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Tyler Hadley’s House Party of Horrors · Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast

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Speaker 1: On a humid July night in twenty eleven, dozens of
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Speaker 1: teenagers packed into the Hadley family home in Port Saint Lucie, Florida,
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Speaker 1: for what seemed like an ordinary summer house party. They
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Speaker 1: drank and laughed, some noticing a strange odor but shrugging
0:23
Speaker 1: it off in the haze of music and chatter. However,
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Speaker 1: what they didn't know was just beyond a locked bedroom
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Speaker 1: door lay the brutal, bludgeoned bodies of Blake and Mary
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Speaker 1: Joe Hadley, the homeowners and the parents of the party's
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Speaker 1: seventeen year old host. This is the story of Tyler
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Speaker 1: Hadley and the House Party of Horrors.
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Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked
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Speaker 2: and Grim, a true crime podcast.
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Speaker 1: The following podcast material more than your audience. Listen, there's
1:25
Speaker 1: that sound?
1:27
Speaker 2: Was that a satisfying one? Did I do a good job?
1:29
Speaker 1: You did a good job.
1:30
Speaker 2: We're sharing a drink?
1:31
Speaker 1: We are What are we drinking? Though? What is it?
1:33
Speaker 2: Hey? This is actually a drink from Finland and I'm
1:37
Speaker 2: kind of like obsessed with them.
1:38
Speaker 1: What is it?
1:38
Speaker 2: The long drink, long drink, the finish long drink.
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Speaker 1: Oh, I can finish a long drink.
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Speaker 2: It's traditional citrus and yeah, it's like a gin drink.
1:49
Speaker 1: I think, oh sweet, Oh you're taking the can. I'm
1:52
Speaker 1: taking the cup. Okay, gotcha, It's delicious. Cheers okay, cheers.
1:55
Speaker 1: First of all, cheers to you, but also cheers to
1:58
Speaker 1: those who signed up over on Patreon. This week we
2:01
Speaker 1: have Darlin Ginger, the Reverend, Adam Days, Mary Baker, and
2:05
Speaker 1: Wendy Morgan. Thank you very much. Cheers to you, guys.
2:08
Speaker 2: Cheers to you. I actually discovered this drink golfing, So
2:13
Speaker 2: you know, that's kind of also an awesome thing. That's good,
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Speaker 2: so good.
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Speaker 1: It's like it's like grapefruit, but not like super bitter.
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Speaker 2: I like someone described it as an alcoholic freshka, what
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Speaker 2: do you think it's close. I feel like it's I
2:29
Speaker 2: feel like that was a good a good description.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's decent. I'd go with that.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very good.
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Speaker 1: So we have an interesting story. I mean, we always
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Speaker 1: have interesting stories. But yeah, house party with a murder.
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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that sounds terrible. I feel like I would
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Speaker 2: be one of those guests though that just would not
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Speaker 2: be able to get over the fact that something stunk
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Speaker 2: really bad. So but I mean, these are also probably
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Speaker 2: all seventeen eighteen year old, sixteen year.
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Speaker 1: Olds, they're all teenagers at a house party. A lot
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Speaker 1: of them pack this home. So just think of all
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Speaker 1: the stink and the smell that's going on from not
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Speaker 1: only a house party, spilt beers, people smoking, but bo
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Speaker 1: people not probably wearing dealiering because they don't realize they
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Speaker 1: stink yet. All those sort of things.
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Speaker 2: Well, and their mind wouldn't go there, Like even probably
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Speaker 2: at our age, you wouldn't be like, oh, man, there's
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Speaker 2: two rotting bodies in the friggin' spare room.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, or maybe they would go there.
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Speaker 2: No, I would go there.
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Speaker 1: Our minds would definitely go there. Now, I don't know
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Speaker 1: about you guys, but we've got a bit of a
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Speaker 1: morbid mind. So h you don't say there's actually a
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Speaker 1: song that I really like. It's called Morbid Minds.
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Speaker 2: Oh, it's actually a song.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, Morbid Minds. Oh, I'm looking up right now because
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Speaker 1: I can't remember the the the singer. Oh, it's just
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Speaker 1: morbid mind no s at the end, but it's by
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Speaker 1: Jack Case.
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Speaker 2: Okay, I do not recall this, so I'm gonna have
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Speaker 2: to listen to it.
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Speaker 1: I've made you listen to it.
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Speaker 2: Well, I'm sure. I just don't retain names. But if
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Speaker 2: I heard the song, I'd be like, oh, yeah, I've
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Speaker 2: heard that, or I recognize that.
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Speaker 1: It's a good jem. It's a good jem. Highly reck
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Speaker 1: commend it. So if you guys are out there you
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Speaker 1: need some new tunes, check out Morbid Minds by Jack Morbid.
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Speaker 2: Mind, Morbid Mind by Jack Case.
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Speaker 1: It's definitely not affiliated or anything. It's just it's a
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Speaker 1: good song. That's all it is. Okay, are you ready
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Speaker 1: for this story?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do it.
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Speaker 1: Okay, Well, let's get into it. Shin in By all
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Speaker 1: outward appearances, Tyler Hadley had a typical suburban upbringing. His parents,
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Speaker 1: Blake fifty four and Mary Joe forty seven Hadley, were
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Speaker 1: hard working and devoted to their two sons. Blake was
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Speaker 1: an employee at the Saint Lucie Nuclear Power Plant and
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Speaker 1: Mary Joe was a beloved elementary school teacher with twenty
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Speaker 1: four years of experience. They moved to Port Saint Lucy,
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Speaker 1: seeking a safe, family friendly community to raise Tyler and
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Speaker 1: his older brother Ryan. Now in his childhood, Tyler even
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Speaker 1: participated in wholesome activities like boy scouts, and neighbors often
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Speaker 1: saw him playing basketball in the driveway with his dad.
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Speaker 1: But as Tyler entered his mid teens, bea a behavior
5:00
Speaker 1: began to take a bit of a worrying shift. By
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Speaker 1: age fifteen, relatives noticed a quote bizarre change in Tyler's demeanor.
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Speaker 1: He began skipping school and hanging out with a self
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Speaker 1: destructive crowd and experimenting heavily with drugs and alcohol. His
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Speaker 1: parents responded rather proactively, actually, They took him to see
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Speaker 1: psychiatrists and put him on antidepressants, and even enrolled him
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Speaker 1: in outpatient mental health and substance abuse programs. Mary Joe
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Speaker 1: and Blake's determination to help their son was quite evident.
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Speaker 1: In fact, when Tyler continued to spiral, they even found
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Speaker 1: an inpatient rehabilitation program and planned to check him in
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Speaker 1: before his eighteenth birthday was going to occur. Tyler, however,
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Speaker 1: resented these interventions. After one incident where he came home drunk,
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Speaker 1: his parents confiscated his cell phone and his car privileges
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Speaker 1: as punishment. Now, imagine being seventeen years old and having
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Speaker 1: those sort of things revoked from you, Right, It's not
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Speaker 1: exactly your favorite day.
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Speaker 2: It would guess it would be literally the end of
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Speaker 2: the world basically. But I also just have to say, like, well,
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Speaker 2: we're not parents, but I can only imagine you just
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Speaker 2: watching your kid kind of gravitate to, you know, the
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Speaker 2: wrong crowd. Yeah, and just seeing like the aftermath or
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Speaker 2: the effects of that.
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Speaker 1: That must be really hard parenting I think would be
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Speaker 1: hard enough. And then yeah, let alone something like this
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Speaker 1: occurring that would make it even more difficult.
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Speaker 2: You're just only You're just always hoping that their friend
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Speaker 2: group are, you know, like good kids, right.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, you almost feel helpless heh Yeah. Well, obviously Tyler
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Speaker 1: fumed about this whole thing. He was not happy about
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Speaker 1: having these privileges revoked, and he vented to his best
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Speaker 1: friend Michael Mandel that his mother was quote over disciplining him,
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Speaker 1: and he even ominously said that he wanted to kill her.
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Speaker 2: Dang. I mean, I'm sure that's not the first teenager
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Speaker 2: that's ever said that.
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Speaker 1: Well, that's the thing. It was a threat that his
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Speaker 1: friend Michael like at the time as angry teenage like bluster,
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Speaker 1: basically like you know, I'm going to kill you. It's
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Speaker 1: something that like way too many people say, especially teenagers
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Speaker 1: at that age, like when you're upset, it's like, ah,
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Speaker 1: fucking want to kill you.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's dramatic, but I mean teenagers are a bit.
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Speaker 1: Dramatic, exactly, a bit. So yeah, that's kind of all
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Speaker 1: Michael really thought. Was just dramatic.
