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Can A Killer Really Change? The Jon Henkel Murder & G. Dep's Confession

June 24, 2024

In this episode Payton and Garrett dive into the case of Jon Henkel’s murder and how his killer was finally caught.

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AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to an Oh No Media podcast.

Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. This is "Murder With My Husband." I'm Payton Moreland.

And I'm Garrett Moreland.

And he's the husband.

I'm the husband.

Welcome back. Another week, another episode. If it's your first time here joining us, thank you very much. If it's not your first time here, we love you. Thank you for sticking around.

Thank you for sticking around and dealing with us. We really appreciate it. If this is your first time, hi, welcome to "Murder With MyHusband." This is a true crime show where I love true crime, and my husband hates true crime. He shows up every week with no idea about what we're going to talk about, but we do it anyway, and everyone enjoys it. We are220-ish episodes in, and we're still doing it. In case anyone's wondering, I still basically hate it to an extent.

Hate's a strong word, so I won't use the word hate.

You do.

But I'm here, and I'm engaged, and I'm interested, and I'm trying to figure out what is going on.

Thank goodness.

If you would like bonus content or ad-free content, checkout our Patreon and Apple subscriptions. That's all the announcements we haveright now. We are going to jump into Garrett's 10 seconds, which is what westart these episodes off with.

I don't know why we're acting like we've just got an influxof listeners or something, like it's not just our same OG listeners. We're justswitching it up a little bit. That went in a weird direction.

Yep, but here we are. My 10 seconds this week: well, ifyou're on YouTube, you can probably see it. If you're not on YouTube and you'relistening, I will tell you exactly what's going on. I am currently growing amustache, trying something new. Honestly, I think it looks decent so far. Ithink I look okay in it, don't you?

Mhm.

Payton likes it too, so I'm going to grow it out a littlebit. I'm probably not going to do handlebar or anything crazy, just a classicmustache. Going to try it out, test it out. Also, our home gym is done andwe've been using it and we love it.

Love it.

I've been stretching. Garrett's been working out. I alsowork out, but I just haven't worked out in the home gym yet. I need to take abetter video or photo, and I'll post it on my Instagram or "Murder With MyHusband" just to show everyone what it looks like. It's just our garage,but it's such a vibe. It feels good, it's easy. And again, if I have a lisp, Icurrently have my Invisalign in. I'm probably going to take them out in asecond.

Daisy loves the gym and loves Garrett's Invisalign.

Yeah, that's true. She loves my Invisalign. Anyways, back tomy mustache. Growing a mustache, hope everyone's supportive. Maybe I'll take apicture and put that on socials as well. Not too long today, so let's hop intotoday's case.

Our sources for this episode are The New Yorker, New YorkPost, Deseret News, New York Magazine, The Telegraph, The Niagara Gazette, NewYork Daily News, NBC New York, and Black Enterprise. Any guesses where our caseis?

I don't know, maybe New York? I'm not sure.

So, anytime you're dealing with a true crime case, there isone question that every jury and every judge has to answer: can people reallychange? If someone commits a gruesome murder, can they reform, or are theydestined to always be a violent criminal? It's a question that has to beweighed to determine what kind of sentence is fair. After all, you don't wantto let a murderer out only for them to then take another life, but you alsodon't want the punishment to be harsher than what the guilty person deserves.

The problem is, no one really agrees on what someone doesdeserve. The killer will almost always argue that they deserve the lightestpossible sentence. The victim's families often argue for something harsher, andit's down to the court system to figure out what's actually fair, which istough because it can be tricky to determine who's actually remorseful or not,who's likely to reoffend, who has really changed, and who hasn't.

And that is the central question for today's case.

Speaking on that, I figured now's a good time to throw in myhot take, which is going to go along with this. I don't think people canchange, but I do at the same time.

Okay, listen. What I mean by that is I actually probablythink that the majority of people can't change. Okay, if we're talking aboutmurder here, correct? Like, we're talking about, I assume, this is a murderpodcast. We're talking about people who are killing people, people who areraping people, not stealing something from the store or more, I guess, pettycrimes. What about even robbing a bank? Like, I think you can change.

