This is exactly right. Hello and welcome to my favorite murder, the podcast. Your Thursday podcast. That's right. That's Karen Kilgariff. Oh, that's Georgia Hard Starkie. And she is, say, one year old. And I say, is it 40 years old?

That's fucking right. That's right, Dr. Dunn. How does it feel? It feels fine. I feel like your designees are for figuring out who you want to be. Your 30s are for trying to achieve that. And your 40s are for fucking enjoying it, you know, for pills.

And that's that's my whole life for it's for upping your intake of pills. Right. Right. My my sister told me that I always all I ever doing is accusing people of being on pills. You said something like that person was clearly on pills. We're watching a lot of viral videos and stuff. I'm like, they're on pills.

She's like, you say that about everybody.

You're probably right half the time at least. Right? I think I think I am, though. Yeah. A lot of people use a lot and I don't mean like meds that they need and standard stuff. I mean like pills. They probably shouldn't be on pills that make them think they should go up to other people and Seven-Eleven and tell them things that aren't true, that kind of stuff.

Oh there's then there's a fucking shit ton of people on pills. You're right.

You're right there on karren pills is what they're on also. Just, you know, not take it off your birthday. But anyway, very quickly, get off it. I don't care that they call people, Karen. People seem to feel the need to defend me. It has nothing to do with me. I mean, it does. Sometimes I can carry it out for sure, but yeah, it's not. Is it weird? Nothing. I'm see to be scrolling on Twitter and just like see people yelling at you.

I just don't take it that way when I so I like German nurses, I stay and when I see like news from Georgia, that's always fucking negative. I'm like, sorry, it's not me.

You have a serious voter suppression issue in Georgia for all of us, and I'm sick of it. I want everyone to vote twice. I'm so pro.

Oh, wait, what? That's even another problem. I am problematic.

I actually just started following this account on Twitter. Black votes matter. Oh. Who were completely on that that whole thing that happened, I believe it was in Atlanta. Right. That and they went out aside from of course, obviously reporting it to everybody that needed to know about it and getting the word out. They also went and started giving those there were people who waited in line for twelve hours to vote. Twelve hours. They didn't get out of there till like eleven o'clock at night.

And Black Votes Matter went and we're handing out like pizza and water to people and stuff like helping them stay in line to vote. Yeah it's beautiful. Yeah. But it has to stop. That has to change. Yeah. And Georgia needs to and Georgia better get your shit together better. Georgia do better. Georgia please.

I'll do it like that's Karen. What did you did you hang on Zoome with the fam on your birthday. What did you do. What do you want. It doesn't matter. What's my fortieth birthday in quarantine. When did I mention nice things. I actually cried multiple times for real. It was like a very nice, thoughtful bouchra. I didn't like a touched way. Yes, or another stomp your feet away. One was like a oh shit.

She's having a forty year old tantrum. Cheryl and the others were all touched was oh where did you get something like really nice.

Is there anything you want to share with us that he got for you. You know, is it like he did because he knew I didn't want like one of those drive by unwavered George a birthday.

Thanks. So out of choice. Yeah, I like you. All right.

By the way, we drive by and I'm like, absolutely not. So instead, he reached out to just a couple longtime close girlfriends and asked them to send to give him a name, a title of a book that meant a lot to them. And he'd get it. He'd buy the book, local bookstores, everyone. And then he so he gave it to me and read what the book meant to them and why they thought I would like it.

And so it was just this like really sweet, like, you know, I know you love this. So this I got you this book. That's beautiful. It was really lovely. And so I definitely cried there. And just like a lot of I have I have lovely people in my life. I'm very lucky. Yeah, including you do.

Thanks so much. Did you did you also cry because you can't read. You can't read. I tried to I tried to eat the book I thought he was giving me. Kate, I have to ruin the moment.

George me. I have to bring the Karen element to the Georgiev story.

So and thank you to everyone of course for the birthday wishes. No, it's in the midst of a fucking train wreck happening. The world people took the time to say happy birthday to me. That was very nice. I think, listen, it's you know, what you had this year, your fortieth in June of twenty twenty is like the most historical year kind of to date. This is big shit going down. This is the biggest thing that's ever happened in our lives.

Life, dear, on the face it feels negative. But there's this undercurrent. It's very stressful and difficult for a lot of people. And really, you know, it's and also there's a there's a lot of people really scared and, you know, but then there's also there's just this kind of epic change feel to it like it's nothing. I've never seen political action like this in my life.

It's incredible. And I'm fifty.

No brag. I've seen some shit. I was there when MTV was invented and this is bigger than that.

Let's see. What do we have? Well, I would please like to talk about a woman named Unequal Charles who wrote the song, You're Going to Lose Your Job. That is now the number one hit of the summer. Look it up right now if you haven't seen it yet. But you probably know what we're talking. You know what we're talking about. It's kind of like a protester's anthem. Now, an amazing yesterday I read there was a BuzzFeed article.

They tracked her down. And it is the most beautiful story of her family seeing this video go viral. First of all, the security guard that made the video, the guy that's in it that's holding her hand, her arm in the video is the guy who originally posted it. And he and he posted it and said, first of all, I want to say I am not making fun of this person. I honestly think this song is smirk's.

He smirks in it. Oh, yeah. He thinks it's great. Yeah. And he's the one that posted it. Yeah. But then it's like, you know, so I love that, that he's kind of a.. He's in on it a little bit. And it was due respect of like it's a jam, it's the head of the summer, it's such a good song. And then they've set they've set up a go fund me for her.

Also she has a Venmo that's at get this dance. It's it's just a beautiful story. And now she's reunited with her family. I read the BuzzFeed article, read the BuzzFeed article. They did a great job. Give her name again. Jenny Charles. OK, perfect. I think that someone should do ringtones and she should get all the money for the ringtone. Yeah, right. Yeah. Or she should just go straight to like YouTube with it.

Yeah. Whatever's best, best for her. Yeah. And then go on my lottery dream home because I love that show.

So please show us your house. Oh my God. We found there's a channel sister which is the channel that's literally called the Wealth Channel. Ever seen that show. I swear to God. And it basically is like it's these, it's basically rich people programming. And so they show like houses that are for sale on them, like the most exclusive Hawaiian islands that are like on the waterfront, that kind of stuff. And is it all narrated in like slowmo like tours through houses that are like, oh, my God.

But the satisfying thing is because, of course, everyone loves a nice aspirational TV show where you can just be like, oh, what if we lived in that house?

But it's so fun when you do get the tour of the house and it's super Jenky. The furniture inside is trashed central. It makes you feel like it. It's such a great like you're like I so much better taste than that billionaire. He's such a nice feeling. Yeah. I'm sorry. Oh I don't have eight hundred fucking barn doors all over my house.

We're rich. Or like a statue, like a kind of a random Venus statue where it's just like why is that in the hallway. So I do have a corrections corner because last week when I was talking about the Stonewall uprising and I kind of theorized and hopefully clearly enough that I was like, well, the Mafia are the ones that owned it. So they were trying to take advantage, blah, blah, blah. I kind of theorized about what I why I thought the Mafia was involved and got a couple emails, including Denton, who runs our website and is our he's our merch master and our website guy.

The the reason that that was owned by the Genovese or Genovese, I don't know. I think it's know I'm family. No. Genovese, what was your guess? Genovese. Genovese sounds right. Well, there's a woman named Anna Genovese who was married to a mob boss who was a lesbian. I mean, she she bought those, I think because I can't I'm sorry. I can't. I scanned this email, but it was basically like she bought it so she could have a place to safely hang out.

Oh, my gosh. And to spite her husband, who she divorced is like a whole story. And so look into it. It's really cool. So it's all the things that I was afraid of, like people being taken advantage of or whatever. It's like a different it's a different reason.

It's a totally different thing. So. Look up and Anna Genovese and learn the story of why all the gay bars were owned by the Mafia. It's actually borderline heartwarming. It's really nice. It's probably best not to speculate about the Mafia. I don't know why. I just seem to need to, like, poke the bear. Yeah, that's my stuff was my one correction. OK, speaking of whatever.

So speaking of talking, OK, so we're really excited because we have this my favorite murder logo, black and white pen. It's like a cool animal pen that was in the shop and our merch store at my favorite murder, Dotcom and all the proceeds of that was going to rain and it completely sold out, which was so awesome. I think we gave about ten thousand dollars to rain. Yeah. So it's back in stock. And so we get to pick a new charitable organization to give 100 percent of the proceeds to.

