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"Obsessed" Woman Kills Ex's New Girlfriend After Seeking "Darker Type Magic" · Murder Files Unsealed

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Speaker 1: Welcome back to the deep dive. Today, we are heading
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deep into the humid heart of Mississippi, specifically Clinton, right
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where the whisper of lazy river bends eventually turned into
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the sharp, terrifying crack of gunfire.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a really chilling story.
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Speaker 1: This is a story that goes far beyond a typical
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relationship tragedy. It's a psychological deep dive into how fatal obsession,
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when amplified by a desperate, dark search for supernatural solutions,
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can just destroy innocent lives.
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Speaker 2: Now, that's absolutely fascinating here, or maybe terrifying is the
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better word. Is the sheer speed, the speed with which
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this unrequited human love transition into this really rigid, dangerous
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quest for forbidden mystical power. We are unpacking the sources
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detailing the case of Shawneevelle Young, a woman who consumed
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by rejection from a man named David Britt, murdered Leanne Warner,
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a woman she barely knew.
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Speaker 1: Our mission, then, is to trace that descent. We need
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to understand the psychological spy, that rapid sort of self
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justifying past exact that fused this this existential desperation with
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occult beliefs and well ultimately culminated in murder.
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Speaker 2: So to set the scene for you, we have three
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core figures. First, Shawnievelle Young the killer. She's a forty
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something single mother okay, and her life, by her own admission,
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later felt defined by emotional fagility and frankly chronic failure right.
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Second David Britt, the ex boyfriend. He was simply looking
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for a rebound, really, but he became the unwitting catalyst
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for Young's complete undoing.
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Speaker 1: And finally, the victim, Leanne Warner the victim.
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Speaker 2: She was thirty eight, a dedicated paralegal, a devoted mother,
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and tragically just a loyal friend of the woman Britt
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eventually started dating after Shawnee.
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Speaker 1: The initial intrigue here is immediate because this story touches
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on real world phenomena. We often just you know, dismiss
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his fiction or folklore totally. This wasn't just impulse of violence.
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The case, which did get national attention, exposed how unrequited love,
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when a peered with a highly structured belief in malicious spell.
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Speaker 2: Work right, can become a blueprint for violence. It really
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shows the devastating lethality that can happen when fantasy and
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this profound rage intersect.
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Speaker 1: And that structure you mentioned is vital to understand. Young
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didn't just snap. She seemed to use her belief system
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as both a justification and a pathway.
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Speaker 2: Okay, let's unpack this then, start at the beginning setting
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the scene small town reality, Clinton, Mississippi, early twenty Ten's right,
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we have to begin with the brief, intense connection that
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became the catalyst. Oh, the whirlwind romance and well, the
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abrupt rejection.
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Speaker 1: So the tragedy really takes root. In twenty eleven, Young
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meets David Britt through like a loose circle of mutual acquaintances. Okay.
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Britt was a local guy described as ruggedly handsome, and crucially,
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he was rebounding hard from a very very bitter split
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with his longtime ex Yvonne. Oh.
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Speaker 2: Okay, so he wasn't exactly in a stable place either,
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not at all.
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Speaker 1: And Young, meanwhile, she was emotionally depleted her own string
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of personal disappointments, failed relationships, money troubles. She latched onto
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brit immediately, like instantly. She saw him as a chance
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at redemption.
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Speaker 2: You know, a white knight who might finally give her
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the stable, defining love she desperately crave.
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Speaker 1: And initially that intensity probably validated that fantasy.
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Speaker 2: For oh, absolutely, our sources describe a three week whirlwind courtship.
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Speaker 1: Three weeks wow.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, this wasn't casual dating. They detail candlelit dinners and
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quiet corners late night, really intimate drives along the historic
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winding Natchez Trace Parkway, and whispered promises about futures they
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hadn't actually planned at all. Right, For Young, this incredibly
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short period felt cosmic. She felt this powerful, instant sense
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of fate, believing she had finally found her soulmate.
