S3 Ep285: J.C. McGhee: Family Betrayal? (Part 2)

On the morning of July 11, 2002, 16-year-old Alyssa McGhee was jolted awake by the sound of a gunshot and her father’s scream. She rushed into the living room and found 45-year-old JC McGhee lying on the floor, covered in blood. Minutes later, just next door, JC’s nephew Omar Foston called 911 to report that his house had been invaded, his family had been tied up, and his attackers were still inside. As police arrived to investigate, they quickly realized this wasn’t your average robbery gone wrong—there were layers to this case, from a high-stakes custody battle to JC’s work as a confidential informant. And as investigators dug deeper, it became clear that there were several possible suspects, including family members. We're coming to CrimeCon Denver! Use our code CRIMEWEEKLY for 10% off your tickets!https://www.crimecon.com/CC25Try our coffee!! - www. CriminalCoffeeCo.comBecome a Patreon member -- > ｿ https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeeklyShop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> ｿ https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shopYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcastWebsite: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.comInstagram: @CrimeWeeklyPodTwitter: @CrimeWeeklyPodFacebook: @CrimeWeeklyPodADS:1. https://www. EatIQBAR.com - Text WEEKLY to 64000 for 20% off ALL IQBAR products and FREE shipping!2. https://www. TryFum.com - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY to get a FREE gift with your Journey Pack!3. https://www. Hero.co - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY for 10% off your order!4. Download the FREE UpSide App - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY and get an extra $0.25 back for every gallon on your first tank of gas!

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow.

• 0:15Derrick Levasseur?

  And I'm Derrick Levasseur.

• 0:17Stephanie Harlowe?

  So today, we're picking up with part two of the J.C. McGee case. I'm going to give you a quick rundown on what we already covered. On the morning of July 11, 2002, 16-year-old Alyssa McGee called 911, reporting that her father, J.C. McGee, had been shot inside their home. Just minutes later, J.C.'s nephew, who lived next door, Omar Foston, made his own frantic 911 call, claiming that four men had broken into his house, tied up his mother Pearl, and his girlfriend Kim Smith, and held them hostage. When police arrived, they found J.C. McGee dead from a gunshot wound, and Omar's home ransacked. Pearl and

• 0:58Stephanie Harlowe?

  Kim told investigators that the intruders were armed, dressed in black, and demanding money and drugs. Both women were tied up, beaten, and doused in rubbing alcohol, while the men threatened to set them on fire. Because their faces were covered, they didn't see much of what happened to Omar, but they could hear him being beaten and taken outside, and moments later, they heard a gunshot. That's when Kim was able to free herself, hit the panic button in the kitchen, which called the police, and this was just as the attackers fled, allegedly. Now, despite the brutality of the attack, neither Pearl nor Kim could explain why their home had been targeted. We talked about this last episode.

• 1:37Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 1:38Stephanie Harlowe?

  Pearl was like, "Hey, we don't have money. We don't live in like, a wealthy neighborhood. Why us?" Even though she had $2,000 in a suitcase from a recent vacation, "Why would we be the target of this home invasion?" Well, my question to Pearl would be, "Why do you have a panic button in your kitchen if you didn't kind of suspect something like this might happen?" But Pearl and Kim, their stories remained mostly the same throughout multiple interviews. We know that Pearl initially told police that there had been one person in her room Omar when she woke up and this person was holding a gun to Omar's head. And then later she told the police that there was actually two individuals in the room with Omar. One was holding a gun on him, one was holding a gun on her.

• 2:21Stephanie Harlowe?

  But other than that, their stories remained mostly the same throughout multiple interviews. However, the same cannot be said for Omar. And as we'll talk about in this episode, his version of events kept changing, raising more questions than answers about what really happened that morning.

• 2:37Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, and we did have the opportunity after discussing episode one and talking about it and going back and forth. We did have the opportunity to hop on the phone with Madison and give her kind of our opinions after episode one. And she was in agreeance with basically everything we said. We I talked about the fact that you and I had brought up JC's security system, Pearl's security system, the panic button, the money in the suitcase. And Madison basically said, yeah, it's all warranted. My dad was a CI, he was a drug dealer, that's what he was known for. And it's very possible that could be what happened here. But we also talked about the idea that Omar was in on something more and that this was a potential murder disguised as

• 3:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  A setup, yeah.

• 3:23Derrick Levasseur?

  A setup, basically disguised as, you know, a home invasion that went wrong. And that's what was really going on here. Her dad was the target based on something deeper than just drugs. And we already talked about that, we agreed on it, but she's very open to it. She says it right out, she's not trying to hide anything, she's like, listen, call it how you see it. I know what's happening here. And and she also obviously agrees that her dad still deserves justice and that's what we're here trying to do. So I appreciate Madison being so open about potential scenarios because I do find sometimes that whenever I discuss a victim and I bring up anything that could paint them in a negative light, there is some

• 4:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's awkward.

• 4:04Derrick Levasseur?

  There is some pushback sometimes, sometimes by the family members and I understand that. But I always just try to push back by saying, hey, listen, sometimes you have to ask the difficult questions if you really want to get to the truth. And they may not always paint your loved one in a positive light. It doesn't cheapen what happened to them. But if you really want to know what happened, we got to go there. And I love the fact that Madison's willing to do that. And she's, she's beaten us to that punch multiple times, which is why I mentioned the first one. And I'll mention it here as well. Go check out Madison's podcast, Ice Cold Case. It's entirely about her father's murder. And she's breaking it all down. She's doing interviews with people.

• 4:46Derrick Levasseur?

  Again, this is something personal to her, but I do respect her objectivity in this case. She's been very straightforward with us. She's very straightforward in the podcast. I went and listened to some of it. It's very good. Go check it out and it will give you a lot more detail, a lot more insight on this investigation. If that's what you're looking for.

• 5:02Stephanie Harlowe?

  I think also most people understand that there is no such thing as a perfect victim, because there's no such thing as a perfect human being. And honestly, there can be a stigma sometimes around true crime where we have to make the victims look like these honorable, amazing people in order to, I guess, tell their story and show that what, what happened to them was wrong. But in general, like I said, there, not any one of us is perfect. We've all done things we're not proud of. We've all done things that were wrong. We've all intentionally or unintentionally hurt people. And so to leave these things out, this is very important context. And sometimes it's going to deter from having a full sense of the case when you're trying to paint

• 5:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  or portray the victim as this perfect victim, because there is no perfect victim. And so I think that's very important to, to be aware of. Yeah.

• 5:52Derrick Levasseur?

  Couple of final house cleaning things, questions that I had. We do not know, Madison does not know if there was a peephole on J C's door. Wouldn't be, really be relevant here because we don't believe that J C got to the door. And we know that the door was kicked in, but I just wanted to point it out there because it was a question I had in episode one. Unsure if there's a peephole. And then also another thing that I wanted to ask her was the, the distance between the two homes. And she wasn't a hundred percent sure. She did say that the house burned down since then, so you can't even go look now.

• 6:21Stephanie Harlowe?

  Oh, wow.

• 6:21Derrick Levasseur?

  But she said it was relatively close. They were next door neighbors. The houses are, you're not sitting on top of each other, but it's basically one yard away. So you're Talking 15 to 25 feet max between the two houses. Very accessible for someone to run next door. If it was a drug operation where, hey, listen, I need to go grab more product. I can go do that. Or in this case, if these offenders are real, very easy to go in one house and then transfer to the next one.

• 6:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  So let's talk about what Omar said to the police and how his story changed. In his first interview, Omar told the police that as he and Kim sat in the living room, watching TV in the early hours of July 11th, he heard something shatter and then he saw three black men enter the house. They came through the front door, all armed with guns. And as soon as Omar got up, they put their weapons to his head. And Omar said that he could see a fourth man outside acting as a lookout. Now, according to Omar, the men ordered him to go to his mother's room and wake her up. Then they dragged Pearl out of the bed and forced her into the living room where she was placed next to Kim. They made Omar lie on the ground.

• 7:31Stephanie Harlowe?

  They pistol whipped him and at some point they put a pillowcase over his head and tied him up. Then they asked if he worked and when he said no, that he was in college, they accused him of lying and kicked him again. When they went over to his computer and saw evidence that he was in school, one of the men allegedly said, quote, "Now I know where you go to school," end quote. Omar said after that, they grabbed a bottle of rubbing alcohol, poured it over him and threatened to burn him alive. Then one of the men forced him outside at gunpoint, made him get on his knees and held him there before bringing him back inside.

• 8:08Derrick Levasseur?

  Totally makes sense, right?

• 8:10Stephanie Harlowe?

  That makes no sense.

• 8:11Derrick Levasseur?

  Makes total sense. Why, Stephanie, why wouldn't you execute someone in the, on the front lawn?

• 8:16Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, then, and then, and then not do it and bring him back inside.

• 8:18Derrick Levasseur?

  Right? Like, I'm gonna bring you out there and this is really, if you're trying to get information out of me, bring me outside where basically, basically people could be driving by.

• 8:27Stephanie Harlowe?

  Exactly.

• 8:27Derrick Levasseur?

  And you're holding a gun to my head and I'm gonna threaten to execute you. And the fact that I brought you outside is gonna be the reason you finally give me all the information I need.

• 8:37Stephanie Harlowe?

  And like, I get it. Like, maybe they forced him to his knees and tried to scare him to think that they were gonna shoot him. But you wouldn't bring him outside where the neighbors going out to get their morning paper can see that.

• 8:47Derrick Levasseur?

  Here's a better idea. Everyone's seen the movies. You take the, you take the blanket off Omar's mother. You put the gun to her head while she's on her knees. If he ain't gonna talk for that, he ain't talking for anybody. I'm not saying that to give anybody ideas, but that's what I'm talking about. What we're saying in this scenario, bringing him outside away from his mom and his girlfriend to a public street at seven o'clock in the morning? I know criminals are dumb, but this is extremely dumb.

• 9:14Stephanie Harlowe?

  It doesn't make any sense.

• 9:16Derrick Levasseur?

  Nope.

• 9:16Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay, so they, they have him inside, allegedly put a pillowcase over his head. We got this bottle of rubbing alcohol again. Is rubbing alcohol like super flammable by the way?

• 9:25Derrick Levasseur?

  Yes.

• 9:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  Is it?

• 9:26Derrick Levasseur?

  Yes.

• 9:26Stephanie Harlowe?

  Is it like more flammable than gasoline?

• 9:28Derrick Levasseur?

  I think it's about the same.

• 9:30Stephanie Harlowe?

  About the same?

• 9:30Derrick Levasseur?

  I mean gasoline's probably a little bit more, but alcohol, yeah, I mean, you light a match on a, on a cup of alcohol, watch what happens.

• 9:36Stephanie Harlowe?

  Not gonna do that.

• 9:37Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 9:38Stephanie Harlowe?

  But, uh, okay, so they're, they got the, the rubbing alcohol.

• 9:41Derrick Levasseur?

  You ever see rubbing alcohol that says extremely flammable, you know?

• 9:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, I don't, I don't know.

• 9:45Derrick Levasseur?

  Okay.

• 9:46Stephanie Harlowe?

  I don't read bottles.

• 9:46Derrick Levasseur?

  Let's try it.

• 9:47Stephanie Harlowe?

  I have bad vision.

• 9:48Derrick Levasseur?

  Stephanie, douse yourself with alcohol, let's see if you.

• 9:50Stephanie Harlowe?

  I'm not gonna do it.

• 9:51Derrick Levasseur?

  Let's see what happens.

• 9:52Stephanie Harlowe?

  No, I'm not gonna do it. They bring him outside, force him to his knees, and then they're like, get back up, we're going inside. Bring him back inside. Once they're back in the house, they kicked him in the face. They ordered him to lie down again before continuing to ransack the home. Then at one point, the men went outside. And this is when Omar claims he managed to free himself and run outside. Once again, how is Omar tied up, right? They, they said that they made him lie on the ground, they pistol whipped him. At some point, they put a pillowcase over his head and tied him up. What did they tie him up with? Because Pearl, his mother, and Kim, his girlfriend, were tied up with telephone cords, which seems like the, the best instrument to use to tie people up. But what was Omar tied up with, right?

