WEBVTT - Hell and Gone Murder Line: Larry and Josh Schulman 0:00:46.480 --> 0:00:51.960 School of Humans. Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:55.360 case murders in an effort to raise public awareness invite 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:58.760 witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:02.960 be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:06.160 from family and community members, their statements should not be 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:09.960 considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:14.000 inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone is 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:17.160 presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. 0:01:17.960 --> 0:01:20.840 Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:23.600 that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:27.120 is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening. 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:33.080 On August twenty first, twenty seventeen, seventy year old Larry 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:36.600 Shulman was sleeping in his upstairs bedroom at his home 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:40.800 on outer Bridge Lane in the Providence Commons Area, an 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:45.640 affluent suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina. Providence Commons is a 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:49.360 quaint area in South Charlotte. It's located off a highway, 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:53.560 Glenn McConnell Parkway, and it only has six streets. It's 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:57.720 a quiet little neighborhood, but that was about to change. 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:00.360 Larry was on his own in the bedroom. That night, 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:03.080 his wife, Andrea was out of town on a trip 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:06.200 to New Orleans, where she was visiting family. And his 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:09.240 twenty five year old son Josh, also lived at home, 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:12.880 but Josh was out for the night with friends. Josh 0:02:12.920 --> 0:02:16.680 worked behind the bar at an upscale steakhouse, the Capitol Grill. 0:02:17.640 --> 0:02:20.800 Larry said that he went to bed at around nine pm, 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:24.520 then at some point later in the evening, Josh came 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:28.720 back home and went to bed. Then at around three am, 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:32.240 Larry was woken up in a daze. He found someone 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:35.440 on top of him brutally beating him with a gun. 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:39.800 So I was sound asleep as I could be, and 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:42.920 all of a sudden, somebody was hitting me in the 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:48.000 forehead pistol, whipping me and yelling where's the safe, where 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:52.360 are the watches, where's the money? Stuff like that. It's 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:55.640 all swelled motion for me, and I'm crying and he 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:58.320 puts me on the ground. He puts the gun on 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:04.840 my shoulder, my back shoulder, and choots me. And then 0:03:04.920 --> 0:03:07.320 I had one of these things and I fell and 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:09.840 I can't get up. I pushed the button and yelled 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:12.680 at the machine, get the police, get the police up, 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:14.400 and shot up and shot up and shot. 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:20.320 The machine Larry was referring to was a life Alert system, 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:24.040 which is a medical alert device targeted at seniors. It's 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:28.120 usually worn around the neck. This device became very famous 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:32.640 after advertisements in the early two thousands. Larry's medical device 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:35.080 was wired so that if he pressed a button, he 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:39.000 was immediately connected to life alert personnel. He could notify 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:42.280 the police in the event of an emergency. So that's 0:03:42.280 --> 0:03:45.840 what he did. He pressed his life alert button and 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:49.640 the gunman took off. But Larry soon realized he wasn't 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:53.920 the only victim in the house. Down the hall. His 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:56.320 son Josh had also been shot. 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:01.720 I did not hear Josh being shot, so then I 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:04.560 went to the phone and called the police and myself 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:07.320 and they said, no, we know, we're on our way. 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:11.280 We're almost at your door. And so I crawled out 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:15.200 of the room and we were on the third floor 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:20.000 and I looked to the left and there's Josh in 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:24.840 his T shirt underwear laying on the ground and he 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:30.200 takes a deep press. I never heard his shot and 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:31.840 he was shot in the head. 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:36.720 I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past eight years of making 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:40.000 my true crime podcast, Helling Gone I've learned that there's 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:43.560 no such thing as a small town where murder never happens. 