319: Casey Anthony 2.0, He Googled How to Kill, & 7-Year-Old Girl Faces Off With Her Monster

This week on Headline Highlights: a shocking jailhouse stabbing leaves accused killer Brian Walshe fighting for his life just weeks before trial, Megan Boswell learns her fate as she’s sentenced to life in prison despite her pleas of innocence, and 41-year-old mom Melissa Domingo is brutally murdered during a custody exchange after once defending herself against her ex. Plus, a husband of 25 years turns a gun on his wife in front of their children, and a 7-year-old survives the unthinkable after being kidnapped and thrown from a bridge. You won’t want to miss this…🎙️Evil Mastermind or Complete Moron? Brian Walshe & Ana WalsheApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/serialously-with-annie-elise/id1519456164?i=1000719369969Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2cqphpRvh0mnfidvZ6e8bp?si=dQfx8qX8RNW3x--3iG4ESgYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4yswRzJAqU&t=805s🎙️Exposing The Evil Truth of The Megan Boswell Case: The Disturbing New DetailsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJGllLu1q_w 🔎Join Our True Crime Club & Get Exclusive Content & Perks 🔎 Join The Club: https://www.patreon.com/annieelise🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to EXTRA deep dive episodes every week on Apple!https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/serialously-with-annie-elise/id1519456164🚩Announcements🚩Want to Catch Annie LIVE on Tour? 🎤 🎟Grab your tickets now for a city near you: https://annieelise.com/pages/tour🌸MERCH IS OFFICIALLY HERE! 🌸Shop now at https://annieelise.com/collections/shop-allDon't miss out before your faves sell out! 🛒🌷Follow Annie on Socials 📸 🩷Instagram: @ _annieelise, https://www.instagram.com/_annieelise/?hl=en💜TikTok: @_annieelise, https://www.tiktok.com/@_annieelise?lang=en🗞️ Substack: @annieelise, https://substack.com/@annieelise💙Facebook: @10tolife, https://www.facebook.com/10toLIFE⭐️Sponsors ⭐️Chime Financial: Open your account in 2 minutes at http://CHIME. COM/SERIALOUSLY. Jolie: Head to http://jolieskinco.com/AE to try it out for yourself with FREE shipping. Shop Annie’s Closet & Must-Haves! 👗Poshmark: https://posh.mk/Tdbki6Ae0RbShopMY: https://shopmy.us/annieeliseAmazon: https://www.amazon.com/shop/10tolife?ref_=cm_sw_r_apin_aipsfshop_BKN1ZMCMEZHACVFQ2R75&language=en_USDisclaimer ‣ Some links may be affiliate links, they do not cost you anything, but I make a small percentage from the sale. Thank you so much for watching and supporting me.🎙️ Follow the podcast for FREE on all podcast platforms! Apple:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/serialously-with-annie-elise/id1519456164Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/6HdheEH8WeMTHoe5da34qUAll Other Platforms: https://audioboom.com/channels/5100770-serialously-with-annie-eliseGet Involved or Recommend the Case 💬 About Annie: https://annieelise.com/For Business Inquiries: [email protected] Sources 🔗ABC30 Action NewsABC7 Los AngelesBoston.comCBS BostonKnoxville News SentinelMassLivePeople.comWCVBWJBFWRDW*Sources used to collect this information include various public news sites, interviews, court documents, FB groups dedicated to the case, and various news channel segments. When quoting statements made by others, they are strictly alleged until confirmed otherwise. Please remember my videos are my independent opinion and to always do your own research. ••••••••••••••••••Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this video are personal and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company. Assumptions made in the analysis are not reflective of the position of any entity other than the creator(s). These views are subject to change, revision, and rethinking at any time and are not to be held in perpetuity. We make no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, correctness, suitability, or validity of any information on this video and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis. It is the reader’s responsibility to verify their own facts.

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

• 0:00Annie Elise?

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• 1:14Annie Elise?

  Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serial Sleuth.

• 1:37Annie Elise?

