Scott won't stop messaging.

It's early twenty twenty one, and Riley broke up with him a good few months ago, gently, kindly, but the good morning texts and manipulative updates haven't let up.

As soon as he sees her online anywhere, ping, a message appears in her phone.

The pair met online, dated briefly, and met in person just once in his hometown of Beverly Hills, California.

It was during that meeting that nineteen year old Riley alleges she was coerced into having sex against her will.

The encounter left her feeling ashamed and scared.

Once home in Idaho, she told him it was over, but now he won't leave her alone.

He's acting like what he did to her never happened.

It isn't until a teasing, casual conversation with her sister that it starts to unravel.

Have you had sex?

Her sister asks, Riley, not expecting the question, bursts into tears.

She tells her everything.

Her sister doesn't look around.

She contacts Scott.

She calls his dad.

She makes it very very clear, leave Riley alone.

Scott replies, strangely, I'll leave her alone.

He tells her consider this matter closed.

What he does next is beyond the sister's wildest imagination.

Scott turns to the dark web.

He lands on a hitman for higher website, and unbeknownst to them, he hands over nineteen thousand Australian dollars.

I'm Jema Bath and you're listening to True Crime Conversations, a podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know the most about them.

Riley's story is one of hundreds out there on the Internet.

There is a website where everyday people are paying so called hitman to kill people in their life lives.

We're talking husbands orchestrating their wives deaths, disgruntled x's planning kidnapping, torture plots, kids wanting their parents taken out of the picture.

Ordinary people with ordinary lives planning unthinkable things.

It was UK journalist Carl Miller who stumbled across the back end of this website, and after rallying a small team of hackers and journalists, he took it upon himself in the height of the COVID pandemic in twenty twenty, to try and stop as many of the kill plans as possible.

His podcast following that journey is called kill List.

We spoke to Karl on this podcast in twenty twenty four, and at that point he'd already intercepted one hundred and seventy five kill orders, leading to thirty four arrests and twenty eight convictions in eleven countries, resulting in over one hundred and fifty years of custodial time.

The website itself was a hoax.

It would take payment, but wouldn't follow through with the murder it promised.

In some cases, frustrated clients ended up taking matters into their own hands.

This brings us to Riley.

She was one of the names on this website.

Today we're talking to Riley's mum, Jamie Elder.

Riley has chosen not to be interviewed and has instead given her mum her blessing to be her advocate.

The crimes of Scott Quinn Burkert are not the only thing the Elder family are grappling with.

Jamie also lost her daughter Abby to suicide last year.

Please keep in mind that we do discuss this towards the end of the episode.

Jamie has dedicated her time to spreading both her daughter's stories.

She joins us.

Now, Jamie, thank you so much for joining us on True Crime Conversations.

I want to start by you telling us a bit about your daughter, Riley.

What's she like, what's she into?

How did she grow up?

I know you guys are from Arizona.

Riley is my middle daughter second honest, she is my sweet child.

She's the epitome of stuffed animals and drawings, and she loves anime and art and the big heart, and she's the reader of the family, and she loves fantasy and dragons and fairies.

And so she grew up in Arizona, started going to school, and then I pulled all of my children out and they were homeschooled from fifth grade.

Riley was homeschool.

That's a lot of work for you.

Yeah.

Then we moved to Idaho in twenty fifteen, and we were there for about seven years, and then we moved back to be the family.

She's an introvert.

She's just my sweetest kid, for sure.

She lived a lot of her life in her later teen years online, didn't she.

That's where she kind of made friendships and kind of joined communities.

Yeah, most of my kids did.

Actually, I think it's just the times in generations and being homeschooled, it was able for them to reach out and have a community that wasn't in person.

But yeah, a lot of online activity.

When did she meet Scott Burkish?

That was online, wasn't it?

It was?

Yeah, it had to have been late twenty eighteen early twenty nineteen.

The beginning is kind of a blur.

She had joined a Facebook and Discord group for her favorite anime show, Ruby and Ruby is all about women empowerment, and it was her absolute favorite, and she was part of a community and they approached her about helping, you like, an admin for the social media pages.

So the groups of admins would get together and they would meet each other up in you know, on Discord or on video chat and kind of discuss how they were going to run the group.

And Scott was another admin of that group, and that's how they met.

Excuse my ignorance here, but what is Discord?

Is it just like a Facebook or what is it?

