Episode 304

24:51Mike Boudet:This piece of paper had been analyzed by forensics, along with every other piece of random trash at the crime scene. The detectives were leaving no stones unturned. Well, the print was actually on the paper, probably not knowing we could lift that print off the paper. And since he wasn't using the glove or anything else, you know, his fingerprint was right there. So when I found out about this print, one of my partners and I were on our way to Houston talking to somebody else that might know something about it. Turns out that was a dead end too. But the forensic man called me. He said, who is James Cosby?

25:25Because he don't know who the players are at this time. All he knows is the evidence. I said, well, James Cosby is the father of Brittany Cosby. I said, why? He tells me because we lifted his print off that piece of paper that was holding the shutter. So about that time, I tell my partner on our way to Houston, I said, as soon as we get finished with this interview, we need to go back to the residence.

25:43Mike Boudet:Brittany's father, James Cosby, had recently moved back into Annie Lee's house after being released from jail. He was tall, slender, and very calm. When he returned to Annie's house after the detectives told him his daughter had been killed, He was shocked. What's going on? Are you the five? Yeah, James. Yeah, I was kind of giving him a little bit. Sit down, Bill. Please sit down. You just haven't seen him. Brittany's dad.

26:14What happened? That's what we're trying to find out. Trying to find out. They were found in the Botherham Peninsula.

26:22Mike Boudet:James sat down at the kitchen table next to Annie Lee, put his head in his hands, and cried. James, I know we're hitting you with a lot. Take a minute, but we're going to really need to talk to you so you can help us so we can find out who did this. Put out. Put out. You grieve all you need to grieve. We understand. What happened? Put out. Put out. That's what we need your help with. That's what we need to help. Detective Kitchens and his partner hadn't thought much about James after that day. He acted like a grieving father, and he was visibly shaken up. But now, with the news of this fingerprint, they had to take a closer look at him.

27:00Mike Boudet:They would start at Annie's house where the shutter had come from. So we do go back over there. That time we get there, one of the cousins is there taking care of Grandma. So we speak with her outside the house. I'm going to draw you a picture of the house. The house is a small brick house. The garage has been converted into a den, which is where James Cosby was staying. He had it almost set up like a prison cell. Had a sheet that separated the room. Just everything was just set up like it would have been if he was still in prison. On the side of the house is a carport with a wheelchair ramp. Well, Grandma sits in a wheelchair since she's had one leg amputated, so that's where she would go in and out at.

27:43So whenever we pull the lady outside to talk to her about what she may know or what I did she may have. She looks around the carport and tells us something's wrong out here. And my partner says, what is that? She said, well, it's clean. It's never clean out here. They don't let the finger do anything. But at that time, I go around and I look by the wheelchair ramp, and I noticed it the other day, but didn't think much about it. There's four bricks sitting at the end of the wheelchair ramp, kind of off to the side. And I thought, well, this is a little bit odd. Let me just take a look. So I kicked the bricks out of the way, and I see about four drops of blood right there underneath it.

28:15Mike Boudet:Another bloody piece of the puzzle was staring Detective Kitchens right in the face under those loose bricks. I called my partner over. I said, look at this. And he starts looking up that ramp and closer to the door, we see small blood smudges that we had not seen before because we didn't know where the crime scene was. Well, fortunately, I had done a search warrant on the house just in case. And I called my forensic partner. I said, you guys need to get over here. You need to get over here now. He said, why? I said, because we're standing in the crime scene. The forensic team rushed over and started executing a search warrant.

28:49Mike Boudet:They started in James' makeshift bedroom in the den. When we went into the den, which is more or less his bedroom, this is where we see a broken lamp. We start looking closer at everything since we found the blood drops, and we start seeing blood drops on the floor. Not only that, we see where he has taken rugs and put over the blood stains on the carpet, and it has seeped through, the blood had. so there was blood all over his bedroom. The room was ramshackle, but his things were neat. Like Detective Kitchen said, he organized his belongings like he would have in prison. He had just been released a few weeks prior.

