Nov. 3, 2026
Former Ohio State Professor Details Murdering Wife Over Embarrassing Nude Photos
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RSS Feed A former Ohio State University professor, 77-year-old James Hill, admitted to police he killed his wife after becoming the target of a “sextortion” scheme. Hill was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison after pleading guilty to murdering 64-year-old Mary Hill and trying to kill their dog before attempting to kill himself. Hill told investigators he was being threatened by a woman he met on a dating site who demanded $15,000 for the nude photos they exchanged. Like many recent familicides, Hill told police he saw no other way out, other than killing everyone.
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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. It is Tuesday, November 3rd, and a retired Ohio State professor has just been sentenced to life in prison in a murder-suicide. But he was successful in the murder part, not so much in the suicide, in what is really a bizarre story. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Can we start with the age robes of the perpetrator? What the actual hell? We don't see this a lot.
00:00:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't see it a lot, but it feels like we've seen it often, at least in the last couple of months or so. James Hill, Professor James Hill, at 77 years old, made the choice and admitted to investigators that he murdered his wife and wait until you hear how he did it and why he did it. He also tried to kill the family dog before then killing himself. And this is a guy, again, 77, spent 40 years at Ohio State University as a professor of music. How unlikely and strange is this story?
00:01:14
Speaker 1: Strange, right? For 64, am I right?
00:01:16
Speaker 2: Yes, 64.
00:01:16
Speaker 1: Mary Hill is the victim here. It happened last year, November 9th, 2025. And again, it starts, Robes, from the very beginning, yeah? as an odd story. Now, this is happening where I wasn't familiar with this area, Upper Arlington, Ohio.
00:01:32
Speaker 2: Eight miles north of Columbus, Ohio.
00:01:34
Speaker 1: I'm not familiar with it, but yes, you can imagine this is a bustling, very much area dominated by Ohio State University.
00:01:41
Speaker 2: Correct.
00:01:41
Speaker 1: By a bunch of professors and students, whatever, living around that whole area surrounding Columbus. So police get a 911 call, Robes, on that day, and it's from him. Wasn't that clear, Robes, about exactly... what was wrong and what he needed help with, but he was the one to call police himself.
00:01:59
Speaker 2: Yes, and then abruptly hung up. So they come to the residence, obviously, and they see him sitting on the couch with the knife in his hand, I believe. He had a stab wound to his chest, and then they found his wife in the next room. Also with a stab wound, and she did not survive her wound.
00:02:23
Speaker 1: So what a scene, first of all, Robes, to walk into. Essentially an elderly man sitting there with a knife, and he has a stab wound. They couldn't immediately, upon looking at this, figure out what had happened, but Robes, he panicked. Filled in the blanks, it appears, pretty quickly for the authorities. He wasn't trying to evade capture.
00:02:40
Speaker 2: No, and look, he admitted that he had a plan. He tried to kill the family dog first, then successfully killed his wife, and then tried to kill himself. And just his plan... was that he actually wanted to shoot her, but he couldn't find the gun. He had hidden it years earlier, so he had to go. They had no use for it.
00:03:01
Speaker 1: Isn't it crazy?
00:03:02
Speaker 2: Right? And so then he had to find another weapon, and he found a knife.
00:03:08
Speaker 1: That's crazy to think about own guns, and you don't, if you're not using them, you do kind of lock them up and put them away or whatever. I never got to that point, but to think, Robes, he hasn't had any use for this weapon. Just put it away somewhere. Couldn't even find and remember where he hid the gun. That was it. An odd detail. It was. The other odd and, I guess, disturbing detail here. Well, two things. I'll start here first, Robes, with the dog, just to get this part out of the way. He injured the dog. He wanted to kill the dog. Injured the dog. The dog ran. Got away. 77-year-old man couldn't catch the dog, and the dog survives. This. Why he wanted to kill the dog. Robes, you'll have to explain that to me later. But he described, Robes, he gave authorities the details about how he went about killing his wife.
00:03:56
Speaker 2: Yes. He actually said that he approached her from behind. So she's at her desk, she's on her computer, and he comes up behind her and he starts to give her a massage. Like he's rubbing her shoulders. He even filled in this detail to police saying that his wife said, oh, that feels good. And while he's massaging her shoulders, he stabs her With a nine-inch knife. What the actual hell?
