Episode 297

<v Speaker 1>Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is
<v Speaker 1>not intended for all audiences.
<v Speaker 2>Listener discretion is advice.
<v Speaker 3>Can you understand that there's evidence also also the President Kennedy?
<v Speaker 4>But I don't make it when we're talking about a
<v Speaker 4>Kennedy assassination, we're talking about you foot a sixteen year
<v Speaker 4>old boy in a dompster.
<v Speaker 1>You know, listening is a choice, right, some of you
<v Speaker 1>idiottack like you're doing your civic duty by censoring me. Anyway,
<v Speaker 1>this is season twelve, episode two ninety seven of Sword
<v Speaker 1>and Scale, a show on a reverence show that proves
<v Speaker 1>that the worst monsters are real. We're making a few
<v Speaker 1>changes around here, you know, moving the furniture around and whatnot,
<v Speaker 1>making Sword and Scale television a little more Sword and
<v Speaker 1>scalely because we know what you're like. Anyway, check it
<v Speaker 1>out if you have it, if you're already subscribed to
<v Speaker 1>Sword and Scale. Plus, it's just another ten bucks to
<v Speaker 1>fund our television making project, I guess you would say.
<v Speaker 1>And we've got about I don't know what fifteen episodes now,
<v Speaker 1>so you could just pop in there and check them
<v Speaker 1>out in like a couple of days if you wanted
<v Speaker 1>to the place to go is Swordandscale dot com, or
<v Speaker 1>you can just download the app on your Android device
<v Speaker 1>or your Apple device, or whatever kind of device you'll
<v Speaker 1>want a device with. And I guess that's it. I
<v Speaker 1>guess that's it. I said I was going to keep
<v Speaker 1>these short, and I lied. I'm a filthy, dirty liar,
<v Speaker 1>and you should never ever believe anything I say or
<v Speaker 1>any other podcast post says, because we're all a bunch
<v Speaker 1>of filthy liars.
<v Speaker 5>Enjoy.
<v Speaker 1>On the afternoon of June fifth, nineteen ninety four, a
<v Speaker 1>woman noticed her car making a funny noise while driving
<v Speaker 1>along the Interstate in Lake City, Florida. After pulling into
<v Speaker 1>a BP gas station to have a mechanic take a look,
<v Speaker 1>she decided to kill some time by walking her dog
<v Speaker 1>around the property.
<v Speaker 6>I was working that morning.
<v Speaker 7>The lady, I can't remember if she was towed in,
<v Speaker 7>but another car was.
<v Speaker 6>Broken down and we were working on her car, and
<v Speaker 6>she walked her dog.
<v Speaker 4>And so she walked her dog out in that field
<v Speaker 4>that was beside the station, and a dog picked up
<v Speaker 4>on the sand.
<v Speaker 1>While walking toward the back of the business, the woman's
<v Speaker 1>dog started to pull on its leash toward a nearby dumpster.
<v Speaker 1>Not exactly a great sign. At first, she thought her
<v Speaker 1>dog had tracked an animal like a raccoon that may
<v Speaker 1>be rummaging through the trash. As the hair on the
<v Speaker 1>canine's back stood up up, she noticed a stench of
<v Speaker 1>bleach and then rot, becoming more pungent with each step
<v Speaker 1>she took. Moments later, the dog stopped in his tracks
<v Speaker 1>and started barking uncontrollably. He was clearly fixated on something
<v Speaker 1>behind the dumpster. As the woman inched her way to
<v Speaker 1>get a closer look, she could see a partially opened
<v Speaker 1>black contractor bag on the ground. She could see that
<v Speaker 1>something was hanging out of the plastic, but wasn't sure
<v Speaker 1>what until her dog snout moved the bag just enough
<v Speaker 1>to reveal the gruesome contents inside.
<v Speaker 6>She turned back and thinking it was like a mannequin
<v Speaker 6>or something.
<v Speaker 8>I just yeah, dogs, it was crazy, so I decided
<v Speaker 8>I would go look.
<v Speaker 1>The gas station owner's first reaction upon scope out the
<v Speaker 1>scene was one of frustration. He thought the dark colored
<v Speaker 1>stains on the side of the dumpster and the concrete
<v Speaker 1>were transmission fluid, and that one of his lazy employees
<v Speaker 1>had simply made a mess. That is until he peeled
<v Speaker 1>back the trash back to get a closer look.
<v Speaker 9>I want to stray around the edge and lived there
<v Speaker 9>and could see.
<v Speaker 1>After notifying the police, deputies from the Columbia County Sheriff's
<v Speaker 1>Office promptly arrived on scene, only to be met by
<v Speaker 1>the dismembered torso of a young white male.
<v Speaker 2>The body was laying his white inside. One arm was
<v Speaker 2>u there was no hand.
<v Speaker 4>The other arm the left arm stand to the side.
<v Speaker 6>There the.
<v Speaker 1>As it was they had. Hands and feet were all
<v Speaker 1>missing from the scene. The man's arms had been cut
<v Speaker 1>at the elbow, while the extremities were severed just below
<v Speaker 1>the pelvic bone, leaving only the penis and genitals intact.
<v Speaker 6>What a scene.
<v Speaker 1>The victim also had a mole located on his lower
<v Speaker 1>right chest. One of the first things investigators noticed was
<v Speaker 1>how precise the cuts were, almost surgical. There were no
<v Speaker 1>defensive wounds visible on the body, and the remains looked
<v Speaker 1>like they had been scrubbed clean. There was very little
<v Speaker 1>blood on the corpse itself, with no signs of decay
<v Speaker 1>or rigor, indicating that whoever this person was, he hadn't
<v Speaker 1>been dead for very long. As more detectives flocked to
<v Speaker 1>the gas station parking lot. It became apparent that the
<v Speaker 1>killer attempted to hide the remains in the dumpster, but
<v Speaker 1>may have had some trouble lifting the bag.
<v Speaker 4>It was like a cuddle of blood blood air in
<v Speaker 4>the stained lift of puddle in one around.
<v Speaker 6>The backing told tell something and been drilled through the user.
<v Speaker 1>Blood smears on the upper part of the trash compartment
<v Speaker 1>indicated that someone had tried to toss the bag torso
<v Speaker 1>in the trash but had missed. The drag marks of
<v Speaker 1>blood and dirt visible on the asphalt trailing behind the
<v Speaker 1>dumpster supported this theory as well. Inside the dumpster itself,
<v Speaker 1>detectives found several black garbage bags. In them were a
<v Speaker 1>blood soaked foam egg crate, mattress topper, orange latex gloves,
<v Speaker 1>and two Ginzu style kitchen knives a great buy one
<v Speaker 1>get one free value. One of them was an eight
<v Speaker 1>inch serrated blade, while the other was a small standard
<v Speaker 1>stake knife. On the blade and handles of both instruments
<v Speaker 1>was the presence of a white powder like substance that
<v Speaker 1>appeared to be some kind of bleach like ajax or
<v Speaker 1>comment brightly colored floral shaped bath decals A non slip
<v Speaker 1>mat and a red, bloodstained flannel shirt were also recovered
<v Speaker 1>from the inside of the trash backs. While crime scene
<v Speaker 1>texts sifted through the trash collecting evidence, deputies interviewed the
<v Speaker 1>few witnesses there were, including the gas station owner, in
<v Speaker 1>hopes of learning who might be responsible.
<v Speaker 6>Is there anything I hadn't asked you about? Did I
<v Speaker 6>need to ask you? Or something you think about the
<v Speaker 6>bothers you or anything about it?
<v Speaker 4>By that top deal that I wish I'd never had
<v Speaker 4>to see it.
<v Speaker 6>Us sir.
<v Speaker 1>The next day, on June sixth, the torso was transported
<v Speaker 1>to the District for Medical Examiner's office in Jacksonville, Florida,
<v Speaker 1>where seasoned forensic pathologist doctor Margherita Arusa conducted her examination.
