# 1 Hour of Solved Cases That Are Too Twisted For Netflix | 270

An episode of [Lazy Chill True Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1815534472), 7 Jul 2026, 49 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO4423146666.mp3

Join me for 1 hours of disturbing solved true crime cases that are too disturbing television or Netflix. Episode 270 of the true crime podcast btw. 👇 Youtube links: Lazy Chill History Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillHistory Lazy Chill Zone Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillZone 👇 Support My Work: ❤️ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lazychillzone 👇Social Media Links: https://www.instagram.com/lazychillzone/ 👇 Podcast links: ⚡History Video Podcast on Spotify⚡: https://open.spotify.com/show/7km5pLWpYWEj1mrPpEfRUr?si=0FHYnZf-Qs2FY1GyLevfig ⚡True Crime Podcast on Spotify⚡: https://open.spotify.com/show/0klIz08pAr7wR4we0Ia4sk?si=68qZxCeAQkysXzMZrHE0Iw 🍏 True Crime Podcast on Apple 🍎: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lazy-chill-true-crime/id1815534472 unsolved mysteries, true crime, cold cases, unsolved mysteries, missing persons, murder investigation, forensic evidence, serial killers, crime scene analysis, dark history, criminal psychology, real life horror, police investigations, DNA breakthroughs, forensic genealogy, crime documentaries, criminal profiling, mysterious disappearances, solved cases, justice system, law enforcement stories, cold case files, creepy mysteries, true crime storytelling, crime reconstruction, cases too dark for MrBallen, chilling cases, investigative reporting, modern forensics, victim advocacy, unidentified remains, crime scene forensics, cold cases, true crime, true crime solved, 5 true crime cases, solved cases, sleep cases

## Transcript

[0:01] On February 5th, 1996, inside a modest apartment building at 17
[0:06] O 6 Davidson Ave. in the Morris Heights section of the Bronx, 36
[0:11] year old Jasmine Porter was strangled.
[0:14] She was six months pregnant at the time.
[0:17] Known to friends and family as Jazzy, Porter was described as
[0:21] someone who trusted people easily.
[0:25] That trust, tragically, may have cost her everything.
[0:29] When Porter's body was finally discovered, neighbors found her
[0:32] five year old son, Jeremy still inside the apartment.
[0:36] The little boy had been alone with his mother's lifeless body
[0:40] for approximately 2 days. He'd locked himself inside and
[0:44] had been trying to wipe the blood from her face.
[0:48] According to his uncle, the child later revealed that the
[0:50] attacker had considered strangling him too, but
[0:54] ultimately didn't. The NYPD's initial response
[0:59] brought officers from the 46th Precinct to the scene, where
[1:03] they found Porter unconscious with severe trauma to her neck.
[1:07] The medical examiner quickly ruled her death was intentional.
[1:11] Investigators collected evidence, including clippings
[1:14] and scrapings from underneath Porter's fingernails.
[1:18] However, DNA analysis technology in the mid 1990s wasn't advanced
[1:24] enough to make use of that evidence in the way it can
[1:27] today. Without a clear suspect, and
[1:30] without the forensic tools to process what they had, the case
[1:35] went cold. It would remain that way for
[1:38] over 25 years, a source of unresolved grief for the Porter
[1:42] family and a frustrating open file for the NYPD.
[1:47] During those decades, the family carried on as best they could,
[1:51] and Jeremy grew into adulthood under the care of his
[1:54] grandparents, while Porter's siblings kept her memory alive.
[1:59] But the lack of answers gnawed at them.
[2:02] There was no suspect, no arrest, and seemingly no path forward.
[2:08] The case sat in the files of the Bronx Cold Case Squad, waiting
[2:12] for the right detective and the right moment.
[2:17] That moment came in late 2020, when Detective Robert Klein
[2:21] received a call from A Bronx prosecutor who'd heard jailhouse
[2:24] chatter potentially connected to Porter's case.
[2:28] Klein decided to reopen the investigation and began combing
[2:32] through the original case file. What he found was remarkable in
[2:36] its simplicity. The fingernail clippings
[2:39] collected from Porter's body back in 1996 had been retained
[2:44] but never tested. Klein immediately recognized the
[2:47] potential If Porter had scratched her attacker during
[2:51] the struggle, as was believed, there could be DNA trapped under
[2:55] those nails. By November 2021, at Klein's
[2:59] request, the city's medical examiner had tracked down the
[3:02] preserved clippings and submitted them for testing.
[3:07] When the genetic profile extracted from under Porter's
[3:10] nails was run through state and national databases, it returned
[3:15] a match. The name that came back was
[3:18] Gregory Fleetwood, a 66 year old Bronx man with a deeply
[3:22] disturbing criminal history. Gregory Fleetwood's history of
[3:27] violence against women stretched back decades before Jasmine
[3:30] Porter's slaying. In 1984, a woman living on
[3:35] Davidson Ave., the very same street where Porter would later
[3:39] be killed, accused Fleetwood of a horrific attack against a
[3:43] woman. That case didn't proceed to
[3:45] trial after the victim's family pressured her not to testify,
[3:49] fearing retaliation. 3 years later, on August 7th, 1987,
[3:56] Fleetwood strangled 25 year old Linda Miller, a pregnant woman
[4:00] from Paterson, NJ. The two were using drugs
[4:04] together in a Bronx apartment. After strangling her, Fleetwood
[4:08] called the cops and calmly admitted to what he'd done.
[4:12] For reasons which remain somewhat unclear, the charge was
[4:15] eventually reduced to manslaughter.
[4:18] He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to prison, ultimately
[4:21] serving roughly 7 years at Cape Vincent Correctional Facility
[4:25] before he was granted his release in August 19, 9418.
