Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Beautiful Mom Shot Dead in Face, Hubby Aaron Pennington on Run

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Beautiful Mom Shot Dead in Face, Hubby Aaron Pennington on Run · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Greece.
0:14
Speaker 2: As we go to air Aaron Pennington on the run
0:19
Speaker 2: why he's believed to be armed and dangerous after his
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Speaker 2: wife Brian found dead in the master bedroom of their home,
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Speaker 2: dead from gunshot wounds to the face. This has been
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Speaker 2: National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. So if we're so aware
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Speaker 2: of domestic violence, why do women in particular keep dropping
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Speaker 2: dead like flies from domestic violence? We're so aware that
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Speaker 2: we can't seem to stop it. I'm Nancy Grace. This
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Speaker 2: is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here
1:00
Speaker 2: at Crime Stories and on Serious XEM one eleven. I'm
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Speaker 2: thinking back, thinking back, thinking back, even to the time
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Speaker 2: that I was prosecuting felonies in inner city Atlanta and
1:10
Speaker 2: working manning the Better Women's Center.
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Speaker 3: Hotline at night. No change.
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Speaker 2: The death stats are still virtually the same. Why isn't
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Speaker 2: the message cutting through? Let's just start with the case
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Speaker 2: of Brian Pennington.
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Speaker 3: Brian Pennington with four children, ages two, five, seven, and nine.
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Speaker 3: Why she did. Let's start at the beginning.
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Speaker 4: Listen Surprisemately nine am this morning, the guide the police
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Speaker 4: responded to forty two Cherry Street with regards to a
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Speaker 4: disturbance on arrival, he entered the house at forty two
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Speaker 4: Cherry Street.
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Speaker 5: He found a deceased person in the back the house. Immediately,
2:02
Speaker 5: calls were made to the State Police. Detectives assigned to
2:06
Speaker 5: Mousta County District Attorney's office and investigation was begun. There
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Speaker 5: are four children that were in the house who are
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Speaker 5: currently in DCF custody. They had left the house and
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Speaker 5: gone to the Navy. We are currently looking for Aaron Pennington,
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Speaker 5: thirty three years old, six foot two, one hundred and
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Speaker 5: seventy five pounds, wand hair and blue eyes, and he
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Speaker 5: is considered to be armed and dangerous. If anyone in
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Speaker 5: the public does see him, we are asking that you contact.
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Speaker 6: The guy and the police of the State Police.
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Speaker 5: He is driving a white BMW Model three twenty twenty thirteen.
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Speaker 2: Right there, you are hearing the local District attorney speaking
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Speaker 2: begging the public for help. This guy, Aaron Pennington, has
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Speaker 2: top secret clearance. He is an Air Force specialist, an engineer,
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Speaker 2: he has survival skills, and he's on the run. A
3:02
Speaker 2: thirty three year old white male six y two, blonde,
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Speaker 2: one hundred and seventy five pounds out of a gardener
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Speaker 2: mass What more do we know about this guy. We
3:11
Speaker 2: know that he's the father of four children, that he
3:15
Speaker 2: works with the raytheon missiles and defense and reportedly has
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Speaker 2: quote active secret clearance. We also know he had an
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Speaker 2: illegally owned firearm and there were three spent cartridges on
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Speaker 2: the floor at the scene of the death of his wife,
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Speaker 2: so we believe he has that weapon, which is a shotgun.
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Speaker 3: Straight out to one of our all.
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Speaker 2: Star panelists, Rachel Louise Snyder, journalist and author of No
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Speaker 2: Visible Bruises, What we don't know about domestic violence can
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Speaker 2: kill Us?
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Speaker 3: That has just gone out.
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Speaker 2: You can get it on Amazon. Rachel, thank you for
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Speaker 2: being with us. What can you tell us out their relationship?
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Speaker 7: Well, it follows a pretty similar pattern, which is that
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Speaker 7: there's people are hearing, you know, fighting, that marriage is troubled,
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Speaker 7: but also she wants to leave him. It's bad enough
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Speaker 7: that she is going to take the kids to Texas
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Speaker 7: and this is always the most dangerous time when a
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Speaker 7: victim is trying to leave, and we know this from
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Speaker 7: the research. We also know that he had threatened suicide
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Speaker 7: and that's one of the twenty highest risk indicators for
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Speaker 7: domestic violent homicide. So you can start to put these
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Speaker 7: pieces together and a picture emerges that is every bit
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Speaker 7: as familiar as every domestic violent homicide that we see
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Speaker 7: across this country.
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Speaker 2: Rachel Louis Snyder is speaking, author of a new book,
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Speaker 2: No Visible Bruises. Rachel, that's something I didn't know. Now
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Speaker 2: I've seen it, annecdotally.
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Speaker 3: I guess I knew it.
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Speaker 2: But are you telling me when they batterer threatens suicide,
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Speaker 2: that is a predictor of domestic abuse.
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Speaker 7: It's one of twenty risk indicators.
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Speaker 3: Yes, I've seen it so many times. A husband goes,
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Speaker 3: I'm gonna kill myself.
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Speaker 2: And yes, there are some female batterers, that's true, but
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Speaker 2: it's huge, huge, minuscule amount of domestic violence perps are
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Speaker 2: women compared to the number of men.
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Speaker 8: It's actually Japan.
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Speaker 9: It's actually a predictor of dB homicide, not abuse, not
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Speaker 9: just abuse speaking.
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Speaker 10: It's Kelsey.
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Speaker 2: Okay, thank you for telling me that you're hearing Kelsey McKay,
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Speaker 2: former prosecutor, victims rights lawyer, founder of McKay Training and
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Speaker 2: Consulting and Respond Against Violence nonprofit. And that's where you
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Speaker 2: can find her, by the way, respond Against the Violence
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Speaker 2: dot org.
