Going West: True Crime - The Friday the 13th Copycat Killer // 247

Episode Date: October 26, 2022

In October of 1988, an 18-year-old man in Massachusetts dressed as Jason Voorhees and set off to kill a young woman. Obsessed with the horror franchise Friday the 13th, he wanted to impersonate his favorite character and commit a murder. So he did. This is the murder of Sharon Gregory, and the story of the Friday the 13th Copycat Killer. BONUS EPISODES patreon.com/goingwestpodcast CASE SOURCES 1. Greenfield Recorder: https://www.recorder.com/Milestones-18351972 2. Court TV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FqRYpQHxkg 3. All That's Interesting: https://allthatsinteresting.com/murders-inspired-by-horror-movies/3 4. UPI: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/11/01/Fear-stalks-streets-of-Greenfield-on-Halloween/3278594363600/ 5. AP: https://apnews.com/article/30277ed058513b9f7550f07ca742f38b 6. The Recorder: https://apnews.com/article/30277ed058513b9f7550f07ca742f38b 7. Find A Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/187326533/sharon-gregory 8. The Recorder: https://www.newspapers.com/image/841419152/?terms=sharon%20gregory&match=1 9. The Recorder: https://www.newspapers.com/image/841420411/?terms=sharon%20gregory&match=1 10. The Recorder: https://www.newspapers.com/image/841418631/ 11. My Life of Crime: https://mylifeofcrime.wordpress.com/2006/07/26/sharon-gregory-murder/ 12. Sharon's obituary: https://www.newspapers.com/image/841421982/?article=c0a14ae8-f704-4339-aba4-8b4be4da211a Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on to crime fans? I'm your host Tee. And I'm your host Daphne. And you're listening to going west. Howdy everybody. Hope you're having a wonderful day and wonderful week. Thank you so much for joining Heath and I for yet another episode of going West. Good to have you here. Today is episode. I found sometime this year and I have been waiting to cover it. I felt like just because it's Friday the 13th and kind of like a spooky topic, it'd be good to cover in October because what a bizarre story we are about to discuss. And also today we're gonna talk about my favorite horror franchise, which is Friday the 13th. I'm a huge Jason Voorhees fan,

and it actually has a lot to do with this case today. Yeah, which is what makes it so insane and so disturbing and disgusting. So things again in advance for tuning in. And also if you guys want more episodes, we just released a brand new Patreon bonus episode on the murder of Martha Moxley. That takes place in Connecticut

on the night before Halloween. Was that not an insane story? Yeah, super, super crazy with lots of different twists and turns and suspects as well. Yeah, and as I was researching it, I almost wanted to stop and discover it on going west instead because it's not just crazy because of what happened to her,

but because of the family history of her alleged killer and how he is connected by marriage to the Kennedys and just all this like you're saying corruption and CD family history of the alleged killer and it's just wild. So if you want to listen to that story and like 75 others on our Patreon, head over to patreon.com slash going west podcast. Also, don't forget to check out the new dark parts episode that is gonna be out on Thursday. That's gonna be our Halloween episode. So definitely go subscribe and listen to that one.

Oh yeah, it's gonna be a good one, huh? Yeah, definitely. All right, guys, this is episode 247 of Going West, so let's get into it. In October of 1988, an 18-year-old man in Massachusetts dressed as Jason Voorhees and set off to kill a young woman. Obsessed with the horror franchise Friday the 13th, he wanted to impersonate his favorite character and commit a murder. So he did.

This is the murder of Sharon Gregory and the story of Barbara and Edward Gregory, and she had a twin sister named Cheryl. The girls grew up in Greenfield, Massachusetts, which is a city of about 13,000 people and it's two hours west of Boston. Sharon was very active in her school's community and was a member of the flag corps in her sophomore year, and in her junior year, she was a member of the Distributive Education Clubs of America or DECA.

And many of you probably know what DECca is or perhaps were even involved in it when you were in high school But if you don't know it is an international organization for high school and college-aged students with the purpose of fostering Leadership in the fields of finance, management, hospitality and marketing. Damn. I could have really used that in high school Right. It teaches about any of that. Yeah, that sounds very useful. So Sharon also received a certificate for participating in Greenfield High School's peer education counseling program. And she was a member of the school newspaper staff in her junior and senior years.

