Episode 376

Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences Listener discretion is advised So I went in there and For slides for office like a horror movie Hello, and welcome to season 13 episode 376 of sword and scale I show that reveals at the worst monster Are real Y'all sure do love free shit, don't you? I mean, that's pretty obvious from what I did to myself last week by saying that you'd get free shit with your purchase at the store I I wasn't expecting that many orders. Be honest with you and Here's what we're gonna do. We're not gonna do that anymore. Okay, well the orders that went out those orders by the way They did go out. I spent days and days working on it But I realized I was doing it all wrong. So here's what we're gonna do today We're just gonna make things super cheap at the store and if we can we will throw in an extra object or two that we have line around but we really just Want to get rid of everything because I Don't want boxes and boxes of crap in my garage. So Order now. We're gonna open it up. You should be open now store got sword and scale.com and Once we run out of stuff we run out of stuff and it'll be available. I guess on the secondary eBay market or something but That's it. I guess I'm just dragging this out at this point. So Guess we might as well get to some murder. What do you say? It It was late evening in the Zainsville Police Department in Ohio One of my favorite places When a teenage girl named Nina was brought in for questioning about her missing grandfather This is Detective Bryan Ruff. It is February 11th 25 I'm at the Zainsville Police Department speaking to and see your name for me. Nina Beos. All right Who do you live there with? I live there with mom and dad in my Okay, and mom is Brittany Anderson. Brittany Anderson. Yes Does she go by any other names? Her mother went by Brittany Cole and her father-in-law was David Cole Jr The detective continued through the basic questions Nina was 16 years old. She had lived in the house on summer street for about seven or eight years Her mother had inherited it from Nina's grandmother and after her grandmother died the family moved in Nina's boyfriend had also recently moved in and was basically living with Nina in the basement of the house All right, is anybody else that lives there or has lived there? My grandpa was living there, but from what I was told he went to Cincinnati So it's just been me my boyfriend my mom and my dad. Okay, so your grandpa that was living there when did he move? He moved around like Christmas time I think Okay, and what was his name? David Cole Sr So David Cole was living there up until we're on Christmas time. Yes. Okay and Him moving to Cincinnati was that like abruptly or was it just like? No, I didn't really notice him leaving or anything I'm always down in my room because I have depression and whatnot So I'm not really upstairs like if they like Help anybody out of the house or you know they take somebody somewhere. I don't I don't really know because I'm not out of my room Nina and her boyfriend had made a small living space in the basement and she said she rarely went upstairs unless she needed something from the kitchen typical teenagers Her grandfather's bedroom was on the opposite end of the house down the hallway beside her parents room Grandpa otherwise known as David Cole Sr Had turned 80 just two days before Christmas He had Parkinson's and didn't drive anymore, but according to his family He was still able to walk around and take care of most of his own needs Nina hadn't seen anyone come to pick him up She didn't know where in Cincinnati. He was staying and she hadn't spoken with him since he left If she ever spoke to him much at all, that is But she had no reason to question what her parents told her A little less than an hour after Nina's interview detective ruff sat down with her mother Brittany Cole He asked her the same questions And that house on summer stream. Did you buy that? It was left to me by my grandma. Okay, and what was for me? Catherine Anderson Okay Oh, okay. Has anybody else lived there over the last few years with you guys? My mother and mom father and mom Okay, and what are their names? Janet Cole Janet Okay, and David Cole Sr Okay She also told detectives that her daughter's boyfriend had recently moved in And Janet and David when did they move out? Uh, mom actually passed. It was 2023 she died of cancer and David When was I? It was the second week of January that I was 20 and moved out I'm a nursing school son hardly ever home Okay Just like her daughter, Brittany only heard through the grapevine, I guess that Her father-in-law was not only planning to move out, but had in fact done so And where did he go? To he has a brother in Columbus I think we ran a plate up there was one of those vehicles on his Yes, it was the SUV Okay, does Does he not drive? No Okay So how did he get to Columbus? The brother came and got him Okay, and what's the brother's name? I'm trying to remember I've never met him This is what you'd call a loose-knit family Grandpa had been living with the family for about four years before his health started to decline at a faster rate Apparently he didn't want to be a burden, so his brother came to get him But there were two versions of when he left and where he went Nina said he left at Christmas and went to Cincinnati On the other hand, Brittany said he left during the second week of January and went to Columbus Although Brittany and Grandpa's brother came to the house to pick him up She had never met the man and couldn't even remember his name But Brittany said Grandpa couldn't have left on his own You said you were told who told you that he moved My husband Okay And you said he doesn't drive? Why doesn't he drive? Because he wrecked the SUV in 2020 because he had Parkinson's So he shook her a lot So he decided to quit driving after that Okay, he decided that Yes, okay So having Parkinson's did you guys have to like take care of him a bunch? Um, yes and no, I mean he was a walking Like the only thing I would have to do is remind him to take his medicine Okay