[4:31] Months after walking out of prison, Fleetwood struck again,
[4:35] this time eliminating Jasmine Porter, according to
[4:38] investigators and prosecutors. He lived across the street from
[4:42] her on Davidson Ave. However, it remains unclear to
[4:46] what extent, if any, the two were actually acquainted with
[4:49] each other, and some reports suggest the two may have crossed
[4:53] paths. At a party on that February day
[4:56] in 1996, Fleetwood entered Porter's apartment and brutally
[5:01] attacked her. Court records and investigative
[5:05] accounts describe Fleetwood as having pushed her down and sat
[5:08] on top of her while strangling her.
[5:11] Perhaps even more disturbingly, her young son tried desperately
[5:15] to push the man off his mother, putting up a truly fearless
[5:18] attempt to save her. Fleetwood's violence didn't end
[5:22] there either, and he was later linked to further violence
[5:26] against women. However, since he stuck to
[5:29] targeting marginalized women who were addicted to drugs and
[5:33] living on the outskirts of life, no charges ever stuck.
[5:38] For nearly three decades after killing Porter, Fleetwood lived
[5:41] freely in the Bronx, most recently on Laconia Ave. just 5
[5:46] miles from the scene of the crime.
[5:49] Chillingly, neighbors there described him as a quiet,
[5:52] helpful man who always volunteered to shovel snow and
[5:56] kept to himself. On August 8th, 2022, Gregory
[6:02] Fleetwood was arrested and charged in the death of Jasmine
[6:05] Porter. At Fleetwood's initial court
[6:08] appearance, prosecutors painted him as an extreme flight risk
[6:12] and requested he be held without bail.
[6:15] He was remanded and subsequently indicted on the charge.
[6:20] The case moved slowly through the courts over the following
[6:22] years. Then on December 10th, 2025,
[6:27] Fleetwood pleaded guilty to 1st degree manslaughter, where he
[6:31] admitted to the details of the crime.
[6:34] On January 29th, 2026, Fleetwood was sentenced to 12 years in
[6:39] prison, which to me seems absolutely absurd given the
[6:43] crime and given his history. Disturbingly, there's a
[6:48] relatively high chance that this sick puppy will one day prowl
[6:51] the streets of New York City. Perhaps the only solace is that
[6:55] he will likely be too old and infirm to hunt for further
[6:58] victims. On the morning of May 7th, 1992,
[7:06] a school bus driver returned home to her apartment in Far
[7:09] Rockaway, Queens after finishing her shift.
[7:13] What she found inside the bathroom of her multi family
[7:16] home would shatter her world forever.
[7:20] Her 15 year old daughter, Nadine Slade, was lying in the bathtub,
[7:24] unresponsive. A bra had been tied tightly
[7:28] around the teenager's neck and a can opener found in the bathroom
[7:32] sink had been used to twist the strap even tighter.
[7:36] Emergency responders arrived, but it was far too late.
[7:39] Nadine was dead. The New York City Office of the
[7:43] Chief Medical Examiner conducted an autopsy and determined that
[7:47] Nadine had died from asphyxia caused by ligature
[7:50] strangulation. But the examination revealed
[7:54] something else, something crucial.
[7:58] There were defensive injuries on the girl's body, clear evidence
[8:02] she hadn't gone quietly. Nadine had fought back, and in
[8:06] that struggle, she'd scratched whoever had done this to her.
[8:10] Investigators collected DNA from underneath her fingernails and
[8:13] preserved it, not knowing it would take 30 years for science
[8:17] and determination to catch up with the perp.
[8:22] But before going on any further, it's important to understand
[8:25] what sort of neighborhood Nadine was living in at the time she
[8:29] was slain. Far Rockaway sits at the eastern
[8:32] tip of the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens, bordered by the Atlantic
[8:36] Ocean to the South and Jamaica Bay to the north.
[8:40] By the early 1990's, the neighborhood was deep in
[8:43] decline. What had once been a glamorous
[8:47] beachside resort destination in the early 20th century had
[8:51] deteriorated significantly. The area became home to one of
[8:56] the largest concentrations of public housing in New York City,
[9:00] and by the early 1990s it was struggling with poverty,
[9:04] unemployment and drugs. It was a neighborhood where
[9:08] violence wasn't unusual and where cases could slip through
[9:11] the cracks. Nadine's family lived in one
[9:15] unit of a multi family home on Birdsall Ave.
[9:19] The layout of the house was significant because the bathroom
[9:22] where Nadine was found was shared between two separate
[9:25] apartments. Simply put, if someone had
[9:28] access to 1 unit, they could quite easily gain access to the
[9:31] shared bathroom at any time. Investigators established that
[9:37] on the night before Nadine's body was discovered, a man named
[9:41] Jerry Lewis had been present in the adjoining apartment, along
[9:45] with several other people. Lewis and Nadine didn't know
[9:49] each other. He wasn't a family friend or an
[9:52] acquaintance. He was simply someone who had
[9:55] been staying in the next unit over with direct access to that
[9:59] shared bathroom. Despite this, early lead
[10:03] detectives couldn't build a strong enough case at the time.
[10:07] The investigation stalled and Nadine's slaying went cold.
[10:13] For Nadine's family, the years that followed were defined by
[10:17] grief compounded with the agonizing absence of answers.
[10:22] Meanwhile, Jerry Lewis continued living his life, and it was a
[10:27] life marked by significant additional violence which could
[10:30] have been prevented if he was clapped in cuffs.
