John Hummel Confesses | Judge Jason Charbonnet | Case 12 Pt 2

This is the Signal 51 Chronicles. I'm John Henry. To my left here is, my compadre, retired police sergeant for the Fort Worth in Fort Worth, Jake White. We come to you from an undisclosed location in West Fort Worth, Texas where the West begins. We are a proud part of the platform of Sunset Lounge DFW, which has all the entertainment options you need. Many. To make it through the day. Oh, absolutely. On the other side of us, across this table is the Hello. Charming and beautiful Ashley. That's so kind. Thank you. Well, you're welcome. You're soaring to new heights with your compliments, John Henry. You're lucky. I've gotta stay we've stay on Ashley's good side. Yeah. No. You're right. Because if we weren't on Ashley's good side, we you would be sleeping still and Jake would be at home. That's correct. Doing nothing. That's correct. Good point. Except for real estate. He might be doing real estate today. I would be doing that, but yeah. A little break, you know? Take a little break. I feel like this is fun, y'all. It is. It is fun. When I called him at 11:15 this morning, I I should have put it on. I should have actually recorded. That call came in at 10:45. Oh, sorry. I was thirty minutes off. 10:45. I got it. I managed to get here by about 11:15. I should You're still in bed? I was. Oh, I I in fact, no. I am going to do this. The next time I call you on a weekend, anytime prior to, let's say, 11AM, I'm going to record it. You know, Sunday's your best chance at that because typically I take it easy on Friday and might let my hair down a little bit on Saturday. I mean, yesterday was a special occasion. Rush concert. At the Rush concert. Yeah. Which was fantastic by the way. I'm not a big Rush guy, but Me neither. Our leader, Mike Reiner was there too. Was that right? Mhmm. His first time ever seeing Rush. No kidding. Yeah. Holy mackerel. I never would have dreamed that. It's so bad. My knowledge of music. Same, man. And I hang up I don't really to do music. I thought you were a music snob at one point in time. Well, I'm only a music stop snob for the bands that I'm a music snob for. Very just narrow window of musical genre that I listen to. And outside of that, I don't know. I mean, I could not name one single Rush song. Me either. Well, yeah, you know Tom Sawyer, I know. Tom Sawyer is like one of their most widely Let me listen. It was really quite a show. Hold on, let me see. Hold on, let me see if I know this song. Turn her up. Oh, I know this song. Yeah. Of course you do. Take me down to the No. Didn't know that was rush. It says green and the girls have I'm a so bad about that. Well, I'm- I'm not very cultured and- I'm not sophisticated at all with music. You can even probably call me illiterate- Same. With music. I've been to like 10 concerts my entire life. Wow. I know people who have beyond a thousand concerts. And I've- Yeah. First concert I went to, I was probably 22 years old. Really? Yeah. See, back in the like, teen years, you know, the world was different back then. Yeah. We could drive from Arlington to New Things. Deep Ellum at the age of 16 and just go nuts at some crazy punk rock concert and repeat every other weekend. I'm not Not now? Who did that. Well, you can't get around anymore. No. You're right there. Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah. No. I got I got drug along to a Paula Abdul concert when I was probably 22 years old. Why who? None of your it's no one no one that we ever wanna talk about again. Book boyfriend. Book boyfriend. Seriously, dude. Man, we're gonna talk offline about this little Uh-huh. Escapade. Anyway, that's all I had to say about that. Was it good? No. Oh, you know, it's a show. I mean, you know Was it at, Reunion Arena? I believe it was at, if my memory serves me well, I believe it was at the outdoor concert venue in Dallas. Starplex. Starplex. Yeah. Yes. I don't know what it's called now. Doseki's? Doseki's. No. It's Starplex again. Oh, is? I can't believe I know that. Yeah. It's Star Plex again. Oh, okay. Yeah. I believe it was there. They they ring another contract. It was like a two year, five year contract or whatever. Was it in the summer? Probably. Yeah. See, never under I mean Yeah. Probably so. The 108 concert where you're just setting out there roasting. If if if Nah. Yeah. If I if I remember correctly, I think we were underneath that we were in the seating area. No GA for you, man. No boyfriend. I've in sat the fields. Heck, I've probably been to 20 concerts in my life, but I sat out on the lawn a few different times. Starplex. Starplex. Last time I was going to see Willie Nelson. That's I think, one and only time I've been there. Willie? This was in circa 2005 maybe? This is more recent, like right after COVID, right before COVID, probably. And now Jake, it's time for our favorite segment, the last meal. The last meal. Who we got? We have John Forrest Parker John Forrest Parker. Out of Alabama. He was executed on 06/10/2010. He was found guilty of a murder on 03/18/1988. He stabbed to death Elizabeth