All is Not Lost Podcast
All is Not Lost Podcast
When Your Friend Turns Out to Be Dangerous: A True Crime Story
In this gripping episode, my son, Sam shares a chilling true story from his past—one that shook us all. What started as a normal friendship turned into something straight out of a crime thriller when one member of his friend group was arrested by the FBI for trying to hire a hitman on the dark web. We talk about how it all unfolded, the red flags Sam noticed in hindsight, and why listening to your intuition could be life-saving. This is a story about shock, fear, and ultimately, wisdom gained.
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xoxo,
Rianne
Hello, and welcome back to All Is Not Lost podcast. I'm your host, psychic medium, Rhiann Maldonado. Did you know that 19 million Americans listen to true crime stories every week? While this podcast isn't necessarily a true crime podcast, today we have a true crime story for you. I'm back in the studio today with my son, Sam, and he is going to tell us an amazingly, shockingly true crime story of something that happened to him and his friends. And we will put a link to the actual news story because you are not going to believe it. So welcome and join me today listening to our very own personal true crime story right here on All Is Not Lost podcast.
SPEAKER_00:Spirit, does it stay? does it go?
SPEAKER_02:The fact is, spirit does survive death. Our loved ones are all around us. Love survives. Spirit survives. All is not lost.
SPEAKER_00:Welcome to the All Is Not Lost Podcast. Here's your host, psychic and evidential medium, Rian Maldonado.
SPEAKER_02:Hi, Sam. Welcome back to All Is Not Lost podcast.
SPEAKER_05:Hi, thanks for having me again.
SPEAKER_02:I am so glad you're here. I absolutely love hosting with you and wish we could do it all the time. I think we would never run out of things to talk about. So what makes today's episode special is normally we talk about paranormal and spiritual and things like that. We don't ever really touch on true crime, even though I am a True Crime Junkie. When you came home and told me what had been going on, it was an utter shock. So why don't you tell our listeners today your true crime story?
SPEAKER_05:Wow. So this has been pretty incredible. I truly didn't think anything like this would ever happen in my life. Yeah, no joke. And while the story itself is very interesting, from my perspective, the crazy part is the buildup. and the way in which you don't know what someone's capable of or the people you associate with
SPEAKER_02:until
SPEAKER_05:it's too late.
SPEAKER_02:And how you should treat people because you never know. You
SPEAKER_05:never know. And I think I have learned some life lessons in this situation. So I'm excited to share it today. So... It's a difficult story to just begin because there's a lot of moving parts.
SPEAKER_02:Right. So you probably have to start with the relationship, how this person even came into your life because of your multiple layers of friends.
SPEAKER_05:So throughout my life, we've moved around a lot. And I went to my last two years of high school in Spokane, Washington. You heard a little bit about that in our last episode. And from that, I left with two best friends, my friends Alex and Wyatt. And we moved down to California and then later back to Tucson. And that's where I live now. And through that whole time, I still kept in touch with my friends, Alex and Wyatt. They went on kind of their own paths. Alex went to college in Montana and Wyatt went to college in Washington. Well, during his time, Wyatt made a group of friends at his college. And After they had graduated a few years later, they were still chatting online. And I was invited to join their group, this group of friends. So it was two friends I knew and some people I'd never met before.
SPEAKER_02:In your online chat
SPEAKER_05:group. In an online group through Discord. So in this online group, we all played video games. We played Dungeons and Dragons online and these other things. And we just kind of played games and hung out. We're kind of nerdy friends. And... I think that it was really nice in the way that people move around. But now we have these tools to, you know, still be able to participate with friends from far away.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And stay in contact and stay in each other's lives.
SPEAKER_05:And I felt that as opposed to maybe something like social media, this was nice because we would schedule times and be able to actually do like activities together. Like we had these weekly game nights. Well, I quickly became friends with some of the other people in the group. Um, funnily enough, One of them, his name is Daz, is now my brother-in-law. That's a whole nother story, but I ended up marrying his sister. So in a way, this group actually changed my life in a couple
SPEAKER_01:ways.
SPEAKER_05:But at the time, most of them were pretty nice guys and we quickly became friends. And it came out that we'd eventually want to like meet up in person. And that was because I had gotten to know these people pretty well, but I'm going to go back.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. I want to know if he's in the
SPEAKER_05:group already. So the only thing was there was one guy in the group that I didn't like.
SPEAKER_02:There always is.
