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Hello, hello, hello everyone. This was a lazy day. Well, it is Saturday, but anyway, I promised you a true crime video and you're getting a true crime video. Um, please forgive any washer dryer noise. I finally get to wash my clothes to everyone else had to wash their clothes. So, um, my nose is itchy. Um, is this recording? Yes, it is. I will put my viewer discretion up before this, of course. Um, but I'm going to say this now. Um, if you do not like, not that you would like it, but if you cannot handle, if your spirit cannot handle descriptions of torture, murder, bullying, nasty people, nasty pieces of work, um, this won't be the video for you. I have many other videos you can watch. Um, so enjoy one of those light-hearted videos. So, I'm going to go in the corner and let's begin this. Please like and subscribe. It really helps me in the algorithm. A lot of you have been doing that. So, thank you so much. And I will see you. Why am I saying that? Let's start the video. >> My son's life was cut way too short. He was never able to marry and have children to give me grandchildren. The last words of Chester Alan Pogue were ignored as he begged his killers to at least let him die in warmth. But the torture inflicted upon Alan Pogue was unprecedented in this state's history. >> They used his head like a football, forced him to drink hydrochloric acid, and laughed throughout a shocking 4-hour ordeal. >> The murder of Chester Allen Poke remains one of the grizzliest crimes in South Dakota. He just wanted to make some friends, but instead he was betrayed, stripped, and tortured in the freezing temperatures of a late South Dakota winter. Hello and welcome to the little shop of crime. in store today is one of the most abhorrent, disgustingly malevolent crimes I've ever read about. The depths of evil that Chester's killers went to when ending his young life are utterly shocking and upsetting to say the least. And I'm not going to sanitize what happened. I want to tell the full story of exactly what he was forced to go through and why his killers received the sentences they did. This is the case of Chester Alan Pogue. Today's story begins in Norton, Kansas, and on a farm that had been in the Pogue family for over a century. On Independence Day in 1980, its newest resident was born when David and Doy Pogue met their son Chester for the first time. They were both fans of the classic westerns and named him after one of their favorite characters. The family was complete 2 years later with the birth of Samantha, Chester's little sister. Norton's a small rural community around 2 and a half thousand people. And the Pope Farm was large and remote, so the family did everything together. Tended to the wheat crops and castle, visited church, and vacationed in the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota. They were just a wholesome Midwestern family. But farm life meant the Pogue kids didn't have many friends. And for Chester, it wasn't for a lack of training. He joined the basketball and baseball teams at school, but he was small and always last to be picked by kids who bullied him about his appearance. In 1994, when he was 14, the family moved to Rapid City, 450 mi northwest in South Dakota. This was in part due to David's severe asthma, but it was also a fresh start in the hope it would help paste over cracks that had begun to form in his and Doy's relationship. But on Labor Day weekend in 1996, Doy filed for divorce. Just 4 days later, David ended his own life. Their father's death unsurprisingly hit the children hard, particularly Chester. He struggled to come to terms with it. Doy moved with them back to Norton where they could be around their grandparents. By now, Chester had gone through a series of growth spurts and was a lofty 6'1. But the kids still teased him. only now it was about his height and even the death of his father. Kids really can be so cruel and all he wanted was to fit in. He even began asking people to call him Alan, his middle. >> Anybody who would make fun of that is an evil person. I don't care if you're a kid or not. I've never ever had when I was a kid people do that. There's just things that people even as a kid you know not to do. There's places you just don't go. And if you're doing that willingly, there's something wrong with you. Especially if you actually think that's funny, there's something wrong with you. Because he felt that Chester made him stand out. Nevertheless, he was a bright academic kid, a gifted mathematician, and a skilled woodworker. But his real passion was tinkering with electronics. In fact, he decided to make a career of it and went on to study communications technology at Northwest Kansas Technical School. And with her son away at college, Doy decided it was time for another fresh start. And the allore of the Black Hills drew her back to South Dakota. And she and Samantha moved there to the quaint city of Spearfish. December 