209: The Disgraced Hero & Fugitive: Mario Centobie

WEBVTT

1
00:00:02.279 --> 00:00:06.799
Southern Fried true crime covers cases that
are not suitable for young listeners, and

2
00:00:06.879 --> 00:00:18.320
there may also be some explicit language
used. Listener discretion is advost. On

3
00:00:18.480 --> 00:00:23.879
Thursday, June twenty fifth, nineteen
ninety eight, Officer Chris Long was having

4
00:00:23.879 --> 00:00:29.640
a normal hot summer night. He
was patrolling Moody, Alabama in his police

5
00:00:29.640 --> 00:00:33.880
car, and he was keeping an
air to his radio, just like he

6
00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:39.960
always did so. When Chris heard
his colleague, officer Keith Turner, send

7
00:00:40.039 --> 00:00:45.520
a radio transmission to central dispatch,
he listened like he always would, but

8
00:00:45.640 --> 00:00:50.600
it wasn't anything special. Keith was
pulling over a vehicle for a routine traffic

9
00:00:50.640 --> 00:00:57.920
stop. Automatically, Chris headed towards
Keith's location. Later, Chris would testify

10
00:00:58.039 --> 00:01:00.679
that this was out of habit.
He said, anytime he stopped a car,

11
00:01:02.079 --> 00:01:07.079
I backed him up, and vice
versa. Even when Chris had Keith's

12
00:01:07.079 --> 00:01:11.239
patrol car in sight, he didn't
think anything was off. He heard a

13
00:01:11.280 --> 00:01:15.640
few pops, but it was June
twenty fifth, The Fourth of July holiday

14
00:01:15.719 --> 00:01:21.439
was only a week away. People
were always setting off firecrackers early, especially

15
00:01:21.599 --> 00:01:27.159
in rural Alabama. But when Chris
heard additional pops followed by screaming. His

16
00:01:27.239 --> 00:01:38.879
stomach dropped as he realized it wasn't
fireworks. Welcome to episode two O nine,

17
00:01:38.400 --> 00:01:52.000
The Disgraced Hero and Fugitive Mario Sentobi
Officer. Keith Ashley Turner was born

18
00:01:52.040 --> 00:01:57.159
in November nineteen sixty eight to his
parents Dot and Pat Turner in pel City,

19
00:01:57.200 --> 00:02:01.120
Alabama. He had two brothers and
a sister, and although Keith was

20
00:02:01.120 --> 00:02:06.079
born in pel City, he primarily
grew up in a town called Ragland.

21
00:02:06.840 --> 00:02:10.680
Ragland is located in Saint Clair County, Alabama. It's about fifteen miles north

22
00:02:10.719 --> 00:02:17.280
of pel City and fifty miles east
of Birmingham. Ragland is your typical rural

23
00:02:17.319 --> 00:02:24.560
small town. Its population sits at
about two thousand plus or minus several hundred

24
00:02:24.560 --> 00:02:30.000
people depending on the year. When
I say this is the kind of place

25
00:02:30.039 --> 00:02:38.080
where everybody knows everybody, I mean
it. Everyone in Ragland is just about

26
00:02:38.120 --> 00:02:42.560
on a first name basis. How
could they not be. They're filling up

27
00:02:42.599 --> 00:02:46.719
their cars at the same two gas
stations, They're going to the same grocery

28
00:02:46.719 --> 00:02:50.639
store, and when they want a
night out, they're all headed to the

29
00:02:50.680 --> 00:02:57.520
only restaurant in town, which,
if you're wondering, serves barbecue. Keith's

30
00:02:57.520 --> 00:03:01.120
family was from Ragland. His mother, Dot was a lifelong member of the

31
00:03:01.199 --> 00:03:08.240
Ragland Methodist Church and attended Ragland High
School. Keith's father, Pat, was

32
00:03:08.240 --> 00:03:13.000
a military veteran. He had served
in the U. S. Navy during

33
00:03:13.039 --> 00:03:20.479
World War II as a machinist mate. Pat operated and maintained ships, and

34
00:03:20.599 --> 00:03:25.280
it's likely his military status was a
big part of the Turner family. In

35
00:03:25.400 --> 00:03:30.879
fact, before Dot passed away in
twenty twenty one at the age of ninety

36
00:03:30.919 --> 00:03:37.039
four, she was a member of
the local VFW Auxiliary. Keith was a

37
00:03:37.080 --> 00:03:40.719
member of his mother's Methodist church,
and in nineteen eighty seven, eighteen year

38
00:03:40.719 --> 00:03:47.199
old Keith graduated from the same Ragland
High School she did. On June twenty

39
00:03:47.240 --> 00:03:52.479
seventh, nineteen ninety six, twenty
eight year old Keith married a woman named

40
00:03:52.479 --> 00:03:57.719
Brandy. She was about twenty years
old at the time. A year later,

41
00:03:58.039 --> 00:04:01.039
in the spring of nineteen ninety seven, Brandy gave birth to the couple's

42
00:04:01.080 --> 00:04:06.400
first and only child, a little
girl. According to Brandy, Keith was

43
00:04:06.439 --> 00:04:13.400
a fantastic father. The Birmingham Post
Herald reported that Brandy said he was a

44
00:04:13.439 --> 00:04:18.600
wonderful man. He lived for her. The summer after Keith's daughter was born,

45
00:04:19.000 --> 00:04:25.120
he hit another big milestone. He
graduated from the University of Alabama's police

46
00:04:25.160 --> 00:04:30.279
academy. Keith had wanted to be
a law enforcement officer for quite some time.

47
00:04:30.360 --> 00:04:36.399
I imagine this was an especially exciting
accomplishment for him. Keith began his

48
00:04:36.519 --> 00:04:43.399
police career with a southside police department
near Gadsden, Alabama. In March of

49
00:04:43.480 --> 00:04:46.600
nineteen ninety eight, he switched to
a new position at the police department in

50
00:04:46.680 --> 00:04:53.360
Moody, Alabama. Moody, like
Ragland, is also located in Saint Clair

51
00:04:53.399 --> 00:04:58.439
County, and while Moody is also
a small rural town, it is slightly

52
00:04:58.480 --> 00:05:02.560
bigger than Ragland. In the late
nineteen nineties, approximately eight thousand people lived

53
00:05:02.560 --> 00:05:09.160
there. In June of nineteen ninety
eight, Keith was twenty nine years old

54
00:05:09.240 --> 00:05:14.120
and thriving. He had a loving
wife, a young daughter, a supportive

55
00:05:14.199 --> 00:05:19.399
family. Plus. Keith had started
his dream career, a dream career that,

56
00:05:19.680 --> 00:05:26.319
as it turns out, he had
a knack for. Moody Police Chief

57
00:05:26.399 --> 00:05:30.160
Robert Clement said of Keith, I
wish I had a dozen more just like

58
00:05:30.240 --> 00:05:34.639
him. Others who knew Keith remarked
on how kind and generous. He was.

59
00:05:35.639 --> 00:05:41.720
A previous supervisor told the Birmingham Post
Herald he was an outstanding young man.

60
00:05:42.199 --> 00:05:45.519
He always had a smile on his
face and was ready to help anyone.

61
00:05:46.519 --> 00:05:51.680
On June twenty seventh, nineteen ninety
eight, Heith's anniversary. He was

62
00:05:51.720 --> 00:05:58.959
on duty in his marked Moody police
vehicle. At ten thirty pm. He

63
00:05:59.000 --> 00:06:03.639
pulled over a nineteen on Mercury Grand
Marquis for a routine traffic stop. The

64
00:06:03.720 --> 00:06:11.079
marque parked in a residential driveway.
Before Keith exited his car, he radioed

65
00:06:11.120 --> 00:06:15.959
Central Dispatch to let them know he
had stopped this vehicle. As I mentioned

66
00:06:15.000 --> 00:06:19.560
at the top of the episode,
Officer Chris Long heard the transmission and made

67
00:06:19.600 --> 00:06:27.279
his way towards Keith's location. Meanwhile, Keith walked toward the Marquee he pulled

68
00:06:27.279 --> 00:06:31.560
over. Suddenly a man got out
of the car. Keith called out,

69
00:06:31.639 --> 00:06:36.319
Hey, what are y'all doing.
The man leaned into the car's window and

70
00:06:36.399 --> 00:06:41.680
said, give me my license.
Then the man leaned down and reached through

71
00:06:41.720 --> 00:06:46.720
the window, but when he straightened
up he did not have his license.

72
00:06:46.480 --> 00:06:51.199
Instead, he had a gun.
Without warning, the man shot Keith three

73
00:06:51.240 --> 00:06:58.879
times. The first bullet was stopped
by Keith's bullet proof best the second hit

74
00:06:58.959 --> 00:07:02.319
his hip, and the third was
fired directly into the back of his head.

75
00:07:03.560 --> 00:07:09.879
Twenty nine year old Officer Keith Turner
died immediately. He did not even

76
00:07:09.959 --> 00:07:15.079
have time to draw his weapon.
When Officer Chris Long pulled up, the

77
00:07:15.120 --> 00:07:19.839
two men responsible for Keith's murder ran. The man who was inside the car

78
00:07:19.879 --> 00:07:26.160
went one way and the shooter went
another. The two hit among the swampy

79
00:07:26.199 --> 00:07:31.800
wooded areas in Saint Clair County.
Almost immediately, a massive manhunt began.

80
00:07:33.240 --> 00:07:38.160
No one had laid eyes on these
men yet, but the authorities were damn

81
00:07:38.160 --> 00:07:43.560
near positive they knew exactly who these
fugitives were. Thirty two year old Mario

82
00:07:43.680 --> 00:07:48.680
sent Toby and nineteen year old Jeremy
Granbury. They had both escaped from a

83
00:07:48.720 --> 00:07:57.279
Mississippi prison two days earlier. I'm
going to pause now freshwort commercial break.

