Cold Case Files - The Hitmakers / Favors for a Friend

Episode Date: October 13, 2026

A scheme to bribe a country music magazine to manipulate the charts leads to murder in Nashville and a 13-year hunt for the killer; and a murderer's plan to hide his gun is foiled when the man who buried the evidence for him spills the beans to cops.This Episode is sponsored by BetterHelpAcorns - Sign up now and Acorns will boost your new account with a $20 bonus investment. Just head to acorns.com/COLDCASE or download the Acorns app to get started.Audible - Join Audible on the Audible app or subscribe hereBetterHelp: Visit BetterHelp.com/COLDCASE to get 10% off your first month.Hers: Start your free online visit at forhers.com/CCF for your personalized weight loss treatment options.Thrive Market: Go to ThriveMarket.com/coldcase for $30 off your first two orders!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This program contains subject matter that may be disturbing to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. There are over 100,000 cold cases in America. Only 1% are ever solved. This is one of those rare stories. It's March 9, 1989, in Nashville, Tennessee. A few blocks away from the clubs and country bars lies Music Row, home to producers and recording studios. At a little after 10.30 p.m., four shots are fired, and a man falls to the pavement.

A second victim staggers from the scene bleeding heavily. He makes it to a nearby apartment, where a call is placed to police. Sergeant William Dyer is one of the first to respond. There was a male-white laying in the middle of the roadway, face down, obviously shot. The victim is IDed as good. Kevin Hughes and pronounced dead on the scene. As police cordoned off the area, a crowd begins to gather, including several stars from America's country music scene. Johnny Cash was out on the sidewalk and Waylon Jennings was there. I believe Willie Nelson and Chris Christofsen were also there.

The celebrities are unable to offer much in the way of evidence and step aside as investigators get to work. beside the body, police recover a 38-caliber bullet. The best piece of evidence, however, is an eyewitness. 22-year-old Sammy Sadler, the first man who was shot and survived the attack. Detective's Bill Prydmore and Pat Postiglione find him the following morning, recovering at the local hospital. Kevin and I started walking across the street to get in his car, and as soon as I sat down a car, I thought I saw something moving out of the corner of my eyes,

so I looked up and this guy standing between me and the door, and all I could see was his arms out in front of you, and I noticed the gun. I said, oh my God, this guy's got a gun. The gunman fired one shot at close range. At that instant, he was able, and this probably saved his life, Sammy was able to lift his arm up, and the bullet entered his elbow right here.

The person that did the shooting probably thought he killed Sammy because Sammy slumped over this way. Sadler fell to the ground, and Kevin Hughes turned and ran down. music row. The gunman followed, shooting Hughes once in the back and twice more in the head. After hearing Sadler's story, one thing seems clear. This was not a robbery gone wrong, but an execution. We didn't know who the target was, whether it was Sammy, whether it was Kevin. We really didn't know in what direction to go in.

Detectives decided to take a hard look at the personal lives of their victims, Kevin Hughes and Sammy Sadler, hoping one or both of them has someone in their past who might want them dead. Sadler and Hughes both worked in the country music business, but from entirely different ends. Sammy played a six-string guitar and hoped to make it as a singer. Hughes, on the other hand, existed outside the spotlight in a world of numbers, working for a magazine called Cashbox. Hughes tracked airplay and developed ratings, raw data that decided which singers hit the charts, and which didn't.

Even though we lived in Music City, we were kind of naive about how the country music business worked in this town. The scam goes like this. Fly-by-night promoters target the young and naive, getting them to make a demo tape

and then promising stardom. But these people, you know, coming to Nashville, just completely green, had no clue as to what was going on, hook up with somebody in the country music business and think for $10,000 or $20,000, I'm going to be a star.

A little bit of TV thing. These promoters are like sharks, and they just grab them and tell them, boy, you're going to be the next hit. Once they have a singer locked in, promoters turn to the hitmakers. Money changes hands, and a song begins to rise on the charts, at least temporarily, until the promoters have taken all the singer's money and moved on. We were very disillusioned when we found out how corrupt it was and how much of it was going on, how rampant it was.