<v Speaker 1>It was determined that the male had traces of over
<v Speaker 1>the counter cold or flu medicine in his system, suggesting
<v Speaker 1>that the victim may have been immobilized or incapacitated before
<v Speaker 1>the dismemberment. The autopsy also revealed that the male victim
<v Speaker 1>was likely between fifteen and twenty two years old, stood
<v Speaker 1>around five foot eight inches tall, and had light brown hair. Unfortunately,
<v Speaker 1>at the time, there weren't any missing persons in the
<v Speaker 1>NCIS database fitting this description. After the items found in
<v Speaker 1>the dumpster were processed, forensic analysts were unable to lift
<v Speaker 1>any usable fingerprints, having said that a strand a hare
<v Speaker 1>was found on the latex glove and the bloody flannel
<v Speaker 1>and mattress topper had the obvious presence of DNA. Unfortunately,
<v Speaker 1>due to the lack of resources back in the mid nineties,
<v Speaker 1>the items were ultimately sheltered in an evidence locker somewhere
<v Speaker 1>in Lake City, Florida, where they would remain indefinitely, kind
<v Speaker 1>of like in the final scene of Indiana Jones. As
<v Speaker 1>the investigation slowly unfolded, the small town of Lake City
<v Speaker 1>buzzed with whispers and rumors. Gossip about a truck that
<v Speaker 1>had been allegedly sighted and the gas station parking lot
<v Speaker 1>started to circulate. Some claimed that it was a van
<v Speaker 1>they saw leaving the area before the gruesome discovery was
<v Speaker 1>made of van. Police followed up on these leads, but
<v Speaker 1>they were all dead ends. The first substantial clue came
<v Speaker 1>shortly after the story broke, when a witness came forward
<v Speaker 1>with new information. Around seven am on June fifth, nineteen
<v Speaker 1>ninety four, a man was driving past the BP gas
<v Speaker 1>station on his way home after working the night shift.
<v Speaker 2>This is when he.
<v Speaker 1>Noticed a suspicious car parked at the scene hours before
<v Speaker 1>the body was found.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, the car to the dumps it large car land
<v Speaker 3>short call at in was like a fire.
<v Speaker 2>Way hood was slammed.
<v Speaker 6>Now it appeared to be dark. Jay's actually colored a
<v Speaker 6>dark color leading.
<v Speaker 1>The sleek sports car would have turned heads anywhere in
<v Speaker 1>Lake City, Florida, but the fact that it was seen
<v Speaker 1>backed up to a dumpster in the early morning hours
<v Speaker 1>made the vehicle that much more. The witness told investigators
<v Speaker 1>it looked like someone was in the process of finishing
<v Speaker 1>up unloading something from the two door coup. The driver's
<v Speaker 1>door was open and the back hatch was up. The
<v Speaker 1>witness said that he could see someone in the driver's seat,
<v Speaker 1>but was unable to get a good look and couldn't
<v Speaker 1>really make out his or her physical description. It wasn't
<v Speaker 1>long before the case of the unidentified John Delle made
<v Speaker 1>national headline news, and the story was picked up by
<v Speaker 1>programs like Crime Stoppers and America's Most Wanted. Meanwhile, investigators
<v Speaker 1>worked tirelessly pursuing leads, but despite garnering widespread attention, authorities
<v Speaker 1>had little to go on. Months eventually turned into years,
<v Speaker 1>and public interests fizzled out. The people of Lake City
<v Speaker 1>eventually carried on with their lives, and before the year
<v Speaker 1>was over, the case had officially gone cold. Years went
<v Speaker 1>by and the case faded from the spotlight into obscurity.
<v Speaker 1>The unanswered questions surrounding the torso behind the dumpster seemed
<v Speaker 1>destined to remain that way. As for law enforcement, the
<v Speaker 1>case was never far from their minds. Authorities held on
<v Speaker 1>to this slim chance that the evidence now collecting dust
<v Speaker 1>might one day reveal the truth. Perhaps someday in the future,
<v Speaker 1>you know, when the cars are driving themselves and we're
<v Speaker 1>all living like the Jetsons, we'll be able to solve
<v Speaker 1>this strange and obscure case. Well, that chance ultimately came
<v Speaker 1>in twenty ten, when the bloody flannel shirt and orange
<v Speaker 1>gloves were pulled from storage and sent back to the lab.
<v Speaker 1>Nearly sixteen years after this mysterious crime occurred, advancements in
<v Speaker 1>DNA testing led investigators to re examine the items from
<v Speaker 1>the crime scene. Two partial DNA profiles were located, but
<v Speaker 1>neither matched any known offenders in the NCIS database. It
<v Speaker 1>was progress, but not enough, and it wouldn't be for
<v Speaker 1>another five years until investigators truly started connecting the dots.
<v Speaker 1>In twenty fifteen, the cousins of a young man named
<v Speaker 1>Fred Laster were researching cold cases online. Fred was only
<v Speaker 1>sixteen years old when he went missing back in nineteen
<v Speaker 1>ninety four, but when his family came across a John
<v Speaker 1>Doe poster for a male victim whose torso was behind
<v Speaker 1>a dumpster twenty one years before, the description was hauntingly familiar.
<v Speaker 1>The height, the specific physical features. They all matched Fred,
<v Speaker 1>who had disappeared without a trace around the same time.
<v Speaker 1>The poster, provided by the National Center for Missing and
<v Speaker 1>Exploited Children website, also included a photo of the red
<v Speaker 1>flannel shirt and bathtub decals that had been inside the dumpster.
<v Speaker 1>Fred's cousins then contacted the missing teens brothers and sisters
<v Speaker 1>who remembered having seen these items before.
<v Speaker 9>Found a shirt he was wearing at the time, and
<v Speaker 9>I found my cousins described the the skid things in
<v Speaker 9>the bathtoe.
<v Speaker 1>Fred's siblings revealed a disturbing connection to investigators over the phone,
<v Speaker 1>which was a family acquaintance named Ron Hide. Ron Hyde
<v Speaker 1>had been a trusted figure in their lives. The family
<v Speaker 1>knew Ron Hide very well, and all of the children
<v Speaker 1>had been inside his home many times. The missing teen's
<v Speaker 1>family went on to inform investigators that Hide was known
<v Speaker 1>to drive a dark colored Camaro, resembling the vehicle spotted
<v Speaker 1>near the crime scene in nineteen ninety four. This little
<v Speaker 1>revelation prompted detectives to take a closer look into Ron
<v Speaker 1>Hyde for the first time since the torso was found
<v Speaker 1>over two decades ago. In the early morning of June fifth,
<v Speaker 1>nineteen ninety four, a woman made a horrible discovery behind
<v Speaker 1>a bp gas station off Interstate ten. Not sure what
<v Speaker 1>kind of discovery you would make behind a BPA gas
<v Speaker 1>station that was anything but horrible, But I digress. I
<v Speaker 1>digress a lot these days. It's starting to become a
<v Speaker 1>bad habit. Anyway. There was a dismembered torso, stripped of
<v Speaker 1>identifying features, wrapped in bloodstained plastic behind that BPAK gas station.
<v Speaker 1>In fact, it was behind a dumpster behind that BPA
<v Speaker 1>gas station. The gruesome vind sent shockwaves through the small
<v Speaker 1>Florida community, but despite extensive forensic efforts and witness tips,
<v Speaker 1>the case hit one dead end after the next, the
<v Speaker 1>investigation went cold, leaving behind a trail of unanswered questions
<v Speaker 1>and a nameless victim. It wasn't until two decades later
<v Speaker 1>that Fred Laster's cousin stumbled upon a flyer featuring items
<v Speaker 1>recovered at a nineteen ninety four crime scene related to
<v Speaker 1>a John Doe. When the family alerted authorities in twenty fifteen,
<v Speaker 1>they shared another chilling detail. Fred was last heard from
<v Speaker 1>while in the company of a trusted family acquaintance named
<v Speaker 1>Ron Hyde. Fred's family also revealed that Hide drove a
<v Speaker 1>dark colored Camaro similar to the one spotted at the
<v Speaker 1>crime scene. According to the family's statements to police, in
<v Speaker 1>the early summer of nineteen ninety four, Fred packed a
<v Speaker 1>bag with a handful of clothes before leaving his sister's
<v Speaker 1>apartment and getting into Ron Hyde's vehicle, who had come
<v Speaker 1>to pick him up. At the time, his siblings believed
<v Speaker 1>Fred was preparing to leave on tour with his band
<v Speaker 1>in the following days. He was supposed to do a
<v Speaker 1>short stint of shows down the Florida coastline, but when
<v Speaker 1>Fred's siblings received a phone call from him hours later,
<v Speaker 1>they knew something wasn't right.