• 10:37Stephanie Harlowe?

  And also, when the police got there, Pearl and Kim had marks on their wrists. Did Omar? So this is when he manages to get free and run outside. He claims when he ran outside, he saw a black van with a white or silver stripe on the side. He then ran towards Break and Block, which was a local like automotive business. And as he did, the men fired shots at him. And when he got inside, he told the employees to call 911. So maybe this is what, what Pearl heard, like a shot, and then she heard Omar yell, "You didn't get me." But how would she have heard that when he ran out of the house and was running to a business? And would there have been multiple shots fired, not just one?

• 11:20Stephanie Harlowe?

  And did police recover bullets or casings from outside the house on Omar's journey from the house to Break and Block?

• 11:28Derrick Levasseur?

  This is what makes me believe, by the way, that these guys are real. I don't think there's a scenario where Omar's just making this all up.

• 11:36Stephanie Harlowe?

  Oh, no, I don't either.

• 11:37Derrick Levasseur?

  And none of it happened. There were definitely other people there.

• 11:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  Mm hmm.

• 11:40Derrick Levasseur?

  And they probably recovered some forensic evidence to support that. Even this gunshot where they could have found a shell casing or something. I think it's all real. I think it all happened. The question is, under what pretenses? Did they fire the gun in the air, nowhere in the direction of Omar as he was running away? That could also be true.

• 11:58Stephanie Harlowe?

  Did he fire a gun and just yell out, oh, you missed me?

• 12:00Derrick Levasseur?

  Exactly. Was that all theatrics? Was it all to create an illusion for the people that were inside? So that they would feel that it was real enough to corroborate the story later? I mean, you have to remember, I don't know the relationship that Pearl had with J C, but they were brother and sister.

• 12:16Stephanie Harlowe?

  They were, yeah.

• 12:17Derrick Levasseur?

  So it's very possible if their relationship was good, she would not have been on board with this. And Omar had to create the illusion for her as well.

• 12:24Stephanie Harlowe?

  So when I said last episode that I believe Pearl, if there was some illegal drug activity going on in J C's house, or her house, or both, I believe she knew about that.

• 12:34Derrick Levasseur?

  Yes.

• 12:34Stephanie Harlowe?

  But I don't believe that she necessarily knew that her brother was about to be murdered.

• 12:42Derrick Levasseur?

  I would agree with that as well. And even talking to Madison from our conversation, it doesn't sound like she believes that either. Madison did tell us that she interviewed Pearl much later. And she said right out that based on her interview, she believes that Pearl believes what happened, happened at that time when she interviewed her. That that was her reality. Her house was being robbed. That was Madison's opinion of that interview. So, yeah, I agree with you. I think Pearl, whatever the actual circumstances were, believed in that moment that her life was in danger.

• 13:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  And also, if you're running to safety and people are shooting at you. And they're shooting at you and they don't hit you, but you'd be like, ha, ha, ha, you guys missed. And like, give them verbally and audibly with your voice, a sense of where you were. You know, like, it just.

• 13:32Derrick Levasseur?

  It sounds cartoony, but I could see that happening, actually.

• 13:34Stephanie Harlowe?

  Like, someone's shooting at you. If they hit you, you're going to die. And you're like, haha, it can't catch me. I'm the gingerbread man.

• 13:40Derrick Levasseur?

  Well, if we're to believe that he was mouthing off to them the entire time because of a lack of medication, I mean, it wouldn't be the craziest thing.

• 13:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes, I guess.

• 13:46Derrick Levasseur?

  Right? I mean, he's, he's thinking he's like a gangster. He's in this moment and he's, I don't know, he's a tough guy. But that's all based on the belief that everything we're hearing is exactly the, what it is. And I do want to go back and forth throughout this episode and, and qualify it by saying, we're given a scenario where Omar's in on the whole thing. Omar knows exactly what's going down. There is also a scenario where Omar and J C and maybe Pearl, maybe not, are involved in something. And this was actually a home invasion where it was a collaborative effort through amongst a group of people. And there was a lookout and they were going to try and steal the money and the drugs.

• 14:25Derrick Levasseur?

  And unfortunately, the person who entered J C's house was a lot more trigger happy than the three that entered Omar's house. And maybe when that guy goes in there, he gets spooked, thinks that J C has something in his hand and shoots him. And I don't even know if it was an intentional shot to hit him like that, because it's such a tough shot to make. It almost seems like it was lucky. Maybe the, the guy just turns around and fires around and is running away. And unfortunately hits J C in the head. So I'm not sitting here telling you about Omar, completely disputing or discrediting the notion or the idea that this is exactly what Omar's describing, a, a home invasion that went wrong.

• 15:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay, so I, I don't believe that it was just an accidental shot. I think they sent somebody there that they knew could make that shot.

• 15:10Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 15:10Stephanie Harlowe?

  And why would this person have intentionally kicked in? I mean, they just went in the house next door, managed to restrain and tie up three people. And now you just have one unarmed man approaching the door. And you're gonna shoot? Why?

• 15:24Derrick Levasseur?

  It's a great question. Let's take a break. We'll be right back.

• 15:31Derrick Levasseur?

  All right, we're back and I'm with you, but here's the thing. So if this was an intentional shot, I'm posing this question to you, Steph. If this is an intentional shot, then that means this was a premeditated murder because the guy never went in the apartment afterwards, they took off, which would suggest that this was a ruse. This wasn't a real home invasion. There's more to the story than we know. If it was an unintentional shot, the question becomes, why did he run away? You could answer that by saying, oh shit, he didn't intend on killing him. When he realized what he did, instead of going for the drugs and the money that may potentially be in JC's apart, uh, house, the, the offender fled the area. Maybe that's why they, they didn't go inside.

• 16:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  Why wouldn't they have fled the area when they were shooting at Omar outside?

• 16:15Derrick Levasseur?

  It's almost like they want us to believe that was simultaneous, right? Like as Omar was escaping, teen number two was in JC's house.

• 16:23Stephanie Harlowe?

  Hmm.

• 16:25Derrick Levasseur?

  That's what's so hard about this story to believe.

• 16:27Stephanie Harlowe?

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:28Derrick Levasseur?

  Think about what has to happen there. Basically, it's a shootout going on in the middle of the street.

• 16:33Stephanie Harlowe?

  This like suburban neighborhood, yeah.

• 16:35Derrick Levasseur?

  And, and there's no witnesses. Nobody saw anything or heard anything.

• 16:38Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 16:39Derrick Levasseur?

  And also I want to add this. It's kind of odd that Alyssa didn't hear those shots, right? We didn't talk about that, but she heard the pop inside the house. You would think she would have heard, even if she didn't see the getaway van, she would have said, yeah, when I got up, they were shooting at me because according to Omar, he, they're shooting at him. He gets to the business. He tells the employees what's going on. He tells them to call 911. So this is minutes after JC would have been shot. So you would think Alyssa at minimum would have heard the other shots intended for Omar.

• 17:10Stephanie Harlowe?

  And that's what I'm saying. Pearl only heard one shot. Kim only heard one shot. Alyssa only heard one shot.

• 17:17Derrick Levasseur?

  Didn't Pearl say she heard the shot where Omar's like, you didn't get me?

• 17:20Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, but.

• 17:21Derrick Levasseur?

  But it could have been the shot for JC's, what you're saying.

• 17:23Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes. So she still only heard one shot.

• 17:24Derrick Levasseur?

  Interesting. I got you. I got you.

• 17:26Stephanie Harlowe?

  So where's all these like gunslinging battles happening that no, that nobody can hear? Cause everybody only heard one gunshot.

• 17:33Derrick Levasseur?

  Right. So what you're saying is if the shot was intended for JC and Omar's present, he yells out, you didn't get me to again, build that narrative that he's a victim as well to not only law enforcement, but more importantly to his mom, to Kim, to anybody else who may hear it, because they're going to be his alibi later.

• 17:51Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, but I mean, I still have a hard time believing that Kim would have heard Omar yell out, "You didn't get me," unless Omar, while the guys were going to the house next door, stood directly outside Pearl's house and yelled, "You didn't get me," when he heard the shot.

• 18:05Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, it's very confusing. The whole thing is hard to believe if you just take it at what Omar and everyone wants us to believe happened. It's just a really convoluted story.

• 18:15Stephanie Harlowe?

  So in the interview with Omar, investigators like us spent a lot of time trying to understand Omar's story. They asked if he knew the men, and he said he didn't. Now, this obviously contradicted what he had told the 911 dispatcher. If you recall from part one, when the dispatcher asked if he knew the attackers, Omar said yes, and that they were from California. When investigators asked about his change of story, Omar explained that he didn't know them personally, but he knew they were from California because they said so. Because, you know, that's what they're gonna do. They're gonna be like, "We're here robbing you with guns, and here, we're from California, by the way, and this is the name of our gang."

• 18:53Derrick Levasseur?

  They also gave their social security numbers, just in case.

• 18:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, and this is the name of our gang, okay? That's tone over there, and we're from California. They're giving all of these identifying details that honestly, if they were legit criminals from some gang, they probably wouldn't be doing that.

• 19:09Derrick Levasseur?

  No, I agree.

• 19:09Stephanie Harlowe?

  Investigators had a lot of other questions, like, why would a group of armed men suddenly show up at Omar's house demanding drugs and money? How would they know his mother lived there too? And why would they leave his house and go straight to J.C.'s home to kill him when J.C. had no apparent connection to what was happening at Omar's? He wasn't the one who could identify the robbers. Omar, Pearl, and Kim were, yet they were still all alive. Omar said he had no idea why they had targeted his home. He didn't have drugs or money. He insisted that he wasn't involved in drugs at all, which was hard to believe, considering that during their search, police found three cannabis plants in his driveway. On top of that, one of the interviewing detectives knew a CI recently purchased drugs from Omar.

• 19:51Stephanie Harlowe?

  So they knew for a fact that he was lying about this part.

• 19:55Derrick Levasseur?

  There you go. Yep, there you go. And that just reinstills our belief that there's more than meets the eye.

• 20:02Stephanie Harlowe?

  So Omar is lying about drugs, and here's the thing. And you could say, "Well, if he knew this was gonna happen, why wouldn't he have gotten rid of the cannabis plants?" This is my perspective on it, okay? I think that he, in my opinion, did know what was gonna happen. So he got rid of all the drugs in the house. But cannabis plants are strange because a lot of seeds come off of them. And sometimes, even if you pull up all the ones that are there, you'll have like stray ones growing that you didn't know about because they pollinate. The seeds blow or they get carried by insects or animals and then they start growing. It's a very hardy plant. It will grow. And so I think he just didn't know those three plants were there. I don't know if they were in the ground or if they were sitting in pots in his driveway.

• 20:47Stephanie Harlowe?

  But either way, and he might have just said like, oh, well, like, I'll just leave the weed plants because who cares? It's weed, but I'll get rid of anything else that I have in the house.

• 20:55Derrick Levasseur?

  That's, that's what I'm thinking. I mean, I've been to a million houses where we find weed plants in the backyard. And I gotta tell you, it's not our number one concern. A lot of the times it's for personal use. I'm not there kicking down doors for weed plants. I'm sorry. Just not what I'm doing. So if there's hard stuff in the house, the stuff that could have, that could get you a felony real quick.

• 21:16Stephanie Harlowe?

  That was gone.

• 21:16Derrick Levasseur?

  That stuff's gonna be gone.

• 21:17Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 21:18Derrick Levasseur?

  The weed plants outside in the garden.

• 21:20Stephanie Harlowe?

  Mm hmm.

• 21:21Derrick Levasseur?

  Whatever.