At the center of these allegations is Kevin Hughes, former employer, Cashbox Magazine. Make no mistake, in its heyday, Cash Box Magazine was a very influential, respected trade publication. Wade Jesson is director of the Nashville Music Charts at Billboard Magazine. But 10 to 15 years ago, it was pretty much common knowledge in the music business that the magazine and its charts more specifically were for sale. Fresh from a Christian college, Kevin Hughes was an honest man. Detective speculate he might have threatened to expose the cash box scam and signed his own death warrant.

Our theory is, that is the reason. Right there is why they killed Kevin. Not because they could have fired him and just got rid of him, but because even if they did fire him, it was real possible that Kevin was going to go to the authorities anyway. Detectives have sketched out the broad outlines of a theory for murder, but have no facts. And more importantly, no names.

to turn their theory into reality. Once again, investigators return to Music Row, scraping for any information about Kevin Hughes, and who might be getting paid by Cash Box Magazine. We sat there many nights in the car, rain, outside on the wall, watching people, talking people. We'd see somebody walking down the street,

and we'd go over and talk to them, ask if we could check them out. Among the dozens of men with connections to Cashbox are two local promoters named Chuck Dixon and Richard D'Antonio. De Antonio worked in conjunction with Chuck Dixon. They worked together, doing the same type of business into the same type of corruption. Both are suspected of paying Cashbox for a bump in the charts, and both will lose a lot of money if Kevin Hughes blew the whistle. One year later, however, no hard information has surfaced linking either man.

or anyone else in Nashville to the killing. And the Music Row murder goes cold. It's 1993 in Chattanooga Valley, Georgia, far from the lights of Nashville, where two men are taking their shot at the big time. The man who co-wrote this song is named Steve Daniel. His partner is a promoter named Richard Dantonio. He was saying, I'm going to get something done with these songs.

These were good, you know. So I was saying, songs. Winding roads, uphill climbs, one-way streets and detour signs. Despite Dantoneo's promises, nothing ever happens with the scratchy demo tape. And Daniel himself never becomes the next Willie Nelson. So he turns to a second career, trafficking marijuana out of Mexico. Steve was not, to me, the professional drug person.

Del Thomason is a special agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. I think Steve was probably trying to do it to make some money, and he had gotten himself involved in something I really believe was getting pretty much over his head. In September of 1992, Thomason shows up at Daniel's house with a warrant. Thomason's plan is to bust Daniel for the 200 pounds of marijuana he has stashed in his garage. Inside the building, there was approximately 5, 55-gallon drums with 273 pounds. of marijuana inside those drums. And from there, where we were conducting a drug investigation, just a few feet away, it became a murder investigation.

The murder investigation starts when Steve Daniel invites Thomason into his home and wants to make a deal. Daniel tells the agent on the same day Kevin Hughes was shot, Daniel sold a 38-caliber revolver to the man he believes to be the shooter, his old promoter friend, Richard Dantonio. And so I sold it to him for $150. It was a Smith & Wesson. I don't remember what model. And I didn't have any bullets. So I went out and bought some bullets, the cheapest ones I could find, came back.

And he shot it in the backyard several times. Daniel's information sounds promising. And Del Thomason contacts Nashville homicide. At the time of Kevin Hughes' death, Bill Prydmore and Pat Postiglione worked the case and came up with nothing. Among the hundreds of people they questioned and dismissed, is the same Richard D'Antonio now being identified by Steve Daniel. DeAnonio will say that they were friends,

but in reality, numerous other people tell us that Kevin didn't particularly care for Tony, as a matter of fact, he was afraid of him. In 1989, Detective Speculated Dantoneo, also known as Tony D., and another promoter, Chuck Dixon, might be behind the scheme to fix the, the charts at Cashbox Magazine, and that Tony D. might have pulled the plug on Hughes when he threatened to blow the whistle. It was one of dozens of possible theories of murder and eventually dismissed. Steve Daniels information breathed new life into that scenario. We immediately went down

