Going West: True Crime - Ward Weaver III // 67

Episode Date: April 29, 2020

A West Coast man with a rough upbringing abused everyone that was close to him as he went from child to teen to adult. Between sexual abuse and murder, he left no stone unturned. But in 2002, when his daughters best friends disappeared under suspicious circumstances, a man hunt ensued. This is the story of Ashley Pond, Miranda Gaddis, and Ward Weaver III. CITED SOURCES https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Miranda_Gaddis_and_Ashley_Pond https://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-city/2014/02/francis_weavers_father_grandfa.html https://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-city/2014/02/ward_weaver_iii_like_his_fathe.html https://medium.com/a-murder-runs-through-it/miranda-gaddis-bf481a92e1a4 https://medium.com/a-murder-runs-through-it/miranda-gaddis-bf481a92e1a4 https://murderpedia.org/male.W/w/weaver-ward.htm Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on true crime fans? I'm your host Heath and I'm your other host Daphne and you're listening to Going West. So usually we do the shout outs in the beginning but we've gotten a lot of comments from people that they would rather have it in the end. So, we're gonna put out at the end of the episode. So sorry to those who are getting shoutouts, but we're still gonna have them, so don't fret. Yeah, definitely.

And the more the show goes on, the more shoutouts we actually get every week. So, just for your guys to say, we won't have like 20 minutes of shoutouts before the show even starts. We'll have them now in the end, but if you guys do want to shout out in the show, make sure you head over to Apple Podcasts and leave us a five-star review, but make sure you leave your name and your location.

And same thing goes for Patreon. We're gonna have those in the end too. We appreciate everyone who is joining Patreon. If you guys want bonus episodes, head on over to patreon.com slash going west podcast. We just released one a few days ago on the murder of Linda Sobek, crazy case, and we're about to release a new one for the $10 tier,

and that one is freaking wild. Yeah, it's really wild. My mind is actually being blown right now, just researching that case. So if you guys want to dive into that case, make sure, like Daphne said, head over to patreon.com, slash going west podcast. It really helps out our show and it helps going west keep going. So thank you so much to all of you and big shout to my brother Everett for making our beats for us. He goes under the name plant based. That's plant B-A-S-S-D.

And he's the best. Love you, Ab. All right, guys, this is episode 67 of Going West. So let's get into it. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The

world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world.

The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world.

The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. Wardweaver is serving life in prison for the kidnapping and murders of Ashley Pond and Miranda Gattis, but why he did it and how we're still relatively unknown and unreported until now. Portland, Oregon, a community understandably racked with fear after two young girls believed to have been abducted, disappeared in the space of two months. At the first of banish was 12-year-old Ashley Pond, last

same January 9th, walking to a school bus stop. But Ashley's good friend also disappeared on her way to school without a trace. I don't think any of us want him to be able to get off on, you know, something like to get off easily and just slap on the wrist or anything. I think he needs to be punished to the full extent. Ward, Francis Weaver III, was born on April 6, 1963 in Humboldt County, California, to Trish and Ward Weaver, Jr. And he also has a sister named Tammy. When he was just four years old, his father Ward abandoned he and he and his mother and Tammy. So Trish was left to take care of Ward and Tammy by herself.

But a few years later, she began dating a man named Bob Budrow, and the two ended up getting married. But Bob was very abusive and he was a heavy drinker, so his abusive behavior only got worse when he drank. And of course, this made things much harder for Ward growing up in this kind of atmosphere. And Heath and I were talking about this earlier, how his childhood kind of seems like a lot of other serial killers, childhoods, because, you know, it was filled with abandonment, neglect, and abuse. So definitely not a good recipe. Yeah, seems pretty, I mean, I would say stereotypical

of most serial killers, but not all. So around this time that Trish married Bob, the four of them moved from Northern California to Portland, Oregon. So as word continued to grow up, he displayed lots of inappropriate behaviors. Before he was even a teenager, he had already sexually and physically abused one

