He R*p3d and Murd3r3d a 7 Year Old 400 Feet From Her Brother’s Football Game

He R*p3d and Murd3r3d a 7 Year Old 400 Feet From Her Brother’s Football Game

“If they find the right, uh, person I will come out and I will, like I said, sue everybody that slandered my name and put me where I’m at today. There you have it. I didn’t do it.” Even as the evidence closed in, even as the community mourns the loss of a 7-year-old girl, Timothy Madden maintains his innocence. He’s a father. He’s a familiar face. He’s a man who has literally stood among other families on a small town football just another parent watching the game. But that night November the 14th, 2015, something shifted. Because in the place where children run freely, where laughter just echoes under stadium lights, and where nothing truly bad was ever supposed to happen, one little girl vanished.

Just a moment. Then a question in passing, “Where’s Gabby?” And then the seconds stretch. The laughter fades, and a quiet creeping dread begins to take hold. Because while everyone was still searching, still hoping, something unthinkable had already happened. And someone there that night knew exactly what it was.

Let’s go back to the evening of Saturday, November the 14th, 2015. This is when families literally from across Allen County had gathered at the Allen County Scottsville High School football stadium in Scottsville, Kentucky for a youth football game. Now, I get it in the UK, for those of you listening from the UK, we’re big on soccer, and in America it’s growing, but when it comes down to football over in America, they do everything bigger, even on a small level. Simple as that. When you go and live in America for periods of time, as I’ve had the great fortune of doing, I am telling you now, when you look at schools, they have stadiums built. And the communities are tight and celebratory. And it’s a big turnout for these kind of games. Bear in mind, for this community it’s a routine event, it’s a small town, but everyone knows each other, the children play together, they’ve not got any concerns about that. It’s a place where basically everyone knows each other’s business, and they like it that way.

Now, among the families attending that night were Amy and Brian Doolin. They also brought their two children, and one of those children was 7-year-old Gabriella Doolin. She’d come to the game with her parents because her older brother, Alec, was playing in one of the youth league matches. Now, bear in mind, she’s only 7 years of age, so at the time she’s an elementary school student. Gabriella was known to literally everyone who loved her as Gabby. She was born in 2008, she’d literally grown up in this safe, small, gorgeous town where kids could just run freely and enjoy being each other’s homes and playing outside, the way that childhood should be. Gabby was known to others as this really lively, affectionate child. She loved being around other kids, and family members described her as being really energetic, full of personality, full of sass. You know, the kind of little girl who just made friends everywhere that she went. She loved being around all the children. She was particularly close to her brothers, and she frequently went to all the sporting events that they were involved in with her parents. And the teachers and community members said that she was just one of those kids who was just really well-liked, hugely outgoing. And she was just adored by her family, of course she was.

There was something about this family though that represents that close, loving connection, that conviction of being together, that really so many of us aspire to have in our world. And her mother will later speak out about just the profound bond that they shared. She described Gabby as the center of her world. And like it or otherwise, we bring up our children, boys and girls, and we have different relationships with each of our children. But the idea that there isn’t a difference on the whole gender-wise where our relationships are concerned with our kids just doesn’t make sense. If you are a female, for example, and you’ve experienced the world as a female, if you have a girl, even though you don’t know her experience subjectively, on an objective level and a subjective level yourself, you’ve been through similar things very often. The fears that you have about girls are different to the fears that you have about boys. And therefore, you can imagine that even though she’s got sons who she just thinks the world of, that relationship with a daughter has that edge because she feels that familiarity and connection. And when you look at photographs of this family, it just shows a bright, smiling little girl who just loved being a typical kid, loved childhood experiences.

Now, at the game, as you would imagine, well, the adults are focused on what’s going on. Several of the children have begun playing together while the football match is continuing. You’re a 7-year-old kid. You don’t really want to sit in a seat for very long. Certainly don’t want to watch a match you don’t understand. Some kids will be like that, very few. Certainly when my boys were growing up, they were just everywhere. They were just off running, picking up sticks and playing swords with their friends. This is what kids do, and this is a safe area. So of course they’re doing that, and the parents are probably welcoming that because it means that they get a bit of a break and they can concentrate on the match.

Now, at some point during the evening, Gabby does what a million kids have done before. She joins all the children who are playing hide-and-seek around the stadium area. It’s fun. It’s great. It’s what kids should do. And of course, think about what a stadium would be like. There’s going to be loads of places that you can hide, and that’s what they’re doing. They’re hiding in the structures around the fields that are actually surrounding the pitch itself. They’re also hiding in the restrooms, they’re hiding on the pathways. And to anyone allowing their child to do this, it’s going to be a fun way of them enjoying the evening, a fun, safe game. Who hasn’t played hide and seek? At the end of the day, I would imagine every single person listening to me has played hide and seek. I’m not saying in 10 years those people coming up will have because, you know, they might be like, “Is it on my iPad?” I know we have a much more, shall we say, introverted experience socially these days where a lot of it’s online, but people of my age and younger, people who are 15, 16, 17 even watching this, you know what hide and seek is. You’ve played it. When you’re kids, you’ve got the imagination, you’ve got the fun, you’ve got the freedom, and usually you have the safety.

