Speaker 1: A warning. This episode contains depictions of violence and conversations
Speaker 1: about suicide that may be disturbing and triggering for some listeners.
Speaker 1: If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts, please fast forward
Speaker 1: to the end of this episode to find out where
Speaker 1: help is available. Okay, lady gentlemen, I want to go
Speaker 1: ahead and switch play over to Jeroboarding Lane Jered Barding
Speaker 1: lanz Z one number five.
Speaker 2: For how quickte you some week. I'm with Sarah Centricision.
Speaker 1: So it's been a couple of weeks since our last
Speaker 1: episode came out. The reason we needed to take a
Speaker 1: break was so that I could go back to Kansas
Speaker 1: City to conduct a couple of interviews, including one with
Speaker 1: the other person at the very center of this story. Okay, so,
Speaker 1: first question, probably the easiest question of the day. If
Speaker 1: you can say and spell your name for transcription.
Speaker 2: Sure, Kelly k E L L Y Moffatt Moffett.
Speaker 1: What will Kelly reveal in this first of two parts interview?
Speaker 1: Will it tip the scales in this most tragic of
Speaker 1: he said, she said, I'm Leah Rothman. This is the
Speaker 1: real killer. Episode thirteen. My youth is over. After more
Speaker 1: than a year of emailing and most recently texting with
Speaker 1: Kelly Moffatt, and after she listened to the previous twelve episodes,
Speaker 1: which include what her former boyfriend Byron Case has had
Speaker 1: to say about her, Kelly informs me she's now ready
Speaker 1: to tell her side. Kelly is a bit late for
Speaker 1: our pre arranged at noon start time. She jokes she'd
Speaker 1: be late to her own funeral. When she arrives at
Speaker 1: my second floor Airbnb, I'm surprised by how tall Kelly is.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm short, but she is definitely taller than
Speaker 1: I imagined. Kelly says she's nervous. Hell, I'm nervous too.
Speaker 1: We eventually sit down at the dining room table with
Speaker 1: the Starbucks coffees I got us and begin our conversation.
Speaker 1: First things first, Kelly, I just want to say thank
Speaker 1: you so much for agreeing to talk with me today.
Speaker 2: I don't know. The more I thought about it, I'm
Speaker 2: just this is about Anastasia. To me, this is about
Speaker 2: him wasting resources that are desperately needed for people that
Speaker 2: are actually wrongfully convicted. And I'm just, frankly just I'm
Speaker 2: just sick of him slandering me and just the way
Speaker 2: that things are represented.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's been more than a decade since Kelly
Speaker 1: has spoken publicly. What you're about to hear is a raw, intimate, emotional,
Speaker 1: and at times meandering discussion that keeps me on the
Speaker 1: edge of my seat. So you have been listening to
Speaker 1: the podcast, what are some of the things that stood
Speaker 1: out to you?
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, Byron has not changed whatsoever, like
Speaker 2: literally at all, with the cadence of his boys, how
Speaker 2: he delivers things, and it felt like he was like
Speaker 2: the same teenager or whatever that I knew. And just
Speaker 2: his coldness about certain things, his coldness about Justin's death,
Speaker 2: him act this is gonna get me upset. Sorry, him
Speaker 2: pretending to be upset about it in Aastasia calling her Stasia,
Speaker 2: which was like reserved for her family and people that
Speaker 2: loved her and stuff. I just like, he never ceases
Speaker 2: to amaze me with just like I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm like, do you sit in your jail set? Well,
Speaker 2: I mean, of course in prison you have nothing but time,
Speaker 2: But I'm like, do you really sit in your jail
Speaker 2: cell and like practice these deliveries and stuff? Because I
Speaker 2: know he's guilty.
Speaker 1: Let's start not the beginning beginning. But tell me a
Speaker 1: little bit about meeting Justin and Anastasia and Byron. Byron
Speaker 1: tells the story of how you all met at the
Speaker 1: coffee shop. Just tell me a little bit what you
Speaker 1: remember from Okay, I met.
Speaker 2: Justin first, and I don't even remember how we started talking.
Speaker 2: So he was just kind of he had the type
Speaker 2: of personality where he would just sit by people and
Speaker 2: be like, so, what's your story? You know, I remember, uh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I just ran into him over and over again, and
Speaker 2: at the coffeehouses. Yeah, at well, specifically at Broadway Cafe. Yeah,
Speaker 2: just got to know him on like a superficial level
Speaker 2: and then kind of a broader level because he got
Speaker 2: to where like I would go over to his apartment
Speaker 2: and stuff. But he wasn't creepy towards me anyway. So
Speaker 2: that's how I started knowing and hanging out with Justin
Speaker 2: because he was just like a fixture at the coffee shop.
Speaker 2: And at that point I was too. I'd go after school.
Speaker 1: I mean, you were so young, I know.
Speaker 2: Wasn't that biz our. I had a friend that was
Speaker 2: like the youngest of like four or five sisters. I
Speaker 2: forget now. The older girls all hung out at that
Speaker 2: coffee shop. So it was more like, Oh, take Kelly
Speaker 2: and Rachel with you so that you're not bored, YadA YadA.
Speaker 2: I don't know, now I can't. I'm I think that's
Speaker 2: completely insane. I knew Justin, and then I remember I
Speaker 2: started seeing him and Byron hanging out more and more.
Speaker 2: But Byron was also like very well known down there,
Speaker 2: just because he's such a I mean, the man can
Speaker 2: get drunk on the sound of his own voice pretty much.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure, I'm sure you realized that interviewing him.
Speaker 2: You know, he doesn't go buy cigarettes. He goes to
Speaker 2: a tobacconist. You know, he hadn't seen a lot of movies.
Speaker 2: He was a sin thephile, and just that's just how
Speaker 2: he always was about everything. Well, when I first started
Speaker 2: seeing him around, I just assumed he was gay, not
Speaker 2: that there's anything. I'm very liberal politically, that had nothing
Speaker 2: to do with anything. He just presented himself as very
Speaker 2: the other way. Then he started hanging out with Justin
Speaker 2: all the time, and I remember being kind of concerned
Speaker 2: from that about that, even from the beginning, because Justin
Speaker 2: was just very, very lost. Justin was like a big
Speaker 2: kid and couldn't really figure out what he was doing
Speaker 2: with his life. You know, his parents had means back then.
Speaker 2: It was weird. It was kind of specifically felt like
Speaker 2: this back then, especially down in West part and stuff.
Speaker 2: It was like you couldn't just be a person that
Speaker 2: hung out at a coffee shop. You needed almost like
Speaker 2: an origin story and you needed to And byrondeferent Lily
Speaker 2: was like a character. You know, he had his I
Speaker 2: don't believe hardly any of it, but he just had
Speaker 2: his origin story about like you know, his mom was
Speaker 2: German and his father was gay. Everything with Byron was
Speaker 2: just like over the top, just either to be shocking,
Speaker 2: to evoke sympathy, just anything. I think Justin was very
Speaker 2: confused about who he was. It was just it was
Speaker 2: a very bad combination because I think Justin just bought
Speaker 2: into Byron's persona and everything like hook Line and Sinker,
Speaker 2: and I think he was also immature enough and mentally
Speaker 2: ill enough to where he just wanted that in his life.
Speaker 2: He was lonely, he was bored, so not only getting
Speaker 2: like a best friend, but like getting a best friend
Speaker 2: that was this whatever who had this reputation and was
Speaker 2: either gay or bisexual or this or that.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you. So, Byron said, you were fourteen.
Speaker 1: You were in in the eighth grade when you guys
Speaker 1: first met, you were fourteen? Were you thirteen or fourteen?
Speaker 2: Now, don't quote me on this, but I swear because
Speaker 2: we met her for this summer, but I'm not exactly positive.
Speaker 2: But how I remember how we met, which I thought
Speaker 2: it was hysterical that he was like, oh, I had
Speaker 2: no idea how old she was, and by then I
Speaker 2: was into deep YadA YadA. No. The way that I
Speaker 2: met Byron was I was already kind of tipsy and
Speaker 2: I had gotten we had gotten dropped off down there
Speaker 2: with some booze with a friend of mine's. A friend
Speaker 2: of mine's mom had bought us booze and dropped us
Speaker 2: off down there. There was so much I don't know,
Speaker 2: Abs and Tee parents still have to do with all
Speaker 2: this stuff. But and I remember specifically, I would always
Speaker 2: look over and buy room and be like staring at
Speaker 2: me when I was talking to Justin or he was
Speaker 2: just very I could very much tell that he was like,
Speaker 2: you know, his radar was on me. So I jokingly
Speaker 2: went up to him and I said, Hey, do you
Speaker 2: want to get drunk with a bunch of soon to
Speaker 2: be eighth graders And he kind of laughed and then
Speaker 2: he's like, well, sure, and so he ended up driving
Speaker 2: us around that night while we drank. He drank too,
Speaker 2: and then he and I started talking and he asked
Speaker 2: for my phone number and stuff like that. So that's
Speaker 2: how we actually met.
Speaker 1: So the story that Byron tells, which was that you
Speaker 1: guys were at the coffeehouse and you came over and
Speaker 1: said hi to Justin, and then you guys all went
Speaker 1: over to Justin's later that night to watch a movie
Speaker 1: and then he drove you home. That's not the first
Speaker 1: time you ever met.
Speaker 2: No, I vividly remember gret as me saying, hey, do
Speaker 2: you want to get drunk with a bunch of soon
Speaker 2: to be eighth graders?
Speaker 1: What were some of early memories of meeting Anastasia.
Speaker 2: I had never heard of Anastasia. Byron's version that he
Speaker 2: and Anastasia were friends is a bunch of crap. Byron
Speaker 2: said he introduced Justin and Anastasia. No, he did not.
