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The national sales event is on at your Toyota dealer, making now the perfect time to get a great deal on a dependable new Toyota truck. Like a rugged, half-ton Tundra, workhorse by nature, powerhouse by design, the Tundra combines raw capability with premium comfort and advanced tech to fuel your wildest adventures. And with the available i-Force Max Hybrid Powertrain, you can take electrifying horsepower farther
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Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. What was the reason for that? Just to bring her to the bathroom? Yeah, I don't know why we brought her back into the bathroom. I guess we didn't want to bring her into the bedroom. Okay. And then, yeah. And then Johnny slit her throat too.
Hello and welcome. This is Season 2, Episode 268 of Sword and Scale. A show that reveals that the worst monsters are real. Well, we have a new episode of Sword and Scale Television in case you haven't seen it. It's Episode 4, the story of Angela Bledsoe.
And it really does prove that if you are a woman, my heart goes out to you because men suck.
The national sales event is on at your Toyota dealer, making now the perfect time to get a great deal on a dependable new Toyota truck. Like a rugged, half-ton Tundra, workhorse by nature, powerhouse by design, the Tundra combines raw capability with premium comfort and advanced tech to fuel your wildest adventures. And with the available i-Force Max hybrid powertrain, you can take electrifying horsepower farther and
than ever before. Or check out the fully redesigned Tacoma, delivering trail-dominating power and captivating style. The new Tacoma was born to make your off-roading dreams come true. And with the new available tech, this legendary truck is getting even better. And when you buy a Toyota truck, you buy Toyota dependability, meaning your truck will hold its value long into the future.
So visit your local Toyota dealer and check out amazing national sales event deals when you visit BuyAToyota.com. Toyota, let's go places. About nine miles north of the city I used to live in, Atlanta, Georgia, is the small county of Gwinnett. Within that county, there is an even smaller city named Suwannee. Suwannee is a progressive place with a rapidly increasing population.
And it is currently ranked by CNN as number 10 on their list of 100 best places to live in America. With a low cost of living, a low crime rate, and a fairly decent public education system, Sewanee is pretty much as ideal as it gets for the typical middle class family. In 2017, there was a small family living in Sewanee. They were the Spencers.
On April 8th, the mom of the household Linda Spencer was at home with her 14-year-old daughter. That night, at around 9:30 p.m., Linda's daughter was in the kitchen baking a cake.
when she heard someone knocking at the front door. It was like, I'm going to say like 9:45, something like that last night because my son wasn't off of work yet, between I guess 9:30 and 9:45. And he knocked at the door and my daughter answered it. It had the top locked so she thought it was her brother. So she went over to unlock it and looked at the peephole and saw it was Johnny. So she opened the door and he walked in and I don't think he had any shoes on but he had like basketball shorts on and a towel around his neck.
The young man at the door was 19-year-old Johnny Ryder. Both Linda and her daughter knew Johnny. He was friends with Linda's son. When Johnny entered their apartment, it was obvious that he was having a very rough night. Johnny was shirtless. His eyes were beet red and his nose was caked with dry blood. Also, Johnny wasn't alone.
With him was a girl that looked to be about Johnny's age. Johnny and his presumed girlfriend were distraught and had obviously just been through some sort of tragic and possibly violent ordeal. So Linda asked Johnny what happened.
Linda didn't get many answers out of Johnny, other than he'd gotten into a fight with his mom, who apparently pepper sprayed him and threw him out of the house. Linda's teenage daughter, who was with Johnny,
witnessed what had happened. Linda's daughter also learned the name of the girl who was with Johnny. She was 17-year-old Cassandra Bjorg.
Cassandra or Cassandra Bjorg, or Casey as she was known,
met Johnny through a mutual friend, and the couple had only been dating for a short time. So when did you and Johnny kind of start dating? It was around the time where, remember the last time I saw you? That was about, I don't even think a month ago, so. It was. Yeah, it was around then. Was it? Mm-hmm.
When questioned by police, Casey explained what she witnessed happened between Johnny and his mother. And, like, his mom, like, started tripping out on this thought, like, we were intruders or whatever or something. And, like, she started, like, yelling at Johnny and, like...
After the fighting and pepper spraying ended, Johnny and Cassie went to the only place that Johnny could think of to go. They went to Linda Spencer's apartment.
