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Serial Killer Documentary - Jason Scott’s Secret Life · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:12
Speaker 1: I was imagining how she had to have felt in
0:14
Speaker 1: that predicament. It's just heartbreaking to be a 16-year-old girl.
0:17
Speaker 2: A monster like that comes in and takes your life
0:20
Speaker 2: from you.
0:43
Speaker 3: Jason Scott was an extraordinarily dangerous criminal who masqueraded as
0:49
Speaker 3: an ordinary person.
0:51
Speaker 4: He's saying to you, criminal justice system, I am smarter
0:54
Speaker 4: than you.
0:56
Speaker 2: If you feel like somebody is watching you, they are.
1:00
Speaker 4: I'm successful at doing it.
1:02
Speaker 5: Why stop?
1:04
Speaker 2: It don't cross your mind that sick people like that exist.
1:11
Speaker 2: My life was perfect. before everything happened.
1:59
Speaker 6: Upper Marlborough, a suburb 20 miles east of Washington, D.C.,
2:05
Speaker 6: is home to the Lofton family. Dad, Kirk. Mom, Karen.
2:13
Speaker 6: Two sons, Kirk Jr. and Keon. And daughter, Carissa.
2:19
Speaker 7: My daughter was a very inspiring, very beautiful gift.
2:25
Speaker 1: She was a gift. She went through some struggles.
2:28
Speaker 7: She had an open-heart surgery because she had something going
2:31
Speaker 7: on with a valve in her heart and everything, and
2:33
Speaker 7: she bounced right back like it was nothing.
2:35
Speaker 1: I mean, she was very strong.
2:43
Speaker 8: I am Keon Lofton. Karen Lofton was my mother. Carissa
2:49
Speaker 8: was my younger sister. My mother was a really caring person.
2:56
Speaker 8: She was in the nursing field as long as I
2:59
Speaker 8: can remember. I remember being a little child and going
3:03
Speaker 8: with her to work with her and just all the
3:08
Speaker 8: love that she would get from her coworkers.
3:12
Speaker 7: She was probably one of the best nurses of her time.
3:20
Speaker 8: Carissa's personality around that age was typical teenage girl. She
3:26
Speaker 8: was still trying to figure herself out, pleasant, kind person.
3:32
Speaker 8: You can see her modeling after the characteristics and values
3:37
Speaker 8: and things that my mother instilled in all of us,
3:40
Speaker 8: and you can just see the trajectory of the type
3:44
Speaker 8: of woman that she was going to become.
3:49
Speaker 6: In 2008, Kirk moves away after his marriage to Karen
3:52
Speaker 6: breaks down.
3:53
Speaker 7: Moved to Georgia in 2008. I was remarried. I still
3:59
Speaker 7: remained in contact with my daughter. As a matter of fact,
4:01
Speaker 7: she was supposed to move down here and go to college.
4:10
Speaker 2: Prince George's County 911 Center.
4:12
Speaker 1: What is your emergency?
4:14
Speaker 2: Ma'am, I've been shot.
4:15
Speaker 6: My mother has been shot.
4:17
Speaker 2: I'm bleeding through the ass.
4:20
Speaker 4: Please slow down.
4:20
Speaker 5: What's the address?
4:27
Speaker 9: You know, if we need any kind of testament to
4:29
Speaker 9: Carissa's courage, this is a young teenager, a 16-year-old, who
4:37
Speaker 9: has been involved in a home invasion, which is one
4:41
Speaker 9: of the most terrifying things anybody can imagine. She's been shot,
4:44
Speaker 9: and she has the kind of strength of mind to
4:48
Speaker 9: call 911 while she's bleeding. and to report to them
4:54
Speaker 9: that she has been shot, her mom has been shot,
4:56
Speaker 9: and she tells the operator, you know, I'm bleeding to death,
5:00
Speaker 9: please hurry. Unfortunately, the phone is hung up. And by
5:07
Speaker 9: the time they get there, it's too late.
5:15
Speaker 8: So the night of the, when everything happened, I was
5:19
Speaker 8: at my girlfriend's house. My mother-in-law now told me that
5:25
Speaker 8: two women had been found, killed on our street. And
5:32
Speaker 8: she told me to call and check with my mother
5:35
Speaker 8: and sister. So I called and nobody answered. So I
5:38
Speaker 8: kept calling, I kept calling and nobody answered. So I
5:42
Speaker 8: just got up and left and started, you know, got
5:45
Speaker 8: in my car.
5:45
Speaker 1: I was driving.
5:46
Speaker 8: It had to be about two, three o'clock in the morning.
5:50
Speaker 8: Got there to the house, probably about a 10-minute drive.
5:56
Speaker 8: Police kind of had, like, the street blocked off, whatever,
5:58
Speaker 8: and I got out. I was trying to see who
6:01
Speaker 8: it was, and a police officer or detective asked who
6:05
Speaker 8: I was, and I told him my name. And he said, okay,
6:08
Speaker 8: we got the son right here. And I just broke
6:11
Speaker 8: down then because I knew, it came to realization that, okay,
6:14
Speaker 8: it was him.