29:30Mike Boudet:He was serving time for a warrant he ran from. He had a Bible on the table and a copy of the Koran next to his neat row of sneakers. Like a good little criminal. We spent several hours over there. We find out later that night that he's at a vigil for the death of his daughter. And I think he's even interviewed on television, you know, about his feelings on that case. Well, since we have found this, I tell two of my partners, I said, hey, go pick him up. We need to convince him to come to Galveston and talk to us. Let him know we found more information. He didn't realize it was going to wind up being an interrogation at the time.

30:07Mike Boudet:James walked into the Galveston police station, still dressed from the vigil. His Kangol hat, black jacket. The whole look was that of a middle-aged man trying a little too hard. It's kind of the look I go for. But Detective Kitchens and his partner weren't fooled. He had to be their guy. The blood evidence from the room was like the secrets of the shoreline at low tide. Dark red circles of blood settled into the dirty carpet like forgotten tide pools. Now, they just needed to make James break. I have to before I interview anybody or go over anything with you. I've been watching enough TV shows, you know, that they say Miranda rights.

30:52That means you under arrest. No, it doesn't mean you're under arrest. It sure don't. All it is, you've been given your rights. That's all I see on Perry Mason. Yeah, that's, believe me, TV is a bunch of crap.

31:04Mike Boudet:James waived his right and agreed to talk. What was your relationship? Tell us about your adventure or your relationship. What's your daughter? She's my daughter. No, but I mean, you know, did you start together? Oh, yeah. We didn't have a traditional father-daughter relationship for a long period of her life. I was not around.

31:30She was five when I left. She was 15 when I came home. So during those years, I kind of, you know, I missed those years. You know, came home in 04, started working at the waterfront, me and her and granny stayed at the house together. We had a, I actually talked to Brittany one time. You know, I told her, I said, you know, I failed you as a father. I should have been here. A lot of things that you're going through, not really all your fault. I look at it like it's my fault.

32:03Mike Boudet:James wasn't a good father to Brittany. He was in prison for most of her young life, and they never developed a bond. Then he got out and wanted to play dad all of a sudden. And there's a teenage girl, all grown up, with a butch lesbian girlfriend. James had a hard time accepting this. Clearly he thought that fathering just kind of happens on its own. And he wasn't happy with the fathering that had been going on in his absence. It was either accept that or don't have your daughter at all. Right. So, you know, it kind of grew on me. So you worked through it? Yeah, she's my daughter. What do you think happened to your daughter?

32:45The best scenario that I've heard was the morning that they left, that maybe they went to the convenience or whatever. Like I say, that's not out of the ordinary for her to do that. run to the store, grab a Coke or grab a cigarillo or whatever she grabbed and come right back. Now that's normal.

33:10Mike Boudet:James had told police that on the morning Brittany and Crystal disappeared, they were ready to drop Zania off at school and then head back to work. But first, Brittany and Crystal needed to run to the store. They got in the car and never came back. But Detective Kitchens and his partner had evidence. They had all the blood that was all over his bedroom. and a carport. They knew that Brittany and Crystal had been killed in that house. More importantly, they had James' fingerprint on a piece of paper ditched beside the shutter. Did some of that wood and that blind, fake little blind that was up on the front of that house, that's been off that house for a long time, obviously wind up with those girls' bodies.

33:56I cannot grasp how on Jesus Christ's earth can that happen? Okay. Tell me your, what's your thoughts? I have none. I can't make sense of that. Oh, I can't either. I can't either. Okay. There's other stuff that was there with those two girls' remains that came from that house. Wednesday night, that wood was not in that vehicle. Okay. And how do we know that? Because there's another witness.

34:27Mike Boudet:James sat in that cold gray interrogation room for five and a half hours. Detective Kitchens and his lieutenant pressed him about the blood, the shudder, and the fingerprints. They told him that they knew he had done this. They shoved gruesome photos of Brittany's body lying on the concrete, her head cracked open, her eyes black. They showed him close-up prints of Crystal's face and the gaping gunshot hole in her head. James just took his time and stayed calm, not revealing anything. They left alive. They died in that room. They left that day, that morning, we all agree about 8.30, right? Okay.

