Criminology - Mary Ann Holmes

Episode Date: November 14, 2021

In 1995, 29-year-old Mary Ann Holmes was murdered in her rented Thatcher, Arizona home. It was a very brutal murder that police believe was carried out in front of Mary's two young children. During their investigation, the police investigated a number of potential suspects, but one, in particular, is believed by many to be the killer. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the mysterious unsolved murder of Mary Ann Holmes. Her ex-husband was looked at as was the son of her landlord. In the beginning, he was very suspicious because he had knowledge of the fact that her back door wouldn't lock and this is how the police believe the killer gained entry. But, it's a man named Phillip Turley that many people believe is the most likely culprit. Will the authorities be able to put together enough evidence to charge him with the crime? You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 183 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And I'm Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, what's going on with you, man? Not a whole lot, doing a little bit of running around with the kids, playing sports and stuff like that. But other than that, I'm just waiting for the weather to cool down here a little bit and hanging out. How about you?

Oh, I'm doing good. So when you say that, you mean your kids are playing sports, right? Yeah, I'm not playing sports. You don't want to see me running around. I just wanted to clarify that. I feel like the sports days for you and I are probably over. I hate to say that, but. Yeah, that wouldn't be a pretty sight seeing us running around out there.

Although I played a lot of sports growing up. No, I did too. And I miss it. You know, I tell people all the time, there's really nothing in my life at this point where I get that competition. And you kind of miss that competition that you had when you were younger playing organized sports. Yeah. And I'm trying to just get my kids in the habit of saying, okay, off the couch, no video games 24-7. Let's go out and play stuff.

So that's the good part of it. Yeah, it's even harder today, I imagine, with 8,000 TV channels and everything on demand and all the cell phones and video games. But you got to do it. Yeah, what can you do? We have some great new Patreon support. Let's give some shoutouts to Maria Mazzarski, Jordan Toby, Renee Tupacoff, and Lauren Carter. So that's some great new support.

We really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks as always. That goes a long way to helping us put the show out. And anyone that would like to support the show can go on patreon.com slash criminology. All right, Morph, let's jump right into this case. And we're talking about the murder of Mary Ann Holmes. Thatcher, Arizona was settled. by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints around 1881.

The town in southeastern Arizona has managed to grow to just over 5,000 residents since then, but still, you know, it's a relatively small town. It's a kind of town where a lot of people know each other, and it's a town with a pretty low crime rate with very few murders. For almost three decades, the only murder on file was the result of domestic violence, a man who killed his wife, but a shocking and brutal murder would occur in July 1995, thrusting Thatcher into the spotlight, the murder of 29-year-old Mary Ann Holmes. Mary Ann Holmes was born in LaCross, Wisconsin on June 20, 1966, to Edward Holmes and Dorothy Wood.

She moved to Thatcher with her two young daughters, Ashley, who was four years old, and 18-month-old Sarah. Mary Ann had been dating a man named John Bursey, but it wasn't a good relationship, and it was apparently an abusive one. Mary Ann feared him. She wanted to get away to make a fresh start for herself and her girls. Once in Thatcher, Marianne started running a home from Roy Black and making a new life for her family in the new town. Marianne hoped to find a good man to have a healthy relationship with, who could be a positive figure in the lives of her daughters. but she also planned to focus on her school, her art, and her two precious daughters. She attended classes at the nearby community college, eastern Arizona college. Mary Ann's rented home was very small, more like a studio apartment than a single family home.

