The Real Killer Season 3: Ep. 6, The Worst Decision

In an intimate eight-hour prison interview, Byron Case, shares stories of his childhood, his troubled teen years, his relationship with Kelly and details about the deaths of Anastasia, Justin and his dad. He cries for the first time since his conviction. Does this raw moment reveal remorse for what he did or does it reflect anguish and despair from being wrongfully imprisoned? 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
A warning. This episode contains depictions of violence and conversations
about suicide that may be disturbing and triggering for some listeners.
If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts, please fast forward
to the end of this episode to find out where
help is available. In May of two thousand and two,

(00:24):
Byron Case is convicted of killing Anastasia Whippelsfuchen. As of today,
he's been incarcerated for more than twenty three years.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
People believe what is convenient for them and what feels
right to them. Blaming me for Stage's death is convenient.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
What is Byron Case's truth? Who is he really? And
outside of the story he's already told? What am I
about to learn? I'm Leah Rothman. This is the Real Killer,

(01:10):
Episode six, The Worst Decision. Starting route to Eastern Reception
Diagnostic and Correctional Center, proceed to Gammel's Cemetery road, then

(01:33):
turn right. Okay, it's cold here. It's early February. I'm
in Missouri today. I'm about four hours east of Kansas City,
driving to the town of Bontaire to meet Byron Case
for the first time. How am I feeling? I feel? Okay?

(01:55):
I mean going to a prison is always racking. Yeah,
I mean, I have a lot of questions for Byron,
and hopefully he'll answer them. His attorney, Nicole Gordon and
investigator Queen O'Brien are coming for the interview, so they

(02:17):
will be there. If Queen O'Brien's name sounds familiar, it's
because she was in season one of the podcast. Her father,
renowned innocence lawyer Sean O'Brien, who was in seasons one
and two, has also taken on Byron's case, along with
attorneys Nicole Gordon and Brian Russell. Much more about all

(02:39):
of them in a later episode. Yeah, I think I'm
just like a few miles away. I'm getting a little
bit more nervous. Now. I have been allowed four hours
with Byron, and if necessary, I can return the following
day for four more Pretty generous by in media relations standards.

(03:03):
All Right, I am nervous. Yeah, I was all cool
a few minutes ago, and now I'm like nervous.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
You've entered the parking lot for your destination.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
All right, shit, I'm here. I'm gonna park, get all
my equipment together, and then go in more later, I
go through security, put my phone, keys, and coat in
a locker. Then I'm buzzed in. A few feet away

(03:39):
is another security checkpoint. Then I walk down a long
hallway which leads to the outdoors. It's an outdoor heavily
fenced walkway that leads to another building. That's where the
visitors room is and where I'll be conducting Byron's interview.
Is a small room just off that. It's where they

(04:02):
do parole hearings via the Internet, but really it looks
like a storage room. The cinder block walls are painted
off white. There are several computer monitors on a table,
and some highchairs stacked for family visits. Byron arrives just
moments after I do. Byron's bald and has pale skin.

(04:22):
He's wearing gray pants and a white T shirt under
a gray zip up jacket. I thought he'd be taller
or bigger. I'm surprised by his slight build. I set
up the microphones and recorder on a table. I also
set up a video camera. I'll be posting some clips
from our interview on The Real Killer podcast on Instagram

(04:45):
and on TikTok at TRK podcast. Nicole and Quinn sit
on a metal bench against the wall as we're about
to get started, I ask if we can close the
door to keep out any sounds from the visitor's room,
but am told the or must stay open. I begin
the interview by asking about Byron's childhood and growing up

(05:06):
with his parents, Evelyn and Dale.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
Oh, it's great. I loved my childhood. I had what
I've heard called a free range childhood. It was like
the house and the area around it was just free
to be explored. I would go off and just walk
through the woods near our house, and my dog would

(05:33):
come with me, and sometimes I'd go riding my bike. Yeah,
I was content to play by myself. I preferred it.
I loved animals and had little collections of stuff. I
played the violin that I read a lot, probably more

(05:54):
than anything else that I did in my childhood. I
spent my time reading. I had a fantastic time, you know,
going places with my parents. We traveled a lot, both
in the States and overseas, and just having that time
with them, bonding and experiencing new things so often new cultures,
new scenery, new surroundings. My dad loved the world.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
Byron is homeschooled, and he says from what he sees
of regular school kids. He prefers it that.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
Way, and our yard actually abutted an elementary school. If
I was up in my treehouse, I could actually see
down into one of the playgrounds at the school, and
sometimes I'd see a fight, or I'd see just people
running around and be really loud, which I did not
care for. I've never liked loud noises. I was like,
that looks like a horrible place to be. I do

(06:46):
not want to be there. I really did dread the
idea I think of going to a so called regular school.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
Describe your mom for me.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
My mother was fantastic. She was fun. She was so
encouraging and just always willing to let me sort of
explore whatever weird interest I might have at the time.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
And your mom was originally from Germany?

Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (07:17):
Right? Did she speak German mostly in the house?

Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yeah? We spoke English and German in the household periodically.
I don't know. It was probably about fifty to fifty.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
Describe your dad for me.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
My dad was like my mother. He was so encouraging
and caring. He was never afraid to talk openly and
to be vulnerable, and he was creative too. He liked
to write and he made pottery, mostly like clay bowls
and flower pots and things like that. But he was

(07:48):
definitely an outdoorsman, liked to be with nature, and just
a very peaceful guy. In some ways, I think that
my family was this sort of bubble and we just
sort of existed in our own little world. It was
like the house.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
But that seemingly idyllic home life doesn't last forever.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
Okay. So when I was ten, my mother and my
father called me into the back room of the house
and they set me down and they said, we're getting
a divorce, and my mother told me that my dad
was gay. I was a pretty logical kid, and so

(08:34):
I just kind of took it all in stride, and
I was more concerned about where my parents were going
to live what that meant for me.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
And Byron's mom decides to move to Australia and Byron
goes with her there. He attends public school for the
first time.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
No, I think it was cool for a minute, and
then people started maybe getting to know me a little
bit better and didn't necessarily like me or just thought
that I was, I don't know, different, and not in
a good way, you know. I was quiet I like

(09:17):
to read. I stayed to myself. Byron says.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
After about a year, he and his mom moved back
to the States and Byron moves in with his dad
in Kansas. There, he says, he enrolls in public school
and things get worse.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
I was bullied and harassed, just generally hated school. And
I would work myself up so badly, you know, might
just being like a bundle of nerves every single morning
that I would literally make myself sick. And that went
on for sixth grade and seventh grade, so about a

(09:55):
year and a half. And then as soon as I
had the opportunity, I moved back to Missouri with my
mother and then so that was a different school district.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
It's there in the eighth grade Byron meets Anastasia and
what was your first what were some of your first
impressions of Anna Stasia?

Speaker 2 (10:17):
Anastasia was very intelligent. We were in the National Academic
League together. We basically competed in academic trivia style competitions.
We were on that level first and foremost as colleagues
on the team, and then we were in a couple
of classes together. Also, she was in my science class. Oh,

(10:42):
and I believe we were in the same Latin class
as well, and sometimes we would sit at the same
table at lunch and just talk about whenever. She loved
to read as well, and so we had a fair
amount to relate with one another on that front, but
we weren't really close, more just casual acquaintances. I guess.

