WEBVTT
1
00:00:09.550 --> 00:00:12.970
Good morning. This is Daily Crime and Justice from Calaroga Media,
2
00:00:13.150 --> 00:00:19.829
powered by AI. I'm Garrett Fisher. It's Wednesday, October 7th, 2026.
3
00:00:19.829 --> 00:00:22.890
Seven days ago, Tennessee tried to execute Krista Pike with
4
00:00:22.949 --> 00:00:27.379
lethal injection and could not. She is still unconscious. She
5
00:00:27.440 --> 00:00:31.289
is still on a ventilator. On Monday, the Pentagon announced
6
00:00:31.309 --> 00:00:34.109
that the president has approved an execution of a different kind.
7
00:00:34.729 --> 00:00:38.460
Nidal Hassan, the army psychiatrist who killed 13 people at
8
00:00:38.500 --> 00:00:41.359
Fort Hood in 2009, is to be put to death
9
00:00:41.420 --> 00:00:44.799
by an army firing squad. If it happens, it will
10
00:00:44.820 --> 00:00:47.259
be the first execution carried out by the United States
11
00:00:47.299 --> 00:00:52.759
military since 1961. Also on Monday, in an Ohio courtroom,
12
00:00:53.140 --> 00:00:56.619
Caleb Flynn stood before a judge, apologized for his affair,
13
00:00:57.079 --> 00:00:59.729
and swore before God that he did not kill his wife.
14
00:01:00.649 --> 00:01:02.210
Then he was sentenced to spend the rest of his
15
00:01:02.270 --> 00:01:05.359
life in prison for killing her. And in Wichita, Kansas,
16
00:01:05.739 --> 00:01:07.780
a woman who once read the morning news in St.
17
00:01:07.819 --> 00:01:10.060
Louis was sentenced to life for the murder of her
18
00:01:10.079 --> 00:01:14.000
80-year-old mother. According to court documents, she told police things
19
00:01:14.019 --> 00:01:16.450
that suggested she believed her mother was the devil. A
20
00:01:17.189 --> 00:01:21.549
judge said she was competent. She pleaded guilty. Three sentences.
21
00:01:22.230 --> 00:01:24.849
Three very different questions about what the law owes to
22
00:01:24.890 --> 00:01:27.370
the dead and to the people who killed them. Let's
23
00:01:27.390 --> 00:01:34.650
get into it. On the afternoon of November 5th, 2009,
24
00:01:34.650 --> 00:01:37.730
soldiers were lined up at the Soldier Readiness Processing Center
25
00:01:37.870 --> 00:01:41.930
at Fort Hood, Texas. Some were getting vaccinations. Some were
26
00:01:41.969 --> 00:01:45.159
doing paperwork. Most of them were weeks away from deploying
27
00:01:45.189 --> 00:01:50.379
to Iraq or Afghanistan. Major Nidal Hassan, an Army psychiatrist,
28
00:01:50.620 --> 00:01:54.340
walked into that building with a semi-automatic handgun and opened
29
00:01:54.379 --> 00:01:58.069
fire on people wearing the same uniform he did. 12
30
00:01:58.069 --> 00:02:01.189
soldiers were killed, so was a retired soldier who worked
31
00:02:01.209 --> 00:02:05.109
there as a civilian physician assistant. More than 30 others
32
00:02:05.170 --> 00:02:08.629
were wounded. Hassan was shot by responding officers and has
33
00:02:08.669 --> 00:02:13.259
been paralyzed from the waist down ever since. In 2013,
34
00:02:13.259 --> 00:02:16.659
a military jury convicted him of 13 counts of premeditated
35
00:02:16.719 --> 00:02:21.099
murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder and sentenced
36
00:02:21.120 --> 00:02:25.000
him to death. He represented himself at that court-martial. He
37
00:02:25.039 --> 00:02:28.229
told the court he had switched sides. He called almost
38
00:02:28.349 --> 00:02:32.310
no witnesses and offered almost no defense. At the time,
39
00:02:32.349 --> 00:02:34.930
the lawyers assigned to assist him raised concerns that he
40
00:02:34.969 --> 00:02:37.710
was steering the case toward a death sentence on purpose.