There was a mattress where Marianne and her two daughters slept, a TV, and a small couch in the living room. Down the hall was the kitchen, where the back door was located, and a back door. bathroom. Mary Ann noticed that the home's back door was broken and it wouldn't lock. So she contacted Roy Black, her landlord, and he promised to address this for her. Marianne paid him for the repair and he sent his son David to fix it. Reportedly, David flirted with Marianne, but he never performed all of the needed repairs. So one thing that jumps out at me is she's new to this home and the back door doesn't lock, I'm a little bit surprised that she had to pay for the repair because you think when you move into home, you're renting it. It's going to be up to specs and everything's going to be

working properly. But this door, as we're going to talk about, would become an issue later on. Yeah, that actually did cross my mind as well. I mean, you would think one of the things that a landlord Lord would ensure before renting out a place, is that all of the locks work? That's a pretty important facet to a home, an apartment. You want tenants to feel safe and tenants want to feel safe. Yeah, and I think that's a basic requirement. It's not like she's asking for him to come in and install some kind of fancy appliances or something like that. These are simple things that are involved the safety of her family, so I don't blame her for one when we get those things taken care of. On July 8, 1995, Marianne had a garage sale at her home. Her house was on a well-trafficked street,

and there were a lot of visitors to the sale. Mary Ann talked with her neighbors about the sale, telling them that it was a good idea, and it was a way to make some extra cash. At least 50 people had stopped by and browsed at her garage sale, and Marianne was so friendly and trusting that she even let some of them use her restroom. On July 9th, the day after the yard sale, Marianne's neighbor woke to an unusual sight, later telling the TV show Cold Justice that Ashley, Mary Ann's four-year-old daughter,

was naked, standing at her bed and shaking her hands, which were bound with rope, and she was frantically saying, My mommy's dead. My mommy's dead. The terrified neighbor called the police who found Marianne dead in her home, 18-month-old Sarah was sitting on the bed in the same room, but she was unharmed. Morp, this was a very bloody crime scene.

Mary Ann was nude, curled up in the fetal position on the floor. She was bound with handcuffs and covered in blood. A rope was found still around her neck. The ligature marks around her neck were not very deep, suggesting that the rope was not meant to strangle her, but rather was meant to control her. The handcuffs were very tight on her wrists. Her clothes had been cut off of her with scissors or maybe a knife, and she had been sexually assaulted with an unknown object and beaten with a heavy, sharp object.

Her cause of death was determined to be blunt force trauma. Police described it as trauma to the head from several chopping-like blows by a large knife or hatchet. There was one large wound on the left side of her skull. and she had suffered multiple less severe blows to the left side of her head. The attacker had tied up Ashley as well. She said that she had been tied to a chair, but her younger sister was still on the bed during the attack. The suspect had cut the clothes off of Ashley too,

but she was not sexually assaulted. This seemed more for maybe a sensation of power in the perpetrator or to cause fear in Marianne. causing her to dread what would happen to her little girl, rather than anything actually targeting her sexually. Investigators believe that the perpetrator stayed in the home after he killed Marianne, perhaps for hours, sexually assaulting her corpse and doing who knows what in front of her two young daughters, before finally leaving the scene.

Bloody footprints headed back toward the front of the house, to the street, and then rounded a corner and headed northwest, cutting through what's now a parking. lot and they ended near the college. One clear shoe print left in Marianne's blood was potentially a valuable clue. And investigators were able to find out it was a man's shoe, either size 11 or 12. And I think morph, to me, these bloody types of footprints are always very important. I think first of all, it helps to figure out, okay, what type of perpetrator are we looking for here? You know, size 11, size 12.

you're automatically thinking this was a male. The sexual assault component to this case kind of clues you into that really as well. But the size 11 or 12 kind of cements it. But it's where the bloody footprints lead. To me, that is very interesting. We've already said that Marianne was attending classes. Now, police find out that these bloody footprints had, back towards the college.

And I think it's one of those things that many perpetrators don't think about. Okay, this was a very vicious murder. We know that there was a lot of blood. Is this not something that was planned for? That the perpetrator was going to have to leave the house. They were going to have to walk through blood and leave this trail for investigators. Yeah, I think in the spur of the month, and even though they may have a plan, sometimes they slip up and make a mistake.