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Speaker 1: And that this relationship would erase all the past failures exactly.
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Speaker 2: But the relationship's foundation was well, incredibly unstable. Was emotionally unavailable,
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still dealing with the wreckage of his past with Yvonne understandable,
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his attention started to wean almost as quickly as it
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had ignited. The dates just kind of evaporated, The calls
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grew sporadic, and within a single month maybe just over.
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It was undeniably over.
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Speaker 1: But for Shawneeville Young, rejection wasn't just a disappointment, No.
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Speaker 2: It was an existential threat.
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Speaker 1: This is where the spiral accelerates then, Yeah, from just
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sadness to well, dangerous obsession.
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Speaker 2: She refused to categorize the breakup as like a mutual ending.
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She saw it as a betrayal that demanded retribution. Wow,
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her obsession consumed her. We know from sources it entirely
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eclipsed her responsibilities as a mother, just took over friend
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of the victim. Actually, Beth Read, she recalled during the investigation,
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and later on the TV program snapped that when Young
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was trying to involve her in spells. Later on, Young
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never spoke of her children. She never spoke anything outside
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of David and Pam.
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Speaker 1: And Pan being the new girlfriend Tam.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, the new girlfriend Young figured out existed through meticulous,
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relentless social media stalking.
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Speaker 1: So we have to pause here because this wasn't just
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standard heartbreak, was it? You mentioned? It was an existential threat?
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Why did BRIT's rejection hit her with such finality?
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Speaker 2: It's really crucial to trace her history here. For Young,
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this rejection wasn't just losing a boyfriend. If that felt
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like the final chip taken out of her entire sense
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of self worth. It reinforced a lifetime of feeling abandoned.
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And it reinforced this core belief that love was a
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zero sum game that she was perpetually destined to lose.
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Speaker 1: That's a heavy burden, it is.
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Speaker 2: And this pattern of heartaches, starting way back with a
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high school sweetheart who left her, moving through a disastrous
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marriage to a mechanic whose gambling debts basically ruined her,
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and then a brief humiliating affair, all of that culminated
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in BRIT's quick exit.
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Speaker 1: So his rejection didn't just cause pa.
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Speaker 2: No, it struck directly at her deepest, long held vulnerability.
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It confirmed her profound fear of abandonment, and that really
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set the stage for the psychological dissent that followed.
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Speaker 1: Okay, that pattern explains why the obsession took roots so
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fast and became so well totalizing.
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Speaker 2: Immediately, she stalked BRIT's social media accounts, trying to assemble
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his life like some sort of deranged, sacred puzzle. This
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digital surveillance led her directly to Pam the new girlfriend,
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a successful, attractive real estate agent whose quote effortless charm,
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as Young later wrote in her journal, seemed to just
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mock Young's profound despair.
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Speaker 1: And this brings us to the tragic figure of Leanne Warner,
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the completely unwitting victim.
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Speaker 2: Completely unwitting. Yeah, Warner was Pam's fiercely loyal, devoted friend.
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She was, according to multiple testimonies, the glue in their social.
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Speaker 1: Circle, just a good friend. Yeah.
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Speaker 2: A mother, a paralegal working in Jackson, juggling her career
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and raising two young kids. She represented normal, see stability, genuine,
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non toxic affection, everything Young felt she lacked.
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Speaker 1: What's so chilling here is the mistaken targeting.
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Speaker 2: Aspect, exactly Young's emotional fixation. Her jealousy was overwhelmingly directed
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at Pam. Pam was the rival she blamed for the
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theft of brit. But in Young's fevered imagination, as the
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sources put it, Warner represented proximity to brit She represented
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that slice of shared easy happiness that Young felt was
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denied to her.
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Speaker 1: So Warner's loyalty to Pam made her a target.
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Speaker 2: Tragically, Yes, her active, cheerful loyalty made her a symbol
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of the obstacle, rendering her a target of Young's projected vengeance.
