# Episode 342

An episode of [Sword and Scale](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/790487079), 8 Mar 2026, 1 h 06 min.

Audio: https://pscrb.fm/rss/p/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/70380460/sas342.mp3

In a quiet Ohio suburb where families mow their lawns and kids ride bikes on the sidewalks, police uncover a bloody scene: two decomposing bodies, Regina Capobianco and her friend John Mann, buried beneath trash inside a modest home. As investigators peel back the layers, they don’t just find evidence of murder; they find broken families, desperate choices, and a trail of secrets that stretches from prison cells to nail salons. In a quiet, family-friendly town, someone let a killer through the front door. Get instant access to all episodes, including premium unreleased episodes, commercial-free at swordandscale.com

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is
[0:03] Speaker 1: not intended for all audiences.
[0:06] Speaker 2: Listener discretion is advised.
[0:12] Speaker 1: Shouldn't happen.
[0:13] Speaker 3: It shouldn't happen, And anyway, I just wanted to be
[0:18] Speaker 3: known that I didn't kill John.
[0:22] Speaker 4: Welcome to Season thirteen, episode three hundred and forty two
[0:25] Speaker 4: of Sword and Scale show the reveals that the worst
[0:28] Speaker 4: monsters are real. In the early hours of May eighteenth,
[1:08] Speaker 4: twenty seventeen, in Parma Heights, Ohio, a working class suburb
[1:13] Speaker 4: twenty miles south of Cleveland, which sounds like a lovely place,
[1:17] Speaker 4: I might add, like the rest of the state. Burrow
[1:20] Speaker 4: Road cuts through the town in a long stretch of
[1:23] Speaker 4: strip plazas and small storefronts, hair salons, nail studios, pizza shops.
[1:29] Speaker 4: You know, the kind of useless strip ball that inhabits
[1:32] Speaker 4: pretty much every city in America. Well, those shops are
[1:35] Speaker 4: usually owned by locals in These businesses open early, close late,
[1:40] Speaker 4: and no they're regulars by name. The strip is dark
[1:45] Speaker 4: and small shops are locked up for the night. The
[1:49] Speaker 4: early morning is called except for one thing. A burglar
[1:53] Speaker 4: is ready to do his thing. He grabs a landscaping
[1:57] Speaker 4: stone hauls it up and hurls it at the front
[2:00] Speaker 4: door of Classic Hair Studio. The glass explodes, the stone
[2:05] Speaker 4: breaking apart into chunks across the floor. He doesn't hesitate.
[2:09] Speaker 4: He ducks inside, head straight for the counter, and he
[2:13] Speaker 4: yanks the entire cash register, loose, the drawer, jerks free,
[2:19] Speaker 4: cords snapping, and he's out in seconds. Inside the cash register,
[2:25] Speaker 4: he finds almost three hundred dollars in cash, and the
[2:29] Speaker 4: machine itself is probably worth a couple hundred more.
[2:32] Speaker 5: We're here, Hi, it's in Carmania. I'm not going to
[2:36] Speaker 5: say it's an emergency, but I was driving to work
[2:40] Speaker 5: and I noticed that the door on a beauty shop
[2:43] Speaker 5: is totally smashed on Pearl Road. The address is sixty
[2:49] Speaker 5: four twelve. It's called Classic Studio and their front doors
[2:54] Speaker 5: is totally smashed. I mean anybody can go inside.
[2:57] Speaker 6: At this point.
[2:58] Speaker 5: Okay, I noticed yet, and I Turnerrund went back, thinking
[3:02] Speaker 5: did I really see that?
[3:03] Speaker 7: And sure enough I did so.
[3:06] Speaker 1: Okay, with God, I'd recorded a.
[3:08] Speaker 4: Few doors down. He does it again, another front door smashed,
[3:13] Speaker 4: this time at the Nail Studio. Instead of taking the
[3:17] Speaker 4: whole register, he opens the drawer. This one has fifty
[3:20] Speaker 4: dollars inside, but it doesn't matter. Any amount of money
[3:25] Speaker 4: is worth it. He's desperate. The glass crunches under his
[3:30] Speaker 4: boots as he walks away, leaving two shops in ruins
[3:34] Speaker 4: behind him.
[3:35] Speaker 7: And I'm the store manager here. Just count drug mark
[3:38] Speaker 7: right next to us. There is a it's sixty four
[3:40] Speaker 7: eighty eight your road. There's the Spine Nail place right
[3:44] Speaker 7: next to the drug mark here that I'm I'm in
[3:46] Speaker 7: charge of. There's the glasses broken out on the front
[3:49] Speaker 7: door here at the Nail and spa place.
[3:53] Speaker 6: All right, I believe we just clear it there.
[3:55] Speaker 7: Oh oh, okay, I'm sorry. I just I didn't know
[3:58] Speaker 7: if anyone was out or anything.
[4:01] Speaker 8: I believe the address is.
[4:03] Speaker 7: It's just sixty four eighty eight on the door here.
[4:06] Speaker 9: Okay, then that's a different one.
[4:11] Speaker 7: It's called Spy and Nails.
[4:13] Speaker 4: By sunrise, both storefronts are cordoned off with yellow tape.
[4:17] Speaker 4: Patrol officers sweep glass into piles while the owners pull
[4:22] Speaker 4: up the surveillance video. A white male short with a
[4:27] Speaker 4: bald spot and tattoos on his arms. The time stamp
[4:32] Speaker 4: on the camera is wrong, but they already know the
[4:35] Speaker 4: crimes happened overnight. The owners are terrified, and one vows
[4:40] Speaker 4: to shut down the business. She wonders how this could
[4:43] Speaker 4: happen in such a family friendly town. Parma Heights has
[4:47] Speaker 4: one of the lowest crime rates in the nation, at
[4:50] Speaker 4: least that's what the statistics say. Whoever the perpetrator is,
[4:54] Speaker 4: he probably should have worn a mask. His face is
[4:57] Speaker 4: front and center on the surveillance camera. Not only that,
[5:02] Speaker 4: the outside cameras catch him speeding off in a white jeep.
[5:06] Speaker 4: It doesn't take long to bring in Thomas enough for questioning.
[5:11] Speaker 10: Okay, all right, do you have any day parmaitches here
[5:14] Speaker 10: to speak with you? No, well, I had a couple
[5:17] Speaker 10: of breakings in my city at his spawn ales and
[5:20] Speaker 10: then another Classic care studios.
[5:23] Speaker 11: You know anything about them? No, nothing at all?
[5:27] Speaker 10: All right, why I get surveillan's video of the vehicle
[5:29] Speaker 10: and the person breaking into their business. Okay, so let
[5:32] Speaker 10: me pull this stuff up here. Recognize that person looks
[5:35] Speaker 10: like it could be all right.
[5:38] Speaker 11: So let's do this.
[5:40] Speaker 10: Recognize them Pa twos Yeah, huh yeah, do you remember
[5:45] Speaker 10: doing this or No?
[5:47] Speaker 4: Tom seemed like your average guy next door. He just
[5:51] Speaker 4: didn't have that typical criminal look about him. If there
[5:55] Speaker 4: even is such a thing. You look more like a
[5:58] Speaker 4: dad sitting on the bleaks of his son's football game.
[6:02] Speaker 4: And Thomas did have a son, a good kid who
[6:06] Speaker 4: unfortunately had to be raised by Tom's sister. During the
[6:09] Speaker 4: last fifteen years he was in prison for aggravated robbery.
[6:13] Speaker 4: So looks can be deceiving, that's what they say.
[6:16] Speaker 10: Anyway, you're running, you take a cash register from the
[6:21] Speaker 10: one place and some cash from the second place, okay,
[6:24] Speaker 10: and then you're in You're in a white jeep that
[6:26] Speaker 10: looks like it blowing to you your son, but registered
[6:28] Speaker 10: to your sister.
[6:29] Speaker 11: Maybe okay, okay, But a more more recent photo of
[6:35] Speaker 11: be would be this. What the hell happened to it?
[6:40] Speaker 12: Yeah?
[6:42] Speaker 1: Smash the window?
[6:43] Speaker 11: Did you do that?
[6:44] Speaker 2: Ever? Yeah?
[6:45] Speaker 11: Okay? What happened?
[6:46] Speaker 1: I mean, just went off road? Did a true branch?
[6:52] Speaker 11: Did you mean to go off road? Or was it
[6:53] Speaker 11: kind of yeah, okay, trying to hurt yourself or what?
[6:56] Speaker 3: No, just just went off was off road on the
[7:01] Speaker 3: spot where we used to go off roading.
[7:04] Speaker 11: So you're just gonna go out there and be like
[7:05] Speaker 11: maha or what? I don't know. I don't know, man.
[7:08] Speaker 11: I appreciate you being honest.
[7:10] Speaker 4: Tom tried to be a good dad. Well maybe not,
[7:15] Speaker 4: but he really did love his son and old habits
[7:19] Speaker 4: die hard that included going on benders, robbing businesses, and
[7:24] Speaker 4: off roading. This time, it just happened to be that
[7:28] Speaker 4: he had no vehicle, so he took his son's jeep
[7:32] Speaker 4: and damaged it.
[7:34] Speaker 11: How messed up were you during this time?
[7:36] Speaker 1: I don't know, sir?
[7:37] Speaker 11: Okay, all right, but well there's you know what.
[7:39] Speaker 10: Unfortunately you know, due to this and the video and stuff,
[7:42] Speaker 10: I got half of you. And then how it got
[7:44] Speaker 10: to you is we actually the news of hold of
[7:47] Speaker 10: it because I put something on our Facebook page and
[7:49] Speaker 10: then your sister did action want to call it and said, hey, listen,
[7:52] Speaker 10: that's my brother in my car.
[7:53] Speaker 11: You know what I mean?
[7:54] Speaker 10: So kind of let us see you. But I had
[7:56] Speaker 10: some previous things allowed to you. It looks like you
[7:58] Speaker 10: had a history of Brunswick can readily called me. He says, Hey, listen,
[8:02] Speaker 10: I know that guy. You might you might want to
[8:04] Speaker 10: give him a call. Everything he did is what he
[8:06] Speaker 10: used to do when they used to deal with you
[8:07] Speaker 10: a lot.