00:04:28
Speaker 1: In the chest, right?
00:04:29
Speaker 2: Yes. Like he stabs her to kill her.
00:04:35
Speaker 1: So after this, according to authority, no, according to him, he told the authorities this. He then takes the time to go to his computer while his wife presumably is bleeding to death. goes to his computer and tries to clean up some stuff, delete some photos, delete some documents. Now, why would anybody do that? And that, Robes, is where it goes into the motive. Why does a 77-year-old man feel the need to, all of a sudden, after being retired since 2015 and living his life, that he needs to kill his wife? Robes, this is a very bizarre turn to this story as well.
00:05:22
Speaker 2: Yes, he claimed that he exchanged nude photos with a woman that he met on a dating site. And according to him, this woman, who he sent nude photos of himself to, then used those photos to try and extort money from him. So his claim is that she said, unless you give me $ 15, 000 in Apple Pay cards... I'm going to show the world these nude photos of you. And look, he's 77. Again, he's in this Ohio State University community where I would imagine he's well-regarded. He spent 40 years as a music professor. You know that type of community, that academic academia community that lives around. So yes, I'm sure he felt reputationally that if this got out, that he would just suffer so much humiliation, and he literally told police he thought that killing his wife, his dog, and himself was, quote, his way out. His way out of shame, humiliation, embarrassment.
00:06:36
Speaker 1: And as the police put it, Robes, it's your quote. He could only think of one way out. And Robes... I do believe I have it right. The date of the demand and the threat is also the date of the death and the incident that day. Ropes, I do not know what happened. 77 years old on a dating website. Been retired for 11 years. Married for who knows how many. He's 77. And he's exchanging nude photos with someone on a website. Now, I haven't seen anywhere. Please tell me if you have any indication of who she is and if that person's in trouble in any way or what else.
00:07:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, we only know that he said he was before, like in between killing his wife and attempting to kill himself, he was quickly trying to delete all of the evidence on his computer, which we obviously know, covering plenty of crimes and trials, that that's all easily attainable by police. But it's just you get to this point where you think, why? Why was there no other way out? I understand. Yes, it's embarrassing. He didn't have the $ 15, 000 to pay this woman. But is it really the end of the world if you were horny or curious or, yes, even deviant in a sexual way where you were betraying your wife? Why is that so terrible? Why is the idea that someone might think you had a sexual urge outside of your wife or you did something stupid, why is that worth ending lives?
00:08:14
Speaker 1: But if he couldn't deal with the shame, I mean, he had the option just to kill yourself. I guess he didn't want his wife to find out about it, not to have shame as well.
00:08:24
Speaker 2: That's where I don't understand it. Yeah, to your point, I've always said this. Okay, obviously it's not the right move to make, but why would that not just be your only thought to end your life, to make sure that you got out of there without having to deal with the aftermath of bad choices?
00:08:41
Speaker 1: This is, and I look at this man, Robes, and yes, he killed his wife. That's awful. I mean, how do you, I don't know anything about him. Man, this is sad. This is, it's sad on a death, yes, but Robes, there is There was a devastation in a life that he has lived that now ends like this because of he got caught up in something that in 77 years, the life, the career, everything you've built, like you are so embarrassed that you have to end it all. That's just, it makes me so sad when I see people go through and live and work their whole lives and then something at the end gets them, some petty mistake. Bullshit, like this is just a shame.
00:09:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, because you look at it from the perspective, especially when you've lived that long, you would hope that you'd have some sort of perspective. You've seen enough people make mistakes. You've made enough mistakes where there's this acknowledgement that we're all flawed and that we all are redeemable in some way. But to think that he got to a place where he felt like he was so backed in a corner, that he was so trapped, that he had no other choice. That's what's sad to me that, look, I think... Everyone's got a varying injury, but everyone's got something they're embarrassed of. Everyone's got something they wish they hadn't done. Everybody's got something in their life that they hope nobody finds out about. I think we all, that's a human experience. And it's just sad to me that someone feels so trapped that they're willing to end things in such a violent way to avoid shame, but you actually end up doing something so much more horrific than the original I don't want to say crime, but the original bad act that you, that you, what?