If Grandpa had moved out and gone to Columbus Somebody had to come and get him to physically take him there Neither Brittany or her daughter had seen any of this for themselves Brittany was simply repeating what her husband had told her And at first you might think so what so Grandpa moved out People move out all the time There was no reason for police to get involved except that um Earlier that night Their daughter's friend had called in with a very different story According to her Grandpa hadn't moved at all She said he was dead And she told them Exactly Where to look On February 10th, 2025, the police started asking questions about an 80-year-old grandfather who was living with his son's family in Zainsville, Ohio. The household included him, his son, David Jr., David's wife Brittany, their daughter Nina, and Nina's boyfriend. According to Brittany and Nina, Grandpa had moved to his brother's place because he knew he was going downhill and didn't want to be a burden. But the stories about when and where he left were very different. His granddaughter said he went to Cincinnati around Christmas. But Brittany said he went to Columbus in January. The thing is, neither of them actually saw him leave. But now it was February 10th, and police found themselves answering a call claiming that maybe grandpa had never left the property at all. So they had a few questions for Brittany. So what did officers say to you when they came to knock down your door? Did you tell them that they could look around? So you were kind of shocked at that. Who do you think they would have gotten a call like that from? They told me who they got the call from. And who was that? It's one of my daughter's friends, well used to be friends. We've had a lot of issues with her. She gave her all kinds of hoodies when they were in eighth grade. And she got a hold of me and was like, well, I won it back or I'm pressing charges for theft. And I'm like, what was in eighth grade, they're just going to tell you that you should have. I ended up giving her $150 for a black and I key hat that my daughter lost. So who was that? Emily Walsh. The call came in just after 10 p.m. from Emily who said that she was in charge of a big secret. So I got a call from my friend who I got called back and he was, he died and he got fit and just said of the best of their house. And that's on the summer street? Yes. Okay. This was a girl who said she knew Nina, the Cole's daughter. She heard it from her best friend who stayed with the Cole's for about a week and heard it from Nina herself. So the shocking information came from three teenage girls who knew if there was any truth to it. I don't know about the name of the parent. Okay. Because I used to stay over those and you got a text, you said, I don't have a call and text, but I've been blocked because I told her I was calling the doctor because she was begging me not to tell anybody and I'm just afraid they might try to move the body now. There was another reason the dead body and the shed could have been dismissed as gossip. Brittany told detectives that both the caller and the cousin had fallen out with the family. Emily called 911, but she got the information from her best friend and Nina's cousin. Emily Walls, they told you that she called and said this. Why would she have said this? I honestly have no idea. Okay. Well, how would she know information like she'd been over at your house recently to have even started some kind of rumor like that? No, but her best friend has, and who is her best friend? Naveia is proud. She also had a falling out with my, she actually used to live with it. She was there for like a week. She didn't pick up after herself. She didn't clean. And so we asked her to politely leave, we're like Emily, you know, Naveia. Oh, Naveia. Okay. She was very not okay with it, and she was very upset that we kicked her out, and I'm like, I'm not your maid. I can't, you're 18 years old, you are an adult. Right. I didn't even make her pay rent. I was like, the only thing I asked is that you help clean her out in the house if you want to be living here. Right. Makes sense. Right. We spoke to the detective who took over the case that night. And he was a bit dubious about whether the girls were telling the truth. I am detective Brian Ruff. I work with the Zainsville Police Department. I've been in the detective bureau since 2018. I've been with the Zainsville PD for a little over 13 years. I do general case detective work. So anything from an F5 drug possession to murder. Detective Ruff wasn't one of the officers who knocked on Brittany and David's door that night, but he clearly remembers what happened. Initially, when the officers went there and the sergeant went there, I, it wasn't, we thought it, they thought it was a hoax, but I mean, you wouldn't normally get a knock at your door. Hey, can we check your property for a dead body? I mean, that was the information they had and when they did it and was told, sure, go, go check out our shed and they were pretty shocked to find what they found back there. So still a little doubtful, the officers made their way to the back of the ranch home. As they approached, they spot an old mattress leaning against something. It's covered in a dark stain that's shaped like a body. They see a small tan building inside the air is still and heavy, a flashlight beam shines inside the musty shed catching all the floating particles of dust in the air. Then they see a long shape covered in plastic. It's too deliberate to be random and takes up a lot of space. All they have to do is shine a light to see what's inside, a blanket, and a large plastic mattress bag inside, there's a man, just like the collar said there would be. It's 80 year old David Cole senior, a grandfather who had supposedly moved to Cincinnati or Columbus or whatever, he had in fact, never left the property. Taking grandpa's body answered one question, but begged an even bigger one. If he had never moved out, then what had actually happened inside that house. The only way to find out was to bring the entire family into the police