We're Baaa-aack! Thanks for joining us as Enn recaps S04 E06 of Law and Order Pride & Joy. The acting in this episode could be best summed up by legendary drag performer Tatianna: "...Choices." (Check out guest star Lauren Ambrose though!) Since this episode involving patricide was not based on any specific event, Matt tells us the horrifying true story of the nightmare that the Maldonado family endured living with the patriarch Aaron until he was ultimately killed. Write in or comment on our social media to let us know how you feel about whether justice was served in this case.
Some of the descriptions of abuse in the episode are graphic, but are the reality for so many people out there: If you or someone you know is living with domestic violence call 1 800 799 SAFE to reach the National Domestic Violence Hotline available 24/7.
We're Baaa-aack! Thanks for joining us as Enn recaps S04 E06 of Law and Order Pride & Joy. The acting in this episode could be best summed up by legendary drag performer Tatianna: "...Choices." (Check out guest star Lauren Ambrose though!) Since this episode involving patricide was not based on any specific event, Matt tells us the horrifying true story of the nightmare that the Maldonado family endured living with the patriarch Aaron until he was ultimately killed. Write in or comment on our social media to let us know how you feel about whether justice was served in this case.
Some of the descriptions of abuse in the episode are graphic, but are the reality for so many people out there: If you or someone you know is living with domestic violence call 1 800 799 SAFE to reach the National Domestic Violence Hotline available 24/7.
Hey listeners. Today's episode deals with the topics of domestic violence and child abuse. We wanted to notify our listeners who may experience trauma related to those topics ahead of the episode. And to let you know that resources are listed on the website. Thanks for listening. In this true crime law and order podcast, the episodes are presented by two separate yet equally ridiculous individuals, one who researches the actual crime and the other who recaps the episode. These are their stories. We're back backstreets back. All right. So, how are you? It's been two weeks. It's been two weeks. I feel like it's been a lifetime. I know it really, it really did feel like a long time. It felt like a lifetime. And it felt like a Lifetime original picture. Not my daughter's keeper or something like that. I love Lifetime movies. I grew up watching them with my mom. And maybe that's why I'm so dramatic. And I always loved. I always loved it was like the movies, the old school Lifetime movies were always like, it would be a title like to too far. Colon. A moment of truth movie. The Jessica Ramirez story. Yes. I love Lifetime movies. And I love the SNL skit of them just like raking leaves and yard the best. It's coming on what's new, how's life How's How's Trump's life and tricks are fine. I have been Miles was in Hawaii for a week. And so I kind of just didn't really do a lot while he was gone. Aloha. Yes. I have been watching a lot of TV, which is nice. I have been playing some games and I have some recommendations to share. Are you right at it? I'm ready. Okay. So Well, the first thing is actually just some really good news, which is, do you remember the episode where I cover the BCCI banking scandal? Yes. And how it like involves so many different, like powerful people around the world. So one of those people who was like BFFs with the like, heads of the scandal was Senator Orrin Hatch, who if you recall, is the person who was like, anti women's rights, anti immigration, like anti LGBT folks. He was the one who said like, I'd rather die than have a queer person. And of course, these were not the words he used a queer person, like teach my children or whatever. And he's dead. So that's some great news about the world. I think he's dead finally. So thank God goodbye Orrin Hatch Sia, I guess the other thing is, I have my Kardashian quote of the week for you which I this could be the last of this segment for just a little bit because I, I felt like I needed to take a break from the Kardashians, it felt like my brain was starting to melt out of your atrophy and melt a little bit. Watching it. So the current quote, which maybe I'll have one for next week, but the current quote is, it's a boob job for a dog. I don't even know if I want to know, you probably don't you probably don't. What about you? I have watched in complete started and finished Queens Gambit. Oh, how did you like it? I loved it. I wasn't sure how it was gonna be. I knew it was my type of show just from like the trailer. And yeah, all the people who liked it are people I like so. Have you watched it? I think right? I have. Yeah. And I really liked it too. Yeah, I didn't know what to expect. And it was very different than I expected. And all the great, greatest ways. I found it very, very captivating. I like chess, I'm not going to go buy like a chess set. But I would play chess more or I'd be more prone to play it now. I learned how to play chess as a kid and play chess with my dad and my brother. But I was never very good at it. I know. Like I never learned the strategies. I just only knew what the pieces did and like, tried to take other people's pieces but there was no Gambit involved in my playing No campus. No like, Sicilian move, whatever. None of yes, no. Playing chess. I used to play Battle Chess on Nintendo. Is that the one where the things came to life and like they they stabbed each other? Yes, like oh, good game look like regular chess at first, but when you actually made a move, they would like do like a little animation. I think we've talked about this on one of our podcasts before because I loved that game. I loved it too. We should bring this up on cool story because I feel like it's right in that alley, too. Probably yes, but I remember the sound effects they would make when they would attack each other. It was like women's tennis. It was like okay, okay, so speaking of women's tennis sounds, you can probably find this on YouTube. You need to look. You need to search for the Kardashian like Kris Kris Jenner tennis sounds, because there's like a whole, like 15 minute segment where all of the Kardashian daughters are making fun of Kris Jenner and her tennis sounds. And I was like, rolling on the ground. laughing It was so fucking funny. I have to look that up. The only other thing I have is an anti recommendation. Oh, okay. Okay, so we watched one of those like top 10 lists for like, True Crime type of documentaries. Maybe you haven't seen type things? Uh huh. And one of them seemed interesting. Okay. It was called. Good night sugar, babe. Okay, good night sugar, babe, the Vera Joe Rakel story or something like that? Uh huh. Somebody found it for free on like Pluto or to be your one of those things. Okay. It is the worst documentary I have ever seen. ever in my life ever, ever, ever, like in quality or in like con storytelling? All of the above? The storytelling is terrible, to the point where you don't even really know how, first of all, it is all the boxes you can tick of what true crime documentary should not be. Oh, yeah, you barely hear about the victim. It like glorify as and dramatize as the villain. The whole sugar baby is a villain. And the movie is named after her not to victim Vera. You never really get who Vera is to these people that are all interviewed in the documentary until like, halfway through that she's almost like a footnote. And she's the one who was killed. She's killed terribly. They show graphic images of her dead body with no warning before they pop up on the screen. Yikes multiple times. And every one they interview is terrible, and awful, and all blaming each other. It's like everyone is sitting there like, Oh, yeah. And what happened to her is terrible. I would I wish someone would do a justice for this girl story because it's actually terrible. What happened to this girl and she deserves to have her name known. Yeah. But all it is is like the interview one person after another who all say like, oh, yeah, I saw, you know, someone make her eat poop before in the yard. And I saw her being beat up and I saw her being whipped. It was terrible what these people did to her, but no one did anything. Ever. They all just say how horrible the things that happened to her where? And how was everyone else's fault. And this, that and the other thing. It's terrible. And there's really no justice for her. Honestly. That's awful. So I would highly recommend people to find out her story, but it's absolutely the worst documentary. We were having the hardest time getting through it. And then as far as quality of like production bad. It's like a bad like just freshman year high school AV project. There's like weird fonts popping on the screen. And music is terrible. The transitions are horrendous. And I don't want to be rude but I just have to say what it says on IMDb. Okay? Okay, you know how an IMDB as a section for like goofs, trivia and all that. Yes, yes. The one piece of trivia that someone added to IMDb is it says