Latest news with #Wicca
Time of India
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Shruti Haasan opens up on belief in witchcraft and astrology, says Kamal Haasan 'hates' god talk at home
(Picture Courtesy: Facebook) Actor and singer Shruti Haasan has opened up about her spiritual journey and complex relationship with her father, Kamal Haasan 's, atheist beliefs. Speaking on Ranveer Allahbadia's podcast, Shruti revealed that she is a firm believer in astrology and practices the Wiccan religion, a nature-based spiritual path often associated with witchcraft. Her father, however, remains a staunch atheist who "hates" it when she talks about religion or God in public. 'We grew up in a non-religious, atheist home,' Shruti shared. 'My dad really hates when I say this—but we didn't have God in our house. No rituals, no religious symbols. It was all very alien to us.' She explained that while Kamal Haasan never imposed his beliefs on her, discussions about astrology were strictly unwelcome. 'If you said astrology in front of him, he'd be like, 'Get out,'' she said, half-jokingly. "We are the granddaughters of the witches you couldn't burn." Shruti revealed her deep connection to Wicca and Paganism, spiritual practices that focus on nature, feminine energy, and ancestral power. 'I feel the bloodline of my female ancestors. There's this beautiful quote I love: 'We are the granddaughters of the witches you couldn't burn.' by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Giá vàng đang tăng mạnh trong năm 2025 — Các nhà giao dịch thông minh đã tham gia IC Markets Tìm hiểu thêm Undo That stayed with me,' she said. She believes her draw towards these faiths has roots in the matriarchal strength passed down through generations of women in her family. Kamal Haasan, Ayushmann Invited To Oscars 2025! India Shines Bright With Payal Kapadia Too While her spiritual path differs greatly from her father's pragmatic and atheist outlook, Shruti noted that Kamal has always respected her choices. 'My poor father,' she said with affection. 'He's seen me be rebellious my whole life but never stopped me. He hates tattoos, and I have five.' Art as the family religion—"Art 'is the only God." Despite their differences, Shruti described her childhood as one filled with 'creativity and chaos,' where art was treated as a kind of religion. 'Every day of the week was about some form of artistic expression,' she recalled. 'Art is the only God he believes in.' On the work front, Shruti Haasan will be next seen in Rajinikanth's 'Coolie.'
Indian Express
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Kamal Haasan ‘hates it' when daughter Shruti reveals he doesn't believe in God, would kick her out if she discussed astrology with him
Shruti Haasan spoke about her belief in astrology, and said that her father doesn't tolerate conversations around it. She also admitted that she is a practitioner of the Wiccan religion, which involves witchcraft. 'We are the granddaughters of the witches you couldn't burn,' she said in a new interview, revealing that her illustrious father 'hates it' when she publicly speaks about the atheist household she grew up in. Shruti said that art is the only religion that Kamal believes in. Appearing on Ranveer Allahbadia's podcast, she said that her household was filled with 'creativity and chaos' when she was growing up. While she was surrounded by atheism, she found spirituality later in life. She said that her father allowed her to pursue her beliefs without interfering in her journey. 'We grew up in an atheist home; a non-religious home. My dad hates it when I say this, but we didn't have God at home. None of that stuff that other homes have. It's so alien, the concept of religion and God,' she said. Also read – Shruti Haasan says she went from traveling in Mercedes to taking a Mumbai local after parents Kamal Haasan-Sarika's divorce She continued, 'Somewhere, in my child brain, I knew art was God. Every day of the week would be devoted to artistic endeavors.' Shruti said that her father is 'emotionally esoteric', which helps him as an actor, but he's 'extremely pragmatic' on a day-to-day level. 'He can gauge people better than therapists, because he's been acting since four, so has my mom… He has become more relaxed as a human being; now, with age, he has become more mellow,' she said. While Shruti admitted that her parents' diverse interests influenced her, her father would draw the line at some topics. 'If you went and said astrology to me dad, he'd be like, 'Get out'.' Shruti said that she is a believer in the transference of feminine power through generations, which is what drew her to nature-based religions such as Paganism and Wiccan. 'I think it has something to do with the matriarchal line of my family. It's the women ancestors before me, and I can seriously feel that, which is why I moved towards Wicca and Pagan worship. There was this beautiful saying, 'We are the granddaughters of the witches you couldn't burn', and I love that. I feel the bloodline of my female ancestors,' she said. In the same interview, Shruti said that she feels for her 'poor father', who has witnessed her rebelliousness from a young age, but has never stopped her from doing what she wants. 'He hates tattoos,' she said, revealing she has five. Shruti also spoke about her fascination with astrology, and said that the last year was terrible for everybody on planet Earth.
