Episode 342

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24:08Mike Boudet:It was late June 2017 in Parma Heights, Ohio, a Cleveland suburb with a reputation for safety, not violent crime. In the last few weeks, police responded to a string of late-night burglaries. The suspect, Thomas Nuff, was quickly caught. He admitted to everything, saying he was broke and desperate. Hotels were getting expensive. Tom had just been released from prison after serving 15 years. Since then, he'd bounced between hotels, old girlfriends, and temporary stays with people willing to help, including a pen pal named Regina Capobianco. She and her boyfriend even gave him a ride from prison.

24:51Mike Boudet:He stayed at her place a couple of nights, but mostly kept his distance. She had a good heart, but she was a little unpredictable. Then Regina stopped answering her phone. Her sister worried. I miss her every day. I miss sending her pictures of the girls, of my grandkids, and calling her. That was all taken from me and her. I can't do that anymore. I call Regina Reggie. Reggie had a contagious laugh. If you would ask anybody what they remember most about Reggie, it will be her laugh. The police had been to her house already, but they didn't execute a full search. Neighbors had seen stickers on the door about a potential foreclosure and just assumed John was evicted.

25:46Mike Boudet:Now weeks had passed. They go back. And what they find inside is worse than anything anyone's imagined. What they walk into is a hoarder's nightmare. Trash bags, boxes, rotting food. The air is thick and sour. The kind of stench you think is garbage until you realize it's not. Specialized agents are called in along with cadaver dogs, but even the dogs refuse to go inside. The odor of decomposition is overwhelming. They stubbornly sit outside like, no way man, I ain't going in there. We ain't touching this. That's kind of what I imagine dogs sound like, if you can get into their head. Yo bro, we ain't going in there.

26:38Mike Boudet:That's all I'm saying dog. The search stops here. I think it's kind of cute. Imagine a Doberman talking like that. Anyway, fortunately, agents come prepared with full protective masks and oxygen tanks. This is a full hazmat situation we got going on. They enter through the back door of the ranch home, past the shattered window. Dead flies carpet the floor. The second bedroom is by far the worst. Flies swarm in the air. The stench pools in the room. Maggots wriggle in a disgusting puddle at the foot of the bed. A puddle they trace to a mound of trash and blankets. When they start to move it, they see skin.

27:26Mike Boudet:Then bone. Then what looks like a leg. Then a skull. The hallway carpet has been cut away and blood stains stretch from the kitchen into the living room, where the carpet has also been removed. Under trash and clothing in the second bedroom, they find John Mann's body, a mire of decomposed, rotting flesh. Unrecognizable. And behind him, up against the wall, they find a second figure wrapped in a wet Harley Davidson blanket. The blanket is form-fitting. They can see the outline of Regina's head before it's even pulled back. She's face up, sweater rolled up above her eyes, one foot exposed, and the rest of her body hidden beneath layers of filth.

28:20Mike Boudet:A purple condom wrapper is found near her head. At first, Tom wasn't the obvious suspect, even though he had a criminal background. His crimes didn't involve violence against anyone, and he had a son he desperately wanted to reconnect with. Why would he risk throwing that all away? He already messed up by getting stupid drunk and breaking into the salons. Stupid and sloppy but not murder. But because he was one of the only people who had a connection with both Regina and John, they started to dig. Where else had Tom been staying since he got out? Who else was helping him? And that's when his current girlfriend came up.

29:07Mike Boudet:Alicia Stoner. She wasn't just his girlfriend. She was a social worker at the prison. Imagine that. You realize how serious. Certainly a lot's going on with him. And we understand that. We talked about that yesterday. So we understand if things don't come back to you at certain times. But we just want to have that line of communication. and hopefully we can get through some of this information today, most of it. Alicia was working at the same prison that Tom was serving time in. Tom was attractive to her for some reason. Probably for the same reason why some women write to inmates. Some particular crazy bitches take that extra step and get a job at the prison.

