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The Knife: Off Record – 110 · The Knife: A True Crime Podcast

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Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised. Hello,
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Speaker 1: and welcome to the Knife Off Record. I'm Patia Eaton,
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Speaker 1: I'm Hannah Smith. Today we have two follow ups on
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Speaker 1: last week's episode about Mountain Park Baptist Boarding Academy. We're
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Speaker 1: going to talk about the murder that took place there
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Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety six, as well as the troubled teen
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Speaker 1: program that the Wills ran prior to Mountain Park Bethesda
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Speaker 1: Home for Girls, and as always we will have recommendations.
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Speaker 2: Let's get into it.
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Speaker 1: So, you know, we talked briefly in the episode about
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Speaker 1: Bethesda Home for Girls, but you did a little more
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Speaker 1: research about what exactly that was.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I did a little more research and I'll tell
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Speaker 2: you about that. And I also spoke with someone who
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Speaker 2: was sent there as a child. Wow. So but as
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Speaker 2: the home for girls was just outside of Hattiesburg, Mississippi,
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Speaker 2: very small town obviously, as you can imagine, a pretty
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Speaker 2: conservative area. It was also founded, of course by Lester Rolloff,
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Speaker 2: as we know, who went on to start Mountain Park
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Speaker 2: Baptist Boarding Academy after Bethesda. So but as the home
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Speaker 2: for girls operated in the nineteen seventies, and in the
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Speaker 2: nineteen eighties, and I spoke with a woman named Lisa
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Speaker 2: Dean who gave me permission to tell her story on
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Speaker 2: the show. But as a home for girls, if you google,
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Speaker 2: it was sort of advertised as a safe haven for
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Speaker 2: young pregnant girls to give birth and then their babies
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Speaker 2: were adopted out by I mean, I'm putting this in
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Speaker 2: air quotes because it's how it was advertised good Christian families.
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Speaker 2: And are these like unmarried, unmarried teenage girls whose families
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Speaker 2: maybe felt like it would bring them shame to the family,
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Speaker 2: to their daughter to be seen pregnant. Yeah, wow, yeah, so,
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Speaker 2: I mean in pregnancy, if you've never done it before,
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Speaker 2: it can be pretty intense physically and emotionally. So immediately
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Speaker 2: of han learning about this place and others like it,
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Speaker 2: it's like wow, to be going through that at a
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Speaker 2: young age. You're not in a stable relationship with your partner,
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Speaker 2: I would assume, and then you're taken from your family
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Speaker 2: who is hopefully a support system to you, and surrounded
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Speaker 2: by strangers. I mean, it's pretty traumatic all around. Lisa,
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Speaker 2: who I spoke with, actually found Lisa on YouTube. There
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Speaker 2: was a YouTube video interviewing someone else who had been
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Speaker 2: at bethesta home for girls, and Lisa had commented like,
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Speaker 2: I'm so sorry you went through that. I know what
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Speaker 2: you went through. I went there too. And so Lisa
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Speaker 2: actually was not sent there because of pregnancy. Her story
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Speaker 2: is different. Girls were also sent to Bethesda for behavioral issues,
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Speaker 2: and this idea was that Bethesda would be both a
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Speaker 2: place for pregnant teen girls to have their babies free
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Speaker 2: of shame with support, and it would also be a
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Speaker 2: place to send girls who needed help with behavior and
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Speaker 2: maybe getting their lives back on track, so to speak.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting that those two things would be combined
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Speaker 1: into one place, and it kind of shows like the
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Speaker 1: attitude toward you know, teen pregnancy. Teen pregnancy has always
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Speaker 1: been stigmatized, right, and it's not an ideal situation, but
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Speaker 1: the fact that you know, these teen girls are sort
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Speaker 1: of lumped in with like kids who are having behavioral issues,
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Speaker 1: it just really, I don't know, shines a light on
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Speaker 1: the attitude toward all of that totally. And I mean
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Speaker 1: you can imagine the probably lack of sex education at
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Speaker 1: that time. Yeah, and certainly young boys weren't sent away
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Speaker 1: like you have gotten someone pregnant and then you know,
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Speaker 1: you need to take responsibility that wasn't happening, So.
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Speaker 2: It doesn't have does this doesn't happen? Yeah? And Lisa
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Speaker 2: grew up in a single parent household with her mother
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Speaker 2: and they were incredibly close. Lisa, when I spoke with
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Speaker 2: her last week, she's sixty years old now, and as
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Speaker 2: she told me her story, it was hard for her
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Speaker 2: to get through. She was choking up a lot it wow.
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Speaker 2: Really yeah, just the pain of what she went through
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Speaker 2: was still that present for her all these years later.
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Speaker 1: And so how old was she when she was at Bethesda?
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Speaker 2: So I guess to start it all happened because Lisa
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Speaker 2: was estranged from her father. He was not in the picture,
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Speaker 2: and her mother died by suicide when Lisa was She
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Speaker 2: remembers it as eleven or twelve, wow, And she said
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Speaker 2: her mom was like the most incredible, loving mother. She
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Speaker 2: has so many memories in the kitchen cooking beside her.
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Speaker 2: You know, this was her entire world and support system,
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Speaker 2: and it was a happy home that they lived in.
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Speaker 2: And to lose her that way, of course, was just
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Speaker 2: so traumatic. And she was sent to live with her aunt,
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Speaker 2: her mother's sister. Lisa's aunt also was a very she said,
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Speaker 2: loving caretaker. She had only good intentions. But you know,
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Speaker 2: this was the nineteen seventies and Lisa was entering her
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Speaker 2: teenage years and now she was in a new home,
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Speaker 2: reeling from the loss of her mother, and she started
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Speaker 2: running away and maybe breaking the house rules. It wasn't
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Speaker 2: one thing that was like, okay, now you have to leave.
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Speaker 2: It was just this sort of like her behavior was
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Speaker 2: becoming too much for her aunt. And her aunt, who
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Speaker 2: attended a local Baptist church where they were living, she
5:44
Speaker 2: had heard of. But that's the home for girls, got it. Yeah,
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Speaker 2: And so Lisa remembers it as her aunt put her
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Speaker 2: on a plane, did not get on the plane with her,
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Speaker 2: and when she got to her destination, she was picked
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Speaker 2: up by strangers, taken to a location and then told
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Speaker 2: where she was and why, and it was presented to
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Speaker 2: her as a place where she could really find herself
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Speaker 2: again and resent her But of course that's not what
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Speaker 2: it was.
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Speaker 1: No, of course not. Yeah, that's so scary too. You
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Speaker 1: just like are sent off all the trauma she's already
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Speaker 1: been through and now she has no idea what she's
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Speaker 1: getting into, you know.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it was at a time when she
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Speaker 2: really needed counseling, she needed therapy, and she didn't get
6:27
Speaker 2: those things. She was shipped off to what we now
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Speaker 2: know was a place with a lot of abuse. So
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Speaker 2: when Lisa got to Bethesda, the first thing similar to
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Speaker 2: Meg's experience at Mountain Park. You're made aware of the rules,
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Speaker 2: and there are a lot of rules. You're up around
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Speaker 2: five am, teethbrush, face washed, and then you're supposed to
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Speaker 2: be dressed and sitting in the hallway reading your Bible
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Speaker 2: by like six am or something crazy like that for teenagers.
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Speaker 2: You know, her growing and you're listening to Lester roll
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Speaker 2: Off preaching and recordings, You're reading your Bible, you're doing devotions.
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Speaker 2: Then it's you know, a very meager breakfast, and then
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Speaker 2: you're doing chores. Similar to Mountain Park, you have like
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Speaker 2: a buddy system where someone who has been there longer
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Speaker 2: is watching over you, making sure that you're following the rules,
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Speaker 2: and if you're not there, you know, incentivized to report that.
