Episode 368

Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. I'm too drunk to even really ruin what do I do? Oh my god, like this is actually happening right now. Episode 367 episode 267 episode 276. Who gives you shit? Well you quit correcting me. It doesn't really matter. Just listen to the goddamn show and enjoy it, or don't. I don't care. Stop telling me things. I don't want to hear it. I am not having a good week, as you can tell, but that's not your problem. Duck keeps shitting in my pool if you must know. I can't get rid of it. Anyway, that's not your problem. Let's get to some murder. Shall we? But I'm funny. It's been 16 months since the body and the field was discovered back in November of 2022. He checks the thermostat setting and then starts preparing for his next interview. It's the one he hopes will finally explain how a dead man ended up in that field. Mr. Ochoa was taken into custody for what he assumes as a traffic violation, but he won't be surprised by what Detective Hayward wants to discuss. He's hoping Ochoa can provide all the answers. Detective Hayward has been doing this for quite a long time. He served the state of Michigan for 25 years in his close to retirement. This case might very well be his last, but his years of experience taught him a gentler approach to interrogation. But it's tied into a body that was found in the field up by Geneva. It was November 3rd, 2022, when he had been called to a field in Van Buren County, just east of South Haven. A man had called in said that he found a body while scouting for hunting locations. The field wasn't easy to access, not by vehicle anyway. The only way into the field was a muddy path cutting through the woods. The background that we've done on you, that kind of have my thoughts on, and we do two hundred thoughts on maybe how this thing went down. But we still got to put it together, so yeah, your DNA was found right there at the scene. So, you know what I'm talking about? In this field, next to a large pond was the body of a man. The first thing Detective Hayward noticed was the man's position. His body lay east to west directly between a set of tire tracks. Everything about the scene suggested that the body was dumped in that field. A theory further supported by the lack of shoes on the body. No one walks into a field in their stockings, especially in November. The man's t-shirt was pulled up under his arms as if he'd been dragged. His clothes were disheveled and badly worn. It was a kind of wear that looked older than the night he died. Because I ain't alive. Some of the stuff I was talking about, a friend of mine did bring something up to me about something like that. The body was beaten and bruised, but the most noticeable injury was on the leg. His right leg was contorted in an unnatural position. It appeared his femur was broken. Identifying the body wasn't difficult. And one of his socks was his wallet which contained his license. His name was Lushan Keith. He was a 33-year-old, 310-pound 6-foot-one man whose only relatives lived in Georgia. He only clues as to where he came from and who put him there, where the light-colored sand covering his body and a single glove bound nearby. "You know, he said somebody, he needed something. Not like no weapon or nothing was just like gloves and all of this. And the guy that he was telling me about, he said he'd do construction so I'm thinking it's for a job job." Hayward hadn't mentioned a glove yet, but Ochoa did. It was a small thing, easy to miss except it suggested that Ochoa already knew exactly which piece of evidence had brought him into that room. "Frankly, we know more than what we're left-not here. I want you to be a little more at the front of it, because we plug us and we drive. When it comes to gloves, we'll be around there. Your gloves, your DNA, is right there at the scene on those gloves, which you brought up so you already knew the ball deck because then things got dropped and left behind. So you already understand that with no other explanation, that looks bad." At first, the whole scene where they found the body confused Detective Hayward. It seemed like a spot that you would have to know about to find. While forensic texts took impressions of the tire tracks and sent off samples from the gloves, Hayward tried to eliminate his first person of interest, the man who reported the body. His whole story about scouting hunting locations didn't really make sense. It wasn't even hunting season. Hayward interviewed him, as well as the people who lived nearby. He took the callers, vehicles, and processed them for evidence. He spent the first few weeks of the investigation looking into this man, but eventually ruled him out. Now, he finally had someone he knew was involved in front of him. Hayward continued his delicate approach. He didn't have to bully Ochoa. He only had to let him talk long enough to tell on everyone else. "A friend of mine, he told Zack to contact me, so I was a little confused on it, and I talked to him, and he said to him, and the body is, I'm young, this is his words. He said to him, and the body is, they fucked up that, and I'm like, what is he talking about? He said, we fucked up, fucked up. He told me that him and the guy got into it. He said, I think he was a homeless man or