Woman Shocked After Finding Demonic Brother's Evil Secret
28m 3s
A 71-year-old woman, Rachel Cheney, is discovered dead in her bed with a kitchen knife in her neck, and no signs of forced entry or struggle. Police initially suspect a burglary gone wrong, but the absence of evidence, including stolen items and a missing car, leads to a deeper investigation. The case takes a dramatic turn when Natalie reveals her brother Joseph, who has a history of untreated schizophrenia and has made violent threats against Rachel, is also missing that day. Joseph is later found in Natalie’s car and taken into custody. During interrogation, he confesses to killing his mother, believing she was a criminal and a source of family harm, referencing gang-related delusions and claiming he had done a "favor" by removing her. Despite his mental illness, Joseph is cooperative and provides detailed, albeit delusional, statements. He is charged with murder and assault, but ultimately pleads not guilty by reason of insanity and is transferred to a psychiatric facility. After over two years of treatment and evaluation, doctors determine he is mentally competent enough to face prosecution, and he is later convicted on multiple counts and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. The case highlights the dangers of untreated mental illness and how delusions can lead to tragic, real-world violence under the guise of loyalty or justice.
Last time anyone seen her last night around 10, 10, 30? Yeah, I've never thought a million years I'd be the worst. This is Natalie and she has just discovered her mother in her bed with a kitchen knife in her neck. You see it? Yeah, she's still virgable, man. She's cold, though. I saw a very thing I started growing. That's like the stuff you make. Oh, my god. And then my car is gone. At first, officers thought it was a burglary gone wrong, but something about the scene didn't make sense. It was as if the knife had appeared out of nowhere, no struggle, no noise, no sign of anyone entering or leaving. But the more they spoke with the victim's daughter, the clearer it became that this was no random break in at all. She was carried out by someone who believed he was fulfilling a prophecy. He always would say he's going to kill me and Jay. We're next. It's my thumbnail. Last night when we walked in. Can I ask you something straight out? Did you take out Rachel? It's Wednesday morning, May 27th, when Ohio police receive a 911 call from a distressed woman, reporting what she believes is a burglary that left her mother severely injured. Collar? Yeah. Are you the one that has the knife in her neck? No. Sorry, Bob, but she's not breathing. She's not in it, 578. Collar, do you know who did it to her? Oh my god. No. Okay, I've got an ambulance on the way, so just stay on the phone with me, okay? This batch immediately sends officers racing to the address. They arrive prepared to save a victim, but instead, they walk into something that would seriously shock them. Where's the air? Where at? My mom! Where at? Man, where at? Excuse me, where at? I didn't hear it. Okay, move, move, where at? Natalie's mother, 71-year-old Rachel Cheney, lies in her bed, all already cold to the touch. Touch with a kitchen knife driven deep into her neck. Upstairs in Natalie's bedroom, her boyfriend Jonathan is found unharmed. Go back here, okay? Sure. In the car? Yeah, you got anything on you? Just my money. No. She's still very little now. She's cold, though. When I pulled up, so we went in there, and I went to give first aid, because I thought she's got stabbed. She's cold from then, so we continue to search the house and found that dude upstairs bedroom with the door closed. So we detained him and pulled him out here. I saw a burry thing I started throwing at her. I was like, "It's stabbing the neck." It's such a cold. Is it good? No, inside on her bed with a knife, I'm sticking out of her neck. The female? Elderly, yeah. Who was the girl that they just took out of here? The daughter. Oh, she found her? Yeah, a full-monger, and her boyfriend, they were both up there sleeping, I guess, when she came down. And she's cold to the touch. I don't know if you blood's all dry. She's been there a while? Yeah, no. The big knife, and it's in deep, so barely could be something flicked in there. Did it change the mind? Yeah. No, my gosh. Last time anyone seen her last night around 10-30, after she wanted to talk to us, and now you guys went to sleep. I was there. Okay. And he was set out here. Yeah. But she just recently put it in my knee. Okay, so it's your house. Well, I don't know. Can you give us consent to search us? Okay. Oh, my God. What strikes officers as strange is that nothing