SON, BADGE & BODY BAGS: EX-NYPD COP CHARGED IN PARENTS' MURDERS, FEDEX KILLER ON TRIAL & THE MIAMI MODEL WHO THOUGHT SHE WAS FROM THE FUTURE

0:03 Kalaroga Shark Media. Good morning, Wednesday, April eighth, twenty twenty six. I'm Garrett Fisher, and this is Daily Crime Injustice. I want to warn you up front. Today's show has a lot of awful in it. We're going to cover a son who allegedly shot his elderly parents because they were planning to finally cut him off. We're going to cover the start of a capitol murder trial for a FedEx driver who killed a seven year old girl and left her body in a river. And we're going to cover a woman who got behind the wheel of a Mercedes while high on something called pink cocaine, ran a red light at seventy eight miles an hour, and killed two men who were on their way to work. These are the stories I was talking about when I said I got into this not because crime is interesting. It's not not really. It's boring and sad and repetitive, but because the people at the center of it deserve to be named, and the systems that handle these cases deserve to be watched.

1:08 So let's do that first. Philip Rapecci Junior, thirty eight years old, former NYPD officer. His parents are dead. Police say he shot them. His own sister called it, and the evidence is about as damning as it gets. Second Tanner Land Horner, thirty five years old, former FedEx driver. Opening statements began yesterday in Tarrant County, Texas. He's charged with capital murder in the death of Athena Strand, seven years old. He confessed the defense's play is to keep him off death row. This case is going to wreck you. And Third Macy Lathers twenty five years old, Instagram model Miami. A red light, a Mercedes, two dead men, and a judge who is out of patience with everyone in the room.

1:54 Let's get into it. Let me tell you about Philip Rapaci Junior, and let me be honest with you about how this one lands. Philip Senior and Joeann Rapaci were elderly. They lived in Fort Pierce, Florida. They had a son, Philip Junior, thirty eight years old, former officer with the New York City Police Department, and they had a daughter. They had been trying for some time to figure out how to live their lives in a way that didn't involve their son consuming them. According to investigators, the Rapachees were in the process of buying another property, not because they wanted a vacation home or an investment, because they could no longer tolerate living with their son. Their plan was to let Philip Junior have the existing property and move somewhere else to get away from him. They were trying to escape quietly, without a confrontation. They were buying a house to get away from their own child. That tells you something, that is the kind of detail that sits in your chest. On February time, twenty fourth of this year, someone requested a welfare check at the Rapachi apartment.

3:05 That someone was Philip Junior's sister, the couple's daughter. When officers arrived, Philip Junior was already at the scene. Body camera footage shows him walking toward his parents' apartment, spotting the police, and then turning around and walking away. Gets in his car drives off Before police got inside. A maintenance worker told them that when he went to use his keys to open the apartment door, a man came to the door, claiming to be the owner and told him to leave. The worker described the man as very confrontational. Inside the apartment, Philip Senior and Joanne Rapacchi were found shot to death on the floor. Philip Senior had gunshot wounds to his head and chest. Multiple shots had been fired inside the residence, but only one nine millimeter casing was recovered at the scene. Philip Junior led police on a brief pursuit into neighboring Indian River County before he was taken into custody. When investigator searched his car, they found a blue tote bag. Inside the tote a box of latex gloves, and a plastic bag containing six spent shell casings. Those casings had what looked like brain matter on them. He is now charged with two counts of first degree murder. Here's what investigators learned about the alleged motive.

4:20 Philip Junior had no current job. He was living off an NYPD pension. He had borrowed two hundred thousand dollars from his parents alone that by all accounts, he had no plan to repay, and according to his sister, he was, in her words, very motivated by money and always plays victim and mental health issues. His sister also told investigators something that provides important context. Philip Junior had a history of physical violence with his parents. At some point Joanne Ripacci had confided to her daughter that Philip Junior had placed his hands around her neck and shoved her face into a mirror. The parents had reportedly been enduring this for someon time before they decided to try to buy their way out by just buying another house. When the sister was asked by investigators what she thought happened, she didn't hesitate. This homicide was fueled by money. Let me say the quiet part out loud. A man who swore an oath to protect and serve, who carried a badge, who was trained to de escalate, who knew exactly how crime scenes are processed and how investigations work, allegedly used all of that background to walk into his elderly parents' apartment and shoot them dead, rather than give back a loan he'd spend, or except that they were finally going to move on without him. Philip Junior has entered a not guilty plead to the fleeing and eluding charges from Indian River County. He has not yet entered a plea to the murder charges that's coming. Philip Repachi Senior and Joanne Repachi, they were trying to move They just wanted peace.

