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I have been listening to the Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club, which actually Elena recommended to me.
She did not listen to it, but she said, girl, this title sounds so you.
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Visit audible.com slash morbid. Some cases fade from headlines.
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Hey weirdos, I'm Elena. And I'm Ash. And this is a mini-morbid.
Yeah, it's small and creepy. Mini, mini, mini, mini, mini morbid.
Mini morbid, mini morbid, mini morbid. And by small, I mean like...
Medium size to large. It's about an hour.
Because it's Elena's mini episode. Yay. Which means it's going to be unusually long.
And we are kind of on limited time because Ash has like a life or something and she has somewhere to go.
Do you guys want to know where I'm going?
They do. You do? They do. Okay. I'm going to Fleetwood Mac tonight.
To see my gypsy moon soul sister on stage, Stevie Nicks, and I'm going to... to have a heart palpitation or five.
It's true, she really is. Yeah, I might sporadically combust into fire.
Into fire. So because this is a mini, we don't really do a whole lot.
We're going to thank our Patreons, our Patronuses, our beautiful lovelies. in our full length episode because we are kind of short on time and we want to make sure we get through this episode.
So. We don't have any more business. So we're just gonna jump right in Tell me what you're doing child.
Tell me what you're doing. So I'm not gonna tell you this case I'm just gonna lead you on into it am i gonna know it do you feel i don't think you are because i have known about this case for a long long long long time And it always interested me.
But when I looked it up, and I could be tooting my own horn here, I saw no other podcast cover this case. ever oh shit and i was actually kind of shocked because it's a crazy case like crazy is it scary it's real scurry and okay one two three go So this takes place in Fishtown, Philadelphia.
Fishtown, huh? Yeah, Fishtown. And weirdly enough, it has nothing to do with marine life.
Damn it. Yeah, I know. Burst your bubble.
Already, I'm picturing I Know What You Did Last Summer was that setting.
I know, right? Like, that's Fishtown. And it's not at all.
So the setting of this crime in question is a local hidden hangout called The Trails in Fishtown.
Oh, no. Nothing good goes down on the trails.
No, the trails is never a good place to do anything.
And it's actually kind of like a public park near the Delaware River.
It's kind of dirty. It's off the beaten path.
Kids like to hang out there and do bad shit.
There's also a lot of homeless people in there.
Yeah, there's lots of drugs. There's lots of illicit activity going on in there.
So already, you know this isn't going to be good.
So we're going to take you to Memorial Day weekend, 2003.
That's supposed to be a fun weekend. It is, but it was not.
So two teenage boys were hanging out on the trails.
And they came across a scatter of bloody bones all of a sudden.
Great. And they were like, What the hell is this?
So they initially thought it was like a deer or something like some kind of animal, but then they moved further up the trail. and came across a battered beyond recognition male human body.
This male human body had no shirt and his pants were down at his ankles.
So they immediately called 911. And when investigators arrived, they said the head of this victim was bludgeoned so badly that it was completely unrecognizable.
He had gouges from his chin to his nasal cavity.
Pieces of his face were just completely missing.
Teeth were lying in the grass next to his head.
Yeah. Did animals get to him? No. this is just him being like super he was very fresh and this was all done by someone else So the lead detective on the case who got there first said all you saw was eyebrows and hair But his face was completely torn to pieces now it was also clear to investigators that he had grabbed the ground with his hands at one point and had tried to frantically get away from whoever was attacking him His pockets were turned inside out, and his cash and ID were missing.
Okay. So Detective Mark Williford... the lead investigator for this case said that the scene really affected him in a profound way.
He said he hadn't ever seen anything like it and hasn't since.
It was that bad. Well, I think you'd be, like, the straight-up devil if it didn't affect you at all.
Right? But, like, you'd think, like, a homicide detective, you've seen some really bad shit.
Like, this must have been really bad. That sounds like way up there.
Yeah. Obviously, the next thing to look for is the murder weapon, because usually it does get... I thought you were going to say the murderer.
Obviously, we might want to look at who did this.
I mean, that's... obviously the next thing to look for is the murderer so that to-do list says like discover body check find murderer check check And we're on to number two.
How to solve a crime for dummies. They just busted out the yellow book.
Like, wait a second. What's the next step?
Sorry. You know what? That sounds like some police departments we have covered, so it's not even crazy.
Usually the murder weapon does get taken by the perpetrator away from the scene, but sometimes, and oftentimes, they are dumb enough to leave it at the scene.
Or they trash it. Exactly. So, ding ding ding, nearby, they found a huge rock that had blood all over it.
Oh no. Then right next to the body, they found a bloody hatchet.
Hatchet? Yep, hatchet. I hardly know it.
So it looked like... these two things were clearly they were bloody they were related troublesome they were right next to the body they were like these probably were involved So they followed some of the blood trail that was like scattered and inconsistent around the body.
And it led to this weird little like makeshift shack.
Where a homeless man was living in the woods.
Nope. Now when they got this guy out of the shack, he had blood on his face.
Nope. So they were like, yo, where'd you get that blood on your face?
And he was like, oh, I cut myself. And they were like, you didn't. we're gonna go ahead and detain you so they detained him and meanwhile the body was brought to the medical examiner's office And the autopsy was done by Dr. Ian Hood, who has one of the coolest Australian accents I've ever heard.
I watched a documentary about this. We know you love an Australian accent.
It's an awesome accent. So when he took a look at the body, he's noticed that there was not a lot of decomposition.