[8:08] Speaker 13: Huh.
[8:09] Speaker 11: So what mean when you were you were in jail
[8:12] Speaker 11: for a little bit, you get out and what happened.
[8:14] Speaker 3: I just I don't know, man, I just got how
[8:17] Speaker 3: and things weren't like I thought it was going to be.
[8:20] Speaker 11: You know, I had nowhere to go, Okay, no family
[8:23] Speaker 11: was helping here.
[8:23] Speaker 1: What my mom passed?
[8:25] Speaker 4: You know, a lot had changed in the fifteen years
[8:29] Speaker 4: he was on the inside, y'all see shawsh ink right.
[8:33] Speaker 4: Think about how smartphones didn't even exist in two thousand
[8:37] Speaker 4: and two. Everybody was still using a flip phone. There
[8:41] Speaker 4: was no social media, at least not like today. Facebook
[8:45] Speaker 4: launched in two thousand and four, YouTube in two thousand
[8:48] Speaker 4: and five, and Twitter in two thousand and six. Instagram
[8:52] Speaker 4: came around in twenty ten, and uh, I won't even
[8:56] Speaker 4: mentioned TikTok. In two thousand and two, when he went
[8:59] Speaker 4: into prison, people were still using Aol instant messenger and
[9:04] Speaker 4: MySpace wasn't even a thing yet. If you wanted to
[9:07] Speaker 4: go somewhere, you couldn't just tap on your phone and
[9:09] Speaker 4: have directions show up or even rent out to you.
[9:13] Speaker 4: You had to print something out from a site called
[9:17] Speaker 4: map quest. I shit, you not on your ink jet
[9:21] Speaker 4: printer and hope that the directions were accurate. Kids nowadays
[9:26] Speaker 4: can't even figure out what gender they are. Could you
[9:27] Speaker 4: imagine if you took GPS away from them. If Tom
[9:31] Speaker 4: repeated as little heist today, he'd be lucky to find
[9:35] Speaker 4: one dollar in the cash register. People don't even use
[9:38] Speaker 4: cash anymore, just their Klarna debit cards, which they have
[9:42] Speaker 4: no intention of ever paying back. Another big difference in
[9:45] Speaker 4: two thousand and two is that we weren't all spying
[9:47] Speaker 4: on each other. No one was lurking nearby to film
[9:51] Speaker 4: you on their phone, waiting to post it somewhere for
[9:53] Speaker 4: the world to see. Security cameras existed, but we're reserved
[9:58] Speaker 4: for big businesses. No wonder Tom didn't wear a mask.
[10:02] Speaker 4: Not only was he too shitfaced to even think about
[10:05] Speaker 4: a security camera, but he just wasn't expecting these tiny
[10:09] Speaker 4: businesses to own one. In two thousand and two, voicemail
[10:13] Speaker 4: was still a thing and people actually checked it. Tom
[10:17] Speaker 4: felt like he'd been swallowed up by time, but it
[10:20] Speaker 4: wasn't just the tech that had left him behind. While
[10:24] Speaker 4: he was on the inside, his world fell apart his
[10:27] Speaker 4: mom died. She was the family anchor. There were some
[10:31] Speaker 4: rough years between him and his stepdad, but his mom
[10:35] Speaker 4: was always there for the kids, probably almost too much.
[10:40] Speaker 14: My mom struggled for the last three or four years
[10:44] Speaker 14: before she passed, trying to keep the house afloat and
[10:47] Speaker 14: still help my sister with bills and with her kids.
[10:50] Speaker 1: And as soon.
[10:51] Speaker 14: As my mom dies, you know, I told my sister
[10:54] Speaker 14: well here to take my money and paid a banknote
[10:57] Speaker 14: all on borrowing money against the house or her court.
[11:01] Speaker 1: Her husband had allowed.
[11:02] Speaker 14: It to go into such disappeared that she didn't want
[11:05] Speaker 14: to fuck with it all, and so she led the
[11:07] Speaker 14: bank habit. And uh yeah, I told her, I said,
[11:11] Speaker 14: you know, I feel like you.
[11:12] Speaker 11: You don't spit on her grains.
[11:14] Speaker 8: You know what I mean?
[11:14] Speaker 11: You should have let him.
[11:15] Speaker 14: You should have let the bank habit four years ago
[11:18] Speaker 14: instead of moving them on the roll of stretch.
[11:20] Speaker 1: She didn trying to.
[11:21] Speaker 14: She was the only one that ever had a solid
[11:24] Speaker 14: career and a working a steady work, you know what
[11:27] Speaker 14: I mean, with good money. So you know she's painting
[11:29] Speaker 14: like everybody's cell.
[11:30] Speaker 1: Phone bill, everybody build baby.
[11:33] Speaker 10: Sit or certain sys have got a good relationship or no. No.
[11:37] Speaker 4: His sister took over the money, and according to Tom,
[11:40] Speaker 4: she mismanaged it. She also failed to get the car
[11:45] Speaker 4: Tom had wrecked from the impound because it was too
[11:47] Speaker 4: much trouble. Tom was pissed because the car belonged to
[11:51] Speaker 4: his son, Tommy and still had some of his personal
[11:54] Speaker 4: belongings in it. According to Tom, his sister helped raise
[11:58] Speaker 4: Tommy and had been a good fluence, but ever since
[12:02] Speaker 4: their mother passed, she was all about herself. His sister,
[12:05] Speaker 4: of course, had a different story. There was a time
[12:08] Speaker 4: when they partied together as teens and acted more like
[12:11] Speaker 4: friends than siblings. But then Tom got a girl pregnant
[12:15] Speaker 4: when he was nineteen, and things changed. His sister had
[12:20] Speaker 4: lost a baby boy, and now she found herself stepping
[12:23] Speaker 4: in to parent Tom's son. Tom continued to party and
[12:28] Speaker 4: went to rehab at least once.
[12:31] Speaker 15: It was like usually every time he went to rehab,
[12:33] Speaker 15: this stuff would come out. Missy does everything well, Missy
[12:37] Speaker 15: has a job, Missy went to school. I paid for it.
[12:41] Speaker 15: He always, I guess, felt like I got everything. But
[12:45] Speaker 15: in reality, my grandparents were draining their bank account for him,
[12:51] Speaker 15: and their whole life revolved around him. And then what
[12:55] Speaker 15: was going on? But he always and he still will
[13:00] Speaker 15: and recently that when my mom died, he wrote Tommy
[13:04] Speaker 15: letters the same old stuff like Missy got.
[13:06] Speaker 4: This, and his sister Missy remembered that their mother practically
[13:10] Speaker 4: enabled him.
[13:11] Speaker 15: She was always their form, and even if he stole
[13:16] Speaker 15: from her, he could still come home. I don't her backward.
[13:21] Speaker 15: I think I told you when I found out when
[13:23] Speaker 15: she died, that she had all these check cashing and stuff.
[13:28] Speaker 15: When I'd found all the.
[13:30] Speaker 9: Receipts commissary and to people like Latasha, Maquisha and some
[13:37] Speaker 9: of my brother's crowd, you know, and Akron and Youngstown
[13:42] Speaker 9: and you know wherever, and it was always, well, he
[13:45] Speaker 9: needs hygiene products.
[13:48] Speaker 15: It's like he doesn't need three hundred dollars.
[13:51] Speaker 4: We've all experienced someone in the family like this, right.
[13:55] Speaker 4: It always seems like the one who gets in trouble
[13:57] Speaker 4: the most, or is the least productive, gets all the attention,
[14:01] Speaker 4: doesn't it. Yeah, Fuck the productive one who pays his
[14:04] Speaker 4: bills and minds his own business. Let's focus all of
[14:08] Speaker 4: our baby bird attention on this idiot over here that
[14:12] Speaker 4: can't get their shit together. Tom was about twenty five
[14:15] Speaker 4: when he went to prison, and now he was forty two,
[14:19] Speaker 4: with no home to go back to, no mommy to
[14:22] Speaker 4: run to, and a son who was almost an adult
[14:25] Speaker 4: now ready to live his own life. He had a
[14:28] Speaker 4: lot to figure out and even more to make up for,
[14:32] Speaker 4: and yet here he was back at the police station.
[14:36] Speaker 4: Since he got out, he'd been looking for a place
[14:38] Speaker 4: to stay, but his parole had restrictions, no guns, no drugs,
[14:43] Speaker 4: on and on. His anxiety was increasing. In the previous
[14:47] Speaker 4: night's drunken binge was going to land him in jail again.
[14:53] Speaker 4: Things were about to get worse.
[14:55] Speaker 10: I don't see your son wanted to be baitchful against
[14:57] Speaker 10: you at all, you know what I mean.
[14:59] Speaker 11: I think he just wants to had around, you know
[15:01] Speaker 11: what I mean?
[15:01] Speaker 16: Unfortunately, listen, and like I said, I mean, this mom
[15:04] Speaker 16: was letting me stay.
[15:05] Speaker 1: There and until I got a place and.
[15:08] Speaker 16: That didn't work out for the roll, and then she
[15:13] Speaker 16: kind of wanted to start a relationship again.
[15:15] Speaker 1: And then when I didn't.
[15:16] Speaker 3: Because I had a girlfriend, she kind of flipped on me.
[15:19] Speaker 11: Okay.
[15:20] Speaker 1: And then, like I said, my sister, you know she enhurges.
[15:23] Speaker 11: Was that girlfriend, the girl we were looking for that
[15:25] Speaker 11: was missing?
[15:26] Speaker 1: Oh have you heard?
[15:29] Speaker 11: Do you know where she's at? By any chance?
[15:30] Speaker 1: It's just an old friend of mine, Okay.
[15:33] Speaker 11: Still never heard any content of anything where she could be.
[15:35] Speaker 11: She I don't know.
[15:37] Speaker 2: She was like when I was writing from jail, we
[15:42] Speaker 2: lost contact, but she's stayed in touch with my mom.
[15:45] Speaker 11: Okay, so when my mom.
[15:46] Speaker 1: Died, she kind of come back in the picture.