Dealing drugs?

Dealing drugs, yes. I mean, all that stuff. I'm on the sideof, you can change and figure it out, but like killing or, trigger warning,anything that has to do with really bad rapes, really bad sexual assaults, I amlike 98% that people can't change. I'm sure people are going to thinkotherwise, so feel free to let us know in the comments below. Again, this isjust my opinion. Everyone has a right to their own opinion. It’s just kind ofwhat I think. I could get deeper into certain aspects and deeper into thecontext of those crimes and why I think people can't change and people canchange, but that's just my hot take for this week.

Let's do the story, and then we can revisit it before theepisode is over.

Perfect.

Okay, so starting this case, let's go back to the night ofOctober 19, 1993. It's almost an hour after midnight, and the road ispractically deserted on New York City's 114th Street. This intersection is in apretty bad part of East Harlem. An elevated track for the Metro train passesoverhead and there's a stop nearby, but it's far too late for commuters to becoming and going. So there's only one man out and about. Again, October 19,1993, New York City. This man's name is Jon Henle. To this day, it's not clearwhat brought Jon out to 114th Street at almost 1 in the morning.

We can make an educated guess, though, based on what we knowabout Jon and his lifestyle. See, Jon, who's 32 years old, has a history ofdrug abuse, and this particular night, he is high on PCP. It's probably safe toassume that he's out to buy more drugs at 1:00 a.m., or maybe he just boughtand took some and just hasn't made it home yet. Whatever his reason for beinghere, Jon doesn't remain alone for long because just before the top of thehour, a strange young man rides up on a bike. He takes one look at Jon, who'ssmoking a cigarette under the train tracks, and whatever the young man sees in Jon,it inspires him to hit the brakes on his bike and climb off. Then he pulls outa gun. He points it at Jon's midsection and says, "Where's the moneyat?"

So now Jon Henle, 32 years old, high on PCP, with a prettybad history of drug use, is getting mugged in the middle of New York City inthe middle of the night. I don't know if Jon is just too high to realize what'sgoing on or if maybe he thinks the mugger will ignore him if he just doesn'tacknowledge him, but whatever the reason, Jon just freezes. He doesn't sayanything and he also doesn't pull out his wallet or give the mugger any cash.

So the young man takes another step closer to Jon andrepeats himself, "Where is the money at?" But Jon isn't willing tojust hand his valuables over without a fight, assuming he even has any andhasn't blown everything he already has. Jon reaches for the gun like he mightbe able to snatch it out of the mugger's hand.

Oh no.

But instead, the would-be thief pulls the trigger threetimes, and all of them hit their target. Jon has been shot. He grimaces likehe's in pain but doesn't scream or shout, so the mugger takes the opportunityto run back to his bike and climb onto it. Jon, who's been shot, actuallydecides to try and chase him for a little while to grab him and pull him backtoward him, but the shooter is too fast. He pedals away and soon the exertiongets to be too much for Jon, who's trying to chase him. He falls to his kneesand then doesn't get back up.

Okay, now before the shooter can round the corner andescape, a pair of headlights actually illuminate the pretty dead street. A caris now passing, and it's unclear how much they saw and if they'll be able todescribe the shooter's face to the police later. I'm not even sure if thisdriver is the person who called 911 or if someone else heard what had happened,heard the shots, and reported them. There actually isn't much documentation ofwhat happens next, but I do know that Jon ends up dying on the street becauseof the gunshots, and before long, the police are investigating his murder.

Got it.

All they can tell at this point is that Jon died in amugging gone wrong, and they don't have many leads to go by. Most likely, thekiller didn't have any connections to Jon. The detectives don't think he tailedhim in the street or targeted him specifically. They just think that Jon was inthe wrong place at the wrong time. And New York City is a massive city; thesuspect list has to be in the thousands, if not the millions. The investigatorsask around the neighborhood where the shooting took place to see if any of theresidents saw something suspicious that night, but no, nobody has anything toshare. So with no suspects, no witnesses, and almost no evidence, the case goescold almost immediately.