[10:33] Earlier in the years after Nadine's death, he served time
[10:38] in state prison for a brutal assault, robbery and drug
[10:42] possession. Then in 2001, he committed in a
[10:47] horrific assault on an 88 year old woman in Queens, an attack
[10:52] for which he was convicted in 2015.
[10:55] As part of that investigation, his DNA was collected and
[10:58] entered into the system. He eventually registered as an
[11:02] offender with the Virginia State Police in 2021.
[11:06] After relocating to Shawsville, Virginia, in 2022, the Queen's
[11:12] District Attorney Cold Case Unit, working alongside the Cold
[11:16] Case Squad, decided to take another look at Nadine's
[11:19] slaying. Advances in DNA technology had
[11:23] made it possible to extract and analyze genetic material that
[11:27] would have been insufficient for testing.
[11:28] Back in 1992, the team requested that the New York City Medical
[11:33] Examiner's office perform new testing on the trace evidence
[11:36] that had been preserved from underneath Nadine's fingernail
[11:39] clippings. The results were the
[11:42] breakthrough the case had been waiting for.
[11:45] A profile was successfully developed, and when it was run
[11:48] through the nationwide database, it produced a hit.
[11:52] The profile matched Jerry Lewis. The very act of Nadine fighting
[11:56] back, scratching him as he strangled her, had preserved the
[12:00] evidence that would ultimately identify him.
[12:03] It was a grim but powerful testament to Nadine's final
[12:06] moments of resistance. In March 2023, cold case
[12:12] detectives from New York City traveled to Montgomery County,
[12:15] Virginia, where Lewis was brought to the local Sheriff's
[12:19] Office. This was done under the pretense
[12:21] of a scheduled parole visit and detectives interviewed him
[12:25] there. On May 1st, 2023.
[12:29] He was formally arrested and extradited to New York and
[12:33] arraigned, during which he pled not guilty to all the offenses.
[12:38] Given the overwhelming nature of the forensic evidence against
[12:41] him, it was believed that he would change his plea at some
[12:44] point, but that never happened and a trial date was set.
[12:50] Notably, given the court backlog that accumulated since 2020,
[12:54] there was significant delays in reaching the trial.
[12:59] Lewis's trial began on January 12th, 2026 in Queen's Supreme
[13:04] Court, with the prosecution's case relying heavily on the
[13:07] genetic forensic evidence. The defense raised no real
[13:11] counter arguments, as is their right to do since the onus is
[13:16] entirely on the prosecution to prove their case.
[13:19] However, it probably won't come as a surprise to say that when
[13:23] there's effectively no defense, the chances of securing an
[13:27] acquittal go down sharply. Closing arguments were delivered
[13:33] on January 23rd, 2026. The jury deliberated for less
[13:39] than three hours before returning a verdict of guilty on
[13:43] all charges. Lewis, now 61 years old, is
[13:48] expected to receive the maximum sentence of 25 years to life in
[13:52] prison. There's something deeply
[13:56] important about what Nadine did in her final moments.
[13:59] She fought, she scratched. She left a piece of her attacker
[14:03] behind, embedded under her fingernails.
[14:07] It wasn't a conscious decision to preserve evidence for future
[14:10] investigators. It was a young girl's desperate,
[14:14] instinctive attempt to survive an unimaginable attack.
[14:18] But in the end, it was that fight, that refusal to go
[14:22] without resistance, that brought her killer to justice.
[14:29] On the afternoon of February 10th, 2009, a neighbor called
[14:33] 911 after hearing a violent commotion coming from inside a
[14:37] home on Green Ave. in Ridgewood, Queens.
[14:41] When officers from the 104th Precinct arrived at the scene,
[14:45] they found the front door locked.
[14:47] They had to climb through a first floor window to get
[14:50] inside. What they encountered was a
[14:52] nightmare. Blood streaked the walls and
[14:55] pooled across the hallway floor in smears.
[14:58] Lying face down in the middle of it all was 64 year old Rosario
[15:02] Prestigiacomo, a long time home owner and landlord in the
[15:07] neighborhood. He'd been stabbed 16 times in
[15:10] the face, neck, torso and limbs, with puncture wounds reaching
[15:15] his lungs, esophagus, chest and lower abdomen.
[15:19] He'd also been beaten with a shovel, sustaining blunt force
[15:23] injuries to his head, torso and extremities.
[15:28] Prestigiacomo was pronounced dead at the scene.
[15:32] His killer had vanished and for the next 15 years no one would
[15:36] be held accountable for his death.
[15:40] Rosario Prestigiacomo was born on February 1st, 1945 and had
[15:46] spent much of his life in Ridgewood, a working class
[15:49] neighborhood straddling the border of Queens and Brooklyn.
[15:53] He owned the home on Green Ave., where he was found dead, and
[15:57] neighbors remembered him as a familiar presence in the
[16:00] community. He liked to grow tomatoes in his
[16:03] yard and distribute them to his neighbors, a small detail from a
[16:07] life that was otherwise not well documented.
[16:11] Early reporting suggested the attack might have been connected
[16:14] to a property dispute, but authorities declined to confirm
[16:18] that theory. What they did know was that
[16:21] whoever killed Prestigiacomo had done so with extraordinary
[16:25] violence and then disappeared without a trace.
[16:29] And keep that property dispute theory in mind as we go forward
[16:32] here because trust me, it will come up again and it will be
[16:36] important. Despite the caution taken not to
[16:41] leave behind evidence during the brutal attack, the perpetrator
[16:44] had made one critical mistake. Crime scene detectives collected
[16:48] several blood swabs from throughout the home, as is
[16:52] standard procedure in these sorts of cases.
[16:55] When the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner
[16:58] analyzed the samples, they found something significant.
