What Happens When Your Ex Hires A Hitman To Have You Killed

Who would try to hire a hitman to kill an innocent young girl? In early 2021, Riley ended a relationship with a man she had been in a year-long online relationship with after she alleges he assaulted her. Despite the breakup, he continued to message her relentlessly. Instead of backing down, Scott escalated his feelings of anger, turning to the dark web. He paid $19,000 AUD to hire a hitman to kill her. The reality of the plot became clear when police knocked on the door of Riley’s family home. It was her mother, Jamie Elder, who answered, learning that someone had tried to arrange her daughter’s murder. Jamie is now Riley’s advocate, fighting for justice while the man accused of orchestrating the hit walks free. You can follow Jamie on TikTok and support her advocacy here https://www.tiktok.com/@gratitudealwys. CREDITS Guest: Jamie Elder https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0533976/Host: Gemma Bath https://www.linkedin.com/in/gemmabath/?originalSubdomain=au Senior Producer: Tahli Blackman https://www.linkedin.com/in/tahli-blackman-205a891b7/?originalSubdomain=au Group Executive Producer: Ilaria Brophy Audio Engineer: Jacob Round GET IN TOUCH Follow us on Instagram and TikTok @truecrimeconversations https://www.instagram.com/truecrimeconversations/?hl=en Make sure to leave us a rating and review on Apple & Spotify to let us know how you're liking the episodes. Want us to cover a case on the podcast? Email us at [email protected] mailto:[email protected] or send us a voice note. https://help.mamamia.com.au/en-US/send-a-podcast-voice-note-467960 If any of the contents in this episode have caused distress, know that there is help available via Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636. We’re giving away a Your Reformer Pilates bed (worth $3,400) Subscribe to enter http://mamamia.com.au/your-reformer-giveaway/?utm_source=mamamia&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=subscription&utm_content=reformer-giveaway We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:02Speaker 00

  Scott won't stop messaging. It's early 2021 and Riley broke up with him a good few months ago, gently, kindly. But the good morning texts and manipulative updates haven't let up. As soon as he sees her online anywhere, ping, a message appears in her phone. The pair met online, dated briefly, and met in person just once in his hometown of Beverly Hills, California. It was during that meeting that 19-year-old Riley alleges she was coerced into having sex against her will. The encounter left her feeling ashamed and scared. Once home in Idaho, she told him it was over. But now, he won't leave her alone. He's acting like what he did to her never happened.

• 0:47Speaker 00

  It isn't until a teasing, casual conversation with her sister that it starts to unravel. "Have you had sex?", her sister asks. Riley, not expecting the question, bursts into tears. She tells her everything. Her sister doesn't muck around. She contacts Scott. She calls his dad. She makes it very, very clear. Leave Riley alone. Scott replies strangely. "I'll leave her alone", he tells her. Consider this matter closed. What he does next is beyond the sister's wildest imagination. Scott turns to the dark web. He lands on a hitman-for-hire website.

• 1:30Speaker 00

  And unbeknownst to them, he hands over 19,000 Australian dollars.

• 1:41Speaker 00

  I'm Gemma Bath and you're listening to True Crime Conversations, a podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know the most about them. Riley's story is one of hundreds. Out there on the internet, there is a website where everyday people are paying so-called "hitmen" to kill people in their lives. We're talking husbands orchestrating their wives' deaths, disgruntled exes planning kidnapping torture plots, kids wanting their parents taken out of the picture, ordinary people with ordinary lives planning unthinkable things. It was UK journalist Carl Miller who stumbled across the back end of this website. And after rallying a small team of hackers and journalists,

• 2:23Speaker 00

  he took it upon himself, in the height of the COVID pandemic in 2020... To try and stop as many of the kill plans as possible. His podcast following that journey is called Kill List. We spoke to Carl on this podcast in 2024. And at that point, he'd already intercepted 175 kill orders, leading to 34 arrests and 28 convictions in 11 countries, resulting in over 150 years of custodial time. The website itself was a hoax. It would take payment but wouldn't follow through with the murder it promised. In some cases, frustrated clients ended up taking matters into their own hands. This brings us to Riley.

• 3:07Speaker 00

  She was one of the names on this website. Today, we're talking to Riley's mum, Jamie Elder. Riley has chosen not to be interviewed and has instead given her mum her blessing to be her advocate. The crimes of Scott Quinn Burkett are not the only thing the Elder family are grappling with. Jamie also lost her daughter Abby to suicide last year. Please keep in mind that we do discuss this towards the end of the episode. Jamie has dedicated her time to spreading both her daughter's stories. She joins us now.

• 3:40Speaker 00

  Jamie, thank you so much for joining us on True Crime Conversations. I want to start by you telling us a bit about your daughter Riley. What's she like? What's she into? How did she grow up? I know you guys are from Arizona.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  Riley is my middle daughter, second oldest. She is my sweet child. She's the epitome of stuffed animals and drawings. And she loves anime and art and the big heart. And she's the reader of the family. And she loves fantasy and dragons and fairies. And so she grew up in Arizona, started going to school. And then I pulled all of my children out and they were home schooled. From fifth grade, Riley was home schooled.

