Anna Cardwell

On the morning of February 15, 2012, Anna Cardwell's mother left home briefly to run errands while Anna slept in. When she returned about an hour later, she found blood throughout the home and discovered her daughter dead in the kitchen. Anna had been shot four times with a 9mm handgun after desperately trying to escape her attacker. There were no signs of forced entry, leading investigators to believe she had willingly opened the door for someone she knew. Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the murder of Anna Cardwell. Anna Catherine Cardwell was a vibrant, outgoing college student who dreamed of becoming a teacher. Living in the close-knit community of Slapout, Alabama, she was well-liked and known for her kindness and confidence. After recently ending a long-term relationship, she had begun dating someone new and appeared to be enjoying life. Investigators had to work through a number of suspects to find Anna's killer. You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetime Visit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation information An Emash Digital production See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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• 1:20Speaker 00

  Hello everyone and welcome to episode 511 of the True Crime All The Time Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Gibby, how are you?

• 1:30Speaker 01

  Good. How about you, man?

• 1:30Speaker 00

  Doing great.

• 1:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32Speaker 00

  You and I are almost matchies today. We wore the same shirt, poncho.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37Speaker 00

  Yours is black, mine is blue, but.

• 1:40Speaker 01

  Black and blue.

• 1:41Speaker 00

  We didn't plan it, but that's just how, uh, how it came out.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  Kind of how you like to eat your, uh, your steaks. Black and blue.

• 1:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, actually I do. I love blue cheese, which I know a lot of people don't, but, uh, I'm a big fan of, uh, steak and blue cheese.

• 1:56Speaker 01

  I am not a fan of blue cheese.

• 1:58Speaker 00

  All right, buddy. You ready to get into this episode of True Crime All the Time?

• 2:02Speaker 01

  I am.

• 2:02Speaker 00

  We're talking about Anna Catherine Cardwell. Twenty year old Anna Cardwell was murdered in her home while her mother was away running in an errand. Investigators found no signs of forced entry, leading them to believe she was killed by someone she knew. Anna Catherine Cardwell was born on June 18, 1991. She lived in Slapout, Alabama, officially known as Holtville, a census designated place in Elmore County. According to local lore, there was once a general store owner who would reply that he was slap out of certain out of stock items.

• 2:42Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:43Speaker 00

  So I guess they started calling it slap out.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  Slap out.

• 2:47Speaker 00

  Where do you live? I live in Slapout.

• 2:49Speaker 01

  That's right. Well, use that next time I'm almost out of something.

• 2:52Speaker 00

  I'm slap out.

• 2:53Speaker 01

  I'm just slap out of it.

• 2:54Speaker 00

  But apparently it's a small rural community where everyone knows everyone.

• 2:59Speaker 01

  Imagine that.

• 2:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I've said it before, I did grow up in a place like that.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:03Speaker 00

  It wasn't even a town or a city. It was technically a village when I lived there and it was small and everybody just knew everybody. It was a good place to grow up.

• 3:12Speaker 01

  Like where I'm at now. It's a village and

• 3:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:15Speaker 01

  Everybody knows everybody.

• 3:16Speaker 00

  You are in the middle of nowhere.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  People know, I don't even know who they are and they know, they know about me. I'm like, how do you know about me?

• 3:23Speaker 00

  They probably looked up your record when you moved in.

• 3:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, that might be. Yeah.

• 3:28Speaker 00

  And the fact that you had to go door to door and

• 3:30Speaker 01

  Give notice.

• 3:31Speaker 00

  Tell everybody what have them sign something.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  Can I be on your wifi too as I walk up and down the streets? Cause this, you know, thing around my ankle.

• 3:42Speaker 00

  Anna Catherine lived with her mother Paula, her father Joe and her brother. She was described as a confident, kind hearted person. Family friend Melinda Peavy recalled about her, I don't think she knew a stranger. If you were a stranger, she would make you into a friend. You couldn't ignore her. That's how her personality was.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  People like that, man.

• 4:04Speaker 00

  There are.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  They're very open and welcoming.

• 4:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, you know, I, I talk about my wife a lot. My wife is very shy with people, you that she doesn't know. Not once she does, she'll open up, she'll talk, but it takes, she's just not the life of the party. She's not going to Go from stranger to stranger introducing herself. That's just not the way she is. A lot of people are like that. But like you said, a lot of people are like this as well. They can make friends super easy.

• 4:39Speaker 00

  And just talk to anybody and blend in quickly.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  You're a good blender.

• 4:45Speaker 00

  I can be. I don't like to.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the strange thing.

• 4:49Speaker 00

  That's the weird thing about it.

• 4:51Speaker 01

  You don't like it, but I, I think maybe because of, you know, you, you climbing up the corporate structure that you did throughout the years that you learned, it was something you learned, you had to do. I don't know.

• 5:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't know what, I mean, and I shouldn't say I don't like it. I do like to talk to people and like when we go to Crime Con, I have a lot of fun.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  Oh, you love that. Yeah.

• 5:11Speaker 00

  But I, I, I wouldn't want to do that every day.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:15Speaker 00

  You know, I'm a very private person and I like my me time and, and all of that.

• 5:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:23Speaker 00

  Paulo said in, in an interview for the show, The Killer Among Us, Anna was who she was. And she was proud of it. And I love that confidence about her and that ability to have such good self-image.

• 5:37Speaker 01

  There's people that just they're unapologetic about who they are, you know, it's me, take, take me, love me or don't love me. I don't care. I'm going to be who I am.

• 5:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, but also they're happy with who they are.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:50Speaker 00

  Which is amazing if you can be like that because let's face it, a lot of us aren't always happy.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  No.

• 5:58Speaker 00

  With us.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:59Speaker 00

  Right?

• 6:01Speaker 00

  Self-image, self-worth, all of those things, you know, people can struggle with at times.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  I have an issue with that, but Rex West, man, he's out there. He's just whipping along, you know, just.

• 6:13Speaker 00

  Did you say whipping it along? He's literally whipping it along. Okay.

• 6:19Speaker 01

  It's, it's a, it's a Wild Wild West reference.

• 6:23Speaker 00

  I, I, I thought maybe you were going for a figure of speech, but now I think you were, uh, being much more literal. Knowing, uh, the line of work that Rex West is in. But because slap out is such a small community, it was said that most of the local teens hang out with each other, even if they go to different schools. Anna Catherine hung out with a couple of different friend groups and she had a core group of close friends. Her best friend was a girl named Lacey. Lacey and Anna Catherine told each other everything. Did you have one best best friend growing up? Or just like a group of friends?

• 7:03Speaker 01

  I had a group of friends.

• 7:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, I had a group of friends, but I have had a best friend since I was, uh, we were like six years old.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you talked to them pretty regularly.

• 7:15Speaker 00

  Yeah. And now here we are, you know, 45 years later, still, still best friends.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  He lives fairly close.

• 7:24Speaker 00

  He does. He lives like one town over. He lives in the town that I grew up in.

• 7:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's still there.