84
00:08:01.120 --> 00:08:07.879
Mario Giovanni Sentobi was born in nineteen
sixty six to his mother, Tracy Wolfe

85
00:08:07.160 --> 00:08:15.199
and his father John Arden sent Toby
in Biloxi, Mississippi. His gravestone indicates

86
00:08:15.240 --> 00:08:20.199
he was born on January twenty sixth, but according to an FBI wanted poster,

87
00:08:20.920 --> 00:08:26.319
Mario's birthday is actually October twenty sixth. That same FBI wanted poster explained

88
00:08:26.759 --> 00:08:33.159
that January twenty sixth was just an
alias birthday Mario used, probably to help

89
00:08:33.200 --> 00:08:39.960
avoid detection. When Mario was around
four years old, his biological father left

90
00:08:39.960 --> 00:08:46.200
his family. Mario's new stepfather was
Richard O'Connor. When Tracy and Richard were

91
00:08:46.240 --> 00:08:52.840
wed, Mario would have been approximately
seventeen years old. By the time Mario

92
00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:56.799
was grown, he had at least
seven siblings. Some of them were full

93
00:08:56.799 --> 00:09:03.679
siblings, while others were half siblings. Mario spent the bulk of his childhood

94
00:09:03.720 --> 00:09:09.720
in and around two Mississippi cities,
Biloxi and Long Beach. They're about seventeen

95
00:09:09.759 --> 00:09:15.759
miles apart from each other on the
Mississippi Gulf coast. In nineteen eighty four,

96
00:09:16.039 --> 00:09:20.600
eighteen year old Mario graduated from Long
Beach High School. He had played

97
00:09:20.600 --> 00:09:24.480
football there. By the time he
was about twenty years old, he still

98
00:09:24.519 --> 00:09:28.320
lived in Long Beach. At nine
to fifteen pm on Sunday, June first,

99
00:09:28.600 --> 00:09:33.919
nineteen eighty six, Mario was involved
in a gun related accident. He

100
00:09:35.039 --> 00:09:39.159
was cleaning his twenty gage shotgun when
it accidentally discharged. He was taken to

101
00:09:39.200 --> 00:09:46.840
the hospital where he underwent emergency surgery. At the time, authorities told the

102
00:09:46.879 --> 00:09:52.639
Sun Herald that the accident was under
investigation. In fact, the Sun Herald

103
00:09:52.759 --> 00:09:58.960
article that reported on this event used
the words supposedly when referencing the incident.

104
00:10:00.759 --> 00:10:05.879
It seemed people weren't sure that Mario
was telling the truth. But as far

105
00:10:05.879 --> 00:10:11.240
as I can tell, no additional
news reports came about this incident. When

106
00:10:11.320 --> 00:10:16.759
Mario was in his twenties, he
became a firefighter. According to his obituary,

107
00:10:16.320 --> 00:10:20.320
he was a valedictorian of his class
at the State of Mississippi Fire Academy,

108
00:10:22.039 --> 00:10:26.519
and as reported by The Sun Herald, twenty five year old Mario was

109
00:10:26.559 --> 00:10:30.720
working for the Orange Grove Fire Department
in Biloxi. By March of nineteen ninety

110
00:10:30.720 --> 00:10:35.200
one, he appeared to be doing
very well there. In fact, Mario

111
00:10:35.360 --> 00:10:39.399
was sometimes chosen to be the fire
departments and formal spokesman, and by that

112
00:10:39.559 --> 00:10:45.440
I mean when local newspaper journalist needed
a quote from a fireman on the ground,

113
00:10:45.879 --> 00:10:50.639
they would go to Mario. For
example, when a local grass burning

114
00:10:50.720 --> 00:10:54.200
got out of control and spread to
more than three hundred acres of land,

115
00:10:54.679 --> 00:10:58.960
Mario told the Sun Herald it was
the largest woods fire I'd ever been in.

116
00:10:58.440 --> 00:11:05.159
Nobody would heart. I found several
similar quotes from Mario published in the

117
00:11:05.200 --> 00:11:09.200
Sun Herald. He was usually explaining
what may have caused a recent fire and

118
00:11:09.279 --> 00:11:15.559
giving an estimate of the damage.
According to his obituary, in nineteen ninety

119
00:11:15.600 --> 00:11:20.759
two, the twenty six year old
was named Firefighter of the Year. Newspapers

120
00:11:20.799 --> 00:11:24.000
reported that by August of nineteen ninety
two, Mario had risen to the rank

121
00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:31.399
of captain. He was also sometimes
cited as being a training officer. Months

122
00:11:31.480 --> 00:11:35.919
later, in December of nineteen ninety
two, Mario completed a five week training

123
00:11:35.960 --> 00:11:41.600
program at the State Fire Academy.
The next year, in nineteen ninety three,

124
00:11:41.240 --> 00:11:46.200
Mario was dubbed Fireman of the Year. I'm not sure if that's the

125
00:11:46.240 --> 00:11:52.159
same as the Firefighter of the Year
Mario received in nineteen ninety two. Sometime

126
00:11:52.200 --> 00:11:56.600
between nineteen ninety two and ninety three, Mario also worked for the Dieberville Fire

127
00:11:56.639 --> 00:12:03.440
Department, but in December of nineteen
ninety three he had resigned from that position.

128
00:12:03.440 --> 00:12:07.519
In addition to being a fireman,
Mario was a lifeguard, a CPR

129
00:12:07.600 --> 00:12:16.039
instructor, a rescue diver, and
a rope rescue specialist. Mario received nine

130
00:12:16.120 --> 00:12:22.000
Green Cross Awards for rescuing trapped and
injured victims. On July twelfth of nineteen

131
00:12:22.080 --> 00:12:28.279
ninety four, twenty eight year old
Mario and another rescue professional, Norman Barnum,

132
00:12:28.759 --> 00:12:33.440
were recognized for helping with the Amtrak
train disaster near Mobil, Alabama.

133
00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:37.440
You may have heard of it.
It's sometimes called the Big Bayou Cannot Rail

134
00:12:37.519 --> 00:12:43.639
accident. On September twenty second,
nineteen ninety three, a towboat pulling along

135
00:12:43.679 --> 00:12:50.120
heavy barges ran into a bridge.
The collision knocked the bridge's train track out

136
00:12:50.159 --> 00:12:54.240
of alignment, and eight minutes later, an Amtrak passenger train carrying two hundred

137
00:12:54.240 --> 00:13:00.720
people was derailed. The train was
traveling about seventy miles per hour. In

138
00:13:00.759 --> 00:13:07.440
total, forty seven people died more
than one hundred were injured. Mario was

139
00:13:07.480 --> 00:13:11.600
a volunteer for the Long Beach Dive
and Rescue Team, so he was helping

140
00:13:11.639 --> 00:13:16.000
clean up the scene. Afterward,
he repeatedly dove into the bayou to help

141
00:13:16.039 --> 00:13:22.960
recover bodies and other items. Mario
told The Sun Herald the devastation of the

142
00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:28.799
crash was almost unbelievable. Norman,
the other recognized man, had helped on

143
00:13:28.840 --> 00:13:35.279
the surface. For their work on
the accident, Mario and Norman were presented

144
00:13:35.320 --> 00:13:41.720
a certificate of merit from the Mobile
County Sheriff's Flotilla. But despite Mario's long

145
00:13:41.759 --> 00:13:46.000
list of accomplishments as a rescue worker, he was not a good guy.

146
00:13:46.919 --> 00:13:50.000
There's no other way to put it. He just wasn't. This was a

147
00:13:50.039 --> 00:13:54.360
man who might have been a hero
for some good portions of his life,

148
00:13:54.080 --> 00:13:58.039
but by the end of this episode, you're going to understand that all of

149
00:13:58.080 --> 00:14:03.600
Mario's good deep could never outweigh his
bad ones, and it's time we talk

150
00:14:03.639 --> 00:14:09.360
about those. At some point in
the late nineteen eighties and early nineteen nineties,

151
00:14:09.960 --> 00:14:15.399
Mario married a woman named Cheryl Lynn
Stanley. There isn't much information available

152
00:14:15.440 --> 00:14:20.559
about Cheryl's past, but she was
likely a Mississippi native born around nineteen sixty

153
00:14:20.639 --> 00:14:24.600
nine. She was in her late
teens or early twenties at the time that

154
00:14:24.639 --> 00:14:30.039
she had began a relationship with Mario. Cheryl and Mario had one son together,

155
00:14:30.159 --> 00:14:33.559
named Dominic, and for a while
the family of three lived together in

156
00:14:33.600 --> 00:14:39.039
Gulfport Mississippi, which is just four
miles to the east of Long Beach.

157
00:14:41.159 --> 00:14:45.679
Cheryl worked as a teacher's aide at
a local elementary school, and Mario,

158
00:14:45.720 --> 00:14:50.440
of course, was a rescue worker. But soon the couple began having serious

159
00:14:50.480 --> 00:14:56.120
problems. Mario was abusive. On
at least one occasion, he admitted to

160
00:14:56.159 --> 00:15:03.159
slapping Cheryl. Afterward, she got
a restraining order against him, and by

161
00:15:03.200 --> 00:15:07.480
September of nineteen ninety five, twenty
six year old Cheryl and twenty nine year

162
00:15:07.480 --> 00:15:13.000
old Mario were separated. Cheryl and
her son Dominic lived in a Gulfport home

163
00:15:13.039 --> 00:15:18.799
together and Mario was on his own. Mario and Cheryl's separation may have been

164
00:15:18.840 --> 00:15:24.679
a shock to Mario's family. Later
they would say they didn't believe Mario would

165
00:15:24.720 --> 00:15:30.480
hurt his wife, but this separation
probably wasn't a shock to Cheryl's family.

166
00:15:31.200 --> 00:15:35.720
Her father later testified that for two
years it had been painfully clear that Cheryl

167
00:15:35.759 --> 00:15:43.240
feared her husband. Her father told
the son Harold, the whole family is

168
00:15:43.279 --> 00:15:46.440
still worried about her. It's rough. She has been plumb scared to death,

169
00:15:48.279 --> 00:15:54.840
and the authorities would later confirm Mario's
domestic violence as well. Police chief

170
00:15:54.879 --> 00:16:00.159
George Payne of the Gulfport Police Department, said Mario was violent and abuse to

171
00:16:00.240 --> 00:16:04.559
Cheryl repeatedly. Hain also indicated that
both Cheryl and their son, Dominic,

172
00:16:04.840 --> 00:16:08.960
were scared to death of Mario,
and that Mario was known for using fear

173
00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:15.399
and intimidation to control them. On
the evening of Saturday, September sixteenth of

174
00:16:15.519 --> 00:16:21.000
nineteen ninety five, Mario cut the
phone lines to Cheryl and Dominic's home.