• 4:33Speaker 00

  That's a lot of work for you.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, and we moved to Idaho in 2015. And we were there for about seven years and then we moved back to be the family. She's an introvert.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  She's just my sweetest kid, for sure.

• 4:48Speaker 00

  She lived a lot of her life in her later teen years online, didn't she? That's where she kind of made friendships and kind of joined communities.

• 4:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, most of my kids did, actually. I think it's just the times.

• 5:04Speaker 00

  The generation.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  And being home schooled, it was able for them to reach out and have a community that wasn't in person. But yeah, a lot of online activity.

• 5:15Speaker 00

  When did she meet Scott Burkett? That was online, wasn't it?

• 5:20Speaker 01

  It was, yeah. It had to have been late 2018, early 2019. The beginning is kind of a blur. She had joined a Facebook and Discord group for her favorite anime show, Ruby. And Ruby is all about women empowerment and it was her absolute favorite. And she was part of a community and they approached her about helping you like an admin for the social media pages. So the groups of admins would get together and they would meet each other up in, you know, on Discord or on video chat and kind of discuss how they were gonna run the groups. And Scott was another admin of that group and that's how they met.

• 6:05Speaker 00

  Excuse my ignorance here, but what is Discord? Is it just like a Facebook or what is it?

• 6:11Speaker 01

  It's, it's an app that is, it's all chat rooms, basically. So there's a lot of fandom. I mean, there's a lot of dark things on Discord as well, but most of it is for groups of kids that are fans of the same things. There's gaming and anime and just chatting and get to know, getting to know each other. And it's pages and pages and pages and pages of just chat. These kids just all getting together in different groups. So there, people can own their own server and create their own group. And it's kind of reminiscent of like, you're probably way too young for this, but like AOL chat rooms, you know, how they used to have?

• 6:53Speaker 01

  People would create chat rooms that people would like minds to get together and kind of.

• 6:57Speaker 00

  It sounds like the MSN from my era, if you remember that. MSN Messenger. They, they just come back in different eras and iterations, don't they? Did she ever talk boys to you? Did you know Scott was kind of happening? Did you know that she was having chats? Because she would have been, what, eighteen?

• 7:21Speaker 01

  Hmm, seventeen, eighteen, yeah. Yeah, I mean, she talked about all of her friends. I, I, it wasn't, it was quite a while before she specifically spoke about him. Probably, hmm, early twenty twenty, maybe she started talking more, singling him out. You know, they were more talking one on one as opposed to in the group. So, yeah, we kind of knew.

• 7:46Speaker 00

  Was Scott her first real relationship?

• 7:50Speaker 01

  Hmm, yes.

• 7:52Speaker 00

  And what were they like in a relationship? It was quite full on, wasn't it?

• 7:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it wasn't in person. So it was all, you know, video and internet and phone hours on the phone. And very innocent, very silly, almost. You know, they're very, um, that genre of kiddos are, are just, they seem innocent. You know, they're into cartoons. It's anime, you know, they're into drawing and art and very lighthearted. Um, very unassuming, you know, it was kind of like a really young, um, a young person's romance. You know, it was silly and fun and pretty innocent, really.

• 8:37Speaker 00

  When I say full on, I think I've heard Riley saying, you know, they were saying I love yous within a few weeks and they were quite infatuated with each other. But I guess what you're saying is even that kind of side of it, it was all, there was an innocence to it.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  Absolutely, yeah. It was very, um, little girl school crush kind of, you know, the way they spoke to each other because they would be on speaker, I could hear them talking and it was just silliness. You know, it was, they talked about cartoons. They, they talked about, I mean, I'm sure they have private conversations. I'm not completely delusional that they didn't have adult conversations. But knowing my daughter.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  Riley, when she, even when she reads, she doesn't read romance. She, she doesn't, she's not hypersexualized. You know, she just wasn't. She wasn't my kid that just, if, um, you know, I would get her a series of fantasy books and she would start to read them and she's like, nope, there's too much romance. Like, most girls her age back then were into like Twilight and she just wasn't about it. She didn't like that kind of, that genre. So she was more like a puppy love, I think. That's what I perceived it to be, anyway.

• 9:57Speaker 00

  What did you know about Scott? Cause he was a few years older, he lived 500 miles away in LA. What had she told you about him?

• 10:05Speaker 01

  That he was in IT, um, he did some form of, um, IT for a company. And that he was, he was just very nerdy, uh, just a dork. I mean, unassuming, silly, goofy. I knew that he still lived with his parents and, um, any communication I ever had with him, he was just awkward and a very young or, um, nerdy, dorky kind of sense of humor, you know, just seemed very innocent. Didn't seem daunting or scary at all. He just seemed like a goofy kid.

• 10:49Speaker 00

  So did you have any reservations about their relationship and what they were doing?

• 10:55Speaker 01

  Absolutely, I did. While it was online, no. I mean, you know, you can't get in too much trouble on the internet is what I, you know, I mean, as long as you're not taking pictures or, you know, and Ry is a pretty smart kid, you know, so I didn't, I didn't really worry about that. It wasn't until they decided to meet that. I had my major reservations.

• 11:19Speaker 00

  What were you nervous about?

• 11:21Speaker 01

  Everything you see on the news.

• 11:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  Exactly what happened.