department, collect their phones and work on a timeline. Almost immediately, Brittany's story changed. Before I got done with the juvenile interviews, I released the juveniles to parents, and then I went into interviewing Brittany Cole. In the first interview, especially in cases like this, we're certain that we're not going to get all of the truth, so we went, I went in there, talked to her, got a consent for the extraction of her cell phone, my sergeant sat in on that one because he does the data extractions of the phones, so she told us some truths, but for the most part, it was he had only been deceased for a couple of days. He died of natural causes, we were taking care of him, and I thought my husband had taken care of it. I didn't realize that he was out in the shed. Brittany was treating this like it was completely ordinary to have an 80 year old man die in the house and then just leave the rest to her husband. Apparently at some point, that meant moving grandpa's body out to the shed. Problem is, this isn't an 18th century frontier settlement where families bury their dead on their own property because nobody else is around, this is 2025 Zane'sville, Ohio. And putting grandpa in the shed isn't really part of the death process, at least, not the one we accept in modern society. According to Brittany, grandpa had died naturally only a few days earlier, and whatever happened after that was mostly her husband's doing. He wasn't the only one changing her story, and Nina's first interview, she said grandpa moved to Cincinnati, she didn't see him leave, she didn't know much more than that. But when Detective Ruff brought Nina back in, he told her he already knew she hadn't been honest. So I need you to be 100% honest with me. And you can't say, I know you lied to me, right? And I can't say you don't know anything because I know that you do. So I didn't know about the situation. But when my dad told me that he wasn't going to call the cops, we were basically just dividing by him and from my past with the guys, it really scares me. Like dealing in situation with guys and whatnot. And they just kept telling me they were like, tell people he's in Cincinnati. People don't need to know. And you know, he really scares me with his angry issues. And he's all menacing and everything. But there's just like sometimes that he gets over aggressive and like really scares me. So Nina, after all, knew that her grandpa had died. She said David Jr., her stepdad scared her. Blame the big scary man, I guess. He said he didn't want to call the police and told her not to tell anyone. Just to tell them that grandpa had moved out of the house. But that was a big, heavy secret to be carrying around for a teenage girl. And Nina wanted a way out. And I knew it would have been the right thing to do. So I told, I knew it was going to happen. I told my friend, Nate, and Emily, had ended up finding out. And she was the one who called you guys. Right. And I was-- So, Nate is Navella. Navella, yes. Stroud, Chris. And I told her, he hopes that you guys will find out, because I don't want to be that person to keep that secret and whatnot. And it scares me. Nina deliberately let the secret out, hoping someone would tell, because it was just too much for a depressed 16-year-old to be burdened with. Fortunately, her strategy worked. But now Detective Ruff hoped her mother Brittany would shed more light on what she knew. We don't want to think that anybody's a bad person or a monster or anything. But when we look at things based on evidence and what we're getting at, that we need to know in front. What's truth is, and you sit there, and you don't tell the truth 100%. Do you-- how do you think that makes that personal? Do you know what I mean? Yes, I do. So, in situations like these, like he just said, with DNA, everybody's always transferred everything. He's wrapped in plastic out on your shit. OK? He's wrapped? Yeah. Let's just cut through the chase. We're not going to-- I'm not going to sit here and don't act like a surprise. I am surprised. I thought he moved to Columbus. You're not. Listen, I've been doing this for about 20 years now. And maybe this wasn't your idea from what it began. Here's a chance to say, here's what really happened. I mean, I'm going to crap with a lie that he knew to come to listen. We're going to talk to some people, and they're going to say, anybody with half a brain wouldn't know that that's a bullshit story. And I'm not here to make you feel bad. And I know whatever happened happened. You can't change it. The only thing you can do now is be honest. There's a man in your father-in-law that you care about. That you say that you care about. If you really care about him, then you'd probably tell the truth. If you don't, then I really don't care. That's something that you're going to have to live with. The detectives weren't buying the idea that Brittany had simply been blindsided by a body, turning up in her own shed. So they kept trying to figure out exactly what she knew and when she knew it. So what happened to you? You passed away with natural causes. How do you know that? Because I found it. Where did you find him? In his bed. Where was his bed at? Last dream on the way. Did you guys take the carpet out? My husband did. Why? And I had no idea I wasn't home when he did it. Why didn't you just call the-- call us? People die every day. And we come and check it out. Because they didn't want to tell my husband he was a wolf. How? That was his last meeting there. She didn't want to tell her husband he was now an orphan. Confusing, right? The detective was confused about her response also. He was dealing with adults, after all. Brittany was 37, and her husband, the orphan, was 44. Like he said, people die every day. But detectives realized in this interview with David that Brittany wasn't exaggerating. David took his mother's death really hard. And she was afraid his dad's death would devastate him. I just-- he was the last thing I had left in this world. And when he was with him being gone, all I had was her. I just had her. I know it sounds like I can't. Don't