[15:48] Speaker 14: Then her mom died, then she took off the Texas
[15:51] Speaker 14: and came back and her and her friend actually picked
[15:54] Speaker 14: me up from jail.
[15:55] Speaker 1: But who was it?
[15:57] Speaker 11: Who was her friend that came with you?
[15:58] Speaker 1: An old, same old guy, John John Mayn. Yeah.
[16:02] Speaker 4: In that clip they were talking about the mother of
[16:04] Speaker 4: Tom's son. When he got out of prison, he was
[16:07] Speaker 4: hoping to stay at her house, but that didn't work
[16:10] Speaker 4: out because she wanted to rekindle the relationship and he
[16:14] Speaker 4: had long since moved on with two different women. Forty
[16:18] Speaker 4: nine year old Regina Capo Bianco was one of them.
[16:23] Speaker 4: About fifteen years earlier, she had signed up for a
[16:25] Speaker 4: prison pen pal program where she met Tom. Yeah, she
[16:30] Speaker 4: was one of those weirdos. They constantly wrote each other
[16:34] Speaker 4: and promised they would meet up once he was out.
[16:37] Speaker 4: The problem for Tom, at least, was that he was
[16:39] Speaker 4: looking for stability, and before he even got out he
[16:43] Speaker 4: started to see that she had issues. I wonder how
[16:46] Speaker 4: he found out. Could it have been maybe the fact
[16:49] Speaker 4: she was writing inmates Maybe that was it there, Tom,
[16:54] Speaker 4: Maybe that was the whole problem.
[16:57] Speaker 11: Anyway.
[16:57] Speaker 4: Regina had been living at home with her mother, but
[17:00] Speaker 4: at some point in their friendship, her mother also tied,
[17:03] Speaker 4: leaving her without a home. Her life took a downward
[17:07] Speaker 4: turn into alcoholism. This was the last thing Tom needed,
[17:11] Speaker 4: and besides, he had already started seeing someone else. These
[17:16] Speaker 4: inmates can really pulse a puss, if you know what
[17:19] Speaker 4: I mean. When Tom was released, Regina was living with
[17:23] Speaker 4: a partner, an older man named John Mann. This was
[17:27] Speaker 4: a quid pro quo situation, if you know what that means,
[17:31] Speaker 4: a friends with benefits sort of relationship where she would
[17:35] Speaker 4: help take care of him and his house in exchange
[17:38] Speaker 4: for a place to stay. She was a househore basically.
[17:42] Speaker 4: Regina and John had generously offered to let Tom stay
[17:46] Speaker 4: there too until he got on his feet, But Tom
[17:50] Speaker 4: could already see the writing on the wall and knew
[17:53] Speaker 4: this would be the worst environment possible for him. It
[17:57] Speaker 4: was true that he accepted Regina John's offer to pick
[18:01] Speaker 4: him up from prison upon his release, but he told
[18:04] Speaker 4: him he planned to find his own lodging. The last
[18:08] Speaker 4: he'd heard of Regina, she was about to celebrate her
[18:11] Speaker 4: fiftieth birthday.
[18:12] Speaker 13: And one one what's the address of the emergency?
[18:15] Speaker 6: So we have a neighbor across the street and they
[18:17] Speaker 6: just got home and there's a lady that's like on
[18:19] Speaker 6: the ground and can't get up, and they're like hovering
[18:21] Speaker 6: over her. So in the front yard, in the front yard. Yeah,
[18:25] Speaker 6: she's an older lady in her fifties with dark go
[18:28] Speaker 6: brown hair. Wait, they're picking her up and carrying her
[18:32] Speaker 6: into the room into her white female waite female. So
[18:36] Speaker 6: can barely stand up, so they're walking or in carrying her.
[18:39] Speaker 4: Now, it's one thing to get a little carried away
[18:43] Speaker 4: for your fiftieth birthday, But when was the last time
[18:46] Speaker 4: your neighbors called nine one one on you because you
[18:49] Speaker 4: were passed out in your yard? And I hope you
[18:52] Speaker 4: weren't in your fifties?
[18:54] Speaker 7: Sure, three joke ahead Regina's birthday.
[18:58] Speaker 6: She apparently had too much.
[18:59] Speaker 7: Drink, but she was up, walking around and talking, able
[19:03] Speaker 7: to answer some simple questions. So she's been a durle
[19:06] Speaker 7: guy ar and keep an eyeron for the night before me.
[19:10] Speaker 4: Coppy Tom remembered warning Regina to get up that day,
[19:13] Speaker 4: but when she wasn't able to, he and John literally
[19:16] Speaker 4: had to drag her into the house.
[19:19] Speaker 1: On her fiftieth birthday.
[19:21] Speaker 16: She got trashed and was puping up her faked teeth,
[19:23] Speaker 16: and I'm like, come on, Regina, I'm like an old
[19:25] Speaker 16: lady and saw that, and I told her too, I'm like,
[19:28] Speaker 16: please get up. You know you're laying in your puke.
[19:30] Speaker 16: I'm like, it's nice area. Someone's gonna call the police. No,
[19:33] Speaker 16: sooner than I said it. They're coming a couple of
[19:35] Speaker 16: farm tops. And yeah, so it looked crazy like you
[19:39] Speaker 16: got an older guy and you got this guy tattoo's
[19:42] Speaker 16: dragging this girl in the house. I mean, especially after
[19:44] Speaker 16: all that shit that happened in Cleveland with them girls
[19:47] Speaker 16: being known for all that years.
[19:48] Speaker 1: You don't know, She's always been like that.
[19:50] Speaker 16: She's a good heart, good girl through writing, like as
[19:55] Speaker 16: much as we wrote.
[19:55] Speaker 4: In prison, Regina may have had a good heart, but
[19:59] Speaker 4: she was a wild card. Though he did stay at
[20:02] Speaker 4: Regina and John's a couple of times since he got out,
[20:06] Speaker 4: he mostly bounced around hotels with his current girlfriend. He
[20:10] Speaker 4: was right to steer clear of Regina as much as possible.
[20:14] Speaker 4: The last thing he needed was to get roped into
[20:16] Speaker 4: another bad situation. But Tom, the guy just trying to
[20:21] Speaker 4: keep his head down and reconnect with his son, was
[20:24] Speaker 4: about to be pulled into something a lot bigger than
[20:28] Speaker 4: a stolen cash register and e wrecked jeep, something that
[20:34] Speaker 4: would change his life forever.
[21:19] Speaker 11: It was late.
[21:20] Speaker 4: June twenty seventeen in Parma Heights, Ohio, a Cleveland suburb
[21:25] Speaker 4: with a reputation for safety not violent crime. In the
[21:30] Speaker 4: last few weeks, police responded to a string of late
[21:33] Speaker 4: night burglaries. The suspect, Thomas Nuff, was quickly caught. He
[21:38] Speaker 4: admitted to everything, saying he was broke and desperate. Hotels
[21:43] Speaker 4: were getting expensive. Tom had just been released from prison
[21:46] Speaker 4: after serving fifteen years. Since then, he'd bounced between hotels,
[21:51] Speaker 4: old girlfriends, and temporary stays with people willing to help,
[21:55] Speaker 4: including a penpal named Regina Capobianco. My boyfriend even gave
[22:00] Speaker 4: him a ride from prison. He stayed at her place
[22:03] Speaker 4: a couple of nights, but mostly kept his distance. She
[22:07] Speaker 4: had a good heart, but she was a little unpredictable.
[22:12] Speaker 4: Then Regina stopped answering her phone. Her sister worried I.
[22:18] Speaker 11: Miss her every day.
[22:20] Speaker 17: I miss sending her pictures of the girls of my grandkids.
[22:25] Speaker 1: And calling her.
[22:30] Speaker 11: That was all taken from me.
[22:32] Speaker 17: Anne Berkeley, can't do that anymore.
[22:35] Speaker 1: I call Regina Reggie.
[22:38] Speaker 17: Reggie had a contagious laugh. If you would ask anybody
[22:42] Speaker 17: what they remember most about Reggie, it will be her laugh.
[22:46] Speaker 4: The police had been to her house already, but they
[22:49] Speaker 4: didn't execute a full search. Neighbors had seen stickers on
[22:52] Speaker 4: the door about a potential foreclosure and just assumed John
[22:56] Speaker 4: was evicted. Now weeks had passed, they go back, and
[23:01] Speaker 4: what they find inside is worse than anything anyone's imagined.
[23:06] Speaker 4: What they walk into is a hoarder's nightmare. Trash banks, boxes,
[23:12] Speaker 4: rotting food. The air is thick and sour, the kind
[23:17] Speaker 4: of stench you think is garbage until you realize it's not.
[23:23] Speaker 4: Specialized agents are called in along with cadaver dogs, but
[23:27] Speaker 4: even the dogs refuse to go inside. The odor of
[23:31] Speaker 4: decomposition is overwhelming. They stubbornly sit outside, like, no way, man,
[23:38] Speaker 4: I ain't going in there. We ain't touching this. That's
[23:43] Speaker 4: kind of what I imagine dogs sound like. You can get
[23:46] Speaker 4: into their head, yo, bro, we ain't going in there,
[23:49] Speaker 4: That's all I'm saying.
[23:50] Speaker 11: Dog.
[23:51] Speaker 4: The search stops here. I think it's kind of cute.