Speaker 2: I remember there was one night when we were going
Speaker 2: over to Justin's house and Byron saw a framed picture
Speaker 2: of Anastasia in Justin's apartment and it was like her
Speaker 2: senior picture. Byron was like why, he was like, I
Speaker 2: know her. He goes, why do you have a picture
Speaker 2: of her in your apartment? He's like, I went to
Speaker 2: Lincoln Preparatory with her. And Justin was like, oh, well
Speaker 2: we've been dating blah blah blah, and it was, uh, Byron,
Speaker 2: let Justin know that he was not very impressed with
Speaker 2: her and whatever, and he's like, really, I'm kind of
Speaker 2: surprised by that, blah blah blah. But that's that's about
Speaker 2: as for as far as that conversation went. But like
Speaker 2: I said, Byron had such influence over Justin that I
Speaker 2: remember being like, oh great, And then later on one
Speaker 2: on one Byron would just tell me stuff about how,
Speaker 2: you know, he thought Anastasia was lame. He said that,
Speaker 2: you know, they never really got along in school.
Speaker 1: We described Anastasia back then.
Speaker 2: Gosh, I don't know, I was trying to think of this.
Speaker 2: I knew her fairly well, but I knew her from
Speaker 2: being from double dates and stuff like that, and so
Speaker 2: you don't really get to know somebody, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. I know she was very she was all
Speaker 2: about Justin. I know, she was definitely trying to figure
Speaker 2: out who she was. She was also, I mean, she
Speaker 2: was very intelligent. She was a beautiful girl, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean she had her ups and downs. She I
Speaker 2: did the same thing, some kind of silly poetry I
Speaker 2: did too. I don't know, especially you know in the
Speaker 2: nineties with like Nirvana and all that stuff being popular,
Speaker 2: like you were the struggling artist for a minute, even
Speaker 2: if you weren't at all. I don't know. She couldn't
Speaker 2: stand Byron just from going to school with him and
Speaker 2: all of this, and also Byron would kind of be
Speaker 2: little her in front of her new boyfriend that she
Speaker 2: was trying to impress. That was like a big point.
Speaker 2: Byron just had no respect for her and like let
Speaker 2: it be known. And I think that that put her
Speaker 2: in a really bad position. Like I said, Justin was
Speaker 2: trying to impress Byron, and Anastasia was trying to impress Justin.
Speaker 2: She was very sweet, but she also she did have
Speaker 2: something to her where like she would like take no shit,
Speaker 2: but she also was very much I know, bught up
Speaker 2: with Justin and the whole first love.
Speaker 1: First Kelly says, Anastasia was quite vocal about how sick
Speaker 1: she was getting a Byron. She would complain to Justin
Speaker 1: that he would spend more time on the phone with
Speaker 1: Byron than her, and that Justin wouldn't defend her when
Speaker 1: Byron was disrespectful to her. Do you think there was
Speaker 1: anything going on between Justin and Byron?
Speaker 2: I have always thought that Byron was He always joked
Speaker 2: about being by because he joked that his name was
Speaker 2: like I'm by Run type thing. There's a definite possibility
Speaker 2: because there towards the end, Justin was getting more and
Speaker 2: more mentally unstable. He was showing signs of you know,
Speaker 2: early signs of maybe schizophrenia or also they would hole
Speaker 2: up with each other and just do like mescaline and
Speaker 2: stuff like for days on it. And I know Justin
Speaker 2: was like kind of slowly losing his mind and Byron
Speaker 2: there was there for every minute of it. When they
Speaker 2: were together. You know, Byron lived for with him, rent free.
Speaker 2: When they went out together. Byron never paid for a
Speaker 2: damn thing. You know. He was very opportunistic and he.
Speaker 1: Was briefly described like how Anastasia and Justin's relationship changed.
Speaker 2: I mean it for from they went from being really
Speaker 2: close to where Justin would also he would pick spending
Speaker 2: time with Anastasia over spending time with Byron and stuff.
Speaker 2: Byron did not like that whatsoever. So I don't know
Speaker 2: when exactly like the shift shift happened. Definitely part of
Speaker 2: it was when Anastasia got the job down on the Plaza.
Speaker 2: She was gone a lot, and then I think that
Speaker 2: that was when Byron kind of weaseled his way back
Speaker 2: into like we'll hang out while she's at work. I'm
Speaker 2: pretty sure she was like working full time. And then
Speaker 2: it just seemed like, like I said, like, uh, Justin
Speaker 2: got so much worse. Byron was all about it.
Speaker 1: Describe your relationship with Byron, the good times.
Speaker 2: Oh god, if they're even were any.
Speaker 1: I mean you were Were you in love with him?
Speaker 2: Looking back as an adult at the time, I mean
Speaker 2: I probably thought I was, But I also in that
Speaker 2: point in my life I had been severely molested when
Speaker 2: I was younger, and so I had just a lot
Speaker 2: of sexual trauma in like sixth and seventh grade and whatnot.
Speaker 2: You know, he was probably he was, first of all,
Speaker 2: he was older. He was one of the first people
Speaker 2: that had really like expressed an interested in me, like
Speaker 2: I love you. I love you who you are, blah
Speaker 2: blah blah, And that was very intoxicating. I went from
Speaker 2: being flattered by him to like love slash hating him
Speaker 2: very very quickly, just because of who he was. But
Speaker 2: then I was also afraid to let go of him, because,
Speaker 2: like I said, he was one of the first people
Speaker 2: that had expressed interest in me in that way.
Speaker 1: What did you think, I'm just curious. What did you
Speaker 1: think about Byron's goth ways? Was that cool? Was it
Speaker 1: subversive and interesting?
Speaker 2: At first? It was okay because I don't know, he
Speaker 2: just I liked a lot of the same music that
Speaker 2: went along with stuff like that, you know, like Susie
Speaker 2: and the Banshees and Ministry and all that. It was okay,
Speaker 2: I mean. And also with his coloring and everything, like
Speaker 2: he looked decent suited him, Like you know, there's some
Speaker 2: people that dress up goth and it just doesn't work whatsoever.
Speaker 2: But I remember getting being very annoyed by it. He
Speaker 2: took longer to get ready than me. He also like, uh,
Speaker 2: he told me at one point, because you know, when
Speaker 2: I ran away with him that first time, he cut
Speaker 2: my hair and died at black and blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: And there was a few times where he slipped up
Speaker 2: and told me that I was his project, project project. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know, like since I was younger than him
Speaker 2: and had had, you know, this traumatic stuff upen or whatever,
Speaker 2: like he was gonna like mold me into like what
Speaker 2: he wanted and stuff. I went from being not goth
Speaker 2: at all to then that's how I dressed and uh,
Speaker 2: that had that that was ninety nine point nine percent him.
Speaker 2: I mean that was just he would he basically kind
Speaker 2: of dressed me and stuff. It was weird. It was
Speaker 2: like I was his little like goth Barbie Doll or something.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you, because you brought up the time
Speaker 1: when you ran away, you know that. He says that
Speaker 1: you had told him that your dad was an abusive alcoholic.
Speaker 1: He says that he felt like he was getting you
Speaker 1: out of a bad situation and then he later learned
Speaker 1: that that was not the truth. Tell me what you
Speaker 1: can't about that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, definitely, my dad was an alcoholic, But my
Speaker 2: dad was more of a withdrawn alcoholic, just kind of
Speaker 2: like an absentee dad. My dad had his own problems.
Speaker 2: He was a bipolar and just had his own problems
Speaker 2: with like horrible depression, my dad grew up in a
Speaker 2: really dysfunctional, scary, alcoholic home and stuff. Yeah, I definitely
Speaker 2: exaggerated that my dad had. I got into a fight
Speaker 2: with him coming back from some concert or something he'd
Speaker 2: taken me to and we got into a fight about
Speaker 2: stuff and he had kind of like shoved me or
Speaker 2: something like that. And then so I really just lied
Speaker 2: about it to Byron, just like blew it up out
Speaker 2: of proportion. And I don't even know why, really, you know,
Speaker 2: my dad passed away and then now that is like
Speaker 2: one of like it's such a huge regret for me
Speaker 2: because he wasn't like that at all. I was just
Speaker 2: I was really angry, like I said, with like the
Speaker 2: sexual trauma and stuff. I was just angry. I was
Speaker 2: scared of men. I was just whatever. And I just
Speaker 2: wanted kind of I wanted a reason to feel how
Speaker 2: bad I felt. Of course, I all so, you know,
Speaker 2: being that young and immature, you know, I wanted sympathy
Speaker 2: from my older boyfriend. I wanted to And it was
Speaker 2: also the same thing, like I said, people a lot
Speaker 2: of people done at those coffee shops had an origin
Speaker 2: story or like lore or whatever, and I just I
Speaker 2: was just a depressed girl from Johnson County.
Speaker 1: They hired a PI right, and they found you at
Speaker 1: Justin's and you came back home. Byron tells the story
Speaker 1: that after some time your parents relented and allowed you
Speaker 1: to keep seeing him. I mean, he tells the story,
Speaker 1: you know in episode six about how your mom would
Speaker 1: like let him take your little sister to the mall.
