Ep 49 | Randy Armbruster Transcript

Ep 49 | Randy Armbruster
Transcript

Before we begin this podcast, please be advised that the following episode contains language that some listeners may find offensive and inappropriate. The opinions expressed by the host and guests are their own and do not reflect the views of the podcast producers. Listener discretion is advised.

Too bad you can't do that in life. You know, I sure would've hit the rewiring button and go a different route, but you know, things happen. I just feel I didn't give a shit at the time because, you know, I just had a bad attitude. I was just mad at the world back then because nothing was going right.

Couldn't get no job . Tell you the truth, it was kind of like this Johnny Cash song was stuck in my head. Shout out to man and Reno just to watch him die. You definitely killed him and it was definitely in cold blood. Most of you, I think, are sorry for what you did and I give you that opportunity. It destroyed both my lives.

It definitely did. I'll be, I'll get 69 when I get out and I came in at 19. If they let me go, you know what I'm saying? You are now listening to the podcast Voices of a Killer. I'm bringing you the stories from the perspective With the people that have taken the life of another human and their current situation thereafter in prison, you'll see that although these are the folks that we have been programmed to hate, they all have something in common.

They are all humans like us that admit that they made a mistake. Will you forgive them or will you condemn them? They're currently serving time for their murders, and they give us an inside glimpse of what took place when they killed and their feelings on the matter. Now, here are the voices of those who have killed.

Imagine if a line in a song. In 1980, in DeSoto, Missouri, 19 year old Randy Armbruster shot his long time friend at a party because of a single lyric in a 1950s folk song that brought on a fit of anger and rage. Nearly 50 years on from that day, Randy Randy is now far removed from the rash and purposeless teenager he once was.

In this episode, we invite him to walk us through that life altering moment from his now mature perspective and to reflect on the compounding factors that resulted in Randy pulling the trigger of a shotgun and destroying the lives of two young men. What makes somebody capable of killing their childhood friend?

How does the law reckon with a violent and deliberate murder? And most difficult of all, how can we separate the man from the crime in killings as brutal and cold blooded as Randy's? These are some of the questions we will seek answers to as we revisit Randy's half century old crime on this episode of Voices of a Killer.

So Randy, where are you from? Jefferson County, a little town called DeSoto, Missouri. DeSoto, you said? Okay. Born and raised, grew up there all your life, did you ever move away? Yeah, I lived there pretty much all my life. What did your parents do growing up in such a small town? My mom worked at a tube factory, my dad worked at a little ice cream plant.

Yeah, what year were you born? Sixty. 1960s, so that, how old are you now? 62, I'll be 63 next month. Wow, okay. Did you have any siblings growing up? Any brothers and sisters? Yeah. Yeah, I got a sister, yeah, a sister a year older than me. Do you still have a relationship with your sister and your parents? Well, my mom and dad just died a couple years ago, all I got left is my sister.

You talk to her? Yeah. Yeah, I text her and stuff. She's a year older than me. What was your childhood like growing up in small town DeSoto? It was alright. Same as everybody else's, you know. Went to school, graduated from high school in 1979. Nah, they got divorced when I was 8 years old, dawg. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I kind of had to grow up without, you know, without your parents being there.

I worry about that because I'm a divorced parent. You know, I worry about my kids, but I didn't experience that as a child. Both my parents are still together today, but I'm a divorced parent, so it makes me wonder what my kids go through. So, was that pretty hard on both you and your sister? Yeah, cause we had to live with our mom, our dad, and dad went away to Arizona State for years and we didn't even see him.

Had to grow up without his pops, you know? Did he try to see you? Nah. He ran off down there and stayed for years and never seen him for a long time. Oh, wow. Yes. What was that like? Him not reaching out to you and just leaving like that? You know, kind of sad, you know, you miss out on having a bomb and dad experience.

Like stuff out you got, yeah, kind of on your own. After interviewing a lot of prison inmates on this podcast, I've started to pick up on a recurring pattern. More often than not, individuals who commit violent crimes started off life in a dysfunctional or abusive family home. That fact is backed up by stats and studies in which criminal activity is strongly correlated with early childhood trauma.