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Speaker 3: One more time, Kelsey repeats.
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Speaker 9: As Rachel said, there are patterns to escalate towards homicide,
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Speaker 9: and threatening suicide is often an indicator that the abuser
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Speaker 9: is losing control and it's their attempt to regain it,
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Speaker 9: and if that doesn't work, it often proceeds a homicide.
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Speaker 9: So it's a risk factor with a danger assessment that
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Speaker 9: is an offender and abuser fentons commit suicide. It's an
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Speaker 9: indicator of escillation towards domestic violence homicide.
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Speaker 2: You know what you two are making as perfect sense,
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Speaker 2: and anybody on the panel again, this is not high
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Speaker 2: t at Buckingham Palace. Camilla and Charles are not here.
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Speaker 2: Jump in.
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Speaker 6: Okay, this is where this is, Dave Thomas, and this
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Speaker 6: is where we have to put all those pre incident
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Speaker 6: indicators together as soon as possible. That's why it's so
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Speaker 6: important that we walk work in multidisciplinary teams. The sooner
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Speaker 6: we get these these these survivors, these victims to services,
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Speaker 6: soon that we start working collectively together to respond effectively
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Speaker 6: to this brewing storm, the more people we're going to
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Speaker 6: be able to, in my view, be able to save.
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Speaker 6: If the locality assessments are crucial and we have to
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Speaker 6: take that information and be able to quarantine that individual
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Speaker 6: who's engaging in these toxic behaviors time and time again.
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Speaker 6: It's like a broken record as you alluded to earlier,
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Speaker 6: and the same thing that same things happening.
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Speaker 11: Yes, it's like the same thing over and over, but
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Speaker 11: I'm hearing something new now, anecdotally out of all By
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Speaker 11: the time I would get.
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Speaker 2: A domestic violence case, it was a homicide or an
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Speaker 2: egg assault, and I will remember, I remember, like yesterday,
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Speaker 2: one of the first felonies that wasn't a homicide, that
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Speaker 2: was domestic case. The victim came in with the perpetrator
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Speaker 2: and she was in a hip cast from the hip
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Speaker 2: down straight down her legs in one of those thick casts,
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Speaker 2: not even a boot, a full on cast.
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Speaker 3: She dragged up to me with the cane him.
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Speaker 2: Helping her a lung. She goes, I want to drop
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Speaker 2: charges on Like, oh, hell no, you're not dropping charges lady.
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Speaker 2: And I looked at him and I said, it's not
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Speaker 2: on her, it's on me. You're mad, come at me,
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Speaker 2: because there's this whole plethora of other issues, like feeling embarrassed,
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Speaker 2: feeling is your fault, not wanting to prosecute, but hold
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Speaker 2: on everybody. I'm hearing something right now and it makes
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Speaker 2: perfect sense, and I'm hearing it from Kelsey McKay, Rachel
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Speaker 2: Louis Snyder, and Corporal Dave R.
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Speaker 3: Thomas about Okay, it's got control. You don't like things
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Speaker 3: are spinning out, you don't like the way they're going on.
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Speaker 2: I'm man kill myself. Okay, that's just what he did.
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Speaker 2: He threatened suicide to control her. And now he's on
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Speaker 2: the run and she's dead gunshot wounds three.
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Speaker 3: We think, to the face, what more do we know? Listen?
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Speaker 12: Shortly after nine am on a Sunday morning, Carrie McDermott
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Speaker 12: answers her door to find her neighbor's children asking for help.
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Speaker 12: They can't find their dad and their mom is crying
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Speaker 12: in her bedroom. Nine to one one got the call
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Speaker 12: from Kerry McDermott at nine fourteen am. She told them
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Speaker 12: what the kids just told her. Within minutes, police arrived
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Speaker 12: at the home on Cherry Street and found Brian Pennington
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Speaker 12: lying in bed in the upstairs bedroom with a gunshot
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Speaker 12: wound to the head. She was pronounced dead a few
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Speaker 12: minutes later by a paramedic. Police searched the house and
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Speaker 12: yard looking for the husband of Brionne and the father
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Speaker 12: of the four children who ran next door. But Aaron
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Speaker 12: Pennington is Gone.
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Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
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Speaker 2: Two, five, seven, and nine. They signed Mommy, Yeah.
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Speaker 8: So this is Gone Wilcox and I'm a semicide researcher.
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Speaker 8: And the thing that was so upsetting about this is
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Speaker 8: the children told the neighbor that they couldn't find their dad,
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Speaker 8: but they heard their mom crying and if you look
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Speaker 8: at the timeline, likely what they heard were sounds of
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Speaker 8: her dying on the other side of the door.
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Speaker 2: Don Wilcox, she wanted to let me formally introduce her
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Speaker 2: femicide expert, researcher, educator, activist, executive director at Women Count USA,
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Speaker 2: and that's where you can find her Women Count USA
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Speaker 2: dot org.
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Speaker 3: Don Wilcox, You're so correct. And my next note I was.
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Speaker 2: Going to throw to doctor Charles Heller, who's a forensic psychologist,
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Speaker 2: is in their minds they were either hearing I don't
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Speaker 2: know how much they would have heard because she was
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Speaker 2: shot in the head in the face to be specific,
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Speaker 2: so that would have been an instantaneous death. And I'm
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Speaker 2: going to go to doctor Manisha Pande on that. But
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Speaker 2: what they heard, and their child filter was mommy was crying,
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Speaker 2: and they run next door and says, mommy's lying on.
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Speaker 3: I thought they said the floor, but they must have
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Speaker 3: said the big crying.
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Speaker 2: So they went in and they saw their mother dead
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Speaker 2: of a gunshot wound, a shotgun wound to the face,
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Speaker 2: and their child interpretation of that is mommy is crying
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Speaker 2: and won't get up and daddy is gone.
