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Mom and Daughter Vanish After Trip with Ex-Boyfriend · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: So I want you to imagine a fire alarm system, right,
0:02
like installed in this massive, sprawling high rise building.
0:06
Speaker 2: Okay, like a state of the art setup exactly.
0:09
Speaker 1: The sensors wired into the ceilings are absolute top tier. Like,
0:15
they don't just detect smoke, they actually analyze the air composition.
0:18
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
0:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, they calculate the rate of temperature increase, They pinpoint
0:21
the exact origin of the spark, the moment of fire starts.
0:25
The system processes all of that data.
0:26
Speaker 2: Perfectly, right, It does its job right.
0:29
Speaker 1: The sirens activate, the strobes flash, the digital displays light
0:33
up with the exact location of the danger. But and
0:36
here's the thing, there is a fatal flaw in the architecture. Okay,
0:40
what is the automated system that it is supposed to,
0:43
you know, actually unlock the emergency stairwell doors. It's physically
0:46
disconnected from the main logic board.
0:48
Speaker 2: Oh man, so the doors are just locked.
0:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the communication relay that alerts the fire department
0:54
it was never actually plugged in. That is terrifying, right,
0:58
So the alarm is just screwing at top volume, generating
1:02
flawless data about the fire that is actively burning down
1:05
the building. But nobody has ever dispatched to fight it,
1:09
and the people inside are logged in. The data is perfect,
1:13
but the physical response is just non existent.
1:15
Speaker 2: It's a massive architectural failure. And I mean it really
1:19
gets right to the core of the paradox we're exploring today.
1:22
Speaker 1: It really does.
1:22
Speaker 2: Because we've entered this era where we deeply trust algorithms, right,
1:27
We trust data collection matrices to identify risk. We build
1:30
these vast bureaucratic systems to measure human danger.
1:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the unsettling truth is that those systems are
1:36
actually often highly accurate.
1:38
Speaker 2: Exactly the sensors work. The danger gets flagged, but a
1:41
digital flag doesn't physically stop a violent act. The structural
1:46
follow through, the actual human intervention required to leverage that data,
1:50
is where the entire architecture just collapses.
1:52
Speaker 1: And that collapse is exactly what we're dissecting in today's
1:55
deep dive. We're looking at the March twenty twenty three
1:57
murders of twenty seven year old mesh Amilen, who went
2:00
by Carmen, and her seven year old daughter, Leilah Stewart.
2:03
Speaker 2: This was in Vancouver, Washington.
2:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, Vancouver, Washington. And to map out the mechanics of
2:08
this systemic failure. We've got a really dense stack of
2:12
source material today.
2:13
Speaker 2: We do. The foundation is this incredible comprehensive investigative piece
2:18
called Systemic Failure, the murder of Meshe and Layla, which
2:22
is fantastic reporting, it is, but we're also digging into
2:26
the raw data beneath that reporting, so you know, publicly
2:30
available court dockets, police affidavits, pre trial release.
2:34
Speaker 1: Records, basically the paper trailer of the failure.
2:36
Speaker 2: Exactly, plus all the foundational local journalism from outlets like
2:41
the Colombian KTU, KGW, KPTV and Oxygen who really documented
2:47
this procedural timeline day by day.
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Speaker 1: So our mission for this deep dive is strictly analytical.
2:52
We're not here to just walk through a tragic timeline
2:55
for the sake of true crime right now.
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Speaker 2: We're here to dismantle the machine and look at the
2:59
broken part.
3:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're going to look at the actual mathematics of
3:02
a lethality assessment, specifically, how a system calculates an extreme
3:06
risk score of thirty one out of a possible eighteen.
3:09
Speaker 2: Which doesn't even sound mathematically possible.
3:11
Speaker 1: I know, right, and then the system just simply ignores
3:14
its own math. We're going to explore the jurisdictional blindness
3:17
between state lines, the mechanical failures of pre trial services,
3:23
and this current seventy million dollars civil lawsuit that is
3:26
trying to put a literal price tag on municipal negligence.
3:31
Speaker 2: Because we owe it to Carmen and Leilah to approach
3:34
this not just with respect, but with relentless scrutiny of
3:37
the institutions. I mean, a system cannot be reformed if
3:40
we don't understand exactly how it failed.
3:42
Speaker 1: Absolutely, So before we get into the institutional mechanics, let's
3:46
establish the human stakes. Who work Harmon and.
3:49
Speaker 2: Lila, right, we have to know who the system failed
3:52
to protect.
3:52
Speaker 1: Carmen Melendez was twenty seven. She lived in the Mini
3:55
Haha neighborhood of Vancouver, and when you read through the
3:58
court records of the family statements, you don't see this
4:01
sterile profile of a quote unquote perfect.
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Speaker 2: Victim, which is often what the legal system prefers.
4:06
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, Yeah, exactly, you see a real complex human being.
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Carmen actively and openly documented her past struggles with mental
4:14
health and substance issues right in the court records.