[17:02] In addition to adna profile matching the victim, there was a
[17:06] second DNA profile belonging to an unknown male.
[17:10] This meant that the attacker had been injured during the assault,
[17:14] likely cut by his own weapon, or wounded by Prestigia Como
[17:18] himself during a struggle. It was a major piece of
[17:22] evidence, and investigators immediately ran the unknown
[17:26] male's DNA through local, state and national databases.
[17:31] Every search came back negative. The unknown male wasn't in any
[17:36] law enforcement database. Without a match, detectives had
[17:40] no suspect, no name and no direction.
[17:44] The trail went cold. For over a decade, the Rosario's
[17:48] case sat unresolved, just one of thousands of cold cases sitting
[17:52] across New York City, waiting for the kind of break that
[17:55] doesn't always come. That break finally arrived in
[18:00] March 2022, when the Queen's District Attorney's office and
[18:04] the cold Case squad decided to take another run at the case.
[18:08] This time, they had a tool that hadn't existed in 2009, and it
[18:12] would be a massive game changer. Working in collaboration with
[18:16] the Department of Homeland Security, investigators
[18:19] submitted the forensic evidence to a private lab located in
[18:23] Texas. These scientists developed a
[18:26] comprehensive genetic profile for the unknown male suspect.
[18:31] What makes this technology so powerful is what happens next.
[18:35] Instead of simply searching law enforcement databases, the
[18:39] profile was uploaded to public genealogy databases.
[18:44] After the lab completed its analysis, the profile was handed
[18:48] over to the Forensic Investigations Division.
[18:52] This work LED them to a man named Anthony Scalici, who was
[18:55] then 41 years old and living in Boynton Beach in Florida.
[19:00] Scalici was Prestigiacomo's nephew through marriage,
[19:04] specifically the son of the victim's ex wife's brother.
[19:08] He'd been living in Florida for years, well over 1000 miles away
[19:12] from the scene of the crime. Identifying Scalici as a suspect
[19:17] wasn't enough. Investigators needed physical
[19:20] evidence tying him directly to the crime scene.
[19:24] On various dates in January and February 2024, detectives from
[19:29] the Cold Case Squad traveled to Florida.
[19:32] There, working alongside the Boynton Beach Police Department,
[19:36] they began conducting surveillance on Scalici.
[19:40] Their goal was to obtain a discarded DNA sample, something
[19:43] Scalici had touched or used and then thrown away, so that his
[19:47] DNA could be tested without requiring a warrant.
[19:51] On February 17th, 2024, almost exactly 15 years after
[19:56] Prestigiacomo's slaying, Boynton Beach detective succeeded.
[20:01] They recovered a fork that Scalise had used and discarded.
[20:05] The fork was sent to the New York City Office of the Chief
[20:08] Medical Examiner. The genetic profile produced
[20:12] from the fork was an exact match.
[20:15] It matched the unknown male DNA profile developed from the blood
[20:19] evidence found at the crime scene in 2009.
[20:22] It also matched genetic material that had been recovered from
[20:25] underneath Prestigiacomo's fingernails.
[20:30] On May 14th, 2024, Anthony Scalici was arrested in Boynton
[20:34] Beach by United States Marshals, the NYPD's Regional Fugitive
[20:39] Task Force, and the Boynton Beach Police Department. 15 days
[20:43] later, on May 29th, he was extradited to New York City.
[20:48] He was escorted out of the 105th Precinct station house the
[20:51] following morning, bowing his head before news cameras and
[20:55] refusing to answer questions. At his arraignment, he was
[20:59] ordered held without bail, and he entered a plea of not guilty.
[21:04] If convicted, Scalici faces up to 25 years to life in prison.
[21:10] Importantly, the authorities haven't publicly established a
[21:13] motive for the attack, and some have speculated that it may have
[21:16] been a property dispute, as initially reported.
[21:20] Some have suggested that he may have been a tenant of the slain
[21:23] man, though the police haven't officially confirmed this
[21:26] publicly yet. For now, though, the wheels of
[21:29] justice continue to turn, and Scalici has no scheduled date
[21:33] for his trial at present. On August 13th, 2020, 28 year
[21:42] old Cody De Lisa was shot twice in the head inside his own home
[21:47] in Adams County, Colorado. His body wasn't discovered until
[21:51] the following day, when his employer and landlord, concerned
[21:55] that he hadn't answered his phone, requested a welfare
[21:58] check. Deputies from the Adams County
[22:01] Sheriff's Office found Cody unresponsive, lying in a pool of
[22:05] blood. What investigators would
[22:08] eventually uncover was a plot that hadn't been brewing for
[22:12] months or even weeks. It had materialized, apparently
[22:17] spontaneously, in the span of a single fateful bus ride.
[22:21] Cody's girlfriend, Ashley White, would ultimately be convicted
[22:26] for her role in orchestrating his death alongside a man she'd
[22:30] met just hours before the killing.
[22:33] The case is remarkable not only for the senselessness of the
[22:36] crime itself, but for the bizarre chain of events that led
[22:40] to it and the troubling questions it leaves about the
[22:43] triggerman. In the months leading up to the
[22:47] killing, White and Cody's relationship had become deeply
[22:51] strained. The couple lived together in a
[22:54] residence located in Commerce City, Co, and the central source
[22:58] of friction between them was employment.
[23:01] Cody frequently criticized White for her inability to secure a
[23:05] full time job, and this constant pressure created a toxic
[23:09] atmosphere within the home. White, for her part, grew
[23:13] increasingly resentful, and she wrote in her personal diary that
[23:17] she regretted ever meeting Cody. This is a detail that
[23:21] prosecutors would later use to establish her state of mind in
[23:25] the period before the slaying. Despite this, by all
[23:29] indications, neither party was willing to walk away from the
[23:33] relationship, and the resentment continued to build with no
[23:37] healthy outlet. Also, this is one of the parts I
[23:40] find so baffling about this story.
