0:00
with her name. She conscious. She conscious.
0:07
Ma'am, what's your name? Huh? I can't hear you.
0:12
Tiffany. Tiffany. All right, Tiffany. I'm going to change these handcuffs out. Okay. And then I'm going to roll you over. I'm going to sit
0:18
you up. All right. It was November 2023 and police were responding to a call made by a concerned
0:25
neighbor. Officers were clearly confused about what they were walking into, but then again, everybody was. But with a
0:32
distressed mother lying on the driveway and rumors that her two children were still inside the house and in danger,
0:38
the situation quickly turned serious. However, while this chaos was unfolding
0:44
outside, it tragically was already too late for them. And when police officers
0:49
stepped inside Tiffany's home, that was when the story began to unravel. A story
0:55
that you will soon come to realize is filled with lies, delusions, and deeply
1:00
troubling clues. Hi there folks, my name is Adrien and
1:06
today we're traveling to Kentucky to look at a story that left a town in disbelief. You know, I have to say this
1:12
story really will leave you wondering what happens behind closed doors. not only for the family and all of the
1:18
social media left behind, but also all of those red flags which were kind of seen but never fully realized. Now, I
1:24
have to say we've got quite a lot to cover in this one, which is slightly different to the usual. And so, on that
1:30
note, please grab yourself a coffee, get comfortable, and let's caffeinate while we investigate. This is the case of
1:36
Tiffany Lucas.
1:48
Welcome to the Bluegrass State, folks. Also known as Kentucky or the horse capital of the world. It is home to the
1:55
world's longest cave system, hosts the oldest continuously held horse race, and produces more than 95% of the world's
2:03
entire supply of bourbon, which considering how big the world actually is, is extraordinarily impressive.
2:09
However, Kentucky has a darker side, too. Because not only does poverty run deep here, but it's actually too deep to
2:16
ignore. Because with that comes a whole list of other issues, too. We're talking about the brain drain, political
2:23
division, and something that we'll touch later on in this video, the opioid crisis. Unfortunately, poor health is
2:30
one of Kucky's hardest truths to swallow. The state regularly ranks near the bottom in the country for overall
2:35
health outcomes, which as you will soon realize feels especially relevant for the story that we're about to talk
2:42
about. Because in many ways, this case is yet another casualty of those ongoing struggles. And it raises one simple
2:48
question. When was the last time that you took your own health seriously? And I don't mean the kind of serious where
2:54
you're up late at night doom scrolling and trying to convince yourself that you're fine or not. Because trust me,
2:59
we've all been there, including me. But I mean seriously. In fact, it was only a few weeks ago and while experiencing
3:05
RSI, which by the way just means sore wrists, that Google even suggested that I might be experiencing a heart attack,
3:12
which yeah, I somehow doubt. And with this story touching on both physical and mental health quite heavily, I think now
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in-et network doctor today. Thank you so much to ZuckDoc for sponsoring this video. especially with how much health
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pivots on this story. And now, let's get straight back to our case today. Our case today begins on November the 8th,
4:32
2023 in a small city named Shephardd'sville when a horrifying call was made to the emergency services. It
4:39
was on this morning that a woman had phoned the police and said that her neighbor had come to her door and then
4:44
suddenly collapsed. And as you can tell in this recording, you can actually hear how frantic things were.
4:52
County 911. Where is your emergency? 219 Bentwood Drive, Shepardsville,
4:57
Kentucky 40165. Uh, my neighbor just came up to my door and just passed out and I can't get her
5:04
to wake up. She Okay. Is she breathing? She is. How old is
5:10
I would say in her early 30s.
5:16
And now she's screaming that her kids are dying. I don't know.