of his female relatives, and his sister Tammy has confirmed this as well. And this wasn't the only time that Ward acted out against someone in his family. He also reportedly beat up his stepbrother Robert constantly, and Robert by the way is Bob's son. When Ward began school at Marshall High School in Portland, his anti-social behavior got even worse, and he even continued to sexually abuse that family member. And in 1981, when Ward was just 18 years old, she actually reported to the police that he beat and raped her. But at this time, after he graduated high school, he joined the Navy. So the county decided that they were not going to move forward with pressing charges because

he had joined the Navy and was planning to leave the area. But until then, he had been riding his bike to work every day to a Portland restaurant. Which is such bullshit. I mean, someone comes forward stating that they've been abused throughout their childhood by a family member and they just wave it away because he joined the Navy. And I read a quote that said, the prosecutor thought it was useless to pursue the charge, which is really sad. Yeah, that's really sad. Ward worked as a cook on the boat to the Philippines, which was where they docked. But he didn't stay in the military long anyway, because he was discharged less than a year after enlisting because of his excessive drinking

which in turn caused him to neglect his duties. But before this happened, he met a woman named Maria in the Philippines and their relationship continued after he was sent home to Portland. He brought Maria over with him and they moved into Ward's parents' house. Shortly after moving back to Oregon, Maria realized that she was pregnant. But just months later, Ward had physically assaulted her so bad that she had to go to the hospital. Maria stated that he slapped her, pulled her hair, and banged her head against their bed. And at this point, she was five months pregnant.

And she didn't end up pressing charges against him because supposedly Ward's mom Trish talked her out of it. And four months later, their son Francis was born. And just by the way, they didn't know it at the time, but Francis wasn't Ward's biological son. Oh shit. So this same year that Ward was discharged and Francis was born, something huge happened with Ward's father Ward Weaver, Jr. and remember he abandoned the family when Ward was just four or so he wasn't in his life pretty much at all. He worked as a long distance trucker and one night he came across a couple having car trouble, an 18-year-old named Robert Redford and 23-year-old named Barbara Levoix.

They were pulled off of the side of the highway on Highway 58 and to hatch a B. California when Wardweaver Jr. pulled his truck over to help them. He first asked Robert to come help him get something out of his truck. Then he hit Robert over the head with a metal pipe until he was dead. After killing Robert, he kidnapped Barbara. Then he raped her and took her to his home which was in Orville, California, which is in Northern California near Sacramento, where he tied her to a tree in his backyard. They got into a tussle because Barbara was trying to fight back and she ended up biting

his finger pretty hard. And this just pissed Ward off even more, so he strangled her and then buried her in Robert in his backyard. And again I know it's confusing because they're both named Ward, but just a reminder this is Ward Weaver's father, so the man this whole podcast is about, this is his dad that just killed this couple. And he wasn't found guilty of this crime for about three years. The police caught him because Ward had told a prison informant about what he did, and the police then got a warrant to search his backyard for the bodies, which they found. Again, Ward, Jr. is the dad.

Ward, Weaver, the third is the dude we're talking about in this podcast episode. Yeah, it's a little confusing. There's a lot of fucking Ward Weavers going on here, so just try and keep up with us. Just give your son a different name than you please. I mean yeah So the same year that ward weaver junior was found guilty of murdering the couple and he was sentenced to death Which was in 1984 Ward his son married Maria and this point, their son Francis was almost three years old, and they picked up and moved to Bakersfield, California. Now, in this time, they also had two other children,

but I couldn't find anything about their birthdays or what their names were, so right now, just know that Ward and Maria, again, who he met in the Philippines, have three children, and one of which is not Ward's biological child. So on Father's Day 1986, Ward was 23 years old and spent the day drinking lots of beer and vodka screwdrivers, and he also smoked weed and took speed. At this time, Ward and Maria and their kids were staying in Fairfield, California, where they were visiting their friends, the Ordonas, and Fairfield, by the way, is in northern California.

