The Murder of Jason Sweeney

0:00At just 16 years old, he had a steady-paying job working beside his father. He had plans for the Navy, and a new girlfriend he couldn't wait to introduce to his family. But on May 30, 2003, his new girlfriend led him into a wooded area along Philadelphia's Delaware River, where three people he trusted were waiting to ambush him, all for roughly $500 in the paycheck he earned that week. What followed was an almost unimaginable betrayal, and the discovery that four teenagers had been willing to plan a murder of their very own friend simply to take his cash and spend it all on drugs. This is the story of the murder of Jason Swini. My name's Ben. I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked and Grim.

1:01A true crime podcast. The following podcast contains graphic content and material intended for a mature audience. Listener discretion is advised. I have two things right out of the gate here. Ready for them? I'm ready. First, it's officially spooky season. September 1st, baby! We're in the Burm once. It's here. We've waited for this, and it's now here. It is time. And second of all, this is a thing. So when we're recording, I feel like our dogs have a job to do. So this morning, I was like, okay, we gotta get to work, because Ripley really

2:03needs a walker of some sort. She's just unhinged right now. She's got some pent-up energy. But when we're recording, they know that they need to stay on their beds and they can't be little menaces and they have to be quiet. So they have a job to do while we're recording. Ben didn't think that they do. But are you saying their job is to get the fuck out of our way? No, when we're recording, they know they have to just like rest, have a little nap, you know, get through it. And then when they hear stay Wicked, it's like all hell breaks loose. Yeah, but you framed it like Ripley was like, oh, time to go to work. Well, yeah. She's not going to work. She's going to work. She's got a job to do. NAP? Yeah. I wish that was my job to just have a nap and be cute and not bother someone. That sounds amazing. I mean, not every dog has a good life, but most do. And our dogs have a damn good life, I feel like. Our dogs definitely do have a good life. We have a good life, too. And so did the people who sign up over on Patreon because they get behind the scenes. They get ads free, they get exclusive content like Jeremy Vorhauer, Crystal McPherson,

3:08Suzanne and Tina Carver. They all signed up this week and they get all that cool stuff over there. And I think it's pretty cool. If you ask me, it's pretty good life over there. Yeah, it's damn cool over there. Yeah, although I do admit, I think just sleeping on my bed all day as a cute dog sounds better. Well, you're doing that. I just had a realization, holy shit. So Ben's already bought in Halloween candy, which is just a frickin' slippery slope in my opinion. Yeah. But I think I've eaten, like, I can't remember if I've had two or three today, which is a problem. And then I was looking at the box over there because it's in like the recycling basket. Yep. They're like 200 calories each. Are they? Really each? I've just like, mindlessly consumed, maybe 600 calories. Well, you saw me yesterday. I had a stack of wrappers next to me because I was like, stress eating them as I was researching and such. You were. You were going to town. It was piling up next to me and it was a bad scenario. Other than that, I haven't actually been that tempted for the candy.

4:08It was the stress eating that got me. Well, I guess that was my breakfast this morning. Chocolate breakfast. Dang. It's September 1st. It's okay. It doesn't count. Okay. Okay. So it doesn't count for the next two months. I can gain 20 pounds and it doesn't count. Yeah. Halloween calories do not exist. Halloween candy calories, I mean. Oh. It's true. Don't exist. It's not real. There's some doctors and dentists and stuff out there. They're just screaming at us. I'm sure. Anyways, I think we should get onto the story if you're ready. Yeah. This one sounds kind of terrible. This one is definitely terrible. The motive behind it is insane to me all for a small sum of money. But if you're ready. Yeah. Well, let's hear the story. Well, in the spring of 2003, 16-year-old Jason Keel Sweeney was living with his family in Fish Town, a working-class neighborhood in Philadelphia, USA, built around narrow streets with brick row houses and nearby.

5:09There was the Delaware River. His parents, Paul and Don Sweeney had raised their children there and Jason was particularly close with his family. Paul ran a small construction company while Don worked as a bank teller and photographs of Jason and his siblings filled the walls of their home. Jason was still only 16 years old. But his life had already started moving in a very adult direction. See, in 2003, earlier in that year, he'd actually left high school and gone to work full time with his father. Paul described his son as a very accomplished carpenter, especially for his age, and Jason was earning around $500 a week working construction. Now he wasn't simply making money to spend on whatever interest he had that week as typical teenagers do though. No, he had plans for what he wanted to do next. See, Jason was saving, and he wanted to join the United States Navy with a larger ambition of eventually becoming a Navy seal. Jason had actually also even been accepted to Valley Forge Military Academy in college.

