13-yr-old Twin Brothers’ DNA Found On Murdered Woman - Cops Must Figure Out Which Twin Is Lying

A forensic DNA test usually scans about 20 fixed markers of DNA. It may take a few days but it’s enough to differentiate a suspect from the rest of the world with a near perfect level of certainty. Except for identical twins. It’s not a perfect analogy but think of DNA as a 3 billion letter book. Most people have about 20 chapters that are completely different. For identical twins, their entire book is identical except for about 8 typos. Not 8 different chapters, or sentences, not even 8 different words. 8 letter typos amongst 3 billion letters. The technology to find these is only available at a handful of labs and costs hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars. Thankfully, identical twin crime is rare. Except for Ohio. A woman who lives alone is raped and murdered in her own home, and the DNA left at the scene traces back to a set of identical twins. Two 13 year old boys are the main suspects but which twin is innocent? And which twin is guilty? Full show notes available at RottenMangoPodcast.com

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Twenty years after Natalie Holloway disappeared on a high school graduation trip to Aruba, Natalie's mother Beth is ready to tell the complete story. Taken: Natalie Holloway is a three-part series that follows Beth's relentless pursuit of answers and justice for her daughter and gives a fuller picture of who Natalie was as a person. It's the definitive account of a case that gripped multiple nations and never let go. Watch Taken: Natalie Holloway, November 4th, only on Netflix. Having insurance isn't the same as having State Farm. It's like showing up for movie night, ready for a heart-pounding thriller, but getting a three-hour documentary on lawn care. That's kind of like insurance. Insurance may all seem the same on the surface,

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• 0:58Speaker 00

  In Berlin, there is a very fancy department store, and I'm gonna butcher the name, and I'm never gonna be able to face a German person with dignity, so I'm just gonna call it Berlin's Barneys, Berlin's Saks. You walk in, and most things are gonna be in the cases, the locked glass cabinets. The lighting is always pristine, so everything looks so sparkly in there. It's like the trademark of every expensive jewelry store or department store. The lighting is so good. You can make a plastic candy wrapper look like some naturally mined yellow diamond, just sparkling in the light. That's this type of department store. And they don't just carry jewelry, they have very expensive watches. The ones where they say, "Oh, sorry, that's only for exhibition", and then you have to buy like 10 other things before they let you buy the one watch that you wanted in the first place.

• 1:41Speaker 00

  There's a lot of money sitting in those cases. So much so, that the store employs motion detectors. They have an extensive security system for the entire place, which is the premise of every good heist movie, every good heist TV show. The plan is simple: get in, grab the best stuff, get out, and don't get caught. Plot detail that must be included is the doors are all censored, impenetrable. However, there will be a skylight. You can just unscrew the nails, remove the skylight, throw in a rope, slide down it, just like the three masked men in Berlin. Will slide down the rope to partake in a shop after midnight special. Where they get the entire store to themselves. It sounds like a movie. This is very much real life.

• 2:24Speaker 00

  They take 6.5 million dollars worth of fine jewelry and watches. Instead of leaving behind a credit card to finance their very rushed transaction, if you will, or their after pay details. They leave behind a singular glove. And inside that glove is a singular bead of sweat. DNA evidence. Authorities run the DNA. They get a hit. It's too easy. Of course it is, right? It links back to someone with a criminal record for theft and fraud. Times two. What do you mean times two? Two counts of fraud? Two counts of theft? What do you mean? No, the DNA links back to two people with criminal records for theft and fraud. So what? Did they just change gloves in between and they both sweat into it? How's that possible? It's DNA. Two people don't have the same DNA.

• 3:09Speaker 00

  Unless you're an identical twin. Two 27-year-old brothers, H and A, are arrested based off of the fact that the DNA in the glove links back to them. So here's what we know. Three masked men, one glove with DNA belonging to one of the brothers. Only one of the twins could be involved, or both of the twins could be involved. Neither of them are willing to talk or cooperate, which means it really could be either or. And that's all the evidence they have. Nothing else.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  This is a real heist?

• 3:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, in Berlin.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  When was this?

• 3:41Speaker 00

  A few years ago. So like, what do you do?

• 3:44Speaker 01

  How do we know it's three people?

• 3:45Speaker 00

  They saw three masked men.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  On the camera?

• 3:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, but only DNA for one person was left behind. And they don't know which twin. They don't know if both the twins are involved, if maybe the two twins are two of the three people, or if only one of the brothers was involved. So what do you do? Do you throw both in jail just in case? You can't.

• 4:01Speaker 01

  Wait, so DNA cannot identify which twin?

• 4:04Speaker 00

  No.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  Never?

• 4:05Speaker 00

  You can now, but it takes sometimes a million dollars.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 4:10Speaker 00

  And there's only a handful of companies in the world that can handle that. Both brothers, the twins, even though at least one of them was most likely involved in the heist, both of them have to be released. Because prosecutors cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt which twin or both were involved in this case. Within the week, both twins are released before the case can even go to trial and the court writes in a statement, from the evidence we have, we can deduce that at least one of the brothers took part in the crime. But it has not been possible to determine which one. And the diamond heist in Berlin goes unsolved. Identical twins develop from a single fertilized egg. So that splits into two embryos. So they essentially share the same nuclear DNA. And while it's not exactly the same, it might as well be, okay?

• 4:55Speaker 00

  A normal DNA test done in the event of a crime usually scans about twenty fixed markers. Because that's how different everyone's DNA is. And that still takes multiple days. Twenty spots in the DNA and compare. If you're trying to find the difference between identical twins, because they do have differences, you would have to sequence the entire three billion base genome at ultra-high depth. One sequencing expert describes it like this. Imagine the human genome consists of a three billion letter code. If the body is growing or an embryo is developing, then all three billion letters have to be copied. But during the copying process in the body, there are typos happening. Identical twins have the same DNA, except sometimes maybe about eight typos.

• 5:39Speaker 00

  Or a few cells will split and evolve differently here and there. But again, it's on average about eight differences across the whole three billion genome.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  So on paper, three billion should be identical, except the eight typos.

• 5:54Speaker 00

  Yes. There's only a handful of labs that are capable of running this level of a test. And even if it's done, it costs taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe up to the seven-figure mark. And a lot of the time, it can't even be really used in court because of how novel it is. It's very easy for defense attorneys to get it thrown out or for them to confuse the jury with it. Is it going to get easier in the future? Probably. Is it going to get cheaper in the future? Probably. But right now, is it a problem? I think so, especially when in the United States, you have a case in Ohio of a woman who lives alone, getting S A'd and murdered in her own room, in her own bed. And the DNA left at the scene, it traces back to a set of identical twins.

