Son Did What For Avril Concert?!? - Robert Lyons Snapped
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Hi friends, how are you today? My name is Bailey Sarian and today is Monday, which means it's murder, mystery, and makeup Monday. Thank you. If you are new here, hi, my name is Bailey Sarian and on Mondays I sit down and I talk about a true crime story that's been heavy on my...

and I do my makeup at the same time. So if you're interested in true crime and you like makeup, I would highly suggest you hit that subscribe button 'cause I'm here for you on Monday. So our story begins in a place called Carroll Stream. It's a small suburb in Illinois, which is about 30 miles west of Chicago. Carroll Stream, this small town, was named after the founder, Jay Stream's daughter,

Just a little fun little fact here. When she was young in 1948, she was in a car accident and the doctor advised her father that good news might be enough to wake her up from the coma she had fallen into. "Honey, I named a town after you." And then hope she wakes up.

It might work. Her father, who happened to be like in the business of founding towns for his real estate business, he named the one that he was developing outside Chicago after his daughter, Carol. He's like, that should wake her up from the coma. That will do it. Carol was in that accident in 1948 and she lived all the way up till 2020. That gave her like 72 years of life. So it must've worked. Good for her. It has nothing to do with today's story. It's just kind of like a little,

Fun fact. But our story does take place in this super cute little suburb, but it's not a cute story. Sorry about that. We're gonna fast forward to 2008. It's 2008, welcome. We're gonna start with a woman by the name of Linda Bullock.

She was living in Carroll Stream and at the time she was 61 years old. She had recently let her son Robert move back in with her and her boyfriend. Now, Robert, her son was 39 at the time. And the reason as to why he moved back in with his mother isn't clear.

but he's probably just going through rough times, something, you get it. So his mother allowed him to move back into her home because he needed a place to stay. This is a side note, but isn't it interesting in different countries, they live with their parents like forever, but it's welcomed. How come in America it's frowned upon? Well, the two of them, Linda and her son, Robert, now they kind of had a very long history of arguments

and they weren't very close. You know, yeah. Not all mothers and sons get along lovingly. They kind of had some...

some of their own issues and that's okay, it happens. There were other family members who knew about Linda and Robert's troubled past. Linda's sister even acknowledged that Robert had been a handful, I guess his whole life, whatever that means, you know? And growing up, I mean, it doesn't even seem like Robert's father was around much or at all 'cause when you look

When you dig around into his past, it doesn't seem like his father was around, but that's unclear. On top of his strained relationship within his family, he also was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Now this is a side note. I'm just making it very clear that we are not saying anyone with bipolar disorder. This is a reflection of who they are. And this story represents this mental illness. You know, I know we're grown enough to know better, but there are some

who think that I'm making this connection and that shit's dumb, but I'm mentioning it because it plays into the story. Okay, does that make sense? I know you get it. We are grown, we can make that separation. Now it's believed his bipolar disorder went all the way back to when he was a child. Like he was diagnosed back then, but again, it's kind of unclear. But at one point, Robert, he did need to be hospitalized and kept like,

like in a hospital 24/7 watched by doctors. He just was struggling a lot with his mental illness. Robert moves in with his mom and right away it's off to a rocky start, okay? Robert and Linda's neighbors reported screaming matches and arguments happening often and like echoing out into the neighborhood and

It was said that Robert could be difficult and he seemed to have a different kind of hatred towards his mother. He was also seen like cursing at her, but there were also neighbors who noticed that she too was not like a little angel. She seemed to be cursing at him from time to time, getting very angry back. Toxic, you could say, but he had nowhere to go. So what does he do? He stays there. Makeup.

So one of the biggest arguments that they always seem to get into over and over and over again involved

Robert, he had this habit of buying flowers for all the hostesses at a restaurant that he often went to. Now his mother did not like that her son was doing that. I don't know if it came down to because he was spending so much money. I don't know, but she just really did not like that. And you know, it's kind of sweet, I guess. I don't know. I actually don't know. 'Cause what if it was in a creepy way? I don't know. But they would get into fights about it all the time.

is what we're getting at. So one day, Robert and Linda are at home at the condo together. Now, any other day, Linda would be working, but this day she wasn't feeling so hot. She wasn't feeling well, she's feeling real sick. So she decided to stay home. Robert didn't care too much about his mom. So the fact that she's sick, she's not feeling well, he's kind of like, whatever, whatever mom, get better.