The cost of a broken childhood is high in the US, and it's a reminder that we need to prioritize policies that fix this core problem in order to effectively prevent crime later down the line. Talking to Randy, I quickly learned that his life has followed a similar bleak trend. Born and raised in small town DeSoto in the 70s, Randy Armbruster was a child of Child of Divorce Whose Father Had Abandoned the Family and Hopped States to Arizona.

Randy describes the void his father's absence left in his childhood home as Randy lacked a stable role model at a formative time in his life. Of course, it's important to note that most kids who come from divorced homes don't end up in jail, but in Randy's case, the absence of his father surely left a lasting impact.

What happened, I wondered, that took him from an 8 year old kid playing on the DeSoto streets to where he is today, an aging man stuck behind the walls of the Jefferson City Jail. Whenever you got out of high school, what'd you do? Well, I joined the Navy, uh, U. S. Navy in 1979, so I got out of high school.

Stayed in there about a year. Yeah, thank you for your service. Yes, sir. Did you get discharged, like a criminal discharge or something? No, I got an honorable discharge, but I hadn't caught this case. What happened to get discharged? I got an honorable discharge, I was done with that, and I was out for six months before I caught this case.

Okay. Okay, so you were in the military, you got an honorable discharge, and you're done with the military. Later on. No matter how long it is, it's still later on, you caught a case. Right. Now, after, whenever you got this discharge from the military, why did the military discharge you? To adjust to military life.

I completed boot camp and all that, and I did good, but it was all voluntary back then, and you could get out. Okay. I mean? No, I don't. So, it was an honorable discharge, but you, something was, to where they actually kicked you out. No, I didn't get kicked out. I just left. You had a choice after you did finish training.

Okay. I'll admit that I know, I have, so I'm a, I'm the youngest of four boys and I have all three of my older brothers went to the military, I'm the only one that didn't, for whatever reason, and I feel like I know a little bit about it, but I'm sure there's going to be somebody out there that hears this is going to check it, but I was almost certain that if somebody joins the army, You don't just leave.

Okay, we'll move on from that. What would cause you to not adjust to military life? Were you going through some changes, some things like personally, you feel like? Yeah, it felt like I was being in prison, you know, I was just going after being out of high school. Yeah. And I decided I'd rather just go and get a regular job.

You kind of went into a strict environment and just didn't really want to deal with that, basically? Right, it felt like I was in prison, and like I say, it was all voluntary. Yeah. Okay, so whenever you did leave there, you got work? Yeah, I had a job. Where did you go to work? I had a job working for a school from 3.

30 to 11. 30 on the, you know, second shift, Oh, yeah. Okay. Doing the janitor. Oh, janitorial stuff. I got you. So, how long did you do that for? Uh, six months. That's when you caught this case? Yeah, I got laid off. Were you going through some trouble at this job? Yeah, I got laid off from the job and started to run around getting drunk and high and shit.

Were you getting drunk and high at work? No, I just got laid off because of a cut back in 1980. At 19, Randy found himself at a precarious fork in the road in his life. By 1980, he was at a loose end with limited prospects and a short lived stint in the U. S. Navy behind him. Despite enlisting right out of school, Randy elected to exit the Navy just after completing his basic training.

CITING A STRUGGLE TO ADAPT TO MILITARY LIFE. THIS TYPE OF DISCHARGE IS AN ENTRY LEVEL, NEUTRAL DISCHARGE. IT'S A VOLUNTARY CHOICE A RECRUIT CAN MAKE IF THEY REALIZE THAT THEY'RE NOT A GOOD FIT FOR THE RIGOROUS DEMANDS OF THE MILITARY. NAVY LIFE ISN'T FOR THE FAINT OF HEART. And possibly Randy felt he had bitten off more than he could chew at 19.

He describes military life as a quote unquote prison, a punitive and restrictive institution in which a young man fresh out of high school might feel trapped. But Randy's life outside the military had its own set of challenges. After working briefly as a school janitor, Randy was laid off, a casualty of the recession that spread across the U.

S. in the early 80s. So began a difficult period of unemployment. In which Randy, young and angry with the world around him, fell wayward into a directionless existence and spent his days drinking and getting high.