And so you want to announce the black emotional and mental health collective, which is basically this. It's a group of mental health professionals of all types. So it's therapists, but it's also like yoga teachers and it's all kinds of people that are there to help black people and in any kind of like therapeutic whatever kind of support they might need, especially at a time like this. And I think that's that's the thing that I keep seeing on social media. That's really it's really something to think about is the intense impact like and it's easy for me to talk about, oh, this is such a great time of political upheaval.

It's also a very, very trying time. Yeah, it's weighing on people and people definitely feel like they're in peril and they're at risk and they're exhausted and they're sick of this bullshit. And that's when you need therapy the most. So it's amazing that they have this collective and we're really excited because that's, you know, obviously therapy is our thing. And so to have a dedicated place that has that is basically a bunch of professionals together that are aiming toward really helping out black people get the help they need and the support they need in a time like this.

Yeah, that's the website. The website is W-W. Do you have to say that I know you don't to say that anymore. I wanted to tell you, but I don't want to be like you don't have to do that anymore. Well, a lot of times I'm doing it to sound old.

And I said, yeah, but then sometimes I'm worried because I used to also say HTP Colon.

But this is the website is Bime community. So go on to that website and check out the services that they have because they're it's very it's a really wide span. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, and you know, speaking of I want to just to really quickly acknowledge something that's that has been really important to us for a long time, which is making the exactly right. Podcasting network, you know, represent all people, especially people of color. That's been really important to us. We have shows in the pipeline that we're really excited to have on the network, but it's been a much slower process. So it's in the works and we totally fucking agree.

And we since the beginning of the network, we have wanted to make sure that we have diverse voices. Please rest assured that we have great shows coming up that will be reflecting our awareness of that importance and the importance of just having like a bunch of different people represented that you will see it. Yes, more to come in. Twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty one at the latest depending.

But like this next slew, the next slate of shows, you will see the things we've been working on for a year or year and a half and you'll see that you have anything else. Do I have anything else. Are you watching anything. Did you. Well do you watch?

My sister and I, we are planning on starting to watch Ozark because every dinner last night, everyone is just like that's that's a show to binge and everyone loves it. I have a suggestion on Netflix. There's a little documentary called Krip Camp. Did you see it? No. It's so touching. If you need an uplifting story right now, it's a really great one.

It's about a camp for people with disabilities.

Yeah. And, you know, from the I think it was the eighties and how they came together, and it's just really beautiful.

Oh, cool. I think I saw that people are raving about how good it is. Kampia Oh, last night everyone was giving recommendations and basically everyone in my family is we're all going to watch thirteenth. I've been hearing a ton of people talk about that. Yeah, I think that's the that's the next book in our book club is Everyone go watch that on Netflix, because it's supposed to be incredible and it really lays out a lot of the stuff that like, you know, everyone's kind of getting a really fast.

Education, about how people have been, how black America has been forced to live for so long and we have been willfully, blissfully ignorant about it, and it's really nice because a lot of people are interested in not being that way anymore, that I know that I don't know if they would normally have been that way totally or acknowledge cool that we all have those tendencies and it's ingrained in our society. So none of us are infallible because, you know, we were raised in the school system and in this fuckin government and the justice system.

So all we can do is, is get better. Yeah, there's so many resources to do that. You know, like the Criterion Channel has taken the paywall off so you can go watch, like, black directors. They've done a whole thing now where that's just kind of open so that people go and specifically watch Black film, which is what I was looking at that I'd heard of like two or three of these movies where it's like, so I guess you would have to be specifically like a like a searching student.

Yeah, yeah. You would have to be very specifically in the know about film to have stumbled on these movies. And now they're just like putting it on the front and going, hey, don't don't go rent the the help and tell yourself you've done anything.

In 2012, a 72 year old man named Samuel Little was charged with three Los Angeles murders dating back to the 1980s.

So we finally got to where we were going. The crowd at Liverpool were the only one appeal.

But since then, it's become clear he is the most prolific serial killer in the United States has ever seen, 93 victims, 19 states. Samuel Little has become infamous, but his victims, some of whom remain unidentified, are stuck in the shadows. It's time for that to change.

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The Fall Line presents a special limited series. The victims of Samuel Little will cover both solved and unsolved Southeastern cases and tell you how you can help the victims. Still waiting for justice, featuring rare interrogation tape, FBI interviews and in depth detail. This is a series you won't want to miss. Episodes begin on September 16th from Exactly Right Network. Find us on Stitcher Apple podcast or wherever you listen. All right, are you first this week? I am.

Yes, you are, because of all the things we've been talking about and this was something that happened. God, it really does seem like it was so long ago when the protests began. But in the I don't know if you remember this, but in the first couple of days of the protests, there were those pictures of say it was like day two or three. And then there was the photo op pictures of cops and videos, cops kneeling with protesters during the day.

Yes. And people were retweeting that and being like, oh, look, good news kind of. There's a lot of cops out there, too. And then a lot of people came back and said, basically, that's cop Baganda and don't, because those same cops that are kneeling during the day are beating the living shit out of protesters at night like it's it was really surprising. And it was the kind of thing that I think is very much like when you just want the the uncomfortable bad part to be over, you're like here, look, everyone's getting along again.

And I think it's a natural human reaction. It's you know, it's basically saying it's all settled down. Don't worry about it. Right. But that was not the case. And and people then even started, like brought back up and started retweeting the picture. That was from the twenty fourteen protests, which was a 14 year old black boy named Davonte Hart who was crying and hugging a cop in Portland, Oregon. And that was from the Michael Brown protests.

And that got circulated a little bit. And then very quickly, people came in and said, if you don't know the background of this story and this boy's life, you better look it up, because this do not read tweet this picture. And the first person that I saw do that, I was just like, oh, my God, because I had listened to lots of podcasts and read lots about it. And it is a devastating and horrible story.

One of the more shocking true crime stories there is. And it's the story of Davonte heart and the murder suicide of the Hart family. That's what I'm doing and that's what I'm doing this week. Wow. Yeah.

And I think it's like it's heavy. It's that kind of thing. Like if people have to know totally that those when these things happen, it is that it's a fake Band-Aid, that it's a momentary makes it momentarily makes everybody kind of feel better. And it's on the Today show. And, you know, all the anchors can be like, that's what a beautiful moment. And then, yeah, in the old kind of pattern that we had when everybody worked and left their house in the morning and worked 40, 50 hour days and, you know, just were always trying to distract themselves.

And we're exhausted and pricker, as I like to call it. Nobody wanted to take the time to kind of go any further than that. They just wanted things to be OK. Yeah, it's not OK. And we got a deal and and we can lots of different ways. We can't go back to the way we were because it's just unacceptable.

And we're we're literally teetering on the brink of authoritarianism, like we're teetering on the brink of we've seen like military action on our own citizens of America. That's beyond most people's like is the scope of our imagination really? Yeah. People like the propaganda that tells them that everything's OK because then they can blame, you know, the citizens and the protesters for the military action, even though, you know, it's a bullshit, it's propaganda. I love the term propaganda covid and so good.

Yeah, it's like that it's it's trying to elicit an emotion from you so that you will, you know, not care, not give a shit. Yeah.

So like that happened the first day of a protest in L.A.. I remember because I was watching it, I couldn't go down there. I was too scared. I'll be honest. I was too scared because of coronavirus. I was like, I can't I'd been by myself for three months. I'm not going to go stand in a big group and then just like take my chances as I watched it on Twitter, people were going, OK, this is a three hours of a completely quiet, peaceful protest that's actually really positive and beautiful.

And then they come upon after three hours, they come upon an old abandoned cop car in an intersection that with no cops anywhere. And it's like an old kind of Taurus like Niños model cop car being old. And it's just sitting there. And then all of a sudden someone lights it on fire and everyone's kind of standing around specific. There's a video of the specific people. Yeah. And so and everyone's kind of standing around like, what's this?

And then now the nightly news has the helicopter shot of a protest with all these thousands of people and then a burning cop car. Right. Which when I saw that, first of all, all the people it was people I knew and people that like they were just like, hey, we need to say this. This is super weird. This car just showed a. Yeah, like we're on the grid there on the ground, reporters basically going, people need to cite this.

This is not like and also like a burning cop cars. What happens at the end of like like a hockey riot?