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:47.040 I have received hundreds of messages from people all around 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:50.040 the country asking for help with an unsolved murder that's 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:54.360 affected them, their families, and their communities. If you have 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:56.400 a case you'd like me and my team to look into, 0:04:56.960 --> 0:04:58.800 you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:02.400 Murder line at six seven eight seven four four six 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:06.120 one four five. That's six seven eight seven four four 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:09.360 six one four five, or you can send us a 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:15.160 message on Instagram at Helen Gonepod. This is Helen Gone 0:05:15.680 --> 0:06:03.640 Murder Line. This case is still classified as an open investigation, 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:07.640 which means that our FOY request has not been answered yet, 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:11.200 so we're still trying to get exact details of what 0:06:11.280 --> 0:06:14.680 went down that night. Was this a robbery gone wrong 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:18.880 or mistaken identity or could the killers have been targeting 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:24.440 Larry or Josh or both, and if so, why Josh 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:28.400 was in the hallway outside his bedroom when Larry saw him. 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:32.080 It's not clear whether he was shot there or whether 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:34.880 the paramedics moved him out into the hallway to administer 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:39.760 first aid. Larry can't be sure. Still in a daze. 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:43.680 Larry looked on in horror as he realized he was 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:47.120 watching his son Josh, take his last breast. 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:51.080 And then I kind of pulled myself down the stairs 0:06:51.840 --> 0:06:55.280 and opened the door, and they came running in with 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:59.520 the ambulances and stuff and the stretchers, and they're yelling 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:02.440 the guy upstairs his words, the guy upstairs his work. 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:06.120 So they take him and take his both to the hospital. 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:09.800 I grabbed my cell phone. Andrew was in New Orleans, 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:13.360 and I called her and I told her what happened, 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:16.840 and then they just took us to the er. One 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:19.520 of the er doctors came in to see me and 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:22.120 he said, your son is a lot worse than you. 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:28.640 It's not even clear who got shot first, Larry or Josh. 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:32.960 WSCTV did an interview with Larry in twenty twenty two, 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:36.640 and in that interview, Larry said when he pressed the 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:39.880 life alert button, he heard another shot in the hallway, 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:43.280 which the news channel said must have been the second shot, 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:48.520 one that killed Josh. One year after the shootings, Larry 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:53.120 told WBTV quote, I never saw anybody. He had total 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:55.960 control of me, but I heard a shot down the hallway. 0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:59.360 They shot my son in the head. The bullet came 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:02.920 out the other side, went through the floorboard three floors 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:05.360 down and came out in the kitchen, So they had 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:07.680 to have held him down and shot him in the 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:12.320 head end quote. So in some of these previous interviews, 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:15.600 Larry said he did in fact hear the gunshot that 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:18.640 killed Josh, but when we spoke with him, he told 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:22.520 us he did not hear the gunshot. Of course, memories, 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:26.720 even traumatic ones, can fade and shift over time, and 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:31.160 because the killer immediately started berating him, Larry was more 0:08:31.160 --> 0:08:34.240 focused on staying alive than paying attention to his surroundings. 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:36.840 He wasn't able to get a good look at the gunman, 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:40.360 so police had no description of the suspect to go on. 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:45.200 But Larry does wonder why other than a few things 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:47.760 that he says the killers grabbed in his room, they 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:51.840 didn't steal anything else. Since the person beating him was 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:54.920 demanding to know where the watches were and the safe were. 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:59.200 It was all very strange, but Larry says that he 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:02.520 believes that it's likely that his life alert and hearing 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:06.680 someone say the police were on the way saved his life. 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:09.800 I was on the ground shot and he left the room. 0:09:10.680 --> 0:09:14.160 Now you know, they didn't take anything. So when the 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:18.400 voice came on, we're sending the police, were sending the police. 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:21.360 Could that have frightened them in some way? I don't know. 