<v Speaker 8>He's a friend, and she's like, he's a year and
<v Speaker 8>really told to you and.
<v Speaker 10>She's like, and he's a year.
<v Speaker 1>Fred's sister told police that her brother sounded strange over
<v Speaker 1>the phone and not like his normal self. He sounded distant,
<v Speaker 1>both emotionally and literally. According to Fred's sister, it sounded
<v Speaker 1>like he was outside when he called her. When she
<v Speaker 1>asked Fred what was going on, he told her that
<v Speaker 1>he had just called to tell his family that he
<v Speaker 1>loved them. A short time later, after this new information surfaced,
<v Speaker 1>investigators followed up Fred's siblings to collect swabs of their DNA.
<v Speaker 1>The results ultimately came back as a match to the
<v Speaker 1>blood found on the red flannel shirt, confirming that Fred
<v Speaker 1>had been murdered. Roughly one year later, on April twelfth,
<v Speaker 1>twenty sixteen, a trash poll was conducted at Ron Hyde's
<v Speaker 1>Jacksonville Beach, Florida home. Two garbage backs were removed from
<v Speaker 1>a bin he had placed by the roadside. At the
<v Speaker 1>top of the first trash bag was a piece of
<v Speaker 1>the suspect's male as well as a red solo cup
<v Speaker 1>that contained several used zycam nasal swabs. After those items
<v Speaker 1>were sent off for DNA testing, they came back as
<v Speaker 1>a match to a second profile discovered on the bloody flannel.
<v Speaker 1>In addition, the strand of hair located on the orange
<v Speaker 1>bloody gloves found at the dumpster matched Ron Hide's de
<v Speaker 1>check mate. On March sixth, twenty seventeen, officers surrounded hides
<v Speaker 1>Jacksonville Beach home. He was taken into custody without further incident,
<v Speaker 1>and investigators executed search warrants on his two Florida properties.
<v Speaker 5>Pretty much all day.
<v Speaker 11>We've been seeing people in hazmat suits.
<v Speaker 1>We saw guitar cases.
<v Speaker 5>Being brought out.
<v Speaker 1>There's a wheelbarrow tractor.
<v Speaker 6>They're bringing out evidence left and right.
<v Speaker 1>It looks like utilizing heavy machinery. Authorities started digging up
<v Speaker 1>Hide's yard and while recovering Fred's limbs and skullwar among
<v Speaker 1>the top items of interest, there was no telling what
<v Speaker 1>he had back there.
<v Speaker 10>That had to be very careful about that to make
<v Speaker 10>sure they don't damage any remains that may be there,
<v Speaker 10>to see if there remains of other people. There may
<v Speaker 10>be some other children who may have been involved, who
<v Speaker 10>are associated with Highe.
<v Speaker 6>They may have been point of missing, had never located,
<v Speaker 6>so it's.
<v Speaker 10>Going to take some time. To do that, to be
<v Speaker 10>very careful and checked the backyard front yards of all
<v Speaker 10>the properties that Hide either owned or lived at.
<v Speaker 1>As far as the interior goes, Hides Jacksonville Beach home
<v Speaker 1>rivaled Annie Dwelling shown on the television show Hoarders. You've
<v Speaker 1>seen that show, right, It's pretty horrifying. The condition of
<v Speaker 1>Hyde's home was so putrid that the crime scene texts
<v Speaker 1>and authorities alike were forced to wear respirators while navigating
<v Speaker 1>through piles of garbage. Perhaps the most crucial discovery made
<v Speaker 1>was the impression of floral decals located in the bathtub.
<v Speaker 1>The outlines of dirt and grime definitively matched those of
<v Speaker 1>the decals found inside the gas station dumpster over two
<v Speaker 1>decades prior, the ones that were, you know, near a
<v Speaker 1>body and stuff. The following day, Ron Hyde was brought
<v Speaker 1>into the interrogation room, at which time investigators asked him
<v Speaker 1>about his Oh, I don't know, preferences. Is that the
<v Speaker 1>term we're using these days for things like porn?
<v Speaker 6>And it's a little embarrassing.
<v Speaker 4>I don't want me and tell anybody, but you watch
<v Speaker 4>forgraphy or anything, use any websites?
<v Speaker 6>Sure? Okay?
<v Speaker 5>Yes?
<v Speaker 6>All right, I don't need particular details of it. Well,
<v Speaker 6>it's not.
<v Speaker 12>For me.
<v Speaker 7>What are some common search terms that you use? And
<v Speaker 7>again I apologize, I'm not trying to embarrass you, but
<v Speaker 7>people tend to like, or you know, go towards certain
<v Speaker 7>certain types of adult pornography.
<v Speaker 2>Is there certain stuff that you search for?
<v Speaker 7>We're just trying to cross that gap and figure out,
<v Speaker 7>you know why your name's come up?
<v Speaker 2>No cheerleaders or you.
<v Speaker 12>Know, guys.
<v Speaker 6>Chatter bay.
<v Speaker 4>Okay, Fat, I don't know about the website called fab.
<v Speaker 4>I know what the term fat means. I mean there
<v Speaker 4>may be a side by that just might be one.
<v Speaker 4>I have a scene yet, because there's only yeah, sure
<v Speaker 4>sure ex hamster, ex hamster.
<v Speaker 6>Ex videos.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, So, if you're listening to this with your partner,
<v Speaker 1>as a lot of our fans do, this is the
<v Speaker 1>point in the story where you feign ignorance and pretend
<v Speaker 1>like you've never heard of these websites before. You have
<v Speaker 1>no idea what is that ex hamster? I have never
<v Speaker 1>never even heard of that. I'll just go ahead and
<v Speaker 1>let you sit there in your awkwardness for a minute.
<v Speaker 1>Oh boy, do you and your partner have things to
<v Speaker 1>talk about? That's what we do here at toward scale
<v Speaker 1>relationship counseling. Anyway, you might be asking yourself, why the
<v Speaker 1>hell is this relevant. We'll get to that, but for now,
<v Speaker 1>investigators are trying to keep things light, so they ease
<v Speaker 1>into the conversation by asking Hid about his relationship with
<v Speaker 1>the victims family.
<v Speaker 3>Try to us Jay last year as l a sc
<v Speaker 3>r okay, and how do you know him?
<v Speaker 2>Is he through through work or do you see conto
<v Speaker 2>something else?
<v Speaker 4>No?
<v Speaker 2>I met him years ago in church. Really are where such?
<v Speaker 2>Really where he's from?
<v Speaker 4>It was.
<v Speaker 2>Stretch for a living Baptists no longer.
<v Speaker 1>Detectives are already aware of this man's entire background before
<v Speaker 1>they even walked into the room, including how he was
<v Speaker 1>once an employee of the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office. Get this.
<v Speaker 1>Back in the seventies, Hyde worked as a mentor to
<v Speaker 1>teenage sex offenders within the Department of Corrections. Years later,
<v Speaker 1>Hyde earned his psychology degree from the University of Florida
<v Speaker 1>in nineteen eighty one. He also took classes to become
<v Speaker 1>a nurse, at one point studying human anatomy. Hyde was
<v Speaker 1>familiar with joints, bone structure, and the placement of internal organs,
<v Speaker 1>leading investigators to believe that he may have some knowledge
<v Speaker 1>of surgical procedures or dismemberment. Upon looking into his background
<v Speaker 1>further authorities learning that Hide also attempted to secure a
<v Speaker 1>sixty thousand dollars grant to open a counseling center for
<v Speaker 1>abused teenagers. That plan fell through. Thank god, he became
<v Speaker 1>a licensed youth counselor and mental health professional instead, a
<v Speaker 1>field he worked in for roughly sixteen years. I've said
<v Speaker 1>it again and again, if you want to find out
<v Speaker 1>where the predators are, go where the prey is. During
<v Speaker 1>his interview, Hyde explained his work history a bit more
<v Speaker 1>in depth to detectives, starting with his quote unquote teaching methods.