• 7:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, he still lives there. Anna Catherine graduated high school in 2010. She decided she wanted to pursue a career as a teacher. And I know I've said it on the podcast before, but my whole family, most of my family comes from that profession. My dad, my stepmom, my wife's a teacher. My oldest daughter is now working in a, in a school as a language speech pathologist. I sometimes say that wrong. Hopefully I got it right.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  I did professor work.

• 8:01Speaker 00

  Well, of course. I mean, you've worked in a lot of academic institutions.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  Sure, yeah.

• 8:05Speaker 00

  But, uh, I was talking about me, so.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. I just thought I'd add it in there.

• 8:10Speaker 00

  Just messing with you. But I do have had a lot of teachers in my, uh, in my family. At the time of her death, Anna Catherine was a sophomore at Southern Union Junior College. Paula Cardwell said about her daughter's school choice, "The most important things to Anna Catherine were her family, her friends. When she graduated from high school, she wanted to follow her friends and go to Southern Union." And I think a lot of people do that. I mean, if you don't, if you're not set on like a specific college. Um, you know, maybe you just go where some of your friends are going.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:48Speaker 00

  I followed a girl to college and we broke up before senior year was even over of high school.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  But you already committed to that university.

• 8:57Speaker 00

  Yeah. So I went and I mean, I did have some friends going there too.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:02Speaker 00

  You know, we all make strange decisions.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  We do. That's for sure. And I, you know, the university I went to, I went because it was close to, close to, after I came back from all the other ones that I.

• 9:13Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  You know.

• 9:16Speaker 00

  You went slumming later on, just to see what it was like.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  Wanted to see what it was like to, to stay close to home, you know, and I did. And because I had a lot of buddies there, you know, and it just made, you know, a comfort level.

• 9:28Speaker 00

  Even though by that point you were a lawyer, a doctor, uh, a proctologist. I know you did some of that work. I don't know if it was licensed or not, but, uh.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  People didn't ask really. They were just happy to have someone, you know.

• 9:43Speaker 00

  To talk to.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  Talk to and to take a look.

• 9:47Speaker 00

  Hey doc, can you take a look at this? You think doctors get that a ton? Like you just had a party, somebody knows you're a doctor. It's like, man, I got this. Can you, can you take a look at this?

• 9:56Speaker 01

  I think they probably still do. Like I think people are that, uh, they're, they're not shy to ask.

• 10:01Speaker 00

  Yeah. Now maybe proctologists get that a little bit less than.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  I would, I would hope.

• 10:06Speaker 00

  General physicians.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  Can we go in this guest room, take a peek real quick, you know?

• 10:11Speaker 00

  It, it'll only take a minute.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  You don't need your gloves. It's okay.

• 10:15Speaker 00

  Uh, Anna Catherine moved back home during her sophomore year of college for unspecified reasons, but she was still attending classes. And that's another thing that, that a lot of kids do, right? They go off to school. It's fun. It's exciting, but at a certain point, maybe they move back home and they either still attend classes at the same school, if that school wasn't very far away, or they switch to a different school that's closer to home. I did that, uh, mainly because I. Was not doing too well at the place I went because I didn't go to class.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  But you, just like my brother, went to the same university you did and he moved back home too. Because you both decided to go to the number one party school in the United States at that time.

• 11:00Speaker 00

  We did, we did.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  And that's gonna happen, you know, you're not gonna study, you're gonna party.

• 11:06Speaker 00

  And I did and, you know, ended up coming home and, but I met my wife. At the job that I got when I came home while I was going to school, see, so everything works out. That's what I tell people.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:18Speaker 00

  You may think at the time that it's, it's not a great thing that's happening.

• 11:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:25Speaker 00

  But later on, you may look back at it as, oh, if that hadn't happened, I don't mean my wife.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  That was your destiny.

• 11:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, we talk about it all the time.

• 11:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:35Speaker 00

  Around the time of her murder, Anna Catherine had recently broken up with her long-term boyfriend, Todd. They were together for about a year. Things were still amicable between them after the breakup. And I said, long-term, you know, at that age, that's pretty long-term.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  Sure is.

• 11:51Speaker 00

  For, um, you know, if you're 18, 19 years old, that's a long-term relationship.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  It is.

• 11:58Speaker 00

  Paula recalled, Anna Catherine liked the guys that were fun, that were polite, that were good to her. That were good to her family and her friends, and if they weren't, she just wouldn't stay with them.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  She didn't like the bag, the bad boys.

• 12:11Speaker 00

  The bad boys, some girls like the bad boys.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  Some girls do like the bad boys.

• 12:14Speaker 00

  But you, you, you know, listen to the things that I read. That's the type of guy that you would want your daughter to date. You want them to be polite, you want them to treat her correctly. And you want them to be nice to her friends, you as the family. That's the kind of guy you want them to be with. Anna Catherine was dating a guy named Nick. She and Nick got along well and enjoyed each other's company. Anna Catherine told others that Nick was a good-looking guy who was kind to her. Nick had told Paula that Anna Catherine was the sweetest girl that he had ever met.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  Saying the right stuff.

• 12:57Speaker 00

  Yeah. Anna Catherine's friend Lindsay McBraer recalled that she was head over heels for Nick. So it sounded like they were getting along great. The last time Nick saw Anna Catherine was on February 14th, 2012, Nick came over to the house to spend time with Anna that Valentine's Day evening. He was there until about 2 a.m. Paula recalled that she knew Nick had to work the next day. She told the couple that it was getting late and Anna Catherine needed to go to bed. So Anna Catherine said, okay. And soon after Paula heard a door close indicating Nick had left. And, you know, parents who have kids that age at home, everybody's familiar with that.

• 13:40Speaker 00

  The boyfriend or the girlfriend's gonna come over, they're gonna hang out and at some point, you're probably gonna have to tell them, hey, it's late. Get the you know what out of my house. Not like that, but I mean, I might say that.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  Hit the road, man.

• 13:52Speaker 00

  Most people wouldn't say it that way.

• 13:54Speaker 01

  Find the pavement.

• 13:55Speaker 00

  Yeah. Um, I got lucky because like I said, my daughter, my oldest daughter just got married. She started dating this guy when they were in like the ninth grade. So, you know, he's been a good guy. I've known him for, you know, almost 10 years now. So.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:12Speaker 00

  Never really had to get on them. They were just good kids.

• 14:14Speaker 01

  Just good kids all the way around.

• 14:16Speaker 00

  Still are.

• 14:18Speaker 00

  On February 15th, 2012, Paula had the day off. Anna Catherine was sleeping in because she didn't have class that day. Around 9:15 a.m., Paula poked her head into Anna Catherine's room to check on her and then left to run errands. Anna Catherine's brother was working in a different city about 45 minutes away. Her father was up north on a business trip. Paula returned about an hour later. And the first thing she noticed was that Anna Catherine's car was gone. Paula recalled that when she entered through the back door, she saw blood everywhere as well as bloody footprints headed to the kitchen.

• 14:58Speaker 00

  And then it wasn't far into the kitchen where her daughter was laying there on the floor. Anna Catherine was dead and appeared to have suffered a gunshot wound to the head. And we talked, we talk often, right? About people discovering bodies. Now, sometimes it's not someone you know. Sometimes it's a loved one. I mean, I cannot imagine what it must be like to find your child.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  No.