[23:55] Speaker 4: Imagine a Doberman talking like that. Anyway. Fortunately, agents come
[24:00] Speaker 4: prepared with full protective masks and oxygen tanks. This is
[24:05] Speaker 4: a full hazmat situation we got going on. They enter
[24:09] Speaker 4: through the back door of the ranch home, past the
[24:11] Speaker 4: shattered window, dead flies, carpet the floor. The second bedroom
[24:17] Speaker 4: is by far the worst. Flies swarm in the air,
[24:21] Speaker 4: the stench pools in the room. Maggots wriggle in a
[24:27] Speaker 4: disgusting puddle at the foot of the bed, a puddle
[24:30] Speaker 4: they trace to amount of trash and blankets. When they
[24:34] Speaker 4: start to move it, they see skin, then bone, then
[24:41] Speaker 4: what looks like a leg, then a skull. The hallway
[24:45] Speaker 4: carpet has been cut away, and blood stains stretched from
[24:50] Speaker 4: the kitchen into the living room, where the carpet has
[24:53] Speaker 4: also been removed under trash and clothing. In the second
[24:57] Speaker 4: bedroom they find John Mann's body a mire of decomposed,
[25:03] Speaker 4: rotting flesh, unrecognizable, and behind him, up against the wall,
[25:09] Speaker 4: they find a second figure wrapped in a wet Harley
[25:12] Speaker 4: Davidson blanket. The blanket is form fitting. They can see
[25:17] Speaker 4: the outline of Regina's head before it's even pulled back,
[25:22] Speaker 4: She's face up, sweater rolled up above her eyes, one
[25:26] Speaker 4: foot exposed, and the rest of her body hidden beneath
[25:30] Speaker 4: layers of filth. A purple condom wrapper is found near
[25:35] Speaker 4: her head. At first, Tom wasn't the obvious suspect. Even
[25:40] Speaker 4: though he had a criminal background, his crimes didn't involve
[25:44] Speaker 4: violence against anyone, and he had a son he desperately
[25:48] Speaker 4: wanted to reconnect with. Why would he risk throwing that
[25:51] Speaker 4: all away? He already messed up by getting stupid, drunken
[25:56] Speaker 4: breaking into the salons, stupid and sloppy, but not murder.
[26:02] Speaker 4: But because he was one of the only people who
[26:04] Speaker 4: had a connection with both Regina and John, they started
[26:08] Speaker 4: to dig where else had Tom been staying since he
[26:12] Speaker 4: got out, who else was helping him? And that's when
[26:16] Speaker 4: his current girlfriend came up, Alicia Stoner. She wasn't just
[26:21] Speaker 4: his girlfriend, she was a social worker at the prison.
[26:25] Speaker 4: Imagine that you realize.
[26:27] Speaker 12: How serious certainly last going on with him, and we
[26:32] Speaker 12: understand that we time to talk about it yesterday. So yeah,
[26:35] Speaker 12: I understand if things don't come back to he at
[26:38] Speaker 12: certain times, but we just want to have that line
[26:41] Speaker 12: of communication of what good we can get through some
[26:43] Speaker 12: of this information today.
[26:45] Speaker 11: Most of it.
[26:47] Speaker 4: Alicia was working at the same prison that Tom was
[26:50] Speaker 4: serving time in. Tom was attractive to her for some reason,
[26:56] Speaker 4: probably for the same reason why some women right to inmates,
[27:01] Speaker 4: some particular crazy bitches take that extra step and get
[27:05] Speaker 4: a job at the prison. It's one hell of a
[27:07] Speaker 4: world we're living in, I'll tell you. Maybe it was
[27:12] Speaker 4: the bad boy prisoner thing. Maybe it was his charming
[27:15] Speaker 4: gift of gab who knows who cares. Whatever the case,
[27:20] Speaker 4: he was writing to multiple women, including Regina, and they
[27:23] Speaker 4: were all falling for it. With Alicia, he had the
[27:28] Speaker 4: added pleasure of interacting personally. That is until she quit
[27:32] Speaker 4: due to an obvious conflict of interest. She chose Tom
[27:37] Speaker 4: over her job and they continued their relationship. Imagine choosing
[27:43] Speaker 4: a criminal over your job. These two lovebirds wrote poems
[27:49] Speaker 4: to each other, long handwritten love letters. They were soul mates.
[27:57] Speaker 4: When detectives interviewed Alicia for the first time, she didn't
[28:00] Speaker 4: want to say much, But after she realized that she
[28:04] Speaker 4: could be implicated and ultimately served time, that's when she
[28:09] Speaker 4: started to talk.
[28:10] Speaker 8: I just want to clarify some things that I wasn't
[28:13] Speaker 8: direct with Okay, okay.
[28:15] Speaker 12: But maybe this dream of minimizing some of this so
[28:18] Speaker 12: that it's oh, I did lesser issue.
[28:20] Speaker 8: I avoided, I minimized, irrationalized, I did all the defense mechanism.
[28:24] Speaker 12: Guy, Now it just comes down to telling us the truth.
[28:27] Speaker 4: On paper, Alicia didn't look like the kind of woman
[28:29] Speaker 4: who'd ever be connected to a double homicide. She was
[28:34] Speaker 4: a mental health worker, and she was married, But somehow
[28:38] Speaker 4: she was charmed by this asshole. After his release in
[28:43] Speaker 4: April twenty seventeen, Alicia became more than just his girlfriend.
[28:47] Speaker 4: She was his driver, his banker, and his safety net.
[28:52] Speaker 4: When parole rules barred Tom from living with her, she
[28:55] Speaker 4: paid for his motel rooms. When he needed money, she
[29:00] Speaker 4: wired it, and when he called her in the middle
[29:02] Speaker 4: of the night, she came. On May twelfth, twenty seventeen,
[29:07] Speaker 4: Alicia drove to pick him up after he made a
[29:11] Speaker 4: desperate phone call. She remembered his left index finger was
[29:15] Speaker 4: badly cut, a fresh wound he couldn't easily explain when.
[29:19] Speaker 8: We discussed about initially me getting the phone call from Thomas,
[29:24] Speaker 8: and he called me, and he did say to me,
[29:26] Speaker 8: if I ever meet you with now, and I know
[29:29] Speaker 8: he gave me, this is where I'm going to tell you.
[29:33] Speaker 11: Just okay. I know he gave me directions at some point.
[29:37] Speaker 11: And here's what I see.
[29:38] Speaker 8: When I'm driving and I'm crossing over Meander, I'm on
[29:41] Speaker 8: the phone with him and he tells me Regina and
[29:43] Speaker 8: John are dead.
[29:44] Speaker 11: Okay.
[29:45] Speaker 12: That helps spark so memory of the conversation, that of
[29:49] Speaker 12: him telling you when you got there, was there anything more?
[29:51] Speaker 11: That there's more?
[29:52] Speaker 3: Okay.
[29:52] Speaker 8: So it's accurate with him with the hood coming out
[29:55] Speaker 8: and he gets in my car where I tell you,
[29:57] Speaker 8: I me park where I tell you and does let
[30:01] Speaker 8: me say this The story I was supposed to tell
[30:04] Speaker 8: was that he got into a bar fight for the finger,
[30:06] Speaker 8: because he says to me, all you know is that
[30:08] Speaker 8: I got into a bar fight for the six Okay.
[30:11] Speaker 11: So that's what I told you.
[30:12] Speaker 4: Tom's version started with his relationship with John. He felt
[30:16] Speaker 4: sorry for John because Regina was taking advantage of him.
[30:20] Speaker 4: What started as a partnership had turned into a one
[30:23] Speaker 4: way street that ended with Regina being the only happy partner.
[30:27] Speaker 4: She came and went as she pleased. She took John's
[30:31] Speaker 4: money and did little in exchange. She even started seeing
[30:35] Speaker 4: other guys and bringing them back to the house.
[30:38] Speaker 3: So when I met John, you know, he might have
[30:42] Speaker 3: been a dirt bag and a lot of things, but
[30:45] Speaker 3: I just took him as an old hippie, nice guy.
[30:48] Speaker 3: He was going to get kicked out of the house soon,
[30:49] Speaker 3: but he needed someone to motograss.
[30:51] Speaker 1: And first of.
[30:52] Speaker 3: All, you know, I want everybody to know that, you know,
[30:56] Speaker 3: I've never had any sexual relationships with Regina. We met
[31:01] Speaker 3: in two thousand and five his pen pals, and for
[31:04] Speaker 3: about a year and a half we kind of were
[31:06] Speaker 3: writing a lot and had ideas of getting out being together.
[31:11] Speaker 3: Of course, then I felt a lot different than I
[31:13] Speaker 3: knew now about what I wanted.
[31:14] Speaker 1: In life and a woman.
[31:16] Speaker 3: And she's always been super wild and told me a
[31:18] Speaker 3: lot of crazy stories I never realized. And of course
[31:22] Speaker 3: she's probably progressed and got worse, you know what I mean.
[31:25] Speaker 3: So I never realized, you know, like until her fiftieth birthday,
[31:30] Speaker 3: how she was drinking.
[31:32] Speaker 4: If he wasn't convinced at her fiftieth birthday party that
[31:35] Speaker 4: she was an out of control partier, an incident that
[31:39] Speaker 4: happened at a gas station confirmed it she'd been drinking.
[31:44] Speaker 4: He says she came out of the restroom with toilet
[31:47] Speaker 4: paper hanging out of her pants. When he politely brought
[31:51] Speaker 4: it to her attention, she says, watch this, and she
[31:55] Speaker 4: pulls it out and plasters it on the chest of
[31:57] Speaker 4: a little old lady who's walking pie. Gross.
[32:01] Speaker 3: So we didn't talk for a while, you know, a
[32:05] Speaker 3: few weeks, and I ended up when I needed a
[32:08] Speaker 3: place to stay, and I knew that, you know, they
[32:11] Speaker 3: were still entertaining that idea when I was in jail.
[32:14] Speaker 3: So I called her up and she said, well, you know,
[32:16] Speaker 3: she was mad at me, but I said, hey.
[32:17] Speaker 1: You know, what are you mad for? You know what
[32:19] Speaker 1: I mean, the way you were acting, and I can't
[32:22] Speaker 1: have that.
[32:23] Speaker 3: Well, so I had met John a few times and
[32:25] Speaker 3: he had confided in me that he kind of wanted
[32:28] Speaker 3: her out, but she told him like, welly I get
[32:31] Speaker 3: mail here, so you got to evict me. And then
[32:34] Speaker 3: he was kind of like, well, I've known her for
[32:36] Speaker 3: a while. I kind of love her. But at the
[32:37] Speaker 3: same time, he's like, you know, she don't talk my
[32:40] Speaker 3: dick no more.
[32:40] Speaker 1: She don't do this.
[32:42] Speaker 3: And for her, you know, she i'd seen her drunk,
[32:45] Speaker 3: like you know, you can't get it hard, real nasty,
[32:47] Speaker 3: you know, what I mean.