29:55Mike Boudet:It's one hell of a world we're living in. I'll tell you. Maybe it was the bad boy prisoner thing. Maybe it was his charming gift of gab. Who knows? Who cares? Whatever the case, he was writing to multiple women, including Regina, and they were all falling for it. With Alicia, he had the added pleasure of interacting personally. That is, until she quit due to an obvious conflict of interest. She chose Tom over her job. and they continued the relationship. Imagine choosing a criminal over your job. These two lovebirds wrote poems to each other, long handwritten love letters. They were soulmates.

30:45Mike Boudet:When detectives interviewed Alicia for the first time, she didn't want to say much. But after she realized that she could be implicated and ultimately serve time, That's when she started to talk.

31:15Mike Boudet:On paper, Alicia didn't look like the kind of woman who'd ever be connected to a double homicide. She was a mental health worker. And she was married. But somehow, she was charmed by this asshole. After his release in April 2017, Alicia became more than just his girlfriend. She was his driver, his banker, and his safety net. When parole rules barred Tom from living with her, she paid for his motel rooms. When he needed money, she wired it. And when he called her in the middle of the night, she came. On May 12, 2017, Alicia drove to pick him up after he made a desperate phone call. She remembered his left index finger was badly cut, a fresh wound he couldn't easily explain.

32:07When we discussed about initially me getting the phone call from Thomas, and he called me and he did say to me, if I ever need you, it's now. And I know he gave me, this is where I'm going to tell you, just, okay. I know he gave me directions. At some point, and here's what I see when I'm driving and I'm crossing over Meander. I'm on the phone with him, and he tells me Regina and John are dead. Did that help spark some memory of the conversation of him telling you when you got there? Was there anything more? There's more. Okay. So it's accurate with him with the hood coming out. And he gets in my car where I tell you, and we park where I tell you.

32:49And just let me say this. The story I was supposed to tell was that he got into a bar fight for the finger. Because he says to me, all you know is that I got into a bar fight for the finger. Okay, so that's what I told you.

33:01Mike Boudet:Tom's version started with his relationship with John. He felt sorry for John because Regina was taking advantage of him. What started as a partnership had turned into a one-way street that ended with Regina being the only happy partner. She came and went as she pleased. She took John's money and did little in exchange. She even started seeing other guys and bringing them back to the house. So, when I met John, you know, he might have been dirtbagging a lot of things, but I just took him as an old hippie, nice guy. He was going to get kicked out of the house soon, but he needed someone to mow the grass.

33:40And first of all, you know, I want everybody to know that, you know, I've never had any sexual relationships with Regina. And we met in 2005 as pen pals. And for about a year and a half, we kind of were writing a lot and had ideas of getting out and being together. Of course, then I felt a lot different than I do now about what I wanted in life and a woman. And she's always been super wild, told me a lot of crazy stories. I never realized. And, of course, she's probably progressed and got worse. You know what I mean? So I never realized, you know, like until her 50th birthday, how she was drinking.

34:21Mike Boudet:If he wasn't convinced at her 50th birthday party that she was an out-of-control partier, an incident that happened at a gas station confirmed it. She'd been drinking. He says she came out of the restroom with toilet paper hanging out of her pants. When he politely brought it to her attention, she says, Watch this. And she pulls it out and plasters it on the chest of a little old lady who's walking by. Gross. So we didn't talk for a while, you know, a few weeks. And I ended up when I needed a place to stay. And I knew that, you know, they were still entertaining that idea when I was in jail. So I called her up and she said, well, you know, she was mad at me.

35:06But I said, hey, you know, what are you mad for? You know what I mean? The way you were acting and I can't have that. Well, so I met John a few times and he had confided in me that he kind of wanted her out. But she told him, like, well, I get mail here. So you got to evict me. And then he was kind of like, well, I've known her for a while. I kind of love her. But at the same time, he's like, you know, she don't suck my dick no more. She don't do this. And for her, you know, she I'd seen her drunk. Like, you know, you can't get it hard. Real nasty. You know what I mean? So I'm like, I feel bad for him.

