July 17, 2026

GUILTY: Isaac Apodaca Convicted of First-Degree Murder in Grace Jennings's Sword Killing, Timothy Besaw Gets the Max .

GUILTY: Isaac Apodaca Convicted of First-Degree Murder in Grace Jennings's Sword Killing, Timothy Besaw Gets the Max .

A three-case roundup. In Santa Fe, New Mexico, a jury convicted Isaac Apodaca, 30, of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in the 2022 death of 21-year-old Grace Jennings, who was killed with a sword in a detached garage after asking to stay the night. Nobody disputed Apodaca swung nothing; his girlfriend Kiara McCulley pleaded guilty and testified that he manipulated her into it over months. Apodaca was remanded into custody; sentencing has not been scheduled, and first-degree murder carries a life sentence in New Mexico. In Saratoga County, New York, Timothy Besaw, 35, was sentenced to 12½ to 25 years — the maximum under his plea — for the death of 69-year-old Walmart employee Michael Bushey, who was struck by Besaw's car after telling him to leave the parking lot and died three weeks later of a blood clot following multiple surgeries. And in Payette, Idaho, Andrea Shaw, 23, charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of her 18-month-old twins, had her $2 million bond revoked entirely after requesting a reduction; Judge Kiley Stuchlik cited risk to Shaw's newborn. Shaw has not entered a plea and is presumed innocent; the cause of the twins' deaths remains disputed. This episode discusses the deaths of children. If you are struggling with grief or loss, please reach out to a counselor, your doctor, or someone you trust.

Join our new FB groups page here. Take the poll!

Join the Daily Crime & Justice community on social media! We're building a passionate group of true crime enthusiasts who love diving deep into the most shocking cases in America.
Follow us on Facebook and Instagram by searching "Daily Crime & Justice" on either platform.


You'll get exclusive behind-the-scenes content, breaking news updates on cases we're covering, and early alerts when new episodes drop. Our social media is where Garret Fisher's hottest takes live, including reactions that don't make it into the show.

But more importantly, it's where YOU come in. Share your theories, debate the verdicts, and connect with fellow listeners who are just as obsessed with justice as you are. Did the jury get it right? What questions do you still have? Your comments and insights often shape future episodes.


We cover the trials that matter, but our community makes the conversation unforgettable. Come for Garret's signature cynical commentary, stay for the incredible discussions with thousands of true crime fans who get it.

WEBVTT

1
00:00:03.200 --> 00:00:13.320
Kalaroga Shark Media. Good morning, you're listening to Daily Crime Injustice.

2
00:00:13.599 --> 00:00:16.879
I'm Garrett Fisher and it is Friday, July seventeenth, twenty

3
00:00:16.960 --> 00:00:19.760
twenty six. Before we get to today, I want to

4
00:00:19.760 --> 00:00:23.160
tell you about next week because we are doing something different.

5
00:00:23.839 --> 00:00:26.760
Starting Monday, we are running a five part series. It

6
00:00:26.839 --> 00:00:30.760
is called Summer of Fear, New York nineteen seventy seven.

7
00:00:31.079 --> 00:00:35.840
Monday through Friday, five days. One story. Now you already

8
00:00:35.880 --> 00:00:38.679
know the name that is the problem. It is one

9
00:00:38.719 --> 00:00:41.520
of the most famous names in the history of American crime.

10
00:00:41.719 --> 00:00:44.920
And the man who earned it was a nobody. He

11
00:00:45.039 --> 00:00:47.759
was a postal worker. He lived in an apartment in

12
00:00:47.840 --> 00:00:51.560
Yonkers with the shades pulled down. He was not a mastermind,

13
00:00:51.600 --> 00:00:53.799
and he was not possessed, and there was no dog

14
00:00:53.840 --> 00:00:56.840
telling him to do anything. We know that because he

15
00:00:56.920 --> 00:01:00.479
admitted years later that he made the entire thing up.

16
00:01:00.679 --> 00:01:04.040
He wanted to be a story. It worked, It has

17
00:01:04.079 --> 00:01:06.599
been working for fifty years. So we are going to

18
00:01:06.640 --> 00:01:09.680
spend five days taking it back. What we are actually

19
00:01:09.719 --> 00:01:12.519
going to tell you about is the city New York

20
00:01:12.560 --> 00:01:16.920
in nineteen seventy five, seventy six, seventy seven, a city

21
00:01:16.959 --> 00:01:20.359
that was flat broke, and came within a day of default,

22
00:01:20.560 --> 00:01:23.319
where whole blocks of the Bronx were burning and nobody

23
00:01:23.359 --> 00:01:25.719
was coming to put them out, where the cops were

24
00:01:25.760 --> 00:01:28.959
stretched to nothing, and the tabloids were in a circulation

25
00:01:29.120 --> 00:01:32.280
war over the story and started printing letters from him

26
00:01:32.319 --> 00:01:35.920
on the front page. And then in July of seventy seven,

27
00:01:36.120 --> 00:01:38.040
the lights went out on all of it at once.

28
00:01:38.599 --> 00:01:41.799
That is the summer, That is what the fear was

29
00:01:41.799 --> 00:01:44.920
actually made of. He was one part of it, and

30
00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:48.560
he was not the biggest part. And we are going

31
00:01:48.599 --> 00:01:52.079
to tell you about the people he shot, because they

32
00:01:52.079 --> 00:01:54.920
were sitting in parked cars, and they were walking home

33
00:01:54.959 --> 00:01:58.000
from the train, and they were young, the youngest of

34
00:01:58.040 --> 00:02:02.319
them eighteen years old. Of them died. They have names.

