[phone ringing]
[911 operator]
[Cindy Spencer speaking]
[911 operator]
[Spencer speaking]
BAIRD: Victoria was very, very quiet.
Silent...
but deadly.
She's a monster.
[Mendoza speaking]
[Aaron Murphy speaking]
[Mendoza speaking]
[Murphy speaking]
[Mendoza speaking]
[Murphy speaking]
[officer speaking]
PICKETT: It was a scene out of a horror film.
[Mendoza speaking]
[theme music playing]
[mellow music playing]
[Lana speaking]
NARRATOR: New parents, Dana Anderson and Casey Baird,
celebrate with their six-month-old daughter, Tawnee.
D. GUNN: When Tawnee was born, I was 23,
and I believe Casey was 26.
I worked at Fox 13 television.
Casey was in radio.
[Lana speaking]
BAIRD: I am a radio DJ.
I was on with the morning show that morning when she was born.
[Lana speaking]
NARRATOR: Dana's mom, Lana, films Tawnee
and her show biz parents.
[Lana speaking]
D. GUNN: My mom always had that video camera out.
She was hilarious.
[Lana speaking]
Goober Girl. Yeah, my mom.
[Lana speaking]
D. GUNN: Oh, there she is with the outfit on,
sleeping so peacefully with her little chubby cheeks.
-[Tawnee fussing] -[Lana speaking]
D. GUNN: That's Tawnee and I, my mom filming again.
Here, take this.
Tawnee is like a little go-getter.
You cannot stop her.
-[Dana speaking] -[Lana speaking]
Just trying to grab everything she can.
[Lana speaking]
Tawnee was always very independent, even as a baby.
It's just like she almost just did her own thing.
She's just very strong and had her own
little personality from such a young age.
-[Lana speaking] -[man speaking]
NARRATOR: The pressure of balancing busy work lives
with caring for their new arrival
strains Dana and Casey's relationship.
They split up shortly after Tawnee's first Christmas.
When the split up happened, you know, it was pretty --
pretty devastating.
[Lana speaking]
But I -- I was very strong at that point
and I love Tawnee.
-Whoa! -LANA: Whoa!
You know, she was my life.
So I was determined to do good by her
and make a good life for us.
NARRATOR: Two years later, in 1996,
Dana marries Steve Gunn.
D. GUNN: So this is Steve and I's wedding,
and my mom is just carrying Tawnee, trying to get her
to be the flower girl, because she's upset
and throwing a tantrum.
[Lana speaking]
NARRATOR: Dana and Steve have two children together,
Lexi and Kaden.
They divorce in 2003,
and newly single Dana
develops a friendship with Cameron Murray.
Cameron came into our lives with two
sons, Jayden and Cosmo.
D. GUNN: When Cameron and I started to date,
we used to call ourselves the Brady Bunch,
because we had so many children.
And then we had a daughter in 2005, Baylee.
My earliest memories of Tawnee would
be her picking me up from elementary.
She would always give me ice cream.
We'd listen to music and just talk and laugh and have fun.
D. GUNN: Tawnee was kind of the leader of the whole pack.
[chuckles]
Tawnee loved being the eldest sibling,
and they loved her.
A. GUNN: Tawnee was always very friendly to all
of us and always included us in everything.
And I think that's why we looked up to her
and wanted to be around her as much,
because she made us feel wanted.
D. GUNN: It was so adorable.
Like, she was like the cutest big sister ever.
NARRATOR: Tawnee and her large family settle in Holladay, Utah.
BAIRD: Tawnee always had an entourage of friends behind her.
She was very popular.
She'd walk into a room, and she glowed.
She always liked to be around people
and be the center of the party.
NARRATOR: In June 2010, Tawnee heads out for
a night of fun with her friends.
D. GUNN: I think she'd been with, like, five or six friends,
and they'd all been smoking weed.
I think someone else was driving, and Tawnee was
either in the passenger seat or in the back seat,
and they got pulled over.
BAIRD: It was a pot pipe or marijuana pipe
that wasn't even hers.
She took the fall for one of her other
friends that would have been in a lot of trouble.
