Chapter 81: Death in the Family-The Barron Family Murders

WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.280 --> 00:00:04.839
Hi guys. I'm Courtney and I'm
Lisa, and welcome to the next chapter

2
00:00:05.080 --> 00:00:08.800
in the Book of the Dead.
Brought to you by Dark Cast Network INSIE

3
00:00:08.800 --> 00:00:32.159
Podcasts with a Twist. Are you
drawn to the dark? Do you find

4
00:00:32.200 --> 00:00:38.119
yourself enticed in the forbidden and ominous? Join me, Steph as I explore

5
00:00:38.200 --> 00:00:44.200
all things menacing and malevolent. In
my podcast, Sinister Story Hour, I

6
00:00:44.280 --> 00:00:50.240
discuss true stories of cults and crimes
with the occasional urban legend. I also

7
00:00:50.320 --> 00:00:55.920
dedicate episodes to missing persons in the
United States and you could be the missing

8
00:00:56.000 --> 00:01:00.920
link to provide information and clues that
will help to bring them home. Join

9
00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:04.480
me every week for a new story. Come on in, sit down,

10
00:01:04.920 --> 00:01:11.959
and get ready because it's story time. Hello, Hello, Welcome to the

11
00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:17.280
next chapter in the Book of the
Den. For today's case, we're going

12
00:01:17.319 --> 00:01:23.439
to look at a supposed case of
fictitious disorder imposts on another previously known as

13
00:01:23.560 --> 00:01:29.480
Munchausen syndrome by proxy. And I
say supposed because while many refer to this

14
00:01:29.599 --> 00:01:34.439
case as the first case of FDIA
involving a man, I couldn't actually find

15
00:01:34.680 --> 00:01:40.879
proof of his diagnosis. It seems
like it's more like a theory that people

16
00:01:41.000 --> 00:01:45.079
heard and ran with it. So
before we begin, I'm going to tell

17
00:01:45.120 --> 00:01:49.760
you a little bit more about FDIA
and you can decide for yourself whether the

18
00:01:49.799 --> 00:01:56.760
perpetrators suffered from this. According to
medline plus, it is a mental illness

19
00:01:56.799 --> 00:02:00.079
and a form of child abuse where
the caretaker of a child build primarily the

20
00:02:00.159 --> 00:02:06.159
mother, either makes up ailments or
causes real symptoms to make it look like

21
00:02:06.239 --> 00:02:10.439
the child is sick. The victim
is usually a child, but can be

22
00:02:10.479 --> 00:02:15.639
an elderly parent, someone with a
disability, or even pets. They can

23
00:02:15.680 --> 00:02:21.840
go to extreme links to take an
illness, from something as innocuous as heating

24
00:02:21.840 --> 00:02:27.520
a thermometer to simulate a fever,
to drugging the victim to induce vomiting or

25
00:02:27.639 --> 00:02:31.840
cause diarrhea, and there have even
been cases where intravenous lines were infected to

26
00:02:31.919 --> 00:02:37.560
make the victim sick. There was
actually a viral video going around of another

27
00:02:37.639 --> 00:02:42.000
mother who had killed her son by
sodium poisoning, and she was caught on

28
00:02:42.120 --> 00:02:46.080
video injecting salt into her son's IV
at the hospital when doctors told her that

29
00:02:46.159 --> 00:02:51.000
her son was improving and would be
allowed to go home soon. Often this

30
00:02:51.159 --> 00:02:57.080
goes undiagnosed because the parent will bring
the victim to different doctors and hospitals to

31
00:02:57.159 --> 00:03:02.960
avoid suspicion, and usually the drug
driving force behind Munchausen's is the craving of

32
00:03:04.039 --> 00:03:07.280
the attention that comes with having a
critically sick child, obviously, the most

33
00:03:07.319 --> 00:03:13.080
famous case in recent years being Deeedy
and Gypsy Rose Blanchard. However, this

34
00:03:13.120 --> 00:03:17.120
is not usually something that's seen in
men. According to a report written for

35
00:03:17.199 --> 00:03:23.400
the Department of Pediatrics and Child held
at Saint James's University Hospital in Leeds,

36
00:03:23.520 --> 00:03:29.280
which was written by Professor Sir Roy
Meadow, quote published reports on Munchausen Syndrome

37
00:03:29.360 --> 00:03:35.159
by proxy or a fictitious illness abuse, emphasized that the perpetrator is nearly always

38
00:03:35.199 --> 00:03:39.879
the child's mother. It is very
rare for the father to be actively involved

39
00:03:39.879 --> 00:03:45.840
in the abuse. Now, Professor
Meadow did a study on fifteen families where

40
00:03:45.919 --> 00:03:51.319
the fathers, the victims and the
situations were studied to find the commonalities between

41
00:03:51.360 --> 00:03:55.800
them, and twelve of the fifteen
families studied all presented attention seeking behavior,

42
00:03:55.879 --> 00:04:00.000
while the other three had financial motives
attached. Now, in nine of the

43
00:04:00.039 --> 00:04:05.919
families, the child in these cases
had quote incurred false seizures or apnea together

44
00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:11.039
with smothering. They would be brought
to the hospital where the husband would claim

45
00:04:11.080 --> 00:04:15.519
they found the child not breathing or
seizing or turning blue quote. The father

46
00:04:15.720 --> 00:04:20.560
was the person who witnessed the events
or was present at their start. Commonly,

47
00:04:20.600 --> 00:04:26.279
the father was involved in resuscitation procedures
which he recounted with avid detail.

48
00:04:26.720 --> 00:04:30.199
Professor Meadows goes on to say that
most of the stories told to healthcare professionals

49
00:04:30.240 --> 00:04:34.759
were most likely false, and four
of the fathers were caught smothering their children

50
00:04:34.800 --> 00:04:39.759
in the hospital to simulate apnea.
Now, what's important to point out is

51
00:04:39.800 --> 00:04:44.839
that most of the cases of this
disorder involved numerous doctors and hospital visits and

52
00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:49.399
many invasive and unnecessary treatments and procedures
imposed in the children, which is not

53
00:04:49.639 --> 00:04:58.720
present in this case, and neither
is the father recounting tales of resuscitation and

54
00:04:58.879 --> 00:05:03.000
trying to save the family members.
Now you will see that the motive behind

55
00:05:03.040 --> 00:05:08.199
these murders is the same as the
ones in this study, which is attention.

56
00:05:08.639 --> 00:05:12.480
And now that you have a background, we can dive into the Barn

57
00:05:12.680 --> 00:05:17.519
family murders. Jack Barn was born
on October twenty first, nineteen sixty one,

58
00:05:17.600 --> 00:05:23.680
to Elmore and Roberta Barn in Castro
Valley, California. According to the

59
00:05:23.720 --> 00:05:28.959
novel Dying for Daddy by Carlton Smith, Roberta was described as being raised devoutly

60
00:05:29.040 --> 00:05:33.480
Catholic and very strong willed, as
well as stern her parenting when Jack rebelled

61
00:05:33.519 --> 00:05:39.720
against her wishes. As Roberta grew
older, she also became very superstitious and

62
00:05:39.759 --> 00:05:45.720
believed heavily in astrology. And Elmore
wasn't home munch He worked very long hours

63
00:05:45.720 --> 00:05:49.199
as a railway engineer. So Jack
spent most of his time with his mother,

64
00:05:49.560 --> 00:05:54.720
and as a result of this they
had a very close relationship, and

65
00:05:54.839 --> 00:06:01.120
Jack was considered a mama's boy.
Roberta and Elmore themselves had a tumultuous relationship

66
00:06:01.160 --> 00:06:05.959
as a result of an alleged affair
Elmore was having, and Jack, according

67
00:06:05.959 --> 00:06:10.560
to an article for the Sacramento Be
claimed to grow to hate his father.

