S7, Chapter 1: Jacob Jeremiah Landin

0:01 I had to open the bruise up and let some of the blues blood come out to show them. Tapes from the Dark Side contains descriptions of violence and sexuality. Listener discretion is advised. Why don't we start with you telling me about Jacob, what you remember about him. I just remember he was funny, and he liked to laugh, and he liked to put drawers and make all silverware flay out, and he's just a silly boy. Is really smart.

0:47 The two voices you're hearing right now are that of Eric and his mother, Brenda, and they're discussing their loss. In Eric's case, of his brother and Brenda her son, Jacob Jeremiah Lyndine, who died when he was only nine months old, and like the whole thing backwards and just lay there and laugh, flip it over and he'd be like his little laugh. Yea, his laugh was amazing. It brought me joy just to hear it. He was so happy. He was happy. Little baby, well, big baby, yeah, he was big. It was big. It was ten pounds, like huge for me. I remember right before you got pregnant and I told you, mom, I'm gonna have a brother. Yeah, And he didn't believe me. I thought it was going to be a girl and I was a boy. Sure you're right. Today, I want to tell you a true crime story that is close to me, closer than perhaps any other story I've told so far. The reason for that being that it's the story worry the death of my friend Eric's brother, Jacob was killed in nineteen eighty seven, and Eric was only six years old at the time. His mother, Brenda was only twenty five, But shockingly, Eric was blamed for his baby brother's death. Most of us barely remember what it was like to

2:20 be six years old. You're getting your first glimpse of the larger world. You maybe have just started dressing yourself, can tie your own shoes, perhaps for the first time, and you're just beginning to develop an understanding of your place in the world. Imagine suddenly you're blamed for physically abusing your brother, your mom sends you away to a strange city to live with your dad, who was now divorced from your mother, and then the devastating news you find out your brother has died suddenly in what is called an accident. I remember being I remember being very confused, and you know, I think you know me better than most people, and I, especially at that age, really wanted to make everybody around me happy. And so I think I said what people wanted me to say or what was being said to agree with him, because I didn't want to cause problems. This is kindergarten time. I remember that because I remember I love my kindergarten teacher. She was so cool.

3:27 And then I had to go to California and get a new teacher. Yeah, it's not I felt that I needed to remove you because even if something would happen, I don't want you to be blamed. And I knew that he would use you and blame you no matter what regardless. So you call my dad, Yeah, I called you Dad and myself. You know this, and this is happening, and I don't know what's going on, but I want or a gremove from this situation because I just I couldn't understand what was happening, and I kept hearing. You know, he dropped him, He picked him up out the crib, he dropped him. I walked by, he kicked him. You know, everything was like Eric did this, Eric did that, and Eric's O jealous and you know it wasn't true, and so I had to make sure that no matter what happened, you were protected. How exactly did nine month old Jacob die and why was Eric a six year old claimed for his death? Let's investigate. On April seventh, nineteen eighty seven, Jacob Lendin died from a brain injury, a subdural hematoma, which is a build up of blood on the surface of the brain.

4:46 When blood pools in the space between the protective layers and the brain, it increases pressure on brain tissue. Essentially, our rigid skull offers no release valve, and so when the brain is squeezed, the blood flown to slow The compression of the brain creates a lack of oxygen rich blood, which in and of itself creates additional swelling. This pressure eventually forces the brain to travel down through the small hole at the base of the skull, which is called the Fraymen magnum. This is an oval opening through which the brain is connected to the spine, and when brain matter comes into contact with a bone around this opening, it's often too late. Brain function is already severely compromised, and because we need the brain to control breathing and heart rate death often occurs, and in Jacob's case, death did occur. He was only nine months old when he died. Although this story is filled with tragedy, it also has many twists and turns that I think make it one of the most compelling true crime stories that we've covered to date. But before we begin, I want to make a note that creating this episode presented me with what might have been my greatest challenge to date, and that is because of my friendship with Eric.