• 21:21Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah. Well, for quite some time, Omar continued claiming he didn't know why the men were there to rob him. But then he changed his tune and told police that the attackers mentioned someone had ripped them off for $2,000. Where have we heard that number before in this case?

• 21:38Derrick Levasseur?

  There you go. Suitcase.

• 21:39Stephanie Harlowe?

  Suitcase. This happened to be the exact same amount of money Pearl mentioned having in a suitcase from a recent vacation. Now, when investigators pressed him further, Omar claimed that it was Dwight Mickey, J C's nephew from California, who had stolen from them. He said the men had told him they weren't leaving this fucking hick town unless they got some money and that they were going next door to J C's house to get some dope. And this does a little bit, kind of correspondence support, where you said last episode where if there's an operation going down like this, you usually don't keep the drugs and the money in the same place.

• 22:13Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, you split it.

• 22:14Stephanie Harlowe?

  In case, in case they do get robbed, in case they get raided by the police.

• 22:17Derrick Levasseur?

  That's it.

• 22:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  So one house will have the money, one house will have the drugs.

• 22:21Derrick Levasseur?

  The most common thing I see.

• 22:23Stephanie Harlowe?

  And investigators had as many issues with this explanation as well. Like, why would the robbers drive from California to Ohio for a $2,000 ripoff? I mean, it feels like it would cost you that much in gas to get there. It just didn't make any sense. But Omar wasn't in the mood to give up any further information and the interview ended. So investigators followed up with the automotive shop, Brake and Block, where Omar claimed he ran after escaping. The owner said Omar arrived at 6:45 a.m. wearing only shorts, which didn't match what he had on when the police found him. He seemed winded. He asked them to call 911 before walking back home when he saw police cruisers. Other employees reported suspicious activity around Omar's that morning.

• 23:08Stephanie Harlowe?

  One saw a Lincoln and a Cadillac with two black men inside. Another saw a small, dark car in Omar's driveway and a black Lincoln with three men, one of whom ducked to avoid being seen. With all of this information, the investigators worked to determine who these men were and why they targeted Omar's home before going next door to murder J.C. They had a few leads to follow immediately, and one of the strongest was J.C.'s ongoing custody battle with Danine over their son Shane. J.C. was set to finalize custody of his son on July 12th, just a day after he was murdered, making it a key lead for investigators. And as we mentioned in part one, his ex-Danine was dating Dwayne Butchy Griffin,

• 23:52Stephanie Harlowe?

  who did have a personal vendetta against J.C. Not only did he hate him over the custody battle, but he also blamed him for his indictment as a confidential informant.

• 24:03Derrick Levasseur?

  There's no doubt J.C. didn't have a shortage of enemies. He had a lot of people that would want to hurt him. That's what complicates this case because the suspect pool is so vast.

• 24:12Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, and I think that, you know, once again, was it the custody thing? Or if it was a setup, did they choose this date to make police say, "Oh, wow, this timing is perfect. They murdered him right before he was about to get custody." Right? It has echoes of like the Dan Markell and Wendy Adelson kind of case. Like, as they're going through this contentious divorce and this horrific custody battle, Dan Markell ends up dead. Wendy Adelson, his ex-wife, ends up with custody of her sons, and the problem is solved, for Wendy at least, right? So obviously, the police are going to interview Danine and her boyfriend, Dwayne Butchy Griffin. During these interviews, Dineen made it clear that she and J C had a contentious

• 24:57Stephanie Harlowe?

  history. Dwayne admitted that he despised J C but denied any involvement, claiming a cousin had once offered to take care of J C, but he had declined. So Dwayne's pretty much being like, hey, I had the chance to take out a hit on this dude, and I didn't. So why would I now? You know?

• 25:17Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, that totally clears you up.

• 25:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  And the fact that he's, well, I think it does in a way because he's like admitting. I hate this person.

• 25:23Derrick Levasseur?

  I don't think he's responsible for it, but I don't think admitting that you, you know, my cousin said he would kill him for me is probably the best thing to say.

• 25:29Stephanie Harlowe?

  Because this is what somebody's doing when they're like, holy shit, like, I know this looks bad, but I did hate him. He's not saying like, oh, we were fine. It wasn't that bad. Like, yeah, we had words sometimes, you know? He's not trying to like minimize the hate that existed between him and this victim. He's being honest and he's saying, yeah, like, I despised this person, but I did not have involvement in this, you know?

• 25:50Derrick Levasseur?

  Might have thought about it.

• 25:51Stephanie Harlowe?

  Might have thought, maybe even had a conversation with my cousin, but, so Dwayne actually agreed to take a polygraph test, which he passed. So for now, it seemed that this lead maybe wasn't going to be as strong as it initially appeared. Now, J C's daughter Madison told us that J C being murdered the day before the final custody hearing was suspicious, but the more she has investigated the case, the less she believes the two things are connected. The other lead came from Omar's first interview with detectives. During that interview, he was asked if the robbers mentioned who had ripped them off. And at first, he didn't provide an answer, but eventually, he said it was Dwight McGee, J C's nephew. And obviously, investigators wanted to look into this claim, and they really didn't have to go that far.

• 26:36Stephanie Harlowe?

  So we're going to take a quick break, and when I come back, we're going to talk a little bit about Dwight McGee.

• 26:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay, we're back. Let's continue on with this timeline and talk a little bit about Dwight McGee, who is J.C.'s nephew, who Omar claimed was the one that had ripped off these California burglars. So on July 13th, just two days after J.C.'s murder, Omar's aunt Debbie Jones called the police, and she told them there was bad blood within the family, and that Omar had actually ripped off Dwight, who lived in California, as well as his own brother, Omar's own brother, Richard Boots Foston, who lived in Columbus, Ohio. Debbie was aware that during the attack, the men had asked Pearl about her safe, which Pearl said both Dwight and Richard knew about. She suspected that Richard was behind the robbery and J.C.'s murder,

• 27:29Stephanie Harlowe?

  because in her words, quote, "Nothing bad happened to Pearl," end quote. All right, so Aunt Debbie, Omar's Aunt Debbie, who is also Pearl's sister, who is also J.C.'s sister, right? She's like, "Listen, I think that Richard, who is Omar's brother that Omar stole from, and Dwight, they are the ones that did this, and the reason I believe this is because there's bad blood between them. Omar stole from them, and also Pearl wasn't harmed, so they didn't want to hurt their own aunt." Then that makes sense, yeah.

• 28:03Derrick Levasseur?

  They left her kind of unscathed. The only damage she had was, was basically the alcohol poured on her back.

• 28:08Stephanie Harlowe?

  And she had like marks on her wrists.

• 28:10Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, from the cords.

• 28:12Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, the phone cords, right. So Debbie also revealed that on July 12th, Omar had confided in her about what had happened during the attack. According to what he told her, the men tied him up and demanded money, and Omar told them that his Uncle J.C. had money. Now, at that point, two of the men dragged Omar next door, and as they forced him towards J.C.'s house, he claims he yelled out, "Uncle J.C., help, they're going to kill me." This is what Omar told his Aunt Debbie. Now Debbie said that J.C. responded by shouting, "I got my child in here." She said that when J.C. reached for his gun, which he kept in the closet by the door, one of the men shot him, and the gunshot gave Omar a chance to escape.

• 28:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  This don't make no sense. Okay, this doesn't make any sense.

• 29:01Derrick Levasseur?

  Why doesn't it make sense to you?

• 29:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  Because I thought the closet that J C kept the gun in was in his room. And he wasn't in his room, which means when he made his way out of the room towards the door, he would have had a gun in his hand.

• 29:12Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I mean, I just feel like there could have been a scenario where the shooter felt like J C had a gun. I get what you're saying, logistically, he couldn't have had the gun, but was that Omar's perspective where when he yells out for his, for J C, J C goes, I got my kid in here. And they, you know, the offenders that are with Omar realize it was about to be a shootout. They're looking for a gun and they think that J C has one in his hand. And that's why the first, as soon as they kick that door in and J C's standing there, they shoot him. No questions asked.

• 29:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  But if they thought he had a gun, why would they even kick the door in?

• 29:46Derrick Levasseur?

  I mean, that's, that's something where it's like, hey, let's get to him before he gets to us type thing. I, I, it doesn't make sense for you and I, if someone says they have a gun inside, we're not running in there, right? But that's not how these criminals think sometimes. They're like, hey, you know what? I'm going to get in there and I'm going to kill him or he's going to kill me.

• 30:02Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay. So here's my question then. Omar says he ran out of the house. They were shooting at him.

• 30:08Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, that's bullshit.

• 30:08Stephanie Harlowe?

  And he was able to get to the, the, the auto body shop. And he's like, hey, you missed me. That's what his mother Pearl heard. That's what she told the cops. She heard a gunshot and then he said, ha, you missed me. But here he's, the gunshot that's, that's killing his uncle J C is giving him a chance to get away and he's not yelling, ha, you missed me.

• 30:28Derrick Levasseur?

  Well, that's, I will tell you, that's something I thought about, like, is it possible? Cause we, we haven't been at the, at the actual crime scene. Like, we're thinking about what the apartment, or I should say the house, looks like in our heads. We don't know how big it is, right? We don't know the proximity of everything. Is it possible as Omar's running away, shot goes off as they're shooting J C, Omar thinks that that shot was actually intended for him and that's why he yells it?

• 30:53Stephanie Harlowe?

  May, uh, maybe, I guess.

• 30:55Derrick Levasseur?

  Ah, you missed me. No, dude, the bullet wasn't even coming in your direction, you know?

• 30:59Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay.

• 31:00Derrick Levasseur?

  I just, I'm not trying to give benefit of the doubt. I'm just trying to explore all scenarios.

• 31:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  All right. So obviously Aunt Debbie, she calls the police on July 12th and she's like, yo, something, some of the shady is going on here. Here's what Omar told me.

• 31:11Derrick Levasseur?

  This is the day after the shooting.

• 31:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah. And the police are like, well, that version of events that Omar told you is completely different from the version of events that Omar told us.

• 31:21Derrick Levasseur?

  Yep.

• 31:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  So they call him back in to discuss the inconsistencies in his statement. And when he comes back into the police station, Omar told the police that the attackers were after the money that Richard Fullston, his brother, had stashed at their mother's house. Omar also claimed that the men told him to send Richard a message. He then changed his account of his escape, now saying he was taken outside and forced to point out different houses before he heard a gunshot and started running. Now, this doesn't make sense now with Pearl hearing him say, ah, you missed me. If he heard a gunshot and started running, he wouldn't think that they were actively shooting at him. He says, the way he makes it seem is these guys are all standing outside with their

• 32:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  guns drawn. He runs out of the house. They start shooting at him. He knows they're shooting at him and he's like, haha, you missed me. But now he just hears a shot. He doesn't know where it's coming from. He doesn't know where it is and he starts running. Right? So Omar also mentioned seeing a purple PT Cruiser nearby, but he was unclear on the details. He then agreed to a polygraph, which, surprise, surprise, he showed signs of deception.

• 32:28Derrick Levasseur?

  No.

• 32:28Stephanie Harlowe?

  I know. It's crazy.

• 32:29Derrick Levasseur?

  Omar.

• 32:30Stephanie Harlowe?

  Omar, man. I was rooting for you.

• 32:32Derrick Levasseur?

  Man, Omar.

• 32:35Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what, like, once again, when you have so many different versions of the same story and it's not a long time after. It's like a day. It's the day of and then the day after.

• 32:45Derrick Levasseur?

  Stephanie, the truth, we're, we're getting, the, the truth is in there somewhere though.

• 32:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  Of course, it has to be.

• 32:49Derrick Levasseur?

  There's some things that you've said, and I'm trying not to step on everything because you're, you're telling a story here and I don't want to interject every line. But there's things you're starting to say that answer a lot of the questions we had in episode one. And there might not be completely truthful, but there is some truth within it.