(11:04):
We ended up going both of us to Lincoln College
Preparatory Academy the following year, so our freshman year in
high school and had totally different classes then. So basically
never at.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
Fifteen, Byron says he decides he's done with school altogether.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
So I dropped out of school when I was when
I was fifteen. It was right after my freshman year,
and I immediately went and tested for my GED. I
just didn't want anything else to do with school. It
was sucking the life out of me. It was stressful.
I just wanted to I just wanted to be independent
and really have that level of autonomy that I felt

(11:44):
like I needed in order to, I guess, thrive, although
of course at the time I had no idea what
thriving meant.

Speaker 1 (11:51):
So how did your parents feel about you dropping out?

Speaker 2 (11:54):
They tried to talk me out of it. I don't
think any parent wants that for their kid, but I
suspect that part of it was a level of maybe
failure on their own parts that they may have felt
about me dropping out, Like I know that my mother
has said in the past, do you think that homeschool
was the best thing for you? And then cited that

(12:14):
as the reason, like, well, you ended up hating school,
so would it have been better to put you in
school and maybe let you have that experience early on
where you did you get spoiled by that? And my
answer has always been no, that school would have been
horrible for me, no matter what age I had entered
it in.

Speaker 1 (12:35):
By now it's nineteen ninety five. En Byron has nothing
but time. He's spending a lot of it hanging out
at the coffeehouses in Westport.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
It was just so to me cool because you had
all of these different people and all of them were creative.
There were so many students from the Kansas City Art
Institute that would go there. There were people who were homeless,
there were people who were older, just bohemians and young people.

(13:11):
And that was the big thing that I appreciated about it,
really was the fact that nobody gave a shit like
what you were, like if you had weird hair, or
if you had piercings, or if you were very short,
or it didn't matter. No one cared. You were there
because you loved coffee, you loved socializing, maybe you loved

(13:31):
chess or smoking. But the point is there was always
somebody there that you could talk to.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
But even with having that outlet, Byron says, there are
some serious issues he's dealing with.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
Like I said, I got into drugs, specifically cocaine. I
I was hospitalized for a little bit after a suicide attempt.
That was actually before that was after right before I
dropped out of school. Actually, you know, so that was
really just it was in some ways it was a
really dark phase of my life.

Speaker 1 (14:08):
And on May fifteenth, nineteen ninety six, things get darker. Byron,
who's now seventeen, decides he wants a new computer monitor
and remembers his aunt bought a new one a few
months before. So, Byron says, after staying up all night,
he and some friends drive to his aunt's home in
rural Missouri. Byron crawls through a bathroom window that had

(14:31):
been left open, opens the garage. The dogs run out barking,
which alerts the neighbor, who calls the police.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
We were arrested and I was charged with stealing. And
while I was in the county jail, it was just
it was horrible. You know, these people, It was like
it was like public school times five. I think it
was there for like three weeks. Afterward, the court ordered
me to take a drug treatment program of some kind,

(14:59):
and my dad on a really good drug counselor that
I ended up seeing, and the guy in some ways
changed my life and I actually never used again after that.
It was sort of the wake up call. It was like,
this is what this is leading to, this is what
this has taken you to the depths of so.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
Because you were high when you broke into yourance home.

Speaker 2 (15:19):
Oh yes, yeah, and that was like a daily thing
for me at the time. So it was yeah, I
ruined my relationship with my aunt as far as I'm concerned,
and really with the rest of the family, and not
that we were terribly close to begin with.

Speaker 1 (15:35):
Byron pleads guilty and is given five years probation. It's
not long after this he meets justin Bruton.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
I was by myself and I was sitting with a notebook,
writing and drinking coffee and smoking, and because that's what
I did at that point, this guy at a table
next to me, he just like turned around and asked
if he could have a sickte And so little background here.

(16:05):
I did not like smoking, I guess regular cigarettes, because
I'm picky like that. So I had this box of
imported cigarettes that I bought from a tobacconist down the street,
and they were like three times as much as a
pack of Marboroughs would have run me. And so I
really hated when people asked me because I'm like, you're

(16:27):
not going to appreciate this the way that you should.
But I gave this guy a cigarette and he snapped
it in half and set it on the table and
he said, can I get another one? And I was flabbergassed,
and I didn't know what to think. I was like, what, no, no,

(16:49):
what the hell? And then he proceeded to give me
this whole speech about how cigarettes are bad for me,
I shouldn't smoke, and I was like, who are you?
Like what the fuck? This is ridiculous. So we started somehow,
we started a conversation from that and found out that

(17:11):
this guy was he lived in the area, and he
was really into movies and obscure stuff, and I kind
of fancied myself kind of a I don't know, a cinephile,
I guess I definitely liked obscure movies, art house movies,
and here was somebody that actually knew about these things.
And so we started talking, and he had a collection

(17:33):
of movies at home. He said that was that I'd
probably be interested in and asked if I wanted to
come over and, you know, watch a movie sometime, and
I said, yeah, sure, that sounds great. And so that's
how our friendship started. Basically, describe Justin for me?

Speaker 1 (17:47):
What was he? What was he like?

Speaker 2 (17:49):
So Justin struck me as just kind of a goofy, eccentric,
sort of out of place, slightly awkward, but friends league
guy and engaging and you could talk with him and
he could relate with anybody, it seemed like. And I
kind of envied that, I think a little bit, because
you know, he he was weird, but he was sociable

(18:13):
and I was weird and anti social, and so I
thought that that was kind of interesting.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
Justin was from Tulsa, Oklahoma, but living in Kansas City,
in a condo near the coffeehouses in Westport, which his
parents bought for him, supposedly under the condition that he
stayed in school at the University of Missouri. Does Justin
become your best friend?

Speaker 2 (18:36):
Absolutely? Yeah. Like I said, Justin was so weird that
I couldn't not like him, and I really appreciated the
fact that he didn't blink an eye, you know, whatever
I said or did something that was strange or that
somebody else might not like or whatever. We were two
kind of outcasts in a way. Although I didn't realize

(18:57):
it at the time. I just thought of Justin as
being like a really sociable kind of guy. But in reality,
I think he was kind of fighting with whatever it
was the inside of himself that you know, wanted to
stay alone, really, and it was just a way to
overcompensate for that. Yeah, I mean we became we became
friends and talked about what I think was about the

(19:19):
most personal stuff that Justin could ever talk about. Oppression
and you know, and struggling with trying to live up
to your parents' expectations. His not mine. His parents were
pretty rich, his childhood was very different from mine, and
so it was just interesting to me that somebody who
came from that background could end up like he did,
where he just wanted simplicity. I don't know, it was

(19:41):
it was like we'd come from very different places to
sort of meet on similar ground.

Speaker 1 (19:49):
When does the goth thing happen?

Speaker 2 (19:53):
Because yeah, no, that's cool, you know, I don't really know.
I've actually tried to pin this down before, and it
was just such a gradual evolution. I remember, I didn't
even a name for it, for sure. It sort of
came about, I would say, when I was about thirteen,
I started wearing all black. It grew like by degrees,

(20:16):
I guess, and then of course the question what is
God your air? Quotes there like I think any self
respecting Goth I would have denied to my dying breath
that I was in fact Goth, And yet I would
be quick to point to somebody else and go, oh,
look at them trying to be Goth? How ridiculous?

Speaker 1 (20:35):
What about it attracted you?