5:21
I don't even know her name. The woman named Tiffany Lucas was a 32-year-old mother who lived next door
5:27
and was now lying on her neighbor's driveway, drifting in and out of consciousness. Her neighbors had no idea
5:34
what had happened inside her home, only that this looked like a medical emergency and that Tiffany might be in
5:40
serious trouble. While one of the neighbors stayed by her side, another neighbor walked towards the Lucas
5:46
household, heading straight towards what could be possible danger. The man knew that Tiffany had two children inside,
5:53
and so whatever was going on, they could possibly be in harm's way, too. But tragically, little did they know that it
6:01
was already too late. Within minutes, police officers arrived at Bentwood Drive. They rushed into the driveway and
6:07
then kneled beside Tiffany. But moments later, then realized that the real emergency wasn't outside. It was
6:14
actually inside with her children. Following the neighbor's husband, deputies then moved carefully through
6:19
the Lucas household, calling out as they cleared each room. As they walked through, everything seemed quiet and
6:26
maybe even calm. That was until they reached one of the bedrooms. On the bed,
6:31
and lying side by side were Tiffany's two sons, that being 9-year-old Jaden
6:36
Howard and six-year-old Morris Baker Jr., also known as Peanut. What happened
6:42
next is too disturbing to show on YouTube, but in short, although both boys were still alive, they were only
6:48
barely clinging to life. And that is because it appeared that they had been shot four times in total.
6:55
Police officers shouted for the paramedics who rushed in to then desperately try to save both of the
7:00
boys, and within minutes, both of them were on their way to a local hospital. Once they were gone, detectives then
7:06
focused their efforts on trying to understand what precisely happened in this bedroom. And soon enough, they
7:12
concluded that this must have been an act of double homicide. But outside of that bedroom, something, or rather the
7:18
lack of something, really stood out. They suddenly realized that there were actually no signs of an intruder, and
7:24
there was no evidence to suggest that anybody outside of the family had even entered the property that morning. The
7:30
windows were fine. The doors hadn't been tampered with, and the locks were still intact. So, what was going on? What this
7:38
meant, or at least suggested, is that none of this had actually come from outside of the family home. And of
7:44
course, that left only one person remaining, the boy's mother, who was now lying outside on the driveway. It's kind
7:51
of a very grim and uncomfortable realization, isn't it? And on that note, this story suddenly became a whole lot
7:58
darker. The neighborhood was stunned as ambulances tore down the street towards
8:03
Lewisville and officers wrapped the home in police tape. You could see the confusion on neighbors faces. What
8:10
precisely had gone wrong inside that house? Who was hurt? And why was Tiffany
8:15
lying there in handcuffs? So, focusing back on Tiffany for a moment, officers
8:21
described her as dazed and disoriented, but not seriously injured, which given
8:26
the circumstances actually made them more uneasy. Paramedics checked her over and found only a small cut near her ear,
8:33
something that she later described as a graze from an attempted self-inflicted gunshot. But the thing is, it barely
8:40
even looked like a wound at all. Because not only was there no major bleeding, but there was no real trauma either. The
8:46
neighbor who had entered the house before police arrived had one blunt theory to all of this confusion. The
8:52
same one that most of us are already thinking that tragically Tiffany had shot her own children. And the thing is
8:59
at this point in the investigation, it seems like officers were coming to the very same conclusion. And so right there
9:06
on the driveway, she was placed in handcuffs and arrested on the spot. From the outside, things now looked even
9:13
worse than before. All the neighbors could see was a mother rambling incoherently in handcuffs, surrounded by
9:19
more than a dozen police cars and ambulances who were now swarming her home, and two children who were now
9:25
missing. And tragically, by that afternoon, that disbelief turned into something far heavier because despite
9:33
doctor's best efforts, both Jaden and Morris would die from their injuries. By
9:38
the evening, they were both pronounced dead at the children's hospital. Almost
9:43
immediately, the charges against Tiffany Lucas were now upgraded from attempted murder to two counts of homicide.
