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Murder in Talladega · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

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  Discretion advised. This is ten minute murder. August fourteenth, the summer of
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  twenty twenty two, a couple, just at the start of their journey into
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  adulthood headed out for a day of hiking in the Talladega National Forest in Alabama.
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  It was a Sunday, the sun was shining, and school started that
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  Monday. The only thing left to do was squeezing one last trip out to
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  see the waterfalls before these two young people had their very first classes of the
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  semester at the University of Central Florida the following day. Twenty two year old
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  Adam Simgy and Mikaela Paulis, who was only twenty years old at the time,
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  had been out to the park many times before that fateful Sunday. In
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  fact, the forests in the national Park were some of Adam's favorite places to
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  go, especially when he could go there when the weather was good and he
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  had his girlfriend Mikayla by his side. The young couple set out pretty early
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  that morning and were already driving around the park around ten o'clock when they spotted
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  something on the side of the road that made them pull over and stop the
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  car. A young woman had flagged them down right beside her was a broken
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  down vehicle of her own that she needed help with. Twenty one year old
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  Yasmin Hider was camping up in the woods with her friend and was on her
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  way into town to pick up some much needed food and supplies when her friend's
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  car had suddenly stopped working. Yasmin was then left stranded on the road,
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  and that's why she'd stopped Adam and Michayla to ask her for help. Adam
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  did not hesitate, he jumped right in. Both he and Mikayla spent over
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  an hour with Yasmin on the side of the park road, desperately trying to
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  fix her car. They even called some of their relatives for advice on what
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  to do, and they still couldn't get Yasmin's car running. They even offered
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  to go and get her help at the closest ranger station. That was how
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  much both Adam and Michayla wanted to help Yasmin, and that was why Yasmin's
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  sudden shift in demeanor caught them so off guard. After all of that time
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  and effort the two of them had just put into trying to help her,
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  Yasmin pulled out a gun she'd been hiding from them this whole time, and
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  started barking out orders. In another surprising and chilling twist in this case,
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  she then filmed herself marching Adam and Mikayla into the forests that surrounded the park
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  road. Now concealed from any potential witnesses that may drive by, Yasmin demanded
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  Adam and Michaela's banking information, still recording herself and what would turn out to
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  be a horrifying and grisly archive of someone's final moments. The video shows her
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  giving one last order to the couple as she marched them into the woods,
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  and that was for them to drop their phones. It was after this that
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  all hell broke loose. In another unexpected twist of the case, while Adam
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  dropped his phone onto the forest floor that day, he pulled out his own
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  surprise for Yasmin, a nine millimeter gun that he'd been hiding himself. Adam
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  then ordered Yasmin to put down her weapon, and a fragile stalemate ensued.
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  Are you serious, Yasmin asks on the recording, but then she pulled the
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  trigger. Before anyone could respond, her gun jammed and while she was rushing
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  to get it working again. Adam threw himself in the line of fire to
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  protect Mikayla. He shot at Yasmin, but by then Yasmin had a working
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  weapon as well. It was only eleven thirty Sunday morning when the nearby ranger
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  station that Adam and Mikayla had just offered to get Yasmin help from received a
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  call reporting a shootout in the forest. While their ranger teams began the long
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  drive up into the mountain to reach the chaotic scene, Yasmin and Adam were
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  just about done exchanging blows. Yasmin had been shot several times in the chest.
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  Adam had been shot only once, but by another twist of fate,
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  he'd come out on the bottom. Why did you shoot Yasmin says on her
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  own recording. It wasn't supposed to be like this. As Adam and Yasmin
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  laid bleeding out in the middle of the forest, two witnesses were left standing.