Even while they stayed there, Ward and Maria fought all the time and Ward openly beat on all of his children. Ward's friends had two teenage daughters who were also living in the house and on that Father's Day evening they were driving past a bowling alley when they saw Ward there and since he was staying at their house they decided to give him a lift back to the house. But while they were driving home Ward asked to pull over so he could take a leak but after getting out of the car he hit 15 year old Jocelyn in the head with a concrete block. Jocelyn collapsed and Ward put her 16-year-old sister Jennifer in a headlock. Luckily, they both recovered from this attack. But after this, Ward was arrested and

imprisoned for three years because of what he did. Throughout this time, he and Maria actually stayed married, and once he got out of prison in 1989, they moved to Canby, Oregon, which is about 25 miles or 40 kilometers south of Portland. It was there that they opened up a gift shop and had their fourth child, Mallory. About four years later, in 1993, Maria had finally had enough of Ward's abusive behavior towards her and their children, so she filed for divorce as well as a restraining order against him. Because of Ward's temper towards his family, the police were called countless times due to domestic violence, and once it even got them evicted from their mobile home.

Ward didn't stay single for too long after they split up, because in 1995, he had a new girlfriend named Christie, who was 18 years old, and she had just graduated from the same high school that he had gone to. Oh, that's kind of weird. Yeah, I wasn't even surprised by that. So the two met on a blind date, thanks to their mutual friend,

and they actually met at a screening of Jurassic Park. Initially, Christy loved that word made her laugh and she was very charmed by him. And a lot of people did say this that he seemed like a really charming guy, but in his core he was just... A piece of shit. Yes. But things took a turn for the worse, of course, when she witnessed him slapping his son Francis. So that really freaked her out. And then, to make things even worse, one night during an argument, he beat her with an iron skillet,

and was then once again arrested. The charges were then dropped, and the two got back together. And just eight months after he attacked her, they got married. So now Ward is 29 years old and married to his second wife, who he's abusing. This is just so sad to hear about. I mean, he attacked her with an iron skillet. Yeah, we haven't even gotten to the main part of this story, and he's already very much a horrible dude. Yeah, I already want him to rot in prison forever. A little over a year later, all four of Ward's children moved into Hien, Christie's place together,

and things seem to be going pretty well. They spend a lot of time together as a family watching movies and playing board games, but just a few months later, Ward began having an affair with someone he worked with. Ward worked in shipping, and the girl was having in a fair with was a data entry clerk at Leclaide Chain. I think that's how you say that. Which is a manufacturing company. And they stayed together on and off for a few years. And just four years after being married to Christy, they divorced and he continued his relationship with his coworker. After his divorce, he rented a house with his

new girlfriend in Oregon City, which is also just south of Portland. While they were there, and living with Ward's kids, his 12-year-old daughter Mallory entered a new middle school, where she began making new friends quickly and started bringing them over to the house for sleepovers. Two of her new best friends, who were also in sixth grade lived nearby and were named Ashley Pond and Miranda Gattis. Ashley was 12 years old and she was on the school's dance team so she spent a lot of her time practicing her routines with her friends on the squad and that's actually how these three girls became friends because they were all on the dance team. She was incredibly bubbly and sweet to

everyone she met, so it's no surprise that her goal in life was to go to college and become a veterinarian. She had two younger sisters and a younger brother, and Miranda Gattis was 13 years old, so a little bit older than the other two girls, but still in the same grade. And she was known to be a very outgoing and well-liked girl who loved spending time with her friends and talking about boys. But her passion in life was wrestling. In August 2001, Ashley Pond decided to go to the police after she had an inappropriate

interaction with Ward while she was over at his house hanging out with his daughter Mallory. She told the police that he had attempted to rape her. And by this time he was 38 years old, so this is very very much not okay. But official charges were never brought on ward for this, but Ashley definitely kept her distance from him after this because he really creeped her out. Five months after this incident, Ashley Pond went missing. ["Music"] ["Music"] On Wednesday, January 9, 2002, Ashley left her family's apartment around 8am to walk to the bus stop,

just like she did every morning before school, and the walk only took her about 8 minutes. But that day, Ashley never made it on the bus. Nor did she make it to school. They didn't think she ran away because she had dance practice after school, which she was really excited about. And Ashley had never run away before, and she didn't have any of her belongings other than her school materials. Her mom filed a police report, and she, along with Ashley's friends, searched everywhere for her. And Miranda actually lived in the same apartment building as her, but she hadn't seen