Speaker 2 (20:38):
I was without really knowing it. I was dealing with
a really intense depression for several years, and I think
part of it was driven by that, you know, just
that my mood sort of sought some kind of external
validation and like this comfort that comes with knowing that

(20:59):
you're not alone this, that there are other people who
feel like this, and that they express it maybe in
music or in art. Although I didn't think about it
in those terms at the time, I think that's probably
what drove me to that. As far as what it
meant to me, I don't know. I felt comfortable wearing
black clothes. I was overweight for a little while when
I was like a teen, a young teen, and I

(21:22):
was pretty self conscious about that. It didn't help that
my dad was into bodybuilding at the time, and would
I guess the term now is body shame me a
little bit. But he, you know, in the most loving way.
He could just saying like, hey kid, we got to
get you working out, you know. So it started with that,
this idea that like black is slimming. It just became

(21:43):
something that I felt really comfortable in. Was justin goth
oh no, justin So there were these gap ads that
ran for a little while around that time, where these
young twenty somethings would wear like khakis, tea shirt, black
jacket final e. I don't know what that material is,

(22:05):
but some sort of just zip up simple jacket. That's
how Justin dressed every single day, just a T shirt
and khakis. Justin was definitely not God, and he often
made fun of me for being goth, and I would
argue that I wasn't goth, and then much hilarity would ensue.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
And something else is about to ensue when in late
nineteen ninety six early ninety seven, Byron runs into Anastasia
at the Westport Coffeehouse. At this point, Byron says he
hadn't seen her in about three years, since the end
of their freshman year of high school.

Speaker 2 (22:42):
We've been you know, and we just started catching up.
And I was sitting there with Justin at the time,
who I think caught her eye, and so she I
invited her to sit down with us, and they did,
and she kind of hit it off with him, so
I think.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
Then a few months later, Byron, Justin, and Anastasia are
hanging out at the coffeehouse when Kelly Moffatt walks in
and says hi to Justin. They had met each other
there before. Justin introduces Kelly to Byron and Anastasia and
invites her to join them. They talked for a while,
then decide to go back to Justin's to watch a movie.

(23:21):
Later that night, Justin suggests Byron take Kelly home.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
I ended up driving her home. She lived about twenty
minutes away maybe, and so I dropped her off and
I asked for her phone number and she gave it
to me. She was eccentric, and she had kind of
a twisted sense of humor. She just seemed like this
kind of devil may care, like suburban punk rock chick,

(23:47):
and I thought she was really cool and so.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
But Byron says, as they get to know each other,
Kelly shares a disturbing family secret time because.

Speaker 2 (23:57):
She would tell me stories about you know, her dad
was an alcoholic, and then at one point he told
her if she told me that he would like that,
he would beat her and her mother. She had shown
me Bruce's pretty significant ones.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
Byron says, all he knows after hearing this is that
he wants Kelly out of that abusive situation. So he
asks Justin if Kelly can come stay at the condom.

Speaker 2 (24:25):
You know, of course, there are authorities and there are
other places that she could have gone, but you know,
to my teenage brain, that was just that was it.
It was just like, oh, no emergency fix it.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
Kelly's mom, Deborah Moffatt, tells a different story at Byron's trial.
She testifies that Kelly and Byron had been seeing each
other for a couple of months before she and Kelly's
dad found out about it. Deborah says once they learned
Byron's age, which was eighteen, they forbid Kelly, who was
fourteen and a just finished eighth grade, to continue seeing him.

(25:03):
One day, her dad finds Byron in the basement with Kelly,
kicks him out of the house and tells him never
to come back. Deborah testifies that a couple of days later,
Kelly runs off. They file a missing person's report with Lenexa,
Kansas PD. They think she's dead. Byron says, after seven days,
there's a knock at Justin's door and it.

Speaker 2 (25:26):
Was a private investigator who had been tasked with finding her,
and he took her and they left.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
Some time later, Byron says he speaks with Kelly's mom
and dad and they eventually relent. They say that two
can continue dating.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
And I was relieved, but also because Kelly said that
her dad, this is what she told me, was that
her dad had promised never to lay a hand on
her again.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
Byron says after that he feels welcomed at Kelly's house.
They have family dinners together, they go to the movies,
and down the line, he even spends Christmas with them.

Speaker 2 (26:07):
Looking back, I can't imagine what that would have been
like for a parent. But you know, they were making
an effort to try and I guess just appease her.
But also, I mean they really came to like and
trust me. I mean her mother. Her mother would send
me out, like to take Kelly's twelve year old sister

(26:30):
to the mall, and like loan me the car keys
and the debit card so that I could you get
her whatever she needed. You wouldn't do that with somebody
that I think that you thought was just a scumbag.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
On the witness stand, Deborah Moffett says Byron was intelligent,
soft spoken, very mannerly, and seemingly in love with Kelly.
Would you say you and Kelly were in love?

Speaker 2 (26:56):
Yes? I felt very attached to her, and yeah, I
absolutely believe that was love.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
And vice versa. When I asked Byron about how Kelly
was only fourteen when they first started dating, he says
she didn't tell him her age until three months in
and for Byron that should have been the end of
the relationship, but it wasn't. He kept seeing her. Byron
also says Kelly's mother later told him that her husband,
Kelly's dad, was not an abuse of alcoholic, but that.

Speaker 2 (27:29):
Was a lie apparently. Yeah, And so that was, like,
as far as I know, the first thing that she
lied to me about. And then there were so many
others and I couldn't even name close to them all.
I mean, obviously based on how everything turned out, But
I think even for that time, Kelly was I think

(27:50):
the worst decision I ever made. Everything involving her, I
think was the worst decision I ever made.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
In nineteen ninety seven, there are two couples going strong,
Byron and Kelly, and Justin and Anastasia. Byron says, for
the first several months, Justin and Anastasia are like two lovebirds.
They talk about marriage and moving to Europe. Then things change.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
Yeah, I mean, it seems like to me that he
just kind of got bored with her. Probably well, I
know that he got tired of what he saw is
her neediness, and she was needy. She was very needy.
I think he was more just wanting something that was fun,
something that would you know that that was no work

(28:50):
at all, because he hated putting effort in anything, and
that includes the relationship, and so he was not willing to.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
Do what she Byron says, Anastasia often turns him for help.

Speaker 2 (29:02):
And then she would call me and ask, you know,
if I could talk to him, and I'm like, I
don't know what you want from me. I can't make
this guy want to hang out with you. At some
point or other, they broke up and she was devastated
and she called me crying, like sloppy, messy crying, and

(29:22):
I did what I could, you know, to give her
that talk like this is probably for the best. You know,
he was starting to lose interest, and you know, and
he this is just how Justin is. You know, he'll
be interested in something.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
Byron says, The cycle of them breaking up and getting
back together is constant. So are Anastasia's calls. Talk to
me about your outgoing beeper message.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
I know the one you're talking about. It got to
the point where Stasia called so often. I paid twenty
five cents per page, like this was this was not
a good plan, but I just wanted to be available,
and so I had this pager and expecting that maybe
like three times a week or so, I might have
to pay a quarter for a page, I signed up

(30:11):
for this plan. And then one day after she had
broken up with Justin or he had broken up with
her and wouldn't take her calls, Stasia like paged me
and I called her back, and I was at home
at the time, I was getting ready for work. Basically,
she was just like, you have to talk with him,
and I was like, I can't. Also, I'm on my
way to work right now, so I don't really have time.

(30:34):
And she just started talking and talking and talking, and
I was just like, Stasia, I really have to go.
And then I ended up just like, look, I have
to go. I'm sorry, and I hung up the phone,
and all the way to work, and for like a
good portion of my shift she was calling and paging
me again and again and again and again and again.