6:12Unfortunately, his family couldn't afford the tuition. Now whatever Jason was about to do with his future though, the accounts from his father were very consistent about one thing. He had decided that the military was what he wanted to do with his life. Now one person who had been around for much of Jason's childhood was Edward Eddie Batsig Jr. Jason and Eddie had been best friends since elementary school, and from what I could find it was the fourth grade. In their friendship, extended well beyond seeing each other at school too. Eddie had spent time at the Sweeney home, ate dinner with the family, and became someone Jason's parents and siblings knew quite well. Their families even included this other boy in some family trips. On Jason turn 16, for example, Eddie accompanied him on a trip to Florida to visit Don's parents. Now Jason was also friends with two brothers, Nicholas and Dominic Coya. Nicholas was Jason and Eddie's age while Dominic was a little older, but despite that, the boys had spent considerable time together growing up.

7:15However, as they moved into their teenage years, the friendships began to change. See Don and Paul had become uncomfortable with the direction some of Jason's friends were taking. According to Jason's sister Melissa, Eddie had become increasingly involved with drugs, alcohol, and other trouble that sometimes brought him in contact with the courts. Nicholas and Dominic were also spending their time in ways that Jason's parents didn't exactly like. Eventually, Don and Paul told Jason they didn't want him associating with the Coya brothers. And after the trip to Florida, they even told him that they wanted to see him stop spending time with Eddie. Now Jason may have occasionally smoked marijuana, but he was certainly not a regular user. But some of his friends were using harder drugs, and they were using him quite frequently. Jason, meanwhile, was working, earning his own money and thinking seriously about what he wanted to do with his life while people he had grown up with were moving in a very

8:16different direction. For a while, Jason's friendships with Eddie and the Coya brothers largely fizzled out. After Jason left school and began working full time, that's when he started crossing paths with McGinn, though. And it was through a wider circle that Jason met 15-year-old Justina Morley. He'd never really talked much about girls with his family before. And soon him and Justina were dating, and the two had only been seeing each other for roughly a week or two. But Jason was clearly excited about having his first real girlfriend. Now he wasn't getting ready to boast or anything like that, though. He was, however, just genuinely proud that he had someone for his family to meet, to introduce them to. And on May 29th, Jason told his mother about her, and that he had just been dating this girl for a couple of weeks. And he described Justina as nice and told his mother that he thought that she would really like her. Okay, that's pretty special that someone that age wanted to introduce their girlfriend

9:19that quickly, hey, to the family. He was definitely excited. He was, from my research, he was quite head over heels with her. Now and this introduction too, like that mattered a lot to his mother, Dawn, because Jason was quite close with her. So Jason and Justina began making the plans for her to come over to their house for dinner. And Jason was reportedly actually so enthusiastic about it that he even offered to pay for the groceries for dinner himself. Wow. That is really sweet. Yeah. So they set up the dinner date for Saturday, May 31st, 2003. Paul and Dawn were looking forward to finally meeting the girl their son had suddenly become, you know, so infatuated with and talking so much about. Jason's sister, Melissa was curious about her too. Jason, meanwhile, had one more workday to get through before this all came to fruition. And that was Friday, May 30th, 2003. Jason went to work with his father like he'd been doing for months. And that Friday was also payday.

10:20But while Jason was working, however, several of his friends were talking about him. Joshua Stabe, an 18 year old friend of Dominic Coya, had already heard some of those conversations. According to Joshua, Dominic had been talking for more than a week at this point about attacking and killing Jason. And the motive was disgustingly simple. Jason had money and he wanted it. Joshua also said that Eddie Batzig knew Jason would be carrying his paycheck when he was paid on Friday. Now Jason's new girlfriend, as it turns out, wasn't who he thought she was either. See, Justina had a specific role to play in this plan that was developing. She can get Jason to go somewhere, somewhere where the others could not easily get him on to go on their own. So she was going to be bait. Now I was unable to find anything that discussed if she was dating Jason to take advantage of

11:22him directly, or if she was dating him, and then the nefarious intentions came afterwards. But either way, the intention is still the same in the end, because it wasn't even the first idea that this group discussed that they went through with. An earlier idea the group had discussed involved getting Jason to the South Jersey shore, then wait for him to withdraw money from an ATM or something to the bank and then rob him and kill him down there. But for whatever reason, the plan didn't happen. A second plan was arranged for Thursday, May 29th. Eddie Batzig and Nicholas Koya reportedly tried to convince Jason to take the day off work and stay home while his parents were away. He was supposed to tell Paul and Don that he was sick when the group would come over afterwards, they would party and Jason was told that he could even have sex with Justina. What the fuck is wrong with these people? Yeah, it's pretty sick. Yeah. Now Jason did not phone in sick to work.

