Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Six Jailed Over Murder of Innocent Mother Gunned Down on Flat Doorstep
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: You know, there is this unspoken assumption we all have
- 0:03about the front door of wherever we live.
- 0:05Speaker 2: Right, it's a boundary, exactly.
- 0:06Speaker 1: It's this psychological barrier just as much as a physical one.
- 0:10Like when you're inside, all the chaotic, unpredictable stuff in.
- 0:13Speaker 3: The world is outside.
- 0:14Speaker 2: Yeah, you feel safe.
- 0:15Speaker 1: Yeah, And when there's a knock, what actually goes through
- 0:17your mind? I mean mostly it's just an annoyance.
- 0:21Speaker 2: It's the Amazon guy, right, it's.
- 0:22Speaker 1: A package delivery, or maybe it's a neighbor who locked
- 0:25themselves out, or you know, somebody trying to sell you
- 0:27a new Internet.
- 0:28Speaker 2: Package, something totally mundane.
- 0:29Speaker 1: Exactly. Okay, let's unpack this because today we are looking
- 0:33at a case that completely strips away that illusion of safety.
- 0:37Speaker 2: It really does.
- 0:37Speaker 1: We are diving deep into a tragedy that fundamentally shattered
- 0:41that everyday assumption, a case where the simple automatic act
- 0:45of turning a doorknob actually became the final action of
- 0:49an innocent woman's life.
- 0:50Speaker 2: And it forces us to confront how fragile that barrier
- 0:54really is. Yeah, you know, we rely on predictability.
- 0:58Speaker 1: We take it for granted.
- 0:59Speaker 2: We do. We expect the mundane because statistically, life is
- 1:02mostly mundane. But the incident we're examining today, which took
- 1:06place on March nine to twenty twenty five in Talbot Green,
- 1:09which is this quiet community in South Wales. Right, it
- 1:12isn't just a true.
- 1:12Speaker 1: Crime anomally right, It's bigger than that.
- 1:14Speaker 2: It's a systemic collision. We're looking at what happens when
- 1:18the devastatingly ruthless, almost corporate like machinery of an expanding
- 1:23organized crime group just crashes head on into the life
- 1:27of someone who had absolutely no connection to their world.
- 1:30Speaker 1: Joanne Penny, Yes, a forty year old mother who had
- 1:34I mean zero involvement in the drug trade, zero involvement
- 1:38in dangs, zero connection to any criminal underworld whatsoever, the
- 1:41complete civilian totally, and yet she lost her life on
- 1:44a doorstep, leading to one of the most significant and
- 1:47historic sentencings in Welsh legal history, which just wrapped up
- 1:50frequently in June twenty twenty six.
- 1:52Speaker 2: The scale of the sentencing was massive, it really was.
- 1:55Speaker 3: So.
- 1:55Speaker 1: Our mission for this deep dive, using all these court
- 1:58transcripts and victim impact statements, is to figure out the
- 2:01mechanics of this tragedy, like how does a sleepy Welsh
- 2:05town become the epicenter of a lethal turf war. How
- 2:08do these criminal franchises actually operate on.
- 2:11Speaker 2: The ground, And we have to look at the human costs.
- 2:13Speaker 1: We have to center the human cost here because behind
- 2:16all the complex police work in the courtroom drama, there's
- 2:19a family that has been permanently, irrevocably broken by this, which.
- 2:24Speaker 2: Really is the only place we can truly start. Yeah,
- 2:27if we were going to understand the sheer gravity of
- 2:29the sentences handed down by the court later on, we
- 2:33first have to understand the profound innocence of the life
- 2:36that was taken.
- 2:36Speaker 1: We need to know who Joanne was exactly.
- 2:39Speaker 2: We have to start with Joanne herself and the incredibly
- 2:42vulnerable position she was in at that.
- 2:44Speaker 1: Time, right, because when you look at Joanne Penny's life
- 2:47leading up to that evening, she had been delta seriously
- 2:50tough hands. She's been through a lot, she really had.
- 2:53She was forty, a mother to three children. She had
- 2:55two teenage daughters and a son named Cody Griffiths, and
- 2:59she was a widow. She had lost the children's father
- 3:02years prior, so she's navigating this immense grief while carrying
- 3:05the weight of single motherhood.
- 3:07Speaker 2: And compounding that emotional weight was this severe structural vulnerability.
- 3:13Speaker 3: Right the housing situation.
- 3:14Speaker 2: Yes, the reality of her situation was that she had
- 3:17recently experienced homelessness. Life had really pushed her to the.
- 3:21Speaker 1: Very margins, which is the crucial detail for understanding why
- 3:25she was even at the location where she was murdered,
- 3:28exactly because she wasn't at her own house. She was
- 3:30staying temporarily with friends at an address ten likely's ill
- 3:35tied in Talbot Green. She was essentially sofa surface.
- 3:39Speaker 2: Just trying to get by day to day.
- 3:41Speaker 1: Right, And I think we need to pause on that
- 3:42for a second, because think about what it means to
- 3:45stay on a friend's couch while you're trying to get
- 3:47your life back together. You have no privacy, no privacy,
- 3:50no sanctuary of your own. You are entirely dependent on
- 3:52the goodwill of others for basic shelter. It is the
- 3:55most mundane yet profoundly exposed state a person can be in.
- 4:00Speaker 2: Exactly, you were existing in someone else's ecosystem. Yeah, and
- 4:04the court made this point with absolute clarity during the trial.
- 4:07Joanne Penny was a civilian. She was not a participant
- 4:11in the shadow economy that was operating all around that address.
- 4:14Speaker 1: She was literally just crashing there.
- 4:16Speaker 2: She was a textbook definition of being in the wrong
- 4:19place at the wrong time, just trying to find a
- 4:21momentary safe harbor.
- 4:22Speaker 1: And the contrast between who she was and the forces
- 4:26that were closing in on her is just staggering.
- 4:29Speaker 2: It's heartbreak too.
- 4:29Speaker 3: It really is.
- 4:30Speaker 1: Like you read the accounts from her family and they
- 4:33are filled with these beautiful, deeply human details.
- 4:36Speaker 2: The beach trips, Yes.