Sinnott. Where'd this happen? This happened in Alabama. Alabama. So Charles Senate was a minister in financial trouble Third World Alabama. And wary of his marriage to his recently insured wife, Elizabeth Senate. He contracted with one of his tenants, a guy by the name of Billy Gray Williams, to murder his wife for $3,000 That's it? That's it. Williams in turn hired John Parker and Kenneth Eugene Smith for $1,000 each to commit the murder. Williams gave Parker $100 to purchase a weapon. Parker drove his vehicle to Senate's residence while Smith, who was in the passenger seat passenger seat, sharpened Parker's survival knife. Parker parked his car behind the Senate's home, told Dorlene Elizabeth went by Dorlene. Told Dorlene that her husband had given them permission to look at the property as a hunting site, and upon receiving Dorlene's approval, walked into a wooded area with Smith. They later returned to the house and received permission from Dorlene to use her restroom. While in the restroom, Parker put cotton socks onto his hands. He then exited the bathroom, jumped Dorlene and began hitting her. Parker and Smith hit Dorlene with a galvanized pipe and stabbed her while she plead with them not to hurt her. Consistent with their plan, they broke the glass in the medicine cabinet and took a stereo and VCR to make the assault look like it was done during a burglary. Parker and Smith were both convicted of capital murder. Although the jury returned a verdict of life without parole for Parker, the trial judge sentenced him to death. Smith is still awaiting an execution date. However, as I said, on 06/10/2010, John Forrest Parker was executed. His final words, quote, I'm sorry. I don't ever expect you to forgive me. I'm really sorry. And for his final meal. Yeah. What do you what do you have going? It smells good. Forrest Parker had fish and chips. So today, we are consuming what I would say is some of the finest fish and chips in Fort Worth, if not the finest No doubt. From Zeke's. Zeke's. It's an institution. It's an it is. It's a Fort Worth institution. And so to that, we shall How they feel about being affiliated with the last meal. I don't know. That's just where we ordered them from. We could order them from somewhere different. Long John Silver's. Long John Silver's. God, we didn't do that. Alright. I'm I'm I'm not against Long John Silver's. I'm not feeling it after KFC last time. Oh. Oh, no. No, ma'am. Y'all, this is fantastic. Oh, yeah. Zeke's it's a staple. Crazy good. Holy It is a Fort Worth staple. Oh, man. I've never I'm from Fort Worth. I've never eaten here. And holy moly. This is okay. Y'all remember how Chili's used to be with their crispers? Yeah. That's how this is. Yeah. And to the the haters that said it's rude to eat on a podcast. This is a whole segment. This is the segment. This is the reason. We are we are rating death row inmates. Lash meals. If people there's some people out there that if they had nothing to bitch about, their life be turned upside down. That sauce is amazing. You had the hush puppy? Even their french fries are pretty dang good. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That tartar sauce they have. It doesn't taste like tartar sauce. It tastes better. Holy moly. This is definitely top two on my list. So do you guys oh, yeah. Top. Okay. Yeah. Danny's gyro and what are you grading this? 85. 85. Mhmm. Timothy McVeigh's chocolate mint ice cream was pretty good. If you were condemned to die, are you getting the last meal? Well, we're in Texas so no, but That's right. No last meals in Texas. But what would your last meal be? I think we've all already had this conversation but We did. Would you get one? I'd like to. I mean, why not? If it were offered. Alright. Well, the last time we left our captivated audience, we were, having a conversation with, the honorable judge Jason Charbonnet. Correct. Regarding the the case that we examined a month ago Mhmm. Involving the the Hummel family and John Hummel's murdering his father-in-law, his wife, his two children, and an unborn child. Horrendous crime. And we will continue that conversation now. So take it away, Jake. Okay. So you guys get the clothes. When is it that you learn that the bodies inside the house, they didn't die by a fire? So we didn't know about Clyde and Jody for it was a day, probably. But we knew for about joy within about two hours after the Emmy's office took her because they called us and said she's been stabbed multiple, multiple times and she didn't die from a fire. And so we knew right then we had a a capital case. Now, whenever they took her out of the house, they wheeled her by us and she was she had been in like a the reason she didn't get burned was because there was a whole bunch of laundry baskets on the floor and she had like curled up inside this laundry basket where she passed and so there was a lot of heat in there and so when they brought her out, you still couldn't see anything because she had clothes on. You still couldn't see much, and I guess the body just swelled a little bit where there wasn't gushing blood and all that