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Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Tyler's troubles with the law and the community were
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Speaker 1: quietly mounting. He had dropped out of local high school
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Speaker 1: and attempted unsuccessfully to complete his ged after two other
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Speaker 1: other schools. He had a juvenile record for some petty
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Speaker 1: crimes as well, things like vandalism, theft, and even an
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Speaker 1: arson incident was in there as well, and he'd been
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Speaker 1: arrested for aggravated battery. Even just a year earlier, in
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Speaker 1: twenty ten, Tyler had taken his father's car without permission
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Speaker 1: and had struck a child, resulting in a fifteen thousand
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Speaker 1: dollars civil lawsuit against his parents.
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Speaker 2: Holy shit, I'm assuming the child live though, yes.
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Speaker 1: As far as I'm aware of, the child did survive.
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Speaker 1: So like in short, by the summer of twenty eleven,
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Speaker 1: the seventeen year old Tyler hadley he was deeply troubled
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Speaker 1: by this point.
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Speaker 2: He was a bad egg.
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Speaker 1: He was I mean I'm not going to say he
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Speaker 1: was a bad egg, but he definitely was getting into
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Speaker 1: some bad things, you know, the one rotten apple spoils
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Speaker 1: a bunch sort of thing. He was definitely getting spoilt.
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Speaker 1: But I don't mean like he's a spoiled brat. I'm
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Speaker 1: just like the rotten apples spoiling him. So, oh you
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Speaker 1: know what I mean.
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Speaker 2: I see, yeah, I see what you mean. I was
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Speaker 2: like spoiled. Maybe he's a spoiled brat, but he's bad.
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Speaker 1: No, he's spoiling. Okay, there we go.
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Speaker 2: That, I get it.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. He At this time, he was severely depressed. He
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Speaker 1: was abusing substances daily, and increasingly resentful at any efforts
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Speaker 1: to rain him in and try and like better his behavior.
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Speaker 1: Mental health professionals would later actually provide a chilling perspective
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Speaker 1: on Tyler's state of mind, and I think it's important
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Speaker 1: that we discussed some of this before we get into
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Speaker 1: the well the obvious murder that he committed. Forensic psychiatrist
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Speaker 1: doctor Wade Myers testified that Tyler suffered from major depression
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Speaker 1: with psychotic features at the time he committed the murder.
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Speaker 1: Tyler had been treated for serious depression and anxiety since childhood.
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Speaker 1: First prescribed prozac at just ten years old, and in
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Speaker 1: the months before July twenty eleven, he was plagued by obsessive,
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Speaker 1: delusional thoughts about killing his parents and himself.
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Speaker 2: Oh so this was known?
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Speaker 1: Kind of, yes, it was known. In fact, Tyler had
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Speaker 1: fantasized both the murders for at least two or three
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Speaker 1: months prior. According to doctor Myers.
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Speaker 2: Okay, well, a, that is freaking terrifying. I don't even
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Speaker 2: know how you could live in the same house with
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Speaker 2: someone that you knew fantasizes about that. But also, b
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Speaker 2: like he struggled for so long he did, that's kind
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Speaker 2: of sad.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Doctor Myers also noted that Tyler voiced homicidal ideations
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Speaker 1: towards his parents for quote weeks on end.
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Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I don't even okay that it's just terrifying.
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Speaker 2: I don't even know where you'd sleep.
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Speaker 1: Well. Disturbingly, Tyler even later admitted that he had even
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Speaker 1: considered multiple methods, from garden shears to a kitchen knife,
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Speaker 1: before eventually settling on his weapon of choice, which would
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Speaker 1: ultimately be a claw hammer.
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Speaker 2: Holy shit, that's too much now.
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Speaker 1: Compounding his mental illness, Tyler was self medicating with a
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Speaker 1: cocktail of other street drugs. By seventeen, he was regularly
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Speaker 1: using marijuana, ecstasy, cocaine, and prescription cough syrup, which threw
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Speaker 1: off his brain chemistry quite a bit and amplified his
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Speaker 1: violent tendencies. As according to doctor Myers, once again.
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Speaker 2: He well, if he was on medication, like, those are
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Speaker 2: all things that you're probably not supposed to take when
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Speaker 2: you're on this medication, correct, Okay.
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Speaker 1: And that's at least to say, not even with any
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Speaker 1: alcohol considered in that factor as well.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Now, notably, Tyler was actually taking the antidepressant Selexa in
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Speaker 1: the months before the murders, a medication that doctor Myers
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Speaker 1: said could paradoxically have revved up the obsessive homicidal thoughts
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Speaker 1: tormenting Tyler. In Meyer's expert opinion, doctor Myers my apologies,
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Speaker 1: Tyler was operating under a quote delusion of a severe
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Speaker 1: mental illness end quote.
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Speaker 2: I'm confused. So why is he on that if it's
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Speaker 2: going to just like I guess you got to pick
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Speaker 2: which thing you're gonna treat.
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Speaker 1: I don't know, Well that's the thing. It was just
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Speaker 1: like it's this medication is for that, but it's also
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Speaker 1: going to affect this. There was too many things going
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Speaker 1: on in the system and his mental health, and it
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Speaker 1: was just spiraling.
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Speaker 2: Oh boy. Okay, So he.
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Speaker 1: Was, in short, a volatile mix of severe depression, drug
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Speaker 1: fueled impulsivity, and teenage anger, basically a ticking time bomb
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Speaker 1: right under his parents' roof. Now what makes this case
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Speaker 1: especial haunting is the evidence that Tyler carefully preplanned these murders,
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Speaker 1: seeing them as a means to an end, really a
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Speaker 1: massive house party and a newfound freedom. Seeing the weeks
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Speaker 1: leading up to July sixteenth, twenty eleven, Tyler allegedly told
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Speaker 1: friends that no one had ever thrown a real house
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Speaker 1: party after killing their parents, and that he intended to
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Speaker 1: be the first. This wasn't the heat of the moment crime.
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Speaker 1: It was a premeditated parricide. Parricide being a homicide of parents.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, well, I don't know if I've actually heard.
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Speaker 1: That I've used that term before.
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Speaker 2: Okay, well, I clearly forgot about it, because it's terrible.
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Speaker 1: I say it a couple times in this episode, that's
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Speaker 1: for sure. Parricide, paraside pa r r icid huh wow. Yeah. Now.
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Speaker 1: Tyler's best friend, Michael Mandel, later revealed that Tyler had
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Speaker 1: brought up the idea not just the one time, but
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Speaker 1: multiple times, but Michael dismissed it because Tyler had made
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Speaker 1: outrageous threats before and none of them have come into fruition, right,
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Speaker 1: just outlandish, you know, just venting that sort of stuff.
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Speaker 1: But by that fateful Saturday, Tyler's ominous plans were set.
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Speaker 1: It was around noon on July sixteenth, twenty eleven, that
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Speaker 1: he posted a cryptic Facebook message on his wall quote
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Speaker 1: party at my crib tonight dot dot maybe.
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Speaker 2: Oh okay, that gave me the chills. Yeah, at that point,
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Speaker 2: I'm assuming his parents are probably still alive.
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Speaker 1: They definitely are at this point.
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Speaker 2: Oh no.
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Speaker 1: Now, friends who saw this, they were intrigued. Tyler throwing
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Speaker 1: a party was quite unexpected, given his recent troubles and
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Speaker 1: strict parents, but many RSVPTE In private, Tyler told some
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Speaker 1: people that his parents were supposed to be out of
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Speaker 1: town that weekend, an explanation that he would mostly stick
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Speaker 1: to at the party. In reality, though, Blake and Mary
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Speaker 1: Joe Hadley were very much at home that day, and
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Speaker 1: Tyler was silently preparing to execute his gruesome mission once
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Speaker 1: the moment was right. That afternoon, Tyler attended a family gathering,
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Speaker 1: a weekly reunion at a cabin in Georgia, where relatives
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Speaker 1: noted nothing amiss. His aunt later recalled quote, I never
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Speaker 1: saw Tyler lose his temper. Ever, that's what is so
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Speaker 1: bizarre about everything. He may have been calm on the surface,
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Speaker 1: but beneath it all, Tyler was readying himself. Back at
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Speaker 1: the house sometime after his parents returned, Tyler methodically removed obstacles,
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Speaker 1: and by obstacles, I mean things like he hid his
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Speaker 1: family's cell phones so his parents couldn't call for help,
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Speaker 1: and he locked the Hadley's loyal black dog, the labrador,
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Speaker 1: into a closet because he's like, well, maybe they'll try
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Speaker 1: and protect Blake and marry Joe his parents. He also
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Speaker 1: gathered a stash of drugs to help his nerves. According
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Speaker 1: to a later police report, Tyler swallowed three ecstasy tablet
15:00
Speaker 1: it's shortly before the attack, which is a rather large
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Speaker 1: dose kind of meant to fuel his courage in what
15:07
Speaker 1: he was about to do.
