Every Town - The Mysterious "Accidental" Death of Tamla Horsford

Episode Date: May 30, 2025

Get 15% off OneSkin with the code EVERYTOWN at https://www.oneskin.co/ #oneskinpod It was a birthday party down in Georgia, a gathering of football moms and their husbands looking to cut loose for a night away from the kids. And cut loose they did, however by morning, one of them was dead. Tamla Horsford was found laying facedown in the backyard. As to how it happened exactly though is the million dollar question. 👀 Watch This Episode On Youtube: ⁠https://youtu.be/uVbTfVHWe1k 👁 Check out our movie AN ANGRY BOY for FREE! ⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvtlOlODQ8g&t=5238s⁠ ⁠https://tubitv.com/movies/100029672/an-angry-boy⁠ International & Other Ways To Watch: ⁠https://www.anangryboy.com/⁠ 💀 MERCH: ⁠https://scary-mysteries.teemill.com/⁠ 💀 Free 7 Day Trail on Exclusive Episodes, Podcasts & Perks! ⁠https://www.patreon.com/scarymysteries⁠   🎧 Our Other Podcast Scary Mysteries: ⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/3ZooEZMoZ421WdsOVJhVkT⁠ 👁 X: ⁠https://x.com/ScaryMysteries1⁠ 👁Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/andrew.fitzg⁠ 👁 TikTok: ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewfitzgerald⁠ 👁Facebook: ⁠https://www.facebook.com/scarymysteriesofficial⁠ 👁 X: ⁠https://x.com/ScaryMysteries1⁠   🗣 Business Inquiries, questions and comments hit us up at ⁠[e-mail]⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are you ready to dive into the unknown? Join me, Peyton Moreland, on Into the Dark, the true crime podcast from Ono Media with a hint of horror and mystery. Each week, I dive into a different case, breaking down the facts and pondering the age-old question, why do people do what they do? Now, sometimes the answer isn't so clear, and that's why I'll also explore conspiracy theories, hauntings, and all things spooky. From the Green River Killer to the Mothman incident, we will unravel all of the questions that keep us up at night. So don't miss out. Subscribe now on your favorite podcast platform. New episodes drop every Wednesday.

Into the dark, where true crime meets the eerie unknown. Every town has a dark side. I was back in November when 40-year-old Tamla horsework was found dead in the backyard of a home incoming. It was a birthday party down in Georgia. A gathering of football moms and their husbands looking to cut loose for a night away from the kids. And cut loose they did. However, by morning, one of them was dead. Tom LaHorseford was found lying face down in the yard.

As to how it happened exactly, though, that's the million-dollar question. Now, officials are sticking to the story that it was just an accident. Too much to drink or fall from a balcony, so case closed. But the thing about it is, nothing in this story. story really adds up. The injuries to her body don't match the story. Evidence was mishandled. The witness accounts contradict one another. And the lead investigator, he shared crime scene photos with his mistresses and mockingly called the dead woman, Porch Lady. On top of all that, Tamla just so happened to be the only black person at the

party, a party that took place in a county with one of America's most notorious histories of racial violence. Hi everyone, it's Andrew. Thanks so much for tuning in to another episode of Everytown, where today we have a case that at the very least is super sketchy in how it was handled, and at most is a straight-up murder that's been covered up. So let's head on down to four-side Georgia together and look into the mysterious death of Tomloresford. And Tomlowe was 40 years old back in 2018 when the tragedy occurred, and she was originally a native of St. Vincent and Grenadines Island in the Caribbean. When she was 11, her family moved on over to New York City in the Bronx.

When she got older and was living down in Florida for some warmer weather, but she met her future husband, Leander. She became the stepmother to his daughter, and a couple would go on to have five boys together, making for a large and loving family. With a beaming smile and a sparkle in her eye, Tamla Holsford was a ray of light, according to her family, a mother of five boys.

boys who put everyone else first. Supermom. Supermom. She made sure she could provide for them. And Tomlo was a happy-go-lucky person, and her sunny disposition made it easy for her to make friends, no matter where she lived. The Horseford's moved to Georgia, and there Tomlo was active in her kids' lives. Attending school functions and every sporting event under the sun, but she loved every minute of it. I'm sure it was stressful at times, but it was all worth it to keep her family happy. That's the life she wanted, and that's the life she got. So it was here in her newfound home of Forsythe, Georgia, that she attended many of her son's football games and became acquainted with some of the other moms. She became friends with a woman named Gene Myers, and the two clicked

together pretty quickly. You could always find them on the sideline together chatting and laughing while their boys ran up and down the field. So mid-football season in November, when it came time for Jean's birthday, she invited Tomla over for a little gathering. Nothing crazy, just a few friends. Toml was psyched for the party, a rare night out on her own.

