Latest / Crime and Horror / This crime was SOLVED at the DMV

Transcript

This crime was SOLVED at the DMV · Crime and Horror

0:00
Speaker 1: On April twenty ninth, two thousand and two, in the
0:02
Speaker 1: small town of Patascula, Ohio, a social worker sat on
0:05
Speaker 1: the floor with a two year old girl. This little
0:08
Speaker 1: girl's mother had unfortunately been murdered in their kitchen just
0:11
Speaker 1: the night before, and police thought this little girl might
0:14
Speaker 1: have actually witnessed the crime, and so now the social
0:17
Speaker 1: worker was trying to get this little girl to see
0:19
Speaker 1: if she could remember if anybody else was here the
0:22
Speaker 1: night before. And at first the little girl just clutched
0:26
Speaker 1: her stuffed animal and didn't say anything. But eventually, after
0:29
Speaker 1: some gentle prodding, the girl nodded and then she uttered
0:33
Speaker 1: a name that would turn her family's lives upside down.
0:36
Speaker 1: But before we get into today's story, if you're a
0:39
Speaker 1: fan of the strange, dark and mysterious delivered in story format,
0:42
Speaker 1: then you've come to the right place, because that's all
0:44
Speaker 1: we do, and we upload two, three, even four times
0:47
Speaker 1: a week. So if that's of interest to you, please
0:50
Speaker 1: ask the like button if you can borrow their car,
0:52
Speaker 1: and when they give you their car, responsibly use it,
0:56
Speaker 1: but when you give it back, be sure to remove
0:58
Speaker 1: the battery and their keythop Also, please subscribe to our
1:01
Speaker 1: channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss
1:04
Speaker 1: any of our uploads. Okay, let's get into today's story.
1:31
Speaker 1: On the evening of April twenty eighth, two thousand and two,
1:34
Speaker 1: thirty eight year old Ronda Boggs sat on the couch
1:36
Speaker 1: of her mother in law's house in the quiet city
1:38
Speaker 1: of Patascla, Ohio, nervously watching the clock at her feet.
1:43
Speaker 1: Her two and a half year old daughter, Amanda, was
1:45
Speaker 1: playing with a stuffed animal. It was six thirty PM,
1:48
Speaker 1: and Ronda's husband, Dave was supposed to call any minute.
1:52
Speaker 1: Dave was currently being incarcerated at the County jail. Dave
1:56
Speaker 1: had been sentenced to two weeks behind bars for failing
1:59
Speaker 1: to pay child support to one of his exes, and
2:02
Speaker 1: while Ronda was obviously not thrilled about this, she also
2:05
Speaker 1: knew she should not be surprised. When Ronda had first
2:08
Speaker 1: met Dave about twelve years earlier, it was his carefree
2:11
Speaker 1: personality that she had really fallen in love with. He
2:13
Speaker 1: was in a rock band, and she had loved going
2:15
Speaker 1: to his shows and dancing in the front row. It
2:18
Speaker 1: all felt glamorous and exciting and like they were going
2:21
Speaker 1: to stay young forever. But now they were both thirty eight,
2:25
Speaker 1: with a toddler to look after and Bill's to pay,
2:28
Speaker 1: and Dave we really just kept on partying and playing
2:30
Speaker 1: rock star while all their responsibilities sort of fell to Ronda.
2:34
Speaker 1: She had barely been to any of his shows since
2:36
Speaker 1: Amanda had been born, you know, in part because it
2:39
Speaker 1: wasn't really the kind of scene you could bring a
2:41
Speaker 1: baby to. A lot of the guys Dave hung around
2:43
Speaker 1: with were hard drinkers and drug addicts and ex cons,
2:47
Speaker 1: and so now, after almost four years of marriage, Ronda
2:51
Speaker 1: was finally starting to see Dave for what he was,
2:54
Speaker 1: which was not care free. Dave was really just kind
2:57
Speaker 1: of reckless. The phone rang and Ronda picked it up,
3:00
Speaker 1: and as expected, it was Dave. And what Ronda really
3:03
Speaker 1: wanted to say to him was that she was upset
3:05
Speaker 1: and seriously considering divorce, and that in fact, she'd already
3:09
Speaker 1: taken his name off her retirement plan. But at the
3:12
Speaker 1: same time, she saw her mother in law standing in
3:15
Speaker 1: the doorway, clearly listening, and so instead of saying what
3:18
Speaker 1: she really wanted to say, she just said, Hey, Dave,
3:21
Speaker 1: how are you doing. An hour later, back at her
3:23
Speaker 1: own home, Ronda put a cast role into the oven,
3:26
Speaker 1: and then she turned on cartoons for Amanda, and then
3:29
Speaker 1: went outside to mow the lawn before it got too dark.
3:32
Speaker 1: Ronda was used to doing almost everything around the house
3:34
Speaker 1: herself since Dave was practically never home anyway, but now
3:38
Speaker 1: that he was in jail, she had to literally do everything,
3:41
Speaker 1: including you know, mowing the grass on a Sunday night.
3:44
Speaker 1: So Ronda wheeled the lawnmower out of the garage and
3:47
Speaker 1: into the yard, and then she pulled the cord to
3:49
Speaker 1: start the engine. But like everything else in their little house,
3:53
Speaker 1: the lawnmower was on the verge of breaking down, and
3:55
Speaker 1: it kept shutting off. While Ronda struggled, she noticed her
3:58
Speaker 1: neighbor coming out of the house across the street, and
4:01
Speaker 1: he waved to Ronda as he came down his own driveway,
4:03
Speaker 1: sort of telling her like, hey, you know, turn off
4:05
Speaker 1: that lawnmower. And once she did, and once it was
4:08
Speaker 1: quiet enough to actually hear each other, he shouted from
4:10
Speaker 1: across the street and asked if she wanted to borrow
4:13
Speaker 1: his lawnmower.
4:14
Speaker 2: That did work.
4:15
Speaker 1: Ronda found herself looking around the yard at all the
4:17
Speaker 1: tall grass and saw how dark it was already getting
4:20
Speaker 1: and then she checked her watch and saw that, you know,
4:22
Speaker 1: her cast role was going to be done in just
4:24
Speaker 1: a minute here, and so she said to her neighbor
4:26
Speaker 1: that she really appreciated the offer, but it didn't really
4:29
Speaker 1: matter because, you know what, she doesn't have time to
4:31
Speaker 1: do this anyways.
4:32
Speaker 2: She has to go back inside.
4:33
Speaker 1: So Ronda said by to her neighbor and then pushed
4:36
Speaker 1: her defective lawnmower back inside the garage. And then she
4:39
Speaker 1: made a mental note to call Dave's cousin, Nick the
4:41
Speaker 1: following day to see if maybe he could come by
4:44
Speaker 1: and fix her lawnmower. Nick worked as a maintenance man
4:47
Speaker 1: at a big apartment complex, and even though he lived
4:50
Speaker 1: forty five minutes away, he'd been helping Ronda around.