It's it's an app that is it's all chat rooms basically, So there's a lot of fandom.

I mean, there's a lot of dark things on Discord as well, but most of it is for groups of kids that are fans of the same things.

There's gaming and anime and just chatting and get to getting to know each other.

And it's pages and pages and pages and pages of just chat.

These kids just all getting together in different groups, so they're people can own their own server and create their own group.

And it's kind of reminiscent of like, you're probably way too young for this, but like AOL chatrooms, you know how they used to have people would create chat rooms that people would like minds to get together.

And kind of it sounds like the MSN from my era, if you remember that their mess end messenger.

They just come back in different eras and iterations, don't they.

Did she ever talk boys to you?

Did you know Scott was kind of happening?

Did you know that she was having chats because she would have been what eighteen.

Seventeen, eighteen?

Yeah, yeah, I mean she talked about all of her friends.

It wasn't It was quite a while before she specifically spoke about him, probably m early twenty twenty.

Maybe she started talking more singling him out.

You know, they were more talking one on one as opposed to in the group.

So, yeah, we kind of knew.

Was Scott her first real relationship?

Yes, And what were they like in a relationship?

It was quite full on, wasn't it.

Yeah.

I mean it wasn't impress and so it was all you know, video and internet and phone hours on the phone and very innocent, very silly almost.

You know, they're very that genre of kiddos are just they seem innocent.

You know, they're in a cartoon, it's anime.

You know, they're into drawing and art and very lighthearted, very unassuming.

You know.

It was kind of like a really young a young person's romance.

You know.

It was silly and fun and pretty innocent.

Really, when I say full on, I think I've heard Riley saying.

You know, they were saying I love yous within a few weeks, and they were quite saturated with each other.

But I guess what you're saying is even that kind of side of it.

It was all There was an innocence to.

It, absolutely.

Yeah.

It was very little girls school crush kind of, you know, the way they spoke to each other, because they would be on speaker, I could hear them talking and it was just silliness, you know.

It was they talked about cartoons they talked about.

I mean, I'm sure they have private conversations.

I'm not completely delusional because they didn't have adult conversations.

But knowing my daughter.

Riley, when she even when she reads, she doesn't read romance.

She doesn't she's not hyper sexualized.

You know, she just wasn't.

She wasn't my kid that just if you know.

I would get her a series of fantasy books and she would start to read.

Them and she's like, Nope, there's too much romance.

Like most girls her age back then were into like Twilight, and she just wasn't about it.

She didn't like that kind of that genre.

So she was more like a puppy love I think that's what I perceived it to be.

Amy, What did you know about Scott because he was a few years old, he lived five hundred miles away in LA.

What had she told you about him?

That he was in it, he did some form of it for a company, and that he was.

Just very nerdy, just at dork, I mean, unassuming, silly, goofy.

I knew that he still lived with his parents, and any communication I ever had with him, he was just awkward and a very young or nerdy dorky kind of sense of humor, you know, just seemed very innocent, didn't seem daunting or scary at all.

He just seemed like a goofy kid.

So did you have any reservations about their relationship and what they were doing?

Absolutely?

I did.

While it was online.

No, I mean, you know, you can't get in too much trouble on the internet, is what I You know, I mean, as long as you're not taking pictures or you know, and Rye as a pretty smart kid, you know, So I didn't.

I didn't really worry about that.

It wasn't until they decided to meet that I had my major reservations.

What were you nervous about.

Everything you see on the news?

Yeah, exactly what happened.

Yeah, that's what I was nervous about.

And as I got closer to the meeting, I refused to take her to the airport.

I told, I said, you know, you're an adult, and I mean of sorts, and you can choose to do what you want, but I can't support that.

It's not safe.

That's not safe for you to do.

So a family member took her to the airport because I just and I love I love you, I hope you.

Have the best time stay in contact with me.

But I just, yeah, I didn't.

I had fears and I didn't want to deliver her into someone's hands.

You know, how did she feel about that?

Was she just pure excitement or was she kind of she knew how you felt.

She did, but I wasn't mean about it.

We weren't in a bad place, you know, you know you think of it, nineteen year old girl.

You know, really what mom thinks really doesn't matter all.

That much, you know.

And she was excited, and I was supported her.

I mean, I helped her pay out clothes and pack, and you know, I helped her through all of that.