12:24He didn't stay home. He went to work. You know, he's becoming quite a responsible 16 year old, so he was doing his duties. So that meant another plan was needed. And that brings us to the trails, which is a wooded area in Fish Town near the Delaware River. The area was isolated enough that teenagers could disappear into it without attracting much attention at all. And during the afternoon, Eddie, Nicholas, Dominic and Justina gathered together in preparation. They also spent part of that time listening to music. Literally the Beatles song, Helter Skeletor, was played repeatedly. It's a song that is about an amusement park slide and the emotional ride of a downward spiral, though it has most famously been remembered for its dark, unintended association with the cult leader Charles Manson after he has, you know, linked up with it, but I digress. Now Dominic estimated that they listened to this song about 42 times in total that day

13:27in preparation. Now they also needed to prepare their weapons. Eddie had a hatchet. Dominic had a hammer. And according to Dominic's account, latex gloves were also brought along and put on before Jason arrived at the trails. Now, Jason, of course, knew none of this. After finishing up at work, he returned to his family's house in Fish Town. He changed out of his construction clothes and took a shower before going back out with his week's pay in his pocket to meet his girlfriend, Justina. The two met and walked around the neighborhood together. They stopped at a corner store where Jason bought them some sodas at that point and then Justina suggested that they should head towards these trails. Jason agreed and followed her. The trails ran through this wooded area near the Delaware River, not far from the industrial property and interstate 95. It was known locally as a place where teenagers could gather away from homes and adults and

14:28kind of like a little mini party area, if you would. Justina told him that she wanted to have sex with them there. And for Jason, there was little reason to question her. I mean, he believed Justina was his girlfriend. He'd been talking about taking her home and meeting his parents. He was excited for her to meet his mother and other family and all that sort of stuff. And a sexy wooded encounter for a young 16 year old boy probably sounded quite amazing. Now eventually, Justina stopped in a more secluded part of the trails with Jason. And there she began to address. And Jason started to do the same. But just a short distance away, hidden from his view among the trees, was Eddie Batzig, Nicholas Koya and Dominic Koya, who were waiting. Jason had barely begun to get undressed when the three boys counted down three, two, one, and then sprung out of hiding.

15:30The first person to move against him was Eddie. The friend Jason had known since elementary school. And he swung the hatchet in his hand hard. And that first blow struck Jason directly in the head. In that moment with the first blow landing, Jason was stunned, but he was not immediately incapacitated. He tried to get away, apparently realizing that the boys approaching him were not there by accident. He tried to run, but his so-called friends ran after him and they caught him. Eddie continued using the hatchet while Dominic attacked Jason with a claw hammer. And Nicholas used large rocks. The violence was focused overwhelming around Jason's head and face, and Jason ultimately sustained more than 20 crushing and chopping wounds during this assault. With enough force to fracture almost every bone in his face and badly damage his skull,

16:31Jason's blood splattered onto the clothing and shoes of the boys and the ground around them. And Jason was still conscious for at least part of this attack as he begged and pleaded them to stop. Eddie swung the hatchet on Jason from what he recollected four or five times. And so that Jason begged for his life as he did. And the other two, they continued just like he did. They didn't listen. At one point, Dominic struck Jason with the hammer with enough force that the head of the weapon became lodged in Jason's skull and even had to have been pulled free before he could swing again. Now throughout all this, at one point, Jason lost consciousness, but even then the assault didn't stop. But by the end of the attack, Jason's face and head had been so badly damaged that he was no longer visibly recognizable in the normal sense. And as he lay their motionless, they stood above him and they knew that Jason's

17:34face and sweety was dead. And then only then, to the four teenagers present, turned their attention to what he had with him. They searched his pockets, took his wallet, and among his possessions were some loose change and gum as well. Jason had money that he had earned from construction that week, approximately $500 in cash. The money was then divided among the four of them, giving them each approximately $125. And now before leaving Jason's body behind on the trails, something else happened that would become one of the more disturbing details of this case. The four teenagers gathered together and they hooked. Oh, okay, because I was like, what could even be more disturbing than what they just did there? And Dominic described this hug as being more like celebratory rather than like a consoling moment. He said it was though like everyone was happy with the results and what they just did.

18:38This is just disgusting. It's so vile. I cannot believe that they think this is okay. But they did. Like what the actual shit is wrong with them? I'll clearly a lot is wrong with them because that's like you said, disgusting vile and it's so it's so evil. It's so evil. Yeah. So evil. Oh, I'm going to murder someone for $125 fucking dollars because they are young, yes, but they are of an age to realize what the hell they're doing though too. Oh, they definitely are. Like they would know that they're ending this kid's life. Yeah. Like their friend. I mean, they're not friends, obviously. But holy frickin' shit. Yeah. Well, honestly, I feel like if they would have even just asked him, like he might have given them money. He might have. Because he seems kind of like a good kid. So just devastating. Now after this group hug, the group then began trying to remove evidence connecting themselves

19:40from the scene. There was a bloody shirt that was discarded. Jason's wallet was discarded and the weapons that they used as well were disposed of and some of the items were thrown into a sewer. They also needed to deal with themselves though. The attack left them very bloodied and a lot of blood was still on much of their clothing. So from the trails, they went back to the house where Joshua's stave was staying. Joshua had heard talk of the potential killing of Jason beforehand. And now the teenagers returned to him, covered in the evidence of what they had just done. Now Joshua saw them dirty and blood stained and they told him that they'd actually done it. He couldn't believe that they actually killed Jason. Now Joshua helped them out. He put their bloody clothes through his washing machine and the 14-eaters then began spending Jason's money by buying drugs, things like heroin, marijuana, Xanax, cocaine, alcohol, and they began enjoying their evening together.