- 4:38Speaker 1: Her daughters talked about going on deeps trips, about going
- 4:40out for ice cream. You know, these small, bright, fiercely
- 4:44normal moments that make up a family shared history.
- 4:47Speaker 2: And that highlights the sheer sociopathy of the crime itself totally.
- 4:51Because the individuals who arrived at ten Lee Silzial they
- 4:54didn't see a mother, They didn't see a human being
- 4:57who loved her children and took them for ice cream.
- 4:59Speaker 3: No, they did zero at all.
- 5:00Speaker 2: They just saw a logistical obstacle. Because when you operate
- 5:04within the framework of an organized crime group or an OCG,
- 5:08residential addresses are entirely stripped of their humanity.
- 5:11Speaker 1: Aren't homes anymore, No, they.
- 5:13Speaker 2: Are strategic strongholds.
- 5:14Speaker 1: They are just points on a map, like a blip.
- 5:16Speaker 3: On a radar.
- 5:17Speaker 2: Precisely, they are nodes in a supply chain. It's a
- 5:21place to store product, a base for runners, a territory
- 5:25to be held or conquered. Right the innocent human lives
- 5:29occupying those spaces, whether they're the actual tenants or someone
- 5:34just crashing on the couch like Joe Anne, they are
- 5:36completely invisible to the OCG. It's terrif they're categorized as
- 5:40collateral damage before a shot is even fired.
- 5:43Speaker 1: God, I have always hated that term, you know, collateral damage.
- 5:47Speaker 2: It's very cold.
- 5:48Speaker 1: It sounds so sterile, like you're reading a military briefing.
- 5:51It completely erases the actual horror of what's happening.
- 5:55Speaker 2: It sanitizes it.
- 5:56Speaker 3: It does.
- 5:57Speaker 1: And I want to read a piece of the victim
- 5:58impact statement for her son, Cody, because it just completely
- 6:03obliterates that clinical terminology.
- 6:05Speaker 2: It's a very powerful statement.
- 6:06Speaker 1: He stood up in court looking right at the people
- 6:08who killed his mother and he said, you shot my
- 6:11mother through the heart, and shot her whole family through
- 6:13the heart too. My mother will never be able to
- 6:15see me get married. We'll never get to meet my children.
- 6:18And then Joanne's mother, Sharon detailed how she's suffering from
- 6:22these relentless, agonizing nightmares. I mean, it's not just a death,
- 6:27it's this multi generational infection.
- 6:29Speaker 2: Of trauma, right, because it orphans the children, it robs
- 6:32them of their past and all their future milestones, and
- 6:35it traps the parents in this endless loop of psychological torture.
- 6:39Speaker 3: It's just devastating.
- 6:40Speaker 2: The term collateral damage is a lie that these organizations
- 6:44tell themselves to justify their own atrocities. But it brings
- 6:48us back to the core structural question of this entire case, right,
- 6:51the why exactly why was that specific No ten elis
- 6:57ilted targeted Because as we've establish list, Joanne was absolutely
- 7:01not the target.
- 7:02Speaker 1: Right, she was literally just the one who opened the door. Yes,
- 7:04the real target was the address itself because of the
- 7:07massive shadowy economy operating right.
- 7:09Speaker 3: Outside that door.
- 7:09Speaker 2: It's all about territory.
- 7:10Speaker 1: Yeah, this whole tragedy stems from a turf war and
- 7:13to understand it, we have to look at this group
- 7:14operating out of Lester, the RICO OCG.
- 7:17Speaker 2: The RICO group is absolutely central to understanding modern illicit economies.
- 7:22Speaker 3: In the UK Okay tell me about them.
- 7:23Speaker 2: Well, they were led by a man named Joshua Gordon
- 7:26who was around twenty seven or twenty eight at the time.
- 7:29And Gordon had this very specific, incredibly aggressive business strategy,
- 7:35which is what he wanted to expand their crack cocaine
- 7:38operation out of the Midlands and push down into Cardiff
- 7:43and the surrounding areas, specifically targeting Talbot Green.
- 7:47Speaker 1: Okay, so this is what law enforcement refers to as
- 7:49county lines writer exactly. I feel like we hear that
- 7:53phrase thrown around a lot on the news, but I
- 7:55really want to make sure we understand the mechanics of it.
- 7:57From my understanding, it's basically like a franchise model.
- 8:00Speaker 2: That's a good way to look at it.
- 8:01Speaker 1: Like a fast food chain realizing they can't open another
- 8:04burger joint in a major city without cannibalizing their own sales,
- 8:07so they just move to the suburbs.
- 8:09Speaker 3: Is that accurate.
- 8:10Speaker 2: That's a great starting point. Yeah, But with one critical difference.
- 8:13What's that Well, a legitimate franchise has corporate oversight, right,
- 8:18they have legal contracts, noncompete clauses, that sort of thing.
- 8:22Speaker 3: Sure, lawyers and paperwork.
- 8:23Speaker 2: Right, But in the illicit drug market, particularly in major
- 8:27urban hubs like Lester, Birmingham or London. The market is
- 8:31completely saturated. It's too crowded, it's incredibly crowded. The competition
- 8:36is intense, the profit margins shrink, and the risk of
- 8:39violence or police intervention is exceptionally high because you have
- 8:43multiple groups fighting over the exact same street corners.
- 8:46Speaker 1: So they look for a blue Ocean strategy free tisely,
- 8:48they look at a map and find smaller, quieter towns,
- 8:52places where the local drug supply might be, I don't know,
- 8:55a bit disjointed, maybe lower quality, or just less violently defended.
- 9:00Speaker 2: Exactly to them, Talbot Green represents an untapped market.
- 9:04Speaker 1: Right for the taking.
- 9:05Speaker 2: Yes, so the RICO Group sends their members down or
- 9:08they recruit local vulnerable people to set up a new
- 9:11supply line, and suddenly you have this massive, well resourced,
- 9:15highly organized urban gang operating right in a sleepy provincial town.
- 9:20Speaker 1: Which changes everything for that town.