• 6:38Speaker 00

  Two thirteen-year-old boys are the main suspects of a rape and murder. But which twin is the guilty one? And how are investigators going to figure out which one is the killer? This is the case of the Cart Twins. We would like to thank today's sponsors who have made it possible for Rotten Mango to support the Joyful Heart Foundation, who are working to transform society's response to S A, D V, C A, and support survivors' healing with resources like education, advocacy, and policy change. This episode's partnerships have also made it possible to support Rotten Mango's team of dedicated researchers. We'd also like to thank you guys for your continued support. As always, full show notes are available at rottenmangopodcast.com. There is a brief mention of suspected S A and some quotes or statements may have been condensed for brevity.

• 7:22Speaker 00

  Let's get into it. Becca and Kyle are no longer together, which is probably for the best, okay? By all accounts, it appears the two are much healthier when they're focused on co-parenting, their twin sons. You've got Hunter Cart, who is two minutes older than Levi Cart. They're identical twins, but they look kind of more like fraternal twins than anything, which is just an observation. It's not like all identical twins have to dress the same or look the same, but it's just an observation. Hunter and Levi clearly have their own styles, their own personalities, their own interests. They're two completely different people. Hunter has longer hair, almost down to his shoulders, and he seems, at least from the initial body cam footage, he seems to have a much more softer demeanor, just based off of that.

• 8:07Speaker 00

  He seems like the type of student who would sit next to you if you're alone during lunch period. Meanwhile, Levi, who often goes by Louis these days, has more of the skater kid look. He looks a little bit scrawnyer. He does have long hair, but not in the way that Hunter does. It looks like a skater kid.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  Why does Levi go by Louis?

• 8:26Speaker 00

  He just decided he wanted to go by Louis one day, so everyone's been calling him Louis. So if you hear Louis and Levi interchangeably in the body cam footage, it's because they're talking about Levi.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  But it's not legally changed, right?

• 8:37Speaker 00

  No, no, not at all. Now, he's got long hair, sharper jawline. He also appears to have a soft, quiet demeanor, but in a different way from Hunter. He seems like the type that maybe he wouldn't sit next to you if you're sitting alone in the lunchroom because he too is probably sitting alone. Is the energy that you get. Could I be wrong? Probably. Okay, we don't know that much about them yet. Other than a match to their DNA was found in a woman's bed, Denise's bed, where she was killed. But Becca and Kyle, the Cart Twins' parents, they don't know that. Becca and Kyle are just concerned about how this ongoing police investigation in their neighborhood is going to impact their twin sons.

• 9:15Speaker 00

  Kyle texts Becca, "I was telling Levi not to assume the worst, but I knew it was a bad sign when there's just that many cops with no lights on all." Standing around usually means they found a body and they're holding the site down until forensics and investigators arrive. Was she killed at the house? They're talking about one of the neighbors on the street who was just killed in her house. And as much as the parents want to try and shield the teenage twins away from everything going on on the street, it's very hard to do that when you live what? Fifty feet away and the police are knocking at your door, trying to get answers. They're knocking on everyone's door. The police investigation into what happened to sixty-four-year-old Denise has been both very straightforward and complicated all at the same time.

• 9:56Speaker 00

  Denise's brother Daryl is the one that finds Denise. It's Sunday morning. They had lunch plans. She's not picking up. Eleven eleven AM, Daryl is messaging her, "Are you skipping lunch?" Daryl doesn't know it yet, but she's already gone. Within the hour, he comes to her house. He walks up to the front door and he goes to knock on the door and it just gets pushed open when he knocks. The front door is unlocked. He walks inside and he sees his sister inside, laying on her bed. Her pajamas are ripped, exposing her chest. Her pajama pants are ripped. She has blood in between her legs. The blankets are covering her face and on top of the blanket, there's like a porcelain figurine. Like you know those collectibles that you see at those antique shops?

• 10:41Speaker 00

  That have almost like a vintage feel to it, but it's an angel figurine and it's placed on top of the blanket on top of her head. So her face is covered with this blanket and there's this angel figurine on top of the blanket and Denise is not moving. The crime scene is just really odd, even when the police are walking in for the first time with their body cameras on. They're really confused by the scene because yes, of course, the angel figurine is confusing, but there's also other things like. They asked if maybe the brother Daryl had covered her up because he didn't want the police to see her like this, but. They're like, no, dispatch said he was, he found her like this. There's also a bunch of cleaning chemicals, like bottles of cleaning chemicals. And Pepto Bismol, they noticed like this pink liquid all over her and it's just someone poured Pepto Bismol on her.

• 11:25Speaker 00

  Or maybe she drank it. They're contemplating, the investigators are like, well, maybe she drank it. We don't know.

• 11:30Speaker 01

  Pepto Bismol is for um.

• 11:31Speaker 00

  Acid reflux typically. So you've got bottles of cleaning solutions, Pepto Bismol, cleaning chemicals dumped on her body. And just what, like, are they trying to get rid of biological evidence? There's also blood splatter on the walls. The blood leads all the way out of her bedroom on the floor. There's a trail of blood to the back door. And then from the back door to the very back gate of the backyard fence, there's blood there too. Whoever did this though, didn't leave any fingerprints. So they're wearing gloves. Police start scouting the neighborhood. They're going to door to door. They're asking residents, can you take your shirt off? Because they found blood, hair and DNA under Denise's nails and they're like, we just want to see if you have some scratch marks.

• 12:11Speaker 00

  So you just see body cam of neighbors taking their shirt offs and showing them getting DNA swabbed. And of course, while investigators are checking for scratch marks or anything suspicious, residents are also sharing what they think happened. Okay. One neighbor reports, it might be Dave. Dave? You know, okay, so it's around midnight. She'd been sitting out on her porch, one of the neighbors. She's with a friend. And they're chit chatting and they see this balding white man with blonde hair, medium build. Dave, okay, his name is Dave and he's drunk. He's drunk and walking around the neighborhood near Denise's property. That was Saturday night.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  Is he a neighbor?

• 12:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, he lives in the neighborhood. They go investigate Dave. They don't think it's Dave. One neighbor asked the officers, you guys think it's random? The officer asks him what he's heard. Well, from what I heard, you know, a guy uh down in that new house over there. A couple others. I was out here having my cigarette and I hear uh, I think the brother did it. And they're gonna arrest him in a couple of days, like three days. I'm like, what? So they think the brother did it? Any reason why you would think that?

• 13:16Speaker 01

  The brother of the victim?

• 13:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, Daryl. I don't know. That's just the speculation right now. So he's just saying he's smoking a cigarette. He overheard neighbor saying, the brother did it. The police do get sidetracked into a mini investigation into Daryl, the brother. He's the one that called nine one one. He's the one that found his sister's body. He's relatively calm on the nine one one call, but not in a particularly suspicious way. To me, it just sounds like he's trying to relay information as quickly as possible. But something that's very interesting to officers is that when the police originally walked in, they don't rule out the possibility of self-exit. The Pepto Bismol, the cleaning supplies, they find some prescription medication in her house. I mean, it could be possible that she self-exited trying to ingest these chemicals. The blood could have been hers because she could have been throwing up blood from the chemicals. They don't know yet. The investigators, they have no clue.