IOL News
24-06-2025
- Entertainment
- IOL News
I hired a witch on Etsy to fix my life
Wicked part 2 starring Cynthia Erivo, Image: Instagram/@wickedmovie Image: Image: Instagram/@wickedmovie ON Etsy, magic is big business, and it's possible to pay a witch to cast a spell for just about anything, on just about anyone. The online marketplace where people can buy and sell unique handmade or vintage goods, banned 'metaphysical services' in 2015, but there are thousands of spells for sale, most tagged as 'entertainment.' For $17(R300), you can place an order for good luck. Repairing a relationship costs $5. To make someone feel guilty, you'll need $9.99, and curses tend to start around $15. Recently, I've been feeling like there's something in my way. Maybe it's a symptom of trying to 'have it all.' So I paid a witch on Etsy to fix it with a spell. Obviously. My spell was performed by Avatara, of the Etsy shop NovaLunaTarot. Using the platform's messaging function, I provided my name and birthday, and I told her a bit about how I've been feeling. She sent me photos of an altar, adorned with stones and tarot cards, where three candles burned. It cost $15.99. Avatara joined Etsy in 2022 and has made close to 11,000 sales. It's the only platform where she sells spells, and it's her primary source of income. Business is up, she says, as interest in witchcraft grows. And witchcraft is certainly having a moment. Videos on 'WitchTok,' a corner of the social media platform TikTok, have been viewed more than 30 billion times. Some 30 million posts on Instagram are tagged with 'witch' or 'witchcraft.' Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Ad loading Chris Miller, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto, researches contemporary paganism, an umbrella term for spiritual practices and religions such as Wicca, druidry and others that revere nature. Despite a history marked by secrecy and persecution, witchcraft is now part of the mainstream consciousness, he says. That's in part because many millennials and Gen Xers grew up surrounded by pop culture references to witches. 'Think about all these things - 'The Craft,' 'Sabrina,' 'Buffy,' 'Charmed' - all being popular during adolescence,' he says.'Now those people are in their 30s and 40s.' They're fueling a retail industry worth more than $2 billion, both online and off; metaphysical shops and apothecaries are thriving across the United States. Daysi De Dios, 41, remembers being captivated by the witch-rich pop culture of the 1990s. More than a decade ago, the first-generation Mexican American began learning about the healing folk magic practice Curanderismo. 'I'm also a practicing shaman, drawing on my Mesoamerican roots and the tradition of Aztecs and Mayans,' she says. De Dios opened an online shop in 2017, then, in 2020, a brick-and-mortar in Montclair, New Jersey, called Houss Freya, after the Norse goddess of love and war. Customers often come in wanting their 'energy cleansed,' De Dios says. Witchcraft has in some ways lost its taboo, De Dios says. Lindsay Squire, a Britain-based practitioner known to her half-million Instagram followers as 'the Witch of the Forest,' says some family and friends 'thought it was weird' when she began practicing close to a decade ago. 'They assumed straightaway that witchcraft is devil worship. Now, people are much more accepting and less judgmental.' Melinda Nemecek, an Ohio-based content creator who has an audience of more than 300,000 followers on TikTok and Instagram, says she began dabbling in witchcraft 'at a time when I had just gone through a divorce and a custody battle, and I was living in government housing as a single mother.' Nemecek's followers are often looking for what's referred to as 'baneful magic; getting back at someone, making someone stop gossiping about you,' she says. Avatara won't perform spells to hurt other people. Most of her magic is of the self-help variety; her most popular seller used to be the cord cutter, a spell to help people sever unhealthy attachments. Squire says the bulk of her requests are for love spells. 'You know,' she says, ''can you make this person fall in love with me? Can you make this person come back?' The obvious question to outsiders, though, is less about ethics and more about efficacy: Is there any real power in these spells? The more open a client is, says Avatara, the better her spells work. 'It's an exchange of energy,' she says. 'It's not just about what I'm doing.' As I read the five-part incantation she sent, I tried to focus on making it come true. When I got to the end, nothing felt different. De Dios believes the growing community around witchcraft transcends religion. 'Using nature as a source of energy is an ancient practice. To me, it's just bringing in different energies, seen and unseen, to help you be more fulfilled and at peace. I think anyone could use a little magic in their life,'she says.