• 11:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:25Speaker 01

  That's what I was nervous about. And as I got closer to the meeting, I refused to take her to the airport. I told, I said, you know, you're an adult and I mean of sorts. And you can choose to do what you want, but I can't support that. It's not safe. That's not safe for you to do. So a family member took her to the airport because I just, and I love her. I told her, I love you. I hope you have the best time. Stay in contact with me, but I just.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  I didn't, I had fears and I didn't want to deliver her into someone's hands, you know?

• 12:05Speaker 00

  How did she feel about that? Was she just pure excitement or was she kind of, she knew how you felt?

• 12:12Speaker 01

  Hmm. She did, but I wasn't mean about it. We weren't in a bad place, you know? You know, you think of a nineteen year old girl. You know, really what mom thinks really doesn't matter all that much, you know? And she was excited and I was supported her. I mean, I helped her pay out clothes and pack and, you know, I helped her through all of that. I just didn't want to be the one to deliver her. So she was excited. Not a lot of travel for that girl. So it was, it was her first solo trip ever that she'd ever flown anywhere by herself. So she was excited.

• 12:48Speaker 00

  Like you said, it was October twenty twenty. It was just as COVID restrictions were starting to lift around the world. And Scott and Riley had planned their first ever in-person meeting, but they'd known each other for a year, a bit over a year by now, talking almost daily online. She was there for a few days. When she got back, did she tell you much about the meeting and what had happened?

• 13:13Speaker 01

  No.

• 13:14Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  She had shown me a couple of pictures that they had taken like on the beach. And she had told me about meeting his parents. She had stated that when she arrived there that they, they wanted to make her breakfast the following morning. And they had gotten her a hotel in Beverly Hills, right next to, they're pretty close to their home. And.

• 13:39Speaker 01

  She was gonna be there alone, you know, I thought.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  So the following morning, he came and picked her up and they went to breakfast after she had arrived at their house. And I remember her telling me that it was strange because I guess Scott's mother is a hoarder and she wouldn't allow, and she was terrified of COVID. So she wouldn't allow Riley in the house. And this is a very nice home in Beverly Hills, right off Rodeo Drive in LA. And they had breakfast outside, you know, so she never even got to see in the house. She said she could see through the windows, the piles of things, stacks of things. But that was, that was the first thing she told me. And then other than that, she just

• 14:26Speaker 01

  said, we went to dinner, we did this, we did that. You know, a couple of things, but nothing, nothing very specific. She was pretty different.

• 14:36Speaker 00

  When you say different, did you notice anything about her when she got back?

• 14:40Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 14:41Speaker 00

  Was her demeanor different?

• 14:42Speaker 01

  It was. She was quiet. She didn't talk to me too much about it after that for several months, a couple of months. But I knew that they were, she was cutting it off from him. And I just

• 15:01Speaker 01

  had other things going on as well. So I just thought maybe they met and he just wasn't the right one for her and she wasn't interested anymore. And, and I'm just kind of left it at that. She didn't really want to talk about, talk about it too much at first. So she just kind of went on with her life and she didn't say much to me for a while.

• 15:23Speaker 00

  She ended up confiding in her sister about six months after that meeting.

• 15:31Speaker 00

  As much as you feel comfortable, can you tell us what she told your other daughter, her sister?

• 15:39Speaker 01

  So my oldest, Jordan, noticed something wasn't right with her. Sisters do, right? Big sister. And kept bothering her about it, kept asking her. And finally Riley confessed that, that the, I believe, the first night that she got there, that he came over and they were watching anime together at the hotel. And he convinced her to stay. And she's like, I'm not ready for any of that. And I, I, he, she told her that he kept trying and wouldn't take no for an answer.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  And then he had been, at that time, had been still trying to contact her after she broke contact. So she told Jordan that he wasn't leaving her alone. And Jordan took it upon herself to call him, to tell him to leave, leave her alone. So Jordan called him and he kind of didn't react. He, he wasn't gonna stop. So Jordan is the oldest and she doesn't put up with much. She got on Google and found dad's phone number and called his father and said, I know what your son did to my sister. You better make him leave her alone.

• 17:05Speaker 01

  I don't know the exact words, but I believe Riley or Jordan, I'm not sure which, I think it was Jordan, got a text message from Scott saying, consider the matter closed.

• 17:17Speaker 00

  Which is weird. What a weird thing to say.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  He's a weird dude. Yeah. He's an odd duck, for sure.

• 17:25Speaker 00

  So this, like you were saying before, is your worst nightmare. This is what you didn't want to happen, actually happened. When you found out about this, how did you feel? What was your reaction?

• 17:40Speaker 01

  Anger. I was really angry. Broken for my kid, obviously. Broken for my daughter. And we talked about counselling and, you know, she just wasn't ready at that time. And I just listened to her and...

• 18:02Speaker 01

  That's a tough thing to hear your daughter tell you.

• 18:05Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  Um, yeah. But we, you know, he was leaving her alone, so we kind of moved forward and talked about counselling and, and we, we talked about it a little on and off, just when she was ready and when she felt ready, we talked about charges, but those things are really hard to prosecute.

• 18:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, they put the victim through a lot.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. Hmm.

• 18:35Speaker 00

  So did Riley start to move on with her life?

• 18:41Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  A little.

