At 8:40 a.m. on July 7th, 1967, a 17-year-old girl named Nancy Mchuan was driving along a highway in Brooklyn, New York. She was on her way to her job as a secretary at her dad’s office in Brooklyn, and she was coming from her home in Long Island, New York. Now, the commute to her office took about an hour, but Nancy didn’t mind because her dad had just got her this beautiful brand new yellow Camaro, and she loved driving it. And the highway she was on had this amazing view of the beach and ocean down below. And so that day, Nancy rolled down her window so she could feel the ocean breeze as she drove. And then she took in a deep breath and she smiled. At the same time Nancy was doing this, a police lieutenant was driving in his car a couple cars back from Nancy. And as he was just driving along, he suddenly sees this yellow Camaro that to this point had been driving completely normally suddenly veer off the road, miraculously missed the oncoming cars, and then smashed into a tree on the side of the road. And so the police lieutenant instinctively jammed on his brakes and veered over to the shoulder and stopped behind the Camaro. And as the lieutenant got out of the car, he was thinking clearly the driver must have just had some kind of medical emergency because he didn’t see any obstacles in the road. And you know, the car, the Camaro had been driving completely normally to that point. So, like, what would cause them to veer and crash into the road at such a high speed other than a medical emergency? And so, the lieutenant jumps out of the car, runs over to the driver’s side window, and he looks inside, and he sees this teenage girl, this blonde teenage girl, and she’s slumped over the wheel. And she’s not looking up at him. She’s not making any sound. She’s just sitting there. And so, he opens up the door, and he asks her like, “Are you okay?” And she didn’t say anything, but she did moan. And so she was breathing, she was alive, and there weren’t any obvious physical injuries. Like clearly she’s just crashed into this tree at high speed. So she’s definitely shaken up, but there weren’t any obvious grievous injuries that have occurred here. At least none that he could see. And so he asked her again like, “Hey, are you okay? What’s going on here?” And she just continued to moan. And so again, considering he’s looking at her and she seems, you know, basically okay all things considered, he thought, you know, maybe she’s drunk. I mean, that would kind of explain, you know, the sudden veering off the road. And so, at this point, the lieutenant radioed for backup and also called for an ambulance. And while he waited, he began searching the car, just basically looking to see if maybe there was some clue in the car as to what happened here, like for example, containers of alcohol. And so, he’s looking around and he doesn’t see any empty bottles. And he can’t smell any alcohol in the car. But still, this whole time, the girl is not responding. She’s just moaning and just kind of slumped over there. And then a couple of minutes later, he hears sirens and he looks up and a bunch of first responders came over. They pulled the girl out of the car, got her in the ambulance, and off to the hospital she went. Once Nancy got to the hospital, medical staff was able to determine that she was not drunk, but she did clearly appear to be having some kind of medical emergency, but they didn’t know what it was. And again, there was no visible injuries on her. I mean, she just basically looked really shaken up and was nonresponsive. And quickly after Nancy was at the hospital, her condition only got worse. To the point where doctors were giving her shots of adrenaline to try to keep her alive, but it didn’t work. And at 11:30 a.m., roughly 2 and 1/2 hours after Nancy crashed into the tree, she died. And it was only then after Nancy was dead, that the medical staff made a discovery. Something they had totally missed when Nancy had first came in. And that was on the back of her head, hidden amongst her hair, was a small circular hole. It was a bullet wound. And for some reason, it didn’t bleed at all. Clearly, Nancy did not just randomly veer off the road and smash into a tree. No, she had been shot. About 30 minutes after this discovery was made, a detective named Albert Seedman was standing next to NY’s crashed car on the side of the highway. Seedman had a reputation as being this totally non-nonsense detective who effectively would stop at nothing to try to solve a case. By this point, he’d already spoken to NY’s parents who obviously were devastated and very confused by their daughter’s death. They said that, you know, Nancy never got in trouble and certainly didn’t have any enemies. And so, it made no sense that somebody had just shot her as she was driving. And Detective Seedman had to agree this was not an average murder case. But regardless, he knew the best place to start this investigation was NY’s car. The car was actually in pretty good shape. I mean, despite striking this tree at high speeds, you know, the body of the car basically remained intact. And so Seban began going inside the car and looking all around it, you know, looking for bullet holes to see where this bullet came in and struck the driver. But he found none. Really, there was nothing in the car that gave any information away about what actually happened here. Also adding to the mystery here is Seedman knew there had been that police lieutenant who just happened to be driving a few cars back from Nancy when she suddenly veered off the road and crashed. And he would say that he did not hear any gunshots. Although admittedly he wasn’t really listening for gunshots, but he said everything was normal and then the car just veered and crashed. He couldn’t understand it. Detective Seedman had briefly