Ep 64 | TRYSTAN WESTRIP Transcript

Ep 64 | Trystan Westrip Part 1

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. This week on Voices of a Killer.

We bring you the harrowing crime of Trystan Westrip. In 2016, elderly pensioner Mary Shisler was enjoying her retirement in the Stratford outskirts gardening, quilting, and studying her Bible until the day that 16-year-old Trystan darkened her door. What followed was a graphic, senseless murder that scandalized a tight knit community and convicted Trystan to jail for life.

Today, you'll hear Trystan candidly tell the story of Mary's death. You'll hear how various forces eroded Trystan's sense of morality to the point of this brutal murder. Now, on a path to redemption, and with eight years of hindsight behind him, Trystan shares his key insights into one burning question.

What brought him to kill the old lady? This interview is not for the faint of heart, so buckle up as we examine the psychology of a teenage killer on this episode of Voices of a Killer. How's it going, Trystan? Doing good. I've been playing Magic the Gathering all day. So, Trystan, I see that you're from the Missouri area and your crime happened when you were really young.

Did you grow up in Missouri? Yeah, I grew up in a small country town named Crane, but I moved multiple times throughout my life. Yeah. So, where would you say the main place that you lived at? Was there a main city or anything? Well, for the most part, like from a young age, I was in Crane. I moved away whenever I was in second grade in Texas.

And then I moved away in 5th grade to Oklahoma, and then 7th grade to Aurora, Missouri. And then 9th grade to 11th grade I moved to Republic, Missouri. Gotcha. So you did quite a bit of moving. What was the cause of that? Was it family stuff? Yeah, I mean, my parents were split, so I lived with my dad, and then he beat on me and lost custody of me.

I moved back to my mom. Honestly, my mom decided to remarry, so that's whenever we moved to Aurora. And then, she didn't like that dude, so she left him, and we moved back to Green, and then they decided to upgrade where their living space was and put me in a better school. And that's whenever they moved to the Republic.

So quite a bit of moving. You said your dad abused you. was it bad enough to where, he got in trouble for it or what? Yeah, well, they gave him counseling and stuff like that in Texas. But every time I got in trouble, I would be punished by him. And for a long time, it went on until eventually I went to school with enough bruises and stuff that, and somebody told on, told the teachers that I've been being by, being beat by my dad.

How would he beat you? What was hitting on me and stuff like punching and there was one time he grabbed me by my arm and threw me in the air and I hit my head on the ceiling. What would cause him to do that? Was he drinking or what? He had anger problems and I was not a willful child. I was a troublemaker from the beginning.

You think you're a troublemaker because of the divorce that kind of changed you as a kid? Well, I didn't like myself, right? So I always tried to seek comfort outside of myself, and this started off from that age is lying and stealing from people. You know, Trystan, the, you know, the divorce rate is extremely high.

Lots of people get divorced, and well, a lot of those people who have kids, I'm one of those, and I know that it affects kids a lot in different ways, especially, you know, whenever you have the divorce, and on top of that, one of the people that's supposed to be showing you love is actually showing you abuse.

Did you love your dad anyway, or did you kind of hate him for that and resent him? How did you feel then? How do you feel now? Well, now we have an actual, like, semi healthy relationship, but I will say that my mom and my dad both had me young, and they don't know or didn't know how to have a healthy relationship.

It's not, I didn't, it's not that I didn't like him or hate him. Like, my mom had pretty much taught me to hate my dad. So, like, I had adopted beliefs in that sense. And that happens a lot, too, where the mother or the father, you know, tries to pin a bunch of bad stuff on the other. Yeah, and influence the child's mind.

Yeah, you felt like that was happening to you with your parents? Oh, absolutely. It caused me to not talk to my dad from about age 16 to 22. Looking at Trystan, he seems like any typical 18 year old kid. HoweverTrystanan had done something unthinkable, and I couldn't help questions swirl through my mind.

What had gone into the making of this teenage killer? Was it his chemical makeup or his environment that made Trystan capable of a crime so shocking? One part of the puzzle, Trystan tells me, was his parents' hostile divorce. When they split, Trystan was a piece of collateral damage in a war torn household.

The custody tug of war left a young Trystan without a stable place to call home. He relocated frequently across the country, his life disrupted by ever changing households, new rules. Short term partners and unfamiliar schools. Staying with his father was particularly difficult. Prone to violent outbursts, Trystan's father beat his son on a routine basis.

Estranging Trystan from his father, especially after he returned to his mother's orbit of influence. As you'd expect, the impact of his parents divorce and father's abuse was profound. The young and impressionable kid soon developed behavioral problems. Although at first, his parents downplayed the problem as normal misbehavior, over time, Trystan's activities started to get more concerning.

So, you have this pretty turbulent childhood for the most part, enough to where, you know, you get abused and marks left and all that stuff. I think sometimes when we have to think about it, it's not just the physical marks, it's more mental for a child like that. It's a very emotional thing for that to happen to them.

So did you start to get into drugs? Because usually that's pretty typical of happening too. Yeah, but I didn't first start doing drugs until I was 12 years old, but I'd always wanted to do something before. And this caused me to do experiments with smoking green tea. Right. Picking up cigarette butts off the ground, trying to smoke that.

Well, 12 years old is pretty young for to start, but what did you start doing? The first thing I ever tried was w**d. Whenever I moved to Republic and got moved to a bigger school, that's whenever the drugs finally got put on the table because I had access to them. So when did you do coc**ne or m*th or her**n or anything like that for the first time?

I've never tried coc**ne. But, I didn't try m*th or her**n until I actually came into Greene County. Oh, wow. Are you still doing drugs now? No. I've actually been sober since last November. So you'd never done m*th or her**n when you were out on the streets. You caught this crime, you get locked up in Greene County, Missouri.

And you do m*th and her**n in there. Well, people figured out really quick that I had money. And so they use my money to buy drugs because they knew that I was easily, I was willing to do any type of escape. Yeah. And I was delusioned by the thought that I thought drugs were cool. Yeah, no, I, I understand you're in a situation where you probably feel hopeless and nothing else matters.

So who cares? Let's just do it. That's crazy though that you, it's, that's where you first got it as soon as you got locked up, that just shows you right there how much drugs get into prisons and jails and how jails and prisons are supposed to be a place where people are corrected and that really doesn't happen, that's, it's, that's crazy. So, you mentioned something that a lot of us kind of overlook and it can actually become an addiction just like everything else is stealing.

Would you say that you had an addiction to stealing? So, based on me having unhealthy relationships with my family and pretty much everybody around me, I never liked myself as a kid. So, like, I always thought that, for instance, if you're wearing a hat, I would steal your hat from you and then I'd be like you.

So, I wasn't like me. So, I always tried to get comfort outside of myself by taking objects. Okay. And that quickly became the point to where anytime my thought, I've seen something I've liked or I've wanted, I stole it. It was just a matter of how long it took for me to get it. Right. When did you first start doing this?

What age? I can't even remember, honestly. Pretty much all my life. I figured out that if I wanted to take something that nobody else knew, it was mine, and then it just became over with. What's the biggest thing you stole? That'sa life. True I'm glad you said that. What's the second biggest thing you've stole? A vehicle. Happened to be the person that Mary Shisler lady I killed.

The whole reason why I killed her is because I wanted her truck. Name something else you've stolen besides this crime. Pistol. Yeah, you got chunks of that. I've pretty much stolen anything and everything that you can imagine. Well, keep going, because people in the Republic area might be listening to this and they'll be like, Hey, I was missing that, so it'd be, you know, name some other things.