Yahoo
19-06-2025
- Yahoo
Detectives investigating UCLA student's murder uncovered a stunningly personal betrayal
The railroad tunnel in which John Doe #135 was found had spooky graffiti and a dark mystique, the kind of place kids dared each other to walk through at night. People called it the Manson Tunnel — the cult leader and his disciples had lived nearby at the Spahn Movie Ranch — and someone had spray-painted HOLY TERROR over the entrance. By June 1990, occult-inspired mayhem had become a common theme in the Los Angeles mediasphere. The serial killer known as the Night Stalker, a professed Satanist, had been sentenced to death a year before, and the McMartin Preschool molestation case, with its wild claims of ritual abuse of children, was still slogging through the courts. So when venturesome local teenagers discovered a young man's body in the pitch-black tunnel above Chatsworth Park, the LAPD considered the possibility of occult motives. The victim was soon identified as Ronald Baker, a 21-year-old UCLA student majoring in astrophysics. He had been killed on June 21, a day considered holy by occultists, at a site where they were known to congregate. Baker was skinny and physically unimposing, with a mop of curly blond hair. He had been to the tunnel before, and was known to meditate in the area. He had 18 stab wounds, and his throat had been slashed. On his necklace: a pentagram pendant. In the bedroom of his Van Nuys apartment: witchcraft books, a pentagram-decorated candle and a flier for Mystic's Circle, a group devoted to "shamanism' and "magick.' Headline writers leaned into the angle. "Student killed on solstice may have been sacrificed,' read the Daily News. "Slain man frequently visited site of occultists,' declared The Times. Baker, detectives learned, had been a sweet-tempered practitioner of Wicca, a form of nature worship that shunned violence. He was shy, introverted and "adamantly against Satanism," a friend said. But as one detective speculated to reporters, "We don't know if at some point he graduated from the light to the dark side of that.' People said he had no enemies. He loved "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" singalongs, and worked a candle-making booth at Renaissance faires. He had written his sister a birthday card in Elizabethan English. Had he gone into the hills to meditate and stumbled across practitioners of more malignant magic? He was known as a light drinker, but toxicology results showed he was heavily drunk when he died. Had someone he trusted lured him to the tunnel? How was his death connected to the raspy-voiced man who placed calls to Baker's father around that time, demanding a $100,000 ransom in exchange for his son's life? Baker's housemates, Duncan Martinez and Nathan Blalock, both military veterans in their early 20s, had been the last known people to see him alive, and served as each other's alibis. They said they had dropped him off at a Van Nuys bus stop, and that he had planned to join his Mystic's Circle friends for the solstice. There had been no sign of animosity between the roommates, and Baker considered Martinez, an ex-Marine, one of his best friends. They had met working at Sears, years earlier. Martinez helped to carry Baker's casket and spoke movingly at his memorial service at Woodland Hills United Methodist Church. His friend was 'never real physically strong, like a lot of the guys I know,' Martinez said, but was the 'friendliest, sweetest guy.' His voice filled with emotion. 'He would talk to anybody and be there for anybody at the drop of a dime,' Martinez continued. 'And I just hope that it's something I can get over, because I love him. It's just hard to think of a time without Ron." But something about the roommates' story strained logic. When Baker's father had alerted them to the ransom calls, the roommates said they had looked for him at Chatsworth Park, knowing it was one of Baker's favorite haunts. Why would they assume a kidnapper had taken him there? There was another troubling detail: Martinez had cashed a $109 check he said Baker had given him, but a handwriting expert determined that Baker's signature was forged. Martinez agreed to a polygraph test, described his friend's murder as 'a pretty unsensible crime' and insisted he had nothing to do with it. 'I've never known anybody to carry a grudge or even dislike Ron for more than a minute, you know,' Martinez said. The test showed deception, and he fled the state. He was gone for nearly 18 months. He turned up in Utah, where he was arrested on a warrant for lying on a passport application. He had been hoping to reinvent himself as 'Jonathan Wayne Miller,' an identity he had stolen from a toddler who died after accidentally drinking Drano in 1974, said LAPD Det. Rick Jackson, now retired. Jackson said Martinez sliced the child's death certificate out of a Massachusetts state archive, hoping to disguise his fraud. In February 1992, after being assured his statement could not be used against him, Martinez finally talked. He said it had been Blalock's idea. They had been watching an old episode of 'Dragnet' about a botched kidnapping. Martinez was an ex-Marine, and Blalock was ex-Army. With their military know-how, they believed they could do a better job. They lured Baker to the park with a case of beer and the promise of meeting girls, and Blalock stabbed him with a Marine Corps Ka-Bar knife Martinez had lent him. Baker begged Martinez for help, and Martinez responded by telling his knife-wielding friend to finish the job. 