1999, 2 years into his college degree, and Chester had just finished an internship in Denver. He was now 19 and just a half year from graduating. And he decided to take a little break to spend some time with his family. He moved into the Spearfish home for a while, a time that meant the world to Doy. She and Chester bonded so much over the next few months, which brings us to March 2000. It had been a harsh winter in South Dakota, and Spearfish, in particular, is cold and unpredictable. In fact, the city holds the world record for the most extreme temperature change. It was a morning in January 1922 when temperatures plummeted into the minus so fast that they cause windows to crack and car windshields to frost over instantly. Anyway, it was the end of a long winter and Doy fancied exchanging the snow for some sunshine for a bit, so she and Samantha booked a trip to Florida. Chester stayed home and looked after the house. They got home a week later and Doy noticed Chester's Chevrolet Blazer wasn't in the driveway. And to make matters worse, she opened the front door to find that their home had been ransacked and numerous items were missing. But that wasn't all that was missing. There was no sign of Chester. A missing person's report was filed, but nothing came of it. The days turned into weeks, six of them to be precise, during which her fretful Doy had no idea what had happened to her son until she got a phone call from police out of the blue. They found Chester's car, abandoned more than a thousand miles away in Texas. With her son still missing, Doy made the journey south to collect his car. It was during the long drive back home when she had reached southeast Kansas that she received the news that she had feared the most. Her son was dead. Chester's body had been discovered in Higgins Gulch, a remote forested region a few miles from the house. Samantha was home alone at the time, and at just 17, she was the one who had to break news to the rest of the family. On April 22nd, a woman who owned land by the Gulch had stumbled upon his remains, floating face down in a shallow creek. He was naked, but for his shoes and socks and a sleeveless undershirt. A forensic pathologist was able to identify the remains as being that of Chester Alan Pogue, but his injuries were unlike anything he'd ever seen before. There was barely a part of his body not marked by bruising or abrasions. His ears had been completely amputated. There were numerous stab wounds, including one that almost severed a jugular vein and one that had penetrated his skull and entered his brain. A large section of his scalp was missing, and his skull bore a complex spiderweb fracture no less than 5 in wide. Chester's cause of death was determined to be a combination of stab wounds and blunt force trauma. His injuries were so catastrophic that Doy was advised not to identify him herself. When she later spoke to the Rapid City Journal, she said, "My father was a fireman. I remember the look on his face when he would come home after finding a burned or decapitated body. That's the look on their faces when they told me about the autopsy with Chester. That's when I knew I didn't want to look at the pictures or to view his body. I grew up knowing those sad looks. Usually when a loved one dies, you can see them before they go. We never got that. There was 6 weeks where we didn't know whether he was dead or alive. And then this. It was like he just vanished. It was clear this was no hiking accident and what they were dealing with was a homicide. Something the Spearfish Police Department rarely handled. and they had no leads whatsoever. Three more days went by with them growing no closer to discovering who' done this to the 19year-old. That was until April 25th when another unexpected phone call would help advance this case. It was a man named Danny Burkhart. Apparently, his friend Daryl Hodley had told him he was involved with the death of the man whose body had been discovered in Higgins Gulch. He also told them exactly where to find Daryl because he was busy laying some carpet at the Deadwood Gulch Hotel. As they spoke, law enforcement acted fast and Burkhard was fitted with a wire before he went to the hotel to strike up a conversation with Daryl. Police listened closely outside and it wasn't long before he'd made several incriminating admissions about Chester's murder. Daryl Hodley was arrested and brought into the Lawrence County Sheriff's Office and after waving his Miranda rightites, he sang like a canary. He had indeed been involved with the killing of Chester along with two of his friends, Elijah Paige and Bryley Piper. So, we've now got a Pogue, a Page, and a Piper. That could get confusing pretty fast, so I'm generally going to refer to people by their first names just to keep things nice and clear. Arrest warrants were issued for Daryl's accompllices, but they were trickier to find because they had fled the state. 