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Speaker 1: That's the hallmark of the delusional thinking we'd see later on,
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isn't it?
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Speaker 2: Absolutely Young? Wasn't targeting a rival. Necessarily, she was targeting
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an asset of the rival. She was aiming to dismantle
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Pam's support structure, her stability.
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Speaker 1: And you mentioned her upbringing earlier.
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Speaker 2: How does that factor in, Well, we can trace some
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roots back there. Born in the late nineteen sixties, she
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was steeped in a pretty rigid Southern Baptist environment, lots
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of focus on sin, damnation, rigid doctrines.
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Speaker 1: We rebelled against that, right, Okay she did.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, led to a rebellious adolescence in early adulthood. But
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the language, you know, the language of good and evil,
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sin and redemption, that remained in her psychological DNA. Ah.
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Speaker 1: I see.
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Speaker 2: She even had these fragmented memories, apparently of her own
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mother warning her about Jezebel women who used feminine charm,
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maybe even a witchcraft to ensnare men.
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Speaker 1: Wow, that's incredibly dark irony, there isn't.
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Speaker 2: It, considering the path she was about to choose. Only
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now she was the one twisting those concepts form malicious intent.
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Speaker 1: So unable to compete in the real world, Burdened by
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this lifetime of psychological pain, she turned to the shadows, right.
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Speaker 2: And psychologists analyzing the case later termed this descent magical
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thinking on steroids.
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Speaker 1: That's a powerful metaphor.
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Speaker 2: It really is, because it describes the shift perfectly. When
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reality becomes too painful, too unpredictable, the mind can resort
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to magical solutions, believing that symbols, rituals, intentions can physically
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alter events. Right. This is where her quest for destructive
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spell work really begins.
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Speaker 1: It started relatively innocently, though, or at least more traditionally.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. Initially, the turn to the occult first involved Warner's
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friend Beth Read, the one I mentioned.
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Speaker 1: Earlier, the hobbyist tarot reader exactly.
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Speaker 2: Young cornered her asking for requests for simple traditional love spells,
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binding rituals, stuff like potions of honey and rose petals
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designed to sweeten BRIT's affections draw him back gently.
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Speaker 1: Okay, standard stuff in some traditions.
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Speaker 2: Pretty standard. But the light magic quote unquote failed to
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produce results. Oh, and that failure was interpreted by Young
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not as you know, confirmation that Brit was simply uninterested,
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but as proof that Pam was employing superior and therefore
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malicious forces against her.
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Speaker 1: Ah. So Pam was using magic too.
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Speaker 2: In her mind in her mind. Yes, that's when the
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escalation began. Young grew desperate, started searching online forums, visiting
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local occult shops for the truly destructive forms of spell work.
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Speaker 1: So she wasn't looking for reconciliation anymore.
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Speaker 2: No, No, she was looking for retribution for ruin.
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Speaker 1: Let's get into the specifics of these rituals, because they
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really illustrate the depth of her planning, don't they.
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Speaker 2: They do. Our sources detail specific hexes involving things like
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black candles, which are traditionally used for destructive or banishing purposes, okay,
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and pilfering personal effects, likely hair or fabric scraps from
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Brick's trash to use as a tag lock in the rituals,
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something to connect the spell directly to him. She was
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lighting sigils, these symbolic drawings that she had etched with salt,
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a traditional boundary agent, chanting over photographs of Britain pam
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photos that she had defaced, scratched up, repeatedly, stabbed with pins.
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This wasn't just wishful thinking. This was methodical, focused, intensely
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personal malice.
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Speaker 1: And the desperation drove her to seek outside held too.
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Speaker 2: It did She consulted a shadowy practitioner down in the
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Bayous of Louisiana, someone reachable only by these late night
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drives across state lines.
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Speaker 1: That suggests a significant investment time.
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Speaker 2: Money, huge investment, time, money, emotional energy, all escalating her
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magical warfare.
