Episode 347

<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>I heard screaming and stuff, so I just love I
<v Speaker 2>couldn't say the little lead from that lady's house.
<v Speaker 1>Hello, and thank you for joining us. This is season thirteen,
<v Speaker 1>episode three hundred and forty what three hundred and forty
<v Speaker 1>seven of Sword and Scale show that reveals that the
<v Speaker 1>worst monsters are real. It's March first, twenty fifteen in Niles, Ohio, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>Ohio again. Niles is an aging steel town in Trumbull County.
<v Speaker 1>The narrow streets are lined with ranch and cape cod
<v Speaker 1>homes where families have lived for generations. On Lafayette Avenue.
<v Speaker 1>The houses sit close together, with alleys running between them
<v Speaker 1>and neighbors that notice when something is out of place.
<v Speaker 1>Just before dinner, a teenage boy stumbles home and into
<v Speaker 1>the front door. He's not hungry, and he's not thirsty either.
<v Speaker 1>In fact, he's already had too much to drink and
<v Speaker 1>he's a drunken mess.
<v Speaker 3>Nine one how much emergency?
<v Speaker 4>Hi?
<v Speaker 5>My trin came home and said he got jumped by
<v Speaker 5>several people and he's not actingly okay.
<v Speaker 3>Where did the sthroom? I'm not five or two off yet,
<v Speaker 3>He says he was at Feeder Park, okay, and he
<v Speaker 3>has blood on his hands and stuff.
<v Speaker 1>Her voice echoes through the house as she speaks to
<v Speaker 1>the dispatcher. She's not in panic. He doesn't look injured,
<v Speaker 1>but he has blood all over him and he's not
<v Speaker 1>wearing pants. He's been staggering through the neighborhood in his
<v Speaker 1>underwear and a T shirt.
<v Speaker 3>He has blood on his hands, yeah, and on his shirt.
<v Speaker 5>And he's like coming in and out of it.
<v Speaker 3>How old is it he's fifty? Well, he's fifteen. Fifteen?
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, he's not.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, so you need an ambulance?
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, all right.
<v Speaker 3>I want you to come down to the station when
<v Speaker 3>he's done, okay, and file a report. Okay, not stay
<v Speaker 3>on the line.
<v Speaker 1>So far, his mom doesn't seem to notice somehow that
<v Speaker 1>his breath also wreaks of alcohol, or at least she
<v Speaker 1>doesn't report this.
<v Speaker 5>How is done? He's fifteen? He said he was jumpy
<v Speaker 5>when he said he's not acting right?
<v Speaker 3>What do you mean?
<v Speaker 5>He's like playing on the bathrooms floor, and he tried
<v Speaker 5>to lift up his head and his eyes rolled back
<v Speaker 5>and he throws himself back down and Kayley goes to
<v Speaker 5>talk to you. He mumbled, and he has blood on
<v Speaker 5>his hands and his shirt.
<v Speaker 1>Her son, Jacob LaRosa, tells her he's been attacked by
<v Speaker 1>some other teenagers.
<v Speaker 3>That's a Nile that will call on the line. At
<v Speaker 3>five oh two, Lafayette, fifteen year old fun was it
<v Speaker 3>a fight and came home and she said he's not
<v Speaker 3>acting right.
<v Speaker 1>The Niles squad car pulls up quickly. It's only a
<v Speaker 1>short drive to the station. The Lafayette houses are cluttered
<v Speaker 1>tightly in a neighborhood where officers can cross yards and
<v Speaker 1>alleys in seconds. Inside, he finds Jacob on the bathroom floor.
<v Speaker 1>An ambulance gets there in just minutes, and they whisked
<v Speaker 1>Jacob away to the hospital, where he's interviewed.
<v Speaker 6>Wond if I come in? No, no, sir, Come.
<v Speaker 7>Sir, Jacob. How are you good? Sir good? My name
<v Speaker 7>is Lieutenant Atkins.
<v Speaker 8>Don't conquer move yet, okay, yeah, you could still finish
<v Speaker 8>young lady first though.
<v Speaker 7>Okay, I'm don't you're moving, so you're gonna screw up
<v Speaker 7>your test, buddy, don't.
<v Speaker 6>Talk, don't move.
<v Speaker 1>That nurse wasn't playing games and didn't have the time
<v Speaker 1>for her drunk patient.
<v Speaker 6>Normal, my mom, she's on the waiting room. These guys
<v Speaker 6>came up, game up. They meant they got it.
<v Speaker 7>Happens.
<v Speaker 1>The streets can be violent, especially in Ohio.
<v Speaker 7>Tell me, tell me how did you end up here tonight?
<v Speaker 2>Well, this this kid dere Gaius and Vonte Jackson, they
<v Speaker 2>play a gun.
<v Speaker 6>They gone to my end.
<v Speaker 7>Reason what was the other guys?
<v Speaker 6>Sa Ry Davis and Vonte.
<v Speaker 7>Yeah Jackson.
<v Speaker 6>They believe going into my head. They were making me
<v Speaker 6>a drink.
<v Speaker 2>I got a card.
<v Speaker 6>I told him I was just scared.
<v Speaker 7>Where were you with these guys?
<v Speaker 2>I was on the street of lost. Yeah. I told
<v Speaker 2>him I want to go oh. I was just scared.
<v Speaker 2>My mom wanted me. I wanted to make up excuse.
<v Speaker 2>So they believed me that I needed to be okay.
<v Speaker 2>I wanted I told him so why they let me
<v Speaker 2>also block, I told him all the time to go
<v Speaker 2>get I was gonna steal something.
<v Speaker 6>So I told him I was to steal something, but
<v Speaker 6>I lied to them. I went straight to my house
<v Speaker 6>and they told me to get the cars.
<v Speaker 1>So I went to anyone in the room listening, it
<v Speaker 1>sounds like he was being held at gunpoint and told
<v Speaker 1>to rob somebody or something. So, according to Jacob, he
<v Speaker 1>lied just so he could go home where his mom
<v Speaker 1>was expecting him. The officers have more questions, but all
<v Speaker 1>of a sudden, Jacob passes out.
<v Speaker 6>You all right, still, there would be Jacob Jacob.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, hey, Jacob, need to talk to the lieutenant here.
<v Speaker 6>Oh how you doing today? Good?
<v Speaker 3>Well?
<v Speaker 6>Well, this kid he made me get a car.
<v Speaker 3>He had a gun.
<v Speaker 7>Which kid had the gun?
<v Speaker 6>Derek Davies, Who kind of gun was it? It was
<v Speaker 6>not even one?
<v Speaker 7>Me here, okay, we'll color black black black.
<v Speaker 2>Wife had a grip on it the bottom where we
<v Speaker 2>have it.
<v Speaker 6>In your hand. What kind of car were they in?
<v Speaker 6>They're in a great car. You know what kind it was?
<v Speaker 6>It was like it was it was a jeep. Yes,
<v Speaker 6>it was a jeep. Jeep. It was a jeep. Okay,
<v Speaker 6>it was a great jeep. And wait wait wait, you
<v Speaker 6>had l a bald egel on top of it. I
<v Speaker 6>want to on the hood on the hood on the hood.
<v Speaker 1>Got that. Jacob's account of what happened was only getting
<v Speaker 1>more interesting.
<v Speaker 7>Okay, so they made you get in the car, They
<v Speaker 7>made me drink what do you make you drink.
<v Speaker 6>It made me drink would keep for loco. I did
<v Speaker 6>not want to do it. I wanted to be happy.
