Wicked Ever After Presents: Lauren Landavazo

Welcome to Primetime Crime. I'm your host, Kylie. Let's talk right now on true crime, and then together we are going to work on warming up some cold cases. Let's go. My name is Hope Whutin and last year I lost my two children to philicide, which is the murdering of one's child or children. A battle of custody and mental illness that led to my estranged husband taking our kids' lives before taking his own, A silent epidemic that has continued to take more lives each year, yet the term philicide is not widely known. Join me here on Voices against Philicide as I share my story and the stories of other parents who have lived through the unthinkable. We speak the names of our children, and we break the silence this system depends on. Because silence kills. Their lives mattered, their voices were stolen, but ours won't be. Together, we speak the truth, we honor their lives, and we fight for change. Please subscribe to Voices against Philcide wherever you get your podcasts to join me as I navigate grief, talk with other parents, and continue to raise awareness and support to make changes our systems so desperately needs for other families and especially our children. From me hope hutin thank you. Until next time, remember be kind and always abound in hope. Hey guys, welcome to this week's episode of Primetime Crime. It's Kylie. We are doing something a little different this week because I very much decided that I am taking a week off from putting more on my plate. It has been a wild week, No need to get into it, trust me, it has been a wild week. I think there was a full moon and the full moon was full mooning for sure. So this week I am bringing you a story from my friend Stephanie, who is the host of Wicked ever After, also a true crime podcast, and she also has a YouTube channel. We please check her out, follow her, support her. She is going to be telling us the story of Lauren Londvazo and Michayla Smith today, in a story that I was not familiar with. And I think that's the reason I really like doing these guest appearances, because you get a chance to hear somebody else's podcast and get a little bit of a take on their storytelling, and you get to hear of all new cases. So I really like being able to do these guest episodes and share a little bit of some of the podcasts that I enjoy listening to and that I consume as a true crime podcaster myself. So we are going to go ahead and get into Stephanie's episode. I'm not really going to do a right now and true crime this week. Anything that we need to catch up on, we will catch up on next week's episode, which I, by the way, have ready to go. So I'm taking the weekend off. I'm unplugging from all things, and I'm going to give myself a little mental health break and it is so much needed. Let me tell you. So let's go ahead and get into Wicked ever After with Stephanie Moram. Obsession is a word that we often use to describe something we really really love. By definition, obsession is an idea or thought that continuously preoccupies a person's mind. Our little obsessions over a new song, a late night snack, or even that new friend we met can be harmless for most people. They're just something we love so much that we gain great pleasure when indulging in it. But sometimes obsessions aren't simple or innocent. Sometimes those intrusive thoughts slowly poison one's mind until the only ending is simply death. I'm Stephanie Moram and this is wicked ever after. Since this also goes on YouTube, there's a lot of words I cannot say, such as sexual assault, sexual ab use, rape, So in those moments you might hear me on the podcast say sa. So I just wanted to give a heads up that as you're listening, you might hear something a little bit different. And that's only because I want to be able to post this on YouTube. Please consider clicking the thumbs up button on this episode to help get this story out. Also, please subscribe to my YouTube channel or podcast. It really helps the algorithm when you like, subscribe and share. If you want to see my face and all my reactions, be sure to head over. To YouTube to watch this episode. And lastly, I have invisi line, so if I mispronounce a word, I am apologizing in advance. Our story today takes us to Wichita Falls, Texas, known as a gateway to Texas. This charming town sits on the border with Oklahoma, about two hours northwest of the Dallas and Fort Worth area. Visitors come for the thriving art scene, historic architecture, and gorgeous parks. This is where we find the Landvanzo family. Verne and Bianca had three children, two boys, Jordan and Tim, and on October fourteenth, two thousand and two, they welcomed their beautiful daughter, Lauren into the family. Many parents described their children as angels, but for those who knew and loved Lauren, that was the perfect description. She was kind, happy, goofy, always smiling, and looked at the world around her through a lens of constant positivity. Bianca, Lauren's