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Speaker 1: And the intention shift is confirmed by digital evidence. Right.
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You mentioned a forum.
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Speaker 2: Post, Yes, chillingly confirmed. We have the specific quote from
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a now deleted occult forum post where she explicitly confessed
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her intent. She wrote, the light magic isn't working. I
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want the dark kind, the kind that makes him suffer
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if he chooses her.
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Speaker 1: That's s dark. No ambiguity there, none at all.
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Speaker 2: It demonstrates a clear psychological pivot from wanting David back
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to wanting to destroy David's happiness, regardless of the cost
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to anyone else.
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Speaker 1: What's particularly complex here, and you touched on it, is
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how she integrated this with her Southern Baptist upbringing this
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idea of syncretism. Can you clarify that.
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Speaker 2: For us, absolutely syncretism in this context it just refers
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to the merging or blending of two or more distinct
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religious or cultural belief systems. Okay, for young raised evangelical
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she twisted elements from that background into her malicious rituals.
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She was literally inverting prayers, twisting Bible verses into curses,
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often invoking the name of God or Biblical figures not
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for mercy, but to summon vengeance and crucially justify her
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actions to herself.
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Speaker 1: So she was essentially saying, if God won't grant me
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justice through traditional prayer, I will harness the power of
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the faith but invert its moral compass to get what
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I want.
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Speaker 2: Exactly. It gave her rage of framework, a sense of
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holy twisted justification. She reportedly told a friend God wouldn't
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let this happen, so I'll make it right myself.
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Speaker 1: And she convinced herself Pam was doing the same thing.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, likely through projection, She convinced herself, Pam must have
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used similar malignant rituals to steal brit which you know,
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conveniently justified her own deep into destructive spell work.
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Speaker 1: And while she's doing all this magical work, her physical
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surveillance was just as rigorous.
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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, she amassed a true stalker's dossier. This wasn't
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just passive social media checking anymore. Yeah, this was meticulous
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preparation cataloging their routines like Tuesday trivia night at the library,
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Barn Clinton Okay, taking photos from afar, jotting down license
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plate numbers, tracking work addresses, even drawing a crude annotated
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map of their favorite haunts. A map A map, Yeah,
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found later by police. It was marked with little x's
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and colored in circles labeling locations where they were vulnerable.
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She was creating a tactical guide for her magical or
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you know, potentially physical intervention.
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Speaker 1: Or digital trail was the final confirmation then, of your
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planning pretty much.
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Speaker 2: She dove into these extremist online forums where scorned people
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traded revenge fantasies, and the critical turning point seems to
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have come when she found a thread titled when Spells
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Fail Taking matters into your hands.
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Speaker 1: Chilling title, isn't it?
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Speaker 2: That threat essentially gave her the final psychological permission slip
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she needed. The anonymous advice posted there was terrifyingly cold
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and pragmatic. It said magic is a tool, but sometimes
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the gods demand blood.
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Speaker 1: Oh my god.
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Speaker 2: It reframed her potential violence not as murder, but as
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a final, necessary ritual, the thing needed to fulfill the
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spell that weaker magic couldn't accomplish.
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Speaker 1: And that permission led directly to the night of the
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crime July fourteenth, twenty twelve.
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Speaker 2: The sources detail just an astonishing level of premeditation that
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completely blurred the line between the physical and the psychological
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for her. Hours before the murder, she was engaged in
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ritual preparation. Detectives later found evidence suggesting she'd created a
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circle of salt around her bed, chanting to unbind the
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thief's heart, concluding with this feverish prayer for divine or
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arcane justice. In her mind, she wasn't preparing for a crime.
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She's preparing for an.
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Speaker 1: Excision, an excision like surgery.
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Speaker 2: Exactly and necessary surgical removal of the obstacle blocking her destiny.
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Speaker 1: The scene itself was so deeply ordinary, though, which just heightens.