Ashley at all that morning. The police canvassed the woods, did a background check on her dad, and even looked at Ashley's internet history. But they didn't find any leads. In an effort to help raise money for Ashley's investigation, the school's dance team decided to put together a fundraiser, but this wasn't scheduled

until March 23, 2002. So about two and a half months after her disappearance. But two weeks before the fundraiser, on March 8th, Miranda Gattis disappeared. Just like Ashley, Miranda left after her mom went to work at around 8am to walk to the bus stop, but she never made it to school. And her mom found this out when her other daughter called her around 1.30pm and told her that she hadn't seen Miranda at school that day. Then she called the school for herself to find out that Miranda didn't show up to any of her classes that day. At this point, the FBI was involved, and they were sure that Miranda's disappearance

had to be connected to Ashley's, especially since they both disappeared while they were on their way to school. They hoped that the girls had just run off, but they really felt like someone had abducted them. After this, the school bus started picking kids up at their houses so they didn't have to go to the bus stop, where a potential predator could be lurking. Which was really great of the bus to do that and the school to decide to do that because, you know, they noticed these two girls went missing. So let's keep the other kids safe in case there is a predator out there

and these girls did not run away. And like I said, they lived very close by. It was just a few minute walk to the bus stop. So, I mean, more than likely either they were walking to school or they were standing at the bus stop waiting for the bus, but unfortunately no one witnessed them walking to school, they were standing at the bus stop waiting for the bus, but unfortunately no one witnessed them walking to school, no one witnessed the abduction, like somehow nobody saw anything on both occurrences. You know the other thing that I think is really

balsy here is the fact that the abductor abducted two girls who lived in the same apartment complex and they just happened to be really good friends, but I just find it really strange that he would take the chance of being seen possibly a second time by abducting a girl in the same spot. And in broad daylight, you know, this is the morning, and I don't know exactly what the street looks like or what the bus stop looks like.

I don't know if it's in like a busy neighborhood or what, but it reminds me of the JC Dewguard case that we covered a little while ago because she was abducted while she was walking to school. But I did see a photo of her walk and it was there was just trees everywhere and no houses. So that was definitely a more secluded walk. So, but I'm not sure for Ashley and Miranda's walk. Right, we have to take that into account. I would assume that apartment complexes are usually going to be more towards the city and less rural, but there's always possible, I mean this is Oregon, there's a ton of trees, so who knows how covered this this walk to the bus stop could be. That's true. Well, months passed and no one knew where these two girls had gone at all. They had a few casual suspects, but no one that they felt really confident about that they think

would have done this. This lasted for a few months until around July 2002, when they started looking into Wardweaver, which I don't know why it took them so long because of his history and because of Ashley's report to police. Right, I mentioned that to you. I don't know why they didn't say, hey, this little girl who is now missing reported to us that she was raped. Basically raped, yeah, by Ward Weaver. So why did they take that into account? I don't understand. Especially because that was a mutual connection between them because both of these girls were best friends with Mallory, whose dad is Ward Weaver. But again, since the charges didn't go through, I don't know if maybe this wasn't showing up in the system or what was going on, but they decided to go interview Ward. And after their interview, the investigators on the case decided to give him a polygraph test,

and he failed it. When he learned that he showed deception during the test, he stated that he had nothing to do with their disappearances, and in fact, before they went missing, he had done everything he could to help them. Ashley had a very rocky home life So he told investigators that he had tried to save her from her situation and that because of her situation at home She had more than likely run away and he thought Miranda did too to be with her. Oh, yeah, I'm I'm a good guy

