On June 5th, 1994, a young woman and her dog stumbled upon a dismembered torso behind a gas station dumpster in a quiet Florida town, setting off an investigation that would span decades. As the case went cold, a dark figure remained hidden in plain sight, only to resurface years later. When a missing person’s flier related to the disappearance of 16-year-old Fred Laster sparked new interest, a shocking family connection led detectives to a seemingly upstanding youth pastor with a sinister past.
Chapter 1: What happened on June 5th, 1994, in Lake City, Florida?
Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.
You understand that? There's evidence that Lee Harvey also killed President Kennedy, but that don't make it... We're not talking about the Kennedy assassination.
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Chapter 2: What gruesome discovery did a woman and her dog make?
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On the afternoon of June 5th, 1994, a woman noticed her car making a funny noise while driving along the interstate in Lake City, Florida. After pulling into a BP gas station to have a mechanic take a look, she decided to kill some time by walking her dog around the property.
I was working that morning. The lady, I can't remember if she was towed in, but I know her car was broke down. And we were working on her car, and she walked her dog. And so she walked her dog out in that field that was beside the station, and the dog picked up on the scent.
While walking toward the back of the business, the woman's dog started to pull on its leash toward a nearby dumpster. Not exactly a great sign. At first, she thought her dog had tracked an animal like a raccoon that may be rummaging through the trash. As the hair on the canine's back stood up, she noticed a stench of bleach and then rot, becoming more pungent with each step she took.
Moments later, the dog stopped in his tracks and started barking uncontrollably. He was clearly fixated on something behind the dumpster. As the woman inched her way to get a closer look, she could see a partially opened black contractor bag on the ground. She could see that something was hanging out of the plastic, but wasn't sure what.
until her dog's snout moved the bag just enough to reveal the gruesome contents inside.
The gas station owner's first reaction upon scoping out the scene was one of frustration.
He thought the dark colored stains on the side of the dumpster and the concrete were transmission fluid, and that one of his lazy employees had simply made a mess. That is, until he peeled back the trash bag to get a closer look.
I want to trail around the edge and look over to see the body with no head on it.
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Chapter 3: What evidence was found at the gas station dumpster?
After notifying the police, deputies from the Columbia County Sheriff's Office promptly arrived on scene, only to be met by the dismembered torso of a young white male.
The body was laying on its back.
The head, hands, and feet were all missing from the scene. The man's arms had been cut at the elbow, while the extremities were severed just below the pelvic bone, leaving only the penis and genitals intact. What a scene. The victim also had a mole located on his lower right chest. One of the first things investigators noticed was how precise the cuts were, almost surgical.
There were no defensive wounds visible on the body, and the remains looked like they had been scrubbed clean. There was very little blood on the corpse itself, with no signs of decay or rigor. indicating that whoever this person was, he hadn't been dead for very long.
As more detectives flocked to the gas station parking lot, it became apparent that the killer attempted to hide the remains in the dumpster, but may have had some trouble lifting the bag.
Blood smears on the upper part of the trash compartment indicated that someone had tried to toss the bagged torso in the trash but had missed.
The drag marks of blood and dirt visible on the asphalt trailing behind the dumpster supported this theory as well. Inside the dumpster itself, detectives found several black garbage bags. In them were a blood-soaked foam egg crate mattress topper, orange latex gloves, and two Ginzu-style kitchen knives. A great buy-one-get-one-free value.
One of them was a 8-inch serrated blade, while the other was a small standard steak knife. On the blade and handles of both instruments was the presence of a white powder-like substance that appeared to be some kind of bleach like Ajax or Comet. brightly colored floral-shaped bath decals, a non-slip mat, and a red blood-stained flannel shirt were also recovered from the inside of the trash bags.
While crime scene techs sifted through the trash collecting evidence, deputies interviewed the few witnesses there were, including the gas station owner, in hopes of learning who might be responsible.
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Chapter 4: How did Fred Laster's case become connected to the torso?