something like that. And his friend, he was wet at the time. And they had, he said they beat on him, but they hit him with a slush, and broke his bones and legs or something like that. I don't know if that was true, but he said they came back the next day for work, because it was over by his job site. He went back to see if the dude was okay, and he was still there, like still there. Initially, the DNA profile from the glove didn't match anything in the combined DNA index system, otherwise known as Kodis. But every once in a while, they would run it again. It took six months before it returned to match to Ochoa. But by then, no one could find him. He said the male was dead already, and he wanted to help moving the body or something like that. Another reason he asked me to help him move that was because he had a cast on his hand. I don't know what happened, he said, "Uh, yeah, my hand broke, but he never told me how it broke." And then I'm bound to say, "Why not he picked me up?" And he took him to where everything he said happened, happened it. He saw what we was moving. We had to walk down a dirt hill by where they do row work. It was train tracks at the bottom of it. It was a dirt hill, like the dirt was soft to where your foot sink into it. It took another nine months before detectives finally had Ochoa in an interrogation room. And Detective Hayward was right. He had a lot of answers. The more Ochoa talked, the more his story lined up with the evidence Hayward had been staring at for months. Leshan Keith was a homeless man. His body was covered in soft dirt. His leg was broken. A sledgehammer. Tamer was a new detail, but it lined up with the injuries discovered in the autopsy. In addition to a broken femur, Lashon also had several broken ribs. His size starts on a revolver more than I was able to see him. Damn, I'm gonna be honest with you. I've seen something slip up. It looked like fingers. I believe I saw fingers. There's no way around it. I know what a hand looked like. We all got hands. I don't know what color a body changed after so long of being dead, but to do the skin looked dark when I seen a finger. And it didn't look like his skin was that color. I don't think he was supposed to be that color. He was like a purpleish white. But to me, my body go cold. I'm not used to seeing him. You know, dead bodies. And I'm gonna be honest. I'll do it. I'll do it. What else can I do? You don't cease to like that every day. When faced with the accusation of murder, Achoa came clean. He claimed a friend of a friend accidentally killed a homeless man. And he helped move the body. But he was adamant. He wasn't involved in the murder. We went. We was just driving down this trail. Just driving, driving, driving. And then he hit a field. And he walked to the left. If I'm not mistaken, it was water. It was like a lake or something or a pond. In my belief, if I'm trying to believe everything you're saying, which I am. Like I said, you have to do a polygraph test. I believe just hear me on this one point. Because yeah, I believe you can help move the body and go out here. But it seems like you're getting hung up on not getting out of the truck and helping. I'm trying to make things happen. I'm just trying to. No, I got out of the truck to help move on to the truck. Yeah. But he didn't ask me for help. So I don't know if I'm out of the truck. Did you personally kill this man? No, sir. Did you eat him at all? No, sir. I don't have anything like that. He told me that he did it with a sledgehammer. OK. And it was still in his truck. I've seen a sledgehammer in the back of his truck. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat. It was hard for me to get that he was out of my head. Achoa wasn't the end of the story. He was the beginning. This friend of a friend was someone he knew from school years ago. His name was Zachary Trainor. Have you ever heard of Zach doing anything like this before? Is he that type of guy? He didn't even seem like a bad type of person. I mean, yeah. You seem little signs of anger issues that he had in school. But it wasn't nothing mandatory. He seemed like he was actually physically do something to somebody. According to Ochoa, Trainor had nacked it alone. If you talk to your friend, he's going to set us down to tell you because he seemed like he was just scared to help that. So who do you think he was out there drunk with? Who was with? Who was with? Who was running his car? He was most likely telling the truth, but the story wasn't complete just yet. Now, they needed to find Zachary Trainor and identify this co-worker. Achoa was the first piece of the puzzle. Now, they knew how Lashan got into that field. They just needed to know why he was murdered in the first place. After a year and a half of dead ends in the death investigation of Lashan Keith, a DNA match brought Detective Hayward a man with answers. Achoa only helped Zachary Trainor with body disposal, not murder. Finally, Detective Hayward had the first part of the story, but he couldn't just take Achoa's word for it. I mean, would you take the word of someone who just admitted to moving a body? He needed a fact check, so he went to talk to Achoa's baby mama. She essentially corroborated his story even if a few details were slightly off. The details weren't really