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S2E3: The Murder of Timothy Blyth · Blood Trails

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: There's a moment in every confrontation when someone decides whether
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: to walk away. On a piece of hunting land. Just
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: outside Tallahassee, that moment came and went an argument over access,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: over rules, over who belonged, and then gunfire. When it
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: was over, one man lay in the road while the
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: other disappeared. Now the dead man's friends and family are
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: trying to pick up the pieces as they wonder how
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: such an everyday argument turned so deadly, so quickly. That's
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: next on Blood Trails. This is a story about three
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: hunting buddies. It didn't make national headlines, dateline didn't cover
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: the investigation, and you won't find trial footage in a
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Netflix documentary. But for hunters, what happened to Tim Blythe
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: and his friends hits close to home. This could have
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: happened on any slice of public land anywhere in the country,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: and the mystery of Tim's death is all the more
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: troubling for the familiarity of its circumstances. It all started
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: on a balmy seventy eight degree day in December of
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, when the Wakulla County Sheriff's Office in
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Florida's Panhandle received a nine to one to one call
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: from a man who'd been walking his dog in the
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Saint Mark's National Wildlife Refuge.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: I turned on to a purefive Bay Road and the
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: cruise nod down there.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: Ah had mandl.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: After we got off the blacktop and it turned to sand,
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: there was two pickup trucks sitting on the right. One
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: was pointing at me. It was a bright, shiny new Ford.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: This man's name was Norman Grass. And as he drove
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: past those trucks, he noticed several men standing around the
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: front of that shiny red pickup.
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: There was a dude that looked right at me. He
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: was tall, and.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: He had a baseball cap on I kind of picked
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: was camouflage. And I also think I just felt he
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: was a hunter.
• 2:13
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 2:13
  Speaker 6: He looked like a good old colored boy, you know,
• 2:16
  Speaker 6: And nothing else stood out in my mind other than
• 2:20
  Speaker 6: looking at him, and I figured that they were shooting
• 2:23
  Speaker 6: shit about hunting.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Norman didn't think much about this at the time. In
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: later interviews with law enforcement, he wasn't able to remember
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: any details about the other men or even recall exactly
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: how many there were. But when he drove back down
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Purified Bay Road about forty five minutes later. The scene
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: he encountered was seared into his memory.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Well, as I was coming back and I got close
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: to were these gentlemen were, I seen something in the road.
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: I instantly thought it was a sleeping.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Bag, and then when I got up to it, I
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: seen two feet. I looked at the.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: Head and there was a pool of blood.
• 3:00
  Speaker 7: He was face down.
• 3:02
  Speaker 6: I couldn't see his eye, but I could see the
• 3:05
  Speaker 6: pull of blood around him.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: The trucks and the other men were nowhere to be seen.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Norman turned around and drove back to make sure his
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: eyes weren't playing tricks on him, but he had no
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: desire to take a closer look. He drove around the corner,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: out of sight and called nine one one.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: I rolled up my windows, locked my doors, just sat
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: in the car because I was the only one that
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: witnessed those guys.
• 3:29
  Speaker 8: I got that thinking about it, right, they he looked
• 3:31
  Speaker 8: right at me. The truck is very distinguishable. Sure, and
• 3:35
  Speaker 8: I got paranami, so scary and soul shook up. I
• 3:39
  Speaker 8: got my gun up and put it there on my councle.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Sure, but Norman's strange day was about to get even stranger.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: As you've probably found out or will fall up. There
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: was two dogs there.
• 3:51
  Speaker 6: Two groomed poodles poles who were there, and they were
• 3:57
  Speaker 6: at right where.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: We were at Norman's as These dogs had tags and
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: were clearly well taken care of, but they were skittish.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: They ran around like they didn't know what to do,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: and when police arrived, they refused to be caught. Norman says.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Animal control officers weren't able to wrangle them either, but strangely,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: they stayed in the area. No one knew why two
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: well groomed poodles would be running around a dead body,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: but Norman was right about one thing. The man lying
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: in a pool of his own blood was a hunter.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Investigators uncovered many more details about the when, how, and
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: who of his death, but his friends and hunting buddies
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: are still wondering about the why.
• 4:39
  Speaker 9: It's something that you would have never seen coming period.
• 4:44
  Speaker 9: You know, nobody.
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: Sees murder coming anyways.
• 4:48
  Speaker 9: Why it was time for him to be called to
• 4:50
  Speaker 9: the Lord or whatever. You know, you're gonna always have
• 4:54
  Speaker 9: that why.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: The events that transpired in those fateful minutes are still
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: shrouded in mystery. But it began with a scenario. We've
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: all experienced a random interaction between two strangers in the woods.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: How that interaction escalated to a murder investigation that included
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: a missing gun, a would be fugitive, a pig carcass
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: in a driveway, and a claim of self defense is
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: the question that remains with us today. In the end,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: the answer might matter far less than the carnage it
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: left behind. I'm Jordan Sillers and this is blood Trails,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: the murder of Timothy blythe part one, Smudge and Smoky.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Waculla County is located just south of Tallahassee, but the
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: vast majority of the area is taken up by the
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Saint Mark's National Wildlife Refuge and the Apalachic Coal National Forest.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: It looks like a great place to live for someone
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: who loves the outdoors, but residents don't see many murders.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: In twenty twenty one, this was the only homicide that
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: occurred in the county. Needless to say, it was all
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: hands on deck when Norman's call came in, and Eddie
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Wester and Brett Sarachi were right in the thick of it.
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: My name is Brett Sarachi.
• 6:21
  Speaker 10: At the time of the homicide, I was a Detective
• 6:24
  Speaker 10: Captain and supervised the investigation.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Along with Major Western Deputies responded to the scene around
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: one twenty five pm on Sunday, December twelfth. They found
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: the man Norman had seen and soon identified him as
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: Timothy Blythe using the driver's license found in his wallet.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: They learned that Blythe was fifty two years old and
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: lived in the nearby town of Crawfordville. He was wearing
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: a Camo US Marines hat, and deputies found a can
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: of chewing tobacco, some lip balm, and a set of
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: keys in one of his pockets. Those keys went to
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: a silver Toyota Tacoma that was parked not far away.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Investigators wouldn't know the extent of Tim's injuries until after
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: the autopsy, but it was clear that he'd been shot
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: multiple times. Blood soaked the shoulder and armpit areas of
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: the mossy oak breakup Country Camo shirt he was wearing,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: and the crotch and thighs of his jeans were covered
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: in the same substance. Deputies observed multiple tire and shoe
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: tracks around the body, but no one else was in
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: the area. No other people that is Here's Captain Sarachi.
• 7:26
  Speaker 10: When we first saw the dogs and the way they
• 7:29
  Speaker 10: hung in that immediate vicinity, our first thing, cling at
• 7:32
  Speaker 10: least mine, was could they belong to the man that
• 7:35
  Speaker 10: was actually down the deceiting on the ground. They were
• 7:39
  Speaker 10: running in circles, but they never went more than thirty
• 7:42
  Speaker 10: forty yards away in circle, which is and again couldn't
• 7:45
  Speaker 10: be corralled.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: You might expect hunting dogs to get loose in a
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: big piece of public land, but these poodles didn't look
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: like any kind of hunting dogs the detectives had ever seen.
• 7:54
  Speaker 10: Instead, they're more like show dogs. They've been manicured, they
• 7:58
  Speaker 10: have their puffy fur. I'm just right, and they were
• 8:02
  Speaker 10: very out of place for where they were at.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Detectives called animal control because they were worried the dogs
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: might contaminate the crime scene, but Laculla's finest were unable
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: to capture the large canines until a woman pulled up
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: in a copper colored Hyundai SUV. She stopped where the
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: deputies had blocked the road, rolled down her window, and
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: identified herself as Sandra Williams.
• 8:24
  Speaker 11: Here's major Western.
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: Sandra shows a full scene and the dogs go rot
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: to her, so obviously she's and we were able to
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: determine they were the honors three veterinarian records.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: As she put the dogs in her vehicle, she told
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: detectives that the gray dog was named Smoky and the
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: black one was named Smudge. Her husband, a man named
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Stuart Money, had called her around one point thirty that
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: afternoon while she was at work to report that the
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: dogs had escaped from the backyard of their home. Stuart
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: said he'd driven down Purified Bay Road, but not all
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: the way, so he wanted her to drive farther down while.
• 8:59
  Speaker 11: He looked elsewhere.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Sandra explained that they only lived about a mile and
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: a half from the crime scene, and they walk their
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: dogs down that road five to seven days a week.
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: Well, it was kind of strange.
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: She was actually working at the time, and Stuart Monny
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: called her on her phone while he was at home.
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: She's at work and saying, Hey, the dogs got out.
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: I think they're on Purified a Road. We don't know
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: the context of that entire conversation, but Sandra does come
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: to the scene and the dogs are immediately getting her vehicle.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: She couldn't see Tim's body from where she parked her car,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: but she could see the large law enforcement presence, but
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: her response to all those vehicles, flashing lights and crime
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: scene tape was oddly nonchalant.
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: I don't really think she ever questioned why there's so
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: many deputy shares.
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: I don't think so. Her reaction, he's right, was extremely odd.
• 9:57
  Speaker 10: I mean, just immediately I had a change or trajectory
• 10:01
  Speaker 10: of the investigation at that point to try to figure
• 10:04
  Speaker 10: out where these dogs came from.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: If those dogs were somehow connected to the murder. Detectives
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: knew they'd want to speak to Sandra again, but Smudge
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: and Smokey were clearly her dogs, and they didn't have
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: any concrete reason to detain her. So Sandra drove home
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: as investigators continued to process the scene. Just a few
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: minutes later, the two technicians taking photos of the scene
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: heard something strange, a sound they couldn't quite identify, coming
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: from the woods just across the road from the dead body.
• 10:35
  Speaker 12: While documenting the tire impressions on one side of the road,
• 10:41
  Speaker 12: Miss Reagan and I kept hearing a sound in the woods.
• 10:44
  Speaker 12: We weren't sure exactly.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: What it was.
• 10:46
  Speaker 13: It was.