Speaker 2: And you know, oh yeah, I know that was true
Speaker 2: because Byron, for all his lies and his lore and
Speaker 2: all his stuff that whatever, we just kind and me too,
Speaker 2: I just kind of saw him as this like blah
Speaker 2: blah blah, kind of like Pip Squeak that like wouldn't
Speaker 2: come out of the closet. I hate to say that,
Speaker 2: but I got, like I said, like I got to where,
Speaker 2: you know, I was pretty perceptive and intuitive despite being
Speaker 2: so much younger than him, and I just kind of,
Speaker 2: like I said, I had a very love hate relationship
Speaker 2: with him, and so I just kind of saw him
Speaker 2: for I'd figured out that half the stories that he
Speaker 2: told about himself and his life were fake. You know,
Speaker 2: he was trying to come off as scary, and I
Speaker 2: just thought he was I don't know, nothing to write
Speaker 2: home about, really, and uh yeah, so that just wasn't
Speaker 2: even my mom. And now I'm not quite so sure
Speaker 2: about my dad, but I know my mom and I
Speaker 2: had conversations about him just being like some you know, harmless, confused,
Speaker 2: kind of coffee shop door, you know, because he told
Speaker 2: so many stories of all this different stuff, and then
Speaker 2: it was like never and then I'd have conversations with
Speaker 2: his mom that would prove that it was false and
Speaker 2: just all kinds of so much stuff about him was
Speaker 2: just a bunch of crap. So he wasn't he wasn't
Speaker 2: scary at all, Like he was trying to be scary.
Speaker 2: He was trying to be all these things. But it
Speaker 2: was like the more and more I found out, I
Speaker 2: was just like, yeah, whatever. But then, of course, much
Speaker 2: later than after the murderers, then I realized, oh my god,
Speaker 2: this guy will do absolutely anything to you know, prove
Speaker 2: his origin story and prove that he's this disturbed blah
Speaker 2: blah blah. I don't that was just such a weird time,
Speaker 2: Like with Marilyn Manson and all that different stuff. It
Speaker 2: was like, you were it was cool to be like
Speaker 2: the sickest person in the room and he was all
Speaker 2: about that.
Speaker 1: Kelly just said murders plural. More about this in a bit.
Speaker 1: The conversation then shifts to after Anastasia's murder, but before
Speaker 1: Kelly had kind forward, when you and Byron first go
Speaker 1: to speak with kil Gore on the twenty fourth.
Speaker 2: And then murder was on the twenty second, right, yeah.
Speaker 1: The night of the twenty second. She was found the
Speaker 1: morning of the twenty third, and then I think you
Speaker 1: guys went to go speak with Kilgore and Kellogg that
Speaker 1: first time on the twenty fourth as a freshly fifteen,
Speaker 1: like you had just turned fifteen, right, as a fifteen
Speaker 1: year old girl, What are you thinking and feeling as
Speaker 1: you're like sitting at the Jackson County Sheriff's Department being
Speaker 1: interviewed for.
Speaker 2: I was completely bewildered by well, of course obviously that
Speaker 2: it had actually happened, and I can get into all
Speaker 2: that later, like what happened like the night that everything
Speaker 2: took place. But I was like what, Because you know,
Speaker 2: I'd seen like NYPD Blue and different shows like that.
Speaker 2: I thought what happened was they grabbed the last people
Speaker 2: that had you know, seen the person alive. They grabbed you.
Speaker 2: They separated you and they interrogated the crap out of you.
Speaker 2: I was hoping, Oh my god. For years, I was like,
Speaker 2: why did that not happen? Because I would have if
Speaker 2: I had been separated from Byron and had like you know,
Speaker 2: had like a seasoned detective like in my face saying
Speaker 2: I don't believe you. There's you know way more than
Speaker 2: you're telling us, and you're not leaving here until you
Speaker 2: tell us. There's no doubt in my mind that I
Speaker 2: would have immediately broken down and told them absolutely everything
Speaker 2: you were.
Speaker 1: I mean, you weren't in the same room with Byron.
Speaker 1: I think you went first and then Byron. But what
Speaker 1: you're saying is like if kil Gore had actually like
Speaker 1: put this screws tears.
Speaker 2: To you then, and that wasn't like how it was
Speaker 2: handled like he didn't even It's not like he called
Speaker 2: us and was like, Kelly, I don't care where you
Speaker 2: have planned for today, You're coming down here and I'm
Speaker 2: interviewing you. It wasn't even light that it was literally like, well, hi, sweetie, Wendy,
Speaker 2: you think you can come down and talk to us, Okay,
Speaker 2: Well whatever's most convenient for you. Like what it was.
Speaker 1: So weird when you heard yourself in episode one, and
Speaker 1: maybe you'd already heard your interview with Kellogg and Kilgore before,
Speaker 1: but when you heard that first interview, what did you
Speaker 1: think I was.
Speaker 2: I was really surprised at how calm I sounded, but
Speaker 2: I think I had had some chemical help with that.
Speaker 2: I remember either getting some xanax or Byron getting some
Speaker 2: for me or something because he knew that I had
Speaker 2: just really bad anxiety. He never challenged me on stuff.
Speaker 2: He just was like, okay, so she got out of
Speaker 2: the car and blah blah blah. Like it just didn't
Speaker 2: it didn't feel like a real police interview, that's for
Speaker 2: damn sure. The part that did shock me and scared
Speaker 2: the shit out of me was when I heard Byron
Speaker 2: talking about, well, I don't know, there definitely could have
Speaker 2: been a suicide packed between Kelly and Justin in Stasia
Speaker 2: blah blah blah, And immediately I was like, there's no
Speaker 2: other reason for him to say that unless he was
Speaker 2: going to kill me if he thought I was getting
Speaker 2: too nervous and I wasn't sticking to the.
Speaker 1: Plan, And that I think was in a later interview.
Speaker 1: But you mean, like as time went on the fact
Speaker 1: that he said that made you think that he was
Speaker 1: maybe going to you just said.
Speaker 2: It if I became too much of a problem. He
Speaker 2: obviously had no problem disposing of people or this. Also,
Speaker 2: I found out much later too that he had told
Speaker 2: a bunch of people that he had killed her. I
Speaker 2: found out much later too that he had told a
Speaker 2: bunch of people that he had killed her. And he
Speaker 2: very much made me think that I was the only
Speaker 2: one alive that knew that he had done anything, and
Speaker 2: that was just a bunch of crap.
Speaker 1: You said, Byron told other people that he had killed Anastasia.
Speaker 1: Who else did he tell?
Speaker 2: Tara McDowell, who conveniently is dead. Let's see, I.
Speaker 1: Think she died of cancer by the way, Yes.
Speaker 2: She did, he told Brahm. He told at that time.
Speaker 2: That was right after from and Tara had broken up.
Speaker 2: Tara was living with and messing around with this just
Speaker 2: this creepy guy that I think his real name was
Speaker 2: like Robert or Bob or something, but he went by
Speaker 2: a raven, she told him. And then Tara was quite
Speaker 2: the drinker and drug user. So who knows how many
Speaker 2: people at bars or whatever had found out there is
Speaker 2: a particular person who I will not name because they
Speaker 2: don't want to be involved in anything. Tarah drunkenly told
Speaker 2: her and then the next morning realized what she had
Speaker 2: done and then just threatened the crap out of this girl.
Speaker 1: Kelly just dropped a bombshell that Byron allegedly told other
Speaker 1: people like Abraham and Tara that he killed Anastasia. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I can't ask Tara if this it's true.
Speaker 2: I will need to ask Abraham Row like it was
Speaker 2: him proclaiming. All this innocence and stuff. Has always floored
Speaker 2: me because in Westport it's always been like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: like that's totally what happened. And people think that he
Speaker 2: probably also killed Justin too. They think that Justin probably,
Speaker 2: you know, because Justin was saying no, no, don't do
Speaker 2: it when the actual murder happened. I think Justin probably
Speaker 2: told no. I don't have any proof of this or anything.
Speaker 2: I can definitely see Justin being like, I can't live
Speaker 2: after this happened, so I'm going to go to the
Speaker 2: police and tell them everything unless you kill me. WHOA Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not positive of that. That's just I
Speaker 2: can absolutely see that happening and there's other people thinking
Speaker 2: that because that night, okay, and this just shows how
Speaker 2: just iced cold and how Byron completely does not understand
Speaker 2: the human experience. You know, we all go home to
Speaker 2: our prospective homes after this stuff all happens. Back then,
Speaker 2: with landlines, like you could make a three way call
Speaker 2: if you did something a certain way, and we made
Speaker 2: a three way call. It was me and Justin and Byron.
Speaker 2: I remember Justin was just like almost like Cata tonic,
Speaker 2: and he was like not good, not good. Can't sleep,
Speaker 2: can't sleep. He just kept saying weird stuff over and
Speaker 2: over again.
Speaker 1: The night of the murder. Yes, but wait a minute,
Speaker 1: because you said that you only called Byron that night
Speaker 1: when you first talked to Kilgore. You said you called
Speaker 1: Byron that night and that you couldn't you hadn't spoken
Speaker 1: with Justin. But now you're saying that there was a
Speaker 1: three way call between.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well, that was all part of the story,
Speaker 2: was that I just talked you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: That was all part of the story that was like
Speaker 2: drilled into me that you know, no, we didn't of course,
Speaker 2: we didn't talk to Justin. We don't know. We just
Speaker 2: suddenly you heard that he was dead, so he must
Speaker 2: have had more to do with it than we thought
Speaker 2: he did. Blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: No, but did you tell that when you came forward
Speaker 1: that you I don't remember seeing that when you came
Speaker 1: forward that you. Did you tell anybody that you had
Speaker 1: spoken to justin that night?
Speaker 2: I don't remember? And that was all such a whirlwin.
Speaker 2: And when I came forward, I was also detoxing off
Speaker 2: of some pretty hardcore drugs and stuff. I just wanted
Speaker 2: to stick with the things that I knew for sure,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to ask you about that stuff in
Speaker 1: a second. Let me ask you this, after you and
Speaker 1: Byron in nineteen ninety seven, after you guys speak with
Speaker 1: Kellogg and Kilgore that first time, what kinds of conversations
Speaker 1: do you and Byron have after and do you talk
Speaker 1: about what happened to Anastasia often? Or is it something
Speaker 1: like you don't like it's just mom's the word. We're
Speaker 1: not even gonna bring it up. What does life like
Speaker 1: life look like for you and Byron after.