like Did you know that between the entire cast of this documentary, there's one full set of teeth. And I have to say it's not incorrect. Oh my gosh, it is horrible. So do not watch Good night Sugar Babe. No matter what any list out there tells you. It's terrible. And it does everything wrong. So not really related. But you know that there's that like women's singing group that spelled su ga ba ba Yes. Okay, so I'm sure that it's probably supposed to be sugar babes. Right? Is that how you're supposed to say no, I've always imagined it. I feel like it my mind always. told me it was Suga Balbus which I'm sure is not correct. But every I cannot see that name and think SUGAR SUGAR babes. It's super about this. Oh my gosh. Anyway. Oh, we have a new review. Oh, do you have it? I do but I don't. You have written down Becky's review. I have one from Casey. I couldn't remember her name and I figured Becky was close enough. Okay. We have a new got a love letter we kind of love letter. So thank you out there for Casey of I'm guessing it's Casey of Kansas. KS is Kansas right? I think yeah, yeah. All right. So Casey of Kansas reviewed us and wrote such a great show. ripped from the headlines as fun and fascinating and the hosts have great chemistry. I can't recommend it enough. I thought sorry. The reason I wrote Becky, remember, we got the nasty, nasty review. That was the one I just mentioned. Oh, God, should we do that today or another time? Let's save it for another time. But we got a a totally nasty review, which cracked me up so bad, so I can't wait. Yeah, we'll say we'll leave you all in suspense for next week. And it's not. It's like it was through our website. So I don't think anyone can even go look. Oh, that's right. Okay. Okay. That's right. I forgot about that. So if you guys want to send us a message through our website, kind or not, and you, you might get read on the air. So get over the ripped headlines. pod.com. Yes. All right. Well, this is season four, episode six of lawn order, and it is titled pride and joy. Beautiful. So I'm just going to tell you, there are some very strange acting choices in this movie, and I'm going to try to do them credit. Sorry, movie. I like how you called it a movie. So starting with this woman, so it opens with a woman like walking into her apartment carrying a brown paper bag of groceries, one in each arm, saying I'm home. And she calls to her family to help her with the groceries, which I was like, it's literally two bags, and you're already inside the apartment. But she goes like somebody helped me with these groceries like she's juggling, like for 10 pound turkeys or something like that. So there's loud music in the apartment. She walks in, and she sees her her son in his bedroom, like studying apparently, and playing loud music. And he says, it helps me study the periodic table. God God, she asks him like, Where's your father? And he says, I think he's fixing the boiler. And she goes, I wish they'd buy a new boiler. Like the It's like she's talking to someone off camera, like giving cues to somebody that's not picking them up. Yes, exactly. They are in two different scenes entirely the way she is in a scene unto herself the entire episode 100%. So she heads down to the boiler room to find her husband and when she gets down there, she sees broken glass and she goes outside the building and she sees her husband Frank laying on the ground. And I'm just going to reenact her. Her response when she sees her husband's body on the ground. Oh god. Oh god, Frank. Oh god. Oh god frame he is dead. And her response is that deadpan it reminded me of Do you remember in Romy and Michele where she's faking having sex? Oh, Ramon. Oh, Ramon. It was exactly like that. There was absolutely no emotion in what she was saying. That is a great movie and that is such a good apart. Speaking of which did my cousin texted me that Romy and Michele is 25 years old? Wow. I felt ancient when I heard that number. Watch that like last year again. It holds up. Okay, good. Good. So the cops arrive and Briscoe comments that the body looks like it's been moved and the beat cops explained that when they showed up, the wife was holding him like a baby. And Frank's son is over talking to Logan and his hair is in a shape that human hair was never intended to make. Its it's all it's almost indescribable. It's like if you took a bundt cake and then stuck it halfway on somebody's head. He also was doing a bad job of crying over his father. And the medical examiner is apparently on the scene and tells Logan and Briscoe that one blow did the job and they're like, maybe it was a crackhead. The man who was killed his name is Frank. He's the super of the building. His daughter arrives. You know the sister of the boy that we've seen and the daughter of the mother. And much like the mother. She's like, hey, Shawn, oh Shawn, Shawn. Hey, Shawn, with like that emotion while her dad's body is being carried away by the medical examiner. And the mom responds and goes, Oh honey, and like holds her so the whole family apparently has no emotional range whatsoever. Everything is very deadpan. I'm just gonna say so deadpan. Did you recognize the daughter? It took me until about halfway through the episode but I did finally recognize her she is Lauren Ambrose who played the daughter Claire on six feet under. Yes. Love her, which I I never really saw the entirety of Six Feet Under I know I need to I know people say it's amazing. I think that she probably grew her acting skills pretty significantly after this because she is not fantastic. In this episode. I will say No, she's not spectacular. She was also in can't hardly wait. Which that was he? No way. I never saw that. Oh, that's a good one. We should put some of those movies on the list too. Okay, like can't hardly wait and 10 Things I Hate About You. She's the man. She's the man slash she's all that double feature. Yeah, yes. So the title sequence begins and again, have a little bit of time, not as much as we used to. So I decided to play a little bit of untitled goose game. And when I got to kind of like the third section of the world, and I was trying to make an old man fall on his butt, we're back. I can't wait to start that. It's fun. My brother got it as a gift for me last week, and I played it a good amount over the weekend. And you can, the way the game works is like there's five different kinds of like scenarios where you're causing havoc as a goose. And then it kind of like starts back over at the beginning and gives you like a another set of tasks to complete as the goose. So I've gotten through the first round of it. And now I'm kind of like back at the beginning with a new set of to do lists. Let me tell you something, whatever that game suggested about geese, they should make a update for Canadian geese. Because like I said, in the last episode of Cool story, they are savage beasts on a whole nother level. And they're like half the size of your body and they are fearless. Like Harrison. Our dog will be like barking his mind out at these geese. And they're just like so unbothered. They'll like, slowly approach him as he's like, going absolutely insane. They're like, probably the closest birds to dinosaurs still alive. God, I totally believe that they move about as slow as dinosaurs to if, anyway. So we, when we come back, Logan and Brisco are interviewing the Nate the, like residents of the building where the murdered man was the super. And everybody says he's like the nicest guy like nobody didn't like him. One of the neighbors comes out of her apartment and says, what's going on? And when the another neighbor tells him that the super has been murdered, and she goes, Oh my god, everybody is doing a lot of oh my gods with like, no emotion in this episode. I feel like the scenes when they interview the neighbors, they all behave as though they're in their own sitcom about this apartment building. Like yes, they have their own. They have their whole own backstories to their characters. Yes, kind of like, I feel like I've never seen an episode where it felt like each actor was doing something like they thought they were in completely different episodes. It was really a weird episode. It was not a team sport. It was not a team sport. It was very much everybody trying to get their their moment in the limelight. So at the station, Van Buren is kind of reviewing the initial evidence with Logan and Briscoe and she says there's no helpful prints, but she thinks it's not a pro because if somebody were going to break into a building a professional would not break in at 930 because I guess there would be too many people awake at that point. So they're kind of wondering like, is it a kid? Is it a crack addict? But Briscoe thinks it's weird that the that this man was in the boiler room, quote, hammering away, and then like, heard somebody break the glass over all of that noise and went out to investigate it. So Van Buren says talk to forensics. So they go talk to forensics. Oh, wait, I'm sorry. VAN BUREN says go and talk to forensics. And then she says all around the family, see if anything pops. Okay. I love her. I do too. So