Episode 347

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Niles is an aging steel town in Trumbull County. The narrow streets are lined with ranch and Cape Cod homes, where families have lived for generations. On Lafayette Avenue, the houses sit close together, with alleys running between them and neighbors that notice when something is out of place. Just before dinner, a teenage boy said, He stumbles home and into the front door. He's not hungry, and he's not thirsty either. In fact, he's already had too much to drink. And he's a drunken mess. 911, what's your emergency? Hi, my son came home and said he got jumped by several people, and he's not acting right. Okay, where does that occur? He's playing in the bathroom. I'm at 502 Lafayette. He said he was at Cedar Park. Okay. And he has blood on him. He's got blood on his hands and stuff. Her voice echoes through the house as she speaks to the dispatcher. She's not in panic. He doesn't look injured. But he has blood all over him. And he's not wearing pants. He's been staggering through the neighborhood in his underwear and a t-shirt. He has blood on his hands? Yeah, and on his shirt, and he's like coming in and out of it. How old is he? He's 15. Well, he's 15. 15? Yeah, he's not. Okay, so you need an ambulance? Yeah. All right, I want you to come down to the station when he's done. Okay. And file a report. Okay. Okay, stay on the line. So far, his mom doesn't seem to notice somehow that his breath also reeks of alcohol. Or at least she doesn't report this. How old is your son? He's 15. He said he was drunk. When you say he's not acting right, what do you mean? He's like laying on the bathroom floor, and he tries to lift up his head, and his eyes roll back, and he throws himself back down, and he was like. Can he be able to talk to you? He mumbles. And he has blood on his hands and his shirt. Her son, Jacob LaRosa, tells her he's been attacked by some other teenagers. That's Niall. That will call on the line at 502 Lafayette. Our 15-year-old son was at a fight, and he came home, and she said he's not acting right. The Niall squad car pulls up quickly. It's only a short drive to the station. The Lafayette houses are cluttered tightly in a neighborhood where officers can cross yards and alleys in seconds. Inside, he finds Jacob on the bathroom floor. An ambulance gets there in just minutes, and they whisk Jacob away to the hospital, where he's interviewed. Mind if I come in? No, sir. No, sir. You can come in whenever you want. I do, sir. Jacob, how are you? I'm good, sir. Good. My name's Lieutenant Adkins. Don't talk or move yet, okay? Yeah, you sit still for this young lady first, though, okay? Don't talk and don't move yet, sir. You're moving, so you're going to screw up your test, buddy. Don't talk, don't move. That nurse wasn't playing games and didn't have the time for her drunk patient. You know where my mom is? She's out in the waiting room. These guys came up to me with the gun. It happens. The streets can be violent, especially in Ohio. Tell me, how'd you end up here tonight? Well, this kid, this kid, Derrick Davies and Devontae Jackson, they put a gun to my head. Okay, Derrick Davies, and what was the other guy's name? Derrick Davies and Devontae Jackson. Devontae? Yeah. Jackson. They put a gun to my head. They were making me smoke a drink. I got in the car. I told them I was scared. Okay, where were you with these guys? I was down the street in Lafayette. Yeah, yeah. I wanted to go home. I was just scared. My mom wanted me home. I was making up excuses. So they believed me that I needed to be home. Okay. I wanted, I told, so when they let me off the block, I told them I was going to go get, I was going to steal something. So I told them I was going to steal something, but I lied to them. I went straight to my house and they told me to get in the car, so I went. To anyone in the room listening, it sounds like he was being held at gunpoint and told to rob somebody or something. So, according to Jacob, he lied just so he could go home, where his mom was expecting him. The officers have more questions, but all of a sudden, Jacob passes out. You all right? You still there with me, Jacob? Jacob. Yeah. Hey, Jacob. Yes? I need to talk to the lieutenant here. Oh. How are you doing today? Good. Uh, well, this kid, he made me get in the car, he had a gun. Which kid had the gun? Derrick Davies. What kind of gun was it? It was 9mm. Okay. What color? Black, silver? Black, black, black, black. Okay. Had a grip on it. Okay. On the bottom of it, where you have it in your hand. What kind of car were they in? They were in a gray car. Do you know what kind? It was a, it was like a, it was a jeep. Yes, it was a jeep. It was a jeep. It was a jeep. Okay. It was a gray jeep. And you guys. Wait, wait, wait. It had like a bald eagle on the top of it. On the hood. On the hood. Okay. On the hood. Got that? Jacob's account of what happened was only getting more interesting. Okay. So, they made you get in the car. They made me drink. What did they make you drink? They made me drink vodka. Whiskey for love. I don't want to do it. I want to be happy. I want to be sober. Okay. And you said they made you smoke. What? Were they making you smoke cigarettes? They made me smoke cigarettes. They made me smoke weed and make me drink. You said they made you smoke