Episode 310

<v Speaker 1>Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is
<v Speaker 1>not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.
<v Speaker 2>Charge looking who win by the shoes.
<v Speaker 3>This is episode three ten of Sword and Scale. You
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<v Speaker 3>we created a product, we want you to consume it.
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<v Speaker 1>Love takes sacrifice.
<v Speaker 3>That's what I've heard, and I've also found it to
<v Speaker 3>be true in my own life.
<v Speaker 1>There's a lot.
<v Speaker 3>You give up when you're truly in love. Sometimes you
<v Speaker 3>give up your time, or your money, or your freedom
<v Speaker 3>to go to a diddy party, for example. A lot
<v Speaker 3>of things, but your humanity shouldn't be one of them.
<v Speaker 3>Putnam County, Florida, is a stretch of land between Gainesville
<v Speaker 3>and Saint Augustine, where dirt roads wind through the pine
<v Speaker 3>forests and the air is as humid is well. It's
<v Speaker 3>like walking through the bottom of a pool. It's a
<v Speaker 3>place of small towns and long stretches of country in between.
<v Speaker 3>The poverty rate is higher than the rest of the
<v Speaker 3>state because of the remoteness. Inside Putnam County is Melrose,
<v Speaker 3>a small, quiet community that barely makes a blip on
<v Speaker 3>the map. This is the kind of place where people
<v Speaker 3>still leave their doors unlocked, believe it or not, and
<v Speaker 3>where Friday night football and Sunday morning church have become
<v Speaker 3>just a thing on the calendar that doesn't change. This
<v Speaker 3>is a Ernie Bradley Waldrop, a native of the area.
<v Speaker 5>I am a former prosecutor. I've worked in Putnam County
<v Speaker 5>and Saint John's County from about two thousand and six
<v Speaker 5>to twenty ten. I'm currently in private practice in Saint Augustine, Florida,
<v Speaker 5>do criminal defense and do family law as well. But
<v Speaker 5>I'm a lifelong residence of Saint Augustine, Florida. It's so
<v Speaker 5>very familiar with the area and really cut my teeth
<v Speaker 5>as a prosecutor in Putnam County, which is where this occurred.
<v Speaker 3>Down a dead end road in Melrose sat a modest
<v Speaker 3>home built in nineteen eighty five. It was now more
<v Speaker 3>than two decades old, a single story house with a
<v Speaker 3>yard that stretched into the woods. It wasn't much, but
<v Speaker 3>it was home to fifteen year old Morgan Leopard, her
<v Speaker 3>older brother, and her forty eight year old mother, Jerry.
<v Speaker 5>Melrose is a beautiful community. Like I said, it's very
<v Speaker 5>laid back, rural. It's one of those towns that you
<v Speaker 5>passed through on the way to Gainesville. Just a lot
<v Speaker 5>of beautiful scenery there. It's kind of like one of
<v Speaker 5>those one red light towns, or you stop at the
<v Speaker 5>red light and there's everything. A general store, a restaurant,
<v Speaker 5>a gas station, but it's a very laid back town,
<v Speaker 5>very tight knit community.
<v Speaker 3>Jerry Leppert was the kind of mother who had lived
<v Speaker 3>enough to see trouble. If you don't know what that means,
<v Speaker 3>you will, Let's give it time. She tried to steer
<v Speaker 3>Morgan in the right direction, tried to set rules, and
<v Speaker 3>tried to keep her daughter close. She even picked her
<v Speaker 3>battles with Morgan, letting her see boys at an early
<v Speaker 3>age in order to keep an eye on things. She
<v Speaker 3>had an open door policy, preferring that Morgan socialize where
<v Speaker 3>her mom could see her, an interesting parenting style which
<v Speaker 3>some people employ to their detriment, but just like typical teens,
<v Speaker 3>arguments took place over space, choices and the kind of
<v Speaker 3>people Morgan was bringing into her life. Her mother saw
<v Speaker 3>the warning signs. She knew what was coming. It was
<v Speaker 3>obvious that Jerry cared about and loved her daughter, but
<v Speaker 3>Morgan didn't see that. She saw a cage instead, built
<v Speaker 3>to stifle her cravings for independence. I've said it a
<v Speaker 3>couple times on this program, but I'll say it one
<v Speaker 3>more time.
<v Speaker 1>Kids are dumb. They really really are.
<v Speaker 3>So if you're an old person and you see a
<v Speaker 3>bunch of kids at a protest, Maybe think twice before
<v Speaker 3>joining in, because he might be supporting really bad shit. Anyway,
<v Speaker 3>Morgan was desperate for her independence, as most teenagers are,
<v Speaker 3>and one day she found it in the form of
<v Speaker 3>a man named Toby Laurie. She fell in love with them,
<v Speaker 3>and love meant freedom.
<v Speaker 6>Okay, did you just sleep on accounts at the house
<v Speaker 6>or your mom?
<v Speaker 5>And that?
<v Speaker 3>So Toby moved in right away. You know, parenting isn't easy,
<v Speaker 3>and Toby needed a place to stay. Jerry was picking
<v Speaker 3>her battles with Morgan and was already prepared for the
<v Speaker 3>day when Morgan became interested in boys. Well, that day
<v Speaker 3>came early, and her mom had already brought in reinforcements
<v Speaker 3>as in contraception.
<v Speaker 6>Let me ask you a personal questions. Are y all
<v Speaker 6>having things?
<v Speaker 7>Yeah?
<v Speaker 8>Thank you, I appreciate it.
<v Speaker 6>It's all.
<v Speaker 8>It's all when your will. He'd not forced himself on anything. No, well, okay,
<v Speaker 8>how many time do you think you may have had
<v Speaker 8>thick y'all dated from the very beginning until now? Just yeah,
<v Speaker 8>I know it's embarrassing, but yeah.
<v Speaker 9>Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.
<v Speaker 8>Ten No twenty no, uh am I going too high too?
<v Speaker 2>Lew glue uh, sickly.
<v Speaker 6>Probably probably are.
<v Speaker 8>You all using protection? You were?
<v Speaker 6>Who got that forty?
<v Speaker 10>I got on birth control on my.
<v Speaker 6>Fourteenth birthday in January.
<v Speaker 10>I think it's sporty.
<v Speaker 6>Two early girl.
<v Speaker 10>Oh my mom, she's done, my sage. You're gone on
<v Speaker 10>birken Shaw fourteenth.
<v Speaker 11>And the thing, if they're using protection, you're not present. Okay,
<v Speaker 11>So your mom know that you are having fixt and
<v Speaker 11>she finally she was.
<v Speaker 10>Whenever he was living with that I had. I had
<v Speaker 10>no idea.
<v Speaker 3>Now, at first, Morgan's mom didn't ask too many questions.
<v Speaker 3>Teenagers push boundaries, and that's just part of raising one.
<v Speaker 3>If giving Morgan a little space kept the peace, maybe
<v Speaker 3>it was worth it. But Toby wasn't just some boyfriend.
<v Speaker 3>He was twenty two, unemployed, and guess what, he had
<v Speaker 3>a criminal record. Young girls love bad boys, you know,
<v Speaker 3>so naturally he was the perfect guy to move in
<v Speaker 3>with a fifteen year old.
<v Speaker 1>That was sarcasm.
<v Speaker 3>Some of you don't understand sarcasm, so I guess I
<v Speaker 3>got to point it out. Terry would soon find out
<v Speaker 3>exactly who she let into her home.
<v Speaker 6>Well, at least i'll use the protection and you're not pregnant.
<v Speaker 6>That's the big thing. You all need no kids right now,
<v Speaker 6>because nay, he's still in school. How old was he?
<v Speaker 10>Twenty two?
<v Speaker 8>And you're.
<v Speaker 6>You old me to tell you how old you are, ma'am.
<v Speaker 6>Don't you think that's kind of a big age?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah?
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, was still you're still in school and he's out
<v Speaker 6>and got a job.
<v Speaker 3>And Toby was out of school and unemployed when he
<v Speaker 3>wasn't behind bars, that is charismatic and conventionally good looking.
<v Speaker 3>He'd fallen through the cracks, fallen out with his parents,
<v Speaker 3>and started breaking the law. And Morgan wasn't just rebelling.
<v Speaker 3>She was running toward a person who made her feel
<v Speaker 3>like an adult, even if he was the worst possible choice.
<v Speaker 3>If you only heard of this conversation, you'd think this
<v Speaker 3>was a dad having the talk with his gigly teenage daughter,
<v Speaker 3>a patient, experienced voice trying to steer her back onto
<v Speaker 3>the right path. But this was not her father. This
<v Speaker 3>was a detective sitting across from Morgan in a concrete
<v Speaker 3>interrogation room, hours after she and Toby were found in Texas,
<v Speaker 3>one thousand miles away from home, burning through stolen gas
<v Speaker 3>and borrowed time. And all of it started when Jerry
<v Speaker 3>Leppert learned the truth. She had no idea that Toby
<v Speaker 3>had a criminal record with burglary, theft and drugs under
<v Speaker 3>his belt. She certainly had no idea that he was
<v Speaker 3>an adult male almost eight years older than her daughter.