00:10:24
Speaker 1: Well, we don't know what, don't know what these photos are, but we're talking about an elderly man. I don't know if his face is in these photos or if there was something about these, the idea of somebody seeing those photos in public was too much. It was too much. And he snapped almost immediately. It's the same day here, baby. He didn't, Right? He didn't negotiate. He didn't try to come up with another. He didn't give himself 24 hours to figure something out. This is a smart, this is an educated guy. And Robes just immediately, the idea of that, he was causing the acts his way. I didn't see anything. Did you see police have any other indication of problems that had been had? A call to this house before? Anything else, baby?
00:11:06
Speaker 2: No, and the only thing I looked at, look, he's 77. I also just thought of his wife, Mary, 64. That is young. I mean, the older I get, the younger everybody else seems to me. And that's just such a damn shame. Such a damn shame.
00:11:20
Speaker 1: So we did get word. He changed his plea, right?
00:11:23
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:11:24
Speaker 1: So he did plead guilty. So now he's agreed life in prison. He is eligible for parole in 15 years, but do the math.
00:11:32
Speaker 2: He'll be in his mid-90s or his early 90s.
00:11:35
Speaker 1: Do the math. He's probably not going to be a threat to anybody else at that point, if he's alive still at that point. But at the 77, you retire, and you're going to spend your golden years, the last of them, in prison, baby. In prison. But there were things about this case, Robes first brought it to my attention this morning, but there were things about it that sounded incredibly familiar, based on other types of crimes we followed this year. If you've been listening to us, there has been an uptick in familicide in this country. Men, in particular, wiping out their families after some issue of shame. Well, Robes, we are going to go through and show why, even though he killed only one person compared to these others, he followed exactly in line with many of these other perpetrators. Also, something we've noticed here lately, what's with the uptick of elderly folks killing people. Stay here.
00:12:40
Speaker 2: Welcome back, everyone, to Amy and TJ. A fairly shocking story. Around the campus of Ohio State University, a 40-year professor who had been retired for about a decade, now behind bars for the remainder of his life. At 77 years old, he has admitted he changed his plea to guilty for murdering his 64-year-old wife. He tried to kill the family dog. He tried to kill himself, all because he claims a woman who he was sexting with online threatened to reveal nude photos he had sent her. My God. God, and how did it end the way it did?
00:13:25
Speaker 1: Isn't it extortion? Isn't it a crime? Yes.
00:13:27
Speaker 2: And so, look, in all of the way it's been described as alleged extortion. So, look, I think it's unclear right now if police would pursue, but it seems like they should pursue someone who was willing. I mean, look, she obviously didn't know that this man was going to kill his wife and try to kill himself and try to kill the family dog. But obviously it's illegal to take something that someone's given you, a nude photo, whatever, and then demand money in exchange for keeping them private. So I don't know if police are going to pursue charges against that woman, but it seems like it would be warranted.
00:14:00
Speaker 1: But he didn't think he could place a call to them first. He didn't think he could try to get help. Too humiliating.
00:14:05
Speaker 2: He was a pillar of this community. I mean, he was among many. But yes, in these collegiate communities, those former professors, students coming back, you just, there's a source of pride about serving your community, being a leader, being somebody who people looked up to. And he certainly would have been that having been with the university for nearly four decades and living right there near campus. Yes. As somebody who people probably respected. And so to think that those photos were coming out, brought him to a breaking point.
00:14:36
Speaker 1: And where would those breaking points come as we've seen, um, There are almost too many to name here, but we have seen since the start of the summer, really, Robes?
00:14:44
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:14:45
Speaker 1: A number of familicides where guys are killing three, four, five, six, seven, eight members of the same family dying. Robes, it's almost always white men. But there was something as we were studying this, and even though this guy is one person he killed in the fact, why did he have to kill his wife? You still ask that question. Well, why didn't you just kill yourself?
00:15:07
Speaker 2: And why did you try to kill the dog?
00:15:09
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
00:15:09
Speaker 2: Why?
00:15:10
Speaker 1: Why the dog?