weed? No, they made me smoke cigarettes, but they made me drink. Okay. I told them I want to, I want to, they, they made me, they forced me to smoke the weed, but I didn't. Again, I say something like my probation officer said to me to do. Okay. I didn't. Who's your probation officer? Ms. Callaway. Okay. Ms. Callaway. Okay. Ms. Callaway. How'd you meet up with these guys? I was, I was down at the Quaid's and they, they trapped me. They trapped me. They what? They trapped me. Peer pressure. You've been there, right? Just trying to do the right thing, mind your own business, follow all the rules. And then some kids your age, pull guns, pour vodka down your throat and shove weed at you. You try it. But like Bill Clinton once famously claimed, you don't inhale. The way up there, way down there, you know where you go, what is it called? Giant Eagle. You know where Giant Eagle is at? Yeah. You know how you go down to Giant Eagle and you go across, you turn right and you go all the way up to Robbins? Yeah. We're going all the way up to Robbins and they're having a car and they're saying that they're going to beat me up. I was scared. I always wanted to call my mom. I want to make sure my mom is safe. Yeah. Your mom. How old are these guys? They're like 17, 18 years old. 19. Are they from the house? Yeah. This is why I told my mom I didn't want to go to school there. Okay. The more questions the officer asked, the harder it was for Jacob to spit out his version of what happened. His words turned into sobs. His sentences trailed off. And what little sense he did make only raised more questions. So after you go to the General, where do you go? They, they're all making me their concentrate. Maybe buy a bottle of this. They, they, I give them a dollar so they can have a, they can buy a bottle of loco. All of these are doing, you want the Sparko and now I have the Sparko and my fricking system. And I want a fast, I want to be a good kid. Okay. I want to be a good kid. He wanted to be a good kid, a great kid, but that wasn't how the first 15 years of his life had gone. He wasn't going to be nominated for altar boy of the year anytime soon. Good kids don't come home drunk and coherent and covered in somebody else's blood after all. Good kids don't spin stories to get out of serious crime and great kids don't leave a dead body. In their wake. Here's golf legend, John Daly. Hell yeah. These wins are piling up faster than my divorces. I only spent on moto America's social casino. You know, I've won a couple of majors and on moto I've won majors, grands and epic jackpots on their classic Vegas slots with huge, huge bonus rounds. Moto casino ads, new games and awards, players free coins every single day. Grip it and spend it on moto casino. Moto casinos, the social casino board were prohibited. Visit moto.us for more details. America's social casino. On March 31st, 2015, 15 year old, Jacob La Rosa staggers home in a Niles, Ohio neighborhood. He's half dressed bleeding and reeking of alcohol. His mother calls 911 convinced her son's been attacked at the hospital. Jacob claims that teenagers with guns trapped him, but his slurred lies can't hide the truth. Something way more gruesome happened that afternoon and just across the street. The evidence was, waiting Marie Bell Castro was a 94 year old widow with kids, grandkids and great grandkids. Her great granddaughter, Lena called her Gigi. Gigi was like a really sweet person. She was very spiritually in tune with herself and religious to the degree of wanting to be just like Jesus. And she always gave back. She was very kind hearted. And I think, you know, a lot of people mistake kindness for weakness. And I think what happened to her was kind of tragic in the sense that the expression kind of came true to itself with what had happened to her. And I think it kind of proves that no matter how good your intentions are, no matter how kind you are, there's always going to be some jerk that's going to try and affect that, destroy that. Marie was born in 1920 to immigrant parents from Italy. Her dad was a carpenter who came, came to the US at the age of 11. Marie herself married Fred Bell Castro, a member of the Army Corps in World War II. Marie also helped with the war effort, working at Packard Electric, making tanks and military equipment. She was like Rosie the Riveter, but in real life. This is her grandson, Brian Kirk. She was a housewife and the Italian American community in Niles was very close knit. In fact, I've heard wonderful stories about the Italians banding together with other minorities. It was a very different time in American history. Back then, just getting into the United States was a different process than it is today. Irish, Italian, and Jewish families traveled weeks by ship and cramped spaces, hoping they didn't die along the way. They came to Ellis Island with nothing more than the clothes, on their backs. They stood in long lines, went through the humiliating medical inspections, fought language barriers, and hoped they wouldn't be turned away. No jobs were waiting, no handouts, no safety nets, certainly no welfare. All they had was each other. And in Niles, Ohio, the Italian families banded together with other newcomers to find their way in a city that didn't always welcome them. They faced suspicion and prejudice. But they worked long hours