175
00:16:21.879 --> 00:16:26.320
Then he kicked open her front door, violently pushing into the house. At

176
00:16:26.320 --> 00:16:30.879
the time, Cheryl and little Dominic, who was between five and seven years

177
00:16:30.919 --> 00:16:37.360
old, were watching television. I'm
sure they were terrified to see Mario burst

178
00:16:37.399 --> 00:16:42.080
in while wielding a gun. Mario
used the gun to force Cheryl and Dominic

179
00:16:42.120 --> 00:16:48.720
into his rented four probes of Dan
and Mario told Cheryl that he would kill

180
00:16:48.759 --> 00:16:55.000
their son if she didn't follow his
orders exactly. For four days, Mario

181
00:16:55.120 --> 00:17:00.000
held his estranged wife and son captive. He took them from Mississippi to Louisiana

182
00:17:00.080 --> 00:17:07.119
to Texas, all the while Mario
sexually assaulted Cheryl repeatedly while their son was

183
00:17:07.160 --> 00:17:14.079
present. When they were near San
Antonio, Mario wanted to force another man

184
00:17:14.119 --> 00:17:18.000
to sexually assault Cheryl. She testified, we went to a truck stop,

185
00:17:18.279 --> 00:17:22.720
but he couldn't find a man that
was by himself. He got back in

186
00:17:22.759 --> 00:17:25.960
the car and put the gun to
his head. He said he just didn't

187
00:17:26.000 --> 00:17:30.480
want to live anymore, and then
he put the gun down. Eventually,

188
00:17:32.160 --> 00:17:37.240
Cheryl commenced Mario that she would not
divorce him, and she agreed to retract

189
00:17:37.319 --> 00:17:41.559
her previous allegations of abuse. Honestly, what else was she supposed to do?

190
00:17:42.200 --> 00:17:48.720
Stand her ground and die. With
Cheryl's agreements in mind, Mario decided

191
00:17:48.720 --> 00:17:52.000
to return to Mississippi. He needed
to go to the city of Pearl anyway,

192
00:17:53.400 --> 00:17:56.440
he had to make a court appearance
to pay a one hundred dollars fine

193
00:17:56.480 --> 00:18:03.160
and do six months of probation for
an unrelated shoplifting charge. And now that

194
00:18:03.240 --> 00:18:07.119
Mario felt he had his wife and
son back under his thumb, he felt

195
00:18:07.119 --> 00:18:11.279
comfortable showing up. Afterward, they
would go back to their Gulfport home.

196
00:18:14.000 --> 00:18:18.839
In his mind, things would return
to normal. So Mario threw away his

197
00:18:18.960 --> 00:18:23.960
gun at a convenience store, and
on Tuesday, September nineteenth, nineteen ninety

198
00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:30.000
five, he had Cheryl drop him
off at the Pearl Courthouse. Cheryl took

199
00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:33.920
the rental car to wash it,
and then she and Dominic waited for Mario

200
00:18:33.039 --> 00:18:38.160
in a wal Mart parking lot.
It was near the courthouse. Later,

201
00:18:38.480 --> 00:18:44.000
it would be pointed out by Mario's
defense attorneys that Cheryl could have simply driven

202
00:18:44.000 --> 00:18:49.160
away, obviously ignoring the amount of
control Mario had over Cheryl. He had

203
00:18:49.279 --> 00:18:55.680
terrorized her and her child for four
days. She was terrified to defy Mario.

204
00:18:56.599 --> 00:19:02.400
When Mario arrived at the Pearl Courthouse, someone had the wherewithal to realize

205
00:19:02.480 --> 00:19:07.480
he was out on bond. He
was facing charges of sexual assault and domestic

206
00:19:07.559 --> 00:19:12.680
violence against his wife, and with
a little more digging, they realized that

207
00:19:12.799 --> 00:19:19.759
same wife and Mario's son had been
reported missing. Thankfully, the court officials

208
00:19:19.759 --> 00:19:26.519
and other authorities put things together,
and as Cheryl and Dominic waited for Mario

209
00:19:26.599 --> 00:19:32.359
to finish his court proceedings, two
FBI agents approached them, and those FBI

210
00:19:32.440 --> 00:19:38.839
agents told Cheryl that Mario had been
arrested for kidnapping. I'm going to pause

211
00:19:38.920 --> 00:19:45.319
now, tar a word from today's
sponsors. This episode is sponsored by care

212
00:19:45.480 --> 00:19:49.920
Of. Care Of is a health
and wellness company that ships high quality,

213
00:19:51.039 --> 00:19:56.319
personalized vitamins, supplements, and powders
conveniently to your door every month. Care

214
00:19:56.400 --> 00:20:02.359
Of offers a curated set of products
that are designed to work with research backed

215
00:20:02.480 --> 00:20:07.559
ingredients in optimal doses, and new
at care Of some of their best selling

216
00:20:07.640 --> 00:20:11.119
vitamins are now also available in bottles. If you're not ready yet to subscribe

217
00:20:11.119 --> 00:20:15.599
to monthly packs, it can be
really hard to know which vitamins and supplements

218
00:20:15.640 --> 00:20:19.599
you should be taking. Personally,
I find the drug store aisles overwhelming,

219
00:20:19.920 --> 00:20:25.240
so I really appreciate the ease of
the care of online quiz, which narrows

220
00:20:25.279 --> 00:20:29.000
down my choices based on my lifestyle, not just what's written on the back

221
00:20:29.039 --> 00:20:33.160
of a bottle. I always recommended
Rodeola to help with my low energy.

222
00:20:33.200 --> 00:20:36.839
At the end of the day,
I often feel drained from stress and craven

223
00:20:36.839 --> 00:20:41.960
afternoon nap. The care of Quiz
reminded me of that and prioritized that issue

224
00:20:41.079 --> 00:20:47.799
in my personalized recommendations. For fifty
percent off your first month's subscription with care

225
00:20:47.839 --> 00:20:52.880
of, go to take care of
dot Com and inner Code SFTC fifty.

226
00:20:52.200 --> 00:20:59.039
That's take care of dot Com and
promo code SFTC fifty for fifty percent off

227
00:20:59.039 --> 00:21:03.960
your first MONTH'SPSAS scription. It's never
too late to start your new year's resolutions.

228
00:21:04.279 --> 00:21:08.720
The easiest one is smelling better.
Make the switch to Loomy and this

229
00:21:08.799 --> 00:21:12.680
year will be all about head to
toe confidence. It's the first of its

230
00:21:12.759 --> 00:21:18.960
kind whole body deodorant. It's safe
to use anywhere like your pits, under

231
00:21:18.960 --> 00:21:22.319
boobs, thigh folds, and feet. I have very sensitive skin and it's

232
00:21:22.359 --> 00:21:26.160
hard to find a product to use
on my under arms, much less anywhere

233
00:21:26.160 --> 00:21:30.720
else. Loomy is awesome. It's
aluminum free, baking, soda free,

234
00:21:30.759 --> 00:21:36.480
parabin free, and pH balanced for
safe use below the belt, and it's

235
00:21:36.480 --> 00:21:41.119
clinically proven to block odor all day
and control odor for up to seventy two

236
00:21:41.200 --> 00:21:45.839
hours. Loomy's Starter Pack is perfect
for new customers. It comes with a

237
00:21:45.839 --> 00:21:49.480
solid stick deodorant, pream tube deodorant, two free products of your choice like

238
00:21:49.559 --> 00:21:55.559
mini body wash and deodorant wipes,
and free shipping. As a special offer

239
00:21:55.599 --> 00:22:00.000
for listeners, new customers get five
dollars off Loomy Starter Pack with our exit

240
00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.960
exclusive code and link use code s
F T C at Loomydeodorant dot com.

241
00:22:06.119 --> 00:22:11.759
L U M E D E O
D O R a n T dot com

242
00:22:11.920 --> 00:22:15.640
that equates to over forty percent off
your starter pack when you visit Loomydeodorant dot

243
00:22:15.680 --> 00:22:19.839
com and use code s f t
C. That's five dollars off a starter

244
00:22:19.960 --> 00:22:25.640
pack when you go to Loomy l
U m E Deodorant dot com and use

245
00:22:25.720 --> 00:22:30.440
code s f t C. This
episode is brought to you by Iqbar.

246
00:22:32.039 --> 00:22:36.720
Power Up your life, the superior
brain and body nutrition products from Iqbar.

247
00:22:37.200 --> 00:22:41.960
Their plant protein bars are the perfect
low carb grab and go breakfast, and

248
00:22:41.039 --> 00:22:45.759
iq jos are awesome. Most coffees
make me jittery, but the magnesium in

249
00:22:45.880 --> 00:22:52.880
iq Jo smooths everything out. Zero
jitters start each day with Iqbar's brain and

250
00:22:52.920 --> 00:22:57.279
body boosting bars, hydration mixes,
and mushroom coffees. Their Ultimate Sampler Pack

251
00:22:57.319 --> 00:23:03.119
includes all three get seven Iqbar flavors, four iq Mix flavors, and four

252
00:23:03.119 --> 00:23:10.000
iq Joe flavors, and today our
listeners get an exclusive offer of twenty percent

253
00:23:10.039 --> 00:23:14.799
off plus free shipping. Just text
Southern Fried to sixty four thousand. The

254
00:23:14.880 --> 00:23:18.559
Ultimate Sampler Pack is a great way
to try all Iqbar products and flavors.

255
00:23:18.920 --> 00:23:25.400
All Iqbar products are entirely free from
gluten, dairy, soy GMOs and artificial

256
00:23:25.440 --> 00:23:30.400
sweeteners. Iq empowers doers with superior
brain and body nutrition. Refuel smarter with

257
00:23:30.480 --> 00:23:36.640
Iqbar's Ultimate Sampler Pack. That's seven
Iqbars, four IQ Mixes, and four

258
00:23:36.680 --> 00:23:41.599
iq Josticks. And now our listeners
get twenty percent off all Iqbar products plus

259
00:23:41.920 --> 00:23:47.039
free shipping. To get your twenty
percent off, just text Southern Fried to

260
00:23:47.119 --> 00:23:52.039
sixty four thousand get your discount.
Text Southern Fried to sixty four thousand.

261
00:23:52.319 --> 00:23:56.799
That's Southern Fried to sixty four thousand. Message and data rate supply. See

262
00:23:56.839 --> 00:24:03.240
terms for details. The authorities had
been on the lookout for Marios shortly after

263
00:24:03.319 --> 00:24:07.720
he had abducted his wife and son
on Saturday, September sixteenth, and that's

264
00:24:07.759 --> 00:24:12.720
because Cheryl's father and her stepmom had
gone to Cheryl's home on Sunday, September

265
00:24:12.720 --> 00:24:18.799
seventeen. They saw that her front
door was kicked in, the house was

266
00:24:18.920 --> 00:24:23.000
unusually messy, and the phone wasn't
working. Even the television had been left

267
00:24:23.039 --> 00:24:30.799
on. Clearly something was wrong,
so Cheryl's father reported his daughter and the

268
00:24:30.839 --> 00:24:36.279
grandson missing, and due to Mario's
history of domestic violence, he was the

269
00:24:36.319 --> 00:24:41.440
police's number one suspect. When Mario
was arrested four days later. He was

270
00:24:41.519 --> 00:24:47.039
taken to golf court and held on
a fifty thousand dollars bond. Two days

271
00:24:47.079 --> 00:24:51.519
later, on September twenty first,
Mario's bond was increased to one million.