41
00:02:38.229 --> 00:02:41.500
Then came more than a decade of mandatory military appeals.
42
00:02:42.139 --> 00:02:45.120
The Supreme Court declined to review the case last year,
43
00:02:45.479 --> 00:02:48.520
and under military law, a death sentence cannot be carried
44
00:02:48.620 --> 00:02:52.740
out until the president personally approves it. On Monday, that
45
00:02:52.800 --> 00:02:56.599
approval came. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced that the defense
46
00:02:56.620 --> 00:03:00.229
secretary had recommended death by army firing squad and that
47
00:03:00.270 --> 00:03:03.909
the president had signed off. The secretary of the army
48
00:03:03.949 --> 00:03:07.169
will now set a time and a place. Parnell wrote, quote,
49
00:03:07.629 --> 00:03:11.620
judgment day for Hassan has finally come. Let me put
50
00:03:11.659 --> 00:03:15.020
the history in front of you because it is genuinely unusual.
51
00:03:15.479 --> 00:03:20.310
The last time the United States military executed anyone was 1961.
52
00:03:20.310 --> 00:03:24.189
when Army Private John Bennett was hanged at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
53
00:03:24.789 --> 00:03:28.389
The last time the Army used a firing squad was 1945,
54
00:03:28.389 --> 00:03:31.270
when Private Eddie Slovik was shot in France for desertion.
55
00:03:31.909 --> 00:03:34.550
Hassan is now held on military death row at that
56
00:03:34.669 --> 00:03:38.310
same Fort Leavenworth. And approval from the president is not
57
00:03:38.379 --> 00:03:42.849
the same thing as an execution. In 2008, President George W.
58
00:03:42.879 --> 00:03:46.800
Bush approved the execution of another soldier on military death row,
59
00:03:47.099 --> 00:03:51.060
Ronald Gray. A federal judge halted it. Gray is still
60
00:03:51.120 --> 00:03:54.599
on death row today, 18 years later. Stars and Stripes
61
00:03:54.639 --> 00:03:57.560
reports it is unclear whether Hassan will try to challenge
62
00:03:57.599 --> 00:04:01.560
his execution in federal court. So, as always on this show,
63
00:04:01.840 --> 00:04:05.699
we will cover the date if one is set. Dates move. Now,
64
00:04:05.900 --> 00:04:08.680
why a firing squad and why now? Since the death
65
00:04:08.719 --> 00:04:12.479
penalty came back in the United States in 1977, six
66
00:04:12.520 --> 00:04:16.449
people have been executed by firing squad. Three were in Utah,
67
00:04:16.589 --> 00:04:20.310
the last of those in 2010. The other three were
68
00:04:20.540 --> 00:04:24.399
all in South Carolina, all last year. Five states currently
69
00:04:24.439 --> 00:04:27.220
allow it. And as of July 1st of this year,
70
00:04:27.660 --> 00:04:30.939
Idaho became the only state where it is the primary method,
71
00:04:31.319 --> 00:04:35.860
with lethal injection as the backup. Idaho made that change
72
00:04:36.040 --> 00:04:40.079
after its execution team tried repeatedly, and failed, to find
73
00:04:40.199 --> 00:04:44.910
a usable vein on a man named Thomas Creech in 2024.
74
00:04:44.910 --> 00:04:47.529
In April of this year, the Justice Department added the
75
00:04:47.589 --> 00:04:51.550
firing squad to the list of methods allowed for federal executions,
76
00:04:51.910 --> 00:04:55.730
which brings us back to Tennessee. As of Monday, Krista
77
00:04:55.769 --> 00:05:00.139
Pike remains unconscious on a ventilator under armed guard in
78
00:05:00.199 --> 00:05:04.319
a Nashville hospital, according to her attorneys. Doctors are still
79
00:05:04.379 --> 00:05:07.300
working to clear the drug from her system. Since we
80
00:05:07.339 --> 00:05:11.639
last spoke, Tennessee's Commissioner of Correction, Frank Strada, has stepped down,
81
00:05:12.160 --> 00:05:15.339
and the state has named former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton
82
00:05:15.660 --> 00:05:19.500
to investigate what went wrong. The United Nations Human Rights
83
00:05:19.560 --> 00:05:23.240
Chief has publicly urged Tennessee not to attempt her execution again.