9:49
Whatever had happened inside that family home, the consequences were now irreversible. And of course, at the
9:56
center of it all was their mother. So, with that said, who precisely is Tiffany
10:02
Lucas? Well, Tiffany may have looked like a fairly ordinary single mother who was doing her best, but let me be not
10:09
the first to say that she wasn't. Her Facebook page, which is filled with selfies and school photos, show exactly
10:15
what you'd expect from a proud mom who also maybe has too much confidence. We'll get to that in just a second. In
10:22
fact, only 6 months before the deaths of her sons. And on Mother's Day, she wrote that they were always together and never
10:29
apart, and called them quote, "Three souls and one heart," adding that she wouldn't know how to smile or survive
10:36
without them. There were plenty of photos of them hugging, wearing matching outfits, and all the rest. I mean, there
10:43
are quite literally hundreds of photos here. And the thing is that if you only knew her through social media, you would
10:49
probably think that she is a tired but loving mom. However, it is also obvious that she was trying to promote herself
10:56
left, right, and center. If you go back far enough in her social media, you can actually see that she was trying to get
11:02
into fitness and modeling. And there are plenty of pictures of her in semi-professional photo shoots at best.
11:08
Tiffany would also share sneak peeks as if it actually meant something because seriously, who cares? And she would also
11:15
call herself a bad little vibe. She would even try to launch her very own runway show, which ultimately would
11:22
flop. Many of her photos showed her in sports gear and outfits, in front of seemingly expensive cars, and wearing
11:29
designer handbags. I really like this one, by the way, where she's sticking her butt out so hard that she's
11:35
essentially Donald Duck and her handbag is just kind of slapped leaning against her. A lot of her posts were
11:41
self-indulgent, too. For example, there is this one where she wrote leveled up and only look back in pictures. Simply
11:48
the best better than the rest. Except that she spelled leveled incorrectly and even managed to get Tina Turner's lyrics
11:54
wrong, too. I'd like to remind you that while all of this was going on, she was also posting pictures of being the
12:01
perfect mother, which I don't know, it just kind of feels a little bit immature, especially while you're
12:06
raising children. And the truth is that the deeper that you look, the more that her image starts to feel more like a
12:12
performance than anything else. Kind of like she was trying to compensate for something. And that's true because
12:19
behind the scenes, Tiffany's life had been unraveling for years. So, let's
12:24
rewind for a moment and go right back to the beginning. The truth is that although we do know that Tiffany grew up
12:30
in Kentucky, there is not much information known about her childhood. What we do know, however, is that she
12:36
had Jaden on March the 13th, 2014 with a man named Jurel Howard. Morris followed
12:42
a few years later in 2016 with a different father. And although Tiffany would never stay with either of these
12:49
two men, we do know that both boys remained close to their extended families. And then only three years
12:55
after Morris was born, tragedy struck in 2019 when Jaden's father, Durl, was shot
13:01
and killed in Lewisville. Now, strangely, that case was never solved.
13:06
But there is no evidence to suggest that Tiffany was actually linked to his murder. I have seen a few news reports
13:13
try to clickbait and pivot on that and say that maybe she was connected to it, but honestly I can't see it. All of a
13:20
sudden, Tiffany was left to raise Jaden and Morris all alone and without much support. And honestly, from that point
13:28
onwards, life really did seem to steadily go downhill. In the year 2016,
13:33
and at only 25 years old, Tiffany opened a small convenience store in West Lewisville called Miss Tiff's One-stop
13:40
Shop. In fact, she even appeared in a local news segment to talk about it. And there's footage of that here.
13:46
A lot of people don't make their way down here, but if there's a Walmart, you know, you come out of the woodworks for Walmart. So, um, probably would have
13:52
brought a lot of people to, um, you know, stop and check us out. It is kind of strange to watch that footage now because that business
13:59
wouldn't last. And we should probably talk about her former low-level arrests, too. It was in the late 2010s that
14:06
Tiffany was arrested for drug possession, receiving stolen property and other minor offenses. At one point,
14:13
she even allegedly served a month in jail on a drug conviction. Nothing that would have been enough to mark her as
14:19
dangerous, but certainly enough to show that she was in fact struggling. After that jail time, she mostly fell off the
14:26
radar, at least publicly. But privately, things were still deteriorating. And by
14:32
2023, Tiffany was both unemployed and using drugs again. And it turns out that
14:38
her home on Bendwood Drive reflected that. Relatives described the house as filthy and barely functional. Utilities
14:45
had allegedly been shut off for non-payment, and trash had now piled up. Apparently, family had even seen
14:52
eviction notices sat on the countertop. By now, Tiffany and the boys were essentially living in survival mode.