- 9:22Speaker 2: It does. But remember they don't have a legal department
- 9:24to secure their market share. Their only mechanism for corporate governance,
- 9:28Their only way to enforce contracts is violence.
- 9:31Speaker 1: Right, and obviously, when the RICO Group showed up in
- 9:34Talbot Green. The local dealers weren't just going to roll
- 9:37out the red carpet and say hey, take our customers, No,
- 9:40because the local market was already controlled by a rival
- 9:43leader known as Jimmy Joseph. Right, So Jimmy and his
- 9:46crew are looking at these out of towners trying to
- 9:49siphon off their revenue, and they decide they have to
- 9:53push back.
- 9:53Speaker 2: Which is exactly what sparks the escalation. There are two
- 9:57specific inciting incidents leading up to the murder that really
- 10:01highlight how quickly these territorial disputes spiral out of control. Okay,
- 10:05what happened first? On February twenty first, twenty twenty five,
- 10:09there's what the court referred to as the ramming incident.
- 10:12Speaker 3: The ramming incident, Okay.
- 10:13Speaker 2: Yeah, Jimmy's crew basically ambushes the Rico dealers right outside
- 10:17that same address number ten. Eli's ill tied.
- 10:20Speaker 3: Wow, right where Joanna was saying. So what do they do?
- 10:22Speaker 2: They chase them out, They physically ram and damage a
- 10:25vehicle belonging to the Rico group, and they brandish a firearm.
- 10:28Speaker 1: Okay, so it's a very aggressive, very public eviction notice.
- 10:33Speaker 2: Very public, and then shortly after that, a RICO runner,
- 10:37a guy named syraj Man, gets pistol whipped by the
- 10:40local crew.
- 10:41Speaker 1: Ouch. So they're really sending a physical message exactly.
- 10:44Speaker 2: These aren't random acts of violence. They are targeted to
- 10:47tacks on the Rico group's operational capacity and more importantly,
- 10:51on their brand.
- 10:53Speaker 1: See here is where I have to look at this
- 10:55from a systemic level and just ask why escalate to murder?
- 10:59Speaker 2: It seems extreme?
- 11:00Speaker 3: It does.
- 11:00Speaker 1: I mean, their car gets rounded, one of their low
- 11:03level runners gets beat up, and their immediate response is
- 11:05to escalate from a street scuffle to sending a heavily
- 11:09armed hit squad. From a purely business standpoint, murder is
- 11:13terrible for business.
- 11:14Speaker 2: It attracts all the wrong kind of attention exactly.
- 11:16Speaker 1: It brings a massive police investigation, It shuts down your
- 11:19supply lines, it draws heat from the media. It seems
- 11:22like a completely disproportionate overreaction that just destroys the very
- 11:27profit they're trying to protect.
- 11:29Speaker 3: So what does this all mean?
- 11:30Speaker 2: Well, if you evaluate their actions using the logic of
- 11:33a legitimate business or even just basic risk management, it
- 11:36seems utterly self destructive.
- 11:38Speaker 3: You're right, Yeah, it makes no sense.
- 11:40Speaker 2: But you have to view this through the specific economic
- 11:44reality of the illisan drug trade. In that world, respect
- 11:49and reputation aren't just abstract concepts or matters of ego.
- 11:53Speaker 1: They're more tangible than that.
- 11:55Speaker 2: They are the actual currency. They are the foundation of
- 11:58the entire deterrence model that keep the business alive.
- 12:01Speaker 1: So you're saying violence is basically their marketing budget.
- 12:04Speaker 2: That is a phenomenal way to frame it. Think of
- 12:07violence not as a crime but as brand protection. Wow,
- 12:11Because if you are Joshua Gordon, your power relies entirely
- 12:15on the perception of your capacity for overwhelming retaliation.
- 12:18Speaker 3: You have to look scary.
- 12:20Speaker 2: Exactly if Jimmy's crew rams your car and pistol whips
- 12:23your runner and you do nothing, or if you just
- 12:25fight back a little bit, you look.
- 12:27Speaker 3: Weak, and weakness is bad for business.
- 12:30Speaker 2: In an illicit ecosystem. Weakness is an existential.
- 12:32Speaker 1: Threat because if you don't respond with overwhelming force, you
- 12:35don't just lose Talbot Green.
- 12:37Speaker 2: No bigger than that.
- 12:38Speaker 1: Word gets back to Lester, word gets to every other
- 12:41town where you have a county line operating. Suddenly, every
- 12:45local dealer in every town thinks they can push the
- 12:48Rego group around, and your entire empire collapses.
- 12:52Speaker 2: Precisely, the thread of your violence is exposed as a bluff.
- 12:57And what's fascinating here is how the core evidence explicitly
- 13:00showed the Rico group discussing the need to send a message.
- 13:05Speaker 1: They literally used those words.
- 13:06Speaker 2: They did they needed an act of extreme theatrical violence
- 13:10to reclaim their territory and re establish their deterrence.
- 13:13Speaker 1: God.
- 13:14Speaker 2: This is why ten lyns Ill Tied became a contested
- 13:16military objective. Jimmy's crew had used it, Rico's crew had
- 13:20used it. It was essentially the flag in the center
- 13:22of the battlefield, and they needed to plant it back
- 13:25in the ground, regardless of who was standing in the way.
- 13:27Speaker 3: They were willing to burn the house down just to
- 13:29prove they owned the ashes.
- 13:30Speaker 2: That's exactly it.
- 13:31Speaker 1: But here's where the story shifts from a tragic local
- 13:34turf war to something genuinely terrifying on a much larger
- 13:37systemic level.
- 13:38Speaker 2: It gets much darker.
- 13:39Speaker 1: It does because this violent retaliation, this hit wasn't just
- 13:44hatched on a street corner in South Wales. It was coordinated,
- 13:48funded and ordered from an environment that should have been
- 13:51completely neutralized. Right, we need to talk about the puppet master,
- 13:54Rinaldo Baptiste.
- 13:56Speaker 2: This is the element of the case that exposes a
- 13:58massive failure in our public life safety infrastructure.
- 14:01Speaker 1: It's unbelievable.
- 14:02Speaker 2: Ronaldo Baptiste is a key figure in the RICO OCG.
