Morbid: Episode 445: The Murder of Kelly Ann Tinyes

Morbid Network | Wondery Morbid Network | Wondery 3/27/23 - 1h 23m - PDF Transcript

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Hey weirdos, I'm Ash.

And I'm Alaina.

And this is Morbid.

This is Morbid and we got even more soundproofing equipment.

I know we got like this cool like foamy thing in front of us.

I can't see anything though and it feels weird.

I know it's so weird to be like professional.

It's like we're in our own personal miniature sound booth.

It's like a sound booth for ants.

It is a sound booth for ants.

Ants.

Did you see the latest episode because this is now a Vanderpump Rules podcast?

Love it.

It's not.

But did you see the latest episode where Katie quoted Zoolander?

I did.

I thought of you.

I appreciate that.

I love Zoolander.

It was such a niche reference.

Funny to this day.

Fun.

And as soon as I see David Bowie say it's a wolf golf, it's I'm over.

I'm done.

I'm deceased.

I made a weird noise.

We watched it recently.

John and I.

Did you?

Because we just were like, we need some Zoolander in our life.

I just really wanted to see Alexander Skarsgaard yell orange mocha frappuccino.

You could have just started that.

You could have just stopped at Skarsgaard, but I needed to see the orange mocha frappuccino.

Orange mocha frappuccino.

And then the gasoline fight, the best.

But as soon as David Bowie came on the screen and it goes, let's dance.

In the background, I squealed and John was like, I've never heard that sound.

He was like, I really don't know how to feel about this.

Are you all right?

What's going on?

I was like, he's just so handsome.

And he was so handsome in that era.

Oh my God, I know.

He was so handsome all over the place.

He was.

It's like when you cried at the last of us and none of us knew what to do.

Yeah.

Guys, I don't know if you're not watching that show.

I was like against it because I just, I'm like, I'm so, I don't know, apocalypse stuff

like stresses me out.

At this point, everyone in their mother is telling me to watch it.

I mean, my mother, Jonathan Van Ness told me to watch it.

Jonathan Van Ness told you that you have to.

I know.

I mean, it's one of those shows that I was really like, no, I don't want to get into

this because I don't want to get into an apocalyptic one.

I watched the first episode and I was like, this is all right.

Yeah.

Because I was being a dick.

That's like the first time I watched Zulin.

Yeah.

I was just being a dick.

And I just wouldn't watch it.

Then I watched the second episode and I was like, well, fuck, now I care about these people.

And by the third episode, I was ugly crying and Snot was running down my face.

Is the third episode that episode?

Oh yes.

And you saw, I was threatening John.

I was literally sitting on the couch being like, I cannot fucking believe you maybe watch

this.

Can confirm.

Because John had watched it before me.

So he knew what was happening.

And so he filmed me.

Maybe I should, maybe I'll post it at some point just because it's hilarious.

I know.

Elena like doesn't cry.

So it's really funny to see that.

So it would be pretty funny.

You know, maybe I'll post it because it's pretty funny, I will say.

I had real emotions and I know a lot of people don't think I have real emotions.

So I think it would be good for people to see.

No, you do have real emotions.

I've seen so much of them recently.

They happen.

Obscene them.

You've seen them.

Obscene.

Obscene emotions.

Obscene emotions.

You know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Emotional baby boy.

Emotional man.

You know what?

Well, I think are you referring to the emotions that I have for the new?

Yes.

New additions.

I know the front bottoms, but I was just wondering if we could talk about your family.

New additions.

Yeah.

No, I am not pregnant.

But I was so.

What?

Wait, why did I think you were pregnant the other day?

Because I said I have some news.

Yes.

John and I have some news.

She said John and I have some news.

And then I said I'm not pregnant.

And I almost shat myself because I have a couple more years before Bibbis and I thought

you could hold me over and you are just in a different way.

In a different way because it's been over a year now since we lost our beloved baby.

And we had these two little Red Fox Labrador puppies fall into our lap.

Born on Bubba's birthday.

Born on Bailey's birthday.

And we had 365 days of the year and they were born on Bailey's birthday.

If that isn't Bailey sending those dogs to us, I don't know what is.

And they say that like your next dog or your previous dog sends you your next dog or dog.

Now I'm fully convinced that we were shell shocked when we found that out and we were

like there are we have to have them.

And we found them found out about them like in the almost wake of a tragedy.

So it all kind of lined up and there are two gals.

Are you going to say their names?

Yeah.

You got it.

We got Sidney.

Hello Sidney.

The Sidney Prescott.

And now every time I see her I can say I always had a thing for you Sid.

And she does.

And I do.

And the other one is Blanche.

And Blanche is a wily little bitch.

Blanche Devereaux is really, she's a feisty one.

I love.

I was, Alina was like back and forth with names and when she was going to get them I

texted and she was like, oh my God, I got them.

And I was like, what are the names?

And she was like, you have to wait because one of them I want to tell you in person and

it was Blanche.

And then the new one was Sid and then I was like, what is this other dog's name going

to be?

Miss Blanche over there.

And I love them both with their beautiful, I would jump in front of a moving train already

for them.

Yeah, truly.

And like immediately I was like, well, I would lay down my life for you guys now too.

Yeah.

She literally said that.

So here we are.

Now I just love two other things in my house more than anything in the whole world.

In the whole fucking world.

So we're very happy over here.

It was a, it was a puppy shaped hole in my heart that I didn't want to fill right away.

But then I think Bubba was like, girl, it's time, girl, girl, I'm sending you these bubbins.

She's like, girl, treat yourself, treat yourself.

And I said, okay.

Yay.

So I'm very happy.

They're so perfect.

We have some pups.

So Sid and Blanche are going to be part of the crew now.

I keep calling Sid, city girl, city girl, but it sounds like city girl, like not a country

girl, but a city girl, but I'm really like, city girl.

I love it.

And my littlest one calls Blanche branch.

It reminds me of trolls.

I love it.

Is that his name's branch?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But yeah, so that's the good news.

And that's making us really happy and it's giving us, you know, animals just give you

a little boost.

Oh my God.

They really do.

They really do.

I was in a state of straight up depression the few, the past few weeks.

Yeah.

And then you had them and, and they just give you kisses.

And also, I mean that when I say that, like I was literally actively depressed.

Yeah.

Like don't, you know, sometimes people get mad at me when I say I have a manic moment,

but I like actually have manic moments.

And remember that you don't know everyone's diagnoses.

Yeah.

Just because you hear them talk.

Everyone's in a while.

Just because I don't talk about my little menteebies, my little problems, doesn't mean

I don't have them.

Yeah.

Like people tend to get mad at Ash for saying that and I'm like, yeah, you don't know what

she's diagnosed with.

You're like, I have literally seen her in a manic moment and boy is it something.

So I think just, just know that, just understand that we, we don't share everything.

Exactly.

There's pieces of us that people don't know and it's not, it's not real cool to assume

that you do know.

So just like we're not going to assume we know everything about you guys because we

don't even though we're friends here.

Yeah.

Of course we're all friends here and that's why we're being real with you.

Just a little sit down.

I mean, I did just sing Ashley Simpson to you.

That's true.

Without, I wasn't even lip syncing, but you know what guys, we all have new pups.

This is all our new pups sit in Blanche are here to stay.

I fucking love them.

So get ready world.

I know.

And then I got like both fills cause I come here and I get my dog fill and then I go home

and I get my cat fill and I'm just living life.

Just living.

Just as my good girl would say, so living.

All right.

So I think we should jump right into it.

I think it's enough chit chat and I've chit chat for today, baby.

Enough.

All right.

Well, today's case is very sad.

It's a very tragic case.

I was requested a ton in our folder though.

That's why I ended up doing it.

Yeah.

Like you guys know, we usually try to stray away from like kid murders.

Oh.

Yeah.

This is a teenager.

Oh man.

And it's a really sad story, but I think it's an important story to tell obviously.

And again, highly requested.

So we're going to start out on the afternoon of March 3rd, 1989.

Kellyanne Tinias was at home.

She was babysitting her eight year old brother Richie and the phone rang and Richie answered

and he spoke to the person on the other end of the phone very briefly and then handed

off the phone to a sister saying it was somebody calling for her and they were named John.

Okay.

So she had a quick conversation with the caller on the line and then told her brother that

she was heading out to go to a friend's house down the street and that she would be right

back.

That was around three o'clock in the afternoon, but Kelly never did come back.