4:53
Speaker 2: The house while Dave was behind bars.
4:55
Speaker 1: Just last week, he had fixed up her washing machine,
4:57
Speaker 1: and he called all the time just to check in. Now,
5:00
Speaker 1: Ronda went back inside the house into the kitchen and
5:03
Speaker 1: took the cast roll out of the oven. Just before
5:05
Speaker 1: the timer rang, She cut the cast roll into two
5:07
Speaker 1: pieces and brought those pieces into the dining room and
5:10
Speaker 1: set them on the table. Then she walked over and
5:12
Speaker 1: turned off the TV. Scooped up her daughter and brought
5:15
Speaker 1: her over to the table. It was getting late, and
5:17
Speaker 1: all Ronda really wanted to do here was just eat
5:19
Speaker 1: quickly and go to bed. But for every bite that
5:22
Speaker 1: made it into Amanda's mouth, another wound up on the floor.
5:26
Speaker 1: And so Ronda knew that, you know, at the end
5:28
Speaker 1: of dinner, she would have to do another round of
5:30
Speaker 1: cleanup before she could finally go to sleep. But Ronda knew,
5:33
Speaker 1: you know, Amanda couldn't help it. She was a little kid,
5:35
Speaker 1: and so she reached over and took her daughter's work
5:38
Speaker 1: and began helping her eat, you know, to not only
5:40
Speaker 1: minimize the mess, but also to help her kid out.
5:43
Speaker 1: And in reality, Amanda was actually the thing preventing Ronda
5:48
Speaker 1: from just pulling the trigger on a divorce. She didn't
5:51
Speaker 1: know if she could handle being a single mother. It
5:53
Speaker 1: was hard enough having Dave gone for a few weeks,
5:56
Speaker 1: you know that she couldn't even imagine doing this all
5:58
Speaker 1: alone by herself forever. And since she already knew Dave
6:02
Speaker 1: was bad at paying child support, as that is the
6:05
Speaker 1: reason he was in jail right now, she figured if
6:07
Speaker 1: she was a single mom, you know, even if he
6:10
Speaker 1: was ordered to pay her she would likely have to
6:12
Speaker 1: rely on paying the bills herself. She would need to
6:14
Speaker 1: get a job and make money.
6:16
Speaker 2: Now. Ronda did have a job now.
6:18
Speaker 1: As an office assistant, but she wasn't sure if that
6:20
Speaker 1: would be enough to fully support herself and her daughter
6:24
Speaker 1: without any additional financial help.
6:26
Speaker 2: But just then, as Ronda was scooping.
6:28
Speaker 1: Up another bite of castrole for her daughter, she heard
6:31
Speaker 1: a noise outside that almost sounded like heavy footsteps. She
6:35
Speaker 1: turned around and through the curtains she could see the
6:37
Speaker 1: silhouette of a person clearly coming up her driveway. The
6:45
Speaker 1: next morning, Monday, April twenty ninth, Ronda's coworker, Gary Plowski,
6:50
Speaker 1: noticed that Ronda was running late for her shift in
6:53
Speaker 1: the office at Hamilton Home Products, which was a heating
6:55
Speaker 1: equipment company, and this was strange because Ronda had actually
6:59
Speaker 1: never been late before in the entire time that she
7:02
Speaker 1: had worked there. So Gary began asking around to see
7:06
Speaker 1: if anybody knew where Ronda was, or if maybe she'd
7:08
Speaker 1: called in or something. But his coworkers all shrugged and
7:11
Speaker 1: said they hadn't heard from her since she left the
7:13
Speaker 1: office on Friday night, and so eventually Gary tried calling
7:17
Speaker 1: Ronda's landline at her house to see if she was home,
7:20
Speaker 1: but after calling several times, Ronda never picked up.
7:23
Speaker 2: He waited for a while to.
7:24
Speaker 1: See if maybe she would call back, but when he
7:26
Speaker 1: still hadn't heard from her after an hour, he started
7:29
Speaker 1: to worry that, you know, she might have run into
7:31
Speaker 1: car trouble, like maybe she was stranded somewhere with her car.
7:34
Speaker 1: He knew it was about a fifteen mile drive from
7:36
Speaker 1: her house in Patascla. To the office here just outside
7:39
Speaker 1: of Columbus, and back in two thousand and two, not
7:42
Speaker 1: everyone had a cell phone, and he didn't know if
7:44
Speaker 1: she did, so if her car had broken down, you know,
7:47
Speaker 1: she might be stranded without a way to call for help.
7:50
Speaker 1: And so Gary decided he would just get in his
7:52
Speaker 1: own car and drive the route from the office back
7:55
Speaker 1: to her house to literally see if he could find
7:57
Speaker 1: Ronda on the side of the road. Gary drove all
8:02
Speaker 1: the way out to Potaskluck, keeping his eyes peeled for
8:04
Speaker 1: Ronda's car on the side of the road, but there
8:07
Speaker 1: was no sign of it. It was not until he
8:09
Speaker 1: finally turned the corner onto Ronda's street that he saw
8:12
Speaker 1: her car, and her car was parked in the driveway
8:15
Speaker 1: of her white paneled, one story house, and at this
8:19
Speaker 1: Gary's stomach kind of bawled up into a knot because
8:22
Speaker 1: he realized that you Ronda had clearly not left for
8:25
Speaker 1: work at all, and he knew that if she had
8:27
Speaker 1: just stayed home this whole time without calling in or
8:30
Speaker 1: calling anybody back, that something bad had to have happened.
8:34
Speaker 1: And so Gary pulled up to her house and he
8:35
Speaker 1: got out of his car and walked up to the
8:37
Speaker 1: front door and he knocked, but there was no answer.
8:41
Speaker 1: So after a minute, he went around and knocked on
8:43
Speaker 1: the back door, and there was still no answer back
8:46
Speaker 1: there either, So he walked back around to the front
8:48
Speaker 1: of the house and he was about to leave when
8:51
Speaker 1: he saw the drapes rustling in one of the front windows.
8:55
Speaker 1: He squinted at the window and he saw, you know,
8:58
Speaker 1: what was causing the movement of the drapes was Rhonda's
9:00
Speaker 1: toddler daughter, Amanda, looking out the window, and her face
9:04
Speaker 1: was red like she'd been crying for.
9:05
Speaker 2: A long time.