big enough to cast too much doubt on him. Besides, Achoa led detectives right back to that field from a year and a half earlier. Now, Detective Hayward needed to speak with Zachary Trainor and whoever this co-worker was. It wasn't difficult to find Zach. He lived in the small city of Waterveliet, really small town, 20 miles south of where the body was found. Hey, sorry, I was just trying to get somebody to answer the door. Who are you? I'm Chris Hayward. I'm going to attack you with the state police. You're Zach, right? Yeah. Hey, how you doing? I'm good. Listen, I was hoping to talk to you. There's been a complaint made against you and what's going on? Are you able to go down to talk with us at the Waterveliet Police Department? About what? About this out made against you? What allegation? I think this is something you're going to want to talk with me about. I don't even need to hear what you're talking about. Okay, I'd be happy to tell you then. And I think it's in your best interest. This case has progressed. I've spent a lot of time on it. I've got everything. I've got the what. I guess I'm just looking to find out from you. You know, what kind of guy you are and what was going on in your head. But this is about the body up in the field in Geneva. And I know this is hitting you like a ton of bricks. It would do the same for me. Come with you guys. Sorry. I don't want to be involved in this, frankly. I wish I can't wait till I retire. As you can see, I'm getting close in this. I'm hoping to be able to treat this thing a little bit different because in all the back room that I've done on you, I don't see you as that kind of guy that I deal with so often that we have to deal with so often. I hope you feel like I'm approaching you. That I'm talking about. I do. So it's been weighing on you? I know. I know what you're talking about. Now I do. Okay. Yes. Okay. So that's the gist of it is just to get together. You should. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do I have to write it right now? No. Drive my car. Yeah. Like I said. I'll be there. I'll be there. Drive? Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Okay. I'll meet you guys then. Okay. I'll be there. Hey, big dog. All right. Thank you. The initially confrontational Zach Soffand, as soon as he understood why Detective Hayward was there. His 5'1160" frame shrunk. He swallowed hard and took a deep breath. I imagine he'd been looking over his shoulder for the last 16 months, expecting it to happen at any moment. He admitted he knew what detectives were talking about and said it had been weighing on him. He agreed to meet them at the station to talk, but he wasn't arrested. Detectives pulled down the street and waited just to see if he would actually come and not try to flee. About 15 minutes later, Zach sat down in an interview room with detectives. He would tell his version of events and identify his coworker. Afterwards, Detective Hayward accompanied him back to his parents' house to break the news that the District Attorney would eventually file charges and that he would be arrested. It was almost 9 p.m. when he arrived. As darkness fell over the city, Zach broke the news to his mother, grandmother, sister, and brother-in-law. His grandmother didn't take the news well at all. He didn't tell her the specifics, but she knew it wasn't good. Did you talk with her dear chance to talk with mom yet? I got the all of them. Okay. I don't know what to say. But I know it was something bad. I know it was family. You guys take care of yourselves. Then he pulled Zach's sister aside. Zach said he had confided in her in one drunken night at the casino. Detective Hayward needed to know how much he confessed in if it matched. He and another guy wound up killing somebody. Did you hear about that in the casino parking lot or whenever he's alluding to? Looted, too. Yes, I've heard her. I guess what story did he tell you? I just know his friend that he was hanging out with at the time was a really bad person because he didn't know who he is. He used to work there and that area. I mean, Brian would get a bill out of barfights and stuff. They would get into shit. He says that he did something. He had regretted with Brian. That Brian was like the main person. Because he knew you'd be there for him, right? Did he say he did something, he regretted he stole a hubcap of a car? He killed somebody. Did he get into any details? No, he don't tell me that. Is it me or are people getting less and less sensitized to the act of murder? Maybe I'm just a bit old. Maybe I'm an old-fashioned, but if law enforcement told me that someone I knew had killed someone, my reaction wouldn't just be, "Oh, well, you didn't tell me about that," as if it's some sort of minor detail. I mean, like, what the fuck? Listen, half an hour later, Detective Hayward was back in the interview room. This time, he was getting Brian Wimbley side of the story. But sometimes, there are three sides to a story. Once Detective Hayward had both Zach and Brian's sides, he now had two versions of the same night. They agreed on almost everything except for, you know, the one thing that the critics of this show hate, I keep talking about. Personal responsibility. So back in fall of 2022, Zach and Brian became something, sort of like