35:16Okay. And then sometime after that, they died and were killed in your room. something fucking happened in there. Something happened with them, and you got in the middle of it here. What happened? No, I don't get in the middle of their tips. Well, then you got into something with them, or something happened here. To the point where I would, no. I don't know. I'm telling you no. I'm telling you no. The biggest sign that I know of that he felt like he was getting defeated is when he would start to put his elbows on his knees and drop his head. That's usually a good sign that they're on the edge or they're on the verge.

35:55But he would be there for a minute, and then he would lean back and sit straight up and cross his arms again. And that's when I knew we were fixing to have to start all over. I know you did this. You know you did this. The lieutenant knows you did this. The whole world's fixing to find out you did this. And you've got to make all of them suffer not explaining why you did it. But it's up to you how it's presented. Do you just think that we're all ignorant? Do you really think that prosecutors, even juries, are just so ignorant that they're going to fall for your bullshit and your lack of remorse and putting your family through this?

36:34Do you think they're not going to see that? James, do you think they're not going to see that? Yeah, they're going to see it. Had we interviewed the little girl before we spoke with him, I would have had a better timeline. We were close to getting him to crack, but my timeline was off and he knew it.

36:49Mike Boudet:They had made one big mistake. The detectives thought that the suspect had murdered Brittany and Crystal in the evening the day before they were found. They were certain until they talked to Crystal's daughter, Zania. Mama had put her in the vehicle getting ready to take her to school for that day and had gone back inside the house. Now, I can't quote everything she said, but the main things was that she told me that she could hear the bad guy behind her and she could hear a taser, or what she called was a laser. Amongst Brittany's belongings in the house, they found her Michael Jordan backpack with her laptop and taser gun in it.

37:30Mike Boudet:Zaniya said she heard the laser. She sat in the car seat, buckled in and ready to go, but neither Crystal nor Brittany came back to the car. Eventually, she freed herself and walked inside. She actually got out of the car on her own and went back inside into the living room and asked where her mama was, her mom and Crystal. And James told her that they walked to work, that they just left and walked to work. So she stayed with that grandmother all day until the other grandparents came and picked her up. Had Detective Kitchens known this before interrogating James, he might have been able to crack him.

38:08Mike Boudet:But James was a seasoned criminal. He spent his entire adult life behind bars. He was not a normal person. The people behind bars, you don't want them walking around in your neighborhood. Trust me on that. You know, even after he's arrested, we're still investigating. And we're still gathering details about him. I had found out, you know, he's had a pretty extensive criminal history. Pretty much lived his entire life behind bars. From his ag assaults, ag sexual assaults, you know, the fights he had with his ex-wife, the whole nine yards. One of the things that, one of the reports I read where he was arrested in Houston for aggravated assault, for assaulting his ex-wife, when she described what she had experienced with him going through that assault, was exactly the picture that was painted in this homicide.

38:59Mike Boudet:The beating that James had given his ex-wife was the reason he had served Brittany's whole childhood in prison. She said that, you know, ordinarily he's just a calm-natured person and then would just flip out and go crazy. As a matter of fact, I think I remember her stating in the report, she called him the devil or Satan. It was like he was the devil or Satan just beating on her. They talked to his girlfriend, who had been with him the entire morning on the day prior to the bodies being discovered. While James and his girlfriend had been driving around Houston, they got into an altercation with her ex-husband on the road.

39:36Mike Boudet:James called 911.

39:52Mike Boudet:James' girlfriend gave a full rundown of that day. She said that on the morning of the murders, she saw James driving in Brittany's car towards a desolate road in Houston. She just happened to be passing by, so she pulled a U-turn and followed him. Detective Kitchens thinks this was the original place he planned to dump the bodies, but he was caught by his girlfriend. As they tried to leave, her car got stuck in the mud, so she joined him in Brittany's car. He drove her back to the place she was staying, and that's when he re-evaluated his plan. He decided to catch a ferry that evening to Port Bolivar.