And in this instance, it sort of gave police a direction to go in and maybe perhaps find out if this guy is going towards his car that he's got parked on the street or is he going towards his home or does he have some connection to that college. So it at least gave investigators an idea of where he went when he left the house. The money Marianne had made from the garage sale was missing. but it was doubtful to police that this was actually just some sort of robbery gone wrong. Someone would have had to have known which door would be unlocked in order to get into the house in the first place. There was no sign of forced entry. The ropes, handcuffs and murder weapon used were all

from outside of Mary Ann's home, brought to the house by the killer. So, you know, I think in the minds of investigators, this was a premeditated attack on the young mother. There was enough rope for everyone inside the home that needed to be subdued. So they thought that meant that the perpetrator knew exactly who would be inside. Most burglars just want to get whatever they're after and get out without making a harder time for themselves. But here, it was clear that the killer had remained. in the home for some time.

And what I think is really frightening is a lot of burglars, they target homes where someone isn't there. They don't want any interaction. They want to get in and get out, as you mentioned. But when they come in with that kind of stuff, when you're home, you know that they've got something in mind that's going to be worse than burglary. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think you can rule out a cat burglar who stumbled upon people.

people inside the home. I don't think in any way that's what happened here. The attacker knew who was going to be there and they were prepared. They brought what they needed to the scene. Police knew that they had two witnesses to the crime. And while Sarah was too young at 18 months to tell them anything, they felt that four-year-old Ashley might be able to provide helpful information. But they knew that they had to tread lightly with her. She had been through unimaginable trauma. They brought in a child psychiatrist to work with Ashley, and she drew a photo of the crime scene based on her memory. It's clear that at the time, the memory was burned into her brain. The items of clothing she drew in the photo matched not only the locations of the items at the actual scene,

but each individual piece matches. The blue outline on her drawing is a pair of denim jeans in the crime scene photograph. In this drawing, there's what looks like a small hatchet or maybe a cleaver knife sticking out of marriage, head. And this photo is online. It's very disturbing, something that no four-year-old should ever have to draw based on an experience that they went through. Ashley told the psychiatrist that she kept her head down when she was scared, but that she saw a large man standing in the doorway of the living room. That's when her four-year-old mind kicked in. She told the psychiatrist that the large man could have been a lion and she began referring to this man as lion man that had come in

the home that fateful night. Ashley's mention of lion man could have a couple of different meanings. The first is more literal. Maybe the man had a tattoo of a lion somewhere. Maybe it was a large tattoo big enough that a scared child quickly looking might not realize it was just a tattoo or maybe he was wearing something with a picture of a lion on it. Another interpretation of Lion Man is that the man was making noises during the attack. Angry type noises like growling or roaring, thinking about how a child might describe someone that adults would have better words for an image of a man with light hair, a lot of hair, and maybe thick facial hair like a lion's mane.

Police checked with neighbors and Marianne's landlord. David Black, the landlord's son, who was supposed to fix the back door, the same back door that Mary Ann's killer entered the home through, quickly became a suspect. First, police wanted to know why he didn't fix the door as he was tasked with doing. That was a big question. He would obviously know that he could get in through the broken back door because he knew that it wouldn't lock. He had met Marianne when she moved into his father's home, and he definitely took a liking to her. It was noted that he flirted with Marianne, but she didn't reciprocate.

She simply wanted to be able to lock her back door. He just so happened to have a thick beard and long blonde hair. Police wondered if he was the lion man that killed Marianne that night. Just weeks before she was murdered, Marianne called the police because her ex-boyfriend, John Bersie from Florida, called her and told her that he knew where she was. In the call, Marianne asked police. If he came to her door in the middle of the night and she had to call them, would they be able to get there fast enough and in time to help her and her girls? Sadly, Marianne never got a chance to even try to call the police on the night she died.