Now, it’s around 7:40 p.m. that Gabby’s mother just has that kind of realization, “Where is my daughter? Where is Gabby?” She just realizes she hasn’t seen her for a short period of time. You know, she’s been checking on her, and now she can’t see her in the sight. Now, immediately she probably thinks to herself, “Well, she’ll just have wandered to another part of the stadium. She’ll have, as we thought, joined a group of children further along the stands potentially because she’s been doing that with other kids.” But then she just starts to ask those questions. She’s saying to nearby parents and children, “Have you seen Gabby? Have you seen Gabby?” And everything is coming up cold. No one has seen Gabby for a period of time. And then the two other girls that she was playing hide and seek with come back. And they say, “We couldn’t find Gabby. We’ve been playing hide and seek. We can’t find her.”

Now, I don’t even want to try to imagine putting myself in Gabby’s mother’s position. I have lost sight of my child on one occasion, and I genuinely thought I was not going to survive the 10 seconds that it happened within. It happens. I remember my niece in McDonald’s many years ago. Though, of course, you can use any fast food outlet of your choice, but this was McDonald’s, and she went into the disabled toilet without us seeing. We were just literally getting her a Happy Meal, and she was gone. And I can still remember in that instant thinking, “Everything has changed. There’s been this seismic change in our world, and Lydia’s disappeared forever.” It was seconds. My sister and I remember the existential dread, the thud in our bellies as we believed we lost her. We believed she’d slipped through our fingers. I’ve covered the James Bulger case in the UK. That’s exactly how Denise’s mother feels it. She was a woman who had her son, didn’t actually watch him for about 2 seconds because she was getting the meat from the butchers, and he’d gone. A brilliant parent who lost her child just because life happened in that moment where predators were around him. And I think that it’s our deepest fear as a parent. And for Gabby’s family, that hits them hard, the fact that they can’t find her. There’s just that growing suspicion, that growing feeling of something sinister potentially playing out, or some awful thing having happened to Gabby such as an accident.

It’s minutes after this first realization that Gabby’s family have alerted officials running the football event, and at this point an announcement is made. They’re calling for Gabby. They’re just basically asking her to come forward if she can hear the message because, you know, hoping after hope after hope that maybe she is with another group of kids, maybe she’s got lost, maybe if she hears this call, she knows that we’re worried about her, and she will head for wherever that noise is coming from. And then, of course, the families who are at the stadium, they all realize that there’s a child missing. So, of course, they all start looking around the bleachers, they’re going around the concession stands, they’re going around the restroom areas. And obviously, initially, the first thought that strangers have, or families who know you have in that moment, is just, “Listen, she’s just become separated from her parents. She’s somewhere in the crowd, or maybe she’s just done that ultimate and hid too well during a hide-and-seek game. Hey, maybe she’s got tired and nodded off. Well, maybe she’s creeping and crawling and decided that she’d just rest for a minute and she’s fallen asleep.” These things do happen.

Now, at this point, minutes are passing and still Gabby is not being located. So, then the search becomes really intense. Parents, coaches, volunteers, spectators who just spread out across the sports complex, of course, they’re checking where a child might be, where a child might have wandered. They’re thinking, “We’re going to get a good return. It’s going to be okay. We’re going to find her.” The police, they were literally contacted almost immediately and they’re there quickly. Officers then begin assisting with the search because every second, every minute that passes, you are less likely to have a child returned. The first 60 minutes is almost critical beyond measure. Some people are returned after that period of time, some within hours, some 24 hours, but as that clock ticks on, hope genuinely fades and it fades quickly in those first 60 minutes.

Now, the stadium, it actually sat next to an area of trees and brush and also there was a shallow creek running behind the field. So, the searchers think, “Hey, maybe she’s run down there, maybe she’s hid down there.” They start checking that terrain as well. Now, although the wooded area was actually close to the stadium, it became really dark quickly once outside the floodlights. For roughly 25 horrific, torturous minutes, people comb the area around the field and also the surrounding grounds and they’re just doing what volunteers do, what officers do, they’re just calling out Gabby’s name, waiting for the return of her call. But, it doesn’t come. Now, most people at this point still believe she might simply be hiding somewhere, maybe she had wandered into the woods, maybe she’d got disorientated. But, then at approximately 8:05 p.m., a volunteer behind the stadium makes the most devastating discovery that one could ever make. They find Gabby’s body. She’s found in a creek located in the wooded area only a few hundred yards behind the football field. Although it was a wooded area, it wasn’t secluded, which is why she was actually found so quickly.