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Speaker 2: And then there is physical abuse, so they're sleep deprived.
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Speaker 2: Even things like dreaming were not allowed. That's dreaming, Yeah,
7:28
Speaker 2: you're asleep. It was like said that it was un Christian. Wow,
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Speaker 2: I mean psychotic. Yeah, and that piece actually found online.
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Speaker 2: Lisa didn't mention that to me, but it was just like, oh, okay, so, no,
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Speaker 2: wonder this is how you're justifying the sleep deprivation. Is like, well,
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Speaker 2: if you sleep, you might dream, and we're going to
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Speaker 2: say that that's on Christian.
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Speaker 1: It's interesting to hear you say all of this because
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Speaker 1: it's so similar to Mountain Park. We can see the similarities.
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Speaker 1: We can see that their sort of system for operating
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Speaker 1: these troubled team programs was already like in place in
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Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties. Also, can we just like acknowledge that,
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Speaker 1: like you want these teens to read the Bible, like,
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Speaker 1: this is not the way that you do it. No,
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Speaker 1: this is not the way that you do it. It's
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Speaker 1: like you are sleep derived, you're hungry, and you're an
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Speaker 1: adolescent person with all of these hormonal changes.
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Speaker 2: It's like you're set up to fail. Yeah, And just
8:25
Speaker 2: like at Mountain Park, these people are they're financially incentivized.
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Speaker 2: So Lisa wasn't there because of a pregnancy, but she
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Speaker 2: was aware that that was something that happened there. But
8:35
Speaker 2: one thing I found really interesting and although not surprising,
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Speaker 2: after having heard. Meg's story is that they didn't speak
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Speaker 2: to each other really about anything personal. There was no
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Speaker 2: information sharing between the students there. She said, if someone
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Speaker 2: was pregnant, I didn't know it. Oh yeah, she said
8:53
Speaker 2: that she knew that was going on, but it wasn't like,
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Speaker 2: you know, how are you feeling that? There was none
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Speaker 2: of that. But one thing Lisa really did remember is
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Speaker 2: the fasting and you know, being told to fast for
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Speaker 2: so called religious purposes, but you know, you're young, you're growing,
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Speaker 2: and you're made to do physical labor and chores all day. Yeah,
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Speaker 2: it's just excruciating. And wow, that's horrible. That's really horrible.
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Speaker 2: It's horrible. All of her communication, just like at Mountain Park,
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Speaker 2: was monitored, you know, this time it was all letters.
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Speaker 2: They weren't doing any phone calls. And so Lisa knew
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Speaker 2: that if her aunt knew what was actually going on
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Speaker 2: it Bethesda, she wouldn't want her there. But all of
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Speaker 2: her letters going to her aunt were read, and all
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Speaker 2: of her aunt's letters going to her were read by monitors,
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Speaker 2: and so there was no communication that she could have
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Speaker 2: done to save herself from that situation. She was totally
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Speaker 2: captive there. It is like prison it's prison, yeah, and
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Speaker 2: it's not regulated at this time. There's no like enforcement
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Speaker 2: officer coming in and making sure that these kids are
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Speaker 2: getting the education they need to be getting, that they're
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Speaker 2: getting the food that they need to be getting. That
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Speaker 2: just wasn't happening. There was no oversight, and so Lisa
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Speaker 2: was there for three years. She thinks it was about
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Speaker 2: from age thirteen to around age sixteen. Oh, those are
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Speaker 2: pivotal years. Pivotal years, and I think it just speaks
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Speaker 2: to what she went through, you know, she said, I
10:20
Speaker 2: really don't remember a lot of that time because my
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Speaker 2: brain has just blocked it out. It was just so bad,
10:29
Speaker 2: and not to mention, you don't get over the loss
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Speaker 2: of a parent, so that's all very present. So Lisa's
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Speaker 2: aunt just came to get her about three years later.
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Speaker 2: She just sort of decided it had been enough time.
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Speaker 2: And even then, Lisa didn't tell her aunt right away
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Speaker 2: what had happened. She was sort of this mixture of
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Speaker 2: like processing it and scared to tell her, and also
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Speaker 2: knew that her aunt would be really sad that that
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Speaker 2: happened because that was not what she thought it was.
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Speaker 2: And so there were so many mixed feelings around it,
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Speaker 2: and she did eventually tell her and she was really upset.
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Speaker 2: It made their relationship difficult for a time. The living situation,
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Speaker 2: these girls were packed into bunk rooms. Leicester Rolloff was
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Speaker 2: there when Lisa was there, but when Bob and Betty
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Speaker 2: came into the picture, they were referred to as Mama
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Speaker 2: and Papa.
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Speaker 1: That is so creepy, so creepy, so gross. Also, like
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Speaker 1: if your mom has died, to be forced to call
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Speaker 1: someone else mama is like really sadistic.
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Speaker 2: Oh my god. Yeah, it's like terrible. They were bet
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Speaker 2: with paddles. It was just abhorrent. And so I tried
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Speaker 2: to also find out a little bit more about the
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Speaker 2: teen pregnancy and how that operated it Bethesda. Outside of
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Speaker 2: my conversation with Lisa and from what I gather from
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Speaker 2: researching it online, there was an estimated, you know, one
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Speaker 2: hundred plus adoptions that took place from teen pregnancies that
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Speaker 2: were happening at But that's the home for girls, and
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Speaker 2: you know those young women, those girls, they did not
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Speaker 2: consent to the adoption in a meaningful way. So interestingly,
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Speaker 2: in Mississippi at the time, at age sixteen, you have
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Speaker 2: the right to say no, I want to keep my child,
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Speaker 2: and so you would have to sign the consent to
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Speaker 2: adopt your child to another family. And there are a
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Speaker 2: lot of allegations, just like in Meg's story, of girls
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Speaker 2: who suspect they were drugged during their delivery and during
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Speaker 2: the time that they signed that paperwork.
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Speaker 1: Okay, so like talking me through that, because I mean,
12:32
Speaker 1: I assume that when you're giving birth you are given drugs.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I was so like, my epideral worked
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Speaker 2: so perfectly. I had a really lucky birth experience with
12:45
Speaker 2: like pain management. But I was very present the entire time.
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Speaker 2: I was totally conscious of my surroundings and what was
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Speaker 2: going on. So these girls don't know what they were
12:56
Speaker 2: drugged with, but it certainly wasn't just No one thinks
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Speaker 2: it was just a standard pain killer that got the
13:01
Speaker 2: best of them because they don't remember. They don't remember. Okay.
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Speaker 2: There was an account online by a woman who said
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Speaker 2: that she did not ever even see her child or
13:12
Speaker 2: have any memory of that. She didn't know if she
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Speaker 2: had a boy or a girl, and a nurse accidentally
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Speaker 2: slipped the gender to her and was punished for it.
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Speaker 2: So these things were highly secretive, and I don't know
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Speaker 2: how consent could exist where you don't even know the
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Speaker 2: gender of your child.
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Speaker 1: Are they saying that when they were in this drug state,
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Speaker 1: that they were giving consent to adopt out their child?
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Speaker 2: Yes? Oh wow? Yeah? And you know, who's to say,
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Speaker 2: were they actually even physically signing a document if they
13:42
Speaker 2: can't even remember doing it?
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Speaker 1: So where does that leave these women now? Because this happened,
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Speaker 1: you know, in the seventies and eighties they were teenagers.
