Transcript of The Bragging Brute - Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio

Hello everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express.

Yay, Choo Choo!

Yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrich Al, and I'm here with my co-host.

I'm Jimmy Wiseman.

Thank you, folks, so much for joining us today on another crazy edition of Small Town Murder Express, crazy like always, all aboard the murder train.

Let's go on a trip, shall we?

Yeah.

All right. We're going to Ohio this week.

Yeah.

Which I will say, we are one of the tour dates next year will be in Ohio. So Ohio people, keep a lookout for that. We are going to Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.

Popular place, right?

Yeah. Cuyahoga Falls. Absolutely. I don't know. I think when I hear the name, I just play the song from the beginning of Major League over and over again that talks about the Cuyahoga River.

Yeah, I mean. Ohio is very flush with Cuyahoga. They use the motherfuck out of it.

They like it a lot. This is northeastern Ohio, about 45 minutes to Cleveland, about an hour 45 to Pittsburgh the other way. We've driven that many, many times.

Yeah.

And about an hour to our last Ohio episode, which was Howland Township, Ohio. That was episode 699, Just My Imagination, which was a crazy story, if I remember correctly. You can imagine. I love that song. It's a good song.

It's a good song.

Temptations, I think, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. Summit County, this is in. Area code 330 and also 234. Population, a little bit higher than we normally do, but 50,906.

Wow.

But it's all by itself. It considers itself a small town.

It's all.

You know, like everybody, all the reviews. It's a great small town. Like that's what they all say. Median household income here, $62,294 a year, which is a little below the national average.

Not so bad.

Not so bad. But median home cost, not bad at all, $182,500. So.

That's fantastic.

I think that's less than half the national average at this point. So.

Very good.

Pretty good. Not bad. History here. Cuyahoga Falls was formed in 1812, near a bunch of towns that were already existing, kind of in the middle of all of them. It was originally called Manchester.

Oh.

But when they put it into the post office system to get, you know, hey, we're going to call this Manchester, they said there are several other Manchesters in Ohio. Not just one, several.

In Ohio?

Already, just in this state. So maybe not Manchester. So then they said, all right, Cuyahoga Falls. And they went, definitely none of those here. Great. You're good. Check. So.

Manchesters around the country. There's so fucking many.

Everywhere. Yeah. Just from the English there. Now the Cuyahoga River waterfalls provided power for a lot of the manufacturing.

Oh, there is a fall.

There's a lot. Oh yeah, they're huge. They have an event where there's a contest to like paddle through it and shit. It looks pretty hairy. 1812, a couple of people built a dam on the Cuyahoga River at a place where a railroad bridge crossed. Then they built a flour mill and an oil mill and a saw mill and all that kind of shit.

Got to mill it up.

Got to mill it up here. That led to a bunch of houses, and that is how the town started here. July 31st, 1940, the Doodlebug disaster.

Oh no.

Which was a train wreck, which they made it sound.

The Great Doodlebug Fire.

It was a train wreck?

Train wreck.

They made it sound adorable somehow.

Yeah.

That sounds like a bunch of like five-year-olds, two cars full of five-year-olds running into each other and.

Gram.

Falling out and crying, but being okay. The Doodlebug disaster.

A Doodlebug is like that thing that builds that little cone in the dirt, right?

I think so.

And then things go into the dirt and they snatch it.

Yeah, I think so.

I think that's a Doodlebug. Yeah.

Well, this killed 43 people. So that was.

That's not adorable at all.

Not very adorable here. Well, let's find out if this town is adorable with some reviews here. Reviews. We got five stars. Sea Falls has a lot to offer. They just didn't want to spell.

Sea Falls.

Sea Falls. But they didn't do it like dash, like it's a nickname. They did Sea.

Yeah.

Falls. Like I'm not spelling this out. I don't feel like it.

Do they know that the sea word is not Cuyahoga?

I don't think they do. I think they're lacking in knowledge there. It has a lot to offer and is a quiet neighborhood. It's close to everything. Walmart, Lowe's, Target, Menards, and many grocery stores.

You know, everything.

You know, the strip mall. Yeah. That's like Cheech and Chong. Whenever anybody does that, it's my favorite joke from Up and Smoke.

Yeah.

Where he's talking about the band and he goes, well, what do you play? He goes, you know, everything from like Santana to El Chicano. You know, everything. That's everything from Santana to El Chicano.

You know, everything.

You know, everything, man. He was like, oh, okay. It's a perfect area to live.

Perfect.

You can get to Menards and Target. Yeah, obviously.

Yeah.

Three stars. I'd like to see a little more cultured entertainment and nightlife rather than just bars.

In Ohio, you want culture?

Be happy or drunk. Just leave it at that.

Yeah.

New local micro breweries are helping to bring in more people, but alcohol and bars can only go so far. Some more finer-end restaurants would be nice, but no one in Cuyahoga Falls seemed to appreciate anything beyond franchise eateries.

I believe that.

Yeah. It's a perfect place to live because it's near Walmart and Lowe's. So yeah.

Some chilies and an apple.

Oh man. You know how that goes. Three stars. Cuyahoga Falls has a few decent spots, but mostly I'm not a huge fan. There was recently a violent crime at the Taco Bell five minutes away where two people died. I don't really want my son growing up here.

Oh, because it's not safe to get a burrito sprain.

This Taco Bell is dangerous.

Have you noticed that the in-and-outs in this country are the most dangerous place ever?

No.

They aren't. There's shootings and fights every week at these places.

Like I said, overrated horse shit. So anybody that goes there.

It's fast food. I didn't know there was fights over this shit.

We don't have it in the Northeast, thank God. So.

It's crazy. The videos online are nuts.

That's crazy.

I'm not surprised they're at Taco Bell in Cuyahoga too.

Yeah, that's so they don't have an in-and-out to fight at. That's the problem. They needed that.

Fighting over it.

Here's two stars finally. It has all the things I need, but it is pretty boring all of the time.

Right.

Okay. Things to do. Festa Italiana.

Oh.

Yeah, Italiana. That's what it is. Proud to support our local Italian community and doing our part to share and keep alive the Italian culture, arts, music, and traditions.

Is that where they're at in Ohio?

Well, this was once a factory town. So back in the day, guess who came and worked at all your shit factories at dangerous jobs.

Sure, sure.

Lots of Italians. So we have a bunch of music going on here. The Waller and DeMarco duo.

Sure.

There's a journey.

Waller. Very Italian.

Very it's a Waller. Yeah, I mean, married. You never know. The Journey Tribute Band, Escape, spelled with number. It's E5C4P3. Escape.

Oh.

Get it?

God.

A Journey Tribute Band.

Yeah.

Orovero will be there. That sounds Italian. The Tuscan Trio is coming.

Sure.

My favorite here. And they got a two and a half hour set. A glass of wine. Who can hate a glass of wine?

We are a glass of wine.

Welcome to our show. Marielle Aguilar, the Michael Weber Show. That doesn't sound very Italian.

No.

Devin Henry. That's says country in parentheses. Like, listen, if you're looking for Italian music, this isn't the spot for you. Move on.

This is a spaghetti western guy.

Yeah, that's exactly. Clint Eastwood, the man with no name is coming to play. Off the charts, the 722 singers, Juliana Crookston Galenko and the La Fiammi Band. Oh, also the Valletta Band, the I Campagnoli Band.