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Speaker 2: She was incredibly transparent.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, she didn't hide it. She was transparent about the
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fact that she was actively doing the hard work to
4:23
rebuild her life.
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Speaker 2: Okay, let's unpack this for a second. That transparency is
4:28
vital to analyze because of how institutions historically view victims.
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The criminal justice system operates most efficiently on these binary narratives.
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Speaker 1: Like the flawless, innocent victim versus the irredeemable villain.
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Speaker 2: Exactly so, when a victim comes to the court and says, look,
4:44
I have substance issues, I have mental health struggles, but
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I'm trying to build a stable home for my child,
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the system often really struggles to process that complexity.
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Speaker 1: It can make them vulnerable, right.
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Speaker 2: Highly vulnerable. It opens them up to having their credibility
4:59
weaponized against the later by the abuser or even the defense.
5:03
But Carmen wasn't hiding. She was acting as the anchor
5:06
for her family.
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Speaker 1: The sources highlight that constantly she was the organizer. She
5:11
was the one setting up these regular video chats to
5:13
ensure her daughter, Lila was closely kethered to her.
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Speaker 2: Extended family, especially her grandmother and Nicol Norris.
5:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, Nicol and Lila was seven. The visual details the
5:24
family shared in the sources are just their heartbreaking dark
5:28
hair pulled back with bright bows, wearing a white, ruffled
5:31
dress beside a Christmas tree.
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Speaker 2: It really paints a picture of a child who was
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just the absolute focal point of her family's world completely.
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Speaker 1: You think about her father, Joante Stewart and her grandmother
5:42
Nichol and just the sheer magnitude of what they lost.
5:45
Speaker 2: And we need to keep that focus on Carmen and
5:47
Layla because as we dive into all this bureaucratic terminology,
5:51
you know, bail algorithms, GPS, teathers, interstate databases, the human
5:55
element can just evaporate.
5:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, it turns into paperwork exactly.
5:59
Speaker 2: But the routine of those video calls with Grandma, that
6:03
is the baseline of normalcy that was actively targeted and
6:06
destroyed by a known, documented.
6:08
Speaker 1: Threat, which brings us to the introduction of that threat.
6:11
Kirkland Sirrong Warren. He was twenty eight at the time
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of these murders in twenty twenty three. But his interaction
6:16
with the justice system didn't start in Washington State, No,
6:18
it did not. We have to look at the escalation
6:20
curve started way back in Arkansas in twenty seventeen.
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Speaker 2: Right, So, in November twenty seventeen, down in Arkansas, Warren
6:27
was involved in the homicide of a man named Curtis Urkerhart.
6:31
Speaker 1: Okay, and what happened there.
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Speaker 2: Well, according to the records, Urkurt was a passenger in
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Warren's vehicle, and over what was reportedly a dispute regarding money,
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Warren shot him with a point two two caliber handgun
6:43
and then just discarded his body in a ditch.
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Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Warren was arrested the following month. By early twenty eighteen,
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he was formally charged with first degree murder and abuse
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of a corpse.
6:54
Speaker 1: Okay, let's stop right there and look at the mechanics
6:56
of the bail system, because this is where the very
6:58
first massive structural crack appears in this story.
7:01
Speaker 2: It really is.
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Speaker 1: He is indicted for first green murder and abusing a corpse.
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The court sets his bond at two hundred and fifty
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thousand dollars, he posts it, and he walks out.
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Speaker 2: He just walks right out.
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Speaker 1: I have to push back on this on a fundamental
7:13
level for you listening, how does the judicial architecture allow
7:16
a first degree murder suspect to literally purchase their freedom
7:20
while awaiting trial.
7:21
Speaker 2: Well, it requires an understanding of the historical and constitutional
7:25
framework of bail in the US. Bail inherently is not
7:29
supposed to be punitive.
7:30
Speaker 1: Right innocent until proving guilty exactly.
7:33
Speaker 2: It's structurally designed to ensure the defendant returns for trial
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while honoring that presumption of innocence. But the commercial bail
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bond industry fundamentally alters that map.
7:45
Speaker 1: How So, like he didn't actually hand over a quarter.
7:48
Speaker 2: Million dollars, No, No, A two hundred and fifty thousand
7:50
dollars bond does not mean Warren handed the court a
7:54
quarter of a million in cash. Through a shirty bond,
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a defendant typically only needs to secure.
7:59
Speaker 1: Ten percent, so twenty five grand right.
8:01
Speaker 2: Twenty five thousand dollars and provides some collateral to a
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bill bonesman. If he can leverage those assets. The severity
8:08
of the crime is momentarily decoupled from his physical detention.
8:12
The court essentially says, we deem you a flight risk
8:15
or a danger, but we have priced that danger at
8:18
this specific dollar amount. If you can pay it, you're free.
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Speaker 1: So the system puts a financial threshold on public safety,
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and if you clear the threshold, the safety concern is
8:27
just tabled and Warren cleared it. So he is out
8:30
on bond for a honicide and the trial drags on
8:34
for years. During this period, he leaves Arkansas and ends
8:38
up in Washington State.
