The Scream Murder, Episode 5: Brian vs Torey

0:00Hi, this is Connor McCarthy. Today we're back with another episode of The Scream Murder, a true teen horror story. Remember, if you can't wait for more, you can listen ahead to the entire series right now, ad-free, when you subscribe to 2020 True Crime Plus. Just click the link in the description to sign up. Terms apply. Now, here's the next episode. Hi, I'm Emily, your friend and jeweler at Shane Company, where a small box with a burgundy bow will help you win the holidays. As an in-house designer, I love creating meaningful, fine jewelry gifts. Choose a necklace with a gorgeous infinity charm to symbolize your everlasting love. Or go for a personalized piece with an engraving, their zodiac sign,

0:43favorite color gemstone, or their initial accented with pave diamonds. Because a friend wants you to be a holiday hero. Stop by or shop now at shaneco.com. Shane Company, your friend in jeweler. Eleven months after being arrested for killing Cassie Stoddard, Tory Adamczyk and Brian Draper prepare to go to trial on first-degree murder charges. Their lawyers plan to pit the accused killers against each other. The only person that confessed to stabbing Cassie was Brian. My theory was that Tory was the main actor and Brian was less culpable. And 20 years after Cassie's murder, Brian Draper and Tori Adamczyk speak. Is there anything that's off-limits for you? No, because like, literally the only

1:34shameful thing that I've really done with my life is stab Cassie. So, I mean, I can admit to that now. This is the Scream Murder True Teen Horror Story podcast. So in the last episode, we talked about who was more to blame, Tori or Brian? Who was the leader? Who was the follower? And that debate takes on a different tone in this episode because in this episode, we dive deep into the trials of Brian and Tori. Now, remember, Cassie Jo Stoddard was murdered in September of 2006. Fast forward to April of 2007. That's the first trial. And that's Brian Draper. He goes first. And he pleads not guilty despite all this evidence against him. The Drapers were standing by Brian. They had a public defender represent him.

2:31And we spoke to that public defender by the name of Dave Martinez. And this is what he had to say about his defense, his approach, with all this damning evidence and that tape, how do you represent a client like Brian Draper? Brian had been involved in soccer, had been involved in church, was a talented musician. I don't know Torrey's entire background. I don't pretend to. But I think that the interest in horror movies and things like that, I think that came from Tori. I felt like Tori was a controlling part of this relationship and that a lot of his interests had become Brian's interests. I felt that had Brian not met Tori, this never would have happened. Brian's defense chose to go first.

3:28So each trial was going to be a week, three to four days long. So Brian's trial is going to be week one at the end of April, and then immediately after is going to be Tory's trial. And remember, this was the biggest thing in Pocatello. I mean, all eyes were on this trial. One of the biggest trials ever, I would say. Probably pretty safe to say in Pocatello. Biggest. I mean, all eyes were on this. One of the biggest trials ever. I would say probably pretty safe to say in Pocatello. I think one, one point about the trial that should be noted. There were cameras in the courtroom covering each day. And in the footage, you can see on the left side of the fences, Brian Draper's parents, Carrie and Pam, there to support.

4:13On the other side, you see Cassie's family. Anna was there every day. Her brother, her sister, aunts, uncles, grandfathers, they were all there. So we have Brian Draper's parents supporting Brian, and then you have Cassie's family advocating for her. Like, these guys need to get the most severe punishment for what they did. The focus of the prosecution's case would be the tape Brian and Tori made. This is prosecutor Mark Heidemann. But on that tape, you'll see where this defendant, Tori Adekte, conspired and planned to kill Cassie Sawyer. You'll see where they eagerly anticipate carrying out that plan to kill her. You'll see at the beginning of this tape, there's a section where the murder has just been accomplished. It's moments after the