<v Speaker 3>But once she found out, she did what any sane
<v Speaker 3>mother would do. When she kicked him out, She told
<v Speaker 3>him he was done, gone, no more playing house with
<v Speaker 3>a fifteen year old child. For a minute, that might
<v Speaker 3>have seemed like the end of it, but Morgan wasn't
<v Speaker 3>letting go that easily. Just a few days later, on
<v Speaker 3>April twenty second, two thousand and eight, she was gone too.
<v Speaker 3>Her mother searched, she filed reports. She even broke into
<v Speaker 3>Toby's trailer, hoping to find some kind of sign, some
<v Speaker 3>trace of her daughter. But Morgan wasn't there. This is
<v Speaker 3>Morgan talking about the early days with Toby leading up
<v Speaker 3>to her disappearance.
<v Speaker 8>All right, are you willing to speak to me about
<v Speaker 8>the anthing about you decided to run away? So he
<v Speaker 8>got a boyfriend, and your mom found out he'd been
<v Speaker 8>in some trouble with the law, and something come up
<v Speaker 8>missing in the neighborhood, and he knew kid on the block.
<v Speaker 8>So he got blamed and you should have was back
<v Speaker 8>in January this year, he.
<v Speaker 12>Had January living. He got to David for my birthday
<v Speaker 12>when he came back two months later.
<v Speaker 11>And yeah, so he came back in March and all
<v Speaker 11>got back together in March.
<v Speaker 8>That you're saying.
<v Speaker 3>Ye, the reason Toby was basically homeless was because he
<v Speaker 3>had been living in a camper and then went to prison.
<v Speaker 3>While he was living in the camper, he proved his
<v Speaker 3>devotion to Morgan before moving into her bedroom.
<v Speaker 10>And he to come down my street, heat the.
<v Speaker 12>Walk all the way from Paulaka to the other the bridge.
<v Speaker 10>Always see on the table.
<v Speaker 2>Are you thereous every day?
<v Speaker 8>That's what that's a good talk every day and you
<v Speaker 8>know the bridge just deep.
<v Speaker 1>Fast forward.
<v Speaker 3>Toby moves in and stays for a few months, but
<v Speaker 3>things come up missing. Morgan's mom finds out about his
<v Speaker 3>age and background and she kicks him out, and in April,
<v Speaker 3>Morgan disappears with Toby, leaving her mom to contact the police.
<v Speaker 10>Three month that is.
<v Speaker 12>Lift he didn't mind the back that I was with them,
<v Speaker 12>and I think I was going to be with him
<v Speaker 12>no matter what, and I ended up.
<v Speaker 8>Did you go to school with all the day you
<v Speaker 8>left or you just left the house, What day you
<v Speaker 8>let the house?
<v Speaker 6>Where'd you go when you let the house? Were there
<v Speaker 6>the economy? And how many days these day were there?
<v Speaker 10>We left that day?
<v Speaker 6>He did, and he started where'd y'all go when you left?
<v Speaker 6>Did you?
<v Speaker 7>Did you?
<v Speaker 6>Did you go back to your house?
<v Speaker 8>Or did that?
<v Speaker 6>When y'all started driving? Well, look hard, how did you
<v Speaker 6>get out of here?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah?
<v Speaker 8>That truck truck over.
<v Speaker 10>The Dakota or not Dakota, that Toyota, Dacoma or whatever.
<v Speaker 6>Oh did he buy a truck from working?
<v Speaker 13>I have no idea. And he showed up in the truck.
<v Speaker 13>I don't know where you got it from.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I have no idea.
<v Speaker 6>Where I think over not at all.
<v Speaker 8>So when you got there, the truck was already there,
<v Speaker 8>and then y'all just hopped in it and took all
<v Speaker 8>the time.
<v Speaker 6>Did you take any bring the clothes legit?
<v Speaker 10>Oh my well, we had to be bought clothes like
<v Speaker 10>do traveler and stuff. But I don't know if they're
<v Speaker 10>going to give me my clothes back.
<v Speaker 12>They're all in that truck with my wallet and everything.
<v Speaker 3>Maybe Toby rode in like a knight in shining armor. Literally,
<v Speaker 3>the truck was so new and gleaming, ready to whisk
<v Speaker 3>Morgan away to freedom, to adulthood, to adventure, and to Morgan,
<v Speaker 3>barely fifteen and desperate for something bigger than the life
<v Speaker 3>she knew. It might have felt like a rescue, but
<v Speaker 3>to Toby it was never about saving her. He was
<v Speaker 3>merely pulling her deeper into his world, where love was
<v Speaker 3>just another tool of manipulation. And that shiny new truck
<v Speaker 3>it carried Toby and Morgan away on an adventure while
<v Speaker 3>it left its owner behind, broken and bleeding. It was
<v Speaker 3>April two thousand and eight in San Mateo, Florida. Jerry
<v Speaker 3>Leppert lived in a three bedroom home on the end
<v Speaker 3>of a rural street with her son and her daughter, Morgan.
<v Speaker 3>The kid's father was no longer in the picture, and
<v Speaker 3>her oldest daughter had moved out. Morgan was a good kid,
<v Speaker 3>but Jerry always knew she needed to keep an eye
<v Speaker 3>on her. Morgan was feisty, somewhat immature, and crazy about boys.
<v Speaker 3>One boy in particular, whose name was Toby. Toby had
<v Speaker 3>been living in a camper, so when Morgan begged her
<v Speaker 3>mom to let him move in with them, she reluctantly conceded,
<v Speaker 3>sensing they were already sexually active.
<v Speaker 1>Jerry would I'd rather have.
<v Speaker 3>Them fooling around under her own roof than in a
<v Speaker 3>camper somewhere remotely. I guess the sentiment sort of makes sense,
<v Speaker 3>but I don't know. Try parenting instead. It works better.
<v Speaker 3>You can't actually say no to your children every now
<v Speaker 3>and then. But instead of doing this, Jerry put Morgan
<v Speaker 3>on birth control at age fourteen to ensure that there
<v Speaker 3>would be no accidental pregnancies. She didn't realize that Toby
<v Speaker 3>was an adult male with a criminal history and his
<v Speaker 3>site set on Morgan. So when she kicked him out
<v Speaker 3>of her home and her daughter's life, Morgan had already
<v Speaker 3>fallen for him.
<v Speaker 1>It was too late, way too late.
<v Speaker 3>They were about to take off and make a life
<v Speaker 3>of their own, at least that's what Morgan thought. They
<v Speaker 3>simply disappeared in a silver truck. No one knew where
<v Speaker 3>they were going or what they'd already done. But what
<v Speaker 3>started as an escape, as chance at the big road
<v Speaker 3>trip and a new life together, would soon unravel into
<v Speaker 3>something far more horrible. Because the truck they were driving
<v Speaker 3>didn't just belong to anyone. It belonged to a dead man.
<v Speaker 3>After they were picked up in El Paso, Texas, Morgan
<v Speaker 3>was interviewed. She wasn't interested in talking about the truck, though, truck,
<v Speaker 3>what truck. All she could think about or talk about
<v Speaker 3>was how great Toby was and how he'd do anything
<v Speaker 3>for her. She talked about leaving Florida, about sleeping in
<v Speaker 3>the woods, showering at gas stations, and about what it
<v Speaker 3>felt like to be free. If that sounds a little immature, it's.
<v Speaker 1>Because it is. It is.
<v Speaker 3>But you know how detectives are. They don't just ask
<v Speaker 3>you a question and take your first answer at face value.
<v Speaker 3>Now they ease in slowly, like a fisherman letting out
<v Speaker 3>a line, waiting for the right moment to reel you
<v Speaker 3>back in.
<v Speaker 8>And that was on the twenty second, the day all left.
<v Speaker 8>Did he tell his parents where he was going? No,
<v Speaker 8>just that he's gonna leave town a little bit.
<v Speaker 6>And and.
<v Speaker 8>Did that his friend's truck.
<v Speaker 6>Or anything that, y'all r I really have no idea
<v Speaker 6>you ever seen a minute before? He didn't have to
<v Speaker 6>love it was.
<v Speaker 10>I really didn't care at the movement. I was glad
<v Speaker 10>to get out of here.
<v Speaker 8>So well, he didn't think, Hey, this was my buddy
<v Speaker 8>Jim's truck, or this.
<v Speaker 12>Is you know, I didn't you worry that I didn't
<v Speaker 12>jump in two off?
<v Speaker 10>Was he so happy as you get out of there?