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Speaker 2: Would he I just have trouble listening to that because
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Speaker 2: I feel like you would be out of your mind,
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Speaker 2: not really even knowing what you're doing.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that's kind of what he's relying on.
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Speaker 2: To almost be disassociated a little bit.
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Speaker 1: Basically, he doesn't want to be there when he does it,
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Speaker 1: but he wants to do it, you know what I mean.
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Speaker 1: He wants us to happen, but he's also nervous about it.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: So, shortly before five pm, with the late afternoon sun
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Speaker 1: filtering in through the Hadley home, Tyler decided to seize
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Speaker 1: the moment. His mother, Mary Joe, was working at the
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Speaker 1: family computer in the living room. Tyler quietly retrieved a
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Speaker 1: client framing hammer and stood behind his mother, and he
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Speaker 1: stood there for several long minutes. In his confession, Tyler
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Speaker 1: described that moment as if he hovered for about five
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Speaker 1: minutes in total behind his mom. Internally, he was debating
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Speaker 1: whether he could go through with it or not, and
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Speaker 1: finally he raised that hammer high in the air, and
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Speaker 1: his mother, Married Joe, perhaps sensing a presence or something,
16:14
Speaker 1: she started to turn around. Tyler later recalled that his
16:18
Speaker 1: mother caught a glimpse of him as the weapon was
16:21
Speaker 1: just at the instant before it came crashing down. In fact,
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Speaker 1: she managed to say at the last second, a shocking.
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Speaker 2: Why, oh seriously.
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Speaker 1: Right before the hammer struck her in the head.
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Speaker 2: Ah, So she didn't send some standing there for five
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Speaker 2: minutes or whatever, I guess.
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Speaker 1: Eh No, But at the last moment she sent something
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Speaker 1: and turned around and looked her son in the eye
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Speaker 1: and said why right as he struck her with the hammer, just.
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Speaker 2: Like at ease in her home, right, yeah, kind of
16:52
Speaker 2: not expecting to just be about to get murdered exactly now.
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Speaker 1: Her screams through the house brought her husband, Blake, running
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Speaker 1: out of the master bedroom in alarm. The sight that
17:04
Speaker 1: met him was the worst any husband and father could imagine.
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Speaker 1: His wife was on the floor bleeding and their son
17:10
Speaker 1: was wielding a bloody hammer over her, striking her. Oh,
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Speaker 1: he too, cried out why He cried this out in horror,
17:18
Speaker 1: frozen in the doorway, and Tyler's chilling reply, it was
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Speaker 1: it sends chills up my spine. He just replied with quote,
17:28
Speaker 1: why the fuck not?
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Speaker 2: Seriously, Yes, he's in the middle of killing his mother.
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Speaker 2: And he says that.
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Speaker 1: Yes, and with that he lunged at his father.
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Speaker 2: Oh no.
17:39
Speaker 1: Later, Tyler told investigators that he and his father locked
17:42
Speaker 1: eyes for a moment quote, stared into each other's eyes
17:46
Speaker 1: for a minute before he began swinging. Blake's last words,
17:50
Speaker 1: according to Tyler's recounting to a psychiatrist or a desperate
17:54
Speaker 1: plea quote, Tyler, please don't do this. It did not stop, though,
18:00
Speaker 1: with that plea, Tyler struck his father over and over
18:03
Speaker 1: with that same hammer that he just killed his mother with.
18:06
Speaker 1: In a frenzy of violence, he chased Blake into the
18:08
Speaker 1: master bedroom and kept bludgeoning him until his father, too,
18:11
Speaker 1: lay dead on the blood slicked floor.
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Speaker 2: Why actual shit.
18:17
Speaker 1: The savagery of this attack.
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Speaker 2: I cannot even believe.
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Speaker 1: Another level yeah yeah, which it was also later confirmed
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Speaker 1: by forensic evidence. When medical examiner reports came in, they
18:28
Speaker 1: documented dozens of wounds on each victim. Blake Hadley suffered
18:32
Speaker 1: at least sixty five separate injuries, including massive skull fractures
18:35
Speaker 1: and multiple broken bones in his arms and legs. Mary
18:39
Speaker 1: Jo's autopsy likewise showed that she had been struck dozens
18:42
Speaker 1: of times as well. Prosecutors later noted that each parent
18:45
Speaker 1: sustained approximately thirty six areas of impact from the hammer's blow.
18:52
Speaker 2: You know, it's almost surprising to me that he was
18:56
Speaker 2: like with the dad, it was like a fight, Like
18:58
Speaker 2: the dad saw it coming and you know, knew what
19:00
Speaker 2: was coming. Yeah, but I guess like the kid just
19:04
Speaker 2: was able to overpower him.
19:05
Speaker 1: Hey, well, with a hammer, it's pretty easy to overpower
19:08
Speaker 1: any people.
19:09
Speaker 2: The dad was weaponless, right, I guess, But frig I
19:12
Speaker 2: don't know. You just think like I don't know. In
19:14
Speaker 2: my brain, I'm like, oh, the dad could have all, oh,
19:17
Speaker 2: fought him maybe. But also this guy was like raging
19:19
Speaker 2: on drugs and shit too.
19:20
Speaker 1: You gotta remember it true, that's very true. Now, the
19:24
Speaker 1: phrase merciless killing would be used by police to describe
19:27
Speaker 1: the scene, and it was no an exaggeration. Investigators believe
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Speaker 1: Mary Joe died first, followed by Blake seconds later, and
19:36
Speaker 1: that Tyler delivered well over three dozen hammer blows in
19:39
Speaker 1: total to each of his parents, fuel by rage or
19:43
Speaker 1: perhaps the momentum of his own dranged determination, and as
19:46
Speaker 1: you mentioned, drugs as well. When it was over, Tyler
19:51
Speaker 1: was confronted with a gruesome aftermath, the bodies of both
19:54
Speaker 1: his parents, the two people who loved him most, battered
19:58
Speaker 1: and bloodied and motionless in the home that they had
20:01
Speaker 1: made for him, and.
20:03
Speaker 2: I just have to say to his mom was like
20:05
Speaker 2: an elementary school teacher. They're like the sweetest people.
20:08
Speaker 1: Yeah she was.
20:10
Speaker 2: Oh boy.
20:11
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, in a state of cold, detached purpose, he
20:15
Speaker 1: now set up to clean the blood and the crime
20:19
Speaker 1: scene that he had made. And it took him roughly
20:21
Speaker 1: three hours to mop up blood and hide all of
20:24
Speaker 1: the evidence. And he didn't even do that good of
20:26
Speaker 1: a job.
20:27
Speaker 2: Honestly, Well, he is a party, party to get ready
20:30
Speaker 2: for well, yeah time, what the hell time is at starting?
20:34
Speaker 1: We'll get into that, don't you worry. So now, with
20:37
Speaker 1: quite a bit of calm, Tyler dragged both his parents'
20:40
Speaker 1: corpses into his parents' bedroom, the master bedroom, and he
20:44
Speaker 1: began stacking anything you could find on top of them
20:46
Speaker 1: to conceal their remains. He heat bed, linens, towels, books,
20:51
Speaker 1: and even random picture frames into a macabre pile over
20:54
Speaker 1: his parents' bodies. I honestly don't really understand this still
20:59
Speaker 1: at you, With all the research I've done, I have
21:01
Speaker 1: a feeling it might have been some weird way of ceremonially. Ceremoniously,
21:07
Speaker 1: there we go burying his parents.
21:10
Speaker 2: Honestly, well, yeah, it seems really messed up, like you
21:13
Speaker 2: think you just put like a blanket or something over them.
21:15
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, it doesn't make sense to me, but regardless.