<v Speaker 6>I wanted to be roll over.
<v Speaker 7>Okay, when you said they made you smoke the smoke
<v Speaker 7>cigarettes or maybe it's a little.
<v Speaker 6>They made men. We didn't make me drink.
<v Speaker 7>You said they made you smoke weed.
<v Speaker 6>No, they made but they made me drink. I told
<v Speaker 6>I want to. I want to.
<v Speaker 2>They made They forced me to sunk the weed. But
<v Speaker 2>I didn't. Again, I say shaw like our probation officers
<v Speaker 2>said to me to do Okay, I call away, callaway kid.
<v Speaker 2>With these guys, I was, I was down. I look
<v Speaker 2>way that they track me. They to me, they tracked me.
<v Speaker 1>Peer pressure. You've been there, right, just trying to do
<v Speaker 1>the right thing, mind your own business, follow all the rules.
<v Speaker 1>And then some kids your age pull guns, pour vodka
<v Speaker 1>down your throat, and shove weed at you. You try it,
<v Speaker 1>but like Bill Clinton once famously claimed, you don't inhale
<v Speaker 1>no one.
<v Speaker 6>There's no way I go to leave. I was trying
<v Speaker 6>to ram, but they got me.
<v Speaker 7>They got me.
<v Speaker 6>Okay, I'm sorry, please right.
<v Speaker 7>Jacob, I'm just talking to you right now, Thank you. Okay,
<v Speaker 7>so they make you get in the car. Where do
<v Speaker 7>you guys go?
<v Speaker 6>We go do Dollar in General?
<v Speaker 7>Okay? On Avenue?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, the way up there? Wait, way down there. You
<v Speaker 2>know where you're going to?
<v Speaker 9>Uh?
<v Speaker 6>What is it called? Johnny Eagle? You where's at? You
<v Speaker 6>know how?
<v Speaker 2>You go down to donag and you go across, you go,
<v Speaker 2>we turn, you turn right and you go all the
<v Speaker 2>way up to Robbins. Yeah, we're going all the way
<v Speaker 2>up to Robbins. And they're having a car and they're
<v Speaker 2>saying that they're gonna be beat me up.
<v Speaker 6>I was scared. I always wanted to call him mom.
<v Speaker 6>I want to make sure my mom's safe.
<v Speaker 7>How old are these guys.
<v Speaker 6>Like seventeen, eighteen years old? Nineteen? Yeah, I didn't want
<v Speaker 6>my mom. I didn't want to go to the school there.
<v Speaker 1>The more questions the officer asked, the harder it was
<v Speaker 1>for Jacob to spit out his version of what happened.
<v Speaker 1>His words turned into sobs, his sentences trailed off, and
<v Speaker 1>what little sense he did make only raised more questions.
<v Speaker 6>They're going to go to the littler General.
<v Speaker 7>Where do you guys go?
<v Speaker 8>They're all making me either conser tree, maybe.
<v Speaker 6>Buy a bottle off.
<v Speaker 2>I get a little dollar so they can have they
<v Speaker 2>can buy a bottle of loco.
<v Speaker 6>All is a dune and he.
<v Speaker 2>Wants to sparko And now I was a Sparko and
<v Speaker 2>my freaking I want a fad.
<v Speaker 6>I want to be a good kid. I want to
<v Speaker 6>be a good kid.
<v Speaker 1>He wanted to be a good kid, a great kid.
<v Speaker 1>But that wasn't how the first fifteen years of his
<v Speaker 1>life had gone. He wasn't going to be nominated for
<v Speaker 1>Altar Boy of the Year anytime soon. Good kids don't
<v Speaker 1>come home drunk and coherent and covered in somebody else's blood.
<v Speaker 1>After all, good kids don't spin stories to get out
<v Speaker 1>of serious crime, and great kids don't leave a dead
<v Speaker 1>body in their wake. On March thirty, first, twenty fifteen,
<v Speaker 1>fifteen year old Jacob LaRosa Dagger's home in a Niles,
<v Speaker 1>Ohio neighborhood. He's half dressed, bleeding, and wreaking of alcohol.
<v Speaker 1>His mother calls nine to one one, convinced her son's
<v Speaker 1>been attacked. At the hospital, Jacob claims that teenagers with
<v Speaker 1>guns trapped him, but his slurred lies can't hide the truth.
<v Speaker 1>Something way more gruesome happened that afternoon. And just across
<v Speaker 1>the street, the evidence was waiting. Marie bel Castro was
<v Speaker 1>a ninety four year old widow with kids, grandkids, and
<v Speaker 1>great grandkids. Her great granddaughter Lena called her Gigi.
<v Speaker 9>Gigi is like a really sweet person. She was very
<v Speaker 9>spiritually in tune with herself and religious to the degree
<v Speaker 9>of one to be just like Jesus, and she always
<v Speaker 9>gave back. She was very kind hearted, and I think,
<v Speaker 9>you know a lot of people the state kind is
<v Speaker 9>for weakness, and I think what happened to her was
<v Speaker 9>kind of tragic in the sense that the expression kind
<v Speaker 9>of came true to itself with what had happened to her.
<v Speaker 9>And I think it kind of proves that no matter
<v Speaker 9>how good your intentions are, no matter how kind you are,
<v Speaker 9>there's always gonna be some jerk that's going and try
<v Speaker 9>and effect that destroy that.
<v Speaker 1>Marie was born in nineteen twenty to immigrant parents from Italy.
<v Speaker 1>Her dad was a carpenter who came to the US
<v Speaker 1>at the age of eleven. Marie herself married Fred Belcastro,
<v Speaker 1>a member of the Army Corps. In World War Two.
<v Speaker 1>Marie also helped with the war effort, working at Packard
<v Speaker 1>Electric making tanks and military equipment. She was like Rosie
<v Speaker 1>the Riveter, but in real life this is her grandson,
<v Speaker 1>Brian Kirk.
<v Speaker 4>She was her housewife and the Italian American community at
<v Speaker 4>Niles was very close knit. In fact, I've heard wonderful
<v Speaker 4>stories about the Italians banding together with other minorities.
<v Speaker 1>It was a very different time in American history. Back then,
<v Speaker 1>just getting into the United States was a different process
<v Speaker 1>than it is today. Irish, Italian and Jewish families traveled
<v Speaker 1>weeks by ship and cramped spaces, hoping they didn't die
<v Speaker 1>along the way. They came to Ellis Island with nothing
<v Speaker 1>more than the clothes on their backs. They stood in
<v Speaker 1>long lines, went through humiliating medical inspections, bought language barriers,
<v Speaker 1>and hoped they wouldn't be turned away. No jobs were waiting,
<v Speaker 1>no handouts, no safety nets, certainly no welfare. All they
<v Speaker 1>had was each other and in Niles, Ohio, the Italian
<v Speaker 1>families banded together with other newcomers to find their way
<v Speaker 1>in a city that didn't always welcome them. They faced
<v Speaker 1>suspicion and prejudice, but they worked long hours in the mills,
<v Speaker 1>raised families, and built communities of faith and tradition. That
<v Speaker 1>held them together.
<v Speaker 4>My grandfather suffered a stroke in the seventies, and my
<v Speaker 4>grandmother became a bus aide and then a school bus driver.
