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Piper Roundtree Killed Fred Jablin
50 Plays1 month ago
A smart, educated and professional woman becomes a wife and mother. She looses everything because she has low emotional intellegence. She decides that all of her failures are due to her ex-husband so she decides he has to die.
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Transcript
Introduction to Hearth Home and Homicide
00:00:01
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Hello, listeners. I'm Bridget.
00:00:03
Caroline
And I'm Caroline.
00:00:05
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
You are listening to Hearth Home and Homicide, a family production about family murders. Caroline and I narrate each story.
00:00:16
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Andy is our producer. As Caroline and I talk about each family member, we are keen on watching justice unfold for the killer, whatever that may look like.
Impact of Family Murders
00:00:28
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
We're very interested in the ripple effect of family murders. the generational trauma, it just never ends when a family member kills another family member.
00:00:40
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So Caroline, let's get started.
Case Introduction: Piper Roundtree and Fred Japlin
00:00:42
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Today we're going to be talking about Piper Roundtree and the killing by Piper of Fred Japlin, a lovely person who deserves to be walking the earth still.
00:00:56
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
On October 2004,
00:00:59
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Fred Japlin was shot dead in his driveway in the pre-dawn hours while he was doing what he was always doing in the early morning hours, picking up his newspaper and taking it inside to read.
00:01:11
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He was a college professor at University of Richmond in Virginia, and it was a Saturday. So this organized man could relax maybe a little and enjoy the weekend little.
Motives and Custody Battle
00:01:23
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
His three children were in their home, his home, asleep when their father, who had sole custody of them, was murdered in cold blood by his ex-wife, Piper Roundtree.
00:01:38
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
You know, leave it to a killer to think that, well, if I want to get custody back, I'll just kill him.
00:01:44
Caroline
Yeah.
00:01:45
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I mean, you know, it's just ah why we do these murders to figure out what is going on here.
Media Coverage and Focus on Fred
00:01:53
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Now, I saw a couple of years ago an episode on 48 Hours about this murder, and they made an unusually focused look at the relationship between Piper Roundtree and and her sister, her older sister, Tina, who is a physician's assistant working in Texas at the time.
00:02:15
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But really, I see, what I see is not so much that relationship. It's there, we're going to talk about it, but I see what Fred and his children went through as the core of our family murder story today.
Fred Japlin's Background and Career
00:02:30
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So we want to start out by talking about Fred Javelin, and I really like Fred after researching him You know, I just, of course, I'm very, very sympathetic to him.
00:02:43
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Fred Javelin was born to a Jewish family in New York in 1952. And one of the most interesting ah anecdotes about him was that he idolized his next door neighbor dad. He was, a you a dad of kids next door who was a scientist and came home in a lab coat every day.
00:03:08
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
got out of his Buick or Ford or Chevrolet when he was driving and he he had on his lab coat. And Fred just thought, oh, you know, I want to be that.
00:03:18
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I want to grow up to be like this man. And he really wanted to study and be involved in something serious.
00:03:29
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So this is a serious person.
00:03:29
Caroline
Yeah.
00:03:32
Caroline
yeah
00:03:32
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And he's dreaming about how can i be like this respected man in the community right next door. So he put himself through school studying communications at SUNY in Buffalo, New York, the University of New York.
00:03:54
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He received a master's in communication at University of Michigan. I think that's a great school, according to me. And just their curriculum, their reputation, their campus, primo.
00:04:08
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He married a young graduate student at that time, but it didn't last long. They were kids in college. um What do you mean you don't cook? What do you mean you don't drive?
00:04:19
Caroline
Yeah.
00:04:19
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
What do you mean you don't love me anymore? ah Okay, He went on to obtain his doctorate in organizational communication. He was mentored by Charles Reddy, who is considered the father of organizational communication.
00:04:35
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So he could, Fred could work really at any college or university with those kinds credentials. And he decided to teach at the University of Texas in Austin, a fun city with a very highly regarded university.
00:04:50
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And he thrived there. And it was there that he met his wife, Piper. Now, I said that Fred wanted to study something serious. And when you think about ah organizational communication, is that serious?
00:05:07
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And I think it is.
00:05:07
Caroline
Yep.
00:05:08
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I worked in human resources and miscommunication in a family. Just put that on steroids in an organization and you're going to have... misunderstandings, some chaos, maybe some safety accidents and incidents.
00:05:23
Caroline
ye
00:05:23
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
You know, you're going to have a lot of serious stuff going on if communications are not thought through every bit as much as the, um you
Fred and Piper's Relationship and Separation
00:05:32
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
know, the office square footage and the financing.
00:05:35
Caroline
That's right. And you had a good example with the Tylenol ah poisoning.
00:05:39
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Oh, that's my favorite story. Yes. Well, I'll be brief, but
00:05:42
Caroline
Yeah.
00:05:43
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
There was a Tylenol poisoning in Chicago many, many years ago, and somebody had tampered with a few bottles of Tylenol, and they never caught the guy.
00:05:44
Caroline
Yep.
00:05:54
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
FBI still has an open case on this particular case. But the reason I think that this is a good example of organizational communication, the day that happened in Chicago, the
00:05:58
Caroline
Yep.
00:06:07
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
The offices, the the the headquarters of Tylenol or Bristol Myers or whoever it was that made Tylenol at the time, um and all of the state ah headquarters for Tylenol, all of their communications went down.
00:06:15
Caroline
Yeah.
00:06:21
Caroline
Yeah.
00:06:25
Caroline
They couldn't talk to each other.
00:06:26
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
They couldn't talk to each other. And so every state representative of Tylenol had to decide what to do under these circumstances in this isolated poisoning of Tylenol bottles in Chicago that was under investigation that day.
00:06:43
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And they, at the end of the day, ah it was a unanimous decision that all 50 states of the United States, all of the Tylenol leaders made the same decision to take all of the Tylenol off the shelves in their state.
00:07:03
Caroline
That is remarkable. And then I think that's the prime example of organizational communication, the outcomes of good, that is a good science. So I think, know, Fred is like one of, quickly becoming one of my favorite American stories here because this is entirely the dream, right? When you're, it's this sort of cookie cutter version where, at least for me and where what I've always had in my mind, you know, it's often that kids will, what do you want to be when you grow up? You pick the thing with the uniform and the heroic attachments.
00:07:32
Caroline
firefighter, scientist, doctor, lawyer. These all have costumes, right? So the lab coat being attractive, it's the 60s and 70s, science, STEM.