<v Speaker 2>Versus using the assistance.
<v Speaker 3>Lost or lost something we want to find it. Okay,
<v Speaker 3>of course, the idea is to be able to see
<v Speaker 3>the child away from the parents.
<v Speaker 6>Okay too.
<v Speaker 4>So where he's doing more in terms of like people
<v Speaker 4>who were abductors, like strangers that have children.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, okay, well I'm just trying.
<v Speaker 6>I'm asking you know where your program's gear tickets. Now,
<v Speaker 6>I'm not kind of interested in it.
<v Speaker 3>Is essentially teaching the fifteen different lures as an under
<v Speaker 3>use to the parents to hope to keep it gets
<v Speaker 3>safe and help parents recognize that and you know, keep
<v Speaker 3>your kids away from people.
<v Speaker 2>Well, yes, it is simply to be aware of it.
<v Speaker 8>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>And actually during the presentation, I actually demonstrate.
<v Speaker 6>One of the worst.
<v Speaker 2>I tell them that design, I'm going to demonstrate it,
<v Speaker 2>and then halfway through the program.
<v Speaker 3>I stopped and make an excuse is I'm sorry I
<v Speaker 3>left something in my room. I just seeing up and
<v Speaker 3>stretching all your fat. And I always go to the
<v Speaker 3>smallest child in the room and ask them if.
<v Speaker 6>I really just about every time they said, oh yeah, sure,
<v Speaker 6>one has never failed. It's fine you use them.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, when you've watched enough of these interrogations, you start
<v Speaker 1>to see the strategy. At one point, the male detective
<v Speaker 1>deliberately exits the room in an attempt to see what
<v Speaker 1>else Hide will offer up.
<v Speaker 7>Again, I don't want to push you on the spot
<v Speaker 7>with anything, and I didn't know if it was uncomfortable
<v Speaker 7>to talk about in front of Jimmy.
<v Speaker 2>But what's your sexual orientation? Do you what's your preference?
<v Speaker 7>Do you swing one way or the other? And again
<v Speaker 7>I apologize, I'm not asking you to embarrass you, I
<v Speaker 7>wasn't sure if this was maybe uncomfortable in front of
<v Speaker 7>another fella.
<v Speaker 3>Sure, sure, So I mean predominantly hood or sexual Okay,
<v Speaker 3>that's my preference.
<v Speaker 2>Maybe some curiosities and.
<v Speaker 5>Stuff for.
<v Speaker 13>I'm a therapist, okay, okay, And so part of my
<v Speaker 13>training is in sex theory, okay, okay, And so.
<v Speaker 2>I have to be somewhat.
<v Speaker 3>Comfortable being able to talk to men about men's issues,
<v Speaker 3>definitely gay issues, all of those kind of swinging issues
<v Speaker 3>or whatever it might be. I mean, if i'm if
<v Speaker 3>i'm because you haven't worked with the with the sex
<v Speaker 3>offender population, not only adult also adolescent sex offenders.
<v Speaker 2>And there's a special special CEUs that.
<v Speaker 3>You get in order to learn how to work with
<v Speaker 3>them so that you were able to talk with them
<v Speaker 3>such that it's it's not sexually stimulating understands as a
<v Speaker 3>child or a teenager.
<v Speaker 2>And and then so as a result of that, yeah, I.
<v Speaker 3>To try to keep an open mind and.
<v Speaker 2>You know, desensitize myself. I guess you might say to you,
<v Speaker 2>I mean, I'm not afraid of the penis as a disturbing.
<v Speaker 6>Them all.
<v Speaker 1>And way back to what brought this dirty old man
<v Speaker 1>here in the first place. Hyde also volunteered at Crosswater
<v Speaker 1>Community Church in Jacksonville. Are you surprised? He later became
<v Speaker 1>a youth pastor at Strength for Living Church, which is
<v Speaker 1>where he met Fred's older brother Travis. It was around
<v Speaker 1>this time that Hide started living a double life. The
<v Speaker 1>church's pastor, doctor Ed Stallnecker, had previously been investigated for
<v Speaker 1>financial fraud and other shady activities. Stallnecker was a known
<v Speaker 1>drinker and allowed people to smoke in church while hosting
<v Speaker 1>a local gospel talk show with his wife on the side.
<v Speaker 1>Beware of false prophets, they say. Under the guise of
<v Speaker 1>helping low income children through maritime programs, the church ran
<v Speaker 1>donation scams, misleading people into giving away boats and other
<v Speaker 1>high ticketed items for the local Boy Scouts. In return,
<v Speaker 1>donors were supposed to receive tax credits. The laster children
<v Speaker 1>were drawn to the church's music scene, and Hyde often
<v Speaker 1>picked them up for weekend services, building trust within the family.
<v Speaker 1>These outsiders, these strangers that kind of work their way
<v Speaker 1>into your home, into your family's home, into your children's lives.
<v Speaker 1>They know exactly what they're doing. It's a dance of
<v Speaker 1>polite manipulation and a lot of people are too stupid
<v Speaker 1>to notice it. Fred Laster was drawn to music and
<v Speaker 1>all the shiny instruments, as young people often are. He
<v Speaker 1>particularly enjoyed playing in the church band. Before long, Hide
<v Speaker 1>was spending an abnormal amount of time with all six
<v Speaker 1>of the Laster children. He acted as their mentor due
<v Speaker 1>to the fact that Fred's mother and father weren't in
<v Speaker 1>the picture.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, I'm assuming the parents are not great people.
<v Speaker 2>If they were living with Grandma and grandpa, or were
<v Speaker 2>they in jail.
<v Speaker 3>Or was it something else?
<v Speaker 2>Something else? The parents is worse and.
<v Speaker 3>The father.
<v Speaker 2>Don't know where he was, so it was another with
<v Speaker 2>his children living there with the grandparents.
<v Speaker 1>Investigators also learned that Hyde had been claiming Fred and
<v Speaker 1>his siblings as dependents on his tax filings for years.
<v Speaker 1>In fact, he continued to do so long after Fred
<v Speaker 1>was killed. Well, some of the children went off on
<v Speaker 1>their own, others lived with their grandmother. They essentially had
<v Speaker 1>free reign, and as a result, Hyde was allowed to
<v Speaker 1>take Travis, Fred and the others on routine trips and outings.
<v Speaker 7>So you met Travis at that church, Travis's guy and
<v Speaker 7>a promo snow shoes.
<v Speaker 3>For a long time, Yes, Yeah, yeah, no problems.
<v Speaker 6>Children holler their children. Really, that's nice. How long have
<v Speaker 6>you known this? And since he was a kid or
<v Speaker 6>just after he got into his garden? Yeah? Age, no, No,
<v Speaker 6>he's younger.
<v Speaker 1>Travis eventually grew up and started a life of his own,
<v Speaker 1>which is when Hyde started to spend more time with
<v Speaker 1>his little brother Fred. During the twelve months leading up
<v Speaker 1>to his disappearance, Fred was couch hopping between his grandmother's
<v Speaker 1>and sister's apartment before moving in with Hyde full time
<v Speaker 1>four years after Fred's murder. Heide earned his master's degree
<v Speaker 1>in education in nineteen ninety eight and later applied for
<v Speaker 1>a job as counselor for a so called nudist organization.
<v Speaker 1>He belonged to have.
<v Speaker 4>Any any nudity stuff, any nudists, naturists, anything like that.
<v Speaker 6>Is that something you would look up or anything?
<v Speaker 3>Yes, okay, I'm a member in your association news recreation.
<v Speaker 6>They had an association, Yes, sir, okay, how long have you.
<v Speaker 3>Enjoying that's a Now it's a nationwide organization.