<v Speaker 4>She was quite short, about four foot nine, and so
<v Speaker 4>the idea of her driving a big bus was pretty
<v Speaker 4>funny to us. But she did what she had to
<v Speaker 4>do to thrive and survive, and she was a product
<v Speaker 4>of that Great Depression era. She had a hip side
<v Speaker 4>to her, and by that I mean she was plugged
<v Speaker 4>into the culture. She loved stand up comedy. She liked
<v Speaker 4>comics like Ron White and Lewis Black. When I was
<v Speaker 4>six years old, I remember watching Saturday Night Live on
<v Speaker 4>her living room floor, something that my parents would never
<v Speaker 4>let me do.
<v Speaker 1>Brian says that even though his grandmother was a devout Catholic,
<v Speaker 1>she didn't push her beliefs on anyone and didn't get
<v Speaker 1>stuck in the dogma. When Brian and a friend visited
<v Speaker 1>her on their first college break, the first thing she
<v Speaker 1>did was offer them twenty bucks to go buy some beer.
<v Speaker 4>She gave me the freedom to make mistakes, and she
<v Speaker 4>was just a very funny woman with a very advanced
<v Speaker 4>sense of humor. In a different era, she could have
<v Speaker 4>been a college professor. But in nineteen twenties, Ohio, you know,
<v Speaker 4>the child of immigrants and relatively poor, she didn't have
<v Speaker 4>the same opportunities that young women have today. But a
<v Speaker 4>learned woman, a smart woman, and.
<v Speaker 1>A really good Italian cook, I might add, Who wouldn't
<v Speaker 1>want a grandma like her? The thing Brian remembers most
<v Speaker 1>is her humor and her laugh, things she inherited. He
<v Speaker 1>went on to become a comedian.
<v Speaker 4>I remember doing Howard Cosell impersonations at age six for
<v Speaker 4>her friends and neighbors on the sidewalk in Niles. So
<v Speaker 4>she was my first audience and her laugh was wonderful
<v Speaker 4>and infectious. And the last conversation I ever had with
<v Speaker 4>her was on an iPad, and she asked me if
<v Speaker 4>I had any new impressions, and I gave her one.
<v Speaker 4>I told her about a new character that I was learning,
<v Speaker 4>and she was up to the end, always looking to laugh.
<v Speaker 1>Ninety four years old, and according to her family and doctor,
<v Speaker 1>she would have easily lived another ten years. But on
<v Speaker 1>March thirty first, twenty fifteen, her laugh was silenced. That afternoon,
<v Speaker 1>Marie's daughter walked into the house on Cherry Avenue, the
<v Speaker 1>one that Marie's father had built for her with his
<v Speaker 1>own hands and found what the killer or killers had
<v Speaker 1>left behind.
<v Speaker 3>Nine.
<v Speaker 10>Well on what you Emerjacay, I'm at five on nine
<v Speaker 10>Cherry Street, Niles. I'm Marie Belcast's daughter. I just walked
<v Speaker 10>into her house and I finally found her. She looks
<v Speaker 10>like she's all smashed and there's lead in every room.
<v Speaker 10>House was ransacked.
<v Speaker 3>How old is sheha?
<v Speaker 10>How old? Yeah, she was ninety four. I think she's dead.
<v Speaker 10>She looks she's been twisted.
<v Speaker 6>She's twisted in.
<v Speaker 10>Here in the bedroom. And I saw an ambulance when
<v Speaker 10>I walked in and saw kind of stuff I saw
<v Speaker 10>on the amblys one walk above. So I ran up
<v Speaker 10>there and I said, I need someone. I thought maybe
<v Speaker 10>they went to the wrong place and maybe she called them,
<v Speaker 10>But I think somebody came in. I know somebody came
<v Speaker 10>in here.
<v Speaker 1>The ambulance she saw just across the street was for Jacob.
<v Speaker 7>Did it any time you go to a house or
<v Speaker 7>on Cherry Street the old lady who.
<v Speaker 6>Lives behind you A ry guy.
<v Speaker 7>Okay, I just got an answer. The house behind you
<v Speaker 7>on Cherry Street, the old lady that loves back there,
<v Speaker 7>did you go to her?
<v Speaker 6>House, No, ma'am, no, sir. Okay.
<v Speaker 7>Did any of those guys go to that house?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah?
<v Speaker 6>But I told him I'm not going in there. They left,
<v Speaker 6>they started.
<v Speaker 2>I heard screaming and stuff, so I just left. I
<v Speaker 2>couldn't the old lady's house.
<v Speaker 7>Were you inside and left or no?
<v Speaker 2>I left, I couldn't. I just heard screaming, so I left.
<v Speaker 2>Where do you hear screaming from the old lady's house?
<v Speaker 6>Okay?
<v Speaker 7>But were you outside?
<v Speaker 6>Were you in the car? Where were you?
<v Speaker 2>No? I was in an alley, but I ran. I
<v Speaker 2>ran home that one on my what's it called the
<v Speaker 2>swing thing? The swing swing thing, the swing set, the
<v Speaker 2>swing set? Yeah, okay.
<v Speaker 1>Jacob said he ran home as the boys who held
<v Speaker 1>him at gunpoint went inside Marie's house. He said he
<v Speaker 1>only heard the screams whether he was inside the house
<v Speaker 1>or not. Marie was indeed screaming, and what her daughter
<v Speaker 1>found was the end of a struggle. No one should
<v Speaker 1>ever have to fight, especially a sweet old woman. Back
<v Speaker 1>at the scene, an officer steps through the side entrance
<v Speaker 1>at five o nine Cherry. The door frame is splintered,
<v Speaker 1>the lock has been forced. Evidence of violence is pervasive
<v Speaker 1>in multiple rooms in the living room, the floor is
<v Speaker 1>stained with blood, especially in front of a recliner where
<v Speaker 1>the struggle started. It's not a single pool. It's smeared,
<v Speaker 1>soaked into the carpet, streaked a cross furniture, and spattered
<v Speaker 1>on walls. On the couch more stains. He sees fragments
<v Speaker 1>of bone sections of Marie bel Castro's skull lying on
<v Speaker 1>the floor among the blood. We interviewed Chris Becker, the
<v Speaker 1>lead prosecutor on the case.
<v Speaker 11>The corner indicated that she had been beaten so brutally
<v Speaker 11>that he could not determine how many blows had rained
<v Speaker 11>down on her head.
<v Speaker 1>A trail of bloody drag marts leads into the dining room.
<v Speaker 1>More blood on the floor, another fragment of skull. Shards
<v Speaker 1>of her hearing aids lay in various places, and one
<v Speaker 1>is broken and lodged inside her ear canal, a detail
<v Speaker 1>the coroner would later say he had never seen before
<v Speaker 1>in over eight thousand autopsies. The officer follows drag marks,
<v Speaker 1>smeared lines of blood leading away from the front rooms,
<v Speaker 1>through the kitchen, down the hallway. Along the baseboard of
<v Speaker 1>one wall, there are more fragments of skull and brain tissue.
<v Speaker 1>In the guest bedroom, he finds the body. Marie Belcastro,
<v Speaker 1>lies twisted on the floor at the foot of her bed.
<v Speaker 1>She is faced down. Her pajama pants are gone, her
<v Speaker 1>shirt is soaked in blood. Her arms are contorted, with
<v Speaker 1>one pinned under her and the other bent Unnaturally. Blood
<v Speaker 1>has pooled beneath her and saturated deep into the carpet.