68
00:06:10.959 --> 00:06:14.879
Quote, Yeah, he's a classic
jerk. My mom was a typical doting

69
00:06:14.920 --> 00:06:18.000
housewife and he had a lobido problem. He screwed up. I made several

70
00:06:18.040 --> 00:06:23.519
attempts to kind of rekindle the father
son relationship but it was fruitless. Their

71
00:06:23.600 --> 00:06:28.439
lack of relationship could also stem from
the fact that Elmore would frequently say that

72
00:06:28.560 --> 00:06:32.639
he was sterile and that Jack was
not his son, which Roberta vehemently denied

73
00:06:32.800 --> 00:06:39.839
and I'm inclined to agree. Because
Roberta got pregnant with Jack as a teenager,

74
00:06:39.959 --> 00:06:43.920
they got married very young. They
were eighteen and nineteen or nineteen and

75
00:06:44.000 --> 00:06:47.720
twenty when they got married, so
it seems like this was an accidental team

76
00:06:47.800 --> 00:06:54.519
pregnancy and not a result of promiscuity
on Roberta's part. But either way,

77
00:06:54.680 --> 00:06:59.920
they never went through with a praternity
test to see if Jack was really Elmore.

78
00:07:00.360 --> 00:07:03.360
It's pretty widely accepted that Elmore is
Jack's father now. When Jack was

79
00:07:03.399 --> 00:07:09.120
a teenager, Roberta and Elmore divorced, and Roberta would get custody of Jack.

80
00:07:09.519 --> 00:07:13.120
They moved to Sacramento, and to
make ends meet, she started working

81
00:07:13.120 --> 00:07:15.720
at a local grocery store, where
she met a man named Bob Butler,

82
00:07:15.839 --> 00:07:20.079
who she would eventually marry. According
to medium dot com, the new family

83
00:07:20.120 --> 00:07:24.759
moved to Puora Costa, where Jack
finished high school and went on to work

84
00:07:24.839 --> 00:07:28.120
on the railways, just like his
father. He did this for a while

85
00:07:28.279 --> 00:07:32.800
until an injury caused him to resign
in nineteen eighty six again according to Medium,

86
00:07:33.240 --> 00:07:38.519
and he started working in retail.
This is when he would meet Irene

87
00:07:38.600 --> 00:07:43.680
Paget. Irene was born in Reno, Nevada on July eighteenth, nineteen fifty

88
00:07:43.720 --> 00:07:46.680
seven, to Jack and Norma Paget. She was the youngest of four children,

89
00:07:46.839 --> 00:07:50.759
and she grew up traveling around with
her family and spending much of her

90
00:07:50.839 --> 00:07:56.160
childhood in Germany as her father was
in the Air Force. Her brother John

91
00:07:56.279 --> 00:08:01.759
described Irene as loving and caring,
very sweet, and very beautiful, according

92
00:08:01.800 --> 00:08:05.600
to Dying for Daddy. John also
said that she wasn't always the smartest person

93
00:08:05.600 --> 00:08:11.480
in the room, but she loved
fiercely. When Irene was a teenager,

94
00:08:11.759 --> 00:08:15.959
Jack retired from the Air Force and
the family settled in Fallbrook, California.

95
00:08:16.399 --> 00:08:20.959
It seemed that in Fallbrook, Irene
thrived. She loved spending time outdoors and

96
00:08:22.000 --> 00:08:26.920
with the family's various animals, and
Irene wasn't all that interested in school,

97
00:08:26.040 --> 00:08:31.519
but she participated in marching band and
even went on to become Miss Fulbrook,

98
00:08:31.600 --> 00:08:35.679
which got her a lot of attention
from the boys in the area. And

99
00:08:35.879 --> 00:08:39.960
Irene was just as interested in them. According to John, Irene wanted to

100
00:08:39.000 --> 00:08:43.960
be just like their mother. She
wanted to be a wife and a mom,

101
00:08:43.240 --> 00:08:48.879
and after graduation, she married her
high school boyfriend Keith. However,

102
00:08:48.039 --> 00:08:52.960
the marriage would crumble in nineteen eighty
five, and Irene was devastated. John

103
00:08:54.039 --> 00:08:56.720
said, quote, having been raised
in a family where you married once for

104
00:08:56.919 --> 00:09:01.120
life and you stick it out through
thick and things, and I think Irene

105
00:09:01.200 --> 00:09:05.960
was somewhat embarrassed and guilt ridden that
the marriage didn't work. In nineteen eighty

106
00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:09.159
six, when she was twenty eight, tired of Fallbrook, Irene and her

107
00:09:09.200 --> 00:09:15.480
best friend, Denise Eickmeyer decided they
would move to Sacramento. Coincidentally, Irene

108
00:09:15.480 --> 00:09:18.320
had a friend from school named Patty
that lived in the area who was married

109
00:09:18.320 --> 00:09:22.840
to a man named Dave Benarzak,
and Dave happened to be a close friend

110
00:09:22.840 --> 00:09:26.399
of Jack's, so close in fact, that Jack referred to Dave as his

111
00:09:26.480 --> 00:09:31.480
brother. One day in nineteen eighty
six, Denise and Irene went to visit

112
00:09:31.519 --> 00:09:35.120
with Patty and Dave, and Patty
introduced them to Jack, who was four

113
00:09:35.240 --> 00:09:39.799
years younger than Irene. Irene and
Jack hid it off immediately. He was

114
00:09:39.000 --> 00:09:45.360
head over heels, and she was
just as smitten, which apparently Denise found

115
00:09:45.399 --> 00:09:50.279
to be a little odd because Jack
was so much younger and definitely immature,

116
00:09:50.480 --> 00:09:54.000
but he put Irene on a pedestal
from the get go. Soon enough,

117
00:09:54.080 --> 00:09:58.000
Jack was spending half the week at
Denise and Irene's apartment. In nineteen eighty

118
00:09:58.039 --> 00:10:01.759
seven, Irene and Jack found out
that they were expecting a baby, so

119
00:10:01.840 --> 00:10:05.159
they decide to get married. This
would be the first time that Irene's family

120
00:10:05.200 --> 00:10:11.440
would have the opportunity to meet him, and they had some reservations. Jack

121
00:10:11.639 --> 00:10:16.759
was clearly very immature and he wasn't
particularly handsome, at least according to John,

122
00:10:16.360 --> 00:10:20.279
but Irene clearly loved him, so
they welcomed him into the family,

123
00:10:20.519 --> 00:10:26.360
and Jack put on a great show
of being welcoming to Irene's family and was

124
00:10:26.480 --> 00:10:31.799
very gregarious and happy. Roberta,
Jack's mother, who had divorced her second

125
00:10:31.879 --> 00:10:35.159
husband by this point, seemed to
love Irene, although according to Dying for

126
00:10:35.240 --> 00:10:39.919
Daddy, Roberta it seemed had a
hard time letting go of her son.