• 10:48
  Speaker 12: Like a It would stop and then start again. We
• 10:53
  Speaker 12: made a comment to this to the detectives as we
• 10:56
  Speaker 12: were concerned. We didn't know what it was and it
• 10:58
  Speaker 12: needed to be identified.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Brittany Owens, a crime scene investigator for the Waculla County
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Sheriff's Office. It's unclear exactly what the sound sounded like,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: but it's easy to understand their concern. Whoever had killed
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Tim was still out there. For all they knew, the
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: murderer could be hiding in the woods waiting for a
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: chance to ambush law enforcement. An investigator with the State
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Attorney's office was standing nearby, and he ventured into the
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: forest to figure out the source of the noise. He
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: soon discovered a cell phone lying on the ground about
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: twenty feet from the opposite edge of the road. That
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: phone was fortunately not Tim's killer, but it was nonetheless significant.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: As investigators poured through the data on that device, they
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: found a photo that became the closest thing we have
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: to explaining what happened to Tim and why. As Assistant
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: State Attorney Andrew Denene said at trial four years later,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: taking that photo may have been the last thing Tim
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: ever did, and it helped serve justice for what happened next.
• 11:58
  Speaker 14: This was mister Blithe's out from the great and identifying
• 12:02
  Speaker 14: the person he's about to kill him.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Part two, Tim, Jimmy and Louis. If you read about
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: this case online, you'll find very little information on Tim
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: blythe You might find that he was born in nineteen
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: sixty nine and worked as a heavy machinery operator for
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: a construction company in Tallahassee. You might find that he
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: lived in the nearby town of Crawfordville, had served with
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: the Marines in the Gulf War, and loved to hunt
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: and fish. If you really dug deep, you might also
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: find that he'd been married twice and had a son
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: with whom he was not close. But you won't find
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: anything about what he was like, his personality and interests,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: how he interacted with others, or how he approached hunting
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: and fishing.
• 12:48
  Speaker 9: We're like brothers man, Yeah, the same family, but we've
• 12:53
  Speaker 9: been around together for a long time.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: That's Jimmy Huddo. Jimmy first met Tim in the early
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: nineties and they became him close after Tim married Jimmy's aunt.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: That marriage didn't work out, but the two men remained close.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Their relationship, Jimmy says, was built on their shared love
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: of the outdoors.
• 13:11
  Speaker 9: Literally, my wife would have to ask us that we'd
• 13:14
  Speaker 9: have to take a weekend off because we had plans
• 13:17
  Speaker 9: with the kids, or she wanted a date night. Yeah,
• 13:22
  Speaker 9: if that gives you any.
• 13:23
  Speaker 15: Kind of ideas.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: Jimmy and Tim weren't alone in their pursuits. In the
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: late nineties. They met another man named Louis Angelotti, who
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: made up the third musketeer of their hunting and fishing trio.
• 13:34
  Speaker 16: And we had a little group that we did a
• 13:37
  Speaker 16: couple of archery quota hunts on me, Jimmy and Tim.
• 13:41
  Speaker 16: We stayed together. I mean we've been together ever since
• 13:44
  Speaker 16: since then. And if we weren't hunting, Tim loved the
• 13:48
  Speaker 16: bass fish.
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: Hey loved the bass fish.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Like most hunting buddies, Tim, Louie and Jimmy loved to
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: give each other a hard time. Jimmy said they'd make
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: fun of Louis for not having steady legs and falling
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: out of the boat. And he remembers messing with Tim
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: about the size of the buckey shot.
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: He said, Oh, I killed a big old book.
• 14:06
  Speaker 9: Can you come down and see if you can spot
• 14:08
  Speaker 9: and everything? And I get over there and I said,
• 14:11
  Speaker 9: I thought you said you killed a good buck.
• 14:13
  Speaker 7: He said, I did.
• 14:14
  Speaker 9: It's got to be at least in eight points.
• 14:16
  Speaker 7: I said, heck, no, it's a spike.
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: And he's like, no, it ain't.
• 14:20
  Speaker 16: That ain't mine.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Tim's death and Jimmy's ongoing health problems have fractured their trio,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: and I can tell they missed the camaraderie that comes
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: with hunting, fishing, and sharing the fruits.
• 14:31
  Speaker 11: Of their labor.
• 14:32
  Speaker 9: Whoever killed the first dear of the season, if we
• 14:35
  Speaker 9: was out about in the woods, we would take the
• 14:38
  Speaker 9: backstrap of that first year and we would do a
• 14:40
  Speaker 9: cookout out there in the woods, and we would invite
• 14:44
  Speaker 9: two of our good friends that didn't hunt because they
• 14:49
  Speaker 9: were too you know, they were older. They really wasn't
• 14:52
  Speaker 9: physically able.
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: You know. That was what we enjoyed doing. That's what
• 14:57
  Speaker 5: he enjoyed doing.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Louis says Tim was outgoing and talkative, but not the
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: kind of guy to pick a fight. In fact, most
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: of Louie's memories of Tim revolve around his willingness to
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: help others.
• 15:08
  Speaker 16: He was the kind of guy that if you needed
• 15:10
  Speaker 16: a penny, he'd give you a dollar. And he may
• 15:13
  Speaker 16: only only had two, he'd give you one of them.
• 15:15
  Speaker 16: That's just who who he was.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: One day, the trio stopped by a grocery store to
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: gather supplies for a hunt. Tim was wearing a hunting
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: jacket that Louis had given him for Christmas, a jacket
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: he almost never took off. As the men walked inside,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Tim noticed a man sitting on the ground outside the doors.
• 15:32
  Speaker 16: You could tell it was cold. It was cool, misty, cloudy.
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: Hayese.
• 15:37
  Speaker 16: It's one of them little duck cutting mortons. Basically, a
• 15:40
  Speaker 16: fellow was sitting outside. He didn't he wouldn't ask him
• 15:42
  Speaker 16: for nothing, win to beg and I said, I said, Bud,
• 15:44
  Speaker 16: you look cold. He nodded his head.
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: I'll walk in.
• 15:47
  Speaker 16: Look look behind me. Tim stopton and just started talking
• 15:50
  Speaker 16: to him. Next thing I know, he came and gave
• 15:52
  Speaker 16: that man the jacket that I gave him, his favorite jacket,
• 15:56
  Speaker 16: the one that he wanted the most. He gave it
• 15:58
  Speaker 16: to that fella on on the brown. I said, Tim,
• 16:02
  Speaker 16: he gave him that jacket. He said, he's army, bed,
• 16:05
  Speaker 16: he's cold. He needs it more than I do.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Louie recalled another time when Tim ran into a stranger
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: while hunting the same unit where he was killed a
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: few years later, this.
• 16:14
  Speaker 16: Guy was not singing no deer, so he was talking
• 16:17
  Speaker 16: to the speller and Tim said, I'm gonna bring this
• 16:19
  Speaker 16: man over here by me, baby, he can kill one
• 16:21
  Speaker 16: seek one of these deer. And he ended up killed
• 16:23
  Speaker 16: killing a deer. It was a gun gun hunt.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: I don't mean to make Tim sound like mother Teresa.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: I imagine his two ex wives would tell very different
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: kinds of stories. And I'm sure, like all of us,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Tim had his rough edges. But you can tell a
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: lot about the way a man is perceived by how
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: people act at his funeral. To understand why that's true
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: in Tim's case, you need to know a little backstory.
• 16:46
  Speaker 16: They nickname him dig DG as a kid because you
• 16:51
  Speaker 16: like the dig in the dirt.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: True to form. Once he was discharged from the military,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Tim got a job as a heavy machinery operator for
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: a construction company called m Inc. Where he worked for
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: the next twenty years.
• 17:02
  Speaker 16: Well, the owner of that company told him, and I
• 17:06
  Speaker 16: was with them one day, he said, this man right here,
• 17:08
  Speaker 16: there's not a piece of machinery or color that's that's
• 17:13
  Speaker 16: made this man cannot operate. He could look at something
• 17:16
  Speaker 16: and throw a grade and he didn't have a big education,
• 17:18
  Speaker 16: like an engineer, but he could run a grade.
• 17:20
  Speaker 5: He was just a natural.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Tim sudden violent death was a blow to that community,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: and they showed their appreciation for his life and his
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: work at his funeral.
• 17:32
  Speaker 16: There was a lot of excavating and in construction companies
• 17:35
  Speaker 16: in Tallahassee. All of them shut down for that day
• 17:39
  Speaker 16: and went to that funeral. All of the even the
• 17:41
  Speaker 16: ones he didn't work for, all of them shut down.
• 17:44
  Speaker 16: They had a convoy of dump trucks excavators on behind
• 17:49
  Speaker 16: Semis and all of them went by the Simsmitary and
• 17:54
  Speaker 16: all of them laid laid the horns down. I said that,
• 17:56
  Speaker 16: I told his dad. I said, they're all right there
• 17:57
  Speaker 16: for him.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: I could be wrong, but I don't think Tim's coworkers
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: would honor him in that way. If he was a jerk.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: They didn't just like him because he was good at
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: his job. He likely treated his colleagues the same way
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: he treated that guy at the grocery store or the
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: stranger who couldn't bag a deer. That willingness to help
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: friends and strangers alike is part of what makes his
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: loss so difficult for his family and friends to process.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: It's also tragically part of the reason he was at
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: the refuge by himself the day he was murdered. Louis
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: explained that the refuge is divided into two units, the
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Waculla Unit and the Panacea Unit. Tim, Jimmy, and Louis
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: had all drawn a tag for the Panacea unit, while
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Louis had managed to draw tags in both. The day
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Tim was killed, the Waculla unit was holding its general
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: gun hunt while the Panacea unit was holding the mobility
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: impaired deer hunt. Tim decided to scout the Panacea unit
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: that day in preparation for the following weekend. Meanwhile, Louis
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: was hunting the Waculla unit.
• 19:00
  Speaker 16: He said he was going up to scout on Sunday.
• 19:03
  Speaker 16: I said, well, if you'll wait till noon, I'll come
• 19:07
  Speaker 16: on down and you and I will go scout. He
• 19:10
  Speaker 16: replied back, No, you sit on that straight and you
• 19:14
  Speaker 16: killed that big buck. So I sat there on Sunday. Well,
• 19:18
  Speaker 16: I'm sitting in that tree on Sunday, not coming down.
• 19:21
  Speaker 16: The incident happened. Whether he got murdered, Louis.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Isn't surprised that his friend offered to scout on his
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: own and let Louis Hunt the whole day, but he
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: still feels guilty, wondering if his presence might have saved
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: his friend's life.
• 19:37
  Speaker 16: His dad, when I told him that I was supposed
• 19:39
  Speaker 16: to be there with him, I should have went over there.
• 19:41
  Speaker 16: I was going to And when his dad said, well,
• 19:44
  Speaker 16: at least we only have one funeral, not too so
• 19:48
  Speaker 16: when he said that, you know, that didn't sit with
• 19:50
  Speaker 16: me well at all, I mean, just emotionally. I was tough.
• 19:55
  Speaker 5: That was tough.