I just didn't want to be the one to deliver her.

So she was excited.

Not a lot of travel for that girl.

So it was her first solo trip ever that she'd ever flown anywhere by herself, So she was excited.

Like you said.

It was October twenty twenty.

It was just as COVID restrictions were starting to lift around the world, and Scott and Riley had planned their first ever in person meeting.

But they'd known each other a year a bit over a year by now, talking almost daily online.

She was there for a few days.

When she got back, did she tell you much about the meeting and what had happened?

Now, she had shown me a couple of pictures that they had taken, like on the beach, and she had told me about meeting his parents.

She had stated that when she arrived there that they wanted to make her breakfast the following morning, and they had gotten her a hotel in Beverly Hills right next to their pretty close to their home, and she was going to be there alone, you know, I thought.

So the following morning, he came and picked her up and they went to breakfast after she had arrived at their house.

And I remember her telling me that it was strange because I guess Scott's mother is a hoarder, and she wouldn't allow and she was terrified of COVID, so she wouldn't allow Riley in the house.

And this is a very nice home in Beverly Hills, right off Rodeo Drive in LA And they had breakfast outside, you know, so she never even got to see in the house.

She said she could see through the windows the piles of things, stacks of things.

But that was the first thing she told me, and then other than that, she just said, we went to dinner, and we did this, we did that, you know, a couple of things, but nothing, nothing very specific.

She was pretty different.

When you say different, did you notice anything about her when she got back?

Was her demean a different?

It was?

She was quiet.

She didn't talk to me too much about it after that for several months, a couple of months, but I knew that they were.

She was cutting it off from him, and I just.

I had other things going on as well, So I just thought maybe they met and he just wasn't the right one for her, and she wasn't interested anymore and just kind of left it at that.

She didn't really want to talk about talk about it too much at first, so she just kind of went on with her life and she didn't say much to me for a while.

She ended up confiding in her sister about six months after that meeting.

As much as you feel comfortable, can you tell us what she told your other daughter?

Her sister, So, my.

Oldest Jordan noticed something wasn't right with her sisters, do right, big sister, and kept bothering her about it, kept asking her, and finally Riley confessed that that.

I believe the first night that she got there.

That he came over and they were watching anime together at the hotel and he convinced her to stay, and she's like, I'm not ready for any of that, and I she told her that he kept trying and wouldn't take no for an answer, and then he had been at that time, had been still trying to contact her after she broke contact.

So she told Jordan that he wasn't leaving her alone, and Jordan took it upon herself to call him to tell him to leave leave her alone.

So Jordan called him and he kind of didn't react.

He wasn't going to stop.

So Jordan is the oldest and she doesn't put up with much.

She got on Google and found Dad's phone her and called his father and said, I know what your son did to my sister.

You better make him leave her alone.

I don't know the exact words, but I believe Riley or Jordan, I'm not sure which I think it was.

Jordan got a text message from Scott thing consider the matter.

Closed, which is weird.

What a weird thing to say.

He's a weird dude.

Yeah, he's an odd duck for sure.

So this, like you were saying before, is your worst nightmare.

This is what you didn't want to happen, actually happened when you found out about this.

How did you feel?

What was your reaction?

Anger?

I was really angry, broken for my kid, obviously, broken for my daughter.

And we talked about counseling, and you know, she just wasn't ready at that time, and I just listened to her.

And that's a tough thing to hear your daughter tell.

You, of course, Yeah, but.

We you know, he was leaving her alone.

So we kind of moved forward and talked about counseling and and we we talked about it a little on and off, just when she was ready and when she felt ready.

We talked about charges, but those things are really hard to prosecute.

I put the victim through a lot.

Yeah, m.

So did Riley start to move on with her life?

Hmm?

A little?

She was working still, but that was about it.

She was working and and she had other you know, other community, you know, so.

She just kind of kept going.

You're listening to true Crime Conversations with me, Jemma Bath.

I'm speaking with Jamie Elder, the mother of Riley Elder.

Whose ex boyfriend Scott, attempted to have her killed through a murder for hire website.

Up next, Jamie tells us about the day she found out that her daughter's ex boyfriend had hired a hitman to kill Riley.

The next part of this story kind of starts for you around May twenty twenty one, so that's almost, you know, nearly a year later.

It feels like a jump.

Scared to say and ask, but how did you find out about the murder for hire plot?