20:40Just having a good old party, probably spending almost all the money. Yeah, they drank. They got high and they talked about what they did. They reveled in it. In fact, Dominic described what they did that evening as, quote, partied beyond redemption. End quote. That's fucked up. Yeah, that guy is... There's like no words really to describe how fucked up that is. Yeah. By the following afternoon, Saturday, May 31, 2003, Jason Swini had still not returned home. And at about roughly 2 p.m., a group of kids riding mountain bikes entered the area of the fish town known as the Trails about a mile from the Swini home. As they moved along the gravel paths through the woods and industrial area near the Delaware River, that's when they came across a badly beaten and bloody body laying on the ground. And so they contacted police. Now when Philadelphia officers and homicide investigators arrived, it was immediately clear that the unidentified male had been violently attacked.

21:41His head and face had sustained such extensive trauma that investigators couldn't identify him by appearance. In fact, the damage was so severe that some reports say detectives initially believe the victim may have been a male in his 30s or 40s of age, rather than being a 16 year old teenager. He was wearing jeans and a dark colored shirt, and around his neck was a st. Jude necklace. There's also noticed a relatively recent injury on one of his hands. It was a cut that had begun to heal already before his death, so it happened a few days ago. Now, those details offered possible ways of identifying the victim. But there was no immediate missing persons report or anything that matched what police had found. And ultimately the scene itself left little doubt that this was clearly a homicide. Police photographed and processed the scene while the body was removed for examination. And there was also an immediate possible suspect at the time, even before they identified

22:44the victim. See investigators encountered a homeless man staying in a makeshift shelter. He reportedly had blood on his face and told officers that it came from a cut on himself. But given police had just found, you know, a body only a short distance away, he was taken in for questioning. Their suspicion for him though didn't last. The man told investigators he had spent the previous day at a homeless shelter. And so police checked in on his story and confirmed his whereabouts, eliminating him from the homicide investigation. So then the attention returned to the unidentified victim. The medical examination soon began, and it showed just how extreme the assault had been. Dr. Ian Hood, a Philadelphia medical examiner, described massive blunt and sharp force trauma to the face and head. And as I mentioned, there were more than 20 crushing blows and chopping wounds to the head and face. Severe enough to fracture the skull and virtually every bone in the victim's face had been

23:46fractured. In fact, only one facial bone escaped fracture and it was the left cheekbone. Every other single bone was broken. Gosh, that is just horrendous. While the homicide unit worked on an unidentified body, the Sweeney family was dealing with a very different problem. Jason didn't come home from Friday night. At first Paul and Don had tried not to panic. Jason was 16. He had a new girlfriend. They thought maybe he was simply testing his curfew limits with them or something, but by Saturday morning that explanation was much harder to reconcile. The sister Melissa repeatedly called her brother's cell while the family contacted friends asking where he could be if anyone saw him or anything, but nobody had an answer for them. Sunday passed much the same way too. Melissa later remembered the family sitting at home watching the clock and waiting for either Jason to just walk through the front door or for his phone number to finally pop up on

24:51their phone. But neither happened. It was on the morning of Monday, June 2nd, when Don contacted Philadelphia police and officially reported her 16 year old son missing. An officer came to the Sweeney home and began taking notes. The normal information you know you have for a missing person's report. What a Jason looked like, where it even going. What was he wearing? Melissa, his sister, remembered describing her brother's usual clothes, plain dark colored t-shirt and jeans. As she spoke, she noticed the officer's expression began to change. See, there was already an unidentified body that was currently at the medical examiner's office wearing clothes that fit that exact description. From there, the officer took Paul and Don to the medical examiner's office. There was still a possibility that this dead man was exactly what investigators had initially thought. An adult male in his 30s or maybe 40s. There was still a chance that the remains were someone else, but it wasn't.

25:55The injuries made Jason's face unrecognizable, but his parents knew about the fresh injury on his hand. Jason had recently cut himself while working, and the wound was still healing. They recognized that healing scar, and they also recognized the St. Jude necklace around his neck. Oh my gosh, did they actually see his body like that? They identified his remains. Oh no, no, no. I don't feel like any parent should ever have to do something like that. Holy frig. The necklace was given to Jason by his grandfather as a gift. Damn. Yeah. So this unidentified victim from the trails was, in fact, Jason Sweeney. Their son? Yeah. So once Jason had been identified, investigators began working backwards through his final hours. And the obvious place to start was with the people who had been expecting to see him on Friday night. That meant justine and morally, along with Edward or Eddie Batzig Jr.