• 14:04Speaker 00

  There's a bit of blood splatter, but again, maybe it's hers. Furthermore, one of the first things Daryl tells the officers is that he believes his sister was essayed. How can he be so sure? They didn't think that when they first walked in. Also, Daryl never performed any sort of life-saving measure to try and save his sister. He says he walked in and quote, well, she was laying on the bed with her legs spread and it looked like there was blood and you know, on her head and stuff on top looked like someone tried to smother her and she looked like they ripped her thing open and I yelled at her and I didn't see no movement from her whatsoever. I just turned around and I walked out and I'm like, I I I can't.

• 14:40Speaker 00

  He doesn't try CPR. He doesn't try to save her. Not that I think it would have made a difference, but for those reasons, the police do investigate Daryl. And it doesn't help that when they reach Daryl's home, it's a bit of a hoarder situation. And he explains to the officers almost in an embarrassed way that his mom had recently passed and his sister had passed, so his home had gotten a little worse from the stress. They check his body for scratches and they check his DNA and he is very quickly ruled out as a suspect. But it doesn't stop the neighbors from whispering on their porches and pointing their fingers. One neighbor particularly does not care who did it. They just want the police to make sure they get vengeance and they quote say, find that fool and he needs to die.

• 15:24Speaker 00

  The police are like, this is a intense neighborhood. They go to the next store and this time they're right across the street from Denise's residence. So they've actually knocked on this door prior, but nobody was home. So they're coming back around after they've done their little, you know, and a woman with bright pink hair opens the door. Becca, she's the mother of twin boys Hunter and Levi Cart. She talks with the investigators outside and she mentions the day that they found Denise. It was actually like a really busy day. So it's been like a week since that. And she's just saying, oh my God, like that day was really intense for us. She explains that when all the ambulances had come onto the street Sunday morning, they weren't even home. Actually, Sunday morning at like 6 a.m., we had to run to the ER because my son,

• 16:06Speaker 00

  the cat, I guess, was sleeping on his face and they startled each other in the dark and it scratched him. And so we were worried that it could be bad or infected. It wasn't a big deal, but it was just like traumatizing. And I was like, everybody get in the car.

• 16:21Speaker 00

  Cat scratches. Okay, that's very interesting.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  So the, the police immediately, a lot of bells going off, right?

• 16:26Speaker 00

  Cat scratches in the middle of the night.

• 16:34Speaker 00

  Twenty years after Natalie Holloway disappeared on a high school graduation trip to Aruba, Natalie's mother Beth is ready to tell the complete story. Taken, Natalie Holloway is a three-part series that follows Beth's relentless pursuit of answers and justice for her daughter and gives a fuller picture of who Natalie was as a person. It's the definitive account of a case that gripped multiple nations and never let go. Watch Taken, Natalie Holloway, November 4th, only on Netflix. For kids, summer means freedom and for adults, summer still means freedom, thanks to Mint Mobile's summer sale. Right now, all of Mint's plans are $15 per month, even unlimited. Free yourself from big wireless and switch to Mint for high-speed data and coverage on the T-Mobile 5G network.

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• 18:04Speaker 00

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• 18:34Speaker 00

  The investigators want to talk to Hunter and Levi Cart, just to ask them if they've seen anything weird or strange outside. And Becca is a bit hesitant. She's just worried about how the news is going to be delivered to them. She doesn't, she doesn't want them super traumatized. They're only 13. She was thinking about ways to break the news to them, but they seemed really stressed out this week. And just, there's been a lot going on in the house. She mentions multiple times to investigators, she would rather not use the M word. Murder, if we could. You know, she's worried about how it's going to impact them. They're just in the seventh grade. They've been homeschooled, but also they're, we're about to move out of state. So there's just a lot going on.

• 19:11Speaker 00

  The investigators quickly find out that the twins, they are 13 and they are very young, but they both do like watching true crime documentaries. But that doesn't make them somehow better candidates to finding out that a particularly cruel and random crime just took place across the street. So they decide that they're going to be a little sensitive with it. The twins, maybe it's shock or just their outwardly reactions. They take it pretty well. I mean, I guess as well as you would hope two 13 year olds take it. Levi Cart is just listening to the news of what happened to Denise, their neighbor. He nods his head up and down. He's got his arms crossed. He's more in shock and how it relates to him. He's like, you know, this random day, we had to wake up, trying to do photos, and then it's this.

• 19:52Speaker 01

  What does that mean, do photos?

• 19:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, what does that mean, right? So the Cart family explains, okay, so we're actually like a week or two of moving out of state to Long Beach, California. And so we actually had an appointment that day, Sunday, for the real estate agent to come and take photos of the house so that we could put it up on the market. So we've been really busy like all weekend trying to make the house super clean and just get ready for the move and that's the day that Denise has found, so it was chaotic. Meanwhile, Hunter has a more true crime investigative approach. Hunter responds, I don't know how many case details you can put out, but like, what do you guys suspect? Or what do you guys know about what happened? He's asking questions. The investigators aren't about to debrief a thirteen year old kid about their investigation, they just respond, well, I can tell you this, it shouldn't have happened,

• 20:37Speaker 00

  and we need to figure out why it happened so that hopefully we can keep it from happening again. Because we hate to miss on some evidence and if you've watched enough TV, you know, we don't want to be those cops that forgot to do this or look into that. Hunter's like, I've watched plenty TV. Becca mentions, you know, like they're both really into true crime. And Levi shakes his head no, but Hunter interjects, me and my brother, especially my brother, know a lot. I would say definitely my brother knows a lot about just the police in general. Levi just looks over at Hunter, kind of looking at him like, what do you say? What do you say? And their mother informs the investigators, Levi wants to go into the Marines when he gets older. Oh, nice, nice. Well, recruitment is always here, so the police are just going along with it.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  But they are very suspicious.

• 21:21Speaker 00

  Yes, because of the cat scratches. I do not believe there's in any world where Becca has any sort of inkling or belief that one of her twins has anything to do with what happened to Denise across the street. So my next question is completely unrelated and hypothetical for parents out there. If you have more than one kid and you get a call from jail, does your brain immediately jump to one kid over the other? Where it's like, oh, it's probably my second kid because they're a little bit more wild. Or it's probably my first kid because they've had run ins with the law before, like, do you immediately think of one child before you hear the voice on the phone? Or sometimes, okay, maybe jail is extreme, like, what if you find out that someone in your house, one of your kids has been Googling traits of a sociopath?

• 22:03Speaker 00

  Would you have one kid that immediately comes to mind or you're like, oh, I'm so clueless, I don't know why any of my kids would? Or do you have multiple kids that you would think of? When the investigators talked to the Cart Twins, it's been about a week since Denise's murder. And the investigators, they start asking him about the past weekend, the weekend that Denise is killed. What were you doing? Do you remember anything? Investigators asked the twins separately, so they're still in the Cart house. They haven't gone to the police station or anything. They're just standing in the living room. And Hunter is like, well, that weekend was a blur because um, so Hunter was really sick. Hunter's explaining like, I was throwing up for a few days straight. I couldn't even leave the bathroom. And Levi had to go to the ER because the cat scratched his face pretty badly. Interesting. And he says, yeah, that whole weekend was a blur.