5:54 Someone has to say their names coming up. A seven year old girl named Athena Strand was killed by a FedEx driver who was afraid she would tell her father. That driver confessed, and yesterday a Texas jury started hearing the case. This one is hard, but we're going to take you through it. I need a moment before I tell you this story. Athena Strand was seven years old. She lived with her father and stepmother in Cottondale, Texas, Wise County out in North Texas. She had a little sister. She had a bedroom she shared with that sister in a converted storage shed on the property because kids make those kinds of spaces into something magical. She was seven.

6:41 She was, by every account, doing everything a seven year old is supposed to be doing. November thirtieth, twenty twenty two, three and a half years ago. It was the holidays. Actually, Athena's mom called nine one one at six forty one in the evening because she couldn't find Athena. She was t us gone. The family started making calls, checking everywhere. Nothing. Investigators started working the timeline. FedEx had delivered a package to the Strand home that afternoon. The package was one of Athena's Christmas presents. Somebody had ordered her a gift, and a man named Tanner Lynn Horner had been the one to deliver it. He was working for a contractor company called Big Top Spin under a FedEx contract. When police tracked Horner down and approached him, he didn't wait for them to put it together. He told them what he'd done. According to police, Horner said he hit Athena with his delivery van while backing out of the driveway.

7:38 He said she wasn't seriously hurt, but he panicked because she told him she was going to tell her father what happened. He was afraid, and so he made a decision. He took her into the van. There is video from inside the truck of Horner talking to Athena after he'd put her in there. She told him her name. The affidavit says he knew he was talking to Athena strand she told herself, and then, according to police, he decided to kill her. He tried to break her neck, it didn't work, so he strangled her with his bare hands, and then he led investigators to where he'd left her body in the Trinity River about fifteen miles from her home. She was missing for two days before her body was found.

8:19 Take a second with that two days. Her family spent two days not knowing Tanner. Horner was arrested, indicted in February twenty twenty three, and pleaded not guilty to capital murder and aggravated kidnapping. The case then went through the long grinding machinery of the American legal system, delays, change of venue, pre trial hearings, a gag order, more delays. The trial was moved from Wise County to Tarrant County because the judge concluded Horner couldn't get a fair trial in the community where it happened, which fair. A lot of people knew Athena. A lot of people were devastated. You can't see an impartial jury in a room full of grief. Jury selection began April first, Final jury selection finished, and yesterday, April seventh, opening statements began in Tarrent County.

9:10 Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Texas law on capital murder cases means that after a guilty verdict, the jury then has to make two separate findings. First, would this defendant be a continuing threat to society. Second, is there enough in his background or circumstances to justify something less than death. If the jury answers yes to the first and no to the second unanimously on both, he gets death. If they can't agree at any stage, the sentence becomes life in prison without the possibility of parole. The defense has two arguments. One, the confession should be suppressed, their claiming Horner didn't knowingly or voluntarily waive his Fifth Amendment rights before he started talking. The judge has not yet ruled on that. If the confession comes in, and most legal analysts expect it will, the defense's job on guilt gets much harder. As one legal expert put it, If that confession comes in, the guilt phase will be pretty cut and dry. Two. Autism. Horner has been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, and his attorneys are arguing that it reduces what they call his moral blame worthiness. That argument isn't really aimed at winning the guilt phase. It's aimed at the sentencing phase. They're trying to give the jury a reason to choose life over death. Look, I'm going to be honest with you. I understand that autism is real, and that it affects people in profound ways. I understand that the science on neurodevelopmental conditions and criminal culpability is

10:43 genuinely complicated. None of that changes what happened in that van. A child told him her name. She told a man who was about to kill her her name, and he did it anyway. Her family is in that courtroom. The package Horner delivered that day, the one that brought him to a driveway, was one of her Christmas presents someone had ordered Athena a gift. That gift brought the man who killed her to her door. In Athena Strand's memory, the Texas legislature created something called the Athena Alert, a new system to help law enforcement get information about missing children to the public faster. So her name lives on in something good. It doesn't fix anything, but it's something.

11:26 The trial is expected to run several weeks will follow it. Athena Strand seven years old. She told him her name. Someone has to say your name. Athena coming up Miami, an Instagram model, a Mercedes, a drug called pink cocaine, two men who were just trying to get to work, and a judge who is officially run out of patience. Okay, third story, and this one is a different kind of awful, So the kind where you keep stopping and saying wait and then what because it just keeps getting worse. August tenth, twenty twenty four, Miami, early morning, around seven am, Abraham Molina and Jesus Rubio are in a Suzuki on their way to work. Molina's fiance, Juanita Hernandez, is with them.