When you look at the layout of the small home, it's clear how the attacker took Marianne and the girls by complete support. surprise. There is a window in the kitchen. A shoe print was found outside this window. And when you look inside, you can see directly into the living room where Marianne, Ashley, and Sarah were asleep. The killer could have quietly entered through the back door and would not have been noticed at all until he was standing over them in the living room waking them up. Police had to consider the possibility. Had Mary Ann's fear of? come true. Had her ex, John Bursey, traveled to Arizona from Florida just to harm her. This turned out not to be the case. As he gave authorities an alibi and it checked out,

he had not been in Thatcher, Arizona, when Marianne was killed. A third suspect, Philip Turley, was one of Marianne's acquaintances, but just barely. He worked at the college around the corner from her home, where she took a few classes, and he was clearly obsessed with Marianne. He told members of his family that the two of them were engaged to be married, but they never dated and really didn't socialize. Turley also claimed that he had bought land in Pima County, Arizona, for the two to build their dream home. His plans included rooms for both little girls.

He also had a journal where he logged his feelings for Marianne, and all of his claims were deemed by police to be pure fantasy. Despite having two viable suspects, the case went cold, and investigators decided to work with a team. TV show in hopes of fresh eyes revealing something new to help move the case along. Marianne's case was featured on TNT's Cold Justice in 2013. On the show, former Texas prosecutor Kelly Siegler, along with a team of experts, look into cold cases trying to use new ideas and technologies to aid the cases.

They often re-interviewed people who may not have been. spoken to during the initial first investigation or whose loyalties may have changed since police talked to them. Just recently in August 2021, Thomas Albert, who was the cold justice investigator's main suspect in the murder of Candence Prundtty, was indicted. I mean, really more proof that the show does actually help bring justice to cold cases. Siegler and her team have 49 arrests and 21 convictions, including three murder convictions, in addition to four confessions under their belts as a team as of 2021. People in the town of Thatcher were hopeful that the cold justice team would finally solve the case. The show reported that over 50 pieces of evidence were sent to a lab for DNA testing.

And more if I think this is something that you and I have touched on before, but in and unsolved case. There is a lot of times a huge benefit to getting the story out on shows like America's Most Wanted, in this case, Cold Justice. I mean, they do have a lot of resources. They have some money, obviously, to do some DNA lab testing and things like that. They're also, and probably most importantly, going to bring the story to, bring the story to, you know, to do some DNA lab testing and things like that. importantly, going to bring the story to a large audience. And that sometimes can generate tips, leads. I mean, it's normally a good thing.

Yeah. And if you're a family member of someone whose case has been unsolved for years, you want any kind of movement that can be generated, whether it's a show coming in to help examine it or they're going to bring the case to that. wider audience, you're just hoping for something new to come along. So you have to think that Marianne's family and friends were excited about this project. Yeah, at the very least, you're going to get quite a bit of renewed interest. And it's a really good show. I've watched

a lot of times, and they do a good job. They really focus on things where the focus needs to be, I think. So they had a good team coming in to help in this case. More if I feel like, we met Kelly at CrimeCon maybe a couple of years ago. I could be wrong about that, but it seems to me as though we did. Yeah, I know she was there and, you know, CrimeCon, we talk about all the time, is such a blur because there's so much to do and so many people there that you can rush through it and then totally say, wait a minute, did I meet so and so? In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered.

I wonder what's emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. David Black, who was supposed to fix the door that the killer used to gain entry to the home, was revisited. he was now living in the home Marianne rented from his father and where she was killed. When investigators went to the home, he first asked if they were serving someone papers

before blaming Marianne's murder on the quote, fundamentalist LDS religion. He told investigators that those people, referring to the latter-day saints, believe that if someone denies the faith, that it's your obligation to shed their blood. He also told investigators that she was assassinated by special forces. So no doubt, Morve, David Black had some interesting things to say. I think these are, these are quotes. These are things that would peak the interest of many people. But the other thing that really kind of jumped out at me was that, you know, he's living in this house where Marianne Holmes was killed. Okay, you could say, well, it was his dad's house. Maybe he had nowhere else to. go, I think to most people, that would be a strange move, especially when you factor in that David was looked at in the past, was maybe still being looked at as a possible suspect. Well, and I think if he was the person responsible, living there might give him some kind

of thrill or some kind of satisfaction, some kind of deviant thrill being there. So that's pretty disturbing. If it, me, when looking at this, I personally wouldn't move into a home where I knew there was a murder. But this guy seems a little bit different than most people. So maybe he had no issue with it. Well, we've talked before about killers and their trophies and, you know, using those trophies to revisit crime scenes and, and what kind of thrill possibly it gives them. think about a person, let's say if he did have something to do with the murder, living in that murder house full time.