stuff everywhere. The room was just full of stuff as far as you could see. Mhmm. So it wasn't there wasn't an obvious sign because of the way that the scene was in that room that there was because there still was fire in there. It's just nothing like there was in the rest of the house. K. So then you said a day a day or two later is when you, I guess, you guys hear back from the ME's office on the daughter and father-in-law? Yeah. And that they had been they were killed by blunt force to the head. Okay. So that brings up the a couple more than likely, a couple different weapons were used? Yes. Okay. So you get that morning when you're interviewing John, you get his clothes, you you go ahead, you Mirandize them, you cut them loose. I mean, there's you know, you're you're still in the throes of the investigation. Some of the reports we we read says, hey. He he kinda goes on his life as normal. He goes to work. I think he picks up his paycheck. The coworkers had no clue that anything had happened. Just kinda business as usual with this guy. No emotion. Zero emotion. Is it during the autopsy when you guys find out that Joy was fourteen, fifteen weeks pregnant? Yes. Okay. So at that point, that adds well, don't know. Was it in 2009? This was the first case in the history of Tarrant County for somebody to be indicted for capital murder of an unborn child. Oh, okay. That's okay. Okay, that's what I was curious about on that. He, Hummel, so you guys are investigation, probably go home, or you probably don't go home and get any sleep. You know, cranking out warrants and everything else that you need to do. Two days later well, okay. So did you guys try to reach out to him after the first interview that you had with him? We didn't know because we were contacted by a citizen that wanted to file a missing person's report. And, well, I guess it's more twofold. A family member reached out because the dogs that they had needed to be something need to be done. They couldn't get a hold of him and so, not long after that, I believe it was his church that reached out and wanted to file a missing person's report because he didn't show up for the memorial service. For any of the any of the deceased and so they were really concerned that maybe he was going to try to hurt himself because we had not let anything out in the public at this point that that we knew we had a capital case and that he was going to be, you know, we we didn't want him to run which he did anyway but and by that time, he was already gone but no, we did. He they came in and filed a missing person's report and of course, we took it. And so that's how we found that's we didn't need to reach out to them. So this is on December 19, December 20, somewhere around there. Then on December 20, I'm assuming you or or the, department gets notified that at 05:48AM, John Hummel approaches a border checkpoint near San Ysidro, California. No ID, no passport, no nothing. When I got that call, you could have knocked me over with a feather. Okay. So they the the CBP officer runs his name and gets back some type of return that says he was armed and dangerous. Is that something you guys inputted into NCIC, hey, we don't want this guy leaving the country or leaving The thought process was that that we had we believed we had enough, even circumstantial evidence to have enough probable cause to potentially arrest him. We weren't. We didn't have a warrant in hand. We were still waiting on some stuff from the Emmy's office. But we also didn't want the public to get hurt. Right. Because we had a guy who had allegedly killed, you know, three people plus an unborn child. We entered it at because we wanted them to just be careful. Right. You know, you don't know what this guy's capable of if he comes in contact with law enforcement because we didn't know what his frame of mind was at all. We had a pretty good idea because he had no emotion at all. It was almost like he's willing to do whatever. He doesn't care. And that was the thought process behind it. So they notify you. And like you said, there's no warrant. There's no arrest warrant for him yet. So is this kind of scramble mode to where it's like, okay, they they they're holding him temporarily. We've gotta get this warrant signed, like, ASAP. Well, it it wasn't a murder warrant. It was an arson warrant, and we needed to get him in custody because he had fled. And obviously, all of these factors are going into the reasonable suspicion and then to probable cause, that all of these factors are culminating at one time. We had enough for the fire. We were just waiting on some stuff just to do the the capital warrant and because we didn't think that he was going really anywhere because he didn't have anybody anywhere that he would be still stay local And there was there was a sense of urgency, but we had to wait for the Emmy's office to give us the findings so we could we knew exactly what we had because we had his story, and and obviously, I've written these before, but in in some, you can you can know right off. This is suspect. This is the murder. This is the murder. This is