6:18
Speaker 7: I was in the room, asleep, and my son, my
6:22
Speaker 7: oldest son, Kirk Jr., he called me at probably, you know,
6:28
Speaker 7: three in the morning, four in the morning, something like that.
6:30
Speaker 7: He was crying, and I said, what's wrong? He said,
6:36
Speaker 7: have you talked to Keyon yet?
6:39
Speaker 1: Ma and Carissa got killed.
6:43
Speaker 7: The first thing that I thought was, They got into
6:46
Speaker 7: a car accident or something like that, but then he
6:49
Speaker 7: said they were shot. I immediately got off the phone
6:55
Speaker 7: with him and I called my other son, my younger son,
6:57
Speaker 7: and he told me that somebody came into our house,
7:02
Speaker 7: the family house, and killed both of them.
7:07
Speaker 8: It's just heartbreaking to be a 16-year-old girl and be
7:16
Speaker 8: in the comfort of your own bed, and a monster
7:20
Speaker 8: like that comes in and takes your life from you.
7:26
Speaker 8: I was imagining how she had to have felt in
7:31
Speaker 8: that predicament, somebody storming in, you know, shooting you, and
7:37
Speaker 8: you have to, you know, call 911, trying to get
7:39
Speaker 8: somebody to save you. You know, it's heartbreaking.
7:47
Speaker 6: With no signs of forced entry, the police suspect the
7:50
Speaker 6: murders have been committed by someone with access to the
7:53
Speaker 6: Loftons' home.
7:54
Speaker 9: They kind of step back and go, okay, what do
8:00
Speaker 9: we do? We start from the innermost circle and we
8:03
Speaker 9: work our way out. Most often, sadly, those are the perpetrators.
8:11
Speaker 9: One of the first persons to come on the radar
8:13
Speaker 9: is Karissa's older.
8:15
Speaker 5: Brother, Keon.
8:21
Speaker 8: Honestly, I didn't know why I was in a police car.
8:23
Speaker 8: I had no idea. Everything was an immediate shock right there.
8:29
Speaker 8: From there, I remember being in the interrogation room.
8:33
Speaker 1: Did your mom set the alarm for the house? Mm-hmm.
8:36
Speaker 2: Okay, all the time?
8:37
Speaker 8: Every day, every time.
8:38
Speaker 1: Would you have hurt your mom and sister?
8:40
Speaker 2: No. You wouldn't have hurt your mom and.
8:43
Speaker 1: Sister, though?
8:45
Speaker 8: And I remember them letting me come out to, like,
8:48
Speaker 8: one of their desks and letting me hear, like, a
8:51
Speaker 8: snippet of the 911 call. Anybody who's getting accused of
9:02
Speaker 8: anything they haven't done, they're going to be upset. When
9:08
Speaker 8: I'm in that interrogation room and I'm hearing... them accusing me,
9:12
Speaker 8: and I'm just trying to process, like, did this really happen? Like,
9:16
Speaker 8: did my mother and sister really just get, you know, murdered?
9:20
Speaker 8: Are you guys really accusing me of doing this? Everything
9:22
Speaker 8: just felt like a nightmare or a dream. Like, it
9:26
Speaker 8: just felt really surreal. I knew 1,000% it wasn't me.
9:29
Speaker 7: They didn't know what to think. They didn't know anything
9:41
Speaker 7: about who this person was. They had no fingerprints. There
9:44
Speaker 7: was no forced entry.
9:47
Speaker 9: And all of a sudden, here it is. The 48
9:49
Speaker 9: hours have passed, which of course is often the critical
9:52
Speaker 9: period for getting that first lead. And they're sitting there
9:55
Speaker 9: kind of going, we have no idea.
9:57
Speaker 4: And if you're going down the wrong road with that,
10:00
Speaker 4: you've allowed the individual to perhaps clean up the case,
10:03
Speaker 4: to perhaps even be further away from the case. So
10:06
Speaker 4: it's very important those first initial hours of any case
10:10
Speaker 4: that you hope the investigators are on the right path.
10:14
Speaker 6: Kirk and Keon begin to develop their own theories about
10:18
Speaker 6: what happened.
10:21
Speaker 7: I know how safe that Karen was. And Karen would
10:24
Speaker 7: not let anyone in that house at 2.36 in the
10:27
Speaker 7: morning without, she would have the alarm on. They said
10:30
Speaker 7: the alarm was disengaged.
10:32
Speaker 8: She took that really seriously. You know, when I would
10:34
Speaker 8: leave out, she would make sure the back door is locked,
10:37
Speaker 8: things like that. So to make sure the window is locked,
10:39
Speaker 8: she was always a stickler for those things. But I'm
10:42
Speaker 8: pretty sure I thought that, okay, somebody forced her to
10:47
Speaker 8: put the alarm in. It's just no, it's no other explanation.
10:53
Speaker 6: At the time of the Loftons murders, a burglar is
10:56
Speaker 6: successfully evading capture in the neighborhood.
11:03
Speaker 3: Jason Scott came across as very mild-mannered. He held a
11:06
Speaker 3: part-time job with a package delivery service. He wasn't viewed
11:11
Speaker 3: as being dangerous by his friends and family, so he
11:14
Speaker 3: was somebody who masqueraded as an ordinary person.