00:07:41
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Well, you know, i think college professors also, and, you know, we're going to get into Fred and and I have some ideas about why he decided to go the route he did.
00:07:45
Caroline
Yeah.
00:07:50
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But nevertheless, let's just say that, ah you know, he was a brainiac um in a good way.
00:07:56
Caroline
He's, yeah. A good guy. Yeah.
00:07:59
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
ah He was very smart. Fred was very practical also, very much valuing and living by things like rules, traditions, mores and such. He was rich or rigid, according to some, and just stand up good, according to most.
00:08:17
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He was definitely a straight arrow. He was very highly regarded by his colleagues in Texas. And, you know, one thing I think about when I think about Fred is when two human beings or 10 human beings or 1,000 human beings try to communicate with each other in an organization,
00:08:38
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Good luck with that. He probably saw it as the imprecise art that needed to have its own discipline.
00:08:40
Caroline
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:08:47
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And it did have its own discipline, thanks to his mentor, Charles Reddy.
00:08:52
Caroline
yeah
00:08:53
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So, I mean, you know, he just was, I'm sure he was very, very good at his work. So here we see a good man. trying to be even, you know, even when he was a child, he was trying to be good. He wanted to be good.
00:09:07
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He wanted to be the best in education and something he respected and he knew he could help others. So, know, he failed at his first marriage, Caroline, although it was, you know, very young people in college meet each other. Let's get married. Okay.
00:09:23
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
ah But failing in his marriage, that had to have come as a terrible blow for a rigid personality type like Fred. So Fred met Piper Roundtree at the University of Austin years after he had gotten his degrees and so forth.
00:09:40
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He was drawn to her. He could tell that she was a bit unstable emotionally. And maybe, you know, he thought he could help her. He was 29 she was 21.
00:09:53
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Well, to me, that's not a gap. I married someone seven years older than me, so they worked out perfectly. But anyway, she was artistic to his studiousness.
00:10:06
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Imagine how wonderful life could be with these two. Just imagine. I wish our story ended on that note, but we really haven't gotten into the remarkable part of the story.
00:10:17
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And we're about to, because we need to talk about Piper and what she did to Fred. Piper Roundtree was born and raised in a small community in Harlington, Texas.
00:10:31
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Her father was a military surgeon and her mother was a homemaker. She was the youngest of five with two brothers and two sisters. Over the years, a bond that was extra tight formed between her and her sister, Tina.
00:10:51
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Piper was a very happy child, according to friends, but she really wasn't all that popular. So she was happy, but she didn't draw people in. That's how I take that.
00:11:01
Caroline
Hmm.
00:11:02
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
She was studious. She excelled academically, going on to be accepted into a prestigious communications degree program in 1978.
00:11:16
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Later, after meeting and marrying Fred Jablin, she enrolled in law school She passed the Texas bar and she began practicing law. So how can this possibly be a family murder?
00:11:30
Caroline
Well, yeah, because impressive she was doing this in the height of the women's movement, right?
00:11:30
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
She's successful.
00:11:35
Caroline
The early 70s and gaining rights and all the things. So she's very, that I mean, takes a lot a lot of a personality to kind of to take that on. I'm imagining in Texas, you know.
00:11:47
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yes, yes. She didn't do well in private practice, Caroline. she Actually, the first job she got when she passed the bar was as a an assistant district district attorney
00:12:02
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
and um
00:12:02
Caroline
Oh, wow.
00:12:02
Caroline
Uh-oh.
00:12:03
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
ah where they were living in Austin, or the county anyway. and um But she quit after a year. She didn't like it there because people kept telling her what to do. And she did not like that.
00:12:15
Caroline
oh
00:12:15
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
She did not like that. She um didn't get along with anybody. She didn't do well in private practice either.
00:12:26
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Okay, how's that going to work? You're in private practice, but she was in private practice with a private practice firm.
00:12:34
Caroline
Okay.
00:12:34
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
She had a hard time not arguing with the higher-ups in the firm, and this would become the pattern of her life.
00:12:42
Caroline
Yeah.
00:12:44
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
ah She took jobs with school districts and businesses like, you know, maybe a school district needs to hire their own attorney, maybe a business.
00:12:51
Caroline
Yeah. You're not adjudicating a ton. You're not doing a lot of the law, but you're there as a resource.
00:12:53
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Right. You're advising, writing policy, you know, that kind of like
00:12:56
Caroline
Yeah. Yeah.
00:12:59
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Now, they needed a contract on practice at other businesses, too. So she did that. So she was doing some freelance stuff. She was doing some particular stuff with school districts and and other things. But, you know she she had a problem.
00:13:13
Caroline
Yeah.
00:13:13
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
She couldn't get along with people.
00:13:13
Caroline
I mean, if the whole world, like if you work with the whole world and the whole world can't work with you, like you then say like, I don't like anybody. You have to think that you're the problem. mean, you just do. That's how it works. Yeah.
00:13:26
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Well, I don't think Piper was born with that chip. But anyway, in various newspaper articles I read about this case, it appears that she was bulimic as a young teenager.
00:13:38
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
She, as a grown woman and a professional woman, she was not emotionally mature, which today would be called ah low emotional intelligence, which implies that she didn't have the wisdom to hold the reins of her own feelings when and where she could let them rip and so forth and so on.
00:14:02
Caroline
which is an important skill.
00:14:02
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And, you know, emotional, ah oh, oh, yeah, you, you,
00:14:03
Caroline
That's an important life skill.
00:14:07
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Just because you have a point of view, just because you have a vantage point, and just because you draw conclusions about everything based on those filters doesn't make you right.
00:14:09
Caroline
Right.
00:14:20
Caroline
That's right.
00:14:21
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And it doesn't make you exclusively or universally right.
00:14:26
Caroline
Yes, exactly.
00:14:27
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
You can feel at peace with your own decision about that, your own opinion about that.
00:14:32
Caroline
Right.
00:14:35
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But when you're in an organization and working with other people, it's like the seven habits of highly successful people, Covey, writing that group, that book, and had a lot of followers, including me in the
Divorce and Custody Outcomes
00:14:50
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
nineteen eighty s and 90s.
00:14:52
Caroline
who
00:14:52
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
The number one ah successful habit is seek first to understand, then to be understood.
00:15:01
Caroline
Oh, say it again for the people in the back.
00:15:07
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yeah, I mean, you know, it's just if you want to be successful,
00:15:13
Caroline
Right.
00:15:15
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
not righteous.
00:15:17
Caroline
No, and not even rich or any of the other things. Just successful and happy.
00:15:20
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Do you want to be successful in a community, in a society, in an organization?
00:15:25
Caroline
yeah
00:15:27
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
You want to first seek to understand, then to be understood.
00:15:34
Caroline
Yes. So they both have it.
00:15:35
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So what happened here? So, I mean, it's respect, respect.
00:15:39
Caroline
Oh, there's another one.
00:15:41
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So what happened here? What happened? What happened? What led to Fred Javelin's murder? He lost his entire life. He lost everything. Why did that happen?
00:15:53
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
We know Fred is a straight arrow and Piper's all over the board emotionally. Well, that doesn't necessarily always lead to murder.
00:16:01
Caroline
Right.
00:16:02
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
She wasn't happy in her marriage and she wasn't fitting in anywhere. Her sister Tina was her rock of Gibraltar, trying to help her get it together and keep it together. Perhaps one of the tools that Tina used was to say, well, you're right.
00:16:16
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Well, you're right. Well, you're right.
00:16:17
Caroline
Right. The appeasement.
00:16:18
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
You're right. How dare they? How dare they? Maybe just support like that. I don't consider that support, but I know how to give that kind of support.
00:16:24
Caroline
Yeah.
00:16:28
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Usually when you want to have a breakthrough later,
00:16:32
Caroline
Yeah.
00:16:32
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But when the person's going through the emotional, you know, wrecking ball of your psyche, just to say, I'm so sorry that happened to you.
00:16:41
Caroline
Well, that's a good point because actually one of my favorite things that you'll do for me is, um, you know, I'm in it, I'm in it, I'm in it. And you know, you do start to repeat yourself. You're just in it.
00:16:51
Caroline
You're in this rage cycle about something, whatever, you know, I got cut off in traffic and, and sometimes I'll be talking to you and then eventually, and you do give great support.
00:16:55
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Mm-hmm.
00:16:59
Caroline
And then eventually you'll say something like, well, let's just get in the car and go down there and burn their house down. You know, you just, and you say it just like that. And it's, What it's meant to do is to remind me the hyperbolic nature at which, like, come on now.
00:17:08
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Oh, my God.
00:17:14
Caroline
I mean, this is a bad thing and it sucks and it's wrong. But now we have to absorb that and move on to the next thing. You know, it's like you can't always get justice for all
Piper's Emotional Instability and Family Support
00:17:23
Caroline
the little things. You have to.
00:17:24
Caroline
It's just a nice thing for me. i recognize that would not work for other people, such as like Tina and Piper here. But I'm just saying it helps me to remember on the spectrum of reality where I'm supposed to land.
00:17:31
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
No, it would not.
00:17:37
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yeah, i always want to say to anybody that comes to me right after something really awful and injurious, I always do want to sympathize. I also want to say, you know, that happened to you. It's real. It really did happen.
00:17:52
Caroline
Yes.
00:17:52
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I don't want something else bad to happen to you, which is that is going to become a big thing, which it should be a
00:17:57
Caroline
Yes.
00:18:01
Caroline
Right.
00:18:03
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
a temporary thing. But I'm with you.
00:18:05
Caroline
That's right.
00:18:06
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I'm with you. i would feel the same way. And I do. I do.
00:18:09
Caroline
You do a good job.
00:18:09
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And you do the same thing with me, Caroline. It's like, well.
00:18:11
Caroline
I try, but you do a really good job because it puts, it gives that perspective, which is really healthy. And you need, like you said, don't be, you're wrong. You know, you were wrong, but don't go doing anything equally wrong. Like, you know.
00:18:24
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Right. Right. What are you going to do to recover from this injury? Yeah.
00:18:29
Caroline
Exactly. What's the path forward?
00:18:30
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yeah. And it is injurious to be part of a community, part of an organization, just living in the world with other people and everybody's got their own point of view.
00:18:40
Caroline
Yep.
00:18:42
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And, um, anyway, all I can say is, you know, I'm sure that Tina did her best to help her sister, um the best that she could.
00:18:46
Caroline
That's right.
00:18:56
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
um, so ah Tina had become, i think I've mentioned this already, a physician's assistant, which in my ah yeah opinion is sometimes just as knowledgeable as a general practitioner, and you know, MD doctor.
00:19:11
Caroline
that's right
00:19:12
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Tina ran a women's health clinic, which tells me a lot that she was definitely a caring person and she'd rather work exclusively with women's health.
00:19:18
Caroline
Yep.
00:19:22
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
That was just something that she probably saw as a niche for her that made her feel comfortable
00:19:22
Caroline
yeah
00:19:27
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So Piper leaned on Tina and Tina bolstered Piper up. But one of the downsides of that is that during this period, after this happened, Tina and Piper grew to hate Fred.
00:19:46
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So they're not like they're eating not Wheaties for breakfast, but hate bread, cereal, oxygen, liquid.
00:19:52
Caroline
Right. Right.
00:19:54
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
They're just feeding off of this mutual hate of Fred. And so why why is, what is it ah to hate about Fred?
00:20:07
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I want to know.
00:20:07
Caroline
right
00:20:08
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So Piper and Fred had two children at the time that I'm about to talk about that brought about this hate of Fred. Piper was moving job to job when he was teaching college at the University of Austin.
00:20:24
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
in the And she was she just wasn't making it in the legal field. It just wasn't working for her because she couldn't get along with anybody. Fred was the breadwinner. um And he decided to take a very lucrative job offer from the University of Virginia and Richmond at the prestigious School of Leadership to teach organizational communications.
00:20:47
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
It's a plum position.
00:20:49
Caroline
Yeah.
00:20:49
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He's going to head up his whole department. He's going to make a lot of money. Piper was a pro, not a lot of money, but you know, more than me.
00:20:57
Caroline
Oh, I feel like that's a win.
00:20:58
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He'll
00:21:00
Caroline
That sounds like a really cool job. Sounds like a new niche job.
00:21:03
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
be respected in the community. He'll make good money because there was something about Piper that I haven't mentioned yet. And that was that she was a prolific spender of all the money, not just her money, which she didn't have any because she couldn't get along with people.
00:21:22
Caroline
Right.
00:21:23
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But all of Fred's money and their joint money, all of the accounts were overdrawn. Fred was trying his best to support his family, including Piper.
00:21:35
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And that's one of the reasons he left a place he loved, the University of Texas at Austin, to make more money in Virginia. So in Virginia, Piper didn't have ah license to practice law.
00:21:49
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So she tried to get some other jobs, but she she just couldn't. So she decided, okay, I'm going to stay home and focus on my family. Okay.