suspect. We're tying them both together. We got enough probable cause. But there was still that a little bit of doubt on whether or not, how she had been killed, was her defensive wounds, what what somebody didn't break in. We had we were trying to compile all of this within, you know, a very short amount of time. And so we had enough evidence at that point. I'm not going go into all of that, but we had enough evidence to get an arson warrant. Right. And so that arson warrant, those just kind of in a way serving like, hey, we've got this guy, he's in custody, he's not going anywhere else. It buys them time in short. Where now they can kind of slow down and now focus on the capital murder components without him, you know, running the risk of running the Mexico or wherever it was he had intended on going. So so they you guys, again, you scramble, you start writing the arson warrant, got the judge on standby, get that signed. How long was he in custody or or how long I guess, how long was he being detained by, CBP from the time you were notified until the time the warrant was filed? Jake, I don't remember exactly how long it was. It was a few hours. It wasn't like it was days or anything like that. It was very long. So you tell them, hey, boom, warrant signed. We got a nursing warrant for him. He's now taken into custody. And you guys hop on a plane and out to San Diego. Well, it kinda gets a little muddier there. So, yes, we did, and so one of the things that, we took Jim Rizzy with us, and anybody that doesn't know Jim, you should make it a point in your life to meet this man. Miles Bersett, if you don't know who he is, he's a pretty well known prosecutor. Now he's in the private sector. He was assisting us on this because he was he is is and was for the DA's office is the arson guy for all of Tarrant County and probably much of Texas. He knows everything about arson. And so they put us on a plane, to San Diego, and it's the it's the middle of the night. Uh-huh. And he goes Miles goes, we booked y'all on these these flights and or this flight, and you need to go home, pack some clothes. I don't know how long you're gonna be there, and we'll handle the rest. And so our department, the DA's office, they were all getting everything set up, And I go home, I pack a bag, I pack for like, I don't know, four days because I don't know how long I was gonna be there. And so we get back and this is why you need to meet Jim, Okay? So I got this duffle bag with me. Okay? And Jim is he wears boots, jeans, cowboy hat, sport coat, tie, and a starch white shirt. Okay? I'm not kidding you. Did I miss who Rizzy is? Who is He's the DA investigator. Okay. Okay? Jim shows up for four days. Okay? With four different outfits. Something this size. Okay. Sounds like me. He's a marine. He's a marine. And every single day that we were in California, he was dressed impeccably. And so Jim had recently gone through the flying while armed class, if you remember, and we had not gone through it yet. So all of us had to give our guns to Jim to put in his bag so he could carry them onto the plane. And when we're on the on the plane, he's like, here. And so we're we're handed we're handing 40 fives and and forties to people on the plane. And so we get on the plane and I'm sitting and this is just kind of how policing goes and I'm going to touch on this a little bit because it's important to know for anybody that's wanting to get into this line of work or that line of work is this is how policing is supposed to work, okay? You're not supposed to pretend like you know everything. You are to collaborate with each other and try to make things work for the betterment of the people. And I say that to say this. So we're sitting on the airplane and it's Jim is sitting one row in front of me on the in in the aisle seat on the other side. And I'm sitting on an aisle seat and Carlson sitting in this in another seat and then there's just some random guy and so I am I'm collaborating with Rizzy behind me or in front of me, and he says, and finally we went on for a few minutes, and this guy leans over and he goes, Do y'all want me to switch seats with that guy? Because y'all are talking about something that is way more interesting than what I could have talked to you about. And so he did. And so plan was that John had seen Carlson and I before. And so when we got to California, we were going to go straight from the airport to the San Diego County Jail, where he was being held. They moved him from the border crossing to the San Diego County Jail and the deal was, I told Jim, I said, all I want you to do, we're going send you in first and all I want you to do is read him his rights and see if he's willing to talk to you. Okay? And that's it. And he goes, okay and if he is, we'll be waiting. We'll be looking through the window and if he is, just wave us in. And back then, was no interview room where we're looking through glass and you can hear everything. We could just see that he was talking to him when we get there. So we arrived at the jail. They took us into this room. We set up. We had a camera