It's possible that has something to do with who Jon was,too, because it's unfortunate, but the police do not prioritize every openinvestigation the same way.

Yeah, and it sounds like Jon, as a person with a history ofsubstance abuse, just may not rank very high on their list ofpriorities—someone who was murdered on the street at 1:00 a.m. while high.

It's not fair, but it is sadly common for certain kinds ofvictims to get less attention than others. And that's why, as I'm going throughthis case, I'm telling you, I don't really know who called 911. I don't reallyknow because it just wasn't reported on. In Jon's case, not only does his casego unsolved for years, the police actually basically forget about him.

And that's where things stand for the next 17 years.

Holy crap.

So 17 years go by, and it's safe to say that by 2010, nobodyis even looking into Jon's case. He's definitely just a file sitting in a boxsomewhere deep in a room.

Well, as sad as it is, I also can't imagine how many peoplethat are either on drugs or don't have a home in New York City and living onthe streets get murdered or killed. It's just a daily, weekly, monthlyoccurrence, I'm sure, which is horrible. But yeah, Jon's case is just sittingthere.

It's 2010 now. Then, one day, on December 15th, a man named TrevelllColeman walks into the police station. He says, "I have information aboutan old crime." Specifically, he knows something about a nearlytwo-decade-old mugging that turned into a shooting. He doesn't mention JonHenkel by name, and from the sound of it, he actually doesn't even know who thevictim was. He also doesn't know how the shooting ended up, if the victim livedor died. Basically, he wants to share information, but he seems to know almostnothing about the case he wants to discuss.

Interesting, and that's not the only strange detail about Trevelll'ssudden appearance. Trevelll was sort of famous in the rap community in 2010. Heperformed under the name G.Dep and had a couple of successful tracks, includingone viral hit early in his career. He released a song called "Let's GetIt," and the music video featured people doing a dance called the HarlemShake. It became a bit of a dance craze for a while. Even though Trevellldidn't invent the Harlem Shake, he actually gets credit for making it popular.I'm sure you remember it going around; it was all over the place. He also hadanother hit song called "Special Delivery."

To summarize, a somewhat famous rapper showed up at thepolice station and said he wanted to talk about a crime he didn't seem to knowmuch about. He wasn't just there as a witness; he tells police he did it. Hewas the man who mugged another man on the street 17 years ago. He knows he shothis victim, then got on his bike and sped away. He doesn't know if the manlived or died.

After living with a guilty conscience for years, Trevelllnow wants to turn himself in and make things right with the man he shot,whatever that means. He also needs to answer a question that's been weighingheavily on his conscience for more than a decade and a half: did he actuallykill somebody?

Trevelll sits down with the police and describes the crimehe committed in as much detail as he can, but there are certain details hedoesn't fully remember 17 years later. It's kind of ironic, actually; he musthave been so young. He says the guilt has been weighing on him the entire timeand he's never been able to stop thinking about what he did. But now that he'sat the station describing everything in detail, his memory is a lot foggierthan you'd expect if he was someone who really shot someone and felt really badabout it, and it had been weighing on him all this time.

He doesn't remember the date or even the month of theshooting. He just gives a rough range. But he does know the exact address ofwhere it took place. It's not much, but it's enough for the police to gothrough their records. They go through all their files on unsolved shootingsfrom that approximate time and place, and there's only one open case that fitswhat Trevelll described. I'm sure you can guess whose it was. It was themugging turned murder of Jon Henkel.

However, I do want to note that their case file on Jondoesn't match Trevelll's testimony exactly. Trevelll says he shot a blonde,clean-shaven man in a plaid coat. Jon had a beard, dark hair, and was wearing atan coat that night. Of course, those discrepancies could just be attributed tothe long years that went by between the murder and the confession. As I said, Trevelll'smemory does seem fairly fuzzy.