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 19:58
  Speaker 16: I still feel that if I was hm fair, that
• 20:01
  Speaker 16: he would be with this rat.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: Man Part three Sandra it was possible smudge and smoke.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: He had escaped, just like Sandra said. But if those
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: dogs had already run more than a mile from their home,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: and Sandra admitted they'd never run away before, why would
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: they hang out around Tim's body. Something didn't add up,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: and investigators knew they had to speak with the other
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: owner of those poodles, Stuart Money. From what I understand,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: you know, obviously you want to talk to him, but
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: he didn't seem like he was very interested in talking.
• 20:39
  Speaker 11: With you guys.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Is that is that fair to say?
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: That's fair to say, and almost absolutely not.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Sandra had given detective Stuart's phone number, but when detectives
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: called it just a few hours later, Sandra answered. Officer
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Jonathan Owens, writes in an incident report quote upon handing
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: the telephone to Stuart money, he was completely irate and
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: refused to speak with law enforcement. When asked if he
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: was willing to meet law enforcement in reference to speaking
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: with them, he stated no and ended the telephone call.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: Detectives called Sandra again and asked if she would be
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: willing to come back down to Purify Bay Road and
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: answer a few more questions.
• 21:17
  Speaker 13: Yeah, and my husband is a horse's ass.
• 21:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 21:21
  Speaker 13: And that's not like he does not like police officers, all.
• 21:24
  Speaker 17: Right, because I just I just wanted to ask him
• 21:28
  Speaker 17: some questions.
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: Well, yeah, I told him that.
• 21:30
  Speaker 13: I said, you're gonna look guilty if you don't talk
• 21:32
  Speaker 13: to him.
• 21:33
  Speaker 5: I'm not talking to no police.
• 21:35
  Speaker 13: Okay, that's just him.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: The other voice you hear is Major Chuck Whaley, who
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: interviewed Sandra outside her vehicle not far from where Tim
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: was shot. Sandra explained that just a few years ago,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: her husband had been attacked by some neighbor dogs while
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: riding a bike. He had called the sheriff to report
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: the incident, but according to Sandra, the officers had talked
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: to the neighbor but not to Stuart. Stuart felt like
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: the Wakulla County sheriffs deputies had mishandled the situation, which
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: is why he had no interest in talking when they called.
• 22:05
  Speaker 17: Did your husband discuss with you at all today? Why
• 22:10
  Speaker 17: he thought we might be giving him a call?
• 22:13
  Speaker 9: Just that?
• 22:15
  Speaker 13: Yeah, he says, I'm just not going to talk to
• 22:18
  Speaker 13: any police.
• 22:19
  Speaker 18: Okay, that's it.
• 22:20
  Speaker 13: And you know, he says that the way that they
• 22:23
  Speaker 13: treated me before that I just don't want to do.
• 22:27
  Speaker 18: It, he says.
• 22:29
  Speaker 13: And besides, he says, there's nothing to hide. I mean,
• 22:32
  Speaker 13: our dogs were down here, has nothing to do with
• 22:34
  Speaker 13: either of us.
• 22:35
  Speaker 17: And you don't feel like he'd be.
• 22:36
  Speaker 5: Willing to call the NAT or anything.
• 22:39
  Speaker 19: I doubt it.
• 22:40
  Speaker 16: Really.
• 22:41
  Speaker 17: Most had a pretty negative experience.
• 22:42
  Speaker 13: Oh yeah, he was not happy anyway, Yeah, kind of.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Sandra told Wyley that she and Stuart had been married
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: for forty years and we're planning to leave the next
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: day to celebrate their anniversary in the Florida Keys. Stuart
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: had a doctor's appointment that morning in Tallahassee to look
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: at a broken bone in his hand, but he'd spent
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: the rest of the day looking for the dogs and
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: packing for the trip.
• 23:07
  Speaker 17: Did he say whether or not he had been down
• 23:10
  Speaker 17: here at all today.
• 23:11
  Speaker 18: No, he said.
• 23:12
  Speaker 13: I asked him that after I talked, I said, did
• 23:14
  Speaker 13: you walk the dogs today? And he said no, I didn't.
• 23:17
  Speaker 13: I just went right up there to Tallahassee not too
• 23:19
  Speaker 13: long after you left.
• 23:20
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: So at this point, detectives still weren't sure what to
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: make of Money's claims. Like Sandra said, just because their
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: dogs were down there doesn't mean they were involved in
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: a murder. Sandra pointed out that those poodles had tracked
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: deer through the woods, and she wondered if they smelled
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Tim's body and were attracted to the scent. But then,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: almost as an aside, Major Whaley asks what kind of
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: car Stewart drives he had?
• 23:45
  Speaker 17: He has a red for okay, and so this vehicle,
• 23:51
  Speaker 17: what kind of vehicle is this?
• 23:52
  Speaker 13: It's adi.
• 23:53
  Speaker 17: So are the only two vehicles the two of y'all
• 23:55
  Speaker 17: have is this vehicle and his red pickup?
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: Yes?
• 23:58
  Speaker 9: All right?
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Remember Norman the nine one one collar made a point
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: to say that one of the vehicles parked in that
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: area was a shiny red Ford f one fifty, much
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: like the dogs. The presence of that truck indicated that
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Sandra or Stuart might have been close by. There are
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: a lot of red pickups in Florida, But what are
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: the odds that it was someone other than the owner
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: of those dogs? Major Whaley had established that Stuart drove
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: the same kind of pickups seen by a witness, and
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: earlier in the interview, Sandra had mentioned that the couple
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: kept a pistol in the nightstand by the bed. Major
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: Whaley was keen to learn more about this weapon and
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: its whereabouts.
• 24:38
  Speaker 17: So described the pistol that you that you said in
• 24:42
  Speaker 17: the night stand? What kind of piston?
• 24:44
  Speaker 13: Hasn't seen it for so long? I couldn't even describe
• 24:46
  Speaker 13: it other than it's black.
• 24:48
  Speaker 5: It's black in collar.
• 24:49
  Speaker 17: Well, I'll ask you this. Do you know the difference
• 24:51
  Speaker 17: between a revolver and a semi automatic pistol? M The
• 24:57
  Speaker 17: revolver has a cylinder that frown and r he has
• 25:00
  Speaker 17: a number of bullets. It's the cylinder.
• 25:04
  Speaker 20: This has a clip, it.
• 25:05
  Speaker 17: Has a magazine. Okay, all right, so it'd be a
• 25:08
  Speaker 17: semi automatic pist Do you know what caliber it would
• 25:11
  Speaker 17: be anything, Okay, Well is it primarily your farm or
• 25:16
  Speaker 17: is it primary's a farm or both the All's farm.
• 25:18
  Speaker 13: We never use it, so, I mean we just bought
• 25:22
  Speaker 13: it for, you know, to have in the house and
• 25:25
  Speaker 13: we don't use it.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Sandra said she hadn't seen the handgun in about six months,
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: and as far as she knows, Stewart doesn't carry a
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: firearm with him in his vehicle. But despite Sandra's claims,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: things were starting to fall into place for Major Whaley.
• 25:40
  Speaker 17: Well, ago when you said that he was a hothead, Yeah,
• 25:43
  Speaker 17: tell me what you mean by that. My wife would
• 25:48
  Speaker 17: know me inside out as well.
• 25:54
  Speaker 18: Like if he has to wait, he just gets real impatient.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Major Whaley keeps his tone own, easygoing and non threatening.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: But Sandra isn't an idiot. She can tell what the
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: detective is driving at and she repeats three or four
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: times that there's no way her husband could have been
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: involved in the death of a stranger.
• 26:12
  Speaker 13: I mean, I know you don't believe me, and you're
• 26:14
  Speaker 13: trained not to, but you know, I just don't think
• 26:17
  Speaker 13: that there's any connection between stew and I mean, there
• 26:20
  Speaker 13: certainly is not me because I wasn't I was at work.
• 26:24
  Speaker 17: If something has happened and later on he's wanting to
• 26:28
  Speaker 17: discuss it, you got my phone on I callity from
• 26:32
  Speaker 17: my cell phone.
• 26:34
  Speaker 9: Well, I.
• 26:37
  Speaker 17: Highly recommend, I highly recommend.
• 26:40
  Speaker 13: That that if I had any indication that he was involved,
• 26:43
  Speaker 13: I mean for sure I would, but he would not.
• 26:46
  Speaker 13: He is not one who can cover his emotions. That's
• 26:50
  Speaker 13: why I say I don't think he was absolutely not
• 26:52
  Speaker 13: involved in this, because if he had done something serious
• 26:57
  Speaker 13: like that, he had been an emotional wreck, and he's not.
• 27:01
  Speaker 13: He just wants to go on vacation.
• 27:02
  Speaker 17: Yeah, let me ask you this. What did he say
• 27:06
  Speaker 17: when you said you were coming up here to talk
• 27:08
  Speaker 17: to me?
• 27:08
  Speaker 18: He's just well, don't let them bamboozle you.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: It was becoming increasingly clear that Stuart Mooney was one
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: of the men Norman had seen talking on the side
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: of the road, but Norman had reported seeing three, possibly
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: as many as four individuals. If Tim was one and
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: Stuart was another, there was at least one other person
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: who either witnessed a murderer or was a murderer himself.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Part four Eddie all Day. Sometimes investigators track a killer
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: for years without catching a break. Other times it only
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: takes a few hours.
• 27:53
  Speaker 5: Eddie all day alday.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Eddie had been in that section of the refuge earlier
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: that morning, taking part and a mobility impaired deer hunt.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: These hunts allowed those with disabilities to chase game under
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: special rules that permit vehicles and areas they would normally
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: be prohibited. But when Eddie tried to return that afternoon
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: to hunt the same section, he saw that the roads
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: were blocked by law enforcement.
• 28:16
  Speaker 20: Detective Attie Western walked up to my truck and he
• 28:20
  Speaker 20: told me. He says, sir, we have the road closed
• 28:22
  Speaker 20: down right now. We had an incident here. And I
• 28:27
  Speaker 20: asked him and did it involve a man with two poodles?
• 28:30
  Speaker 20: And he looked at me and said, I need to
• 28:32
  Speaker 20: talk to you.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Eddie explained that he'd shot a deer the day before
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: and he'd been up late processing it. He didn't arrive
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: at the refuge until later the next morning, so he
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: decided to just hang out at the check station.
