Chapter 60: Betrayed by His Best Friend-The Murder of Nathan Deslippe

SPEAKER 1: Hi guys, I'm Courtney and I'm Lisa and welcome to the next chapter in the book of the Dead. Brought to you by Dark Casts Network Indie podcasts with a twist.

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SPEAKER 1: Hi guys. Welcome back to another chapter, Lisa's back. Hello, everyone. So last week we had Ashley Michelle on and she spoke about the crime that had occurred that she was a victim of that. She is a survivor of, but there was another victim in her story, another victim of that same crime.

SPEAKER 1: So we're going to talk about that today before we begin, we released a bonus episode on Thursday with some other podcasts, a nefarious nightmare. Fuck that beyond the rainbow and criminal activity.

SPEAKER 1: It was a call to action round table discussion regarding the death of Alex Vandalen. So if you guys haven't listened to that, I really, really urge you to do so because it was really, really important. Also, don't forget we have a Patreon.

SPEAKER 1: You should check that out. The link is down below and we have a new Patreon episode coming out in about a week. I think. So. You should check that out. I'm just throwing that out there, but we're going to jump right in with the murder of Nathan De Slip. Nathan De Slip was born to Mona and Tim De Slip.

SPEAKER 1: He had a sister named Jessica and he was a true Marvin boy. He adored his mother and loved spending time with her in a piece written for C TV. London by Justin Zory. Mona recalled that Nathan said as a child when I grow up, I don't want to leave you, which is just like heart melting. This little boy loved his mom so much. He wanted to be with her forever.

SPEAKER 3: I think that's awesome to have a little one like that. It's just they're the cutest things anyway.

SPEAKER 1: Exactly. And like he would rearrange his schedule for family events and he even worked with Mona for eight years and he was thrilled that he could spend every day with his mom. Like this was someone, his mom was his best friend.

SPEAKER 1: He cared so much for his family would drop everything for family no matter what it was, whether it was a family event or someone needed help with something he was there for his family, no matter what, it's a very caring young man he really was. And that's kind of what a lot of people had to say about him.

SPEAKER 1: That Nathan was just one of those people that was filled with so much love for life and positivity in a medium dot com piece written by one of his friends, Tyler Brydon. He described Nathan as a beacon of light that represented the London, that Londoners not only want but need caring, forward thinking, community based, happy and proud. Almost everyone has described Nathan as a leader and that is undoubtedly true.

SPEAKER 1: His continuous drive to self improve and gain knowledge, impressed me so immensely and with every conversation, you could feel his passion, the value of his work and his desire to help anyone who wanted it. That is Nathan clearly left quite an impact on people just.

SPEAKER 3: From what you tell me he obviously did.

SPEAKER 1: He was clearly just one of those people that he just radiated love and kindness.

SPEAKER 3: So he was a bright light in this world.

SPEAKER 1: Absolutely just a pure light in this world. He volunteered on the marketing committee for Forest London, which is an organization in Ontario, Canada. If that wasn't clear before this is London, Ontario that this is taking place in not London, England. By 27 he was a yoga instructor and aspired to be a life coach.

SPEAKER 1: He wanted to, to help people like this was a really ambitious man who wanted to change the world for the better. That was his goal in life. He wanted to make an impact on the world. However, his life would come to a horrific end by one of the people closest to him. Nathan had a friend named William Joel.

SPEAKER 1: Ok.

SPEAKER 1: In 2016, William moved into Nathan's apartment on 3 23 Colburn Street near downtown London until he could find his own place. He had been away for a few years for work and he was back in town and didn't have a place to live right away. So Nathan said you can come stay with me.

SPEAKER 1: Like these two were like brothers, best friends. Nathan and William really considered themselves as brothers. So it was almost natural for Will to come back to town and Nathan be like, yeah, stay with me until you can find an apartment. Yeah.

SPEAKER 3: Well, that's what a friend would do for another friend prior to moving in with Nathan.

SPEAKER 1: He actually briefly stayed with a friend named Ashley who we spoke to last week, whom he had a kind of a relationship with, from my understanding, it was kind of like an off and on thing. Not much is known about what happened or how their dynamic was when William moved in with Nathan.

SPEAKER 1: But what is known was that something terrible happened in the very early hours of August 28th, 2016 at around 5 a.m. Will calls his friend Ashley to come to the apartment and at around 6 a.m. he also sends a text to his friend, Lawrence Fields, ask him to come over as well.