• 18:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  Um, she was working still, but that was about it. She was working and, and she had other, you know, other community, you know, so she just kind of kept going.

• 19:04Speaker 00

  You're listening to True Crime Conversations with me, Gemma Bath. I'm speaking with Jamie Elder, the mother of Riley Elder, whose ex-boyfriend Scott attempted to have her killed through a murder-for-hire website. Up next, Jamie tells us about the day she found out that her daughter's ex-boyfriend had hired a hitman to kill Riley.

• 19:28Speaker 02

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• 20:04Speaker 00

  The next part of this story kind of starts for you around May 2021. So that's almost, you know, nearly a year later. It feels like a jump scare to say and ask, but how did you find out about the murder-for-hire plot?

• 20:19Speaker 01

  So at this point, we lived in rural Idaho. And we don't get like knocks on the door or, you know, we didn't, we had just, we hadn't lived there long. I think only one person had ever knocked on our door and it was because our goat had gotten out. That's how rural we were, like nobody ever. And I had just walked in from work. It was probably 3:30 in the afternoon and a pounding was on the door. And I go to the door and there's a sheriff there. And I kind of step out because, you know, I don't know what he's there for. I thought maybe my goat had gotten out. I really did, like in the moment.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  Because that's what they do in those small towns. The police come to your door to let you know that your livestock has escaped, you know? And then he's like, does Riley Elder live here? And I, yes. What's, what's going on? Because when a sheriff asks, asked me, does Riley live here? What could she possibly have done? You know, she goes to work, she comes home. I just shock, I think. And he's like, something to the, it's very hard to recall everything he said, but something to the effect of, well, I'll just talk to you. There has been a credible threat made to your daughter's life. And I, I'm sorry, what?

• 21:50Speaker 01

  I didn't even know what to say, but he's talking and he's telling me that the FBI had contacted him earlier in the day and asked him to make first contact. That he can't tell me too much, but that someone had attempted to hire a hitman to kill Riley.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  And I'm just standing, I'm still in my work uniform, I'm just standing in my front yard, just mouth probably agape.

• 22:18Speaker 00

  I can't even imagine the words FBI, murder plot, hitmen, like they're things you're not, as a normal family living in Idaho, you're not expecting to hear that.

• 22:32Speaker 01

  No, that is

• 22:35Speaker 01

  the definition of surreal, right? You, you, you just kinda, I don't know, he's like, I, I would like if you and Riley would come down to the station so we can get a statement. And I was like, okay. So, um, he's like, don't, I, I have to ask you not to say anything to Riley. I have to ask you not to tell her why. I'm like, well, as soon as I walk in this house, all my kids are gonna be asking, why are the police here? And they probably, you know, they're gonna be asking me, so what, what do I say? And he's like, well, you can ride in my car or you can meet me there. And I'm like, oh, we'll meet you there. We'll meet you there.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  So I kinda walk in my house and all my kids are in the living room, just like, what's going on? You know?

• 23:24Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 23:27Speaker 01

  And I'm like, I, I can't tell you. Um, everybody's okay. Everything is okay. But Riley and I have to go talk to him. And Riley's like, what? What? Her little face, you know, just utter shock of like, what? You know, she's probably going over the past few days, like, did I run a red light? Did I, you know, what did I do? Um, and so we get in the car and I'm like, it's okay, you know? And it's about a 10 minute drive to the sheriff's station and, and, um, I couldn't tell her anything.

• 24:05Speaker 00

  That's hard.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  I couldn't share anything with her. And it's a small town sheriff's office and he, we meet him and he's walking through and taking us to a room and.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  And we sit down and, and um, he tells her. And her, like, the look, I will never forget the look on her face, like, ever, just. And he starts to tell us that somebody paid

• 24:39Speaker 01

  ten thousand dollars in Bitcoin on the dark web to have her killed.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  And I hadn't even heard that, like, that part, I just, that, you know, that someone had hired someone. And um,

• 24:55Speaker 01

  he's describing what's gonna happen, you know, the FBI um, just found it, um, will put a car at your house, kind of a thing. But I wanna ask you, do you know anybody that would want to have you? Cause he asked me that, he did ask me that out front of my house, do you know anybody that would want her dead? And I'm like, no, like, she doesn't know anyone, there's no one. And um, he asked her in that room. And I could see the realization in her face, and she looked at me and she goes, you don't think it's Scott, do you? Cause she doesn't know anyone else, like, she doesn't interact like that with, I mean, her coworkers, sure, but.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  And I'm like, hmm, I, I don't know why, I, I, it, maybe, you know? And he immediately honed in on it, who's Scott? So she had to recount her story there, again, and I had to hear it again. And I know that, that, that, that sounds selfish, and I don't mean it to come across that way, but as a mom.

• 26:06Speaker 01

  That's hard. Hearing that again. That's hard. Yeah, yeah. So he kind of gave us um, some information on the agents that were gonna be in contact with us and, and um, said he would put a car out in front of our house, that he doesn't think there's a threat. Because he said, I can't explain everything to you, but the, the threat was intercepted. At this point, we thought that it was a real hitman um, at the time. And then, I guess, I, I believe he made a phone call and asked if he could tell us a little bit, so we, we knew it wasn't real and, or not real, but.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  That's got had had been scammed out of his money. And my thought at the time was, what if he realizes he's been scammed and he tries somewhere else? You know, so that's the reason they put the car at our house.