35
00:02:02.560 --> 00:02:05.040
We are going to use them, and by Friday you

36
00:02:05.159 --> 00:02:09.120
are going to know them. Here is why now. July

37
00:02:09.240 --> 00:02:13.080
twenty ninth, nineteen seventy six, a little after one in

38
00:02:13.080 --> 00:02:16.199
the morning, on Beer Avenue in the Bronx, two young

39
00:02:16.199 --> 00:02:19.120
women sat in a parked car, talking the way you

40
00:02:19.159 --> 00:02:21.879
do when the night is not quite over yet. Donna

41
00:02:21.919 --> 00:02:24.439
Laio was eighteen. She was going to go inside in

42
00:02:24.479 --> 00:02:27.240
a minute. She had her hand on the door. That

43
00:02:27.479 --> 00:02:30.639
is where this starts. And Wednesday, July twenty ninth of

44
00:02:30.680 --> 00:02:34.560
this year is fifty years to the day. Summer of Fear,

45
00:02:34.879 --> 00:02:38.919
New York, nineteen seventy seven, five parts, starting Monday. Right here,

46
00:02:42.840 --> 00:02:45.800
before we get going a word about today, we are

47
00:02:45.840 --> 00:02:48.319
going to talk about the killing of a young woman,

48
00:02:48.520 --> 00:02:50.680
and we are going to talk about the deaths of

49
00:02:50.800 --> 00:02:54.120
two eighteen month old children. I am not going to

50
00:02:54.159 --> 00:02:56.479
be graphic about any of it, but I want you

51
00:02:56.520 --> 00:02:58.719
to know what is coming, and if that is not

52
00:02:58.800 --> 00:03:02.199
where you are today, skip this one and come back tomorrow.

53
00:03:02.800 --> 00:03:05.159
If any of it lands close to home, I will

54
00:03:05.199 --> 00:03:08.120
have something for you at the end of the show. Look,

55
00:03:08.159 --> 00:03:10.280
I'm going to be honest with you. On Monday, I

56
00:03:10.280 --> 00:03:12.280
stood here and told you about a trial in Santa

57
00:03:12.319 --> 00:03:15.240
Fe that was asking a question I did not know

58
00:03:15.319 --> 00:03:18.280
how a jury would answer. If you never pick up

59
00:03:18.319 --> 00:03:20.240
the weapon, if you are not even in the room

60
00:03:20.240 --> 00:03:23.560
when it happens, can you still be the murderer? Twelve

61
00:03:23.599 --> 00:03:26.400
people in New Mexico answered that question this week, and

62
00:03:26.439 --> 00:03:29.360
they did not take long about it. Then we are

63
00:03:29.400 --> 00:03:33.280
going upstate to a Walmart parking lot outside Saratoga Springs,

64
00:03:33.639 --> 00:03:35.759
where a sixty nine year old man walked out to

65
00:03:35.800 --> 00:03:38.439
tell somebody he had to leave the property and never

66
00:03:38.560 --> 00:03:42.520
walked back in. His killer was sentenced this week, and

67
00:03:42.639 --> 00:03:45.280
I want to talk about what the word accident is

68
00:03:45.360 --> 00:03:49.159
doing in that story, because the answer is nothing. And

69
00:03:49.199 --> 00:03:52.639
then Idaho, where a mother charge was smothering her twins

70
00:03:52.840 --> 00:03:54.960
asked a judge to let her go home to the

71
00:03:55.000 --> 00:03:57.680
baby she gave birth to five days before her arrest.

72
00:03:58.520 --> 00:04:01.080
That hearing did not go the way her lawyer's planned.

73
00:04:01.680 --> 00:04:05.039
And around that hearing, there is an entire industry that

74
00:04:05.080 --> 00:04:08.400
has already decided what killed those children without waiting for

75
00:04:08.439 --> 00:04:12.039
anybody to prove it. Here is where things stand. In

76
00:04:12.120 --> 00:04:15.280
Santa Fe, New Mexico, a jury has found Isaac Appadaca

77
00:04:15.439 --> 00:04:18.759
guilty of first degree murder and conspiracy to commit first

78
00:04:18.759 --> 00:04:21.680
degree murder in the twenty twenty two death of twenty

79
00:04:21.680 --> 00:04:25.199
one year old Grace Jennings. He was remanded into custody.

80
00:04:25.839 --> 00:04:30.040
Sentencing has not been scheduled yet. In Saratoga County, New York,

81
00:04:30.319 --> 00:04:32.920
thirty five year old Timothy Bissau was sentenced to twelve

82
00:04:32.959 --> 00:04:35.240
and a half to twenty five years in state prison

83
00:04:35.360 --> 00:04:37.959
for the death of sixty nine year old Walmart employee

84
00:04:38.079 --> 00:04:41.800
Michael Bushy, which is the maximum available under his plea.

85
00:04:42.680 --> 00:04:45.720
And in Payet, Idaho, twenty three year old Andrea Shaw,

86
00:04:45.959 --> 00:04:48.360
charged with two counts of first degree murder in the

87
00:04:48.439 --> 00:04:51.360
deaths of her eighteen month old twins, had her two

88
00:04:51.480 --> 00:04:54.600
million dollar bond revoked entirely after asking for it to

89
00:04:54.600 --> 00:04:57.720
be reduced. She has not entered a plea and she

90
00:04:57.879 --> 00:05:03.680
is presumed innocent. A verdict for Grace Jennings. Grace Jennings

91
00:05:03.800 --> 00:05:06.519
was twenty one years old on the night of October

92
00:05:06.560 --> 00:05:09.839
twenty eighth, twenty twenty two. She was going through a

93
00:05:09.839 --> 00:05:12.839
breakup and she needed somewhere to sleep, so she took

94
00:05:12.879 --> 00:05:15.480
an invitation from people she had known for years, and

95
00:05:15.560 --> 00:05:18.000
she brought her cats and she went to a detached

96
00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:21.240
garage on the south side of Santa Fe. She never

97
00:05:21.319 --> 00:05:23.920
came out of it. If you were with us Monday,

98
00:05:24.120 --> 00:05:26.959
you know this case. You know the geometry of it.