Well, I didn't have any discrepancy about who I stole from. I stole from my family, I stole from my friends, I stole from people I didn't know. Yeah, did you break into stores around Republic or Springville or anything? Well, I didn't break into them, but I'd go in there. I had this thing where I'd go into Walmart with a handbasket And I filled up and walked out.

And if they stop me, I just said, I filled up, my basket was full and I was going to get a cart. So I had strategies behind my stealing and stuff. Yeah. So you were pretty much a klepto. Yeah. And I had the belief that institutions and stuff like that are scams, and that if I can take it, it's mine. Yeah, I shouldn't be paying them.

I should be stealing it anyways, because I'm good at it. There was a lot of entitlement wrapped up in it. You basically convinced yourself that what you're doing is not, you know, unethical. Yeah. And I didn't care about the consequences because I was so numb and callous to the fact of being in trouble.

Yeah. Tell me, how did you wind up finally in Republic? Is that where you went to high school? Yeah, that's where I started ninth grade. So. Due to my history, I had spent more time in ISS and OSS in the crane school system than I did in a regular classroom setting because I was always in trouble. And then once I started to get the reputation for being a troublemaker, I could never get out of trouble.

And it just always stuck with me. Yeah, that is one thing in high school, the reputation thing. Like the teachers kind of have it out for you after that and it's kind of strange. So you're in Republic High School. Are you struggling with grades? Well, yeah, my freshman and sophomore year, I didn't really care about anything, and then especially sophomore year, it got to the point where I was doing more and more drugs, and that became what I cared about, and I just didn't care about school, and it, it got to the point where I stopped coming to school.

Who's your caretaker? My mom. So, your mom's looking after you, and you're living in Republic, you're not doing well at school at all because of drugs, and probably you just kind of felt like that's your path now? Did you, ever get in trouble with the law while you were in high school? Besides this crime?

Yeah. First thing I got in trouble with is I got caught having paraphernalia. My parents had called the cops on me. Your mom called the cops or did she have a stepdad or, I mean, Yeah, my, my stepdad actually called the cops on me. What did he call? What, what prompted him to call the cops? Well, by this time I had been doing drugs and I would go over to my friend's house and go to parties and stuff like that and hang out with people I shouldn't have been, who are also drug users.

And so they kind of got suspicious about me using drugs. They caught me one time using drugs in my room. What did they catch you with? Oh, it was w**d. Oh. It was w**d. So would you say that you were like, just completely rebellious? Just, "I don't care what you say, I'm doing whatever I want." Oh yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. Were you also a kid that would, when you got into it with, say, your parents or teachers or whatever, you would kind of lose control and get real emotional? Well, I would get emotional, yes, but I was a wise ass who was always quick with an insult and sarcasm. Are you still that way? It's tampered down.

Recently, yeah, I was. I completely had an overthrow of my life after finding God. By adolescence, Trystan had cultivated a reputation as a troublemaker in the Republic area. He embraced an anti establishment philosophy. Philosophy, rejecting the rules and conventions of society around him to live life on his own selfish terms.

Defiant and contemptuous of authority figures, Trystan clashed with teachers and police officers alike. He shoplifted compulsively, experimented with drugs, and played truant daily. It's no surprise then that Trystan was a constant fixture in the Republic High Principal's office and that he'd already earned a criminal record.

Behind the tough exterior that Trystan upheld was a more vulnerable reality. Trystan admits that that many of his problematic behaviors stemmed from low self esteem, as he desperately sought attention and validation from those around him. His parents, baffled by their son's actions, felt ill equipped to address his issues.

Although increasingly troubled by Trystan's drug use, their efforts to reign in the unruly teenager were unsuccessful. Trystan's rebellious streak continued. So, how old were you when you committed this murder? 16. 16 years old? So that's whenever I was 16, I was just getting my vehicle. Actually on my birthday, I went and applied at jobs because I was the legal age to work.

And you're 16, getting charged with murder. That's... how would somebody wind up at that point? Let's find out. But let's go back about a week or two before the event, before this murder. What is your life like right then? Like two weeks prior? So, about two weeks prior, I am on probation because My neighbor, it was this girl that I was messing around with, and I had stolen a pistol out of her dad's house, and then somebody told on me for having that pistol, so I got charged with possession of a stolen firearm, and got put on juvenile probation, and at this time, I could no longer do the drugs that I wanted to, so I became exposed to what's called the Coricidin Cold Cough, which has the chemical agent of dextromorphin, which is in the same drug class as k***mine.

Okay, and you started using that? Yeah, I've been on it daily. That was something that would kind of, you could curve a p*ss test with basically and still get high? Yeah, it doesn't show up on a drug test. What's it called again? It's called, the chemical agent inside it is called dextromorphin. What's the, what would be a street name?

Coricidin cold and cough is what that chemical agent is actually in. It's in a lot of medication, but that was the main one. I've never heard of it. It doesn't sound like something that most people seek out. How would you stumble upon, hey, this can work for me, you know what I mean? How does that happen?

I actually learned from somebody whenever I was in a drug rehab program, based on being catching that charge and having drug use with it in my past, they decided to send me to an inpatient C star. Drugs Rehabilitation Program, and while I was there, somebody pointed me in the direction of that drug.

Where did you get it? Is it at a store or did you get it from a person? It's over the counter medicine that they sell not only at every store but Dollar Tree. And you just take it right out of the box or you gotta like do something to it? Nope, that's it. They sell it in pill form and liquid form. What does it do to you?

It's like m*th and her**n and hallucinogen. You know, I feel like I'm pretty, you know, well versed on lots of drugs because I watch documentaries and I just know these things and I've never ever heard of this. It almost sounds like something that, I don't know, is it against the law to buy it and take it like that?

I mean, I don't know. No, it's over the counter medicine, right? So if you get pulled over and you got a box of it with you, it doesn't even matter, right? They wouldn't even look at it. You were taking it in large quantities. I'm assuming it goes by milligrams. So 300 milligrams would be an average dose that I would take, and I would dose up twice a day.

As soon as I woke up, I take 300mg and around lunchtime I take another 300mg. It's supposed to be for cough? Yeah, it was like heart medicine, cough medicine. Okay, like suppressing or something. So, how long did you get on this stuff? Well, I've been doing it everyday for about a month. But it was really getting to the point where it was shutting down my body, and it was like almost killing me.

Yeah, and I didn't care because it got me really high. Right. Did your parents see your downfall? Unfortunately, I got exposed to this whenever I had just been out of that drug rehab program. So, I went from a drug user they knew to this person who was doing good, and they helped me focus and want to do stuff.

So, they saw it. Whenever I was high, that I was sober. They didn't know that I was high. It literally was one point, I think it was like my sister's birthday or something like that, but they wanted to go out to dinner and I decided that I wasn't going to do no drugs that day so I could be sober for my family.

And my mom literally told me I was acting weird and she thought I was high whenever I was sober. Dextromethorphan is the active ingredient found in most over the counter cough medications in the U. S. Nobody would bat an eyelid to see a bottle of cough mixture stashed in your drawer or book bag. But when abused, dextromethorphan can act like a hard drug.

It can induce an out of body euphoria similar to k***mine, along with hallucinations and paranoia. Recently, It's gained popularity with the teenage market, a demographic often looking for a quick, cheap, and easily accessible way to get high. And with no obvious red flags or telltale symptoms, its use has largely gone unnoticed in society.

Trystan's parents were also oblivious when their son began abusing dextromethorphan. Around this time, Trystan's life was in turmoil. After sinking deeper into drug use, Trystan had been committed to a rehab and slapped with a joint. Juvenile probation that restricted his access to drugs. He was introduced to cough medication as a viable alternative.