272
00:24:52.400 --> 00:24:56.359
Needless to say, he couldn't pay
it, so he remained in jail.

273
00:24:57.039 --> 00:25:03.400
Mario was indicted that November. His
charges were kidnapping, aggravated assault, burglary,

274
00:25:03.559 --> 00:25:08.559
and sexual battery, and one count
of sexual battery related to an earlier

275
00:25:08.599 --> 00:25:14.839
incident, and his trial began the
next year, on October fourteenth, nineteen

276
00:25:14.880 --> 00:25:22.079
ninety six. By this point,
Cheryl had successfully divorced Mario. During the

277
00:25:22.160 --> 00:25:26.079
trial, Mario's defense team argued that
Cheryl had agreed to go on this quote

278
00:25:26.160 --> 00:25:32.440
trip. They suggested that it was
a family vacation, not a kidnapping.

279
00:25:33.279 --> 00:25:37.799
Mario's defense attorneys said their marital issues
were typical. They pointed to how,

280
00:25:37.960 --> 00:25:44.720
despite their separation, Cheryl and Mario
had recently interacted a church, the movie

281
00:25:44.720 --> 00:25:48.599
theater, and restaurants. They had
witnesses to prove as much. One of

282
00:25:48.640 --> 00:25:56.119
Mario's acquaintances thought Mario and Cheryl were
making up, but that same person also

283
00:25:56.240 --> 00:26:02.920
testified that Mario had recently been suing, and then he had mentioned getting a

284
00:26:03.000 --> 00:26:08.720
gun. The defense also cast out
on the police investigation. The authorities had

285
00:26:08.799 --> 00:26:14.680
let Cheryl drive her son home after
Mario's arrest, That in and of itself

286
00:26:14.799 --> 00:26:18.599
wasn't the problem. The problem was
that Cheryl drove home in the same rental

287
00:26:18.680 --> 00:26:25.039
car that Mario had kidnapped her in, and she had removed trash like fast

288
00:26:25.039 --> 00:26:27.759
food wrappers from the car before turning
it over to the police to be searched.

289
00:26:30.960 --> 00:26:36.480
The defense was alleging that Cheryl may
have tampered with evidence. By the

290
00:26:36.559 --> 00:26:41.359
time the four vehicle was searched,
detectives found blood on the passenger side seat

291
00:26:41.400 --> 00:26:45.160
belt. Cheryl testified that this was
because she was bleeding while sitting in that

292
00:26:45.279 --> 00:26:51.440
seat. Mario had pistol whipped her
in the head and there was a lot

293
00:26:51.480 --> 00:26:55.000
of blood. She had had to
wrap her head with a shirt to staunch

294
00:26:55.079 --> 00:26:59.880
the bleeding. When those two FBI
agents found Cheryl, she did have a

295
00:27:00.039 --> 00:27:06.160
head injury. However, this seat
belt blood was never proven to be Cheryl's.

296
00:27:07.920 --> 00:27:11.279
The authorities had intended to send samples
to the state crime lab for testing,

297
00:27:12.039 --> 00:27:18.359
but for unknown reasons, though samples
were never sent. Also, the

298
00:27:18.400 --> 00:27:22.400
shirt Cheryl had used to wrap her
head was never found. Another issue with

299
00:27:22.440 --> 00:27:26.759
the investigation was that they had not
sent Cheryl to the hospital to complete a

300
00:27:26.839 --> 00:27:33.119
rape test, and they didn't check
Cheryl or Mario's clothing for seamen. The

301
00:27:33.119 --> 00:27:40.000
defense team also had proved that when
a Gulfport police officer had interviewed Cheryl immediately

302
00:27:40.039 --> 00:27:42.240
after the kidnapping, she had said
she had gone on the trip of her

303
00:27:42.279 --> 00:27:47.680
own accord, and they pointed out
how Cheryl wrote letters to Mario while he

304
00:27:47.759 --> 00:27:52.079
was in jail. She had even
signed them with a word love, but

305
00:27:52.200 --> 00:27:57.720
this again was due to Cheryl's fear
of Mario. While on the stand,

306
00:27:59.240 --> 00:28:03.960
Cheryl test as to how terrified she
was of Mario. She explained that she

307
00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:07.319
had written him letters because she didn't
know if he was getting out of jail.

308
00:28:07.640 --> 00:28:11.920
She said, I didn't want him
to be mad at me. He

309
00:28:11.960 --> 00:28:18.880
will kill me. Cheryl testified to
her story in detail, and officers explained

310
00:28:18.920 --> 00:28:23.680
to the jury that they found wirecutters
in Mario's personal vehicle, which was a

311
00:28:23.720 --> 00:28:30.559
truck that had been abandoned in a
casino parking lot. The prosecution claimed these

312
00:28:30.599 --> 00:28:36.720
wirecutters were what Mario used to cut
Cheryl's phone lines before he kidnapped her.

313
00:28:37.480 --> 00:28:44.039
The prosecution also called to the stand
Cheryl's seventeen year old neighbor he had seen

314
00:28:44.119 --> 00:28:48.640
Mario peeking into the windows of Cheryl's
home days before the kidnapping, and a

315
00:28:48.640 --> 00:28:53.559
bank worker testified that Mario had stopped
by the bank a day before the kidnapping.

316
00:28:55.240 --> 00:29:00.880
He had seemed upset and had withdrawn
five thousand dollars that's just under ten

317
00:29:00.920 --> 00:29:07.960
thousand today, but when asked about
how he and Cheryl were doing, Mario

318
00:29:07.079 --> 00:29:12.880
said they were fine. Cheryl and
Mario's elementary school age son, Dominic,

319
00:29:14.039 --> 00:29:18.400
also testified. He verified that Mario
had a gun on him, saying he

320
00:29:18.559 --> 00:29:23.599
kept it in a pouch in a
red car, and Dominic confirmed that his

321
00:29:23.599 --> 00:29:30.599
father had beaten his mother in front
of him. On Friday, October eighteenth,

322
00:29:30.720 --> 00:29:34.160
nineteen ninety six, the jury convicted
thirty year old Mario cent Toby of

323
00:29:34.200 --> 00:29:42.119
aggravated assault and burglary. He was
acquitted of all sexual battery charges. It's

324
00:29:42.279 --> 00:29:48.039
likely the jury made that decision because
Cheryl had not undergone a rape test and

325
00:29:48.079 --> 00:29:53.880
the lack of testing for Mario seamen. Ultimately, Mario was sentenced to forty

326
00:29:53.960 --> 00:29:59.799
years in prison, twenty years for
kidnapping, ten years for aggravated assault,

327
00:30:00.160 --> 00:30:04.359
and tend for burglary. The jury
had considered life in prison, but they

328
00:30:04.359 --> 00:30:08.039
couldn't make a unanimous decision on it, so it was off the table.

329
00:30:10.680 --> 00:30:15.160
This wasn't an extremely high profile case. In fact, the authorities didn't disclose

330
00:30:15.240 --> 00:30:21.400
any information about the case to news
reporters until after Cheryl and Dominic were recovered.

331
00:30:22.440 --> 00:30:26.200
That was a purposeful decision, meant
to keep them safe. However,

332
00:30:26.599 --> 00:30:33.279
for those who did follow the case, Mario's convictions were controversial. On the

333
00:30:33.319 --> 00:30:38.799
one hand, Mario's family maintained that
this whole situation was blown out of proportion.

334
00:30:41.279 --> 00:30:45.920
Mario's stepfather, Richard O'Connor said to
the Birmingham Post Harold, they went

335
00:30:45.960 --> 00:30:49.920
on this vacation and didn't tell either
parents, and the next thing I know,

336
00:30:51.440 --> 00:30:56.559
the police are around here looking for
Mario. Richard referenced how Mario took

337
00:30:56.640 --> 00:31:03.359
Cheryl and Dominic to Texas beeches,
and how Mario's original shoplifting charge was for

338
00:31:03.480 --> 00:31:07.599
stealing his son a birthday present,
which is strange if he had five thousand

339
00:31:07.680 --> 00:31:15.079
dollars in the bank. But anyway, the authorities obviously thought this whole story

340
00:31:15.160 --> 00:31:21.799
was bullshit. The police chief of
Gulfport said to the Sun Herald, this

341
00:31:21.839 --> 00:31:26.359
is a classic case of an abused
woman where it appears the system failed her.

342
00:31:26.680 --> 00:31:33.119
Additionally, I'm not sure how Mario's
family is rationalizing Cheryl's broken door,

343
00:31:33.640 --> 00:31:40.880
cut phone wires and bruised face.
But it doesn't matter what I think the

344
00:31:41.000 --> 00:31:47.880
jury thought. Mario was guilty and
that was that or that should have been

345
00:31:47.920 --> 00:31:55.920
that, because unfortunately this was only
the beginning. I'm going to pause now

346
00:31:56.000 --> 00:32:06.400
for a short commercial break. In
nineteen ninety eight, thirty two year old

347
00:32:06.440 --> 00:32:13.559
Mario Centobi was incarcerated in the Mississippi
State Penitentiary. It's located in Parchment,

348
00:32:13.599 --> 00:32:19.000
Mississippi, and is often referred to
as Parchment Prison. That's where Mario met

349
00:32:19.119 --> 00:32:23.720
nineteen year old Jeremy Granberry. Jeremy
was serving six years. He would have

350
00:32:23.799 --> 00:32:30.160
only served five years, but in
November of nineteen ninety seven, Jeremy and

351
00:32:30.240 --> 00:32:35.119
another inmate, twenty one year old
Christopher Wally, attempted to escape from Parchment

352
00:32:35.200 --> 00:32:40.119
Prison. The pair had just walked
away while on work detail at a nearby

353
00:32:40.160 --> 00:32:45.279
pig and chicken farm. They were
caught by that afternoon and Jeremy was sentenced

354
00:32:45.440 --> 00:32:51.119
to an additional year in prison.
On Thursday, June twenty fifth, nineteen

355
00:32:51.200 --> 00:32:55.519
ninety eight, Mario and Jeremy were
to be transported from Parchment Prison to Laurel,

356
00:32:55.519 --> 00:33:02.359
Mississippi, for court proceedings. These
hearings were directly related to Jeremy's case,

357
00:33:02.799 --> 00:33:07.440
so it made sense that he was
going, but Mario was not supposed

358
00:33:07.480 --> 00:33:09.839
to be going to these court hearings. He had asked Jeremy to put his

359
00:33:09.920 --> 00:33:15.160
name on the witness list because this
was the first step of Mario's plan.

360
00:33:15.960 --> 00:33:22.119
So Mario and Jeremy climbed into a
vehicle with Sheriff Maurice Hooks of Jones County

361
00:33:22.440 --> 00:33:27.200
and Ray Butler. Ray was a
former lawman and a friend of Sheriff Hooks.