99
00:05:27.639 --> 00:05:30.800
Kiara McCully swung the sword. She has never disputed that

100
00:05:31.399 --> 00:05:34.519
she pleaded guilty back in February of twenty twenty five

101
00:05:34.720 --> 00:05:38.920
second degree murder and conspiracy thirty years on the condition

102
00:05:39.079 --> 00:05:41.600
that she get on the stand and tell the truth

103
00:05:41.639 --> 00:05:44.720
about the man she says put the weapon in her hands,

104
00:05:45.199 --> 00:05:49.120
and that man, Isaac Appadeka, spent this trial sitting there

105
00:05:49.160 --> 00:05:51.879
while the state made an argument that has failed in

106
00:05:51.959 --> 00:05:55.439
a lot of courtrooms before this one. The state said

107
00:05:55.519 --> 00:06:01.639
he was the architect, not the killer. The architect, prosecutors

108
00:06:01.639 --> 00:06:03.480
told the jury he did not need to be in

109
00:06:03.519 --> 00:06:06.600
that room because he had spent months building. The person

110
00:06:06.600 --> 00:06:09.759
who would be here is what they say he built.

111
00:06:10.439 --> 00:06:13.000
They say he convinced Kiera McCully that he ran a

112
00:06:13.120 --> 00:06:17.600
secret vigilante organization called Ghosts that existed to kill sex traffickers.

113
00:06:18.199 --> 00:06:20.439
They say he convinced her she had a kill list

114
00:06:20.560 --> 00:06:22.560
and that Grace was on it, and that if she

115
00:06:22.720 --> 00:06:26.279
did this, she would rank up. They say he convinced

116
00:06:26.279 --> 00:06:29.560
her she had dissociative identity disorder, and then he helped

117
00:06:29.560 --> 00:06:33.800
her name the personalities and then he played along with them.

118
00:06:33.920 --> 00:06:37.439
Her own mother testified that Kiara was easily persuaded into

119
00:06:37.480 --> 00:06:40.800
things she otherwise would not do, and the state put

120
00:06:40.800 --> 00:06:43.680
a forensic psychiatrist on the stand to walk the jury

121
00:06:43.720 --> 00:06:46.720
through exactly what that kind of construction looks like from

122
00:06:46.759 --> 00:06:50.839
the inside. And then there were the texts hundreds of them,

123
00:06:51.240 --> 00:06:54.920
hours of them sent the night before Grace died. I'm

124
00:06:54.959 --> 00:06:58.319
just saying swing and don't regret the aim. I'm not

125
00:06:58.399 --> 00:07:01.480
playing games. I'm wanting to see you do this. I'm

126
00:07:01.519 --> 00:07:04.360
wanting you to kill her. That is not a mistake.

127
00:07:04.920 --> 00:07:08.240
That is a choice typed out over and over with

128
00:07:08.360 --> 00:07:11.639
a person's name attached to it. The defense said the

129
00:07:11.639 --> 00:07:15.000
state had the wrong person. Attorney j Nyer told the

130
00:07:15.079 --> 00:07:17.800
jury that Kiara McCully was the one filled with rage,

131
00:07:18.079 --> 00:07:20.439
that she was the one who bought the sword, that

132
00:07:20.480 --> 00:07:22.439
she was the one who used it, and that his

133
00:07:22.560 --> 00:07:26.120
client was the gullible one, the manipulated one, the one

134
00:07:26.160 --> 00:07:28.519
who called his mother and called nine one one and

135
00:07:28.560 --> 00:07:30.920
then went and sat at a cell phone store waiting

136
00:07:30.920 --> 00:07:34.319
for police, which he argued is not the behavior of

137
00:07:34.360 --> 00:07:36.600
a killer. And he was right that there was no

138
00:07:36.759 --> 00:07:40.839
DNA putting Isaac Apadaca's hands on that weapon. There never was,

139
00:07:41.319 --> 00:07:45.199
The state never claimed there was. On Wednesday, the jury

140
00:07:45.240 --> 00:07:49.519
came back guilty first degree murder conspiracy to commit first

141
00:07:49.519 --> 00:07:52.959
degree murder. He was remanded into custody on the spot.

142
00:07:53.720 --> 00:07:57.319
Sentencing gets scheduled later and in New Mexico, first degree

143
00:07:57.399 --> 00:08:00.879
murder carries a life sentence. I want to sit with

144
00:08:00.959 --> 00:08:03.120
something for a second because it is the part of

145
00:08:03.160 --> 00:08:06.600
this case that has not gotten enough air. The lie

146
00:08:06.639 --> 00:08:10.279
that got Grace Jennings killed was a lie about Grace Jennings.

147
00:08:10.839 --> 00:08:15.000
Prosecutors say Appadaca told Kiar that Grace had orchestrated her rape,

148
00:08:15.160 --> 00:08:17.920
had taken money for it, had recorded it, and let

149
00:08:17.959 --> 00:08:21.360
the video circulate. That is what put Grace on the list.

150
00:08:21.839 --> 00:08:24.839
That is the entire engine of this thing, and there

151
00:08:24.920 --> 00:08:28.560
is no evidence any of it was true. Police looked,

152
00:08:28.839 --> 00:08:31.759
they confirmed that a sexual assault had been reported, but

153
00:08:31.920 --> 00:08:35.039
not with the details attached to it. Grace's mother has

154
00:08:35.039 --> 00:08:37.960
disputed the whole framing of her daughter's life in this case,

155
00:08:38.279 --> 00:08:40.960
right down to whether she ever dated Apodaca at all.

156
00:08:41.639 --> 00:08:45.200
So a young woman was murdered over a story somebody

157
00:08:45.240 --> 00:08:48.639
made up about her, and for almost four years, that

158
00:08:48.679 --> 00:08:51.399
made up story has been sitting in the public record

159
00:08:51.480 --> 00:08:55.240
next to her name, getting repeated. Because that is what happens.