So let's talk about who Kelly was and kind of where she came from and her family a little

bit.

Okay.

She was from a pretty typical working class, 1980s Long Island family.

Long Island.

Her father, Richard Tinias, owned and operated Victoria's Auto Repairs.

It was a small auto restoration business in their hometown of Valley Springs and his wife

Victoria, who it must have been named after.

She split her time as a medical assistant and a receptionist in a local doctor's office.

They had those two children, 13-year-old Kelly and eight-year-old Richie Jr. and the whole

family lived in a modest Cape Cod style house located on Horton Road and they lived with

Richard's elderly parents.

Okay.

Richard's parents had bought the house back in 1967, but as they were getting older, they

needed more care and support like for themselves and for the house, which they were able to

get from their son and his wife and the grandchildren.

Really like tight-knit family.

Yeah.

In the community on Horton Road in 1989, it was also a super tight-knit community.

It was perfect for them because pretty much all of their neighbors were also working class

and everybody really looked out for one another.

I love that.

They were super tight-knit, like I said, very actively involved in each other's lives,

sometimes to like a surprising extent.

A woman named Evelyn Nieves, I believe is how you say the last name, wrote in an article

for the New York Times.

It was like a working class commune, the 19 families who lived on the street, knew one

another's in-laws and watched one another's kids.

The 27 school-age children acted like cousins.

Oh, I love that.

Yeah.

It's like the perfect kind of spot during their kids.

I was going to say, that's the dream.

Yeah, you would think.

Now, unfortunately for Kelly, she was older than most of the children on Horton Road.

Most of the kids were closer to her brother Richie's age, but still she would play with

the younger kids.

She would set up games to do with them, and she was definitely one of the more reliable

babysitters in the neighborhood.

Because her parents both worked, she really had a lot more responsibility than most kids

her age.

She cared for her brother, she cared for her grandparents while her parents were at work,

and a lot of times she would take responsibility for Brutus, the family dog.

Brutus.

I know, I fucking love that.

I love that.

Brutus.

But she took it all on, and she never complained, not to her parents, not to her friends.

She just was there to help.

She's just a good kid.

Really was.

Never wanted to complain about anything, and she always just seemed to maintain what people

described as her warm, generous, and outgoing disposition.

And she just looks that way.

She was a little cutie.

Yeah.

Now, her family knew her as a, quote unquote, responsible, level-headed daughter who was,

like I said, reliable, honest, hardworking, and also very well-organized when it came

to school.

Now, even though her responsibilities at home had increased, especially when her grandparents'

health kind of started to decline, she still actually managed to carve out time for herself,

obviously, which she spent ice skating, which was her favorite thing to do, or spending

time with like a few close friends that she had in the neighborhood, including her close

friend Sharon Stonnell, who lived a couple houses away.

Okay.

Now, she's so cute.

She's adorable.

She's looking at pictures of her.

I'm like, stop it.

Such a little 80s girl, you know?

Yeah, she really is.

She's been to Central 80s teens.

Yeah.

She's got that perfect 80s, like, like bang, exactly.

It's almost like a poof bang.

Oh, yeah.

Now, the close knit supportive nature of the Valley Stream community made it a nice place

to live.

And it also had relatively low crime rates, which was awesome, because obviously New York

City was nearby and full of all kinds of crime.

But in Valley Stream, there actually hadn't been a murder since 1977.

Wow.

And that was when a teenager was killed in a random attack.

But since that murder of 16-year-old Richard Lesser, the residents of Valley Stream had

carried on free mostly, almost entirely, of violent crime.

But obviously, that all changed this afternoon in March of 1989.

So this day, Friday, March 3, 1989, started out really like any other typical day for

the Tinius family.

Richard picked Kelly up from school that afternoon, not out of the ordinary at all, drove her

home, winter was winding itself down, and Kelly was really hoping that she could go

ice skating with some of her friends, especially because there weren't going to be that many

more opportunities to do it, because, again, spring was coming.

Yeah.

But her dad had some errands to run, and he needed Kelly to watch her brother until her

mom got home from work later that afternoon.

Now, she didn't know it, but she was actually going to have a bit of a surprise party that

afternoon.

Her mom and her best friend, Roberta Goose, had been working together, and they were

gathering up a small group of Kelly's closest friends to take her out for her 14th birthday.

Which was just two days away.

Come on.

Yeah.

Like, literally, so sad.

So when she got home, she grabbed the phone, which is so relatable, like the second you

get home, just like picking up that phone and calling whoever you can call.

Remember that?

Yes.

I'm picking up that landline.

I was going to say a chunky old landline.

Stretching that stretchy cord as far as you could go.

Yep.

I loved that.

Oh, the best.

Now, so she called her friend Jennifer, but Jennifer wasn't home, and there was no answer.

So instead, she called her dad, and she was like, please, can I go ice skating?

Like, I really just want to go with my friends.

And he was like, girl, I just told you you got to wait for your mom.

Girl.

I just want an hour direct quote.

No, obviously not.

So she was disappointed, but she was like, all right, like, I'm not getting out of this.

Yeah.

I got to do what I got to do.

Let me make some more calls.

More calls on the landline.

More calls on the landline.

So she called up another friend, and they chatted a few minutes before hanging up.

And actually just a few moments after she put the phone in the cradle back again, that's

when it rang again.

And that's when Richie answered the phone to this John caller.

Okay.

And according to Richie, after identifying himself, the caller asked to speak with Kelly

directly.

Now, after speaking for a good couple minutes, Kelly hung up and about 20 minutes later,

she told her brother that she was, quote, going to her friend Nicole's house just down

the street and would be back.

Okay.

Now, it was like Kelly leaving her brother alone when she was supposed to be the one

watching him was weird.

It was really out of character.

Yeah, it seems like it would be.

She was usually, as we know, like I just spent the first couple minutes saying this, a very

reliable and responsible girl.

She's also 13.

So that's why when she didn't come back after five minutes though, Richie actually ended

up leaving the house and going to look for her cause he's like, wait a second, like she

wouldn't leave me that long.

And did you say how old he was?

He was eight.

He was eight.

That's what I was.

Oh my goodness.

Yeah.

So he goes out to look for her and he went to Kelly's friend Nicole's house at about

three 15, but Nicole told him that Kelly actually hadn't been there and that she wasn't

expecting her.

Oh man.

So maybe she fibbed about where she was going.

That must have been terrifying for him though.

Yeah.

And it only gets like scarier.

So Richie went along and as he walked, he ran into another boy in the neighborhood, Harry

Finney, who was playing in his yard.

I feel like you can picture this all so well.

Yeah, absolutely.

Like I feel like you can see this neighborhood in your head.

Oh yeah.

So Richie told Harry, I'm looking for my sister.

Like have you seen her?

Now as luck would have it, Harry actually did see her just a few minutes earlier as she

was headed into the family, or the, excuse me, she was headed into the home of the Gallup

family.

Gallup, yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you.

We just looked it up.

You were just looking it up.

I've been saying it one way in my head.

So I was like, oh my God, don't say it that way.

And the way that you were saying it was the way I read it too.

So I hate when you get a pronunciation in your own head and then you find the real one

and you're like, well, shit.

Exactly.

My head is going to say the other one.

Yep.

So Gallup.

So the Gallup family, they lived next door to Harry.

Okay.

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So Harry and Richie went to the golebs front door and they rang the bell, but nobody answered.

So Harry just went back to his front yard and Richie returned home and figured, you

know, Kelly will be back soon.

This is unlike her, but I'm sure she'll be back.

Poor Richie.

So when he got back at home, he did call his dad to say Kelly had left him alone and

had said that she was going to see a friend, but had actually gone to the golebs house.

Now he explained that he had knocked on the golebs front door, but nobody answered.

So Richard told his son, go back up to that house and quote, beat on the door and call

out for your sister.

Oh man.

So he was already feeling like nervous about this.

Alarm bells were already going off, so stressed out for this family.

It's horrific.

So after he hung up, Richie looked up the golebs number in the phone book and tried to call

the family several times, but he never got an answer.

So he went eight.

I know.

And it's just like picturing him like pulling out the phone book and being like, okay, like

I have to figure this out.

So he started banging out, or so after he looks up and calls and doesn't get any answer,

he goes over to the house and just starts banging on the front door, calling out Kelly's

name, but not getting any kind of response.

But at the same time as he's doing this, he can hear loud music coming from inside of

the house.

Oh God.

Yeah.

So he assumed that someone was home and just couldn't hear him.

