Hey, Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music.
Download the Amazon Music app today. Early in the morning of October 3rd, 1994, a woman living in Eugene, Oregon, woke up in her first floor bedroom to the sound of screaming coming from somewhere on the other side of her house.
She thought the noise must be coming from her TV set in the living room, but as she stepped into the hallway, she realized that could not be the case.
The screaming was so loud, it was definitely a real person and it appeared to be coming from her garage.
So even though she was terrified, she ran down the hall, across the living room, over to the door that led into the garage and she flung it open.
Seconds later, this woman would be living her worst nightmare.
But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious Delivered in Story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.
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On a night in late September of 1994, 18-year-old Aaron Itura sat at the very front of a packed meeting room in a community center in Eugene, Oregon, staring out at the crowd of mostly teenagers.
The fold-out metal chair Aaron was sitting on was too small for his 6'5", 230-pound frame, so he shifted back and forth to try to get comfortable.
Some of the kids sitting out in the audience looked excited to be there, and others looked nervous.
But the only people in the crowd that really stood out to Aaron were the young men sitting in a cluster right off to the side of the room.
They leaned forward in their chairs, showed off their blue bandanas wrapped around their wrists, and glared at Aaron like they wanted to challenge him to a fight.
Over the last year, Aaron had become an important member of an anti-gang task force in Eugene that was led by a woman named Mary Thompson who was sitting right next to him.
And Aaron spent a lot of his free time going with Mary to community centers and high schools in the area to talk about the dangers of gang life just like he was going to do tonight.
The crowds that Aaron and Mary spoke to at these events usually included kids and teenagers who had thought about joining a gang but wanted something better out of life.
They also included former gang members who were trying to turn their lives around and current gang members who had been forced to attend by the state as part of their punishment for a crime they'd committed.
But tonight, Aaron knew the cluster of young men glaring at him from the audience didn't fit into any of those groups.
These were current gang members who were here by choice.
They just wanted to intimidate Mary, Aaron, and the others who had come to speak out against gang life.
And he knew, because of their blue bandanas, that they were members of Eugene's most powerful gang, the 74 Hoover Crips.
And as far as they were concerned, Aaron was clearly their enemy.
In school, Aaron saw members of the 74 Hoover Crips bully kids who they believed were weak and would fight anyone they didn't like, and he saw how the gang spread violence and fear throughout Eugene.
At the convenience store where Aaron worked, he'd witnessed knife fights and robberies carried out by gang members, and he knew the gang was tied to much bigger crimes in the city like carjackings, assaults, and drug trafficking.
Eugene was a relatively small college town known for its natural beauty, with the Cascade Mountains in the east and the Willamette River winding through the city.
But the 74 Hoover Crips had created something ugly amidst those beautiful surroundings, and Aaron wanted to help stop the spread of gang-related crime and violence before it completely overran his beloved hometown.
The crowd quieted down as Mary Thompson stood up, stepped forward, and introduced herself.
Aaron had seen Mary speak dozens of times, but he was still blown away by how well she commanded a room.
That night, she talked about the problems gangs posed in the city and how it was up to people like her and everyone in the audience to turn away from gangs and become a positive force in their community.
And most of the audience hung on her every word.
But Mary said this meeting was not about her.
She believed that teenagers wanted to hear from other teenagers way more than they wanted to hear from a woman who was almost 40 like her.
So she thanked everyone for coming and then introduced Aaron.
Aaron stood up from his chair, he smiled at Mary, and then took a few steps towards the audience.
Even the toughest members of the 74 Hoover Crips in the crowd were taken aback by Aaron's huge size.
But Aaron almost always had a smile on his face and his voice was warm and soft, which was why he was known around school as the quote, gentle giant.
Aaron used his time in front of the group that night to talk about the future.
He knew a lot of people in the crowd had made mistakes in the past, but that didn't mean they still couldn't achieve great things.
He talked about how gangs could destroy young people's lives and how it was so important to find something positive to be passionate about.
Aaron explained that his own passion was art.
He said he loved to draw and he worked hard to keep getting better at it.
And he said his passion for drawing had led him to apply to art school in New York City.
And now when he graduated from high school, he was going to pursue something he loved and have an adventure on the other side of the country.
At the end of Aaron's talk, members of the audience applauded and Mary beamed as she looked out at the crowd.