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:26.400 That was another big question because the Shulmans lived in 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:29.120 a big house and had lots of nice things inside, 0:09:29.560 --> 0:09:33.680 and yet absolutely nothing of value was stolen. According to Larry, 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:38.280 this home invasion did not seem to fit the pattern 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:41.880 of other home invasions that had taken place in that area. 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:45.520 So what happened? Did the home invaders realize they had 0:09:45.560 --> 0:09:48.840 the wrong spot or did they not count on Josh 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:52.120 and Larry being home and then things got out of control? 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:59.080 Could Josh have been the target? Larry said that everyone 0:09:59.240 --> 0:10:02.520 loved Josh. He was gregarious and very popular At his 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:07.040 high school, Charlotte Latin School. Josh was a pretty serious athlete. 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:12.440 He played football, basketball, and baseball. After high school, Josh 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:16.000 went to the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. He joined 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:19.840 the ZBT fraternity. He seemed to thrive there. He made 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:24.640 lots of friends. His obituary described Josh as quote a caring, loving, 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:28.080 generous soul who never met a stranger. He enjoyed the 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:32.960 company of many lifelong friends, including furry friends. Josh loved 0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:37.360 all animals, particularly dogs, and they loved him. End quote. 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:42.600 According to his obituary, Josh liked to play fantasy football, 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:45.320 to hang out with his friend and watch football games 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:50.640 with his family. One year after Josh's shooting, Larry talked 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:52.960 to a local news station about what he remembers from 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:55.720 earlier in the day of the home invasion, which he 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:59.720 said he replays constantly for any clue to the horrors 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:03.360 that were coming, but what Larry described seemed like a 0:11:03.480 --> 0:11:07.760 very routine day. On the day of Josh's murder, Larry 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:10.720 said that he and Josh talked. He remembers them having 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:13.520 a conversation about sports, which they did a lot because 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:16.960 Josh loved sports, and Josh had told him he was 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:19.840 going to come home early that night because he said 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:23.320 he had an interview the next day. Then Larry said 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:25.320 that he talked to his mother on the phone and 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:29.360 went to bed. Larry did say that Josh's job put 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:32.080 him into contact with a lot of different people, and 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:35.920 the police had been asking Larry questions about Josh's friend 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:39.280 group at the time. Larry said the family didn't have 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:43.600 a ring camera or any kind of surveillance. In twenty seventeen, 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:47.680 ring cameras were definitely around, but I'd say they were 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:50.280 still a few years away from having the type of 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:52.920 mass saturation they have now where it's just kind of 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:56.720 assumed almost everyone has one. But again, because this is 0:11:56.720 --> 0:12:00.880 still an open investigation, we don't have concrete details about 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:04.240 this case. We don't know whether police canvass and ask 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:07.080 neighbors if they had cameras that could have seen something 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:11.160 that night. Police were also mystified as the motive because 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:13.600 there was no sign of forced entry into the home. 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:17.360 Larry said, Josh often left the back door unlocked. 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:21.560 My son often would go on the patio at night 0:12:21.680 --> 0:12:23.640 and leave the door unlocked in the back, and I 0:12:23.680 --> 0:12:26.840 think they just came straight into the back door. There 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:29.600 was no sign of breaking in. 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:35.320 Though Charlotte does have crime and property crime, South Charlotte 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:37.400 is one of the safest areas in the city. It's 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:41.120 known for excellent schools and a low crime rate, so 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:46.160 this home invasion shocked the neighborhood. Larry, who was being 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:48.560 treated for a shot to the scapula in the same 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:51.920 hospital where his son had been rushed, remembers the doctors 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:55.240 giving him the heartbreaking news that Josh was not going 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:58.960 to survive. And then just as he was processing that 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:03.960 information that Josh, his only son, was dead, tragedy struck 0:13:04.000 --> 0:13:08.200 again because the next day, Larry was told that his mother, 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:10.360 Dorothy Shulman, had died. 0:13:11.240 --> 0:13:13.800 The day after this happened, my mother, who was an 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:19.080 hospice in her apartment, died. We had a funeral that 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:24.560 following Friday for my mother and my son. It was 0:13:24.680 --> 0:13:28.880 standing room only. My parents had lived there since nineteen 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:33.360 fifty four, and they were just well loved and liked 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:37.880 people in the Jewish community. And my son was an 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:42.840 athlete and a good student and also loved so for him. 