even
Speaker 1: fathom what it was like for Sarah to receive messages
Speaker 1: like that, especially at her age. You know, she's being
Speaker 1: cursed at, she's being threatened, and it seems like this
Speaker 1: kind of started a dumb cat and mouse game, you know.
Speaker 1: And then Josh is sitting there enjoying it. Really disturbing
Speaker 1: voicemails are going out to Sarah from Rachel and and
Speaker 1: then Josh seems to be playing dumb about all of
Speaker 1: this and seems to be enjoying his sooner stage position
Speaker 1: in this game and not helping either side, but kind
Speaker 1: of egging them on instead of shutting it down. He
Speaker 1: it sounded like he encouraged the girls to keep posting
Speaker 1: photos and crazy captions. Yeah, and where my brain goes
Speaker 1: is these kids are clearly not thinking straight, because when
Speaker 1: you're doing something wrong, the first thing you know is
Speaker 1: you should never put it in writing or put it online.
Speaker 1: And that's all these girls are doing, I mean leaving
Speaker 1: these voicemails. Now there's this proof forever of the horrible
Speaker 1: things that Rachel was saying to Sarah. In the same
Speaker 1: way putting these comments on the internet, it lives forever online.
Speaker 1: Now everyone can always read these awful words that they
Speaker 1: were saying about each other. Yeah, in the case of
Speaker 1: both Rachel and Sarah, this is two thousand nine, So
Speaker 1: this is the beginning of the Internet. I think Facebook
Speaker 1: came public in two thousand seven. We're somewhere around there.
Speaker 1: I think YouTube started in two thousand seven, and we're
Speaker 1: talking about my Space, which is a precursor to Facebook.
Speaker 1: So I think there's a lot that we've learned now
Speaker 1: about that. All of them are teenagers, so they've got
Speaker 1: an adolescent brain, and experts who will tell you that
Speaker 1: the adolescent brain is not developed enough to really be logical,
Speaker 1: right and to calm yourself down. So you get in
Speaker 1: the middle of this fight and you're gonna post, and
Speaker 1: you're gonna get angry, and you're gonna get reactive and
Speaker 1: I think that's what we're seeing here, and it's just
Speaker 1: egging each other on. So it strikes me that we're
Speaker 1: talking about this now when we know so much more
Speaker 1: about how those negative effects, we're watching a tragedy planting
Speaker 1: out right now online. That's a great point, and it
Speaker 1: was clearly working. Every time Rachel would leave Sarah voicemail,
Speaker 1: Sarah would respond, so it was clear she was Rachel
Speaker 1: was getting a rise out of Sarah, which was the
Speaker 1: ultimate goal. I mean, obviously the whole fight was cyclical
Speaker 1: because they were both doing it to each other, but
Speaker 1: they were getting what they wanted, which was the other
Speaker 1: one to feel bad about themselves. Yeah, and they were
Speaker 1: also probably getting a rise out of the boyfriend they
Speaker 1: were trying to nab two. Oh for sure. Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: playing right into it. I mean he he liked it
Speaker 1: by all accounts. On April fourteen, two and nine, Sarah
Speaker 1: spent most of her day a sessing over the idea
Speaker 1: of Josh and Rachel together. Her desolation only intensified when
Speaker 1: she checked Rachel's my Space. There she saw her rival
Speaker 1: had updated her status to say quote loving maboo. It
Speaker 1: didn't name Josh specifically, but Sarah knew who Rachel was
Speaker 1: talking about. Sarah said Josh multiple texts asking him about Rachel,
Speaker 1: all of which she ignored. Finally, she texted him quote,
Speaker 1: you say you love me, but you don't have the
Speaker 1: decency to text me back. After a long stint of silence,
Speaker 1: Josh bluntly responded, quote, bring the movies, although he hadn't
Speaker 1: responded at all to Sarah's cries about the love triangle.
Speaker 1: She headed over to Josh's house for a video. After
Speaker 1: the movie, Sarah and Josh's sister headed out to get
Speaker 1: some food. When Rachel called Sarah, there were more angry threats.