and spoke with Steve and this agent, and we determined, based on the information he had, that De Antonio was on man. Four years after the fact, in 1993, cold case detectives have a little. lead in the Music Row murder. The best way of making their case is to let Dantonio know he is a suspect, ply some pressure, and hope he makes a mistake. Letting him know that we were looking into this case, letting him know and suggest that we were going to be going to Chattanooga

to locate somebody that may have some information. We started making phone calls to him, trying to get him to either talk to us and also to get him to call back down to Steve. The ploy works, as D'Antonio, D'Antonio starts to get worried and puts a call in to Steve Daniel to make sure he is not talking to police. What Dantonio doesn't know is that Daniel is not only talking, he is recording. that two detectives may come down and see you.

If they do, just tell him that I was with you. I don't really remember it, okay? What do you want me to say or whatever? Dantonio suggests Daniel tell police the two of them were together until 1130 on the night Kevin Hughes was killed, giving Dantonio an alibi for the murder. Oh, I was there, feel like 1130. Oh, okay. Dantonio's conversation with Daniel is close to a confession, but not quite.

When district attorney Tom Thurman gives it a listen, he decides to hold off on charges. We were all pretty much convinced that Richard D'Antonio was a trigger man, but it was still a very weak circumstantial case. We could put a 38 in his hand, but we couldn't put the murder weapon in his hand. D'Antonio gets a pass and drifts back to the fringes of Nashville's country. music scene, and Kevin Hughes murder goes cold. Nine years later, after he passed along a tip about the music row murder, Georgia's special agent Del Thomason has largely forgotten about the killing,

until he gets a call from Nashville's Cold Squad. We had stayed in touch with him several times over the years, and then there was a period of time that we didn't hear from anyone any longer, so I didn't know what the status was of the investigation. and then eventually I heard from Bill Prydmore again. Cold case detectives Bill Prydmore and Pat Postiglione have worked the Music Row murder since the night of Kevin Hughes' death. In 2002, they called Thomason with an idea.

In his statements to police, Steve Daniel dropped a hint that Dantonio might have test-fired the gun Daniel sold him in Daniel's own backyard. It's a long shot. But if detectives can find those bullets, there is a chance they might be linked forensically to slugs recovered from the victim. Pridemore and Thomason agree it's worth a try. They pick up a crime scene technician and head to Steve Daniel's former home. This is the area where myself and the crime scene technician began to use a metal detector.

We started down at the bottom and began to find bullets down in this area all way up to the top of this bank here. 13 slugs in all are pulled out of the ground in various tree stumps. Pridemore bags the evidence and brings it back to Tennessee. Two days later, Pridemore has the results. They found that out of the 13, one did match and was without a doubt fired through the same handgun. Rifling marks on one of the bullets provide an exact match to the slugs pulled from Kevin Hughes' body. After 13 years, cold case detectives have not only placed a 38 Smith and Wesson in Richard Dantonio's hands, they believe they can prove that gun to be the murder weapon.

Now they only need evidence of motive. To do that, cold case detectives rely on an undercover operation that shows how to make it in country music, even if you can't sing a lick. Investing can feel like something you'll get to later when you have more. money, more time, or finally understand all the terminology. I know I felt that way in the past, but getting started doesn't have to be a huge project. So many of us only focus on where our money is today. Acorns is the financial wellness app that cares about where your money is going tomorrow. Acorns is a smart way to give your money a chance to grow. Sign up in minutes and start automatically investing your spare money, even if you're starting with spare change. One feature that stands out

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they never. It's July 24th, 2002, and the years have not been kind to Richard Dantonio. Cold-gays detectives find him down on his luck, an out-of-work pit boss, living in the shadows of the Las Vegas Strip. See how it does that, plays the game. And what was your name again?

