Every Town - A Crime That SHOCKED The Nation - Mary Holmes - Thatcher, AZ

Episode Date: September 23, 2022

A small farming town inhabited by just under 4,000 people rarely gets on the radar of anyone who lives outside of it. Thatcher, Arizona is such a place and was relatively unknown by the general public, until a horrific crime involving a single mother in July of 1995 grabbed newspaper headlines and got airtime on TV.  Mary Holmes was subjected to an inhuman crime in the presence of her two very young kids and it was truly done by someone best described as evil.  Her case brought attention to the mall Arizona town and the brutality of the crime shocked the entire nation. Little evidence in the case has slowed down progress and while the case remains unsolved, to this day Mary Ann’s daughters, now grown-up, grapple with the trauma of their mother’s death and still hope to find out who the perpetrator was. --------------------------------------------💀Get your name in the credits of our thriller movie! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/anangryboy/a-scary-movie-from-the-creator-of-scary-mysteries--------------------------------------------💀 Exclusive Video Content & Access https://www.patreon.com/scarymysteries 🥇 Watch This Episode on Youtube!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlrnlGlWgnw&ab_channel=ScaryMysteriesSOCIAL👁 Videos not found on Youtube check us out on TikTok @andrewfitzgerald💀 Instagram @andrew.fitzg💥 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scarymysteriesofficialPODCAST🎧 Scary Mysteries Podcast for more content from ushttps://www.buzzsprout.com/1235579 Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you love true crime, grab your favorite mug and pour yourself a dose of creepy true crime every single morning with a morning cup of murder. This short daily show is the perfect podcast to incorporate into your morning routine because in less than 15 minutes, you'll hear about a true crime that took place on a day's date in history. Each day's dark history lesson will kickstart your morning with intriguing tales of murder, abduction, serial killers, cults, and everything in between.

With over 20 million downloads, Morning Cup of Murder has something for every true crime lover. One listener describes the show as a small package with a powerful punch of crime. Another writes that the show is an absolute delight in the morning. Support yourself a piping hot cup of murder every single morning with Morning Cup of Murder. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Everytown. Thank you guys so much for tuning into our podcast. If you guys enjoy listening to Everytown, then I wanted to let you know that there are always a video component to each episode over on our YouTube channel called Scary Mysteries. They're really well put together and put faces to the names, so you can always head over to our Scary Mysteries YouTube channel if you want to view them.

There's also two other videos that come out on our YouTube channel. each and every Monday and Wednesday, where we cover strange and creepy stories from all around the world. Those can also be listened to in podcast form on our other podcast channel called Scary Mysteries. We have tons of cool content for you all around. Thanks so much for the support and tuning in. Hope you enjoy the episode. Every town has a dark side. A small town inhabited by just under 4,000 people rarely gets on the radar of anyone.

who lives outside of it. Thatcher, Arizona is such a place and was relatively unknown by the general public. That is, until a horrific crime involving a single mother in July of 1995, grabbed newspaper headlines, and got airtime on TV. Mary Holmes was subjected to an inhumane crime in the presence of her two very young kids, and it was truly done by someone best described as evil. Her case brought attention to the small Arizona, town, and the brutality of the crime shocked the entire nation. Little evidence in the case that slowed

down progress, while the case remains unsolved, to this day, Mary's daughters, who are now grown up, grapple with the trauma of their mother's death, and still hope to find out who the perpetrator was. I'm Andrew Fitzgerald, and thanks for tuning in to another episode of Everytown. This case has some very shocking details. So if you're not into hearing anything like that, I advise you to turn this episode off right now and just wait for the next one. If you're still in, let's head over to Arizona back to 1995, where we hear the details about Mary's case, a mother's torture that was witnessed by her children. At 29 years old, Mary Holmes was a small town, single mother, raising two daughters, four-year-old Ashley, an 18-month-old Sarah.

They lived in Thatcher, a Mormon town in Arizona, where residents sustained their lives basically by farming. Mary and her kids lived in a pioneer abode-style home in a quiet area of large pecan and cottonwood trees on Church Street, far away from the hustle and bustle of the state-central area. Thatcher was deemed to be safe to live in, In this religious farming community, people would leave their doors unlocked, porch lights on, and windows open at night. Everybody was close-knit and knew one another. On July 8th of 1995, Mary held a yard sale, and she was warmly supported by her neighbors. She was making a hefty amount of money, and one of the neighbors, named Kay Turner said,

Mary was talking rather loudly about what a good idea the sale was and how much money she was making. I think the wrong person heard her talking about that. In Kay's hunch was one of the angles taken into consideration. On the following day, Mary and her two daughters became the center of a crime that the community in Thatcher never thought could happen. It was a major shock to every single local. In the early morning hours of July 9th, an unknown man crept into the unlocked back door of Mary's home, and all of a sudden attacked her brutally in her bedroom.