6:05 I knew I was starting off with a bias, and no matter how clear cut a case might seem on the surface, I do believe there are two sides to every story. I did my best to balance my pre existing notions and come at this case with a fresh set of eyes. I intentionally avoided reading any coverage of this case from other podcasts so that I could at least try to present an unbiased account. But with that being said, I'm sure that there is some bias on my part, and I want to acknowledge that. With that being said, I'm honored to present to you the case of Jacob Jeremiah Lendin. I think everyone has a bit of a fascination of the dark side. Let's start with the facts of the case. In April of nineteen eighty seven, New Mexico State Police officer sued to Walt was assigned to investigate the death of Jacob Blundein, a nine month old baby who had died from quote a blow to the head. That autopsy report reads Jacob Blundein died of a subdural hematoma, which compressed the brain and caused irreversible damage.

7:34 The autopsy examination also revealed the evidence of an old, partially healed subdural hematoma, as well as a partially healed skull fracture and a healing fracture of the fifth rib. The microscopic characteristics of all the healing injuries indicated that they occurred approximately three to four weeks prior. It could not be determined solely on the basis of the autopsy that these injuries occurred at the same time, but their ages suggested that they did. The coroner reported that the skull fracture and the old subdural hematoma were directly related and that these injuries were possibly associated with an episode or episodes of child abuse. The healing phase of the subdural hematoma is particularly susceptible to re hemorrhaging with trauma of a lesser degree than usually required to cause severe head injuries, and such an acute reaccumulation of blood within the subdural space was deemed at least partially responsible for Jacob's death. Jacob had died from some kind of blow to the head, but what the autopsy uncovered was equally horrifying. It pere Jacob had been the subject of severe and repeated physical abuse, and so the obvious question becomes, who would want to hurt a nine month old baby. Sue de Wald was assigned as the investigating officer, and her report gives us a firsthand look at exactly what happened on the day that Jacob was killed. From to Walt's report. At eleven thirty eight pm,

9:09 I interviewed Brenda Valerie Lundein, mother of Jacob Lundein, at the University of New Mexico Hospital. Brenda is employed as a checker at the Supermart in Skora, usually working three to nine pm. However, on this day she was scheduled to work eleven am to seven thirty pm. Her mother, mer Linda, normally babysits Jacob while Brenda's working. Brenda's stated on this day she told her mother to take the baby to John, who is Brenda's boyfriend with whom she lives, if she wanted to go to church. A quick note here that the name John is a pseudonym. I have been asked by Eric at this time to not use this person's real name, and so we will simply refer to him as John. Brenda said her mother took the baby to John at approximately six pm. Approximately seven pm, John entered the Supermark where she works in hysterics and told her the baby was in an ambulance and not breathing.

10:09 John told her that Jacob had fallen off the couch. So I was chunking out the customer. I heard the ambulance as by. At that moment. He run into the store. He said, ambulance. I don't know what happened. I said, what do you mean? Jucubs in the ambulance and he just he said, we gotta go, we gotta go, and I just ran out the store. I left the customer there. I don't know what happened. I just left and I got to the er and my mom and dad were there. I don't even know how they got there or what happened. And Jacob was in the room and I walked in and I touched my baby, and he took a deep breath. Why can't you Mama.

11:05 Mama was there with him. There defly him to Albuquerque. They took him to Presbyterian and the injuries were so bad to lift them to you and I'm trauma sinner. So Jacob was airlifted to the University of New Mexico Hospital and he was rushed into emergency surgery. He didn't make it. He died shortly after they took him in for surgery. So from my perspective as a six year old, I was asleep in my bed in California. My dad woke me up to tell me that there had been a terrible accident and that my brother was being rushed to the hospital. I didn't really understand what happened, but my dad told me that I needed to get my stuff together so that we could go back to New Mexico. I believe it was that same morning we jumped on a flight and went back to Albuquerque. I remember that there was a state police officer along with my mom and my grandmother waiting for us. At the airport. As soon as we got there, my mom told me what had happened. Jacob passed away overnight. My sweet little brother was gone. And I'll never forget that day. I'll never forget that feeling.

12:28 If Eric was in a different state, a different time zone, how could he be blamed for his brother's death. Coming up, we will hear firsthand from John's first interview with police, in which he explains in his own words, exactly what happened during that mysterious one hour time period from six pm to seven pm on April ninth, nineteen eighty seven. Stay with us Before we dive into John's interview with police, I thought it'd be helpful for you to have a bit of background information about John's relationship with the Landine family.