(30:55):
So I turned off my pager and I dialed the
number to rear ord a new message, and I basically said,
you know, this is byrons my pager. Leave your number
unless this is Anastasia, in which case just stop because
I don't want to talk to you, and if you
keep this up, no one's going to want to talk
to you. And that was that. And then they made
a big deal out of that later on, saying, you

(31:17):
know what a shitty friend I was because I wouldn't,
you know, take her repeated pages.

Speaker 1 (31:24):
Byron says, in the weeks leading up to the murder,
Justin had dropped out of school and stopped taking his prozac.
I asked him if anything seemed abnormal at the time
with Anastasia.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
No, And that's the thing is, this was such a
in some ways, and I've described it this way. Before
a normal week from my perspective, Justin went to go
visit his parents. I guess he was down there for
the weekend. He and Stasia were. She was planning on
getting together with him. She wanted to, I think, try

(31:59):
and get back together. Of course I didn't know that
at the time, but you know, found out later on
that pretty much every conversation which she had with anybody
that she was even remotely connected with, centered around Justin
for like that whole week. To me, just like I said,
it was just more the same.

Speaker 1 (32:15):
I then asked Byron about the afternoon of October twenty second,
the day Anna station was killed.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
We were still sort of just milling around, not doing
much of anything at the condo. Justin got a call
from Stasia. And I don't remember now if they had
had these plans previously or if this was something that
like she was pushing for sort of last minute, but

(32:41):
matter of fact, now that I think about it, no,
they had had plans to get together that day, and
he basically was like, yeah, I I don't know, we'll
see what happens.

Speaker 1 (32:54):
Byron says. He and Justin go to Funko Land in
Kansas to trade in some video games. Then they pick
up Kelly at her home in Lenexa.

Speaker 2 (33:02):
Then so Justin's like, well, I better, you know, we
got to stop and I'm going to make this phone
call to just tell her I'm not going to come out.
So we stopped at this gas station in Kansas and
he called it. I guess talk with Stacia's sister who
said that she had already left, and so Justin and
I guess it was just like whatever, So that sucks,

(33:26):
nothing to be done. Now, let's go play some games.

Speaker 1 (33:28):
So you're at the Phillip sixty sixth station. Justin uses
the phone speaks with Francesca. Francisca says, she got a ride.
She's already left for Mount Washington, right right, because they
were did they have a plan.

Speaker 2 (33:44):
Yeah, yeah, they yeah, had agreed to meet out there,
just the two of them, apparently at Mount Washington.

Speaker 1 (33:52):
Yes, and when so, remember that's not what Kelly testified to.
She said at the gas station, Byron and Justin had
her call Anastasia to meet them at the dairy Queen. Okay,
Byron says. After the gas station, Justin, Kelly and Byron
go back to the condo.

Speaker 2 (34:12):
Yeah, And while we were there, a phone call came
in from Stasia, who I guess was at a dairy
queen across the street from the cemetery where they were
supposed to meet, and she, from the sound of his
end of the conversation, she was not happy. And he

(34:32):
basically explained like, yeah, I tried to call Fran and
you know, just Or tried to call you and talked
with Fran and told her what was up. I tried.
They stayed on the phone for a little while, I think,
but he ended up. He got off the phone and
he's like, we are going to have to go out
to Independence, where Stagia lived and pick her up.

Speaker 1 (34:56):
Do you remember around what time this was.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
It was still like, I don't know, like it was No,
I don't really remember.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
Was that still light up?

Speaker 2 (35:09):
No? No, I think it was it was getting dark
at that point. Okay, So, or it was it was
like right at the end of the.

Speaker 1 (35:15):
Day when you pick her up. What is she wearing?
What's Anastasia wearing?

Speaker 2 (35:21):
She had on I believe she had on blue jeans
and I think like a gray sweater.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
Now does Byron actually remember what Anastasia was wearing that
night or did he hear this description of her clothes
from dairy Queen worker Don Wright when she testified at
his trial. Okay, After the Dairy Queen, Byron Justin, Anastasia
and Kelly drive across the street to Mount Washington Cemetery,
see the caretaker, then leave soon after. Byron says, they

(35:56):
then make a plan to go back to the condo. Supposedly,
Anastasia asks Justin why he doesn't love her anymore, and
Justin says he doesn't know, he just doesn't.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
And so she opened the door to the car and
just slammed it and started walking the direction that we
had just come from. And we sat there for a minute.
I didn't really know what was going on, you know,
and then we just started driving again. He didn't turn around,
he didn't you know, he didn't get out of the

(36:27):
car try to stop. I mean, we just it was
as though, you know, nothing had happened, and we just
kind of sat in an uncomfortable silence for a little while.

Speaker 1 (36:36):
She go and walk behind you.

Speaker 2 (36:38):
Yeah, she just she got out of that and the
passenger side door where she was sitting, she got out
and just walked back and I saw her, you know,
go behind and then I actually my attention focused on
justin to see what he was going to do, so
I didn't see which side of the street, you know,
she went to or anything like that.

Speaker 1 (36:57):
By the way, were you guys drinking that night, doing drugs?

Speaker 2 (37:01):
No?

Speaker 1 (37:01):
So you drive off, you are in sort of an
uncomfortable silence, and to take me through what happens.

Speaker 2 (37:08):
Next, we drove back to the condo almost in complete silence.
I think if anything got said, it was just very
small talk, very briefly, and it was just we didn't
know what the hell to say as the bottom line, and.

Speaker 1 (37:21):
It was Byron says, on the way back to the condo,
his friend Abraham pages him. Byron says, he calls him.
When they get back to Justin's. Abraham asks if they
can come by to pick up some stuff he has
of his ex girlfriend Tara's, and then take a tour,
and would.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
You guys do with Justin's Just nothing really, because like
I said, I made a phone call and that was
pretty much it. I mean, if there was a bathroom break,
that was it.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
So did anyone change clothes?

Speaker 2 (37:50):
No? No, So we went over to Terror. Excuse me.
Actually we went to Broms first, who was living nearby,
and picked up some stuff that he had to drop
off for Tara, and then we only stayed there for
about ten minutes or so, and then we had to
get Kelly home, so we drove and took Kelly back

(38:11):
to her house over in Kansas.

Speaker 1 (38:15):
Byron says. At Kelly's, Justin calls Anastasia's house and gets
her sister Fran again.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
She kind of read him the riot act about having
just let her get out of the car and not
trying to stop her. So he was I don't know.
He got off the phone and he was just like friends,
not abby, So we drove from Kelly's place, we drove

(38:42):
over to Tara's dropped off whatever it was. He had
a bag of stuff, I think a sweater and some stuff,
but dropped that off at her place. Stayed and talked
for a minute, but I was just ready to go
home and call it a day. The evening had not
been fun and I just kind of, I don't know,
I was, I was done. So Justin dropped me off

(39:05):
at home from there and then I said, I'll talk
to you later.

Speaker 1 (39:08):
And that was that. When you get home, who's there?