they go to forensics. And we learned that there's blood on some of the glass shards but the blood matches the victim which they obviously doesn't make sense because if an intruder broke it, why would the victim's blood be on it? Right so they get a phone call while Other forensics and we learned that the SuperS daughter whose name is Maureen has a record for criminal possession. So then we get a scene where they go to the, I guess, a juvenile facility where she was attending counseling or something. And the counselor says like, there was obviously problems at home, Maureen ran away a couple of times. So she kind of wonders if the dad was abusing the daughter. And that's kind of what caused her to run away. And so they asked where they can find the daughter. And, you know, apparently, she's dating a boy named Mitchell who's kind of like a troublemaker and getting her into trouble. And the the dad and the boyfriend didn't really get along. So they track her down and find her with her boyfriend in some park. And what this scene and they got her the music in the background. Oh, my God, it was, it was ToeJam. And Earl, it was straight up the soundtrack from the Toejam and Earl Sega Genesis video game. So number one, you couldn't have said it more accurate. And number two, I told you, I'm an Earl, quote will always send me Oh, God. So they ask her. They're like, hey, where? Where were Where were you last night speaking to the boyfriend. And Maureen says that they were together until she went home and found out that her father was dead. So she is serving as an alibi for the boyfriend. They go and talk to the mother again, who? And they're kind of looking into like, does she think that Michel, the boyfriend of the daughter could have had any cause to kill and kill the Father? So they asked her, do you do you think he would have had any reason to hurt your husband? And she stutters for like 45 minutes, and then says, I can't talk about this. I just I don't know what she'll do. It was so preposterous. It really was, it was like we did not need 45 minutes of her going. So they go and talk to the Son, who again was in the apartment when supposedly the father was killed. And he's at a friend's house studying. And the friend says like, oh, you should leave Shawn alone. He's studying for an important chemistry test tomorrow. And looking in Briscoe, or like, your dad was murdered yesterday, and you're worried about studying for a test. And so they ask if he saw Mitchell last night, and he says, oh, no, Mitchell couldn't have done it. You know, he wouldn't have hurt my dad. And they ask why? You know, why didn't you hear anything your apartment or your bedroom window was like right over the alley where your dad was killed. And he was like, Oh, I was playing loud music. So they're kind of coming up empty on everything so far. So back in the station, we know, we are very clear that they're kind of like burning the midnight oil on the case, because they're all eating out of Chinese food containers. Like it's, it's just that very scene of like, oof, we've investigated all the leads, let's call in for Chinese. So we can like talk about it all night long. So they're still thinking that maybe the dad was abusing the daughter and that the boyfriend killed him, so that they could be together. So but, you know, nobody else is giving them any evidence toward that. So they're kind of like I don't know, who knows what to do next. And so they decided to kind of learn more about Frank, the super, the murder victim. And so they head to the management company that owns the building, to kind of ask them about how Frank was as somebody to work with. And he, the head of the management company essentially says that Frank was a really good man. He was like, too nice to his tenants. He should have charged them for things that he didn't. He was always fixing things and fixing things up for them. And then he's like, but I did wonder if he drank too much. And they're like, What do you mean? And he says that Frank had four or five different accidents where he had like broken bones. So they're like, that's weird. And so they go to the hospital to investigate Frank's medical records. And we learned that Frank had a series of injuries. The first one was he broke a collarbone supposedly slipping on ice. A couple of months later, he came in with first degree burns on his back, which he says was from the boiler. He came in a few months later with broken ribs, this time supposedly falling off a ladder and in total, he had been in the hospital four times over the last 18 months. The Doctor Who's telling them about his injuries is like I think somebody was hurting him because he had bro Can ribs, but he had like no bruises on him no scratches. And so she asked him if he was if someone was hurting him at home. And he she said he was very polite and just told me to mind my business and the doctor is a cross between Velma from Scooby Doo and gadget hack wrench from Rescue Rangers. That's very accurate. That's very accurate. She also gives gave me a little bit of the Oh god, she's the singer with kind of Bernadette Peters a little bit of a Bernadette Peters vibe mature. So they go talk to the wife again and ask her and the son about the father, suppose it acts accidents, but they don't really get any helpful info. They're like, Yeah, you know, he, he fell off a ladder, he fell against the boiler and burned himself, you know, so they're, they're excusing all of these, it's just accidents. I mean, speaking of lifetime movie, these are all Lifetime movie tropes to the extreme, oh, extreme. So Logan and Brisco have a conversation out on the street. And they're like, it's they still think it's weird that the son was studying for a test the night after his dad was killed, or the day after his dad was killed, and that the daughter was hanging out in the park. So they're like, kind of thinking, it's weird that these kids don't really care about their dad or don't appear to care about their dad having died. And so they kind of think, you know, let's work them a little bit more to get some more info. Okay, then we get there's a moment in this episode that makes no sense whatsoever. And I had to rewind it multiple times to try to figure out if I was missing something. So Logan says like, you know, he was studying for a test, the daughter was hanging out in a park. And then he pulls out his notepad shows it to Briscoe and says, You see the problem? And that's the end of that scene. But like, we literally never learned what is on that notepad. And we've never seen it before. So it's like, what are we supposed to glean from that? Because there's no, there's no context clues. So they go to a maternity store where one of the tenants of the building works, the one who said that she heard some shouting that night. And she said she heard the shouting. And then about a half an hour later, she heard glass breaking. And so they're kind of talking about these facts and thinking, you know, it's, it's strange that there would have been such a time discrepancy or break in between this shouting match and the sound of the glass breaking. So because they're like, it wouldn't be like a random burglar or because that, you know, all the sounds would have happened at once. So they're kind of thinking, you know, the only person who was in the building who could have maybe done this is the son. So they go to talk to forensics, again. And the forensic expert tells them that the glass that they recovered from the scene was broken from the inside of the building, which is, is immediate red flags to Logan and Briscoe, because that really indicates it was not a burglar. And so they decide to head to the basement of the building with the boiler room and spray everything with luminol. And check it with black lights. And this is the first time we've seen luminol. So I feel like that must have been new, a new investigation technique. Yeah. And I also thought to myself, from what I've heard from other cases recently, it's really expensive, I think, oh, use luminol. So I thought it was kind of unusual that they would just have it on hand. But I guess I didn't even know that until like last year or so I guess just Harvard Law and Order. Yeah, in the 90s. So down in the basement, they see a line of blood going from the boiler room to the door outside, indicating that somebody has been hit and dragged that distance. They also see like some blood on the pipe, the boiler room pipe, I guess. And so they're like this something he was attacked in the boiler room and dragged outside and this was all staged is what they're thinking now. So they go to talk to the brother in law of the murder victim. So he's the brother of the wife who started off the episode with the honey I'm home two bags of groceries. And they think they say to him that they don't think his sister is telling them everything. And they want to know like, why was her husband ending up in the hospital so often? And they asked if the son ever hit his father, and the brother in law says, Well, you know, sometimes tempers flare, and then he tells them a story about how The son got accepted to Princeton