You know what I mean? Like a championship, a championship team when when they start and it's happening in the street two a.m.. Yeah. It's like somebody has got their shirt off and they're fucked up and scream. We've seen them bringing their children to these protests and they're right. That's not and it's not that they don't even have matches. They all use vapes. Probably.

It's like, yeah, it's three o'clock in the afternoon, fucking noon. The middle one is lighting cop cars on fire. But and the same thing happened in Seattle. It was daytime cop car on fire where you're like, I don't buy it. I don't I just don't buy it. But then that's the thing of looters. Then they start talking about looters and the property damage bricks that are randomly sitting out outside of that of fucking nowhere.

Or did you see the video of the woman who some kids are driving around in a in a Burgundy Jetta and they're handing bricks to black kids out the window and this woman goes back, walks it back. This black woman comes up to the car and is like, what the fuck do you think you're doing that's so disrespectful? Don't go out. Don't go around here handing bricks out to people. What are you trying to do? And they're like going, no, no, no, it's fine.

And it's like that that whole thing of fascinators, it's fucking outside agitators so that your agent provocateur and so that your step brother fucking David can sit in his fucking living room and feel justified about what his what your country is doing to our citizens because of this, you know, because of so-called like looters. Not to say there wasn't looting or property damage. There absolutely was. But that wasn't the that wasn't the story. That wasn't that wasn't the majority of what was happening.

And then what about the thing in New York where they tried to say that there was two point one million dollars worth of stuff stolen out of a jewelry store, and then that owner of that jewelry store came forward and said, we don't display jewelry in the window at night. Nothing was stolen. And everyone's just like, whoa, like like that kind of shit where people are like, do you see what we've been saying this whole time about this kind of like the optics propaganda to make the average, quote unquote, person basically turn against a movement like that?

That's real. So it's mind blowing. It's totally in my story. So it's. Yeah, when when your government doesn't respect journalists, then how can you trust any anything, any information you're getting. Right. Unless it's from a trusted source, the framework is all. Yeah, it's it's it's we're in a very unprecedented time right now. So this is one of the earliest versions of that. And it's and as dark as it is on the face of it, of just what it was, it's it's much sadder and worse deep down.

So majority of this information is from The New York Times, The Seattle Times and the New York Times article is by a writer named Matt Stevens, specifically The Oregonian, The Guardian and Investigation Discovery dot com on August 9th. Twenty fourteen eighteen year old Michael Brown was shot six times and killed by Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson. And this murder sparks outrage, obviously, in Ferguson, and it ignites over a week of protests against police brutality.

Protesters chant the phrase, hands up, don't shoot Michael's final words when reports of these protests are shown on the news. Most Americans are shocked at the violence, the brutality and the heavy militarization of the police force and their tactics. I shouldn't say most people are shocked. I should say white America is shocked. But I don't think a lot of us knew that they had fucking tanks and that they were willing to use them. Right. So this leads to an investigation into Darren Wilson's actions.

But on November twenty fourth same year when the St. Louis County grand jury does not indict Darren Wilson for Michael Brown's murder, people, of course, are outraged and the protests start again. But this time it's all across the nation. So, of course, they do protest in Portland, Oregon. And during a November twenty fifth protest, a 12 year old boy named Davonte Heart, he's he's there and he's wearing a sign around his neck that says Free hugs, a port.

A Portland police sergeant who's working the protests sees Davonte sign, calls them over. They talk, they shake hands. And at some point, Davonte, who is clearly stressed and upset, begins to cry. And so this police sergeant points to the sign and says, hey, can I have one of those? And they hug freelance photographer Johnny Nguyen Snow. A photo of this moment and then he sells it to The Oregonian and it immediately goes viral, it shared hundreds of thousands of times on social media.

It's on ABC News, CBS News, The Today Show. It's even referenced in a sketch that week on Saturday Night Live. And when The Oregonian asked Davonte why he was giving free hugs at the protest, he said that he was, quote, trying to show peace, that there was a different way to handle it. Now, while devotees intentions as a 12 year old boy are very noble, critics see the photo as propaganda that detracts from the real issue at hand, which is the constant and unprosecuted murder of unarmed black citizens by the police.

Guardian writer Jonathan Jones explains it this way. He says a picture does not have to be staged to be a lie. It just has to be massively under representative of the wider facts and enthusiastically promoted to iconic status in a way that obscures those facts. Wow. Yeah. So the popularity of Vontez photo draws both positive and negative attention to the family. One of Davonte moms, Jan Hart, tells The Oregonian that their family has been receiving death threats because of it and they begin limiting their time in public.

And they do they do their best to keep a low profile. But what's interesting is up until that point, that's exactly the opposite of what Jenny and her wife Sarah have been doing with their kids on social media. So let's talk about the beginning of the Hart family. Genin Sarah Hart and Sarah's maiden name was Gengler are both originally from South Dakota, Jenn's from Huron, and Sara is from Bigstone city. They meet in college after they both transferred to Northern State University in Aberdeen and they're both studying to become teachers.

Only Djenne graduates and both of their college careers are officially over. In 2002, while they're dating at Northern State, they are met with a lot of bigotry. So in 2004, they decide to move to Alexandria, Minnesota. So since this is before same sex marriage was legalized, Sarah goes to court in 2005 to have her last name legally changed to heart. And then that summer, Jen and Sarah decide to become foster parents and they end up taking in a 16 year old girl.

So when this girl would later be interviewed as an adult by The Seattle Times, she asked to remain anonymous. So we'll just refer to her as the 16 year old girl. OK, basically. So she said that she'd been difficult to control as a teen. She skipped school. She snuck out with friends in the middle of the night. She sounds like every day I knew and was she wasn't happy in her old foster home. So when she's placed with the hearts, she's totally ready to make a new start.

And the first six months go well, she notices Sara is the more quiet of the two and Jen is more outgoing and also moodier. But overall, things seem to be normal. So they all live in a two story house with a dog and several cats. They take family camping trips. They go to concerts, they go to festivals, they go to sporting events together. But aside from that doing stuff with her two moms, this girl is not allowed to go out with her friends.

She can only go to school and go to her job at Subway, which is a little odd, a little strict, I would say. But then more things start happening that are making her kind of uncomfortable. For example, Jen and Sarah take her to the department store they both work at for her to get a makeover. But she's this girl is a tomboy and she's not interested in it and she doesn't want it. And she makes that very clear, but they insist she gets it anyway.

So there's another time where they go to a Green Bay Packers game together and they bring footballs. They each bring a football hoping that they'll get them signed by a player, specifically by Jen's favorite player running back and green. And actually, the girl gets to sign her football, but only hers. And as she says, quote, It turns into a huge fiasco with Jenn accusing her that she had done it to be a brat. And so then Jen gives her the silent treatment for several days.

Wow. Yeah. So then in early, that's just the kind of thing we're like. Is it me? Is it you? What's the vibe is weird. Like what's going on? Because that's not parent behavior now. And in early 2006, the hearts make a big decision. They decide they want to adopt children and they include their foster daughter in the discussion. They tell her to get ready to be a big sister and eventually two sets of siblings.

Come up that are available for adoption, so Jen and Sarah travel down to Colorado County, Texas, to meet the kids and everyone is excited. Then in late February, a week before the kids are to be placed in the hearts home, Jen and Sarah take their foster daughter to a therapy appointment. And while she's in this therapy and appointment, she finds out from her therapist that she's being moved to a new foster family.

But that day, holy shit. So she's driven to the new foster home. And when she gets there, all her stuff is already there. Holy crap. And this dramatic. Yeah. And she never sees Jen or Sarah again. Oh, my God. Yeah. When their later asked why they gave their foster daughter up, Jen and Sarah would tell people that the teen had suicidal idealisation and threats and that they did not want her, quote, negative energy to impact their children.

Yikes. But according to the now adult foster child, she has no idea why they let her go, because she says none of those things. Those things were true about her. Wow. Yeah. So that's our first big red flag. That's about as big as a red flag could be just giving up a child because it's not because you want to basically start over with your family and just like abandoning them at the fucking therapists to deal.

And also, it's a child that's already dealt with abandonment, a child that's already in crisis like that. It's horrible. OK, so on March 4th, 2006, three children from Colorado County, Texas, Abigail three, Hannah, age four, and Marcus, age eight, are place in the hearts care. And six months later, their adoptions finalized. During that first year, Jen and Sarah complete 15 hours of training on topics like helping abused kids in care heal and something called racial diversity excitement, which basically trains people who are adopting children of different ethnicities to be proud of where they come from and who they are.