362
00:33:27.839 --> 00:33:31.279
Later on, Hooks would explain that
he had brought his buddy Ray along

363
00:33:31.359 --> 00:33:37.079
because he thought he was only transporting
one inmate, Jeremy. Mario coming was

364
00:33:37.160 --> 00:33:44.000
news to Sheriff Hooks. That's also
the reason why Hooks arrived in an unsecured

365
00:33:44.079 --> 00:33:49.440
vehicle. It was supposed to have
a divider between the front seat, where

366
00:33:49.480 --> 00:33:52.759
the officer sit, and the back
seat where the inmates sit, but this

367
00:33:52.839 --> 00:33:57.680
vehicle did not have that, and
as you'll soon learn, this lack of

368
00:33:57.759 --> 00:34:04.000
divider was going to make all the
difference. And it's important to note here

369
00:34:04.319 --> 00:34:07.920
that Mario and Jeremy's ankles were shackled, but their wrists were not. It's

370
00:34:08.000 --> 00:34:14.800
unclear why the trip from Parchment to
Laurel would take nearly four hours, so

371
00:34:14.920 --> 00:34:17.480
a little over two hours in the
group of four made a pit stop in

372
00:34:17.559 --> 00:34:23.360
Richland, Mississippi. Sheriff Hooks let
Mario and Jeremy use the restroom, and

373
00:34:23.440 --> 00:34:28.280
he and Ray got some coffee.
As Hooks went to get back into the

374
00:34:28.360 --> 00:34:34.360
vehicle, all hell broke loose.
Sheriff Hooks later testified, opened the front

375
00:34:34.400 --> 00:34:37.639
door, got into the driver's seat, put my coffee into the holder,

376
00:34:37.719 --> 00:34:40.840
and closed the door. Granberry reached
over the seat, grabbed me by the

377
00:34:40.920 --> 00:34:45.039
neck and pulled me into the seat
backwards. Sin Toby went from my gun

378
00:34:45.119 --> 00:34:50.639
and hit me with it on the
head four or five times. Armed with

379
00:34:50.639 --> 00:34:55.039
the sheriff Hooks's forty five caliber automatic
pistol, Mario forced Hooks and Ray to

380
00:34:55.119 --> 00:35:00.599
an old barn in an isolated area. He and Jeremy tied up the sheriff

381
00:35:00.639 --> 00:35:05.320
and his friend to a post.
Then they left them there. Mario and

382
00:35:05.400 --> 00:35:10.719
Jeremy fled in Sheriff Hooks's vehicle.
Sheriff Hooks and Ray Butler stayed tied up

383
00:35:10.760 --> 00:35:15.599
in that barn for approximately twenty hours. They were found on Friday, June

384
00:35:15.639 --> 00:35:22.199
twenty sixth by a couple visiting a
nearby cemetery. The two men received treatment

385
00:35:22.280 --> 00:35:27.000
for cuts, swollen limbs, and
dehydration. They both made a full recovery.

386
00:35:28.199 --> 00:35:31.199
After Mario and Jeremy stole the sheriff's
car, they stopped at a Walmart

387
00:35:31.239 --> 00:35:37.360
twenty five miles to the north in
Livingston, Mississippi. They walked inside while

388
00:35:37.360 --> 00:35:43.400
still wearing their prison uniforms. The
uniforms consisted of white shirts with ms DOC

389
00:35:43.679 --> 00:35:49.119
for Mississippi Department of Corrections printed on
the back and dark pants. And Walmart,

390
00:35:49.280 --> 00:35:53.320
the two men purchased black T shirts, a compass, water purification tablets,

391
00:35:53.440 --> 00:36:00.599
and other items. Mario and Jeremy
also found fai plastic sheriff's badges and

392
00:36:00.639 --> 00:36:07.800
Hooks's car. Hooks would give these
out to children. Mario and Jeremy pinned

393
00:36:07.840 --> 00:36:12.159
them to their shirts, probably in
the hopes that they might fool someone into

394
00:36:12.199 --> 00:36:15.880
thinking they were supposed to be in
this marked law enforcement vehicle. With new

395
00:36:15.920 --> 00:36:21.559
clothes, fake badges, and some
provisions, the two escapees were prepared to

396
00:36:21.559 --> 00:36:27.400
go on the run, just like
they had planned all along. Seven hours

397
00:36:27.480 --> 00:36:31.239
later, Mario and Jeremy were near
Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and it just so

398
00:36:31.400 --> 00:36:37.239
happened that forty seven year old Captain
Cecil Lancaster of the Tuscaloosa Police Department was

399
00:36:37.239 --> 00:36:40.800
coming home late. He had been
held up by a meeting at work.

400
00:36:43.719 --> 00:36:49.360
Lancaster saw Hooks's marked patrol car drive
by on I three fifty nine, and

401
00:36:49.400 --> 00:36:53.159
although Lancaster had no idea that two
fugitives were on the loose, he noticed

402
00:36:53.199 --> 00:36:58.119
that something was off about the car. First off, he saw that the

403
00:36:58.119 --> 00:37:01.360
sheriff's car was missing its rear bumper. As luck would have it, this

404
00:37:01.519 --> 00:37:07.679
was not actually related to Mario or
Jeremy's fugitive status. The bumper had been

405
00:37:07.719 --> 00:37:12.760
dislodged during a previous accident Sheriff Hooks
had been involved in. Still, it

406
00:37:12.800 --> 00:37:16.920
gave Captain Lancaster pause. Then he
also noticed that the car had no tags.

407
00:37:17.679 --> 00:37:22.199
Plus, the two people inside the
car didn't acknowledge him as they passed

408
00:37:22.199 --> 00:37:29.840
by. As a precaution, Lancaster
pulled the sheriff's car over. As Captain

409
00:37:29.920 --> 00:37:32.679
Lancaster walked toward the driver's side of
the car, he got a good look

410
00:37:32.719 --> 00:37:37.920
at Jeremy Grandberry. Jeremy was in
the driver's seat, so he was easy

411
00:37:37.960 --> 00:37:42.559
to see, but Lancaster was unable
to see Mario in the front passenger seat.

412
00:37:44.239 --> 00:37:47.519
Before Lancaster made it all the way
to the driver's side, Mario leaned

413
00:37:47.559 --> 00:37:52.519
back behind the front seat. Although
Lancaster didn't have a clear vision of Mario,

414
00:37:53.000 --> 00:37:57.840
he could see that someone was pointing
a gun at him. According to

415
00:37:57.920 --> 00:38:01.320
later testimony, the first time Marrio
tried to shoot Lancaster, the gun only

416
00:38:01.360 --> 00:38:06.760
clicked. There was no shell on
the gun's chamber, so Mario cocked the

417
00:38:06.800 --> 00:38:09.960
gun and fired again. He shot
through the back window on the driver's side

418
00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:15.480
and hit Lancaster twice. The first
shot struck Lancaster's gun clip on his police

419
00:38:15.519 --> 00:38:21.599
belt, and the second hit him
in the torso. Lancaster suffered two broken

420
00:38:21.679 --> 00:38:25.119
ribs and the bullet's exit wound was
near his tailbone. He was a very

421
00:38:25.159 --> 00:38:31.000
lucky man. After being hit,
Lancaster fell to the ground. That's when

422
00:38:31.039 --> 00:38:36.239
he saw the Sheriff's vehicle begin to
move forward. He realized they were going

423
00:38:36.280 --> 00:38:39.639
to try and run him over.
He testified, I saw the reverse light

424
00:38:39.679 --> 00:38:44.159
come on, and that shocked me
back to reality. I pulled out my

425
00:38:44.199 --> 00:38:49.079
gun and fired a shot into the
rear window in the high left side.

426
00:38:49.119 --> 00:38:53.519
A second shot shattered the back window. Jeremy and Mario decided it wasn't worth

427
00:38:53.519 --> 00:38:58.760
it to run over Lancaster and fled
the scene. As they sped off,

428
00:38:58.920 --> 00:39:04.960
Lancaster kept fire, but they were
gone Soon after. A fellow police officer

429
00:39:05.039 --> 00:39:08.639
saw that Captain Lancaster was hurt.
On the Interstate. That officer, Sergeant

430
00:39:08.719 --> 00:39:14.199
Jeffrey Elmore, used his shirt and
a piece of cardboard to slow Lancaster's bleeding.

431
00:39:15.800 --> 00:39:21.920
Other concerned bystanders had also stopped to
help. Eventually, Captain Lancaster would

432
00:39:21.960 --> 00:39:24.920
make it to a hospital. He
was reported as being in fair condition the

433
00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:30.079
day after the shooting, but he
did have to undergo surgery due to his

434
00:39:30.159 --> 00:39:37.039
injuries. Following their run in with
Lancaster, Mario and Jeremy abandoned Sheriff Hooks's

435
00:39:37.079 --> 00:39:45.280
patrol car in the backyard of a
mobile home in South Tuscaloosa after nearly killing

436
00:39:45.320 --> 00:39:52.440
Captain Lancaster. They probably realized that
marked car was drawing unnecessary attention. That's

437
00:39:52.480 --> 00:39:58.079
when they stole the nineteen eighty one
Mercury Grandmarquis I'm mentioned in the opening.

438
00:39:59.280 --> 00:40:02.679
By this point, the local authorities
were aware that Mario and Jeremy were on

439
00:40:02.719 --> 00:40:08.079
the run. The two fugitives were
considered armed and dangerous, and law enforcement

440
00:40:08.119 --> 00:40:13.079
officers were going door to door to
check on locals and advise them to stay

441
00:40:13.119 --> 00:40:19.480
inside. On Saturday, June twenty
seventh, Jeremy and Mario stopped for food

442
00:40:19.519 --> 00:40:23.199
near Leeds, Alabama. Jeremy stopped
at a McDonald's while Mario went to a

443
00:40:23.239 --> 00:40:30.559
Taco Bell. Security footage was later
recovered showing Mario making his Taco Bell order.

444
00:40:30.559 --> 00:40:35.599
Later that day, Officer Keith Turner
pulled over Jeremy and Mario for a

445
00:40:35.719 --> 00:40:42.760
routine traffic stop. After Mario murdered
Officer Keith Turner in cold blood, Jeremy

446
00:40:42.800 --> 00:40:47.840
turned their stolen car into a driveway, and per later testimony, Jeremy looked

447
00:40:47.880 --> 00:40:52.360
at Mario and said, well,
this is it, and Mario responded,

448
00:40:52.760 --> 00:40:55.559
you can give up if you want
to, man, I ain't going back

449
00:40:55.559 --> 00:41:04.039
to Parchment. Then Mario got out
of the car shortly after Jeremy did too.