  Hello, hello, hello, and happy Thursday. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serial Sleuth. With me, your true crime bestie, Annie Elise, here to tell you everything that has been going down this week in the true crime world. And once again, I feel like I always start these episodes the same way, guys. Once again, we have so much to talk about. I know that the last week has just been like jam packed with news, with cases, with updates in cases, and I want to try and break down a lot of what I have seen you guys DMing me about because there have been some very important and key updates in some cases we've

• 2:18Annie Elise?

  covered in recent history, and there's also some very new unsettling cases. Now, before we get into all of that, for all my besties who are listening in Texas, we are hitting the road again tonight. We will be in Austin tonight, we will be in Dallas tomorrow night, Phoenix on Sunday. We were in Houston last night, totally sold out crowd. It was, you know, everybody was so nice, so amazing. So tonight, for all my Austin friends, there are still a couple of tickets left, so snag them at annieelise.com. I think we also might have like, I think, less than like 10 for Dallas, don't quote me on that. So if you want to go to Dallas, grab your bestie, come or come alone, a lot of people

• 3:01Annie Elise?

  come alone and it's, you know, you're in good company, we're all there together, and then Phoenix is completely sold out. But we are back out on the road, so hopefully I will see some of you there. Now, I want to start by giving a couple of updates in some cases because I've seen you guys sliding all up in my DMs, asking me what's going on here, what's going on there. So let's start with the Brian Walsh of it all. For those of you watching on YouTube, you know that I compared this guy to like Quagmire from Family Guy, he literally looks like him, he has the most rectangle shaped head I've ever seen in my life. But Brian Walsh was accused, or is, I should say, accused of murdering his wife, Anna Walsh,

• 3:42Annie Elise?

  and in a very disgusting way, he also had these horrific Google searches of how to dismember, how to get away with murder, all of these things. And my point is, he was stabbed on Thursday, September 11th, in jail, where he's currently being held and awaiting trial that is set to begin on October 20th. The sheriff's office said that, quote, "At approximately 9:55 PM, an..." Individual in custody at the Norfolk County Sheriff's Correctional Center in Denham was treated for non-life-threatening injuries after being assaulted inside one of the facility's housing units. Officers didn't identify the other individual involved, but apparently he was subdued by officers. And in the process, they recovered this like makeshift blunt instrument.

• 4:22Annie Elise?

  Brian survived. He's expected to make a full recovery and a full recovery in time for his trial, which is beginning towards the end of October. So we'll see what happens. Not that I necessarily condone vigilante justice and this guy is technically, technically innocent until proven guilty. But I think he's guilty. And yeah, I mean, I, if I'm going to link the deep dive to that episode. Cause like I said, this case is really awful and this guy thought, I don't even know if he thought he was being stealth. But he was a fucking moron. Okay. He Googled literally everything. So his digital footprint showed exactly what his mental state was at that point.

• 5:05Annie Elise?

  Trying to figure out best way to get rid of a body, how to dismember a body, how to do this, how to get away from murder. Like I'm talking a laundry list of Google searches. And of course it was also as she was getting prepared to leave him. And I believe she also may have been seeing somebody else already. Don't quote me on that. I'd have to go back and refresh my memory. But one of these things where it's like, you know, if I can't have you, nobody can. And so he'll stand trial. We will follow that. It's in the Boston area, exactly actually where all of the Karen Reed stuff went down in Denham. So we'll see and we will follow that. Now in another update that we have, and this is in relation to a case that we first started covering. Gosh, I think it was back in 2020, 2020 or 2021.

• 5:50Annie Elise?

  And it's Megan Boswell, also known as Casey Anthony 2.0. Now she was charged with first degree murder, child abuse, neglect, tampering with evidence, abuse of a corpse, and several counts of making false police reports. And the reason that I Kind of dubbed her as Casey Anthony 2.0 is because it literally was like she ripped a page out of Casey's playbook. Her daughter Evelyn, who was just a little baby, went mysteriously missing. And if you're not watching right now, I'm using big, big, big, big ass air quotes. And she was changing her story a bunch of times. She said that it was her boyfriend who had Evelyn last, and then she said it was her mom who had Evelyn last.

• 6:31Annie Elise?

  Then she did all of these very weird interviews on the news where she was begging for her daughter's safe return, but then at the next breath, she was saying, I know exactly who has her. I know exactly, and you know, if the police don't step in and do their job, I'm gonna go get her myself. Which was kind of like, a big blow. Everybody's like, wait, what? You know where she is? You've been saying she's abducted? Like, you know who took her? So it very much felt reminiscent of like the Zanny the Nanny story, when Casey was lying about all of the Disney World stuff. And it was just one lie after another, which is also why Meghan caught all of the charges of making false police reports. Ultimately, she ended up being arrested. They unfortunately found little Evelyn's body inside this, like, it was inside a shed,

• 7:15Annie Elise?

  there was this trash can, and not to be overly grotesque, but she truly threw her away like garbage, so much so that she stuffed her inside of there, and the back of her head, the back of Evelyn's little head, hit the back of her spine. Like, fully, like, backbend style. It's so fucking foul and disgusting, and this girl is evil. Yet, she still insists that she's innocent. And just recently, she was sentenced to life in prison, plus an additional 33 years. And this was all again because of the death of her 15-month-old daughter Evelyn. She says that she is planning to file for an appeal because, again, she's innocent, which, I mean, nobody, I don't think, is buying that for a single second.