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Speaker 2: And the systemic alarms immediately start tripping in Washington.
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Speaker 1: Right In twenty twenty, Vancouver police investigate him for possessing
8:47
a stolen semi automatic handgun. He surrenders it, he goes
8:51
into evidence, but then in March of twenty twenty one,
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he physically walks into a retail gun store in Camas, Washington.
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Speaker 2: He attempts to purchase a nine millimeter handgun. Now, on
9:02
the federal application, there is a specific question asking if
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the applicant is currently under indictment for a felony, which he.
9:08
Speaker 1: Obviously is a murder right, but Warren checks the box
9:11
saying no. He blatantly lies on the federal form.
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Speaker 2: The background check catches the lie, right, and the application
9:16
is denied. Yes, but here is the mass of disconnect
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I need you to explain to me. The computer system
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in Washington catches him lying on a federal firearms application
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while he has an active first degree murder indictment in Arkansas.
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Speaker 1: Why is the localized response just to deny the sale.
9:32
Why doesn't that background check trigger a massive flashing alert
9:36
to the judge in Arkansas to immediately revoke his bail.
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Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, you are
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identifying the major flaw of interstate jurisdictional blindness.
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Speaker 1: Okay, jurisdictional blindness. Walk me through that.
9:50
Speaker 2: To understand how this fails, we have to look at
9:52
the databases. When you buy a gun, the store runs
9:56
your information through NICs. That's the National Instant Criminal back
10:00
Ground Check System right, and ICs queries state and federal databases.
10:04
It sees the Arkansas indictment, so the system operates exactly
10:08
as programmed. It generates a deny status for the firearm transfer.
10:12
Speaker 1: So the data was there, The alarm detected the smoke.
10:14
Speaker 2: Yes, the alarm went off. But NICs is a query system,
10:17
not a broadcast system. It is essentially a one way mirror.
10:20
Speaker 1: A one way mirror, what do you mean?
10:22
Speaker 2: It looks at the Arkansas file to make a decision
10:24
in Washington, but it does not send an automated outbound
10:28
alert back to the Arkansas prosecutor. Saying, Hey, your murder
10:31
defendant just tried to buy a nine millimeter?
10:33
Speaker 1: Are you kidding me? It doesn't send an alert.
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Speaker 2: It does not unless a local Washington detective specifically takes
10:39
the initiative to track down the Arkansas prosecutor's contact information,
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pick up a phone, and manually report the denied application.
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The Arkansas court remains completely oblivious.
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Speaker 1: So it's not that the computers can't talk to each other,
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it's that the system doesn't have an outbound notification protocol
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at all.
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Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 1: It relies entirely on an under reseat hours local officer
11:01
going above and beyond to manually connect the.
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Speaker 2: Silos exactly, and violent offenders often exploit the specific structural
11:08
gap crossing state lines acts as a buffer. The local
11:11
authorities in Washington just see a denied gun app which
11:15
frankly is a low priority paperwork crime in a busy jurisdiction.
11:19
Speaker 1: Sure they have bigger things to worry about, right.
11:21
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, the authorities in Arkansas are completely blind to his
11:24
escalating behavior. The jurisdictional silos end up protecting the predator,
11:28
not the public.
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Speaker 1: Man. That sets the stage for late twenty twenty two.
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Warren is living in Washington, fully aware that the system
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is fragmented, and his relationship with Carmen begins to exhibit
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this profound coercive control.
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Speaker 2: Yes, and this escalates to undeniable violence. On December thirteenth,
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twenty twenty two, the record.
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Speaker 1: Show there was an argument at Carmen's apartment. Warren exits
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the apartment, goes outside and intentionally fires a gun directly
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at her balcony window while she is standing inside.
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Speaker 2: Just incredible, dangerous, escalating behavior.
12:02
Speaker 1: Ten days later, on December twenty three, Carmen reports this.
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She gives a formal statement to the police. Two months later,
12:09
in February, a friend of hers corroborates the event to investigators.
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Speaker 2: So they have the statement and the witness.
12:15
Speaker 1: Yes, the police have the victim statement, a witness, and
12:17
the physical evidence of the shooting. But then on February seventeen,
12:21
twenty twenty three, Carmen formally recants.
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Speaker 2: This is a crucial turning point.
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Speaker 1: She contacts the authorities and says she wants to take
12:27
it all back, and she explicitly points to her own
12:30
mental health and drug issues as the reason her initial
12:33
report shouldn't be trusted.
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Speaker 2: Right, and for decades, the mechanical response of the justice
12:37
system to a recantation was to immediately just drop the case.
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The logic was simple, no cooperative witness, no prosecution.
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Speaker 1: Which makes sense on a surface level.
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Speaker 2: But modern domestic violence research, which Washington State has thankfully
12:49
integrated into its legal framework, understands the mechanics of recantation
12:53
very differently. Recantation is not proof that the crime didn't happen.