The single mom's clothes were forcefully stripped off, and she was bound with handcuffs and rope, gagged and strangled from behind. She was sexually mutilated and raped vaginally and anally by an unknown object. She'd been hit several times by a sharp object in the head after the torture, possibly by the same object she had been raped with. Mary wasn't just killed, she was tortured in front of her innocent daughters, Ashley and Sarah. They were watching from the bed just a couple feet away from the murder scene.

Can you imagine the gamut of emotions running through the hearts and minds of these helpless girls while watching their mom being inhumanely abused? Ashley was also stripped of her clothing and bound, but thankfully she was spared any sexual assault. She then sat with her mother's dead body for some time wailing and trying to wake her before running to a neighbor's house while still naked and bound to get help. When the police arrived at the crime scene, the house was a ghastly sight. They found poor Mary handcuffed, gagged and curled up in the fetal position on the living room floor covered with blood. The 18-month-old child was next to her mother, crawling around in that blood, and both girls were left physically unharmed by whoever does.

killed their mother. But of course, their mental anguish caused by this evil encounter would follow them forever. The autopsy concluded that Mary had been choked with a cord from behind and brutally raped with some kind of foreign object. After hours of torture, her killer finally murdered her by bludgeoning her to death with a heavy object. For the record, Batcher police said Ms. Holmes died of trauma out of the head from several chopping-like blows by a large knife or hatchet. However, it didn't give for the details about finding Mary's nude body bound with sexual mutilations. Instead, Thatcher police sergeant Gary Cleland said, Whoever did this couldn't be human.

Although only four years old and not fully having the mental faculty to fathom what happened to her mother, Ashley nevertheless was asked to draw a picture of her. of what she had witnessed at the crime scene. The elder daughter then drew a terrifying scene. Mary was lying on the ground with what looked like a knife or hatchet stuck in her head with blood pooling all around. The drawing was almost identical to the photos taken by the police. And when Ashley was interviewed, she was too traumatized and too young to give a detailed account

so the investigators didn't get anything much from it. What caught their interest, though, was how Ashley is, how Ashley is. described the intruder as huge and that he was a lion man. Police also discovered a man's bloody shoe print at the scene that measured around size 11 or 12. There was also a fingerprint found on the handcuffs and a small trace of DNA as well, but that wasn't enough to produce any real leads. Besides, no matches were found for the DNA recovered, and this evidence was retested years later as forensic science had to,

advance, but, unfortunately, due to improper storage, the sample had become degraded. Thatchers and its neighboring town, Safford's female populations, were gripped with a paralysis of fear more than two months after Mary's gory death. People's conversation centered on the crime and their curiosity about any news of a development in the Holmes case. Heading the investigation was police sergeant Gary Cleland, who shared the residence's frustration and the slow development and solving the case. Giving an update of his team's work, Sergeant Cleland said,

We've interviewed over 75 people, and there's still no suspect that we can point to. There's a lot of stress on our officers, and we've really been putting in the overtime to try to get this cleared up. One theory about Mary's murder was that it involved a robbery gone terribly wrong. The money she had earned from her yard sale

the day before was stolen during the attack, along with a picture of Mary. Her neighbor Kay believed that there was a connection between the murder and the yard sale, yet there was still no evidence that led to anything. Was the killer present at the yard sale, and had he surveilled the Holmes house? Sergeant Cleveland said that they looked into that connection during their investigation, but nothing had turned up. Investigators thought they had received a break in the case, when they had learned that Mary had filed a report weeks before she was killed about her fear of a former

boyfriend in Florida, a man named John Burr's. He called up Mary and threatened her that he was going back to Thatcher for her. Mr. Burst was interviewed after Mary had been killed. His alibi enabled him to be off the hook, so he was cleared. Another suspect in the chilling murder was the son of the owner of the house that she was renting David Black. Mary had given him money to fix the back door of her house, which couldn't be locked, but David wasn't actually able to repair it. It was the same door which Mary's attacker used to enter the house. Coincidentally, David sported long blonde hair and a beard which matched the Lionman description of Ashley. Then, years after the murder, David decided to live in the house and became slightly obsessed with the entire case.

He told people that living in the house where Mary formerly lived made him closer to her, making others believe he was mentally unstable. The third and the last suspect on the list was considered the most interesting one of all. Philip Turley. It's been said that he was deeply obsessed with Ms. Holmes. Some sources claim that two had dated at some point, But still others said they were just acquaintances and had never had a deeper involvement than that. However, Philip made it appear to people around him that he and Mary were intimately connected

and that they were engaged, which wasn't true at all. He also said that he had bought land in the town of Pima to build a dream house for them. In his diary, he kept a detailed account of his love for Mary, but it was obviously not reciprocated. When this Thatcher murder case was featured on the TV show called Cold Justice, one of Mr. Turley's ex-girlfriends was interviewed and divulged his unusual bedroom fantasies. The unnamed woman said, He liked the kind of fantasy sex from behind, including sodomy and neck restraints.

