True Crime for the Short on Time: Rocky Top's Killer Son

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[SPEAKER_00]: Warning, check the locks podcast as a true crime podcast and may contain graphic descriptions of violence, murder, sexual assault, and more.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Check the locks podcast is not appropriate for all listeners.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Listener discretion is strongly advised.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back to Check The Watch presents true crime for the short on time.

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[SPEAKER_01]: As always, I'm John Conner saying thank for joining me this week.

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[SPEAKER_01]: As I dive into yet another truly terrifying bite-sized true crime case.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Again, you may notice that I am flying solo this episode Olivia is still on vacation, but she will be back with us on Monday.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So we'll get back to our regularly scheduled programming then.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But until then, you're stuck with me.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So thanks for coming and hanging out.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Super excited to get into this week's case.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It was one that I had not heard of.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm excited to share it with y'all.

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[SPEAKER_01]: The locksmiths, the listeners.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Before we get into that though, I did just want to take a moment.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Monday's episode.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I did share that I had lost a friend of mine pretty recently.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And the outpouring of like, just positive comments and

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[SPEAKER_01]: People checking in and making trials okay was absolutely just heartwarming was amazing and I'm constantly reminded of how wonderful this community is and how lucky that I am to be a part of it and that it all came from the silly little podcast.

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[SPEAKER_01]: If you reach out, if you check out me, if you left an encouraging message, just know that it did not go unnoticed and is greatly appreciated.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And again, that's why we're a family.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So I just wanted to give a huge thank you to anyone who did reach out again, just means the world.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And if you're listening, we hope you're doing well.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Hope the family is doing good.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Hope y'all are hanging there and having terrific week.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Again, Olivia's not here, so there's really not much Gabby Gabby for me to do.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So we'll go ahead and jump into the stabby stabby.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Let's talk about this week's short on time case.

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[SPEAKER_01]: This week, we're headed to Anderson County, Tennessee.

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[SPEAKER_01]: We're sticking close to my neck of the woods in a little town of Rocky Top, which if you're a college football fan, you know, there's a whole song about Rocky Top.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of the Tennessee anthem.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So again, head into a little town of Rocky Top this week, where on April, twenty, twenty, sixteen year old Sean Willis made a startling phone call to his then girlfriend.

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[SPEAKER_01]: He shared that he had found his mother, thirty-eight-year-old Sandy Willis in bed with, quote, blood on her.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Understandably frightened Willis's girlfriend told her father.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And when he heard the news, he rushed to the boy's home to check on Sandy.

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[SPEAKER_01]: When he arrived at the home, he found the thirty-eight-year-old woman lying still in her bed.

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[SPEAKER_01]: She had been shot twice in the head.

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[SPEAKER_01]: The girlfriend's father immediately called nine-one-one-one, and officers with the Anderson County Sheriff's Office arrived on the scene, pronouncing Sandy Dead.

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[SPEAKER_01]: During their investigation, investigators were also able to determine that Sandy had been shot with her own gun.

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[SPEAKER_01]: They also interviewed Sean several times and something didn't feel right.

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[SPEAKER_01]: His story seemed to constantly change, and Sean quickly became the lead suspect in his mother's death.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But in May of twenty twenty, the truth would finally come out.

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[SPEAKER_01]: During a voluntary interview with detectives, Sean Willis shared the chilling events of what had happened on the day of his mother's death.

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[SPEAKER_01]: According to Sean, his mother had come home late from work that night.

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[SPEAKER_01]: He shared that he was upset because she had taken his phone from him as a punishment.

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[SPEAKER_01]: At some point in the argument, Sandy did what most parents would do and just gave up on the conversation.

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[SPEAKER_01]: She turned around and went upstairs to go to bed.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But once his mother was sleeping, Sean proceeded with his deadly plan.

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[SPEAKER_01]: He quietly snuck into his mother's room, taking her gun from a nightstand.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Then he returned downstairs hoping not to be heard loading the firearm.

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[SPEAKER_01]: then Sean returned to his mother's room, positioned himself alongside her bed before shooting her in the left side of the head at close range, killing her instantly.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Sean Tyler Willis was arrested in charge with the first degree murder of his mother.

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[SPEAKER_01]: However, because Sean was only sixteen at the time of the crime, a deal would be made.