26:55Nicholas Koya and Dominic Koya. Police approached them and questioned the teenager separately. At first, their stories were remarkably similar. Jason had supposedly been expected at a party, but never showed up. None of them claimed to know where he'd gone after leaving home, and none offered the investigators any reason why anyone would want him dead. And for the moment, police didn't have enough to hold them. So they were released after the initial questioning. But Jason's family, however, while they were already becoming very suspicious of this group of teenagers. Now according to accounts later given by the Sweeney family, both Eddie and Nicholas showed up outside the Sweeney home after speaking with police and being released. And rather than focusing on Jason or expressing much grief for a morning or, you know, sympathies or anything over their friends' death that they had known for years, they seemed much

27:57more interested in what investigators had told the family and how the investigation was progressing. In fact, Paul Sweeney came away from the conversation, believing their questions were less about concern for Jason and more about concern for themselves. So the family contacted police. In fact, the four had another problem in total. These teenagers had not kept the plan entirely to themselves. At least one other person outside the group had already knew they killed Jason, and that was Joshua's state. Soon police brought them all back in. And this time, the questioning became much more direct. Christina initially repeated the same basic account the boys had given. Jason had been expected to meet them, and he simply didn't arrive. But as investigators pushed her, that's when her story began to change. Eventually she admitted that yes, she had been with Jason that day, and then she admitted

28:58that she did take him to the trails. Justina told investigators she had promised Jason sex and then led him into the wooded area where Eddie and the Koyah brothers were waiting. From there she initially tried to distance herself from what followed next, presenting herself as someone who had helped lure Jason there but had not physically attacked him. But the boys began to talk too. And Eddie's statement was particularly damaging. See he admitted that he had struck Jason first. He described hitting him with a hatchet and acknowledged that Jason begged for his life while he was being attacked. And when directly asked whether he intended to kill Jason, Eddie reportedly answered, yes. Dominic gave investigators a detailed statement too. His version confirmed that the killing had not been an unexpected fight or a robbery that suddenly became violent. The group that included justina had discussed killing Jason beforehand.

29:58It was in fact premeditated and justina was involved in that premeditation. Like described the weapons, the attack, the money they took and what they did after. And when a detective asked whether he had been under the influence during the killing because he probably assumed that he must have been in order to commit something horrific like this. But Dominic gave the most chilling answer to emerge from this entire investigation. He simply said, quote, as sober as I am now. And then he added quote, it is sick, isn't it? End quote. Yeah, he's just a monster is basically what he just said. Yeah. Investigators now had confessions and they knew who was responsible. But they also needed evidence, evidence that could support those statements. And Eddie, well, he helped them find some. See he told police at the cloak that there were some clothing and the hatchet and evidence that had been thrown into a sewer after the murder and identified the location for them

31:01to find it. Investigators searched the area and successfully recovered the bloody hatchet, the hammer that Dominic used, however, was not ever recovered. Now Eddie was also still wearing the same shoes that he had worn during Jason's murder as when he was being interviewed with police. And so they seized those shoes. The hatchet and Eddie shoes were submitted for testing. And the blood DNA evidence that was recovered was a match for Jason's. The investigators spoke in great depth with Joshua's stave too. And Joshua's accounts pushed the case beyond the teenagers, simply accusing one another after the fact. He said Dominic had been talking about killing Jason for more than a week. The plan involved using Justina as bait and Eddie knew that Jason would have his paycheck on him. Joshua had revealed the motive. He said it was discussed beforehand and it was money. The group could use to get high. Joshua also described what he had seen after the murder.

32:04The 14-ageers arriving at his house covered in dirt and blood, talking about having killed Jason. Then their clothes went into his washing machine. And when he was questioned about their mood, he didn't describe the 14-ageers as struggling to understand what they had done. He said that they seemed fine. In a way, he said, they seemed happy. The motive was clearly robbery. But Jason's father believed that there was more behind the violence than that. Paul Sweeney believed jealousy played a large role in the events too. Sure, surface level, maybe they wanted money to get high, but you need more than that $125 to get high to want to kill your childhood friend. That's something I'm having trouble understanding too. Were they very addicted to drugs, like addicts, basically? It's hard to understand exactly how addicted they were.