127
00:10:41.080 --> 00:10:45.200
But Irene really likes her mother in
law, and any issues she may have

128
00:10:45.279 --> 00:10:48.120
had she let go. And when
I say issues, I don't mean anything

129
00:10:48.240 --> 00:10:52.720
bad. It just seems that Roberta
didn't always think before she did something to

130
00:10:52.960 --> 00:10:56.960
help them out, Like she came
in and rearranged all of their furniture when

131
00:10:56.960 --> 00:11:03.279
Irene and Jack weren't home. That's
annoying, but hardly worth giving her the

132
00:11:03.320 --> 00:11:07.879
Worst in Law of the Year award. On January eighth, nineteen eighty eight,

133
00:11:07.080 --> 00:11:11.919
Jack and Irene welcome a little boy
into the world, who they named

134
00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:16.480
Jeremy John barn The new family also
purchased a three bedroom home in Sacramento on

135
00:11:16.600 --> 00:11:22.159
South Breeze Drive, which, to
be quite honest, no one knew how

136
00:11:22.200 --> 00:11:24.879
they were able to afford it.
Jack worked overnight at a supermarket, and

137
00:11:26.039 --> 00:11:28.879
it seems that at this time Irene
herself was not working at all. She

138
00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:33.440
had left her job as a receptionist. So the speculation is that Roberta helped

139
00:11:33.480 --> 00:11:37.480
them buy the house. Around this
time, though, is when people started

140
00:11:37.519 --> 00:11:43.799
to observe some strange behavior coming from
Jack. He had started to become very

141
00:11:43.879 --> 00:11:48.159
controlling. He wanted Irene to dress
and look a certain way, and he

142
00:11:48.320 --> 00:11:52.159
was very particular about his appearance and
the state of their home. He wanted

143
00:11:52.159 --> 00:11:58.279
his home and his children to be
spotless, and Irene spent a lot of

144
00:11:58.440 --> 00:12:03.960
time cleaning. Jack even carried around
a wet washcloth in a bag when they

145
00:12:03.000 --> 00:12:07.919
went out and traveled so that he
can clean off his face and make sure

146
00:12:07.960 --> 00:12:11.399
he wasn't sweating. He was constantly
preening in the mirror and messing with his

147
00:12:11.519 --> 00:12:16.120
hair, very very conscious of his
appearance. Jack had also started showing a

148
00:12:16.200 --> 00:12:20.919
side of himself that Irene and her
family hadn't been privy to. Jack had

149
00:12:20.960 --> 00:12:26.879
a very bad temper now. It
seems as if he was not violent at

150
00:12:26.879 --> 00:12:31.720
this time, but he would get
incredibly angry about countless things if they weren't

151
00:12:31.720 --> 00:12:35.679
to his standards. It also seemed
that Jack wanted to prove he was just

152
00:12:35.759 --> 00:12:39.320
as good a husband, if not
better than anyone else. It was alleged

153
00:12:39.360 --> 00:12:43.200
that the only reason they got the
house they did was because he wanted to

154
00:12:43.240 --> 00:12:48.360
show Denise, whose fiance had bought
them a home, that he could provide

155
00:12:48.360 --> 00:12:52.360
for Irene too, just as well
as Denise's husband. On March twenty eighth,

156
00:12:52.480 --> 00:12:56.679
nineteen ninety, Jack and Irene welcomed
a little girl they named Ashley Ann,

157
00:12:56.919 --> 00:13:03.440
and Irene was over then she had
everything she had ever wanted to be

158
00:13:03.480 --> 00:13:07.440
a wife and a mother to two
beautiful babies, but money was tight,

159
00:13:07.679 --> 00:13:11.840
so to try and help make ends
meet, she opened up her own little

160
00:13:11.879 --> 00:13:16.320
home daycare and watched the children in
the neighborhood to make extra money, and

161
00:13:16.519 --> 00:13:20.559
things were fine for a while.
Irene was content with her life, even

162
00:13:20.600 --> 00:13:24.399
though Jack could be a bit overbearing, and she had a strong support system

163
00:13:24.440 --> 00:13:28.159
in her parents, who moved closer
to spend time with their grandchildren, and

164
00:13:28.360 --> 00:13:33.600
Roberta, who dodd on the children
and came over frequently, bringing groceries and

165
00:13:33.639 --> 00:13:37.159
cleaning and helping out. However,
things would start to change in May of

166
00:13:37.279 --> 00:13:43.039
nineteen ninety two, when Irene confided
in Denise that she believed that Jack was

167
00:13:43.080 --> 00:13:46.600
having an affair. According to Denise, Jack had gone away for the weekend

168
00:13:46.639 --> 00:13:50.559
on a trip with some coworkers who
were just as interested in trains as he

169
00:13:50.759 --> 00:13:54.919
was, and when I say interested
in trains, I mean borderline obsessed.

170
00:13:56.360 --> 00:13:58.720
According to Dying for Daddy, when
he and Irene had lived with Denise for

171
00:13:58.720 --> 00:14:03.799
a while while the spare bedroom in
their home was filled with model trains and

172
00:14:03.840 --> 00:14:07.399
trained memorabilia, but one of these
trained enthusiasts on the trip was a woman

173
00:14:07.559 --> 00:14:11.480
now. Irene had asked Jack for
a number that she could call to get

174
00:14:11.480 --> 00:14:13.919
in contact with him while he was
away, and he said no, he

175
00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:18.639
would call her now. Denise did
not believe he was cheating on Irene,

176
00:14:18.879 --> 00:14:22.720
and when Irene confided in her mother
in law, Roberta, agreed that it

177
00:14:22.799 --> 00:14:26.759
was suspicious, but insisted that Jack
would never do what his father had done.

178
00:14:26.919 --> 00:14:31.600
Soon after this, Jack and Irene
went on a trip to Lake Tahoe

179
00:14:31.679 --> 00:14:35.399
with Patty and Dave, and Irene
said she did confront Jack about her suspicions,

180
00:14:35.600 --> 00:14:39.759
but Jack assured her it wasn't true
and he was faithful to her.

181
00:14:39.960 --> 00:14:43.279
Irene and Jack came back from the
trip happy, and it would seem that

182
00:14:43.360 --> 00:14:48.480
all was well again with the Baron
family until June eighth of nineteen ninety two,

183
00:14:48.720 --> 00:14:52.559
which would be the start of devastating
events that would occur in this little

184
00:14:52.600 --> 00:14:58.840
family. On Monday, June eighth, a woman named Christine Hamilton came by

185
00:14:58.840 --> 00:15:01.960
the Baron's home and around seven am
to drop off her daughter for daycare before

186
00:15:03.039 --> 00:15:05.600
work. She had been bringing her
daughter for quite some time and she and

187
00:15:05.639 --> 00:15:11.600
Irene had a good relationship. Irene
was very dependable and Christine knew that her

188
00:15:11.679 --> 00:15:15.639
daughter was in good hands when she
was at the baron's on this day,

189
00:15:15.720 --> 00:15:18.159
though, when Christine knocked on the
door, no one answered, so she

190
00:15:18.240 --> 00:15:24.399
knocked again after Irene still did not
come to the door. Christine was frustrated

191
00:15:24.600 --> 00:15:28.519
because Irene was always there it was
a work week, but not having time

192
00:15:28.559 --> 00:15:31.879
to worry about it, she brought
her daughter to another neighbor's home so she

193
00:15:31.919 --> 00:15:37.320
could go to work. However,
Christine could not shake the feeling that something

194
00:15:37.440 --> 00:15:41.600
was wrong. It was so unlike
Irene to not communicate with her if she

195
00:15:41.639 --> 00:15:46.440
couldn't watch her daughter, so moments
after getting to work, Christine left and

196
00:15:46.480 --> 00:15:50.759
went back to the baron's household.
Christine walked around the house when she still

197
00:15:50.759 --> 00:15:54.360
couldn't get Irene to answer the door, when she spotted Jeremy, who was

198
00:15:54.480 --> 00:15:58.080
three at this point, and was
able to coax him into opening the back

199
00:15:58.120 --> 00:16:02.120
door. When she asked Jeremy,
mommy was he said that he couldn't wake

200
00:16:02.159 --> 00:16:06.360
her up, so Christine went into
the bedroom. According to the Sacramento Bee,

201
00:16:06.440 --> 00:16:10.559
Christine found Irene on her back,
dressed in a rope and slippers,

202
00:16:10.559 --> 00:16:15.039
with a pillow over her face.
Christine removed the pillow and found makeup smudges

203
00:16:15.080 --> 00:16:18.440
on it. According to Dying for
Daddy, there was also a small amount

204
00:16:18.480 --> 00:16:22.759
of blood on her face. Christine
called nine one one and the operator instructed

205
00:16:22.759 --> 00:16:26.000
her to perform CPR and Irene,
but when she touched her, Christine knew

206
00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:30.279
that it was too late. Irene
was cold to the touch and rigor had

207
00:16:30.320 --> 00:16:33.360
already been set. Police arrived at
the Baron home and they were confused.

