THE MURDER OF AIDEN PAIZ: CUL-DE-SAC AMBUSH

A well-liked Pleasant Valley freshman drives to a secluded cul-de-sac for a $120 marijuana sale—and meets three teens who never planned to pay. Within minutes, 15-year-old Aiden Paiz is shot with an AR-15, his friend is wounded, and the killers scatter into the Poconos night. It will take Pennsylvania State Police less than a day to crack the case—built on a brave survivor’s account, confessions, recovered weapons, and a pattern of “drug rips” plaguing rural Monroe County.

In this episode of CRIMERY, host Jennifer Novotney follows the case end-to-end: the Snapchat setup, the ambush at Squirrelwood Road, the rapid arrests, and the hard sentences that followed—alongside the grief of a family whose world stopped in November 2020. We examine how guns, isolation, and small-time dealing collided—with consequences that will echo for decades.

What you’ll hear

• How a wounded 15-year-old’s statement broke the case in under 24 hours
• Why prosecutors call these robberies “drug rips”—and how they escalate
• The roles of Anthony Mitchell, Michael Demuro-Correll, and Justin Lemont
• Sentences that turned a “quick score” into lost futures

Content warning: teen victim, firearm violence, armed robbery.

Tips & case suggestions: crimerypod@gmail.com
• crimery.show
Host: Jennifer Novotney • Show: CRIMERY – True Crime Uncovered

Background image prompts (for your artwork generator)

Use one of these as your background only (no text/logo); they leave clean space for your title overlay.

Master prompt (exterior — the ambush)

Misty wooded cul-de-sac at night in rural Pennsylvania (Polk Township), leaf-strewn asphalt and damp forest, two cars parked nose-to-nose with headlights flaring, no people, no gore; faint brass shell casing near a boot-scuffed patch, a light dusting of fog, distant porch light through trees, cold moonlight, deep shadows; square composition with clean negative space in the upper third for typography; photorealistic, cinematic noir, subtle grain, muted palette (slate blue, pine green, asphalt gray).

Negative prompt: text, logos, readable signs or license plates, bodies, faces, blood, police tape, neon colors, cartoon.

If parameters are supported: aspect 1:1 (3000×3000), high detail, low saturation, moonlight + headlight mix, shallow haze.