Anyway, there was a dismembered torso, stripped of identifying features, wrapped in blood-stained plastic behind that BP gas station. In fact, it was behind a dumpster behind that BP gas station. The gruesome find sent shockwaves through the small Florida community. But despite extensive forensic efforts and witness tips, the case hit one dead end after the next.
The investigation went cold, leaving behind a trail of unanswered questions and a nameless victim. It wasn't until two decades later that Fred Laster's cousin stumbled upon a flyer featuring items recovered at a 1994 crime scene related to a John Doe. When the family alerted authorities in 2015, they shared another chilling detail.
Fred was last heard from while in the company of a trusted family acquaintance named Ron Hyde. Fred's family also revealed that Hyde drove a dark-colored Camaro, similar to the one spotted at the crime scene.
According to the family's statements to police, in the early summer of 1994, Fred packed a bag with a handful of clothes before leaving his sister's apartment and getting into Ron Hyde's vehicle, who had come to pick him up. At the time, his siblings believed Fred was preparing to leave on tour with his band in the following days.
He was supposed to do a short stint of shows down the Florida coastline. But when Fred's siblings received a phone call from him hours later, they knew something wasn't right.
She said, Fred, and he said, yeah. And she's like, are you with Brian? And he said, yeah. And like a really different tone, kind of funny tone to him. And she's like, you okay? And he said, yeah. Yeah.
Fred's sister told police that her brother sounded strange over the phone and not like his normal self. He sounded distant, both emotionally and literally. According to Fred's sister, it sounded like he was outside when he called her. When she asked Fred what was going on, he told her that he had just called to tell his family that he loved them.
A short time later, after this new information surfaced, investigators followed up with Fred's siblings to collect swabs of their DNA. The results ultimately came back as a match to the blood found on the red flannel shirt, confirming that Fred had been murdered. Roughly one year later, on April 12, 2016, a trash poll was conducted at Ron Hyde's Jacksonville Beach, Florida home.
Two garbage bags were removed from a bin he had placed by the roadside. At the top of the first trash bag was a piece of the suspect's mail, as well as a red Solo cup that contained several used Zycam nasal swabs. After those items were sent off for DNA testing, they came back as a match to a second profile discovered on the bloody flannel.
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Chapter 5: Who was Ron Hyde and what was his connection to Fred?
Detectives are already aware of this man's entire background before they even walked into the room, including how he was once an employee of the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office. Get this, back in the 70s, Hyde worked as a mentor to teenage sex offenders within the Department of Corrections. Years later, Hyde earned his psychology degree from the University of Florida in 1981 and
He also took classes to become a nurse at one point, studying human anatomy. Hyde was familiar with joints, bone structure, and the placement of internal organs, leading investigators to believe that he may have some knowledge of surgical procedures or dismemberment.
Upon looking into his background further, authorities learned that Hyde also attempted to secure a $60,000 grant to open a counseling center for abused teenagers. That plan fell through, thank God. He became a licensed youth counselor and mental health professional instead, a field he worked in for roughly 16 years. I've said it again and again, if you want to find out where the predators are,
Go where the prey is. During his interview, Hyde explained his work history a bit more in depth to detectives, starting with his quote-unquote teaching methods.
For instance, using the assistance lure. You know, I lost my dog or I lost something. Will you help me find it? Okay. Of course, the idea is to be able to lure the child away from the parents.
Okay.
To...
So were you thinking more in terms of, like, people who were abductors, like strangers that abduct children? Could be, yes. Okay. Well, I'm just trying, I'm asking, you know, where your program's geared to, because now I'm, like, kind of interested in it.
It's essentially teaching the, you know, 15 different lures that sense offenders use to the parents to help to keep the kids safe.
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Chapter 6: What did investigators find at Ron Hyde's properties?
Do you have any nudity stuff, any nudists, naturists, anything like that? Is that something you would look up or anything? Yes.