208
00:16:33.679 --> 00:16:37.559
There were no signs of forced entry, no signs of robbery, and there

209
00:16:37.559 --> 00:16:41.320
were no marks on Irene's body to
indicate that she had been violently attacked.

210
00:16:41.759 --> 00:16:45.799
Soon after police arrived, at around
nine thirty in the morning, Jack arrived

211
00:16:45.840 --> 00:16:49.480
home from work and was told that
his wife was gone. According to the

212
00:16:49.519 --> 00:16:56.519
Sacramento Bee, Sergeant Joe Dene said
that Jack was appropriately grief stricken upon being

213
00:16:56.559 --> 00:16:59.799
told his wife had died, and
he told police that his thirty four year

214
00:16:59.799 --> 00:17:03.920
old didn't have any underlying health conditions, but in recent days she had had

215
00:17:03.920 --> 00:17:10.000
a cold and complained of headaches.
She had allegedly also slurred her speech at

216
00:17:10.119 --> 00:17:14.319
least once the jacket recall. Jack
told police that Irene was alive the night

217
00:17:14.359 --> 00:17:17.680
before when he went to work and
that he had been there all evening.

218
00:17:18.000 --> 00:17:21.559
Police called his boss and he confirmed
that Jack was at the store that night

219
00:17:21.599 --> 00:17:26.400
for his entire shift. An autopsy
was conducted and the pathologist who conducted it,

220
00:17:26.559 --> 00:17:30.200
Greg Schmunk, said that there was
not enough physical evidence to indicate that

221
00:17:30.240 --> 00:17:33.240
her death was the result of a
homicide. However, he did find evidence

222
00:17:33.240 --> 00:17:37.720
of hemorrhaging on her eyelids, her
face, her neck, her thyroid cartilage,

223
00:17:37.759 --> 00:17:41.359
her larynx, and inside her mouth. There was also a bruising present

224
00:17:41.400 --> 00:17:45.839
on her right arm and leg.
In case who haven't listened to our coverage

225
00:17:45.839 --> 00:17:49.519
of Cayla Siego's death, these injuries
are called strangulation injuries, and they are

226
00:17:49.599 --> 00:17:55.319
used to indicate that the person who
has these injuries has been asphyxiated. So,

227
00:17:55.799 --> 00:18:00.759
looking at it now after the fact, knowing this information, the fact

228
00:18:00.759 --> 00:18:04.599
that the pathologists saw these injuries and
didn't believe there was sufficient evidence to rule

229
00:18:04.839 --> 00:18:11.920
at minimum that her death was suspicious
is baffling. Yes, strangulation injuries are

230
00:18:11.960 --> 00:18:18.039
not necessarily automatic proof of intentional violence
that can happen during consensual sex or even

231
00:18:18.079 --> 00:18:22.119
be sports related, but it's hard
to rationalize the idea that he didn't think

232
00:18:22.160 --> 00:18:26.599
it was suspicious. In response to
his findings, Greg told the Sacramento Bee

233
00:18:26.759 --> 00:18:30.680
quote, just because there was a
pillow over the face doesn't mean anything,

234
00:18:30.880 --> 00:18:36.720
and the autopsy findings were not specific. In regards to the pillow. Police

235
00:18:36.759 --> 00:18:40.319
believed Irene may have used it to
cover her face to try and block the

236
00:18:40.400 --> 00:18:42.759
light out during the onset of a
headache, which I will admit is a

237
00:18:42.920 --> 00:18:48.920
valid thought process. It was ultimately
determined that Irene had died on the seventh,

238
00:18:48.960 --> 00:18:52.359
which was a Sunday, and that
her death was most likely the result

239
00:18:52.480 --> 00:18:56.000
of natural causes. It was theorized
that she had had a headache when to

240
00:18:56.039 --> 00:19:00.880
lie down and just simply never woke
up. After Irene's death, the community

241
00:19:02.160 --> 00:19:06.799
rallied to support Jack and help him
through this terrible time. He was brought

242
00:19:06.799 --> 00:19:10.880
food, people sent him money to
help care for the children. He received

243
00:19:10.920 --> 00:19:15.480
fifteen thousand dollars in life insurance money, and community members even got him in

244
00:19:15.519 --> 00:19:18.079
contact with his favorite singer. Went
on a judd to try and live to

245
00:19:18.200 --> 00:19:23.200
spirits. However, people weren't exactly
thrilled to see that. A month after

246
00:19:23.359 --> 00:19:27.720
Irene's death, a new woman by
the name of Starla Hayes was moving into

247
00:19:27.799 --> 00:19:33.599
Jack's home with her two children.
Interestingly enough, Starla was the woman that

248
00:19:33.640 --> 00:19:37.920
Irene believed Jack was having an affair
with. Of course, Jack said that

249
00:19:37.920 --> 00:19:41.000
they weren't dating and that she was
having marital problems and just needed a place

250
00:19:41.039 --> 00:19:45.680
to stay. But a letter was
discovered sometime after Irene's funeral that she had

251
00:19:45.720 --> 00:19:49.880
written to Jack that indicated that he
really did want to end their marriage.

252
00:19:51.000 --> 00:19:52.880
A portion of the letter, which
was printed in the La Times, said

253
00:19:52.960 --> 00:19:56.759
quote, I'm really sorry you're unhappy
right now. I have a hard time

254
00:19:56.759 --> 00:20:00.759
believing the only reason for this is
my ability to keep the house exactly the

255
00:20:00.839 --> 00:20:04.640
way you like it. You obviously
don't want to talk to me about it,

256
00:20:04.680 --> 00:20:07.759
and that really scares me. It
really upsets me when I hear you

257
00:20:07.839 --> 00:20:14.000
talk about divorce. I can't believe
you are really serious about that. If

258
00:20:14.039 --> 00:20:17.880
you are, then you have had
me and everyone fooled for a long time.

259
00:20:18.039 --> 00:20:21.880
It's interesting that Jack was allegedly talking
about divorce at all, because he

260
00:20:21.960 --> 00:20:25.720
had allegedly told a friend who had
been going through a rough divorce years prior,

261
00:20:25.880 --> 00:20:29.720
that he himself would just get rid
of her instead of going through divorce

262
00:20:29.759 --> 00:20:33.960
proceedings. Now, the Sacramento Bee
actually published the whole letter, which is

263
00:20:33.000 --> 00:20:37.519
in the source notes, and given
the circumstances, it's just really sad to

264
00:20:37.599 --> 00:20:41.519
read. It's clear that she really
loved Jack and just wanted to work things

265
00:20:41.519 --> 00:20:45.240
out with him. Now things were
not great. Soon after, Jack had

266
00:20:45.279 --> 00:20:49.240
Starla move in, and this stems
from the arguments that he and Starla were

267
00:20:49.279 --> 00:20:53.640
having, as well as the way
Jack was speaking to his children. According

268
00:20:53.640 --> 00:20:59.160
to multiple sources, Starla claimed that
on one occasion, little Jeremy, who

269
00:20:59.240 --> 00:21:03.160
was only four at this point,
was crying for his mother and Jack said

270
00:21:03.200 --> 00:21:06.240
something to the effect of, if
you don't shut up, I'll send you

271
00:21:06.279 --> 00:21:10.599
to where mommy is. Starlow moved
out sometime after this, and Jack hired

272
00:21:10.599 --> 00:21:14.680
a babysitter to care for his children
while he went to work. On February

273
00:21:14.680 --> 00:21:18.240
seventh, nineteen ninety three, just
shy of one year after Irene's death,

274
00:21:18.599 --> 00:21:22.880
Jack came home from working the night
shift and went to bed. A little

275
00:21:22.880 --> 00:21:26.359
while later, the babysitter he had
hired went to go wake up Ashley and

276
00:21:26.440 --> 00:21:30.000
Jeremy to get them ready for the
day. When she found Jeremy on responsive

277
00:21:30.079 --> 00:21:33.799
in his bed. The babysitter ran
to Jack and woke him up and begged

278
00:21:33.839 --> 00:21:37.079
him to perform CPR, but according
to the La Times, Jack said,

279
00:21:37.160 --> 00:21:42.000
quote, don't bother. It's too
late anyway. According to the Sacramento Bee,

280
00:21:42.119 --> 00:21:48.000
Jeremy was brought to Kaiser Medical Center
and Greg Schmunk again performed the autopsy.