40:34Mike Boudet:He went back to the house and loaded up on all the pieces of evidence he assumed would have blood or DNA on them. Then he put Brittany in the trunk as well. When the bodies were out, Crystal was on top of Brittany at the dump site, and all the blood that was on Crystal actually belonged to Brittany. James waited for the dark. Then he took off to Port Bolivar. Surveillance footage confirmed this was all in line with their theory. We could show and prove that he was the one that moved the bodies, so we could still get a first-degree felony tampering with evidence, which is altering the courts, two counts of it, with both of them being a$250 ,000 fine or bond each.

41:17Mike Boudet:James stuck to his story and claimed he was innocent. He would sit in jail as they continued their investigation. Then they found Brittany in Crystal's car. It had been abandoned at a strip club in Houston, and we found that on April the 17th. So we were able to bring that back. We processed the vehicle, which had his DNA in it, and we knew he was never allowed to drive that vehicle. And the bullet was embedded in the back seat of that vehicle. It hit a piece of metal on the frame, and it stopped right there. Also, that bullet had a piece of synthetic hair on it, which was same stuff that Crystal had been wearing in her hair.

41:58And once again, they did the autopsy.

42:02Mike Boudet:They connected even more physical evidence back to James' bedroom. What's really interesting about that room as well is once we did pull back the sheet and start looking at other items around that room, there was another sheet there that actually matched what was wrapped around britney's head and my forensic guy started running the numbers on it and found out that that was a match to the sheet we actually found not only that during the autopsy we found royal blue fibers in her hair and on her face well there's also a blanket there with this royal blue it's almost like a Not a fleece type, but kind of a loose type blanket.

42:47And it had those same royal fibers on it.

42:50Mike Boudet:With all this new evidence, they could officially charge James with double capital murder. But the question of how and why still remain. Brittany's murder was so savage, the first blow to her head broke her neck. There was a very clear mark, an indention in her head where he used a blunt force object and hit her. And it actually separated the suture in her skull when that happened. James wasn't giving them anything. No confession, no motive, no murder weapon. Not a single witness. Just silence. All they had was forensic evidence and theories, pieces of the story. He refused to tell. But was it enough to finally put James Cosby back behind bars, this time for life?

43:39Mike Boudet:Either way, the world would soon learn what happened that morning. Even if James never spoke a word.

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44:37Mike Boudet:Brittany Cosby and Crystal Jackson were found brutally murdered and dumped by an abandoned hotel in Port Bolivar. Detective Kitchens and his team at the Galveston Police Department had followed the haphazard clues to nail down Brittany's criminal father, James Cosby, as the culprit. But when they brought James in, he didn't crack. After five hours of intense interrogation, the guy was a machine. My partner that was helping me with the interrogation, he'd been in law enforcement for over 40-plus years, and he told me he is probably one of the most psychotic people he's ever met. No. What would they do to anybody to kill them in your room?

45:16Your grandma didn't do it The five-year-old didn't do it and you just admitted that you were home So the only other person in that house in your room is you You know what I would do if it was my daughter Well, what do you think I mean probably calling calling calling now? I'd be burning the streets up looking for my daughter Okay, I understand that my relationship with Brinkham might just be a little bit different from yours. I would say so, yes.

45:48Mike Boudet:But blood, fingerprints, and other forensic evidence told them that he was the one who did it. You see, as the great Dr. House once said, liars lie. Duh. Still, the only people in the house on the day of the murder were Crystal's five-year-old daughter, Zaniya, and matriarch, Annie Lee Cosby. Annie Lee refused to believe that her grandson James did this under her nose. And then even when we told her what we found in there, she wanted to deny every bit of it. She wanted to take up for him. She said that was Brittany's menstrual cycle. I said, no, that's impossible. With James in jail, the case was taken to the state attorney's office, and that's when prosecutor Paul Love became involved.

