329. Ride or Die - The Murder of Shea Briar

Our sources for this episode are thestarpress.com, caselaw.findlaw.com, primetimer.com, crimeonline.com, wane.com, californianews.yahoo.com, dailystandard.com, mercercountyoutlook.net, people.com, CBS News, oxygen.com, law.justia.com, bearfreeman.com, and theindependent.com. Ride or die, it's a phrase we use to describe those closest to us, the ones that we would do absolutely anything to protect, we would go to war for, take a bullet for, maybe even bury a body for.

Typically, it means that you have a bond like no other.

Usually, we don't mean those things literally, and I say usually because that's not the case for everyone.

For some people, loyalty goes beyond words.

It's actionable, and it doesn't have boundaries when it comes to right or wrong.

For some people, ride or die isn't just a figure of speech.

It's a price they really are willing to pay for friendship, and sometimes that price is actually their future.

So for today's case, I'm taking you guys to Indiana, to a quiet, rural area called Portland.

This is a farming town in Indiana of only about 6,300 people.

Wow, okay.

It is here that Shay Brier is just trying to live a quiet, respectable little life.

It's actually a far cry from where Shay grew up.

He was born just 25 miles away in De Soto, Indiana, on March 9th, 1988.

But his family actually ended up moving to Kailua, Hawaii, when he was around kindergarten, and so that is where he spent most of his childhood, and basically where he would say he was raised.

And he was raised here in Hawaii with his mom, Tracy, and his stepdad.

Now, growing up, Tracy, his mom, described Shay as, quote, "a little rascal," but he was always polite and kind.

He was a well-mannered little boy who went to church with his family and loved to play with G.I. Joes, which actually inspired his goals later in life.

That was to join the military.

Shay graduated high school in Hawaii in 2006, not only with honors, but he was also the co-president of his class, and then after graduating, he enlisted in the Navy.

He graduated from training in 2008 and was stationed in Washington.

Now, there he became a Master of Arms before moving on to deal with dogs in the K9 handling division of the military.

Now, afterwards, he was deployed to Italy for a while before being honorably discharged in 2012.

And at this point, Shay's kinda wondering what his next moves were.

And when he thought about putting down roots, it wasn't Hawaii that came to mind, despite that being where he had lived basically his entire childhood.

Shay had always summered with his grandparents back in Indiana, and it was something he remembered fondly.