The police are pretty sure that he is confessing to Jon'smurder, but at this moment, they decide not to tell him that Jon is dead. Theydon't let on that the shooting was fatal at all. They know it's the main thing Trevelllwants to find out, but they want more from him—more details on his motive, howhe pulled it off, everything. So, they tell him that if he gives a fullconfession, they'll tell him everything he wants to know.

This is when Trevelll lays out his side of the story. It'shard because you want to look at him and say, "No, don't do it," butalso, if he killed someone, he killed someone. This is why we can't killpeople. We started off this case with that question. As a society, we can'tkill people, and we can't make exceptions. We just can't do it.

Trevelll tells the police that when he was growing up, hislife was really tough. His mother was a single teen when he was born, and eventhough she eventually got married, Trevelll's childhood was anything butglamorous. He moved out of his mom's house so he could be raised by hisgrandmother in a low-income, crime-ridden part of Harlem. He did this in spiteof his mother's objections. She knew the neighborhood had a lot of violence anddrug use; she didn't want her son growing up around such bad influences. Butfor Trevelll's part, he knew even then that he loved rap music and wanted tobecome a rapper. He liked to book time in local recording studios to recordamateur tracks with his friends, and that cost money—money that he didn't have.

When Trevelll was a teenager, he started selling crack onstreet corners to help make ends meet. His whole life became about drug dealingand rapping, neither of which brought him a predictable, reliable outcome. Andhere's the thing: would we rather have someone sell drugs than kill? I get it,but murder is something else entirely. Those are two different things. Maybethat's contradicting, but it makes sense in my mind.

Well, he was also a teenager, so... yeah.

Eventually, Trevelll realized there were other ways to gethis hands on a lot of cash more quickly. He could go out late at night and justmug people. Trevelll was 18 years old when he came up with this idea, and his19th birthday was just one month away. He had never stolen from anyone before,but he was ready to give it a try. So, on the night of October 19, 1993, hewasn't actually setting out to hurt anyone. His plan was just to ride his bikearound until he saw someone who was alone. He'd pull a gun, get the cash, andthen ride off. But he wasn't prepared for Jon to fight back when he tried torob him, to go for the gun. So, Trevelll shot him on impulse and then ran awaybefore he could even check to see if Jon had survived.

This is getting tricky. As he was biking away, he saw a carpull up and knew the police would arrive soon. He could only hope they'd get tothe victim in time. This is what he tells police. By the next morning, Trevelllstill had no idea whether or not he was a murderer. Some police swept throughthe neighborhood, asking if anyone knew anything about a shooting, but itdidn't seem like they had any idea that Trevelll was involved. They were justasking everyone who lived near the crime scene. And, of course, Trevelll didn'tgive himself up. In fact, he felt a little better after the police stopped bybecause none of them had said the word "homicide." None of theirquestions gave any indication that the man he'd shot was dead. So, Trevellltold himself, "Okay, my conscience is clean. The guy survived." Hethought maybe he hadn't actually taken someone's life, just hurt someone whowould probably recover.

But no matter what he told himself, this feeling of guiltstayed with him. Trevelll couldn't stop thinking about that night. Even thoughhe was pretty confident that his target survived, he couldn't be sure. Heworried that he had blood on his hands and had no way of finding out if it wastrue. After all, he didn't even know his victim's name. Since this was 1993, hecouldn't just hop on social media to try to find out what was going on locally.He had no way of looking up what really happened, and that ate away at him.

He thought he'd feel better if he destroyed any evidenceconnecting him to the crime. So, about a week after the shooting, he took themurder weapon and put it in a plastic shopping bag. Then, he walked to the EastRiver, which ran just four blocks from his house. He tossed the gun in thewater, perhaps hoping the waves would swallow his guilt the same way theyswallowed the firearm. Needless to say, this didn't work, and he didn't feelany better afterward.