• 15:31Speaker 00

  In this condition.

• 15:32Speaker 01

  I don't know how you function from that moment on.

• 15:35Speaker 00

  No, no, I just, and everybody who's listening or watching, I'm sure they're having that same thought.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:43Speaker 00

  Because it's hard not to. When you go through these true crime cases, it's really hard not to put yourself in the position of some of these people. What must that have been like? How would I react? And I think a lot of people would, it would be hard for them to function.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:00Speaker 00

  And they would just be, they'd be broken.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  Well, so like it'd be like a out of body experience.

• 16:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  You know, like.

• 16:07Speaker 00

  It's happening, but it's not really happening to me. It's almost like I'm watching it happen. I can imagine for some people, it would be something like that. And obviously Paula was extremely distraught when deputies arrived. She kept trying to call her husband to tell him what had happened. As soon as she got in touch with him, he immediately got on the plane to go home. But all of the family members were quickly ruled out as potential suspects. There were no signs of forced entry, leading investigators to suspect she was killed by someone she knew. Anna Catherine was still in her pajamas, indicating she likely woke

• 16:47Speaker 00

  up sometime after her mom left the house to answer the door and was attacked. And, you know, the lack of, or the signs of forced entry.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:00Speaker 00

  It is always a big thing in these types of cases, because, you know, by and large, the lack of forced entry does seem to indicate that, you know, the person knew their attacker. Now, it doesn't have to mean that.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  No, but I think percentage wise.

• 17:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:19Speaker 01

  It leans more towards that.

• 17:21Speaker 00

  Yeah. Now, is it possible that somebody left the door unlocked? Yeah. And somebody just happened to come along and find out that the door was unlocked and they slipped in? It is, but I mean, that's, that's pretty random.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  It is.

• 17:36Speaker 00

  Besides the blood, the rest of the house was clean and orderly. Nothing appeared to be damaged. Detective Troy Evans said in his interview for the show, The Killer Among Us, the blood trail is telling us that as she's running, she's bleeding. The blood is striking the ground and you can tell her movements from just being able to look at the blood patterns and see where she had gone. We've been talking about blood a lot in recent episodes and blood spatter, cast off patterns, you know, the science behind it is fascinating.

• 18:11Speaker 01

  It is.

• 18:12Speaker 00

  To me, when you think about analyzing a blood droplet, if that's the right term, how it lands, what it looks like, and judging whether a person was going this way or this way, or they were standing still. I mean, that type of science is really fascinating.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  There's so much involved in that, you know, with velocity and the

• 18:35Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  The

• 18:37Speaker 00

  Like what it looks like, the tail versus the head of it. And they can tell, you know, oh, well, obviously she was heading this way. And again, if I was 19 years old, I think I would go into something like that.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  Get into the science of it.

• 18:52Speaker 00

  Cause it is absolutely fascinating.

• 18:55Speaker 01

  You would, you would have made a, made a pretty decent CSI person.

• 18:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think I would have been good on the show too.

• 19:03Speaker 00

  Okay, Gibbs. Gibbs, exactly. Investigators believed that Anna Catherine was shot in the hallway and began to run through the house and then tried to escape out the garage door. She left a bloody handprint on the wall beside the door. She almost escaped, but was dragged back into the kitchen, where the killer filed, fired the fatal shot. And, and obviously your heart goes out to her.

• 19:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:32Speaker 00

  Just imagining this situation, right? You're attacked, you're shot, you're trying to flee. It's almost like a movie. You, you get right to the edge, you're right to the precipice. You're almost out and somebody drags you back in.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, how many times have you been, you know, to the precipice and?

• 19:53Speaker 00

  I knew you were gonna try to use that word. I also knew it was not gonna come out correctly. Sorry. We need to start selling bingo cards that people can uh play a little bingo game of what is, what are we gonna say?

• 20:10Speaker 01

  What are we gonna say?

• 20:11Speaker 00

  How are we gonna mess up?

• 20:13Speaker 01

  But yeah, I mean, you're right. It's just like one of the, you see him in the movies all the time. She's gonna get it. She's gonna make it. She's gonna make it. And then

• 20:20Speaker 00

  somebody snatches the person right as they're getting ready to to get out the door. That sounds like what they believe happened here.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Right.

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• 21:01Speaker 00

  The murder weapon was determined to be a nine millimeter handgun. Anna Catherine's autopsy determined she was shot four times. Twice in the back, once in the chest, and then once in the back of the head. Just brutal.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  It really is. I mean, if you think about it, I mean, three of the shots from behind. So is that because she was fleeing? Or is that because they didn't want to look at her in the uh, in the face?

• 21:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, once in the chest, so that was, that would have been face to face. I'm assuming the back of the head was the final shot.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  The fatal.

• 21:39Speaker 00

  The fatal shot. Investigators wanted to talk to Paula again, but she was still in shock. Paula recalled in her interview, it's like you're just frozen and you don't know what to do. And you just do something. A detective just asked me, was there anything that I noticed that was missing? Paula pointed out that Anna Catherine's Honda Civic was missing. Paula began calling close family and friends. And soon there was a small crowd gathered outside the home. And that's actually a pretty big clue. The, the car is missing.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:14Speaker 00

  It, it's not like there was a locket taken.

• 22:18Speaker 01

  Something small that can be concealed.

• 22:20Speaker 00

  Easily, right? The Honda, they're going to be able to figure out the license plate. They're going to be able to put out a BOLO on it or whatever. There's a good chance somebody might spot it. Today, there's a great chance with all the

• 22:35Speaker 01

  Cameras.

• 22:35Speaker 00

  Cameras and the license plate readers and, and all of that. Law enforcement used this opportunity of all these people gathering to conduct interviews. They focused on Anna Catherine's friends, most of whom showed up as soon as they received news of the murder. Anna Catherine's best friend Lacey was distraught, but couldn't tell investigators anyone she suspected of being the killer. And we talked about this girl, Gibbs.

• 23:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:05Speaker 00

  She was very friendly. She was well liked. Um, you know, her friend said she didn't have problems with anyone.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  She got along with everybody.

• 23:15Speaker 00

  So who would want to kill her? And it was upsetting to her friends, right? To think that someone among the, the gathered friends and family either knew something or could actually be the killer.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:30Speaker 00

  So think about that. Number one, you're shocked and you're heartbroken to hear this news. You show up at the home, everybody's outside, and at some point it dawns on people that, you know, you're looking around, hey, one of us is very likely the killer.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like you said, we know that killers like to return to the scene.

• 23:55Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  And see what's going on with the investigation.

• 23:59Speaker 00

  They do, but in this case, I'm thinking if it's a close friend or something like that, you also don't want to skip out on it because you don't want to be the only person not there. That's going to stick out like a sore thumb.

• 24:14Speaker 01

  You don't show up, there's a problem.

• 24:16Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, the police are gonna make a note of that for sure. Anna's ex-boyfriend Todd was among the crowd, but Nick was not because Nick was the new guy in their friend group. He received the most suspicion. And I get it. He's also like the current.