So she was doing a ton of stuff. And she majored in college preparatory studies in high school. And after graduating from Greenfield High School in 1988, 18-year-old Sharon began attending Greenfield Community College, majoring in liberal arts with a concentration on art. She was fascinated with psychology and had been enjoying the psychology course that she was taking in her first semester, which is something I love about colleges being able to take different courses that you're interested in because she might not have realized her

interest in psychology had she not taken a class since that's not what she was going to school for. Very true. So Sharon also worked part-time in the Food Service Department at nearby Franklin Medical Center and had worked at a local-time in the food service department at nearby Franklin Medical Center and had worked at a local nursing home in the past. She loved and valued helping people above all else. And Sharon and Cheryl lived at home with their parents in Greenfield while they completed their studies. Shortly before Halloween in 1988, Sharon, a generally happy, kind, and well-adjusted person,

was embroiled in some difficulties with a former classmate, 19-year-old Mark Branch. Sharon needed to complete an assignment building a profile of someone struggling with mental illness, and Sharon had asked Mark for his assistance. Now Mark, who had been struggling with his mental health, anger, and aggression since his adolescence, obliged, and even gave her physical documents detailing his condition and his diagnosis. I feel like this seems like a really touchy assignment. Assignment? Yeah, I was going to say it's kind of a fucked up assignment to be real.

I understand it if it's for the purpose of learning, but it say it's kind of a fucked up assignment to be real. I understand it if it's you know It's for the purpose of learning, but it's also just feels kind of like targeting. Yeah, it's like go find somebody who's mentally ill and then Go dying about all the shit that's you know going on with them Yeah, and it's like if you're gonna do an assignment like this maybe the better route would be like Why don't you go to a facility and learn to understand through the people who work there or whatever, but it's like. Yeah, that makes more sense.

Yeah, I don't know. I feel weird about that. I agree. Sharon had confided in her twin sister Cheryl that she was feeling pretty uneasy about Mark and that she felt as if he was always staring at her and that it made her uncomfortable. But before we get into that, let's talk a little bit more about Mark Branch.

Mark grew up in Greenfield with his parents Betty and Richard, and Richard worked at a nearby nuclear power plant and the family maintained a beautiful home on Meadow Lane, an affluent part of town. Now Mark was known by family, classmates, and friends as quiet and reserved, so friends remember him being ridiculed and ostracized. Mark had been getting into trouble for his behavior since he was a kid, and while attending Greenfield High School, which is the same high school that Sharon Gregory attended, he kept a list of women that he liked and would rotate making sexually explicit phone calls to each of them.

So a classmate of his at Greenfield High School also remembers getting letters from him detailing how he was going to kill her, and that she was not the only student who had received one. That is so terrifying. Just all of this, I mean, the list of girls, and then just calling all of them, like making your rounds and sexually harassing them on the phone. Yeah.

And then telling a classmate that you're gonna kill somebody by writing letters, like it's just so creepy. It's definitely serial killer activity, for sure. Oh, absolutely. So she claims that he had always been a social outcast, Oh, creepy. It's definitely like serial killer activity, for sure. Oh, absolutely. So she claims that he had always been a social outcast, saying, quote, he's been ridiculed most of his life. He's been planning to kill someone ever since he was a kid, and this was said by a female

student who wanted to remain anonymous. And this classmate also recalls him putting a scalpel through a photo of her and then sticking it to her locker and pulling a knife on another female student around the time. Things like this are so difficult because, I mean, if he is making an active threat saying he's going to kill someone and writing a letter and putting a scalpel through a photo and putting it on someone's locker, like, I feel like that is enough to report them, but obviously they were probably scared to do this at the time. Well, yeah, definitely.