• 7:58Annie Elise?

  But the sentence means that she will never be released from prison, which, amen. The judge also had added consecutive sentences after the life in prison term because of the brutality of the crime, as I said. Evelyn, you know the manner in which she was found. There are a lot of other details that go into this too. So, you know, I actually, I think, I don't even, I don't know if I have a solo episode on this. I'm sure I do. I know I have several. So I will either link the playlist in the show notes or the single episode deep dive, if there is one. And if there isn't one, and if you want me to do a deep dive revisiting this case where it's all, you know, the information in one place, start to finish, we certainly can. Just let me know that in Spotify comments or in the Apple review section,

• 8:43Annie Elise?

  or shoot me a DM on Instagram at underscore Annie Elise. So that's what we've got for updates. Let's get into some of these new cases that are breaking because we need to talk about this next case because it's heartbreaking, it's infuriating. And honestly, it kind of leaves you shaking your head, wondering, you know, how could this ever even happen? So let me walk you through it. This is about Melissa Domingo, a 41-year-old mom from Evans, Georgia. Now Melissa was doing everything that she could possibly do to protect herself, to protect her son, yet still she ended up being failed in the most tragic way. Let me rewind a little bit. Back in 2021, Melissa was in a marriage with her then-husband, Hajar Talibzada.

• 9:27Annie Elise?

  Now unfortunately, this marriage was a very abusive one. I am talking years of emotional turmoil, physical violence, possession, jealousy, all of the things that roll into a very toxic and dangerous marriage. And it got so bad that on New Year's Eve one year, there was an incident where she ended up shooting him, trying to protect herself. She was then charged with aggravated assault, firearm possession during a crime, and cruelty to children. I mean, really heavy stuff, right? But here's the thing. Melissa fought all of those charges in court. And just 19 days before the tragedy that we're talking about today, a judge looked at all of this evidence, you know, the expert testimony,

• 10:10Annie Elise?

  the medical reports that showed PTSD, battered woman syndrome, I mean, everything. And he's like, you know what? When she shot him, she acted in self-defense. She was literally trying to save her own life. So because of that, she was cleared. It was ruled self-defense. She finally had this huge weight lifted off her shoulders too, because she protected herself, she did everything she could. She ended up having to unfortunately. Be in a situation where she had no other option but to shoot him to protect herself. When she caught the charges, the judge looked at all of the evidence and said, no, this is self-defense. So she finally was feeling like, okay, finally, a little bit of stability, a breath of fresh air. I can move forward, kind of thinking like, finally, somebody believed me.

• 10:53Annie Elise?

  Finally, the system is protecting me from this monster. But not so fast. Because fast forward to September 7th, 2025, and Melissa had a court-ordered custody exchange with her ex-husband. Now, she didn't go alone. She knew that that would be risky, so she brought her mom, Elizabeth. Because, as we know, those exchanges, especially when there is turmoil and a lot of custody disputes, they can be kind of tense and they can be incredibly scary and dangerous sometimes, especially if you're dealing with a very heightened situation like this one. So the exchange took place in a Best Buy parking lot in Augusta, Georgia. And this was in broad daylight, like the middle of the afternoon.

• 11:34Annie Elise?

  And they had their little boy right there as well, trying to do this seamless, or hopefully seamless custody exchange. Well, during that exchange, Hajar pulled out a gun and he shot both Melissa and her mother, Elizabeth, right there in front of their son. And I just don't even have words for this. I mean, that poor little boy witnessed everything.

• 11:56Speaker 03

  911, what's the exact location of your emergency? Best Buy parking lot. Best Buy parking lot.

• 12:06Speaker 03

  Okay, tell me exactly what happened. Police. Stand by, events. Police.

• 12:15Speaker 03

  Police, sir.

• 12:18Speaker 03

  Need help? Yes, sir, tell me exactly what happened.

• 12:24Speaker 03

  I was in fear of my life.

• 12:27Speaker 03

  Plus, I fired one round.

• 12:33Speaker 03

  Uh, please send an ambulance and, uh... Okay, sir. Has anyone been shot?

• 12:42Speaker 03

  Uh, yes. My ex-wife... Okay, one moment. Okay. My ex-wife opened fire.

• 12:52Speaker 03

  Okay, but has anyone been shot? Yeah, yeah. I only fired back once. Uh, her mom tried to stop her and, uh, I just ducked. So, please help us. Please help us. Please help us.