considered that, you know, maybe Nancy had been shot by somebody inside of her car, but because of the presence of that lieutenant who immediately was on the scene and was basically looking at the car from the time it crashed all the way until the ambulance arrived, he said there was nobody else in the car and I did not witness anybody fleeing the scene. The whole situation was very bizarre. But Detective Seedman, thinking logically, thought, okay, well, you know, we know she’s been shot. So even though nobody knows how that happened, well, there has to be a shell casing somewhere for the round that struck her. And so for the rest of the day, Seedman and his team canvased that whole highway all around that area looking for a shell casing or really any clue that a gun had been fired in the vicinity, but they found nothing. By the end of the day, Detective Seedman was beginning to feel pretty disappointed about how the investigation was going so far. But he thought to himself, “Okay, well, I know I haven’t found anything promising yet, but remember, she was shot not in some secluded area. She was shot on a major highway in Brooklyn, New York, a city of over 2 and a half million people. I mean, someone somewhere must have seen or heard something.” And so, instead of continuing to look for a shell casing, Seedman abandoned that idea and decided to go find witnesses. Over the next five days, Detective Seedman and his team scoured Brooklyn and interviewed hundreds and hundreds of people looking for anybody who had any information about this shooting. They also put out a public plea for information and were fielding tips that way. But at the end of those 5 days, despite the huge number of interviews, they really hadn’t gotten anywhere. As Seedman began to feel his frustration rising because once again it just felt like they were hitting another dead end on this case. He told himself like they must have missed something. They’ve talked to a ton of people, but maybe they were too quick. Maybe they weren’t asking the right questions. And so on July 12th, he gathered up his team and he circled some spots on a map of Brooklyn and said, “Look guys, we’re going to go back to these key areas that are sort of positioned in the best angles to have maybe heard or seen something with this shooting, and we’re going to ask some more questions and just see if maybe these people have something we didn’t catch.” In one of those circled areas, the police discovered a gas station that was owned by a guy named Theodore Dei, and it was located only two blocks away from where Nancy had been shot. And on the morning of July 12th, when the police officers rolled up to this gas station, Theodore was working and he saw the police coming towards him and right away he knew this had to be about Nancy Mchuan. So Theodore had been following this case really closely as it was developing for two reasons. One, Nancy had been shot really close to his gas station, so there’s that proximity bias. And two, Theodore was actually friends with NY’s father and had known Nancy growing up. And so this case really hit close to home. When the police walked inside the gas station, Theodore immediately asked them, “Are you here about Nancy?” And they would say yes. And that’s when he would tell them his connection to Nancy and how he was following this case really closely. But despite his proximity to where she had been shot, he said unfortunately he hadn’t seen or heard anything. But then Theodore quickly followed that up and said that well you know while he had been at the gas station in the morning for a little bit he did take off at some point to go fishing out on the water in his boat which was not too far away. But even from there too he still said he didn’t hear or see anything but it was kind of noisy out on the water anyways. So you know he really wouldn’t have heard anything out there anyhow. The police nodded and asked some simple follow-up questions to Theodore about you know still you know take us through what happened that morning. What’ you see? Were there other fishermen out there? you know, when you were at the gas station, did you see anything unusual? Just kind of seeing if there was anything that would jog his memory. And Theodore was answering every question as truthfully as he could. And at some point, he began to think really hard about what he actually saw when he was out on the water fishing. And suddenly, it all clicked. Theodore knew who killed Nancy. It would turn out at 8:40 a.m. on July 7th, the exact moment Nancy was shot, veered off the road, and crashed, Theodore was in fact out in his boat fishing. Except at 8:40 a.m., he wasn’t actually fishing. Instead, he had a can and he threw that can into the water. And once he saw the can, he kind of kept staring at it. And then he raised his rifle and he fired a shot at the can, but he missed. And the bullet, by some fluke of physics, ricocheted off the surface of the water, went up into the highway right as Nancy had rolled her window down, struck her in the head, and killed her. Theodore knew he had been shooting his gun out on the water, but what he saw was the bullet hit the water. He didn’t think for a second he could have fired up towards the highway. It was when police began asking questions that he thought, “Oh my goodness, it is possible a ricochet could have struck her in the head.” Theodore was charged with homicide, but ultimately a grand jury chose not to indict him, citing that this truly was an accident. Theodore did not serve any jail time, but he was fined $100 for firing a rifle within city limits. Hey guys, did you know you can get your strange, dark, and mysterious fix anytime, anywhere with the Mr. Ball podcast on Amazon Music? Well, you can. There are tons of stories waiting to be binged right