[23:43] Since these two had no kids and were renting a home, they had
[23:47] nothing concrete binding them together aside from a
[23:50] relationship both of them apparently hated.
[23:54] The tension didn't stay confined to verbal arguments.
[23:57] Prosecutors described an alarming incident in which White
[24:00] attempted to drown and then burn Cody's cat.
[24:04] And no, you don't have to rewind here.
[24:07] He stayed together with her after she attempted to end the
[24:09] life of a theoretically beloved pet, a fact that strikes me as
[24:14] particularly disturbing. I don't want to engage in
[24:17] serious victim blaming here, but I absolutely have to question
[24:21] why this wasn't the final straw for Cody.
[24:24] I suppose he may have been looking for a way out, and he
[24:27] may have been concerned that a breakup could push her over the
[24:30] edge to even more serious violence.
[24:34] Naturally, this behavior raised serious concerns about White's
[24:37] mental well-being and signaled a dangerous escalation in her
[24:41] frustration. While the cat apparently
[24:44] survived the ordeal, the episode painted a deeply disturbing
[24:48] picture of a person whose emotional state was
[24:51] deteriorating rapidly. It also showed that her capacity
[24:56] for violence was growing, since sick puppies like this often
[25:00] vent their anger on helpless animals first.
[25:04] The relationship, by all accounts, had become a pressure
[25:06] cooker, and what it needed was a spark, which came on August
[25:10] 13th, 2020. On that day, White attended a
[25:16] job interview in Denver. A neighbor had reportedly driven
[25:20] her to the interview, and she was returning home by a public
[25:23] transit. During the ride, she texted Cody
[25:27] about how the interview had gone, and his response was
[25:30] dismissive. Delisa expressed skepticism
[25:33] about her chances of landing the job, and this upset White
[25:37] considerably. It was during this exchange of
[25:40] messages while sitting on a public bus surrounded by
[25:44] ordinary commuters going about their daily lives, that the
[25:48] seeds of the crime were planted. White began talking to a
[25:52] stranger on the bus who introduced himself as Scott.
[25:57] The conversation quickly took a dark and unusual turn when Scott
[26:01] asked White whether she was in a relationship, which isn't all
[26:05] that unusual. But then the man started asking
[26:08] a series of bizarre questions about whether she was being
[26:11] indecently assaulted by Cody for whatever reason.
[26:15] White told him that he had been doing these sick acts to her,
[26:19] and Scott's response, according to prosecutors, was immediate
[26:23] and extreme. He told White that they needed
[26:27] to kill Cody and that he had the perfect gun they could use for
[26:32] just such an instance. The two of them got off the bus
[26:36] together, some distance from White's home but close to
[26:39] Scott's residence. They spent time together and
[26:42] even fired Scott's weapon before making their way to White's
[26:45] residence. The speed with which this plan
[26:48] came together is staggering. In a matter of perhaps an hour
[26:51] or two, a complete stranger had proposed a killing and White had
[26:56] agreed to it. When White and Scott arrived at
[27:00] the residence, Scott introduced himself to Delisa as White's
[27:04] brother visiting from Texas. Cody apparently accepted this
[27:08] explanation at face value and welcomed the man into their home
[27:12] without suspicion. And I say apparently here
[27:16] because this is her story of what happened, but I do find it
[27:19] hard to believe a mystery brother was accepted so readily.
[27:24] A short time later, Cody was shot twice in the head,
[27:27] allegedly by Scott, and he died inside the home he shared with
[27:31] White. Before leaving, White and Scott
[27:34] stole Delisa's wallet, and the two then spent the next few days
[27:38] together in the area before Scott departed.
[27:42] White later told investigators that she never saw him again
[27:45] after that, and she wasn't even sure if Scott was his real name.
[27:51] Cody's body wasn't found until August 14th, when deputies
[27:55] conducted a welfare check prompted by his employer and
[27:58] landlord. He hadn't answered his phone all
[28:00] day, which was unusual enough to raise immediate concern.
[28:05] When deputies arrived at the residence, they found him lying
[28:08] in a pool of his own blood, quite obviously already
[28:11] deceased, and his girlfriend was nowhere to be found.
[28:15] White was identified as a person of interest relatively quickly,
[28:19] and she spoke with investigators where she gave the account we
[28:22] now have. Ultimately, she was arrested on
[28:26] August 16th, 2020, and she was charged with the premeditated
[28:31] slaying of her boyfriend. One of the most unusual aspects
[28:36] of this case was the identity of White's accomplice.
[28:40] She told investigators about a man named Scott, but she claimed
[28:44] she didn't know his real name or where he'd gone after they
[28:48] parted ways. For three years, the identity of
[28:52] this man remained a mystery. But then in 2023, a woman
[28:59] contacted the district attorney's office with a
[29:01] startling claim. She said she was the girlfriend
[29:05] of a man named Michael Stratton, and she believed Stratton was
[29:09] the shooter. She laid out details of a
[29:12] confession Stratton had allegedly made to her, and those
[29:15] details matched White's account of the crime with disturbing
[29:18] precision. Stratton, it turned out, was
[29:22] already in custody, and he'd been arrested for the killing of
[29:25] a 39 year old man named Michael Hunt in Pueblo, Co.
[29:31] Hunt had been homeless in Pueblo for some time, and his body had
[29:35] been found in an alley on S Union St. on August 30th, 2020,
[29:40] just weeks after Cody's was found.
