Murder in Talladega

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Discretion advised. This is ten minute
murder. August fourteenth, the summer of

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twenty twenty two, a couple,
just at the start of their journey into

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adulthood headed out for a day of
hiking in the Talladega National Forest in Alabama.

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It was a Sunday, the sun
was shining, and school started that

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Monday. The only thing left to
do was squeezing one last trip out to

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see the waterfalls before these two young
people had their very first classes of the

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semester at the University of Central Florida
the following day. Twenty two year old

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Adam Simgy and Mikaela Paulis, who
was only twenty years old at the time,

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had been out to the park many
times before that fateful Sunday. In

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fact, the forests in the national
Park were some of Adam's favorite places to

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go, especially when he could go
there when the weather was good and he

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had his girlfriend Mikayla by his side. The young couple set out pretty early

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that morning and were already driving around
the park around ten o'clock when they spotted

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something on the side of the road
that made them pull over and stop the

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car. A young woman had flagged
them down right beside her was a broken

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down vehicle of her own that she
needed help with. Twenty one year old

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Yasmin Hider was camping up in the
woods with her friend and was on her

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way into town to pick up some
much needed food and supplies when her friend's

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car had suddenly stopped working. Yasmin
was then left stranded on the road,

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and that's why she'd stopped Adam and
Michayla to ask her for help. Adam

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did not hesitate, he jumped right
in. Both he and Mikayla spent over

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an hour with Yasmin on the side
of the park road, desperately trying to

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fix her car. They even called
some of their relatives for advice on what

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to do, and they still couldn't
get Yasmin's car running. They even offered

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to go and get her help at
the closest ranger station. That was how

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much both Adam and Michayla wanted to
help Yasmin, and that was why Yasmin's

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sudden shift in demeanor caught them so
off guard. After all of that time

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and effort the two of them had
just put into trying to help her,

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Yasmin pulled out a gun she'd been
hiding from them this whole time, and

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started barking out orders. In another
surprising and chilling twist in this case,

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she then filmed herself marching Adam and
Mikayla into the forests that surrounded the park

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road. Now concealed from any potential
witnesses that may drive by, Yasmin demanded

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Adam and Michaela's banking information, still
recording herself and what would turn out to

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be a horrifying and grisly archive of
someone's final moments. The video shows her

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giving one last order to the couple
as she marched them into the woods,

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and that was for them to drop
their phones. It was after this that

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all hell broke loose. In another
unexpected twist of the case, while Adam

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dropped his phone onto the forest floor
that day, he pulled out his own

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surprise for Yasmin, a nine millimeter
gun that he'd been hiding himself. Adam

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then ordered Yasmin to put down her
weapon, and a fragile stalemate ensued.

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Are you serious, Yasmin asks on
the recording, but then she pulled the

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trigger. Before anyone could respond,
her gun jammed and while she was rushing

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to get it working again. Adam
threw himself in the line of fire to

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protect Mikayla. He shot at Yasmin, but by then Yasmin had a working

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weapon as well. It was only
eleven thirty Sunday morning when the nearby ranger

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station that Adam and Mikayla had just
offered to get Yasmin help from received a

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call reporting a shootout in the forest. While their ranger teams began the long

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drive up into the mountain to reach
the chaotic scene, Yasmin and Adam were

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just about done exchanging blows. Yasmin
had been shot several times in the chest.

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Adam had been shot only once,
but by another twist of fate,

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he'd come out on the bottom.
Why did you shoot Yasmin says on her

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own recording. It wasn't supposed to
be like this. As Adam and Yasmin

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laid bleeding out in the middle of
the forest, two witnesses were left standing.

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One was the terrified twenty year old
Mikayla and the other a thirty seven

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year old woman who'd only tangled the
thread of the story even further. Crystal

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Diane Pinkins had also been on the
side of the road that day and a

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witness to the shootouts that went down
between Adam and Yasmine. But she was

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also tied to the case in many
more ways than that. Not only was

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she the owner of the car that
Yasmin had been trying to get Adam and

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Michaela to fix, but she was
also the friend who'd set up camp with

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Yasmin somewhere out in the park.
Adam was fighting to save Michaela and his

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own life. Michaela spotted Crystal hiding
in the trees and pleaded with her to

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go and get help. Crystal,
either terrified herself or torn between helping her

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friend and the absolute insanity that their
attempted robbery had descended into, turned tail

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and ran, realizing that Cristel wasn't
going to help them. Michaela then changed

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tracks, and as the shots died
out, she made a run for her

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phone and called the emergency services.
Now knowing that help was finally on the

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way, Michaela rushed back to Adam, who was lying not far from where

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Yasmin was. Both shooters were incapacitated
by then, but Adam was in really

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bad shape. Mikayla then desperately began
performing CPR to try to keep her boyfriend

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alive until paramedics could get there,
but because of how far they were out

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into the park that day, it
took first responders of very long half an