12:57
It is often proof of the exact opposite. It is
13:00
a symptom of severe, escalating coercive control.
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Speaker 1: So put yourself in karmen shoes for a second. Walk
13:07
me through the psychology of that. Why would she point
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to her own struggles? Why fall on her own sword
13:12
like that?
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Speaker 2: It is a highly calculated survival mechanism. An abuser creates
13:16
a psychological and often economic hostage situation. They leverage the
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victim's deepest insecurities, so.
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Speaker 1: He's using her transparency.
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Speaker 2: Against her exactly. The abuser will tell the victim, look
13:28
at your history, look at your substance issues. If you
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go to court, they won't believe you. Worse, they'll take
13:34
your daughter away.
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Speaker 1: Oh wow, that is pure manipulation.
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Speaker 2: It is so the victim terrified of losing her child
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and terrified of an abuser who has already literally fired
13:42
a gun at her home, adopts the abuser's narrative just
13:46
to de escalate the immediate threat. She falls on her
13:49
own sword to survive the week.
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Speaker 1: But the investigators in Washington didn't close the file when
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she recanted.
13:55
Speaker 2: They did not. Washington utilizes evidence based prosecution protocol. Officers
14:01
are trained to build the case so it can stand
14:03
independently of the victim's testimony.
14:05
Speaker 1: So they don't even need her on the stand.
14:07
Speaker 2: Right They look at the nine to eleven logs, the ballistics,
14:09
the corroborating witnesses. Because the system finally recognized that putting
14:13
the entire burden of prosecution on a terrified victim is
14:17
a dereliction of duty.
14:19
Speaker 1: That's actually a huge win for the system right there.
14:21
Speaker 2: It is based on the physical evidence. On March two,
14:24
twenty twenty three, police arrest Kirkland Warren.
14:27
Speaker 1: They hit him with a massive list of charges second
14:30
degree domestic violence, assault, drive by shooting, false statement on
14:34
a gun, app harassment, and possession of a stolen firearm.
14:38
Speaker 2: The police executed their role perfectly there.
14:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, the suspect is in handcuffs. And this is where
14:43
we have to pivot, because this is the anatomy of
14:46
a complete catastrophic bureaucratic collapse. The police built the containment
14:50
wall and the pre trial services architecture spent the next
14:53
week systematically dismantling it.
14:55
Speaker 2: The moment Warren is processed into the jail, the system
14:58
administers a fality assessment. This is a really critical piece
15:03
of the structural response.
15:04
Speaker 1: What exactly is a lethality assessment?
15:06
Speaker 2: It is a standardized actuarial tool used to mathematically gauge
15:10
the statistical probability that an abuser will murder their.
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Speaker 1: Victim, okay, and his score. This is the detail that
15:17
demands absolute scrutiny from anyone listening. The lethality assessment scored
15:21
Warren's risk to Carmen at thirty one out of a possible.
15:25
Speaker 2: Eighteen, which sounds completely broken.
15:27
Speaker 1: Right Mathematically Explain this to me. How does the system
15:30
invent a metric with a maximum threshold of eighteen and
15:33
then generate a score thirty one.
15:35
Speaker 2: While tools like the marilynd Lethality Assessment Program, which heavily
15:38
influenced standard models across the country, they typically rely on
15:42
a base questionnaire say eighteen fundamental questions like what like
15:46
does he own a gun? Has he ever threatened to
15:48
kill you? Is he unemployed? Each yes generates a base point.
15:53
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's the out of eighteen parts.
15:55
Speaker 2: Right. However, modern actuarial tools include categorical multipliers for highly
15:59
predictive of fatal behaviors multiplier yes. If the abuser has
16:03
previously used a weapon against the victim, or if there
16:06
is a history of non fatal strangulation, the algorithm applies
16:10
an exponential multiplier or severe add on points because those
16:14
specific acts are statistically proven precursors to homicide. Oh I see,
16:19
So the score of thirty one doesn't mean the math broke.
16:22
It means Warren triggered every single baseline factor plus the
16:26
most severe lethal multipliers available in the system. The system
16:29
didn't just flag him, It screamed that this was an active,
16:32
imminent threat to life.
16:33
Speaker 1: Okay, so the date is perfectly clear. The prosecution looks
16:36
at this thirty one out of eighteen score, they look
16:38
at the active first degree murder case in Arkansas, and
16:41
they go to the judge. Right, they request one hundred
16:43
thousand dollars bail, an intensive mandatory pre Trial Supervision Judge
16:48
Susan Clark oversees the hearing. She looks at the data,
16:50
and she orders the bail issues a strict no contact
16:53
order and explicitly mandates GPS ankle monitoring if he posts the.
16:57
Speaker 2: Funds so on paper the architecture holds up. The judge
17:00
writes the correct work order exactly.
17:03
Speaker 1: But here's where it gets really interesting, or rather completely infuriating.
17:08
The execution of that work order is where the diffusion
17:11
of responsibility proves fatal. We could break this down into
17:15
a cascading sequence of physical and procedural failures.