But as Aaron took his seat, he noticed the cluster of young men with their blue bandanas on their wrists were not clapping.
They were still just glaring at him. And when Mary stood up and wrapped up the meeting and said goodnight and told everyone to head out, those young men made sure to wait back and then stare back angrily at Aaron as they were the last to leave the room.
Aaron tried not to let their stares bother him, but he couldn't help but feel a little rattled.
Clearly, their intimidation technique had worked.
But after the audience had left, Mary came over to him and gave him a big hug and said he did a great job, and suddenly Aaron felt a lot better.
In the time that he had known Mary, he'd come to see her almost like a second mother.
Aaron had a great relationship with his own mother, but he felt like Mary pushed him to be the best version of himself.
And he was amazed that someone who had experienced as much heartache as Mary had could still be so positive and give so much of her time to helping others.
Mary had become an anti-gang activist because she had personally seen what gangs in Eugene could do to young people and how they could tear families apart.
Years earlier, Mary's son, Beau Flynn, had actually been one of the founders of Eugene's infamous 74 Hoover Crips when he was just 13 years old.
And under Bo's leadership, the gang had grown, had acquired a sizable stash of guns, and had progressed from small-time robberies to more violent crimes with bigger payoffs.
Mary had always been a very protective mother and would do anything for Beau, but she knew she was losing her son to this gang.
And so when Beau's gang lifestyle began catching up to him and he started going in and out of juvenile detention centers, Mary decided to form an anti-gang group to try to prevent other parents from having to experience what she was currently experiencing with her son.
Over the past couple of years, Mary's anti-gang group had grown and she'd quickly become one of the most well-known anti-gang activists in the Pacific Northwest.
Through meetings, seminars, and TV appearances, Mary's message reached thousands of people in the region.
And for a time, Mary's anti-gang messaging was not just helping the community, it also appeared to be having an impact at home on her son.
For the past year, Mary's son, Beau, who was now 16, had been home from his latest stint in a juvenile detention center, and at first when he got home, it seemed like he was ready to just walk away from gang life, that he understood it was not good for him.
And Mary thought that it was not just her own influence that had caused this change in her son, but also it was Aaron's voice that her son had listened to and was now responding to.
Aaron had liked Mary's son, Beau, from the moment he met him, and Aaron, who was the oldest of five children, treated Beau like another younger sibling who needed to be looked after and protected.
The two young men spent lots of time together at Mary's house after school, they hung out on the weekends, and Aaron always did his best to keep Beau out of trouble.
And as the boys spent more time together, Mary hoped that Beau would start to think about his future just like Aaron did.
But, Beau was not Aaron, and eventually, Beau was just not able to resist the allure of getting back into his gang life.
And in mid-September, just weeks before Mary and Aaron's anti-gang meeting with the intimidating young men with bandanas staring at Aaron, Beau had gotten into a knife fight with a rival gang member, and he'd ended up back in a juvenile detention center.
Mary was obviously heartbroken, and she now worried that Beau might never get to come home again.
In the weeks following the knife attack by Beau and the anti-gang meeting that Aaron and Mary had run, Aaron continued to work with Mary to organize other events for the anti-gang group, but he also thought it was important to focus on the things he personally really loved in his life, like his artwork, his family, and his girlfriend.
Aaron had been dating 22-year-old Carrie Barkley for a little over four months, and both of them were convinced the other was the love of their life.
Their relationship had gotten serious very quickly, and so Carrie regularly spent the night at Aaron's house.
In fact, she was there so often that Aaron's mother had begun to view Carrie less as Aaron's girlfriend and more as her daughter-in-law.
At 10pm on Sunday, October 2nd, so a few weeks after Beau's knife attack and Aaron and Mary's anti-gang meeting, Aaron and Carrie were relaxing on the couch inside of Aaron's home, watching TV and talking.
Aaron sat with his arm wrapped around Carrie's shoulders and Carrie, who was already dressed for bed in a white t-shirt and pajama pants, was curled up tightly right next to him.
And as they sat there enjoying the night, the landline phone in Aaron's house suddenly started ringing.
And immediately Aaron leapt up off the couch and rushed to go answer it.
But before he could, he heard the oldest of his sisters pick up the phone in her bedroom.
So Aaron turned around and sat back down on the couch next to Carrie and put his arm back around her and kept watching TV.
