Beard Laws (00:00.756)

Welcome back. If you're listening to this, maybe a little bit on a lower level of volume because you had too much food, maybe too much booze for the Super Bowl. I figured, you know what? Let's try to find a Super Bowl story that we could go back to the past. Are we a sports podcast? No. Could we originally talk about the first Super Bowl ever that was known as the AFL NFL World Championship game that actually took place on January 15th?

1967. And now look, we're almost in the middle of February because we keep adding games. Either way, that one was held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, California. It was between Green Bay and Kansas City Chiefs. How ironic. The Packers did win 35 to 10, marking the beginning of what would become one of the most significant annual sporting events in the United States and pretty much around the world. Bart Starr was the first MVP. Again, not a sports podcast. So I said, what could we do for her? You know,

sports Super Bowl. Your town a little bit of murder. And this involved one of the greatest defensive players at a Super Bowl party. So it seemed a little bit fitting. If you don't know what we're talking about, and you didn't read the headlines, Ray Lewis from the Baltimore Ravens. So I'm going to try to do the intro real quick. And you're probably noticing where's Meg, where's Meg, it's been a super crazy weekend at the time of the recording. And we've been driving all over the place, but you don't care about that.

So you're stuck with me. She'll be back next week. I promise you. All right. Let's go ahead. Do the introduction for the episode so Zach and everybody else doesn't get mad at me. All right. Let's go.

Beard Laws (01:50.9)

Well, that was wonderful. Raymond Anthony Lewis Jr. was born on May 15th, 1975, was obviously as a retired American football linebacker with a 17 career, which was all spent with the Baltimore Ravens played at the University of Miami, where he was an all American 1996 NFL draft. He was the first round pick for the Ravens. I'm just kind of solidifying his place in Baltimore.

history throughout his career until his retirement in the 2000 after the 2012 season. He, you know, was a leader and just was an absolute animal. Great dances. And he hit hard. He was, you know, obviously the team's top tackler in his rookie year. He achieved a whole bunch of awards for the Ravens, but that's not more here to talk about. We're here to talk about the January 31st incident in 2000, where he was involved in a significant event off the field. Lewis.

along with his two companions were charged with murder. And this is where Meg would go, done, done, done. And, uh, man, this is so much better with it. Anyways, uh, this, uh, they were charged with murder after an altercation that occurred after a Superbowl party in Atlanta, Georgia. I was going to say the Superbowl, there's a whole bunch of axes, axes, 34, Superbowl 34. That's what I'm going with in Atlanta, Georgia. The incident unfortunately resulted in the deaths of, Oh man.

I'm, this one's tough and I should have did some research. Jakint Baker and Richard Lawler. Sorry to any of the families or anybody else that I did say that wrong. I'm not great with saying names. On January 31st, obviously 2000, there was obviously the Superbowl that did result in the deaths of them. But the kind of the weird thing of this was the specific details of what actually happened were very unclear. Even to this day.

Even with all the different accounts, somewhat of the technology with what was available for video and potentially phone tracking, interpretations, everything like that, they just couldn't quite figure out what happened. But there are a couple of things that after stories, interviews and some stuff that did seem to kind of line up for that was there was a confrontation between Lewis and his group and another group of individuals. Obviously, that included the people that we'd already mentioned that was outside of a nightclub in Atlanta.

Beard Laws (04:13.172)

The altercation obviously led into physical violence. During this physical violence, the two people that did perish were stabbed. And that's what they ended up kind of succumbing to was the stab wounds. So we talked about the two companions that Lewis was with. Oakley and Sweeting are the two last names of them. The three of them, they then leave the scene in a limo, which was later discovered abandoned, stained.

with blood. Ray Lewis was wearing a white suit. That was never found. And obviously the disappearance of the white suit was a huge kind of flag in the case, raised suspicions, became a focal point of the investigation and in the trial. Lewis was actually indicted on murder and aggravated assault charges along with Oakley and Sweeting.

During the trial, Lewis always maintained that he acted in self -defense and was not directly involved in the stabbings. He also testified that he sought to de -escalate the situation and tried to separate himself from the violence. Ray Lewis, huge man. I think if he's going to de -escalate anything, if there was somebody to de -escalate thing, this is my personal opinion, it's going to get handled. I mean, he was just an absolute monster off the field and if you ever saw him, just a big, big man. Despite the legal proceedings of it though and the speculation surrounding the events of the night,

The murders of the two individuals technically still remain officially unsolved. Lewis consistently denies any involvement in the deaths and has maintained his innocence regarding the incident. And of course he's been asked a million times if you watch sports interviews and everything, and definitely does maintain his innocence in that regard. Oakley.

and sweating or indicted on an indicted, I am very great words on murder and aggravated assault charges. The prosecution argued that Lewis was involved in the altercation that led to the deaths of Baker and Mollaller as well. However, Lewis eventually reached a plea agreement with prosecutors. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of obstruction of justice in exchange, though, for providing testimony against Oakley and Sweeting.

Beard Laws (06:31.38)

As part of the agreement, Lewis received a one -year probation sentence and agreed to pay $250 ,000 in fines to the NFL. Lewis's testimony during the trial was crucial in the case against Oakley and Sweeting. Both men were later acquitted of murder charges. The murders, like we said earlier, remain officially unsolved and Lewis, again,

Still to this day from everything that anybody has talked to and all of the research that we did still obviously maintains his innocence regarding the events of the night. The incident obviously did have a significant ramification for Lewis's reputation in his career, but he did go on and continue to play in the NFL, ultimately becoming one of the most celebrated linebackers in league history. And around that time in the fantasy world and the football world, lots of puns, jokes and just comments of on this, but.

Nobody's gonna mess with Ray Lewis. So I just thought this was kind of a fitting episode to do around Super Bowl time. Obviously, this is the day after hopefully you did enjoy it, something a little bit different. And like I said, we're gonna get back kind of into the swing of things next year. Hopefully, maybe you want some money. Maybe you definitely enjoyed the Super Bowl as well. And I know back at it at work. You're listening to this. I'm potentially listening to this on my ride to work. And we did miss Meg.

I miss I miss her sprinkles in her little tidbits on this. But again, something a little bit different. Hopefully you enjoyed let us know in the comments. Shoot us a message on any of the socials. Check out Yorktown .com and check out the new pin on the map. And like I said, Meg will be back producers that could be back to writing some stuff about him busy time not only for us but for you and we can't thank you enough for taking some time out of your busy day to to listen or potentially watch this sources, Wikipedia.

Definitely is a is a big determining factor in just about every single thing that we do so shout out to Wikipedia for that and also shout out to sports Kida dot -com a lot of good information on this is well NPR dot org in CBS 12 dot com so again We can't thank you guys enough and we always ended on a quote and I thought this quote was fitting I'm going to Disney World

Beard Laws (08:44.052)

or I'm going to Disneyland. And that is said by almost every single player interviewed after they win the Super Bowl. It's been a tradition for a very long time and you're going to see it on camera as well. So congrats to the NFL champion of the world. And we can't thank you guys enough. We really do appreciate everything that you do for the Yorktown podcast. We'll be back next week in the full swing of things. Take care, everybody.