11:20
Speaker 9: Jason Scott was somebody who seemed to have a lot
11:22
Speaker 9: of potential. He was somebody who had a college degree.
11:27
Speaker 9: He was somebody who worked at UPS. So he was
11:29
Speaker 9: somebody who, at least on the surface, seemed to be
11:32
Speaker 9: somebody who really had his act together.
11:33
Speaker 6: 27-year-old Jason Scott has two master's degrees and until recently
11:42
Speaker 6: was unknown to authorities.
11:44
Speaker 3: He had started committing robberies in his, at least as
11:48
Speaker 3: a teenager and perhaps early 20s, and had graduated from
11:53
Speaker 3: committing robberies robberies of unoccupied houses to home invasion robberies
11:58
Speaker 3: and violent crime.
12:01
Speaker 9: So at the same time that Jason Scott was living
12:06
Speaker 9: this kind of law-abiding life on the surface, this is
12:09
Speaker 9: somebody who, in the privacy of his own home, seemed
12:14
Speaker 9: to be absolutely obsessed with crime, with forensics, with understanding
12:22
Speaker 9: how to get away with crime.
12:25
Speaker 3: One of the notable things about Mr. Scott is the
12:29
Speaker 3: clothing and tools that he used during his criminal activities.
12:33
Speaker 3: So he dressed like a criminal. He would dress all
12:37
Speaker 3: in black. He wore black gloves. He carried a black backpack.
12:41
Speaker 3: So he dressed like a thief.
12:45
Speaker 9: Jason Scott spent hours of his life thinking about crime,
12:51
Speaker 9: learning about crime, learning about forensic techniques, almost considered himself
12:56
Speaker 9: like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
12:58
Speaker 1: Hyde.
12:59
Speaker 9: I would imagine to some extent he feels kind of
13:02
Speaker 9: this sense of impunity, like, or the sense that I'm untouchable.
13:06
Speaker 9: Nobody's gonna catch me. Another thing that stands out about
13:12
Speaker 9: Jason Scott is he was an incredibly diverse criminal. So
13:18
Speaker 9: not only was he interested in burglary, in home invasions,
13:25
Speaker 9: He was interested in peeping. He was interested in cruising
13:32
Speaker 9: the neighborhood and taking pictures of people in the privacy
13:35
Speaker 9: of their own homes. He had no idea what he
13:37
Speaker 9: was doing. It's not uncommon for that to progress to
13:43
Speaker 9: breaking into a home, to some kind of sexual offense.
13:46
Speaker 4: So this progression is a natural part that we as
13:49
Speaker 4: criminologists are concerned about with any crime that someone does.
13:53
Speaker 4: Does it then have an opportunity to develop, to make
13:57
Speaker 4: that person a criminal that is looking for a career?
14:01
Speaker 4: I'm doing it. I'm successful at doing it.
14:05
Speaker 5: Why stop?
14:17
Speaker 6: The murders of mother and daughter Karen and Carissa Lofton
14:21
Speaker 6: have shocked this respectable Washington suburb. There's a spate of burglaries, too.
14:28
Speaker 6: But the police are yet to track down the perpetrators.
14:34
Speaker 6: Two months later, another murder is called in.
14:42
Speaker 2: My name is Courtney Hicks. My mother is Dolores DeWitt.
14:47
Speaker 2: and my sister's Ebony do it. My life was perfect before,
14:58
Speaker 2: before everything happened. My mom was the kindest person that
15:07
Speaker 2: I ever met. She was always there for me, even
15:11
Speaker 2: still after everything that's happened to me in my life
15:13
Speaker 2: because of how my mom taught me to believe in myself.
15:18
Speaker 2: My sister was someone I could always depend on, I
15:20
Speaker 2: could always count on, just as well as my mom.
15:24
Speaker 2: I miss him so much, so. When I got home,
15:41
Speaker 2: I don't remember if I had to disable our alarm
15:44
Speaker 2: or not, but I just go in the house and
15:46
Speaker 2: I see my sister's jacket on the back of the chair.
15:52
Speaker 2: Everything just looked normal. It just looked like they just
15:54
Speaker 2: weren't there. My mom's car was in the driveway. Everything
15:56
Speaker 2: looked normal. They just weren't there. I go upstairs and
16:02
Speaker 2: I go in my sister's room. It was no bleach
16:06
Speaker 2: spot on my sister's floor. So that kind of like
16:09
Speaker 2: struck me like, okay, maybe Ebony did come home. She
16:11
Speaker 2: probably dropped some bleach or something in. When I got
16:14
Speaker 2: into my bedroom, I just like sat down on my bed.
16:19
Speaker 2: That's when I got the feeling that you need to
16:20
Speaker 2: get out of this house. I've run out the house.
16:24
Speaker 2: I get in her car and I goes to my
16:26
Speaker 2: boyfriend at the time's house. And when I got to him,
16:28
Speaker 2: I'm just calling my mom. And this is like now
16:32
Speaker 2: probably going on. It was late. and still no response.