<v Speaker 1>They will later discover there's so much blood that it
<v Speaker 1>is dripping through the floorboards into her finished basement. He
<v Speaker 1>gets down on his knees, careful not to disturb the scene,
<v Speaker 1>and sees her crushed face. The injury measures almost five
<v Speaker 1>by one and a half inches. It's not a fracture.
<v Speaker 1>The bone and tissue are completely carved in. Nearby, he
<v Speaker 1>spots the murder weapon, a maglite flashlight, stained with blood.
<v Speaker 1>There are also bloody shoe prints marking the carpet. The
<v Speaker 1>house shrieks of iron. Every room he passes through has
<v Speaker 1>signs of a violent struggle. A veteran with decades on
<v Speaker 1>the force, he freezes for a moment. In twenty four
<v Speaker 1>years of law enforcement, he has never seen any thing
<v Speaker 1>like this, and this could have been his grandmother. He
<v Speaker 1>thinks to himself. Meanwhile, Jacob is still in the hospital
<v Speaker 1>being questioned. His drunken version is starting to crack. It
<v Speaker 1>already blamed the murder on two other young men or
<v Speaker 1>kids who held him at gunpoint and then decided to
<v Speaker 1>let him go. So he's running through all the alleys
<v Speaker 1>with no pants and ends up at a playground.
<v Speaker 6>And what did you do there? I hung out? So
<v Speaker 6>he came back.
<v Speaker 2>I seen blood all over him, the blood all Oh
<v Speaker 2>my blood, Oh my god?
<v Speaker 6>Did you see blood all over Davonte Jackson?
<v Speaker 7>Davante Jackson, has Davante white or black?
<v Speaker 6>He's black? Okay? How about this other guy with his
<v Speaker 6>name again, Davy?
<v Speaker 7>He is white.
<v Speaker 2>Middald mid donald's. Every assume the morning he would be
<v Speaker 2>hanging out mc donald's.
<v Speaker 6>Oh my god. No, in a car, black car. It's
<v Speaker 6>the right license place on far looks like a race car. Okay.
<v Speaker 7>So you weren't in the house at any time with them. No,
<v Speaker 7>So I won't find anything of yours in that house
<v Speaker 7>because they guys up there right now looking for stuff
<v Speaker 7>in that house. Nothing in there is gonna come back
<v Speaker 7>that's yours, right, no, sir, And you're not gonna have
<v Speaker 7>any blood in there. You're not gonna have anything in there, noir, Okay,
<v Speaker 7>because I want you're being honest with me right now.
<v Speaker 2>I'm completely august. Thank you, Aunt the same my life
<v Speaker 2>took you.
<v Speaker 6>Thank you, God blessed you.
<v Speaker 1>In the hospital, Jacob was safe, he only had minor injuries,
<v Speaker 1>and he was grateful, even thanking and blessing the officer
<v Speaker 1>and the nurse who were helping him. He'd make it
<v Speaker 1>home after all. But across the street, Marie belt Castro
<v Speaker 1>was lying dead in a heap of blood, while Jacob
<v Speaker 1>blamed two boys with guns. Investigators canvas the neighborhood. They
<v Speaker 1>questioned everyone who might have seen somebody, anybody really going
<v Speaker 1>into or out of Marie's house that afternoon. No one had.
<v Speaker 7>Why are the neighbors saying that they didn't see anybody
<v Speaker 7>over there but you?
<v Speaker 6>Oh huh, Well.
<v Speaker 7>A couple of the neighbors over there said they saw
<v Speaker 7>you coming out of the house. Why would they say that?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah?
<v Speaker 7>Why would the neighbors say they only saw you come
<v Speaker 7>out of the house.
<v Speaker 6>Ah, there was first act over there.
<v Speaker 1>They were saying that because it was true. But Jacob's
<v Speaker 1>lies kept coming, along with new names.
<v Speaker 7>Jackson when did he come on scene? I thought it
<v Speaker 7>was DeVante and the other guy, the white guy.
<v Speaker 6>No, it is t I think Jacob.
<v Speaker 7>Let me explain something to you. You watch TV a lot,
<v Speaker 7>You watched TV all.
<v Speaker 8>Yeah.
<v Speaker 7>Have you ever watched CSI or any of that where
<v Speaker 7>they do crime scene stuff?
<v Speaker 6>Yeah?
<v Speaker 7>Yeah, Well I got my crime scene guys up right now.
<v Speaker 7>And your story isn't adding up to what you're telling me.
<v Speaker 7>And see, I'm up here trying to help you out
<v Speaker 7>and get you in front of this so that you
<v Speaker 7>don't end up with a bigger mess than it could
<v Speaker 7>be already. And I don't think you're telling me the
<v Speaker 7>truth because your story keeps changing a lot, and I've
<v Speaker 7>got witnesses up there.
<v Speaker 1>Jacob's story kept shifting, full of names and details that
<v Speaker 1>led nowhere. By then, investigators already knew this wasn't some
<v Speaker 1>random encounter. Jacob had been in and out of detention
<v Speaker 1>for years, with probation officers and judges trying and failing
<v Speaker 1>to rain him in.
<v Speaker 11>He had been just been released from the Juvenile Justice
<v Speaker 11>Center about five hours earlier. He had been literally in
<v Speaker 11>jail till about he was released. I think we found
<v Speaker 11>out about eleven o'clock. We had video of at eleven
<v Speaker 11>in the morning, and of course Marie was murdered sometime
<v Speaker 11>between four o'clock, between like three o'clock and four o'clock,
<v Speaker 11>because we had people that had been to her house
<v Speaker 11>and seen her after the lunch hour during the lunch hour,
<v Speaker 11>so we know she was alive at least during say
<v Speaker 11>one or two o'clock. And Jacob what he did was
<v Speaker 11>he broke into her house. There was video of him
<v Speaker 11>in the alley. Ob security from the neighbor actually showed
<v Speaker 11>him in the alleyway. He broke into the house. He
<v Speaker 11>obviously committed the murder of Marie, beat her in three
<v Speaker 11>different locations and at that point then he rifled through
<v Speaker 11>her purse. He went down to the basement where this
<v Speaker 11>was an older, kind of nineteen fifties built house. There
<v Speaker 11>was an old little bar dout there. I don't think
<v Speaker 11>Marie Bilcaster had used that bar for a number of years.
<v Speaker 11>But there were some liquor bottles that he ended up taking,
<v Speaker 11>and he was seen on the video in the alleyway
<v Speaker 11>with those bottles. They actually were recovered and a couple
<v Speaker 11>of those bottles of alcohol had his DNA on the bottle.
<v Speaker 1>That wasn't the only place they found DNA evidence. When
<v Speaker 1>Jacob was in the hospital, nurses noticed blood in his underwear.
<v Speaker 1>When they took him to the restroom to urinate, they
<v Speaker 1>discovered that his penis and groin area had blood and
<v Speaker 1>it was Marie. Later the police would confirm this by
<v Speaker 1>recovering the washcloth the nurse had used to wipe him.
<v Speaker 11>He eventually drug her to a bedroom where he attempted
<v Speaker 11>to rape her. She was still bleeding at that point,
<v Speaker 11>but you know, for all intents and purposes, she was
<v Speaker 11>brain dead. We know for a fact that he had
<v Speaker 11>her blood on his penis because we were able to
<v Speaker 11>swab that and get that information, or you know, get
<v Speaker 11>that evidence.