• 22:48Speaker 00

  They ask Levi the same question, and this is again separately, and he more or less says the same thing. And he says, that weekend was a blur. It's an interesting word choice, like not one that I would often use to describe my weekends. But like, maybe that's just me. The investigators are a little puzzled by it, I think. They get the twins together. Now they're both sitting on the living room couch while the investigators are telling them about what happened across the street. And maybe in an attempt to reassure the investigators, they can handle this type of tense information, Hunter mentions that the two of them are much more mature than the other kids their age, especially Levi. Which I would think normally seems like a compliment, but Levi looks a little confused where this is all coming from.

• 23:31Speaker 00

  Why Hunter keeps yapping. Hunter even brings up Levi's injuries. He has other scars on his back from another surgery that he did. And now he has the new one on his nose from the cat to add to it. And Hunter asks Levi in front of the officers, how does it feel to have three scars? And Levi is just staring at his twin brother deadpan in the face for a long time, not really answering. Eventually, the investigators want to leave, but not before collecting both of the twins' DNA cheek swabs for DNA testing. And it comes back a match for both. But that doesn't mean that they're both guilty, but because they're identical twins, they share the same STR markers, like I said, which means the police now need to find out if one or both of the twins are guilty.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  So when it came out, came back a match?

• 24:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  Did we see how they reacted to that or we don't have that?

• 24:23Speaker 00

  We're going to see. Oh, we do. Yeah. So the investigators, they go back to the house, but they don't immediately say any of this. They, their whole objective is to get the twins and Becca to the police station where they can separate the twins, record their reactions and start interrogating them. Okay? So they've got like a very tricky balancing game that they have to do of trying to get them there without officially detaining them. Hmm. Because they can't. So it's this weird back and forth of like, let's, it's just, you have to, okay? So the DNA could point to both the twins. You can't just arrest both preemptively because it's one or the other. All of this is very tricky and it's even trickier because they're both minors. So they come up with this profoundly dumb plan, the investigators. We're just gonna go to the

• 25:06Speaker 00

  house and see if they'll come back to the police station. I don't even think they had a plan. They go back to the cart house and the family, Becca, Hunter and Levi are walking back in with a bag of canes, raising canes and their drinks. They're just about to sit and eat when the police ask them, why don't you guys come to the police station? Like, do you mind coming with me to talk about what happened across the street? And Becca's like, sure. But then as she's getting ready to go, Becca's like, wait, why do we have to go to the police station? Like, last time you guys just came to the house and you were talking to us, like, why do we have to go to the police station? And she even asked, do we need to be getting lawyers or something? I'm feeling nervous about this. You're welcome to call in an attorney. One of the twins, Levi, seemingly agrees with his mom and he's asking, also, do we have to go?

• 25:48Speaker 00

  Like, is this a right now thing? Or is it like a, we would like you, you don't have to do anything, I suppose? The whole energy is so tense in the house. You don't have to go, but also like, I'm just gonna stand here as a police officer and not leave. So now it feels like you kind of have to go, doesn't it? Becca points out, okay, I don't know. I, I feel uncomfortable. And even in my dumbest days, I would not think this is a smart plan for the cops. But they say, how about we get out of here and we kind of explain what's going on? So they're like, let's get out of the house so I can explain what's going on. Can you explain what's going on before we head out of here? Do you mind if we do that outside?

• 26:30Speaker 00

  The investigators get the entire family onto the front lawn and they're all awkwardly standing there, still holding their Raising Cane's food and their drinks, like Hunter is holding two red like soda cups. And they're just outside and it's weird and it's confusing and the officer, yeah. The officer tells them, well, let's go to the police station. So we don't have to like stand in the rain and talk about it. So you went from inside the house and say, let's go outside and talk about it. Now it's raining outside, it's drizzling. And then he's like, well, why stand out in the rain when we can go to the police station?

• 26:58Speaker 01

  So they're playing by the air.

• 26:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, no plan.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  Let me just move them one inch at a time.

• 27:03Speaker 00

  Yes, exactly. I mean, again, I'm not saying the police aren't doing their jobs, but was this really the best that they could come up with? It's just a little odd. He says that he has some pictures he wants to show them and talk to them about certain things. Because like, are we under suspicion or something? We just want to talk to you. I think you guys could help us clear a lot of things up around here. Eventually, Becca agrees. She gets placed in one car, the twins in the back of another squad car. And of course, the cameras are rolling. Perhaps the authorities were hoping for some kind of Isabel Valdez, Lois Lippert situation, where they just start yapping in the cop car about how they committed a crime. But they do not get that. But the energy with the twins is weird. They're in the back of the police car, still holding their food. And Hunter says, I mean, it's probably more questions, so. I mean, there's nothing we can't talk about.

• 27:49Speaker 00

  Levi's like, yeah, I don't know what's going on. Neither do I. Levi mentions, this is all very, very unexpected. His voice doesn't sound surprised though, or like he was not expecting it. It just sounds like, just weird. Hunter has a slightly more normal response and he mentions, my anxiety levels are through the roof. Yeah, I don't know why there's so many police vehicles either. Yeah, that's definitely what scared me, seeing all those cops immediately pull up, like one person's there. You know, didn't see that other cop pulled up, right? Yeah, I was just like, what's the reason for that? I don't know, maybe it's an intimidation tactic, I guess. But why would they need to intimidate us? Right?

• 28:33Speaker 01

  Levi saying that?

• 28:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's just a weird interaction. Cause I feel like either you're not talking about the case, or maybe you're like, God, I was hungry and I just wanted to eat. Like what's wrong with the cops? Or you're just quiet, or you're talking about something else. When they get to the police station, the twins are separated from Becca. They come in through a completely separate entrance, which seems to be a bold and deliberate choice by the investigators, which I think is kind of questionable. Becca can sense what they're doing and she does not like it one bit. So she was hesitant at the house. She was a little bit agreeable on the front lawn, but still hesitant. Once she gets to the police station, they bring her into a separate room and she's like, oh, fuck no. Okay, they're trying to distract her. They keep trying to get her to eat

• 29:14Speaker 00

  her raisin canes. And she's like, I don't want food. I want to get us our lawyer. Because she's like, I did not think that I was gonna come to this police station and not see my kids. I'm supposed to be with my kids. They're 13 years old. Why are you talking to my kids without me?

• 29:29Speaker 01

  What are they telling her exactly?

• 29:31Speaker 00

  She's like, oh, we just want to talk to you guys. We just want to talk to everyone.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  And she's like, where are my kids?