And you know, Mark's parents actually did have to take him out of that high school. Right. And they did. They pulled him out of Greenfield High School and they sent him to New Salem Academy, a private alternative school, about 30 minutes outside of Greenfield. Did you hold on, this is making me think of this kid I went to high school with. He, I don't know where he is today

and he was so terrifying, but he would just like come up to you, like he did this to me on multiple occasions and would like point at me and say that I was gonna die in a fire. Wow, that's really creepy. No, I didn't have a good idea. I mean, we definitely had some strange students,

but they were pretty harmless. I mean, you know what I mean? Like, I never had anybody point at me and say that I was gonna die. The things he said were so disturbing, and I was always just freaked out by him in middle and high school, and I just, I don't think anybody ever reported him

or said anything, and I remember I was too scared to do that so I'm just thinking about how they would feel at this time and how I understand that but was he just a random person that you didn't even like interact with and he just randomly like just chose you I mean it was just we had gone to school with each other for a long time so like we knew who each other were but he always had really disturbing things to say. So, anyway, sorry, not relevant, but just I'm just making the connection of it's scary when you go to school with a kid like this. So the trouble followed Mark to his new school when he threatened to kill yet another female student after she tried to befriend him.

A friend of Mark's claim that he may have even attempted to kill a young woman on Halloween of 1987, but this claim was never substantiated. And his friend, Darryl, I think it's Lenelli. Oh, Derek. Oh, Derek Lenelli. Yeah. Derek Lenelli said, quote, Mark would always talk about killing people. However, Derek never took these claims seriously,

saying, quote, Mark was a passive quiet person. If you first met him, you would just think that he was kind of a shy kid. In addition to Greenfield High and New Salem Academy, Mark also attended new direction school, which is a secondary special education school that included therapy and taught just about 30 students at a time.

In addition to multiple different high schools, Mark underwent two treatment programs for emotionally disturbed adolescents and was also institutionalized at one point after trying to take his own life. According to one report, Betty and Richard Branch, quote, spent 15 years and thousands of dollars trying to find adequate treatment for Mark. And after finishing a tumultuous journey through high school, Mark was working at a local stop and shop. But everyone who knew Mark agreed on one thing.

He had a morbid fascination with the most gruesome of horror movies, especially those in which women are brutally murdered. Now I just want to say this real quick and I've said this so many fucking times before. Just because you watch horror movies does not make you a killer or a bad person or disturbed There are plenty of people who love horror movies. I am one of those people and I don't think I'm disturbed So I just want to put that out there for anybody who's thinking that we may be trying to bash on people who watch those films We are absolutely not because we are those people exactly This is just specifically to this guy who was actually disturbed

here to particular affinity for the friday the thirteenth franchise which we mentioned in the intro and dare remember to mowning multiple hockey mass that were modeled after the one that jason voreys war in the friday the thirteenth movies now i know uh... jason war a multitude of different hockey mass but seems like Mark was also a collector of these hockey masks. Yeah, he probably had ones from the different movies, the different masks. Yeah, and he was even planning on dressing

as Jason that coming Halloween. On the evening of October 23rd, 1988, Derek hosted a birthday party which Mark attended. Now, Derek remembers Mark leaving the party to go hang out with Sharon Gregory and a few other friends, although it's never been confirmed whether or not that is true. Derek said that Sharon was well aware of Mark's struggles with mental health and that she was sympathetic to them.

Mark had discussed his diagnosis in a group of friends that included Sharon, and when she expressed interest in seeing these psychiatric evaluation forms, he took them from his parents' house and he gave them to Sharon. Derek remembers, quote, I was there when he handed it to her. Derek took Mark under his wing in a way and was trying to help him put his past behind him. They saw each other almost every day during the summer in early fall of 1988, and although Derek knew that Mark had problems that he needed to work on,

he was very protective of his friend. Derek said, quote, Mark had always said that he wouldn't amount to anything. People looked down on him, I pityed him. People took wicked advantage of him. It always irked me that he let people treat him so bad. On Monday, October 24, 1988, the day after Derek's birthday party Sharon's twin sister Cheryl called 911, reporting that someone had attacked her

sister early that afternoon. Around 12.30 p.m., police were dispatched to the Gregory home on South Shelburne Road in Greenfield, and what they found was fit for a slasher movie. So Sharon was in the bathtub of the upstairs bathroom, fully clothed, but covered in blood. There was a trail of blood leading up the stairs through the hallway and into the bathroom. No murder weapon was ever recovered, but when a distraught Cheryl explained the developing situation with Mark, detectives went to Mark's family home immediately, which was just a short drive from the Gregory's family home. Mark's mom Betty answered the door,

claiming that Mark was not home, but that she had just seen him a short while ago around 1030 that morning. And ironically, earlier that day, he had a meeting with his counselor at the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission who were monitoring his behavior. He had returned home from that meeting and then left again, claiming that he was heading out to meet a friend named Scott Landry.