Johnny was friends with Linda's son Jacob and he was hoping to find Jacob there. Jacob was at work at the time and the only people home were Linda and her young daughter. Still, Linda took Johnny and Cassie in and allowed them to spend the night.
Then the next morning, something unexpected happened. When they started making that announcement, I was in my room laying on my bed trying to wake up my daughter. And I heard the announcement. I thought it was a joke because I knew that they were having coffee before I went to my bedroom. So I thought, oh, okay, they know somebody with like a megaphone or something. So I called my son and I'm thinking, what the hell are you doing? And then I look outside the blinds and I'm like, what the hell is going on? Because I saw the band with somebody up on top. I mean, when I saw...
A SWAT team with a man and somebody. I was like, fuck, this is... A police SWAT team stationed themselves outside Linda's apartment. And through a megaphone, a SWAT officer ordered everyone in Linda's apartment to come outside. When this happened, Linda's daughter went into her brother's bedroom, where she found Johnny and Cassie. First of all, just kind of tell me what...
What happened this morning? I know you said you were asleep and everything, but... I can't remember. What was going on? I just woke up. Okay. And then all we heard was the sirens. Okay. We were freaking out, and then we were like, what's going on? And then I'm like, you guys just gotta go outside. And so they said, oh, yeah.
Linda, her daughter, and her son promptly followed the instructions of the SWAT team. They went outside where they were detained and questioned. Meanwhile, Johnny and Cassie remained in the apartment and refused to go outside.
It turned out that most of what they told the Spencer family were lies. Johnny's mom did not pepper spray him the night before, and she did not throw him out of the house. So you guys come home, you notice Johnny was smoking weed in the living room with his girlfriend? Yeah. It was smell, so Mindy was like, as first, first, as Mindy first entered the house, she was like, "Did you smoke inside the house? Mom's coming in 10 minutes."
And then we walked into Mindy's room and as soon as we entered the room, everything was just flipped. Everything looked like, even her friend's watch was gone, half of her clothes were gone, and all her stuff were just flipped. Like all the boxes, private, personal stuff were flipped. So we were really mad. Man, we knew Johnny did it.
On the evening of April 8th, 2017, 20-year-old Mindy Ryder and her boyfriend went out to dinner together and later arrived at Mindy's house. When they walked outside, they saw Mindy's younger brother Johnny and his girlfriend Cassie on the living room couch. The house reeked of marijuana.
This was concerning because Mindy's mom was expected home at any minute. Eventually, Mindy made her way to her bedroom. Once there, she found out that she'd been ransacked and she suspected that her brother was the culprit behind said ransacking. When Mindy and her boyfriend confronted Johnny, they threatened to call the police.
At that point, all hell broke loose. And I told my father, I know you did this. You guys, you and your girlfriend are the only ones that have been home. Like, just own up to it. Like, just own up to it and tell me. I won't call the cops or anything. And at the time, he was on the phone with my mom. And he was like, so if you don't, if I own up to it, you won't call the cops? And I said, yes. So that's when he hung up. And I hung up on the police. Like, I already dialed 911.
And then all of a sudden he goes out and comes back in and just sprays us straight in our faces and starts hitting us and tells his girlfriend to go grab the bat. As soon as like a few seconds later, I start getting bear spray. It wasn't bear spray. It wasn't even pepper spray. So I start getting for a good 10 seconds. I was in the room, that gas tub room for a whole time. I had to fight for my life and Mindy.
They also tried to kill us. Johnny was holding my head. He was telling her to smack my-- like, go bake, go bring up baseball. And she brought-- actually brought the bat. So she hit the man in his head. And her-- her head was open. And I see her come in with a bat. And the first thing she does is hit me across my back. And I try to grab it from her. And then she hits me on the head. And Kevin and Johnny are fighting in my room. So I chase her out to the living room.
Johnny and Cassie attacked Mindy and her boyfriend. They sprayed them with bear repellent and attempted to beat them unconscious with baseball bats.
Eventually, Mindy retreated to a bathroom where she could still hear the fight and mayhem through the bathroom door. I hear Kevin begging my brother, like, Johnny, please don't do this. You don't have to do this. And I went in the room and Johnny had Kevin in a chokehold. And my brother's girlfriend was in there with a bat. And so I was able to grab her by her hair and take the bat away from her.