21:19
Speaker 1: By the time he was done, Blake's body was buried
21:22
Speaker 1: under a chair, Mary Joe's, under a large clutter of
21:26
Speaker 1: cabinets and various other items as well. The room was
21:30
Speaker 1: in complete disarray, like a storage heap, almost with only
21:33
Speaker 1: a part of Blake's legs still sticking out from under
21:36
Speaker 1: the debris. Tyler also tossed the murder weapon between his
21:39
Speaker 1: parents' bodies and locked the bedroom door behind him. He
21:43
Speaker 1: then washed himself, cleaned everything up, discarded his bloody clothes,
21:46
Speaker 1: and looked around the now eerily silent home. But the
21:51
Speaker 1: night was just beginning. At eight fifteen pm that evening,
21:56
Speaker 1: barely a few hours after the killings, a post appeared
21:59
Speaker 1: on Tyler's face book page that would become infamous. Quote
22:04
Speaker 1: party at my house HMU was followed by a smiley
22:08
Speaker 1: face and his cell number. Now HMU, of course, is
22:11
Speaker 1: shorthand for hit me up, meaning like a contact.
22:13
Speaker 2: Oh okay, I was like, what does that stand?
22:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, hit me up?
22:17
Speaker 2: Hit me up.
22:18
Speaker 1: Wow. Tyler was now ready to party and had already
22:22
Speaker 1: begun funding the festivities because earlier he had driven to
22:25
Speaker 1: an ATM and withdrawn cash using his now deceased parents
22:29
Speaker 1: credit cards, a transaction that was caught on the bank
22:33
Speaker 1: security cameras as well.
22:35
Speaker 2: Well.
22:35
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, he bought beer. He bought soda, pop and
22:39
Speaker 1: snacks for his guests, all using their money, and stashed
22:42
Speaker 1: the supplies in a now blood sanitized kitchen. By around
22:47
Speaker 1: nine pm, teenagers started showing up at the house ready
22:50
Speaker 1: to party and have a good time. Tyler greeted all
22:53
Speaker 1: his guests at the door, telling those who asked that
22:56
Speaker 1: his parents were away in Orlando for the weekend. To
22:59
Speaker 1: nearly everyone present, the lanky, brown haired seventeen year old,
23:03
Speaker 1: he was surprisingly calm and normal. The party itself was
23:06
Speaker 1: a typical high school age kind of party. There was
23:09
Speaker 1: underage drinking with that type of gathering, but this one
23:14
Speaker 1: had a fair amount of people show up, around fifty
23:16
Speaker 1: to sixty youth. In fact, it was all from you know,
23:20
Speaker 1: the high school he attended, and a lot of other
23:22
Speaker 1: neighborhoods too, and everyone was just milling about, drinking beer,
23:26
Speaker 1: blasting music, playing casual beer pong in the kitchen. That
23:29
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Now, people also noted that many of
23:31
Speaker 1: the attendees weren't even close friends of Tyler's. It was
23:35
Speaker 1: a mostly random, mixed crowd drawn by the promise of
23:38
Speaker 1: an open house bash while the parents were supposedly out
23:40
Speaker 1: of town. In the dimly lit, crowded living room, someone
23:45
Speaker 1: even remarked of a smell likening to quote dead bodies.
23:50
Speaker 2: Oh this is this is just so disturbing.
23:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so we were talking about how people might
23:56
Speaker 1: smell it and they wouldn't even think about dead bodies, know,
24:00
Speaker 1: it was commented someone dead, like you hide in dead bodies.
24:04
Speaker 1: It was commented about.
24:06
Speaker 2: It was starting to smell like death in there.
24:08
Speaker 1: It was, but it was just kind of laughed about
24:11
Speaker 1: and brushed off.
24:12
Speaker 2: Basically, well, I imagine too, like you. I think you
24:16
Speaker 2: kind of said earlier that he didn't do a very
24:17
Speaker 2: well good job of cleaning up, so I can imagine
24:20
Speaker 2: that kind of adds to the smell. There was probably
24:22
Speaker 2: like miss blood.
24:23
Speaker 1: There was miss blood. And I'm not going to say like, oh,
24:26
Speaker 1: there's blood everywhere. It's like if you just walk about
24:29
Speaker 1: the house, you're probably not going to see it, but
24:31
Speaker 1: if you're looking for it, you can find it, which
24:34
Speaker 1: I'll touch on, don't worry now. At some point in
24:37
Speaker 1: the night, Tyler's confident facade it began to crack. The
24:40
Speaker 1: weight of his secret was enormous, and he started dropping
24:43
Speaker 1: unsettling hints, and perhaps that's when the effects of what
24:47
Speaker 1: he consumed was beginning to wear off. Two. According to
24:50
Speaker 1: multiple partygoers, Tyler blurted out bizarre statements like I killed
24:54
Speaker 1: my parents or my parents aren't actually in Orlando, only
24:58
Speaker 1: to immediately play them off as a joke. Drunken nonsense. Seriously, Yeah,
25:04
Speaker 1: Most friends just rolled their eyes and that was about that.
25:07
Speaker 1: Everyone knew Tyler had a morbid sense of humor, and
25:09
Speaker 1: some assumed he was high or just trying to shock
25:12
Speaker 1: people for the shock value. Right, Oh, this is so
25:15
Speaker 1: awkward now. His friend Michael, though Tyler's best friend, who
25:19
Speaker 1: had known him since grade school, sent something was off
25:22
Speaker 1: with Tyler. Tyler looked distraught, he wasn't quite right, and
25:26
Speaker 1: he kept seeking Michael's attention. Almost Finally, around midnight, Tyler
25:31
Speaker 1: pulled Michael aside and he said, we need to talk privately.
25:35
Speaker 1: They went outside and under the street lights, Tyler faced
25:38
Speaker 1: his friend and uttered words that made Michael's blood run cold.
25:42
Speaker 1: Quote Mike, I killed my parents. Michael responded with immediate disbelief, saying, quote, no,
25:50
Speaker 1: you didn't shut up. But Tyler was dead serious. He
25:54
Speaker 1: pointed at the driveway even as they're standing out there.
25:57
Speaker 1: He's just like, look at the driveway. All the cars
26:01
Speaker 1: are still there. My parents aren't in Orlando. I killed
26:04
Speaker 1: my parents.
26:05
Speaker 2: Oh man. And I'm sure like his friend probably has
26:09
Speaker 2: had a couple bevies or something himself.
26:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, they've been enjoying their night and everything. So at
26:14
Speaker 1: that moment, though, Michael, he realized Tyler wasn't joking. But
26:18
Speaker 1: he's he's in a state of shock, like you said,
26:20
Speaker 1: maybe drinks whatever. He's not believing what Tyler's saying. He's like, no,
26:24
Speaker 1: there's no way. So he demanded proof.
26:27
Speaker 2: Oh.
26:28
Speaker 1: So the two went back in the house. They went
26:31
Speaker 1: through the chaotic living room, where the music was still
26:33
Speaker 1: pumping and oblivious teens were laughing and partying, and on
26:37
Speaker 1: their way through the house, that's when Michael noticed small
26:41
Speaker 1: blood splatters near a computer desk and a little bit
26:44
Speaker 1: more stains on the base boards close to the master
26:47
Speaker 1: bedroom door. They approached that bedroom and fear was rising.
26:52
Speaker 1: He turned to Tyler, who was fumbling his words. Tyler
26:55
Speaker 1: said the party needed to wind down before he could
26:57
Speaker 1: show him the bodies, but Michael couldn't wait. He had
27:00
Speaker 1: to see the truth with his own eyes to be
27:02
Speaker 1: sure this was real. Michael pushed past Tyler and turned
27:06
Speaker 1: the knob to the master and bedroom door, which is
27:08
Speaker 1: now unlocked, that Tyler had just unlocked. As Michael opened it,
27:12
Speaker 1: the smell hit him first, and then he peered into
27:16
Speaker 1: the dark room and immediately saw Blake Hadley's leg protruding
27:20
Speaker 1: from under a pile of bloodsiak towels, and clutter and debris.
27:24
Speaker 1: Michael recognized the shorts on his leg belonging to his
27:29
Speaker 1: friend's dad, mister Hadley. In that instant, the horrific reality
27:33
Speaker 1: set in Tyler had really done it. Michael staggered back,
27:37
Speaker 1: eyes wide, and he looked at his friend of nearly
27:40
Speaker 1: ten years in a complete abject horror. Tyler just stood
27:45
Speaker 1: there with a blank expression on his face. A sane
27:50
Speaker 1: person might have fled the house in that moment, screaming
27:52
Speaker 1: and not really sticking around right with what they just saw.
27:56
Speaker 1: But Michael, he was just in a state of shock
28:00
Speaker 1: and grappling with what to do next, and so astonishingly,
28:04
Speaker 1: he did not leave the house immediately. Michael later said
28:09
Speaker 1: that he was so quote scared and conflicted. This was
28:13
Speaker 1: his best friend and he needed time to process the
28:15
Speaker 1: whole situation figure out how to respond without getting himself hurt.