• 33:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  Now, Kim, Omar's girlfriend, her story remained mostly consistent, and she was also brought in for questioning again. And this time she told the detectives she didn't believe the robbery was about drugs, and neither she nor Omar had enough money to make them targets. She believed the attackers were after Richard's money, which was kept in Pearl's safe. She also suspected her brother-in-law, Justin, had tipped them off because he was beaten up the day after the murder. So now we're adding more people in here, more people. It feels like everybody knows. Everybody knows about why this is happening, right? But they're not saying that right away. At first Pearl's like, "Why us? Why us?" And Kim's like, "Why us?" But it's like, "Actually, you know, there is money that was taken and in Pearl's safe,

• 33:52Stephanie Harlowe?

  and my brother, he was running his mouth, he got beat up, things like that." So Omar and Kim then helped police create composite sketches of the suspects. But Omar's composite sketches and Kim's composite sketches, they look nothing alike, nothing alike. So I would honestly, I would obviously, if I was going, if I was the police, I would go with Kim's composite sketches, but what do I know? So before the end of that month, Omar, Kim, and Pearl all went back to the police station to view photo lineups of potential suspects. And Omar was able to identify one of the men in the photos as a man named Daryl Smith. And Kim did the same. She said Daryl was the one with the shotgun. Omar told police that he recognized Daryl from a class the previous year,

• 34:35Stephanie Harlowe?

  but the police later learned the truth was that they'd known each other since they were kids. So they, they didn't just have a class together. Omar and Daryl, they'd been tight since they were little. Daryl was also friends with Omar's brother, Richard Foston, the guy whose money Pearl is apparently hiding in her safe. Omar also told police that Daryl's ex-girlfriend, Tisha, drove a purple PT Cruiser, the same kind of car he had recently mentioned seeing near J.C.'s house on the morning of the murder. He added that he saw both a black Lincoln Town Car and a dark-colored PT Cruiser leaving J.C.'s house. He also told investigators that Tisha had dated Dwight McGee at one point and had an affair with J.C. So this is getting a little tangled.

• 35:21Stephanie Harlowe?

  A little tangled, a little complicated.

• 35:23Derrick Levasseur?

  I'm running out of paper here.

• 35:24Stephanie Harlowe?

  We got more people coming in. Tisha now, she's, she's been all over. She's been with JC, apparently, our victim. She's been with, uh, who Dwight McGee from California and she's dating, or she had dated Daryl, uh, the man with the shotgun, Daryl Smith. Isn't Kim's last name Smith as well?

• 35:47Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I'm telling you, I li- I'm not even joking with you. I mean, you guys can see it on YouTube. This is my, I don't know if it's blurry right now, but I'm writing on the side here too, because I'm running out of, running out of real estate. I'm gonna have to go to page. I like to try to keep it all on one page so I can refer to it.

• 35:59Stephanie Harlowe?

  So you can refer to it. Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.

• 36:01Derrick Levasseur?

  I might have to, I might have to change up the strategy.

• 36:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  So we got a lot of people here, but I want to talk about the cars really quick because the automotive people at break and block, they had mentioned seeing some cars outside. The employees at break and block, they said that they had seen suspicious activity around Omar's that morning. They saw a Lincoln and a Cadillac and another saw a small dark car in Omar's driveway and then a black Lincoln with three men. Now, is a, would you consider a PT Cruiser to be a small car?

• 36:36Derrick Levasseur?

  Oh, yeah.

• 36:37Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay, so it could have been that black PT Cruiser that Omar's also talking about, but none of those employees mentioned seeing a purple PT Cruiser.

• 36:46Derrick Levasseur?

  It could have been such a dark purple, though.

• 36:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  Mm-hmm. Could have been, but what would it have been doing in Omar's driveway?

• 36:52Derrick Levasseur?

  Well, that's the problem, right? That would, that would suggest that Omar's involved more than he's saying.

• 36:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, because they're not gonna pull up in the driveway and, you know, like, kidnap these people or, or keep them hostage in their own home while their car's parked in the driveway to be identified.

• 37:05Derrick Levasseur?

  I also found it odd that Omar said that him and his girlfriend Kim were just like watching TV before things went down because six o'clock in the morning.

• 37:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, it was 5:00 AM.

• 37:14Derrick Levasseur?

  Six, six forty in the morning, you guys were just watching show tunes? Like, what are we, what are we doing here?

• 37:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  I think they were watching Matlock. That's what she said.

• 37:20Derrick Levasseur?

  That's right, that's right. They did see Matlock at six in the morning.

• 37:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 37:23Derrick Levasseur?

  Okay.

• 37:23Stephanie Harlowe?

  Like, do you sleep?

• 37:25Derrick Levasseur?

  I hope that law enforcement went to check to see if an episode of Matlock was playing at that time.

• 37:29Stephanie Harlowe?

  And not only that, but it's like Omar's apparently this college student, do you not have class the next day?

• 37:34Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 37:34Stephanie Harlowe?

  Like, what's going on here? So in addition to Daryl Smith, Kim was able to identify another attacker with 100% certainty. However, that person's name was redacted in police reports, strangely enough. Kim also thought she recognized a third man, but she wasn't completely sure. When we spoke to Madison, she told us that the names most frequently mentioned in this case belonged to Daryl Smith, Danny Banks, Tone, and another man named Duncan Waits. So there's, there's names being brought up. Now, whatever name that Kim said, that second name where she was like, I'm 100% sure I know this person, I saw him, this is his name, it's redacted from police reports.

• 38:17Stephanie Harlowe?

  This case has gone cold, it's unsolved. So with all this information, with knowing that there was somebody robbed, with knowing that there was money being stored in the safe, with having actual names, cars, descriptions of cars, all these other people, for the police to redact one of these names and then not have gotten further in the case, it seems a little weird.

• 38:39Derrick Levasseur?

  I don't love that. I don't understand why that one name would be redacted. I don't, I don't understand it. It's potentially a scenario where that person's a CI. I don't, I don't know without being inside the four walls of that police department. But there was something I said on the phone to Madison, and this might be a good time to bring it up now. And we said it in last episode, there's no doubt JC was a CI. And law enforcement is working with these guys. And when I was in charge of the narcotics unit, there was a lot of times where if we'd hear about a CI get in trouble, get arrested, or get injured, or something like that, we, we wanted to know all the specifics of it because even though they're their own person and they, you know, they sign waivers and all these things, if you end up having a CI get hurt, or robbed, or worse, killed, that can come back on your unit.

• 39:22Derrick Levasseur?

  It's a big deal, not only from a, from a... Professional standpoint of, oh, people are not going to trust you anymore to protect them if they work with you, but also just as, as a police department and, and the responsibility we have that if we're using these people for these types of actions, we do have a certain level of responsibility when it comes to their safety.

• 39:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, because you're basically holding their past crimes against them, saying, hey, work for me.

• 39:47Derrick Levasseur?

  Yep.

• 39:47Stephanie Harlowe?

  But knowing that you're putting them.

• 39:49Derrick Levasseur?

  At risk.

• 39:50Stephanie Harlowe?

  In a very dangerous position.

• 39:51Derrick Levasseur?

  That's right.

• 39:52Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 39:52Derrick Levasseur?

  That's right. So, you know, they're on their own. We're not, we're not, you know, they, there's a big waiver you sign. Like when you, when you become a confidential informant, you get signed up and there's this whole process. We go, we do your background check. We go, we do an interview with you, a pre-interview, and then you also sign a waiver, basically saying like, I understand, these are the reasons that I'm doing this and that if any, you know, there is some inherent risk with doing it and it could, I could be hurt or because of it. And even though they're signing that away, even though I guess technically we're protected, it's not good. And that's not what we do. And I always put an emphasis on that. We only had maybe, we'd be running four or five CIs, CWs at a time because you

• 40:34Derrick Levasseur?

  wanted to have control of all of them. And I made sure that my guys knew who were handling each CI that they kept tabs on them, not only for their safety, but also to make sure that they didn't think they had the right to go out there and commit other crimes. It even got to a point where if our CIs were talking, like if they got stopped by police officers on the street from our own department, they weren't allowed to say to them, hey, I'm working for Derek.

• 40:55Stephanie Harlowe?

  Of course, yeah.

• 40:56Derrick Levasseur?

  But if I got word that they were disrespectful, or they were involved in something, a fight or whatever, that they were there and I saw it on the dispatch log, they're done.

• 41:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  Not going to be a CI anymore?

• 41:07Derrick Levasseur?

  You're done.

• 41:09Stephanie Harlowe?

  And then what? Then what happens? Do, is their deal redacted? Do they go to prison?

• 41:13Derrick Levasseur?

  They don't go to prison. So here's the thing. These are good questions, I think. And I think this is something that I automatically assume people know. Here's the reality. If someone is arrested for a serious crime. And we work out a deal. It has to be worked out with the AG. Like it's not something where we can say, hey, we're going to not prosecute this case right now. That has to be agreed upon. What actually happens a lot of the time, let's say we get him with a, you know, a piece of crack cocaine. Right. It's like 20 bucks worth. I may get that. I'm going to process it. I'm going to do all the paperwork for it. And I'm going to say, hey, listen, here's the deal. I have discretion with this. I can charge you with it or I cannot. I'm not going to fingerprint you. I'm not going to do anything right now. I have this.

• 41:57Derrick Levasseur?

  But I could charge you later with it because I have to wait for the official results, the toxicology results to come back. So I could still charge you at that point. Here's the reality for, you know, I know there's not too many criminals listening to this. If I don't arrest them at that point, the case is already weakened. I'm not going to charge them later. But they don't need to know that. So I may have the weed or the crack, but guess what? 99.9999% of the time. It's getting destroyed the appropriate way. And I'm just, I'm basically giving up that arrest. So I'll say to them, hey, Stephanie, this is what I got you with. This is what I want in return. And they agree to it. Now they could bunk out on me and not come back. Yes, I'm pointing at you. It could be you. Um, they could, they could say, yeah, I'll do that for you. And then guess what? They never pick up my phone again.

• 42:42Derrick Levasseur?

  There's nothing I can do about it. But my thing was, hey, once you work off your beef. Like, let's say I get you with something, you can get me something bigger. Then what I would always say is, okay, well, I can't pay you for this. This is working off a beef. But if you ever want to make some money, let us know.

• 43:01Stephanie Harlowe?

  Oh, so they're just kind of now the initial thing that they do, that's over and they make money. They are paid for their role as CI. Okay. So it's like a job.

• 43:12Derrick Levasseur?

  Absolutely. Like a job. Yeah. I mean, it's one of those things where we are paying them for that service. And it's very well documented. You have to report, you have to make sure you keep track of every single dollar. But it may be something where, hey, listen, there's a house over here. I know you're not directly connected to it. You're not bringing me the information, but what I want you to do is go over there, see if you can do a hand to hand. We're just going to be monitoring. Don't worry about where we are. You just go do your thing. They'll come back, they'll have to write up a small thing. We'll obviously search them before they go make the buy. We'll search them after they make the buy to make sure they don't have anything else on them. And then we write it all up. We have to keep observation of them the entire time while they're going to the house, while they're returning from the house. And we can use that not to get an arrest, but for an affidavit for a search warrant.

• 43:57Derrick Levasseur?

  Because they're not going to testify to it. So that's what we do there. But then in exchange for that service, I won't say exactly what we pay them, but we pay them a certain amount. It's not a lot, but we pay them a certain amount and most of the time they come back. And that's when we will draw up the official paperwork and say, hey, you're going to be a CI. You're on the, you're on the payroll, but guess here's some of the rules. Can't get in trouble, can't be out there using this as a get out of jail free card. If I hear that you mentioned that you were, you're working for Derek or one of my other guys, you're done. If you're out there getting in fights or you're getting in trouble, or you get caught with something else, you are going to jail for it.

