James Pietragallo

Oh my god. He also said that his mother tells James, quote, she wants Ben to, quote, just die in a random spontaneous burst of flames or for James to just go out and kill him. You know, one or the other. Wow.

Just a fireball or my boyfriend goes over and shoots him while he sleeps. You know, something less nebulous than that. Hit by a meteor. Or we just plan to shoot him. What the fuck? Mitchell also said, this is the kid, Devin Mitchell. He said he went to bed between 11 p.m. and midnight. And when he got up the next morning, quote, the cops were at our door and said Ben was dead and had been murdered.

Devin sanoi, että minua jätettiin ääneen. Seuraavan päivänä hän tuli itse asiassa sydämellä. Se ei ollut niin kuin ajattelin päivänä. Hän kuulosti, että meidän pitäisi tappaa hänet. Seuraavan päivänä hän tappaa hänet ja hän on sydämellä. Se on vaikea vastata siitä, eikö?

Joten johtajat ajattelevat, että jos ne ovat heitä, niin James on se, joka teki sen. He sanoivat Dawnille, että jos sinä kertoisit meiltä kaikkea Jamesille, niin sinulla on immuniteetti, mikä on vihreää. Vau.

Koska hän ei todennäköisesti tappaa sitä tyyppiä, jos hän ymmärrettäisi sen. Benin isä sanoi, että se oli kuin tekemällä ratkaisua vihaan. Dawn kertoo, että hän ei puhu Benille, kun hän sanoi, että hän on isä. Hän puhui isän tyyppiä nimeltä Rick. Todella erilaista tyyppiä.

It's just so many exes. You know, I date a lot. But this was Rick, not James, or not Ben. And she said that she and James were irritated about that. And that's the discussion turned to Ben. Because that's another person that irritates her. She said, I didn't say I wanted Ben dead. I said I wanted him to fall off the face of the earth. Is he alive if he's out in the atmosphere? Probably not.

I didn't want him to die, I just wanted him to completely disappear and cease to exist. Is that something? Right. She's really not making a case for her. Holy shit. When informed of, because they get all this out of her, and then they go, okay, because your son came in and told us A, B, and C. And she said that she didn't want to believe that her son would think of her like that. Mm-hmm.

Then they said, you had no active involvement in Ben's death. She said, no, absolutely not. She said she became intimate with Matt Lean in January 2008, about six weeks before the death, and continued their relationship until August 2009. They were living together immediately, too. They said, for 17 months after you learned, quote, it had been done, you maintained a romantic relationship. Why would you make love with the man that killed your husband?

Great question. Her answer? Because I did. Oh, hold on, let me write that down. Wait a second. You said because I did. Okay, I want to get that all down in my notes. That's going to be very important for posterity's purposes. So shortly after the relationship, she admitted that she called the sheriff's investigator and said, quote, if I confess to the murder of my ex-husband, would you put me in prison? No.

I don't care how drunk you are. I think you probably know the answer to that question. She said that wasn't an admission of guilt, though. No. No, she said, I told him I wanted it over with. I was drinking myself to death, meaning she told James that. I was drinking myself to death. I couldn't take it anymore. And the knowing and not telling.

They said, don't you think you should go to prison for your involvement in your husband's death? Right. And she said, no, I do not. Why not? She said, James never admitted directly that he even shot Ben. So she never knew for sure. I couldn't be. I wasn't there. He said, it's been done. Yeah. And then the cop showed up and said he was dead. But I can't make those two things concrete together. You know, I can't do that.

She said I asked him if he set foot in that house and I got three different stories. I do not know if James pulled that trigger or not. She said though shortly before midnight, February 20th, she and James started talking about Ben. She said then James was on the phone with somebody and he asked me if I really wanted Ben killed. I told him no. We'd been drinking a lot that night. In my mind it was definitely not real. I knew my daughter was over there.

Basically I said, whatever, it wasn't really happening, we were drunk, it wasn't real. I told him no more than once. I sat down on the couch, the TV was on, or the lights. He was on the phone standing at the edge of the kitchen counter. I passed out on the couch. The next thing I know, James is waking me up and saying, quote, it was done. It's done. It was done. She said, he led me to believe Ben was dead.

She said she then took James' truck to his mother's house and then returned home. I don't know why that. I asked him if he's serious. Is it real? Is this really happening? And he said yes.

She said they agreed to tell the cops they'd been home all night watching movies. That'll be the best course of action here. We were drunk. Let's pretend it didn't happen. So she said, I asked him what happened. He explained to me. He whispered in Ben's ear. He said, this is for lying about Dawn. And then he was killed. So she also said that James told her he used her Bank of America card at the Riverview 7-Eleven ATM machine to

to withdraw $40, which he spent at Walmart in North Douglas County for, quote, duct tape, shoes, shotgun shells, gloves and towels. It's a good bargain if you can get all that for $40. Yeah, not bad. Talk about low prices, Jesus.

So they go to arrest James. The fun part is it's easy because he's already in jail. Is he? For something else. He's serving an eight-month sentence for stealing four cartons of cigarettes from a convenience store in April 2009. You are trash. You, sir, are trash. That is Dexter Manley would say. That is trash. Are you joking? So the police said the investigation's been going on for some time. A lot of people may have thought we weren't diligently working on it.

There was a lack of evidence, but the investigation never went away. A minimum of two investigators were assigned to the case at all times while working on other cases. So in other words, the back of their mind, but they moved on. At one point there was a secret witness reward of up to $33,000 for the arrest of the killer. As time passed, the amount dwindled to $2,500.

He said, we made sure we were doing anything we could to solve the case. It's been a major agenda in this department. The investigators put their heart and soul into it. And then he created the detectives and said it's been hard on them. We liked to have a resolution faster, but we never gave up and it paid off.

Now what does James have to say about Dawn throwing him under the bus? What's he got to say? He said, let me tell you what Dawn did. Here's what she did. Oh really? Let me throw it back on her. He said that we drank and took mushrooms on February 28th. He said we were eating mushrooms and drinking Southern Comfort. What a weird combination that is. Southern Comfort and stealing cigarettes. You are the trashiest trash that's ever trashed.