and there was like a dinner event. And he brought his uncle because he's a CPA instead of his father who was a building superintendent, because he thought it would be more impressive. And when they got home, the Son and the dad kind of got into a yelling match. And he said that his brother in law, the murder victim, Said, go ahead, do it in front of your Uncle, take a pop at me, let him see what this family is all about. And he says that Shawn, the son was about to hit him hit his father, and how to separate them. So further evidence for Logan and Briscoe that the son might have killed his father and was abused abusing him. So they bring him into interrogation to ask him about whether he ever hurt his dad. But the kid kind of immediately lawyers up and Kincaid ADA Kincaid is kind of like thinking that they might not have enough evidence to charge this kid because it's really uncommon for kids to assault their parents. I probably should have started this episode with like, he's probably 17 or 18 years old. I never gave that context until now. I'm studying for a chemistry test. Yeah. And he got accepted to Princeton. So you know, he's he's graduating shortly. But she says, You know what, go for it, Go arrest him. So they arrest him for the murder of his father. And in pretrial, he is brought up on murder two charges to which he pleads not guilty. And then we kind of shift over to the order side. And stone and Kincaid are meeting with Sean's defense attorney. And the defense attorney says that the wife is ready to admit and will provide testimony that her son did kill his father. But she says that he killed him because her husband was abusing him. So like, he believed the son, he pushed him too far. He was always hitting him. And so that's why the son killed his father. And she says, My husband was a very angry man, which we know that this is totally counter to what literally everybody else has said, which is that he was a wonderful, super nice, really generous man. Right? So she said that her son had told her that, you know, her husband was in one of those moods and had come after him. And he had defended himself and accidentally killed his father. And she says she couldn't believe it. She blames herself. She should have stopped Frank from abusing him all of these years, but he picked on Shawn so much, blah, blah, blah. And she also says, you know, and they're like, Well, what about all the times that he was in the hospital with these very suspicious injuries, and she was like, they were all accidents. And, you know, my son was in the hospital, too, with a black eye once from Frank hitting him. And a broken arm that we said was a skateboard accident, but it was Frank hitting him. So the Da Da is meet. And they're kind of thinking that the mom is making all of this up to protect her son. And so Schiff orders, the orders, doctor, all of that to meet with Shawn the son. And we get a scene between the two of them. That is not really weird, but it's kind of like, you know, she asks about his relationship with his father, and he tells her about how he was always hitting her blob or hitting him, blah, blah, blah. And his dad was never proud of him, etc. And then we cut to all of it presenting her findings to do to stone and Kincaid. And it's like, he's a sociopath. What. But basically, what she says is that the son told her about how he managed the family finances, like he had to take care of everything, because his father wasn't good enough at managing money. And she cites a study where that's apparently a telltale sign of children abusing their parents, when they take over like decision making in the family. And the parents become like too afraid to report it. So they investigate the son's stories about him being beaten and you know, talked to a friend around the time of his black eye that at the time, they had said was due to a basketball injury, but the mom is claiming the dad was hitting him. And the the son's friend is like, No, it was totally from a basketball injury. Like I did it. I like threw a basketball in his face. And it hit him and I felt bad, but it was totally me who did it. So he is essentially poking holes in the mothers claim that the father was abusive. So they're pretty convinced now that the mother is lying about all of this to protect her son. So they're trying to figure out though, like, how do they build a strong enough case? And they kind of think their only hope is to Get the daughter to provide testimony to testimony that refutes the mother's claims of the dad being abusive. She doesn't want to talk to Kincaid at first, but eventually they kind of badger her into her saying that her mom, or that her father didn't beat her. He never hit me. He never hit anyone what my mom say what my mom is saying is not true. So they talked to the mom and son again. And they, they try to make a plea to have his sister. You know, they're like, Please stone like, don't make our daughter my daughter testified don't make her be the one who sends her brother away to prison for the rest of his life. And meanwhile, the defense attorney is like, Who do you think they're going to believe? You know, a quote unquote, runaway with a criminal record or this mom who's you know, testifying about abuse. So they they go to trial. And they have the the doctor, Dr. gadget on the stand, who basically testifies that she is convinced that his injuries were not a result of an accident that they were evident of assaults and abuse. But the defense attorney does a pretty good job of like, undermining her claims or undermining the doctors credibility. So they're like, we really have to get the daughter on the stand. And so they finally get her on the stand. And she says that her brother Shawn, hit their father all the time. And her mom told her that it was her dad's fault. But, you know, she's like, that's not the case. Like my father would have done anything that Shawn wanted. You know, he was a great man. And so they ask about each of the hospital injuries. And she explains that one of them was a result of Shawn hitting his dad with a tire iron. Another was when he pushed him up against the boiler pipe and held him there while he screamed and his back burned. And she tried to stop her brother, but he wouldn't stop. So the defense meanwhile, asks her if her inner she and her brother got along. And she's like, No. So the defense lawyer tries to kind of paint her as jealous of Shawn and as a runaway and a truant. And then they get the mom on the stand. And she reiterates her claims about the husband being violent. And they ask, did Sean ever hit your husband? And she says, No. But stone asks her. The doctor is claiming that these were the results of assault. Are you saying she's lying? And the mom says yes. And and then Stone says, Your daughter is testifying that she witnessed Shan abusing his father multiple times. Are you saying she's lying? And again, the mom says yes. Someone who has their favorite child fully. So then Shawn takes the stand, and talks about how much he loved his dad, even though he beat him. And he didn't blame his dad for abusing him because his dad had a really hard life. And he said, and then he gives us kind of like fake tearful testimony about how the night of the murder, he was helping his dad fix the boiler. And he dropped a set of pliers and his dad lost his temper and started hitting him. And he says, I don't know what happened. It's very Catherine Zeta Jones. Well, I was until later when I was washing the blood off my hands that I even knew he was dead. So it's very that. And stone asks them like, how did you feel after you killed your father? And he's like, I don't remember. And he says, What did you feel when you were dragging his body into the alley? How did you feel when you cleaned up his blood to cover it up? How did you feel when you broke the window from the inside to make it look like a burglary? And then he asks him, what about when you hit him with a tire iron? Do you remember that? Do you remember holding him up against the boiler pipe? And then so there's all this really strong evidence and then what is I think a very weird decision is stone ends his case by saying on your college application, I see that under father's occupation. You wrote down a building manager, not superintendent. And he's like, Yeah, I thought it would be more impressive to get my scholarship that way. And so that's his final piece of evidence, which I think is the weakest evidence of anything that has been presented so far. But apparently he has presented a strong enough case because the jury comes back with a verdict of guilty of murder to and then we get the scene on the courthouse steps with Kincaid and stone. And Kincaid says like it's all too bad like In a few months, he would have gone away to college and none of this would have happened. And Stone says, Well, if it hadn't been the father, it would have been someone else that much anger doesn't go away, not from ba even at Princeton. And that's the end of the episode. So I'm excited and interested to hear what case this is based off of. All right. Well, this episode was actually not based on any