• 13:07Speaker 03

  Yes, sir. Just stay on the line, okay? Yes, ma'am. Please help us, sir. Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up. Please hurry up. Yeah, we're getting everybody in route. Hurry up. Okay, hurry up.

• 13:20Annie Elise?

  Now, obviously, that account from Hager himself sounds different, right? He's saying she's the instigator, that this was provoked, that he was provoked. So, when he called 911, he claimed again that Melissa had opened fire and then he was, quote, "in fear for his life" and that he only fired one round. So, basically, he tried to say that he shot them in self-defense, which kind of makes me sick as we break this down even further. And maybe this is just me speculating a little bit, but it almost feels like he was kind of being petty in a way, right? I mean, first of all, he knew that Melissa's charges were dropped because the judge ruled that she had shot him in self-defense. Then, coincidentally, what, not even three weeks later, he shoots her in self-defense?

• 14:05Annie Elise?

  And taking it even further than that, it almost seems like he was trying to set up his story from the very beginning of his 911 call, saying that he only fired one round, when we now know he actually shot two people. So, how do you shoot two people with one round? Make it make sense. I mean, I'm not a hunter, I'm not like a gunman person, but like, some, the math ain't really mathin' there for me. So, the police arrived within minutes and they arrested him on the spot. And he's now being charged with two counts of murder and cruelty to a child, all because of what his son had to witness. And I have to tell you, the cruelty to a child charge doesn't even scratch the surface of what this child is going to have to carry for the rest of his life.

• 14:48Annie Elise?

  And what makes this even harder to process is the timing of it all. Melissa was just vindicated by the justice system. Finally, people were believing her. They were realizing that this monster was dangerous. She had been living in fear, fighting for her freedom, fighting for her safety. And finally, finally, a judge said, you were right to defend yourself. So she should have had that chance to move on, to heal, to raise her son in peace. But instead, she was killed by the very person that she had been trying to protect herself from all along. The system failed her, plain and simple. And we all know that custody exchanges can be very dangerous when there is a history of abuse. Some states even have neutral exchange centers or require exchanges at police stations

• 15:32Annie Elise?

  because they can get so tense, so heated and dangerous. But that's not what happened here. Melissa did exactly what the court asked of her, and she was still left vulnerable. And I think what makes this even more sad, too, is that her mother, Elizabeth, who was just there to support her daughter and try to be helpful in all of this, also tragically lost her life. So now there's this little boy without his mom, without his grandma, his father arguably going to be behind bars for the rest of his life, and then carrying the trauma that no child should ever have to carry. It's devastating. It really, really is. And we always say, just get a divorce.

• 16:14Annie Elise?

  That is like the motto, one of the many mottos here on this podcast, is just get a divorce. Because here's the thing, in a lot of, and I'm going to go off on a little bit of a tangent here, so I apologize ahead of time, but you know, self-awareness is clicking in, so let me just warn you. But here's the thing, whether it's a custody exchange, whether it's a wife or a husband wanting to leave their spouse because they're no longer in love, whatever the situation is, anytime there are children involved, it irks me to my core when the spouse makes the argument of, I just love my child so much and I can't imagine my life without them. That's what drove me to murder. Or if I can't have them, nobody can.

• 16:55Annie Elise?

  And when it's, when there's children involved in this, and they're trying to argue that the root of their evilness is because of their love for their children, or that they don't want shared custody, so they are driven to kill over it. You're only doing a disservice for the very child that you claim to be loving so much that's forcing you to commit murder, you know, not the child, but like the emotions, you know what I'm saying? So it's like, and now you're not, you're not gonna ever have custody of your son. You're gonna go to prison for the rest of your life and you've ripped away your child's mother, their father, their grandmother. So this very child that you arguably are saying is your whole world and you can't

• 17:37Annie Elise?

  live without, and that's what's driving you and motivating you to kill, you've now left them orphaned in a way. So where, at what point do we realize that is just an excuse and it's a very selfish excuse, but it's like, if you really, truly are doing this because you are just so distraught and you love your kids so much and all that, you wouldn't be taking away not only their other parent, but you as their parent as well, you wouldn't even be risking that, you know? So it just, I know that was again, a very sloppy tangent and hopefully you were able to follow me a little bit with that one. It's just, I hear about these cases far too often and it never gets easier and it never gets easier to understand.

• 18:20Annie Elise?

  It's like, you didn't hurt anyone in this scenario, except for your son, your young son. And it's like, at what point do we have to just say like, be a fucking adult, have accountability, go through the rough divorce, go through the rough separation, but do it because you want your child to have the best life possible, to have the most balanced life possible. Now, he's left with not only no parental figure, but trauma, trauma that he will never forget, trauma that will be embedded in his life forever and shape how he grows up. It's like, I just, I know I'm going off, guys. It's just really...

