Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
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It happened in the summer of 2022, so not that long ago, and it became a national news headline overnight. It's the story of two young college students who were doing something we all have to do if we want to visit scenic spots on a road trip, drive. The area they were in is Talladega National Forest, a beautiful stretch of woods, lakes, and trails in northeast Alabama that was created for public access and enjoyment 88 years ago in 1936.
The forest contains at least one state park and is a recreation area that visitors can camp, bike, fish, boat, swim, and even ride horses. It's located about an hour east of the city of Birmingham and is really close to Alabama's border with the state of Georgia. On a Sunday morning in August 2022, the victims in the story were taking in the scenery of the National Forest when they stopped their car to help a fellow motorist.
Their act of goodwill for a stranger, unfortunately, wasn't rewarded with a kind handshake or an utterance of gratitude. It was met with violence. Violence that to this day is still hard for those closest to this case to comprehend. This is Park Predators. Around 1130 in the morning on Sunday, August 14th, 2022, a dispatcher at a 911 center in Clay County, Alabama received an extremely alarming phone call.
A young woman who said her name was Michaela Paulus had dialed in to report that she and her boyfriend, Adam Simji, had been robbed and shot at in the woods just off National Forest Service Road 663 near Chiha State Park. Michaela, who was 20 years old, informed the operator that Adam, who was 22, was clinging to life after being shot in the torso by a woman they didn't know, and he needed medical attention as soon as possible.
Michaela gave the dispatcher her and Adam's location, which was about a mile before Talladega National Forest became Chiha State Park. Right after receiving this call, the 911 operator immediately sent out rescue teams to help the couple. Because of where Michaela and Adam were located, so far into the forest, it took Clay County Sheriff's deputies and FBI agents and other rescue personnel about 30 minutes to get to them.
When authorities did finally arrive, they quickly found Michaela hunched on the ground in the woods performing CPR on Adam. Unfortunately, despite her and the paramedics' best efforts to try and save him, authorities quickly realized the young man was gone. He was pronounced dead on scene. From the looks of it, he'd been either shot in his abdomen or in the back and bled out. Near his body was a young black woman who appeared to have been shot four times in the torso and leg.
She was definitely in distress, but not on death's door. So immediately paramedics loaded her into an ambulance and drove her to where a helicopter could land and transport her out of the National Forest. After that, she went to a hospital in the nearby city of Birmingham. Members of law enforcement accompanied her the entire time and even when she underwent surgery. Meanwhile, investigators back at the scene spoke with Michaela, who told them a horrific story.
According to information published by the Clay County Sheriff's Office and an article by Lauren Jackson for WBRC News, Michaela told the authorities that she and Adam had been pit-stopping in Talladega National Forest on their way back to the University of Central Florida before their fall semester started. On Sunday morning, right after they'd wrapped up some sightseeing at Mount Cheha, she and Adam left in their van, headed in the direction of Arkansas.
On the drive, they spotted a woman on the side of the road who waved them down and asked for help getting her car started. Michaela said they stopped for the stranger and drove a short distance down a dirt road to where the woman's blue Scion was parked. For about a half hour to an hour, she and Adam tried everything they could to help this woman, even bringing up YouTube videos to figure out how to get the Scion started. But nothing worked.
As they were about to leave, Michaela said the woman suddenly pulled out a pistol and demanded she and Adam give her their car keys, banking passwords, and cell phones. Michaela told investigators that she and Adam complied, but their captor proceeded to march them into the woods at gunpoint. After walking a little ways into the trees, the woman began to set down her weapon, and that's when Adam jumped into action.
Michaela told deputies that ever since they'd stopped to help the woman, Adam had been armed with a personal firearm tucked into his clothing. It was a weapon he kept on him while traveling for protection, and as soon as their captor had begun to lay down her gun, Michaela said Adam grabbed his gun and ordered the stranger to not do anything with hers. Michaela said that in that moment, all hell broke loose, and the woman and Adam exchanged a lot of gunfire.