with us. We set up tripod. We did all that. Carlson and I step into another room and Jim comes into the room and they bring John in. Rizzy introduces himself and he says, he reads him his rights he goes, do you wanna talk to me? And he said, he said, yeah. And Jim was supposed to stop right there but in true Rizzy fashion, he goes, okay, is there anything you want to say? He goes, yeah, I killed my whole family and burned the house down. Jim doesn't tell us this. He goes, okay, we'll stop right there, waves us in, waves us into the room and you can hear Carlson and I reintroduce ourselves to him because we're trying to get everything on tape And Jim looks at him. He goes, hey, John. Why don't you tell them what you just told me? In in that nonchalant way. This is just Jim. He's he's old marine. And he told us, he goes, I killed my whole family and burned the house down. And you could have you talk about knocking somebody over with a feather. We didn't know what to say for Where did you go? I mean, we were like, alright. Thanks. Alright. Cut. You know? Honey, I'll be home soon. But it was such a stark contrast from where we were in Kennadale to what happened out in California. So we start going through all of the entire incident, the entire crime, and we spend several hours with him. And he didn't want to write out everything that that happened because I was trying to get him to write a statement of everything. And so he said, can you write it for me? And I said, well, I don't know. So I stepped out. I called the DA's office, and I was like, hey. You know, this is what they're he's saying. He goes, just write it out exactly like he says. We're gonna use bullet points instead of word for word because you don't wanna get into, that you left of or the out. He goes, we're gonna do it in bullet points. He'll initial after each one of them. Those are his statements. Fine. So we do. So we get do you want me to keep going? Oh, yeah. Okay. We get through the whole crime and we said, Well John, what weapons did you use? What did you use? And he was a samurai, one of those cheap samurai sword type guys. Yeah. And so he he said, I used he had him on his dresser or something, and he used one of those. And it was so dull it couldn't do anything. And but I think he was able to penetrate her with it, you know, stab her with it a few times. And he he originally had got a kit got a kit kitchen knife from the kitchen, and that's how he started the crime. And she he said she fought like she was being killed. I mean, she goes, he goes, it was it was bad. He goes, we they we fought. There was fist being thrown. There was everything. So, she fought for herself and for her kids at that time and he goes, oh, that he used a baseball bat that he had in the house to to kill the the Clyde and Jody and I believe he did use it on her too and then he he set the house on fire by putting toilet paper rolls next to each of em and lighting those off which hence, no point of origin. So, I told him, I said, John, where where did you do with the weapons? Because we didn't see any. We didn't have, we'd already been, we had the, they had the scene processed he said that he threw them in a dumpster in Arlington. And I was like, what? It's like, well, where? He goes, I don't know. It was over off of, I think he said, it was division or pioneer behind an auto parts store. So, I call Worthy and I said, run code which means lights and sirens. This is where we believe that these weapons are being were were dumped. Two days prior. And he goes, okay. So he goes out to Arlington, starts going up and down the road looking for an auto parts store. So he goes to one and looks in the dumpster, nothing. He goes to another one, looks in the dumpster. There is a bag in there. So, he pulls the bag up out of there, opens it up, and there's all the murder weapons. Get this. The next building over, the trash truck is there. Oh my god. Got there in the nick of time. A bat, several swords, a dagger, and a kitchen knife is what We matched the kitchen knife to the block that was in the kitchen. Uh-huh. Oh, wow. So that's how lucky we got in recovering the weapons and recovering the all of the stuff at the scene. Everything fell into place on it. Pretty much the way that it was supposed to and and we spent several days in Oceanside and we found out that he ended up in California because he was in the Marine Corps and that's where he was stationed. How did he get there? Drove. He drove. They had a van and I I don't know guys but I it might still be under lock and key California, and he's already been put to death. But it we kept it in California for every since 2009 to the day I retired, it was still there, in their property lockup facility that they hold cars and stuff in. Did he say anything about motive? So motive was I'm glad y'all are all sitting down for this because he had found another girl. No way. He did. Woah. The problem was the other girl really didn't know that he wanted to be with her. And they had had some interactions. Dudes and their chicks. Yeah. They lose their frickin' minds over. Well, they