- 14:06But on March ninth, twenty twenty five, when Joanne Penny
- 14:09was murdered, Baptiste wasn't in Talbot Green. No, he wasn't
- 14:13in Luster. He was sitting in a high security prison cell.
- 14:16Speaker 1: And he wasn't just on remand for some minor offense, right, No,
- 14:19not at all. Rinaldo Baptiste was already serving a life
- 14:22sentence with a minimum term of twenty five years for
- 14:25a previous murder he committed back in twenty twenty one.
- 14:27Speaker 2: He's a convicted killer.
- 14:28Speaker 1: Society had already deemed this man too dangerous to walk
- 14:31the streets. We put him in a cage to protect people,
- 14:34and yet he is running a heavily armed hit squad
- 14:37from his bunk.
- 14:37Speaker 2: It's a huge systemic failure.
- 14:39Speaker 1: He brokers the deal for the hit, he sources the firearm,
- 14:42he gets the ammunition, and he acts as the air
- 14:45traffic controller for Joshua Gordon on the outside, and.
- 14:48Speaker 2: The logistical reality of how he achieved this is what
- 14:52law enforcement is struggling with globally.
- 14:53Speaker 3: How did he do it?
- 14:55Speaker 2: He used a smuggled prison smartphone.
- 14:57Speaker 1: I was looking into this and it just blows my
- 14:59mind because we think of prisons as these impenetrable fortresses,
- 15:05you know, with metal detectors and dogs and guards everywhere.
- 15:08Speaker 2: Right the movie version of prison Exactly.
- 15:11Speaker 1: How are fully functioning smartphones making it into the hands
- 15:15of convicted murderers.
- 15:17Speaker 2: Well, it's a technological arms race. Yes, there are corrupt staff,
- 15:21and there are traditional smuggling routes through visitors.
- 15:23Speaker 3: Things like that, the usual ways.
- 15:25Speaker 2: But the landscape has changed so much. You have commercial
- 15:28drones flying over prison walls at night, literally dropping packages
- 15:32directly to sell windows drones.
- 15:35Speaker 3: Are you kidding me?
- 15:36Speaker 2: No, it's a huge issue, and the technology itself has adapted.
- 15:40Criminals often use what are called microphones. What's a micro
- 15:43There are devices smaller than a lighter. They are composed
- 15:46mostly of plastic, specifically to evade metal detectors, and they
- 15:50are designed to be hidden in body cavities.
- 15:53Speaker 1: Wow, So it's the ultimate perverse remote work set up.
- 15:58The physical office is a maximum security cell, but his
- 16:02digital reach is entirely uncontained.
- 16:04Speaker 2: That's exactly what it is. Once an OCG leader has
- 16:07an internet connected smartphone, the prison walls effectively cease to exist.
- 16:11Speaker 1: They're just a suggestion at that point.
- 16:13Speaker 2: Pretty much, they have encrypted messaging apps like Signal or Telegram.
- 16:17They can access banking, they can coordinate logistics, they can
- 16:20order violence all from bed right. They are physically contained,
- 16:23but operationally they are still on the street. Putting them
- 16:26in prison doesn't dismantle the gang. It just gives the
- 16:29boss a state funded fortress where rival gangs can't shoot
- 16:32back at.
- 16:33Speaker 1: Him, which creates a nightmare scenario for police, a total nightmare,
- 16:37because you spend years building a case. You put a
- 16:39killer like bab Piet away and the violence doesn't even
- 16:42stop because he has the contacts, he has the authority,
- 16:46and crucially, because he's already serving life, he has absolutely
- 16:49nothing left to lose.
- 16:50Speaker 2: He is insulated from consequence, which makes his decision making
- 16:54utterly ruthless. And this raises an important question about how
- 16:58we manage these high values inmates. The forensic evidence recovered
- 17:02from that phone details exactly how he orchestrated this. Baptiste
- 17:07reaches out to contacts back in Leicester to source the weapon.
- 17:11Speaker 3: And it's not a standard hand gun, is it.
- 17:13Speaker 2: No, it's a converted starter pistol.
- 17:14Speaker 1: I want to dig into that because I feel like
- 17:16this is a very specific UK phenomenon. I was reading
- 17:19about these converted guns. They're basically track and field blank
- 17:23guns that criminals drill out, right, That's right, But doesn't
- 17:25that make them incredibly unstable?
- 17:27Speaker 3: Like dangerous to the user?
- 17:29Speaker 2: Extremely unstable? A starter pistol is designed to fire blanks.
- 17:34They are legally easier to obtain than a live firearm
- 17:37because they start their life as a legal novelty item.
- 17:40Speaker 1: Basically just something you buy at a sports store exactly.
- 17:44Speaker 2: But criminal armorers take these blank firing guns and illegally
- 17:48modify them. They drill out the block barrel, they reinforce
- 17:51the chamber, and they alter the firing mechanism so it
- 17:54can actually strike a live round.
- 17:56Speaker 1: It sounds like a pipe bomb waiting to go off
- 17:58in your hand.
- 17:59Speaker 2: The freak misfire or explode. Their bullistics are highly unpredictable,
- 18:04but for an OCG, they are cheap, easily accessible and
- 18:07untraceable in the traditional sense because there's no registry for
- 18:11a track and field starter pistol.
- 18:13Speaker 1: So Baptiste sources this unstable converted gun, and he sources
- 18:17the ammunition. Yes, the police found coded text messages where
- 18:21the bullets were referred to as ten sweets sweets right,
- 18:24and they trace the sourcing back to a woman in
- 18:26Leicster named Molly Cooper. But the most shilling part of
- 18:29this digital trail isn't the logistics of the gun or
- 18:32the bullets, it's the intent.
- 18:33Speaker 2: The intent was horrific.
- 18:35Speaker 1: There are communications between Baptiste and the hit man they
- 18:38chose for the job, a guy named Marcus Huntley.
- 18:40Speaker 2: And Huntley is young. He's about twenty or twenty one
- 18:43years old.
- 18:43Speaker 1: At the time, so he's trying to make a name
- 18:45for himself.
- 18:46Speaker 2: He is very eager to prove himself to leadership, right.