33:04I mean, addiction comes in all shapes and sizes. These are children after all. How much drugs could they have consumed? But for Paul, he believed that Jason was working. He's earning money. He's planning his future. While these childhood friends of his were starting to struggle with drugs and addiction, and their lives were becoming increasingly more and more chaotic. In fact, later investigators and experts would also raise questions about resentment and envy being possible factors in this too. Well, he was kind of thriving, I guess, right? And he had his life kind of all figured out already at such a young age. Exactly. They're going to drag him down to if we're suffering, he's going to suffer. And then we're going to use his money that we know he has and we're going to do drugs with it. Party. Party, and we're going to have a good time. Now none of this could actually be established as fact though or any sort of certainty, especially to the degree of the robbery motive.

34:06So the robbery maintains to be the singular motive, but there is a large possibility that there are more underlying factors at play. And regardless of why investigators were building a case against them, justina, Eddie, Nicholas, Dominic, they were all arrested and charged in connection with Jason Swini's murder. And the oldest of them all was still only 17 years old when Jason was killed. An attention began shifting towards the youngest person charged in the murder too. And that was justina who was only 15. In court, she looked very young for her age. In fact, I'm sure the defense may have leaned into that fact. Contemporary reporting describes her as small and pale with straight brown hair and a silver cross hanging from her neck. Her mother, April Frederick, said, Justina had once been a bubbly child. She grew up in fishtown as the second youngest of six siblings and had very little contact with her father.

35:06April worked and the children were often home from school before she returned home from work. But by the time Justina reached adolescence, though, there were already serious problems developing. She said she began smoking marijuana at around 10 years old. From there came prescription pills and harder drugs, supposedly things of like cocaine, heroin. And at some point, even marijuana laced with embalming fluid. Holy shit. I don't even think at 10 years old I knew what that was. Yeah. Now, she also began hurting herself too at around that same age. Psychiatrist Dr. William Russell, hired by the defense, described her self-mutilation as something tied to depression and emotional release. In April of 2002, when Justina was just 14, the problem became serious enough even for hospitalization. Court records described her making threats of suicide and cutting herself. And three days after one hospitalization, she was admitted to friends hospital after

36:07taking pills and making shallow cuts to her wrists, knees, calves, and thigh. She had also written a poem about suicide and posted it on her door. Justina then told her mother that if she was not taken out of the hospital, she would, in fact, kill herself. And against the advice of doctors, April didn't know what to do. So she removed her from the hospital. Dr. Russell would later describe Justina as a teenager with an unstable sense of who she was and an extensive history of mental health problems. And her problems were showing up at school too. While attending Ader Elementary School in 8th grade, school officials were investigating stolen money when they discovered two small knives in Justina's purse. She was expelled and later repeated 8th grade at Holy Name of Jesus Catholic School in Fish Town. Dr. Russell believed that her low self-esteem affected her relationships as well.

37:09And he described her early sexual behavior as an attempt to gain validation and acceptance. In fact, during her time on the stand, Justina even testified that only several days before they murdered Jason, she even had sex with both Eddie and Nicholas Coya in exchange for heroin. Totally. Which adds a whole other disturbing layer to the relationship with Jason. Because Jason believed Justina was his new girlfriend. She was also intimately, however, with these other two boys who were already a part of the plan to rob and kill her supposed boyfriend Jason. And each intimate encounter seemed to be there only so she could benefit from them in the form of money or drugs. And that's not even getting into the psychological level of it at all either. Now once she was charged, her attorney William J. Brennan tried to move her case from the adult court into the juvenile system.

38:10The defense presented Dr. Russell psychiatric evaluation and argued that Justina's age, depression, drug abuse, immaturity, and need for treatment all made the juvenile court more appropriate. She honestly sounds like she's doing pretty adult stuff to me. Fair enough. Dr. Russell also described her as easily influenced and essentially willing to go along with others to gain acceptance. But the prosecution saw the situation very different. They saw that whatever problems that she had, Justina had played a central role in getting Jason to the trails period. And without her, the prosecutors argued Jason may have never willingly walked into that secluded area. And thus without her, Jason may still be alive today. Well, and honestly, she kind of the game that these people were playing, she played it longer really because she was manipulating him like into thinking they were in this relationship when she knew behind the scenes of this fricking messed up plan.

39:12Exactly. Because she kind of seems the most disciplined like I'm disappointed and disgusted by all of them. But for some reason, she's sticking out to me a lot and I don't know why exactly. Well, to be fair, I am highlighting her a bit more. Well, I know, but also I think it was because she really played him too. I think she played everyone. True. I think she played everyone. She was having sex with three of them for drugs, money, and she was creating the scheme, all this sort of stuff. There's a bit more in that topic, which I'll touch on here in a little bit. But ultimately with this and the prosecutor saying that without her playing this key role, Jason would still be alive, like the judge agreed. So her trial was going to remain in adult court. Okay. Good. Now, Justina eventually pleaded guilty to third degree murder and agreed to testify against Eddie Batzig and the Koyabreathers. And her cooperation would give prosecutors something they had not previously had. A participant willing to sit in court and explain how the plan developed and how Jason