SPEAKER_05:Everyone was nice, but there's this guy named Scott. And over the years that we talked, because it was, it was a couple of years that we talked before we ever got together. I always felt, like I was maybe being a little mean in that Scott was very socially awkward and sometimes a little rude. And I felt that I wondered why he kind of continued to be in the friends group. And I felt that even when he would say something that wasn't very nice, everyone would kind of give him a pass. And I didn't know what their relationships were before I had come in at the end. So I also didn't really feel like I could say anything
SPEAKER_04:I
SPEAKER_05:just kind of assumed well you know maybe it's a little weird and they try to be nice to him and keep him around so he also kind of seemed like he started the online group like he had the permissions in discord to manage the group or something and so I also felt like oh maybe he's like a founding friend of this group
SPEAKER_02:so you can't kick him out of his own group
SPEAKER_05:yeah so Honestly, I think it was just that Scott was just honestly kind of not a, not a very fun person to be around, but not like the worst you've ever seen. And I didn't talk to him very personally. We were on like the voice chat a lot. So there's a lot of times we're all talking via voice and I would talk to some of the other guys, but I never like had a conversation with Scott directly. No, not once. I, I, I had nothing to say to him, but, um, We continue like this, and I'm only getting context clues about Scott. Like, who is he? What's his background? I never asked anyone directly because it didn't really matter. But I got a couple things. One was he would always say that he had assets. And I was a little unsure what this meant. I mean, we were four... five years out of high school, it seems strange to me that someone would talk about all these mysterious assets they have and how if they traded them in or something, they didn't have enough money to buy a house or whatever.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:Sometimes my friends, my mom knows this, they're always competing for like everything and especially how much money they have. So I kind of wrote it off that, you know, maybe he's just bragging about something he has. The other aspect I hear about is that he wants this relationship with some girl. I really don't learn much about it other than he still is interested in some girl who seems to be ignoring him. Was
SPEAKER_02:she like at his college?
SPEAKER_05:I don't know. You don't know anything about her. At this time, I want to say I don't know anything about
SPEAKER_02:her. But he's saying these things, alluding to this girl, not like you're hearing it from your other friends.
SPEAKER_05:I'd only heard that them talk to him. Like sometimes he would bring this up or say something related and they would go like Scott, like, Oh, you need to let it go. Oh,
SPEAKER_03:okay.
SPEAKER_05:That's all I hear.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:And again, I'm like, okay, so he's got some personal business. I don't know. And everyone was still pretty nice to her. Like, but they, it happened a few times of them telling him to like, stop worrying about this.
SPEAKER_01:Interesting.
SPEAKER_05:And so at that point I'm like, I just don't like him, but I don't think there's like anything crazy. So they organized this get together. And I, maybe it's funny in, in terms of our like modern life to like meet people you've met online in person, but my friend Wyatt was going, who has been a longtime friend of mine. And
SPEAKER_02:Wyatt knew Scott in person.
SPEAKER_05:And Wyatt knew all of these people from college and he'd known them in person for years. They now live in different places, but he'd known them for years. four plus years. Okay. I felt like in some way, they're not total strangers. They're not like someone we've only heard their voice. Now they're going to show up.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_05:Everyone
SPEAKER_02:here, you're being catfished.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Every single person had hung out in person many times, except for me with them.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:So I felt like I was just joining a group of people who knew each other and I knew one of them. And that felt you know, pretty reasonable. And so one of the guys, his name is Talon, his family owned a house on the coast in Washington State in kind of a remote area. And also because this was wintertime, the town was empty.
SPEAKER_02:It was
SPEAKER_05:just a complete off season for this little resort town where some, there's a lot of Airbnbs and a lot of fancy homes built right up on these kind of sand dunes that lead up to the ocean.
SPEAKER_03:And
SPEAKER_05:they say, oh, this winter, no one's using this family house. We're going to have this get together. And I was really excited. I, because I live in Arizona, I didn't have any friends like here at the time. And so I really had spent a long time since I'd seen another friend in person. And I
SPEAKER_02:love cold weather.
SPEAKER_05:And I loved cold weather. It's going to get to go to the ocean in Washington in the winter. This sounded really fun.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:And I become good friends with a lot of these guys. So we head up there and I meet. My friend Talon at the airport in Portland, he lived on the Washington side. Portland's on the border. He lived on the Washington side, but he picked me up in that airport and a couple others. And there was like another group coming from a different part of the state and we're all going to drive out there. And we drive in and we're getting set up in this cabin.
SPEAKER_02:So there's like six or eight guys?
SPEAKER_05:So if I remember correctly, it's myself, Wyatt, Talon, Jared, Scott, Daz, and then Daz's friend, Daniel.
SPEAKER_02:So
SPEAKER_05:seven guys total, including myself. And so they pick up some food at a grocery store, and there's one grocery store quite a ways away, and there's one restaurant, and we ate in the restaurant. I still have a commemorative cup we got. We're having a really good time. We're excited we're here for this trip. But Scott is there, and I feel bad. Very judgy saying it. But when I saw him, he did look like kind of an interesting person. He had kind of a scraggly beard. He was a little strange. Socially awkward. Socially awkward. Again, I'm not going to be the person to treat him differently. I was never mean.
SPEAKER_02:But you got a vibe.
SPEAKER_05:But I got a vibe. You
SPEAKER_02:got to trust those.