12:22 Three people early morning going to their jobs. Coming the other direction a Mercedes ben sedan driven by a twenty five year old from New York named Macy Lathers, who describes herself as an Instagram model. She had a suspended license. Investigators say she was high on a drug called pink cocaine. It goes by the name to S or to C and it's a ketamine based party drug, and she ran a red light. The Mercedes hit the suzuki. Abraham Molina and Jesus Rubio were killed. Juanita Hernandez, Molina's fiance, was injured. Lathers tried to flee the scene, bystander stopped her. Here's where it gets into a different category entirely when police body cameras turned on at the scene. Lathers was on the ground vomiting in the street, and she started telling officers her name was Mercedes, not Macy Mercedes, and that she was from the future. She was not from the future, she was from New York and she was very, very high.

13:31 The toxicology came back confirming drug use. Investigators also noted she had accelerated, not slowed, accelerated from fifty seven miles an hour to seventy eight miles an hour right before the crash at one hundred percent throttle. The charges piled up vehicular homicide, reckless driving, driving on a suspended license, leaving the scene, and then after the toxicology results came in dui manslaughter two accounts, one for Abraham Molina one for Jesus Rubio. She initially posted bail and was placed under house arrest with GPS monitoring. That ended when the manslaughter charges came in. She was sent back to jail.

14:13 A judge looked at everything the crash, the flight, the drug use, the suspended license and said she was extremely dangerous. Bond denied. She remains in jail. Her attorneys tried at one point to get her iPhone and iPad returned to her while she waited. That was also denied. Now April first status hearing, the case is still working its way through the system, no trial date set yet, and the judge who has been presiding over this mess has apparently had enough of the lawyers. At the status hearing, the judge scolded both sides, prosecution and defense, for their inability to work together. She reportedly told them in open court that if they couldn't cooperate on depositions, she was going to have to attend and essentially babysit the proceedings herself, a sitting judge threatening to personally supervise attorney depositions because they can't behave like adults. That's not great, That's not how a case moves efficiently toward accountability. And in the meantime, Abraham Molina's family, including the fiancee who was in that car with him, is waiting. Jesus Rubio's family is waiting.

15:26 They've been waiting since August of twenty twenty four, a year and a half, and the case hasn't made it to trial yet. Look, I'm not going to pretend this is the same weight as Athena strand or what happened to the rapaces. The death of two men going to work because someone decided to drive while high is different in its character from what we talked about earlier, but it's not different in its consequence. Abraham Molina and Jesus Rubio are just as dead, their families are just as without them. And the detail that keep nagging at me, she had a suspended license. She already wasn't supposed to be driving. That's not a mistake, that's a choice. That's not a moment of bad judgment. Driving with a suspended license is a sustained, ongoing decision to disregard the rules that exist to protect other people at drugs at a throttle floor to full at a red light, and two men don't make it home. Macy Lathers faces up to thirty years in prison if convicted on the manslaughter charges.

16:35 No trial date has been set. Abraham Molina, Jesus Rubio on their way to work. Someone has to say your names. That's daily Crime and Justice for Wednesday, April eighth, twenty twenty six. Philip Rapazzi, Junior, former NYPD officer, charged with two counts of first degree murder for the shooting deaths of his parents, Philip sor And and Joanne Ripachi in their Fort Pierce, Florida apartment, a two hundred thousand dollars loan, a pension he was living off, a sister who saw it coming, and a bag in his car with brain matter on the shell casings. He hasn't entered a plea to the murder charges yet he will Tanner Lin Horner.

17:18 Opening statements began yesterday in Tarrant County, Texas for the capital murder of seven year old Athena Strand. He confessed he tried to break her neck and then strangled her. She told him her name. The defense is fighting to save him from the death penalty with an autism argument. The trial continues and Macy leathers pink cocaine suspended license seventy eight miles an hour through a red light. Abraham Molina and Jesus Rubio are dead. A judge is threatening to babysit. Lawyer depositions, no trial dates set still waiting. Humans Do Better Disclaimer. Daily Crime and Justice is produced with the assistance of AI powered research tools and is intended for entertainment and informational purposes only, while we make every effort to ensure accuracy. Information is sourced from publicly available Internet sources and may contain errors or omissions. All persons charged with crimes are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. We are not lawyers, and nothing in this podcast constitutes legal advice. We get things wrong sometimes when we do, we'll tell you