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. In May of two thousand and two,
Speaker 1: Byron Case is convicted of killing Anastasia Whippelsfuchen. As of today,
Speaker 1: he's been incarcerated for more than twenty three years.
Speaker 2: People believe what is convenient for them and what feels
Speaker 2: right to them. Blaming me for Stage's death is convenient.
Speaker 1: What is Byron Case's truth? Who is he really? And
Speaker 1: outside of the story he's already told? What am I
Speaker 1: about to learn? I'm Leah Rothman. This is the Real Killer,
Speaker 1: Episode six, The Worst Decision. Starting route to Eastern Reception
Speaker 1: Diagnostic and Correctional Center, proceed to Gammel's Cemetery road, then
Speaker 1: turn right. Okay, it's cold here. It's early February. I'm
Speaker 1: in Missouri today. I'm about four hours east of Kansas City,
Speaker 1: driving to the town of Bontaire to meet Byron Case
Speaker 1: for the first time. How am I feeling? I feel? Okay?
Speaker 1: I mean going to a prison is always racking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I have a lot of questions for Byron,
Speaker 1: and hopefully he'll answer them. His attorney, Nicole Gordon and
Speaker 1: investigator Queen O'Brien are coming for the interview, so they
Speaker 1: will be there. If Queen O'Brien's name sounds familiar, it's
Speaker 1: because she was in season one of the podcast. Her father,
Speaker 1: renowned innocence lawyer Sean O'Brien, who was in seasons one
Speaker 1: and two, has also taken on Byron's case, along with
Speaker 1: attorneys Nicole Gordon and Brian Russell. Much more about all
Speaker 1: of them in a later episode. Yeah, I think I'm
Speaker 1: just like a few miles away. I'm getting a little
Speaker 1: bit more nervous. Now. I have been allowed four hours
Speaker 1: with Byron, and if necessary, I can return the following
Speaker 1: day for four more Pretty generous by in media relations standards.
Speaker 1: All Right, I am nervous. Yeah, I was all cool
Speaker 1: a few minutes ago, and now I'm like nervous.
Speaker 2: You've entered the parking lot for your destination.
Speaker 1: All right, shit, I'm here. I'm gonna park, get all
Speaker 1: my equipment together, and then go in more later, I
Speaker 1: go through security, put my phone, keys, and coat in
Speaker 1: a locker. Then I'm buzzed in. A few feet away
Speaker 1: is another security checkpoint. Then I walk down a long
Speaker 1: hallway which leads to the outdoors. It's an outdoor heavily
Speaker 1: fenced walkway that leads to another building. That's where the
Speaker 1: visitors room is and where I'll be conducting Byron's interview.
Speaker 1: Is a small room just off that. It's where they
Speaker 1: do parole hearings via the Internet, but really it looks
Speaker 1: like a storage room. The cinder block walls are painted
Speaker 1: off white. There are several computer monitors on a table,
Speaker 1: and some highchairs stacked for family visits. Byron arrives just
Speaker 1: moments after I do. Byron's bald and has pale skin.
Speaker 1: He's wearing gray pants and a white T shirt under
Speaker 1: a gray zip up jacket. I thought he'd be taller
Speaker 1: or bigger. I'm surprised by his slight build. I set
Speaker 1: up the microphones and recorder on a table. I also
Speaker 1: set up a video camera. I'll be posting some clips
Speaker 1: from our interview on The Real Killer podcast on Instagram
Speaker 1: and on TikTok at TRK podcast. Nicole and Quinn sit
Speaker 1: on a metal bench against the wall as we're about
Speaker 1: to get started, I ask if we can close the
Speaker 1: door to keep out any sounds from the visitor's room,
Speaker 1: but am told the or must stay open. I begin
Speaker 1: the interview by asking about Byron's childhood and growing up
Speaker 1: with his parents, Evelyn and Dale.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's great. I loved my childhood. I had what
Speaker 2: I've heard called a free range childhood. It was like
Speaker 2: the house and the area around it was just free
Speaker 2: to be explored. I would go off and just walk
Speaker 2: through the woods near our house, and my dog would
Speaker 2: come with me, and sometimes I'd go riding my bike. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was content to play by myself. I preferred it.
Speaker 2: I loved animals and had little collections of stuff. I
Speaker 2: played the violin that I read a lot, probably more
Speaker 2: than anything else that I did in my childhood. I
Speaker 2: spent my time reading. I had a fantastic time, you know,
Speaker 2: going places with my parents. We traveled a lot, both
Speaker 2: in the States and overseas, and just having that time
Speaker 2: with them, bonding and experiencing new things so often new cultures,
Speaker 2: new scenery, new surroundings. My dad loved the world.
Speaker 1: Byron is homeschooled, and he says from what he sees
Speaker 1: of regular school kids. He prefers it that.
Speaker 2: Way, and our yard actually abutted an elementary school. If
Speaker 2: I was up in my treehouse, I could actually see
Speaker 2: down into one of the playgrounds at the school, and
Speaker 2: sometimes I'd see a fight, or I'd see just people
Speaker 2: running around and be really loud, which I did not
Speaker 2: care for. I've never liked loud noises. I was like,
Speaker 2: that looks like a horrible place to be. I do
Speaker 2: not want to be there. I really did dread the
Speaker 2: idea I think of going to a so called regular school.
Speaker 1: Describe your mom for me.
Speaker 2: My mother was fantastic. She was fun. She was so
Speaker 2: encouraging and just always willing to let me sort of
Speaker 2: explore whatever weird interest I might have at the time.
Speaker 1: And your mom was originally from Germany?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Right? Did she speak German mostly in the house?
Speaker 2: Yeah? We spoke English and German in the household periodically.
Speaker 2: I don't know. It was probably about fifty to fifty.
Speaker 1: Describe your dad for me.
Speaker 2: My dad was like my mother. He was so encouraging
Speaker 2: and caring. He was never afraid to talk openly and
Speaker 2: to be vulnerable, and he was creative too. He liked
Speaker 2: to write and he made pottery, mostly like clay bowls
Speaker 2: and flower pots and things like that. But he was
Speaker 2: definitely an outdoorsman, liked to be with nature, and just
Speaker 2: a very peaceful guy. In some ways, I think that
Speaker 2: my family was this sort of bubble and we just
Speaker 2: sort of existed in our own little world. It was
Speaker 2: like the house.
Speaker 1: But that seemingly idyllic home life doesn't last forever.
Speaker 2: Okay. So when I was ten, my mother and my
Speaker 2: father called me into the back room of the house
Speaker 2: and they set me down and they said, we're getting
Speaker 2: a divorce, and my mother told me that my dad
Speaker 2: was gay. I was a pretty logical kid, and so
Speaker 2: I just kind of took it all in stride, and
Speaker 2: I was more concerned about where my parents were going
Speaker 2: to live what that meant for me.
Speaker 1: And Byron's mom decides to move to Australia and Byron
Speaker 1: goes with her there. He attends public school for the
Speaker 1: first time.
Speaker 2: No, I think it was cool for a minute, and
Speaker 2: then people started maybe getting to know me a little
Speaker 2: bit better and didn't necessarily like me or just thought
Speaker 2: that I was, I don't know, different, and not in
Speaker 2: a good way, you know. I was quiet I like
Speaker 2: to read. I stayed to myself. Byron says.
Speaker 1: After about a year, he and his mom moved back
Speaker 1: to the States and Byron moves in with his dad
Speaker 1: in Kansas. There, he says, he enrolls in public school
Speaker 1: and things get worse.
Speaker 2: I was bullied and harassed, just generally hated school. And
Speaker 2: I would work myself up so badly, you know, might
Speaker 2: just being like a bundle of nerves every single morning
Speaker 2: that I would literally make myself sick. And that went
Speaker 2: on for sixth grade and seventh grade, so about a
Speaker 2: year and a half. And then as soon as I
Speaker 2: had the opportunity, I moved back to Missouri with my
Speaker 2: mother and then so that was a different school district.
Speaker 1: It's there in the eighth grade Byron meets Anastasia and
Speaker 1: what was your first what were some of your first
Speaker 1: impressions of Anna Stasia?
Speaker 2: Anastasia was very intelligent. We were in the National Academic
Speaker 2: League together. We basically competed in academic trivia style competitions.
Speaker 2: We were on that level first and foremost as colleagues
Speaker 2: on the team, and then we were in a couple
Speaker 2: of classes together. Also, she was in my science class. Oh,
Speaker 2: and I believe we were in the same Latin class
Speaker 2: as well, and sometimes we would sit at the same
Speaker 2: table at lunch and just talk about whenever. She loved
Speaker 2: to read as well, and so we had a fair
Speaker 2: amount to relate with one another on that front, but
Speaker 2: we weren't really close, more just casual acquaintances. I guess.
Speaker 2: We ended up going both of us to Lincoln College
Speaker 2: Preparatory Academy the following year, so our freshman year in
Speaker 2: high school and had totally different classes then. So basically
Speaker 2: never at.
Speaker 1: Fifteen, Byron says he decides he's done with school altogether.