160
00:08:55.679 --> 00:09:00.399
The accusation travels and the correction does not. No nobody

161
00:09:00.440 --> 00:09:03.120
was paying attention to her. They were paying attention to

162
00:09:03.159 --> 00:09:07.360
the sword and the secret society and the whole lurid architecture.

163
00:09:07.360 --> 00:09:10.240
Of it, and Grace Jennings became a set piece in

164
00:09:10.320 --> 00:09:14.320
a story about somebody else's fantasy world. She was a

165
00:09:14.360 --> 00:09:16.519
twenty one year old who needed a place to stay

166
00:09:16.519 --> 00:09:19.120
for the night. That is who she was when she died.

167
00:09:19.759 --> 00:09:24.240
That is the whole thing. The jury saw it. Sixteen witnesses,

168
00:09:24.559 --> 00:09:28.000
more than ninety exhibits, and twelve people who understood that

169
00:09:28.039 --> 00:09:30.799
a man who never touches a weapon can still be

170
00:09:30.840 --> 00:09:34.279
the reason it comes down. That is not a legal

171
00:09:34.360 --> 00:09:37.799
loophole closing. That is the law working the way it

172
00:09:37.879 --> 00:09:40.639
was always supposed to work, and it is worth saying

173
00:09:40.679 --> 00:09:54.519
out loud because it does not always. Michael Bushy was

174
00:09:54.559 --> 00:09:57.840
going home. Michael Bushy was sixty nine years old. He

175
00:09:57.879 --> 00:10:00.480
lived in Saratoga Springs, New York. He worked at the

176
00:10:00.480 --> 00:10:03.120
Walmart in Wilton, and on the night of October sixteenth,

177
00:10:03.159 --> 00:10:06.240
twenty twenty five, he was working the late ship because

178
00:10:06.399 --> 00:10:09.559
that is what he did. He was, by his daughter's account,

179
00:10:09.759 --> 00:10:13.919
healthy and active. He was somebody's father. People called him

180
00:10:14.039 --> 00:10:17.279
Michael Bushy Senior, which tells you there is a junior

181
00:10:17.320 --> 00:10:20.919
out there somewhere carrying that name around today. A little

182
00:10:20.960 --> 00:10:24.159
after eleven that night, a man named Timothy Bisaw tried

183
00:10:24.200 --> 00:10:28.159
to walk out of that store without paying. Employees stopped him.

184
00:10:28.360 --> 00:10:30.919
They found the merchandise he was carrying and they got

185
00:10:30.960 --> 00:10:33.600
it back, but he was also wearing clothes he had

186
00:10:33.639 --> 00:10:36.440
not paid for, and instead of leaving, he stayed out

187
00:10:36.440 --> 00:10:40.120
in that parking lot and argued with them. Three employees

188
00:10:40.159 --> 00:10:43.759
went out there. Michael Bushy, according to his daughter Britney Sanders,

189
00:10:44.080 --> 00:10:46.559
told the man he had to leave the property. That

190
00:10:46.759 --> 00:10:48.960
is it. That is the sum total of what Michael

191
00:10:48.960 --> 00:10:51.480
Bushy did to Timothy Bisaw. He told a man to

192
00:10:51.559 --> 00:10:54.919
leave a parking lot. Bisaw got into a car and

193
00:10:54.960 --> 00:10:57.960
then he accelerated, and he swerved, and he drove into

194
00:10:58.000 --> 00:11:01.200
two men standing near the entrance of a wall. Then

195
00:11:01.480 --> 00:11:04.360
he left. He crashed the car in a secluded part

196
00:11:04.360 --> 00:11:07.159
of Wilton, and when state police found him, he was

197
00:11:07.279 --> 00:11:10.879
visibly impaired, with open containers of alcohol in the vehicle

198
00:11:11.039 --> 00:11:14.559
and controlled substances in there with them. He refused a

199
00:11:14.600 --> 00:11:18.840
breath test, he refused a blood test. The other employee

200
00:11:18.879 --> 00:11:22.840
he hit survived with serious injuries. Michael Bushy was airlifted

201
00:11:22.840 --> 00:11:26.919
to Albany Medical Center. Broken hip, broken pelvis, broken wrist,

202
00:11:27.159 --> 00:11:30.320
several broken ribs. He went through multiple surgeries to put

203
00:11:30.399 --> 00:11:33.240
himself back together, and he did the work and it worked.

204
00:11:33.600 --> 00:11:36.840
And on November third, twenty twenty five, he was days

205
00:11:36.879 --> 00:11:40.879
from being discharged. His daughter wrote about it afterward. He

206
00:11:41.000 --> 00:11:43.799
was about to go to rehabilitation and then home where

207
00:11:43.799 --> 00:11:48.320
he belonged, that is her phrase, where he belonged, And

208
00:11:48.360 --> 00:11:53.000
then he took a sudden turn cardiac arrest. Doctors worked

209
00:11:53.039 --> 00:11:55.799
on him for two hours. There was a massive blood

210
00:11:55.840 --> 00:11:59.200
clot in an artery, and Michael Bushy died in a

211
00:11:59.240 --> 00:12:02.000
hospital bed three weeks after a man ran him over

212
00:12:02.080 --> 00:12:04.799
for telling him to leave. Now, I know what some

213
00:12:04.879 --> 00:12:07.279
of you are already thinking, because I have heard it

214
00:12:07.320 --> 00:12:10.159
every time one of these cases comes up. He died

215
00:12:10.200 --> 00:12:13.120
of a blood clot. He died three weeks later. He

216
00:12:13.200 --> 00:12:16.399
died of a heart problem. That is not really murder,

217
00:12:16.440 --> 00:12:21.080
is it? Yes? It is. A sixty nine year old

218
00:12:21.120 --> 00:12:24.080
man does not develop a fatal clot in his artery

219
00:12:24.159 --> 00:12:27.639
out of nowhere. He develops it because his pelvis has

220
00:12:27.679 --> 00:12:30.320
been shattered and he has been lying in a hospital

221
00:12:30.360 --> 00:12:35.399
bed through surgery after surgery, immobilized for three weeks because

222
00:12:35.440 --> 00:12:38.679
somebody drove a car into him. There is a straight

223
00:12:38.720 --> 00:12:41.080
line from that parking lot to that artery, and the

224
00:12:41.159 --> 00:12:44.720
law can see it. And prosecutors added the homicide count

225
00:12:44.759 --> 00:12:48.000
for exactly that reason. His daughter put it plainer than

226
00:12:48.039 --> 00:12:50.679
I can. If it wasn't for the coward who decided

227
00:12:50.679 --> 00:12:53.240
to hit him with his vehicle, he would still be here.