35:39You know, he felt bad for John.

35:41Mike Boudet:So he started coaching him on how he could get rid of Regina by evicting her. It would be a bonus that he'd get to live there with John. In effect, he planned to replace Regina. Tom said he didn't have much, but he would help him in any way he could. Just not sexually. John wasn't getting that anyway. I ended up, you know, taking some of my stuff there because, you know, she didn't know at the time that John was going to try to... So after the 50th birthday, he took some stuff there. Mm-hmm. Okay. All right. So I took my blue bin that had my clothes in it. Okay. And I had, like, a duffel bag that had, like, my little homemade tattoo shit in it, little brown-tan bag.

36:22And, you know, I wasn't, like, trying to, like, move in or nothing yet because I didn't know what the status was going to be as far as John getting her out of the house. I kind of was like, I'm not going to lie to you. I said, you know, I can get you good blood. I'll keep you smoking. I'll give you 50 bucks a week. but I can't live here with her. And another reason why I really blame myself is just for entertaining the idea and telling him that about the stuff about being elderly and being able to evict her, that that's why I guess why she bugged the fuck out. You know what I mean? And, you know, I hear them outside yelling and arguing and the dogs are barking and the little, you know, they're loud.

36:57And I'm like, I could hear it outside.

37:00Mike Boudet:So the day this all went down, John had confronted Regina. She laughed it off and said she was going to go out and meet a guy at a bar. and they might come back to the house. While she was out, John had fallen asleep, so she texted Tom asking him to put the dogs away because she was bringing this guy back. Tom didn't want to be around for that, so he says he left. Well, I just chose to leave. You know, I took a walk in the neighborhood because I didn't want to be there listening to him have sex, whatever was going on. Well, I had come home, and whoever the guy she had there was gone, and her and John were arguing.

37:38and she's drunk. I mean, probably didn't take her much to get drunk anyway. She's such a little person, you know what I mean? And they're fighting, and I'm outside in the backyard. Dogs are going crazy. I'm surprised nobody called the police, you know? And something just changed in the tone, and I come in, you know what I mean? I didn't come in really because I didn't want to interrupt Nug. I didn't know what was said, and I came in, and Regina was attacking him with a knife. and I stopped her. I actually got pictures. It took me, believe me, as little as she is, she was pretty strong. You know what I mean?

38:16And I had a little marked here where I had a little cut and I got a bunch of cuts on my hands trying to pull the blade from her. And that's actually how I ended up cutting my finger so bad.

38:26Mike Boudet:This is when the lies started. Every person he saw got a different explanation for why he got this cut on his finger. from his own son to his ex at the house with his son to his girlfriend, Alicia, and finally to the police who interviewed him the night of the burglaries. By that point, his finger was barely hanging on after he tried to superglue it. Gross. But he knew it was bad because it was turning green and starting to smell funny. You know what I mean? I know shit happened that shouldn't happen. and anyway, I just wanted to be known that I didn't kill John. The one part of the story that always stayed consistent was that he didn't kill John.

39:13Mike Boudet:He freely admitted he killed Regina, just like he freely admitted several weeks later that he robbed the salons. But he was adamant. He didn't kill John. And none of this shit was planned or premeditated or anything, but I ended up ripping a knife from Regina, and I threw her behind the chair and she took off and I went and I checked John and he was still making sounds and on the floor and she ends up coming back with another knife and I don't know regular steak knives whatever from the kitchen and that's when she ended up you know stabbing at me and cut my finger real bad. Again I'm tussling with her and I get her to the ground and I'm trying to hold her down and, you know, her other hand, she's clawing at my face and my eyes and I end up getting a knife and using it on her, you know what I mean?