So he tells his mom that like he wants to go shopping that day, which to you and I, that's totally fine. Like go shopping.

Bye. But she, Linda, was his chauffeur. He couldn't drive, so she was the one who had to drive him around. He has a long list of errands that he wants to run, but she doesn't want to run around town because she's not feeling well. Linda was like, I don't want to go shopping. This is a sick day. It's not like my day off where I'm just lollygagging having...

having a blast. So she's telling Robert like, "No, I don't want to drive you around anywhere. I don't feel well." But Robert somehow convinces his mom to chauffeur him around and go shopping. Okay? I don't know if it just wasn't worth the fight, but she does.

Well, on the way home from running errands, I guess tensions are just running high. When they arrive home, they get into one of their usual arguments. I guess it wasn't like their usual argument because Robert was being very aggressive with this one. Like he had his heart dead set on getting what he wanted and he wasn't gonna take no for an answer. And he was just being more aggressive.

So like, I don't know, something was going on. So I guess Robert's just yelling at his mom. It's loud, it's aggressive, neighbors could hear it, you know, but it was just kind of like, oh, darn another argument. Robert just was angry. What was he so worked up over? What was Robert so worked up over? Get this, get this. It was tickets to an Avril Lavigne concert.

Oh yeah. Avril Lavigne, remember? Great, yeah. He wanted Avril Lavigne tickets and not just any tickets.

"Oh, he wanted the Skybox tickets." I mean, he doesn't have money. He needs his mom to get him the tickets. So let's pause a minute, 'cause maybe you're like, "Who is Avril Lavigne?" Well, in 2008, let me say, she was riding high on a horse of Avril Lavigne land. At the time, her most recent album was called "The Best Damn Thing." It was a big hit. The song "Girlfriend."

People loved it, it was on radio stations, every Myspace page, okay? In 2008, she was very popular, you know? She's on her world tour for her album that started in March of 2008. And she had a show scheduled for March 21st in a town called Rosemount, Illinois, which is about 30 minutes from Carroll Stream. Naturally, Robert's like, "I wanna go. "I need to go to this show. "This will change my life."

So after running all the errands, they're at home. Robert really wants his mom to call one of her friends to arrange tickets. Linda refused, but the argument was just heated and wasn't stopping. And as the argument continued, I mean, things just started to escalate.

Whether or not the tickets were even a thing she could get, I don't know. Like, I don't know if she had some kind of hookup or something. It wasn't said or made clear, but he wanted his mom somehow to get these tickets, okay? But what we do know is that the argument between the two is just not letting up. It's getting very aggressive. There's pounding, there's shouting. And at some point, Linda grabs a knife

At this point, some of the details are unclear, but reports say that she, Linda, was holding the knife at the time, but she was also in the kitchen, so she must have been using it. She may have been using it for like something else, and then she was just kind of like waving it at him with no intention to like,

do anything with it, which could be true, we don't know. But other reports say that she pointed the knife directly at Robert and even like held it to his face and threatened to stab him in the eye. However, she got the knife, whatever she was doing with it, it was Robert who made the next move. And that is according to Robert himself when he snapped.

Robert was so furious with his mother that he went over to where they had the alcohol bottles and he grabs a bottle of cognac from like the shelf, right? And he uses it to club his mother across the back of the head, not once, but twice. Okay. And the bottle was full. And if you've held a full bottle of alcohol, of cognac, it's pretty heavy. And like, it's a big boy. It's got some weight. So,

Linda gets hit and then she ends up collapsing to the floor.