• 44:34Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay. So that's what I was going to ask. It's kind of expected that they should probably be keeping their noses clean. Like you don't want them out there outside of their role as a, as an informant, buying and doing drugs or selling drugs.

• 44:47Derrick Levasseur?

  No, they can never, they could never come to me after and say, oh, I was only doing that to test the waters for you later. Nope, not buying it. Go to jail.

• 44:55Stephanie Harlowe?

  So if JC was actively at that point, running some sort of drug operation with his sister or his nephew outside of these two homes, that would be frowned upon by the police that he was informing for.

• 45:07Derrick Levasseur?

  Now, am I going to sit here and tell you, I'm telling you, I never did it. But am I going to sit here and be naive enough to say that there probably isn't detectives out there who have CI's working for them that are also dealing drugs? And they know about it and are choosing not to hit that specific house at that specific time?

• 45:23Stephanie Harlowe?

  Right.

• 45:25Derrick Levasseur?

  Of course they are.

• 45:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  Of course.

• 45:26Derrick Levasseur?

  Of course they are. You know, you may, you have a lot of houses that are selling drugs. If one of them happens to be someone who's working for you, getting a lot of drugs off the street, is that going to be your top priority to go hit it? Are you going to send a CI over there to go do that one? When you have others you could be doing? Probably not.

• 45:41Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay. Okay. So if you're, especially if you're a good CI, you're bringing lots of information in, maybe they just kind of turn a blind eye, look the other way.

• 45:48Derrick Levasseur?

  But that is not said directly, maybe implied, but I can tell you with my, I can only speak from my experience. I told them, hey, listen, understand this. Not only do you not have a get out of jail free card, you're more under the microscope now. If you don't stay clean, if this isn't your chance to turn things around, I'm going to make sure that we hit you with everything we can. School zone, distribution, manufacturing, intent to deliver. I'm going to hit you with everything because now you and I are making an agreement. So not only are you doing something illegal, but now you're spitting in my face. So if I'm putting money in your pocket, you got to do me right, too. And if you're out there still selling drugs, because listen, I'm not telling them, hey, you're going to work for me and you can still go sell your drugs.

• 46:32Derrick Levasseur?

  I'm hoping that it's an opportunity for them to not do those things anymore. Here's your reason to get out of this game.

• 46:39Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, because they got, they got an opportunity. They got caught doing something wrong and instead of being in, in prison and having that on their record.

• 46:44Derrick Levasseur?

  Here's your second chance.

• 46:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  Here's your second chance, make the most of it.

• 46:47Derrick Levasseur?

  And they don't have to do that for me. Once they work off their beef, they can just go away scot free. But if they want to make money, that's all, that's how it works, you know? But there's definitely risks involved with all of it. But to bring this all back, when I have informants that are working for me, I do have an, an official responsibility to ensure that I do whatever I can to make sure that they're safe. And that if there's anybody who figures out who they are and what they're doing, that I get to them first and get them to a safe area. I don't think that's what happened here with what happened to J C. I think based on everything we've gone over so far, there's much more to this one. And I don't think it had anything to do with one of the current cases he was working.

• 47:30Derrick Levasseur?

  Now, the bigger case for 75 indictments, where people went away to prison for life, from what Madison was telling us, could one of those people have an axe to grind? Absolutely.

• 47:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  And could somebody have figured out somehow that he was a C I and been like, oh, this dude is still

• 47:47Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 47:47Stephanie Harlowe?

  being a snitch.

• 47:49Derrick Levasseur?

  Of course, could have been Omar. Could have been anybody, could have been Richard, could have been one of these many players you mentioned, you know? So there's a lot to it, but it is a tricky game narcotics. Best four years of my career, working narcotics.

• 48:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  I'm sure it was action packed.

• 48:04Derrick Levasseur?

  But it's also the most dangerous time of my career. Like you're, you're going after really bad guys, but you're also become befriending a lot of bad guys, too.

• 48:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, cuz you're you're involved with money, which people will kill for. You're involved with drugs, which changes people and it makes them do things that they normally wouldn't do. And and you're kind of trying to put all these pieces in a way where everybody's protected and you're protected. And you're still like able to solve some of these crimes and and put bad guys away. But it feels very complicated. There's a lot of gray areas there, it feels like.

• 48:34Derrick Levasseur?

  Trust me, there were many nights where I'm sitting in the car in the passenger seat, the front seat. And the CI, who's a bad dude, sitting directly behind me. And I got one of my partners sitting next to him. And I can't tell you how many times I was nervous, like, man, make sure you search this fucker good that's behind me. Because he could take me and you out right now.

• 48:54Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yep.

• 48:55Derrick Levasseur?

  Many of those nights.

• 48:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 48:57Derrick Levasseur?

  Where we're trying to like, hey, what's the deal? We'd meet in an alley somewhere, we're in this unmarked car. And I'm thinking, for all we know, they could be getting a drop on us right now. How do we know he didn't bring us here to set us up?

• 49:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 49:08Derrick Levasseur?

  Lot of scary nights.

• 49:10Stephanie Harlowe?

  Damn, I was, it's not the same thing, but I just watched a YouTube video where some seventeen year old kid said that his friend wanted him to bring him to a bad part of town. And, you know, he finally agreed to do it. And then they get out of the car and this kid just turns on him and shoots him multiple times with this like bird shot in the stomach. He ended up surviving this and then he was like hitting him and pistol whipping him. And he was like, oh, this guy set me up cuz it was some like gang initiation. And that was how he got into his gang by killing somebody he knew. And it just, he happened to pick me, but it's like you just never know.

• 49:41Derrick Levasseur?

  You never know.

• 49:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  When someone's gonna.

• 49:43Derrick Levasseur?

  You don't know what their agenda is until you know. And just to to round this out and to bring it back to JC. Why was this name redacted? It could be one of the many reasons I just laid out to you.

• 49:54Stephanie Harlowe?

  Could be another CI.

• 49:55Derrick Levasseur?

  It could be completely unrelated. We don't know because after all these years, they haven't released it. That's, that's where the questions come.

• 50:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, let's take a quick break and then we will be right back.

• 50:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  So, okay, so Pearl, Omar's mom, she's back at the police station. She's kind of, you know, identifying people. They're trying to figure out if her story is consistent with Kim's story and Omar's story. And before the end of her interview, Pearl told police that on either July 24th or July 25th, Kim's sister had been at a restaurant when three men approached her. And one of them was Daryl. This would be Daryl Smith.

• 50:37Derrick Levasseur?

  Yep.

• 50:38Stephanie Harlowe?

  And as they walked by, one of them asked her, "How was your sister's head?" Which I don't know if that's super suspicious because it probably would have already gotten around what happened in that house, you know, so. But he could also be saying it as in like, "Shut your mouth."

• 50:52Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, keep your mouth shut. Hundred percent.

• 50:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  So the next day, the very next day, Daryl was arrested and charged with J.C.'s murder. And when he was questioned by police, Daryl denied any involvement. He claimed he didn't even know J.C. had been killed until someone told him about it the next day. And he insisted that he was being set up. He alleged that J.C.'s mother had asked Tisha for a photo of him before the lineup, and he believed it was so that Kim would be able to pick him out of that photo lineup. He also accused Kim, Pearl, and Omar of lying about the attacks, though he didn't speculate on why they would lie. He said he wasn't sure what happened to J.C., but he had heard that a safe had been brought down from Columbus for safekeeping.

• 51:37Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, the safe is a big part of this story. And that, what I said earlier, that there's some truth in there. The security system, the safe in the house, when you don't have a ton of money, a ton of valuables, $2,000 hanging out in a suitcase, there's some truth woven in between these bullshit stories. And I do think that that safe, the money, there was a lot of people believing that there was a stash in that house at that time. And they weren't completely wrong because it was two grand in the suitcase.

• 52:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yep, yep. And when Daryl was arrested, he had been with a new girlfriend named Jill Templin. So Jill told police that she'd been with Daryl on the night of July 10. She said they were at a bar called Michael's until around 3 a.m. before they headed to another bar, Sundown, which closed at 3:30. I don't know why you'd be at one bar till 3:00 and then go to another bar for 25 minutes, but okay. After that, they stood outside talking with friends until around 3:45 a.m. When they finally left, they went to Daryl's mother's house where he was living at the time. But when they got there, Daryl realized he didn't have his key and he didn't want to wake his family up. So he asked Jill if she had a tent in her car, and she did.

• 52:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  So they decided to go camping for the night. Does Jill not have a place she lives? Does Jill not have a home? Does Jill not have a place she lays her head at night? Like a little impromptu camping? Like, do you have a tent in your car? Actually, I do.

• 53:03Derrick Levasseur?

  I do.

• 53:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  What? This is craziness.

• 53:07Derrick Levasseur?

  Why would you say that, though?

• 53:08Stephanie Harlowe?

  Because you can't be, like, they can't put you anywhere if you're camping in the wilderness.

• 53:12Derrick Levasseur?

  They're not going to track anywhere in the middle of the woods. You could be anywhere. Nobody's going to be able to confirm your story. It's a great alibi.

• 53:19Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's four, it's four o'clock in the damn morning. And he's like, hey, you want to camp? Like, why wouldn't you sleep in the car?

• 53:24Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, no, it's bullshit.

• 53:26Stephanie Harlowe?

  Hey, you want to go camping? Yeah, why the hell not? I happen to have a tent.

• 53:28Derrick Levasseur?

  Daryl's not looking good here.

• 53:29Stephanie Harlowe?

  Daryl's not looking good.

• 53:30Derrick Levasseur?

  And what's interesting about this, as we, you know, we're halfway through this episode, a little more than halfway, we've all been looking at J.C. as the target. When if this is true and Daryl's the guy, then Daryl, then Omar's the target, not, not J.C. Interesting, right?

• 53:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  Why would they go to J.C.'s, then?

• 53:47Derrick Levasseur?

  Well, there could be some truth to what we've been hearing, where they're looking for the money and they're thinking it's going to be in one of these two houses. They're stashing it down somewhere. If it's not in this safe, it's got to be at the other house. And maybe Omar says, yeah, it's over there, you know, or he yells out for J.C. But they came down. To look for the money, knowing it was in one of those two houses.

• 54:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  Mm hmm. Okay.

• 54:08Derrick Levasseur?

  I'm just saying it's interesting that as we get to this point, now there's this other version emerging, where Daryl, who's not looking good, is one of the guys, then the target was Richard and Omar, not J.C. and Omar. And that's fascinating to me.

• 54:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, we have to talk about the camping still.

• 54:25Derrick Levasseur?

  Oh, yeah, we gotta go back to the Coleman stove, the whole thing.

• 54:28Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, Jill gave some details. She said they arrived at the campsite between 4:15 and 4:30 a.m.

• 54:34Derrick Levasseur?

  Totally normal.

• 54:35Stephanie Harlowe?

  And they went to sleep around 5:00 or 5:15 a.m. They woke up at 8:00 a.m. because that's enough sleep.

• 54:40Derrick Levasseur?

  Conveniently, right in the window when the shooting would have happened.

• 54:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, they were in the woods camping at the time that the shooting was going on.

• 54:47Derrick Levasseur?

  Totally believable.

• 54:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  Because you definitely would go to sleep in a tent in the middle of the woods after being up all night and falling asleep at 5:15 a.m. And then, like clockwork, at 8:00 a.m., you're like, I'm refreshed, I'm ready.

• 54:59Derrick Levasseur?

  What time was the shooting again?

• 55:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  The shooting was around 6:45.

• 55:03Derrick Levasseur?

  Right there.

• 55:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  So they got up at 8:00. They didn't leave until 9:00. You know, they had to have their

• 55:09Derrick Levasseur?

  Convenient.

• 55:09Stephanie Harlowe?

  coffee and make their bacon outside.

• 55:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  And then they had

• 55:14Derrick Levasseur?

  Have a marshmallow or two?

• 55:15Stephanie Harlowe?

  I don't, right? Maybe.

• 55:16Derrick Levasseur?