17:18
Speaker 2: Let's go through them. Failure one occurs while he is
17:20
still inside the jail.
17:21
Speaker 1: Right, Warren uses the jail telecommunication system to call Carmen twice,
17:26
actively violating the judges no contact order to pressure her.
17:30
Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is how this happens without an immediate intervention.
17:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, if the system knows he's a thirty one out
17:36
of eighteen risk and the judge literally just ordered no contact,
17:40
how does the phone physically connect? And why doesn't an
17:42
alarm go off at a guard's desk?
17:45
Speaker 2: Because of how correctional telecom infrastructure like securis or Global
17:48
Telling actually operates. The systems record the calls and they
17:52
log the dialed numbers, but they do not employ active,
17:55
real time human monitoring for every pre trial detaining.
17:58
Speaker 1: So nobody is sitting there with head fie.
18:00
Speaker 2: No, the data is just stored in a server. It
18:03
requires a prosecutor or an investigator to proactively request the logs,
18:08
pull the audio, and present the violation to the court.
18:12
The system passively logs the crime, it does not actively
18:15
prevent it.
18:16
Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, So he violates the order from a county
18:19
facility and nothing happens. That's failure one. Failure number two.
18:23
On March eight, less than a week after his arrest,
18:26
he posts one hundred thousand dollars bail. He's processed, and
18:29
he walks out the doors of the jail without the
18:32
court ordered GPS monitor attached to his ankle.
18:35
Speaker 2: This is staggering.
18:36
Speaker 1: Walk me through the physical doors here. How does a
18:39
human being bypass a judge's explicit mandate to attach a
18:42
piece of hardware to their body?
18:44
Speaker 2: To understand this, I want to use an analogy of
18:46
a factory assembly line. Okay, the judge is the foreman
18:49
who writes the manufacturing order release. This part, but only
18:53
after attaching this component. The jail acts as the conveyor belt,
18:56
physically moving the individual from the holding pod to the exit.
19:00
Pre Trial Services is the workstation responsible for attaching the
19:03
GPS monitor.
19:03
Speaker 1: Okay, makes sense, but in.
19:05
Speaker 2: Many jurisdictions these are entirely separate physical departments. Sometimes they're
19:09
even in separate buildings. The jail processes the financial release
19:13
and opens the door, handing the detainee a piece of
19:16
paper that essentially says, walk across the street to the
19:20
pre Trial Services office and have them put the monitor on.
19:24
Speaker 1: You wait, you're saying. They rely on the honor system
19:28
for a man with a thirty one out of eighteen
19:30
lethality score.
19:31
Speaker 2: They rely on the compartmentalization of bureaucracy. The jail guards
19:36
assume pre Trial Services will catch him if he doesn't
19:39
show up. Pre Trial Services doesn't know he's been released
19:42
until the paperwork cycles through their inbox, which can take days.
19:45
Speaker 1: That is insane.
19:47
Speaker 2: So Warren walks out the double doors of the jail,
19:49
looks at the piece of paper telling him to go
19:51
get a tracking device, and simply goes home instead. No
19:55
one is physically stationed at the exit to verify the
19:58
installation before he hits the STA.
20:00
Speaker 1: That is the literal definition of bureaucratic diffusion of responsibility.
20:04
Everyone assumes the person down the line is doing the
20:07
quality checks, so nobody actually looks at the product, and
20:09
this leads to failure number three. He never reports to
20:13
the pre trial desk, and nobody drafts a bench warrant.
20:17
Speaker 2: The failure is absolute, which brings us to failure number four,
20:21
and this is perhaps the most egregious mechanical breakdown of all.
20:25
On March tenth, two days after he walked out unmonitored,
20:28
Warren actually returns to the courthouse for a scheduled hearing.
20:32
He physically places himself back inside the system.
20:35
Speaker 1: He's literally standing in the courthouse and the probation officers
20:39
take zero corrective steps. They don't look down at his
20:42
ankle to see if the device is there. They don't
20:44
detain him for the jail.
20:45
Speaker 2: Calls, because the daily reality of a courthouse is overwhelming volume.
20:49
The predation officer at the desk is looking at the
20:52
immediate daily docket sheet, not the master file with the
20:55
lethality score.
20:56
Speaker 1: They're just trying to get through the day's line of people.
20:58
Speaker 2: Exactly him would require halting the docket, cross referencing the
21:03
release conditions, drafting new holding orders, and coordinating with deputies.
21:07
As the sources point out, the system chose convenience over caution.
21:12
They processed his basic hearing appearance and let him walk
21:15
right back.
21:15
Speaker 1: Out, and that choice directly initiates the fatal weekend. We
21:21
have documented the total collapse of the containment wall. Now
21:25
we have to look at what happens when the predator
21:27
is let loose. March eleventh, the day after he walks
21:30
out of that courthouse, Carmen, seven year old Lilah, and
21:34
Warren are staying at an acquaintance's apartment in the Van
21:37
Maull neighborhood. The next morning, March twelve, at six am,
21:42
the three of them leave in Warren's Burgundy Dodge Charger.