13:09 You see, John was not just a random boyfriend of Brenda's. He was a longtime family friend, and his history was intertwined with that of the Landin's going back decades. Eric's father, Jean, was a preacher in the Pentecostal church, and John's father was also a preacher. John's father was a mentor towards Jean and helped him to get established in his career in the church. Jean, Brenda, and John were all friends growing up. Jean and Brenda would get married and have kids, Eric and later Jacob, but things went south when Jean began having an emotional affair with another woman and Brenda found out about it. This became the impetus for their divorce and was also a motivating factor in Brenda's decision to start dating John. She wanted to get back at Jeane. She wanted to show him the emotional pain that he had caused her, and what better way than by dating one of his closest friends. But this also opposes a question what kind of friend would so readily jump at the opportunity to date their good friend's ex wife. I talked with Eric directly to get more information on the relationship between his father, Jean, his mother, Brenda, and John. So, my mom and dad they were very young when they got married. My mom was seventeen, I think my dad was maybe twenty, and my dad had aspirations of being like a really famous televangelist.

14:41 That was his goal, and so he spent a lot of time on the road, and my mom was stuck with me and Jacob trying to figure out how to feed us because she couldn't work because she had a baby and a preschooler. You know, there were times where we didn't have any food house and we didn't know where we were going to get food from. And then my mom finds out through John that my dad was having an emotional affair with another woman. I don't believe that it was a physical affair. I think that they were just spending a lot of time together. But for my mom it was very it was a betrayal. It was a huge betrayal of her trust. You know, she's struggling to keep food on the table, struggling to keep hold of the house and take care of the kids and all this other stuff, and my dad's just out hanging out with his friends.

15:35 So she laughed, and she did see John as this potential revenge against my dad. She wanted to hurt him in the way that he hurt her. And John was already grooming her for this anyway, Like he swooped in as soon as she came to down and started trying to sweep her off her feet. I think that's where my mom's motivation was. It was probably due to her age and her heart being broken and all the pain that she endured and stressed that she had and how old was she and how old were you at that time? So she's twenty years older than me, So I was five and she was twenty five. And then because Jacob is your full brothers, so there was a time when she got back together with your dad while dating John. No, Jacob was born before that. Oh, okay, okay, true, so it would have been right right at that time. Basically, Jacob was about three months old when they separated. Okay, can you tell me about John's relationship with your mom, which is something I didn't know you You were telling me where we were chatting, that she actually knew him from childhood, which I thought it was just kind of like this boyfriend who she had just met. Can you give us a little bit of background on

17:07 that. So his dad was a minister in town. My mom, my grandma, my grandpa, my aunts and uncles. They all went to the church, so the kids all grew up together. His sister married my mom's brother. His aunt is my godmother, So we had known this family. We had known him for a long time. He was also my dad's best friend and my dad was being mentored by his dad. My dad was a preacher. He was trying to get in there and try to become, you know, this big evangelist. And so this person was not a stranger. This person was somebody that we all knew. It was somebody my whole family knew. Did you know his father edel Yes? Yeah, what what was that relationship like? Had you ever seen his father be abusive to anyone?

18:04 No? No? And I think that probably John was abused at some point. I believe that in my heart. I think that's why he behaves the way that he does. But I don't know that it was his father. It could have been anybody from Sue to Waltz. Police report. I interviewed John living, boyfriend of Brenda Landine. John has been living with Brenda since late December or January of nineteen eighty seven. He's employed as a maintenance man for the County of Sakora. John states Brenda's mother bron Jacob to him at approximately six pm. He seemed to be failing all right. John put him in his walker and gave him a teething cookie in his bottle. John was on the floor dubbing some cassette tapes for his brother the baby was playing in the living room and his walker. One of the wheels kept getting stuck in the box which contains the tapes. John stated he moved the baby away from the tapes, but the baby kept wanting to play with him. John took the baby out of the walker and placed him on the floor behind him.

19:18 He gave the baby two or three old tapes to play with, his teeth and cracker and his bottle. After playing on the floor for a while, the baby became sleepy. John stated he picked the baby up and was carrying him to the bedroom when the tape clicked. John put the baby on the couch and went to change the tape. He then heard the baby make noise, and when he turned around, the baby was lying on the floor between the couch and the coffee table. John stated he picked the baby up and saw a yellowish liquid coming from his mouth and nose. He turned the baby over and pattered him on the back in an attempt to clear his mouth. He said the baby's eyes were rolling back into his head, so he ran to the neighbor's house with the baby to have them call the rescue unit.