Over time, Trevelll began smoking something called dustblunts, which contained PCP mixed with cannabis. It was the only way for him tostop feeling anxious and guilty. Self-medicating came with its own set ofproblems. As Trevelll started to become a bigger name in the rap community, healso grew more and more dependent on drugs.

One night in 1998, a strange Bentley pulled over by a streetcorner where Trevelll was standing, and the driver addressed him by his rappername, G.Dep. The driver knew who Trevelll was and ordered him to get into thecar. Trevelll did, and that's how he learned who had sent the Bentley to pickhim up. He was on his way to meet with Diddy, or Puff Daddy as he was known atthe time, which, as we know now, was not necessarily a good person to bemeeting with. Diddy's label wanted to sign Trevelll and produce his firstalbum. Trevelll released his debut record three years later.

However, even this success couldn't help Trevelll feelbetter about himself. Neither could getting married, having children, or movingout of the neighborhood and getting a taste of the good life. In fact, itdidn't matter what he did; he could never move past that shooting. If he waswatching a movie or a TV show and there was a scene where someone fired a gun,he would immediately feel disturbed and unsettled. Every time he passed by thestretch of 114th Street, he'd have flashbacks of that night. Even though he hadmoved out of the neighborhood, something kept pulling him back to it.

So, he kept smoking PCP. By this point, he didn't evenbother mixing it with weed anymore. A lot of the time when Trevelll got high,he'd do it in an abandoned building on 114th Street, one that had windowsoverlooking the exact spot where he had shot Jon. It was just his way ofpunishing himself.

All of his self-medicating was starting to catch up withhim. Over the years, Trevelll was arrested more than 30 times. Most of thecharges were drug-related, and he was often busted in that abandoned building.

Do you know if any of the charges were more muggings bychance?

Some of them did include other crimes like jumping theturnstile at a subway station and loitering. Not really hurting anybody else,though. No, nothing violent. Going by his criminal record, he never committedanother violent crime. He never mugged someone or killed another person. But hewas still in a spiral that he couldn't pull himself out of.

So Trevelll lost his recording contract, he separated fromhis wife, and he had no income. Since he was blowing all of his money on PCP, Trevelllcouldn't afford to live in his new neighborhood anymore. He moved back toHarlem. In fact, Trevelll's new apartment was just one block away from thecorner where he had shot that man many years ago. Every single day he wouldwalk past it on his way to run errands or see the people he met up with. It waslike he was living in this crime.

By 2010, Trevelll was like, "I've had enough. I can'tkeep living this way." This is all according to him. So, he went to aone-month rehab program and realized that his addiction and his guilty feelingswere linked. He wouldn't be able to get clean until he came clean about what hehad done.

After Trevelll finished his program, he relapsed right awaybecause he couldn't bring himself to tell someone what he did. He felt trapped,believing that the drugs were the only thing keeping him okay. Not even thedoctors, counselors at the clinic, or the other people in recovery with himknew. He didn't tell anyone. Then, one night after using again, he decided hecouldn't live with this anymore. He marched down to the police station andtried to give a confession.

He went in high and insisted, "I have to confess tosomething," but the police didn't believe him. They thought he was justhaving a bad trip. They figured he was saying nonsense and insisted on leavinga phone number so he could give his statement once he sobered up. The policenever followed up; they didn't even give him a call.

Even after he failed to come clean, Trevelll became obsessedwith the idea that he had to make things right. He had to tell someone whathe'd done and face some kind of punishment. He started by telling his wife.Although they were separated, it took a couple of conversations for him to feelcomfortable enough to admit everything. This was the first time he said he shotsomeone, but he told her the guy lived. He was likely gauging her reaction.When his wife seemed okay with that version of the story, he told it again,this time admitting he didn't actually know what happened to the victim.

On it went like that until, finally, he told her the realstory. Shockingly, she told him, "Just let it go." She said thishappened so long ago, and he didn't even know if the person was hurt or killed.At this point, if the police weren't looking for him, maybe he should considerhimself lucky, take the second chance that fate had given him, and make what hecould of his life. His wife even suggested that if he was feeling that guilty,maybe he should go to a Catholic confession. Talking to a priest might make himfeel better. But in Trevelll's mind, that felt like cheating. He didn't want tojust get off easy or let it go. He had been trying for 17 years, and look whereit had gotten him.