SPEAKER 1: Lawrence said that he could tell something was not right, almost immediately because it was weird for Will to ask him to come over that early in the morning. I mean, six o'clock in the morning would be weird for most people, I think.

SPEAKER 3: Yeah, I mean, I would think something was wrong as well. It, it, you know, it's, it's that mi, you know, it's like the middle of the night phone call or a late phone call when you're not used to getting them, you know, from a friend. The, the first words is hi. What's the matter?

SPEAKER 1: Exactly? So Lawrence had like a weird vibe already going into this made worse by the fact that Will wouldn't give him the number to buzz into the apartment even though Lawrence had asked multiple times. Which again, that's weird. You want me to come over, you want me to see you, but you're not giving me the number to let me into your apartment or Nathan's apartment for Ashley.

SPEAKER 1: However, this wasn't so strange because due to their work schedules, they kind of saw each other whenever they were available. So it was, you know, whether it was the crack of dawn or really late at night, it was whenever they could see each other because their schedules, I guess were opposite.

SPEAKER 1: Ok. Now, when Lawrence arrived it took Will a really long time to get downstairs to greet him. Which he also found a little weird because there was an elevator, like you would think he would be down kind of quickly, especially if you were expecting a visitor. Right.

SPEAKER 3: Yeah, you're kind of a little more. I don't know, I guess a little quicker.

SPEAKER 1: Exactly. And Ashley confirmed this according to Ashley. When she got the text to come over, she arrived at the apartment soon after getting the text and she said it took around 25 minutes for Will to come downstairs.

SPEAKER 3: I can, I would find that to be a little bit annoying, I guess because you asked me to come over and now I have to wait 25 minutes.

SPEAKER 1: That's a little weird. Exactly. Like you're the one that wanted me to come over. I wasn't popping by to surprise you. You asked me to be here?

SPEAKER 3: Yeah. And you would think that the person would be dressed, you know, like if you pop over and somebody's just gotten out of the shower, you might have to wait while they get dressed or put a robot or something to answer the door. But if I call you over to my house. I would already be.

SPEAKER 1: Dressed exactly like you. You're expecting a visitor, so you're ready to receive that visitor. So it was strange that he took almost half an hour to come downstairs. Now, when he finally did, he hugged Ashley. Hello? And both Lawrence and Ashley noted that he reeked of alcohol. Mind you, it's about 6 30 in the morning.

SPEAKER 1: Now, when they asked where Nathan was, because again, this is not Will's apartment, it's Nathan's apartment. So the obvious assumption was that Nathan was there. According to CBC, he avoided the question. He would not answer it when they asked him where Nathan was. Ashley also noticed that his toes were cut up and he seemed to have blood on his clothes. She also noticed a knife in the waistband of his pants.

SPEAKER 3: None of that sounds good. Not, not at all. It sounds a little weird. It sounds a little strange. Maybe gives you pause, you know, because I, I have a lot of questions.

SPEAKER 1: It, it, it's a, it's a weird situation. It's, it's kind of an unnerving situation. And I think at this point, Ashley was already, if she didn't have bad vibes before she had bad vibes.

SPEAKER 3: Now, I don't think anybody wouldn't have bad vibes.

SPEAKER 1: Now, the elevator or at least one of the elevators for the apartment didn't work and Nathan's apartment was on the 18th floor. So Lawrence actually refused to go up the stairs with William and Ashley, he was kind of like I'm not climbing 18th stair flights of stairs. It's not happening. Like if you don't want to tell me why you wanted me to come over, that's fine.

SPEAKER 1: But I'm going to go. So Will hugged Lawrence goodbye and told them that it would likely be the last time they would see each other. Obviously, Lawrence is concerned about this and he texted Will later on asking if he was all right, is everything ok?

SPEAKER 1: But he never got a response but Will did see the text because he got that little red notification at the bottom of the text message. When they get to the apartment, Ashley called for Nathan, but there was no answer and then she saw all of the blood, blood, all of the blood, the apartment was covered in blood. Well, according to the London Free Press, that is when Will told Ashley that he killed Nathan.

SPEAKER 3: So he had them both go over to tell them that or how about calling the police?

SPEAKER 1: Oh, we're going to get into all of that. Now Will told Ashley that she would be next. If she didn't help him clean up the blood.

SPEAKER 3: She must have been frightened out of her mind.