3 days later, though, Elijah Page was located in Texas, where Chester's car had been found, and soon after, Bryley Piper was discovered in his home state of Alaska. They also confessed and were both arrested for first-degree murder, extradited to South Dakota, and jailed in Lawrence County. All three men gave full and shocking statements detailing the events of the murder. They hadn't just killed Chester, they had tortured him, subjecting him to a sickening and prolonged ordeal unlike anything the investigators had ever heard before. But before we get into that, who were these monsters? Well, they all had something in common. Troubled upbringings. And that's putting it lightly. Elijah Paige was the youngest of the trio at just 18. Originally from Florida, Elijah grew up in squalor, usually drifting between abandoned buildings that had no electricity or running water. From the age of two, his mother used him as payment for drugs, allowing sick men to molest him. His stepfather once even used him as a human shield when an angry dealer turned up at his property and demanded money. He was eventually fostered and brought to Sparfish, but as he grew up, he was in and out of juvenile institutions, and he began to exhibit sociopathic traits, uncontrollable aggression, a lack of remorse, a life of crime seemed inevitable. Riley Wayne Piper was 19 years old. He grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, and as a young child, he set fire to his parents' bedroom. Growing up, he was no stranger to the law. He was arrested at the age of 13 for assaulting a woman, and he was later brought in for robbing a classmate at knife point. Investigators sensed he was somewhat of the ring leader of the three boys. And that leaves just Daryl Hodley, 20 years old and originally from Wyoming. Like Elijah, he was abused by his mother's male friends physically, emotionally, and sexually. He allegedly slashed a girl's throat as a teenager in an unreported incident at the time. >> I'm going to say something that's very controversial, but it's very true. And I get that Chester didn't know them. So that's not what I'm saying. There are some people that you just need to have nothing to do with. But if someone is so damaged, except for the one, he didn't grow up um with a terrible childhood. He just was a psychopath. um are very very antisocial. There's nothing you can do. And a lot of times people like that don't believe there's anything wrong with them and what they're doing is completely normal. Um and they think it's funny what they're doing. There are just people you can have nothing to do with. You dare not have anything to do with them. And he's going to say in the video, I watched this before, but there are people who were horribly abused who are not getting their shits and giggles by hurting other people. That's a choice. It is a choice to harm someone. It is a choice to do evil. It is a choice to be wicked. That is a choice. And a lot of times people like this, especially if you're sociopathic or psychopathic, they victim blame and they have a very deep sense of victimhood that they are the victim of of everything at all times. They are the biggest victim in the room. Or they just don't care. There's two sides of it. They just don't care. or they see themselves as a victim and actually the person they killed has victimized them. So >> Chester's murder, he had a one-year-old daughter. I'm not telling you all of this to garner any sympathy for them. Many people have crappy upbringings and don't torture people to death. These are just the facts of the case. What I'm about to tell you won't be easy to hear, but the confessions of all three corroborate the events. At 8:00 p.m. on March 12th, 2000, all four men were at Chester's home playing video games. They'd been hanging out together for about a month. And with his mom and sister away in Florida, it was the perfect opportunity to invite them over. At one point during the evening, Elijah began to wander around the house, checking out the property, including Doiey's bedroom. A short time later, he approached Bryley. They agreed he had some good stuff and that they should steal it. But obviously, they couldn't have a witness to the robbery, particularly when the witness lived at the house they were planning to rob. Sometime later, they managed to convince Chester that they should all go together to the house where the three others had been staying. They made their way there in his 1997 Chevrolet Blazer. But as soon as he walked inside, Elijah pulled out a 22 caliber pistol, a pistol Chester recognized. It was his mother's antique gun. Elijah had stolen it from her wardrobe. He was ordered to the floor and once there he asked why they were doing this to him. In response, Brryley kicked him in the face so hard he broke a tooth in half and Chester was knocked unconscious. When he awoke, he found himself sitting upright in a chair bound tightly with speaker wire. Bryley had placed a four-way tire iron across his feet and was standing