The Scream Murder, Episode 5: Brian vs Torey

Hi, this is Connor McCarthy. Today we're back with another episode of The Scream Murder, a true teen horror story. Remember, if you can't wait for more, you can listen ahead to the entire series right now, ad-free, when you subscribe to 2020 True Crime Plus. Just click the link in the description to sign up. Terms apply. Now, here's the next episode. 11 months after being arrested for killing Cassie Stoddard, Tori Adamczyk and Brian Draper prepare to go to trial on first-degree murder charges. Their lawyers plan to pit the accused killers against each other. The only person that confessed to stabbing Cassie was Brian. My theory was that Tori was the main actor and Brian was less culpable. And 20 years after Cassie's murder, Brian Draper and Tori Adamczyk speak. Is there anything that's off-limits for you? No, because, like, literally the only shameful thing that I've really done with my life is stab Cassie. So, I mean, I can admit to that now. This is the Scream Murder, True Teen Horror Story podcast. So, in the last episode, we talked about who was more to blame, Tori or Brian? Who was the leader? Who was the follower? And that debate takes on a different tone in this episode, because in this episode, we dive deep into the trials of Brian and Tori. Now, remember, Cassie Jo Stoddard was murdered in September of 2006. Fast forward to, April of 2007. That's the first trial, and that's Brian Draper. He goes first. And he pleads not guilty despite all this evidence against him. The Drapers were standing by Brian. They had a public defender represent him. And we spoke to that public defender by the name of Dave Martinez. And this is what he had to say about his defense, his approach, with all this damning evidence and that tape. How would you represent a client like Brian Draper? Brian had been involved in soccer, had been involved in church, was a talented musician. I don't know Tori's entire background. I don't pretend to. But I think that the interest in horror movies and things like that, I think that came from Tori. I felt like Tori was a controlling part of this relationship, and that a lot of his interests had become Brian's interests. I felt that had Brian not met Tori, this never would have happened. Brian's defense chose to go first. So each trial was going to be a week, three to four days long. So Brian's trial is going to be week one at the end of April, and then immediately after is going to be Tori's trial. And remember, this was the biggest thing in Pocatello. I mean, all eyes were on this trial. One of the biggest trials ever, I would say, probably pretty safe to say in Pocatello. I think one point about the trial that should be noted, there were cameras in the courtroom covering each day. And in the footage, you can see on the left side of the fences, Brian Draper's parents, Carrie and Pam, there to support. On the other side, you see Cassie's family. Anna was there every day. She testified. Her sister, aunts, uncles, grandfathers, they were all there. So we have Brian Draper's parents supporting Brian, and then you have Cassie's family advocating for her. These guys need to get the most severe punishment for what they did. The focus of the prosecution's case would be the prosecution's prosecutor, Mark Heidemann. But on that tape, you'll see where this defendant, Tori Adekte, conspired and planned to kill Cassie Soddard. You'll see where they eagerly anticipate carrying out that plan to kill her. You'll see at the beginning of this tape, there's a section where the murder has just been accomplished. It's after the murder. And you'll hear a voice on the tape. It's gone on the tape. You can't see. But you'll hear a voice, and the voice is that of Brian Draper, the defendant. I want to tell you what that voice says. That voice says, and I quote, we just killed Cassie. Obviously, the prosecution, who we haven't talked about, had a mountain. They had all this evidence. They had the tape. They had those. They had Brian's statement. Here is what Dave Martinez said about how he would defend Brian Draper. And my theory was that Tori was the main actor, and Brian was less culpable, although still part of something horrible. And that I believed that Brian assisting the police in locating the videotape that would become essential to the state's case, and the masks and everything demonstrated his remorse and desire to come clean. Remember, Brian was the one who confessed, and Brian was the one who led them to the evidence. So this is also another element of the defense. Maybe Brian, because he had cooperated to the extent that he had, he deserves a break. He had confessed already. They had the tape. They had the evidence. So Dave Martinez, a very difficult job here. This is the first time that a jury sees the tape, and the town of Pocatello will see this tape. How do you undo that when they see it, when they hear what Brian, both Brian and Tori had to say on that tape? How do you get past that? Local reporter Jimmy Hancock was in court when the jury saw the tape. He was in court when the jury saw the tape. The first time we saw that was during the Draper trial. And it was, it was silencing. In my mind, as I'm watching it in the courtroom, I'm shocked. I'm shocked at what I'm seeing. It was something that made you just, what could you say to it when you saw it? I mean, it, it just held so, so many affirmations of what prosecution and law enforcement was saying. This show is sponsored by Vinted. It's officially fall, and it seems like everywhere you look, everybody's wearing adorable fall sweaters. And you might be ready to start shopping for your own fall wardrobe. But when your closet is already full of spring and summer styles and clothes from years past that you don't wear anymore, it's hard to find the space for them. 