14:59
However, online she would still paint the perfect picture.
15:06
Now, any of my regular viewers will know that we've been here time and time again, but those glitzy and curated
15:11
images seen on social media versus the actual gritty reality behind closed doors could not be any further from the
15:18
truth. And so, this is a reminder to all of you today, but please never compare yourself to anyone online because the
15:24
truth is it is rarely the full story. Anyway, as it turns out, child protective services had even been called
15:31
to the property numerous times in the previous months and years, not only by concerned relatives, but by worried
15:37
neighbors, too. In fact, at one point, Morris's aunt even gained temporary custody over both boys when the
15:43
authorities believed that Tiffany was making the home unsafe due to her drug abuse. And looking back, they were right
15:50
on the money. Now, eventually, both boys were returned to their mother. But rather than lean on her family for help
15:56
and support, Tiffany grew increasingly isolated. Both friends and relatives described her pulling away, becoming
16:02
everinccreasingly paranoid, and talking about very strange things. Strange things like people were stalking her,
16:09
that both Facebook and YouTube were controlling her children's minds, and even that the Wi-Fi was somehow
16:14
manipulating her thoughts. Now, of course, on the outside, none of this was actually visible to anyone. However,
16:21
behind closed doors, things were quite evidently slipping. By 2023, things were
16:27
well and truly collapsing for Tiffany. With her business now closed and no stable job ever since, she was
16:34
essentially financially broken. And although she was receiving some benefits from the state and support from one of
16:40
her children's fathers, she was still deep in the red. And so couple that with her deteriorating mental health and a
16:47
returning addiction to a range of different drugs, well, you certainly have a recipe for disaster. To be more
16:54
specific here, Tiffany had become addicted to opioids. And although she would abruptly quit them, even that was
17:01
not a good idea because it turns out that sudden withdrawal to opioids can trigger extreme anxiety, paranoia,
17:08
insomnia, and in severe cases, psychotic symptoms. It was actually around this
17:14
time that Tiffany had grown paranoid again, believing that Wi-Fi and video games were actually controlling her
17:21
children. She believed that their minds were now being altered and that something unseen was influencing the
17:27
household. And by the way, this wasn't just too much Fortnite or too much YouTube, but it sounded like genuine
17:34
fear. And personally, I think that is what makes this part of the story so unsettling. Because while all of this
17:40
was going on, life on the outside just carried on as usual. Again, I would like to reiterate here that this wasn't some
17:47
sort of huge moment of alarm for Jaden and Morris, but instead a mild and lingering worry until one day they were
17:55
gone. On the day before the murders, that being November the 7th, 2023, Tiffany took Jaden and Morris out to a
18:02
Waffle House where surveillance footage shows the three of them sitting in a booth like any other family. The boys
18:07
can be seen eating while Tiffany scrolls through her phone like she has so many times before. Nothing looks strange, and
18:14
if you didn't know the ending to this story, you would never look twice at that video. But of course,
18:19
unfortunately, we all know what happened next. Although the following day was a school day, both Morris and Jaden never
18:27
made it onto the bus. We don't know whether Tiffany intentionally kept them home or if they simply missed it. But
18:33
what we do know is that hours later, they were dead. At approximately 11:00 a.m., a neighbor's Ring doorbell camera
18:40
recorded four gunshots over the course of roughly 30 seconds. And after the final shot, there was a gap of several
18:47
minutes before Tiffany herself appeared outside screaming for help. It is reported that during that moment of
18:54
quietness, she then allegedly tried to take her own life, and that is when the gun jammed. Whether that's true or not,
19:01
we may never actually know. However, it would explain the small grays along the back of her ear and why the weapon was
19:08
found on her bed. With Jaden and Morris pronounced dead and Tiffany now in custody, officers were of course
19:15
desperate to understand what happened and why. And so, it is no surprise that
19:21
later that same day, Tiffany was then brought into the sheriff's office for questioning. As you can see, she was
19:27
still wearing the same clothes from that morning, and to be honest with you, still looked just as disheveled as when
19:33
she had originally been picked up. It is worth highlighting here that Detective Richard Beiel, who sat in on the
19:39
interrogation, had already walked through that bedroom. He had already seen the bed, the blood, and the
19:45
bullets. And now he had to sit face to face with their alleged killer and ask
19:50
her to explain what happened. And let's just say that the entire thing was bizarre at best.