SPEAKER_05:He was even stranger seeing him in person than just his voice. And I feel like... later when you see the mugshot, you'll understand what I'm talking about. So we get to the house and everything, and we're setting up for the first evening. And people are playing games. Some of my friends like to drink too much, and they're doing that. I don't drink. But they're all kind of doing their things. Scott disappears.
SPEAKER_02:Oh.
SPEAKER_05:For hours.
SPEAKER_02:Oh. Outside? Inside?
SPEAKER_05:I'll get to that. So the way the house is built is there's a living room, a kitchen, and several bedrooms on the first floor. And then there's like a downstairs area that has just a few more bedrooms and a small living room and a bathroom. Well, he walks up from the downstairs in the evening and he goes, sorry, I was just coughing up blood.
SPEAKER_04:Okay. And
SPEAKER_05:I was like, What does that even mean? After being gone for hours. How do you just casually mention something that would be serious and... You might need help. You might need help. Okay. And you've been gone and then you just reappear. Okay, odd. Okay, odd, right? Everything that goes on with him is just a little strange. And he continues to be kind of awkward and I think... Some of the people got a little annoyed with him. And then.
SPEAKER_02:Just more comments like this. Just
SPEAKER_05:more weird comments.
SPEAKER_02:Trying to get people to engage. And
SPEAKER_05:he often would sometimes pick a fight. And even in some of the games, like with Alex or Daz, would just kind of do something to disrupt what someone else was doing.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:And my friends can sometimes get in little squabbles, right? So to put it lightly. And so it's just things like that, but nothing crazy.
SPEAKER_02:So he was like an attention seeker.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, it just caused a little bit of a problem with everything. Well, then the next day, I get up, and some of my friends, despite staying up into the early hours of the night, are up early.
SPEAKER_02:Remind me, weren't you sharing living space with him? Like, were you sleeping?
SPEAKER_05:I was sleeping in a bedroom with Wyatt, and he was sleeping downstairs far away.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so you weren't sleeping anywhere near Scott. I wasn't
SPEAKER_05:sleeping anywhere near Scott. And so we're getting up, and... two of my friends, Talon and Jared are already making breakfast. And I was like, oh, you know, thank you so much. And I'm fixing my plate and we're joking around. And then Scott comes in and then Talon goes, oh, Scott, I'm so sorry. Like, I forgot you're Jewish and we got pork sausage. I'm really sorry. Do you want us to run to the store? We could get a different protein. Cause they only had like sausage and eggs. And I think they were really just trying to be nice and accommodating to him. And I'm telling you, this is like the thing that comes into play later. He just looks at him dead in the eye and Scott goes like, well, if I tell myself it's not pork, then there's nothing wrong.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my God.
SPEAKER_05:And he just fixes a
SPEAKER_01:plate.
SPEAKER_05:He's like, as long as he, in a way, I think he elaborates, he's like, as long as I can make myself believe that what I'm doing isn't wrong, it's not wrong.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. since I know the story, that's terrifying.
SPEAKER_05:Exactly.
SPEAKER_02:Oh my God. But I don't remember hearing that part. At
SPEAKER_05:the time, I think everyone thought that that was strange, but again, you go, well, people can make their own life choices. It was about eating sausage. And for most of us, that's not a taboo.
SPEAKER_02:And maybe coming, maybe he wasn't a super practicing Jew and was okay with it. We don't know. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:So I think everyone could pass it off, but I've talked to my friends and everyone thought, that even if they thought maybe he wasn't super religious, it's a weird kind of comment to make in the way he made it. So we continue with the entire trip. And to be honest, while he can be a little weird, nothing crazy happens otherwise. We kind of have a fun time and we wrap up and we drive back to the airport and I go home.
SPEAKER_02:There were just more of those comments throughout though, right? Because I think I remember you telling me when you came home or during the trip that it, It was awkward. There were a lot of awkward
SPEAKER_05:times. I guess what I'm saying is he continued to be awkward. He continued to be a little confrontational. But that's how he always is.
SPEAKER_02:It wasn't out of the ordinary. It was just whatever.
SPEAKER_05:I just went home and said I had a fun time with everyone. But as usual, like Scott just kind of made things a little unfun sometimes. Okay. And I, you know, that was it. But we were going to take a trip to California. Shortly after I got back from Washington, I remember knowing that I had two kind of back-to-back trips. So we left for California when I got back, and then we were driving home to Arizona a couple days later. And we're driving home through the middle of the desert where cell reception is spotty. And I
SPEAKER_02:get a message. Oh, my God, I remember this.
SPEAKER_05:My friend Talyn says, everybody, like, be on a call tonight at whatever time, 8 p.m. I
SPEAKER_02:remember that.
SPEAKER_05:Like... Just be there.
SPEAKER_02:And your mind went crazy. Like, what
SPEAKER_05:could this be? I feel that, you know, your friends can write things or whatever, but for someone to be like, no, you must. Everyone knows that their schedules are going to be wild and people are going to have different things. So just say, like, you must be here. Figure it out. was very strange. And yeah, I had all these theories. I could not figure
SPEAKER_02:out. I think we talked about it the whole way home.