So since he didn't get any response at the door, he just started pacing on the sidewalk.

My God, this poor child.

Calling out to his sister and he was saying that the dog had gotten loose and he needed

help.

It wasn't true, but he knew that if Kelly thought that the dog had gotten out, then

she would come out from wherever she was.

Like that move.

Exactly.

That would get her to move.

But still getting nothing.

This poor baby.

I know both of these poor babies.

Seriously.

So after waiting a little while longer, just pacing on the sidewalk, he went back home

and waited for his mom.

So Victoria returned home a little after five PM and she was really surprised to find out

that Kelly still hadn't come back home.

It was, again, very, very unlike Kelly to be any kind of irresponsible.

So it hadn't quite raised alarm bells just yet, but the fact that Kelly was still missing

was puzzling.

Like they were like, this is weird.

So Victoria started calling around to Kelly's friends and figured she'd find Kelly with

one of them.

But nobody in her circle had seen her since she left school early that afternoon.

So Victoria keeps calling whoever she could think of and Richard joins in too when he

gets back what they're getting like radio silence or just like no helpful tips at all.

No one had seen Kelly.

Now it got to the point where Victoria is getting more and more concerned.

So she starts going door to door being like, is Kelly here?

Have you seen Kelly?

Like at anybody seen her?

So she gets to Kelly's friend Sharon Stonnell's house and Sharon told Victoria that she had

seen Kelly earlier that day.

And just like Harry had told Richie, Kelly was going into the Gallop's house down the

street.

I'm so stressed out right now.

I know.

So after several attempts to reach anybody at the Gallop house by phone or in person,

Richard finally got through to the mother Elizabeth Gallop a little after 6pm.

But she said that she had been out afternoon and as far as she knew, Kelly hadn't been

in their house at all that day.

So the dad, Richard is really frustrated, frustrated seeing as all roads seem to go

back to the Gallop's house.

But now they're saying they haven't seen Kelly.

Yeah.

It's like, no.

Where the hell is she?

Oh my God, he must have wanted to barge into that house.

Oh my God, I can't even imagine.

I can just feel it for him.

It's like on your street, like you are looking at that house, it's your neighbor, exactly.

You want to just like break down the door.

So he was frustrated being like, like, what the hell?

And seeing as all roads were leading back to that house, he asked if he could speak

with John Jay.

John Jay.

Uh-oh, John.

The Gallop's 14-year-old son.

God, John's.

What is going on?

I know.

I know.

But John Jay, he said he hadn't seen Kelly in a few days actually.

So Richard didn't press the boy any further.

But he did sense a nervous tone in John Jay's voice that suggested he was not being entirely

truthful.

Oh good.

So the rest of that evening was spent searching for Kelly, going from one friend to another,

just desperately hoping that their daughter was hiding out somewhere, nervous that she

was going to be in trouble for walking out on responsibilities, like just holding on

to any hope they possibly could.

Now let's talk a little bit about the Gallop family.

Most of the families on Horton Road were like actively involved in each other's lives and

community events, and they all kind of engaged with each other.

But the Gallops were among a small group of neighbors who, even though like they were

polite enough, they preferred to keep to themselves.

The father, John Gallop Sr., he ran Getty gas station in town, and he didn't really

like to hang out with the neighbors.

He didn't like to go to block parties, barbecues.

He just kind of kept to himself and worked on his car or his boat.

You know?

Yeah.

Now his wife, Elizabeth, she was a little bit more active in the community and more familiar

with the neighbors, but she liked hanging out with her own friends and acquaintances

at church or at the Keystone Yacht Club, that was her kind of deal.

That was her gym?

Yeah.

So the family had moved to Horton Road a little over 20 years earlier, actually, and that

was all there was to it.

Okay.

Now the Gallops had three children.

Adele was their oldest, and she had gone off to college, married, and started a family

with her husband in Manhattan, so she's not really a player in this at all.

Then there was 21-year-old Robert and 14-year-old John Jay.

They both lived at home still with their parents.

Okay.

So in 1989, Robert was an unemployed bodybuilder.

He had graduated high school but didn't want to go to college and was just kind of living

at home.

Okay.

Yeah.

He spent his time at the Maximum Health and Fitness Center where he would, quote, often

put in up to three hours a day at the gym.

Cool.

Like, that's a little excessive, bro.

Yeah.

He was five-three, so he was very focused on looking as big as he possibly could.

And aside from the gym, he would just be at home in the family's basement or working

on his tan at the nearby Tan Your Booty.

This all sounds incredibly healthy.

I don't see anything wrong with it.

Totally.

I love that that place is called Tan Your Booty.

Tan Your Booty.

Like, imagine opening a business called Tan Your Booty.

It's literally just like Tan Your Butt.

Tan Your Butt.

Tan Your Ass.

You should have named it that, Ms. Dr. Tuneady.

Right?

My brother, 14-year-old John Jay, was rather unremarkable, to be honest.

He was a freshman in high school, but most of the time, he skipped class to smoke weed

with his friends.

Cool.

Yeah, relatable.

Awesome.

Relatable.

In general, he was known to the neighbors as a troublemaker, and he definitely was

not the sort of person that anybody expected Kelly to be hanging out with.

It was weird that she was even at the Gallup's house in the first place.

But for some reason or another, Robert, the older brother, he was under the impression

that Kelly and John Jay were dating, actually.

Oh.

He later told police, I saw them on the block.

I could tell.

I could see it in their eyes.

Whoa.

I was like, damn.

That's impressive.

I got to know about that.

I could see it in their eyes.

From down the block.

Like shit, okay.

Yeah.

But no one in Kelly's family or any part of her friend group had any idea or knowledge

that she was dating John Jay.

As far as anybody really knew, they barely even knew each other.

That's strange.

Weird, right?

Yeah.

That's very weird.

I don't know if maybe it was like a thing where they came from different friend groups

and maybe they did have crushes on each other.

Yeah.

Maybe that absolutely could have happened.

I don't know enough to say one way or the other.

That's kind of like an inference that I made based off of everything I read.

I just don't know why Kelly ended up in the house that day.

It seems like John Jay is the one that called because the caller was John.

John.

Yeah.

Unless Robert called and said he was John, that's entirely possible.

That absolutely could have happened.

But with John Jay's nervousness, I'm like, so you invited her over and now you know she's

missing.

Yeah.

What did you see?

What didn't you see?

That's the thing.

It's like, are you nervous because of that?

Because you were the one who did the inviting or are you nervous because you know that somebody

used your name and it's your brother?

Exactly.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Now, as far as the neighbors knew, the golobs, sorry, the golobs, that's how I was reading

it in my head.

See, I was going to say that's how you were reading it in your head.

That's how I was.

I feel that the golobs, as far as anybody knew, they kept a nice and neat, tidy home.

But they only ever saw the home from the outside.

Oh.

When the police did eventually make their way inside of this house, they found it cluttered

with debris that officers and other witnesses would repeatedly describe as clutter, clothes,

knickknacks and trash filling every room of the house.

It was essentially like a hoarder house, but there was like trash and just.

That stresses me out so much.

And it won't.

It's really sad because obviously that's a mental illness.

Yeah.

That's where that all stems from.

But the kids having to live in that environment.

Well, that's the thing.

There's kids and then like thinking about, I'm thinking about Kelly, Kelly in there.

And that's like a lot of things.

It's just like adds to the stress of everything.

And it was a far cry from her home.

Where she had grown up.

Right.

So Richard and Victoria, they spent most of that Friday evening, like I said, making

calls, walking around the neighborhood, looking for Kelly, just panicking more and more as

every hour passed.

The next morning, the search for Kelly continued.

Richard revisited all the places he previously looked for his daughter, including the Galloops

home and wait, the Galloops home Christ.

Oh, it's so hard.

No, I totally, I'm not faulting you at all.

It's when you read it in your head.

I've done that so many times.

It drives you nuts.

The Galloops house.

And when Elizabeth Gallop invited the family into the foyer of the home, Richard and Victoria

were actually shocked by the mess that just stretched from one room to the next.

Richard explained again that several people had seen his daughter go into their home the

previous afternoon and no one had seen her leave.

So that's a problem.

My guy.

Yeah.

So Elizabeth was like, I'm sorry.

Like I was running errands.

I really did not see Kelly here, but let me go wake up John.

So he, she wakes up John and he said, Nope, I haven't seen her in a few days.

So they were completely out of options at this point.