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Speaker 3: Doctor Charles Heller, Boy, do I need a shrink? You know?
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Speaker 3: Somehow I got to shake this whole thing off and
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Speaker 3: go be with my children after this.
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Speaker 2: And I'm trying to understand what happened. You are the
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Speaker 2: forensic psychologist. How do they translate? They see their mother
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Speaker 2: dead with a gunshot wound to the face, and in
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Speaker 2: their head they go, mommy's crying and she won't get.
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Speaker 13: Up, Nancy. These kids were traumatized when they heard the
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Speaker 13: gunshot and whatever came after that, they felt the mother
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Speaker 13: was alive. Is they don't really know that much about death.
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Speaker 2: They want her to be crying. They don't want her
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Speaker 2: to be bleeding from the face. To doctor Menisha Panday,
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Speaker 2: Chief Forensic Pathologists for Forensic Pathologist LLC, The forensicpathologist dot com.
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Speaker 2: Doctor Menisia, thank you for being with us. Would she
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Speaker 2: have hey, wait, maybe she went through something else before
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Speaker 2: she was shot in the face. That would have elicited crying.
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Speaker 2: But doctor panday, that would be instantaneous, wouldn't it.
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Speaker 10: Yes, it's a devastating injury, especially if you're shot in
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Speaker 10: the face and you'll pretty much die instantaneously.
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Speaker 2: You know what's so interesting? They say, daddy's not home.
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Speaker 2: He was so angry that she was taking the children
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Speaker 2: to Texas that he left them there to find mommy.
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Speaker 1: Listen to this video.
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Speaker 12: Surveillance from a neighbor shows Aaron Pennington leaving the driveway
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Speaker 12: forty two Cherry Street at about eight fifty am Sunday
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Speaker 12: morning in his white twenty thirteen BMW three twenty sedan.
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Speaker 12: The video also shows all four Pennington children leaving their
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Speaker 12: home together seventeen minutes after their father left the home,
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Speaker 12: with the children walking to the house next door. An
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Speaker 12: autopsy determined Brian Pennington's cause of death was a gunshot
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Speaker 12: wound to the head and the manner of her death
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Speaker 12: was homicide.
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Speaker 2: So to Leslie Morgan Steiner, advocate and survivor, author of
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Speaker 2: Crazy Love.
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Speaker 3: Which was a New York Times bestseller.
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Speaker 2: You can find her at lesliebooks dot com. Leslie, thank
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Speaker 2: you for being with us. He was so angry she
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Speaker 2: was taking the children away. He loved them so much
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Speaker 2: that he left them to find mommy dad. I mean,
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Speaker 2: what could be more traumatic than finding your mother dead.
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Speaker 14: It's an excellent example of how destructive and dangerous these
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Speaker 14: men are, and how skilled they are at hiding in
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Speaker 14: plain sight, and the ways in which our country gives
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Speaker 14: the benefit of the doubt to abusive and potentially lethal men.
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Speaker 14: And you know, the thing that I think was most
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Speaker 14: striking about this that other guests have commented upon is
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Speaker 14: the way that he tried to use pity as a
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Speaker 14: manipulation tool. And pity is an enormous red flag that
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Speaker 14: has not talked about enough in terms of abuse cases.
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Speaker 3: It's very rare.
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Speaker 14: For even family, friends and neighbors to see evidence of
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Speaker 14: physical violence occurring. But what you can see is an
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Speaker 14: adult male who expects other people to feel.
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Speaker 10: Sorry for him.
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Speaker 14: That's why he made the suicide threats. That's why people
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Speaker 14: will often say about abusers that they were they seemed harmless,
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Speaker 14: they seemed so charming. It's because they're really skilled at
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Speaker 14: pulling your heart strings and making you think that they
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Speaker 14: deserve your pity and protection, when in fact they are
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Speaker 14: lethal weapons. And I survived gun violence and strangulation from
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Speaker 14: a man who I thought I loved so much, so
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Speaker 14: I know firsthand what it's like to live with somebody
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Speaker 14: who you begin to suspect is in danger of killing you.
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Speaker 14: And then, like this victim, you try to protect yourself
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Speaker 14: and your children by making a plan to leave to Texas,
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Speaker 14: and then it triggers their fragility and their rage and
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Speaker 14: their fear of abandonment, and they get a message from
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Speaker 14: society that if a woman is threatening to leave you,
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Speaker 14: it is somehow okay to kill her. That's what this
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Speaker 14: man was thinking. And this is what we see all
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Speaker 14: the time in domestic violence work.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, you've got to understand. These individuals are master magicians.
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Speaker 6: They are very at depth at making the general public, friends, family,
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Speaker 6: go with the smoke and mirrors. And while they continue
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Speaker 6: to portray themselves in this as the victim, really they
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Speaker 6: but when we when we when we dig down, when
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Speaker 6: we do a good assessment, when we look at everything
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Speaker 6: in context, we start pulling the mask off, you know,
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Speaker 6: they they engage in. Some of them don't even engage
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Speaker 6: in this in a lot of overt physical violence and
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Speaker 6: domestic violence, I think everybody on here would agree goes
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Speaker 6: much more beyond the physical. But the course of control
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Speaker 6: that these individuals engage in, which is a pattern of
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Speaker 6: behavior that unreasonably interferes with a person's free will and liberty.
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Speaker 3: You know something you just said, Corporal David R.
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Speaker 2: Thomas about how it's not just the beatings, and I'm
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Speaker 2: sure that all of our experts Rachel Louis Snyder, Leslie
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Speaker 2: Morgan Steiner, Don Wilcox, Kelsey.
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Speaker 3: It's not just the beatings, but it's.
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Speaker 2: The way that you live, and you don't really understand that.