The caseworker assigned to the Hart family reports that Jen and Sarah are great parents, and she recommends that she recommends them to then adopt a second set of siblings. So in June of twenty eight, they do just that. Davonte, age six, Jeremiah age four and Sierra, age three, all moved from Houston, Texas, to join the Hart family in Alexandria, Minnesota. Wow. So they have six children now, six children. And these kids, Mom, Davonte and Jeremiah and Sarah's mom had addiction issues and they had been living with their aunt and their mom wasn't legally allowed to see them.

And then a caseworker finds out the aunt is letting the mother mother visit so all three children get taken away from the aunt. Oh, God, yeah. Which is horrible. I mean, it's so it's it's so punitive and horrible. Totally. So the next year, 2009, same sex marriage becomes legal in certain states. So Jen and Sarah go to Connecticut and they get married. And afterwards they announced that Sarah is trying to get pregnant by a donor.

Yeah. So they already have six kids and now Sarah is trying to get pregnant. Unfortunately, the plan doesn't work. They never end up having biological children. So back in Minnesota, Sarah has a job as a manager in a department store, and Jen is now a stay at home mom and to their neighbors and their co-workers and their friends. The Hart family seems to have a really beautiful tight bond. They preach love and acceptance and unity. They go camping together.

They go hiking together. They grow their own food. And they're very Jen is very active on social media. When Facebook comes along, she is all about it, posting videos of the children constantly and all of their activities and all of the different things that they do.

And they basically are this beautiful example of this modern family to lesbian moms and six adopted black kids. But in September of two thousand eight, a teacher at the kids school notices that now six year old Hannah has bruises on her arm. So when the teacher asks her where they're from, Hannah says that her mom whipped her with a belt and ultimately no charges are filed.

But Jen and Sara pull all of the kids out of the out of school and homeschool them for the next year. So the next school year, two thousand nine, Jen and Sarah put the kids back into public school. But in November of 2010, the now seven year old Abigail tells her teachers about the ways that she has on her back and her stomach. She tells them that her mom, Jen, held her head under water while punching and hitting her because Abigail had a penny and Jen thought she stole it.

So, of course, the teachers report it.

Authorities interview the kids. They all report having been spanked and having fun. Withheld from them as a punishment. When authorities interviewed and Sarah, Sarah takes all the blame and in 2011, she pleads guilty to a misdemeanor domestic assault and she gets a year of community service. And this despite the fact that the children basically say Jen is the one that's the most abusive, the one who doesn't take any responsibility for it.

Yeah, that's fucked up. Yeah.

So later that year, Hannah complains to a school nurse that she's hungry. She tells her she hasn't been fed all day. The nurse calls Sarah, who tells her Hannah is, quote, playing the food card. Just give her water. So, yeah.

So after this incident, Sarah and Jen pull all the kids out of school for a second time. And from then on, the children are only home schooled. They never go back to regular school again. Then in 2013, the hearts leave Minnesota and they move fifteen hundred miles away to the Portland suburb of West Linn, Oregon. And there they keep up their natural peace loving appearances. They raise goats and chickens in the yard of their rental house. They go to music festivals and yoga retreats as a family.

Again, Jen documenting all of it on Facebook. And there's one video. I watched it, and it was such a bummer. There's this video that she posted and they were at they were at this thing called the Beloved Festival. And it looks pretty hippy ish. It looks pretty kind of peace and love faux hippie shit, which is sorry, that's very negative. But the video so essentially this is like a video that kind of foreshadows the the viral photo that will be coming the next year.

Essentially, Davonte is wearing a zebra costume and he has the word love shaved into his head. And during a performer named Xavier, he's on stage like sitting cross-legged and he's kind of chanting like our a cappella. And it clearly it's like one of the yoga more yoga eve festivals, I would assume. Yeah. And as he's doing it, you hear the audience start to go, oh, like that. And here comes Davonte wearing his free hug sign and his little in zebra costume, and he walks up and hugs this guy as he's chanting and the guy like smiles and hugs him back.

And Vontae doesn't let go. And this hug goes on for like two minutes. And it's very upsetting.

Like, if you watch the video, it looks like Davonte is either crying or about to start crying and he won't let go and holding on to the stranger.

Yeah. And it seems to me and this is purely editorial, but that the singer is is it starts out cute and then he can feel that this is like a child that needs a hug very badly, that this like it just and maybe it's just because knowing the whole story. But it's a very it's a very sad, upsetting video. But it also was it became like they became this family that was known at these festivals and known as at these you know, these music events or whatever is like the two lesbian moms and their kids.

And so so that's the presentation of like that world here, peace and love, peace and love. But it's like but kind of there is that element of your parading your children around like they're your props, because there's another picture that I saw and it had its Jen and she has Davonte on her shoulder with his free hug sign. And so it's just like, look at my child and look at how I don't know.

Give us give us some accolades. Yeah. Of a thing. Yeah. So and which is like, look, that's fine. But you know, but then the idea that then behind the scenes it was like a fucking nightmare for those kids. It's horrifying. So the thing is that the heart's organ neighbors are skeptical. They they are surprised at how small the children seem for their ages. They also notice that the kids, they never see the kids being, like, loud or boisterous or in any way like even bratty like anything.

You see a normal kid like six kids piling out of a car. They say the kids all act like trained robots. And more disturbing, they're clearly afraid of Jen. So in twenty thirteen, someone like an anonymous caller calls the Oregon Department of Human Services and reports that the kids pose and are made to look like one big happy family. But right after the photo, they go back to looking lifeless. She's like, yeah.

So when Child Services interviews the family, Sarah and Jen say that this is bigotry, that people don't understand their modern family dynamic, that they're being it's prejudice and they don't like the fact that they're lesbians or that they have a family. And that's really what's happening. When the kids are interviewed and when they're asked how they feel about their home life, they all say tell the social workers they're happy, but their expressions are lifeless and they don't seem happy at all.

But because there's no overt evidence of abuse, Child Services closes the case. So two years later, when Davonte becomes a viral sensation because of his free hugs photo, the Hart family now becomes the subject of national attention. And that's much more than Sarah and Jen want or are prepared for. Davonte gets offers from TV shows to be a guest, but then they're also getting these death threats, according to Jen. So the family decides they've had enough of the spotlight.

So in spring of twenty seventeen, they move again. And this time it's to Woodland Washington to get to basically get away from the commotion. Their new neighbors are a couple named Bruce and Dana DeKalb. And the Cowboys are very excited to get to know their new neighbors and this big bustling family. But they soon find out it's not as easy as they thought it would be. The hearts and their children are usually inside the house with the blinds drawn most of the time.

And when the neighbors do see them outside, they're not very social until a couple months later, in August, when the Cowboys hear a knock on their door at one 30 in the morning, it's Hannah Hart and she's saying that she just jumped out of her second story window. Her two front teeth are missing. They think she's like six or seven years old. She's 14 years old. And she says to the Cowboys, Don't make me go back there.

They're racists and they abuse us. She begs the couple to take her to Seattle. But before they cowboys can even figure out what's happening, Jen and Sara show up at their front door. Oh, my God. Yeah. Jen asked to speak to Hannah privately upstairs. So they go into a separate room and then pretty soon after they come downstairs and they apologized and they all leave. And then the next day, the three of them come back and they've made Hannah write an apology to the Cowboys and they explain that Hannah is bipolar and that she was upset because her cat died and that she knocked her own teeth out in an accidental fall.

And basically, that was a thing. Apparently they they would say Jen would tell people these are drug babies. And so they're difficult. Sometimes any time people would be suspicious or anything, it would be she would use this drug baby excuse. Later, Dana DeKalb would tell The New York Times she was just so convincing about Jen and Jen's excuses. And, of course, the couple are left with a terrible feeling about their new neighbors. But after that strange night, any time Dana DeKalb would try to speak to the children, they would not respond to her until six months later.

The now 15 year old Davonte shows up at the DeKalb store asking for food. And as Bruce feeds him, Davonte nervously asked him not to tell his parents. Bruce assures him he won't. And then Davonte visits, visits his neighbors for food like it's a weekly occurrence. He even leaves them a wish list of food he wishes like wants to have. And he asked them to leave groceries in a hidden box by the fence so his moms won't catch him.