Before she knew it, Adam was on the ground bleeding from a gunshot wound to his torso, and their captor was also on the ground suffering from several bullet wounds. Michaela said the woman who attacked her and Adam then called out to another woman who'd been standing in the woods nearby watching the whole shooting take place. Michaela told investigators that she didn't know who that other woman was, but eventually the bystander ran away from the scene, headed deeper into the forest.
Michaela said she turned her attention to Adam and tore off her shirt to try and stop his wound from bleeding. She then scrambled to get one of their cell phones from the forest floor to dial 911. After alerting the police of what was going on and where to find the crime scene, Michaela said she and the woman who'd shot Adam spoke to one another. According to what Michaela would later tell reporter Stephen Quinn for ABC 3340,
The woman asked her if she would be able to, quote, While investigators with the sheriff's office listened intently to Michaela's story and wrote down every detail, other members of law enforcement fanned out in the woods to look for evidence.
They collected both guns that had been used in the shooting, a bunch of shell casings, cell phones, Adam and Michaela's van, clothing, and the blue Scion Michaela said the woman who'd attacked them had been driving. Investigators also wanted to try and get a lead on who the unknown woman was who Michaela said had fled the crime scene.
Caleb Turrentine reported for ABC 3340 that around 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, roughly five hours into the investigation, the Clay County Sheriff's Office released a bulletin to the media asking for the public to be on the lookout for this second suspect. Deputies didn't release the woman's name but did provide news outlets with a surveillance photo of a black woman with dark-colored hair who was wearing a leopard print headband and dark gray t-shirt with writing on the front.
The image looked like it had been taken from inside a grocery store or possibly a convenience store. Not long after that picture began circulating, authorities got a tip that this mystery woman might be one of a few people living off the grid in a part of the National Forest close to the crime scene.
Folks in this community in the woods were rumored to be dangerous and possibly armed with weapons. And sure enough, thanks to help from a dog tracking team and a surveillance helicopter, about a half mile away from the crime scene, investigators found a collection of tents and supplies that they defined as, quote, a base camp, end quote. Now, here's where things get really wild.
When deputies searched this makeshift camp, they found a woman standing by some of the tents seemingly surprised to see law enforcement in the area. Not far away from her, emerging from the woods with a loaded shotgun in hand, was a five-year-old boy. The young child initially refused to put the gun down, but eventually officers got him to surrender and he handed over the shotgun.
Turns out, the woman by the tents who he appeared to be trying to protect from police was his mother, 36-year-old Crystal Penkins. According to a press release issued by the Clay County Sheriff's Office, Crystal was quickly determined to be the unknown woman Michaela had seen lingering in the woods right after the shooting. You know, the woman that Adam's killer had called out to for help. Oh, and speaking of Adam's killer, investigators were able to determine that woman was 20-year-old Yasmin Hyder.
None of the source material clearly explains how investigators learned Crystal and Yasmin's full names, but I imagine they might have had ID on them or just given the police their names when they were caught. Like I said, the timeline of when and how authorities determined who the suspects were is a bit fuzzy. But according to all the articles I read, it appears that Crystal and Yasmin's names were known fairly early on in the investigation.
After arresting Crystal in the woods, they charged her with endangering the welfare of a child, aka letting her five-year-old son carry a loaded shotgun in the woods where they lived. As investigators continued to work the case, they learned that Yasmin was going to recover from her injuries and be able to be arrested as well. In the meantime, though, they spoke with everyone else who'd been involved, and the more they learned, the more they began to see the full picture of what exactly had gone down on the morning of Sunday, August 14th.
Investigators felt confident in this theory. Yasmin had lured Adam and Michaela under the pretense that she was having car trouble. When she got the unsuspecting couple to let their guard down, she ambushed them and forced them into the woods at gunpoint. Only problem was, she had no idea that Adam was carrying a concealed firearm. Detectives firmly believed Crystal had been a part of the ruse and had been hiding in the woods nearby watching, ready to jump in if she needed to.