Okay, here we go. Now we're getting it.

Pignata and Mora Match. There you go. So that said, let's talk about some murder. What do you think here? I didn't think I'd be looking at a bunch of Italian shit when I rung up Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, but it makes sense to me, I guess. So let's talk about some murder here. All right. Let's start out January 12th, 1994. Okay. Now, there's been some people here. There's a, first of all, there's a guy whose brother told him some very weird shit.

Oh.

Now, he's not going to talk about it till the cops come to him to discuss it. He's not going to go tell on his brother.

He's going to keep it quiet. Are these Italians James?

They are not, actually. Surprisingly, they're not.

It's very impressive.

But, well, one of these guys might be who ends up telling, but there's two other guys who someone has been talking to in a bar.

Yeah.

Who are not so loyal. And they decide to go to a friend's house to talk to their father because they knew their father was a police officer.

Shit.

Which is very bad. And they're horrified, these two. They show up and they're like wide-eyed and like, we saw some shit and we got to tell you about it.

Dear God.

They tell a guy named Officer Joe Orsin that their friend that they've been hanging out with all night at the bar has told them a crazy tale and they found out that it's true. And we saw a dead body. Like he showed us.

Oh, they saw it.

He showed us the dead body. Like it was disturbing.

All right. We'll stand by me.

Yeah, exactly. Want to see a dead body?

Yeah.

They then went to the police station with the officer to make a statement. Now, the tale they have to tell was my friend told us about this horrible murder. We saw the body. So police were like, well, first of all, let's go check on the body and make sure that's true.

Let's just see if it's there. Yeah.

Really easy way to see if they're lying. If that body isn't there, then probably they're full of shit. How much were you drinking last night is the first question.

Yeah.

So they're dispatched. They do find a body.

It's still there.

It's still there. So then they end up initiating an investigation and they realize, oh, everything that those guys told us was true.

Yeah.

We should go arrest this guy who they told us about. They go search this guy's house and they find a lot. They find a camouflage outfit, gloves, a tent pole, a white rope, a knife, and a blank check from the victim's account.

Okay.

So that's bad.

Yeah.

Now, the two men that tell the tale, let's find out the tale they tell. Okay. They say, all right, so this guy, we know him, real good friends. We've known him for years. He shows up at the bar. He starts talking. Now there's this lady, right? So there's this lady named Loretta May Halbert Foster. Halberd's her maiden name. Foster's the name she goes by. Loretta May Foster. She was born October 14th, 1926.

Okay.

Okay. So this is 1994. So she's 67 at this point here. She's born and raised in Cuyahoga Falls. Lived here her whole life. Parents are Frank and Mary. She has three brothers and five sisters, one of nine kids. That's a lot.

Frank was throwing it.

Fucking Frank was horny. Either that or Mary was just a honeypot, man.

Jinx.

Wow. Three brothers, Earl Thomas and William, five sisters, Rosella, Elizabeth, Florence, Mildred, Louise.

Yeah.

Some old-timey names there. She was married in 1944, like mid-war, to a man named Charles Leon Foster. They have one child together.

That's it.

One child named Michael. He gives them two granddaughters. Charles dies in 1975.

Damn it.

So it's been 19 years of Loretta has been on her own.

Ms. Foster's just going single.

That's it. Yeah, from her mid-40s on, basically. From 48 to.

A widow.

You know. Yeah. So Loretta becomes the neighborhood grandma. That's who she is.

Just taking care of everybody.

And by the way, 67 then is much different than 67 now.

Yeah.

67 now is, you know, people are still working. They're doing things. 67.

Oh my God. She's on Desperate Housewives.

Yeah. Yeah, she's on doing reality shows, like fucking Cougars on the Prowl and shit.

She's chugging wine and fucking Ibiza.

My grandmothers were within a couple years of old, like born in the late 20s like this. Both of them, they were old ladies by the midnight. Like they were not viable. They were old ladies.

Embracing.

Yeah. They wore house coats. They fucking, you know what I mean? Old fucking ladies.

Time to be hot years ago.

Didn't matter anymore. Yeah. So Loretta becomes the neighborhood grandma. She babysits the local neighborhood kids. Everyone loves Loretta. She's a sweet lady. Big lady too. Big woman. Weighs 313 pounds.

Shit, Loretta.

Big woman, Loretta. So a big happy grandma type is going to be popular with the children. You know she's got cookies and she's doling them out. You know it.

The amount of snacks is crazy.

Cookies, baking. It's happening a lot. So one of the kids she babysat was, or babysat for their family, all the kids in the family was a family that lived three doors down, the Reynolds family. One of them here, Lawrence Reynolds Jr., born in 1966. So, you know, at this point, late 20s, 28, 27, she would babysit for all his siblings and him. Now, apparently, about a month ago from the time these two guys from the bar are telling this cop, Lawrence Reynolds had painted Loretta's basement.

Okay.

Something in her basement. Now.

Refresh into the basement.

He claims that she agreed to pay him $300 for this job.

Okay.

But she has only paid him $100 for this job.

Oh.

That's his claim. Not sure about the truth. We don't have fucking billing. I don't have any receipts. I got nothing. I got no.

So far, 66% off and that wasn't the agreed.

No credit or debit sheet on this one.

Yeah.

So then the very beginning of January, because we're in the 11th or the 12th when they talked to the cops, but the very beginning, apparently, Loretta started to complain to her son that this Lawrence Reynolds Jr. has been knocking on her door after dark.

Oh.

And harassing her.

Bill collecting.

No, harassing her. Not even like knocking and going, where's my $200?

Oh.

He would like, at one point, he claimed he needed to put a paint can in the basement for some reason. And then he kept showing, he would show up like, knock on the door. She'd look and nobody would be there. She'd open the door and then he'd pop out of the bushes. Like shit like that, which is creepy, obviously.

Yeah.

I mean, so Loretta told her son, Michael, that she was scared of this Lawrence Reynolds Jr.

Right.

So I'm scared of this guy. I don't know what he's going to do. He was always a nice boy, but he seems like he's a little off now.

Certainly not okay.

And he is, because if we find out a little bit about Lawrence, he's not the same person he was when he was a kid getting babysat. He's apparently been a pretty hardcore alcoholic since he was about 14, which is.

Oh.

Interesting. During his high school days, he would drink a 12-pack a day during high school, which is reserved for like, you know, alcoholic construction workers and drywallers and shit. That's who drinks a 12-pack every day. Not ninth graders.

Yeah, I mean, you got six and a half, seven hours of your day tied up in class. Then you got to get after it after that.

That is rough. He stopped communicating with his parents, probably because he didn't want them to hear him slurring his words.

Or smell it.

It's hard.

You can't hide beer breath.

No, became more introverted.

Yeah.

Kind of stopped hanging out with his friends. Spent a lot of time in his bedroom. Barely squeaked through high school. And the rest of it, the family too is kind of a normal middle-class family. Like there's no, none of the parents molested them. There's no violence. There's no reason for this, essentially, of why he's doing this. Something must have happened to trigger something, but we don't know what it is here. After high school, his family encouraged him to go into the army.

Oh.

Because A, the army is over there and we're over here. It would be much easier if you were over there for a while.

Ah.

And two, they figure, and this was a kind of a thing that people thought for a long time is if you just go in the military, they'll fix it all. They'll clean it all.