Inside a police interrogation room, Dantonell listens, as detectives describe how they believe he shot and killed Kevin Hughes. Tony D. responds with a proverbial shrug of the shoulders. I think that tells the story. We're not saying the word. The fact that he doesn't deny anything or he's getting any questions. He's not outraged that he's being charged. The suspect is brought back to the story.

to Nashville in handcuffs, where he will face a charge of murder in the first degree. Tom Thurman is the deputy DA in charge of prosecuting Richard D'Antonio. Thurman believes he can place the gun that killed Hughes in Dantoneo's hands. What his case lacks, however, is clear-cut evidence of motive. To do that, Thurman needs to illustrate how shady promoters work, bribing chartmakers like Cashbox and making struggling singers believe, they're about to become a star. And again, you know, we're not dealing with major labels and major artists.

We're dealing with independent people, people that get off the bus every day in Nashville with their dreams and their life savings sometimes. And there's plenty of people out there ready to take their money. This is Chuck Dixon, the cashbox promoter of the year the last 10 years in a row. Thurman believes Richard Antonio and another promoter, Chuck Dixon, ran exactly that type of operation out of Cashbox and killed Kevin Hughes when he threatened to blow the whistle. Chuck Dixon, I am the greatest record promoter in the entire universe. Chuck Dixon died in 2001, and so in 2003, Tony D.

Faces the murder charge alone. At trial, rival promoters described the scam. What did you discover about the independent charts for Cashbox magazine? Oh, it doesn't mean anything. I mean, basically, we didn't have to call it right. If I went in a charge position, all they had to do is get a $750 $750, a quarter page ad and call a delegation and get him on the record as well. He had to be on the record.

He got paid as a promoter, and CashBush got paid the $750 ad. We made the charts. In a separate investigation, the DA's office conducts a sting on an operation similar to the one they claim was run at Cashbox. Basically, we sent an undercover agent in. from our office, a female investigator who, let's just say, was not a very talented singer. As bad as the undercover agent is, the promoter sense that certain something, and promised she will make it big in country.

They filmed the session and everything else and paid so much money, and, you know, miracle, miracle she got on the charts and was moving up with a bullet. Hey, sweetie, can I ask you something? Will you give me that, kind of laid-back, kind of sloppy approach to the, you know, like you did on that last song, it's kind of like a person who's had about one drink and it sounds really good. I'm just trying to tell you, that approach is working real well. All right. That's what this was.

It was really a tragedy for a lot of people. A lot of people's dreams were shattered by this type of thing. Their money was taken and they really didn't get an opportunity at all. According to Thurman, Chuck Dixon and Richard Dantonio ran a similar type of scam, one that provided the motive for Kevin Hughes' murder. And on September 25, 2003, a jury agrees with Thurman, finding Richard D'Antonio guilty of murder in the first degree and sentencing him to life in prison.

Richard D'Antonio served his life sentence at the Turney Center Industrial Prison until his death in 2014. Before passing, he agreed to sit down with cold case files and tell his side of the story. Am I mad? You're darn right. I'm mad. I'm arrested. Taking away from my family for something that I didn't do and I'm serving a life sentence. That is BS to the max. It is BS. Tony D claims Kevin Hughes murder had nothing to do with the music industry or Cashbox magazine, that Hughes was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Mistaken by a jealous husband. who was looking to kill the man sleeping with his wife.

Unfortunately for Dantonio, he provides no evidence to back up the theory. That's Tony, see? You know, he's a player. He's leading you on, leading you to believe there's something more, and he's willing to tell you that. As for ballistics evidence tying him to the bullets that killed Hughes, Dantonio notes of the 13 slugs found in Steve Daniel's backyard, only one matched the slugs pulled from the victim. If we would have test fired a gun, they would have found more than one bullet or one piece of a bullet. If we were to test fired this alleged weapon that he said that I had, I mean, that's common sense.