On the night of December 15, 2010, he made himself apromise. He was going to go to the police one last time, and if they brushedhim off again, that would be a sign it was time for him to finally move on. Butinstead, Trevelll sat down, spilled his guts, and by the time he was donetalking, the police were taking everything Trevelll said very seriously.

It was only after Trevelll finished giving his testimonythat they revealed the sad truth to him: Jon Henkel did not survive thatshooting. Trevelll, at 18 years old, had become a murderer.

So from there, Trevell is charged with the homicide. He goesto trial, which is actually exactly what he wanted this entire time: to faceconsequences. But that doesn't mean he's willing to report directly to prisonwithout trying to defend himself. He still wants his day in court.

But Trevell wants to do things right away. It sounds likehe's really hoping that a jury will tell him he's suffered enough and he'sgoing to be okay to go live his life. So even though he's already given thepolice a full confession, Trevell pleads not guilty during his arraignment.

I've read conflicting reports about whether he was offered aplea deal and also about whether he even considered accepting one. And now,even though he's fighting the charges, Trevell is so cooperative through thewhole process that he's only charged with second-degree murder. Oh wow.

And in fairness, the shooting wasn't premeditated; it waslike a spur-of-the-moment thing. So it probably normally would have beensecond-degree murder. Even then, he wasn't trying to kill someone; he was justacting on impulse. And Trevell's whole defense is built around the idea thatmaybe it wasn't murder at all.

You remember that when he gave his confession, there weresome details that didn't match the police records. Trevell seemed to remember adifferent man. So his lawyers are like, "Hey, Trevell did shoot someonethat night, but maybe it wasn't this person and maybe it wasn't thatnight." They were like, "Maybe this person survived and it wasn'tJN." Yeah. Um, it is... I mean, it's a hard defense strategy becauseyou're saying, "My client did go out and mug someone and shootsomeone," but I mean, also considering the area you're in, I feel likeit's a decent defense strategy.

Well, he's found guilty. He's sentenced to 15 years inprison, which is the minimum sentence for second-degree murder. Which is kindof interesting because if he would have been sentenced when he was 18, he'd beout by now, right? Interestingly, once he's behind bars, Trevell's friends andfamily members say he makes a turnaround. Like, he turns into this happy,peaceful person in prison. Honestly, getting arrested and convicted... like,people are... his friends and family are like, it's the best thing that everhappened to him. Wow.

In fact, he tells his lawyer that going to prison probablysaved his life. And while he's incarcerated, he gets back into music again. Andjust one year into his sentence, he arranges to have a follow-up album releasedin 2011. Wow. And he sets up this album so all the profits go to Jon Henle'sfamily, the guy that he murdered. That's good. That's... does all this frombehind bars. And Trevell really does seem to be doing what he can to makethings right, or as close to right as he can, because there's no way for him toobviously bring Jon back.

Like, at the end of the day, he murdered somebody. Yeah.Yeah. But those warm fuzzy feelings didn't last for very long. It doesn't take Trevellmuch time at all to decide that actually, prison is kind of a terrible place.He doesn't want to stay there for 15 years. And in 2023, he appeals toManhattan's District Attorney for clemency. And surprisingly, the DA is on hisside.

It all comes down to the specific way that Trevell ended upbehind bars in the first place. He never needed to confess; he was in no dangerof getting caught. It was the fact that he went in and turned himself in thatwas a big point in his favor. And the District Attorney thinks it's a good signthat Trevell kind of had already reformed and has definitely now reformed inprison. Got it.

So basically what I said, that he's already served his timeto an extent? Yes. I guess. But the issue is, the question of clemency is notthe DA's call. So the DA writes a letter in support of Trevell, which is thenreviewed by a clemency board. Then New York's Governor has to make the ultimatedecision. It's a very long, slow process. But after another year, Trevell getshis wish: the Governor approves his early release. Oh, okay.