Wary of his parents who had reported him to the police more than once, Trystan had learned to carefully conceal his drug use. Effectively, he lived a double life, pretending to be clean and reformed, while secretly relying on dextromethorphan every day. Ironically, at the height of Trystan's dextromethorphan use, his parents believed he had kicked his drug habit.

It was only a matter of time before they found out the truth. We'll hear that after the break.

You're taking this stuff and it's really kind of taking its toll on you. Let's go back to the morning of this crime. Did you wake up that morning like any morning at your parents house or what was going on that very morning? So, to make this better, I'm going to actually go to the day before. I'm on probation, right, and one of my friends had decided they were going to go to Springfield, so I picked him up and gave him a ride in my car, and what he had done is he went and bought some w**d, and on our way back to his house, one of our other friends, who we were mutual friends with, called, so we went to him where he was at, and I got in the car, and I had air smoking.

And I had been exposed to w**d, right? And so whenever I got home, I had an eight o'clock curfew and I got home at about 8:02 and my stepdad comes storming out of the house yelling at me for about being late for my curfew. And as soon as he gets close to me, he knows that I smell like w**d and he told me I was high.

So he took my phone from me, took my car keys and he told me that he was calling the cops on me and sending me back to juvie. Did you freak out when he did that? No, I was pretty calm. Did he actually call him? He was acting crazy. So I just gave him the stuff immediately. Right. But I was underneath a sword.

They told me that if I messed up and got sent back to juvie for any reason, I've got to be in DYS class 21. Do you think they were serious about that? Or they were just blowing smoke? The judge said that. Oh, he's probably not blowing smoke. So you were pretty much scared of having to be locked up to your 21.

Whenever he took those keys, did you take off and run and leave? No, so, what had happened then is, I went back in my house, and that night, I packed up everything I owned, plus I went in the garage and raided anything that I thought would be useful to me. I was raised in being able to be outside, stuff like that, so I can survive outside with pretty much nothing.

I can go out in the woods with a pocketknife and be out there forever. Type shii. So whenever your stepdad called and took your keys, you have no keys and phone at this point? Yeah, but there was a spare set of keys in my mom's car. And you took your mom's car? No, I got in my mom's car and took my spare key for my car.

Oh, okay, so you actually were able to grab your car and take off? Yeah, I hadn't done it until the next morning. So you actually went to bed like everything was normal, and that night, when you go to bed, you're going to bed in your parents house. This is the night before Your life has changed and a lot of other people's as well.

What is that night like? Are you, are they pissed off at you? Not talking to you? Are they trying to be like reason and level with you or what? They're scared of me, obviously, because I went in there and I pretty much told him that I told everything about being high. I told them that this drug was a miracle drug and it changed my life and I was continuing to do it.

They were scared because I was telling them everything in a matter of fact way. This drug essentially turned me into a robot. That's crazy. What did they say? Did they like look at each other and just be like, holy shit, or what? Yeah, they didn't really know how to react. They just told me to go to bed. Wow.

So you, were you able to go fall asleep that night? No. This is an interesting point because I usually only take two doses, right? One in the morning, one in the afternoon. Well, whenever this happened, I decided to take another dose and do more. And I stayed up all that night, pretty much, getting everything that I needed, put in my car, and packed up. This is interesting, trystan. Because, people that read your story and hear what happened, I guarantee you, it's all narrowed down to just one thing, you took this old lady's life and nothing else matters, and in the gist of it, it really doesn't, it doesn't matter, you know, you chose to do these drugs and things like that, but still aside, we look at this story and we realize that it's a lot deeper than than the news headlines.

You know, you were just some young kid that, you know, was taking something you could buy from the store and nobody really knew it and you're taking too much of this shit. I mean, it's making you nutty. So you take more than you're supposed to or normally, or more than you normally do. And what did it do to you?

Well, it's, I actually have the paperwork right now in my folder that I can tell you the exact specimens. But, by this point, I had kind of built up like a tolerance to it. I believe, now to this day, and my mom told me something similar too, I believe that whenever you do drugs, you're essentially channeling something else inside you, and I believe I had almost channeled like a demon inside me that literally took over my mind, and at that point in time, it became desperate to get away, because it knew that if I got locked up, I would be cut off from that drug, and therefore go back to being sober, so it was willing to do anything it could to keep me out.

And to keep me having access to that drug. So you said you didn't fall asleep that night? If I did, it wasn't for any time. Actually, I don't think I did. Did you, you know, a daybreak, grab the keys and take off? Well, no. So my stepdad, it usually goes to work at five o'clock in the morning. And my plan was that as soon as he went to work, I was going to immediately start loading everything in my car and try to leave before my mom woke up.

Uh huh. Did that work out? No. I had managed to get everything in my car, and I was coming back and pretty much getting the last scraps of it whenever my mom walked in. I don't know, I guess she couldn't sleep through the night before, but she had woke up earlier than I expected, and she caught me. And the first thing I did to her was lie and say that I was going to my dad's house because I was done with him, I had had enough.

And she seen that all my stuff was packed up. Did she believe you? Kind of. She decided right then that she wanted to call my stepdad and bring him into the picture. Yeah. So whenever we decided to call him, she gave me her phone, I called him and I told him that I was going to enact my plan that I had told him about the night before, which I was going to run away to Alaska and live off the land.

That's what I told him I was going to do. Yeah, so, how did the phone conversation finally end? Yeah, I had hung up the phone, and then as soon as I hung up, I had broke her phone before it was unable to use. That way she couldn't call the cops on me. Wow, you just, you know, broke it on something? Slammed it on the ground or something?

Yeah, I slammed it on the cabinet a few times and broke it before it was completely disabled. What did she say when you did that? She started freaking out, and she tried to run from me to try to get out the door. And I stopped her and physically overpowered her. What was she doing whenever you were at, her son is like grabbing her like that, was she scared of you? Yeah. And she had started to try and fight me frantically, but I overpowered her. Then she started screaming that she needed some air. So I let her go out in the garage. And that was actually when I went out and got my spare key. And whenever she went out in the garage, she would try to close the door and lock it on me.

And I ran back upstairs and started to kick the door in. And was able to run and catch her before she actually got outside the door and I stopped her again. Wow. She must be been really scared of you and you know, your son, her, you know some, yeah. In that moment. Yeah. Yeah. You know. So after you called her the second time, was she pleading with you like, you know Trystan, you know, what are you doing?

Don't do this? Or what was she saying? Yeah, well, I pretty much overpowered her into her closet and closed the door. And at that point in time, she just started crying to tell me I can just take whatever and leave. Just not to hurt the kids and stuff like that. So what did you do after you shut her in there?

I told my little brother and sister, cause by this time they had woke up from the noise. I told them that I loved them. I told my mom I was sorry and I loved her. And I grabbed my dog and went out the door and got in the car. In the fallout of a heated fight with his parents, Trystan's plans accelerated quickly.

Trystan describes the situation as a quote, unquote, sword hanging over his head. Livid that Trystan had relapsed into drugs, Trystan's stepdad threatened to report him for violating his parole, potentially sending him back to juvenile prison. The threat unleashed a fiery conviction in the 16-year-old Trystan.

He compares the sudden resolve that overtook him to a demonic energy that was willing to do whatever it took to avoid prison and maintain its access to drugs. Trystan's anger terrified his mother. Imagine her horror as her son manhandled her into a locked closet. This was not the boy she had raised, but an uncontrollable force.

A passing glimpse of what he had become capable of under the influence of drugs. With his mother subdued, Trystan loaded up his truck with the last of his few possessions and drove off in search of an escape and a fresh start. Nebulous plans floated in his mind of crashing out with his dad or living off the land in Alaska.

