129: 22-Year-Old Riley Strain Missing After Nashville Bar & Joe Rogan Podcast Guest Arrested with Human Head in Freezer
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Grammarly. Easier said, done. Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all new episode of Serialistly.

Hey everybody, welcome back to an all new episode of Serialously with me, Annie. Now, today's episode sounds a little different. You're probably like, Annie, why do you sound so weird? If you've been listening for a while, you know I've been having a lot of issues with my jaw this year. I actually had surgery last December and it was fixed for a while, but this week it flared back up and I had a more intense procedure yesterday, so I'm going to be doing a little bit of a

So it's affected my ability to speak. I thought I'd be able to jump on the mic and deliver today's episode to you, but unfortunately, as you can tell, it does not sound right. So today's episode is going to be Serial with Annie by Proxy, and my sister Amy is going to be going over everything with you. She's probably going to be a familiar voice. You've heard her on the podcast before. So she has been so generous to jump on the mic and share with you guys all of these cases. So I'm going to start with you.

As a reminder, what we do on today's episode is more of in-week mini deep dives into cases, breaking new cases, updates for other cases that we've covered, and then on our Monday episodes, it's the mega deep dive on a single case.

so without further ado i am going to pass the mic over to amy be kind be gentle guys and let me know in the review section or of course over on spotify q a if you want her to be a reoccurring voice because love having her here i'm gonna go ice my job but i will be back on the mic with you guys first thing tomorrow morning for the bonus ad free episode and of course next monday so the

Take it away, Amy. - Thanks for having me today, guys. I'm excited to be here with you again and bear with me as we get through this. But today we've got some great case updates with Madeline Soto, we've got Scott Peterson. We're gonna talk about some new cases that are in the headlines. And then at the end, we're gonna discuss the case that broke this week about the Boeing whistleblower who was found dead.

So we're going to start with a sickening and heartbreaking update in the Madeline Soto case. For those of you who don't know, Madeline was a 13-year-old girl who went missing after being dropped off at school at the end of February by her mom's boyfriend, Stefan Stearns. Two days after she went missing, he was arrested on unrelated charges to her disappearance, including child content, videos, images that are now confirmed to be Madeline. A

Additionally, he has now been charged with 60 heinous sex crimes against a child, some of them even dating back to 2019. And you guys, this affidavit is heinous. This guy deserves to rot in prison or worse, to be honest.

these charges include eight counts of sexual battery on a child under twelve five counts of sexual battery with a child between the ages of twelve and eighteen seven counts of lewd acts and forty counts of unlawful possession of materials depicting sexual performance by a child

So far, murder charges have not been filed against Stefan and police say they are still investigating this case thoroughly. So we will make sure to keep you posted on all the details. Next, we're going to cover Scott Peterson. And I'm sure...

A lot of you are familiar with this case as it dates back to the early 2000s where Scott was convicted and charged for the murder of his wife Lacey and their unborn son Connor. And last month you may have heard about this resurfacing as the LA Innocence Project has taken on this case and believes that they've found new evidence that could exonerate him. Good morning, Mr. Peterson. Can you both see and hear the proceedings, sir?

Yes, I can. Thank you. All right. And do we have your consent to proceed via Zoom this morning? Absolutely. Thank you. All right. Thank you. At a court appearance via Zoom for a status conference hearing, Scott's lawyers, who are part of the Innocence Project, asked the judge for independent DNA testing using newer technology. The DNA testing will include testing the carpet and bloodstained mattress that was found in the orange van that had been burned.

They also alleged that Scott's constitutional rights were violated and filed motions for post-conviction discovery and court records. A hearing on the motion to seal proceedings is set for April 16th, and a hearing for the DNA testing is set for the following month, and then there's finally going to be a hearing for the discovery

in July of this year. Overall, the status conference was nothing too crazy, but there was one part at the end that made us laugh a little bit. The state asked the judge if she would consider following the same guidelines that the judge back in 2004 had followed to avoid the media finding out about what documents are being filed, and she quickly snapped back. Take a listen.

The difficulty, and I think part of this, Mr. Harris, is that the court's filing procedures have changed since Judge Saluki was the file. We don't have a lot of control over when things come in now because it's all electronic filing. So while I appreciate the suggestion, it's not consistent with our mandatory filing procedure.