SPEAKER 1: She was terrified. And again, you guys know you listened to the interview I did with Ashley, she explained all of this. But for those that didn't listen, you know, Ashley tried to explain to him that it was pointless to attempt to clean up the crime scene that the police would be able to shine a light on the blood. Even if they cleaned it up and wiped it away with Luminal spray and black light, they do do that.

SPEAKER 1: It's not just a TV thing. A crime scene investigator would be able to tell when Ashley continued to refuse to help him clean up the crime scene, he told her to shut the hell up and strangled her until she blacked out upon awakening. He told her you lasted a long time, then proceeded to throw a sponge at her and told her to get to work and even held a knife to her back, telling her that it would be a better way to die.

SPEAKER 3: And this is supposed to be her friend.

SPEAKER 1: This is supposed to be her friend. This is supposed to be Nathan's best friend. He then said because he was going down for two counts of murder. He wanted sex and he attempted to put his hands on her pants more than once. So not only did he attempt to take her life but he assaulted her in the process.

SPEAKER 3: And she was drawn into this whole horrific scene because he asked her to come over. Yeah. Hey, you know, friends, could you come over? This is the stuff of nightmares.

SPEAKER 1: It, it, it was truly a living nightmare, obviously.

SPEAKER 3: But this is like, how does your friend do that to you and then he, he assaults her. On top of all, he's murdered his friend or his best friend.

SPEAKER 3: He's threatened her life, held a knife to her, tried to strangle her, assault her. This is beyond, beyond. I don't want to use the term crazy. It is. But I don't wanna use that term for the simple reason that I don't know if this man was caught and if that was one of the, you know, let's let's grasp its straws and I was, you know, temporary temporary insanity plea.

SPEAKER 1: He tried to get her into Nathan's bedroom to assault her again, telling her that that's where she was going to die.

SPEAKER 1: And Ashley continued to reject his advances and tried to tell him how much potential he had and tried to talk him out of what he was doing and that he had such a future ahead of him and she even told him how they should leave the apartment like she's saying, whatever she can possibly think of to get him to stop and get herself out of that situation.

SPEAKER 3: Yeah. She, she's keeping for all intents and purposes. A cool head.

SPEAKER 1: Yeah, absolutely. She really, she was really doing everything she could to try and diffuse the situation, diffuse the situation, snap him out of whatever was going on in his brain in that moment so that she could get away and be safe. Ashley said that he wasn't making a lot of sense while she was with him like he was kind of talking in circles.

SPEAKER 1: He reeked of alcohol as I said, and he even poured another glass of wine while she was with him and kept saying, look what I did to my brother over and over again. Will said that he killed Nathan because he was disrespectful, disrespectful. But he would not elaborate on what he meant by that. He said he stomped on Nathan and William's bloody clothes and bloody boots were in the living room.

SPEAKER 1: Ashley confirmed that Will was drunk but he was coherent. He knew what he had done and when Will went into the bathroom, that's when Ashley ran, she unlocked the door and proceeded to run down 18 flights of stairs, run a few more blocks away to a hasty mart at Dundas and Wellington Street and the cashier actually refused to allow her to use the phone. So she found a pay phone and called the police.

SPEAKER 3: She must have been absolutely frightened out of her mind.

SPEAKER 1: Yeah, there's no other way to put it. I mean, she was terrified and she found out after the fact that I guess he had realized that she had gotten out of the apartment and he was like going to chase after her.

SPEAKER 1: Now, police actually arrived very quickly. Will was at the apartment when they arrived and they arrested him and charged him with second degree murder as well as forcible confinement, assault and uttering death threats in regards to what he had done to Ashley, they ended up finding Nathan's body in the bathtub.

SPEAKER 1: Now a trial would begin on May 7th 2018. So two years later, because, you know, the court system takes forever and it actually only lasted a little bit over a week.

SPEAKER 1: Will, had admitted to killing Nathan but testified that he blacked out because of his drinking and he had no explanation as to why he killed him. According to C TV news, he did plead guilty to manslaughter.

SPEAKER 1: But the crown actually rejected this plea and pushed for second degree murder which carries an automatic life sentence with parole eligibility being anywhere from 10 to 25 years. So he was going to take a plea deal and the crown went, no, you're not.

SPEAKER 3: Well, that's justice working at least. But this whole, you know, 10 to 25 years thing. He committed murder. He murdered somebody. And what is this, you know, eligible for parole in 10 to 25 years?

SPEAKER 1: Wait, what your guess is as good as mine on that one.

SPEAKER 3: How about life without the possibility of parole?