They asked whose it was, and Tawnee said it was hers,
and so she got in trouble for it.
NARRATOR: Tawnee is sentenced to 90 days in
Salt Lake City's juvenile detention center.
A. GUNN: I felt completely devastated that
Tawnee was going to juvenile detention.
I thought that I wasn't gonna see her again.
D. GUNN: Tawnee was very scared
and just crying, "Mommy."
When I went and saw her in Juvie, she was, like, relieved
and -- and not afraid and everything and I'm --
was like, what's going on?
And she goes, "Well, I met this girl in here, and,
you know, she's helping me," and I'm like, what is happening?
And that's when she goes, "Well, look at her over there."
And I'm like, "Who is that?"
And she goes, "Well, that's Victoria."
NARRATOR: Tawnee says that she has fallen
head over heels in love with the girl.
That's when Tawnee told me that she thought
she was gay for the first time.
I just went with it. I said, "Okay, well..."
Whatever.
NARRATOR: Like Tawnee, 17-year-old Victoria
grew up with five siblings.
She lived in Ogden with her mother and her brothers
and sisters, and they lived in a one-bedroom apartment.
Victoria's mom was very religious and would make
Victoria wear these dresses
that would cover her from, like, her neck to her ankles.
Once Victoria turned 18,
she went and just got all tatted up and shaved her head
and did, like, everything against what her mother wanted.
NARRATOR: Tawnee completes her detention in August 2010.
When Tawnee got released and got to come home from Juvie,
it was awesome.
We were very excited.
NARRATOR: Victoria is released a month later
and moves in with her mom in Ogden.
D. GUNN: Victoria came, like, straight to our house
to see Tawnee the minute she got out.
A. GUNN: Tawnee and Victoria would see each other
almost every day.
MENDOZA: Oh, stop!
A. GUNN: All of the siblings did find Victoria sweet,
and we all really did like her
in the beginning.
NARRATOR: Friends think Tawnee and Victoria are a good match.
Both are passionate about music,
and both are obsessed with becoming famous.
A. GUNN: Tawnee was very outgoing compared to Victoria.
A lot of the times like when I would see them socializing,
Victoria would just be
quiet and observant in the back.
Tawnee and Vicky are always teasing each
other about who's gonna get famous first.
That was always some big joke with them.
Victoria was jealous of my daughter's outgoing personality.
[Victoria speaking]
BAIRD: Victoria was always behind my daughter,
Tawnee, very -- very quiet.
Silent, but deadly.
NARRATOR: In Holladay, Utah...
...teenager Tawnee Baird films
her girlfriend, Victoria, and her younger half-sister Baylee.
[Baylee singing] She said she love me.
That's their little studio
they had set up in the basement.
They're teaching Baylee to become a famous person, as well.
[laughs]
[singing indistinctly]
I'm singing on Tawnee and Victoria's mic.
I'm singing one of their songs, and Tawnee is recording me.
NARRATOR: Tawnee's siblings treat Victoria like family.
TAWNEE: Yes.
NARRATOR: But Victoria now receives
a cooler reception from Tawnee's friends.
[Tawnee speaking]
D. GUNN: I think she grew on everybody,
but then maybe started to not grow on everybody, you know?
I think a lot of her friends were intimidated
by Victoria, because Victoria just wanted
Tawnee all to herself.
I think she wanted certain people out of the way.
Victoria was very insecure about Tawnee
talking to other people.
I remember one occasion where Tawnee
was somewhere and talking to a guy,
and it made Victoria just screaming mad.
You know, and then they'd drive home in a fight or,
you know, and she'd be screaming at her all night.
She was so jealous,
and it was ridiculous.
NARRATOR: Dana encourages Tawnee to get
a job to gain independence from Victoria.
Victoria was always like, "We can get a job,"
and I'm like, what?
How do you get jobs together?
That just doesn't happen, Victoria.
Like, just let Tawnee go get a job, and you go get
a job, how about, and Victoria was like, "No,
we need to get jobs together."
And so Tawnee would be like, "Well, I can't leave her.