Oh yeah. It's their responsibility to do that.

It was considered like therapy, like everything you could think of all rolled up into one. They'll come out of a fine, upstanding citizen, right?

It's certainly not kicking the can down the road and making it somebody else's problem.

No.

It's definitely.

It's solving.

The Navy will for sure fix this.

But that's what people thought back then. And for some people, it does straighten them out. Some people just need a little structure. Some people, it's way more than that. That's the problem. It's not just a structure problem.

To an extent, still is that mystique and what is that? Would you call that an urban legend? It's still false today.

Yeah. Yeah, you can't just send any fucked up kid into the army and he'll be fine in four years. That's not how it works. Some people, works out fine.

Sure.

Some like criminals, they used to make them go into the army like juvenile delinquents and they'd come out fine. But some people, it doesn't work like that.

Sometimes you're just arming a criminal.

Yeah. And especially if you're an alcoholic, the army can sometimes, they don't exactly discourage drinking in the army. It's a bunch of 20 fucking year old guys. So what do they do on their time off? So he actually served for four years, then re-enlisted for two more years.

How about that? He did six.

He liked it, obviously. He served in Korea for 18 months, and this is obviously, you know, decades beyond the Korean War. So it's, he was just hanging out in Korea.

It's very safe.

Would often be shit-faced when he telephoned home. So he just kept drinking the whole time.

Just found sake.

That's it. He just found.

Whatever Koreans drink.

Yeah. He found a way to drink around his army duties. He's like, I like this rice liquor. This is great. Isn't that sake?

Some of it is.

Better digestion. Yeah. It's made out of rice, sake, right?

Yeah.

That's Japanese.

That looks bloat.

We know it's Japanese, by the way, not Korean, but we couldn't think of a fermented Korean specialty.

Even the beer that goes with it is a lighter, less shitty feeling beer.

Like açaí or whatever. Sapporo's or any of those.

Sapporo, yeah.

Yeah, Sapporo.

Sapporo, whatever it is.

So he gets out of the army and he's got a girlfriend and he has a son with her.

Okay. Back in Cuyahoga.

Back in Cuyahoga, or not back in Cuyahoga, somewhere else. Now, I don't know if this is in Korea, he has a son, or a son in some other post he was in, but not in Ohio, while he was in the army. Now he gets out of the army and the girlfriend and the son, well, the girlfriend makes a decision for the son too, that they're not moving to Ohio with him.

No.

So he's super depressed by that, everybody says.

He wants to go to Ohio for sure.

He wants to go back home. He has nowhere else to go. And these people, the girlfriend and the son won't come back with him. So, you know, it's tough. He gets out and basically he's still an alcoholic, but now he has no structure.

Right.

Because they didn't fix that at all. So it's kind of interesting. By the way, when he had his son, he didn't even tell his mother that he had a son.

That you have a grandson?

Didn't even tell him. Wow. So his aunt and uncle helped him get a job with a window replacement company. Worked there for about two years before they fired him for being chronically late and shit-faced when he would show up.

You can't do that.

Can't do that. That's just bad. Sometimes he just wouldn't show up at all.

Yeah.

No call, no show, which again.

Oh, he was probably too drunk.

That's what it is. He overslept. Slept too late to even call in. He's like, well, it's already one. It's a little too late to call in now. They know I'm not coming.

They're calling out. They'll know I just woke up.

Yeah. I mean, they're pretty aware I'm not showing up today already, I would imagine.

They knew six hours ago.

They figured it out at about 8:30. So in 1992, he's arrested for drunk driving and failing to comply with a police officer's order as well. So drunk and belligerent. That's not great.

Right.

He moved in with his parents then so he could complete an alcohol treatment program.

That should wake you up.

And that did nothing. He continued to get shit-faced all the time. He apparently would pay rent to his parents to live in his old room.

Yeah.

But he had not given them any rent for about four months prior to January '94 when this happened. He hasn't paid any rent.

Four months behind with your parents.

With your parents. That's going to come up in a big way later on legally, by the way. So he couldn't find a job because he kind of has a reputation for being a fuckup. And if you're a drunk, you might not have, you might not be searching for a job quite as well or as efficiently as someone who's sober. He started selling things for money for booze.

Selling what?

Personal things. Just stuff he has. Tools, just whatever he's got that he can get money for. He's selling to finance drinking. Like a crackhead. He's taken drinking to another level here. So January 11th, 1994, day before we started here. Loretta Foster, her sister-in-law, Norma, took her to a doctor's appointment. Now Foster here, Loretta, told her sister-in-law that a neighbor had been acting weird and would knock on the door, hide, and then jump out at her.

Yeah.

Loretta told her doctor and her doctor's office manager about Lawrence Reynolds also because they said, why is your blood pressure up so much from last time? What have you been doing? And she said, I'm just really stressed out because this guy keeps knocking on my door. Enough to elevate her blood pressure.

I'm so on edge about my neighbor that my doctor noticed it.

It's like, Jesus, what happened to you? Yeah.

In my vitals.

What has changed? And she said, nothing except for this crazy guy who lives three doors down.

Wow.

So after the doctor, Loretta stopped at her credit union and withdrew $50. And then her sister-in-law dropped her off at about 3:00 p.m. Okay. So 3:00 p.m., she's home with $50 and a diagnosis of high blood pressure.

Uh-oh.

7:30 p.m. that night. So four and a half hours later, this is when Lawrence Reynolds is with his brother, Jason Reynolds.

Yeah.

And they go to the Northgate Lanes, a bowling alley.

Perfect.

To shoot some pool with Jason's friend, Joseph Hindle. Okay. Now they arrive and Lawrence runs into two of his friends, Brian Baker and Jim Fernando, or Ferrando. Those are the guys from the beginning who talked to that officer.

Yeah.

And he said, well, fellas, better take me in all that I have right now because you ain't going to be seeing much more of me after tonight.

Oh.

You better have some fun tonight, the boys.

Get a good gander.

It's my last time then.

Don't forget me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

My last fun run here in Ohio. Take a gander. Look me up and down, he said, because I'm going to be leaving tomorrow. I'm going to be taken off and never coming back.

No more sea falls for me.

And they said, why? And he said.

Where are you going?

Are you re-enlisting? What are you doing?

Right.

And he said, well, I killed someone and I'll be leaving town tomorrow. That's what's going on now.

Do it posthaste probably.

No, no, no. I'm going to shoot some pool and drink a bunch first.

Okay.

No, order some mozzarella sticks. I'm good for the night, but tomorrow.

Let's go. You're solid.

Yeah. Save tonight. Tomorrow I'll be gone. It's fine.

Yeah.

So he said, then he said, well, and they said, well, what the fuck happened? Which, number one, I'm not asking details. I don't want to know your murder details. Okay?

I don't believe you.

A, I don't believe you, and B, what if it is true? That's a worst-case scenario. I hope you're making it up. Because then now I know about it. No, thanks.

Yeah.

So Reynolds said, well, here's what happened, right? You know that Loretta Foster lady that lives on my street here? She owes me $200.

Okay.

Old fucking big mama Reynolds over here, or big mama Foster.

Foster.

Foster. And Reynolds said, I knocked on her door and I told her that I had something to give her from her sister. So I got something for you. So she opened the door and what he had with him was actually not anything from her sister, but he had a rope and a tent pole with him.