in the mills, raised families, and built communities of faith and tradition that held them together. My grandfather suffered a stroke in the '70s, and my grandmother became a bus aide and then a school bus driver. She was quite short, about four foot nine, and so the idea of her driving a big bus was pretty funny to us. But she did what she had to do to thrive, and survive, and she was a product of that Great Depression era. She had a hip side to her, and by that I mean she was plugged into the culture. She loved stand-up comedy. She liked comics like Ron White and Lewis Black. When I was six years old, I remember watching Saturday Night Live on her living room floor, something that my parents would never let me do. Brian says that even though his grandmother was a devout Catholic, she didn't push her beliefs on anyone and didn't get stuck in the dogma. When Brian and a friend visited her on their first college break, the first thing she did was offer them 20 bucks to go buy some beer. She gave me the freedom to make mistakes. She was just a very funny woman with a very advanced sense of humor. In a different era, she could have been a college professor, but in 1920s Ohio, you know, the child of immigrants, and relatively poor, she didn't have the same opportunities that young women have today, but a learned woman, a smart woman. And a really good Italian cook, I might add. Who wouldn't want a grandma like her? The thing Brian remembers most is her humor and her laugh, things she inherited. He went on to become a comedian. I remember doing Howard Cosell impersonations at age six for her friends and neighbors. I remember being on the sidewalk in Niles. So she was my first audience and her laugh was wonderful and infectious. And the last conversation I ever had with her was on an iPad. And she asked me if I had any new impressions. And I gave her one. I told her about a new character that I was learning. And she was up to the end, always looking to laugh. 94 years old. And according to her, and according to her family and doctor, she would have easily lived another 10 years. But on March 31st, 2015, her laugh was silenced. That afternoon, Marie's daughter walked into the house on Cherry Avenue, the one that Marie's father had built for her with his own hands, and found what the killer or killers had left behind. - 911, what's your emergency? - I'm at 509 Cherry Street, Niles. I'm Marie Belcastro's daughter. I just walked into her house, and I finally found her. She looks like she's all smashed. There's blood in every room. It looks like the house was ransacked. - How old is she? - How old is she? - Yeah. - She was 94. I think she's dead. She looks, she's in a twisted, she's twisted in here in the bedroom. And I saw an ambulance when I walked in and saw all kind of stuff. stuff I saw in the end, but one walk above, so I ran. up there and i said i need someone i thought maybe they went to the wrong place and maybe she called them but i think somebody came in i know somebody came in here the ambulance she saw just across the street was for jacob did at any time you go to a house over on cherry street the old lady lives behind you i'm so sorry guys okay i just got an answer lieutenant would you say yes sir the house behind you on cherry street the old lady lives back there did you go to her house no ma'am no sir okay did any of those guys go to that house yeah but i i told him i'm not going in there they left they started i heard screaming and stuff so i just left i couldn't stay there from the old lady's house were you inside and left or no i left i couldn't i just heard screaming so i left where'd you hear screaming from the old lady's house okay but were you outside were you where were you no i was in the alley but i ran i ran home that one on my um what's it called the swing thing the swing swing thing the swing set the swing set yeah okay jacob said he ran home as the boys who held him at gunpoint went inside marie's house he said he only heard the screams whether he was inside the house or not marie was indeed screaming and what her daughter found was the end of a struggle no one should ever have to fight especially a sweet old woman back at the scene an officer steps through the side entrance at 509 cherry the doorframe is splintered the lock has been forced evidence of violence is pervasive in multiple rooms in the living room the floor is stained with blood especially in front of a house where the struggle started it's not a single pool it's smeared soaked into the carpet streaked across furniture and spattered on walls on the couch more stains he sees fragments of bone sections of marie belcastro's skull lying on the floor among the blood we interviewed chris becker the lead prosecutor on the case the coroner indicated that she had been beaten so brutally that he could not determine how many blows had rained down on her head a trail of bloody drag marts leads into the dining room more blood on the floor another fragment of skull shards of her hearing aids lay in various places and one is broken and lodged inside her ear canal a detail the coroner would later say he had never seen before in over 8 000 autopsies the officer follows drag marks smeared lines of blood leading away from the front rooms through the kitchen down the hallway along the baseboard of one wall there are more fragments