What do I do?"
And I'm like, "Tawnee, it's not your problem to sit
"and baby her, like,
"watch her every second, you know, just let her grow up.
You've got to let her go, you know."
NARRATOR: Less than one year into their relationship,
Tawnee discovers that Victoria has been unfaithful.
Tawnee introduced Victoria and this friend,
and they would all hang out.
And then I think Victoria, behind Tawnee's back,
would go and hang out with this friend,
and then they ended up getting together.
Victoria had slept with one of Tawnee's very,
very good friends that -- that she had grown up with.
One of Tawnee's other friends told Tawnee.
When Tawnee heard the news, she was very upset.
A. GUNN: When Tawnee confronted Victoria,
I think Victoria just played victim and just kind of
tried to make Tawnee feel bad for her.
It was very ironic that Victoria was so jealous,
and she was the only one cheating.
NARRATOR: A few days later, Victoria posts
a full-throated apology on YouTube.
Victoria tried to win her back by saying she would never
do it again and that she would treat her like a queen.
I think when Tawnee saw the video,
Tawnee felt special and loved.
I was like, "Wow, that's -- that's the ultimate apology."
And then they got back together.
A. GUNN: Victoria just kind of manipulated her way
back into Tawnee's life
and kind of made it seem like it was more of
the friend's fault, even though it wasn't.
NARRATOR: In June 2012, tragedy strikes.
D. GUNN: Victoria's mother was diagnosed with breast cancer,
and Tawnee was, like, sleeping over there with
Victoria, because Victoria was just
a wreck that her mother was dying.
[Tawnee speaking]
Her mother passed away when Victoria was about I think 19.
A. GUNN: Victoria was heartbroken.
She would spend a lot of her time laying there crying.
I did see a change in
Victoria's behavior after her mom passed away.
It seemed more dark.
It kind of made her more angry at the world.
NARRATOR: 19-year-old Victoria needs a new place to call home.
D. GUNN: That's when Tawnee started really begging me
for Victoria to come stay with us.
And I was like,
"No, she's not gonna come live with us,"
and Tawnee was like, "Mom, she's got nowhere to go.
Come on."
Then I agreed to letting Victoria come stay with us.
Then she started becoming close with
everybody, and she started calling me mom.
It it was like having another kid,
and we treated her like that.
NARRATOR: Tawnee and Victoria are inseparable -- together,
they plot their paths to stardom.
[Victoria speaks indistinctly]
A. GUNN: She wanted to go to California and write music.
That's all she ever talked about.
MURRAY: She would always talk about going on tour
with the famous people and being famous.
[indistinct singing]
She's singing, probably trying to freak people out.
Tawnee enrolled at Salt Lake Community,
and she was so excited to study in music.
One thing that just bothered me -- every class
Tawnee went to, there was Vicky just, like, waiting.
It's like Victoria couldn't find her own thing
without Tawnee.
She just had to have my daughter 24 hours a day.
She couldn't let her out of her sight.
NARRATOR: In the summer of 2013, Victoria comes up with
a plan for her and Tawnee to earn money together.
MURPHY: I was throwing events, concerts, dance parties.
One day, they came up to me on one of our rooftop parties.
Victoria was like, "Yo, what can I do?
Like, I wanna be a part of this, I'll do anything."
And from there, it's like, if I needed something like, hey,
well, I'll go hand out 5,000 flyers, like boom,
like I'll do it, and you know, it worked, like, they became
a part of our crew -- two of my promoters.
It really became like a friendship.
Victoria, she's always writing, like, raps and poems.
She wanted to be famous,
and as a singer, and this was, like, her opportunity.
They just had, like, super cool style,
really friendly with everyone,
which was surprising, because, like, I'm hearing stories of,
like, while they're at bars and stuff, you know,
Victoria is like, "Don't flirt with my girl," and fighting
and screaming, like, violently fighting in front of people.
NARRATOR: On one night in 2014,
Aaron witnesses an explosive argument.
MURPHY: Victoria was, like, screaming at her,
and I'm like, yo, like, I don't wanna hear this no more.