281
00:21:48.319 --> 00:21:52.759
He did allegedly check for genetic abnormalities
that could have possibly been the cause

282
00:21:52.799 --> 00:21:56.920
of Irene and Jeremy's sudden deaths,
but he did not find anything. Ultimately,

283
00:21:57.160 --> 00:22:02.359
six months later, he ruled a
dea is undetermined. Police were also

284
00:22:02.519 --> 00:22:06.519
not notified of Jeremy's death, according
to that same article. Now, I

285
00:22:06.559 --> 00:22:11.200
will say that a forensic pathology expert
from Dallas named Linda Norton told the Sacramento

286
00:22:11.279 --> 00:22:15.160
Bee that quote, in the absence
of other findings in a case involving a

287
00:22:15.279 --> 00:22:19.839
child over six months of age with
no history of illness, suffocation is the

288
00:22:19.960 --> 00:22:26.000
logical conclusion. Except Greg disagreed with
this. The deputy coroner said there was

289
00:22:26.079 --> 00:22:30.000
no reason to alert the police because
outside of a healthy four year old dying

290
00:22:30.079 --> 00:22:33.640
suddenly, there was quote nothing suspicious
about his death. Now, a panel

291
00:22:33.680 --> 00:22:38.119
did review the report regarding Jeremy's death, and they said that nothing suspicious jumps

292
00:22:38.160 --> 00:22:41.799
out at them. They agreed it
was unusual for a mother and young boy

293
00:22:41.880 --> 00:22:47.079
to die with an ear of each
other, but it wasn't suspicious. And

294
00:22:47.359 --> 00:22:49.960
again, I understand that this is
the nineties and things were different, Like,

295
00:22:51.039 --> 00:22:52.920
I get it, But at this
point, you're telling me that no

296
00:22:52.960 --> 00:22:57.000
one thought it was worth looking into
when a healthy four year old and his

297
00:22:57.200 --> 00:23:02.160
equally healthy thirty four year old mother
died within months of each other, Like,

298
00:23:02.400 --> 00:23:06.960
no one thought that this warranted some
sort of investigation. I will say

299
00:23:07.039 --> 00:23:10.720
though, that at least according to
Dying for Daddy, it seems as if

300
00:23:10.720 --> 00:23:15.359
Greg Schmunk was determined to find a
natural cause for Irene in Jeremy's deaths.

301
00:23:15.480 --> 00:23:18.359
He wasn't just saying, oh,
it's undetermined, I don't know what it

302
00:23:18.400 --> 00:23:22.200
is and that's the end of it. He was really digging to try and

303
00:23:22.279 --> 00:23:25.960
find a cause. You know,
maybe he wasn't denial and didn't want to

304
00:23:25.960 --> 00:23:29.400
believe that it was murder. I
don't know, but I don't think it

305
00:23:29.440 --> 00:23:33.200
was because he didn't want to do
his job that he was ignoring these signs

306
00:23:33.240 --> 00:23:37.240
that were pointing to murder. I
think he really believed that he was going

307
00:23:37.279 --> 00:23:41.960
to find a genetic reason. There's
also the fact that Greg admittedly had nothing

308
00:23:41.000 --> 00:23:45.640
to go off of at the time, like a different coroner did, which

309
00:23:45.759 --> 00:23:48.480
we'll talk about it a little bit. It was his interpretation that led him

310
00:23:48.519 --> 00:23:52.559
to the conclusion that it was likely
not a homicide at least in the case

311
00:23:52.599 --> 00:23:57.680
of Irene and Jeremy. Once again, the community rallies around poor Jack Barron,

312
00:23:57.799 --> 00:24:03.119
who has now suffered two devastating losses. He gets another insurance policy,

313
00:24:03.319 --> 00:24:07.680
and the president of Wenona Judd's fan
club arranges for tickets for Jack and Ashley

314
00:24:07.720 --> 00:24:11.559
to attend her concert and they get
to meet her. However, friends and

315
00:24:11.599 --> 00:24:18.440
relatives observed some strange behavior from Jack
after Jeremy's death. Jack had been overheard

316
00:24:18.480 --> 00:24:22.400
saying that Jeremy was better off as
he was with his mother, and Jack

317
00:24:22.440 --> 00:24:26.279
had even sold all of his son's
toys and clothing in a garage sale.

318
00:24:26.400 --> 00:24:30.839
It was as if Jeremy didn't exist, and neither did Irene, as Jeremy

319
00:24:30.880 --> 00:24:33.640
had replaced all the pictures of Irene
in the house with pictures of himself with

320
00:24:33.799 --> 00:24:38.920
Winona Judd. Additionally, according to
the Sacramento Bee, John Paget, Irene's

321
00:24:38.960 --> 00:24:42.599
brother, observed that Jack didn't seem
all that upset over the loss of his

322
00:24:42.720 --> 00:24:47.160
son. John said quote, he
didn't seem to have a grasp on the

323
00:24:47.240 --> 00:24:51.240
trauma that the rest of us in
the family were experiencing. He was at

324
00:24:51.240 --> 00:24:55.359
times almost euphoric with the attention he
was getting with their deaths. According to

325
00:24:55.400 --> 00:24:59.839
medium dot Com, Ashley's pediatrician at
this point is very worried that there was

326
00:25:00.279 --> 00:25:04.000
underlying condition that caused Jeremy and Irene's
deaths, so he ordered tests to be

327
00:25:04.079 --> 00:25:10.000
run on Ashley and discovered that she
was experiencing bouts of sleep apnea and recommended

328
00:25:10.039 --> 00:25:12.400
she wear a heart monitor. However, Ashley didn't want to wear it.

329
00:25:12.640 --> 00:25:17.680
She is four years old at this
point and just the little girl. She

330
00:25:17.720 --> 00:25:21.680
doesn't want to wear this, and
Jack allegedly didn't make her wear it.