• 24:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 24:35Speaker 00

  Boyfriend, right? So that would make sense as well. Police got Nick's name and number from Anna Catherine's friends. Nick agreed to meet with investigators that afternoon. He appeared distraught and didn't seem to be hiding anything. He was forthcoming with his alibi. He said that on Valentine's Day, they decided to be an official couple. He came to the house to spend time with Anna Catherine and was there until 2 a.m.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  Official couple. You remember those type of conversations?

• 25:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't remember ever calling it an official couple, but it was, hey, do you want to go steady? I think that was a word that was used back in the day, or be boyfriend, girlfriend, or whatever it was.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  We gonna do this thing or not?

• 25:25Speaker 00

  I'm sure that's how you approached it. Just walking up to strangers. How you doing?

• 25:30Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 25:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was a little more subtle, maybe than you were. But Anna Catherine's phone record showed that she texted Nick shortly after he left her home. She expressed her appreciation for the flowers he brought and for spending time with her and wrote, you're amazing and you make me so super happy. Okay.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:55Speaker 00

  Nothing there that would make you think that there's anything going on, that he would have any reason to want to hurt this girl, right?

• 26:04Speaker 01

  No.

• 26:04Speaker 00

  Brand new relationship, just starting. They seem totally fine, if not euphoric, right? You're in that, that new stage.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  That's what you kind of want. You know, with your girl till 2 a.m. You leave and you get this nice text. You're gonna sleep pretty good that night.

• 26:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, I would think so. Nick said that on the morning of the 15th, he was at home asleep. He was woken up by a call telling him what happened to Anna Catherine. And that, that has to be a very tough call to get.

• 26:34Speaker 01

  It would be very difficult.

• 26:35Speaker 00

  He was home alone that morning, meaning there was no one else who could verify his alibi. But investigators believed he was being truthful. But he couldn't be completely ruled out. Although, police now wanted to talk to Anna Catherine's ex-boyfriend, Tuck. And, you know, just thinking about all the cases that we do.

• 26:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, the current boyfriend has to be looked at, but this relationship is like days old, a day old, you know? Officially, you would think maybe an ex or something like that would be a little bit higher up on the uh, the list of scrutiny or whatever you want to call it.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  You gotta think about, you know, were they jealous?

• 27:20Speaker 00

  You're right.

• 27:21Speaker 01

  Were they a sad or sore loser, basically, you know?

• 27:26Speaker 00

  I mean, it's not like, you know, they've been together for years or they're married or something like that.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:33Speaker 00

  That's when maybe motives start to, what would be the motive of wanting to kill your girlfriend? When you just became a couple, there's very little motive there.

• 27:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, unless you found out she was cheating, you know?

• 27:47Speaker 00

  Since you left the house at 2am, you know what I'm saying?

• 27:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:51Speaker 00

  Um, but now an ex-boyfriend and you kind of hit on it. Maybe there's the jealousy factor and all of that. Todd's father is a well-respected businessman in Elmore County. His family is well-known and there was nothing out of the ordinary to raise suspicion. Police learned that Todd and Anna Catherine were still in touch after the breakup. Todd texted her on Valentine's Day. According to Paula, Anna Catherine was excited. Todd reached out and she suspected her daughter still had feelings for him.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  That can happen. I think they dated slightly over a year. So I mean,

• 28:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  It's hard just to shut that off unless someone's like a, a major prick to you.

• 28:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, or you got cheated on or there was a, a big blow up. Um, yeah, the feelings, maybe it's, you can't just turn it off like a faucet sometimes.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  I mean, you're still gonna have some, some feelings.

• 28:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, but Todd was brought in. He gave a statement, according to him, the breakup was amicable. He said that on February 15th, he was at college about an hour away. And police were able to verify his alibi, eliminating Todd as a suspect.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  So Todd's out.

• 29:00Speaker 00

  Todd's out. At 5pm on February 15th, police located Anna Catherine's missing car in the parking lot of a Winn-Dixie, about 10 miles away.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  Winn-Dixie man.

• 29:13Speaker 00

  While authorities were processing the car, officers brought Anna Catherine's best friend, Lacey, in for a second interview to see if she could tell them anything else. And what else are they gonna do, right? They gotta talk to all these friends, see what they know.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:30Speaker 00

  You know, kind of reminds me a little bit of Silence of the Lambs. You know how much I love that movie?

• 29:34Speaker 01

  You do.

• 29:35Speaker 00

  But, you know, in the end, and I'm not spoiling it, because if you haven't watched it, that's on you, but Jodie Foster kind of breaks the case wide open by going back and talking to one of the victim's friends and she gets some information.

• 29:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:50Speaker 00

  Because who knows you like your friends? You're really good friends.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 29:55Speaker 00

  You could say parents, but kids don't tell parents everything.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  They don't.

• 30:00Speaker 00

  And they certainly don't tell them certain things that, you know, they might tell a best friend. So I think that's a really good move.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:09Speaker 00

  Is to, you know, keep interviewing the friends. Lacey shared that she texted Anna Catherine in the morning, but she never received a reply. She didn't think this was strange because Anna Catherine liked to sleep in when she could.

• 30:22Speaker 01

  Oh, just like you.

• 30:23Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I love to sleep in.

• 30:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, you do.

• 30:27Speaker 00

  You know who else does? My oldest daughter.

• 30:29Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 30:30Speaker 00

  And now that she's off for the summer, she is taking full advantage.

• 30:35Speaker 01

  It's just a sleep fest here.

• 30:36Speaker 00

  And I don't, I don't blame her. I don't blame her.

• 30:38Speaker 01

  Unless you're, you have the wife, you know, your wife likes to vacuum like eight o'clock in the morning, because she's not happy that you guys are still sleeping and she's up.

• 30:46Speaker 00

  Eh, she don't do that.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  That's good.

• 30:49Speaker 00

  She don't do that. She's pretty respectful of the sleep, because she likes her own sleep.

• 30:53Speaker 01

  Well, that's true.

• 30:54Speaker 00

  And she likes to take naps during the day, so she wouldn't want anyone messing with her nap.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's true. Payback would be, as they say, a bitch.

• 31:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, it would be. When Lacey learned what happened, she called her boyfriend, 22 year old Joss, Joss or Josh?

• 31:11Speaker 01

  He normally goes by Josh.

• 31:12Speaker 00

  I think he does.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:13Speaker 00

  Kisperry. Josh did not show up to Anna Catherine's house. Lacey said that was because she had ended their relationship. Okay, maybe, right? Maybe that would be too awkward.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:25Speaker 00

  You had this relationship. It's now over. You know, Lacey's gonna be there, so maybe you don't want to show up. According to friends, Lacey introduced Anna Catherine to Josh after they started dating. Anna Catherine hung out with the couple often. They were sometimes joined by Josh's roommate, 22 year old Cody Abernathy. Cody was more subdued while Josh was more extroverted. But everyone in the group seemed to get along well because they liked to goof off. Friends described Lacey and Josh's relationship as rocky and on again, off again. They broke up often.

• 32:04Speaker 01

  Oh, man, I mean, people, I mean, I knew I had a couple like that.