inside the house appears stolen. And there are no signs of forced entry anywhere. The only thing missing is Natalie's car. With no evidence of an intruder, detectives can't rule anyone out. Not even Natalie or her boyfriend, Jonathan. At this point, everyone inside the home is a possible suspect. If someone within the household was responsible, detectives need to find out who, and more importantly, why? Natalie and Jonathan are both secured in patrol vehicles and are driven to the station for further questioning. Detectives need to hear their accounts if they're going to piece together what really happened inside that house, and how it ended with Rachel dead. Meanwhile, additional units begin searching for Natalie's vehicle. What the detectives don't yet understand is that they already hold half the puzzle to Rachel's murder, and the other half is closer than they realize. Soon, detectives will sit down with the man at the center of it all, to see firsthand how delusion can twist murder into something almost justified. But detectives still don't grasp how close they are to uncovering the truth. To get there, they need answers from Natalie and Jonathan, the only two who can shed light on what really happened inside that house. When they arrive at the police station, they're separated into two different rooms, and their interviews begin simultaneously. This way, detectives can ask them the same questions and see if their stories match. I can not believe I can not believe a real ghost in something like that! That's horrible! She's all I had! I went downstairs this morning. What time is it? I know it was maybe close to 8 o'clock, but I didn't check on her then. So I figured she was sleeping because usually she calls me. So I stayed upstairs, and it was dark, and I see this stuff on her face, and I thought, "What is that?" And I turned on the light, and there's this big knife sticking out of her neck right there. I didn't go in there any more. And then I walked outside because I needed to get some air. And then I noticed my cards go up. I was going to make some coffee. I was sitting out there, sitting on the porch, and she came down and said somebody killed her mom. We didn't realize the car was gone until she called 911. She said, "Oh my God, my car is gone too." I didn't hear anything this morning. I'm a pretty light sleeper. Plus the dogs there. Right? Detectives can't rule out Natalie and Jonathan just yet. They seem genuine, distraught even. But with no forced entry, no other suspects, and them being close relatives, the possibility still lingers that they could somehow be involved. But then, in the middle of her statement, Natalie remembers something. Something she hadn't even thought to mention before. Along with her car, her brother Joseph, who also lives in the house, is missing. In her panic over finding her mother, she hadn't realized it until now. And that's when the case suddenly takes a very different turn. With Joseph and Natalie's car missing, detective's shift focus, pressing Natalie about her brother's behavior. His somebody in the FBI, and they didn't believe him, I guess, and he let it go for a while. And he went up back up there and I think he had more of his little fits, whatever. And they handcuffed him, and I think they took him to the state readers or Columbus, because he wasn't Columbus the mental hospital for about a week. How long ago was it about six months ago you said? Longer than? Eight years ago. And he was at the tape meds that he never took them. He thinks he don't need them. You know what else he's been diagnosed with? No, I barely know. He's just always talking off the wall stuff related to Dillinger, this person, this person, this person. On more than one occasion, Joseph had gone to the FBI with his Mafia delusions, episodes that eventually landed him in a mental facility. But when doctors evaluated him, they concluded nothing was wrong and released him almost immediately, without medication or treatment, his condition only grew worse. And even though Joseph was missing, along with his sister's car, on the very same day as his mother's inexplicable murder, detectives still don't know what to make of this and are unsure about his involvement. To them, he seemed more like a victim of his own illness, someone failed by the system. But then, Natalie says this. The only thing she ever asked him was to take her up and down the stairs so she could go places. That's all she's ever asked him. It was all wrong with me all the time. He didn't tell, he always would say he's going to kill me and Jay and you guys are going to kill us. And he has a knife. Nice. What kind of knife is he? Like a pocket knife. And he always carries it. Okay.