Speaker 2: So I dropped out of school when I was when
Speaker 2: I was fifteen. It was right after my freshman year,
Speaker 2: and I immediately went and tested for my GED. I
Speaker 2: just didn't want anything else to do with school. It
Speaker 2: was sucking the life out of me. It was stressful.
Speaker 2: I just wanted to I just wanted to be independent
Speaker 2: and really have that level of autonomy that I felt
Speaker 2: like I needed in order to, I guess, thrive, although
Speaker 2: of course at the time I had no idea what
Speaker 2: thriving meant.
Speaker 1: So how did your parents feel about you dropping out?
Speaker 2: They tried to talk me out of it. I don't
Speaker 2: think any parent wants that for their kid, but I
Speaker 2: suspect that part of it was a level of maybe
Speaker 2: failure on their own parts that they may have felt
Speaker 2: about me dropping out, Like I know that my mother
Speaker 2: has said in the past, do you think that homeschool
Speaker 2: was the best thing for you? And then cited that
Speaker 2: as the reason, like, well, you ended up hating school,
Speaker 2: so would it have been better to put you in
Speaker 2: school and maybe let you have that experience early on
Speaker 2: where you did you get spoiled by that? And my
Speaker 2: answer has always been no, that school would have been
Speaker 2: horrible for me, no matter what age I had entered
Speaker 2: it in.
Speaker 1: By now it's nineteen ninety five. En Byron has nothing
Speaker 1: but time. He's spending a lot of it hanging out
Speaker 1: at the coffeehouses in Westport.
Speaker 2: It was just so to me cool because you had
Speaker 2: all of these different people and all of them were creative.
Speaker 2: There were so many students from the Kansas City Art
Speaker 2: Institute that would go there. There were people who were homeless,
Speaker 2: there were people who were older, just bohemians and young people.
Speaker 2: And that was the big thing that I appreciated about it,
Speaker 2: really was the fact that nobody gave a shit like
Speaker 2: what you were, like if you had weird hair, or
Speaker 2: if you had piercings, or if you were very short,
Speaker 2: or it didn't matter. No one cared. You were there
Speaker 2: because you loved coffee, you loved socializing, maybe you loved
Speaker 2: chess or smoking. But the point is there was always
Speaker 2: somebody there that you could talk to.
Speaker 1: But even with having that outlet, Byron says, there are
Speaker 1: some serious issues he's dealing with.
Speaker 2: Like I said, I got into drugs, specifically cocaine. I
Speaker 2: I was hospitalized for a little bit after a suicide attempt.
Speaker 2: That was actually before that was after right before I
Speaker 2: dropped out of school. Actually, you know, so that was
Speaker 2: really just it was in some ways it was a
Speaker 2: really dark phase of my life.
Speaker 1: And on May fifteenth, nineteen ninety six, things get darker. Byron,
Speaker 1: who's now seventeen, decides he wants a new computer monitor
Speaker 1: and remembers his aunt bought a new one a few
Speaker 1: months before. So, Byron says, after staying up all night,
Speaker 1: he and some friends drive to his aunt's home in
Speaker 1: rural Missouri. Byron crawls through a bathroom window that had
Speaker 1: been left open, opens the garage. The dogs run out barking,
Speaker 1: which alerts the neighbor, who calls the police.
Speaker 2: We were arrested and I was charged with stealing. And
Speaker 2: while I was in the county jail, it was just
Speaker 2: it was horrible. You know, these people, It was like
Speaker 2: it was like public school times five. I think it
Speaker 2: was there for like three weeks. Afterward, the court ordered
Speaker 2: me to take a drug treatment program of some kind,
Speaker 2: and my dad on a really good drug counselor that
Speaker 2: I ended up seeing, and the guy in some ways
Speaker 2: changed my life and I actually never used again after that.
Speaker 2: It was sort of the wake up call. It was like,
Speaker 2: this is what this is leading to, this is what
Speaker 2: this has taken you to the depths of so.
Speaker 1: Because you were high when you broke into yourance home.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, yeah, and that was like a daily thing
Speaker 2: for me at the time. So it was yeah, I
Speaker 2: ruined my relationship with my aunt as far as I'm concerned,
Speaker 2: and really with the rest of the family, and not
Speaker 2: that we were terribly close to begin with.
Speaker 1: Byron pleads guilty and is given five years probation. It's
Speaker 1: not long after this he meets justin Bruton.
Speaker 2: I was by myself and I was sitting with a notebook,
Speaker 2: writing and drinking coffee and smoking, and because that's what
Speaker 2: I did at that point, this guy at a table
Speaker 2: next to me, he just like turned around and asked
Speaker 2: if he could have a sickte And so little background here.
Speaker 2: I did not like smoking, I guess regular cigarettes, because
Speaker 2: I'm picky like that. So I had this box of
Speaker 2: imported cigarettes that I bought from a tobacconist down the street,
Speaker 2: and they were like three times as much as a
Speaker 2: pack of Marboroughs would have run me. And so I
Speaker 2: really hated when people asked me because I'm like, you're
Speaker 2: not going to appreciate this the way that you should.
Speaker 2: But I gave this guy a cigarette and he snapped
Speaker 2: it in half and set it on the table and
Speaker 2: he said, can I get another one? And I was flabbergassed,
Speaker 2: and I didn't know what to think. I was like, what, no, no,
Speaker 2: what the hell? And then he proceeded to give me
Speaker 2: this whole speech about how cigarettes are bad for me,
Speaker 2: I shouldn't smoke, and I was like, who are you?
Speaker 2: Like what the fuck? This is ridiculous. So we started somehow,
Speaker 2: we started a conversation from that and found out that
Speaker 2: this guy was he lived in the area, and he
Speaker 2: was really into movies and obscure stuff, and I kind
Speaker 2: of fancied myself kind of a I don't know, a cinephile,
Speaker 2: I guess I definitely liked obscure movies, art house movies,
Speaker 2: and here was somebody that actually knew about these things.
Speaker 2: And so we started talking, and he had a collection
Speaker 2: of movies at home. He said that was that I'd
Speaker 2: probably be interested in and asked if I wanted to
Speaker 2: come over and, you know, watch a movie sometime, and
Speaker 2: I said, yeah, sure, that sounds great. And so that's
Speaker 2: how our friendship started. Basically, describe Justin for me?
Speaker 1: What was he? What was he like?
Speaker 2: So Justin struck me as just kind of a goofy, eccentric,
Speaker 2: sort of out of place, slightly awkward, but friends league
Speaker 2: guy and engaging and you could talk with him and
Speaker 2: he could relate with anybody, it seemed like. And I
Speaker 2: kind of envied that, I think a little bit, because
Speaker 2: you know, he he was weird, but he was sociable
Speaker 2: and I was weird and anti social, and so I
Speaker 2: thought that that was kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: Justin was from Tulsa, Oklahoma, but living in Kansas City,
Speaker 1: in a condo near the coffeehouses in Westport, which his
Speaker 1: parents bought for him, supposedly under the condition that he
Speaker 1: stayed in school at the University of Missouri. Does Justin
Speaker 1: become your best friend?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? Yeah. Like I said, Justin was so weird that
Speaker 2: I couldn't not like him, and I really appreciated the
Speaker 2: fact that he didn't blink an eye, you know, whatever
Speaker 2: I said or did something that was strange or that
Speaker 2: somebody else might not like or whatever. We were two
Speaker 2: kind of outcasts in a way. Although I didn't realize
Speaker 2: it at the time. I just thought of Justin as
Speaker 2: being like a really sociable kind of guy. But in reality,
Speaker 2: I think he was kind of fighting with whatever it
Speaker 2: was the inside of himself that you know, wanted to
Speaker 2: stay alone, really, and it was just a way to
Speaker 2: overcompensate for that. Yeah, I mean we became we became
Speaker 2: friends and talked about what I think was about the
Speaker 2: most personal stuff that Justin could ever talk about. Oppression
Speaker 2: and you know, and struggling with trying to live up
Speaker 2: to your parents' expectations. His not mine. His parents were
Speaker 2: pretty rich, his childhood was very different from mine, and
Speaker 2: so it was just interesting to me that somebody who
Speaker 2: came from that background could end up like he did,
Speaker 2: where he just wanted simplicity. I don't know, it was
Speaker 2: it was like we'd come from very different places to
Speaker 2: sort of meet on similar ground.
Speaker 1: When does the goth thing happen?
Speaker 2: Because yeah, no, that's cool, you know, I don't really know.
Speaker 2: I've actually tried to pin this down before, and it
Speaker 2: was just such a gradual evolution. I remember, I didn't
Speaker 2: even a name for it, for sure. It sort of
Speaker 2: came about, I would say, when I was about thirteen,
Speaker 2: I started wearing all black. It grew like by degrees,
Speaker 2: I guess, and then of course the question what is
Speaker 2: God your air? Quotes there like I think any self
Speaker 2: respecting Goth I would have denied to my dying breath
Speaker 2: that I was in fact Goth, And yet I would
Speaker 2: be quick to point to somebody else and go, oh,
Speaker 2: look at them trying to be Goth? How ridiculous?