• 32:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:09Speaker 01

  But I mean, you're like, can you guys just end it? Because you guys do not belong together.

• 32:15Speaker 00

  Pick a lane, pick a lane. But you know, those, those teenage relationships for a lot of people are like that.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:22Speaker 00

  Right?

• 32:24Speaker 00

  You're so in love at that, at that point, but you can't stand each other. You break up. And then you're like, oh, I miss that person or whatever it is that causes that kind of back and forth, on again, off again part.

• 32:38Speaker 01

  The love hate thing.

• 32:39Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, on the outside, it looked like everyone was happy. There were some underlying tensions in the friend group. Anna Catherine didn't think Josh was good for Lacey and thought she deserved better.

• 32:53Speaker 01

  As a lot of friends do for their best buddy.

• 32:56Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, when you love someone that much, you got, you know, this great friend. If you don't think that the person they're with is right for them, you might tell them that.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 33:09Speaker 00

  That's something that a best friend might say.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  And can say most of the time and be okay still.

• 33:15Speaker 00

  Yeah. Now, if you, you're just like a fringe friend, you probably wouldn't say that.

• 33:21Speaker 01

  No.

• 33:23Speaker 00

  A best friend probably would. According to her friend, Lindsay McBrayer, Anna definitely had high standards for her friends as far as she wanted them to have a guy who treated them right, loved them for who they were, treated them how they were supposed to be treated with respect. And I kind of made a big deal about, you know, her wanting that for herself.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:46Speaker 00

  It's very important.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 33:48Speaker 00

  You know, that's, that's what relationships should be. So I get the feeling that that's what she demanded out of her relationships. And she also thought that her friends should have that as well.

• 34:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, that's just makes sense.

• 34:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, it really does. Family friend Melinda Peavy recalled Josh and Anna would talk about Lacey. It drove Anna crazy to be in the middle of the drama. I think she was a lot more wrapped up in that drama than we realized.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  And probably hated it.

• 34:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  You know, a lot.

• 34:20Speaker 00

  Well, when you're in the middle of something, right? Nobody likes to be in the middle.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  No.

• 34:24Speaker 00

  Because sometimes there's no winning and it's all downside. In her interview with the police, Lacey said that Josh wasn't happy with Anna Catherine because she convinced her to break up with Josh. And when you talk about motive, okay, that's a motive.

• 34:42Speaker 01

  It is a motive.

• 34:44Speaker 00

  Yeah. You wouldn't think you would murder someone over it, but it is a motive.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  You know, 10 years ago, I wouldn't have thought people would break up, uh, kill somebody over something like that.

• 34:53Speaker 00

  Before we started doing all the research for the pot. Yeah.

• 34:55Speaker 01

  Now I'm like, oh, yeah, that's probably what happened.

• 34:58Speaker 00

  I mean, we've seen people kill for less than that.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  I know.

• 35:02Speaker 00

  It's shocking.

• 35:03Speaker 01

  It's, uh, yeah.

• 35:05Speaker 00

  Other friends confirmed that Josh blamed Anna for the breakup. Several people said the police needed to talk to him and even seemed scared of Josh. So you and I have talked about it before and I kind of mentioned it earlier. You know, when you're that, that.

• 35:23Speaker 00

  Age, relationships seem to take on this level that is way out of proportion of what they really are, but they're real to the people who are in them.

• 35:35Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 35:36Speaker 00

  At the time.

• 35:36Speaker 01

  Yes, it feels super real to them.

• 35:38Speaker 00

  I mean, it feels like the end all be all, right? But when you look back on it years later, you realize it was just a puppy lover. You know, once you get married or you find your true love, you understand what those other relationships really were. But when you're in them, they seem like everything.

• 35:59Speaker 01

  I remember having my own heart broken, you know, when I was younger and, and then my daughter and, you know, seeing that and thinking, you're going to be fine, but, but they don't think they're going to be fine.

• 36:11Speaker 00

  No.

• 36:12Speaker 01

  So you have to find out a better way to relay that to them so that you can help them get over it. Cause you just can't say, don't worry about it. It's not, no big deal. That's not going to work.

• 36:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, even though you know it's true.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 36:25Speaker 00

  Because in their minds, you're wrong.

• 36:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:29Speaker 00

  And there's nothing you can do to change it. Josh came in voluntarily for an interview. He seemed upset about Anna Catherine's death. He said that on the morning of February 15th, he left his vehicle at one friend's house and called his mother to come pick him up and drop him off at another friend's house down the road. It was said that Josh did not act suspicious during his interview. Okay, make of that what you will.

• 36:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:57Speaker 00

  You know, some people just can't control their emotions and they kind of give it away, right? On their face or with, with how they act. Other people, they can really put on a, a good act and snow the, even the police who are trained to kind of stiff sniff that stuff out. The next day, February 16th, another investigator interviewed Josh's mother. She confirmed that she picked Josh up, but it was at the Winn-Dixie parking lot where Anna Catherine's car was found. This effectively. Destroyed his alibi.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  Did more than destroy his alibi because it also placed him where the car was found.

• 37:39Speaker 00

  Doesn't make him look good.

• 37:40Speaker 01

  No, not at all.

• 37:41Speaker 00

  That's for sure. And it did mark a major turning point in the investigation. Police now had enough evidence to search the residence Josh shared with Cody Abernathy. They were hoping to find a smoking gun, right, to cha- charge Josh with murder. Police did find a stockpile of shotguns, rifles and pistols throughout the house. Inside a safe, police found steroids, $21,000 in cash and two nine millimeter handguns. Josh was an avid bodybuilder, which explained the steroids.

• 38:17Speaker 01

  Probably have some D-ball and, you know.

• 38:24Speaker 00

  If anybody knows about steroids, I, for some reason, I believe it would be you. I can just imagine you and your singlet.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 38:32Speaker 00

  Dealing steroids, taking steroids. I don't know what you did in your past.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  Here's your little blue little pills for your, you know, different little blue pills than you take.

• 38:40Speaker 00

  Right.

• 38:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, little blue pills and, you know, here's your injectable for your joints and.

• 38:45Speaker 00

  How do you know they're blue?

• 38:46Speaker 01

  That's what D-ball was, man.

• 38:47Speaker 00

  Was it?

• 38:48Speaker 01

  Oh, they, back in the day, back in the late eighties. Walk into any high school gym, locker room or, um, fitness place, you know?

• 38:58Speaker 00

  And somebody was handing them out?

• 39:00Speaker 01

  They were always selling them to you.

• 39:01Speaker 00

  But, you know, think about these, these are not, these guys aren't that old.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  No.

• 39:06Speaker 00

  They got $21,000 in cash?

• 39:08Speaker 01

  Lot of money and moving steroids back then.

• 39:11Speaker 00

  You gotta think they're into something.

• 39:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:13Speaker 00

  Right? They got, they got a bunch of guns, steroids, $21,000 in cash. Investigators ran the serial numbers for each of the guns and all of them came back stolen.

• 39:25Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 39:26Speaker 00

  It's usually a bad sign.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  It is a bad sign.