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Speaker 2: The horror completely. A balmy Friday evening thick with that
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Mississippi summercent of Magnolia's in humidity, brit Pam Warner and
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friends were unwinding at the Library Barn, Clinton Place, known
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for its classic jukebox cheap beer land. Warner described as
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the radiant spark of the evening. Wearing a sun dress
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just enjoying the.
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Speaker 1: Company and the attack game win.
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Speaker 2: Around eleven PM, just as the evening was winding down,
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as the group spilled out onto the gravel parking lot,
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Leanne Warner lingered to hug Pam, goodbye. It's a simple hug,
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a brief, innocent moment of friendship, and Young was ready.
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Eyewitness accounts paint this fragmented, terrifying picture. She emerged from
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the shadows of a nearby pickup truck holding a point
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three to eight revolver, a weapon she had purchased weeks
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earlier from some shady contact in Jackson. Clear premeditation, weeks earlier.
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Speaker 1: Okay.
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Speaker 2: The figure faced deliberately abscured by a hoodie, screamed a
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phrase that tied the crime directly to the obsession, yelling
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this is for David. Three shots rang out rapid succession.
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Warner was the intended target. She crumpled immediately.
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Speaker 1: Did anyone try to stop her.
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Speaker 2: Britt apparently attempted to lunge toward the shooter, but he
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was waved off by the barrel of the gun as
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Young just vanished back into the night, into the darkness.
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Speaker 1: A wounds.
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Speaker 2: They were bad, horrific, and ultimately mortal Warner suffered a
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bullet to the chest, another tragically severed her femoral artery,
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catastrophic blood loss. Oh no, She clung to life for
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twenty two agonizing minutes, right there in the gravel parking lot,
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whispering her children's names to her friends who were desperately
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trying to comfort her.
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Speaker 1: Twenty two minutes just devastating.
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Speaker 2: She left behind a shattered husband and two young boys
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who were robbed of their mother over a man that
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SHAWNA Young had dated for three weeks.
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Speaker 1: The investigation started immediately.
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Speaker 2: Then right away, the small Clinton Police department leaned heavily
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on the Hines County Sheriff's office for resources. Initial leads
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were kind of scattered. They even looked at BRIT's ex, Yvonne,
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because of the bad blood.
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Speaker 1: There right, the acrimonious split.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, but her alibi was solid. The case only cracked
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open when investigators finally convinced David Britt to be completely
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honest about the extent of Young's harassment. He was reluctant,
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very reluctant, it seems, but he admitted the truth about
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her relentless NonStop calls and texts, texts that specifically talked
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about curses, Hex's vivid dreams where he returned.
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Speaker 1: To her, and that pointed them right at her.
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Speaker 2: That reluctant admission immediately led detectives to Young's doorstep, and
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that's where they opened the Pandora's box of evidence, stuff
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that entirely confirmed her premeditated and magically justified descent.
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Speaker 1: So the search of her home, what did they find?
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Speaker 2: An absolute trove of damning evidence that tied her magical
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thinking directly to the physical act of murder. This wasn't
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a sudden snap. It was a ritual combination.
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Speaker 1: Okay, Like, what's specific?
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Speaker 2: We're talking about journals filled with these feverish, almost illegible entries.
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One line horrifically read Pam must bleed for her theft
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oh my God, dated just three days before the shooting.
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They found print outs from occult websites detailing specific death
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binding spells, complete with steps for ensuring the victims suffered
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maximum loss. Wow, there was the half burned photograph of
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Britain Pam, their faces meticulously scratched out, showing the depth
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of her hostility and the weapon. The weapon itself was
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hidden in a way that truly shocked investigators. The point
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three to eight revolver was stashed inside a family Bible.
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Inside a Bible, Yeah meticulously hollowed out, the pages cut
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away to create a perfect slot for the gun. Sources
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described it as being treated like a reliquary, turning the
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sacred text into a profane shrine for the instrument of murder.
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Speaker 1: It's deeply disturbing, and.