16:43
Speaker 6: The following day, Courtney hears that her mother and sister
16:47
Speaker 6: have been murdered. Their bodies are found in a stolen
16:53
Speaker 6: car that was then set on fire at a different address.
16:59
Speaker 6: Police identify Dolores and Ebony through dental records.
17:03
Speaker 2: Then they came to our house. I want to say,
17:05
Speaker 2: was it later on that day? I believe they came
17:07
Speaker 2: to our house. And that's when they did tell us
17:10
Speaker 2: about the dental records matching my mom and my sister.
17:15
Speaker 2: They were in the burning car. When I was 15,
17:24
Speaker 2: my dad died. So I honestly didn't think that... I
17:29
Speaker 2: never in my life thought anybody, like my mom or
17:31
Speaker 2: my sister, would be murdered or anything like that. I
17:36
Speaker 2: don't think anybody would think somebody they love would be murdered.
17:40
Speaker 2: My family was everything to me. My mom, my dad,
17:43
Speaker 2: and my sister. I didn't have a worry in the world.
17:52
Speaker 9: Certainly in the murders of Dolores and Ebony DeWitt, This
17:58
Speaker 9: is somebody who engages in incredibly risky behavior.
18:03
Speaker 5: He steals a car.
18:06
Speaker 9: And the person that he steals the car from actually
18:09
Speaker 9: witnesses this.
18:11
Speaker 1: What's the nature of your emergency?
18:12
Speaker 9: I just left my house maybe an hour ago and
18:15
Speaker 9: have come back.
18:16
Speaker 4: My car is missing out of the carport.
18:20
Speaker 6: That's my car.
18:22
Speaker 8: Okay, it just zoomed past me. Wow.
18:26
Speaker 9: So this is somebody in the middle of the day,
18:27
Speaker 9: steals a car, drives it to a house, puts two
18:31
Speaker 9: people in there who are no longer alive, and burns
18:37
Speaker 9: this car.
18:38
Speaker 2: In a relatively short amount of time.
18:42
Speaker 9: I mean, how risked can you be?
18:46
Speaker 4: It's a horrific, horrific crime scene of a burned body.
18:51
Speaker 4: Dental records are needed to identify the individuals to know
18:55
Speaker 4: whom they are. This does buy time. By moving the
19:00
Speaker 4: bodies to another place, by putting them in a car
19:04
Speaker 4: that has nothing to do with them, and then burning
19:07
Speaker 4: the bodies allows for additional time.
19:10
Speaker 1: For the individual to get away.
19:22
Speaker 2: I used to feel like people would be watching us
19:25
Speaker 2: outside of our house. My mom would always feel like
19:27
Speaker 2: people would be watching us. If you feel like somebody
19:33
Speaker 2: is watching you, they are. And if you really have
19:35
Speaker 2: that over-sense and urge, like, I feel like somebody watching me,
19:38
Speaker 2: I feel like somebody watching me, they are. It don't
19:42
Speaker 2: cross your mind that sick people like that exist.
19:49
Speaker 9: I think most people, of the time when people have
19:52
Speaker 9: a sense of being watched, they probably are. And I
19:56
Speaker 9: think it's very, very important to trust your gut and investigate,
20:01
Speaker 9: call the police, whatever you think is going to make
20:03
Speaker 9: you feel safe. Too many of us in the past
20:07
Speaker 9: have had these gut feelings, had these kind of spidey senses,
20:12
Speaker 9: or the hair on the back of our neck stands up,
20:14
Speaker 9: and we talk ourselves out of it, when really it's
20:17
Speaker 9: our body's way of telling us that something is wrong,
20:20
Speaker 9: even though we don't consciously know it.
20:27
Speaker 6: There have been two mother-daughter murders less than two miles
20:31
Speaker 6: apart in just eight weeks. Like Karen Lofton, Dolores DeWitt
20:37
Speaker 6: was a nurse and at home alone with her teenage daughter.
20:42
Speaker 9: In many respects, there are a lot of similarities between
20:46
Speaker 9: the murders of Karen and Carissa Lofton and Dolores and Ebony. And,
20:52
Speaker 9: you know, the similarities, of course, they're both nurses, they're
20:55
Speaker 9: both single parents, they have teenage daughters. Yet there are
21:00
Speaker 9: some significant differences. So police know that Karen and Carissa
21:05
Speaker 9: are murdered in their home. that they are shot to death.
21:11
Speaker 9: And this is very, very different from Ebony and Dolores,
21:15
Speaker 9: who are removed from their home before they were eventually
21:18
Speaker 9: found in a burned-out car. It would be really nice
21:24
Speaker 9: if serial killers always did everything exactly the same, because
21:28
Speaker 9: it would be much easier to catch them. And so
21:31
Speaker 9: it's important to kind of step back sometimes and kind
21:33
Speaker 9: of go, okay, yes, There are some surface differences here,
21:37
Speaker 9: including the way these people were murdered, but we can't
21:40
Speaker 9: rule out the possibility, given these other similarities, that there's
21:45
Speaker 9: some connection between the two.
