Lords of Death - 6 | Angel of Death

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

An unlikely source reveals Mick's dark past, offering a new perspective on the murder of Cindy Cozad. Subscribe to Tenderfoot+ for an early access binge to all 8 episodes and ad-free listening - https://tenderfoot.tv/plus/. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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But if you want an exclusive ad-free binge, sign up for Tenderfoot Plus. Check out the show notes for the link to subscribe. You're listening to Lords of Death, a production of Tenderfoot TV in association with Odyssey. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals participating in the podcast.

This podcast also contains subject matter which may not be suitable for everyone, including themes of murder and sexual violence. Listener discretion is advised. While my mom Carrie gave me the box that started all of this, I wanted to figure out why Cindy Kozad was murdered in June of 1995 and what was the extent of Mick's involvement. When I was a kid, my mom was adamant that Mick was just driving the car and had nothing to do with the murder. But if this is true, it's not clear why Tim killed Cindy. Even today,

Mick claims he doesn't know. Still this day, I don't know why he did that. He would never tell me. I asked him, but he just said, fuck that bitch. That's what he said. I asked him, but he just said, fuck that bitch. That's what he said. When I spoke with Tim's close friend, Pete Gravens, he revealed one potential motive for the murder. Like I said, that's what made sense about the fucking girl up there is that he wanted to impress Mick. And say, look, now I know your secrets, now you know mine.

Now we can do stuff together. This made me wonder if the murder was supposed to be Mick's sacrifice to join the Lords of Death. Remember, to join the group, you had to take a soul. As much as I didn't want to believe this, I couldn't just write it off. And the only person who knew the real reason behind the murder was Tim. So I wrote him a letter and asked him to tell me the truth about what happened and if Mick shot Cindy. You want to know if Mick lied? He wrote, I'm not asking you to tell me the truth about what happened, and if Mick shot Cindy. You want to know if Mick lied, he wrote?

I'm not asking you to believe me over Mick, so ask him to explain what happened on his last case, when he went to prison for manslaughter. So Tim's reasoning for why I should believe Mick shot Cindy Kozad is simple. He says Mick has killed before, but if this is true, I need to know the full story. So I sat down with my mom and asked her what she knew about it. I knew about Mick having a past from day one.

From the very first day that he came over and sat on the porch and talked to me, he was very open and honest about his past and the fact that he had been in prison before and why he was in prison. He told me that in the mid-80s, he had served some time in prison for killing his uncle. He told me that his uncle was very abusive, a very mean, angry man that abused Mick and his cousins, and they all got together and decided to put an end to it. And the only way they could do to put an end to it. And the only way they could do that was by murdering him. From Tenderfoot TV, I'm Thrasher Banks. This is Lords of Death. So he told me that they killed his uncle by shooting him,

that they all had participated in shooting him, and then they took the body and buried it in Wayne National Forest. He took the blame for the murder completely himself. He didn't want his cousins in any kind of trouble at all. So he was the only one who served any time. I was never skeptical of anything that he told me because he didn't have to tell me. He volunteered everything that he told me, so I never questioned it. It just seemed like the truth.

He wasn't putting the blame on anyone else. He was taking the blame. He wasn't making any excuses for it. So yeah, I believed him 100%. Now, do you think that he was the ringleader of that situation or do you think that he was just more along for the ride? I kind of feel like he might've been along for the ride and then took the fall for it because his personality, although he had a strong personality and he was very outgoing, he kind of does seem to be a follower, not a leader. So with the whole uncle thing, how did you feel about that? I had no reason and still have no reason to not believe what he had told me.

I didn't have the internet then. Nobody did. So I couldn't look things up and verify anything, but I had no reason to not believe him. Although I don't condone murder in any capacity, I understood why he did what he did. Did it ever like cross your mind and make you feel uncomfortable? No, I was never afraid of him because of that, because I trusted him. If anything, I felt terrible that he had to do what he did to protect his cousins and his family. You know, unless you knew him, you probably wouldn't understand. But I also know that I'm not the only person that's ever been in this type of situation

that saw someone for who they really were and not the way the rest of the world saw them. So here's the thing about my mom. She always looks for the best in people. The idea that Mick sacrificed himself to protect his family outweighed the fact that he had killed someone. But for me, as an adult, I had a hard time believing Mick's story. I mean, what are the odds that Mick was involved in two different murders? At this point, I started thinking that maybe Mick had manipulated my mom and wasn't the person we thought he was.