SPEAKER 1: That's what I would like. That's what I would think. But now on the first day of trial, Ashley testified as to what happened to her going over everything from the very first phone call to fleeing and running for her life and calling the police on day two, they focused on how intoxicated Will was because that's kind of the angle the defense was working was that he was so intoxicated, he didn't know what he was doing.

SPEAKER 1: His defense attorney, John Gatliff questioned Ashley about how she had described Will's level of intoxication at the time of her phone call to the police because he said that Ashley said that he was really hammered. So that's, I guess he was saying, well, you implied that he was completely blitzed out of his mind. So how could he really understand what he was doing was wrong?

SPEAKER 3: And I don't know if you'll have the answer for this. But if someone is completely intoxicated, usually I have found or I have seen when someone is completely intoxicated almost, you know, they, that's why they call it falling down drunk because they're not steady on their feet.

SPEAKER 3: They're kind of bumping into things and whatnot and I'm not, he may have gotten drunk after the fact, but at least in my estimation if he was completely intoxicated, I'm thinking his friend, unless it was a sneak attack would be able to kind of push him out of the way kind of thing.

SPEAKER 3: If you know, if you're falling down drunk and you're bumping into things not steady on your feet, you know, someone who is not intoxicated, I would think may have more strength. You know what I mean? Like it, I'm just, I'm, I know that they're going with the intoxicated.

SPEAKER 3: He blacked out. He didn't know what he did kind of defects. This is not, this is not saying anything against Ashley or Nathan or anything like that. What I'm saying is I'm not sure that this man was as drunk as they are trying to portray him.

SPEAKER 1: Absolutely. And I get what you're saying. And Ashley actually actually clarified and said that he was not severely drunk. Ashley explained that she was panicked at the time of her phone call and essentially misspoke, he was not severely drunk, he was coherent.

SPEAKER 1: He was, he was clearly not making sense in what he was saying to her, you know, talking in circles and all of that. But he, he was cognizant of what he had done. That's what.

SPEAKER 3: I mean, it, it, it's again, nothing. This is not against Nathan or against Ashley or anything else. I'm talking about the defense using intoxication as their defense. I don't think he was, maybe he wasn't, I can't say, I don't think maybe he wasn't as drunk as they were portraying him.

SPEAKER 1: Yeah. No, exactly. And I agree with that. And you know, Ashley testified that that's basically it that he was not as drunk as the defense was trying to portray him as, and that matched up with Lawrence's testimony because he was called to testify as well.

SPEAKER 1: And he also said that that Will was drunk, but he was not so drunk that he was incoherent. Now, four police officers also testified saying that he did not resist when police arrived, which kind of lends some weight to the fact that he wasn't so severely drunk, he didn't know what was going on because he knew why the police were there.

SPEAKER 3: Right. Well, that's what I mean, I, you know, the defense using that as their, as their smoking gun as, as their defense for him. No, he's guilty. He, for all intents and purposes, kidnapped her.

SPEAKER 3: Ok. He assaulted her, he tried to strangle her. He murdered his friend this whole second degree thing like I'm, I'm not getting, I guess, you know, because I don't know all the laws for.

SPEAKER 1: We can go into that. I'll explain that after kind of what the different degrees of a murder charge are because there are, there's different, there's murder, there's second degree first grade, all kinds of things.

SPEAKER 3: And I also don't know because this is Canada, how their laws differ from the United States.

SPEAKER 1: Yes. No. And I understand what you're saying, but we'll kind of go into the different degrees of a murder charge at the end. I'll explain that a little bit for you for you guys that may not understand the difference because they, there is a difference. Now, police said that when they arrived, they had found Ethan's body in the bathtub as I said, after which Will said that he had been dead for about six hours.

SPEAKER 1: Police also clarified that Will's speech was not slurred when he was read his Miranda rights and they spoke about just how much blood was found at the crime scene. On day three of the trial, the autopsy results would be read to the jury and the level of detail of the injuries that Nathan sustained were astronomical and horrifying.

SPEAKER 1: He had injuries to his neck, including ruptured blood vessels that showed he may have been strangled or had his neck compressed in some way. There were several bruises including ones on his arms which were described as defensive wounds. He also had severe injuries to his brain, one above the right eye, the other near where the connectors between nerve cells were, which was caused by blunt force trauma.

SPEAKER 1: They said that Nathan may have been alive but unconscious following the beating from anywhere between 30 minutes to three hours, it was also revealed on day three, that Will had taken a naked photo of himself after beating Nathan.