Speaker 1: What about it attracted you?
Speaker 2: I was without really knowing it. I was dealing with
Speaker 2: a really intense depression for several years, and I think
Speaker 2: part of it was driven by that, you know, just
Speaker 2: that my mood sort of sought some kind of external
Speaker 2: validation and like this comfort that comes with knowing that
Speaker 2: you're not alone this, that there are other people who
Speaker 2: feel like this, and that they express it maybe in
Speaker 2: music or in art. Although I didn't think about it
Speaker 2: in those terms at the time, I think that's probably
Speaker 2: what drove me to that. As far as what it
Speaker 2: meant to me, I don't know. I felt comfortable wearing
Speaker 2: black clothes. I was overweight for a little while when
Speaker 2: I was like a teen, a young teen, and I
Speaker 2: was pretty self conscious about that. It didn't help that
Speaker 2: my dad was into bodybuilding at the time, and would
Speaker 2: I guess the term now is body shame me a
Speaker 2: little bit. But he, you know, in the most loving way.
Speaker 2: He could just saying like, hey kid, we got to
Speaker 2: get you working out, you know. So it started with that,
Speaker 2: this idea that like black is slimming. It just became
Speaker 2: something that I felt really comfortable in. Was justin goth
Speaker 2: oh no, justin So there were these gap ads that
Speaker 2: ran for a little while around that time, where these
Speaker 2: young twenty somethings would wear like khakis, tea shirt, black
Speaker 2: jacket final e. I don't know what that material is,
Speaker 2: but some sort of just zip up simple jacket. That's
Speaker 2: how Justin dressed every single day, just a T shirt
Speaker 2: and khakis. Justin was definitely not God, and he often
Speaker 2: made fun of me for being goth, and I would
Speaker 2: argue that I wasn't goth, and then much hilarity would ensue.
Speaker 1: And something else is about to ensue when in late
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six early ninety seven, Byron runs into Anastasia
Speaker 1: at the Westport Coffeehouse. At this point, Byron says he
Speaker 1: hadn't seen her in about three years, since the end
Speaker 1: of their freshman year of high school.
Speaker 2: We've been you know, and we just started catching up.
Speaker 2: And I was sitting there with Justin at the time,
Speaker 2: who I think caught her eye, and so she I
Speaker 2: invited her to sit down with us, and they did,
Speaker 2: and she kind of hit it off with him, so
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: Then a few months later, Byron, Justin, and Anastasia are
Speaker 1: hanging out at the coffeehouse when Kelly Moffatt walks in
Speaker 1: and says hi to Justin. They had met each other
Speaker 1: there before. Justin introduces Kelly to Byron and Anastasia and
Speaker 1: invites her to join them. They talked for a while,
Speaker 1: then decide to go back to Justin's to watch a movie.
Speaker 1: Later that night, Justin suggests Byron take Kelly home.
Speaker 2: I ended up driving her home. She lived about twenty
Speaker 2: minutes away maybe, and so I dropped her off and
Speaker 2: I asked for her phone number and she gave it
Speaker 2: to me. She was eccentric, and she had kind of
Speaker 2: a twisted sense of humor. She just seemed like this
Speaker 2: kind of devil may care, like suburban punk rock chick,
Speaker 2: and I thought she was really cool and so.
Speaker 1: But Byron says, as they get to know each other,
Speaker 1: Kelly shares a disturbing family secret time because.
Speaker 2: She would tell me stories about you know, her dad
Speaker 2: was an alcoholic, and then at one point he told
Speaker 2: her if she told me that he would like that,
Speaker 2: he would beat her and her mother. She had shown
Speaker 2: me Bruce's pretty significant ones.
Speaker 1: Byron says, all he knows after hearing this is that
Speaker 1: he wants Kelly out of that abusive situation. So he
Speaker 1: asks Justin if Kelly can come stay at the condom.
Speaker 2: You know, of course, there are authorities and there are
Speaker 2: other places that she could have gone, but you know,
Speaker 2: to my teenage brain, that was just that was it.
Speaker 2: It was just like, oh, no emergency fix it.
Speaker 1: Kelly's mom, Deborah Moffatt, tells a different story at Byron's trial.
Speaker 1: She testifies that Kelly and Byron had been seeing each
Speaker 1: other for a couple of months before she and Kelly's
Speaker 1: dad found out about it. Deborah says once they learned
Speaker 1: Byron's age, which was eighteen, they forbid Kelly, who was
Speaker 1: fourteen and a just finished eighth grade, to continue seeing him.
Speaker 1: One day, her dad finds Byron in the basement with Kelly,
Speaker 1: kicks him out of the house and tells him never
Speaker 1: to come back. Deborah testifies that a couple of days later,
Speaker 1: Kelly runs off. They file a missing person's report with Lenexa,
Speaker 1: Kansas PD. They think she's dead. Byron says, after seven days,
Speaker 1: there's a knock at Justin's door and it.
Speaker 2: Was a private investigator who had been tasked with finding her,
Speaker 2: and he took her and they left.
Speaker 1: Some time later, Byron says he speaks with Kelly's mom
Speaker 1: and dad and they eventually relent. They say that two
Speaker 1: can continue dating.
Speaker 2: And I was relieved, but also because Kelly said that
Speaker 2: her dad, this is what she told me, was that
Speaker 2: her dad had promised never to lay a hand on
Speaker 2: her again.
Speaker 1: Byron says after that he feels welcomed at Kelly's house.
Speaker 1: They have family dinners together, they go to the movies,
Speaker 1: and down the line, he even spends Christmas with them.
Speaker 2: Looking back, I can't imagine what that would have been
Speaker 2: like for a parent. But you know, they were making
Speaker 2: an effort to try and I guess just appease her.
Speaker 2: But also, I mean they really came to like and
Speaker 2: trust me. I mean her mother. Her mother would send
Speaker 2: me out, like to take Kelly's twelve year old sister
Speaker 2: to the mall, and like loan me the car keys
Speaker 2: and the debit card so that I could you get
Speaker 2: her whatever she needed. You wouldn't do that with somebody
Speaker 2: that I think that you thought was just a scumbag.
Speaker 1: On the witness stand, Deborah Moffett says Byron was intelligent,
Speaker 1: soft spoken, very mannerly, and seemingly in love with Kelly.
Speaker 1: Would you say you and Kelly were in love?
Speaker 2: Yes? I felt very attached to her, and yeah, I
Speaker 2: absolutely believe that was love.
Speaker 1: And vice versa. When I asked Byron about how Kelly
Speaker 1: was only fourteen when they first started dating, he says
Speaker 1: she didn't tell him her age until three months in
Speaker 1: and for Byron that should have been the end of
Speaker 1: the relationship, but it wasn't. He kept seeing her. Byron
Speaker 1: also says Kelly's mother later told him that her husband,
Speaker 1: Kelly's dad, was not an abuse of alcoholic, but that.
Speaker 2: Was a lie apparently. Yeah, And so that was, like,
Speaker 2: as far as I know, the first thing that she
Speaker 2: lied to me about. And then there were so many
Speaker 2: others and I couldn't even name close to them all.
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously based on how everything turned out, But
Speaker 2: I think even for that time, Kelly was I think
Speaker 2: the worst decision I ever made. Everything involving her, I
Speaker 2: think was the worst decision I ever made.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety seven, there are two couples going strong,
Speaker 1: Byron and Kelly, and Justin and Anastasia. Byron says, for
Speaker 1: the first several months, Justin and Anastasia are like two lovebirds.
Speaker 1: They talk about marriage and moving to Europe. Then things change.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it seems like to me that he
Speaker 2: just kind of got bored with her. Probably well, I
Speaker 2: know that he got tired of what he saw is
Speaker 2: her neediness, and she was needy. She was very needy.
Speaker 2: I think he was more just wanting something that was fun,
Speaker 2: something that would you know that that was no work
Speaker 2: at all, because he hated putting effort in anything, and
Speaker 2: that includes the relationship, and so he was not willing to.
Speaker 1: Do what she Byron says, Anastasia often turns him for help.
Speaker 2: And then she would call me and ask, you know,
Speaker 2: if I could talk to him, and I'm like, I
Speaker 2: don't know what you want from me. I can't make
Speaker 2: this guy want to hang out with you. At some
Speaker 2: point or other, they broke up and she was devastated
Speaker 2: and she called me crying, like sloppy, messy crying, and
Speaker 2: I did what I could, you know, to give her
Speaker 2: that talk like this is probably for the best. You know,
Speaker 2: he was starting to lose interest, and you know, and
Speaker 2: he this is just how Justin is. You know, he'll
Speaker 2: be interested in something.
Speaker 1: Byron says, The cycle of them breaking up and getting
Speaker 1: back together is constant. So are Anastasia's calls. Talk to
Speaker 1: me about your outgoing beeper message.