now. Plus, there are exclusive stories on there that have never been shared on this YouTube channel. Amazon Music listeners get to listen to new episodes an entire month before everybody else. You can also listen to my other show, Mr. Volins Medical Mysteries 2 weeks early and totally adree on Amazon Music. If you’re already a Prime member, well, you already have access to those two shows plus hundreds of other top podcasts adree all at no extra cost. That’s right. Your Prime membership includes Amazon Music absolutely free. So, if you’re ready to dive deeper into strange, dark, and mysterious stories, well, go download the Amazon Music app today and listen to the Mr. Ballin podcast and also Mr. Ballins medical mysteries. Now back to today’s [Music] stories. On the evening of September 17th, 2021, a 42-year-old preacher named Jason Thornberg was cleaning up his motel room in Ulis, Texas, which is a small city between Dallas and Fort Worth. Jason was going to be hosting a small Bible study group in his motel room in a few minutes. And even though really it was not that dirty, he was really taking time to ensure it was as clean and inviting as he could possibly make it. So, normally Jason would host these Bible study groups at his house, but unfortunately Jason’s house burned down just that past summer and he lost everything. But Jason was so committed to God and spreading the word of God that he still wanted to continue having these Bible study groups, even if it meant, you know, doing it in this kind of crummy motel room. And so Jason walked around the room picking up laundry and straightening up his bed. And then after kind of arranging chairs in a circle for the various participants he was expecting, he went over to a cabinet, pulled out some Bibles, and right as he was about to start placing these Bibles on each chair, he heard a knock at the door. And Jason was really excited because he knew that had to be someone who was here for this Bible study. And so he walked right over, Bibles in hand, to the door. He opened it up and standing outside the door was this big guy covered in tattoos kind of looking down at Jason and Jason broke into a big smile. He was so happy to see this guy. The man’s name was David Lewis and Jason had previously met him when he was out on the street doing outreach for his church and he had invited David to, you know, anytime he wanted to come by the motel and be a part of this Bible study group. Now, Jason knew that David was really not the kind of guy who went to church or really showed any real interest in God or, you know, the Bible. But, you know, Jason took all kinds and he was just hopeful that maybe David would show up someday. And now, here David was. However, David told Jason that the reason he was here was actually not for the Bible study group. He was here because he was in the middle of a crisis and he didn’t know where else to turn. He confessed to Jason that he had begun using drugs and gotten mixed up in some criminal activity and you know there’s some dangerous people out there that he was sort of running with and now his concern was some of those dangerous people were coming to get him and so he literally felt like his life was in danger. Now when Jason heard this he was surprised but at the same time you know he could tell that David was being very authentic and just needed help. And Jason felt like you know his job ultimately was to serve God and all of God’s people. And David was one of those people and he was in need of help. And so if all Jason did was simply provide a safe haven for David inside of this motel room, then that was serving God and it was the right thing to do. And so Jason immediately said, “No problem, David.” He handed him a Bible and said, “Come on in.” David took the Bible awkwardly and just kind of stood there for a moment, not really sure what to do. But then Jason said, “Hey, relax. Just come inside. Take a seat.” And so David did. He walked in. He sat down with the Bible. And then Jason actually came over and sat down next to him and the two of them for about 15 minutes just made kind of awkward small talk. Jason could tell, you know, David is completely on edge. He was staring at the door which was now closed and he just clearly was very anxious and paranoid. And so Jason really wasn’t talking about the Bible or God or anything. He was just, you know, trying to calm David down and show him that this was a safe place. And then after about 15 minutes of this, when David had somewhat calmed down, and also by this point, nobody else had showed up for this Bible study group, Jason decided, okay, you know what? Maybe I’ll just begin the Bible study with David. It kind of gives us something to do. And so Jason got up. He locked the door, you know, showing David that it’s just going to be them. It’s safe here. And he told David to go ahead and open his Bible to a certain page. And then the two of them just began reading the Bible together. And for hours, they just sat there reading the Bible. And Jason spoke to David about, you know, teachings of God and how to lead your life in a way to serve other people. And, you know, for the most part, David did completely calm down and seemed to really be embracing this Bible study. But eventually, despite how well this Bible study was going, it did need to come to an end at some point, at least in Jason’s mind. And when he began to notice it was getting dark outside, he sort of began wrapping it up. And he shut his Bible and sort of expected that David would take a hint and leave. But David didn’t. Instead, when David began to realize that, hey, this is over now, and it’s time for you to go, David looked at Jason and begged him to please let him stay in this room overnight, that he can’t go out there. It’s not safe for him. Now, Jason knew he did