00:22:00
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So she and Fred had a third child. Then she had some gynecological problems and had to get a hysterectomy, and this brought on a very long depression.
00:22:14
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
By 2000, the year 2000, she was just not able to connect with Fred anymore.
Planning the Murder
00:22:20
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Fred was struggling to build his life in Virginia, his reputation and so forth at the college, the university there.
00:22:29
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
She wasn't having any of it. She didn't want to talk about Fred and his issues. Things were just bad in their marriage. So Piper ah then decided, well, the solution to all of this is I'm going to have an affair. She had an affair with a married ophthalmologist.
00:22:48
Caroline
Uh oh.
00:22:48
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Now, you know, you don't want to bring in and an affair when your marriage isn't working.
00:22:56
Caroline
Right.
00:22:56
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Piper, you need to get a divorce and then you go do what you want to do because you have young children.
00:22:58
Caroline
Right.
00:23:01
Caroline
Right. Three. Three of them.
00:23:03
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I really even don't care if you have affairs when you don't have children and you're married.
00:23:07
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
That's on you.
00:23:07
Caroline
Right.
00:23:08
Caroline
ah Agreed.
00:23:08
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But when you've got little children and you brought these children in, you thought about the third one.
00:23:11
Caroline
Yeah.
00:23:16
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I don't know what the story was behind the first two.
00:23:20
Caroline
But they by by the third time, you knew what was going on.
00:23:22
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
You made decision. i'm goingnna I'm going to be home forever and I'm going to have a third child with Fred. But then he had a career and a life and she didn't like that.
00:23:34
Caroline
because she couldn't get along with anybody.
00:23:34
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So.
00:23:35
Caroline
I mean, it sounds like at this point, the only person she could get along with was her sister and an ophthalmologist. But... You know, it it also, to be fair, sounds like a lot of unchecked mental health issues that were just unchecked and untreated and supported, if not in the background.
00:23:52
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yeah, I agree with you. I do.
00:23:54
Caroline
Yeah.
00:23:54
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I mean, back then even as far back as 2000,
00:23:58
Caroline
Yeah. Yep.
00:23:59
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
ah people were, you know, not going psychiatrists and psychologists the way that they are today. It's no longer stigmatized.
00:24:09
Caroline
Correct.
00:24:10
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I don't know what the situation was. All I know is she started this affair with the ophthalmologist. He did not see this coming. What was that going to happen?
00:24:19
Caroline
You wait, you had more zingers than that earlier too.
00:24:19
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Well, yeah.
00:24:22
Caroline
Just wait, people.
00:24:24
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
No, no, I could go on and on about how ironic it is that she had a, an affair with a married ophthalmologist. Her love partner, the ophthalmologist who doesn't see all that straight, soon realized that Piper was unstable.
00:24:41
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Okay, now you're now you're cooking. You got your glasses on. Especially when she started making direct death threats against his wife.
00:24:51
Caroline
Oh, uh-oh. Steam, yeah. Uh-oh.
00:24:54
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So... Piper, let me see if I understand your mind. The way that I can be loved even more by the ophthalmologist is if I call up his current wife and threaten her life.
00:25:10
Caroline
like What planet? And, you know, this is the third person in this series that there's this excerpt of these lives where they've said she seems emotionally unstable. I mean, if it's enough to remark on.
00:25:24
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yeah, there's a theme here.
00:25:24
Caroline
Like, yes.
00:25:25
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
There's a theme here. Yeah. I don't know if she has an actual personality disorder or if she has just a heaping helping of youngest child, most spoiled brat on the planet, my way or the highway, serve me or leave.
00:25:39
Caroline
Yes.
00:25:41
Caroline
Right.
00:25:46
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
She's selfish.
00:25:47
Caroline
Yeah.
00:25:47
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
She's selfish.
00:25:48
Caroline
Exactly. And you're right to say those present the same as many, many mental illnesses.
00:25:53
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
She may be a maybe i have thought that she might be a vulnerable, she has traits of a vulnerable narcissist. Traits being things like using vulnerability to get what you want.
00:26:09
Caroline
Right. Yeah.
00:26:11
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And um she is just poor me, poor me, enough about poor me. How poor me do you think I am?
00:26:21
Caroline
Right.
00:26:22
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So meanwhile, Fred's credit card had been run up $50,000 by Piper. For Fred Japlin at this point, there was no blow lower than, there was a blow lower than running his credit card up, $50,000.
00:26:42
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Without telling him, let's us go make to these purchases. She did not consult with him. He opened a bill and it was $50,000 worth of buying.
00:26:47
Caroline
Mm.
00:26:50
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
worth of buying Wanton spending, as they say. it was the It was the, what broke the back with Fred was the affair.
00:27:01
Caroline
Yeah.
00:27:02
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
ah The minute that she found out, probably because the woman whose life was being threatened by his wife called him up.
00:27:09
Caroline
Yeah. Well, I mean, it was a volatile ending because she was so emotionally unstable and did this whole, you know, threats against the wife.
00:27:16
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Right.
00:27:20
Caroline
So everybody's kind of like going, whoa, you know, to this cage lion. But Fred, Fred has been stabbed right in his heart and he's out. He's out.
00:27:29
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He petitioned for divorce based on the affair, and the judge in the case decided to stand send both he and Piper to a professional for an emotional and mental assessment that would come back to him, the judge, so that he could make a decision about who is going to raise these three children.
00:27:51
Caroline
Well, and I think that, Judge, unknowingly, this is like a very non sequitur sort of part of the story where it's just this happened as a part of their divorce. But I think this is a life-saving measure for those kids.
00:28:02
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Oh, I agree.
00:28:03
Caroline
I absolutely, we have seen it across the nation multiple times. Parents do get to a point where they're willing to harm their children as a means to retaliate against this other spouse who they have cultivated so much hatred for, right? Right.
00:28:17
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Right, right.
00:28:17
Caroline
kids do get hurt even if it's not physically they're they're hurt and so this made me exceptionally happy i hope this becomes like a normal part of the thing it should be check-ins into often until they're 18 because so much can happen in families and these kids are the only thing that matters to me i think or that should matter under the law is the health safety and well-being of the kids i don't even care who the actors are around them
00:28:42
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yeah, couldn't agree more. But there's more, Caroline. There's more. Fred Javelin won sole custody of his children, and he won his house.
00:28:55
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He got to stay in the house. She was ordered to pay child support to him, $890 per month.
00:29:00
Caroline
That's shocking. That's a lot of money.