40:06And I don't, I'm having nightmares about it, you know what I mean? It's so much to fucking live with, you know? And I wish I would have ran out of the house, you know what I mean? Because I got to live with it, she was a friend, you know what I mean? And, I mean, I'd be stupid to even tell my parole officer I'm about to stay here at this house.

40:24Mike Boudet:Tom maintained he never meant for any of this to happen. He just wanted to get out of prison and start over, be a good dad, continue his relationship with Alicia, except she was still married, and get back to what he loved to do. Tattoos, of course. But he also loved drinking and talking. Those two traits somehow led to him committing crimes and then involved the very people he loved most in the aftermath of those crimes. even his young son. It was my phone. I was letting him borrow it for the night. That night, the next morning I woke up, my phone was gone, my keys were gone, and my Jeep was gone, and I didn't talk to him for a couple days.

41:06Mike Boudet:Tom's son thought he was helping his father, but every time, Tom took more. The next morning, Tommy's phone, his Jeep, and even his trust were gone. When he did move there, he cut his finger open and he said it was from the hedgehog, but my mom and my aunt both said it was too clean of a cut to be, not a hedgehog, but like hedge clippers. And my mom and my aunt both said it was too clean of a cut. They think it was from a knife or glass or something. What do you think? I'd like to believe him, but I don't know. I haven't seen a cut like that before. It was cut pretty bad. Yeah. It was like hanging off and stuff.

41:45Oh, geez. Yeah, he said he was going to try gluing it back together. But when he was in the hospital, they just took it off for him.

41:52Mike Boudet:Tommy Jr. would later learn the truth if he didn't already suspect it. The story was shady. So was his story about why he needed Tommy to buy him duct tape and garbage bags for the finger. Poor Tommy. Since his dad got out of prison, he was invading all aspects of his life. And Tommy led him because he loved him. Yeah, since he's been out, my life's been so stressful. I've been afraid at my house. Why are you afraid? I don't know if he got dropped off by someone and he owes them money and they're going to come inside or something. I don't know. I just don't know. I thought I knew him a little bit, but I guess I didn't.

42:35Mike Boudet:Tommy had a right to be afraid. His dad was a criminal. A murderer. The only thing the police didn't know was exactly why he murdered. We think you know more, Tom. Someone's telling us that in that conversation, things were brought up about what your dad did that were pretty serious. And if he told you what he did, then we need to know, Tom. He did tell me he hurt two people. Didn't say he killed anybody. He said he hurt them, though. Tell us what he told you. He said that he hurt them, and he said he cut his finger on the hedge clippers, and that he was trying to fight them back, and that was it.

43:13He told me that he took Regina, they got her a hotel, and then two black people came and were beating them up and that he was trying to defend themselves. Say that again. When was this? Did he give you any time frame on when this happened? He said it happened late at night. Late at night? Mm-hmm. They were sitting. He said he was in the basement cleaning, and he heard John yelling, and he went upstairs, and he started trying to fight them with him, and then they left and that's what... A couple black males? He said two black men. He didn't use those words. He used the racist term for them. Okay.

43:48And then he was fighting with these black males? Mm-hmm. He said that's how he had a scratch on his head. He said that's how he got a scratch on his head was from them.

43:57Mike Boudet:This was just one more version of Tom's lies. And when he couldn't cover his tracks with his lies, he simply told Tommy not to look. Like the time he asked Tommy to pick him up at John Mann's house. This time it was to get rid of the dogs inside. He went back to the house. He went in and grabbed the dogs. I didn't see the dogs. He told me not to look and we drove out there. He had me pull over on the side of the street and he shushed them out. Yeah, he just told me they were John's dogs and that he didn't want them anymore and that John was going to hurt them or kill them and get rid of them. So he was going to give them a chance at life and just let them go.