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hour to reach the site. When
they got there, they walked onto the

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scene where Mikayla was still performing CPR
on Adam, but Adam was gone beside

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them, his killer still laid bleeding
out and alive and awake enough to start

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making demands all over again. As
paramedics began addressing the gunshot wounds on her

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chest, Yasmin kept asking how much
trouble she was in. Quote. I

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know I'm going to get time for
this, she said, I just want

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to know how much. While Yasmin
was first taken by ambulance and then airlifted

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to the hospital, investigators at the
scene had to now interview the very distraught

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Mikayla. Still reeling from her shock
and grief, Mikayla managed to give an

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account of what happened and a description
of the woman she'd seen disappear back into

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the forest during the shootout, Piecing
together the bits of information that Yasmin had

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drip fed the couple as they tried
to fix her car that morning. The

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investigators determined that there was a camp
nearby where a known number of people were

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living off grid. These people were
more than likely armed, and if Yasmine

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was anything to go by, dangerous. Teams of investigators and rangers scoured the

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area and even brought in sniffer dogs
to locate this camp and anyone else who

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could be involved in Adam Simg's murder. Only about half a mile away,

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those teams found what they were looking
for, an armed camp and the scene

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of another potential shootout. They managed
to catch the woman standing outside of a

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tent on her own off guard,
but as the police were shouting for her

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to lie down on the ground,
another person approached the scene wielding a shotgun.

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What followed was an incredibly tense stalemate, one where the police found themselves

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facing a loaded weapon and not wanting
to be the first ones to shoot.

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This case made another unforeseen and unbelievable
twist yet again when Cristel's son approached the

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camp with that loaded shotgun in his
hands, and yet another twist when officers

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realized that Cristel's son was only five
years old. The police asked the child

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to put the gun down, but
the boy could see his mother lying on

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the ground outside the tents that the
three of them had been all living in,

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and he was afraid, probably not
knowing what else to do. The

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boy started slowly stepping over to his
mother, but he was still holding on

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to the shotgun. Everything could devolve
again in a split second, and someone

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else could potentially end up dead if
the police didn't get this situation under control

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quickly. Everyone had to watch and
wait to see what the boy would do.

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No one there wanted to be the
reason why this case would erupt into

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another shootout, especially when it involved
a five year old child. The boy

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inched over to his mother, and
eventually he did put the gun down.

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He was just a kid, and
he was scared by all the people suddenly

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turning up at their camp, and
at the end of things, he just

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wanted his mother in front of all
of those armed officers. He made his

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way over to Cristel, put the
gun down, and then got down on

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the ground so he could lie beside
his mother. Now that he was finally

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unarmed, the police then secured the
scene and arrested Cristel. Her son was

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immediately taken into care, and she
was sent to jail for her part in

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the murder that had occurred only a
half mile away from that campsite. Yasmin

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later argued that she'd only approached Adam
and Michaeleb because she genuinely needed to get

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into town to get food and their
car was broken. She said that the

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situation had just escalated so quickly,
and she would have been happy enough to

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get a ride into town instead of
the whole thing turning into a shootout that

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had left Adam dead, but Mikayla
disagreed. In response to Yasmin's statement,

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Mikaela argued that she and Adam would
have been more than happy to have dropped

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Yasmin into town themselves if she had
asked them to, and that Yasmin was

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responsible for Michaela losing the love of
her life. In a later social media

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post, Michaela wrote, quote my
reason for being my soulmate, my life

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partner, the future father of my
children died in the middle of a state

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park in Alabama. No words can
begin to describe the shock and pain I'm

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in. Adam is the best person
I've ever met on the face of this

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entire planet. He was the most
pure soul, and he made sure I

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knew I would be safe when I
was with him. It comforts me to

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say he passed in one of his
favorite plas laces, the forest in the

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mountains. No other scenario could match
this pain. I wish I could hold

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your hand one last time. Both
Yasmine and Crystal pled guilty in federal court.

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Yasmin was found guilty of second degree
murder, kidnapping, and robbery and

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received thirty five years in prison.
That's ten Minute Murder for today, brief

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and bingeable true crime. I'm Joe
the host, and I really appreciate you

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listening. If you're new to ten
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And coming up on the next episode
of ten Minute Murder, we're gonna

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talk about a case. It's I
mean, all of these cases are disturbing,

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but the ones that particularly get to
me are the ones that involve kids.

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And the one coming up next is
about Danielle ven Dam who was kidnapped

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and murdered by a neighbor. Now, the story's interesting because the father thought

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that the little girl was asleep in
the bed. They had a security system,

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an alarm system, and it did
go off, but he just still

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still assumed that she was asleep in
the bed. It went off twice,

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and when they woke up the next
morning and saw that she wasn't there,

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they were like, oh, the
security alarm. We should have checked the

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bed. But that's a story you're
gonna hear about next on ten Minute Murder.

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Thank you for listening. I'll catch
you on the next one. Bye.