And I started hitting my brother, telling him to let go. And then I handed the bat to Kevin. And then Kevin was going to hit my brother, but my brother caught the bat. And then we all fought over the bat. And it was me and my brother on my sofa. And then Kevin grabbed a beer bottle and told Johnny to stop, to just let us go. And like, we won't do anything. But my brother said he will never do that. And so Kevin hit him on the top of the head with the beer bottle and it shattered completely.
Essentially, Johnny and Cassie tried to murder Mindy and her boyfriend.
Thankfully, their attempt to commit double homicide was unsuccessful. But how did you guys break away from her? They just left? No, I fought for it. If I did not defend Mindy, we would have been possibly dead. Okay, so you fought them off and then they just left? And her mom came. They're leaving the car or what happened? Mindy's car is missing. Okay.
Eventually, Mindy's mom showed up, and when she did, Johnny and Cassie fled. On their way out, they snatched Mindy's car keys and stole her car. According to Mindy, this wasn't the first time that her brother Johnny stole something. Johnny had a criminal history, and at the time of the attack, he was on probation.
What a great system. I'm not sure if you know already, but he has previous criminal charges. And my mom's still paying his bail right now. What were they for? Going into vehicles and taking people's things, credit cards. After fleeing the scene and stealing Mindy's car, Johnny and Cassie drove to Linda Spencer's apartment. Again, Johnny was friends with Linda's son, and he was hoping to find her son there.
Linda's son was at work at the time, but he did eventually come home and speak to Johnny. I was at work, so I didn't get here to attend, so I didn't see. What you might say, who'd he show up with? Cassandra or Cassie, whatever her name is. Have you met her before? You know her? No. I only saw her at high school. I never talked to her or anything. So he showed up with Cassie.
Johnny and Cassie lied to the Spencer family about what happened, and Linda Spencer agreed to let them spend the night at her home. The next morning, a SWAT team
came looking for them both. Watch out who you let stay in your home, people. Especially if they show up shirtless and bloody in the middle of the night. When the cops showed up, what did Johnny, how did Johnny act? Well, we didn't know who they were calling for because we couldn't hear. And then I said, Johnny, they're for you. He's like, okay. And he just kind of sat there and was talking to Cassandra. He was saying, I'm not going back to jail. And I was like, Johnny, you have to go out there.
I told him that you can't do that to us. The Spencer family left their home and were promptly questioned by police. Meanwhile, Johnny and Cassie remained inside the Spencer apartment. I'd like to know what makes this guy click. Something obviously snapped. I don't know. I want to say... Because he also beat the shit out of his sister and his sister's boyfriend with a baseball bat.
The attack on Mindy and her boyfriend was brutal, and as the police continued investigating, they came to find that
This attack didn't just happen out of the blue because of an argument about a messy bedroom. This attack was planned. Johnny fully intended to murder his sister and her boyfriend. I really think they planned this before I got home. Because I told them my mom's 10 minutes away and they seemed kind of shocked. And then they seemed really calm. And then they sprayed us and tried to knock us out.
Thankfully, Johnny was unsuccessful in his attempt to kill Mindy and her boyfriend. The young couple was able to defend themselves. Unfortunately, this wasn't Johnny's first attempt at double homicide and his earlier victims weren't as lucky. A few days before Johnny attempted to kill his own sister, he violently attacked an unsuspecting married couple as they slept and brutally murdered them with a tire iron.
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In April of 2017, 20-year-old Mindy Ryder and her boyfriend were brutally attacked inside their home. They were sprayed with bear repellent and beaten with baseball bats. Thankfully, the attack ended before either of them lost their lives. The culprits behind the violence were Mindy's younger brother, 19-year-old Johnny Ryder, and his girlfriend, Cassie Björg. 17-year-old Cassie lived in Gwinnett County, Georgia.
When Cassie was about 15 or 16, she moved out of her mom's house to live with her grandparents, Wendy and Randall Bjork. According to their neighbors, this move that Cassie made was done out of necessity. And I never really asked Wendy any questions about it. Like, I just let her tell me what she wanted to talk about. Yeah. I guess Wendy and Randall found out that Cassie was being sexually abused by her stepdad. Okay.