331
00:25:21.920 --> 00:25:26.799
He also allegedly refused to take her
to any follow up appointments regarding the sleep

332
00:25:26.839 --> 00:25:30.480
apnea. After Jeremy's death, Jack
hires a new babysitter by the name of

333
00:25:30.559 --> 00:25:34.559
Jill Presley to watch Ashley at night
while he went to work. Jill had

334
00:25:34.559 --> 00:25:38.759
worked in a nursing home and at
an acute care facility, so she was

335
00:25:38.759 --> 00:25:44.119
certified in CPR and could help if
anything were to happen with Ashley. So

336
00:25:44.440 --> 00:25:48.480
it seemed as if Jack was taking
a precaution and making sure that someone that

337
00:25:48.559 --> 00:25:51.960
knew CPR would be at his home
while he was at work in order to

338
00:25:52.000 --> 00:25:56.920
protect his daughter. According to the
Sacramento Bee, on August sixth, nineteen

339
00:25:56.000 --> 00:26:00.960
ninety four, Jill arrives at the
Baron home in the evening to watch Ashley

340
00:26:00.960 --> 00:26:03.000
while Jack was at work. She
knocked on the door before he had to

341
00:26:03.119 --> 00:26:07.480
leave, and she said that Jack
told her he had already checked on Ashley

342
00:26:07.599 --> 00:26:11.359
and she was asleep in bed.
After spending the day with Roberta playing the

343
00:26:11.400 --> 00:26:15.000
couple of Little Girls that lived near
her home. Around ten thirty pm,

344
00:26:15.200 --> 00:26:18.759
Jack gave Jill a glass of iced
tea and reminded Jill that she was to

345
00:26:18.799 --> 00:26:22.200
stay awake and keep an eye on
Ashley. Then he left to go to

346
00:26:22.240 --> 00:26:26.640
work and Jill sat down to watch
some TV. Around midnight, so it

347
00:26:26.720 --> 00:26:30.319
is now August seventh, Jill checked
on Ashley and saw that she was curled

348
00:26:30.359 --> 00:26:33.319
up under the covers and facing the
wall. Jill then fell asleep herself,

349
00:26:33.400 --> 00:26:37.960
and woke up at around four am. She went to check on Ashley and

350
00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:41.240
found her lying on her back in
bed with the covers off. Jill approached

351
00:26:41.240 --> 00:26:45.680
Ashley and touched her stomach and immediately
ran to call nine one one. Ashley's

352
00:26:45.720 --> 00:26:49.119
skin was cold and hard to the
touch. The little girl was gone.

353
00:26:49.400 --> 00:26:55.200
The dispatcher instructed Jill to perform CPR, but rigor mortis had already set in

354
00:26:55.319 --> 00:27:00.240
and there was nothing Jill, who
was completely distraught, could do now.

355
00:27:00.279 --> 00:27:04.519
When aunties arrived, they believed that
Ashley had been deceased about four hours before

356
00:27:04.599 --> 00:27:08.680
she was found, just based on
the lividity present on her body. They

357
00:27:08.680 --> 00:27:14.680
transported her to Kaiser Hospital, where
a nurse named Cindy Hayhurst determined that something

358
00:27:14.920 --> 00:27:18.000
terrible had happened in the baron household, and she called the coroner's deputy,

359
00:27:18.079 --> 00:27:22.960
Billy Giliacht, and informed him that
a third baron had died and she believed

360
00:27:22.960 --> 00:27:27.200
it was murder. According to the
Sacramento Bee, When the paramedics arrived,

361
00:27:27.279 --> 00:27:32.240
they called in patrol deputies to inform
them that Ashley had died, but there

362
00:27:32.240 --> 00:27:36.559
were no obvious signs of foul play
present. The deputies requested a crime scene

363
00:27:36.599 --> 00:27:41.640
investigator to photograph the scene, and
the coroner's office called homicide detective Paul sprites

364
00:27:41.680 --> 00:27:45.880
Heer to alert him of the death. Now, Ashley's death after the autopsy

365
00:27:45.039 --> 00:27:51.440
was also deemed to be undetermined.
However, this time a caveat resided that

366
00:27:51.519 --> 00:27:56.920
said, quote, homicidal violence cannot
be excluded. Bob Bauers, Sacramento's deputy

367
00:27:56.960 --> 00:28:02.599
coroner, called a meeting with the
DA and sheriff's officials outlining his suspicions about

368
00:28:02.640 --> 00:28:06.720
the Baron deaths. He said,
quote, we felt we had developed information

369
00:28:06.839 --> 00:28:11.400
that clearly pointed to Jack Baron as
the suspect. John O'Mara, the homicide

370
00:28:11.440 --> 00:28:15.920
chief, after reviewing all of the
autopsy reports, agreed that it certainly looked

371
00:28:15.920 --> 00:28:21.079
as if Jack Baron had killed his
family. An investigation was launched, but

372
00:28:21.119 --> 00:28:25.920
police really didn't have anything to go
off of other than speculation because there were

373
00:28:25.920 --> 00:28:29.920
no clear signs of foul play in
Irene or her children's death, and I

374
00:28:30.039 --> 00:28:33.519
mean no signs of foul play.
Ashley's autopsy was clear, she had no

375
00:28:33.559 --> 00:28:40.640
evidence of patikia anywhere on her body
at all. Full toxicology reports were done,

376
00:28:40.720 --> 00:28:45.519
genetic testing everything came back negative.
However, it did not help Jack's

377
00:28:45.559 --> 00:28:51.079
case when police allegedly spoke to people
at his job and learned that Jack seemed

378
00:28:51.079 --> 00:28:53.920
to be missing between the hours of
midnight and forbe on the day that Ashley

379
00:28:55.000 --> 00:29:00.599
died. It was also learned that
coincidentally, all three members of the Baron

380
00:29:00.720 --> 00:29:03.240
family had died on the seventh of
the month, which happened to be a

381
00:29:03.400 --> 00:29:08.240
Sunday. This is strange enough,
but even stranger when you take into consideration

382
00:29:08.359 --> 00:29:14.720
that Elmore Baron, Jack's father,
was born on a Sunday, the seventh

383
00:29:14.720 --> 00:29:18.759
of August in nineteen thirty eight.
In fact, the person that pointed this

384
00:29:18.880 --> 00:29:22.000
fact out was Roberta, who realized
that Ashley had died on her ex husband's

385
00:29:22.000 --> 00:29:26.319
birthday. This is actually what I
meant earlier about greg Schmunk not having anything

386
00:29:26.400 --> 00:29:32.440
to go off of. Gregory Rybert, the pathologist who performed Ashley's autopsy,

387
00:29:32.599 --> 00:29:37.000
was aware of Irene and Jeremy's deaths
and had noticed the pattern of the seventh

388
00:29:37.000 --> 00:29:41.000
of the month, so he was
already suspicious going into the autopsy. Meanwhile,

389
00:29:41.200 --> 00:29:45.279
Jack is not exactly acting like a
grieving father who had lost his wife

390
00:29:45.279 --> 00:29:51.079
and two children within two years of
each other. At Ashley's funeral, he

391
00:29:51.200 --> 00:29:55.279
bragged about how Winona Judd had sent
flowers when she heard of Ashley's death and

392
00:29:55.279 --> 00:29:59.000
how they were such good friends.
He even wore a shirt at the funeral

393
00:29:59.039 --> 00:30:03.440
that said wise guy on it,
as in Winona's Guy. It was very

394
00:30:03.480 --> 00:30:07.920
strange. Jack also decided at this
time that he was going to sell his

395
00:30:07.960 --> 00:30:11.880
home. He claimed this was due
to painful memory, so he sold the

396
00:30:11.880 --> 00:30:15.680
house on South Breeze Drive, getting
a very good price for it on top

397
00:30:15.759 --> 00:30:18.920
of the thirteen k he received an
insurance money for Ashley's death, packed up

398
00:30:18.920 --> 00:30:23.400
his belongings, and moved in with
Roberta in Benizia, California. Now we're

399
00:30:23.400 --> 00:30:26.599
going to detour away from the case
for a second to address what I said

400
00:30:26.640 --> 00:30:32.160
about this being a supposed case of
Munchausen syndrome by proxy and how I didn't

401
00:30:32.160 --> 00:30:36.799
believe this accurately described Jack Baron,
who at this point may or may not

402
00:30:36.839 --> 00:30:41.119
be guilty. According to Dying for
Daddy, The deputy coroner had requested Mike

403
00:30:41.200 --> 00:30:45.799
Proden, who worked for the California
Department of Justice and was an FBI trained

404
00:30:45.839 --> 00:30:49.640
profiler, to go over the Baron
case. He was asked to give his

405
00:30:49.720 --> 00:30:53.599
expert opinion on whether or not the
Baron deaths were due to natural causes,

406
00:30:53.720 --> 00:30:59.319
suicide or homicide. So he did
what is called an equivocal death analysis,