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Speaker 2: Every day just excruciating stress. You're walking on edgshells. You
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Speaker 2: don't know what is going to set the person off
17:18
Speaker 2: until you're free of it.
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Speaker 3: Then you look back and go, oh, my stars, that
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Speaker 3: was just hell.
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Speaker 2: Now, this guy leaves the children to find mommy, and
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Speaker 2: imagine a two, a five, a seven, and a nine
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Speaker 2: year old going next door because mommy is in bed
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Speaker 2: or on the floor crying.
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Speaker 3: But then he seemingly disappears.
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Speaker 12: Listen the day after Aaron Pennington was seen leaving his
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Speaker 12: house at about eight fifty am Sunday morning. WCVB reports
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Speaker 12: that a bow hunter walking in the wooded area off
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Speaker 12: Kenton Street near Camp Call your In Gardener around five
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Speaker 12: pm in the afternoon found Aaron Pennington's white two thousand
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Speaker 12: and thirteen BMW three twenty sedan. It was about fifteen
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Speaker 12: hundred feet down a wooded trail. Camp Collier is near
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Speaker 12: the Ashburnham town line. Local and state police assets began
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Speaker 12: searching for Pennington in the wooded area immediately that Monday
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Speaker 12: night and continued that search all the way through Wednesday afternoon.
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Speaker 12: Pennington has yet to be found.
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Speaker 2: Aaron Pennington on the run, Armed and Dangerous.
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Speaker 1: Crime stories with Nancy Grace.
18:45
Speaker 2: And now I want to bring in not just a colleague,
18:49
Speaker 2: not just someone that I consider it to be a friend,
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Speaker 2: but someone I trusted.
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Speaker 3: To care for my twins.
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Speaker 2: He's known as the Turtleman, and you may wonder why
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Speaker 2: is Nancy Grace and trusting her twins to the Turtleman.
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Speaker 2: His true name is Chris Adams. He is a swamp
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Speaker 2: survival expert. You can find him on Facebook under Wiregrass
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Speaker 2: Ecological and Cultural Project. On TikTok At Georgia Turtleman, and
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Speaker 2: he took me and the twins through the Okefinokee Swamp
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Speaker 2: and before we had gotten thirty feet out in the swamp. Now,
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Speaker 2: by the time we counted forty gators there, he had
19:40
Speaker 2: to just pop up that much.
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Speaker 3: We weren't.
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Speaker 2: We were not a football field into the swamp, and
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Speaker 2: we had already counted forty gators and.
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Speaker 3: They were close.
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Speaker 2: I almost said turn this buggy around, but I trusted
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Speaker 2: Chris Adams, and I was right. And he has been
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Speaker 2: with me analyzing people living in the wild and survivalists,
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Speaker 2: oh gosh, ever since then. That's how much I believe
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Speaker 2: this guy. Chris Adams aka Turtleman. Explain the terrain and
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Speaker 2: how this guy could be surviving. I always think of
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Speaker 2: Eric Rudolph, the Olympic bomber, and how he survived for
20:25
Speaker 2: years in the wild, eluding even the FBI. Tell me,
20:29
Speaker 2: with this terrain, how could this guy be surviving?
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Speaker 15: Well, I tell you, it differs greatly from what I'm
20:34
Speaker 15: familiar with, but not so much that a person couldn't
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Speaker 15: go out there and hide for a few days. Mostly
20:42
Speaker 15: what I'm seeing from images up that way or pine
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Speaker 15: bearings around that lake. There are some brushy, marshy areas,
20:51
Speaker 15: but Lake wampano Egg is a fairly good sized lake.
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Speaker 15: If he could hide in those little little nooks and
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Speaker 15: crannies along the way, it would be easy to stay concealed.
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Speaker 15: But right now, one thing he's contending with is the weather.
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Speaker 15: I've noticed the weather over about the last week, for instance,
21:12
Speaker 15: today is not going to get much more above thirty
21:14
Speaker 15: five thirty six degrees up there person on the run
21:18
Speaker 15: or even getting any bit of moisture on themselves without
21:21
Speaker 15: being able to stay dry and suffer hypothermia pretty quickly.
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Speaker 15: So it's up in the air.
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Speaker 2: I don't know how much he planned, but stay with me, guys,
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Speaker 2: I know he did plan to murder her in the
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Speaker 2: ultimate act of domestic violence.
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Speaker 3: Listen.
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Speaker 12: Investigators found a note from Saturday evening, the night before
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Speaker 12: his wife's body was found in their shared bedroom. She
21:48
Speaker 12: was dead from a shot to the face. The note,
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Speaker 12: found on Aaron Pennington's cell phone said, quote, don't say anything,
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Speaker 12: be quiet. If she wakes up, just say you're getting
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Speaker 12: nasal spray. Get on side of bed, very close proximity
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Speaker 12: on bed. Put hole in her head.
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Speaker 3: Put hole in her head? Where was this found?
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Speaker 2: That part of your phone You may or may not
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Speaker 2: ever use it where you can write notes to yourself, note.
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Speaker 3: To self and Nancy put hole in her head? Who
22:20
Speaker 3: is this?
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Speaker 8: This is gone? And you know, if I said to
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Speaker 8: you a woman was executed today in the world, right,
22:27
Speaker 8: you'd probably say, oh, yeah, and Iran or Turkey or Iraq.
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Speaker 8: But women are executed in the United States on a
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Speaker 8: daily basis. Her right to leave was secondary to his
22:40
Speaker 8: right to execute her for it. And his note shows
22:45
Speaker 8: that even though we like to frame domestic violence murders
22:48
Speaker 8: as quote, he just snapped, they're often meticulously premeditated. The
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Speaker 8: man sitting across from you at the breakfast table eating
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Speaker 8: cheerios is plotting your murder. It's shocking but prevalent.