But we’re not talking about a drowning, guys. This isn’t a child who’s accidentally found herself in water and drowned. No, it’s far more sinister than that. Emergency responders move quickly to secure the area. Then the police begin treating that location as a homicide scene. Investigators immediately start documenting the site, collecting evidence as we’d expect. The youth football game is of course halted and families at the stadium begin leaving the area, not believing what’s happened, but knowing that the life that they had once known has changed forever. At this point, officers are working to control the scene. They want to make sure they’ve got all that forensic detail. We all know that if a child is found in water, well, that can be problematic. Water can wash things like DNA away. The quicker they deal with the scene effectively, the quicker they can potentially bring to justice the monster who has done this to this little girl.

When they carry out the later medical examination, they find out that Gabby had been sexually assaulted. So, this is a child murderer and a sexual predator. She’d been strangled. She’d then been drowned. Just put yourself in the mindset of this kind of predator. She was just playing hide-and-seek. And this pervert, this absolute predator of the highest level has grabbed her, has sexually molested her, has strangled her, has held her under water, and she’s drowned. A 7-year-old child. Now, the official cause of death ruled manual strangulation and drowning as a responsible for her dying.

Now, that entire sequence of horrific events I just talked about from the moment her mother realized she was missing to the moment that her body was discovered had unfolded in roughly 25 minutes. That’s why when they say the first 60 minutes of a child going missing is so paramount. 25 minutes before this beautiful, lively, full of personality little girl was alive to being sexually violated and murdered. Incomprehensible to us typical human beings because we can’t imagine that these kind of monsters lurk in the shadows or even in plain sight and we don’t realize they’re there.

Now within that time an innocent 7-year-old child had literally disappeared and been murdered. Now the area around the creek that remains sealed, of course it does. Investigators now going to work through the night and they begin the process of reconstructing what had happened during those missing minutes. And of course, the most important thing is how do we identify the person responsible?

Officials then gather everyone who is at the football game that night into the high school gym because of course people have got different witness experiences and people don’t think that things are important. They just see somebody doing something, they notice something that somebody’s wearing and it’s those tiny pieces of human data that are collected that in the end form pictures and profiles that mean these monsters are caught. So the interviews that are then carried out eventually and actually quickly lead them to believe a man named Timothy Madden might somehow have been involved.

Now it turns out that he was actually the father of one of the girls that Gabby had been playing hide and seek with. Also, this is someone Gabby’s father had been to school with. So known to the family. Now the reason that they identify him doesn’t mean that he’s guilty, but people believe that they need to point the finger at him is because multiple people had seen him at the game but also noticed he was standing near the bathrooms acting shady, as they put it.

“Isn’t it strange how in these cases that human intuition just plays out? Why is it not just a guy standing near the bathrooms? That’s not enough. The thing about human intuition and instinct is it’s a gut instinct. It’s really there. It’s a survival mechanism and we are good at understanding nuance. We can see somebody stood outside the toilets looking completely innocent. Might be on the phone, might be chatting to somebody, might just be looking around the actual area and it just goes over your head. There’s nothing that stands out. But if somebody is trying to act like that, act like they’re not shady, often we connect. It just feels disingenuous. It’s not authentic and people saw that. Doesn’t mean he’s guilty, but it just means there was something about his behavior that stood out for them psychologically.”

Detectives then head over to his home because obviously they want to speak to him. There was a child dead and he’s like, “Yeah, I was at the football game. I was actually playing hide and seek with children.” So suddenly we’ve got an explanation for that shady behavior. He’s carrying the tent to 20 and then he’s going to look for the kids. So it makes sense that people were having that gut instinct and he said, “You know, my own daughter was playing with Gabby, so I was playing hide and seek with all of them and now all of us sudden I’m being incriminated in this horrendous, heinous crime.”

Now he also says to them that after he returned home from the game, one of the things that he’d done was taking a bath. Now that does become very significant to investigators, but equally, who doesn’t go home and take a shower or bath? At the end of the day, lots of us do it. It’s part of people’s night time routine, in fact. But like I said, if they’ve got you in the line of fire and they’re like, “Oh, this guy took a bath.” Now we’re in a situation where they’re becoming deeply suspicious. The investigators then ask whether they can collect some evidence from him. This includes his clothing, his underwear that he’d actually been wearing that night and he gives them to them. So nothing to see here, I suppose. At the end of the day, he’s handing it over and that is sent immediately for forensic testing. We know that forensic testing can take a long time though, so it doesn’t automatically mean they’re going to get a return if there is a connection.