Uncertainty must have flashed through Trystan's mind as he faced down the long road ahead of him. We'll find out about that in the next installment of Voices of a Killer, as Trystan's plans go haywire, ending in disaster.

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Ep 64 | Trystan Westrip Part 2

Welcome back to the second part of Trystan Westrip's story. Last time, in the aftermath of a bitter fight with his parents, Trystan decided to run away from home. This snap decision set him on a collision course to disaster that once it started, could not be stopped. Now let's listen to how this plays out on this episode of Voices of a Killer.

So you left, what was the first place you went? I actually went to where my friend had worked. It was a Sonic in Republic. I went to him because really at this point like I was like half committed but I wasn't and I would pretty much just find any type of other human contact. Right. And so I got to his work and I went inside and summoned him out and he told me I was pretty much dead that he's working right now.

So you left your friend and where'd you go next? Well I actually went back to his car and stole all his stuff out of his car. You have like about an ounce of w**d. This is the same friend the night before I went and got the drugs with. You take his w**d. Where'd you go after that? I actually went to Republic High School.

My intentions was to go inside and bring out this chick. Her name was Morgan and she didn't like who she, where she was at and living. And she was actually about to essentially move in with me. So did you, were you able to contact her? Nope. Actually, I went inside and I got pulled into the principal's office.

So whenever I got pulled into the principal's office, I told them pretty much where it happened. I got in a fight with my parents and I was leaving and I was going to Canada. I was going to live off the land. What did they say? Well, first off, he said I had to call my stepdad because they couldn't just allow me to leave.

So we called my stepdad together. And by this time, my mom had made contact with him and he was freaking out. It was cool. I sat there and talked to him for about 10 seconds and he told me the cops were already on their way. So whenever he said that, I dipped out the room and ran back to my car. You ran out of the principal's office?

Yeah. So now you're a wanted man and you're running from the cops at 16 years old. With the murder that you're fixing to do, where did you go? I actually went down to Crane, to my hometown. My intentions was, I was going to either go to my dad's house or my grandparent's house, and I was going to go steal all their stuff.

Like I was going to go steal their guns and ammunition and any type of equipment I thought I was going to need on my journey ahead. Did you feel like you would shoot it out with somebody? Is that the kind of mindset? Yeah, I feel like I was gonna shoot up, no. Okay. But you were gonna go take all their stuff.

Did you make it there to get all that stuff, or what happened? Well, I made it to their house and all three doors to their house were locked. So I was kind of just sitting there, kind of chilling. I let my dog loose to use the restroom. And then, I don't know where I see their vehicle coming up the driveway, and they're like hauling crap, you know what I mean?

They're sure getting up the driveway. So I get my dog and we get back in the vehicle. Do they have cameras? No. Okay. So they're coming, and you get back in, do you leave before they pull up? Well yeah, but on my way of, they're coming up the driveway, and I'm going down the driveway. Okay. And as I was driving by, like my grandpa and my grandma are both in the vehicle, and they're looking at me like super crazy.

Okay. And the whole thing, I mean, it looks like they're trying to yell at me through the glass and stuff like that. So it just spooked me even more. And I decided to high tail it out of there. I got in a high speed chase with them and my other grandpa. So they tried, your family was chasing you? Were you able to get away from them?

Yeah, I easily shook them. I had a pretty fast car. Your plan is to basically leave the country and your family's chasing you, the cops are chasing you. Where do you end up next? Well, pretty much probably about a minute after I leave my grandparents house, I'm going to take a sharp turn. And it was right on the ground and my car skids off the road and crashes into a ditch and it snapped the front right steering iron of my vehicle so my steering wheel was no longer aligned straight.

Were you able to drive it? Yeah, I was still able to drive it, but I had that, I had to pull down probably like five to 10 pounds of weight on my steering wheel just to keep the car centered and it was shaking crazy and it was making loud noises. Did you feel like you changed your plans to drive out of the country when your car's like that, after that?

Nope, my plans modified to "I need a new vehicle." So, what was your plan to steal a car now? Well, after I first initially crashed, I didn't know how bad the damage was. So I was still able to manage to get away from my grandparents who were chasing me in the broken vehicle. And I made my way all the way to Nixon, Missouri.

So what I had done there is I pulled up into a apartment complex and I just kind of took a break to chill. I organized my entire vehicle. I got somebody's help who was in that complex to help me change a tire to see if I could repair some of the damage that I had done. And around that time I took another dose of the drugs.

Hours after running away from home, Trystan's resolve was faltering. Running off pure adrenaline after the fight with his parents, Trystan took a haphazard route that mirrored the aimlessness of his plans for the future. We can trace his movements zig zagging through Greene County, Missouri, from Republic to Crane, Nixa, and finally Stratford.

Along the way, Trystan made several stops to see family and friends, perhaps craving human companionship in the wake of the fractured relationship with his parents. These stops curtailed Trystan's progress. As news spread about a juvenile on the run, police were alerted and Trystan found himself in a high speed chase with his grandparents.

Turning sharply into a wet road, Trystan's truck skidded off into a ditch. He lost his pursuers, but the truck was left in bad shape, and Trystan's hopes of finding freedom in the open road up to Alaska were dashed. To get back on track, he would need to find another vehicle. So y'all get it repaired, enough for you to take off from the apartment? All I did was just change tires from the front to the back, so the vehicle could drive, it just made a really loud noise, like a screeching noise, I had to hold the steering wheel down to keep the car straight, and stuff like that.

Yeah, so did you drive it away from there? Yeah, I got on a highway. And I was on the highway for a minute, but it was kind of scary going that fast on a highway with that car being broke like that. So I found a turnoff. I started going down what I considered like a back road because it was into the country, but it was like a highway just on going into the countryside.

My intention at this point, once I had learned that the apartment complex for my car was broken, I was going to try to find a different vehicle. So I was going to go Into like the wooded area or, I mean, out in the country to where I could find something like that. Are you just going to try to walk up and see if keys are in there or something, or actually take it from there and go in their house?

Well, I didn't really have a submitted fact or plan at that point. I was just kind of taking stride. Okay. So you find a place though? Oh yeah, I come across this little road. It's like a triangle, like the highway goes past it, but there's like a little cutoff where you can go into it. So I pull up at this first house.

But there was a man who stood up as soon as I pulled into his driveway, so I backed up and went to the next spot, and it happened to be that lady's house. Yeah. Did you, when you pulled up in the lady's house, did you sit in the driveway and stare for a minute and think about everything, or did you just get out and walk up to see if anybody was there?

Oh, so once I pulled into the driveway, I shut off my vehicle and I was just kind of sitting there for a second. Not too long afterwards, that lady had came outside of her house and was approaching me. So I got out of the vehicle. Was she approaching you like, like in a greeting way, "hello, I have a visitor" or "what's going on?"

Yeah, semi greedy and semi suspicious. I mean, not really sure, I don't think she was threatened because I was just a young kid. What was your appearance like at this point where you looked like you were stressed out, your clothes are, you know, beat up or did you look, what was your appearance? My first intake in Greene County, I was like 5'10, 115 pounds.

So you could imagine a little scrawny tall kid. Well, I'm just talking about did you look like you were homeless or, you know, I'm just trying to get a feel of what she saw. Oh, I, I, like, I had some marks on me from whenever I had gotten into the altercation with my mom. So, okay, so you get out of the vehicle.

What does, who talks first? What does she say? I just kind of said hi. You know, I mean, I was a chameleon and a master liar by this age. So Trystan, you get out of the car and you immediately go into, you know, like you said, chameleon, where you're going to pretend like everything's something that it's not.