The body was very fresh. Ew. So they estimated the murder likely occurred about like less than 24 hours previous to when they discovered him. which put his death on late Friday afternoon or evening of May 30th, 2003.
He explained that most of the blows had happened on the front, top, and right side of this person's head and there was complete destruction of the right side of the skull.
In the end, only one bone in his cheek remained unbroken.
So everybody. bone in their face was broken except for that every single other bone in his face and skull was broken or completely you know when you like accidentally like hit your nose on something or like you know what i mean like that hurts so bad and you're like that's the worst pain ever yeah can you imagine your entire i mean don't imagine it but like your entire fucking face being broken Good night, Seattle.
And this guy was clearly helpless too. I mean, like he was on his back laying on the ground with his pants at his ankles.
So besides all the injuries that clearly occurred right before his death, he had a pretty recently healing laceration across his hand.
So that had happened before. he'd even met this fate that he met.
This was important because they could use this to identify him, hopefully.
Because remember, this poor guy had basically no face or head left to identify him.
And no teeth. Well, and so they were like, you know, maybe a missing person. with a laceration on their hand, because oftentimes when they report missing people, they'll say whether they have like recent marks on them or something so you can identify them.
They were like, maybe this can help. So the other detective on the case, Detective Richard Reinhold, went through all the missing person reports from the previous day and one stuck out to him.
It was a very recent missing persons report, like hours old.
Only hours old? Yeah. And it was of a 16-year-old boy named Jason Sweeney.
Oh, no. Oh. I didn't want him to be that young.
Not that I wanted this to happen to an old person, but no.
But currently Jason had been working with his father as a construction worker, so they thought the laceration on his hand might fit that type of work.
Oh no. So they went to Jason Sweeney's home.
They talked to his parents who were a mess.
Because he got along with his parents. He was a good kid.
So they were an absolute mess that he hadn't been home. yeah when they spoke to his sister melissa she confirmed that jason had cut his hand kind of badly while working with their dad at the construction site like within the last day or so So the family said they had actually written in the missing persons report that mark as an identifier.
Oh, so they showed them the photos of his hand in the wound post-mortem, and they all confirmed that it was definitely him. just based on that wound.
Oh, wow. Yeah, physically. And just by looking at him, that is literally all the family could identify him by.
So 16-year-old Jason Sweeney was a good-looking, well-built construction guy.
He was described by those who knew him as quote every mother's dream oh my god he was extremely loyal very generous very hardworking that's horrible he liked to joke around And honestly, he just sounds like he was like a really good person and kid. working really hard towards the goal of becoming a Navy SEAL, and was on his way to starting the proper education and training for it in the next few years. since his pockets were emptied and his ID and cash were stolen, they obviously started focusing on the motive of robbery.
Because... He was making really good money working for his dad.
And Friday was payday. He had just got paid.
So back at the station, police were interviewing that homeless guy that they found living near the crime scene with fucking blood on his face.
Because this scene was clearly a robbery of some sort, and like I said, it was payday, Jason had made $500 that week working with his dad, and it seemed like Sign me up for construction.
Are you fucking kidding me? So he had $500 on him.
That week? Yeah. Whoa. There was no money found on the homeless man and none in his shack though.
That's interesting. So they check his alibi, which was that he spent all of Friday at a homeless shelter where other people could say he was there.
And it was confirmed. So he really just cut his face.
Dead end. He literally did just cut his face.
He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. yeah so he was like no I really didn't so they thought that was going to be a home run and it was just a dead end So now Jason's family gives detectives a list of his closest friends and people he's hung out with the most and people who are around him recently.
Mm-hmm. This list included 16-year-old Nicholas Coya and 17-year-old Dominic Coya, who are brothers.
Okay. And assholes? One might say. Okay.
It also included 16-year-old Eddie Batzig, who was Jason's literal best friend for like 12 years.
Is this going to be a best friend murder?
I don't know. I just don't know. Who really knows?
The list also included his really new girlfriend, 15 year old Justina Morley.
The two had just started dating pretty casually, like a couple weeks before his murder.
Exactly. So they were just kind of like, we're going out.
This was his first girlfriend. Yeah, she lived a few doors down from the Sweeney house.
She was something special. Oh, no. She was pretty troubled, Justina Morley.
Still is. A little bit about this demon.
Justina Morley claimed that she started smoking weed at the age of 10 years old.
Holy shit. That's pretty young. Uh, yeah.
It's literally a fetus. Like, whoa. Yeah, smoking weed, 10 years old.
And then shortly after that, she started taking prescription pills and snorting coke.
Shortly after 10. She's like Drew Barrymore-ing it.
Oh, yeah. Holy fuck. She does not turn out like Drew Barrymore, though.
Don't we all want to turn out like Drew Barrymore? right talk about a survival story i know for real you would never know she started out the way she did So Justina's mother said that her daughter started cutting her wrists at the age of 10 as well.
What happened in her life? She had been hospitalized for threatening suicide and self-mutilation in 2002. which was a year before this case, and she was admitted to Friends Hospital for cutting her wrists, knees, and thighs, taking pills... writing a suicide note on her door.
When she was in there, Justina threatened to commit suicide if her mother didn't take her out of the hospital.
So against the doctors and the hospital's advice, her mom took her out of the hospital, which is never a good idea.
No. And this was only a year earlier, just to...
So, wait, why, did anything happen in her life, like, that you could find that made her so upset?