SPEAKER_05:We talked about it, yeah, for hours. But my cell phone died. Or the cell service went out. So I was like, well, I'm not going to make it. I will ask them tomorrow what happened.
SPEAKER_02:So we didn't make it home in time?
SPEAKER_05:No, we didn't make it home in time. We clearly weren't going to. So we speculated, but I kind of wrote it off. Well, I wake up the next morning. The entire Discord group is gone. Delete it. And there's a new one with almost nothing posted. Discord saves everything that's ever been, so it kind of builds over time. There's nothing there now. And I'm like, so what's going on? I message. Well, I don't remember exactly who I talked to. I remembered better in the past.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think it was Alex.
SPEAKER_05:But ultimately, I received news that Scott has been arrested.
UNKNOWN:Oh, my God.
SPEAKER_05:And slowly this story starts to unfold and it's crazy. So I get the news that Scott's been arrested. And I remember in my conversations, I did talk to Daz as well, who in a way was closest with Scott.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:Scott's dad called Daz. That's right. And this is what initiated everybody kind of knowing the situation. Scott's dad calls Daz and is very cryptic. And asks him or says that Scott is in trouble and asks if he will write like a letter. Like a character letter. A character letter. But he doesn't call it that. He's very vague.
SPEAKER_04:Scott
SPEAKER_05:says very vague. So Daz is a little confused. But Scott was his friend and Daz felt like he maybe should do it. So he begins. I don't remember exactly what happened, but Daz gets another call from the dad. And this time he elaborates further that Scott, you know, Scott's in trouble. jail and they need this character witness and all this stuff. And so I think everyone started doing some more research. And when they
SPEAKER_02:found... Because Daz was probably worried about writing a letter, not knowing what the crime was.
SPEAKER_05:Yes. So Daz kind of tells some of the other guys and they start doing some investigating on their own. Well, he's just not sure what to do. It was very weird to talk to the guy's dad. He's never... talked to his dad before. It's really strange that he gets a phone call.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Well, they find like the indictment and it's insane. So it was from the FBI because
SPEAKER_02:it was a federal case. Federal case.
SPEAKER_05:And ultimately, like, here's what happened. So just a few months prior to the event.
SPEAKER_02:To you sharing.
SPEAKER_05:To us going
SPEAKER_02:into this. Cabin.
SPEAKER_05:Cabin.
SPEAKER_02:With a murderer. I'm
SPEAKER_05:going to back up a little bit.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:So it was sometime earlier, maybe a year or more earlier, he met a girl online through a Facebook page for some anime.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, boy.
SPEAKER_05:They're anime Facebook moderators.
SPEAKER_02:Oh.
SPEAKER_05:As you can already know. Yeah. This is already...
SPEAKER_02:Make some assumptions.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. And... They quickly form a relationship and she agrees to come visit him in California. I don't remember where she's from, but some other state.
SPEAKER_02:So he's living in California.
SPEAKER_05:So I'll give the context. He lives in Beverly Hills. His parents are quite wealthy. He lives in Beverly Hills, California. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:And this is all public record, so we're not giving away anything. You could read this
SPEAKER_05:in the FBI statement.
SPEAKER_02:We'll link to some of that.
SPEAKER_05:So she agrees to come visit him in California. And it doesn't go well. So initially my friends knew that she came out to visit him. She ended up going home early and then didn't want to talk to him after that. So I know in their mind, they didn't know exactly what happened. And obviously he feels cheated from the situation, but I think they were like, you need to let it go. Is
SPEAKER_02:this the same girl then that in your discord chat, when he would be talking about her, your friends would say, you need to move on and let it go. I
SPEAKER_05:didn't. You didn't know back then? I didn't know any of these things, and they're all coming together at this moment. So yes, she had visited him, left. He had called her family, and her father got on the phone and told him to stop calling. Wow. Nobody knew any of that.
SPEAKER_02:Sure.
SPEAKER_05:But according to the FBI report, the reason she went home earlier, she said he was sexually violent. That he tried to pressure her and it got violent.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, my God. So she
SPEAKER_05:got on a plane and came home.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:She called her parents. I think they got her to a hotel and they got her on a flight. Wow. So it was actually pretty serious. Okay. And the sad thing is, you know, when my friends were hearing the story, they didn't know any of that. Sure. They thought that maybe she didn't have a good time or whatever and just broke up with him.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:But the fact that he then continued to call her and her family, and no wonder her dad told him to stop. So it's a very scary situation for her and her family already. I can only imagine how
SPEAKER_02:horrible that was. Right, you have four sisters. Imagine if somebody was doing that to her. It would be awful.
SPEAKER_05:And that, you know, she thought she was going there because she genuinely thought she liked him. And then their first encounter, this happens. That's awful. He obviously had some issues.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_05:So that's the background. Well, he had obsessed about her for this whole time. Like a year, you were saying. I think it's about a year. And he's continuing to talk to my friends and wants them to, in a way, support that he still has hope for this relationship.