• 29:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, she's like, well, you can't talk to them without me there because I'm their mother and they're minors.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:39Speaker 00

  She's like, I want to get us our lawyer and have my children stop being questioned without the lawyer being present immediately. So let's make that happen. I think she is rightfully protecting her underage sons. Like, none of this is out of the norm. Like, this is actually what a good mom should do. Now, the police, however, they try to stall. And their stalling methods are beyond me. One of the officers compliments Becca's slippers, saying they look so comfy. Where'd you buy them? And Becca's like, yeah, they are comfy. And she's like, really? I know you're being friendly, but I need to know that my children are not being questioned and that they have a lawyer. You didn't let us know that we are being detained. You're not being detained. You're free to go.

• 30:20Speaker 00

  You didn't let us know that you were detaining my children. They're free to leave. Right now? They're allowed to leave right now? Let's go right now. Right now. You said they're allowed to leave. Yes or no? You cannot take them. Okay, I don't know what the police are saying at this point. They also take Becca's phone, so she can't even contact her lawyer, which all of this, really, the investigators are working hard to create a migraine inducing headache for prosecutors later. Like, the DA's office is not gonna like any of this. And technically, I do believe in Ohio, there's no absolute rule requiring a parent or lawyer to be present before police question a minor. But the way that they're handling this, I would imagine, could invite some legal murkiness, to say the least. They have Becca in that one room of the police station. Hunter and Levi are separated in different rooms.

• 31:04Speaker 00

  And they are now going to start questioning the boys separately, simultaneously to get their stories. Levi is obviously going to be the main focus mainly because of his curiously timed cat scratches on his face. And Levi is sitting there in this small interview room. He has like that slouched, relaxed body language of a thirteen year old, even though this is a very, very serious day for him. He's wearing a hoodie and he somehow looks like he just woke up. He has his Raising Cane's styrofoam container in front of him, a red soda cup with a straw in.

• 31:35Speaker 01

  So they're just holding this bag and not eating at all the whole time?

• 31:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, so they separate, like Levi is the one holding the bag. So they're getting him to open, check which one is his because some people got the coleslaw, some people got the fries. They bring the styrofoam containers to the other two. So everyone has their food in front of them and the investigators keep encouraging all three of them, eat, eat. And they're just like, why am I here? Why am I not eating at home?

• 31:58Speaker 01

  Is any of them eating?

• 32:00Speaker 00

  Levi is eating a little bit in the beginning, but yeah, they all stop because they're like, I don't know. I also think that they just are eating because the police keep telling them to eat. But Becca is not eating. She's like, where the fuck are my kits? Levi says in the interview that there's a bit of context to the whole thing with the cat scratches, okay? So the family is moving to Long Beach, California in about a week, which means they're packing, they're boxing everything up, right? And quote, you know, cats get weird, if you know that, when you're trying to move. And we had just moved his playset so that, you know, he was, he probably thought like, oh, something's happening. The officers want to know more about the cat incident and Levi explains, well, okay, so the cat Marshmello sleeps with my mom. Sometimes my brother, not really with me.

• 32:43Speaker 00

  So he woke up, you know, and Marshmello is laying on Levi's chest. And I woke up and I was like, what's going on? I was freaked out because I like felt something on me and I had had sleep paralysis before. So I was kind of like freaky and then I tried to touch him and he got obviously scared. He was like, what's going on? Probably. So he started scratching at me, started scratching my face and he, well, he first started scratching at my arms because um I was like trying to get him off of me because I didn't know what was going on. So like he scratched my face. You couldn't really see it. You can't see it anymore, but yeah, he like scratched my face here. And then uh he scratched me with his biggest claw, which we've been knowing we needed to cut for a while now for a long time. Like he scratched me on the nose, like right here, really, really hard because. We both like extremely spooked each other.

• 33:28Speaker 00

  Just like a lot of scratching going on, but now that he thinks about it, Levi questions, maybe the cat heard something outside because that was the night that Denise was killed across the street. So like, maybe the cat was like extra spooked because animals can sense stuff. Like, that's kind of what he's hinting at.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  What does this scratch look like on his face, though?

• 33:46Speaker 00

  Now, eh, he had stitches. He had five stitches on his nose in the hospital. It's been about a week since then, and the scratch has healed pretty well. But he's saying there were other scratches and they seem to be primarily gone. Like, it seems mostly gone.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  Okay, so the face like doesn't look very obvious?

• 34:03Speaker 00

  It's like a, like a scar on the nose, but it's not wow, oh my gosh, you got messed up by the cat. It's just like a nose now.

• 34:16Speaker 00

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• 36:57Speaker 00

  And so, maybe Marshmallow heard what was going on across the street, got freaked out, and scratched Levi? They're like, "That's pretty deep cut for a cat named Marshmallow." I mean, to be fair, though, Levi's mom does explain that she felt really bad about her son getting scratched by Marshmallow, because they all knew that they had to cut Marshmallow's nails for a while, but they hadn't gotten around to it. And investigators, they need to make sure that they're not so distracted by Levi's cat scratches that they miss other details that might be important, like the fact that Levi has a twin brother, Hunter, whose DNA was also technically found at the scene, because they share the same DNA. Levi is an over explainer. He likes to go in depth explaining everything that's happened to him with the cat. But Hunter, in his own way, is also a talker.

• 37:42Speaker 00

  He's sitting in the interview room with the two officers. He's eating his Raising Cane's, just telling the police about his life story. He's talking about how they're about to turn 14 next month. And he mentions, when it was mom's birthday, me and Levi were play fighting and I pushed him and he ended up breaking his hip. Okay, interesting. At some point, he realizes that the questions are starting to feel a bit more serious. And he asks, can I stop eating? Because they keep telling him to eat. So I feel like he was, he felt obligated to eat. And he's like, can I just stop eating, please? He doesn't feel comfortable. He also reiterates that he doesn't feel pressured to answer any questions. And he says, I mean, of course, I feel a little pressure, but I don't feel like I have to sign these papers. I just know more suspicion is put on me if I don't answer any questions. He immediately starts the interview saying, can I say something?

• 38:26Speaker 00

  I want, I want to say, I want to let you guys know. I know this is more so about me, but just letting you know. My brother, um, every time I talk about it with him, because I somewhat have a, I wouldn't say morbid curiosity, but I went online and looked up the news for it after you guys came in. So they're like, oh, interesting. You looked on Google what happened across the street? You know, which in his defense, wouldn't everybody look on Google, right? But it's important exactly what he looked up. It's one thing to Google murder on Blank Street. It's another thing to Google, how do police find DNA at the scene? Composite sketch of killer on Blank Street, right? So the investigators ask him, can you show me what you looked up? Do you have your phone on you? No, I don't have my phone on me. And even if I did, literally the day, a few hours after they came in, um, or actually, I don't remember if it was the day before or what.