I couldn't find anything that, she just is a troubled kid. i didn't see anything that in you know a lot of these kids have like pretty normal i shouldn't say normal i feel like everybody has some shit in their life some people worse than others and it's like these kids sure a few of them had like you know absent parents or something like that that but right it wasn't anything i saw nothing major yeah so then justina had also been expelled from public school in eighth grade For why?
I have no idea. Oh, wow. She then had to repeat eighth grade again at the private school, Holy Name of Jesus, which was a Catholic school in Fishtown.
Holy name of Jesus. I know that's a school name.
That's where she needed to be. Holy name of Jesus.
We're sending you to holy name of Jesus.
So that's Justina. Jason's mom said, quote, the night before he was killed...
Jason and I sat there talking and he said, Mom, I'm dating this girl.
I've been dating her for a couple weeks and she's really nice.
I think you'll really like her. His sister, however, was immediately like, this girl knows what happened.
And she told police to check her out because she was like, I got a bad feeling.
Yeah. His sister seemed like she was really close to him.
Like it was sad to watch her interviews.
And she was like, I just had a feeling. And she was like, she's his girlfriend, new or not.
Like two weeks or not, you're around him a lot.
You know what's going on here. Like you have to know something.
So detectives bring Justina in to the station.
And right away, they break the tragic news to her that her boyfriend has been brutally murdered.
Let me guess, she doesn't bat an eyelash.
Doesn't bat an eyelash. Emotionally totally detached, super chill, like zero reaction.
And they're like, she tells police. Well, and they're like, when's the last time you saw your boyfriend or talked to him?
Like, Have you wondered where he is? Yeah.
And so she tells police the last night she saw him was Friday during the day.
And she said... He had failed to attend a party in the woods that night that was attended by Eddie Batzig, his best friend, and the two brothers, Nicholas and Dominic Coya.
He had said he was coming and she was bummed, but apparently not worried and not worried enough to do a damn thing to contact him when he didn't show up to the party.
Right. she was like oh yeah i was a little bummed but like he didn't show up and like also this is 20 or 2003 you could have texted him Well, and it's, like, that's the thing.
It's, like, she didn't even contact him to be, like, where are you?
Because, like, you would think that you'd be, like, annoyed if he wasn't there.
Yeah, like, you said you were coming. What the hell?
Like, where are you? So something wasn't right about Justina right away to the investigators.
They were like, yeah, this is just a little weird.
So after she brought up Eddie, Nicholas, and Dominic, they decided to bring in Eddie first because that's Jason's literal best friend.
So they find out he was a mess too. He was a thief who had broken into a house before, done a bunch of other bad shit.
Uh... He was known to have abused heroin, weed, and prescription pills.
What the fuck? Which all of these kids did, by the way, except for Jason.
Why was he hanging out with these kids? They were a wreck.
And he was going down a really bad path.
So, oh, and along with Justina, Dominic, and Nicholas, they had not just smoked weed.
Like, being like, he abused weed. Like, that's not what...
But they didn't just smoke weed. They smoked it spiked with embalming fluid.
What does that do? I have no idea. Where do you get embalming fluid?
I was at work the other day, and I was thinking about it.
I'm like, what the hell would you do with embalming fluid?
It must... change the high in some way i mean yeah i would assume so do you know how bad that's gonna like fry your fucking brain cells Like, formaldehyde will fuck you up.
We can't even open a bucket of formaldehyde without having, like, a mask on.
You know, when you do keratins at work, a lot of times they used to have formaldehyde in them. but they don't anymore.
But what they don't tell you is the chemical reaction of you straightening it into somebody's hair produces formaldehyde.
Oh, that's so bad. It's so bad to breathe in.
Yeah, never do it because that's bad to breathe in.
No, I would literally never. Yeah, that's real bad.
Well, don't and don't smoke weed with embalming fluid in it, anybody, please.
Yeah. It doesn't produce good results. I thought you were just saying that to me.
I was like, I didn't really plan on it. I'd be like, you don't do that either.
Nobody do it. Everybody just stop. Put down the embalming fluid.
So the investigators break the bad news to Eddie that his best friend was brutally murdered.
Has been brutally killed. He also had barely any reaction at all.
Okay, that's fucking weird. Also, was he on heroin at the time?
Well... And that's kind of one of the things that they're like, okay, we can't immediately take these things as like signs because they are all drug addicts.
So we can't really describe. Christ. So this did make the investigators suspicious.
But when they pressed about who could have hurt Jason... uh eddie was like no one would hurt jason everyone loves jason like he was like i can't think of one person everyone loves him weird so they were like okay His alibi was that he was waiting for Jason at the party that Justina talked about.
He says Justina is telling the truth. And he basically regurgitated the exact story word for word.
Which is never good. No, it's never good because it starts sounding rehearsed.
The investigators said that after they mentioned they had spoken with Justina, he became weirdly concerned with Justina's well-being. way more than he was for the fact that his best friend had been brutally murdered by some unknown assailant.
Like, he was concerned with Justina's well-being.
Like, is she okay? You talked to her? Everything's okay with her?
Like, they were like, yeah. So were they hooking up on the love?
Well, they prodded and asked if he had something going on with her, and he claimed he did have a crush on her and had asked her out before, but she had said no.
Okay. So that's when they were like, does this bother you?
Like, did it bother you that Jason was dating her?
Right. And he was like, oh, my God, no, like got pissed and denied that he would ever be jealous of his best friend.
So they were like, okay. You are though.