And Richard and Victoria had to return home and call the police at this point to report

Kelly missing.

Oh, great.

My heart.

Awful.

A call you never, ever, ever.

Oh, I can't even fathom it.

Ever on.

No.

So Thomas McVetti of the juvenile aid bureau of the Nassau County police department, he

was the first one to see the case come in and he returned Richard and Victoria's call.

Now after doing the usual due diligence in cases of missing children, calling friends,

checking the usual hangouts, yada, yada, yada.

He went to Kelly's house on Horton road and he sat down with Richard and Vicki and went

through all the usual questions again, explaining, you know, sometimes kids take off for a while,

but they usually return the classic, the whole nine and the classic.

And Victoria was like, no, she literally said, not Kelly.

Kelly doesn't do this.

Yeah.

Parents, a lot of parents do know their kid.

Imagine that.

Yeah.

Now Richard and Victoria explained that several neighbors again had seen their daughter go

into the Gallup's house around 315 the previous day, but nobody in the Gallup house says they

saw her.

So what the fuck?

How?

How?

What the fuck?

Yeah.

Now they also explained that as far as they knew, their daughter had no relationship with

anybody in that house.

And as far as they knew again, no reason to go in there in the first place.

Yeah.

It doesn't make any sense to me.

No.

So McVetti and his partner left their house and started in the direction of the Gallup's

home, but as they came up the walkway, they actually were stopped by Elizabeth Gallup and

John Jay, who were just leaving Sharon Stonnell's house.

Now inside, like so they eventually made their way inside to their house, the detective sat

down with Elizabeth and her younger son and started to explain why they were there.

Now John Jay told the detectives that he did know Kelly, but again, couldn't see her the

previous day and couldn't think of a reason why she would come to their house.

Okay.

Yeah.

So McVetti asked if anybody else was in the house that they could speak with at that point.

And John Jay disappeared for a moment and then came back with his brother Robert, who

was accompanied by like a random friend.

Now Robert told the detectives he knew who Kelly was, but hadn't seen her in quite some

time.

He said he'd been home all day the previous day and then he just played video games with

his brother and two of his brother's friends that afternoon.

I don't believe you.

And then he said after they were finished playing video games, John Jay and his two friends

left to play basketball and Robert stayed back.

Now McVetti, the detective, he was like, I don't know, like something about this kid.

Yeah.

He seems nervous.

Something's off here.

And he noticed that every time Robert would answer a question about the previous afternoon,

he would subtly look at his brother almost like he was trying to confirm what he was

saying.

So the detective just came right out and said, why do you keep looking at your brother?

I love that.

He goes, good.

I'll just answer the question straight without help.

Make a mess.

Make him answer it.

Mm-hmm.

So they finally separated the two of them.

And after doing that, the detectives left the house and went across the street to talk

to Sharon Stonnell.

Now Sharon said, yep, I saw Kelly the previous day.

I saw her go into that house.

But this time they learned that Harry Finney, who had also seen Kelly go into the house,

told Sharon it was John Jay who opened the door and invited the girl inside.

Oh.

So John was lying.

Oh.

I didn't.

I honestly was thinking like, all right, maybe, maybe he hadn't.

I was very in the lead.

You were, because I was really thinking he was maybe just nervous because he knew what

was going on, but hadn't seen her.

He saw her.

I don't know if he saw everything, but he saw her.

It's hard.

I'm going to ask you what you think at the end.

This is just terrible.

Yeah, it's horrific.

So up to that point, MacVetti had no reason to believe that anybody was lying to him,

but this new information suggested that no one in the Gallup house was being truthful

at all.

Oh, man.

So he called for backup.

He explained the situation to his supervisor, and he said he wanted to search the Gallup

home, and he said, I believe that's where the investigation is.

Oh, man.

So under normal circumstances, this search would have required a warrant, which as we

definitely know, it would have taken some time to procure.

But wanting to be thankfully as helpful as she could, Elizabeth actually consented to

a search.

Wow.

So she really had.

I don't think so.

Absolutely no idea.

It's what it sounds like.

No, I don't think she did at all.

So she invited the detectives back into the home, and she signed the form, boom, consent.

So now they had to call in backup to conduct this whole search.

So backup had arrived, MacVetti, John Gallup, senior, and a uniformed officer were making

their way through the house, and they started making their way into the basement.

And MacVetti was absolutely shocked at the amount of garbage and clutter all over the

place, especially in the basement.

He would later tell the jury that the basement was so cluttered it, quote unquote, hampered

their investigation.

Wow.

Yeah.

And once they were in the basement, MacVetti spotted a small door in the basement that

was blocked by a large steamer trunk, which prompted him to ask, like, what the fuck that

was about.

Now, John, like the father, told the officers that the trunk was just for storage, and they

were like, OK, can we move it?

And he was like, yeah, sure.

So they move it, and once they did, MacVetti kind of shined his flashlight into the darkness.

And the light showed that there was a large green sleeping bag that was zippered and propped

really awkwardly against the wall, almost like there was something inside.

They approached the bag, and they noticed that it had actually come unzipped near the

bottom, and partially poking out of it was a pale and bloody human leg.

Oh my god.

Yes.

Now MacVetti immediately secured the scene and called in homicide detectives.

The news of the search had already made its way around the neighborhood, and a ton of

the neighbors on Horton Road had come out to their yards and their driveways to see

what was going on, including Richard and Victoria Tinias.

So not wanting the news to reach them before he could, MacVetti literally made a beeline

to this couple, so he could tell them himself what had happened, and Victoria just started

screaming.

Oh my god, like how do you even?

How do you even?

I have chills all over my body right now.

I can't imagine, and I don't even want to.

No one should ever imagine that.

I just want to give her parents the biggest hug, because they look like New Englanders.

They do.

I was just looking at pictures of them, and I was just like, oh my god, they're breaking

my heart.

They just look like your friend's parents.

Yeah, they really do.

You know?

And who care?

Yeah.

A lot.

And you would go over their house and talk to them while you were hanging out with your

friend.

That kills me.

They're just everyday people.

And something absolutely fucking horrible happened.

No, Siri, are you kidding me right now?

Man, Siri.

Oh, she comes at the worst times.

So fucking rude, Siri.

I really was.

Jesus.

Back to the seriousness.

I think that was like something was like, hey, break the tension real quick.

Honestly.

It's getting deep.

Honestly.

But here we are, we're back.

And we're back.

So Detective Lane arrived at the Gallup house around noon that same day, and spoke to Elizabeth

and John Sr. while they waited for the medical examiner to arrive.

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Now followed by an interview with John Jr., and he told Detective Lane that he got home

from school the previous day at the usual time, and he had two friends with him.

Mick, Donald, pause for lulls.

Okay.

Literally, Mick, Donald.

Who did that?

Why you do?

Why'd you do that?

And Chris Earl.

Fine.

Okay, that's fine.

So he said they played Nintendo for a while, a sign of the times.

What I was just going to say.

And then they hung out with older brother Robert for a bit until he went back up to his bedroom.

And when he went back upstairs, they said they went and played basketball not long after.

Okay.

And then John Jay, he returned home a little bit after five that night.

So the crime scene search unit arrived at the house a little after 1pm, and they began

what would be an exhausting documentation in search of the basement.

The fact that there was so much garbage and clutter spread everywhere just made it way

more difficult.

So by the time the medical examiner, Dr. Lone Fanning arrived an hour later, detectives

had pulled the sleeping bag out from the closet and carefully laid it out on the basement

floor.

And when they moved the sleeping bag, Lane and his partner discovered a pile of lace

curtains that were soaked in blood.

And also a large World War I era bayonet lying in a pool of blood next to the curtains.

What?

A bayonet?

Yes.

What the fuck?

And here's the thing, this medical examiner is a suburban medical examiner.

And I just told you there's been like one murder in the past 10 years.

Oh man.

So there's a bayonet involved?

Yeah.

Dr. Fanning was used to just like natural cause deaths, you know, and was shocked by what

she discovered upon opening the sleeping bag.

This is absolutely brutal, just so you know, like if you do need to skip, please do.

One of the detectives on the case would later say that Kelly's remains were scarcely recognizable

as human.

Oh my God.

Whatever happened to her and the person that did this, like I'm like, you're not even

a human.

You're an animal.

Oh God.

An animal.

Her face had been beaten and was insanely bruised by the time she was discovered.

Her throat had been cut so severely that the wound extended quote unquote nearly to her

backbone.