Speaker 1: Although she couldn't hear every thing, Josh's sister specifically remembered
Speaker 1: hearing Rachel scream quote, I'm going to stab you and
Speaker 1: your Mexican boyfriend. After hanging up, Sarah got a text
Speaker 1: that would change the rest of her life. A friend
Speaker 1: had spotted Rachel and gave Sarah the address. In the car,
Speaker 1: Sarah was just a few blocks from her rival. She
Speaker 1: sped over with her curfew nearing, Sarah texted her parents
Speaker 1: saying she'd be a little late. When she arrived at
Speaker 1: Rachel's location, Sarah got out of the car. After a
Speaker 1: few minutes, other kids had heard about the drama and
Speaker 1: rushed to the suburban neighborhood. The two teenage girls started
Speaker 1: fighting in the streets. Not more than ten seconds had
Speaker 1: passed before Rachel pulled out a knife and stabbed Sarah twice.
Speaker 1: Amidst the chaos, someone called nine one. Rachel ran. Sarah
Speaker 1: was taken to the hospital and very sadly died at
Speaker 1: two twenty am the next morning. Her cause of death
Speaker 1: was the puncture to the heart. When police found Rachel,
Speaker 1: she'd made it a few blocks away, where she sat
Speaker 1: calmly on a bench smoking a cigarette. She agreed to
Speaker 1: come in for questioning. At first, Rachel told police she
Speaker 1: knew nothing about stabbing Sarah, but she quickly changed her story.
Speaker 1: Take a listen to a portion of the interrogation. When
Speaker 1: Sarah was hitting me, I went to hit her and
Speaker 1: I probably did not eat staff her. I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not killed. Somebody tell me how it happened. She was
Speaker 1: hitting me, and when I went to hit her back,
Speaker 1: I had put one of my hands up and I
Speaker 1: had like I tried to hit her back and keep
Speaker 1: my hands in front of me. This is the knife
Speaker 1: show me how you're okay. But now if I'm Sarah
Speaker 1: and I'm in front of you, what were you doing
Speaker 1: with the knight? I would out to the side. Did
Speaker 1: she started swinging on me? And then when I went
Speaker 1: to put my hands out, but she was swinging on
Speaker 1: me and I tried to defend myself from her, and
Speaker 1: then Janet came at me from the side, and I guess, like,
Speaker 1: I did not mean to stab her how many times?
Speaker 1: And when I hear that, it sounds exactly like a
Speaker 1: teenager when they get caught doing something wrong that's innocuous.
Speaker 1: Their first response is to just deny it. They didn't
Speaker 1: do it, and then they kind of come around and
Speaker 1: there's like a dance around what they might have been involved,
Speaker 1: but not to the extent. But we're not talking about
Speaker 1: something innocuous here. We're talking about murder, so the stakes
Speaker 1: are definitely higher. Let's stop here for another break, Chris.
Speaker 1: Do we know what happened to the murder weapon? Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: after Rachel got in this altercation with Sarah ended up
Speaker 1: stabbing her, she fled the scene, and I guess on
Speaker 1: her way away from there, she threw the knife up
Speaker 1: onto the neighbor's roof, and that's where the police found it.
Speaker 1: So she had enough wherewithal to actually what it technically is,
Speaker 1: disposing of the murder weapon. Yeah, so that would point
Speaker 1: to somebody knowing exactly what they've done to me. Well.
Speaker 1: As the integtition continued, the police broke the news to
Speaker 1: Rachel that her rival Sarah had died. Let's take a
Speaker 1: listen to that moment that you need to understand, Rachel. Okay,
Speaker 1: when I was down at the hospital, Okay, I saw
Speaker 1: where she was stabbed at Okay, it looks like he
Speaker 1: has two stab wounds, all right. The next piece of
Speaker 1: information that you need to know is that she is dead.