The possibility exists that he could be getting, you know, this type of rush, reliving the crime on a daily basis. Yeah, that's, that's pretty disturbing. If he was her killer, that would be very creepy. It was clear to the cold justice team that David Black was not. going to be a source of useful information. And it seemed as if he was rambling about all types of strange ideas. Black added, when they killed her, it killed me. It killed my dad.

It killed two or three other people. It was very clear that he had a disdain for the LDS religion, which Mary Ann belonged to. When the cold case team interviewed David, ex-girlfriend, she told investigators that David was, quote, absolutely obsessed with that murder. She also admitted that he hears voices and that they tell him stuff. According to David's father, Roy, at the time that Mary was murdered, David was living, working, and attending school in Salt Lake City, Utah. David brought investigators his journal from 1995, and it had entries indicating that he was in

Provo, Utah, before, during, and after the murder. The information in the journal about where he was living, who he was dating, and what he was doing at school was all there, easily available for authorities. But still, investigators got a DNA sample from David Black. David also allowed the cold case investigators to go through his house, the crime scene. It seemed clear that while he looked like an interesting suspect, he wasn't their man. So obviously, Morp, there was some time. and we couldn't figure it out exactly how much, but there was some time that passed between when Mary first rented the home and when she was murdered.

Because we know when she first rented the home, David was there. He was supposed to fix the lock. And then sometime later, it sounds like he went to Provo, went to school and was doing things there. Although he supposedly had an alibi for the murder. Mary Ann's ex, John Bersie, was also revisited. His alibi at the time was that he was in Florida. But with no cell phone records to be able to trace in 1995, investigators wanted to be sure that he hadn't just been taken at his word. One of Mary Ann's friends, Barbara, claimed that John was a liar and he was a con artist.

She told the cold justice team that the breakup was a very bitter one. The cold justice team called the couple he had stayed with in Florida. And they confirmed that he was with them the entire time immediately before, during and after the murder. And they added that he was broke and he couldn't have afforded to travel to Arizona, even if he wanted to. So, you know, it sounds like based on all, of that, John Bersie was ruled out again.

It was when the team were able to track down and talk to ex-girlfriends of suspect Philip Turley that they felt they had their man, but they would need to prove it. One ex-girlfriend recalled that Turley had referred to Marianne as his fiancé, and it also told her that he bought land in Pima, Arizona to build a house on. She said that Turley had no means to buy any property or home. She also added that Turley had bipolar disorder, and when he wasn't on his meds, he could experience psychotic episodes. She recounted things that made her uncomfortable regarding their sex life. He had talked about whipping or spanking someone on their knees,

while he had them on a leash, and he was obsessed with anal sex. This really got the attention of the cold case team, because it so closely matched what happened to Marianne. The sexual assault with an object matched his apparent fantasy, as well as the ligature marks suggesting that the rope around her neck was not actually meant to strangle her killer. but to control her, much like a leash. The cold case team believed that Marianne was dragged away from the couch by the rope. It turned out that Philip Turley also could possibly be linked to crime scene evidence. He wore a size 11 shoe, making it possible that he was the one who stepped in Marianne's blood.

Not only were his shoes the right size, but the prince had been tracked towards the college where he worked. it would not have stood out for him to be at or near the college and he would be guaranteed to know his way back from the crime scene. He had also been a corrections officer. Turley's ex-girlfriend claimed that the favorite part of his job was when he had to beat the inmates into submission. His former supervisor recalled that after Marianne was murdered, Philip Turley stopped showing up for work. oddly, he didn't even quit. He just simply stopped showing up to work. Another ex of Turley had once threatened to call the police on him

after he had held a gun to his own head. After this incident, he disappeared and she never saw him again. A third ex-girlfriend recalled that the reason they broke up was that during an argument, Turley missed her and punched a hole in the wall. This ex-recall at a time that Turley tied her up during sex, stating that she agreed to do it because she was afraid what he would do if she resisted.