5:15murder. And you'll hear a voice on the tape. It's on the tape, you can't see. But you'll hear a voice, and the voice is that of Brian Gray. I want to tell you what that voice says. That voice says, I quote, we just killed Cassidy. Obviously the prosecution, who we haven't talked about, had a mountain. They had all this evidence. They had the tape. They had the clothes. They had Brian's statement. Here is what Dave Martinez said about how he would defend Brian Draper. And my theory was that that Torrey was the main actor and Brian was less culpable, although still part of something horrible. And that I believed that Brian assisting the police in locating the videotape that would become essential to the state's case and the masks and everything demonstrated his

6:24remorse and desire to come clean. Remember, Brian was the one who confessed, and Brian was the one who led them to the evidence. So this is also another element of the defense. Maybe Brian, because he had cooperated to the extent that he had, he deserves a break. He had confessed already. They had confessed already. They had the tape. They had the evidence. So Dave Martinez, a very difficult job here. This is the first time that a jury sees the tape and the town of Pocatello will see this tape. How do you undo that when they see it, when they hear what both, both Brian and Tori had to say on that tape? How do you get past that? Local reporter Jimmy Hancock was in court when the jury saw the

7:13tape. The first time we saw that was during the Draper trial. And it was, it was silencing. In my mind, as I'm watching it in the courtroom, I'm shocked. I'm shocked at what I'm seeing. It was something that made you just, what could you say to it when you saw it? I mean, it just held so many affirmations of what prosecution and law enforcement was saying. This show is sponsored by Vinted. It's officially fall, and it seems like everywhere you look, everybody's wearing adorable fall sweaters. And you might be ready to start shopping for your own fall wardrobe. But when your closet is already full of spring and summer styles and clothes from years past that you don't wear anymore, it's hard to find

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8:51Give your clothes a new life with Vinted. Download the Vinted app today to start listing your clothing now with no fees. That's V-I-N-T-E-D. Hi, I'm Jen, your friend and jeweler at Shane Company. As your gift insider, here are my top fine jewelry picks to give this holiday. Our tennis bracelets and diamond studs feature the prettiest hand-picked, hand-matched diamonds. We have beautiful 14-carat gold chains that make great gifts for both men and women. You can personalize a piece, too. Add an engraving, pick a natural gem in their favorite color or birthstone, or give a letter charm. Come see for yourself, in-store or at shaneco.com. Shane Company, your friend in jeweler. The holidays are busy enough.

9:34Getting your home ready shouldn't be. From the perfect tree and twinkling lights to festive decor for inside and out, Wayfair has everything you need to get your home holiday ready. Find furniture, hosting essentials, festive serveware, and more all in one place. So you can spend less time getting ready and more time enjoying the season with the people who make it special. Shop Wayfair.com today to make holiday magic at home. Once Brian's trial was over, it was time for Tori's. And again, the tape was the biggest piece of evidence for the prosecution. Here's prosecutor Mark Heidemann. The videotape is a pretty compelling piece of evidence. On the videotape is a defendant and his friend Brian Graper

10:22aspiring and planning to murder Cassie's daughter. They're both on tape. They both were planning Cassie's murder. They both talked about killing other classmates. But there were some differences in the way they were defending themselves or their lawyers were defending them. And in Torrey's case, his attorney, Bron Rommel, said on that tape, you don't hear my client say, I killed Cassie. You hear Brian say, I killed Cassie. Torrey, says Bron Rommel, never confessed. Brian confessed, says Bron Rommel. Also, the physical evidence points right at Brian. The prosecutor, meanwhile, said that Brian and Tori shared the guilt equally. And Bron, again, set the tape aside. Let's look at the hard evidence, the physical evidence. That's what we like. The mask, the

11:22knives, what was collected at the scene of the crime that can tie Brian and tie Tori to the actual murder of Cassie. And this is what he had to say. One of the most important parts of our defense and argument to the jury was that the only person that confessed to stabbing Cassie was Brian. Cassie's DNA was found on one mask. That mask was also connected by DNA to Brian. Cassie's DNA was found on one knife. That knife was connected to Brian. Cassie's DNA was found on one shirt. That DNA was connected to Brian. Those were all, in my opinion, very compelling pieces of evidence to show that Brian was the one that was there. And it's, again, important to note that no DNA connected Tori to Cassie's DNA.