Oh yeah, poor Linda. So Linda's on the floor, she's lying on her chest and her back is completely exposed to Robert. Robert is standing over her with the bottle still in his hands. And he's like, "I'm not done, I'm not done." He decides the next step is for him to get some knives instead of the bottle. So he goes and he grabs some knives and he has like one in each hand and he ends up stabbing his mother in the back repeatedly

Like literally, because normally we're like, "Oh, they stabbed him in the back." It's like, no, he actually like really did. I don't want to get too gory here, okay? But we know Robert was like really going hard stabbing his mom because he ends up breaking both of the knives he was using and they get like stuck in his mom's back. What are you doing? Oh, for Avril Lavigne, you couldn't just like break in like a normal child.

He's 39. Okay, so later on during Robert's trial, the judge in the case described the scene as one of chaos. I mean, I could imagine judge, I could imagine. So Linda at this point, well, I mean, obviously she's not moving.

Robert who's drenched in his mother's blood looks around and decides that he still hasn't done enough. Like he wants to do more. So he ends up grabbing and gathering a bunch of like household cleaner items like Drano and insect repellent. And he drenches his mother's body in them leaving her body on the kitchen floor with like these chemicals just eating away

at the exposed cuts and punctures he caused. I guess once he was satisfied with his result, he changed clothes and then he headed out. He left the house. We don't know where he was going, but he was, yep, bye.

So I guess that the whole situation or the whole fight, I should say, was extremely loud because there were multiple 911 phone calls about like a disturbance in the area. So police were notified, were alerted about this, right? And so they went out to the house.

I guess when the police were alerted about the situation, it was considered like a domestic disturbance. Like it's a call on someone who's maybe firing a gun in the air on your street, just like a loud noise or something. But I guess with that, they take a little bit more time getting out there. It's not like super high priority. I could be wrong though. But from my understanding, they took a little bit more time. So Robert gets out, right? He leaves, gives him time to leave. Guaranteed.

Language for life. So the police said that they'd been asked to do a wellbeing check on Robert and Linda's home. Now, a wellbeing check is when like you call the police to have them visit a family member, maybe who is elderly, mentally ill, showing signs of negative behavior, not even elder. It could be for anybody that just, you haven't seen them, you're worried about them. Can you make sure that they're okay? So one of the neighbors called and asked if police could do that.

because they heard the fighting going on and it was like, can you check that everything is good? So police are going by the house and they're just thinking that it's a normal wellness check. Like, could you imagine just going to the scene and you're like, oh, we're just gonna see if people here. And then like you open the door and you're like,

and it's not a wellness check, it's just a full-blown murder scene. So police go to the house, they open up the door and that's where they find Linda still on the kitchen floor where Robert had left her and not only is she drenched in her own blood but also a ton of like household chemicals

Like what was the goal there? I don't know. So they found Linda's body, right? They're looking around the house, they're getting statements and they realize that she has a son named Robert and he's not at the house. So where is this Robert guy? And I mean, he wasted no time. He got out of there quick.

I guess though, which is kind of interesting, I don't know what it is, but it's something because it was determined that after the murder had taken place, Robert, he, I guess had like taken a bath, had some tea, maybe had like a little bit of a cry sesh and then he took off and went shopping. So after murdering his mother, he took a bath and had some tea. Like, are you, no, you're obviously not, but...

I mean, wow, people sure are different. They sure are. Mm-hmm.

Well, police are on the hunt for this Robert guy, right? And they end up searching for him for about six hours, but they are able to locate him. After they found Linda, and in the time, police say that Robert had went shopping at different stores. One report claims that he went to like a bookstore where he bought a book and scribbled the name of a character from General Hospital in it.

which if you don't know, General Hospital is one of the oldest, longest soap operas in the United States. Now, we looked it up. We looked it up trying to get answers here. What was this little detail? But you know, there's really no information as to why this name was scribbled. There are multiple sources saying that he went into a bookstore and bought a book, but only one saying that he scrawled something in it, let alone the name of a character from General Hospital.

But you know, that detail was kind of fun. I mean, who was the character? What did they, what did it mean to Robert?