I don't want to do this anymore. I want to do my own thing, even though I committed to the military. What was your life like? Were you really effed off doing drugs and really just partying and stuff? Yeah, I was, you know, a lot, like I said, I lost my job and I just didn't have shit and I couldn't get no, I had to look, try to get other jobs and couldn't get none back then.

Level with me, what kind of drugs were you doing back then? I was just smoking weed and drinking, that's all. That's it? You weren't doing anything else? I don't know, I wouldn't do no hard drugs, no kind of drug drugs, but drinking, you get screwed up when you're drinking, I'm drinking whiskey and vodka. No, I know, I guarantee, I promise you, I believe that 100%.

I just, usually, Missouri involved, the 80s, maybe I'm thinking some meth, I don't know, but I don't know, it was really bad back then. Okay, so, the victim in your case, how do you know them? We went to high school together. Oh, okay. Yeah, we all went to high school together. Was this a girl or a guy? That was a guy.

Okay, it was a friend of yours? Yeah, 17 and I think I was like maybe 18, 19. What did y'all do together in high school? Y'all just hung out and partied and stuff? Yeah, we were like neighbors and lived up. Neighbors on the same street? Yeah, just a little bit down the road, like a mile away. Did y'all hang around each other even before high school as kids?

Yeah, pretty much just the high school. We all grew up together, we were just young kids. What's something memorable about this person that you can remember y'all having a really good time back when you were kids? Like I said, when we went to high school, sometimes I'd see him in the library and help him out with shit because I was a couple years ahead of him, so.

Did y'all hang out together besides high school? Did y'all party together? Yeah, a couple times. No, not really. You know, we're just friends and living in the same little neighborhood.

And we had been drinking, and earlier that day, we had gotten into a fight. I think I was like 19. Right. Yeah. Well, you said y'all were getting into an argument about something. What was the argument about initially? I don't remember that, but we, like I said, we got into a fight, and that kind of pissed me off.

A physical fight? We got in a fight, fist fight. Did he get the best of you? Yeah, earlier that day, and I was like, you know, young and angry and drunk. Sure, yeah, I get it. So, uh, later on, I just, you know, I had a bad attitude when I was young like that, and I said, later on that day, I just went and got a gun, went and got a gun, went and hunted down.

So, why are you guys mad at each other? Uh, I can't even say back then, you know, you're about to go kill this guy and you don't remember what you're mad at him about. Oh yeah. Okay. Well, you lost me on that, but, so we had got into a fight earlier, right? Right. And what's that fight about? I don't know.

Something happened where he, I got blamed for something I didn't do. Then we got into a fight. Did he blame you for stealing some shit? No. I think he stole some gas outta my car. I mean, y'all are kind of blaming each other on stuff. That's why the, the first fight started. I mean, is that what you remember?

Right, right. I was mad because we got in a fight. I just feel I didn't give a shit at the time, because you know, I just had a bad attitude. Have y'all ever been in a big fight like this before? No. It's difficult to get much out of Randy about his fight with Roy Craig Jr. on August 10th. This would be a consequential, defining moment in Randy's life.

Yet, ironically, he can't even recall the trigger that incited the fight in the first place. What made Roy angry? How did the fight break out? Nearly 50 years have passed since the Alcohol Haze Day, and perhaps the answers to those questions are now lost in the ravages of Randy's memory. The history between Randy and Roy ran deep.

Roy was somebody that Randy had known for the entirety of his life. The boys grew up a mile away from each other on the same street in DeSoto. A year apart in age, they sat together regularly at the high school library and partied together too. This fight in August 1980 was therefore a significant tear in a long standing friendship.

From court documents, we know that Randy and Roy weren't alone that evening, but were joined by a friend, Jim Frazier. who would later become a key witness at Randy's trial. In Jim's account of the fight, Roy struck Randy several times, then left. An intoxicated Randy then turned to Jim and vowed that he would quote unquote, get even with Roy.

With these words, Randy set his sights on revenge, and he wouldn't wait long to enact it. More on Randy's grim decision after the break.