Oh my God.

And clumps of her hair had been ripped from her scalp in what appeared to be handfuls.

What the fuck?

And then detectives also discovered in the bag a bra that had been knotted like it had

been used as a choking device.

She's 13 years old.

13 years old.

Oh my God.

Now, at a quick glance, her body suffered the same brutality as her face, if not more.

Her torso, she headed to how it was just covered in bruises, slashes, two human bite marks.

Oh my God.

And her, this is super graphic and absolutely fucking awful.

Her killer had slit her from sternum to groin, exposing her internal organs.

Oh my God.

Like horrific.

That's medical examiner.

I have to wonder if that was like the last case they ever did.

I can't.

I would have to have had retired after that.

How do you, you couldn't prepare for that in a city setting?

No.

Never mind in like a suburban.

Suburbia.

It's like in this quiet little street or like everybody, it's, it really was like quiet

little street.

Everybody gets along like, and she just got a call like, come, hey, come over.

Oh no.

How many times did you get a call when you were younger to go to your neighbor's house?

What the fuck happened?

No.

Holy shit.

Going back to the scene, a lot of the cuts made to Kelly's torso were consistent with

a blade that was the size and shape of the bayonet.

But also at the same time, many of them were not consistent with the bayonet, which led

detectives to believe that there was a second or possibly even third weapon missing from

the seam.

Detective Lane had seen the body when they pulled it from beneath the basement stairs,

and he theorized that whoever had done this to Kelly had to be a very large, very powerful

person.

And very vicious, awful, savage person.

Now, he'd seen John Jay, who was an average height and weight build for a 14-year-old

boy, and he assumed his two friends were most likely of a similar build.

So it seemed very unlikely that any of those three were responsible, possible but not likely.

So based on all the testimony collected that day, the only people in the house that previous

afternoon were John Jay, those two friends, and 21-year-old bodybuilder Robert, bodybuilder.

So Detective Jack Sharkey was assigned the task of interviewing McDonnell and Chris

Earl, John Jay's two friends, who had been at the house that afternoon.

They confirmed that they had all been there, and just like John Jay said, they played video

games before they left to go play basketball.

And they also suggested it was pretty likely that it was John who called Kelly and invited

her over to the house.

Officers had learned that the boy had, quote unquote, been sweet on Kelly for years.

Oh yeah?

Yeah.

And he was the only one in the house that really knew her that day.

My God.

No, after their interview, both boys actually consented to a polygraph test, and they both

passed, quote unquote, with flying colors.

Wow.

And because they didn't really match who they thought could have overpowered Kelly and paired

that hand-in-hand with the passing of the lie detector test, it rules them out as suspects.

That makes sense.

Since Donald and Earl were now crossed off the list of suspects, the only two remaining

possibilities were John and Robert.

But again, since he seemed to lack the physical strength, they thought would have been necessary.

And since his friends had confirmed that John Jay had been with them that afternoon, Detective

Lane decided to focus his attention on the older brother, Robert.

Now, according to Robert, he had woken up around 10 a.m. because he's a real winner.

Yeah.

In the morning of the third.

Because he's really killing it.

He's really killing the game.

And he said he went to a convenience store to purchase a bodybuilding magazine.

Cool.

Because apparently he was very fixated on his one hobby in life.

He's so cool.

Yeah, like wicked cool.

And then after he got his magazine, he came right back home, he said.

I doubt it.

Who even knows?

So that afternoon, he spent time with his brother, his brother's friends.

And he said after the younger boys left to play basketball, he went back up to his room.

He drank a couple of beers and smoked some weed.

And he said that he never seen, he had never seen or spoken to Kelly that afternoon.

And in fact, he really only knew her well enough anyways to say hi.

It's like weird.

Yeah.

Why was she in her house then?

I totally believe you.

But he did say that Kelly had been close with his younger brother, John, and that she quote

sometimes called the Gallup home twice a day to speak to John Jay.

So I do wonder if there was like a little bit of like flirtation going on between John

Jay and Kelly.

I don't think John Jay had anything to do with this, to be honest, in my personal opinion.

I don't know, but I don't think so.

So when police showed Robert the bayonet used in the attack on Kelly, he said he never owned

it and had actually never seen it before.

And as far as he knew, nobody in the house did either.

Oh, a bayonet just showed up in your house one day.

A World War One bayonet, just like essentially an antique.

You just plop, it fell in your house.

You know, I can't believe that has happened to somebody else.

That happened to you too.

Yeah, it just showed up at my house.

Like, who do you think you're fooling, Robert?

Like you're really looking at investigators.

I mean, like, I've never seen it.

It doesn't belong to anybody in this house.

It just lives here.

Yes.

Yeah, it pays rent.

I don't know.

Just showed up one day.

It doesn't belong to us.

Like, what?

What?

What, dude?

It's a bayonet.

It's a World War One hour bayonet.

That is a relic of years past and you were telling me that you don't know how it ended

up in your house.

Lies.

Liar.

So, weirdly, he consented to a polygraph examination.

He was like, yeah, I'll take that.

Very good.

He thought he could beat it.

He sure did.

He was full on plans to do that because they did go on with the test, but it had to be called

off partway through when the examiner noticed that Robert was trying to mess with the results

by holding his breath at various points.

Of course he was.

You don't think the examiner is not going to see you holding your breath?

Their entire job is to examine every single little thing that sets your body off to make

it that you're lying.

Do you think that holding your breath is going to somehow get past them?

It's an examiner.

They examine you.

They just watch your ex.

Boy.

You dumb fuck.

I'm glad you're dumb, but like, shit.

So while detectives interviewed the rest of the neighbors on Horton Road, the crime scene

technicians continued this absolutely crazy job of just-

Oh my god, the daunting task.

Daunting task of because this scene is brutal anyways and then the added chaos of the crime

scene.

Now, while they were searching, there were a few significant items found in the basement.

There were two briefcases that contained Kelly's clothes that she was wearing the day before.

Random briefcases.

The fuck?

That's so weird.

And a large white t-shirt that appeared to have four semen stains on the front of it.

Disgusting.

I'll tell you now, they don't think she was sexually assaulted.

Well, that's good.

Like pre-mortem?

Like, perimortem?

Yeah, perimortem.

Yeah, perimortem.

Yeah, perimortem.

Now, each of the briefcases had some blood smeared on the outside and on the inside,

but it was going to take some time to determine whether that had come from Kelly or her killer.

They had their work laid out.

Damn.

Now, the autopsy was performed the following day, and actually there was a few people in

attendance.

There was Detective Richard Wells, the medical examiner Dr. Thanning, a serologist named

Dr. Arlene Cullen, and then the chief medical examiner, Dr. Leslie Lukash.

Now, thankfully, like I was just saying, Tess actually found no evidence of semen on the

surface of Kelly's body or internally, and there was no other signs of sexual assault.

Okay, so pre-mortem, she was, or perimortem, either one, she was not.

She was not.

Okay.

Now, unfortunately though, the medical examiner wasn't able to find any fingerprints present

on the body, which is, I'm like, did you wash her down, how did that work?

But I don't, maybe it was because it was so brutal.

But the chief medical examiner, Dr. Lukash, determined the cause of death was blunt force

trauma to the skull.

But after identifying more than 200, and this isn't quotes, 200 discrete blows to her head,

the medical examiner had to stop counting.

200?

More than 200.

I don't need, I literally, like my brain isn't computing that.

I don't even know how that's possible.

The randomness of this act is just like, I don't know if maybe that's why it's one of

the most requested cases, it's like, like how did this happen?

I'm like speechless, like 200 had to stop counting at 200.

To her head.

Yeah.

Like, I don't even know how you do that.

What kind of fucking animal do you have to be?

And like, exactly, like that is animalistic behavior.

That is, that's not even of this world.

Like I can't even, that's not, comprehend.

That's not even like, that's like, I'm like, what the fuck?

I can't even think of a creature that I know of that could do that to another person.

Or just like, that is so long.

Think about hitting something 200 times.

How long that takes.

No, I can't imagine.

Just think about like taking your hand and hitting a table 200 times.

How long that would take and how much energy that would take.

Hours.

Hours.

Like that is, I'm, I'm speechless.

I don't even know what to say about that.

That's unbelievable.

That's absolutely crazy.

A poor girl.

I know.

And her poor family.

That's a family, I just, oh, it's awful.

I actually like have anxiety right now.

It's like a lot.

That's like really killing me.