<v Speaker 4>Is it possible then maybe he came across pictures of
<v Speaker 4>kids like of course, look at that.
<v Speaker 2>They have a website and does have a website, and.
<v Speaker 3>There are other websites that have Nature's videos, yes, sir,
<v Speaker 3>And of course it does include children, okay, new children
<v Speaker 3>because they're not in US. There's no sexual okay, but
<v Speaker 3>nobody supposed in a sexual position of the news.
<v Speaker 2>Just chiming, swimming or their families or swing.
<v Speaker 6>Okay said nothing nothing sexualized about it. Just people basically recreation.
<v Speaker 6>They just happen to be new.
<v Speaker 1>Naturist. That's a term that you might want to check
<v Speaker 1>for in your boyfriend or husband's search history. If you
<v Speaker 1>find it, your next call should probably be to a lawyer.
<v Speaker 1>And if I have to explain why, then maybe perhaps
<v Speaker 1>you should just never breed.
<v Speaker 4>You know, ransom database searches just to see who come
<v Speaker 4>up with. And I ran your name and Iran Travis's
<v Speaker 4>name just to see even came up.
<v Speaker 6>I didn't see.
<v Speaker 4>Anything on Trevis, you know, a thread lesser, his brother, Okay,
<v Speaker 4>his name came up, and then it had your name
<v Speaker 4>in the report for him being missing.
<v Speaker 6>Okay, do you own.
<v Speaker 2>Twenty years ago?
<v Speaker 6>Okay?
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, there's an a whole lot to that record they
<v Speaker 4>had in that girl that father report said you picked
<v Speaker 4>him up from the house.
<v Speaker 6>And I didn't see where anybody talked to you? Did
<v Speaker 6>anybody ever call to you about that?
<v Speaker 2>Or do you remember anybody the police?
<v Speaker 5>Yeah?
<v Speaker 4>Okay, so you know about him being missing fairly, he
<v Speaker 4>still listen missing, okay? So why was first of all
<v Speaker 4>you knew we're finding Okay?
<v Speaker 1>The torso was found roughly a month before Fred was
<v Speaker 1>first reported missing. On July first, nineteen ninety four, Fred's
<v Speaker 1>sister and brother visited with the local police and the sheriff,
<v Speaker 1>informing them that Fred was last seen several weeks before
<v Speaker 1>in early June, but for whatever reason, authorities at the
<v Speaker 1>local branch and the Sheriff's office failed to document this
<v Speaker 1>initial report, and there was no actual paper trail indicating
<v Speaker 1>that Fred was missing at all. Early on days after
<v Speaker 1>she last spoke with Fred, his sister called Hyde to
<v Speaker 1>ask him what he had done with her brother. According
<v Speaker 1>to her statements to police, Hide laughed and told her
<v Speaker 1>that he had no idea where Fred was before hanging
<v Speaker 1>up the phone. Sometime later, Fred's family confronted Hyde again,
<v Speaker 1>at which time he offered a completely different story. Hyde
<v Speaker 1>told Fred's family that he must have forgotten that he
<v Speaker 1>actually had been with Fred. On June fourth, nineteen ninety four,
<v Speaker 1>the day before his body was found at the gas station.
<v Speaker 1>During that conversation, Hide told Fred's siblings that he'd come
<v Speaker 1>to his home that morning to help with the garage sale.
<v Speaker 1>Hides PayPal account ultimately verified profits made that day. But
<v Speaker 1>what wasn't adding up was when Hyde claimed he had
<v Speaker 1>given Fred a ride back to his grandmother's home later
<v Speaker 1>that evening, and that he was reluctant to leave.
<v Speaker 6>He said, and.
<v Speaker 2>He grabbed a steering wheel and pulled the car over off.
<v Speaker 14>The Rose side of the road and got out of
<v Speaker 14>the car and ran and actually actually ran across the
<v Speaker 14>Rose Chilean.
<v Speaker 3>Highway and just sat out of the car and ran
<v Speaker 3>across the street and was going down the other side,
<v Speaker 3>actually going back to where we were had come from
<v Speaker 3>from Jacksonville.
<v Speaker 1>According to this new and improved version of events, Fred
<v Speaker 1>exited the vehicle that fateful night, took off on foot,
<v Speaker 1>and was never seen again. Convenient from that point forward,
<v Speaker 1>Hyde's explanation for Fred's disappearance shifted, constantly claiming he dropped
<v Speaker 1>him off near a bridge at a park, back at
<v Speaker 1>his grandmother's and who knows where else.
<v Speaker 14>It was a try.
<v Speaker 3>SOB I mean, I just see the lights in the
<v Speaker 3>review mirror. I saw, I saw him saw, and I
<v Speaker 3>assumed that I didn't actually see that. All I saw
<v Speaker 3>was the truck coming past me and about where he was.
<v Speaker 3>They stopped, and then and then.
<v Speaker 12>On and.
<v Speaker 1>Each new version. Only deep in the family abisis. Of course,
<v Speaker 1>they were left feeling helpless and seemingly without the help
<v Speaker 1>of law enforcement.
<v Speaker 3>There were people talking about seeing him in the area,
<v Speaker 3>like there were a couple of other people to assign
<v Speaker 3>a different places us after that day, Brian, do you.
<v Speaker 4>Remember who any of those people are and we could
<v Speaker 4>ask some about it, if they saw him or anything.
<v Speaker 2>No, probably say that, probably Dawn my sister in fact,
<v Speaker 2>that he was.
<v Speaker 6>On the poloard.
<v Speaker 1>Roughly eight months after his disappearance, Fred's sister filed yet
<v Speaker 1>another missing person's report in February of nineteen ninety five.
<v Speaker 1>This was the first time Fred Laster's name was entered
<v Speaker 1>into the NCIS database as a missing person. Sadly, it
<v Speaker 1>wasn't until she called the number on the cold case
<v Speaker 1>flyer in twenty fifteen that investigators even looked at Ron
<v Speaker 1>Hyde as a suspect years after the murder. By this
<v Speaker 1>stage of the interview, Hide is still unaware that the
<v Speaker 1>female detective, strategically playing the role of a quote unquote
<v Speaker 1>good cop, is actually an FBI agent. Roughly an hour
<v Speaker 1>and a half into his interrogation, she asks Hide about
<v Speaker 1>the vehicle he was driving back in nineteen ninety four.
<v Speaker 2>What kind of car did you drive at that time?
<v Speaker 4>Nice read?
<v Speaker 6>Okay, Well, that's that's my second favorite, because do you
<v Speaker 6>still drive.
<v Speaker 2>I didn't see your car this morning. Do you still
<v Speaker 2>have a nice ascle car?
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, you got out of the Yeah. For the community,
<v Speaker 6>you need to go out.
<v Speaker 12>No.
<v Speaker 6>Sorry, Oh, he's quite a flucture nowadays. It would be
<v Speaker 6>what he was eighty and actually like this.
<v Speaker 1>Investigators already knew that the Camaro was registered to Hyde's father,
<v Speaker 1>News of the dark colored vehicle witnessed backing up to
<v Speaker 1>the dumpster was never released to the public, and Ron
<v Speaker 1>Hyde had just inadvertently placed himself at the crime scene.
<v Speaker 6>Oops.
<v Speaker 1>After a few more minutes of small talk, the male
<v Speaker 1>detective or quote unquote bad cop established is that they're
<v Speaker 1>done playing games. He informs Hyde that they know much
<v Speaker 1>more than they've been letting on. This is the oh shit,
<v Speaker 1>I'm in trouble moment of the interrogation.
<v Speaker 4>So I'm going to tell you this, and I just
<v Speaker 4>one should understand. We identified the body of Bread last year.
<v Speaker 4>Oh yes, sir, and so we do know where his
<v Speaker 4>body was found going back that timeframe.
<v Speaker 2>Okay.
<v Speaker 4>So again that's one of the reasons I'm asking these questions.
<v Speaker 4>Wh I'm trying to see if you know anything about
<v Speaker 4>that hermon.
<v Speaker 3>Where was he found?