And she had planned to sleep over there knowing they'd be up drinking, and so that's what went down. A fairly normal night, I think, most would consider. Except that Tomla wasn't just any guest. She just so happened to be the only black person at this gathering. In Forsyth County, no less, a place with a racial history that's so divided, deep, and ugly. It's actually hard to believe.

And that right there is the crux of this investigation. I had this occurred anywhere else in America, it might not have received this type of attention, but it didn't. It happened here in a place with a dark history that reaches well into the modern day. I need to paint you a picture because if you're not familiar with Forsyth County, then you need to be because it will definitely change the way you look at the night's events and Tomlis Story. You ever look in the mirror and think, when did my skin start looking this tired? Well, that was me until I started using one skin. I've been using their OS1 face and body moisturizer for a few months now and honestly, it's a game changer. My skin feels smoother, looks brighter, and it's holding up.

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purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them, and please support our show and tell them we sent you and give your skin the scientifically proven gentle care it deserves with one skin. So going back to 1912 in this county, an 18-year-old girl named Mae Crow was found attacked and killed, left in the woods about a mile from her house. She'd been beaten, slashed with a knife several times, and had her throat cut, and also she was white. The sheriff then supposedly found something belonging to a black kid in town in her pocket. This kid was 16 years old. They pulled him from his house and beat some sort of confession out of him

where he implicated another four guys who were also black. I say some sort because really the evidence doesn't matter in this case to the sheriff. It appears like May's murder was used more as an excuse than anything else to make an example. And down south back then, unfortunately, this wasn't uncommon. When a crime occurred against a white person, it was round up the black people as fast as possible and just sort it out later. And before anything could be looked into properly, an angry white mob stormed that jail where the men were being held. They dragged out a prisoner named Rob Edwards. And outside, they beat them with stones and crowbars and strung them up on a pole, where they then took turns shooting them.

According to historical accounts, this mob wasn't even hiding their identity. which is a statement that says loud and clear that we don't care and around here we can do this. They were essentially proud of what they were doing. The sheriff himself actually left the jailhouse that day, leaving just one officer on duty, almost like he knew what was about to happen and either didn't want to try and stop it, or he wanted it to go down. After that, they weren't done with just one murder. In the months that followed, white night riders as they were.

were called, went door to door forcing every black family in the county to leave. And they post notes giving people 24 hours to get out and shoot into the homes of anyone who didn't move fast enough. I mean, just imagine that, having to abandon your home, your land and your community, everything you built all overnight. Black families had no choice, and they packed up and were run out of town. Most never received fair compensation for the property they were for. forced to abandon, and their land got snatched up for pennies on the dollar by the same white

residents who'd driven the mound. So by 1920 then, not a single black resident remained in Forsyth County. They had been systematically and brutally removed, and for decades after that, it stayed a sundown county, which was a place where black people were warned not to be caught after dark. Eventually, even the physical evidence of their existence ever being in for Forsyth in the first place started to disappear. Everything except for one forgotten graveyard outside the old Stony Point Baptist Church, where gravestones cracked and leaned with age, all showing death dates before 1912. The families of those buried there couldn't even safely visit their loved ones if they wanted to.

And so that's how it stayed for a very long time. Even after Jim Crow laws were abolished, Forsyth continued to stay segregated. There was this pocket that just refused to change with time, and it was just an unspoken way of life. Jump ahead to 1987, and civil rights marchers tried to demonstrate peacefully in the county, but they were met by thousands of counter-protesters with Confederate flags screaming racial slurs. Nearly 20,000 marchers came from all over in Boston, San Francisco, and Atlanta, only to face a violent hate-filled mob. It got so bad the National Guard had to step in. Over 2,300 riot-equipped guards and police officers were needed just to protect the marchers.

