Shit 13:40 is awful
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Byron Smith convicted of premeditated murder of two teens during home break-in
- Thread starter Anton Sugar
- Start date
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Shit 13:40 is awful
Wolfgunblood Garopa
Member
Spencer Gifts should hire a guy with a machete to wait outside their door and chop off the hands of shoplifters.
speculawyer
Member
It is the premeditation. The intent to lure & kill.
Even if neither kid died, I think a Minnesota jury would have convicted him of something else because intentionally tried to lure kids in to shoot them.
WeAreStarStuff
Member
God damn at the dialog and diagrams... :/
Ugh, I'm sorry I listened to that....wow...
speculawyer
Member
Exactly! He didn't fear for his life. If he really feared for his life he would not be trying to lure them in!
Anton Sugar
Member
Holy shit. Adding to OP.
It's hard to listen to. I urge everyone to listen to it though.
plagiarize
Banned
in many cases when it comes to murder, the victims aren't innocent. it's not a consideration in the murder trial and it shouldn't be. you don't get to go around killing criminals for being criminals. criminals still have a right to live. even in states with the death penalty, these criminals would never have even come near facing it for their crimes on that night.
that they were criminals does not remotely justify their murder.
Jesus. What a psychopath.
Zuhzuhzombie!!
Member
I think it would have to with how the law defines lure and in this case, from what I understand, the shooting victims had actually cased the place and mapped it out previously with intent to rob him regardless. Their intention may negate any potential accusations of him luring someone into his home.
figadapaura
Member
Ugh, that was horrible.
LostCaress
Member
That makes no sense. How would it be?
0 doubt : Instant Death Penalty
A little bit of doubt, above 0 doubt, but below reasonable doubt : Life in prison
Reasonable doubt : acquittal
Epsilon-delta
Banned
Why does it seem like when someone says they are a Vietnam veteran, or a veteran from any war, there are given the benefit of doubt that they saw combat?
Like when legit SeALs get tired of so many veterans claiming to be prior SeALs that it outnumbers the number of actual operators in existence.
So much so, they built a database to keep track of all the wannabes running around and using it to name and shame.
He could've been this, he could've been that and he could've been flying B-52s for supply runs.
Zuhzuhzombie!!
Member
I think the death penalty should be taken off the books in order to reinforce the concept that the state values human life. I feel like this would also reinforce the value of human life in sentencing someone who commits an act of premeditated murder.
Possible, but I wouldn't know if a supply run would be considered a combat active position or not. Not sure if it came up as relative in the case either, but I think most people don't try to parse that out generally because of the social attachment to respecting the military.
SimpleGamer
Member
This.Wow that write up was hard to read...
Epsilon-delta
Banned
I'm fine with anyone respecting the military, but don't like when their veteran status and/or possible PTSD becomes the focal point of a heinous crime.
It does a disservice to combat veterans everywhere with PTSD, that are living their lives as best as they can as upstanding citizens.
chickdigger802
Banned
so would there have been a case if he didn't record it?
Anton Sugar
Member
I think there still would have been one, but not nearly as strong. He still let the bodies sit there overnight, still put tarp down, still set up his little "hide".
The audio is damning, though.
As others have said, the fact he had a tarp set up, a cell phone jammer, hid his truck and hid with guns waiting all makes it seem like he was waiting to kill whoever showed up.
The Lamonster
Member
I hope he experiences hell on earth in prison. Good riddance.
Omegasquash
Member
Yeah he can stay out of society forever, thanks.
This. :/ That was really chilling to read. This piece of shit can burn. Nobody should have the right to kill an intruder unless they truly feel their life or the lives of family members is in danger. This is just cold-blooded murder.
EDIT: Ugh. The audio...
It was pretty clear by the details the old man was deranged.
Wait, don't tell me the Grizzly Man audio is actually out there.
Wait, don't tell me the Grizzly Man audio is actually out there.
OrangeJulius
Member
I don't want to listen to that audio. Home invasion/burglary, whatever you want to define it as is a horrible crime, but it's no justification for cold blooded murder.
Wait, don't tell me the Grizzly Man audio is actually out there.