<v Speaker 1>This wasn't the story of a troubled kid who just
<v Speaker 1>needed another chance. Prosecutors said Jacob had already burned through
<v Speaker 1>every chance he'd ever been given, and what he did
<v Speaker 1>to Marie bel Castro proved he was beyond redemption. Sorry
<v Speaker 1>to say, but sometimes it's just time to give up
<v Speaker 1>and put a bullet in their head for a couple
<v Speaker 1>thousand vaults through their body. I mean, what do we
<v Speaker 1>need these people for anyway?
<v Speaker 11>But Jacob had a long history of behavioral problems, and
<v Speaker 11>he had bombed out of a number of programs that
<v Speaker 11>were designed to help him. He didn't respond well to
<v Speaker 11>any treatment. He was in a treatment facility called the
<v Speaker 11>smith House Quest for about three months in late twenty fourteen,
<v Speaker 11>and if you recall, this murder happened in March thirty
<v Speaker 11>first of twenty fifteen, and while he was there, he
<v Speaker 11>made threats against residents, was caught masturbating. He'd punched another
<v Speaker 11>juvenile there. He was found to be in the computer
<v Speaker 11>room and admitted that he liked to look at women
<v Speaker 11>and masturbate to them. He used another inmates computer there
<v Speaker 11>to send sexually explicit emails to a teacher. So he
<v Speaker 11>had a long history of behavioral problems and sexual deviation
<v Speaker 11>and violence.
<v Speaker 1>Even his own parents were afraid of them.
<v Speaker 11>Now he had a little bit of a difficult start.
<v Speaker 11>His parents were divorced, but by all accounts, his mother
<v Speaker 11>was pretty good to him. His other siblings were pretty
<v Speaker 11>decent kids. They didn't commit these type of crimes and
<v Speaker 11>didn't even come close to committing any types of crimes.
<v Speaker 11>At one point was committed or sentence actually for a
<v Speaker 11>domestic violence when he threw a Mason jar candle at
<v Speaker 11>his seven year old sister and a hit her in
<v Speaker 11>the eye, and she required eighteen stitches. At one point,
<v Speaker 11>the stepfather said, we had to put padlocks on all
<v Speaker 11>the other children's bedrooms doors because Jacob would steal anything
<v Speaker 11>and everything and then sell it for drugs. So all
<v Speaker 11>the children had padlocks on their bedroom door so Jacob
<v Speaker 11>could not get in there and steal anything from them
<v Speaker 11>that he could use to sell. The father also told
<v Speaker 11>us in a written statement and a recorded statement, I
<v Speaker 11>believe that he was so afraid of Jacob and his
<v Speaker 11>violence that he was sleeping with a gun under his pillow.
<v Speaker 11>That's how bad Jacob was.
<v Speaker 1>Even with that history, what drove Jacob on March thirty
<v Speaker 1>first to still unclear. He had been released from juvenile
<v Speaker 1>detention only hours earlier, full of restlessness and agitation. Maybe
<v Speaker 1>he was simply looking for a dopamine hit. He'd been
<v Speaker 1>diagnosed with ADHD as a child, but of course most
<v Speaker 1>people with ADHD aren't violent, most people in general aren't violent.
<v Speaker 1>Maybe he was looking for money or alcohol. Things he
<v Speaker 1>knew Marie kept in her home, offered him meals and
<v Speaker 1>snacks before and even gave him loose change, but her
<v Speaker 1>daughter was clear those small acts of kindness happened only
<v Speaker 1>on the porch. Marie never let them inside.
<v Speaker 11>I have no idea what Jacob's motive was. He never
<v Speaker 11>stayed in it. He never gave the police any information.
<v Speaker 11>Of course, he deflected and lied, and you know, even
<v Speaker 11>lied about where he got the blood on his clothes
<v Speaker 11>from to his own parents. But it's clear that he
<v Speaker 11>was sexually deviant. There's a long track record of him
<v Speaker 11>having sexual fantasies and deviations and masturbating and looking at pornography.
<v Speaker 11>And the other thing was he's clearly as a violent
<v Speaker 11>track record. He is just one of those individuals that
<v Speaker 11>if you were beside him, he didn't care for his
<v Speaker 11>broad daylight, because Marie was killed in the middle of
<v Speaker 11>the afternoon. If he wanted something, which maybe he wanted
<v Speaker 11>the liquor in this case, or maybe just you know,
<v Speaker 11>had sexual fans and wanted to, you know, have some
<v Speaker 11>kind of sexual fantasy with a woman. He knew Marie
<v Speaker 11>was ninety four years old and lived basically in his backyard,
<v Speaker 11>and he could take advantage and enter her home. And
<v Speaker 11>you know though that could be part of the motivation too.
<v Speaker 1>Whatever Jacob's reasons. The evidence left little doubt. His bloody
<v Speaker 1>shoe prints tracked through Marie's home, a mag light, flashlight
<v Speaker 1>stained with her blood, DNA all over the scene and
<v Speaker 1>on Marie. Neighbors saw him wandering half naked and drunk,
<v Speaker 1>his body smeared with Marie's blood. By the time investigators
<v Speaker 1>finished collecting evidence, there was no question who had been
<v Speaker 1>inside five h nine Cherry that afternoon and who had not.
<v Speaker 1>Jacob left the hospital that evening after being treated for
<v Speaker 1>minor injuries. They went back home, hoping he had somehow
<v Speaker 1>convinced the police that not only was he innocent, but
<v Speaker 1>that he was also a victim. By this time, his
<v Speaker 1>family was beyond suspicious. They already knew what life with
<v Speaker 1>him was like.
<v Speaker 11>His siblings are you know, normal human beings, are normal people,
<v Speaker 11>and he just put this whole family, including his mother
<v Speaker 11>and his siblings obviously by you know, causing the injuries
<v Speaker 11>to the sister. He just put him through hell. You know,
<v Speaker 11>the fact that they had the padlock the bedroom doors,
<v Speaker 11>the fact that the stepfather had to sleep with a gun.
<v Speaker 11>I mean, this kid was just just the devil incarnated
<v Speaker 11>inside this house and in this whole neighborhood.
<v Speaker 1>Just after midnight, deputies surround his house after hearing from
<v Speaker 1>dispatch that he's threatening suicide by cop. Spotlights flood the house.
<v Speaker 1>A PA system booms his name, ordering him out. Jacob hesitates.
<v Speaker 1>He tells officers on the phone he's worried about his dogs,
<v Speaker 1>and then he's quiet. Minutes drag on, as Jacob's parents
<v Speaker 1>coach him. Finally, Jacob steps into the doorway. He edges forward,
<v Speaker 1>but then backs up. The officers keep calling him. At last,
<v Speaker 1>he walks into the open. He doesn't fight, He just says,
<v Speaker 1>I'm going to jail, Well Dave.
<v Speaker 12>After spending all day yesterday trying to sit a jury
<v Speaker 12>in this case, Jacob LaRosa himself pleaded no contest to
<v Speaker 12>charges named in an amended indictment. This morning, Now Judge
<v Speaker 12>Wyatt McKay found LaRosa guilty of the charges, including aggravated murder,
<v Speaker 12>aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary, and attempted rape. The charges stem
<v Speaker 12>from the brutal attack on ninety four year old Marie
<v Speaker 12>Belcastro inside her Niles home back in March of twenty fifteen.
<v Speaker 12>Now LaRosa was arrested shortly after the crime and has
<v Speaker 12>been held on three million dollars bond at the Juvenile
<v Speaker 12>Detention Center ever since. But now that he's eighteen and
<v Speaker 12>convicted of the crime, he'll be more moved over to
<v Speaker 12>the Trumbull County Jail.