It was so bad that Oprah Winfrey came to film a special episode of her show there around that time. One local resident even tried explaining to her that there were good blacks who didn't want to live there anyway. And then there were the ones he called a racial slur, saying they're the ones that just want to cause trouble. Even the local ministers held an emergency meeting after the march. Their solution, though, was to do nothing, essentially, and just pray and give the place time to, quote-unquote, heal. When Oprah finished taping, she herself didn't even stay in Forsyth after dark. Even in 1990, just 14 black people lived in the entire county. Things improved some by the time Tomlin or family moved there, but she was still part of a tiny minority.

in a place where racial hate ran deep. Which is why, when her body turned up that November morning, this ugly history cast a long shadow on her case. It made many wonder, was it really just an accident? So let's go back now to November 3rd of 2018 on the night it all went down. And Tomla shows up at Jean's house around 10 p.m. And nothing crazy is planned, just some moms from the football league hanging out having some drinks. Few of them planned to sleep over so nobody had to drive home tipsy and the night starts out

normal enough. At first, the women hung out upstairs while the men watched LSU play Alabama downstairs. After that was done, everyone got together to play cards against humanity. Videos from the party posted to social media show everyone laughing and dancing while trying to focus on the card game. Being the only smoker in the group, Tomla kept stepping out. out under the balcony for cigarette breaks. And this is important to know for later on. Now, Tomla had brought over tequila for the birthday girl, but apparently nobody else there wanted any. According to Gene and other witnesses, no one else touched it. I didn't like it, which surprised Tomla. So rather than let it go away, she began drinking it. And Tomla

drank it alone, though weirdly nobody remembered her acting particularly drunk, even though police found the bottle nearly empty the next day. Around 11.30 p.m., the party was then starting to wind down. Some people headed home and others to bed. There were no arguments. Nothing bad had happened. By 1 a.m. Jean was telling the last few guests that she needed to crash because she had an early morning. Not long after that, there was just two remaining partygoers. Tomla and Bridget Fuller, who was waiting for her husband to come pick her up. And they chatted while Tomla ate some gumbo. When Bridget's husband arrived, Tomla walked her to the door,

kissed Bridget's cheek and said, You're a really good person. Bridget answered, and I quote, Okay, well, thank you very much. I appreciate that. And take your ass in the house and finish eating your gumbo. That was at 1.47 a.m., according to the security system at the house, that marks down when doors are locked and unlocked, opened or closed.

and nobody ever reported seeing Tomla alive after that moment. The following morning, Jean's Aunt Madeline, who was living there at the time, was the first to get up, and so she went downstairs to make some coffee. That's when out in the yard, she spots Tamla's body lying motionless face down. She rushes into Jean's room, where she and her boyfriend, Jose Barrera, are sleeping, and tells them what she's seen. Jean calls 911 at 8.59 a.m. 4-5 County 911.

Hi, yes. I need an ambulance and a place to my home. What's the address? 4-4-50 Woodlark. 4-4-50 Woodlake? Yes. Okay, what's going on? We had people over last night when we were drinking.

Most of us went to bed. One of them stayed on the balcony. She was drinking. And we just went outside, and she's being face down in the backyard. It looks like me. I'm guessing maybe she fell off the balcony, but she's stiff. And tells the dispatcher her friend is face down and not breathing, before handing the phone over to Jose.

And the way he talks in the 911 call, it appears like he had been out there checking on Tamla while Jean made the call. Once he assessed and had more information, he grabs the line to help relay the details of the situation. Hey, this is Jose. Hey, have y'all checked to see if she's breathing? She's not moving one bit. She's not breathing. I just try to assess her testimony completely face down in the yard.

She is stiff. Okay. Do you see any blood or anything to where, from where she fell? I don't know if I should move her over. I mean, she is completely so strong. You can hear a woman in the back. background speculating that Tamla might have been pushed, referring to off the balcony, which was directly above her body. And cops then arrive at 907. What happens next is exactly what not to do

when handling a potential crime scene. No yellow tape goes up. Nobody properly documents or collects evidence, and no one even tries CPR or any life-saving measures. The responding officers actually call off the ambulance altogether. The only person who touched Tamla's body before police arrived was Jose. Reports conflict on whether he touched or lifted her leg to check for signs of life or blood. This matters because Jose wasn't just some random guy. He worked as a pre-trial officer for the Fortside County Courts, which comes into play later.