had had some interactions, and she didn't want to be with him. They had had some interaction, but, and I'll let you discern from that what you want. But she didn't really want anything to do with him, but he wanted everything to do with her. Yeah. And so she or he decided that Including the death penalty. Apparently so. But she didn't want anything to do with him because he was married. And, so she was calling off everything. And so he thought that the best thing to do would be to off take out the whole family. Well, there's very little reporting on another aspect of the case. Until we got back from San Diego, we were doing on big cases like this, and in most cases, you're going to do some follow-up investigation. You're going to find out like where he worked, his friends, all that kind of stuff. So, we started diving into that and we found out that he worked at a hospital, a security guard down in Johnson County and so, just as part of the follow-up, we went down there and we started talking to some of the staff and we found out that he was not a very well liked guy down there. They thought he was very odd was he was just an odd guy and people stayed away from him because he was kind of invasive in some questions and stuff and we talked with, I think it was a hospital administrator at the time and they said that he had been caught on one of the computers in one of the doctor's offices which was like completely against the rules. He had the keys to the office so he could make sure that everything was okay. So, we went and met with the doctor that that apparently he was the office he was in and we asked him. We said, what what computer was this guy on? And so he showed it to us and we said, do you mind if we take it with us? And he said, will I ever get it back? And I was like, sure. So he goes, okay. And, I mean, if it doesn't have anything on it, we're gonna give it back. I mean, if it's evidence after the trial's over, then the judge can award it back to you. There's no reason for to keep it. And so we took it, interviewed some more people. We took it down to the Tarrant County Computer Crime Lab. And I think they sent it to Did we take it to Secret Service? I think we took it to the Tarrant County Crime Lab. And they did they analyzed it, pulled everything off of it, and they called us. And they were like, You need to come down here. I'm like, What? And so, we go down there we sit down and he starts showing us this stuff. There was searches on how to kill somebody with rat poison. Oh, man. How to kill somebody with this, how to kill somebody with that. And we we we figured out through the interviews, through everything, that he had tried to kill him about three days prior. What? Rat poison, decon rat poison. So he made spaghetti and put decon rat poison in the spaghetti. And he left to go to work and his wife called him and he goes, she said, did you try this spaghetti? He goes, no, I just just made it. She goes, well, it's green. He goes, We're not eating this. Wow. So he threw it out. Wow. And so he had every inclination to And he told you that. Absolutely. He told us he did it. I guess I could back up a little bit, because we may have found that out before or we interviewed him a second time in Terren. It's been a lot of years, but in in our county jail. And anyway, that's we found out that he had he had tried to kill her. I remember what it was. We he told us that in San Diego and then but we had no way to substantiate it. Until you got that one. Until we got that computer back. And they told us that so he was in this doctor's office searching how to how to kill somebody with rat poison. Now if I remember correctly, the girlfriend lived in Joshua. Is that right? Is that why he He lived in Johnson County. Johnson County. She worked in Joshua at the convenience store. Okay. And he said that night that he'd, in addition to Walmart, he'd been in Joshua. Yeah. Did you talk to her? We did. Yes. What was her take on her? Pretty much exactly what I told you just a minute ago that she they had had interaction and she was calling it off because he was married. And he she we and I'd still to this day totally believe the fact that she had no idea what this guy was gonna do. And I don't even know if she knew that he was married. Initially. Yeah. Until a while after. And then she she found out that he was married and then she called it off. And that's what sent him into kind of a spin that he didn't want to be married anymore. And so he decided that the best Or be a father. Not only not be married, not even Not be married, not be a dad. Yeah. And, you know, John is, I guess, the true definition of a psychopath. Uh-huh. There it they did a whole documentary on this, and the the doctors are all analyzing all of our interviews and all of everything. And they they pretty much they pegged him as a as a true psychopath. The guy has absolutely no remorse for anything, and he will tell you anything you want to hear to make you go away. That's not a learned condition, or is it? I am not a therapist, so I don't know. Is one born that way, or? I think that