So they left because they were like, all right, we're going to take this and put a pin in it.
So a few hours after this, Jason's dad and his sister said that they came home from talking to investigators themselves. to find Eddie and Nicholas Koya at their house.
They were there waiting for them because they were eagerly wondering whether the cops had found anything or had any leads now this wasn't like concerned friends being like do they know who did this like they were more like uh did they tell you that they know anything like do they have any evidence of who did like are we gonna get caught because we don't Definitely killed him.
Exactly. And Jason's father ends up confronting them and asking them point blank what the fuck they know.
Like he was like, what do you know? Yeah.
They obviously deny and deny. But Jason's family smartly called the police after this encounter and said these...
Kids are acting strange. Like you've got to bring them back in.
Something's weird. So now they bring Nicholas Koya in.
This is horrible. Oh, it gets, it's crazy.
Nicholas was like a skater kid. He also abused heroin, weed, and prescription drugs.
At 16, what the fuck are you doing on heroin?
And this wasn't just like hearsay. Court testimony later on. revealed this so these kids like this was on record that they were all into this stuff He tells the exact same story as Justina and Eddie.
He claims everyone loves Jason, no one would hurt him, but he admits that...
He did recently sleep with Jason's girlfriend, Justina.
Oh, so this girl. Oh, and she gets worse.
So they were like, okay. So next, they bring Dominic, his brother, in.
Dominic Coya. abused the same kind of shit that they all did heroin weed alcohol he was he was a really messed up kid He says he hadn't seen Jason since the previous Friday.
Same story as the rest. He says they had been friends for about four or five years.
And he couldn't think of anyone who would want to hurt Jason because Jason was a great guy and everyone loved him.
The same exact story that they all are giving.
This is so annoying. Now the investigators are like, yeah. you're this is all too similar like you're all clearly choreographing this so they look at him he's the 17 year old he's the oldest one of the bunch So they look at him and they start trying to pin it on him with the motive of money because his parents had recently told him he had to leave the house when he turned 18.
So he's like, no way. I would never rob my friend because I love Jason.
He's a great guy. Bop-a-doo. So they're like, all right.
So they focus back on Justina. because they're getting the vibes all around here, but they just need something to tie this all in.
So they look for the weak link and they're like, That's definitely her.
And Justina was giving them the creeps from the jump.
So they were like, all right. So her mother brought her into the homicide department.
They tell her they don't believe her story.
And they're like, we just don't believe you.
Like, why don't you fess up? So she gets all upset.
She's crying. She's acting crazy. Investigators are positive it was just a show for her mother.
Like she didn't really feel these things.
She was just pretending. So now investigators are like, listen, if you would just spill all the shit that you obviously know, we'll strike a deal with you.
So she immediately agreed. And the story changes.
Is this another deal with the devil? This is a, yeah, pretty much.
So she says Dominic was like the alpha of the group and he came up with this plan.
And he's the oldest, right? Yeah, he's the 17 year old.
The plan was to rob Jason. So it was Friday, payday.
They all knew he was going to have $500 on him, at the least.
And instead of working like Jason to get money, they all just wanted to steal his so they could just party with it.
That's all they wanted. They just want to party with his money.
So she says that Dominic got Eddie and Nicholas into the plan as well.
And she said that he got her into it to act as the bait to lure Jason to be robbed.
So she also said she was only pretending to care about Jason the entire time so that she could steal from him.
Like she didn't like him at all. But she says there was never any plan to murder him that she knew of because, yeah, right, bitch. yeah like no justina good try but she's gonna play that act for a while she's like i had no idea they were gonna hurt him i thought they were just gonna rob him and that's fine right so now that she's told this story She says Dominic told her to lure Jason on a hike or like a date in the trails on Friday with the promise of sex.
Jason was a virgin. Justina was very experienced at 15.
And very good at sexually manipulating boys as it comes to... Oh, good.
Yes, that was kind of her thing. So they knew this would be a sure way to at least get him where they needed him to be.
So they went to this particular location, Justina and Jason. went to this particular location on the trails.
But then she stopped and said, you know, this is dirty.
I don't want to be here. I have a better place to go.
So she took Jason to a prearranged location that was even more secluded. they started undressing they started making out she had pulled his pants down and taken his shirt off That was all part of the plan.
To get him partially nude so that he would be more vulnerable and his pants were at his ankles so he couldn't run.
Oh my god. This was all planned. So meanwhile, during all of this, Nicholas, Eddie, and Dominic were hiding in the bushes with latex gloves on. holding rocks, a hatchet and a hammer.
Yeah, but they had no fucking plan on murdering him.
No, and she had no idea. And this was his best friend.
Best friend. And two other friends who he saw all the time and hung out with for like five years.
Yeah that's literally so fucked up. And they're all waiting for the moment to jump out.
So Justina is telling investigators that she set him up to be robbed.
But when she saw all the weapons and shit started to go down, she freaked out and had no idea that they were planning to murder or hurt him.
She said she just stood there watching. She said she was too frightened to do anything.
Oh, sure. Because she's such a delicate fucking flower.
So now that the story has spilled out, the rest are all brought in now again.
So all four, including Justina, were placed in different rooms to be interrogated.
Because they were like, we're going to fucking crack these kids.
Like, it's going to happen. They're all idiots.
So they go to Eddie first, the best friend of like 12 years.
Wow, what a fucked up individual. They told him, we know you're lying. justina gave you up we know that you were involved you were there he confesses like right away Like he's like, yeah, you know what?