We will never know. I guess during Robert's shopping spree, he was like calling up a bunch of friends and family and he was telling them like, he was telling them about the struggle he had with his mother. Now whether or not he was giving the full details, we're not really sure. I doubt it because a lot of people he called, one of them was Stan.

his mother's boyfriend. And according to Stan, Robert called him and told him he struggled with his mother after she attacked him with a kitchen knife. So, you know, yeah.

Stan told the court later on that he warned Robert not to like harm his mother, but also that he just didn't believe him. He wasn't believing anything he said. He knew something bad had already happened. So six hours after Robert had killed his mother, the police were able to locate him and find him in Schamberg, which is like 12 miles north of Carroll Stream.

And how did they find them? Probably wondering. Well, he called them and told them that, he told them pretty much what he had been telling his friends and family, what he told Stan, that something really bad had happened between him and his mother. And like, that was about it though. He didn't really tell them, he just said something bad happened. It could have been guilt, paranoia, something.

But Robert turned himself in. Well, he called. He was like, "Coming at me." So after he makes the call to police, you're probably wondering where he was at. You know, where was he? Where'd they catch him at? And friends, he was at Hooters. Yeah, the restaurant. Police arrested Robert at a Hooters where he ended up, after his like little shopping spree, he ended up at Hooters. It's not funny, but it's just like, it's kind of fitting, I guess. I'm not sure.

Yeah. And no, this was not the same restaurant that he was taking the workers flowers to, remember? That apparently was an Outback Steakhouse. Yeah. Hooters is where he was just found. Maybe he wanted some of those Buffalo wings. Maybe it was the beer, maybe it was the boobs, but that's where he was at.

He's like, "If I'm going out, I'm going out at Hooters." Okay? So obviously Robert is arrested same day and he's put in jail on a $2 million bail. So Robert sits in jail up until his trial, which is three years later, which is wild, right? So it's September of 2011 and he is sitting in front of a jury accused of first degree murder.

Now, the prosecution had no problem characterizing Robert using all the elements of the story I just told you, but they went even a little further.

Prosecutors argued that the strained relationship between Robert and Linda and the frequent arguments between them were evidence of Robert having planned the whole thing. He was planning it. They called it a killing fueled by bottled up rage that exploded into violence when his mother denied him the tickets to Avril Lavigne.

One of the prosecutors on the case, she characterized Robert to the jury by saying, "The defendant was washing something away. He was washing away the problem in his life, his mother."

That's really intense for a courtroom argument, but they actually went on showing a side-by-side comparison of Linda's face to the jury of like when she was super happy, she's smiling, she's alive. And then they showed next to that like a picture of her body face down in blood and chemicals. So I feel like that would traumatize anyone who saw that. But I guess the jury was like, oh wow, yeah.

Literally in court, they were like, "She gave you life and you took hers and you're guilty of first degree murder." That's what they're telling the court. They even indicated that Robert had poured all of the chemicals and bug spray on her body because he wanted to humiliate her even in death. Some of you may be thinking like, "Yeah, maybe that's what he wanted to do." But Robert, well, he came out during the hearing with a very different tone.

He spoke to the jury for about 45 minutes during which he claimed he didn't intend on killing his mother that day. Like that wasn't even on his mind. He admitted that he had a pretty rough relationship with her, but that he still loved her even though he hated her at times.

He seemed very like genuine, I guess. He did apologize to the court for killing her, but he admitted that he attacked her immediately when she picked up the knife. And that was when he snapped after 27 years of verbal abuse from her. Now he was 39, so you're probably wondering like 27 years. I think it's like Robert had only been living with his mother for

I think with those 27 years, he must've been referring to like growing up with her. It's likely he meant the 27 years he spent in the same home with her, under the same roof before moving out. I'm sure coming back at 39 years of age, maybe brought back a lot of memories and emotions for him. Not trying to justify what he did, I'm just saying.