450
00:41:04.920 --> 00:41:07.400
He fled across a baseball field and
hid in a swampy wooded area,

451
00:41:08.079 --> 00:41:15.719
and immediately after Mario did the same
in a slightly different direction. When Officer

452
00:41:15.800 --> 00:41:21.519
Chris Long arrived on the scene,
he fired at Mario. Mario fell to

453
00:41:21.599 --> 00:41:24.039
the ground as if he had been
shot, so Chris thought he had made

454
00:41:24.119 --> 00:41:31.079
contact. This was further reinforced when
Mario began crawling towards the woods. Later

455
00:41:31.320 --> 00:41:36.840
investigators would realize that Mario had not
been shot. There was no blood on

456
00:41:36.880 --> 00:41:40.559
the ground where he had fallen.
Mario was either trying to mislead Officer Long

457
00:41:40.719 --> 00:41:46.760
or he was avoiding more gunfire.
But thinking that Mario was somewhat incapacitated,

458
00:41:47.119 --> 00:41:52.960
Chris turned his attention toward Keith.
He felt around Keith's chest, searching for

459
00:41:52.039 --> 00:41:57.400
a wound. It was ten thirty
p m. And dark. Chris couldn't

460
00:41:57.440 --> 00:42:02.400
see that Keith had been shot in
the head. But then Chris shined his

461
00:42:02.519 --> 00:42:07.239
light on Keith and saw the blood. His neck and collar were covered in

462
00:42:07.280 --> 00:42:12.920
it. Officer Keith Turner was killed
in the line of duty on his two

463
00:42:12.960 --> 00:42:19.840
year wedding anniversary. His funeral was
held three days later at one pm on

464
00:42:19.880 --> 00:42:25.239
Tuesday, June thirtieth, at the
Ragland Methodist Church. He was laid to

465
00:42:25.320 --> 00:42:30.440
rest in the Garden of Memory Cemetery
in Ragland, Alabama. His father was

466
00:42:30.480 --> 00:42:35.920
also buried there, and his mother
was laid to rest there too, at

467
00:42:35.960 --> 00:42:39.679
the age of ninety four in twenty
twenty one. At the time of Keith's

468
00:42:39.719 --> 00:42:45.000
death, his mother had seen him
a few days earlier. She told the

469
00:42:45.039 --> 00:42:49.559
Birmingham Post Herald the last thing he
said to me was I love you.

470
00:42:50.320 --> 00:42:55.480
There couldn't have been a better way
to say goodbye. The year after his

471
00:42:55.639 --> 00:43:01.039
death, in May of nineteen ninety
nine, Keith was posthumously rewarded the Medal

472
00:43:01.079 --> 00:43:07.119
of Valor and a stone memorial was
dedicated to his memory. The Moody Police

473
00:43:07.199 --> 00:43:12.760
Chief, Robert Clement, said of
Keith, he had tremendous potential. He

474
00:43:12.840 --> 00:43:16.360
was a fine, fine man.
It was just our bad luck that those

475
00:43:16.440 --> 00:43:22.679
predators happened to come through our town. I'm going to pause now for a

476
00:43:22.760 --> 00:43:32.480
short commercial break. Following Officer Keith
Turner's murder, a huge manhunt for Mario

477
00:43:32.559 --> 00:43:38.159
and Jeremy began. Detectives primarily focused
on a ten square mile area in Saint

478
00:43:38.239 --> 00:43:44.840
Clair County. The Cross Baptist Church
became the headquarters for all search activities.

479
00:43:45.639 --> 00:43:52.280
Roadblocks were put up, helicopters circled
the air. Hundreds of federal, state,

480
00:43:52.360 --> 00:43:55.960
and local officers were put on the
case, and numerous law enforcement agencies

481
00:43:57.039 --> 00:44:00.960
help. Some of them were the
FBI, that Alabama Bureau of Investigation,

482
00:44:01.519 --> 00:44:07.719
the Alabama State Troopers, multiple county
sheriff's departments, and multiple city police departments,

483
00:44:08.079 --> 00:44:15.320
including the Moody Police Department where Officer
Keith Turner was employed. Jeremy was

484
00:44:15.360 --> 00:44:19.280
captured at two pm on Sunday,
June twenty eighth. It was less than

485
00:44:19.280 --> 00:44:23.280
one day since he had ran.
Bloodhounds had found him hiding in a sewage

486
00:44:23.320 --> 00:44:30.199
ditch not far from where he had
initially fled the scene. He was charged

487
00:44:30.239 --> 00:44:35.599
with capital murder for Officer Keith Turner
an attempted murder for Captain Cecil Lancaster.

488
00:44:37.559 --> 00:44:43.079
As the police apprehended him, locals
watched, They clapped and cheered. The

489
00:44:43.119 --> 00:44:47.119
authorities, high fived, and honked
their horns. Many onlookers heard Jeremy screaming

490
00:44:47.519 --> 00:44:52.239
that he was not responsible for killing
Officer Keith Turner. He was held at

491
00:44:52.239 --> 00:44:59.440
the Saint Clair County Jail. Even
though Jeremy was quickly recovered, Mario escaped

492
00:44:59.440 --> 00:45:06.679
the authority for several days. He
survived by stealing vegetables from people's gardens and

493
00:45:06.719 --> 00:45:10.159
breaking into homes for food. He
would take items from the back of people's

494
00:45:10.159 --> 00:45:15.639
refrigerators and the hopes that they might
not notice he had been there. Law

495
00:45:15.679 --> 00:45:22.679
enforcement officers were optimistic that the hot
weather might exhaust Mario. It was about

496
00:45:22.760 --> 00:45:30.079
ninety degrees most days. Alabama State
Trooper William Rogers told the Birmingham Post Harold,

497
00:45:30.639 --> 00:45:34.000
we think the heat will work in
our favor. That's why we want

498
00:45:34.039 --> 00:45:37.079
to keep continuous pressure on him.
On a hot day, it's hard to

499
00:45:37.159 --> 00:45:43.800
keep moving. But the heat didn't
seem to FaZe Mario because on Monday,

500
00:45:43.880 --> 00:45:49.320
June twenty ninth, law enforcement had
no clue where he was. Jeremy did

501
00:45:49.320 --> 00:45:53.159
not provide them with any helpful information, and the leeds coming in from locals

502
00:45:53.199 --> 00:45:59.199
were largely incorrect. Still, the
police were pretty sure Mario remained in this

503
00:45:59.320 --> 00:46:05.400
area. As a precaution, residents
were encouraged to lock their doors and stay

504
00:46:05.400 --> 00:46:09.840
inside. A special agent for the
Federal Bureau of Alcohol tobacco and firearms.

505
00:46:09.880 --> 00:46:15.519
Told the Birmingham Post Herald, he
is very cunning. He's desperate to do

506
00:46:15.599 --> 00:46:20.320
anything to not be incarcerated. He's
on the extreme violent end of the criminal

507
00:46:20.400 --> 00:46:27.119
subculture. And a different officer told
the Birmingham Post Harald, now's not a

508
00:46:27.119 --> 00:46:30.960
good time to take a walk in
the woods or go pick berries. June

509
00:46:31.039 --> 00:46:36.519
turned into July and Mario sent Toby
was still nowhere to be found. A

510
00:46:36.559 --> 00:46:42.119
local fireworks company called Crazy Bill Fireworks
shut down business to help with the investigation.

511
00:46:42.880 --> 00:46:46.239
They urged everyone in the area to
not shoot off any fireworks. They

512
00:46:46.239 --> 00:46:52.679
didn't want the sound or sights to
interfere with the investigation. On July fourth,

513
00:46:52.920 --> 00:46:59.440
Mario escaped the authorities search perimeter,
undetected due to rain and dense fog.

514
00:47:00.199 --> 00:47:04.559
He went to a Moody, Alabama
gas station. There he carjacked a

515
00:47:04.559 --> 00:47:09.519
man named Daniel Alexander at about nine
thirty PM. Daniel wasn't even from Alabama.

516
00:47:10.079 --> 00:47:15.559
He was from Arkansas visiting relatives,
but he had the misfortune of being

517
00:47:15.599 --> 00:47:22.519
in Mario's path. Mario forced Daniel
to drive him to mobile Detectives later revealed

518
00:47:22.519 --> 00:47:27.000
that they believed Mario was on his
way to Cheryl and Dominic's home in Gulfport.

519
00:47:27.840 --> 00:47:31.199
Fortunately, the authorities had seen that
coming. They had already put Cheryl

520
00:47:31.239 --> 00:47:37.039
and Dominic in protective custody. As
they crossed the state lines from Alabama to

521
00:47:37.079 --> 00:47:44.079
Mississippi, Mario and Daniel stopped at
the Mississippi Welcome Center. Mario must have

522
00:47:44.079 --> 00:47:50.000
been driving at this point, because
Daniel was pretending to be asleep. When

523
00:47:50.039 --> 00:47:53.719
Mario went inside the welcome center,
Daniel quickly drove the car away. He

524
00:47:53.800 --> 00:48:00.320
called the police immediately and told them
Mario's location. That Daniel had escaped,

525
00:48:00.760 --> 00:48:06.280
Mario knew right away that his location
was compromised, so he hitched a ride

526
00:48:06.280 --> 00:48:10.000
with a van full of tourists to
the distance between himself and the Mississippi Welcome

527
00:48:10.039 --> 00:48:15.920
Center. The van documents later confirmed
to the authorities that Mario was indeed headed

528
00:48:15.960 --> 00:48:22.679
to see his wife and child.
Fifteen year old veteran Lieutenant Obie Wells was

529
00:48:22.719 --> 00:48:27.639
at the Ocean Spring Sheriff's Department building
when he received a call. The caller

530
00:48:27.719 --> 00:48:31.840
informed Wells that escaped fugitive Marios and
Toby might be traveling in a van on

531
00:48:31.880 --> 00:48:38.039
iten, So Wells set out to
find the van and Mario. Through sheer

532
00:48:38.119 --> 00:48:43.760
luck, he spotted them right away. He started telling the van and radioed

533
00:48:43.800 --> 00:48:47.280
for backup. Once Wells felt comfortable
that he had support, he pulled the

534
00:48:47.360 --> 00:48:53.719
van over near Pascagoula, Mississippi.
Mario got out of the van right away.