84
00:05:23.819 --> 00:05:25.899
So here is the argument you are going to hear
85
00:05:25.939 --> 00:05:27.870
a lot in the coming weeks, and I want to
86
00:05:27.910 --> 00:05:31.009
give both sides of it fairly. Supporters of the firing
87
00:05:31.050 --> 00:05:33.750
squad say it is fast, it is certain, and it
88
00:05:33.790 --> 00:05:36.949
does not depend on drug supplies, on pharmacists, or on
89
00:05:37.009 --> 00:05:39.250
someone finding a vein in a person whose veins may
90
00:05:39.269 --> 00:05:42.589
be scarred or fragile. Krista Pike's lawyers had warned the
91
00:05:42.610 --> 00:05:45.410
state in August that she had exactly that kind of condition.
92
00:05:46.470 --> 00:05:49.730
Idaho looked at Thomas Creech and drew a conclusion. Some
93
00:05:49.790 --> 00:05:53.509
people would say Tennessee just proved Idaho right. Critics say
94
00:05:53.550 --> 00:05:56.300
the method is not the problem. They point out that
95
00:05:56.420 --> 00:05:59.689
after one of last year's South Carolina firing squad executions,
96
00:06:00.120 --> 00:06:03.139
the condemned man's lawyers alleged that the shooters had not
97
00:06:03.180 --> 00:06:05.819
hit the target as planned and that he did not
98
00:06:05.899 --> 00:06:09.180
die as quickly as he should have. That has not
99
00:06:09.199 --> 00:06:12.610
been proven. but it tells you that no method removes
100
00:06:12.629 --> 00:06:15.870
human error. It just changes what the error looks like.
101
00:06:16.750 --> 00:06:18.569
Here is where I come down, and it is the
102
00:06:18.610 --> 00:06:21.089
same place I came down last week. I am not
103
00:06:21.149 --> 00:06:24.430
here to argue about capital punishment itself. I am here
104
00:06:24.449 --> 00:06:27.620
to argue about competence. If a government is going to
105
00:06:27.680 --> 00:06:29.750
take a life in the name of the public, it
106
00:06:29.920 --> 00:06:33.160
owes the public an execution that is carried out exactly
107
00:06:33.220 --> 00:06:36.500
as the law says by people who are properly trained
108
00:06:36.720 --> 00:06:40.649
with someone independent checking the work. Tennessee did not meet
109
00:06:40.689 --> 00:06:43.370
that standard. Whether the Army meets it is now a
110
00:06:43.420 --> 00:06:47.120
question with a very public answer coming. And through all
111
00:06:47.139 --> 00:06:50.079
of the talk about methods, please do not lose track
112
00:06:50.139 --> 00:06:54.899
of who this is actually about. Michael Grant Cahill was 62,
113
00:06:54.899 --> 00:06:59.449
a retired chief warrant officer and civilian physician assistant from Spokane, Washington.
114
00:07:00.110 --> 00:07:02.670
Witnesses said he tried to stop the gunman with a chair.
115
00:07:03.459 --> 00:07:06.959
John Geffany was 56, a psychiatric nurse who had arrived
116
00:07:07.000 --> 00:07:08.980
at Fort Hood the day before to prepare for a
117
00:07:09.019 --> 00:07:14.819
deployment to Iraq. Juanita Warman was 55. Libardo Eduardo Caraveo
118
00:07:14.879 --> 00:07:20.319
was 52. Russell Seeger was 51. Justin DeCrowe was 32,
119
00:07:20.319 --> 00:07:23.360
home from a year in Korea, waiting on a transfer
120
00:07:23.399 --> 00:07:25.399
so he could be closer to his wife and daughter.