[29:43] If Stratton was indeed the man who shot Cody, then he committed
[29:47] a second killing less than three weeks later in a different
[29:50] Colorado city. However, Stratton was eventually
[29:54] deemed incompetent to stand trial in the Pueblo case, and he
[29:57] has never been charged in connection with this case.
[30:02] White's case took nearly five years to reach trial, partly due
[30:06] to the court delays stemming from the events of 2020.
[30:10] The proceedings began on January 6th, 2025, and the trial would
[30:15] be unexpectedly contentious. Over the course of nearly three
[30:19] weeks, the jury heard extensive testimony about the volatile
[30:23] relationship, the chance encounter on the bus, and the
[30:27] events of the night of August 13th.
[30:30] The prosecution presented evidence, including White's
[30:32] diary entries and her own detailed statements to
[30:35] investigators. Prosecutors argued that White
[30:39] bore significant responsibility for Delise's death, having
[30:43] conspired with a stranger to carry out the attack and then
[30:47] participated in robbing the victim afterward.
[30:50] The jury ultimately convicted White not in the first degree,
[30:55] which had been the original charge, but of the lesser charge
[30:58] of second degree murder. She was also found guilty of
[31:02] conspiracy to commit the crime as well as the subsequent
[31:06] looting of his body. The distinction between a first
[31:11] and second degree charge is significant.
[31:13] Under Colorado law, first degree requires proof of deliberation
[31:17] and premeditation, while second degree involves knowingly
[31:21] causing the death of another person.
[31:23] Now, personally, looking at the facts here, I don't see how this
[31:27] wasn't a virtual slam dunk on the greater charge, but I've
[31:30] never practiced criminal law. The jury's decision suggests
[31:35] they believed White acted knowingly, but perhaps didn't
[31:38] find the level of premeditation required for a first degree
[31:42] conviction. They may have also had
[31:45] reservations about the precise nature of her involvement in the
[31:48] actual shooting itself, but I find this less likely given her
[31:52] own statements to detectives. White's defense attorney pushed
[31:57] back forcefully against the conviction.
[32:00] In a statement to the Denver Post, she maintained that her
[32:03] client was innocent and declared that the case was far from over,
[32:08] indicating plans to appeal. She argued that the district
[32:12] attorney's office should be prosecuting Cody's actual killer
[32:16] instead of focusing on White, noting that authorities knew who
[32:20] Scott was. This was an apparent reference
[32:23] to Michael Stratton, who had been identified as the likely
[32:26] shooter, and I do have to specify that he was only
[32:30] identified as the likely shooter and was never conclusively
[32:35] identified even by White. She claimed he remained
[32:39] uncharged in connection with Cody's death due to being found
[32:43] incompetent to stand trial in his other case.
[32:48] For that last point, I agree that the defense's position
[32:52] raises uncomfortable questions about the case.
[32:55] If Stratton was indeed the person who pulled the trigger,
[32:58] and if he can't be tried due to mental incompetency, then the
[33:02] legal systems ability to deliver justice for Cody is inherently
[33:06] limited. White was convicted for her role
[33:09] in conspiring to bring about the crime, but the actual shooter
[33:13] may never face a jury for this particular crime and wasn't even
[33:17] part of the proceedings. Whether 1 views this as a
[33:21] reasonable outcome or a miscarriage of justice likely
[33:24] depends on how one weighs White's culpability against
[33:27] Stratton's apparent mental state.
[33:31] Now, here's one thing I find very unusual and interesting
[33:34] about the investigation, and I bet a bunch of you watching may
[33:38] have thought the same thing. White attended at Scott's home
[33:42] to see the weapon and fire off some shots, at least according
[33:46] to her own statement. If that's to be believed, we
[33:51] also know that she was texting Cody while she was on the bus.
[33:54] Since she was expressing dissatisfaction with her job
[33:57] interview, I have to question whether detectives attempted to
[34:02] obtain any sort of tracking information from her phone which
[34:06] may have indicated exactly where Scott's house was.
[34:11] At any rate, I suspect that the appeals process in this case
[34:14] will be incredibly lengthy, and I hope to have further updates
[34:18] on this case in the coming years.
[34:22] There's also another possibility that I considered while
[34:25] researching this case, and another one I'm sure many of you
[34:28] are thinking as well. It's also theoretically possible
[34:32] that Scott wasn't even a real person and that the story was
[34:35] just invented to attempt to shift blame.
[34:39] That said, all evidence does seem to indicate that there was
[34:42] a very real and very deranged person on that bus, and that it
[34:45] was likely Stratton, especially given his subsequent acts.
[34:51] The killing of Cody De Lisa is a case that resists easy
[34:55] categorization. It wasn't a carefully plotted
[34:58] assassination or a crime of passion in the traditional
[35:01] sense. It was something stranger and
[35:04] more unsettling, an attack that was conceived and executed
[35:08] within the span of a few hours, born from a chance meeting with
[35:12] a violent stranger on a public bus.
[35:15] Having covered hundreds of these cases on this channel, this may
[35:19] be the most bizarre and unsettling fact pattern I've
[35:22] seen outside of serial predator cases.
[35:28] On the evening of December 28th, 2017, a 28 year old father of
[35:34] two named Andrew Finch stepped onto the front porch of his
[35:37] mother's home in Wichita, KS. He'd seen police lights flashing
[35:42] outside and wanted to know what was going on.