• 28:44
  Speaker 20: And while I was waiting, someone pulled up and it
• 28:47
  Speaker 20: was Timothy Black, and he introduced his shelf and told
• 28:53
  Speaker 20: me that he was wanting to go in a scout
• 28:55
  Speaker 20: because he had the general gun hunt coming up the
• 29:00
  Speaker 20: coming weekend, and we got to talking, and you know,
• 29:03
  Speaker 20: I found out he was a marine, and you know,
• 29:07
  Speaker 20: me being army, you know, we told army stories and
• 29:10
  Speaker 20: marine stories and talked about hunting and stuff.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Eddie says their conversation was friendly and Tim didn't seem
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: agitated or upset. The two men parted ways after a
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: few more minutes, and Eddie made his way to his
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: stand and hunted until around noon, when he got down
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: and headed home in his truck.
• 29:27
  Speaker 20: And as I was leaving, coming out the road, I
• 29:33
  Speaker 20: encountered an individual walking in that had two poodles with
• 29:37
  Speaker 20: him and just got up a common courtesy. I stopped
• 29:41
  Speaker 20: and I said, sir, I said, you may want to
• 29:45
  Speaker 20: go walk your dog somewhere else. I said, they have
• 29:48
  Speaker 20: a mobility impaired hunt going on in there right now,
• 29:50
  Speaker 20: I said, And this guy sitting on the roads there
• 29:53
  Speaker 20: were guns. And he said, well, this is the refuge.
• 29:57
  Speaker 20: I can come in here anytime I want public land.
• 30:01
  Speaker 20: And I told him, I said, well, I understand that,
• 30:03
  Speaker 20: I said, but for your safety and your dog's safety,
• 30:07
  Speaker 20: you could at least put on an orange vest. Then
• 30:09
  Speaker 20: his response was, who the hell are you to tell
• 30:12
  Speaker 20: me what to do. So then I said, well, I
• 30:15
  Speaker 20: see you're not going to be understanding of what I'm
• 30:18
  Speaker 20: trying to say. So I said, okay, buddy, fine, So
• 30:20
  Speaker 20: I drove off.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: As Eddie drove past the check station, he saw that
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Tim was still there, he pulled over to keep chatting
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: with his fellow veteran, when just a few minutes later,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: the guy with the poodles drove up in his red
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Ford pickup.
• 30:33
  Speaker 20: Stuart Mountei pulled up behind my truck and Gilleida and
• 30:41
  Speaker 20: walked around us and made a wide berth and there's
• 30:46
  Speaker 20: a sign right there that says Saint Mark's Refuge And said,
• 30:49
  Speaker 20: did you see that sign right there that javed you
• 30:51
  Speaker 20: listened to refuge and it's opened to everybody?
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: Blah blah.
• 30:54
  Speaker 20: And Tim told him, he said, we understand that. He said,
• 30:59
  Speaker 20: but you could at least put on an orange vest.
• 31:01
  Speaker 20: And he told Tim, he's you're a fucking idiot too.
• 31:05
  Speaker 20: And I told him, I said, well, if you'll go
• 31:07
  Speaker 20: over to the kiosks there, there's information on that board
• 31:10
  Speaker 20: to explain.
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: Everything to you about this hunt going on out here.
• 31:14
  Speaker 5: And he went over there and looked at that and
• 31:17
  Speaker 5: then came back to his truck.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: I asked Eddie if the guy with the poodles, who
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: he later identified to law enforcement as Stuart Mooney, seemed
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: defensive or aggressive.
• 31:27
  Speaker 20: Oh, that's being nice about it. I mean just the
• 31:30
  Speaker 20: animosity and his body language. You know, he was blating.
• 31:37
  Speaker 20: If you understand what I'm saying. There, you know, facing
• 31:40
  Speaker 20: me sideways like I you thought I was going to
• 31:42
  Speaker 20: attack him.
• 31:42
  Speaker 5: It's a defensive posture.
• 31:44
  Speaker 20: And the whole time, my mild red flags in my
• 31:47
  Speaker 20: head are going off, you know, said, this guy's got issues.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: And if you've ever taken a self defense class, you
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: know that the first course of action in a situation
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: like this is to remove yourself from the area, which
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: is exactly what Eddie did.
• 32:01
  Speaker 20: And I told Tim, I said, look, man, I've gotten
• 32:04
  Speaker 20: to go. I said, I got some stuff I got
• 32:06
  Speaker 20: to take care at home, and I'll see you want
• 32:09
  Speaker 20: to come back if you're still out here. And this
• 32:11
  Speaker 20: was approximately twelve forty five maybe.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: But Eddie didn't drive away, as Tim and Stewart continued arguing.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: From his perspective, it looked like Stuart was putting his
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: dogs back in his truck and driving away.
• 32:26
  Speaker 20: He had the passenger door open, and I just figured
• 32:28
  Speaker 20: he was putting his dollars back in there.
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: I don't know exactly what he was doing.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: They weren't like taught when you left. They weren't like
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: arguing like you didn't leave. Guys there like yelling at
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: each other like it seemed like it was over the interaction.
• 32:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 32:44
  Speaker 20: I wouldn't have pulled away if they'd have been shouting
• 32:45
  Speaker 20: a hill and at each other. And know I tried
• 32:48
  Speaker 20: to de escalate the situation, but yeah, there was no
• 32:52
  Speaker 20: nothing to really warrant to that.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: How that situation ended with one man dead and the
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: other man fleeing the scene was still a mystery. But
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: after hearing Eddie's testimony, detectives had hurt enough it was
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: time to pay Stuart Mony a visit part five the raid.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Rather than knocking on his door and hoping he cooperate,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: what Kula County detective decided not to take any chances.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: If Stu Moni was their guy, they didn't want to
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: give him an opportunity to hide evidence, so that afternoon
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: they applied for a search warrant for Moni's residence on
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Jack Crumb Road. Their first move. When they arrived at
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: the gate to Mony's driveway. Was to make sure Sandra
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: didn't get caught in what could be a violent interaction.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: We actually called her own scene and requested her to
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: come out because we were the potential for violence or
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: from Stu Monni was obvious based off of what she
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: had told us about him, you know, being hot headed.
• 33:53
  Speaker 21: We were prepared that if we needed to force entry
• 33:56
  Speaker 21: or breach the door, we were prepared to do so.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: That's Patrick Fleming who participated in the search of Money's
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: home with the Wakulla County Sheriff's Office.
• 34:04
  Speaker 21: As we approached the house, someone on the team got
• 34:07
  Speaker 21: eyes on mister Monny. When he saw law enforcement, he
• 34:13
  Speaker 21: turned and fled further into the house.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Detective Fleming was the first to enter the house, opening
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: the unlocked front door and chasing Money back into a bedroom.
• 34:22
  Speaker 21: So as soon as I came through the door, somebody
• 34:25
  Speaker 21: had called that he went to the right, to our right,
• 34:28
  Speaker 21: there was a hallway. I went down it. I didn't
• 34:30
  Speaker 21: see anybody. The first door I came to was also
• 34:33
  Speaker 21: on the right. It was an open door. I came
• 34:35
  Speaker 21: across the corner and mister Monnie was standing there. He
• 34:38
  Speaker 21: was given verbal commands which he did not comply with. Okay,
• 34:41
  Speaker 21: so what did you do at that point? I closed
• 34:44
  Speaker 21: the distance with him, and I would part of my
• 34:47
  Speaker 21: kit was I had a rifle, so I only had
• 34:50
  Speaker 21: one hand available. I'm right handed, was my left hand,
• 34:52
  Speaker 21: so I grabbed him with my left arm and he
• 34:55
  Speaker 21: was taken to the ground.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: Stuart was handcuffed and and even though he'd been taken
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: down with a significant amount of force, he declined to
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: be checked by e MS. Whatever injuries he may or
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: may not have sustained, they didn't keep him from arguing
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: with the deputies.
• 35:12
  Speaker 18: Why did you come in and take me to the ground?
• 35:15
  Speaker 22: And when you get inside somebody's house, we don't know
• 35:17
  Speaker 22: what may or may not happen.
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: Okay, we don't know what we called to And instead.
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: Of coming to the door, I went to get my
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: cell phone.
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: You don't need a cell phone.
• 35:29
  Speaker 7: He comes to the door.
• 35:30
  Speaker 23: When the police say come to the door, I want
• 35:32
  Speaker 23: to get my cell phone to come to the door, right.
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: Well, I didn't say. You didn't say please go get
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: your cell phone, come to the door. I don't have to.
• 35:41
  Speaker 6: Yeah, when you do when there's a search, okay, And
• 35:44
  Speaker 6: we announced that well, we'll see.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: Despite Stuart's protestations, deputies were authorized to seize anything that
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: might be relevant to Tim's death, but they were mostly
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: interested in the black semi automatic pistol Sandra had mentioned.
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: But the funniest thing was when we executed the search
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: for that evening.
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: In our minds.
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: You know, Sandra, you've told us his pistol is in
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: this night stand and it never moves.
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: Well.
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: When the detectives went in the bedroom and opened the drawer,
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: she couldn't explain where that pistol could have fell.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: They searched the rest of the house, as well as
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: Stuart's truck, but that pistol was nowhere to be found. This, detective,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: Sarace told me, was almost as damning as finding the
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: firearm hidden away in a sock drawer.
• 36:31
  Speaker 10: The absence of evidence is as important as the evidence
• 36:34
  Speaker 10: that we're able to recover. And the fact that Stu's
• 36:38
  Speaker 10: wife was telling us that, yes, we do have a handgun.
• 36:41
  Speaker 10: It's always here, It's always in the bedstand between our
• 36:44
  Speaker 10: two beds.
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: Matter of fact, I had her go into the room
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: with me to.
• 36:48
  Speaker 10: Point out exactly where it was going to be, and
• 36:51
  Speaker 10: the look on her face was classic because when we
• 36:54
  Speaker 10: opened the drawer and it wasn't there, she just had
• 36:58
  Speaker 10: an absolute shot.
• 37:00
  Speaker 5: On her face.
• 37:01
  Speaker 10: It's almost as when she recognized just the whole totality
• 37:05
  Speaker 10: of this and that maybe Stu was involved more than
• 37:08
  Speaker 10: whatever he was telling her.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: They also noticed that, despite walking his dogs during a
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: public land hunt and arguing about wearing Hunter's orange, Stewart
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: appeared to be quite a hunter in his own right.
• 37:21
  Speaker 10: This man is an avid, avid hunter. And when I
• 37:24
  Speaker 10: say avid hunter, he also had a very expensive rifle
• 37:28
  Speaker 10: which just was not there at the time it was
• 37:30
  Speaker 10: seeing worked on because he went all over the world
• 37:34
  Speaker 10: to do exotic hunts. So his house looked like a
• 37:37
  Speaker 10: tax at hermy zoo. I mean full size moon mounts,
• 37:41
  Speaker 10: I mean a red stag, I mean just everything you
• 37:45
  Speaker 10: can think of through this house block.
