201. The Murder In Sin City - Deborah Flores-Narvaez
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Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. Welcome back and welcome back. Another week, another episode. Hopefully everybody enjoyed our 200th episode and here we are with 201. Gonna kind of jump into some things. We are working on merch and I cannot promise but kind of promise that there will be an announcement in the next week or two. So that is that.

We reworked all of our merch stuff, so that's why it's been a minute, but we are excited for this. I actually, before we get into your 10 seconds, I want to do a lowdown real quick on Ono Media, just for anyone who's new and listening. So our network is Ono Media. We founded it after starting Murder With My Husband, which is the podcast you're listening to, which led us into starting my solo show, formerly called Binge, now called Into the Dark with

Peyton Moreland. And then we also have a true crime news show called Rise in Crime that is twice a week that just basically keeps you updated on everything true crime. Those are the three shows of Oh No Media and we are so happy to have you here. And before we jump into the 10 seconds, if you want any bonus content or ad free content, if you're sick of hearing ads, you can subscribe on Apple, Spotify,

which is also Patreon. So you can subscribe on any of those three things and you won't have any ads. You also have bonus episodes every month and it helps support us. Then last thing, we stream on Twitch every single Thursday at 5.30 PT. So come check it out. It's always a great time. So we're hopping into my 10 seconds and got a pretty decent story for everybody. So we were at our studio recording some things and we were getting ready to leave. We just...

Just kind of finished everything. And our office keys are attached to our car keys. So we don't lose them. Right. Which are also attached to Peyton's wallet. Yada, yada, yada. Anyways. So Peyton walks out of the office and I go, oh, she definitely grabbed the keys. Like because I got in the car because she got in the car. So she had to grab the keys because she wouldn't got in the car. I walk out of the office. Door shuts. Get in the car.

And guess what? We didn't have the car keys, which also had the office key, which also had Payton's wallet. We were locked out of the office. We couldn't drive the car anywhere. And we also didn't have Payton's wallet.

Well, and I think it's important to note that our office door actually has two different locks on it. Yes. So there is a magnetic lock and then just a regular deadbolt lock. And so I couldn't lock the deadbolt lock because we didn't have the keys, but the magnetic lock was locked so we couldn't get inside the office. To get the keys. Yes. To drive. To drive. So we're sitting in the car and our extra key is also inside our office. So we just are stuck there.

So I'm sitting there and I'm thinking and I'm thinking and I'm like, I don't know what we're going to do. We're cracking up. We're just like, we can't get like, literally there's nothing we can do. We're just stuck there. We're just sitting in the car. Nothing, no engine running. Like just how, what do we do from here? So I'm a freaking genius. And I was like, okay, if we get something really long, we can hopefully, and I can stick it through the door and up. I think we can trigger the magnetic like sensor to then unlock the door. Right.

And so I found in the back of our car a brochure. A brochure for an open house. Yes. That we had walked by and just like taken a brochure to be polite. So I found this brochure. I folded it up. By the way. Opened it all the way up. This is on film, by the way. Peyton recorded the last like, I don't know, 30 seconds. Well, because I start thinking as you're walking over and like waving this brochure, I'm like this...

We have this running joke where we record things all the time for, I guess, home videos, if you will. And so I just got out my phone, started recording for a home video. I'm explaining in the video, I'm explaining everything that's going on. Yeah. So I had this brochure, went and stuck it in there, was wiggling it around. It wasn't working. So I folded it up again to make it stiff and I'm sticking it around. And all of a sudden I...

reaches my other hand and the door freaking opens the door opens it opens it was paper brochure one of the best fillings in the world i can't believe that word with a paper brochure i don't know what we would have done we i guess call a locksmith the brochure it was probably like it was probably four feet long yeah it was long yeah so we got in the office we got our keys back and we will never make that mistake again

All is well. And we usually lock the deadbolt. So don't try to come sticking a brochure to get in. Don't even try. We do lock the deadbolt and we got the cameras. You do not want to mess with the wrath of Garrett. But no, we got in. It's a good story. We'll post it on social media. And if you're watching on YouTube, we'll put it in. We'll put the video in. You guys should be watching it right now.