[32:48] Speaker 1: So I'm like, I feel bad for him.
[32:50] Speaker 4: You know, he felt bad for John, so he started
[32:53] Speaker 4: coaching him on how he could get rid of Regina
[32:56] Speaker 4: by evicting her. It would be a bonus that he'd
[32:59] Speaker 4: get to live there with John. In effect, he planned
[33:02] Speaker 4: to replace Regina. Tom said he didn't have much, but
[33:07] Speaker 4: he would help him in any way he could, just
[33:09] Speaker 4: not sexually. John wasn't getting that anyway.
[33:14] Speaker 3: Ended up, you know, taking some of my stuff there
[33:16] Speaker 3: because you know, she didn't know it.
[33:18] Speaker 1: At the time, but John was going to try to birthday.
[33:22] Speaker 11: He took some stuff there, okay, all right.
[33:25] Speaker 3: So I took my blue bin and had my clothes
[33:27] Speaker 3: in it, okay, And I had it like a duffel
[33:29] Speaker 3: bag that had like my little homemade tattoo shit in it,
[33:31] Speaker 3: lived brown tan bag. And you know, I wasn't like
[33:34] Speaker 3: trying to like move in or nothing yet. I didn't
[33:37] Speaker 3: know what the status was going to be as far
[33:39] Speaker 3: as John getting her out of the house. I kind
[33:41] Speaker 3: of was like, I'm not gonna lie to you. I said,
[33:44] Speaker 3: you know, I can get you good, bud, I'll keep
[33:48] Speaker 3: you smoking, I'll give you fifty bucks a week, but
[33:50] Speaker 3: I can't live here with her. And another reason why
[33:52] Speaker 3: I really blame myself is just for entertaining the idea
[33:55] Speaker 3: and telling him about this stuff about being elderly and
[33:57] Speaker 3: being able to evict her that.
[33:59] Speaker 1: That's I guess why she loved the fuck out, you
[34:01] Speaker 1: know what I mean?
[34:02] Speaker 3: And you know, I hear them outside yelling and arguing,
[34:06] Speaker 3: and the dogs are barking and the little you know,
[34:08] Speaker 3: they're loud, and I'm like, I could hear it outside.
[34:11] Speaker 4: So the day this all went down, John had confronted Regina.
[34:16] Speaker 4: She laughed it off and said she was going to
[34:17] Speaker 4: go out and meet a guy at a bar and
[34:19] Speaker 4: they might come back to the house. While she was out,
[34:23] Speaker 4: John had fallen asleep, so she texted Tom asking him
[34:26] Speaker 4: to put the dogs away because she was bringing this
[34:29] Speaker 4: guy back. Tom didn't want to be around for that,
[34:32] Speaker 4: so he says he left.
[34:34] Speaker 3: Well, I just chose to leave, you know. I took
[34:37] Speaker 3: a walk in the neighborhood, so I didn't want to
[34:38] Speaker 3: be there listening to him in a sex whatever was
[34:40] Speaker 3: going on. Well, I had come home and whoever the
[34:45] Speaker 3: guy she had there was gone, and hearn John were arguing,
[34:49] Speaker 3: and she's drunk. I mean probably didn't take her musk
[34:54] Speaker 3: get drunk anyway. She's such a little person, you know
[34:56] Speaker 3: what I mean. And they're fighting and I'm out in
[35:00] Speaker 3: the backyard. Dogs are going crazy. I'm surprised nobody called
[35:03] Speaker 3: the police, you know, And something just changed in the tone,
[35:08] Speaker 3: and I come in, you know what I mean. I
[35:10] Speaker 3: didn't come in, and really I didn't want to interrupt nose.
[35:13] Speaker 1: I didn't know what was said.
[35:14] Speaker 3: And I came in and Regina was attacking him with
[35:17] Speaker 3: a knife, and I stopped her. I actually got pictures.
[35:22] Speaker 3: It took me to believe me. As little she is,
[35:25] Speaker 3: she was pretty strong, you know what I mean. And
[35:28] Speaker 3: I had a little mark here where I had a
[35:30] Speaker 3: little cut, and I got a bunch of cuts on
[35:31] Speaker 3: my hands trying to pull the blade from her. And
[35:33] Speaker 3: that's actually how I ended up cutting my fingers so bad.
[35:37] Speaker 4: This is when the lies started. Every person he saw
[35:41] Speaker 4: got a different explanation for why he got this cut
[35:44] Speaker 4: on his finger, from his own son, to his ex
[35:48] Speaker 4: at the house with his son, to his girlfriend Alicia,
[35:52] Speaker 4: and finally to the police who interviewed him the night
[35:55] Speaker 4: of the burglaries. By that point, his finger was barely
[35:58] Speaker 4: hanging on After he tried. I had to superglue it gross,
[36:03] Speaker 4: but he knew it was bad because it was trending
[36:06] Speaker 4: green and starting to smell funny, you know what I mean.
[36:10] Speaker 1: I know shit happened.
[36:12] Speaker 3: It shouldn't have happened, And anyway, I just wanted to
[36:17] Speaker 3: know that I didn't kill John.
[36:19] Speaker 4: The one part of the story that always stayed consistent
[36:21] Speaker 4: was that he didn't kill John. He freely admitted he
[36:26] Speaker 4: killed Regina, just like he freely admitted several weeks later
[36:29] Speaker 4: that he robbed the salons, but he was adamant he
[36:34] Speaker 4: didn't kill John.
[36:36] Speaker 3: And none of this shit was planned or premeditated or anything.
[36:39] Speaker 3: But I ended up ripping a knife from Regina and
[36:42] Speaker 3: I threw up in a chair and she took off,
[36:44] Speaker 3: and I went a night checked John and he was
[36:47] Speaker 3: still making sounds and on the floor, and she ends
[36:52] Speaker 3: up coming back with another knife, and I don't know,
[36:54] Speaker 3: regular stayed nice whatever from the kitchen, and that's when
[36:57] Speaker 3: she ended up. You know, staffn't have me cut my
[37:00] Speaker 3: finger real bad again. I'm tussling with her and I'll
[37:05] Speaker 3: get her to the group, to the ground and I'm
[37:08] Speaker 3: trying to hold her down, and you know, her other hands,
[37:11] Speaker 3: she's clawing in my face and my eyes, and I've
[37:15] Speaker 3: ended up getting a knife and using honor, you know
[37:17] Speaker 3: what I mean. And not only I'm having nightmares about it,
[37:20] Speaker 3: you know what I mean. It's so much to fucking
[37:22] Speaker 3: live with, you know. And I wish I would have
[37:25] Speaker 3: ran out of the house, you know what I mean,
[37:27] Speaker 3: because now I lived with it. She was a friend,
[37:29] Speaker 3: you know what I mean. And I mean I'd be
[37:32] Speaker 3: stupid to even tell my pro officer, I'm about to
[37:34] Speaker 3: stay here at this house.
[37:35] Speaker 4: Tom maintained he never met for any of this to happen.
[37:39] Speaker 4: He just wanted to get out of prison and start over,
[37:42] Speaker 4: be a good dad, continue his relationship with Alicia, except
[37:46] Speaker 4: she was still married, and get back to what he
[37:50] Speaker 4: loved to do. Tattoos, of course, but he also loved
[37:54] Speaker 4: drinking and talk it. Those two traits somehow led to
[37:58] Speaker 4: him committing crimes that involved the very people he loved most.
[38:03] Speaker 4: In the aftermath of those crimes, even his youngest son.
[38:07] Speaker 2: It was my phone. I was letting him borrow it
[38:10] Speaker 2: for the night that night. The next morning I woke up,
[38:13] Speaker 2: my phone was gone, my kids were gone, and my
[38:15] Speaker 2: jeep was gone, and I didn't talk to him for
[38:16] Speaker 2: a couple of days.
[38:17] Speaker 4: Tom Son thought he was helping his father, but every
[38:21] Speaker 4: time tom took more. The next morning, Tommy's phone, his jeep,
[38:28] Speaker 4: and even his trust were god.
[38:31] Speaker 2: When he did move there, he cut his finger open,
[38:35] Speaker 2: and he said it was from the hedgehog with my
[38:37] Speaker 2: mom and my ample said it was too clean of
[38:39] Speaker 2: a cut to be not a hedgehog, but like hedge clippers.
[38:43] Speaker 2: And my mom and my ample said it was too
[38:45] Speaker 2: clean of a CUTZ. I think it was from a
[38:46] Speaker 2: knife for a glass or something.
[38:48] Speaker 11: What do you think.
[38:49] Speaker 2: I'd like to believe him, but I don't know. I
[38:51] Speaker 2: haven't seen a cut like that before. It was cut
[38:53] Speaker 2: pretty bad. Yeah, it was like hanging off and stuff.
[38:56] Speaker 11: Oh jeez.
[38:57] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[38:57] Speaker 2: He said he was going to try bluing it back together,
[39:00] Speaker 2: but when he was in the hospital, they just took
[39:02] Speaker 2: it off for him.
[39:03] Speaker 4: Tommy Junior would later learn the truth, if he didn't
[39:07] Speaker 4: already suspect it. The story was shady, so was his
[39:11] Speaker 4: story about why he needed Tommy to buy him duct
[39:13] Speaker 4: tape and garbage bags for the finger. Poor Tommy. Since
[39:19] Speaker 4: his dad got out of prison, he was invading all
[39:22] Speaker 4: aspects of his life, and Tommy led him because he
[39:26] Speaker 4: loved him.
[39:27] Speaker 2: Yeah, since he's been out, my life's been so stressful,
[39:31] Speaker 2: Like I've been.
[39:31] Speaker 1: Afraid at my house, an't you afraid?
[39:34] Speaker 2: I don't know if like he got dropped off by
[39:36] Speaker 2: someone and he owes them money and they're gonna like
[39:38] Speaker 2: come inside or something. I don't know, Okay, I just
[39:41] Speaker 2: don't know. Like I thought I knew him a little bit,
[39:44] Speaker 2: but I guess I didn't.
[39:45] Speaker 4: Okay, Tommy had a right to be afraid. His dad
[39:49] Speaker 4: was a criminal murderer. The only thing the police didn't
[39:53] Speaker 4: know was exactly why he murdered.