Okay, moving on from Scott Peterson, because I don't know about you guys. I know it's controversial, but I've always found that he's guilty in my mind. So we'll see what goes on there and we will keep you updated.

So next we're going to talk about Riley Strain. This case is breaking right now and a lot of you have been requesting that we cover it. So we're going to tell you everything we know so far. Riley Strain is a 22-year-old University of Missouri student who has gone missing after a night of drinking with a group of friends in downtown Nashville.

He was in Nashville for the weekend for a fraternity conference with his friends. On Friday, March 8th, Riley was separated from his friends after he walked out of a bar and crossed a nearby street. And unfortunately, he has not been seen since.

One of Riley's friends told police that Riley disappeared after getting kicked out of Luke's 32 Bridge, the bar owned by country singer Luke Bryan. Riley's stepfather spoke to the media and said, the bartender said he had been over-served. He was just trying to pay his tab. One of Riley's friends said he tried to follow after him, but he was stopped by security. So you guys can imagine, we've all been there, right? We're at the bar with our friends.

Somebody might have had a little too much to drink or it's time to go home and we say, let us know when you get home, shoot us a text, give us a call. Well, when that didn't happen, Riley's friends tried looking for him using his Snapchat location and repeatedly called him, but none of the calls were ever answered.

He also never showed up to the hotel that the group was staying at. So finally, not knowing what to do, Riley's friends called his parents to let him know what was happening and then they drove from Springfield all the way to Nashville. So far, police have searched the area Riley was last seen in, including a riverbank near where he was last seen on video. On Tuesday, the police released surveillance video showing Riley crossing a street at 9:47 p.m. and these times are important.

Another clip of surveillance footage came from downtown smoke and vape shop and was taken at 9:46 p.m. Friday night, just one minute before the last video that we mentioned. It shows Riley running through the downtown area, stumbling and at one point falling onto the sidewalk. According to police, Riley is 6'5" with a thin build, blue eyes and light brown hair.

He was last seen at 9.52 p.m., which is an important detail because that means he was seen five minutes after being seen on video. But we don't have details on that sighting yet. I don't know if anyone has been to the downtown Nashville area on Broadway, but it's

Super crazy, especially on a weekend. It's a sea of people. So police are urging anyone with information about his whereabouts or maybe they saw something that night to please come forward. Police in Nashville have checked hospitals and jails with no luck and attempts to use his phone to find him aren't working anymore because the phone is now dead. According to reports, Riley's family is in contact with Apple and they're hoping that maybe they can pinpoint his location from his Apple Watch.

So again, this is a very scary story. We're hoping for a positive ending and we will certainly keep you guys informed as we learn more details. Next, we have a very disturbing story out of Florida. A Florida woman, Earlene Tucker, I don't know if you guys have heard about her, but she was arrested after police found her naked outside of her home.

According to the arrest affidavit, Tallahassee police found her outside and then escorted her inside so she could get clothed. And when they did this, apparently Earlene stood over what appeared to be a human organ. I don't really know how that happens, but apparently...

Apparently, they were able to tell that she was doing that. And as one officer began looking around the house to find clothes for Earlene, he knocked on a door to a room and found her mom, Lucille Tucker, dead inside the room with trauma to her chest. The organ on the floor was later determined to be the majority of a heart, and the injury to Lucille's chest was consistent with an evisceration of the heart, meaning Earlene ripped her mother's heart out.

What the F? So Earlene was obviously arrested and taken to the police station. Once she was there, she allegedly made several comments about killing her mother, both during the interview as well as when she was in the interview room by herself. During the interview, she allegedly said her mother was mean to her because of her skin color, saying she was mean to me, but I didn't care. I loved her black color, but she didn't love mine. She also said she cut out her mom's heart in order to quote unquote inspect it.

At the police station, Earline said she would not speak with a white officer. Once assigned a black officer, Earline said she had learned through investigation that she was a white woman and could not give up power and control to a black man. She also made several comments that she needed to be in jail and that she had to "end the saga." According to family members who spoke with investigators, Earline had been hospitalized in 2009 due to mental health issues.