So at this point, we lived in rural Idaho, and we don't get like knocks on the door, or you know.

We didn't.

We had just where we hadn't lived there long.

I think only one person had ever knocked our door, and it was because our goat had gotten out.

That's how rule was, Like nobody ever and I had just walked in from work.

It was probably three point thirty in the afternoon, and a pounding was on the door and I go to the door and there's a sheriff there and I kind of step out because you know, I don't know what he's there for.

I thought maybe my God had gotten out.

I really did, like in the moment, because that's what they do in those small towns.

The police come to your door to let you know that your livestock is escaped, you know, and he's like, does Riley Alder live here?

And yes, What's what's going on?

Because when a sheriff asks asked me, does Riley live here?

What could she possibly have done?

You know, she goes to work, she comes home just shock, I think.

And he's like something to thee It's very hard to recall everything he said, but something to the effect of, well, I'll just talk to you.

There has been a credible threat made to your daughter's life.

And I I'm sorry, what right?

Didn't even know what to say.

But he's talking, and he's telling me that the FBI had contacted him earlier in the day and asked him to make first contact, that he can't tell me too much, but that someone had attempted to hire a hitman to kill Riley.

And I'm just standing.

I'm still in my work uniform.

I'm just standing in my fright yard just mouth probably a gape.

I can't even imagine the words FBI, murder plot, hitman.

Like there's things you're not as a normal family living in Idaho.

You're not expecting to hear that.

Now.

That is the definition of surreal, right you just kind of.

I don't know.

He's like, I would like if you and Riley would come down to the station so we can get a statement.

And I was like okay.

So he's like, don't I have to ask you not to say anything to Riley.

I have to ask you not to tell her why.

I'm well, as soon as I walk in this house, all my kids are gonna be asking why are the police here?

And they probably you know, they're going to be asking me.

So what do I say?

And he's like, well, you can ride in my car, or you can meet me there.

And I'm like, oh, I won't meet you there.

I want meet you there.

It's like kind of walk in my house and all my kids are in the living room just like what's going on, you know, like cools, and I'm like, I can't tell you.

Everybody's okay, everything is okay, but Riley and I have to talk to him and frontal least like what what her.

Little face you know, just.

Utter shock of like what you know she's probably going over the past few days, like did I run a red light?

Did I you know what did I do.

And so we get in the car and I'm like it's okay, you know.

And it's about a ten minute drive to the sheriff station.

And and I couldn't tell her anything.

That's hard.

I didn't share anything with her.

And it's a small town sheriff's office.

And he we meet him, and he's walking through and taking us to a room and and we sit down and and he tells her and her like this the look I will never forget, the look on her face, like ever, just and he starts to tell us that somebody paid ten thousand dollars in bitcoin on the dark web to have her killed.

And I hadn't even heard that, like that party.

I just the you know that someone I'd hired someone.

And he's describing what's going to happen, you know, the FBI just found it.

Will put a car at your house kind of a thing.

But I want to ask you, do you know anybody that would want to have you because he asked me that he did ask me that out front of my house.

Do you know anybody that want her?

Dad?

And I'm like no, like she doesn't know anyone, there's no one.

And he asked her in that room, and I could see the realization in her face.

And she looked at me and she goes, you don't think it's Scott, do you?

Because she doesn't know anyone else, like, she doesn't interact like that with I mean, her coworker is sure.

But and I'm like, I don't know why I I it maybe you know, And he immediately honed in on it.

Who's Scott.

So she had to recount her story there again and I had to hear it again.

And I know that that that sounds selfish, and I don't mean it to come across that way, but as a mom.

That's hard hearing that again.

That's hard.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So he kind of gave us some information on the agents that we're going to be in contact with us, and said he would put a car out in front of our house that he doesn't think there's a threat, because he said, I can't explain everything to you, but the threat was intercepted.

At this point, we thought that it was a real hit man at the time, and then I guess I believe he made a phone.

Colin asked if he could tell us a little bit so we knew it wasn't real, and aren't not real, but that's got had it had been scammed out of his money.

And my thought at the time was what if he realizes he's been scammed and he tries somewhere else, you know, So that's the reason they put the car at our house.

Did they say what was in the threat?

Because he asked for very specific things to happen to your daughter.

He asked for proof of life photos.

He wanted it to look like a robbery gone wrong, like he knew what he wanted.

That's eerie, that's horrible.