But almost as soon as he'd sat down, his sister, who had just answered the phone, walked into the living room.
She said the person on the phone had asked for Aaron, but when she told the caller she'd go get him, the caller had hung up.
Aaron told his sister not to worry about it, but when she left the room, a look of concern came across Aaron's face.
He didn't know why someone would call him so late on a Sunday night just to hang up.
But when Carrie, who could now see the look of concern on Aaron's face, asked Aaron what was wrong, he said, oh, everything's fine.
Whoever called must have just realized they didn't actually need to talk to me, and so that's why they hung up."
Carrie shrugged, and then the two of them settled back down on the couch and watched TV and talked for a few more hours.
Then finally, at around midnight, Carrie said she was tired, so they decided to go to bed.
After turning off the TV, Aaron and Carrie got up and walked across the first floor of the house to the door that led into the garage.
Aaron had built a makeshift bedroom inside of the garage.
It was like a little cubicle in the corner with a sheetrock wall and a wooden door for privacy.
And so Aaron and Carrie walked into the garage and made their way over to Aaron's bedroom door.
They opened it up and stepped inside. The room was very small with two mattresses piled up on the floor and on the walls were posters of some of Aaron's favorite bands and movies along with some of his own drawings and a few beer ads featuring scantily clad women.
There were also empty pizza boxes and fast food bags on the floor because Aaron and Carrie often ate in this room by themselves and neither of them really liked to clean up.
Carrie climbed onto the mattresses, slid over to her side of the bed furthest from the door and got under the covers.
Then Aaron took off his shirt and jeans, got into bed next to her, gave her a kiss, and then soon after that, they both drifted off to sleep.
About an hour later, at around 1.30 a.m., Erin's mother, who was asleep in her first floor bedroom, woke up suddenly to the sound of screaming.
As she sat up in bed, she thought the sounds were coming from the TV in the living room, that maybe Erin and Carrie had left it on.
But when she stepped out into the hallway, she could tell right away the screaming was not coming from the TV.
It was coming from a real person, likely inside of the garage.
Aaron's mom sprinted down the hallway through the living room to the door that led into the garage.
And then once she was in the garage, she could tell the screaming was coming from Carrie, who was still inside of Aaron's actual little bedroom.
So Aaron's mother rushed over to the door, she flung it open, and when she saw what was inside, she began screaming too.
And then eventually she turned around and ran back into the house and dialed 911.
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Hey, it's Mr. Ballin. For the first time, my show, Medical Mysteries, has joined forces with Redacted for a special episode.
A Redacted Medical Mystery uncovers how routine surgery leads to classified government operations.
Listen now on the Medical Mysteries or Redacted feeds, or search A Redacted Medical Mystery wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey listeners, Mr. Ballin here. What if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest, and most mysterious stories happening right now are all connected to what might be the biggest crime of our generation?
You know I'm always on the hunt for the most chilling and perplexing tales out there.
Well, I've discovered a new podcast that uncovers real-world mysteries unfolding right now. much like how another Ballin' Studios podcast, redacted Declassified Mysteries, brings hidden government secrets to light.
And it's called Lawless Planet. Host Zach Goldbaum reveals how shocking tales of murder, cover-ups, and mysterious deaths are all part of something bigger. the systematic destruction of our planet.
From activists who vanish in the Amazon to whistleblowers uncovering billion-dollar environmental crimes, these aren't just stories about the environment.
They're real-life thrillers about people caught between powerful forces willing to kill to keep their secrets buried.
Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus.
Hey, it's Mr. Ballin. I'm excited to tell you about something special.
For the first time, My show, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, has joined forces with Redacted, Declassified Mysteries with Luke LaManna, to tell a story so complex it required our combined storytelling styles.
This special episode is called A Redacted Medical Mystery.
In it, unexplained symptoms after a routine surgery quickly unravel into something much darker, leading straight to classified government operations hidden for decades.
To listen and uncover the truth alongside us, head to either the Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries or Redacted show pages right now. or search for A Redacted Medical Mystery in the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
If you're fascinated by unexplained medical stories, well, stick around on Medical Mysteries.
Every week, we dive deep into cases that will leave you questioning everything you know about the human body.
And if government conspiracies are more your style, Redacted is your go-to for stories that unravel secrets never meant to see the light of day.
Remember, you can listen to both shows early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus.