You don't have to be a rocket science. As for the one matching slug, Dantonio suggests the police must have planted it. Specifically, Nashville detective Bill Prydmore. He thinks that he has them, but this is going to turn around on him. It's going to what goes around and comes around. It's going to turn around on them. I believe he went down and planted this bullet in Georgia, if indeed they did find a bullet. down there. Again, Tony D. provides no evidence of a plant, nothing concrete to refute the state's

evidence. He closes with a final thought. No, no, I'm not a choir by no means now, but I'm not a murderer either. I know in my heart that I'm innocent. God knows that I'm innocent. And he's the one that's going to save me. He's smarter than Thurman. He's smarter than Pride more. He's and Postiglione, he's smarter than him all. And I'm going to be exonerated from this. The men who put Tony D. behind bars see things a bit differently. For them, Richard Dantonio is a convicted killer. The only question that remains, does he harbor any remorse?

I mean, I'm just asking why he felt that he had to do something like this, why he felt like they couldn't resolve this without actually killing a human being, someone as innocent as Kevin Hughes was, to do something like this as someone like. Kevin, I mean, just tells us that that person probably doesn't have a conscience. Has no ability to understand what they've done. So trying to ask him why he did it and trying to get him to express remorse would just probably be a waste of time. It's 7 p.m. on March 8, 1987 in Salinas, California. Ray and Rita Demel drive home after drinks at the local VFW.

A few miles into the trip, Ray pulls their van into a turnout near Blanco Bridge and promptly passes out. Unable to wake her husband, Rita becomes concerned and flags down a passing motorist. A good Samaritan pulls into the turnout driving a dark-colored pickup and parks within a few feet of Ray DeMell's bumper. Less than an hour after that, dispatch takes a 911 call. Radio. Yeah, I've got to have been on my... ...thea here in the line reporting that there's a lady reporting that there's her husband and lying in the van. He's shot off the window.

will respond to her and she doesn't know he's dead alive. Officer Dana Peterson arrives at the turnout to discover Rita D'emel hysterical along the side of the road, and her 49-year-old husband, Ray, dead. Mr. D'Amell was in the vehicle. He was in the driver's side. The side window of the driver's door is broken. I recall one bullet hole through the roof and the other bullet had entered Mr. D'Mell. from the left side. The shooter, according to Mrs. Demel,

was the man who stopped to offer roadside assistance. He may have been able to wake Mr. Demel up because the van rolls and contacts the suspect vehicle. The suspect gets real mad, according to Mrs. Demel, and start shouting, no mother-f-can run into my van or something along that line. The pickup owner grabbed a gun from his truck and fired two shots at close range into the Demel van.

Assessing the scene, Peterson speculates the first shot was fired accidentally as the assailant broke DeMel's driver's side window with the butt of his gun. Yeah, I think he would have just hit it and broken it this way, and that first round, as his hand passed through and reshattered it, it put the first round up through the top of the roof, and then he just continued down. Mr. Demel is probably leaning away when he was shot, and that's why he was in that position.

Evidence that the scene supports Peterson's theory. Two 45-caliber shell casings are found inside DeMell's van, consistent with an attack at close range. Tire tracks appear to show a second truck pulling quite close to where DeMel's van was parked, again consistent with Rita DeMell's story. Finally, an officer picks up a small address book, dropped in the dust, close to where the shooting occurred. Detective Gordon Sanei wonders if the case. killer perhaps dropped the book as he fled the scene. Sometimes bad guys make silly mistakes and that's all to our benefit, you know.

So when we found the address book, we figured, well, this has got to take us someplace. But we just basically started calling the people in the notebook. Tell them, we found this notebook, basically we're trying to identify who owns it. The address book appears to belong to a 27-year-old local named Norman Baird. According to friends, Baird also owns a dark gray pickup. Detectives approach him at home and ask whether he might be missing an address book. We just made a casual contact with him, non-accusatory, saying we found this laying out in this area, and do you recognize this book, his ears, and he was able to identify it as his.

We told him that we were involved in an investigation, and we needed to ask him some questions on his whereabouts the day before. and he indicated he'd not been out of town, that he'd not gone out by the Blanco Bridge, which was where the crime scene was, but he couldn't explain how his notebook had gotten to the crime scene. Detectives are not necessarily buying Norman Baird's story, but have no probable cause to search his home or truck. They returned to the names in the address book, hoping to get a handle on whether Baird is telling them the truth.