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Speaker 2: The digital trail confirmed the entire psychological journey. Digital forensics
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tracked her forum history, charting the exact at breadcrumb trail
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from requests for simple love spells all the way to
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searching for hitless, discussing logistics of surveillance. But perhaps the
19:07
most damning piece of evidence confirming the ritualistic intent was
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a voice memo recovered from her phone.
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Speaker 1: A voice memo.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, recorded just hours before the murder. Young's voice is
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cracking with this desperate finality as she in tones the
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magic failed me. But my hands won't. For love, I'll burn.
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Speaker 1: It all my hands won't hm.
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Speaker 2: Chilling, Absolutely chilling.
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Speaker 1: She was arrested quickly after that, very quickly.
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Speaker 2: Just two days later, at a No Tell motel on
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the outskirts of Vicksburg. She surrendered without resistance murmuring cryptically
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about faded reckonings.
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Speaker 1: Wow.
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Speaker 2: The interrogation quickly became this bizarre confessional. She claimed, I
19:48
didn't want to hurt Lena, but the spirits they guided
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the bullet.
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Speaker 1: The spirits guided the bullet. Yeah.
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Speaker 2: The detectives realized they were dealing not just with a killer,
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but a woman completely submerged in her own mythology, struggling
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to separate her spiritual justification from her criminal action.
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Speaker 1: So the trial must have been intense.
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Speaker 2: The trial, held in the spring of twenty thirteen, was
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a true media circus. Tabloids absolutely ate up the story,
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headlines like which's curse ends in gunfires? Sensational completely. The
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legal proceedings became this battle ground over sanity, intent, and
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reality itself.
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Speaker 1: So the prosecution's angle was straightforward, titty, straightforward.
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Speaker 2: They argued Young was a stalker turned assassin, using her
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occult dabblings merely as theatrical props to justify a deeply premeditated,
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jealous plot against an innocent woman. They focused heavily on
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the purchase of the gun weeks before. The detailed surveillance dossier,
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the map.
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Speaker 1: The physical evidence exactly.
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Speaker 2: The physical evidence of planning.
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Speaker 1: And the defense what was their strategy?
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Speaker 2: Conversely, the defense launched a powerful, if complex argument for
20:54
diminished capacity. They claimed she suffered from untreated mental illness Okay,
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specifically borderline personality disorder or BPD, which they argued was
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severely exacerbated by the trauma of rejection.
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Speaker 1: From Brit Okay for our listeners, Borderline personality disorder. It's complex, right,
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often characterized by intense fear of abandonment, highly volatile relationships,
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emotional instability, impulsive behaviors. How did the defense connect that
21:20
specifically to the murder?
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Speaker 2: Well, they argued that the rejection from brit wasn't processed
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as a normal setback for her. For someone with BPD,
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they argued, it was experienced as complete annihilation wow, which
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triggered extreme dangerous mood swings and a loss of touch
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with reality. The forensic psychologists testified to Young's quote, delusional
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parasitosis of the heart.
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Speaker 1: Wait, hold on a second, delusional parasitosis of the heart.
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That's a specific, intense sounding term. Can you break that
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down for us?
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Speaker 2: Yeah? It's striking, isn't it. Delusional parasitosis usually refers to
21:54
a fixed false belief that one is infested by parasites
21:58
like insects or tiny creek. When the forensic psychologist applied
22:02
the phrase of the heart, they meant that Young was
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treating her profound emotional pain, her unrequited love, her feelings
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of abandonment as if it were a literal physical infestation
22:13
caused by an external agent.
22:15
Speaker 1: So Pam or Pam's influence was the parasite.
22:18
Speaker 2: Exactly, in Young's mind, Pam's influence was a literal parasite
22:22
sucking the life and love out of her. Therefore, the
22:24
only way to treat this infestation wasn't therapy. It was excision,
22:28
surgical removal. Surgical removal, which in this case tragically meant murder.