mom, described her friendliness. She talked to. Everyone and knew so many people. She was always amazed about how many people she actually knew. She was a social butterfly. Her dad described her as one of the most popular girls in school, not because she was in the popular crowd, but because of who she was. One of her dad's favorite stories was when there was a new kid in school and he was nervous about lunch because he had no friends and nowhere to sit. He remembered sitting down alone, and Lauren came right over and invited him to sit with her and her friends. She seemed insistent on making sure no one ever felt alone, unhappy, or unwanted. Lauren was Bianca's mini me. The only real difference between them was Lauren's height. She grew to be taller than her mom, a fact her mom remembered fondly saying how great it was to finally not have the same shoe size, since Lauren would always steal her shoes when she was younger. Lauren loved to make her parents laugh. She hid in her room late in the day before her dad got home from work, and when he came through the door, she would run from her room in some sort of crazy costume or pajama with a face full of wild makeup and devilish hair. It was a daily greeting that always had everyone rolling in laughter. As she got older, Lauren spent a lot of time nurturing and helping others. She stayed up late at night in her room helping and counseling her friends. She spent much of her time just making sure everyone was okay. One of those friends was Mikayla Smith, daughter of Shamika and Rodney Smith. She was born just a couple of months after Lauren, on December twentieth, two thousand and two. She liked to read, listen to music, and hang with her friends. She too, was always smiling, and she was described as bright but soft spoken. She was funny and a happy child, a daddy's girl who always put others first. So it's no surprise that she and Lauren became fast friends around grade three. They loved each other's company and were often seen in school talking and laughing together. Often they walked home together down an alley from school. And this isn't one of those dark, creepy alleys you're probably picturing that you see in horror movies. This was a well lit, bright alleyway that was often used as a main walkway to get from point A to point B, and a lot of students use. In twenty sixteen, both girls were thirteen and attended McNeil Junior High as eight graders. September second of that year was just a regular day. The girls had only been in school a couple of weeks and Mikayla had met another friend to begin. Her walk from school to home. As she was walking, she spotted Lauren called out to her, and the two continued the rest of the way by each other side. Around three oh five pm, the girls entered the alleyway that they had used hundreds of times before. They were chatting about how they didn't have any classes together this year, when Lauren started walking ahead of the group and veered off towards her boyfriend's house. When a black car pulled up near Lauren, with the driver's side facing the girls in the alley. The cars came to a stop, so the girls naturally halted. Before anyone could stop and process, the man in the car started firing a gun. Mikayla watched as Laurene immediately fell to the ground and within seconds felt the sheering pin in her own chest. At that point, Michaela remembered running away. Her final memory of Lauren was seeing her lying on the cement, lifeless in her attempts to escape the gunfire. Michaela looked down at her chest and noticed all the blood coming from it. She was shot as well. Later, Michaela told her mother that after she realized she too had been shot in the chest, she was screaming to the other friends to get out of the way, and she started to run back to Lauren. The gunfire ceased, the car drove away, and chaos started. This shooting took place in front of several kids and in a very public area, so people ascended onto the scene very quickly. One witness reported rushing to the scene and found Louren not moving, still clutching her binder in her arms. She asked Lauren if she was okay, but already knew she would receive no response because Lauren was already dead. As she was dialing nine one one for help, she noticed a wounded Michaela trying to get to her friend, bleeding and distraught. And then it's been albius. I'm gonna amulate to fifty one three kings. There is a young lady who lay on the ground bled. She does not appear to be climbing. He have any where one in her bed? I courted her unsmots fired at. Her, Okay, go ahead, and said, first, can you tell where she's leaning from? T to get ahead? However, I can't really sell hap. Is she breading right now? Okay? You off her? You don't long enjoying some girl? She's all away in the ground. Okay, do you know how long she's been lying there? Now? No? Can you touch her and not tell me she's pulled to the touch where if she's worn? And fifty corners you warm? We want to be like Stubby. Another