12:18The prosecutors claimed that even without the DNA connection, there was more than enough to convict Tori Adamczyk. And besides, both of them tried to conceal their guilt. They left her there. Yeah. For two days, for someone to discover it, and that someone was a family member, which makes it all the more traumatic. So now it's going to be up to the jury to decide. Both trials conclude, and they go to the jury and the expected verdict comes down. Brian Draper, guilty of first degree murder. Tory Adamczyk, guilty of first degree murder. When those verdicts were read, you hear two different reactions. You hear some, I like the better word, joy and exhilaration from Cassie's family. Justice is served. And then you hear sorrow and shock and sadness from the Drapers and

13:16the Adamchecks. Here's Pam Draper about the verdict. I was at that trial every day. I heard and saw every piece of evidence. I think during the trial, we knew what was going to happen. As a parent, I watched the tape. I know what was on it. As an outside person, it's very hard to understand or live past that. But as the parent of the young 16-year-old boy, sitting there in that room every day during trial, I will say that I understand fully because I was at that trial every day during trial. I will say that I understand fully because I was at that trial every day. And this is what Tori's mother, Shannon, said about Tori's guilty verdict. So both boys were there, both boys were guilty. You know both boys played a part.

14:22So, but I really can't talk too much about the trial. They had experts just putting their theory of the case together. What I was upset about is that we did not talk about any distinction between Tori and Brian or as much about the physical evidence and the character witnesses. So one other thing that was very, very difficult is during the trial, Pocatello is a very small community and the courtroom was very small and I would see the Stoddard family and we could never talk to them. So I've never been able to apologize to them or talk to them. In August of 2007, Tori and Brian came back before Judge Peter McDermott for their sentencing. And it was at that moment we hear from Anna Stoddard, Cassie's mother.

15:23And she, as you are allowed to do as a relative of the victim, gave a victim impact statement at the sentencing. And we're going to play a portion of what she had to say right now. On September 22nd, 2006, my beautiful daughter was brutally murdered by Brian Draper and Tori Adamczyk. Little was I to know that that was going to be the last time I seen her alive. To this day, I'll never understand why two of her so-called friends would do this to her and something so terrible could happen in Pocatello, Idaho. She never deserved what happened to her that night. And I can't believe that you two boys would do this Friends don't kill friends She made sure to say friend multiple times Just to punctuate and highlight how horrendous this crime is

16:22It's not just a murder. It is a betrayal that Cassie, probably in her final seconds of her life, knew. Who was there. She had to have known it was Brian. She had to have known it was Tori because Brian said they talked to each other. She's still alive. She's not dying. Whoever said what, she knew, I believe. Even though if they were masked, she knew who was killing her. It makes it all the more terrifying for Cassie. Let's hear a little bit more from Anna. I let you come to my house. I let you take Cassie to the movies. I never knew you were going to kill her. I guess when two sick minds get together and plan something so evil, it didn't matter to you. Now I have to live every day of my life without her. I don't get to see her

17:19graduate from high school, go to college, become the lawyer she wanted to be, get married, have children, and live all the big dreams that she had, and I know she would have accomplished them all. You have destroyed the trust of everybody in this town. You just don't realize how this has affected everybody that loves Cassie. Not a day goes by that she has not thought about and missed. Now that you are found guilty of the crime, I hope that you really start to realize that you can just not go out and kill someone. You will pay the price, and I truly hope that God will judge you in the end. Life in prison is not enough, but that will assure me and my family and the community of Pocatello that you can never hurt anyone again.

18:03So Anna talks there about wanting them, Brian and Tori, to spend the rest of their lives in prison. And in August 2007, that's exactly what Peter McDermott, the judge in this case, determined would happen. He sentenced both of them at age 16 to life in prison without parole, meaning that they will die in prison for a crime they committed when they were 16 years old. A life sentence that is fixed without the possibility of parole. You both have been convicted of murder in the first degree. Cassie was savagely stabbed many times. Disguise yourselves with masks and darkness, which made it even more frightening for her. You both were excited about the killing. The killing was a cold-blooded, horrific act.

