They Let Him Die — New Federal Lawsuit Names Arizona Governor in the Timothy Stone Case

0:00 Before we begin, this episode contains discussions of child abduction, wrongful death, and ongoing harm to missing children. Listener discretion is advised. On December 1st, 2025, I brought you the story of a Black father named Timothy Paul Stone. For two hours and 24 minutes, we walked through the last 54 days of his life. 54 days of waking up every morning wondering if his three boys were still alive. 54 days of calling police, judges and government officials. 54 days of begging. A system that says it protects children to actually protect his. When that episode ended, his sons Winston, Timothy Junior and little Marcel had been missing for 692 days.

0:46 Tonight, they are still missing. But in the days after that episode dropped, something shifted. A new document landed in a federal courthouse in Phoenix, 30 plus pages that don't read like a dry filing, but like an indictment of an entire state. And our producer, Jon Reedberg, picked up the phone earlier this week. John called Reverend John W Stone, Timothy's father. When Rev Stone answered, he was in his car heading to a Staples in Phoenix to print out that document, an amended civil complaint filed December 8th, 2025 in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona.

1:27 He tells John it's 35 pages long, that he wrote it himself, that he's been studying law for 40 years, that this complaint is, in his words, first rate. And then before he talks about law, he talks about love. He tells John that he and Timothy were soul mates. Not in the romantic way. We usually use that word in the way a parent sometimes locks in with one child. The one who calls you first with good news and bad news, the one who laughs at the same corny jokes, the one who shares your brain. Sometimes you have a lot of stuff in common with a particular child, he says. That doesn't mean you love your other children less. It just means you hit it off with one of them because you're compatible in a lot of areas.

2:16 That was the story with Timothy. He talks about how Timothy became one of the first black men to serve as a sales engineer at Cox Communications, leading a team. How he balanced that work with a body that had been managing type 1 diabetes since he was two years old. How he did all of that while raising three boys, two of them on the autism spectrum. He tells John that Timothy was born on February 28th, 1990. That he died three days after his 34th birthday in a leap year. I've been preaching for 40 years, he says. I've done funerals. I've been at hospital beds. I thought I had seen and felt everything, but when I was told he had been deceased, it literally took my breath away.

3:03 I fell out. He pauses, and you can almost feel the weight of those words pressing against the inside of the car windshield as he drives. When the kids were abducted, he says, he and I worked day and night together for him to, 54 days after they were taken, suddenly die. It just crashed my world. I really didn't want to be here anymore. He is 69. His wife, Reverend Shirley Stone, is 75. This is something we will take with us to the grave. He says. We think about it every day. You don't see the world the same anymore.

3:43 If you're new to this story, here is what happened. January 9th, 2024, El Mirage, AZ. In the early hours of that morning, Timothy is rushed to the ICU at Boswell Hospital in a diabetic emergency. His insulin has been tampered with or hidden. His blood sugar is in the 8 hundreds. He survives. He is discharged. That afternoon. He gets a ride home from his father. When he walks into his apartment, his three boys are gone. 12 year old Winston, 10 year old Timothy Paul Stone Junior, three-year old Marcel the live in babysitter. A woman named Brittany Houston has taken them without permission, without notice.

4:29 She has already loaded them into Timothy's own car and driven them across town. She does not take them to a relative with joint custody. She delivers them to their mother, Saraya Laurent Mccree, Timothy's estranged wife, at a Cube Smart storage facility in Mesa. This is not a misunderstanding. Months earlier, Timothy had secured valid Protection Orders from a judge listing himself and the boys as plaintiffs and Saraya and her sister Eris Dupree as defendants. The court found there was a credible risk of kidnapping and abuse. Saraya had abandoned the boys for 10 months, No visits, no calls, no support. She was ordered to stay away from them. Timothy comes home from the hospital, finds the apartment empty and does what you are supposed to do when you have the law on your side.