friends. They went that far apart in age, and both were working for the road crew doing construction on an overpass. That's when they first became acquainted with Leshaan Keith. "There was a homeless guy that was under the bridge, I can't say he was a name, what's anything I've ever known, no?" "He had a mess with us, really, for the most part, until they started being more people there, okay. As long as there were more people, then it's like, how you guys are stripping my home?" Leshaan was living under that overpass. We had a little impromptu campsite next to the train tracks. When more and more of the road crew started showing up week after week, he was pissed. Why are these people in his home? That's sort of thing. Anyway, to Leshaan, this was his home, this piece of public property. When they were disturbing his piece, try it off from a bottle of water one day because it was hot and t-shirt, fuck you, whatever, whatever, you just want to have to like the violent stage. But one of the bosses tried to, or remember, he tried to give him a coat and some like pants because it got cold towards the end of the season or whatever, it was starting to get chilly and it pretty much toned the boss to go fuck himself too. Even in the face of kindness, Leshaan was combative. His anti-social, homeless man behavior only escalated. Zach said Leshaan started to target Brian, but Brian said it was Zach who had the issue with Leshaan and he didn't take death threats lightly. At the same time, Zach claimed it was Brian who became obsessed with teaching Leshaan a lesson. Never resentment had been building between the road crew and Leshaan didn't boil over immediately. Halloween came and went like any other workday. Earlier that evening, Leshaan walked to a nearby circle K before returning beneath the bridge, he called home. Hours later, after a night of drinking, Zach and Brian decided to go back and confront them. What a menace alcohol can be. When it came to leave, Zach said it was Brian's idea to go back to the job site, but Brian said he didn't even remember leaving the bar. I don't remember leaving that night, we ended up back at the job site, I believe, so I was kind of nodding off on the way there, but I know we ended up back there. Once we got there, part, I assumed he was just using John or something or whatever, and I think I remember him saying something about, "I'm going to grab a sledgehammer." At that point, I'm drawing, I'm like, "That's not going to get a sledgehammer, we're not working right now." It's like, "We just went to the bar, there's no way in hell I'm doing anything if a boss asks right now. I'm going to sell him, I'm not going to be able to do it." And then, of course, I followed him down the hill, and he walked down the hill and he had his claw hammer over this, flew in like black grip on it, and I remember it because he lost it out there somewhere, and he was freaking out about a toy home. Each man said the other had a problem with Lachon. Then they said it was the other's idea to go back to the job site that night. They both said it was the other one with the hammer. It's no surprise that each said the other was the first to approach Lachon. These are basically two murderers who have no loyalty to anything or anyone. If you don't respect human life, even if it's someone that's of no use to society, then you yourself are probably the bigger problem. But from Brian's perspective, that was all Zach. I was like, "What the hell is that? I remember me. I told him you were going to meet you after work. I'm here. Well, it's good. Let's go on up." He starts yelling at the guy. He gets out and like, "Bucked up to him." And he got in each other's face. And then, the next thing you know, is that kind of like, pushed him a little bit, and you kind of know, your reaction is to push back when you're pushed. So the guy pushed a bag, and then, and they're trying to like, push in whatever's getting heated in my heart. They're too bad, they're too bad, they still don't know I got the hammer. And then, they got closer to the tracks. And I'm like, I said, I'm probably 20, 30 foot away from them. Just keep in my distance. This is the part where their stories start to diverge the most. Who was the first person to assault this homeless man? He was here, and I didn't look, they were coming towards me. So I went this way and kind of like, kid by like, some bushes. And then that's when I heard that first, like, crack, and I'm like, oh, that did not sound like it this. That was a solid, hard hit. I heard the dude's like, gas for air after I heard like, the slow hammer, like smack 'em, I'm assuming in the chest. Brian said he watched from a safe distance as a shoving match ensued. But Zach said Brian was the one in a rage-filled frenzy. So Brian hit him a couple more times in the back, and he got a felon, he went down the ditch. And I took him all over them, and I told him like, dude, I'm like, let this go, let him go, you just hop in a lesson, you know, like, let it go. And that time he threw his hammer at him because he was mad, so he wanted to keep going and I wasn't letting him. Zach said he stood by as something of a referee, while Brian taught Leshan a lesson, regardless of who the aggressor was, the violence of the confrontation only grew. And no referee