[39:57] Speaker 11: We think you know more to someone's telling us.
[39:59] Speaker 12: Sitting there conversation, things were brought up about what your
[40:02] Speaker 12: dad did. That we're pretty serious and if he told
[40:05] Speaker 12: you what he did, then we need to know.
[40:07] Speaker 1: Tom He did tell me he heard two people. Didn't say
[40:11] Speaker 1: he killed anybody.
[40:12] Speaker 11: He said he heard him, though, tell us what he
[40:14] Speaker 11: told you.
[40:15] Speaker 2: He said that he heard him, and he said he
[40:19] Speaker 2: cut his finger on the hedge clippers, and that he.
[40:21] Speaker 1: Was trying to fight him back, and.
[40:24] Speaker 9: I was it.
[40:24] Speaker 11: He told me that he took Regina.
[40:28] Speaker 2: They got her a hotel, and then two black people
[40:31] Speaker 2: came and were beating them up, and that he was
[40:33] Speaker 2: trying to defend themselves.
[40:35] Speaker 12: Say that again, when was this Did he give you
[40:37] Speaker 12: any time frame on when this happened.
[40:39] Speaker 2: He said it happened late at night, late at night,
[40:41] Speaker 2: and they were sitting He was in the He said
[40:43] Speaker 2: he was in the basement cleaning, and that he heard
[40:46] Speaker 2: John Yellen and he went upstairs and he started like
[40:48] Speaker 2: trying to fight him with him, and then they left.
[40:50] Speaker 11: And that's what a couple of black males, he.
[40:52] Speaker 2: Said, two black men. He didn't he didn't use those words.
[40:55] Speaker 2: He used they.
[40:58] Speaker 12: Raised this turn for them, okay, And then he was
[41:00] Speaker 12: fighting with these blackmails and he.
[41:03] Speaker 2: Said, that's how he had a scratch on his head.
[41:05] Speaker 2: He said, that's how he got a scratch on his
[41:06] Speaker 2: head was from them.
[41:08] Speaker 4: This was just one more version of Tom's lies. And
[41:12] Speaker 4: when he couldn't cover his tracks with his lies, he
[41:14] Speaker 4: simply told Tommy not to look. Like the time he
[41:17] Speaker 4: asked Tommy to pick him up at John Mann's house,
[41:21] Speaker 4: this time it was to get rid of the dogs inside.
[41:24] Speaker 2: He went back to the house, he went in and
[41:26] Speaker 2: grabbed the dogs. I didn't see the dogs, he told
[41:28] Speaker 2: me not to look, and we drove out there. He
[41:30] Speaker 2: hadn't pulled around the side of the street, and he
[41:32] Speaker 2: shussed them out. Yeah, he just told me they were
[41:34] Speaker 2: John's dogs and that he didn't want him anymore. Knew
[41:37] Speaker 2: that John was going to hurt out early, kill him
[41:39] Speaker 2: and get rid of them, so he was going to
[41:41] Speaker 2: give him a chance at life and just let him go.
[41:44] Speaker 4: The detectives didn't want to have to press Tommy. They
[41:47] Speaker 4: knew he was a good kid. In fact, one officer
[41:51] Speaker 4: had also been Tommy's rugby coach and had nothing but
[41:55] Speaker 4: great things to say about him. Somebody did something right,
[41:59] Speaker 4: but it sure wasn't his dad.
[42:02] Speaker 12: And the last thing I want to see is anything.
[42:05] Speaker 12: And this isn't trying to pit you against your dad,
[42:08] Speaker 12: but you're in this position.
[42:09] Speaker 11: Sadly.
[42:09] Speaker 12: He put you in this position, he did, and it's sad,
[42:13] Speaker 12: and we feel for you, you know, I do. You
[42:15] Speaker 12: know what I think of you, and it's wrong, but
[42:19] Speaker 12: I just want the truth one hundred percent, and you
[42:22] Speaker 12: walk out of here, and you know your conscious is clear.
[42:26] Speaker 2: If I tell you, guys now, tell us now, you're
[42:28] Speaker 2: not Eddie Trump.
[42:30] Speaker 11: He said he killed him, kill Regina John.
[42:33] Speaker 2: Just Regina He said he was in the basement cleaning
[42:36] Speaker 2: and he heard John upstairs screaming, saw Regina stabbing him,
[42:40] Speaker 2: tried giving the knife away from him, and then he
[42:43] Speaker 2: said he took the knife and stabbed her.
[42:46] Speaker 4: Tommy's story matched the version his father gave police that
[42:51] Speaker 4: Regina had attacked Jawn, that Tom wrestled the knife away
[42:55] Speaker 4: and stabbed her. There were no other people at the
[42:59] Speaker 4: house that day, black white or otherwise. If they could
[43:04] Speaker 4: just get Tom to admit to killing both Regina and John,
[43:08] Speaker 4: it was their gut feeling, and the coroner's reports backed
[43:11] Speaker 4: it up. John Man's body was pierced with multiple sharp
[43:15] Speaker 4: force injuries, including to the neck, ribs, collarbone, and defensive
[43:20] Speaker 4: wounds on his hands and arms. Regina stood under five
[43:25] Speaker 4: feet tall and didn't weigh much. Besides. Tom's version was
[43:29] Speaker 4: that he intervened after only one or two stabbings. Then
[43:33] Speaker 4: there was the elaborate cover up, including commissioning a guy
[43:37] Speaker 4: named de Lugo to burn the house down after he'd
[43:41] Speaker 4: remove the dogs and the carpeting. He used Alicia for
[43:45] Speaker 4: contact because he was already in jail. Delugo said no,
[43:50] Speaker 4: he wouldn't do it, and the defensive wounds on Tom
[43:54] Speaker 4: indicated a serious altercation where Tom lost control of the blade,
[43:58] Speaker 4: not to mention the lie. The overwhelming number of lies,
[44:05] Speaker 4: so detectives had one more card to play with Tom,
[44:09] Speaker 4: the polygraph, and when the subject turned to John Mann,
[44:14] Speaker 4: Tom's story started to crack. It was May of twenty
[44:51] Speaker 4: seventeen in a suburb of good old Cleveland, Ohio, the
[44:55] Speaker 4: home of the Browns and a whole lot of killers
[44:58] Speaker 4: and even wor Ohioans. Tomis Enough had been out of
[45:04] Speaker 4: prison for just a few weeks. He was drifting between motels,
[45:08] Speaker 4: borrowing from his sons and leaning on his girlfriend, Alicia Stoner,
[45:12] Speaker 4: who drove him, gave him money, and even picked him
[45:15] Speaker 4: up the morning after he killed at least one person
[45:18] Speaker 4: inside the house on nell Wood Road. So yeah, you know,
[45:23] Speaker 4: Tom was just living his best life. John Mann lived
[45:26] Speaker 4: in that house with his partner, Regina Capobianco. By then,
[45:31] Speaker 4: Regina had long since given up her part of the
[45:34] Speaker 4: bargain for living there and was dating other men. She
[45:38] Speaker 4: had also been writing to Tom while he was in prison.
[45:42] Speaker 4: In fact, it was Regina and John who picked him
[45:45] Speaker 4: up on the day he was released. Regina may have
[45:48] Speaker 4: expected to carry on a relationship with Tom, but he
[45:51] Speaker 4: already had Alicia, and he also realized that Regina's drinking
[45:55] Speaker 4: and other bizarre behaviors could land him right back in
[45:58] Speaker 4: prison on parole violation. John was fed up with her too,
[46:04] Speaker 4: he wanted her gone, and Tom was all too happy
[46:07] Speaker 4: to help. If Regina were out of the picture, it
[46:10] Speaker 4: meant Tom couldn't move in and finally have a stable
[46:13] Speaker 4: place to reconnect with his son and have a girlfriend.
[46:17] Speaker 4: On the night of May eleventh, twenty seventeen, something violent
[46:21] Speaker 4: happened inside that house. John and Regina were both killed,
[46:25] Speaker 4: their bodies hidden away. Police wouldn't discover their decomposed remains
[46:30] Speaker 4: until June. In the meantime, Tom was getting rid of
[46:33] Speaker 4: evidence and roping his loved ones into helping him cover
[46:36] Speaker 4: his tracks.
[46:38] Speaker 3: You know, I've always tried to tell him, even though
[46:40] Speaker 3: I've done fucked up shin or I've been in jail,
[46:43] Speaker 3: I always try to.
[46:45] Speaker 1: You know, do the right thing.
[46:46] Speaker 3: A lot of things that you know I did with
[46:47] Speaker 3: past it was reckless, you know, out drunk and doing
[46:51] Speaker 3: stupid shit and just being wild.
[46:52] Speaker 1: But you know, for the most part, you know he knows.
[46:57] Speaker 3: To do the right thing, you know, so that's I
[46:59] Speaker 3: just if I can only be that example to him,
[47:01] Speaker 3: you know what I mean, that's what I want to
[47:02] Speaker 3: do for him.
[47:03] Speaker 4: What he wanted to do for his son and what
[47:05] Speaker 4: he actually ended up doing were two vastly different things.
[47:10] Speaker 4: By May seventeenth, his life was spiraling. He was walking
[47:14] Speaker 4: around with a finger that was barely hanging on, and
[47:17] Speaker 4: his freedom was also barely hanging on. In the weeks
[47:21] Speaker 4: that followed, Tom didn't lie low. He went right back
[47:25] Speaker 4: to his old ways. He broke into two salons, leaving
[47:29] Speaker 4: a trail that would put him back on police radar.
[47:33] Speaker 4: At the same time, he told everyone a different story.
[47:36] Speaker 4: He told his son, he told Alicia, He told the
[47:39] Speaker 4: police a story about a drug dealer, a fight, Regina
[47:43] Speaker 4: stabbing John, and Tom stabbing Regina in self defense. But
[47:48] Speaker 4: there was one part he never changed. He swore he
[47:52] Speaker 4: didn't kill John Man. You know how you've heard that
[47:57] Speaker 4: polygraphs are unreliable. Well, police departments across the country insists
[48:03] Speaker 4: they yield a success rate of eighty six to one
[48:06] Speaker 4: hundred percent, and Brunswick police were counting on its reliability
[48:11] Speaker 4: and listening.