228
00:12:53.919 --> 00:12:56.399
Basaw pleaded guilty back on the first of April to

229
00:12:56.519 --> 00:13:01.559
aggravated vehicular homicide and first degree vehicular assault. On Wednesday,

230
00:13:01.840 --> 00:13:05.320
Saratoga County District Attorney Brett Ebee got him sentenced to

231
00:13:05.399 --> 00:13:07.639
twelve and a half to twenty five years, with a

232
00:13:07.720 --> 00:13:09.879
second term of three and a half to seven running

233
00:13:09.879 --> 00:13:13.879
alongside it. That is the maximum available. He was sentenced

234
00:13:13.919 --> 00:13:17.159
as a second felony offender, which is its own sentence

235
00:13:17.200 --> 00:13:19.279
if you think about it. This was not his first

236
00:13:19.279 --> 00:13:21.759
time in front of a judge. The DA said the

237
00:13:21.799 --> 00:13:26.080
sentence reflects the devastating consequences of the defendant's actions and

238
00:13:26.200 --> 00:13:28.799
that no sentence can restore the life that was taken.

239
00:13:29.679 --> 00:13:31.720
Both of those things are true, and I want to

240
00:13:31.720 --> 00:13:35.519
add one more. There's a playbook for this. Somebody gets

241
00:13:35.519 --> 00:13:39.399
caught stealing and rather than accept the smallest possible consequence

242
00:13:39.440 --> 00:13:43.879
in the world, a shoplifting charge, a misdemeanor, a bad night.

243
00:13:44.320 --> 00:13:49.159
They escalate until somebody is dead. Michael Bushy was not

244
00:13:49.320 --> 00:13:53.440
killed over merchandise. The merchandise was recovered. It was in

245
00:13:53.519 --> 00:13:57.159
the store's hands before he ever hit the pavement. Michael

246
00:13:57.200 --> 00:13:59.960
Bushy was killed because a man decided that being told

247
00:14:00.120 --> 00:14:03.960
to leave was intolerable and that a human being standing

248
00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:06.399
between him and the exit was a thing he could

249
00:14:06.519 --> 00:14:11.080
drive through to twenty five years On the outside, Michael

250
00:14:11.120 --> 00:14:14.480
Bushy was sixty nine. He had years left. He was

251
00:14:14.519 --> 00:14:18.039
three days from rehab. Do the math on who actually

252
00:14:18.080 --> 00:14:21.960
got the maximum here. Accountability doesn't have a legal department,

253
00:14:22.159 --> 00:14:25.080
but it also does not have a resurrection clause. This

254
00:14:25.240 --> 00:14:27.480
is the best the system could do, and the best

255
00:14:27.519 --> 00:14:30.360
the system can do is not enough, and I am

256
00:14:30.399 --> 00:14:46.039
glad they did it anyway. Payette, Idaho. Two children and

257
00:14:46.080 --> 00:14:49.039
an argument about what killed them. This one is hard

258
00:14:49.080 --> 00:14:50.960
and I am going to be careful with it because

259
00:14:51.039 --> 00:14:53.240
there are two dead children at the center of it,

260
00:14:53.320 --> 00:14:57.200
and almost nothing about this case is settled in court records.

261
00:14:57.279 --> 00:15:02.840
They are ds and ts boy one girl, twins, eighteen

262
00:15:02.879 --> 00:15:06.320
months old. They spent time in the NICU when they

263
00:15:06.360 --> 00:15:09.559
were born and then they went home. On May fifth,

264
00:15:09.679 --> 00:15:12.440
twenty twenty five, they were found dead in their bed

265
00:15:12.600 --> 00:15:15.679
in the same room on the same night. I want

266
00:15:15.679 --> 00:15:18.360
to stop right there and say the thing I always say,

267
00:15:18.600 --> 00:15:21.679
except I cannot say it because I do not have

268
00:15:21.759 --> 00:15:25.399
their names. The court has them under initials. So we

269
00:15:25.480 --> 00:15:28.080
are talking about two people who lived eighteen months on

270
00:15:28.120 --> 00:15:30.279
this earth, and I cannot even tell you what they

271
00:15:30.279 --> 00:15:33.799
were called. Hold that thought because it matters to the

272
00:15:33.840 --> 00:15:36.720
rest of this. More than a year after they died,

273
00:15:36.879 --> 00:15:40.759
a grand jury indicted their mother, Andrea Shaw, twenty three,

274
00:15:40.919 --> 00:15:44.399
is charged with two counts of first degree murder. Prosecutors

275
00:15:44.399 --> 00:15:47.559
say she suffocated both children as they slept. She has

276
00:15:47.600 --> 00:15:50.559
not entered a plea. Her attorney told the court this

277
00:15:50.600 --> 00:15:53.399
week that the defense is waiting to see a transcript

278
00:15:53.440 --> 00:15:56.799
of the grand jury proceedings first, and I want to

279
00:15:56.840 --> 00:15:58.879
be as clear as I know how to be here.