46:37Mike Boudet:Paul has been a lawyer for almost 20 years and has worked for both the prosecution and defense. So at the time that this case came about, I was the chief prosecutor in the 212th District Court. And my bureau chief at the time was Bill Reed. So Bill Reed was the lead prosecutor on the case. And because I was the chief prosecutor in that particular court, he had asked that I sit with him and assist him on prosecuting the capital murder case. So that's kind of how I got tagged in. James had a criminal record as long as the Texas shoreline, and that's pretty long. But it would not be mentioned at trial.

47:18Mike Boudet:Paul had to work with what Detective Kitchens had given him. And though it was a lot, it was only circumstantial. This is the ultimate piecing a puzzle together. What I do is I read the entire case and I try to tap into what is it that I feel when I first read a case. When I first look at a case, what human emotion comes out of me? Because that's what I'm going to have to relate to people in that jury box. So when I first read this case, it is why? Why would a father beat his daughter and kill his daughter in such a brutal fashion? Like, there's just no explanation. So I just knew when I read that, it's just like, it makes no sense that, you know, people are going to question, like, how could a father do that?

48:14You know, and we don't have to prove motive, you know, as part of our case in Texas is a criminal case. But still, there's a lingering question. So I knew that that was going to be the number one question, because that's what I thought.

48:28Mike Boudet:But like Paul said, the prosecution did not have to prove motive. They just had to cover all their bases. I am trying to make sure all our circumstantial evidence lines up to show that there is no other person who could have committed this crime other than James Cosby. The defense argued that without motive, a confession, or a witness, there was reasonable doubt as to James' guilt. James maintained his innocence, and his lawyers argued that not only was James the wrong guy, but no one could prove that Crystal and Brittany died at the same time. And it's true, they couldn't. Even though the state's evidence was a messy puzzle, they had put the pieces in place.

49:18When this case originally occurred, so you had the FBI working on the case because they thought it was a hate crime. And so they used federal resources to kind of assist in the investigation.

49:33Mike Boudet:The FBI specialists worked with Detective Kitchens to ensure that James' phone followed a strict and narrow path that matched the surveillance footage. So what he was able to do is use the cell phone number, and he traced the route from Houston to Bolivar. And he was also logging the cell phone towers that were pinging off that number as he's driving that route. One of the things we also did is after we got that cell phone report, my partner and I went at the same time of night and ran that exact route, keying into our dispatch the entire time once we got to certain points. And we were able to get down there, you know, imitate dumping bodies and get back all at the same timeline as what he had.

50:27is it's easy for a defense to say, oh, anybody could have had his cell phone and driven that route. Well, remember, now we're looking at 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. time period. So when James Cosby is coming back towards Houston, he meets up with his girlfriend. She happens to have a crazy ex-husband, and he's following them, and he tries to ram the vehicle. James Cosby calls 911. So now we have another time locked in of him making a 911 call with his cell phone. So it rules out the possibility that anybody else could have handled his phone during that time period.

51:15Mike Boudet:Paul Love says that call was the nail in his coffin as far as the cell phone forensics go. You're listening to this and you're thinking, what are you doing? You know, you of all people just got back from dumping two bodies and you're going to call the police. From the prosecutor's standpoint, I'm thinking, thank you. But if you just kind of step back, you're like, what the hell were you thinking? Like, that just makes no sense. You You've just now created more evidence against yourself. As slick as James was, there were many things he did during his cover-up that the state just couldn't wrap their heads around.

51:56Mike Boudet:Like the shutter. That lone piece of shutter. A clear missing piece off Annie Lee's house. Why did James leave it against the hotel wall, fully intact? Why didn't he just throw it off the ferry into the sea, never to be seen again? Then, was he trying to leave a message or something? Or better yet, why not dump it wherever he dumped the gun that he used to kill Crystal? Or the weapon he used to break his daughter's neck? He obviously hid those weapons well because we don't know where they are. But the shutter? This shutter was the key. And James had just left it right there. Right for the world to see and the police to find.