18:56And Anna Stoddard said it, and I think a lot of people in Pocatello would agree, that's exactly where they belong and for how long they belong there. Yeah, there's an interesting moment when Judge McDermott addresses Brian and Torrey after he gave him the sentence that essentially you're going to die in prison. And he said, you had a list, you had plans to harm. You know, guys, I'm sorry. You guys, like I said, you guys are kids, but I'm convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that if you were released, that you'd kill again. Obviously, Cassie's side was relieved with the outcome that they are never going to be out in society again. The Drapers and the Adamshacks, I think it would be safe to say that they were shocked that juveniles, 16-year-old kids, can be sentenced to life without parole.

19:50And this is what Pam Draper said. As a parent, 16, life without parole is cruel at 16. That's my take as a parent. is cruel at 16. That's my take as a parent, and it probably would have been my take as a parent no matter who it was. I believe that even Tori. Brian asked me this when I said, because we're the only country in the world that throws our juvenile children away for life and never have a possibility of parole. A juvenile does not have, they can't even vote. They can't even drive until they're 16. He was barely responsible enough, according to the court system and according to our laws, to even have a license. And here's what Shannon Adamczyk, Tori's mother, had to say about the sentence.

20:53I thought they're going to get a very long prison sentence. They were both found guilty. They're being sentenced together. This is going to be a long prison sentence. And at that time, in my mind, 30 years was a long prison sentence. Life without parole was incomprehensible. She's reacting in human terms, but this theme that she's talking about, is this fair, life in prison without parole for a juvenile? We're going to get much deeper into that later on. But that is a very emotional reaction from a mom who doesn't want her son to be in prison until the day he dies. I think there's, you know, on Cassie's side, obviously they think he's in the right place. And there were friends of all of the parties,

21:46Tori, Brian, Cassie, who had their own opinions. I think Tori and Brian are right where they belong. And I think that they should stop bringing things up, trying to appeal their sentences, trying to act innocent, trying to portray themselves to their own families as innocent. I think that they should just sit down, shut up, and take your punishment. That's what you did something wrong, and you deserve to pay the price just like you did to Cassie. She doesn't get a second life, and neither should you. Sums it up. I think most people in Pocatello would agree with that sentiment, you know, that the punishment fits the crime. There weren't many in opposition of the sentence. One thing we wanted to do when we set out to make the documentary originally

22:42was so often with these crimes, people believe that the story ends at the sentencing. Perpetrators are locked away. Everyone is supposed to just go back to their lives as they were. So in the eyes of the court, the story is over. But 20 years has gone by, and there is no way that people can just go forward with their life. Cassie's family has to continue. Cassie's brother was a year younger than Cassie. He had to finish high school with this trauma that had been inflicted on his family. The Drapers, they had to go back. They had younger children they still had to raise. You know, you do have to go back to a life. The other thing that struck us both when we went to Pocatello to do this documentary, everyone we talked to, they knew all the circumstances of the case.

23:36And they would also say like, oh, my cousin went to school with Cassie or my nephew took art class with Cassie, or I remember Brian, they knew it like it would happen. In a small town, it's impossible to not have a connection to it. So Josh, Brian Draper's high school buddy, skate partner, he took me to the skate park that's still there today that he and Brian Draper went to all the time. And there's a new generation of skaters out there. They're 14, 15, 16 years old. And hey, what are you doing? What are you doing? You got a big camera. And we tell them and they said, oh, yeah, they all knew who Cassie was. And they weren't even alive in 2006. So this crime is being passed down generation, generation. It's always going to be a part of, unfortunately,

24:21of the fabric of Pocatello. I was talking to the Drapers and the Adamchecks. How did they move on? And I asked Pam about the days after the trial, after the sentencing, Brian's gone. And she actually had a run-in with one of Cassie's family members. And it was, I found it was found it was quite profound. After the trial, my daughter and I went to lunch at a new restaurant in town. We sat down, got the menus, and people were talking and pointing and looking, and I was used to that by then. But the waitress came up and said, I just need to let you know I'm Cassie's family. And she said, I just want to thank you for the kindness and the respect you've shown my family. And I've heard that from a couple of family members.