When did you find out about those details?

Not so much later until uh, probably the second visit with the FBI, because he said this was new for this sheriff deputy.

He had not he's in a small town.

He just wasn't sure what he was able to tell us, so he kind of kept his mouth shut.

So it was several days.

I believe it was a Friday.

It was towards the weekend before we could go to the UPYI and get more information that he said they'd be in contact with us and they had setup a meeting and we had to go to downtown the city to meet them a few days later.

So it wasn't until then.

That we heard that he wanted more things, and that's all they said at first, he wanted more things.

So we didn't know what that was really for quite some time, a couple of weeks.

Probably was it the podcast The kill List that actually alerted police of Riley's kit?

It was how does that make you feel?

It was a podcaster, not even the police that found this.

It wasn't even on the police's radar.

They yeah, the podcast was doing an undercover investigation on the dark web, and they came across Riley's wasn't the only one, and it wasn't the first one, and they came across multiple hit.

Requests, and.

They tried to get the police involved locally, and they're in the UK and nobody would really pay attention.

So they started reaching out to individual victims, and by the time Riley's case came up, the FBI and the Inner Pool and everybody was involved.

The FBI turned around and asked of Jamie to basically go along with the plot for a little bit to fake her death.

Tell me about that, because for someone that's already quiet traumatized by everything they've just heard, that feels like a really big thing to ask someone to do.

Sure, I think a lot of this comes down to just shock.

You know, when you're in that much shock, you're just kind of like, okay, you know, it doesn't seem real.

So when we.

Went to the FBI office that money morning, she had to recount her story again, and it was a strange FBI office, Like we weren't allowed in the inner office, like there were multiple locked doors, and we came in just a tiny little room with a tiny little table, and she recounted her story and they asked her for her phone, so because they wanted all the copies of text messages and all the Discord messages and all the Facebook messages, and they wanted everything.

And so they got it and they were working on it, and there were so many that they asked us to leave the phone because it was going to take days because with certain of the apps, there's no way to just download it all.

They did Discord where they had a machine that scrolled and screenshot at each message.

So the invasion of privacy alone for a young girl, that bothered her at first, you know, but she's like, it is what it is, you know, we're gonna have to get through it, and then when we came back to get the phone for the next interview, that's when they asked us.

They told us they were going to be setting up some form of operation.

They wouldn't tell.

Us much about it, and the case was being transferred to the La California FBI office and they were going to be handling it.

So this agent was getting excited.

You could tell he was like chomping at the bit to like catch this guy, you know, And he's.

Like, we want to catch.

Him, and we want to we want to use, you know, a faked death photo.

How would you feel about that?

And Riley's like, okay, if it'll catch him, I guess.

So he made a phone call to I can only remember her first name, Caitlin, who was the other FBI agent in La and asked if that's something that they would like and they said yes.

In the meantime, he had made a phone call to her and said, you guys can go in town or whatever.

I have some lunch something like that and I'll let you know.

And so we went to a coffee shop and we're just kind of sitting talking about it, right ry, how do you feel about posing for a corpse?

Photo.

You know, we're having this conversation and I get a text message on my phone from the FBI agent something to they I wish I still had it.

But it was so double O seven looking silliness, just the awe of it.

It's basically like, we are a go for the photo meets us in the parking garage.

Am I in a lifetime movie?

Am I?

Am I in a movie?

You know, like this is ridiculous.

So we pull out of there, out of the coffee shop and they're coming out of the parking garage in this like black tended sports car.

Shouldn't be laughing, and he's.

Like, we're going to go to the local zoo area.

So boyse, the city of Boise, Idaho is very heavily treed, and there's a river that runs straight through the city and it runs by the zoo.

So the agent gets out, we get out.

It's like, we're going to go down by the river in the mud and the leaves and take this photo.

So it was the agent and a forensic specialist.

He wanted him there so that it would look more realistic.

They could pose Riley Lang and the leave in the mud more realistically, and they laid her down and they had her put her foearm up.

She had a distinctive tattoo that Scott had described to the hit man, and they laid her out and the agent just took his cell phone and took a couple of pictures and he showed it to the forensic guy and he's like, ooh, I like that.

Your foot is in the photo.

That looks like you're the killer.

That looks good.

That works.

They were like jazzed about getting this guy, like really, And Riley got up and I picked the leaves out of her hair.