<v Speaker 6>Yeah? Okay, how did y'all eat? Did y'all just buy food?
<v Speaker 8>Did you know that the whole country was looking for
<v Speaker 8>your sweet little self? No, you didn't know that.
<v Speaker 10>I know I heard about it. I figured, like because
<v Speaker 10>I was walking into every walmart we went to travel
<v Speaker 10>in the cold time. Now I'll look on the midden
<v Speaker 10>old people thing. I didn't even see.
<v Speaker 12>My book on this.
<v Speaker 10>I've then whatever.
<v Speaker 6>You know, you know what Florida does? Yeah?
<v Speaker 8>You know what ambroller?
<v Speaker 10>It is nationwide?
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, I just found that out.
<v Speaker 10>Yeah did that Tali farm me?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah?
<v Speaker 8>And what they did is because your mom almost worried
<v Speaker 8>about you because she ain't seen so long as they
<v Speaker 8>sent it ambrolert out.
<v Speaker 10>I haven't bought sure something day on it in those
<v Speaker 10>two weeks.
<v Speaker 3>But Jerry wasn't the only one wondering where their loved
<v Speaker 3>one was. James Stewart lived alone, but his cousin had
<v Speaker 3>spoken to him on the morning of April twenty fifth,
<v Speaker 3>two thousand and eight, after that, the calls went unanswered.
<v Speaker 3>A neighbor also noticed that James hadn't left his house
<v Speaker 3>in a while. His beloved tomato plants weren't thriving anymore,
<v Speaker 3>and they wondered if he was away on vacation, but
<v Speaker 3>his truck was still there. James's family wasn't alarmed for
<v Speaker 3>the first few days. It was just a miscall, maybe
<v Speaker 3>just bad timing. But when the days started to add up,
<v Speaker 3>so did the miscalls. By May first, another cousin couldn't
<v Speaker 3>shake the feeling that something was wrong, so.
<v Speaker 1>He called the police.
<v Speaker 3>Deputies went to the house for a welfare check, and
<v Speaker 3>when they opened the door, the truth hit him in
<v Speaker 3>the face, a wall of decay and death. James Stewart
<v Speaker 3>wasn't missing. He was lying on the floor, rotting. He'd
<v Speaker 3>been dead for nearly ten days, murdered and left to bloat, stiffen,
<v Speaker 3>and seep into the floorboards of his own home. Morgan
<v Speaker 3>claimed that Toby picked her up in a silver truck
<v Speaker 3>and she had no idea who the owner was. Maybe
<v Speaker 3>she was right that Toby would do anything to be
<v Speaker 3>with her.
<v Speaker 1>Maybe she was right.
<v Speaker 3>Indeed, who do.
<v Speaker 8>You think that truck belonged to.
<v Speaker 6>He didn't tell me belonged to you? Yeah, he just
<v Speaker 6>get you, don't You didn't worry about who it was
<v Speaker 6>at the moment. You know, he didn't make enough money
<v Speaker 6>to buy that truck, right, I.
<v Speaker 8>Mean, like, like, Toby, do you think he made enough
<v Speaker 8>money washing cars to buy that truck? Honestly?
<v Speaker 5>I know?
<v Speaker 8>Yeah, So what do you kind of you think he
<v Speaker 8>got it, barred it, or it stole it, or I
<v Speaker 8>am you had to get No, I'm just saying if
<v Speaker 8>he had to get how did he come about this truck?
<v Speaker 6>Because it's not registered to him.
<v Speaker 8>We don't know who the guy is registered to.
<v Speaker 14>Annoying me, you would you tell me if he did, Brom,
<v Speaker 14>I'm just making sure we're trying to find out whose
<v Speaker 14>truck it is.
<v Speaker 6>If not Toby's, I don't know.
<v Speaker 12>You picked me up in it and we just run
<v Speaker 12>on someone that I didn't care at the moment who
<v Speaker 12>were what was going on around or anything.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, she didn't care who it was or what was
<v Speaker 3>going on because she was in love.
<v Speaker 10>Did anybody care to be with me?
<v Speaker 13>Most likely?
<v Speaker 12>Yeah, but you know what I mean, you were gonna
<v Speaker 12>do whatever he had the duty to be with me,
<v Speaker 12>but I didn't know he wasn't think.
<v Speaker 6>That far and the like he did, like what he
<v Speaker 6>did that trip was going.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah.
<v Speaker 13>It was, and the whole we talked about running delay,
<v Speaker 13>but I didn't know that he even got furious about it.
<v Speaker 6>And then he actually did it and kind of scared
<v Speaker 6>you a little bit.
<v Speaker 10>I didn't know he was like I thought, you know,
<v Speaker 10>he was joking around and going along to God.
<v Speaker 6>I was staying, Well, he didn't force you to run away,
<v Speaker 6>did it? I wouldn't believe me. I went well with me.
<v Speaker 3>Morgan had no problem talking about running away, and she
<v Speaker 3>certainly had no problem talking about Toby, the man who
<v Speaker 3>would do anything to be with her. But detectives weren't
<v Speaker 3>here to talk about young love. They were here for murder,
<v Speaker 3>just like you. They just hadn't revealed that secret to
<v Speaker 3>Morgan just yet. The tone in the room shifted. The
<v Speaker 3>detective stepped out for a moment and came back with
<v Speaker 3>a picture.
<v Speaker 6>Do you reckon?
<v Speaker 10>I just go Morgan.
<v Speaker 6>Have you ever seen him before?
<v Speaker 2>Where?
<v Speaker 7>Yeah?
<v Speaker 6>I had no idea, never.
<v Speaker 15>Seen him before his his own Toby ever talked about
<v Speaker 15>yet an older friend in.
<v Speaker 13>Rooth and never seen him being out with an order
<v Speaker 13>guy like the only guy that he hang out with,
<v Speaker 13>this Scott and every time I went to the trunk
<v Speaker 13>or I thought he would live.
<v Speaker 8>Yeah, well I talked to him and he said that
<v Speaker 8>he had mentioned this guy to you. Do you remember
<v Speaker 8>mentioned it to him at tea at all? Not at all?
<v Speaker 8>Don't recognize him at all.
<v Speaker 15>He never said he I got this guy the friend
<v Speaker 15>of mine that's older or nothing like that, ever seen him.
<v Speaker 13>That guy before.
<v Speaker 1>Morgan wasn't budget either.
<v Speaker 3>She was telling the truth, and her innocence was just
<v Speaker 3>that an innocent young girl in love taking advantage of
<v Speaker 3>by an older boy, well, an older man or there
<v Speaker 3>were many more layers to Morgan.
<v Speaker 6>Well, I'm getting a queen plate near that.
<v Speaker 8>You knew what would going on in that truck?
<v Speaker 6>To tell me and you won't get any trouble.
<v Speaker 10>Sure, now?
<v Speaker 15>Was that fond of Yeah?
<v Speaker 10>Okay, it's dubbed it, but I'm cool.
<v Speaker 6>You want to put that jacket on.
<v Speaker 10>I don't want to click a banana.
<v Speaker 6>So you pick on that because we were this kind
<v Speaker 6>of jacket when we were, you call it banana. I
<v Speaker 6>have a question, Yes, ma'am.
<v Speaker 15>Toby is in a holding celle, waiting to be processed
<v Speaker 15>in the jail.
<v Speaker 10>What he come back for me?
<v Speaker 6>Yes, ma'am, you know what jail Puttnam County.
<v Speaker 15>Why you weren't out seeing Well, you'll give him a
<v Speaker 15>Putnam County jail.
<v Speaker 10>Put any show, as your mom willert. That's when I'm
<v Speaker 10>hold up.
<v Speaker 6>I can be honest with you.
<v Speaker 8>If you were my daughter, I wouldn't let you go
<v Speaker 8>no place for you.
<v Speaker 3>It was early in the morning and the interview was
<v Speaker 3>winding down. As it was looking like Morgan wasn't going
<v Speaker 3>to give in, the detective gave it one last shot.
<v Speaker 14>Well, I'm gonna be honest with you, okay, because I've
<v Speaker 14>been because you've been honest with me the whole time.
<v Speaker 8>So I'm gonna be honest with you.
<v Speaker 15>If the truck comes back not belonging to Toby and
<v Speaker 15>it's stolen, he gonna be in a little bit of trouble.
<v Speaker 6>Okay.
<v Speaker 15>My name is your boy friend. Wanted to tell you that,
<v Speaker 15>just that you know. And the other thing is that
<v Speaker 15>if Toby tells us that you knew the trouble was
<v Speaker 15>the one, or he knew that there was in his
<v Speaker 15>then you might be a little bit of trouble too.