I was. So they ask him who struck Jason first.
And he says, quote, that was me with the hatchet.
Are you kidding? Best friend. And he said he hit him a total of four or five times with the hatchet.
He also told the detectives, he told Detective Reinhold that he insisted that he strike the first blow when they initially planned it.
Why? He said he hit him with the hatchet as hard as he could in the forehead.
And according to the ME, that particular wound was like two to three inches deep in his forehead.
Why did he want to be the one to do that first?
Well... according to him actually i'll tell you in one second so according to jason's family They said if Eddie had asked Jason for the $500, he would have just given it to him.
Because he took care of Eddie. Right. Like he was like he always cared about him.
And he said that Jason's mom said he wanted to believe the best in everyone.
And even when I told him that his best friend Eddie was going down the wrong road and I didn't want him near him.
He said, quote, Mom, maybe if Eddie hangs out with me he'll change because I don't do those things.
Wow. So he was like, if he wanted that money, he could have said, can I have your 500 bucks?
And he would have been like, here, dude.
Wow. So investigators said Eddie actually had zero remorse and still referred to him as his best friend during the interrogation.
What the fuck? There's video of this interrogation and it's true.
This kid has zero emotion. Zero. He tells it so matter of fact.
It's so weird. And he's like, I wanted to hit him first.
Well, and what's crazy, Eddie said it wasn't even money as a motive for him.
He was hoping it would impress Justina by hitting him with the hatchet.
He was hoping to impress... By hacking at Jason's skull with a hatchet.
Where does that thought process even happen in your brain?
Like, this not only tells me a ton about Eddie. goodnight Seattle fuck that this doesn't just tell me a ton about Eddie this tells me a shit ton about Justina If you're looking to impress this bitch... Well, she was obviously wicked dark and fucked up.
By hitting her current boyfriend in the head with a hatchet?
Like, something's wrong here. Yeah. So I'm just going to read you a little snippet from the interview.
The police said, did you intend to kill Jason?
And Eddie said, yes. Uh-oh. The police said, how did you strike him?
Can you show me? Eddie said, both hands like that.
And he put his hands over his head and whacked. oh my god then the police said what did jason say and eddie said please stop i'm bleeding and the police said what did you do when he said that and eddie said i hit him again these people are literally the devil now and this is a 16 year old kid who is his best friend Then he literally says, quote, Jason started begging for his life but we just kept hitting him.
Then they finished him off at the end by dropping a boulder on the right side of his head.
Oh. My god. And like the ME said, Sweeney's head was completely crushed and the only bone left undamaged was his left cheekbone.
They put a boulder, they threw a boulder on his head.
They literally took a boulder and dropped it onto his head as he was laying there like dying.
And then they used the money they stole from Jason to buy weed, heroin, and Xanax.
What the actual fuck? Yeah. So now it was Dominic's turn to be interviewed. dominic's the 17 year old um the police said quote why did you guys kill him and dominic said i guess for the money So they said, how much did you get from him?
And he said, $125 each. So they said, what weapons did you use to kill Jason?
And he says, quote, a hammer, a hatchet and nature.
Nature. So they said, what do you mean by nature?
And he goes, a boulder, a rock. Are you kidding?
Dominic said they planned the murder far in advance and had listened to the Beatles' Helter Skelter about 43 times before they did it.
43? Charles Manson. Yeah, that's weird.
And they probably took it from Charles Manson.
Like that whole thing. They were like, let's be like the Manson family.
Except you're not at all. So, and in the press, a lot of the articles I read about this, they did draw that in and sensationalize it a little bit, like, oh, Manson family style.
Yeah, bye. So... And Dominic said, quote, we took Sweeney's wallet out and split up the money and we partied beyond redemption.
But first he said that they, quote, shared a group hug.
It was like we were all happy with what we did.
No. Like, you're, what? And he literally is telling and investigating somebody.
He's like, we were all happy and we all hugged.
After we did that. Because we killed a really good person that no one would ever want to hurt.
That was our friend. And they were all drug addicts, so one of the detectives was like, were you high during this killing?
Were they? Like... And Dominic said, quote, no, I was as sober as I am now.
It's sick, isn't it? Yeah, it is. That's literally what he says.
Fuck that kid. He's just trying to be like, I'm Mr. Cool.
Well, and I have a really funny little like thing about Dominic later, which might make you laugh, but he also said that they all wanted Jason to suffer.
Which leads me to believe that money was not the only motive here.
They were fucking jealous of this kid. He had the life they refused to work for.
They were jealous of his money. They were jealous he had a good head on his shoulders and he was down a good path.
And it was something that they were never going to have because they refused to work for it.
So why don't you just work for it? Go to rehab.
Yeah. And he was someone everyone liked.
He was a good kid and they knew that they were never going to get that because they weren't going to do shit to get that.
So they just wanted to steal it from him and erase him.
So it's just purely inadequate people just taking their shit out on a higher life form.
The fact that they were sober during that is like the most terrifying thing ever.
Totally sober. Yeah. Now, Dominic said he started hitting Jason with the hammer after Eddie hit him with the hatchet.
He said that Jason was crying and begging for his life the entire time.
And he actually told investigators that at one point he hit Jason so hard with the hammer that the hammer became embedded and stuck in his head.
Oh my. Yep, and Justina confirms this later.
So police said, did he attempt to flee to get away? dominic said yeah once so the police said what happened when he tried to do that and dominic said he was hit with a rock And they said, by who?