5:22 He calls 911. El Mirage Police Sergeant Matthew Jacobs responds. Timothy shows him the Protection Orders, the file numbers, the dates, the judge's signature. He makes it clear Brittany had no permission to give the children to anyone, especially Saraya or Harris. Jacobs acknowledges the orders, acknowledges that Saraya is under court order to stay away, then leaves the children where they are. Over the next 54 days, Timothy does everything a person is told to do to get help. He calls El Mirage police over and over. He calls Mesa police because that's where the storage facility is. He calls Child Protective Services with his father. He drafts a certified criminal complaint, notarized and sent to Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs and Attorney General Kristen Mays. He emails El Mirage Police Chief Paul Marzaca. He writes to El Mirage Mayor Alexis Hermosillo. On January 29th, the governor's office replies and promises to review their complaint.

6:31 That same day, Chief Marzoka emails back saying I have my investigations Bureau looking into this matter and then hours later tells Timothy he will not be rescuing the children or arresting the kidnappers. He claims Timothy was incapacitated when they were taken. As if that excuses everything. Timothy and his father lay out the law. They quote kidnapping statutes, child abuse statutes. They warn police that refusing to arrest the kidnappers and blocking the boys rescue could make the city an accomplice. No one comes. On February 1st, under unbearable stress, Timothy calls Saraya. He threatens her if she doesn't return the children. She calls 911.

7:19 Mesa Police officer Damien Ryden responds to Cube Smart, calls Timothy, and, according to the lawsuit, threatens him with physical harm if he tries to get his own children back. Shortly afterward, an El Mirage officer calls Timothy with the same threat. On February 21st, a process server finally manages to get inside the locked Cube Smart facility and physically hands Syria the protection order she had been dodging in Nevada. She reads it. She ignores it. She keeps the children. On February 29th, Timothy and his father file an emergency motion with Judge Michael Parascondola, the same judge who had issued the Protection Orders the year before.

8:02 They beg him to order the children rescued. He sets a hearing for March 4th. Timothy believes, truly believes, that if he can just survive until that hearing, someone will finally have to act. On March 2nd, 2 days before that hearing, El Mirage police call his parents. Officers have gone to his apartment and found him on the floor. He is dead. On paper. The death certificate calls it natural causes to Reverend Stone. There is nothing natural about it. In the call with John, he tells our producer. My take on it is they didn't let him die, they actually killed him.

8:45 He describes how, according to Timothy's roommate, the same three officers they've been trying to sue over the kidnapping went into Timothy's room, closed the door, locked the roommate out and emerged 5 minutes later to pronounce him dead. We don't know exactly how it came down, he says, but we know this because they allowed the kidnapping to go on. The officials ended up torturously murdering Tim. According to John and Shirley's amended federal complaint, after Timothy died, his body was signed over to a so-called Research for Life program and then cremated. The Stones say they were never asked for their consent, never given a chance to view their son's body before the cremation, and that in the end, all they received was a small cardboard box of ashes they had to fight for. Up to this point, you've mostly heard from Timothy's parents what they were told, what they saw, what they allege in this federal complaint.

9:47 Saraya Mccree, the boy's mother, hasn't sat down for any interview about Timothy's death or about these lawsuits. She hasn't answered questions from reporters, but she has spoken in the comments section on Facebook under Timothy's GoFundMe post under her own name. Saraya writes, quote, complete lies. His body has been donated to research for life and the cremation is free. I have all the proof and paperwork and quote. In another comment on that same thread she says quote all this for money. Y'all can't even mourn his death. So sad and quote and replying directly to another user.

