Ex-Titans Scout Blaise Taylor Guilty in Jade Benning's Poisoning, a Soldier Convicted in a Drainpipe Murder, a Councilman Set on Fire

0:03 Callaroga Shark Media. Good morning. You're listening to Daily Crime Injustice. I'm Garrett Fisher and it is Tuesday, July seventh, twenty twenty six. Before we start a word about today's show, every one of these cases involves someone's death or someone's worst day, and one of them touches on suicide. I'm going to handle all of it the way we always do here, with weight, not with spectacle. If any of it is hard for you, take care of yourself and there are people standing by to help, we'll put resources at the end. Here's where I want to start. Some weeks, the news is just noise, and some weeks the bill comes due for three different people in three different courtrooms in three different states, and you get to watch what accountability actually looks like when it finally shows up.

0:58 That was this past week. A jury in Nashville looked at a former pro football scout and said guilty. A jurian anchorage looked at a soldier who put his wife's body in a drain pipe and said guilty. And a judge in Virginia looked at a man who set another man on fire and decided that the sentencing guidelines in front of him were an insult to what. He just heard. Three cases, three of them we've been tracking, and all three of them are at their core about the same thing. What happens to people who decided that another human being was in their way. Let's go Jade Benning the Poison Playbook.

1:38 Two weeks ago, on June twenty third, I told you a jury was being seated in Nashville, Tennessee, in the trial of a man named Blaze Taylor. I told you then that a jury was about to decide whether he poisoned his pregnant girlfriend in her own apartment. Well, they decided, and I want to walk you through it because this one matters. But first her, because she gets named first in this house, and she gets named as a person before she gets named as a case. Jade Benning was twenty four years old when this started. She'd moved to Nashville to work as a chef. She loved to cook, loved to paint, and the people who knew her described her the same way over and over, loyal, outgoing, charismatic, happy.

2:21 In the fall of twenty twenty two, she found out she was pregnant with a baby girl, and by every account, from the people who loved her. She was ready. She stopped drinking, she stopped using anything. She went to every prenatal appointment. Her doctor testified the pregnancy was healthy, textbook, no concerns. She had already picked a name for her daughter. The baby was going to be named Ivy. On February twenty fifth, twenty twenty three, Jade told a coworker she was leaving work early to go home, cook dinner, paint, and spend the evening with Taylor. She was happy, she was excited. That night, she and Taylor there were painting little canvases for the nursery for Ivy's room, And then sometime that evening, Jade called one of her closest friends, and the friend testified about what she heard.

3:10 On that call. She heard Jade slurring, frightened, telling Taylor, I know you put something in my drink because I can't even walk straight. I can't feel my legs. You did this so something would happen to the baby. Not long after, Taylor called nine to one one. He told the dispatcher Jade was having an allergic reaction. The dispatcher asked about the classic signs swelling, hives, a rash. He said, no, none of that. She was unresponsive and she was vomiting. When paramedics arrived, she was already, in clinical terms gone. They restarted her heart, they intubated her, but the damage was done. Here's what the prosecution told the jury. Jade had in her system cocaine, a concentration of cocaine that the Medical Examiner's office said was the highest they had ever. Prosecutor said Taylor dissolved it into liquid and put it in a pink drink she was sipping that night, that she orally ingested it without knowing, because she would never ever have knowingly done that to the daughter she was carrying. Ivy died two days later, on February twenty seventh.

4:17 Jade lingered. Prosecutors use that word lingered. She languished in a hospital bed for over a week, and she died on March sixth, twenty twenty three, which was her twenty fifth birthday. Now why the prosecution's answer was as cold as anything I've read to you this year. He didn't want to be a father. And here's the part that made the hair on my neck stand up. A friend of Jade's testified that at one point she had to talk Taylor out of putting something in a different woman's drink, another woman who was pregnant, who was refusing to get an abortion, so that he could end that pregnancy without the woman knowing. Look, I'm gonna be honest with you. When a prosecutor stands up and describes a method and then a witness describes the same method being floated for a completely different victim, that's not a coincidence. There's a playbook for this, and a playbook is premeditation with a table of contents. The defense fought it. They said Jade was the one with a history of drugs, not Blaze, that he didn't drink, didn't use, and that Jade died of an overdose she caused herself. They pointed out that the medical examiner had at one stage classified the manner of death as undetermined.

5:30 Taylor did not take the stand. He invoked his right to remain silent, which is his right, and I'm not going to hold that against him, because you shouldn't either. The jury deliberated for about two hours on Wednesday, July first. They came back guilty, guilty of second degree murder in the death of Jade Benning, that's a step down from the first degree charge. And I'll be straight with you, I don't fully know why they went there, and neither the jury nor the judge has explained it. But then on the second victim, they did not flinch. Guilty of first degree premeditated murder in the death of the unborn child. Guilty on two counts of felony murder on top of that, four convictions, and a few hours later, that same jury recommended he spend the rest of his life in prison.