What's the first thing that you tell her? Well, I was feeling relieved because I thought that maybe I was going to be able to sit here and chill out for a while. I mean, we're in the country. We're in a little secluded area with some woods around. I thought it was cool cause I thought I was going to be able to convince this lady to let me stay and just kind of chill here for a while.

Speaking of that, whenever this instant where you get out and you're talking to, and you said that it's pretty secluded, as you're standing right there, if you looked around, is there anybody else that could see right there? No. So you really were out to where it was, to where you could do something and nobody would really see.

Yeah, at this point in time, whenever I first got out of that vehicle, I didn't have malicious intent. Sure, and that's, and I kind of, I was going to ask you that actually, is at this point in time, your goal, your only goal is to take something so you can ride out of there, drive, you know, steal a vehicle, basically.

Yeah, once I seen where I was at, location wise, and there was an older lady, I thought that I was going to be able to convince her to let me stay there, maybe as I was helping her out working. I mean, because I had a tank and stuff like that in my vehicle, so I thought maybe I was going to be able to like, use her as like a, use this spot as like a camp, like a base spot that I was going to be able to stay.

Were you, back then, were you pretty good at lying? Did you do that a lot? Or pretend and stuff? Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I learned a lot from a really young age. Yeah. Yeah. So what's the first thing you told her? Well, she kind of just asked me what was going on with me, and I told her that I'd been in a fight with my family, and I ran away, and I wrecked my car, and I just kind of needed a place to sit and chill for a minute.

Okay, so you actually gave her a little bit of the truth. What was her response to that? Did she, you know, poor thing or what? Well, yeah, she was pretty cool about it at first. She even went and got some lawn chairs out. Just kind of playing with my dog. My dog was running around. How old is she? Yeah, it was, she was 81.

Wow. 81 years old, got you a lawn chair. What was, how long did y'all sit in the lawn chair and talk? Pretty much enough time for me to bandage all the wounds that I had, kind of clean myself up. Do you remember any of the discussions you had sitting down in any of the small talk? No, because I was working with half a mind because I was focusing on trying to look at my vehicle, clean up myself, pay attention to my dog.

Had you, been inside of her house yet? No, she had asked me if I needed to use a phone and I said, yeah. So that's whenever she gave me her little flip phone. No, because my stepdad had taken it from me. The flip phone, did she have it on her? Or did you have to go inside? Yeah, we went inside then she got her purse. At first I tried using her, her wall phone, or her landline.

I picked it up. And, by this point I kind of sense that, I can't, it's not quite clear now because it's been so long, but I think that she had told me that I couldn't stay there, because I had asked her if I could stay here for a while, and she told me no, and that's whenever she asked if I needed to use the phone.

Okay. And that's what led us to one side. So, I picked up the phone, acted like I did a number, and then I wasn't really dialing numbers though. Yeah. And I just, oh, it's not working. She's, okay, well, we'll go, and then we'll go to the nearest gas station, and I'll fill up your vehicle for you, and then you can go on your way.

Wow. Right, so. Whenever she offered that, did you agree to that plan? Yeah, I said, okay, yeah, that's cool. You mean? But by this point in time, I started to feel like semi panic as the situation was getting out of my control. Wait, what do you mean? You wanted to do something to happen and not go get gas is what you're saying?

I mean, I wanted to be able to stay at that place and she had shut me down. So I felt the rejection and now she's trying to get me to leave. So whenever I got in the vehicle, When she got in her vehicle, what I did was I put my car in neutral and slid it forward to where I essentially trapped her vehicle in until she couldn't leave.

So she was in the driver's seat and you went and bumped up behind her. She was in her car? Yeah, it was a truck. Okay. But the truck was underneath the sally port and the back was covered by a shed. Did you actually hit her car? Like bump it? No, I had stopped before then. I just made sure that it couldn't get out.

What did you get out and approach her? Did she get out and ask you why you were doing that? Oh, I told her my vehicle was messing up. Oh, okay. So you just rolled forward, boxed her in and said, "I can't move." Yeah. I was like, "oh, my vehicle's messed up. Okay. I don't know what's going on." Once I did that and stopped it, she got the vehicle.

I had a knife in my pocket. It was like a six inch or eight inch hunting knife with a fixed blade into the handle, so she got the vehicle and had her phone in her hand. And said that we was going to go to her neighbor's house. And did that worry you that she was going to go to the neighbor? Absolutely.

Yeah, she had started taking off walking and was going to walk down the side of the road. Mary Schisler's house sat at a triangular corner of a country road that jutted off a national highway. Houses here are scattered at intervals between dense trees and uncut brambles. It's a remote, secluded pocket of the world, the kind of peaceful haven you'd retire into to escape the crime and bustle of city life.

It's also quiet enough that a cry for help is likely to go unheard by even your closest neighbor. As Trystan took the off ramp into this neighborhood, His mind was fixed on a single goal, to obtain a car that could make the long trip up north. But a different plan started to take shape in Trystan's mind after he met Mary Schiessler.

80 year old Mary was generous and caring to the strange youngster, offering up a kind ear. a phone call, and a full tank of petrol to help him on his way. Her hospitality provoked a new set of expectations in Trystan. He imagined camping out in her backyard to hide and prepare for his survival adventure.

But when Mary denied Trystan's request to stay with her, he grew resentful. All day, his plans had gone wrong. And now this old lady had foiled them even more. He boxed her vehicle into the parking port to keep her from making a hasty exit. Mary's suspicions started to arise and she walked briskly towards her neighbor.

Trystan subtly slipped a knife into his pocket before following closely behind. We'll find out what happens next after the break.

Let me ask you this. Do you think that she said she wanted to go to the neighbor because she sensed something with you and got worried and wanted to go get to the neighbor? Yeah, I think that by this point she had sensed that I had no longer had pure intentions. Yeah, because you pulled up with a working vehicle and now it's, oh, my vehicle doesn't work.

So she probably really did get scared and decided to go to the neighbors. And I, on top of me not being able to make no connection on her phone. Yeah. And I'm assuming this is whenever you were like, you're not going to the neighbor's. So she's walking down the road and I'm about, you know, maybe about two foot behind her.

And I've started to panic now for real, because more people involved, it's gonna ruin my plan. So I drew my knife right. This is the interesting thing, right? Before I would decide that I was gonna stab her and I was gonna do that, I literally felt like I had to force myself to do it. And, and so you remember I told you about the, I think that whenever you do drug use, you're essentially sounding as something inside you.

Yeah. Something literally, it felt like, it literally forced me to do it because I tried resisting at first. But you didn't wanna do it. And you felt compelled. Compelled by the intersection? Pretty much, yeah. Yeah, like, I knew it was wrong, I felt it was wrong, I hesitated for probably about two seconds and then like all of a sudden out of nowhere I instantly did it.

So Trystan, you're right behind her when you stabbed her first, did you hit her in her back? No, using my right hand, I did a front backhand and I stabbed her in the side of her head. But it was like a takedown move. Whenever I'd make connection with a knife, I followed it through with that connection to take her to the ground.

That's really deep, man. Because she's just an old lady, that's just very hard to swallow. So did you actually bury the knife in her head? Was it able to get through? Yeah, I'm pretty sure the first strike went all the way through from one, like the right, the left temple, all the way through to her right temple, pretty much level with the ears.

You went through and through with a knife? Yeah. Yeah. That was some force. Did she die instantly? I believe because whenever I did it, like I had stepped back for like, pretty much seen the life gone. And I believe that by doing that, I killed her instantly. Did you pull the knife out? No. So whenever this happened, I left her there for a second.