• 27:03Speaker 00

  Did they say what was in the threat? Because he asked for very specific things to happen to your daughter. He asked for proof of life photos. He wanted it to look like a robbery gone wrong. Like, he knew what he wanted. That's eerie, that's horrible. When did you find out about those details?

• 27:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. Not till much later, not till, um, probably the second visit with the FBI.

• 27:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:36Speaker 01

  Because he said he, this was new for this sheriff deputy. He had not, he's in a small town. He just wasn't sure what he was able to tell us. So he kind of kept his mouth shut. So it was several days, I believe it was a Friday. I, it was towards the weekend before we could go to the FBI and get more information. But he said they'd be in contact with us and they'd set up a meeting. And, um, we had to go to, um, downtown the city to meet them a few days later. So it wasn't until then that we heard, um, that he wanted more things. And that's all they said at first.

• 28:21Speaker 01

  He wanted more things. So we didn't know what that was really for quite some time, a couple of weeks, probably.

• 28:28Speaker 00

  Was it the podcast, The Kill List, that actually alerted police of Riley's hit?

• 28:35Speaker 01

  It was.

• 28:36Speaker 00

  How does that make you feel? It was a podcaster, not even the police, that found this.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  They, it wasn't even on the police's radar. They, yeah, the podcast was doing an undercover investigation on the dark web. And they came across, Riley's wasn't the only one, and it wasn't the first one. And they came across multiple hit requests. And they tried to get the police involved locally, and then in the UK. And, um, nobody would really pay attention, so they started reaching out to individual victims. And by the time Riley's case came up, the FBI and Interpol and everybody was involved.

• 29:18Speaker 00

  The FBI turned around and asked of Jamie to basically go along with the plot for a little bit, to fake her death. Tell me about that, because

• 29:34Speaker 00

  for someone that's already quite traumatized by everything they've just heard, that feels like a really big thing to ask someone to do.

• 29:44Speaker 01

  Sure. I think a lot of this comes down to just shock. You know, when you're in that much shock, you're just kind of like, okay, you know, it doesn't seem real. So when we went to the FBI office that Monday morning, she had to recount her story again. And it was a strange FBI office. Like, we weren't allowed in the inner office, like, there were multiple locked doors. And we came in just a tiny little room with a tiny little table. And she recounted her story, and they asked her for her phone. So, because they wanted all the copies of text messages and all the Discord messages and all the Facebook messages. And they wanted everything. And so they got it and they were, um, working on it.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  And there were so many that they asked us to leave the phone, because it was going to take days. Because with, with certain of the apps, there's no way to just download it all. They did Discord where they had a machine that scrolled and screenshotted each message.

• 30:45Speaker 00

  Oh, my God, painful.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  So the invasion of privacy

• 30:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:50Speaker 01

  alone for a young girl.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  That bothered her at first, you know, but she's like,

• 30:58Speaker 01

  it is what it is, you know, we're gonna have to get through it. And then. When we came back to get the phone for the next interview, that's when they asked us. They told us they were going to be setting up some form of operation. They wouldn't tell us much about it. And the case was being transferred to the LA, California FBI office, and they were going to be handling it. So this agent was getting excited. You could tell he was like chomping at the bit to like, catch this guy, you know? And he's like, we want to catch him and we want to, we want to use, you know, a faked death photo.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  How would you feel about that? And Riley's like, okay, if it'll catch him, I guess. So he made a phone call to, I can only remember her first name, Caitlin, who was the other FBI agent in LA, and asked if that's something that they would like. And they said yes. In the meantime, he had made a phone call to her and said, you guys can go in town or whatever, have some lunch, something like that, and I'll let you know. And so we went to a coffee shop and we're just kind of sitting, talking about it. We're like, Riley, how do you feel about posing for a corpse photo? You know, we're having this conversation and I get a text message on my phone from the FBI agent.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  Something to the, I wish I still had it, but it was so devil oh seven looking silliness. Just the oddity of it is basically like, we are a go for the photo. Meet us in the parking garage. Oh, my God. I'm like, am I in a Lifetime movie? Am I in a movie? You know, like, this is ridiculous. So we pull out of there, out of the coffee shop, and they're coming out of the parking garage in this like black tinted sports car. I shouldn't be laughing. And he's like, we're going to go to the local zoo area. So Boise, the city of Boise, Idaho is very heavily treed. And there's a river that runs straight through the city.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  And it runs by the zoo. So the agent gets out, we get out. It's like, we're going to go down by the river in the mud and the leaves and take this photo. So.

• 33:26Speaker 01

  It was the agent and a forensic specialist. He wanted him there so that it would look more realistic. They could pose Riley laying in the leaves in the mud more realistically. And they laid her down and they had her put her forearm up. She had a distinctive tattoo that Scott had described to the hitman. And they laid her out and the agent just took his cellphone and took a couple of pictures. And he showed it to the forensic guy. And he's like, oh, I like that your foot is in the photo. That looks like you're the killer. That looks good. That works. They were like jazzed about getting this guy, like really. And Riley got up and I picked the leaves out of her hair and

• 34:13Speaker 01

  we went home.