  Get the whole experience.

• 55:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  Run with the bears. So they headed back to Daryl's mother's house, and they got there around 10:00 a.m., and that's where they stayed for the rest of the day. Now, Jill told police that Dwight McGee had called her and threatened her the following month. She said he told her that she, quote, "better come forward with information on Daryl Smith, or she should, quote, 'watch her back.'" She also mentioned that despite living in California, Dwight had been seen back in Ohio recently. So the detectives then interviewed Daryl's ex-girlfriend, Tisha, who Omar had claimed drove a PT Cruiser and had, I guess, had relations, I wouldn't say dated both J.C. and Dwight, but had relations with both J.C. and Dwight.

• 56:01Stephanie Harlowe?

  Now, Tisha admitted that she occasionally saw J.C., but denied ever having an affair with him, and she confirmed that she had dated Dwight in the past and was familiar with his parents. She told police that they should be looking more into J C's family than Daryl. According to her, aside from his sudden relationship with Jill, Daryl seemed perfectly normal in the weeks leading up to the murder. She said the last time she saw him before J C was killed was the night of July 10th and everything seemed fine. Next detectives interviewed Nicole Daniels, who claimed Daryl Smith had committed multiple robberies and used two cars in his crimes. She also linked him to a home invasion targeting Sherman Griffin. So Sherman told the police that in 2001,

• 56:46Stephanie Harlowe?

  Daryl and another man tied him up, robbed him and stole his car before abandoning it. He also accused Daryl of previously shooting him and other sources confirmed that Daryl had been involved in home invasions where victims were tied up. So it looks like his M O might be lining up with what happened to Omar and his girlfriend and his mom.

• 57:04Derrick Levasseur?

  Absolutely, absolutely.

• 57:05Stephanie Harlowe?

  However, this seems to also be common knowledge. So Omar could know that about Daryl and could have made his story and his, you know, whole setup mirror what Daryl would have done so that people like us would have an easier time believing it. Well, yeah.

• 57:21Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. Look, he's done it before. Why wouldn't he do it again?

• 57:23Stephanie Harlowe?

  That is his M O. So this is when detectives spoke with Dwight McGee. And Dwight told them that he believed the key to solving the case lay with Richard and Omar Foston. He explained that on the day of J C's funeral, all the McGee and Foston cousins got together to discuss the murder, trying to figure out if anyone had any connections to what happened, even if it had been unintentional. And during that conversation, fingers were pointed at Richard Foston, who became so angry that he had to be removed from the discussion. I don't know how that like, what do you mean? He had to be physically like removed from the house? Or were they just like, we're not talking to you? You don't get the, the talking stick anymore? I'm not sure, but apparently he was in an elevated mood.

• 58:08Stephanie Harlowe?

  And so the police then went to Daryl for an interview and he told them that there were rumors that Richard Foston had borrowed $250,000 for drugs and never paid it back. And allegedly Omar had been instructed to watch the money. So this is starting to make more sense. If there's $250,000 out there unaccounted for, that would make sense why somebody would drive from California to Ohio. But $2,000 less likely, less of a motive.

• 58:35Derrick Levasseur?

  Bingo. See what I'm saying? There's truth in there somewhere. I don't want to go off the path too much, but I've said it before, I actually wrote about this in my book. When you're interviewing a witness, especially someone who has something to lose, you want to shut up and listen and you want to create this awkward silence because it's natural psychologically for one human to want to fill that void, that emptiness. So I had given the example in the book where you ask someone, you say, hey, did you see what happened over here? And then nah, man, didn't see anything. Don't, don't immediately respond to another question. Just give it a couple of seconds. I mean, I saw a car driving over this way, but I, I couldn't get out the plate or anything. Just kind of, you know, write something down, pretend you're looking around.

• 59:15Derrick Levasseur?

  It doesn't always work, but then you, okay, listen, I might've seen a plate, it was AR 275, but that's all I know. That's all I know. Then you ask some more questions and you start to drive down that road. And then a lot of the times, what they initially told you, which was nothing, will end in them giving you a name, a description, the time and all this because they know that, or at least they believe that you know more than you're telling them. So that awkwardness, that guilt creates an opportunity for them to disclose more than they should. And I really do believe that what you're describing here throughout this episode is an example of that. It started off with a really vague story that didn't make a lot of sense. And as time goes on and people are getting nervous

• 1:00:00Derrick Levasseur?

  and feeling like they have to do something to protect themselves, they're starting to roll on each other and they're starting to divulge more information. But here's the unfortunate part. They're giving you certain pieces of truth, but with mostly bullshit. And it's on us to figure out what's fact from fiction. And what you just did two minutes ago is a perfect example of that. A home invasion at this level with multiple people, this, this coordinated effort to kill people and go in these houses for two grand?

• 1:00:26Stephanie Harlowe?

  Two grand, yeah.

• 1:00:27Derrick Levasseur?

  That doesn't make sense. Add another zero.

• 1:00:30Stephanie Harlowe?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:00:31Derrick Levasseur?

  Makes a lot more sense now, doesn't it? Now you would risk jeopardizing your own freedom and getting caught.

• 1:00:37Stephanie Harlowe?

  Exactly.

• 1:00:38Derrick Levasseur?

  For 200 grand.

• 1:00:39Stephanie Harlowe?

  $2,000, it's not a small amount of money, but it's not, it's not worth the risk of going to prison for the rest. Yeah, it's not worth the risk of going to prison for the rest of your life.

• 1:00:48Derrick Levasseur?

  Just one little detail that they mixed up. Oh, it was 2,000. They're not going to say 250. Because if they say that, then the police are going to say, where'd you get that amount of money from?

• 1:00:57Stephanie Harlowe?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:00:57Derrick Levasseur?

  That would implicate them. So they give you a bullshit number and it doesn't compute with what we're saying. Why would they bring them outside? Why would he? Potentially threaten to execute him in the middle of like the day. For 200 grand? People would do a lot more than that.

• 1:01:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  And Pearl didn't even really have to talk about, I mean unless the police found it in the suitcase, she didn't really have to even talk about the fact that she had $2,000 in cash in the suitcase.

• 1:01:23Derrick Levasseur?

  I would argue that if Pearl didn't know about it, they brought Omar outside to say, listen, motherfucker, you know why we're here. Where's the fucking money? Where is it? Like, they didn't want to do it in front of her.

• 1:01:35Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:36Derrick Levasseur?

  Because there is some knowledge that they all know each other, so they're not gonna do it in front of her because they're trying to give him an opportunity to say where the money is without exposing him to her, to his mom.

• 1:01:46Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, well, it's interesting, Pearl and Omar have a safe in the house, the police opened the safe, it's empty.

• 1:01:52Derrick Levasseur?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:01:52Stephanie Harlowe?

  But Omar allegedly was tasked with watching this 250K that his brother Richard had borrowed for drugs and never paid back.

• 1:02:00Derrick Levasseur?

  Borrowed, air quotes, air quotes.

• 1:02:02Stephanie Harlowe?

  So Daryl also told the police that he believed Kim had been coached in her statements, which is possible. Investigators then spoke with Kim Smith's brother-in-law, Justin, and Justin told police that while he was at a bar, he overheard someone talking about J.C.'s murder, and he heard three names said in relation to this murder. Daryl Smith, Danny Banks, two names we've already heard.

• 1:02:25Derrick Levasseur?

  Yup.

• 1:02:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  And then another one we haven't heard, Brandon Creighton. Now, he said that they were all referred to using code names. Daryl's code name was B Nice, Danny was Dan Bino, and Brandon was Black. So, some, some code names here that don't make any sense and some that are super uncreative. Justin also said that at one point, while he was at the bar, he got up to shake Brandon Creighton's hand, but instead of greeting him, Brandon started cussing him out as Justin left, and threats were yelled at him. He also confirmed to police that Daryl used to drive a dark-colored PT Cruiser. So, police then spoke to Danny Banks, who is Daryl Smith's cousin.

• 1:03:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  Danny admitted that he knew Brandon Creighton, and he said that on the night of July 10th, he'd gone out to a few bars with his sister and her friend, and at some point- Someone hit him in the face and he ended up in the hospital. He was released around five or six AM, but returned to a different hospital a few hours later. Man, these people have eventful lives. One minute they're hanging out at the bar, the next they're camping in the woods. One minute they're hanging out the bar, the next they're spending, you know, hours in different hospitals.

• 1:03:36Derrick Levasseur?

  Criminals like this in this, this lower level tier, this is a common story. They're just always getting in trouble and they are, it's a incestual group of people. They all kind of know each other. They're all sleeping with each other. They're robbing each other. They're fighting each other and the next week they're hanging out at a party together. It's very, very common.

• 1:03:53Stephanie Harlowe?

  I, I guess so. Well, listen, we're going to hear what Brandon Creighton has to say because the police are going to talk to him. But first let's take our last break and we'll be right back.

• 1:04:05Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay, we're back. So when police questioned Brandon Creighton, he told them that on the night of July 10th, he had been with his girlfriend Angela. Let's see what Brandon got into that night. That night of July 10th, was he camping?

• 1:04:18Derrick Levasseur?

  Yep.

• 1:04:19Stephanie Harlowe?

  What was he doing?

• 1:04:19Derrick Levasseur?

  He was, he was at the campsite next to Danny.

• 1:04:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  He remembers Astro Project.

• 1:04:23Derrick Levasseur?

  Or Daryl, I should say.

• 1:04:24Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah. He, he was flying around the neighborhood in his dreams. Okay. So he says he's with his girlfriend Angela on July 10th, but here's the thing. When investigators spoke to Angela, she said she didn't actually remember what had happened that night. She only remembered what Brandon had told her. So Angela's not a good Bonnie to Brandon's Clyde. Okay?

• 1:04:45Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah. Not a good alibi.

• 1:04:46Stephanie Harlowe?

  So at this point, no one seemed to have an airtight alibi. We got camping, we got hospitals, all sorts of things. The police brought Omar back in for questioning and once again, his story changed. This time he told investigators that two of the attackers were Daryl Smith and Brandon Creighton. And that Daryl was the one who shot and killed JC. He claimed that while he knew both Daryl and Brandon, he had not recognized them during the attack because they had changed their voices. Remember, they're wearing hoodies, no masks.

• 1:05:18Derrick Levasseur?

  Hmm.

• 1:05:19Stephanie Harlowe?

  They have hoodies on, no masks.

• 1:05:20Derrick Levasseur?

  They're not geniuses, Stephanie.

• 1:05:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  He does not recognize them. They disguise their voices.

• 1:05:25Derrick Levasseur?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:05:26Stephanie Harlowe?

  But then, he contradicted himself by saying that he had seen Daryl's face during the attack, and knew it was him. So Omar is also not looking good. Daryl, Omar-

• 1:05:36Derrick Levasseur?

  Which, by the way, also happens a lot, where it's, you know, criminal on criminal crime.

• 1:05:41Stephanie Harlowe?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:05:41Derrick Levasseur?

  They get arrested. "Oh, you want to tell us who did it?" Nah, I'm good. Like, it's code.

• 1:05:46Stephanie Harlowe?

  But it's funny, because all of these people know each other, they're all in, like you said, low-level crime. And so it's almost like, "I don't believe anything you say, because you didn't say Brandon's name until it came up-

• 1:05:56Derrick Levasseur?

  Correct.

• 1:05:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  -with Kim's, um, brother-in-law. And now all of a sudden, you're saying Brandon's name, and now you didn't know who these people were, but now you know it was Daryl, and you saw his face. But it's because you already know that these people like you are into, like, illegal stuff, and it won't be hard to believe that they would do something like this.

• 1:06:13Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:14Stephanie Harlowe?

  So it's hard to believe that, as the story evolves and develops, and more details are added, and more people are added, that it's not just happening as a convenient way of being like, "Oh yeah, actually, I do remember. Oh, and actually, Brandon Creighton was there. Oh, and actually, I didn't see Daryl's face, but I did."