21:48
Speaker 6: At the time of the Lofton and DeWitt murders, police
21:51
Speaker 6: are already investigating the death of 46-year-old mother of three,
21:55
Speaker 6: Vilma Butler, in June 2008. She is shot dead and
22:03
Speaker 6: found in her burning home. around 15 miles from the
22:06
Speaker 6: DeWitts and Loftons. But police still do not believe they
22:15
Speaker 6: are dealing with a serial killer.
22:17
Speaker 4: Serial killers usually are not this meticulous in their acts.
22:22
Speaker 4: You know, we usually see that there's opportunity is the
22:25
Speaker 4: main factor. There is that of a special type of
22:28
Speaker 4: person he or she is interested in committing these acts with.
22:33
Speaker 4: But to see intelligence put together, to see elements of
22:37
Speaker 4: information put together, this is a different ball game. This
22:41
Speaker 4: is a different realm.
22:45
Speaker 2: It's unfortunate that he was awake, was able to get
22:50
Speaker 2: away with it for so long. And then he ended
22:54
Speaker 2: up getting caught.
23:09
Speaker 6: There have been five murders in this respectable suburb since
23:12
Speaker 6: June 2008. Police don't believe they're dealing with a serial
23:18
Speaker 6: killer and are yet to identify a suspect. But separately
23:23
Speaker 6: from the murders, authorities are getting closer to catching local
23:27
Speaker 6: burglar Jason Scott.
23:32
Speaker 5: The crimes that Mr.
23:33
Speaker 3: Scott committed were clustered around his own neighborhood in Prince
23:36
Speaker 3: George's County, Maryland, which is a suburb just.
23:39
Speaker 5: East of Washington, D.C.
23:43
Speaker 3: In May of 2009, Jason Scott and his accomplice, Marcus Hunter,
23:49
Speaker 3: traveled up to Woodbine, Maryland to commit this robbery of
23:52
Speaker 3: a gun shop. They stole 39 firearms, including automatic weapons,
23:59
Speaker 3: machine guns, silencers, and a large volume of ammunition.
24:05
Speaker 4: Someone who moves to being involved in gun deals has
24:09
Speaker 4: a lot of spheres of activity going on. You usually
24:13
Speaker 4: don't expect that in someone who's involved in criminal activity.
24:16
Speaker 4: One becomes good at one part of criminal activity, but
24:19
Speaker 4: does not drift, as we say in criminology, to perhaps
24:23
Speaker 4: having a life of regular conformity and then going to
24:27
Speaker 4: be an innovator of criminal activity. This is what makes
24:31
Speaker 4: this case so special. He's confident in what he does.
24:39
Speaker 9: After doing this, he decides to make some money by
24:44
Speaker 9: selling some of these illegal weapons. And yet, I think
24:48
Speaker 9: his boldness really does propel him to take these ridiculous risks.
24:56
Speaker 9: I mean, selling illegal weapons in the UPS parking lot?
25:02
Speaker 9: I mean, it seems like that's something that is not
25:05
Speaker 9: a criminal, something a criminal mastermind would do.
25:08
Speaker 5: You work there.
25:10
Speaker 3: Jason Scott had let it be known among some of
25:12
Speaker 3: his criminal compatriots that he had guns to sell, and
25:16
Speaker 3: an undercover ATF agent arranged to meet Jason Scott in
25:19
Speaker 3: a parking lot and purchase four weapons from him.
25:23
Speaker 8: Agents then were able to verify that four of those.
25:28
Speaker 3: Weapons were the weapons that had been stolen on May
25:41
Speaker 3: 26th from the gun shop. Well, this was the moment
25:45
Speaker 3: that exposed Jason Scott to the subsequent search warrant. During
25:51
Speaker 3: the course of executing that search warrant, the agents recovered
25:53
Speaker 3: 16 firearms that had been stolen from that gun shop in.
25:57
Speaker 5: Woodbine back in May of 2009.
26:01
Speaker 3: They also obtained from Jason Scott's bedroom many of the
26:05
Speaker 3: burglary tools that he had used to commit the crime.
26:07
Speaker 3: The clothing that he wore, the black clothing, the ski mask,
26:12
Speaker 3: and the backpack containing his burglary tools, which included things
26:16
Speaker 3: like bolt cutters and screwdrivers and pry bar, and also
26:20
Speaker 3: included a police scanner.
26:24
Speaker 9: There is almost a black comedy here if things weren't
26:27
Speaker 9: so horrific. that this is somebody who is intelligent, he's
26:32
Speaker 9: graduated from college, he's a personal person, and yet he
26:37
Speaker 9: almost lives in this fantasy world, it seems like.
26:46
Speaker 3: One of the items of evidence that we recovered from
26:48
Speaker 3: Jason Scott's home was a video recording that he had
26:51
Speaker 3: made of this teenage victim when he was recording the
26:54
Speaker 3: victim while she was naked during one of his home
26:58
Speaker 3: invasion robberies.
26:59
Speaker 5: And at one point, Mr.