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The highest form of approval. No haggling, no hassle. No one called him boss. He's still on the couch. Astonishing. Sell your car today on Carvana.com. Pickup fees may apply. Once Brian's trial was over, it was time for Torey's. And again, the tape was the biggest piece of evidence for the prosecution. Here's prosecutor Mark Heidemann. The videotape is a pretty compelling piece of evidence. On the videotape is a defendant and his friend Brian Graper, conspiring and planning to murder the captain's daughter. They're both on tape, they both were planning Cassie's murder. They both talked about killing other classmates. But there were some differences in the way they were defending themselves or their lawyers were defending them. And in Torrey's case, his attorney, Bron Rommel, said, on that tape, you don't hear my client say, I killed Cassie. You hear Brian say, I killed Cassie. Torrey, says Bron Rommel, never confessed. Brian confessed, says Bron Rommel. Also, the physical evidence points right at Brian. The prosecutor, meanwhile, said that Brian and Torrey shared the guilt equally. And Bron, again, set the tape aside. Let's look at the hard evidence, the physical evidence. That's what we like. The mask, the knives, what was collected at the scene of the crime that can tie Brian and Torrey together? To the actual murder of Cassie. And this is what he had to say. One of the most important parts of our defense and argument to the jury was that the only person that confessed to stabbing Cassie was Brian. Cassie's DNA was found on one mask. That mask was also connected by DNA to Brian. Cassie's DNA was found on one knife. That knife was connected to Brian. Cassie's DNA was found on one shirt. That DNA was connected to Brian. Those were all, in my opinion, very compelling pieces of evidence to show that Brian was the one that was there. And it's again important to note that no DNA connected Torrey to Cassie's DNA. The prosecutors claim that even without the DNA connection, there was more than enough to convict Torrey Adamchek. And besides, both of them tried to conceal their guilt. They left her there. Yeah. For two days for someone to discover it. And that someone was a family member, which makes it all the more traumatic. So now it's going to be up to the jury to decide. Both trials conclude and they go to the jury and the expected verdict comes down. Brian Draper, guilty of first degree murder. Torrey Adamchek, guilty of first degree murder. When those verdicts were read, you hear two different reactions. You hear some, lack of a better word, joy and, you know, exhilaration from Cassie's family. Justice is served. And then you hear sorrow and shock and sadness from the Drapers and the Adamcheks. Here's Pam Draper about the verdict. I was at that trial every day. I heard, and saw, every piece of evidence. I think during the trial, we knew what was going to happen. As a parent, I watched the tape. I know what was on it. As an outside person, it's very hard to understand or live past that. But as the parent of the young 16-year-old boy sitting there in that room every day during trial, I will say that I understand fully because I was at that trial every day. And this is what Torrey's mother, Shannon, said about Torrey's guilty verdict. So both boys were there. Both boys were guilty. You know both boys played a part. So, but I really can't talk too much about the trial. They had experts just putting their theory of the case together. What I was upset about is that we did not talk about any distinction between Torrey and Brian or as much about the physical evidence. And the character witnesses. So one of the things that was very, very difficult is during the trial, Pocatello is a very small community and the courtroom was very small. And I would see the Stoddard family and we could never talk to them. So I've never been able to apologize to them or talk to them. In August of 2007, Torrey and Brian came back before Judge Peter McDermott, for their sentencing. And it was at that moment we hear from Anna Stoddard, Cassie's mother. And she, as you are allowed to do as a relative of the victim, gave a victim impact statement at the sentencing. And we're going to play a portion of what she had to say right now. On September 22nd, 2006, my beautiful daughter was brutally murdered by Brian Draper and Torrey Adamczyk. Little was I to know that that was going to be the last time I seen her alive. To this day, I'll never understand why two of her so-called friends would do this to her. And something so terrible could happen in Pocatello, Idaho. She never deserved what happened to her that night. And I can't believe that you two boys would do this. Friends don't kill friends. She made sure to say friend multiple times. Just to punctuate and highlight how horrendous this crime is. It's not just a murder. It is a betrayal that Cassie, probably in her final seconds of her life, knew who was there. She had to have known it was Brian. She had to have