280
00:15:59.519 --> 00:16:03.440
Andreash Shaw is charged, she is not convicted. She is

281
00:16:03.519 --> 00:16:07.279
presumed innocent, and everything that follows is an argument, not

282
00:16:07.360 --> 00:16:11.360
a finding. Her defense and her family's position is that

283
00:16:11.480 --> 00:16:14.360
no crime happened at all. Their position is that the

284
00:16:14.440 --> 00:16:17.840
vaccines killed the twins. Here is that timeline, as her

285
00:16:17.840 --> 00:16:21.840
family tells it. On April twenty third, twenty twenty five,

286
00:16:22.080 --> 00:16:25.159
Andrea Shaw took the twins to their eighteen month well visit.

287
00:16:25.840 --> 00:16:30.080
They got several vaccines that day, including hepatitis A DTaP

288
00:16:30.440 --> 00:16:33.480
and a flu shot. Her mother in law, Wendy Shaw,

289
00:16:33.600 --> 00:16:36.399
filed an affidavit saying she was at that appointment and

290
00:16:36.519 --> 00:16:39.679
raised concerns about the flu shot because she and her son,

291
00:16:39.879 --> 00:16:43.039
the twins father, had both reacted badly to it before.

292
00:16:43.879 --> 00:16:47.360
The affidavit says that in the days after, Andrea repeatedly

293
00:16:47.399 --> 00:16:50.279
sought medical care for the children, that they were lethargic

294
00:16:50.399 --> 00:16:54.720
and had diarrhea and were generally unwell. Twelve days later,

295
00:16:54.759 --> 00:16:59.080
they were dead. Wendy Shaw's affidavit calls Andrea a victim

296
00:16:59.159 --> 00:17:02.720
alongside her chill. She wrote that the family trusted the

297
00:17:02.759 --> 00:17:06.240
advice of medical professionals and the general consensus that vaccines

298
00:17:06.279 --> 00:17:09.279
are safe, and that since the twins died, it is

299
00:17:09.319 --> 00:17:11.279
her belief that police have been trying to find a

300
00:17:11.319 --> 00:17:15.480
crime in what was a tragic loss from something entirely

301
00:17:15.519 --> 00:17:19.680
outside their control. Defense attorney Joseph Philichetti said the same

302
00:17:19.720 --> 00:17:22.359
thing in court, and more bluntly, he called it a

303
00:17:22.400 --> 00:17:24.640
case in search of a crime. He said, he is

304
00:17:24.680 --> 00:17:27.119
not a doctor, but the doctors he has consulted call

305
00:17:27.160 --> 00:17:30.440
it a vaccine related death. He said the coroner has

306
00:17:30.480 --> 00:17:32.559
a different opinion as to cause of death than the

307
00:17:32.559 --> 00:17:35.720
prosecutor's office does, and he was careful to say that

308
00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:38.519
is what he has gleaned, not what he has confirmed.

309
00:17:39.119 --> 00:17:41.200
And he asked a question I am not going to

310
00:17:41.200 --> 00:17:44.440
pretend is a stupid one. If a mother was intending

311
00:17:44.480 --> 00:17:47.000
to kill her children, why would she keep taking them

312
00:17:47.000 --> 00:17:51.200
to the doctor? The States answer from prosecutor Michael Duke

313
00:17:51.559 --> 00:17:56.519
was four words, this is not a vaccine case. Duke

314
00:17:56.599 --> 00:17:59.319
told the judge that three medical doctors have gone through

315
00:17:59.359 --> 00:18:02.000
the file and every one of them ruled vaccines out

316
00:18:02.039 --> 00:18:05.480
as a contributor. And he said suffocation is the only

317
00:18:05.559 --> 00:18:08.559
reasonable explanation for why both of them would die at

318
00:18:08.599 --> 00:18:11.480
the same time, on the same night, in the same room,

319
00:18:11.599 --> 00:18:14.839
in the same bed. So that is the fight, and

320
00:18:14.880 --> 00:18:17.880
it is a real fight with a real evidentiary dispute

321
00:18:17.920 --> 00:18:20.400
at the middle of it. And I am not going

322
00:18:20.440 --> 00:18:22.720
to stand here and tell you I know how it

323
00:18:22.759 --> 00:18:25.559
comes out. A jury is going to have to sort

324
00:18:25.599 --> 00:18:28.519
out what those doctors actually say when they are under

325
00:18:28.559 --> 00:18:32.160
oath and subject to cross examination. And if the coroner

326
00:18:32.200 --> 00:18:36.000
really does disagree with the prosecutor's office about cause of death,

327
00:18:36.559 --> 00:18:39.480
that is not a small thing. That is the kind

328
00:18:39.519 --> 00:18:42.079
of thing cases come apart on. I want you to

329
00:18:42.079 --> 00:18:44.519
hear me say that. But here's what I keep circling

330
00:18:44.599 --> 00:18:48.279
back to. In the days after her children died, before

331
00:18:48.400 --> 00:18:52.240
any charge, before any indictment, Andrea Shaw went on a

332
00:18:52.279 --> 00:18:56.200
podcast run by an anti vaccine activist organization to tell

333
00:18:56.240 --> 00:18:59.559
the story, and in the time since, there has been

334
00:18:59.599 --> 00:19:03.519
a fun fundraiser online asking the public for money, partly

335
00:19:03.559 --> 00:19:06.759
to pay for an independent autopsy. I'm not going to

336
00:19:06.799 --> 00:19:09.359
say a word against a grieving mother wanting an answer.