Yeah, that's my 10 seconds this week. Let's hop into this week's episode. Our sources for this episode are Dancing on Her Grave by Diane Montaigne and Carolina Sarasasa, CBS News, Las Vegas Sun, NBC News, New York Post, Las Vegas Weekly, Daily Mail, People.com, Deseret News, ABC News, New York Daily News, Fox News, ReviewJournal.com, TheCinemaholic.com, and the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

So according to a statistic released by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, nearly 3 to 4 million women in the U.S. find themselves in domestically violent situations every single year. Typically, it isn't one isolated incident, but a recurring issue.

And yet domestic violence remains one of the most underreported crimes in our country. There's a lot of reasons why both men and women find themselves stuck in these situations. Sometimes it's because they fear their own safety or the safety of their loved ones.

Other times their finances or resources are completely tied to their abuser, making it harder for them to start over on their own. Sometimes people stay because they really are in love and believe their abuser will change their behavior soon enough.

And let's face it, the high of being in love is unlike any other feeling out there. It's addictive, irresistible, and sometimes it turns us into someone we don't even recognize. Love can be all-consuming, and in the event of today's case, love was a tool weaponized against our victim in both life and death. So today our story kicks off in the city of Sin, Las Vegas, circa 2010.

Behind the roaring casinos, the feather-clad showgirls, and the mustached magicians,

There's a whole society of people who call this city their permanent home. Good old LV. People who've come far and wide to try and make something of themselves amongst the glitz and the glamour. Who find the chaos of a city like this to be comforting, even welcoming, a kindred spirit to their own unpredictable selves. And among them is a 31-year-old dancer named Debra Flores Narvaez.

Born in Puerto Rico in 1979, Debra's family moved to Baltimore, Maryland when she was about seven years old. Her older sister Celeste became her lifeline as Debra, although beautiful and popular, found herself standing out as the Latina girl in school.

Still, Debra worked hard to make something of herself. She got good grades, had an insatiable hunger for knowledge, and in her 20s, she earned not one, but three degrees after attending two different colleges. One in marketing, one in international business, and a third in law. Essentially, the world was Debra's oyster, but regardless of how hard she worked, she

There was one passion Debra always found herself coming back to, and that was dance. While she was never professionally trained, you would have had no idea because Debra learned it all. Salsa, hip-hop, ballroom, you name it, Debra crushed it. In 2007, she even auditioned and became a cheerleader for the Washington Redskins NFL team over in D.C. But believe it or not, professional cheerleading was not designed to be a full-time job.

Which is a whole different argument we can talk about later. Okay, okay. But this meant that Debra still had to fill her 9 to 5 with a way to pay the bills. And throughout her 20s, she took on some pretty impressive roles, like a financial analyst, senior manager of financial operations, and a junior investment analyst.

But no matter how much money Debra was making and how high she was climbing the ladder, she wasn't happy working the regular nine to five grind. Debra was interested in a life of adventure. And the only thing she really wanted to earn a living doing was the thing she loved most. So in 2009, her boyfriend, Jamyle McGee, pitched her an idea. What if they moved to Las Vegas and pursued their dreams together?

See, Jamal was also a dancer. In fact, he'd been a finalist on the TV show So You Think You Can Dance. So did you watch...

Or is it too old? Or do you remember? No, I definitely didn't watch. I've only watched like actually two seasons. Oh, it surprises me. I know. Well, it used to be really good. So I watched a little bit of the older season. Okay, got you. But anyways, so he's on So You Think You Can Dance. He figured there was so much opportunity in Las Vegas, so many shows and performances that could open up doors for the couple, which...

is kind of true if you're a dancer. Debra, who'd been eager to trade in her business attire for sequined body suits, couldn't resist the temptation. She agreed, and she and Jamal moved out west that same year.

In a lot of ways, Jamal was an inspiration to Deborah. At age four, he'd been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and was told he would never be able to walk, let alone dance again. Yet he overcame those odds and went on to be a professional dancer by age 14.

Jamyle and Debra had met dancing in grade school, but Jamyle went on to study the art professionally in college. It wasn't until a few years before their move that the two reconnected and a romance blossomed. In many ways, Jamyle was the perfect person for Debra to move out west and follow her dreams with.