But then when the shooting started and things got out of control, Crystal panicked, ran off, and left her co-conspirator to die. This scenario was what all the evidence and witness testimony so far pointed to. Now all the police needed to do was prove it.
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Call 1-800-CHEM-DRIVE or visit chemdrive.com to connect with your local Chem-Dry and learn about special offers in your area. That's 1-800-CHEM-DRIVE or visit chemdrive.com today. On Monday, August 15th, one day after the crime, authorities charged Crystal Penkins with one count of murder, two counts of kidnapping, and two counts of robbery. Yasmin Haider was charged with the exact same crimes, but she couldn't be taken into custody and booked in jail until she was released from the hospital.
Now, law enforcement quickly apprehending these suspects was certainly a relief to Adam and Michaela's families, but everyone was still reeling with indescribable pain and trauma from the whole ordeal. Shortly after processing the crime scene, authorities transported Adam's body to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences for an autopsy. A doctor there determined he died from that gunshot wound to his abdomen, and there was no doubt he'd been a victim of a homicide.
Stephen Quinn reported for ABC 3340 that so many of the memories Adam and Michaela had made on their road trip and during the four years they'd been dating were shattered in a matter of seconds during the events of August 14th. Michaela and Adam had known one another since they were teenagers growing up in Central Florida. Michaela's mother, Heather Lambert, told WBRC News, "...there is no one like Adam. They completed each other. They really did."
Michaela told Stephen Quinn that the reason Adam had been so willing to help Yasmin was because he'd just purchased a new battery pack that he'd made sure to keep charged just in case they stumbled upon a driver who was having car issues. She said it was just in Adam's nature to want to help people, even folks he didn't know. Remarking about how brave Adam was in his final moments, Michaela told Quinn, quote,
If Adam had lived, he would have continued pursuing a degree in finance at the University of Central Florida, and he and Michaela would have continued their relationship, possibly toward marriage.
According to the couple's friends and families who spoke with News 6 Click Orlando, which is an article that also cites reporting by journalist Andrea Lindenberg, Adam was a quiet, nice young man who spent most of his time studying or hanging out with his girlfriend. He was a firm believer in the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution and proudly carried his personal firearm as a form of personal protection.
Matt Paulus, Michaela's father, told News 6 that he wasn't sure if his daughter would have lived if it wasn't for Adam's heroic sacrifice and quick thinking. Michaela honored Adam's legacy in a lengthy social media post after his death that said in part, quote, "'My reason for being, my soulmate, my life partner, the future father of my children, died in the middle of a state park in Alabama.'"
End quote.
In the wake of Adam's murder, friends set up a GoFundMe page for the couple to raise money for his funeral expenses and assist Michaela with counseling and trying to move on with her life. According to the GoFundMe page, which is still active, more than $18,000 of the $30,000 goal has been raised. That amount sufficiently paid for Adam's burial costs and the remainder is going directly to Michaela.
On August 17th, a few days after the murder, a judge in Clay County ruled to enact a gag order in the case, which banned Michaela, law enforcement investigators, attorneys, essentially anyone who had anything to do with the case from speaking to the media.
Michaela's online tribute to Adam went up before that order took effect, and I'm not sure if her touching words about her longtime love were later taken down, but what I do know is that the sheriff's office was ordered to remove its initial press release about the case from its social media platforms. That didn't keep news outlets and online publications from reporting on the story, though, and still using that initial information in their articles. A few days later, on Saturday, August 20th, Adam was laid to rest by his family.
Nicholson Student Media published a tribute article about him written by Nina Murillo that talked a lot about how Adam enjoyed his life and tried to care for others.
The article stated that he would often buy McDonald's and take it to people experiencing homelessness, which, can I just say, I have been a college student myself living on a tight budget like most 20-somethings are. And this little fact about Adam being so selfless to strangers and willing to spend his money on food for them is truly amazing.