Speaker 2: I know the one you're talking about. It got to
Speaker 2: the point where Stasia called so often. I paid twenty
Speaker 2: five cents per page, like this was this was not
Speaker 2: a good plan, but I just wanted to be available,
Speaker 2: and so I had this pager and expecting that maybe
Speaker 2: like three times a week or so, I might have
Speaker 2: to pay a quarter for a page, I signed up
Speaker 2: for this plan. And then one day after she had
Speaker 2: broken up with Justin or he had broken up with
Speaker 2: her and wouldn't take her calls, Stasia like paged me
Speaker 2: and I called her back, and I was at home
Speaker 2: at the time, I was getting ready for work. Basically,
Speaker 2: she was just like, you have to talk with him,
Speaker 2: and I was like, I can't. Also, I'm on my
Speaker 2: way to work right now, so I don't really have time.
Speaker 2: And she just started talking and talking and talking, and
Speaker 2: I was just like, Stasia, I really have to go.
Speaker 2: And then I ended up just like, look, I have
Speaker 2: to go. I'm sorry, and I hung up the phone,
Speaker 2: and all the way to work, and for like a
Speaker 2: good portion of my shift she was calling and paging
Speaker 2: me again and again and again and again and again.
Speaker 2: So I turned off my pager and I dialed the
Speaker 2: number to rear ord a new message, and I basically said,
Speaker 2: you know, this is byrons my pager. Leave your number
Speaker 2: unless this is Anastasia, in which case just stop because
Speaker 2: I don't want to talk to you, and if you
Speaker 2: keep this up, no one's going to want to talk
Speaker 2: to you. And that was that. And then they made
Speaker 2: a big deal out of that later on, saying, you
Speaker 2: know what a shitty friend I was because I wouldn't,
Speaker 2: you know, take her repeated pages.
Speaker 1: Byron says, in the weeks leading up to the murder,
Speaker 1: Justin had dropped out of school and stopped taking his prozac.
Speaker 1: I asked him if anything seemed abnormal at the time
Speaker 1: with Anastasia.
Speaker 2: No, And that's the thing is, this was such a
Speaker 2: in some ways, and I've described it this way. Before
Speaker 2: a normal week from my perspective, Justin went to go
Speaker 2: visit his parents. I guess he was down there for
Speaker 2: the weekend. He and Stasia were. She was planning on
Speaker 2: getting together with him. She wanted to, I think, try
Speaker 2: and get back together. Of course I didn't know that
Speaker 2: at the time, but you know, found out later on
Speaker 2: that pretty much every conversation which she had with anybody
Speaker 2: that she was even remotely connected with, centered around Justin
Speaker 2: for like that whole week. To me, just like I said,
Speaker 2: it was just more the same.
Speaker 1: I then asked Byron about the afternoon of October twenty second,
Speaker 1: the day Anna station was killed.
Speaker 2: We were still sort of just milling around, not doing
Speaker 2: much of anything at the condo. Justin got a call
Speaker 2: from Stasia. And I don't remember now if they had
Speaker 2: had these plans previously or if this was something that
Speaker 2: like she was pushing for sort of last minute, but
Speaker 2: matter of fact, now that I think about it, no,
Speaker 2: they had had plans to get together that day, and
Speaker 2: he basically was like, yeah, I I don't know, we'll
Speaker 2: see what happens.
Speaker 1: Byron says. He and Justin go to Funko Land in
Speaker 1: Kansas to trade in some video games. Then they pick
Speaker 1: up Kelly at her home in Lenexa.
Speaker 2: Then so Justin's like, well, I better, you know, we
Speaker 2: got to stop and I'm going to make this phone
Speaker 2: call to just tell her I'm not going to come out.
Speaker 2: So we stopped at this gas station in Kansas and
Speaker 2: he called it. I guess talk with Stacia's sister who
Speaker 2: said that she had already left, and so Justin and
Speaker 2: I guess it was just like whatever, So that sucks,
Speaker 2: nothing to be done. Now, let's go play some games.
Speaker 1: So you're at the Phillip sixty sixth station. Justin uses
Speaker 1: the phone speaks with Francesca. Francisca says, she got a ride.
Speaker 1: She's already left for Mount Washington, right right, because they
Speaker 1: were did they have a plan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they yeah, had agreed to meet out there,
Speaker 2: just the two of them, apparently at Mount Washington.
Speaker 1: Yes, and when so, remember that's not what Kelly testified to.
Speaker 1: She said at the gas station, Byron and Justin had
Speaker 1: her call Anastasia to meet them at the dairy Queen. Okay,
Speaker 1: Byron says. After the gas station, Justin, Kelly and Byron
Speaker 1: go back to the condo.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And while we were there, a phone call came
Speaker 2: in from Stasia, who I guess was at a dairy
Speaker 2: queen across the street from the cemetery where they were
Speaker 2: supposed to meet, and she, from the sound of his
Speaker 2: end of the conversation, she was not happy. And he
Speaker 2: basically explained like, yeah, I tried to call Fran and
Speaker 2: you know, just Or tried to call you and talked
Speaker 2: with Fran and told her what was up. I tried.
Speaker 2: They stayed on the phone for a little while, I think,
Speaker 2: but he ended up. He got off the phone and
Speaker 2: he's like, we are going to have to go out
Speaker 2: to Independence, where Stagia lived and pick her up.
Speaker 1: Do you remember around what time this was.
Speaker 2: It was still like, I don't know, like it was No,
Speaker 2: I don't really remember.
Speaker 1: Was that still light up?
Speaker 2: No? No, I think it was it was getting dark
Speaker 2: at that point. Okay, So, or it was it was
Speaker 2: like right at the end of the.
Speaker 1: Day when you pick her up. What is she wearing?
Speaker 1: What's Anastasia wearing?
Speaker 2: She had on I believe she had on blue jeans
Speaker 2: and I think like a gray sweater.
Speaker 1: Now does Byron actually remember what Anastasia was wearing that
Speaker 1: night or did he hear this description of her clothes
Speaker 1: from dairy Queen worker Don Wright when she testified at
Speaker 1: his trial. Okay, After the Dairy Queen, Byron Justin, Anastasia
Speaker 1: and Kelly drive across the street to Mount Washington Cemetery,
Speaker 1: see the caretaker, then leave soon after. Byron says, they
Speaker 1: then make a plan to go back to the condo. Supposedly,
Speaker 1: Anastasia asks Justin why he doesn't love her anymore, and
Speaker 1: Justin says he doesn't know, he just doesn't.
Speaker 2: And so she opened the door to the car and
Speaker 2: just slammed it and started walking the direction that we
Speaker 2: had just come from. And we sat there for a minute.
Speaker 2: I didn't really know what was going on, you know,
Speaker 2: and then we just started driving again. He didn't turn around,
Speaker 2: he didn't you know, he didn't get out of the
Speaker 2: car try to stop. I mean, we just it was
Speaker 2: as though, you know, nothing had happened, and we just
Speaker 2: kind of sat in an uncomfortable silence for a little while.
Speaker 1: She go and walk behind you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she just she got out of that and the
Speaker 2: passenger side door where she was sitting, she got out
Speaker 2: and just walked back and I saw her, you know,
Speaker 2: go behind and then I actually my attention focused on
Speaker 2: justin to see what he was going to do, so
Speaker 2: I didn't see which side of the street, you know,
Speaker 2: she went to or anything like that.
Speaker 1: By the way, were you guys drinking that night, doing drugs?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: So you drive off, you are in sort of an
Speaker 1: uncomfortable silence, and to take me through what happens.
Speaker 2: Next, we drove back to the condo almost in complete silence.
Speaker 2: I think if anything got said, it was just very
Speaker 2: small talk, very briefly, and it was just we didn't
Speaker 2: know what the hell to say as the bottom line, and.
Speaker 1: It was Byron says, on the way back to the condo,
Speaker 1: his friend Abraham pages him. Byron says, he calls him.
Speaker 1: When they get back to Justin's. Abraham asks if they
Speaker 1: can come by to pick up some stuff he has
Speaker 1: of his ex girlfriend Tara's, and then take a tour,
Speaker 1: and would.
Speaker 2: You guys do with Justin's Just nothing really, because like
Speaker 2: I said, I made a phone call and that was
Speaker 2: pretty much it. I mean, if there was a bathroom break,
Speaker 2: that was it.
Speaker 1: So did anyone change clothes?
Speaker 2: No? No, So we went over to Terror. Excuse me.
Speaker 2: Actually we went to Broms first, who was living nearby,
Speaker 2: and picked up some stuff that he had to drop
Speaker 2: off for Tara, and then we only stayed there for
Speaker 2: about ten minutes or so, and then we had to
Speaker 2: get Kelly home, so we drove and took Kelly back
Speaker 2: to her house over in Kansas.
Speaker 1: Byron says. At Kelly's, Justin calls Anastasia's house and gets
Speaker 1: her sister Fran again.
Speaker 2: She kind of read him the riot act about having
Speaker 2: just let her get out of the car and not
Speaker 2: trying to stop her. So he was I don't know.