• 39:10Speaker 00

  But my charger broke in my phone and it stopped working. And then we were able to get the piece of the charger that was broken in, out. And now it's charging fine, but the battery is basically fried. So unless I have it plugged in 24/7, it's going to turn off. And if I try to enter my passcode or turn on the lock screen or anything like that, it's going to turn off. How'd that happen? I'm not sure. For a while, my phone has had a crack in it because I used to have some anger issues. Yeah, I used to have some anger issues not too far along ago, but uh, mostly fixed. I would say we mostly fixed all of our anger issues. Honestly, this just kind of sucks because it really seems like, obviously I looked into it and I thought about it. And my mom thought about it and Levi thought about it. Coincidence wise, because I don't think, um.

• 39:51Speaker 00

  I don't think my brother would be able to do anything like that because that day he got scratches on his face because you know that day he had to go to the hospital and then he decided to go to dad's house. So then he wasn't in the neighborhood. It all seems like a very wide coincidence because of course his face was scratched by the cat. So he's almost like working through his thoughts out loud, which is like the last thing you want to do in front of the police, but he's like, no, my phone broke. And but like I also know that now that makes everything suspicious because I thought about it clearly. My mom was thinking about it. Levi was thinking about it. And then I know that like, I don't think my brother would do it, but like I know that he has the scratches on his face, which are kind of weird. He also mentions that his brother Levi calls himself a narcissist, but Hunter is like, but I I don't really ever think so. But it's interesting that Hunter mentions that.

• 40:32Speaker 00

  So when they talk about Hunter's phone, he says the phone is cracked. If you open the case, it's like cracked because the glass is cracked. Because like I said, I threw it when I had some anger issues before. I used to get mad about games. Like losing games and then I would just throw stuff because I was just getting like really, really stressed out. He says that because of his anger issues, he also broke his computer. Okay, interesting. The police are like, well, what were you doing Sunday morning? Was he also recovering from some scratches? Did the cat attack everybody? They asked him about the morning that Denise's body was found, the same morning that Levi was in the ER for getting stitches for the cat scratches and Hunter says, So I went to bed and then I woke up at like eight thirty, eight fifty. I don't know. And my mom and Levi were gone and I kind of freaked out for a second.

• 41:16Speaker 00

  And I checked my phone because this was before my phone broke and she was like Levi got the cat scratched, so I had to go. So we had to go to the hospital and then I think they, I think I just sat for a while before they got home and then my mom got home. And then that morning, wait, yeah, no. So we went to bed. I woke up and got those text messages and then I think I waited a while because I don't know if it's my mom or if it was just mom and Levi who came back home. So he's just like, I don't really remember. Investigators ask Hunter, has Marshmallow ever scratched anyone before? Like, is that why it's so crazy? No, he's never done anything like that. Does he usually sleep with Levi?

• 41:58Speaker 00

  No, not usually. That's why I thought maybe he heard something outside and wanted to protect Levi. So Levi sleeps in the living room. So they thought, you know, maybe he, the cat heard something freaked out, went to the living room and then attacked Levi. But Hunter gets sick around this time. So after Levi gets back from the ER from getting those stitches, Levi actually asked to go to his dad's house. And mom and Hunter think that's actually a good plan because Hunter's throwing up nonstop. He's like so sick, he's having explosive diarrhea, he's vomiting at the same time and that lasts multiple days. And whatever Hunter has is probably contagious. And with the commotion across the street, it's just a lot going on. Hunter remembers when he was in the bathroom, he does recall seeing some blood on the sink. From where Levi was trying to see how bad the cat scratches were before they went to the ER.

• 42:42Speaker 00

  He says there was like blood and stuff on the sink and stuff, but mom tried to clean it up, but there was still a little bit of blood after. And we spent a long time in the bathroom and then she was just like, oh my God, Levi got blood everywhere. And then I think it's gone now. Was it a lot of blood or a little bit of blood? Little bit of blood. It's interesting because the over explaining can come off suspicious for both parties. But I do feel like it's understandable when you realize they're both true crime documentary watchers. And this is actually something that I thought about in a lot more recent cases because I had this like run in with a police officer recently. Like nothing was happening, there was no like case or anything, but I just remember I was like looking for where the body cam was on his body. While I was talking to him about something completely unrelated because it's just interesting now that I watched so much body cam footage.

• 43:26Speaker 00

  Now I feel like I'm looking for body cam cameras. Because it's something that I think about and maybe the same thing is happening to Hunter and Levi. Because Hunter even states to the police like, also me stuttering has nothing to do with like you guys being here, just so you know. He's trying to explain that he just stutters. So now he's like going into this over explaining territory of like, no, no, no, but like I'm trying to be open with you. But then even saying I'm trying to be open with you seems like I'm not trying to be open, like it's, he's over explaining everything. Yes. He even admits to the police that he watches a lot of body cam videos. Also, he goes back to explain, you know, like the whole thing of like Levi calling himself a narcissist. So he mentions it and he's like, well, I don't think so. And he, he explains, he's like, Levi is just the one who always says that he, you know, he's always saying that he's this thing.

• 44:11Speaker 00

  When he hasn't been diagnosed with anything like it, like saying he's probably slightly manipulative, like stuff like that. Just because his trauma has made him feel this type of way. Honestly, it's really upsetting for me, like he knows all the, um, I don't know, I don't want to call it disorders. Because I don't think that's what it is, like, but sociopath. It's obviously a very wide range of things, but from sociopaths to narcissists, personality disorders to stuff like that, basically. He knows a lot about them and like what they mean. I think it's because he does a lot of research into it because he thinks or he knows that he's slightly manipulative because he's, you know, he has trauma and he's very much. So expressive and we talk about all of our feelings and I don't know, like, we're all going through a lot of therapy.

• 44:53Speaker 00

  So it's almost like now he's just like preemptively telling police things. He's just talking a lot. He continues later to say he's like Levi is very, very open to us about how he's feeling, the way he feels like I don't want to go in depth about it because. I don't know, um, I think I'm probably using the wrong word, but I guess, I don't know if it's like I'm incriminating him. I think I'm definitely using the wrong word, but like talking about how he has all this trauma, especially abusive trauma when he was a kid, he certainly has. Certainly has a lot of potential to make somebody who has. The mind to do something like that. And I know that because he's talked about all these things.

• 45:30Speaker 01

  Wow, what is happening right now?

• 45:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, now the investigators are like, what do you mean? All these things? I mean, I know from him because he's told me because he's done research about it on the internet, like. His knowledge about what the difference between sociopath and the other ones and knowing how, you know, many. To kill in order to be a serial killer and you have to kill people and stuff like that. I think it's just like he's just so happens to have a. Am I allowed to ask you guys anything? Sure. Do you guys have any suspicions? Do you guys think he's a suspect possibly or am I crazy? Like, is he not a suspect at all? Is this just normal questioning to try and help solve some stuff and I just seem like a crazy person right now?

• 46:14Speaker 01

  Is he feeling connecting the dot in that moment?