<v Speaker 15>You see, what I'm saying, Well, I mean, you could
<v Speaker 15>you know it's there, you know what I mean. So,
<v Speaker 15>I mean, I'm just saying, if he honestly didn't tell you,
<v Speaker 15>that's fine, and I completely believe you. But if he
<v Speaker 15>did tell me, now and we can bypack the issue
<v Speaker 15>of you get in trouble or anything that I know of.
<v Speaker 10>I mean, we've been traveling this whole.
<v Speaker 8>Time in that truck.
<v Speaker 7>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>The detective tried the soft approach by giving Morgan an
<v Speaker 3>Out a clean slate, but when she stuck to her story,
<v Speaker 3>he switched gears. This wasn't just about a stolen truck anymore.
<v Speaker 3>He reminded her of how dangerous this all was. A
<v Speaker 3>teenage girl running away from home, sleeping in cars, hitchhiking
<v Speaker 3>across state lines, sleeping in the woods with rattlesnakes and
<v Speaker 3>only Toby to protect her. She could have been kidnapped, assaulted,
<v Speaker 3>or left for dead in the middle of nowhere, but
<v Speaker 3>somehow she was still here there far.
<v Speaker 8>I mean, y'all could easily got in a car accident
<v Speaker 8>and you could have been hurt, and no one knows
<v Speaker 8>where you're at.
<v Speaker 13>You know, I heard my mom thought I was dead.
<v Speaker 8>Really, why did you with that the friend you called
<v Speaker 8>that told us that, why does she think you were dead?
<v Speaker 7>Oh?
<v Speaker 12>No, she because I guess my mom kept on calling
<v Speaker 12>him seeing fever anything from me, and she said she,
<v Speaker 12>I guess she told him.
<v Speaker 7>That she thought I was dead.
<v Speaker 6>A lot of people, Falk you were seriously hurt because
<v Speaker 6>they ain't heart from me a while.
<v Speaker 10>Yeah, I heard a lot of people have been looking
<v Speaker 10>for me out.
<v Speaker 11>Do you know?
<v Speaker 6>Do you know you've been on national television. You've been
<v Speaker 6>on Napty Grays, she's the top show host. Don't see him?
<v Speaker 6>You know what that TV channel? You've been You're famous girl.
<v Speaker 3>By now, Morgan's face was on the news. What appeared
<v Speaker 3>to be a missing or runaway teen was turning out
<v Speaker 3>to be much more of a complicated story. Morgan was
<v Speaker 3>still holding on to her version of the story, insisting
<v Speaker 3>that she had no idea where this truck came from
<v Speaker 3>and that she'd gone with Toby willingly. But detectives weren't
<v Speaker 3>just getting one side of the story, because just down
<v Speaker 3>the hall, in another room of the El Paso Police Department,
<v Speaker 3>they had already sat across from Toby Laurie and sent
<v Speaker 3>him back to Putnam County jail. By then, they already
<v Speaker 3>knew where he and Morgan had been. On April twenty second,
<v Speaker 3>a friend of Morgan picked her up and took her
<v Speaker 3>to Toby's trailer at the Economy n RV Park.
<v Speaker 1>How romantic.
<v Speaker 3>That night, they showed up at Toby's parents' house, hoping
<v Speaker 3>for a place to stay, but his parents refused to
<v Speaker 3>take them in. Now they were on their own. Toby
<v Speaker 3>was a drifter, a thief, and a predator, and like always,
<v Speaker 3>he was looking for someone to take along for the ride.
<v Speaker 3>It gets lonely out there, predating by yourself.
<v Speaker 1>Is that a word?
<v Speaker 3>Anyway, Together they broke into a concession stand, stealing candy,
<v Speaker 3>drinks and whatever food they could find. They slept wherever
<v Speaker 3>they could, in the woods, behind homes, even on old
<v Speaker 3>mattresses they found abandoned.
<v Speaker 1>In the yard.
<v Speaker 3>It was like a modern day Bonnie and Clyde adventure.
<v Speaker 3>And along the way Toby started looking for something bigger,
<v Speaker 3>something like a getaway truck.
<v Speaker 7>We're twenty four, Okay.
<v Speaker 2>What do I want you to do though? Is I
<v Speaker 2>know he kased out some counting houses over there in
<v Speaker 2>the Melrose area, and I want you to tell them
<v Speaker 2>what if anyone on the entering the houses and I
<v Speaker 2>need to tell me, you know, he did, not that
<v Speaker 2>we're gonna start back off onto the kind of when
<v Speaker 2>we were laying in was.
<v Speaker 9>Okay, you don't make you like maybe, oh yeah, by
<v Speaker 9>I don't mean necessary.
<v Speaker 3>He immediately inculpated Morgan as the voice that drove him,
<v Speaker 3>but neither he nor the officer was ready for the
<v Speaker 3>climate shift about to hit them. He paused, shifted in
<v Speaker 3>a seat, He rubbed his arms and ran his hands
<v Speaker 3>through his blonde hair. The room went quiet, A chill
<v Speaker 3>settled into the space between them, and then finally Toby
<v Speaker 3>leaned in.
<v Speaker 2>React and I'll tear it down. You will relaxed before
<v Speaker 2>I don't know, I kind of gold hold one, okay.
<v Speaker 2>Basically I was saying, there in your own life, go
<v Speaker 2>out there, knocked on the doors.
<v Speaker 7>What time was this Toby?
<v Speaker 2>For the darks in their end of the day life, okay,
<v Speaker 2>And they assured the twenty four years okay.
<v Speaker 3>Even though Toby didn't know the occupant of the house,
<v Speaker 3>James Stewart, he knew a little about the house itself.
<v Speaker 3>He used to live directly behind it, and a friend
<v Speaker 3>of his lived in the house James was in.
<v Speaker 5>Now, what they did is they decided to run away
<v Speaker 5>together and they were basically casing different houses to look
<v Speaker 5>for appropriate victims. Miss Leopard earlier in the day that
<v Speaker 5>the day of the murder, knocked on mister Stewart's door
<v Speaker 5>around one pm and asked to use his phone. He
<v Speaker 5>gave her access to use his phone, and she actually
<v Speaker 5>called her own cell phone and had an opportunity at
<v Speaker 5>that time to basically do some reconnaissance on his residence
<v Speaker 5>that he did live alone.
<v Speaker 3>So Toby sent Morgan directly to James's front door on
<v Speaker 3>this reconnaissance mission.
<v Speaker 2>We went out, knock on door and I was like,
<v Speaker 2>go there and ask if you can use phone.
<v Speaker 7>Okay, call on your cell phone.
<v Speaker 2>No one's going to answer your cell phone.
<v Speaker 3>Toby waited in the woods close by and he could
<v Speaker 3>see what was happening. After about ten minutes, Morgan came back.
<v Speaker 3>This was getting real.
<v Speaker 2>I'm kind of pushing it on the fucking thoughts right now.
<v Speaker 2>As you can tell, I'm kind of psychotic.
<v Speaker 7>Keep my mind.
<v Speaker 2>Well, you're thinking survival, bro, I'm thinking survival. I'm trying
<v Speaker 2>to get it where we ain't nowhere around this fucking
<v Speaker 2>place at all. Right, I'm trying to get the fuck
<v Speaker 2>out of there, you know.
<v Speaker 7>Sure, So she's telling me.
<v Speaker 2>And he just he looks like he's kind of moving, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>kind of a little bit, but he's look at you
<v Speaker 2>know that because of some of the stuff was in
<v Speaker 2>the house. Yeah, I'm gonna wait, wait, equipment or feel
<v Speaker 2>like that. Yeah, it looks like like partially of his fingers,
<v Speaker 2>like right here got cut off some weird ship. I
<v Speaker 2>don't know what it is, brough And I was.
<v Speaker 8>Like, what the fuck?
<v Speaker 9>And she was like this hand over here.
<v Speaker 2>All the fingers were gone and there was just a
<v Speaker 2>round hand guy out there.
<v Speaker 13>You know.
<v Speaker 2>I was like, kind of fum freaking a ship all right.
<v Speaker 7>I was like, can you be honest with me. Tell
<v Speaker 7>me you never know this guy before.
<v Speaker 2>I've never met her take a guy, Okay, he just
<v Speaker 2>picked hiss like how to ran him that day?
<v Speaker 7>And I thought her. I was like, maybe that's fucking
<v Speaker 7>freaking me out.
<v Speaker 16>He didn't touch it or nothing to do, because usually
<v Speaker 16>people like that are fucking predators.
<v Speaker 2>Sure, And I was like like, maybe he didn't touch
<v Speaker 2>you didn't.
<v Speaker 7>And she was like she didn't answer me, my baby,
<v Speaker 7>and she was like.
<v Speaker 3>They'd opened the door to the home of a disabled man.
<v Speaker 3>James Stewart lived a quiet life, tucked away in his
<v Speaker 3>modest house in Melrose, Florida. He wasn't a predator. Where
<v Speaker 3>did Toby get the idea that disabled people are predators?