Speaker 2: That when we stayed together a little bit?
Speaker 1: But I mean, especially in terms of talking, especially in
Speaker 1: terms of talking about Anastasia.
Speaker 2: Oh, he wouldn't do it.
Speaker 1: He wouldn't talk about it.
Speaker 2: He wouldn't talk about it. And if he did, he
Speaker 2: was very cold, and he was very He was like Kelly,
Speaker 2: she would have committed suicide anyway, because she was very
Speaker 2: you know, if you read her poets gray, and a
Speaker 2: lot of her stuff was very morose anyway. And I
Speaker 2: remember one particular time I was trying to get away
Speaker 2: from him so bad. I remember I cheated on him
Speaker 2: several times just to drive him away, and he wouldn't
Speaker 2: go away.
Speaker 1: Why do you think you wouldn't go away?
Speaker 2: First of all, I think he was obsessed with me,
Speaker 2: and it was also his thing, like I was his project,
Speaker 2: like he's not done with me until he says he
Speaker 2: is type thing. And then I also think that he
Speaker 2: thought that if he lost much control over me, that
Speaker 2: I would come forward. But I remember specifically one night
Speaker 2: being like, you're a murderer. How do you even feel
Speaker 2: about like I was like I didn't stop it, So
Speaker 2: I consider myself a murderer and I can't sleep. I
Speaker 2: can hardly even think about this stuff. I don't care
Speaker 2: because I just went to I didn't care about what
Speaker 2: I looked like anymore. I didn't care about I didn't
Speaker 2: want to get out of bed. I was just whatever.
Speaker 2: And I was like, and you seem perfectly fine. You're
Speaker 2: a fucking murderer. And he grabbed me by my throat
Speaker 2: and slammed me up against the wall. And he was like,
Speaker 2: I don't want to hear another word about this. He goes,
Speaker 2: a murderer is somebody who doesn't feel bad about their actions,
Speaker 2: and of course I feel bad. Wow, But he mainly
Speaker 2: he didn't give a shit about Anastasia, but he mainly
Speaker 2: felt bad about He was like, I thought Justin could
Speaker 2: handle this, and obviously he couldn't, and blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: It was just.
Speaker 1: Kelly had told Sargant Kilgore about this exchange. But this
Speaker 1: is the first time we're hearing that Byron allegedly grabbed
Speaker 1: Kelly by the throat and slammed her against the wall.
Speaker 1: I will have to ask Byron about this. How did
Speaker 1: Byron handle Justin's death?
Speaker 2: Oh? Oh good, we can blame it on the dead guy.
Speaker 1: But you know what's interesting, Byron never did really. I mean,
Speaker 1: even when he so I'm jumping, but even when he
Speaker 1: got like partial immunity or limited immunity. He could have
Speaker 1: said that, Justin didn't, and he never said that. Why
Speaker 1: do you think he didn't formally blame it on Justin.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Maybe out of respect for him, but
Speaker 2: I can't really see that because he wasn't. He was
Speaker 2: when his body was found and they said it was suicide,
Speaker 2: like he was very relieved by that and almost excited
Speaker 2: by that, like oh okay, this just everything's falling into place.
Speaker 2: Now they're just going to think that he did it.
Speaker 1: Did you go to Anastasia's funeral? Yes, you went to
Speaker 1: both funerals, Justin's and Anastasia's. What was Anastaesia's?
Speaker 2: Like, I don't feel like that's my place to say,
Speaker 2: because I didn't know her family, I didn't know her
Speaker 2: very well. It was awful. I didn't want to go,
Speaker 2: and Byron kept telling me that, uh, it would look
Speaker 2: weird if we didn't go. It just felt disgusting to
Speaker 2: be there. And I remember one of Banastasia's best friend,
Speaker 2: you know, because she had such bad wounds on her
Speaker 2: face and stuff that they had like recreated like her
Speaker 2: head basically with morticians putty. Byron just went up and
Speaker 2: looked at that with no problem. I couldn't even look.
Speaker 2: I remember her friend Danny ran off sobbing and vomited,
Speaker 2: and then I remember like Tara and Raven were there
Speaker 2: like it was some spectacle. It was like the ultimate,
Speaker 2: like goth spectacle they got to be at and I
Speaker 2: remember being like, what the fuck is wrong with you people?
Speaker 2: And then I later found out how awful Byron was
Speaker 2: being towards in a stage's family about stuff he was
Speaker 2: sending Bob with bos Fugan, just horrible emails about how
Speaker 2: he didn't know his own daughter and all this stuff.
Speaker 2: And that's when I really I just more and more
Speaker 2: was revealed where I was like, you're an evil piece
Speaker 2: of shit, like you have no care for And then
Speaker 2: that weird stuff that mister White, those letters and stuff
Speaker 2: that he wrote. I had no idea about any of
Speaker 2: that stuff until much later. To me, that was something
Speaker 2: like a serial killer, like reliving the crime or something
Speaker 2: that wasn't That didn't seem like something an innocent person
Speaker 2: would do to me at all, And it also scared
Speaker 2: me because once again it was just like like, Wow,
Speaker 2: this guy is sick.
Speaker 1: And when you heard the rumors of what people were
Speaker 1: thinking happened to Anastasia. When you hear people speculating like
Speaker 1: this could have happened, you know, maybe and it was
Speaker 1: a death pact, or maybe there was that one rumor
Speaker 1: that Bob Whitmulsfugen said he heard, which was that there
Speaker 1: was a gun that Byron had loaded.
Speaker 2: And just did a bizarre Yeah, I'm sorry, I.
Speaker 1: Don't what did you think of that?
Speaker 2: I remember not really thinking much about that stuff because
Speaker 2: I was just I just wanted it all to just
Speaker 2: go away so badly. I either wanted to come forward
Speaker 2: or I wanted it to completely go away.
Speaker 1: Going back to the emails that Byron and Bob and
Speaker 1: Pat Rock Patrick Rock were all exchanging with each other,
Speaker 1: did Byron tell you that he was emailing with them
Speaker 1: or did he tell you anything about that?
Speaker 2: He told me that he was emailing with them. I
Speaker 2: had no idea how cruel he was being, how weird
Speaker 2: it was, how he was basically, I mean, he was
Speaker 2: basically you know, they were inconveniencing him because they were
Speaker 2: trying to figure out what happened to her, and fuck
Speaker 2: you guys, And I had no idea that he was
Speaker 2: being that hostile to them, And.
Speaker 1: I mean, why do you think Bob suspected Byron.
Speaker 2: Because he's just such a jerk, and Byron was, like
Speaker 2: I said, from whatever, Byron kept trying to present like
Speaker 2: him and Anastasia were good old buddies that went to
Speaker 2: school together, and they weren't. She did not like him
Speaker 2: at all, and he was really rude to her, and
Speaker 2: you know, let it be known that he had no
Speaker 2: respect for her, and then later on, let it be
Speaker 2: known that, you know, she wasn't good enough for his friend,
Speaker 2: and blah blah blah. And I'm so I'm sure they
Speaker 2: were like what you know, with him, all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, there were school chumps when you know,
Speaker 2: he knew the exact opposite about him. I'm sure that's why.
Speaker 1: How did Byron handle his father's death.
Speaker 2: He was excited about the ten grand he got. He
Speaker 2: got ten grand, and I think he also got his
Speaker 2: dad's house. That was some weirdness. I also didn't understand.
Speaker 2: I mean, I remember I saw him maybe like shut
Speaker 2: a tear or two, but he was also well I
Speaker 2: don't know how much you know about that stuff, but
Speaker 2: Byron had at one point told me that he was
Speaker 2: going to kill his father because he always wondered what
Speaker 2: it was like to kill somebody, and his dad had AIDS,
Speaker 2: and he knew that his dad's long term partner who
Speaker 2: passed away from complications from AIDS. I believed I of
Speaker 2: like pneumonia or something like that. And he said he
Speaker 2: just knew that his dad just wouldn't want to languish
Speaker 2: like that and wouldn't whatever. He basically thought he was
Speaker 2: doing his dad of favor by His plan was he
Speaker 2: was going to tell his dad that he was having
Speaker 2: car trouble, like out in some cornfield in the middle
Speaker 2: of nowhere, and then when his dad, like you know,
Speaker 2: was like looking under the trunk and wasn't looking at him,
Speaker 2: he was going to shoot him.
Speaker 1: When he tells you this, are you like what the fuck?
Speaker 2: I mean? Yeah? Well, like I said, it was there
Speaker 2: was so much lore that he said about himself that
Speaker 2: wasn't true, that wasn't even whatever that I was just like,
Speaker 2: uh huh, yeah, sure, it was talk. It was talk
Speaker 2: he wanted to seem. I think he also thought it
Speaker 2: made him seem more manly to be like spooky and
Speaker 2: violent and stuff, and so I was just like, yeah, whatever, And.
Speaker 1: Did he say that stuff after Anastasia's murder or was
Speaker 1: this before?
Speaker 2: This was before they had all kinds of plans. They
Speaker 2: Anastasia and Justin were going to go Rob Justin's parents
Speaker 2: supposedly had the whole thing planned out. They drove not
Speaker 2: very far and they ended up going to Dunkin Donuts
Speaker 2: and coming back home. So that's how ludicrous the stuff seemed.
Speaker 2: They had actually and I had gone with them. There
Speaker 2: is an independence like some one of the main like
Speaker 2: Mormon churches and Aspire the Spiral and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: So they had this big idea that they were going
Speaker 2: to like invade that church. This was justin environ, and
Speaker 2: I think Anastasia was supposed to be involved a little bit.
Speaker 2: They were going to kidnap like the main I don't
Speaker 2: know what they are on Mormonism, preacher, minister or whatever.