Oh, so this goes on for a little while. But the Cowboys are, of course, totally torn. They don't want to break their promise to Davonte, but they know that these children need help. So finally, on March twenty third, twenty eighteen, they call Child Protective Services, but do it right. But when a caseworker shows up at the Harts House for a home check, no one answers the door. And then the next day, the Kalb's notice that the Hart family car, which is a Yukon SUV, is not in the driveway.

And on that same day, Sarah's coworkers get a text from her saying that she's sick and she won't be able to come in to work tomorrow. So two days later, on the morning of Sunday, March twenty fifth, Jen Hart is captured on a Safeway security camera in Fort Bragg, California, buying groceries. And this is the last time anyone will see her alive on Monday, May twenty six. Twenty eighteen, California police get a call at around three thirty eight pm from a German tourist who's passing through Mendocino County on Highway one.

It's kind of it's just north of Fort Bragg in a tent near a town called Westport. And she reports seeing an upside down SUV at the bottom of a cliff. When officers arrive on the scene, they find the bodies of Jean Hart in the driver's seat and Sarah Hart wedged between the smashed roof and the rear seats. A search of the crash site continues for three weeks and during that time, the remains of three of the kids, Marcus. Nineteen, Jeremiah, 14, and Abigail, 14, are all found near the SUV.

The. Body of Sierra, who's now 12, is found on the beach north of the crash site. It takes them a year to find 15 year old Hannah's body when they finally do find the skeletal remains. In May of twenty eighteen, her biological mother comes to give DNA so that they can confirm that it is Hannah, which is just devastating. Fifteen year old Vontez body is never recovered. The crash is initially thought to be an accident. And I remember when these reports came out and it was the accident because it was it's northern California.

So, you know that it kind of broke up there first. But then the investigators noticed there's no skid marks at the scene or any other indications that Jen tried to stop the car in any way. And then when the toxicology report comes back, it shows that Jen was drunk at the time of the crash. She'd had like the equivalent of about five beers and that Sarah and at least two of the kids had diphenhydramine in their system, which is the active ingredient in Benadryl that causes drowsiness.

So when Sarah's phone records are recovered, this is when they know that it was not an accident, because as Jen drove Sarah Google search, the phrase is how easily can I overdose on over-the-counter medication? Can five hundred milligrams of Benadryl kill one hundred and twenty five pound woman? And how long does it take to die from hypothermia while drowning in a car? What the fuck? They so they realize they fully know what they are doing. And when the cars this this type of car has like a black box like computers thing.

And when they recover that and get the information from it, the car's speed at the time of the accident, it was going around 90 miles an hour and there was no use of the brakes whatsoever. So basically, Jen basically probably got drunk to to work up the courage to do this. And the and then Sarah and the kids took a bunch of Benadryl so they would be either asleep or drowsy. And then she drove off a hundred foot high cliff and killed her family in a murder suicide.

Did you fucking do that? How could you do it? Stear Tore. How could you even bring your fucking self? Now it's it's. I mean, they can even wrap my head around that, it's so insanely bizarre, but clearly the things that were happening in that family, like I I talked to my sister about this because my sister's got a PhD in child development and she's been a teacher for 30 years and she knows all that stuff. And she's saying that whole thing of them keeping like isolating those kids so they didn't have friends and the only connections they had were teachers.

And when that started going bad, they cut that off to keeping those kids inside the house so no one could talk to them. Clearly, the inside of that house, really bad things were taking place. And there was a podcast that came out like pretty soon after it happened. I think it's called The Broken Hearts.

Yeah. It was like it was a whole series about this. Right.

One of the things was they started they found all this evidence that Jen was online like hours and hours a day playing one of those communal games. I can't remember who was called, but she so she's the stay at home mom, but she's literally on the computer. She ran a game. She was like, essentially there's a there's a whole part where a guy gets on there and is like, I can't I had no idea she had a family. The amount of time she spent on this game, it like makes no sense.

It's really it's but it's like a really horrible, bizarre mystery that that like only the friends and family and there's a lot of people who, like, knew them from those festivals that, you know, had met them and bought into that. They were like there was nothing that made them think except for the fact that those kids were tiny and skinny. But other than that, it was like these two very active, involved moms. So it seemed that they just bought the whole presentation.

And of course, it's that thing of optics. It's that it's the two dimensional life you present on Facebook or you present in one picture. It makes everyone go, oh, good. That's what's happening. Gabbi, I don't have to worry about that. That's it. And that's not the truth. And that is the awful reality of the life of Davonte heart, the crying boy hugging the cop in twenty fourteen and the murder suicide of the Hart family.

Oh, my God, Jesus. That makes me want to cry. It's horrible. It's just so heartbreaking. Wow. Good job.

Thank you. That's the reason it's so much easier to like you want to just look at a picture for three seconds and yeah, everything's been taken care of. But because because this is sometimes what's on the other side. Right. But I think I think part of like why you and I and a lot of us love true crime is because it's that willingness to go. I do want to look at it. I do want to know the bad things that are happening.

I do want to see what else there is and what can be done and what can be prevented and how how we make sure it doesn't happen anymore.

And an acknowledgement that your life isn't the only story, that there's so many stories out there that have to be heard as well. Yeah. And a desire to hear them. It's a case I wanted to cover for a long time, but I want to get it right, I'm going to tell you about an unprecedented case in British history. And it's this murder that completely overhauled the British law and leads to changes in policing and how people of color are treated by the system.

It's an epic story. And this is the murder of Stephen Lawrence. I got information from Chatham House. There's an article by Brian Cathcart from the Independent, The Guardian, BBC News, an article by Danny Shaw. There's this little sweet baby angel on YouTube who does true crime videos. Her name is George Marie.

Yeah, isn't that funny? Hi. And she's British.

She's British. So she kind of understand some of the nuances. And she had known about this case all her life, whereas I had never heard of it before. Yeah, I've never heard of it in it, but it's huge there. And then there's a documentary, Stephen Lawrence, Justice for a Murder, but it's on the real crime UK YouTube. It's really good. OK, I got a lot of info from that. So let me give you some background.

Stephen Lawrence is born on September 13th, nineteen seventy four in southeast London in a neighborhood called Plumstead, and it's in the Greenwich borough. Steven's parents are Neville and Doreen Lawrence. They're Jamaican born. They're totally religious, hardworking people, Nevilles, a carpenter and a tailor and a plasterer. And kind of my grandpa was my grandpa was a plasterer, really.

My grandpa was the president of the Plasterers Union in San Francisco. Hutterites. Yeah. Sorry. I just had to know I had to look it up to be like, what exactly is that? That's when the when the when you put up the drywall and then you make that you put the thing on the top. So it's like an actual wall. Yeah. Yeah. And then it's like goes beyond that with like the decorative, like the decorative. What do they call them.

Up. They're like wainscoting or the border. Yeah. Yeah. They're like they can get really good at that stuff like that.

Yeah. That's what he did on that.

Andorian is a special needs teacher and Stephen is the oldest of three kids. He is super smart. He excels at school. His brother later says that no matter how well he did in life, Steven was always just a little bit better than him. And, you know, one of those kids who, like, got it easy, don't have to study. Yeah. So the vicar of his church who knew Steven and his family well, called Steven and it's steep.

And so it's not Steven like Steven called. They called him a delightful human being. He loved to listen to music especially and Orombi. And when he's just seven years old, he decides he wants to be an architect. And in nineteen ninety three at eighteen, he's studying for his A-levels, which is like the end of high school in England and planning to go to university for architecture. So like this has been his passion since he was seven and he this is what he was going to do with his life.

And he's doing it.

Yeah. The Greenwich borough in the nineties is consists consisted mostly of white people. There's a lot of poverty. And because of this, the people of color who lived there experienced a lot of racist violence. And I think you and I both read about a lot of how it was there in the nineties and skinheads were rampant. Racism was the norm. Sorry, I'm not saying it's not now either, but it almost was like, you know, celebrated, it seemed at the time.

Yeah. Yeah. So has that's because that's how they do it. That's how the upper class keeps the the working class down is they set they pit people against each other. Right.

So in Greenwich, the the borough was actually one of the races, hot hotspots of the country at the time. And there are hundreds of incidents of racial harassment being reported to police every year. But this just fuelled Steven and his family. You know, they were determined to succeed in life. He was a really hard worker. He had a really supportive, strong family that helped him believe in himself. And, you know, he was going to make it so.