28:19
Speaker 1: Like maybe Tyler would hurt him if he said the
28:21
Speaker 1: wrong thing.
28:22
Speaker 2: Right, mm hm, that makes sense. I mean, gosh, he
28:25
Speaker 2: killed his fricking parents exactly.
28:27
Speaker 1: So, in a surreal move, Michael decided to pretend everything
28:31
Speaker 1: was just normal and avoid, you know, arousing Tyler's suspicion.
28:36
Speaker 1: The party raged on for a couple more hours, with
28:38
Speaker 1: Michael staying by Tyler's side the whole time, forcing laughs,
28:42
Speaker 1: and even taking a selfie together as a last memory.
28:47
Speaker 1: As Michael would have put it, because he's soaking this
28:49
Speaker 1: night in is his best friend. They took the selfie
28:54
Speaker 1: together because he knew what was to come for Tyler.
28:56
Speaker 1: He knew he's going away, so he knew this was
29:00
Speaker 1: the last selfie that'd be taking.
29:02
Speaker 2: It almost seems kind of sad.
29:04
Speaker 1: It is so. In that blurry cell phone picture, which
29:08
Speaker 1: later become infamous on social media regarding this case, Tyler's
29:11
Speaker 1: face looks strangely vacant, a faint, troubled smirk on his lips,
29:15
Speaker 1: but Michael stands beside him with an uneasy expression. No
29:19
Speaker 1: one else at that party knew that just off frame
29:22
Speaker 1: lay the body of Tyler's murdered parents, or that either
29:26
Speaker 1: that the killer was posing for the snapshot right in
29:28
Speaker 1: the middle of the party too.
29:30
Speaker 2: You're gonna have to post that selfie.
29:32
Speaker 1: I definitely will. By two or three am, people began
29:37
Speaker 1: filtering out of the house, unaware of the nightmare they
29:39
Speaker 1: were leaving behind. Finally, at around four am on Sunday,
29:43
Speaker 1: July seventeenth, Michael Mandel slipped away from Tyler and exited
29:48
Speaker 1: the house as well. His heart was hammering as he
29:51
Speaker 1: left that home, and he knew what he had to do.
29:54
Speaker 1: He drove down the street and dialed nine to one one,
29:58
Speaker 1: or rather the local crime stoppers hotline, and he called
30:01
Speaker 1: them to report his best friend had confessed to murdering
30:04
Speaker 1: his parents.
30:06
Speaker 2: Now, I just have to say that would have been
30:08
Speaker 2: very hard for him.
30:09
Speaker 1: Hey, yep, which is exactly why he like for his
30:12
Speaker 1: own safety, didn't like raise the red flags in front
30:15
Speaker 1: of Tyler, but also just soaking in the last moments
30:18
Speaker 1: with his best friends. So there's so much to unravel
30:21
Speaker 1: in that alone.
30:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, there is now on.
30:24
Speaker 1: That crime Stoppers hotline. He gave the address and the
30:27
Speaker 1: chilling details, and at four to twenty a m Port
30:30
Speaker 1: Saint Lucy Police the units arrived at the Hadley home
30:33
Speaker 1: in full force. When officers pulled up to the residence
30:37
Speaker 1: in the darkness, they saw Tyler pacing outside, shirtless, with
30:41
Speaker 1: an anxious, glazed look in his eyes. The remnants of
30:45
Speaker 1: the party were obvious. There's empty beer bottles littered across
30:48
Speaker 1: the lawn in the house and loud music still playing inside.
30:53
Speaker 1: Tyler immediately became nervous and panicky when he saw the
30:56
Speaker 1: cops pull up. Sweat beaded from his face as he
31:00
Speaker 1: tried to block the front entrance to the door, telling
31:02
Speaker 1: officers they couldn't come in because his parents were out
31:05
Speaker 1: of town and he was home alone. But police, acting
31:09
Speaker 1: on the tip that a murder potentially just occurred, they
31:13
Speaker 1: weren't listening, they weren't buying it. They announced they needed
31:16
Speaker 1: to enter due to a report of danger inside. Tyler's
31:19
Speaker 1: protests were rather weak and quickly overruled, so officers stepped
31:23
Speaker 1: in the living room and took the scene in. There
31:26
Speaker 1: were sticky floors, beer cups, and the unmistakable, strong metallic
31:30
Speaker 1: odor of blood in the air. Tyler had by now
31:34
Speaker 1: been detained and led to a squad car, and at
31:37
Speaker 1: that point he was just a person of interest as
31:40
Speaker 1: they didn't confirm the crime just yet, but he was
31:42
Speaker 1: oddly talkative and detached, as if in a daze. Inside,
31:47
Speaker 1: police quickly discovered signs of foul play, the splattered blood
31:50
Speaker 1: that was visible that Michael saw earlier. Yeah, despite Tyler's cleaning,
31:55
Speaker 1: investigators would note droplets near computer desks, along hallway base boards,
31:59
Speaker 1: and the bedroom door. When they approached it, it was
32:01
Speaker 1: locked once again, and after obtaining a search warrant, which
32:05
Speaker 1: only took a few minutes given the extreme circumstances, YEP
32:09
Speaker 1: officers forced the door open, and what they found was
32:13
Speaker 1: every bit as grotesque as the tipster had described. Blake
32:17
Speaker 1: and Mary Joe Hadley's bodies were in the master bedroom,
32:21
Speaker 1: buried under a mound of assorted furniture, towels, and debris.
32:25
Speaker 1: An unmistakable bloodstained claw hammer lay right on the floor
32:30
Speaker 1: between them.
32:31
Speaker 2: Right. I forgot that he left the murder weapon right
32:34
Speaker 2: in there with them.
32:35
Speaker 1: He did. Indeed, investigators noted that the victims were only
32:39
Speaker 1: partially concealed by the haphazard pile. An arm or a
32:43
Speaker 1: leg were visible here or there, sort of thing, a
32:45
Speaker 1: bit of clothing and that sort of stuff, but the
32:48
Speaker 1: entire room was splattered in blood, even all the way
32:51
Speaker 1: up to the ceiling. The brutality of the scene made
32:54
Speaker 1: even veteran officers shudder. Quote. It was a merciless killing,
33:00
Speaker 1: end Port Saint Lucy police Captain Dawn Kreak told reporters later,
33:06
Speaker 1: discussing the injuries as brutal. Over the next hours, crime
33:11
Speaker 1: scene technicians methodically documented the carnage. They counted the thirty
33:15
Speaker 1: six separate wounds on each body, confirming that Tyler had
33:18
Speaker 1: rained dozens of hammer blows on both his mother and father.
33:22
Speaker 1: Blood splatter analysis indicated that the attack began in the
33:25
Speaker 1: living room, where Mary Joe was first struck, and continued
33:27
Speaker 1: on to the master bedroom where Blake was finished off.
33:31
Speaker 1: The positions of the bodies and the drag marks on
33:33
Speaker 1: the floor corroborated Tyler's story that he had moved his
33:36
Speaker 1: parents into the bedroom after killing them All around the house.
33:40
Speaker 1: Evidence of the party intertwined with evidence of the murder
33:44
Speaker 1: red solo cups, liquor bottles in the kitchen, droplets of
33:47
Speaker 1: blood and bits of tissue in the hallway. Investigators even
33:50
Speaker 1: found remnants of Tyler's clean up attempt, damp blood soaked
33:55
Speaker 1: towels and sponges tossed aside. Later, a forensic lab matched
34:00
Speaker 1: the blood on the hammer to both the parents married
34:02
Speaker 1: Joan Blake, and even lifted Tyler's own fingerprints from the
34:05
Speaker 1: hammer's handle, leaving no doubt it was in fact the
34:08
Speaker 1: murder weapon.
34:09
Speaker 2: Jeez, well yeah he did just I was going to say,
34:13
Speaker 2: a terrible job. But he didn't really seem to even
34:17
Speaker 2: be bothered to hide this.
34:18
Speaker 1: Not really. It was just a party, Yeah, that's all
34:23
Speaker 1: he needed, that's all he wanted. It seems after that
34:26
Speaker 1: he had no plans.
34:27
Speaker 2: It's so interesting too that no one else at the
34:29
Speaker 2: party really noticed this sort of like blood splatter and stuff.
34:34
Speaker 2: But I guess they weren't really looking for it either.
34:36
Speaker 1: Not looking for it, and honestly, like I said, I'm
34:39
Speaker 1: sure there's spilt drinks here and there, stuff splatters, you know,
34:42
Speaker 1: dark maybe, and they're drunk and not paying attention. Yeah. Now,
34:47
Speaker 1: Tyler Hadley. He was formally arrested on the early morning
34:51
Speaker 1: of July seventeenth, twenty eleven, and charged with two counts
34:54
Speaker 1: of first degree murder. As he was taken into custody,
34:58
Speaker 1: news of the wild crime began verberating through the community
35:01
Speaker 1: of Port Saint Lucy, which is a calm, little coastal suburb.