of skull and brain tissue in the guest bedroom he finds the body marie belcastro lies twisted on the floor at the foot of her bed she is face down her pajama pants are gone her shirt is soaked in blood her arms are contorted with one pinned under her and the other bent unnaturally blood has pooled beneath her and saturated deep into the carpet they will later discover there's so much blood that it is dripping through the floorboards into her finished basement he gets down on his knees careful not to disturb the scene and sees her crushed face the injury is not a big deal but it is a big deal for her to be able to get up and get down on her knees for the first time in her life her body measures almost five by one and a half inches it's not a fracture the bone and tissue are completely caved in nearby he spots the murder weapon a maglite flashlight stained with blood there are also bloody shoe prints marking the carpet the house reeks of iron every room he passes through has signs of a violent struggle a veteran with decades on the force he freezes for a moment in twenty four years of law enforcement he has never seen anything like this and this could have been his grandmother he thinks to himself meanwhile jacob is still in the hospital being questioned his drunken version is starting to crack he had already blamed the murder on two other young men or kids who held him at gunpoint and then decided to let him go so he's running through all the alleys with no pants and ends up at a playground and what did you do there i hung out so when i came back i seen blood all over him all over who oh my god oh my god who did you see blood all over devontae jackson devontae jackson had the blood all over him he had blood all over him is devontae white or black he's black ok how about the southern guy what's his name again derrick david is he white or black he's white ok he ain't no black every single money he would be hanging out at mcdonalds okay oh my god in that jeep no in a car a black car it's a lot the right license place up front looks like a race car okay so you weren't in the house at any time with them no so i won't find anything of yours in that house because i've got guys up there right now looking for stuff in that house nothing in there is going to come back that's yours right no sir and you're not going to have any blood in there you're not going to have anything in there no sir okay because i want to be honest with me right now i'm completely honest thank you officer for saving my life oh yeah you too okay thank you you're welcome god bless you well thank you in the hospital jacob was safe he only had minor injuries and he was grateful even thanking and blessing the officer you and the nurse who were helping him he'd make it home after all but across the street marie belcastro was lying dead in a heap of blood while jacob blamed two boys with guns investigators canvassed the neighborhood they questioned everyone who might have seen somebody anybody really going into or out of marie's house that afternoon no one had why are the neighbors saying that they didn't see anybody over there but you well the couple of the neighbors over there said they saw you coming out of the house why would they say that and me yeah why would the neighbors say they only saw you come out of the house they were saying that because it was true but jacob's lies and the police kept coming along with new names jvon jackson yes when did he come on scene i thought it was uh devonte and the other guy the white guy no it was totally jackson jacob let me explain something to you you watch tv a lot you watch tv yeah you ever watch csi or any of that where they do crime scene stuff yeah yeah well i got my crime scene guys up right now and your story isn't adding up to what you're telling me and see i'm up here trying to help you out and get you in front of this so that you don't end up with a bigger mess than it could be already and i don't think you're telling me the truth because your story keeps changing a lot and i've got witnesses up there jacob's story kept shifting full of names and details that led nowhere jacob's story kept shifting full of names and details that led nowhere by then investigators already knew this wasn't some random encounter jacob had been in and out of detention for years with probation officers and judges trying and failing to rein him in he had been just been released from the juvenile justice center about five hours earlier he had been literally in jail uh till about he was released i think we found out about 11 o'clock we had video of that 11 in the morning and of course marie was murdered sometime uh between four o'clock between like three o'clock and four o'clock because we had people that had been to her house uh and seen her uh after the lunch hour during the lunch hour so we know she was alive at least during you know like say one or two o'clock and jacob what he did was he broke into her house there was video of him in the alley security from the neighbor actually showed him in the alleyway um he broke into the house he he obviously committed the murder of marie beat her in three different locations and at that point then he rifled through her purse he went down to the basement where this was an older kind of 1950s built house there was an old uh little bar down there i don't think