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:46.480 I was basketball coaches and different teachers and all his 0:13:46.680 --> 0:13:52.360 friends all that were there. One guy gave the eulogy, 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:57.080 and my mother and my son were the same. They 0:13:57.240 --> 0:14:02.520 had the ability to make people feel better about themselves, 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:06.040 so there was a lot of very grateful people there. 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:11.160 Josh opted to be an organ downer, so even though 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:14.440 Josh was legally dead and brain dead, he was kept 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:17.080 on life support for the next three days so that 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:21.880 the doctors could harvest his organs. Eventually, Josh's organs would 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:27.600 be given to six different people saving lives. A few 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:31.800 days after the funerals of his mother and son, grief stricken, 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:34.800 Larry said that he and his wife were called to 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:38.440 the police station. They were expecting answers or maybe closure. 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:43.640 Larry was shocked to discover police considered him their number 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:58.400 on the one suspect. A few days after Larry Shulman's 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:02.040 only son, Josh, was fatally shot during a home invasion, 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:05.280 Larry said that he and his wife, Andrea, were called 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:09.320 in to the Charlotte Mecklenburg police station. Larry said he 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:12.480 expected to hear that police were pursuing a suspect and 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:16.160 was stunned to discover the person of interest that police 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:20.720 were focused on was him. The reason police suspected him, 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:23.480 Larry said, was because of a family trust that had 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:28.040 been set up by his mother. Larry was Dorothy's only son, 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:32.600 Josh was her only grandson. Larry's father had already passed away, 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:37.400 so police somehow believed that if Josh died, Larry would 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:42.000 inherit that money instead, and apparently police believed Larry might 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:46.440 have orchestrated Josh's murder in order to collect Larry said 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:49.360 the police's belief there could have been a financial motive 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:53.040 just didn't make any sense, because he said his mother 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:55.600 was a wealthy woman and she left her estate to 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:59.920 him to Larry. Larry claimed that Josh could only have 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:04.200 collected if Larry died. Larry said that law enforcement had 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:10.040 their financial facts backwards. He believed that unfortunately influenced the 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:11.120 direction of the case. 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:17.440 So they're asking me questions, and then it was obvious 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:22.120 the questions were leading toward them accusing me of murdering 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:26.040 my son. My family was a wealthy family, and there 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:30.680 was a trust involved that my mother lived on and 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:35.240 I was the next beneficiary in the trust. Somehow, in 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:40.000 their convoluted ways of thinking, they thought like me, having 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:43.440 Josh killed would give me the trust, which is really 0:16:43.440 --> 0:16:46.480 the opposite. So then I came to have it there. 0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:49.000 I said, so either arrest me or let me leave, 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:50.640 and they said, well you can leave. 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:56.160 Larry worked as a psychotherapist who specialized in trauma and 0:16:56.200 --> 0:16:59.360 grief skills that he needed to get through the brutal 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:03.760 reality of what occurred. On August twenty first, Larry hired 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:06.640 a private investigator, who he said was a former FBI 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:12.160 profiler to help him get answers. Police immediately concluded they 0:17:12.160 --> 0:17:15.080 did not believe this was just a random home invasion 0:17:15.120 --> 0:17:19.120 gone wrong. They believed the home invaders were targeting someone 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:21.800 in the home. That could have been partly because of 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:24.920 the time that the crime happened three am. This is 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:27.720 a very high risk time. It's not like coming in 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:30.080 during the day when you believe people could be at work. 