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: I bet you thirty or forty minimum mounts, some full mounts.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: You can see photos of some of these mounts over
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: at the meat eater dot com slash blood Trails. Detective
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: Sarachi isn't exaggerating. The wall are covered in taxidermy, everything
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: from a zebra hide stretched on a wall, to a
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: five x six elk in the garage to a shoulder
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: mounted black wildebeast in the living room.
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: The big mule deer was shot by my wife and FDS.
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: I saw damn wilderbees out.
• 38:15
  Speaker 10: Excuse me, a wilderbe's I've never seen a wilderbece in
• 38:17
  Speaker 10: my life, but you know, for somebody that's never seen it,
• 38:21
  Speaker 10: it's impressive, you know those two bears.
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: That's really impressive.
• 38:25
  Speaker 10: That thing you got in uzbekistanis like I say, when
• 38:30
  Speaker 10: you're stuff that's sold.
• 38:31
  Speaker 23: In year fifty four and you get diagnosed with crosstate cancer,
• 38:34
  Speaker 23: you tend to make some once in a life.
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: Time I got you before.
• 38:38
  Speaker 7: What is that right there?
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: That's a virtual zebra from Zimbabwe. I shot that one.
• 38:43
  Speaker 18: And that's a Hartman's Mountain.
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: Zebra from the nibby of all my wife, would.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: You mind if I just You can hear the detectives
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: trying to ingratiate themselves to their suspect by complementing his taxidermy,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: which if you're talking to a hunter, is usually a
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: pretty good strategy, but Stuart still refused to tell detectives
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: anything about what happened earlier that day. Before leaving, Detective
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: Sarachi made one final plea, we have come.
• 39:08
  Speaker 22: Up with a lot of physical evidence on about a
• 39:11
  Speaker 22: different fronts, and there's going to come a time nobody is.
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: Going to push you, but we would like to talk to.
• 39:16
  Speaker 22: You about what may put information you may or may
• 39:20
  Speaker 22: not have about that. The reason that being important is
• 39:23
  Speaker 22: to con mitigate your involvement to whatever has happened.
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: I would like that opportunity.
• 39:30
  Speaker 22: I cannot force you to, nor will I try or
• 39:34
  Speaker 22: encourage anybody to port you.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: But Stuart didn't budge. He refused to speak to detectives
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: that night, and he never agreed to sit down for
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: an interview during the subsequent years long investigation without a
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: confession or the murder weapon. Detectives left the Money home
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: that night without making any arrests. Stuart and Sandra had
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: planned on leaving the next day to celebrate their fortieth
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: wedding anniversary in the Florida Keys. Detectives were apparently not
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: worried that their prime suspect would flee the country because
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: they allowed the couple to go on their vacation. But
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: while they were away, investigators began digging into Stuart's movements
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: the day of the murder and his history with the
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: legal system and it's safe to say they didn't like
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: what they found part six the neighbors. The disappearing handgun,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: which Stuart refused to explain, wasn't the only indication that
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: the sixty six year old had taken steps to hide
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: his involvement in Tim's death. When detectives began canvassing the neighborhood,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: they found several who said mister Money had grown suddenly
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: very friendly. On the afternoon of the incident.
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: None of the neighbors got along with him except for one.
• 40:46
  Speaker 10: There was one neighbor that I think they stepped with
• 40:49
  Speaker 10: that he was talked with, and all of a sudden,
• 40:52
  Speaker 10: he's riding this bike, wanting to be seen waving to
• 40:54
  Speaker 10: people stopping in the houses that he never did.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: One of those neighbors was a man named Ryan Taylor,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: who lived less than a mile down the road from
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: the Money home.
• 41:04
  Speaker 15: Got a knock on the door, and I went and
• 41:05
  Speaker 15: answered the door, and I looked out the because I
• 41:08
  Speaker 15: got these windows on my door, so I look out
• 41:10
  Speaker 15: and there's a guy standing there in like a bicyclist outfit,
• 41:13
  Speaker 15: was helmet on, so seeing what's going on. Make sure
• 41:16
  Speaker 15: everything's okay. Open the door. So I was going on Buddy.
• 41:19
  Speaker 15: He said, so I'm looking for my dogs. He's like,
• 41:22
  Speaker 15: have you seen two dogs running around? And said, no,
• 41:24
  Speaker 15: I haven't seen any. I'll keep an eye out for him.
• 41:26
  Speaker 15: I'll let you know. He told me to live down
• 41:28
  Speaker 15: the road and then he got on fike and lift.
• 41:32
  Speaker 5: That was it.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: Eddie reported, leaving Tim and the poodle walking man between
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: twelve forty five and one pm. If Ryan Taylor's recollection
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: is correct, it means Stuart hopped on his bike to
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: look for his dogs over an hour after his conversation
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: with Tim.
• 41:47
  Speaker 10: Because initially his only alibi was he was out on
• 41:50
  Speaker 10: a bike ride. So when he came back from the
• 41:53
  Speaker 10: National Forest, obviously he changed his clothes, got into biking
• 41:57
  Speaker 10: clothes and went up and down and topped a nave
• 42:00
  Speaker 10: who waved the neighbors that he never would be for.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: This was obviously incredibly suspicious behavior, made more so by
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: the fact that Stuart had apparently left his dogs in
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: the refuge only to ask his neighbors about their whereabouts
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: an hour later. This was even more out of character because,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: as you heard Detective Sarachi mentioned, Stuart did not get
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: along with his neighbors.
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: You know, he had had multiple interactions with the public.
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: This came known later on, and it was the same thing.
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: He was always looking for a confrontation, always trying to
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: bate somebody into a physical confrontation, probably looking.
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: For a lawsuit of some kind.
• 42:42
  Speaker 10: In the letter years with him being retired, he basically
• 42:46
  Speaker 10: spent most of his time from.
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: What we what we saw at home or walking with
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: his dogs. The few times that he had interactions with people, it.
• 42:57
  Speaker 10: Was very negative and there were many police reports to
• 43:00
  Speaker 10: kind of build that background.
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: In the state of Georgia and down here in Florida.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: I reviewed the incident reports on these cases. Stuart was
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: an avid bike rider and jogger, but he always seemed
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: to be getting attacked by a neighbor dog. It's hard
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: to fault a guy for being chased by dogs, but
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: I gotta say it's weird how often this happened, and
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: as you might expect, not all the allegations paint Stuart
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: as the victim. In May of twenty eighteen, Wakulla County
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: deputies were dispatched to the money's former neighborhood where a
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: woman said that someone had shot her above ground pool
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: with an arrow, more specifically, a headhunter crossbow bolt, which
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: had traveled through the pool and embedded itself in the
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: fence on the opposite side. The woman pointed the finger
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: at Stuart. She said she'd been feuding with Mony because
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: he opposed a new homeowner's association rule that would allow
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: above ground pools in the subdivision. She also suspected that
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: Stuart was responsible for there were two instances in which
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: she found the remains of a wild pig dumped on
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: her driveway. Both had occurred about six months before her
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: pool was shot, and the gruesome lawn decorations had frightened
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: the woman's son so badly that he refused to be
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: left alone. In the second of these incidents, she found
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: a pig's head and spinal column wrapped in a blue
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: plastic bag labeled soiled Linen. Detectives determined that the hospital
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: where Stuart used to work had exactly the same bags,
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: but they were never able to find enough evidence to
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: charge Stuart for either the pool shooting or the pig dumping.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: Major Wester was part of that investigation, and he wasn't
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: shy about voicing his opinion.
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: Yes, sir, that's one of those That's not what I
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: know is what I can I prove. I'm positive it
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: was him, but I just couldn't prove it at the time.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: By now, Major Wester, Detective Sarachi and the other Wakulla
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: County investigators had amassed a bulging folder of evidence that
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: pointed to Stuart Money as Tim's killer. He fled the scene,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: lied to his wife about how his dogs escaped, refused
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: to explain what happened to his handgun, and tried to
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: construct an alibi by letting himself be seen in his neighborhood.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: Stuart Money was still a free man, but detectives were
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: zeroing in on their number one suspect, Part seven the arrest.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: On February sixteenth, twenty twenty two, the Tampa Regional Lab
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement concluded its analysis
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: of the tire and shoe tread patterns found at the
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: crime scene.
• 45:36
  Speaker 10: It was some of the rarest results that they ever get,
• 45:39
  Speaker 10: where they actually had a one hundred percent.
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: Match on multiple it.
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: Was all or just one tire and the left.
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: Sheet, which is many many times they rule of very
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: very very high.
• 45:52
  Speaker 10: Probability, but to say one hundred percent is somewhat rare.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: There was little doubt that Stuart Money had walked around
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: Tim's body, and his subsequent deceptions made him look as
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: the saying goes guilty as sin. Two days after the
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: shoe and tire analyzes came back, a judge signed an
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: arrest warrant charging Money with second degree murder. Now deputies
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: had to actually put him in handcuffs and take him
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: to jail, which turned out to be easier said than done.
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: We had set surveillance to take him off and arrest him.
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: On the active war had a couple of detectives in
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: an unmarked vehicle watching the residents.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: The detective in the unmarked vehicle had driven past Stuart's
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: home and noticed that the couple appeared to be packing
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: for some kind of trip. The hatchback of the Hundai
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: was open, and the officer spied a blue and white cooler,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: along with other items that suggested they might be leaving
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: the area. As the officer sat in his car and
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: waited for backup to arrive, the couple backed out of
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: their driveway and drove away. Here's where things start to
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: get a little wild. The detective followed them as they
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: drove northbound on Jack Crumb Road, then the couple pulled
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: into another driveway, turned around, and started driving south.
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: The funny thing is, as he's passing those detectives, they're
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: coming in to head on jack Crow Road. They described
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: it as Stumni provocatively waving it film.
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: No one told me exactly which appendage Stuart used to wave,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: but I think we can all imagine. The deputy turned
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: his vehicle around and saw that the couple had returned
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: to their driveway, But as he passed them again, Stuart
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: pulled out and drove off in the opposite direction, at
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: quote a rate of speed that made it impossible for
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: me to catch up. The detective turned around as quickly
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: as he could, but the Hyundai was nowhere in sight.