<v Speaker 1>I have no idea.
<v Speaker 3>Here's Toby, someone who just entered adulthood with all his
<v Speaker 3>faculties and appendages, ready to do the unthinkable to a
<v Speaker 3>disabled man, and he's calling the victim a predator. James
<v Speaker 3>wasn't wealthy, he wasn't famous, but he was independent. He
<v Speaker 3>took care of himself, tended to his tomato plants in
<v Speaker 3>his backyard, and kept his truck in pristine condition. What
<v Speaker 3>he didn't have, what he had never had, or finger.
<v Speaker 3>He was born with a congenital defect that left him
<v Speaker 3>with hands that he could grasp with but never fully close.
<v Speaker 3>The simplest tasks like buttoning a shirt, tying a knot
<v Speaker 3>holding a pen had been lifelong challenges, but he'd learned
<v Speaker 3>to manage.
<v Speaker 1>He had adapted.
<v Speaker 3>It's amazing how humans can adapt to almost anything. He'd
<v Speaker 3>found ways to live in a world that wasn't built
<v Speaker 3>for him. But there are some things that no amount
<v Speaker 3>of adaptation could prepare him for, and all Toby was
<v Speaker 3>concerned about was whether James had touched his precious girlfriend
<v Speaker 3>with his stubby hands, in Toby's words, fingerless stumps. But
<v Speaker 3>there was some information Toby hadn't revealed yet that would
<v Speaker 3>lead this cold hearted thief and murderer feel just a
<v Speaker 3>little more protective of his girlfriend Morgan than usual.
<v Speaker 2>What do you want to do? I don't know, maybe
<v Speaker 2>like a million times into my head right now. The
<v Speaker 2>whole thing's a bible. Yeah, And she's like maybe you know,
<v Speaker 2>I'm bringing it, you know, when I get out of here, atuator.
<v Speaker 2>I'm like, yeah, I'm like, well, here in the truck,
<v Speaker 2>all right, I'll walk up a little bit. I'm thinking,
<v Speaker 2>I'm like, what the hell to do?
<v Speaker 5>Yeah?
<v Speaker 7>What am I going to do?
<v Speaker 3>All they could think about was how to get out
<v Speaker 3>of the state and start building life together, because, after all,
<v Speaker 3>their baby was technically going to be the product of
<v Speaker 3>statutory rape according.
<v Speaker 1>To the law.
<v Speaker 9>She was like, honestly, I'm like yeah, honestly, She's like,
<v Speaker 9>I say, we.
<v Speaker 17>Grew up in this fucking house, always in there, fucking
<v Speaker 17>beat the shit out of there.
<v Speaker 7>Do what we gotta do it.
<v Speaker 2>Like, maybe I'm like, don't about that ship, I gets the.
<v Speaker 10>Heart of that.
<v Speaker 7>And how will help it.
<v Speaker 3>It was easy to think that Toby was the one
<v Speaker 3>lying and trying to pin this on Morgan, but for
<v Speaker 3>the fact that he was the one laying out the
<v Speaker 3>painstaking details while Morgan had sat in a chair across
<v Speaker 3>from another detective, lying and giggling. On the other hand,
<v Speaker 3>Morgan claimed she went willingly. Maybe she believed that at
<v Speaker 3>the time, maybe she still does, but willingly or not,
<v Speaker 3>she was a fifteen year old child who followed Toby
<v Speaker 3>all the way to murder. Next, Toby goes to the
<v Speaker 3>door of the house by himself.
<v Speaker 1>He knocks.
<v Speaker 3>James comes to the door and has met with Toby,
<v Speaker 3>asking him if he'd seen a young blonde girl earlier.
<v Speaker 3>James tells him yes, she just left and went down
<v Speaker 3>the street. Toby answers really. At this point, Toby says
<v Speaker 3>that James gets starky with him and asks if he's
<v Speaker 3>stupid because he just told him she left and went
<v Speaker 3>down the street. That response sat with Toby about as
<v Speaker 3>well as the thought that a man with fingerless hands
<v Speaker 3>would dare touch his woman. According to Toby, he gave
<v Speaker 3>him an evil look and walked away.
<v Speaker 2>Well that's pretty shaken on it.
<v Speaker 16>Sorry, I'm sure his nervous nerve condession like this ever, okay,
<v Speaker 16>wait time minutes and she was like, baby killing this.
<v Speaker 16>I'm like, I'm all right, man, I can't.
<v Speaker 7>I can't do this ship. I don't even know.
<v Speaker 2>I ain't got the hard to do a ship. I can't.
<v Speaker 7>I can't do it.
<v Speaker 18>She was, baby, I'm pregnant. There's nothing you can do
<v Speaker 18>else enough, no money or not. If we ain't got
<v Speaker 18>no money, I mean't got no transportations. I'm pregnant, there's nothing.
<v Speaker 2>We can do it.
<v Speaker 8>Okay.
<v Speaker 7>And I asked her. I was like this she really
<v Speaker 7>too her one. She's like, yeah, state something. I can't
<v Speaker 7>leave you again.
<v Speaker 13>I'm like, well, you know what you got?
<v Speaker 7>You know this is we're a long done.
<v Speaker 2>And you're like, we ain't gonna get caught.
<v Speaker 3>Here was a seasoned criminal looking to a fifteen year
<v Speaker 3>old girl on what to do when she had never
<v Speaker 3>committed a crime before meeting him. This wasn't two kids
<v Speaker 3>who believed it was them against the world. It was
<v Speaker 3>an adult and a naive girl.
<v Speaker 7>She's right now, she don't like to I guess.
<v Speaker 3>So now the couple was heading back into the house.
<v Speaker 3>The doors were all unlocked. Remember it's some little ship
<v Speaker 3>town in Florida. Nobody locks their doors. This time, they
<v Speaker 3>had with them two copper pieces of pipe tucked into
<v Speaker 3>their backpacks, and they wouldn't be knocking on the door,
<v Speaker 3>they'd be sneaking in through the side door.
<v Speaker 2>So I'm standing there, I'm like, I don't want to
<v Speaker 2>do door here.
<v Speaker 7>Yeah, house, if he comes up that room, hent to
<v Speaker 7>do something.
<v Speaker 3>That's worth repeating in case you didn't understand. Morgan says,
<v Speaker 3>you have to do something. Now we're in the house
<v Speaker 3>and they'll call the law on us, to which Toby replies,
<v Speaker 3>how's he gonna call the fucking law. He ain't got
<v Speaker 3>no fingers.
<v Speaker 7>In the room in the corner, So I think you
<v Speaker 7>in the computer.
<v Speaker 17>Started thinking like there turns towards.
<v Speaker 7>She's like, the go in there, he's.
<v Speaker 17>Gonna say, ship, I'm scared you count him prison life
<v Speaker 17>for She was like, there, you've got this, You've got
<v Speaker 17>to do this.
<v Speaker 2>So you guys are kind of arguing back and argue,
<v Speaker 2>but kind of got disgusting it and like how you
<v Speaker 2>read I'm.
<v Speaker 8>About to go right in.
<v Speaker 19>I'm like, man, I took I took over my sweater,
<v Speaker 19>my shirt, and I put it in chair.
<v Speaker 7>You know, I didn't have no shirt on all right?
<v Speaker 2>Why I didn't want to get blood? And I don't
<v Speaker 2>know that, So I was like, fuck it.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it seemed like the adult in the pair was
<v Speaker 3>the only one thinking of consequences. Toby didn't want to
<v Speaker 3>get blood on his shirt, and he reminded Morgan of
<v Speaker 3>what could happen.
<v Speaker 7>Don't want to fucking do this ship.
<v Speaker 2>By this time, my MoMA was in tears. Maybe you
<v Speaker 2>just don't know how long I will go away from it.
<v Speaker 2>She was like, fucking fucking see me again.
<v Speaker 19>She was like, hide.
<v Speaker 7>This and that's word in my mind.
<v Speaker 6>And I wouldn't.
<v Speaker 7>I wouldn't confess this ship and nobody but see what
<v Speaker 7>I did.
<v Speaker 3>Apparently so little did Toby know that Morgan either because
<v Speaker 3>she had too much faith in her partnership, or because
<v Speaker 3>she was immature and naive, or maybe because she was
<v Speaker 3>smarter than he was and not said one word and
<v Speaker 3>would not confess until the next day, and she loves
<v Speaker 3>best for me.
<v Speaker 2>So probably fuck it.
<v Speaker 19>I jumped into the fucking room. I'm like, listen here,
<v Speaker 19>mother partner you know, around and he got his shocked
<v Speaker 19>as I'm like, I wasn't playing and I was just like,
<v Speaker 19>whatever money he hadn't leave him?
<v Speaker 7>You know, what'd you say?
