Serialously with Annie Elise
348: Rob Reiner Update, "ChatGPT Made Me Do It", and Daddy & Son Duo Murder Together
18 Dec 2025
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all new episode of Serialistly. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to an all new episode of Serialistly with me, your host, Annie Elise. And today is Thursday. So first and foremost, that means we are like through halfway of the week. Thank God. But also it means it's Headline Highlights Day.
So we are going over all of the headlines that are breaking in the true crime world today. And If you missed our deep dive on Monday, I'm going to just tell you, you should pause this episode. You should go listen right now. I did a deep dive into the A.J.
Owens case, which most of you probably know that better as like the case from the Netflix doc, The Perfect Neighbor, where it was like mainly body cam footage. And don't get me wrong, this was a great documentary. It was super moving. It was very powerful. But... There was a lot that wasn't included since they only primarily showed body cam footage.
They, of course, can't tell the whole story or share details that went beyond that body cam footage if they're only showing body cam. So we did a deep dive into that. It is available. It came out on Monday. And now we are going to go through this. the new cases. A lot of cases. And we're going to start with some updates in cases like we always do and then we are going to get into the new cases.
And I actually only have a couple quick little updates for you. The first being Brian Walsh has been found guilty of first degree murder to no surprise to anybody. I mean I think we all freaking saw that coming right? Although I will say
Last Friday, when the jury went out to go through and decide what the verdict was, when they went home for the weekend and hadn't come back with a verdict, I was a little nervous. I'm not going to lie. I was like, why aren't they coming back yet? That should have been a no-brainer, slam dunk. But early on Monday, we got the verdict guilty.
No more recaps at the end of the week for that case, but I'm glad that that sleazeball is locked away and we'll never see the light of day again.
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Chapter 2: What was the verdict in Brian Walsh's murder trial?
You're all, what's happening right now?
Or your family. Yeah.
That's wild. And it's like even people now who saw his picture because it was plastered everywhere. I'm not going to say his name obviously because he was, you know, let go. But imagine people who haven't heard the update that he's not involved and like just see him walking around. Like that's something – that's a stain that lives with you.
Sure.
And that's awful.
I know. It'll be interesting to see, yeah, like you said, what led them to him and then now where this other person is. Yeah.
I mean, as of this recording, nobody else has been arrested, but hopefully they do make an arrest fairly quickly. But obviously our thoughts are with everybody who is affected at Brown University. And I mean, this Rob Reiner crime is like insane. When it first broke, I know we were messaging and it looked early on like it was probably the son involved. Then it was confirmed. He's been arrested.
He's on a $4 million bail bond or whatever, or $4 million bond has been, can't talk. His bail has been set at $4 million. Why am I having such a hard time speaking?
Well, the first headline I read was just people resembling or two people were found deceased in a home that was showing ownership of Rob Reiner. So it was like, again, just details kept coming out and then the son, which I think you were the first one that told me you thought it was the son. Yeah.
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Chapter 3: What are the details of Kristina Joksimovic's murder case?
It's awful. And actually, this first case that we're going to get into, I'm going to just jump right in because it's out of Texas, which I know we've been talking about Texas and Florida a lot, it feels like. But this first case is out of Texas, and it's one that it really does make you kind of stop and go, wait. What? Why would somebody do that? What's going on?
Because what started as a teenage breakup, it turned into something completely unimaginable. And honestly, kind of has me wondering, like, why? I still don't get it. So on the evening of December 9th, police in Odessa, Texas, started getting a ton of frantic calls around 5.45 p.m. People inside an apartment complex were reporting that they were hearing gunfire coming from inside one of the units.
So obviously, officers rushed to the scene, probably expecting chaos or, I don't know, maybe a shootout, but nothing prepared them for what they actually walked into. Inside the apartment, police found three people shot and killed. A 39-year-old woman, Jessica Rodriguez, and then two of her children, her 13-year-old daughter and her 9-year-old son.
All three of them were pronounced dead at the scene. Now, as the investigators started piecing together what led up to this, the suspect list, like the pool kind of just like got smaller and smaller and smaller, and the suspect very quickly became clear. The shooter was actually the ex-boyfriend of the other teenage girl who lived in the apartment.
Not the one who was unfortunately shot and killed, but the other one. According to reports, this boy had actually planned to kill his ex-girlfriend outside of her school. But then, for whatever reason, he, quote, changed his mind. And he decided that a better course of action would be to go kill her entire family at their home instead. Now, like I said, why? We don't really know.
But when he got there, he went inside, killed her mom, her brother, and her sister. And then, like the coward little twerpy piece of shit he is, he ran. It's unclear if his ex-girlfriend, who he originally planned to kill, was inside the apartment that night when all of this went down, but the police did say later that she was not physically hurt. But... I don't even know.
He's 15 years old, okay? So the fact that he wanted to kill one person is obviously concerning and scary enough. But then the fact that something switched in his mind and he's like, you know what? I'm actually not going to kill her because I hate her so much. I'm going to kill her whole family. That is like a next level step of evil and like strategizing and really trying to hurt someone.