A couple hours later, at almost 4 a.m., Detective Jim Michaud of the Violent Crime Squad of the Eugene Department of Public Safety drove his 1993 Ford Taurus down a quiet tree-lined street towards Aaron's house.
When Detective Michaud pulled up to the modest two-story split-level house with a two-car garage in front, he saw red and blue flashing lights from the police cruisers parked outside and yellow crime scene tape strung across the front of the house.
Michaud thought a scene like this seemed so out of place in such a quiet and safe neighborhood.
After parking, Michaud stepped out of his car and breathed in the crisp morning fall air.
He was a veteran in law enforcement and an experienced lead detective, but there was something about receiving calls in the dead of night that still put him on edge.
But at least he knew what he was about to walk into.
He'd been informed that an 18-year-old male named Aaron Itura had been found shot in his bedroom and that he had been rushed to the hospital.
Michaud had also been told that there was no sign of forced entry and that the victim's girlfriend had been found in bed with him but completely unharmed.
And Michaud knew that in a situation like this, the girlfriend was usually the most obvious suspect.
So, Michaud walked up to the house where he was greeted by the officers who were already on the scene.
Those officers led him inside the house where he saw Carrie sitting on the living room couch with Aaron's mother and his oldest sister.
All three women were still in the clothes they'd been sleeping in and they were crying and holding each other.
But before Michaud could talk to them, he needed to see the crime scene.
So he walked past the women and followed the officers out to the garage and into Aaron's makeshift bedroom.
And when he stepped into that bedroom, he saw a pool of blood on one of the pillows as well as blood spatter on the walls.
After Michaud had studied the room for a few moments, he turned and headed back into the main house.
And when he did, crime scene texts filtered back into the garage bedroom to take more photos and take more blood samples.
Once Michaud was back in the living room and began approaching the three crying women on the couch, one of them, Aaron's mom, lifted her head up and seeing Michaud walking toward her, she started begging him if she could be allowed to leave and go to the hospital to be with her son.
It had been hours since the ambulance had taken him, and she couldn't stand the thought of Aaron lying in a hospital bed alone with nobody who loved him nearby.
In a gentle voice, Michaud said he would make sure she got to the hospital as soon as possible, but he needed to do a couple of things before he could let her go.
He told Aaron's mom that he was the lead detective on this case and that he had a few questions for all of them.
He also said that he would need to run gunpowder residue tests on her, her daughter, and Carrie.
A residue test indicates whether or not someone has recently fired a gun.
Michaud assured Erin's mother that this test was standard protocol for shootings, and she said that she understood.
As an officer swabbed the women's hands as part of that gunpowder residue test, Michaud took a seat in front of the couch.
Then, in a calm, steady voice, he asked them if they had seen or heard anything unusual in the house the previous night.
Carrie sat forward and looked around to see if anybody else was going to speak and then she cleared her throat and began talking.
And as she did, Michelle watched her closely because as of right now, she was his primary suspect.
As Carrie spoke with a shaky voice, she made it clear that she had been asleep in bed with Aaron when she heard this loud noise.
And she said when she woke up because of this noise, she saw two men with blue bandanas over their faces rushing out of their little bedroom And then she turned and saw Aaron was bleeding on the bed next to her.
Michaud had worked enough violent crime investigations in the area to know that men in blue bandanas almost always meant the same thing, the 74 Hoover Crips.
So Michaud asked the women if Aaron had any connections to that gang.
And at this, Aaron's mother told him that Aaron was heavily involved in Mary Thompson's anti-gang task force.
The idea of gang members carrying out a hit on an anti-gang activist made a lot of sense to Michaud, but there were still a few things about the crime scene that stood out to him.
There was no sign of forced entry into the house, and Carrie was left completely unharmed.
And in all the gang-style hits that Michaud knew about, the shooters almost always made sure no witnesses were left behind, meaning they killed everyone.
Michaud thanked the three women for their information and told Aaron's mother and sister that someone from victim services would arrive soon to escort them and the rest of their family to the hospital.
Then, Michaud turned to Carrie and said that she would actually need to come with him to the station.
He explained that because she was literally in the room with Aaron when he was shot, she likely had more information that could really help the police.
In reality, Michaud figured that either Carrie was lying about seeing those two men in bandanas, or she was telling the truth and he had yet another case of gang violence on his hands.