• 1:06:29Derrick Levasseur?

  I do think it is convenient that none of these guys that are being mentioned have any type of alibi, though. I will say, I, I get what you're saying, but the fact that they all have horrible alibis does not make them look good. And I will say that, I just mentioned that you'll ask these guys, "Hey, did you see who did it?" "Nah, I didn't see." Some of it's code, but another explanation could be that Omar and Richard know why they came after them, and they're not, if they tell you part of the story, the other part could come out, that they're ripping people off, that they're selling drugs. So, just as a self-preservation move, they're not going to implicate anybody directly at first, because they know it could come back on them. So yes, it could be them just using it as a matter of convenience,

• 1:07:12Derrick Levasseur?

  because the name is getting thrown out there. It could also be being done as a form of self-preservation to not expose themselves. In this case, Omar and Richard being exposed, not only as drug dealers, but also thieves, who owe someone a lot of money.

• 1:07:27Stephanie Harlowe?

  Alright, so what you're saying is Omar could be lying, but he could be lying not because he was involved with what happened to J.C. He could be lying to protect himself because whatever he and his brother did triggered this thing to happen.

• 1:07:38Derrick Levasseur?

  Stephanie, that's the narrative you're laying out right now, and I'm buying it, by the way. I'm buying a scenario, and I don't want to bury the, I want to get there first, but it's really looking like J.C. was just at the wrong place at the wrong time right now, even with his past.

• 1:07:52Stephanie Harlowe?

  Even with everything?

• 1:07:54Derrick Levasseur?

  There has been nothing that suggests someone went there directly for him, because you and I asked the question, episode one, why go to this other house if J.C.'s right there? Why create all these extra variables where you can be discovered? They didn't go to the first house to create a ruse, they went to the first house because that was the target. J.C. was brought into it by Omar, potentially, after the fact. So, we'll get to it in the end, I already have a million things I want to say, but what you're saying, as you're laying it out, we're getting there, we're pulling back the threads, one by one, there is some truth in here, and I feel like when Omar's originally questioned, he's questioned in a way where he's being treated as a victim, and he wants to remain that way, and just

• 1:08:35Derrick Levasseur?

  to add on to something that Madison told both of us, now this is her opinion, she was told by someone in law enforcement investigating this case, that Omar was, quote, "always to be treated as a victim," right? That's what she said. Now, that's not directly from us, that's from Madison, but that's what she was told, so that is interesting, but it would make sense why Omar wouldn't want to say anything that would make him look like a criminal as well.

• 1:09:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay, well.

• 1:09:01Derrick Levasseur?

  You're not, you're not agree, I mean, are you with me, kinda?

• 1:09:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  I, yeah, kind of, I am kind of with you, I just think that it's such a coincidence, once again, like, he's shot, nobody went through his house, nobody looked through his house for money. If they genuinely thought $250,000 could be in J.C.'s house, they still would have gone in there after they shot him to look for it.

• 1:09:19Derrick Levasseur?

  You think so? Because at that point, somebody could have heard the pop.

• 1:09:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes.

• 1:09:22Derrick Levasseur?

  And they hear other people in the house.

• 1:09:24Stephanie Harlowe?

  I don't know, maybe.

• 1:09:26Derrick Levasseur?

  Let's, let's finish this up and then we'll go over the scenarios because I think we have so much to talk about.

• 1:09:30Stephanie Harlowe?

  All right, all right, all right. So later Omar changed his explanation again. Now he said he hadn't originally told the police that Daryl was involved because they had been treating him like a suspect. He also claimed he had doubts about whether the man he saw was actually Daryl. Omar told police that he had heard the name Tone before and that Tone lived in Columbus and had been involved in a robbery. He also recalled something specific about the way the attackers spoke during the break in. At one point, he said they kicked Pearl and called her a quote "West Virginia Northern bitch" end quote. And that detail stood out to investigators because West Virginia Northern was the name of the place where Pearl worked.

• 1:10:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  So Omar then said he overheard the attackers saying, "There's no money in here, we're going to the next house." He claimed he never heard any gunshots, but when he escaped, he saw a PT Cruiser parked in JC's driveway. So now, he hasn't heard any gunshots. Now, they're not shooting at him as he runs. Now he's not like, "Ha, ha, ha, you missed me." It's a completely different story. And during another follow-up interview, Omar identified a new man. In a photo lineup, this person's name is redacted. And Omar said he was 99% sure the man had been involved in the attack. He told police that he had known this person before the home invasion because they'd taken a math class together. But when police asked

• 1:10:53Stephanie Harlowe?

  why, if he already knew the man, he hadn't identified him sooner, Omar said that he wasn't certain it was the same person. So Omar was interviewed at least two more times after that. In one of those interviews, he added another name to the list of alleged attackers, Danny Banks. This is a name we've heard before. This is the name that Madison told us has often popped up alongside her father's murder. Omar also told the police that a woman named Nicole had been the lookout for Daryl and that she'd been driving a PT Cruiser that belonged to Tisha. In another interview, Omar named several men he believed were present during the attack, though some of their names were redacted. in police records. He said Daryl Smith and another man had acted as lookouts.

• 1:11:36Stephanie Harlowe?

  He also claimed that a few people outside of the family knew the layout of both the McGee and the Foston houses and that it was common knowledge that J.C. had a safe with thousands of dollars inside. Omar also reported seeing several cars at the scene, a black custom pickup truck, a black Cadillac, and a green Cadillac with spinning rims. He said he had previously seen the Cadillac at the auto shop where Dwight McGee worked. All right. So in January of 2004, Daryl Smith, who was now at that point serving a 30-year sentence in federal prison on drug charges, he was offered a deal in J.C.'s case, which he was charged with murder in. Prosecutors told him unless he was directly involved

• 1:12:17Stephanie Harlowe?

  in or responsible for J.C.'s murder, they would reduce his sentence in exchange for information. Daryl spoke with a lawyer about the offer, but ultimately turned it down. What does that say to you?

• 1:12:30Derrick Levasseur?

  I don't want to look too deep into it. It could be something where if Daryl's completely innocent, he's like, I can't, I can't tell you anything because I don't know. I truly don't know. Or maybe he spoke to his lawyer and he said, hey, lawyer, I don't think they have anything. And the lawyer said, yeah, I don't think they have anything either. Let's just keep our mouths shut because if you do talk, it's going to be even worse for you here in prison or even out on the streets because now you're a snitch and the people you're dealing with is going to, they're going to come after you. So could be a lot of variables that played into the decision not to say anything to law enforcement. And for everybody, it's different.

• 1:13:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, at some point either in or before 2004, a grand jury was convened to determine whether Daryl could be brought to trial for J.C.'s murder. However, during the proceedings, the charges against him were dropped and no one else was ever arrested. Now, when Madison spoke with the investigators, they told her that they simply didn't have enough evidence to take Daryl to trial.

• 1:13:28Derrick Levasseur?

  So there's your answer. So and maybe Daryl picked up on this and his attorney picked up on this where they said they don't have anything. They're trying to get something. If we just keep our mouths shut, this is going to go away. That's probably what happened.

• 1:13:41Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, Madison believes that after the charges were dropped, the police saw the case as finished. Not because it was solved, but because they considered it unsolvable. She described it as hitting a roadblock. Rather than trying to push through it, they just turned around. She also believes that investigators didn't think J C's case mattered to anyone outside of his family. Because of that, they didn't see it as important enough to solve. In her words, quote, "They didn't think anyone would be protesting that this wasn't getting solved." End quote. And I mean, there's a million things, and I don't know if the police did this, but there's a million things they could have done. They could have gone to the site where Daryl claimed he and his girlfriend were camping to see if there was any evidence of a campsite there. You know, any evidence that people had been staying there.

• 1:14:24Derrick Levasseur?

  Look at traffic cameras leading to that location.

• 1:14:27Stephanie Harlowe?

  Looked at traffic cameras. They could have done, you know, forensics and stuff on, on all of these vehicles to see if there was any forensic evidence there.

• 1:14:35Derrick Levasseur?

  Cell phone triangulation.

• 1:14:36Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, I don't know if they did this stuff. I really don't. They, I, did they even talk to the neighbors? Did anybody have surveillance cameras that were pointing outwards toward that house? Like all of these things, I wonder if they were done.

• 1:14:47Derrick Levasseur?

  And as far as actually cell phone triangulation, we're talking 2002. So I remember 2002, I was basically rocking a pager. Cell phones were not abundant at that point, so that might not have been an option.

• 1:14:57Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, but they said that someone was using maybe a Nextel phone or walkie talkies.

• 1:15:02Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, yeah, it could have been right around that time because Nextels were used. And I remember when I was in college, a lot of people were using a Nextel. So it was pretty, it was still new. It's possible they had phones on them, but if anything, it probably would have been GPS. It would have been, like I said, just bouncing off different towers.

• 1:15:16Stephanie Harlowe?

  So obviously, nothing happens now. J C's murder went unsolved. And for a long time, Madison had no idea that her father had even been murdered at all. Because after J C was killed, Madison's mother obviously wasn't sure how to handle the situation because Madison was so young. So instead of telling Madison the truth, she told her that J C had died of a heart attack, which I completely understand.

• 1:15:38Derrick Levasseur?

  I get it, yeah.

• 1:15:39Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, she was like, I think, seven at that point, like, what are you?

• 1:15:41Derrick Levasseur?

  Seven years old when it happened.

• 1:15:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, what are you gonna tell? What are you gonna tell her? That's, and then obviously that, that little white lie.

• 1:15:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  Comes kind of a secret as Madison gets older, but to keep that secret, Madison was kept away from her older sister Alyssa. It wasn't until 2012, 10 years after his death, when Madison was 16, that she finally learned the truth and it was devastating to hear. And she suddenly felt like her entire life had been a lie. But she was finishing high school and about to go to college and for a while, she put that information aside. It wasn't until 2019 that she decided to start looking into what had really happened to her father. At first, it was just curiosity. She wanted to understand the truth. But the more she read through case files and listened to stories from people in the community, the more she realized that she needed to know what happened. And from there, she knew she had to do something about it.

• 1:16:30Stephanie Harlowe?

  She started speaking with the police who told her J C's murder was a home invasion gone wrong. But when she asked them to reopen the case and actually investigate, she wasn't getting anywhere. So she decided to take matters into her own hands. And that's when she started her podcast Ice Cold Case, investigating the murder of John Cornelius McGee. Madison has now spent more than five years investigating her father's murder. And through her research, she has developed her own theories about what really happened. Madison believes the home invasion was a cover for J C's murder. With the attack on Omar's family serving as a distraction, she thinks police wrongly looked at it as a robbery gone wrong, taking focus away from J C being the intended target.

• 1:17:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  Madison also believes that Omar was used to lure J C into opening the door. She pointed out that her father wouldn't have unlocked the door at 6:30 a.m., especially with Alyssa sleeping inside unless he thought someone he knew like Omar was outside. One detail that has always stood out to her is the fact that J C wasn't armed when he was killed. Madison said that to open the door, he would have walked past several guns. If there had been a stranger or a potential threat outside early that morning, she believes he would have grabbed one, but because he heard Omar's voice, he didn't feel the need to. And I agree with that.

• 1:17:49Derrick Levasseur?

  I mean, not unless Omar's voice was distressed.

• 1:17:51Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, but Omar's voice wasn't distressed. Because if it, if he was like Uncle J C, help me, then John would have had a gun.

• 1:17:58Derrick Levasseur?

  That's what I'm saying. So that, so that we have to believe that Omar, under this scenario is like, hey,

• 1:18:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  He's in on it. Yeah.

• 1:18:05Derrick Levasseur?

  Come on out here. I want to show you something.

• 1:18:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:08Derrick Levasseur?

  Okay. But then the doors are kicked off the hinges though. Remember that.

• 1:18:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes.

• 1:18:12Derrick Levasseur?