Additionally, family members said that Lucille moved to Tallahassee last year so that Earlene, a health care worker, could take care of her. Earlene is currently in custody without bond and has entered a not guilty plea. I mean, I don't know how you're going to plead not guilty to ripping your mom's heart out. I mean, I've had a lot of guys rip my heart out and plead their innocence. That never worked.

But in all seriousness, hopefully her mom gets the justice she so rightly deserves. America, we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. By honoring your sacred vocation of education, you impact your family, your friends and your community at

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Sheldon Johnson is a 48-year-old man who became a well-known public advocate for criminal justice reform after being released from prison last year after spending 25 years behind bars. He was originally sentenced to 50 years for a string of robberies in 1999. His story of rehabilitation after his release from prison is what turned him into a criminal justice activist, and now he even works as a staffer for the Queens Defenders Law Firm in New York.

You may have heard of him if you watch or listen to the Joe Rogan podcast. Back in February, Sheldon was a guest on the episode along with a civil rights attorney. During this episode, he said he entered prison as a high-ranking member of the Bloods after selling drugs and being arrested in an assault case.

but had later separated his ties from the gang around 2005 he also talked about how he had been out of prison for nine months at that point his advocacy work and how he decided to turn his life around in the podcast he said

I really said, I have to change my life. I have to change my life. I just can't do this. I had a wife. I had kids. I had family. Still, my son was growing up. He was hearing stories of my so-called notoriety. I just didn't want to be that dad. Another miracle sitting to my right, just like a marvelous human being who was basically told by a judge, by an African-American judge, that you don't matter. You don't count.

and i'm going to throw your life away for a crime in which the victim received two stitches and um on a second offense his first offense being a gun possession charge so i will say this that he received a sentence that far eclipses a sentence um that would be commonly doled out for murder or manslaughter so with that here's sheldon sheldon how long you been out for

Going on nine months. I got out May 4th. And you were in for 25? 25 years and five months. For two stitches. Two stitches. Jesus. But one of the things that always struck me about Sheldon was I didn't know him. And I got a call from these two remarkable attorneys at an organization called the Center for Appellate Litigation, Barbara Zolot and Allison Haupt, who had been working on his case for a long time.

And they called me and Derek Hamilton and said, "You know, we know you're working on some stuff with the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. We have this case that has sort of hit a snag. I want you to take a look at it and see if you could help us." And I called Barbara back and said, "I think that there's a mistake here because it says that he was sentenced to 50 years."

I mean, that's no bullshit. I could not believe what I was reading. And then I read about what Sheldon had accomplished while in prison. And then his earliest date of release was, I think, 20... 2049. ...49. And he had already served 25 years. So I was just blown away by the level of accomplishment and the mental wherewithal that he possessed to accomplish what he did while incarcerated.

then the path he's taken in the eight months since he's been out is It's it's uh, we talked about on these episodes. How do you make change happen? He's living it and making it happen So I thought it would be just fascinating to go through Like I said his life how he got to where he was Why he got this what his thoughts are and our thoughts are on the sentence he received and

I am in the process of going to court. I'm going back and forth to court. I'm on Rikers Island at the time. It's just crazy on Rikers Island. That's when the gangs was involved. Prior to that, a year before that, I had got involved with the gangs. I was blood. I was a gang member. That's where the cut come from on my face. I have a bunch of stab marks from just being in those environments and being on Rikers Island and just...

warring with other rival gangs, mostly Latin Kings and Inietas. My final offer before trial was 23 years, which kind of blew me away because my lawyer kept telling me that my maximum sentence was 25 years if I went to trial. So in my mind, it just didn't make no sense to me. Why would I forfeit my rights to an appeal if there's only a two-year difference? I told the judge I would take 15 years right now.