And I picked up her purse and her phone and went back to my vehicle. You left her on the side of the road, but you took her phone and purse? Yeah. And then you went back for her? Yeah. Once I realized what I did, I realized, cause like by now my adrenaline's pumping. You know what I mean? Like I'm freaking out kind of.

And then I realized. What I did, my mind went into cover up and escape mode, so that's whenever I went back and I did a fireman's carry where I picked her up from behind, but I didn't pick her up. She was bigger than me. I wasn't big enough to actually pick her up. With the knife in her head? With the knife in her head.

Yeah, still. Is this not, whenever you're looking at this, what you've done, and now you've had some time after this, you know, this instant, enter something that came upon you and you did this, now there's been minutes or seconds or whatever for you to actually reflect, are you telling yourself you f*cked up big time and this is not right?

Absolutely. By this time, I realized that I had messed up pretty big. I mean, it's like I wasn't really shocked by the fact of Oh, I mean Like the blood and stuff like that, because I grew up a hunter, so I've killed multiple animals in my life. And my grandpa was in a funeral home, so I've seen dead bodies and stuff like that before, so I was callous to the fact of I mean, all I can Trystan, all I can think about this entire time is, is somebody's grandma or, you know what I mean?

Somebody that probably sees her, was seeing her frequently and she was always, you know, big hug and kiss. IIt's, I just think of my grandparents man, and I know that you're not some crazy killer, but you were that day, you know? It just sucks, man. I just feel for this people's family that, phew, you know, it's, I am, I'm glad that it was instant for her and not some kind of painful, because I knew that you had stabbed her, but, gosh, I mean, that's terrible for me to say, I guess, but it just, So you actually drag her, where did you bring her?

So, I had drug her from the road to the point on the fence to where I could bring the fence down, not put her over the fence, and kind of drug her into the woods a little bit to where it wasn't in view, and kind of semi hidden. Yeah. So you just kind of dumped the body and you took off and took her car?

Well, no, it's more complicated than that. So after I got done dragging the body, right, she had started making noises. And I believe this was a sound of like her body, like doing like, essentially feeling a burp or something like that. I don't know. Well, strong old lady trying to stay alive, probably. Yeah. I mean, well, no, cause she was dead.

Yeah. I mean, I mean, nerves or something. Right. I kinda got mad, and so I pulled out the knife, and I had stabbed her multiple times. I was furious. Where did you stab her? I was furious with myself. In the same spot. In the head? Yeah. Why the head? It was just, I didn't really have a thought behind it. Is this a I just did it, at the same spot, multiple times.

How many times do you think you stabbed her in the head? The forensics said that after the initial stabbing, it was seven more times. Wow. So Then after I got done doing that, I stood up and I stomped her in the face one time. What's causing you to do all this? Is it the drugs? I mean, what I was experiencing extreme rage because I had just realized that I had just killed somebody.

And I was probably in very deep trouble, and I had no way to get out of it, and I was essentially screwed. Yeah, but I mean, the stomping and all that, it's it's a lot of extra. Yeah, I was furious at myself, I had no other target. I'm also just perplexed by this drug, because obviously I don't think you would have done all this without this drug.

I mean, I'm not trying to say I know that for sure, but Man, that's just deep, dude. It's a 16 years, 16, 16. How old are you right now? 24. You're still, I mean, 25 is like where they say the brain is fully developed. You were 16, that's 11 years before that. Man, so that was 10 years ago when you were 16 years old, you literally killed an elderly lady and stomped her head.

That's What is this dextro I was just I mean, it's just crazy. This drug I was the type of person that if I was playing a video game and I died, I got mad and kicked the wall. So that kind of, to me now, it kind of explains sort of the rage I was feeling at the moment. I had nothing else around me to exert my fury upon other than that, unfortunately.

It's easy to understand why Trystan's crime would stir up so much public outrage. Mary Shisler's death is a hard one to listen to. This was a bloodbath on a country backroad. A youngster in his physical prime overpowering a frail old lady. Violently and intently. Trystan stabbed Mary Schiessler to death, then hid her body in the tall grass over a roadside fence before returning to steal her truck.

When he retells the story, Trystan insists that Mary's death was instantaneous, but the medical report later conducted would tell a more tragic story. The coroner concluded that Mary likely survived Trystan's stabbing spree and lay there, bleeding to death alone for hours after her attacker left. So what was Trystan's real motive behind this brutal crime?

The police saw it as a burglary gone wrong, but that might be a crude assessment of Trystan's actions. Did a wild fury well up inside him after Mary rejected him? Did the drugs make him impulsive and unstable? Or was it the fear of discovery, a desperate attempt to restrain Mary from drawing in another person?

Whatever the case, Trystan's crime had more than one victim, though he didn't know it yet. He had destroyed not only Mary's life, but his own. Next time on Voices of a Killer, Trystan goes on the run.

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.

Ep 64 | Trystan Westrip Part 3

Welcome back to the final piece of Trystan Westrip's story. Where we last left off, Trystan had brutally killed an old lady and stolen her truck. We join up with Trystan, now a fugitive on the run, racing against the time it would take for Mary's body to be discovered. The hunt for Trystan was on, and we'll discover just how that went on this episode of Voices of a Killer.

So after you finish her off, where do you go first? Do you go and ransack the house? Yeah, pretty much. I go and I go and try it. I searched everything that she owns, essentially for anything that I can use of value to help me survive. What's the most valuable thing you took from her house? She had her wallet.

She had 900 in cash. That was about the most valuable thing. Other than that, I got like coolers and stuff like that. You know, I got survival stuff. I wasn't, she didn't have a flat screen TV or anything like that. After you kill her, how long did it take for you to dip out? How long did you stay after killing her?

Probably about 30 minutes. After I got done moving the house, I had spread gasoline and lighter fluid all around the house. And I took a roll of toilet paper. And I dipped it in gasoline, I took a match, one of those long big matches for starting grills and stuff, and I lit it, and I set it in that gasoline, it was like a time bomb.

I also turned on all four ovens, I blew up the pilot flame and turned on all the ovens to full gas. I thought it was going to be like an explosion from the movies. Yeah, you lit it? Yeah, and after I lit it, I jumped in the truck and I drove off to the point to where I was far away from the house, but I could still see the house.

Did it catch fire? No, and I was scared to go back because I didn't want it to like suddenly blow up in my face or something. So where'd you go after that? I went to the nearest town, which is Marshfield, and I went to a Taco Bell, and I went inside, went to the bathroom, checked and see if I was cool. I had already changed clothing by this time, changed shoes.

I washed myself up a little bit and I went and ordered some food. But now you're in this lady's car. So now you're, you know, they probably going to have a, you know, all points bulletin on this vehicle here pretty shortly. You get Taco Bell, you leave there. Where do you go after that? Well, so whenever I was at the Taco Bell place, I got the food and I went outside to the parking lot to eat the food and give some food to my dog.

And I was backing up the truck and I happened to look out the window and I seen this woman, or wasn't a woman, it was like a girl. She like made like a wink or something like that to me. So I put the car back in, or I put the truck back in drive, got out and went and said something to her. Don't advertise if you're not selling.

And she came and got in the vehicle with me. Holy shit. So this girl literally just hit on you minutes after you murdered an elderly woman. Is that right? Yup. She gets in the vehicle with you. What does she say? What do y'all do? I drive over to the local smoke shop was across the street and I send her inside with some money and she goes inside and she buys me like three or four packs of cigarettes, some packs of chew, a b*ng, a whole bunch of rolling papers and a whole bunch of bl*nts. Did you tell her what you did? No. This is crazy. So by this point in time, I had literally shut off what I did. It was like, it was like it hadn't even happened. Yeah. It sounds like it. I mean, call it, you know, just kind of hanging out with somebody right after that.