00:29:05
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Well, yeah, I mean, she's she could ah practice law and make a lot more money than Fred was making as a college professor. He had prestige, yes. He had respect in the community, yes. Those were the things he wanted.
00:29:17
Caroline
Right.
00:29:18
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And all the money that he had, it was going toward her debt.
00:29:22
Caroline
Well, and he probably could have, he probably demonstrated, he must have demonstrated that to the judge a little, because it does seem like she if she's registered in her tax returns as a homemaker, this seems like a harsh penalty.
00:29:27
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Oh, yeah, there's no, yeah, yeah.
00:29:34
Caroline
But like you're saying, it's...
00:29:35
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I don't think the judge saw her as a filmmaker. I think he saw her as who she really was.
00:29:40
Caroline
Yeah. Right.
00:29:41
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Manipulative, not fit to mother anybody.
00:29:45
Caroline
Right.
00:29:47
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
ah i do.
00:29:49
Caroline
Yeah, fully capable of doing things but unwilling to be competent to express competence in these roles.
00:29:49
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
and
00:29:54
Caroline
Yeah.
00:29:54
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
and this this money that she's going to owe to Fred, $890 a month, I think the judge is just me. I think the judge... was trying to send her back to Texas where she belongs, where she has
Murder and Evidence Trail
00:30:08
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
family to support her.
00:30:08
Caroline
Oh, yeah.
00:30:09
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
She can maybe get some help and she can practice law, stay busy and get over yourself.
00:30:15
Caroline
Actually, you're probably really right about that. I really like this judge. I just think ah more should go like this because this felt very child-centric, these decisions.
00:30:27
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yes, I agree. With this, Piper did move back. to Texas. She moved in with her sister, Tina, in Houston. her Tina was willing to carve out space in her home for Piper to run a private practice on day one.
00:30:43
Caroline
Wow.
00:30:44
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I mean, you know, Tina really tried hard to help Piper. And, you know, Piper was going to try to start a new life,
00:30:56
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And i also think that this was just about the time that she decided she was going have to murder Fred Jepin.
00:31:02
Caroline
Yeah.
00:31:02
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
That's just my speculation.
00:31:04
Caroline
I could just kind of see and hear her spiraling every day, not shutting up about it. And we have all been there. I have definitely been there. You have an issue in your life that is not correcting. you hone in on a single individual or group of individuals or maybe even an organization that you are attributing all of the blame for those feelings and that state of being and And then you ruminate, ruminate, ruminate, ruminate. it's all you talk about. It's all you're willing to say to people. you Everyone must agree with you or they're on their side, right?
00:31:36
Caroline
i could just see her spiraling with her sister.
00:31:38
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yes, I can too. And I think she was born in a spiral.
00:31:41
Caroline
Yep.
00:31:41
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And I think that she's just, wherever she goes, there's going to be a tornado and it's called Piper.
00:31:48
Caroline
Yeah.
00:31:48
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And I think that recently I read a Hindu saying, ah Hindu saying was about what you just talked about.
00:32:00
Caroline
The rumination?
00:32:01
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
um It's called the drunken... um chattering monkeys in my brain.
00:32:10
Caroline
Yeah! Oh my god, I have so many drunken chattering monkeys.
00:32:15
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And that if your drunken chattering monkeys are going off in your brain, do not feed the drunken chattering monkeys.
00:32:29
Caroline
Right. Yeah.
00:32:31
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Do not
00:32:32
Caroline
Yeah.
00:32:32
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
You do not need to, this is just another way of saying you do do not listen to all the thoughts in your head.
00:32:38
Caroline
Yes.
00:32:38
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Only only feed and cherish and nurture the ones that will lead you to becoming the person you want to become.
00:32:47
Caroline
That's right. Yes.
00:32:48
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So she she probably had a lot of drunken, chattering monkeys in her head. And, um, You know, you and I were just not there to give right advice ah about don't do that.
00:33:00
Caroline
Yeah. Stop feeding your chattering monkeys.
00:33:02
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So.
00:33:04
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
so I'm ready to talk about our family murder today, Caroline, and I have to say I didn't have to work awfully hard about this because it was a number one, ah a an interesting case, but it was also a ah easy case to see, okay, you're guilty. There's no reasonable person that's ever going to say you're not guilty.
00:33:27
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And I got the court records from Court TV. You know, they have a fantastic archive. You can go see the trial if it was if it was allowed to be videotaped.
00:33:38
Caroline
Mm-hmm.
00:33:39
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And so it all made it easy for me to untangle and tangle up the and untangle the tangled up trick that Piper and Tina tried to pull off in killing Fred.
00:33:53
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Now I have to say, oh it's never been proven that Tina helped her plot and carry out the kill the threat the plan to kill Fred.
00:34:05
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But she was found guilty, she, Tina, was found guilty of accessory after the fact, in a cover-up. She pled guilty.
00:34:16
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
She was put on probation after pleading guilty to sheltering a fugitive and accessory to a cover-up. She did not stand trial.
00:34:27
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Piper, on the other hand, would not say she was guilty. She's probably telling herself right now that she did not do it, ah but she did.
00:34:34
Caroline
Yeah.
00:34:39
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So Piper had dated a man while living in Houston with Tina. She was trying to find a job. She was back in Texas. She had her license to practice, but she was also very busy. For example, her new boyfriend was asked by Piper to take a card out in his name.
Trial and Conviction
00:34:59
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So, hey, boyfriend, would you take, would you please take out one more credit card for yourself?
00:35:04
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But she wanted to be able to use it to, and she would pay him in cash.
00:35:09
Caroline
Yeah, this sounds so shady.
00:35:10
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And she would spend money on the credit card.
00:35:13
Caroline
Yeah.
00:35:14
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
and she was sheltering income.
00:35:18
Caroline
That makes more sense because then then initially I was like, why would anyone agree to do that for someone? But she has this overwhelming $890 a month bill to pay to her kids. This is who the bill is owed to, but it obviously goes to Fred.
00:35:33
Caroline
And that makes it hard, I'm imagining, for her to to want to earn any money that he can see.
00:35:41
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yeah, I mean, she she they police came to him after the killing because ah Piper had bought two wigs and they had police had figured out there was going to that some wigs were involved here. And I'll get to that in a minute.
00:35:57
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But this man had the police wanting to know, why did you buy these wigs?
00:36:01
Caroline
Right.
00:36:03
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I didn't buy any wigs. I didn't buy any wigs.
00:36:04
Caroline
What are you talking about?
00:36:05
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I swear I didn't buy any wigs. And that's how it was unraveled that it was Piper that was that was spending money on wigs. So anyway, she um she had bought two wigs, among other things, blonde wigs, just like her sister, Tina.