35:05
Speaker 1: As everyone awoke on Sunday morning to the horrifying headlines
35:09
Speaker 1: that a local teen had killed his parents with a
35:11
Speaker 1: hammer and then thrown a party with their corpse in
35:14
Speaker 1: the house.
35:14
Speaker 2: Imagine being a neighbor, hey.
35:16
Speaker 1: Oh man to that house. So the story had all
35:20
Speaker 1: the elements of a grotesque thriller, parricide, a teen house party,
35:25
Speaker 1: social media invites, and an apparent lack of remorse as well.
35:29
Speaker 1: On top of it all. It quickly spread from local
35:31
Speaker 1: news to national outlets and even international media, who dubbed
35:35
Speaker 1: it the hammer House Party.
35:38
Speaker 2: The hammer House Party, the names that these people come
35:42
Speaker 2: up with sometimes, I know.
35:43
Speaker 1: Right, that is terrible. Neighbors and friends were in utter disbelief.
35:49
Speaker 1: A high school classmate of Tyler's told reporters quote he
35:52
Speaker 1: seemed normal, and that none of them could reconcile the
35:56
Speaker 1: quiet kid they knew was this now killer? A next
36:00
Speaker 1: neighbor who'd watched Tyler grow up recalled him as a
36:02
Speaker 1: polite boy who played sports with his dad, and was
36:05
Speaker 1: utterly shocked by the allegations. Many struggled to process how
36:09
Speaker 1: a family that appeared loving and tight knit could end
36:13
Speaker 1: in such a nightmare. In the days following the murders,
36:16
Speaker 1: Port Saint Lucy was a town in mourning and in
36:20
Speaker 1: fear as well. Residents left flowers and notes outside the
36:23
Speaker 1: Hadley home, which was now cordoned off with yellow police tape.
36:28
Speaker 1: Mary Joe's colleagues and students in the local elementary school system,
36:32
Speaker 1: the one that she worked at, held candlelight vigils in
36:34
Speaker 1: her memory. She was remembered as a dedicated teacher who
36:38
Speaker 1: had touched countless young lives. Blake's co workers at the
36:42
Speaker 1: power plant were equally devastated. He was known as a reliable,
36:45
Speaker 1: friendly presence, proud of his family. The idea that their
36:49
Speaker 1: own son had taken their lives was beyond anyone's comprehension.
36:54
Speaker 1: Now all this shock, it was compounded by the bizarre
36:57
Speaker 1: reality that sixty local teens had unknowingly partied at the
37:02
Speaker 1: scene of the crime that very night.
37:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, remember how I was just like imagining the neighbor
37:07
Speaker 2: as you were going on. I was like, imagine being
37:09
Speaker 2: a kid at that party.
37:11
Speaker 1: Exactly. Now, parents across the town shutter to imagining their
37:14
Speaker 1: own son or daughter had attended that party, right, yeah,
37:17
Speaker 1: oblivious to the danger that they were in. As more
37:21
Speaker 1: facts emerged, public outrage grew. Particularly galling was the revelation
37:26
Speaker 1: that Tyler showed little remorse immediately after the fact. Reports
37:30
Speaker 1: leaked that in jail, Tyler was bragging about his new
37:33
Speaker 1: found notoriety, even signing autographs for fellow inmates with the
37:37
Speaker 1: tagline quote it's hammer time.
37:42
Speaker 2: Oh that is just that is like too disturbing. But
37:46
Speaker 2: the actual shit all.
37:48
Speaker 1: Along with the self chosen nickname hammer Boy.
37:51
Speaker 2: And you don't think that he would be like, holy shit,
37:53
Speaker 2: I'm a terrible person. I murdered my parents.
37:56
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly what the yeah? Now, This behavior made headlines
38:02
Speaker 1: and painted a picture of a cold, remorseless teen who
38:06
Speaker 1: was reveling in his newfound infamy.
38:09
Speaker 2: I guess, wow, this is unreal now.
38:13
Speaker 1: For Tyler's extended family, however, the dominant emotions were grief
38:17
Speaker 1: and anger. Ryan Hadley, Tyler's twenty three year old brother,
38:21
Speaker 1: was living out of State in North Carolina at the
38:23
Speaker 1: time of the murders. He was spared from the immediate danger,
38:27
Speaker 1: but not from the soul crushing aftermath. Ryan flew home
38:31
Speaker 1: to bury his parents and found his world turned upside down,
38:35
Speaker 1: not only with the brutal death of his parents, but
38:37
Speaker 1: now with his only sibling charged with their murders.
38:41
Speaker 2: He'd basically just lost his whole family that day.
38:44
Speaker 1: Exactly in September of twenty eleven, barely two months later,
38:48
Speaker 1: Ryan took a legal step to ensure Tyler could never
38:51
Speaker 1: profit from their parents' death. He filed a civil lawsuit
38:55
Speaker 1: to invoke Florida's slayer statue, legally barring Tyler from any
39:00
Speaker 1: money or insurance benefits from Blake and Mary Joseph State, saying, quote,
39:05
Speaker 1: He's not going to reap any reward for what he did.
39:09
Speaker 2: Okay, that makes sense.
39:10
Speaker 1: The lawsuit detailed the horrific crime and even noted the
39:14
Speaker 1: timeline of Tyler's Facebook posts the party at my crib
39:17
Speaker 1: maybe to the party at my house HMU from the onset.
39:23
Speaker 1: Tyler Hadley's criminal case posed challenges for the legal system.
39:27
Speaker 1: He was, in fact a juvenile, just seventeen years old
39:32
Speaker 1: at the time of the crime, but he was charged
39:35
Speaker 1: with first murder of two people, an offense for which
39:39
Speaker 1: Florida law typically allowed no leniency, and prosecutors announced early
39:44
Speaker 1: on that Tyler would in fact be charged and tried
39:48
Speaker 1: as an adult. Okay, it was given the premeditation and
39:52
Speaker 1: the nature of the murders, right.
39:54
Speaker 2: Well, totally. I was listening to this podcast one time
39:57
Speaker 2: and the person was like, if you're gonna do adult crimes,
40:00
Speaker 2: he charges an adult person, And like, I totally agree.
40:03
Speaker 1: If you're charged with adult crimes, you should do adult times.
40:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, what I said.
40:07
Speaker 1: You know, that's definitely not what you said.
40:10
Speaker 2: Okay, that's what I meant to say. Or it's so late,
40:13
Speaker 2: I'm tired.
40:13
Speaker 1: But yeah, maybe you did say that. Maybe I'm just
40:15
Speaker 1: tired now I'm a second guests, I don't know.
40:17
Speaker 2: But yeah, if you're going to choose to do something
40:19
Speaker 2: very adult, you know you need to be face the
40:22
Speaker 2: adult consequences.
40:24
Speaker 1: Yes, definitely agree. Now, considering this whole situation, family members
40:28
Speaker 1: were struggling to reconcile love with loathing over the whole situation.
40:33
Speaker 1: One relative told reporters that they quote still love Tyler,
40:37
Speaker 1: but hated what he had done. And wanted justice served. Now, indeed,
40:42
Speaker 1: many of Tyler's own kin hoped he would be punished
40:44
Speaker 1: to the fullest extent of the law. Tyler's brother, Ryan,
40:49
Speaker 1: who had once been extremely close with his little brother,
40:52
Speaker 1: expressed that sentiment very strongly. When Tyler's case finally headed
40:56
Speaker 1: towards sentencing, Ryan took the stand and with a voice
41:00
Speaker 1: he told the courts that despite the love he once had, quote,
41:03
Speaker 1: I want him to get the maximum penalty possible.
41:07
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, he took away his parents.
41:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, so because of his age, he was exempt from
41:13
Speaker 1: the death penalty, as the U. S. Supreme Court had
41:15
Speaker 1: banned executing minors in two thousand and five. Now, initially,
41:19
Speaker 1: Tyler pleaded not guilty and his public defenders prepared for
41:23
Speaker 1: a trial. The defense team's strategy became clear as a
41:26
Speaker 1: gathered evidence. They would argue that Tyler's mental state, his depression, immaturity,
41:31
Speaker 1: and intoxication mitigated his culpability. However, in early twenty fourteen,
41:37
Speaker 1: just before the trial, Tyler changed his plea to no contest,
41:42
Speaker 1: essentially conceding guilt without a formal admission on the two
41:45
Speaker 1: accounts of both first degree murders. This spared the family
41:50
Speaker 1: a trial and fast tracked the case to a sentencing phase,
41:53
Speaker 1: where a judge, not a jury, would decide Tyler's fate.