Betty explained that her son, Mark, had been driving his gray 1983 Chevrolet Chevette, and a manhunt began immediately, as police were convinced that Mark was to blame for the brutal slang of 19-year-old Sharon Gregory. Around 6.30 p.m. that evening, as the horrifying news circulated the neighborhood, a call came in from a neighbor of the Gregory's that he had been home watching TV around noon that day when he heard a car door close and saw a grey car near the driveway of Sharon's house. It had been parked in the street, but the front of the car was actually blocking

the driveway. The neighbor watched a man emerge whom he described as clean cut about 6 feet tall with dark hair wearing jeans and a denim jacket. Between three and five minutes later, he saw the car pull away from the house with what appeared to be the same driver. Then about 30 minutes later, he observed Cheryl's car pulling into the driveway. And then a short time after that, police cars swarmed the scene. So all of this really took place very quickly. Yeah, and great that this man was able to witness it, especially being able to

identify a great car knowing that Mark has a great car. Yes. So after comparing the neighbor's description with current photos of Mark Branch, they were able to confirm that it was in fact the same person that Sharon had feared. But now he was nowhere to be found. Police then tracked down the friend of Marks who was the last person to have seen him before he was believed to have murdered Sharon, Scott Landry. Mark had been complaining about car trouble.

Apparently, his air conditioning wasn't working properly, and he was almost out of gas, so he asked Scott to drive him to his rehab appointment to which Scott obliged. Scott picked Mark up around 8.15 a.m. and then escorted him to his appointment. And then afterward Scott picked him up again and then they returned to Mark's house, picking up the air conditioning unit for his car, and then loading it into Scott's truck. And it's not really clear why, but we're guessing Scott was going to try and maybe fix it or just kind of help him out.

Exactly. And then the two brought the unit over to Scott's house, also in Greenfield, around 9.15 a.m. So first, they watched MTV for a while in Scott's living room before he received a call from a very agitated Sharon Gregory at 10-07 AM, and reportedly she had been crying. When Scott asked if she was okay, she said that she wasn't sure. Sharon asked if Scott had a car with him and Scott replied that he didn't, although it's unclear why he said that because he had been driving his dad's car with Mark all day. She had tried calling her boyfriend Chris, but he was in school and not getting back to her. And whether this was the reason for her crying or not, we don't know,

but Sharon seemed to be stranded at her house with car trouble, and Scott walked her through how to jump start a car, telling her to call back if she couldn't get it to start. He didn't hear from her again after this, and Scott remembers Mark asking if Sharon was home alone at the time, to which Scott responded that she was. After the phone call was Sharon, Mark excused himself to one of the bedrooms to make a phone call of his own.

And then he told Scott that he needed to pick up his paycheck from stop and shop. So Scott dropped Mark back off at home at around 11.30 a.m. And the management of stop and shop confirmed that he had never collected the check. So obviously that's very suspicious. He asks if Sharon is home alone, would you? Why would you want to know that? And then he's already caught in a lie. Yeah. And then suddenly right after that call ends, he has to leave to go pick up his check that he never picks up. Right. So later, Scott's mom actually called their house telling Scott that she had heard that one of the Gregory twins had killed themselves.

So alarmed Skott set out to find Cheryl's boyfriend, Peter, and Sharon's boyfriend, Chris. Now Skott was unable to locate Peter, but caught Chris leaving school for the day and informed him that one of the girls had died, but that he didn't know which one. So the two hurried over to the Gregory's house and learned the truth about what had really happened to Sharon that day. Scott remember telling detectives that Mark had often wondered aloud what it would feel like to kill someone, and that he had an obsession with horror movies and especially with Friday the 13th and its villain Jason.