SPEAKER_02:And they don't know anything. And they don't know anything. They don't know how bad it was. And so they're
SPEAKER_05:trying to be nice, but also trying to tell him, you know, just let it go. So just before we went to the cabin, like a week before... He had had$13,000 in Bitcoin. And that is what he was referring to when he talked about the assets. And if he had saved that, it would have been worth millions today. Back then he had it and it was worth$13,000. And that he had bought over the years. And so he had taken that money and he went on the dark web and tried to find a website for Murder for Hire.
SPEAKER_02:That's unbelievable.
SPEAKER_05:Which is absolutely insane. It
SPEAKER_02:still baffles me that there is a dark web that's actually a real thing. You know, it sounds so conspiracy theorist. It sounds old people. It just but you hear about it enough that it really is there and bad things happen. But when you told me that I your brain just was like, what? I don't need like me. Normal, average mom. I don't even know how to get on the dark web. I don't want to know, but I don't like as
SPEAKER_05:a, as just a computer aficionado. I, you know, I've done it. There's, it's actually just a certain browser that you use. Okay. But, um, And there are some things that aren't bad. Like MIT has a website on there. All it is is that everything on the internet is considered like indexed. Meaning when you go to Google, it can find a website from a search. But that's only a small percentage of the internet. The majority is unindexed. Meaning you have to type the specific URL.
SPEAKER_02:That's the dark web. You have to know what you're looking for.
SPEAKER_05:You have to know. And so people can be very secretive. There are websites that are only open at certain times of day.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:With certain passwords. They can... There's all of these... Essentially, it becomes this greater and greater mystery, and there's all these conspiracies, but it's something that can only be accessed by knowing direct links.
SPEAKER_02:Interesting. So
SPEAKER_05:you have to go somewhere else to even learn...
SPEAKER_02:That there's a link available.
SPEAKER_05:To something.
SPEAKER_02:You've got to really know what you're looking for.
SPEAKER_05:So what's easily accessible are, like, chat rooms, and then people in those chat rooms share information to get to deeper parts.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:That's how... So... What Scott does, he goes on through here, and the whole point of the dark web is to try to be anonymous. While now it's like an investment, initially cryptocurrency like Bitcoin was to be anonymous. When you spend it, it's put into this, they call it a washing machine, where it's put in with everyone else's money, and people withdraw money. They're amounts from the pool.
SPEAKER_02:So the money isn't traced back to you. So you can't trace back to you and what you did with it. Yeah. So
SPEAKER_05:that's what he's trying to do to cover his tracks.
SPEAKER_02:I see.
SPEAKER_05:Well, he finds a website that claims that they do murder for hiring. Oh, my God. And of his$13,000, he spends$12,000.
SPEAKER_02:To kill the girl. To kill this
SPEAKER_05:girl that he had flown up to California and is now no longer talking to him. And even in the FBI report, it says he briefly dated. This is very short. So he agrees, he sends them$12,000 and he uploads a photo of a tattoo that she had that would have been under clothing. Oh no, I'm sorry, I'm going to back up. He uploads photos of her and her information and he says, send me a picture of the body with this tattoo. And everything that he writes, and you can read this in the report, is very cold and analytical.
SPEAKER_02:And that's what I wanted you to bring up was I remembered you telling me some things that were very robotic and strange in his transactional, very transactional writing.
SPEAKER_05:The big one that he wrote was that when the father called him and told him to stop calling, he said, consider this matter closed. And that's...
SPEAKER_02:That was his code for I'm going to have to murder. And
SPEAKER_05:that was also what he said. later in an email with the potential hitman.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so he goes on the dark web. He searches for murder for hire. He finds somebody who says,
SPEAKER_05:I'll do it. I'll do it. He pays them the money and he says, I want evidence. I want you to show me a picture of her corpse. And then this identifying tattoo, which I think was obviously used against him. The fact that he very clearly said, wanted her dead and he wanted proof of her death. And he
SPEAKER_02:wrote
SPEAKER_05:it. And he wrote this down.
SPEAKER_02:Oh my God.
SPEAKER_05:What this website was, was not murder for hire. They were scammers and gray area do-gooders in that what they did is they took his money.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:But then they send a tip to a newspaper in California.
SPEAKER_02:It wasn't directly to the FBI.
SPEAKER_05:No.
SPEAKER_02:So what they
SPEAKER_05:do is they would bait people into giving them money and then they would tell them, but they keep the money.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:So, you know, you can have your opinion on that, but it's just an interesting thing
SPEAKER_02:they did. I didn't know that.
SPEAKER_05:So they reported it to a newspaper who immediately called the FBI.
SPEAKER_02:Oh.
SPEAKER_05:So the FBI poses as the people from this website.
SPEAKER_02:So they worked with the dark web people.