you have two sons? They don't talk me for good reason. I had cut them out a long time ago. See, Brittany was his fourth wife. He didn't seem to have a good track record with marriages. And appeared his sons may have had to pay the price. But whatever David Jr.'s emotional state detectives still had a dead man wrapped in plastic in a shed. And they still didn't have a straight answer of how or why he got there. That was his last parent. So why-- to those main sons. Why wouldn't he call the boys and say, hey, you passed away? You know what I mean? You found him. Yes, sir. How did you find him? I wanted him to make sure he took his morning meds. OK. So if you found him and he-- you say he died of natural causes, how do you know he died of natural causes? I just assumed. Brittany admitted finding grandpa dad and eventually telling David. But she reported having no idea how he got moved to the shed after David said he'd take care of things. So if your DNA is not going to be on there, and you don't think your daughter is big enough to be able to move a body. So if it wasn't you on, you don't think your daughter could do it. Who's that leave? Yes, ma'am. OK. Do you think your husband is capable of killing someone? He was overseas, and that's what he did. But his own dad, I'm not. I mean, I don't think he would. But I don't know. Even though Brittany was the one to discover grandpa had died, she said she wasn't the one who had wrapped him in plastic. She maintained that her husband had done this while she was at school. After he said he would handle everything, including making the necessary calls and arrangements. Well, let's not-- we're not here today. We're not here to assume we're going on this-- It would have been him, because he ordered off a famous one. Ordered the plastic. Yes. And I targeted that. Because he told me he didn't. But he didn't tell me what it was for. So you go to school Monday through Friday. Yes, sir. You've found him. Was it close to the weekend? Was it like first thing Monday morning? I'm going to start the week off with-- I want to say it was like in Monday or Tuesday morning. OK. How long did he lay in that bed before the plastic showed up? And he was moved. That I'm not sure. You live in the house. You come home every night. If I had to guess to meet me any a week. So he laid in the house for a week. How long did it take to order the plastic and for the plastic to get there? Two days. OK. You know prime members? Yes. OK. You didn't help put him in the plastic? OK. Where did you help carry him to the shed? Yeah. If you did. As far as I know, it's just my husband. There was another reason detectives would start to suspect David Jr. His father's money kept running the house. And they didn't have full-time jobs. I mean, David Jr. and Brittany, they-- I think they did like DoorDash. They were DoorDashing. He went to school full-time. But David Jr. wasn't-- he wasn't employed by anyone other than the DoorDashing. So they didn't really have a source of income other than his father. And that's why they needed to keep him. To be fair, David admitted in his interview that they were essentially his dad's caretakers. So some of his monthly checks were spent on wound care, bedrails, things like that. They also said his dad was happy to give him part of his social security checks to help him with the bills. But there was a little more to it than that. Although his dad was hardworking, David Jr. lacked ambition. By all accounts, when he wasn't DoorDashing, he was just sitting around playing video games and watching TV. Sound familiar? So when he would get his monthly checks, what would you do with it? I mean, he used to help hit the bills or he's like to electricity water or whatnot. So you guys used it to maintain the household in your lifestyle somewhat, yeah? Okay. Obviously, we didn't find him until earlier this week. You would have gotten checks for him in January and he was already deceased. Yes, sir. Okay. Here, it's clear the coals didn't just rely on grandpa's Social Security while he was alive. They cashed his final check after he was gone, then spent the money. And that played into the timeline of when exactly grandpa died. According to Brittany, the family spent Christmas together at the house, then on December 26th, the day after Christmas, Brittany, her husband and daughter Nina left for a plan trip to Orlando. Grandpa stayed behind. Nina's boyfriend allegedly came and went from the house and Brittany claimed he was checking in on grandpa and the dogs while they were gone. The family drove back from Florida on New Year's Eve and arrived on January 1st. She claimed that grandpa died after they got back and she told David about it. But this is where the second version of Brittany's story starts. He asked him if he wanted to go, but he said it would be too much work to try to. Okay. I wasn't the one that found him, I said I was a jittery mess, my husband, and then what happened? He closed me at school, he's not crying, but you can tell there's a little, how do I want to describe this, he's upset, but not as upset as I thought he should have been. And he was like, I can't believe this happened, I don't know what to do, and I'm like, what's going on? He's like, what dad's gone, and I'm like, how do you know? Okay. And that's where I got the pulse from, and he took his pulse, we're trained in to do the different classes. So then what happened, did you come home from school? I asked him if he wanted me to, and he said no, because he could only miss 24 hours in a per turn, or you're kept. Okay. I was like, are you sure? And he was like, no, I'm like, what caused me to be made, and just, I'll see you in a minute. Brittany claimed she had checked on grandpa when they returned on New Year's Day. And according to her, he was fine, but in this new version of events, David finds his dad dead in bed on January 8th, a week after the family returned from Florida. He calls Brittany, tells her what happened and says he'll take care of everything. When Brittany gets home, she asks if it was handled. David says yes. But it hasn't. Grandpa