witness, Jamie Lopez, an RNA, approached and saw Lorne lying in the alley as well. Her eyes were open, but they were void of life. Jamie initially thought Lauren had been hit by a car because she noticed broken fingers. She tempted to deminister aid, so she turned Lauren over from her stomach to her back. That was when she noticed one of the bullet holes around her heart. She felt for a pulse, but there was none, and was unsure about doing CPR because of the gunshot wound. It's around this time Jamie noticed Mikayla running down the alley yelling she had been shot. Blood was all over the front of her shirt and she was clearly scared. Being a nurse, Jamie had some gauze and dressing in her car and ran to get them for Mikayla. She put gauze and bandage where she could and got the help of another witness to put pressure on Mikayla's other injuries, hoping to prevent her from bleeding out. In the chaos of the moment, Jamie noticed that many people had gathered and were staring at Lauren's body, so she grabbed a blanket from her car and covered up Lauren as best she could to prevent people from staring. Parents had gathered quickly, and the screaming and shouting got louder and louder. I can only imagine what that was like. Everyone was confused and was just trying to make contact with their kid by phone or in person. No one wanted the body that was under that blanket to be their child. Back at Laurence's house, it was three thirty PM and Bianca was waiting for her daughter to arrive home from school. One of Bianca's friends pulled up in a truck, asking if Lauren had returned home from school yet, to which Bianca replied, quote know why end quote. Her friend replied, quote kids are down, Kids are down. End quote. Lauren's dad, Verne, was inside and saw Bianca run out the door and down the street. Not knowing what was going on, he hopped into. His truck and started to follow. Soon Bianca came upon hordes of people, sirens, and crime scene tape. Desperate to find her daughter and make sure she was okay. Beyanca searched the area and hoped to find Lauren somewhere in the crowd, but it didn't take long for Bianca to make it to the front of the crowd, look down and see her daughter's lifeless body lying on the cement. In the film Murder at First Sight, Bianca said, I knew she was gone. I can't explain it. I just knew she was gone. I know I was screaming, just. Really loud and horrible screams, but I know I was calling her to come back. I felt like she was going to the light and I was trying to get her to come back. I was saying, don't go, please come back. End quote. Burne recalled feeling a state of shock after seeing his daughter. Lauren was put in the ambulance and he joined her inside. On the way to the hospital, paramedics reported they had a heartbeat, but it was an artificial heartbeat that is very common after some when is passed. Sadly, after arriving at the hospital, Lauren was officially pronounced dead. Autopsy results showed that Lauren was shot with a semi automatic AR fifteen style rifle from three feet away. She was struck twice in the head, with multiple shots to both hands, her chest, liver, spinal column, shoulders, and other areas. She also had abrasions on her face, which may have occurred when she fell on the pavement. A single bullet mangled her hand, entering and exiting through her ring finger and grazing her pointer finger. She experienced three fatal shots, one to her liver and another tour left lung. The third and final shot was to the back of Lauren's head that hit her brainstem. A gruesome, senseless ending to such a beautiful life. As for Michayla, she was undergoing life saving surgery for the three bullet wounds in her chest, three holes she still carries around to this day. The investigation began immediately after all this had been a very public shooting, with a lot of witnesses present. However, despite the public nature of the crime, the police had no leads. The entire crime made no sense, and the police as well as the community, were baffled by what had happened in that alleyway. Investigators went to Lauren's home and tried to find some answers. They took her phone and computer and hoped perhaps her texts or online activity might lead them to the murderer, but after extensive searching, they came up empty handed, finding absolutely nothing suspicious or harmful on her phone or computer. Interviewing the witnesses was difficult, considering most of them were twelve and thirteen years old who had just experienced a serious traumatic event. Many of them didn't have a ton of new information the police could use, but Michaela was able to provide a piece of the puzzle that was about to give investigators their first glimpse of hope. Because of the proximity of Mikayla to the truck, she happened to get a view of the driver, saying that she had literally quote locked eyes with a killer end quote. She was able to describe him as having shaggy brown hair, white skin, and she also mentioned that