marie belcastro had used that bar for a number of years but there were some liquor bottles that he ended up taking and he was seen on the video in the alleyway with those bottles they actually were recovered and a couple of those bottles were taken and he was seen on the video in the alleyway with those bottles of alcohol had his dna on the on the bottle that wasn't the only place they found dna evidence when jacob was in the hospital nurses noticed blood in his underwear when they took him to the restroom to urinate they discovered that his penis groin area had blood. And it was Marie's. Later, the police would confirm this by recovering the washcloth the nurse had used to wipe him. He eventually drug her to a bedroom where he attempted to rape her. She was still bleeding at that point, but for all intents and purposes, she was brain dead. We know for a fact that he had her blood on his penis because we were able to swab that and get that information or get that evidence. This wasn't the story of a troubled kid who just needed another chance. Prosecutors said Jacob had already burned through every chance he'd ever been given. And what he did to Marie Belcastro proved he was beyond redemption. Sorry to say, but sometimes it's just time to give up and put a bullet in their head or a couple thousand volts through their body. I mean, what do we need these people for anyway? But Jacob had a long history of behavioral problems. And he had bombed out of a number of programs that were designed to help him. He didn't respond well to any treatment. He was in a treatment facility called the Smith House Quest for about three months in late 2014. And if you recall, this murder happened in March 31st of 2015. And while he was in the hospital, he was in the hospital for about three months. And he was in the hospital for about three months. He was there. He made threats against residents, was caught masturbating. He had punched another juvenile there. He was found to be in the computer room and admitted that he liked to look at women and masturbate to them. He used another inmate's computer there to send sexually explicit emails to a teacher. So he had a long history of behavioral problems and sexual deviation and violence. Even his own parents. Now, he had a little bit of a difficult start. His parents were divorced. But by all accounts, his mother was pretty good to him. His other siblings were pretty decent kids. They didn't commit these type of crimes and didn't even come close to committing any types of crimes. At one point, he was committed or sentenced actually for domestic violence when he threw a mason jar candle at a seven-year-old sister and he hit her in the eye and she required 18 stitches. At one point, the stepfather said we had to put padlocks on all the other children's bedrooms doors because Jacob would steal anything and everything and then sell it for drugs. So all the children had padlocks on their bedroom doors so Jacob could not get in there and steal anything from them that he could use to sell. The father also told us in a written statement and a recorded statement, I believe, that he was so afraid of Jacob and his violence that he was sleeping with a gun under his pillow. Even with that history, what drove Jacob on March 31st is still unclear. He had been released from juvenile detention only hours earlier, full of restlessness and agitation. Maybe he was simply looking for a dopamine hit. He'd been diagnosed with ADHD as a child, but of course, most people with ADHD aren't violent. Most people in general aren't violent. Maybe he was looking for money or alcohol, things he knew Marie kept in her home. She offered him meals and snacks before and even gave him loose change. But her daughter was clear. Those small acts of kindness happened only on the porch. Marie never let them inside. I have no idea what Jacob's motive was. He never stated it. He never gave the police any information. Of course, he deflected and lied. He even lied about where he got the blood on his clothes from to his own parents. But it's clear that he was sexually deviant. There's a long track record of him having sexual fantasies and deviations and masturbating and looking at pornography. And the other thing was, he clearly has a violent track record. He is just one of those individuals that if you were beside him, he didn't care if it was broad daylight because Marie was killed in the middle of the afternoon. If he wanted something, which maybe he wanted the liquor in this case, or maybe he just had sexual fantasies and wanted to have some kind of sexual fantasy with a woman, he knew Marie was 94 years old and lived basically in his backyard and he could take advantage and enter her home. And that could be part of the motivation too. Whatever Jacob's reasons, the evidence left little doubt. His bloody shoe prints, tracked through Marie's home, a maglite flashlight stained with her blood, DNA all over the scene, and on Marie. Neighbors saw him wandering half-naked and drunk, his body smeared with Marie's blood. By the time investigators finished collecting evidence, there was no question who had been inside 509 Cherry that afternoon. And who had not. Jacob left the hospital that evening after being treated. For minor injuries. He went back home, hoping he had somehow convinced the police that not only was he