<v Speaker 2>He was like, motherfucker outtakesk have a call wall Oh,
<v Speaker 2>like you meant me and you don't want to.
<v Speaker 7>Function to do that? Do you want to stay?
<v Speaker 3>At that point, James was still sitting down, His back
<v Speaker 3>had been turned to Toby and Morgan. He hadn't noticed
<v Speaker 3>them yet, but when he heard them, he swiveled around
<v Speaker 3>and put his arms up. He was wearing a T shirt, underwear,
<v Speaker 3>and socks in the comfort of his own living room,
<v Speaker 3>where he'd been playing a game on the computer. When
<v Speaker 3>he started to stand up, Toby grabbed a nearby knife
<v Speaker 3>and started threatening him. All he wanted was keys to
<v Speaker 3>the truck and cash, but for some reason, James kept
<v Speaker 3>repeating that he couldn't even afford the truck, and this
<v Speaker 3>made Toby angrier because that didn't make any sense to him,
<v Speaker 3>being an idiot, of course, So I.
<v Speaker 7>Was like, mother, give me a fuck g's right fucking now,
<v Speaker 7>you don't give me a fucking keys and fucking cut.
<v Speaker 2>You wide open.
<v Speaker 8>He was like man, we're look here, look here.
<v Speaker 7>I can't afford that trout. I was like, I don't
<v Speaker 7>give a fuck. Are you gonna afford the trunk or not?
<v Speaker 7>Give me the good damn keys, and I'll be eye
<v Speaker 7>to your motherfucking hair.
<v Speaker 1>James was getting closer.
<v Speaker 20>Like if he wanted to, he could grab that fucking
<v Speaker 20>knife or how are you holding that something like or
<v Speaker 20>something I'm holding.
<v Speaker 2>A knightel like this, tell down like yeah.
<v Speaker 19>And I'm like I'm trying to keep it away from
<v Speaker 19>you so you don't try to fucking grab or nothing.
<v Speaker 3>But then Toby looked at him, and remember but I'm
<v Speaker 3>looking at his hands.
<v Speaker 19>I'm like, man, this motherfucker can't grab the ship, right,
<v Speaker 19>He's got a phone.
<v Speaker 7>On one hand.
<v Speaker 2>I'm like, God damns, the big guy. Just fucking give
<v Speaker 2>me the box for Jimmy's right. Look here, you give
<v Speaker 2>me a fucking g's and we're out of your hair
<v Speaker 2>and whatever money you fucking got, or I'm just gonna
<v Speaker 2>take here in business right here.
<v Speaker 3>According to Toby, James fought back with everything he had,
<v Speaker 3>but Toby had already decided how this was going to end.
<v Speaker 3>Toby answered with a punch in the face. Breaking James's
<v Speaker 3>glasses and puncturing his eye with a piece of the lens, and.
<v Speaker 2>I'm like, god damn it.
<v Speaker 7>They and Morgan's like, fa fucking you the top of it,
<v Speaker 7>fucking kiling right now?
<v Speaker 2>Did he followed the round yet?
<v Speaker 3>The two got into a physical brawl on the floor,
<v Speaker 3>and James defended himself fairly well, despite his limitations, maybe
<v Speaker 3>a little too.
<v Speaker 20>Well, I don't cut the mother clean to the fucking bone,
<v Speaker 20>and yeah, okay, cut clean the fucking bone, like.
<v Speaker 8>Was going everywhere.
<v Speaker 2>My god, damn, I can I can see the fucking
<v Speaker 2>bone in the fucking arms. It was a bitch, just like, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>it was out sharing, it was sick.
<v Speaker 19>It was like but once I've seen that bullet, all
<v Speaker 19>like fucking out, I'm did and now was late, you know,
<v Speaker 19>like I know, like, god damn, I'm fucking freaking out.
<v Speaker 7>Now, Okay, I'm like.
<v Speaker 2>Baby something, she's staying the right side and she's still
<v Speaker 2>over aa and the I'm.
<v Speaker 7>Like, fucking something.
<v Speaker 2>Do you understanding there?
<v Speaker 1>Do you hear how excited this idiot is. You can't
<v Speaker 1>wait to tell his story?
<v Speaker 3>Even the cops like gets a promo for some stupid
<v Speaker 3>made for TV movie some people be dumbing. I'll bet
<v Speaker 3>my cyber truck this retard watches a lot of wrestling,
<v Speaker 3>and she.
<v Speaker 18>Hit him with the pipe and baby, but he like
<v Speaker 18>one time, he's like, he's fucking laying five and the four.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, he's laying five and the four. Now I'm fucking
<v Speaker 2>the shoes I had on. I have some rewalked soldiers on,
<v Speaker 2>but the fucking last strap going across the top. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>and I got.
<v Speaker 7>Fucking neck like this, I'm trying to choke him.
<v Speaker 2>I'm saying, you're fucking I'm trying to fucking break his
<v Speaker 2>wimpipe jumping on it. Yeah, I kept stumbling on a
<v Speaker 2>fucking windpipe.
<v Speaker 7>Player, I got damn you still.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, he's still trying to fight me off of it. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>I'm like, man, fucking this man. I'll freaking out, man,
<v Speaker 2>because I'm like, man, this motherfucker's close to dining already.
<v Speaker 7>Man, and leaned the dead.
<v Speaker 2>I was fucking arm, you know, fucking still struggling him.
<v Speaker 20>Yeah, I fliced him on this arm and I know
<v Speaker 20>that fucking vein right there, straight lead and key to
<v Speaker 20>your heart.
<v Speaker 7>Yeah, and he's gonna bleed.
<v Speaker 9>Like a motherfucker.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, I'm damn ba man, I'm fucking kicking and fucking
<v Speaker 2>faith into the wall. You kicking kicking the neck, Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I'm kicking the neck. I'm trying to fucking classes wind pipes,
<v Speaker 2>all right, I can't do it.
<v Speaker 7>He's still fucking moved.
<v Speaker 2>Sometimes sometimes you kicked.
<v Speaker 7>Him twenty five times, Like that's right.
<v Speaker 9>I'm fucking I'm glad.
<v Speaker 2>I an't fricking No, I'm fucking kick people a lot.
<v Speaker 9>Just kept stopping there, telling him, damn.
<v Speaker 2>I just kept doing to stop this because I didn't
<v Speaker 2>know what the fuck to do.
<v Speaker 7>I'm like, I'll freaking out by this time.
<v Speaker 2>I'm gonna drop the fucking knife.
<v Speaker 7>Okay.
<v Speaker 2>I'm like, I ain't got ship in my hand now, Okay,
<v Speaker 2>I wor here.
<v Speaker 7>She's standing right beside me.
<v Speaker 3>Still imagine bragging about getting the better of a man
<v Speaker 3>with no fingers. I mean, seriously, she was standing right
<v Speaker 3>beside him because they never left each other's sides. According
<v Speaker 3>to Morgan, did Toby.
<v Speaker 7>With Oldheim or did you go somewhere else and leave there?
<v Speaker 7>Old He must he want me in my fight for sure.
<v Speaker 2>He wouldn't let me out of the side.
<v Speaker 13>Out want my hair out of my side. He was like,
<v Speaker 13>dead on, You're like.
<v Speaker 7>Baby baby killing.
<v Speaker 20>I'm like sea still kidding you, man, Oh my god, daring.
<v Speaker 2>Fucking charm SMaL bitch.
<v Speaker 7>Okay.
<v Speaker 2>Watching the lad he was sucking win.
<v Speaker 15>By my shoes.
<v Speaker 3>It was like they were stamping out a bug or
<v Speaker 3>a deadly snake, or like World of t Shirts stomping
<v Speaker 3>on a fish. And there was Toby in his orange jumpsuit,
<v Speaker 3>reliving it all with disturbing enthusiasm. I don't know about you,
<v Speaker 3>but this is kind of a nauseating to me hearing
<v Speaker 3>him so excited about telling the story. He was standing
<v Speaker 3>now animated, his hands waving through the air as he
<v Speaker 3>re enacted every brutal strike for a few minutes. It
<v Speaker 3>wasn't a confession, it was a performance. Toby looked less
<v Speaker 3>like a man haunted by what he'd done and more
<v Speaker 3>like one who still felt the thrill of it.
<v Speaker 5>This is the worst case that I have encountered as
<v Speaker 5>far as brutality and the circumstances surrounding the passing and
<v Speaker 5>the killing of mister Stewart. I can't think of anything
<v Speaker 5>in my eighteen years of practicing law that's that's been
<v Speaker 5>this brutal.
<v Speaker 3>Toby lifted his boot and brought it down hard on
<v Speaker 3>James Stuart's neck again and again, Die, son of a bitch.