40:17was lured into the woods because each defendant is going to try and deflect. So we have a third party to tell their story too. Of course, I should have saw this coming. But while Justina was in custody, another side of her emerged through letters that she wrote to those other boys in prison. The letters were graphic and extremely disturbing. And once she described herself as manipulative and wrote about how easily people could be persuaded to do what she wanted. In another, she characterized herself as cold blooded and even death worshipping. Another letter addressed her feelings about Jason's murder directly. Justina wrote that although she knew she was guilty, she didn't feel any guilt. In fact, she wrote how the memories of the murder gave her comfort in how she enjoyed them. Those letters would become important because the defense teams for Eddie and the Koyas wanted to portray Justina as far more than a passive teenage follower.

41:19They wanted to show that she was manipulative and had helped drive the others towards the crime too. But Justina rejected that interpretation when she did eventually testify. She claimed that she had written the dark letters because she believed that that's what the boys wanted to hear from her. She wanted them to like her. She wanted acceptance, quote, I didn't believe anyone liked me. Now her background could help explain why she was vulnerable to approval and influence. But it did not change the basic fact that she had admitted what she'd done. That she's also disturbing as hell. Yes. So there is that underlying layer of what she's saying these things or doing these things because that's really how she felt. I'm sure she did to some degree. But there's also the possibility that yes, maybe she was writing some of these dark letters because that's what she believed these boys wanted to hear and she thought that they were tight knit, close knit.

42:19She was having sex with two of them after all. Maybe she thought that there was something there and she's trying to keep that together. Honestly, right there probably does show a lot of her immaturity. Exactly. That's exactly what the defense is talking. So how much of this is she responsible for and how much is she being influenced? Now don't get me wrong. She is guilty too. But I do believe that there is influence on her as well. Well, even like she should know the situation that she's in right now and that like is she not aware. I guess maybe she's not aware that these letters would have gone red. She probably wasn't aware. No. What 15 year old in prison is sending a letter to someone thinking the cops are going to read this. They're probably thinking, oh yeah. This is a secret letter. I'm going to seal it. No one's going to see it. No, no matter what communications you have, authorities are going through it. You're in an interrogation room. The cops may not be in there. You're being recorded. You're sending a letter. They're going to read it. You're doing a telephone call. Someone's sitting there listening.

43:20I shouldn't be laughing. But you're like, this is a secret letter. But that's probably her mindset. She's 15. I know. I know. It's like her diary and no one's able to get into your diary when literally it's like the easiest lock to get into, right? Exactly. You don't even need a key. You just pull on it and give it a little twist done. But anyways, I digress. The trial of Eddie Batzig Jr. or Edward Batzig Jr. I should say, Nicholas Koya and Dominic Koya began on February 28, 2005, nearly two years after Jason Swini was killed. All three pleaded not guilty, despite the statements they had previously given to investigators. And Justina Morley, who had already pleaded guilty to third-degree murder, took the stand for the prosecution and described the planning, the trip into the trails, and the attack itself. Paul and Don Swini attended the proceedings, and they sat in the front row as the case was all laid out in detail in front of them.

44:24During the trial, jurors heard from Justina, and they also heard from the defendant's own statements to police as well. They heard how Jason had been lured to the trails with the promise of sex, how Eddie admitted striking first and how the attack continued even as Jason begged for his life. They heard evidence about the hatchet recovered after Eddie directed investigators to the sewer where it was discarded, as well as the shoes Eddie was still wearing when he was questioned. Medical evidence also showed the extraordinary amount of force used against Jason. Similarly every bone in his face, except one had been broken, and the injuries to his head included repeated chopping and crushing wounds. The defense didn't benefit from trying to portray the killings as spontaneous, it was pointless. Instead, attorneys for Eddie and the Koya brothers argued that the boys heavy drug use affected their ability to form the specific intent required for first-degree murder, and suggested the evidence supported the lesser crime of third-degree murder.

45:26Other parts of the defense shifted the blame back onto Justina, using her disturbing jailhouse letters to characterize her as manipulative and potentially the driving force behind the group. But the defendant's own words created a major problem for that argument. Assistant district attorney Jude Conroy presented parts of Dominic's confession describing how the group continued to hit Jason and took his wallet then divided the money and then went off to use it. In fact, Dominic had also described the group as happy with what they had just done. So ultimately after roughly two weeks of testimony, the case went to the jury. And on March 9th, 2005, the verdicts came back. Edward, Eddie, Batzig Jr., Nicholas Koya, and Dominic Koya were all found guilty of first-degree murder. They were all convicted of conspiracy, robbery, and possession of an instrument of crime as

46:26well. For the murder conviction, Pennsylvania law required life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Their formal sentencing followed in May 2005, each receiving life without the possibility of parole plus an additional 22 and a half years to 45 years for the remaining offenses. Paul Sweeney was given the opportunity to address the people who were responsible for killing his son. And he chose to focus on Dominic. Paul told him to look at him. And then he referenced something that was clearly taken from a time or place that was away from the courts and official documents. And he said, whatever Dominic thought about having, quote, evil eyes, Paul's own eyes would be staring back at him every night for the rest of his life. And the judge asked Dominic whether he wanted to say anything. His response was difficult and very casual.