His best friend's mother told the publication that Adam and her son grew up with a deep love of the outdoors, and eventually Adam got a job working at Lowe's in the garden section. She actually worked there with him and saw that he took a lot of pride in that job and would sometimes tinker with different plant species to see if he could grow something new. Remarking about how much he would be missed, his best friend's mother said, "...it has been an honor to have watched him grow up to become this great man he grew up to be."
He would have done good things in his future." On August 24th, more than a week after the crime, Yasmin Haider recovered from her injuries and was released from the hospital. Detectives immediately booked her in the Clay County Detention Center. And a few months later, in November 2022, a federal grand jury in Alabama indicted both her and Crystal for murder, kidnapping, and robbery. Their cases were scheduled to go to trial the following year.
The maximum sentence both defendants faced was life in prison. If they were found guilty of just the robbery aspect, they would get 15 years. AL.com reported that because the federal charges took priority, the identical charges that had been filed previously against Crystal and Yasmin in state court were put on pause until the federal proceedings wrapped up. A few days after the indictments came down, the US attorney assigned to the case decided the government would not seek the death penalty against Crystal and Yasmin.
As more and more media outlets took interest in the story, Vice News did a deep dive on the women's backgrounds and social media to find out who they were, where they were originally from, and what had led them to live inside Talladega National Forest. And according to Vice's piece written by Anna Merlin and Tim Marchman, both women had been living off the grid in Alabama for several months before the murder.
Other news sources said they both had former ties to Memphis, Tennessee. But according to an Instagram post Yasmin made in late May 2022, she and Crystal had been all the way in Colorado before ending up in Alabama. Vice also reported that Yasmin had once attended college in Oklahoma prior to the crime. And it was that detail about Yasmin at one point seeming to have a normal life that was interesting to the reporters who were working to dig up information about her.
They and law enforcement officials would soon discover a labyrinth of interesting and bizarre information about Yasmin and Crystal. Want the same expert advice you get from the pros in the store while shopping online at DiscountTire.com? Meet Treadwell, your personal online tire guide that matches you with the perfect tire for your vehicle. Get your best match in one minute or less with Treadwell by Discount Tire. Let's get you taken care of.
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Yasmin was scheduled to start attending classes at Langston University and was in the process of moving into a dorm on campus in the summer of 2020. By all accounts, her family was really proud of her for pursuing higher education. But then suddenly, she just stopped speaking to her family. And based on what Vice's reporters confirmed with Langston University officials, Yasmin was not enrolled at the school after the spring 2021 semester.
According to that same article by Vice, Crystal Pinkins claimed on her LinkedIn page to have once worked as a home health aide for a company based in Tennessee. She also claimed to be a, quote, freelance writer and aspiring motivational speaker, end quote.
According to social media accounts, both she and Yasmin became deeply entrenched in a spiritualistic belief or movement known as the University of Cosmic Intelligence, which was created by a guy named Rashad Jamal White, who usually just went by Rashad Jamal. Based on his social media posts and videos, he was an aspiring rapper who fully believed he was a god and his people, which he said were black and Latino people, were also gods.
He aimed to teach others about how to understand their energies and chakras. He was also a big supporter of polygamy and Black empowerment. But turns out that court records cited by Vice News showed that in 2022, Rashad Jamal had been accused of murder, child molestation, and cruelty to children, and held prior convictions for battery, strangulation, and suffocation.
The Daily Mail published that Rashad Jamal was a, quote, "cult leader" who had influenced his followers with a jarring level of intensity. For example, in January 2022, a 24-year-old man from Alabama named Damian Washam, whose father said he obsessively watched Rashad Jamal's videos, murdered his own mother with a sword and almost killed two of his other family members.
Now, based on what Vice News found, Yasmin was also an avid follower of Rashad Jamal's social media channels and videos. She wrote online about how people needed to be liberated from mainstream systems of thought and social control, and she'd also shared a lot of conspiracy theories about world occurrences and elements of the cosmos.