<v Speaker 6>He was found over in Columbia County over by Lake City. Wow,
<v Speaker 6>have you ever been over there before? You know where
<v Speaker 6>that is? Well? I know where Lake City is, Okay. Well,
<v Speaker 6>along with his body, we found a.
<v Speaker 4>Lot of items of evidence as well, and those items
<v Speaker 4>of evidence have been tested over for some many years,
<v Speaker 4>twenty four years, and we were able to recover fingerprints
<v Speaker 4>and DNA from that evidence. Now I will tell you
<v Speaker 4>that we were able to get a call sample of
<v Speaker 4>your DNA several months ago, and your DNA matches the
<v Speaker 4>DNA from that Parmesey.
<v Speaker 5>Okay.
<v Speaker 4>So what I'm here to tell you today is I
<v Speaker 4>know how Fred Paul Aster got in a dumpster and
<v Speaker 4>leg see, and I know who put him there, and
<v Speaker 4>I know that that person was you. And I will
<v Speaker 4>tell you that I have plenty of evidence to back
<v Speaker 4>that up, including your car backed up to that dumpster,
<v Speaker 4>and all the DNA evidence, the fingerprint evidence, the stuff
<v Speaker 4>that was left in there that was thrown away with
<v Speaker 4>that body. I know all those things. So the reason
<v Speaker 4>I'm here to talk to you about is today is
<v Speaker 4>I want to give you an opportunity to explain, you know,
<v Speaker 4>what really happened there. Now, you can try to deny
<v Speaker 4>these things if you choose to, but evidence doesn't lie.
<v Speaker 4>And that's what I'm trying to tell you, as I'm
<v Speaker 4>not here today, just to try to simply get to
<v Speaker 4>the point of what happened there as far as that goes.
<v Speaker 6>I know what happen up in there, but I don't
<v Speaker 6>know why this happened.
<v Speaker 4>I don't know exactly how this happened as far as
<v Speaker 4>because I wasn't there in the room going to happen.
<v Speaker 6>And so those are some of the things I'm trying
<v Speaker 6>to get into today, and I want to give you
<v Speaker 6>an opportunity to explain this.
<v Speaker 1>And one would think this is where the interview ends
<v Speaker 1>and hide asks for an attorney, but guess what, people
<v Speaker 1>are really dumb, so of course he doesn't. Instead, he
<v Speaker 1>digs his heels and denies any involvement in the murder
<v Speaker 1>of Fred Laster because he thinks he's smart enough to
<v Speaker 1>talk his way out of this.
<v Speaker 2>The last was even that's the last time you saw
<v Speaker 2>that long.
<v Speaker 4>The last thing he saw for it was when you
<v Speaker 4>were pushing and trying to push his body into the
<v Speaker 4>dumpster and then it fell down and then you dragged
<v Speaker 4>it behind the dumpster.
<v Speaker 6>So but that's what I'm telling you is all the
<v Speaker 6>evidence as all. You understand that.
<v Speaker 2>There's evidence also for the President of Kennedy, but I
<v Speaker 2>don't make it.
<v Speaker 4>We're talking about the Kennedy assassination. We're talking about you
<v Speaker 4>put a sixteen year old boy in a dumpster that
<v Speaker 4>wouldn't be said what it was?
<v Speaker 1>A broken clock is right, at least twice a day, right,
<v Speaker 1>I mean the Kennedy assassination. Let's just not get into it. Anyway.
<v Speaker 1>Despite his irrelevant theories about Kennedy, the evidence was stacked
<v Speaker 1>against him, and the fact becomes even more clear when
<v Speaker 1>authorities reveal that they know about his disturbing secret involving
<v Speaker 1>Fred's brother.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, Travis and I know about things that between Travis
<v Speaker 4>when he was a young boy. Okay, you know what
<v Speaker 4>I'm talking about there.
<v Speaker 6>Don't you.
<v Speaker 9>So, man?
<v Speaker 2>But what are you referring to?
<v Speaker 4>See he came in this game mark he hear, and
<v Speaker 4>tell me what you're referring to, because you know what
<v Speaker 4>I'm talking about. Inappropriate things that happened with him when
<v Speaker 4>he was a young boar was fitted that way, sexual
<v Speaker 4>acts that had him with him when he was under
<v Speaker 4>the age of eighteen.
<v Speaker 6>Why would you transliding about that?
<v Speaker 1>I at a loss, I know, surely in fear of
<v Speaker 1>his own life. It took Fred's brother, Travis nearly two
<v Speaker 1>decades to come forward and reveal that Hyde molested him
<v Speaker 1>when he was young, But Travis hadn't been his only victim.
<v Speaker 4>He told me about the other boy that you were
<v Speaker 4>lesson before he met you, and the church is strength
<v Speaker 4>for living.
<v Speaker 1>According to Travis's statements to police, Hyde had been grooming
<v Speaker 1>and praying upon young boys from the church for years,
<v Speaker 1>using his role as a counselor to conceal his vile exploits.
<v Speaker 1>Travis told investigators to believe Hyde killed his brother out
<v Speaker 1>of fear of finally being exposed.
<v Speaker 4>So again, if this is something where Fred was blackmailing you,
<v Speaker 4>bread and ruvealed these secrets and stuff like that.
<v Speaker 6>I can understand it, that makes some sense.
<v Speaker 4>But just telling me none of this happened, I mean something,
<v Speaker 4>cut it, man, nobody's going to Nobody.
<v Speaker 6>Reasonable is going to believe. That's sort And that's what
<v Speaker 6>I'm trying to tell you.
<v Speaker 4>Of course, So again, I just want you to tell me,
<v Speaker 4>you know what happened to the kid upset you as
<v Speaker 4>a kid blacking out, if he did something to you,
<v Speaker 4>Just telling me, honestly, tell me where I could find
<v Speaker 4>her so so I can give that actress family.
<v Speaker 6>That's what I'm trying to do.
<v Speaker 3>I don't know, Okay, I had no idea. It was
<v Speaker 3>a surprise to need to find the news.
<v Speaker 1>In early June of nineteen ninety four, a mutilated torso
<v Speaker 1>was found discarded behind a gas station in Lake City, Florida.
<v Speaker 1>The victim's head and limbs had been meticulously removed, leaving
<v Speaker 1>police with no way to identify the body. For years,
<v Speaker 1>the case was stuck in limbo as investigators hit one
<v Speaker 1>dead end after another. Then in twenty fifteen, Fred Laster's
<v Speaker 1>family recognized items shown on a John Doe flyer and
<v Speaker 1>alerted authorities, suspecting it might be their missing relative. As
<v Speaker 1>detectives re examined old evidence using new DNA technology. They
<v Speaker 1>were eventually led to Ron Hyde, a sixty one year
<v Speaker 1>old youth pastor and trusted figure in the community. After
<v Speaker 1>matching DNA from the nineteen ninety four dumpster two items
<v Speaker 1>recovered that were left outside of Hyde's home. Victims of
<v Speaker 1>Hyde started coming forward alleging that he had sexually abused
<v Speaker 1>them as kids. In twenty seventeen, twenty plus years after
<v Speaker 1>Fred Laster was murdered, authorities finally had enough to take
<v Speaker 1>the perverted old man into custody. The following day, Hyde
<v Speaker 1>was brought in for a lengthy interrogation where his story
<v Speaker 1>unraveled peace by peace Again.
<v Speaker 4>You can try to say, oh, it was me after
<v Speaker 4>everything that says it was. We have your DNA, we
<v Speaker 4>have all of this said that's leaking you to the scene.
<v Speaker 4>And does this sound reasonable you? I mean, I'm trying
<v Speaker 4>to give you my perspective of us.
<v Speaker 2>I understand what you're saying.
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, I'm ensure that boy.
<v Speaker 1>Hyde continued to deny allegations throughout his interrogation. After leaving
<v Speaker 1>him to ponder over whether or not to take a polygraph,
<v Speaker 1>he eventually invoked his right to speak with an attorney.
<v Speaker 1>Following a nearly six hour interview, Ron Hyde was asked
<v Speaker 1>to stand placed into handcuffs and arrested.