So based on the evidence collected at the scene, Lukash believed that the blunt force

trauma was consistent with the antique rifle found at the scene, but said that the extent

of the damage was too great to ever be positive.

Wow.

So I think so, but I mean, you get to 200 blows.

You can't fit an instrument there.

Like you don't know what that was after a certain point because you're not even seeing

distinct wounds at that point, like, oh my God.

Now the slicing wound to the neck, to the neck, excuse me, was a match for the bayonet,

but there also appeared to be an indent, and this is again brutal, an indentation near

the wound that until then couldn't be accounted for.

Like they were trying to figure out what that was.

So the doctor spent more time examining the blade and then realized that the circular

indentation was caused by the knob on the handle of the knife, which meant that the

killer had to quote unquote lay the blade across Kelly's throat and then stand the

full weight of his body on the knife bouncing up and down.

You have to.

I have never heard anything like this.

Never in my entire life.

And you have to hope and like, I have to like tell myself that she was gone.

She had to have been.

She had to have been.

She had to have been.

She had to have been.

It had to have been, which does not fix any of this, but my God, I can't.

Who does?

We have covered some of the worst of the worst of the worst, and I cannot compare this killer

to anyone I have ever read about.

This is just like.

Like my arms this entire time are covered.

This is stuff you can't make up.

No.

Like this is stuff that if you saw it in a horror movie, you'd be like, who comes up

with that?

You'd be like, I don't like want to watch anything by this person.

No one is like, no one's like that.

No.

Oh my God.

No.

Oh, poor Kelly in.

Oh, and her family.

Yeah.

I know that your baby went through this.

Oh, honestly, like my, the, I know, I don't know how to compare this sound like, I know,

don't even think I said that.

So when the examination was complete, Dr. Lukash concluded that Kelly's murder had to

have been committed by somebody in a frenzy.

Yeah.

To say the least.

Yeah.

And could only have been done by a quote unquote, incredibly fit and powerful man.

Jesus.

So given the amount of evidence collected at the scene and the story being told by Kelly's

body, Detective Lane and Wells kept their attention focused on the most obvious suspect,

Robert Gloop.

Right.

No, Gallup.

Damn it.

Gallup.

Gallup.

He was brought into the station at this point for quest or even before that, he was

brought into the station for questioning actually on the afternoon that the body was discovered.

Oh well.

This all happened very quickly.

I was going to say this probably happened so fast.

So John and Elizabeth had been cooperating with police up to this point, but now a lawyer

for the family had instructed the two brothers to refrain from answering any questions beyond

the statements they'd already given to the police.

So days passed without an arrest and the public was starting to grow anxious that there might

literally never be another resolution and Kelly's parents, Richard and Victoria, must

have been losing their goddamn minds.

Seriously.

Because you know what happened.

She went into that house.

She was found there.

So why hasn't somebody been arrested yet?

Exactly.

I would have been like.

Oh my God, I'd be losing my fucking minds.

And they were.

No, in the meantime, forensic tests were being conducted and the results, I mean, remember

this is the 80s.

The results were very slow to return.

But when they did come, they seemed to confirm that Robert was involved in the killing.

But there were complications.

For one thing, there was a handprint discovered near the body that did belong to Robert, but

it was discovered in his home, which made it a lot less significant.

And then the blood smears on the cases where Kelly's clothes had been found were also determined

to be Robert's blood.

But given that, again, it was his home, there was no way for analysts to determine whether

it was left there the day of the killing or a day or two before.

Like.

Yeah.

I don't know who would think that that got left there a day or two before, but sure.

To bring it to court, you got to go beyond a reasonable doubt.

Now when Robert was brought in for questioning on the day of the murder, he actually had

several small cuts on his right hand.

But those cuts, they said, showed no signs of having blood recently.

Which is weird.

But I'm like, I mean, how do you really determine that?

If he has cuts on his hand, he has cuts on his hand.

Yeah, he does.

Right?

Yeah.

How can you tell if they bled recently?

They're red?

I mean, you could really, the only thing I can think of is like what stage of healing

they're in.

That's really all I could say about that, I guess.

I don't really know.

Because I'm like, they didn't recently, like, were they open cuts?

Like, are they scabbed over cuts?

Because then you could be like, they were.

They're scabbed over.

They're healing.

They're in the process of healing.

But the way they put it is, no signs of having recently bled.

I'm like, huh.

That's a weird standard.

Yeah, it's like he would have washed that.

Right, exactly.

So essentially, while he may have looked very guilty, a good lawyer could have explained

a bulk of the physical evidence as to being no different than skin cells, fingerprints,

and trace fluids that everybody leaves around their house every day, which is really gross

that you think.

Gross.

I'm like, oh.

But on March 24th, nearly three weeks after Kelly's body had been discovered in the basement,

investigators did finally feel like they had enough evidence to make an arrest, and Robert

was arrested.

Wow.

It was a step in the right direction, but still people in the community were pissed

off.

They were very frustrated.

Kelly's uncle Robert told the press, we feel only a fraction of relief about the arrest.

There are so many unanswered questions that are hurting right now for people in the house,

and no one heard anything.

Yeah.

That's what's so shocking to me.

I'm like, what the fuck is going on in that house?

No one heard anything.

Is the basement soundproof?

That kind of beating.

But then you think about the loud music.

Oh, the loud music.

Is that why nobody heard anything?

Because it was so loud that Richie could hear it outside.

Oh my God.

That adds such a different layer to this.

It's like a horror film.

This is so bad.

It is.

So those unanswered questions and frustrations grow, or grew, excuse me, exponentially in

the time between the arrest and the trial.

While Robert spent his days in prison, he was lifting weights on the yard or preparing

in his cell for trial, a lot was going on back home.

Reporters, neighbors, strangers were harassing John and Elizabeth Gallop nonstop.

Their home was being referred to as a murder house, because that's what it was.

And their harassment had actually become so intense that they had to send John Jay off

to a private boarding school, which if he had nothing to do with this, then you do feel

bad that that happened.

Of course.

It's just so weird.

And Kelly's family claimed that at the same time that the Gallops were trying to intimidate

them.

And then the Gallops claimed that they were being prevented from freely coming and going

to their home.

And Elizabeth claimed that actually she was being sexually harassed around town at this

point.

So it is a whole full blown mess.

It is like the neighbors that hate each other, the, you know, it's all this time.

Oh, the Hatfields and McCoys.

Thank you for that.

Literally.

I loved that little like hand motion you were doing.

Yeah.

And I knew it would get you.

Just blowy hands.

And I was like, got it.

You were like, I don't know what you're saying.

The Hatfields and the McCoys.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's exactly what this was.

That makes sense.

And eventually the tension had become so disruptive, like fights had broken out and everything,

that a police officer had to be regularly parked on Horton Road to intervene if necessary.

Wow.

It got that bad, which is sad.

Yeah.

And you can understand why it got that bad.

Of course.

Now, while all of that was going on in the neighborhood, Robert's defense lawyer, John

Lewis, he was hard at work trying to get a ton of critical evidence excluded from trial.

Oh, of course.

Yeah.

Prior to trial, a fry hearing was held to determine whether the DNA evidence collected

at the scene, mostly from the outside of the briefcases and the palm print on the wall.

Okay.

They wanted to see it in this trial if it would be allowed at the murder trial.

No, for those that don't know, because I didn't know, a fry hearing, according to

Cornell Law School, quote, determines the admissibility of an expert scientific testimony

and other types of evidence.

So back then you weren't seeing a lot of cases where DNA was being.

In fact, Kelly's was actually one of the first cases in America where DNA was used.

Wow, really?

Yeah.

Isn't that pretty interesting?

Now, so they had to have that hearing to see like what was going to be admissible and

what wasn't.

Okay.

Well, John Lewis argued that DNA science was still in its infancy and it was unreliable.

Oh.

DNA evidence.

I didn't know.

But the prosecution presented several experts who testified that, quote, DNA fingerprinting

is a reliable scientific theory that is generally accepted in the scientific community and that

the six step procedure used to extract and analyze DNA samples is also generally accepted

in the scientific community.

I love this that they're like DNA is generally accepted in the scientific community.

They're like so there.

Yeah.

It feels all right.

So there were more pre-trial hearings that took place in mid-August and the tensions

were insanely high.

There was a lot of fighting going on between the families.

There were fights.

I don't know why.

Within the courtroom.

I would be thrown out.

Oh, yeah.

I'd be furious.