His other ex-girlfriends didn't have anything much better to say about him. The show surmised that Mr. Turley was most likely the killer based on circumstantial evidence, such as the fact that he had a size 11 shoe. Moreover, it was a prison guard, so he had access to handcuffs and a nightstick, which some believe was used to rape Mary. A consultant for the show, attorney Murray Newman, wrote a blog about Philip Turley, which partially said, his fascination with Mary was well documented in his own words as he kept a very detailed journal on his feelings for her.

Women that Turley had dated told investigators disturbing details of his fantasy life that seemed consistent with details of the crime scene. Attorney Newman added that Philip was extremely intelligent and prepared for the police interviews unlike many of the other suspects. In the beginning, Turley was pissed about being interviewed, but he was eventually cooperative and answered all questions thrown at him by the investigators. According to Attorney Newman, Philip had rational and coherent answers for almost everything, but at times seemed as if he were taunting the investigators. At the end of the interview, Philip had done nothing to further implicate himself in the murder of Ms. Holmes.

In 2016, Philip Turley was once again, in the news after being arrested in California for allegedly stabbing two people on November 21st of that year. Already, 53 years old at the time, he was then charged with two counts of attempted murder for a 54-year-old woman and 56-year-old man at the country western Mobile Park. Mr. Turley had been living with the couple in Arizona for some time

when they learned of his possible involvement in the case of Mary Holmes. The couple started telling others about their discovery and this enraged Philip. He confronted them then with a knife, and the conversation quickly escalated into an attempted murder. Philip pled guilty in 2021 to the premeditated attempted murder in 2016. While his co-defendant, Alicia Nadine, who was sentenced to 13 years in state prison,

Mr. Turley is still awaiting sentencing, and he's expected to get 18 years to life at the sentencing hearing. With regard to his involvement, in the Mary Holmes case. Philip, according to Thatcher Police Chief Schaffin Woods, has remained a person of interest, but he has not been charged with any crimes connected to the case. He added that they didn't have information that would link Philip's case in California with Mary's murder in Arizona. And police chief Woods further said, The case in California remains under investigation, and we will refer any questions about that case

to the authorities there. Additionally, the Mary Holmes case remains under investigation here. He assured that his department will continue to work and solving the murder the best that it can. His team has never stopped working on Mary's case and will continue to exhaust all leads and possibilities available until the case is resolved or they don't have any further leads. The police officer shares the public's anxiety

to bring the Holmes case to a close and to bring justice for the victim's family. But he also reminded people to respect the rights of all people and the due process. He promised to strike up a balance between being transparent while still protecting the integrity of the investigation. Police Chief Woods concluded, We will do our best to accomplish both. However, at this time, we do not have any further information to release regarding these cases.

That anxiety is shared by Kathy Mullinock's, who lives across the street from where the Holmes family resided. She said that Mary's murder has been the most traumatic thing she can remember happening in the town. Miss Mullinx, whose great-grandfather, Christopher Layton, founded Thatcher, said the town's last murder happened about 30 years ago when her female schoolmate was killed by the woman's husband. That anxiety is shared by... Kathy Mullinax, who lives across the street from where the Holmes family resided. She said that Mary's murder has been the most traumatic thing that she can remember happening in the town. Miss Mullinax, whose great-grandfather Christopher Layton founded Thatcher, said that in the past, she seldom locked her door, but after the brutal July 9th killing of

Mary, her kids had been complaining because they have to go through many locks just to get to her. We even have been running to the car if we have to go anywhere at night, Kathy said. For her, Mary was such a beautiful woman, and she added, She was growing all these beautiful snapdragons for my daughter's wedding. I keep hoping that we get some closure for this nightmare. For another one of Mary's neighbors, Kay Turner, she has seen a lot of changes in the habits of her townmates, and even those in nearby Saffert.

They purchased mace, guns, outdoor lights, and guard dogs as their way of ensuring their safety. Perhaps, quite off as it may sound, that was the lesson Mary's death had taught them. Sadly, no one has been charged for this heinous crime. Former Texas prosecutor Kelly Siegler probably said it best when she uttered, The person who committed this crime wasn't just a murderer, he was evil. This is the kind of freak that we would like to get off the street more than anybody. So that's it for this week's episode of Everytown. Remember, if you want more podcasts from us, go check out our Scary Mysteries podcast

or tune in to our YouTube channel called Scary Mysteries. Check us out next week for another episode filled with scary, strange, and mysterious stories because who knows? Maybe your town will be next. Hey guys, it's Andrew, and if you don't know by now, I have a feature film thriller movie that I wrote and directed coming out called an Angry Boy, and I'd love for you to check it out. You have to at least see some footage, and I want you to join us for the online world premiere as well, which is only available through Kickstarter, and you need to hurry because time is running out. So when you get to work or when you get home, go to Kickstarter and look up an Angry Boy, and you'll see our cool throwback poster, along with videos about the making of the making of you. of the movie and a sneak peek. I hope to see you there because I'll be doing a live

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