00:36:22
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So now she's going to play dress up and kill somebody. She also charged other things and it got to be too much for the new boyfriend. So that he broke up with her.
00:36:33
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Meanwhile, Piper never paid any alimony to Fred, and on the morning of his death, Piper was $10,000 in debt to Fred.
00:36:44
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But now that she had the blonde wig, she bought round-trip tickets and two nights in a hotel using Tina's credit card.
00:36:57
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Not the boyfriend's credit card that was for her to pay back, but Tina's credit card.
00:37:01
Caroline
Oh my Wow. Yeah.
00:37:04
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So imagine Tina in her own defense had to say, I didn't know she was going to take my credit card. I don't know if that's true or not true. It was never ascertained that I know of if Tina even knew about this murder plot.
00:37:18
Caroline
yeah
00:37:20
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Piper boarded the plane that, you know, she's going to take that from Houston to Virginia, Richmond, and do the killing. So she boarded the plane. She stayed in a hotel masquerading as Tina, using Tina's identity.
00:37:38
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
She carried a gun with her onto the plane, not a loaded gun, unloaded lane. She, she you know, registered it.
00:37:47
Caroline
It's pre-9-11, y'all. Okay.
00:37:49
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
She said that she was on a flight to Virginia for the sole purpose of returning this gun to her father, that her father had loaned it to her,
00:37:57
Caroline
okay
00:37:58
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
but She was sending it back to him. Now, this gun was never recovered, but according to everything I read. But airline records show that it was a type of gun that could very easily have used the bullets that were found inside Fred's body.
00:38:17
Caroline
Oh, so they have the log from like the permit of being allowed to bring it on, you know, declaring it, so to speak.
00:38:21
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Oh, yeah, she had to go through a big rigmarole to get that on the plane.
00:38:24
Caroline
Okay. I was going to say, it does seem like, you know, I could see that in the 80s, but you know, post 9-11 world, you're going to need to seriously explain to me why you need to bring a firearm on an airplane.
00:38:35
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Oh, yeah. I mean, I can barely get my mouthwash in there.
00:38:36
Caroline
Loaded or not. Are you right?
00:38:39
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I mean, but before they search step aside. And plus, there's the thing of my fake hip. i've got
00:38:45
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I've got a prosthetic hip and prosthetic knee. Oh, the buzzers that go off when I try to fly anywhere. So... Piper murdered Fred, and it was easy because all she had to do was wait for him to come out to get his newspaper.
00:38:45
Caroline
Oh, yeah.
00:39:02
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
She knew his routines. He was not going to break his routine. Why she picked the day before Halloween, I do not know. But I think there's Freud would be able to figure that one out.
00:39:18
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
She made the fatal mistake, though, of taking her own cell phone with her. And she could be tracked using her own cell phone the whole time that she was in Virginia.
00:39:32
Caroline
Oh, yeah. Ping, ping, ping, ping.
00:39:34
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
She was, pick a maniac, pick a maniac. She also stated numerous alibis that held up for a while, but her friends in Houston didn't want to purge themselves and admit, they all admitted they weren't actually sure when they last saw her. So she went to several people like a, like a nightclub owner and said, could you,
00:39:52
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I was here on this day and now something has come up about me and I need to make sure that everybody knows that I was here. I was here, right? You saw me. Yeah, I'm sure I did.
00:40:03
Caroline
Okay.
00:40:04
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And later it turned out he wasn't even working that day and he didn't make up the lies just that she was a patron and he saw her a lot and you know,
00:40:11
Caroline
Plus, if she's emotionally unstable, chances are good in a public setting with a stranger, you're going to acquiesce so that you can move on. Like, sure, lady.
00:40:18
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
ah She asked a lot of other people, too, and some of them initially said, yeah, she was with me.
00:40:20
Caroline
Yeah.
00:40:23
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But then later and, you know, she was she was trying to fix it so that it must have been her sister who did this killing.
00:40:30
Caroline
That's so awful. Cause you know, her sister didn't know that bit was part of the plan.
00:40:35
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Well, her sister might have told her it's OK because, you know, I'm going to be in my clinic all day.
00:40:40
Caroline
Right. Well, okay. Another good point. Yeah. But that wouldn't help. Anyway, this is just.
00:40:45
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
well and All I can tell you is that she tried to, she tried her best thinking that she knows everything, of course.
00:40:51
Caroline
Yeah.
00:40:54
Caroline
Right.
00:40:55
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And ah she didn't think about the cell phone. She didn't think about people not lying for her with the penalty hanging over them of perjury and imprisonment.
00:41:07
Caroline
Right. Right. Well, plus the fact that they probably were not comfortable with the idea that perhaps perhaps she did do this crime that she's being accused.
00:41:09
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
She didn't think about any of that.
00:41:16
Caroline
You know, that makes people squirmy.
00:41:20
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yeah, I mean, you know, she couldn't get anybody to go along with her alibis, and her sister had an ironclad alibi. And the fact that she was tracked all over Richmond using her own phone, but she got away with ah masquerading as her sister for a plane ride and a plane ride back and a hotel check-in and a hotel...
00:41:45
Caroline
Mm-hmm.
00:41:51
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
ah check out. So she thought, okay, that's the ironclad. That's ironclad. Police are stupid. They're not going to look any deeper than that.
Life Sentence and Parole Denial
00:42:00
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And of course, all the records came out about her divorce and the fact that she couldn't pass a psych test and that, you know, the judge took her children away from her, basically.
00:42:14
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
ah When she was on the witness stand in her own trial, she squealed like, you know how sometimes when you cry and then you try to talk, it comes out really tight. Your throat is choked, you know, you're choked.
00:42:26
Caroline
Yes. And you're like.
00:42:28
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yeah, you sound like a squeaky mouse. She spoke that whole time on the stand. So when they're saying to her, so you're, you're, how do you, how do you explain that? First of all, that she would even get on the stand.
00:42:44
Caroline
Yeah, right.
00:42:44
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I mean, everybody knows don't take the stand, if you're guilty, especially.
00:42:45
Caroline
100%.
00:42:47
Caroline
hundred percent
00:42:49
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
but But when she was cross-examined by the prosecutor, how do you explain that how your phone got to Richmond, but you weren't there? just don't know.
00:42:59
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
don't know. think I've been framed. You know, that kind of thing.
00:43:02
Caroline
Yes.