But on the night of April, twenty second nineteen ninety three, about ten thirty pm after Steven and his best friend, Dwayne Brooks, by the way, they're both black, they'd spent the evening hanging out and they're on their way home attempting to catch a bus in the Eltham neighborhood. When they don't see the bus coming, Stephen goes out into the street to see if it's like if you can see it heading down the road. So Dwayne from the sidewalk notices that there's a group of five or six white teenagers on the opposite side of the street.

And Dwayne calls out to Stephen to ask if the bus is coming. And then the teenagers notice the Stephen and Dwayne and they start shouting racial slurs at the two boys, calling them the N-word. And then out of nowhere, the entire group of these white teenage hoodlums run towards Steven and Dwayne. Dwayne, like, runs in the opposite direction, but he stops when he realizes that Steven. Hadn't run and he had been surrounded by the group, and it's I know it's terrifying, it's later described as if they were engulfing him.

Oh yeah. And in the documentary that I watch, Stephen Lawrence, Justice for a Murder, they do reenactments that just like it's terrifying, so only lasts only like 10 seconds, the attack. But it's witnessed by three people who are also at the bus stop. Can you fucking imagine? And then the gang runs off and Dwayne comes back, grabs his friend off the ground and he's like, let's run case. They come back. And so they start running.

But after about one hundred and thirty yards, Dwayne, like, can tell that his friend is hurt worse than he thought. So he turns around, he's like, what's what's going on? And he sees his best friend, Stephen Lawrence, collapsed onto the sidewalk. So Dwayne goes to a nearby phone booth, calls 999 and tells the dispatcher that he thinks his friend had been hit in the head with what maybe what he thought was a crowbar.

You couldn't tell. So Dwayne said, you know, he says, send the ambulance and he tries in the meantime to flag down passing cars. But there's not a lot of cars out late at night. But a couple who are walking home from a prayer meeting at church do stop to help. Oh, I know.

And meanwhile, the bus arrives and the three witnesses get on and leave 20 minutes after they leave.

Yeah, I know one of the one of them was actually a friend of our, like, lived in the neighborhood and knew Steven. So he went home and told Steven's parents what had happened. So and then 20 minutes after the attack, for 20 minutes, instead of an ambulance showing up, a police car shows up. And Dwayne is like kind of loses a shit at this point because he's like, my friend is seriously hurt. You can tell he's yelling and asking why there isn't an ambulance.

And the police later report that they describe him as aggressive and agitated, which is like, well, no shit. Yeah. The officers who, of course, are trained in CPR, they test Steven's pulse, which is weak, but they don't find any other signs of head trauma, as Dwayne had reported. So they're like, well, that's not true.

And then they do see that Steven is bleeding, but they don't actually check for any other wounds. And it's cold. You know, it's in the middle of it's in the middle of April. So it's cold. So it's all these layers on. So they don't take off his layers to see, you know, what injuries he has. Instead, they just leave him there. They don't administer any form of first aid and spend the time waiting for the ambulance, questioning Dwayne like like as if he was involved in it.

But it's obvious to even the bystanders who had stopped that Steven is struggling to hold on to life. So this woman who had been part of the prayer couple, her name's Louise Taft, she puts her hand on Stephen's head and whispers in his ear, you are loved. You are loved over and over. And that's probably the last thing that Steven ever heard. When the ambulance finally does arrive, paramedics examined Steven. I mean, he's the sweet eighteen year old kid who's going to be an architect.

Like, it's just it's so senseless. The paramedics examined Steven and they don't find any vital signs. And when they pick them up and load them into the stretcher, they're like, oh, shit, there's a huge pool of blood on the ground beneath him. They head to the hospital around 11:00 and five thirty five minutes after the attack and try to restart his heart, but ultimately are unsuccessful. And Steven is dead. Meanwhile, he had been stabbed twice, once, once in his arm that hit a major artery and then once through his collarbone, that hit another major artery, it was just like.

I don't know who knows it was by chance or on purpose, you don't stab someone to not kill them. Yeah, but it just nicked these two arteries perfectly. Meanwhile, at the crime scene, the scene is not properly searched. It doesn't seem like anyone is in charge. Instead, the investigators focus their attention on Dwayne and his possible involvement in what happened. So instead of like searching for his attackers, which Dwayne is telling them had been a group of white teenagers yelling racial slurs, police decide it's too late to wake people up by going door to door and they don't do anything.

Hmm. So as the investigation begins, the officers suspect Dwayne, had something to do with it. They thought maybe they got in a fight and went too far. Maybe it had something to do with drugs. Dwayne denies it. He insists that the attack was racially motivated and the attackers had been yelling the N-word and racial slurs. Police are able to track down all three witnesses who had been at the bus stop at the time of the attack. And they take their statements.

It corroborates doyennes account, so they can't keep fucking blaming him. Yeah, all of them say that it was a sudden and short unprovoked attack. And then within 12 hours of the attack, police get a ton of tips from around the neighborhood, including a witness who gives a pseudonym, a pseudonym. I think he's like a skinhead even so, like he's fucking ratting these people out. And there's an anonymous female who calls into the police. And an anonymous note is left on a police car windshield.

And there's another one in a phone booth like naming these specific people. So over the next couple of days, detectives received twenty six different tips, many of which point the finger at the same suspects. All these tips point to local teens Gary Dobson and David Norris and they and their gang. And they're known for racism. They're known for always carrying knives around with them. It's five boys all together. They're all like 16 or 17 years old. And they're well known in the community and their schools as troublemakers.

They call themselves nut nutters with knives. Is there like a gang nickname, guys? Yeah. One of the boys lives on the same street that the attack took place. So two of the boys, Neil and Jamie A'Court, they call themselves the Eltham Crays, which is a nod to the notorious Kray brothers. So they're already like obsessed with, you know, just like organized crime and fuckin violence. And Dennis, the other kid, Dennis, had been charged with stabbing a girl 12 months before it had been acquitted.

So they're like, God, they should be known. They should be the first people on the list to look to, like, bring in. And basically, in the days following Stephen's murder, all they really did is put surveillance on one of the houses of the boys and they watched and photographed. And you see the photographs. One of the boys is leaving the house with a big black trash bag full of fuck. And who knows what bloody clothes the weapon.

We don't know because I never fucking stopped them to check what was in the bags. Just four days after the murder of Stephen Lawrence, Detective Superintendent Brian Weeden says that no arrest had taken place because there just wasn't enough evidence. But also, he later claims that he hadn't heard a thing about the boys, the gangs, the gang. And also he said that he didn't know that the law allowed arrest upon reasonable suspicion. He didn't know. He says he didn't know.

He's the detective superintendent of the London Metropolitan Fucking Police. And I didn't know that I could take people in on reasonable suspicion. Well, maybe you should do brush up classes once a year about the law that you're supposed to be enforcing. That's a suggestion. Right. And so this is just the beginning of this incredible, I mean, epic breakdown of the investigation and the mishandling of information and evidence. This case becomes fucking huge in the UK and what possibly could have been a swift response and maybe could have led to the arrest of these boys who had killed Stephen Lawrence.

It goes nowhere. Meanwhile, police are insisting that the crime wasn't racially motivated, despite the attackers not knowing their victim and yelling racial slurs while they attacked.

I know when the police don't continue investigating Stephen's parents, who are the fucking like heroes of this story, these incredible people, Neville and Doreen, they're so frustrated by the lack of progress and they're getting mistreated by their victims liaison's like they're clearly under suspicion, which is driving them crazy. So they hold a press conference and say that nothing has been done about their son's death. And they say if our son was white. Police would have cared more and done more.

Yeah, OK, but you're so like, fine, the police don't care about that, but guess who's in fucking town at this exact time? You're not going to guess the case. No political superhero. Nelson Mandela was a serious fucking in town and they have a connection to him. And so Neville and Doreen are able to meet with him, with Nelson Mandela, explain their situation to him. And it's only when he speaks to the press, he goes out in front of his hotel to specifically speak about Stephen's case that the police are finally shamed into action.

Shit.

Yeah, that's unbelievable. Believable. So the very next day on May 7th, two weeks after Steven had been murdered, the police raid the suspect's home. They arrest brothers Neil and Jamie A'Court and Gary Dobson, which seemed like the core group or the core, you know, people. And in the raids, they find a number of weapons, including knives, as well as some clothes that they seized. But they they do. They do. They don't do a full search.

They don't rip up the carpet. Someone had given a tip that the experts had left their knives in a floorboard. They didn't look for them. You know, it seemed pretty half assed. What year is this again? OK, so currently we're in nineteen ninety three. Oh shit. I thought it was like the 70s. Oh.