Either way, he needed to question Carrie further.
When Michaud and Carrie arrived at the police station, Michaud led her into a small bright room and then he sat down opposite her across a black wooden table.
Carrie pulled a blanket she'd taken from Aaron's house tight across her shoulders, but Michaud could still see spots of blood all over her white t-shirt.
And Michaud could also see that she was trembling under the blanket.
Michaud began to ask Carrie about her and Aaron's relationship, if there were any problems between them, if they had fought recently.
And Carrie would say no, they got along great, they were in love, they didn't fight, nothing.
But when Michaud just continued to ask more and more questions about their relationship, Carrie picked up on the idea that she was being looked at as a suspect, and she finally just said, shouldn't you be out looking for the two men in bandanas that I saw?
Why are we still talking about our relationship?
Michaud could sense Carrie's frustration and figured at this point he likely was not going to get very much more information out of her.
And so Michaud shifted the conversation to something different and really specific.
He said, okay, thank you so much for your help.
But before you go, do you remember if you noticed anything missing from the bedroom?
Did these two men wearing bandanas steal anything?
At first, Carrie said she couldn't think of anything, but then she remembered and she said actually yes, a pack of cigarettes was missing from her purse.
Michaud thought this was an odd thing for someone to steal during a shooting, but he didn't bring that up.
Instead, he just thanked Carrie for her time and said someone would be there soon to take her home.
Then he got up from the table, headed out of the room and walked outside to his car.
He held up his hand to shield his eyes from the morning sun.
He was tired, but he knew he still had a long way to go before he could rest.
A few hours later, at around 10.30am, Aaron's mother and Aaron's siblings were by Aaron's bedside at the hospital.
As the machines that were keeping Aaron alive buzzed and beeped, Aaron's mother wiped the tears from her eyes and leaned in close to her son's ear.
She whispered to him that she loved him and that he was the strongest person she ever knew, then she kissed him on his forehead.
Fifteen minutes later, Aaron's brain activity ceased and he passed away.
As doctors and nurses began coming into the room, Aaron's mother stepped back away from the bed and clung on to her other children who were crying in her arms.
She had always said her family was like a wheel and Aaron was the spoke that held it all together.
Now he was gone and she had no idea how she would keep living without him.
A few hours after Aaron died, Detective Michaud parked his car outside of a house located only a few miles away from Aaron's house.
Michaud had just learned that Aaron's mother, sister, and Carrie had all tested negative for gunpowder residue, which meant none of them had recently fired a gun and therefore very likely were not involved in Aaron's murder.
And so, after receiving these results, Michaud believed that Carrie must have been telling the truth about the two men in bandanas she'd seen in Aaron's bedroom.
And so, Michaud thought that a gang-style hit now seemed like the strongest possibility for what happened.
So now, he wanted to talk to the person who knew more about Aaron's anti-gang activities than anyone else, Mary Thompson, Aaron's mentor and leader of the anti-gang task force.
Michaud got out of his car and walked up to Mary's front door and knocked.
A moment later, the door swung open, and Mary quickly ushered Michaud inside to the kitchen, where they both sat down.
Mary said she could not believe what happened to Aaron.
He had been such a positive influence on young people in Eugene, and he'd been such a vital part of her anti-gang work.
And with her son Beau already locked away, she told Michaud losing Aaron felt like she'd lost another son.
Michaud felt bad for Mary, but he knew he had to ask her some pretty difficult questions, so instead of trying to make small talk, he just looked her in the eyes and said, Remember, her son Beau was a founding member of the 74 Hoover Crips, which Michaud believes were involved in Aaron's death.
Mary immediately shook off the idea that Beau could have had anything to do with Aaron's murder, but after she said this, she stood up and began pacing around the room.
Michaud noticed her somewhat anxious behavior and asked her, you know, how can you be so sure Beau was innocent?
And Mary would say, well, for one, Beau and Aaron were really close.
And two, Beau is in a juvenile detention center and has been for weeks and was when Aaron was killed.
So he couldn't have done this. Michaud nodded like he agreed with her, but in truth, Michaud knew that it was entirely possible for crimes to be committed or at least masterminded from behind bars, especially when gangs were involved.
And Michaud also knew mothers would often say anything to protect their sons, even if their son was clearly a gang member and she was clearly an anti-gang activist.