Oh.

This is the best weapon this man can muster is a fucking tent pole.

One in each hand?

No, no, no. Yeah, rope in one hand, tent pole in the other.

Okay.

That's how he shows up at the door here.

Like a fiberglass tent pole or like a metal tent pole?

No word on what it is. Either way, pretty light.

Yeah.

Not a.

Yeah, light duty for sure.

Yeah. They were supposed to feel light because you have to carry it. It's not a real, it's not a big steel.

Pack it in, pack it out kind of equipment.

Exactly. Yeah. A kid's got to be able to pick that up and carry it type of thing. So he said that she opened the door and his struggle began right then.

Uh-oh.

Which is because he attacked her.

Right.

She didn't open the door and go, all right, throw down, motherfucker, and then start taking swings at him, I don't think. Probably.

Let's get ready to rumble.

Yeah. That's what she did. She threw a fucking freshly baked pie in his face and then really went at him. So Reynolds said he hit Loretta and she fell to the floor. So he hit her with the tent pole. She fell down.

Yeah.

And he hit a grandma with a tent pole. Number one, let's not gloss over that. It's pretty crazy.

Awful visual, yeah.

And then began to rummage through her purse.

Oh.

I'll get that 200 one way or another.

Yeah.

Jesus Christ. When he looked up after looking through the purse for a second and realized that she was reaching for the phone.

She's recovering from that, yeah.

He ripped the phone out of the wall.

Oh boy.

And then, quote, tied her up. So he's tied her up and hit her with the, tied her with the tent pole, tied her up, ripped the phone out of the wall. And he said he hit her once or twice with the tent pole.

Oof.

Now this is the story that these guys are relaying to the cops. This is what he told us, man. He said he hit her once or twice with the tent pole. Then he said he tried to just choke her to death with his hands, tried to strangle her. But he's kind of a loser and that doesn't even work.

Wow.

As we've seen before, you really have to have something behind it to manually strangle somebody. It's not easy.

Yeah, there's got to be some rage or.

Something.

Desperation. There's some real negative feelings that come along with that. Or you're fucking super horny and that gets you going.

One of the two. But we've heard so many times before of guys trying to strangle someone and being like, weird as shit. Didn't work. I've seen it.

It takes so long.

You see it in movies all the time. Seems to really be the end all be all, but when you try it, boy, it makes your hands hurt. It's like.

Tendonitis is flaring up.

That's work. I got some little arthritis in my thumb. It just wouldn't work there. I got carpal tunnel. I've been working in an office.

Yeah. I can't paint a wall anymore. I know I'm incapable.

Absolutely. And then it gets even stupider for this idiot.

Yeah.

At some point during the struggle, he gets a rope burn on his hand.

Oh.

From his own rope.

Yeah.

This idiot. And he shows them, look, see, I got a rope burn right here. Look what happened to me.

Oops.

And they're like, okay. Then he said that he, quote, that he left her lying naked in the living room and that he'd taken $40 in cash and a blank check from her checkbook before leaving through the back door.

Okay.

Okay.

And they didn't ask, how'd she get naked?

How'd she get? It doesn't sound like, and from what they said, they weren't asking any questions.

No.

This is all.

Just letting them leave all that shit out.

This is all unsolicited monologue here. This is just, we'll let him say whatever he wants to say and I don't really want to know anymore. So then they go to another bar. They go to the Rainbow Bar where he told them more about it. He went into more detail and kept talking about it. Now they said Baker and Ferrando said, we don't believe you.

Yeah.

We know you. You're a fuckup and an alcoholic. Why would you do this? You sound like you're trying to make yourself into something more than it is here.

If you're leaving, just leave.

Just leave. So he said, you don't believe me?

No.

Worst thing you could tell a drunk storyteller is that they're full of shit. They get real indignant about that real fast.

Yeah. They start corroborating all kind of crazy shit.

Well, he said, I can corroborate right now. I'll take you to her goddamn house. You can see the body. I'll show it to you. You think I'm lying.

Okay. Let's go.

And I go, I believe you. It's fine. I got another round coming. Like, we don't need this.

Yeah.

Instead, they go, well, let's fucking go over there then, buddy. Let's take a look.

And they do.

Okay. They look into the living room window of Loretta's house and can see Loretta's nude body lying on the floor in the living room. Clearly not alive.

Yeah.

No one just lays out naked in their living room for much.

That's a tough bluff call.

For a lot of time. Yeah, for long periods of time. So that's what they did. Now Jason also went too, the brother. So he got three, he's showing three people a dead body.

It's brave.

Jason said he was stunned to see this. Now Jason also was babysat by her. This is his neighbor that he grew up with and he likes her and respects her.

Loves her. Yeah.

He's like, what the fuck? Why the fuck did you kill her? What are you doing? And at that point, this is actually a trip that actually is kind of for logistical purposes also for Lawrence because he picked up a glove and a tent stake that he had left there. So he had left evidence behind. He left a glove there.

And he took it with him on return.

Took it with him and attempted to clean off the purse too and poured water on the purse from what I understand and poured water on some stuff as well.

Oh boy.

Then they all went home.

Okay.

Okay. Then the next day, Baker and Ferrando, when they woke up sober, said, this is fucking crazy. We saw a dead body last night.

My craziest drink.

Yeah.

Me too.

Wow. Let's go tell Officer Joe here and see if he thinks it's crazy also. And that's when they go and make a statement. The police go over, they investigate, and they find Loretta's body in her living room. And she'd been beaten about the head, blunt force trauma, and she'd been strangled with a rope.

He used the rope.

This utter piece of shit went over there, couldn't physically overcome a 67-year-old lady.

Right.

So he had to strangle her with a rope, beat her with a tent pole.

Wow.

Her bra was cut in the front and her bra and t-shirt were pulled up above her breasts.

Why would you do that?

Yeah. Her pants and her pantyhose, she's so old she wore pantyhose for Christ's sake, were lying near the body in a rolled down position, like they'd been rolled down and then taken off.

Like they were yanked off hastily.

Yep. By the rear door of the house, there's a bunch of blood and a large clump of hair.

Oh boy.

This was a brutal struggle. This was not quick. This was not easy. This wasn't walk-in strangler. This wasn't Joe Pesci in casino shooting that old lady in the head real quick and then laying her dead. This is brutal and fucking sustained and crazy. There's broken eyeglasses and an earring found in the kitchen. So the struggle went from room to room. It didn't even take place in one spot.

Losing earrings along the way.

Earrings and glasses and the other earring and her purse were found in the dining room, which is she's in the living room. So.

Both earrings came out of her head.

In different rooms.

Yeah.

Think about that. And her checkbook was removed from her purse, but only one check was taken.

She's running from him.

Yeah, she was fighting him.

Yeah.

Which that's one advantage if she's 313 pounds is you can lean on somebody and throw your weight around a little bit. He's not a huge guy. So.

You could push a man.

Exactly. He probably weighs 160 pounds. So you can muscle him a little bit if you're twice his weight, at least to try to survive. You know what I mean? So the autopsy showed she had been strangled, subjected to blunt force trauma. Based on the color of the bruises on her wrists, they said that she was alive when she was tied up. So he was telling the truth there. He tied her up and then strangled her after she was incapacitated. It's fucked up.