Okay, so, after the fight, what would cause you to say, I'm going to go get my gun? Ha, to tell you the truth, it was kind of like this Johnny Cash song was stuck in my head. Shout out to Manny Reno just to watch him die. I got to tell you man, I don't think I was as skilled as this guy, he wouldn't have liked it.

Uh, I guess you were into music a lot at the time? Oh yeah, I still listen to lots of music. The Johnny Cash song comes on, where were you at when it came on? Oh, in my car riding around. You know, stare at car shells. Obviously this is back before cell phones and texting and all that, so whenever this Johnny Cash song came on, How far before that had you seen him face to face because you're not going to be talking on to him with a cell phone and all that.

When did you see him before that song came on this last time where you triggered you? Okay. So were you feeling the vibe of the music and decided to say F it and do your thing? For real? That's really what you were kind of like doing? I just had a bad attitude back then. Just didn't really give a shit about things young and mad.

And I think that honestly, dude, I, I, I, I think about the maturity of people. 'cause they say the human brain doesn't develop till 25 and sometimes a little bit later. And I think every guy out there can look back and think that how silly or dumb they were or just didn't really gather everything like they do now as a 40, you know, 30, 40, 50 year old.

So I get that 100%. Anybody that's listening probably can know what I'm talking about. But To be in a situation where you push some things to where you're going to not only kill somebody, but you're going to be inspired by a song, go through the process of grabbing the gun, and then traveling somewhere to do it, there's a lot of time to kind of reflect, which is what the law, and the law looks at that a lot.

So where was the gun at, your house? What kind of gun was it? That's what got shotgun. Oh really? Like a 12 gauge? That was like a 20 gauge, but it still is. I don't know if you've seen somebody, you've probably heard of them. Well, here's the thing, I'm, if there's any gun out there I'm familiar with, it's shotguns.

So did you have some bird rounds, or like some slugs? Uh, it was a 20 gauge, it was a modified, it had a modified thing on it, whatever that means, made it But the shells, were they birdshot or buckshot or what? Was it a slug? Regular buckshot. Yeah, regular buckshot. Was it a sawed off barrel? No, it was a regular shotgun.

Whenever you went and got the gun, did you load up all the rounds that you could put into it? No, it was just a single shot. I put the shell in it, yeah. Oh, it was a single shot 20 gauge? Did you load one shell into it while you were at the house, or did you just bring it with you? Yeah, I loaded it up because I had an intent to shoot the guy.

So, whenever you got the gun, where did you know Roy to be, the victim? There was a little store down the road from our house where they had foosball, a little mini mart store. Everybody hung out down there, so I knew he'd be hanging out down there later on that night. How far did you have to drive whenever you loaded up in the car to where the victim was?

It was about a mile down the road. So when you're driving down the road this time, what kind of music are you listening to? I don't think I was even listening to music at that time. What were you driving? I had a 72 Oldsmobile Cutlass car. 72 Cutlass. 72 Cutlass. Yeah, it's a nice car back in the day, it was like number one in the market.

I know exactly what you're talking about. So you're driving down the road in this Cutlass. And you don't have the music on this time, or do you? No, I didn't. I don't. Yeah, I didn't. Did you drive the speed limit, take your time getting there? Yeah, I had to go look. I was going on 10, looking him up. So in this moment, you're driving this mile, do you recall any thoughts about your future 10, years from that day?

Or did you think about his family, friends, or did you think about how This would affect or look or feel later. Did you feel any of that on the way? What did you feel? I just, I wasn't, like I said, I was just a stupid kid. And so Randy, I believe 100 percent that you were a kid. The eyes of the law and some of the things that you experienced take you away from being a child.

Um, one is that it's, you know, graduating, going into the military, um, but I, even children don't know not to harm anybody also, though, like 10 year olds know that they're not supposed to harm anybody and you can put a gun out and most 10 year olds know that, hey, you That'll kill someone and that's not right.

So, did you care if it was right or wrong then? Nah, I didn't. But, you know, like I said, I was just a dumb kid, didn't think about the consequences of it. If I could go back, I wouldn't have did it, you know, now. I'm sure, and I believe that 100%. I'm sure that you look at it now and say, wow, that was just a mistake.