So Michaud ultimately thanked Mary for her time and information and just asked her to please let police know if she thought of anything that might help with their investigation.
And she said she would. Over the next few days, Michaud tried to question known members of the 74 Hoover Cribs, but none of them were willing to talk to him because he was police.
But on October 6th, so three days after Aaron's murder, Mary reached out to Michaud and gave him a huge tip.
Mary's anti-gang work put her in contact with a lot of young people who were trying to get out of the gang life, but some of them still had connections to the 74 Hoover Crips, and she called police to tell them that some of those kids she worked with said they knew who had killed Aaron because the killers were bragging about it at school. jim elstad and joe brown were two teenage boys who had gone to school with aaron and one of his sisters for years at one time they had all been friends but recently jim and joe had gotten heavily involved with the 74 hoover crips and now they were being overheard bragging that they had shown their worth to the gang by killing one of the loudest anti-gang activists in oregon aaron Police tracked Jim and Joe down at their houses and brought them in for questioning.
Michaud met with them in a small room similar to the one where he'd questioned Carrie.
The fluorescent lights were bright and buzzing overhead.
Michaud sat down across from them at a table and just stared at them for a minute.
They were both average height or shorter, and neither of them looked like they weighed more than 150 pounds.
As he stared at them, he was sure they never would have had the guts to try to take on the 6'5", 230-pound Aaron if they didn't have a gun with them.
Michaud eventually leaned back in his chair and then calmly said that he had heard they had been bragging at school about being the ones who'd killed the big guy.
And Jim and Joe just grinned and said, yes, they were the ones who'd murdered Aaron.
Michaud stared at them in shock. He'd just spent days dealing with other gang members who wouldn't say a word to him, and now these two boys weren't trying to hide their gang affiliations or their crime at all.
What was going on? And so Michaud sat forward and asked them, okay, well, why'd you do it?
And they said, Aaron and his anti-gang activities were one of the main reasons police were paying so much attention to their gang, and they figured if they could take Aaron down, they could help bring down the entire anti-gang task force.
Michaud could not believe how forthcoming they were being, so he just continued asking questions.
He asked the boys to explain exactly how they killed Aaron, and again, without any hesitation, Jim and Joe told him.
And the story they told matched up with the evidence police found in Aaron's bedroom, and it matched up with Carrie's story of what she saw on the night of the murder.
Jim and Joe also told Michaud that after they shot Aaron and rushed out of his garage, they drove to the river and threw the gun in the water.
And when they said this, Michaud remembered that earlier that day, a fisherman had turned in a gun he had retrieved in the water, and while police were still running tests on this gun to figure out if it was the murder weapon in Aaron's case, Michaud now understood that very likely it was.
It was Jim and Joe's gun. After Jim and Joe told Michaud everything, Michaud arrested them for Aaron's murder.
But while the rest of the police department began congratulating Michaud on getting the case solved so quickly, Michaud couldn't help but feel like something was off, this was too easy.
Jim and Joe had said they killed Aaron to reduce attention on the 74 Hooper Crips, But killing a well-known anti-gang activist who was beloved in the community seemed like a surefire way to do the opposite of that.
So why in the world would the 74 Hoover Crips do something like this?
Who would sign off on this? It all just seemed totally backwards.
And it would turn out Michaud was right in thinking that this case was not quite solved yet.
Because Aaron's mother would receive a very strange phone call not long after Joe and Jim were arrested.
And when she told Michaud about this strange phone call, it would send Michaud down a path he never expected to go down.
Based on that strange phone call Aaron's mother received and evidence gathered and interviews conducted during the investigation, here is a reconstruction of what police believe happened to Aaron Itora in the very early hours of October 3rd, 1994.
At 10pm on October 2nd, a teenage girl sat in her bedroom.
She stared at the swirling smoke and smelled the marijuana burning from the joint she held in her hand.
With her other hand, she grabbed her phone and dialed a number.
On the other end, she heard Aaron's sister answer.
The girl asked the sister if Aaron was home.
And as soon as Aaron's sister had said yes and that she'd go and get him, the caller hung up the phone.
That was all the info she needed. The girl took another long, slow drag on the joint to calm her nerves.
Then she picked up the phone again and dialed another number.
It was the number to the leader of the 74 Hoover Crips.
When the gang leader answered, the girl took a deep breath, then she said, Aaron was home.