SPEAKER_05:Or
SPEAKER_02:they set up their own. The
SPEAKER_05:people who are on the dark web, like, disappeared.
UNKNOWN:Disappeared.
SPEAKER_05:The FBI obviously is incredible because somehow they were able to get in and impersonate the people he was talking with without making him aware.
SPEAKER_02:Without showing any difference in communication or anything. They
SPEAKER_05:had no access to the group that took the money.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:So the FBI couldn't find that group.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, interesting. But
SPEAKER_05:they found, they got in communication with Scott. So what they do is they say, yes, we'll do it. they went out to her family and warned her and her parents and they staged her as a dead body she had to dress up and they had to stage a photo of the tattoo
SPEAKER_01:to make it
SPEAKER_05:look like she died I thought how incredibly horrific is what they had to do and they sent it to him and they said you know if you want If you want the proof, you'll have to send us an additional$1,000. The other$1,000. Oh, okay. Or it was like$1,000 or$2,000. It was a portion of the money. So he agrees. And they got him. He worked really hard to be anonymous, but he was dumb in the end. They said they wanted it through a money transfer through Wells Fargo or something. And an FBI agent arranged a meeting with him. I saw the security photo. He goes, he buys this money order, and then he meets the FBI agent. Oh my God. And then they take him in.
SPEAKER_02:They arrested him right then on the spot. Oh my God, I had no idea.
SPEAKER_05:And he had written to the Murder for Hire people all these very cold and negative things about women. And I thought it was really funny. A female FBI agent was the one that did all this and caught him.
SPEAKER_02:It was a female agent? You can read
SPEAKER_05:her report. And she totally took him down from start to finish.
SPEAKER_02:Wow. Wow.
SPEAKER_05:So.
SPEAKER_02:So I remember vaguely you came home and, or after that trip, you know, when you were telling me this and I was like, oh my God, you slept in a house.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, just a few rooms down.
SPEAKER_02:With a guy who was plotting murder.
SPEAKER_05:Actively.
SPEAKER_02:In the moment. Yeah. And. Your intuition from moment one was, I don't like this guy. There's something off about him. But I remember we had discussions about how we justify our feelings or we don't want to hurt people's feelings. And this happens a lot. This happens to people and then they get victimized that we feel funny about somebody, but we don't want to be rude or they're friends of a friend. So we're like, ah, it's just me or, oh, I'm just being judgmental or whatever. Well, we have to remember that we were programmed to be judgmental. And I don't mean that in a negative, nasty way, but we judge every single day. Do I take that road or that road? Do I walk down that alleyway or not? Do I go to this bank or that bank or that restaurant? Like our brain is constantly judging our body. You knew you had vibes about this guy when it was literally just online. And then you stayed in a house with him. God only knows what else he was capable of.
SPEAKER_05:Well, certainly, or what else he was doing at the time.
SPEAKER_02:What was he doing down there for all those hours? Who knows? He's probably searching around for somebody to kill this girl. Can
SPEAKER_05:you
SPEAKER_02:imagine that? Did you tell me the FBI was watching that house? They knew where he was at that time?
SPEAKER_05:I think they later said because what happens is he paid.
SPEAKER_04:And
SPEAKER_05:then he went on that trip. So it's hilarious. He's kicking back. He's eating, he's drinking, he's playing, he's having fun. Thinking she's going to go get murdered. While he's anticipating, waiting for the confirmation she's been murdered. Can you imagine if you had the intent to murder someone that you, like, you'd think that'd be when you're most on edge. But he was the most relaxed he'd ever been.
SPEAKER_02:Oh my God, that's bone chilling. bone chilling. And I remember when you were telling me this, I kept thinking, you guys are so lucky the FBI didn't like come knock down the door or that he didn't hurt one of you guys. I don't know. There was just so many thoughts going through my mind that now. So fast forward, he's, he's been in prison. He's almost about to get out of prison. And, and you guys never wrote character letters.
SPEAKER_05:So I do want to say one further thing is that dad didn't write the character letter.
UNKNOWN:Um,
SPEAKER_05:He has a second charge, and I think it was dropped because he pled guilty, but he attempted to influence witnesses from jail with money. He was having people called, including Daz, and offered money to write more of those character witnesses or provide him an alibi. And they caught him through the phone calls. And again, he thought he was so smart, but he was dumb in the end. But yeah, he continued. So what this proves to me is that when he's caught, He doesn't even feel guilty.
SPEAKER_02:No.
SPEAKER_05:He was trying to orchestrate a way to get out of jail while in jail.
SPEAKER_02:What's even scarier beyond that is he gets out next year.
SPEAKER_05:And that's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_02:He only got five years, right? He got five years plus he had been in prison for a year waiting trial. So
SPEAKER_05:I, yeah, he was in prison starting in...