But there were also whispers of trouble in Paradise. In June of 2009, just shortly after their move to Vegas, Debra filed a police report against Jamal for domestic abuse. She claimed he'd kicked her and dragged her from the car up to their apartment where he continued to assault her. Debra took the case to court and ended up winning a $250,000 settlement, claiming the bruises and scarring had cost her modeling jobs and other income.

But the thing was, Deborah never collected on the payout. To her, it was just kind of more about the principle of it. Instead, she broke up with Jamal and let him keep his money with a stern warning. Never pull something like that again.

Debra moved out of the place she shared with Jamal and got a condo located just across the street from the Luxor Hotel. She found a regular gig working as a backup performer for a famous adult review show called Fantasy, also based at the Luxor. She also got a roommate, a fellow performer named Sonia Sonnenberg.

Sonia worked in the Cirque du Soleil shows, doing everything from the trapeze to the aerial ropes and scarves, which was likely how Debra was introduced to several other members of the Cirque community, including a dancer for the Beatles' love show at the Mirage Hotel, a 31-year-old named Jason Blue Griffith. He kind of went by the name Blue.

Now, Jason was exactly Debra's type, a trained ballet dancer who'd studied at LaGuardia Performing Arts High School in New York City, which was home to many famous alumni like Jennifer Aniston, Timothee Chalamet, and Nicki Minaj. He then went on to get a degree at the famed Juilliard, where he studied dance, drama, and music.

Before then finding his way to Vegas, Jason was even a backup dancer for Jay-Z and had since been aspiring towards his own rapping career. So after he and Debra first met around Thanksgiving of 2009, it was off to the races. The two seemed inseparable, and by early 2010, they were in a monogamous relationship. Or at least, that's what Debra believed. She spoke about him to her friends constantly, singing his praises, telling everyone that she had fallen in love.

Jason even asked her to star as the romantic lead in a music video he was making for his new song, Sex Games. But those who knew Jason felt this situation probably wasn't what Debra believed it to be. Even her roommate, Sonia, said right away she knew the partnership wasn't going to be a healthy one.

And why? Well, Jason had multiple love interests around the Las Vegas Strip. Okay. Debra seemed to just be the girl of the moment. When another woman Jason was seeing caught his music video on YouTube, he tried to cover it up by saying Debra was just a friend, someone he'd hired for the job. They weren't romantically involved in any way, which...

By that point was definitely a blatant lie. He and Debra had been intimate on several occasions, clearly to the point that she was calling him her boyfriend and believed that she was the only one doing so. But Las Vegas is a lot smaller than you'd think, particularly when it comes to the performers in the town who all seem to run in the same circles and know one another. That doesn't surprise me.

Which was how Debra eventually realized she was not the only one Jason Blue Griffith was seeing. Okay. A few months into dating, she called a magician friend named Renee crying, saying she'd found out that Jason was cheating on her. But what followed struck Renee a bit odd. Debra admitted to him that she was willing to make that sacrifice, allow Jason to see other women, just as long as he was still agreeing to see her.

Now, this set off several red flags for Renee, who thought this didn't sound like the Debra he knew. She was strong. She always stood her ground. She was a take-no-crap-from-no-one type of gal. So why was she making exceptions for Jason? Renee encouraged her to get out now before she found herself too deeply invested in Jason.

But she clearly didn't heed his advice. The couple found themselves on and off over the next six months. But come October 2010, things got really ugly between Debra and Jason.

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On October 7th, Debra and Jason got into a heated argument. She'd caught Jason at another woman's home, a fellow Cirque du Soleil performer named Agnes Roux. But she was kind of allowing that, correct? I think so, but it definitely wasn't what she wanted.