have some level of responsibility for David. I mean, David had told him he was in danger. He had already invited him inside and was basically providing safe haven for him. And it did feel kind of wrong to be like, “Now go back out there.” But at the same time, Jason felt a little uneasy. I mean, he didn’t really know David. He didn’t really understand the situation. And so there was some hesitation at first, but after looking again at David and seeing how desperate he was to just please stay here overnight, Jason said, “Okay, you can stay.” So Jason grabbed some extra blankets and pillows and created a makeshift bed on the floor. And then after that, the two of them actually reopened their Bibles and just began reading some more from the Bible for a couple more hours. was basically a another round of Bible study. But eventually they both were very tired. So they put their Bibles down. They said good night. They each climbed into their beds and they closed their eyes and fell asleep. For the next 5 days, Jason’s motel room remained mostly closed. And the only thing anybody heard coming from his room was gospel music, and it was being played at a very high volume basically the entire time to the point where other residents of this motel began to complain about how loud the music was. However, the owner of the motel was getting these complaints from residents who were only there for, you know, hours at a time or days at a time. And, you know, the room they’re complaining about, Jason’s room, he was a long-term resident and so had a sort of higher priority with the owner. And so, the owner just didn’t feel like bothering Jason. He wanted him to stay and keep paying for that room. And so, the owner didn’t do anything about the noise complaints. And also, the owner did know that his motel had sort of a seedy reputation. And so, generally speaking, he didn’t really care too much about the music to begin with. And so over the course of these 5 days, the music kept on blasting and really the only other thing of note again that happened in this period of time was that these two other people entered Jason’s motel room and didn’t leave either. So basically there’s four people in the room. They haven’t come out again. Super loud music. That’s all going on for 5 days. And then on the fifth day, the morning of September 22nd, a single person walked out of Jason’s motel room, and they were wearing a full body hazmat suit and carrying some sort of luggage, and they would leave the motel, get in a car, and drive away. 45 minutes later, about 25 mi away from that motel, the Fort Worth Fire Department got a call about this raging dumpster fire in a residential neighborhood. Firefighters quickly got to the scene and put out the blaze. And after it was gone, they walked up to the smoky dumpster and looked inside just to get a look at what was burning. And what they saw caused them all to back up and call the police. It would turn out David was right when he said he was in danger. However, what he didn’t understand is hiding out in Jason’s motel room was not going to protect him from that danger. Shortly after, he and Jason wrapped up that second Bible study that night and the two of them climbed into their respective beds. Jason in his actual bed and David in the makeshift bed on the floor. Well, David did fall asleep pretty quickly, but Jason didn’t. Jason waited until David was asleep. And then Jason got up, got a knife, and then slit David’s throat. Then he cut David’s heart out and ate it because Jason the preacher really actually believed that human sacrifice was the best and purest way to serve God. Over the course of the next 5 days after killing David, Jason would remain in his motel room blasting gospel music. And over those 5 days, he would basically lure those two women into his room, very likely on the promise of Bible study. But they too would be sacrificed. And then on the fifth day, the person who exited the motel room in the full hazmat suit was Jason. And that luggage he was carrying with him contained the body parts of the three people he had just killed. And he brought those body parts to that dumpster in that residential neighborhood and lit them on fire. And so when the firefighters put out the fire, what they saw inside were burned up bodies. Jason was arrested and while he was awaiting trial, he confessed that David and the two women were not actually his first victims. He said that just a few years earlier, he had sacrificed his girlfriend. And that house fire that destroyed all of his belongings and prompted him to go live in this motel was set by Jason himself because he had sacrificed his roommate and needed to get rid of the evidence. Ultimately, law enforcement was only able to show that Jason killed those five people. But there could have been more. Jason was found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to death. He is currently on death row in Texas. [Music] On the evening of Thursday, May 21st, 2015, a 16-year-old girl named Lily walked into the home gym inside of her house in Hong Kong looking to do a workout. Now, she sort of expected the gym would be empty and she could kind of have the run of the place, but as soon as she walked in, she saw her dad was in there and he was doing some sort of cool down exercise on a yoga ball. So, Lily’s dad, whose name was Kaw Kim’s son, was a doctor and a professional. And normally at this time of the day, she would never see him in the gym. He was typically locked upstairs in his study or, you know, upstairs doing work or something or he was just gone for the day. So, for him to be here, it just didn’t really line up with his schedule. And so Lily asked her dad like, “What are you doing here? What’s going on?” And her dad would tell her, “Well, actually, you know, work at the hospital