<v Speaker 13>At some point very.
<v Speaker 1>Shortly, Jacob pleaded no contest but would be sentenced as
<v Speaker 1>an adult. This meant that for the charges of aggravated murder,
<v Speaker 1>the court could impose the maximum penalty of life in
<v Speaker 1>prison without the possibility of parole. The death penalty was
<v Speaker 1>off the table because he was a juvenile when he
<v Speaker 1>committed the crime.
<v Speaker 4>When they were trying to see the jury, they couldn't
<v Speaker 4>get people to have any sense of fairness or impartiality
<v Speaker 4>on the question of Jacob LaRosa because they had all
<v Speaker 4>heard about the murder and they all had a very
<v Speaker 4>strong opinion about what should happen to LaRosa. And it
<v Speaker 4>just shows you the goodness of the man on the
<v Speaker 4>street who when presented with something very black and white
<v Speaker 4>and clear cut, like the murder of a helpless old lady,
<v Speaker 4>they know what to do.
<v Speaker 1>And this is part of what Chris Becker had to
<v Speaker 1>say in his closing arguments at Jacob's sentencing He.
<v Speaker 11>Had beaten her in the living room and in the
<v Speaker 11>dining room, and parts of her skull were found in
<v Speaker 11>both places. Her hearing aids had been basically beat out
<v Speaker 11>of her head. That's why I refer to Jacob Leosa
<v Speaker 11>as just an animal. Is he is? He should be
<v Speaker 11>locked up forever.
<v Speaker 7>You know.
<v Speaker 11>My grandfather used to say all the time, if you
<v Speaker 11>act like an animal, you should be treated like an animal.
<v Speaker 11>And Jacob Rosa is clearly an animal.
<v Speaker 1>Of course, the defense team didn't see it that way.
<v Speaker 1>They saw him as a child of fifteen with his
<v Speaker 1>whole life ahead of him, just a little baby boy,
<v Speaker 1>just ready to go out into the world, you know,
<v Speaker 1>such a bright future ahead And that was exactly the problem.
<v Speaker 1>What other heinous crimes would he commit with an entire
<v Speaker 1>life ahead of him? Remember, in the hospital, Jacob was
<v Speaker 1>grateful his life had been saved, but only hours earlier
<v Speaker 1>he had snuffed out the life of a sweet old
<v Speaker 1>lady and then lied about it.
<v Speaker 7>God bless me, Why would I do?
<v Speaker 6>We saved him on life? You got me hearing you
<v Speaker 6>guys sayed my life.
<v Speaker 7>Okay.
<v Speaker 1>It's hard to believe that Jacob would be capable of
<v Speaker 1>believing in God. It does take a certain amount of
<v Speaker 1>humility to admit there's a higher power, and it's even
<v Speaker 1>hard to believe that he was truly grateful for anything
<v Speaker 1>except himself. His life.
<v Speaker 11>Jacob, for whatever reason, whatever wires were crossed in his brain,
<v Speaker 11>whatever happened to him, something got into him and made
<v Speaker 11>him this animal that ended up taking the life of
<v Speaker 11>a wonderful by all accounts, ninety four year old woman.
<v Speaker 6>Oh, she was a very nice lady.
<v Speaker 1>She'd do anything for you.
<v Speaker 5>I can't understand anybody would want to hurt her, really,
<v Speaker 5>because she'd do anything for you.
<v Speaker 6>She'd go out of her way for you.
<v Speaker 1>Jacob's life had been spared once already, or at least
<v Speaker 1>he pretended to see it that way. But now it
<v Speaker 1>was really on the line, like for real, real. He
<v Speaker 1>couldn't be given a death penalty because he was a minor,
<v Speaker 1>but he would be eligible for life without parole, and
<v Speaker 1>that's exactly what Marie's family was hoping for. Would the
<v Speaker 1>justice system spare him or would a judge know what
<v Speaker 1>to do? As Marie's grandson Brian pointed out, fortunately, Attorney
<v Speaker 1>Becker didn't have to prove motive. Some people on this
<v Speaker 1>earth are just sociopaths and that's all they'll ever be.
<v Speaker 11>The good news is I don't have to prove motive,
<v Speaker 11>and thank goodness, he never told us what his motive was,
<v Speaker 11>because I don't think there's any real reason. You know,
<v Speaker 11>you can always understand why maybe someone who's homeless or
<v Speaker 11>a drug addict may steal something because you know, I'm
<v Speaker 11>hungry or I have a drug addiction, But this is
<v Speaker 11>a case where you're just dealing with a psychopath who's
<v Speaker 11>a violent sexual predator, and he's like, I say, you know,
<v Speaker 11>I still believe this day he's one of the one
<v Speaker 11>of the people that I have prosecuted, and there's a
<v Speaker 11>number of them, but he is definitely one of the
<v Speaker 11>people that probably should have got the death batalty, but
<v Speaker 11>because he was under eighteen that the US Supreme Court
<v Speaker 11>has prohibited that. But he certainly should be dying in prison.
<v Speaker 1>At the sentencing hearing, Marie's daughter spoke, wanting to remind
<v Speaker 1>the judge exactly what she found the day she walked
<v Speaker 1>in on what Jacob had left behind.
<v Speaker 14>I'm seeing splattered on the wall and mom's curse dumped.
<v Speaker 14>So I go into the first bedroom and there she
<v Speaker 14>was on the floor, and I knew, and I put
<v Speaker 14>my hand on her head, and I put my hand
<v Speaker 14>on her back, and her back was still wet.
<v Speaker 6>It was wet with blood.
<v Speaker 1>Jacob tried to seem remorseful, but some things you just
<v Speaker 1>can't fake.
<v Speaker 15>I'm sorry for what I did, and I hope pray
<v Speaker 15>Mary Lekasho's family everyone else can reach down deep in
<v Speaker 15>their hearts and forgive me. I am sorry to the
<v Speaker 15>people I hurt and let down. I am sorry to
<v Speaker 15>my family that I heard for so long. I'm sorry
<v Speaker 15>to the people I bullied, disrespecting, stolen from. And I'm
<v Speaker 15>sorry to the court system for everything I've done. I'm
<v Speaker 15>sorry to the staff I disrespected in the past.
<v Speaker 1>The thing is her name was Marie, not Mary, but
<v Speaker 1>he was either too stupid to remember it or he
<v Speaker 1>just didn't give a shit, and the list of people
<v Speaker 1>he disrespected kept rolling out of his mouth more like
<v Speaker 1>a fifth step from a chronic double, a regular making
<v Speaker 1>amends because they have to, rather than anything resembling real remorse.
<v Speaker 1>Even more damning than his robotic apology was what he
<v Speaker 1>said to a jail inmate while awaiting trial. This quite
<v Speaker 1>possibly explains his motive According to him, Jacob said that
<v Speaker 1>he was at a party with friends and they were drinking.
<v Speaker 1>They ran out of alcohol, so he said he was
<v Speaker 1>going to go find some more, and he knew that
<v Speaker 1>this old lady had alcohol at her house, so he
<v Speaker 1>went there to take it, but he couldn't find it.
<v Speaker 1>He said he saw her sitting in the living room
<v Speaker 1>and he just grabbed the flashlight from the table and
<v Speaker 1>hit her with it. He said she fell over and
<v Speaker 1>started to scream, so he kept hitting her until she stopped.