52:39But as far as him leaving it there the way he did, that being the only piece that was left up against the wall, it was kind of crazy. I can't wrap my head around why he would do that unless he eventually wanted to get caught.

52:49Mike Boudet:The trial opened in the summer of 2016. Paul Love had poured over every case detail, dedicating his life to getting justice for Brittany and Crystal. The case had exploded in Houston, drawing intense media coverage. But Paul kept his focus. This was for the girls to make sure their lives hadn't ended in silence. He had to speak for them. So you just never know. You just never know how a jury is going to receive the evidence and how they're going to receive your presentation of the case. So there's a lot of pressure. As trial prosecutors said, we put on ourselves, but there's a lot of pressure because you're accountable to family.

53:33This case has garnered a lot of media attention, so the courtroom is packed nearly every day, so everybody's watching. There is never a moment, particularly in a circumstantial evidence case, there is never a moment when you feel as though we got it.

53:51Mike Boudet:The prosecution laid out the evidence piece by piece, driving home the sheer brutality of Brittany's death. Detective Kitchens was unraveling. This was his first lead homicide case, in. He'd grown close to Crystal's family. He wanted nothing more than to give them closure. He found himself replaying every moment from the interrogation room with James, wondering if he'd missed something crucial. Even today, he still views that interview with more clarity. The unique thing about it is now, knowing what I know now and the experience I have now, when I go back and I watch that video over again, he was telling me he'd done it and I just didn't catch on to it.

54:35You know, especially when we started entering in how a father could do that to their daughter. And he says, well, you have a different relationship with your daughter than I have with mine. And right there, he told me he'd done it and I never picked up on it.

54:47Mike Boudet:After a week of testimony and 290 pieces of evidence, the state rested. The jury returned to deliberation and stayed there for three hours. In that three hours, you're questioning every decision that you've made throughout the case, because you're thinking, maybe if I would ask this question, or maybe if I didn't ask that question, or maybe if we would have put that witness on. So going into three hours of deliberation, and we understand there's a lot of evidence to kind of sort through, but as prosecutors waiting for the verdict, that's probably the most difficult time of a trial, because you have no control, all in the hands of 12 people, and now you sit back and question all your decisions.

55:35Mike Boudet:Then the jury came back guilty. Did they say guilty? They said guilty. They did say guilty. Okay. Now you can finally breathe and like, wow, you know, we did it. But I think the biggest emotional time for me at that point was when the verdict was read. Because I won't lie. I broke down in tears when the verdict was read. It was very emotional for me, and I knew we had to get it right. If there was going to be any justice for these girls, we had to get it right. James Cosby would be sentenced for the double capital murders of Brittany and Crystal. He would receive life without parole. But that question of how and why was still hanging in the air.

56:20Mike Boudet:Paul Love and Detective Kitchens have their theories. Brittany, I'm going to say, is the head of the household. And now he's coming back, and he wants to be the head of a household. Like, he wants to make the decisions. He doesn't want to share that co-leadership in that house. So I believe that there was some conflict in egos. Brittany was pretty well running the show there at the house. And then here he comes, he's stepping in, probably wanting to take over. And it just didn't sit well with either one of them. We know that an argument broke out between them. You know, she had a great job. They were going out to eat every night.

56:56Her and Crystal, they had two bedrooms in the house that were theirs. One more or less a closet for them, the other one they slept in. And he's reduced down to eating bologna sandwiches, no job, and having to live in the den. And I think there was a lot of jealousy involved, like you said, with the way her life was going.

57:13Mike Boudet:That morning, an unexpected fight started in James' bedroom between him and Brittany. She probably did stand up to him, and I think he just blew a gasket. Emasculated by his young daughter, James snapped. In an instant, that same demonic rage his ex-wife had feared came roaring back. Only this time, it turned on his own flesh and blood. The monster was unleashed. To me, this was a rage killing. Because you also look at how he beat her. He didn't just kill her. I mean, he beat her. And when Crystal come back in, she saw what was happening, ran out the side door. He followed with a handgun. The lift gate was open on the vehicle, and he shot her in the head right behind the vehicle and tossed her in the back.