specific case. Oh, okay. Yeah. So I was really looking to try to find something where it was like about, you know, patricide or parasite, because I figured that's like, you know, right in line with the episode. Yeah, it's very hard to find a lot of cases like that, because all you get is like, the Menendez brothers, you know? Oh, yeah. It's like endless articles and stuff about the Menendez brothers. There were a few other cases that I considered, but I just couldn't find a lot of information. Okay. And so I'm going to tell the story of the Maldonado family. Should I know that name? Probably not. I had never heard of this. It's more recent than the episode but are you ready? Yes. All right. So Wendy Hogan was born in 1970. And much of her early life is really unavailable. Okay, it you know, you can't find a lot. She was pretty private, I think. So, from what I could find, I couldn't find a lot about of her early years, but she grew up in a house with multiple sisters. And she was under her mother. Donna's care. Okay, I'm not really sure about her relationship with her father, but her mother eventually does remarry. And she has a good relationship with her stepdad. Okay. In high school. Wendy doesn't really have a lot of great things to say about it. She ends up dropping out in her sophomore year, I believe it is because she basically it said that she got detention for something. And because she never went to detention and she just kept getting more and more detention. Okay, and not going and eventually she just dropped out because there was all of this like, issues with her regarding all of this unserved attention time. So she dropped out during her sophomore year and just later obtained her GED. Okay. She meets Aaron Maldonado, when she's just about 16 years old, about 15 and a half, they said, but I don't remember people saying they're half years past the age of like, five. Yeah, but it's like when a baby is three years old. And parents are like, Oh, he's 72 months. Yeah, I know that that I know that math didn't really I'm 165 months. Right. The to get married when they're 17 years old. On January third 1987. That's so young. I know. I know. They met when she was like 15 and a half. And then they got married less than a year and a half later. So really, really young. Yeah, really immature. You could tell Aaron Maldonado was born January 22 1969, in Carson, California. But the him and his family grew up in Southern Oregon. That's where most of this case has taken place in Oregon. Okay. He had two brothers, and they were raised by both of their parents. And at one point the parents split up and the mother moved back to LA. So the rest of the Maldonado clan remained in Grants Pass Oregon. And that's where Wendy and her family lived. Six months after Wendy and Aaron Maldonado get married. She gives birth to their daughter Nikita. Okay, but unfortunately Nikita was born very very severely ill she had some heart failure issues. And she was diagnosed with Down syndrome at birth. And she dies just nine days after being born on June 21 1987. That's terrible. Did you ever watch the TV show Nikita? No, but I did watch love Femme Nikita. Okay, when I was similar, they're they're related. I never saw La Femme Nikita but I did see the TV show Nikita and I recommend it I really love Maggie Q as an actress. And it's definitely like it's, you know, silly and ridiculous at times. But it's it's really fun. I've heard good things about it because Nikita was really ridiculous. Yeah, it was the kind of showered watch when I was little and I was like, Ooh, I shouldn't be watching this. This is violent, and there's a sexy woman in here. Yeah, exactly. Alright, so soon after she loses her daughter. The couple gets pregnant again. And this time Wendy gives birth to their first son named Randy. When Randy turns about one and a half Wendy says she begins to see who her husband Aaron really is. Okay, she had seen signs of it before. But you know, she was young in love. And she says, You know, when you're young and in love, obviously your partner isn't necessarily showing you like, Hey, I'm, I'm all of these bad things because they're trying to wrangle you, you know, put your best foot forward. Aaron had always been an avid hunter. And he shared with Wendy, just soon after their son was born, that he had fantasies of hunting people. Oh, God. He didn't just want to be a killer. He wanted to be a serial killer. And he said he wanted to torture and hold women captive, and let them die slowly in front of him. And remind me what year this was again, this is when when this is happening, it's 1989 ish. Okay. He said that he liked the idea of letting the families of the victims he would capture know that he was holding them and then letting them know when they died. Yikes. Yikes. Indeed. There's a lot of disturbing video footage of Aaron in during these years where he is abusing and playing with the deer carcasses that he shoots because he's a hunter. He kicks one in the head after it's dead and breaks his toe. He in one of the videos he asks when D was holding the camera to focus the camera and close on him as he dips his hand into the dead animal and licks the blood off of his fingertips. Don't Don't don't like it's really disturbing. The couple will then go on to have three more children. First two years after they have Randy they have twin boys named Marshall and Joshua. And then about a year and a half later, they have their youngest son Tyler, so they have four kids now. Okay, so let's fast forward now to the evening of April 30 into May 1 2005. Okay, okay. Randy, the oldest child is 16. He's turning 17 In less than two weeks from this date. So most of this case, he's 17. Okay, um, his younger brothers are 1515 and 13, respectively. Remember, there's twins. A 911. Operator in Grants Pass. Oregon receives an anonymous 911 Call from who we will later find out is 16 year old Randy Maldonado. Okay. And here's the transcript of the short call. Okay. Randy says, I hear someone at Elmer Nelson Lane saying they're going to kill people freaking out. And that's where they live. They live on Elmer Nelson lane. And he's speaking kind of muffled. Okay. And the operator says I can barely hear you, sir. And he says send somebody and she says I can't understand your phone. Sir. Are you still there? And he says, just listen. I hear somebody saying they're going to kill people or kill people at Elmer Nelson lane. They are freaking out outside. And she says, Okay, where are you at? He says Elmer Nelson lane. I can't say any more. I have to go right now. And she goes, Okay, where exactly are you at? And he says outside Elmer Nelson lane by I have to go please send someone and then it cuts out and the 911 operators like hello, hello. Several hours later, just before so that's at like 215 in the morning. Okay. Several hours later, just before 6am Wendy calls 911 And I'm going to read the portions of her call that are relevant. The dispatchers has 911 emergency. She says I need help. And dispatchers has okay. What kind of help? She says I just killed my husband. Oh shit. That dispatcher says you what? And she says I fucking hit him in the head with a hammer. And she says okay, where are you at? And she says Elmer Nelson lane. Get here. He's still fucking I don't know. And then just and she's frantic, frantic. She's saying all of this. And sorry, how much time has elapsed between this call and the one before? Less than four hours? Wait, so the police never sent anybody? Well, we'll get there. Okay. So the just had dispatcher says, Okay, I need you to calm down so I can help you. You hit him over the head. And she screams Yes. She asks, Is he conscious? And she says he's breathing hard. And she says but as the conscious RSI is awake, and Wendy says no. And the dispatcher yells at her not to yell at her and says okay, what's your name? And she says Melanie MA Not Monday, Maldonado. And then it goes on to say, the dispatcher asks, where's your hammer right now, sweetie? And Wendy says is in my hands. And she says, Okay, take a breath. Just take a breath and stay with me. We're going to work through this and get you help. Okay, are you sounds okay? You have four sons, right? And she says yes. And she says, okay, good. Wendy. Is he bleeding from the head? And Wendy's has his head has caved in. Woof. And the dispatcher says, Okay, you came to them. Okay. What's his name? I haven't asked. What's your husband's name? She says, Aaron. And the dispatcher says, Okay, what happened? Did he try to hurt you or anything? And Wendy says, every fucking day of my life, he and the dispatcher says, Okay, there's more to the call. But it turns out that she called from what was a 911 phone call. It was an emergency phone from a women's crisis center that her sister had given her. Okay. Her sister had previously had a stalker, and her sister knew about her Wendy's situation, and figured she might need it at some point. And so she had had this 911 Phone hidden in her house. Okay. The call that Randy made previous to this was from that same 911 phone. And it was because Aaron, the victim, had grabbed a wrench and was threatening