47:26Quote, I never thought I had evil eyes. He said, quote, other than that, I'm cool. Oh, what a bastard. I thought I didn't think he would respond. He shouldn't have responded. Like fuck you. In my opinion, the judge shouldn't have given him the option to respond. I guess. Yeah. Not OK. Oh, man. The judge rejected the efforts to leave the possibility of parole open and describe the facts and basically everything of the profound level of inhumanity in this case. And he called the killings, quote, totally depraved acts. Now as for Justine's punishment, it was different because of her plea agreement. She received 17 and a half to 35 years in prison for third degree murder. But the legal story didn't end there. In 2012, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Miller versus Alabama that juveniles could not automatically receive mandatory life without parole sentences without judges first considering

48:28their age and individual circumstances. That ruling opened the door for new sentencing proceedings in cases involving juvenile offenders, including some of Jason's killers. Nicholas Koya, who had been 16 at the time of the murder, received a sentence rehearing in Philadelphia in February of 2015. Jason's parents and sisters returned to the court. Dawn testified about having to identify her son after the attack and asked the judge to leave Nicholas in prison for life. And on February 9, 2015, common please judge Sandy L.V. bird did exactly that. Nicholas again to life without parole, finding nothing in his circumstances that justified changing the original sentencing. As for Justine Morley, while after serving approximately 17 and a half years, she was released on parole in December of 2020. I know.

49:29I knew she was out and about right now. For Paul and Dawn Sweeney, however, the story was never simply about what sentences the 14-haiders received. They created the Jason Keel Sweeney Foundation in their son's memory. Part of its purpose was to fund a full scholarship to Valley Forge Military Academy in college. The very school Jason had wanted to attend, but couldn't afford. Jason had hoped that his path might eventually lead him into the Navy and towards his goal of becoming a Navy SEAL. But he never got that chance. Jason Keel Sweeney was 16 years old when he walked into the trails on May 30, 2003. He went there trusting the girl he believed was his girlfriend and surrounded by the people that he had known for years and called friends. He should have come home the next day or that day or some time after to introduce Justina to his family. But instead, his family spent the years that followed, making sure that Jason's name

50:30reflected the hope and determination he had for his future. A future that he never got to see play out. And that's a story of Jason Sweeney. I freaking hate this story. Yeah, I'm using it. This story is just shit. It's dark. Dark for complete unnecessary purposes. Not that murder is ever necessary, but it's like it's so petty and dumb. It's like beyond reconciliation of any sort of motive and understanding. I like to play devil's advocate whenever I can, try to understand and I cannot understand any of those four idiots. Mm-hmm. Yeah, to take that young boy's life away is just who like had it. He seemed like he had a, you know, a great future. Yeah. And like just the devastation to his family and stuff. Oh my gosh, I don't know. Yeah, there's just, there's no.

51:32Just like not like you said, you can't justify murders, but there's just like no justification in this whatsoever. No reasoning, nothing. Like it's just hard to comprehend, really. Well, we can talk about, we can talk about murders and we can at least understand what, what the murderers intent was. Okay, he's driven by psychosis or there's depression or there's an extremely unusual high balance of hormones in their system and it's just such a massive sexual drive. It doesn't mean it's okay, but at least we can wrap our minds around the reasoning. $125 each, I cannot wrap my mind around that reasoning. That is so fucking petty. It's laughable. Mm-hmm. Like what the, we have one less good person in this world. At 16, he was a very competent carpenter. He was going to go become a Navy SEAL. He was saving up his own money to pay for his own education. And now instead of him, we're left with these four fucking idiots in this world.

52:35Gosh, well, yeah, when you put it that way. I shit. It's beyond any sort of reconciliation of, it doesn't make sense. Nothing about it makes sense. Fuck all four of them. I'm sorry, this case pissed me off too. Yeah, no, it's a piss off. Yeah, now we're having to pay for these bitches in prison, ones even out. Like god damn. Yeah. No, no, I hear you. That was a good way of putting it in exchange. We get these four fucking idiots. Yeah. Cool. Cool story. Well, they ended on that note. Thank you guys for being here. Let's all try and be a little bit more like Jason. Let's be people who are good for this world. Let's do something for other people. Let's try and better ourselves. And let's do it in spite of these four idiots and four Jason because the world needs more of that. Mm-hmm, I agree. Thank you for being here. And until next episode. Stay wicked.