on it, crushing them under his weight so that he had no way to escape. They began to beat him. Elijah then forced a bottle of tepid, stale beer between his teeth and tipped it down his throat. But inside wasn't just a beer. He'd mixed in various crushed up pills and topped it up with hydrochloric acid to form what they hoped would be a deadly cocktail. Chester cried out in agony as the acid burned his throat and stomach. He asked again why his friends were doing this to him, but in response, Elijah just punched him in the face and ordered him to show up. Chester was forced to sit and listen to the three men openly discuss the best way to kill him. Perhaps they should throw him down a nearby abandoned minehaft. Maybe they should beat him to death with a fire extinguisher. No, the easiest way would surely be to slit his throat. Chester pleaded with them to spare his life. He offered them everything he owned, plus his silence. But they ignored him and instead began to sharpen a dull pocketk knife while he watched in horror, but the idea was abandoned because it would be too messy. Eventually, they settled on the idea of killing him in the wilderness, where he was unlikely to be found. It was at this point that Elijah took Chester's ATM card and asked for his PIN, and of course, he complied. He was then bundled into the backseat of his own car, and reminded that if he tried to escape, they would kill him. Bryley jumped into the driver's seat and headed for Higgins Gulch, a remote wooded area in the Black Hills, 20 minutes southwest of Spearfish. When they arrived, the three men dragged Chester out of his car and into 12-in deep snow. They stole his wallet and forced him to strip nude. But for the footwear and vest he was later found in, the air temperature that night was just 25° F or minus 3.9 C. The wind chill was significantly lower. The caststerio was turned up so they could party as they murdered Chester. He was beaten to the ground before the three men held him down and began to bury his exposed body beneath the foot deep snow. He was then frog marched down a slope and towards an icy creek just 50 ft from the car. Once there, Bryley and Elijah began to kick Chester over and over again, all over his near- naked body. They both wore heavy combat boots and used Chester's head like a football. They'd each perform full run-up kicks so hard and so numerous that this was what eventually amputated both of Chester's ears and scalped a postcard-sized patch of skin from his skull. Elijah complained that he'd kicked Chester so much that he'd made his own foot sore. All three men taunted him throughout the 3-hour ordeal. They laughed as he sobbed and he begged them to stop. They chuckled and cracked sick jokes about how much pain he must be going through. And Chester's cries did nothing but fuel their laughter. At one point, he did try to escape. He quickly got to his feet and ran into the dark forest, but he'd lost his glasses during the attacks, and he didn't get very far before Elijah tackled him and dragged him back to the creek and beat him some more for his bad behavior. They made him lie in the frigid creek water for extended periods of time in the hope that hypothermia would kill him, but it didn't. Nor did the relentless pummeling he took from the stones they threw at him. Chester had remarkable resilience, but the cold was too much to bear, and eventually he begged them to allow him into his vehicle. He said he preferred to bleed to death in the warmth rather than freeze to death in the cold. Brryley granted his last wish, provided that he first rinsed the blood from his body. Chester sobbed as he painfully washed himself in the near freezing creek water. He began crawling back uphill towards his car, but it was all a game to them. They were never going to allow him to warm up. Instead, they laughed at him, taunted him, and dragged him back into the creek. Once there, they tried to drown him. Riley stood directly on Chester's neck while the others tried to hold him underneath the water. But the rocks were slippery and they kept getting wet, so they abandoned the idea. Instead, Bryley grabbed >> See how everything they do to him is all about them. Their discomfort, their foot pain, how it makes them feel. Every psychopath is a narcissist. A sociopath is just a narcissist on steroids. That That's all it is. Everything is about them. The nearby branch had attempted to bludgeon him to death with it. The injuries to Chester were innumerable, and by now he had stopped begging for his life and instead begun to plead with them to please, please just let him die. When the branch failed, Bryley asked Daryl for his pocketk knife. Elijah took hold of it and was the first to stab Chester, plunging it straight into his neck as far as it would go, almost severing a jugular vein. He passed the knife to Bryley, who punched the blade through Chester's skull and into his brain. But somehow this still did not end his life. Daryl took