- 18:50Speaker 1: And Huntley texts Baptiste from the outside discussing the plan,
- 18:55and he writes, and this is a direct quote from
- 18:57the text, leg shots only right. So he is suggesting
- 19:01they just wound the target, just ncap them to send
- 19:03the message without killing anyone. And Baptiste replies to that
- 19:07text he does he doesn't say no, he doesn't give
- 19:10a counter order.
- 19:10Speaker 2: He replies with a laughing emoji.
- 19:12Speaker 1: A laughing emoji to a question about sparing a life.
- 19:16Speaker 3: I mean, it's sickening.
- 19:18Speaker 2: It is the absolute gamification of murder.
- 19:20Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 19:21Speaker 2: During the trial, the defense team desperately tried to spin this. Obviously.
- 19:25They argue that this conversation was just coded talk about
- 19:29drug quantities, that leg shots meant something entirely.
- 19:32Speaker 1: Different, which makes no sense, and the jury saw right
- 19:35through it completely.
- 19:36Speaker 2: The prosecution argued successfully that this established premeditated intent. When
- 19:41a hitman suggests only wounding the target and the orchestrator
- 19:44responds with a laughing emoji, he is dismissing the idea
- 19:48of restraint.
- 19:48Speaker 1: He's making fun of him for even asking exactly.
- 19:51Speaker 2: He is mocking the concept of mercy. It was a
- 19:55green light for extreme harm, if not.
- 19:57Speaker 1: Outright death, So Baptiste has said the board from his cell.
- 20:01The weapon is secure, the ammunition is ready, the intent
- 20:04is lethal.
- 20:05Speaker 2: The plan is in motion.
- 20:06Speaker 1: But a text message can't pull a trigger to execute this.
- 20:10They needed someone physically on that doorstep in Talbot Green,
- 20:14and more importantly, they needed a mechanism to get the
- 20:17door open in the first.
- 20:18Speaker 2: Place, which brings us to the evening of March nine,
- 20:21twenty twenty five.
- 20:22Speaker 1: The execution of the reprisal.
- 20:24Speaker 2: Right, the mechanics of how they carry this out reveal
- 20:27so much about the utter depravity of this group.
- 20:30Speaker 1: How did it go down?
- 20:31Speaker 2: It's early evening. Three people approached the flat at ten
- 20:34aalizul Tana. You have Marcus Huntley, the young guy with
- 20:37a converted pistol, eager to make his bones.
- 20:39Speaker 3: Okay, that's one.
- 20:40Speaker 2: You have Jordan mill Smith, another associate. And then you
- 20:43have a woman named Melissa Qually Dashber, and.
- 20:46Speaker 1: Her role is critical for understanding the socioeconomic strategy of
- 20:49organized crime groups right, absolutely critically because she wasn't the
- 20:52mastermind and she wasn't the shooter.
- 20:55Speaker 2: No, Melissa Qually Dashber was a highly vulnerable individual struggling
- 21:00with severe addiction. She was just a user, yes, and
- 21:03the RICO group used her. They paid her in crack
- 21:06cocaine to do one specific job, walk up to that
- 21:09flat and knock on the door.
- 21:11Speaker 3: Why her though, why not just kick the door in?
- 21:15Speaker 2: Because it's a brutal form of risk management. It's often
- 21:18called cuckooing or using human bait, human bait. Think about it.
- 21:22If three masked men looking like a hit squad approach
- 21:26a known drug house, nobody is opening that door.
- 21:29Speaker 1: Right The occupants look out the window, see the threat,
- 21:31and they either barricade themselves in or run out the back.
- 21:34Speaker 2: Exactly The OCG needed a trojan horse. They needed someone
- 21:38who looked completely non threatening, someone who might legitimately be
- 21:41knocking to buy drugs or just ask for help.
- 21:43Speaker 1: So they are externalizing their highest physical risks onto the
- 21:46lowest value members.
- 21:47Speaker 3: Of their hierarchy.
- 21:48Speaker 1: Com precisely, they valued her life and the immense danger
- 21:51of putting her in a literal crossfire at the price
- 21:53of a few rocks of crack cocaine.
- 21:55Speaker 2: It is predatory capitalism in its most violent form, it
- 21:58really is. They exploit the most mark jinnalized people in society,
- 22:01attics the desperately poor, and they use them as disposable
- 22:05shields to insulate the higher ups.
- 22:07Speaker 1: So Melissa knocks on the door, and inside the flat,
- 22:11Joanne Penny is just hanging out in the living room
- 22:14with two friends. It's a normal Sunday.
- 22:16Speaker 2: Evening, completely normal, because.
- 22:18Speaker 1: Joanne happens to be sitting closest to the stairs. She's
- 22:20the one who gets up to see who it is.
- 22:22Speaker 2: She goes to answer the door.
- 22:23Speaker 1: He walks downstairs, she reaches for the handle, she opens.
- 22:26Speaker 2: The door, and the moment that door opens, the barrier
- 22:29is breached.
- 22:30Speaker 1: Marcus Huntley doesn't ask a question, He doesn't check who
- 22:33he's shooting at to see if it's Jimmy Joseph for
- 22:35one of his crew, No hesitation. He just raises that
- 22:38converted starter pistol and fires almost at point blank range,
- 22:42directly into Joanne's chest. The time is exactly six point
- 22:47zero four.
- 22:47Speaker 2: PM, a single gunshot, but with a modified weapon at
- 22:51that range, striking center mass. The physical trauma is just catastrophic.
- 22:56Speaker 1: She is shot directly through the heart. Emergency services are
- 22:59called immediately, paramedics arrive, and the scene is described in
- 23:03the reports as just chaotic and desperate.
- 23:06Speaker 2: They tried so hard to save her.
- 23:08Speaker 1: They are fighting on a residential doorstep, doing everything medically
- 23:11possible to save her life, but the damage is too severe.
- 23:15Joanne Penny dies right there. It's awful and the contrast
- 23:19between that frantic, blood soaked effort to save her life
- 23:22and the behavior of a gang at that exact same
- 23:24moment is chilling.