• 34:14Speaker 00

  Did it have an effect on her doing that?

• 34:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. It did.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. Nightmares. I mean, not that she wasn't already having them, but they showed me the photo.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  They showed us the photo. That is a really strange moment because that could have been a reality, right?

• 34:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:40Speaker 01

  And she eventually got that tattoo covered.

• 34:43Speaker 00

  Because of that?

• 34:44Speaker 01

  She never wanted to look at it again. Yeah.

• 34:47Speaker 00

  I kind of get from the way you're talking that you felt like the FBI agents may have lacked a bit of empathy or understanding.

• 34:58Speaker 01

  I think they really loved their job.

• 35:00Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  You know, and at first, yeah. I mean, at first I did feel that way, but can you imagine their job?

• 35:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  Like, I can't even imagine. And I think that if you don't have some form of levity in that line of work, I don't know how a good, a good and decent human being would survive. So if it means

• 35:24Speaker 01

  If they have to get excited about their job to catch the bad guy, I, you know, I'm okay with it because at the end of the day, they're not the ones that hurt her, you know, and it, and it turned out that he was caught, so.

• 35:39Speaker 00

  When you look at it now in hindsight, do you think it was necessary to put her through all of that?

• 35:44Speaker 01

  I mean, they, they had him and when they did this thing, they really had him. And then the, yeah, they never used the photo that I know of. It's not in any of the court documents that they ever used it. Um, they also, shortly after that, um, interaction, um, I sent all of my children to Arizona to stay with my mother because I was worried that he was going to show back up. And, um, so I sent them all to Arizona. And while in Arizona, they hooked up with the Arizona FBI and that agent had my mother take Riley to the local grocery store and take stalker photos of her as if she were the hitman.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  So my, my mother, Nana, is at a grocery store, um, the local Walmart in that small town, because she's in a small town as well, taking pictures of Riley and they did use those photos.

• 36:45Speaker 00

  Playing hitman.

• 36:47Speaker 01

  Hmm. And they used those photos, the hitman sent them to him, like, is this her kind of things?

• 36:56Speaker 00

  After the break, Jamie describes how it felt for her and Riley when Scott was finally charged, arrested and locked up.

• 37:06Speaker 00

  So they arrested him, they charged him with using interstate facilities to commit murder for hire, locked him up straight away, kind of no bail. How did you both feel when that happened?

• 37:18Speaker 01

  Relieved.

• 37:20Speaker 01

  Relieved.

• 37:23Speaker 01

  I was relieved. I was glad that there was a, it was a female judge that held him unremanded because he had a team of lawyers. His, his family is well off and he had a team of lawyers and they worked really hard to try to get him out on his own or get him out on bond. And she was like, mm, no, we're not having that. So she kept him in there. Well, they were basically using character references to try and get him out. They were. While he was in, he tried to bribe an inmate, a fellow inmate, another, I believe, 10,000 to falsify evidence and get him an alibi. So that's him done. And he's basically shown his hand there.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, but they didn't charge him with that crime. So. Why? I don't know. So when all was said and done, the, um, the judge was changed to a man who I believe has a history of slapping people on the wrist. Um, that's just my opinion.

• 38:31Speaker 01

  It was, he cut a deal. The max you can get for that crime is 10 years and they cut a deal for five. So at sentencing, um, you know, the judge can decide, but there were a ton of character witnesses that came out for him, writing letters and I didn't know, we had written our victim impact statements and sent them and Rye didn't want to go to the sentencing. And, um, so we didn't go, we sent our letters. So after the sentencing, the prosecuting attorney and Caitlin, the FBI agent, called me, um, to kind of debrief

• 39:14Speaker 01

  me over what happened. And they were. Both women, and they were, they were like appalled. It was, it was weird talking to them afterwards because they were telling me about how the sentencing went and the character witnesses and the letters and things like that. And they were like, yeah, we were just shocked at some of the things that the character witnesses said, some of the things the judge said. And so they gave me little bits of that information. There was a character witness that stated while in college, he would volunteer to escort young women from classes or dorms late at night so they would be safe. And that made him a good guy.

• 39:57Speaker 00

  What?

• 39:59Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:03Speaker 00

  And that worked, apparently?

• 40:05Speaker 01

  Apparently, it did. The judge, I have the exact words somewhere because I downloaded all of the court docs, but you can see it in there when he's talking to Scott and doing the sentencing. You're a young man with a bright future, kind of a thing, you know? I can't see sentencing you to all this time. So five years seems appropriate. So that you can, I want you to come out of this and, and make better for yourself and...

• 40:42Speaker 00

  This is 2022, this sentence.

• 40:46Speaker 00

  I can't believe that mindset is still happening in 2022.

• 40:55Speaker 00

  Like, at the end of the day, he hired a hitman to murder his ex-girlfriend.

• 41:04Speaker 00

  How did Riley feel hearing he could have gotten 10, he got five?

• 41:10Speaker 01

  She was, I know she was angry. I know she was angry. But Riley just moves on. She doesn't hold.

