Why Did Austin Drummond Spare The Baby? The Chilling Choice That Shook Tennessee
True Crime Today | Daily True Crime News & Interviews
Tony Brueski
4.2 • 612 Ratings
🗓️ 7 August 2025
⏱️ 16 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
On July 29, 2025, a baby was found abandoned on a stranger’s front porch in rural Tennessee. Hours later, police made a horrific discovery—four members of the child’s family were found murdered. The suspect? 28-year-old Austin Drummond, a man with close ties to the victims. He allegedly slaughtered James Wilson (21), Adrianna Williams (20), Cortney Rose (38), and Braydon Williams (15)—then took the surviving infant and left her alone in a car seat miles away.
Why didn’t he kill the baby?
This question has haunted the public, police, and psychologists ever since. Was it a moment of mercy? Or something far more twisted? In this episode, Tony Brueski breaks down the psychological horror of “selective violence,” where killers choose their victims—and make calculated decisions about who lives and why.
We explore theories around survivor guilt, the trauma the child will carry, and how this disturbing case echoes patterns seen in other family annihilation crimes, including the infamous Chris Watts murders.
Austin Drummond now faces four counts of first-degree murder, aggravated kidnapping, and multiple weapons charges. And three other individuals—Giovonte Thomas, Tanaka Brown, and Dearrah Sanders—have been charged as accessories after the fact for allegedly helping Drummond evade capture.
The details are heartbreaking. The questions are terrifying. And the reality is this: a child will grow up knowing that she was spared by someone who erased her entire family.
This is the story of what happened, what it means, and why the silence surrounding that baby’s survival is the loudest part of all.
Subscribe now for more in-depth coverage on the most disturbing and emotionally complex true crime cases.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A Better Help ad. |
| 0:02.3 | Lewis Capaldi partnered with Better Help to get word out about how important therapy can be. |
| 0:07.6 | I struggle most weeks to get up, get myself up and ready and go to therapy or whatever. |
| 0:13.0 | Even like to open the laptop to talk to, my therapist sometimes could be really difficult. |
| 0:17.4 | But I do it because I realize how important it is for me to continue to feel good. |
| 0:21.8 | Because I felt the best I've felt in a long time through therapy. |
| 0:24.9 | Learn more about online therapy at betterhelp.com. |
| 0:28.7 | A better help ad. |
| 0:30.6 | Lewis Capaldi partnered with Better Help to get word out about how important therapy can be. |
| 0:36.6 | I struggle most weeks to get up, get myself up and ready and go to therapy or whatever. |
| 0:42.2 | Even like to open the laptop to talk to, my therapist sometimes could be really difficult. |
| 0:46.6 | But I do it because I realise how important it is for me to continue to feel good. |
| 0:51.2 | Because I felt the best I've felt in a long time through therapy. |
| 0:54.1 | Learn more about online therapy at betterhelp.com. to feel good. I felt the best I felt in a long time through therapy. |
| 0:57.9 | Learn more about online therapy at betterhelp.com. |
| 1:00.9 | This is Hidden Killers with Tony Bruske. |
| 1:03.2 | Here now, Tony Bruske. |
| 1:05.8 | The story starts with the baby. |
| 1:14.0 | Not in a crib, not with her parents, but in the front of a stranger's front porch. |
| 1:16.5 | Like a movie. |
| 1:18.2 | Picture it. |
| 1:20.4 | A Tennessee summer morning. |
... |
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