One of the first people they want to speak with is Norman Baird's oldest friend, a man we call, Ron. We did everything together. You know, if you've seen one, you've seen the other. If you had to hide from one, you better hide from the both of them. Ron tells police he saw Baird on the day Ray DeMell was killed. The two attended a party in Salinas. No, there wasn't nothing particularly bothering him.

There was a lot of time spent over by his pickup with a few other people, but no, there wasn't nothing stood out. Ron says Baird left the party around 6 p.m. for a job interview in nearby Marina. Contrary to Baird's statement, that would have taken him down Blanco Road at about the time Rita D'Mell was looking for help. That was just another confirmation that Baird was not being truthful. And the more inconsistencies and the more lies you can catch a suspect in, the better for the investigation. For investigators, it's all starting to make sense.

A man with perhaps a few beers under his bed. gets into a roadside argument, pulls out a gun, and fires. Then, in his haste to leave the scene, drops identifying evidence. Detectives file for a search warrant, hoping a look inside Baird's home and truck will move their case forward. Less than two weeks after Ray D'amel was shot dead, detectives head first to Norman Baird's home, and then his parents, searching for any clues of murder. They begin with the suspect's truck. We looked to see if there were any paint transfers on the truck, any damage or freshly repaired areas, and we found none.

Detectives are looking for 45 caliber guns and find one, registered to a third party in Sacramento, California. The gun, however, does not match slugs pulled from Ray DeMell's body. detectives want to question Baird further about his whereabouts on the night of the shooting and how his address book got so close to a murder. Baird, however, gets a lawyer and refuses to talk. Without solid evidence, investigators cannot get a murder charge approved against Baird, and the case goes cold. We needed a little something more to relate the suspect to the victim.

We really just don't have enough. We're just right there at the cusp, but not quite a lot. enough to push it over. A little something more would not surface for more than a decade. But I get the feeling that you know more. Until Baird's best friend tells police about the night he found Baird at the door with a 45 caliber gun in his hands. He says he fired the weapon into the vehicle and he didn't know what to do.

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you use my link. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. There are plenty of reasons we put off getting support, and for a lot of people, cost is one of them. With Better Help, insurance options may now be available nationwide, with an average copay for eligible members of just $23 per session. And while we're reconsidering old assumptions, maybe there are a few others worth questioning too. A lot of women are handed a quiet set of expectations. Strive high, but don't come across as intimidating. Care for everybody else, but still keep plenty of time for yourself. Look like you have it handled without ever seeming to work too hard at it. I've caught myself holding onto the belief that I should be farther along by now.

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Visit betterhelp.com slash cold case to explore your payment options. That's better, help.com slash cold case. Dana Peterson worked the original Demel murder investigation. By 2000, he has moved on to become head of the county's robbery homicide division. Peterson, however, has never forgotten Ray DeMell. It was always personal with me. It was the first homicide I'd worked. that I really had a major role in.

I always felt that this case could be solved, so it always bothered me. In the fall of 2000, Peterson sends one of his detectives, Fred De LaSanto's to a cold case seminar. De LaSantos returns eager to work one of the department's oldest investigations. Peterson suggests the Demel file, and even gets DeLos a name to start with.

Detective Sergeant Peterson at the time always felt that the key person in this thing was going to be a friend of the suspect. We worked together. The friend De LaSanto's focuses on is a man named Ron. In 1987, he was Norman Baird's best friend. And then, when questioned by police, Ron claimed to know nothing about the night Ray DeMell was shot. Five years later, DeLas Santos wonders if now he might not be more forthcoming. In January of 2002, De LaSantoes knocks on Ron's front door. And he answered the door, I told him who I was and what I'm investigating,

and told him that I needed him to come down to the office, and he agreed to do it. He was at our function that day. Inside a county interrogation room, Fred DeLas Santos sits down with Ron. But I get the feeling that you know more than what actually you told him back then, because I know you in Norman Baird were close. We were close before any of this. When all this occurred, we have hardered our ways. With that, Ron cuts his ties with Norman Baird and comes clean.