he was younger. The police had finally something to go on and release this debscription, as well as the description of the truck to the public. Unfortunately, most of the men in the area matched that description, which made it super difficult to nail down a viable suspect. Investigators decided to make a very unusual decision and contact a sketch artist to meet with Mikaela and see if they could get a picture of the suspect drawn up. This was hardly ever done in Wichita follows because crimes like these normally didn't happen, and because this decision came with a lot of risk considering the eyewitness was a miner and could have easily been confused about what they saw due to the trauma. Not long after the sketch of the suspect was released, a woman by the name of Joanna Perez Ramirez and her fiance were on their way to the May Shift memorial that people in the community had made forlorn. When they arrived near the memorial, they stayed in their truck and noticed a gold suv slowed down near the memorial. The driver was a young, white male and he had a ball cap on, but the hair outside of the cap was kind of curly and shaggy. Joanna instantly thought that the driver kind of matched to the description of the suspect, and so she and her fiance decided to. Follow the gold suv. Super brave for them to do that, I would have just called nine one to one. At that point, the driver turned right into an apartment complex and parked his suv. Joanna noticed that the driver got out of the suv and looked very nervous. She saw him go around the backside of the suv to the passenger door, opened it and the man grabbed an item and tucked it under his arm. That item was long. And wrapped in a blanket, and they believed the end of a rifle was sticking out of it. He was then seen walking towards the apartment complex, all the while looking around as if making sure no one saw him. Joanna and her fiance watched him go into his apartment and then waited to see what he would do next. Eventually he came out empty handed, and that's when they called nine to one one and well. What was your emergency? We were driving might have an accident that happened at Trinidad and Timson, and we pulled into a certain rows and it goes to the salting apartments and there's a kid that just drive up. In a Saho with shaggy hair and hat and he got kid. Looked like a rifle and he had it wrapped in clothes and ranked and he was trying to get it off in a hurry. He just wanted to the apartment to get trip. The driver his tall, skinny white boy with shaggy shoulder leafs hair and he had a hat on when he lasted, and he took him a while to get out of the back seat. He came to get in there and get something else, and it was a long stuff and wrapped up and blinked and clothed. Okay, and you said it was a rightful or you just thought it might have been a ridicule. Is the way he was holding it and looked like it was because. He was trying to hurry up. And it was kind of like he was a decisions And you guys, sit you. A park that Trent Tayler. Yeah, we're facing the apartment interest. Okay, will walters and out that way, checked the area and they'll come talk to you as well. Okay, okay, thank you. During the nine to one to one call, dispatchers asked Johanna to write down the license plate. A few seconds later, the man drove to the backside of the apartment and Joanna lost visual of him. Dispatch had contacted Officer John Gordon, who was finishing his lunch near the scene, and as he pulled into the apartment complex, the man in the suv pulled out. The officer then turned around in an attempt to catch up with the suv. After following him for a little bit, Officer Gordon pulled over the man for a traffic violation in the parking lot of a shopping center. He ran his plates and found the driver to be Cody Lot. The officer approached the driver's side and saw Cody clinging to the steering wheel. He asked Cody where he was going to, which he replied that he was going to his mom's apartment to feed the dogs since she was out of town. The officer explained to Cody that they had received a call about a suspicious person and a truck and that his truck matched the description. He then asked Cody for consent to search the suv, to which he consented, but unbeknownst to the police department, Cody had already cleaned out the suv, so not much was found. But what they did find was a backpack which they searched and it contained brass knuckles, which at that time in the state of Texas were considered a prohibited weapon. That's all they needed to arrest him and bring him in for questioning. How fucking lucky. Wow, that's insane. They also found a shellcasing from a twenty two caliber on the floorboard of passenger seat. Later, police matched it to the shells found at the crime scene, and the rifle they removed from Cody's mom and stepdad's home was a perfect match. Police took Cody downtown to begin the interview process. He didn't have to give a statement, but he did agree to talk to detectives. For