• 39:29Speaker 00

  Back in November 2011, there was a home invasion robbery of a former police officer's house. The victim reported that masked men put a gun to his head and told him they were going to kill him. He was pistol whipped and the robber stole his gun collection. That's how you get a bunch of stolen guns.

• 39:48Speaker 01

  That is how you get some of those.

• 39:50Speaker 00

  Since Anna was killed by a nine millimeter gun, the two found in Josh's home were sent off for ballistics testing. Josh was arrested for the home invasion and brought in for a second round of questions. And, you know, again, if you are a police officer or a former police officer, I have, I have a feeling that guy knew, maybe he had the, the serial numbers of his guns written down or something.

• 40:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:19Speaker 00

  They were probably able to match these guns and figure out they were stolen from his house in that robbery.

• 40:29Speaker 00

  You know, it doesn't make you look great. It's pretty good evidence when you're in possession of all the guns that were stolen during this home invasion.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  It's gonna be hard to argue that one. It wasn't you.

• 40:40Speaker 00

  But I also talked about, you know, going in, into like the forensics realm.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:45Speaker 00

  If I could go back in time, I might go into ballistics.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like go in forensics with a side of ballistics?

• 40:52Speaker 00

  Mm hmm. Like a side of fries. I'm not sure how that's how they do it, but.

• 40:57Speaker 01

  Got a major in this and minor in that. Yeah. Yeah.

• 40:59Speaker 00

  Uh, just a side. I'm just gonna do it on the side.

• 41:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:03Speaker 00

  So they're gonna question him for a second time. First, they asked him about the home invasion. Josh said his roommate Cody Abernathy was with him. So he didn't deny it.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:15Speaker 00

  And I don't know how he could. I'm pretty sure they had, uh, the evidence to, uh, To prove that, you know, he was involved.

• 41:24Speaker 01

  Sure, Cody loved that. He got tossed into it pretty quickly.

• 41:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, but that's what we always talk about, right? You can be as tight as, as you think you are with someone until the you know what hits the fan.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:39Speaker 00

  And then, once somebody's ass is on the line, then there's a good chance they're gonna roll on you, no matter how tight the bond is.

• 41:48Speaker 01

  Whatever happened to that? What's that Sicily term that the Sicilians would use? They, it was, you would never talk.

• 41:57Speaker 00

  Is that omerta?

• 41:58Speaker 01

  Omerta, yeah, yeah. Whatever happened to that, man? It went out the door a long time ago.

• 42:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, I think when, with the mafia.

• 42:08Speaker 00

  I mean, I'm sure there still is mafia, but it's not like what it was.

• 42:12Speaker 01

  It's the loyalty, you know?

• 42:13Speaker 00

  So I think that's where it went.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:15Speaker 00

  That's where it went.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  You get caught, you don't talk.

• 42:19Speaker 00

  But nowadays, you know, there's, they always say there's no honor among thieves.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:25Speaker 00

  Right? So, and you and I talk about, a lot of times, the first person to talk, the first person to cut a deal, they're kind of the ones that get the sweetheart part of it.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:36Speaker 00

  And they're the ones that are gonna roll and testify on everybody else, but they're gonna do a lot less time.

• 42:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:43Speaker 00

  So, and I think most criminals know that.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  Well, it's, it's not like someone is gonna, somebody's gonna be waiting for you after you do more time to come out and, and reward you like, hey.

• 42:55Speaker 00

  Great job.

• 42:56Speaker 01

  Great job. Here is.

• 42:58Speaker 00

  The mafia would though.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  Back then, the mafia would.

• 43:00Speaker 00

  Like in Goodfellas, when Ray Liotta's character did his first stint, they were all patting him on the back and, you know, all of that. While investigators continued questioning Josh, detectives worked on tracking down Cody. He was located, arrested, and brought in for an interview. Cody lied twice about his whereabouts when questioned. He admitted the truth during a third round of questioning. And that's always, you know, kind of a fascinating part, the interview process, um, you know.

• 43:35Speaker 00

  I think it's in people's nature, well, especially criminals.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:40Speaker 00

  To deny, deny or lie, right, about what they're being asked. But it seems like at a certain point, once the evidence is laid out multiple times, people start to wise up and figure out that, hey, I'm not getting out of this, you know?

• 43:58Speaker 01

  It's, you know, criminal or just kids. I remember when I was growing up, you know, my mom, I come home during the summer, my mom would say, how was summer school? It was good. So you went? Absolutely. And then later in the day, she said, you went to school, right? I dropped you off. I saw you go in. So everything's good? Yes, Mom. Summer school's great. No problem. And then called me back in like a half an hour later, she's got the phone up to her ear going, you're telling me you went to school, right? Because I have the principal on the line saying, you haven't been there. And I'm telling him, my son's telling me he's been there. And I'm like, uh, I'm waving her off like, I didn't go. I didn't go, you know?

• 44:44Speaker 01

  Oh, man. Yeah, it was not good for me.

• 44:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, you know, how, how do people think they're going to get away with certain things? But we've all been there.

• 44:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:54Speaker 00

  We've all thought we could get away with something that we really shouldn't have thought we could get away with.

• 45:00Speaker 01

  I think we're more clever than the people in the room with us.

• 45:03Speaker 00

  I'm also really picturing you like in a Breakfast Club scenario, being dropped off at the school. You know, here's your, here's your lunch, son.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, there you go.

• 45:14Speaker 00

  Except you don't go in where they did go in.

• 45:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:18Speaker 00

  Cody seemed to realize that the walls were closing in. In exchange for leniency, he admitted that Josh coerced him into the home invasion. He implied that he did what Josh wanted because he was scared of him.

• 45:33Speaker 00

  Now, this is the problem that the police are gonna have, right? Because normally, what happens is when people start admitting stuff, they have different stories.

• 45:43Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 45:43Speaker 00

  And, and each person is putting the blame on the other person. And then you gotta figure out which one's correct, who's telling the truth.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  Who really did it.

• 45:53Speaker 00

  But then Cody was asked about the murder of Anna Catherine Cardwell. He admitted to driving Josh to her home on the morning of the murder. He insisted that he had no idea what his friend planned to do. Meanwhile, investigators were still questioning Josh in a different room. He confessed after he was confronted with the evidence. He admitted that he was dropped off in a wooded area, situated in a ditch near Anna Catherine's home, where he waited for her mom to leave. Once she was alone, he rang the doorbell and she let him in. They argued before the shooting. Josh said in one clip from his interview, "Everything happened like a blur. I don't know how to explain it."

• 46:38Speaker 00

  I mean, it wasn't meant to happen like this. I didn't have it planned out like this. Y'all looking at me like I'm a monster. I don't know how to explain it.

• 46:50Speaker 01

  You took a gun there.

• 46:52Speaker 00

  Yeah. Uh, what did you, what was the plan?

• 46:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 46:56Speaker 00

  Right? And people are looking at you like a monster because you shot and killed this innocent girl.

• 47:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:04Speaker 00

  You are a monster.

• 47:05Speaker 01

  Exactly. You, you went there to confront her. You didn't go there to be like, "Hey, girl, how you doing? How do I get her back? What do I need to do to get, to get my girl back?" You know? No, he went there to argue and he took a gun.