Speaker 2: He got off the phone and he was just like friends,
Speaker 2: not abby, So we drove from Kelly's place, we drove
Speaker 2: over to Tara's dropped off whatever it was. He had
Speaker 2: a bag of stuff, I think a sweater and some stuff,
Speaker 2: but dropped that off at her place. Stayed and talked
Speaker 2: for a minute, but I was just ready to go
Speaker 2: home and call it a day. The evening had not
Speaker 2: been fun and I just kind of, I don't know,
Speaker 2: I was, I was done. So Justin dropped me off
Speaker 2: at home from there and then I said, I'll talk
Speaker 2: to you later.
Speaker 1: And that was that. When you get home, who's there?
Speaker 2: My mother and her boyfriend Napoleon, if I remember, they
Speaker 2: were just watching TV in the living room, and I
Speaker 2: just kind of came in and said hey, and you know,
Speaker 2: Mom asked where I've been, what I've been doing, and
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, you know, I saw Justin and
Speaker 2: Stasia and Kelly and it's been a night. And that
Speaker 2: was pretty much, you know, the end of it. I
Speaker 2: was just I don't know, I didn't want.
Speaker 1: This is news to me that Byron's mom's boyfriend Napoleon
Speaker 1: was there when he got home that night. Is this true?
Speaker 1: I go back and check the trial transcripts to see
Speaker 1: what Byron's mom, Evelyn said on the stand about that night.
Speaker 1: She said she and Byron had quote idle chit chat
Speaker 1: like you hungry. You know, we're watching a movie. Do
Speaker 1: you want to join us? She says, we and us.
Speaker 1: I wonder if police ever spoke with Napoleon. Come to
Speaker 1: think of it, I don't remember seeing any interviews done
Speaker 1: with Evelyn. I'm going to have to look into this anyway,
Speaker 1: Byron says. After he speaks with his mom and Napoleon,
Speaker 1: he goes to his room and gets online. Later he
Speaker 1: talks to Kelly, did you ever go back out that night? No?
Speaker 1: Where's your car?
Speaker 2: My car was actually in the shop at that time.
Speaker 2: I had a I think a bad water pump was
Speaker 2: the problem, but it had been sitting on the mechanics
Speaker 2: lot for a while. They were waiting to I don't know,
Speaker 2: waiting to get time to get it in a bay
Speaker 2: and look at it.
Speaker 1: Byron says his car was in the shop that night.
Speaker 1: He also at one point told Sergeant Kilgore it was
Speaker 1: parked at his mom's house. I wonder which is true? Okay,
Speaker 1: Byron says. The next morning, his mother wakes him up
Speaker 1: to say he has a phone call. It's Justine.
Speaker 2: He wanted to know if I wanted to go get breakfast,
Speaker 2: and I said, absolutely not. It is like nine thirty am,
Speaker 2: and I am sleeping because I probably only got to
Speaker 2: bed about three hours ago. So I'll talk to you later.
Speaker 2: And he that was that, he mentioned, Oh I think
Speaker 2: I asked him, Yes, I did. I asked him what
Speaker 2: he was doing awake at that hour, because that was
Speaker 2: really weird for him too. And he just said he
Speaker 2: had trouble sleeping. And I was like, okay, well I'll
Speaker 2: call you when I wake up and maybe we'll go
Speaker 2: get lunch or dinner or whatever.
Speaker 1: To be clear, you said you had only gotten like
Speaker 1: three hours of sleep. Why what were you up doing.
Speaker 2: I was just on the computer. That was just my thing.
Speaker 2: It probably was more than three hours, but yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean I was always up late into the night.
Speaker 1: Did Justin say anything else? Did you hear anything in
Speaker 1: his voice?
Speaker 2: No? And that's the thing. I mean, it was just
Speaker 2: the only thing that was weird about that call was
Speaker 2: just that he was awake at nine thirty am. He
Speaker 2: sounded perfectly normal and fine.
Speaker 1: Byron says, he goes back to sleep. Later, he goes
Speaker 1: to a friend's house. Then around five point thirty, Abraham
Speaker 1: or Brahm pages Byron and shares what he saw in
Speaker 1: the news that Anastasia had been killed. Byron tells Kelly.
Speaker 1: Kelly tries calling Justin but can't get a hold of him. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Byron says his mom, Evelyn, drives him and Kelly to Justin's,
Speaker 1: but neither he nor his car are there.
Speaker 2: And then at some point, I don't even know what
Speaker 2: time it was. It just kind of in some ways,
Speaker 2: I think time just kind of stopped from the moment
Speaker 2: of that first phone call with Bram and then everything
Speaker 2: else after that was just like one moment and then
Speaker 2: it ended, and then we just kind of broke down
Speaker 2: because it was like, Okay, one of our best friends
Speaker 2: is dead, the other best friend is missing. We have
Speaker 2: no idea what the hell has happened.
Speaker 1: The next day, Kelly and Byron speak with investigators. Are
Speaker 1: you at all concerned like you could be a suspect
Speaker 1: since you were some of the last people who.
Speaker 2: No that was? That never entered my mind, you know,
Speaker 2: I just like I said, all I wanted. My focus
Speaker 2: then was just like, Okay, so stage has gone, but
Speaker 2: Justin's still out there somewhere. I just wanted to help.
Speaker 2: It led to anything that was going to help them
Speaker 2: find Justin. That was really my biggest thing, I think
Speaker 2: is at that point, you know, wondering where he might
Speaker 2: have gone to and what happened after he dropped me off,
Speaker 2: and then starting to connect the dots, like, well he
Speaker 2: called the next day and he had trouble sleeping. Why
Speaker 2: did he have trouble sleeping? What happened those you know,
Speaker 2: eleven hours or whatever since I saw him last?
Speaker 1: How did you? How did you learn that Justin had
Speaker 1: taken his life?
Speaker 2: You know, it's strange. I don't even remember now. I
Speaker 2: don't even remember how I got that news. I think
Speaker 2: at a certain point it just turned into just a blur.
Speaker 2: The whole the whole thing was just too much. I
Speaker 2: you know, I had never lost anybody before, and you know,
Speaker 2: so it was unprecedented emotional stuff, and I didn't know
Speaker 2: how to deal with it, you know. And and Kelly,
Speaker 2: for her part, you know, she was grieving and we
Speaker 2: could lean on each other as far as that goes,
Speaker 2: but I think, you know, she kind of No two
Speaker 2: people are the same, you know, and no two people
Speaker 2: grieve same. I do remember we went to the funerals
Speaker 2: a few days later. J Ston's was first and we
Speaker 2: traveled down to Tulsa. It was ridiculous. It was just
Speaker 2: this big, opulent thing and it was not at all
Speaker 2: what he would have wanted, you know. Yeah, and then
Speaker 2: Stasia's funeral came, I think about a week and week
Speaker 2: and a half later, and it was different, Like Stasia's
Speaker 2: funeral was much smaller and much more intimate. When we walked.
Speaker 1: Byron says he attends Anastasia's funeral with their mutual friend
Speaker 1: Anna Huntsecker.
Speaker 2: When we walked in to the funeral home, there was
Speaker 2: they were playing a Susie and the Banshee song. It
Speaker 2: seemed weird. I was like, wow, they're actually playing stuff
Speaker 2: that she would have liked. And they played some cure.
Speaker 1: And you know, it was open casket.
Speaker 2: And I went with Anna and then I guess the
Speaker 2: last minute that she wanted to go up and say goodbye.
Speaker 2: So we walked up to the casket and we stood
Speaker 2: there and Anna she was like, she said, she looks
Speaker 2: like a doll, doesn't even look like her, And it didn't.
Speaker 2: It was so surreal and fucked up. And I know
Speaker 2: that later on I read a report and somebody else
Speaker 2: who was at the funeral was like, I guess they
Speaker 2: saw me standing up there and and even then had
Speaker 2: suspicions about me and and made some comment like I
Speaker 2: can't believe he's just standing there staring over And it
Speaker 2: was years later when I read that, but but I
Speaker 2: was just like, this is like, this is exactly the
Speaker 2: thing that I've lived my entire life with where people
Speaker 2: just go, oh, he's weird and then just assume the worst.
Speaker 2: And I don't know, in that moment, it was just
Speaker 2: it was it was just me and Anna and our
Speaker 2: friend was gone, and we were like, this isn't even her.
Speaker 2: It's like a charade, Like this whole thing is just
Speaker 2: an elaborate theatrical performance, and it didn't seem real.
Speaker 1: Were you hearing at the coffeehouse or houses. Were you
Speaker 1: hearing some of the rumors that were circulating about what
Speaker 1: happened to Anastasia?
Speaker 2: I was not hearing them firsthand. I I kind of, well,
Speaker 2: so let me take that back. Yes, I was hearing
Speaker 2: that because even at the funeral there was so much
Speaker 2: speculation about what could have happened, and so yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean there were no answers. We didn't have anything to
Speaker 2: go on. It was just like Sayser's dad, gunshot to
Speaker 2: the head cemetery. That was it. That was all we
Speaker 2: had to go on. And of course, you know, everything
Speaker 2: else was just myth making. I shut down as much
Speaker 2: of it as I could when I was around to
Speaker 2: do so, but a lot of it involved me.