Speaker 2 (39:11):
My mother and her boyfriend Napoleon, if I remember, they
were just watching TV in the living room, and I
just kind of came in and said hey, and you know,
Mom asked where I've been, what I've been doing, and
I was like, oh, you know, I saw Justin and
Stasia and Kelly and it's been a night. And that

(39:32):
was pretty much, you know, the end of it. I
was just I don't know, I didn't want.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
This is news to me that Byron's mom's boyfriend Napoleon
was there when he got home that night. Is this true?
I go back and check the trial transcripts to see
what Byron's mom, Evelyn said on the stand about that night.
She said she and Byron had quote idle chit chat
like you hungry. You know, we're watching a movie. Do

(39:56):
you want to join us? She says, we and us.
I wonder if police ever spoke with Napoleon. Come to
think of it, I don't remember seeing any interviews done
with Evelyn. I'm going to have to look into this anyway,
Byron says. After he speaks with his mom and Napoleon,
he goes to his room and gets online. Later he

(40:20):
talks to Kelly, did you ever go back out that night? No?
Where's your car?

Speaker 2 (40:27):
My car was actually in the shop at that time.
I had a I think a bad water pump was
the problem, but it had been sitting on the mechanics
lot for a while. They were waiting to I don't know,
waiting to get time to get it in a bay
and look at it.

Speaker 1 (40:43):
Byron says his car was in the shop that night.
He also at one point told Sergeant Kilgore it was
parked at his mom's house. I wonder which is true? Okay,
Byron says. The next morning, his mother wakes him up
to say he has a phone call. It's Justine.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
He wanted to know if I wanted to go get breakfast,
and I said, absolutely not. It is like nine thirty am,
and I am sleeping because I probably only got to
bed about three hours ago. So I'll talk to you later.
And he that was that, he mentioned, Oh I think
I asked him, Yes, I did. I asked him what

(41:22):
he was doing awake at that hour, because that was
really weird for him too. And he just said he
had trouble sleeping. And I was like, okay, well I'll
call you when I wake up and maybe we'll go
get lunch or dinner or whatever.

Speaker 1 (41:35):
To be clear, you said you had only gotten like
three hours of sleep. Why what were you up doing.

Speaker 2 (41:41):
I was just on the computer. That was just my thing.
It probably was more than three hours, but yeah, I
mean I was always up late into the night.

Speaker 1 (41:49):
Did Justin say anything else? Did you hear anything in
his voice?

Speaker 2 (41:54):
No? And that's the thing. I mean, it was just
the only thing that was weird about that call was
just that he was awake at nine thirty am. He
sounded perfectly normal and fine.

Speaker 1 (42:10):
Byron says, he goes back to sleep. Later, he goes
to a friend's house. Then around five point thirty, Abraham
or Brahm pages Byron and shares what he saw in
the news that Anastasia had been killed. Byron tells Kelly.
Kelly tries calling Justin but can't get a hold of him. Eventually,
Byron says his mom, Evelyn, drives him and Kelly to Justin's,

(42:33):
but neither he nor his car are there.

Speaker 2 (42:37):
And then at some point, I don't even know what
time it was. It just kind of in some ways,
I think time just kind of stopped from the moment
of that first phone call with Bram and then everything
else after that was just like one moment and then
it ended, and then we just kind of broke down

(42:59):
because it was like, Okay, one of our best friends
is dead, the other best friend is missing. We have
no idea what the hell has happened.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
The next day, Kelly and Byron speak with investigators. Are
you at all concerned like you could be a suspect
since you were some of the last people who.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
No that was? That never entered my mind, you know,
I just like I said, all I wanted. My focus
then was just like, Okay, so stage has gone, but
Justin's still out there somewhere. I just wanted to help.
It led to anything that was going to help them
find Justin. That was really my biggest thing, I think

(43:43):
is at that point, you know, wondering where he might
have gone to and what happened after he dropped me off,
and then starting to connect the dots, like, well he
called the next day and he had trouble sleeping. Why
did he have trouble sleeping? What happened those you know,
eleven hours or whatever since I saw him last?

Speaker 1 (44:04):
How did you? How did you learn that Justin had
taken his life?

Speaker 2 (44:09):
You know, it's strange. I don't even remember now. I
don't even remember how I got that news. I think
at a certain point it just turned into just a blur.
The whole the whole thing was just too much. I
you know, I had never lost anybody before, and you know,

(44:30):
so it was unprecedented emotional stuff, and I didn't know
how to deal with it, you know. And and Kelly,
for her part, you know, she was grieving and we
could lean on each other as far as that goes,
but I think, you know, she kind of No two
people are the same, you know, and no two people

(44:52):
grieve same. I do remember we went to the funerals
a few days later. J Ston's was first and we
traveled down to Tulsa. It was ridiculous. It was just
this big, opulent thing and it was not at all

(45:13):
what he would have wanted, you know. Yeah, and then
Stasia's funeral came, I think about a week and week
and a half later, and it was different, Like Stasia's
funeral was much smaller and much more intimate. When we walked.

Speaker 1 (45:33):
Byron says he attends Anastasia's funeral with their mutual friend
Anna Huntsecker.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
When we walked in to the funeral home, there was
they were playing a Susie and the Banshee song. It
seemed weird. I was like, wow, they're actually playing stuff
that she would have liked. And they played some cure.

Speaker 1 (45:55):
And you know, it was open casket.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
And I went with Anna and then I guess the
last minute that she wanted to go up and say goodbye.
So we walked up to the casket and we stood
there and Anna she was like, she said, she looks

(46:22):
like a doll, doesn't even look like her, And it didn't.
It was so surreal and fucked up. And I know
that later on I read a report and somebody else

(46:45):
who was at the funeral was like, I guess they
saw me standing up there and and even then had
suspicions about me and and made some comment like I
can't believe he's just standing there staring over And it

(47:06):
was years later when I read that, but but I
was just like, this is like, this is exactly the
thing that I've lived my entire life with where people
just go, oh, he's weird and then just assume the worst.

(47:27):
And I don't know, in that moment, it was just
it was it was just me and Anna and our
friend was gone, and we were like, this isn't even her.
It's like a charade, Like this whole thing is just
an elaborate theatrical performance, and it didn't seem real.

Speaker 1 (47:53):
Were you hearing at the coffeehouse or houses. Were you
hearing some of the rumors that were circulating about what
happened to Anastasia?

Speaker 2 (48:05):
I was not hearing them firsthand. I I kind of, well,
so let me take that back. Yes, I was hearing
that because even at the funeral there was so much
speculation about what could have happened, and so yeah, I
mean there were no answers. We didn't have anything to

(48:26):
go on. It was just like Sayser's dad, gunshot to
the head cemetery. That was it. That was all we
had to go on. And of course, you know, everything
else was just myth making. I shut down as much
of it as I could when I was around to
do so, but a lot of it involved me.

Speaker 1 (48:49):
At this point, and this is like, I don't know,
weeks after, do you have any idea, like if there
are any suspects or if anybody's been ruled out.

Speaker 3 (49:00):
No.

Speaker 2 (49:01):
When I talked with I did make a few phone
calls to Sergeant Kilgore and just to see if there
was anything he could tell me, same as I called
Stagia's mom I think once anyway, and asked if she
knew anything, and I know that later actually that got
twisted around too. I had asked if there was any

(49:24):
indication that Stasia had been sexually assaulted, and she said no,
But then later on she reported to the police that
I told her that Stasia hadn't been sexually assaulted. I
found out.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
Byron Is referring to Anastasia's mother, Betsy Owens. In episode two,
we played part of her interview with Sergeant Kilgore, where
she said Byron called her and told her that Anastasia
had not been sexually assaulted. Betsy didn't understand why investigators
would share that information with Byron.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
Needless to say, we didn't have any information. They were
pretty tight lived about that stuff.