Actually, I don't know what I'm saying. So this is where the court and the jury learned that Robert was suffering from bipolar disorder. And not only that, but he had testified that he had been skipping his medicines for like three days leading up to him killing his mother. Now witnesses from his 2011 trial confirmed he had a long history of mental illness as well as receiving treatments for it. So this wasn't

an excuse, you know, but we don't know, we don't know. ♪ We don't know, we don't know, we don't know ♪ ♪ We don't know ♪

This was the basis for a Roberts state attorney who argued that Roberts mental illness and his failure to take his medication had led to this chaos, yes. But that his actions weren't as motivated by petty desires and simple revenge as the prosecution had suggested.

One day I'm gonna talk smoothly. Robert contends that he and his mother had actually gotten into an argument about several things. One topic of which was the concert tickets. Yeah. He went on for most of his testimony that it wasn't specifically about tickets. It wasn't just about tickets.

Where Robert's defense kind of fell apart though is where his defense attorney tried to explain that Robert's mother had attacked him with a knife and after blocking the knife, Robert had stabbed her with it in self-defense. But given the level of violence he did to her body and the state she was left in,

and the fact that he hit her with the bottle too, you know, the jury just wasn't buying his defense really. The prosecution's story was more believable than that. Of course, Robert wasn't seeking to be let go for like what he had done. He wasn't exactly on trial for whether or not he'd done it.

No, he was there to be convicted of one type of murder or another, like first degree or second degree. The difference between the two would be whether or not the killer intended to kill their victim or not. The prosecution wanted to get him convicted for first degree murder, which carries like a much harsher sentence.

but the defense asked for second degree, like saying it was because of his mental illness and loss of control. The jury deliberated for about two hours on the case before returning a guilty verdict on the charge of murder in the first degree. Agreeing that there had been some motivation of some kind behind Robert's actions, they also determined like no matter what happened,

What Robert did to his mother were just cruel and like disturbing, which basically meant that like he went hard, okay? He went real hard. Because he went so hard, the consequences needed to be to fit that crime. The prosecution recommended he get 65 years in prison. The judge in this case made a statement that I think sums up a lot of the thoughts we've had researching this case.

And reviewing the arguments from the defense, like it was obvious Robert had a history of mental illness. There's no question there. And the judge even says that, acknowledges that. And the judge goes on to ask the question, what would happen if the defendant were released and on his own? Obviously, Robert was dealing with issues far larger than his desire to see Avril Lavigne

Like he had a history of mental illness that was disrupting his personal and family life. The question seemed to be like, what happens when we don't get people the help that they need?

Do you know what I'm saying? Like he's not, it's such a tricky conversation because could this have been prevented if he were able to get his medications? And again, not saying that all people who suffer from a mental illness will end up doing something like this, no. But like if it were easier for him to get his medication, would he not have done this? And if so, like, is this a case, a murder case or more of like he just couldn't,

get his medication? I mean, I don't know. I think that's where a lot of people were kind of questioning it. I mean, most people were like, just lock him up. He murdered his mom. In the end, Robert was sentenced to 40 years in prison with no chance at parole. Was Robert motivated by Avril Lavigne tickets and that's why he murdered his mother in such a fricking awful way? Or was it something deeper? His mental illness going untreated. And if so, what does that mean? You know?

I wish we were a country that just kind of took care of people, their mental wellbeing better. But I guess I'm just a daydreamer living in a la-la land. So Robert will be spending the next 40 years in prison. And I mean, so he'll be 80 when he's up to get out.

Anyways, that is the awful story about Robert. Either way, his poor mother did not deserve to die like that, especially over Avril Lavigne tickets. My God, in such a tragic way. I think something a lot deeper was going on with Robert and unfortunately we just, we don't have the easiest access to mental health treatment, you know? And something happens, you can snap and

That's it, you know? And then you get fricking thrown in jail forever. Does that excuse his behavior? Absolutely not. What he did was awful, tragic, terrible. He should have never done that. But then it's kind of like, well, maybe it could have been prevented. And I thought it was just an interesting story. Trying to, I want to dabble into those stories that we haven't heard about. But other than that, I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. You make good choices and please be safe out there, okay?

And I'll be seeing you later. Bye.