6:15 Taylor's formal sentencing is set for September ninth. His attorneys say he maintains his innocence and they intend to appeal. That's their job, and the appeal is real and I'll cover it when it comes. But as of last Wednesday, a jury of twelve people looked at the evidence and decided that Jade Benning and the daughter she named Ivy did not do this to themselves. Somebody did it to them. When we come back Anchorage, Alaska, a soldier trained to save lives, a bride found in a drain pipe, and the moment on the witness stand where his own words did the work. The prosecution couldn't stay with me.

7:04 Three weeks ago, on June fifteenth, I told you about a trial that was just getting underway in Anchorage, Alaska. I said at the time that a soldier's story was unraveling on the stand. It is now fully unraveled. There's a verdict. Let me bring you up to speed, and then let me tell you how it ended. Saria Barney say her name first. She was in the Alaska Army National Guard training to become a combat medic, which means her entire job. The thing she signed up to do was to keep other people alive under the worst conditions imaginable. She met Zarius Hildebrand in the military. They knew each other less than a year before they got married. She was dead less than eight months after the wedding. The night everything happened was August fifth, twenty twenty three. It was Hildebrand's twenty first birthday. He, Saria and some friends went out. At the end of the night. The two of them got in an uber and went home. That ride is the last time anyone but her husband saw Saria Barney alive.

8:03 The prosecution's case was this. Once they were home, Sarah found evidence that her husband had been sending photos to other women, and he shot her once in the temple, and then he went to work covering it up. And here I have to pause, because the cover up is where the premeditation lives. Investigators say that on August sixth, Hildebrand made a series of purchases a mattress cover, hydrogen peroxide, and a ninety six gallon trash bin. Then he took his wife's body, put it in that trash bin, and left her in a drain pipe near their apartment complex, under a pillow, where a police drone eventually found her. He used her phone to text her co workers, pretending to be her, and he waited thirty six hours to report her missing, then told police she'd simply walk to work and vanished. When detectives first came to the home, the bed was stripped down to a bear mattress pad. He told them they couldn't look underneath, said there were embarrassing eyes items under there.

9:01 They came back with a warrant, lifted the mattress and found it soaked through with blood, so much blood it had gone down into the carpet and into the wood. Frame of the bed. Now, the defense and I told you three weeks ago i'd handle this part with care, and I meant it. Hildebrand's defense was that he woke up the morning after his birthday and found that Saria had taken her own life, and that everything he did afterward, the trash bin, the drain pipe, the fake text messages, he did in a state of panic and fear. He took the stand himself and told the jury he had no memory of the night before, and that's the claim the jury had to weigh.

9:42 I'm not going to dramatize it. I'm going to tell you what happened. When the prosecutor got hold of it. The prosecutor asked him, plainly, you don't know that you didn't kill her, and Hildebrand said he wasn't sure he could answer that. The prosecutor pressed, do you know if you pulled the trigger, sir? And Hildebrand said, I do not. He admitted right there that he put his wife's body in a trash can and hid her in a drain pipe and cleaned the blood off the mattress. He called it a plan, his word, The plan was to hide the body. That's not a mistake, that's a choice. A whole sequence of them. On June twenty sixth, after less than ten hours of deliberation, the jury came back. They convicted him of second degree murder. They declined the first degree charge, along with multiple counts of tampering with physical evidence.

10:35 He stood there, and by every account in that room, he showed no emotion at all, same as he'd shown when his wife was missing, same as he'd shown the whole way through. His sentencing is scheduled for October twenty third, and under Alaska law, he faces anywhere from fifteen to ninety nine years. Saria Barney spent her short life learning how to save people. The man she married spent thirty six US hours pretending she was still alive so nobody would come looking. Nobody was paying attention to her for a day and a half. A jury finally did last story today, and it's the one that made a judge throw the rule book out, a knock at the door, a can of gasoline, and a sentence nobody in that courtroom saw coming right after this. This last one is new to the show, and I want to close on it because it's about what happens when a judge decides that the math in front of him is wrong. Lee Voegler thirty nine years old. For more than a decade, he's been a city councilman in Danville, Virginia. Got elected in his early twenties and basically built his adult life around the place. He's a dad of two. He coaches his kids' sports teams. He works at a local magazine, does a little of everything right stories about his own community.

12:02 The publisher there described him as someone who genuinely loves it. When a neighbor calls with a problem, he can help fix. That's the guy. On July thirtieth, twenty twenty five, a man forced his way into the magazine's locked office. His name is Shatzi buck Hayes. He's thirty years old, and he was not there about politics. He was there because he'd learned that his estranged wife had been having an affair with Vogler. He walked in dous Lee Vogeler in gasoline and set him on fire. Video played in court showed Vogeler running covered in gasoline, screaming for a coworker to call nine one one, with buck Hayes chasing him out of the building to light him Vogeler was airlifted to a burn unit in North Carolina. Here's the detail I can't get out of my head, and it's the detail that decided this whole case. Buck Hayes told police he bought gasoline and then he melted styrofoam into it.