9:07
Speaker 1: And so now Gary started to panic, but he tried
9:10
Speaker 1: to keep his voice calm as he ran over and
9:12
Speaker 1: shouted through the window and told Amanda he was a
9:14
Speaker 1: friend of her mother's and convinced her to open the
9:17
Speaker 1: door so he could help her. It took a minute
9:19
Speaker 1: for Amanda to figure out what Gary was asking, but
9:22
Speaker 1: eventually she got it and she disappeared from the window,
9:25
Speaker 1: and a moment later, the front door opened, and so
9:28
Speaker 1: Gary walked over and he stepped through the front door
9:31
Speaker 1: and the first thing he saw were bloody footprints on
9:33
Speaker 1: the living room carpet. Gary instinctively scooped Amanda up in
9:37
Speaker 1: his arms and he ran across the street, banged on
9:40
Speaker 1: the neighbor's door and told them to call the police.
9:55
Speaker 1: Not long after, the Taskella police would arrive at Ronda's
9:58
Speaker 1: house and they would search the inn side and they
10:00
Speaker 1: would find Ronda, and she was found stabbed to death
10:04
Speaker 1: in her own kitchen. This was the first homicide in
10:07
Speaker 1: Patascla in six years, and there were only seventeen officers
10:11
Speaker 1: in the whole police department, and the crime scene unit
10:14
Speaker 1: was run out of a refurbished ambulance. So Police Chief
10:17
Speaker 1: Chris foreshe didn't have a ton of resources to throw
10:20
Speaker 1: at this case, but he called in all available officers
10:23
Speaker 1: and sent them to the crime scene, and then he
10:26
Speaker 1: had it out there himself to make sure.
10:28
Speaker 2: They did the job right.
10:29
Speaker 1: By the time Forese pulled up to the house, his
10:31
Speaker 1: officers had already sealed off the perimeter. He ducked under
10:35
Speaker 1: the crime scene tape, walked inside the house, and followed
10:38
Speaker 1: the sound of footsteps and clicking cameras into the kitchen,
10:41
Speaker 1: where a woman was lying in a pool of blood
10:43
Speaker 1: on the tile floor. An officer told Foreshe that the
10:46
Speaker 1: victim had been identified as Ronda Bogs and it was
10:50
Speaker 1: her coworker who had come to check on her when
10:52
Speaker 1: she hadn't shown up for work that morning that ultimately
10:54
Speaker 1: prompted a nine to one one call that led to
10:56
Speaker 1: the discovery of the body. The officer also told f
11:00
Speaker 1: She that Ronda's toddler daughter had been found uninjured in
11:04
Speaker 1: the house with her body, and so for She knelt
11:06
Speaker 1: down to examine the body, and right away he saw
11:09
Speaker 1: at least, you know, more than a dozen stab wounds
11:12
Speaker 1: on Ronda's head, her neck, her chest, and her shoulders.
11:15
Speaker 1: The sheer number of wounds and the blood all over
11:18
Speaker 1: the kitchen suggested there had to have been a struggle,
11:21
Speaker 1: and that from the looks of it, Ronda had fought
11:24
Speaker 1: very hard with her attacker. The remnants of what appeared
11:27
Speaker 1: to be a cast role were sitting on the stove,
11:29
Speaker 1: and Ronda was fully dressed, so for she figured the
11:33
Speaker 1: crime must have happened sometime before she went to bed,
11:36
Speaker 1: so between dinner and bedtime. And then for she wondered
11:39
Speaker 1: if her poor daughter had been awake or maybe even
11:43
Speaker 1: in the room when this happened. After the scene had
11:46
Speaker 1: been photographed, for she gave the green light for the
11:49
Speaker 1: corner to actually physically lift Ronda's body up off the
11:52
Speaker 1: ground onto a stretcher. And when the coroner's staff poisted
11:56
Speaker 1: her up, for she noticed something lying underneath her body.
12:00
Speaker 1: It was a steak knife with blood all over the blade.
12:03
Speaker 1: For she looked around the kitchen and realized the black
12:06
Speaker 1: handle on that knife matched the set of knives on
12:08
Speaker 1: the countertop. It appeared that Ronda had been killed with
12:11
Speaker 1: a knife from her own kitchen, which mentor killer did
12:15
Speaker 1: not show up to the house with their murder weapon.
12:17
Speaker 1: This suggested that this murder was likely a heat of
12:21
Speaker 1: the moment crime rather than something that had been planned out.
12:24
Speaker 1: While Foreshe's officers finished collecting forensic evidence in the kitchen,
12:28
Speaker 1: for she himself walked through the rest of the house,
12:31
Speaker 1: it looked like it had been completely ransacked. The jewelry
12:33
Speaker 1: box in the bedroom was empty, and the dresser drawers
12:36
Speaker 1: were open, and piles of Ronda's clothes were strewn all
12:39
Speaker 1: over the floor. And then in the dining room they
12:42
Speaker 1: found a purse that had been overturned with all of
12:44
Speaker 1: its contents spilled out, and clearly it looked like somebody
12:47
Speaker 1: had been sifting through it. And so for she thought that,
12:50
Speaker 1: you know, between the sort of ransacked appearance of the
12:53
Speaker 1: house and also the weapon of opportunity, that it seemed
12:57
Speaker 1: like this could have been a robbery gone wrong. However,
13:00
Speaker 1: there was one factor that did seem to complicate things,
13:04
Speaker 1: or at least make it seem like this could have
13:05
Speaker 1: been something else, and that was that there was no
13:08
Speaker 1: sign of forced entry. Just then, for she heard a
13:11
Speaker 1: commotion near the front door, and so he walked over
13:14
Speaker 1: and he saw there was a woman trying to push
13:16
Speaker 1: her way into the house, and her face was all
13:18
Speaker 1: red and she was crying, and she was shouting.
13:21
Speaker 2: At the officers, demanding to know what happened.