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: Subsequent efforts to find the vehicle proved fruitless. Stuart and
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: Sandra were gone. The detectives didn't say this exactly, but
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: you got to think they were worried. They had a
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: Bonnie and Clyde situation on their hands. Stuart knew he
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: was being followed by law enforcement, but he drove off anyway.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: Sure officials spent several anxious hours wondering whether their simple
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: arrest was about to turn into a multi state man hunt.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: Then around three point thirty that afternoon, the detective who'd
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: originally lost track of the couple observed Sandra drive back
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: into the driveway.
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: We take the vehicle down, do the traffic stop. Sandra
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: is in the driver's seat. Stu is not in sight
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: in the vehicle at the time.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: The incident report doesn't describe what Sandra said when they
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: asked her where her husband was, but they didn't really
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: have to.
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: And he is in the back, blaying down in the
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: cargo area with the two fools, hiding from us, and
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: we got him in custody then. But that was kind
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: of the weird funny part of it was he's towering
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: down with his dogs.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: In Stuart's original deception, he'd tried to use his dogs
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: to hide his true whereabouts by pretending that they'd escaped
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: from his yard. Instead, Smudge and Smokey had led detectives
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: to his doorstep. This new plan was a variation on
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: that same theme, and it had exactly the same result.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: I asked Major Wester what he thought Stuart's plan was here.
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: I think he still thought that he was smarter than
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: everybody else, and surely to take him. Look in the
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: back of the car for it. I don't know what's.
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: Hold his mind.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: Whatever he was thinking. His short stint on the lamb
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: was over. But the next chapter of this story was
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: just about to begin. Detectives had done their job. They'd
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: gathered enough evidence to make an arrest. Now it was
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: up to the prosecutors to put it together and tell
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: a story that would convince a jury. But they had
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: a problem. Even though they could place Stuart with Tim
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: at that time, no one knew what had happened after
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: Eddie all Day drove away. That gave Stuart and his
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: legal team the room they needed to sow doubt, which
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: is exactly what they did when the trial began over
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: three years later, Part eight the trial. Stuart money made
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: bail after he was arrested, and he and Sandra continued
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: living in the Crawfordville area as he awaited trial. Louis
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: and Jimmy weren't happy about this development, even more so
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: because they continued to see Stuart and his wife walking
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: their dogs in the refuge. They tried to steer clear
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: of him, but his presence was nonetheless uncomfortable. The same
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: was true for Eddie all Day. Remember, Eddie was the
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: prosecution's star witness. He picked Stuart out of a lineup,
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: and he was the only one who witnessed Stuart and
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: Tim arguing. He told me the three years between Stuart's
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: arrest and the trial were incredibly nerve wracking.
• 50:35
  Speaker 20: My sensual wife's civil awareness was extremely heightened. If my
• 50:40
  Speaker 20: dog's barred and I didn't go to the front door,
• 50:41
  Speaker 20: I went out at the back door with a flashlight
• 50:44
  Speaker 20: in my hand and a long gun on my back
• 50:46
  Speaker 20: and my handgun in my hand and knocked on my
• 50:49
  Speaker 20: door after dark.
• 50:50
  Speaker 5: I was gonna come around and see who he was.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: But after three years of waiting and wondering, Stuart's trial
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: finally began on May nineteenth, twenty twenty five.
• 51:00
  Speaker 19: Ring to you, I'm Judge Lane Smith, the circuit judge
• 51:02
  Speaker 19: assigned to Walcolla County, Florida.
• 51:03
  Speaker 18: It's my privilege to serve here.
• 51:06
  Speaker 19: This is the case of State of Florida versus Stuart Mony,
• 51:10
  Speaker 19: Case number twenty twenty two, cf. Six six.
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: I was told that Stuart went through several lawyers over
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: the years, but he finally settled on a Tallahassee attorney
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: named Ryan Davis. The prosecutor was Assistant State Attorney Andrew Denen,
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: who told me he expected the defense to take one
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: of two positions.
• 51:28
  Speaker 14: So in this case, there was really kind of two
• 51:30
  Speaker 14: routes that the defense needed to choose between. It's either
• 51:35
  Speaker 14: the state can't prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt
• 51:37
  Speaker 14: based off of the circumstantial evidence and the lack of
• 51:41
  Speaker 14: direct evidence, or you claim self defense. We knew that
• 51:45
  Speaker 14: they were going to raise self defense a few months
• 51:49
  Speaker 14: ahead of trial because of certain things that the defense did.
• 51:53
  Speaker 14: They disclosed a use of force expert that they are
• 51:56
  Speaker 14: intending to call, and that's someone that you usually call
• 52:00
  Speaker 14: when you're claiming self defense. But we never heard Moni's
• 52:04
  Speaker 14: story until he ended up taking the stand at trial.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: That's because Stuart flatly refused to give a statement to
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: law enforcement. He never explained why he shot Tim, so
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: his testimony became the focal point of the entire trial.
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: Everyone Andrew, Jimmy, Louis, Eddie, and maybe even Sandra was
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: curious to hear his version of events.
• 52:24
  Speaker 11: I'm gonna try to speak a little louder.
• 52:26
  Speaker 18: Okay, thanks, anybody think I'm.
• 52:27
  Speaker 24: Shouting, but just want to make sure you can hear me.
• 52:29
  Speaker 24: Can did you introduce yourself to the jury.
• 52:31
  Speaker 18: My name's Stuart Money.
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: Stuart's story followed the same sequence as Eddie's, but the
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: tone of the conversation was exactly reversed. In Eddie's account,
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: he calmly warned Stuart about the dangers of walking his
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: dogs during an active hunt, and Stuart responded with aggression.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: In Stuart's account, Eddie was the one who yelled at
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: him while he was wrangling his dogs.
• 52:53
  Speaker 23: When I collected them, the gentleman known as mister al
• 52:57
  Speaker 23: Day drove up and called me over to his vehicle
• 53:02
  Speaker 23: and in a loud voice, said, Hey, you shouldn't be
• 53:05
  Speaker 23: out here. Me and other guys are hunting on the
• 53:07
  Speaker 23: refuge roads. You shouldn't be out here.
• 53:11
  Speaker 11: And how did you respond to that?
• 53:13
  Speaker 23: I just commented or reminded him that other forms of
• 53:16
  Speaker 23: outdoor recreation or permitted three hundred and sixty five days
• 53:20
  Speaker 23: of the year.
• 53:21
  Speaker 24: Was there any aggression or animosity between the two of
• 53:24
  Speaker 24: you during that conversation?
• 53:25
  Speaker 18: Not from me, There was from him.
• 53:27
  Speaker 23: As soon as I stated that other forms of recreation
• 53:31
  Speaker 23: are permitted, he got mad and called me a dumb ass.
• 53:35
  Speaker 24: How does the conversation or how do you leave the company,
• 53:38
  Speaker 24: mister all Day at that point.
• 53:41
  Speaker 23: I mentioned to him twice, you know, that he needed
• 53:43
  Speaker 23: to go read the brown and white sign. And he
• 53:46
  Speaker 23: became further enraged and said, you need to go put
• 53:49
  Speaker 23: a fucking orange vest on. And I told him again,
• 53:52
  Speaker 23: you need to go read the brown and white sign.
• 53:55
  Speaker 23: He told me I was a dumb ass, and he
• 53:57
  Speaker 23: drove off.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: In Eddie's account, the next interaction in Stuart's story takes
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: place at the information kiosk near the parking lot, but
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: while Eddie says Stuart stopped to continue the argument about
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: his presence on the refuge, Stuart says he just wanted
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: to look at the harvest data posted on the bulletin board.
• 54:16
  Speaker 23: Mister Alday was sitting in his vehicle and there was
• 54:20
  Speaker 23: an individual standing nearby his vehicle, and when I pulled up,
• 54:25
  Speaker 23: mister Alday shouted and pointed, there's the guy right there.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: The other individual was Tim, and according to Stuart, he
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: joined Eddie and telling the dog walker that he shouldn't
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: be in the refuge during a hunt. Stuart didn't mention
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: Tim yelling or being angry at this point, just that
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: he seemed to think that only hunters were allowed in
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: the refuge. Eddie drove off as Stuart approached the kiosk.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: These are the critical moments, and Stuart is the only
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: person alive who was there, so I'm going to give
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: him the space to lay out his side of the story.
• 54:57
  Speaker 23: I got up there and spent a few minutes looking
• 55:00
  Speaker 23: at everything there, see what had been harvested. And I
• 55:04
  Speaker 23: turned around, and as soon as I turned around from
• 55:08
  Speaker 23: the kiosk, there was profanity.
• 55:11
  Speaker 18: Can I state that? And the tone of voice and everything.
• 55:14
  Speaker 5: Else, You're already hey, go ahead again.
• 55:16
  Speaker 18: Yes, I'm gonna kick your ass. Eyes ablaze, like Charles Manson,
• 55:23
  Speaker 18: It's like this.
• 55:24
  Speaker 11: And here said that to you.
• 55:26
  Speaker 18: Ultimately it was blithe, but I didn't know who he was.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: I just need to pause here and paint the picture
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: if you're not watching this episode on YouTube. When Stuart
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: re enacts what Tim said to him, he stands up
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: in the witness box, faces the jury and yells at
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: the top of his voice. He's only about five feet
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: from the closest jurist, and his hand motions near his
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: face indicate he's doing his best Charles Manson impression. It's
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: clear he's been preparing for this moment, as he should.
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: But I would love to know how this landed with
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: the jury and.
• 55:56
  Speaker 11: What happened at that point?
• 55:58
  Speaker 18: I was scared out of my wits.
• 56:00
  Speaker 23: I walked back to my truck, scared because I knew
• 56:04
  Speaker 23: I was in danger of imminent bodily harm. I obtained
• 56:08
  Speaker 23: my firearm from my vehicle, backed away from the door
• 56:11
  Speaker 23: so he couldn't get me inside the truck, and then
• 56:15
  Speaker 23: just stood there in shock and disbelief.
• 56:18
  Speaker 24: And did you have your firearm out at that point?
• 56:21
  Speaker 18: Yes?
• 56:22
  Speaker 11: And was it visible in my hand?
• 56:25
  Speaker 5: Like this?
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: Here Stuart stands up in the witness box again and
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: appears to indicate that he had the gun at his side,
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: pointed towards the ground.
• 56:33
  Speaker 11: And you're in shock from the yelling that you've perceived.
• 56:35
  Speaker 23: Well, I'm in shock because I knew he was going
• 56:38
  Speaker 23: to do exactly what he told me he was going
• 56:40
  Speaker 23: to do, kick my ass.
• 56:42
  Speaker 24: And what happened after he said that, after you're staying
• 56:44
  Speaker 24: there with your gun, what happens next?