• 19:02Annie Elise?

  Angers me. I don't know if I'm hormonal right now. Maybe I am. I should check my calendar and see like when I'm about to start, but like it just enrages me. It enrages me and it is just making me like, it's making me very, very sad. It really is. So, sorry. I didn't mean to go off on that tangent and get super emotional, but it's just one of those things that um really bothers me. Now, unfortunately, there is another case very similar to this that we are also going to talk about that happened and it's kind of left me sitting there thinking like, how is this even real? And this is the case of Yesenia and Michael Rocha, and it's unfortunately another very heartbreaking domestic situation that escalated to the absolute worst outcome. And

• 19:47Annie Elise?

  while we usually don't cover a lot of similar cases in headline highlights, I wanted to cover these back to back just to show how truly common this is and how awful it is and just like it's coming down, it's boiling down again, right down to the kids witnessing it. And it's just something that I think sometimes we try to shield ourselves from, but it is happening every single day. And I think the more that we're aware of it, I'm hopeful, maybe it's just the optimist in me, but I'm hopeful that there's a way where it's like this awareness will lead to change. It will evoke change. It will make people more heightened, they're like, you know, their senses heightened to be on alert when they're involved in situations like this so

• 20:29Annie Elise?

  that they go the extra mile or extra step to protect themselves. I don't know. But let me get into it. So, Yesenia was 43 years old, living in Ridley, California. She had two adult children, a daughter named Kayla and a son named Jacob. Now, Yesenia had been with her husband, Michael, also 43 years old, for about 25 years, which that's an entire lifetime with someone. However, just a couple of months ago, they separated. For whatever reason, things weren't working out and she finally decided to make the decision, a big decision, to create some distance between the two of them. Then, fast forward a couple of months to September 6th, 2025. Yesenia was with her children and some other family members and Michael shows up.

• 21:14Annie Elise?

  And this is where things take a devastating turn because in front of his kids, in front of their family, Michael just pulled out a gun and he shot Yessenya, shooting her multiple times. And because of the multiple times, she of course did not survive. Now, Michael fled the scene immediately. He took off in his truck and the whole community was kind of reeling from this and on edge and wondering where he went, who would he attack next, what was going on? And there was a full-on manhunt. Police also knew that he was armed, dangerous, and now on the run. That makes things incredibly scary because that's a person who there's not going to be any sort of rationale with how you're dealing with him or what's going on in his mind. He's a desperate man at this point, who is feeling

• 21:57Annie Elise?

  cornered and boxed in, and that makes somebody unpredictable and very dangerous. So finally, the very next day, it took a full day, but the very next day on September 7th, the deputies located him in Wood Lake, California. He had a rifle with him, and instead of surrendering, he fired at deputies during this pursuit. Law enforcement, trying to protect themselves, returned fire. So Michael was killed right there in the middle of this shootout. So within less than 24 hours, both Yessenya and Michael were gone. Their children had just lost their mother, now also had lost their father, into totally different, yet very traumatic ways, all because they couldn't just have the separation, because there was

• 22:41Annie Elise?

  anger brewing under the surface. And here's where it gets even more layered. Michael's own mother Rita spoke to the media after all of this, and what she has said has sparked so much conversation. She claimed, of course, that Michael couldn't cope with the separation, that he saw Yessenya as his soulmate, his sweetheart, and that he just did not want to live without her. And while yes, that might explain why he acted the way he did, it does not excuse it. Because instead of processing his grief, his anger, or seeking help, he made the decision to destroy not only Yessenya's life, but again, his children's lives in the process. Once again, not putting your children first and taking your own selfish

• 23:25Annie Elise?

  emotions and letting that fuel your evilness.

• 23:30Speaker 04

  My son was the world to me, and their mom was the world to them. And now we're both families are destroyed.

• 23:39Annie Elise?

  Michael's mother Rita didn't want her face on camera. She says the couple had been dating since middle school and married for 25 years, but separated for the last two months.

• 23:49Speaker 04

  He couldn't cope with her filing for a divorce. He didn't want to live without his sweetheart. He didn't want to live without his soulmate, the love of his life. He didn't want to live without her and he didn't want her to live without him. So he chose the cowardly way out.

• 24:07Annie Elise?

  Now, if you step back and take a look at the broader picture, this is unfortunately not an isolated story. Domestic violence and separations are some of the most high-risk situations. I mean, we see it time and time again, right? And in this case, there's so much heartbreak because you have children who are left behind trying to pick up all of the pieces. You have family members reeling from the shock of it all. And you have this community now asking, what more could have been done here?