It was completely not the right thing to do. Johnny Cash's 1953 hit, Folsom Prison Blues, has become somewhat of an anthem for a young The song cemented Cash's public image as an outlaw at the time and marked him as a champion of rebellious adolescents across the country. Cash drew inspiration from a Californian maximum security prison that gives the song its name.

To write it, he tried to imagine the most heinous, perverse reason somebody could have to kill another human being. This led him to write the iconic line from the song, I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. It was this single lyric that inspired Randy to kill Roy. In our most emotionally charged moments, music can transport us to a new state of mind, and a single minded resolution took hold of Randy.

Perhaps Randy resonated with the lyric for its apathy for the status quo, and its callous disregard for the world. for the value of human life. With this lyric rolling around Randy's head, he loaded up a 20 gauge buckshot shotgun, claimed that he was going out to hunt rabbits, and drove down the highway with the single purpose of killing his childhood friend.

One criticism that's been leveled against Folsom City Blues is that it romanticizes criminal violence. Certainly, Randy seemed to miss the lyric that follows in the same verse of the song. After shooting the guy in Reno, the protagonist of the film, Cash's song hangs his head and cries as the real world consequences of his actions catch up with him.

With a blow, he realizes that he stripped himself of his own freedom. As Randy drove a mile down the road to Steve's Mini Mart in his old 72 Cutlass, he had plenty of time to reconsider the consequences of shooting Roy as he calmed down and the alcohol wore off. However, he didn't. Randy failed to take this opportunity to do so.

Whenever you pull up at this place, what's the outside look like? Is it a full lot of cars there, and what was the business again? It was just a little, like, mini mart grocery store. It had some little foosball tables and stuff in there for going. And what is the victim, Roy, what does he do there? What is his business there?

Oh, he used to go there to play Swiss ball or whatever, hang out. Okay, how often would you hang out with him there? Just every now and then, we wasn't rich or nothing, you know. Did you feel like whenever you were gonna walk in there that you would know exactly where he would be? Well, yeah, I've seen his car, so I knew he'd be there.

So whenever you walked in, a shotgun is not something you really conceal, it's like you either got it or you don't. Who's the first person that saw you with that gun? In the parking lot or anywhere? I had this car pulled up and seen me with it. What did they say? Oh, they didn't say nothing. They, you know, I had a gun pointed at it.

You pointed it at the person that pulled up? Like, threatening them? No, I had to Oh. As soon as that car pulled up, I had to point the gun at him. And I just, I started not to Not to Roy. Yeah. Where was he at? Where was Roy? Standing there while I had the gun pointed at him. Okay. Hold on. Outside the store. Is Roy outside of the store?

Right. He was outside. Okay. So you didn't even have to go inside. He was already out there. Right. Whenever your car pulled up, did he stare at you before he saw the gun, you get out? Was he looking at your car? Yeah. Whenever he was looking at you, did it look like he was, him happy to see you, or a little bit indifferent, or like mad?

Nah, he wasn't mad. Was he happy to see you, was he indifferent, or was he mad to see you? Yeah, I'd say he was, uh, wondering what I was up to. Okay. Why would, I mean, you go there all the time, why would he wonder what you're up to? We had gotten to a fight earlier that day. So he's indifferent. Okay, so whenever you open up the door, how far away from is Roy, the victim, from your car whenever you open the door?

10 feet. 10 feet. Yeah, I remember that. He's in front of your car? Whenever you get out, did you take the shotgun with you? Yeah, I got out, pointed at him, shot him. And what's the first look on his face when he noticed that you had a gun? Scared. Did he put his hands up and say, don't do it? Or did he just have a scared look?

I, you know, it happened too fast. I, he looked at me, I pulled a gun up and I shot him because like I said, I went there with the intent. There wasn't no talking. So whenever you raised the gun, did you put it to your hip or did you put it No, I just, uh, just pointed at his chest, pulled the trigger 10 foot away.

What happened to him whenever it hit him? Did he look at you in the face whenever you did that? I pointed the gun at him, pulled the trigger, like say it was 10 back. Did he fall on his butt? Yeah, he knocked him down and I got in the car and I got out of there. You jumped in the car and left? Yeah. Did he fall back on his back and was still moving whenever you left?