was really slow today, so I took off. I played some tennis with friends and now I’m just doing some cool down exercises cuz I got nothing else to do, but I’ll be out of your hair in a second.” And sure enough, a couple minutes later, her dad was up and out of the gym, and Lily just began her workout. The next day, May 22nd, around 1:00, Lily was at home at her dining room table, sitting across from her mother, whose name was Wong Su Fing. and Lily was eating a snack and staring at an open textbook. Now, normally at 1:00 on a Friday, Lily would be at school, but she had had the day off that day. And she had wanted to spend her day off seeing friends and just being a teenager, but her dad was really focused on her being successful academically. And he told her that absolutely not. You’re not going anywhere. You are going to stay home and you are going to study all day long. You will not leave the house. That’s what you’re doing. So Lily just continued to stare at the textbook and basically do what her father said. And then a couple of minutes later, she actually heard her dad coming down the stairs and he came into the dining room and he was clearly very pleased to see his daughter doing her work or at least appearing to do her work. And he came over to her, gave her a kiss. He kissed their mother and then he said he was off to work. And then he went out the door and he was gone. And as soon as call was gone, Lily’s mom looked over at her and said, “I’m not going to make you study all day. Come on, let’s go out and have a motherdaughter shopping day. And Lily was stoked. She shut her textbook. She went and got ready. And then a minute later, she and her mom climbed into her mom’s yellow Mini Cooper car and they headed out. About 2 hours later, around 4:15 p.m., a local jogger was running in the same neighborhood as where Lily and her family lived. And as they were running down the road, they noticed there was this yellow Mini Cooper car sitting on the side of the road, not moving, but it was still on. It was just sort of idling right there. And at first glance, it appeared there were people inside the car, but they weren’t doing anything. They were just sitting there, not moving. And so the jogger was curious. And so they ran past and made a point to look inside the car. And they saw two women in the front two seats of this car slumped over. The two women were Lily and her mother. And so the jogger began to panic and banged on the glass to try to get the women to respond, but they didn’t. And so a minute later, police were called. They dragged Lily and her mother out of the car. They were totally unresponsive. They were rushed to the hospital, but it was too late. They both died. The police would begin their investigation into their deaths by searching the yellow Mini Cooper car. And when they searched it, there really was nothing of note inside of it. I mean, the two women’s purses were in the front of the car. There was some basic exercise equipment in the trunk, but the car was pristine, clean, not cluttered. I mean, there really was nothing in the car that gave away what could have happened to these two women. For the next six months, the police tirelessly looked for some lead as to what happened to this mother and daughter. They would interview all their friends and family. They would search their house top to bottom. They would basically take apart this Mini Cooper and look for, you know, defects or flaws that maybe could have contributed to their death. I mean, they were looking everywhere, but it just didn’t make sense. Nobody had any idea what happened to these two women. And so right as this case appeared like it was about to go cold, the detectives decided to just go back to the Mini Cooper and see if maybe, just maybe, they missed something. And sure enough, they had. It would turn out on May 22nd, 2015, the day that Lily and her mother died, Lily’s father had told Lily to stay home and study, not because he cared about her academics. I mean, he did, but that day, the reason for this was not for that. Instead, he wanted her to stay home all day to protect her. When police originally searched Lily’s mom’s car, they found the two women’s purses and also some basic exercise equipment in the trunk, specifically a deflated yoga ball. And at the time, the police didn’t think anything of these items. They looked into them. They considered them, but they didn’t seem to have any bearing on what happened to the women. However, it would turn out the yoga ball did have something to do with it. Specifically, 2 days before the women were found dead, that yoga ball was inside of Lily’s home. It was in her home gym. In fact, when she walked into the home gym and saw her dad doing cool down exercises and thought it was strange he was home right now, he was using that yoga ball. And Lily didn’t think anything of it. But in reality, what her father was doing was not cool down exercises. He had not just come home early and, you know, had played tennis and this and that. In reality, he had taken that yoga ball to the hospital where he worked and filled it with carbon monoxide, an odorless, colorless, poisonous gas. And his plan was to put the yoga ball in his wife’s car, unplug it, and now it’s sealed, and the gas is going to leak inside the car. And then when his wife got in the car and shut the door, she would effectively suffocate and die. He didn’t try to kill his daughter, though. He wanted her to stay home and study, i.e., don’t go with your mom and get in the car. But the mother defied the father, brought the daughter along, and then after driving for only a mile, the two women collapsed and died. Kakim’s son was arrested and charged with two counts of murder. He was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. He has never explained his