00:18 hello folks this episode is a bit longer than usual it's about emotional and a bit personal involving the murder of two high school friends of mine I hope you'll listen it could save your life most of us have heard the story a 38-year-old mentally ill man named Shannon Cortez Gooden who barricaded himself inside a home with seven children between the ages of 2 and 15 murdered two police officers Paul Rouge and paramedic Adam fth of course this is tragic but what it really is tragic in my opinion is I believe it could have

01:14 been prevented if you're anything like me the number one feeling that I'm experiencing is hopelessness that's what this makes me feel like hopeless because that's what this kind of irrationality does to me every time something is utterly senseless as this happens I'm also fearful fear being a very big one but mainly just hopelessness because at least on the surface anyway at least according to the report there was absolutely no way anyone could have seen this coming but after I took some time from my own

02:03 painful personal memories I began to reassert my realist perspective and the Mystery becomes far less a mystery than my emotions originally were having me believe the fact is Mr Gooden had a long history of verbal and physical altercations with others and although he was able to maintain Ain employment for a number of years his overall track record was one of emotional instability and emotional instability especially when it involves violence is a very good reliable predictor of future violence the level of which can be very

02:55 unpredictable I am not the powers of the be but if I were Not only would Mr Gooden's right to possess Firearms have been taken away from him but he would have been in a mental facility as long as necessary not freely walking the streets an unseen ticking Time Bomb needing only a trigger to explode you might notice that whenever I have an episode about a subject such as this something dealing with the often terrible outcomes of unmanaged mental illness I have a tendency to become very prescriptive and the reason for that is

03:41 that unfortunately I have had very terrible experiences in my life due to me or others I knew not paying attention to the warning signs of serious mental illness until it was too late so allow me to tell you about one of them a story from my personal life names will be changed when I was in high school I was a pretty straight kid I'm not going to say I Was A Boy Scout by any means like most of the guys my age I like to party and so did the girls which was the whole point of the party having a good time and you might even get lucky get

04:31 laid this was before they had apps of course or even cell phones but real actual physical contact I had some truly wonderful and Blissful experiences but what I'm about to tell you was definitely not one of them so there was this guy named Randy a jock on the football team but of course very popular with the girls and of course like many jocks he was an [ __ ] especially if you weren't a jock but there was something about Randy that set him apart from the rest of the jocks and he was really moody and

05:16 unpredictable and he was abnormally cruel whenever the mood hit him and he had several run-ins with the law nothing too serious but what I now recognize as an adult as antisocial personality traits of course none of us knew those terms in those days we just thought he was an aggressive jock [ __ ] so I guess we just Shrugged it off that he was just being a jock [ __ ] so he kind of flew into the radar besides he had parties and he had chicks and for most guys that was enough myself included but still I made a

06:05 mental note to always sleep with one eye open around that guy so he was going to have a party his parents would be out of town for a couple of days and it was pretty much the usual thing I came with my friend named James who was driving I didn't have my driver's license yet and two other friends Dave and Melody I have never gotten to that night and never gotten I have never forgotten that night not only did James decision possibly save his life but possibly mine as well which I'll get to shortly so the four of us get to the

06:54 party and it ended up being around I don't know 12 15 people there I think and the first couple hours went fine then Randy started getting really strange and aggressive this is above and beyond a young guy getting shitfaced and belligerent he was really strange and he got strange with yours truly so the idea was one person was supposed to remain sober in order to be a designated driver or get more beer if necessary and that was James who I came with unfortunately that [ __ ] went out the window and James started a drink but

07:40 fortunately he wasn't exactly a party animal so he hadn't drank that much so as time wore on Randy just kept getting crazier and crazier and really aggressive and I had a really bad feeling so I said to James look man ry's getting really crazy he's really being an [ __ ] man and I just want to get out of here can we get out of here man I really just want to get the hell out of here fortunately he said yeah I'm really sick of this [ __ ] too let's get out of here I can't tell you how relieved I

08:25 felt besides which several other people had already left and I'm pretty sure it was for the same reason I told James that I was going to try to grab Dave and Melody they were probably tired of his [ __ ] to let me try to grab them and well leave together so I went into the other room where Dave and melody was I told them I was leaving and practically beg them to leave with me but Dave laughed it off and said said he was going to stay and of course melody was with him bear in mind there was a loud party going on there were still several people

09:11 there and just that very moment Randy comes into the room and wanted to know why we're partying I said hey it's been good Randy but I got to go he was pissed and he was a really big guy he grabbed me and threw me up against the wall clenching me tight by the front of my shirt near my neck and he said really what do you got to go do [ __ ] go home and jack off to gay porn I should throw your [ __ ] ass out the window then Melody stepped in and berated Randy she said hey leave him alone Ernest is cool leave him the [ __ ]

09:58 alone then Randy instantly played it off and he let me go and fixed my shirt and padded me on the cheek and he said to her hey don't worry Ernest is cool I was just [ __ ] with him a little bit you're still a [ __ ] for leaving the party Earnest hahaa then Randy left the room and uh I kind of a little bit frantically said uh hey did you see that did you see what the [ __ ] he just did are you guys do you want to leave they both just brushed it off as Randy being Randy that ended up being the worst decision they ever made in their

10:47 lives well needless to say I got the hell out of there and that it's what I told James I said let's get the hell out of here he asked me about Dave and Melody and I said something that to this day I feel terrible about I said [ __ ] them they want to stay with the [ __ ] so the next day I got a call from James I think it was about noon I was still asleeping the party off and we started bullshitting a bit about the party and I had asked him if he'd heard from Dave or Melody he said he hadn't which wasn't that big of a surprise

11:28 because most of the time people just crashed really hard from partying and weren't getting up until you know noon or later just like me and James so I said hey man why don't you cruise over to ry's and check on Dave and Melody there probably need a ride home so he said okay and that was that remember this was pre cell phone or even internet days so James calls me back and said he went over there and the door was locked but the stereo was still on really low but he went around the side window and could

12:10 see Randy laying on the couch and looked like he was passed out and he went to the bedroom window and he could just make out Dave and Melody laying on the bed but no matter how much he tapped on the window they didn't respond so like an hour or so passed and Melody's mom called James because she knew that Melody and Dave were riding with James and she demanded that James go get her and bring her home immediately he said her mom sounded really pissed so James went back and everything was just as it was before he said he really beat on the

12:56 glass on the bedroom window where worried that he might break it but still no response so he told Melody's mom and her mom called the police the police eventually broke in the front door and that woke up Randy and when they went to the bedroom where Dave and Melody were they were both very dead long story short Randy had killed them both with a kitchen knife he later said said he became very pissed when Melody refused his sexual advances and when Dave tried to defend her he killed him first he then proceeded to rape

13:42 Melody then decided to kill her as well he stabbed each one of them like 30 or 40 times he's still in prison today this is one of the most traumatic experiences in my life and I still deep ly Miss Dave and Melody I know the story was a bit longer than I typically do but the whole point of my personal and very traumatizing story is my feeling that so much of this kind of Senseless violence and killing maybe not all of it but a hell of a lot of it could really be avoided if we paid closer attention to people with

14:27 emotional disregulation and had properly funded Mental Health Systems in place to get and keep if necessary ticking time bombs like Shannon Gooden off the streets and away from society and tragedies such as the murders of Paul mstand Matthew Rouge and Adam fth would never have happened and I truly believe that until next Monday or Friday this is earnest wishing you peace and good things