So if she was getting her way, I don't think this would be happening. So she catches him and the couple fought for a while inside Deborah's car where Jason deliberately head butted her. Oh my gosh. Causing her to smash her head on the steering wheel. Okay. The force was so powerful. She even broke the windshield wiper lever along the side of the wheel. Holy crap. Then eventually,

Then about two weeks later, there was another incident over Agnes, the same lady. On October 21st, both Deborah and Agnes were following Jason in their respective vehicles, perhaps now working together to try and bust him in his infidelity. Now,

Eventually, Jason seemed to take notice and pulled his car over, bringing both of his girlfriends to a stop behind him. That's when he got out and approached the driver's side of Debra's car. He pulled open the door, grabbed Debra's phone, and threw it several yards away. When Debra went out to get it, Jason lunged at her, pushing her to the ground, kicking her, and pulling her hair. I know domestic violence goes both ways.

usually it's male to female, but it's crazy to me that as a male,

Um, you're just naturally so much stronger usually than females, but to push them and throw them and kick them and punch them is majority of the time. Not always. There's a lot of females that could kill me, but usually it's just, I don't know. It's just messed up. It's weird that that can run through someone's head as their first reaction. And I think sadly, once you break that barrier in a relationship, yes.

There's kind of no going back. And that's kind of where I was getting. I feel like once you cross that barrier, it's not always going to be there, but it's there. You've done it. How do you take it back? It's kind of like when someone kills someone, you've killed someone. You've crossed a barrier that you shouldn't cross. And I think, you know, once you've tried or attempted to solve a problem like that in any relationship physically, right?

Your then habit is to continue trying to solve or do anything like that physically. And it's just not, it's not good. Violence. Violence is not the answer. Never. So there were some reports that claimed Deborah may have also been pregnant with his child during this time. Although,

Although I will say there's never been any confirmation of this. And it's unclear to what extent Agnes actually witnessed this physical assault. But I do know that around this time, she broke up with Jason, claiming she had no interest in being with him if he was still seeing Debra or any other women for that matter. I also know that Debra was brave enough to go to the police after this incident and file a report. Given the extensive bruising and the giant clump of hair missing from her scalp...

Police felt inclined to arrest Jason for domestic violence and coercion. These were charges that he was scheduled to face in court by the end of that calendar year. But this clearly didn't stop Debra and Jason from getting back together again. Because about two weeks after his arrest, around November 2nd, 2010, another domestic disturbance call was made to the North Las Vegas Police Department.

This time at Jason's apartment after he was the one to make the phone call, insisting that Debra had been the one physically assaulting him now. But when police spoke with Debra, she seemed calm and controlled, saying they had gotten into a verbal argument but had worked it out. The cops left that night without filing any formal reports or charges because it was just kind of, he said, she said.

However, things hit a breaking point for Jason and Debra in December of 2010. That month, Agnes told Jason she'd be willing to get back together with Jason under one condition. Debra was out of the picture for good.

Meanwhile, on December 8th, a detail from Deborah's past resurfaced. She'd changed her mind about the settlement that she'd won from her lawsuit against her ex, Jamyle McGee. Now, she wanted to collect. And that day, she contacted her lawyer to follow up on those arrangements. Around the same time, Deborah sent a strange, cryptic text message to her mother. It read this, Inc.

In case there is ever an emergency with me, contact Blue Griffith in Vegas, my ex-boyfriend, not my best friend. Which was mostly alarming to Debra's sister Celeste, who's wondering what kind of emergency should they be expecting, number one, and why should they go to Jason? Yeah, why the ex-boyfriend? And she clarified...

Not my best friend. Yes. This is despite the fact that Debra had told her family little to nothing about the domestically violent situations with Jason. Debra was always careful not to worry her older sister and her mother, only updating them on the positive things that were going on in her life. Like, for example, the giant opportunity Debra was getting at work. See, over the last few weeks, Debra was asked to take on a bigger role in her show, Fantasy. Debra had brought in an old friend, major R&B artist, Sisqó, like...

thong song cisco okay to come perform a few shows with them there was going to be a two-week run in which deborah danced alongside him while he performed his hit song and if it went well deborah knew it would open more doors for her in the future so come december 12th there were two big dress rehearsals scheduled to practice the routine one in the morning and one around midnight

Well, that day, Debra showed up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for the morning practice, ready to greet her old friend and blow her fellow dancers out of the water. And everything went off without a hitch. Afterwards, Debra said goodbye, promising to see everyone for the midnight practice. She went home, showered, grabbed her things. Then she told her roommate, Sonia, she was heading over to Jason's for a little bit. Which...