he probably was. But I think that you would have to go back into his childhood to figure out things, and they may have. They may have interviewed people to find out you know, more about his upbringing and childhood to to be able to come to that diagnosis, but, I, of course, I have no therapy. They did. That in at trial, so defense called upon numerous witnesses from Hummel's childhood and school. As it was reported, Hummel was in special ed classes for all four years of high school. Hummel also seemed to struggle academically. Friends described Hummel as quiet, and he tended to stay in his room playing video games in Dungeons and Dragons. You know, and and remember all of that, Jake, but that doesn't make you a psychopath. Well, no. I think that there's there's there is traits to people. You know, if you go back to, like, the the Dommers and the Gacies and all those, you know, they were killing animals just for fun, you know, they were kids, and they were doing things that were totally out of the ordinary for a normal social Yeah. And I think that that probably played some into it, and somebody probably should have looked into it earlier in his life, but at what point do you say that, because you wear black and play video games, that you're a psychopath? I don't know. Dungeons and Dragons, I always wonder. Is that a That's a red flag. Red flag for you. Well, that surprised me. So, yeah. He he got sentenced to went to trial and and was found guilty. And Did did you guys have like, because his appeals process was pretty lengthy, I guess, like all of them. But did you guys have any role, any involvement, anything ever come up with you guys during that process? No. The only thing that I was asked if I wanted to do was go to the death to application. And I promptly declined that. After that trial was over, it's one of those type of cases that you never really want to have to deal with again if you don't have to. And it's not my Once he was found guilty, it's out of my hands, and I'm done with it. And so the state takes over from there. I don't have anything I didn't think I had anything to prove by him seeing me in a window. Yeah. He knew why he was there. It wasn't because of me. It it he was there for what he did. He was he was there for what he did, but he was there also because of some really good police work on a whole bunch of people. Right. Not just me. It was the DA's office, Eric Carlson, you know, these these guys that that put in this work on this case deserved, you know, every single accolade they could've you you could give them. Yeah. Because to put somebody away for forever for something like that that he did is a true testament of collaboration and police work through, you know, Fort Worth Police, Kennedale Police, the federal government, the the county sheriff's office, everybody worked seamlessly through this. I can remember dictating from San Diego to one of the DA investigators exactly what we knew exactly And he's writing in the capital murder warrant to get him back to Texas. They asked us to bring him home, and I said, no. Not he had Crohn's disease real bad, he said. And I said, look. I'm I'm not dealing with that. You know, you can we tried to get a J Pats flight, from the marshal service, and they didn't have one that was leaving. So ended up the sheriff's office went out there and picked him up and and brought him back, set him in the back row of the of the airplane in handcuffs between two deputies. No kidding. Brought him home. Just a commercial flight? Mhmm. Yeah. I probably would not have done it that way, but that's the way that the DA's office wanted to bring him home. But, I mean, it's it's, the fact is is that he got he got back here safe to face justice. And so he's no longer with us. So being a law enforcement detective, a case like this is kind of like a career capstone, right? It's a big case, solved, everything right. But at the same time, you live with it. I would imagine you're like, I don't ever want to do this again if I don't have to. You know, you're right. But one of the things that I found that was that was kind of a comforting thing is every year, when I was still in law enforcement, I would go to the cemetery and make sure that the gravestones were clean and you could see them and told them that we got him and know, sorry that it happened. When you work in a small town, you get to you get to know a lot of these people on a personal basis. Mhmm. And they're very happy and proud that that you were able to do what you did. They were they're still devastated at what But the fact that you still care, and that's what I loved about working in the smaller cities or the smaller city, was being able to have the interaction with the family members that are still living in the community. And they see that you go out there. You don't broadcast it. They just see your patrol car near the or your unmarked car near the gravesite. And they see you and they understand that there are people that really care about what you do and and you know, fact that or care about what they do and there's, you know, you genuinely mourn