SPEAKER 1: And according to Ashley, he took this picture because it was just like in the movies. The jury also heard how Will had taken a shower over Nathan's body in the tub. But according to Will, he doesn't remember taking the photograph.

SPEAKER 1: But then he said he took it to try and see why he had blood on his face. According to C TV news, his testimony was filled with these kinds of inconsistencies and he was constantly going back and forth. It was no, I didn't take the picture and then it was, well, I did take the picture because I had blood on my face and I didn't know why. So I took the picture and he was constantly like backtracking on what he was saying.

SPEAKER 3: You said it was a naked picture, not that this matters, but you said it was a naked picture. But if you have blood on your face, wouldn't you just take like if it would make more sense if he just took a picture of his face, like in the bathroom mirror, you know, to not a full, I mean, you wouldn't know that he was completely naked unless he took a full full picture.

SPEAKER 1: Absolutely. Well, he actually told the jury that he took the photograph with shorts on and then the crown prosecutor, Vanessa Decker actually to point out that this was not true and showed him the picture and even suggested he took the photograph nude because he was reveling in what he had done. And she emphasized that his memories seem selective and the blackout was convenient.

SPEAKER 1: She also suggested that his anger led to the killing but Will insisted that he never would have wanted to harm or kill Nathan. But then Decker also pointed out that he never won style to 911, which, you know, is interesting for someone who said they didn't want to see Nathan die.

SPEAKER 3: Well, she's, she's, this prosecutor is on top of her game.

SPEAKER 1: Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER 3: She's calling him out on everything.

SPEAKER 3: A wonderful thing.

SPEAKER 1: Yeah. No, she's great at her job. She also stressed that it was weird for him to call Ashley to the apartment, hold her hostage and threaten to kill her if he didn't want to hurt anybody.

SPEAKER 1: Like you didn't want to hurt Nathan, you didn't call the police. You didn't want to hurt anybody but you lured Ashley to the apartment and then proceeded to literally hold her hostage and attempt to take her life. But you don't want to hurt anybody.

SPEAKER 3: It sounds like he's grasping at straws, not very successfully because she's caught him. At least every single time that you've told.

SPEAKER 1: Me every time she speaks, she had another card to play.

SPEAKER 3: So she was holding the whole deck.

SPEAKER 1: Yeah. A week later, the jury found William Joel guilty of second degree murder after seven hours of deliberation. And he was sentenced two months later during the sentencing hearing justice Jonathan George called the case very troubling and that Will's actions following the murder were reprehensible in regards to what he had done to Ashley.

SPEAKER 1: Dozens of people, friends and family of Nathan's attended the sentencing hearing and 43 victim impact statements were submitted while Will himself only had a couple of people show up from like a church group. The entire courtroom was packed almost entirely with loved ones of Nathan.

SPEAKER 3: Well, he touched so many lives. Nathan Nathan touched so many lives and was a bright light in this world. So I can understand why there was, it was packed with all of his loved ones because he touched so many people.

SPEAKER 1: Absolutely. He, he truly did. One of the speakers was a coworker of Nathan's and he told the court how Nathan and he had pranked their office by ambushing their coworkers with nerf guns.

SPEAKER 3: Sorry, it just sounds like they had a great time.

SPEAKER 1: It sounds like fun, you know, came in and just shot everyone with the nerf guns. That's funny that he had a good sense of humor. He actually had called this coworker about five days prior and this coworker said that they listened to that voicemail every day. Once they leave, when they got the news, they listen to that voicemail every day since to hear his voice to hear his voice again.

SPEAKER 1: Nathan's father, Tim spoke of how he helped him move into the apartment where he was killed and he thought that that apartment would be safe. Like Tim had actually vetoed a couple of Nathan's choices and they agreed on this one because it was in a good neighborhood, it was supposed to be safe. And Tim said how he was actually supposed to see Nathan the day that he died because he was going to take Nathan to Toronto.

SPEAKER 1: His mother, Mona was in Toronto, visiting family and Tim and Nathan were going to meet her there. It was going to be, I guess like a family reunion kind of thing and Tim was to arrive at 10 30 but said to the court, he wondered if he had been there earlier, if Nathan would still be alive.

SPEAKER 1: And I can't imagine the weight that that has on him because he said he was one of those people that was always super punctual, talked about being on time and early for things. And he's like, what if I showed up early? And it's like, so heartbreaking because you can't like, I know it's a natural reaction to do that to yourself. But it's like you can't like, I don't want him to think that.