22:33
Speaker 1: So the murder was, in her mind, a necessary medical
22:37
procedure to save herself from a perceived magical threat. That
22:41
contextualizes her journal entry about the excision perfectly.
22:45
Speaker 2: It does exactly, And to further complicate the narrative, the
22:48
defense brought in.
22:49
Speaker 1: A folklorist, a folk lours Okay, why.
22:51
Speaker 2: This expert contextualized Young's rituals within the broader historical tapestry
22:56
of Deep South conjured traditions, whodo things like that.
23:00
Speaker 1: What was the fo central argument.
23:02
Speaker 2: Then they argued that Young's actions weren't necessarily evidence of
23:06
clinical insanity, but rather a tragic, culturally rooted attempt at
23:11
reclaiming control through syncretic desperation.
23:13
Speaker 1: Okay.
23:14
Speaker 2: They explained that in some poor or rural communities, where
23:17
traditional methods of justice or healing might feel inaccessible or
23:21
seem to fail, people sometimes turn to folk practices, practices
23:24
that often blend Christian concepts with African diaspora spirituality. For example,
23:29
her twisting of Bible verses, her use of specific items
23:32
like salt and personal effects. The folklorist framed these as
23:36
an act of cultural desperation, an effort to control an
23:40
uncontrollable emotional situation using the only framework she felt she
23:44
had left.
23:45
Speaker 1: But the jury they had to weigh all this, the
23:47
chilling psychological testimony against the brutal physical evidence, the Bible,
23:52
the voice memo exactly.
23:53
Speaker 2: They had to decide intent, and they deliberated for a
23:56
grueling fourteen hours.
23:58
Speaker 1: Fourteen hours.
23:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, in the end, they rejected the diminished capacity argument.
24:02
The verdict came back guilty of first degree murder, Guilty
24:06
guilty with aggravating factors, specifically noting the stocking and the
24:10
use of the firearm in a premeditated act. She was
24:12
sentenced to life without parole.
24:14
Speaker 1: Life without perole, yeah.
24:16
Speaker 2: In a courtroom thick with the tears and sobs of
24:18
Leah Warner's family, finally putting an end to the bizarre trial.
24:21
Speaker 1: This case didn't just end with the sentence, though, did it.
24:24
It became significant in other fields like criminology, sociology.
24:28
Speaker 2: Absolutely, it highlighted the lethal dangers of obsession, especially when
24:32
mixed with belief systems that grant permission for violence. Right
24:37
sources detail how mental health advocates quickly seized on the case.
24:41
They used it to urge for better access to mental
24:43
health therapy, particularly in rural parts of America like Clinton,
24:48
arguing that the emotional support infrastructure available there was clearly
24:52
insufficient to intercept a person spiraling so violently.
24:55
Speaker 1: And here's where it gets really interesting, I think in
24:57
terms of social critique, women's rights advocates pointed out a
25:01
specific ethical problem in how the case was consumed right
25:06
by the public, the media, They really did.
25:08
Speaker 2: They pointed out a significant gendered double standard. House Young's
25:12
extreme actions were often pathologized by media and pundits using
25:16
really charged language, things like hysteria, fevered imagination, or which
25:20
is curse? Right, reinforcing stereotypes exactly, reinforcing gendered stereotypes about
25:25
female emotional instability. The critique was that a similar act
25:29
of violence resulting from male rejection might have been framed differently,
25:33
perhaps more tragically, as a tragic breakdown or a man
25:37
who snapped under pressure, affording the perpetrator a different kind
25:42
of tragic dignity. Almost Young was often presented as this
25:47
grotesque caricature of a jealous woman.
25:50
Speaker 1: That distinction is crucial. It really shows how the narrative
25:52
around crime gets shaped by cultural biases.
25:55
Speaker 2: Definitely.
25:55
Speaker 1: Furthermore, the case fueled intense debates in like esoteric corners
26:00
of the internet, people who practice spellcraft.