Immobilized a woman, a 67-year-old woman to strangle and beat her.

Neighborhood grandma. Yeah.

Wow.

They find no evidence of any sperm in any of her openings, vaginal or rectal tracts. And there was no physical evidence of sexual conduct.

What the fuck?

But we'll get to that. Okay. Now, so the investigation goes on. They go, they find the body and they go, well, three people, including his brother, have told us that he did this. So we should probably go arrest him. And they do. When they get there, Lawrence Reynolds Sr., his dad, who owns the home, consents to the search of the house.

Right. That's a bummer for living with your parents.

That's a thing. Now, the thing is, he pays rent in that room. That's an issue though.

Okay.

That makes it a.

Different spot?

That makes it a private spot in the law, in the eyes of the law, because he pays rent and there's also other factors that go along with that.

Okay.

And we'll get into that. So he consents to specifically a search of Lawrence's bedroom and the basement. What they find is camouflage outfit, gloves, tent pole, white rope, knife, and a blank check. He went over there in full camo, by the way. Like it was a fucking, like he's like just like the army.

He looks really off.

You know, he put like black on under his eyes and he's like the guy's imprudent.

Now you can be commercial.

Yeah. Yeah. They just got dropped in from a helicopter into our yard.

Wow.

So the forensics reveal that the rope found in the bedroom matches the rope used to tie up and strangle her. Not great.

Yeah.

Human hair on the rope matched a sample from Loretta. Again, not good. Blood found on the camouflage overalls are the same type as Loretta.

Uh-oh.

Not good at all. So they're going to charge him with one count of aggravated murder during the course of a robbery or burglary or kidnapping or attempted rape. For aggravating circumstances, because this is a capital case.

Yeah.

Is murder during an aggravated robbery, murder during an aggravated burglary, murder during a kidnapping, and murder during an attempted rape.

All right.

That's what they charge him with, which those are all the aggravators for the death penalty. Now, while he's in jail, I don't even know what your defense is here, other than try to make a deal because these guys have, you've told everybody everything.

You told a cop's kid.

Yeah.

And showed a cop's kid.

Other than, oh, the friend of a cop's kid.

Oh, okay.

But either way, it doesn't matter. Other than saying they're the ones who actually did it, which would fall apart if they were like at work that day or had any kind of alibi.

Yeah.

You really don't have much of a defense here because you told everybody and then all the evidence is in your house. So it's kind of rough.

Yeah.

Including that blank check, which is really hard to explain.

That's a problem. Yeah.

Real hard to explain. Anyway, while waiting in county jail to be tried, he tells an fellow inmate, a guy named Neil Webster, the exact same story he told his friends.

Yeah, that's the same to me.

And there was details that were held back from the public. So he would have to have found this out from him, essentially.

He knows too much.

He knows all the details. Yeah.

Yeah.

Reynolds had told him that, well, I took her blouse off at first. The reason I did that was so I could see her hands at all times, which that makes no sense.

Okay.

Jimmy, take your shirt off so I can see your hands.

She's covering them up.

Yeah. That's what I tell everybody. I can't see. Well, when you see cops pull people over, they always say, take your shirt off so I can see both your hands. It's a common thing. They strip you down first.

Yeah. Put your hands on your nipples where I can see them.

Where I can see them. Yeah. But shirt off first, obviously.

Right. I assume that's what he means.

Cup your tits. Wedge it perfect. There you go.

Push them together.

I don't know what he's talking about, but that's what he says. Now, when this guy said, look, I read a newspaper article that said that her pants were off. What's up with that? First, he said, well, if her pants came off in the struggle. Again, very common that your pants come completely off while you wrestle around with somebody and they beat you with a tent pole. They just pop off. Happens that they roll all the way down like that.

Big struggle.

Yeah. And especially big women too. Their pants come off super easy. They just fall right off. Then, or big people, I should say. Then he said, all right, fine. Yeah, it didn't come off during the struggle. He tells him, and this is the exact quote this inmate gives of him, quote, "I tried to stick my meat in her."

Eesh.

Oh, God.

Oh, God damn it.

Is there a grosser way to put that?

No.

Then I tried to stick my meat in her. My meat.

Yeah. I mean, Jesus Christ. It's disgusting.

That's disgusting.

Do you just accept that or do you ask questions?

I say, can I get a different roommate?

Right.

That's what I say. Can I get a different guy of myself, please? Because this guy.

See, oh, please.

Yeah. He likes to, you know, rape, try to rape, try to stick his meat in people he considers like a grandma to him. That's a little creepy to me.

Oh, boy. Tried to stick my meat in her.

It's real weird. So pretrial, he gets these two attorneys that are appointed to represent him. Before the trial begins, the trial court discovers neither attorney was certified as a lead counsel in a capital case. Big waste of time. One of them moves to withdraw from the case and requested an attorney certified as a lead counsel. So the trial court appointed a different guy, Kerry O'Brien, as the lead counsel. Then two weeks later, is the trial supposed to start.

He got this two weeks before the trial.

Two weeks before the trial of a capital case, which is really cutting it close there.

And that's the defender or the prosecutor?

That's the defense. Oh, no, the prosecutor had it since day one. The cops go to the prosecutor day one.

They gave him two counsel, neither were certified.

Two weeks. Yes. As total recall would tell you.

Yeah. Two weeks.

That would be the reaction that a lawyer would have. Two weeks, two weeks, two weeks. Your fucking whole shit would short out. So they, first thing they want is they want everything obtained from his bedroom to be suppressed because they say his father did not have the authority to consent to a search of his bedroom. Okay. So they, a cop said they established that Sr. owned the home and that Reynolds had not paid rent in the past four months. So therefore, he does not really pay rent.

And there's probably no lease signed. There's not that.

Yes.

But if somebody lives there and they establish residence, you have to get a constable to kick them out and making anything that's left behind.

But if he's established.

Okay to search.

If he's established residence in that room since the day he came home from the hospital, I don't know if it's the same thing. You know what I mean? It's a really gray area. Now, they determined that Reynolds and Reynolds Sr. had no agreement about whether Reynolds' bedroom was off limits and that Reynolds did not have any locked compartments in his bedroom. Therefore, no expectation of any crazy amount of privacy.

Yeah.

So this detective here got verbal and written consent to search the house from the parents. And they also, Sr. also provided a taped statement of consent after the search had been completed as well. He taped it also. Said he hadn't been paying rent and that's why they said that he had the interest in it. He's going to authorize this. So there's a juror, by the way, that they try to put on the panel who is a part-time police officer, which.

Yeah?

No. You can't be on a jury at that point.

Part-time cop.

Yeah. That's great. Even if your fucking spouse is a cop or something, that's a lot. So.

Even if you're a volunteer.

It's too much. Yeah. That means you're super, you trust those people and you're into it.

You love the law.

Yeah. You're not coming from a non, you know, you're not coming from just a random standpoint of a person who has an impartial standpoint.

Yeah.

So the defense counsel moves to exclude him right away, but they allow him to proceed into the actual voir dire here.

Wow.

This guy discussed that he knew many of the state's witnesses, including the coroner, the Bureau of Criminal Investigation investigators that are all going to testify.

Why not?

And all the police officers involved.

Yeah.

I know everybody on the prosecution side.

Yeah.

He said he also knew the county prosecutor personally and had previously worked with one of the assistant prosecutors that's working this case.