Speaker 1 (50:17):
Almost two months to the day after Anastasia and Justin's deaths,
Byron experiences the loss of someone even closer to him,
his dad.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
He had been in New York. He was, as I
said earlier, he was an amateur bodybuilder, and he was
competing in a competition up there. While he was there,
I guess he got some cold like symptoms and didn't
really think anything of it came back, and they kept

(50:49):
getting worse, and then it got to the point that
apparently he couldn't even breathe. So he finally finally decided
that he would go to the hospital and see maybe
if something was wrong, and they diagnosed him with pneumonia.
He had been living with HIV for six or seven
years at that point. I guess he contracted it almost

(51:11):
It was really soon after my parents' divorce, and he
was taking medication for it, and so much medication. But
I hadn't talked with him for a few days, and
then I got a call from my aunt who said
he was in the hospital and that he was they

(51:33):
had to intubate him, so he was unconscious. He had
a tube down his throat.

Speaker 1 (51:38):
When Byron, Kelly Abraham, and another friend get to the hospital.

Speaker 2 (51:43):
And said that he was in an isolation room and
we could only see him under very limited conditions and
for very short periods of time. It was weird. He
was just lying there with this machine that was breathing
for him in this room all by himself, and his

(52:05):
skin was all puffy because he was retaining fluids, and
it just it was it was almost like what had
happened with Stasia all over because he was just there
and he wasn't moving, and it didn't look like him.
He had great aeros A few.

Speaker 1 (52:25):
Days later, Byron's grandmother asks him to be the one
to make the decision to take his dad off life support.

Speaker 2 (52:32):
Yeah, and I think he. I think he died that night,
like three am or something, one day before his fiftieth
birthday Christmas Eve. I completely shut down at that point.
He was an amazing guy and yeah, and he gave

(52:54):
me so much his birthday was Christmas Day, and so
this was on Christmas Eve, and my family asks like, oh,
do you want to come to the family Christmas gathering
and take his presence? And I did not, but I

(53:14):
went and there was some there was some stuff that
happened while I was there. I literally overheard someone say
that I was a terrible son. Then I didn't go
and sit in the waiting room while my dad was
in the hospital, as though as though that in any

(53:35):
way mattered. I thought about that in a while. You know,
people grieve in different ways, as I said, and to
criticize somebody for you know, the way that they're processing
a situation is just insane to me. I mean, I've

(53:56):
said this exact same thing about you know, how my
trial went, you know, and you're going to pass judgment
and say, oh, well he didn't he wasn't animated enough
for oh he was too cold. If somebody wants to
blame you for Zeth, it's just there's nothing you can
do about it. They're going to find a way to
do it regardless. So I don't know, I don't want

(54:18):
to necessarily draw that parallel there, but it seems natural.

Speaker 1 (54:24):
At the same time, This isn't the greatest place to
stop the interview, but that's when I'm told our four
hours are up. I return the following day to continue
the conversation. This time we're in a glass enclosed area
within the visitor's room. Attorney Nicole Gordon and investigator Quinn

(54:46):
O'Brien aren't there. They were needed back in Kansas City.
So today it's just me and Byron.

Speaker 2 (54:54):
Yeah, it was, it was. It was a lot yesterday.
That was actually the first time that I have cried
in about twenty three years, and so it was it
was a big deal. Even when I was convicted, like
sentenced and all of that, I just went numb that
whole time. And so even then, like I felt like,

(55:15):
I remember, I wanted to cry. I felt like that's
what a person is supposed to do, and I just
it just was in there, but I couldn't. I couldn't
muster the I don't know, I couldn't just let it out.

Speaker 1 (55:32):
We then move on in the timeline. I asked what
life looked like in early nineteen ninety eight, soon after
Byron's dad passed away, Byron says he was bereft. He
moved into his dad's house, which was full of memories
from his childhood.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
And that was around the time when I needed some
I had my wisdom teeth pulled and they prescribed some
pain meds and those felt pretty okay, so or more specifically,
they helped me not feel bad. And so it wasn't
even that it felt good, It was just the absence

(56:08):
of feeling, which was a big plus, because I was
just feeling too much. So so, like I said, for
a period of a few months, I kind of, you know,
I kind of fell down in that particular hole for
a while. And during that time, I think that, you know,

(56:29):
Kelly felt that I was sort of distant, that I
was drifting away, and I think she was bored. I
know she was, actually because she told me. But that
was Kelly's thing, is she was always about excitement and
really having fun and not being too awfully serious about

(56:50):
anything and looking for you know, however she could whatever
way she didn't like, alter her mind, I guess, and
get out out of reality that way. She was drinking
a lot more around that time. She had always, I mean,
since I met her, she had always liked to drink.

(57:10):
But you know, I think too she was spending a
lot more time with some other friends that she had.
And I don't blame her, you know, I mean, who
would want to be around some super depressive, you know,
boyfriend that you know, never wanted to go anywhere and
never wanted to do anything and half the time was

(57:32):
just sort of half awake. But yeah, so that was
sort of I think the beginning of the end, and
I came out of it a little bit, and I
think we were more out of habit than anything. You know,
we continue to see each other.

Speaker 1 (57:48):
Would she want to talk about Anastasia and justin.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
No, that didn't really come up except maybe a couple
of times, and I was just like, I just didn't
want to talk about it. You know, I was not
in a place where I was avoiding in my own way,
and you know, I was still seeing a counselor at
that point and that was really helpful. But yeah, I
just really I didn't want to really talk about anything.

(58:16):
I didn't want to talk about my dad. I didn't
want to talk about them.

Speaker 1 (58:19):
August twenty second of nineteen ninety eight, Kelly meets with
kill Gore. Okay, she tells kil Gore that you two
had been fighting a lot, you've been acting weird and
that you may know more than what you're saying. She thinks,
based on a lot of rumors and how you were acting,
maybe you justin Anaesthetia did have a suicide pact, or

(58:42):
maybe you and Justin watched Anasasia kill herself then freaked out.
She says, quote, I don't really think it. I don't
think it was really a murder situation. I think one
of them wanted to commit suicide, they couldn't do it,
they helped each other or something like that. What do
you make of.

Speaker 2 (58:59):
This as far as Yeah, as far as fighting a lot,
I don't think that was the case. I think that
we were having some disagreements because I know that some
of the people that she was hanging out with I
did not like, mostly because they were drug users, and
you know, I was very much against that. Other than that, yeah,

(59:20):
I mean, I wouldn't say that other than just kind
of a distance, that we had any real problems as
far as her going to kill Gore, I mean, yeah,
like all of that was. She never gave me any
indication that she had any suspicions that she felt or
thought that way any of that. So I was completely

(59:43):
in the dark.

Speaker 1 (59:45):
Byron never answers my question about whether or not there
was a suicide pact. A few months after Kelly speaks
with kil Gore. On December ninth, nineteen ninety eight, by
Bran's probation from the stealing charge is revoked. This is
when he broke into his aunt's house to steal the

(01:00:05):
computer monitor. It's revoked for missing meetings with his probation
officer and failing to report a change of residents. He
is sentenced to six months in the Clay County Jail,
but they end up giving him five years probation. Byron
claims the missed appointments were a mix up with a
probation officer who didn't like him. Supposedly, the PO changed

(01:00:28):
Byron's meetings from monthly to weekly, unbeknownst to Byron. Also
in December of nineteen ninety eight, Byron and Kelly call
it quits. Kelly supposedly breaks up with Byron for good,
but then just a few weeks later, on January twenty ninth,
nineteen ninety nine, Byron says he gets a call from

(01:00:50):
Kelly who wants to see.

Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
Him, you know, and this time I put my foot
down and I was like, absolutely not, and she didn't
want to get off the phones, so I hung up
on her. I don't know, maybe who knows, maybe twenty
thirty minutes after I'd gotten off the phone with her,
and she had tried to call back several times. But
all of a sudden, there was a knock at my

(01:01:12):
door and I went to open it and it's two
CACPD officers and I'm like, what can I do for you?
And they just sort of push past me and they well,
they said are you Byron Case? And I said yes,
and they just pushed past me and they kind of
do a cursory look around the area and explained that

(01:01:36):
they were looking for any weapons. They asked if I
had a you know, knives or guns in the house,
and I was like, kitchen drawers. I mean, what do
you want?

Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
Are you thinking at this point has anything to do
with the investigation?

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
I had no idea what this was about. It was
just it was so out of the blue. No, I
never had any inkling that this was anything to do
with the investigation. It was just like, what the hell?
And then one of the officers said, well, we got
a report that from someone who said she was your girlfriend,

(01:02:08):
said she had just talked on you and talked to
you on the phone and that you were suicidal, that
you were threatening to kill yourself. And I was like, no,
that's absurd, you know. But they said, well, we have
to take you in for observation, and so they put
me in handcuffs. I was very concerned and asked them
if they would leave some food for my cat, you know,

(01:02:29):
I was. I was worried about her.

Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
And Byron says they take him to Western Missouri Medical
Health Center and evaluate him for forty seven.

Speaker 2 (01:02:38):
Hours basically, and the whole way through I told them
I am not suicidal. I am fine. Yeah, it was
just it was a nightmare. And then and then they
let me out. They're like, well, you're not suicidal. A done.

Speaker 1 (01:02:57):
Although Kelly testified that Byron did threatened to kill himself
that day, Byron says after he was released from the
hospital and he confronted Kelly about it, she had something
very different to say.

Speaker 2 (01:03:10):
She basically didn't seem particularly concerned about it and was
sort of like, well, you shouldn't have hung up on me.
And that was that.

Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
Early to mid nineteen ninety nine is busy for Byron.
He says he and Kelly break up. Police take him
in on a forty seven hour mental healthhold, and he
gets a new attorney who negotiates with prosecutors to get
him limited immunity in exchange for him telling them what
he knows about the night Anastasia was.

Speaker 2 (01:03:53):
Killed by immunity. Where as long as I went in
and gave a statement, and as long as nothing that
I said was determined to be untruthful, that you know,
they wouldn't use anything against me. And I was satisfied
with that, and he was satisfied with that.

Speaker 3 (01:04:07):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
My concern I think I had just I had been
listening to my friends, you know, just spin all of
these horror stories about oh, well, you know, they'll frame
they'll frame somebody if they if they haven't found somebody yet,
they're just looking to close the case, and you know,
and so I had it in my head like, well,
you know, maybe I should be careful. And I think

(01:04:27):
that was really the first time when I started to
feel a little uncomfortable about the whole thing, like that
maybe I was going to you know, that I was
going to be the focus of some kind of you know,
attention in the investigation.

Speaker 1 (01:04:45):
In any case. On July twenty ninth, nineteen ninety nine,
Byron sits down for his second interview with Sergeant Kilgore
since Anastasia's death almost two years earlier. Byron gives the
same basic story he did back on October twenty five,
nineteen ninety seven, so he's free to go. Byron says,
after that, things seem to turn around for him. He

(01:05:08):
finds a new group of friends, he gets a job
at a hotel.

Speaker 2 (01:05:11):
There was a period of time in that year when
I think I finally was coming into my own to
some extent. At that point, I was celibate by choice,
and I was kind of going through this period of

(01:05:31):
what I felt like was kind of being a more
purposeful and centered me, and I had moved away from
that kind of that fuck the world attitude that I
mentioned earlier.

Speaker 1 (01:05:44):
But Byron says, as much as he's trying to move
on with his life, someone from his past keeps popping
up Kelly, and he admits to feeling sorry for her.

Speaker 2 (01:05:56):
No matter what Kelly had done, I was always I
think she's still a person, you know, she still deserves
some basic dignity, even if she's done this to herself.
She said she was living in crackhouses, like she had
not been taking care of herself at all. And she
would say, you know, she would tell me like that
she had showered in a week, and you know, she

(01:06:19):
hadn't eaten anything. Sometimes I would give her money if
she needed like some you know, some spare cash or whatever.
Sometimes she just wanted to come over and sleep, so
I let her sleep on the couch and you know,
and then at some point she'd leave.

Speaker 1 (01:06:35):
Then one day, Byron says, Kelly comes over with a friend.
He tells her that he's moving to Saint Louis, about
two hundred and fifty miles away. Byron says, Kelly is
not happy about this. Before leaving town, Byron asks people
not to give Kelly his forwarding information.

Speaker 2 (01:06:54):
So, yeah, I mean I was like full on, like
witness protection program with her, Like I do not want to.
I don't want to knowing where I am. I don't
want to knowing like what I'm doing nothing, Byron says.

Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
He moves to Saint Louis on September thirteenth, two thousand
and he gets a job working at a hotel as
a desk clerk. He starts dating a new girl. Then
sometime around March two thousand and one, Byron moves back
to Kansas City and in with his mom and her
now husband, Napoleon. Then around eleven PM on June fifth,

(01:07:29):
the phone rings.

Speaker 2 (01:07:32):
I had been sick that week. I was vomiting and
I had a fever and just feeling very delirious, and
just like I said, lightheaded and dizzy.

Speaker 1 (01:07:46):
It's Kelly and this recorded call will become the tacit
a mission used against him at.

Speaker 2 (01:07:52):
Trial and then whatever the hell we talked about. And
I know now, but in that moment, I know that
I wasn't really completely following the thread. So I just
really did not want to be speaking to her or
anybody for that matter, but particularly not her, And I

(01:08:15):
was just I do remember having a distinct impression of like, ah, fu,
here you're going.

Speaker 1 (01:08:19):
Yet she said something like why did you feel the
need to kill her? Why did you have to kill her?
And what do you think in that moment when you
hear that question from her?

Speaker 2 (01:08:31):
I don't remember thinking anything, but.

Speaker 1 (01:08:33):
One would say, like somebody listening to this might be like,
that's crazy. I don't care how sick I am. If
someone asks me why I had to kill someone, I
would say, what are you talking about? I didn't do that.

Speaker 2 (01:08:47):
What do you say to that, Well, I would say
that person doesn't really understand the background of what was
going on with Kelly and me, the fact that my
strategy with her was always basically just avoid, to push away,
ignore whatever I had heard.

Speaker 1 (01:09:09):
Byron says a few days later, he's arrested while lying
in bed, I read that swat comes through the front
door and you tried to barricade yourself in the bedroom.

Speaker 2 (01:09:24):
Now that's absolute little shit. I remember reading that though,
and going what, No, that did not happen. No, I
was absolutely still in bed when they came through that door,
and that was what woke me up. Was just like
a shot out of the blue. It was horrifying.