13:23
Speaker 1: For she took this woman outside and tried to calm
13:25
Speaker 1: her down, and she would eventually tell him that her
13:28
Speaker 1: name was Kim Davis and she was Ronda's sister. Once
13:31
Speaker 1: she caught her breath, for she explained to her what
13:34
Speaker 1: he already knew, which was that unfortunately, her sister, Ronda,
13:38
Speaker 1: had been found stabbed to death inside of her home,
13:40
Speaker 1: and the running theory at this point, at least his theory,
13:43
Speaker 1: was this was a robbery gone wrong, and potentially, because
13:47
Speaker 1: there was no sign of forced entry, it could indicate
13:50
Speaker 1: that it was somebody that you know, Ronda potentially knew,
13:52
Speaker 1: and who she would have, you know, let into the
13:54
Speaker 1: house if she saw them. Now, Kim was obviously extremely
13:58
Speaker 1: upset by this, and so for a minute for she
14:00
Speaker 1: just consoled her. But he really needed to kind of
14:03
Speaker 1: press this investigation, and so once she had kind of
14:06
Speaker 1: calmed down a little bit, he asked her if she
14:08
Speaker 1: knew of anybody who might have wanted to hurt Ronda,
14:12
Speaker 1: and Kim immediately said no, she couldn't imagine her sister
14:15
Speaker 1: having any enemies. But after sitting with that question for
14:18
Speaker 1: a moment, Kim said that actually there was one person
14:23
Speaker 1: who might have had a problem with Ronda, and that
14:25
Speaker 1: was her husband, Dave. Kim said that Ronda and Dave's
14:29
Speaker 1: marriage had been on the rocks for a while, and
14:32
Speaker 1: in fact, Ronda had told her recently that she was
14:35
Speaker 1: thinking about getting a divorce. But Kim said, you know,
14:38
Speaker 1: Dave actually is currently in jail, so I don't see
14:42
Speaker 1: how he could have done this. He was literally in
14:44
Speaker 1: jail at the time this happened. Still, though, she thought
14:47
Speaker 1: it was possible that, you know, Dave could have been
14:50
Speaker 1: involved one way or another. You know, he might have
14:52
Speaker 1: paid somebody to come here and do this, or maybe
14:55
Speaker 1: put one of his friends up to it. Before she
14:57
Speaker 1: promised Kim he would look into this, but he would
15:00
Speaker 1: was already feeling pretty skeptical. I mean, if Dave couldn't
15:02
Speaker 1: even pay child support, you know, what was the likelihood
15:05
Speaker 1: that he was able to afford a hitman. And also,
15:08
Speaker 1: the murder weapon appeared to come from Ronda's kitchen, and
15:11
Speaker 1: so that didn't really suggest that the suspect had been
15:14
Speaker 1: planning to kill her when they got there, so again
15:17
Speaker 1: sort of takes away from the idea that a hitman
15:19
Speaker 1: was used in this murder. But at this point before
15:22
Speaker 1: she thought their best chance to figure out what actually
15:26
Speaker 1: happened to her was actually to speak to the only
15:29
Speaker 1: other person who was at the scene at the crime
15:31
Speaker 1: that they knew about, and that was Ronda's own two
15:34
Speaker 1: year old daughter, Amanda. Later that day, a social worker
15:43
Speaker 1: from child Services pulled up outside the house, and for
15:46
Speaker 1: she walked out to greet her, and he said to
15:48
Speaker 1: her that before she took custody of Amanda, he was
15:51
Speaker 1: hoping that, you know, she could help him talk to
15:54
Speaker 1: this girl and see what she knew about the murder,
15:57
Speaker 1: because she was here, you know, when it happened, and
15:59
Speaker 1: there was nobody else who witnessed it but her. The
16:02
Speaker 1: social worker nodded, and so for she took her across
16:05
Speaker 1: the street to the neighbor's house where Amanda had been
16:07
Speaker 1: staying all morning. Now, for she didn't know if this
16:10
Speaker 1: little girl would be able to tell them anything at all.
16:12
Speaker 1: I mean, of course she could be in complete shock.
16:14
Speaker 1: She's also two. And he also knew that even if
16:17
Speaker 1: she did tell them stuff, they wouldn't necessarily be reliable,
16:21
Speaker 1: because again she's two years old and she very likely
16:23
Speaker 1: is in shock. But regardless, for she knew he had
16:27
Speaker 1: to try. So he stood in the corner of the
16:29
Speaker 1: living room while the social worker sat down on the
16:32
Speaker 1: floor with Amanda and asked her what she had seen
16:34
Speaker 1: the night before. And before she's surprise, the little girl
16:38
Speaker 1: looked up at the social worker and she jerked her
16:40
Speaker 1: little hand toward her neck in what looked very much
16:44
Speaker 1: like a stabbing motion, and then, in a quiet voice,
16:47
Speaker 1: she said her mother had fallen down and gone to sleep.
16:51
Speaker 1: Then the social worker asked her if anybody else had
16:54
Speaker 1: been there, and for she felt himself holding his breath
16:57
Speaker 1: waiting for Amanda to answer, and there was a moment
17:00
Speaker 1: of silence before Amanda said uncle Nick. A few hours later, chief,
17:06
Speaker 1: for she was still at the crime scene when two
17:08
Speaker 1: officers pulled up in a cruiser and took this grungy
17:11
Speaker 1: looking man out of the back seat and escorted him
17:14
Speaker 1: into the house. This was not the Uncle Nick that
17:17
Speaker 1: Amanda had named. It was Amanda's own father, Dave Box,
17:20
Speaker 1: who had been in jail when.
17:22
Speaker 2: His wife was murdered.
17:23
Speaker 1: Now, for she was absolutely planning to speak to this
17:26
Speaker 1: Uncle Nick, but first he wanted to gather as much
17:29
Speaker 1: information as possible about him. During Amanda's conversation with the
17:33
Speaker 1: social worker, she had said repeatedly that Uncle Nick had
17:36
Speaker 1: hurt mommy. But even though this two year old girl
17:40
Speaker 1: seemed very definitive about this, for she needed an adult
17:43
Speaker 1: perspective before he acted. A judge had let Dave Boggs
17:47
Speaker 1: out of jail early because of his wife's murderer, and
17:50
Speaker 1: for she had ensured that Dave was escorted to the
17:53
Speaker 1: crime scene so for she could speak to him before
17:57
Speaker 1: Dave got a chance to.
17:57
Speaker 2: Speak to anybody else.
17:59
Speaker 1: And so nowfore she met Dave and the officers at
18:02
Speaker 1: the door and then guided them into the living room,
18:04
Speaker 1: where they sat Dave down on the couch. They filled
18:07
Speaker 1: him in on what had happened to his wife, but
18:10
Speaker 1: really before he could react to that, they also told
18:12
Speaker 1: him that they needed him to do a walk through
18:15
Speaker 1: of the house with them to try to identify what
18:17
Speaker 1: might have been stolen, which could help them figure out
18:20
Speaker 1: who did this. But first, for she said he had
18:23
Speaker 1: a very important question. He asked Dave who is Uncle Nick?
18:28
Speaker 1: And at this Dave, who to this point had just
18:31
Speaker 1: looked completely shocked by what he was being told, began
18:34
Speaker 1: to look more confused, and he told for she that
18:37
Speaker 1: Uncle Nick was what his daughter called his second cousin.
18:40
Speaker 1: He said his real name was Richard Nicholas Robinson, and
18:43
Speaker 1: he had been helping Ronda out while Dave was in jail. Now,
18:46
Speaker 1: Dave said Nick had probably been at the house almost
18:48
Speaker 1: every day fixing one thing or another. But he said
18:52
Speaker 1: he didn't understand why for she was asking about him,
18:54
Speaker 1: because you know, there's no way he would have hurt Ronda.