So, you know, they filed for emergency custody because Amanda, her, Wendy and Randall's daughter wasn't doing anything. Allegedly, Cassie had been sexually assaulted by her stepfather and Cassie's mom hadn't done anything to stop the abuse. So Cassie's grandparents took Cassie in and despite their best efforts to help, things didn't go well.
Cassie was unruly in the very definition of a troubled teenager who could blame her. The problems that Cassie was having went beyond instances of her running away from home.
Cassie was also extremely violent towards her grandparents. I mean, they constantly called out to her house a bunch of times. And, like, she was on probation during this time for hitting her grandma. It was the one instance where she fought her grandmother. What did Cassie say happened? She said that they got into an argument, Wendy bit her, and then she hit her back to defend herself. Where she, I mean, she went with Wendy's ass. I mean, it was...
Pretty bad. Wendy had showed me all the bruises and she did bite Cassie, but she bought her because Cassie was choking her out. Cassie literally had her arm around her neck like this and Wendy squeezed her chin down a bit right here.
When questioned, Cassie freely admitted that her relationship with her grandparents wasn't good and that she did assault them on multiple occasions.
Though, from her teenage perspective, she felt justified in doing so. I wasn't having a good relationship with my grandparents. Like, it just, it started getting really bad, you know? Like, I got a charge from them because, you know, like, I fought them, you know? I might have broken, like, my grandpa's ribs when, you know, for that charge for simple assault and simple battery, you know? They didn't really know what to do. They didn't really know, like, how to...
As a result of Cassie's violence towards her grandparents, she was placed on probation and several attempts were made to make Cassie understand that her grandparents were just trying to help her.
Wendy and Randall only wanted the best for Cassie. And then my grandma just got really angry with me and she told me that she was going to kick me out and she was going to find somewhere else for me to stay. So in like a couple of days, I was like, okay. So I just left anyway. And because I was just like, you know, if you don't want me there, like I might as well just leave now.
Well, I knew that because she called us and said that you'd run away again and that she was concerned and worried about you. Your grandmother loves you, right? You know how much your grandmother loves you. In April of 2017, Cassie violated her probation by running away from home again after yet another argument with her grandparents. So I didn't know what to do. I just got, like, really depressed. Just angry and then, like...
When Cassie was questioned, she had large bandages on both of her arms because she had recently attempted suicide by slitting both of her wrists. I just wanted to like to end it. It felt like so much and so I tried to overdose and I tried to slit my wrists.
About a week after Cassie ran away from home, she and her new boyfriend Johnny Ryder attacked Johnny's older sister and her boyfriend.
They sprayed the couple with bear repellent and beat them with baseball bats, essentially trying to kill them. Like all that really happened was me and Johnny were just chilling on his couch and we were watching TV and then
you know his sister you know comes in the house and I go to the bathroom and you know like I started you know fighting and stuff and so you know I separate myself you know from that situation and then his mom comes home and then they just started yelling like crazy and then his mom got the pepper spray and just started pepper spraying us and then we're just like okay like let's leave like
How did the baseball bat get introduced into that? Baseball bat? She has an injury that we're trying to understand. Yeah, she had an injury to her head. That's what I was told. The sister? I don't know anything about that. I didn't even know there was a baseball bat. She got injured? Mm-hmm.
When questioned about the attack on Johnny's sister, Cassie lied her ass off, and she was quickly called out for doing so. I've never lied to you, have I?
Eventually Cassie did admit to her part in the attack.
Though she claimed that it was all self-defense. Did you hit her with the bat? Did she come at you or something? You were defending yourself? I wasn't defending myself. She was trying to come at me. Okay, so she come in. Is that when you hit her with the bat? I didn't. I didn't mean to. You know, she was coming at me. I didn't know what to do. I didn't think I did that much injury. I didn't think, you know, her boyfriend broke his teeth, you know.
Police investigators slowly got Cassie to admit to partial truths about the attack, but that wasn't the only thing that she was questioned about. The investigators had questions about an even more serious crime. I think you know why I'm here. And you know my heart is broken. I just need to understand why. I wasn't the one who intentionally thought about it. Thought about doing it. I don't have to anymore. Say it. Once you say it, it's a ho-
Before attacking Johnny's sister and her boyfriend, Cassie and Johnny had attacked Cassie's grandparents who were not able to escape the attack. Wendy and Randall Bjorg were dead and they hadn't just been murdered. Their deaths were unspeakably brutal. Wendy and Randall had been horrifically beaten and butchered to death.