Speaker 1: Bishop.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were going to kidnap him and hold him
Speaker 2: in the basement and say that they wanted X amount
Speaker 2: of ransom, or they were going to blow up the
Speaker 2: entire church with him in it. And they had gone
Speaker 2: so far with that to where me, Anastasia, Justin, and
Speaker 2: Byron had all gone. They'll give you tours of that
Speaker 2: place if you ask and Byron went in full like
Speaker 2: priests get up blah blah blah, and said that you know,
Speaker 2: he was a priest that just counseled people with their
Speaker 2: problems and he'd always been interested in Mormonism and blah
Speaker 2: blah blah. So we spent like half the day on
Speaker 2: Saturday going on this tour of this place so that
Speaker 2: they could be they thought they were in some movie.
Speaker 2: It always thought like they thought they were in some
Speaker 2: guy Ritchie movie. And it just never ever came to
Speaker 2: fruition ever.
Speaker 1: You know, So as the investigation, it's all obviously before
Speaker 1: coming forward as the investigations going on. You I mean,
Speaker 1: you speak with kill Gore a few times over the
Speaker 1: course of like a couple of years. Each time you're
Speaker 1: speaking with kill Gore. What's going through you?
Speaker 2: Do you guys still really believe this? Basically that I
Speaker 2: was like, well, my god, how many I don't know
Speaker 2: I had. And also I'm like, I had no idea
Speaker 2: it was like this easy, like to get away with
Speaker 2: killing someone. That was just like I was also like, okay,
Speaker 2: when's the actual questioning going to start? When's the actual
Speaker 2: I was just very confused.
Speaker 1: And I think it was your second interview, You said
Speaker 1: that you saw Anna Stagia with a wallet that night.
Speaker 1: Do you remember anything about that?
Speaker 2: I probably did if I said it, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, she had three dollars and sixty five cents
Speaker 1: in her pants pocket when she was found, and there
Speaker 1: was no wallet or purse. Okay, but oh this brings
Speaker 1: up a good question. Did you see on Instagram the
Speaker 1: picture of the purse that Bob sent Kilgore wondering if
Speaker 1: it was the one that had been seen out with
Speaker 1: her that night? Because Don Wright said that she came
Speaker 1: in with a purse. Right, I don't know this don
Speaker 1: Right person. I have no idea. Did you see that?
Speaker 1: Can I show it to you?
Speaker 2: Just?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know because kil Gore once he got
Speaker 1: this photo from Bob, never took it to anyone, like,
Speaker 1: never took it to Don Right, I never took anything.
Speaker 1: Never had you look at it?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 2: And why didn't they check? Because I know for a
Speaker 2: fact that I I made a phone call from a
Speaker 2: gas station to Anastasia's house that night, and I didn't
Speaker 2: I thought that they would check some type of phone
Speaker 2: call coming from there or something.
Speaker 1: Well, I definitely want to ask you about that. I
Speaker 1: mean Kilgourd didn't get any phone records, any phone records,
Speaker 1: anyw beper records, nothing. I finally find the photo of
Speaker 1: Anastasia's purse and show it to Kelly. Does that at
Speaker 1: all look familiar to a little bit?
Speaker 2: But like my memory is so bad that I wouldn't
Speaker 2: run it, you know what I mean? Just like for
Speaker 2: the details, I mean, obviously for the big stuff, I
Speaker 2: don't know that does look like that would go with like,
Speaker 2: you know, Stagia's like personality and how she dressed.
Speaker 1: But I don't know, Okay, I was just curious. Okay.
Speaker 1: So at one point I think it was in August
Speaker 1: of ninety eight, you speak with Kilgore, I think your
Speaker 1: parents might be there for that interview, And you say,
Speaker 1: I think Byron knows more. You say, I don't think
Speaker 1: it's a murder type of thing, but I think he's
Speaker 1: been acting very strangely, and I think he knows more
Speaker 1: than he's saying. Tell me what you remember about?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, exactly. That was definitely me being like, come on, guys,
Speaker 2: Like I said, for years, I was begging for someone
Speaker 2: to confront me and scare me and get me to
Speaker 2: tell the truth because I was so frozen with fear.
Speaker 2: You know. Obviously by that point I had realized that
Speaker 2: Byron was much more dangerous than I had ever thought.
Speaker 2: And also just I was just I was begging for
Speaker 2: someone to come at me, say something, ask some bigger questions,
Speaker 2: do something.
Speaker 1: I mean, how did you not tell your mom or
Speaker 1: your dad.
Speaker 2: At that point in time? Well? I did. I did
Speaker 2: tell my dad eventually, but I was so involved in
Speaker 2: hard drugs and didn't live at my parents' house a
Speaker 2: large portion of the time and stuff. Plus I know
Speaker 2: my parents are the type of people that they weren't
Speaker 2: just gonna I mean, they were going to go to
Speaker 2: the authorities or they were gonna whatever. I did eventually
Speaker 2: tell my dad. It took a while for my parents
Speaker 2: to really be like, Okay, you know more about this
Speaker 2: than you're even saying.
Speaker 1: And we are going to talk much more about this later. You,
Speaker 1: if I understand correctly, you broke up with Byron like
Speaker 1: December of ninety eight or January of ninety nine, somewhere
Speaker 1: in there. Why do you finally break up with him?
Speaker 2: I hated him, I was scared of him. I didn't
Speaker 2: want anything to do with that type of person. And
Speaker 2: then especially when I had found out how cruel he
Speaker 2: was being to Anniest. He was like taunting Anastasia's family
Speaker 2: and stuff. I just thought he was disgusting and I
Speaker 2: couldn't get away from him fast enough. I actually broke up.
Speaker 2: We were supposed to be going over to a high
Speaker 2: school friends of mine's house, and so when he pulled up,
Speaker 2: I knew that I had high school friends that were
Speaker 2: like outside hacky sacking and stuff, and I was like,
Speaker 2: I don't want anything to do with you. We are
Speaker 2: breaking up. I am getting out of the car. You
Speaker 2: are not joining me, blah blah blah, and he went nuts.
Speaker 2: He started slamming his own head on his staring wheel
Speaker 2: and stuff, and I knew, you know, and then my
Speaker 2: friends are looking over, are you okay? I knew I
Speaker 2: had to do it in like a public kind of
Speaker 2: a setting.
Speaker 1: How did you feel after you broke up with him?
Speaker 2: It was murders relief. It was more than just relief.
Speaker 2: And I also was just like, okay, well, now, like
Speaker 2: I said, I've been toying with the fact of coming
Speaker 2: forward for a long time, and I was just like, okay,
Speaker 2: well now I can I can actually do.
Speaker 1: It, you know, And so and I don't want to
Speaker 1: say anything that could potentially trigger just a couple of
Speaker 1: questions about your addiction. And but please tell me if
Speaker 1: I'm crossing a line or anything.
Speaker 2: You're fine.
Speaker 1: You had used before the murder. How do things change
Speaker 1: after the murder?
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, the night of the murder, like I said,
Speaker 2: when I was like probably twelve thirteen, I started feeling
Speaker 2: really different. That was also when a lot of the
Speaker 2: like sexual trauma and stuff had happened. Middle illness just
Speaker 2: runs rampant in my family, and I started feeling were
Speaker 2: really really just different. And so yeah, I had like
Speaker 2: drank and done other things to try to make myself
Speaker 2: feel better. I hated pot. Pot just made me feel
Speaker 2: like I was on asset or something. But definitely alcohol
Speaker 2: helped and stuff. And then I remember after being dropped
Speaker 2: off after the murder, I just laid on my bed
Speaker 2: forever and I just stared at the ceiling, and you know,
Speaker 2: I just remember thinking, like you know, when you're a kid,
Speaker 2: especially like when you're a teenage girl, like you think
Speaker 2: you have all these problems, you think you have, you know,
Speaker 2: everything is the end of the world. And I remember
Speaker 2: sitting there and just being like like I had no
Speaker 2: I like, every it's over, Like just everything's over, you know,
Speaker 2: like my youth is over. Like I knew I was
Speaker 2: never going to be the same person, and I was
Speaker 2: like a person is actually dead, like somebody's not going
Speaker 2: to wake up tomorrow, like because of partially my actions
Speaker 2: and stuff. And I just remember thinking that I was
Speaker 2: just just evil. I remember like why didn't they kill
Speaker 2: me too? Just a huge sense that life was I
Speaker 2: knew it was over and that I just was never
Speaker 2: I mean, I just felt sick. Anything that I thought
Speaker 2: was a problem before it's just now just seems ridiculous.
Speaker 2: And I know that's exactly how Justin felt too, because
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, he couldn't sleep all that night.
Speaker 2: And then this is another thing that was so disturbing.
Speaker 2: You know, we did that way call and Justin was
Speaker 2: talking about how he couldn't sleep and how he felt sick.
Speaker 2: And Justin's like, I don't think I'll ever be able
Speaker 2: to sleep again, and I said me neither. Byron went
Speaker 2: right to sleep. Byron wouldn't even supposedly his best friend
Speaker 2: who he cared about so much, wouldn't even get out
Speaker 2: of bed to have breakfast with him. It was like
Speaker 2: Justin and I were like, what the fuck? I mean, like,
Speaker 2: can you imagine?
Speaker 1: That's one of my questions because and we're going to
Speaker 1: get to you coming forward and everything, but one of
Speaker 1: my questions is like, knowing that the three of you
Speaker 1: just were there participated in this murder. When Justin calls
Speaker 1: Byron the next morning, why and if Byron thinks he
Speaker 1: might lose it or he might go tell someone, why
Speaker 1: do you think Byron just says, I'll talk to you later.
Speaker 1: Why not say to Justin, hang on, calm down, you know,
Speaker 1: let's go meet.