No, as soon as I shot him, he got killed immediately. I hit him in the chest. Did anybody else witness that? Just some people in that car, I think. Randy, so you know that you did that so open and blatantly that there's, you know, no getting away, I mean, how did you resolve yourself right then and there? Were you like, well, I'll just.

You know, go have my last drink or, or what did you do? Man, I just got out. I didn't figure, I dunno, man, I wasn't thinking about all that. You know, I just shot the guy with, like I say, dumb ass thing to do. Randy's description of shooting Roy is striking. He calls it a quote unquote dumb ass thing to do.

Recklessness is the hallmark of youth and we've all made some dumb stupid decisions. We later regret as kids, but it seems like an understatement to call shooting a childhood friend in cold blood. One of those dumb decisions. The shooting took place near Steve's Mini Mart, which sat at the junction of Highways JJ and 67.

Steve's was a regular hangout spot in town, which Roy and Rusty frequented to play foosball together. Rusty knew this was where Roy would be, as he pulled up into the parking lot that evening. The events of the shooting are a blur. Rusty states that Roy was already outside the Mini Mart when he arrived.

In later testimony, Rusty told police that Roy walked towards him. Confused by his presence and wondering if he'd run out of gas, at this moment Rusty lifted his pistol and shot. As official documents state, Roy, catching sight of the gun, tried to run to the other end of the highway until the bullet hit him and he fell down.

The autopsy would find that the shape of the gunshot wound was oval, an indication that Randy shot from an angle as Roy ran away. Rusty fled the scene, returning back to his home as Roy bled to death from a traumatic gunshot wound. The shooting hit. Happened on a busy highway at night with possible witnesses around.

So it's not surprising that the police quickly cottoned onto the murder and linked Randy to the crime more on that. After the break,

do you feel like at the time you really had that much hate in you to in someone's life over whatever it was that you can't even really remember? Yeah, I was just mad at the world back then because nothing was going right. Couldn't get no job. So this was also very, like a lot of external stuff from your life was building up to and, you know, the loss of your, the military and the job and all that, everything was, you felt was coming down on you.

Yeah, it's like the whole world just, you know, went to shit on me. Were you very depressed at the time? Yep. Where did you go after you shot Roy? I went back home. Who'd you live with? I stayed with my dad at the time. Was he home? No, he wasn't home that night. What did you do when you got home? When I got home, I went and got, just went back and climbed bed, man.

What'd you do with the gun? I You got in bed? Did you wake up the next morning? I got arrested like three hours later in the middle of the night. They, they, uh, had a warrant to come inside and get you. Yeah, because I had, like I said, I was talking and I had forgot all about the fight, so that's why I connected them to looking for me and then they put it all together after that.

Have you ever gotten hate mail from the victim's family? No, but I think I started the family, I started a family feud though. They all wanna kill me. How's that? His family, you know, they all hate me and shit. Like I'm kind of cold blooded. Well, I guess I am as far as just shooting somebody, but Yeah, but I ain't no man.

Right, right. It ain't like I just don't know how to do it. I'm doing that all the time, you know, I want to do that shit, it just happens. No, but one life is pretty big to a lot of people, it's their whole everything. So whether you kill a million or one, that one has people, that's their entire lives, that's their family, their loved one.

If you ever have kids, you'll understand that. Or even just, you know, if somebody did that to your mom or dad, it's bad. You know, when I do this podcast, a lot of people probably kind of get it. I think maybe that I'm not thinking about the victim, but I definitely am. I just look for injustices and make sure that the public knows that you guys, most of you, I think, are sorry for what you did and I give you that opportunity.

And that's that. Are you sorry for what you did? Oh yeah, definitely. I wish it would never happen. You can't go back in time, change nothing. So, yeah, if you think about it. If you have a loved one that somebody did that to, they want you dead. You know that? At the center of every case like this is a grieving family that August 9th Roy Craig Jr's family lost a son and a brother, and in a tight knit town where everyone knows everybody else, their pain must have been palpable.