And we went home.

Did it have an effect on her doing that?

Yeah?

Yeah, nightmares.

I mean, not that she wasn't already having them, but they showed me the photo.

They showed us the photo.

That is a really strange moment because that could have been a reality, right.

Yeah.

And she eventually got that tattoo covered.

Because of that, she.

Never wanted to look at it again.

Yeah.

I kind of get from the way you're talking that you felt like the FBI agents may have lucked fit of empathy or understanding.

Do you really love their job?

Yep?

You know?

And at first, yeah, I mean at first I did feel that way.

But can you imagine their job?

Yeah, Like I can't even imagine.

And I think that if you don't have some form of levity in that line of work, I don't know how good and decent human being would survive.

So if it means if.

They had to get excited about their job to catch the bad guy, I you know, I'm okay with it because at the end of the day, they're not the ones that hurt her, you know.

And it turned out that he was caught.

So when you look at it now in hindsight, do you think it was necessary to put us through all of that.

I mean, they they had him, and when they did this thing, they really had him.

And then the Yeah, they never used the photo that I know of.

It's not in any of the court documents that they ever used it.

They also shortly after that interaction, I sent all my children to Arizona to stay with my mother because I was worried that he was going to show back up, and so I sent them.

All to Arizona.

And while in Arizona, they hooked up with the Arizona FBI, and that agent had my mother take Riley to the local grocery store and take stocker photos of her as if she were the hit man.

So my mother Nana.

Is at a grocery store, the local walmart in that small town, because she's in a small town as well, taking pictures, righty, And they did use.

Those photos play keep man m and they.

Used those photos the hit man sent them to him like is this her?

Kind of things.

After the break, Jamie describes how it felt for her and Drily when Scott was finally charged, arrested and locked up.

So they arrested him, they charged him with using interstate facilities to commit murder for hire, locked him up straight away, kind of no bail.

How did you both feel when that happened?

Relieved?

Relieved?

I was relieved.

I was glad that there was a It was a female judge that held them on Romant because he had a team of lawyers.

His family's well off and he had a team of lawyer and they worked really hard to try to get him out on his own or get him out of a bond, and she was like, no, we're not having that, so she kept him in.

There well though, basically using character references to try and get him out.

They were while he was in he tried to bribe an inmate, a fellow inmate another I believed ten thousand to falsify evidence and get him an alibi.

So that seemed done, and he's basically showing his hands there.

Yeah, but they didn't charge him with that crime, so why I don't know.

So when all of a sudden done, the judge was changed to a man who I believe has a history of slapping people on the wrist.

That's just my opinion.

He cut a deal.

The max you can get for that crime is years, and they cut.

A deal for five.

So at sentencing, you know, the judge can decide.

But there were a ton of character witnesses that came out for him writing letters and.

I didn't know.

We had written our victim.

NPAC statements and sent them and Right didn't want to go to the sentencing, and so we didn't go.

We sent our letters.

So after the sentencing, the prosecuting attorney and Caitlin, the FBI agent called me.

To kind of debrief me over what happened.

And they were both women and they were they were like appalled.

It was.

It was weird talking to them afterwards because they were telling me about how the sentencing went and the character witnesses and the letters and things like that, and they were like, yeah, we were just shocked some of the things that the character witnesses said, some of the things that judge said, and so they gave me little bits of that information.

There was a character witness that stated while in college, he would volunteer to escort young women from classes or door ins late at night so they would be safe and that made him a good guy.

What yeah, and that worked?

Apparently apparently they did.

The judge I have the exact word somewhere because I downloaded all of the court docs, but you can see it in there when he's talking to Scott and doing the sentencing.

You're a young man with the bright future kind of a thing, you know.

I can't see sentencing you to all this time, So five years seems appropriate so that you can and I want you to come out of this and make better for yourself.

And this is twenty twenty two, this sentence.

I can't believe that mindset is still happening in twenty twenty two.

Like at the end of the day, he hired a hitman to murder his ex girlfriend.

How did Riley feel hearing he could have gotten ten, he got five.

She was I know she was angry.

I know she was angry, but Riley just moves on.

She doesn't hold I don't know that it was a survival technique of just not holding on to the anger and the resentment and that, you know.

I think she was angry at first, and then she just kind of went on.

I was livid.

I was livid.