stopped him. And I've punched him because I don't know how to get hit by this fucking hammer. And when I punched him, I connected her on, and I hit something around here, and my pinky hit him up into a stooks. And I broke my hand. Okay. So I was very pissed when I broke my hand. So I took the hammer, and I fucking took it, and I swung out his words. I took it out, and I heard that the ribs hurt, and I dropped the hammer off the way because I was like through the hammer that I'm like, "I can't believe I just fucking hit that one around." Zack said he was a reluctant participant, only there to watch Brian's back. But when he got involved, he broke his hand and cracked Lachon's ribs. So there's that. I thought that the start of it was him, and then I was like, "Thanks, got a little more intense, but it was, they were kind of both tussling a little bit." And he yelled for my help because he started to fall, and of course I come out of the spot I didn't want to come out of. And I came at me once I got over there. Maybe a little more guy. I definitely started to get scared, because while he's coming at me now, Zack had gotten my hammer out of the truck as well as this sledgehammer, and I didn't even know that he had had my hammer out in the first place. The hammers were central to both sides, but they changed hands depending on who was telling the story. Brian said Zack yelled for help. Lachon was getting the best of him. He said Zack tossed him his own hammer, and that's when Lachon came at him. He must have been so scared. So I freak out, and kind of like out of my first legs, trying to take his legs. Lachon also wasn't coming at me. I think I got it. He's a big guy. I don't know. I didn't compare to me coming at him. I mean like, I damn want to. And I just kind of got worse from there. I know. I know it was a melee. What? Yeah, melee is like a puzzle for everybody's elbows and assholes all over the place. You know what I mean? Elbows and assholes. Never heard that one before. It's almost like poetry. In addition to having a small vocabulary, Brian was a man of small stature. He was only five feet for inches tall and 120 pounds. When Lachon, a 310 pounds six foot one man came at Brian, he just swung the hammer. Got him in the little guy in the middle of the hammer. The guy, you know, obviously when we doing that, he did kind of like buckle wise and buckle downs, I can over tack him down. Bam, bam, bam, started hitting him. The guy ended up kicking me in my chest a couple of times, really good. And I kind of went into a fog. Kind of like a blackout. I kind of blacked out because I don't know, assuming it got worse. And I don't even fully fully know too much after I blacked out. I'm not even really sure. Lachon let out a blood curdling scream when Brian hit him in the leg. Zach pantomimmed to detectives what Lachon's leg looked like after Brian hit him with the hammer. He wiggles his limp hand in the air. Brian had broken Lachon's femur clean through and turned his leg into jelly. When the guy was on the ground or whatever, you know, I told him I was like, alright, I was like, I'm going to fuck up and we, you know, I was like, this is not the shit, this is dumb. And he did get up and he started like running. And he was like, how will I try to run away on one leg and I was letting him go. This guy puts his hands over his ears and goes, while a homeless man is being murdered in front of him. I mean, what a fucking pussy. What a piece of shit. What is this clockwork orange? Was Kubrick right about society? What is wrong with people? How do you put your hands on someone who just hurt your feelings with words, you know? Even if it's a threat, it's just a fucking threat. It's just letters strung together in a sound that comes out of your mouth. It doesn't hurt you unless you let it, unless you're a weak, sensitive bitch. You don't put your hands on someone just because they hurt your feelings. That's not how society works. And I keep seeing more and more examples of this in general. Well Sean had several broken ribs and a broken leg. He was lying on the ground begging for the beating to stop, but Zach and Brian got a few more licks in. So he's down at this point then. Is he begging for help? Please, you guys stop. I was like, yeah, okay. Well, I see he was wondering like, thank you. Please don't touch me anymore. I'm a founder anymore. It's like, please, just stop. Did you hold stop? I did. Brian hit him a few more times because he was pissed that it went hammered because he'd have done, he said, "I'm demanding your sex." He goes, "You don't get the point. I want respect. I don't want anything else. I want respect." And that's what he kept repeating. Brian though said Zach was the one to land the final blow. I realized that Zach was at this point on top of him. Okay. Literally just giving him what to. And then the guy gets up, tries to walk away and Zach just shoves him back down. So he went, he went down, he went away with the hammer, he went down and Zach jumped on top of him. Yeah, it's okay. And then it was over. The melee had come to an end. The pair left Leshan lying on the ground next to the train tracks. That's when the enormity of what just happened hit Zach. Apparently, he can't think when he's angry. Seriously, what has happened to men? Why