25:28And it doesn't relieve the guilt. At all. Because I will live with that forever. But that's all I can do. Is show my daughter at that point when she was so young how to still live our lives in that community and try not to be hated because we were. But her family was very kind to us. That's a really powerful thing to talk about, the siblings, because we can lay blame, anyone can lay blame on the parents. You weren't there enough. You were there too much. I'm sure they're just constantly spinning in their head, what did I miss, what did I do, what I didn't do. But there are siblings that just get taken down with everyone else because of the action of their brother. But the fact that Cassie's family said, you know,

26:29like, actually showed her some empathy is, as you said, wholly unexpected and quite powerful. Brian's dad was an experience I wasn't expecting. The physical, first I want to say, is the physical transformation. When I met him in person, he was unrecognizable to the person we saw at trial, the person we saw sitting next to Brian in the police interview room. He had shed probably 75, 100 pounds. I couldn't believe, from when I first encountered this story, the change in him physically to when I saw him when we did the documentary, I couldn't, it's the same guy. Different person. It really wasn't the same guy. He really, he wasn't, he wasn't the same guy at all. He'd grown his hair long. He had now had a

27:15long red ponytail. You could see the grief in his eyes of what his family, as he took ownership of what his family had done. But listen to this. This is him talking about that very thing, the transformation, the before and the after. Yeah, we had a lot of money. Yeah, I mean, the house that we lived in at the time was a 5,500-square-foot house on a hill with an RV storage and four-car garage on the house and another seven car garage sitting next to it with a giant bmx track in the backyard and a stream running through the yard and a mountain behind us and we'd have deer in our backyard and moose in our backyard it was it was and we lived on the right street in po Pocatello where all the rich

28:06people lived. And we had the biggest house in the neighborhood. And I drove a Mercedes and my wife drove a Lexus. We traveled anywhere we wanted to go. We had plenty of money. Feels so unimportant now. And when we left Pocatello, I didn't even try to sell stuff. I literally gave everything away. Gave it away. And things that weren't paid off, I just stopped paying the bills. Stopped paying the bills. I lost well over a million dollars in real estate alone. I wanted to leave. I wanted to give all I could away and disappear. Hi, I'm Jen, your friend and jeweler at Shane Company. As your gift insider, here are my top fine jewelry picks to give this holiday. Our tennis bracelets and diamond studs feature the prettiest hand-picked hand-matched

29:10diamonds. We have beautiful 14-carat gold chains that make great gifts for both men and women. You can personalize a piece too. Add an engraving, pick a natural gem in their favorite color or birthstone, or give a letter charm. Come see for yourself in-store or at shaneco.com. Shane Company, your friend in jeweler. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task, unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website to marketing to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz, and Allbirds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into...

29:56Sign up for your $1 per month trial at shopify.com slash special offer. Twas many nights before Christmas, and one woman knew she needed a Christmas tree. So to Wayfair she flew, finding just the right one, and for years it will last. Wayfair shipping was free, and remarkably fast. What's this? Garland? A wreath? Essentials to host? Good thing she celebrates way longer than most. As her cart filled with magic and decor from the heart, Merry Christmas to all. Get your Wayfair head start. For holiday decor you can count on year after year, Wayfair delivers. You feel for the guy, you do, because he didn't put on that mask and he didn't walk up those stairs and stab Cassie to death. His son did. He's paying the price. He's doing time

30:41right alongside his son almost. Yeah, yeah. We're going to get deeper into that. But he was very aware of Cassie the entire time we're talking to him and never wanted to forget Cassie, didn't want to just brush it aside. And the first time I reached out to him, he said, I will do this. I will talk to you. I'll sit down and tell you my story if in any way it can just help ease the suffering. And he takes ownership, the suffering caused by my family and caused by Tori Adamshack. So it's pretty clear listening to Kerry Draper that he is, in a sense, serving this sentence alongside Brian. He's outside the walls. Brian's inside the walls. And we've heard from pretty much everybody, except for the guys inside the walls, Torrey and Brian. But you spoke to both of them at length. Now, I've talked to killers before in my career, but not in quite the way you did.