I don't know. I want to ask why, but I mean, I know why there's this lot of trauma and stuff around it, but why? You just don't want to. Like, come on, why? It's hard. I think it's frustrating to hear. I mean, obviously it's frustrating to be in that situation, but.

Just sucks to hear. Well, it's also hard because like you said, we know why. Like this is very common. Yes, yes, exactly. And it's convoluted. Yes, it happens all the time. So they were going to order some food and watch a few episodes of the TV show Dexter before she had to be back at the Luxor for rehearsal. How freaking ironic. Yeah.

But when 12 a.m. rolled around with no sign of Debra at practice, her fellow performers started to worry. They knew how important this was to Debra. It didn't make sense for her to not call or not show. So a few of Debra's castmates call around looking for her, eventually phoning her roommate, Sonia, who's also starting to panic because she knows the last person Debra claimed to go see was Jason. And Sonia knows that.

This is just kind of a toxic relationship. So that night she calls the police, as does one of Deborah's cast mates. But it isn't until December 15th, two days later, that the police finally stop by Jason's house to question him. So they report her missing and it isn't until two days that police send someone to talk to Jason, who they both say she was last with.

Okay. Okay.

They only chatted for a few minutes through Debra's driver's side window, and then she took off, and he hadn't seen her since. There was no takeout, no episodes of Dexter. She never stepped foot inside the apartment, according to Jason. But two days later, on December 17th, police found a pretty important piece of evidence in this missing persons case.

They found Debra's car. It had been abandoned in some random Las Vegas backyard, more than 17 miles away from where she was last seen at Jason's house. Even stranger, the license plates had been removed from the car. Interesting. Yep. So they were probably going to resell it and then it would have been gone.

Yes, but police knew it was Debra's because of a makeup bag that had been left in the front seat. When Debra's sister Celeste heard about the abandoned vehicle, her heart sank. It was in that moment that she realized her sister probably didn't just up and disappear. Something had likely happened to her, something sinister.

The public information officer for the Las Vegas Metropolitan PD essentially reaffirmed those fears, saying that the more time that goes by, the worse the outcome may be. At this point, Debra had been missing for about a week, which then turned into a month. Oh, man. Meanwhile, both Jamyle McGee and Jason Griffith were being considered persons of interest, which...

What with their connections to Debra and the police reports that have been filed against each of them, this kind of makes sense. At the same time, police were looking for any piece of evidence that could tie someone to her disappearance, sifting through cell phone records, credit card purchases, even combing the car for blood or other forms of DNA. Unfortunately, nothing was setting off alarm bells for detectives. It wasn't until Debra's sister Celeste arrived in Las Vegas and spoke with police that

that she realized her sister had even been in these abusive partnerships. Debra had always been one to sugarcoat her situation and kept a lot of the dark stuff hidden from Celeste so she didn't beg her to come back home. But when Celeste learned there had been three recent domestic violence reports against Jason, she couldn't help but reach out to him herself.

On January 5th, 2011, Celeste called Jason to try and get some information out of him about her sister's disappearance. And she was shocked by how calm and forthcoming he was over the phone. In fact, Jason acted a little too relaxed during our conversation. Probably because it's been months after everything happened and he feels that

I don't know who did it. I don't know what's going on yet, but he feels that he got away with it because come on, everyone, we probably know who did it. So although he did offer her some new information that he hadn't shared with police, he told Celeste that Debra did actually come up to his apartment that night, although she never came inside. They spoke at his door. It's they all, this always happens. The lies. I feel like, so can you get in trouble for that?

lying to police yeah yeah obstructing justice they come back and be like dude you lied to us yeah but it's going to be such a small charge but they could confront him they could confirm they could use this as an interrogation tactic um and then he also tells her yeah so she comes up to the front door your sister came up to the front door that night um and i basically was reiterating to her that night that we were breaking up

And then according to Jason, he asked her to leave, which he says she did without any pushback. She was like, okay, we're breaking up. Bye. That's according to Jason. And after that, he never heard from her again.