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:34.520 Coming in at that hour, it's very likely someone will 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:37.320 be in the house. The home invaders had to know 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:41.400 that if they did have a target. Another theory that 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:44.120 has to be considered is what if the time target 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:49.240 wasn't Larry but Josh. Police have said very little publicly 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:52.880 about the investigation, but in twenty eighteen, on the one 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:58.640 year anniversary, Detective Antonio Eccles told WBTV quote, it was 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:02.400 a breaking and entering end quote, but then he wouldn't 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:06.680 specify if any items were taken. Police did say at 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:09.960 that time they did not recover the murder weapon. Detective 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:12.960 Eckles said, quote, We've been interviewing a lot of people, 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:15.200 a lot of people that were close to the family, 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:18.120 a lot of people that were close to Josh, a 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:21.040 lot of people he worked with hung out with end 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:24.960 quote that does make it seem like police considered the 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:29.080 possibility that the home invaders could have been acquaintances of Josh. 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:32.880 But again, there's so much mystery surrounding this case. We 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:35.960 don't have a description of the gunman or women. We 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:38.400 don't know how many people were in the house that night. 0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:41.640 Larry said he believes there were at least two home 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:44.920 invaders who came in and attacked and shot him and Josh, 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:47.840 but a lot of that was still a blur, so 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:52.320 he doesn't know for sure. Larry said the private investigator 0:18:52.360 --> 0:18:56.520 he hired looked into Josh's friends. Josh was very social, 0:18:56.640 --> 0:18:59.200 so he had a big social circle and also just 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:01.120 had a lot of contact through his job at the 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:05.120 Capitol Grill with the public in general. So one theory 0:19:05.120 --> 0:19:08.360 could be maybe someone knew that Josh lived in a 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:11.240 nice house with a lot of expensive things and decided 0:19:11.280 --> 0:19:15.280 to break in, or maybe one of Josh's friends knew 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:17.800 he had a habit of leaving the back door unlocked. 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:22.720 Larry said he does remember one particular friend of Josh's, 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:25.280 someone who came into the hospital on the night Josh 0:19:25.360 --> 0:19:25.760 was killed. 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:29.560 There was a friend of my son who came drunk 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:33.160 to the hospital that night. He was the last person 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:37.920 to see Josh alive. They were really descriptan sees between 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:41.600 what he said when he said he left Josh and 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:45.080 what he told the police row what that means. That 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:49.200 may mean something. There was some thought that my son 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:53.440 was involved in something, that that people had it out 0:19:53.520 --> 0:19:56.200 for him and this was a hit of some kind. 0:19:56.280 --> 0:19:59.680 Now I don't believe that, and then my detectives didn't 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:03.080 and I talked to all this friends and stuff like 0:20:03.120 --> 0:20:04.400 that he wasn't up to anything. 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:09.680 Larry claimed that because the police were so focused on him, 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:14.040 he believes they missed many opportunities to find out who 0:20:14.120 --> 0:20:17.640 was really responsible for his son's death, and because they 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:21.360 treated him like a suspect, police were not giving Larry 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:24.160 as much information about the developments of the case as 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:24.600 they could have. 0:20:25.800 --> 0:20:27.960 Then there was a rumor, you know, this was this 0:20:28.120 --> 0:20:31.560 was a rumor in town that my gambling debts, that 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:36.080 the gamblers had this happen. I'm a psychotherapist, I'm not 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:41.760 a gambler. Just crazy shit. So we started having these 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:45.800 TV interviews and we're having giving this one interview for 0:20:46.040 --> 0:20:49.200 mothers of murdered people. And this was on the ABC 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:53.600 station and they interviewed the other mothers, and while I'm 0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:58.160 in this room with all the other fathers, their experience 0:20:58.240 --> 0:21:02.040 with the police was, Yeah, they're giving us all this information, 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:06.560 They're following this, they're following that it self phenomenally supported. 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:11.240 I have not yet heard from the police on their 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:24.160 own in these nine years now. 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:27.920 A natural question and one that I asked was how 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:31.760 could police think that Larry shot himself in the back. 0:21:32.560 --> 0:21:36.160 This was one of their assumptions, since police apparently believed 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:38.640 Larry could have been responsible for the murder of his son. 0:21:39.600 --> 0:21:43.120 Larry believes that police considered the possibility that he hired 0:21:43.120 --> 0:21:46.120 a hitman. He was talking to us about the Alec 0:21:46.240 --> 0:21:50.480 Murdock case. He said that in the Carolinas stranger things 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:51.360 have happened. 