Now in the bathtub, and this is down to great analysis from police officers, police found a fiber. This is a pink fiber similar to clothing Gabby Doolin was wearing that night. Don’t get me wrong, again, he has been playing hide and seek with the children. Sometimes adults will tickle kids, will grab them, throw them around in the air when they catch them. It isn’t necessarily incriminating, but we always look for the breadcrumb trail. But, sometimes that breadcrumb trail can be pretty circumstantial and can have an individual who’s innocent absolutely in the line of fire. But, for now, even though there’s that fiber, etc., there’s no evidence that’s concrete. There’s just a lot of suspicion around him. Let’s talk about Timothy Wayne Madden, the guy who is in the line of fire at this moment in time. He was born on the 24th of February 1977. He lived in Scottsville, Kentucky. That’s the same community that Gabby and her family were living in. It’s a very small community, a safe community. Now, at the time when this crime played out, Madden was 38 years old. He was a married father. He had five children ranging between four months to 20 years of age, and he apparently lived in a double-wide trailer just a few miles outside of town.

When it came down to how Madden spent most of his life in Kentucky, he was an individual I suppose you’d say had a background typical of lots of working-class residents there, followed a largely blue-collar employment path. He worked in manual jobs and construction-related jobs. There isn’t that much detailed information about his formal education. It’s not been widely reported. Just appeared that he attended school locally with Gabby’s father, as I mentioned. He didn’t pursue higher education. And because he’d actually got children of his own, of course he wasn’t an unusual presence at youth sporting events. So, this is a guy who’s trusted. He’s a guy who’s been to lots of sporting events. Kids haven’t gone missing. And now here he is literally being accused potentially of a very serious crime, the most serious crime. You do not get a more serious crime than child predation and murder and sexual violation. Now, this familiarity, equally, if we’re looking at him as a potential guilty party, allows Madden to move through the community spaces without drawing attention to him. “Oh, it’s just Madden. We see him all the time. We work with him. Our kids play with his kids.” So, that allows a monster to wear a mask.

There are some troubling things though in Madden’s background and these will later become what I would consider central to discussions about this case because he had previously been accused of sexual misconduct involving a minor. You see? I’m all for not going down the lines of circumstantial evidence because you know what? People get pointed prison inaccurately, inappropriately, and unfairly because people have forged a strong case using that circumstantial evidence and it’s not actually them who’s guilty of the crime. But you know what? The moment I hear about a previous allegation of sexual misconduct involving a minor, I’m kind of out. Listen, the allegation didn’t result in a conviction, but ask yourself this, how many of you have ever had allegations of misconduct of a sexual nature when it comes down to children pointing the finger of blame in your direction? You haven’t, have you? No. Cuz it’s very rare. And when kids do it, it tends to be because, you know what? The guilty party is responsible even if it does not result in a conviction. Now, apart from that, I would say his life did not mark him as an obvious threat within the community.

Let’s get to the day after her death though. This is the 15th because at this point the community is reeling and a vigil is held for her where more than 500 people attend. What an amazing community. Doesn’t it just show you the kindness of strangers, the love of strangers, the connection of community, and there are lots of places in this world that do it well, but boy, my experience of America is that they do it on steroids. They just feel when a member of the community is stolen in these small communities that it is a blight on humanity, that it’s a blight on their environment, and that they want to come out strong to support the families. And her family is devastated. I mean, how can you be anything but devastated? How can you live through any day without the love of that child that you’ve lost? It is incalculably challenging for any human being to go through that. I do not even want to imagine the horror, the pain, the devastation. They took their children to a match, and now they’re bringing one of those children home in a box. It’s as simple as that. How could somebody do that to them? How can somebody look at a child’s life and think, “Yeah, I want to do whatever I want to do, and by the way, that child is just an object that I can throw away after I’ve had my pleasure.” Because that’s what we’re talking about here.

And her brother actually spoke in tears at this point, describing her as someone who made everybody feel better. He said that his sister is always smiling and happy. And her father, Brian Doolan, he actually posted to Facebook because he wanted to thank everyone for their support. And he said, “I just want justice for my daughter.” And I think that I would want more than justice for his daughter. If that was my child, I’d be writing murderous things on Facebook. I know these days I’d get arrested for it, but literally, I would want to kill the person responsible. I’m not saying using the death sentence. I would want to personally do it. Just lock me in a room with a range of weapons, and then let me out in a few hours. And I know that sounds awful and brutal, and some people are far more forgiving than me. I’m not. I own it. I own it. So, I didn’t work with sexual predators in my therapy. Didn’t matter that my clinical practice was something that apparently could have been improved. Didn’t matter that I had clinical supervisors saying, “Go ahead. Do that.” It was a no. Cuz no sexual predator needs me in a room with them because I have a bias, and that bias is in judgment of them. And we’re not going to do that therapeutically. We’re not unconditionally positively regard the people that we work with. Well, I don’t when it comes down to predators.