00:43:04
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So this went on and on throughout the trial. Some of the jurors were, they looked at the evidence, but they also listened to her own on the witness stand and and some of the jurors said, you know, we were 90% sure that she was guilty and 100% after she got on the witness stand.
00:43:21
Caroline
So, I mean, no.
00:43:22
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Excuse me.
00:43:23
Caroline
oh
00:43:25
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So, I mean, you know, she just, this problem she has of thinking that if I believe it, it must be true.
00:43:34
Caroline
Yeah.
00:43:35
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And where am I getting my information from myself?
00:43:39
Caroline
Right.
00:43:41
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
That is a serious handicap.
00:43:43
Caroline
Well, yeah, and I think people often end up, when they're in that sort of state of operating, they're they're disregarding, dismissing, and debunking any information coming in that doesn't support what they've already decided they would like to believe and behave along the lines of, right? I mean...
00:44:02
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yeah, I mean, to me, that goes beyond just selfish. it It does, and criminal. I mean, you know, she's got to kill her mind.
00:44:08
Caroline
yeah yeah yeah yes
00:44:09
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
That killing is one of the options. She's used it twice now. threatened Threatened the wife of her paramour and murdered her actual ex-husband.
00:44:21
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So this is a person who has boundary issues um and I think has narcissistic traits.
00:44:25
Caroline
yeah yeah
00:44:30
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Things like has to have attention. Thinks she's the smartest person in the room. Has to be grandiose in all things. Lifted up, you know, d she has to be worshipped.
00:44:43
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
um And a consummate liar.
00:44:46
Caroline
Yeah. Yeah.
00:44:47
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And just on and on. So the jury convicted her handily. I mean, she left so many breadcrumbs. She, like so many killers, believed that she was believable.
00:44:59
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
That's a trap, isn't it? I wouldn't want to be a narcissistic. um um I can be very selfish when I want to be, but I wouldn't want to think that I'm believable.
00:45:06
Caroline
yeah
00:45:08
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Even I don't believe me when I know I'm telling myself the truth.
00:45:12
Caroline
I know, and you know, I've been in a room where I tried to sell something better than it was, and like, I am aware when I have failed at doing that.
00:45:19
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yes, yeah. Yes. In her mind, she could trick the police.
00:45:25
Caroline
Yeah, yeah.
00:45:27
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Police are stupid. once Once they see that it was Tina who flew here You know, and then they see that she was.
00:45:34
Caroline
Right, like they were only going to check the one thing for a name.
00:45:36
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
All they're going to do is this is too complicated. We're going to quit looking.
00:45:40
Caroline
Right, because that's what she would do.
00:45:42
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
yeah Good point, Caroline. She thought that she could trick people on the jury. She thought that she could trick everybody into remembering that they absolutely saw her the day that she was in Virginia.
00:46:01
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
She even blamed Fred's brother, Michael, for the murder. Now, Fred's brother, Michael, lived, you know, not near Fred. They weren't not close. They weren't close. They were just brothers.
00:46:15
Caroline
Right.
00:46:16
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Fred, though, had taken out a life insurance policy for Piper in case he died before the kids were of age. That's the kind of guy he was.
00:46:28
Caroline
Yeah, that's very common. That's a very um smart security move. You never know what's going to happen.
00:46:35
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But when Fred was murdered, the family courts gave the kids to Michael.
00:46:41
Caroline
Yeah, good.
00:46:42
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So in court, Piper made up a lie.
00:46:46
Caroline
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:46:47
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
She told the jury that he got a lot of money in a life insurance for killing Fred and that it was him that killed Fred.
00:46:58
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And that he got a lot of money left to him in Fred's will. When in actuality, Piper got $200,000 of insurance money from Fred upon his death.
00:47:13
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Michael did not receive any money. He petitioned the court for custody and he got it.
00:47:19
Caroline
Well, so Michael's, you know, in touch enough to know that was the only important move he needed to make.
00:47:25
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Oh, hell yeah. Oh, hell yeah. i mean, he probably heard it from Fred about what was Fred was going through. Why did Fred leave money to his ex-wife? I think it's because he never dreamed that she would murder him.
00:47:38
Caroline
Well, yeah, and and and he probably did really want his kids to be, but i don't but that's a really good question because he knows she's not a proper mother.
00:47:43
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
with their mother.
00:47:47
Caroline
So why didn't he adjust it to go to the kids in a trust or something?
00:47:51
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Well, ah you know. Yeah, good point. I don't think he, you know, he just did not have murder on his mind.
00:47:55
Caroline
and No.
00:47:58
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And maybe he forgot.
00:47:59
Caroline
He ah probably did.
00:48:00
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Maybe he was going to get to it, you know, but he hadn't gotten to it.
00:48:02
Caroline
Yeah. Exactly. Ugh.
00:48:05
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
In Virginia, if you are in prison for life, which, by the way, that is the penalty that was given to Piper Rountree for murdering her husband, um,
00:48:21
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
If you were put into prison for life in Virginia and you have served at least 10 years or more and you are 60 years old or older, you can seek parole at that time.
Family Support and Dynamics
00:48:37
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So Piper was eligible for parole in 2020. So she'd been in prison for 16 years and she petitioned for parole.
00:48:49
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And parole board said, no, no, no, no. no
00:48:52
Caroline
Gosh, that was even during COVID.
00:48:52
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
No.
00:48:54
Caroline
she She must not be impressive at all.
00:48:55
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Right.
00:48:58
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yeah, no, you can bet that Michael came to that hearing.
00:49:03
Caroline
Oh, yeah. Yep.
00:49:03
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And a lot of other people probably did too. Perhaps she had a bad prison record. You know, she, okay, you can't get along with people.
00:49:13
Caroline
Yeah.
00:49:14
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Guess what? They're going to be all up in your business. And when I say business,
00:49:16
Caroline
I was going to say, you know, of all the people who are equally trying to get along with you, other attorneys in your firm, you you don't like them?
00:49:18
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I mean, what about the guards?
00:49:25
Caroline
Check out these inmates who you have zero choice about. I mean, geez. Ah. Yeah.
00:49:32
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
What about the administration?
00:49:34
Caroline
Yeah.
00:49:34
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I mean, who knows what her record was, but you can't come into your parole hearing with so many arguments that you know, you've been beat up 152 times.
00:49:49
Caroline
Right. Yeah.
00:49:50
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Perhaps she just keeps, you know, swearing she didn't do it. That's another reason that you won't be paroled.
00:49:56
Caroline
yeah
00:49:57
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
She, in her own mind, may believe that she didn't really do it, but she did it. There's enough direct evidence to know that it is a fact that she did it. She's lost all of her appeals. There were no, nothing going on with her trial that would cause a an appeal problem.