He tells De LaSanto's Norman Baird did visit his house on the night Ray DeMelle was shot and killed. De LaSantos presses for details. I know you didn't shoot the guy. You're not the murderer. You're not the guy I'm looking for. Okay. And so today I just want a truthful statement. from you as to what Norman told you.

He told me something that happened out there. A guy crashed into his truck and something. The state of mind was very erratic, crying, talking too fast. He did not know if he had to hit anybody or anything like that, but he said he had fired the weapon into the vehicle, and he didn't know what to do. According to Ron, Baird brought the gun with him into Ron's home. Not knowing what else to do, Ron took the gun from his friend.

In a situation like that, where do you want the gun? Your hands are his. His hands, the whole public's in trouble, maybe. My hands, you can't get it back. Let me ask you, did you destroy the gun? No. Did Norman give you the gun to get rid of it for me? If I was to answer that, we'd incriminate me.

He had started to waver by saying, you know, if I say something, is it going to incriminate me? And I kept assuring him that he was helping me in this investigation. So as he spoke to me, I could tell that he wanted to tell me something, and he knew where the gun was. De La Santos is one statement away from confirming the murder weapon. But he doesn't push. He lets Ron find his way to the truth. Will you get an address and go get the gun in? No.

I'll just drive over there and pick it up. It's not at all of you. Is it buried somewhere? Yes, sir. But I wanted to get rid of that guy. I didn't want it around where he could come back and get it. So I disposed of it. I buried it on the side of a mountain.

Is it Old Stage Road or San Juan Road, San Juan Road? San Juan Road? I guess it would be the old stage. Okay. Can you point it out to me? I hope so. Norman Baird's best friend tells Coldcase detectives he put Baird's gun in a military-style ammunition box and buried it in a field next to a tree.

The problem is the field is nearly an acre and contains close to 100 trees. I thought we're never going to find it. This was just something, another thing that's going to end up being the dead end. Hoping to shorten his search, De LaSanto calls upon a group of experts in finding lost things, the Treasure Hunter Society of Santa Clara Valley. On January 30th, 24 of them show up with metal detectors in hand and begin to search. It was just hard-packed cow pasture ground, and we were coming up with bullets, nails, and all kinds of other pieces of metal. As I got up to, closer to the trees, I thought in my mind, if I was going to hide something, I'd need a landmark.

And since these trees look like, that'd be a perfect spot. Less than an hour into the effort, Warren Whited searches an area near a large oak tree, locks on to a solid signal and begins to dig. Took out a scraper and scraped away about maybe three or four inches of leaves and then start bringing down maybe three to four inches of dirt. And I could make out the outline of an ammunition box. And so I gave a good holler, got a target over here. And the lead man got hold of the officer.

and up they came. Detective De LaSantoes the ammunition box as the one Ron buried more than a decade earlier. Inside it is a 45 caliber gun and cartons of ammunition. Latent prints lifted off the cartons are matched to Norman Baird. Ballistics test confirmed the buried 45 is the weapon used to kill Ray DeMell. Cold case detectives have all the hard evidence they need. 15 years after the fact, Baird is charged with a second-degree murder. He pleads no contest to the charge and is sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. You never feel good about anything like that.

It doesn't matter how much weights off your shoulders. You still feel like hell because you participated in it, period. Whether it was brought to your door or not. Norman Baird's best friend was 28 years old when Baird showed up at his front door with a favor to ask. and a murder weapon in his hand. Ron was 46 when he sat down with cold case files with a different take on what's important in life

and a different set of priorities. When it happened, it was just me to worry about. Since then, you have a child. You get married. You have a second child. You buy a house. You got a mortgage. You got responsibilities.

Life grows bigger and better and fun. And like that, somebody else's actions can bring you down. Life, you can't win. When the world gets you down, escape to Pluto TV. This is objectively fantastic. Relax into the movies and shows you already know and love,

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