Okay. I am a member of the American Association of Nude Recreation.
Are you really?
I didn't know they had an association. Yes, sir. Okay.
How long have you been doing that?
Enter. Yes.
I'll have to look that up now. It's a nationwide organization. Is it possible then maybe you can cross pictures of kids? Of course.
Do they have a website? Inter does have a website. Okay. And there are other websites that have naturist videos. Yes, sir. And of course it does include children. Okay. New children. Okay. They're not. There's no sexual. Okay. Nobody's posed in a sexual position. It's just children swimming or with their families or playing.
Okay. So nothing sexualized about it. Just people basically, recreation, they just happen to be nude. Right.
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Chapter 7: How did DNA evidence lead to an arrest in this cold case?
and Ron Hyde had just inadvertently placed himself at the crime scene. Oops. After a few more minutes of small talk, the male detective, or quote-unquote bad cop, establishes that they're done playing games. He informs Hyde that they know much more than they've been letting on. This is the, oh shit, I'm in trouble, moment of the interrogation.
So I'm going to tell you this. and i just want you to understand we've identified the body of fred lester oh yes sir and so we do know where his body was found out going back to that time frame okay so again that's one of the reasons i'm asking these questions because i'm trying to see if you know anything about that or not where was he found he was found over in columbia county over by lake city
Wow. Have you ever been over there before? Do you know where that is? Well, I know where Lake City is. Okay. Well, along with his body, we found a lot of items of evidence as well. And those items of evidence have been tested over the course of many years, 23 years. And we were able to recover fingerprints and DNA from that evidence.
Now, I will tell you that we were able to get a sample of your DNA several months ago. And your DNA matches the DNA from that crime scene. So what I'm here to tell you today is I know how Fred Paul Astor got in a dumpster in Lake City. And I know who put him there. And I know that person was you.
And I will tell you that I have plenty of evidence to back that up, including your car backed up to that dumpster and all the DNA evidence, the fingerprint evidence, the stuff that was left in there that was thrown away with that body. I know all those things.
So the reason I'm here to talk to you about this today is I want to give you an opportunity to explain, you know, what really happened there. Now you can try to deny these things if you choose to, but evidence doesn't lie. And that's what I'm trying to tell you as I'm not here today, just to try to simply get to the point of what happened there.
As far as that goes, I know what happened there, but I don't know why this happened. I don't know exactly how this happened as far as, cause I wasn't there in the room when it happened. And so those are some of the things I'm trying to get to today. And I want to give you an opportunity.
One would think this is where the interview ends and Hyde asks for an attorney. But guess what? People are really dumb. So, of course he doesn't. Instead, he digs his heels and denies any involvement in the murder of Fred Laster because he thinks he's smart enough to talk his way out of this.
The last time I saw Fred was that evening.
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Chapter 8: What role did the church play in Fred Laster's life?
The investigation resulted in the rescue of nearly 400 children and the arrest of 348 adults worldwide. The Toronto-based company, run by a man named Brian Way, distributed child exploitation videos through a website called azoffilms.com. I know you're probably going to check your browser history when you get home. Make sure your partner isn't looking at that website. And if he is, maybe...
Dial 911 immediately. Especially if your partner's on Reddit a lot. Oh boy, am I going to get a lot of emails. The operation involved extensive cooperation with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and led to the seizure of 45 terabytes of illegal material. Those arrested included teachers, medical professionals, clergy, and law enforcement personnel. Think about that for a second.
It's almost like every group of people assigned to protect children has been infected by pedophilia. Ron Hyde's name was once on that long list of suspects, but at the time, authorities lacked enough evidence to make an arrest. Here's what Hyde had to say about Azov Films when it was brought up during his interrogation.
Is that familiar? Mm-hmm. Okay. What is that?
Azov Films. Yeah.
Do you know why it's not active?
I do.
Uh-oh. Okay.
Because some of these videos were considered child pornography. Okay.
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