I'm a good guy. I give these girls a place to stay and I only slightly try to like sexually abuse them But I but you know, I'm just telling you. I'm a good guy. I give these girls a place to stay and I only slightly try to like sexually abuse them But I but you know, I'm just telling you I'm a good guy Yeah, and we're gonna go more into Ashley and Miranda's home life in their past in a little bit here But yeah, it's funny that he kind of jumped to that trying to make him seem like the good guy in the situation and not at all the bad guy Right exactly and we see that happen in so many cases where, you know, at first, the suspect is saying, oh, I had nothing to do with it, then it's, oh, well, I was trying to help. You know, it's always trying to make it seem like it wasn't

their fault covering their tracks kind of thing. So, right. So during the time that Ward was becoming a suspect, he was working on a home project in his backyard. Of course he was. Yeah, so Ward's son stated that shortly after the girls disappeared, Ward dug a hole in the backyard and then covered it up with concrete. And his reasoning was because he was building a spot to put a hot tub. And apparently, when investigators questioned him about the concrete he poured, he started getting nervous and was stuttering while getting his response out.

And this news actually appeared in the popular Portland newspaper The Oregonian. When the paper questioned him about the concrete, he said, I'm putting in a jacuzzi, the last time I checked that wasn't against the law. Which I mean to be fair, it's obviously not a crime, but when you dig a hole and pour concrete in your backyard, after girls that you knew went fair, it's obviously not a crime, but when you dig a hole and pour concrete in your backyard after girls that you knew went missing, it's gonna raise questions. And we've seen situations like this in numerous shows

and movies like I know there was a scene similar to this in American Horror Story season one where he dug a hole, put a body in it, and then poured concrete and built a gazebo over it. Oh, I totally remember that episode. Oh my gosh, that's just bringing back memories. But it's not even the fact that he's, he knew these girls and he's digging a hole in putting concrete. It's the fact that he is on record having sexually abused one of the girls.

He's now a suspect in the case of these missing girls. And now he's pouring, or digging a hole in pouring concrete in. That is suspicious. So let's just touch on Ashley's home life just a little bit. She had a lot of issues with her mom and her biological dad. Her biological father wasn't in the picture much and she lived with her mom. But when her father did come around, she had told some people close to her that he had sexually abused her. She later reported this and he was indicted on 40 counts of rape and sexual abuse against Ashley. So, man, this poor girl. That's a lot of counts, especially to be charged for, and I'm really glad that she did

report it because she was so young and the fact that she was abused that much and she went forward and told people is amazing. But I mean the story with her dad is even more tragic because she thought that her biological dad was a dude named David Pond until she was about eight years old, but after some digging she discovered his name was Wesley Rothger. so totally different guy, so she reached down to him in hopes of having a relationship with him. But he turned out to be this absolutely horrific monster, and she, of course, immediately regretted inviting him into her life. And her mom, Laurie, would bring a lot of guys around the house who were criminals themselves, so

Ashley would subject to a lot of scary situations. And not only would her mom help put her in these situations, but she was also neglecting Ashley in her own ways. On one occasion about two years before Ashley disappeared, Laurie was super wasted and locked Ashley out of the house and Ashley ended up calling 911 for help. At that time, she was just 10 years old. Because Ashley didn't like her living situation, she spent a lot of her time at the Weaver's home hanging out with Mallory. And she was there so often that she even left her toiletries there.

But after being at Ward's house for a while, he came on to her. And six months before her disappearance, as we mentioned, she reported that Ward molested her. So she stopped going by their house and spent a lot of time at home. In a time like this, when a poor young girl has been sexually assaulted, you would hope that her family or mother would come to her side and be supportive of her. But after Ashley told her mom about what happened, she didn't care at all. She didn't do anything to back Ashley up or keep her safe. She didn't even really believe Ashley was telling the truth. And we'll come back to this in a little

bit. Well, it's crazy because not only her, but Miranda also had a really tough upbringing because her father was also a criminal. When Miranda was just six years old, her dad Jason Gattis was convicted of kidnapping and sexually assaulting two minors. And when police came to his house to arrest him, he used Miranda as a hostage. And remember she's six. So he then basically told the police that he would hurt her if they didn't go away, but they wrestled him to the ground and put him under arrest, luckily. And Miranda's mother's new boyfriend turned out to be a child molester as well, and he even sexually abused Miranda on occasion. So since Miranda had experienced abuse from her biological father and sexual abuse from