And he said, my brother. Oh, my God. So now it's Nicholas Koya's turn because now they're like, oh, now we got to talk to Nicholas.
I'd be like, I actually have to take a break now.
Can I have a power closer? Yeah, this is a lot.
I need to take a break here. So now it's Nicholas's turn.
Nicholas just admits everything too. Okay.
But he says, quote, I only hit him with a rock.
Like that's fine, right? No. Like I didn't use a hammer or a hatchet.
I used a rock, okay? And you still killed him.
So after Jason was dead, they split the $500, $125 each.
That's not even a lot of money. Like... No.
Like, you killed someone for $125. Like, get a job.
You'll get more than that per week. Honestly.
Did any of them have jobs? I don't think so.
I think they were all just like deadbeat assholes.
Awesome. So this is when Nicholas revealed the big twist that should shock approximately no one.
Justina was not just a decoy. Yeah, definitely not.
She was fully involved. She knew about the murder plot all along and participated.
Happily. Yeah. Not shocked. So they go back to her and they tell her, listen, we know you're a lying sack of shit.
So she confesses. and said she never cared about Jason at all.
And she said he was just one of the guys that she controlled with sex.
Just one of them. Just one of them. You see, she also had Dominic, Nicholas, and Eddie under her control because she routinely slept with all of them, mostly to get heroin.
Wow. She was 15. Just remember that. She basically used sex to make these dudes do what she wanted.
That was her thing. At 15 years old. Normally, I would be like, I mean, you do you, girl.
Like, you want to control people around you with your... body that's on you like that's fine but she was a fucking demon obviously like this is not a normal like I'm just, you know, she's not empowering in any way.
No. Just in case people are like, you're slut shaming.
Like, I'm not slut shaming. Oh, no, we're not.
She murdered somebody, so if you think that, go fuck yourself.
Yeah, like be strong, do what you got to do.
Yeah, live your best life. I would not shame someone for that.
But don't hurt anybody. This is clearly a different circumstance.
Yes. Because I think somebody said that in one of our reviews.
They were like, they slut shame. And I was like, what the fuck do we... I'm constantly being like... No, we just murder shame.
I don't really think of, like, murderers as humans, so.
Yeah, like, I'm not calling her a slut. I'm not doing anything like that.
But she's a demon. Yeah. That's what she is.
They're literal demons. Yeah, literally.
She admitted also, quote, Eddie swung his hatchet and hit Jason in the right front side of the head.
And Jason staggered. Jason touched his head and realized he was bleeding and said, what are you doing?
And started to run. Dominic jumped on Jason and started hitting Jason on the head with his hammer.
Jason was saying, please, no guys, stop, please.
Just so you know, this particular passage gets a little graphic, so just be aware.
Then she said, quote, Dom jumped on his back and started hitting him with the hammer.
I saw the hammer go into his head and it wouldn't come out.
So she confirmed what Dominic just said.
That is the most graphically horrifying fucking piece of evidence that I've ever heard.
Yeah. So according to Justina, Jason's last words were to her, and he said, quote, you set me up.
Wow. So his last words were looking at her and saying, you set me up.
Good. I hope that fucking haunts her forever.
Except I know it won't because she's a demon.
Yeah, it doesn't. But I still hope it does.
So apparently both the Coya brothers, Eddie and Justina, went to a friend's house immediately after killing Jason.
Are you kidding? Yeah. And this friend, who I did not see a name for, said, quote, Dominic comes in.
He's shaking. Well, they're all shaking.
They're saying that they did it. They couldn't believe they killed Jason.
So he just nailed them. wow so all four of them were arrested for murder when it went to trial the state wanted the max sentences possible oh she's wicked ugly ew She's scary looking, actually.
She literally looks like a demon. She looks like she could do something.
Reinhold. One of the lead detectives on the case that we mentioned earlier said at 38 years of law enforcement, he had never seen anything so horrific.
So he agreed that they should be locked up forever.
And he actually supported the death penalty in the case for Dominic. i would think so the original judge on this case called it something out of the dark ages It literally is.
And he called it, there was like a medieval tinge to this.
It was so brutal. Like, what the fuck? So during the trial, a lot of Justina's dark shit came out.
And it also came out that Justina had slept with Nicholas and Eddie only a couple weeks prior.
In exchange for heroin. And she had often done that.
Ew. So she was very involved with the seedier side of this group as well.
Now, the Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney Judy Conroy said, quote, the brutality of this case is really beyond the spoken word.
The injuries and the extent of the injuries and the amount of force necessary to inflict those injuries is unspeakable.
It really is. So even though they were all juveniles, they were all charged as adults.
Good, because that's an adult crime. Yeah, that is very much an adult crime.
Now, of course, the attorneys on their side tried all the shit about their crazed drug addicts.
They were on drugs. They said it like that shit negates responsibility. for a highly choreographed murder and robbery plot like this wasn't a crime of passion this was so choreographed it was everything Jason's mother was quoted as saying she doesn't believe she never believed that shit at all.
She said, quote, No, no, these children, they plotted this.
It was very well thought out right down to their alibi.
Even at the preliminary hearings, the lawyers did a sidebar And the four of them sat there smiling and laughing.
It was absolutely horrific. They were laughing?
The four of them literally sat there smiling and laughing at the preliminary hearing.
Now Justina pled to third-degree murder because she copped that deal.
She got 17 and a half to 35 years in prison for her testimony against them.