00:15:12
Speaker 2: Because he said he just wanted to take everybody out because the shame was that overwhelming. It's weird. I don't understand it.
00:15:19
Speaker 1: So we, as we were reporting all these familicides, we were thinking, we're like, wait, something is going on. What in God's name is happening? We started researching this, and sure enough, it's a thing. But robes, they have pieced together characteristics of people, mostly almost exclusively men, who do this. Robes, they got a lot in common, and a lot of this is in line with this professor in Ohio State.
00:15:44
Speaker 2: Yes, because these are white men, as you mentioned, almost always, and they are often educated, successful, family-oriented, They usually don't have a history of domestic violence, and they almost never have a history of criminal violence in any way, shape, or form. But these incidences of murder, and sometimes, yes, a murder-suicide, are often tied to a recent either financial difficulty or a relationship difficulty. And these are men who have difficulty with humiliation, who tend to be controlling, and are deeply insecure.
00:16:20
Speaker 1: Isn't that something, baby? All of these... So many of them are guys who had great jobs, who were executives here or there. They were involved in the church and the community in some way, form, or fashion. They were pillars, as you say, Robes. And anything that disrupts what people think of them makes them snap.
00:16:43
Speaker 2: But it's so interesting because, look, we haven'tâ look, everyone's got their own individualâ situation, but certainly I think you and I know what it's like to suffer a massive humiliation, a public humiliation, someone saying something and something being revealed and something feeling like everyone's against you. But never once, to have that turn to a homicidal ideation, I don't understand. I understand the pain involved.
00:17:12
Speaker 1: I understand suicidal.
00:17:13
Speaker 2: Yes, I do too.
00:17:14
Speaker 1: I understand that.
00:17:15
Speaker 2: I understand suicidal. I understand humiliation and pain and feeling like your reputation and everything you've built your whole life is about to come crumbling down. That will cause you to think and do things maybe outside of your character. But to take it to the next step and to murder members of your own family, that is where I don't get it. And then you're at a certain age.
00:17:39
Speaker 1: You're 77.
00:17:39
Speaker 2: Jeez, man. it's just to think that you even have that in you, that you would even feel like enough of your life is worth preserving, that you're willing to murder it, murder people around you and take your own life to avoid what, like you've just lived enough of your life. You should know better. I guess that's where I land on that.
00:17:57
Speaker 1: That's just too much to die, man. This is awful. Like this is just, this is an awful, awful story. A man, 77 years old in rope. We were, Rose, we were just talking, was it last week, the woman in Georgia?
00:18:11
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:18:11
Speaker 1: How old was she?
00:18:13
Speaker 2: 76 years old, murdered her 75-year-old ex-husband and his 40-year-old new girlfriend. That was a crime of passion, but she basically just drove herself straight to police and said, I did it.
00:18:23
Speaker 1: You know what? What were the parents out in California? 77.
00:18:26
Speaker 2: How old were they?
00:18:27
Speaker 1: They killed their son-in-law, right? Right. Didn't do much to try to evade police. No.
00:18:32
Speaker 2: They were caught leaving the parking garage on a busy Saturday in front of a bunch of eyewitnesses, and they took turns shooting him. Like, they were like, yeah, we're doing this, and we're going to both do it.
00:18:42
Speaker 1: And then you got this guy just sitting on the couch, call the police, I'm here. Yep. Right? We have seen these, I guess these could just be high-profile cases, but we just, it's so rare in this country to see murderers who are 70 plus.
00:18:56
Speaker 2: Yes, less than half a percent. of all murders in this country are by 75 year old or 75 year old people and older. Like that's how rare this is.
00:19:09
Speaker 1: And you just named three, right?
00:19:10
Speaker 2: In the last few weeks, like this has all been one after the other. So yes, you start to see these patterns and these, um, I don't know, upticks in specific types of violence and it's worth noting. It's worth paying attention to.
00:19:26
Speaker 1: But he is going to prison now for what appears the rest of his life, 15 years. He would be 92 when he's eligible for parole. Is that right?
00:19:35
Speaker 2: Yes, you did the math correctly.