I trust all of them.

Yeah. He said that, quote, "He always found the gentleman that I knew, this detective they're talking about, to be truthful." Great. So the court called the juror and the counsel to a sidebar where the court further talked. How about just, you're dismissed. They said, no, no, let's see if we can save this juror. Okay?

We can clarify and get to common ground.

So finally, after then talking to him on the side, the judge finally excuses him for cause. But it took like, he almost got on the jury.

Right.

This is crazy. The only issue was whether then they come up later and say, well, his comments during the general voir dire tainted the remaining jurors who were sitting there listening to it. They said he can't help those people.

Right. Yeah.

His comments about that particular cop's truthfulness were prejudicial. But they said the remarks were tempered by the prosecutor's response that the other jurors didn't know that detective and would have to evaluate his testimony based on what he said. But they know a guy who vouched for him. They were talking to that guy.

Right. They know a guy that says he's honest.

Yeah. So anyway, they dismiss him. Lawrence wants the coroner's slides to not be admitted because they're horrifying.

Yeah. That's going to look bad.

Yeah. A big older woman naked laying in the middle of the floor strangled.

Strangled, yeah.

You saying you wanted to put your meat in her, stick your meat in her.

Right. Yeah.

So the photographs show how the body was found at the crime scene as well as the phone being ripped out of the wall, a jug containing one inch of water that had been possibly used to dilute blood stains too, they think. So they say, you know, obviously those are being admitted. They're not prejudicial. It's what you did. Then the prosecution tries to make a deal with him. They would like to make a deal with him and the defense is amicable to a deal.

Oh.

Plead guilty in exchange for life without. Okay. You get life without. Plead guilty.

Yeah.

Which.

Get the worst thing other than the death penalty if you plead.

You get that. But we'll take the death penalty off the table.

Okay. Yeah.

And they're open to it. Loretta's son, Michael, comes in and makes a huge stink and says, "Fuck no. You're not doing that. He's going to trial. We're going to have the death penalty. I want him dead."

Really?

So they let one, and I get it, victims, hey, look, listen. Around the same time, we were a victim's family too. I totally get it. But as a state, how do you let one person dictate you're going to spend millions of taxpayer dollars over the next however many years on this? Wouldn't there be something where you go, listen, that's great and we appreciate it and we'd, believe me, I'd love to go in there and put him down right now. But unless you're going to put the bill for it.

Please don't.

We're not doing it. Yeah. We have another solution to this. But they say, we're going forward with it because prosecutors are political animals and that's really what this is. So that's fine. So the trial, the defense strategy is, don't deny that he killed her because there's no way to deny it. They found the evidence.

Just say it. Yeah.

It's fucked. So instead, they're going to attack various elements of the offense's charge and attempt to show that he'd been so drunk, he didn't go over there to intending to kill her. It's just how it unfolds.

In order for his money.

Yeah. So it's not like a first-degree crazy murder like you think, which I don't know. If I'm going over with weapons, that tells me that I expect trouble.

Yeah. There's no conversation where a tent pole is necessary.

Or a rope for that matter.

Right.

You ever bring a rope to a conversation before?

No.

No.

Is this the talking stick?

Or tent pole.

You're holding it, you get to make points.

Here you go. Yeah. You pass it back and forth.

Your turn.

Loretta's doctor testifies that she stated that her blood pressure was high because she was nervous about Lawrence Reynolds Jr. popping up all the time. Said that she'd said he knocked on the door after dark and she was afraid because she didn't know what he wanted.

Right.

He said he wants $200.

He wants his money.

Honestly, I'd like to know, did she owe him $200 or not? Not that it matters, but just out of curiosity, was he this crazy that he would like even mistake that? Because that's possible.

That's certainly possible, but, and I don't see a grandmotherly lady waffling on saying, "I'll pay you this much to do this work for me." She's not capable of doing that work anymore.

She just threw a couple fifties out and was like, "That's all you're getting." And she walked away. Like, I don't see that happening either.

He's going to snatch a blank check killer, forge her name, and write 200 on it and be like, "Got my cash back."

160 because he did steal $40 from her too.

Oh my God.

Remember that. He stole like the 220s from that thing. So.

Oh boy.

Yeah. And she even had written down in her notes that she was, quote, "anxious about young neighbor that keeps coming over." So it definitely is true. The doctor had written it then. So there's all of that. They have his brother testify. They have both the guys who he told about it and who found the body testify. All the evidence. The guy in his cellmate saying he wanted to stick his meat in her. And his defense is, "I mean, I didn't mean to do it."

Wow.

Attempted rape, attempted burglary, murder, everything. So during sentencing here, there is a psychologist who has diagnosed him as having an adjustment disorder, which caused him to react more strongly than the stressors or the environment might warrant. He's a little high strung, basically is what that means. He overreacts a little bit.

He makes rash decisions that are not congruent to the situation.

Yes. That and the fact that, yeah, he, just if something happens, you might go, "Goddamn it." But he would say, "Goddamn it," and then break something and go above and beyond what's germane to the situation.

Escalating it down to a minor situation.

Yeah. So they also concluded that he had antisocial personality type with addictive proneness to alcohol and drugs. Well, we know he's an alcoholic. That's a fact. Antisocial personality is, that's a pretty heavy diagnosis.

It's a very, yeah.

That doesn't mean you prefer to eat a couple edibles and watch a documentary by yourself. That means you are.

Destruction of society.

Anti. Yeah. His drinking, he said, was a product of his inability to relate effectively with people. While they said this proclivity does not meet a mitigating factor standard, they still consider it. His brother gets up there, Jason, and he's 20 years old. It's the younger brother. And they said he avoided eye contact with his brother. He told the jury that, "Yeah, I went over with my brother about 1:30 AM to check out the story that my brother told."

Oh God.

You know, because he's normal. So he ran away when he saw that. They bring in Lawrence Sr., his dad, and his mom as well. Lawrence Sr. is a utility meter reader, so you know that guy.

Really?

Yeah. Yeah. You've known a bunch of those I know. Hundreds of those guys.

Yeah. They're generally, that's your entry-level position and you move away from that? This is his dad that just stuck with it, huh?

Yeah. He's like 50-something years old. He's still doing it.

That's a tough life.

He asked the jurors to give his son a good long sentence, but not the death penalty. I mean, keep him for a while we don't want him back. Don't get me wrong, but.

Yeah. Do what the Navy did and take him off our hands. Whatever military.

He'll come out all straightened out if he's in prison, you know, like the army. He said, "To be honest with you, there's no doubt in my head that my son was not in his right mind when this occurred."

Okay.

And then his mom said he was a good boy before he got involved with alcohol. So.

Oh, alcohol did this.

You know, up to the eighth grade, he was a good boy, apparently.

Yeah. Right.

She said there was nothing in his childhood that foreshadowed the killing. This is just, "I didn't cause this."

Yeah. It's all your fault.

I raised him and then the town took him and gave him booze. I don't know what to tell you.

Budweiser.

Budweiser. Yeah. She said, "I would like somebody to help him. I don't think he deserves to die." Lawrence himself gets up there and his defense attorney asks him, "What were your intentions when you went to her house that afternoon?"

Yeah.

And when you went down to Mrs. Foster's house, Larry, did you have any intention of killing her? And he said, "No, sir, I didn't."