• 46:18Speaker 00

  It seems like from the beginning, he's just like yapping, yapping and he's an overshare. And then as he's yapping, he's like explaining, well, my brother would never do this. I know he has some traumatic incidents in his childhood. Which also watching true crime documentaries, I know that that can make someone more like capable of doing something like this. So it's almost like he's like analyzing.

• 46:41Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 46:42Speaker 00

  So you you know how people will be like, oh, the three trademarks of a serial killer, the dark triad of the personality, right? Like, it's almost like he's studied that. And as he's explaining Levi and why Levi could never do something, because I think he walked in there thinking the police suspect Levi because of the cat scratches.

• 47:00Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 47:01Speaker 00

  And it seems like he's trying to clear his brother's name.

• 47:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:04Speaker 00

  But as he's talking, he's almost getting more and more going down the rabbit hole.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  What's his Levi's childhood trauma? Did they explain or not really?

• 47:14Speaker 00

  Yes, so he explained that his grandfather on his mother's side is in jail for heavy abuse. I believe his mom was a victim of her own father and maybe other family members were victims.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 47:30Speaker 00

  But it seems to be related to childhood trauma in um probably the worst way possible. Police just reassure him, you don't seem like a crazy person. Some of the stuff that you said makes sense. And I don't know, maybe this is a way for them to just keep him talking and Hunter clarifies. Am I sitting here because he has those scratches on his face and because it looks like he's a potential suspect? Or am I just here to like clear some things like like it has nothing to do with him possibly being the person who did that thing? I would say there's inconsistencies with what we know versus what you guys said yesterday, and we're going to get more information, hopefully. And it's interesting to watch because it appears that Hunter goes through weird stages.

• 48:15Speaker 00

  So the first stage is just explaining and almost like the true crime explaining of like, I watched the body cam footage. I know that we look suspicious, but I'm going to tell you why we're not suspicious. And like now me over explaining feels suspicious, like now I'm stuttering and you think that's suspicious. And then it goes to him being like. I know my brother has all the things that could make him possible, but like, and then he's like, wait, am I doing too much? Like, am I, I don't even know why I'm here. Why are you guys, why are we talking? Like, he lost the plot, right? So he's like, do you guys suspect him or not, right?

• 48:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:45Speaker 00

  And they say this vague language of like, well, we're just trying to get more information. And that's when Hunter starts defending his twin. And he's like, well, his cat scratches seem like cat scratches. And the cat has been acting weird, like he's been acting weird the past few days because we've been moving stuff around. He's just like a very, very, very needy cat and Coco, our other cat was a kitten when we got her. So she was just born for like a few weeks, but Marshmallow was a year old. So it's possible he had some trauma and that's why he's very, very needy. And just now he's somewhat gotten used to us after, I don't know, like a year or two. And then all of a sudden we start moving stuff around. So it's completely understandable that he would freak out. But to me, it's completely understandable that the cat attacked him because he freaked out because he was sleeping next to him and he woke up.

• 49:29Speaker 00

  And he tells the investigators, because it's clear the investigators feel like his twin brother had something to do with it. Hunter tells them, I don't think he did it because like, I feel, he's told me many times, like he's a very open person. He doesn't have the capacity to do something like that. Like, I don't feel like he has the capacity to do something like that. And even if he did, like, even if he did it impulsively, he would not be acting so like, oh, I don't care afterwards. Like, he's a kid and I think most kids, if they killed somebody, they would tell their parents unless they're like, I don't know, like unless they just like, didn't think it mattered at all, but he talks about this stuff all the time. Now, interesting information to sit on. Investigators who are also in Levi's room have a very different approach from Hunter's.

• 50:11Speaker 00

  It could just be that Hunter appears to be a bit more talkative and open to give out information without being asked. Whereas Levi seems to give out a lot of information, but only when he's pressed on it. Once the officer is done reading Levi, his Miranda writes, he needs to clarify and make sure 13 year old Levi gets it. With these in mind, do you want to have a conversation with me? Well, I guess it states that I can quit having a conversation with you. I'm not sure what this is necessarily about. Do you know what we're investigating? Um, I mean, I know something happened on the on the street, across the street, across the street in in front of me. Right, a woman was murdered, right? So we're trying to find out what happened. Okay, so that's what we're investigating.

• 50:54Speaker 00

  The investigators ask him to walk them through Saturday night. And like, the wedding is weird. Levi says they all went to sleep. Quote, so we all went to sleep and then honestly, it seemed pretty normal. None of us like really woke up for a couple of hours. Neither of them did.

• 51:11Speaker 01

  How does?

• 51:11Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, why would you speak for your?

• 51:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, and then I think I think at like two thirty, maybe two thirty in the morning or two. I'm not sure in that time area. My cat had randomly woke me up with all the lights off, like sitting on my neck. He says that Marshmallow is sitting on his neck and he decides that he's gonna freak out on Levi. Levi says that he gets scratched by the family cat Marshmallow. He starts cleaning himself up. He goes to the bathroom. Quote, there was a lot of scratches on me. And then I spent like, I don't know, like three hours maybe? Or a long time trying to fix myself up again.

• 51:40Speaker 01

  Three hours?

• 51:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, and to give some context, like fixing myself up are the reason why I didn't like, ask my mom or my brother or wake them up is because we're literally about to do photos that day. Like, family photos for the house, because they're gonna sell the house. He explains, I don't wanna be this kid that's constantly waking people up or being like an annoyance when they're trying to sleep. So I just tried to clean myself up the best I could. I tried to like clean up my face. He also scratched my neck. Then I decided to take a shower because I was like, that's probably the best thing I'm gonna do. So I took a shower and I spent like, yeah, I guess like thirty minutes in there, a long time and tried to see what was going on. And like, how do I explain it? The shower sprayer, so like the handheld shower sprayer is kind of reflective. So I was trying to see what was going on and I was like, okay, well, holy shit, this is really bad.

• 52:27Speaker 00

  He states he's in the bathroom for three hours. He's showering for like thirty minutes. All of this seems like an awfully lengthy amount of time, but maybe it's just late at night. He doesn't really know how long it was. Maybe it wasn't three hours. Maybe it was thirty minutes. It just felt like three hours. The officers ask him what he wears to bed, because that should also have some cat scratches. I don't wear anything to bed. Nude? He sleeps in the living room? Couch nude?

• 52:51Speaker 01

  He sleeps in the living room?

• 52:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's been sleeping in the living room recently. So he's just sleeping in the living room nude? He says he has some sheets and there was some blood on his T-shirt that he uses under his pillow. So he uses like a T-shirt as a pillow. And he has some blood on there from when the cat scratched him. It's all very weird. Now, back to the shower. So he's in the shower and he explains because of my disability as well, I used like a shower chair because I can't really stand for that long without getting super fatigued or falling or just walking around for too long. And so I didn't use the shower chair because I didn't want to make a bunch of noise and wake everybody up. So I ended up literally falling and I fell and like hit my head on the shower hose. He says the shower chair is outside the bathroom and he didn't bring it in himself because I'm also not like really strong enough to do that, so I never do that.