Speaking to the FBI agent and the prosecuting attorney that day at the sentencing, I asked them, are you going to charge him with trying to bribe an innate false by evidence?

Oh?

I don't know.

We're we might.

I don't know yet.

We might, And.

That could have gotten him some more time, you know.

And he's obviously not sorry, you know.

I mean, of course his statement he's sorry, I'm sorry, but he wasn't sorry.

He was sorry.

Got caught.

Is he still in prison?

No, ma'am.

So he did time in a very cushy prison, and it was supposed to be five years.

And over here we have like a victim's notification system.

So Riley had signed up for the victim notification system so they would know when he was getting out and different things like that, And every couple of months we would get she would get an email, Oh, we've moved up as a release date, two months, we've removed, We've moved it up two more months.

We've moved it up two more months.

And every time she would give an email, it was just like she was terrified.

Was there a raisin given as to why good behavior?

Just because yeah, there was.

You know, there were a couple of other court hearings that his attorneys were trying to get him out sooner, but the judge knocked it down.

It's just prisons are so overcrowded here that there's a lot of early releases.

And so after I believe it was April of twenty four, they put him in a halfway house and then she was supposed to be notified before he was released, and in November of twenty four we had the last notification we got that he was going to be released around Thanksgiving of twenty four completely.

So in November twenty four I just looked it up to see when his release date was, and they had released him on October eleventh and not told her.

What was the point of signing up.

I don't know, your guess, is as good as mine.

But they did not tell her, and we were He was out for a month before.

We even knew.

So May made May twenty first of twenty one, he was arrested and he was fully released October twenty four.

Is there a fear knowing he's out there again?

Do you think he could do anything?

I was supposed to not make contact, right, He's not supposed to be able to.

He's got six years of probation.

I don't even know if that has been lifted or shortened.

We don't get noticed on things like that anymore.

But he's not supposed to be utilizing the internet to contact her or you know, try to contact her through third parties.

But with the Internet, you can be anyone.

She could be talking to him and she wouldn't know it if she were on the internet.

You know.

Does she think he has contacted her?

Oh?

You have made it your mission to make sure that Scott Quinn Burkett doesn't get to in your words, live in the shadows?

Can you tell us about that?

Since this happened, someone knocks on our door and everyone hides.

My children hide, they get quiet.

I have a sign that is at the end of my driveway that says no unannounced visitors period.

If you know us, call first.

If you If you don't know us, you have no business here.

And inevitably some order door salesman will knock, pound, you know, and a creek outside.

Even now right won't sleep, you know, she stays awake.

And the thing is is that the hit was put out before my daughter threatened him, before any of that.

He knew what he did, and he was worried about getting caught.

Before my oldest daughter ever called him, the hit was already out.

Really, Yes, we didn't know that until after the court.

Yes, he knew what he did.

If my child can't live free, he shouldn't be.

She's very lucky to have you advocating for her.

I want to ask you about Abigail if I can.

You lost your daughter Abbi to suicide last year in January twenty twenty four.

So that's a lot of trauma for one mom to be carrying.

You've lost your daughter, yes, you've had another daughter who's been sexually assaulted and gone through this horrific court process.

How do you hold all of that?

How are you doing with all of that?

I have a purpose, I have my faith and I have a purpose.

So now I talk about not only Riley's story, but ab a girl's story.

Yeah, I just talk about it.

I want suicidists.

You've got a couple, Our family has been touched by a couple of the biggest issues we have in our society in any country.

One is suicide.

It is the second leading cause of death of children between the ages of ten and twenty four.

It is the biggest thing hitting our family, our children right now.

And number two, boys being boys.

That's a big problem.

Boys being boys.

And I don't mean that in all men or bad or anything like that.

I'm just saying that's what I just say.

Boys.

Woild you boys still?

Oh, this young man's got a great future.

That's how I hold it together.

And maybe it's a little bit.

It's not vengeance, it's justice talking about your girls, advocating for them.

You're big on the TikTok space.

You've been talking a lot there.

What kind of difference has it made?

Has it helped others, has it helped you?

Has it helped everyone?

What have you noticed?

It's helped me immensely.

I know it's a little cringe to have an almost fifty year old woman on TikTok.

No.

You know a little cringe.

Some of my stuff is a little I'm not gonna lie, but it's almost like therapy, you know.

I tell the stories, I talk about the things I go through, the emotions.