10:30 She writes quote he knew where the kids were. I'm their mother lol so I know the real situation. End Quote. Those are Surreya's words on a public GoFundMe post about Timothy's death. The stones tell a very different story. They say they have never been shown any of this supposed proof and paperwork about body donation. In their amended federal complaint, they allege that Timothy did not consent to donation, that his body was cremated against the family's wishes, and that when they tried to claim his remains, they were blocked by the Funeral Home and by law enforcement. And when it comes to the boys, they say no one from the police, the Funeral Home or from Saraya ever called to say, here is where your grandsons are, Here is who has them. Even though by her own comment, Surya is saying she knew exactly where the kids were because, quote, I'm their mother. Set against Surya Mccree's Facebook comments, this is how Timothy's father understands what happened to his son. Those are Reverend Stone's words about his boy's death. That is the truth He is asking a court to recognize. The amended complaint he was printing at Staples that morning takes that grief and turns it into legal language. It names in black ink.

11:53 Arizona Governor Kathleen Marie Hobbs sued in her official and individual capacity, a former social worker and state legislator who ran publicly on her record of protecting women and children. Arizona Attorney General Kristen Mays sued in her official and individual capacity, the state's top law enforcement officer, A former regulator and journalist now branding herself as a defender of consumers and democracy. El Mirage Mayor Alexis Hermosillo, El Mirage Police Chief Paul Marzocca Sergeant Matthew Jacobs of El Mirage Police, Mesa Police Officer Damien K Ryden, El Mirage Municipal Court Judge Michael Parascandola, Maricopa County Superior Court Judges Melissa Zabor, Jennifer Ryan Touhill and Michael Herod.

12:46 CubeSmart, the storage company whose Mesa facility became, in effect, a holding Center for kidnapped children. MetLife, the insurance giant that, after months of documentation, refused to disqualify Soraya as the beneficiary of Timothy's life insurance, even as it sat on proof of abandonment threats and recorded admissions. And the three women who according to the complaint, started it all, Soraya Laurent Mccree, the estranged wife, Heiress Dupree, her sister, and Brittany Houston, the non relative babysitter who out on bond for crimes against her own children, used Timothy's medical crisis to clear him out of the apartment, then took his boys and delivered them into danger.

13:33 The complaint alleges a coordinated scheme that these individuals, from babysitter to governor, entered into an agreement by what they did and by what they refused to do that resulted in the ongoing kidnapping of three children and the torturous death of their father. Those are allegations in a civil lawsuit, not findings in a criminal trial. Every person named in that complaint is entitled to defend themselves, to deny wrongdoing and to be presumed innocent of any crime unless and until a Criminal Court says otherwise. But if you read what Reverend Stone has filed, what you cannot call this is a custody dispute that got out of hand. At one point in that car ride, as he talks to John, you can hear him shift from grieving father to the man who has been reading statutes for 40 years.

14:26 He asks John, you know how felony murder works, right? He gives him an example. Let's say you have a Bar and Grill. He says 3 or 4 guys come in with guns and stick you up. During that time, one of your customers has a heart attack or trips over a can and dies. The people robbing you get felony murder charges. They don't have a separate trial on felony murder. They get it automatically because of the underlying crime. But once they leave, he says, if nobody dies, once they leave, the Commission of the crime is complete. There's no more Commission of the crime. Then he turns to kidnapping. Kidnapping is one of the only crimes. He says that when you kidnap someone, if somebody dies during that kidnapping, the entire time counts. If you kidnap that person and you keep them for three months, every single day you keep them is a new charge. The Commission of the crime is ongoing. It doesn't stop until you release the victim and then he applies it to his son.

15:33 In this particular situation, he tells John the way it works is when they kidnap the kids and Timothy died trying to rescue them, they all face felony murder. When we talk about felony murder here, we're not talking about a feeling. We're talking about a rule in criminal law. In many states, including Arizona, if someone dies while you are committing certain serious felonies, everyone committing that felony can be held responsible for murder, even if no one meant to kill, and even if the death looks natural on paper. Robbery, burglary, rape, and in Arizona, kidnapping.