31:50Many, many times over and over, lots of interviews with them. I think we made the decision to reach out to Brian and Tori if we were just going to go there and just really tell this story and get as many people, as many perspectives as we could on why this happened, how it happened. And there wasn't a way to do it without talking to Brian and Tori themselves. Now they are 35, 36-year-old men. They're nearing middle age, hair's thinning. They look totally different. They grew up incarcerated from 16 on. And so I thought that was going to be a unique perspective of like, how are they looking back to this crime? And so I conducted a series of interviews, both video and phone calls with Brian and Tori over a course of three months.

32:36What's it like, you know, that first icebreaker? You're talking to a sadistic, knife-wielding killer, you know, picking up the phone, like, you know, what's the strategy? Or you just let it fly? What do you do? So I just, I wanted to make sure that I had to connect them on some level so I could actually get honest answers out of them and how these two kids got to the point where they were, you know, they decided to murder someone. And Brian Draper was first. Talked to Brian Draper first. And this is what he had to say. Growing up, pretty normal everyday childhood. My friends in the neighborhood, we used to play hide and seek, just doing like normal everyday stuff. I was always empathetic and emotional when I was a kid, but I wasn't

33:25connected with it. I didn't understand why I felt so intense about the world around me. And so it just scared me and haunted me and tortured me. I had all these crazy dreams about being this amazing skateboarder. It was just a need to feel important and special. As I got older, that got polluted and twisted and contorted into something that was terrible. But then, he said, around seventh grade is when this something dark began invading inside of him. This is what he says. I could go to school and nothing I did mattered. Like, nothing I did made an effect on anybody around me. inside of him. This is what he says. to me and I thought that that was through violence and over time and like getting older in here I just realized how stupid that was but that's how I thought and I thought that because movies and TV

34:32and the internet and online and everyone respects a villain everyone thinks villains were cool in movies so I'm fine well like you're a villain in real life and everybody would think I was cool you know he's talking about villains in movies being cool. And this goes back to what we were talking about earlier, how he and Tori Adamczyk were just steeped in horror movies, watching them over and over, obsessing about them, the Scream series in particular. And he found a couple of real-life villains that he kind of patterned himself after. Not Billy and Stu from Scream, but Columbine. That shooting opened up a path for kids like me to follow. I thought that I could emulate those shooters. I wanted people to think of Columbine when they saw me, to be free to meet, because I

35:24identified with them. I went online and I constantly chatted online of people who worshipped these kids. They thought they were the coolest things on the planet. I watched everything, all their home videos. I watched those things every day, every day. And that's how I identified. I bought a trench coat and I wore it like it was a jersey. I mean, that's really shocking to hear somebody had sort of hero worship. Not just him. He's online with other kids talking about this, about how he saw Klebold and Harris, the Columbine shooters, as like a model. He bought a trench coat because they had one. That's the first time I've ever heard that, that these guys were viewed as heroes. There's a lot more of the conversation

36:10with Brian I had, but I want to move over to Torrey, who was a bit more of a mystery to me because he had never fully admitted to participating in Cassie's crimes. Torrey was a little more difficult to get to agree to do an interview. So when I finally got him on a phone call, he started off the conversation in a way that I was not expecting at all. Hello, you have a call at no expense to you from... Tori Adamczyk. An inmate at Idaho Maximum Security Institution. To accept this call, press 5. Before my arrest, I had an uneventful life. I didn't read. There was nothing particularly good or bad worth mentioning. Up until September 22nd, no one, including me, could have predicted that this would have happened.

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