Turley's ex-girlfriend who talked about his fantasies also claimed that the most violent or scary one he ever had with her was when he said to her, I could kill you, and then sexually assault your dead body, and there's nothing you can do about it. This is exactly what police believe happened to Marianne. While all of the recollections of Turley from people in his past

was certainly interesting, the team knew that they needed to focus on physical evidence and clues. which obviously Morph is always very important in any case. But, you know, if you just look at some of the things that people in Philip Turley's life said, there's no doubt that you would want to take a very close look at this guy. Now, it's one thing to have your sexual fantasies, a lot of people do. Okay. It's not something that we talk about a lot. But, people have them. I think here what is so interesting is how closely his aligned with what police believe happened to Marianne Holmes. And I think that although while it sounds so compelling, that it's important to tie him to the scene with some kind of evidence. And that's what can ultimately convict him or connect him to the crime. Well, yeah, absolutely. Just, the fact that, you know, you've had willing partners in the past who have engaged in, you know,

this type of sex and that matches the crime scene, that alone is not going to convict anybody. That evidence included the size 11 shoe print in Marianne's blood, something indicating perhaps a larger sized man. And it turned out that Turley was indeed a very large man. Ashley had told police early on that a tall man had killed her mom. DNA testing done on the evidence from Mary Ann's home found a DNA sample that was too small to build a full profile from, but it was enough to exclude those who didn't have any of the markers in their DNA. Testing on the rope, which investigators hoped the suspect had handled at some time without wearing gloves was inconclusive. Police examined a bag of clothes at the scene and two picture frames that did have male DNA that did not match the landlord's son, David Black, or Mary Ann's ex-boyfriend John Bersie.

But Philip Turley's DNA could not be excluded as a match. The cold case team managed to track Turley down and interview him, which he was not happy about. He told authorities that his relationship with Marianne never got serious. He told police that he had gone to two church functions in one movie with Marian, although it's not been established if any of that's true. While it seemed like he was trying to distance himself from Marianne, he was still actually making up more of a relationship with her than he ever had. Turley denied writing that he was in love with Marianne in his journal,

which police had, but his written words contradicted him. One entry read, My first thought was Marianne. My love deepens by the hour. One week before she was murdered, he wrote, It's odd. I barely know her, yet my heart is all hers. The team asked Turley about his sex life and whether he had tied anyone up. He hinted that he may have tied someone up before, but avoided admitting it altogether.

He specifically denied ever using handcuffs. During the initial investigation, one of Turley's friends actually volunteered to wear a wire. And some of the things recorded painted Turley in a battle. like. It caught Turley saying things like, I'm a pervert and they won't find my fingerprints. There were also unrelated but kind of off statements like Ted Bundy was an awesome individual. Chillingly, it also caught Turley discussing why Marianne's two daughters were not killed that night. This case is reminiscent of home invasion cases we've discussed regarding children before on criminology. On episode 155,

we discussed the Dardine family who were murdered during a home invasion. It's theorized that whoever killed them may have been known to the family because her two-year-old son was killed. But Elaine Dardine had been pregnant and her assault had caused her to go into labor. And the suspect also killed her newborn child, who would obviously not have been able to identify anyone. In episode 173, we discussed the McStay family, who were also murdered in a home invasion.

The murders included their four and three. three-year-old sons. In that case, and this is a little bit of a spoiler, the killer was known to the two children and seems to be the reason that they were killed along with their parents. In that case, at least the older boy would have been able to identify the man who killed his parents, so he was not left as a witness. So I think more we have to bring in the question. Does Marianne's two daughters being left physically unharmed mean that the killer was someone they didn't know? Or was it someone who just couldn't bear to hurt them? Yeah, and way back in episode 87, we discussed the murders of Rhonda Wick and her four-year-old son, Donnie, who were killed in their Simi Valley apartment.