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On April 9th, 2017, 17-year-old Cassie Bjorg was arrested with her boyfriend, 19-year-old Johnny Ryder, for brutally attacking Johnny's older sister and her boyfriend. Though Georgia investigators suspected that Cassie and Johnny had more than just two victims. On the day before they were arrested, Gwinnett County Police conducted a welfare check on the home of Cassie's grandparents, Wendy and Randall Bjorg.
When police got no response, they forced their way inside and discovered the bloody aftermath of a very violent and brutal double murder. Wendy and Randall were dead. When Cassie was questioned about her grandparents' deaths, she explained how her plot to kill them
And before you did that, did you and Johnny meet up somewhere at a park or something to talk about what was going on? We went to Peachtree Park. He first asked me, are you afraid to die? And I said, no. He was just talking about how we could like run away together, you know, that kind of like dream. And he asked me, he was like, would you kill your grandparents? And I kind of like hesitated for a minute.
and i was like why and he was just like i don't know i mean because i he knows probably everything that i've been through with all of my family when you guys met at the park did he did he ever go over the actual plan on how you guys would do it or anything like that or like what was that how uh oh well i mean we were just trying to figure out how to get money
Cassie and Johnny decided that they were going to rob and murder Cassie's grandparents. On a night in early April, they arrived at their home to do exactly that. So we decided to go around like midnight or 1, 1:30 because my grandma normally went to sleep around like 11:30, 12. We decided like, you know, we would park down the road.
Cassie and Johnny snuck through Wendy and Randall's backyard and entered the home through a back door. Since Cassie lived there, she had a key.
So getting inside was not a problem. Did you guys have anything in your hands? I had a...
- Car tool. - Was it to do a tire or was it to fix a-- - Yeah, tire iron. It was a tire iron. He brought a black book bag that had duct tape in it. - With a tire iron and duct tape at the ready, Cassie and Johnny reached the grandparents' bedrooms. At this stage in their life and marriage, the couple did not sleep in the same room, so Cassie and Johnny split up. - He goes into my grandpa's room and I go into my grandma's room.
After hearing their grandfather's screams, Cassie approached her sleeping grandmother and began beating her over the head.
with a tire iron. I like hit her really hard on the back of the head and then she started like screaming and stuff and... Was that the first hit? Yeah. On the back of the head? Yeah. That's where I mainly hit her, on the head.
So I started hitting my grandma and I already had duct tape and then, you know, Johnny's doing his thing. And, you know, I stopped hearing Johnny doing whatever. And so he comes in the room with me and my grandma and, you know, he helps me like tie up my grandma with the duct tape. How do you tie? How did you do that? Is it just her hands? I got her hands, I got her whole head and then I got her ankles.
And then I dragged her into my grandpa's room and Johnny asked me to go get some knives. So I got some knives from downstairs in the kitchen and I got three big butcher knives. And then that's when he started like stabbing my grandpa. And then when Johnny's stabbing your grandfather, is it mainly in the torso or? Yeah.
Yeah, he just, I don't know why he did that, but he just kept going. How many times? More than two? More than five? Yeah, more than five. It was more than five. While wrapped in duct tape after being viciously beaten, Wendy Bjorg watched in horror as the man who had just been her husband for over 40 years was...
brutally stabbed and sliced to death. Yeah, I mean, like, she kept saying, like, I'll give you money, I'll give you my keys, you know, I'll give you anything you want. You know, I went in the closet because that's where they kept the safe. So, you know, I go in there, you know, I'm checking out all the stuff, and I grab the book bag, and I just start stuffing the book bag with everything, you know? Like, there was envelopes just filled with money. There was probably about, like, $1,000 that we found in that safe bag.
So after that, he slits my grandpa's throat and then we drive my grandma into the bathroom. After the safe was looted, Wendy was brought into her bathroom where her life also came to a horrific end.
and brutal end. I actually hit her in the back of the head with the tire, well not the back of the head, but like right where your spine is. Because he was telling me, he was like, if you hit right there, like just one like good hit, you can just knock the person out and then they'll be dead. And she was like pretending to be dead for a while.