SPEAKER 3: No. And it could have been, if you think about it, he could have been a victim as well.

SPEAKER 1: Absolutely. He also could have been a victim if he showed up early looking for Nathan. If he showed up a half hour earlier or an hour early. His mother, Mona told the court how her son never hung out with the wrong crowd and he was a good person. He did so much for others even Will he invited Will into his home?

SPEAKER 1: And how Mona's perception of the world has changed since her son's death. She said, if I had not taught Nathan to, to care for or to help others, would he still be alive today? And that was according to Global News.

SPEAKER 1: And that's also so heartbreaking because it's like she raised such a good human being like her son was so good and she raised him so well. And it's so sad that her outlook is like, what if I didn't raise him to be that good of a person? And it's like you raise an amazing human being. I don't know if Mona Will ever listen to this.

SPEAKER 3: But she did. She, she absolutely raised an amazing human being and I think most parents would be asking for tips from her on how to raise an amazing human being.

SPEAKER 1: She did. And it's sad that her perception of that is now clouded or warped because of what happened because he had so much trust for people.

SPEAKER 1: Now, ultimately Will spent two years in pretrial custody and was given a full life sentence without the possibility of parole for 10 years. But those two years, you know, counts as time served. So in reality, it's more like eight years until he's eligible for parole.

SPEAKER 1: He was also though given additional two years to serve concurrently for the threats and for the assaults on Ashley. So he almost killed someone else and only got two extra years tacked onto his sentence except it's not consecutive, it's concurrent. So it's not even like you really got two years.

SPEAKER 1: Ultimately, though, while it's some consolation that Will was put behind bars, the de slit family never got true justice because a reason for the death of Nathan was never given, he never said why he never elaborated on what happened to that led to him literally beating his best friend to death. Why could Nathan possibly have done or said absolutely nothing.

SPEAKER 1: Well, obviously, but like in your mind, what, what did he do that infuriated you so badly that you beat him to death.

SPEAKER 3: It could have been.

SPEAKER 1: I like it. It's like you can't wrap your mind around why you would have taken someone's life. Especially someone that was literally so pure.

SPEAKER 3: Right. Well, that's what I mean. It's not, there's no excuse. There's no nothing that he could have done or said or anything. He wasn't that person, he wasn't that person. You know where, where and no, none of that is an excuse. Do not get me wrong. None of that is an excuse for what he did. He murdered somebody, he murdered his best friend for no.

SPEAKER 1: Reason that July after the trial, two years after Nathan's murder, he was finally buried in a memor service, attended by his friends and family in a private ceremony. So they finally got to say goodbye following Nathan's death.

SPEAKER 1: The Nathan T De Slip Foundation was founded in his memory and is working on several projects in and around the London Ontario area. One project was a concrete Ping Pong table built at East Lines Park and I saw a picture of it. It's really cool. It's like a beautiful art piece. Honestly, it's beautiful but it's functional.

SPEAKER 1: You can literally use it, but it's really cool. I saw pictures on the website and over 100 trees were planted in his name as part of Rain Forest London. At the time of the C TV, news article that was written, the Memorial Fund had raised more than $30,000.

SPEAKER 1: And after just perusing the Nathan T to slit Memorial Fun Facebook page, it looks like they hold different events throughout the year in regards to getting through grief and a lot of them focus on yoga and meditation and breath work, which is the thing that Nathan loved.

SPEAKER 1: As I said, he was a yoga instructor, like he wanted to be a life coach. So it seems like the family is doing a lot to keep his memory alive, which is really beautiful that the families turn their grief into something so wonderful to honor his memory.

SPEAKER 1: As Ashley said in her interview last week Will try to appeal his case. Although there is no information on that for me to report. He appealed it on the basis of changing his plea of manslaughter, which again was rejected the first time. I'm pretty sure it was rejected the second time.

SPEAKER 1: He also petitioned to be authorized to leave prison on day visits. So he could attend things like church because, you know, quote unquote, he found God.

SPEAKER 3: Well, don't they have services at the present? Because I know at least in the United States, you know, they do.

SPEAKER 1: That's what I would think. But, you know, he petitioned for day visits. So as a result of things like this, Nathan's family and Ashley are forced to relive what happens in an effort to keep Will behind bars. Because as Ashley said, why should, Will get to live his life while Nathan could no longer live his, I agree with her 100%.