00:19:37
Speaker 1: I'm looking at you. I knew what you were going to say because you always say.
00:19:39
Speaker 2: I was a journalism major for a reason.
00:19:42
Speaker 1: All right, folks. Just wanted to put this one on your radar. We appreciate you as always spending a little time with us. I'm TJ. That's Ro. We'll talk soon.
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. It is Tuesday, November 3rd, and a retired Ohio State professor has just been sentenced to life in prison in a murder-suicide. But he was successful in the murder part, not so much in the suicide, in what is really a bizarre story. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Can we start with the age robes of the perpetrator? What the actual hell? We don't see this a lot.
00:00:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't see it a lot, but it feels like we've seen it often, at least in the last couple of months or so. James Hill, Professor James Hill, at 77 years old, made the choice and admitted to investigators that he murdered his wife and wait until you hear how he did it and why he did it. He also tried to kill the family dog before then killing himself. And this is a guy, again, 77, spent 40 years at Ohio State University as a professor of music. How unlikely and strange is this story?
00:01:14
Speaker 1: Strange, right? For 64, am I right?
00:01:16
Speaker 2: Yes, 64.
00:01:16
Speaker 1: Mary Hill is the victim here. It happened last year, November 9th, 2025. And again, it starts, Robes, from the very beginning, yeah? as an odd story. Now, this is happening where I wasn't familiar with this area, Upper Arlington, Ohio.
00:01:32
Speaker 2: Eight miles north of Columbus, Ohio.
00:01:34
Speaker 1: I'm not familiar with it, but yes, you can imagine this is a bustling, very much area dominated by Ohio State University.
00:01:41
Speaker 2: Correct.
00:01:41
Speaker 1: By a bunch of professors and students, whatever, living around that whole area surrounding Columbus. So police get a 911 call, Robes, on that day, and it's from him. Wasn't that clear, Robes, about exactly... what was wrong and what he needed help with, but he was the one to call police himself.
00:01:59
Speaker 2: Yes, and then abruptly hung up. So they come to the residence, obviously, and they see him sitting on the couch with the knife in his hand, I believe. He had a stab wound to his chest, and then they found his wife in the next room. Also with a stab wound, and she did not survive her wound.
00:02:23
Speaker 1: So what a scene, first of all, Robes, to walk into. Essentially an elderly man sitting there with a knife, and he has a stab wound. They couldn't immediately, upon looking at this, figure out what had happened, but Robes, he panicked. Filled in the blanks, it appears, pretty quickly for the authorities. He wasn't trying to evade capture.
00:02:40
Speaker 2: No, and look, he admitted that he had a plan. He tried to kill the family dog first, then successfully killed his wife, and then tried to kill himself. And just his plan... was that he actually wanted to shoot her, but he couldn't find the gun. He had hidden it years earlier, so he had to go. They had no use for it.
00:03:01
Speaker 1: Isn't it crazy?
00:03:02
Speaker 2: Right? And so then he had to find another weapon, and he found a knife.
00:03:08
Speaker 1: That's crazy to think about own guns, and you don't, if you're not using them, you do kind of lock them up and put them away or whatever. I never got to that point, but to think, Robes, he hasn't had any use for this weapon. Just put it away somewhere. Couldn't even find and remember where he hid the gun. That was it. An odd detail. It was. The other odd and, I guess, disturbing detail here. Well, two things. I'll start here first, Robes, with the dog, just to get this part out of the way. He injured the dog. He wanted to kill the dog. Injured the dog. The dog ran. Got away. 77-year-old man couldn't catch the dog, and the dog survives. This. Why he wanted to kill the dog. Robes, you'll have to explain that to me later. But he described, Robes, he gave authorities the details about how he went about killing his wife.
00:03:56
Speaker 2: Yes. He actually said that he approached her from behind. So she's at her desk, she's on her computer, and he comes up behind her and he starts to give her a massage. Like he's rubbing her shoulders. He even filled in this detail to police saying that his wife said, oh, that feels good. And while he's massaging her shoulders, he stabs her With a nine-inch knife. What the actual hell?
00:04:28
Speaker 1: In the chest, right?
00:04:29
Speaker 2: Yes. Like he stabs her to kill her.
