A 15-Year-Old, A School Bus, A Hit: The Kyunia & Diamond Taylor Story...St. Louis 1996

It’s New Year’s in St. Louis and the guys open with cashew chicken, car theft, and “fun without guns” before turning to one of the city’s most haunting cases. Retired SLMPD Homicide Detective Tommy Carroll joins us to walk through his first big case: the 1996 school-bus murder of 15-year-old Beaumont student Kyunia Taylor, six months pregnant with her daughter Diamond. (40:56) Tommy takes us inside the chaos in the College Hill neighborhood , the pressure on the department, a false confession that nearly derailed everything, the rare Russian 9mm that broke the case, and how a routine gun-and-dope arrest in Wellston finally tied shooter Malik Nettles back to mastermind Mark Boyd. It’s a hard story about evil decisions, great detective work, and a family that never stopped hurting—told by a cop who was there. The Brighter Side of Blue—St. Louis stories from the men and women who wear the badge, recorded at Colombo’s Café in Dogtown. Communities that support law enforcement are safer places to live.