<v Speaker 3>But James didn't die. He was fighting as hard as
<v Speaker 3>he could. This man who had endured a life of
<v Speaker 3>trying to adapt, was desperately trying to survive, fighting as
<v Speaker 3>hard as he could despite his physical disabilities. For all
<v Speaker 3>the blood, all the blows, and all the ways his
<v Speaker 3>body had been broken, he was still alive. And there
<v Speaker 3>was still time for Toby and Morgan to leave with
<v Speaker 3>James's soul still intact. But that wasn't part of the plan.
<v Speaker 3>What came next wasn't just brutal, It was absolutely merciless.
<v Speaker 3>In April of two thousand and eight, fifteen year old
<v Speaker 3>Morgan Leopard and twenty two year old Toby Laurie vanished
<v Speaker 3>from Melrose, Florida, in a stolen silver Toyota Tacoma Great Truck.
<v Speaker 3>By the way, it's one of our sponsors anyway. Days earlier,
<v Speaker 3>Morgan had been reported missing, and investigators soon discovered she
<v Speaker 3>wasn't just a runaway.
<v Speaker 1>She and Toby had.
<v Speaker 3>Been involved in a violent crime, and that's quite an understatement.
<v Speaker 3>Their trail led back to the home of sixty six.
<v Speaker 1>Year old James Stewart, a disabled.
<v Speaker 3>Man who was found murdered in his own home. His
<v Speaker 3>pristine truck was missing, and the suspects were nowhere to
<v Speaker 3>be found. As authorities pieced together this timeline, they realized
<v Speaker 3>this wasn't just a case of teenage rebellion. That was
<v Speaker 3>something a lot darker. Sitting in an interrogation room over
<v Speaker 3>one thousand miles away, Toby Laurie was recounting every last detail,
<v Speaker 3>each thought and each action. Even detectives were mortified at
<v Speaker 3>the number of times Toby stomped on James's neck while
<v Speaker 3>he was on the floor, But what he had to
<v Speaker 3>say next was far worse than anyone expected.
<v Speaker 2>I get down on the grounds, grandon knife now fucking chairs.
<v Speaker 9>How many times?
<v Speaker 2>Well, the Knight woudn't going At first.
<v Speaker 19>I tried to fuck to put the knife on the
<v Speaker 19>chest and pushed down it, but he kept trying to
<v Speaker 19>fucking for the book.
<v Speaker 2>He was still alive.
<v Speaker 9>He just throw up in the chest right here.
<v Speaker 7>I know how many.
<v Speaker 2>No, I'm tried to standing once.
<v Speaker 7>I know that in con I'll touched down. And when
<v Speaker 7>I came to, when I was his face, his whole
<v Speaker 7>face was fucking purple. Yep, bloody yep.
<v Speaker 19>Fucking there was chunks of brains coming out of his
<v Speaker 19>fucking nose.
<v Speaker 7>Cartilage coming out of his fucking nose.
<v Speaker 2>Not moving, He's not he he he, He's still moving
<v Speaker 2>a little bit. It's like twitching order.
<v Speaker 7>And he's like, he's he's trying to fucking breathe.
<v Speaker 2>Sure, I done fucking broke his nose and shit, and
<v Speaker 2>probably too.
<v Speaker 9>Yeah, he's trying to breathe. I still see his fucking
<v Speaker 9>heart beating in his fucking chest.
<v Speaker 2>He's done pisted on himself. He pissed blood out of
<v Speaker 2>his state.
<v Speaker 9>Their blood everywhere, blowing the wall and shit. I'm like, god, damn, God, damn,
<v Speaker 9>God damn, God damn bringing out breaking out, fucking up
<v Speaker 9>FoST markets.
<v Speaker 2>And she's like, she's like, make me move, Hey me
<v Speaker 2>move move.
<v Speaker 7>I'm like, why the fuck you wanna move?
<v Speaker 20>I fucking m I moved because I don't out of breath.
<v Speaker 20>I couldn't fucking breathe in the office, it was just
<v Speaker 20>it was burning right here. You don't you, Yeah, it
<v Speaker 20>was just fucking burning. I then there was nothing I
<v Speaker 20>could do, but it was just fucking burning and I
<v Speaker 20>woke in the other section of the house for a minute.
<v Speaker 2>And I here, I threw it around the morning if
<v Speaker 2>I beat the ship into the pipe to beat the
<v Speaker 2>shadow where and face the sheet hit him in face.
<v Speaker 19>Hord.
<v Speaker 3>Toby had stepped away from the scene for just a
<v Speaker 3>minute to use his inhaler, which is fucking hilarious A
<v Speaker 3>killer with asthma. All that action had left him breathless
<v Speaker 3>and he had plenty of life left done like James
<v Speaker 3>his victim, it was struggling with everything he had to
<v Speaker 3>stay in the.
<v Speaker 1>Fight, but he was losing.
<v Speaker 3>And then through the wheeze and the chaos, Toby saw
<v Speaker 3>something that he wasn't prepared for.
<v Speaker 7>I'm my baby, I gotta get the shower.
<v Speaker 19>I can't have the fucking bottle and the other I'm
<v Speaker 19>about to cry out, get in the shower.
<v Speaker 2>Shower, Yeah, which one.
<v Speaker 7>I went right there and he was lag and I
<v Speaker 7>took a shower right there.
<v Speaker 19>And as I'm taking the shower, I've seen Morgan.
<v Speaker 2>I'm not sens and honor, I'm not understand. Don't get
<v Speaker 2>your own I understand. Just just finish it out there
<v Speaker 2>because the heros are with You're nine a half cents there.
<v Speaker 2>I seen Morgan stabbings and test at least twice. There
<v Speaker 2>was three stabbed his chest.
<v Speaker 6>The airms like bam, bam bam.
<v Speaker 3>There were three stab wounds because Toby had just finished
<v Speaker 3>stabbing him once and then Morgan took over. When Toby
<v Speaker 3>got out of the shower, he realized that James was
<v Speaker 3>still alive.
<v Speaker 6>He's still time I talk.
<v Speaker 17>You can't ask him to play round me.
<v Speaker 21>So being yeah, the fucking I went and got a
<v Speaker 21>gars back, right where'd you get it from?
<v Speaker 7>And the uh canon?
<v Speaker 2>And so he went, yeah, okay, I throw he got
<v Speaker 2>his head uh twins some designs, I come, We're gonna
<v Speaker 2>with that little bit. It's mostly by hand with a
<v Speaker 2>problem bag, right, I fell ever bring her hand? Where
<v Speaker 2>you handling it?
<v Speaker 7>Okay?
<v Speaker 10>And I didn't.
<v Speaker 17>I lost the beginning and started beating the faith.
<v Speaker 2>Then I said, okay, bird his nose the nose was
<v Speaker 2>like you beat your beat?
<v Speaker 8>Is you hold up packet?
<v Speaker 19>Yeah, he's still trying to breathe.
<v Speaker 7>I can like to see like a bubble.
<v Speaker 2>Come up from Orizond's move.
<v Speaker 21>I still see the heart, the heart beating all right,
<v Speaker 21>and I'm like.
<v Speaker 9>Lost.
<v Speaker 7>I felt it was no to.
<v Speaker 2>Break three times. It's a pocket bag on his head.
<v Speaker 20>Yeah, they just I s I felt it was nae
<v Speaker 20>to break three times when they nose bird three times
<v Speaker 20>and stats winning.
<v Speaker 8>Fucking that was it.
<v Speaker 2>That's when he passed. Cause I think I I pushed
<v Speaker 2>the thune up into his brain or something. You at
<v Speaker 2>least it was made of a surfer though.
<v Speaker 7>Yeah, I was.
<v Speaker 21>Fucking not pretty mud as far as the misery.
<v Speaker 5>And m.
<v Speaker 8>Right, So all I do is like you.
<v Speaker 2>Can justify, you can juify to yourself. There was reasons
<v Speaker 2>why he did it, and I think you did it.
<v Speaker 7>You just he did it for me.
<v Speaker 21>You justified that you were in a hard times already
<v Speaker 21>trying to help out your wife or your wife could
<v Speaker 21>be I should say, and.
<v Speaker 22>Your baby in that building, and you know what could be. Unfortunately,
<v Speaker 22>you still have to provide to him. So do you
<v Speaker 22>understand that, Right, he's supposed to be there, then he
<v Speaker 22>supposed to be a cooler, He's still going to be
<v Speaker 22>a husband figure.
<v Speaker 2>Tour can I as a batter?
<v Speaker 3>Toby had just described James's final moments in chilling detail,
<v Speaker 3>saying he had to put him out of his misery
<v Speaker 3>like a lame horse or an injured animal, but somewhere
<v Speaker 3>in his core he was finally feeling remorse and it
<v Speaker 3>was visible to detectives. It seems like sympathizing with a killer.