From day one, investigators seemed pretty content with ruling this as an accident. They looked up, saw the balcony above, and had been told she'd been going out there all night for smoke break, so it looks like she must have fallen. In fact, before that, they even thought she'd just fallen over while walking across the yard and saw that as a realistic explanation, which it certainly doesn't appear to be, based on how severe injuries were once examined in detail. And this thought process of it being an accident cost them tons of evidence if there was any, or one could argue. it was a good move if anyone were looking to cover something up. So at the moment, there's two possible scenarios that went down that night. One, as Tamla went up to the balcony and fell to her death,

the other is that she was murdered, either pushed or had her death made to appear like it had been an accident. And if that's the case, then just for the record, it doesn't mean it was necessarily someone at the party who did it. It could have been, certainly, but it also could have been someone, someone who was. in the town who just saw an opportunity, and we'll talk more about that in a minute. And there's a decent amount of strange things going on here overall when you look closer, so here are the facts as we know them, and then you can come to your own conclusion.

For starters, and I found this to be particularly interesting, the position in which she was found in looks strange to several people, including Jean and Jose, who claimed both her hands were at her sides with palms up, like she face-planted and didn't brace herself at all. That means if she did fall, then it likely wasn't a stumble, but more that she completely passed out. Either that or her body was placed there, again to make it appear like an accident.

That's what witnesses say, though the actual crime scene photos show her left arm out to the side, bent, palm down, fingers curled under. No one has claimed to have moved her before the photos were taken, so already there's a discrepancy. Jose said he only touched her to check if she was alive, and the police claimed they didn't move her either, though it appears somebody certainly did.

And then here's where things get really murky. The initial autopsy ordered by the sheriff's office said there was quote-unquote multiple blunt force injuries. So what does that mean? It means four types of hemorrhages in her head and brain, a laceration to the right. ventricle of her heart. On top of that, she had a broken neck and a dislocated wrist. Injuries and bruising to her torso and cuts on her face and her lower legs. Now, that balcony in question was only 15 feet high,

so many people just find that all to be a bit extreme for that short of a fall. Dr. Adele Shaker then performed an independent autopsy for the family and spotted something bigger. What officials called a dislocated wrist, was actually a compound fracture with her bones sticking through the skin. Despite this, almost no blood was there at the scene. If her wrist broke that badly while she was alive, then where's all the blood? The tiny bits of blood on her sleeve wasn't even on the same side as her injury. Her dad believed the wrist was damaged after death, setting up a scene where Tamla's already deceased body was thrown off the balcony. And Dr. Shaker agreed, labeling it as a post-mortem injury. The investigation had more and more holes. No fingerprints collected. No fingernail

clippings from Tamla to test for DNA underneath them. A security camera pointed at the yard had no batteries. And while medical examiners typically take dozens of autopsy photos, they only took five of Tamla. Even the theory of what happened. Even the theory of what happened. kept changing. First, lead investigator, Mike Christian, thought she tripped over some landscaping at ground level based on the cuts on her shins. That's what he told her family when breaking the news. Later, when the medical examiner said her injuries were too severe for her ground-level fall,

well, they switched to the balcony theory. The timeline of everything, according to the security alerts, was strange too, and at the very least warranted a serious look. Door alerts in the home security system showed the door to the porch being opened at 157 a.m. And staying open until they found her body. That makes sense if she stepped out to have a smoke and then fell. But another alert showed the garage door opened 17 minutes earlier at 140 a.m. Also never closing, but nobody ever tried explaining this.

A Bridget was the last person to see Tamla alive before saying goodbye. that night, said they left from the front door. And that security alert happened at 147 a.m. So if Tamla and Bridget were the last ones awake in the kitchen eating gumbo, well who opened that garage door and why? And that's where it's possible that someone from outside the party came in and did some damage. An autopsy uncovered a blood alcohol level of 0.23, nearly three times the legal driving limit in Georgia. Traces of Xanax and marijuana were also found. That certainly lines up with being a reasonable explanation for a fall. But the weird thing is nobody who was there that night thought she appeared highly intoxicated at all.

But never, ever, ever, ever have I seen my sister become sloppy, drunk, and incoherent. And so I doubt that she would pick, you know, a sleepover. with people that she was just getting to know to start behaving that way. In fact, it was more the opposite that she was clear-headed. And maybe she stayed up on her own and kept drinking, but still, no matter how you cut this case, and whether it was an accident or something else, this is just another thing that doesn't quite add up.