back the knife and stuck it straight into Chester's ears socket. He screamed in pain which prompted a further beating and more rockous laughter from the murderous trio. According to Brley's statement, he went back to the car at this point. Meanwhile, Elijah and Daryl began dropping bowling ball- sized rocks onto Chester's head. This is what finally ended his life, 4 hours after the harrowing ordeal began. And following three agonizing hours of ceaseless, violent torture at the creek, the vile trio then jumped in their new car, turned up the music, and drove away, leaving Chester's body covered in rocks and half submerged in the icy water, where he remained until he was discovered 6 weeks later. The three killers went back to Chester's house to complete the plan. They stole as many items of value that they could fit into the car, a stereo system, coin collection, Chester's PlayStation, and other items. They then embarked on a road trip pawning the goods along the way. They headed for Bride's sister's house in Missouri in the hope that she'd let them stay a while. When she refused, they made their way back to Spearfish. On the way, they used Chester's ATM card six times to withdraw cash in Nebraska and South Dakota. Daryl's juvenile girlfriend later testified that when they got back to Spearfish, she saw them unpack the PlayStation and video games, and that Brley had bragged to her about what they'd done. In fact, he relished talking about it to anybody who'd listen. He was proud. Killing someone had apparently long been a dream of his. >> The three then decided it would be best to split up and go their separate ways. Daryl stayed in the state. Elijah claimed the car which he drove to Texas. And Bryley went back to his home state of Alaska. >> Riley Piper and two other men. Why Japan? >> I want to say something else real quick. Gangs. Gangs of anyone. I've heard true crime stories where it was gangs of boys and girls who did horrific violence, horrific violence, but gangs of boys. I'm not saying that men or boys cannot have friends. You should pick your friends wisely. But there's always been horrific deeds done by gangs of boys, gangs of men. I'm actually going to do a true crime story where it was an actual gang, like an official gang of I think three or four boys. But not that you can't do horrific deeds by yourself, but it just seems when you get a group of young people, again, I've heard just as equally horrific where it was boys and girls, a mixed group, mixed gender group. Um, when you get juveniles or young people together and of course they're [ __ ] up, um, things don't go well because they they just encourage each other's foolishness and sadism and things go to hell. >> Agent Hoodley took part in the murder of Chester Allen Poke in Higgins Gulch outside of Spearfish. Good evening. I'm Jack Carl >> and I'm Joey Lynn. The 18-year-old was tortured and brutally murdered which resulted in >> in the words of Chester's own mother. The shock of her son's murder hit Norton like a freight train, just as it did Sparfish and would in any other small community. The Lawrence County Sheriff said that his death was the most violent, torturous death he'd seen in all of his 35 years of law enforcement. When asked what could possibly justify what they put Chester through, Elijah Paige said nothing. He never done any wrong to us. I mean, he was always nice. He just tried to be our friend and stuff. All three men were charged with the same list of crimes. First-degree murder, aggravated first-degree kidnapping, first-degree robbery, first-degree burglary, and grand theft. When questioned about the case, each tried to downplay his own involvement. Riley Piper and Elijah Paige blamed one another. Daryl Hodley blamed the other two. If found guilty, they were each facing a minimum sentence of life imprisonment without parole. But because of the brutality of the case, there was little surprise that prosecutors were calling for death sentences. Since Jack McCall was hanged in 1877 for the shooting of Wild Bill Hickok, execution has been used sparingly in South Dakota. By the year 2000, only 15 had been put to death and always for what the state deemed one tonly vile or heinous crimes. Today, a death sentence requires murder to come with the addition of at least one aggravating factor. This case had four. torture, mutilating a person while they're still alive, killing somebody for financial gain, and killing somebody to eliminate them as a witness. Bryley Piper and Elijah Page both pleaded guilty and waved their rights to have a jury determine their sentence. First up was Brley Piper. As would be the case with all three, his troubled upbringing played a big role in his defense, and he was assessed as having antisocial personality disorder. He was inherently violent, deceitful, and manipulative. an intelligent narcissist with superficial charm. Numerous character witnesses agreed. His defense tried to downplay his involvement in the crime. They