I acknowledged that I had made some mistakes and I had done some things that were wrong. And I said, I'll take 15 years right now. He refused to accept my plea offer. And I went to trial and I ended up getting 50 years. Five zero. So they give you 25 for each case? 25 for each case. Consecutive. And I remember, I remember like blowing trial and just not really understanding like what was happening.

being there but not like it was like almost surreal and I remember when I went and got sentenced and the judge said 50 years now mind you I had a black lawyer a black judge and a white prosecutor and I remember when he said 50 years he said he went into all of these reasons why he was sentencing me the way that he was sentencing me there was never no post uh there was never no uh

They're supposed to do a report prior to your sentencing, and it's called a post-supervision interview. Pre-sentencing investigation is called a PSI, pre-sentencing investigation. There was never no pre-sentencing investigation. There was never no mitigating evidence presented on my behalf to, you know, highlight why I may have made some of the decisions that I made. And he just called me a menace to society, and he just gave me 50 years.

And I remember when I first got to Downstate, which is a processing facility, and they give you what they call is a time computation sheet. And on the time computation sheet, it gives you all of the numbers, like the beginning of your bid, how much jail time you have. And I just remember 2049. That's all I kept looking at. And I was like, 2040? Are they fucking serious? This is 1998, 1999.

And I'm trying to do the math and I'm just like 2049. I'm like, that's 50 years from now. And I remember going to the law library and I forget how I get the world almanac. And something just says, look up life expectancy. And I look up my life expectancy. And as an African-American man, my life expectancy at that time was 67 years old. And I did the math and I said, I'm going to die in prison, man. I just really believed that I was going to die in prison. Um,

One thing I learned really, really quickly when I got to prison was that prison does two things to you. It brings out the best or it brings out the worst. And what I saw was I saw individuals who were at their worst and I saw guys who were at their best. The guys who were at their best were guys who were involved in education, post-secondary education programs. They were running the violence groups. They were running the substance abuse groups. And I remember saying to myself, I want that.

And I remember just being involved in so much bullshit because I was in a gang and I was top of the food chain. I had my own nation. I wasn't just like the random gang member. I had a whole nation under me. And I was just in and out the box, in and out the box, solitary confinement, which has been considered as unconstitutional now.

And I remember just having these moments of reflection and just asking myself, like, what are you going to do? Can you spend the next 48 years living like this? And I said, I couldn't do it. All in all, it seemed like he was genuine and truly reformed. Well, not so fast. Sheldon was arrested on March 7th for murder. And you guys, brace yourselves.

Police arrested Sheldon after they found a dismembered torso in a blue bin, like the kind of bins you store stuff in, and a head in a freezer at an apartment in the Bronx. The victim, Colin Small, was allegedly one of Sheldon's rivals from prison.

Initially, police were called to the building for a wellness check after gunshots were heard and neighbors reported seeing a stranger coming and going from the apartment with cleaning supplies. Neighbors also told police that they could hear someone pleading, saying, please don't, I have a family, right before two gunshots were fired.

Wow, that's so scary. I know oftentimes we hear that when you hear someone yelling for help or you hear something that sounds suspicious, people get nervous and they don't actually think to act. So I can't even imagine what these neighbors must have been thinking at this point. According to police, the stranger coming and going from the apartment with cleaning supplies was Sheldon. And they know this because he was caught on surveillance footage.

In the surveillance videos, you can see Sheldon walking from the elevator towards the apartment wearing a dark coat over a yellow hoodie and carrying a mop and a bag full of cleaning supplies. He was also seen on camera carrying a blue bin into the apartment at 2am and he was never seen carrying it out. The super also saw Sheldon leave in the victim's blue Audi and then when he came back, Sheldon tried to disguise himself by wearing a blonde wig.

Literally, in all of the surveillance still shots, he's wearing a different disguise. It's ridiculous. But Super was interviewed and said, he's coming in, he's dressing differently, changing his character. I said to myself, that's not normal. He's hiding something.

Now what's crazy is that when police first came to investigate, Sheldon was in the apartment. Police had explained that they had to come to do a welfare check, search the apartment, and then left because they didn't find anything. Later police came back to search again and that's when they made the horrifying discovery in the blue bin and the freezer. Sheldon was charged with murder, arrested, and is in custody with no bail. So much for early release, so much for a new lease on life.

So far I haven't seen anything about Joe Rogan coming out to say anything, but maybe by the time this recording comes out he will have.