her mother's boyfriend, she and her siblings were taken out of their house or their apartment and placed into the foster system for about a year and a half. But they ended up moving back in with their mom Michelle in the end and it didn't appear that Michelle was abusive towards the children. It just seemed like it was mostly the men of the household. But Miranda received counseling for the abuse that she'd experienced at such a young age, and she even became an advocate for child abuse prevention. It's just so shocking and weird to me that there's this much, like, minor sexual abuse and assault in this story. However, there are this many sickos in this group of people. It's so weird.

Yeah, I don't really understand that. Maybe it has to do with the area. I'm not sure. I mean, I know that not everybody in Oregon is that way, so I mean, I grew up in Oregon, but didn't really ever spend any time in Oregon City, so I'm not sure. Regardless, it's fucked up that there's this many dudes in this area are in this story at least who are willing to do this to young kids like what a big reason Why Wardweaver was making headlines was because everyone knew his father had killed that young couple a few years prior and that he was serving life in prison for it So it was definitely a good story for the paper to tell of a potential, like, father-like,

son-murdered gene kind of situation, but Ward didn't do a good job of making himself look innocent at all. Because just a month after becoming a suspect, he raped his son Francis' 19-year-old girlfriend, and Francis was the one to call police about it. When they went to question the girlfriend, they could see a bunch of bruising around her neck. Francis also mentioned that his dad confessed to him that he had killed Ashley Pond and Miranda Gattis. Yeah, so which is so dumb, like you're a suspect in these two disappearances, and people are already really suspicious of you because of your past sexual and just abusive all around nature. And you're gonna do it again.

And this time it's your son's girlfriend. Yeah, it's, oh, it's so messed up. And when police were questioning her about it, she did say that he had caused the bruising around her neck because when he raped her, he also tried to strangle her. So this dude is just so stupid. Just wipe him off the earth. Luckily, unlike his other sexual assaults, he was actually arrested for this.

I feel like also in the past, he got off a lot where people, his wife didn't press charges, his, Christie, his next girlfriend didn't press charges, and then what happened with Ashley when he molested or raped her before she disappeared, charges weren't pressed then, and then remember when he was 18 and he went to the Navy, and that whole thing where he raped his family member, and he didn't get charged for that, like he got off way too many times. Yeah, and it wouldn't be a stretch to assume that he probably threatened the lives of those people,

so they were probably afraid and didn't want to press charges. And I'm sure he offended a ton of other times that we don't even know about, but for this occasion with Francis' girlfriend, he was arrested for the sexual assault of her, luckily. But since police had even more evidence now that Ward was abusive and violent, they then got a warrant to search his property because they were hoping that they would, you know, get a lead or find answers regarding Ashley and Miranda's disappearance. On August 25th, 2002, the first thing that they wanted to do was demo the backyard and see if Ward had been hiding anything under that slab of concrete

that he had built for his hot tub. And lo and behold, inside a barrel that was buried in a hole underneath the concrete, they found the remains of Ashley Pond just seven months after she disappeared. She was found fully clothed with a white rope around her neck that was connected to binding around her wrist. So this kind of put her in a fetal position in the barrel. And there was also plastic wrapped tightly around her body and then a silver tarp around the plastic and then put in the barrel. Which to me seems like he went through a lot to try to make sure that no one would know that she was under there by covering her up so much.

Oh yeah, this guy is so twisted he's going to go to any length that he can to make sure he covers his tracks and covers up his murders. But anyways, so they had found Ashley's body, but Miranda's body wasn't with her. So they scoured the rest of the home and yard to find any trace of her. And that's when they found the remains of Miranda Gattis in his shed. Her body was just partially clothed and she was bound by cords. Her body was put in a cardboard box and then taped tightly shut and wrapped in plastic. So same thing with her, especially since she wasn't buried, you know, he wrapped this box to make sure that no one would detect her.