People had to be escorted out and then more problems were to come in October when the defense

attorney John Lewis was thrown off the case.

So he actually got into an argument with the judge that was presiding over the case,

Judge Marvin Goodman, and the defense attorney Lewis told the judge that he wasn't prepared

to go to trial that month and he wanted to push out to January to get to have more time

to prepare.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Who gives a shit about the families that have to sit here and deal with this shit?

Thank you.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Let's push it out because I'm not ready.

I'm not ready.

There's plenty of time.

Yeah.

If you don't have a good case, it's because he did it.

Yeah.

The end.

The end.

Also, so says I.

So says I.

I would tap my little gavel.

But the judge denied that request, basically saying everything that we did and saying he

hadn't provided a legal reason for it.

So like, no.

Just because you're not prepared isn't my fault.

Exactly.

That's probably exactly what he said.

Yeah.

But Lewis lost it.

He was pissed about that and he said he wasn't going to be forced to go to trial and that

Goodman could hold him in contempt or throw him in jail.

And he's like, got it.

And Goodman was like, I'm not going to do either of those things.

You're just not going to work on this case.

Yes.

You're going to go ahead and throw you right off.

You're gone.

Yeah.

And you're done.

You're done.

And he was replaced with Salvatore Maranello.

Hopefully I said that right.

So Robert's trial for the second degree murder of Kelly Ann began on February 15, 1990.

Yeah.

So.

Wow.

And I don't have time to look this up.

Manola, New York?

Yeah.

Totally.

So in opening statements, the prosecutor Daniel Cotter laid out the extent of the evidence,

including the massive DNA evidence that linked Robert to the murder.

My God.

He also detailed the extent of Kelly's injuries and he paid particular attention to the mutilation

of the genitals and the buttocks because.

That's so fucked up.

She had been, like I said, completely, like, eviscerated.

Eviscerated.

Yeah.

And one of the bite marks was actually to her backside, like on her bum.

Oh my God.

You fucking animal.

And happened post-mortem.

Holy shit.

Like, not even an animal.

An animal would never do this.

I was just going to say, I don't even know what to compare this fuck or two.

And that's the thing.

It's like, not even an animal, not even a demon.

It doesn't exist.

I don't know what to call you.

An entity unto itself.

Truly.

An entity unto itself.

Seriously.

So, Cotter told the jury, because of all this, it is fair to assume that this is a sexual

assault by a male.

Then it was the defense's turn.

Salvatore told the jury, the prosecution expects you to make judgments through inferences.

And basically told the jury that the evidence was highly scientific, very confusing, and

they couldn't trust it.

I'm obsessed with the fact that they were like, ugh, this is like, a little too science-y

for me, everybody.

This is going to be like biology class, and we're going to be very confused.

Let's throw that shit right out.

We don't need science.

Science.

Who?

Facts?

Are you guys looking for facts?

Fuck that.

Like, what?

No.

We don't want scientific facts, and here there's hard to pronounce words.

Yes, of course.

It makes me sad.

And like, are you guys, are you, are you all right?

Right.

Exactly.

Are you kidding me?

Science is not a reliable thing in a trial.

Jesus.

Can you imagine?

I was born in 1990.

I feel like wow.

I was only born six years later.

Jesus.

Like, you were five.

Wow.

That's it.

I'm like, you're old.

It was 1990, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Five.

And they're, and they're literally like DNA.

What's that?

Sounds gross.

That was in your lifetime.

Yeah.

What?

That's upsetting.

Isn't that upsetting?

That's really upsetting.

But like I said, this was a time in America where DNA really hadn't been used in a ton

of court cases.

Yeah.

To, to get a, a guilty verdict anyways.

Yeah.

Okay.

So he was definitely hoping that all this scientific garbage, oh yeah, hullabaloo was

going to go over the jury's head.

But just in case it didn't, he also tried to put doubt in their minds about everybody

there that day and told the jury there were three other boys in the house that day who

could have done this, right?

They were there right around the time of the murder.

I'm like, they're three 14 year olds.

They are all the same size.

Yeah.

I don't think so.

Truly.

No.

The prosecutor cotter there was able to shoot down that argument by pointing out how unlikely

it would be for three 14 year old boys to commit quote, a savage vicious act, been covered

with blood and then go calmly play basketball.

Yeah.

Cause again, like they literally had an alibi.

Yeah.

And then to prove his point even further that it wasn't one of these younger boys, he explained

that one of the boys placed a call to his mom from the Gallup house at about 321 to

go tell her that he and his friends were leaving to play basketball.

So I wonder, because that phone call meant Kelly entered the house shortly after 3.20

PM, I would say, that she would have been in the house alone with Robert.

Yeah.

So that makes me wonder, was it John Jay that called or was it Robert saying he was John

Jay knowing that his brother had been maybe like flirting with Kelly and they had all

gone out to go play basketball and he saw some kind of opportunity.

That to me, that's what that makes sense, right?

To me, it makes sense that this little fucker would pretend to be his little brother.

Oh, a hundred percent.

To lure her to that house.

That's what I think.

Because I don't see, I don't know anything about this family.

I don't know anything about these, this pig and his brother, but I don't know if it makes

sense that this kid would just lure her there, especially if he liked her.

If he was sweet on her, exactly.

Like they had some kind of thing.

And then he's going to leave.

Like if anything, you would think he would, if he was the one that called her, I feel

like, and if she liked him, they would have gone and played basketball together.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

It's straight.

And to me, it feels more like this guy pretending.

Yeah.

Definitely.

Because this feels cunning as fuck.

That's my theory, is that he obviously saw Kelly around town, probably developed some

kind of weird fucking fascination, and then he's a, he's a fucking troll.

Oh, he's beyond even pig man, beyond words.

True pig man.

Yuckas.

Yeah.

Yuckas McGee.

Disgusting.

Truly.

Now, over the course of the next few weeks, jurors were presented with a whole slew of

information and evidence.

I can't imagine having to sit on this jury.

No.

I can't.

Having to hear about those injuries in real time would be outrageous.

And they did have to, because the doctor, the medical examiner, took the stand to testify

about the extent of the injuries and placed the death somewhere between 330 and 820.

I'm thinking it was closer to the 320, right, Joe, thanks.

And the doctor also testified that while a lot of the slice injuries were caused by

the rusty bayonet, there were others caused by at least two additional instruments that

were unaccounted for.

Then another expert, excuse me, the serologist, Dr. Arlene Colon, explained how DNA can be

used to trace blood or other fluids back to a single individual.

Okay.

So she explained this to the jury and they were able to comprehend this.

They were able to understand.

Crazy.

Now, according to this doctor, the investigators had found several spots of Robert's blood

mixed with or adjacent to Kelly's blood, meaning that, quote, Kelly's killer had his

own blood on his hands when he was attempting to clean up after Kelly's death.

Which makes sense.

Of course it does.

Like he's not coming out of there with no scratches on his hands.

Absolutely not.

So the analysis of the palm print that was discovered on a piece of crown molding near

the basement closet was also a match for Robert, excuse me, and a crime scene analyst testified

that the print was most likely left there very shortly after Kelly was murdered.

He must have probably like leaned up against the wall to move her.

So after closing arguments on April 2nd, 1990, the jury deliberated for a full day before

returning a verdict of guilty.

Good.

Not even going to make you wait for that.

Good.

When the verdict was read, the courtroom literally erupted into screams and cries from Kelly's

family.

Yeah.

Like just, they were so happy, but then that happiness turned to anger.

And they were like, like, it was just way too much for everybody involved.

How do you, yeah, how do you even wrap your brain around it?

And while that was all going on and like everybody's like trying to figure out even how to feel

about this, Robert is just sitting there with literally zero emotion.

Because he's a beast.

He's beyond, beyond.

Now he returned, I was going to say re-entered.

He returned to court on June 1st for sentencing.

And in a surprising turn of events, 11 of the 12 jurors who sat on the case actually asked

to attend the sentencing hearing.

They wanted to be there.

And so did four of the alternates who had also sat through the trial.

They wanted to see this motherfucker sentenced.

Holy, I don't blame them.

The court also received over a thousand letters from the public demanding that he be sentenced

to life in person.

So he was given the opportunity to speak before he was sentenced.

We don't never understand why we let that happen.

Me either.

And he did take the chance to say that he was innocent.

Shut the fuck up.

It's weird that your blood was everywhere then.

Yeah, that's strange.

And he told the jury, I did not kill Kellyanne Tennis.