are we such emotionally weak trash these days? Do they teach that in med school? All you need to bring the dead back to life after a hammer to the back of the head is some gas station snacks and the gatorade. A thirst quetcher. He thought he said he didn't feel his lover happy this morning. Okay. He was just like, you know, I'm going to try and do good, so I'm trying to do good. That told me I was like, I was like, you're coming to you know. Okay, give him some drinks. You'll just, you know, no, I'm lying to the guy, but he's supposed to do it in that situation. Holy shit, this guy's dumb. Seriously, criminals are dumb as hell. That's why they're criminals. They never think to call an ambulance. I mean, if they had, they'd be in far less trouble, unless he died, of course. But he could have lived if only they had sought medical help. Instead, they got him a bag of chips and a gatorade. What a bunch of nincompoops. I don't know. I thought the guy was still walking around the last I knew. Like I said, I was drunk too, so like he might not have been standing or walking or anything, but as far as I remember, he was still up and moving. Lashon was alive, but badly injured. He lay on the ground, unable to feel his lower half while Zach gave him a pep talk. Brian just assumed he'd be fine. But did the two intend to kill him or just give him an ass beating? My intention was not to kill him. I mean, that was not my intention. He has to hurt him in the building. Here's your lesson. Some people are not to be talked with in this world, but it was never my intention to kill somebody. When you describe it, kind of sounds like an ask me to go on wrong, but I don't know how you would characterize it, you know. I mean, I was never, I attempt to take a lot of life for her. That was never the goal. You know, I was right. That's it. You might want to, you know, be this guy. That's it. I'm from a proper people. Yes. Do I want to try to take someone life ever? You know, but Brian said, so you guys are, went there, but you went there to have a confrontation with this guy, right? Yeah, because it was time to send a message to him. I guess, did you set out with the idea in your mind? Because this is the important part, is did you intend to kill him? No. No, no. That's the critically important part. Absolutely not. Not even a slide. I could imagine killing it. I can't even kill a possum. Okay. Or a squirrel or a cune. That's an occasion. No, you can take it out of the chain. To your knowledge, did Zach go there to try to kill him? I mean, I would think so just from the conversation that happened earlier that day, like, I mean, from you writing a lot of it, he said, I'm going to kill that guy. He said, we're going to kick his ass. Okay. That's fine. It wasn't a very good. Okay. I'll have to understand you. That's as far as it wasn't going to go. Whether they intended to kill Lashan or not, didn't really matter because he was still dead. Of course, they wouldn't realize this until they returned to work. I remember waking up at home the next day. I knew something. When I woke up, I could just tell something wasn't right because we'll go my back to work next day. Me and the train guy. I would help the train guy. I'd help him take the derellers off off the trains. Then we'd go back down there and we'd walk in and we'd seen the guy laying there. I mean, the train guy would say, man, he's not moving. He's just maybe sleeping. The train guy was going to call the cops if Lashan was still there the next day. So, when Brian saw he hadn't moved, he went to find Zach because I walked up to him after walking back and I'm like, dude, I'm doing this and now I'm moving. And he goes, yeah, I know I love his, I felt his pulse and you don't have a pulse. He's dead. And I'm like, what? He's dead. This seems to be the moment that Brian suddenly realized the seriousness of what they had done. hindsight, as always, 2020, but sometimes if you're this dumb, you're just fucking blind. You're just an automaton acting on just emotional loan with zero impulse control. I don't think you're even human at that point. You're just a walking, large language learning model. And not a good one. I don't even know that he tried to get you to go back out and help. He didn't know. I don't want no part of that. I can't even mentally bring in the fact that this is a real situation right now. And my like, I'm listening to some crime shows and I don't even like to wash down because it's like, it just turns my gut. Oh, poor way, oh, bye, but you can't watch true crime shows because they're too scary. He said, I didn't move by the next day he was going to call the police and get them on there. So that's what I told Brian. I said, look, so we got to do something. He said he cannot stay sitting on his tracks. Brian would not help me deal with that situation. Trying to deal with it by myself. I couldn't because my hand was broken. Brian immediately started to distance himself from the situation and from Zach. He refused to help Zach move the body. He said, I think he called somebody else that, I don't know, I guess we know how to deal with things like that. I didn't. Zach called his closest friend, a man who had since moved to Florida, of course. And this friend hooked him up with Ochoa. Saturday, we come back and