Welcome to the podcast, Crime Salad, where we talk true crime.

I'm your host Ashley, and with me always is my husband and partner in crime, Ricky.

The purpose of this podcast is to honor the victims through ethical storytelling in the

hopes of preventing future tragedies. We want our stories to resonate and educate

others in hopes that some of these similar cases with identifiable patterns can be prevented.

Now, before we jump in, please let us warn you that this is a true crime podcast.

The details of this episode may be triggering to some listeners.

Listener discretion advised.

This case takes us to the town of Knoxville, Tennessee.

In this town in the year of 2016, Emma Walker proudly supports the red, white, and black

bobcats by cheering on the football team under the Friday night lights.

Emma was living it up during her high school experience, as she was in the beginning months

of her junior year of high school. And after high school, she had plans to become a neo-natal

nurse. But sadly, that would never happen, as her life was tragically cut short far too soon.

The 16-year-old was shot in the fall of 2016 by someone who didn't handle the breakup of a

two-year relationship well. William Riley Gaul, commonly referred to as Riley, seemed to go to

on usual lengths to get her attention days after their relationship ended.

Simultaneously, her parents who were completely supportive in loving and who knew about what was

going on, tried to protect her from her obviously toxic and mentally unstable boyfriend.

Despite her best efforts to stay away and repeated warnings from her family and her friends

about his volatile and toxic behavior, it didn't stop his attempts to win Emma back.

Now just looking at a picture of Emma Walker, you can tell that she was thriving in her junior

...