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The Nancy Guthrie case has forced a national conversation about what happens when the wrong people handle the most critical moments of an investigation. In Tucson, the questions have centered on staffing decisions, sidelined veterans, and whether competence or loyalty determined who was in the room. This five-part series has traced that same failure across decades and jurisdictions. And in this final episode, it comes down to something so basic it defies belief: a family that found their own son's body in an area law enforcement claimed they already searched.
Alonzo Brooks was twenty-three years old. Mixed race — Mexican and Black. He went to a house party in the tiny Kansas town of La Cygne in April 2004. He was one of only three Black men among a hundred guests. The FBI's own summary states that attendees directed racial slurs at him. His friends left at different times through miscommunication, leaving him alone with no ride home. He never came back.
The Linn County Sheriff's Office searched. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation searched. The FBI was contacted. They found his boots and hat. They didn't find Alonzo. A month later, his family put on orange vests, walked to a creek behind the farmhouse, and found his body in under an hour — less than seven hundred feet from where he was last seen alive.
Then a coroner ruled the cause of death undetermined. That coroner — Dr. Erik Mitchell — had been forced to resign from a previous position in New York after an investigation found he had removed organs without family consent and improperly stored body parts. That single ruling shut the case down for sixteen years. In 2020, the FBI exhumed the body. The Armed Forces Medical Examiner ruled it a homicide — exactly what the family had been saying all along. No arrests have been made. The reward stands at a hundred thousand dollars.
The Guthrie case is still open. The people making the calls right now — who handles the evidence, who leads the search, who makes the critical determinations — will decide whether Nancy's family gets answers. This series exists because every one of these families deserved better. And because the families still waiting deserve to know what it costs when the wrong people are in the room.
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Two prosecutions with distinct postures are moving simultaneously through the courts, and both present substantive legal questions about the doctrinal framework applied to those adjacent to the accused.
In the Southern District of Florida, a federal grand jury has indicted a sixteen-year-old defendant as an adult on charges of first-degree murder and aggravated sexual abuse in the death of Anna Kepner, eighteen, aboard the Carnival Horizon. Federal jurisdiction attaches under the Special Maritime and Territorial Jurisdiction of the United States. The case was transferred from juvenile to adult jurisdiction pursuant to a written waiver executed by the defendant and co-signed by counsel. The U.S. Attorney’s Office has moved to revoke the defendant’s pretrial release. The Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s Office determined the cause of death to be mechanical asphyxiation. If convicted, the defendant faces a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
In Suffolk County Supreme Court, Benjamin Torres has filed a wrongful death action against Rex Heuermann, Asa Ellerup, and Victoria Heuermann following Heuermann’s April 8 plea of guilty to seven counts of murder and his admission to the killing of an eighth victim, Karen Vergata. The complaint advances claims under willful blindness and unjust enrichment theories, targeting in part the reported one-million-dollar payment for participation in the Peacock documentary. Sentencing for Heuermann is set for June 17.
Defense attorney and former prosecutor Eric Faddis provides legal analysis of both proceedings — the federal waiver framework, the evidentiary record aboard the vessel, the willful blindness standard as applied to a spouse during periods of admitted absence, and the viability of the unjust enrichment theory.
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Every trial date has been called final. None of them have held. Larry Millete was arrested in October 2021 for the murder of his wife Maya. He has pleaded not guilty. And as of this recording — more than four years later — he has never sat in front of a jury.This is Episode 5 of the Larry Millete series, and it covers the legal grind that has defined this case since the arrest. A competency evaluation that froze proceedings for three months and was resolved in five minutes. A defense attorney who couldn't continue because Larry couldn't afford her. A new legal team that needed preparation time. A venue change request — denied. A gag order request — denied. And then delay after delay after delay: September 2024, July 2025, January 2026, March 2026, May 2026. Every one requested by the defense. Every one granted by the court.Maya's sister Maricris has been in that courtroom for every hearing. On January 28, 2026, she begged the judge to stop granting delays, telling him her parents don't know how much time they have left. The judge granted the delay anyway.Trial is now set for May 11, 2026. Larry says no plea deal. The evidence is ready. The family is ready. The question is whether the calendar will finally hold.
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The wrongful death complaint filed in Suffolk County Supreme Court by Benjamin Torres, acting on behalf of the estate of Valerie Mack, presents claims of wrongful death, assault, battery, false imprisonment, and unjust enrichment against Rex Heuermann, Asa Ellerup, and Victoria Heuermann. The central theory of liability against Ellerup rests on the doctrine of willful blindness — alleging that she knew of, concealed, or consciously avoided learning material facts concerning the murders.
Heuermann pleaded guilty on April 8, 2026, to seven counts of murder and admitted to the intentional killing of an eighth victim, Karen Vergata. He agreed to serve consecutive life sentences without possibility of parole. Sentencing is scheduled for June 17, 2026. The guilty plea eliminates the question of liability for Heuermann in any subsequent civil proceeding.
The unjust enrichment claim targets proceeds reportedly exceeding one million dollars that Ellerup and Victoria Heuermann received for participation in a Peacock documentary. The plaintiff has sought judicial intervention to prevent the dissipation of those assets. Ellerup’s attorney, Robert Macedonio, has characterized the lawsuit as reckless and maintained that both women cooperated fully with law enforcement throughout the investigation. Defense attorney and former prosecutor Eric Faddis provides analysis of the willful blindness standard as applied to a spouse who prosecutors confirmed was absent during each alleged offense, the evidentiary weight of pre-plea public statements, and the legal viability of the unjust enrichment theory.
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#AsaEllerup #RexHeuermann #GilgoBeach #WillfulBlindness #TrueCrimeToday #EricFaddis #CivilLiability #WrongfulDeath #UnjustEnrichment #ValerieMack

In roughly one hundred and twenty days, a clerk in Payne County is going to close a file. And Jesse Butler — the Stillwater teenager who pleaded no contest to eleven felony counts involving two high school students — is going to stop being any of those things, legally, forever.
That's the calendar this case has been racing toward from day one. Every move by every actor — the defense, the Payne County DA's office, the special judge who granted youthful offender status — pointed in the same direction. Toward the nineteenth birthday that, under Oklahoma's youthful offender statute, wipes the record clean.
This week, for three days, two teenage girls and the people who fought for them tried to get somebody in the State of Oklahoma to formally acknowledge, on the record, before the birthday hits, that what happened to them was wrong. They called it a Marsy's Law violation. The DA's office called it full compliance and demanded a judge rule in their favor before the case closes forever.
The victim took the stand. Her mother took the stand. Her attorney took the stand. A tribal victim services advocate took the stand. All four said the same thing: they were locked outside their own case until the final fifteen minutes. Then the Assistant District Attorney who ran the prosecution took the stand — and her story didn't match theirs.
This is what three days of testimony revealed about how a case like this gets resolved in Oklahoma, what the victims are actually fighting for, and why what happens in Judge Kulling's written opinion may be the last thing that matters before a calendar closes a case forever.
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