27:00
Speaker 3: Scott himself crossed in front of the camera. There actually
27:05
Speaker 3: was an image captured of Mr. Scott in his full
27:09
Speaker 3: regalia that he would wear to commit his crimes. And
27:13
Speaker 3: when the authorities found those recordings and photographs and the
27:16
Speaker 3: burglary tools, they realized they were dealing with a master criminal,
27:20
Speaker 3: not simply somebody who had committed a robbery at a
27:24
Speaker 3: gun shop but somebody who posed a continuing threat.
27:28
Speaker 5: Of violence in the community.
27:29
Speaker 3: The agents were working with local police who knew about
27:32
Speaker 3: the spree of home invasion robberies in addition to the
27:35
Speaker 3: murders that had been committed in the area. And so
27:37
Speaker 3: once they found this evidence, they immediately settled on Jason
27:40
Speaker 3: Scott as a likely suspect in a whole spree of crimes.
27:47
Speaker 9: I think when you think about this kind of sexual
27:50
Speaker 9: aspect or sexual assault, that is so consistent with somebody
27:54
Speaker 9: who has a history of peeping and voyeurism than progressives.
28:00
Speaker 9: Most people who peep don't progress to worse things, but
28:06
Speaker 9: people who do progress to worse things often have a
28:11
Speaker 9: history of peeping and voyeurism.
28:14
Speaker 3: I think Jason Scott enjoyed the sense of power and
28:18
Speaker 3: control that he exercised when he committed these home invasion robberies,
28:22
Speaker 3: where he kept people under control.
28:26
Speaker 5: He kept people at gunpoint.
28:28
Speaker 3: In a couple of instances, he detained people in their
28:31
Speaker 3: homes while his partner, Marcus Hunter, took their ATM cards
28:35
Speaker 3: and went to withdraw cash. And I think Jason Scott
28:38
Speaker 3: enjoyed that sense of power that he obtained while he
28:41
Speaker 3: was detaining innocent victims.
28:46
Speaker 9: There was one home invasion that he carried out where
28:50
Speaker 9: the victims were, of course, terrified.
28:53
Speaker 2: They had no idea.
28:54
Speaker 9: They felt completely helpless. The victim later on said, you know,
29:01
Speaker 9: when you have absolutely no control over a situation, you
29:06
Speaker 9: don't know what to do. And she said, I started praying. And,
29:10
Speaker 9: you know, Jason Scott said, shut up. I think that
29:17
Speaker 9: affirmed to him that I am powerful. I am a
29:21
Speaker 9: criminal mastermind. I am in charge of these situations. And
29:24
Speaker 9: I do think that was very important to him. And
29:26
Speaker 9: for whatever reason, he really did embrace this criminal identity.
29:33
Speaker 6: Jason Scott is now a suspect in the five murder investigations.
29:37
Speaker 6: But police don't have enough evidence to charge him.
29:40
Speaker 1: Him.
29:42
Speaker 6: But the evidence from the firearms offenses, home invasions, and
29:46
Speaker 6: sexual assault makes police believe he's linked to a vast
29:49
Speaker 6: array of crimes. Rather than charge him for just the
29:55
Speaker 6: crimes they have evidence for, Scott is taken into custody
29:59
Speaker 6: and offered a proffer interview.
30:02
Speaker 3: In a proffer interview, the government promises a defendant that
30:06
Speaker 3: things that he says in the interview won't be used
30:08
Speaker 3: against him directly in court. And so the proffer is
30:10
Speaker 3: an opportunity for the defendant to come in with the
30:13
Speaker 3: promise of immunity and reveal to the government the criminal
30:17
Speaker 3: activity in which he participated.
30:18
Speaker 9: They're thinking, this is somebody who's going to help us
30:25
Speaker 9: catch other criminals almost arms dealers, or people who are
30:30
Speaker 9: selling illegal guns. And so Jason takes advantage of this.
30:38
Speaker 5: During the interview with federal authorities, Mr.
30:42
Speaker 3: Scott admitted that he had committed approximately 28 burglaries and
30:46
Speaker 3: nine home invasion robberies.
30:50
Speaker 9: Law enforcement is absolutely stunned Mind this.
30:54
Speaker 4: He's saying to you, criminal justice system, I am smarter
30:57
Speaker 4: than you. That I was able to be successful with
31:01
Speaker 4: these crimes. I am good at what I do, and
31:04
Speaker 4: I am better than you at this time.
31:07
Speaker 5: The jig is up.
31:08
Speaker 4: So if it is up, let me just go ahead
31:10
Speaker 4: and tell you and show you how much smarter I
31:13
Speaker 4: was than you, how much intelligence and research goes into this.
31:18
Speaker 9: And of course, Jason's sitting there, smug as can be, thinking.
31:24
Speaker 9: I've got immunity from all these things. Nothing I said
31:28
Speaker 9: today can be used against me. He was a little misguided,
31:33
Speaker 9: I think, in thinking that.
31:37
Speaker 6: Police cannot charge Scott with the burglaries and home invasions
31:40
Speaker 6: he's confessed to. But he can still be charged for
31:45
Speaker 6: other crimes because of new evidence or if implicated by
31:49
Speaker 6: an accomplice.