407
00:30:59.400 --> 00:31:03.079
which is a exactly what I just
described. He needed to come up with

408
00:31:03.119 --> 00:31:07.279
a reasonable motive if it was murder, as to why Jack would want to

409
00:31:07.400 --> 00:31:12.440
kill his family. Now, Proden
did consider Munchausen's at first. However,

410
00:31:12.599 --> 00:31:18.000
he quickly dismissed this based on the
financial gain that Jack benefited from in the

411
00:31:18.039 --> 00:31:22.079
form of life insurance policies and money
from friends and family, as well as

412
00:31:22.079 --> 00:31:25.359
the fact that there were no stories
of any of the Barons suffering from any

413
00:31:25.400 --> 00:31:29.759
sort of mysterious ailment for a long
period of time. They were fine one

414
00:31:29.799 --> 00:31:33.720
minute and gone the next. The
only thing that suggested Munchausen's at all was

415
00:31:33.759 --> 00:31:40.599
the fact that Jack seemed to thrive
on the attention. Proden ultimately determined that

416
00:31:40.680 --> 00:31:45.759
while Jack liked the attention and the
monetary gain, given that Irene, Jeremy,

417
00:31:45.799 --> 00:31:48.839
and Ashley all died on a Sunday
on the seventh of the month,

418
00:31:48.000 --> 00:31:52.960
Proden believed that Jack's real motive was
a deep rooted issue with his father abandoning

419
00:31:53.039 --> 00:31:59.599
him as a child. So this
investigation is going on and police are still

420
00:31:59.640 --> 00:32:04.119
trying to figure out how Jack killed
his family because they have no concrete evidence

421
00:32:04.160 --> 00:32:08.599
to prove murder, let alone that
Jack was responsible. Meanwhile, Jack is

422
00:32:08.640 --> 00:32:13.599
living with his mother and her boyfriend, Tim o'keith, and Tim is not

423
00:32:13.920 --> 00:32:17.640
happy. He doesn't watch Jack there. Roberta is babying her son, and

424
00:32:17.680 --> 00:32:22.759
he has enough of it, so
he leaves sometime in January or early February

425
00:32:22.759 --> 00:32:27.599
of nineteen ninety five. And I
will say, while Tim may have believed

426
00:32:27.599 --> 00:32:31.200
that Roberta was coddling her adult son, it seems as if Roberta was really

427
00:32:31.279 --> 00:32:35.960
wrestling with the fact that Jack may
have been responsible for the deaths of his

428
00:32:36.000 --> 00:32:37.880
family, while it was clear she
believed he had nothing to do with it.

429
00:32:37.880 --> 00:32:43.119
In the beginning. Roberta seemed to
change a lot after Ashley's death and

430
00:32:43.319 --> 00:32:47.759
became very withdrawn. She had also
started fighting with Jack. Jack had left

431
00:32:47.839 --> 00:32:52.799
Lucky's when he sold his home and
started working on a railroad behind the scenes,

432
00:32:52.279 --> 00:32:55.720
and he was supposed to be paying
rent and helping out around the house,

433
00:32:57.240 --> 00:33:00.880
neither of which he was doing.
As a result of their fighting and

434
00:33:01.000 --> 00:33:07.039
Roberta's alleged growing concerns that Jack had
killed his family. Things would come to

435
00:33:07.119 --> 00:33:10.920
a head on Sunday, February twenty
sixth, nineteen ninety five. Now,

436
00:33:12.039 --> 00:33:16.079
no one knows what really happened,
but it speculated that Roberta confronted Jack about

437
00:33:16.079 --> 00:33:21.160
whether or not he was responsible for
what happened to his family, based on

438
00:33:21.240 --> 00:33:24.400
what Roberta's friend, Carol Moreno,
had been told when she visited Roberta right

439
00:33:24.440 --> 00:33:30.079
before her death. Carol also said
that Roberta was going to tell Jack that

440
00:33:30.119 --> 00:33:35.319
he had to move out either way. On February twenty seventh, nineteen ninety

441
00:33:35.319 --> 00:33:38.519
five, Jack called the police and
reported that he had found his mother deceased

442
00:33:38.519 --> 00:33:44.039
in her bedroom. Now, when
police arrived, they called the Solano County

443
00:33:44.079 --> 00:33:46.680
Coroner, Bill Loveless, and he
did not like what he was hearing.

444
00:33:47.079 --> 00:33:51.960
Roberta had been found lying across her
bed, her clothing in disarray, and

445
00:33:52.039 --> 00:33:55.400
rigor mortis had already fully set,
meaning Roberta had been dead for at least

446
00:33:55.440 --> 00:34:00.599
a full day before Jack called police. Addition, it was reported by the

447
00:34:00.640 --> 00:34:07.240
Sacramento Bee that Jack was very nonchalant
about his mother's death, claiming that Roberta

448
00:34:07.279 --> 00:34:08.960
and he had spoken on the phone
the night before, and that she was

449
00:34:09.000 --> 00:34:15.559
complaining of a headache. Bill Lovelace
conducted the autopsy and was finally able to

450
00:34:15.599 --> 00:34:19.480
do what no one else had the
proof to when it came to Irene and

451
00:34:19.519 --> 00:34:25.000
her children. He deemed Roberta Butler's
death a homicide after finding abrasions on her

452
00:34:25.039 --> 00:34:29.280
nose, a cut on her lip, and hamorrhaging around her lungs in the

453
00:34:29.280 --> 00:34:32.559
base of her skull. After this
determination, Irene's death was reviewed by the

454
00:34:32.559 --> 00:34:37.880
Sacramento County Coroner's Office and, based
on the similarities in Roberta's autopsy report,

455
00:34:38.400 --> 00:34:44.360
ruled Irene's death as a homicide as
well, the manner being traumatic asphyxiation,

456
00:34:44.920 --> 00:34:50.679
and they theorized that the bruising found
on her arm and leg was from someone,

457
00:34:51.039 --> 00:34:54.440
most likely Jack, leaning on her
and suffocating her with the Pillow.

458
00:34:55.159 --> 00:35:00.599
Police during this time, we're looking
into an alibi for Jack and learned while

459
00:35:00.679 --> 00:35:04.559
Jack claimed he was at work during
Roberta's determined time of death, which was

460
00:35:04.599 --> 00:35:09.599
sometime on the twenty fifth, that
wasn't exactly true. He claimed to have

461
00:35:09.679 --> 00:35:15.760
been working from five am on.
However, his one of two co workers

462
00:35:15.840 --> 00:35:20.679
said that he didn't remember seeing Jack
after twelve pm, and Roberta's neighbor claimed

463
00:35:20.719 --> 00:35:23.920
to see Jack outside of Roberta's home
at around twelve thirty and again at two

464
00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:29.360
pm, so police believed he possibly
killed his mother before leaving for work.

465
00:35:30.039 --> 00:35:34.679
Left work in Oakland and drove back
to Benicia to see if anyone had discovered

466
00:35:34.719 --> 00:35:38.239
his mother's body before leaving and returning
to Oakland to go back to work.

467
00:35:39.360 --> 00:35:44.800
Police also spoke to Jill Presley again, who told police about the iced tea,

468
00:35:44.960 --> 00:35:47.079
and his old coworkers told them how
he had been missing for a number

469
00:35:47.079 --> 00:35:52.480
of hours when Ashley died as well. Police theorized that Jack put something into

470
00:35:52.519 --> 00:35:57.719
Jill's iced tea and left work after
he knew she would be asleep to come

471
00:35:57.760 --> 00:36:01.480
home and kill Ashley. They thought
after Ashley was gone, he went back

472
00:36:01.519 --> 00:36:05.960
to work and pretended he had been
there all along when Jill called him after

473
00:36:06.000 --> 00:36:10.320
discovering Ashley's body. Five months after
Roberta's murder, Jack was arrested on July

474
00:36:10.440 --> 00:36:15.360
seventeenth of nineteen ninety five for the
murders of Irene Jeremy and Ashley Barron.