21:46
Speaker 2: This really highlights the horrific reality of the honeymoon phase
21:49
or the placation phase, and the cycle of abuse. Carmen
21:52
knew the system failed to keep him.
21:54
Speaker 1: Locked up right she saw on walk free.
21:55
Speaker 2: The police arrested him, that the courts led him out.
21:58
She is now forced into a position where she has
22:00
to independently manage an unmonitored, enraged threat. She's just trying
22:04
to keep the peace to stay.
22:05
Speaker 1: Alive that evening. The timeline presents this chilling sequence of events.
22:09
The acquaintance of the apartment sees Warren returning the charger,
22:13
but he's alone in the driver's seat.
22:14
Speaker 2: This part is so disturbing.
22:16
Speaker 1: The acquaintance looks out and sees Carmen unconscious and half
22:20
dressed in the passenger seat. Warren doesn't call nine one one,
22:24
He doesn't act panic. He calmly walks into the apartment,
22:27
retrieves seven year old Lilah, brings her out to the
22:29
car with her unconscious mother, and drives away.
22:33
Speaker 2: The psychological calculation of that pause is deeply disturbing. This
22:36
was not a single continuous crime of passion. He committed
22:40
violence against the mother, recognized he had to witnessed the
22:43
child in the apartment, and made a calculated geographical intermission
22:47
to return to the scene, collect the child and eliminate
22:50
the witness.
22:50
Speaker 1: He went back just for her.
22:51
Speaker 2: Yes, it demonstrates a terrifying degree of premeditation.
22:56
Speaker 1: Carmen's car is later found abandoned near that apartment. For days,
23:00
there is just silence. Nickel Norris misses her regular video chats.
23:05
On March eighteenth, the panic solidifies into action and she
23:08
reports them missing, so.
23:09
Speaker 2: The police get involved in right.
23:10
Speaker 1: The Vancouver plays to a welfare check at Carmen's apartment
23:13
and all they find is her dog barking relentlessly in
23:17
an empty home.
23:17
Speaker 2: The following day, March nineteenth, a public missing person's bulletin
23:22
is issued, and ironically, on that exact day, the system
23:25
suddenly wakes up to its own paperwork.
23:27
Speaker 1: What do you mean?
23:28
Speaker 2: Police arrest Warren not for murder, but for the jail
23:31
phone calls he made weeks prior then no contact violation
23:35
the system had completely ignored until it was politically or
23:38
practically necessary to detain him.
23:40
Speaker 1: Unbelievable. Three days later, March twenty two, a passerby in
23:45
rural Clark County off southeast Wooding Road sees what they
23:49
think her two mannequins dump down a steep embankment in
23:51
the brush. Deputies arrive and the reality is devastating. It
23:55
is Carmen and Lilah.
23:57
Speaker 2: The details from the medical examiner are awful.
23:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, the emmy notes the advanced decomposition indicates they were
24:02
killed very shortly after they disappeared on March twelve. Both
24:05
had been shot in the head. Seven year old Leila
24:08
had been shot twice.
24:09
Speaker 2: And this is where we must really contrast the failure
24:12
of pre trial services with the sudden, overwhelming efficacy of
24:16
a homicide investigation.
24:17
Speaker 1: Right because suddenly everyone is doing their.
24:19
Speaker 2: Job exactly Once the bodies are found, the silos collapse.
24:23
The system operates with lethal precision. Investigators immediately pull cell
24:28
phone location data. They map the exact ping locations of
24:31
Warren's phone against the timeline of the dodge charger. They
24:35
execute search warrants.
24:37
Speaker 1: The digital footprint matches the physical evidence perfectly.
24:40
Speaker 2: It does. They charge them with first degree aggravated murder,
24:43
second degree murder, and, based on the horrific autopsy findings,
24:47
first degree child molestation.
24:49
Speaker 1: The family's lawsuit explicitly describes the reality of what Lilah
24:53
endured as a beating, rape, and murder. So Warren is
24:57
in custody. The forensic evidence is a mountain, but the
25:01
procedural wilderness of the courtroom introduces a defense strategy that
25:04
is frankly an insult to physics and human intelligence.
25:08
Speaker 2: It's absurd.
25:09
Speaker 1: He claims the shootings were accidental.
25:10
Speaker 2: His narrative presented to the court was that he was high,
25:13
that he had actually provided Carmen with a gun for
25:15
her protection, and that during an argument inside the vehicle,
25:18
the firearm coincidentally discharged multiple times.
25:21
Speaker 1: Let's dissect the ballistics of that claim. I mean, he
25:24
wants the court to believe that a gun accidentally discharges
25:28
in the confined space of a car, manages to strike
25:30
two entirely different targets sitting in different seats directly in
25:35
the head, and it accidentally strikes the seven year old twice.
25:38
Speaker 2: It makes zero sense.