<v Speaker 6>I'll let you know that currently you are unarrested. You've
<v Speaker 6>ever turned rounded?
<v Speaker 4>Would you like me to explain why you're un arrest yes,
<v Speaker 4>so you have a murderer warm for your arrest right now.
<v Speaker 1>In the days that followed, authorities used billboards to call
<v Speaker 1>upon the public, pleading for anyone with information about the
<v Speaker 1>nearly twenty three year old cold case to come forward.
<v Speaker 1>To their surprise, tips came flooding into the FBI hotline.
<v Speaker 1>Former coworkers of Hyde reported that he'd openly spoken about
<v Speaker 1>sleeping in bed with underage boys wearing only his underwear.
<v Speaker 1>Other witnesses said Hide admitted to visiting a local golf
<v Speaker 1>course to meet young men. I'd also allegedly visited his
<v Speaker 1>local YMCA not to work out, but so lead a
<v Speaker 1>shower nude while looking at boys in the locker room.
<v Speaker 1>You know that song, right, YMCA? You know the cultural
<v Speaker 1>significance of it, right?
<v Speaker 10>You know what they're.
<v Speaker 1>Doing there at the state funded facility. Not sure why
<v Speaker 1>some moms like to side with the gaze rather than
<v Speaker 1>their own children. Oh and before you send in that
<v Speaker 1>angry email standing for a child molester, what do you
<v Speaker 1>think about it?
<v Speaker 6>A little bit?
<v Speaker 1>Also, I don't give a shit, so keep it to yourself. Yeah, anyway.
<v Speaker 1>Following Hyde's arrest, several former juvenile inmates came forward alleging
<v Speaker 1>that Hyde sexually abused them in his office during his
<v Speaker 1>tenure with the Jacksonville Sheriff's Department. It is indeed fun
<v Speaker 1>to stay at the YMCAI here anyway. Before the murder
<v Speaker 1>of Fred Laster, Hyde had no prior criminal history, but
<v Speaker 1>he was written up for sexual harassment in nineteen ninety
<v Speaker 1>eight for making inappropriate comments to a female coworker. In
<v Speaker 1>twenty thirteen, Hyde's name also popped up in a three
<v Speaker 1>year international child pornography investigation out of Toronto called Project Spade.
<v Speaker 15>In October twenty ten, undercover online officers with the Child
<v Speaker 15>Expectation Section of the Toronto Police Service made contact with
<v Speaker 15>a male on the Internet who is sharing very graphic
<v Speaker 15>images of young children being sexually abused. Through investigations, the
<v Speaker 15>officers were able to trace the Internet connection to a
<v Speaker 15>male living in Toronto. The investigation revealed that this individual
<v Speaker 15>was running an exploitation movie production and distribution company from
<v Speaker 15>an address within the city of Toronto.
<v Speaker 1>The investigation resulted in the rescue of nearly four hundred
<v Speaker 1>children and the arrest of three hundred and forty eight
<v Speaker 1>adults worldwide. The Toronto based company, run by a man
<v Speaker 1>named Brian Way, distributed child exploitation videos through a website
<v Speaker 1>called azovfilms dot com. I know you're probably gonna check
<v Speaker 1>your browser history when you get home. Make sure your
<v Speaker 1>partner isn't looking at that website and if he is,
<v Speaker 1>maybe down nine one one immediately, especially if your partner
<v Speaker 1>is on Reddit a lot. Oh boy, am I going
<v Speaker 1>to get a lot of emails. The operation involved extensive
<v Speaker 1>cooperation with the US Postal Inspection Service and led to
<v Speaker 1>the seizure of forty five terabytes of illegal material. Those
<v Speaker 1>arrested included teachers, medical professionals, clergy and law enforcement personnel.
<v Speaker 1>Think about that for a second. It's almost like every
<v Speaker 1>group of people assigned to protect children has been infected
<v Speaker 1>by pedophilia. Ron Hyde's name was once on that long
<v Speaker 1>list of suspects, but at the time authorities lacked enough
<v Speaker 1>evidence to make an arrest. Here's what Hyde had to
<v Speaker 1>say about Azov films when it was brought up during
<v Speaker 1>his interrogation.
<v Speaker 6>So familiar, So you're familiar with asof films is so active?
<v Speaker 6>Do you know why it's not active?
<v Speaker 2>Because some of these idiots were considered non pornography?
<v Speaker 6>Okay, really okay?
<v Speaker 1>Oh is right. During the search of his home, authorities
<v Speaker 1>located six writable discs. On them was a vast collection
<v Speaker 1>of child pornography, buried among heaps of trash. Investigators also
<v Speaker 1>recovered a digital camera. Apparently, when Hyde wasn't busy looking
<v Speaker 1>at children being sexually abused, he was out taking less
<v Speaker 1>vulgar photos documenting a life of leisure outside of his
<v Speaker 1>filthy Jacksonville Beach residents. If you can call it that.
<v Speaker 1>The pictures showed him smiling at baseball games, flipping burgers
<v Speaker 1>at cookouts, hitting up a racetrack, and so much more.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, he really lived a full life.
<v Speaker 6>This guy.
<v Speaker 1>It's a bitter, pilled swallow. Knowing that Fred's family was
<v Speaker 1>searching for answers while Hyde was out enjoying the simple
<v Speaker 1>pleasures of life as if nothing ever happened, and while
<v Speaker 1>DNA advancements finally brought him to justice, It's impossible not
<v Speaker 1>to question why it took law enforcement so long to
<v Speaker 1>zero in on him. All of the signs were obviously there,
<v Speaker 1>a suspicious connection, shifting alibis, and a dark past hiding
<v Speaker 1>in plain sight. So how is this man able to
<v Speaker 1>evade justice for decades? Quite frankly, what the fuck is
<v Speaker 1>wrong with us that we didn't see it? While that
<v Speaker 1>question remained unanswered, Hyde was finally charged with first degree murder,
<v Speaker 1>to which he entered a plea of not guilty. Following
<v Speaker 1>the FBI raid of his Jacksonville Beach property. The home
<v Speaker 1>was condemned, boarded up, and demolished less than a month
<v Speaker 1>after his arrest. Roughly five years later, ron Hyde would
<v Speaker 1>finally see his day in court along delay.
<v Speaker 11>Jacksonville trial is underway for a man charged with murdering
<v Speaker 11>and dismembering a sixteen year old boy back in nineteen
<v Speaker 11>ninety four. We want to warn you the details are graphic.
<v Speaker 11>Ronnie Hyde was arrested in the death of Fred Lasser
<v Speaker 11>after the teen's body was identified through modern science in
<v Speaker 11>twenty sixteen. Prosecutors say there is DNA and other evidence
<v Speaker 11>that links Hide to the murder, but the defense contends
<v Speaker 11>there is nothing that proves Hyde killed Lasser.
<v Speaker 1>In late March of twenty twenty two, the long awaited
<v Speaker 1>murder trial of Ron Hyde finally took place, drawing a
<v Speaker 1>curtain back on a mystery that had haunted investigators and
<v Speaker 1>Fred Laster's family for decades. The prosecution presented a damning
<v Speaker 1>case against Hyde, using new DNA evidence that directly linked
<v Speaker 1>him to the dismembered remains found behind the BP gas
<v Speaker 1>station in Lake City back in nineteen ninety four. The
<v Speaker 1>bloodstained flannel shirt found near the torso contained both Fred's
<v Speaker 1>and Hide's DNA. The state's key witness, who described seeing
<v Speaker 1>Hide's dark colored Camaro the morning of the discovery, took
<v Speaker 1>the stand as well. In addition, the state presented entries
<v Speaker 1>from a journal found in hides Jacksonville Beach home, written
<v Speaker 1>in twenty fourteen. He expressed regret and pens a vague
<v Speaker 1>apologies directed at both Travis and Fred Laster.