• 41:24Speaker 01

  I don't know that it was a survival technique of just not holding on to the anger and the resentment and the, you know, I think she was angry at first and then she just kind of went on.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  Went on. I was livid. I was livid. Speaking to the FBI agent and the prosecuting attorney that day of the sentencing. I asked them. Are you gonna charge him with trying to bribe an inmate to falsify evidence? Oh, I don't know, we might. I don't know yet, we might. And that could have gotten him some more time, you know? And he's obviously not sorry.

• 42:07Speaker 01

  You know? I mean, of course, his statement, he's sorry, I'm sorry. But he wasn't sorry, he was sorry he got caught.

• 42:14Speaker 00

  Hmm. Is he still in prison?

• 42:19Speaker 01

  No. No, ma'am.

• 42:22Speaker 01

  So, um, he did time in a very cushy prison. And it was supposed to be five years. And over here, we have like a victim's notification system. So Riley had signed up for the victim notification system. So they would know when he was getting out and different things like that. And every couple of months, we would get, she would get an email. Oh, we've moved up his release date two months. We've moved, we've moved it up two more months. We've moved it up two more months. And every time she would get that email, I was just like, she was terrified.

• 43:04Speaker 00

  Was there a reason given as to why?

• 43:07Speaker 01

  Good behavior, just because.

• 43:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, right.

• 43:09Speaker 01

  There was, you know, there were a couple of other court hearings that his attorneys were trying to get him out sooner. But the judge knocked it down. It's just prisons are so overcrowded here that there's a lot of early releases. And so after, I believe it was April of 24, they put him in a halfway house. And then she was supposed to be notified before he was released. And in November of 24, we had, we had the last notification we got that he was gonna be released around Thanksgiving of 24, completely. So in November of 24, I just looked it up to see when his release date was.

• 43:54Speaker 01

  And they had released him on October 11th and not told her.

• 43:58Speaker 00

  What was the point of signing up?

• 44:01Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 44:04Speaker 01

  Your guess is as good as mine, but they did not tell her and we were, he was out for a month before we even knew. So, May, May, uh, May 21st of 21, he was arrested and he was fully released October 24.

• 44:22Speaker 00

  Is there a fear knowing he's out there again? Do you think he would do anything?

• 44:27Speaker 01

  Uh, he's supposed to not make contact, right? He's not supposed to be able to, he's got six years of probation. I don't even know if that has been lifted or shortened. Um, we don't get notified on things like that anymore. But he's not supposed to be utilizing the internet to contact her or, you know, try to contact her through third parties. But with the internet, you can be anyone. She could be talking to him and she wouldn't know it if she were on the internet, you know?

• 44:57Speaker 00

  Does she think he has contacted her?

• 45:00Speaker 01

  No.

• 45:01Speaker 00

  You have made it your mission to make sure that Scott Quinn Burkitt doesn't get to, in your words, live in the shadows. Can you tell us about that?

• 45:13Speaker 01

  Since this happened, someone knocks on our door and everyone hides. My children hide, they get quiet. I have a sign that is at the end of my driveway that says, no unannounced visitors, period. If you know us, call first. If you, if you don't know us, you have no business here. But inevitably, some door-to-door salesman will knock, pound, you know? And a creak outside, even now, Rye won't sleep, you know, she stays awake. And the thing is, is that the hit was put out before my daughter threatened him.

• 45:55Speaker 01

  Before any of that, he knew what he did and he was worried about getting caught. Before my oldest daughter ever called him, the hit was already out.

• 46:05Speaker 00

  Really?

• 46:06Speaker 01

  Yes. We didn't know that till after the court, but yes, he knew what he did. If my child can't live free, he shouldn't either.

• 46:17Speaker 00

  She's very lucky to have you advocating for her.

• 46:21Speaker 00

  I want to ask you about Abigail if I can. You you lost your daughter Abby to suicide last year in January twenty twenty four. So that's a lot of trauma for one mum to be carrying. You've lost your daughter.

• 46:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:37Speaker 00

  You've had another daughter who's been sexually assaulted and gone through this horrific court process.

• 46:46Speaker 00

  How do you hold all of that? How? How were you doing with all of that?

• 46:52Speaker 01

  I have a purpose. I have my faith. And I have a purpose. So now I talk about

• 47:02Speaker 01

  not only Riley's story, but Abigail's story.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just talk about it. I I want suicidists. He got a couple. Our family's been touched by a couple of the biggest issues we have in our society.

• 47:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:22Speaker 01

  In any country. One is suicide. It is the second leading cause of death of children between the ages of ten and twenty four. It is the biggest thing hitting our fam- our our children right now. And number two, boys being boys.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  That's a big problem. Boys being boys. And I don't mean that in all men are bad or anything like that. I'm just saying that's what judges say. Boys, we're good boys.

• 47:54Speaker 00

  Still.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  Oh, this young man's got a bright future. That's how I hold it together. And maybe it's a little bit. It's not vengeance, it's justice.

• 48:05Speaker 00

  Talking about your girls, advocating for them, you're big on the TikTok space. You've been talking a lot there.

• 48:14Speaker 00

  What kind of difference has it made? Has it helped others? Has it helped you? Has it helped everyone? What have you noticed?

• 48:20Speaker 01

  It's helped me immensely.

• 48:26Speaker 01

  I know it's a little cringe to have an almost 50 year old woman on TikTok.