kill her and the rest of their family. If he was behind his mother's death, it would explain why no one heard an intruder enter the home, and why he fled in Natalie's car. Suddenly, everything begins to make sense. The missing vehicle, the strange stabbing, the lack of forced entry, and the brother with untreated schizophrenia, who'd been making violent threats. Police don't know it yet, but what seems like a certain murder charge for Joseph will soon become a far more complicated case than they realize. Luckily for detectives, the patrol units searching for Natalie's car make a breakthrough. They've located her car and pulled it over without incident, and behind the wheel is none other than her brother, Joseph Cheney. He's taken into custody without resistance and brought into the station for questioning, now considered the prime suspect in his car. From the moment Joseph steps out of the patrol car to be escorted into the station, officers and notice he's already mumbling and rambling in coherently. At first detectives think it's just an act, a tactic to seem legally insane, but as they begin interrogating him, it quickly becomes clear something is deeply wrong. As soon as the detective starts talking to Joseph, he begins referencing mafia names. People like Al Capone, Spicodonl, and Frank McEarlane from the old Chicago gangs of the 1920s and 30s. It's the first clear confirmation of what his sister had told them that Joseph suffers from hallucinations and schizophrenia. To the detective, those claims aren't important, and instead he smoothly shifts the conversation towards what really matters, the details of Rachel's murder and how Joseph might be involved. The suspect is not a victim of the murder, but he's not a victim of the murder. He's not a victim, however. Joseph refers to his mother and sister as "klingers." To the detective, it's a clear sign of "deep resentment." Evidence of a family conflict that may have escalated to the suspect. The suspect is not a victim of the murder. He's not a victim of the murder, but he says, "Chain, my mom always says, well, suppose she's my mother, but I don't know, she's like, 'Mom, she might be my crazy aunt from down the street, go find a pot and people and have a fuck. What's her name? I think it's Rachel, but they used to call her Rachel with an E-A-L. You get along with her, right? Not really. I mean, sometimes I do some signs of her done, she's a massive control fray." Imagine setting your makeup, then forgetting it's even there. Meet new groupie setting mist from Mabelie, New York. Jelly mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours, with flexible all-day comfy grip. No tightness, no stickiness, no residue. Just plump, dewy, hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Try new groupie setting mist from Mabelie, New York. "Maybe it's Mabelie." And everything, and she guides people. And crazy. I don't know if she does it on God down purpose. How is she? How is she on a brain twester? How is she? "I don't know how she is. She's probably around six or seven days." Despite his mental illness, Joseph is completely cooperative with a detective. Calm, open, and not trying to hide a thing. Seeing that, the detective takes the chance to ask the one question that matters most, if he had anything to do with his mother's death. Joseph's answer is exactly what the detective suspected, but his reason for it is deeply unsettling. "I don't know. It's been a while. Sometimes I help my family members and I test them off. And I don't even know because they got machines and gadgets that they use in brain twisters and cuckers and they shove them right up and they hook them up to you. God damn brain. You got a gun? No, I don't have a gun." Oh, well, then you didn't take care of that cleaner. "I might have took care of a few cleaners back when I was a kid. Oh, I was talking about last night. There's eight, nine year olds and ten year olds that they train at Chicago and California all day long and they hop up with steroids. And the ones that arrested me and all those big muskler tag tooth. Yeah, they shoot them and they hit all God damn day long in the life, Adam. Who would it, who would it want to do? Get rid of Rachel. Everybody wants to get rid of her. She's a bad cleaner. She's a bad cleaner unless they're using her for money. Why doesn't anybody ever have the nuts then to step up and take care of her? Well, one reason I'm on a God damn cook machine and a brain twister. Okay, says I, I would kill her years ago. I sometimes I think she loves me and then then she's, then she's, I don't know, like an ally or something. And they're really big. She creates crimes on me and my family if I really want to know. I'm kind of tired of the crimes created on me and my family. Why didn't someone take out, if so many people want to get rid of Rachel? Why didn't someone step up and do it? She might have a more powerful family with what she thinks, just being a miller and related to the miller. With all younger and all of them Jesse James, just being a miller is powerful enough. Can I ask you something straight up? Yeah, I did you guys a favor. I did a whole fine of everyone. The millers and the Jesse James is. How'd you do it? I did it with a knife right in her head if I had a piss or a statter. Beyond is with us planning on killing her by having enough ass money and head over to New York or Chicago to check on my family and get out of here. I got a question because with a knife, that's personal. Especially to the head. Hey, the guys without it did it with a