[35:45] Within 10 seconds of opening that door, he was dead, struck
[35:49] by a single rifle round fired by an officer positioned to cross
[35:54] the street. Finch hadn't committed any
[35:57] crime, he wasn't armed, and there were no weapons in the
[36:01] house. He had absolutely no idea why
[36:04] armed officers had surrounded his home, because the entire
[36:09] situation had been manufactured by strangers he'd never met.
[36:14] These individuals were playing a video game he'd never played,
[36:18] fighting over a wager worth literally $1.50.
[36:23] The killing of Andrew Finch became the most high profile
[36:26] case of swatting in American history.
[36:29] It forced the country to reckon with a dangerous intersection of
[36:33] online culture and gaming toxicity, as well as police
[36:37] training issues. It's a case where every single
[36:41] person involved made choices that compounded into
[36:44] catastrophe. That is, except for the one man
[36:47] who paid the ultimate price. Before getting into the
[36:52] specifics, it's worth understanding what swatting
[36:55] actually is, especially for those who aren't familiar with
[36:59] the darker side of gaming and online culture.
[37:02] The term refers to making a fraudulent emergency call,
[37:06] typically reporting a violent crime in progress to trigger a
[37:10] massive armed police response at a specific address.
[37:15] The name comes from SWAT teams, the tactical units that respond
[37:19] to hostage situations and active shooters.
[37:23] By the mid 2000s, swatting had become an increasingly common
[37:27] form of harassment and retaliation within certain
[37:30] online communities. It was particularly popular
[37:34] among gamers and Internet trolls, who generally viewed it
[37:38] as a way to bring real life consequences to their perceived
[37:41] online enemies. Perpetrators generally used
[37:45] caller ID spoofing and voice over IP technology to disguise
[37:50] their location while placing these calls.
[37:53] For many, the thrill was watching chaos unfold, sometimes
[37:58] through the victim's own live stream.
[38:01] It was generally treated as a quote UN quote prank, a flex of
[38:05] digital power. But what happened in Wichita
[38:08] proved just how deadly that so-called joke could become.
[38:13] The chain of events began with a highly contentious match of Call
[38:17] of Duty World War 2 that was played with real money on the
[38:20] line. Casey Viner, an 18 year old from
[38:23] North College Hill in Ohio, was playing online with Shane
[38:27] Gaskell, a 19 year old from Wichita.
[38:31] The two got into a heated argument after Gaskell allegedly
[38:34] caused them to lose a match through friendly fire.
[38:38] Viner, furious over the loss and a wager reportedly worth just
[38:42] $1.50, threatened to have Gaskell swatted.
[38:46] It wasn't an idle threat since Viner knew someone who could
[38:49] make it happen and had a long history of the practice.
[38:53] That someone was Tyler Barris, a 25 year old from Los Angeles
[38:58] who'd built a reputation in certain corners of the Internet
[39:01] as a prolific swatter. Operating under the online alias
[39:06] Swatastic, Tyler had claimed responsibility for dozens of
[39:11] fake bomb threats and swatting incidents across the United
[39:14] States and Canada. He'd already served time for
[39:17] calling in a bomb threat to a Los Angeles television station
[39:21] in 2016 and had been released months before the Wichita
[39:25] incident. Swatting wasn't something Barris
[39:29] did reluctantly, and he told a journalist that he found bomb
[39:32] threats fun and exciting, and that he got a rush from evading
[39:36] law enforcement. His lifestyle appeared to bear
[39:39] this out, and he clearly wasn't doing it for profit, as he was
[39:43] homeless, allowing him to essentially be a ghost to law
[39:47] enforcement. When Gaskill realized Tyler had
[39:52] started following him on Twitter and suspected what was coming,
[39:55] he didn't back down, but instead chose to directly challenge this
[39:59] swatter. He gave Tyler a former address
[40:02] in Wichita, a house on West McCormick Street where Gaskill's
[40:07] family had previously lived before being evicted in 2016.
[40:12] He taunted Tyler to go ahead and try something and even invited
[40:15] him to show up at his house directly.
[40:18] It was a reckless dare and it put someone else's life directly
[40:21] in the crosshairs. Using the free Wi-Fi at a Public
[40:25] Library in South Los Angeles, Tyler placed a call to the
[40:29] Wichita City Hall, which was then transferred to the 911
[40:33] dispatch center. OK, so quick intermission.
[40:38] I had to make some changes to my script here since I originally
[40:41] described why this process worked so well.
[40:45] For safety reasons and to not get this video demonetized, I'm
[40:49] not going to explain the exact method of why this worked.
[40:52] Just to be absolutely clear, committing these sorts of acts
[40:56] of swatting is a serious crime and shouldn't ever be done under
[41:00] any circumstances whatsoever. Tyler, identifying himself as
[41:06] Brian, told the operator that he was at the McCormick Street
[41:09] address and that he'd shot his father in the head.
[41:13] He said that he was holding his mother and brother as hostages
[41:17] and that he was going to do the same thing to them.
[41:20] But if that wasn't enough, he went a step further to push an
[41:24] even more overwhelming emergency response from the cops.
[41:28] He said he'd poured gasoline around the house and was
[41:31] thinking about setting it on fire, potentially starting a
[41:34] blaze that could engulf neighboring houses as well.
[41:38] It was a harrowing scenario, the kind of call that demands an
[41:41] immediate and overwhelming police response.
[41:46] However, Tyler didn't realize he'd been bamboozled.
[41:50] And the address Tyler gave didn't belong to Shane Gaskell
[41:53] anymore. It belonged to Andrew Finch, who
[41:55] lived there with his mother, Lisa, and other family members.
[41:59] Finch wasn't a gamer, and he had no connection whatsoever to any
[42:03] of the three men involved in this event.