is still lying dead in his bedroom, getting colder by the hour. And there's no corner in sight. Brittany says David won't let her go into dad's bedroom. He's worried about her because she just suffered losses on her side of the family recently, and she's still grieving. But this is interesting because in Brittany's first interview, she told detectives almost exactly the opposite, that she had found grandpa dead and didn't want to tell David because she was protecting him after the death of his mother. No matter who initially found grandpa passed away, Brittany claims she didn't even know where his body had gone until the day before police came knocking on the door on February 10th. By then, detectives had gone through both her and David's phones and they'd seen video footage from inside the house. They've heard inconsistencies in Brittany's story, so they politely ask again. And we're not here to play games, okay. Wait, why would she need to know about body removal in December when grandpa was still alive? I was asking how I go about it because I've never had to do that before and he works for a magician. Okay. I wanted to get a sense of how I would go about it just in case. Brittany, you realize that there is nobody left face to this or that's normally the story like that. You work in the healthcare system. Yes. Grandpa wasn't dead as far as she was aware what a weird response, right, unless it was another lie of course. So tell me, tell me about that. When do you find Dad dead? I know he's alive on the 23rd. It wasn't me that found him that was David and it was Christmas morning. No, you're going to work off of that, okay, because on that camera when David finds them, I can see it on that camera because he calls you at school and he says, how long has he been dead? You say three to five days as David says, he's been dead longer than that. He's starting to decay, that's exactly what he says on there. So David does not find him, okay, do you find him? Yes. Tell me about that. And just like that, the story shifted again. Grandpa had been dead for more than six weeks by the time police found out and came to his door. He started decomposing after just a few days, so you can imagine that when David finally opened the bedroom door, the stench would have been overwhelming and the sight of his decaying flesh would have been just as bad, if not worse. And they had a camera pointing down their hallway and we actually we have the video, we have the point in time when David Cool Jr walks down the hallway and opens up the door to find his dad deceased and decomposing, I mean he even called and asked Brittany like, hey, what happened and he even said no, he's decomposing, he's been dead longer than a couple of days and then she even tries to lie to him. Here is the camera footage and the audio it captured. You know how your house smells when you've been on vacation for a while? A little stuffy, dank, musty maybe? Have you ever had a mouse die in your house? Well, this was the body of a full grown man and it had been lying there for nine days by the time they got back. David had his own version about what happened when they got back from Florida. Okay, so you changed out the folder in the air purifier, it's smelling real bad in there and she's trying to mask the smell, you still don't go in to check? No, I still don't, but that's when I started to get that feeling like something wasn't right, but I just shut it out, I just, okay, no. and then I know it was a day when she was in school and everything was getting worse. There's flies, there's the smell. I thought it couldn't be because I mean I just couldn't. But I forced myself. I was like okay, no. I have to know. So I went in there and her slides were off. It was like a horror movie. I lifted it up. It looked like it and I saw, I mean not well because I kind of the likes of it. I dropped the blanket real quick and I freaked out. That's when he called Brittany at school and basically asked her what the hell was going on. He opened the door and in his own words it was like a horror movie. Grandpa was dead but he wasn't gone. He was just literally moved from room to room before finally landing in the shed. And the camera inside the house did confirm something important. When David finally opened the bedroom door on January 8th, he really did look shocked. Like he had no idea. Which meant that his dad's body had likely been in that bedroom from Christmas day until January 8th. After that, David's decaying corpse lay in bed for another two or three days. Eventually Brittany admitted she dragged her father-in-law out of the bedroom down the hallway and into the sunroom where he spent another two days. Brittany would eventually claim that David helped her wrap the body in plastic so they could move it outside. But David denied that. He admitted he knew what was going on after January 8th, but insisted Brittany did all the physical work herself. Tell us about that. Tell us about that. How long did how did you get him from the bedroom to the sunroom? You drug him. Yes. Okay. Why are you still trying to throw your husband that you claim to love under the bus? Let me ask you this. You're sitting where you're sitting and we're discussing all of this. Is it David Jr's fault? Yes sir. So should he go to prison because of your actions? Yes sir. Should he be sitting in jail right now because of your actions? Yes sir. Then tell us the truth and quit trying to throw him under the bus. You drug him from the bedroom to the sunroom. I don't need to throw him under the bus because that's what he wanted. He said. I don't give a shit on what he wants. I want the truth. Yes sir. Either way, detectives had finally pieced together what happened to David Sr's body after he died. But was she also lying about what happened before he died? And he was asking for ties not like he and he. Okay. And I suggested to him that he stopped that he's like, no. He's bedridden. The only person that could have given him as Tylenol is you. Yes. That's what I just said here and said. Did you give him something else that he doesn't know you