Speaker 1 (01:09:45):
That's actually why would Byron deny this? Yes, there's always
a chance the report isn't true, But why would the
arresting officer make up this story, write a detailed report
about it, and testify to it at trial. It gives
me pause. If Byron is not being truthful about this,

(01:10:06):
then what else could he be lying about? What is
going through you when you realize that you have been
arrested for the murder of Anna Station.

Speaker 2 (01:10:17):
I was in shock, and then I think there was
like this sort of grim understanding. It was almost like, well,
here it is. This is this is what all of
this has come to, Like all of the interviews and
all the suspicion and all the rumors and all the

(01:10:39):
bullshit that I've had to deal with over all these years,
and now here it is, and this is happening, and
it's finally.

Speaker 1 (01:10:46):
When Byron's mom, Evelyn, visits him at the Jackson County jail,
she asks him if he did.

Speaker 2 (01:10:52):
It, and I remember just going like, really, you're going
to ask me that, you know? I mean, I saw
her that I was, I was around her, I lived
with her during that period. I didn't want a gun,
you know, I never had. She she would have known
if I had any kind of murderous tendencies or you

(01:11:17):
know whatever. I mean. Now, of course I didn't, And
what the hell I mean if you don't believe me,
like then I'm fucked.

Speaker 1 (01:11:29):
Byron remains in jail for almost a year until he
goes to trial. As you sat there watching Kelly testify,
first of all, did she look at you? No?

Speaker 2 (01:11:42):
Not really, I think she glanced in my direction a
few times.

Speaker 1 (01:11:45):
What was it like sitting there hearing her eyewitness testimony
to you killing Anastasia?

Speaker 2 (01:11:56):
I was just kind of in awe. I think of
her months. Maybe part of me kind of halfway expected
that she would change tack and just be like, all right, look, guys,
I can't do it anymore. This is he didn't do it.
I'm it's bullshit. I made it up. I'm sorry she
didn't do that.

Speaker 1 (01:12:17):
Why did you choose to take the stand in your
own defense?

Speaker 2 (01:12:21):
I think it was really I had no choice but to,
because who was going to say what actually happened. Justin
was there that night. He couldn't take the stand. Kelly
obviously wasn't going to tell the truth, and nobody else
could say, you know from beginning to end what had
taken place.

Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
One of the things she said was that you had
said at one point, I wouldn't know what it's like
to see someone die, or I want to know what
it's like to kill someone. Have you ever said anything
like that?

Speaker 2 (01:12:54):
No? No, absolutely not.

Speaker 1 (01:12:56):
Did you ever own a gun?

Speaker 2 (01:12:58):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:12:58):
Did your dad ever own a gun? No? Did he
ever display a gun?

Speaker 2 (01:13:02):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:13:03):
Were you and Justin ever romantically involved.

Speaker 2 (01:13:06):
No, we were not. There was never No, there was
never anything even remotely close to that with Justin and me.

Speaker 1 (01:13:15):
Did you Kelly and Justin make up the story about
Anastasia getting out of the car.

Speaker 2 (01:13:20):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:13:22):
Did you coach Kelly on what to say during that
first interview with kil Gore?

Speaker 2 (01:13:27):
Oh no?

Speaker 3 (01:13:28):
No.

Speaker 1 (01:13:29):
Did you take Kelly in and around Independence so that
when she went out with kil Gore she could help
tell where Anastasia got out of the car and so on?

Speaker 2 (01:13:40):
No, we just as an adenta to that. Though we
did go out just not to retrace any route or anything,
but we had after talking with a friend of ours
who told us that she had been out to Lincoln Cemetery.
We were We went out there and wanted to see

(01:14:01):
it because we heard there was like a little memorial
or something. So we did go out there, but it
was not for that purpose.

Speaker 1 (01:14:06):
Did you kill Anastasia Whippelsfugen?

Speaker 2 (01:14:09):
I definitely did not.

Speaker 1 (01:14:11):
Are you capable of murder?

Speaker 2 (01:14:14):
I definitely am not.

Speaker 1 (01:14:17):
It was justin capable of murder?

Speaker 2 (01:14:22):
I don't think so. I No, I don't think so
like that.

Speaker 1 (01:14:29):
You know, I'm fully aware that Byron would probably answer
these questions the same way, whether he's guilty or innocent,
like when I asked him, did you kill Anastasia? If
he's guilty, he's not going to all of a sudden
say yes, I did it, right. I think I asked
these questions because I wanted to see how he looked,
how he sounded, how he seemed when he answered them.

(01:14:53):
I'm going to post video clips of this exchange on Instagram.
What do you think is Byron convincing or not? Like that?
Can you imagine why people might look at Kelly and say, well,
of course she went deep and dark into her drug addiction.
She witnessed a murder.

Speaker 2 (01:15:11):
So to say that witnessing a murderer was the catalyst
for her to descend into hard drug use, I'm calling
bullshit because I know for a fact that she was
using hard drugs, and maybe not as regularly, but that
she had at least and long before that, and again

(01:15:33):
I think even before she met me. So right, it
is a convenient excuse, though, Yeah, what do.

Speaker 1 (01:15:41):
You say to the people out there who think you
are murderer?

Speaker 2 (01:15:46):
I think that it is very easy because I lived
I lived a lifestyle and put forth a persona that
was easily detestable. I think that was obnoxious and rude
and seemed not to take anybody's feelings at all into account.

(01:16:10):
And I think that a person who does that sort
of thing can easily be seen as being heartless and
maybe even capable of doing unspeakable things. I a long
time ago accepted that people aren't going to like me,

(01:16:32):
and people are going to think some terrible things about me,
and it isn't my job to make them think otherwise.
It's not my job to go out of my way
to try and convince anyone.

Speaker 1 (01:16:55):
Byron might not think it's his job to convince anyone
he's innocent, but his new legal team is working overtime
to do just that.

Speaker 3 (01:17:04):
Byron's in prison because people made up their minds without
looking at the evidence. But I'm now one hundred percent
certain that Byron did not do this, didn't have anything
to do with it, and did not get a fair
trial and has languished in prison for close to twenty
five years for something he didn't do.

Speaker 1 (01:17:30):
Next time, on the real killer.

Speaker 3 (01:17:33):
There is no physical evidence tying byron case to the
murder or the death of Anastasia Whippolsfugen.

Speaker 1 (01:17:41):
Will A new bombshell in the case change Byron's Fate.

Speaker 3 (01:17:46):
I pulled up the audio and I was just listening along,
and I was like, wait, what it was. It was
like a lightning bolt or something.

Speaker 2 (01:17:55):
It was great.

Speaker 3 (01:17:56):
It was crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:18:05):
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely
those of the individuals participating in the podcast. If you,
or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts or a crisis,
please no help is available. Call or text nine to
eight eight, or chat online at the Suicide and Crisis

(01:18:26):
Lifelines website at nine eight eight lifeline dot org. To
see photos, maps and documents related to this season's story,
follow The Real Killer podcast on Instagram and at TRK
podcast on TikTok. The Real Killer is a production of

(01:18:48):
AYR Media and iHeartMedia, hosted by me Leah Rothman, Executive
producers Leah Rothman and Elisa Rosen for AYR Media, Written
by Lea Rothman, editing and sound design by Cameron Taggy,
mixed and mastered by Cameron Taggi. Production coordinator Andy Levine,

(01:19:10):
Audio engineer Justin Longerbeam studio engineer Graham Gibson. Legal counsel
for AYR Media. Gianni Douglas, executive producer for iHeartMedia, Maya
Howard