were especially keen to point out that he wasn't there when the final rocks were thrown, but all the evidence pointed to him being the ring leader. He certainly inflicted more than his fair share of incomprehensible suffering on Chester. The judge saw through his guilty plea and waving of a jury trial as nothing more than a means of trying to look like he was taking responsibility for his crimes. He certainly didn't fall for the feigned courtroom remorse. After all, he'd been bragging about the crime to his cellmate. And so on January 19th, 2001, Brley Piper was sentenced to death. He appealed on the basis that he hadn't been given adequate advice when he made his initial plea. And surprisingly, it worked. In 2009, the Supreme Court overturned his death sentence and determined that a jury should decide his fate. After all, it had to be unanimous. Just one juror against the death penalty meant his sentence would automatically convert to life without parole and he'd been a model inmate over the last decade, too. He'd stayed out of trouble, completed college courses. In August 2011, they reached their verdict, and it was unanimous. Death again. The sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2019, but even to this day, his appeals continue. Attorneys argued on his behalf that the initial courtappointed attorney did not do his due diligence in having assessments conducted for Piper, including fetal alcohol syndrome, which could have affected the trial outcome. Attorney General Marty Jackley disagrees. >> It is the state's position. >> My nephew was born with fetal alcohol syndrome and he's not beating people to death. That's very offensive. My nephew is not torturing people for shits and giggles. He does not re he does not rejoice or get pleasure from the pain of other people. My birthother was a crack addict and I was born with crack in my system. I don't get joy from pain the pain of others. Just don't. Nor do I torture people just for the fun of it at all. I don't torture people at all. I don't even have a criminal record. Neither does my nephew. My sister, adopted, was born with drugs in her system. Her birthother did PCP. She does not kill and or torture people at all. That's a very lame argument >> that there was due process in state proceedings, that the evidence in those proceedings showed that Mr. Piper had a college degree, he had a high IQ, and that that the fetal alcohol syndrome didn't exist or simply wasn't a factor. He remains on death row, awaiting his execution. Elijah Page was also sentenced to death by the same judge on February 16th, 2001. He appealed the following month, but was unsuccessful. Unlike Brley, he then began to accept his fate. In 2006, he asked a judge to let him die before he fired his attorney and halted all appeals. This effectively fasttracked his execution. He was tired of living the life of a condemned man. He wrote this letter, and remember, Alan is how Chester was known to them. To whom it may concern, I am writing this letter so that people will know the real truth and not the misconstrued version that the state has put together for you to read and know. On March 12th of 2000, Piper, Daryl, and I had set out to do what we did every night, find our next bag of weed and get high and hang out. Ending up at Alan's house wasn't what we planned. That just kind of happened. But it was there that we decided to rob him. It was not right then that the decision to kill him was made. That came later. The only plan we had was to get Alan to my house, have one person keep him busy while the other two went back to rob him. Somehow that plan went radically out of control. It was Daryl's and my idea to kill Alan. Piper really wanted nothing to do with it all. But if Daryl and I were in it, we weren't going to let Piper be out of it. I don't think Piper ever really knew that it was mine and Daryl's idea. I still believe that he thinks Daryl was made to go along with it like he was. To manipulate Piper was easy. I simply told him that if he didn't go along with what he was told, I was going to shoot him, but then after that, I was going to shoot his sister. Anyone that knows Piper knows that he loves his family and that he would give up anything for them. It has been reported that Piper was the ring leader of the three of us, and that is completely false. I mean, how could he be the leader if I was telling him what to do? I can't tell you why he plead guilty. That's something only he can tell. What I can tell you is he did not kill Alan Pogue. I killed him along with the help of Daryl. Other things that happened, like why Piper decided to help Rob Allen's house, you would have to ask him. But if anyone is responsible for the death of Alan with his Daryl and I, I am writing this because I've decided to end my appeals and face execution. But before I could do this, I had to let people know. I have nothing to lose or gain from this. I just simply want people to know the truth from someone