Speaker 2: Because I'm sure Justin expressed to him that he was
Speaker 2: suicidal and that fixed fixed problems for Byron. They'll just
Speaker 2: think he did it. But I when I heard that
Speaker 2: later on, you know, because I was not on that
Speaker 2: phone call, I was not privy to that. I was like,
Speaker 2: you know, next morning, yeah, I wasn't, uh, because that
Speaker 2: was them, you know, talking and stuff. I was like,
Speaker 2: not only did you go to sleep like a baby,
Speaker 2: but you couldn't be bothered to go meet your suicidal friend?
Speaker 2: Like are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: Or what did Byron tell you about that call that
Speaker 1: he had with Justin?
Speaker 2: He just said that Justin was like freaking out and
Speaker 2: was still saying which I had already heard, that he
Speaker 2: never thought he was going to sleep again and stuff.
Speaker 2: He didn't go into any detail. I guarantee you that
Speaker 2: Justin said goodbye. I'm just I cannot believe we did this,
Speaker 2: and I'm you know, I'm sure he told them of
Speaker 2: his intentions, you know, and I didn't want to get
Speaker 2: some more sleep, damn it. I mean, he was just
Speaker 2: like a That was one thing that Justin I he
Speaker 2: was just a robot, you know. Like I said. At
Speaker 2: one point, Justin was so upset and shaking so much
Speaker 2: that he couldn't even drive, and Byron was getting irritated
Speaker 2: and mad at him. He was like, pull it together,
Speaker 2: do you fine? Fucking pull overall drive? He was just
Speaker 2: he was annoyed with us for being upset.
Speaker 1: Kelly is referring to Justin, who she said was unable
Speaker 1: to drive after Anastasia was murdered. How did you pull
Speaker 1: that off when you got home? How did you not
Speaker 1: look upset or how did your mom not tune into anything?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: How were you able to just put a mask on?
Speaker 2: Oh? I don't think I did a good job. My
Speaker 2: mom and I weren't close at that point in time,
Speaker 2: and she really wasn't. She didn't know me very well
Speaker 2: back then, even because we had like kind of such
Speaker 2: a contentious relationship and stuff. I just and I don't
Speaker 2: remember pulling anything off. I just remember being in set
Speaker 2: shop that I just said as little as possible and
Speaker 2: went upstairs. My mom also that at that point in time,
Speaker 2: you know, being married to an alcoholic. I know that
Speaker 2: I smelled like alcohol when I came in the house,
Speaker 2: but my mom was just so sick of you know,
Speaker 2: because at that point in time, my dad had, you know,
Speaker 2: was an alcohol like my brother had substance abuse problems,
Speaker 2: and she was just kind of like la la la,
Speaker 2: you know, she just didn't even want to do Yeah,
Speaker 2: she just didn't want to deal with that. She didn't
Speaker 2: I don't think she knew what to do. So I
Speaker 2: don't think I did some great acting job. I just
Speaker 2: said hi, Mom, good night.
Speaker 1: And just a quick reminder Byron says they weren't drinking
Speaker 1: that night, all right. Going back to that first interview,
Speaker 1: what does your mom say to you when she's like,
Speaker 1: I'm driving you to the police station. I mean the
Speaker 1: fact that Anastasia had been murdered. She doesn't know anything yet,
Speaker 1: you haven't told her anything. What is what is your
Speaker 1: mom saying to you? Is she like did she does
Speaker 1: she ask you or press you like do you know more? Kelly?
Speaker 2: Or what is your mom? Initially? No, Initially she seemed to,
Speaker 2: you know, believe the cover story that Byron had like
Speaker 2: drilled into me. But the more that my life and
Speaker 2: who I was just took a complete like one eighty,
Speaker 2: that's when she was like, we know that you know
Speaker 2: more and stuff, and that's you know, that's how her
Speaker 2: and my drug counsel, that was how I eventually ended
Speaker 2: up coming forward. I had toyed with coming forward like
Speaker 2: four years, but that eventually was like her and my
Speaker 2: dad were like, you went from being like a straight
Speaker 2: a student, like with goals and this and that, and
Speaker 2: then now you're you know, like living in a crackhouse
Speaker 2: on like a suicide admission, Like there's there's no way
Speaker 2: this is a coincidence type thing.
Speaker 1: Okay, So almost three years go by, and what was
Speaker 1: the impetus, like what made you finally come forward?
Speaker 2: Well? I ended up I ended up going to treatment.
Speaker 2: It was right before my parents dropped me off at
Speaker 2: treatment that I had told my dad what had actually
Speaker 2: happened and stuff. But you know, of course I was
Speaker 2: like solving and begging him not to say anything. I was,
Speaker 2: you know, I was like, if I come forward, it
Speaker 2: has to be on like my own terms, YadA YadA.
Speaker 2: And so I went to treatment and I was just weird.
Speaker 2: I was just I think I was just kind of
Speaker 2: like the only like emotions back then that I could
Speaker 2: express were really just like despair and panic, you know.
Speaker 2: And I think and definitely my drug counselor, uh picked
Speaker 2: up on that. And I think my mom when she
Speaker 2: had called and set up like my intake because I
Speaker 2: was a minor at the time, had said, you know,
Speaker 2: told her like there was just wonder that happened, and
Speaker 2: I guarantee that she knows more about it, YadA YadA.
Speaker 2: And Maggie, that was the lady that was my drug
Speaker 2: and alcohol counselor, she just flat out said, and if
Speaker 2: you're ever going to get clean, you know, she goes,
Speaker 2: you have to, she goes. Everybody knows, you know, way
Speaker 2: more about this murder than you're letting on. And then
Speaker 2: I was just like, and you know she could tell that.
Speaker 2: That freaked me out. And so I don't even think
Speaker 2: she told me. I think behind my back. She called
Speaker 2: my mom to come out there, and finally it was
Speaker 2: what I had been wanting Kilgore and all those people
Speaker 2: to do for years. They called me up into the
Speaker 2: office and asked me what happened. And that's when I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, oh, well, Justin did it blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: And then my mom said, Kelly, that's bullshit. You told
Speaker 2: your dad just a few nights ago that it was Byron.
Speaker 2: And my counselor was like, so, is that really what happened?
Speaker 2: And at that point I just couldn't lie anymore and
Speaker 2: I just completely broke down and I said yeah, and
Speaker 2: I told him everything that happened. But this is another
Speaker 2: reason why I think it's absolutely absurd that Byron and
Speaker 2: his people think that I did this to mess with him.
Speaker 2: I mean, my god, when I told them that this
Speaker 2: was not my parents aren't rich. This was not a
Speaker 2: situation where it was like, oh, honey, baby, sweetie, tell
Speaker 2: us what happened. We'll make sure nothing ever happens to you. No.
Speaker 2: This was literally like them going, okay, well we're gonna
Speaker 2: have to you go downstairs. We have phone calls to make,
Speaker 2: and I was like, what are you gonna call? And
Speaker 2: my drug counselor at the time was like, well, first,
Speaker 2: I'm calling the Jackson County prosecutor because this is bullshit.
Speaker 2: And I remember her saying like, Kelly, anything is better
Speaker 2: than you are now, because I was just like, I
Speaker 2: was just on a suicide admission and I hated myself
Speaker 2: and I just didn't even I basically had like no
Speaker 2: quality of life, and they knew that. And she was
Speaker 2: like no, She's like, we're telling whoever needs to know
Speaker 2: this what is going on. So I wasn't. It wasn't
Speaker 2: like it wasn't at all like sweetie, we got you
Speaker 2: immunity and blah blah blah. I mean, I went downstairs
Speaker 2: completely freaking out, and there was also older adult women
Speaker 2: in this treatment center, and I remember talking to the
Speaker 2: ones that had been in prison and stuff, and I
Speaker 2: remember actually being relieved, like if I went to prison,
Speaker 2: you know, because I was thinking like, Okay, well then
Speaker 2: maybe maybe I'll be around people who have been through
Speaker 2: kind of the same thing I have and I won't
Speaker 2: have access to direct you know, at that point, I
Speaker 2: know anything about prison, you know, I won't have access
Speaker 2: to drugs and then maybe I can finally, I don't know,
Speaker 2: maybe if I'm in a controlled environment, it'll be so
Speaker 2: much better. And anything I wasn't. This wasn't like if
Speaker 2: you tell us what happened, we're going to make sure
Speaker 2: nothing happens to you. In fact, it was quite the opposite.
Speaker 2: So why I would I don't know. That angle is
Speaker 2: just the most stupid thing I've ever heard to me.
Speaker 1: And did you, through those three years of not coming forward,
Speaker 1: believe that you were as culpable as Byron Justin that night?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, if not more so, because I felt like
Speaker 2: Byron is like a sick fuck I. You know, by
Speaker 2: then I had figured out he was so much sicker
Speaker 2: than I even thought. I'm like, great, he's a damn
Speaker 2: sociopath or psychopath or whatever. Justin was completely out of
Speaker 2: his mind. I don't know if this was schizophrenia and
Speaker 2: depression or schizophrenia. And they were doing a lot of
Speaker 2: like mescaline and acid and stuff together, and I was like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, I was just like and I just sat there.
Speaker 2: I just sat there and let somebody just just let
Speaker 2: somebody be killed. And that was I didn't even feel
Speaker 2: human hardly anymore. And also now having I have a
Speaker 2: daughter who's twenty one. You know, she just thought her
Speaker 2: friends were her up. She was depressed, and she wanted
Speaker 2: to see her boyfriend and she that was all she wanted.
Speaker 2: It was just I mean, for no reason. I mean,
Speaker 2: she was just having like normal young relationship problems. If
Speaker 2: she just got slaughtered, and it even was sadder when
Speaker 2: I found out about I don't know, because I couldn't
Speaker 2: decide which.