Some of the other people Yasmin hung out with and was photographed with on social media claimed to be, quote, sovereign beings, end quote, or purported that they'd held positions of spiritual imperial authority. According to the Daily Mail, Crystal was loosely connected with Rashad Jamal, too. She wrote a letter in his defense to the judge presiding over his child molestation case. She also was believed to have bunked up with Rashad Jamal and his wife for a couple of months prior to his arrest for that crime.
Exactly how close Crystal and Yasmin really were to Rashad Jamal and his non-traditional spiritual belief system is unknown. But something that was super clear from their online activity is that Crystal and Yasmin somehow ended up traveling together and living at various motels in May of 2022. When exactly they got to Alabama and started living in Talladega National Forest is still a bit of a mystery.
It may have been a combination of them literally having no money and nowhere to go, or their shared belief in finding peace in nature or the energy of the earth or whatever. Honestly, I don't know. But by the time things got underway in court in January 2023, it became clear both women would be tried separately. Crystal's defense lawyer argued that she might have been suffering from mental illness leading up to and during the crime.
He asked the judge to order a full mental evaluation of Crystal because he sensed during some of their early conversations about the murder that Crystal was possibly delusional and/or paranoid, to the point that her attorney didn't feel confident she understood what was going on or was capable of taking responsibility for her actions. The judge granted that request and ordered two different physicians perform psychiatric and psychological examinations on Crystal and file their findings with the court.
Those evaluations were completed by the end of May, 2023. And in late July, the court ruled that Crystal was competent enough to stand trial for the charges against her. Her trial was set to begin on September 25th, 2023 in a federal courthouse in Birmingham, Alabama. But before that happened, Yasmin, Crystal's accomplice and Adam's actual shooter, decided to cooperate with federal prosecutors in exchange for the government dropping one of her charges.
She agreed to plead guilty to second-degree murder, kidnapping Michaela, and robbery, and by doing so, the U.S. attorney shaved off a firearms charge from her indictment. The plea agreement goes into a lot of detail about what happened shortly after investigators arrived on scene the day Adam died. It states that Yasmin was alert enough while being taken to the hospital to speak with FBI agents, and she admitted that she told one of the paramedics that she had shot at Adam first.
She explained that she'd been living in the forest with Crystal and Crystal's son, desperate for food and transportation. After the shooting, she asked one of the agents, quote, I'm going to do time, right? I just want to know how much time, end quote. Yasmin also confessed that the pistol she'd used in the crime belonged to Crystal, and prior to stopping Adam and Michaela on August 14th, the women had come up with a plan together to carjack a motorist to get food.
Ultimately, Yasmin told investigators that she had never intended to harm or kill Adam. She said, "I took his whole life away. Now he can't tell his story." The US attorney asked the court to sentence Yasmin to 35 years in prison, and that's exactly what she got. C. Douglas Golden reported for the Independent Journal Review that she'll spend 35 years in prison for her crimes.
On September 29th, 2023, after four days of listening to testimony from Yasmin and law enforcement investigators, the jury weighing Crystal's fate found her guilty of first-degree murder, robbery, and the use of a firearm in a crime, but found her not guilty of kidnapping Adam and Michaela. In early January 2024, she was sentenced to life in prison.
In Michaela's social media post about Adam that she wrote after his death, which I quoted from earlier, she said something that I think I should leave you all with. It's a reminder to never forget those we hold dear, even when they've gone. Michaela wrote, quote, I wish I could hold your hand one last time. I love you forever, Adam Simji. Thank you for being my hero every day for four years. The best four years of my life. End quote.
Park Predators is an AudioChuck original show. So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? Want the same expert advice you get from the pros in the store while shopping online at DiscountTire.com? Meet Treadwell, your personal online tire guide that matches you with the perfect tire for your vehicle. Get your best match in one minute or less with Treadwell by Discount Tire. Let's get you taken care of.
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