18:57
Speaker 1: I mean, he really looked out for her and also
18:59
Speaker 1: for Amanda. But for now, for she was not going
19:02
Speaker 1: to answer that question. Dave's information was enough for him
19:05
Speaker 1: to go outside, get on his radio and broadcast a
19:09
Speaker 1: bulletin asking all police departments in the area to be
19:12
Speaker 1: on the lookout for Nick Robinson. Less than an hour later,
19:18
Speaker 1: a police cruiser found Nick Robbinson's SUV on State Route
19:21
Speaker 1: thirty seven just outside of Patascola, and they pulled him
19:25
Speaker 1: over and they ordered him out of the vehicle, and
19:27
Speaker 1: as soon as he was out, they pushed him to
19:29
Speaker 1: the ground with a gun to the back of his
19:30
Speaker 1: head and cuffed him.
19:32
Speaker 2: And as they did this.
19:33
Speaker 1: They noticed a dark spot on Nick's baseball cap that
19:36
Speaker 1: looked a lot like blood. As they put Nick in
19:39
Speaker 1: the back of the cruiser, he kept asking them what
19:41
Speaker 1: was going on, but they didn't tell him. Instead, they
19:45
Speaker 1: searched his suv and there was cardboard laid out in
19:48
Speaker 1: the back with reddish brown smears all over it, which
19:51
Speaker 1: also appeared to be blood. And then when the officers
19:54
Speaker 1: got back into their cruiser, Nick asked them, is this
19:58
Speaker 1: about Rohnda. By the time this arrest happened, Chief Forshey
20:03
Speaker 1: was at Nick Robinson's house questioning his wife, Debbie, so
20:06
Speaker 1: while he did that, he dispatched one of his best
20:09
Speaker 1: and only detectives, Bruce Brooks, to go down to police
20:13
Speaker 1: headquarters to handle Nick's interrogation. When Detective Brooks walked into
20:18
Speaker 1: the interview room, immediately he could see that Nick, who
20:21
Speaker 1: was resting his head in his hands, looked very pale
20:24
Speaker 1: and nauseous. When he asked him if he was okay,
20:27
Speaker 1: Nick said he was just hung over from a long
20:29
Speaker 1: night of drinking. He said he had been at a
20:31
Speaker 1: bar in Columbus until around ten thirty pm, and then
20:34
Speaker 1: he had gone to another bar in Lancaster, which was
20:36
Speaker 1: a town nearby where he lived, and then he had
20:39
Speaker 1: finally come home around one thirty am and.
20:41
Speaker 2: Passed out on his couch.
20:43
Speaker 1: Nick swore he didn't know anything about what happened to Ronda,
20:45
Speaker 1: and only found out she was dead when he saw
20:47
Speaker 1: it on the news. And as for the blood the
20:49
Speaker 1: police found in his suv, he said it was just
20:52
Speaker 1: animal blood from a hunting trip. But Brooks was not
20:55
Speaker 1: buying this because he had heard Amanda, Ronda's daughter sayn
21:00
Speaker 1: called Nick Hurt's mom. And while, of course, you know,
21:02
Speaker 1: you can't take a two year old's testimony as absolutely reliable,
21:07
Speaker 1: but when she had said it, she said it very
21:09
Speaker 1: definitively and even gestured at her neck like she was
21:12
Speaker 1: stabbing herself. And Ronda was found.
21:14
Speaker 2: Stabbed to death.
21:16
Speaker 1: So he asked Nick, you know, if his alibi essentially
21:19
Speaker 1: was that he was too drunk to have committed this murder,
21:22
Speaker 1: well then how could he be sure, you know, given
21:23
Speaker 1: he was too drunk, that he hadn't killed Ronda in
21:27
Speaker 1: an alcohol fueled blackout, you know, if he can't remember,
21:30
Speaker 1: you know, it's just as likely that he could have
21:32
Speaker 1: done it. But Nick just shook his head and said no,
21:35
Speaker 1: and no seemed to be Nick's answer to just about
21:38
Speaker 1: every question Brooks asked him, and eventually the detective got frustrated,
21:42
Speaker 1: you know, because basically everything he asked Nick he denied,
21:46
Speaker 1: and so eventually he told Nick that Ronda's daughter had
21:49
Speaker 1: seen the whole thing, and he told him to imagine
21:51
Speaker 1: that little girl on the witness stand having some defense
21:54
Speaker 1: lawyer poke and prod her about the most traumatic event
21:58
Speaker 1: she had ever experienced of her own mother. And when
22:01
Speaker 1: he said that, a crack seemed to appear in Nick's
22:04
Speaker 1: sort of outward demeanor of denial, like, clearly he saw
22:08
Speaker 1: how awful this thing really was. And then finally, a
22:11
Speaker 1: little after midnight, so six hours into this interrogation, Nick
22:15
Speaker 1: just agreed to take a lie detector test, and when
22:18
Speaker 1: the results came back, it showed very clearly that Nick
22:21
Speaker 1: had failed.
22:22
Speaker 2: He had lied.
22:23
Speaker 1: But instead of confessing at this point, Nick dug in
22:26
Speaker 1: and swore up and down that he really was innocent.
22:29
Speaker 1: So Brooks pulled out the last threat he could think of,
22:33
Speaker 1: which was that if Nick didn't confess now, he could
22:36
Speaker 1: be looking at the death penalty. And at that point
22:38
Speaker 1: it was very clear Nick cracked like that absolutely affected him.
22:44
Speaker 1: And so after a long silence following this this threat
22:47
Speaker 1: of the death penalty, Nick said that, you know, maybe
22:50
Speaker 1: he did have something to do with what happened, but
22:53
Speaker 1: he just couldn't remember it. From there on, Brooks kept
22:57
Speaker 1: on pushing and pushing until around five am, when Nick
23:01
Speaker 1: finally completely broke down and confessed to the murder. He
23:05
Speaker 1: said he had gone to Ronda's house in between the
23:07
Speaker 1: two bars that he had visited, and he tried to
23:09
Speaker 1: kiss her. She pulled away, and she grabbed a knife,
23:12
Speaker 1: and when Nick tried to take the knife from her,
23:15
Speaker 1: he said he accidentally stabbed her. As the sun came up,
23:19
Speaker 1: officers drove Nick to the Licking County Jail and officially
23:22
Speaker 1: booked him for Rhonda's murder. Later that morning, Chief for
23:35
Speaker 1: She stood in front of a group of reporters outside
23:38
Speaker 1: the police station and praised his officers for catching Ronda
23:41
Speaker 1: Boggs's killer and getting a confession in less than twenty
23:43
Speaker 1: four hours. But later that week, Detective Brooks was in
23:47
Speaker 1: his office wrapping up paperwork when a secretary stuck her
23:50
Speaker 1: head in the door and said there was somebody on
23:53
Speaker 1: the phone for him. Brooks picked it up, and the
23:56
Speaker 1: man on the other end of the line introduced himself
23:58
Speaker 1: as Bob Cisco, and he said he was the bandmate
24:01
Speaker 1: of Ronda's husband, Dave Boggs, and he did not think
24:04
Speaker 1: Nick was guilty of this murder. Bob said, on the
24:07
Speaker 1: evening that Ronda was killed, another one of their former bandmates,
24:11
Speaker 1: a guy named Chris Williams, had stopped by his house,
24:14
Speaker 1: and Chris had seemed very nervous and sort of keyed up.