121
00:07:26.139 --> 00:07:30.579
Frederick Green was 29. Amy Kruger was 29. She enlisted
122
00:07:30.639 --> 00:07:33.399
after 9-11 and had arrived at Fort Hood two days
123
00:07:33.459 --> 00:07:37.410
before she was killed. Kam Xiong was 23, a father
124
00:07:37.449 --> 00:07:42.110
of three. Jason Hunt was 22, recently married. Michael Pearson
125
00:07:42.149 --> 00:07:46.649
was 22. Aaron Namelka was 19, an Eagle Scout from Utah.
126
00:07:47.189 --> 00:07:52.990
And Francesca Velez was 21, just home from Iraq and pregnant.
127
00:07:52.990 --> 00:07:56.759
13 people. Someone has to say their names. When we
128
00:07:56.819 --> 00:08:00.100
come back, Caleb Flynn hears his sentence, and Ashley Flynn's
129
00:08:00.139 --> 00:08:02.639
family does something in that courtroom that most of us
130
00:08:02.699 --> 00:08:14.589
could not. Ashley Flynn was 37. She taught at LifeWise Academy,
131
00:08:14.829 --> 00:08:17.470
a program that brings Bible lessons to public school kids,
132
00:08:17.870 --> 00:08:21.250
and she coached middle school girls volleyball in Tip City, Ohio,
133
00:08:21.550 --> 00:08:24.189
near the high school she graduated from. She had two daughters.
134
00:08:25.009 --> 00:08:27.629
On February 16th of this year, she was shot and
135
00:08:27.740 --> 00:08:31.740
killed inside her home. Her husband, Caleb Flynn, a former
136
00:08:31.779 --> 00:08:35.639
music pastor who once competed on American Idol, told investigators
137
00:08:35.799 --> 00:08:38.120
an intruder did it while he slept in another room
138
00:08:38.159 --> 00:08:42.639
with their girls. Prosecutors said there was no intruder. They
139
00:08:42.679 --> 00:08:44.879
said he killed her and staged the scene to look
140
00:08:44.919 --> 00:08:47.009
like a break-in so he could start a new life
141
00:08:47.090 --> 00:08:49.669
with the much younger woman he was having an affair with.
142
00:08:50.509 --> 00:08:53.409
Last week, after a two-week trial, a Miami County jury
143
00:08:53.450 --> 00:08:56.809
convicted him on every count. If you have been with
144
00:08:56.889 --> 00:08:59.870
us through this trial, you know the evidence, the messages,
145
00:09:00.090 --> 00:09:03.549
the scene, the testimony. We are not going to relitigate
146
00:09:03.590 --> 00:09:08.330
it today. Monday was about what comes next. Under Ohio law,
147
00:09:08.549 --> 00:09:12.210
aggravated murder can carry 20 years to life, 25 to life,
148
00:09:12.210 --> 00:09:15.509
30 to life, or life with no possibility of parole.
149
00:09:16.090 --> 00:09:20.250
Prosecutors asked for the maximum. 13 victim impact statements were
150
00:09:20.289 --> 00:09:23.860
submitted to the court. Five were read aloud. Two of
151
00:09:23.919 --> 00:09:27.899
those statements were written by Ashley's daughters. Family members read
152
00:09:27.940 --> 00:09:31.039
them aloud. I am not going to repeat what they wrote.
153
00:09:31.519 --> 00:09:35.299
They are children, and those words were written for their father,
154
00:09:35.620 --> 00:09:38.340
not for us. What I will tell you is that
155
00:09:38.440 --> 00:09:42.720
Caleb Flynn wept while he listened. Ashley's sister, Kayla Keet,
156
00:09:42.860 --> 00:09:46.580
and her husband, Matthew, are now raising the girls. Matthew
157
00:09:46.620 --> 00:09:49.299
Keat told the court he would honor a responsibility he
158
00:09:49.419 --> 00:09:52.500
never expected to carry, and he asked the judge for
159
00:09:52.539 --> 00:09:54.809
a sentence that would keep Flynn from ever being able
160
00:09:54.950 --> 00:10:00.159
to enter our lives again. Then Kayla Keet did something remarkable.