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Speaker 2: And it's interesting that you said many people think, oh,
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Speaker 2: he just snapped. There is Kelsey McKay backed me up
23:08
Speaker 2: on this Attorney Now victims rights lawyer founder McKay Training
23:14
Speaker 2: and Consulting. There is thing a snap. The snap defense
23:18
Speaker 2: that is a show on TV. Snack absolutely not a
23:23
Speaker 2: legitimate defense. Oh I snapped, everybody full to County, Ye'll
23:26
Speaker 2: be walking for you that I'll say, Oh.
23:28
Speaker 9: I snapped, and it builds into it almost like an
23:30
Speaker 9: element of victim blaming, as though she has some type
23:32
Speaker 9: of control or choice in it. When domestic abuse, and
23:36
Speaker 9: you know, we talked to you asked at first, why
23:39
Speaker 9: do we still have these murders? And the truth is
23:41
Speaker 9: just the language we use domestic violence limits the most
23:43
Speaker 9: important understanding of these cases, and that's what abuse is,
23:47
Speaker 9: and it's not violence. Violence is often used to reinforce it,
23:51
Speaker 9: but it doesn't always exist. And I also think it's
23:54
Speaker 9: interesting to note that he shot her in the space.
23:57
Speaker 9: And don may know more than this with experience, but
24:00
Speaker 9: certainly there's an aspect of wanting to make sure she
24:04
Speaker 9: isn't attractive really in the murders, but we see is
24:07
Speaker 9: a lot of patterns.
24:08
Speaker 8: Where you degrade her.
24:10
Speaker 9: There's a lot of different themes that occur in domestic
24:12
Speaker 9: violence that are different than other types of homicides and
24:15
Speaker 9: certainly different than homicide that involve male victims and male perpetrator.
24:19
Speaker 2: You're right, doctor Charles Hiller joining me a forensic psychologist
24:22
Speaker 2: and expert specializing in domestic violence. In my notes, I
24:27
Speaker 2: wrote significance of shooting in the face to disfigure her
24:32
Speaker 2: because she's very beautiful. Often, as Kelsey McKay pointed out,
24:39
Speaker 2: high profile lawyer women are left in a degrading manner,
24:43
Speaker 2: like naked, to be found that way, something that would
24:47
Speaker 2: be embarrassing to them in some way. Explaining doctor Heller
24:51
Speaker 2: the significance of shooting her in the face.
24:54
Speaker 13: This man was extremely angry and he wanted to get
24:59
Speaker 13: all those anger out in that one moment, and unfortunately
25:03
Speaker 13: that's what he did. And it's not unusual for people
25:09
Speaker 13: who are violent to do something like that when we'll push.
25:15
Speaker 9: Back on the anger, though, because angry, these are choices.
25:18
Speaker 9: They might appear angry, certainly it's violent. These are choices
25:22
Speaker 9: that they make when they lose control.
25:24
Speaker 2: I'm curious about how he is surviving right now. Back
25:27
Speaker 2: to Chris Adam is joining us survival expert. Now that
25:33
Speaker 2: we know he planned this in advance. I mean, look
25:35
Speaker 2: at his note. Be quiet. If she wakes up, tell
25:40
Speaker 2: her you're just up, getting your nasal spray, sneak around,
25:44
Speaker 2: get very close, put hole in her head.
25:48
Speaker 3: He had to write a note to himself. He had
25:52
Speaker 3: to devise the.
25:52
Speaker 2: Time, the location, the perfect moment that he would be
25:57
Speaker 2: least likely to be caught and then he just leaves,
26:01
Speaker 2: and he leaves in the cart, conceals the cart deep
26:04
Speaker 2: in the woods you mentioned, temperatures are going down to
26:07
Speaker 2: thirty five degrees. Question, what would he need to survive
26:11
Speaker 2: in that terrain and under those circumstances. Because I know
26:16
Speaker 2: he planned this, did he plan to hide out?
26:19
Speaker 15: With his military background, I would assume that he would
26:23
Speaker 15: have had some formulative plan to carry things that he
26:27
Speaker 15: needed out there. What I haven't heard in any of
26:30
Speaker 15: these news articles is any any real reason to think
26:34
Speaker 15: that he carried much of anything with him.
26:36
Speaker 3: They don't know because no one is released to us.
26:39
Speaker 3: What if anything was found in the vehicle. We don't know.
26:42
Speaker 3: If he had a backpack, we know nothing.
26:43
Speaker 2: I'm trying to figure out what he would have taken
26:46
Speaker 2: because this guy's on the run right now and is
26:50
Speaker 2: in dangerous.
26:51
Speaker 3: Listen to this. This is the Worcester County DA.
26:53
Speaker 16: He is considered I'm endangerous.
26:56
Speaker 6: Four children in the house.
26:57
Speaker 5: The children are safe in a right now, are in custody.
27:00
Speaker 5: If DCF Massachusetts de pup Children Family Services.
27:05
Speaker 16: We don't have anything else at this time. Really can't
27:07
Speaker 16: take any questions. We will update you, but we want
27:10
Speaker 16: to make he is not in custody. We know that
27:12
Speaker 16: some information has been put out on social media. Do
27:15
Speaker 16: some suggestions that he was in costady. He is not
27:18
Speaker 16: in custody, and that's the reason for disavailability break down,
27:21
Speaker 16: eaches of the children, two, five, seven, and nine.
27:24
Speaker 6: Neighbors be concerned.
27:26
Speaker 5: We are concerned.
27:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, neighbors should be concerned. Everybody should be concerned. So,
27:31
Speaker 2: Chris Adams, what.
27:32
Speaker 3: Would he need if he has a backpack on his back.
27:35
Speaker 2: We don't know what he took, if anything, What would
27:37
Speaker 2: he need to survive?