24:17
Speaker 1: He was pacing around and smoking cigarette after cigarette, and
24:20
Speaker 1: it just seemed like he was very mentally preoccupied with something. Now,
24:24
Speaker 1: Bob said, Chris had actually, in the past already robbed
24:29
Speaker 1: Ronda and Dave's house. He had stolen a bunch of
24:32
Speaker 1: band equipment and sold it for drug money. And so
24:35
Speaker 1: when Bob Cisco saw on the news that Ronda was
24:38
Speaker 1: dead and her house appeared to have been robbed, he
24:41
Speaker 1: couldn't shake this feeling that Chris might have been involved.
24:45
Speaker 1: It just seemed too similar to be a coincidence. Brooks
24:48
Speaker 1: wrote all this down and thanked Bob for the information,
24:51
Speaker 1: but he wasn't sure how seriously to take this tip
24:54
Speaker 1: since they already had a confession from their primary suspect.
24:58
Speaker 1: But he spoke to Forshey, and the chief decided to
25:00
Speaker 1: go ahead and reinterview Ronda's two year old daughter just
25:03
Speaker 1: to cover their bases. A few days later, so, about
25:07
Speaker 1: two weeks after Randa's murder chief, for she waited by
25:10
Speaker 1: the phone in his office, anxiously watching the clock. He
25:14
Speaker 1: knew that the social worker who had spoken to a
25:16
Speaker 1: man of the first time, was in the process of
25:18
Speaker 1: interviewing her a second time, and any minute now, this
25:21
Speaker 1: social worker should be calling him with an update now,
25:25
Speaker 1: for she was hopeful that the little girl would just
25:27
Speaker 1: repeat the same story that she had told on the
25:29
Speaker 1: day of her mother's murder. But when his phone finally
25:33
Speaker 1: rang and four she picked it up, he learned that
25:36
Speaker 1: that is not what happened. The social worker said that
25:39
Speaker 1: this time, when she asked Amanda who she saw on
25:42
Speaker 1: the night of the murder, she did not say anything
25:44
Speaker 1: about Uncle Nick. Instead, she said Bob did it. When
25:50
Speaker 1: for she heard this, he immediately got a pretty anxious feeling.
25:53
Speaker 1: He'd been afraid from the beginning that a toddler was
25:56
Speaker 1: not a reliable eyewitness and she could just be throwing
25:59
Speaker 1: out whatever names popped into her head. But he also
26:03
Speaker 1: thought it was a very strange coincidence that, of all
26:05
Speaker 1: the people she could have named other than Uncle Nick,
26:09
Speaker 1: she said Bob, the same guy who had just called
26:11
Speaker 1: the station, trying to, you know, cast blame onto some
26:15
Speaker 1: other guy the police had never even heard of.
26:17
Speaker 2: Something just felt off. But as for she.
26:20
Speaker 1: Thought about it, he decided, you know, it didn't really
26:22
Speaker 1: change anything. Nick had already confessed, like he said, he
26:26
Speaker 1: did this, so they didn't really need Amanda as a
26:29
Speaker 1: witness to make the charges against Nick.
26:31
Speaker 2: Stick.
26:33
Speaker 1: Five days later, a grand jury officially indicted Nick on
26:36
Speaker 1: murder charges, and to the huge surprise of investigators, Nick
26:40
Speaker 1: pled not guilty. So he was now claiming he had
26:44
Speaker 1: given a false confession and that he was not run
26:47
Speaker 1: to Boggs's killer. About seven months later, in December of
26:55
Speaker 1: two thousand and two, a man named Matt Sower stepped
26:59
Speaker 1: into a bar called Mary Melodies in Columbus, Ohio. He
27:02
Speaker 1: went up to the counter and pulled a Manila folder
27:05
Speaker 1: out of his messenger bag, and he asked the bartender
27:08
Speaker 1: if he recognized the man in the photograph inside. The
27:11
Speaker 1: bartender looked down at the photo for a second and
27:13
Speaker 1: then looked back up at Sour and nodded and said, yes,
27:16
Speaker 1: that's Nick Robinson. He was here eight months ago on
27:20
Speaker 1: the night of the murder, and I've been waiting for
27:23
Speaker 1: you guys to come here and talk to me about
27:25
Speaker 1: it because I know he was here on the night
27:27
Speaker 1: of the murder. Sour was kind of caught off guard
27:30
Speaker 1: by how sure the bartender was, and so he asked them, like,
27:33
Speaker 1: how can you be so sure it was him? And
27:35
Speaker 1: how do you know he was here on the night
27:37
Speaker 1: of the murder? How can you remember that? But the
27:39
Speaker 1: bartender had a quick answer. He said, the reason he
27:42
Speaker 1: remembered Nick is he had been wearing this very unique,
27:46
Speaker 1: unforgettable T shirt that night with this obscene joke on
27:49
Speaker 1: it about women's bodies, so he just remembered it. Bartender
27:52
Speaker 1: said Nick had stayed there on the night of the
27:54
Speaker 1: murder until ten fifteen or maybe ten thirty. The bartender
27:58
Speaker 1: was absolutely certain, and so again the bartender said to Sour, like,
28:02
Speaker 1: I'm just pretty surprised it took this long for you
28:05
Speaker 1: all to come here and confirm his whereabouts, like I've
28:08
Speaker 1: known this. Sower closed his folder and thanked the bartender
28:12
Speaker 1: and then just set his business card down on the counter,
28:15
Speaker 1: And when the bartender picked it up, he looked surprised
28:18
Speaker 1: because Matt Sower was not actually a police officer. He
28:21
Speaker 1: was a private investigator, and he'd been hired by Nick
28:25
Speaker 1: Robinson to clear his name sour knew this was going
28:29
Speaker 1: to be a tough job because Nick had already confessed
28:32
Speaker 1: to Ronda Boggs's murder, but Sower was hoping that this
28:35
Speaker 1: interview with the bartender would help him poke a massive
28:38
Speaker 1: hole in the case against him. And so now that
28:40
Speaker 1: Sower had gotten this testimony from the bartender that did
28:43
Speaker 1: appear to poke this hole in the case, Sower left
28:46
Speaker 1: the bar, got in his car and drove to the
28:49
Speaker 1: second bar Nick had claimed to be at on the
28:51
Speaker 1: night of Ronda's murder. It was called the Fairview Inn
28:54
Speaker 1: in Lancaster, and when he got there, he showed that
28:57