'I told him to make sure that it was over, because I didn't want Ron to suffer,' Martinez said. 'I believe Nathan slit his throat a couple of times.' He admitted to disguising his voice while making ransom calls to Baker's father. But he never provided a location to deliver the ransom money. The scheme seemed as harebrained as it was cruel, and Martinez offered little to lend clarity. He sounded as clueless as anyone else, or pretended to be. 'You know, it doesn't completely click with me either,' he said. "They ruined their lives, and all of the families' lives, with the stupidest crime,' Patty Baker Elliott, the victim's elder sister, told The Times in a recent interview. In the end, the occult trappings were a red herring, apparently intended to throw police off the scent of the real culprits and the real motive. The killers "set this thing up for the summer solstice, because they knew he wanted to be out, hopefully celebrating the solstice,' Jackson said in a recent interview. "What are the chances, of all the days, this is the one they choose to do it on?' Jackson, one of the two chief detectives on the case, recounts the investigation in his book "Black Tunnel White Magic: A Murder, a Detective's Obsession, and '90s Los Angeles at the Brink,' which he wrote with author and journalist Matthew McGough. Blalock was charged with murder. To the frustration of detectives, who believed him equally guilty, Martinez remained free. His statements, given under a grant of immunity, could not be used against him. 'I almost blame Duncan more, because he was in the position, as Ron's best friend, to stop this whole thing and say, 'Wait a minute, Nathan, what the hell are we talking about here?'' Jackson said. 'He didn't, and he let it go through, and what happened, happened.' Martinez might have escaped justice, but he blundered. Arrested for burglarizing a Utah sporting goods store, he claimed a man had coerced him into stealing a mountain bike by threatening to expose his role in the California murder. As a Salt Lake City detective recorded him, Martinez put himself at the scene of his roommate's death while downplaying his guilt — an admission made with no promise of immunity, and therefore enough to charge him. "That's the first time we could legally put him in the tunnel," Jackson said. Jurors found both men guilty of first-degree murder, and they were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. In June 2020, Baker's sister was startled to come across a news site reporting that Gov. Gavin Newsom had intervened to commute Martinez's sentence, making him eligible for parole. No one had told her. The governor's office said at the time that Martinez had "committed himself to self-improvement' during his quarter-century in prison. The news was no less a shock to Jackson, who thought the language of the commutation minimized Martinez's role in concocting the kidnapping plan that led to the murder. He said he regarded Martinez as a "pathological liar,' and one of the most manipulative people he'd met in his long career. Martinez had not only failed to help Baker, but had urged Blalock to 'finish him off' and then posed as a consoling friend to the grieving family. The victim's sister remembers how skillfully Martinez counterfeited compassion. 'He hugged everybody and talked to everybody at the service,' she said. 'He cried. He got choked up and cried during his eulogy.' A prosecutor intended to argue against Martinez's release at the parole hearing, but then-newly elected L.A. Dist. Atty. George Gascon instituted a policy forbidding his office from sending advocates. The victim's sister spoke of her loss. Jackson spoke of Martinez's gift for deception. 'It was like spitting into the wind,' Jackson said. The parole board sided with Martinez, and he left prison in April 2021. Blalock remains behind bars. For 35 years now, the retired detective has been reflecting on the case, and the senselessness at its core. Jackson came to think of it as a 'folie à deux' murder, a term that means 'madness of two' and refers to criminal duos whose members probably would not have done it solo. He regarded it as 'my blue-collar Leopold and Loeb case,' comparing it to the wealthy Chicago teenagers who murdered a boy in 1924 with the motive of committing the perfect crime. An old cop show about a kidnapping had provoked the two young vets to start bouncing ideas off each other, until a plan took shape to try it themselves. They weighed possible targets. The student they shared an apartment with, the Wiccan pacifist without enemies, somehow seemed a convenient one. 'You have to understand their personalities, especially together," Jackson said. "It's kind of like, 'I'm gonna one-up you, and make it even better.' One of them would say, 'Yeah, we could do this instead.' And, 'Yeah, that sounds cool, but I think we should do this, too.'" Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