Right, right. So, although it took a little over a week to confirm the identities, police knew who the remains belonged to. Just a month and a half later, in October of 2002, Wardweaver III was charged with aggravated murder, abuse of a corpse, sexual abuse, attempted rape, and attempted aggravated murder. Two years later, Wardweaver was on trial for the murders and he actually pleaded guilty, but he didn't explain to the court exactly how it all played out. He pleaded guilty to the two murder charges and then pleaded no contest to the other charges. For the murders, he took a plea deal which avoided him the death penalty, so instead he was to serve two life sentences without the possibility of parole.

And to be honest with you, who knows how many other victims there could be of Wardweaver III? Well, exactly, because if he was able to almost get away with these two murders and he got away with so many other crimes, like I can't even imagine. Yeah, I mean, it's very possible that there could be other victims that police don't even know about. And he was obviously super messed up and he did this his whole life. So this isn't just like a one-off situation. Yeah, typically with these types of guys,

it doesn't seem like, and especially the way that he went about wrapping the bodies, pouring concrete, it doesn't seem like he's inexperienced, yet killing and covering up those crimes. Yeah, that seems like, like he went to lengths to make sure that nobody would, like I said, detect, smell, find these bodies. And yeah, that makes sense that he maybe had done it before. So after the bodies had been found found and the police believed even more so

that Ashley really was molested or raped by Ward Weaver six months before she disappeared, DHS, which is the Department of Human Services, went after her mom Lori Pond for not having done anything to protect her daughter from that monster while she was still alive. Because like Heath said, Ashley had told her mom about what happened with Ward, and she didn't do anything about it.

You know, she didn't go to the police with her and help her with this at all. This was really great actually that DHS went after her because as a parent, you're supposed to protect your children. Right. So that is cool that they noticed that, but of course I think it would have been better if they noticed that before she disappeared and was murdered. But still the frustrating part too is that she did settle with DHS for $10,000, but she also filed several lawsuits against Wardweaver for killing her daughter, also known as a

wrongful death lawsuit. and one of them was for $10 million. So she's trying to get $10 million from Ward for killing her daughter when she wasn't even like doing her job as a mother. Oh god, that makes me so incredibly frustrated that she's using her daughter's death to not only pay that $10,000 fine to DHS, but to also get $10 million for herself. It's just really kind of sickening. Yeah, I couldn't find any research somehow stating whether or not she actually won any of the wrongful death suits that she filed, but it would be pretty disappointing if she did. I mean, of course, she lost a child, and I wasn't there

in the house. I don't know what kind of mother she was the rest of the time, but it's obvious that she didn't take the steps to keep her child safe and actually put her in a lot of danger because of her severe neglect. So I don't think she should be profiting from this at all. And I completely agree with that statement and I'm sure a lot of you guys do too. But, a year after they found Ashley and Miranda's bodies, the county sheriff's office took Ashley's three siblings into custody after they finished their child abuse investigation. So they did do a lot of digging into Ashley's home life, and then decided that even her other siblings were not soot to be, you know, raised and supported by their mom Laurie.

Which says a lot to me. And by the way Miranda's mother had also filed a wrongful death suit against Wardweaver. About two and a half years into Ward's prison sentence, and March 2007, Ward went to go to the prison's barber shop to get his hair cut. But when he sat down, the barber who was also an inmate stabbed him multiple times in the neck and shoulder area using a makeshift knife. But Ward was treated for his attack and he ended up surviving and making a full recovery, unfortunately. And I bet that barber was probably really pissed that Ward was a child rapist and child

murder. Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and assume that. Yeah. In 2009, Miranda's younger sister named Mariah decided to visit Ward in prison to see if she could get anything out of him. Because remember, he didn't say anything at court, he didn't give the family any answers. Right. He basically just said, yeah, I did this, but... And he probably only confessed so that he could get the plea deal. Not really a confession. So at this time, Mariah was 19 years old and she was born just two years after her sister

Miranda, so she was two years younger. When she sat down with Ward, she asked him exactly what he did to her sister and to Ashley and explain that she needed to know so she could finally have some closure. And surprisingly, Ward explained some of what happened. He told Mariah that he raped and killed them both with his bare hands. But we can't be for sure what he means by this because the autopsies for both Ashley and Miranda were inconclusive. They determined that the manner of death was homicide, but they couldn't figure out how either of them were killed.