Like, I would, you know, check up on her, and I would see that she was still breathing. And I would be like, Johnny, she's still alive. What the heck? And then, like, Johnny finally, like, made the, like, last blow. And then, yeah. And then Johnny slit her throat, too. And she, it was kind of creepy because she was, like, scared to die. Like, she shitted herself and peed herself. How did she? It was kind of gross.
All the looting and murder that Johnny and Cassie had done left them kind of hungry. So when they were done, they decided to grab a bite to eat. When you guys left, where'd you guys go to? We went over to like Kroger or Publix to go get something to eat. And then we went back to the house. So we just kind of like chilled there. Did you guys kind of just stay in the house then? Yeah, it was kind of both. We were kind of like in and out.
Johnny and Cassie stayed in Wendy's and Randall's home for days after the murders.
They slept downstairs while the corpses of their victims remained upstairs. They didn't even have the common decency to clean up after themselves. Cassie claimed...
that she and johnny were the only two people in the house during that time but that was a lie yes i was inside the house while they were dead i didn't know that they were done because that's the main thing obviously i'm curious i don't know when exactly it was but they had been inside the house for a while because you could smell it once you walked inside the house both walking and it smells like now you're saying it smells smells like what it is
The cops knew Cassie lied to them because one of Cassie's friends recorded a short video with their cell phone while they were inside the house.
After the video was revealed to Cassie, she had no choice but to admit to inviting friends over. Now I have trouble inviting friends over, even really close friends if the guest room hasn't been cleaned up in a while. So to have corpses upstairs and invite people over, that goes beyond my level of understanding. I'm not asking for a day. I'm just asking for in seven days after you guys killed your grandparents, Sunshine and Alex were at your house. Yes.
You may have noticed that throughout her confession, Cassie showed no emotion. She was cold and didn't shed one tear for her grandparents. Not one. Yet, when she was called out for her lying, something bizarre happened. Cassie weirdly
I am.
I'm just letting you know. I'm just letting you know. A few days after Wendy and Randall were dead, Johnny and Cassie decided that they were going to commit more murder. They hadn't had enough. They wanted some more. So this time, they set their sights on members of Johnny's family. Because how close you commit murder to your own home is a direct correlation of your level of stupidity. In fact, any kind of crime. Looting, for example.
If you loot in your own neighborhood, you're a fucking idiot. - The plan was that we were both gonna get both of our families, but first we got my grandparents. Then that's why we went over to Johnny's house and we attacked his sister and her boyfriend 'cause we were, he wanted to kill his family. - Okay.
Johnny and Cassie went to Johnny's mom's house. Once there, they trashed the place, looking for money. Then, when his sister and her boyfriend arrived at the house,
Cassie and Johnny attacked them with bear spray and baseball bats. We had like bear pellet that we bought from Bass Pro Shop. What was that for? For the, just to like get them away or to like kind of like knock them out. That stuff is strong. Like this stuff, oh my gosh, it was so crazy. Like it was just all rushed. Like it was just, the spray was going everywhere and it was like,
Johnny and Cassie didn't anticipate that when you use bear repellent in a confined space, like a house, everyone in the space is going to feel the effects. You want to know why they didn't assume that? That's because they were fucking stupid.
Criminals are usually fucking stupid. In short, their plan to commit another double murder didn't really go as planned. Johnny's sister and her boyfriend were able to fight off the attack and when Johnny's mom came home, Cassie and Johnny fled. They stole his sister's car and drove away in a panic. The next day, the SWAT team arrested them, but not before both Johnny and Cassie tried and failed to commit suicide.
by slitting their wrists. Of course, this is something they would also fail at. "And as for the incident that happened with Johnny's place, you're charged with two-counts ag assault, and obviously with your grandparents now, you're being charged with malice murder for your grandmother and then malice murder for your grandfather." After Cassie confessed, there wasn't much left to do but charge her and Johnny with a slew of crimes.
Of course, there were some non-legal and important questions worth asking. Like, I don't know, why? Why? Why? Why? Why would you do this? Why? How could these teenage morons be so vicious and cold-blooded towards their own families, their own flesh and blood, the people that gave them life? What could have possibly happened in their lives to lead them down this
to this very, very low point. As far as Johnny is concerned, we really don't have a lot of answers. He may just be a moron and that's it. There's lots of those in this country, unfortunately. It seems that nobody who knew Johnny even saw this coming, but people close to a killer rarely admit that they do because then a bunch of other questions need to be asked. And they, you know, who wants that kind of responsibility?