19-06-2025
- Los Angeles Times
Detectives investigating UCLA student's murder uncovered a stunningly personal betrayal
The railroad tunnel in which John Doe #135 was found had spooky graffiti and a dark mystique, the kind of place kids dared each other to walk through at night. People called it the Manson Tunnel — the cult leader and his disciples had lived nearby at the Spahn Movie Ranch — and someone had spray-painted HOLY TERROR over the entrance. By June 1990, occult-inspired mayhem had become a common theme in the Los Angeles mediasphere. The serial killer known as the Night Stalker, a professed Satanist, had been sentenced to death a year before, and the McMartin Preschool molestation case, with its wild claims of ritual abuse of children, was still slogging through the courts. So when venturesome local teenagers discovered a young man's body in the pitch-black tunnel above Chatsworth Park, the LAPD considered the possibility of occult motives. The victim was soon identified as Ronald Baker, a 21-year-old UCLA student majoring in astrophysics. He had been killed on June 21, a day considered holy by occultists, at a site where they were known to congregate. Baker was skinny and physically unimposing, with a mop of curly blond hair. He had been to the tunnel before, and was known to meditate in the area. He had 18 stab wounds, and his throat had been slashed. On his necklace: a pentagram pendant. In the bedroom of his Van Nuys apartment: witchcraft books, a pentagram-decorated candle and a flier for Mystic's Circle, a group devoted to 'shamanism' and 'magick.' Headline writers leaned into the angle. 'Student killed on solstice may have been sacrificed,' read the Daily News. 'Slain man frequently visited site of occultists,' declared The Times. Baker, detectives learned, had been a sweet-tempered practitioner of Wicca, a form of nature worship that shunned violence. He was shy, introverted and 'adamantly against Satanism,' a friend said. But as one detective speculated to reporters, 'We don't know if at some point he graduated from the light to the dark side of that.' People said he had no enemies. He loved 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' singalongs, and worked a candle-making booth at Renaissance faires. He had written his sister a birthday card in Elizabethan English. Had he gone into the hills to meditate and stumbled across practitioners of more malignant magic? He was known as a light drinker, but toxicology results showed he was heavily drunk when he died. Had someone he trusted lured him to the tunnel? How was his death connected to the raspy-voiced man who placed calls to Baker's father around that time, demanding a $100,000 ransom in exchange for his son's life? Baker's housemates, Duncan Martinez and Nathan Blalock, both military veterans in their early 20s, had been the last known people to see him alive, and served as each other's alibis. They said they had dropped him off at a Van Nuys bus stop, and that he had planned to join his Mystic's Circle friends for the solstice. There had been no sign of animosity between the roommates, and Baker considered Martinez, an ex-Marine, one of his best friends. They had met working at Sears, years earlier. Martinez helped to carry Baker's casket and spoke movingly at his memorial service at Woodland Hills United Methodist Church. His friend was 'never real physically strong, like a lot of the guys I know,' Martinez said, but was the 'friendliest, sweetest guy.' His voice filled with emotion. 'He would talk to anybody and be there for anybody at the drop of a dime,' Martinez continued. 'And I just hope that it's something I can get over, because I love him. It's just hard to think of a time without Ron.' But something about the roommates' story strained logic. When Baker's father had alerted them to the ransom calls, the roommates said they had looked for him at Chatsworth Park, knowing it was one of Baker's favorite haunts. Why would they assume a kidnapper had taken him there? There was another troubling detail: Martinez had cashed a $109 check he said Baker had given him, but a handwriting expert determined that Baker's signature was forged. Martinez agreed to a polygraph test, described his friend's murder as 'a pretty unsensible crime' and insisted he had nothing to do with it. 'I've never known anybody to carry a grudge or even dislike Ron for more than a minute, you know,' Martinez said. The test showed deception, and he fled the state. He was gone for nearly 18 months. He turned up in Utah, where he was arrested on a warrant for lying on a passport application. He had been hoping to reinvent himself as 'Jonathan Wayne Miller,' an identity he had stolen from a toddler who died after accidentally drinking Drano in 1974, said LAPD Det. Rick Jackson, now retired. Jackson said Martinez sliced the child's death certificate out of a Massachusetts state archive, hoping to disguise his fraud. In February 1992, after being assured his statement could not be used against him, Martinez finally talked. He said it had been Blalock's idea. They had been watching an old episode of 'Dragnet' about a botched kidnapping. Martinez was an ex-Marine, and Blalock was ex-Army. With their military know-how, they believed they could do a better job. They lured Baker to the park with a case of beer and the promise of meeting girls, and Blalock stabbed him with a Marine Corps Ka-Bar knife Martinez had lent him. Baker begged Martinez for help, and Martinez responded by telling his knife-wielding friend to finish the job. 