Scott also revealed a new piece of information that became invaluable to the investigation. Mark had mentioned repeatedly within the last week that he was mad at the Gregory girls. According to Scott, Mark said that, in addition to withholding his psychiatric evaluation documents for her school project, Sharon had taken photographs of Mark that he wanted back and that he alleged that the two were mocking him. A search of Sharon's room revealed two pictures of Mark on her desk. As they canvas the entire town of Greenfield looking for Mark, in autopsy was performed on Sharon, and the details were even more brutal than police initially thought.

The murder weapon was believed to be a knife with a width of about 1.5 inches, and a blade with a length of about 5 inches. She had been stabbed a dozen times to her front, and a dozen times to her back. Her throat had been slashed injuries that Sharon had sustained. So the morning after the murder, which was October 25th, police received a report of an abandoned car in Buckland, Massachusetts, which is like a small rural town, about 20 minutes west of Greenfield. Mark's gray Chevrolet Chevette was found on the side of the road

near a densely wooded area. And a search of the vehicle conducted by the state medical examiner revealed blood on the accelerator, the steering wheel, both brake pedals, the gear shift, the emergency brake, two door handles, and the carpet beneath the driver's seat. So this was obviously very horrific to find that much blood in so many different places within his car.

Yeah, and this helps us, you know, kind of realize why there was a trail of blood out of the bathroom because he probably walked in it and then traced it around the house enough to be able to walk through the whole house outside and into the car and it still be on the carpet. Yeah, so we're assuming here that the blood

was probably on his person and he just walked out with all this blood on him. Yeah, he himself just got all of her blood that was on him onto his car. Yeah, obviously not enough for that neighbor to notice it from, you know, his window, but enough to get it all over his car by the time he walked through her entire house. Yeah, and I wonder like what the distance was between this witness and the driveway or his car, because I mean, it would be kind of hard to miss somebody that was completely covered in blood.

I mean, I'm sure he was just like looking out the window. Obviously, it wasn't suspicious enough to where he was examining him, but enough to glance out, oh, that guy's leaving again, and then continue watching TV probably. Sure, I guess that makes sense. So police searched the surrounding brush and even conducted helicopter and canine searches of the area, but found no sign of mark. Remember, mark is still missing.

Based on the amount of blood observed at the scene, police believe that his clothing would also contain a significant amount of blood. Detective spoke with Cheryl again that day and further probed her on the possible motive behind Mark killing her sister. And Cheryl explained that back in August, so about two months earlier, a few of them had been hanging out in Scott's living room, including Mark and Cheryl. And she claimed that Mark allowed his psychological profile to be taken home and examined, but that he asked that they burn it afterward. Cheryl says that she cut Mark's name out of the documents to ensure that he would remain anonymous.

That night, he had also apparently bragged to Cheryl about having chased a girl with a knife when he was in middle school, and that the only reason why he hadn't stabbed her was because he tripped in fell while running after her. He also told Cheryl that he was planning, quote, something similar for that coming Halloween, but didn't disclose details or explain who he had planned on targeting. And that must have been so horrifying to kind of think back to that conversation. Like, I wonder how she felt during that conversation. Did she think he was kidding?

Did she just not know what to do with that information and hope that he wasn't serious? But then to know, oh my God, he did this to my sister and not that she could have done anything to stop him, but, you know what I mean? Yeah, reflecting back on that conversation must be absolutely painful to think about that. Exactly.

So, on Saturday, October 22, 1988, two days before Sharon's murder, Scott called her at home asking if she still had the papers and claiming that Mark wanted them back. Cheryl said that they were in her room, and police searched the girl's rooms extensively, but were never able to find any signs of the documents. Pointing to Mark even more that he more than likely took the papers with him because he was so upset about having given them to her himself. That seems to be the case. So, on the morning of the murder, their parents had left early for work, and Sharon was coming

out of the shower when Cheryl went to school around 8.45 am that morning, leaving the front door unlocked. On October 26th, with Mark still at large, police issued a search warrant of the branch his home. What they found confirmed what everyone who knew Mark had suspected he was capable of. His obsession with horror movies had gone too far. An employee at the local video rental store, Video Expo 1, where Mark would also pick up occasional work hours, said that Mark rented, quote, �Strictly Gore, period.