So, yeah, so you, she gets in the car and y'all go and get a bunch of stuff, you know, like whatever, what do y'all do after that? Y'all hang out for quite a while? No, I actually go back to the parking lot and. After she got me out of the stuff, I pretty much kicked her out of the vehicle and told her to leave.

Okay. Where'd you go? I went and I started trying to go down essentially like back roads to try and find somewhere to park and spend the night. Did you, were you able to spend the night? No. I found a place to park, but once I got to where I was at and I was actually parked and alone, I decided that I wanted to go back to Taco Bell to try to get back with that woman.

So I started the vehicle and went back in. Before I had parked the vehicle, though, I had stopped at somebody's house, and I seen a Trump sign outside their house, so I thought they'd be friendly, so I pulled into their driveway. And it happened to be a retired cop and he shined a mag light at me and started yelling at me.

I told him I was lost. I need directions for Canada. I guess he could tell that I was high or doing something crazy because he decided to call the cops. And that right there is what put the vehicle on alert. Yeah. So where'd you go after that? Oh, I decided to go into Marshfield. I went to this, it's called Camp Arrowhead Marshfield.

Right. And I pulled up into the main camp shack, like where people are supposed to go check in and there was nobody there. So I went inside and I stole a pistol and I was going to steal some more stuff, but I seen somebody's vehicle somewhere. I ran back outside and got back in the vehicle. Yeah. So now I have a pistol and it was loaded, one in the chamber.

Where'd you go? I decided to drive into town on my way into town is when I got flashed by a cop. And by this time, the red Dakota vehicle with all the stuff in the back of it had been flagged. You took off running? Nope. You pulled over? Pretty much at that point in time, I was resigned to the fact that what I did was horrible and I essentially just gave up.

This was whenever, like, my humanity was kind of sinking at this point. I knew that I had messed up really bad. Do they get out guns drawn knowing exactly that you were, they had a murder in that vehicle? They did not know that they had a murder in the vehicle. They just had a suspicious vehicle. Okay. Do they cuff you up on that?

Yeah, by this time they hadn't linked the, the now crime scene with me in the vehicle. Now I want to bring in an important factor, because I almost did this. Right, so whenever this man pulls out his gun point, he tells me to stick my hands out the window, so I do. He comes and approaches the door, and he holsters his pistol, and he had his hand on my right arm.

And whenever he opened the door, he had his left hand on my left hand. My dog jumped out the vehicle. And he turned his back to me, and I almost grabbed that gun and shot him. Wow. But the cop like it. It was like one, yeah, it was one of those things where I like it, like I almost felt like I needed to do it, wanted to do it and stuff like that.

But I resisted. That was a Springfield, Missouri police officer? No, it was actually a Marshfield police officer. And you could have, you think you could have took that cop's life if you wanted to and you Absolutely. He turned his back on me. I could have pulled the gun and shot him right there. But like, like I was telling you, like I had.

I almost did it, but I resisted. Yeah. So, you get taken in, and when do you find out that you're actually charged with murder? So, this begins the scandalous stuff and the illegal activities they started to do. Right, so as soon as they pulled me out of the vehicle, he had no idea what was going on. All he knew that the vehicle was messed up.

Well, I had told him that what I had done, I told him my name, right? And so he put my name over the intercom as a runaway juvenile. Well, around the time that they're doing that, they'd linked that vehicle to the crime scene, right? So. They told that cop to hold me, and that Greene County Sheriffs were on their way.

So, he puts me in the back of the vehicle, not too long afterwards, Jim Arnott, the Sheriff of Greene County Jail shows up with another Sheriff, he goes and talks to this cop who's outside his cop car, the cop comes and gets in the vehicle and turns off the recording equipment. This is all on video, this was exposed to the judge and everything.

It gets back out of the vehicle and goes and gives a nod to the cop. Sheriff Jim Arnott then gets in the vehicle with me and he tells me that he's a high ranking official in Green County Jail and if I tell him everything that happened, he'll let me go for free. What did you say to that? I told him everything.

Yeah, they just tricked you into basically confessing? Yep, and they tricked my dad, my step dad. They told my step dad that I was being questioned about running away from my house. So he comes in and signs all the paperwork. It signs my right over as a juvenile, and I sign the paperwork too, and they do a full interview on camera.

So, the Sheriff Jim Arnott gets you to confess, basically? Yeah. Yeah, and then he gets me to confess again on camera. Although the outskirts of Stratford were remote, the tight knit community kept a vigilant eye out for one another. Mary's neighbor first noticed that something was amiss when he saw a strange green Subaru sitting in her driveway.

Concerned, he checked on Mary, and was met with the smell of propane wafting out of the house. Inside, the house had been ransacked, its contents strewn about, and the gas stove left on. Responding detectives confirmed that the Mary was missing, and the intruder had tried to set her house alight.

Identifying the suspect was straightforward, as the Subaru in Mary's driveway was registered to Republic resident Trystan Westrip. By coincidence, Trystan had just been pulled over by a highway patrolman for an unrelated incident. Trystan describes his arrest almost with relief. This was the point that he finally vanquished control, realizing that his plans to flee Missouri were never going to materialize, and he had the blood of Mary's murder on his hands.

However, Trystan also alleges that his confession was elicited unlawfully. He counts the sheriff turning the tape off, then promising full immunity to Trystan if he confessed to the truth. Taking the sheriff at his word, Trystan told the whole truth of Mary's murder without any reservation. This trickery gave police enough evidence to file their charges against Trystan.

Now with his confession in hand, they secured the means to seek the maximum sentence against him. Once Trystan was arrested, national news stations picked up the scandalous crime. Stories like this one from Ozarks First circulated about the teenage killer and the bloody murder of a harmless old lady have emerged in the stabbing death case of 80-year-old Mary Shisler.

Good evening, everyone. I'm Jennifer Kilman. Thanks for joining us here for our 10 o'clock news. I'm David Oliver. 17-year-old Trystan Westrip from Republic was certified as an adult today in a juvenile hearing in. He's been charged now with first degree murder. Our Daniel Shedd is here with the story up first tonight.

Daniel? That's right, David and Jennifer. Trystan Westrip was 16 years old when he left his house on October 21st after an argument with his parents. He drove north on back roads looking for abandoned houses. That's when he arrived at the residence of Mary Shisler. And just a warning, what you're about to see may be disturbing to some viewers.

Trystan Westrip led law enforcement back to the body of 80 year old Mary Shisler. In a field not far from her house in Stratford. According to the probable cause statement, Westrip pulled up to the residence around 2 o'clock in the afternoon on October 21st, 2016, after realizing his destination of Canada was not feasible in his 1995 Subaru Impreza.

The 80 year old woman offered the juvenile help and invited Westrip inside her home. That's when he pulled out a knife, stabbing the elderly lady multiple times in the temple. Westrip admitted to carrying her body outside the home over a fence before depositing it into a field. He then tried to make his way back to the home and attempted to burn it down to hide any evidence.

It's a hard decision for everybody because, you know, we don't, we don't relish these, these kinds of cases. Bill Prince is a Family Court Administrator and Chief Juvenile Officer in Greene County. When we start talking about serious homicides, serious r*pes or sodomies, you know, then, then you start to think, well, maybe, you know, maybe we have somebody here who's a little bit more of a criminal thinker and, and things like that.