27:39
Speaker 3: And how can we find him? Because he's surviving.
27:42
Speaker 15: The basic thing is warm. If he had an emergency blanket,
27:46
Speaker 15: if he had a woolen blanket, but with temperaures dipping
27:49
Speaker 15: down that low, you'd have to keep your body temperature
27:52
Speaker 15: up throughout the night. So he's got to have a
27:54
Speaker 15: fire somewhere otherwise he's going into this very haphazardly. If
27:58
Speaker 15: he's not keeping his body temperature up, he is at
28:01
Speaker 15: severe risk of getting hypothermia, and with that, of course,
28:05
Speaker 15: comes his demise. He doesn't seek medical health, which he's
28:09
Speaker 15: not gonna do obviously.
28:10
Speaker 2: Exactly Chris Adams, Exactly, Rachel Louise Snyder.
28:14
Speaker 3: We think he went on foot.
28:16
Speaker 2: He probably couldn't get far, which mates he could he
28:19
Speaker 2: could be there in that four hundred acre area unless
28:23
Speaker 2: he had help, which.
28:25
Speaker 3: I doubt anybody's going to help him after he.
28:26
Speaker 2: Murders his wife, or unless he got a ride somehow
28:30
Speaker 2: Did he have a rental car waiting?
28:32
Speaker 3: Did he plan it that much? Did he get an uber?
28:35
Speaker 2: All avenues of inquiry, but Rachel Louis Snyder, way in,
28:39
Speaker 2: how far could he have gotten on foot?
28:41
Speaker 3: He is a survivalist.
28:43
Speaker 7: He's a survivalist. I mean, he had seven years in
28:45
Speaker 7: the military. You know, I don't he's got ties to California,
28:50
Speaker 7: like any of the Any speculation is like, we just
28:56
Speaker 7: don't know. But most of these guys end up killing themselves.
29:00
Speaker 8: And I'm not.
29:01
Speaker 7: As a journalist, I don't like to speculate, but I
29:04
Speaker 7: feel like this is the real problem is not to
29:07
Speaker 7: me anyway is not Is he out there alive? How
29:10
Speaker 7: is he surviving? What kind of justice can we get?
29:13
Speaker 7: The real problem is what is wrong with our systems
29:16
Speaker 7: that we couldn't save her?
29:18
Speaker 2: Okay, you know what, You're right, that is a bigger
29:22
Speaker 2: question for us to with which we have to grapple.
29:27
Speaker 2: Right now, I'm thinking about this woman the latest, and
29:31
Speaker 2: I have the whole list of whomen we were gonna
29:33
Speaker 2: talk about, including Kira Hudson, who was so afraid of
29:38
Speaker 2: her husband she wore a bulletproof vest and begged prosecutors
29:43
Speaker 2: and cops to put her husband, to put her ex
29:45
Speaker 2: behind bars, even gave them a video of him dragging
29:49
Speaker 2: her by her hair, pausing to beat her unconscious and
29:54
Speaker 2: threat I need.
29:54
Speaker 3: To kill her. They didn't charge him with agasol.
29:57
Speaker 2: They charged him with a misdemeanor, and he walked, looked
30:00
Speaker 2: out immediately, then found her at the school drop off
30:04
Speaker 2: and shot her while she's wearing the bulletproof vest with
30:08
Speaker 2: the children in the back seat and a Walsh children,
30:12
Speaker 2: a great mother. She's not only murdered, she's dismembered. We
30:17
Speaker 2: still don't have her body. Her husband, Brian Walsh, suspect,
30:21
Speaker 2: and you don't have to be married. Of course, there's
30:24
Speaker 2: a case of Gabby Betito and in that case, the
30:29
Speaker 2: killer her boyfriend, Brian Laundry, hid out in Carlton Reserve
30:34
Speaker 2: twenty five thousand acres after he murdered her. Remember that
30:39
Speaker 2: Chris Adams do so guys part of this picture, and
30:42
Speaker 2: I believe earlier let's see.
30:45
Speaker 3: Who was jumping in?
30:46
Speaker 2: Was it Don Wilcox, Leslie Morgan Steiner, author of Crazy
30:51
Speaker 2: Love and Domestic Violence survivor jump in.
30:56
Speaker 14: So seventy five percent of female homicide are committed by
31:00
Speaker 14: man known to the victim, usually in her.
31:02
Speaker 10: Home or car.
31:03
Speaker 14: And we need to ask what kind of country we
31:05
Speaker 14: live in where the most unsafe place for women and
31:08
Speaker 14: children are in their own homes, are in their own cars.
31:12
Speaker 14: And this is just a problem that's hiding in plain sight,
31:16
Speaker 14: and we all need to recognize the red flags. And
31:19
Speaker 14: also something very important needs to be acknowledged, which is
31:23
Speaker 14: that people who commit domestic violence, men who commit domestic
31:26
Speaker 14: violence are incredibly likely to go out and attack their communities.
31:30
Speaker 14: And we saw that with Robert Carr, the main mass murderer.
31:34
Speaker 14: We see in almost all mass murderers. So we have
31:36
Speaker 14: to be the community has to be a very afraid
31:40
Speaker 14: of Aaron Pennington and what he could do, and try
31:43
Speaker 14: to get to abusers before they commit these atrocities. And
31:49
Speaker 14: in addition to some of the other red flags that
31:52
Speaker 14: were more familiar with looking for bruises and domestic violence,
31:58
Speaker 14: chartered relation.
32:00
Speaker 8: Yep, look for fear.