16:15 Arizona's law also treats kidnapping as a continuing crime. The felony doesn't end until the victim is safely released. So if a death happens while that kidnapping is still in motion, the clock hasn't stopped. In Reverend Stone's mind, Timothy's heart didn't just give out, it failed under the weight of an ongoing felony that never should have been allowed to happen. In his words, this case is not about officials letting Timothy die, it's about them killing him by keeping the kidnapping going, he tells John. You have the opportunity to be the first media person to post the fact that for the first time in the history of the United States, a sitting governor and a sitting attorney general are facing felony murder level charges. And it's not hypothetical.

17:04 This is as per the law. Legally today, what exists is a civil wrongful death and civil rights lawsuit, not a criminal indictment. No prosecutor has yet walked into a courtroom and read out state of Arizona versus Governor Hobbs on a felony murder count. What he's saying is this, if ordinary people can be charged with felony murder when someone dies during a corner store robbery, then the facts he has alleged an ongoing kidnapping. A man who dies under that stress and officials who in his view, kept that kidnapping alive should expose the people at the top to the same rule they've used on everyone else. And if any prosecutor ever had the courage to file those charges against a sitting governor and attorney general, it would be something this country has never seen before. When our producer asks him whether this was simply a case of officials letting Timothy die, Reverend Stone cuts that phrase off.

18:07 My take on it, he says, is they didn't let him die. They actually killed him. He talks about officers who, in his words, refused to go get the kids, obstructed justice on so many occasions and then showed up at Timothy's apartment the night he died. To me he says this isn't neglect. They kidnapped the kids and caused purposely, intentionally, his torturous death. That is how he sees it. That is what he is asking a federal judge and one day a jury to see. But in all of this, in law and procedure and unprecedented allegations, there are three boys.

18:50 I want you to picture them not as names in a caption, but as people. 13 year old Winston, the oldest, the one who sits up a little too straight when adults are talking, trying to be a man before he's finished being a boy. I imagine him on a hard bench outside a courtroom, swinging his feet in the space between floor and seat, listening to raised voices behind a closed door, wondering if this time someone will actually fix it. 11 year old Timothy Junior, autistic, sensitive to sudden noise, to changes in routine. I see him lining up toy cars in perfect rows along the edge of a coffee table while his dad measures out insulin at the kitchen counter. The soft click of the pen and the rhythm of tiny wheels tapping, wood beating in time. 4 year old Marcel, still baby soft in the cheeks, falling asleep on Timothy's chest during cartoons, one small hand hooked in the collar of his work shirt as if gripping tight enough means Daddy can never leave. Those are the boys who were turned into leverage in a legal chess game.

20:00 Those are the boys this lawsuit is really about. We know from the complaint and from Reverend Stone's calls that for a time they were being held at a Cube Smart storage facility in Mesa where Saraya was employed. We know that when process servers and police knocked on her door in Las Vegas, she refused to open it, dodging service until they could no longer find her. We know that when she was finally served at Cube Smart on February 21st, she read the order and kept the children anyway. We know that on April 10th, 2024, Reverend Stone received 2 phone calls from Aris Dupree and one from Saraya in one voicemail.

20:41 Aris says she was present when she and Saraya told Brittany to kidnap the kids and bring them to Nevada. She says Timothy deserved his torturous death and that she is happy he is dead. In another voicemail, Surya says she knew that the decedent was going to die. Those recordings now sit in an evidence file. No one has been arrested on those admissions. We know that MetLife spent months corresponding with Reverend Stone asking him to send every document he had. Protection Orders, police reports, certified complaints, Facebook posts where Surya admits she was kept from the children for 10 months, the exact span of time she was under a protection order. MetLife encouraged him to keep sending evidence, told him they would hold the death benefits in a liability account while they reviewed.