to kill their neighbors, Steven, and was running around outside with a wrench. Okay, so let me just recap to make sure I understand. So the father, who wanted to be a serial killer was threatening the neighbors with a wrench, the son called 911. And then later, the end, he called from that 911 phone and then later, the mom called saying she had killed the husband. Yes. Okay. Yes. So on this night, she says in the 911 call, what because she's on the phone for a while waiting for the authorities. And she says to the operator that Aaron, the father was outside that night, he was vandalizing property, he was kicking things around, you have the wrench, and that the police had come and that she had called the police earlier. And they did arrive. And when they did that Aaron ran inside the house and told everybody to turn all the lights off and say nothing to the police. And when they showed up, they knocked on her door. And she said, you know that they didn't her and her son Randy had gone outside and said they didn't see anything. They had no idea what was going on. And they said they did this because there's a surveillance camera set up right outside their door, and that Aaron was watching them on the surveillance camera and had audio. Oh, okay. Okay. And so he told him not to say anything to the police and that everything was fine inside and you know, who knows who called and what. So basically, they sent the police away because they were afraid the dad was going to hurt them. Yes. Because when the police sirens came and the lights came up the block, he ran inside and said, like everybody pretend like nothing is going on. Yeah. So they basically said no out of fear. And Randy would say that he tried to make hand gestures and sort of subtle movements to indicate to the authorities that they needed actual help, but that they basically went unnoticed. She tells the 911 operator most of this and she she's asked if Aaron had abused her that night. And she says that she has knots on her head from a few nights ago. But from that night, it was her son that was beat up by ran by Aaron. And she says that also, Aaron had woken up in the middle of the night. He had gotten drunk previously. And he shouted at her that he was going to kill her. But this was not unusual, because he did this to her all the time in the middle of the night. And he grabbed her by the arms and held her down before going back to bed. And throughout the call, she's wailing. She's saying over and over again. I just want my kids to be safe. And at one point she's sitting there and she says through tears. I know he's not going to get up but I'm afraid he's going to get up and hurt me. Even though he's clearly head has been caved in. Yeah, he's still breathing. When the authorities get there. He's still technically alive. But they see brain matter and everything in the room. It's a bloody scene. Yeah, he's. So Wendy is arrested right away. She's going to be charged with murder. They tell her. And when she hears that she's going to be charged with murder. She's relieved, because now she knows he's dead. Oh, okay, because she still up to this point is worried that he might survive? Because she asks them like, Is he dead? Is he what's going on with my husband? And the people that are with her think that she's concerned? And they say well, the ambulance came and took them out. So that's a good sign. So she kind of freaked out still. So when she finds out she's being charged with murder. She's actually relieved. Yeah, 12 days later, the police will come to the house for additional evidence. And Randy the son who's now 17 and confesses to helping his mother kill his father. Wendy is released on bail, to be able to take care of her kids for a short period of time. And she's ordered to return at 9am on April 3 2006. And the document there's a documentary about this case, it's about an hour long. I think it used to be on HBO. I had to find it online. I think you can Yeah, you can find it The documentary was originally entitled one minute to nine as a reference to when she had to show up back at the courthouse or whatever. Okay, and it would later be retitled to quote every fucking day of my life about the quote in her 911911 call. Yeah, and the documentary is about her last four days of freedom leading up to the day she has to back, go back and report. And during the time that she's out, Randy remains incarcerated in Josephine County Jail. And in the film, he's, he's interviewed there so dear during the film, it documents much of the abuse that went on over time. And it gives all of the survivors a chance to share their stories. So I'm going to give you some of the details of the stories shared by them, and what their lives were like, while Aaron Maldonado was alive. It's some of this is graphic, but it's it's, you know, I didn't I cut out things that I thought were gratuitous. And I just want to give you an idea of the life that they lead because I think it's important. So throughout the documentary, you can see that there's these pencil and marker drawings all over the walls and like random places, and thereby one of the kids martial. And there's also some of Wendy's paintings sort of like haphazardly put on the wall in sort of unusual locations. And as they remove each piece of artwork. There are huge holes in all the walls and doors. Yeah. Photographed by police. There's at least 25 throughout the house. And they're all from Aaron punching the walls or slamming Wendy or their kids heads through them. Yeah. Oh god. Randy, the oldest son who's who says he helped us Mother says that he slept every night with his shoes on just in case he needed to run or do something. Three neighbors are interviewed in the documentary and one neighbor named Sharon Morgan says that she's seen Wendy with black eyes constantly. One time she seen her where her whole half of her face was bruised from her forehead down to her neck. And she also saw on multiple occasions, Aaron dragging her across the gravel outside. And times when she was running away from the house was blood all over her. And other neighbors give really similar accounts of seeing her running from the house hiding in bushes outside. One neighbor says he saw Aaron smash her head into the car window from outside the car. Another neighbor named Tommy said that he recalls a time when she was driving the car down the block. And he was beating her while she was driving the car. And she was struggling to keep the car from crashing. And her kids were in the car. The neighbors were all scared to confront him. And whenever they would speak to her about it privately and urge her to get help. She would say she couldn't talk about it. She's not allowed to talk about it. And anything that anyone would do would just make it worse. She would say that she wouldn't go through the police or anything like that, because Aaron didn't follow any rules. There was no structure in their life. He didn't really believe in and didn't like that. And so she felt like the worst thing that would happen would be he would be put away for two weeks and come back even worse. Yeah. Considering the night of the murder, that he was planning to kill a neighbor with a wrench. It's not really hard to see why they'd be terrified of doing anything about it. Right. You know, some neighbors did say they've called police and that police were called to the house multiple times, but that all that would happen would be Aaron would answer the door and say everything's okay. And no one really ever investigated any further. They also report to seeing Aaron making the kids fight outside and when they wouldn't fight each other. He would hit them instead. Until they did his young children. Aaron was in a band called chaos with a que okay. And in a song he dedicated to Wendy titled menu McCobb he sings the lyrics. I love you. I killed you. Always see your bloody body lying on the floor looking forward to a new life a world of torture. Have I sealed our fate, dear? That's the husband's lyrics, okay. And he dedicates that song to his wife. He tells her all the time that if she goes to the cops, he will go to her family's homes one by one and kill them. And her sister recalls nights that she'd find Wendy sleeping outside of her garage just randomly when she would go to like check on laundry. And she'd be like, What are you doing here? What are you outside my house? And she would tell her sister that she just didn't want to be home and she just didn't want to be a burden. And like knock on the door and wake them up. So she'd be sleeping hanging outside and she'd be like, come in my house like what are you doing? But when they would press and ask her a question she would say I'm not I can't talk about it. This is what prompts her to eventually give her sister that phone. Yeah, there's a lot of a lot of home videos throughout this. They took a lot of camcorder videos so you see tons of footage of like how maniacal he seems. Even at times, you know, when he's obviously not hitting them on camera. But he you could just tell the control he had over them. There's a lot of scenes where he's felt he's holding the camera, and he'll