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Speaker 1: Have any of them, you know, reconnected with their biological
13:55
Speaker 1: children since then?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, thanks to the excessive of genetic testing
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Speaker 2: and websites like twenty three and me or what have you,
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Speaker 2: genetic testing websites, people have connected with their children after
14:09
Speaker 2: many years. And there's so many mixed feelings around a
14:13
Speaker 2: reunion like that. You're you're happy to be connected, but
14:16
Speaker 2: you've missed out on so much. And for the adopted child,
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Speaker 2: that was their own trauma of questioning where they came
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Speaker 2: from and if they were wanted and why their adoption
14:27
Speaker 2: took place. And then for the adopted parents who were
14:30
Speaker 2: sold this bill of goods of like, you're doing a
14:33
Speaker 2: great thing and this mother wants you to have her child.
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Speaker 2: To learn that the mother was actually sixteen years old,
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Speaker 2: has no memory of consenting to the adoption and actually
14:43
Speaker 2: really wanted to keep her child. That is their trauma.
14:46
Speaker 2: And so it's so layered, and it was all for profit.
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Speaker 2: I don't know exactly what money they made. Of course,
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Speaker 2: we're not going to find that out. It was in
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Speaker 2: the seventies and eighties, not regulated. I mean even now
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Speaker 2: there's a conversation around that. But they were incentivized to
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Speaker 2: be doing this, and so Butthesda is eventually shut down.
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Speaker 2: And how that happened is a young woman who is
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Speaker 2: identified in court documents by the name of Candy lastem
15:14
Speaker 2: initial h was on a monitored call with a family member,
15:19
Speaker 2: and the staff member who was monitoring her call, so
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Speaker 2: this is in the nineteen eighties, left the room and yeah,
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Speaker 2: Candy sees the moment to communicate to the family member like,
15:29
Speaker 2: come give me, it's not what you think. Yeah, good job, Candy. Yeah.
15:33
Speaker 2: And she was actually nineteen when she entered Bethesda, which
15:36
Speaker 2: I just find so surprising because that's a legal adult
15:40
Speaker 2: and you're still being you're there against your.
15:42
Speaker 1: Will, coursefully for healthy there.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it sounds like from what I gather with Candy stories,
15:48
Speaker 2: she initially wanted to go there, but once she got
15:51
Speaker 2: there and realized, you know, she was going to be
15:54
Speaker 2: suffering a lot of verbal and physical abuse here, wanted
15:57
Speaker 2: to leave. And then you can't because you've signed your
16:00
Speaker 2: rights away, essentially. So once Candy's family knew what was happening,
16:04
Speaker 2: they alerted an attorney who worked with the Southern Poverty
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Speaker 2: Law Center, and they filed a lawsuit against Bethesda. As
16:11
Speaker 2: soon as that suit was filed, over seventy girls leave
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Speaker 2: the home and from there there was a lawsuit, and
16:19
Speaker 2: the repercussions are just mind blowing to read, because it's
16:24
Speaker 2: like the result of the suit was that, okay, Bethesda
16:28
Speaker 2: Home for Girls, you're no longer allowed to paddle pregnant
16:31
Speaker 2: girls and you're now limited to no more than quote,
16:36
Speaker 2: eight licks to others within a five day period. It's
16:41
Speaker 2: just like, how is this possible? But of course then
16:45
Speaker 2: they had more eyes on them, and so then the
16:48
Speaker 2: state's paying more attention. So Beth as a Home for
16:51
Speaker 2: Girls was moved to Missouri, reopened under a new name,
16:55
Speaker 2: and eventually closed in two thousand and four. And we
16:58
Speaker 2: now know from our Converse station with Meg that Missouri
17:02
Speaker 2: was home to Mountain Park Boarding Academy.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, they just moved states. They just moved states because Mississippi.
17:09
Speaker 1: You know, I think I remember, didn't they deem it
17:11
Speaker 1: as an unlawful detention facility or they were holding people
17:15
Speaker 1: against their will, which yes, unlawful people who have not
17:19
Speaker 1: committed a crime. Yeah, it was all around bad press,
17:22
Speaker 1: like what are you doing to these young women?
17:24
Speaker 2: And now we are going to pay attention? And I
17:26
Speaker 2: think because of the way that they were operating, they
17:29
Speaker 2: knew the end was coming.
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Speaker 1: So then they just moved to Missouri. They just moved
17:33
Speaker 1: to missour started back up again.
17:34
Speaker 2: Yeah. Wow.
17:40
Speaker 1: So before we get into, you know, the murder that
17:43
Speaker 1: happened in nineteen ninety three in Mountain Park, I wanted
17:46
Speaker 1: to talk about the mindset so many people had leading
17:51
Speaker 1: up to the nineties. So, like everything that you're talking
17:53
Speaker 1: about the seventies and eighties just like makes so much
17:57
Speaker 1: sense in this context. The fact that the end of
17:59
Speaker 1: this lawsuit is like they limit them to how many
18:02
Speaker 1: swats that they can administer to students per day really
18:06
Speaker 1: like shows you the mindset people had toward teens and
18:10
Speaker 1: children and how you were supposed to, you know, get
18:13
Speaker 1: them to be in line and One of the things
18:15
Speaker 1: that I was reading about was just how troubled teens
18:20
Speaker 1: really became a huge topic in the US in the
18:24
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties. And this guy named John Deulio. He is
18:29
Speaker 1: a political scientist and a criminologist, and he had written
18:33
Speaker 1: a lot about crime. He had visited prisons, he had
18:36
Speaker 1: visited juvenile facilities, and he is actually the person that
18:41
Speaker 1: coined the term super predator in nineteen ninety five.
18:45
Speaker 2: I wonder if he knew the staying power that would have.
18:49
Speaker 2: I don't know.
18:49
Speaker 1: I was kind of like talking about this to Ben,
18:51
Speaker 1: my boyfriend Ben, yesterday, and I just said, like, do
18:54
Speaker 1: you know the term super predator? And he's like, hey, yeah,
18:56
Speaker 1: I've heard it. I asked him, like, what do you
18:58
Speaker 1: think that is describing? And he was like, I don't know,
19:01
Speaker 1: someone who's like really violent and has committed a lot
19:04
Speaker 1: of crimes and has like a huge criminal record and
19:06
Speaker 1: is incredibly dangerous, Like you would think that for like
19:09
Speaker 1: a grizzly bear or a grizzly bear. Yeah, And it's
19:13
Speaker 1: actually was coined to describe teenagers juveniles.
19:17
Speaker 2: Which is so outlandish because in every single situation we've
19:22
Speaker 2: come across where we've been researching these troubled teen so
19:26
Speaker 2: called schools. It's like the child in question, the teenager
19:30
Speaker 2: in question, has experienced a traumatic event and they're reeling
19:35
Speaker 2: from that traumatic event and then their behavior changes. Yeah,
19:39
Speaker 2: we know a lot about brain development at this point.
19:41
Speaker 2: They don't have the life experience or whatever you want
19:46
Speaker 2: to call it to kind of look in the mirror
19:48
Speaker 2: and say, Okay, why am I behaving this way and
19:51
Speaker 2: how can I help myself? They need that guidance. Yeah.
19:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're just like reacting to the situation around them.
19:58
Speaker 1: But you know that wasn't obviously how a lot of
20:00
Speaker 1: people saw it in the nineties, and so super Predator
20:04
Speaker 1: was coined in nineteen ninety five. John Deulio he had
20:07
Speaker 1: this theory. He supposedly he looked at this data on
20:11
Speaker 1: crime and he you know, analyzed the data and he
20:14
Speaker 1: predicted that there was going to be what he called
20:17
Speaker 1: a wave of teenage crime. He said America was sitting
20:21
Speaker 1: on top of a crime bomb. He talked about like
20:25
Speaker 1: these homicidal teens roaming around in wolf packs that were
20:30
Speaker 1: going to like just start wreaking havoc on America. I mean,
20:35
Speaker 1: he predicted this would happen in the thousands, the tens
20:37
Speaker 1: of thousands. He was like, in a few years, we're
20:40
Speaker 1: going to see just like the streets overrun by these
20:43
Speaker 1: homicidal teenagers. And you know, a lot of stuff has
20:48
Speaker 1: been written about this now. A lot of his language
20:50
Speaker 1: was very racist, you know. He talked about this starting
20:54
Speaker 1: inner cities and even wrote about like black teenagers specifically.