Speaker 1: staff the same photo, and just like the first tender,
29:01
Speaker 1: they all remembered Nick as well. They said he was
29:03
Speaker 1: there on the night of April twenty eighth, the night
29:05
Speaker 1: of the murder, and they remembered because of his distinctive
29:09
Speaker 1: T shirt. And so now sour knew he was onto
29:12
Speaker 1: something because the prosecution's case said that Nick had left
29:16
Speaker 1: Mary Melody's bar, that first bar sour had gone to,
29:19
Speaker 1: driven to Ronda's house and killed her, and then went
29:23
Speaker 1: to this bar, the fair View in But the staff
29:26
Speaker 1: at both bars said Nick was wearing this same distinctive
29:30
Speaker 1: T shirt, and Sower knew that if Nick had stabbed
29:34
Speaker 1: Ronda to death in between these two bars, wouldn't that
29:37
Speaker 1: shirt have been covered in blood? And wouldn't you know,
29:40
Speaker 1: the fair View In staff have not just remembered that
29:43
Speaker 1: it was this distinctive shirt, but the distinctive shirt that
29:46
Speaker 1: had blood all over it like that would also be
29:48
Speaker 1: a detail they would recall, but they didn't. They just
29:51
Speaker 1: said he had that shirt on nothing else. A few
29:54
Speaker 1: days later, Sower drove back to Marry Melody's bar, but
29:58
Speaker 1: this time he didn't go inside. Instead, he just pulled
30:01
Speaker 1: his car into their parking lot and started his stopwatch,
30:04
Speaker 1: And then once it was going, he pulled out of
30:06
Speaker 1: the parking lot, turned down the street, and drove all
30:09
Speaker 1: the way to Fairview In. And when he reached their
30:12
Speaker 1: parking lot, he checked his stopwatch and the drive had taken,
30:15
Speaker 1: you know, about forty five minutes. The prosecution's case against
30:19
Speaker 1: Nick had him leaving Mary Melody's bar, murdering Ronda, and
30:24
Speaker 1: driving all the way to the Fairview all within thirty
30:27
Speaker 1: to forty five minutes. But Sowers's experiment here with his
30:31
Speaker 1: stopwatch proved there was simply no way for Nick to
30:35
Speaker 1: have driven all the way to Ronda's house, committed the murder,
30:38
Speaker 1: and then made it back to the Fairview in in
30:40
Speaker 1: that same window of time, it just wasn't possible, which
30:44
Speaker 1: meant Nick's alibi was airtight and he could not have
30:48
Speaker 1: been the killer. Now Sower just had to figure out
30:51
Speaker 1: who actually was Matt Sower showed the evidence he had
30:56
Speaker 1: found to Neick's defense attorney, who then brought that evidence
30:59
Speaker 1: to the job in the case, and they also asked
31:02
Speaker 1: the judge for an order to test a key piece
31:05
Speaker 1: of evidence that the potascal of police had never even
31:08
Speaker 1: sent to the crime lab. The murder webon, and so
31:11
Speaker 1: the judge agreed to test the knife, and a month later,
31:14
Speaker 1: in January of two thousand and three, the evidence came
31:16
Speaker 1: back from the lab and they discovered there was DNA
31:20
Speaker 1: on the knife from someone other than Ronda. Investigators were
31:23
Speaker 1: not sure who the DNA belonged to, because back in
31:26
Speaker 1: two thousand and three, it isn't like you had this
31:28
Speaker 1: huge bank to test it against. You basically had to
31:31
Speaker 1: test DNA one to one, But they were able to
31:34
Speaker 1: do that with Nick's DNA and were able to confirm
31:38
Speaker 1: that it was not his DNA on the murder weapon,
31:42
Speaker 1: and so this cast serious doubt on Nick as a suspect,
31:45
Speaker 1: but it wasn't enough to clear his name, not until
31:48
Speaker 1: Sour could figure out who that other set of DNA
31:50
Speaker 1: belonged to. And so Sour dug through the police files
31:54
Speaker 1: on the case, and he realized there were a lot
31:57
Speaker 1: of potential suspects the police had never even bothered to
32:00
Speaker 1: look at closely or at all. There was Ronda's soon
32:03
Speaker 1: to be ex husband, Dave, who'd been flagged by Ronda's
32:06
Speaker 1: sister on day one. You know, Dave obviously could not
32:09
Speaker 1: have committed the murder himself because he was in jail,
32:12
Speaker 1: but you know, like the sister suggested, it's possible he
32:15
Speaker 1: could have recruited.
32:16
Speaker 2: Somebody else to do it.
32:17
Speaker 1: And so all of Dave's friends, his acquaintances, the people
32:21
Speaker 1: he met in jail, potentially were suspects too. There was
32:24
Speaker 1: also Chris Williams, the former bandmate who had previously robbed
32:28
Speaker 1: Dave and Ronda's house once before and sold Dave's guitars
32:31
Speaker 1: for drug money. And of course there was Bob Cisco,
32:35
Speaker 1: the man who had actually called in the tip about Chris,
32:38
Speaker 1: and at one point Ronda's own daughter had said Bob
32:42
Speaker 1: had been in the house during the murder, and so
32:45
Speaker 1: maybe that was Bob Cisco. Any of those people could
32:48
Speaker 1: have been Ronda's killer, but since there was so little
32:51
Speaker 1: investigation done, Sower was essentially starting over from square one,
32:55
Speaker 1: almost nine months after the crime. The killer could even
32:59
Speaker 1: be somebody who the police never even knew about, because
33:02
Speaker 1: they had never really even bothered to focus on anybody
33:05
Speaker 1: but Nick, and so with little concrete to go off of,
33:09
Speaker 1: Sower decided that before he began investigating eighty seven different people,
33:14
Speaker 1: he would start with the sort of one concrete thing
33:17
Speaker 1: he had, which is they knew what items had been
33:20
Speaker 1: taken from Ronda's house during the murder, and so what
33:23
Speaker 1: he decided he would do is try to track down
33:26
Speaker 1: those items and hopefully they would lead him.
33:29
Speaker 2: To the actual killer.
33:35
Speaker 1: A few days later, Sower stepped into a pawn shop
33:38
Speaker 1: in Columbus and walked slowly down the aisle, scanning the
33:41
Speaker 1: shelves for some of the items that he knew had
33:43
Speaker 1: been taken from Ronda.
33:45
Speaker 2: And Dave's house.