for the fact that that this happened to, a five year old, an unborn, a thriving mother, and a handicapped father-in-law. It's one of those things to me that I'll never forget it, but I never want to relive it. No. Did they live, were they from Kennen Dale? Yeah. So she grew up there probably. I think she did. I know that the Bedford family spent a lot of time in Kennen Dale. So they've been around the area for a long time. I think that's one of the things that gets overlooked, what he was talking about, about truly caring. And I don't know, like even here, like, you look at some of those investigators that are still here or have since retired, you don't ever see that side. You know, the the society as a whole doesn't see that side of them. Never. Right? They only see, you know, what's on the news or at a trial or whatever. But you talk to these guys and, you know, I mean, like some of the homicide detectives or the guys who investigate some of the, you know, egregious crimes, their motives, I mean, it's, you know, quite honestly for the good of the cause, right? Not accolades, not wanting to be, you know, recognized for what they do. It's quite legitimately because they believe in what they do. And their motives, like seeing that behind the scenes is always a cool thing, especially when you get to talk to them, you know, kind of like we're doing today, right? To where you realize, you you can breathe, you know, there's an element of comfort knowing that you know those are the people that are are enforcing investigating, you know, kind of looking out after everyone so. Kudos on a certainly on a job well done. Mean, it was one of the most horrific cases, you know, in the last, well, and and Tarrant County as a whole, you know, and how quickly you guys put that together. I mean, it takes, you know, obviously the the the experience, the training, the the wherewithal to realize, hey, something was a foul. And, you know, I mean, if you think about it, he was only out. I mean, he he was in custody within forty eight hours. That's a quick turnaround for something that horrific. So good job on that. And I think that should about a wrap We've on done. This Yeah. Yeah. So what's next for you? Just judge life in it? I really enjoy what I'm doing now. It's a very rewarding career. It kind of seamlessly put me into this job. And I really enjoyed, you know, serving the people of of Tarrant County, especially in the Southwest. You know, we're it's where I grew up and so it's it's a lot of fun interacting with with all the people and you know, we try to we're trying to do good things as far as that goes too. And there's no accolades to me. I'm not Don't look for that. That's not me. I'm just I will be there as long as the people will have me. But it's one of those things where you don't overstay your welcome. So kind of what's the day to day, like for, not everybody, not every state has a justice of the peace role, kind of what's the day to day that you do? Twice a week I hear the evictions for, all of Precinct 6. And, so if you get evicted that you don't pay your rent or you do something wrong in a house that you're living in, they'll file a case to have you evicted out of property. Debt claim cases where people don't pay their credit card bills. You get a car repoed and you didn't pay for whatever you owe on it. They'll file it in our court up to 20,000. Driver's license suspensions, handgun license suspensions, we do small claims. Think of Judge Judy on that end of That's fun. Being a JP is a little different than being a district judge or anything like that because we have a lot of lead way and we can move the case forward and like I can ask questions of witnesses and and defendants and and plaintiffs where normal judges, they really don't get involved in it. They just are the people that make sure the case moves smoothly and makes and have to make decision on on certain things, but we actually get to have that interaction and and, help move the case along. We do we can't give legal advice to anybody, but we can always ask questions to see to make sure we're making the right decision in in the case. And, you know, you hope that you make the right decisions. You know, obviously, there's gonna be people that aren't gonna be happy with it, but, you know, it's it's still one of those those jobs where you're trying to do the best you can for the for the, for the public at at large. You're their first line in a JP court. They're just looking for some satisfaction and justice in a small scale, not in a big giant scale. Very cool. All right. Well, that's Judge Jason Chardonnay. Get it straight. The honorable, yes, the honorable Chardonnay. Just spit it out. That's it for us for today. Check us out on the social, oh go ahead, sorry. Yeah, yeah, well thank the judge again for joining us. You're welcome. Gave us some good Thanks for having me. And yes, check us out, subscribe, and all that stuff on the socials. You can find us at Signal fifty one Chronicles, Sunset Lounge DFW, else. Thank you guys. See you. Thanks. Thank you. This is a Stolen Water Media production.