sort of candidly pan to Wendy. And she just always looks miserable and withdrawn. And then he'll call attention to her like, Hey, Wendy, and she'll look control immediately put this like smile on her face for like, very, very false. And then as soon as he's, like, done filming her, you see she goes right back to her like catatonic state, to really, really sad. Yeah, speaking of her smile, she reveals that most of her teeth are fake. And she removes her false teeth on camera, revealing that she only has four real teeth left on the top of her mouth, because the rest has been knocked out by her late husband. She says that he would drive her to the quote, kill me spot and make her lay down outside in the woods. And he would strangle her. And he had a machete with him. And he would tell her she had 10 seconds to tell him why she shouldn't why he shouldn't boiler. He did this routinely. And then in the last few months of his life, she said he did it about two times a week. Good God, and they resorted to hiding everything in the house, her and her kids. There were when the cops got to the house eventually and like searched everything. There was like laundry baskets full of the kitchen utensils and knives. And all of the broom handles were removed from all of the brooms because she would say that he really didn't look for things in the house to hit them with, he would just find whatever was at hand. And they'd been beaten so badly with these items. Before that she just came to hide them. Yeah, he would sit on the kids and beat them while he sat on them. He'd push them down steps. And there's a multitude of other things he would do. In addition to this, he throughout their relationship, repeatedly raped her. And she said she just thought it would maybe make him stop, but nothing ever made him stop. And so this brings us to the night of the murder and what they say led up to it in the words of people who were there. So Aaron on the night of the murder, had gotten drunk early in the night. And before he went outside to refer when we you know, know, he was like angry at the neighbor or whatever. He tells us on Randy to come in, quote, face me like a man out of nowhere. And so Randy obeyed His Father and came in the room. And when he came in the room, he says that his father beat the shit out of him. And right afterwards, Randy remembers that his dad grabbed a wrench and went outside and said he was going to kill his neighbor, Steven. And so Randy grabbed his mom's emergency phone and made the 911 call now question so the whole killing the neighbor with the wrench thing did was there any provocation to that in any or perceived provocation? Like it just seems weird to suddenly say, I'm gonna go kill the neighbor. Yeah, it doesn't say anywhere I read your like multiple articles. Watch this documentary. No one says why he was doing it. But there are other neighbors who say like, I remember him being out that night and just like knocking over mailboxes and kicking over trash cans and screaming at like, seemingly nothing. Yeah. So the cops do come after he makes the first time we want to call as we said, and as we heard, he makes you know, Randy, go in the house, turn the lights off, tell get rid of the cops don't tell them anything. Video Surveillance, all of that. After the cops go to leave, a couple of neighbors say that they saw the cops leaving. And one of them. I think his name was Tom. He runs outside and stops the cops from leaving. And he says, Hey, where are you going? There was there's something going on just across the street over there. Like there's something definitely going on. And the cops tell them Well, we went and asked, so if you hear anything else, give us a call. Otherwise we're going to we're going home. That night in bed Aaron wakes up in the middle of the night threatens Wendy's life, like she said, And after this, she goes out into the hallway. And this is when she suddenly came to the conclusion that she had to finally take care of this. And she's in the hallway. She's upset and Randy is in the hallway with her her 17 year old son and she says I'm going to kill him. And Randy says I can't let you do it alone. And she urges him not to. And he says, No, I don't. I don't think I don't want anything to happen to you. Yeah. And so they say that they pray together. And then Randy went in his room and checked on his brothers, and they were all sleeping. And his mom went outside to where the tools were all kept. And Randy meets her outside, they grab a hammer and a hatchet. They sneak into Aaron's room while he's sleeping. He's passed out drunk, and Randy mouths to his mom, are you sure? And she like nods? Yes. And then she hit him in the head with a hammer three times. Randy does the same three times with a hatchet. And they said that they still heard him making noise. And they'll later realize that this is like that sort of like death rattle that you hear about. But they were unsure if he was dead or not. And so Randy, hit him three more times. And then when he screamed, stop, he was still making noises, and they still weren't sure if he was really dead. And that's when she calls 911. And confesses. After all of this, the decision is made that they're going to try the two together for the crimes. And they get a lot of advice from attorneys and such. And there's a lot of back and forth with her lawyers and the prosecution. And they ultimately decide that the two are going to take a deal and plead to manslaughter. Okay. So the date that she has to show up in the documentary is for sentencing, okay. during sentencing, she gives a speech. And she says that she knows that all kinds of people out there have told her to go to trial, including one of the guards of the prison. They tell her that no one would convict her and her son, knowing the sort of horror show that was their life, right. But she decided she wasn't willing to risk her son having to be in jail for 25 years. And so she says that they're basically far too familiar with things not going the way they should. And with people not doing what's right. And so they felt as though they really didn't have a choice but to take the deal. She says, quote, the past 20 years of my life have been horrifying and unpredictable. I've learned not to expect the good or bad things to happen. And when something good does happen, I'm surprised. And she says she's not going to gamble on her son having to be in prison for until he's grown up until he's a grown man. And she says the prosecution knew I would take the deal because the only other options were for one of us to you know, go against the other one, which they both said they never would do. Yeah. During the one of the articles I read during and one of the articles I read to her stepdad makes this analogy where he says something like when a SWAT team has to have a hostage situation that they're handling. And when the perpetrator is becoming too unmanageable, they shoot the perpetrator. And so why should it this domestic violence type of situation not be given the same sort of lens? Wendy's has at one point that she quote, shoot a hole in the cage, they were all trapped in so that they could all get out together. during sentencing, her youngest son, Tyler, he wanted to read a letter that he wrote, and he reads it and it's really heartbreaking. Among the things he says, he says, quote, in preschool, I told my teacher when I was old enough, I'd kill my dad. He also says, And he never refers to his dad as anything other than Aaron. He calls him by his first name. And how old is he at this point? 13. Okay, he says, Whenever Aaron hit you, you'd have to stand there and make no reaction or it hit you even worse. He recalls a story when he was eight years old, and his dad smashed him in the head with a snow globe. And afterwards, he realized he was bleeding from his skull. And he asked his dad if he was allowed to cry. Oh my God. He said it was really scary to see his dad beating Randy his oldest son, especially because he was the biggest and they sort of looked at Randy as their father figure. And they figured if he could be so violent to Randy, that there's no telling what he could do to them. Yeah, he says, quote, he would hit my mom until it seems like a human would die. But my mom was just used to it. He also recalls a time when Aaron had broken his forearm from hitting his mom over the head with it. He also says this part is so sad. I'm not going to go into it because I think it would be gratuitous too. But he says he gives their perspective of their family dog Paco, and he says what he thinks his family doc would say, if you could talk. Yeah, and he's just so sad because you hear about the abuse he does to the dog too. And he says Paco is the nicest dog you could ever know. And he says at the end of his statement, if you could times all of this by a million, it wouldn't even be a small fraction of what we went through. In his defense, the victims defense, his brother Paul Maldonado makes a quick statement. And he says to the family, to the mom, and Randy, your judgment day will come and the wrath of God will be cast down upon you. And when asked what he thinks