And her dad wrote, “I’d give anything to hold my baby girl just one more time. I love her with all my heart. Please continue to pray for my family. I would have gladly traded places with my baby girl.” Of course he would have. And Allen County Sheriff Jeff Cook also took to his personal Facebook page to stand with the community. Bear in mind, when you’re a local sheriff, it’s like losing one of your own. It really does, and you feel like it’s a personal failure on you. Actually, a GoFundMe page was also set up, which received more than $30,000 to offset the costs of Gabby’s funeral, because people are good, you are good, and we want to limit a level of pain that we can control. And finances, they spiral out of control in these situations. People can’t work, people have got fees to pay, and just the fact that community rallied round to say she matters to us and you matter to us. It doesn’t reduce the pain, but it limits some of the other pains that can arise because of financial issue and pressure.

Now, a few days after this memorial, this incredible turnout, on Thursday, the 19th of November, the actual funeral is held at Scottsville Baptist Church in Scottsville. Residents literally lined the streets. They were all there holding pink and blue balloons. And as the hearse passed, they released those pink and blue balloons. And again, ah, it just breaks my heart. I find it really difficult at points like this because we are dealing with the tragedy, we are dealing with the agony, we are dealing with the absolute brutality of this case, and yet equally we are dealing with the humanity of the average human being, the humanity of the you and me’s in this world, the humanity of strangers and friends and family members. And in that moment, that humanity is just absolutely effervescent in nature. This is no celebration, but this is marking that gorgeous little girl’s life. Also, pink ribbons and balloons were on display everywhere, including on some mailboxes near the double wide trailer where Madden had lived. So, people who knew him were saying, “We care about this child.” And it was actually, unbelievably, the day after this incredible funeral, on Friday, the 20th of November, that that DNA test that was sent off… Just think about the turnaround for this. That DNA test came back. That is unbelievable. People wait months, sometimes even a year for this kind of information. And that DNA test is 100% incriminating. It matched the 7-year-old’s DNA to blood that was found on Madden’s underwear and belt buckle. Absolutely 100% Madden is implicated. Also, there was semen that clearly linked him directly to the crime.

Now, usually, like I said, this type of testing would have taken weeks or months to be done, but in this case, the testing was done in 3 days. And an analyst actually said there was a request by police to rush the testing. And again, that’s because they felt personally impacted in this moment. They want that man. And you know what? Who could live in that area thinking there is a predatory murderer of children and a sexual violator of children living in that area, too? They need to get this guy.

Now, Kentucky State Police, they then go and arrest him, and rightfully they’re charging with murder, kidnapping, first-degree rape, and also first-degree sodomy. I’m sorry, you guys, that I’ve got to tell you, I’m sorry that you need to know that she suffered that way. But when we’re talking about monsters like this, we will mark that with truth. First-degree sodomy as well as rape. I cannot even begin to imagine the pain and the fear that beautiful little girl endured because of this monster.

And he has the audacity, the literal audacity, when being taken in handcuffs from a state police post to a squad car, saying, “I’m sorry for their loss. I feel sorry for them, but it wasn’t me.” Really? What kind of arrogance level these individuals have? Your semen and your blood is literally present with the victim. Your semen and blood directly linking the scene to you, but you’re going to just deny it completely.

And his actual mother-in-law came out defending him, said she could not believe he was responsible for this. She said that Madden was there because he was shooting a video of the game and said that as a father of five children, there was literally no way he could have hurt someone else’s child. She said, “He loves his kids and he loves his family and that there is just no way that he could have done it.” And his father-in-law also said he couldn’t believe it.

But you know what? That’s how people feel until predators are caught. Very often, a predator can be very nice to their own kids and their own animals and be horrendous to other peoples because they see other people as objects that they can use and utilize for their own pleasure. They might see their own children as property or they might see them as extensions of themselves. They treat them differently to others because again, they might get caught more easily if they’re abusing their own children. There are lots of reasons why these kind of characters seem to be decent folk until it turns out they’re quite the contrary.

And Madden’s own son, Bradley, he ends up getting arrested because he starts sending private messages to the police department saying he was coming for them. Another message said, “If you book my dad in and he does life, you will do life watching your back.” Not the most sensible thing to do. Now, I appreciate that kid may not believe his dad did what he did. I also think that genetics are interesting and here we have another person being violent in nature towards those trying to protect us. Doesn’t speak well of the family situation and scenario, does it? Also, I kind of think that people who are defending an individual who’s been tied to a crime genetically through DNA and semen certainly shouldn’t have the defense of their family, full stop.

Now, he, that son, was charged with 16 felony counts of intimidating a participant in the legal process and 16 misdemeanor counts of third-degree terroristic threatening. He was also later charged with several counts of statutory rape in an unrelated case. Like I said, genetics are interesting, aren’t they? And here we have a son who seems to have certain traits of his father.