So they bring the boys in for questioning, hoping that one of them will slip up and say something incriminating. But instead they get these boys who have clearly been coached and on how to say nothing and they just constantly say no comment or I don't remember. And despite despite being traumatized and afraid for his life, fucking Dwayne, the sweet baby who was the best friend, is able to come in and pick two of the boys out of a big lineup.

And in his interview, I mean, this kid is it's incredible that he was able to do this. So in June of 1993, the Lawrences are finally able to hold a funeral for Steven. And there's a funeral procession to the streets of town following the hearse. And by this time, there's a ton of anger in the black community and throughout London. And there's a huge crowd outside the church.

And it said that Neville and Doreen's composure and like they had this incredible air of, like, strength. On June twenty six, the Crown Prosecution Service or CPS, then drops all the charges against all the boys, citing insufficient evidence, which is a huge blow to Stephen's parents. And at this point, public criticism against the police is huge and growing marches are being held protesting the lack of police response to the murder and and the violence that is perpetrated against the community.

One interesting thing is that it's standard procedure for any unsolved murder in Britain to have an internal review of the police handling of the case, which I think is really fucking cool. So having a cold case, you can't just sit. It has to be reviewed. So one is done for Stephen's murder. It's called the Baker Report, and it gave the investigation into Stephen's murder basically fucking all good here. Nothing to see here. No, really? Yeah.

They're like, no, looks fine to us. So, of course, again, his parents are dealt a blow and the family and the whole community. And eventually Bill Melhuish, the steward, becomes the new lead investigator and he orders surveillance on one of the kids, Gary Dobson, and his flat, hoping the gang will talk about murder. So it's so fucking crazy. In December ninety four, they put a tiny hidden camera in a plug socket in this this kid's flat.

Oh, shit. Yeah. And so the footage, you can see it in this documentary, like the logit footage, these kids are fucking they're crazy. They they they act out beating up people. They take knives and pretend to stab you into the wall. And the that the way they speak about who they want to kill and how and it's all minorities' is horrific. It's fucking horrific. It's terrifying. I mean the footage shows them with knives at all times, racial slurs.

And the same footage shows the kid, Neil A'Court, with a knife on him at all times. So, like, the pattern fits the murder. But since they don't actually admit to the murder, which is incredible that they didn't, there's still not enough evidence to take anyone to trial. The Lawrence family refuses to give up Neville and Doreen. They want justice for their son. They'll do anything for it. And a year after the murder, the family initiates a private prosecution, which is another thing they have in the UK.

What that means is instead of the charges being made on behalf of the population by the Crown Prosecuting Service, so instead of it being with us, it. Would be like the state of California versus whatever, instead of that, an individual, an individual is able to make charges privately. So it's really rare there. But in April 1994, one year after the murder of their son Lawrences, they do this against the initial suspects, Jamie A'Court, Gary Dobson and David Norris, who they had the most evidence against.

So it's only three of the five, which sucks. But, you know, they want to see justice done. Yeah, the family isn't entitled to legal aid for this motion. So a fund is established to pay for the analysis of forensic evidence and the cost of tracking down and interviewing witnesses. And all of the counsel on the case work pro bono. And it's headed by Michael Mansfield, which is like really awesome. So in April nineteen ninety six, now the case finally comes to court with Duane.

So Duane is the main witness for the prosecution because he was able to pick out people in a lineup and explain what happened that night. The case rests on the evidence given by him the night of the murder, as well as the lineups. I just said that and some of the surveillance video from the flat is going to be used as well.

The by then, Duane, is super, emotionally fragile. It's he's, I'm sure, suffering from PTSD. Absolutely. He had this enormous survivor's guilt. And so this young man, I think he's like 20 at the time, has all this pressure, like the case rests on his shoulders being the most. He's probably scared for his life because it's the same he was you know, it could happen to him, too. And there they are in court.

Right. Horrifying. And another thing that I haven't talked about yet is that one of the kids, David Norris, his father is like a kingpin, fuckin criminal in like high powered criminal drug dealer in town. So he's scared for his fucking life, for sure. Yeah, for sure. So he falls apart on the witness stand and his evidence is ruled inadmissible. I know.

And the jury never gets to see the surveillance footage. And so on April twenty fifth, nineteen ninety six, the three are acquitted. Oh.

Which also under British law means they can't be tried again because of double fucking jeopardy, even if they later confess to the murders that can't be tried for them. And these fucking assholes are smirking and being cocky as they leave the courthouse. You know, people are like crowded around the courthouse. They throw shit at them. But at this point, the public is like, fuck this shit. And so another inquest into Stephen's murder finally concludes that this was an unlawful killing in a completely unprovoked racist attack by five white youths.

So finally, they acknowledge what actually happened. And now here's the thing.

Despite how long this had been going on for and everything that had happened legally in the media, no one knew the identities of the five suspects because they had been under age when it happened. So it must have been these like five face nameless, faceless kids. But now fuck our our frenemy Daily Mail steps in.

Oh, yeah.

And, you know, I mean, now we know and of course, George and Marie was like, everyone knows the Daily Mail. There's word. Yeah.

But to their credit and this horrible tabloid paper. But to their credit, the editor, Paul Dakara, he knew Neville Lawrence personally because Neville had plastered Paul's house. Oh, shit. And Paul was quoted as saying, quote, He did a lot of plastering work. He was clearly a very decent, hard working man. So they have connections to Nelson Mandela. They have connections to Paul Dakara. She's amazing.

And so on February 14, the nineteen ninety seven, The Daily Mail runs huge front page story, it says, and huge writing murderers. The Mail accuses these men of killing. If we are wrong, let them sue us. And they post every photo of the kids and every not kids or men, every photo of the killers and all of their names.

Jeez, it that's this incites this crazy political debate and whether it's OK to have done this. And eventually the prime minister, John Major, comes forward and says The Daily Mail had broken no laws and. Well, and I know and none of the five people, none of the five teens ever come forward to sue. And, you know, they probably they probably wanted them to because then they could depose them. Yeah. You know, and get their fucking high powered lawyers to crack them.

So I bet they were wanting at least one of them to sue.

And so they didn't sue because they probably knew that it's so it's like the one time a tabloid does something decent. Yeah. Like I didn't know there were stories like this about, you know, it is.

And it kind of it's kind. It's kind of drawer's drives you crazy because it's because the editor had met Neville, right, and probably had these preconceived notions of people of color and meets one is like, oh, he was actually a hard working man when this is wrong because of my singular personal experience. Every other parent to any other fucking child is probably a hardworking person, too, and they don't get this opportunity. But it is amazing that the Lawrences got the opportunity and used it and used it.

Yes.

In this one circumstance also if it's gone, which is how it normally happens with tabloids, which is they don't have to write. We decide, we accuse because that's what they do when they just put pictures up and blatant lies. And, you know, like the first thing I think of as Madeleine McCann's parents when they tried and convicted those people totally in the press. I mean, who are it's just it's such ugly business. But what it's tiny shining, you know, silver lining there.

And it's because these men were guilty. It's not, you know. Yeah. All right. So the next day, the video evidence of the boys inside the flat is released. And so people just the anger fucking grows, the racism and the knives and the reenacting, the attacks and so on. The thirty first of July in nineteen ninety seven, more than four years after Steven Lawrence was murdered, Home Secretary Jack Straw announces yet another inquiry into the judicial part of this case, and it's led by retired High Court Judge Sir William McPherson.

And this would go on to be known as the MacPherson Inquiry or the McPhail McPherson report.

Mhm. Eventually it comes out in February.

Ninety nine. It's a three hundred and fifty page report. It concludes that the investigation into the murder of Stephen Lawrence had been, quote, marred by a combination of professional incompetence, institutional racism and a failure of leadership. And the officers in the Metropolitan Police specifically involved are named and the entire force is criticised. It's this huge sweeping declaration of law enforcement in the UK and it's really negative. It pisses a lot of people in the institution off the term.

Institutional racism was first coined and first used in nineteen sixty seven in the book Black Power, The Politics of Liberation and Sir William McPherson defines it as, quote, the collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin. It could be seen or detected and processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping, which disadvantage minority ethnic people. So that that whole definition becomes like a huge talking point.