that was there, Elijah Paige. And there we have the true motive. That's what Chester's life amounted to for the three killers. An insignificant amount of cash for a bag of weed. And it's an interesting letter because it goes against the narrative told by prosecutors in that Brley Piper was the ring leader. Maybe it's true. Maybe Elijah was the instigator. After all, it was he who stole the gun who first stabbed Chester and who tackled him to the ground when he tried to flee. Or maybe he'd accepted his fate and was taking a bullet for his friend and trying to divert the blame to himself and to Daryl Holley, especially since it was Daryl who gave his name to police in the first place. After an 11-month delay due to issues with the drugs required, Elijah's execution day was set for July the 11th, 2007. For anyone interested, for his last meal, he requested steak with A1 sauce, jalapeno poppers, onion rings, and a salad with cherry tomatoes, shredded cheese, and bacon bits with blue cheese and ranch dressing. To drink, he chose lemon iced tea and coffee. And for dessert, he had ice cream. He was wheeled into this room, South Dakota's sterile, brightly lit execution chamber at about 10 p.m. where he declined to make any final statements. The execution was by lethal injection, and by all accounts, it was quiet and short, and Elijah displayed no emotion. Elijah Paige was the first person executed in South Dakota in more than 60 years, the first since capital punishment was reinstated in 1979, and at the age of 25, he was the youngest executed in the state in the modern era. After Elijah's death and the execution of another death row inmate in 2019, Riley Piper is now the only person sitting on death row in South Dakota. Unlike the others, Daryl Hodley pleaded not guilty, and his case instead went to a trial by jury. His defense argued that he was forced to go along with a nefarious plan because the other two had threatened his life if he didn't. The jury ended up voting 8 to four in favor of life in prison, and he was spared execution. This forced the Supreme Court to investigate whether Elijah and Bryley had received disproportionate sentences. After all, how could the two who admitted guilt received capital punishment while the one who pleaded not guilty avoid it? After reviewing the evidence though, Daryl was found to be less culpable. The other two were deemed to be the initiators of the plan. Daryl Hodley was somewhat of a follower, told only after the murder was planned. Not only that, unlike the others, he seemed to demonstrate genuine remorse. But his sentence came into question in 2021 with a potential change in law being proposed which would allow young offenders on life without parole sentences to be given a second chance. >> I do not like it at all. Uh it's been 21 years since my son was killed. Why would I want my son's killer out on the streets on parole? Why would you want someone who can be talked into anything out on the streets on parole? That seems very scary. So if it wasn't them, the the Daryl and the other guy, it would have just been somebody else. He doesn't belong on the streets. From day one, uh Daryl Holdley was sentenced to life in prison. He will never be on the death penalty and he will never walk. He will never get on parole. I accepted the results on all three cases. He played his part in murdering my son, torturing my son, and laughing about it and thought it was all a game. And it's a a type of crime that deserves the maximum penalty. And even though he got life in prison, he too does not deserve to walk out in society. The bill was never passed. And Daryl Hodley remains incarcerated indefinitely. At this point, I'd like to spare a moment to talk about Doy Pogue. For all she's been through, she strikes me as a remarkably resilient woman. She's been unwavering in her pursuit of justice for Chester. She's never shied away from saying her piece when it comes to the endless appeals or potential law changes that could have seen her son's killers face lesser sentences or possibly even walk free. And that's about it for this one. A really awful story. All he wanted was friends, but with friends like those, he really didn't need any enemies. I just can't get my head around the motivation to kill Chester, just to steal a few items from his home. For this senseless act of cruelty and greed, two young lives have been snuffed out already. One is waiting to die and another will never be free. And that's not to mention the decades of hurt is caused for the devastated families of both Chester and of his killers. As always, thank you for choosing to stop by. It means so much if that's the video. If this video was educational for you, I won't say if you enjoyed the video cuz I didn't. Please like and subscribe. Be careful. Be safe. Use discernment. Sometimes it's better to be alone than with fake friends and with evil people. I'll see you later.
Danger Zone

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