<v Speaker 1>Then he dragged her to the bedroom. He was going
<v Speaker 1>to try to rape her, but he couldn't get it up,
<v Speaker 1>so he just left her there on the floor.
<v Speaker 11>The prison term of life without parole in the State
<v Speaker 11>Peen Institution.
<v Speaker 13>Showing no remorse, The now nineteen year old Jacob LaRosa
<v Speaker 13>was given the maximum sentence allowed by law for the
<v Speaker 13>aggravated murder of ninety four year old Marie Belcastro, and
<v Speaker 13>on top of that, thirty additional years for charges of
<v Speaker 13>aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery and attempted rape, all stemming from
<v Speaker 13>what happened inside bel Castro's Chair Avenue home back in
<v Speaker 13>March of twenty fifteen.
<v Speaker 1>But this is Ohio, and in Ohio, sometimes up is
<v Speaker 1>down and down is up, and sometimes even a sentence
<v Speaker 1>of life without parole doesn't really mean life without parole.
<v Speaker 1>Jacob Loosso was fifteen years old living with his mother
<v Speaker 1>on Lafayette Avenue in Niles, Ohio. On March thirty first,
<v Speaker 1>twenty fifteen, just out of juvie, he came home drunk, barefoot,
<v Speaker 1>and covered in blood. Across the street, his ninety four
<v Speaker 1>year old neighbor, Marie bel Castro, was found beaten to
<v Speaker 1>death inside her home. The evidence was overwhelming, Jacob's bloody shoe, prince,
<v Speaker 1>the maglite flashlight, Marie's DNA in his underwear. He was
<v Speaker 1>arrested within hours, charged as an adult, and in twenty
<v Speaker 1>eighteen sentenced to life without parole. But this is Ohio,
<v Speaker 1>and that sentence wouldn't hold.
<v Speaker 11>The Ohio legislature then passed Senate Bill two fifty six,
<v Speaker 11>which retroactively gave defendants such as Jacob that were serving
<v Speaker 11>life sentences with no parole eligibility after serving twenty five years.
<v Speaker 11>It was an absolute I can't even put a proper
<v Speaker 11>adjective on how awful this legislation was. Not only for
<v Speaker 11>the victims, but for the state of Ohio, and it
<v Speaker 11>was done for political purposes.
<v Speaker 1>Isn't that always the case? Is there really any justice
<v Speaker 1>when lawmakers negotiate, make deals and set themselves up to
<v Speaker 1>win the next election by sabotaging the rest of us
<v Speaker 1>am I a little jaded, maybe, or maybe I'm just
<v Speaker 1>spitting some truth.
<v Speaker 11>Matt Dolan, who his family owns the Cleveland Guardians, is
<v Speaker 11>a horrible, horrible legislature and everyone that voted for this
<v Speaker 11>did a horrible job of looking at the facts. And
<v Speaker 11>anytime you retroactively let monsters like Jacob l Rosa give
<v Speaker 11>them a benefit, it's just horrible. And our Ohio legislature
<v Speaker 11>did a horrible job on the passage of Senate Bill
<v Speaker 11>to fifty six.
<v Speaker 1>This was a law that basically said anyone who committed
<v Speaker 1>a crime while under the age of eighteen and was
<v Speaker 1>given life without parole was given a get out of
<v Speaker 1>jail free card. Maybe not quite free, but they are
<v Speaker 1>now allowed to see parole after twenty five years. Some
<v Speaker 1>idiot thought that'd be a good idea to just set
<v Speaker 1>an upper limit, no matter how horrendous the crime. Ah,
<v Speaker 1>why because you're just a little baby just a little baby,
<v Speaker 1>just your little tiny baby, just in you. No baby, Sorry,
<v Speaker 1>let's get back to it. In Jacob's case, he would
<v Speaker 1>be in his early forties if led out, plenty of
<v Speaker 1>time to commit. Who knows what I mean. He killed me,
<v Speaker 1>a rebel castro over alcohol, within eight hours of being
<v Speaker 1>released from juvenile detention. Do you really think he's going
<v Speaker 1>to be reformed somehow?
<v Speaker 4>Not to sound dramatic, but that hit me harder than
<v Speaker 4>the murder, to be honest, Because not to minimize it,
<v Speaker 4>but she was ninety four years old. I knew that
<v Speaker 4>that call would come someday soon, ish, I didn't realize
<v Speaker 4>the manner of death. It was hard, but it was
<v Speaker 4>also People lift you up in prayer. When someone in
<v Speaker 4>your family gets murdered. I think there's a combination of
<v Speaker 4>shock and prayer and the Holy Spirit that just enveloped
<v Speaker 4>our family for weeks and still does. But when the
<v Speaker 4>Ohio legislature retroactively changes a law given your loved ones
<v Speaker 4>killer rights that he didn't previously have, there's no hallmark
<v Speaker 4>card for that, there's no prayer chain for that. There
<v Speaker 4>is the shock that the party that you supported all
<v Speaker 4>your life. I'm a lifelong Republican and it was my
<v Speaker 4>old Republican buddies in Ohio. I used to work for
<v Speaker 4>the Ohio Republican Party. I raised money for Governor Mike DeLine.
<v Speaker 4>When your own political family betrays you and basically says,
<v Speaker 4>which is what SB. Two five six did, it said,
<v Speaker 4>you have to go to parole hearings every five years your.
<v Speaker 1>Own political family. Let's be clear, there's no such thing
<v Speaker 1>as a political family. There's nothing familial about politics.
<v Speaker 11>Well, it happened because a lot of these Republicans are
<v Speaker 11>the typical rhinos. They you know, they want to save
<v Speaker 11>money at the at the state penitentiary system. They you know,
<v Speaker 11>they pander to a lot of special interests. And in
<v Speaker 11>this particular case, like I said, it was led by
<v Speaker 11>some very wayward legislators that you know, took the bait
<v Speaker 11>of this poor little kid. He's going to have to
<v Speaker 11>spend the rest of his life in prison. It wasn't
<v Speaker 11>just Jacob, it was a number of individuals that were
<v Speaker 11>serving life sentences, but every one of them deserved it.
<v Speaker 1>The law doesn't guarantee Jacob's release, but it guarantees something else.
<v Speaker 1>Marie's family will have to keep showing up every time
<v Speaker 1>he asks for parole, to remind the board of what
<v Speaker 1>he actually did, and they'll have to do this reliving
<v Speaker 1>the murder for the rest of their lives or until
<v Speaker 1>he finally gets released. Talk about punishing victims.
<v Speaker 4>It was such a betrayal, such a punch in that
<v Speaker 4>got such a hard thing to fathom, and you contrast
<v Speaker 4>that with the security of a life without parole sentence,
<v Speaker 4>and it's night and day. We have been fighting ever
<v Speaker 4>since we learned about it. We had one victory a
<v Speaker 4>couple of years ago. They changed that time from five
<v Speaker 4>years to ten years, so it's parole hearings every ten years,
<v Speaker 4>which is certainly more manageable than every five years, but
<v Speaker 4>at the same time, to force a family to defend
<v Speaker 4>their safety against their loved one's killer, when prior to
<v Speaker 4>that you don't have to, is I think cool.
<v Speaker 1>Imagine losing someone you love the murder, then being told
<v Speaker 1>you're going to have to stand in front of a
<v Speaker 1>parole board every few years to explain why their killer
<v Speaker 1>should stay in prison. That's the reality Maurice's family now faces,
<v Speaker 1>and they're not alone because when lawmakers decide to water
<v Speaker 1>down sentences and add upper limits, it's a gift to
<v Speaker 1>all those hardcore criminals out there, and it's a punishment
<v Speaker 1>to all the families of victims. Brian has a message
<v Speaker 1>if you want to understand just how big this problem really.