usually get that I before? No. The only thing I gave him was Tylenol and it was like Zeepo to help him sleep because he complained he couldn't get to sleep. You said he gave him Zeepo. How much Zeepo did you get? The recommended amount which was at least 15 milligrams. They weren't buying it. They had sat across from a woman who had changed her story so many times that it was like trying to pin jealous to the wall. Somebody who lies so easily it's their first instinct. But she continued much like her earlier stories. I found him. I didn't find him. David did. I was protecting David. Now he was protecting me. Grandpa died of natural causes. Maybe. Maybe I overdosed him. How do you even make sense of a story like this? Okay. So 3000 milligrams of Tylenol and a double dose of Zeepo and he makes the comment. I want to go see my wife. Yes sir. Okay. He'd been down in the press since she died. Okay. Yes sir. Let me turn this action. Yes sir. Did you do anything else to that name? No I did not. I am being certain. Because if you gave him Zeepo or you gave him percussette or you gave him I don't know cocaine heroin anything. Okay that doesn't change anything we're still the same spot where we're at. Okay. Because if me give him somebody some Zeepoil I'm not going to be thinking of crack man. I've got to hide a body and all that other stuff. That's not how people think. So what happened to him? It's like some light wheel is not going to kill somebody. It's not. It's not. Some light wheel is not going to kill somebody. It's not. So tell me. Would you give to him or what you want. Tell me what you gave him. Tylenol is one thing but Tylenol with Coding, otherwise known as Tylenol 3, is another. Coding is an opioid and will suppress the central nervous system including slowing the breathing and heart rate down, possibly to dangerous levels. Then you add a little Zequil which does the same thing only without the opioid. But when combined the Zequil enhances the effects of the Coding. Just for good measure they asked her again. No it was just the Tylenol, the Tylenol 3 is in the Zequil. How much? It was like three or four cups in the Zequil. Okay. So it wasn't 60 milliliters, it was probably a hundred and twenty. He couldn't sleep. And then at eleven o'clock would you give him? Rest of it. Wait a second, wait a second. Bring it. Bring it. Let's stop here. Okay. You don't give a guy a frick and a half gallon of Nyquil, a half bottle of Tylenol and a quarter bottle of Tylenol 3 because you think he can't sleep. That's what he was telling me. But you know that that's not what's in the house. I know. What happens? You knew what was going to happen with that concussion. And I tried to tell him that. I did. It's easy to imagine what that looked like. Brittany standing over a frail man she said she loved, like her own dad, feeding him massive amounts of sedatives and reading him the warning label about how it could be harmful or fatal. I don't think that's what happened. Do you? I guess every time we get like this, you're like, band is what happens. And then what happens as we talk for another twenty minutes and then we come back and then, oh, hey, guess what, we're going to add this to it now. So what else did you give him? Okay. And what happens over the strike? If you gave him, like, well, it's the same as if you told him to strike with him or you did whatever else he did. And I'm sorry. I gave him sixteen milligrams of his equal in three Tylenol 3s. Okay. I love him when I went to Shaquan and he complained that he couldn't sleep when he was still in pain. Okay. And asked if he could have more Tylenol. He gave him more Tylenol 3s. I gave him more Tylenol 3s. I told him how many? It was another three. Okay. So he's got six Tylenol 3s. What's in a how many period of time? Two hours. Okay. Okay. So then keep going. I gave him that. I told him it could hurt him. Okay. And I told him that there would be repercussions. So you knew by giving him six Tylenol 3s, he would die. Okay. There would be repercussions is another way of saying you'll probably die. And Brittany very well knew this. After all, she had worked in a nursing home and was now in nursing school. So scary. This was all they needed to know. She had just confessed to overdosing and elderly man. Despite having Parkinson's, he had some quality years left and even if he didn't, it wasn't up to her to play God. But playing God would suggest that Brittany simply euthanized grandpa. and put him out of his misery, and let him be with his wife in the next world. That's not at all what police believe her motive was. And when the Toxicology Report came back, they were all in for a big surprise. (dramatic music) (dramatic music) (gentle music) By the time detectives finished their second interview with Brittany, almost every part of her original story had fallen apart and had been rearranged to include slightly more truth. Grandpa hadn't moved to Cincinnati or Columbus, and he hadn't died in January. He died on Christmas Eve. When all through the house, not a creature was stirring, except for Brittany shuffling back and forth between the bathroom and grandpa's bedroom, dosing him over and over with Zquill, Tylenol, and Coding. Brittany kept David's senior's health from her husband for two weeks, told her daughter to lie about where Grandpa had gone, and left his body decomposing behind a closed bedroom door. While the rest of the family went to Disney World. Kill your father-in-law and go to Disney World. That's the state of society today. When David Jr. finally discovered his father on January 8, cameras inside the house captured a reaction detectives' belief was genuine. He really had not known. But when he did find out, he neglected the tele authorities. Together, Brittany and David eventually wrapped his father's body in a tarp and a plastic mattress bag, and Brittany moved him into the shed. According to Brittany, his murder was an act of mercy. Grandpa was in pain. He missed his wife and wanted to die. And that could very well be true, you know. It's kind of depressing to get old and see everyone you love