44:32Mike Boudet:The detectives didn't want to have to press Tommy. They knew he was a good kid. In fact, one officer had also been Tommy's rugby coach and had nothing but great things to say about him. Somebody did something right, but it sure wasn't his dad. And the last thing I want to see is anything. And this isn't not trying to pit you against your dad, but you're in this position. Sadly, he put you in this position. He did. and it's sad and we feel for you. You know I do. You know what I think of you. And it's wrong. But I just want the truth, 100%. And you walk out of here and you know your conscience is clear.

45:15If I tell you guys now... Tell us now and you're not in any trouble. He said he killed him. Killed Regina and John? Just Regina. He said he was in the basement cleaning and he heard John upstairs screaming, saw Regina stabbing him, tried to get the knife away from him, and then he said he took the knife and stabbed her.

45:35Mike Boudet:Tommy's story matched the version his father gave police. That Regina had attacked John. That Tom wrestled the knife away and stabbed her. There were no other people at the house that day. Black, white, or otherwise. If they could just get Tom to admit to killing both Regina and John, It was their gut feeling, and the coroner's reports backed it up. John Mann's body was pierced with multiple sharp force injuries, including to the neck, ribs, collarbone, and defensive wounds on his hands and arms. Regina stood under five feet tall and didn't weigh much. Besides, Tom's version was that he intervened after only one or two stabbings.

46:22Mike Boudet:Then there was the elaborate cover-up, including commissioning a guy named Delugo to burn the house down after he'd removed the dogs and the carpeting. He used Alicia for contact because he was already in jail. Delugo said no, he wouldn't do it. And the defensive wounds on Tom indicated a serious altercation where Tom lost control of the blade. Not to mention the lies. the overwhelming number of lies. So, detectives had one more card to play with Tom, the polygraph. And when the subject turned to John Mann, Tom's story started to crack.

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49:09Mike Boudet:It was May of 2017 in a suburb of good old Cleveland, Ohio. The home of the Browns and a whole lot of killers and even worse, Ohioans. Thomas Nuff had been out of prison for just a few weeks. He was drifting between motels, borrowing from his sons, and leaning on his girlfriend, Alicia Stoner, who drove him, gave him money, and even picked him up the morning after he killed at least one person inside the house on Nellwood Road. So yeah, you know, Tom was just living his best life. John Mann lived in that house with his partner, Regina Capobianco. By then, Regina had long since given up her part of the bargain for living there and was dating other men.

49:59Mike Boudet:She had also been writing to Tom while he was in prison. In fact, it was Regina and John who picked him up on the day he was released. Regina may have expected to carry on a relationship with Tom, but he already had Alicia. And he also realized that Regina's drinking and other bizarre behaviors could land him right back in prison on a parole violation. John was fed up with her too. He wanted her gone, and Tom was all too happy to help. If Regina were out of the picture, it meant Tom could move in and finally have a stable place to reconnect with his son and have a girlfriend. On the night of May 11, 2017, something violent happened inside that house.

50:44Mike Boudet:Don and Regina were both killed, their bodies hidden away. Police wouldn't discover their decomposed remains until June. In the meantime, Tom was getting rid of evidence and roping his loved ones into helping him cover his tracks. You know, I've always tried to tell them, even though I've done fucked up shit or I've been in jail, I always try to, you know, do the right thing. A lot of things that, you know, I did in the past was reckless, you know, out drunk and doing stupid shit and just being wild, but, you know, for the most part, you know, he knows to do the right thing, you know, so that's, I just, if I can only be that example to him, you know what I mean, that's what I want to do for him.

51:25Mike Boudet:What he wanted to do for his son and what he actually ended up doing were two vastly different things. By May 17th, his life was spiraling. He was walking around with a finger that was barely hanging on and his freedom was also barely hanging on. In the weeks that followed, Tom didn't lie low. He went right back to his old ways. He broke into two salons, leaving a trail that would put him back on police radar. At the same time, he told everyone a different story. He told his son, he told Alicia, he told the police. A story about a drug dealer, a fight. Regina stabbing John and Tom stabbing Regina in self-defense.