<v Speaker 3>This technique that detectives used to keep a suspect talking
<v Speaker 3>to stop them from shutting down. But in this moment,
<v Speaker 3>after the sheer horror of what Toby had just described,
<v Speaker 3>it felt grotesque because what had just happened wasn't about love.
<v Speaker 3>It wasn't about love at all, and no words, no
<v Speaker 3>justification could change that. At the murder scene, just before
<v Speaker 3>they left, this is what Morgan said that She told me.
<v Speaker 2>She was like, we just took a human life, Like,
<v Speaker 2>no shit, I wanted did it?
<v Speaker 7>You mean you held doubt but.
<v Speaker 2>He should.
<v Speaker 18>And eating at me and I wanted to come clain
<v Speaker 18>so bad, but I didn't want to get prison for the.
<v Speaker 2>Rest of my part of life.
<v Speaker 3>Was he really morseful or did he just fear the
<v Speaker 3>consequences of being in prison for life and being without
<v Speaker 3>the love of his life. Prison, of course, is exactly
<v Speaker 3>where he landed. In twenty ten, both Toby Laurie and
<v Speaker 3>Morgan Leppert stood trial for the murder of James Stewart.
<v Speaker 3>Prosecutors argued that this wasn't the spontaneous act of violence.
<v Speaker 3>It was calculated, cold and relentless. Toby, the adult of
<v Speaker 3>the couple, pleaded guilty to first degree murder and was
<v Speaker 3>sentenced to life without parole. During the trial, Morgan's defense
<v Speaker 3>team painted her as a naive, manipulated teenager under the
<v Speaker 3>control of an older, violent man. Courts love it when
<v Speaker 3>women get off on the same crime that a man committed.
<v Speaker 3>Not exactly sure why, maybe some of that old chivalry
<v Speaker 3>from the dark Ages. They argued that Toby Laurie was
<v Speaker 3>the mastermind, that he orchestrated the attack, that Morgan was
<v Speaker 3>just following orders. Too young, too impressionable. Do you understand
<v Speaker 3>the weight of her actions?
<v Speaker 13>They're always gonna call the cops. Toby said, no, the
<v Speaker 13>hell you wait and Boom.
<v Speaker 8>Pushed him right in the face.
<v Speaker 13>Man, I just go away.
<v Speaker 12>I was about to cry Totob.
<v Speaker 20>I was about a tetobia.
<v Speaker 2>I don't want to do this.
<v Speaker 10>But Toby just already hit him, and he's like, come on, baby,
<v Speaker 10>come on and hit him.
<v Speaker 2>Hit him.
<v Speaker 1>But the prosecution had a different take on it.
<v Speaker 5>I mean as far as like, who was the ringleader?
<v Speaker 5>I mean, the only people who know what happened in
<v Speaker 5>that house are Morgan, Toby, and mister Stewart. So what
<v Speaker 5>the jury found was that she was guilty of first
<v Speaker 5>degree murder because she participated in the in the murder
<v Speaker 5>exactly what she did. Really, the only people alive who
<v Speaker 5>know are Toby and Morgan. But the jury did find
<v Speaker 5>that she intended to commit premeditated murder and in fact
<v Speaker 5>killed mister Stewart.
<v Speaker 3>Morgan, just fifteen at the time, was convicted of first
<v Speaker 3>degree murder and armed robbery under Florida law. She received
<v Speaker 3>a mandatory life sentence without parole, a punishment usually reserved
<v Speaker 3>only for adults.
<v Speaker 1>But and here we go.
<v Speaker 3>In twenty twelve, the US Supreme Court ruled that mandatory
<v Speaker 3>life sentences for juveniles were unconstitutional, despite what monsters they
<v Speaker 3>could be. That decision gave Morgan a second chance, at
<v Speaker 3>least in the courtroom. In twenty twenty, she was re
<v Speaker 3>sentenced to forty years in prison, a reduced sentence but
<v Speaker 3>still long enough to make sure she won't walk free
<v Speaker 3>until she's well into her fifties. I'm sure forty years
<v Speaker 3>in prison will rehabilitate her.
<v Speaker 8>Oh.
<v Speaker 3>Morgan claimed that she was pregnant, but miscarried in jail,
<v Speaker 3>so probably no kids in her future. James Stewart lived alone.
<v Speaker 3>He was disabled, he'd already proved to the world that
<v Speaker 3>he was stronger than his disabilities. In fact, he was
<v Speaker 3>so strong that Toby and Morgan could have walked away
<v Speaker 3>more than once while he was still alive, but they
<v Speaker 3>decided not to. James's family will miss him dearly. This
<v Speaker 3>is a statement from his nephew. My uncle was the
<v Speaker 3>type of man that anyone around him who was ready
<v Speaker 3>to take life head on should have had the opportunity
<v Speaker 3>to meet or speak with those who were lucky enough
<v Speaker 3>to spend time with. My uncle soon learned that there
<v Speaker 3>was nothing that he could not do. The man was
<v Speaker 3>truly amazing. Things that I hear people young and old
<v Speaker 3>say that they can't do are things he called speed
<v Speaker 3>bumps or obstacles. Not having hands did not slow him
<v Speaker 3>down one bit. The thing is he did things most
<v Speaker 3>people don't dream of accomplishing in their lifetime.
<v Speaker 7>He was a master.
<v Speaker 3>Carpenter, a professor, He skied, played tennis, bold He was
<v Speaker 3>a commercial fisherman. The list goes on and on. Most
<v Speaker 3>of the cars he owned were stick shifts with no
<v Speaker 3>power steering. My uncle taught me that the word can't
<v Speaker 3>is for cowards, losers, and people that see hard times
<v Speaker 3>or difficult tasks and give up. I was lucky enough
<v Speaker 3>to be able to spend time with this amazing man
<v Speaker 3>and have some of that greatness rub off on me.
<v Speaker 3>But my son and future children will only be able
<v Speaker 3>to hear stories of this great man that I have
<v Speaker 3>called uncle. For centuries, velosiphers have pondered what love is.
<v Speaker 3>They've done it for as long as there have been philosophers.
<v Speaker 7>But what do they know?
<v Speaker 3>People with nothing but the luxury to sit around thinking
<v Speaker 3>all day and ponder things, those are usually the people
<v Speaker 3>that are most disconnected from reality. Hey, I'm describing myself,
<v Speaker 3>all right, so let's give it a shot.
<v Speaker 13>Love is.
<v Speaker 1>Fuck?
<v Speaker 3>I don't know, but I'm sure Morgan doesn't know either.
<v Speaker 19>Too much.
<v Speaker 3>Morgan had an obsessive, all consuming type of quote unquote
<v Speaker 3>love for Toby, the kind that rewired her dumb little
<v Speaker 3>brain and twisted whatever immature concept stood in for logic.
<v Speaker 3>This obsession drowned out all reason and convinced her that
<v Speaker 3>nothing else mattered. It's a kind of thing you see
<v Speaker 3>in movies, bad ones. Morgan was fifteen, reckless, desperate for freedom,
<v Speaker 3>and convinced that Toby Laurie was the answer. He made
<v Speaker 3>her feel untouchable, like the world belong just to the
<v Speaker 3>two of them. A lot of people don't realize that
<v Speaker 3>Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy, not a romance. I,
<v Speaker 3>on the other hand, treat it like a comedy, because
<v Speaker 3>if God gave you a brain, then you have the
<v Speaker 3>responsibility to use it every now and then. And for Toby,
<v Speaker 3>Morgan was also an obsession. She was something to possess,
<v Speaker 3>to run away with, to kill for because he was
<v Speaker 3>lonely and wanted a hole to put his dick in.
<v Speaker 3>That's it, That's what she was for Toby. Real love
<v Speaker 3>doesn't ask for everything you have. Oh why anyone has
<v Speaker 3>to actually say that out loud. It doesn't demand a
<v Speaker 3>sacrifice in blood. It doesn't turn a teenage girl into
<v Speaker 3>a murderer, or leave an innocent disabled man gasping for
<v Speaker 3>his final breath on the floor of his own living room.
<v Speaker 22>That I do know.
<v Speaker 3>Even dumb old me James Stewart didn't know Morgan and Toby.
<v Speaker 3>He wasn't part of their stupid fantasy or their twisted rebellion.
<v Speaker 3>He gained nothing from being in the proximity of Dumb,
<v Speaker 3>but unfortunately for him, he ended up being part of
<v Speaker 3>their sacrifice and quote unquote love. Anyway, well, I'm not
<v Speaker 3>going to beg you to watch SMSTV again.
<v Speaker 1>You're an adult.
<v Speaker 3>You go figure out what to do, at least I
<v Speaker 3>hope so otherwise, go find your parents. What the fuck
<v Speaker 3>are they doing. I shouldn't be listening to this swordscale
<v Speaker 3>dot Com.
<v Speaker 1>Stay safe,