SPEAKER_02:So if our editing is a little bit weird... right in this spot and our energy seems different. Full transparency, we just had to pause to call the police and the neighbor was yelling horrifically at a little girl the same age as my youngest daughter and saying things I could never imagine saying to a child. And this isn't the first time that they've had the police called on them. And so while it feels awful to come back and continue recording, unfortunately, the police talked to the family and the little girl and we heard everything through the screen and they decided to leave. So there's a lot of feelings going on right now because we're really worried about this little girl. It's not the first time. And I really hate for her to become a statistic as we're sitting here talking about true crime. So we're a little shaken. Anyway, we're going to finish the story about Scott. Just know that our energy is different for that reason. And if we find out anything, hopefully that the little girl gets some help, we would update. So I think where we were leaving off was when I was commenting that Scott only got five years, but he was, if I understand correctly, in prison already for a year, awaiting trial and all of that. So he's potentially going to get out next year. He's being held in California, correct?
SPEAKER_05:Yes, I understand he's in federal prison. They charge it as a federal crime because it was over the internet, so it's considered crossing state lines.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_05:And so it was a Some of the state penalties for even attempted murder for hire are much higher, but the federal one's a little lower. Oh,
SPEAKER_01:that's right. And
SPEAKER_05:I did some research on that. I also heard, I can't speak to the absolute validity of this with my friends, that Scott's family are fairly wealthy and they were able to hire some big Hollywood attorney that has defended some other people in the area.
SPEAKER_02:So to help get some lesser charges, maybe. And
SPEAKER_05:they got the charge down a lot. I think I wanted to include.
SPEAKER_02:While you're looking that up, didn't you find out something about murder for hire here in Arizona where we live?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. In the state of Arizona, if it actually is carried out, it's a capital crime for both the person who paid and both the person who committed
SPEAKER_02:the murder. So we still have the death penalty in Arizona.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Yeah. You know, while a lot of crimes don't carry a mandatory capital sentence, it's one of the very few, at least in the state of Arizona, that does.
SPEAKER_02:That's interesting. I
SPEAKER_05:think it's considered much higher than a normal order because it's like an even added layer of premeditation.
SPEAKER_02:Sure. Because you have your crime of passion where you kill somebody because you snapped, which is what I think happened with Jan, the person in our Spokane house. And then premeditated, you're making a plan. But to go through to find somebody else to hide... your crime, to do your crime for you and pay for it is a next level sinister. I
SPEAKER_05:think absolutely. You know, they say that, uh, here in the, from a public information officer from the FBI and the central district of California, it reads quote, Burkitt's crime was not a momentary lapse in judgment, but a premeditated plot to kill the victim because she rejected his advances. Prosecutors argued and sent in a sentencing memorandum. While attempting to take a life is serious enough, Burkett's chosen method of carrying out the crime, using the dark web to hire a hitman and cryptocurrency, speak to his sophistication, meticulous planning, and attempts to anonymize his illegal conduct in the commission of this offense, and are aggravating in nature. So here the prosecution is arguing that specifically because of all the steps he took, it proves that it was Such an advanced crime. Yeah. And they're saying aggravating for the sake of his sentencing, even though it was reduced.
SPEAKER_02:But he only got five years. That's insane. Because it was California, correct?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, it was California.
SPEAKER_02:And they're very different with crime and punishment there. We are from California and glad I don't live there anymore. Wow, that's scary. So the family of
SPEAKER_05:the girl and her parents... I felt since I first learned about the true nature of the case that the saddest thing was her and the life that she must be living now, especially that he's getting out next year. Right.
SPEAKER_02:How's she ever going to feel safe?
SPEAKER_05:How would you ever feel safe knowing this happened to you? And then worse off that the offender is free. And he could
SPEAKER_02:do it again. In
SPEAKER_05:a very short time.
SPEAKER_02:And I know that you guys have thought about you guys as friends, quote unquote friends, staying in that house with him on the coast and also not writing letters.
SPEAKER_05:No one did.
SPEAKER_02:No one did. That if this guy is as sick as he seems to be, not to be dramatic, but he could absolutely be angry at you all.
SPEAKER_05:I think so.
SPEAKER_02:At least at the people that he asked to write letters for him.
SPEAKER_05:I'm most worried for Daz, who's my brother-in-law, because Scott is specifically contacted him as the one to write the letter and in a later phone call after finding out this information Daz had to refuse to his father to do it and when he was trying to solicit people to change the story he tried to contact Daz and Daz ignored the call
SPEAKER_02:wow that's really scary
SPEAKER_05:and going back to what he said at the breakfast thing this is a man who claims if
SPEAKER_02:I believe it's true if I
SPEAKER_05:believe that I'm not committing a crime or that the crime is somehow worthwhile or is beneficial, I don't feel any guilt. And I believe that's why he was able to be so relaxed that day. He was able to do what he wanted.
SPEAKER_02:Because he thought he wasn't committing a crime. He thought he had validating reasons to kill this girl.
SPEAKER_05:I also believe that in his mind, because it was murder for hire, because it wasn't his hand, he had no guilt, that it was black and white like that in a way that no one else would think.