19:56
Feel like I've been manipulating the games systems and everything. Then manipulate my children, manipulating my
20:03
mind. Who is all them game systems and you know just everything.
20:09
The games you said. Yeah. Like PlayStations, all the games that kids play. Yeah. It manipulates their minds and then they
20:15
get to your mind. Stuff that's on the internet that you have access to now is
20:20
terrible. It's terrible for the kids and they need to stop. Like my kids are beautiful angels, you know. And
20:30
were they misbehaving earlier? No. No. No. Do you?
20:36
They're perfect. They are. Do you know what happened to them today?
20:42
Can you talk to me about that? I just did. H They just did. As you can tell, Tiffany
20:49
was obsessed with talking about technology, which she believed manipulated her and her children. She
20:55
kept ranting about mobile phones, video games, YouTube, and the internet, and
21:01
spoke as if they were actively controlling her household and slowly breaking her family apart. And honestly,
21:07
it didn't really sound like technology at all. It sounded like something else. Being the only sane person between the
21:14
two, Detective Beal eventually guided the conversation back to the obvious question. Of course, that being, if you
21:20
love your children, then how did they end up shot? And that is when she brought up a name that no one in the
21:26
room had ever heard before. That being Parker Borders. And what followed next
21:31
sounded less like a confession and more like a conspiracy theory. Can you just send me the mental, please?
21:37
H Can you just take me to the mental? We'll help you out there. But if if you
21:43
didn't do it, who did it? I don't have nothing else to say.
21:52
Father in heaven, be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth
21:57
as it is in heaven. So to recap here, Tiffany now claimed
22:04
that a man named Parker Borders had been manipulating her mind for years. And that included not only planting strange
22:10
ideas in her mind, but even controlling her phone. But when detectives asked where Parker was or what he did or even
22:17
where he lived, well, Tiffany, she could not answer any of those questions. Instead, all she said is that apparently
22:24
he lived close enough to remotely manipulate her. She could never provide any real or verifiable information
22:30
either, only the sorts of things that would in essence help her defense. For example, she claimed that the gun
22:36
apparently belonged to Parker. And as the interview went on, you really could tell that Tiffany was slowly cracking
22:43
under the surface. In fact, she would even go on to ask for help and a psychiatric evaluation. And by the end
22:49
of it, investigators really did have enough. In fact, they were quite sure that there was no accomplice, no
22:54
intruder, and no Parker Borders. This was just a woman who refused to take accountability and in return created an
23:02
imaginary figure. And by the end of it, investigators really did have enough. In fact, they were quite confident that
23:08
there were no intruders, no accompllices, and no Parker Borders. This was just a woman who refused to
23:15
take accountability. And in effect, she had created this imaginary figure to take all of the blame. The whole Parker
23:22
Border scenario was absolutely surreal, but of course, detectives would still have to take it seriously. I mean, if
23:29
there was even a 1% chance that a man who was capable of murdering a child was still out there, then it was worth
23:35
checking. They ran the name through databases, searched local records, looked for prior contacts, and even
23:42
searched through addresses. Anything that might connect a so-called Parker Borders to Tiffany Lucas. Yet, even
23:48
still, despite their best efforts, they found nothing. And that's because Parker Borders simply did not exist whatsoever.
23:56
And once that became overwhelmingly clear to police officers, Tiffany's story started to look less like a lead
24:02
and more like a delusion. Because even without her statement, the evidence already told a rather straightforward
24:09
story. So what precisely did that look like anyway? To begin with, there were no signs of forced entry, no unknown
24:16
fingerprints, and no indication that anyone else had ever stepped foot inside that bedroom before the children were
24:23
shot. And what was left behind at the property suggested that the house was not the scene of an invasion or a
24:29
struggle either. It was quiet, contained, and essentially undisturbed, except of course for the bed where both
24:36
boys were found clinging for their lives.