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[SPEAKER_01]: If you were to plead guilty, the charge would be knocked down to second-degree murder.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And on August eleven, twenty twenty-five, so just a few days ago, twenty-one-year-old Sean Tyler Willis was sentenced to thirty years in prison to be served at a hundred percent.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So no time-out for good behavior, no early release, you got thirty years straight to the day.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Now, while thirty years may not seem like enough to you and me, the family shared that they were actually pleased with the sentence.

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[SPEAKER_01]: With a district attorney adding that he is happy that the case has been resolved as well as the law would allow.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So let's talk about it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Let's work through some thoughts.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So this one for me as a parent, I think these cases are always just kind of hard anyway.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I know for me as soon as my daughter was born, I held her in my arms.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I looked at her and I was like, I love you more than anything in the whole world.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It was instant.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And that feeling has not gone away.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, as she's gotten older, does it get challenging sometimes a hundred and ten percent?

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[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, it's still I would do anything in the world to protect this little kid, you know, she means everything, right?

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[SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't find anything in the research that showed that, you know, Sean was treated poorly.

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[SPEAKER_01]: There was any kind of abuse or anything in that nature.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Again, I don't know for sure, right?

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[SPEAKER_01]: We only know what's put out in the articles and in the research.

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[SPEAKER_01]: There could have been something going on there, but nothing that I found that would indicate anything crazy happening or anything super traumatic, right?

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[SPEAKER_01]: What it does sound like to me is that there was some potential mental illness red flags going that could have potentially been addressed.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe if they had been,

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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, maybe this tragedy could have been avoided, but if your response to having your phone taken away is a sixteen year old is to shoot your parent in the head.

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[SPEAKER_01]: To me, that's an obvious sign that there was something going on that needed to be addressed.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, it's just sad all the way around, right?

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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, Sandy's family has lost a daughter and

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[SPEAKER_01]: lost a loved one and there's also Sean who made this terrible decision at sixteen, which is now impacted the rest of his life.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, there's just, there's nobody who comes out, okay, in this case.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, it's just, it's heartbreaking.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's, it's a sad one all the way around.

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[SPEAKER_01]: The other thing that I was thinking about, and I'd be very interested to hear what our listeners think, again, you know, with the locksmiths, if you want to chime in on this, but this was April of twenty twenty.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Which means the COVID lockdowns had been going on for a little over a month at this point.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I believe here in Tennessee, everything locked down around the middle of March.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And this happened on April, twentieth, right?

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[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, just over a month had passed.

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[SPEAKER_01]: People have been living in their homes not going to school, you know, isolated from everyone else.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And I really do wonder, you know, with Sean, if he did have those kind of mental illness factors, if these lockdowns and being isolated, maybe that exacerbated, again, this is all speculation.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But especially at that time, if your phone is your only connection to the outside world, because you are living at home and kind of stuck in this bubble to have that taken away, especially if you are in a mentally unwell state.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, that could have been something that triggered them.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, again, speculation, but it didn't really click with me until I was, you know, kind of reading through the story.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, oh, man, this was after the COVID lockdown that started.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And I know kids all over the country were having a hard time.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I know, you know, my niece had somebody that she went to school with who took their own life because, you know, it was just a depression thing from not being around friends and things of that nature.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So it was really hard on the kids out there.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And again, this is one of those cases where everybody loses, you know, so for me being a parent, I think I would probably put this about in eight because you really do.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You try so hard to make sure that, you know, your kids know that they're loved and you go to work every day and you

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[SPEAKER_01]: do what you need to do to put food on the table and close on their back and you try to raise them in the best way that you can and you hope that they're good people, you know, and to have your life taken away by something that, you know, you love more than anything is just sad.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And it's scary.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So for me, I'm going to put this in eight, but as always, we want to hear from the listeners, the locksmiths, where does the murder of Sandy Willis fall on your devil test?

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[SPEAKER_01]: You can let us know, reach out to us on Instagram, check the locks pod.

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[SPEAKER_01]: That's all that we have for this week, short on time case.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Again, I promise Olivia will be back with us on Monday, but please make sure that you're subscribed to check the locks and your favorite podcast apps with the you never miss an episode.

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[SPEAKER_01]: We will see you again next week with another truly terrifying bite size true crime case.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But until then, don't forget to check those locks.

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[SPEAKER_01]: We'll see you next week.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Stay safe out there.