26:02
Speaker 2: That's right, there was a genuine ethical debate among practitioners.
26:06
Does the intent in a dark spell actually carry a
26:09
karmic or spiritual weight that contributes.
26:12
Speaker 1: To the outcome or is it just psychological?
26:15
Speaker 2: Or is the magic merely a psychological placebo, something that
26:18
just grants the believer of the permission they need to
26:20
pull the physical trigger. Young's defense kind of relied on
26:23
the latter, right, claiming the spirits guided the bullet, but
26:26
the esoteric community was really forced to grapple with the
26:29
real world consequences of malignant thought and rhetoric.
26:32
Speaker 1: So what became of the lives that survived this devastation.
26:36
Leanne Warner's family.
26:38
Speaker 2: Well, they faced a monumental challenge, obviously. Her husband eventually remarried,
26:42
focusing entirely on raising the two boys, making sure they
26:46
grew up with constant stories of their mother's kindness and loyalty.
26:50
Speaker 1: That's good to hear in a way.
26:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, And Britt and Pam they married quietly, their relationship
26:55
having been forged in the crucible of that shared grief
26:58
and horror.
26:59
Speaker 1: Wow.
27:00
Speaker 2: While they moved on the shadows of that night, undoubtedly
27:02
Linger forever tying their future to Young's obsession.
27:06
Speaker 1: And Shawnieville Young herself. Where's she now?
27:09
Speaker 2: She is currently incarcerated in the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility.
27:13
Reports from the facility suggest she underwent a jailhouse conversion
27:17
really Yeah, reportedly renounced her malign rituals and, in the
27:20
words of one source, traded hexes for hymns. She is
27:24
now reportedly a devout Christian, embracing the very religious framework
27:28
she had previously twisted for vengeance.
27:31
Speaker 1: That is the ultimate irony, isn't it? It truly is
27:34
the core lesson here remains just profoundly unsettling. Lean Warner's
27:38
murder was a requiem for the perils of possession, not
27:42
the spectral supernatural kind, but the utterly destructive humankind. Young
27:47
in seeking dark destructive spell work didn't actually summon forces
27:51
from beyond No, she merely.
27:53
Speaker 2: Found the justification she needed to unleash the monster within
27:57
her story. Is this eternal vigil really reminding us that
28:01
obsession doesn't bind a desired lover, it breaks the person
28:04
holding the rope. The fantasy provided the excuse, but the
28:07
human hand committed the act.
28:10
Speaker 1: That is a stark final summary. So to recap our
28:12
deep dive for everyone listening, We've tracked the entire intense
28:16
arc that swift transition from a three week romance to
28:20
totalizing obsessive stalking, culminating in the tragic death of an
28:24
innocent bystander, Leanne Warner. We've meticulously detailed the specific and
28:29
alarming turn to destruct a spell work, tracing her digital
28:32
breadcrumb trail and her reliance on those syncretic rituals, And
28:35
finally we tracked the fatal consequence of blurring that psychological
28:39
fantasy with physical reality, culminating in that highly sensationalized trial
28:43
where mental health and cultural desperation clashed head on with
28:46
the cold, hard facts of premeditated murder.
28:49
Speaker 2: And as we close out, there is one final provocative
28:52
thought for you to carry forward, though shaannieville Jung reportedly
28:56
traded her hexes for hymns in prison during question remains
29:01
fundamentally about control is obsession, even when it's expressed through
29:05
a powerful belief system like malignant magical thinking? Is it
29:09
fundamentally a failure of internal control? Or does the true
29:14
power alie not in the belief system itself, but merely
29:17
in the psychological permission it grants the unstable believer to
29:20
violently take matters into their own hands.
29:22
Speaker 1: Something to mull over. Does the magic enable or just
29:26
excuse exactly?
29:27
Speaker 2: Something for you to process as you think about the
29:29
gravity of this case.
29:31
Speaker 1: We'll see you on the next deep dive.