Oh.

They said, "How do you feel now about taking the life of Mrs. Foster?" And he said, "Not very well."

Not very well.

Not very well. Stomach's a little upset. That's what you'd say if like, just got a little bit of indigestion. Not very well.

I haven't digested a decent meal in six weeks, your honor.

Six weeks. Look at him. Yeah. He then apologized to Michael Foster, Loretta's only son, and told the jurors that, "I'm sorry for putting all of you through this ordeal as well."

Okay.

Okay. Then he asked the jury for mercy. He said, "All I would ask is if you could see it in your heart to spare my life."

He's making no effort.

In the newspaper, he even has him quoted as ALL'S, "All I would ask."

All I would ask.

It's exact quote. So the defense attorneys say, "You know, we think maybe a 20 to 30 year sentence should be good. Probably right."

Right.

I mean, that's fine. That should be okay. So there's one thing about the death penalty. It's irrevocable. You can't change your mind later on, which is the main problem with the death penalty.

Great point.

If you find out you fucked up, like we find out constantly that people are falsely convicted, you're kind of too late at that point. So.

Or you find out later that they're certainly below diminished capacity.

That also. Yeah. So then he talked about drinking. He said, "The alcohol problem does not excuse anything, but it tends to affect your judgment and common sense."

Sure.

He said he was an altar boy. Remember that? Okay. When he was eight, who cares? That doesn't make any difference. He played sports as a child. His parents love him. He said, "He's a non-violent person except for this incident."

Yeah, because they're not defending that.

Except for the one major thing of their whole reason why we're here. He's fine.

The whole reason we got 12 people together.

Yeah. He said he did not go over there to kill Loretta Foster. Unfortunately, that act did occur. Larry Reynolds took another life. We understand that, but he didn't intend to do that. And then he says that, you know, he said, "This is find him guilty of a lesser offense that doesn't carry the death penalty." He said, "Larry Reynolds isn't telling you that he should be excused, but he's not some cold-blooded, steely-eyed predator that deserves to be exterminated. Larry Reynolds did not embark on a life of crime."

He was having a good day.

Yeah. One bad day, which you can really say about a lot of people. Who knows? They could have got Timothy McVeigh up there and go, "He had one bad day. Sure he killed hundreds of people and it caused terror and everything. One bad day."

Is this the worst day he's ever had?

I mean, come on.

It's a pretty bad day.

What's the difference? Ted Bundy just had a series of bad days. That's all it was.

Oh, good. Very bad days.

Very bad days. The prosecutor here said, this is a good line. I wonder myself if Loretta asked for mercy on January 11th, like he's asking for mercy now. And they went through all the other shit, all the other stank factor here. So now this is not the end all be all. This is the jury recommendation and then the judge has the final decision on the sentence.

Got it. Yes.

So the jury recommends that he get the death penalty. That's what they recommend.

Yeah.

It's up to the judge. By the way, they said, this is from the newspaper, "The recommendation came with record-breaking swiftness. Jurors had been instructed to bring bags and plan to stay overnight until a decision was reached, but it only took them 90 minutes to determine that there was not enough mitigating factors."

Yeah.

So we don't need to pack a bag. Fuck this guy.

Everybody take your sleeping roll back home.

Yeah. Don't need it. One juror does an interview here. There's two actually. One said, "We wanted to find something to recommend prison over the death penalty."

Fucking anything.

But we just couldn't. It was so clear-cut that had to be the verdict. He said, "They said law-wise, it's everything that checks all the boxes."

He's literally asking for this.

Yeah. Another juror who was the Linda Fairhead, she gave her name, said that the recommendation was based on the evidence. She said it was very emotionally draining. She said the deliberations didn't take long because the evidence was so stacked against him. She said, "I feel bad for Lawrence Reynolds. I feel bad for the Lawrence Reynolds family." They said, "Mrs. Foster was never off your mind. The trial was never off your mind." The jurors, by the way, had 12 days between their guilty verdict and the penalty phase of the case.

Oh.

To think about it. And they even said they thought about it a lot, which you're not supposed to be doing, by the way. You're not supposed to deliberate ahead of time.

Sleep on it and leave it.

They said at one point during the trial, jurors could be heard laughing from the jury room. And she was asked about that by a court employee and she said, "I said to her, I have one thing to say. If we couldn't laugh over something silly and it was silly, we'd probably be crying." So somebody dropped something or who knows? Somebody farted.

That's this whole show.

Yeah. Some guy adjusted himself and then farted and they were like, "Ha ha, that's pretty funny. You got to do it." Yeah. Break the tension. Can't sit there and dour. That's either fake or sick when you're doing that. We're trying to be human beings.

It's a crazy story and you're just going to feel awful. And they had to look at pictures for Christ's sake.

That's what I mean. Fucking crime scene. So the prosecutor said, "This is certainly the swiftest conclusion of any death penalty case ever in Summit County." Anyone's handled since 1981 anyway. They said they sought the death penalty because of the brutality of the murder and because she's a senior citizen and because the Foster family insisted on it also, which is the main reason why. They said the last few minutes of Mrs. Foster's life involved fear and pain at the hands of Mr. Reynolds. The jurors clearly felt that this atrocious killing deserves nothing less than the death penalty.

Okay.

So he writes a handwritten letter to the judge, Lawrence does, not saying, "I'm so sorry" and showing tons of contrition, complaining that his lawyers had mishandled the case and that the news media has treated him unfairly.

All right.

He's sarabooning it essentially is what he's doing. So the judge here explains the verdict and then said, "There's a lot of people who come into court who like to bring back the moment," he told him. He said that moment can't be relived. He said, "Considering all the circumstances, Mrs. Foster must have suffered a horrible, horrible death." Which I think that's pretty goddamn fair. The judge rejects the drug and alcohol argument.

They gave it to him.

He gave it to him. He banged him hard with this thing. He's tried to stick his meat in him. He succeeded in sticking his meat in him, I think is what he did there.

He got his meat right in him. Yeah.

He also ordered him to serve consecutive prison sentences totaling 38 to 90 years for his convictions for the burglary, aggravated robbery, kidnapping, and attempted rape. So fucked is what he is. He talks after you never see a judge do an interview after sentencing someone to death, by the way. It's very rare.

He did an interview?

He did an interview. And he said that he said that I looked over at him during the testimony of his mother while his mother had a lot of emotion going on.

Right.

And he had no emotion. He was just sitting there emotionless and expressionless. Not crying, not doing anything. The judge said, "I felt like burying my head." He embarrassed the judge.

Yeah.

Wow.

He cringed for him.

Now, Reynolds, who cursed and made obscene gestures at photographers after his arrest, sat almost lifeless during the trial. I wish we had that footage.

That ought to help.

Yeah. He said the judge said, "I wondered about that throughout the trial, why he showed no emotion." Like, "Show some fucking emotion." A lot of times his lawyers tell him, "Just sit there and be stoic. Like OJ. That's some lawyers say get emotional, some don't. It depends on your lawyer." Really does. Or he just might be a psychopath who doesn't show emotion when he's supposed to. And the judge said, "One of the horrible things about the death penalty is the delay in carrying out the sentence. If you can do it right away, it has an impact." Well, also, then you can't find that you fucked up and that's a problem too.

Oh God, it's too many.