SPEAKER 3: So far as I'm concerned, I, if you take a life, you've lost all of your rights at that point.

SPEAKER 3: Like, why, why are people, like, I don't understand how people get so worked up about, you know, oh, we, you know, the, the prisons and, and we have to, you know, their rights and it's the prisoners' rights and the prisoners wait a minute, they took a life, they took away their victims rights. Why do they get all these rights? Why should he have a day pass?

SPEAKER 1: No, I, I agree. Why do you get to act like you didn't take someone's life and get to walk around and attend church in, outside of prison or I get to attend classes or, you know, things like that. You want to do all those things fine.

SPEAKER 1: Like, you know, I get it. If you're spending the rest of your life behind bars, you got to do something with your time. You want to learn, you want to get a degree. Ok, great. You can do all of that in prison.

SPEAKER 3: There's no day pass required for any of that.

SPEAKER 1: Exactly. You can attend church in prison. I know that they have a chapel and as far as I know, that's pretty much universal because you can't deny someone the right to practice their religion even if they're in prison. So they have, you know, chapels. I don't know how specific it is, whether it's just generalized where you can practice whatever faith you have in this specific area or what it is.

SPEAKER 3: I mean, I've seen churches that share like the building with other faiths.

SPEAKER 1: Yeah. No. Exactly. So, I'm sure it's something like that. You know, they have a library of sorts in a prison with, you know, different textbooks. You know, I know that depending on your level of freedom in prison, you may have access to a computer where you could take maybe online courses and things like that.

SPEAKER 1: You can do all of the things that you want to do in prison where you belong because you killed someone, as I said, this, obviously, there was no doubt as to whether he committed this murder. Absolutely. There's no doubt he admitted to killing me. Well, this is.

SPEAKER 3: What I mean. So as far as I'm concerned, he took Nathan's rights away, the right to live his life, the right to his family, his, his religion, all of those things took all of that away from him. So why are we worried about his, his rights? I don't think it's cruel and unusual punishment for someone who has committed murder to remain behind bars. For the duration of their sentence.

SPEAKER 1: Exactly there, there's no other way to put it. So, in regards to kind of like what the differences is between manslaughter and murder. So murder is defined as the deliberate killing of one human being by another manslaughter is the unlawful unintentional killing of another human life.

SPEAKER 1: There are two classifications of manslaughter, voluntary and involuntary. So voluntary manslaughter is killing with intent but without premeditation. So you fly into a blind rage and you kill someone, you've just snapped voluntary manslaughter.

SPEAKER 1: Involuntary manslaughter is causing a death unintentionally as usually as a result of recklessness or criminal negligence, like vehicular manslaughter is involuntary manslaughter.

SPEAKER 1: Usually now in terms of degrees of murder charges, first degree murder, at least, according to California law defines it as based on aspects usually in California, at least is any murders that are committed with intent and premeditation are classified as first degree murder. So the intent, you know, there has to be some sort of intent to kill the person.

SPEAKER 1: They must have therefore have attacked or harmed their victim with the purpose of ending their life or doing evil. Then there's deliberation and premeditation. So this type of crime must be purposeful and planned out rather than simply occurring in the heat of the moment.

SPEAKER 1: And then there's malice of forethought, which basically means that a person who committed the murder did so with an intent to kill and a general disregard for human life we talked about that in the case of Chris the peck, in terms of second degree murder, it is defined as any type of unlawful killings that is done with malice of forethought.

SPEAKER 1: But without premeditation, that is the charge that Will got. So even if they intend to kill someone at the moment of the crime, it may simply occur in the heat of the moment and isn't something that they planned out in advance. And then there's third degree murder.

SPEAKER 1: The idea of third degree murder only exists in three states, Florida, Pennsylvania and Minnesota. And basically, it kind of has to do with vehicular manslaughter or could be used in regards to vehicular manslaughter in Minnesota.

SPEAKER 1: Someone must with disregard for human life and a depraved mind to be charged with third degree murder, but Will only face manslaughter charges if they were aware of the risk to another light, but went ahead with their actions anyway, such as behavior, manslaughter or driving under the influence causing death to another person.

SPEAKER 1: So there's really, it's not used a lot. It's very rare. It depends on where you are. So they all carry varying degrees of prison sentences. Second degree murder doesn't carry the longest. It's not like capital murder or first degree murder because there's no premeditation.