I talk about the awareness and the little things that I'm doing to try to try to bring awareness both Scott's creepy face and my sweet Abby.

And I know it's helped me immensely.

And the people God perfect strangers are just phenomenal human beings.

You know they will show up for you.

But I know I've helped others and the community of moms out there that I've made that have either their children or themselves have survived violent crimes, or their mothers who have lost their children to suicide.

They'll all tell you the same thing.

They're telling their stories too.

And people reach out to you in your private messages and say thank you, thank you for telling me that story.

I I can't I saw your face.

I couldn't do that to my mother.

Thank you for letting helping me see my value.

They and it's not just me, it's all the moms that are doing and some dads there are good dats and and these kiddos, that's where they're at.

They're on TikTok, you know, when they see they come across these stories and they, for whatever reason connect.

You're saying, these kids or young adults are coming to you and saying, I didn't go ahead with a suicide attempt because of your.

Video, because of Abigail's story.

Wow, or Andrew's story or I just there are other there are other There are other moms doing the same thing.

And I watched their comments and they we talk and they're like, oh, yeah, this little one sent me a message, and you know, I talked to them on occasion, you know, and it's yeah, talking about it, showing the real reality of the aftermath of suicide.

Yeah, I don't.

I can't explain it with these kids.

And not even just kids, but young adults and even older adults will send you a message.

And what a blessing that is.

You know that you that I was able to tell Abigail's story and it helped one person, let alone multiple, you know, that's huge.

How's Riley doing now?

How's her twenty twenty six looking.

Worse?

Really?

You know, I think we've we've had a lot of loss, so My kids are definitely struggling.

You know, it's only been it'll be two years in January that we lost Abigail, and we've kind of been on a whirlwind ride since twenty twenty, you know.

Yeah, So and they're you know, they don't have the support of their father, so they're kind of.

And Riley's still scared, you.

Know, when Abigail, when that happened with Abigail, she quit working.

She just couldn't, you know, just couldn't.

And she's finding her way back to her art and back to reading, and it's a slow process, but yeah, just the hits kept coming for her, you know, for my kids, and I think it's going to be a while before everything is even a semblance of normalcy.

Seeing what Riley went through firsthand.

What do you want listeners who have heard her story and your story to understand about sexual assault, online relationships, the court process.

What do you want them to take away from hearing this conversation?

Honestly, be careful who you trust.

Be careful with the positions you put yourself in, because even though it is not your fault that those things happen to you, you're the only one that can protect yourself, because the creepy guy out there is not looking out for you, and our justice system, I'm sure as hell isn't looking out for you.

And as disgusting as it is that you have to constantly watch your back, you just do.

And it's the sad reality that we live in.

Do not think it won't happen to you, because I hear stories every day, and every single one of them either doesn't get any prosecution, or they get a slept on the wrist and they're skiing down a mountainside two years later on their daddy's dollar.

As Carl Miller, the journalists behind the kill List podcast told True Crime Conversations in twenty twenty four, the Hitman for Hire website he hacked is still operating.

He has long since handed over his back end access to the police, but it's not the only one on the dark web.

There are multiple.

There's definitely a demand for this service, and as.

KRL told us, I mean, there is something definitely very chilling about the capacity for some seemingly normal people to kind of reconcile themselves with having someone else killed in secret, and not just anyone, someone very close to them, someone that has been very close to them, like someone that they loved or loved.

As Carl pointed out, seventy percent of the targets were women with men wanting them dead because of money, revenge control, jealousy, or child custody.

So this is a story largely about violence against women.

But we need to clarify that Scott Quinn Burkett faced charges in federal court for a single count of using interstate facilities to commit murder for hire.

Allegations shared by Jamie and Riley regarding an incident involving Riley have not resulted in any charges and there has been no prosecution related to sexual assault.

Thank you to Jamie for helping us to tell her daughter Riley's story.

Thankfully, the plot against her was one of the many either Carl or the police were able to intercept.

If you want to see images related to this story, head over to our Instagram page at True Crime Conversations for in depth case explainers.

Follow us on TikTok under the same name.

True Crime Conversations is hosted by me Jemma Bath.

Senior producer is Tarlie Blackman, the group executive producer is Alaria Brophy, and there's been audio designed by Jacob Brown.

Thanks so much for listening.

I'll be back next week with another True Crime Conversation.

True Crime Conversations acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast was recorded on