the first forty five minutes of the four hour interview, Cody denied any involvement in Lauren's death. When asked if he did it, he said, quote I did not end quote. In the interrogation video, Cody's body language showed defensiveness and that he had something to hide. In my opinion, detectives are highly trained in interrogation techniques and body language, and they knew they needed to build some rapport with Cody so he would confess. Their theory did pay off, because after forty five minutes, they finally had their confession. Quote yes, I did it. End quote. When asked what happened, Cody said he pulled up and smiled at Laurene. Quote Lauren looked at me like I was joking, or she kind of looked at me like, oh please, you know, she kind of just like turned her head like with the kind of smirk on her face, right, and that's when I decided end quote, he continued. Quote. I fired at her first, and then her friend was like right beside her. When I pulled up, I did aim at Lauren, but nod at her head. I thought the gun would jam on me, but I was just pulling that trigger as fast as I could. It sounded like pow, pow pow. End quote gross. As the interview continued, detectives were told that Lauren and MICHAELA didn't know who twenty year old Cody Lot was, but he knew who Lauren was because he had been watching her for the past year. He said it wasn't a senseless killing, and rather that he had talked to the devil. Before murdering Lauren. He wanted the murderer to be reported as an assassination, calculated assassination. Of that, Cody confessed he went to a field he was familiar with and hid the weapon in a place he knew he'd be able to find it later. He then went to Archer City, which is about a twenty minute drive from Wichita, Falls, met up with a girl he knew, and together they went to her house to do drugs. It wasn't until that following Sunday that he went back and retrieved the weapon to take back home to a stepdad's gunlocker at the apartment because he didn't want his stepdad to know that the gun was missing. Right during the interview, investigators noticed that his entire confession was all about him. He was selfish and showed no remorse for his actions. He was almost animated and how he presented the facts of the murder almost like he was proud of what he did and excited. To tell a story. After the interview was over, the police chief scheduled a press conference and announced to the public, quote, we've arrested a suspect and his name is Cody lot Enote. So who was Cody and how did Lorne come into this stranger's crosshairs. Cody was born on January seventh, nineteen ninety six, to Christy Rowland and David Lott. His parents divorced when he was around four or five years old, and that is when the problem started to arise surrounding Cody. According to his dad, he started to exhibit aggressive behavior and violent outbursts, as well as extremely antisocial behavior. And became very reclusive. As he got older, his behavior continued to worsen, and he turned to illicit drugs at the age of thirteen. In twenty ten, at the age of fourteen, he started dating a girl from his high school named Haley Clayton. They dated for about two years, and during that time, Haley said that Cody was very violent with her. She described an instance where he wrapped a seatbelt around her throat and tried to strangle her. Another time, he pushed her down the stairs, and a time after that he busted her head on the dash of his car. He sounds like a fucking stellar guy. Early in twenty twelve, Haley moved to Colorado to live with her mother, and Cody decided to move with her, but within a month of arriving there, the violence picked up again, even being violent towards Haley in front of her family. Haley's mom Boughtoim a one way ticket back to Texas and he and Haley broke up. However, it didn't end as seamlessly as everyone at Hope. Haley stayed in Colorado for a full year after the breakup, scared because Cody had continued to threaten her In twenty thirteen, she moved back to Texas to start a new relationship. She ended up having a baby with this person, and Cody's harassment continued. He started to threaten her, her boyfriend, and their child. He threatened to create a scenario where he would cause a car. Accident, kill them, and torture them. Every few months, Haley and her family received harassing texts or calls from Cody. She blocked him from her phone and on social media, but he somehow always was able to find a way to contact her. In these messages, he said he wanted to kidnap her and her baby and torture them both in front of her boyfriend. That's fucked up. Hailey lived in constant fear for her and her family's life, always looking over her shoulder, unsure of what to expect. Ironically, the last threatening message Haley ever received was at ten twenty two. In the morning on the day that Lorne was gotten down. Cody's troubles continued after his breakup with Hailey. He had a hard time holding down a job, and when he was