• 56:46
  Speaker 23: He kept walking at me and he said, and I'm
• 56:50
  Speaker 23: gonna tell Wayne, I kicked your ass as if I
• 56:54
  Speaker 23: was some kind of piece of trophy deer meat.
• 56:57
  Speaker 11: And as he continued to approach you, what happened.
• 57:00
  Speaker 23: He assaulted me and hit me in the left side
• 57:04
  Speaker 23: of my face at the jaw so forceful that I
• 57:08
  Speaker 23: temporarily lost the vision in my left eye and the
• 57:11
  Speaker 23: hearing in my left ear, and I had to do
• 57:15
  Speaker 23: this just to restore it. And that's when I discharged
• 57:19
  Speaker 23: my firearm.
• 57:21
  Speaker 11: And what did you do?
• 57:22
  Speaker 24: Immediately after you discharged your firearm?
• 57:26
  Speaker 23: Tried to collect my thoughts. I was still scared and
• 57:28
  Speaker 23: shocked and what amounted to I had a concussive event.
• 57:34
  Speaker 23: Took me a little while to gather my thoughts, and
• 57:37
  Speaker 23: then I looked for my dogs.
• 57:38
  Speaker 18: Smoky and Smudge were no longer there.
• 57:41
  Speaker 23: I called for them, looked for him a little bit,
• 57:45
  Speaker 23: and they were not around.
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: Stuart looked for his dogs for about five minutes before
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: getting back into his truck and driving away. He explains
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: to the jury that Smokey doesn't like loud noises, and
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: so he thought both dogs may have run home at
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: the sound of gunfire, But the dogs they weren't there
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: when Stuart returned home, so he donned his biking attire
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: and rode out to ask the neighbors if they'd seen
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: his poodles. He called Sandra, a while later to come
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: home and directed her to search Purify Bay Road. He
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: didn't tell her about the shooting at that point because,
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: according to him, he didn't want to ruin their fortieth
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: anniversary vacation. He said he'd been planning the trip for
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: eight or nine months and didn't want to spoil it
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: for her. He testified later that when he told her
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: about killing Tim on their way home from the Keys,
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: she cried unconsolably for hours. If Stuart's self defense argument
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: seems a little weak, there are definitely stronger ones, but
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: it's not totally unreasonable. As Andrew explained to me, you
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: don't have to be attacked with a gun or any
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: other kind of weapon to respond with deadly force. These
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: are the instructions that were given to the jury.
• 58:50
  Speaker 14: Stuart Money was justified in using deadly force if he
• 58:53
  Speaker 14: reasonably believed that such force was necessary to prevent imminent
• 58:57
  Speaker 14: death or great bodily harm to him himself, or the
• 59:01
  Speaker 14: imminent commission of a battery on a person over sixty
• 59:04
  Speaker 14: five years of age against himself.
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: Tim blythe was younger and bigger than Stuart. Though the
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: vast majority of murders in the US involve some kind
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: of weapon. About six hundred people every year are killed
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: with fists and feet. What's more, as you heard Andrew explain,
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: Stuart would have been justified in using deadly force if
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: he feared great bodily harm, not just death, if he
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: really thought Tim was about to kick his ass, and
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: he had good reason for believing, so he had the
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: right to use his firearm. Tim wasn't there to give
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: his side of the story, So Stuart's account is all
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: the jury had, and the defense had one key piece
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: of evidence they hoped would be enough to persuade them.
• 59:43
  Speaker 24: When you were down there, I guess in Homestead you
• 59:46
  Speaker 24: had your wife.
• 59:48
  Speaker 11: Take a picture of you.
• 59:49
  Speaker 18: That's correct.
• 59:50
  Speaker 11: And what did she take a picture.
• 59:51
  Speaker 18: Of my left jaw? Face?
• 59:54
  Speaker 24: Why did you want her to take a picture of
• 59:56
  Speaker 24: your left jaw? Was it to document some bruising?
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 18: Obviously?
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 24: Yes, And this is the bruising that you're saying happened
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 24: when mister Blythe struck you in your left jaw.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 18: He beat me. That's blunt forced trauma.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 24: That's and would you expect there to be bruising as
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 24: we see in those photographs a few hours directly after
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 24: being punched by mister Blythe.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 23: No, Sir, bruising and echamosis can happen a day or
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 23: two later depends on the severity of the blow and
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 23: the whatever.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: Stuart was a registered nurse, so he actually had the
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: expertise to speak to that question. But there's a reason
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: his attorney wants to call the jury's attention to the
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: timing of his bruising. When the Lacula County deputies took
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: the stand, none of them recalled seeing a bruise on
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: Stuart's face approximately six hours after Tim allegedly threw that punch.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: Andrew doesn't question the veracity of the photo. Stuart did
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: indeed have a bruise on the left side of his jaw,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: but he argues that Stuart sustained that bruise from law
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: enforcement on the night of the raid, not from Tim
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: blythe earlier that day.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 21: With how much force was he taken to the ground,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 21: it was enough to get him under control as quickly
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 21: as possible.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 14: Is it possible that he could have hit his head
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 14: or hit his chin on the ground.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 21: Absolutely, A constant is gravity. He went from a standing
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 21: position to a prone position, so absolutely did he.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 7: Brace himself before impact in any way?
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 21: I couldn't answer that.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 5: I don't I don't know.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: The punch and the bruise are at the heart of
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: this case, and we have no way of knowing exactly
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: what the jury thought of the evidence on both sides.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: But there were other reasons to think that Stuart may
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: not have been acting in self defense.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 7: Mister mooney, where's the gun in my backyard?
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 23: Where in the back halfway to the.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 18: Back of the property line?
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 7: Is it in something?
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 18: Is it underground in a box?
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 14: When did you place it there? December the twelfth, immediately
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 14: after this?
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 23: Not immediately, no, sir, Hey, so how long after hour
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 23: or two?
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 4: Maybe?
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 5: Okay?
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 7: Why did you put it there?
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 23: Because of what the Wacola County Sheriff's Office had previously
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 23: done to me, I did not trust them at all.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: This is the reason Stuart gives throughout his testimony for
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: why he didn't contact law enforcement after the shooting. But
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: as Andrew points out and is questioning, there are other
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: law enforcement agencies that would have also had jurisdiction in
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: this incident. Stuart didn't call the Florida Department of Law Enforcement,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: the state level agency, or the law Enforcement division of
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: the US Fish and Wildlife Service which could have investigated
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: an incident on federal public land. He also seems to
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: have lied about what he did with the gun. Law
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: enforcement hadn't been able to find it, and after the
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: trial they went back to Stuart's home with metal detectors
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: but still didn't have any success. Stuart fled the scene
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: and got rid of the gun, but he also failed
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: to render aid.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 14: I mentioned earlier that he was a registered nurse. He
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 14: didn't render any aid. The medical examiner's testimony was not
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 14: that Timothy Blythe was necessarily saveable, but he didn't die immediately,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 14: and he fell down and didn't moved a little bit,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 14: but didn't really move after he was killed, So no
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 14: aid was rendered by mister Monney.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: Stuart's actions after the shooting don't really align with someone
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: who acted in self defense, but once Andrew pressed him
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: on cross examination, he had trouble explaining the sequence of
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: events in a way that really made sense.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 7: You get hit, did you go to the ground? I
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 7: did not took the punch like a standing man.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: No, I did not.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 23: My testimony, you weren't listening to my testimony.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 14: Okay, what did I say?
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 7: I said?
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: When he brutally assaulted me?
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 8: I temporarily lost what the vision in my left.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: Eye and the hearing in my left view.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 14: He then shot him in the body four times without
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 14: vision in your left eye and hearing in your left ear.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 7: Right not say that, sir, did you not shoot him
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 7: four times?
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 23: I thought it was only three And if you would
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 23: have paid attention to my testimony, I said I had
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 23: to shake my head just to restore the vision in
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 23: my left eye and left ear or hearing, and that's
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 23: when the shooting happened.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 7: How long did that take for you to shake yourself? Aware?
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: Matter of seconds?
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 7: Maybe? I mean.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: It was a concussive event, and you're asking me for
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: a time.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: You can see both sides of this. If you've ever
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: been punched in the face, you know it's tough to
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: estimate time down to the second. At the same time,
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: it's weird that tim would punch Stuart squarely in the
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: jaw and then stand back and let himself be shot.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: It's even more weird that a sixty six year old
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: man would be able to take a punch in the
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: jaw without falling down or, according to Stuart, stumbling back
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: at all.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 14: The evidence was consistent with Timothy blythe being a few
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 14: feet away from Stuart Money getting shot in the abdomen,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 14: kind of putting up a defensive posture, raising his hands
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 14: and turning to his side, and some of the other
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 14: entry and exit wounds are consistent with that. But the
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 14: most important part was that it was consistent with mister
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 14: blythe already being on the ground, face forward on the ground.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 14: So when you're talking about a self defense case, there's
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 14: only so far you can get with the idea that, well,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 14: I just started pulling the trigger, and I kept pulling
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 14: the trigger even when.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 7: He was on the ground.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 14: You know, that feels intentional because he's his body has
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 14: moved significantly and you're following it. And not only is
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 14: are you following it, but you're following someone that's falling
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 14: down to the ground right right.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: So the first three were kind of from the front,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: and then the last one seemed to be he was
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: shot in the back.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I think that that was consistent with the evidence.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: Stuart's claims of self defense were weakened by the holes
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: in his own testimony as well as the strength of
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: the prosecution's witnesses, but perhaps the most pivotal piece of
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: evidence came from Tim himself. Remember that cell phone investigators
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: had found lying in the woods across the road from
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: Tim's body. That phone was Tim's, and when technicians pulled
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: the data from his device, they found something that offered
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: a clue into what happened in the moments right before
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: Tim died.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 25: It was a photograph that was taken at one oh
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 25: six pm when the victim was alive. And that photograph
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 25: was of mister Monni's pickup truck tag number a red
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 25: Ford F one fifty.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 14: So you took a look at this photograph and it
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 14: matched the same license plate number that you knew to
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 14: belong to Stuart Money.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: That is correct, Tim had taken a photo of Stuart's
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: license plate. In his closing argument, Andrew offered a theory
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: about how that phone ended up across the street.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 14: Mister Monnie didn't like that he was standing behind his
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 14: truck taking a picture of that.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 7: He walked over him.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 14: He snatched that phone out of Timothy Blythe's hands, that
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 14: he threw it into the woods.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: This is important, Andrew continues, because it undermines Stuart's self
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: defense claims. Even if Tim punched Stuart first.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 7: If you disagree with me.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 14: About accepting or not accepting some of the evidence. If
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 14: you think that those photographs that the defense put in
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 14: the bruising where it was not caused by the law
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 14: enforcement officers when they came in that night and tackled
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 14: him threw him to the ground. If you think that
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 14: there was a punch, there's a scenario in this factual
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 14: pattern that you could still find the defendant guilty because
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 14: it would not be a justifiable use of force. Again,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 14: I go back to that cell phone. It's bound off
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 14: the distance into the woods. Mister Monney's grabbed it, snatch
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 14: it out of his hand, thrown it into the woods.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 14: He's the aggressor in that situation. Maybe Tim Blathe did
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 14: throw a punch. I don't think it's supported by the evidence,
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 14: But if you determine that it is, is he not
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 14: justified in throwing that punch after the robbery of his
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 14: phone and maybe the destruction of his own property. It's
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 14: thrown off into the woods. Maybe there's a punch, say
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 14: that there isn't, But that's when the gunshots happen. Is
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 14: that justifiable use of force in that scenario?