Now, this sets off some pretty big red flags for Celeste because she knows her sister pretty well. And it's not like Debra to just take it on the chin and walk away from a situation like that. She knows her sister would have given him a hard time. She was always someone who fought for what she wanted. There was no way she tucked her tail between her legs and took off into the night like Jason was claiming.

And turns out, Celeste was onto something here. Because that same day, a woman called the Las Vegas Police Department to say she had some pertinent information about the case.

A confession that would blow this case wide open. Okay, so her name was Kalei Casorso, and she was another secret girlfriend that Jason had been juggling alongside his relationships with Agnes and Debra. And Kalei tells police that back on December 14th, Jason called her to ask her for a favor. He told her he was planning to move and asked if she could store a few things in her apartment in the meantime.

Now, Kalei finds this strange, mainly because she and Jason had called it quits by that point after she too had found out he was sleeping with a variety of other women in Las Vegas. Still, considering they ended on okay terms, she's like, sure, you can try to store some stuff here. I don't have a ton of space, but bring it over and we'll see where we can fit it. A short while later, Kalei looks out the window and sees Jason outside with a U-Haul.

She goes downstairs, dreading this confrontation, particularly because Jason's not alone. He's with his roommate, a large, intimidating guy with a ponytail named Louie Colombo. And Louie is standing in the back of the U-Haul, hovered over a giant blue tub that's filled to the brim with dried concrete. Oh, boy.

You gotta be kidding me, man. Come on. When Kalei asked what was inside the tub, Jason told her she didn't want to know. But she finally got it out of him. Jason looked her in the eyes and said, Debra's in there. Why would he tell her that? Kalei demanded Jason and Louie leave immediately, which thankfully they did. And that was the last she'd heard about that tub.

But for the next several weeks, Kalei was terrified. She didn't know if the whole thing was just some sort of sick joke or if they were telling the truth. And she can't help but wonder if Jason would come back and do the same thing to her if she goes to police with this information. Which is why it took her another month to find the courage to eventually call the police. After which, they shifted their focus to another witness and possible co-conspirator, the 31-year-old roommate, Louis Colombo.

Two days after police spoke with Kalei, they tracked down Louie and secured his cooperation with a deal. If he confessed to what happened that night between Jason and Debra, they'd offer him immunity from arrest and prosecution. Take that and run. Obviously, that's an offer he's not going to refuse. So from there, Louie told detectives everything about the night of December 12th. Can they take it back or is it like signed and writing? Signed and writing with lawyers. Unless...

The police think that he lied and did something else. Yes. Okay. It's that time of the year. Your vacation is coming up. You can already hear the beach waves, feel the warm breeze, relax, and think about...

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P-R-O-S-E dot com slash M-W-M-H. It went a little something like this. That evening, Debra did come over and did go inside the condo that Louie and Jason shared. Louie was home that evening along with his girlfriend and his two kids.

Okay.

louis demanded that jason stop he knew his roommate would kill her if he didn't get himself under control and in that moment jason seemed to come to his senses they all caught their breaths and calmed down enough that louis felt he could leave with his girlfriend and kids for a bit and the couple could be okay just argue it out but when louis came back later that night seemingly alone he saw deborah was still there only now she was no longer breathing

I already have issues with this, but we'll keep going. She was lying on the floor, naked and dead.

Terrified, Jason begged Louie to help him get rid of Debra's body. That night, Jason took Debra's car and left it in that random parking lot 17 miles from his home. Okay, maybe I'm a bad friend or a bad roommate because if any of my roommates ever killed someone or any of my friends ever killed someone, I'd be like, sorry guys, I gotta rat you out, man. That's a lot. Like, am I a rat for that? No. Like, if you killed someone, if you, I don't know, if you did something small or like, if you robbed people,

10 million dollars from a bank and you gave me half of it of course i'm not gonna rat you out but if you kill someone i'm ratting you out like i'm telling on you like i understand ride or die but he's not even a family member maybe they are family maybe they are like brothers i don't know even then like if you killed someone babe i'm ratting you out i think yeah i would rat you out too if you if if like

If tomorrow everything's going the same way it's been going our entire marriage. Yes. And tomorrow you come home and go, I killed someone. I would go to the police. Not like manslaughter. Like I hit someone on a skateboard. No, no, no. Like you're talking about like I. Murdered someone. Yes, murdered someone. It would just be so out of like out of left field. You'd be like, I don't know him anymore. I would. I would be like, I don't even know what's going on. Yeah.