• 47:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, it, it could have been, right? That he went there to talk to Anna Catherine about, you know, getting Lacey back or, or something along those lines. My question to him would be, if that's what you went to do, why did you need a gun?

• 47:40Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 47:41Speaker 00

  Cause that kind of doesn't seem to correlate, right? You don't need a gun to go talk to this young girl.

• 47:48Speaker 01

  What's she gonna do to you, right? She's, she's a sweetheart. She's, she's a very caring individual. So are you really concerned that you need to defend yourself?

• 47:58Speaker 00

  And he's a bodybuilder.

• 47:59Speaker 01

  And he's a bodybuilder.

• 48:00Speaker 00

  He's a big guy, so.

• 48:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:01Speaker 00

  He doesn't need a gun. Now that would lead you to believe he went there with other intentions.

• 48:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 48:07Speaker 00

  He was asked why he chased Anna Catherine through the house while shooting at her. He denied doing this and was asked to clarify, but all he said was, I don't remember. It was a blur. I've tried to remember. I've even dreamed about it. Now, could that happen? I guess. I don't know. Some people experience traumatic events and don't have a memory of it, I guess. But to me, it's more likely that he just doesn't want to tell the truth. He doesn't want to give the details because he knows it's gonna incriminate him even further and probably just make him look more of a monster.

• 48:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:46Speaker 00

  Josh admitted to taking Anna Catherine's car, which he abandoned at the Winn-Dixie grocery store. He also admitted to stalking the home on February 10th in the same wooded area. He brought a mask, knife, gun and gas can, but did not approach the house. Authorities believed he didn't approach that day because Anna Catherine was never left alone in the home.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  So right there, I'm not a monster, but this is what I did before.

• 49:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:17Speaker 01

  I'm, you know what that reads? Monster.

• 49:20Speaker 00

  Well, and it also kind of takes out the, I just went over there to talk to her.

• 49:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:26Speaker 00

  Angle. It also adds the element of premeditation, right? Pretty hard to say that this all happened in the, in the spur of the moment. We got into an argument. No, you, you were casing her house. You obviously had thought about. About this, you planned it out.

• 49:45Speaker 01

  I mean, a knife and a gun? And what was the gas can going to be used for?

• 49:49Speaker 00

  To set the house on fire, to destroy all evidence, maybe? Then investigators determined that the prints extracted from Anna Catherine's car matched Josh. Investigators were still waiting to hear back from ballistics about the nine millimeter gun seized from Josh's house. Soon, one of those guns was confirmed to be the murder weapon.

• 50:12Speaker 01

  Bingo, that's what they needed.

• 50:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, he was charged with murder that day. How could he not be? Right? They pretty much have a very solid case against Josh. Cody was charged with first degree hindering prosecution. Ultimately, he wasn't charged in connection to the murder. And he received 10 years for the home invasion robbery.

• 50:36Speaker 01

  Got lucky.

• 50:37Speaker 00

  He got lucky, but you know, 10 years, that's still a fairly good sentence. Now, a home invasion robbery is, that's a serious crime.

• 50:46Speaker 01

  It is. I mean, I still feel like it could have been worse for him.

• 50:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, I agree with you. A few days after the arrests, 18-year-old Thomas Justin Bush and Troy Bush were charged with first degree burglary and first degree robbery. They were believed to be responsible for up to six burglaries and a home invasion. The latter of which Josh Caspari was also involved in. The Bushes were reportedly friends with Josh and Cody.

• 51:15Speaker 01

  The little empire's crumbling down.

• 51:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, they're getting everybody involved, right? On July 20th, 2012, Josh Caspari was indicted on four counts, including capital murder, first degree theft of property, third degree escape, and promoting prison contraband.

• 51:34Speaker 01

  Okay, and he is just trying to get his hands into everything.

• 51:39Speaker 00

  He's racking up charges.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:42Speaker 00

  You know, that's, that's the type of charge you get when you try to smuggle things in to the jail in your prison wallet.

• 51:50Speaker 01

  Right. And then third degree escape? I mean, he's, he's got a set of cojones on him, I guess.

• 51:58Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, it turned out that Josh's sister Jessica was also charged for allegedly paying another inmate $500 to smuggle hacksaw blades to her brother inside the Elmore County Jail to facilitate his escape.

• 52:13Speaker 01

  I don't know how he smuggled that hacksaw blade in, but I'm hoping it wasn't keistering it.

• 52:18Speaker 00

  Woo. Yeah. You talk about having a rough couple of weeks there after retrieving those bad boys.

• 52:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. I don't know how that works, but.

• 52:31Speaker 00

  You're gonna need a new jumpsuit. I can tell you that because. But here's the other thing, right? And I know people have escaped using blades and things like that, but it's kind of such a movie trope, right? The hacksaw blades baked inside of a cake or whatever it is. I mean, can you really hacksaw your way out of a jail? Maybe. I don't know. I think people have done it.

• 52:55Speaker 01

  I mean, how long would it take to, you know?

• 52:58Speaker 00

  Quite a while.

• 52:59Speaker 01

  Cut those bars every day until you finally get through that, you know?

• 53:03Speaker 00

  Yeah. I don't know. I've tried to use hacksaws before. They don't seem to be the best tool in the world, but.

• 53:11Speaker 01

  Well, not today.

• 53:14Speaker 00

  But, you know, you're not smuggling a DeWalt inside your anus either.

• 53:18Speaker 01

  Not yet. Not yet.

• 53:19Speaker 00

  A 20, 20 volt DeWalt with a saw on the end of a skill saw.

• 53:24Speaker 01

  I just seen on the news today was that there's a big ring was busted, a prison, federal prison ring where they were, this group was using drones that can carry 40 pounds each. They were dropping supplies and stuff at eight different federal prisons.

• 53:46Speaker 00

  Over the wall?

• 53:47Speaker 01

  Over the wall. And the latest one that got caught was somebody ordered like 40 pounds of crab. And they dropped it in the prison and that's, that's what.

• 54:00Speaker 00

  Busted the whole thing?

• 54:01Speaker 01

  The whole thing open.

• 54:03Speaker 00

  Speaking of Goodfellas, that's like them cooking the. The Italian dinner inside the prison and getting all the good meat.

• 54:11Speaker 01

  Slice in the garlic with the razor blade.

• 54:13Speaker 00

  Yeah. But why would you get crab? I get it. Crab's delicious. I love crab, but.

• 54:20Speaker 01

  What, you gotta cook it somehow?

• 54:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:22Speaker 01

  People are gonna smell it.

• 54:23Speaker 00

  How you, how you cooking it and how you getting away with it?

• 54:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:26Speaker 00

  In August 2012, Josh pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity and reason of mental defect. Over a year later, on October 10th, 2013, he pleaded guilty to capital murder. He was set to go to trial a few weeks later and was facing the death penalty. So he ended up being sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

• 54:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, wise choice for him.

• 54:53Speaker 00

  Well, you know, some people don't care about the death penalty. Some people want the death penalty.