Who let Kellyanne to our home?

Who could have had any motive?

These are questions I have to answer.

These are questions the jury should have considered.

Oh, okay.

You really thought you did something.

Skulled the jury.

Like for sure.

He then went on to skull the jury.

He said that there was a police conspiracy to convict him.

The jury was against him.

They hadn't behaved properly.

The crime scene technicians and analysts who had processed the scene were also all out

to get him.

Blah, blah, blah, blah.

There's that much about you, my friend, new.

So when he finished with that load of Marlarky, the judge Goodman, who I love, told him, the

acts which you committed in this case are by far the most atrocious that I have ever

experienced in my 17 years as a judge.

And the manner in which you killed Kellyanne Tennis and mutilated her body surpasses the

worst murders known to this county.

No dictionary contains sufficient words to describe the brutality of your acts.

Unfortunately, the sentence option given to me by all of our laws falls short of the

sentence which you truly deserve.

You are hereby sentenced to a maximum term of life and to a minimum term of 25 years.

Which would not even be slightly enough.

So 25 years to life.

Like not enough.

No.

Now, Robert appealed his conviction in 1993 thinking that that was really going to move

anybody.

It didn't.

He said it was on the grounds that the evidence was mishandled.

The analysis of the DNA was improper because he knows how to do that.

Oh, yeah.

And the, um, no, that was just it.

But the appeals court upheld the conviction.

Good.

Now, he maintained his innocence until his case came up for consideration by the parole

board in 2013 and he had a hearing and he finally confessed to the murder.

And he said that he had killed Kellyanne quote in a rage due to his due to his use of a ridiculous

amount of anabolic steroids.

I knew it.

I knew it.

But like, I've seen people on steroids.

You've seen people on steroids.

That is more than just steroids.

You have a beast that lives inside of you.

I was just going to say that was then fed those steroids that was fed those said.

That's a perfect way of saying it.

Exactly.

Very much already inside of you inside every cell in your body that you were able to do

that.

Anabolic steroids did not.

Did not cause you to do that.

No.

They allowed that beast to come out.

Exactly.

That's all of us.

Exactly.

He claimed that he never meant to kill her.

Which like.

Shut the fuck.

Thank you.

Ah, proper.

Thank you.

Shut the fuck up the extent of her injuries and you never meant to kill her.

I want to put a boot in your fucking face.

Are you kidding me?

You never meant to kill her.

Shut the fuck up.

Like go back to your tiny little cell.

Say nothing.

And spend the rest of your days remembering what you did to her.

Knowing full well that you are going to a place that is literally worse than how.

I hope she haunts you.

Every minute.

Until the minute you die.

Every single second.

Truly.

Of every single day.

I hope Kelly haunts you.

I said he was remorseful.

Oh shut the fuck up.

I bet the fuck you are because you want to get out of prison.

You don't exist.

You're not a real thing.

No.

You don't have the same shit that everybody else does.

Remorse is not.

It's a vocabulary word to you.

It's not a feeling.

If you can do that to a human, there is no part of me that believes you are capable of

remorse.

No.

Not one part of me that believes that.

Absolutely not.

No.

Luckily state parole officials were as unconvinced as we are.

And Robert has since been denied parole on two different occasions.

I hope they tell him to go fuck himself every single time.

I don't think they're allowed to.

But they probably say it as he walks out of the room.

Literally as he walked out I'd be like, don't forget Robert.

Go fuck yourself.

Go fuck yourself.

Every single time.

Remember last time?

Go fuck yourself.

If you haven't done it yet.

Yep.

Go fuck yourself Robert.

Literally into oblivion.

I hate this pig.

This is like the worst.

One of the worst.

The most brutal.

Ever.

I don't think I could ever cover another case like this.

Now in the year since Kelly's murder, her parents, Richard and Victoria, they hold a

celebration on her birthday, March 5th, every single year to remember her.

And still their neighbors from Horton Road join them and now it's gone like way above

and beyond that.

Like people join all the time and from all over.

And in 2021 they had a memorial unveiled at a park in Valley Stream which honors them

in memory of Kelly.

Oh, I love that.

Now Robert remains in prison.

He still hopes that he's going to get some kind of parole.

He's not going to.

I hope that you slowly rot.

But Richard and Victoria and countless other members of Valley Stream are locked and loaded

with victim impact statements and letters demanding he remain in prison.

In the interest of public safety, not only just for their peace of mind, like not wanting

to see him ever again, but he should never be allowed around people ever again.

If you can do that one time, I can't fucking imagine what you would do if you like didn't

live in your parents' house and were left to your own devices.

Yes, I can't even fathom.

Because you did that in your parents' home.

Well, that's what's wild to me.

Just went down to the basement.

No, I can't.

Like what the fuck.

I literally can't.

So that is the tragic, tragic, tragic case of Kelly Antonia's.

I am speechless.

It was very hard to get through.

I like just you just remember being 13 and I can't imagine that happening to like anybody

I knew at 13 years old.

13 is a baby.

I mean, that is she was just about two days later.

She would have been 14 right before her birthday and it's just like that family.

I can't in like her poor little brother.

That's the thing.

And then to have to like go on and like be okay for Richie.

Yeah.

Like I can't imagine.

I can't imagine.

But they seem like the most amazing people.

They really do.

Oh, I just want to give them a hug.

I know.

That's awful.

Yeah.

That is awful.

I think, um, were you going to do something spooky?

Yeah.

You know what?

I'm going to follow this up with something maybe like a spooky road or lake or lake or

something.

You'll know, obviously, but like it's, there'll be some something in there.

Maybe another haunted school.

I think we have a whole folder.

There you go.

Yeah.

We got a lot of those.

So yeah, we'll follow it up with just one spooky.

Yeah.

Haven't done one in a while.

Just a little palette cleanser, if you will.

Yeah.

We're due for one.

Yeah.

Feels right.

Feels good, especially for this.

I need it.

I need it.

Yeah.

I need a beat.

Yeah.

I need a beat.

You know?

Oi.

So yeah, look out for that.

And with that being said, guys, we hope you keep listening.

And we hope you keep it weird.

Weird.

You know I'm not saying anything.

No.

That's it.

Nope.

That's a wrap.

Bye.

Goodbye.

Love you guys.

Hope you have a great day.

Thanks.

Hey, Prime members!

You can listen to Morbid early and ad-free on Amazon Music.

Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen ad-free with Wondery Plus and Apple

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Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.

Kelly Ann Tinyes was at home babysitting her eight-year-old brother, Richie, on the afternoon of March 3, 1989 when the phone rang. Richie answered, talking briefly to the man on the other end of the line, before handing the phone to his sister, telling her it was someone named “John.” After a short conversation with “John,” Kelly hung up the phone and left the house around3:15 pm, telling her brother she was going to her friend’s house down the street and would be right back. It was the last time Kelly’s family would see her alive.




Thank you to the prodigious David White for research assistance :)

References

Associated Press. 1990. "Sex motive charged in girl's slaying." The Journal News, February 16: 18.

Bessent, Alvin. 1989. "Defense lawyer thrown off LI murder case." Newsday, October 3: 47.

Danney, Micah. 2015. "Tinyes girl's killer denied parole." Long Island Herald, November 18.

Lyall, Sarah. 1990. "Blood tests link Golub to crime scene." New York Times, March 1: B2.

—. 1990. "Golub Case: Main Puzzle Is the Suspect." New York Times, March 5: B1.

—. 1990. "Marks on body not from bites, dentist testifies." New York Times, March 23: B4.

Milton, Pat. 1989. "Teen's murder transforms quiet L.I. neighborhood." The Journal News, March 26: 77.

Mulugeta, Samson. 1997. "Drug case brings echo of murder." Newsday, March 23: 29.

New York Times. 1978. "Not guilty verdict finds killer insane." New York Times, April 27: D21.

Nieves, Evelyn. 1998. "What Happened on Horton Road." New York Times, May 31.

Pearlman, Shirley, and Elizabeth Wasserman. 1989. "Tempers flare as murder hearing begins." Newsday, August 15: 61.

Pearlman, Shirley, and Phil Mintz. 1989. "What cops say Golub told them." Newsday, August 15: 3.

People v. Robert Golub. 1993. 196 A.D.2d 637 (Nassau County Appeals Court, August 23).

Watkins, Ronald J. 2000. Against Her Will: The Senseless Murder of Kelly Ann Tinyes. Syracuse, NY: Pinnacle Books.

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