- 23:26Speaker 2: It's sociopathic because while Joanne is bleeding to death, Huntley, Mills,
- 23:31Smith and Qualley Dashbord do not panic.
- 23:34Speaker 3: They don't run around screaming.
- 23:35Speaker 2: Not at all. The escape is calculated. They casually return
- 23:38to their vehicles. They make their way out of Talbot Green,
- 23:42heading back towards the safety of Leicester.
- 23:43Speaker 1: The machinery of the cover up kicks in instantly.
- 23:46Speaker 2: Right away, the.
- 23:47Speaker 1: Cell networks just light up. You have frantic group calls
- 23:50between the getaway cars and the orchestrators. Joshua Gordon's partner,
- 23:54a woman named Christina Genova. She immediately starts destroying evidence,
- 23:58tam Schinrol exactly, getting rid of phones, clothing, severing the
- 24:02digital ties that could link the leadership to the shooting.
- 24:05It's a well oiled machine going into damage control.
- 24:08Speaker 2: They knew exactly what to do.
- 24:09Speaker 1: But here is where it gets really interesting, and frankly,
- 24:12it takes a turn into almost absurd hubris.
- 24:16Speaker 2: Supris is the perfect.
- 24:17Speaker 1: Word, because for all their calculated, corporate style planning, they
- 24:21are undone by sheer vanity.
- 24:24Speaker 2: The disposal of the weapon.
- 24:25Speaker 1: Right Marcus Huntley, the shooter is tasked with getting rid
- 24:29of the converted.
- 24:30Speaker 2: Pistol, he needs to make it disappear.
- 24:32Speaker 1: He takes it to a park and cardiff to bury it.
- 24:34But he doesn't just dig a hole, drop it in
- 24:37and walk away. He pulls out a smartphone and he
- 24:39films himself burying the murder weapon.
- 24:42Speaker 2: It is staggering arrogance, but it also speaks to the
- 24:44psychology of violence within these groups.
- 24:46Speaker 1: It's like a bad mob movie where the hit man
- 24:49wants a souvenir of his own crime, but worse because
- 24:52it's digital. I mean, why on earth would you film
- 24:54yourself hiding the one piece of evidence that can put
- 24:57you away for life.
- 24:58Speaker 2: You have to look at how young men unlike Huntley
- 25:00are manipulated within the OCG structure. Okay, how so well,
- 25:04he's in his early twenties. He's been groomed by older,
- 25:08hardened criminals like Baptiste and Gordon into believing that violence equal.
- 25:12Speaker 1: Status, Right, It's a currency.
- 25:14Speaker 2: In his mind. He didn't just commit a murder, he
- 25:17executed a successful military operation for the franchise. That video
- 25:22wasn't just a souvenir, it was a digital resume clout.
- 25:25Speaker 1: He literally killed a mother for underworld clout exactly.
- 25:29Speaker 2: It's proof of his loyalty and his ruthlessness, something he
- 25:32could show his bosses to elevate his standing or use
- 25:35to build his own fearful reputation on the street.
- 25:37Speaker 1: But it completely backfired massively.
- 25:40Speaker 2: In his desperate need for validation, he provided law enforcement
- 25:44with an unassailable piece of evidence. He thought he was
- 25:47cementing his legacy as a gangster, but he was actually
- 25:50just handing the police a confession on a silver platter.
- 25:52Speaker 1: And South Wales Police did not hesitate to take that
- 25:55platter and build an ironclad case. It moved very quickly,
- 25:58which brings us to the investigation and the takedown. Because
- 26:02when a civilian, an entirely innocent person, is murdered in
- 26:05a public place with a firearm, it triggers a massive response.
- 26:09Speaker 2: It's an all hands on deck situation.
- 26:11Speaker 1: The investigation was led by Detective Chief Inspector LeAnn Rees
- 26:15and they threw everything at this The.
- 26:17Speaker 2: Speed and meticulousness of the police work here is exceptional.
- 26:20They started connecting the dots across multiple jurisdictions almost immediately.
- 26:25Speaker 1: They pull the CCTV from the area around the flat,
- 26:27which clearly shows the group approaching the door. Right, they
- 26:30start ripping apart the phone data, all those frantic post
- 26:34murder group calls we mentioned. The cell towered pings are
- 26:38mapping out the gang's exact escape route, proving they were together.
- 26:42Speaker 2: But the lynchpin was the forensic work on the ammunition.
- 26:46The Swedes remember Molly Cooper, the woman in Lester who
- 26:49sourced the ten suites right the supplier. The police recovered
- 26:52the spent cartridges at the scene in Talbot Green and
- 26:55they managed to pull DNA off those casings that matched
- 26:58Molly Cooper.
- 26:58Speaker 3: Wow d on a spent casing.
- 27:01Speaker 2: It's incredible forensic work and that instantly bridges the geographic gap.
- 27:06It proves the lethal material traveled from the Lesters supply
- 27:09network directly to the South Wales crime scene.
- 27:12Speaker 1: The net is closing in fast at this plan, very fast.
- 27:15Marcus Huntley realizes the heat is on and tries to
- 27:17flee the area. And where do they catch this self
- 27:21styled cartel hit.
- 27:22Speaker 2: Man, not a private jet on a National.
- 27:25Speaker 1: Express public coach. I mean it completely strips away all
- 27:28the glamour and intimidation these guys trying to project.
- 27:31Speaker 2: It really does.
- 27:32Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Jordan mill Smith flees all the way to Suffolk
- 27:35with the help of his family, but they hunt him
- 27:38down too. They arrest the leadership, they round up the associates,
- 27:41They dismantle a massive chunk of the Rico.
- 27:44Speaker 2: Network, which leads us to Cardiff Crown Court and the
- 27:47trials that resulted in this historic justice in June twenty
- 27:51twenty six. Yeah, the legal proceedings were complex because he
- 27:55had so many players with entirely different roles, from the
- 27:58mastermind sitting in a cell to the addict who knocked
- 28:00on the door. Right. But the prosecution's strategy was brilliant.
- 28:04They didn't just try Huntley as lone gunmen. They put
- 28:07the entire syndicate on trial for the murder.
- 28:09Speaker 1: Let's break down these sentences because mister Justice Fordham did
- 28:12not hold.