The investigators trying to make sense of things did sit down and speak with Johnny.
Though their conversation was brief and didn't dive too deeply into his thought process about killing people. Where'd you go to high school at? PCH. PCH. Did you graduate from there? Yes, sir. Did you go to college or anything? I did go to college, but I wasn't a business college. I took math and English. How'd you meet Cassie? How did she come into this?
Johnny seemed like a normal teenager. He had some misdemeanor charges for theft, but otherwise he came off like a typical kid.
After a few minutes of being questioned by detectives, Johnny asked for a lawyer, which shut down his interview. Are you okay talking with us right now without an attorney? I was just, I mean, I don't really feel comfortable. From Cassie's perspective, it seemed like Johnny was in a similar boat as her.
According to Cassie, Johnny felt that he was being disrespected by his mom. The way I saw their relationship was...
His mom, you know, would get on him a lot, saying, you know, like, you're not doing anything with your life, and blah, blah, blah. When he had, like, he just got out of jail. He had two jobs. He was back in school. He, you know, he was, you know, getting his shit together. Right. And then, you know, his mom kept saying, you know, like, you're just worthless. You know, you're not doing anything. On top of the issues that Johnny was having with his mother, he may have also been dealing with some serious mental issues.
though the things that indicated mental illness might have been an act. At one point Johnny left his mom a very haunting voicemail and it's hard to tell if this message is genuine or if it's just theatrics. "Hey, Ma. It's Johnny. I'm evil. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, dear. I'm sorry. I'm not well. Enjoy me, please. I'm dying as we speak. I'll see you later, okay?"
As far as Cassie is concerned, she too had issues with the adults in her life, specifically her grandparents, though it seems like she had no legitimate reason to dislike them. After Wendy and Randall Bjork gained custody of Cassie, all they did was show her the kind of love and care that any teenager would be lucky to have.
They got custody of her and then right after that happened, they surprised her with a trip to Disney World. And then last summer they went to China? Yeah, they went to China for judo stuff. Wendy and Randall took Cassie on special vacations. They enrolled her in school and encouraged her interests. Cassie liked martial arts, so her grandparents paid for her to have martial arts classes.
Cassie even attended a final judo class a day or so after she killed her grandparents. By all accounts, as Cassie's caretakers, Wendy and Randall,
when above and beyond just looking and talking to the grandparents friends and all that it seemed like they really cared about her they took such a big care of her like she had it like she's honestly like i don't know why she would you know i mean like i did love cassie this person but like she like honestly was like a really selfish person like she only cared about herself
Did it all of a sudden just snap? Or like, that's what I'm kind of looking for is what was the snapping point? Because I've actually talked to some people back in the day who said she was a sweet girl and there was no problems. She had a really fun side, but when she didn't get her way, the anger issues were that. Cassie had anger issues. That much is clear. She violently attacked her grandparents on multiple occasions. But Cassie was also self-centered and narcissistic.
She wanted things to be her way and didn't care who she had to hurt to get what she wanted. But I think that it was building up. I don't think it was anything where she snapped because when I talked to her on the walk that her and I were on, I'm like, so what's your deal? I mean, you know that your grandparents love you. Like they're doing everything they can to get custody of you. What's the real problem with that?
Hmm.
at what you and I are talking about, or what? Like, narrow that down for me. She's like, I don't give a fuck about anything. She's like, I just want to smoke, do what I want to do, and I don't want anybody up my ass about it. I'm like, so do the job and move out. Allegedly, Cassie was sexually abused by her stepfather, which is why she was living with her grandparents in the first place. If these sexual abuse allegations are true,
That's certainly a terrible trauma that Cassie had to endure. It shouldn't be ignored and it may have been what tipped the scale in her life. However, many teenagers have unfortunately been victimized in this sort of way. And that experience does not drive them to commit murder. It does not excuse any further bad actions by that person. You don't get a free pass just because you were abused.
It seems that fundamentally, Cassie was just a selfish and heartless brat who couldn't see or didn't care to see that her grandparents only wanted to help her. I mean, do you feel bad about what happened? Do you think she deserves what happened? Or what, you know, how are you feeling right now? I'm not in your shoes. With my grandparents? Yeah. I mean, I was pretty pissed at her for, you know, the couple times that, you know, like, she would call the cops on me for, you know, no reason sometimes or like...
