If Something Happens To Me...

In so many true crime cases, entering a relationship with the wrong person turns out to be a death sentence that the victim can't escape, even if they try to end the relationship before it's too late. Jolie Callen made an impression on everyone she met throughout her teenage years. She stood out from the crowd, partly because she was only four feet ten inches tall, and also because she liked to dye her hair bright colors. When Jolie started dating Lauren Bunner, who was two years older than her, her friends immediately disapproved. From very early on in the relationship, it was clear that Lauren didn't want other people noticing Jolie the way that he had noticed Jolie. In fact, he didn't even want her to spend time with her own friends or meet new people, and Lauren's opinion all of Jolie's time should be spent with him and his friends. The longer the relationship went on, the more controlling and jealous Lauren became. Jolie saw right through Lauren's controlling behavior and tried to break up with him multiple times, but it was harder than she expected. Every time she turned the conversation towards a break up, Lauren would tell her that if she ever left him, he'd kill himself. Jolie believed that he meant it and agreed that she would not break up with him. After going through this cycle time after time, Jolie couldn't take it anymore. Despite Lauren's threats, she broke up with him for good. Several months passed and Jolie started dating again. She was relieved that Lauren had not followed through on his suicide threats, and when he reached out to her and asked that they could hang out as friends, she agreed, assuming that he'd moved on from their relationship like she did. Lauren suggested that they go hiking together with Jolie's adorable dog, Kibba. Lauren and Jolie had adopted Kibba together during their relationship, and they had tried to share custody of the dog after the breakup. For Lauren, offering to go for a hike felt like kind of an olive branch. She hated the idea of having bad blood with anyone and wanted to continue being on good terms with her ex. However, the day before the hike, Jolie texted her friends about the plan, which she called quote a symbolic friendship hike, also saying, if something happens to me, you'll know who I was with. She may have meant it as a joke, her friends may have taken it as a joke, but as it turns out, she was foreshadowing what was to come. On the thirtieth of August twenty fifteen, Jolie and Lauren set off on their hike, driving through the Alabama countryside. They planned to hike part of the Pannotie Trail, a challenging rocky path that eventually connects to the Appalachian Trail. Before they got out of the car, Lauren took a picture of Jolie sitting in the passenger seat with the dog on her lap. He posted it two Instagram, writing on our way to go hiking and ending the post with the heart emoji. It was as if he wanted to document the day, showing everybody who followed him that he had not lost Jolie after all. On multiple occasions during the hike, Lauren stopped to take more pictures of Jolie and Kibba to post on his Instagram. The last two photos showed Jolie standing in front of cliffs. In the first, she was holding Kibba in her arms, and in the second she was standing alone. In both images, Jolie is facing away from the camera, taking a photo of the view with her own phone. Minutes after the final photo was taken, Lauren pulled out a gun that he'd secretly carried with him, a twenty two caliber bear Claw. He took aim and fired the first bullet, which struck Jolie in the back of the head. She didn't have time to move, she didn't have time to panic. She didn't even see him fire the gun. Jolie immediately crumpled to the ground, lying face down and unmoving, but Lauren wasn't done. To make sure she was dead, he rolled her over and shot her a second time, at point blank range, directly between the eyes. Then he pushed her body off the edge of the cliff, where it fell forty feet to the ground below. Despite making the effort to push Jolie off the cliff and out of sight, didn't try to hide what he had done. He walked back to his car without Kibba or Jolie, and once he was there, he calmly placed a call to nine one one, telling the operator quote, I want to turn myself in for the murder of my ex girlfriend, Jolie Callen that happened just a little while ago on Chehaw Mountain. When the police made their way to the area, Lauren didn't try to flee. He sat in his car covered in Jolie's blood, waiting to be arrested, and it wasn't hard for local law enforcement to find the scene of the crime. A significant amount of Jolie's blood was visible on the edge of the cliff, right where she had been pushed over. For the police, the case seemed pretty straightforward. They had the body, they had the murder weapon, and a suspect had turned himself in almost immediately. But despite confessing to the killing himself, when Lauren was arrested and swiftly charged with Jolie's murder, he pleaded not guilty. At his trial, lauren story was that he and Jolie had actually agreed on a murder suicide pact, which involved Lauren shooting Jolie and then turning the gun on himself. However, Lauren had decided not to go through with the pact after all, but this change of heart had only occurred after Jolie