• 24:34Speaker 05

  She was the light of our world. She shined very bright.

• 24:42Speaker 05

  She was always there for me and my brother. She was everything to us.

• 24:47Speaker 06

  I just wish I could see her one more time, hold her one more time, tell her I love her, give her a hug.

• 24:57Annie Elise?

  One last time.

• 24:59Speaker 06

  But that man took everything away from us.

• 25:02Annie Elise?

  Kayla, Yasenia's daughter, said it best. She said her mom was everything to them. Jacob, her son, said that he just wishes that he could hug her one more time. And that's what's so gutting here and gutting in even the first case that I talked about and in all of these cases. These kids, even though these two are two young adults, they're still kids or not, I guess not kids, but you know, you get what I mean. It's still the child who is now left without the person who anchored them, their safety net, who they have described as being their whole world. They are left to navigate life. Alone. And I know that sounds really dark and sounds really heavy and they probably

• 25:43Annie Elise?

  do have other family members who are stepping in, but it's tough because your parents are anchors for you and not every situation. Maybe it's grandparents, maybe it's whoever raised you, but to lose both of them back to back in such a traumatic way, I don't even know what that does to somebody's psyche and how you navigate from there. I don't know. It's incredibly difficult and heartbreaking. And this next case that we are going to talk about has, it's a shift in the complete opposite direction, but it is so brutal and so just barbaric, disgusting and evil that it really makes me start to lose faith in humanity. And I feel like I'm getting really dark this week, guys. I'm sorry. I'm trying

• 26:28Annie Elise?

  not to. It's just for some reason, these cases this week, they are just especially heavy.

• 26:39Annie Elise?

  Today's episode is sponsored by Zenni. Okay, I have a question for you guys. When is the last time that you actually bought something for yourself, especially right now, this time of year, when you are shopping for everybody else, you're checking off your list? When is the last time you got something for you? Because I think it's so easy to just completely forget about ourselves, especially this time of year. But that's why I love the idea of treating yourself to a new pair of glasses from Zenni. They have so many cute styles from prescription glasses to sunglasses. They have frames starting at just under $30. They also have this amazing tool on their site where you can do a virtual try on feature and it lets you see how the different frames look on you before you order, which I feel

• 27:21Annie Elise?

  like that is key because for me, like I'm a cat eye kind of lens person or frame person, but definitely not like a round frame kind of person. And I was quickly humbled with the virtual try on tool. When I tell you I was trying all of these different frames on Zenni because I was like, I need new blue lights. I need new prescriptions and It saved me so much hassle not ordering the ones that would look horrific on me. And so I am thankful for that. Plus they have over 150,000 five star reviews and they accept FSA and HSA cards, which is perfect if you have funds to use before the end of the year. So give the gift of ZENNI this holiday season. Glasses, sunglasses, whatever you need.

• 28:01Annie Elise?

  Go to ZENNI.com/podcast and use code PODCAST15 for 15% off plus free shipping on all US orders over $65. But styles sell out, so don't wait. That's Z E N N I dot com slash podcast promo code PODCAST15. ZENNI.com slash podcast code PODCAST15.

• 28:30Annie Elise?

  Now this next case that we're going to talk about honestly, sounds like it is something that has just been ripped straight out of a nightmare, but it's real and the details are so wild that you almost can't believe that this little girl survived what she went through. So this is the case of Joshua Hubert and it takes us to Worcester, Massachusetts back in 2017. But the reason I'm talking about it today is because there's news with this. So picture this, it's a late August and a seven-year-old girl is at her grandparents' house for a family cookout and it's totally normal, right? She eats, she plays, then she goes inside and she falls asleep on a chair inside the house and everyone assumes that she's safe because she's surrounded by family at this family cookout, right?

• 29:14Annie Elise?

  But at about 2:30 in the morning, a man named Joshua shows up at the house. Now Joshua wasn't a stranger, okay? He was actually a family friend of the girl's father and that familiarity is actually what makes this next part even scarier. According to prosecutors, Joshua abducted this little girl while she was asleep on the chair, just scooped her up and carried her out of the house without anybody realizing it. Then he put her inside his car and drove off and for about an hour and a half, he just drove around, which to this day, we don't even have the full picture of where he Or what exactly happened in that window of time. However, the little girl later told investigators that during that drive, he tried to strangle her.

• 29:59Annie Elise?

  He also then stuffed her into the trunk of his car. And this isn't even the worst part, but this alone is quite honestly enough to make me sick. I mean, what a creep, what a scumbag. It's terrifying, right? Because I forget what the statistic is of how often when there are crimes involving children, that it's someone who is close to the family or somebody that the family knows rather than a stranger. You know what? Let's actually ask, let's just go really quick here. What is the statistic about crimes that happen to children and the percentage of when it's somebody close to the family or a family friend versus a complete stranger? Let's throw this in there because this is unnerving. Here we go.