on or anything. I did her a favor if you really want to know. What do you mean? I did you a favor. I did a lot of millers around here. Favors. I mean how do you think you did us a favor? I don't know. That's my message. Because it's it's just the nuisance of the thing running around and stuff and everything and she's in this with all the time and pain and delusional side I did her a favor. Did you eat? Have you eaten yet today? No. You want some food? Yeah. Imagine setting your makeup then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new grippies setting mist from Mavily New York. Gel to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours with flexible all day comfy grip. Just plump, dewy hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Try new grippies setting mist from Mavily New York. Maybe it's Mavily. Well, okay. You got your chew, right? Let me run get this for you real quick, all right? But you take care. I'll be back. I just want to get you some food because I know it's lunch time, okay? They want you to. They want you to. I'm not crazy or anything. I'm not stupid. I'm not saying you're that's why I went straight forward. I'm trying to be straight forward with you guys and the ones that think they're better than everybody else. They want you to clean off this battleship deck. Well, that's not what I'm doing. I want to get you some food because I know you got you. I know you've been out and about. I haven't slept the whole lot and I'll get you some food so you can eat. All right, buddy. Okay, no ulterior motive here. I already, you already told me that you killed her, so what else do I need from you? You know what I mean? That's if I killed. I could have been dreaming out there because they smoked weed around me and now they could have went around killing people because she's high all the goddamn time with Jay. Well, you do exactly how she was killed, so and Joseph admits to killing his mother almost instantly, claiming he'd done something good, even suggesting he had done the police a favor. In his mind, his mother had committed crimes against the family. His delusional reference to the gangsters he believed he was related to, in a heartbreaking confession, one that might have been prevented if Joseph had received proper treatment for his schizophrenia. But years earlier, doctors had released him insisting nothing was wrong. His condition only worsened, feeding his delusions and ultimately leading to his mother's murder. After his arrest, Joseph pleads not guilty by reason of insanity and he's transferred to a secure psychiatric facility for evaluation and treatment. Doctors there are tasked with determining whether Joseph is mentally competent to stand trial and whether he truly understood his actions at the time of the murder. It would take more than two years of psychiatric care and evaluation before doctors finally deemed him competent enough to face prosecution. Once restored to competency, Joseph Cheney was charged with two counts of murder and one count of felonious assault. He later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
Rachel Cheney, a 71-year-old woman, is found dead in her bed with a kitchen knife driven into her neck, with no signs of forced entry or struggle.
Her daughter Natalie and boyfriend Jonathan are initially suspected due to their proximity and the missing car, but evidence reveals a missing brother, Joseph, who also disappeared that day.
Joseph has a history of untreated schizophrenia, making delusional claims about Mafia connections, family control, and violent acts against Rachel, who he believed was a criminal and a threat to his family.
Summary:
A 71-year-old woman, Rachel Cheney, is discovered dead in her bed with a kitchen knife in her neck, and no signs of forced entry or struggle. Police initially suspect a burglary gone wrong, but the absence of evidence, including stolen items and a missing car, leads to a deeper investigation. The case takes a dramatic turn when Natalie reveals her brother Joseph, who has a history of untreated schizophrenia and has made violent threats against Rachel, is also missing that day.
Joseph is later found in Natalie’s car and taken into custody. During interrogation, he confesses to killing his mother, believing she was a criminal and a source of family harm, referencing gang-related delusions and claiming he had done a "favor" by removing her. Despite his mental illness, Joseph is cooperative and provides detailed, albeit delusional, statements.
He is charged with murder and assault, but ultimately pleads not guilty by reason of insanity and is transferred to a psychiatric facility. After over two years of treatment and evaluation, doctors determine he is mentally competent enough to face prosecution, and he is later convicted on multiple counts and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. The case highlights the dangers of untreated mental illness and how delusions can lead to tragic, real-world violence under the guise of loyalty or justice.
FAQs
There was no sign of forced entry, no struggle, no noise, and no evidence of anyone entering or leaving the house. The kitchen knife was found deep in her neck with no indication of a prior attack.
Joseph Cheney, Natalie's brother, was identified as the prime suspect due to his untreated schizophrenia, violent threats, and possession of a knife, which matched the crime scene.
The house showed no signs of forced entry or theft, and the scene appeared consistent with a break-in, leading officers to suspect a criminal act until they learned about Joseph's mental health and threats.
Joseph believed his mother, Rachel, was a 'bad cleaner' who caused crimes against his family and was connected to a powerful criminal network, including figures like the Millers and Jesse James.
He claimed he killed her to do a 'favor' for his family, saying she was a 'nuisance' who caused pain and delusions, and that he had done it with a knife to remove her from their lives.
His untreated schizophrenia, delusions about mafia connections, and statements of violent intent suggested he was not acting rationally, which shifted the case from a simple murder to one involving mental illness.
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