Alright guys, so lastly we're going to talk about a case that I personally found very interesting and I asked Annie if we could cover it this week because it broke earlier this week and it's about the whistleblower John Barnett who is a 62-year-old longtime Boeing employee who went public with safety concerns he had uncovered at the North Charleston plant, specifically safety problems with the 787 Dreamliner.

He said that Boeing would rush to get its 787 Dreamliner jets off the production line, and that the emergency oxygen systems on the jets had a failure rate of 25%, meaning that a quarter of the planes in the sky had the potential to rapidly lose oxygen if the cabin was suddenly decompressed, which would then suffocate the passengers. John claimed to have raised the issue with management, but nothing ever came of it. The

The FAA reviewed Boeing in 2017 and their findings actually corroborated some of John's allegations and ordered Boeing to take action. Because of all of this, John's lawyers said that Boeing retaliated against him and subjected him to a hostile work environment, leading John to file a retaliation lawsuit against Boeing.

This past January, John spoke to the media and said that he was concerned that Boeing was returning its 737 MAX 9 jets to the sky too quickly after the incident with the Alaska Airlines plane that had its door panel blow off in the middle of the flight. If you don't know what I'm talking about, Google it.

It's pretty crazy and would be so scary if you were on that flight. Did you know that most vitamin D3 supplements come from sheep's wool? I'm Kat, founder of Ritual. We're making traceability the new standard for the supplement industry. When I was pregnant, I couldn't find a multivitamin I could trust, so I created my own. Ours is made traceable, third-party tested, and clean label project certified.

Oh, and our vitamin D3? It comes from sustainably harvested lichen from England, not sheep.

Trace for yourself with 25% off at ritual.com slash podcast. A terrifying situation unfolding in the sky. An Alaska Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing after a portion of the plane blew off in mid-flight. You can see what appears to be one of the passenger window panels missing right there. Nearly 200 people were on board that flight traveling from Portland to Ontario.

CBS has confirmed the plane is a Boeing 737 MAX 9 and had just been delivered to the airline in October. Thankfully, no one was hurt.

The FAA is investigating. Take a listen to an interview John did with TMZ. The FAA is saying that the plane is now safe to fly. What do you say? One, this is not a 737 problem. It's a Boeing problem. And I know the FAA's gone in and they've done due diligence and inspections to assure that the door plugs of the 737 are installed properly and the fasteners are torqued properly.

But my concern is what's the rest of the airplane? What's the rest of the condition of the airplane? And the reason my concern for that is back in 2012, Boeing started removing inspection operations off their jobs. So it left the mechanics to buy off their own work. So what we're seeing with the door plug blowout is...

What I've seen with the rest of the airplane, as far as jobs not being completed properly, inspection of steps being removed, issues being ignored. My concerns are with the 737 and the 787 because those programs have really embraced the theory that quality is overhead and non-value added. So those two programs have really

put a strong effort into removing quality from the process. When I first started working at Charleston, I was in charge with pushing back defects to our suppliers. And what that meant was I'd take a group of inspectors and actually go to the supplier and inspect their product before they sent it in.

Well, I'd taken a team of four inspectors to Spirit Aerosystems to inspect the 41 section before they sent it to Charleston. And we found 300 defects. Some of them were significant that needed engineering intervention. When I returned to Charleston, my senior manager told me that we had found too many defects and he was going to take the next trip. So the next trip he went on, he took two of my inspectors.

And when they got back, they were given accolades for only finding 50 defects. So I pulled that inspector aside and I said, "Did Spirit really clean up their act that quick? That don't sound right." And she was mad. She said, "No." Said the two inspectors were given two hours to inspect the whole 41 section and they were kicked off the airplane. On Friday, March 8th, John spent all day in a deposition with Boeing's lawyers for the retaliation suit. He was supposed to come back the next day to continue the deposition.

however john didn't ever make it back to continue his deposition because he was dead the next day charleston police said they responded to a holiday inn at ten twenty a m on saturday where john was dead in his truck he had a gunshot wound to the head and was pronounced dead at the scene

According to the police report, officers found with him what appeared to be a silver handgun in his right hand resting in his lap and his right pointer finger still remaining on the trigger. Laying in plain view on the passenger seat was a white piece of paper that closely resembles a note. Talk about

an incredible story developing overnight. Questions now swirling around the death of Boeing whistleblower John Barnett. He was a safety and quality control manager for Boeing for decades, who became one of the most vocal whistleblowers against that company. Police say he died in South Carolina after he had reportedly been testifying in a deposition as part of a major lawsuit against his former employer.