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  One was the terrified twenty year old Mikayla and the other a thirty seven
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  year old woman who'd only tangled the thread of the story even further. Crystal
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  Diane Pinkins had also been on the side of the road that day and a
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  witness to the shootouts that went down between Adam and Yasmine. But she was
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  also tied to the case in many more ways than that. Not only was
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  she the owner of the car that Yasmin had been trying to get Adam and
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  Michaela to fix, but she was also the friend who'd set up camp with
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  Yasmin somewhere out in the park. Adam was fighting to save Michaela and his
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  own life. Michaela spotted Crystal hiding in the trees and pleaded with her to
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  go and get help. Crystal, either terrified herself or torn between helping her
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  friend and the absolute insanity that their attempted robbery had descended into, turned tail
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  and ran, realizing that Cristel wasn't going to help them. Michaela then changed
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  tracks, and as the shots died out, she made a run for her
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  phone and called the emergency services. Now knowing that help was finally on the
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  way, Michaela rushed back to Adam, who was lying not far from where
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  Yasmin was. Both shooters were incapacitated by then, but Adam was in really
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  bad shape. Mikayla then desperately began performing CPR to try to keep her boyfriend
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  alive until paramedics could get there, but because of how far they were out
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  into the park that day, it took first responders of very long half an
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  hour to reach the site. When they got there, they walked onto the
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  scene where Mikayla was still performing CPR on Adam, but Adam was gone beside
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  them, his killer still laid bleeding out and alive and awake enough to start
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  making demands all over again. As paramedics began addressing the gunshot wounds on her
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  chest, Yasmin kept asking how much trouble she was in. Quote. I
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  know I'm going to get time for this, she said, I just want
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  to know how much. While Yasmin was first taken by ambulance and then airlifted
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  to the hospital, investigators at the scene had to now interview the very distraught
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  Mikayla. Still reeling from her shock and grief, Mikayla managed to give an
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  account of what happened and a description of the woman she'd seen disappear back into
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  the forest during the shootout, Piecing together the bits of information that Yasmin had
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  drip fed the couple as they tried to fix her car that morning. The
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  investigators determined that there was a camp nearby where a known number of people were
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  living off grid. These people were more than likely armed, and if Yasmine
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  was anything to go by, dangerous. Teams of investigators and rangers scoured the
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  area and even brought in sniffer dogs to locate this camp and anyone else who
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  could be involved in Adam Simg's murder. Only about half a mile away,
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  those teams found what they were looking for, an armed camp and the scene
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  of another potential shootout. They managed to catch the woman standing outside of a
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  tent on her own off guard, but as the police were shouting for her
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  to lie down on the ground, another person approached the scene wielding a shotgun.
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  What followed was an incredibly tense stalemate, one where the police found themselves
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  facing a loaded weapon and not wanting to be the first ones to shoot.
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  This case made another unforeseen and unbelievable twist yet again when Cristel's son approached the
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  camp with that loaded shotgun in his hands, and yet another twist when officers
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  realized that Cristel's son was only five years old. The police asked the child
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  to put the gun down, but the boy could see his mother lying on
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  the ground outside the tents that the three of them had been all living in,
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  and he was afraid, probably not knowing what else to do. The
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  boy started slowly stepping over to his mother, but he was still holding on
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  to the shotgun. Everything could devolve again in a split second, and someone
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  else could potentially end up dead if the police didn't get this situation under control
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  quickly. Everyone had to watch and wait to see what the boy would do.
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  No one there wanted to be the reason why this case would erupt into
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  another shootout, especially when it involved a five year old child. The boy
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  inched over to his mother, and eventually he did put the gun down.
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  He was just a kid, and he was scared by all the people suddenly
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  turning up at their camp, and at the end of things, he just
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  wanted his mother in front of all of those armed officers. He made his
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  way over to Cristel, put the gun down, and then got down on
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  the ground so he could lie beside his mother. Now that he was finally
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  unarmed, the police then secured the scene and arrested Cristel. Her son was
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  immediately taken into care, and she was sent to jail for her part in
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  the murder that had occurred only a half mile away from that campsite. Yasmin
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  later argued that she'd only approached Adam and Michaeleb because she genuinely needed to get
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  into town to get food and their car was broken. She said that the
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  situation had just escalated so quickly, and she would have been happy enough to
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  get a ride into town instead of the whole thing turning into a shootout that
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  had left Adam dead, but Mikayla disagreed. In response to Yasmin's statement,
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  Mikaela argued that she and Adam would have been more than happy to have dropped
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  Yasmin into town themselves if she had asked them to, and that Yasmin was
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  responsible for Michaela losing the love of her life. In a later social media
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  post, Michaela wrote, quote my reason for being my soulmate, my life
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  partner, the future father of my children died in the middle of a state
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  park in Alabama. No words can begin to describe the shock and pain I'm
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  in. Adam is the best person I've ever met on the face of this
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  entire planet. He was the most pure soul, and he made sure I
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  knew I would be safe when I was with him. It comforts me to
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  say he passed in one of his favorite plas laces, the forest in the
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  mountains. No other scenario could match this pain. I wish I could hold
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  your hand one last time. Both Yasmine and Crystal pled guilty in federal court.
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  Yasmin was found guilty of second degree murder, kidnapping, and robbery and
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  received thirty five years in prison. That's ten Minute Murder for today, brief
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  and bingeable true crime. I'm Joe the host, and I really appreciate you
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  And coming up on the next episode of ten Minute Murder, we're gonna
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  talk about a case. It's I mean, all of these cases are disturbing,
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  but the ones that particularly get to me are the ones that involve kids.
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  And the one coming up next is about Danielle ven Dam who was kidnapped
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  and murdered by a neighbor. Now, the story's interesting because the father thought
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  that the little girl was asleep in the bed. They had a security system,
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  an alarm system, and it did go off, but he just still
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  still assumed that she was asleep in the bed. It went off twice,
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  and when they woke up the next morning and saw that she wasn't there,
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  they were like, oh, the security alarm. We should have checked the
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  bed. But that's a story you're gonna hear about next on ten Minute Murder.
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  Thank you for listening. I'll catch you on the next one. Bye.