Speaker 3: Was better, like with the contact wound or whatever happen.
Speaker 3: That's why she had no defensive wounds, was because she
Speaker 3: thought she could trust us. I mean I think about
Speaker 3: that all the time. I mean, my god, that would
Speaker 3: have been like if I I don't know.
Speaker 2: That would have been like if Angie came and picked
Speaker 2: me up and said, well, we're gonna go get ice
Speaker 2: cream and then she killed me. And I don't know
Speaker 2: if there's like solace in the fact that it happened
Speaker 2: so fast that maybe at least she wasn't scared. But
Speaker 2: I mean, god, if I would have said anything, if
Speaker 2: I would have done anything, it probably wouldn't have happened.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: And just what kind of person lest that happen when
Speaker 2: then I considered suicide for a very long time after that,
Speaker 2: you know, well, I mean like before I came forward,
Speaker 2: but then I was scared because I was just like,
Speaker 2: this is like what if I just go to hell
Speaker 2: and then I have to relive this over and over
Speaker 2: and over again.
Speaker 1: And the reason you didn't say anything was because.
Speaker 2: I know I didn't think that they would go through
Speaker 2: with it. I didn't. I have no idea. I've asked
Speaker 2: myself that so many times. I mean, I think I
Speaker 2: was also just in over my head hanging out with
Speaker 2: people that were so much older than me. I also,
Speaker 2: I don't know. And then I'm also like, did I
Speaker 2: want to be accepted that bad that I would have
Speaker 2: just said yes to whatever?
Speaker 1: Justin was described as apathetic. Wanting to kill Anastasia as
Speaker 1: a way to get her out of his life seems
Speaker 1: like an extreme measure, an extreme act. Was that surprising
Speaker 1: to you that he would want to suggest or take
Speaker 1: that kind of measure instead of just breaking up with
Speaker 1: her and never talking to her again.
Speaker 2: I've thought about that a lot. I don't know if
Speaker 2: it was he was already that out of touch with reality, because,
Speaker 2: like I said, right before, that they had been doing
Speaker 2: a lot of psychedelics, and Justin thought that there were
Speaker 2: people living under his floorboards that were talking to him
Speaker 2: and telling him what to do and stuff. But then
Speaker 2: I always so think like Byron and Justin had such
Speaker 2: a weird, like a meshed relationship. I think that part
Speaker 2: of it. I think because like I said, Justin was
Speaker 2: more gullible than I was, and I think he believed
Speaker 2: a lot of Byron's stupid lore in his stories and
Speaker 2: stuff like that. So I think he was trying to
Speaker 2: show off for his friend, prove to his friend that
Speaker 2: he was as sick as he was. I don't know,
Speaker 2: but I know Justin would have never they had been
Speaker 2: just hold up in the house for several days by themselves.
Speaker 2: I seriously doubt Justin would have ever come up with
Speaker 2: that by himself, because Justin was more like self loathing
Speaker 2: and depressed. I think he probably would have just slept
Speaker 2: or done you know other things that depressed people do.
Speaker 2: That always boggled my mind. I just I don't think
Speaker 2: he would have ever come up with that on his own.
Speaker 1: And again I apologize for jumping around when you when
Speaker 1: you when you go with Angie to the park, and
Speaker 1: you share this with her, confess this to her. First
Speaker 1: of all, what did you think when you heard Angie
Speaker 1: describe that and how it's affected her?
Speaker 2: That also just really showed me how out of trust
Speaker 2: with reality I was, because she was, you know, she
Speaker 2: said over and over again, like and how could you
Speaker 2: take me to the house of somebody who had did
Speaker 2: something like that? Like that didn't even occur to me, Like,
Speaker 2: if anything, I felt like with him, like I was
Speaker 2: the one in danger, not her, and I that I,
Speaker 2: you know, knew Byron well enough to know that it
Speaker 2: wasn't you know, what's he going to do? Do some
Speaker 2: massacre where he has to you know, kill me, kill
Speaker 2: Angie kill I don't know. I don't even really remember
Speaker 2: going over his house. I have a very very vague memory.
Speaker 2: I wondered for a while if that it actually happened,
Speaker 2: or if that was a dream or something. But yeah,
Speaker 2: after that, I just felt so bad because I was like, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: of course.
Speaker 1: You had also told your boyfriend Jim right before you
Speaker 1: told Angie. Had you told anyone else?
Speaker 2: No, not that I believe.
Speaker 1: When you come forward, you come forward. I think September
Speaker 1: nineteenth of two thousand, I think you speak with Kilgore
Speaker 1: for the first time September twenty first, two thousand. How
Speaker 1: was kill Gore during that? I mean, you guys had
Speaker 1: had like multiple, you know, meetings interviews before then, and
Speaker 1: now you're coming forward forward. How was kill Gore with you?
Speaker 1: And how did you feel with him?
Speaker 2: Irritated? No, I mean he was irritated with me, and
Speaker 2: I was just like whatever with him. I was mad
Speaker 2: at him for I mean honestly, I was like, if
Speaker 2: you would it done your fucking job like years ago,
Speaker 2: why become a cop if you're just going to be
Speaker 2: like as lazy about it as possible. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Why do you think he didn't follow up on leads
Speaker 1: or do, with all due respect, some basic police work
Speaker 1: like getting basic phone records and stuff like that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm asking you to like speculate or I.
Speaker 2: Think he's just lazy, and I think that, you know,
Speaker 2: in situations like that, I forget what the statistic is,
Speaker 2: but you know, like nine times out of ten it
Speaker 2: ends up being the boyfriend. I have no idea. Was
Speaker 2: he like caneering retirement or something.
Speaker 1: Or I don't think so. Back then.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think he just didn't want to mess with it.
Speaker 2: I think he was just like, oh, case closed.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think Bob was like a big thorn
Speaker 1: in his side.
Speaker 2: Well, God, I just like and Bob is not stable obviously.
Speaker 2: I don't really want to talk about all that other
Speaker 2: stuff with him because I don't know the situations or
Speaker 2: anything like that. But God, poor Bob. Could got Bob.
Speaker 2: Could Bob had made himself look any worse? Could Bob
Speaker 2: had made himself look any worse? I mean the saying
Speaker 2: that he heard the shot. No, I don't know. I
Speaker 2: think Bob was just.
Speaker 1: Unwell in the caravan of cars and I don't know.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I don't know if you had heard it before,
Speaker 1: But when you heard your interview in two thousand with Kilgore,
Speaker 1: there was also sort of the same level of not
Speaker 1: a ton of emotion when you came forward. What do
Speaker 1: you attribute my voice? One would imagine that when you
Speaker 1: finally come forward, you would be like distraught or everybody's different.
Speaker 1: So there's no judgment. I'm just curious what you heard
Speaker 1: and what you thought of how you sounded during that interview.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I definitely thought, Yeah, I definitely thought I sounded
Speaker 2: pretty flat as well. I think I had just been
Speaker 2: on autopilot for so long. I'd been telling that stupid
Speaker 2: story that Byron had me rehearse like for years and
Speaker 2: years for so long. That and that was another thing
Speaker 2: I thought was weird too, Like they were acting like
Speaker 2: if I really was like this, like in the trial
Speaker 2: they called me like this devil woman. Yeah, I'm a
Speaker 2: fucking fifteen year old devil woman. Okay, I didn't if
Speaker 2: you notice it, when I came in, I wasn't like
Speaker 2: had Byron's this evil piece. I didn't emphasize him being
Speaker 2: evil and stuff at all because I felt I think
Speaker 2: I felt just as guilty as he was, because I
Speaker 2: just had been just beating myself up for years over
Speaker 2: not warning her, over not not doing anything over and
Speaker 2: I would constantly, like I said, I'd be like, what
Speaker 2: kind of person lets this happen? I'd also talked about
Speaker 2: it so much, you know, and therapy and in treatment
Speaker 2: and stuff. I just don't I compart well. And with
Speaker 2: stuff like that, you have to compart and mentalize it
Speaker 2: just to get through the day, you know. So I
Speaker 2: think I had just had really bad weird coping mechanisms
Speaker 2: and didn't And then, like I said, I was also
Speaker 2: I was coming off hard drugs and alcohol and stuff.
Speaker 2: When I finally did talk to Kilgore, I just remember
Speaker 2: wanting it to get over with. I just wish I
Speaker 2: was just like, oh God, please just just believe me
Speaker 2: this time and go pick up Byron.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought that up, so they you do
Speaker 1: come forward and then they don't arrest him. What did
Speaker 1: you think about that? I mean, weren't you expecting them
Speaker 1: arrest him like immediately?
Speaker 2: No, not necessarily, because I felt just as responsible as
Speaker 2: he was. I also knew I wasn't incredible since I'd
Speaker 2: lied about it so much, and I was just I
Speaker 2: don't know, I was such a mess, like with drugs
Speaker 2: and alcohol. I also knew, like, yeah, who's gonna believe
Speaker 2: like this homeless drug addict and all this stuff. And
Speaker 2: I find it hilarious that they think that I was
Speaker 2: involved in some kind of like Kingpin thing, and I
Speaker 2: came forward to get out of that. You know, I
Speaker 2: wasn't freaking what's that guy's name? I don't even know
Speaker 2: Pablo Esque. I wasn't hanging out with Pablo Escobar. I
Speaker 2: had a very pathetic, sad drug addict life where it
Speaker 2: was not even having money, need to eat most days,
Speaker 2: hanging out with scary older men because they would, you know,
Speaker 2: keep me high, and I kept myself in just absolutely
Speaker 2: horrific situations. And now from being older and stuff, I
Speaker 2: can see that that was definitely, with all my guilt
Speaker 2: and stuff, that was my way of putting myself into hell.