24:41
And when confronted with all of this, Tiffany suddenly pivoted. Now, it apparently was all some sort of
24:47
accident. I would like to remind you here that investigators found four spent bullet casings throughout that bedroom
24:53
and both Jaden and Morris had been fatally shot. That does not sound like an accident to me. The Ring doorbell
25:00
camera also recorded those four gunshots over a period of roughly 30 seconds.
25:05
That was not in quick succession, meaning that the shooter had plenty of time to figure out and think about what
25:11
they were doing. To emphasize here, the more that I looked into this case, the more I realized that Tiffany is the kind
25:16
of person who will never take accountability. She will never look at her actions or flaws and think, "Yeah, I
25:23
need to correct them." Because all of us are broken in some ways, right? And none of us are perfect. But the difference
25:29
between a good person and a bad person is the ability to reflect and improve. And here, Tiffany was making imaginary
25:35
figures to take the blame for her own drugfueled actions. Moving into the legal proceedings of
25:42
this case. Once the interrogation ended and the evidence had been processed, everything else seemed to move quite
25:48
quickly. And that is because there was not much mystery left about what happened inside the house. The only real
25:54
question now was for the courts to determine how Tiffany would be held responsible and whether her mental state
25:59
would change the outcome. As you already know, she was formally charged with two counts of murder, one for each of her
26:06
sons. And not only that, but her bond was also set at $2 million, meaning that
26:11
there was no realistic chance that she would be released in the interim. Even early on in the investigation, her
26:17
defense team made it clear that they intended to focus on her mental health. They never disputed whether she shot
26:24
both boys because obviously that would have been a complete waste of effort. In
26:29
parallel, they signaled that they might pursue an insanity defense instead, arguing that she had been suffering from
26:35
a severe mental health break, which was brought on by drug use, withdrawal, and paranoia. Notice the nuance there, by
26:42
the way. Drug use, not abuse. They also claimed that she was not fully grounded
26:48
in reality at the time of the shootings, and that her thinking was distorted enough to qualify as a mental disease or
26:55
defect under the law. However, an insanity defense is of course a gamble.
27:00
It requires multiple evaluations, expert testimony, and a huge amount of persuasion. And given the physical
27:06
evidence, her behavior after the shooting, and the fact that she immediately tried to shift blame, it was
27:12
never a strong case to begin with. And then all of a sudden, about a year after the murders, the case would take an
27:19
unexpected turn when instead of going to trial, Tiffany would plead guilty. Of
27:24
course, this was a shock to many others, especially for someone who had initially invented imaginary culprits. Oh, and
27:31
when asked directly whether she was pleading guilty because she was in fact guilty, she answered yes, and observers
27:38
described her as both emotionless and cold as she said it. Tiffany's plea was open, meaning that not only was there no
27:46
negotiated deal, but the sentence would be entirely up to the judge, and that she was effectively placing her entire
27:52
fate in the court's hands. During the sentencing hearing, relatives of both Jaden and Morris filled the courtroom
27:59
and delivered some of the most harrowing victim impact statements that I've ever heard, filled with both anger and grief.
28:06
It was clear that neither of the families were willing to show any mercy towards her. And honestly, it's hard to
28:12
blame them. Every second of the day, I hurt
28:19
and I hope they give you two life sentence without the possibility of parole.
28:26
They loved you so much, but at the end of the day, you became what children their age fear the most, a monster. To
28:33
both of those families, they concluded that Tiffany had been selfish long before the murders of her two young
28:39
boys. She was selfish in her addiction, selfish in the years of neglect, and selfish for consistently placing herself
28:47
before her children's most basic needs. They believed that her addiction and her choices had put both boys directly in
28:54
harm's way and that if she had simply put both of them first, then she would have accepted their offers in looking
29:00
after them while she got herself clean. Meanwhile, her attorneys reiterated that she'd been experiencing powerful
29:07
delusions and a psychotic episode during the murders, again referencing the idea
29:12
that she had then tried to take her own life afterwards. And although the judge did not ignore that argument, he would
29:19
also not soften his language or his stance on her. Instead, he spoke about what it really means to be a parent, not
29:27
merely providing just food and shelter, but safety and protection, too. In the end, the judge imposed the maximum
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sentence available. That being life in prison on both counts. And so now,
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Tiffany is basically as good as dead on the outside. I do have to say here that
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technically Kentucky law allows parole eligibility after 25 years. However, the
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prosecution were quite blunt about the odds because in a case like this with a mother killing her own children, the
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chances are practically almost non-existent.