00:04:35
Speaker 1: So after this, according to authority, no, according to him, he told the authorities this. He then takes the time to go to his computer while his wife presumably is bleeding to death. goes to his computer and tries to clean up some stuff, delete some photos, delete some documents. Now, why would anybody do that? And that, Robes, is where it goes into the motive. Why does a 77-year-old man feel the need to, all of a sudden, after being retired since 2015 and living his life, that he needs to kill his wife? Robes, this is a very bizarre turn to this story as well.
00:05:22
Speaker 2: Yes, he claimed that he exchanged nude photos with a woman that he met on a dating site. And according to him, this woman, who he sent nude photos of himself to, then used those photos to try and extort money from him. So his claim is that she said, unless you give me $ 15, 000 in Apple Pay cards... I'm going to show the world these nude photos of you. And look, he's 77. Again, he's in this Ohio State University community where I would imagine he's well-regarded. He spent 40 years as a music professor. You know that type of community, that academic academia community that lives around. So yes, I'm sure he felt reputationally that if this got out, that he would just suffer so much humiliation, and he literally told police he thought that killing his wife, his dog, and himself was, quote, his way out. His way out of shame, humiliation, embarrassment.
00:06:36
Speaker 1: And as the police put it, Robes, it's your quote. He could only think of one way out. And Robes... I do believe I have it right. The date of the demand and the threat is also the date of the death and the incident that day. Ropes, I do not know what happened. 77 years old on a dating website. Been retired for 11 years. Married for who knows how many. He's 77. And he's exchanging nude photos with someone on a website. Now, I haven't seen anywhere. Please tell me if you have any indication of who she is and if that person's in trouble in any way or what else.
00:07:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, we only know that he said he was before, like in between killing his wife and attempting to kill himself, he was quickly trying to delete all of the evidence on his computer, which we obviously know, covering plenty of crimes and trials, that that's all easily attainable by police. But it's just you get to this point where you think, why? Why was there no other way out? I understand. Yes, it's embarrassing. He didn't have the $ 15, 000 to pay this woman. But is it really the end of the world if you were horny or curious or, yes, even deviant in a sexual way where you were betraying your wife? Why is that so terrible? Why is the idea that someone might think you had a sexual urge outside of your wife or you did something stupid, why is that worth ending lives?
00:08:14
Speaker 1: But if he couldn't deal with the shame, I mean, he had the option just to kill yourself. I guess he didn't want his wife to find out about it, not to have shame as well.
00:08:24
Speaker 2: That's where I don't understand it. Yeah, to your point, I've always said this. Okay, obviously it's not the right move to make, but why would that not just be your only thought to end your life, to make sure that you got out of there without having to deal with the aftermath of bad choices?
00:08:41
Speaker 1: This is, and I look at this man, Robes, and yes, he killed his wife. That's awful. I mean, how do you, I don't know anything about him. Man, this is sad. This is, it's sad on a death, yes, but Robes, there is There was a devastation in a life that he has lived that now ends like this because of he got caught up in something that in 77 years, the life, the career, everything you've built, like you are so embarrassed that you have to end it all. That's just, it makes me so sad when I see people go through and live and work their whole lives and then something at the end gets them, some petty mistake. Bullshit, like this is just a shame.
00:09:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, because you look at it from the perspective, especially when you've lived that long, you would hope that you'd have some sort of perspective. You've seen enough people make mistakes. You've made enough mistakes where there's this acknowledgement that we're all flawed and that we all are redeemable in some way. But to think that he got to a place where he felt like he was so backed in a corner, that he was so trapped, that he had no other choice. That's what's sad to me that, look, I think... Everyone's got a varying injury, but everyone's got something they're embarrassed of. Everyone's got something they wish they hadn't done. Everybody's got something in their life that they hope nobody finds out about. I think we all, that's a human experience. And it's just sad to me that someone feels so trapped that they're willing to end things in such a violent way to avoid shame, but you actually end up doing something so much more horrific than the original I don't want to say crime, but the original bad act that you, that you, what?