31:52
Speaker 3: Once authorities realized that Jason Scott had been involved in
31:56
Speaker 3: a crime spree in the area, they started to review
31:59
Speaker 3: all crimes that had been committed in the area over
32:02
Speaker 3: the past couple of years to identify which ones were
32:05
Speaker 3: likely to have been committed by Jason Scott.
32:14
Speaker 5: Marcus Hunter revealed that.
32:15
Speaker 3: He was a friend of Jason Scott and that he
32:18
Speaker 3: had participated with Mr.
32:20
Speaker 5: Scott in many of the robberies and burglaries that Mr.
32:24
Speaker 5: Scott had committed in the community.
32:28
Speaker 3: Marcus Hunter used the term spooky house to refer to
32:31
Speaker 3: an abandoned property that he and Jason Scott would go
32:35
Speaker 3: to after the crimes to split up the proceeds. So
32:39
Speaker 3: on multiple occasions, Jason Scott and Marcus Hunter went to
32:42
Speaker 3: the so-called spooky house with the proceeds of the robbery
32:46
Speaker 3: and then divided the property among them. The most compelling
32:54
Speaker 3: evidence recovered from the spooky house that was used in
32:58
Speaker 3: the state case was that they found charred bits of
33:02
Speaker 3: fabric and hair at the spooky house that were connected
33:07
Speaker 3: to the murder because they matched evidence that was found
33:10
Speaker 3: on the bodies when they were recovered from the car.
33:12
Speaker 5: That had been burned.
33:20
Speaker 6: This vital new piece of evidence links Scott to the
33:23
Speaker 6: crime scene of Dolores and Ebony DeWitt. Jason Scott is
33:29
Speaker 6: charged with their murders while being investigated for the others.
33:34
Speaker 9: This is the beginning of the end for Jason Scott.
33:47
Speaker 6: It's one and a half years since Jason Scott was
33:50
Speaker 6: charged with the murders of Dolores.
33:51
Speaker 2: And Ebony DeWitt.
33:54
Speaker 6: As a case is building against him, he's first facing
33:57
Speaker 6: trial for the crimes that investigators have more evidence of.
34:02
Speaker 3: In the federal system, we prosecute defendants for the most
34:07
Speaker 3: readily provable offenses. And so in this case, we identified
34:12
Speaker 3: four home invasion robberies in which the proof was the strongest.
34:16
Speaker 3: and the witnesses were the most credible and compelling. And
34:19
Speaker 3: we charged Mr. Scott with those four home invasion robberies,
34:23
Speaker 3: in addition to the child pornography he had produced during
34:27
Speaker 3: one of those robberies, and then the possession of the
34:29
Speaker 3: stolen firearms that had been taken from that gun shop
34:32
Speaker 3: in Woodbine.
34:36
Speaker 5: The most important piece of evidence in the.
34:38
Speaker 3: Case was the video recording that Jason Scott had made
34:42
Speaker 3: of this teenage.
34:44
Speaker 5: Victim, Mr. Scott at one point actually crossed in front
34:47
Speaker 5: of the camera.
34:49
Speaker 3: So in this case, the federal sentence for the series
34:52
Speaker 3: of crimes, 11 violations in total, amounted to 100 years
34:56
Speaker 3: in federal prison. I know the family members of the
35:06
Speaker 3: murder victims were present at the sentencing and they were
35:09
Speaker 3: very relieved, They were confident that Mr. Scott had been
35:12
Speaker 3: held accountable and would no longer pose a threat to
35:15
Speaker 3: the community, regardless of whether or not he ultimately was
35:18
Speaker 3: convicted on the state charges for the murder.
35:22
Speaker 4: What we do see is someone who's become very good
35:25
Speaker 4: at being a criminal, someone who's intelligent, someone who looks
35:29
Speaker 4: at information that's publicly accessible, plus perhaps has a charm
35:34
Speaker 4: that allows for many people not to feel threatened, We
35:39
Speaker 4: hope that these elements don't come together. And thank goodness
35:43
Speaker 4: that person is no longer on the street causing these
35:46
Speaker 4: heinous acts.
35:56
Speaker 6: Jason Scott is in jail. Police suspect him of the
36:00
Speaker 6: murders of Vilma Butler, Dolores and Ebony DeWitt, and Karen
36:05
Speaker 6: and Carissa Lofton. but they only have strong evidence linking
36:09
Speaker 6: him to the DeWitt's murders. In order to prosecute him
36:14
Speaker 6: for the provable crimes, police strike a deal using an
36:18
Speaker 6: Alford plea.
36:19
Speaker 4: It's been around since about the 1970s. Here you have
36:24
Speaker 4: an environment in which one pleads to say, I'm not
36:28
Speaker 4: saying I'm guilty of doing this act, but I am
36:31
Speaker 4: going to go ahead and move the process in order
36:34
Speaker 4: to perhaps receive a lesser sentence.
36:38
Speaker 6: As part of the Alford plea for the murders of
36:40
Speaker 6: Dolores and Ebony DeWitt, Jason Scott now won't face trial
36:45
Speaker 6: for the murders of Vilma Butler or Karen and Carissa Lofton.
36:52
Speaker 1: We never had our day in court.