I really hope she got 35 years. which is bullshit because she could be out of there by the time she's 50 yeah and she doesn't deserve to be and it's like she's probably getting like better drugs in jail I know she probably is.
Eddie, Dominic and Nicholas were convicted for murder, conspiracy, robbery and possession of an instrument of crime. and all were sentenced to life in prison good dominic almost got the death penalty but they struck that down and made it life Now when sentencing them the judge said quote there is a level of inhumanity that exists in these facts.
This was a totally depraved act. Now, in jailhouse communication between Justina and Dom, because they rate light-ups to each other... that isn't like not allowed in some places yeah i mean it i think it all depends on where but They write letters to each other.
It shouldn't be allowed. Oh, you know what it was?
It was these letters that I'm about to read you were when they were during the trial, like awaiting trial.
Oh, okay. Okay. So they were actually used against her later.
Oh, good. I'm glad. In one of the writings to Dominic, she wrote, quote, Like I, this girl is so like extra too.
Like I'm like, okay. She looks like she would.
Take it down a notch. She wrote, quote, So you say I'm manipulative, and yes, I believe I am in ways.
I'm persuasively manipulative. And I think I'm pretty good at it too.
I enjoy dragging people around. and then she said in another letter quote tell me you don't enjoy these gullible humans it's funny how easy it is to persuade them into lies Then, in possibly the most damning letter she wrote, she said, quote,
I am guilty but I still don't feel guilty for anything I still enjoy my flashbacks they give me comfort I love them no no no no no no no no yep flashbacks to the murder yes comfort her and they give her comfort and she loves them So the prosecution used these letters to imply that she was exactly...
Guilty. lonely i lure them and then i crush them like bitch you are 15 take it down a notch I think she's the devil.
She's acting like she's queen of the damned here, and it's like, no.
You've just got a bunch of ugly dudes to follow you around for a little while and convince them to murder a dude that thought he was dating you.
Yeah. Like you did something awful and stupid and you found stupid people to do it with you.
She's overwhelming me. She is overwhelming.
So when Assistant District Attorney Judy Conroy asked Justina on the stand if she took pride in what she'd done, She probably said yes.
Well, and she said, according to these letters, it looks like you did.
You did. morley said on the stand yes i did and the prosecutor also got her admit that she and the boys were quote excited when they planned the murder Can you imagine having to be the parents of Jason and listen to this?
Oh my god. Like, how do you not commit another murder in the fucking courtroom?
Literally, I think I would literally, I think.
I couldn't go. I know. that i if i was in that room i would try to kill her literally like 110 like if that was my child i can't even fathom these poor people But yeah, she's totally capable of rehabilitation after literally a few years in prison.
Oh, this is interesting. Also on the standing court, Justina admitted that shortly after they were arrested...
She stripped for the three guys in a prison van on the way to the courthouse.
Ew. Like, I just saw a photo of her and I don't know why they were so obsessed with her.
She had no eyebrows. She looked dead inside.
Her eyes were sunken in. Like she was not cute.
Like that face looks like it's a face that has been involved in a lot of dark shit.
And yeah, for real. Like, you look at it and you're like, yeah.
Like, Voldemort? Is that you? She kind of does have a Voldemort-y.
Of Voldemort-y kind of situation there. So, unfortunately, in 2012...
The US Supreme Court ruled that life sentences given to juveniles were a violation of the Eighth Amendment.
It's not, though. The Eighth Amendment is the one that says the government can't, you know, put cruel and unusual punishment upon you.
It's not cruel or unusual. Not for them.
And so they require juvenile sentenced to life to be brought back in to be resentenced.
Retried, yeah. So they did have resentencing hearings.
Nicholas's was in 2015. All of them have the same sentence in the end.
They didn't change any of them. At 28 years old, Nicholas was brought in in 2015.
Jason's mother, they were at every single one of these resentencing hearings.
Jason's mother said that the court needed to uphold the sentence and she said, quote, quote, And she said, quote, The four of them originally wanted to murder me and my whole family while we slept.
Oh, they did? Now, I can't find a ton about this, like particular plot that they had apparently.
But holy shit. So they were originally planning on murdering this whole family.
But then they settled on just killing Jason.
Like, what the fuck? And it was in testimony.
So it was like they said they admitted to it in court.
Judge Sandy L.V. Bird sentenced him to life in prison again without the possibility of parole. upholding the original 2005 sentence.
And she said, quote, this is an uncommon case there are no factors which remove the defendant from the punishment of life in prison without parole.
Not only did he plan the assault, but he participated in the assault, which was so violent that Jason Sweeney had to be identified with dental records.
Now, personally, I think they deserve the sentences, even though they were juveniles.
No, they do. I mean, there's certainly cases where this can have a gray area like the juvenile sentencing of life.
And I totally recognize that that can happen.
But, like, there's a case, a guy named Josh Phillips, who we're definitely going to cover at some point.
We'll probably do it in another Minnesota or Patreon. uh bonus episode so i won't get too far into it but he was like 13 or 14 when he murdered like his eight-year-old neighbor in a very weird, very scattered, like, panicked state.
Like, it wasn't a planned thing. And when you read the case, it's very fucked up and very weird, but like... it that that's one in particular that like he's like in he's like almost 30 now i think and he's like i'm not like i didn't plan that i didn't i would have never done that Is he the one that hid her under his bed?
Yeah. Yeah. And that seems like it was kind of like just this weird... He didn't want to get in trouble.