Yeah, he just puts it right on the paper there. Yeah, no bullshit. McPherson puts forward a total of 70 recommendations that are designed to show zero tolerance for racism and to improve practices within the Met. And they include measures that would transform the whole attitude of police towards race relations and also improve accountability. And the response of the government is like, oh, shit, sorry about that. And the home secretary, Jack Straw, who had called for this inquiry, he accepted the charge of institutional racism.

And he's like, yeah, it's not just in the police. He says, quote, Any long established, white dominated organisation is liable to have procedures, practices and a culture which tend to exclude non-white people. Yeah, he also said that some truths were uncomfortable, but they had to be confronted. Within two years, 67 of the report's recommendations led to specific changes in practice or in the law in sixty 67 of the 70, the recruitment, retention and promotion of black and Asian officers and the creation of the Independent Police Complaints Commission that has the power to appoint its own investigators is created.

And as a result of this report, the entire force enacted huge change from the top down. The report even made recommendations to change in the national curriculum. So they want to change the curriculum of the UK that would prevent racial prejudices and foster a culture of diversity, as well as saying that racist incidents in schools should be reported to people's parents and a record should be published by each school every year like we should, they should be held accountable for it.

And it was noted that especially the need to re-establish the trust between the minority ethnic communities and the police.

Wow. So this is all great. But still, no one is being held responsible for actually murdering Stephen. And all five men still walk free. And some of those crimes are racially motivated, just showing that they're continuing. You know, they're probably cocky about it now and flaunting. They fucking think they got away with it. Worse, yes.

They got away with it for time. Yeah. But in 2005, as part of the recommendation of the McPherson report, here's OK. Ready for this. The rule of double jeopardy is repealed. What? Yep, entirely. It's repealed in murder cases and it's decided that a person acquitted of murder could be brought to trial again on the basis that fresh and viable new evidence comes to light. So the Lawrences are like, this is our fucking chance. A secret cold case review begins and they start to search for new evidence.

And finally, in November, two thousand fucking seven, that's happened in nineteen ninety three. It's November 2007. It's shared finally at the investigators have found forensic evidence, including a microscopic stain of Stephen's blood on the collar of Gary Dobsons jacket while they went through all the clothing that had been sealed up for so long. And they searched it. They found fibres from Stephen's clothing and hairs that had a ninety nine point nine percent chance of having come from Stephen on both Dobsons jacket and David Narcis jacket.

Wow. Sorry, David. Horse's jeans. So finally, science is caught up and it's able to fucking bear witness to what happened. And yeah. OK, so Gary Dobson and David Norris are arrested and charged on September 8th, 2010. Unfortunately, they're the only ones that there's enough evidence against to meaningfully bring them to trial. Dobson's original acquittal is thrown out and Norris hadn't been previously acquitted. So it's announced that the two would face trial for the murder in light of the new and substantial evidence.

On November 15th, 2011, David Norris and Gary Dobson go to trial and knowing this is probably the last chance to get justice for her son. Doreen Lawrence is in court every day. Oh, the forensic evidence on three different pieces of clothing is the main evidence. And Dwayne, instead of having to have it all on his shoulders, is just able to give testimony describing what happened on the night his best friend was murdered. So the night before he was to testify, Dwayne's father died.

No, I know. And he's like come into court anyways to testify. And he fucking shows up for his best friend. Oh, yeah. He's got this second chance and all they want from him this time is to tell them what happened to him.

They don't need him to identify anyone. Science is doing that. Yeah. They just want his story. Exactly. Yeah. The surveillance video is shown and showing that they are capable of this crime, you know, which is what the video does. It's almost like the judge could have ruled it inadmissible, which I could totally see here in the US. But it really it shows character in the paper. Yes. So after three days of jury deliberation, 19 years after the fact on January 3rd, 2012, Dobson and Norris are found guilty of the murder of Stephen Lawrence.

And they are sentenced to life with a minimum term of 15 years and two months for Dobson and 14 years and three months for. Unfortunately, the judge says the sentences that seem kind of light reflect the fact that they were both juveniles at the time of the offense, which sucks because otherwise they would have gotten 30 years minimum. Right. In June 2013. And there's OK, so there's an interview with a former undercover police officer named Peter Francis that comes out in June 2013 in The Guardian.

And he is like fuckin spilling it. He's like, I was working undercover within an anti-racist campaign in the mid 90s. He is like I was constantly pressured by my superiors to hunt for disinformation and taint the credibility and reputation of the Lawrences.

That's what he was tasked to do, is to make them look bad somehow. You know, you always see these like, OK, yeah. But, you know, he had covid or. Yeah, he had he had an arrest record for, like, petty theft or his parents were drug addicts. It's like this thing of every time, every fucking time.

There are people whose job it is to do that so that you don't care anymore about them and about justice. Just remember that next time you hear like that information.

Yes, I'm going to fucking say it. I went to rehab for meth. It doesn't mean I don't I don't deserve a fucking good and happy life, you know. Yeah, but I. That's right. I don't want to talk about that. I don't want to talk about. No, no, no. I think that's a very good point, George, because that's also the disparity between white and black experience, because that's like the guy that came forward and said George Floyd and I, when we were 18, we both got arrested for passing fake twenty dollar bills.

Now it's a story I tell at dinner parties. That's cute. And he's dead. That's right. And that's really that's what that's what the point you're making. I mean, thank you. I tell you.

I will tell you the point, OK, but not surprising to anyone. There's no dirt on the Lawrences to be found. They're fucking good people.

Nelson Mandela loves them outside of Mandela, loves them. So that comes out. It's this huge scandal. It's really fascinating. There's a lot Insana and there's a lot that sounds like it sounds like a conspiracy theory. Like if you found that out and told people, people would be like, you're insane. I mean, I was reading some of these accounts of other undercover cops that were talking about infiltrating, you know, the anti-racist campaigns.

They're infiltrating, you know, the animal cruelty organizations, anti animal cruelty, or they're infiltrating them and they're fucking shit up in that organization on purpose.

I mean, like the people who lit the car on fire, I don't think for a second believe that they weren't working for someone and under someone's orders. Absolutely. Well, at this point, I feel like nothing is past that kind of right. It all it all bears considering because who the fuck knows what's going on?

I think what we're saying is it goes all this all the way to the top and always has.

Always has. And that's because it's built on a fucked up foundation, OK?

OK, so since then, amazing Doreen has set up the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trusts and they, quote, work with young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to inspire and enable them. And we all they say we also influence others to create a fairer society in which everyone, regardless of their background, can flourish. There's also an annual architecture award and a Stephen Lawrence Research Centre, which Doreen is chancellor of the university, appointed in twenty sixteen. That's demand for university.

Aha. Wow. She Ultramarine also receives a fuckin Lifetime Achievement Award at the 14th Pride of Britain Awards in October 2012. She's given the title of Baroness on September six twenty thirteen, which is a very rare honour, I think for civilians. That doesn't happen.

Yeah, they don't usually do. So what did the Queen show up or one of the lesser royals. Yes. Or is that how it works? And maybe the chancellor? I don't know. She's on the Labour benches in the House of Lords as a working peer specialising in race and diversity. That's right. Yeah. So she's up in it now. And on April twenty third twenty eighteen, there's a memorial service to mark the twenty fifth anniversary of Stephen's death.

And Prime Minister Theresa May announces that Stephen Lawrence Day would be an annual national commemoration of his death on the 22nd of April every year, starting last year in twenty nineteen. So he has a day now. Wow. Meanwhile, it's been over twenty five years since the murder of Stephen Lawrence, which is one of Britain's highest profile killings in history. It led to dramatic reforms in the way police handle racial racially motivated crime, which is thanks and Stephen's legacy.

But of course, it's like the US. It's there's deep seeded racism and it's it's not perfect. It's not even close to perfect. And a lot of changes still need to be made in society and in the justice system. During says that she would like Stephen to be remembered as a young man who had a future. And Doreen and Neville Lawrence, they have Stephen's body buried in Jamaica saying that London didn't deserve him and that is the murder of Stephen Lawrence.

And I want to also say that his charitable trust is at seven and it's steep in Lawrence Dog, UK. So you can check that out, too.

Amazing. Wow. Isn't that wild? Yeah.

And thanks to Lily for her research and then I mean that was a hard one. Great job.

Thank you guys for listening and from being here with us and and for participating. Yeah.

We appreciate you guys showing up. Let's keep showing up.

Let's keep showing up and doing our best and and and getting in this fight and doing what we can. I don't know. Stay safe and stay fucking angry and stay sexy. Oh. And don't get murdered by Elvis.

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