Aug. 5, 2025

"MANHUNTS & MONSTERS: Montana Massacre, Tennessee Terror & The Dismemberment Defense"

Show Notes
Transcript

Reid Carter tracks three horrific manhunts across America. In Montana, decorated Army veteran Michael Paul Brown is on the run after allegedly executing four people at his local bar, including a retired cancer nurse just starting retirement. In Tennessee, the search intensifies for Austin Drummond, who allegedly murdered an entire family but left baby Weslynne alive on a stranger's lawn – plus two arrests of his accomplices. And in Georgia, former Navy lawyer Nicholas Kassotis stands trial for allegedly dismembering his wife Mindi into four pieces while owing $1.5 million to his ex. Three monsters, nine victims, zero mercy.

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WEBVTT

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Callaroga Shark Media. Good morning, I'm Read Carter, and welcome

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to Celebrity Trials. Before we dive into today's fresh hell

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of violence and depravity, a quick update on the Menendez brothers.

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Eric Menendez is back in prison after his hospital stay

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last month. Turns out it was kidney stones multiple surgeries

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to remove them. He's back at Richard J. Donovan Correctional

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Facility and his parole hearing is still set for August

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twenty First, that's just over two weeks away, folks, after

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thirty five years behind bars, freedom is that close. But

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enough about the Menendez saga. We spent the weekend on that.

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Today we've got manhunts across multiple states and killers who

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make the Menendez brothers look like choir boys. The Montana massacre.

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Let's start in Montana, where a decorated Army veteran allegedly

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walked into his local bar and executed four innocent people

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for absolutely no reason anyone can figure out. Michael Paul Brown,

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forty four years old, is still on the run after

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allegedly opening fire at the Owl Bar in Anaconda, Montana,

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on Friday morning. And when I say his local bar,

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I mean it literally, this psycho lived next door to

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the place. He knew every single person he allegedly shot.

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The victims. Let me tell you who this monster allegedly killed.

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Daniel Bailey fifty nine, Nancy Kelly sixty four, a retired

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nurse who'd spent her entire career caring for cancer patients.

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David Leech seventy, Tony Palm seventy four. Four people just

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trying to have a drink on a Friday morning in

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small town, Montana, and according to the bar owner, Brown

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didn't have any beef with any of them. He just snapped.

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Here's what we know. Around ten thirty am Friday, Brown

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allegedly walked into the Owl Bar with a rifle and

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started shooting. Security footage shows him fleeing the scene. And

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get this, he was last seen running around in his underwear.

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That's right, folks, This trained army veteran who served in

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a rock as now playing Rambo in his tidy whities

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in the Montana wilderness. The manhunt is massive. We're talking

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two hundred and fifty boots on the ground, helicopters, dogs,

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federal agents. They found his white Ford F one fifty,

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but no Brown and here's the problem. This guy knows

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the terrain. He served in the Army from two thousand

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and one to two thousand and five, did a tour

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in Iraq, then joined the Montana National Guard until two

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thousand and nine. He left as a sergeant. His niece,

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Claire Boyle, says he came back from the military very

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sick and wasn't the same after his service. She says

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his mental health deteriorated even more after his parents died.

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But here's what kills me. She also talks about happy

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memories of fishing with him and learning to write a bike.

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You know what, I don't care about the happy memories.

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I don't care that he struggled with PTSD. Four innocent

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people are dead. Nancy Kelly had just started her retirement

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after a lifetime of helping cancer patients, and now she's

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gone because some guy who couldn't handle his demons decided

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to take it out on a bar full of people

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who'd probably bought him drinks over the years. The bar

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owner says Brown was a regular, but wasn't part of

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the camaraderie. Translation, he was the weird guy who drank

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alone and made everyone uncomfortable and Friday morning, that weird

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guy became a mass murderer. They're searching the Beaverhead Deer

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Lodge National Forest and local fire Forman Dan Haffey says,

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there are a thousand places to hide on that mountain. Great,

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just great. A trained military veteran with mental health issues

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and a rifle loose in five thousand acres of wilderness.

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Here's my prediction. They'll find him dead from a self

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inflicted gunshot. These cowards always take the easy way out

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rather than fake what they've done. But until then, everyone

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in western Montana better lock their doors and stay alert.

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The Tennessee terror. Speaking of manhunts, let's head to Tennessee,

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where the search for Austin Robert Drummond just got more interesting.

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This twenty eight year old piece of garbage is wanted

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for murdering four family members, but at least he had

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the decency to leave the baby alive. On Tuesday, someone

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dropped off a seven month old infant in a car

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seat on a stranger's lawn in Tigret, Tennessee, just left

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the baby there like an Amazon package. When investigators started

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looking for the baby's family, they found four bodies in

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the woods about forty miles away. The victims James Wilson

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twenty one, the baby's father, Adriana Williams twenty the baby's mother,

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Courtney Rose thirty eight, Adrianna's mother, Braden Williams fifteen, Adrianna's brother.

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Four generations of a family wiped out. The baby wes

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Lynn Wilson is now an orphan because Austin Drummond allegedly

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decided to execute her entire family. But here's where it

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gets really interesting. Drummond didn't do this alone. Police have

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now arrested two of his buddies, to knock A Brown

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twenty nine and Giovante Thomas twenty nine. They're charged with

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being accessories after the fact, which means they helped this

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monster after he killed four people. Brown's also charged with

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tampering with evidence. And get this, Drummond has a history.

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In twenty thirteen, when he was just a teenager, he

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robbed a gas station with what turned out to be

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a bb gun, got forty four dollars. That's it, forty

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four dollars. He was so high on xanax he claims

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he doesn't even remember doing it. But wait, it gets better.