It seemed possible that Donnie was killed simply because he may be able to ID the killer. I think when you consider these cases, we just referenced, you do have to wonder why the killer did leave Marianne's girls alive. But thankfully, he did. It's a good thing. And they're still here. Yeah, I think Morph in these types of cases, these details are always very important. Now, I'm not saying that it necessarily points in one direction or the other. But I would say more often than not, it does. because as we've talked about before, why would someone need to kill very small children,

sometimes so young that they can't even talk, but when you're talking about children that can communicate, could possibly tell police who the killer is, okay, I think you have to kind of lean in that direction, that more than like, the killer is known to the family. Because if it's not the case, then you just have an individual who just decides, yes, I want to kill these small children. I don't really have a reason for it.

I just want to do it. And I think people like that are very frightening. If they can do that to small children, they can do that to anyone. So they're especially heinous. And here we don't have that we have the children being spared. So was that an oversight, something maybe they had gone back and time and done it over again? They would have eliminated them? We don't know. One thing that was clear was that the unsolved murder of a young mother in front of her children hung over the community like a dark cloud and people considering an unknown person walking

around amongst them who could be a murderer, it was terrifying. Mary Ann's neighbor told the Arizona Republic in 1995, we even have been running to the car. If we have to go anywhere at night, people in the nearby town of Safford, three and a half miles from Thatcher were buying mace, guns, outdoor lights, and guard dogs. Because there was a murderer, free in their area. That fear hung over the town for years. And this is also something that we see in cases time after time. time, especially in towns with a low murder rate where, you know, a vicious murder is fairly out of the ordinary, you know, gun sales go up, security system sales go up. People are extremely

fearful and they'll do just about anything to help to try to protect themselves and their family. On November 22, 2016, 53-year-old Philip Turley was arrested on charges of attempted murder in another case, this time in Modesto, California. Police also arrested 28-year-old Alicia Gomes, his accomplice. Turley stabbed two people, a man and a woman, in their trailer at Country Western Mobile Home Park in Modesto. Early the next morning, he went back to the mobile home park where the attack happened, where many people believed he was responsible. even those that hadn't seen anything, and he was quickly recognized and turned in. One neighbor told reporters that the male victim had learned that Phillips was in an episode of cold justice and had told people about it. To this neighbor, the stabbing was retaliation for talking about the murder of Marianne Holmes.

According to a press release from the Stanislaus County District Attorney, Turley had a prior dispute with the two victims, so he and Alicia went to their trailer with knives. Turley stabbed the man while telling me he was going to die, and Alicia attacked the woman, and then both of them stabbed her. Upon his arrest, Thatcher police chief, Schafein Woods, called Turley a person of interest in the murder of Marianne Holmes, and stated, we have never stopped working on this case and will continue to exhaust all leads and possibilities available to us until it is either resolved or we have no further leads. On March 19, 2021, 58-year-old, 3,000, Philip Turley pleaded guilty to the attempted murders of the two stabbing victims in Modesta.

32-year-old Alicia Nadine Goams also pleaded guilty. She was sentenced to 13 years in prison. Philip Turley was expected to be sentenced to 18 years in state prison, according to the DA's press release. Also, according to the release, Turley had been convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon back in Arizona. So I think Turley, in addition to some of the disturbing things he said and wrote about, proved that he was a dangerous individual capable of taking someone's life or trying to take someone's life. There's no doubt that he was dangerous. Marianne Holmes was buried at the Ascension Catholic Cemetery in Libertyville, Illinois following her murder.

Today, her daughters are adults. Though the only clear remaining person of interest in Marianne's murder is in prison for another crime. It doesn't provide justice for Marianne's family, friends, and her community. And the case remains officially unsolved. If you have any information about the murder of Marianne Holmes, you can contact the Thatcher Police Department at 928-428-2296. So morph as we wrap up this case, obviously, this was a horrific murder of Marianne Holmes.