161
00:10:00.559 --> 00:10:03.740
She told the court she forgives him. She also forgave
162
00:10:03.799 --> 00:10:06.740
the woman he had the affair with. Whatever your faith
163
00:10:06.919 --> 00:10:09.470
or lack of it, that is a hard thing to
164
00:10:09.519 --> 00:10:13.049
do in a room like that one. Then Caleb Flynn spoke.
165
00:10:13.490 --> 00:10:16.730
He apologized for the affair. He apologized for the things
166
00:10:16.769 --> 00:10:19.870
he said about his wife, which jurors heard in detail.
167
00:10:20.480 --> 00:10:23.659
He spoke directly to his daughters, and he said, quote,
168
00:10:24.120 --> 00:10:25.840
I am not lying when I say I did not
169
00:10:25.899 --> 00:10:29.750
kill my wife. Judge Jeannine Pratt did not accept that.
170
00:10:30.090 --> 00:10:32.649
She found that he showed no remorse. She said he
171
00:10:32.690 --> 00:10:35.250
poses the highest possible risk of harm to the public.
172
00:10:35.850 --> 00:10:39.970
She described layers of deceit, manipulation, and cruelty, and she
173
00:10:40.029 --> 00:10:42.669
said she was deeply disturbed that he had used his
174
00:10:42.710 --> 00:10:45.320
faith to do it. She noted that one of his
175
00:10:45.360 --> 00:10:47.679
daughters had asked why he hated her mother so much
176
00:10:47.960 --> 00:10:50.220
and said that no court could answer that question for
177
00:10:50.259 --> 00:10:53.299
a child. Then she sentenced him to life in prison
178
00:10:53.340 --> 00:10:57.320
without the possibility of parole, plus additional prison time for
179
00:10:57.360 --> 00:11:01.460
firearm specifications and for tampering with evidence to be served first.
180
00:11:02.340 --> 00:11:06.220
Caleb Flynn is a convicted man now. The presumption of
181
00:11:06.279 --> 00:11:08.759
innocence that he had when this trial started has been
182
00:11:08.820 --> 00:11:12.240
answered by a jury. He still has the right to appeal.
183
00:11:12.659 --> 00:11:16.120
That is his right. It does not change the verdict.
184
00:11:16.759 --> 00:11:20.620
Here is what stays with me. Kayla Keat told him
185
00:11:20.659 --> 00:11:23.850
the affair and the lies were his choice. He has
186
00:11:24.070 --> 00:11:27.370
never admitted the rest. So two girls are going to
187
00:11:27.409 --> 00:11:30.090
grow up with a guilty verdict and a father who
188
00:11:30.149 --> 00:11:33.090
says it is wrong. The judge said she could not
189
00:11:33.169 --> 00:11:36.620
give them an answer. Neither could the jury. The only
190
00:11:36.679 --> 00:11:41.269
person who could chose not to. After she pronounced the sentence,
191
00:11:41.409 --> 00:11:44.090
Judge Pratt turned to Ashley's family and told them to
192
00:11:44.210 --> 00:11:47.950
stay steadfast in their faith. That felt like the right
193
00:11:47.990 --> 00:11:52.169
last word from the bench. Ashley Flynn was 37, a teacher,
194
00:11:52.490 --> 00:11:55.610
a coach, a sister, a mom to two girls who
195
00:11:55.629 --> 00:11:58.950
will never stop missing her. Someone has to say her name.
196
00:11:59.750 --> 00:12:03.230
When we come back, a former morning anchor, her 80-year-old mother,
197
00:12:03.549 --> 00:12:06.190
and a state that does not allow the insanity defense
198
00:12:06.370 --> 00:12:22.690
most of us think we know. Anita Avers was 80
199
00:12:22.690 --> 00:12:26.690
years old. She was a marriage and family therapist. She
200
00:12:26.710 --> 00:12:29.509
spent her working life helping families get through the hardest
201
00:12:29.549 --> 00:12:32.620
things that can happen inside a home. She lived in
202
00:12:32.669 --> 00:12:36.600
South Wichita, Kansas, with her husband, Barry, and with her daughter,
203
00:12:36.820 --> 00:12:40.159
Angeline Mock. If you have lived in St. Louis, you
204
00:12:40.220 --> 00:12:43.700
may know that name. Angie Mock was a morning anchor
205
00:12:43.840 --> 00:12:47.690
at KTVI Fox 2. Over the years, she also worked
206
00:12:47.750 --> 00:12:50.289
as a reporter in Montana and Minnesota and as a
207
00:12:50.309 --> 00:12:54.049
sports reporter in Lincoln, Nebraska. By last year, she had
208
00:12:54.090 --> 00:12:57.289
left television and was working in sales for a software company.