Anyways, maybe we'll talk about that another time. So after this, he goes to Home Depot where he purchased several bags of concrete. He then placed Debra into one of those tubs and with the help of Louie, filled it with wet concrete, allowing it to harden overnight, which is despicable. Horrible. Also...

Heavy. You probably wouldn't get caught. I've heard a story about someone who was buried in concrete underneath a patio and new owners came and. Oh, and dug it up. Were renovating and dug it up. Couldn't pull it out to see what was in. So they had to get like a little crane thing. Yeah. Pulled out because it was full of concrete and then they found the body.

So on December 14th, Jason and Louie tried to hide the tub at Kalei's apartment, but when she turned them away, Jason came up with another plan. His other girlfriend, Agnes, had been house-sitting for a couple of performers who were overseas. Jason had a set of keys to the house and decided this was the best place to hide his ex-girlfriend's body. Louie helped him bring the tub over to the essentially abandoned home, but when they got there, they noticed the tub had started leaking.

So the two men did the unthinkable. They broke up the dried concrete, which obviously along with that broke up Debra's body and redistributed her remains between two plastic bins. Oh, it's horrible. Before sealing them with another layer of wet cement. Then they stuffed the tubs in a closet and just sort of

Hoped for the best, I guess. So after Louis' confession, he agreed to lead officers to the exact location where those bins were being stored. And sure enough, tucked away in that closet of this random Las Vegas home were the blue bins containing Debra's body, bringing the 25-day search for the missing fantasy dancer to an end.

The following day, January 8th, 2011, police surrounded the Mirage Hotel and Casino. As Jason left a rehearsal for the resort's Cirque du Soleil show and arrested for the murder of Debra Flores Narvaez. But as he was transported to the Clark County Detention Center. No, don't.

Jason made a desperate attempt to try and clear his name. It wasn't going where you thought it was. I thought he escaped and we haven't seen him since or something. And now he's going to show up at the front of my house. Wave a little brochure into the... And now I'm going to have to strangle him and then I'm going to be a murderer and...

Yeah. Crazy stuff. So he makes this desperate attempt to try and clear his name. He told the detective it wasn't his fault that Deborah had attacked him. Oh, get the freak. Get out of here, man. She had a gun in the bag she'd brought to his house that evening, which, you know, he'd acted purely out of self-defense. Okay. Well, how come Louie came in the house, came in the room and saw you on top of her strangling her? She had the gun. Yeah.

Whether it was true or not, it was a theory that would have to be analyzed by a jury once Jason had his day in court. In the meantime, he was denied bail and forced to wait for his trial behind bars, a day that wouldn't come for another three years, thanks to a series of postponements. So by the time Jason's trial arrived, it was May 5th, 2014, and he was 35 years old. He'd pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, sticking by that motive of self-defense.

Throughout his testimony, Jason claimed that his relationship with Debra had fatal attraction-style moments, referring to the movie. He said that he'd been stalked, threatened, harassed, even assaulted by Debra on more than one occasion. He argued that he'd get hundreds of texts throughout the day, sometimes upwards of 40 phone calls when he didn't answer. He said whenever he tried to pull away, things would just get more intense, which I

Might have had an air of truth to it, mainly because the defense pointed to 14 different 911 calls made by Jason in regards to altercations with Debra. Interesting. But try as he might, Jason was far from appearing like the victim in this scenario. The prosecution spoke about this several times when Debra filed reports after Jason had abused her with physical evidence proving so. They also pointed to his relationships with multiple women, which

Unfortunately, what they couldn't include for legal reasons was his history of violence with some of those other women, including his ex-wife. That doesn't make sense why they can't include it. I mean, I get the legal reasons. Yeah. But that's dumb. Jason also mentioned a threatening letter that Debra had supposedly left on his car one evening. A letter he knew for a fact was written as a joke by his roommate.