• 48:30Speaker 00

  No.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  You know, it's a little cringe. Some of my stuff is a little cringey, I'm not gonna lie. But it's almost like therapy, you know? I tell the stories, I talk about the things, I go through the emotions, I talk about the awareness and the little things that I'm doing to try to

• 48:54Speaker 01

  try to bring awareness both Scott's creepy face and, and my sweet Abby. And I know it's helped me immensely. And the people, God, perfect strangers are just phenomenal human beings, you know? They will show up for you. But I know I've helped others. And the community of moms out there that have, that I've made that have either their children or themselves have survived violent crimes, or there are mothers who have lost their children to suicide, they'll all tell you the same thing. They're telling their stories too. And people reach out to you in your private messages and say, "Thank you. Thank you for telling that story.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  I, I can't, I saw your face, I couldn't do that to my mother. Thank you for letting, helping me see my value." And it's not just me, it's all the moms that are doing, and some dads too. There are dads too. Good dads. And, and these kiddos, that's where they're at. They're on TikTok, you know, and they see, they come across these stories and they, for whatever reason, connect.

• 50:02Speaker 00

  You're saying these kids or young adults are coming to you and saying, "I didn't go ahead with a suicide attempt because of your video."

• 50:10Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. Because of Abigail's story.

• 50:12Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 50:13Speaker 01

  Or Andrew's story, or I just, there are other, there are other, there are other moms doing the same thing, and I watch their comments and they, we talk. And they're like, "Oh yeah, this little one sent me a message." And, you know, I talk to them on occasion, you know, and it's, yeah. Talking about it, showing the reality of the aftermath of suicide.

• 50:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't, I can't explain it with these kids. And not even just kids, but young adults and even older adults will send you a message. And what a blessing that is, you know, that you, that I was able to tell Abigail's story. And it helped one person, let alone multiple, you know? That's huge.

• 51:00Speaker 00

  How's Riley doing now? How's her 2026 looking?

• 51:06Speaker 01

  Worse.

• 51:08Speaker 00

  Really?

• 51:09Speaker 01

  You know, I think we've, we've had a lot of loss. So, um, my kids are definitely struggling, you know? It's only been, it'll be two years in January that we lost Abigail. And we've kind of been on a whirlwind ride since 2020, you know?

• 51:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:30Speaker 01

  So, and they're, you know, they don't have the support of their father. So they're kind of, and Riley's still scared, you know? When Abigail, uh, when that happened with Abigail, she quit working. She just couldn't, you know, just couldn't. And, um, she's finding her way back to her art and back to reading. And it's a slow process, but, um, yeah, just the hits kept coming for her, you know? For my kids.

• 52:09Speaker 01

  And, um, I think it's gonna be a while before everything is even a semblance of normalcy.

• 52:17Speaker 00

  Seeing what Riley went through firsthand, what do you want listeners who have heard her story and your story to understand about sexual assault, online relationships, the court process? What, what do you want them to take away from hearing this conversation?

• 52:38Speaker 01

  Honestly, be careful who you trust. Be careful with the positions you put yourself in because even though it is not your fault that those things happened to you.

• 52:54Speaker 01

  You're the only one that can protect yourself because

• 53:00Speaker 01

  the creepy guy out there is not looking out for you. And our justice system sure as hell isn't looking out for you. And as disgusting as it is that you have to constantly watch your back,

• 53:15Speaker 01

  you just do. And it's the sad reality that we live in. Do not think it won't happen to you. Because I hear stories every day. And every single one of them

• 53:32Speaker 01

  either doesn't get any prosecution or they get a slap on the wrist and they're skiing down a mountainside two years later on their daddy's dollar.

• 53:47Speaker 00

  As Carl Miller, the journalist behind the Kill List podcast, told True Crime Conversations in 2024, the hitman for hire website he hacked is still operating. He has long since handed over his backend access to the police, but it's not the only one on the dark web. There are multiple. There's definitely a demand for this service. And as Carl told us.

• 54:10Speaker 03

  I mean, there is something definitely very chilling about the capacity for some seemingly normal people to reconcile themselves with having someone else killed in secret. And not just anyone, someone very close to them, someone that has been very close to them, like someone that they loved or love.

• 54:35Speaker 00

  As Carl pointed out, 70% of the targets were women, with men wanting them dead because of money, revenge, control, jealousy or child custody. So this is a story largely about violence against women. But we need to clarify that Scott Quinn Burkett faced charges in federal court for a single count of using interstate facilities to commit murder for hire. Allegations shared by Jamie and Riley regarding an incident involving Riley have not resulted in any charges and there has been no prosecution related to sexual assault. Thank you to Jamie for helping us to tell her daughter Riley's story.

• 55:15Speaker 00

  Thankfully, the plot against her was one of the many either Carl or the police were able to intercept. If you want to see images related to this story, head over to our Instagram page, @truecrimconversations. For in-depth case explainers, follow us on TikTok under the same name. True Crime Conversations is hosted by me, Gemma Bath. Our senior producer is Tali Blackman, the group executive producer is Alaria Brophy, and there's been audio design by Jacob Round. Thanks so much for listening. I'll be back next week with another True Crime Conversation.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  True Crime Conversations acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast was recorded on.