innocent, but that he was also a victim. By this time, his family was beyond suspicious. They already knew what life with him was like. His siblings are, you know, normal human beings are normal people. And he just put this whole family, including his mother and his siblings, obviously by, you know, causing the injuries to the sister. He just put them through hell. You know, the fact that they had to padlock the bedroom doors, the fact that the stepfather had to sleep with a gun. I mean, this, this kid was just, just the devil incarnated inside this house and in this whole neighborhood. Just after midnight, deputies surround his house after hearing from dispatch that he's threatening suicide by cop. Spotlights flood the house. A PA system booms his name, ordering him out. Jacob hesitates. He tells officers on the phone he's worried about his dogs and then he's quiet. Minutes drag on as Jacob's parents coach him. Finally, Jacob steps into the doorway. He edges forward, but then backs up. The officers keep calling him. At last, he walks into the open. He doesn't fight. He just says, I'm going to jail. Well, Dave, after spending all day yesterday trying to sit a jury in this case, Jacob La Rosa himself pleaded no contest to charges named in an amended indictment this morning. Now, Judge Wyatt McKay found La Rosa guilty of the charges, including aggravated murder, aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary, and attempted rape. The charges stem from the brutal attack on 94-year-old Marie Belcastro inside her Niles home back in March of 2015. Now, La Rosa was arrested shortly after the crime and has been held on three million dollars bond at the juvenile detention center ever since. But now that he's 18 and convicted of the crime, he'll be moved over to the Trumbull County Jail at some point very shortly. Jacob pleaded no contest but would be sentenced as an adult. This meant that for the charges of aggravated murder, the court could impose the maximum penalty of life in prison without the possibility of parole. The death penalty was off the table because he was a juvenile when he committed the crime. When they were trying to seat a jury, they couldn't get people to have any sense of fairness or impartiality on the question of Jacob La Rosa because they had all heard about the murder and they all had a very strong opinion about what should happen to La Rosa. And it just shows you the goodness of the man on the street who, when presented with something very black and white and clear cut, like the murder of a helpless old lady, they know what to do. And this is part of what Chris Becker had to say in his closing arguments at Jacob's sentencing. Of course, the defense team didn't see it that way. They saw him as a child of 15 with his whole life ahead of him. Just a little baby boy, just ready to go out into the world. You know, such a bright future ahead. And that was exactly the problem. What other heinous crimes would he commit with an entire life ahead of him? Remember, in the hospital, Jacob was grateful his life had been saved. But only hours earlier, he had been saved. It's hard to believe that Jacob would be capable of believing in God. It does take a certain amount of humility to admit there's a higher power. And it's even hard to believe that he was truly grateful for anything, except for the fact that he was a man of God. Himself. His life. Jacob, for whatever reason, whatever. wires were crossed in his brain, whatever happened to him, something got into him and made him this animal that ended up taking the life of a wonderful, by all accounts, 94-year-old woman. Oh, she was a very nice lady. She'd do anything for you. I can't understand why anybody would want to hurt her, really. Because she'd do anything for you. She'd go out of her way for you. Jacob's life had been spared once already. Or at least, he pretended to see it that way. But now it was really on the line. Like, for real real. He couldn't be given a death penalty because he was a minor, but he would be eligible for life without parole. And that's exactly what Marie's family was hoping for. Would the justice system spare him? Or would the judge know what to do? As Marie's grandson, Brian, pointed out. Fortunately, attorney Becker didn't have to prove motive. Some people on this earth are just sociopaths. And that's all they'll ever be. The good news is, I don't have to prove motive. And thank goodness he never told us what his motive was, because I don't think there's any real reason. You know, you can always understand why maybe someone who's homeless or a drug addict may steal something because, you know, I'm hungry or I have a drug addiction. But this is a case where you're just dealing with a psychopath who's a violent sexual predator. And he's, like I say, you know, I still believe this day he's one of the people that I've prosecuted. There's a number of them, but he is definitely one of the people that probably should have got the death penalty. But because he was under 18, the U.S. Supreme Court has prohibited that. But he certainly should be dying in prison. At the sentencing hearing, Marie's daughter, spoke, wanting to remind the judge exactly what she found the day she walked in on what Jacob had left behind. I'm seeing splatter on the wall and mom's purse dumped. So I go into the first bedroom and there