Speaker 1: Aside and the results of these stab wounds that she
Speaker 1: had at Northside Hospital, I didn't know. He didn't. He
Speaker 1: didn't them to finally leave me alone all this over, Josh,
Speaker 1: I just didn't want them to the air right me anymore.
Speaker 1: He following me every weddy come to my job, they
Speaker 1: come in my house. They not gonna follow you anymore,
Speaker 1: because she did. Now, she seems to me genuinely surprised.
Speaker 1: She seems very emotional. I buy that she didn't necessarily
Speaker 1: know that she was dead. Or know that she was
Speaker 1: gonna know that she was going to die, But I
Speaker 1: could be wrong. She breaks down crying and gets fairly emotional,
Speaker 1: and I don't I don't know that that's an act.
Speaker 1: It is, of course one thing to wish someone dead
Speaker 1: and to then find out you actually killed them. It's
Speaker 1: possible that it wasn't necessarily first degree murder intent with
Speaker 1: her like knowing she was going to stab her to death.
Speaker 1: It might have just been I'm gonna stabb her to
Speaker 1: get her away from my boyfriend, and now she's finding
Speaker 1: out that this person actually died from what she did.
Speaker 1: We talked a lot about a crime being premeditated or not.
Speaker 1: And while she might have not meant to kill Sarah,
Speaker 1: Rachel brought a knife to this fight. I mean, she
Speaker 1: had to know what that knife would do it, so
Speaker 1: she certainly meant to cause her harm, which is enough
Speaker 1: to constitute a crime. I also wondered too, I mean,
Speaker 1: the crying sounds genuine, but I wonder if it's less
Speaker 1: of a surprise, it's less of an emotional reaction to
Speaker 1: Sarah's death and more of a oh wow, this is real,
Speaker 1: I really did this. I'm in big, big trouble. Now,
Speaker 1: that's quite possible that the breakdown is more realizing the
Speaker 1: gravity of the situation. She just put herself in. Sarah
Speaker 1: kind of started to go find Rachel. Rachel had a knife.
Speaker 1: I don't know that Rachel brought the knife. Following witness
Speaker 1: testimony and her own admission, Rachel was arrested and charged
Speaker 1: with second degree murder. The trial became a media circus,
Speaker 1: with all of Penella's Park packing the courtroom. The defense
Speaker 1: argued that Rachel had killed Sarah in self defense, and
Speaker 1: the prosecution encountered saying that people who kill in self
Speaker 1: defense don't dispose of the murder weapon and lie to police.
Speaker 1: And what did Josh, the boy at the center of
Speaker 1: this tragic drama, have to say? So? Josh sent on
Speaker 1: multiple occasions to the police that he had no idea
Speaker 1: how bad things were between the girls. Besides, everything point
Speaker 1: pointed to the contrary in his head, and he spoke
Speaker 1: about this and on the stand. Why don't we listen
Speaker 1: in on a little bit of what Josh told the
Speaker 1: prosecution during cross examination. We are aware of the drama
Speaker 1: that was going on between Rachel and Sarah that night.
Speaker 1: Throughout the entire previous six months. Yes, tell the jury
Speaker 1: about that. They would go back and forth on MySpace
Speaker 1: or calling. What were they calling about? Are you going?
Speaker 1: What were they arguing about about? Who was I going
Speaker 1: to be with? About you? Yes? The issue that was
Speaker 1: going on on MySpace and Facebook and the texting and
Speaker 1: the phone calls were all about you. Yes. And at
Speaker 1: no point in time do you encourage those No, Okay,
Speaker 1: he's not taking responsibility for anything. When you hear that kid,
Speaker 1: he's like, oh, I wasn't dating them, they were friends
Speaker 1: with benefit. Like, he's going to that extent with the prosecutor.
Speaker 1: That's pretty surprising. What do you think, Jeff, Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: he definitely is trying to distance himself from the relationships
Speaker 1: and the crime. You know. It's it's a surprise to
Speaker 1: me that he wasn't necessarily charged with something. I mean,
Speaker 1: it seems like he could have been somehow and at
Speaker 1: fault for this, at least perfectly for kind of antagonizing
Speaker 1: this whole situation so much that it got to the
Speaker 1: point it got to if Josh knew this was going on, knew,
Speaker 1: you know, and he didn't try to stop it. Sounds
Speaker 1: by all accounts that he was egging them on. Is
Speaker 1: there something that the prosecution could have tried to look at.