- 28:13Speaker 3: Back at all.
- 28:14Speaker 2: He threw the book at them.
- 28:15Speaker 1: This is one of the largest murder sentencings in Welsh
- 28:17legal history, over one hundred and fifty years combined. For
- 28:21the six defendants. Let's start with the triggerman, Marcus Huntley.
- 28:25Speaker 2: Right.
- 28:25Speaker 1: He actually pleaded guilty to murder, which makes sense given
- 28:29his defense was practically non existent after filming himself burying
- 28:32the gun.
- 28:33Speaker 2: Hard to argue with the video exactly.
- 28:35Speaker 1: He received a life sentence with a minimum term of
- 28:38thirty years and one hundred and forty six days.
- 28:41Speaker 2: Then you have the orchestrator, Rinaldo Baptiste, the man already
- 28:45serving a minimum of twenty five years for a previous.
- 28:48Speaker 3: Murder, right the guy on the phone.
- 28:49Speaker 2: Mister Justice Fordham handed him another life sentence, this time
- 28:52with a minimum of forty two years. He won't even
- 28:55be eligible for parole until twenty sixty eight, when he'll
- 28:58be eighty one years old.
- 28:59Speaker 3: Wow.
- 29:00Speaker 2: Wow, it is essentially a whole life order by proxy.
- 29:03Speaker 1: Then we have the leadership on the outside, Joshua Gordon,
- 29:05the dominant figure driving the expansion, life with a minimum
- 29:08of thirty.
- 29:09Speaker 2: Two years significant time.
- 29:10Speaker 1: Jordan mill Smith who was at the door, with huntly
- 29:13life minimum twenty seven years. But then we get to
- 29:16the women involved, who received mitigated sentences but were still
- 29:20hit with massive time.
- 29:21Speaker 2: This is the legally complex part.
- 29:23Speaker 1: Melissoqueally Dashburn the bait who knocked on the door. She
- 29:27gets life with a minimum of fourteen years. And Christina Genova,
- 29:31Gordon's partner who destroyed evidence, life with a minimum of
- 29:35twelve years.
- 29:36Speaker 2: And This is where we really need to dive into
- 29:38the legal architecture that made these sentences possible, because it
- 29:42is highly debated and incredibly powerful.
- 29:44Speaker 3: The joint enterprise thing.
- 29:46Speaker 2: Yes, the doctrine of joint enterprise.
- 29:48Speaker 1: I really want to unpack this because to a layman,
- 29:51someone might look at this and say, Okay, Genova smashed
- 29:54some phones and Dashburn knocked on a door. They committed crimes. Sure,
- 29:58but why are they getting life sentences for murder when
- 30:00they didn't pull the trigger and weren't even in the room.
- 30:03It seems disproportionate to some Exactly isn't it legally dangerous
- 30:07to charge someone with murder just for knocking on a door?
- 30:10Speaker 2: It is a deeply controversial area of UK law. Joint
- 30:14enterprise is a common law doctrine that essentially dictates that
- 30:17if a group of people agreed to commit a crime,
- 30:20and during the course of that enterprise, a more serious
- 30:22offense is committed, everyone in the group can be held
- 30:25equally liable for that most serious offense.
- 30:28Speaker 1: Okay, so everyone shares the blame.
- 30:30Speaker 2: The key is foresight. Did they foresee that extreme violence
- 30:34or murder was a possible outcome of their shared plan?
- 30:38Speaker 1: So if you act as the getaway driver for a
- 30:40bank robbery and your partner shoots the teller, you are
- 30:44both on the hook for murder, even if you never
- 30:46stepped out of the car.
- 30:47Speaker 2: Exactly, the philosophical justification is that by participating, you lent
- 30:51your support and encouragement to an enterprise where violence was
- 30:55a known risk. Your presence empowered the primary actor. Critics
- 31:00of joint enterprise argue that it sweeps up peripheral figures,
- 31:03often young, vulnerable people, and hits them with disproportionate sentences
- 31:08for crimes they didn't actually intend to happen.
- 31:10Speaker 1: But in the context of an organized crime group, how
- 31:13else do you dismantle the machine?
- 31:14Speaker 2: That is precisely the counter argument, and it's exactly how
- 31:18mister Justice fordam utilized it here. And OCG is a machine.
- 31:22A gun is useless without the person who sources it,
- 31:24the person who hides it, and the person who opens
- 31:26the door so it can be fired.
- 31:28Speaker 1: Everyone is a gear in the machine.
- 31:29Speaker 2: Exactly. By knocking on that door, Dashburd facilitated the murder
- 31:35by destroying the phones. Genova trying to protect the murderers
- 31:39and ensure the enterprise could continue the judge used joint
- 31:44enterprise as a judicial sledgehammer to smash the entire business model.
- 31:48Speaker 3: He went after the route.
- 31:49Speaker 2: He didn't just sentence a shooter. He sends the ecosystem
- 31:52that made the shooting possible.
- 31:53Speaker 1: He targeted the OCG context directly. The judge stressed several
- 31:58aggravating factors that pushed these minimum terms into the stratosphere.
- 32:02Speaker 2: The aggravating factors are key.
- 32:03Speaker 1: First the use of a firearm, Second, the fact that
- 32:06this was organized, premeditated gang violence, and third the utter
- 32:11innocence of the victim. Joanne was not a rival dealer.
- 32:14She was a mother staying with a friend.
- 32:16Speaker 2: Those aggravating factors are crucial because this wasn't just justice
- 32:20for Joanne. It was the justice system drawing a line
- 32:23in the.
- 32:23Speaker 1: Sands, sending their own message exactly.
- 32:25Speaker 2: Mister Justice Forum described the killing as a decisive show
- 32:28of strength in a drugs war. By handing down over
- 32:32a century and a half of prison time, the state
- 32:34is making its own decisive show of strength. It is
- 32:37a broadcast to every other OCG operating out of major
- 32:41cities looking at a map of Wales, basically saying, if
- 32:44you bring your war here, we will bury you under
- 32:47the prison.
- 32:48Speaker 1: But despite that massive victory in the courtroom, we have
- 32:50to pull back and look at the community left behind.