she was on the floor. And I knelt down and I put my hand on her head and I put my hand on her back and her back was still wet. It was wet with blood. Jacob tried to seem remorseful. But some things you just can't fake. I'm sorry for what I did. And I hope and pray, Mary, but Castro's family and everyone else can reach down deep in their hearts and forgive me. I am sorry to the people I hurt and let down. I am sorry to my family that I hurt for so long. I am sorry to the people I bullied, disrespected, stolen from. And I'm sorry to the court system for everything I've done. I'm sorry to the staff I disrespected in the past. The thing is, her name was Marie. Not Mary. Mary. But he was either too stupid to remember it or he just didn't give a shit. And the list of people he disrespected kept rolling out of his mouth. More like a fifth step from a chronic double-A regular, making amends because they have to rather than anything resembling real remorse. Even more damning than his robotic apology was what he said to a jail inmate while awaiting trial. This quite possibly explains, his motive. According to him, Jacob said that he was at a party with friends and they were drinking. They ran out of alcohol, so he said he was going to go find some more. And he knew that this old lady had alcohol in her house. So he went there to take it. But he couldn't find it. He said he saw her sitting in the living room and he just grabbed the flashlight from the table and hit her with it. He said she fell over and started to scream, so he kept hitting her until she stopped. Then he dragged her to the bedroom. He was going to try to rape her, but he couldn't get it up. So he just left her there on the floor. A prison term of life without parole in a state penal institution. Showing no remorse, the now 19-year-old Jacob LaRosa was given the maximum sentence allowed by law for the aggravated murder of 94-year-old Marie Belcastro. And on top of that, 30 additional years for charges of aggravated murder. And on top of that, 30 additional years for charges of aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery, and attempted rape. All stemming from what happened inside Belcastro's Cherry Avenue home back in March of 2015. But this is Ohio. And in Ohio, sometimes up is down and down is up. And sometimes even a sentence of life without parole doesn't really mean life without parole. But in Ohio, sometimes up is down and down is up. every five years. Your own political family? Let's be clear, there's no such thing as a political family. There's nothing familial about politics. Well, it happened because a lot of these Republicans are the typical rhinos. They want to save money at the state penitentiary system. They, you know, they pander to a lot of special interests. And in this particular case, like I said, it was led by some very wayward legislators that, you know, took the bait of this poor little kid. He's going to have to spend the rest of his life in prison. It wasn't just Jacob. It was a number of individuals that were serving life sentences. But every one of them deserved it. The law doesn't guarantee Jacob's release, but it guarantees something else. Marie's family will have to keep showing up every time he asks for parole to remind the board of what he actually did. And they'll have to do this, reliving the murder for the rest of their lives, or until he finally gets released. Talk about punishing victims. It was such a betrayal, such a punch in the gut, such a hard thing to fathom. And you contrast that with the security of a life without parole sentence, and it's night and day. We have been fighting ever since we learned about it. We had one victory a couple of years ago. They changed that time from five years to 10 years. So it's parole hearings every 10 years, which is certainly more manageable than every five years. But at the same time, two years is a lot of time. And it's a lot of time. And it's a lot of to force a family to defend their safety against their loved one's killer, when prior to that, you didn't have to, is, I think, cruel. Imagine losing someone you love to murder, then being told you're going to have to stand in front of a parole board every few years to explain why their killer should stay in prison. That's the reality Marie's family now faces. And they're not alone. Lawmakers decide to water down sentences and add upper limits. It's a gift to all those hardcore criminals out there. And it's a punishment to all the families of victims. Brian has a message if you want to understand just how big this problem really is. The best resource I could recommend is a mouthful. It's the National Organization for Victims of Juvenile Murderers. N-O-V-J-M.org. They're going to find state by state status on bills that might impact innocent people. They're going to find studies and links to books. And they're going to find stories. And they're going to find an article that I wrote when my grandmother was killed. And when you're a legislator, I understand. You have a lot of bills to read and digest and understand. But I think a simple litmus test ought to be, does this strengthen the innocent and punish criminals? Or does it do the opposite? And if you're a believer in goodness and you're doing the people's work, you want to help victims and not criminals. So that's a nice little litmus test for