die around you while your own health fails. You feel like shit most of the time, and none of the young people even want to talk to you or be around you. You smell like an old person, and you got nothing interesting to say. So that's the life we're all looking forward to ahead. But detectives had already found another possible explanation for all this. Do you wanna take a guess as to what that might be? I'll give you a second to think about it. Ding, ding, ding, ding, money. Of course, don't you just love it. I was able to hear from some of her family and from even some of his family that David Jr. didn't do a whole lot and blew through a bunch of his parents' money and was kind of the reason why his dad ended up having to live with them is because David Jr. ended up getting them into a situation his parents had to sell their house and he ended up being in control of like $120,000 I believe is what he told me and all of that money was gone. Somehow they burned through $120,000 and had very little to show for it. They certainly weren't sitting on a pile of assets or crypto. Neither one of them I don't think really wanted to put a whole lot of effort into working and they found there were opportunities with his parents to inherit money and that's why they lived the way that they lived. I mean, they had I think four TVs in their living room and they had two or three lounge couches with all the bells and whistles but they didn't own any of it. All of it was from Rent, Rent Center because they had the right through all of the money. Even their car was, I mean, it wasn't paid for anything. They had all that money from the sale of David Jr.'s parents' farm and they had spent it all. To be fair, Brittany and David weren't available to defend their spending habits, their team-u purchases, their Amazon Prime subscription. They were too busy doing time. So I think we're gonna have to take the detective's word for it. Anyway, Grandpa got approximately $2,300 a month in Social Security. David Jr. had power of attorney and managed the account along with Brittany. Police records show that even after his dad died, his December and January payments had hit the account and had been spent. That alone doesn't prove somebody committed murder for a Social Security check. But then the detectives learned about some family meetings around Christmas. Ah, don't you just love the Christmas spirit? David's dad was becoming harder to care for. He's becoming the burden. They claim he didn't want to be. Brittany was a nursing school and the whole situation was wearing her down. On either December 21st or 22nd, just days before he died, Brittany got on a telehealth call about his condition. Afterwards, she started calling nursing homes. One facility was willing to take him, but his insurance would only cover the first 30 days. If he stayed and transitioned into long-term care, his Social Security money would be taken to pay for it. You know how it goes. Somebody's got to get that money other than the person it's for. In other words, grandpa going to a nursing home wouldn't just remove an elderly man from the house. It would also remove Brittany and David's main source of income. The timing was hard to ignore. On December 21st or 22nd, the family was discussing putting grandpa into a facility. December 23rd was his 80th birthday. And on December 24th, Brittany called, gave him drugs. She admitted she knew would kill him. Brittany, he's coming to Oxford and then all that's going to come out. Okay, we're talking. We got that. It should be coming at any time now. We're going to know exactly what's in there. So if you say you gave us you, you're not telling me something? It's going to show up on the Stanford. But it didn't show up. The blood was screened for more than 95 commonly used drugs, but everything came back negative. There was no Tylenol, no Cody, no evidence of any over-the-counter medication Brittany claims she had given them. And that wasn't the only surprise. The autopsy showed that David Senior had serious heart disease. Microscopic examinations showed a blood clot nearly blocking one of his coronary arteries. The official cause of death was an acute myocardial infraction. A heart attack, essentially. Natural causes, just like Brittany originally said. But how could this have happened? And how would it affect the case? Brittany had already confessed to first-degree murder, after all. Based off of the coronary report and that can be confusing is because, you know, the body was so decomposed there wasn't any evidence to prove anything there. But we had enough other evidence, you know, if she wouldn't have confessed, I am certain that we still would have gotten a conviction on her because we did have the camera footage. We did have David Jr. talking about it. We do have the records from where she ordered, or he ordered the Amazon, the mattress bag off of Amazon and the text messages where he's saying, I'm trying to eat in the living room and the smell's so bad. Maybe we should have a window like you and that's one of the things that we use. Like, we told her, we have this information, you might as well just tell us what happened. And so, yeah, I'm confident that we still could have gotten a conviction if that would have gone to trial. Detective Ruff was suspicious from the start. Brittany's story kept changing and every new piece of evidence seemed to bring another lie. But even after the coroner ruled David's death natural, Detective Ruff says that gut feeling never went away. And he was absolutely right. To me, there's, there's still something. underlying there. I think that she says she goes in the first time she gave him the medicine and then she goes in a second time to give him medicine, but then she doesn't go back and check until 5 a.m. Well, I personally, I don't believe that. You know, if you've gone, you've given him medicine once with the thought process that he's probably going to die and you go back into check and he's not dead and so you give him more medicine, you're not going to stop there. You're going to come back in and you're going to check and