535
00:48:54.360 --> 00:48:59.639
He wouldn't listen to the lieutenants or
the other officer's commands, and he

536
00:48:59.679 --> 00:49:04.760
was still armed with Sheriff Hooks's gun. But when Mario realized he was outnumbered

537
00:49:04.760 --> 00:49:09.440
by officers with no place to go, he finally surrendered. He emptied his

538
00:49:09.440 --> 00:49:14.840
clip from his gun, held out
his arms, and positioned himself spread eagle

539
00:49:14.920 --> 00:49:19.719
in the van. Throughout his capture, Mario did not say a word,

540
00:49:20.280 --> 00:49:23.480
and at about seven twenty am on
July fifth, nineteen ninety eight, thirty

541
00:49:23.480 --> 00:49:28.920
two year old Mario Sentobi was arrested
after eleven days of being on the run.

542
00:49:29.639 --> 00:49:34.519
He was charged with capital murder for
Officer Keith Turner's death an attempted murder

543
00:49:34.519 --> 00:49:39.559
for officer Cecil Lancaster. The Moody
Police Department, where officer Keith Turner had

544
00:49:39.599 --> 00:49:45.199
worked, was disappointed that they were
not the ones to catch Mario. Their

545
00:49:45.239 --> 00:49:50.199
police chief, Robert Clements, told
the Birmingham Post, Harold, that will

546
00:49:50.199 --> 00:49:53.840
be a regret for every member of
the Moody Police Department forever. He destroyed

547
00:49:53.880 --> 00:50:00.199
one of us, and we wanted
to get him. Although Mario's case was

548
00:50:00.239 --> 00:50:04.400
not high profile back when he was
first tried in nineteen ninety six, it

549
00:50:04.480 --> 00:50:08.760
certainly was now, and for good
reason. This manhunt involved at least one

550
00:50:08.800 --> 00:50:15.559
thousand hours of overtime for authorities.
In total, about six hundred law enforcement

551
00:50:15.599 --> 00:50:20.119
officers were involved, and more than
one hundred and thirty agencies had played a

552
00:50:20.119 --> 00:50:24.079
part in Mario's search and capture.
By the end of it all, catching

553
00:50:24.119 --> 00:50:30.039
Mario had cost taxpayers a modest estimate
of one million dollars. It would be

554
00:50:30.039 --> 00:50:36.880
almost two million today plus. Coverage
of the case was especially popular when three

555
00:50:36.920 --> 00:50:43.119
different people filed three separate lawsuits against
Sheriff Maurice Hooks and other Jones County officials.

556
00:50:44.800 --> 00:50:49.000
Keith's widow, Brandy Turner, the
officer who was almost killed, Captain

557
00:50:49.000 --> 00:50:54.000
Cecil Lancaster, and the carjacked man
Daniel Alexander all wanted ten million dollars each,

558
00:50:54.880 --> 00:51:00.159
thirty million dollars from a county with
less than seventy thousand in population.

559
00:51:01.039 --> 00:51:06.480
Brandy, Lancaster, and Daniel felt
that it was an oversight by Jones County

560
00:51:06.800 --> 00:51:12.119
that Mario and Jeremy had escaped in
the first place. One lawsuit specifically cited

561
00:51:12.119 --> 00:51:19.719
that missing divider that should have barricaded
Mario and Jeremy from sheriff Hooks. Eventually,

562
00:51:20.159 --> 00:51:25.519
all three settled their lawsuits for undisclosed
amounts of money. Following his arrest,

563
00:51:25.800 --> 00:51:32.440
officers questioned Mario for four hours in
a Pascagoula jail. He confessed.

564
00:51:34.679 --> 00:51:38.840
By July eighth, Mario was transferred
to the Edawa County Jail. They couldn't

565
00:51:38.880 --> 00:51:43.960
hold him in the Saint Clair County
jail because they were worried for his safety.

566
00:51:44.760 --> 00:51:47.280
Mario had killed a police officer in
cold blood. In a small town,

567
00:51:49.079 --> 00:51:54.880
there was worry about vigilantes. At
the time that Mario arrived at the

568
00:51:55.000 --> 00:52:00.800
Ediwa County jail, Officer Keith Turner's
widow, Brandy, was also at the

569
00:52:00.840 --> 00:52:05.119
same jail. She was trying to
get more information about her husband's murder.

570
00:52:05.760 --> 00:52:09.000
She had no idea Mario was going
to be there, but once she saw

571
00:52:09.039 --> 00:52:15.039
her husband's killer, she asked to
speak with him. According to court documents,

572
00:52:15.360 --> 00:52:21.000
Brandy was escorted to Mario's cell.
Then Mario asked the present officers to

573
00:52:21.119 --> 00:52:24.920
leave. They did, leaving Brandy
and Mario alone for a private conversation.

574
00:52:28.760 --> 00:52:31.840
For days, Brandy did not tell
authorities what Mario said to her during this

575
00:52:32.079 --> 00:52:38.320
time, but eventually she revealed the
following Brandy asked Mario, why did you

576
00:52:38.400 --> 00:52:44.159
murder my husband? And Mario had
responded that he did not murder Keith,

577
00:52:44.639 --> 00:52:52.079
he merely shot him. He told
Brandy that he had to I'm going to

578
00:52:52.119 --> 00:53:00.760
pause now for a final commercial break. You might have thought I was about

579
00:53:00.800 --> 00:53:05.280
to wrap up, that we were
almost at the finish line. That's probably

580
00:53:05.320 --> 00:53:09.840
what every person following Mario's case had
thought too, But Mario wasn't done yet,

581
00:53:10.360 --> 00:53:15.559
and in October nineteen ninety eight,
three months after being taken into custody,

582
00:53:15.159 --> 00:53:22.760
Mario successfully escaped jail again. This
time, Mario escaped by charming forty

583
00:53:22.800 --> 00:53:28.679
four year old Donna Hawkins. Donna
was a prison guard at the Ottawa County

584
00:53:28.760 --> 00:53:31.800
Jail, and while Donna and Mario
would not have been able to interact in

585
00:53:31.880 --> 00:53:37.760
person, they did communicate via written
letters. Other jail workers suggested they also

586
00:53:37.800 --> 00:53:45.840
could have spoken via the prison's speaker
system. Donna had left Mario's maximum security

587
00:53:45.880 --> 00:53:51.280
cell and cell block unlocked, so
on Thursday October eighth, between eight and

588
00:53:51.360 --> 00:53:54.960
ten pm, Mario walked out the
front door of the jail. He had

589
00:53:55.000 --> 00:54:00.119
fashioned a silhouette of a person in
his prison bed using sheets, pillows,

590
00:54:00.159 --> 00:54:06.199
and hair clippings, so no one
realized Mario was gone until breakfast the next

591
00:54:06.239 --> 00:54:12.199
morning. By that time, Mario
had disappeared. He had arranged for a

592
00:54:12.239 --> 00:54:15.960
former inmate who was out on bond
to help him find a ride out.

593
00:54:15.559 --> 00:54:20.960
That inmate, twenty eight year old
Brent Andre Paris, was later charged with

594
00:54:21.079 --> 00:54:29.000
hindering prosecution. As Mario fled once
more, the authorities posted wanted flowers all

595
00:54:29.039 --> 00:54:34.920
over the southeastern United States. They
focused primarily on service stations and rest areas

596
00:54:35.000 --> 00:54:40.559
along major highways. On Tuesday,
October thirteenth, five days after Mario escaped,

597
00:54:40.920 --> 00:54:46.719
Alabama Governor Bob James offered a ten
thousand dollars reward almost sixteen thousand dollars

598
00:54:46.800 --> 00:54:53.039
today for any information leading to his
capture or conviction. After the reward was

599
00:54:53.039 --> 00:54:58.480
put out, the number of calls
about Mario's sightings increased. They had to

600
00:54:58.480 --> 00:55:00.840
install more phones at the command and
center just to take them all in.

601
00:55:01.960 --> 00:55:07.119
By October fourteenth, the authorities had
issued an unlawful flight warrant for Mario.

602
00:55:09.079 --> 00:55:14.320
Investigators suspected Mario would continue to try
to make his way back to his ex

603
00:55:14.360 --> 00:55:20.039
wife Cheryl and his son Dominic,
but honestly they had no idea where he

604
00:55:20.239 --> 00:55:25.800
was, not until Mario contacted a
woman named Phronsie Owens. Phronsie was a

605
00:55:25.840 --> 00:55:32.320
longtime friend of Donna Hawkins, the
jailer who had let Mario escape. Mario

606
00:55:32.440 --> 00:55:37.039
wanted Phronsie to deliver Donna some letters
he had written to her, but instead

607
00:55:37.039 --> 00:55:44.559
of delivering the letters to Donna,
Phronsie delivered them to the police. As

608
00:55:44.599 --> 00:55:49.239
a direct result, Mario was caught
at eight forty five am on October twenty

609
00:55:49.280 --> 00:55:52.800
first, nineteen ninety eight. It
had been thirteen days since he had escaped.

610
00:55:53.480 --> 00:55:58.960
He was apprehended at a Sitgo convenience
store in northern Atlanta, Georgia.

611
00:55:59.679 --> 00:56:04.039
He was sitting in the passenger seat
of a red Ford pickup. The driver

612
00:56:04.159 --> 00:56:07.000
of the pickup was a twenty four
year old truck driver. That truck driver

613
00:56:07.519 --> 00:56:12.199
was out of the vehicle and on
the phone when the officer surrounded Mario.

614
00:56:13.639 --> 00:56:17.360
Apparently, the truck driver had been
letting Mario stay at his apartment, but

615
00:56:17.440 --> 00:56:22.159
he did not know who Mario was, so he didn't face charges. Once

616
00:56:22.199 --> 00:56:29.000
again, Mario surrendered peacefully. He
had to. There were seven law enforcement

617
00:56:29.039 --> 00:56:34.480
officers with guns pointed at him.
Mario was carrying a stolen three fifty seven

618
00:56:34.559 --> 00:56:38.880
caliber revolver in his backpack, but
he couldn't get to it in time.

619
00:56:39.719 --> 00:56:46.000
According to present officers, Mario appeared
incredibly surprised when they found him. He

620
00:56:46.079 --> 00:56:52.440
later confirmed that he had no idea
they were on to him. Jailor Donna

621
00:56:52.519 --> 00:56:57.360
Hawkins had been arrested on Friday,
October ninth, the day after Mario escaped.

622
00:56:58.039 --> 00:57:01.519
She was released on bond a few
months later. By the end of

623
00:57:01.559 --> 00:57:07.679
it all, Donna was sentenced to
eighteen months in prison for helping Mario.