21:00
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just so racist, and said that
21:04
Speaker 1: like all of this crime would overtake the suburbs. There
21:07
Speaker 1: was just so much fear mongering about like quote unquote
21:09
Speaker 1: bad kids and kids that cannot be rehabilitated. And he
21:12
Speaker 1: actually he went to the White House to consult with
21:15
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton, and he warned him about this coming crime wave,
21:18
Speaker 1: and he said, apparently that rehabilitation does not work, and
21:22
Speaker 1: he advocated for locking bad teens up and separating them
21:25
Speaker 1: from society. And then in nineteen ninety six, the Violent
21:30
Speaker 1: Youth Predator Act passed. This is a federal act. It
21:35
Speaker 1: offered one point five billion dollars in grant money to
21:39
Speaker 1: any state that toughened up their juvenile offender laws, and
21:43
Speaker 1: forty five states acted quickly on this, making their laws
21:47
Speaker 1: so much stricter against juveniles and I think it's important
21:51
Speaker 1: to note that that's nineteen ninety six, which is the
21:53
Speaker 1: same year of the murder that we're about to talk about.
21:57
Speaker 1: So suddenly, across forty five states in the US, it
22:01
Speaker 1: becomes very easy to try a minor as an adult
22:05
Speaker 1: for violent crimes. And you know, like one thing to
22:08
Speaker 1: note about Dulia before we move on from this is
22:11
Speaker 1: that he was wrong, Like he was very wrong. He
22:14
Speaker 1: later came out and said that, like, you know, he
22:17
Speaker 1: like misinterpreted the data or he kind of blamed the data,
22:20
Speaker 1: but it's pretty clear that he interpreted studies incorrectly and
22:24
Speaker 1: then went on to become hugely influential in how people
22:28
Speaker 1: view teenagers who are acting out or even teenagers who
22:31
Speaker 1: are committing crimes, and has had like a pretty negative effect.
22:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the damage was done at that point. Yeah.
22:38
Speaker 1: So the Campaign for Fair Sentencings of Youth their website.
22:41
Speaker 1: I just wanted to note a stat from their website.
22:43
Speaker 1: So from nineteen eighty five to nineteen ninety four, the
22:46
Speaker 1: number of miners tried as adults nationally increased by seventy
22:50
Speaker 1: one percent, and black children make up almost half that number,
22:53
Speaker 1: so it had like devastating effects on so many people's lives,
22:57
Speaker 1: and as we talk about the rebel effect on family
23:00
Speaker 1: and you know, communities, Gulio did in twenty twelve signed
23:04
Speaker 1: Friend of the Court document. There was a Supreme Court
23:06
Speaker 1: case that would ban mandatory life sentences for juveniles convicted
23:11
Speaker 1: of murder. But that's in twenty twelve. This law passed
23:13
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety six, So from nineteen ninety six to
23:15
Speaker 1: twenty twelve, you know, there's not a whole lot there
23:18
Speaker 1: that's being passed that's preventing miners from being tried as adults.
23:22
Speaker 1: So that sort of sets the background to what we're
23:25
Speaker 1: going to talk about with this case today. Some of
23:28
Speaker 1: the information we got was from this trial transcript that
23:33
Speaker 1: I was able to find for Joseph Burris's trial, as
23:37
Speaker 1: well as some other articles that we found online.
23:40
Speaker 2: And I reached out to the surviving members of Joseph's family,
23:43
Speaker 2: which is his mother and his two brothers, and I
23:46
Speaker 2: did not hear back from anyones. I just wanted to
23:48
Speaker 2: mention that, Yeah.
23:49
Speaker 1: So Joseph Stanley Burris, he was born in nineteen eighty.
23:52
Speaker 1: He grew up in Granada Hills, California, in a Baptist
23:56
Speaker 1: family He's the son of Patrice and Keith Burris, and
23:59
Speaker 1: he has two brothers, Nathan and Kyle. Patrese his mother.
24:03
Speaker 1: She was a witness at the trial, and I thought
24:06
Speaker 1: it was interesting she described her family that she grew
24:10
Speaker 1: up in. Her dad was a Baptist minister, and her
24:13
Speaker 1: family was incredibly religious. You know, she was raised in
24:17
Speaker 1: an environment where mental health wasn't really a thing that
24:21
Speaker 1: was talked about or acknowledged. Everything was spiritual, so every
24:25
Speaker 1: problem was addressed through prayer and through going to church.
24:29
Speaker 1: And this was kind of the same environment that she
24:32
Speaker 1: raised her children with. I think that's important to note
24:34
Speaker 1: because that really comes into play with everything we're talking
24:37
Speaker 1: about with troubled teens and needing help. So it's Patrice
24:41
Speaker 1: and Keith and they have these three boys. Keith was
24:43
Speaker 1: an engineer, and everyone says they were a very tight
24:47
Speaker 1: knit family. They went to church together regularly. Patrese homeschooled
24:51
Speaker 1: her son's Keith and Joe were very very close. Joe's father, Keith,
24:58
Speaker 1: he was a runner, he was an athlete, he loved
25:01
Speaker 1: to swim, and he started doing those activities with his sons.
25:05
Speaker 1: I think his two oldest sons, Joe and his older
25:07
Speaker 1: brother got involved with swimming, and Joe, by all accounts,
25:11
Speaker 1: was really good at it. He was participating in swim
25:14
Speaker 1: meets and his dad would always go to his swim
25:17
Speaker 1: meets and like tape record and cheer him on. Patrice
25:20
Speaker 1: said that Joe would follow his dad around help him
25:23
Speaker 1: with the yard work, like he really looked up to him,
25:26
Speaker 1: and Keith was a really good dad. Joe was described
25:29
Speaker 1: by his family and community as like a good kid.
25:31
Speaker 1: He got you know, fine grades, He was social, he
25:34
Speaker 1: was well liked, He didn't get in trouble, you know,
25:37
Speaker 1: he seemed like very well adjusted. But then when he
25:40
Speaker 1: was twelve and a half in nineteen ninety three, they
25:42
Speaker 1: came home from a swim meet one day and his father, Keith,
25:45
Speaker 1: had a heart attack.
25:46
Speaker 2: Which probably just so unexpected. He'd been living this ultra healthy, active, yeah,
25:51
Speaker 2: lifestyle he would ever expected, but you know, young, he.
25:56
Speaker 1: Was young and healthy, and Joe as their to witness it.
26:02
Speaker 1: His mom called nine one one, he was rest of
26:04
Speaker 1: the hospital, but he did die that evening, and this
26:08
Speaker 1: was an unexpected tragedy for the whole family. Patrees talked
26:11
Speaker 1: about just absolutely falling apart, you know, not being able
26:15
Speaker 1: to get out of bed just being so ridden with grief.
26:19
Speaker 1: And she did say that she really kind of didn't
26:21
Speaker 1: have a lot of energy to help her sons at
26:26
Speaker 1: that point in time. She enrolled them back in school
26:29
Speaker 1: because she just like could not homeschool them anymore, and
26:33
Speaker 1: she just tried to get by. And it seems like
26:36
Speaker 1: the other two sons, I'm sure it was not easy
26:39
Speaker 1: for them at all, any of them, but kind of,
26:42
Speaker 1: you know, we're able to kind of continue on and
26:46
Speaker 1: cope with it in some way, Whereas it became pretty
26:49
Speaker 1: clear that Joe was really affected by this, And if
26:52
Speaker 1: I'm remembering Craigtley, Patrese also noted that Keith and Joe,
26:57
Speaker 1: their relationship was like not that he wasn't close to
27:01
Speaker 1: his other sons, but they had a very very special connection.
27:04
Speaker 1: And so everyone responds to tragedy a little bit differently,
27:09
Speaker 1: and Joe was just he did not respond to it
27:12
Speaker 1: by sort of putting his head on and focusing on
27:13
Speaker 1: school work. Yeah, he was devastated and he started to
27:17
Speaker 1: internalize his feelings and kind of withdraw. Patri said that
27:21
Speaker 1: she knew he was bothered, but he wouldn't talk to
27:24
Speaker 1: her about it. But life keeps moving forward and they
27:28
Speaker 1: continue to go to these swim meets, which are like
27:31
Speaker 1: two hours away from where they live, and they start
27:34
Speaker 1: to carpool with another family in the area who they're
27:37
Speaker 1: friends with, who also goes to these swim meets. This
27:40
Speaker 1: woman named Louise is another mom her son goes to
27:43
Speaker 1: these swim meets, and they start to carpool with her.
27:46
Speaker 1: So tragically, like a few months after this happens where
27:51
Speaker 1: Joe's dad, Keith dies, Louise gets cancer and can no
27:55
Speaker 1: longer drive them, so her husband Ken, there's a lot
27:58
Speaker 1: of K's here, Ken starts to drive them. In September
28:02
Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety three, Louise passes away from cancer. This
28:05
Speaker 1: is about seven months after Keith died. So now both
28:08
Speaker 1: Patrise and Ken have lost their spouses and our single parents.
28:13
Speaker 1: And it sounds like they just really bonded over that,
28:16
Speaker 1: and they start dating and get engaged. Before they get married,
28:26
Speaker 1: Joe approached his mother and asked her not to marry Ken.
28:30
Speaker 1: I don't think it was because he didn't like him.
28:32
Speaker 1: I think it was just like so much like his
28:35
Speaker 1: dad had passed away a little more than a year
28:38
Speaker 1: before that, which is really not a long time, and
28:41
Speaker 1: Joe was still really struggling with that.
28:43
Speaker 2: You're also then completely blending families. Yeah, yeah, that's so
28:47
Speaker 2: much change in one year for a kid his age. Yeah,
28:51
Speaker 2: so at this point he would have been like thirteen.
28:53
Speaker 2: But they did get married. They got married in June
28:55
Speaker 2: of nineteen ninety four, and then Patrise and her three
28:59
Speaker 2: sons moved out of their home and in with Keith.
29:02
Speaker 2: And I think this was also really hard for Joe.
29:03
Speaker 2: You know, then he's moving away from his home where
29:05
Speaker 2: he was with his dad. Joe is just by all accounts,
29:08
Speaker 2: not doing well. He stops sleeping through the night, he
29:13
Speaker 2: stops eating, and people notice he's losing a lot of weight.
29:17
Speaker 2: He is more and more withdrawn and distant. Patrice said
29:21
Speaker 2: like he would just be in his room and then
29:23
Speaker 2: he would come out for family dinners but not really eat,
29:25
Speaker 2: not really talk, and then go back. So it's clear
29:29
Speaker 2: that something is really going on. He's really struggling. You know,
29:33
Speaker 2: he doesn't really get along with his stepdad at first,
29:35
Speaker 2: but they do start to get along. They're just different
29:38
Speaker 2: people and obviously no one can replace his dad, but
29:41
Speaker 2: they start to like get along, and I mean It's
29:44
Speaker 2: just kind of unbelievable. Tragedy strikes again. Nine months after
29:47
Speaker 2: they're married, Ken is diagnosed with colon cancer. Is that
29:51
Speaker 2: the same kind of cancer Louise had? Do we know?
29:54
Speaker 2: I don't know. I was unable to find that. Wow,
29:57
Speaker 2: that's just like, yeah, so difficult to imagine.
30:01
Speaker 1: I mean, especially like they had a son, Chris, who
30:04
Speaker 1: was sixteen at the time. I just can't even imagine. Like,
30:08
Speaker 1: your mom dies and then your dad gets cancer, you know,
30:11
Speaker 1: a couple years later.
30:12
Speaker 2: It's devastating, and you're living with a new family, trying
30:16
Speaker 2: to find your place there. It's just your whole world
30:18
Speaker 2: turns upside down.
30:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, Patria says that Joe said to him at that time,
30:23
Speaker 1: I can't lose another father because the cancer is really serious.
30:26
Speaker 1: At this point in time, Joe starts like acting out.
30:30
Speaker 1: He drops out of swimming, He gets kicked out of
30:32
Speaker 1: school because he has weed in his backpack.
30:35
Speaker 2: You know.
30:35
Speaker 1: His mom says he was experimenting with alcohol and drugs
30:39
Speaker 1: and having sex. She tried to talk to him, but
30:43
Speaker 1: she described what she said to him in the trial,
30:45
Speaker 1: and it really just sounds like, you know, she was
30:48
Speaker 1: kind of like actions have consequences and you shouldn't do this.
30:51
Speaker 1: This is not Christian, like, why are you behaving this way?
30:54
Speaker 1: Clearly she just had no idea what to say to
30:57
Speaker 1: him or how to deal with this. And her husband
30:59
Speaker 1: now has terminal cancer.
31:02
Speaker 2: He needed professional help.
31:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, So Joe's stepdad has a surgery. Everyone's hopeful about it.
31:08
Speaker 1: It doesn't end up going well, and it becomes clear
31:10
Speaker 1: that this is going to be terminal. So at that point,
31:13
Speaker 1: Patrisa and Ken do contact a social worker to have
31:17
Speaker 1: all of their kids speak to because they know that
31:20
Speaker 1: Ken is going to die and so they want their
31:23
Speaker 1: children to speak with someone. So Joe did speak with
31:25
Speaker 1: a social worker, says two to three times. It seems
31:29
Speaker 1: like he didn't really open up to her. At one point,
31:32
Speaker 1: Patrice also contracted a nutritionist for Ken, but also had
31:36
Speaker 1: the nutritionists provide some herbs and vitamins for Joe. She
31:41
Speaker 1: was hoping that that might help him.
31:42
Speaker 2: It's so sad, right, because you're like, Okay, here is
31:45
Speaker 2: this mom who is noticing that her son needs help.
31:51
Speaker 2: She's also now probably still grieving the loss of her
31:54
Speaker 2: first husband, Keith. Now the fact that Ken, her second husband,
31:59
Speaker 2: is terminally you know, you're trying to stay above water,
32:02
Speaker 2: You're trying to get your kid help, but you don't
32:04
Speaker 2: know what to do. You've never there's no playbook for this, Yeah, exactly.
32:08
Speaker 2: I think that's a great point. It's really important to
32:10
Speaker 2: remember because like it's so easy in these scenarios to
32:14
Speaker 2: blame the parents, and it's clear that like she didn't
32:17
Speaker 2: make all the right decisions, but also like, yes, she
32:19
Speaker 2: had a lot going on, and I think it's important
32:22
Speaker 2: to take the context of like the culture she was
32:24
Speaker 2: raised in. She was raised in an environment where like
32:27
Speaker 2: men are the head of the household. They're the ones
32:30
Speaker 2: that handle everything, they make the decisions, they're in charge.
32:33
Speaker 2: And then she lost her husband and suddenly she didn't
32:35
Speaker 2: really know how to lead or be in charge or
32:39
Speaker 2: help her kids. So then she got married to another man,
32:44
Speaker 2: and I think that was comforting to her. She talked
32:46
Speaker 2: about how that was really her focus at the time
32:49
Speaker 2: was to try to like work on this marriage, and
32:51
Speaker 2: I think that she believed that would help her sons
32:54
Speaker 2: in some way, right, right, like here's this new father
32:57
Speaker 2: figure for you and more STI then we would have
33:01
Speaker 2: had otherwise, And then you lose it all a second time.
33:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, So the herbs and vitamins don't help Joe. He's
33:09
Speaker 1: fifteen at this point, he starts to run away. At
33:11
Speaker 1: one point, he goes through his mom's purse, takes some money.
33:15
Speaker 1: He gets on a bus to Los Angeles toward the airport.
33:20
Speaker 1: He has some kind of loose plan to get on
33:22
Speaker 1: the plane and leave, but he doesn't know where he
33:24
Speaker 1: would go, so he calls his mom and is like,
33:28
Speaker 1: you know, come pick me up. When I hear this
33:30
Speaker 1: story is just so sad to me because it's like
33:32
Speaker 1: he's not trying to do anything violent. He's just like
33:37
Speaker 1: in desperate need of help. And he's like then calls
33:41
Speaker 1: his mom to be like come get me.
33:43
Speaker 2: You know, I ran away. It's like waving this flag
33:45
Speaker 2: like I need help from you. I need help.
33:49
Speaker 1: He runs away a few weeks later, but he ends
33:52
Speaker 1: up just being at like his pastor's house, who also
33:55
Speaker 1: has a son his age, and he's sort of just
33:57
Speaker 1: there for a few days. And while he is, you know,
34:01
Speaker 1: run away, his mom knew where he was. She talked
34:04
Speaker 1: to him on the phone, and then his stepdad passed away.
34:08
Speaker 1: So two days after his stepdad passed away, Patrese, along
34:12
Speaker 1: with some friends of the family go and pick up
34:15
Speaker 1: Joe where he was staying. In her words, they basically
34:18
Speaker 1: kidnap him and they get on a plane to Saint Louis, Missouri,
34:22
Speaker 1: and then get in a car and drive to Mountain
34:24
Speaker 1: Park Baptist Boarding Academy to drop him off. She had
34:27
Speaker 1: heard about this through some friends at church, and I
34:31
Speaker 1: think that she just didn't know what else to do,
34:33
Speaker 1: and so she thought that this is a place that
34:35
Speaker 1: would help him. Later on, after everything happened, there was
34:39
Speaker 1: a psychiatrist who evaluated Joe and basically said that he
34:45
Speaker 1: believed he had major depression that had started when his
34:48
Speaker 1: dad died and was just getting worse and worse, and
34:51
Speaker 1: said that once he got to Mountain Park, you know,
34:53
Speaker 1: Joe was just surviving at that point. You know, we've
34:56
Speaker 1: heard from Meg Richt in last episode about what all
35:00
Speaker 1: was going on at Mountain Park. It was clearly not
35:03
Speaker 1: a place where there was a lot of care given
35:06
Speaker 1: to struggling teens. It was a lot of structure and
35:09
Speaker 1: discipline and abuse at a time when he really needed
35:13
Speaker 1: stability and compassion, yeah, and someone to just allow him
35:17
Speaker 1: to grieve and help him through that process. But instead
35:20
Speaker 1: it was just more pain, yeah, exactly. But you know,
35:25
Speaker 1: he did find there like he seemed to be adjusting.
35:28
Speaker 1: He was kind of going through the motions. And after
35:31
Speaker 1: being there for a while, he got promoted to Orientation Guide,
35:35
Speaker 1: which is the program where students are in charge of
35:37
Speaker 1: other students that Meg talked about. He was assigned a
35:40
Speaker 1: student to be underneath him that he was supposed to
35:43
Speaker 1: be guiding Will Futrell. He also met this student named
35:47
Speaker 1: Anthony Rutherford. Anthony was three years older than Joe. Joe
35:51
Speaker 1: was fifteen, Anthony was eighteen, so a legal adult, but
35:53
Speaker 1: still at Mountain Park. So this leads us to March
35:57
Speaker 1: twenty fifth, nineteen ninety six. The day started out pretty normally.
36:02
Speaker 1: They woke up, they went to school, and then they
36:04
Speaker 1: broke for lunch. It's around lunchtime that Joe said that
36:07
Speaker 1: Anthony approached him and told him that he had a
36:11
Speaker 1: plan to take over the school later that day. When
36:14
Speaker 1: you hear about the plan, it's disturbing. The plan was
36:19
Speaker 1: to somehow take over the school to locate firearms. I
36:24
Speaker 1: don't know if they knew that there were firearms somewhere
36:28
Speaker 1: or just assumed that's unclear. And then they were going
36:32
Speaker 1: to break into the girl's side of Mountain Park, which
36:35
Speaker 1: was locked from the outside, like fenced in. It's interesting
36:40
Speaker 1: that like the girls were fenced in like literal prison,
36:44
Speaker 1: and the guys were not. They could kind of room
36:46
Speaker 1: around outside. So they were going to break into the
36:49
Speaker 1: girl's side and like have sex with them, is what
36:52
Speaker 1: they said.
36:52
Speaker 2: Which like also it is. It's a disturbing plan that's
36:56
Speaker 2: really hard to trap your mind around, but you have
36:58
Speaker 2: to remember. We have to remember like they are in
37:02
Speaker 2: a psychological war zone, like they are being sleep deprived,
37:08
Speaker 2: they're not being fed adequately, they're being verbally abused or
37:12
Speaker 2: being physically abused, or being manipulated to abuse one another. Yes,
37:18
Speaker 2: there becomes this like after speaking with Meg and learning
37:21
Speaker 2: about others' experiences there, it's like you lose sight of
37:25
Speaker 2: reality when you are in that situation because your new
37:28
Speaker 2: reality is just Mountain Park and what goes on there,
37:32
Speaker 2: and you're not thinking about the real world outside and
37:36
Speaker 2: the real consequences. You're thinking about the consequences at Mountain Park,
37:40
Speaker 2: where it's in a way lawlessness. You're being beat at
37:44
Speaker 2: a place that is supposed to help you.
37:46
Speaker 1: There is no real rhyme or reason one hundred percent,
37:50
Speaker 1: and you're being forced to physically abuse other students, and
37:55
Speaker 1: when you're an orientation guide, you're abusing the student who
37:57
Speaker 1: you're supposed to be guiding, as Meg talked about. And
38:01
Speaker 1: I think like one of the things that goes to
38:03
Speaker 1: show just what you're saying this mindset of really hopelessness,
38:07
Speaker 1: is that part of the plan was that if there
38:10
Speaker 1: was like some sort of police standoff they are envisioning
38:12
Speaker 1: all of this, that they would die by suicide. This
38:16
Speaker 1: is their plan. This is like their dream and goal.
38:18
Speaker 1: Like it's so dark and hopeless really, and it's sort
38:21
Speaker 1: of unclear if Joe even believes that this will happen
38:24
Speaker 1: or is even that excited about it, But he's so
38:28
Speaker 1: hopeless at this point that he is like, Okay, let's
38:31
Speaker 1: do it. Let's do it, let's take over the school.
38:34
Speaker 1: Originally it seems like Will Futrell, the student who Joe
38:38
Speaker 1: is in charge of, has agreed to go along with this,
38:42
Speaker 1: but at some point he changes his mind. He's like, no,
38:45
Speaker 1: this isn't a good idea. I don't want to participate
38:46
Speaker 1: in this. So that afternoon, around three thirty pm, Will, Joe,
38:50
Speaker 1: and Anthony all go out to the woods by Mountain
38:52
Speaker 1: Park to collect firewood, which is one of their jobs
38:54
Speaker 1: they'd been assigned. And you know, Joe said that they
38:58
Speaker 1: walked down this trail and essentially Joe and Anthony attacked
39:03
Speaker 1: Will at that time and killed him using a brick
39:06
Speaker 1: and then a knife, and yeah, brutally murdered him and
39:11
Speaker 1: left his body in a ditch.
39:13
Speaker 2: And like, if you are Will's parents, this is a
39:15
Speaker 2: place you sent your child to be safe, to.
39:18
Speaker 1: Be protected, I know, and Will had only been there
39:22
Speaker 1: three months.
39:23
Speaker 2: It's amazing how quickly this all transpires. It's like that
39:26
Speaker 2: morning Anthony reveals his plan to Joe. Joe Anthony's three
39:31
Speaker 2: years older than him. That's a huge gap at that age.
39:35
Speaker 2: Maybe you don't want to cross someone who's about to
39:37
Speaker 2: take over a school or attempt to with firearms, and
39:40
Speaker 2: then you do this inexcusable crime and you murder someone
39:46
Speaker 2: simply for not wanting to go along with your terrible plan,
39:49
Speaker 2: and it impacts the rest of your life.
39:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's definitely inexcusable. I mean, it's horrible, But I
39:54
Speaker 1: do think that it's important to look at the environment
39:56
Speaker 1: of Mountain Park that we've talked about, and that was
39:58
Speaker 1: not looked at in the trial all. It was not mentioned,
40:01
Speaker 1: it was not talked about nothing. So you know what
40:05
Speaker 1: happens after they murder Will. They look around for some guns. Look,
40:12
Speaker 1: they try to break into a staff member's house. There's
40:15
Speaker 1: no guns in there. They think that there might be
40:17
Speaker 1: keys in car ignitions, but they look and there's no keys.
40:20
Speaker 1: It's like this has clearly not been very well planned
40:23
Speaker 1: at all. And then they're just kind of standing around
40:26
Speaker 1: and a staff member sees them and sees that they
40:30
Speaker 1: look really disturbed, goes up and talks to them and
40:34
Speaker 1: asks them, like, what's going on? Are you okay? And
40:36
Speaker 1: they essentially admit to him exactly what they've done. He
40:41
Speaker 1: contacts Sam Gerhart, and together they all go and walk
40:45
Speaker 1: down the trail and they show them Will's body and
40:48
Speaker 1: confess to the crime. And so the staff members immediately
40:52
Speaker 1: call law enforcement. The Wayne County Sheriff's apartment was called
40:55
Speaker 1: and the Missouri State Highway Patrol and both boys are
40:58
Speaker 1: taken into custody and questioned separately, and they both confess
41:02
Speaker 1: the crime happened about three point thirty in the afternoon.
41:05
Speaker 1: Joseph was taken into custody that early next morning, around
41:09
Speaker 1: twelve thirty or one am, at police headquarters in Poplar Bluff, Missouri.
41:14
Speaker 1: The officer's videotape his confession. He's signed a confession. He's
41:18
Speaker 1: also signed a document that says that he's aware of
41:21
Speaker 1: his rights and that he doesn't want an attorney. This
41:24
Speaker 1: is later brought up in an appeals because he's fifteen
41:28
Speaker 1: at the time. He was able to call his mom
41:30
Speaker 1: and his mom told him to just do whatever sam
41:33
Speaker 1: Gerhart tells him to do. At this point. Also, his
41:36
Speaker 1: mom has signed overpower of attorney to Mountain Park, right,
41:39
Speaker 1: so Mountain Park is really in charge of him legally,
41:42
Speaker 1: but they're not standing in as his adult friend, which
41:45
Speaker 1: is like the legal term if a miner is in
41:48
Speaker 1: trouble and gets involved with the criminal justice system, they're
41:52
Speaker 1: allowed to have an adult person there with them explaining
41:55
Speaker 1: things to them, kind of being on their side, And
41:58
Speaker 1: he has no one to do that for him, so
42:00
Speaker 1: he signs a confession. He signs a document that says,
42:03
Speaker 1: I understand I'll be tried as an adult. He didn't
42:05
Speaker 1: understand that. Anthony Rutherford took a plea deal. So Anthony
42:09
Speaker 1: Rutherford was eighteen years old at the time was a
42:12
Speaker 1: legal adult. Yes, a legal adult, which meant if he
42:15
Speaker 1: was convicted, he could be given the death penalty right
42:18
Speaker 1: so he signed a plea deal basically saying that he
42:21
Speaker 1: could avoid the death penalty, but he was convicted and
42:24
Speaker 1: sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
42:28
Speaker 1: Joseph Burris took his case to trial, and he was
42:31
Speaker 1: also convicted and sentenced to life without parole plus fifty years,
42:35
Speaker 1: and he was not eligible for the death penalty since
42:37
Speaker 1: he was only fifteen at the time.
42:39
Speaker 2: What they did to will committing a murder obviously is
42:42
Speaker 2: no excuse, but it is shocking that the environment they
42:46
Speaker 2: were in at Mountain Park didn't play a role in
42:48
Speaker 2: the trial, because how could it not. You know, you
42:51
Speaker 2: have these boys who were deemed by their families as
42:55
Speaker 2: really in need of a lot of help, having behavioral challenges,
42:59
Speaker 2: and then also just looking at the way Mountain Park
43:01
Speaker 2: was operating, you put these young men, boys with behavioral
43:06
Speaker 2: problems together and say, now you manage each other and
43:10
Speaker 2: go off in the woods and get fire with like
43:12
Speaker 2: such a lack of supervision, a lack of training, Like
43:17
Speaker 2: in what world did any of them have the ability
43:20
Speaker 2: to supervise another person. It was just a recipe for disaster.
43:25
Speaker 2: And most of all, the school did not protect Will.
43:28
Speaker 1: No, they did not at all. Meg told me, and
43:31
Speaker 1: she got this information from Joseph Burris because she visited
43:34
Speaker 1: him in prison a few years back. I actually wasn't
43:37
Speaker 1: able to verify this, but according to Meg, who said that,
43:39
Speaker 1: Joseph Burris told her that his attorney at the time
43:44
Speaker 1: was recommended by Sam Gerhardt and that he had been
43:48
Speaker 1: an attorney for Mountain Park previously. So I don't know
43:51
Speaker 1: if that has anything to do with it or not,
43:54
Speaker 1: but nothing was brought up in the trial. The fact
43:57
Speaker 1: that Mountain Park was promoting corporal punishment, the fact that
44:01
Speaker 1: Joe had been forced to already physically abuse Will, that
44:05
Speaker 1: he was told to do this by adults regularly or
44:08
Speaker 1: he would be abused himself, feels really important to what
44:14
Speaker 1: happened here.
44:15
Speaker 2: You're normalizing abuse, you're normalizing violence.
44:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, and none of that was brought up, you know,
44:21
Speaker 1: none of it was talked about. In fact, it seems
44:23
Speaker 1: like the angle was to blame Joseph's mother more so
44:27
Speaker 1: than anything. Joseph's attorney appealed the conviction in the year
44:32
Speaker 1: two thousand that was denied. After this twenty twelve Supreme
44:37
Speaker 1: Court decision Miller versus Alabama, established that mandatory life in
44:41
Speaker 1: prison without parole sentences for minors is unconstitutional under the
44:45
Speaker 1: Eighth Amendment. Burris's attorney then filed a petition claiming that
44:49
Speaker 1: his sentencing violated that Miller decision, but that was also denied.
44:54
Speaker 1: But then in twenty twenty one, just a few years ago,
44:57
Speaker 1: he had the opportunity to go before the parole b
45:00
Speaker 1: and Meg Richter actually was in contact with him at
45:03
Speaker 1: that time, and she attended his parole hearing. She brought
45:08
Speaker 1: a written statement. She talked about the conditions at Mountain Park.