  John's apartment, he didn't open the door. So I'm saving it. I'm saving it, guys. I'm waiting. I promise.

• 1:18:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  All right. Another thing that doesn't sit right with Madison is how quickly J C was killed. He was shot once in the head from several feet away, and she believes that level of accuracy suggests intent. The fact that the first shot immediately killed him meant that the men didn't stick around. They left right away because they had accomplished what they came to do. They did not search his house for a safe, and they didn't even rob him of the chain that he was wearing. I agree. They came all the way from California. There's $250,000 that they're after, and you're gonna kill him and then be like, ah, you know what? We've done enough for one day. Let's leave.

• 1:18:53Derrick Levasseur?

  I, I, I see where she's coming from.

• 1:18:55Stephanie Harlowe?

  Now Madison believes her father's murder was a revenge plot carried out because he was working with the police and had made enemies. But what she doesn't know is who was ultimately behind it. She wonders, was it the person directly who felt that they needed revenge, or was it someone sort of behind the scenes, Wizard of Oz-like orchestrating all of this? And she thinks that that will be revealed when motive comes into play. Madison is also uncertain about Omar's role in the murder. She pointed out that there is a five-minute gap from when Omar goes outside with these guys to the time that Omar makes the 911 call. And she says she doesn't know if we'll ever know what happened in those five minutes, at least not from Omar. While she doesn't believe that Omar was the one who pulled

• 1:19:36Stephanie Harlowe?

  the trigger, she knows that his constant lies and changing stories don't make him look good. When she has spoken to him, he's switched between angry that she's turned on him publicly, and praising her for seeking the truth, saying that she is, quote, "doing the right thing." Now, despite everything Madison has uncovered, police still insist that J C's murder was a result of a home invasion gone wrong and that Daryl Smith was involved. They tell her that the case is open, but she doesn't feel like they're doing much. For example, they once told her they wanted to re-interview Omar's girlfriend at the time, Kim, but they couldn't find her. However, as soon as Madison left the police station, she pulled up her Facebook and was able to contact Kim immediately.

• 1:20:16Derrick Levasseur?

  Horrible, horrible police work.

• 1:20:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  Now Madison isn't sure if the police will ever solve her father's case, or if she will. Either and she's come to terms with that for her. Justice isn't necessarily about getting conviction or seeing someone put behind bars. It's about knowing what happened to her dad. She told us, quote, "I had to decide in the beginning, very early on, where my bar would be for some sort of peace. And I think just knowing if I can get to a point where I'm like, all of this evidence lines up in my head, all of this makes sense to me. And this is what happened to my dad, whether or not a court of law is going to convict someone, whether or not they're going to arrest someone or whatever. If I know that this is what happened and I can get this confirmed by the right people and the right witnesses and the right evidence for me, I'm good. I did what I came here to do." Yeah. End quote.

• 1:21:02Derrick Levasseur?

  That's great. That's great. I, I think Madison's an amazing person. That's why we agreed to do this, met her multiple times, had some good times with her as well. It's not always doom and gloom talking about this. She's just a really amazing person. And she had actually known some people from Big Brother. That's how when she came up to me, she's like, hey, she's out in the LA area. She's like, I know this, you know, this woman Hannah for all the Big Brother people. She knows Hannah Chata. That'll make sense to some of you, not a lot. So that's how we started. And then she got into her father's story and she's gotten a couple of nominations for this podcast and she's doing a great job.

• 1:21:35Stephanie Harlowe?

  She's gonna be at Crime Con in Denver, too.

• 1:21:37Derrick Levasseur?

  She will. She will be there. She will be there. I don't want to sound redundant. So I'm gonna give my opinion where I stand right now without going over all the details that you just laid out because you have them here. And also you can go check out Madison's podcast as well. But here's the overview of what I think though. The big headline for me is Omar is lying. We all know that Omar is lying. The question is why? So as we're going through all these scenarios, I got three that I think stand out to me. The first one is it wasn't Omar and JC that these people were targeting. It was Omar and Richard. And I do think there's some truth to the, to the idea

• 1:22:21Derrick Levasseur?

  that Richard stole a large sum of money.

• 1:22:26Derrick Levasseur?

  And these guys from Ohio or California, wherever they were from, knew the money, or thought the money was being stashed at Omar or J.C.'s house. And I don't think this was the first time that Omar, J.C., Richard had been involved in something like this. Hence the high security, hence the safes, okay? Do I think Pearl was in on all of it? No, but as I've seen many times over the years, although she may not be directly involved, she's definitely turning a blind eye. She knows what's going on inside that house. She knows why there's so much security. So I think it's a real scenario, especially with all the names that are coming out and the consistency of those names.

• 1:23:08Derrick Levasseur?

  Daryl, Darren, Brandon, Richard, Omar, it's all the same people. And I think potentially the reason Omar was lying in the first place, because he knew, which you had alluded to, that at the end of the day, Omar and Richard are a big reason why J.C.'s dead today. So in that scenario, they go to the house, they go to the main house where Omar is. They're looking for the money. Omar says it's next door. I can't tell you why the shooter did it, but I don't think this was a precision shot in that scenario. I think the person kicked in the door, was startled and surprised to see J.C. standing there, throws a shot, maybe it's blind, maybe he's looking right at him,

• 1:23:51Derrick Levasseur?

  and unfortunately or fortunately hits him in the head. Most of these low-level criminals are not lethal assassins. And unfortunately, sometimes even with police officers, they just get lucky with one shot and they end up killing the cop. And it wasn't even an intentional shot. They just happened to get him in a good spot. So I do think that's a very plausible scenario that they went there for a large sum of money that was allegedly there. They broke into one house, Omar maybe dimes out J.C. and J.C. becomes collateral damage. Or to not make J.C. look like just completely innocent in this, maybe J.C. knew about the money being stolen. Maybe he had some knowledge of that. Would that be completely out of the question? Absolutely not.

• 1:24:36Derrick Levasseur?

  The second scenario, which we talked about in episode one, is that Omar set him up. JC had a lot of enemies. He's been involved in the drug game for a long time. He's snitching on people. He's doing his own thing.

• 1:24:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  And maybe Rico reaches out from prison. And he's like Omar, help me out because they would be related.

• 1:24:56Derrick Levasseur?

  They're related. They're all, they're all in on us together. And they say, hey, we want him. You're going to help me get him. You're going to set him up. We're going to come to your house. We'll toss some things over. We'll throw some alcohol on you. We'll beach up a little bit. That's going to give you an alibi with law enforcement. It's also going to give you an alibi with the family. You're going to help us. Would it be the first time that family took out family? Of course not. That would go in line with what Madison's saying. That they intentionally went there. JC was the target the whole time. I just don't understand why you wouldn't go kill him first to make sure he doesn't hear the home invasion next door. And then go trample over some things, knock a table over and just lie to police and tell them, oh, they came same time.

• 1:25:36Stephanie Harlowe?

  I don't know because the timing has to be right. And because

• 1:25:39Derrick Levasseur?

  Four minutes.

• 1:25:39Stephanie Harlowe?

  And because Kim and Pearl had to be kept in the dark. So they had to put on a show for them. That's where I'm leaning. I think, in my opinion, that Omar set his uncle up. And maybe he was forced to because he's got family who's behind bars because of JC. And they're like, hey, if it's not him, it's you, dude. So, you know, figure it out.

• 1:25:59Derrick Levasseur?

  It is. There's a lot of risk in that that could have went bad for Omar as well, but it's, it's also still plausible. And then the final one, which you kind of hit on there, which is Rico and all these other people that are in prison for a very long time. And can't get to JC directly, but can get to him through other means and throw in some money out there. There's a world where Rico or one of these other guys hire a group of people who don't have a lot of money. And say, listen, there's drugs, there's money in that house. No matter what, make sure you kill JC. I want him dead. I'm in prison. I want him dead. Maybe Omar's in on it, but also maybe Omar isn't. Maybe Omar's just collateral damage in this scenario where they're going there for JC. They don't know which house he's in. They hit both houses.

• 1:26:44Derrick Levasseur?

  Omar rats him out and says he's right next door because Omar's got a gun to his head. And they kill JC and get out of there because they were never there for the money in the first place. And when we talked to Madison, that was a scenario that she mentioned as well, where there's a lot of people who we haven't said directly by name in this story. But there are at least 75 people who know JC ratted him out.

• 1:27:08Derrick Levasseur?

  At least 75 who know that them being away from their friends and family is because of JC. So would they have an axe to grind? Absolutely. And some of them are in there for life for what Madison was telling us. So could they have the means and the ability to gather a group of people to go out there and take them out down in West Virginia? Of course. So where do we stand on this one for me? More than one person knows what happened here. I do think the truth is out there. A lot of loose lips and they do sink ships. Madison, you have to keep digging and I'm hoping that with the exposure you get here on Crime Weekly and other platforms, someone does come forward, whether it's for financial incentive or just wanting to do the right thing.

• 1:27:50Stephanie Harlowe?

  Or they just slip up.

• 1:27:51Derrick Levasseur?

  They just, they could also just slip up. They get caught and they come forward and they snitch because they're trying to get themselves a deal.

• 1:27:57Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, apparently Madison's gotten like, she hasn't said from who, but she's, when she started digging in, she got some messages from a family member. And this family member was like, hey, you better stop looking into this or else.

• 1:28:08Derrick Levasseur?

  I don't doubt that one bit. I don't doubt that one bit because when you do get close, that's when the heat starts getting turned up. So I'm really hoping, and I love Madison's outlook on this, right? She doesn't know if there ever is going to be an actual prosecution. She just wants answers.

• 1:28:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  She just wants to know.

• 1:28:23Derrick Levasseur?

  I truthfully believe, and I don't want to put words into her mouth. She can, she can counter this if she wants to. But I, I truly believe that if someone came to her and said, hey, here's what happened. You're never going to get us to say it publicly, but here's what really went down. I think Madison would be good with that. I think she just wants to know. Now, would she still fight for justice for her father? Of course. But I think that at minimum, the uncertainty, the unknown is why a lot of us tune into these shows every week. We want resolution for these families. We want the answers to the puzzle.

• 1:28:53Stephanie Harlowe?

  Our brains want to make sense of something that's nonsensical.

• 1:28:57Derrick Levasseur?

  Correct. Correct. Why would they do this? And there are a lot of suspects in this pool, but I do think it's already been narrowed down by law enforcement and by Madison. And I wouldn't be surprised in the least if within a very short period of time, there is a break in this case where Madison's updating all of us, letting us know, hey, someone is finally being charged with my father's murder.

• 1:29:20Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, on that note, the third and final season of Ice Cold Case drops in April, and Madison is exploring new possible leads she's learned, including other confidential informants, family members, and more. So go check her out, send her some love, let her know we sent you.

• 1:29:35Derrick Levasseur?

  Yes.

• 1:29:35Stephanie Harlowe?

  And let's all, you know, give her our support in this, in this journey that she's taking.

• 1:29:39Derrick Levasseur?

  And thank you to Madison for allowing us and entrusting us to cover this. This is your story to tell about your father. And it's not easy to let someone else take control. She didn't, she didn't ask to be part of the episode. She said, hey, come to your own conclusions. And I, I absolutely respect that. I think it's amazing. So thank you for entrusting us. We, we hope that we did a service here and we did, we did you right. And you're, and you're happy with the outcome of what we've had to say. Way in down in the comments below, let us know what you have to think. Make sure you go follow Madison. Any final words, Stephanie?

• 1:30:10Stephanie Harlowe?

  No, that's it. A very interesting case. I'm glad we covered it and I'm glad that Madison is continuing to push for the answers that she needs. And I hope we, that she has all of our support and I know she has our support.

• 1:30:22Derrick Levasseur?

  Well said, guys. We appreciate you being here. Everyone stay safe out there. We'll see you next week.

• 1:30:26Stephanie Harlowe?

  Bye.