a Fair Sentencing would be, he says, An eye for an eye, just like the Bible says that you judge, when he makes his decisions has that, quote, This is the worst case of domestic violence that any of us have ever seen. Wow. And he goes on to say that he believes everything that they said, he completely understands that that a fair life was a horror show. And he thinks that nothing that would have happened, would have possibly happened if all of this wasn't true. And the fact that immediately afterwards, she called 911. And confessed, she never tried to put the blame on anybody else. She took out accountability from the beginning, just shows that this is the result of the lifestyle that they had, basically. But he says that, you know, he can't, he is bound by the law as well. And, you know, it wasn't up to her to decide that he should be killed. And so he has to, you know, put a penalty on it. Right. And so, Randy is sentenced to 75 months in jail with time served, so about like 65 months, I believe, at that point, and he wouldn't be eligible for parole, or he wouldn't be eligible to be out until August 2011. And that Wendy was sentenced to 10 years 120 months with no possibility of early release, eligible for release in March 2016. When going to jail, Randy says that he wasn't afraid of what would happen to him because, quote, I never worried about getting beat up. I've been beaten up by a really big guy plenty of times. And I survived. He was more worried about what would happen to his mom. She, while in jail, took computing classes saying in custody, I know that everybody outside uses computers now. And I barely know how to turn one on. So we have to remember like they went to jail in 2006. And the world changed so rapidly, I mean, so she while in prison, said that she wants to eventually be able to be an advocate and speak publicly, hopefully being able to help other women from similar situations. Motor focus really wouldn't be primarily to try to help her kids because they lost out on so much time with her. And she knows that what she's able to do when she gets out there'll be grown will be little, but she wants to be able to contribute as much as she can. Randy ends up serving his full sentence. And he's released in August of 2011. He goes on to marry a woman who whose mother was incarcerated with his mother in the same facility. He says he knows it's kind of strange way to meet somebody, but that they understand each other in a way that nobody else can. Right. And as part of the terms of their plea deal, Randy, even after he's out is unable to visit his mother in prison for the rest of her term. While they are able to speak on the phone, which they do pretty often she always gets her other sons visiting her and family throughout the time she's there. And sometimes Randy would drive to the facility with his wife so that she could visit her mom. And he would just wait in the car and just take some sort of comfort in knowing that he was, you know, just a few feet away from his mother, even though he couldn't go and see her. On March 5 2016. Wendy is released she serves her full term. She does ask during her term for clemency from the Governor, but he he denies it twice I believe and that's like all she could do. After getting out she has her first breakfast meal with bacon, avocado eggs and crunchy house hashbrowns. She makes a point to say crunchy, not soggy. And she says that she's most looking forward to cooking meals again on her own and getting herself some sort of work. She's a skilled glassblower and you're allowed Believe it or not like a glassmaker. She does like all these things like little tchotchkes and pipes and things like that. And so she's hoping she can get a job doing something like this, if nothing else, and she says that it's the little things that really bring her joy after getting out. She says quote, sometimes I'll just get in the car and ride somewhere. I'll go to the store or walk and I'll suddenly think in the last five minutes, I've gone further than I had been able to go in the last 10 years. Two of her kids are married now. All of them are, you know, still very close. And they vowed to help her and support her and do their best to get her set up for success after being released. They wanted everything to be basically in order for her as she gets out. Someone had started a GoFundMe after the release of this documentary that came out and saved up a bunch of money for her to have when she got out as a fund. I was unable to see how much it was for but, you know, she did, you know, get some help from the public. And she wants to be able to live a private life. She says in her last interview with him think it was People Magazine in about a year after she gets out in 2016. And she says that she just wants to have a normal, quiet life. And when she feels ready, she hopes that she could speak out on behalf of other survivors and victims of domestic abuse. And that seems to be just what she's done. There's really no record of what she's doing these days. She says in her last article, or her last recorded interview, maybe if I could help one or two other women just like me not to have to go through this, then maybe all of this was for a reason. And I'll end with something she said during her sentencing, she said, I taught my kids not to let someone else's anger and hate change you not to let it make you a bitter angry person and not to lose their soul. They didn't. I didn't. And I will. And that is the end of the story of the modern auto family and the death of Aaron Maldonado by Wendy and Randy. Wow, that is horrifying. It's horrifying. There's a helpline that they put at the end of the documentary that I just want to mention, if you or someone you know, is struggling with domestic violence, or anything, any sort of violence in the household, there's a phone number one 800 799 safe SAP, and you can call for support or help. There is resources out there for you. But I mean, the harsh show that this family left lived for almost 18 years, and everybody around was being held captive by this man. And nobody felt like they could do anything. I mean, I can. It's it's chilling, it's devastating. And it really makes you think about, you know, the world we live in today, and how often these types of things happen, and you never hear about it. And some people think, Oh, we've come so far. And you know, the domestic violence has such an issue with the past. And there's all these resources out there. It's it's not I mean, these things happen behind closed doors, and you never know about it until it's too late, you know? Yeah, it's really sad. Wow. Well, boy, moving back to the episode, yeah. How would you rate it? Um, I will give it like a C minus. Yeah, it was entertaining for the wrong. You know, it's, I'm gonna give it a higher rating than you for once. I'm gonna give it a a solid B just because it was so. so strange and so bizarre in so many weird acting choices that it was, I actually laughed out loud several times throughout the episode. We're not sure. I I'll give it a beat just for keeping me entertained even for the wrong reasons. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And kind of related, you know, domestic abuse, how do you feel like it dealt with the theme? I mean, I have to say, In my research, trying to find a crime of like patricide or something like this. Yeah, I found a lot of cases very often, more often than not, it's because the child is being abused. You know, if anything, and so there's really not a lot of cases like that. So I feel like, I don't know. I feel like it's kind of unrealistic to say it's because like, oh, kid will kill their father because he's embarrassed of him. So I don't know. I think it wasn't handled like completely disrespectfully. But I just think it was so unrealistic of a situation so I'm gonna give it like, give it a C kind of in the middle. Yeah, I would say the same. I didn't. Yeah, I would say the same. Yeah, for pretty much the same reasons. I mean, Lauren Ambrose, though. I mean, she really came up after that. She really did. And she certainly improved her acting skills after this. She was giving me a little bit of a young Molly Ringwald in the very back. Yeah, not acting wise because I think only one more time more range. Yeah, yeah. But I was feeling that vibe. I was liking the vibe of the characters in the apartment building to I'll give you that I would watch that sitcom any day. Well, my love language is podcast reviews and subscriptions. So if you'd like to To show us a little love, please subscribe to our show. And please write us a review. Also, the best way for other people to find our podcast and love us as well is through word of mouth. So tell the friends post about us on Reddit or find any other way you can just spread the word. Yeah, and we love connecting with our listeners. So please feel free to send us an email at ripped headlines pod@gmail.com. And you can find us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook at ripped headlines. And don't forget to check out our website ripped headlines pod.com. 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