Speaker 1: On earth, you know, like some sort of payment or
Speaker 1: repayment for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, if I didn't deserve to be alive, and
Speaker 2: if I was gonna be alive, I just deserved to
Speaker 2: just be tortured for what I let happen.
Speaker 1: Kelly just mentioned the alleged implication that she was caught
Speaker 1: up in some bigger drug situation and to get out
Speaker 1: of it, she flipped on Byron a reminder, this is
Speaker 1: all surround the time she and her friend Antie Giannino
Speaker 1: were pulled over in Booneville, Missouri. Kelly threw a bottle
Speaker 1: of alcohol out the car window and she was charged
Speaker 1: with littering or you brought up the Kingpin allegations. So
Speaker 1: first of all, what led to you because there was
Speaker 1: a warrant because you didn't show up I think for
Speaker 1: an arraignment, right, So what led to you being picked
Speaker 1: up and then eventually getting the two years probation and
Speaker 1: the forty eight hours of shock jail time.
Speaker 2: Okay, I am so confused by that. Well, now you know,
Speaker 2: I was with Angie when it must have happened. I
Speaker 2: thought she got Okay, what happened was I guess? Yeah,
Speaker 2: I did get charged with throwing the bottle out of
Speaker 2: the car, but she was also they were trying to
Speaker 2: pull her over for speeding, and we had music blaring
Speaker 2: and stuff, and so she didn't really see the cop
Speaker 2: behind her. And then also she also wanted to give
Speaker 2: me time to get the alcohol bottles out of the thing.
Speaker 2: So when we got pulled over, she was the one
Speaker 2: that was in trouble. They wrote me a citation or something,
Speaker 2: but she was the one in trouble for like if
Speaker 2: they said she was trying to evade the police or whatever.
Speaker 2: So what they did was they took her to jail
Speaker 2: and gave me her keys. I believe they gave me
Speaker 2: a breath liiser or something, gave me her keys to
Speaker 2: drive back to Kansas City instead of impounding her car.
Speaker 2: But she was the one that was taken to jail,
Speaker 2: and she called her aunt and uncle and they came
Speaker 2: and builed her out and everything. But I remember that
Speaker 2: specifically because I remember that even being like a point
Speaker 2: of contention between her and I was because you know,
Speaker 2: I had her car for a couple of days, and
Speaker 2: I'm a drug addict, and so I'm just you know,
Speaker 2: I'm using the shit out of her car until she
Speaker 2: gets out, you know, so that I can go get
Speaker 2: what I need and blah blah blah. I never heard
Speaker 2: anything about that until I was in Least Summit, Missouri.
Speaker 2: Had a guy over there that I was dating, and
Speaker 2: he was also a drug addict. I remember being messed
Speaker 2: up and getting gas late at night, and I was
Speaker 2: out of it, and so I forgot to turn my
Speaker 2: headlights back on. So that's what I got pulled over for.
Speaker 2: Usually I was never in Missouri. I just had no
Speaker 2: reason to be. I usually got all my drugs like
Speaker 2: an ur Argentina or Casey K and stuff. Plus I
Speaker 2: also was pretty sure that that I had forgotten about it.
Speaker 2: But you know, I knew it wasn't good that I
Speaker 2: had never taken care of that ticket in Booneville. So
Speaker 2: when I got pulled over that night for not having
Speaker 2: any headlights on, that's when they ran my name, and
Speaker 2: they found out that I had an outstanding warrant in Booneville.
Speaker 2: And I remember even being like Booneville. What would I
Speaker 2: even have been doing in Booneville? And then when they
Speaker 2: told me like, well you lettered on the highway and
Speaker 2: blah blah blah, I was like, oh shit, because I mean,
Speaker 2: it had been a long time since that. So they
Speaker 2: did they extra guided me out to Booneville. But then
Speaker 2: I remember getting a hold of Angie and her mom
Speaker 2: because at that point I was on such bad terms
Speaker 2: with my parents that there was no way that they
Speaker 2: were going to bail me out or even take my
Speaker 2: phone calls or whatever. Well, they came and bailed me out,
Speaker 2: but there wasn't any shot time. There wasn't. Maybe they
Speaker 2: told me they were going to put me on probation
Speaker 2: or something, but I didn't follow through. I just got
Speaker 2: the hell out of Dodge and just never went back
Speaker 2: to Missouri again for years and years. And then I
Speaker 2: remember later on when I got sober, sober for quite
Speaker 2: some time. This was so much later, it was twenty ten.
Speaker 2: I looked it up, and I guess some of that
Speaker 2: stuff can fall off for your record after a while,
Speaker 2: or they just don't because I remember Angie and her
Speaker 2: mom had to pay a fine for they had to
Speaker 2: pay my bond and they had to pay a fine
Speaker 2: for that old literating ticket. But then I never heard
Speaker 2: anything about it again, and it just went away.
Speaker 1: The court, the docket has it says that you pled
Speaker 1: guilty and that you got forty eight hours of shock,
Speaker 1: jail time, and two years of probation. But and so,
Speaker 1: but Byron's legal team, as you heard in the podcast,
Speaker 1: wondered if there was some big thing that you had
Speaker 1: gotten in trouble for. Then then came forward and all
Speaker 1: of this with like recording the June fifth call and
Speaker 1: the guilty plea for the littering charge, that all of
Speaker 1: that stuff was connected, and that because you got into
Speaker 1: some big trouble for something, you basically flipped on Byron
Speaker 1: to get out of something bigger.
Speaker 2: No, like I said, I didn't have access to any
Speaker 2: big people. I didn't have any That's just ridiculous. I
Speaker 2: was like barely, I barely had enough drugs to get
Speaker 2: me through the day. I didn't know anybody that the
Speaker 2: bigger deal people in the drug world are not going
Speaker 2: to trust a white girl from Johnson County with any
Speaker 2: I mean, you know what I mean, I wasn't even
Speaker 2: usually the person that made like the purchase for stuff.
Speaker 2: That whole thing just had me cracking up because I
Speaker 2: was like, guy, I wish maybe something, but I hadn't.
Speaker 2: And that's why I said at trial that, you know, no,
Speaker 2: I've never even been in trouble with the police, because
Speaker 2: all I had known and I didn't consider that trouble
Speaker 2: with the police. Trouble with the police would be, like
Speaker 2: I thought, something bigger, your friend getting pulled over and
Speaker 2: taken to jail and then they give you her keys
Speaker 2: to drive away, you know, and then getting picked up
Speaker 2: on a warrant and then never hearing anything about it. Again,
Speaker 2: didn't that that wasn't what I, you know, thought getting
Speaker 2: in trouble was.
Speaker 1: And I think according to Byron's legal team, it was
Speaker 1: that right. You didn't You said in your deposition that
Speaker 1: you hadn't been in trouble with the police. And then
Speaker 1: I think their bigger issue is the fact that prosecutors
Speaker 1: didn't disclose that. To Byron's defense attorney, that's a brady
Speaker 1: violation because it.
Speaker 2: Wasn't turn over anything. They possibly can't. But I love
Speaker 2: how that makes me some evil, lying bitch that uh
Speaker 2: you know, wanted to destroy his life. Well, it just
Speaker 2: doesn't make any sense. They're just looking for anything. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 2: since then, I have gotten in trouble with the police.
Speaker 2: When I was twenty one, I got a DUI and
Speaker 2: then I got another DUI in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: So as we sit here today, are you you sober?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been sober for about five and a half months.
Speaker 2: That's a yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 2: It's a daily thing, and you know, it takes a
Speaker 2: lot of therapy. Like I went through this uh TMS program.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you know what that is. It's
Speaker 2: like transcranial stimulation something. It's supposed to help with PTSD.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I know, I mean, I'm it's.
Speaker 1: A daily struggle.
Speaker 2: It's a daily struggle, definitely. And it's also just not
Speaker 2: just because of that stuff that happens in mental illness
Speaker 2: and substance abuse just runs rampant through my family. So
Speaker 2: I just and ever since all that stuff happened, like
Speaker 2: I really struggle to care about myself and care about
Speaker 2: what happens to me and just feel you know, worthy
Speaker 2: of anything, and just I mean I have days where
Speaker 2: I just I don't I don't think it's ever going
Speaker 2: to be fixed. I have days right, just don't care,
Speaker 2: you know, if I wake up again or if I anything,
Speaker 2: It's just I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I'm okay, it's not but I am sorry.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: We are going to end this episode here. What comes
Speaker 1: next is Kelly's graphic eyewitness account of what she says
Speaker 1: she saw the night Anastasia was murdered, details about the
Speaker 1: June fifth recorded phone call, and how she feels about
Speaker 1: Byron getting a chance to prove his innocence. And so
Speaker 1: your reaction to the possibility of a new trial is
Speaker 1: bring it. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast
Speaker 1: are solely those of the individuals participating in the podcast.
Speaker 1: If you, or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts
Speaker 1: or a crisis, please no help is available. Call or
Speaker 1: text nine to eight eight, or chat online at the
Speaker 1: Suicide and Crisis Lifelines website at nine eight eight lifeline
Speaker 1: dot org. To see photos, maps and documents related to
Speaker 1: this season's story, follow The Real Killer podcast on Instagram
Speaker 1: and at TRK podcast on TikTok. The Real Killer is
Speaker 1: a production of AYR Media and iHeartMedia, hosted by me
Speaker 1: Leah Rothman. Executive producers Leah Rothman and Elisa Rosen for
Speaker 1: AYR Media. Written by Leah Rothman, editing and sound design
Speaker 1: by Cameron Taggy, Mixed and mastered by Cameron Taggi Audio
Speaker 1: engineer Justin Longerbeam studio engineer Graham Gibson. Legal counsel for
Speaker 1: a y R Media, Gianni Douglas, Executive producer for iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: Maya Howard