But they did rule out strangulation, beating, poison, stabbing, and gunshots, which is a lot of things to rule out. Yeah, and that actually is kind of strange to me because I would have assumed it probably would have been strangulation. The only other thing I could think of for doing something with your bare hands would probably be suffocation because if he'd broken their necks, you know, like if he'd snapped their necks, they would have definitely found evidence of that. But the weird thing too is that for Ashley, her blood alcohol content was 0.17% which is high. And the forensics expert believed that a 12-year-old girl could have definitely died from having that much alcohol in her system So that was his only idea originally for the cause of death

But for Ward to say that he killed them with his bare hands, it's very vague Yeah, that doesn't really give us a lot to go on, but yeah, I mean, it's possible, and I don't know if this is a stretcher knot, but it's possible that he had got the two girls intoxicated so that he could rape them, and then they died, but I don't know if that's very unlikely, just knowing how much we know about Wardweaver. I mean, I would assume if she had that much alcohol in her body, he said that it would have had to have been from alcohol, because I know, I think it was like the fermentation that is caused after you die. It wouldn't have been that high. So he was basically saying that that had to have been from liquor basically or alcohol. So she wouldn't have drank that on her own. So you

could only assume that he forced her to drink or something of that sort. And I didn't find anything about that with Miranda, just Ashley. So I don't know, there's a lot of questions with that. I can't really imagine what would have happened to them. And you know it's also really creepy? Ward even admitted to Mariah that she was supposed to be his next victim.

He planned to kill her sometime after he killed Miranda. But he only didn't end up doing it because he became a suspect and then he was arrested, so he really didn't have the opportunity. And it's crazy that he told her that too. And you can only imagine how she felt sitting across from him and he was like, you are gonna be next. Like, whoa. Yeah, I'm sure she was probably very terrified. And Ward also did tell Miranda that he killed Ashley because he thought he was going to eventually get into trouble for raping her, you know, six months before he actually killed her. And he killed Miranda because he thought that she was going to figure out that he had

done it. Since they lived in the same apartment complex, Ward thought that maybe Miranda had seen him abducting Ashley, or maybe saw his car or something that would at least link him to the abduction, and that's why he killed Miranda. Even though in retrospect, I don't think she did see anything at all or else she would have told the police. One really weird thing about this case is the history of murderers in this family. So we know that Ward's father was a killer, and then of course Ward was too, but in 2014, it was discovered that his son Francis was one too. At the age of 31, Francis Weaver was

arrested, along with a couple other guys, for shooting someone to death during an attempted robbery. Initially, the three men had planned to steal 15 pounds of marijuana from 43-year-old Edward Spangler, but something went wrong and Francis' friend shot Edward in the head twice. And, again, remember, Francis isn't biologically related to Ward. He was the son of Ward's first wife from the Philippines and some other man, but there's the nature versus nurture debate, I guess. Yeah, still very, very strange that there's these generations of killings happening. And although Francis wasn't the one who pulled the trigger, Edward's family, along with

the court, felt he was equally responsible for what happened since he helped plan the robbery and since he handed the gun to his friend to shoot Edward. While receiving a sentence of life in prison for robbery, criminal conspiracy and murder, Francis cried to the court and the family and said, I know he was a good man, a very good man, and a good son. That was never supposed to happen. I pray for you guys every day. I pray for his children every day. Since he took a plea deal, he, just like his stepfather ward Weaver, was spared the death penalty.

And this was a huge shock to the public because Francis had been a really big help in getting ward, his dad, arrested for the murders and for his sexual assault charges since Francis himself was the one to call the cops and get the arrest for the rape of his girlfriend and the search warrant rolling. So you would imagine that Ward was pretty upset with him for turning on him, but now they're both locked away in the same prison for the rest of their lives, which will likely be a while considering Francis is 37 and Ward is 57 years old. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West.

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