'I told him to make sure that it was over, because I didn't want Ron to suffer,' Martinez said. 'I believe Nathan slit his throat a couple of times.' He admitted to disguising his voice while making ransom calls to Baker's father. But he never provided a location to deliver the ransom money. The scheme seemed as harebrained as it was cruel, and Martinez offered little to lend clarity. He sounded as clueless as anyone else, or pretended to be. 'You know, it doesn't completely click with me either,' he said. 'They ruined their lives, and all of the families' lives, with the stupidest crime,' Patty Baker Elliott, the victim's elder sister, told The Times in a recent interview. In the end, the occult trappings were a red herring, apparently intended to throw police off the scent of the real culprits and the real motive. The killers 'set this thing up for the summer solstice, because they knew he wanted to be out, hopefully celebrating the solstice,' Jackson said in a recent interview. 'What are the chances, of all the days, this is the one they choose to do it on?' Jackson, one of the two chief detectives on the case, recounts the investigation in his book 'Black Tunnel White Magic: A Murder, a Detective's Obsession, and '90s Los Angeles at the Brink,' which he wrote with author and journalist Matthew McGough. Blalock was charged with murder. To the frustration of detectives, who believed him equally guilty, Martinez remained free. His statements, given under a grant of immunity, could not be used against him. 'I almost blame Duncan more, because he was in the position, as Ron's best friend, to stop this whole thing and say, 'Wait a minute, Nathan, what the hell are we talking about here?'' Jackson said. 'He didn't, and he let it go through, and what happened, happened.' Martinez might have escaped justice, but he blundered. Arrested for burglarizing a Utah sporting goods store, he claimed a man had coerced him into stealing a mountain bike by threatening to expose his role in the California murder. As a Salt Lake City detective recorded him, Martinez put himself at the scene of his roommate's death while downplaying his guilt — an admission made with no promise of immunity, and therefore enough to charge him. 'That's the first time we could legally put him in the tunnel,' Jackson said. Jurors found both men guilty of first-degree murder, and they were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. In June 2020, Baker's sister was startled to come across a news site reporting that Gov. Gavin Newsom had intervened to commute Martinez's sentence, making him eligible for parole. No one had told her. The governor's office said at the time that Martinez had 'committed himself to self-improvement' during his quarter-century in prison. The news was no less a shock to Jackson, who thought the language of the commutation minimized Martinez's role in concocting the kidnapping plan that led to the murder. He said he regarded Martinez as a 'pathological liar,' and one of the most manipulative people he'd met in his long career. Martinez had not only failed to help Baker, but had urged Blalock to 'finish him off' and then posed as a consoling friend to the grieving family. The victim's sister remembers how skillfully Martinez counterfeited compassion. 'He hugged everybody and talked to everybody at the service,' she said. 'He cried. He got choked up and cried during his eulogy.' A prosecutor intended to argue against Martinez's release at the parole hearing, but then-newly elected L.A. Dist. Atty. George Gascon instituted a policy forbidding his office from sending advocates. The victim's sister spoke of her loss. Jackson spoke of Martinez's gift for deception. 'It was like spitting into the wind,' Jackson said. The parole board sided with Martinez, and he left prison in April 2021. Blalock remains behind bars. For 35 years now, the retired detective has been reflecting on the case, and the senselessness at its core. Jackson came to think of it as a 'folie à deux' murder, a term that means 'madness of two' and refers to criminal duos whose members probably would not have done it solo. He regarded it as 'my blue-collar Leopold and Loeb case,' comparing it to the wealthy Chicago teenagers who murdered a boy in 1924 with the motive of committing the perfect crime. An old cop show about a kidnapping had provoked the two young vets to start bouncing ideas off each other, until a plan took shape to try it themselves. They weighed possible targets. The student they shared an apartment with, the Wiccan pacifist without enemies, somehow seemed a convenient one. 'You have to understand their personalities, especially together,' Jackson said. 'It's kind of like, 'I'm gonna one-up you, and make it even better.' One of them would say, 'Yeah, we could do this instead.' And, 'Yeah, that sounds cool, but I think we should do this, too.''