Now, even though it’s bizarre that family members seem to be acting this way towards, actually it makes sense to some degree when you look at the profile of these kind of offenders cuz they haven’t necessarily done anything outlandish before. It just seems to be like out of the blue and opportunistic child sexually motivated killers or CSMOKs, they’re basically a distinct category of sexual homicide offenders. So, they are individuals whose actions, well, basically are driven primarily by desire for sexual gratification. So, they use what would be considered a seize-the-moment approach rather than the premeditated planning of other human predators. So, unlike sadistic or angry killers, these individuals are described as having dramatic personality traits. So, these include narcissistic and antisocial tendencies and that their crimes are characterized by low levels of planning and instrumental violence used to avoid detection. So, they’re not big planners. They’re not thinking about after the fact of the crime. And when you look at their psychological profile, studies indicate that these offenders often display traits from narcissistic and antisocial personality disorders. They have been found to have dramatic personality profiles, as I’ve said. So, that means low self-control and impulsivity, often experience a lack of self-control over their sexual impulses, and they are highly impulsive, which makes them highly dangerous.

They also have very clear cognitive distortions. So, they will basically maintain a mindset that just allows them to justify their actions, and they believe that other people, particularly children, exist merely to satisfy their needs. So, that’s supported by their distorted thinking, and that helps to minimize the harmful impact of their actions. So, they’re literally the worst example of human predators, and in this case, child human predators. The very fact they have a complete disregard for the victim’s well-being and just no empathy for them. They’re often described as hypersexual with really high sexual desires, so they don’t feel fulfilled in their sexual life. As I said, they don’t show a lot of planning. That means that the sexual assault is usually unplanned, so it will be opportunistic. It’s when an opportunity arises, so it might be during a burglary, it might be when a child is found alone, it might be when a child is playing hide-and-seek with a trusted adult in the mindset. And the violence, it’s used instrumentally. It’s not for pleasure, so it’s not necessarily they want to actually enjoy killing, it’s to subdue the victim to eliminate a witness to the sexual assault. It’s basically the most cold and calculated way. They’re not enjoying the killing, they just need to get them out of the way. They don’t want to be identified. It’s a them versus us moment, and they choose them.

Now, the victim-offender relationship is very interesting because these offenders will literally target children they are familiar with, and they will exploit their position of trust or their position of proximity to that victim, and then they’ll con the child, they’ll use some kind of persuasive approach to gain access to that victim rather than having to force that victim. So, they’ll probably have said, “Oh, let’s go and look down here. This will be a good hiding place.” And then, they have access. And it is as a driver for the murder, sexual gratification that’s the main reason behind it. It’s obviously initiated by the presence of a vulnerable victim. It’s not a lot of that premeditated planning, and the murder to some degree in these cases is often an afterthought, or like I said, a detection avoidance strategy. They don’t want the victim to report the assault. So, it’s not necessarily part of the sexual act. It’s not the Jeffrey Dahmer. It’s not the Ted Bundy style. It’s more, “Oh, I have a problem. Now, I need to create a solution.” And often, the offender is very sexually dissatisfied, and they act out this frustration when the opportunity arises. And often, they will have been in the background, by the way, have been involved in other criminal behaviors before killing, such as abusing other kids.

Now, as you can imagine, Gabby’s family were devastated, and they know this guy is 100% guilty. Her father posted to Facebook and said, “This animal should not be walking and breathing.” I agree with that. Amen to that. Can make that happen, please.

Now, just 3 days later, on the 23rd of November, Madden appears in Allen District Court for the first hearing. Gabby’s family sit in the second row of the courtroom, and Madden’s family members sit at the back. The families entered and left at different times. You can imagine how challenging that is. Madden is, of course, wearing an orange jail jumpsuit, and he was bound at the hands and feet. He reportedly showed absolutely no emotion, cuz he’s not capable of it, and he just quietly replied, “Yes, ma’am.” when the judge asked if he understood his rights. At this point, a not guilty plea is entered on his behalf, which is unbelievable, and his bond is set at $1 million cash. So, he ain’t going anywhere.

Now, his defense attorney signaled the strategy the defense would pursue, slow the process, scrutinize the evidence, and basically challenge the prosecution’s forensic case. And the reason they wanted to go slowly is they haven’t got a defense. Let’s just be real about that. Do you have a defense? No. He’s a massive child predator and a horrendous kind of murderer, and he probably needs to be put to death. Okay, how are you going to play that? We don’t know. We just want to go very slowly, so we can, hopefully, just keep pushing and pushing the ball down the court, so we don’t really have to deal with the reality we’re going to lose this case. But anyway, that’s what’s going to happen. They’re going to try to challenge the prosecution’s forensic case. Bear in mind, he’s maintained his innocence. They have to do this. He never gives a confession, so that means a formal motive at this point was not explained. But, investigators and prosecutors believe the motive was 100% sexual in nature and as I noted, opportunistic.