The Goryer, the Better. His bedroom was fit for a serial killer too. The Greenfield captain of police said that it looked like it was straight out of the pages of Good Housekeeping. Quote, his room is probably one of the neatest rooms you would ever find. Everything was covered, everything was put away. But tucked away in the tidy space, police found a collection of horror memorabilia that rivaled the video stores.

35 tapes were found in cabinets in Mark's room, including but not limited to. Texas Chainsaw Masquer 2, Night of the Living Dead, Bloodsucking Freaks, Nightmare on Amstery 3, Psycho 2 and 3, Demons 1 and 2, The New York Ripper, The Howling, I Spit on nightmaron alms street three psycho two and three demons one and two the New York ripper the howling I spit on your grave the boogie man the evil dead faces of death into the gates of hell the grim reaper christen and zombie and that's all of this I love all of this yeah yeah and again obviously it's it's not like horror movies led him to be a killer they might have inspired him like you know Billy from scream but this was had to have already been in him

it's not like it's the movies fault you know yeah definitely and you know the only one out of that list that actually really horrified me it was faces of death because I think that's I think that's one of those videotapes. If I remember correctly, I had seen something like that in middle school or high school where they actually show real life dead bodies in the film. Yeah, that was a step too far for me. Like I can do blood and gore and stuff like that

in horror movies, but when it's something that's real like that, I don't know. It just freaked me out. No offense to anybody who watches those films or whatever, but I personally could not do it. Yeah, no, I wouldn't be able to. I'm not a Gore-Galim, like a moris suspend. So he was very into Gore, but of course, for the wrong reasons

not because he found it interesting, but because he was seemingly inspired by it. So 19 more horror films were found in his closet and many of them were duplicates, but he also had the soundtracks for many of these films on vinyl. His closet contained 53 horror books, including two copies of each of Jason Lives, Friday the 13th, Friday 13th, Part 2, Friday 13th, Part 3, Halloween, Halloween 2, a horror chronology called Stay Out of the Shower. Splatter. The Nightmare on Elm Street Companion. A stranger is watching. Christine, Kujo, and Donna the Dead. There were 110 copies of horror magazines, multiple pornographic videos, and even more copies

of Friday the 13th movies. He had outfits, including a Jason mask, a Michael Myers mask, a mask with fake blood on it, and combat boots reminiscent of the shoes that Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees wore. I think you have a lot of these masks too. I do. And I have nothing wrong with that. I have a lot of those items as well. Yeah, which is totally fine. Yeah, because you're not killing anybody and adorning his room was a Jason doll and Different horror movie posters and then finally they found a survival knife or an outdoor knife used usually in emergency situations a

Command-O knife which is like a double-ged dagger used for fighting, and a machete between 12 and 18 inches long. Yeah. Just knowing what we know about Mark, those having those things like normally I would just say, that's kind of like normal, like, you know, people like to collect things like that and no big deal, but just knowing these facts that we already know, that makes it even more disturbing. Well, and just motive wise, as we're going to learn, not trying to get ahead of myself,

this is relevant to his motive. So that's why we're telling you all about this. Yeah, so as you guys can imagine, it was a pretty somber Halloween for Greenfield that year, and trick-or-treating was all but canceled, with locals petrified that Mark would strike again. Remember, he's still on the loose.

Yeah, and he had said that he wanted to, you know, kill somebody at Halloween. So it would make sense that he would dress up as Jason or something and go around and kill somebody else. Yeah, true. It's scary thought. The local newspaper printed, quote, streets were virtually empty of costumed children on Halloween night as parents planned indoor activities and worried about a missing murder suspect whose grizzly

crime may have been inspired by horror films. The police chief in Buckland, where Mark's car was located, said quote, people were restless, they couldn't sleep, they weren't leaving their homes. One local mom wound up taking her kids out trick-or-treating anyway, but said that she was on edge the entire time. She said quote, My children aren't sleeping well in neither am I. Greenfield hosted a trick-or-treating event in the daylight on the Sunday afternoon before Halloween almost a week to the day after Sharon's murder.