36:55
Speaker 7: He was going to spend the rest of his life
36:56
Speaker 7: in jail anyway, so I guess they assumed why spend
36:59
Speaker 7: money to satisfy the family.
37:03
Speaker 2: Carissa Lofton, I always speak her name, and I always
37:06
Speaker 2: say she's such a strong girl, because she comes home
37:09
Speaker 2: only to find someone killing her mom, and then she
37:13
Speaker 2: gets shot in the head from what the story tells.
37:16
Speaker 2: To be able to pick her strength to pick up
37:17
Speaker 2: the phone to call 911. Ma'am, I've been shot.
37:20
Speaker 6: Me and my mother have been shot. I'm bleeding to death.
37:25
Speaker 2: Sweetie, slow it down.
37:26
Speaker 5: What's your address?
37:29
Speaker 2: It's just heartbreaking when you hear her It's heartbreaking. It's
37:34
Speaker 2: so heartbreaking because they didn't deserve it. Nobody deserves it.
37:40
Speaker 7: There's still a very empty void in myself and my
37:45
Speaker 7: family's hearts because we don't know. We didn't get the
37:49
Speaker 7: satisfaction that the DeWitts got of a trial and a
37:55
Speaker 7: killer that admitted and was found guilty of their crime.
37:59
Speaker 1: We didn't get that.
38:07
Speaker 2: I used to hate him for a while, but I
38:13
Speaker 2: had to get over that. At first, I used to
38:16
Speaker 2: want him dead. I pray to God that while he's
38:21
Speaker 2: locked up, every time he closes his eyes, he sees
38:23
Speaker 2: them as he left them. Now, I just feel like, no,
38:32
Speaker 2: what he got is the best thing for him.
38:34
Speaker 8: I don't even want to give him any real estate
38:41
Speaker 8: in my mental space. So he's where he needs to be.
38:46
Speaker 9: I think that Jason Scott has all the hallmarks of
38:53
Speaker 9: a serial killer in terms of so many different things.
38:57
Speaker 9: His interest in forensics, the way he researched his crimes,
39:01
Speaker 9: and most importantly, the way he carried out so many
39:06
Speaker 9: different crimes. and really exhibited no compassion, no empathy whatsoever
39:12
Speaker 9: for his victims.
39:17
Speaker 3: This was probably the most memorable case that I've personally
39:21
Speaker 3: prosecuted in my 30 years with the United States Department
39:24
Speaker 3: of Justice because of the scale of the harm that
39:29
Speaker 3: Jason Scott had visited on the community and obviously the
39:33
Speaker 3: particular harm on the victims of the murders, the home
39:36
Speaker 3: invasion robbery, and the child abuse. You save lives by
39:40
Speaker 3: taking somebody like Jason Scott off the street.
39:50
Speaker 2: My parents, my mom, my dad, and my sister, they
39:52
Speaker 2: always told us, if you believe in yourself, you can
39:55
Speaker 2: do anything. So with that, even through all the tragedy
39:58
Speaker 2: in my life, I could pat myself on the back
40:02
Speaker 2: that I just never gave up. And that's only because
40:05
Speaker 2: of them. Life has never been the same. Life will
40:10
Speaker 2: never be the same. I'm just been trying to adjust
40:13
Speaker 2: to it. It's just, I was shattered. I had nothing now.
40:24
Speaker 2: I compare everybody in this world to my family. And
40:29
Speaker 2: it's like I said, I haven't met anyone that just
40:34
Speaker 2: measure up to how great they were.
40:37
Speaker 8: You know, I have three kids now with my wife.
40:47
Speaker 8: And my mother or sister has met none of them.
40:52
Speaker 8: So she was robbed from having three beautiful grandchildren that
40:57
Speaker 8: she could be interacting with.
41:01
Speaker 1: I still feel lost, like it's a loss. I've grown
41:05
Speaker 1: a lot.
41:05
Speaker 7: I had to learn how to turn a tragedy into something.
41:12
Speaker 1: Helpful.
41:13
Speaker 7: And that's the only way that you can get through
41:14
Speaker 7: something like that. Jason Scott, I feel like they're not
41:19
Speaker 7: responsible for two murders, they're responsible for three in my family,
41:23
Speaker 7: because my son, Craig Jr., never recovered. He went through
41:29
Speaker 7: a very dark period. He was drinking, very depressed, and
41:35
Speaker 7: everything for years. Six months ago, well, a little more
41:40
Speaker 7: than six months, A month after his birthday, exactly a
41:46
Speaker 7: month after his birthday, then he died. They found him
41:50
Speaker 7: in a hotel, and the cause of death is alcohol poisoning.
41:57
Speaker 7: You know, he had died from alcohol, so.
42:02
Speaker 7: Jason Scott definitely played a part in it. I used
42:12
Speaker 7: to call Carissa my butterfly, and she loved the color green.
42:18
Speaker 7: That year, after she passed, then it was an influx
42:22
Speaker 7: of green butterflies all through Georgia. The main thing that
42:30
Speaker 7: I had to remember is that God didn't make mistakes
42:34
Speaker 7: and that my story had to help somebody else.
42:58
Speaker 6: Thank you.