624
00:57:07.800 --> 00:57:12.320
According to her defense attorney, Donna, who was married, had not engaged

625
00:57:12.360 --> 00:57:19.159
in a romantic relationship with Mario.
Nope, she had supposedly just made an

626
00:57:19.159 --> 00:57:24.119
honest mistake. At the very most, Mario had tricked her. But this

627
00:57:24.239 --> 00:57:30.719
theory falls a little flat when you
consider it was Mario's continued correspondence with Donna

628
00:57:30.119 --> 00:57:36.920
that led to his second capture.
This whole ordeal brought a huge amount of

629
00:57:36.920 --> 00:57:43.119
criticism to the Ottawa County Jail's security
measures. A sheriff told local papers that

630
00:57:43.159 --> 00:57:46.400
there was nothing wrong with the jail
security, but he suggested that they might

631
00:57:46.440 --> 00:57:57.079
start implementing psychological screenings before hiring guards, you think. Following Mario's second capture,

632
00:57:57.559 --> 00:58:01.480
he was held at the Federal Correctional
Institution and Talladega after a stop in

633
00:58:01.559 --> 00:58:07.239
Gadston. This was a maximum security
prison. They later transferred him to Saint

634
00:58:07.239 --> 00:58:14.159
Clair Correctional Facility. Due to rampant
publicity, Mario and Jeremy's trials were both

635
00:58:14.239 --> 00:58:19.440
moved from Saint Clair County to Elmore
County, and although the two men were

636
00:58:19.440 --> 00:58:23.119
to be tried separately, their trials
happened to be in the same building at

637
00:58:23.119 --> 00:58:29.199
the same time. This was because
Mario and Jeremy were extreme flight risks.

638
00:58:29.880 --> 00:58:36.480
The court was trying to mitigate their
security costs. After all, Mario had

639
00:58:36.480 --> 00:58:42.400
two escapes under his belt and by
this time Jeremy had three. In April

640
00:58:42.400 --> 00:58:46.039
of nineteen ninety nine, while awaiting
this trial, Jeremy had broken a window

641
00:58:46.480 --> 00:58:52.280
of the Saint Clair County jail.
He was trying to escape again. The

642
00:58:52.320 --> 00:58:57.440
authorities suspected he was going to use
bedsheets to climb to the ground. On

643
00:58:57.519 --> 00:59:00.639
Monday May tenth, nineteen ninety nine, both Mario and Jeremy's trials for the

644
00:59:00.679 --> 00:59:07.079
capital murder of Officer Keith Turner began. Both men faced the death penalty.

645
00:59:07.800 --> 00:59:13.880
Barely a week later, both men
were convicted. There really was no question

646
00:59:13.920 --> 00:59:19.480
about their guilt. Jeremy's only defense
was that he was not the mastermind of

647
00:59:19.519 --> 00:59:24.000
this operation, just a follower,
and both Sheriff Hooks and Mario's account of

648
00:59:24.039 --> 00:59:30.280
the situation corroborated that, and likely
for that reason, the jury voted seven

649
00:59:30.320 --> 00:59:36.159
to five that twenty year old Jeremy
Granbury should be sentenced to life without parole,

650
00:59:37.400 --> 00:59:44.039
not death. Today Jeremy is about
forty five years old and incarcerated in

651
00:59:44.079 --> 00:59:49.280
the Saint Clair Correctional Facility. He
will never receive parole and he has never

652
00:59:49.320 --> 00:59:53.360
appealed. Mario, on the other
hand, was facing the death penalty.

653
00:59:54.320 --> 00:59:59.400
He was obviously the shooter in Keith's
murder, and against the advice of his

654
00:59:59.480 --> 01:00:05.639
lawyers, Mario testified in his own
defense. On the stand, Mario admitted

655
01:00:05.639 --> 01:00:08.840
to killing Officer Keith Turner. He
said that he wanted to tell the jury

656
01:00:08.880 --> 01:00:14.840
he wasn't a terrorist, mad dog
killer. He explained, if I had

657
01:00:14.880 --> 01:00:19.719
that in me, then the body
count would be big. So on Friday

658
01:00:20.000 --> 01:00:23.559
May fourteenth, nineteen ninety nine,
the jury deliberated for less than two hours

659
01:00:23.599 --> 01:00:30.199
before convicting thirty three year old Mario
cent Toby of capital murder. That Sunday,

660
01:00:30.559 --> 01:00:36.199
he was sentenced to death less than
a month later, on Thursday,

661
01:00:36.280 --> 01:00:40.679
June third, nineteen ninety nine,
officials searched Mario and they found he had

662
01:00:40.719 --> 01:00:46.119
a makeshift plastic handcuff key hidden in
his mouth. He was planning to escape.

663
01:00:46.440 --> 01:00:51.719
Yet again, he wouldn't spit out
the key until the authorities shocked him

664
01:00:52.199 --> 01:00:57.960
with an electric belt he was wearing. Jeremy and Mario still faced charges in

665
01:00:58.000 --> 01:01:02.519
the attempted murder of Captain Cecil Lane
and Castor in the year two thousand.

666
01:01:02.760 --> 01:01:08.280
Twenty one year old Jeremy Granberry pled
guilty. He was sentenced to three consecutive

667
01:01:08.320 --> 01:01:15.960
life terms in addition to his previous
sentence. Mario went through the motions of

668
01:01:15.000 --> 01:01:20.199
a jury trial, but the result
was the same. He was sentenced to

669
01:01:20.280 --> 01:01:24.840
three consecutive life terms. The prosecutors
were not willing to drop this case against

670
01:01:24.840 --> 01:01:30.440
Mario because they feared his death sentence
might be overturned in the appills process,

671
01:01:30.960 --> 01:01:35.159
and Mario did appeal once in August
of two thousand and one, but by

672
01:01:35.199 --> 01:01:40.559
November it had been denied and a
five to zero decision. He soon dropped

673
01:01:40.599 --> 01:01:46.280
all efforts for remaining appills. On
April twenty eighth, two thousand and five,

674
01:01:46.679 --> 01:01:51.840
thirty nine year old Mario sent Toby
ate his final meals. For lunch,

675
01:01:52.079 --> 01:01:55.639
he had chili and rice, okra
and corn tomato soup, cornbread,

676
01:01:55.840 --> 01:02:00.320
gingerbread cake, and fruit punch.
For asus snack, he ate pizza,

677
01:02:00.639 --> 01:02:07.320
a poor Boy and a Philly cheesteak
sandwich and three sodas. And for dinner

678
01:02:07.360 --> 01:02:12.519
he ate barbecued chicken egg noodles with
butter, turnip greens, candied sweet potatoes,

679
01:02:12.599 --> 01:02:16.920
and a strawberry soda. At four
ten pm, he was served communion

680
01:02:17.039 --> 01:02:22.800
by a Catholic priest from Birmingham.
He said in an affidavit he preferred death

681
01:02:22.880 --> 01:02:28.599
over life in prison and that he
was ready to die. He also denounced

682
01:02:28.639 --> 01:02:32.440
a Montgomery attorney who filed an unsolicited
appeal on his behalf, claiming that he

683
01:02:32.519 --> 01:02:37.360
was mentally ill. The only kind
of mental condition I may be suffering from

684
01:02:37.519 --> 01:02:42.760
is depression, which is just a
condition of being on death row. The

685
01:02:42.840 --> 01:02:47.679
crimes I have committed have also caused
me to have some depression. At six

686
01:02:47.719 --> 01:02:54.199
pm that day, he was executed
by lethal injection. Multiple Moody police officers

687
01:02:54.239 --> 01:03:00.559
were present to witness his death.
Mario Giovanni, sin Toby, killer and

688
01:03:00.719 --> 01:03:06.800
escape artist, smiled slightly and gave
a thumbs up before he was executed that

689
01:03:06.960 --> 01:03:13.039
night for the nineteen ninety eight murder
of Moody police officer Keith Turner. He

690
01:03:13.119 --> 01:03:16.920
said nothing. He didn't acknowledge his
mother or brother sitting in a witness room

691
01:03:16.920 --> 01:03:21.840
to his right, or the relatives
and co workers of Turner in a separate

692
01:03:21.840 --> 01:03:29.280
witness room straight ahead. Though he
had been divorced for ten years, sin

693
01:03:29.360 --> 01:03:34.199
Toby still wore his wedding ring.
He was pronounced dead at six twenty two

694
01:03:34.239 --> 01:03:39.679
pm. Any of those hoping for
an apology did not get one. I

695
01:03:39.760 --> 01:03:45.239
never saw any remorse. Patrick Turner
said he did not even apologize to his

696
01:03:45.280 --> 01:03:51.800
own mama for what he put her
through. He didn't care. It was

697
01:03:51.840 --> 01:03:57.719
an ignominious, shameful ending for a
man who had once been held a hero

698
01:03:58.320 --> 01:04:12.159
for his work in the Amtrak train
disaster. Southern Fried True Crime is hosted

699
01:04:12.199 --> 01:04:15.639
and produced by me Erica Kelly.
Today's episode was researched and written by Andrea

700
01:04:15.719 --> 01:04:20.920
Marshbank. As usual, any editorial
comments and opinions are my own. Southern

701
01:04:20.920 --> 01:04:25.800
Fred's original music is by Rob Harrison
of Gamma Radio and the original graphic artist

702
01:04:25.800 --> 01:04:30.480
by Kully Horner. Today's episode was
edited and mixed by Brandon sheck Snyder of

703
01:04:30.559 --> 01:04:33.679
Southern Gothic and Erica Kelly. If
you have any case suggestions, please go

704
01:04:33.760 --> 01:04:39.039
to my website, Southern Fried Truecrime
dot com and click on the listener suggestion

705
01:04:39.159 --> 01:04:45.360
tab or email SFTC Research at gmail
dot com. This is the best way

706
01:04:45.360 --> 01:04:48.239
for me to get those little known
cases you'll always send me. Please remember

707
01:04:48.280 --> 01:04:53.320
that I do not accept suggestions on
social media private messages, but please come

708
01:04:53.400 --> 01:04:57.679
join our Facebook group, Southern Fried
True Crime Fans Discussion Group, where we've

709
01:04:57.679 --> 01:05:00.199
swapped recipes, worship Dolly Parton,
and share memes. We do, of

710
01:05:00.239 --> 01:05:03.599
course discuss true crime, not just
Southern fraud, but all kinds, but

711
01:05:03.719 --> 01:05:09.039
it is still very much a Southern
lifestyle group. Our group is a safe

712
01:05:09.079 --> 01:05:11.880
and fun corner of Facebook. And
by god, we mean it when we

713
01:05:11.920 --> 01:05:15.239
say no shit as is allowed.
It's not just a motto, it's how

714
01:05:15.239 --> 01:05:18.440
we run the group. If you
enjoy today's show, don't forget to subscribe

715
01:05:18.559 --> 01:05:23.360
and please tell a friend or rate
and review. I'm also on all large

716
01:05:23.360 --> 01:05:28.559
platforms like iTunes, Aheart, Spotify, Amazon, and Audible. Until next

717
01:05:28.599 --> 01:05:31.159
time, thanks so much for listening. Y'all. Take care,