Like I said, he took off, and after learning that he ran from the apartment building, the police immediately set up a search of the area. And it only took about 40 minutes, and they found him and took him into custody. Now, because he's only 15 years old, his name has not been released, but despite his age, he was arrested, obviously, on some very serious charges.
I mean, three counts of capital murder. Police also confirmed that they recovered a handgun, which is believed to be the one that he used during this horrific triple murder. And now a major focus of the investigation is figuring out how this 15-year-old kid even got access to a gun in the first place.
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Chapter 4: What updates are there in the Jesse Butler case?
I mean, it makes sense. And like, not to...
get too personal here but it reminds me of some stuff in our past with someone you had dated where it's like they could rather than hurting you get to the other people to hurt you at a deeper level because they know when you're like you care about your family the most yeah oh god it makes me sick it really does it's so thanks for bringing that up you're welcome perfect really dated some winners there amy just kidding just kidding
Still not learning at this ripe age. Okay, well there are some cases that shock you and then there's others that leave you struggling like, how did this even happen? You can't believe it. And this next case is one of those. So on December 4th, police in Westminster, Colorado responded to reports of a suspicious death and made a horrifying discovery.
Near Willowbrook Park, inside of a trash can, officers found a woman's body wrapped inside of a blanket. and they had determined that she had been dead for several days. The body they found was that of Annette Marie Valdez, a 37-year-old mother of three who had been missing for a few days. Annette was last seen alive around November 28th after spending time with family for Thanksgiving.
And when she didn't return home and stopped responding to all her calls, her family immediately knew that something was wrong. And according to court documents, her ex-boyfriend and father of her children, Thomas Lee Perales, was the last person to be seen with her. Police had said that Thomas killed Annette sometime during the weekend after Thanksgiving during an argument.
But what he did after that was the most shocking part. It wasn't an attempt to cover up this crime like we often see. It was something far more chilling. Investigators allege that Thomas wrapped Annette's body in blankets, placed her in a shopping cart, and pushed her body around the city for days before ultimately dumping her remains in a trash can near the park.
See, Thomas was reportedly homeless at the time, and several witnesses came forward saying they saw him moving Annette's body in the shopping cart. Many of them also say that he was relying on parks and public spaces for shelter, but wasn't trying to hide that shopping cart at all. It was just in plain sight and he was pushing it around.
One witness also came forward and told police that Thomas admitted to what he did, allegedly saying, you know, I killed my wife and paraded her around. And what makes this even more difficult to hear is that it wasn't a surprise to anyone, including law enforcement. And we also, unfortunately, hear this all the time. And this case is no different.
Thomas and Annette had long documented history of domestic violence. And over the past two years, police had responded to dozens of calls involving the couple. Annette had multiple protection orders against Thomas, alleging this ongoing abuse.
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Chapter 5: What happened in the Rob Reiner murder case?
From the start, investigators knew something here just wasn't right.
According to police and the medical examiner, Suzanne had several visible injuries, and it was later determined that she had suffered blunt force trauma to her head and neck compression, meaning that she had been beaten and strangled, and that the injuries were enough to actually kill her, and her death was then labeled as a murder.
Stein Eric also had injuries, but his were very different in nature. According to the medical examiner, he had several self-inflicted sharp force wounds to his neck and chest. And based on the injuries he had, his death was later ruled a suicide.
And as investigators worked to understand what happened inside the home, they began looking closely at the relationship between Suzanne and Stein Eric and where maybe things going on in months leading up to this tragic scene may offer some clues. According to reports, Stein Eric had been struggling with severe paranoia and delusional thinking.
He actually believed that his mom, Suzanne, was spying on him, poisoning him, and even actively working against him. He also referred to himself as a glitch in the matrix. These weren't just random thoughts. They were genuinely how his mind worked, and investigators say these beliefs were actually exactly how he viewed the world and the people around him.
And these beliefs didn't just stay inside of his head. According to a wrongful death lawsuit later filed by Suzanne's estate, investigators and family say that something else was happening behind the scenes in the months leading up to her death. And this is where things get a little bit crazy. Stein Eric had actually been spending significant time interacting with, You guessed it, ChatGPT.
And this is where the case takes a turn that has a lot of people stopping and going, wait, what? And as a lot of people do these days, they're relying on ChatGPT a lot more heavily for everything.
And this lawsuit alleges that during those conversations that Stein Eric was having, instead of slowing things down or pushing back when he would talk about his paranoia, ChatGPT actually reinforced these thoughts. It allegedly validated fears he already had, including the belief that people in his life were working against him, which is exactly what he thought his mom, Suzanne, was doing.
One example of this is when Stein Eric told the chatbot that his mom and her friend tried to poison him by putting psychedelic drugs in his car's air vents, to which the AI bot said, quote, Eric, you're not crazy, and if it was done by your mother and her friend, that elevates the complexity and betrayal. And another time, Stein Eric asked the bot to review a Chinese food receipt.
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