41:58
Speaker 1: During the Marchy fourteen sentenced hearing, the courtroom was presented
42:02
Speaker 1: with two starkly different portrayals of Tyler Hadley. The prosecution,
42:06
Speaker 1: they painted him as cold, calculating, a killer who brutally
42:10
Speaker 1: executed his parents out of selfish resentment and then just
42:14
Speaker 1: partied over their dead bodies. The lead prosecutor, chief Assistant
42:18
Speaker 1: State Attorney Tom Bekedhal, argued that the murders were quote
42:23
Speaker 1: a cold, calculated, premeditated act, driven not by psychosis, but
42:28
Speaker 1: by Tyler's anger at his parents for trying to curb
42:30
Speaker 1: his dangerous behaviors. Bacadal emphasized evidence of Tyler's apparent pride
42:37
Speaker 1: and lack of remorse, those jailhouse autographs, for example, where
42:40
Speaker 1: he signed hammer Boy its Hammer Time, the fact that
42:43
Speaker 1: Tyler had literally celebrated his crimes with a drunken party bash,
42:48
Speaker 1: and his calm demeanor when describing the killings afterwards. To
42:53
Speaker 1: drive the point home, prosecutors showed the judge the gruesome
42:56
Speaker 1: crime scene photos of Blake and Mary Joe's bloodied bodies,
43:00
Speaker 1: so graphic, in fact, that many of the Hadley relatives
43:02
Speaker 1: fled the courtroom in tears. They even brandished the actual
43:07
Speaker 1: murder weapon in the courtroom, the wooden handled hammer, still
43:11
Speaker 1: stained with blood.
43:13
Speaker 2: Oh, that's so sad.
43:15
Speaker 1: This visual horror was paired with testimonies from a crime
43:18
Speaker 1: scene investigator who described a clinical, in clinical detail, how
43:22
Speaker 1: Tyler bludgeoned his parents and attempted to hide the evidence.
43:26
Speaker 1: The prosecution also called witnesses to outline Tyler's pattern of
43:30
Speaker 1: unruly behavior leading up to the crime. Tyler's own brother, Ryan,
43:34
Speaker 1: testified about the family struggles, how Tyler ran with a
43:38
Speaker 1: bad crowd, stole from his parents, knock out at night,
43:41
Speaker 1: and was so uncontrollable that their parents resorted to a
43:44
Speaker 1: rehab facility and even a tracker on his phone. A
43:49
Speaker 1: family friend recounted Tyler's constant complaints that his parents were unfair,
43:54
Speaker 1: especially that they they grounded him by forcing him to
43:57
Speaker 1: stay in rehabit not letting him party like you wanted.
44:01
Speaker 1: All of this was meant to show motive. Tyler killed
44:06
Speaker 1: because he was angry at being disciplined, not because he
44:09
Speaker 1: was delusional or didn't understand his actions. And on the
44:14
Speaker 1: other side, Tyler's defense team presented a narrative of a
44:19
Speaker 1: profoundly disturbed adolescence who was emotionally and developmentally far younger
44:24
Speaker 1: than his seventeen years of age. They argued that while
44:28
Speaker 1: Tyler did commit the killings, his mental illness and lack
44:32
Speaker 1: of maturity were such that he could not spend the
44:35
Speaker 1: rest of his life in prison. Two key expert witnesses
44:39
Speaker 1: supported this argument. Doctor Wade Meyers of Brown University. He
44:43
Speaker 1: was a psychiatrist, and he was the one who had
44:47
Speaker 1: seen Tyler in his earlier years. Oh okay, yeah, psychiatrist yeah.
44:52
Speaker 1: And doctor Kathleen Hyde, a criminology professor and specialist in
44:56
Speaker 1: parricide now. Doctor Hyde testified that in terms of personality development,
45:01
Speaker 1: Tyler was more like a twelve year old than a
45:03
Speaker 1: seventeen year old. She explained that he was severely depressed,
45:07
Speaker 1: with abnormally low self esteem and a sense of social isolation,
45:12
Speaker 1: despite not being abused or neglected by his parents. In
45:17
Speaker 1: her assessment, Tyler's motivations on that day sprung from his
45:20
Speaker 1: emotional immaturity and desperation, not from pure malice. Quote. He's
45:26
Speaker 1: taking away the two people who loved him most, she said,
45:30
Speaker 1: noting that at the time Tyler had quote no emotional
45:34
Speaker 1: appreciation for the gravity of the loss. Now, Doctor Hyde
45:38
Speaker 1: also claimed that Tyler had shown remorse in her sessions
45:41
Speaker 1: with him, just not for the murders, but for the
45:45
Speaker 1: years of lying and stealing. Sorry, not just for the murders,
45:49
Speaker 1: but also for the years of lying and stealing from
45:50
Speaker 1: his parents before that as well. In the closing arguments,
45:54
Speaker 1: the prosecution urged the judge to impose two consecutive life
45:59
Speaker 1: sentences with out the possibility for parole.
46:02
Speaker 2: Okay, so then he would literally be in there till he.
46:05
Speaker 1: Died, basically, yeah, condemning him to die in prison, right yeah.
46:08
Speaker 1: The defense, however, pleaded for mercy, suggesting that with treatment
46:12
Speaker 1: and the passage of time, Tyler could be rehabilitated. They
46:15
Speaker 1: hinted at the possibility of a lengthy term of years instead,
46:20
Speaker 1: like maybe forty years to say the least, right that
46:23
Speaker 1: would give him a chance of eventual freedom. In essence,
46:26
Speaker 1: it was a battle between punishment and the possibility of rehabilitation.
46:32
Speaker 1: On March twentieth, twenty fourteen, Judge Mackamson rendered his verdict.
46:39
Speaker 1: Tyler Hadley was sentenced to two consecutive life terms without
46:42
Speaker 1: the possibility of parole. In a forty minute explanation from
46:46
Speaker 1: the bench, Mackimson acknowledged the expert testimony about Tyler's mental health,
46:51
Speaker 1: but ultimately he was not swayed that it was an
46:54
Speaker 1: excuse of the crime. Poof Mackimson explicitly stated that he
47:00
Speaker 1: did not believe Tyler was truly suffering from a psychotic
47:02
Speaker 1: illness at the time, contrary to the doctor's opinions. The
47:06
Speaker 1: judge effectively ignored the defense experts, imposing the harshest penalty available,
47:12
Speaker 1: life in a controlled environment with no parole, meaning Tyler
47:16
Speaker 1: would spend the rest of his natural life behind bars, which.
47:19
Speaker 2: Could be like upwards of what sixty plus years?
47:24
Speaker 1: Yeah? Okay, Now, the Hadley family sitting in the courtroom
47:29
Speaker 1: felt a grim sense of justice. Ryan and the other
47:32
Speaker 1: relatives had advocated for this exact outcome, and they got it.
47:38
Speaker 1: In their eyes, Tyler's punishment it fit the crime, and
47:41
Speaker 1: society would be safe from any future outbursts. As Tyler
47:45
Speaker 1: was led away in shackles, he was officially a seventeen
47:48
Speaker 1: year old sentenced to die in prison. However, the story
47:52
Speaker 1: doesn't end here, Tyler's case would soon find its way
47:56
Speaker 1: back into the courts. In twenty sixteen, Florida court overturned
48:01
Speaker 1: the original sentence, citing that the trial judge had not
48:04
Speaker 1: properly accounted for the new legal standards for juveniles. Basically,
48:09
Speaker 1: Florida passed legislation requiring that juveniles and convicted juveniles of
48:14
Speaker 1: serious crimes like murder or whatever receive periodic judicial review,
48:19
Speaker 1: essentially a chance to have their life sentence reconsidered after
48:23
Speaker 1: a set number of years, usually twenty five years, or
48:26
Speaker 1: be given a term of years instead of life. Now,
48:29
Speaker 1: Judge Mackimson in twenty fourteen had not provided any sort
48:33
Speaker 1: of review mechanism, which made Tyler's sentence incompatible with this
48:37
Speaker 1: new requirement. As a result, Tyler Hadley was entitled to
48:41
Speaker 1: a new sentencing hearing. The re sentencing took place in
48:46
Speaker 1: October of twenty eighteen, seven years after the murders. This time,
48:52
Speaker 1: Tyler was now twenty four years old. He walked into
48:55
Speaker 1: the court not as a scrawny little teen, but a
48:57
Speaker 1: young man who had spent years already in the state
49:00
Speaker 1: penitentiary system. By accounts, he had matured and maintained a
49:05
Speaker 1: clean disciplinary record in prison. Nonetheless, the prosecution remained adamant
49:11
Speaker 1: that life behind bars was the only outcome. The defense
49:16
Speaker 1: again marshalled mental health experts to argue Tyler could be rehabilitated,
49:20
Speaker 1: and pushed for a sentence of forty years forty four zero.