SPEAKER_02:God, that's scary. That's really, really scary. Well, I really hope that... I don't know. I don't know what I hope. I obviously hope he doesn't do this to anybody else. I hope everyone's safe. I hope his family keeps an eye on him or somebody does, or, you know, I, I don't know because five years is not enough, especially if here over the border in Arizona, that's a capital offense. He'd be on death row right now.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But because it's California, he's out next year. I
SPEAKER_05:would say it just is federal, even though it's in
SPEAKER_02:a. Oh yeah. Yeah. That's right. That's right. That's right.
SPEAKER_05:But yeah. Had he, Say he had found someone in Arizona and paid them in person. That's what the crime
SPEAKER_02:is. Thank you for clarifying. You're right. I'm wrong. Federal. So federal is less than anyway. But...
SPEAKER_05:Ew. It just... It's absolutely terrifying. You never know. Yeah. You don't know how people are going to act. And like you said earlier, it was this thought of someone who, from the very beginning, felt, you know... Off. Off. Made... Vague comments that were somewhat concerning. And everybody tried to give him a pass. And it actually, in a way, facilitated this crime. He
SPEAKER_02:was talking
SPEAKER_05:about the girl.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, my God. And you guys unknowingly, unknowingly. That's really scary. And you guys still talk about it sometimes to this day. It comes up, right? More like we can't believe we were in this.
SPEAKER_05:When it comes up, they won't even say his name. They don't like, you know, they call him Voldemort from
SPEAKER_02:the guy who will not be named
SPEAKER_05:because he's the guy who won't be named. Like, they don't want to say his name. I mean, to my friends, they deleted that whole thing, started a new chat and said he doesn't even deserve to be named again. even though they had been friends with him for years. I mean, it was so clear cut. The evidence was, there was no doubt. I think that's why he ultimately had to plead guilty. He
SPEAKER_02:was caught red handed by the FBI. With it all in writing. Let me ask, Wyatt was the closest one to him. Wyatt pretty much brought him into the group. Looking back, does Wyatt remember having any, any vibe, any instinct? Was he just trying to be nice or was he oblivious to it all?
SPEAKER_05:I don't remember exactly. I know I asked them in a group, maybe not Wyatt specifically, um, I was like, I just always thought, I had a hard time with it. I didn't know why you guys
SPEAKER_02:kind of gave him a pass. What'd they say?
SPEAKER_05:And yeah, they just thought he was a little weird. And they said that he had started the group, so they felt like they couldn't kick him out of his own thing.
SPEAKER_02:And it would be mean to go start your own. And
SPEAKER_05:everyone tries to be nice.
SPEAKER_02:Sure, sure. I think most of us try to be nice. But lesson there, listen to your gut. Yeah. Listen to your gut.
SPEAKER_05:And I also feel I'm like, man, how can I blame that girl for going to visit him when I went to a cabin and visited the same guy?
SPEAKER_02:That's a really great point because a lot of people do victim shame.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Girls shouldn't have been wearing this or they shouldn't put themselves in that situation.
SPEAKER_05:Especially meeting people online.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. But. I value that you as a man just said that you literally went and stayed in a cabin with people you didn't know.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So you can't shame her. And no one deserves this. Even if they put themselves in a bad situation, no one deserves to have this happen to them.
SPEAKER_05:And that's what I think. I think in a way in our modern world, you'll probably meet people online. We're
SPEAKER_02:going to have to. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:It's the way that things are going.
SPEAKER_02:We work with people online. We do meetings online. We, you know, companies now have employees all over the world.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. I'm like one. I wouldn't have met my wife if not through the exact same circumstances that I met Scott.
SPEAKER_02:So lesson is trust your gut.
SPEAKER_05:I think so.
SPEAKER_02:I think ultimately that's all you have. Trust your gut. And don't push it down. Don't ignore it. Don't justify it or rationalize it away if something or someone doesn't feel right. And this goes back to less true crime and more of my spiritual side of all is not lost is you have this internal compass. You're born with it. Stop ignoring it. When you're little, people tell you to ignore it or, oh, that's not real or don't worry about that. But you feel something inside. You need to listen because it's there for a reason.
SPEAKER_05:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:well thank you for sharing that story i um it's hard not to say goodbye now with a yucky feeling uh especially with why we had to pause the show for a minute but also the story itself is terrible thank god the girl is alive and
SPEAKER_05:with her family
SPEAKER_02:yep and that those gray hat people on the dark web um We're able to tell the news and and hopefully there's more people out there that do things like that, because I guess there's never going to be a shortage of psychos that want to do things like this. So we need the people who stop them.
SPEAKER_05:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:And the FBI agent, thank her for playing the part and taking down this guy. Good on her. Wow, that's a little bit heavy. I feel a little bit icky right now. But thank you for being back in the studio with me. I love doing shows with you and I hope we can do more. I know we have some more topics we want to cover together and I hope to see you back soon.
SPEAKER_05:Thank you.