32:02
Speaker 14: Fear is something that is easier to pick up on
32:05
Speaker 14: if you see that macheems afraid. And I promise you
32:09
Speaker 14: that the four children and Brian Pennington were terrified. They
32:14
Speaker 14: had to know that he was planning something. And we
32:18
Speaker 14: are very good at ignoring victims when they come to
32:20
Speaker 14: the police and say, I'm afraid he said he's going
32:22
Speaker 14: to kill me, or I'm afraid that he's plotting something
32:25
Speaker 14: because I'm planning to leave him, and police and family.
32:28
Speaker 17: Court judges need to be aware of the red flags,
32:31
Speaker 17: but also they need to be.
32:32
Speaker 3: Empowered, right, I hear you, I hear you.
32:35
Speaker 2: But remembering Gabby Batito, she was as she charged as
32:39
Speaker 2: the abuser before Laundry murdered her.
32:44
Speaker 3: So let me ask you a question, Leslie Morgan Steiner.
32:48
Speaker 2: How long did you live in fear? And what was
32:53
Speaker 2: the final straw? How did you finally escape your batterer?
32:56
Speaker 14: So it was four years of being strangled and having
33:00
Speaker 14: loaded guns held my head on a regular basis, and
33:03
Speaker 14: what ended up happening to me is there was one
33:05
Speaker 14: final brutal beating where I was unconscious for most of it.
33:08
Speaker 14: He had a black belt in karate and a black
33:10
Speaker 14: sash in kung fu, and he had his three guns.
33:14
Speaker 14: And what enabled me to leave was the awareness of
33:17
Speaker 14: my community, including the police officers who rescued me. They
33:22
Speaker 14: understood how potentially lethful this was, and my community came together.
33:26
Speaker 10: To protect me.
33:27
Speaker 14: And it wasn't so much my family and friends because
33:30
Speaker 14: they didn't know anything about domestic violence. It was the
33:33
Speaker 14: police and my local domestic violence agency who convinced me
33:38
Speaker 14: that I was in lethal danger and then I needed
33:40
Speaker 14: to I needed my entire community support in order to
33:43
Speaker 14: leave him.
33:43
Speaker 3: I have an update, guys.
33:45
Speaker 2: A few miles away from the murder scene in Ashburnham,
33:50
Speaker 2: a man found a change of clothes in the woods
33:52
Speaker 2: behind his home, a ziplot bag with rubber gloves, surgical gloves.
33:58
Speaker 2: He thought it was a trash bag ahead of white shirt,
34:01
Speaker 2: short socks, boxers and a toothbrush. So to doctor Nisha Panday.
34:07
Speaker 2: Doctor Panday with TIMPs going down in the thirties, as
34:11
Speaker 2: Chris Adams pointed out, how could he survive if he
34:15
Speaker 2: didn't have a coat or some type of source of warmth.
34:21
Speaker 10: So within a few hours his temperature is going to
34:24
Speaker 10: go down and he'll probably die of hypothermia. But he's
34:27
Speaker 10: probably got some place he's at. I'm not sure where
34:32
Speaker 10: he would be, but if he has nothing to keep
34:35
Speaker 10: him warm, he's likely to die of hypothermia soon.
34:38
Speaker 3: Well, we know his body hasn't been found.
34:40
Speaker 2: Take a list in hour cut ten to the Wooster
34:43
Speaker 2: County District Attorney's Office.
34:45
Speaker 18: We're going to give a quick update with regards to
34:47
Speaker 18: the search for Aaron Pennington. Search has continued throughout the morning,
34:52
Speaker 18: is going to continue.
34:53
Speaker 5: He has not been found at this point.
34:57
Speaker 18: We have a number of assets I'd like to go
34:59
Speaker 18: through a working on this. The Massachusetts State Police Search
35:02
Speaker 18: Special Emergency Response Team, the State Police Tactical Operations Unit,
35:07
Speaker 18: the Stop Team, the State Police Canine Unit, the Gardener
35:10
Speaker 18: Police Department, the Ashburnham Police Department, the VFAs Unit of
35:15
Speaker 18: the State Police, the Violent Fugitive Apprehension Section, the massive
35:20
Speaker 18: State Police Air Wing Troops c Headquarters out of Holding,
35:23
Speaker 18: and the State Police detectives assigned to Thewis County DA's office.
35:26
Speaker 2: We know he's still alive because dogs would have found
35:29
Speaker 2: him by now. We know the search is still on
35:33
Speaker 2: to kel stan Ta Way in You.
35:35
Speaker 9: Know, I think A couple of points have been brought
35:37
Speaker 9: up in Nancy, going to your point about the case
35:39
Speaker 9: that you had as a prosecutor where the victim asks
35:41
Speaker 9: for charges to be dropped. The thing we have to
35:44
Speaker 9: keep in mind is that not all prosecutors are like
35:46
Speaker 9: you and I, who would look in the face of
35:48
Speaker 9: a victim and say, you know, I'm going to go
35:50
Speaker 9: forward anyway. And you've mentioned in all these cases a
35:53
Speaker 9: very common theme, which is the system failed a victim.
35:55
Speaker 9: The burden was put on the victim to identify, to investigate,
35:59
Speaker 9: to co operate, and when that doesn't happen, they dismissed
36:03
Speaker 9: these cases. And unfortunately, that puts a burden on a
36:06
Speaker 9: victim that's not safe. And in this case, we know
36:09
Speaker 9: she was trying to leave, We know she was trying
36:11
Speaker 9: to get many We know in the case of Adam
36:13
Speaker 9: Beddingfield that not only had she tried to obtain a
36:16
Speaker 9: protective order, she had called the police. She was reaching
36:19
Speaker 9: out for help. She was trying to separate and have
36:22
Speaker 9: the kids. But he did say that made it so
36:25
Speaker 9: that he wasn't held accountable.
36:27
Speaker 8: Helsey, she posted she on this is Dawn just waying
36:31
Speaker 8: in she posted a over seven minute video of him
36:36
Speaker 8: hitting her, kicking her. I counted at least twenty eight
36:39
Speaker 8: kicks and blows. Even after that, on September twenty eighth,
36:44
Speaker 8: he was able to get an order of protection against.