52:09Mike Boudet:But there was one part he never changed. He swore he didn't kill John Mann. You know how you've heard that polygraphs are unreliable? Well, police departments across the country insist they yield a success rate of 86 to 100 percent. And Brunswick police were counting on its reliability. And listen, man, I don't want your son to be in the middle of this, but right now he is smack in the middle of it. And that's why, listen, I know, but that's why as much as, you know. He's telling us you confided in him that, you know, you killed two people. And then, you know, you're confiding in him as both the people we found in the house.

52:52No. I told him the black people. And then when I ended up telling him the truth after the truck incident, I told him what it was. And I told him I was just embarrassed because I had killed a girl. And that's when I told him the truth of the matter. now i want to bring this thing back up in this machine here okay it says you mean you failed i'd say that you'd stay job all right so i want to talk about some similarities and some stuff from the injuries of both of them right um i want to talk about that this is going to be exactly what i was told okay all right yeah okay regina stab wound in the back two stab wounds to the right side of the neck, crushed Adam's apple, right carotid artery was cut, her left hand near her index finger, the webbing was cut.

53:43Caused a death,

53:47sharp force injury, and a crushed Adam's apple, neck compression, strangulation.

53:53Mike Boudet:All of these injuries included or were in addition to the stabbings, and the polygraph had confirmation. you uh mentioned that uh you know you several times that john was over there making gurgling whizzes like that and stuff like that okay this machine says that you had stabbed john yeah okay john had one stabbing right here did you help him stop everything by doing it is it the one did you do one stay up going into john to help him out to put him out of misery if you did that's No, I didn't. Detectives kept giving Tom an out. They told him maybe it was an accident, an act of mercy, self-defense, and maybe things got out of control.

54:40Mike Boudet:Any of those versions could have given him a softer landing, even a shot at claiming self-defense. But Tom wouldn't take it. He stuck to his one line over and over. I didn't kill John. You've got to help yourself out in this. You've got to tell us what the hell happened in that house. You know, he brings up a good point. I'm going to let you explain to him about it. He thinks something happened in the argument. I'm going to let him go ahead with that. You know, he brings up a good point as we talked. You don't like women getting beat up, do you? No. Tell me a little bit about your stepfather, right?

55:20Right? And your mom? Yeah. Abusive relationship? Yeah. Something about that happened. quite frequently? Well, when we were younger. What were your feelings on that? I just loved my mom and I hated him at the time. Even though there were times where he was a good guy, and I liked him for certain things. He would drink and use drugs and he took all his aggression out on her. She's just always such a good person. Being a kid, that really hurt. you know and to see her go back to him you know how did that make you feel it hurt me you know make you angry well sure i mean it wouldn't be angry you know i was angry that you know she put up with it but i mean obviously she felt that you know she loved him and worked through it you know and they had separated for like a year and we got back together and what do you think should happen to somebody that beats their their wife or their girlfriend well i'm a woman who's heard so i'm I stand with you.

56:23Nobody should touch a woman. What do you think should happen to somebody? I mean, I don't feel like they should die. You know, I mean, I can understand why some women do that. You know, because they feel like there's no other way out. They feel trapped. Yeah. You know, I feel like, you know, women even deserve that. When a man does that, you know what I mean? That they should be able to. So, what was John doing to Regina? What was John doing to Regina? He wanted her out. What really happened? He wanted her out. He wanted her out. Was he hurting her? I don't know. Was he hurting her, man? I don't know.

57:00Did you see him hurt? I never seen him hurt. Did she tell you he was hurt? No. She told me many stories about punching on her boyfriend. You know what I mean? She never said John hurt her. You know, she said he was dirty and never changed his clothes. I think you know that he hurt her. I think she confided in you. And you were trying to protect her. And then she'd get angry with you for what was going on with you and John. Is that what happened? Listen, man, I get it.