209
00:12:58.090 --> 00:13:01.850
On the morning of Halloween 2025, Wichita police arrived at
210
00:13:01.889 --> 00:13:05.870
the house and found Mock outside with cuts on her hands. Inside,
211
00:13:05.909 --> 00:13:09.250
they found Anita Avers in her bed with multiple stab wounds.
212
00:13:09.870 --> 00:13:12.519
She died at the hospital a short time later. The
213
00:13:12.590 --> 00:13:15.409
details in the court documents are graphic, and I am
214
00:13:15.490 --> 00:13:18.110
not going to read them to you. According to the
215
00:13:18.149 --> 00:13:21.879
probable cause affidavit, Mock first told police that she was
216
00:13:21.960 --> 00:13:25.419
defending herself, that her mother had come after her with
217
00:13:25.480 --> 00:13:29.720
a knife. Later, alone in a police interview room, she
218
00:13:29.820 --> 00:13:33.830
allegedly made statements indicating she believed her mother was the devil.
219
00:13:34.490 --> 00:13:38.450
Her stepfather told investigators she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder,
220
00:13:38.850 --> 00:13:43.169
that the diagnosis was later changed to schizoaffective disorder, and
221
00:13:43.230 --> 00:13:47.840
that she suffered from delusions and depression. In January, a
222
00:13:47.909 --> 00:13:51.200
court found her not competent to stand trial. She was
223
00:13:51.250 --> 00:13:54.779
sent to the state hospital in Larned for evaluation and treatment.
224
00:13:55.379 --> 00:13:58.799
In July, Judge Jeffrey Goering found that her competency had
225
00:13:58.840 --> 00:14:03.240
been restored. In August, she pleaded guilty to first-degree murder.
226
00:14:03.950 --> 00:14:06.840
On Monday, Judge Goering sentenced her to life in prison
227
00:14:06.879 --> 00:14:10.179
with the possibility of parole after 25 years, which he
228
00:14:10.220 --> 00:14:13.440
said Kansas law required. She gets credit for nearly a
229
00:14:13.500 --> 00:14:15.940
year already served. She told the court she does not
230
00:14:15.980 --> 00:14:18.559
intend to appeal, though she has two weeks to change
231
00:14:18.600 --> 00:14:21.460
her mind. Reporters in the room said she cried as
232
00:14:21.480 --> 00:14:25.980
she left. Anita Avers' stepdaughter, Sonia Kreutziger, spoke to the court.
233
00:14:26.519 --> 00:14:29.820
She described a bright, compassionate, loving woman. She called the
234
00:14:29.840 --> 00:14:33.440
killing calculated. and she used a word that is now
235
00:14:33.600 --> 00:14:38.730
in every headline, demonic. She also said that Angeline had killed, quote,
236
00:14:39.090 --> 00:14:43.450
the one person who loved her unconditionally. I understand why
237
00:14:43.470 --> 00:14:46.450
a grieving family reaches for that word. I want to
238
00:14:46.490 --> 00:14:48.950
be careful with it on this show, because the record
239
00:14:48.970 --> 00:14:52.269
in this case points somewhere more complicated, and the law
240
00:14:52.309 --> 00:14:55.429
in this case points somewhere you might not expect. First,
241
00:14:55.649 --> 00:14:59.139
the word competent. A lot of people hear that a
242
00:14:59.200 --> 00:15:02.179
judge found someone competent and assume it means the judge
243
00:15:02.220 --> 00:15:05.399
found she was sane when she did it. It does not.