36:48
Speaker 2: Absolutely exactly the same thing happened in Gabby Petito's case,
36:53
Speaker 2: where she was ruled the aggressor corporal Thomas way in.
36:57
Speaker 6: They didn't do a good predominant aggressor US meant they didn't.
37:01
Speaker 6: They missed numerous signs. They had no depth of knowledge
37:06
Speaker 6: when it comes to victimology.
37:09
Speaker 3: You know in the Botito case, right, Gabby Batito, No.
37:12
Speaker 6: I'm talking about Gabby Pattito. Yes, I mean those officers
37:15
Speaker 6: you see on the body cams when they're interviewing her,
37:18
Speaker 6: and they missed the wounds that she had. You know,
37:22
Speaker 6: they didn't. They weren't able to determine offensive versus defensive wounds.
37:28
Speaker 6: They never even interviewed the individuals who originally called in
37:32
Speaker 6: the two of them when they were in when they
37:35
Speaker 6: were in town and having the confrontation, citizens were so
37:39
Speaker 6: concerned they called nine to one one. It wasn't until
37:43
Speaker 6: an hour later they were pulled over.
37:45
Speaker 2: And they were witnesses seeing that's right, yim Brian Laundry beating,
37:51
Speaker 2: slapping Gabby Batito in the face. No, literally on Main
37:55
Speaker 2: Street near the Moonflower Cafe, and they were not ever
37:58
Speaker 2: even questioned.
38:00
Speaker 3: To Charles heller Way in.
38:01
Speaker 13: That case really took the attention of the entire country
38:05
Speaker 13: for a long time. And Daddy Dabby knew that something
38:10
Speaker 13: was wrong with Brian, but she didn't know how to
38:13
Speaker 13: get out of that. She didn't know how to keep
38:18
Speaker 13: the destiny that she was seeing because he must have
38:22
Speaker 13: exhibited a lot of rage and anger.
38:24
Speaker 3: Oh yes, she did not know what to do.
38:27
Speaker 2: So young and so inexperience. Rachel Louise Snyder Way in.
38:31
Speaker 17: When you see that video, who what I see is,
38:35
Speaker 17: as your guest mentioned, a system that is broken in
38:39
Speaker 17: full view of these police don't have training in how
38:44
Speaker 17: to assess who the primary aggressor is.
38:46
Speaker 7: When I think about all of.
38:47
Speaker 17: These cases, so two of the four cases that we've
38:50
Speaker 17: talked about today, there was a woman who was actually
38:55
Speaker 17: given a restraining order, and in both those cases it
38:59
Speaker 17: is the woman who's who's wound up dead. That to
39:01
Speaker 17: me is a broken system. When I think about Aaron Pennington,
39:05
Speaker 17: it's not just is he out there, is he armed
39:07
Speaker 17: and dangerous. There are other elements we can look at.
39:10
Speaker 17: In his case, he separated from the Army Rangers. He
39:14
Speaker 17: was a reservist for the last year. Separated in February,
39:17
Speaker 17: I think Racion his employer said, they confirmed that he
39:21
Speaker 17: had worked there but had lost that job or didn't
39:25
Speaker 17: have that job after March. Right, that's a disruption in
39:28
Speaker 17: the home. Then he's got mental health issues on top
39:31
Speaker 17: of that. Then he threatened suicide on top of that.
39:34
Speaker 17: And when you have someone who has a high security
39:36
Speaker 17: clearance like he had to seek out mental health help.
39:42
Speaker 7: Is to lose that security clearance. So his wife certainly
39:46
Speaker 7: knows that, so she feels duck like she can't get help.
39:49
Speaker 7: These are all indications of a broken system and a
39:53
Speaker 7: system that is prioritizing his position in society over her safety.
39:59
Speaker 7: And gentlemen are experts on their They are the experts
40:03
Speaker 7: on these men's men's behavior. These stats are often predictable, preventable.
40:09
Speaker 7: Do women foretell their own murders and they know them expertly,
40:13
Speaker 7: They're the ones who walk on eggshells.
40:15
Speaker 2: Guys, if you have information on the whereabouts of Aaron Pennington,
40:20
Speaker 2: call six one, seven, seven two seven twenty two hundred,
40:24
Speaker 2: do not approach him six one seven seven two seven
40:28
Speaker 2: twenty two hundred.
40:31
Speaker 3: If you are someone you know.
40:35
Speaker 2: Needs help, needs guidance as a domestic violence victim, dial
40:42
Speaker 2: eight hundred seven ninety nine seven two three three eight
40:45
Speaker 2: hundred seventy nine nine seven two three three. I distinctly
40:50
Speaker 2: remember a friend of mine, a very dear friend, in
40:53
Speaker 2: high school. She dropped out of high school and she
40:55
Speaker 2: got pregnant. I noticed a sudden change in her behaviorhavior.
41:00
Speaker 2: She never went anywhere without a shirt up to her neck,
41:05
Speaker 2: the sleeves down to her wrists, and always long pants,
41:09
Speaker 2: no makeup, and hair pulled back for years. Needless to say,
41:16
Speaker 2: she was a victim of domestic violence, but in high
41:18
Speaker 2: school I didn't understand what was happening. She got free
41:24
Speaker 2: and the baby as now a very well respected dental surgeon.
41:32
Speaker 2: But the years she endured I can only imagine. If
41:36
Speaker 2: you believe someone you know is suffering, don't wait. Do something,
41:44
Speaker 2: at least in the name of Brian Pennington and Kiara
41:49
Speaker 2: Hudson and Anna Walch and Gabby Patito.
41:53
Speaker 3: Do something. Goodbye, friend,