337
00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:12.240
If my children died in their sleep on the same night,

338
00:19:12.400 --> 00:19:15.640
I would want every test on earth run twice. That

339
00:19:15.839 --> 00:19:20.079
is human, That is not suspicious. That is what love

340
00:19:20.160 --> 00:19:22.640
does when it has nowhere to go. What I have

341
00:19:22.680 --> 00:19:25.519
a problem with is the machinery that was waiting for her,

342
00:19:26.039 --> 00:19:29.079
Because there is an industry out there that needs stories

343
00:19:29.319 --> 00:19:33.480
exactly like this one. It needs dead children with a

344
00:19:33.640 --> 00:19:36.720
needle in the timeline, and it does not need those

345
00:19:36.799 --> 00:19:41.279
children to have names or personalities or a favorite blanket

346
00:19:41.559 --> 00:19:45.160
or a laugh. It needs them to be evidence. Two

347
00:19:45.240 --> 00:19:48.599
toddlers died, and within days there was a media apparatus

348
00:19:48.640 --> 00:19:50.920
ready to put a devastated twenty three year old on

349
00:19:51.039 --> 00:19:54.680
camera and build a fundraising campaign around the worst thing

350
00:19:54.759 --> 00:19:57.400
that ever happened to her. And if her defense is

351
00:19:57.519 --> 00:20:01.039
right and she is completely innocent, then and that apparatus

352
00:20:01.119 --> 00:20:04.240
used her too. It did not protect her. It got

353
00:20:04.279 --> 00:20:07.839
her on the record fast, telling a story before anybody

354
00:20:07.920 --> 00:20:10.799
knew what the story was. And that recording is now

355
00:20:10.799 --> 00:20:15.279
sitting in a prosecutor's file. That is not advocacy, that

356
00:20:15.519 --> 00:20:19.599
is harvesting. As for the hearing itself, Andrea Shaw's team

357
00:20:19.720 --> 00:20:22.880
was not asking for much. Philichetti asked for the two

358
00:20:22.880 --> 00:20:25.400
million dollar bond to come down to one hundred thousand

359
00:20:25.519 --> 00:20:28.359
with restrictions, and he told the judge he thought he

360
00:20:28.400 --> 00:20:30.920
could have asked for release on her own recognizance and

361
00:20:30.960 --> 00:20:33.240
had a case for it, but he was not going

362
00:20:33.279 --> 00:20:36.799
to the reason for the ask was straightforward and it

363
00:20:36.880 --> 00:20:40.920
was sympathetic. She gave birth by caesarean section on June

364
00:20:40.920 --> 00:20:44.240
twenty fifth, three weeks early. The baby spent a night

365
00:20:44.279 --> 00:20:47.519
in the NICU. She was breastfeeding when they arrested her

366
00:20:47.559 --> 00:20:51.160
five days later. Her lawyers argued the newborn needs her

367
00:20:51.279 --> 00:20:53.680
and that jail after a C section carries its own

368
00:20:53.759 --> 00:20:57.720
risk of infection or hemorrhage. Prosecutors said that when they

369
00:20:57.759 --> 00:21:00.559
filed the arrest warrant, they had no idea there was

370
00:21:00.599 --> 00:21:03.519
a newborn at all. And then they said the part

371
00:21:03.519 --> 00:21:06.720
that decided this hearing, that baby is not a reason

372
00:21:06.759 --> 00:21:10.000
to reduce her bond. That baby is a reason to

373
00:21:10.079 --> 00:21:14.319
revoke it. Judge Kylie Stutchlick agreed. She said she had concerns,

374
00:21:14.440 --> 00:21:17.519
and she named the newborn specifically, and she found that

375
00:21:17.599 --> 00:21:20.160
Andrea Shaw poses a risk to the safety of that

376
00:21:20.279 --> 00:21:24.240
other child. Bond revoked entirely, and the judge noted that

377
00:21:24.279 --> 00:21:26.680
there was no presumption of bond available here in the

378
00:21:26.720 --> 00:21:30.000
first place, because Shaw is charged with a capital crime.

379
00:21:30.720 --> 00:21:33.240
Prosecutors have not said yet whether they will seek the

380
00:21:33.240 --> 00:21:36.279
death penalty. Think about the shape of that for a second.

381
00:21:36.799 --> 00:21:39.920
She walked into that courtroom asking for less and walked

382
00:21:39.920 --> 00:21:43.039
out with nothing. She went in asking to hold her baby,

383
00:21:43.079 --> 00:21:45.480
And the fact of the baby is what closed the door.

384
00:21:46.200 --> 00:21:49.279
And underneath all of it still are two eighteen month

385
00:21:49.279 --> 00:21:51.759
olds who died in the same bed on the same night,

386
00:21:52.200 --> 00:21:54.880
and whose names I am not allowed to say to you.

387
00:21:55.680 --> 00:21:58.440
Somebody is going to have to answer for how that happened,

388
00:21:58.680 --> 00:22:02.640
and right now nobody has, not the state, not the defense,

389
00:22:02.920 --> 00:22:10.240
not the podcast that got there first. That is Daily

390
00:22:10.400 --> 00:22:14.400
Crime and Justice for Friday, July seventeenth, twenty twenty six.

391
00:22:15.319 --> 00:22:18.799
Isaac Appadaca convicted in Santa fe a first degree murder

392
00:22:18.799 --> 00:22:22.400
and conspiracy to commit first degree murder. He never touched

393
00:22:22.400 --> 00:22:24.680
the sword he built the hand that held it, and

394
00:22:24.720 --> 00:22:28.319
a jury said that is the same thing. Sentencing is

395
00:22:28.359 --> 00:22:31.720
coming and he is in custody until it does. Timothy

396
00:22:31.759 --> 00:22:35.000
Bissaw sentenced in Saratoga County to twelve and a half

397
00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:39.640
to twenty five years the maximum for driving a car

398
00:22:39.680 --> 00:22:41.920
into a man who asked him to leave a parking lot.

399
00:22:42.319 --> 00:22:46.519
And Andrea Shaw held without bond in Payette, Idaho, charged

400
00:22:46.599 --> 00:22:50.200
with two counts of first degree murder, presumed innocent, awaiting

401
00:22:50.200 --> 00:22:53.279
a plea and a fight over what actually killed her children.