had already been shot twice and pushed off of a cliff. Jolie's friends and family did not believe this story for a second. Not only did they know that Jolie had not been suicidal or depressed, they also knew the details of Jolie's relationship with Lauren, how controlling he had been, and how he convinced Jolie not to break up with him whenever she tried to leave. Why would Jolie agreed to a murder suicide pact with a man that she had spent months trying to escape from. Why would the pact have been carried out on a hike, which Jolie had been excited for months after the breakup, when she was dating a new guy. For the people that knew Jolie, the truth seemed clear. After Lauren's suicide threats failed to deter her from ending the relationship, Lauren had murdered her, either as revenge for the breakup or because she refused to get back together with him. When she died, Jolie Callen had only been eighteen years old, and when he killed her, Lauren Bunner had been twenty. Although he wasn't a minor at the time of the crime. Lauren's attorneys argued that he was eligible for youthful offender status due to his Asperger syndrome. In Alabama, youthful offender status allows defendants who are less than twenty one years old to avoid serving more than three years of jailed time, no matter what crime they committed, and it's super uncommon for a twenty year old to be granted youthful offender status, especially when they've been charged with murder. As Jolie's friends and family looked on in horror, Lauren was granted youthful offender status, meaning that although he'd murdered an eighteen year old girl in cold blood, he would seve a maximum sentence of three years in prison. Jolie's loved ones weren't the only ones who were outraged by the verdict. Because of the morbid Instagram posts and brazen nature of the killing, a media frenzy had formed around the case. It became so high profile that Lauren had to wear a bulletproof vest in and out of the court house, a luxury that Jolie had not been able to have on their hike. Jolie's dad, Michael Callen refused to accept the verdict. He made a call to an ABC television affiliate, organizing a petition to send the case back to the court. By December of that year, the Callens celebrated a huge win in court. Lauren's youthful offender status was revoked in July twenty seventeen for the first time since he confessed to murder. On the nine one one call, Lauren Bunner admitted that he had killed Jolie and pleaded guilty to murder. His attorneys continued to argue that Lauren's mental illness should be taken into consideration during his sentencing, but the judge was not convinced by these arguments. Lauren had been in his right mind at the time of the murder, and the fact that he'd packed a gun with him proved that Jolie's death had been planned. The judge believed that Lauren's Asperger's or any other mental health issues did not reduce his responsibility for Jolie's death. Two years after Jolie died, Lauren was sentenced again, this time as an adult. He was given fifty two years in prison, but would be eligible for parole after serving fifteen. It wasn't as harsh of a sentence as the callans wanted, but it was enough for them to feel as if Jolie's murderer had not gone unpunished. That is ten minute Murder for today, brief and binge able true crime. I'm Joe, I'm the host, and thank you so much for listening today. If you're listening right now and you've listened to other episodes of this podcast and you're not subscribed, be for real right now? What are you doing? You're just type in it in every time ten minute Murder. Let's see if Joe's posted a new episode. Oh yep, he's got one. Why are you doing that? Just subscribe? It sounds easy to me when you could just literally push a button and it solves the world's problems. Not necessarily the world, but it makes it easier to find the podcast. That's why you subscribe. Also connect with me on social media and see the visuals of what we're talking about here in the podcast. And if you like this episode, leave a rating and review on Apple, Spotify, any place that's possible. I love getting your positive feedback. It's very much appreciated and helps this show grow all right. Our email question for today comes from Gabby in Stockton, California. What is one taste that you have that you think other people would judge you for. Gabby, you're trying to make people hate me. I'll tell you, but just know that people in my life outside of this podcast know this opinion. I have this thing that I'm going to tell you. I've gotten the side eye so many times when I've mentioned it, and I don't volunteer this information because I know I know it's going to get me judged. And what you have to understand is I'm stalling. Okay, I'll say it. The Dave Matthews band I don't like. If they come on, I'll turn the channel. I don't have DMB in any of my Spotify playlists. If someone gave me free tickets to a show, I would politely decline. Look, I'm not saying that they're bad. I'm just saying that it's not for me. I get the appeal. I get it. I guess Gabby, You're gonna make people hate me. But thank you for the email. All Right, I guess that's the end of the episode for today. Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you enjoyed the episode. Have a good night or day or morning. I don't I don't know.