then at that point, I think personally, I think she took kind of matters into her own hands and I think there was something else that happened before 5 a.m. because we did find the medicine bottle and of prescription pills and then we did find the medicine bottle of this equal and the amounts were consistent with what was left. For days, detectives weren't sure about how much David Jr. knew. He was definitely part of the cover. He continued spending his dad's checks and lied about what happened, so it was reasonable to wonder whether he knew all along. But Detective Roth says that video from the camera inside the home changed everything. My first thought was, wow, I can't believe we've got this on video. And then it was like, wow, he really didn't know. This was not him. This was Brittany. You know, we weren't sure exactly. We knew she was lying and you know, like I said, that's something that we're going into the first interview of a case this big. We know they're going to lie. Just how much? Well, David really didn't know. David Jr. really didn't know and we didn't believe that he didn't know until we saw that video. We didn't know how involved he was until we saw that video. And he, I mean, he says, what has she done? Then he immediately calls her and starts questioning her on that. And that's what was running through my mind when we saw that video. I have a theory. You want to hear it? No? Well, then go listen to crime junkie. The hell are you doing here? Then come poop. I think these two lazy folks were planning to kill the old man. They wanted a shit. And when you're an old man with any amount of savings and a couple of lazy good for nothing, losers living in your home, you got a problem. These two likely talked at length about killing him, about getting rid of them without getting rid of the money. They researched and they strategized about doing it probably while lying there in bed at night. Thinking about their plans, writing the Dumb O'Ride, it doesn't he? Well, the old man is ancient history. Maybe they even argued a bit about when or how to do it, but never actually solidified a complete plan, at least not yet. Then suddenly, out of the blue, they're in the midst of formulating their plan and the old man dies suddenly of a heart attack. Brittany being the genius that she is and with all the existing evil thoughts of getting rid of the old man still freshly swirling inside that little peanut-sized brain, skips to part two of the series of events she's already envisioned and talked about with David Jr. That's why David Jr's expression in the surveillance footage seems so genuine. It's not because he's shocked Brittany killed his father. It's that he's surprised she did it now, suddenly, without a plan first, without letting him know. He's shocked about the when, not the why or even the how. Now, David has a dilemma because even though the old man died of natural causes, Brittany didn't tell anyone about it. She kept it to herself. She pretended like everything was fine and went about her days. And now it's way too late to call anyone. So these two knuckleheads go into self-preservation mode because Brittany had been attempting to overdose the old man and it hadn't worked yet. And after about 10 hours, the Tylenol leaves your system. That's when the old man's heart goes out. But Brittany isn't completely sure what it is that killed him. That's why she admits to her crime. That's why Jr. helps conceal the body after the fact. Both of these clowns, in my opinion, should be under the jail. And I stress, this is all just my own speculation. I have no facts other than what you've heard to back any of it up. But it makes sense, doesn't it? I just couldn't say anything. She was the only person I had left. I was afraid that if you call the police, she would get in trouble. I didn't call the police. I just went along with everything and I just wanted to just shh. It's not that you know too. It's not an excuse. I know. But there's no escaping the law. Well, most of the time, unless you live in a liberal state that is. Brittany pleaded guilty to murder and abuse of a corpse. She was sentenced to life in prison and will be eligible for parole after 16 years. David Jr. later pleaded guilty to multiple felonies stemming from what happened after his father's death. He was sentenced to nine years in prison. Neither Nina nor her boyfriend was charged with any crime. After all, Nina was a juvenile and her own mother put her in an impossible situation. Brittany showed absolutely no remorse. Not once, not ever during any of her interviews. But David did. Like I did with the boys, when I had that woman that would do all those drugs and she ended up, I tried to move her on the state to get her away from her dealers and shit and I was down in Cincinnati and she got into some fentanyl and died and found her after work. And I called and I had talked to him in three years and they immediately rushed out to me and he was a lazy man. I mean, that wasn't good man. He didn't deserve this. He just wanted to be very next to all. And I know about all this legal stuff and shit and there's all this going on. But honestly, that was one of the worst things. I was knowing that his wish was to be very next to all and I was possibly digging that away from him. David Sr. Grandpa expected to live out his final days around people who loved him and would care for him. Isn't that what we all want? Isn't that what we all think will happen? He thought that because he was living with family, let alone family that provided health care. He would be in good hands. Instead, he ended up wrapped in plastic in a shed. Behind the house where his family continued living and spending his money. His son had said once that he was a good man who deserved better. He was right. [Music] [Music] I figure we'll go ahead and go out with a bang and from here on out we'll put out weekly episodes. What do you think? At least till the end of the year that is. Thank you once again for joining us. It's always a pleasure. Till next week. Stay safe. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]