Now, in March 2016, the Commonwealth’s Attorney announced that the state would seek the death penalty if Madden was to be convicted. Could we not just fast forward and just allow, I don’t know, a select group of volunteers to do it for them? I think there’ll be quite a few volunteers. I’ll be volunteering. Um essentially, from this point forward, the case became a capital prosecution.

Now, over the next 2 years, the case got delayed for lots of different reasons. One reason was basically the struggle that they had deciding where the trial was going to be held because Allen County is a really small community. The murder of a child at the local football game, everyone knew about it. It generated intense publicity. So, Madden’s lawyers, rightly, to be fair, argued that the community had already decided he was guilty and it would be impossible to select an unbiased jury. Just going to throw it out there. The reason that it would be impossible to find an unbiased jury is just listening to any of the evidence would be deeply incriminating. You could go to the North Pole and just show them this particular evidence and everyone would be like, “He’s massively guilty.” But, that’s what the defense have to do.

Now, to support that argument, the defense actually commissioned a public opinion survey, which suggested that roughly three-quarters of the residents believed Madden was guilty before the trial had even begun. Yes, because they have a good mark of this man and they know he’s guilty. So, we get to 2017. This is when Judge Janet Crocker agreed to move the trial out of Allen County. Now, don’t get me wrong, the defense still is arguing at this point that neighboring counties were also too familiar with the case. Like I said, you don’t need familiarity to understand evidence when it’s this incriminating. Nonetheless, like I said, they’re trying to push the ball down the court. So, eventually, the court ruled that the trial will take place in Hardin County. It’s around 90 miles away. This is, as I said, in an attempt to ensure a more impartial jury.

Then, we have another 2 years. So, 2 years later, on 24th of August, 2019, this is less than 2 weeks before that jury selection was due to begin, guess what? Madden appears in court for an unexpected hearing where he accepts a plea agreement. This is offered by prosecutors. Now, under that deal, he pled guilty to murder and kidnapping, and then enters an Alford plea to the charges of rape and sodomy. Now, what an Alford plea does is it allows him to maintain his innocence that none of us believe, while also acknowledging that the evidence against him was strong enough for a jury to convict him.

“I just want to say, ‘I’m not guilty,'” he says.

“Well, all the evidence says that you are.”

“I accept that the evidence says that I am, but I’m going to say that I’m not guilty.”

Okay, so we all know you’re guilty, even though I’m saying I’m not guilty. You know, at the end of the day, makes no sense whatsoever, but that’s what he does. Don’t get me wrong, Alford pleas can be really useful in other circumstances, but in this one, it just demonstrates he doesn’t want people to know that he’s a rapist of a child. Forget the murder, he’ll accept the murder, but he doesn’t want people to know what he did to her before the murder.

Now, Madden’s attorney said, and you won’t believe this, he entered the plea because it was the right thing to do for himself and for the victim’s family and for everybody, including the community. Not really, he did it because he wanted to save his own skin because he was going to get put to death otherwise. We all know that. Now, in exchange for that plea, prosecutors agreed to remove the death penalty.

So, we get to the 23rd of October, 2019. This is when Madden was returned to court for sentencing, and we know a life sentence without parole had already been agreed on because he’d murdered a child, but prosecutors also asked the key evidence to be presented anyway. And the reason for that is they essentially wanted him to be publicly shamed. Let’s be clear. They wanted him to receive the harshest possible sentence and they wanted people to know about why. And someone who actually was in that courtroom later made a tweet saying this.

“I’m choosing not to tweet out details of what’s being discussed in court right now relates to her rape. It’s too graphic. And to be honest, no one really needs to know these details aside from those choosing to listen in court.”

Like I said, the prosecution did that because she deserved justice and he deserved shaming in the most public way possible.

Now, the judge actually said that he was aware that if a jury had been left to decide the outcome, the death sentence would have most likely been inevitable. But, he also acknowledged it was actually Gabby’s family that had agreed with the plea deal. And the judge said that he had no question in his mind about the guy getting the death sentence if he went to court. He said the family understood that, but the family is looking towards having closure. You can’t have complete closure on a heinous crime like this, but they do need to be able to move forward with their lives and they would not have been able to do that and we know why. And of course, what they’re referring to there is the fact that there have been years worth of appeals and that can go on for decades. And I suppose the family know he will never see the light of day. He will only come out in a box and his spirit will have been directly transported on the hell-evator to hell, where he will be neighbors with somebody like Jeffrey Dahmer and they can spend their lives being violated in similar ways to they violated their victims. That’s how I cope with these kind of circumstances. Unlike this beautiful little girl who will absolutely be in bliss and will be reunited with her family in the future.