any legislator that is confused. As far as Ohio goes, I have a feeling that the next governor, Vivek Ramaswamy, will be receptive to overturning or doing what he can. The problem is, I guess, once you give a class of people new rights, it's very hard to then take them away. Yeah, think about that for a second. The bigger the government and the more money it spends on stupid ideas or programs that aren't working, the harder it is to undo the mess they create. It becomes one big, tangled, bureaucratic, mess. And instead of fixing it, the next guy comes and spends more of your money adding another layer of laws on top of it. But Brian and his family have actually taken action because for them, it's personal. Well, 2021, our family did sort of an RV tour of Ohio. We visited 13 county courthouses and did interviews with the press and just sort of raised awareness about Senate Bill 256. It was really nice. We met all kinds of regular folks, some riffraff, everybody we talked to from homeless people to clearly people who are showing up for probation drug tests. You know, when you're at a courthouse, you see all kinds of folks, right? We're here to file documents. Oh, I'm here to file a urine sample. I met a guy who was in prison with La Rosa, who was out. And when I explained to him what we were doing, he said, oh my gosh, like I've never met anybody who thinks it's a great idea to undo the sentence of a judge to give killers a second, third, eighth chance. Brian's daughter, Lena, Marie's great granddaughter, is a very young adult, but has a surprising amount of common sense and wisdom that many of us don't have. Here's what she said about the changing law and what her family has gone through. Have hope in a time of darkness and conflict. Because I think having hope and unity with every community there is, I think that is the strongest form of expression. That is the perfect way to fight in the face of the very ones who control us, which is the government. We need to really wake up and realize like we're not divided on either party. We're divided because of the people trying to divide us. We need to stay focused. Like not let them distract us. I just feel like it's humanity versus insanity. And it's not even about party versus party. I think it's both parties versus the government. That's what I feel. But this is really about Marie Belcastro, a sweet grandma who didn't deserve to die in such a monstrous way. No one does. We asked Brian and Lena what Gigi would have said today if she were still alive. If you find yourself in a position to fight for something, don't stop fighting for that. So that's what I'm getting from her. And I think she would say that with like love and, you know, with all the kindness in her heart and less from her head, you know, because she was the kind to be with her heart, not her mind. Marie lived for 94 years in Niles, Ohio. She was a mother, a grandmother, and a great-grandmother. She was the kind of neighbor who, baked cookies, who gave kids a few coins for their help and made people laugh with her humor. She had seen hard times. She had raised a family. And she had outlived so many of her peers. Only for this to happen to her. She deserved to live out the rest of her years in peace, in the home her dad built for her and her family. Instead, her life was cut short in the most brutal way imaginable by a snot-nosed kid hell-bent on ruining lives, including his own. Still, while parents were putting padlocks on their bedroom doors and neighbors were placing surveillance cameras, Marie was giving him cookies and love on her front porch. She was a woman defined by her laughter, her love, and the simple good things she left behind. At her 90th birthday party, she told us herself how she wanted to be remembered. You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray. What would you like to be remembered for? For all the good things that I might have done, which I don't know too many of them. Very good. But not the bad things. Marie Belcastro will live on the minds of those who knew her for all the good things she did. Jacob LaRosa, however, will never achieve anything. This is a waste of human flesh. A waste of space. A waste of oxygen. The fact we have a criminal justice system that pities, feels sorry for, and even defends him instead of the real victim is what the actual crime is here. When are we going to fucking wake up out of this haze of suicidal empathy for literal monsters? I got nothing else to say about it. I'm disgusted, literally disgusted, by how we treat actual victims for the sake of. appearances. Fuck this shit. I've been doing this for 13 years for you. Can you do me a quick favor and head on over to youtube.com/swordandscaltv and subscribe? Would you mind? Would it kill you? Could you just please kindly thank you? See you next week. Stay safe. Bye. We'll see you then. Here's golf legend John Daly. Hell yeah, these wins are piling up faster than my divorces. I only spent on Modo, America's social casino. You know I've won a couple of majors. And on Modo, I've won majors, grands, and epic jackpots on their classic Vegas slots with huge, huge bonus rounds. Modo Casino adds new games. And awards players free coins every single day. Grip it and spend it on Modo Casino. Download the Modo Casino app today. 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