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After the jury convicted him he threatened to go after

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the jurors threatened the people who were just doing their

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civic duty, so they hit him with thirteen counts of retaliation.

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This genius turned to a sinsimple robbery into a thirteen

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year prison sentence. While in prison, he racked up more

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than two dozen disciplinary issues, weapons possession, assault, gang activity.

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The district attorney called him a dangerous felony offender and

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a confirmed member of the vice Lords. He got out

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in September twenty twenty four. Less than a year later,

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four people are dead. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation says

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this was a targeted attack. Drummond knew the victims, but

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they won't tell us how he killed them or why

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a baby ended up forty miles away from her murdered family.

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They found his car, a white twenty sixteen OUTI abandoned

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in Jackson, Tennessee. He's still out there somewhere, and officials

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are warning he should be considered armed and extremely dangerous.

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There's a fifteen thousand dollars reward for information leading to

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his arrest. You know what infuriates me. This guy had

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every chance to turn his life around. He served his time,

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got out and less than a year later, he's allegedly

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murdered entire families. Some people just can't be rehabilitated. Some

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people are just evil. Back in a moment, Welcome back

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to celebrity trials. I'm Red Carter, and we're closing today

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with a case that makes me wonder if there's something

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in the water that turns people into monsters. Nicholas Casotis,

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or as he also goes by, Nicholas Killian James Stark,

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is on trial in Georgia for allegedly murdering and dismembering

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his wife Mindy and folks. When I say dismembering, I

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mean he allegedly cut her into four pieces with tool

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marks on the remains. This former Navy JAG officer that's

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Judge Advocate general, a military lawyer, allegedly killed his wife

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in November twenty twenty two, cut her up and scattered

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her remains across two hunting properties in Liberty and Macintosh Counties.

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Hunters found her on December second, in PA, three miles apart.

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It took months to identify her. The GBI had to

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use genealogy DNA testing, the same technology that catches serial killers.

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Just to figure out who she was. They finally identified

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Mindy Cassotis on May eleventh, twenty twenty three, and arrested

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Nicholas the next day in Pennsylvania. But here's where this

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case goes from horrific to absolutely insane. The prosecution says

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the motive was money. Nicholas owed his ex wife one

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point five million dollars from a divorce judgment, and he

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and Mindy were on the run to avoid paying it.

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The defense, Oh, the defense has a doozy. They claimed

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the couple wasn't running from a divorce judgment, they were

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running from a mysterious figure named Jim McIntyre who controlled

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their finances. The prosecution calls this a CIA conspiracy theory

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type argument. Are you kidding me? Your defense for dismembering

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your wife is that a shadowy figure named Jim McIntyre

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made you do it? What is this a Jason Bourne movie?

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But wait, it gets worse. Prosecutors want to introduce a

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target receipt as evidence. What did Nicholas buy on his

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way to meet his third wife just days after Mindy's death?

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Condoms and old spice, let me repeat that his wife

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is in pieces in the woods. And this guy's buying

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protection and cologne to go hook up with wife number three.

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The defense attorney actually said in court, I don't know

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the relevance of mister Casotis buying condoms and old spice. Really,

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you don't see the relevance of your client immediately moving

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on to another woman while his current wife is decomposing.

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In the Georgia Wilderness District, attorney Lori Bio warned the

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court that this case is incredibly gruesome in a way

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that I believe will create additional trauma. She's planning to

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call at least thirty five witnesses over a two to

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three week trial that started yesterday with jury selection. And

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here's what really gets that's me. Nicholas Cassotis was a

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Navy lawyer. He took an oath to defend this country

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and uphold the law. Instead, he allegedly became the kind

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of monster he should have been prosecuting. Mindy Cassotis was

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forty years old. She was a writer and business owner.

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She had her whole life ahead of her, and now

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she's gone because she had the misfortune of marrying a

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man who allegedly thought cutting her into pieces was easier

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than paying a divorce settlement. You know what all three

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of today's cases have in common, men who thought violence

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was the answer to their problems. Michael Brown couldn't handle

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his PTSD, so he allegedly shot up a bar. Austin

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Drummond was a career criminal who graduated from robbing gas

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stations to allegedly murdering families, and Nicholas Cassotis allegedly decided

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dismemberment was preferable to paying his debts. Four people dead

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in Montana, four people dead in Tennessee, one woman in

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pieces in Georgia. That's nine lives lost because three men

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chose violence over getting help, serving time peacefully, or paying

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what they owed. And you know what's really terrifying. Michael

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Brown is still out there in the Montana wilderness. Austin

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Drummond is still on the run somewhere. These aren't crimes

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of passion that end with immediate arrests. These are calculated

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killers who plan their escapes. To the families of Daniel Bailey,

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Nancy Kelly, David Leech, and Tony Palm and Montana, I'm

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sorry your loved ones were in the wrong place when

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a disturbed veteran decided to snap to baby Westland Wilson

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in Tennessee, I'm sorry you'll grow up without parents, without

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a grandmother, without an uncle because Austin Drummond allegedly decided

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your family had to die. And to Mindy Casotis's family,

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I'm sorry she married a monster who valued avoiding debt

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over her life. Tomorrow, we're diving into a Hollywood cold

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case that's suddenly hot again, plus updates on the Delphi

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murder trial that's got Indiana on edge. Because the violence

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never stops, and neither do we. I'm read Carter with

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celebrity trials. Lock your doors, background, check your dates, and

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remember some people walking around free right now have already

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chosen their next victim. Don't let it be you. Justice

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isn't always fast, but it's always necessary, even when it

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feels like it's not enough. See you tomorrow,