00:10:24
Speaker 1: Well, we don't know what, don't know what these photos are, but we're talking about an elderly man. I don't know if his face is in these photos or if there was something about these, the idea of somebody seeing those photos in public was too much. It was too much. And he snapped almost immediately. It's the same day here, baby. He didn't, Right? He didn't negotiate. He didn't try to come up with another. He didn't give himself 24 hours to figure something out. This is a smart, this is an educated guy. And Robes just immediately, the idea of that, he was causing the acts his way. I didn't see anything. Did you see police have any other indication of problems that had been had? A call to this house before? Anything else, baby?
00:11:06
Speaker 2: No, and the only thing I looked at, look, he's 77. I also just thought of his wife, Mary, 64. That is young. I mean, the older I get, the younger everybody else seems to me. And that's just such a damn shame. Such a damn shame.
00:11:20
Speaker 1: So we did get word. He changed his plea, right?
00:11:23
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:11:24
Speaker 1: So he did plead guilty. So now he's agreed life in prison. He is eligible for parole in 15 years, but do the math.
00:11:32
Speaker 2: He'll be in his mid-90s or his early 90s.
00:11:35
Speaker 1: Do the math. He's probably not going to be a threat to anybody else at that point, if he's alive still at that point. But at the 77, you retire, and you're going to spend your golden years, the last of them, in prison, baby. In prison. But there were things about this case, Robes first brought it to my attention this morning, but there were things about it that sounded incredibly familiar, based on other types of crimes we followed this year. If you've been listening to us, there has been an uptick in familicide in this country. Men, in particular, wiping out their families after some issue of shame. Well, Robes, we are going to go through and show why, even though he killed only one person compared to these others, he followed exactly in line with many of these other perpetrators. Also, something we've noticed here lately, what's with the uptick of elderly folks killing people. Stay here.
00:12:40
Speaker 2: Welcome back, everyone, to Amy and TJ. A fairly shocking story. Around the campus of Ohio State University, a 40-year professor who had been retired for about a decade, now behind bars for the remainder of his life. At 77 years old, he has admitted he changed his plea to guilty for murdering his 64-year-old wife. He tried to kill the family dog. He tried to kill himself, all because he claims a woman who he was sexting with online threatened to reveal nude photos he had sent her. My God. God, and how did it end the way it did?
00:13:25
Speaker 1: Isn't it extortion? Isn't it a crime? Yes.
00:13:27
Speaker 2: And so, look, in all of the way it's been described as alleged extortion. So, look, I think it's unclear right now if police would pursue, but it seems like they should pursue someone who was willing. I mean, look, she obviously didn't know that this man was going to kill his wife and try to kill himself and try to kill the family dog. But obviously it's illegal to take something that someone's given you, a nude photo, whatever, and then demand money in exchange for keeping them private. So I don't know if police are going to pursue charges against that woman, but it seems like it would be warranted.
00:14:00
Speaker 1: But he didn't think he could place a call to them first. He didn't think he could try to get help. Too humiliating.
00:14:05
Speaker 2: He was a pillar of this community. I mean, he was among many. But yes, in these collegiate communities, those former professors, students coming back, you just, there's a source of pride about serving your community, being a leader, being somebody who people looked up to. And he certainly would have been that having been with the university for nearly four decades and living right there near campus. Yes. As somebody who people probably respected. And so to think that those photos were coming out, brought him to a breaking point.
00:14:36
Speaker 1: And where would those breaking points come as we've seen, um, There are almost too many to name here, but we have seen since the start of the summer, really, Robes?
00:14:44
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:14:45
Speaker 1: A number of familicides where guys are killing three, four, five, six, seven, eight members of the same family dying. Robes, it's almost always white men. But there was something as we were studying this, and even though this guy is one person he killed in the fact, why did he have to kill his wife? You still ask that question. Well, why didn't you just kill yourself?
00:15:07
Speaker 2: And why did you try to kill the dog?
00:15:09
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
00:15:09
Speaker 2: Why?
00:15:10
Speaker 1: Why the dog?
00:15:12
Speaker 2: Because he said he just wanted to take everybody out because the shame was that overwhelming. It's weird. I don't understand it.