I'm not sure. Watching the documentary and just imagining the tape and seeing his mom's reaction nearly made me sick with anxiety. I don't even have a very vivid imagination without smoking or ingesting weed but just the thought of lingering memories keep my away.
Anton Sugar
Member
Yeah, legit heart-breaking, hearing her scream as she's being shot repeatedly.
Word. Probably taking your opinion too far, but people are just animals with a glorified opinion of themselves. Some animals just need to be put down without any fanfare or hesitation. Guy is a maniac and there's no question of his guilt.
The people who try to pretend we need to treat people like that with compassion or humanity are deluded into seeing humans as something more than what we really are.
We are what we want to be. And we can be a people who do not need to purge other living beings from existence.
OrangeJulius
Member
Can someone with more intimate knowledge of the case clarify something for me? I know he didn't call the authorities until the next day, so my question is this?
How the heck did his neighbors not hear him emptying clips into these kids?
How the heck did his neighbors not hear him emptying clips into these kids?
A rational person would have set the cameras and audio recorder up and then drove to a point overlooking the house with binoculars and then called the police once he saw people break in and let them handle it. This guy is a terrible person who just wanted to kill those that wronged him. I call bullshit on any of his claims that he was scared at all. He just wanted revenge on them for breaking in and taking his stuff previously.
Brian Griffin
Member
I think the guns weren't very powerful so the sounds might not travel very far and might not register as gunshots in people's minds if they did hear them.
I might be wrong though. I've never heard a .22 but I've seen the ammo and it's small.
This too.
It was also in his basement. I imagine the sound didn't carry very well out of there.
I hear what could be gunshots near my house from time to time. Some of them turned out to be gunshots (a bank robber was gunned down a rock throw from my back porch a few years ago).
I peak out my window but I've never called the cops merely because of a sound like that. I'm not confident it's gunfire really.. cars, transformers, etc. can make similar noises. It's also not uncommon for people to light off powerful fireworks or explosives on purpose (partly due to the proximity of the Seattle area to native american reservations where such explosives are sold.)
And yeah, a .22 fired inside of a house isn't necessarily even going to be that loud.
I peak out my window but I've never called the cops merely because of a sound like that. I'm not confident it's gunfire really.. cars, transformers, etc. can make similar noises. It's also not uncommon for people to light off powerful fireworks or explosives on purpose (partly due to the proximity of the Seattle area to native american reservations where such explosives are sold.)
And yeah, a .22 fired inside of a house isn't necessarily even going to be that loud.
A Mini-14 is actually pretty powerful and very loud... It generally uses the same round as something like an M4 carbine. That said, unless people were outside of their homes at the time it probably wouldn't be loud enough to wake people up or make people suspicious enough to call the police.
.223 on the left (used in Mini-14) and .22 on the right (used in the .22 revolver)
OrangeJulius
Member
Not necessarily. Lot's of people just enjoy playing devils advocate, I for one am guilty of this, especially on GAF.
I certainly don't agree with what this guy did though. It was calculated cold blooded murder, through and through.
RumblingRosco
Member
As someone who has experienced a home burglary... This guy is crazy. But, I understand and empathize with the feeling of wanting to wait up at night with a baseball bat to break the legs of the next person that tries to kick in the door to my home. Having our cars broken into 2-3 times (overnight while they were parked in our driveway or in the street right in front of our house) and a home burglary in the span of 14 months absolutely puts a bit of fear and anger into someone.
Yeah I've had my car stolen, car broken into numerous times, and was once robbed at gunpoint at a cash machine.
Before any of that I never fantasized about harming criminals, but after? Very common for me to sit around getting pissed off imagining being able to enact revenge on someone I caught in the act. (not now, but shortly after said crimes were committed, which also were all in the span of maybe 2 years.)
To the point where I've had to have very serious internal conversations with myself about what I need to do to stop myself if I ever was confronted with such an opportunity. I'm a logical person who doesn't agree that I should shoot someone fleeing from a crime they committed against me, but I'm not necessarily going to react logically in those situations. It's part of the reason I moved to the suburbs and purposefully avoid gun ownership.
It is literally in the first post.
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