he was in order to be found. He was gone. So what happened to the body then? He said, how many of his buddies do you tell you who it was? He wouldn't give me a name at all. So I don't even have the slightest clue. He's like, and then next day he showed up at the house, he goes to God, he's gone. And I'm like, what do you mean he's gone? He goes, we just solved them. You just solved them. What do you mean you just solved them? I don't get your power. It's like we covered them in acids and a body alive. Brian didn't help move the body and didn't help Zach pay Ochoa either. In the weeks and months to follow, the two separated. Brian lost Zach's number and Zach eventually gave up on getting Brian to pay his half of the money for Ochoa. They stopped talking completely. They built separate lives, but neither man ever managed to leave that night beneath the bridge behind. Are you having any closer eyes and I see someone hiding for their life? I got a little bad about it. I'm going to have to church. Okay. Good for you. Way more than I, I mean on there, Sunday, I'll talk to my pastor as I pastor, he's like, every Sunday, there's something on my mind. It's not good. I said, I need help getting, not getting over it, but I need help with like a mental, like, help of getting through this. Like, I don't know. I don't want to, like, it's not spoken. I still just know it's not good at all. You heard that, right? He was about to say he tried to get a pastor to help him get over it before he realized just how bad that sounded out loud and corrected himself. Remember, people will always tell you who they really are if you pay close enough attention. Oh, there's so many times I found that trick with Lord that just starts tearing up and starts crying. By the end of the interviews, Detective Hayward heard the same story twice. Both men agreed on almost everything. They both admitted to their roles while trying to shift blame onto the other. But one thing wasn't in dispute. Leshan Keith was dead because of what happened under that bridge. There wasn't one reason Leshan died. There were weeks of resentment, too much alcohol, the wounded pride of young men, and one terrible decision after another. They had each expressed remorse. For the last 16 months, Zach and Brian had each been carrying the weight of that night. Zach's added changed the way he looked at life. Brian said it still haunted him. But remorse and responsibility aren't the same thing. [Music] [Music] After 16 months of an investigation that was going nowhere, a DNA match brought detectives their final real break. After talking to Ochoa, they spoke with the two men who were responsible for Leshan Keith's death. Zachary Trainor and Brian Wimbley. Zachary Trainor and Brian Wimbley both told the same story but distanced themselves from responsibility, placing blame on each other. They minimized their roles as most suspects do. But who were these two men when they were not trying to save themselves? Detective Hayward had done background research on the two young men. They were both holding down jobs and had supportive families. So which one's story was more credible? I just know his friend that he was hanging out with at the time was a really bad person. Do you know who he is? Brian Wimbley. Zach's sister had mentioned that Brian was the bad influence. And when Detective Hayward went to Florida to speak with Zach's friend, the one who connected him to Ochoa, he said something similar. 'cause he was a bad influence. That's something I will tell you. He was always a bad influence. He got him in the shed. I would have never got him into it. He's just a bad influence. I was only on a phone room, Brian, but once or twice in the first time he was cool, but the second time he started fucking Zack, so I was with all that shit. I'm gonna be a hundred more true. He's gonna be lying about some shit. Zack is probably going to be a more cooperative one. Well, Brian is just trying to cover his own ass. He likes Zack. - But Brian wasn't afraid of the police. He was afraid of Zack. - Pretty much this stuff happened and I kind of like cut ties with him 'cause I don't want to be associated with you or bad news. I haven't even talked to him. - Is that? - Yeah, I've lost his number. I'm all communications. Like I want nothing to do with him. I still can care, I can give two. Sorry about the language, but I can give two folks. Left, Steve, and see his face again. I don't know if I got you. - Like he'd stay far away from me. He'd pull the knife on my dad. When me and my dad were arguing one day. - And he says, "I can kill you right now." And he told me before when I was working at the gas plant, he told me that he had killed somebody before. And I was like, "Ah, he's just bullshit." And I seemed like a bullshit. - No. - But when Brian followed Zach beneath that bridge that night, he began to wonder if those stories had been true after all. - Like he's already killed, one person. He obviously looks like he's coming here for another reason than what he told me he was coming for. And now I could be the third body. - Okay. - So at that point, my brain was just like, "Should I go with the flow?" If he tells you to do something, just a little bit, just doing what he says. But I was like, "I was scared, so it was at that point." - Did