• 30:43Annie Elise?

  About 90% of child sex victims know their abuser. About 60% are hurt by someone the family knows and trusts, whether it's a family friend, a family member, a coach, a teacher, or a neighbor. 30% of them are hurt by a family member directly. And only about 10 cases involve a stranger. That is so scary to think about because it really makes you wonder who can you really trust around your children, right? So sorry that I like deviated a little bit, but this family friend abducted her and then was driving all around with her and they, you know, at first I would imagine even when he picked her up and put her in the car, if he was a family friend, maybe she didn't

• 31:25Annie Elise?

  think twice about it until of course he then started unleashing his real motivation. So it gets even more chilling. After about an hour and a half of driving, he pulled off onto this like overpass that is right above this lake in the area. It's kind of like right between these two towns, the town that they were in and then this other town. And it's almost like a bridge, okay? This bridge overpass. And he wraps this seven-year-old little girl in a blanket, tied a rope around her neck, put a plastic bag over her head, and he threw her off the bridge, which that was a 40-foot drop into the water.

• 32:02Speaker 07

  David, earlier this week, Joshua Hubert hid behind a door during his court arraignment, but today for the first time, he faced the cameras.

• 32:13Speaker 07

  Joshua Hubert couldn't hide this time. Now a new charge of trying to murder his close friend's seven-year-old daughter, who ended up in La Quint Sigammon early Sunday morning with choke marks on her neck.

• 32:27Speaker 08

  Evidence in the form of surveillance video of him at approximately 3:30 in the morning. We have an eyewitness that places him on a bridge.

• 32:38Speaker 07

  Hubert, a 35-year-old with no criminal record who worked at a prestigious prep school, is accused of kidnapping the sleeping child from her grandparents' home here in Worcester at around 2:00 Sunday morning. Police also said he choked her. Now, new court papers say he stopped his Saturn on the I-290 bridge. He picked up the victim, who was then wrapped in a blanket, and did throw the victim over the bridge.

• 33:03Annie Elise?

  And here's the part that blows my mind. This seven-year-old little girl survived this. She swam by herself about 100 yards to shore in the dark, in shock, after being tied up, and she managed to find a house nearby. I mean, truly miraculous and beyond resilient. She ended up knocking on this door at around 4:00 a.m. And when the residents answered, they saw this soaking-wet little girl terrified, just begging them for help. She had visible bruises, scratches, marks on her neck, all of these things, yet somehow was still alive. So the police were called immediately. And when that happened, when they stepped into this, that's when the story really unraveled.

• 33:48Annie Elise?

  So this little girl told the police that, quote, "Her friend Josh was the one who had done this." The investigators very quickly identified Joshua Hubert as the suspect, and he was arrested and charged with kidnapping. But very quickly, the charges were upgraded. They were upgraded to attempted murder, strangulation and suffocation, and more. Now, as we all know by now, more often than not, the legal side of these cases drags out, right? And this one, unfortunately, is no different. Joshua's case kept getting delayed. His trial was postponed multiple times. It was supposed to happen back in 2020, but then it got pushed back, pushed back again. All of these things, meanwhile, he was still being held on bail, which was originally set at $1 million.

• 34:32Annie Elise?

  But he was then later released on a $50,000 cash bail with GPS monitoring.

• 34:38Annie Elise?

  Then, years later, in December of 2023, prosecutors added even more charges in connection to this incident. The new charges included aggravated rape with force, rape with an age difference factor, and allegations that this little girl was tied, bound, or gagged during the assault. Joshua pleaded not guilty to all of it, and his defense attorneys have even pushed back, saying that the DNA evidence that was found on this little girl's clothing did not match his.

• 35:10Speaker 09

  He has been brought on charges, and they are just that, charges. That's his family. He needs to leave his family alone. They have a right to their privacy. The man is facing his charges, and he's going to defend those charges to the fullest. So what is going on? Why did you agree to the million dollars cash bail? Why did you agree? Because he also has a new charge out of Westboro. At this point, no judge is going to, based on the charges alone. The man has no history with the court system. There is no reason to believe that he's going anyplace. However, the nature of the charges, no judge is going to allow someone out on that. So, that's why we agreed to it. We'll deal with it when all the charges and all the facts come due, and then we'll deal with it in superior court. So he's a friend of the family? He knew the seven-year-old? Is this all a big misunderstanding in his eyes?