It was perpetrated in the president. of her two daughters. And we've kind of touched on it, right? This issue of not harming the children. I think you can look at it from a number of different viewpoints. It's possible that you could have a stranger killer who, and it's kind of strange to say, but has a code that won't allow them to kill children. I'll put it that way. I'm sure there are some killer. I'm sure there are some killer. out there like that. You can look at it as a killer that was known to Marianne, but didn't feel as though the children would know who he was, or you can look at it as a person, you know, as we said, who just couldn't bear to hurt these children because he had an affection for them. And obviously,

we talked about a number of different persons of interest, potentially. suspects in the case. I think initially police were really focused on David Black, and you can see why, right? He was supposed to fix the door. He didn't fix the door. He would have known that this was an entry point that could be used to enter the hole. And then obviously, as with any case, they would definitely have looked at Marianne's ex, John Bersie, but it seems.

seems as though both of these individuals were ruled out because they had alibis that put them in other states. But then you get to Philip Turley. And by and large, more, if I think most people who take a look at this case believe that Turley is the most likely suspect, I'll put it that way. There's no doubt that he had some sexual fantasies that closely aligned with how this murder most likely went down. Okay. That in and of itself doesn't really mean anything. But add that to the fact that, you know, he had exes who came forward and said he was very violent, he was scary. He talked about killing them, sexually assaulting their. dead bodies, things like that. He was a large man who absolutely could have been wearing the shoes

that made the shoe prints. He worked at the college, which I think is, you know, a really big tie-in. He was caught on tape saying, you know, the police will never find my fingerprints and also discussing why Mary Ann's two daughters were not killed that night. To me, that's very specific. To me, that's very specific. Why was he even talking about it? Now, I think you take all these things and, you know, would it be enough to put in front of a jury and get a conviction? Probably not. But I think at the very least, you have to cast a real suspicious eye on this guy. Yeah, there's no doubt at this point that this guy was someone who was awful and did some bad things and attempted to take two other people's lives. So we know he's capable of harming people.

And I think that there's a strong case to be made as him being the killer. But what they lack in this case is crucial evidence, solid DNA that can be confirmed the match to him or his fingerprints being there. There were no fingerprints of his found there. So barring some kind of major physical evidence connection to him, it seems unfortunate that if he's the killer, he may likely get away with this because they just don't have enough other than the circumstantial stuff to connect to him at this point. Yeah, I agree with you 100%. And, you know, I'm assuming that prosecutors sit down, they look at all the circumstantial evidence, and they have to make a decision. Do we have enough to take this in front of a grand jury?

to go to trial, to put it in front of a jury. And it's a big thing, right? You don't want to go to trial without the evidence needed. Because once he's acquitted, then you've lost. You're not going to be able to go back at him again. And the other thing more that I think prosecutors probably are looking at now is that, okay, he's going to be in prison for X amount of years. so do we need to rush it?

He's not going to hurt anyone else. Do we wait until this case is rock solid if we can ever get it to that point? Because I still think, no doubt, they want to get justice for Marianne, but they want to do it the right way. They want to make sure it sticks. Yeah, it's a very frustrating situation. And although he's in prison for another serious crime, he's not serving the time for what he did to Marianne,

homes and by extension what he did to her daughters especially because they witnessed this although they weren't physically harmed who knows what this did to them and if they've had to have counseling anything like that because it seems impossible that they wouldn't have been impacted by this in some way and then on top of that just losing their mom not having her in their lives is irreparably changed the path of their lives yeah Yeah, no doubt about it. Sad case all the way around. Thanks, because out to Sunny Landon for writing and research assistance in this episode.

As always, if you love the show, but you haven't done so yet, please take a minute, go out, give us a five-star rating. Keep telling your friends. That word of mouth about the criminology podcast really goes a long way. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast or by joining our Facebook, discussion group, criminology podcast, discussion, and fans. So, Morph, that's it for our episode on Marianne Holmes. But we'll be back next Saturday night with a brand new episode of criminology for everyone.

So until then, for Mike. And Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.