It was really toxic, really unhealthy,
like, seeing them, like, fight so much.
And I'm chatting with Victoria, and I'm like, "Come on,
"you guys are just, like, screaming and fighting, like,
"you just got to take a break, you gotta take a break.
You guys are freaking gonna kill each other."
NARRATOR: 21-year-old Victoria Mendoza
is living with her girlfriend,
Tawnee Baird in the basement of Tawnee's mom's house.
Tawnee's siblings worry about Victoria's increasingly
erratic behavior.
Tawnee would come to me sometimes about Victoria's mood
swings, and she didn't know how to handle it
Over time, Victoria's mood got worse and worse,
and I think Tawnee got the worst of that.
[whistling noise]
NARRATOR: Tawnee's stepbrother. Jayden, witnesses
a dramatic mood reversal.
Tawnee's recording Jayden and Victoria
talking, and I'm in the background.
JAYDEN: Yes.
NARRATOR: Victoria sees Tawnee with the camera.
JAYDEN: Don't yell like that.
JAYDEN: Look at this picture.
MURRAY: It just, like, switched so fast.
Every little thing would just be making her so mad,
and then she'd go right back to being happy.
It would just kind of flip on and off.
Makes me kind of sad and mad to see her
get annoyed with Tawnee.
Tawnee was just trying to be funny.
D. GUNN: Tawnee confided in me that she was becoming
a little bit afraid of Victoria,
that Victoria was becoming controlling.
Victoria insisted on having passwords to everything.
She had to have control of Tawnee's Facebook
and everything.
A. GUNN: There are moments where Victoria would, like, demand to
look through her messages
and then would find something so small
and, like, make it into this huge fight.
NARRATOR: Victoria's anger boils over into violence
one night in September 2014.
D. GUNN: Tawnee came to me and woke me up
and said that Victoria had hit her,
and I'd never heard her sound like that.
She sounded like a little child,
crawled up to me and was sobbing.
I remember walking into my mom's room,
and I was like, "Did I see that right?
Is she missing a tooth?"
She said, "V hit me, and my tooth got knocked out."
D. GUNN: It makes me so sick to say her tooth
was knocked out, because I feel like such a failure.
Victoria had put her hands on Tawnee.
I just said, "Get out of here, get out of here."
I threw her out.
And I was about to call the police,
and Tawnee begged me not to call the cops.
And I said, "I am dead serious.
You guys are staying away from each other."
The next day, she came back.
"Well, mom, we're made up now," and I'm like, "No,
you guys cannot just make up."
I did everything in my power to get that girl
out of my house.
And it is so hard, because I don't want Tawnee
to leave with her.
You know, I don't want to lose my daughter.
My grandma and my mom were doing everything they could to
get Victoria on her feet so that
we could get Victoria away from Tawnee without sending
her to a homeless shelter.
I think the reason why Tawnee
forgave her was because she was scared.
The state of their relationship seemed really toxic.
Everybody wanted them to break up.
And I think Tawnee did, too.
NARRATOR: One month after Victoria
punches Tawnee in the mouth,
Tawnee's best friend, Lacy, joins the couple on a night out.
October 17th, 2014, Lacy,
Tawnee, and Victoria were driving up to Ogden
to meet some friends.
BAIRD: They stopped in Bountiful at a party,
and then there was a little bickering between
Tawnee and Victoria at the party over some guy.
A: GUNN: And Victoria got really jealous, and I think Victoria
kind of had a hunch that Tawnee was moving on.
And so Victoria was throwing a fit all night
and just being rude and passive-aggressive,
so they ended up leaving.
Lacy I think said that the atmosphere in the car
was tense.
You know, I think she knew that Victoria was irritated
and jealous, and it was
such a normal thing that it didn't really occur to Lacy
about what could happen.
D. GUNN: They dropped Lacy off,
and then that's when things went downhill.
[distant phone ringing]
NARRATOR: At 12:31 a.m.,
Aaron Murphy receives a call from Victoria.
[phone ringing]
[Mendoza speaking]
I remember her saying, like, I did something bad.