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: A key component of self defense law is that you
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: can't be the aggressor and then claim to be defending yourself.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: You can't commit a crime against someone and then when
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: they attack you use deadly force against them. No one
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: knows exactly how Tim's phone ended up in the woods,
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: but if Andrew is right, Stuart had no right to
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: shoot him, even if Tim punched him in the face.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: Jerry doesn't have to explain why they decide on one
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: verdict or another, so we don't know whether they accepted
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: Andrew's closing argument. But whatever went on in those deliberations,
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: they only took forty minutes to reach a unanimous decision.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 19: We the jury find as follows as to second degree murder.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 19: As to the defendant in this case, the defendant Stuart
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 19: Money is guilty of second degree murder. Did the defendant
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 19: Stuart Money actually possess a firearm? Yes? Did the definitt
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 19: Stuart Money discharge a firearm Yes? Did the definitive Stewart
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 19: Money discharge of farm causing the death of Timothy blythe yes.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: Stuart doesn't seem to react as the judge reads the verdict.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: He just sits in his seat, hands on his knees,
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: staring passively at the bench. When the trial concludes, He
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: gets up and puts his hands in his pockets as
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: the judge decides to take him into custody until his sentencing.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: Second degree murder in Florida is what's called a depraved
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: mind murder.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 14: It means that he made a conscious decision to do
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 14: something that was outside of the safety and consider of
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 14: his fellow man, and it ultimately led to the death.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: It normally carries a mandatory minimum sentence of about seventeen
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: years in prison, but since Stuart used a gun, that
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: minimum jumps up to twenty five. At his sentencing two
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: months later, the judge gave Stuart life. Part nine stories
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: Stuart is in the process of appealing his conviction. I
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: reached out to Sandra to ask if she'd be willing
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: to talk to me, but she declined on the advice
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: of her lawyer. If she'd spoken to me, I would
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: have asked her what to me is one of the
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: big unanswered questions about this case. How much did Sandra
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: know and when did she know it.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 14: It's we'll never understand the dynamic of that relationship and
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 14: what they actually talked about. For the years because he
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 14: was out of custody leading up the trial, for years,
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 14: I had no idea what the story was in the
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 14: Mani house. I just know the story was when they
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 14: came to trial.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: Detective Saraci doesn't seem to think Sandra was any kind
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: of co conspirator. If anything, he paints her as another
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: victim of Stuart's explosive personality.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 10: I also think you have to take into account her
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 10: personality versus his.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 4: Okay, she is an extremely.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 10: Submissive wife and he is an overreaching, overbearing, very angry individual,
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 10: and personally, I almost saw at the end of this
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 10: entire arrest that it almost was a bit of a
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 10: release or a relief on her with this.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 4: I mean, obviously you don't want to lose your husband
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 4: everything else there, but I mean the pressure, the anger
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 4: to blame everything else.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: The other big unanswered question is what exactly drove Stuart
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: to take Tim's life. Maybe you think he just snapped,
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: that his anger reached a breaking point when Tim took
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: a photo of his license plate, or that he's just
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: mentally unstable. Maybe you think Tim really did punch him
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: and he escalated the fight from there, justifiably or not.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: I asked everyone I interviewed what they think happened, including
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: the Wakulla County Detectives. Here's major western.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 3: I don't have a professional response to that other than
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: Stu Money was an evil asshole and I'm glad he's
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 3: locked up. He was always trying to bate somebody into
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 3: a physical confrontation, probably looking for a lawsuit of some kind.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: That's all I know him. Maybe he's just accustomed to
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 3: pushing around Miss Sandra around the house.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: Louis was a little more diplomatic, but he also suggested
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: that Stuart's history of confrontations meant it was just a
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: matter of time before something like this happened.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 16: I mean, I really don't know. The only two people
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 16: know would be God and Stuart Money, the one that's shotting.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 16: I mean, I don't know what sparked this, fella. I mean,
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 16: this is not the first time that he's had a
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 16: confrontation with people.
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: What Jimmy and Louis do know is that they haven't
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: been the same since their friend was murdered. Like Eddie,
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: they both feel a keener sense of anxiety when they're
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: out in the woods. Louis told me he carries a
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: handgun for protection, and he even worries, ironically enough, about
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: wearing an orange vest.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 16: I was at another quota hunt and the game wardens
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 16: said he saw me coming out of the trail to
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 16: the highway legally and he said I saw you. I
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 16: thought that was you over there. I said, yes, sir.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 16: He says, you didn't have your orange nest on and
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 16: the tree. I said, no, sure, I'm not going to
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 16: have an orange vest on. He says, by law you
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 16: have to. I said, I'm an orange pumpkin sitting up there. Now,
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 16: Ammy with PTSD's want to shoot me out of the tree.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 9: We never carried an additional weapon while we was in
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 9: the woods. You know, I growed up hunting in the refuse.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 9: Never once did I fear somebody would shoot me down.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 9: Now we don't go to the woods with an out
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 9: a daggum pistol, and every truck that comes by.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 4: Us where worry. If you want what the effect was,
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 4: that is the effect.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 5: It took simple life away from us. That's what he did.
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: Hunting has looked a lot different for the Trio since
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: Tim passed away, but they've done their best to keep
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: his memory alive. After Tim passed, Tim's father gave Louis
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: Tim's favorite hunting rifle, a thirty odd six bolt.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 16: Action Savage one tim wood frame Leopolskot and he basically
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 16: gave it to me and Jimmy. And I told him,
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 16: I said, well, I said, you give me that. I said,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 16: that means a lot. I said, I guarantee you any
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 16: time me or Jimmy go out on a hunt, this
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 16: gun is coming with us. I said, Tim will always
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 16: be with us. Tim always be with us.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: Louis recently took a man hunting who had borrowed his
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: son's rifle. It malfunctioned and he thought his hunt was over. Fortunately,
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: true to his word, Louis had Tim's rifle with him
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: and he brought it to the man who was sitting
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: in a blind.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 16: And then I get the ticks. He says, kill the buck.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 5: Killed the buck.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 16: I drive all the way back around, get over there,
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 16: and I told him the story about that rifle, the
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 16: reason why I take it to every management hunt. I
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 16: told him there, and once I told him, he just
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 16: broke down and cried. He broke down and got on
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 16: his knees and he just he cried like a baby.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: The man thanked Louis for taking him on a successful
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: hunt and letting him use Tim's rifle.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 16: I said, no, you, you and Tim got to do it.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 5: It wouldn't me.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 16: It was you and Tim. You and Tim gotta do it.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 16: And and I call the riffle Tim, it's Tim. This
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 16: is Tim, I said. He said, where are you going
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 16: to send me?
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 4: And me?
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 16: And Tim's going here? And if I tell his dad,
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 16: he knews.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 4: I got that riffle there.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 9: We take turns, take turns. Or if somebody's hunting with
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 9: us and he's in, like they shoot and they miss,
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 9: and we can't determine if this gun is all we
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 9: use Tim's gun. But every hunt like this hunt at me,
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 9: and Tim's got our me and Louis got At the
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 9: end of the month, Tim's going to be there, which
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 9: means a lot to us.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: Tim's rifle is keeping his memory alive. But Jimmy told
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: me that Tim himself made sure he'd never be forgotten.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 9: Tim was one of those that if it was a
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 9: major memory to him, like if it was something that
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 9: we'd done that was funnier out of whack, he would
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 9: tell you that story time and time again, and you
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 9: would know the story from minute to minute. Everything he's
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 9: going to say. Every time he would come over to
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 9: the house. He would sit down, we'd sit around the bar,
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 9: and he'll start telling these stories. And my wife would say, Tim,
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 9: he done already told me this story, and then he'd
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 9: still keep going like you never heard.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 5: What she said. He just would not stop.
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 9: It was awesome to hear. And since he's passed away,
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 9: we find ourselves sitting around the table talking about the
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 9: same stuff.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 5: That is probably the biggest.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 18: Memory that keeps him going on.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 9: And I kept telling my wife the reason he's doing
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 9: that is because I'm losing.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 5: My mind, And as I'm losing.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 9: My mind, he's pounding in the stuff so I will
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 9: never forget. And you could just see the smile and
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 9: thing and glow in his face, you know, same with
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 9: any hunter. You can tell when stories are so important
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 9: to them that it just eases the whole group to
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 9: be able to hear these stories. We used to hear
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 9: them from our grandpa's, we used to hear them from
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 9: our daddy's, you know, and just to continue that on.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 9: And that's what I think out of the whole ordeal,
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 9: Tim was doing was continuing that process because my kids
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 9: can almost repeat every story he had, and then they
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 9: know Dad's stories too.
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: If you're a hunter from a family of hunters. I'm
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: willing to that Tim's antics sound familiar. These stories that
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: get passed down from generation to generation are more important
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: than the antlers, rugs and rifles that do the same.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: Despite the sudden and terrible nature of Tim's death, his
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: friends know that his legacy will continue for as long
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: as there's someone around to tell the stories that really matter.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to this episode of Blood Trails. If
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: you'd like to see images related to this case, including
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: photos of Tim, the crime scene, Stuart Money, and his taxidermy,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: head on over to the meaeater dot com slash blood
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: Trails and click on the case file for this episode.
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: Huge thanks to Andrew Denen, Jimmy Huddo, Louis Angelotti, Eddie Alday,
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: Major Eddie Wester, and Captain Brett Sarachi for their time
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: and willingness to speak with me. As always, send me
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: an email at Blood Trails at the Meat Eat with
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: any questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes. I rely
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: on tips from you to learn about potential cases, so
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: keep them coming. See you next time.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 11: Stay safe out there,