475
00:36:16.239 --> 00:36:21.159
Coincidentally, this was also the day
that Irene would have turned thirty eight years

476
00:36:21.159 --> 00:36:25.039
old. Solano County decided to wait
to prosecute him for the murder of his

477
00:36:25.119 --> 00:36:29.719
fifty two year old mother until after
he had been tried for his wife and

478
00:36:29.800 --> 00:36:35.800
children's deaths Now During the very lengthy
trial, the cause of death for at

479
00:36:35.880 --> 00:36:39.079
least Ashley was suggested by Jack's defense
team to be the result of a hereditary

480
00:36:39.079 --> 00:36:44.440
condition called long que tea syndrome,
which causes the heart to beat erratically and

481
00:36:44.440 --> 00:36:47.719
can even make it stop. They
believe that Irene possibly had this condition.

482
00:36:49.639 --> 00:36:53.719
They also said her death could have
been attributed to another condition called ventricular fibrillation,

483
00:36:54.039 --> 00:36:58.760
but it seemed as if Ashley's blood
and tissue samples had gone missing and

484
00:36:58.800 --> 00:37:01.920
they couldn't test her for these conditions. They also couldn't test the pillow case

485
00:37:01.960 --> 00:37:07.440
from Irene's murder because that had gone
missing as well. The prosecution claimed that

486
00:37:07.480 --> 00:37:10.199
it didn't matter if the evidence was
missing or not because the technology to test

487
00:37:10.239 --> 00:37:15.320
for these conditions was too new and
unreliable. The trial didn't actually start until

488
00:37:15.320 --> 00:37:20.480
four and a half years later in
two thousand, with the defense arguing that

489
00:37:20.599 --> 00:37:23.719
Jack's family died of natural causes,
and he was the victim of a very

490
00:37:23.840 --> 00:37:29.880
unfortunate situation and a witch hunt,
whereas the prosecution was arguing that Jack killed

491
00:37:29.880 --> 00:37:31.400
his family to get out of the
marriage he didn't want to be in,

492
00:37:31.559 --> 00:37:35.599
and to get rid of the children
he did not want, as well as

493
00:37:35.639 --> 00:37:39.360
to gain sympathy from his community.
The reason, or at least one of

494
00:37:39.360 --> 00:37:44.559
the reasons that the trial took so
long to start, was over this issue

495
00:37:44.639 --> 00:37:49.920
about what evidence would be admissible,
and also because Jack's original attorney actually quit

496
00:37:50.079 --> 00:37:54.960
because Jack couldn't afford his services.
Ultimately, after a lengthy trial, Jack

497
00:37:55.039 --> 00:37:59.840
was found guilty of the murder of
Irene and Jeremy barn and of his mother,

498
00:38:00.039 --> 00:38:02.519
ROBERTA. Butler. He was acquitted
in the death of his daughter because

499
00:38:02.559 --> 00:38:07.119
it seems as if there was enough
reasonable doubt to suggest that her death was

500
00:38:07.199 --> 00:38:13.239
due to natural causes. Jack received
three consecutive life sentences for the murders.

501
00:38:13.679 --> 00:38:16.320
If you're curious about what Jack's father, Elmore, had to say about all

502
00:38:16.360 --> 00:38:20.880
of this, he said, according
to Dying for Daddy, that if he

503
00:38:21.000 --> 00:38:23.400
received the death penalty, then Elmore
wanted to be the ones to pull the

504
00:38:23.440 --> 00:38:29.039
switch. He also said that he
really couldn't stand his son and had only

505
00:38:29.079 --> 00:38:32.920
spoken or seen him a few times
in twenty years. He also said that

506
00:38:32.960 --> 00:38:37.519
he thought that killing his family members
on the seventh was a direct call out

507
00:38:37.519 --> 00:38:40.920
to Elmore, because he claimed that
Jack couldn't stand that Elmore's birthdays were bigger

508
00:38:40.920 --> 00:38:46.280
to do than Jack's were. This
is a terrible story of a man who

509
00:38:46.320 --> 00:38:52.840
seemingly killed his family for the attention
it brought him from sympathizers. Or it

510
00:38:52.880 --> 00:38:54.880
could be a man who, in
some twisted way, was trying to get

511
00:38:54.880 --> 00:38:59.480
the attention of his father, who
he felt abandoned him as a teenager.

512
00:39:00.760 --> 00:39:02.639
In the end, he killed the
people that loved him more than anything in

513
00:39:02.679 --> 00:39:07.320
the world, and I hope he
rots for it. As for the Munchausen

514
00:39:07.440 --> 00:39:12.960
theory, I understand why people claim
he had it, but I never thought

515
00:39:12.960 --> 00:39:16.559
it'd fit as a diagnosis. But
I am not a doctor. Maybe there's

516
00:39:16.599 --> 00:39:20.320
one out there that says he does
have it, and I just couldn't find

517
00:39:20.360 --> 00:39:24.119
that proof. Either way, I'll
leave that particular detail up for you to

518
00:39:24.239 --> 00:39:30.840
decide. Thank you for joining me
today. This was a lot of research

519
00:39:30.880 --> 00:39:34.280
that went into this. There's a
lot of sources for you guys to look

520
00:39:34.320 --> 00:39:37.440
at if you're interested, not all
of them. I already know we're going

521
00:39:37.519 --> 00:39:39.679
to fit in the source notes because
I think I have close the thirty sources.

522
00:39:39.840 --> 00:39:45.039
There's a character limit, so I'm
going to try to remember to put

523
00:39:45.039 --> 00:39:51.119
them on my website. But if
there's anything missing and you don't see it

524
00:39:51.159 --> 00:39:53.400
on the website, feel free to
email me DM me do anything like that

525
00:39:53.480 --> 00:39:58.039
and I will send you the full
list of references. If I forget to

526
00:39:58.039 --> 00:40:00.119
put them on the website, I
have to do it after the episode comes

527
00:40:00.199 --> 00:40:05.760
up. But again, thank you
for joining me. I'm hoping Lisa we'll

528
00:40:05.760 --> 00:40:07.440
be back soon. I'm not going
to say she's going to be back in

529
00:40:07.480 --> 00:40:09.960
the next one. I just hope
she will. She's just been having a

530
00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:14.559
rough go of it, just a
lot of pain related to the car accident,

531
00:40:14.679 --> 00:40:17.480
so the little I have to make
her do I don't want to do.

532
00:40:19.199 --> 00:40:22.119
So she'll be back when she feels
better. But in the meantime,

533
00:40:22.159 --> 00:40:25.280
I hope you guys have a wonderful
week and I will see you in the

534
00:40:25.320 --> 00:40:30.599
next chapter of the Book of the
Dead. Bye, guys, thank you

535
00:40:30.760 --> 00:40:34.880
so much for listening to this chapter
of the Book of the Dead. And

536
00:40:35.159 --> 00:40:39.280
don't forget that you can always connect
with us on Instagram, you can connect

537
00:40:39.280 --> 00:40:44.519
with us on Twitter, and you
can absolutely connect with us on Patreon.

538
00:40:45.280 --> 00:40:50.039
We also have a merch store as
well that we have frequent discount codes coming

539
00:40:50.039 --> 00:40:54.119
out for so that you guys can
get March hand drawn by myself at a

540
00:40:54.159 --> 00:40:59.239
better cost. We hope you have
a lovely rest of your week, and

541
00:40:59.679 --> 00:41:05.840
just remember, please be kind and
don't forget to always stay safe, stay

542
00:41:05.920 --> 00:41:15.079
curious, and stay vigilant. Bye
guys, Bye,