58:02Crystal was just collateral damage. It's nothing that he had planned. I don't think he planned on killing Brittany, but when Crystal came in and saw it, she just collateral damage. Had to get rid of her.

58:10Mike Boudet:These were all just theories based on the evidence. Detective Kitchens did some interviews on the case and laid out his theories again, plain and simple. Then one day, years later, he got a call from a deputy in jail who was on the same block as James during TV time. I mentioned this on a TV show that I did, my theory, while he was in the jail watching that show, and a deputy overheard him say, yeah, that's pretty much what happened. So we nailed it. This was a horrific, unnecessary murder. In all the mess, one family, the Cosbys, lost two people, and the Jacksons were left without a daughter.

58:54Mike Boudet:Zania was left without a mother, but she gained something unexpected in the grief process. Now, there's been good things that has come out of this case, and I hate that it took this to get it there, but Zania is now my goddaughter, and we spend holidays with the grandparents and her every year. Beyond gaining a goddaughter and a lifelong bond with the Jackson family, Detective Kitchens walked away from that interrogation with lessons that cut deep. They're lessons he still carries with him, etched into who he is as a detective. The biggest part about I learned from him is, hey, keep your mouth shut.

59:36Let him do the talking and watch, you know, watch him listen to the words that he says closely and don't talk so much during that interview.

59:45Mike Boudet:James Cosby was a man shaped by steel bars and concrete walls. Years of institutionalization had hollowed him out, leaving behind a husk clung to the familiarity and comfort of captivity. Kind of like Brooks. You all saw Shawshank, right? Even in the free world at Annie Lee's house, he replicated his prison cell in his bedroom. This was the only life that he knew. This was the only thing that had been taught to him via our glorious educational system. When James returned to his grandmother's house, it was not to open arms, but to disgrace. A disgrace that he had earned, I might add. A failed father with no money, no future, no claim to respect.

1:00:40Mike Boudet:And here he is, finding his daughter Brittany thriving. Unlike him, she had built a life rich with purpose and love. He was unnecessary as both a father and the man of the house. She had taken his place. Well, James didn't like that. Brittany had everything he never could. Ambition, resilience, and a partner who was truly in love with her. Whatever the fight was and whatever led to her tragic end, I'm sure it was something really stupid. We can only imagine what it was, though, because this idiot won't talk. This bigot. This hypocritical piece of shit. Maybe it was Brittany's words, sharp and unrelenting, holding up a mirror to James' failures in life.

1:01:34Mike Boudet:And he just couldn't take it. Instead of facing his reflection with remorse, regret, and maybe some learnings, he let his fury and jealousy consume him. Like dumb people do. Dumb people never better themselves. They never look in the mirror. They just keep believing their own bullshit. You know? Now Apple's going to censor me for this one. because even though the message is good, the words are wrong. That's what I fucking hate about censorship. Anyway, James, real piece of shit, do we agree? Who you are is defined by your actions, and in that fateful moment, James unleashed a rage born of self-loathing, a desperate need to silence the voice that exposed his own inadequacies.

1:02:22Mike Boudet:It was not Brittany's defiance that truly killed her, but James's inability to bear the weight of his own shame. We need more shame. We need to stop telling people they're perfect and start shaming bad behavior again. Perhaps if we had shamed this guy a little more earlier on, he wouldn't have become this thing. Now he was just a piece of shit, just an ex-criminal who'd been emasculated by his own daughter the devil he carried inside found its way out like it always does and he extinguished the very light that could have redeemed him.

1:03:24Mike Boudet:Once again, thank you so much for being here. If you like this sort of content and you want to have your heart broken into a million little pieces, go watch our latest Sword and Scale television episode, Kyle Yorlitz. Holy crap. Is that a sad one? Stay safe.

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