It kind of just like really messed up everything, you know, like I had to be home at a certain time and I couldn't do as much stuff as I, you know, used to do. You know, that really made me angry because, you know, I used to just be able to do whatever. Just like a lot of the stuff that she would say would be really offensive. I just wanted to get away from all of that, you know, like...
I was so tired of dealing with my family. I don't know. I just, I started feeling... Was your mom ever part of the plan? Of killing them? I wanted to. 17-year-old Cassie did not like having a curfew. She didn't like to be told what to do. Nobody does, after all. She was offended by the guidelines of her probation and the rules her grandparents set in place, the rules that were there for her own well-being. So Cassie...
brutally murdered her grandparents. That was her solution. She and her boyfriend used a tire iron and kitchen knives to beat and butcher Wendy and Randall Bjorg to death. Well, I mean, unfortunately, I believe you're kind of born with it. I think she's a straight social pest. There's no, you don't have any remorse in that. And I mean, I think you're kind of born with that gene. Something makes it come out in you, a snap, and
You know, unfortunately, I think there's like four percent of people in the country are sociopaths. After Cassie and Johnny were arrested, the court proceedings played out as expected. Cassie and Johnny had no legitimate defense for their actions. So the best they could hope for was a deal from prosecutors.
Which they eventually got. Tonight, a lot of you reacting pretty strongly on our Facebook page after two teenagers were sentenced to life in prison with the chance of parole after pleading guilty to murdering two grandparents. Cassandra Bjorga and Johnny Ryder won't be eligible for parole for at least 60 years. The two of them will be almost 80 years old by then. Johnny and Cassie will likely never see the outside of a prison facility again.
I guess you can call that justice, but it's certainly a small consolation for the people who knew and loved Wendy and Randall. This couple was 63 years old when they were killed. 63. Imagine living on Earth for 63 years only to be killed by your own granddaughter. And at that time, they were more than just Cassie's caretakers. They were genuinely good people who had a lot of close friends.
A quick read of the countless heartfelt comments left on their online obituaries makes it pretty clear that Wendy and Randall were kind, giving, and willing to help just about anyone in need. At the same time, anybody could ring her doorbell and she'd open her door for anybody. Like she was just the sweetest lady. After Cassie moved in with her grandparents and began assaulting them,
Wendy Bjorg quickly recognized the risk she was taking, but that didn't stop her. Wendy's heart was too big. Her hitting you and now she's hitting Randall, like, it's just getting more and more aggressive. You're not concerned? She's like, yeah. She said one day she's going to end up killing me. As a friend, what do you, what the hell do you say? So she knew. I think she just loved her friend.
She just loved her unconditionally. She didn't want to make her feel like she turned her back on her like everybody else did. Yeah, I believe you can love someone too much too. Cassie's grandparents loved her, and that love was unconditional. In fact, if we were somehow able to communicate with the dead, despite what Cassie did to them, Wendy and Randall would probably tell us that they still only want the best for their granddaughter. Sadly, Cassie's sociopathic nature...
will never allow her to care or even understand what any of that means. Her little brain is just incapable. Like the detective said, this is a case where two very kind people loved someone too much. Wendy and Randall loved a monster. Tragically, that monster killed them.
Well, that's going to do it for another one. Why don't you go ahead and upgrade today to watch an episode of Sword and Scale TV. It's a good day for it. Beautiful day. Go check it out. Swordandscale.com Oh, and don't forget to stay safe.
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I just fucking cracked the fucking, oh my God, I just cracked this fucking case. Not the who, the why, but it's the Jack the Ripper. You need to get a hold of me. This is 100% fucking true. I am not fucking with you. You can call me at 303-834-2119. Later. And don't drop the ball on this shit. I'm not fucking playing. And don't drop the ball on this shit. I'm not fucking playing. I'm not fucking playing.
I'm not fucking playing. I'm fucking playing. I'm fucking playing. I'm fucking playing. I'm playing. I just fucking cracked. Oh my god. You need to get a hold of me. 303-834-2119. I just fucking cracked. Oh my god. You need to get a hold of me. 303-834-2119. 303-834-2119. 303-834-2119.
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