[48:11] Speaker 10: I don't want your son to be around this, but
[48:13] Speaker 10: right now, he is smack in the middle of it.
[48:16] Speaker 1: You know, listen, I know, but that's why as much as.
[48:20] Speaker 10: You know, if he's telling us, you can fight it
[48:23] Speaker 10: in him, then you know you killed two people, and
[48:25] Speaker 10: then you know you're confiding in him.
[48:27] Speaker 11: As both both the people we found in the house.
[48:30] Speaker 1: Okay, I told him the black people.
[48:33] Speaker 3: And then when I ended up telling him the truth
[48:35] Speaker 3: after the truck incident, I told him what it was,
[48:38] Speaker 3: and I told him I was just embarrassed because I
[48:40] Speaker 3: had killed the girl, and.
[48:43] Speaker 1: That's when I told him the truth of the matter.
[48:44] Speaker 10: No, I want to bring this thing back up from
[48:46] Speaker 10: this machineer. Okay, it says you me and your failed.
[48:49] Speaker 10: They say you'd stick John. All right, So I want
[48:52] Speaker 10: to talk about some similarities and some stuff in the
[48:55] Speaker 10: injuries of both.
[48:58] Speaker 11: I want to talk about that.
[49:01] Speaker 18: This is gonna be exactly what I was told, all right, Okay,
[49:06] Speaker 18: Regina stab wound in the back, two stab wounds to
[49:10] Speaker 18: the right side of the neck, crushed Adam's apple. Right
[49:14] Speaker 18: corotid artery was cut her left hand near her index figure.
[49:20] Speaker 18: The webbing was cut.
[49:22] Speaker 11: Cause him down.
[49:23] Speaker 18: The defensive booms caused this sharp force injury and a
[49:27] Speaker 18: crushed damn sample, neck compression, strangulation.
[49:32] Speaker 4: All of these injuries included or were in addition to
[49:35] Speaker 4: the stabbings, and the polygraph had confirmation.
[49:40] Speaker 11: Didn't you mentioned that?
[49:41] Speaker 2: Uh?
[49:42] Speaker 10: You know you several times that John was over there
[49:44] Speaker 10: making gurglings as they did, and stuff like that. Okay,
[49:47] Speaker 10: this machine says that you had had stabbed John. Yeah, okay, something.
[49:53] Speaker 10: John had one stable right here? Did you help him
[49:59] Speaker 10: stop every by doing it?
[50:00] Speaker 11: Is it the one?
[50:01] Speaker 10: Did you do one stay up woman of John to
[50:03] Speaker 10: help him out, to put him out of measurement?
[50:05] Speaker 11: If you did that, you couldn't understand.
[50:06] Speaker 1: If I did.
[50:08] Speaker 4: Detectives kept giving Tom an out. They told him maybe
[50:12] Speaker 4: it was an accident, an act of mercy, self defense,
[50:16] Speaker 4: and maybe things got out of control. Any of those
[50:19] Speaker 4: versions could have given him a softer landing, even a
[50:22] Speaker 4: shot at claiming self defense. But Tom wouldn't take it.
[50:27] Speaker 4: He stuck to his one line over and over. I
[50:31] Speaker 4: didn't kill John.
[50:33] Speaker 11: You've got to.
[50:34] Speaker 10: Help yourself out in this. You gotta tell us what
[50:37] Speaker 10: the hell happened in that house?
[50:39] Speaker 12: You know.
[50:39] Speaker 10: He brings up a good point. I'm gonna let you
[50:41] Speaker 10: explain him to about it. Where he thinks something happened
[50:44] Speaker 10: in the argument. I'm gonna let him go ahead with that.
[50:46] Speaker 10: You know, it brings up a good point as we talked,
[50:50] Speaker 10: You don't, Mike, wouldn't be getting beat up with you.
[50:54] Speaker 18: Tell me a little bit about your your stepfather right
[50:58] Speaker 18: right and your mom abusive relationship, Yeah, something about.
[51:04] Speaker 11: Hap him quite frequently.
[51:06] Speaker 1: Well, when we were younger.
[51:07] Speaker 11: You know, what's your feelings on that.
[51:09] Speaker 3: I just loved my mom and I hated him at
[51:12] Speaker 3: the time. You know, even though there was times where
[51:14] Speaker 3: he was a good guy and I liked him, you know,
[51:17] Speaker 3: for certain things, he would drink and used drugs, and
[51:22] Speaker 3: you know, he took all his aggression on her, and
[51:25] Speaker 3: you know, she's just such always a good person and.
[51:29] Speaker 1: Being a kid.
[51:30] Speaker 3: You know, that really hurt you know, I want to
[51:32] Speaker 3: see her go back to him.
[51:34] Speaker 13: You know, how did that make you feel? It hurt me,
[51:38] Speaker 13: you know, make you angry? Well, sure, I mean it
[51:40] Speaker 13: wouldn't be angry. You know I was angry that. You
[51:42] Speaker 13: know she put up with it, but I mean obviously
[51:45] Speaker 13: she felt it.
[51:46] Speaker 3: You know, she loved him and worked through it, you know,
[51:50] Speaker 3: and they'd separated for like a year and we got
[51:53] Speaker 3: back together.
[51:54] Speaker 18: And what do you think should happen to somebody that
[51:56] Speaker 18: beats their their wife or their girlfriend?
[51:59] Speaker 10: George, no woman to jump one with you.
[52:03] Speaker 11: What do you think should happened to somebody?
[52:05] Speaker 3: I mean, I don't feel like they should hie, you know,
[52:08] Speaker 3: I mean I could understand why some women do that,
[52:11] Speaker 3: you know, because they feel like there's.
[52:13] Speaker 1: No other way out.
[52:14] Speaker 11: They feel tripped.
[52:15] Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I feel like, you know, women even
[52:20] Speaker 3: deserve that to when a man does that.
[52:22] Speaker 1: You know what I mean, that they should be able to.
[52:25] Speaker 11: So, so what was John doing in Virginia? What was John?
[52:29] Speaker 1: He wanted her out?
[52:30] Speaker 11: What really happened?
[52:31] Speaker 1: He wanted her out? He wanted her out?
[52:34] Speaker 11: Was her? I don't know her.
[52:37] Speaker 1: I don't know.
[52:38] Speaker 11: Did you see him?
[52:39] Speaker 1: I never seen him, Herbert.
[52:41] Speaker 11: Did she tell you here's her?
[52:44] Speaker 2: No?
[52:44] Speaker 3: She told me many stories about punching on her boyfriends.
[52:49] Speaker 1: You know what I mean. She never said John heard her.
[52:51] Speaker 1: You know, she said he was dirty and never changed
[52:54] Speaker 1: its clothes.
[52:55] Speaker 11: And I think you know that he. I think she
[52:58] Speaker 11: could fighting and.
[53:00] Speaker 19: You were trying to protect her, and then she get
[53:02] Speaker 19: angry with you for what was.
[53:04] Speaker 11: Going on with your Joss. Is that what happened? Listen? Man,
[53:10] Speaker 11: I get it.
[53:12] Speaker 4: This was their best hypothesis. It was the only time
[53:16] Speaker 4: they'd seen Tom get this emotional, other than when he
[53:19] Speaker 4: was talking about his son. They had tapped into his
[53:23] Speaker 4: past to find a trigger. John was abusing Regina and
[53:28] Speaker 4: Tom was going to stop him. But Regina was used
[53:32] Speaker 4: to the chaos and abuse, so she tried to stop Tom.
[53:37] Speaker 10: You do realize come Monday morning during this ring to me,
[53:39] Speaker 10: he's gonna be there. They're gonna paint you his monster,
[53:42] Speaker 10: don't you Yeah? Do you want them to paint.
[53:45] Speaker 1: Do you want you're gonna have any money?
[53:47] Speaker 11: The difference is if we if we can tell our story.
[53:49] Speaker 11: We're gonna have news conference.
[53:50] Speaker 10: We're gonna give a press conference Monday morning before you're raingment.
[53:53] Speaker 10: We're telling everybody you're here, you're being arranged. The news
[53:56] Speaker 10: is gonna be there. How's it gonna be? You know
[54:00] Speaker 10: what I mean?
[54:01] Speaker 11: Did you sit in this chair with us?
[54:03] Speaker 10: Did you talk to the detectives, and did you tell
[54:04] Speaker 10: us everything that happened one hundred percent to the team.
[54:08] Speaker 11: Which right now I don't believe. Okay, And your son
[54:11] Speaker 11: is going to watch this news conference. Sure, you know
[54:14] Speaker 11: what I mean? Your son is gonna watch this news conference.
[54:18] Speaker 10: Pretty soon he may be watching it with you somewhere
[54:20] Speaker 10: else because of the trouble he's in and Alicia as well.
[54:24] Speaker 10: They're both in trouble right now with this. Too much
[54:27] Speaker 10: is going on because you put them in this position.
[54:30] Speaker 10: The only way for you to help them and not
[54:33] Speaker 10: paint yourself as a monster. I mean, come on, I
[54:36] Speaker 10: know that you love your kid, and your kid does
[54:38] Speaker 10: love you, Okay, he does, but he's going to have
[54:41] Speaker 10: to live with this cloud of the immediate pain in
[54:44] Speaker 10: my father as a monster, and people know that you're
[54:46] Speaker 10: his father.
[54:47] Speaker 11: Would you rather just have them him be known as
[54:50] Speaker 11: my dad made a mistake. He fessed up to it.
[54:52] Speaker 11: He did, He did jak who he is. I still
[54:54] Speaker 11: talk to my dad in jail. Do you want Dad
[54:57] Speaker 11: or do you want everybody going on look at as
[55:00] Speaker 11: a monster?
[55:01] Speaker 4: If Tom had accepted their version of what happened, would
[55:05] Speaker 4: he have gotten away with it? I mean, there was
[55:08] Speaker 4: no way he wasn't going back to prison. He robbed
[55:11] Speaker 4: two salons and killed a woman. These were indisputable facts.