20:04 The baby was throwing up and John placed him on the floor and tried to clear his throat and gave him mouth to mouth resuscitation. He said the neighbor also attempted to revive the baby. After the rescue unit arrived, John went to the supermart to notify Brenda of what had occurred. John stated he did not know if the baby had struck his head on the coffee table. It's at this point in the police report that there's a market shift in focus from John and what happened on that particular night to Eric. John is aware of two previous injuries to the baby, both of which he believes were inflicted by the six year old brother Eric. The first injury was the first part of March. His children were visiting and he was taking care of Jacob and Eric Brenda was not home. He took his children home, leaving Jacob with Eric for a short time. The next day, Brenda noticed the baby had a skinned ear, and she took the baby to the doctor. John stated Brenda finally was able to get Eric to admit he had taken the baby out of the crib and dropped him. John stated the second injury occurred two or three weeks later, on Saturday night. Jacob was fussy, so Brenda gave him some medication and went back to sleep. On the next day, Sunday, Brenda's mother felt he had a soft spot and knocked on his head. Brenda took him immediately to the doctor, who treated the injury and advised Brenda that

21:34 came from a blow to the head. Jacob was in the hospital for a couple of days. According to John, when Brenda came home, she asked Eric if he had done something to the baby. Initially, Eric said no, and Brenda talked to him about lying. Eric asked her what would happen if he was lying, and she told him if he told the truth, he would not be in trouble. Eric then admitted he had kicked the baby. He said his father told him, when someone hurts you, you hurt them back. Jacob was pulling Eric's hair, so Eric kicked him. John stated they took Eric to the hospital when they went to pick up Jacob. When Jacob came out with his head bandage, John said Eric seemed to be scared. After that, Brenda sent Eric to live with his father in California.

22:22 John stated he knows of no other injuries or broken bones that Jacob had Jacob has not been well since the first head injury. He has been fussy, vomiting frequently, and had an ear infection, consilitis and an allergic reaction to the medicine. John said he has two children who he sees frequently, and they have not had any unusual injuries. He does not know how Jacob was injured this time, except that he must have hit his head on the coffee table, He said. Brenda is an excellent mother and her mother, bre Linda takes good care of the children. From everything we've earned up to this point, it shouldn't be much of a surprise to hear John avoid responsibility for Jacob's death. It's also not surprising to hear him describe multiple incidents in which Eric had been the one to Jacob. But what was surprising to me is that when I first read Brenda's interview with police, she described the same things she said Eric had kicked Jacob, and then in Merlinda's interview, who is Brenda's mother, Eric's grandmother, she also describes the same things. She says that Eric had kicked Jacob in the head and that Eric was jealous of his baby brother. I was suddenly faced with a dilemma. Everything I knew up to this point told me that Eric was in no way responsible for the death of his brother. But now I was staring at interviews with his mother and grandmother, who had no reason to lie, saying that Eric had kicked

23:53 his brother in the head. Though on the other hand, even if that was true, Eric was in another state at the time of Jacob's death. It seemed like a stretch to me that a six year old living in another state could in any way be responsible for the death of this baby. But in my attempts to remain a neutral third party and to get the truth, and decided to ask Eric directly about this. Here my raw exchange with Eric Carter Landine on the next episode of Tapes from the Dark Side. And you had one memory of kicking or correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you said you had a memory of kicking Jacob one time. Yeah, can you tell us what you remember from that? We were laying on the floor and Episode two in the Jacob Lendine Story will be released next week, though it's available right now on Patreon, as well as all four episodes of this season, plus all early releases for future episodes. Thank you to everyone who supports me on Patreon. I really couldn't do this without you guys. I know financially times are really tough right now with inflation and the rental market being

25:27 crazy, the housing market being crazy. So if you can't afford to subscribe to me on Patreon, please don't. If there's any bonus episode that you want to hear and you can't afford it, just message me on Instagram at the dark Side Pod and I'll send it to you for free. But if you can afford to give five dollars a month, then you will get all the bonus episodes that we have, and you will get my undying gratitude. We also read out the names of our supporters and the credits, which because the episodes in this season are a little bit shorter, we're going to wait until the finale to read out our Patreon supporters. I just thought that made sense. Thank you all again so much. If you want to support me, go to patreon dot com slash tapes from the Dark Side, where the link will be in the show notes. Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight