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Halloween Horror: The Liske Family Murders · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Maybe picture this Halloween morning and Martin, Ohio. The streets
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: are lined with pumpkins, kids are plotting their candy raids,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: and one family's house holds a secret that no costume
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: can disguise. It's supposed to be a day of tricks
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: and treats, but what's brewing inside the List household is
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: far more terrifying than anything you'd find in a haunted house.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Blended family tensions, fights that escalate beyond words, and then,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: on one fateful morning, a discovery that sends a small
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: town spiraling into horror. A missing brother, a locked room,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: and an alibi that involves choir robes of all things,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: and the deeper you dig, the darker it gets. Today
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: we're diving into the Lisk family murders, a story that
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: turns Halloween into a true horror show. Buckle up, because
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: the scariest part of this tale isn't the tricks, it's
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: the truth. Welcome to ten minute Murder. This was the
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: most disturbing murder scene I'd ever seen over the course
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: of my career. A state prosecutor would later describe the
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: case he had just been a part of. I can
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: still see it to this day. The case in question
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: was one that would shake the small, close knit community
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: of Martin, Ohio and would spread unprecedented fear through the
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: hearts and homes on a day that is supposed to
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: be filled with tricks and treats. It all started when
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: a couple named William and Susan Lisk married back in
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: two thousand one. This wasn't the first time down the
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: aisle for either of them, and both of them were
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: bringing their own children from previous marriages into this new
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: blended family. Susan had two sons, Devon and Deryck, and
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: William had one whose name was William Junior, although he
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: usually went by his nickname b Jay. Devon and Derrick
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: seemed to adapt well to this new life and having
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: William Senior in their lives, but unfortunately the same could
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: not be said for William's son b Jay. B J
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: didn't take too well to having a stepmother, and continuous
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: fights between him and Susan would often leave William Senior
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: having to pick between his new wife and his son.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: All of this tension would come to a head on Sunday,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: October thirty first, two thousand ten, when one member of
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: the Lisk family would make a gruesome and earth shattering discovery.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: William's sister, Laurie Morse and her husband had asked twenty
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: three year old Derek to come around that morning to
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: do some work for them. Derek had agreed, but when
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: he didn't show up, Lourie called Derek. When Derek didn't answer,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: she called Susan, and when Susan didn't answer, she called Devon.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: When Devon answered, Lourie had finally managed to get through
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: to someone in the List household, but unfortunately, Devon didn't
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: have much information to give her. Devon had spent the
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: night before at his father's house and had only come
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: home on Sunday morning to grab his choir robes and
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: head straight back out to perform in a concert at
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: the local church. When he returned from that concert, he'd
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: headed straight into his room. The house was unusually quiet
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: for Sunday, but Devon didn't think much of it at
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: the time. He had actually welcomed the opportunity to sit
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: in his room and play video games undisturbed for a
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: few hours. But as the day drew on and no
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: one else seemed to come home or to even start
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: getting ready for the trick or treaters that were sure
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: to come around later that evening, Devin began to feel uneasy.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: He went into Williams and Susan's room and found them
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: in bed, sleeping, the covers pulled up over their heads.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: He put a hand out to Susan and gave her
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: a shake, and Susan didn't wake up. Concerned, Devon then
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: pulled the covers down to find something that no child
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: should ever have to see. Immediately, Devin started screaming, then
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: screaming and crying. He ran straight out of the house
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: and took off down the street. It took him a
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: good few minutes just to calm down enough to think
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: about what he should do next, and then, still completely panicked,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: he called his aunt and told her everything he'd just seen,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Shocked and concerned about her nephew. His aunt then called
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: the police on Devon's behalf and told him to sit
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: tight and wait for first responders to arrive. Within minutes,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: law enforcement had secured the scene, and they began the
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: long and gruesome task of piecing everything together. At some point,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: either the night before or during that very morning, while
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Evan was either with his father or at church, someone
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: had attacked the Lisk family. William had been shot in
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: the head and face multiple times, leaving blood spatter on
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: the walls and soaking the bed underneath his body. Susan's
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: fate was even worse. Susan had first been sexually assaulted
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: before she'd been shot in the head too. Both victims
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: would be found side by side in their bed. The
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: question then turned to Devin's older brother, Derek. He'd also
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: been in the home the night before, and it was
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: very unlikely that he wouldn't have heard the gunshots from
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: William and Susan's room. The investigators then approached Derek's room
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: and found the door locked. It had been locked from
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: the inside, suggesting that Derek had locked himself in. Maybe
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: he'd done so to hide from William and Susan's killer.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Maybe he was the one who'd actually attacked them and
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: now he was hiding from the police. Law enforcement broke
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: down the door and forced their way into Derek's room,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: but instead of finding the person who'd killed William and Susan,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: they found that Derek was actually another victim. He was
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: on his bed, curled up, almost like he'd been trying
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: to protect himself, and he'd been murdered too. This time,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: the killer struck with a blunt object, leaving a sizeable