SPEAKER 1: There was an intent to kill, but it wasn't planned out beforehand. So that's what they're saying in regards to Nathan, in regards to Nathan's murder Will intended to kill him by beating him to death, but he didn't plan it out before him.

SPEAKER 1: They do think he kind of snapped, which is why they went with second degree murder, but he also didn't call the police or ambulance. That's why he couldn't say it was manslaughter. So that's kind of the differences and I probably explained them, like, not that great.

SPEAKER 1: I'm not a lawyer, but those are the differences and that is why Will was charged with second degree murder. And they rejected the plea for manslaughter. And he petitioned again, as I said, for a manslaughter charge or a manslaughter plea. And it was I believe rejected again because you can't say it was manslaughter when you did nothing to help him.

SPEAKER 1: After the fact you let him die if he snapped and beat him, like he say he was drunk, like black out drunk, he blacked out and he beat him once he snapped out of it and he called the police and say Nathan did die as a result even though he called the police in an ambulance and all that, I could see him saying manslaughter because at least you tried after the fact to get him help and save his life.

SPEAKER 1: Like you realized what you had done. He was alive anywhere from 30 minutes to three hours. You took a shower over his body.

SPEAKER 1: You can't say it was manslaughter and then you held someone else hostage and tried to kill them too.

SPEAKER 1: Now eventually Will, Will be up for parole. And I hope and pray that he isn't granted it.

SPEAKER 1: And unfortunately, Ashley and the lips Will have to go through this ordeal when he is up for parole with more victim impact statements and the like, but hopefully he won't be released because Ashley very rightly said, you know, you see it all the time if someone gets out and they've killed someone and tried to kill someone else who's to say that he won't try again because Ashley testified against him.

SPEAKER 1: And it was basically her testimony that put him behind bars.

SPEAKER 3: Well, he did admit to it.

SPEAKER 1: So he did. But her testimony, even if he didn't, if he didn't admit to it, her testimony alone would have put him behind it where he belongs. Now, for more information on the Nathan T to slip Memorial Fund, you can check out the links below and if you haven't already checked out the interview we did with Ashley last week, check that out as well. Again, please check out the bonus episode we did on Thursday.

SPEAKER 1: It's really, really important. It means a lot if you would listen to it and check out the tagged episodes in the source notes of that episode to hear the other podcasts on that call to action version of Alex's death because obviously everyone does things a little differently. So you'll get kind of a different viewpoint from all of us, but that was the murder of Nathan De Slip.

SPEAKER 1: Doubly sad, knowing that he was such a beautiful soul and then talking to Ashley and like hearing everything she went through because obviously it's different reading about it. But hearing it absolutely.

SPEAKER 3: There's, when you're hearing someone's story from them, you know, someone's, there's a whole different take on it.

SPEAKER 1: Exactly. It impacts you differently. So, with that, we Will see you guys next week for another episode. And although you guys right now it's the disappearance of Rachel. Good. I covered it briefly on a true crime radio segment that I did for WQEE radio and it's been 20 years Wednesday was 20 years that she has been missing and she needs to be found as well. But we'll tell you all about that next week.

SPEAKER 3: We hope that you enjoy the rest of your week and we Will see you next time.

SPEAKER 1: Bye guys. Thank you so much for listening to this chapter of the Book of the Dead. And don't forget that you could always connect with us on Instagram. You can connect with us on Twitter and you can absolutely connect with us on Patreon.

SPEAKER 1: We also have a merch tour as well that we have frequent discount codes coming out for so that you guys can get merch hand you on by myself at a better cost. We hope you have a lovely rest of your week and just remember, please be kind and don't forget to always stay safe. Stay curious and stay vigilant. Bye guys. Bye, Boo.

SPEAKER 4: Did I scare you?

SPEAKER 4: No. Well, Dark Casts Network has a wicked week of stories coming your way soon. That should I may sound familiar to some of you. I'm Cody from over the fence, True Crime Podcast. And while my neighbor Molly and I are on an indefinite hiatus from our show, you may still hear from me from time to time. I kind of linger.

SPEAKER 4: I've really been looking forward to this season's Dark Cast Network Halloween special and it's just around the corner. No tricks. Only audio treats for our listeners. Oh, did you hear that?

SPEAKER 4: It sounds like the ghouls. I mean, the hosts are coming in to record their stories.

SPEAKER 4: Be sure to clear some time. October 27th through October 31st for Dark Casts Network's Wicked Week. Coming to a podcast app near you.