25:39
Speaker 1: And this miraculous sequence of accidental discharges just happens to
25:43
correlate with autopsy evidence of sexual assault. It's a defense
25:47
completely divorced from forensic reality.
25:49
Speaker 2: It really is. It was likely designed simply to introduce
25:53
any possible narrative of reasonable doubt, no matter how absurd. However,
25:57
the state's data was impenetrable. In September twenty twenty four,
26:02
the legal maneuvering ends in a plea deal.
26:04
Speaker 1: Okay, what were the terms.
26:05
Speaker 2: Warren pleads guilty to second degree murder for Carmen, an
26:08
aggravated first degree murder for Lila, but for the charge
26:11
of child molestation he enters an Alford plea.
26:14
Speaker 1: Okay, we need to unpack the mechanics of an Alfred
26:16
plea because it feels like a massive concession by the
26:19
justice system at the expense of the victims' families. What
26:22
exactly is it?
26:23
Speaker 2: This raises an important question. The Alford plea originates from
26:26
a nineteen seventy Supreme Court case North Carolina v. Alford. Mechanically,
26:32
it is a guilty plea where the defendant explicitly does
26:35
not admit to the criminal act.
26:37
Speaker 1: Wait, they don't admit guilt, right.
26:39
Speaker 2: They maintain their factual innocence, but they formally stayed on
26:43
the record that they recognize the prosecution has gathered enough
26:45
evidence to convince a judge or jury to convict them
26:49
beyond a reasonable doubt.
26:50
Speaker 1: So it's like, I didn't do it, but you're going
26:52
to prove I did it anyway exactly.
26:54
Speaker 2: They accept the punishment to avoid the risk of a
26:56
harsher penalty at trial.
26:58
Speaker 1: Why does the system allow that? Why does the prosecutor
27:00
accept the deal where the guy doesn't even have to
27:03
admit he.
27:03
Speaker 2: Did it for the prosecutor It is an algorithmic decision
27:06
regarding resources and Alfred plea secures the conviction, ensures the sentence,
27:12
and completely eliminates the financial cost, time and appellate risks
27:15
of a lengthy trial.
27:16
Speaker 1: So the state gets its win on paper.
27:19
Speaker 2: Yes, but for the families it is a profound emotional deficit.
27:23
The family is denied the foundational closure of accountability. They're
27:27
denied the moment where the perpetrator has to look at
27:30
the court and say I committed this act.
27:32
Speaker 1: That lack of accountability was palpable. At the sentencing on
27:35
October eighth, twenty twenty four, Judge David Grigorson of the
27:39
Clark County Superior Court impose the absolute maximum penalty, life
27:44
in prison without the possibility of parole.
27:47
Speaker 2: He cited the imponderable suffering inflicted on the families.
27:50
Speaker 1: And the victim impact statements. I mean Gavonte Steart speaking
27:54
with a suffocating weight of the grief. Nicol Norris standing
27:57
there and articulating the destruction of her lineage, saying, a
28:00
part of me died with my girls. I am no
28:02
longer a girl, mom, I'm no longer a grandmother. She
28:05
lost two generations simultaneously.
28:07
Speaker 2: It's devastating, and Warren.
28:08
Speaker 1: Used his pre sentencing statement just to reiterate his accidental
28:11
shooting fiction.
28:12
Speaker 2: Right, But he was removed from society permanently. The criminal
28:16
justice architecture succeeded in its final punitive phase. But putting
28:21
a padlock on the cell of one man does not
28:24
fix the disconnected wires of the fire alarm that allowed
28:26
him to strike in the first place.
28:28
Speaker 1: Exactly, which brings us to the core systemic focus of
28:31
this deep dive, the demand for structural accountability. Because the
28:35
families refused to let the narrative end with a prison.
28:38
Speaker 2: Sentence, they took further raction.
28:40
Speaker 1: They did recently. On September seventeenth, twenty twenty five, Nicol
28:44
Norris and Javante Stuart filed a massive wrongful death lawsuit
28:48
in Clark County Superior Court. They are targeting the county itself,
28:53
along with the probation and pre trial services departments.
28:55
Speaker 2: What's the scale of the lawsuit?
28:57
Speaker 1: The initial torte claims sought thirty five million dollars per estate,
29:01
establishing a seventy million dollar framework for the scale of
29:04
this litigation. Now, for you listening, why should you care
29:08
about a civil lawsuit regarding municipal liability in Clark County right.
29:11
Speaker 2: Why does this matter to the listener?
29:13
Speaker 1: It matters because the exact same infrastructure operates in nearly
29:16
every jurisdiction.
29:17
Speaker 2: Exactly, and the standard of negligence for a municipality is
29:21
incredibly high. Typically, governments have qualified immunity, meaning you cannot
29:26
sue them simply because a crime occurred. You have to
29:28
prove gross negligence or that the county breached a specific
29:32
duty of care owed directly.
29:33
Speaker 1: To the victim. And how do they prove that duty
29:35
of care in this case?