- 32:53Speaker 2: We do.
- 32:54Speaker 1: We've seen the perpetrators locked away, But what does this
- 32:56mean for Talbot Green? What does it mean for you,
- 32:59the life listener living in a town that might look
- 33:02just like it? Because the ripple effects of this case
- 33:05point to a much bigger, much darker systemic picture.
- 33:09Speaker 2: When you analyze the structural issues highlighted by this case,
- 33:12it becomes clear this is not an isolated incident to
- 33:15a trend. It is a symptom of a UK wide crisis.
- 33:19The expansion of urban gangs into smaller communities is accelerating,
- 33:23and the violence driven by the crack cocaine market is escalating,
- 33:26and the.
- 33:26Speaker 1: Weapons are changing the landscape of local policing. We talked
- 33:28about those converted firearms earlier.
- 33:30Speaker 2: They are a massive problem.
- 33:32Speaker 1: It used to be that getting a gun in the
- 33:33UK was incredibly difficult even for serious connected criminals. Now
- 33:38they are ordering starter pistols online, converting them in a garage,
- 33:42and suddenly a twenty year old kid looking for clout
- 33:45has a legal weapon in his.
- 33:46Speaker 2: Waistband, which inevitably leads to an increase in drug related homicides.
- 33:51DCI Leanne Reeves warned about the devastating consequences of importing violence,
- 33:55and she's totally right. Yeah, smaller communities, post industrial towns,
- 33:59they simply do not have the infrastructure, the specialized gang units,
- 34:03the massive CCTV networks, the armed response vehicles to deal
- 34:08with urban cartels setting up shop on their high streets.
- 34:11Speaker 1: So, if you live in a quiet, relatively safe area,
- 34:14it's really easy to think this level of organized crime
- 34:17is confined to major cities.
- 34:19Speaker 2: You think it won't touch.
- 34:20Speaker 1: You, right, you watch it on TV dramas, you hear
- 34:22about it on the news in London or Manchester. But
- 34:25this case proves that the drug economy knows no borders.
- 34:28Your quiet street could be the next untapped market.
- 34:31Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, it shows
- 34:34why the solution cannot just be a law enforcement solution.
- 34:37What do you mean you cannot arrest your way out
- 34:39of this problem? Elf Wales police did an exceptional, historic
- 34:43job dismantling the Rico gang. But if you take out
- 34:47Joshua Gordon and Marcus Hunty, what happens tomorrow?
- 34:50Speaker 1: Another gang just moves in to take their place. Nature
- 34:54more is a vacuum exactly.
- 34:56Speaker 2: The demand for drugs, specifically highly addictive substances like that
- 35:00crack cocaine creates a massive economic vacuum. Predatory groups will
- 35:04inevitably flow into that space to make a profit.
- 35:07Speaker 3: It's just economics.
- 35:08Speaker 2: Eradicating ocgs requires targeting the supply chains, yes, but it
- 35:12fundamentally requires removing the economic and social vulnerability as they
- 35:15exploit to thrive.
- 35:17Speaker 1: We're talking about the conditions that make a turf war
- 35:19possible in the first place.
- 35:20Speaker 2: Yes, we have to look at the leverage the gangs use.
- 35:23Why was Melissa Quale Dashbird willing to act as human
- 35:26bait because she was desperate, because she had a severe
- 35:28addiction and no support system. Her desperation was monetized by
- 35:32the gang. Why was Joyanne Penny staying at that flat
- 35:35because she had experienced homelessness and lacked a secure structural
- 35:39safety net.
- 35:40Speaker 3: They prey on the weak points.
- 35:41Speaker 2: Ocgs operate in the cracks of society. They find the
- 35:45broken places and they root themselves there. If we want
- 35:48to stop them, we have to seal those cracks.
- 35:51Speaker 1: It requires robust community interventions. It means vastly improved accessible
- 35:55addiction support. It means youth programs to prevent the grooming
- 35:59and recruit of the next Marcus Huntley.
- 36:01Speaker 2: All of that, and it means.
- 36:02Speaker 1: Real economic opportunity so people don't turn to the shadow
- 36:06economy just to survive.
- 36:08Speaker 2: It is a multi agency battle. It requires health care,
- 36:11social services, education and law enforcement all working in lockstep.
- 36:14They have to talk to each other because if they don't,
- 36:17if we just rely on the police to clean up
- 36:19the mess after the fact, the collateral damage is going
- 36:22to keep piling up. Innocent people like Joeanne Penny are
- 36:25going to keep paying the ultimate price for a war
- 36:28they didn't even know they were in.
- 36:29Speaker 1: Her death is a tragic reminder of the human face
- 36:31behind the crime statistics. As the judge said, no sentence
- 36:35could ever reflect the value of her life.
- 36:37Speaker 2: It is a story of incredible judicial accountability, but also
- 36:41a stark, terrifying warning about the fragility of our public
- 36:46safety infrastructure.
- 36:47Speaker 1: And it's that fragility I want to leave you with.
- 36:50Today we can look at this case and celebrate the
- 36:54justice handed down to these six individuals.
- 36:56Speaker 2: It was a massive win for the police.
- 36:58Speaker 1: It was we can feel sense of relief knowing they're
- 37:01locked away for over a century and a half combined,
- 37:04and that the Rico Gang's expansion was stopped cold. But
- 37:08remember the puppet master, Ronaldo Baptiste. He was already serving
- 37:12a life sentence. He was already subjected to the absolute
- 37:15maximum punishment our society allows.
- 37:18Speaker 2: He was supposedly neutralized, The.
- 37:19Speaker 1: System had done everything in its power to neutralize him,
- 37:23and yet through a smuggled piece of plastic and glass,
- 37:27he still managed to reach out from behind the walls
- 37:29of a maximum security cell to take another innocent life.
- 37:32Speaker 2: It's chilling.
- 37:33Speaker 1: So the question you have to ask yourself as you
- 37:35lock your own front door tonight, is this, If the
- 37:38highest penalty our justice system can impose isn't enough to
- 37:42stop a killer from striking again, how do we truly
- 37:45measure the boundaries of public safety?