Speaker 1: I don't know. There's a lot of people out there
Speaker 1: who believe that Josh is just as much to blame
Speaker 1: for the tragedy of Sarah's death as Rachel is, and
Speaker 1: yet he faced no charges. In a way, I think
Speaker 1: he certainly is. But also I'm reminded of all the
Speaker 1: kind of drama that high schoolers deal with, and and
Speaker 1: you know, there were many love triangles back in the day.
Speaker 1: But I don't know what made Rachel cross the line
Speaker 1: between saying I want to fight over this boy too,
Speaker 1: I want to murder over this boy. But when she
Speaker 1: took the stand, gone was that bad girl with all
Speaker 1: the confidence in the world. In her place looked more
Speaker 1: like a scared child facing life in prison. Let's take
Speaker 1: a listen to some of her testimony. If you're direct examination,
Speaker 1: you cooperated with the investigations, wasn't your cooperation line? Isn't
Speaker 1: that what you call it? No? No, you didn't like
Speaker 1: to the detective that night. No, you did it. I
Speaker 1: never told him I didn't have a knife. I just
Speaker 1: never mentioned you never mentioned it. It was like a
Speaker 1: little moggy just you completely forgot correct right, you forget
Speaker 1: You didn't forget. You said that you couldn't even remember
Speaker 1: the point that you sat her. Don't remember physically stabbing her.
Speaker 1: You remember everything else. You don't remember that. I just
Speaker 1: remember swinging my arms. I don't physically remember stabbing or
Speaker 1: you had the knife in your hands. I know, why
Speaker 1: did you throw the knife on the napes. I didn't
Speaker 1: know happen, and I didn't want anybody else to get
Speaker 1: a little of it. I didn't want anything to be
Speaker 1: done or anybody be hurt. That night. You didn't happen,
Speaker 1: you said, are than you got blood on the knife.
Speaker 1: I saw blood, but I didn't physically see her stabbed.
Speaker 1: I didn't know how severe this situation was. Spitting to
Speaker 1: say that a minute after you heard Jolisa say that
Speaker 1: she was stabbed. Yes, I didn't know where she was
Speaker 1: stabbed or how severe it was. I was scared. I
Speaker 1: just thought you said you didn't know what happened to me.
Speaker 1: It's it's just sad. You know, she sounds so beaten
Speaker 1: down and scared, and obviously she did something so horrible
Speaker 1: and it's unforgivable, but it it just reminds you of
Speaker 1: the tragedy of that she's about to lose freedom and
Speaker 1: she's really facing that. But ultimately, she was still on
Speaker 1: the stand and everything she said people were listening. And
Speaker 1: so when Rachel told the prosecutors that she hadn't lied
Speaker 1: to police, remember when she was being interrogated, she told
Speaker 1: him at first she didn't stab Sarah, but then she
Speaker 1: changed her story. She got caught in a lie, which
Speaker 1: on the stand, as you know, is very bad, and
Speaker 1: the prosecution kind of just jumped on this and it
Speaker 1: discredited everything she said from that point forward. But what
Speaker 1: I'm really reminded of is again the kind of how
Speaker 1: scared she sounds. And this is so different than that angry,
Speaker 1: confident girl we heard earlier in the voicemails. As a reminder,
Speaker 1: take a listen again. Next message, police, tell me, Sarah,
Speaker 1: why you would be a dumbinas just to put a
Speaker 1: brand new picture you and Josh at the beach. Seriously,
Speaker 1: I told you to watch her back and not to
Speaker 1: chill with him. Now, yeah, his mind. And I'm guaranteeing
Speaker 1: you I'm no murder you. I'm letting you know that
Speaker 1: now because you know what Josh might have played me.