<v Speaker 4>Is, the best resource I could recommend is a mouthful.
<v Speaker 4>It's the National Organization for Victims of Juvenile Murderers NVJM
<v Speaker 4>dot org. They're going to find state by state status
<v Speaker 4>on bills that might impact innocent people. They're going to
<v Speaker 4>find studies and links to books, and they're going to
<v Speaker 4>find stories, and they're going to find an article that
<v Speaker 4>I wrote when my grandmother was killed. And when you're
<v Speaker 4>a legislator, I understand you have a lot of bills
<v Speaker 4>to read and digest and understand, but I think a
<v Speaker 4>simple litmus test ought to be does this strengthen the
<v Speaker 4>innocent and punish criminals or does it do the opposite.
<v Speaker 4>And if you're a believer in goodness and you're doing
<v Speaker 4>the people's work, you want to help victims and not criminals.
<v Speaker 4>So that's a nice little litmus test for any legislator
<v Speaker 4>that is confused. As far as Ohio goes, I have
<v Speaker 4>a feeling that the next governor, Vivek Ramaswami will be
<v Speaker 4>receptive to overturning or doing what he can. The problem is,
<v Speaker 4>I guess once you give a class of people new rights,
<v Speaker 4>it's very hard to then take them away.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, think about that for a second. The bigger the
<v Speaker 1>government and the more money it spends on stupid ideas
<v Speaker 1>or programs that aren't working, the harder it is to
<v Speaker 1>undo the mess they create. It becomes one big, tangled,
<v Speaker 1>bureaucratic mess, and instead of fixing it, the next guy
<v Speaker 1>comes and spends more of your money, adding another layer
<v Speaker 1>of laws on top of it. But Brian and his
<v Speaker 1>family have actually taken action because for them it's personal.
<v Speaker 4>Well, twenty twenty one, our family did sort of an
<v Speaker 4>RV tour of Ohio. We visited thirteen county courthouses and
<v Speaker 4>did interviews with the press and just sort of raised
<v Speaker 4>awareness about Senate Bill two fifty six. It was really nice.
<v Speaker 4>We met all kinds of regular folks, some riff wrath
<v Speaker 4>everybody talked to, from homeless people to clearly people who
<v Speaker 4>are showing up for probation drug tests. You know, when
<v Speaker 4>you're at a courthouse, you see all kinds of folks.
<v Speaker 4>Right you're filing we're here to file documents. Oh, I'm
<v Speaker 4>here to file urine sample. I met a guy who
<v Speaker 4>was in prison with La Rosa who was out, and
<v Speaker 4>when I explained to him what we were doing, he said, oh,
<v Speaker 4>my gosh, Like I've never met anybody who thinks it's
<v Speaker 4>a great idea to undo the sentence of a judge,
<v Speaker 4>to give killers a second, third, eighth chance.
<v Speaker 1>Brian's daughter, Lena, Murray's great granddaughter, is a very young adult,
<v Speaker 1>but has a surprising amount of common sense and wisdom
<v Speaker 1>that many of us don't have. Here's what she said
<v Speaker 1>about the changing law and what her family has gone through.
<v Speaker 16>Just how hope in a time of darkness and conflict,
<v Speaker 16>Because I think having hope and unity with every community
<v Speaker 16>there is, I think that is the strongest form of expression.
<v Speaker 16>That is the perfect way to fight in the face
<v Speaker 16>of the very ones who control us, which is the government.
<v Speaker 9>We need to really wake up and realize, like we're
<v Speaker 9>not divided on either party.
<v Speaker 16>We're divided because of the people trying to divide us.
<v Speaker 16>We need to stay focused, not let us just like
<v Speaker 16>not let them distract us. I just feel like it's
<v Speaker 16>humanity versus insanity, and it's not even about party versus party.
<v Speaker 16>I think it's both parties versus the government. That's what
<v Speaker 16>I feel.
<v Speaker 1>But this is really about Marie Belcastro, a sweet grandma
<v Speaker 1>who didn't deserve to die in such a monstrous way.
<v Speaker 1>No one does. We asked Brian and Lena what Jigi
<v Speaker 1>would have said today if she were still alive.
<v Speaker 16>You find yourself in a position to fight for something,
<v Speaker 16>don't stop fighting for that. So that's what I'm getting
<v Speaker 16>in her, and I think she would say that would
<v Speaker 16>like love and you know, with all the kindness in
<v Speaker 16>her heart and lust from her head, you know, because
<v Speaker 16>she was the kind to me with her heart, not
<v Speaker 16>her mind.
<v Speaker 1>Murray lived for ninety four years in Niles, Ohio. She
<v Speaker 1>was a mother, a grandmother, and a great grandmother. She
<v Speaker 1>was the kind of neighbor who baked cookies, who gave
<v Speaker 1>kids a few coins for their help, and made people
<v Speaker 1>laugh with her humor. She had seen hard times, she
<v Speaker 1>had raised a family, and she had outlived so many
<v Speaker 1>of her peers. Only for this to happen to her.
<v Speaker 1>She deserved to live out the rest of her years
<v Speaker 1>in peace in the home her dad built for her
<v Speaker 1>and her family. Instead, her life was cut short in
<v Speaker 1>the most brutal way imaginable by a snot nosed kid
<v Speaker 1>hew bent on ruining lives, including his own. Still, while
<v Speaker 1>parents were putting padlocks on their bedroom doors and neighbors
<v Speaker 1>were placing surveillance cameras, Marie was giving him cookies and
<v Speaker 1>love on her front porch. She was a woman defined
<v Speaker 1>by her laughter, her love, and the simple good things
<v Speaker 1>she left behind. At her ninetieth birthday party, she told
<v Speaker 1>us herself how she wanted to be remembered.
<v Speaker 4>You love my.
<v Speaker 6>Son, Shine, my only son. Shine.
<v Speaker 2>You make me.
<v Speaker 16>When skuys are great?
<v Speaker 6>What would you like to be remembered for?
<v Speaker 16>Were all the good things that I might have done,
<v Speaker 16>which I don't know too my name were not bad things?
<v Speaker 1>Marie, though Castro, will live on the minds of those
<v Speaker 1>who knew her for all the good things she did.
<v Speaker 1>Jacob LaRosa, however, will never achieve anything. This is a
<v Speaker 1>waste of human flesh, a waste of space, a waste
<v Speaker 1>of oxygen. The fact we have a criminal justice system
<v Speaker 1>that pities, feel sorry for, and even defends him instead
<v Speaker 1>of the real victim is what the actual crime is here.
<v Speaker 1>Why are we gonna fucking wake up out of this
<v Speaker 1>haze of suicidal empathy for literal monsters. I got nothing
<v Speaker 1>else to say about it. I'm disgusted, literally disgusted by
<v Speaker 1>how we treat actual victims for the sake of appearances.
<v Speaker 1>Fuck this shit. I've been doing this for thirteen years
<v Speaker 1>for you. Can you do me a quick favor and
<v Speaker 1>head on over to YouTube dot com Slash Sword and
<v Speaker 1>Scale TV and subscribe. Would you mind? Would it kill you?
<v Speaker 1>Could you just? Could you just please kindly? Thank you?
<v Speaker 1>See you next week. Stay safet,