Yeah, so it was like those kind of things I can get to the gray area with and be like, okay, maybe they can.
Be rehabilitated. But a 16-year-old, that's a tough one for me because I knew right from wrong I have 16. yeah you know you do the right thing or make the smartest decision no but i definitely knew i was up when i was and you definitely didn't murder anybody Also, Dominic was days away from being 18.
You are a full ass man. at 18 and don't even tell me differently and also this was highly highly planned Highly planned.
Down to the last second. The fact that they were going to kill the whole family is like, whoa.
This wasn't like a youthful, like, fuck up, you're like 13 and you do something stupid and you don't know how to fix it, so you just... do something even dumber to fix it.
Like this is 16, 17, almost 18 year olds. planning things for weeks it's like come on get out of here so So this is just as a kooky side note towards the end here.
I found a website where you can write to prisoners and Dominic was on it.
Did you write to him? No. But this is what he wrote about himself to entice you to write to him.
Would you like to hear it? No. Goodnight, Seattle.
Hi, I'm in prison. No way. Considering meeting me is very Audrey Hepburn of you.
I have been incarcerated since the age of 17.
At that age people naturally go their separate ways.
What my situation did not destroy, I sabotaged myself, believing the world's better off without me.
Boo fucking hoo. My mom abandoned us when I was four.
Growing up, I was painfully shy, total stage fright in any interaction.
This led to adopting liquid encouragement along with other social stimulants, which made for a good quick fix, but the bonds forged were not built to last.
There you have the main ingredients of my present isolation.
Forgive me if that is TMI, but I felt that this should be a bit more personal than to say, oh, I don't know.
Forlorn, lonely prisoner of a man seeks lively chitchat.
I'm into creative writing, playing guitar.
I'm in between guitars at the moment as detailed in my semi autobiography account on steamit.com.
No, bye. It is in his autobiography. It's called How My Guitar Caught Hep C by Jiminy Hans Bob.
It's a pen name, not my gangsta name. That would be Two Bits McTrouble.
Pause the entire show. Ash literally just put her hand up and backed away.
My gangsta name? Two Bits what? His gangsta name is Two Bits McTrouble.
I'm not with the living. Two bits make trouble.
Two bits with trouble. And luckily, he's physically active.
He's an unbalanced yogi. And no matter how much I exercise, I remain built like a flamingo.
What? I also love animals. Like anyone, I'm a work in progress.
While I cannot tell you I'm an angel, I do make the effort.
Things I can take back or change motivate me nonetheless.
Too bad you can't take back killing someone with a boulder.
Too bad we can't take back your birth. Like, that's a bummer.
Yeah, two bits make trouble. Bye-bye. Two bits make trouble.
See you. Two bits make trouble in reverse.
Right back up into that womb. So this little shit stain blames his mother leaving when he was four and his shyness as a kid on his present predicament.
Like, yo, my mom was no peach either, but I didn't kill anyone with a boulder. well and that's it's like obviously he has learned nothing so far because he is taking zero responsibility even now for what he did He's just saying like, oh, my mommy left and I was kind of shy.
So I did a ton of drugs. Whoops. That's how I ended up here.
It's like, no, you ended up here because you're a demon from the pits of hell and you killed someone.
So fuck him. uh paul and don sweeney jason's parents set up the jason keel sweeney foundation in memory of jason This foundation funds a full scholarship to the Valley Forge Military School.
That's the school of Jason's dreams. He had wanted to attend it to become a Navy SEAL.
He had actually been accepted into the school in 2001, but he couldn't afford the tuition.
Oh. So that's why he was working along with his parents because they were all trying to save up to send him there.
Wow. And these fucking four fucktards. Took it away.
Wow. Just completely took it away. So that is this unbelievably tragic, horrific... story of the murder of jason sweeney i really hated that i'm just surprised no i haven't heard about it from a lot of other I don't think I've ever heard it.
And I was like, this is such a bananas case.
Where did you find it? Well, I had originally seen it a long, long time ago.
I had read about it because I was just, I mean, this was in 2003.
So I was in like high school. So I was like literally probably just like surfing around true crime stories on the internet.
And I just happened to see this one, like an article.
Wow. And I remember reading it and thinking it was the most bonkers thing I've ever heard.
That's insane. And I remember specifically seeing the picture of Justina Morley and being like, tap. bitch is scary looking.
Yeah, she is. It just stuck with me, so I was like, perfect mini-sode. loved it probably except hated it not many so either no it's like an hour long that's okay So yeah, so hope you guys enjoyed and hated and are horrified by that.
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That's me, morbidpodcast.com. We hope you keep listening.
And we hope you... Keep it weird. But not so weird that you're like a heroin addict who has to have sex with like five different people at once because you want to kill your boyfriend and he's not even your real boyfriend and then you throw a rock on his head which is really fucking rude. it is don't do that it's all really don't keep it that weird don't be that weird guys Bye.
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The town of Agde in France is famous for sun, sand, sea and sex.
But lately, life on the coast has taken a strange turn.
The town's mayor, a respected pillar of the community, has been arrested for corruption.
His wife claims he's been bewitched by a beautiful clairvoyant.
Then there's the mysterious phone calls that local people have been getting.
I am the Archangel Michael. The whole town has been thrown into chaos.
As the mayor is unable to carry out his duties, I would like to address you all.
Legal proceedings have been initiated. Join me, Anna Richardson, and journalist Leo Schick for The Mystic and the Mayor as we investigate a story of power, corruption, and magic.
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