Meanwhile, Derek said that he was actually worried for his friend. Rumors of vigilante justice had been circulating the town. Derek remembered asking two local hunters heading out for the day if they were going after Bucks or Does, to which they responded were going after branches in reference to Mark's last name. Derek said, quote, there's no way that he would have had the power or strength to bury that away. He was sure that Mark didn't have it in him to commit a second murder, and he hoped that

he would do the right thing and turn himself in, calling him, all of this aside, a good kid. Please were baffled when they found no sign of him for weeks. Tips and alleged sightings came in, but none were confirmed. They even hired a noted psychic detective named John Monty, hoping for answers from an untraditional approach. John's psychic services had been utilized in dozens of murders and missing persons' investigations. Then, five weeks after the murder, police finally got their suspect.

Mark's body was found on November 29, hanging by a belt from a tree in the woods of Buckland, near where his car was found. A Buckland local hunter had been scoping out the area and stumbled upon the body about a mile or 1.6 kilometers from Mark's own car. Police had come within 600 feet of his body in their initial search. They didn't suspect anyone else was involved and assumed that Mark had taken his own life out of guilt or fear of being caught. Based on the decomposition of the body, police believed that he had hanged himself mere hours

after committing the murder. So frustrating. And it's so crazy that they found his car and they didn't think to look in the immediate general air. I mean, 600 feet is not very fucking far. I mean, that's the thing. They did search the area, but not extensively enough, even though you would think that because this car is there,

he could be hiding somewhere in those woods, but I don't know, hindsight can be 2020 or two, I guess. Yeah, it's just crazy because we do see this in a lot of other cases where an item or something is found, and then they find something else like so close, and it's like, how would you guys miss it? I don't know, like, was it just not a thorough search or what? Right, no, I know what you mean.

And I mean, just so frustrating that he had taken his own life after this. And I wonder if he had regretted it like after actually committing a murder, he realized that that wasn't something that he enjoyed or it wasn't something that he was proud of or happy about. I mean, it kind of seemed like, you know, there's one of two scenarios. Either he knew he was going to get caught and he was going to go to prison for a very,

very long time. Or maybe don't commit murder or he felt guilty about the situation. To me, I don't know. It's hard for me to believe that he felt any sort of like remorse or guilt for doing it, because then why would you do it in the first place, I guess? But I don't know, it's hard to say. Yeah, just such a frustrating situation. So while it was a tragic end to such a tragic case,

just knowing that Sharon's loved ones would never see justice for her, there wasn't much else that law enforcement could do. According to police chief David McCarthy, he said, quote, in my opinion, the case is closed. There are no accessories, no other suspects. Our evidence was absolutely conclusive that Mark Branch committed the murder.

He has mentioned this to several friends and family members of his own. He fell through not only a crack in the system, but damned, huge craters in the system. I hope the Branch family comes forward and talks about the leaks in the mental system. Mr. Branch is an absolute fear that it's going to happen again. Mr. Branch told me there are a lot of marks out there. If there's any beauty in the story, it's that there is no hatred between the families. They both have been devastated by the loss

of their child. It's a very, very sad situation. One detective blamed horror movies themselves for, you know, this kind of behavior, occurring, saying quote, I hope deep down when the general public realizes how much paraphernalia of this kind there is it will have been downplayed a little but realistically we can do anything about it until the public stops watching this trash if there wasn't a fascination for jason

why the hell would they make seven sequels let's cut sorry that's funny quote sorry Sorry, guys. It's like, this just reminds me of like in the 80s, when they were going after like metal music, and D-Snighter had to go to court because they're like, oh, metal music is making kids want to kill people. Like, no, come on.