working at Sonic or Chipotle, it wasn't for very long. He was still a loner or. Doing drugs and was highly dysfunctional. In twenty fourteen, he was convicted for possession of drugs and theft. He received a three year probated. Sentence as punishment. At nineteen, a year before the murder, Cody was evolved in a police stand off hostile situation. He was at his grandmother's home with a gun and was threatening to shoot people. When the police arrived, Cody dealt with the negotiator on the scene, who's able to talk Cody out of the house peacefully without any shots being fired. A criminal trespass warning was issued, but no charges were filed against him, which seems really odd. To me anyways. However, he did stay in a mental health facility in Houston shortly after this incident, from June twenty fifteen to August twenty fifteen. It's unclear if it was mandatory or if he volunteered to go to this hospital, but it's there that he was diagnosed with schizo. Effective disorder a combination of schizophrenia and effective disorder. Schizophrenia is a state of psychosis where people typically hear voices or have paranoid delusions. An effective disorder is related to mood. Therefore, people who suffer from schizo effective disorder are either quite depressed or the quite manic, where they can be over excited. After Cody received a diagnosis and his hospital stay, he was discharged and went back to his drug use. He refused to take his medications that. Had been prescribed to him. Instead, he experimented with heroin, meth, MDMA, and GHB. During this time, I believe he was living with his mother and stepfather in their apartment near. The McNeil Middle High School. This was where Lauren and MICHAELA attended classes. He spent a lot of time looking out the window, and this is when he first noticed the twelve year old Lauren. For an entire year, he watched Lorne walk home from school with her friends and oftentimes with her boyfriend. These afternoons perched by the window soon turned into an obsession with a young girl he had never met. But why the obsession and why the murder? According to Cody, he was angry he didn't have a girlfriend and that he he had never had much luck with girls. He reported he had a problem with females for a very long time and stated that his actions towards Lauren were like letting off a hatred for all females that he had let build up. He said that she was beautiful. And that he was jealous and angry of what she had with her boyfriend. Her boyfriend enraged him, and he set out to kill her to prove that he was a man and her boyfriend was a child. He became infatuated with Lauren. He wanted to assert his manhood. He told police the act wasn't spontaneous and that a lot of planning went into her murder, to degree he had done it for the thrill of it and made no real effort to conceal what he had done. Cody revealed that he believed that Lauren was an angel and that she couldn't die, therefore, shooting her was just him merely sending her to another dimension. He believed there was this cosmic battle bed between God and evil and that he was working for the devil and that the devil had made. Him shoot her. He went on to say, quote, I knew this girl was going to end up getting r aped here in a couple of years, and there's all kinds of evil going on, So in my mind, I saved her from the evil of the world, who was also a sacrifice to the devil, because I've been talking to the devil lot and he's the one that told me to do end quote. Cody claimed he sacrificed himself for the betterment of the world, but sacrificed Lauren to God so he could have a mansion and all the drugs he wanted. As a reward. Over that year of looking at Lorne every day from the window, she had become Cody's possession, and in his mind he owned her. She was his to do as he pleased. To a rational person, Cody's reasons seemed contradictory. Still, to someone with his level of mental illness, it seemed the weird web of devil sacrifices and God's reward made so much logical sense, so he acted upon them without immediate remorse. Initially, Cody was deemed incompetent to stand trial. However, after six months of mandated mental health treatment, the judge allowed the case to proceed. Cody had initially hoped to plead not guilty by reason of insanity, and from the outside looking in, it seemed like he just might get his wish. But during his mental health treatment, psychiatrist doctor Brian Falls, who did his initial evaluation, held up the diagnosis of schizo effective disorder. He said that Cody had prominent delusions and visual and auditory hallucinations. These created beliefs in Cody that others don't necessarily hold. Doctor Falls also saw prominent disordered thought, which manifested in Cody rambling a lot and going off on tangents, so during their conversations often it made their conversations very. Difficult to follow. He also noted a small degree of depression. On top of everything else, Cody reported hearing voices outside of his head at