Speaker 1: But on the play your ass out to watch your
Speaker 1: fat bitchet on. This can kill you. I wear on
Speaker 1: my life. Watch out your window when I get off
Speaker 1: for tonight. You've dune bit end of message. It is
Speaker 1: striking she she had this bravado and you can hear
Speaker 1: the bravado she had when she was mean Rachel on
Speaker 1: the voicemails. And then you see the striking difference of Rachel,
Speaker 1: whose humanity seems to have returned to her being, you know,
Speaker 1: a little girl on the stand, right, but also trying
Speaker 1: to maintain the I guess the picture of no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm a good girl. No, I of course I didn't
Speaker 1: lie to the police, and you know that's not gonna
Speaker 1: go well because you did. I think it's hard for
Speaker 1: an adolescent sometimes to understand that sometimes just facing up
Speaker 1: to what you've done, things are going to turn out
Speaker 1: better than you trying to fix it with a story, right,
Speaker 1: And I think that's kind of what I see in
Speaker 1: her A bit. I also think you can imagine what
Speaker 1: it's like to hurt someone or want to hurt someone,
Speaker 1: even to the point of I wish they were dead.
Speaker 1: But she crossed the line. And I think in that
Speaker 1: courtroom you're seeing her realizing she crossed that line and
Speaker 1: she's beaten down by that information very well said yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think my takeaway from the story is
Speaker 1: it's just a lot of people who don't understand that
Speaker 1: what they're doing, that actions have consequences. I don't think
Speaker 1: Josh was purposely trying to get these two girls to
Speaker 1: hate each other. I think he was just reveling in
Speaker 1: the fact that two girls liked him. I don't think
Speaker 1: Sarah was trying to, you know, antagonize the situation so
Speaker 1: much that that Rachel would kill her. Obviously. I don't
Speaker 1: think Rachel even really understood that bringing that knife would
Speaker 1: escalate the situation so much so that it did. I
Speaker 1: don't think she understood that it meant her life. You
Speaker 1: know that she was potentially going to go to prison forever.
Speaker 1: But like you said, I mean, the people need to
Speaker 1: realize what they do has consequence. But you also to
Speaker 1: add the exascerbation of this new thing called social media,
Speaker 1: which we all know the negatives now now, but they
Speaker 1: weren't really fully known back then. She also left those voicemails,
Speaker 1: which were far worse and used much more against her
Speaker 1: in court than any of the comments, you're putting it
Speaker 1: into the universe and it will probably be used against
Speaker 1: you at some point. And it was definitely used against
Speaker 1: Rachel because when the jury heard the venom and her voice,
Speaker 1: there was no coming back from that. She could cry
Speaker 1: all she wanted on the stand, but when they heard
Speaker 1: her threatening Sarah's life, how could she recover. On July ten,
Speaker 1: Rachel was found guilty and sentenced to twenty seven years
Speaker 1: in prison, a sentence that Sarah's parents did not feel
Speaker 1: was harsh enough. When they were allowed to address the courtroom,
Speaker 1: Sarah's father spoke about his loss. I'll never get to
Speaker 1: hold my daughter again, he said, tearfully. I'll never get
Speaker 1: to see her get married, never hear her laugh my
Speaker 1: dumb jokes. Sarah's friends also got a chance to speak,
Speaker 1: and they remembered her as a loyal friend who stood
Speaker 1: up for them. Shameless plug. If you're enjoying Crazy and Love,
Speaker 1: leave us a review and listen to season three of
Speaker 1: our hit series The Pikes and Massacre. New episodes there
Speaker 1: every Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts, and don't forget
Speaker 1: to follow us on Instagram at Katie Underscore Studios. Crazy
Speaker 1: in Love is produced by Stephanie Lydecker, Jeff Shane, Chris
Speaker 1: Grieves and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound designed by
Speaker 1: Jeff Twa. Crazy in Love is a production of I
Speaker 1: heart Radio and Katie Studios. For more podcasts from I
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Stay safe, lovers,