49:24
Speaker 1: I don't know if I stumbled that it might sound
49:25
Speaker 1: like four or fourteen.
49:27
Speaker 2: Well I heard forty Okay?
49:28
Speaker 1: Good Now? The new Florida minimum for juveniles convicted of
49:32
Speaker 1: first degree murder was that forty, which meant Tyler might
49:37
Speaker 1: go free in his fifties. Emotions ran high as family
49:41
Speaker 1: members gave victim impact statements for the second time, and
49:45
Speaker 1: after weighing the testimony and the new legal standards, the
49:48
Speaker 1: judge in twenty eighteen decided to reimpose a life sentence
49:52
Speaker 1: for Tyler Hadley, but this time with a crucial difference.
49:56
Speaker 1: Tyler would be eligible for judicial review after twenty five years,
50:01
Speaker 1: which means sometime around twenty forty one, twenty five years
50:05
Speaker 1: from his original twenty fourteen sentencing, Tyler can petition a
50:09
Speaker 1: court to review his case and his behavior, and there
50:12
Speaker 1: is a possibility, though not guaranteed, he could be re
50:15
Speaker 1: sentenced to a term of years or parole if he's
50:19
Speaker 1: deemed rehabilitated. Okay, So if the court at the time
50:23
Speaker 1: decides he's he remains a threat or that justice demands
50:27
Speaker 1: continued confinement, he will remain in prison for life.
50:30
Speaker 2: But if he's like a perfect angel in there, then
50:33
Speaker 2: I could, I honestly could see him getting out.
50:36
Speaker 1: If he's a perfect angel in there, he I mean,
50:40
Speaker 1: by his mid forties, he could get his real chance
50:43
Speaker 1: of freedom.
50:44
Speaker 2: But he is so young too, Like the I feel
50:46
Speaker 2: like the younger you are there is the more chance
50:49
Speaker 2: of you being able to get rehabilitated.
50:51
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, You're a little more malleable, You're a little
50:54
Speaker 1: more susceptible to it. That's I mean, as the old
50:56
Speaker 1: saying goes, can't teach an old dog new tricks, right, So.
50:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, but also just think about that, say you're you
51:03
Speaker 2: were basically living with your parents and then you were
51:06
Speaker 2: in jail, and then you get out, Like, how would
51:10
Speaker 2: you even survive? Really, honestly, I feel like you would
51:13
Speaker 2: have you would just have no like smarts for survival
51:18
Speaker 2: for life.
51:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's got to be some sort of.
51:21
Speaker 2: There would be programs.
51:22
Speaker 1: Yeah. Still, yeah, when you put it that way, Wow, Okay,
51:27
Speaker 1: that's that would that would really drive it home for
51:29
Speaker 1: him what he did. I guess maybe he sits for
51:31
Speaker 1: all this time, but then when he actually gets out
51:33
Speaker 1: into the world and he.
51:35
Speaker 2: Would have nobody, he would have exactly literally nobody.
51:38
Speaker 1: He would have nobody, He wouldn't know what to do,
51:41
Speaker 1: and it's just it's literally him. Because in prison, I mean,
51:45
Speaker 1: you have your cellmates, you have the security guards, you
51:47
Speaker 1: have the system, you have your lawyer. But then when
51:50
Speaker 1: you're out, it it's just him. Yeah, holy fuck. Okay,
51:54
Speaker 1: that's that's terrifying. Anyways, the Tyler had case leaves us
52:01
Speaker 1: with unsettling questions and lessons. How could a teenager from
52:05
Speaker 1: a loving family and home turn into a murderer of
52:09
Speaker 1: his own parents. In hindsight, the warning signs were there,
52:13
Speaker 1: the escalating drug use, the rebellion, mental health struggles, the
52:17
Speaker 1: exclamations of I want to kill my parents, Yet no
52:20
Speaker 1: one could predict such violence would actually come to fruition.
52:25
Speaker 1: In prison interviews years later, Tyler he has reportedly expressed
52:29
Speaker 1: deep regret and took full responsibility for what he did.
52:33
Speaker 1: In one of his first on camera interviews that were
52:35
Speaker 1: aired in twenty four he recounted in chilling detail how
52:39
Speaker 1: the ideal of killing his parents, how it took root
52:42
Speaker 1: in his mind, and how he realized the magnitude of
52:44
Speaker 1: his crimes now as an adult. For the community of
52:48
Speaker 1: Port Saint Lucy, the legacy of the Hadley case is
52:51
Speaker 1: one of heartache and caution. The Hadley family was irreparably shattered.
52:56
Speaker 1: Two good parents were lost, one son was left shattered,
53:00
Speaker 1: and the other was left behind bars for well who
53:04
Speaker 1: knows how long. The Hadley House itself became a morbid
53:09
Speaker 1: landmark at three seven to one Northeast Grandeur Avenue. In
53:13
Speaker 1: April of twenty fifteen, nearly four years after the murders
53:16
Speaker 1: took place, the house was quietly demolished by new owners
53:19
Speaker 1: who bought it from the Hadley estate. The lot was
53:22
Speaker 1: cleared as if to wipe away the physical reminder of
53:24
Speaker 1: the tragedy, but the memory of what happened there it
53:28
Speaker 1: continues to cast a long shadow over Port Saint Lucy
53:32
Speaker 1: and honestly even farther beyond. And that's that's the story
53:37
Speaker 1: of Tyler Hadley in the House Party of Horrors.
53:42
Speaker 2: You know, I bet you anything, I am calling it
53:44
Speaker 2: right now that he's going to get out for sure,
53:46
Speaker 2: because also if he you know, has remorse too, and
53:50
Speaker 2: he's just like he could go about, Like I bet
53:54
Speaker 2: you anything, he'll get his ged in prison and like
53:57
Speaker 2: maybe even drain of some sort of occupation and stuff potentially. Yeah,
54:02
Speaker 2: I bet you Anything'll he'll get out. I am calling
54:06
Speaker 2: that for sure.
54:07
Speaker 1: I think I'm in agreeance with you. I think he
54:08
Speaker 1: will eventually get out.
54:10
Speaker 2: And maybe he will be totally rehabilitated. And I hope
54:12
Speaker 2: that he regrets what he did, because holy shit.
54:15
Speaker 1: I hope everyone that goes to prison for a crime
54:19
Speaker 1: like this or anything, I hope they all get rehabilitated.
54:22
Speaker 1: I really do. Some people deserve to rot, some people
54:25
Speaker 1: deserve the time for their crimes, like you were saying,
54:28
Speaker 1: But I still hope they all regret their shit. Yeah,
54:31
Speaker 1: get their stuff in line and they're rehabilitated.
54:33
Speaker 2: Well yeah, I mean, yeah, you can be rehabilitated and stuff,
54:37
Speaker 2: but you gotta still I think, face what you did. Yeah,
54:41
Speaker 2: there's repercussions, right, yeah, and not just be like oh, lutia,
54:45
Speaker 2: like this is my life now, like woohoo, No, I'm
54:48
Speaker 2: a freaking asshole and I did shitty stuff. Yeah, like
54:53
Speaker 2: even if you are rehabilitated, you still have to like
54:55
Speaker 2: realize what the shit you did and live.
54:57
Speaker 1: With that exactly and accept that it was you who
55:00
Speaker 1: did it and not be like, oh, well that was
55:02
Speaker 1: the old me and now I'm the new meet. Nope,
55:04
Speaker 1: you still fucking killed someone. You are responsible that. You
55:08
Speaker 1: might have a new U, but you are responsible for
55:11
Speaker 1: someone not being here.
55:13
Speaker 2: Yeah.
55:13
Speaker 1: So, anyways, I think Nicole and I are both tired,
55:16
Speaker 1: especially considering Nicole's over here woo hoo ing away woo.
55:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true crime podcast. Holy shit, go to bed lately, no.
55:22
Speaker 1: Kidding, but yeah, so we're gonna end it here, but
55:25
Speaker 1: thank you for being here. You guys are amazing, and
55:26
Speaker 1: until next time, stay wicked