Speaker 1: At this point, and this is like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: weeks after, do you have any idea, like if there
Speaker 1: are any suspects or if anybody's been ruled out.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: When I talked with I did make a few phone
Speaker 2: calls to Sergeant Kilgore and just to see if there
Speaker 2: was anything he could tell me, same as I called
Speaker 2: Stagia's mom I think once anyway, and asked if she
Speaker 2: knew anything, and I know that later actually that got
Speaker 2: twisted around too. I had asked if there was any
Speaker 2: indication that Stasia had been sexually assaulted, and she said no,
Speaker 2: But then later on she reported to the police that
Speaker 2: I told her that Stasia hadn't been sexually assaulted. I
Speaker 2: found out.
Speaker 1: Byron Is referring to Anastasia's mother, Betsy Owens. In episode two,
Speaker 1: we played part of her interview with Sergeant Kilgore, where
Speaker 1: she said Byron called her and told her that Anastasia
Speaker 1: had not been sexually assaulted. Betsy didn't understand why investigators
Speaker 1: would share that information with Byron.
Speaker 2: Needless to say, we didn't have any information. They were
Speaker 2: pretty tight lived about that stuff.
Speaker 1: Almost two months to the day after Anastasia and Justin's deaths,
Speaker 1: Byron experiences the loss of someone even closer to him,
Speaker 1: his dad.
Speaker 2: He had been in New York. He was, as I
Speaker 2: said earlier, he was an amateur bodybuilder, and he was
Speaker 2: competing in a competition up there. While he was there,
Speaker 2: I guess he got some cold like symptoms and didn't
Speaker 2: really think anything of it came back, and they kept
Speaker 2: getting worse, and then it got to the point that
Speaker 2: apparently he couldn't even breathe. So he finally finally decided
Speaker 2: that he would go to the hospital and see maybe
Speaker 2: if something was wrong, and they diagnosed him with pneumonia.
Speaker 2: He had been living with HIV for six or seven
Speaker 2: years at that point. I guess he contracted it almost
Speaker 2: It was really soon after my parents' divorce, and he
Speaker 2: was taking medication for it, and so much medication. But
Speaker 2: I hadn't talked with him for a few days, and
Speaker 2: then I got a call from my aunt who said
Speaker 2: he was in the hospital and that he was they
Speaker 2: had to intubate him, so he was unconscious. He had
Speaker 2: a tube down his throat.
Speaker 1: When Byron, Kelly Abraham, and another friend get to the hospital.
Speaker 2: And said that he was in an isolation room and
Speaker 2: we could only see him under very limited conditions and
Speaker 2: for very short periods of time. It was weird. He
Speaker 2: was just lying there with this machine that was breathing
Speaker 2: for him in this room all by himself, and his
Speaker 2: skin was all puffy because he was retaining fluids, and
Speaker 2: it just it was it was almost like what had
Speaker 2: happened with Stasia all over because he was just there
Speaker 2: and he wasn't moving, and it didn't look like him.
Speaker 2: He had great aeros A few.
Speaker 1: Days later, Byron's grandmother asks him to be the one
Speaker 1: to make the decision to take his dad off life support.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think he. I think he died that night,
Speaker 2: like three am or something, one day before his fiftieth
Speaker 2: birthday Christmas Eve. I completely shut down at that point.
Speaker 2: He was an amazing guy and yeah, and he gave
Speaker 2: me so much his birthday was Christmas Day, and so
Speaker 2: this was on Christmas Eve, and my family asks like, oh,
Speaker 2: do you want to come to the family Christmas gathering
Speaker 2: and take his presence? And I did not, but I
Speaker 2: went and there was some there was some stuff that
Speaker 2: happened while I was there. I literally overheard someone say
Speaker 2: that I was a terrible son. Then I didn't go
Speaker 2: and sit in the waiting room while my dad was
Speaker 2: in the hospital, as though as though that in any
Speaker 2: way mattered. I thought about that in a while. You know,
Speaker 2: people grieve in different ways, as I said, and to
Speaker 2: criticize somebody for you know, the way that they're processing
Speaker 2: a situation is just insane to me. I mean, I've
Speaker 2: said this exact same thing about you know, how my
Speaker 2: trial went, you know, and you're going to pass judgment
Speaker 2: and say, oh, well he didn't he wasn't animated enough
Speaker 2: for oh he was too cold. If somebody wants to
Speaker 2: blame you for Zeth, it's just there's nothing you can
Speaker 2: do about it. They're going to find a way to
Speaker 2: do it regardless. So I don't know, I don't want
Speaker 2: to necessarily draw that parallel there, but it seems natural.
Speaker 1: At the same time, This isn't the greatest place to
Speaker 1: stop the interview, but that's when I'm told our four
Speaker 1: hours are up. I return the following day to continue
Speaker 1: the conversation. This time we're in a glass enclosed area
Speaker 1: within the visitor's room. Attorney Nicole Gordon and investigator Quinn
Speaker 1: O'Brien aren't there. They were needed back in Kansas City.
Speaker 1: So today it's just me and Byron.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was, it was. It was a lot yesterday.
Speaker 2: That was actually the first time that I have cried
Speaker 2: in about twenty three years, and so it was it
Speaker 2: was a big deal. Even when I was convicted, like
Speaker 2: sentenced and all of that, I just went numb that
Speaker 2: whole time. And so even then, like I felt like,
Speaker 2: I remember, I wanted to cry. I felt like that's
Speaker 2: what a person is supposed to do, and I just
Speaker 2: it just was in there, but I couldn't. I couldn't
Speaker 2: muster the I don't know, I couldn't just let it out.
Speaker 1: We then move on in the timeline. I asked what
Speaker 1: life looked like in early nineteen ninety eight, soon after
Speaker 1: Byron's dad passed away, Byron says he was bereft. He
Speaker 1: moved into his dad's house, which was full of memories
Speaker 1: from his childhood.
Speaker 2: And that was around the time when I needed some
Speaker 2: I had my wisdom teeth pulled and they prescribed some
Speaker 2: pain meds and those felt pretty okay, so or more specifically,
Speaker 2: they helped me not feel bad. And so it wasn't
Speaker 2: even that it felt good, It was just the absence
Speaker 2: of feeling, which was a big plus, because I was
Speaker 2: just feeling too much. So so, like I said, for
Speaker 2: a period of a few months, I kind of, you know,
Speaker 2: I kind of fell down in that particular hole for
Speaker 2: a while. And during that time, I think that, you know,
Speaker 2: Kelly felt that I was sort of distant, that I
Speaker 2: was drifting away, and I think she was bored. I
Speaker 2: know she was, actually because she told me. But that
Speaker 2: was Kelly's thing, is she was always about excitement and
Speaker 2: really having fun and not being too awfully serious about
Speaker 2: anything and looking for you know, however she could whatever
Speaker 2: way she didn't like, alter her mind, I guess, and
Speaker 2: get out out of reality that way. She was drinking
Speaker 2: a lot more around that time. She had always, I mean,
Speaker 2: since I met her, she had always liked to drink.
Speaker 2: But you know, I think too she was spending a
Speaker 2: lot more time with some other friends that she had.
Speaker 2: And I don't blame her, you know, I mean, who
Speaker 2: would want to be around some super depressive, you know,
Speaker 2: boyfriend that you know, never wanted to go anywhere and
Speaker 2: never wanted to do anything and half the time was
Speaker 2: just sort of half awake. But yeah, so that was
Speaker 2: sort of I think the beginning of the end, and
Speaker 2: I came out of it a little bit, and I
Speaker 2: think we were more out of habit than anything. You know,
Speaker 2: we continue to see each other.
Speaker 1: Would she want to talk about Anastasia and justin.
Speaker 2: No, that didn't really come up except maybe a couple
Speaker 2: of times, and I was just like, I just didn't
Speaker 2: want to talk about it. You know, I was not
Speaker 2: in a place where I was avoiding in my own way,
Speaker 2: and you know, I was still seeing a counselor at
Speaker 2: that point and that was really helpful. But yeah, I
Speaker 2: just really I didn't want to really talk about anything.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to talk about my dad. I didn't
Speaker 2: want to talk about them.
Speaker 1: August twenty second of nineteen ninety eight, Kelly meets with
Speaker 1: kill Gore. Okay, she tells kil Gore that you two
Speaker 1: had been fighting a lot, you've been acting weird and
Speaker 1: that you may know more than what you're saying. She thinks,
Speaker 1: based on a lot of rumors and how you were acting,
Speaker 1: maybe you justin Anaesthetia did have a suicide pact, or
Speaker 1: maybe you and Justin watched Anasasia kill herself then freaked out.
Speaker 1: She says, quote, I don't really think it. I don't
Speaker 1: think it was really a murder situation. I think one
Speaker 1: of them wanted to commit suicide, they couldn't do it,
Speaker 1: they helped each other or something like that. What do
Speaker 1: you make of.