Now, Amy Doellman, Gabby’s mother, addressed the court for her victim impact statements and she spoke about that night. The night she allowed her daughter to walk to the concession stand, to go to the bathroom area with her friends, just believing that that football field was a safe place. She described Gabby as the center of her world. She spoke about the devastation that that crime had inflicted on her family, and she said through tears.

“Because of you, we lost our baby girl. Our boys lost their sister. Before she was even 8 years old, you took her from us. I let her go to the bathroom and concession stand with friends. I made the mistake of feeling that my kids were safe in a place we knew so well. But evil was lurking. The only comfort we could find was that Gabby was in heaven, and we’d see her again there one day. There will be justice on Earth, and when you close your eyes in death, that will be the ultimate justice.”

I agree, but I’m just throwing it in here that in my brain, ultimate justice is, over a period of decades, I don’t know, some 15th century torture apparatuses might be used for him, too. Just throwing it out there. It’s not legal. I get it. Would make me feel better. Just going to say.

Now, while she was speaking, you will not believe the arrogance of this horrific man, because he and his attorney weren’t even listening. Now, that’s appalling, full stop. What was his attorney doing when she was giving her statement? In fact, they’re whispering to each other. Gabby’s father was furious in that moment, and just that protective mechanism came out, and he just erupts in anger. He lunged towards them, saying to his attorney.

“Sir, that is the most disrespectful thing I’ve ever seen. We’ve had 4 years waiting. You can let him listen to what she has to say. Do you understand me?”

He then actually had to be restrained by court security. You know what? Bring him in, tie him down, have his eyes open with matchsticks, and make him look that woman in the eyes. And what a despicable defense attorney. How dare he have the disrespect to do that in court?

Now, Madden, of course, didn’t address court. What could he say? At the end of the day, he’s a monster and we all know it. But instead, he had that attorney read a statement in which he suggested that the evidence against him had been planted by law enforcement and that justice wouldn’t be served until the right person was behind bars. Well, I think we can all agree the right person is behind bars. But Judge Crocker responded saying this.

“You have shown great cowardice by maintaining your innocence.”

And when I look at the guy, I know he’s guilty as hell. But when Judge Crocker responded, she said Madden had shown great cowardice by maintaining his innocence. And at the end of the hearing, Judge Janet Crocker formally sentenced Timothy Madden to life in prison without the possibility of parole, bringing the legal proceedings in the case to a close and ensuring he would never be released. Just going to throw it out there, doesn’t go well for a lot of these offenders when they’re in prison. Do you know who people really hate in prison? They hate child sex offenders and they hate child sex offenders and murderers even more. And I wish the very worst for him.

Now, in November 2020, law enforcement officials announced that the results of Operation Gabby Doolin, which was actually an undercover investigation named in memory of her, had been carried out by multiple agencies. This included the US Secret Service, the Kentucky State Police, the US Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Kentucky, and members of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Investigators actually used undercover online profiles posing as minors in order to identify individuals attempt to engage children in sexual conversations or to obtain explicit material. The investigation at the time ultimately led to federal charges against seven men from Kentucky, which is great. Get these bastards and lock them up. Prosecutors actually said that the alleged offenses included tempted enticement of a minor, attempted production of abuse material, and transferring obscene material to someone believed to be a minor. The suspects, of course, well they believed they were communicating with underage children when they were actually interacting with undercover investigators. Couldn’t happen to nicer predators. The charges carried significant mandatory prison sentences with potential penalties ranging up to life imprisonment depending on the offense. Now, at the time the operation was announced, some of the defendants had already pled guilty, and authorities said naming that investigation after Gabby Doolin was intended both to honor her memory and reinforce efforts to protect children, highlighting the continuing work of law enforcement to identify and prosecute individuals attempting to exploit minors online. Amen to that. Amen to that.

Like I said, I’ve no sympathy, no empathy. I will not pretend to understand these predators. They are the worst of the worst of humanity. You have choices. You can deal with your impulses, even if you have been blighted with an attraction to children. If you choose not to, you deserve the very harshest of punishments. I would not have you walk in the streets. I would not have you free. I would have you locked away because we should protect children at all costs. With that in mind, I come to the close of the case. I want to make it clear, Gabby deserves so much better. We all know that. I am glad the prosecution made what happened to her public, at least in court, because he deserved that shame. And shame on the perpetrator and on his defense for not even have the actual humility to listen to the mother of this child talking about the impact of a loss. Honestly, despicable on every single level. Look after yourselves, guys. If you’ve got this far in the video, you found it interesting, please do subscribe. Give me a like. Give me a hype. It helps my channel, and come back next time. This is 100% dedicated to that gorgeous little girl. Fly high, sweetheart. You’re in bliss now, and you will see your parents again.

“Mhm.”