21:34 On September 11th, 2024, MetLife sent him a letter. It said that because the El Mirage police report did not list the allegations he had raised, they would not be disqualifying Soraya as the beneficiary. The same Police Department that refused to rescue the children wrote the report MetLife decided to trust. We know that after all of this, three Maricopa County Judges Zabor, Ryan, Tuhill and Herod held a private meeting where they decided how to handle the emergency motions Reverend Stone had filed in his first wrongful death case. We know that on September 12th, 2024, Judge Zabor, who wasn't even assigned to the case, held what the complaint calls an illegal negotiation with the kidnappers, spoke to Saraya on the phone and, in Reverend Stone's words, encouraged her to keep herself and the children concealed in Nevada.

22:31 We know she then, according to the complaint, tried to charge the Stones more than $300 in fees just to be allowed to see the children. We know that after that hearing, the first wrongful death case fell apart. Reverend Stone withdrew it only to refile in federal court. And we know that as of the filing of this amended complaint in December 2025, the children remain kidnapped and endangered. Those are the words on the page somewhere right now. There are three black boys who have been gone from their grandparents for nearly two years, two of them on the autism spectrum, all three of them growing up in an alternate reality. Maybe they've been told their father didn't want them. Maybe they've been told he chose another family. Maybe they know only that something broke, that the air around the adults hummed with fear, and then their world shrank to a new set of walls and new rules that never made sense. Maybe they're sitting in a Las Vegas apartment, curtains permanently drawn.

23:40 Maybe they're in a small town in another state, enrolled under new names, told not to talk about before. Maybe they are not in school at all, kept off the grid so no one can notice three boys who don't fit. They do not know that their names are in a federal complaint. They do not know that their names sit on a website that has been quietly accusing Arizona's leadership of felony murder level conduct for more than a year. They do not know that a 69 year old pastor and a 75 year old grandmother are spending their last years in front of computer screens instead of in rocking chairs, drafting motions instead of knitting because they refuse to let their grandchildren vanish.

24:22 When John asks Reverend Stone what he wants people listening to do, he doesn't talk about money. He doesn't talk about politics. First thing he says is you don't let this die. You keep saying their names. You keep this on the front page. Then he gets specific. If you live in Nevada, especially in Las Vegas, he says pay attention. You see three boys who look like mine around 1311 and four with a woman who seems nervous, who doesn't let them talk. You see kids who say they used to live in Arizona or who flinch when someone mentions the police. Don't just brush that off.

25:03 If you have any information about the whereabouts of Winston Stone, Timothy Paul Stone Junior or Marcel Orion Stone, you can contact the FBI. The number for tips is 800-225-5324. Again, 800-225-5324. You can also contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 800-843-5678. That's 800-843-5678. If you work in a school, a clinic, or a social service agency and you think you've seen these children, you do not have to be certain to make a report.

25:53 You can give what you know and let investigators do their job. If you work inside one of the institutions named in this complaint, the governor's office, the Attorney General's office, El Mirage police, Mesa police, MetLife Cube, smart, and you know something that has not yet come out, you have a choice. You can keep your head down and hope this never touches your desk. Or you can decide that three boys and the truth about what was done to their father matter more than your comfort. The amended complaint in Stone versus Mccree is a public record. We've put a copy of it, along with key documents in this case, on our website. You can find it at No Tears for blackgirls.com. Click on the Resources tab and look for Timothy Stone updates. You will see Reverend John and Reverend Shirley Stone's signatures at the bottom.

26:48 No law firm letterhead, no partner names. Just two elderly parents representing themselves, asking a federal court to say that what happened to their family was not just sad, it was unlawful. A black father loved his sons enough to burn himself out fighting for them. Two black grandparents love their grandsons enough to spend their last years fighting a government that, in their view, chose convenience over children. And now you know their names. Winston, Timothy. Junior Marcel Timothy's story is not over. His children's story is not over. And as long as this microphone is in front of me, this story will not be silenced.

27:32 Stay loved, stay blessed, stay safe. I'm Samantha Paul. This is no tears for black girls.