33:46
Speaker 1: But like all the other pawn shops he had been
33:48
Speaker 1: to that day, he hadn't found anything, and when he
33:51
Speaker 1: got to the end of this aisle, he knew this
33:53
Speaker 1: pawn shop as well, did not have any of these
33:55
Speaker 1: missing items. Now, it was entirely possible that the items
33:59
Speaker 1: that had been stolen had not been pawned off yet,
34:02
Speaker 1: or maybe they had been pawned off in some other
34:04
Speaker 1: part of the country or something, but it just seemed
34:06
Speaker 1: kind of likely that if they had been pawned they
34:09
Speaker 1: might be sort of roughly in the area. But so
34:12
Speaker 1: far he had not found anything promising, and so after
34:15
Speaker 1: leaving this pawn shop and going to another and then another,
34:18
Speaker 1: and still not finding any of the stolen items, Sower
34:22
Speaker 1: finally decided to call it a day and head back home. However,
34:26
Speaker 1: on his ride back home, Sower found himself stopped at
34:29
Speaker 1: a stoplight, and as he was idling there, he just
34:33
Speaker 1: happened to look out the window, and on the other
34:35
Speaker 1: side of the road he saw a Bureau of Motor
34:37
Speaker 1: Vehicles a DMV. And when he saw the DMV, it
34:41
Speaker 1: was like something kind of rattled loose in his mind.
34:44
Speaker 1: He remembered that one of the persons of interest on
34:47
Speaker 1: his list had been arrested for car theft about a
34:50
Speaker 1: week after Rhonda's murder. But according to the police files,
34:54
Speaker 1: that suspect owned a car of their own, a blue Cadillac,
34:59
Speaker 1: wh they need to steal another car if they already
35:03
Speaker 1: owned one, And so on a whim, Sour pulled into
35:06
Speaker 1: the parking lot of this DMV. He went inside and
35:09
Speaker 1: he went up to one of the clerks and he
35:11
Speaker 1: asked them to look into this particular blue Cadillac. He
35:15
Speaker 1: gave the clerk the license plate number, and he quickly
35:18
Speaker 1: found out that on April thirtieth, two thousand and two,
35:21
Speaker 1: so one day after Ronda's body had been found, that
35:24
Speaker 1: blue Cadillac had been sold to a woman in Columbus
35:27
Speaker 1: whose name was Letitia Gordon. And so Soyer left the
35:31
Speaker 1: DMV and drove straight to Letitia's house, and he knocked
35:35
Speaker 1: on the door, and the woman who opened it looked
35:37
Speaker 1: a bit scared when he introduced himself as an investigator,
35:40
Speaker 1: but she also did not seem surprised. Latitia told Sour
35:44
Speaker 1: that she knew why he was there. It was because
35:46
Speaker 1: of the blue Cadillac that she had bought. She said
35:49
Speaker 1: that she had bought that car off a stranger right
35:51
Speaker 1: off the street who had offered to sell it to her.
35:53
Speaker 1: For just three hundred dollars, something she couldn't pass up. However,
35:57
Speaker 1: when she got home with this new car, she looked
36:01
Speaker 1: inside of it and she found there was all the
36:03
Speaker 1: stuff piled up in the back of the car, which
36:05
Speaker 1: included clothes, jewelry, and a purse with somebody's photo ID inside,
36:10
Speaker 1: and the name on that ID was Ronda Box. And so,
36:18
Speaker 1: with his suspicions now confirmed, Sour was finally able to
36:22
Speaker 1: reconstruct what really happened to Ronda Boggs on the night
36:26
Speaker 1: of April twenty eighth, two thousand and two. On that night,
36:35
Speaker 1: while Ronda Boggs was finishing up dinner with her two
36:37
Speaker 1: year old daughter, her killer was parking their blue Cadillac
36:41
Speaker 1: just down the block. They eventually got out and stormed
36:44
Speaker 1: over to Ronda's house in a total fury, with their
36:46
Speaker 1: heart pounding and their heads swimming, and they stomped up
36:49
Speaker 1: her driveway and they rang the doorbell, and when Ronda
36:53
Speaker 1: opened up the door, she looked confused and a bit
36:55
Speaker 1: scared to see this person. She asked them what they
36:58
Speaker 1: were doing there, but the ca just brushed past her
37:01
Speaker 1: and stormed into her house, into the kitchen and began
37:05
Speaker 1: digging through her purse right on the counter. Ronda tried
37:08
Speaker 1: to stop them, but when she put her hands on them,
37:10
Speaker 1: the killer, without any hesitation, grabbed a nearby steak knife
37:14
Speaker 1: and stabbed Ronda in the chest. Ronda she fell to
37:18
Speaker 1: the ground and tried to stand back up and tried
37:21
Speaker 1: to defend herself, but the killer was on top of her,
37:24
Speaker 1: stabbing her over and over and over again until Ronda
37:27
Speaker 1: was no longer moving. The killer at that point stood
37:30
Speaker 1: up and backed away from Ronda's body, which was now
37:33
Speaker 1: lying there in a pool of blood on the kitchen tile.
37:35
Speaker 1: And then they just proceeded to ransack the house and
37:38
Speaker 1: stole whatever money and valuables they could find. And then
37:41
Speaker 1: as they were about to leave, they saw a toddler
37:44
Speaker 1: just standing in the hallway watching them. The killer paid
37:47
Speaker 1: the child no mind and just hurried right past them
37:50
Speaker 1: out of the house, got back into their blue Cadillac,
37:53
Speaker 1: and spent the rest of the night on a massive
37:55
Speaker 1: drug bench. And then the next morning they sold that
37:58
Speaker 1: blue Cadillac to a woman in Columbus on the street,
38:01
Speaker 1: accidentally leaving Ronda's stolen purse, her id and jewelry in.
38:06
Speaker 2: The back of that car.
38:07
Speaker 1: And nearly a year later, those items would lead investigators
38:11
Speaker 1: to the killer. The killer was Chris Williams, Dave Boggs's
38:15
Speaker 1: former bandmate, who had robbed him and Ronda once before.
38:19
Speaker 2: On the night of the.
38:20
Speaker 1: Murder, he was high on crack and needed money for
38:23
Speaker 1: his next hit, and Ronda unfortunately got in the way.
38:27
Speaker 1: Chris was charged with Ronda's murder, and on March twenty eight,
38:30
Speaker 1: two thousand and five, he was found guilty on all counts.
38:33
Speaker 1: He was sentenced to twenty years to life for Ronda's
38:36
Speaker 1: murder and a total of twenty eight years for aggravated robbery, burglary,
38:40
Speaker 1: and escaping from a halfway house. After Chris Williams was charged,
38:45
Speaker 1: all the charges against Nick Robinson were dropped. And for
38:48
Speaker 1: Nick Robinson this completely changed his life, not just because
38:52
Speaker 1: now he was free, but once he came back home,
38:56
Speaker 1: he stopped drinking, and he returned to work, and he
38:59
Speaker 1: sued the city of task a Love for three million
39:01
Speaker 1: dollars in damages.
39:11
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for watching.
39:13
Speaker 1: Let me know what you thought of today's episode in
39:14
Speaker 1: the comments, and remember we have a whole playlist of
39:17
Speaker 1: true crime episodes ready for you to binge right now,
39:20
Speaker 1: so click here and give them a watch.
39:23
Speaker 2: All right, until next time, see ya,