57:34Mike Boudet:This was their best hypothesis. It was the only time they'd seen Tom get this emotional, other than when he was talking about his son. They had tapped into his past to find a trigger. John was abusing Regina, and Tom was going to stop him. But Regina was used to the chaos and abuse, so she tried to stop Tom. You do realize come Monday morning during this ring, the media's going to be there, man. They're going to pinch you as a monster, don't you? Yeah. Do you want them to pinch you as a monster? Do you want you? They're going to anyway. Yeah, but the difference is if we can tell our story, we're going to have a news conference.

58:12We're going to give a press conference Monday morning before your ring. and we're telling everybody you're here, you're being arraigned. The news is going to be there. How's it going to be? You know what I mean? Did you sit in this chair with us? Did you talk to the detectives and did you tell us everything that happened 100 % to the team, which right now I don't believe. Right. Okay? And your son is going to watch this news conference. Sure. You know what I mean? Your son is going to watch this news conference. Pretty soon, he may be watching it with you somewhere else because of the trouble he's in.

58:43and Alicia as well. They're both in trouble right now with this. Too much is going on because you put them in this position. The only way for you to help them and to not paint yourself as a monster, I mean, come on, I know that you love your kid, and your kid does love you, okay? He does, but he's going to have to live with this cloud of the media painted my father as a monster and people know that you're his father. Would you rather just have him be known as, and my dad made a mistake. He fessed up to it. He did exactly who it is. I still talk to my dad in jail. Do you want that or do you want everybody going, look, your dad's a monster?

59:22Mike Boudet:If Tom had accepted their version of what happened, would he have gotten away with it? I mean, there was no way he wasn't going back to prison. He robbed two salons and killed a woman. These were indisputable facts. But was it chivalry gone way wrong? Or was it a premeditated attempt to secure a place of his own? It's possible no one will ever know, but the jury would seal his fate. No matter what, Tom would probably spend the rest of his life in jail. But Ohio also has the death penalty, which is a good but they should use it a lot more. The relationship Tom wanted with his son was never going to happen, at least not outside of prison walls.

1:00:11Mike Boudet:Thomas E. Nuff Jr. was convicted of two counts of aggravated murder for killing John Mann and Regina Capobianco, along with multiple other charges, aggravated burglary, gross abuse of a corpse, kidnapping, conspiracy, tampering with evidence and theft-related offenses. There was, of course, a jury recommendation that the sentence of death be imposed. The court finds by proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the aggravating circumstances the offender was found guilty of committing outweigh the mitigating factors. Therefore, on count two, the sentence of death will be imposed upon the offender. This meant Tom's son lost a father.

1:00:56Well, and that's what I hope, just by being, you know, straight up with you guys, that the things that you can control to help with, you know, I'd appreciate. So I'm not here to fuck nobody around or be a bad guy.

1:01:11No, nobody's thing said at all, you know what I mean? I'm going to say it's enough to have to live with my faults and all the mistakes I've had in the past and letting my family down. and not being there through my son's high school years when other people had their dads there at the football game.

1:01:26Mike Boudet:Because of Tom's actions, he would never get the chance to go to one of his kids' games and walk him out onto the field. But his son wasn't the only one who suffered. Two lives were lost. Regina may have been a bit of a wild card, but she mattered to her family, to her friends. She was a person. And no matter what her life choices, she didn't deserve what happened to her. This monster took my sister from me. My heart is broken. I don't know if it will ever repair her. I miss her every day. She will not get to see her sons get married. she will not get to call grandma and it's all because of trying to help somebody that I told her that I thought she should stay away from.

1:02:30I have horrible visions that I hope someday will get out of my head of the murder and no one should ever have to have these visions of a family member. I am glad he has the death penalty. I think he deserves the death penalty. He's had a chance to plead for his life. And I'm sure my sister pleaded for her life that he chose to ignore.