Tragically, Roy's father was one of the first people to find his son lying along the highway. A few minutes earlier, he'd started to worry that Roy hadn't come home in time and left to check on him. Rounding a curve on the highway, he saw a gathered crowd and stopped. Roy's father was the one to identify the body as his dead son.

In the early hours of the next Monday morning, police interrupted Randy's sleep and arrested him for the murder of Roy. Randy gave three tape recorded statements while in police custody. In the second, at 5. 49 a. m., Randy finally admitted to shooting Roy. An expended shell was recovered in the woods at the back of Randy's house, and as Randy was charged, the hard consequences of his actions caught up with him.

Today, Randy rejects being labeled as a quote unquote cold blooded killer. He has since taken accountability for committing a shocking crime, but he insists that his crime does not define him nor does it make him an evil, irredeemable person. The past 50 years of Randy's life have been determined by this one cold hearted and reckless decision he made from a place of anger with the cards his life had dealt him.

Like many, with the sobering effect of many years in prison, Randy now deeply regrets the crime that cut Roy's short prematurely and Destroyed the course of his own whenever they took you into jail. That was, that's the last time you were ever free again, wasn't it? Were you surprised? I mean, you just went to bed like as if, I mean, it's not like it was a secret what happened.

You kind of did it out in the middle of everything, right? Yeah. I didn't figure I'd get so much time. Did you pretty much know that you were gonna go to prison? For sure. Yeah. Whenever you did that, even before, after, you know, what kind of time did you think you would get from that, in your head? Ah, 20 years or something, because I never had no criminal record or nothing, I've never done nothing wrong.

So about 20 years, and what did you get? It shows me life, where I got served minimum of 50 years. For capital murder. Life with a minimum of 50 years for, cause it's capital. Why? Because you planned it out and drove down there and had all the time in the world to say, this is not the right thing to do.

Right. Yeah. I mean, it's pretty deep too. Cause I mean, every guy out there knows that we've been mad at people before. And, and, but that's a lot of time to really reflect and drive down a mile down the road and get out and him to look at you in the face. That's pretty deep, man. Do you ever have nightmares about it?

No, I'm gonna hate that it happened. He got dead and I got sent to prison. It destroyed both our lives. It definitely did. Did you plead guilty? I plead not guilty, but if they had all the evidence they do, I was guilty. So you plead not guilty and now that everything's all done, you're just going to go ahead and tell me that it's, you were guilty is basically what you're saying?

Yeah, they know I was guilty, but I wasn't going to plead guilty because they were trying to give me the death penalty, you know, I had all that evidence and stuff against me. Well, usually if you plead not guilty and they find you guilty on capital murder, that's what, that's what makes you get the Death penalty, right?

Whenever you try to say that you weren't, I thought, you couldn't come up with it, they didn't offer you a plea deal, say, you, you say you're guilty and we won't give you the death penalty, they didn't do that? The only thing you could get with the capital murder charge back then was either a life sentence where you served 50 years, or the death penalty.

The jury recommended 11 to 1 that I get life, 50 years, no promise for the death penalty. That was the only choice that there was. Do you think you should be put to death? No. Are you locked up with people that are put to death? Yeah, I was down at Potosi where they execute people and everything else. So whenever you compare your charges with theirs, I mean they took somebody's life in cold blood, you took somebody's life in cold blood, how come they're killed and you're not?

I don't know, that's just how the stuff works. And that's usually the people that you probably know that got the death penalty, they probably did something similar where they sought somebody out and killed them in cold blood, that's, man, that's really crazy if you think about it, that some people are killed and some people aren't, that do the same thing.

Yeah, I think. Makes you wonder. Yeah, but a lot of it's got to do with your criminal record too, if you did. All kinds of different stuff over the years, different crimes over and over. They look at all that. I had never done nothing. I'm sure they do look at that, but I feel like there's some people out there that have absolutely done nothing except for their crime and their crime is so extensive where it's so cold blooded.

And I mean, I don't know, I kind of shooting from the hip a little bit, but, uh, I feel like, you know, sometimes I know the math, even though I didn't do the, the, uh, the problem, uh, but anyway. At his trial, Randy was charged with capital murder, the most severe form of homicide. Capital murder works slightly differently from regular murder, and it's reserved for the most egregious offenses.