• 54:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:58Speaker 00

  Cause they don't want to spend the rest of their life in prison. But I think for many people, that can be a real kind of carrot, right? We'll drop the death penalty, just plead guilty.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:13Speaker 00

  And maybe that's what happened here. In an interview with WSFA 12, Paula Cardwell said about Josh's decision to change his plea. I think he was uncomfortable with the trial coming up. And I imagine he was.

• 55:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:30Speaker 00

  I mean, the evidence was pretty strong against him.

• 55:35Speaker 01

  Right. I mean, if you, you take a picture of her and put it up on the screen and have all these people come in and talk about her character and who she was and how sweet she was.

• 55:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:46Speaker 01

  And then you have this guy come in, he's a thief, he robs, he deals drugs. Um, and he, you know, showed up days before casing the place and then did what he did. He's absolutely gonna get the, uh, found, be found guilty and get the death penalty.

• 56:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, I, I agree with you.

• 56:05Speaker 01

  So why wouldn't you want to avoid that? There's, there's no better outcome for him than what he did.

• 56:10Speaker 00

  No, no, absolutely not. He wasn't gonna get less than life in prison.

• 56:14Speaker 01

  No.

• 56:15Speaker 00

  No way. And I don't know what he thought he was, or how he thought he was going to be able to swing this insanity defense. I mean, there was nothing in the research to suggest that he had any mental health issues or anything like that.

• 56:33Speaker 01

  I suppose he didn't try to toss up the roid rage, you know, but.

• 56:38Speaker 00

  Maybe that was gonna be part of it. I don't know. She also said that she hadn't been able to forgive. She said, as a Christian, I know I need to forgive, but I'm working on that.

• 56:51Speaker 01

  Oh, I know we talked about this before, that did never forget, but forgive and all that stuff. I just don't know if I could ever be that person.

• 56:59Speaker 00

  No, I don't think I'm, I'm strong enough to do that. Some people are.

• 57:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:03Speaker 00

  And, um, you know, for many, it relates to their faith and all of that. I just don't, I just don't know. I don't know that I would ever be able to forgive someone for killing, you know, my child or my loved one.

• 57:17Speaker 01

  I'd probably be, I haven't seen this series yet, but I've seen the teaser for it. I'd be like that Harlan Coben show that's out on Netflix right now. The, um, I forget the name of it, but he ends up.

• 57:28Speaker 00

  Shocker that you forget the name of it.

• 57:30Speaker 01

  But he, you know, the, from the get go, they say, he says, I killed my son's.

• 57:36Speaker 00

  Killer.

• 57:37Speaker 01

  I was put in, yeah, he ends up killing the son killer. I'm like, yeah, I would do the same thing. Right?

• 57:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's kind of like the, uh, the Samuel L. Jackson character in the movie with, uh, McConaughey and Sandra Bullock, that great movie. I can't think of the name of it.

• 57:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:58Speaker 00

  One, A Time to Kill or something like that.

• 58:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:02Speaker 00

  Some, it's something like that.

• 58:03Speaker 01

  I would have done the same thing.

• 58:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:04Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 58:05Speaker 00

  So as we wrap this one up, you know, when you think about it, if Anna Catherine was still alive, you know, and we talk about this a lot, right? What would she have gone on to do? Well, most likely with her, she would have gone on to become a teacher. She could have chosen a different career path, but she never got the chance because her life ended, you know, way too soon. And with everything we talked about, it's pretty easy to imagine that she would have been an amazing teacher.

• 58:36Speaker 01

  Amazing teacher, amazing parent.

• 58:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  You know, I think it was unlimited of what she could have become.

• 58:43Speaker 00

  But especially as a teacher, you think about working 25, 30 years.

• 58:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:49Speaker 00

  How many lives do you touch in a positive way?

• 58:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:54Speaker 00

  It's pretty hard to calculate.

• 58:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:56Speaker 00

  Well, it's not actually that hard to calculate.

• 58:58Speaker 01

  Just how many kids in the class per year.

• 59:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, but you don't touch everybody, right? You don't reach everybody the same way.

• 59:05Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 59:05Speaker 00

  But you do reach some people and you inspire them.

• 59:08Speaker 01

  You figure two, 300 kids in that timeframe.

• 59:11Speaker 00

  So those people lost out, right? It's not that another teacher couldn't, but maybe she would have done something that others couldn't have done.

• 59:20Speaker 01

  She seemed pretty special.

• 59:21Speaker 00

  She did. She did care deeply for her friends.

• 59:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:26Speaker 00

  You know, to the point where, you know, she encouraged her friend Lacey to break up with Josh.

• 59:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:34Speaker 00

  Because she didn't feel as though Josh was treating her friend right. And that is ultimately what got her killed, right? Josh was so enraged that he plotted this whole murder. He stalked her and he wanted to get revenge on Anna Catherine.

• 59:55Speaker 01

  Wonder how long it took for him to realize that he was such a dumbass for what he did?

• 1:00:01Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:00:02Speaker 01

  I mean, think about it. He, he did what he did because he was upset that she had Lacey break up with him.

• 1:00:12Speaker 01

  We all go through breakups like we talked about. Who, who you're with in high school is very unlikely who you'll be with later in life.

• 1:00:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, doesn't always happen.

• 1:00:22Speaker 01

  Doesn't always happen. It does happen sometimes.

• 1:00:24Speaker 00

  It does happen sometimes, but I think by and large, it's not a huge percentage.

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, but if, if Lacey doesn't want to be with you, regardless of who helped her make that decision, did he think by taking out Hannah that this was going to make it better? It just.

• 1:00:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, she might have talked to her about it, but it's not like she forced her to do it, right? Casey had to have, or Lacey had to have a big part in it as well. It's just, she probably helped guide her, but here's my thing. You asked the question. And my answer is, I think by and large, most dumb asses don't realize they're dumb asses.

• 1:01:03Speaker 01

  Oh, that's true.

• 1:01:04Speaker 00

  And that's why they remain dumb asses.

• 1:01:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:06Speaker 00

  You know? If they knew or had the, the, the wherewithal to understand that they were dumb asses, they might change their ways, but they don't.

• 1:01:16Speaker 01

  I think that's the most we've said dumb ass in a.

• 1:01:18Speaker 00

  I think I just said it four in one sentence, four times in one sentence. But, you know, obviously it's sad, right? Because Anna Catherine Cardwell, by everyone who talked about her, was just described as this incredible person. And anytime a younger person is taken, it's always just a little bit tougher. They haven't lived their lives. You don't know what they would have gone on to do and, and all of that. But it is such a senseless murder.

• 1:01:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:49Speaker 00

  Yep. It's, you know, I, I don't know how many murders make sense, very few, but this one is extremely senseless. In the fact that it, it did nothing in the grand scheme of things. It was never going to do anything.

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:02:04Speaker 00

  Just like you, you said.

• 1:02:06Speaker 01

  So pointless.

• 1:02:06Speaker 00

  It wasn't magically going to make Lacey run back into this guy's arms. Right? It was, it was just purely about revenge and. But that's it for our episode on Anna Catherine Cardwell. And that's it for another episode of True Crime All The Time. So for Mike.

• 1:02:25Speaker 01

  And Gabby.

• 1:02:25Speaker 00

  Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.