1:03:04Mike Boudet:John Mann's son and sister both gave incredible heartfelt statements. And John's son spoke for more than ten minutes. My dad was a goofy, bright, and sensitive man. He loved the Cleveland Browns, watching MASH reruns, and doing community theater. He had a full scholarship offer from Heidelberg University in astrophysics. He ended up floating into electrical contracting from his interest in solar power. He loved the idea of cheap, renewable energy. He even studied to be an architect because he thought it would help him develop solar power cells. Later in life, he became a computer programmer. He truly had a gifted mind and could do just about whatever he wanted to with properly motivated.

1:03:47People tended to like my dad. He had a gregarious and colorful personality with an oddball sense of humor. You took my dad from me. You robbed him of the golden years of his life and the time we had together. I miss him terribly.

1:04:03Mike Boudet:He proceeded to lay out how Tom had failed, as a man, as a human being, and as a father. He sympathized with Tom's son and thanked him for his bravery in enduring the trial and doing the right thing by testifying against his own father, whom he loved. But then he surprised everyone. You do not deserve to live. You do not deserve a humane death. You butchered two people for reasons I cannot begin to comprehend. I have wanted you to die, yet I am faced with the reality that it will not and cannot be enough. In order to heal, I must accept this and find a way to reconcile it against my own feelings.

1:04:45I will continue to beg for his life to be spared, however possible. I want you all to hear it from a man that wanted him dead. As a son to a man whose life was ended, his father, I will beg to anyone who will listen to spare his life. I don't think we should do it for me or him. I think we should do it because it's the right thing to do for our society. Of course, Tom is appealing, and the legal fight will go on for years.

1:05:17Mike Boudet:But what lingers isn't just the courtroom drama and appeals. It's the contradiction. Tom wanted to be a good father. He wanted to prove he could do right by his son. He stayed in touch, leaned on him, even dreamed of settling down in a house where they could reconnect. But instead, he fell back into every pattern he swore he'd left behind. The lies, the violence, the selfishness that burned through everything in his path. And maybe the hardest part to make sense of is the question of whether Tom could have been telling the truth about John Mann. Maybe John was abusing Regina, like the detectives had suggested.

1:06:02Mike Boudet:And it triggered a traumatic reaction from Tom. Or maybe what happened is exactly as Tom described. John tried to evict Regina, and she went at him, so Tom intervened. Even if parts of his story are true and noble, all of his following actions say the most. Tom's choices after that night spoke the loudest. He hid the bodies, tried to hire someone to burn the place down, dumped the dogs into someone else's neighborhood, manipulated and lied to those he loved, dragged them into something horrible, and most importantly, never called police. Whatever happened in that house might have started with good intentions, But what followed were really, really, really bad choices that only a complete fucking idiot would make.

1:06:58Then again, this is Ohio.

1:07:01Mike Boudet:At the end of the day, we all have to be accountable for our choices. We all have to be responsible for what we decide to do. Otherwise, what the fuck are we doing here? Today, Thomas Nuff's son is prone. He's built a life that has nothing to do with Parma Heights or with the crimes his father committed there. He's well-adjusted, stable, and in 2023, he got married. Whatever cycle Tom was trapped in, his son has escaped it. Good for him. And maybe that's the real ending here. Not the death sentence, not the deaths, not the appeals, but the fact that even out of something so violent and tragic, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, a different kind of life is actually possible.

1:08:16Thank you.

1:08:45Mike Boudet:That's going to do it for another one. Thanks for joining us. If you like the show, head on over to swordandscale.com. Get the app, get plus. We'll see you next week. Stay safe.

1:09:21Thank you.

1:09:48Thank you.

1:10:16Thank you.

1:10:50Hey, y 'all. It's Lauren LaRosa, and I wanted to let you know about a special post-show talkback happening March 27th after The Outsiders on Broadway. Marking Women's History Month, Black Women, Power and Presence in Theater gathers the cast and company of The Outsiders to highlight the influence and impact of Black women shaping the stage. It's a real conversation about visibility, leadership, and navigating the industry. experience the show then stay for talk back on march 27th get your tickets now at outsidersmusical.com