[55:16] Speaker 4: But was it chivalry gone way wrong? Or was it
[55:21] Speaker 4: a premeditated attempt to secure a place of his own.
[55:26] Speaker 11: It's possible.
[55:26] Speaker 4: No one will ever know, but the jury would seal
[55:29] Speaker 4: his fate. No matter what. Tom would probably spend the
[55:33] Speaker 4: rest of his life in jail. But Ohio also has
[55:37] Speaker 4: the death penalty, which is a good thing, but they
[55:40] Speaker 4: should use it a lot more. The relationship Tom wanted
[55:43] Speaker 4: with his son was never going to happen, at least
[55:47] Speaker 4: not outside of prison walls. Thomas Enough Junior was convicted
[55:52] Speaker 4: of two counts of aggravated murder for killing John Mann
[55:56] Speaker 4: and Regina Capo Bianco, along with multiple other charges aggravated burglary,
[56:02] Speaker 4: gross abuse of a corpse, kidnapping, conspiracy, tampering with evidence,
[56:07] Speaker 4: and theft related offenses.
[56:10] Speaker 20: There was, of course, a jury recommendation that the sentence
[56:13] Speaker 20: of death be imposed. The court finds by proof beyond
[56:17] Speaker 20: a reasonable doubt that the aggravating circumstances the offender was
[56:21] Speaker 20: found guilty of committing outweigh the mitigating factors. Therefore, on
[56:27] Speaker 20: count two, the sentence of death will be imposed upon
[56:30] Speaker 20: the offender.
[56:31] Speaker 4: This met Tom's son lost to father.
[56:35] Speaker 3: Well, and that's what I hope just by being you know,
[56:37] Speaker 3: straight up with you guys, it the things that you
[56:40] Speaker 3: can control to help with, you know, I appreciate.
[56:43] Speaker 1: So I'm not here to fuck nobody around or be
[56:45] Speaker 1: a bad guy.
[56:46] Speaker 11: And no, no, nobody's nobody's things said at all. You
[56:51] Speaker 11: know what I mean.
[56:51] Speaker 3: I'm saying, it's enough to have to live with my
[56:53] Speaker 3: faults and all the mistakes I've had in the past
[56:56] Speaker 3: and letting my family down, and you know, not being
[56:59] Speaker 3: there through my son's high school years when you know
[57:02] Speaker 3: other people had her dad's there at the football game.
[57:04] Speaker 4: And because of Tom's actions, he would never get the
[57:07] Speaker 4: chance to go to one of his kid's games and
[57:11] Speaker 4: walk him out onto the field. But his son wasn't
[57:15] Speaker 4: the only one who suffered. Two lives were lost. Regina
[57:19] Speaker 4: may have been a bit of a wild card, but
[57:22] Speaker 4: she mattered to her family, to her friends. She was
[57:25] Speaker 4: a person and no matter what her life choices, she
[57:29] Speaker 4: didn't deserve what happened to her.
[57:32] Speaker 19: This monster took my sister from me.
[57:38] Speaker 11: My heart is broken.
[57:43] Speaker 1: I don't know if I will ever reap here.
[57:48] Speaker 17: I miss her every day. She would not get to
[57:52] Speaker 17: see her sons get married, she would not get to
[57:54] Speaker 17: call her Grandma.
[57:57] Speaker 2: And his.
[57:59] Speaker 17: Oh because of trying to help somebody that I told
[58:04] Speaker 17: her that I thought.
[58:05] Speaker 1: She should stay away from.
[58:09] Speaker 2: I have.
[58:11] Speaker 11: Horrible visions, and I hope someday will get out of
[58:14] Speaker 11: my head of the murder.
[58:19] Speaker 17: And no one should ever have to have these visions
[58:22] Speaker 17: of a family member. I am glad he has the
[58:26] Speaker 17: death penalty. I think he deserves the death penalty. He's
[58:33] Speaker 17: had a chance to plead for his life, and I'm
[58:36] Speaker 17: sure my sister pleaded for her life that.
[58:40] Speaker 1: He chose to ignore.
[58:42] Speaker 4: John Man's son and sister both gave incredible heartfelt statements,
[58:46] Speaker 4: and John's son spoke for more than ten minutes.
[58:50] Speaker 19: My dad was a goofy, bright and sensitive man. He
[58:54] Speaker 19: loved the Cleveland Browns, watching Mash re runs, and doing
[58:58] Speaker 19: community theater. He had a full scholarship offer from Heidelberg
[59:02] Speaker 19: University in astrophysics. He ended up floating into electrical contracting
[59:06] Speaker 19: from his interest in solar power. He loved the idea
[59:09] Speaker 19: of cheap, renewable energy. He even studied to be an
[59:12] Speaker 19: architect because he thought it would help him develop solar powerselves.
[59:16] Speaker 19: Later life, he became a computer programmer. He truly had
[59:20] Speaker 19: a gifted mind and could do just about whatever he
[59:22] Speaker 19: wanted to with properly motivated people tended to like my
[59:26] Speaker 19: dad he had a gregarious and colorful personality with an
[59:30] Speaker 19: oddball sense of humor.
[59:32] Speaker 11: You took my dad from me.
[59:35] Speaker 19: You robbed him of the golden years of his life
[59:38] Speaker 19: and the time we had together. I miss him terribly.
[59:42] Speaker 4: He proceeded to lay out how Tom had failed as
[59:45] Speaker 4: a man, as a human being, and as a father.
[59:49] Speaker 4: He sympathized with Tom's son and thanked him for his
[59:52] Speaker 4: bravery and enduring the trial and doing the right thing
[59:56] Speaker 4: by testifying against his own father, whom he loved. But
[1:00:00] Speaker 4: then he's surprised everyone.
[1:00:03] Speaker 19: You do not deserve to live. You do not deserve
[1:00:06] Speaker 19: a humane death. You butcher two people for reasons I
[1:00:09] Speaker 19: cannot begin to comprehend. I have wanted you to die,
[1:00:13] Speaker 19: yet I am faced with the reality that it will
[1:00:16] Speaker 19: not and cannot be enough. In order to heal, I
[1:00:19] Speaker 19: must accept this and find a way to reconcile it.
[1:00:22] Speaker 19: Against my own a feelings. I will continue to beg
[1:00:25] Speaker 19: for his life to be spared. However, if possible, I
[1:00:29] Speaker 19: want you all to hear it from a man that
[1:00:31] Speaker 19: wanted him dead, as a son to a man whose
[1:00:36] Speaker 19: life was ended his father. I will beg to anyone
[1:00:41] Speaker 19: who will listen to spare his life. I don't think
[1:00:44] Speaker 19: we should do it for me or him. I think
[1:00:46] Speaker 19: we should do it because it's the right thing to
[1:00:48] Speaker 19: do for our society.
[1:00:50] Speaker 4: Of course, Tom is appealing, and the legal fight will
[1:00:54] Speaker 4: go on for years. But what lingers isn't just the
[1:00:58] Speaker 4: courtroom drama and a peals. That's the contradiction. Tom wanted
[1:01:03] Speaker 4: to be a good father. He wanted to prove he
[1:01:05] Speaker 4: could do right by his son. He stayed in touch,
[1:01:09] Speaker 4: leaned on him, even dreamed of settling down in a
[1:01:12] Speaker 4: house where they could reconnect. But instead he fell back
[1:01:17] Speaker 4: into every pattern he swore he'd left behind, the lies,
[1:01:22] Speaker 4: the violence, the selfishness that burned through everything in his path.
[1:01:28] Speaker 4: And maybe the hardest part to make sense of is
[1:01:31] Speaker 4: the question of whether Tom could have been telling the
[1:01:34] Speaker 4: truth about John Mann. Maybe John was abusing Regina like
[1:01:39] Speaker 4: the detectives had suggested, and it triggered a traumatic reaction
[1:01:43] Speaker 4: from Tom. Or maybe what happened is exactly as Tom described.
[1:01:50] Speaker 4: John tried to do evict Regina, and she went at him,
[1:01:53] Speaker 4: so Tom intervened. Even if parts of his story are
[1:01:57] Speaker 4: true and noble, all following actions say the most Tom's
[1:02:03] Speaker 4: choices after that night, spoke the loudest, He hid the bodies,
[1:02:08] Speaker 4: tried to hire someone to burn the place down, dumped
[1:02:12] Speaker 4: the dogs into someone else's neighborhood, manipulated and lied to
[1:02:16] Speaker 4: those he loved, dragged them into something horrible, and most importantly,
[1:02:21] Speaker 4: never called police. Whatever happened in that house might have
[1:02:25] Speaker 4: started with good intentions, but what followed were really, really,
[1:02:31] Speaker 4: really bad choices, and only a complete fucking idiot would
[1:02:35] Speaker 4: make Then again, this is Ohio. At the end of
[1:02:40] Speaker 4: the day, we all have to be accountable for our choices.
[1:02:44] Speaker 4: We all have to be responsible for what we decide
[1:02:48] Speaker 4: to do. Otherwise, what the fuck are we doing here today?
[1:02:53] Speaker 4: Thomas Nuff's son is brown. He's built a life that
[1:02:58] Speaker 4: has nothing to do with Parma Height or with the
[1:03:01] Speaker 4: crimes his father committed there. He's well adjusted, stable, and
[1:03:06] Speaker 4: in twenty twenty three he got married. Whatever cycle Tom
[1:03:10] Speaker 4: was trapped in, his son has escaped it good for him,
[1:03:15] Speaker 4: And maybe that's the real ending here, Not the death sentence,
[1:03:20] Speaker 4: not the deaths, not the appeals, but the fact that
[1:03:24] Speaker 4: even out of something so violent and tragic, like a
[1:03:29] Speaker 4: phoenix rising from the ashes, a different kind of life
[1:03:35] Speaker 4: is actually possible. That's gonna do it for another one.
[1:04:24] Speaker 4: Thanks for joining us. If you like the show, head
[1:04:26] Speaker 4: on over to sword and Scale dot com, get the app,
[1:04:29] Speaker 4: get Plus. We'll see you next week.
[1:04:31] Speaker 11: Stay safe,

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.