<v Speaker 12>I feel depressed, lonely. I'm struggling to stay alive. I've
<v Speaker 12>been thinking about people from whom I need forgiveness. David
<v Speaker 12>d Jasmine and Ginger for being a bad father, Joey, Christian,
<v Speaker 12>Travis and Fred Fred's name was the only one underlined
<v Speaker 12>in Hide's journal entry. Joey and David are the two
<v Speaker 12>others who came forward alleging sexual abuse at the hands
<v Speaker 12>of Ron Hyde when they were young boys. According to
<v Speaker 12>court documents, Hyde allegedly carried out acts of sexual abuse
<v Speaker 12>with the aforementioned children while using a video camcorder. These
<v Speaker 12>incidents are believed to have occurred around the same time
<v Speaker 12>that Hyde was abusing Fred Laster. Adding to the disturbing
<v Speaker 12>narrative were Hyde's personal Facebook posts made in the years
<v Speaker 12>following Fred's disappearance. On social media, he presented himself as
<v Speaker 12>a staunch advocate for ending child abuse and supporting suicide prevention,
<v Speaker 12>a jarring contradiction, of course, when juxtaposed with the accusations
<v Speaker 12>now leveled against them. Fred's sister took the stand and
<v Speaker 12>delivered a powerful testimony recounting her memories of Hyde's Jacksonville
<v Speaker 12>Beach home. She vividly recalled seeing the same type of
<v Speaker 12>knives and non slip bathtub decals found at the crime scene.
<v Speaker 12>The forensic anthropologist testified about the knives as well, where
<v Speaker 12>she described the multiple blades used during the dismemberment.
<v Speaker 8>There were twenty five sharp force trauma in ass with
<v Speaker 8>a total of seventy.
<v Speaker 2>One cut marks.
<v Speaker 1>Hyde's lawyers argued that any traces of Fred's DNA found
<v Speaker 1>at the crime scene were easily explainable given that Fred
<v Speaker 1>had lived with Hyde for a year before his disappearance.
<v Speaker 1>They attempted to cast doubt on the connection between the
<v Speaker 1>evidence and the murder itself, suggesting that the prosecution's case
<v Speaker 1>was built on circumstantial links rather than direct proof. They
<v Speaker 1>painted Hyde as a family friend who had simply become
<v Speaker 1>entangled in the tragic coincidence, not the cold blooded killer
<v Speaker 1>the prosecution claimed. He was the most impactful moment a
<v Speaker 1>trial came during Travis Laster's testimony. He spoke of the
<v Speaker 1>trust his family placed and hide and the deep betrayal
<v Speaker 1>they felt once the truth slowly started to surface.
<v Speaker 6>We lost the future with our other.
<v Speaker 4>We lost a brother that we don't need to call
<v Speaker 4>when he kids and asked, hey, did you see the
<v Speaker 4>law days.
<v Speaker 6>Dictly on Mile. Do you regret about being here for
<v Speaker 6>your brother? It is probably the biggest regret I ever
<v Speaker 6>have in my life. Kay very interest.
<v Speaker 1>In a ballsy move by the defense, Hyde also took
<v Speaker 1>the stand the sixty five year old smirked during the
<v Speaker 1>questioning and recounted one of the many stories he'd told
<v Speaker 1>before regarding the last time he saw Fred alive.
<v Speaker 3>Oh yeah, about the second bridge. That were actually before
<v Speaker 3>the second bridge concrete.
<v Speaker 2>Bridge creek Uh he uh. He grabbed a wheeled car
<v Speaker 2>and pulling the side and got out.
<v Speaker 1>Is that Fred Laster's head and limbs were never found.
<v Speaker 1>The state alleged at the body of water hide mentioned
<v Speaker 1>in his testimony may have been where he discarded the remains.
<v Speaker 1>The creek he described as part of Florida's Inner Coastal Waterway,
<v Speaker 1>which flows into the Atlantic Ocean. Though it's never been proven,
<v Speaker 1>it's possible that some of Fred's body parts may have
<v Speaker 1>ended up in the sea before Hyde drove his torso
<v Speaker 1>to the dumpster a short distance away. During the cross examination,
<v Speaker 1>the defendant continued to proclaim his innocence regarding both the
<v Speaker 1>murder and dismemberment of sixteen year old Fred Laster.
<v Speaker 6>The friend was over there. We had a very very
<v Speaker 6>short amount of THI the friends murder dismember Germany in place.
<v Speaker 3>Sure are you responsible? No, I wasn't responsible for the
<v Speaker 3>dead last I never heard of.
<v Speaker 1>That Following a four day trial, the jury deliberated for
<v Speaker 1>only a few hours before returning with their unanimous verdict.
<v Speaker 6>Be the Germany five and guilty of first murdered.
<v Speaker 1>Immediately following his murder conviction, Hide asked to be sentenced
<v Speaker 1>right away. The judge agreed. He was sentenced to life
<v Speaker 1>in prison without the possibility of parole, ending multiple decades
<v Speaker 1>of illusion, deception, and sexual abuse. Hyde's true victim count
<v Speaker 1>may never be known, and his ability to hide behind
<v Speaker 1>the guise of a community leader serves as a chilling
<v Speaker 1>reminder that not only are the worst monsters real, but
<v Speaker 1>they are oftentimes the ones we least suspect. It's a
<v Speaker 1>real gut punch to think that someone you trust with
<v Speaker 1>your children could be there intentionally to harm them. Hyde
<v Speaker 1>used his status in the church to disguise his disgusting
<v Speaker 1>sexual interest in children. He flew under law enforcement's radar
<v Speaker 1>for roughly twenty three years. As far as his let's
<v Speaker 1>call it media collection, It's possible that he filmed his
<v Speaker 1>sexual exploits with children and sold these recordings for a profit.
<v Speaker 1>It's possible and more than likely that that's what his
<v Speaker 1>involvement was with the child porn sting Project Spade. Following
<v Speaker 1>his sentencing for the murder of Fred Laster, ron Hyde
<v Speaker 1>was charged with twenty five additional counts related to child porn.
<v Speaker 1>One major revelation that came from his separate trial was
<v Speaker 1>Hyde's purchase of child porn videos from two thousand and
<v Speaker 1>eight to twenty ten, where he spent a total of
<v Speaker 1>seven hundred and forty five dollars. In January of twenty
<v Speaker 1>twenty three, he pleaded guilty to three counts and was
<v Speaker 1>subsequently provided an additional seven years in prison to run
<v Speaker 1>concurrently with his life sentence. Members of the various churches
<v Speaker 1>Ron Hyde was affiliated with have either declined on this
<v Speaker 1>case or claimed to have no knowledge of sexual abuse
<v Speaker 1>having ever occurred prior to his arrest. Sure we all
<v Speaker 1>believe that no reason not to write. Despite authorities digging
<v Speaker 1>up Hide's backyard in search of other victims, no additional
<v Speaker 1>human remains wherever found. But let's not breathe a sigh
<v Speaker 1>of relief just yet. Given his predatory history, it's hard
<v Speaker 1>not to wonder if Fred Laster was Hide's only victim.
<v Speaker 1>Usually there's not just one. As for the church he
<v Speaker 1>called home, there's silence over the years, speaks volumes the
<v Speaker 1>strength for living Church, with its shady financial dealings and
<v Speaker 1>questionable leadership, wasn't exactly a beacon of transparency. It's unclear
<v Speaker 1>if they were too busy running their own cons to notice,
<v Speaker 1>or simply chose to look the other way, as we
<v Speaker 1>often do when we see something uncomfortable. Secrets, though, have
<v Speaker 1>a way of festering and becoming infected, eventually killing the host.
<v Speaker 1>So hopefully you'll apply some antiseptic and clean your wounds.
<v Speaker 1>You know, and you know, next time the choice is
<v Speaker 1>between protecting children or your precious institution, maybe then you'll
<v Speaker 1>pick the right one. For the boomers in the house,
<v Speaker 1>this style of music is called a vapor way. That's
<v Speaker 1>reminiscent of the mid eighties, a time that I'm sure
<v Speaker 1>a lot of our listeners remember because they're all old.
<v Speaker 1>That's a great way to get listeners calling Mole.
<v Speaker 10>What are you doing, Mike.
<v Speaker 5>Must Stott story st