29:36
Speaker 2: That is where the lethality score of thirty one out
29:39
of eighteen becomes the lynchpin of the lawsuit.
29:42
Speaker 1: Oh, because they mathematically prove the dangerous Yes.
29:45
Speaker 2: The plaintiffs argue that by generating that specific mathematical score
29:49
and by a judge issuing a specific mandate for GPS
29:52
monitoring based on that score, the county explicitly assumed a
29:56
duty to monitor him.
29:57
Speaker 1: They can't unknow the math right.
30:00
Speaker 2: Lawsuit meticulously lists the mechanical failures, ignoring the jail calls,
30:04
the physical release without the hardware, the failure of probation
30:08
to check the ankle. At the March ten hearing, they
30:11
are arguing that these weren't just innocent mistakes. There were
30:13
gross systemic derelictions of a documented duty.
30:16
Speaker 1: David Brown, the attorney representing the families, filed this suit
30:20
right around what would have been Leila's tenth birthday. He
30:23
pointed out the impossibility of placing a monetary value on
30:26
a life of a seven year old. But the seventy
30:28
million dollar figure isn't really about valuation, it's about leverage.
30:33
How does a civil suit actually force a county budget
30:36
to change its protocols?
30:37
Speaker 2: Well, civil litigation is often the only mechanism capable of
30:41
overwriting bureaucratic inertia.
30:43
Speaker 1: What do you mean?
30:44
Speaker 2: Criminal courts deal with individual liberty, but civil courts deal
30:47
with institutional capital. Municipalities carry massive insurance policies. When a
30:52
county is faced with the potential multimillion dollar jury verdict,
30:56
risk management actuaries get involved, so it hits their wallet exactly. Suddenly,
31:00
the county commissioners realize that hiring three more probation officers
31:04
to physically stand at the jail exit, we're spending fifty
31:07
thousand dollars to integrate the jail phone logs with the
31:10
pre trial database is vastly cheaper. Than paying out seventy
31:13
million dollars for negligence. The financial threat forces the structural upgrade, and.
31:19
Speaker 1: The advocacy is pushing for legislative permanence too, not just
31:22
localized fixes. The Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence is
31:27
using the catastrophic failure of Carmen and Lyla's case to
31:30
lobby for statutory changes.
31:32
Speaker 2: What are they asking for.
31:33
Speaker 1: They want mandatory, non discretionary GPS monitoring for any offender
31:38
who hits a high risk threshold. They want the assembly
31:41
line redesigned so the conveyor belt physically cannot move until
31:45
the monitor is attached. And they are demanding the interstate
31:48
informational silos be torn down, so a bail status in
31:52
Arkansas actively triggers an alert in Washington and ICs checks.
31:56
Speaker 2: Washington has historically led the way, and recognizing this, I
31:59
call it ge of domestic violence, like passing those evidence
32:02
based prosecution laws we talked about earlier. But this lawsuit
32:05
and this advocacy effort highlight the brutal truth that legislative
32:09
intent is absolutely meaningless without operational enforcement.
32:13
Speaker 1: You can write the best laws in the country, but
32:15
if the pre trial desk clerk doesn't check the ankle.
32:18
The laws just ink on paper, so we have dismantled
32:22
the machine. Today we looked at Carmen, a mother fighting
32:25
for stability, and Leilah, the joyful center of her family.
32:28
We trace the path of a predator who exploited the
32:31
jurisdictional blindness between Arkansas and Washington. We analyze the mathematics
32:36
of a lethality score that broke its own scale, and
32:39
we walk step by step through a county courthouse that
32:42
simply refused to look at the data it collected.
32:45
Speaker 2: This deep dive illustrates the terrible cost of a bureaucracy
32:48
that prioritizes the smooth daily functioning of its stockets over
32:52
the physical safety of its citizens. Kirkland Warren is responsible
32:56
for the murders, but the system engineered the environment that
33:00
allowed him to commit them.
33:01
Speaker 1: Before we sign off, we maintain the focus on the
33:03
actual human cost. The advocacy group the Vivid Phases of
33:07
the Vanish posted a tribute that distilled this entirely in
33:11
loving memory of a mother and daughter forever together. Their
33:14
names are Carmen and Lila, and their tragedy is currently
33:17
serving as the blueprint to force the architecture of the
33:20
justice system to actually function.
33:21
Speaker 2: I will leave you with a final thought on the
33:23
nature of the systems we build. We live in an
33:26
era that worships predictive data. We believe that if we
33:29
can measure a problem, we can solve it right. But
33:32
if an algorithm flawlessly calculates a maximum risk of violence,
33:36
if the fire alarm detects the smoke with absolute perfection,
33:39
yet the human beings operating the system fail to execute
33:42
the basic physical action of turning a key or attaching
33:45
a monitor, we must ask ourselves, does the data actually
33:48
make us safer? Or does knowledge without structural action merely
33:52
provide a meticulously documented timeline of a tragedy we chose
33:55
not to prevent.