[Mendoza speaking]
I didn't know how to react, you know, or what to do.
And that was the reason why I went and woke up
my friend, I'm like, you know, this is like some
crazy things that she's telling me right now.
[Mendoza speaking]
[Murphy speaking]
[Mendoza speaking]
[Murphy speaking]
[Mendoza speaking]
[Murphy speaking]
[Mendoza speaking]
My friend yells out, "Yo, where's Tawnee?"
[Murphy speaking]
You know, and she responds...
[Mendoza speaking]
[Murphy speaking]
This nauseous disbelief, you know,
like, going into a panic attack.
Like, am I in a dream? Like, is this real?
[Mendoza speaking]
[Murphy speaking]
[Mendoza speaking]
[Murphy speaking]
[Mendoza speaking]
[Murphy speaking]
[Mendoza speaking]
[Murphy speaking]
[Mendoza speaking]
[Murphy speaking]
[phone ringing]
[911 operator speaking]
[Murphy speaking]
NARRATOR: Minutes later, Ogden City P.D.
receives a second 911 call.
[phone ringing]
[911 operator speaking]
PETERSON: Shortly before 1 a.m.
on 18th of October, dispatch received a 911 call
from an individual reporting a homicide in
the area of 25th Indie Avenue.
NARRATOR: The caller is Victoria Mendoza's older sister, Cindy.
Victoria called Cindy and asked her to
meet her at a church in Ogden.
[Spencer speaking]
[911 operator speaking]
[Spencer speaking]
[911 operator speaking]
[Spencer speaking]
Officers located the scene at
the Gospel Tabernacle Family Worship center.
When officers arrived at the scene,
Cindy Spencer was on scene kind of waiting for them
and waving them down.
PICKETT: As I got out of my vehicle,
I saw Victoria laying on the ground in a prone position.
There was a large amount of blood on her clothing.
And so I asked her if she was injured.
Um, and she said she wasn't,
and I said, "If this isn't your blood, then whose is it?"
And she said, "There's a dead person in the vehicle."
At that point,
I kind of figured out she was probably my suspect.
She remained on the ground and was completely compliant.
As I approached the vehicle,
I saw the driver's side door was open.
I walked over to the open passenger door
and looked inside,
and that's where I saw the victim
in the passenger front seat.
It was really confusing as to what it was I was looking at.
The victim was kneeling on the front seat
with her face down in the seat.
Her rear end was up in the air towards the dashboard.
There was a large amount of blood on
the seats, on the door, on the dash.
[sirens wailing]
NARRATOR: Victoria is taken to Ogden City Police Department.
WALKER: Victoria was adamant that she wanted to be honest
and that she wanted to cooperate with
the investigation.
And then...
WALKER: Victoria said during her interview that she was
driving and that Tawnee was sitting in the passenger seat.
WALKER: She said that she was arguing with
Tawnee throughout the night about infidelity issues.
She had accused Tawnee of wanting to be intimate
with men.
She said that they began slapping each other in the car.
WALKER: Victoria said that her only defense
to not crash was to protect herself
against Tawnee's assault.
[Mendoza speaking]
She said that's a trigger for her.
[phone ringing]
NARRATOR: Dana gets a call from Lacy, the friend that
Tawnee and Victoria dropped home the night before.
[phone ringing]
D. GUNN: I was sleeping, and Lacy called me,
and she said, "I think Victoria killed Tawnee last night."
I said, "What are you talking about?
How can that even be possible?"
When the police pulled up to my house,
they told me that my daughter was dead
and that Victoria was in custody and that she'd stabbed her.
Yeah, I just... passed out, I just...
lost it.
WALKER: The knife that was used in the crime
was located in the back seat on the floor.
It was a about 5- to 6-inch foldable knife.
Tawnee had a significant amount of stab wounds on her face,
her head, her chest.
CSI noticed that there was blood spatter
on the driver's side interior window
and that there was blood in the driver's seat.
There was also a blood swipe
that was across the center console.