• 35:55Speaker 09

  I have no idea what actually happened, and that's what we need to get to.

• 35:59Annie Elise?

  When's he going to Westboro?

• 35:59Speaker 09

  And he can't say what he was doing? I don't have that answer yet. There's surveillance video of him for two hours that the prosecutor mentioned? What can you say about that? There's no surveillance video for two hours. They have him at one place, at a gas station, which he readily admitted to being at, and there is no indication he's doing anything wrong at that gas station. Was the girl with him at the gas station? Was he trying to kill her? Was he trying to kill the girl? He wasn't even with the girl.

• 36:23Annie Elise?

  Now, in fact, it has come out during his trial that is finally happening, that the DNA found on the girl's underwear from the night of the incident didn't match Joshua's, but instead matched her father. They've also tried to question how reliable the identification and timeline are because this girl didn't tell anybody about the sexual assault until two years later. Although she was seven years old, I don't really blame her with the age. And all of that, but I do understand where the question is now coming from. However, prosecutors are firm. They say that the little girl's statements and other evidence that they have point directly to Joshua. So like I said, as of now, this case has officially gone to trial and we still don't have a verdict in this, but the trial is not expected to be very long.

• 37:07Annie Elise?

  So at this time of this recording, we don't have the verdict, but I will have an update for you soon. But the girl who is now 15 years old has had to live all of these years with the trauma of that night just hanging over her and the justice system that has just been moving, you know, at a glacial pace for years and years and years. So I know that was a lot of information. So just to recap, this seven-year-old girl is kidnapped out of her grandparents' house, driven around for over an hour, nearly strangled, thrown off a bridge, wrapped inside a blanket with a plastic bag over her head and a rope tied around her neck. And she swam to safety and survived. She is literally the definition of a miracle.

• 37:50Annie Elise?

  So we will keep an eye out for the verdict on this one and I'll update you when we do find out, you know, what happens here. I do think it's interesting with the DNA of it all, that it's matching her father's and that apparently the assault piece of all this wasn't reported until two years later. Was there ongoing abuse in the house? I gave you those statistics, right? Sometimes it is a family member more often times than not. So even if the friend did abduct her and threw her off the bridge because they argue that there is CCTV footage that shows he's the one involved. If there was ongoing abuse inside the house and the dad was involved, not like in cahoots with the friend or anything, because remember Joshua was his friend, maybe in cahoots, I

• 38:32Annie Elise?

  don't know, but let's just say for the sake of argument, not, then that continued even after she survived this incident? Could he then have manipulated her into saying that it was him who, the friend who did all of this to her, not him? I don't know. And I'm not trying to like throw the dad under the bus here, obviously, if he's innocent in all this, but I think it is weird if the DNA was tested and the DNA from inside her underwear and it matched the father, which I would then want to go a step further. And again, it's tough because it's still in trial, so we don't have all the details. But like, what type of DNA is it that they recovered? Is it bodily fluids or is it? You know, skin or like touch DNA because that then would make sense if it's the father. I mean, how many times are you like, hello, he's probably helping her put her underwear

• 39:17Annie Elise?

  on, get dressed for the morning. That would make sense if it's bodily fluids. That's obviously a whole different story. So again, I'm following this closely. I'm trying to figure out what's really going on here. Was this little girl failed by one person, two people, multiple people? I don't know. And maybe you've heard about this case. And if so, let me know what you've heard. But I'm going to be following this one closely. So thank you very, very much for tuning into another episode of Serialistically with me today. Again, if you are in the Austin area, come tonight, AnnieElise.com. There are still some tickets left and you can also hit up Dallas tomorrow night if you are not able to come tonight. And we still then after that have Tampa, Orlando, Tacoma, Portland,

• 39:59Annie Elise?

  San Francisco. So grab all those tickets at AnnieElise.com before they are gone. Thanks again for tuning in and until the next one. Just get a divorce, be nice, don't kill people, just be a good human, and don't be a creep. Don't be a freaking predator. Maybe that's the next tagline that we're going to add into like the laundry list of them. Don't be a predator. Like, hello, it's so simple, right? All right, guys. Thanks so much. And I'll be back with you on Monday with an all new deep dive into a case. All right. Bye.

• 40:42Speaker 10

  Having lots of choices sounds like it would be great. Who doesn't want more flavors of ice cream? It turns out the answer is us. Too many choices can make us anxious, overwhelmed. I'm Shankar Vedantam, host of the Hidden Brain Podcast and YouTube channel. Each week, Hidden Brain brings you fascinating, science-backed insights about human behavior. So the next time you have to choose, choose Hidden Brain on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or hiddenbrain.org.

• 41:12Speaker 11

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