00:50:15
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Her sister, Tina, was her biggest fan and supported her in prison. you know that's Tina's going to be sending her commissary money and telling her that she's right and those other inmates are wrong. and you know To the day Tina died at age 52 in Houston, she was devoted to Piper as her much younger sister. She she never failed her sister.
00:50:41
Caroline
52 is really young.
00:50:42
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
i was so like,
00:50:43
Caroline
That's really young. Hmm.
00:50:44
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
shockingly young. It's very shockingly young. And I tried to find out what she died of. And I did find one article said she died of a heart attack.
00:50:54
Caroline
Well, you know, de we there's so much about this story that we don't know that we have to fill in with our own imagination.
00:50:59
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
and Yes.
00:51:01
Caroline
Whatever did happen, Tina was carrying it around. So...
00:51:07
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
You know, i want to, I'm always interested in an origin story and you, you, I usually have to make it up based on what I can see as time went on.
00:51:20
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But I have a tidbit of a origin story in my next ah comment. And that is that after her conviction, Piper Roundtree asked the court for mercy. You know, she's been convicted.
00:51:38
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
She's sitting there asking, do you have anything you want to say? Yes, I do. Okay, so she she said to the judge that she believed her children needed their father.
00:51:51
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And she also believed believed that um because of that, I would never have taken his life.
00:51:58
Caroline
Right. Yeah.
00:51:59
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But she added that they needed their mother too. So please don't send me away for long because I want ah i want their children i want my children to have their mother.
00:52:12
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
The mother got up there because, you know, she's allowed to have people on her side get up there for sentencing and also people who are not on her side.
00:52:22
Caroline
right
00:52:22
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So I'll just give you a sampling of who said what that I think points to an origin story. At her sentencing, three friends... got up and said, you know, she used to be so nice.
00:52:35
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And her mother pled for mercy also. Her mother said that Piper was a great mother and that, quote, she could come down to their level and not stay as an adult.
00:52:56
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Somehow I find that more damning than laudatory.
00:52:59
Caroline
Yeah, I mean, given the other context.
00:53:02
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But her mother had more to say on this matter. Her mother said, and I quote, you cannot take children away from their mother and come out the same person.
00:53:16
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
God gave children to the mother and the father is secondary.
00:53:24
Caroline
What? So much to unpack there. But yeah, her mom seems a lot more revealing than...
00:53:29
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
did, so.
00:53:32
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
That is very revealing, very revealing that it's laudatory to forget you are the adult in the room when you're dealing with a child.
00:53:34
Caroline
Yeah.
00:53:44
Caroline
Right. Like...
00:53:46
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
and you are you are doing things for future child who is an adult.
00:53:52
Caroline
Yeah. Yes.
00:53:54
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
That is your job.
00:53:56
Caroline
Yes.
00:53:57
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But the mother thought that it was worth mentioning that actually, Piper can become a child.
00:54:05
Caroline
Yeah. And so she just becomes one of the crew, you know, one of the crew here. She becomes one of her own children. Like it's not, I get the sentiment that was intended potentially, but like, that's not the same as what you said.
00:54:18
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
No, I think that then you look back on the $50,000 sudden bill for, you know, what that poor Fred's got to deal with, and I'm thinking, yeah, a child
00:54:23
Caroline
Yes.
00:54:29
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
will take a bucket of monopoly money
Reflection and Moral Implications
00:54:33
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
and run it all around town and just, you know, play, play, play, play.
00:54:33
Caroline
Uh-huh. Oh, yeah. Yep.
00:54:37
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
play I want, I want, I want, gimme, gimme, gimme.
00:54:40
Caroline
Right.
00:54:41
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I mean, children are by design narcissists.
00:54:44
Caroline
Totally. It's part of the survival package.
00:54:45
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
They have to be completely, asked they have to be completely self-centered.
00:54:47
Caroline
Yeah. Yeah.
00:54:51
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And apparently the mother is saying she can be just as self-centered as a child.
00:54:56
Caroline
Right. With no objective. Like, i don yeah, that's not as good as it sounds.
00:54:59
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So when we think about what happened here, okay, I'm going to put that on the list.
00:55:04
Caroline
Well, yeah, because it's.
00:55:04
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
The second one on the list is you were brought up to believe that you had more rights than men by God's decree.
00:55:10
Caroline
Yeah. And that and that the that it's not the parents and the family that's important, but the mother's first father's second. Like, what is that? There's no.
00:55:20
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
That's what we call propaganda so that that you can get a license to kill the father.
00:55:25
Caroline
Yeah.
00:55:27
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But the judge... is better than me and you, Caroline. The judge did not rebuke the mother. Obviously, in a way, he did because he sentenced Piper to life in prison.
00:55:38
Caroline
Yeah.
00:55:40
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But he didn't say things like, now I understand what happened to this young lady.
00:55:44
Caroline
Yeah. Or like, so when y'all were talking about and plotting this murder, what was you, was that your input, mom? Yeah.
00:55:54
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
i'll I'll tell you, this is my favorite comment that came out of the sentencing hearing. The prosecuting attorney stood up and commented to the judge before he, the judge, passed sentence.
00:56:12
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Piper could have changed course at any moment and not murdered. She could have gotten off that plane and turned around and come back home.
00:56:24
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
She could have never gotten on that plane.
00:56:28
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
After she murdered, though, she showed no remorse. She paints herself as the victim. She blames everyone else for everything that happened.
00:56:42
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He went on to say that her children will never recover from losing their parents, not even if they live to be 80 years old. And I think he's right about that.
00:56:56
Caroline
Yeah, me too.
00:56:59
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So to Fred Jablin and his children, I respect you and I'm sorry about what happened to you. And I hope that the world, at least our podcast world, understands what a terrible person Piper Roundtree is.
00:57:19
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And that she should never be removed from prison, let go, doesn't matter how old she gets. She does not deserve to be set free.
00:57:31
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Today's episode is researched, written, and narrated by Bridget and Caroline, produced by Andy. Our research is solely based on public domain documents, including legal documents, articles, and books for people.
00:57:44
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
our a About our subject. Episodes are aired every other week. So if you like us, please subscribe and give us give us a five-star review if you can. Tell your friends about us in person and by social media.
00:57:58
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
All of these actions help new listeners find us. Thank you so much for listening. We appreciate you. And one more thing. Don't forget to live and let live.
00:58:12
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Well, bye-bye, Caroline.
00:58:14
Caroline
Bye-bye.