And, and, and maybe they're not going to respond to, you know, what most other kids would respond to. Now, the juvenile court typically deals with delinquent cases from birth up until age 16, however in Missouri, all first degree murder cases are required by law to file a petition to dismiss that case and have them tried as adults.

The hearing today is not about the juvenile's guilt or innocence, the real issue today is whether or not Do we have services that can help him in the juvenile system, or have we run out of services and he really needs to go into the criminal justice system? Now Trystan Westrip is currently being held in the Greene County Jail without bond on charges of first degree murder, armed criminal action, tampering with a motor vehicle, and attempted arson.

So you probably, you're 16 years old, and you're being accused of murder, so now you're, you probably can't go to adult jail, so you go to some juvenile hall first? Yeah, they sent me a juvenile, I was in juvenile for about six months. Okay, yep, you went to juvenile hall, so as soon as you turned of age, you went to, they put you in regular jail?

Adult jail? Yeah, about three months after my birthday, they had the certification hearing that certified me as an adult. What was it like going into county jail with all those, you know, these are people that have, you know, lived the life of crime, some of them, and, you know, they've done prison time, and some of them are down there for murder, and that's, you know, they're pretty hardened criminals.

What was that like for you? Well, I've already been warned by people in juvie not to tell people who I was in there for. 'Cause I had killed an old lady, so I told people I was in prison for, or I was, I was being charged with armed robbery. Yeah. That wasn't gonna work for you very long, did it? No.

Ironically, I was on the news so people had seen who I was, but people who were gang affiliated and stuff like that Yeah. Had pulled up on me and essentially put me under their wing to the start of my bit. Yeah. Are you in a gang right now? No. So whenever you go to trial, did you plead guilty? Did you plead not guilty?

Did you take a plea? So once they changed the law that all they ever offered me my entire time in Greene County was life on second degree. Life without, or life with? Life with on second degree. So did you take a plea? Did you plead guilty or did you plead not guilty? Whenever they changed the law that says juveniles only have to do 15 years flat at second degree or below, I've played guilty to life on second degree murder. So you played guilty and what did they sentence you to, life with? Yeah, life with parole. When is your parole date? My first parole date is December 31st or sometime in December in 2031. Have you ever gotten any kind of backlash from the victim's family?

There was one incident in Greene County where somebody had said that They had been paid money by somebody to come and hurt me really badly because of what had happened. Did they? No, they actually ended up being my friend. So they never, the victim's family wasn't in court? Yeah, there was, the only victim's family was, there was a lady.

Okay, so did they, did they read a victim's impact statement? Yeah, one person told me that I was like a sick dog and I should be killed and never redeemed again. Right, do you think if you would have went back you would have lied and said you didn't do it? Honestly, to now, I've come to the point, since I've been down, that I believe that my life happened for a reason, and that the only way that I was ever going to find God was being in this situation. If left to my own desires on the street, I would never stop getting high.

I literally had to go through everything I had been through in my life since then to be able to get where I'm at now. Looking back, Trystan reflects on how his dark past has shaped him into the man he is today. However, navigating the courtroom and the prison system has been challenging. After negotiating a plea deal, Trystan pled guilty to second degree murder and was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole.

Considering the severity of his offense, some might view this sentence as lenient, but Trystan's age played a big role in the sentence. Trystan was certified to stand trial as an adult. However, the maximum penalty available, even to a certified juvenile, is life with parole eligibility. That means that Trystan Westrip has an opportunity to appeal for parole after 2031.

By that time, years will have slipped by and Trystan will be a 31 year old man, far removed from the teenager who once killed a lady who kindly offered him help. As time advances and Trystan's brain develops into maturity, he has already gained perspective on his actions. Trystan also tells me that he's undergone a religious transformation while in prison that's given him the freedom.

Newfound hope and purpose. It's this transformation that might inspire Trystan to rehabilitate his life, demonstrate his remorse, and possibly reintegrate back into society. One day before winding down our conversation, I gave Trystan the final word. We'll hear his reflections after the break.

Do you feel like you belong outta prison for that? Do I feel like I belong outta prison right now? Not right now. Well, just in general. Anytime. I believe that I was under a lot of psychological factors. I didn't, I asked. That led to me being... I asked if you think you should be outta prison or not. Yes. You do.

So do you compare yourself to people in there with crimes that have life without? No. Because there's a lot of people in there that have crimes that are. You know, not quite as, as vicious as yours and they get a life without, there's no chance of them ever, they'll die in prison and I hear these stories quite often.

Now your crime was committed at 16 years old so it really gives you a lot of leeway and which is probably why you got the sentence that you got, you know, have a chance of being out because If you, think about it, you know, it's really a pretty vicious crime. Do you ever have bad dreams or anything about it?

I used to, until I asked for forgiveness from God, then those dreams went away. And you said you did kind of have a religious turnaround in there? Yeah. When did that happen? I got exposed to it around 2023, or I guess not, in 2022. And K2 is rampant here, so I was an avid drug user for quite a while, and I just finally figured it out that, once I stopped lying, I no longer needed to do drugs, so I could find my connection with God.

Since then, I haven't even thought about doing drugs. Do you think when you get out, you'll be a productive citizen, or do you think that prison's not gonna make some kind of mark on you where you get out, you're too difficult? No, I've already adopted the mindset of a responsible person. Do you have a relationship with your mother, stepfather, and your father?

Yeah, I have a relationship with my grandparents, my biological parents, and my step parents. How old are you right now? 24. Wow, 24. And how old will you be whenever you go for parole? 31. Man, 16 years old. It's crazy, man. I wish that you would have never run across that drug because I feel, you know, there's always something that most people, I mean, I know there's killers out there that are completely sober and they do crazy sh*t, but most of them, man, they have some kind of a mechanism, some substance.

So, Trystan, I appreciate you letting me get your story. I know that it's probably tough trying to go over all the little stuff that you probably try to forget about, but it's a big, you know, it's a big deal, man. Iis there anything else you want to say before we head out? One, one, like, part of the fact is that drug that I was on, they use that drug now legally as prescription to mute people's emotions.

Wow. Wow. Serious? Yep. If you look it up, look up that dextromethorphan chemical agent. Yeah. I, I, that chemical agent is clearly in drugs that neutralize people's emotions. Yeah. I actually wrote it down 'cause I did want to look at . . But that's crazy. I mean, I'm glad you brought that up too. That's, I, yeah.

It literally turned me into a robot that day who was disassociated from the world that I was in. Yeah. You know, it's almost like a little cocktail of different things that drove you to, you know, act the way you did, the turbulent childhood, the, you know, them kind of pinning you down as the bad guy at school.

And I don't know, man, the drugs, it's just, it's horrible, but Trystan, I appreciate you opening it up to me. I hope everything works out for you. And I hope if you do get a parole, I hope you do the right thing. Okay. Yep. On the next episode of Voices of a Killer.

So Ray, if you're the person that's not killed this person, that means that there's another killer out there. Well, who is it? I don't know who'd done it. All I can say is that I didn't. Did they ever recover the murder weapon? They made up some motive thdidn't even have no merit to it. They just threw a case together. The guy that supposedly drove by also said that he saw you or someone standing over the person shooting that person, finishing them off.

Now tell me, how could he see that? And he said he was going 35 miles an hour. Did he point you out in the courtroom that it was you that stood over and shot? I have never been pointed out, ever. Nobody never said Ray Johnson did anything. I wanted to thank Trystan for sharing his story with us today. His ability to be open and honest is what makes this podcast so special. That's a wrap on this episode of Voices of a Killer, a big shout out to Sonic Futures who handled the production, audio editing, music licensing, and promotion of this podcast.

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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.