known it was Torrey because Brian said they talked to each other. She's still alive. She's not dying. Whoever said what she knew, I believe, even though if they were masked, she knew who was killing her. It makes it all the more terrifying for Cassie. Let's hear a little bit more from Anna. I let you come to my house. I let you take Cassie to the movies. I never knew you were going to kill her. I guess when two sick minds get together and plan something so evil, it didn't matter to you. Now I have to live every day of my life without her. I don't get to see her graduate from high school, go to college, become the lawyer she wanted to be, get married, have children, and live all the big dreams that she had. And I know she would have accomplished them all. You have destroyed the trust of everybody in this town. You just don't realize how this has affected everybody that loves Cassie. Not a day goes by that she has not thought about and missed. Now that you are found guilty of the crime, I hope that you really start to realize that you can just not go out and kill someone. You will pay the price. And I truly hope that God will judge you in the end. Life in prison is not enough, but that will assure me and my family and the community of Pocatello that you can never hurt anyone again. So Anna talks there about wanting them, Brian and Tori, to spend the rest of their lives in prison. And in August 2007, that's exactly what Peter McDermott, the judge in this case, determined would happen. He sentenced both of them at age 16 to life in prison without parole, meaning that they will die in prison for a crime they committed when they were 16 years old. A life sentence that is fixed without the possibility of parole. You both have been convicted of murder in the first degree. Cassie was savagely stabbed many times. Disguise yourselves with masks. And darkness, which made it even more frightening for her. You both were excited about the killing. The killing was a cold-blooded, horrific act. And Anna Stoddard said it, and I think a lot of people in Pocatello would agree, that's exactly where they belong and for how long they belong there. Yeah, there's an interesting moment when Judge McDermott addresses Brian and Tori after he gave him the sentence that essentially you're going to die in prison. And he said, you had a list. You had plans to harm. You know, guys, I'm sorry. You guys, like I said, you guys are kids, but I'm convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that if you were released, that you'd kill again. Obviously, Cassie's side was relieved with the outcome that they are never going to be out in society again. The Drapers and the Adamchecks, I think it would be safe to say that they were shocked that they were out in society again. And I think it would be safe to say that they were shocked that they were out in society again. And I think it would be safe to say that they were shocked that juveniles, 16-year-old kids can be sentenced to life without parole. And this is what Pam Draper said. As a parent, 16, life without parole is cruel at 16. That's my take as a parent. And it probably would have been my take as a parent, no matter who it was. I believe that even Tori. Brian asked me this when I said, because we're the only country in the world that throws our juvenile children away for life and never have a possibility of parole. a juvenile does not have they can't even vote they can't even drive till they're 16 he was barely responsible enough according to the court system and according to our laws to even have a license and here's what shannon adam check tori's mother had to say about the sentence i thought they're going to get a very long prison sentence they were both found guilty they're being sentenced together this is going to be a long prison sentence and at that time in my mind 30 years was a long prison sentence life was without parole as was incomprehensible she's reacting in human terms but this theme that she's talking about is this fair life in prison without parole for a juvenile we're going to get much deeper into that later on but that is a very emotional reaction from a mom doesn't want her son to be in prison till the day he dies i think there's you know on cassie's side obviously they think he's in the right place and there were friends of uh all of the parties tori brian cassie who had their own opinions i think tori and brian are right where they belong and i think that they should stop bringing things up trying to appeal their sentences trying to act innocent trying to portray themselves to their own families as innocent um i think that they should just sit down shut up and take your punishment that's what you did something wrong and you deserve to pay the price just like you did to cassie she doesn't get a second life and neither should you sums it up yeah i think most people in pocatello would agree with that sentiment um you know the that the punishment fits the crime there weren't many in opposition of the sentence one thing we wanted to do when we set out to make the documentary originally was so often with these crimes people believe that the story ends at the sentencing perpetrators are locked away everyone is supposed to just go back to their lives as they were so in the eyes of the court the story is over but 20 years has gone by and there is no way that people can just go forward with their life cassie's family has to continue