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And so, as she was led out of the room in handcuffs, the legal process and effectively her life was now over. I
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think this story hits a little bit harder than most because this wasn't some fraud scheme or some love triangle
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gone wrong, but two innocent children that had no control over their destiny. In the weeks and months that followed,
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Shepherd'sville didn't quite feel the same anymore. And there was this thick sorrow that just seemed to hang in the
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air. By the way, that thick sorrow really does have a feeling, and I speak about that from recent experience. It
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was only 2 days ago that I visited Bondi Beach in Sydney where a mass shooting happened just last month and you really
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could feel that sadness in the air. And for Shepherdsville, I imagine it really did feel like the same kind of grief.
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Many residents described the same emotion here, grief. A candlelight vigil was held just days later at a local
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church where hundreds showed up including friends, classmates, teachers, neighbors, and family. Family members
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spoke about how many of them had tried to step in and help Tiffany and the boys. Several had called child
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protective services over the years, while others had even offered to adopt them outright. Looking back, if the
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system had just listened a little more closely, then maybe Jaden and Morris may still be here. The Lucas household
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itself quietly transformed into a memorial where flowers, stuffed animals, and letters were left at the door and
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photos were taped to the fence. For multiple weeks, people stopped by to leave something behind. And in a way, it
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became less of a crime scene and more a place of mourning. And through all of it, and across conversations and local
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news interviews alike, the same question kept surfacing up to the top. Could this
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maybe have been prevented? The truth is that there is no easy answer and cases
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like this rarely hinge on one missed moment. They are usually the result of dozens of small failures. And this one
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was of course no different. Jaden Howard was only 9 years old when he was murdered. Old enough to be independent
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and look out for his younger brother, but still young enough to get excited about things like video games and school
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field trips. Family members describe him as gentle and protective and the kind of kid who naturally stepped into the big
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brother role. He liked sports, being outside, and doing anything that let him burn off energy. And Morris, or Peanut,
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as everyone called him, was only six when he died. Smaller, louder, and always trying to keep up with Jaden. He
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was a little rocket of a child. He loved animals, soccer, and tagging along behind his brother like a shadow. And if
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Jaden went anywhere, well, Morris wasn't far behind. Every photo of them, even
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the ones taken by their mother, told the same story. And although Tiffany may have recorded moments for social media,
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it was Jaden and Morris that were always genuine in every single one. They loved their mother, and of course, they loved
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each other. After their deaths, the school set up counseling for classmates and created small memorials in their
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honor. And at the vigils, people shared simple memories about how polite they were and how Jaden would hold doors open
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for adults like a true gentleman.
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It's kind of strange, isn't it? If you look at Tiffany's social media, all it is is well, rainbows and sunshine
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because from the outside, all you saw was a happy mother who really had it together. But once again, social media
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really can be just nothing more than a facade. because deep down Tiffany's world was broken. You know, I actually
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do believe that she deeply regrets what she did and she never even really meant to do it. But at the end of the day,
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that doesn't matter because either way, two young boys lives are gone forever. This case really was senseless. But as
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always, I'd love to know what you think about this one. So, please do share your thoughts in the comments section down below. Thank you again to Zoddoc for
33:59
sponsoring today's video. Go to zdoc.com/coffousime to book an appointment with a toprated
34:04
in network doctor today. Anyway, I'll be back again next week for a new video. But until a moment arrives, remember to
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look after yourselves and each other. And of course, stay safe and stay curious. Thank you and goodbye.