And of course, the word "early" here is a littlemisleading because Trevell served 13 of his 15 years. It's not like he stillserved 13 years. Yes, it's not like he got... he skipped this huge chunk. Butagain, he murdered somebody. Again, he killed someone. And he's able to liveoutside of prison. I mean, 15 years for taking someone's life. Yeah, I mean,like willingly taking someone's life. It's not like he, you know, accidentallyhit someone with his car.

Yeah, either way, just this past April on the 4th, Trevellwas released from prison, a free man. The first thing he did once he got outwas have breakfast with his family at IHOP. And he was finally free. Not fromprison, but obviously from the guilt of carrying around the secret.

Now of course, Trevell isn't the only person who's importantin this story, and I think it's important for me to point this out. As it turnsout, Jon Hle had a family. This included his siblings, his step-siblings, andthey were by and large unhappy with almost every development in this narrative,starting with Trevell's confession.

One of Jon's stepbrothers told a reporter, "It wasyears and years and years ago, and finally, we're not always thinking about it,and now it finally has to be dug up all over again." His family literallysays, "After all this time, we feel like Trevell should have just shut up.Like, why did he open this up and give us this pain?"

And that's why it's so hard with these, because there aretwo sides, right? So when we talk about change and everything, I mean, there'sthis... there's two sides to everything. And I'm sure in their minds, they'rethinking, as weird as it is, it was selfish of you to go try to find peaceafter we're left with this for the rest of our lives.

And now we're hurting, and now we're re-ting it's... it'sexactly the thing. The idea being that it's well and good for Trevell to findpeace and personal growth, but it shouldn't come at the expense of other peoplewho are hurting. He confessed and he unburdened his conscience, but when he didthat, he ripped a Band-Aid off for people who loved JN and had tried to moveon.

Which is why, just as again, as a society, we don't murderpeople. We don't kill people. There's so much more to killing someone than justkilling someone. There's family involved, friends, so much around it. Andneedless to say, they were also unhappy to see that Trevell got clemency. Infact, Jon's family gave statements to the police saying it wasn't fair for Trevell'ssentence to even be so short in the first place.

They objected to his clemency application. Jon's brotheractually gave an interview where he said, "It is one thing to seekclemency for drugs; it's another to seek clemency for murder." Yeah, itmust have been tough for the whole family to see this man confess, reopen oldwounds, claim he wanted to turn himself in and do his time, and then not evenfinish his sentence. They went through the ringer so many times while theytried to process their loss and grief.

Interestingly, there's one other person who has been veryoutspoken and opposed to how everything went down, and that was Trevell's wife.You'll remember that when he first confessed the crime to her, she told him tojust let it go, not go to the police. And she's been very consistent on thisstance.

While Trevell was in prison, she had to raise her childrenon her own; their dad was now gone. There was no help from him, and she'dcomplain to him repeatedly that by going and trying to take this guilt offhimself, he let his family down. She's like, "You now left your kidswithout a father for me to raise on my own just so that you could find somepeace for something that no one was even asking you about."

Yeah, I mean, look, I'm understanding all these. I get it.Every side, it's... it's hard. Yeah, every side.

So I'm going to end this episode by going back to thequestion that opened it: How can you tell if someone has really changed?

But rather than try and answer it, I'm going to throwanother question out here: Does it matter if the person has changed if theirpath to growth and self-improvement means harming their victims again andagain? That's also worth thinking about too.

The question of what's fair and what's just is verycomplicated. Even seemingly heartwarming stories like Trevell's, where it'slike, "Dude, this guy turned his life around. He went in, he confessed forsomething he did when he was stupid and 18 years old, just trying to makemoney." But then there's the other side of it, like, "You tooksomeone's life, and that family is now rewounded by you coming in and doingthis, and was wounded the first time around when they didn't haveanswers."

And like, this is why Garrett's answering the question bysaying, "Just stop murdering people." Yeah, yeah. What are yourthoughts?