This is just, I mean, to me, this is more of an isolated incident. And I know this is a whole discussion. You can bring up video games, like violent video games as games as well like shooter games like that you play as well. Yeah, I think this is it's always an excuse to me and this that's what it seems I think this is a mental health issue. Absolutely. And they try to blame it on everything else. And it's like I've actually felt the safest as a person within the horror community because I know I know these people they're good people and you know this is like you said a very I'm but many of them and this is a very isolated incident. Yeah totally. But obviously there are people out there who have been inspired by horror movies to murder people but again I think what you and I are saying more so is that is that there has to be something else in you,

not just the movie, watching the movie itself, because you and I watched Screamin' for the 13th and every other horror movie on the planet, and we are not inspired to murder somebody. Yeah, very, very true. There has to be something else in there that makes you wanna do that. Yeah, and honestly, these type of people

just give horror enthusiast a really fucking bad name, and it sucks. I agree. I am going to bring up a few other kind of copycat cases though, just because we're talking about it, because obviously this does happen. So for example, in 1998, inspired by the Scream franchise,

two teenagers, 17 year old Mario Castillo, and his 14 year old cousin Samuel Ramirez, stabbed Mario's mother to death. And upon being arrested, the boys admitted that they were inspired by the movies to start committing murders. And they were even planning on purchasing the, you know, famous scream ghost face mask

and a voice modulator. They had been plotting the murder for years and also planned on killing as many as five other people. And Mario had even targeted a classmate of his school because he claimed that she looked like Drew Barrymore, which, as most of us know, is the first kill in the screen franchise. And actually the most deadly massacre in Australian history, known as the Port Arthur Massacre, was supposedly inspired by the serial killing doll Chucky in the Child's

Play movies. So, 29-year-old Martin Bryant murdered 35 people with a semi-automatic rifle over a two-day period in 1996. And this is cited as the main reason why guns are now illegal in Australia. Kind of crazy. I remember reading about that story and just how crazy an eccentric he was. Yeah, well actually similar to Mark Branch, Martin was remembered as kind of like a loner who was bullied throughout his childhood.

And he said that horror movies provided an escape for him and he especially resonated with Chuckie. Martin's ex-girlfriend remembered, quote, he loved Chuckie and used to go on about it all the time. It comes to life and has to kill this boy so it can be real, and then it just goes around killing all these people. There was a phrase in that movie that he used to say, don't fuck with the Chuck.

And he used to get excited when he would say that, he would think he was really cool. There have also been murderers who claim that they based their crimes on Halloween, a nightmare on Elm Street, and the exorcist, just to name a few. Yeah, and actually we did a Patreon episode about some screen murders as well.

A couple teenagers in Pocotello, Idaho, killed their classmates, Cassie. I can't- Charter. Cassie's daughter, yes. And they said that they were inspired by the screen murders and that they wanted to be ghost face. And they actually dressed up as ghost face

when they killed her alone as she was- Which is- Which is- So terrifying and so horrible. And it just gives it all a bad name. So court TV sought to make a documentary about the murder which Sharon's family were initially pretty critical of which is totally understandable and Cheryl agreed to talk to the production company but only if they told the story on her and her family's terms to honor her sister

and nothing more. Court TV did eventually produce an episode on Sharon's case, but ultimately, Cheryl declined to participate. In 2018, the family were on the news once again, but this time for a happier reason. Barbara and Edward were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary with Cheryl in attendance. On December 4, 1988, a vigil was held for Sharon in Greenfield. The local woman who organized the memorial said quote, �There's been a lot of focus on Mark Branch.

We want to focus on Sharon Gregory as a woman and as a person. We want to take some time to honor Sharon Gregory and to allow family and friends in Franklin County to come and do some sharing about what they knew about her. We view it as another example of violence against women. We want to recognize it and name it as that. The vigil also hosted a martial arts demonstration designed to help women learn how to defend themselves. And that evening, every church bell in town rang out at the same time to honor Sharon Gregory.

Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode and on Friday we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into. Yeah, what a crazy and just devastating story. This just shouldn't have happened to kids died for no reason or not to kids. They were adults, but they were young adults. So just a devastating story. Thank you everybody for tuning in and hope you're having a very spooky month. I know we keep saying that, but we haven't really done anything spooky or Halloween related

this month. At least not yet. Yeah, but we're really excited. We're going to Halloween Hornets this week at Universal Studios. And yeah, and then we're going to have a Halloween party really looking forward to that. Yeah, we've got some family visiting, so it's gonna be a really great time. Hopefully you all get to spend time with your families as well.

Take your children, trick or treating, have a really good and fun and safe Halloween. All right, guys, so for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger. Enjoy! Thank you. you