you hear the thought and you don't know who but who then? - No, I was assuming because he, the one dude grabbed his chest and went back. - The homeless man? - Like grabbed his chest and went back. And that's when I was like, "Tru, what the fuck are you doing?" Like we're not trying to fucking kill the dude. Like you said you're going to kick his ass. That's not getting to ass, dude. And his eyes, like, almost divine, looking dead at him, like what the fuck are you doing? Like, you need to stop. - Then what happened next? - He was like, "Don't fucking worry about me." I think I had at one point tried to walk away and he's like, "You better not fucking walk away or you're next." But then the boy, his voice didn't even sound the same at that point, like his voice had, like, changed. Like, deeper. - Okay. - Which was scary. That kind of told me, "Oh, man, maybe he wasn't joking about the other person that he had killed." - Brian wasn't the only person who described a different side of Zach. Months later, after they were both arrested, another man would tell Detective Hayward about conversations in jail. These conversations offered a very different picture. - I got some information that you might have to sell you at one point that I'd done a homicide. - He's like my son. - He's so stupid. He's talking about it right there in court. I mean, with, in the whole of the tank, waiting to go to court. - And what was he, was he talking to you? Or was he talking to somebody else? - He was talking to me. Where did he, where did he sample this? - He said that the party was, he just like prosecution is stupid. He said the prosecution made everybody stupid. Him and when, when believe. - Oh, he told us the guy's name too? - If that's the guy that's hanging with you, that's what made him start it because of him. - But he had both of the holding saw around. - When believe or whatever was in the cell next to us, but he was like, it's cold of it. That's what getting back in the start, something that I'm saying, dude, it's cold of it. He said, dude, hold on, this man crazy as fuck. Tell him about this. You did a murder and you tell him about it. Oh, and he said, uh, he tell him to be, uh, think I'm trying to awkwardly and do it. - Okay. You think he was, um, giving you an accurate call or you think you was trying to get tough guy either? - I think he was telling a interview, he was telling that he's me laughing all the time. But you don't have no remorse to that. That's the other thing I doubt. He just, like, he didn't have no remorse, he was laughing all the time, like, you know what I mean? And the same, like, he, like, I'm gonna get 12 years. That's this whole thing. It was getting 10 to 12 years. And he said, well, he's supposed to get 9 to 25, like, something like that. - Whether Burton was telling the truth or simply repeating Jell House, Bravado, he challenged the image of Zack that had emerged during the interviews. But Detective Hayward already had what he needed. But Joe had admitted to moving the body. Zack and Brian had each admitted in taking part in the assault. Their stories differed on who through the first punch and who struck the final blow, but, they've already figured out all this shit in the law. If you go to a location with the intent of committing a crime, no matter what it is, whether it be assault or robbing a Snickers bar, and in that act, something goes wrong and someone dies. Well, guess what? You're responsible for that. That's what the law is. So, it doesn't matter who through the first punch. It doesn't matter who struck the final blow. Stupid people don't realize this, 'cause they're stupid. 16 months earlier, Detective Hayward had stood in a muddy field looking at a body with no witnesses, and only a single glove to guide him. That glove eventually led him to three young men with three very different stories. But enough truth between the three of them to hold each one of them accountable. In the end, both Zachary Trainer and Brian Wimbley were charged with second degree homicide. Neither Zack nor Brian asked a jury to decide whose version of events was true. Both accepted plea agreements and pleaded guilty to second degree murder. Achoa was charged with accessory to a felony after the fact. He was sentenced to a year and a half in prison. Zack and Brian, though, were sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison for their roles in the death of 33-year-old Lushan Keith, and dumping his body in a hay field. Lushan Keith didn't have many material possessions, but he had a life, and he had a family, and he was a human being. And that's all that matters. He didn't deserve to be beaten, bloody, and broken, left to bleed internally until he finally passed away alone in the dark under a bridge. That's absolutely no way for anyone to go. (dramatic music) Our latest episode of Swarn's Scale Television is available right now at Swarnscale.com. It's called "Frail," you should check it out. And if you still don't know why, there's some episodes missing from the free feed, why some are marked plus and unavailable to you? Well, that's because we're not a non-profit. And you're probably not smart enough to be part of our audience. Anyway, you can find them at Swarnscale.com. Da. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)