Speaker 2: This as far as Yeah, as far as fighting a lot,
Speaker 2: I don't think that was the case. I think that
Speaker 2: we were having some disagreements because I know that some
Speaker 2: of the people that she was hanging out with I
Speaker 2: did not like, mostly because they were drug users, and
Speaker 2: you know, I was very much against that. Other than that, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, I wouldn't say that other than just kind
Speaker 2: of a distance, that we had any real problems as
Speaker 2: far as her going to kill Gore, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: like all of that was. She never gave me any
Speaker 2: indication that she had any suspicions that she felt or
Speaker 2: thought that way any of that. So I was completely
Speaker 2: in the dark.
Speaker 1: Byron never answers my question about whether or not there
Speaker 1: was a suicide pact. A few months after Kelly speaks
Speaker 1: with kil Gore. On December ninth, nineteen ninety eight, by
Speaker 1: Bran's probation from the stealing charge is revoked. This is
Speaker 1: when he broke into his aunt's house to steal the
Speaker 1: computer monitor. It's revoked for missing meetings with his probation
Speaker 1: officer and failing to report a change of residents. He
Speaker 1: is sentenced to six months in the Clay County Jail,
Speaker 1: but they end up giving him five years probation. Byron
Speaker 1: claims the missed appointments were a mix up with a
Speaker 1: probation officer who didn't like him. Supposedly, the PO changed
Speaker 1: Byron's meetings from monthly to weekly, unbeknownst to Byron. Also
Speaker 1: in December of nineteen ninety eight, Byron and Kelly call
Speaker 1: it quits. Kelly supposedly breaks up with Byron for good,
Speaker 1: but then just a few weeks later, on January twenty ninth,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine, Byron says he gets a call from
Speaker 1: Kelly who wants to see.
Speaker 2: Him, you know, and this time I put my foot
Speaker 2: down and I was like, absolutely not, and she didn't
Speaker 2: want to get off the phones, so I hung up
Speaker 2: on her. I don't know, maybe who knows, maybe twenty
Speaker 2: thirty minutes after I'd gotten off the phone with her,
Speaker 2: and she had tried to call back several times. But
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, there was a knock at my
Speaker 2: door and I went to open it and it's two
Speaker 2: CACPD officers and I'm like, what can I do for you?
Speaker 2: And they just sort of push past me and they well,
Speaker 2: they said are you Byron Case? And I said yes,
Speaker 2: and they just pushed past me and they kind of
Speaker 2: do a cursory look around the area and explained that
Speaker 2: they were looking for any weapons. They asked if I
Speaker 2: had a you know, knives or guns in the house,
Speaker 2: and I was like, kitchen drawers. I mean, what do
Speaker 2: you want?
Speaker 1: Are you thinking at this point has anything to do
Speaker 1: with the investigation?
Speaker 2: I had no idea what this was about. It was
Speaker 2: just it was so out of the blue. No, I
Speaker 2: never had any inkling that this was anything to do
Speaker 2: with the investigation. It was just like, what the hell?
Speaker 2: And then one of the officers said, well, we got
Speaker 2: a report that from someone who said she was your girlfriend,
Speaker 2: said she had just talked on you and talked to
Speaker 2: you on the phone and that you were suicidal, that
Speaker 2: you were threatening to kill yourself. And I was like, no,
Speaker 2: that's absurd, you know. But they said, well, we have
Speaker 2: to take you in for observation, and so they put
Speaker 2: me in handcuffs. I was very concerned and asked them
Speaker 2: if they would leave some food for my cat, you know,
Speaker 2: I was. I was worried about her.
Speaker 1: And Byron says they take him to Western Missouri Medical
Speaker 1: Health Center and evaluate him for forty seven.
Speaker 2: Hours basically, and the whole way through I told them
Speaker 2: I am not suicidal. I am fine. Yeah, it was
Speaker 2: just it was a nightmare. And then and then they
Speaker 2: let me out. They're like, well, you're not suicidal. A done.
Speaker 1: Although Kelly testified that Byron did threatened to kill himself
Speaker 1: that day, Byron says after he was released from the
Speaker 1: hospital and he confronted Kelly about it, she had something
Speaker 1: very different to say.
Speaker 2: She basically didn't seem particularly concerned about it and was
Speaker 2: sort of like, well, you shouldn't have hung up on me.
Speaker 2: And that was that.
Speaker 1: Early to mid nineteen ninety nine is busy for Byron.
Speaker 1: He says he and Kelly break up. Police take him
Speaker 1: in on a forty seven hour mental healthhold, and he
Speaker 1: gets a new attorney who negotiates with prosecutors to get
Speaker 1: him limited immunity in exchange for him telling them what
Speaker 1: he knows about the night Anastasia was.
Speaker 2: Killed by immunity. Where as long as I went in
Speaker 2: and gave a statement, and as long as nothing that
Speaker 2: I said was determined to be untruthful, that you know,
Speaker 2: they wouldn't use anything against me. And I was satisfied
Speaker 2: with that, and he was satisfied with that.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: My concern I think I had just I had been
Speaker 2: listening to my friends, you know, just spin all of
Speaker 2: these horror stories about oh, well, you know, they'll frame
Speaker 2: they'll frame somebody if they if they haven't found somebody yet,
Speaker 2: they're just looking to close the case, and you know,
Speaker 2: and so I had it in my head like, well,
Speaker 2: you know, maybe I should be careful. And I think
Speaker 2: that was really the first time when I started to
Speaker 2: feel a little uncomfortable about the whole thing, like that
Speaker 2: maybe I was going to you know, that I was
Speaker 2: going to be the focus of some kind of you know,
Speaker 2: attention in the investigation.
Speaker 1: In any case. On July twenty ninth, nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 1: Byron sits down for his second interview with Sergeant Kilgore
Speaker 1: since Anastasia's death almost two years earlier. Byron gives the
Speaker 1: same basic story he did back on October twenty five,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven, so he's free to go. Byron says,
Speaker 1: after that, things seem to turn around for him. He
Speaker 1: finds a new group of friends, he gets a job
Speaker 1: at a hotel.
Speaker 2: There was a period of time in that year when
Speaker 2: I think I finally was coming into my own to
Speaker 2: some extent. At that point, I was celibate by choice,
Speaker 2: and I was kind of going through this period of
Speaker 2: what I felt like was kind of being a more
Speaker 2: purposeful and centered me, and I had moved away from
Speaker 2: that kind of that fuck the world attitude that I
Speaker 2: mentioned earlier.
Speaker 1: But Byron says, as much as he's trying to move
Speaker 1: on with his life, someone from his past keeps popping
Speaker 1: up Kelly, and he admits to feeling sorry for her.
Speaker 2: No matter what Kelly had done, I was always I
Speaker 2: think she's still a person, you know, she still deserves
Speaker 2: some basic dignity, even if she's done this to herself.
Speaker 2: She said she was living in crackhouses, like she had
Speaker 2: not been taking care of herself at all. And she
Speaker 2: would say, you know, she would tell me like that
Speaker 2: she had showered in a week, and you know, she
Speaker 2: hadn't eaten anything. Sometimes I would give her money if
Speaker 2: she needed like some you know, some spare cash or whatever.
Speaker 2: Sometimes she just wanted to come over and sleep, so
Speaker 2: I let her sleep on the couch and you know,
Speaker 2: and then at some point she'd leave.
Speaker 1: Then one day, Byron says, Kelly comes over with a friend.
Speaker 1: He tells her that he's moving to Saint Louis, about
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty miles away. Byron says, Kelly is
Speaker 1: not happy about this. Before leaving town, Byron asks people
Speaker 1: not to give Kelly his forwarding information.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, I mean I was like full on, like
Speaker 2: witness protection program with her, Like I do not want to.
Speaker 2: I don't want to knowing where I am. I don't
Speaker 2: want to knowing like what I'm doing nothing, Byron says.
Speaker 1: He moves to Saint Louis on September thirteenth, two thousand
Speaker 1: and he gets a job working at a hotel as
Speaker 1: a desk clerk. He starts dating a new girl. Then
Speaker 1: sometime around March two thousand and one, Byron moves back
Speaker 1: to Kansas City and in with his mom and her
Speaker 1: now husband, Napoleon. Then around eleven PM on June fifth,
Speaker 1: the phone rings.
Speaker 2: I had been sick that week. I was vomiting and
Speaker 2: I had a fever and just feeling very delirious, and
Speaker 2: just like I said, lightheaded and dizzy.
Speaker 1: It's Kelly and this recorded call will become the tacit
Speaker 1: a mission used against him at.
Speaker 2: Trial and then whatever the hell we talked about. And
Speaker 2: I know now, but in that moment, I know that
Speaker 2: I wasn't really completely following the thread. So I just
Speaker 2: really did not want to be speaking to her or
Speaker 2: anybody for that matter, but particularly not her, And I
Speaker 2: was just I do remember having a distinct impression of like, ah, fu,
Speaker 2: here you're going.
Speaker 1: Yet she said something like why did you feel the
Speaker 1: need to kill her? Why did you have to kill her?
Speaker 1: And what do you think in that moment when you
Speaker 1: hear that question from her?
Speaker 2: I don't remember thinking anything, but.
Speaker 1: One would say, like somebody listening to this might be like,
Speaker 1: that's crazy. I don't care how sick I am. If
Speaker 1: someone asks me why I had to kill someone, I
Speaker 1: would say, what are you talking about? I didn't do that.