First of all, horrible that someone is killed. Anytimesomeone is killed, our thoughts and prayers and hearts and everything goes outto the family, because no one deserves to die. Like, that is the bottom line ofevery single case we do, no matter what's surrounding it. Nobody deserves todie. If we're talking about reformation, I think people like Trevell are theperfect example of someone who can be reformed.

Yeah, I think someone whose life situations were againstthem, yeah, um, they ran with the wrong crowd, they literally would have had towork a hundred times harder than the rest of us to dig themselves out of theirlife situation. Yeah.

And then they do something stupid at that young age, but asthey get older, they, you know, try to change and they do dig themselves out. Ido think those people can be reformed, but it also doesn't take away the factthat, like, you murdered somebody. Yeah. I don't think just because someone canbe reformed, it doesn't take away the pain that they've caused.

And this is what's so hard, right? Because what's fair?What's fair? What's fair? And you hear about this all the time, you know,people who suffer just because someone can be changed and reformed, should theybe let out of prison? Should they be allowed to enjoy their life because theytook somebody else's life, right? Like, what's fair?

And like, I think, hard. I think Jon's family had a goodpoint about, like, it's one thing to ask for clemency for a drug charge,"Oh, I was... I was back then, you know, I've changed. I robbed a bank, Irobbed some stores, but I never killed anybody." Yes. Like, I think, okay,well, that I can understand being like, "There's a difference. There's adifference. I have reformed. I have been changed. I'm a different person, and Iwould like a chance at life."

But it's really hard to look your victim's family in theface and say, "I would like a chance at life when your family member isdead because of me." And I think you're right. I think that is a perfectexample of who can be reformed. But I would dare say that's earlier when I wastalking about it, I said 98% or whatever. I would say it's less than 5% ofpeople that are actually like that. You don't hear that very often. And maybebecause we just don't hear enough of it. Maybe there are more cases.

But I think the amount of people that can actually bereformed is very, very low. Um, maybe there's more statistics and stats outthere about it that I'm not aware of. I think I just... gosh, I'm... I'm... Idon't know. I just don't know. If we're talking from like a serial killerstandpoint or someone who kills their family or like all... a lot of the caseswe've done, I am 0% chance they can be reformed. Like, zero.

When we're talking about cases like this, gang violence insituational inner city, I do think there is a higher percentage of people thatcan be reformed. Because they started, yeah, they started on unfair, theystarted in a completely different life than I have ever lived, than anyone hasever lived. Does it make it okay? No, it never will. But we're just talkingfrom a straight reform stance. I do think a certain percentage of them can. Idon't know what that percentage is, but I think it's possible.

Yeah, I think any minority or someone who grew up in a verytough situation, a very tough... you don't know any different, right? It's notthat they... I mean, they obviously know between right and yes, you do know thedifference between right and wrong. But when part of the way you're survivingday-to-day is by joining in with people or hanging out with people who are doingbad things, oh, it's such a hard... it's just hard. It's so hard. I also don'thave the knowledge to speak on it 100%, but those are my thoughts. That's myopinion. That's kind of where I stand.

Yeah, and I don't think, like I said, I feel like... don'tkill people. Yeah, don't kill people. We would not be in this situation and wewouldn't have this problem if people just wouldn't kill people, right? Don'tkill people. Everyone knows right from wrong about killing. Yeah, if you killsomeone, you deserve to be punished. And that's that. Don't kill people.

Right. And we have to trust that this all came from Trevell'smouth, so we have to trust that he's telling the truth about this. It ate himup for years. Also, we don't know if he actually went to go grab the gun. Wedon't know any of this. Right? It came from his mouth. We have no idea, right?

Yeah. All right, you guys, that was our episode this week,and I know it was a little bit of a different case. I know that we kind oftalked more about the psychological side, and I hope you guys enjoyed that deepdive. Um, but yeah, we will see you next time with another episode. I love it.

I hate it.

Goodbye.

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