12:58 Why because he believed it would make it burn longer. Think about the planning in that sentence. That is not a man who snapped. That is a man who did research. That's not a mistake. That is a choice made in advance with a goal. Buck Hayes pleaded guilty back in April to attempted murder and aggravated malicious wounding. And here's something you don't see every day. He pleaded guilty with no deal, no agreement, no cap nothing. He put his fate entirely in the hands of the judge. And on June twenty fifth, he found out what that meant. First, the courtroom heard from the people he'd hurt. Vogler stood up and said he was ambushed and violently attacked at his own workplace with no warning, that he has constant nightmares, that he wakes up feeling like he's back in the flames.

13:47 And then his mother spoke and she said something I'm gonna sit with for a while. She said, the calendar in her bedroom is still turned to July twenty twenty five, because that's the month her life changed and, in her words, ended in a way. She said she hasn't been able to turn the page past that date and she doesn't know if she ever will. Buck Hayes did apologize. Asked if he had a message for his victim, he said, you didn't deserve what has happened to you, and I couldn't be more sorry, and I'll let you decide what that's worth coming after the styrofoam Now, the judge. The sentencing guidelines in Virginia called for something in the range of five to twelve years. Judge James Reynolds looked at that range, and he looked at what he'd just heard, and he said, the facts of this case represent a pinnacle of human cruelty. And then he went outside the guidelines, way outside. He handed down a life sentence, suspending all but forty years of it. The defense attorney said he was blindsided, that it was a shock to everyone. Buck Hayes plans to appeal. He's a British national with no valid green card, so whenever he does get out, he'll likely be sent back to the United Kingdom. Outside the courthouse, somebody asked Lee Vogler how he He gave a one word answer, relief. He said, the justice system worked the way it's supposed to. And look, that's the whole point of the show.

15:09 Right there. A judge has handed a formula that says five to twelve years, and he decides a man who set another man on fire and engineered the fire to burn longer does not fit inside that formula. Accountability doesn't have a legal department. Sometimes it just has a judge who refuses to pretend the guidelines are the ceiling. Before we go, three verdicts one week. So let's do what we came to do. Say their names, not their killers. Jade Benning and her daughter Ivy, who never got a birthday. Sariya Barney, who trained to keep people alive. And Lee Vogler, who is still here, still standing, still coaching his kids teams, and who gets to turn the page even if his mother can't.

15:52 Yet. If today's show. Hits, you do me a favor, share it, Send this episode to one person who followed these cases. The way you do word of mouth is how this show reaches the people who need to hear a victim's name set out loud and if you're listening on Spotify, drop us a comment. Tell me what you think about that judge going outside the guidelines. I read them. I'm Garrett Fisher. This has been Daily Crime and Justice Do better. We'll talk tomorrow. Legal and editorial notes. The following reflects the status of each case as of the recording date Tuesday, July seventh, twenty twenty six. In the matter of. Blaize Taylor, on July first, twenty twenty six, a Nashville jury convicted mister Taylor of second degree murder in the death of Jade Benning, first degree premeditated murder in the death of her unborn daughter, and two counts of felony murder, and recommended a sentence of life in prison. Formal sentencing is scheduled for September ninth, twenty twenty six. Mister Taylor maintains his innocence and through council, has stated his intention to appeal. Statements attributed to trial witnesses reflect testimony as reported by Court TV and corroborating outlets and have not been independently verified by this program. In the matter of Zarius Hildebrand, on June twenty sixth, twenty twenty six, an Anchorage, Alaska jury convicted mister Hildebrand of second degree murder and multiple counts of tampering with physical evidence in the death of his wife, Sarria Barney.

17:24 The jury declined to convict on the first degree murder charge. Sentencing is scheduled for October twenty third, twenty twenty six, with a possible term of fifteen to ninety nine years under Alaska law. This segment references the defense's theory that miss Barney died by suicide, a theory the jury rejected. This is a sensitive subject. If you are someone you know is struggling, help is available around the clock in the US by calling or texting nine eight eight the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. In the matter of Shatzi buck Hayes, mister buck Hayes pleaded guilty in April two, twenty twenty six, without a plea agreement to attempted murder and aggravated malicious wounding in the July twenty twenty five attack on Lee Vogler.

18:08 On June twenty fifth, twenty twenty six, he was sentenced to life in prison, with all but forty years suspended. His council has indicated he plans to appeal. Details of the attack reflect evidence and testimony presented in court, but all defendants are afforded the presumption of innocence as to any charge not resolved by a plea or verdict. Where a conviction has been entered, This program notes that an appeal, if pursued, does not by itself overturn a jury's finding. This broadcast is for information and commentary only and is not legal advice.