And once Victoria's jacket was zipped up, there was a clear
void, which showed the passenger side
seat belt had been across her jacket,
which also confirmed Victoria was in the passenger seat when
the assault occurred, with Tawnee
the victim in the driver's seat at the time.
[officer speaking]
WALKER: I believe Victoria said she was
driving to help her self-defense claim.
But that wasn't something
that investigators thought was possible.
[officer speaking]
NARRATOR: The medical examiner's assessment of
Tawnee's body at the crime scene
counts two dozen wounds across her arms, head, and torso.
[officer speaking]
Throughout the interview, Victoria was incredibly stoic.
I think she was in denial that Tawnee was actually dead.
NARRATOR: The initial assessment of Tawnee's wounds was too low.
WALKER: Tawnee was transported to the Utah Medical
Examiner's Office, where an autopsy was conducted.
And they determined that she had been stabbed 46 times.
NARRATOR: The stab wounds and the blood spatter
leave no doubt.
Victoria stabbed her girlfriend deliberately
while Tawnee was driving home.
BAIRD: My daughter, Tawnee, had been stabbed 46 times.
There was 22 stab wounds in my daughter's
right arm, because my daughter was driving the car.
I think she was trying to fight herself off of Victoria.
NARRATOR: Victoria finally admits that she was sitting
in the passenger seat when she stabbed Tawnee.
[officer speaking]
Victoria said that once Tawnee was deceased,
that she took control of the steering wheel and pulled
the car over to the side of the road,
where she pulled Tawnee into the passenger seat
and climbed over her and continued driving.
Stabbing Tawnee and Tawnee dying immediately and the vehicle
not crashing does seem like a far-fetched theory.
But that was the one that Victoria stuck to.
[Mendoza speaking]
[officer speaking]
In this case, the defendant
and Miss Baird had gotten into an argument
while they were traveling.
Uh, it looks like, uh on I-15,
The defendant stated that Baird had, quote, smacked her
and pulled her hair,
which caused the defendant to become enraged and to snap.
The defendant then proceeded to draw her knife
and stab Miss Baird in excess of 40 times.
NARRATOR: But there's a shock in store.
At a preliminary hearing,
Victoria pleads not guilty.
I was like, how could you possibly say not guilty?
Like, what are you talking about?
BAIRD: That night, they went to a party.
There was a fight between Tawnee and Victoria over some guy.
They left the party.
They were driving on the freeway after they dropped off Lacy,
and I think Tawnee was just like, you know what? We're done.
I think Tawnee was maybe sick of it and told her that she wanted
to break up, because I know she was close to breaking up
with her anyway.
And for some reason, a lot
of Victoria's stuff was in the trunk.
I don't know if that was planned by my daughter, Tawnee,
but I think Tawnee was dropping her off at her sister's,
and she was done with the relationship.
I think Tawnee had said something in the car,
and Victoria snapped.
That's when the stabbing started.
It's like a light switch flipped that night.
NARRATOR: Victoria later changes her plea to guilty.
She addresses the court at her sentencing in November 2015.
[Mendoza speaking]
A. GUNN: The way Victoria was in court was kind of unsettling.
There were moments where she was laughing and smiling
with her lawyer, which we all found really disturbing.
You know, she didn't look at us at all.
After everything,
she still wants people to feel bad for her.
No one is going to feel bad for you now.
You are a monster, and it is your fault.
NARRATOR: Victoria Mendoza is sentenced to 16 years
to life for the murder of Tawnee Baird.
She will be eligible for parole in 2039.
[Dana speaking]
A. GUNN: Life without Tawnee is lonely.
It's hard not having her around, because
I want to tell her so many things.
We learned to live through it,
but we never accept it.
BAIRD: If my daughter was alive,
and I was to dream of Tawnee's future,
I think that Tawnee was on her way to California.
I think she was going to end up being a movie star,
somehow, some way.
I want Tawnee to be remembered as -- as that fun-loving,
big-hearted little girl that wouldn't hurt a fly.
D. GUNN: Tawnee had so much to give and such a beautiful
life ahead of her, and we loved her so much.
We still do, and we just think about her every day.
It just makes my heart hurt so much.