45:12
Speaker 1: I spoke with her on the phone recently about this,
45:14
Speaker 1: and she said that she felt a little bit conflicted.
45:17
Speaker 1: Will's sister was there. She didn't end up meeting her.
45:20
Speaker 1: She was in a separate room. And Meg was really
45:23
Speaker 1: clear that, like she didn't want to condone what happened
45:26
Speaker 1: to Will. It's a tragedy, it's absolutely horrible, but she
45:29
Speaker 1: did feel that it was the right thing for her
45:32
Speaker 1: to do to go there and just describe the environment
45:35
Speaker 1: of abuse that was happening at Mountain Park. And she
45:38
Speaker 1: said the parole Board was really interested to hear that
45:40
Speaker 1: because they said that that was important context that they
45:44
Speaker 1: had never heard before. And you know, Joseph Burriss is
45:48
Speaker 1: currently forty five years old. He's been in prison for
45:50
Speaker 1: thirty years, and he actually will be released next year
45:53
Speaker 1: at some point. They don't have an exact release date yet,
45:56
Speaker 1: but the parole board did make that decision, so he
45:59
Speaker 1: will be out of prison next year.
46:01
Speaker 2: Thirty years is a long time, but I can imagine
46:05
Speaker 2: for Will's family, who you know, he will be gone
46:08
Speaker 2: more than thirty years. He will be gone for the
46:10
Speaker 2: rest of their lives. And that is just like, how
46:14
Speaker 2: terrible to send your child somewhere to help them and
46:18
Speaker 2: then they don't come home. It's terrible in all accounts.
46:21
Speaker 2: And we also now know that Anthony Rutherford died in
46:24
Speaker 2: prison in July twenty fifteen. It just said faul Play
46:28
Speaker 2: was not suspected in his death. And so so much
46:32
Speaker 2: loss in one story. And you know also the Branch
46:35
Speaker 2: Davidians and that saga that plays out when the ATF
46:39
Speaker 2: goes in that happened in nineteen ninety three. Wow, and
46:42
Speaker 2: that was so as we know, highly televised. Yeah, and
46:46
Speaker 2: so hearing about Anthony Rutherford coming up with this plan
46:51
Speaker 2: to be this like branch Davidian like leader of the
46:55
Speaker 2: girls in the adjacent Mountain Park structure is like, okay,
47:00
Speaker 2: so you have this eighteen year old who's being kept
47:03
Speaker 2: in a cult like environment, physical abuse, verbal abuse, all
47:10
Speaker 2: sort of operating as this quote Christian organization. It's like
47:14
Speaker 2: he wasn't a cult. Doesn't excuse his actions, right, But
47:19
Speaker 2: I'm reassured that the parole board was interested to hear
47:23
Speaker 2: that information because it does feel like important context to
47:27
Speaker 2: someone's psyche at that time. And Joe burrisse he was
47:29
Speaker 2: only fifteen, Yeah, so young, so young in context.
47:33
Speaker 1: It's all about the context. It's so important, it's everything. Well,
47:37
Speaker 1: thank you so much for doing a deep dive on
47:39
Speaker 1: that story. You know, when Meg brought it up in
47:41
Speaker 1: her interview, it was just like, there's no sadder outcome
47:45
Speaker 1: than that. And to understand the environment there and how
47:50
Speaker 1: it impacted every person that was at Mountain Park, I
47:54
Speaker 1: think is crucial. So we're going to wrap this episode
48:00
Speaker 1: up with some recommendations. Petia, what do you have to
48:04
Speaker 1: recommend today? Well, you know I always have something. I
48:07
Speaker 1: actually have another BBC podcast called Stocked. I am currently
48:12
Speaker 1: on episode eight, and it's a well told story where
48:18
Speaker 1: actually one of the hosts is the victim of this stalker.
48:22
Speaker 1: And I'm really loving how much introspection is that the
48:28
Speaker 1: word I should probably google it that there is from
48:31
Speaker 1: this person.
48:32
Speaker 2: Her name is Hannah. Oh wow, I love it already,
48:35
Speaker 2: me too about sort of her mindset when she began
48:40
Speaker 2: associating with the person who later became her alleged stalker.
48:46
Speaker 2: I'm really enjoying the storytelling there and how they're going
48:50
Speaker 2: about unraveling something that so much of it happens online.
48:55
Speaker 2: And when someone presents themselves to you as someone they're not,
48:59
Speaker 2: that's by designed. How do you go about finding out
49:01
Speaker 2: who they really are when they worked so hard to
49:03
Speaker 2: hide it? M yeah, I'm just I'm really liking it.
49:06
Speaker 1: Sounds really good. It's called Stocked, Stocked. I will check
49:09
Speaker 1: it out. So I want to recommend a docu series.
49:13
Speaker 1: My friend was just in town and she was telling
49:16
Speaker 1: me about it. She liked it, so I started watching it.
49:18
Speaker 1: I think it's really good. It's called Rich and Shameless.
49:21
Speaker 1: Rich and Shameless, Yes, HBO, Rich and Shameless. How have
49:24
Speaker 1: I not seen this? Sounds like something I would have
49:26
Speaker 1: definitely seen. I haven't watched all the episodes yet, but
49:29
Speaker 1: I'm really into it. There's two seasons. The second season
49:33
Speaker 1: is all sports stories, and you know, I'm not that
49:36
Speaker 1: into sports, but when sports and true crime intersect somehow,
49:40
Speaker 1: I find that to be very interesting. They did an
49:42
Speaker 1: episode on Peggy Actually, oh wow, Yeah, Dennis Rodman's financial
49:46
Speaker 1: manager who stole money from him. We actually covered that
49:49
Speaker 1: story years ago on The Opportunist, so it was great
49:54
Speaker 1: to watch it.
49:54
Speaker 2: They did a really good.
49:55
Speaker 1: Job and anything you didn't already know, I don't think so,
49:58
Speaker 1: but they got some good interviews. It was really well done,
50:00
Speaker 1: and there was like some video in there that I
50:02
Speaker 1: hadn't seen, so I recommend it. And the first season
50:06
Speaker 1: is kind of a mix of a lot of different stories.
50:09
Speaker 1: Like one of the episodes I watched is the Pam
50:11
Speaker 1: and Tommy story of like how the tape was leaked,
50:14
Speaker 1: which is you know, we all know that story, but
50:17
Speaker 1: it's so disturbing to really like think about what was
50:20
Speaker 1: really done to them. A lot of these stories are
50:23
Speaker 1: you know, rich and shameless. They're like famous people that
50:26
Speaker 1: maybe you've seen a headline about something that happened to them,
50:29
Speaker 1: but this is like a deep dive into the whole story,
50:31
Speaker 1: so I find it really intriguing.
50:33
Speaker 2: Cool. We'll check it out and we will see you
50:35
Speaker 2: next week. Thanks for listening. If you have a story
50:40
Speaker 2: for us, we would love to hear it. Our email
50:42
Speaker 2: is The Knife at exactly rightmedia dot com, or you
50:45
Speaker 2: can follow us on Instagram at the Knife Podcast or
50:48
Speaker 2: a Blue Sky at the Knife Podcast.
50:50
Speaker 1: This has been an Exactly Right production hosted and produced
50:53
Speaker 1: by me Hannah Smith and me Pasha Eating.
50:56
Speaker 2: Our producers are Tom Briefogel and Alexis Samarosi.
50:59
Speaker 1: This episode was mixed by Tom Bryfogel. Our associate producer
51:02
Speaker 1: is Christina Chamberlain.
51:03
Speaker 2: Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport, artwork
51:06
Speaker 2: by Vanessa Lilac.
51:08
Speaker 1: Executive produced by Karen Kilgareff, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.