00:15:19
Speaker 1: So we, as we were reporting all these familicides, we were thinking, we're like, wait, something is going on. What in God's name is happening? We started researching this, and sure enough, it's a thing. But robes, they have pieced together characteristics of people, mostly almost exclusively men, who do this. Robes, they got a lot in common, and a lot of this is in line with this professor in Ohio State.
00:15:44
Speaker 2: Yes, because these are white men, as you mentioned, almost always, and they are often educated, successful, family-oriented, They usually don't have a history of domestic violence, and they almost never have a history of criminal violence in any way, shape, or form. But these incidences of murder, and sometimes, yes, a murder-suicide, are often tied to a recent either financial difficulty or a relationship difficulty. And these are men who have difficulty with humiliation, who tend to be controlling, and are deeply insecure.
00:16:20
Speaker 1: Isn't that something, baby? All of these... So many of them are guys who had great jobs, who were executives here or there. They were involved in the church and the community in some way, form, or fashion. They were pillars, as you say, Robes. And anything that disrupts what people think of them makes them snap.
00:16:43
Speaker 2: But it's so interesting because, look, we haven'tâ look, everyone's got their own individualâ situation, but certainly I think you and I know what it's like to suffer a massive humiliation, a public humiliation, someone saying something and something being revealed and something feeling like everyone's against you. But never once, to have that turn to a homicidal ideation, I don't understand. I understand the pain involved.
00:17:12
Speaker 1: I understand suicidal.
00:17:13
Speaker 2: Yes, I do too.
00:17:14
Speaker 1: I understand that.
00:17:15
Speaker 2: I understand suicidal. I understand humiliation and pain and feeling like your reputation and everything you've built your whole life is about to come crumbling down. That will cause you to think and do things maybe outside of your character. But to take it to the next step and to murder members of your own family, that is where I don't get it. And then you're at a certain age.
00:17:39
Speaker 1: You're 77.
00:17:39
Speaker 2: Jeez, man. it's just to think that you even have that in you, that you would even feel like enough of your life is worth preserving, that you're willing to murder it, murder people around you and take your own life to avoid what, like you've just lived enough of your life. You should know better. I guess that's where I land on that.
00:17:57
Speaker 1: That's just too much to die, man. This is awful. Like this is just, this is an awful, awful story. A man, 77 years old in rope. We were, Rose, we were just talking, was it last week, the woman in Georgia?
00:18:11
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:18:11
Speaker 1: How old was she?
00:18:13
Speaker 2: 76 years old, murdered her 75-year-old ex-husband and his 40-year-old new girlfriend. That was a crime of passion, but she basically just drove herself straight to police and said, I did it.
00:18:23
Speaker 1: You know what? What were the parents out in California? 77.
00:18:26
Speaker 2: How old were they?
00:18:27
Speaker 1: They killed their son-in-law, right? Right. Didn't do much to try to evade police. No.
00:18:32
Speaker 2: They were caught leaving the parking garage on a busy Saturday in front of a bunch of eyewitnesses, and they took turns shooting him. Like, they were like, yeah, we're doing this, and we're going to both do it.
00:18:42
Speaker 1: And then you got this guy just sitting on the couch, call the police, I'm here. Yep. Right? We have seen these, I guess these could just be high-profile cases, but we just, it's so rare in this country to see murderers who are 70 plus.
00:18:56
Speaker 2: Yes, less than half a percent. of all murders in this country are by 75 year old or 75 year old people and older. Like that's how rare this is.
00:19:09
Speaker 1: And you just named three, right?
00:19:10
Speaker 2: In the last few weeks, like this has all been one after the other. So yes, you start to see these patterns and these, um, I don't know, upticks in specific types of violence and it's worth noting. It's worth paying attention to.
00:19:26
Speaker 1: But he is going to prison now for what appears the rest of his life, 15 years. He would be 92 when he's eligible for parole. Is that right?
00:19:35
Speaker 2: Yes, you did the math correctly.
00:19:37
Speaker 1: I'm looking at you. I knew what you were going to say because you always say.
00:19:39
Speaker 2: I was a journalism major for a reason.
00:19:42
Speaker 1: All right, folks. Just wanted to put this one on your radar. We appreciate you as always spending a little time with us. I'm TJ. That's Ro. We'll talk soon.