On February 20th, 2019, after three months of an investigation, the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office closed the case officially. calling Tamla's death an accident. Major Joe Perkins said none of her injuries suggested foul play. It was a party. They were drinking. They were drinking, and it was supposed to be an overnight party, and they were drinking and planning them staying at the house all night. Yes, it was from the deck. We've come to that conclusion. It was out of the deck. There were no witnesses to the fall.

I'm sorry, you said there were no witnesses? There were no witnesses to the fall. most of the other party goers had already gone to bed at that time and she was on the deck alone. And that's fair enough, but there's still a little bit more to this story. You remember Jose the boyfriend, the guy who worked for the county courts. Well, just a month after Tamla died, he ended up getting fired from his court job for illegally accessing documents about the case.

And this sent up red flags everywhere. because why would he be so curious as to look into the case files and risk his job if he believed it to be an accident, as many were saying or at least trying to say? I mean, maybe he knew there was more to the story. If you listen to him and Gene in that 911 call, they both seem to be pretty honest and truthful. That's my opinion at least, but it's hard to tell based on a single call. But still, you've got to wonder why a guy like that would do it. And things go. got ugly from there as seven of the partygoers filed a defamation lawsuit against Michelle Graves, who was Tamla's friend. And she had been very vocal about her suspicions and the whole case

in the lawsuit targeted 13 Facebook posts that essentially went viral, racking up hundreds of thousands of views. And the people at the party said they had received multiple death threats because of these. But Michelle insists she was only sharing factual information, all of which is publicly available in the case files. That lawsuit eventually got tossed out. And then in 2020, another layer was added when lead investigator Mike Christian had to resign. This is the guy who said she tripped and fell in the yard at first. An IA investigation found he'd been having affairs with multiple women that he liked to tell them all sorts of private details about Tamla's case. And he wouldn't even call her by her name, referring to her instead as just porch lady.

And one of these women later told investigators that Mike had shown her actual photos of Tamla's body and shared confidential toxicology reports that hadn't been released. In messages, allegedly, Mike joked crudely about having to tell Tamla's husband about her death. He described it all in a mocking tone saying something about being happy to report she was drunk and faced down in the yard, and making fun of her husband who would now have to deal with her children who would be, going crazy. Now, he'd mix these horrible comments in between explicit messages to his girlfriends,

like Tamla's death was just some joke to laugh about between hookups. What's really weird is that Mike himself even had doubts about what really happened. He told these ladies that while he believed her death was probably an accident, he didn't think the balcony fall story made sense either. At this point, everyone involved in the kids, case or anyone even just following it was only sure of one thing. It was a complete and total mess. The case had pretty much fallen to the wayside until the summer of 2020.

As the George Floyd protest swept across the country, Tamla Horstford's story suddenly lit up social media again. Across the U.S., the case has sparked a huge petition, with celebrities like Kim Kardashian and 50 Cent also calling attention to the cause. People are just tired of seeing, you know, loved ones being taken so senselessly. After the public outcry, Georgia authorities reopened the investigation at the request of the sheriff's office. They did when the GBI wrapped things up in July of 2021, well, they stuck with their original ruling. Accidental death, no charges.

In the end, maybe Tamla's death was an accident or maybe it was murder. But either way, there appears to be some shoddy police work going down in Forsythe, and that's unacceptable across the board. When you add to the fact the history of this place, can you really blame anyone for questioning the events that truly transpired that night? Their track record is pretty subpar to say the least. Tamla's family and friends are still haunted by her case. We just want justice.

Boys. I just need justice. We need answers that make sense. None of this makes sense. Not a bit. The worst part of all is that no one ever seemed eager to find the answers for them. Because I guess when a woman like Tamla ends up dead after a night out in a county like Forsyth, the reality is the system there isn't built to dig deeper.

It's built to look the other way and keep people out and just move on with business as usual. All right, everyone, so that's going to do it for this week's episode of EveryTen, Hope you all enjoyed it. If you did, please do me a solid before going on to the next episode and rate and review our podcast. I just got word that 95% of our regular listeners have not, and it would really help us out.

I appreciate it very much, and thank you for tuning in. Remember to come on back next week for another episode filled with scary, strange, and mysterious stories. Because you never know. Maybe your town will be next.