0:21:52.360 --> 0:21:55.800 You know. This was at the same time, shortly after 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:59.920 that guy Murda on South Carolina he killed the Nami lady. 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:03.720 He had somebody shoot him in the head. I have 0:22:03.880 --> 0:22:08.280 no history of deviant behavior or criminal behavior. 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:13.720 Another possibility that Larry considered was could the killers have 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:16.880 come into the wrong house, especially since they were asking 0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:20.160 about safes and watches Larry said the family didn't have. 0:22:21.280 --> 0:22:24.680 Larry said someone had moved into the house next door 0:22:24.920 --> 0:22:27.560 shortly before the murder of his son, and that he 0:22:27.600 --> 0:22:30.720 had been getting their mail and vice versa. Could this 0:22:30.840 --> 0:22:34.400 whole thing have been a case of the killers mixing 0:22:34.480 --> 0:22:38.080 up the wrong address and getting the wrong house. I 0:22:38.200 --> 0:22:41.000 was looking at photos of Larry's house, and like I 0:22:41.040 --> 0:22:44.280 said at the top, the Providence Commons neighborhood. It only 0:22:44.320 --> 0:22:47.440 has six streets. A lot of the houses have a 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:51.320 similar vibe, but they're not all identical. Still, some of 0:22:51.360 --> 0:22:54.280 them do look very similar. It is possible that the 0:22:54.280 --> 0:22:58.040 home invaders had the wrong address. Then again, maybe they 0:22:58.120 --> 0:23:00.360 just went around trying doors until they found one that 0:23:00.440 --> 0:23:03.480 was open. But if that's the case, why did they 0:23:03.520 --> 0:23:06.840 specifically ask for watches in a safe? Was that just 0:23:07.000 --> 0:23:10.400 random or did they think the Shulman's had these specific 0:23:10.440 --> 0:23:15.000 things in the house, And if so why? Normally home 0:23:15.040 --> 0:23:18.720 invaders who target specific homes have information that the people 0:23:18.720 --> 0:23:21.880 there have something they want. The most common items home 0:23:21.920 --> 0:23:26.000 invaders target first are cash, expensive jewelry, and gold, followed 0:23:26.000 --> 0:23:28.960 by electronic devices like cell phones that can be wipe clean, 0:23:29.400 --> 0:23:34.080 and prescription drugs. Back in the day, home invaders tended 0:23:34.080 --> 0:23:37.360 to take things like TVs and computers, but the resale 0:23:37.440 --> 0:23:40.160 market for those items has plunged, Plus they are really 0:23:40.200 --> 0:23:42.520 hard to carry, so those are not the items of 0:23:42.600 --> 0:23:46.640 choice anymore. The set of circumstances of this home invasion 0:23:46.760 --> 0:23:52.400 actually most closely matches very targeted robberies. When the home 0:23:52.400 --> 0:23:56.440 invaders go into a house where they know the person 0:23:56.480 --> 0:23:59.960 inside has a lot of cash or high value items, 0:24:00.640 --> 0:24:03.120 they want those items, and they are willing to use 0:24:03.160 --> 0:24:07.440 extreme violence to get what they want fast. The home 0:24:07.480 --> 0:24:11.000 invaders asked Larry where's the safe? They went in at 0:24:11.000 --> 0:24:13.280 a time when they knew he would be in bed vulnerable. 0:24:14.000 --> 0:24:16.680 They clearly believed they needed him in order to get 0:24:16.680 --> 0:24:19.840 what they wanted. It's also interesting that the angle of 0:24:19.880 --> 0:24:23.360 the bullets shows that Larry and Josh were shot while 0:24:23.440 --> 0:24:27.200 lying down, So the home invaders made a deliberate choice 0:24:27.280 --> 0:24:30.640 to go into two bedrooms to confront these two men, 0:24:31.120 --> 0:24:35.000 rather than just grabbing stuff lying around and leave. That 0:24:35.160 --> 0:24:37.440 could mean they believed there was something hid in Larry's 0:24:37.480 --> 0:24:40.720 bedroom like a wall safe. People often hide cash or 0:24:40.840 --> 0:24:44.720 valuables in their room. Most home base take place when 0:24:44.720 --> 0:24:47.120 the home is empty, which is what the people stealing 0:24:47.160 --> 0:24:51.160 things normally prefer because it's much less risky. These killers 0:24:51.240 --> 0:24:54.240 chose to go in at three am. They chose to 0:24:54.280 --> 0:24:56.880 stay once they knew there were people upstairs, and then 0:24:56.960 --> 0:25:02.040 they chose to confront them both and to use lethal force. Finally, 0:25:02.600 --> 0:25:06.120 even though according to Larry, he was cooperating, the home 0:25:06.200 --> 0:25:10.480 invaders fatally shot Josh and shot him and they got 0:25:10.560 --> 0:25:14.280 nothing of value in the end. Larry told the news 0:25:14.280 --> 0:25:18.240 station WBTV that one theory he considered was that a 0:25:18.280 --> 0:25:20.560 new neighbor, someone who moved in a few weeks before 0:25:20.640 --> 0:25:24.760 Josh was shot, might have been the actual target. He said, quote, 0:25:25.000 --> 0:25:27.200 by some of the questions the guys were asking me, 0:25:27.320 --> 0:25:30.400 the assailants, I wondered whether they just had the wrong house, 0:25:30.600 --> 0:25:33.600 and that the moving company movers had seen something in 0:25:33.640 --> 0:25:36.200 that guy's house because I didn't have the things they 0:25:36.200 --> 0:25:39.120 were asking about. But the police have checked that out. 0:25:39.520 --> 0:25:44.520 The house is very identical end quote. However, Larry said 0:25:44.560 --> 0:25:47.800 that the private investigator he hired looked into that possibility 0:25:48.200 --> 0:25:51.160 but found nothing that would indicate the house next door 0:25:51.560 --> 0:25:52.920 had those kind of valuables either. 0:25:54.040 --> 0:25:57.880 Just shortly before that, somebody moved into the home next door, 0:25:58.640 --> 0:26:01.200 and I thought maybe they were looking for that home. 0:26:01.840 --> 0:26:04.880 My detective followed up on that, and they didn't have 0:26:04.920 --> 0:26:08.000 a safe. I didn't have a safe. But we did 0:26:08.120 --> 0:26:12.040 live somewhat of an affluent lifestyle, and you know, Josh 0:26:12.200 --> 0:26:15.880 worked at the bar of Apital grill restaurant. He was 0:26:15.960 --> 0:26:19.520 part of the late night world. He had nice things, 0:26:19.800 --> 0:26:20.000 you know. 0:26:21.480 --> 0:26:24.840 So according to what Larry told us, it seemed as 0:26:24.840 --> 0:26:29.280 though the PI dropped that lead, but police seemed completely 0:26:29.320 --> 0:26:32.400 focused on Larry as a suspect, he says, because he 0:26:32.440 --> 0:26:36.480