The gang leader told the girl she'd done a good job and then hung up.
After that, the gang leader called a young man and told him that everything was in place and that tonight was the night.
Hours later, at around 1 a.m. on October 3rd, two young men dressed in black with blue bandanas covering their faces walked down the street towards Aaron's house.
The streetlights were bright, so they moved fast and tried to stay in the shadows.
One of them clutched a .45 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver in his hand.
When they reached Aaron's house, they stopped on the street out in front of it and just stared.
All of the lights inside were off and so the two young men hoped that this meant everyone inside was asleep.
As they stared at the garage door that they knew led to Aaron's room, they both wondered if maybe they were going too far.
But they knew if they didn't go through with this, they would be in trouble with the leader of their gang and that was the last thing either of them wanted.
So they eventually just nodded to each other and then walked up to the garage door.
The garage door was not locked, so they crouched down and just slowly raised it up, trying to make as little noise as possible.
And once they were inside the garage, they walked over to the corner where Aaron's makeshift bedroom was, they opened the door, and right away they could see Aaron and Carrie sleeping in the bed.
The young man who had the gun in his hand stayed by the door, getting the courage up to fire the gun, while the other young man crept forward and grabbed Carrie's purse, which was lying on the ground next to the bed.
And after looking through it, he found a pack of cigarettes, pulled them out, and held them up to his partner standing by the door with the gun like he was holding up his prize.
And then after tucking the cigarettes into his pocket, he made his way back to the door.
And at this point, the young man with the gun finally had the courage up and he stepped forward till he was right next to the bed and he held the gun out and looked straight down at Aaron.
Aaron was sleeping on his side with his face looking away from the gunman at Kerry.
Then the gunman took several short breaths, made sure he was aiming his revolver point blank at the back of Aaron's head and then he fired.
As the two young men turned and ran out of the bedroom, Carrie was already sitting up and screaming.
So the two men just continued running out of the garage, out onto the street, down the road to their car.
They hopped inside, they fired it on, peeled out and sped off down the street.
When the two young men got out of Aaron's neighborhood, they started laughing and shouting with excitement.
Then they pulled down their blue bandanas and both of them let out a huge sigh of relief.
Jim and Joe were these two young men. They really had murdered Aaron just like they had confessed to.
But they had left out a crucial detail to their confession, which was who told them to kill Aaron.
Not long after speeding away from Aaron's house, Jim and Joe arrived outside of a new location, another house.
Once they scanned behind them to make sure no one had followed them, they hopped out of the car and made their way up to the front door of this house and knocked.
Within seconds, the door had swung open, and standing in front of them was the leader of the 74 Hoover Crips.
She looked at them with a neutral expression, then scanned behind them to make sure they were alone, and then she told them to come inside.
It would turn out the real leader of the 74 Hoover Crips was not Beau.
It was his mother, Mary Thompson, one of the leading anti-gang activists in the Pacific Northwest.
She used her position as a mentor in the community, not to try to scare young people away from gang life, but instead to actively recruit them for her gang.
And for a long time, this setup had worked out great, until recently when her son, who really was a founder of the 74 Hoover Crips, Beau, got arrested for attacking a man with a knife.
And while there were lots of witnesses to this attack, only one person was prepared to actually testify in court.
And that person was Aaron. Because Aaron was actually an anti-gang activist, even if it was awkward that he was testifying against Beau, the son of the person he worked with.
And as Beau's trial approached, Mary decided Aaron just needed to be silenced.
So she ordered his execution. When Jim and Joe confessed to killing Aaron, they never gave Mary away.
They took the fall completely for the killing.
But for reasons no one understands, three days after the murder, Mary herself decided to call Aaron's mother.
And on this phone call, she says to Aaron's mother, if Aaron had just kept his mouth shut, none of this would have happened.
Erin's mother was floored by this statement, and so she immediately called Michaud, who also thought Mary's comment was totally out of place, and soon after he arranged for a wiretap of Mary's phones, and quickly the full extent of her involvement in citywide gang activity and the role she played in Erin's murder became clear.
Mary was ultimately found guilty of aggravated murder and sentenced to life in prison.
But due to a legal technicality, her sentence was reduced and she was released after serving only 23 years.
Before his death, Aaron had become an organ donor and after his death, five people received his organs and their lives were saved because of Aaron.
Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin Podcast.
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