I'm not a lawyer, and without access to the documents from Randy's trial, we can only speculate about the argument of the prosecution. But it's likely that Randy's crime fell under the legal definition of capital murder because Randy killed Roy in a focused state of mind, despite having plenty of time to reconsider.

Several counts of evidence worked against Randy. He had a clear motive after the fight, and was even heard promising to get revenge on Roy. Nearly an hour later, he waited deliberately for Roy outside his regular hangout spot, and Roy, who was unarmed and turned to run when he saw Randy's shotgun, did not pose any dangerous threat to Randy.

All this sealed Randy's fate, and prompted the jury to sentence him to life imprisonment of 50 years without the possibility of parole. Although this sentence was long. Randy was luckily spared from death row. Those found guilty of capital murder have only two possible sentences, life imprisonment or the death penalty.

Sometimes, it seems that the legal system works like Russian roulette, where the luck of the draw can determine who gets to live and who dies on a capital charge. When settling on the sentence, the jury will measure a case against the legal framework. And as Randy points out, it's true that defendants with the most Prior Offenses have a higher chance of receiving the death penalty, but human bias also skews sentences and the law is riddled with many inconsistencies that obstruct fair punishments.

Now 63, Randy Armbruster has spent the majority of his life behind bars and has missed out on a changing outside world as he waits for his 50 years to pass by. How has prison been for you since you got locked up? I've pretty much been here my whole life, so I'm kind of used to it now. I'll be, I'll get 69 when I get out, and I came in at 19.

If they let me go, you know what I'm saying.

Going through a lot at that time, maybe I couldn't quite get out, get it out of you. You were just a very, uh, distraught person at the time and you were sent off the edge, except that edge lasted a mile for you to, you know, grab a hold of something. Unfortunately, you didn't, but obviously you're paying the price, but not with your life.

Pretty much all of them. Yeah. A whole lot. And how do you resolve yourself to knowing that you're going to die in prison? Well, I got a chance of getting out of here, but I don't look forward to it. I ain't got nowhere to go. All my family's died since I've been here. Well, Randy, I appreciate you talking with me.

Um, I'm sorry that you made those mistakes as a young adult. But, you know, that's why it's such bad because you can't take it back. You know, too bad you can't do that in life. You know, I'm sure we'll hit the rewind button and go a different route, but you know, things happen. Yeah. Well, hey man, take it easy and stay safe in there.

Okay. All right, hope you have fun. Okay. All right. Take it easy. Bye bye.

On the next episode of voices of a killer. I think what we're about to get into, it's going to be difficult to hear, but you're going to be basically telling me what you did as a child. It was a nightmare. My case is extremely stupid, but stupid hurts. I can't fucking imagine you being out on the streets.

I'm going to be honest with you. The crazy thing about this is it seems like everybody involved from the perpetrators to the victims are all children. I moved out here to the midwest and all of a sudden I felt like an outsider. Whenever you shot him in the head was he, did he look back up at you as you put the gun there?

Once I pulled that trigger I felt like there was no turning back. That's a wrap on this episode of Voices of a Killer. I want to thank Randy for sharing his story with us today. His ability to be open and honest is what makes this podcast so special. If you want to listen to these episodes weeks in advance, you can now do so by joining our Patreon at patreon.

com slash voices of a killer. There you will get access to raw interviews, unseen news coverage, and unique correspondence with the guests of Voices of a Killer. Head over to patreon. com slash voices of a killer to support the podcast. Your support is what keeps us passionate about bringing these episodes to you.

These stories to you, a big shout out to Sonic Futures who handled the production, audio editing, music licensing, and promotion of this podcast. If you want to hear more episodes like this one, make sure to visit our website at voicesofakiller. com. There you can find previous episodes, transcripts, and additional information about the podcast.

Lastly, if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving us a review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback helps us improve and reach new listeners. Thank you for your support, and we can't wait to share more stories with you in the future. Thank you for tuning in.

I'm your host Toby, and we'll see you next time on Voices of a Killer.