cassie's brother was a year younger than cassie he had to finish high school with with this trauma that had been inflicted on his family the drapers they had to go back they had younger children they still had to raise you know you do have to go back to a life the other thing that struck us both when we went to pocatello to do this documentary everyone we talked to they knew all the circumstances of the case and they they would also say like oh my cousin went to school with cassie or uh my my nephew took art class with with cassie or i remember brian they knew it like it would happen small town it's impossible to not have a connection to it so josh brian draper's high school buddy skate partner uh he took me to the skate park that's still there today that he and brian draper went to all the time and there's a new generation of skaters out there they're 14 15 16 years old and hey what are you what are you doing what are you doing you got a big camera uh and we tell them and they said oh yeah yeah they all knew who cassie was and they weren't even alive in 2006 so this crime is being passed down generation generation generation generation generation generation generation generation it's always going to be a part of unfortunately of the fabric of pocatello i was talking to the drapers and the adam checks how did they move on and i asked pam about the days after the trial after the sentencing brian's gone and she actually had a run-in with one of cassie's family members and it was i found it was a it was quite profound after the trial my daughter and i went to lunch at a new restaurant in town we sat down got the menus and people were talking and pointing and looking and i was used to that by then but the waitress came up and said i just need to let you know i'm cassie's family and she she said i just want to thank you for the kindness and the respect you've shown my family and i've heard that from a couple of family members and it doesn't relieve the guilt at all because i will live with that forever but that's all i can do is show my daughter at that point when she was so young how to still live our lives in that community and try not to be hated because we were but her family was very kind to us that's a really powerful thing to talk about the siblings because you can we can lay blame anyone can lay blame on the parents oh you weren't there enough you were there too much you know i'm sure they're just constantly spinning in their head what did i miss what did i do what i didn't do um but there are siblings that just get taken down with everyone everyone else because of the action of their of their brother um but the fact that cassie's family said you know like actually showed her some empathy is uh as you said wholly unexpected and and quite powerful for brian's dad uh was um an experience i wasn't expecting the physical first i want to say is the physical transformation when i met him in person he was unrecognizable to the person we saw at trial the person we saw sitting next to brian in the police interview room he had shed probably 75 100 pounds i couldn't believe from when i first encountered this story the change in him physically to when i saw him when we did the the documentary i i couldn't it's the same guy different person it really wasn't the same guy he really he wasn't he wasn't the same guy at all he'd grown his hair long he had now had a long red ponytail you could see the grief in him and i was like oh my god i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna die in his eyes of what his family, as he took ownership of what his family had done. But listen to this. This is him talking about that very thing, the transformation, the before and the after. Yeah, we had a lot of money. Yeah, I mean, the house that we lived in at the time was a 5,500 square foot house on a hill with an RV storage and four car garage on the house and another seven car garage sitting next to it with a giant BMX track in the backyard and a stream running through the yard and a mountain behind us. And we'd have deer in our backyard and moose in our backyard. It was, it was, and we lived on the right street in Pocatello where all the rich people lived. And we had the biggest. We had the biggest house in the neighborhood and I drove a Mercedes and my wife drove a Lexus. We'd travel anywhere we wanted to go. We had plenty of money. Feels so unimportant now. And when we left Pocatello, I didn't even try to sell stuff. I literally gave everything away. Gave it away. And things that weren't paid off, I just stopped paying the bills. Stopped paying the bills. 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Home of the save. you feel for the guy you do because he didn't he didn't put on that mask and he didn't walk up those stairs and stab Cassie to death his son did he's paying the price he's doing time right alongside his son almost yeah yeah we're gonna get deeper into that but he he was very aware of Cassie the entire time we're talking to him and never wanted to forget Cassie didn't want to just brush it aside and the first time I reached out to him he said I will do this I will talk to you I'll sit down and tell you my story if in any way it can just help ease the suffering and he takes ownership the suffering caused by my family and caused by Tori Adamshack so it's pretty clear listening to Kerry Draper that he is in a sense serving this sentence alongside Brian he's outside