Plus, Jason tried to say that Debra had a gun on the night that she died. He claimed that during their heated argument, she reached for her bag where he believed she was storing the weapon. In an effort to stop her, he grabbed her and pulled her toward him, apparently by the neck, since her cause of death was asphyxiation. From there, he said he began pleading for her to stop, saying he didn't want to fight her. Then, after a few moments, he realized Debra wasn't moving, and that's when he said he realized he had accidentally killed her, which, might I say, accidentally strangling someone to death?

seems awfully hard to do. The problem is it's just this is all a lie because we already have the testimony from Louis. Louis. Yeah. So but there's quite a few problems with Jason's side of the story. For one you don't accidentally strangle someone to death like I said. Two there was zero evidence to suggest Debra had ever purchased or was carrying a gun that evening. A

A gun that was never found, there were no receipts, no one to say she had borrowed one. And if this was all in self-defense and not premeditated, then Jason sure did go to great lengths to try and hide and dismember her body.

A point that was reiterated by Louie when he took the stand to testify against Jason. Throughout his testimony, Louie appeared visibly haunted by his actions. Between tears, he gave his own account of what had happened that December, while Jason managed to not show an ounce of emotion throughout the duration of his trial.

So after nine days of patiently listening to all the testimonies and evidence, the jury was ready to deliberate. Took them two more days to come to a verdict. On May 22nd, 2014, Jason was found guilty of second-degree murder. Still, he showed no emotion aside from blowing a kiss to his mother as he was carted away in handcuffs. When the jurors were asked why they settled on murder two instead of murder one, they felt confident.

While Jason displayed little to no emotion during his trial, they didn't believe he'd woken up that day with plans to murder his ex-girlfriend. Which I would agree with. I think that's true. But it's also hard if you have a history of domestic violence. Feels a little meditated on. Like it's not planned because he probably didn't wake up thinking that. But if you're waking up thinking it's okay to hit and punch someone,

your significant other or spouse every single day feels a little meditated it feels a little meditated correct um also might i add i don't know the exact time frame for something to be considered premeditation but i know it can happen like within moments okay like you can have if you have any chance to turn and walk away but then continue on hurting someone then that could be considered premeditation because you like consciously had a moment to think about what you were doing okay

Unfortunately, the case was indicative of a larger issue, how we as society handle domestic violence. When Jason was analyzed by psychiatric professionals, they believed they were dealing with an extreme case of narcissistic personality disorder. What a surprise. Which is a trait that can be somewhat endemic to domestically abusive partnerships, mainly because a narcissist lacks the ability to see their actions as unhealthy and

and they fail to show empathy towards those who are affected by their behaviors. Making change and growth for either person in the relationship would be extremely unlikely. In 2010, the year Debra was killed, the state of Nevada was ranked highest for murders spurred on by domestic violence. But that doesn't mean we should let Debra's story get lost as just another statistic. Debra

Deborah was a confident woman, intelligent with multiple degrees. She went after everything she wanted and fought for what she believed was right. But unfortunately, when it came to Jason, Deborah found herself without a voice.

powerless in a situation that no woman or man should ever have to find themselves in. Because leaving an abusive relationship is a lot easier said than done. They are nuanced, complicated, terrifying, and the less we empathize with those victims and survivors, the more cautionary tales we have to hear about. And that is the story of Debra. Again, another death for no reason. Yeah. Which is always sad and...

domestic violence is is tough i it's a tough one because i know it's a lot of what police deal with it's i know it's a lot of what and statistically it's dangerous dangerous yes it's it's very dangerous because it always seems to escalate yeah it never seems to just stop at oh i just pushed her once it like we said once you cross that line it feels like it opens up a can of worms it opens something in your brain and your head that you've

I mean, maybe can reform or take back at some point, but I don't know. And, you know, I was hesitant to include the diagnosis for narcissism that he, you know, but he professionally got it. I think the word narcissist is kind of thrown around now in society, maybe just like as we diagnose people without, you know, any professional degrees. But I think in this case, he was professionally diagnosed. I mean, he had multiple girlfriends, like always he seemed to be kind of like

dragging these girlfriends around like it feels very spot on in this case all right you guys that is our episode for this week and we will see you next time with another one i love it and i hate it goodbye