Speaker 2: What do you say to that, Well, I would say
Speaker 2: that person doesn't really understand the background of what was
Speaker 2: going on with Kelly and me, the fact that my
Speaker 2: strategy with her was always basically just avoid, to push away,
Speaker 2: ignore whatever I had heard.
Speaker 1: Byron says a few days later, he's arrested while lying
Speaker 1: in bed, I read that swat comes through the front
Speaker 1: door and you tried to barricade yourself in the bedroom.
Speaker 2: Now that's absolute little shit. I remember reading that though,
Speaker 2: and going what, No, that did not happen. No, I
Speaker 2: was absolutely still in bed when they came through that door,
Speaker 2: and that was what woke me up. Was just like
Speaker 2: a shot out of the blue. It was horrifying.
Speaker 1: That's actually why would Byron deny this? Yes, there's always
Speaker 1: a chance the report isn't true, But why would the
Speaker 1: arresting officer make up this story, write a detailed report
Speaker 1: about it, and testify to it at trial. It gives
Speaker 1: me pause. If Byron is not being truthful about this,
Speaker 1: then what else could he be lying about? What is
Speaker 1: going through you when you realize that you have been
Speaker 1: arrested for the murder of Anna Station.
Speaker 2: I was in shock, and then I think there was
Speaker 2: like this sort of grim understanding. It was almost like, well,
Speaker 2: here it is. This is this is what all of
Speaker 2: this has come to, Like all of the interviews and
Speaker 2: all the suspicion and all the rumors and all the
Speaker 2: bullshit that I've had to deal with over all these years,
Speaker 2: and now here it is, and this is happening, and
Speaker 2: it's finally.
Speaker 1: When Byron's mom, Evelyn, visits him at the Jackson County jail,
Speaker 1: she asks him if he did.
Speaker 2: It, and I remember just going like, really, you're going
Speaker 2: to ask me that, you know? I mean, I saw
Speaker 2: her that I was, I was around her, I lived
Speaker 2: with her during that period. I didn't want a gun,
Speaker 2: you know, I never had. She she would have known
Speaker 2: if I had any kind of murderous tendencies or you
Speaker 2: know whatever. I mean. Now, of course I didn't, And
Speaker 2: what the hell I mean if you don't believe me,
Speaker 2: like then I'm fucked.
Speaker 1: Byron remains in jail for almost a year until he
Speaker 1: goes to trial. As you sat there watching Kelly testify,
Speaker 1: first of all, did she look at you? No?
Speaker 2: Not really, I think she glanced in my direction a
Speaker 2: few times.
Speaker 1: What was it like sitting there hearing her eyewitness testimony
Speaker 1: to you killing Anastasia?
Speaker 2: I was just kind of in awe. I think of
Speaker 2: her months. Maybe part of me kind of halfway expected
Speaker 2: that she would change tack and just be like, all right, look, guys,
Speaker 2: I can't do it anymore. This is he didn't do it.
Speaker 2: I'm it's bullshit. I made it up. I'm sorry she
Speaker 2: didn't do that.
Speaker 1: Why did you choose to take the stand in your
Speaker 1: own defense?
Speaker 2: I think it was really I had no choice but to,
Speaker 2: because who was going to say what actually happened. Justin
Speaker 2: was there that night. He couldn't take the stand. Kelly
Speaker 2: obviously wasn't going to tell the truth, and nobody else
Speaker 2: could say, you know from beginning to end what had
Speaker 2: taken place.
Speaker 1: One of the things she said was that you had
Speaker 1: said at one point, I wouldn't know what it's like
Speaker 1: to see someone die, or I want to know what
Speaker 1: it's like to kill someone. Have you ever said anything
Speaker 1: like that?
Speaker 2: No? No, absolutely not.
Speaker 1: Did you ever own a gun?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Did your dad ever own a gun? No? Did he
Speaker 1: ever display a gun?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Were you and Justin ever romantically involved.
Speaker 2: No, we were not. There was never No, there was
Speaker 2: never anything even remotely close to that with Justin and me.
Speaker 1: Did you Kelly and Justin make up the story about
Speaker 1: Anastasia getting out of the car.
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Did you coach Kelly on what to say during that
Speaker 1: first interview with kil Gore?
Speaker 2: Oh no?
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 1: Did you take Kelly in and around Independence so that
Speaker 1: when she went out with kil Gore she could help
Speaker 1: tell where Anastasia got out of the car and so on?
Speaker 2: No, we just as an adenta to that. Though we
Speaker 2: did go out just not to retrace any route or anything,
Speaker 2: but we had after talking with a friend of ours
Speaker 2: who told us that she had been out to Lincoln Cemetery.
Speaker 2: We were We went out there and wanted to see
Speaker 2: it because we heard there was like a little memorial
Speaker 2: or something. So we did go out there, but it
Speaker 2: was not for that purpose.
Speaker 1: Did you kill Anastasia Whippelsfugen?
Speaker 2: I definitely did not.
Speaker 1: Are you capable of murder?
Speaker 2: I definitely am not.
Speaker 1: It was justin capable of murder?
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I No, I don't think so
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm fully aware that Byron would probably answer
Speaker 1: these questions the same way, whether he's guilty or innocent,
Speaker 1: like when I asked him, did you kill Anastasia? If
Speaker 1: he's guilty, he's not going to all of a sudden
Speaker 1: say yes, I did it, right. I think I asked
Speaker 1: these questions because I wanted to see how he looked,
Speaker 1: how he sounded, how he seemed when he answered them.
Speaker 1: I'm going to post video clips of this exchange on Instagram.
Speaker 1: What do you think is Byron convincing or not? Like that?
Speaker 1: Can you imagine why people might look at Kelly and say, well,
Speaker 1: of course she went deep and dark into her drug addiction.
Speaker 1: She witnessed a murder.
Speaker 2: So to say that witnessing a murderer was the catalyst
Speaker 2: for her to descend into hard drug use, I'm calling
Speaker 2: bullshit because I know for a fact that she was
Speaker 2: using hard drugs, and maybe not as regularly, but that
Speaker 2: she had at least and long before that, and again
Speaker 2: I think even before she met me. So right, it
Speaker 2: is a convenient excuse, though, Yeah, what do.
Speaker 1: You say to the people out there who think you
Speaker 1: are murderer?
Speaker 2: I think that it is very easy because I lived
Speaker 2: I lived a lifestyle and put forth a persona that
Speaker 2: was easily detestable. I think that was obnoxious and rude
Speaker 2: and seemed not to take anybody's feelings at all into account.
Speaker 2: And I think that a person who does that sort
Speaker 2: of thing can easily be seen as being heartless and
Speaker 2: maybe even capable of doing unspeakable things. I a long
Speaker 2: time ago accepted that people aren't going to like me,
Speaker 2: and people are going to think some terrible things about me,
Speaker 2: and it isn't my job to make them think otherwise.
Speaker 2: It's not my job to go out of my way
Speaker 2: to try and convince anyone.
Speaker 1: Byron might not think it's his job to convince anyone
Speaker 1: he's innocent, but his new legal team is working overtime
Speaker 1: to do just that.
Speaker 3: Byron's in prison because people made up their minds without
Speaker 3: looking at the evidence. But I'm now one hundred percent
Speaker 3: certain that Byron did not do this, didn't have anything
Speaker 3: to do with it, and did not get a fair
Speaker 3: trial and has languished in prison for close to twenty
Speaker 3: five years for something he didn't do.
Speaker 1: Next time, on the real killer.
Speaker 3: There is no physical evidence tying byron case to the
Speaker 3: murder or the death of Anastasia Whippolsfugen.
Speaker 1: Will A new bombshell in the case change Byron's Fate.
Speaker 3: I pulled up the audio and I was just listening along,
Speaker 3: and I was like, wait, what it was. It was
Speaker 3: like a lightning bolt or something.
Speaker 2: It was great.
Speaker 3: It was crazy.
Speaker 1: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely
Speaker 1: those of the individuals participating in the podcast. If you,
Speaker 1: or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts or a crisis,
Speaker 1: please no help is available. Call or text nine to
Speaker 1: eight eight, or chat online at the Suicide and Crisis
Speaker 1: Lifelines website at nine eight eight lifeline dot org. To
Speaker 1: see photos, maps and documents related to this season's story,
Speaker 1: follow The Real Killer podcast on Instagram and at TRK
Speaker 1: podcast on TikTok. The Real Killer is a production of
Speaker 1: AYR Media and iHeartMedia, hosted by me Leah Rothman, Executive
Speaker 1: producers Leah Rothman and Elisa Rosen for AYR Media, Written
Speaker 1: by Lea Rothman, editing and sound design by Cameron Taggy,
Speaker 1: mixed and mastered by Cameron Taggi. Production coordinator Andy Levine,
Speaker 1: Audio engineer Justin Longerbeam studio engineer Graham Gibson. Legal counsel
Speaker 1: for AYR Media. Gianni Douglas, executive producer for iHeartMedia, Maya
Speaker 1: Howard