[42:06] He was a young father who loved his two children, was passionate
[42:10] about art, and had been studying to become a tattoo artist.
[42:15] He was, in the most complete and terrible sense, an innocent
[42:19] bystander caught in the crossfire.
[42:23] Wichita police officers arrived at the McCormick Street address
[42:26] at approximately 624 in the evening.
[42:29] Importantly, the officers who responded weren't members of a
[42:33] SWAT team and hadn't received specialized training for
[42:36] tactical situations or hostage rescues.
[42:40] They surrounded the house based entirely on the information from
[42:43] Tyler's fabricated call, believing they were confronting
[42:46] an armed killer holding hostages.
[42:49] Andrew Finch's mother, Lisa, noticed the police lights
[42:52] outside and opened the front door to see what was happening.
[42:56] Unfortunately, it was her son that then came to the porch to
[43:01] investigate what exactly was going on.
[43:05] What happened next took only seconds after officers ordered
[43:09] Finch to put his hands up. According to testimony, he began
[43:12] to raise them, but then lowered them again, perhaps being unsure
[43:16] what was actually happening. Officer Justin Rapp, who was
[43:20] positioned approximately 40 yards away across the street,
[43:24] armed with a rifle, fired a single shot which struck Finch
[43:28] Square in the chest. He was rushed to a nearby
[43:31] hospital but was pronounced dead just 17 minutes after being
[43:35] shot. Tyler was arrested the very next
[43:40] day in Los Angeles on a fugitive warrant connected to a prior
[43:43] bomb threat charge. He was extradited to Kansas in
[43:47] January 2018 and charged with involuntary manslaughter.
[43:52] As the investigation expanded, authorities uncovered the full
[43:56] scope of his activities. In November 2018, he pleaded
[44:00] guilty to 51 federal charges, including making a false report
[44:04] resulting in death, cyber stalking, conspiracy and dozens
[44:09] of other crimes. In March 2019, he was sentenced
[44:14] to 20 years in federal prison, believed at the time to be the
[44:18] longest sentence ever imposed for swatting.
[44:21] He was also ordered to formally apologize to the Finch family
[44:25] and pay restitution, though I suspect any apology was
[44:28] meaningless and that he had no means to pay anything
[44:32] regardless. Casey Viner, the Ohio teenager
[44:36] who'd initiated the swatting request, eventually pleaded
[44:40] guilty to conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
[44:44] Text messages revealed his panic after learning someone had died.
[44:48] He texted an associate that he was going to prison because he'd
[44:52] literally told someone they were going to be swatted.
[44:55] In the end, he received a sentence of 15 months in federal
[44:59] prison for his actions, a very questionable deal considering
[45:03] that without him, none of this would have happened.
[45:07] Shane Gaskell, who'd provided the old address and taunted
[45:10] Tyler into carrying out the attack, was sentenced to 18
[45:13] months in prison. The officer who pulled the
[45:18] trigger, Justin Rapp, faced a different kind of reckoning.
[45:22] In April 2018, Sedgwick County District Attorney Mark Bennett
[45:27] announced that Rapp wouldn't face criminal charges.
[45:31] Bennett explained that the officer's decision had been made
[45:34] in the context of the false information provided by Barris's
[45:37] call. He said that charging him would
[45:40] require evidence rather than the benefit of hindsight.
[45:44] Rapp had initially told investigators he thought Finch
[45:47] may have had a gun, but later testified that he never actually
[45:50] saw a weapon and instead fired based on Finch's hand motions.
[45:56] These two stories aren't necessarily mutually exclusive,
[46:00] and it likely speaks to the fact that these officers weren't on a
[46:03] SWAT team and had no specialized training for this situation.
[46:08] The decision not to charge Rap was met with outrage from the
[46:11] Finch family and the broader Wichita community.
[46:15] Making matters worse, the Wichita Police Department
[46:18] subsequently promoted Rap to the rank of detective, a decision
[46:23] criticized by Wichita's mayor and City Council members.
[46:29] The Finch family refused to let Andrew's death become just
[46:32] another statistic. They filed a federal civil
[46:35] rights lawsuit against Officer Rapp, the city of Wichita and
[46:39] other responding officers, initially seeking $25 million in
[46:44] damages. The family's attorney, Andrew
[46:48] Stroth, described the case as one of the most egregious police
[46:51] shootings in the country. After a significant five year
[46:55] legal battle with a number of preliminary hearings in March
[46:59] 2023, the Wichita City Council ended up approving a $5,000,000
[47:05] settlement to the family. The family's spokesperson said
[47:08] the money would go into a trust for Finch's two children, though
[47:13] she emphasized that no amount could replace their father.
[47:18] Andrew Finch's death prompted legislative action at both the
[47:22] state and federal level. In March 2018, just months after
[47:27] the shooting, the Kansas State Legislature approved a bill
[47:31] making it a Class 1 felony to create a false alarm resulting
[47:36] in injury or death. A mandatory minimum sentence of
[47:40] 10 years was brought in for such cases, with a maximum of 40
[47:43] years. Anyway, this story has really
[47:47] gotten to me on a personal level, probably because I'm
[47:50] something of a gamer myself and I've seen a bunch of stupid,
[47:54] petty disputes over games in my time.
[47:57] At the end of the day, Andrew Finch's life was taken and his
[48:01] family was torn apart, all because two idiots couldn't move
[48:05] on over $1.50. Then, when Gaskell knew he was
[48:09] being targeted by a known serial swatter, he decided it was
[48:13] appropriate to put complete strangers in the crosshairs.
[48:17] As for the officer himself, he has to live the rest of his life
[48:21] knowing that a split second decision ended the life of a
[48:24] completely innocent man.

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