the walls Brian's inside the walls and we've heard from pretty much everybody except for the guys inside the walls Tori and Brian but you spoke to both of them at length now I've talked to killers before in my career but not in quite the way you did many many times over and over lots of interviews with them I think we made the decision to reach out to Brian and Tori if we were just going to go there and just really tell this story and get as many people as many perspectives as we could on why this happened how it happened and there wasn't a way to do it without talking to Brian and Tori themselves now they are 35 36 year old men they're nearing middle age um hairs thinning they look totally they grew up incarcerated from 16 on um and so I thought that was going to be a unique perspective of like how are they looking back to this crime and so I conducted a series of interviews both video and phone calls with Brian and Tori um over a course of three months what's it like you know that first icebreaker you're talking to a sadistic knife-wielding killer you know uh picking up the phone like you know what's the uh strategy or you just let it fly how what do you do so I just I wanted to make sure that I that I had to connect them on some level so I can actually get honest answers out of them and how these two kids got to the point where they were you know they decided to murder someone and Brian Draper was first talk to Brian Draper first and this is what he had to say growing up pretty normal everyday childhood my friends in the neighborhood we used to play hide and seek just doing like normal everyday stuff I was always empathetic and emotional when I was a kid but I wasn't connected with it I didn't understand why I felt so intense about the world around me and so it just scared me and haunted me and tortured me I had all these crazy dreams about being this amazing skateboarder it was just a need to feel important and special as I got older that got polluted and twisted and get towarded into something that was terrible but then he said around seventh grade is when this something dark began invading inside of him this is this is what he says I could go to school and nothing I did mattered like nothing I did made an effect on anybody around me and I felt like I was disappearing into my school and I was desperate to have a girlfriend that was I was so obsessed with the idea of doing something that would allure girls to me and I thought that that was through violence and over time and like getting older in here I just realized how stupid that was but that's how I thought and I thought that because movies and TV and the internet and online and everyone respects a villain everyone thinks the villains were cool in movies so I'm fine well like you're a villain in real life and everybody would think I was cool you know he's talking about villains and movies being cool and this goes back to what we were talking about earlier how he uh and Tory Adam check were just steeped in horror movies watching them over and over obsessing about them the Scream series in particular um and he found a couple of real life villains that he kind of patterned himself after not billion stew from Scream but Columbine that shooting opened up a path for kids like me to follow I thought that I could emulate those shooters I wanted people to think of Columbine when they saw me because it would be free because I identified with them I went online and I constantly chatted online of people who worshipped these kids they thought they were the coolest things on the planet I watched everything all their home videos great watched those things every day every day and that's how I identified I bought a trench coat and I wore it like it was a jersey I mean that's really shocking to hear somebody had uh sort of hero worship not just him he's in line with other kids talking about this about how he saw Klebold and Harris the Columbine shooters as like a model he bought a trench coat because they had one that's the first time I've ever heard that that these guys were reviewed as as heroes yeah there's a lot more of the conversation with Brian I had but I want to move over to Tory who was a bit more of a mystery to me because he had never fully admitted to participating in in Cassie's crimes so it was a little more difficult to get to agree to do an interview so when I finally got him on a phone call uh he started off the conversation in a way that I was not expecting at all hello you have a call at no expense to you from Tori Adam check an inmate at Idaho maximum security institution to accept this call press 5. before my arrest I had an uneventful life I didn't read there was nothing particularly good or bad worth mentioning up until September 22nd uh no one including me could have predicted that this would have happened I had started a dark thinking pattern or something like that but I didn't think it was going to happen because I didn't know what was going to happen I didn't think it was going to happen because I didn't know what was going to happen because I didn't know what was going to happen or started getting into a dark place is there anything that's off limits for you no because like literally the only shameful thing that I've really done with my life is stab Cassie so I mean I can admit to that now so it's like everything else seems petty We'll be right back. 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