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: wound on Derek's head that ended up killing him in
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: one fell swoop. Devon had lost his mother, his older brother,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: and his stepfather. Distraught and visibly shaken, Devon was then
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: brought to the station to give an interview. This talk
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: with the investigators had many motives behind it. The first
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: was that Devon had actually been the one to discover
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: the bodies, and therefore was the closest thing the investigators
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: had at the moment to a witness. Devon was also
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: a suspect. Yes, he'd been at his father's house the
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: night before, but the Lisk family home had given the
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: investigators more than one reason for them to believe that
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: the killings had been an inside job. The home itself
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: showed no signs of century, meaning that the killer more
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: than likely had their own way of getting into the
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: house or had already been inside it. There were no
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: signs of a struggle or that the home had been burglarized,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: suggesting that the killer had known their way around and
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: had come there for the sole purpose of killing them.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Another discovery was quickly made that seemed to support that theory,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: despite the fact that one of the murder weapons had
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: been a gun. No bullet casings were found at the scene.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Whoever killed William, Susan, and Derreck had cleaned up after themselves,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: suggesting that they had at the very least put some
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: degree of thought or planning into the killings themselves. The
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: investigators first turned to Devon to try to figure out
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: if he was capable of killing his own family, but
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Devon's version of events and his alibi remained consistent. He'd
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: been at his father's the night before and had only
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: come home Sunday morning to pick up his choir robes
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: and head straight back out to the concert. He had, however,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: seen one more person at the house that morning, and
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: he was the unexpected HouseGuest. William's son, BJ, had spent
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: the night at the Lisks. In fact, he and William
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: had just come back from a week long hunting trip
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: together at the family cabin out in the woods when
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: he and William came home that Saturday night. William and
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Susan invited BJ to stay after a get together they'd
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: hosted that night. After it turned into a bit of
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: a party and then led to some drinking. BJ himself
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: was not actually a member of the list household anymore.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: He had been at first, but the relationship between him
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: and Susan had deteriorated to the point where BJ had
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: been asked to leave the house. The paper trail to
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: prove that started back in two thousand and four, when
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: a police report indicated that BJ had hit his stepmother
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: with a coffee mug. Two months after that, he'd punched
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: her in the chest. A short while after that, he'd
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: stolen the car keys and attacked her with them. After
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: one of these violent outbursts, the local police came in
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: and then physically removed BJ from the house. He was
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: then sent to a mental facility, where he stayed until
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: William's senior came in and agreed to be BJ's guardian.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: After that, BJ wasn't allowed back into the house, but
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: William was doing his best to rebuild his relationship with
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: his son and to keep their blended family together. That
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: was actually why he and BJ had gone out on
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: that hunting trip, and that was another reason why William
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: offered for BJ to sleep on the sofa after they'd
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: all enjoyed themselves at the party. Afterward, the following morning,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: while Devon was at the house picking up his robe,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: he saw BJ out on the front of the house
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: putting something into his white truck. Devon explained that he
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: was on his way to church and told BJ that
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: he would be back soon, but when he came back afterward,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: BJ had already left. This piece of evidence and the
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: long and difficult relationship that BJ had between his father
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: and his stepmother led to a countrywide man hunt. While
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: the investigators back at the scene were busy finding the
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: claw hammer that had been used to kill Derek, law
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: enforcement were at the Lisk family can arresting the man
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: who had used it. BJ didn't put up a fight,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: and around him was only one more piece of physical
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: evidence to prove that he had actually been the one
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: to kill his father, stepmother, and stepbrother. All of their
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: DNA was found on BJ and in his truck, and
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: so was the twenty two caliber rifle that had been
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: used to kill both Susan and William. BJ agreed to
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: a plead deal which spared him the death penalty. He
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: agreed to plead guilty to the three murders in exchange
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: for a life sentence without the possibility of parole, his
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: life would be spared, but he would actually only serve
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: a year of his sentence. In twenty eleven, bj took
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: his own life and was found dead in his prison cell.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: That is ten minute murder for today, brief and bingeable
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: true crime. I'm Joe the host, and thank you for listening.
• 11:00
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• 11:03
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• 11:15
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• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Big fan Noel Well, First of all, Noel, Merry Christmas. Seconds.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: Yes I read sometimes I read with my eyes, other
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: times with my ears audiobooks, and yes that still counts.
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  Speaker 1: In case you're wondering, I've just started a book called
• 11:35
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• 11:38
  Speaker 1: soon to say if i'd recommend it because I just
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: started it, but I would recommend The Housemaid by Freedom McFadden.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: It's a psychological thriller with a bunch of twists. Some
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  Speaker 1: And the reason I'm recommending that is because it's currently
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  Speaker 1: Seifer's how you say that it's a movie based on
• 12:02
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  Speaker 1: and then see the movie afterwards. So I've read the book.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: It's good, so I'm really interested to see the movie.
• 12:11
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• 12:13
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• 12:15
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