times. The day before the murder. The voices said, quote, enjoy murder, It'll be worth it. End quote. He told doctor Follows of his fascination with occult satism and the supernatural, repeating what he had told police about thinking he would get some sort of satanic award if he submitted. Despite this evaluation and clear mental illness, the judge allowed the case to proceed because the definition of insanity and Texas reads quote, A person has to be suffering from a mental disease or defect, and then as a result of that mental disease or defect, they have to not have a knowledge of the wrongfulness of their conduct at the time of the alleged defense end quote. Spoken in the simplest terms, Cody would have had to not know what he was doing at the time he shot Lorn, but as we know, that wasn't the case. Cody was able to recount in detail what happened, showing his very careful and thought out plan to murder. When he talked about shooting her in the head, he said, quote, I knew that I killed her end quote, would show that he knew what he was doing and the consequences of those actions. In the end, Cody pleaded guilty to the murder of Lorn and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for wounding Mikayla on September nineteenth, twenty eighteen, two years after the slaying. The jury deliberated for only forty minutes before landing down a guilty plea for the murder of Lorn. For her death, he was sentenced to life in prison, but will be eligible for parole after serving thirty years. He was also found guilty for the shooting of Mikayla and was sentenced to twenty years in prison. On top of prison time, he was also ordered to pay twenty thousand dollars in fines. In honor of Lauren's life and Michayla's ongoing struggles, a statue of a black horse was erected on the grounds of McNeil Middle School. The monument featured positive messages such as love and live, as well as purple and blue paup prints to honor the girl's favorite colors. Unfortunately, on October first, twenty twenty, vandals made off with the statue after forcibly removing it from its foundation, But with the help of friends and neighbors, Lauren and Michayla's families were able to commission a replacement statue. On May twenty seventh, twenty twenty one, a second memorial was placed in front of the school. Hopefully this one will truly be forever. On June eleventh, twenty nineteen, Texas passed Lauren's Law, which makes the deliberate slaying of a child under the age of fifteen a capital offense. At the time that Lauren was murdered, the law only applied to children ten and under, making Cody ineligible for the death penalty. Lauren's parents, who worked extremely hard to get the law in the books hope that the stricter guardlines will deter individuals from praying on the most vulnerable among us. The law isn't retroactive and won't affect their particular case, but they take comfort in knowing it might help and save future families from experience such horrendous pain. As for Mikayla, she has had many struggles after watching her friend get murdered. For a long time, she had a hard time detaching from her phone, constantly checking up on her friends and family, worried she is going to lose one of them. Despite her traumas, she is steadfast in her resolve to live for her friend Lauren because quote, I know it could have gone a very different way end quote. In these gruesome cases, the victims and the perpetrator are often connected, whether it's a family connection, a friend, a lover, or a coworker. There are many times red flags or small warning signs that we can piece together. But then on much more tragic occasions, we have cases like this where life is taken by complete stranger, making it difficult to make sense of it all. Hody Lot was on nobody's radar. Lauren had never met him. Her family had never met him. They may have lived in the same town, but were as much strangers as anyone can be. Yet he took the long and vibrant life she had planned for herself in one single second, ending her dreams and aspirations, and forever shattering her family. I'm not sure how we can actually make sense of these actions. I think we will forever wonder why these horrible things happen, especially at random. But I think this case can remind us of the long spoken lesson that we are never guaranteed tomorrow. We are never promised another minute in the day. So hug your kids, your partner, and your friends, and live each moment with the brightness and happiness that Lauren did. Let me know your thoughts and opinions on the case and the comments. Please hit the subscribe button on YouTube or whatever podcast platform you're listening on. You can stay. Connected with me on Instagram and TikTok at This is Stephanie Moram. You can also share your case suggestions with me at my email address steff at Stephaniemoram dot com, or you can simply send me a DM on Instagram. Thank you so much for listening to Lauren and Michayla's story. Until next time, Stay safe out there,