402
00:22:54.160 --> 00:22:56.880
Grace Jennings was twenty one. She needed a couch for

403
00:22:56.920 --> 00:22:59.319
one night, and she brought her cats, and she trusted

404
00:22:59.319 --> 00:23:02.200
the people she wanted. She was killed over a story.

405
00:23:02.240 --> 00:23:05.480
Somebody invented about her, and four years later a jury

406
00:23:05.519 --> 00:23:08.880
finally called that story what it was. Michael Bushy was

407
00:23:08.920 --> 00:23:11.200
sixty nine years old and he was three days from

408
00:23:11.200 --> 00:23:15.599
going home, not to rehab home where he belonged. And

409
00:23:15.720 --> 00:23:18.799
two children in Idaho were eighteen months old, and one

410
00:23:18.880 --> 00:23:21.119
was a boy and one was a girl, and they

411
00:23:21.240 --> 00:23:23.440
died on the same night in the same bed, and

412
00:23:23.680 --> 00:23:27.519
I still cannot tell you their names. If today's episode

413
00:23:27.599 --> 00:23:29.839
hit close to home, if you have lost a child,

414
00:23:30.160 --> 00:23:32.200
or you are sitting with a grief that does not

415
00:23:32.319 --> 00:23:35.599
have anywhere to go, please talk to someone about it,

416
00:23:35.960 --> 00:23:40.440
not a comment section, a person you're doctor, a counselor

417
00:23:40.599 --> 00:23:43.240
a friend who will pick up. It is out there

418
00:23:43.279 --> 00:23:45.640
and you are allowed to ask for it. If this

419
00:23:45.680 --> 00:23:48.680
one meant something to you, share it, text it to

420
00:23:48.720 --> 00:23:51.599
one person who would want to hear it. That is

421
00:23:51.720 --> 00:23:55.880
genuinely how this show grows. One person telling one person.

422
00:23:56.480 --> 00:23:59.519
And if you're listening on Spotify, drop a comment and

423
00:23:59.559 --> 00:24:03.519
tell me this. Isaac Appadaca never picked up that sword.

424
00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:07.880
Kiara McCully did, and she is serving thirty years. He

425
00:24:08.000 --> 00:24:11.240
is looking at life. Did the jury get the proportion right?

426
00:24:11.480 --> 00:24:14.480
I want to hear it. Do better. I'm Garrett Fisher.

427
00:24:14.640 --> 00:24:19.759
This is Daily Crime and Justice. Disclaimer. Daily Crime and

428
00:24:19.960 --> 00:24:23.559
Justice is produced by Calaroga Shark Media for informational and

429
00:24:23.720 --> 00:24:27.880
entertainment purposes and is not legal advice. Andrea Shaw is

430
00:24:28.000 --> 00:24:30.839
charged and has not entered a plea. She is presumed

431
00:24:30.880 --> 00:24:36.200
innocent unless and until proven guilty. Kiara mccully's account of

432
00:24:36.240 --> 00:24:39.920
Isaac Appadaca's conduct was given under a plea agreement requiring

433
00:24:39.960 --> 00:24:44.240
her testimony and should be weighed accordingly. Claims that Grace

434
00:24:44.319 --> 00:24:48.799
Jennings orchestrated or profited from an assault are unproven, allegations

435
00:24:48.799 --> 00:24:52.519
described by prosecutors as the false premise used to justify

436
00:24:52.559 --> 00:24:55.880
her killing. Police confirmed an assault was reported, but not

437
00:24:56.039 --> 00:24:59.799
with the details alleged, and Jennings's family has disputed accounts

438
00:24:59.799 --> 00:25:04.799
of her relationship with the defendant. Reported ages differ across outlets.

439
00:25:05.359 --> 00:25:08.160
Isaac Appadaka has been reported as both twenty nine and

440
00:25:08.279 --> 00:25:12.119
thirty and Kiara McCully as both twenty three and twenty four.

441
00:25:13.559 --> 00:25:17.319
The First Judicial District Attorney's news release describes the Appadaca

442
00:25:17.359 --> 00:25:20.279
trial as both six days and seven days in the

443
00:25:20.319 --> 00:25:23.880
same statement, so we have not stated a length in

444
00:25:23.960 --> 00:25:27.519
the Basaw case. One national outlet reported that three victims

445
00:25:27.559 --> 00:25:31.200
were struck and that sentencing came six months after the crime.

446
00:25:32.200 --> 00:25:35.559
Local reporting and the district attorney's office indicate two people

447
00:25:35.640 --> 00:25:38.519
were struck of three employees who confronted him, and the

448
00:25:38.640 --> 00:25:42.200
incident was in October twenty twenty five, roughly nine months

449
00:25:42.200 --> 00:25:47.079
before sentencing. That outlet also list besawes age as thirty five,

450
00:25:47.160 --> 00:25:49.559
while court reporting at the time of his plea listed

451
00:25:49.599 --> 00:25:53.720
thirty four. Defense council statement that the coroner's opinion on

452
00:25:53.799 --> 00:25:57.319
cause of death differs from the prosecutor's office was described

453
00:25:57.319 --> 00:26:00.799
by council as his own understanding and has not been

454
00:26:00.839 --> 00:26:05.240
independently confirmed. The children in the Idaho case are identified

455
00:26:05.240 --> 00:26:09.480
in court records only by initials. Garrett's commentary on anti

456
00:26:09.599 --> 00:26:14.680
vaccine advocacy organizations is opinion and is directed at those organizations,

457
00:26:14.960 --> 00:26:17.880
not at the defendant, whose defense has not yet been

458
00:26:17.920 --> 00:26:21.480
tested at trial. Nothing in this episode should be taken

459
00:26:21.519 --> 00:26:26.400
as medical guidance. Vaccine questions belong with your doctor. Research

460
00:26:26.440 --> 00:26:29.000
for this episode was assisted by AI tools