• 53:39Speaker 00

  Is it heavy? Yeah, it's pretty heavy. Well, not that heavy. Just like I know it's too heavy for me to have enough strength to pick it up. The police are a little confused because like, why not just tell your mom at this point? He keeps mentioning the house photos and the detectives are like, well, you're not in the house photos. I know, but I don't want to have to like wake her up and have her tired or have her be annoyed that I was getting her up super early and it was like 2:00, 2:30. Now, by all means, it seems like Becca is not the type of mom to be upset. So the bleeding kind of stops and Levi decides to just try and eat and watch some YouTube. But he says, I was doing that and as I was watching YouTube, I was super exhausted. Honestly, like shit because I barely got any sleep. And I was just like, I don't know what to do. I know I can't go to sleep in this state. So I started kind of crying.

• 54:24Speaker 00

  Honestly, kind of loud. He says he starts crying so loudly, that's what wakes his mom up. And it's just interesting, like his body language to watch in there, like he has these, he'll yawn in the middle of a sentence and it's not a pause. It's not like he's pausing and getting bored and yawning, which would already be alarming in a police interrogation, but he'll just be talking about how he wanted to eat and watch some TV after he cleaned himself up. So he's like, I'm just gonna sit down and eat and watch some TV and then and then I ate. It could be the stress of the interrogation, not that he's guilty, it's just a stressful thing to be in a crowded room with two investigators as a 13 year old, having no idea where the lawyer is or where your mom is, but it's weird. At this point, it's like 5:30 AM. He says thankfully, once he started crying, his mom came down the stairs and was like, are you okay?

• 55:07Speaker 00

  He says, no, not really. And I was still crying and she told me not to cry because that would make it worse. And then something to make this situation more funny, quote unquote. As soon as she went in the kitchen, she opened the cabinet and got the Band-Aids. So this entire time that I looked for Band-Aids for like 30 minutes, it was right there in the kitchen. But when he gets back to the house after going to the ER, he says that he was super emotionally triggered. He says the cat had scratched him. He starts seeing investigators outside, ambulances outside, across the street. And he just wanted to go to his dad's for a few days, even though that was never part of the original schedule. But you didn't know what was wrong with Denise, right? I mean, like you just saw ambulances, that's about it.

• 55:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, I just thought it's just crazy, though. It was crazy in my mind and I started assuming what had happened. What did you think happened? I don't know, I just thought, you thought it was a coincidence? I didn't think it was a coincidence. I was just jumping to conclusions. Mom was like, she probably just had an accident or she fell over and I was like, hopefully, I was like, yeah. And even this right now is honestly starting to make me feel kind of emotionally triggered. When you get triggered, does it ever make you angry? Hmm, no, just it makes me sad, sad. Or like, hyper emotional? So it made me feel like really gross that something else had happened and I was already in an emotionally triggered state. So I kind of felt like really sick to my stomach and I felt really gross having to think about

• 56:32Speaker 00

  what if something happened to somebody right next to me or the house right in front of me? And it made me feel really sad and I started crying even worse. Hunter didn't even know what to do, so I decided to go upstairs. So I could try and stop thinking about it, but you know, I didn't like having to think about something else was happening, so I didn't have to feel worse. It's just weird. So he asks his dad to pick him up? So that he doesn't have to think about something else happening to somebody while something had happened to him? And there's just a lot of cop cars and he stays there for probably a week trying to feel better until he comes back? Have you ever been in Denise's house? Levi responds, neither my mom, my brother, or me have ever been in that house or even close, other than I guess walking distance.

• 57:15Speaker 00

  But he does mention that Hunter, his brother, would mow lawns over the summer? But Levi isn't sure whose lawns he mowed. At some point, he mentions, I heard my mom and my brother, my brother loves true crime or something. He's very investigative. He tried to search up the audio. I didn't hear it, or I guess they said that there was like a 911 call, I guess. They, um, or my mom said that maybe she had been raped. Or that somebody said that, um, it looked like she had been raped. Which in my mind, doesn't really feel like self-defense if it was rape.

• 57:49Speaker 01

  Doesn't feel like self-defense. Who, what doesn't feel like self-defense?

• 57:52Speaker 00

  So the investigators are like, well, we don't really know what happened to Denise. Maybe someone went in there and Denise attacked them. Like maybe it's self-defense. He's like, well, if she was raped, it wasn't self-defense. And it's just a lot of weird conversations happening. And at some point, the investigator says, he's just trying to wrap his brain around this. Like the investigator is like, I'm just trying to wrap my brain around this entire case. I don't know how it happened. There's two people there, but I don't know how it happened and I'm just trying to figure it out. Levi responds, could have been three people. I don't know.

• 58:22Speaker 01

  That's a crazy response.

• 58:24Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, yeah, there could have been more people. You know, they can't rule out the possibilities, but investigators believe that there was only one person involved and they need to know which person it was. And so far, it's looking like Levi is the one they're most suspicious of, especially with the cat scratches. Until they find out that there could be a chance that he's not capable of being the killer. Investigators find out that Levi has cerebral palsy, which is a group of movement and posture disorders. Cerebral being the brain and palsy being weakness or problems with movement. So usually this um, this forms from an injury in parts of the brain that control the muscles. So it's not from the muscles themselves, but it's from the brain that controls the muscles.

• 59:09Speaker 00

  Now investigators have to figure out if Levi's CP would make it so that it would be impossible for him to carry out an essay and murder. And there's just a lot of people that live with CP that live completely normal lives where they play intense sports. Where they, it's actually encouraged to play sports for a lot of people living with that condition. And they live, you wouldn't even know that they have CP. But then on the other side, you do have people where it greatly impacts everything that they do and it does make it very difficult for them to do things that an able-bodied person would be able to do easily.

• 59:44Speaker 01

  So they found out during this interrogation or?

• 59:46Speaker 00

  Yes, and they don't know where on that scale Levi is. So that is where I leave you with part one of this two audio part podcast. Stay tuned for part two, where we go through the rest of the interviews with Levi and Hunter Kart and the moment when one twin finds out that his twin brother is guilty. With that being said, stay safe and I'll see you in the next one.

• 1:00:19Speaker 00

  The Hulu original series Phony is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ Sunny's life is pretty great until he wakes up from a car accident to a world that looks exactly like his with one exception, his mom. Starring five-time Emmy nominee Connie Britton and Sam Nivola, this small town is hiding the mother of all mysteries just beneath the surface. Watch the Hulu original series Phony, now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ for bundle subscribers. Terms apply. Hi, it's Stephanie Su. Want to listen to new episodes of Rotten Mango ad-free? Rotten Mango is now part of SiriusXM's Podcast Plus. With SiriusXM's Podcast Plus subscription, you'll get this plus benefits on dozens of

• 1:01:04Speaker 00

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