Nick's here with the very latest in the story. Nick, he was set to appear for even more questioning that same day he was found dead. Timing is suspicious here. Timing is suspicious, Marky, and it remains an active investigation. Barnett was in Charleston to testify against Boeing as part of a class action lawsuit. So very suspicious timing, to say the least.

Not only that, but Boeing, along with United Airlines, have been consistently in the headlines really this entire year, but specifically in the last few weeks where multiple planes have had serious issues during flights. Another big story we're following tonight, there has been another mid-flight incident involving a United Airlines Boeing plane. According to the FAA, the United Airlines flight landed and then turned onto a taxiway and rolled onto the grass. Okay.

Scary incident for a United Airlines flight out of San Francisco. As United Flight 35 took off from SFO headed to Osaka, Japan, one of the aircraft's six tires fell off during takeoff. As we have been reporting, United Airlines has had a slew of problems over the past two weeks.

Today, a flight from Australia headed to SFO was diverted because of maintenance issues. That's after an incident last week when a tire fell off a plane during takeoff here at SFO, crushed a car in the parking lot below. And then before that, an engine caught fire while flying near Houston. The New York Times reports Boeing failed dozens of FAA audits with nearly 100 alleged instances of noncompliance,

in the wake of that doorpl airline 787 Max in Janua problems go back to a fal procedures. So this will b to do. Go back to basis. John Kerr say Boeing safi rethink flying. I'd fly if it said Boeing, I'd fly

you know, on my ticket, I'd be going to the counter and saying, yes, I'd like to like a different flight. Many people around the country, including John's lawyers, are not buying that John committed suicide. John's lawyers have said he was in very good spirits and really looking forward to putting the space of his life behind him and moving on. We didn't see any indication he would take his own life. No one can believe it. John was a brave, honest man of the highest integrity. He cared dearly about his family, his friends, the Boeing company.

his Boeing co-workers, and the pilots and people who flew on Boeing aircraft. We have rarely met someone with a more sincere and forthright character. However, according to News Nation, John's brother said he had been grappling with PTSD and anxiety ever since his time working at Boeing. In a statement, Boeing said, "...we are saddened by Mr. Barnett's passing and our thoughts are with his family and friends."

The Charleston Police Department released a statement saying, Detectives are actively investigating this case and are awaiting the formal cause of death along with any additional findings that might shed further light on the circumstances surrounding the death of Mr. Barnett.

So what do you guys think? I'm not a huge conspiracy theory person, but this sounds really fishy. And I was just telling Annie, I've heard so much about airlines in the last few years. It seems like there's been more and more increasing problems. And this story for me just seemed very crazy and a little too coincidental. So let us know your thoughts. We're interested to hear.

So thank you so much for having me again today, guys. Of course, there's always more to cover, but we can't keep you too long. I appreciate you having me here, and I hope you enjoyed the cases we covered. Annie will be back on the mic again starting tomorrow.

Thank you guys so much for tuning into another episode of Serialistly. I promise when I am back on the mic with you tomorrow, you will hear my normal voice and I won't sound like I have marshmallows stuffed in my cheeks. Um, thank you to Amy for doing me a huge, huge solid. I really thought I was going to be able to record this on my own, but as I started recording, my entire face started swelling up. So, which you can probably hear through the mic. So,

thank you to Amy for coming in at the last minute and recording this so that we could continue to give you guys the routine content that you expect. Other than that, I hope you guys all have a fantastic day. I will see you for the ad-free bonus episode tomorrow and for the deep dive case on Monday. And other than that, be nice. Don't kill people, guys. And I'm going to go ice my jaw. All right, bye. PenFed free checking offers zero fees and zero balance requirements for zero hassle.

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Choose the best account for you and start making the most of your money. Learn more at PenFed.org. Federally insured by NCOA. To receive any advertised product, you must become a member of PenFed Credit Union. PenFed's got great rates for everyone.