It's a lot. Yeah. So the first appeals come through, everything's affirmed. All right. Now, if you're wondering if he's really a piece of shit, he's a piece of shit. They find that there's letters written by him to a woman in 1997. This is three years on death row. He's still writing letters in which he sought nude photographs from this woman, which seems normal. And then threatened, in case she didn't want to give him nude pictures, threatened her mother with rape.

Yeah.

Further appeals for ineffective assistance of counsel. He said he only had two weeks. That seems like a reasonable argument.

It's certainly better than any argument that he's going to have.

Like from a legal standpoint? Because everything else is going to kind of be in a gray area, but in a legal standpoint.

Two weeks of prep to save my life?

That's not enough time.

No.

But they said they end up saying that, well, then they had another 12 days before the jury got the death penalty stuff, but that's still the trial. Even to come up with a strategy even is not great. So.

To come up with a, yeah.

The search should have been suppressed, they said. And the court says there are exceptions to the Fourth Amendment. For instance, searches may be conducted when the owner of the property or a person with common authority over the property voluntarily consents to a search. Makes sense. There did allow a bit of hearsay and the court admits that. They allowed a little bit of hearsay here about the sister-in-law saying that Loretta told her she was fearful and concerned. They said that permits the, but they said there's a rule here, 8033 is the law here, which permits admission of a statement of the declarance, then existing state of mind, emotion, or sensation.

Oh.

So they said that Foster's statements concerning his actions the days before the murder and her statements explaining the reasons why she was scared was hearsay and shouldn't have been admitted.

Oh.

Because she could have just said she was scared, but the quotes of why she was scared and what he was doing, that's not allowed. They said the defense failed to object to that though. Which if I'm him goes to ineffective assistance of counsel. Holy shit. And so they said, "We conclude that it did not affect the outcome of the trial because he did not deny his involvement in the murder and told a bunch of witnesses." So it wouldn't have mattered anyway. Harmless error is what they say. They talk about aggravators versus mitigators and say the lack of a substantial criminal record is entitled to a relatively significant weight.

Sure.

The remaining factors such as military service are entitled to some weight, but not a lot. A lot of people are in the military. That doesn't mean good people, bad people.

Shitloads of them. Yeah.

Yeah. Kids who play on rocks, whatever the fuck you want to say it is. It's all there. So it's just society, a chunk of them. It's all different people. They're not a homogeneous people that join the military. So another factor would be the prosecutor's overzealous application of aggravating circumstances, they say. But they say that the aggravators, no matter how you slice it, outweigh the mitigators and go fuck yourself.

Yeah.

Continue. October 2009, he is supposed to be executed in three weeks.

Is that right?

This time with lethal injection. It was the electric chair when he got convicted, but now they've moved it to lethal injection. But a panel of the Sixth US Circuit Court Appeals in Cincinnati ruled two to one to grant the request of a delay on this here because apparently also the Ohio governor stopped the lethal injection of somebody else after the state executioner struggled for two hours to find a usable vein.

Nice.

So they said, "Okay, let's stop that and let's pause this and see if we know how to kill people first before we start killing people."

Yeah. We need a better phlebotomist.

Tennessee should have taken fucking notes on this one because they obviously don't know what they're doing either. So the judge said there's some raised some questions about Ohio's lethal injection procedures, including the competence of the state's execution team.

Right.

They said, "Given the important constitutional and humanitarian issues at stake in all death penalty cases, the problems of the lethal injection protocol are certainly worthy of a discussion." So they say it can go through. He goes to the Supreme Court. There's a delay for a while. Well, they challenged it's again, the Ohio's lethal injection procedure. The court refused to comment, refused without comment to intervene. So they just said, "Fuck off."

We're not hearing this.

Yeah. So then there's clemency. A psychologist talked to him and confirmed alcoholism, a dysfunctional home life that resulted in long-standing feelings of being unloved or unlovable.

Ah.

Oh. Yeah. No one else feels like that, I'm sure. Jesus Christ.

Every goddamn day.

Every fucking day. He lacked any kind of life skills and received no guidance from his parents. And they said, "I think in normal families, there's unconditional love. Not so for Mr. Reynolds." They said he's taken responsibility for his crime and he said he's sorry for what he did. He's matured since being in prison. He works in the food service area. He makes origami for children.

Yeah, let him out now.

Sure.

Maybe like that.

He said, "He makes origami. We can't kill a guy with origami." And also said that prison gives Larry the discipline and structure without alcohol that he was never taught at home or in the military. They had structure, but you could also be boozed up. Larry had been a compliant inmate. The only reason to execute him now is retribution. Yeah. Now, at the same time, he said, "Your family and friends come there to meet you. 18 years by herself, Loretta Foster was never afraid until days before her death."

This man right here. Yeah.

Foster was generous, nurturing. She babysat Reynolds and his brother and sister when they were children. She even hired Reynolds to paint her fucking basement, which was the whole problem here. The parole board denies clemency six to zero. Go fuck yourself again.

Unanimous.

Three days before execution, found unresponsive in his cell.

Did he do it himself or did he die natural?

He took about 30 antidepressant pills two days before he had been saving him up and getting them from other people too. Elavil, he apparently took from other inmates who were on death row. They were all helping him, giving him shit. Blood tests show he'd taken three times the toxic level of the drug, but he survives.

Oh, shit.

He fucking survives. He doesn't die. They bring him back. They bring him back. There was a report saying the medical and security staff failed to properly monitor him, which obviously they didn't search him for extra pills. So he survives. He said.

Damn it.

He stated his intention was to end it and not give the state any satisfaction of killing him, the report says.

There it is.

A spiritual advisor of his says he just didn't want his last act of life to be what was considered a sideshow or a circus and he wanted to die in private. Another, I guess according to this investigation, inmates said that Reynolds said that he was going to do something stupid before the execution because he was, quote, "Not going to go out like that." He told one inmate, "I'm going to show them I've got something for them." All right. Now, Ohio paid about $6,000 in medical bills to get this guy to an execution chair.

To get him safe enough to kill.

Execution day, he got a cup of coffee and spent the morning on his bed. Took a shower in the afternoon, talked to a friend on the phone.

Last meal, everybody.

Fucking aye. Porterhouse steak, pork chops, and jumbo fried shrimp.

Solid order.

That's a lot of protein.

A lot of protein.

He just said, "Give me all the proteins." Potato with that? Fuck no. Fried shrimp with that.

110 grams of protein right there.

Wow.

Jesus.

They also said he'll be calm and he's been calm and cooperative. He's indicated that he'll cooperate tomorrow is what the prison said. His last statement.

He's got a belly full of pork and steak and shrimp.

That's a lot. So much. His last statement to my brothers, you would fall asleep and just be like, "Just stick it in me after I'm already out cold. If I lay down after that, I'm sleeping." Add like a glass of wine to that. Good night. It's over. He said, "To my brothers, I hope they will never have to walk these 15 steps I walked today. I've tried to bring attention to the futility and flagrantly flawed system we have today. Stop the madness."

Stop the madness of what?

Of executions. These 15 steps I had to take today. So stop the madness, he said, and then they executed him and it actually worked. So he's dead.

Great.

There you go. He's dead. It's over. And.

Could have mashed him with a ball peen hammer with all that food in him and be over.

Yeah, I could have just let him go. So there you go, everybody. That is Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.

Shit.