But to give Mick the benefit of the doubt, I gave him the opportunity to tell me his side of the story. I lived in Buskirk, Kentucky at the time, staying with my grandma. Like I said, I was in my little badass phase. When I was a teenager, me and my grandma don't get along at all. And my uncle, he would come down and pick me up. And he would take us down to his place right there in Ohio. He did that a lot, too, and I really liked him because he would come and get me, like, every summer, you know,

and he would just take me down there, and I'd stay there the whole summer, and he'd bring me back toward the fall. I'd hang out with him. Nick's uncle Jack lived in a rural part of southeastern Ohio with his wife, Geraldine, and her three kids from a previous marriage. To protect their privacy, I'm not using their real names. There was Caleb, who was Mick's age,

his brother Miles, and their older sister Maddie. You know, those are really good people, they are. I pretty much love them like brothers. I mean, we grew up together pretty much, you know. Yeah, they're my people. After spending a few summers in Ohio with the family, Mick developed a close relationship with his cousins. For a while, everything seemed fine. Mick even admits he enjoyed spending time with his Uncle Jack and the rest of the family. But in the summer of 1985, things started to change. The stories they told me, I was just horrified. They would show me all these bullet holes in the summer of 1985, things started to change. The stories they told me, I was just horrified.

They would show me all these bullet holes in the wall where they would make them stand. They would shoot around them. That was just some foul shit. That whole family, I guess, had been going through that ever since they married him. Oh, they were scared to death of him. They were literally scared of him. Everybody was. I never had a clue he was like that.

I mean, I knew he was a dickhead about things, but I didn't know he was like that to that family until over time. I would start seeing things and put two and two together. Nick witnessed some of this firsthand, like the bullet holes in the bedroom wall that he mentioned. But his cousins shared other stories about Jack that detailed a pattern of

abuse they'd endured during the seven years he'd been in their lives. Here's one of the cousins, Caleb. He refers to Mick by his first name, James. You know what he told me? He said I would fuck my own mother if somebody would hold her down and let me fuck her. I don't know, Bobby, how somebody could be like that. Seven years we lived with this guy. We went through a lot of shit.

I couldn't even eat supper, dude. He flipped the table over. Seriously, he'd walk in the kitchen, he'd sit there eating. No, he would just grab the table, just wham. This was a side of Jack that Mick had never seen before. I just couldn't believe what I was seeing, you know? I was ashamed

that he was my uncle. I'm like, wow. This was something he had hidden from the family forever, and I just couldn't believe he was doing what he was doing, abusing him like that. I mean, he was that bad of a dude, he was. He pulled a gun. He would draw down on you so quick it wasn't even funny. He was serious. You know what I mean? He was a real bad

dude. He was. It would just leave you in shock too because you just couldn't believe it. Some of the stories Caleb and Mick shared with me are so horrific, I don't even want to go into detail here. Like I said, we went through hell, dude. We sat in the house and he would just pull out his gun and just start shooting. We had to get down there. It was bad because he would just come in and just start shooting guns. His little.22 pistol, pow, pow, pow, through the wall. We'd get down again.

It was bad. He beat my sister so bad. My sister's been through a lot. Matty had it the worst of them all, and as the abuse escalated over the coming months, the other cousins couldn't bear to let it go on a day longer. That's what led up to it. He beat my sister so bad,

and we just had enough, man. We had enough. We couldn't do it no more. As the night went on and Jack became more intoxicated, his behavior towards Maddie grew more violent and unpredictable, making his cousins feel that if they didn't do something, her life could be in danger. And he was acting precariously strange, too, that night. He started showing his ass, got drunk. It starts out, like I said, every time we're down there, every weekend, he likes to get drunk.

Well, that's when his true, true, true colors come out. He threatened to kill her. She didn't really do nothing. That's just how he was. He just picked on her. He picked on all of them. And that particular night, I can't remember exactly how he said or what he said, but we knew. I said, nah, he's going to hurt her, kill her. He picked on all of them. And that particular night, I can't remember exactly how he said or what he said, but we knew. I said, nah,

he's going to hurt her, kill her, something. And I don't know, I've had enough myself. Everybody had enough. And we just knew. I knew we were going to take a stand that night. I just knew. Did you know that happened Halloween night, by the way? The way Jack was treating Maddie pushed Mick

and his cousins over the edge. Rather than let him continue to abuse her, they decided to finally do something about it. And according to Mick, the cousins weren't the only ones ready to do something about Jack. She said. From the director of The Greatest Showman comes the most original musical ever. I want to prove I can make it. Prove to who? Everyone. So, the story starts.

Better Man. Now playing in select theaters. The cousins decided that rather than call the police and run the risk of Jack making bail and it all coming back on them, they needed to end it once and for all. To them, the only way out was to kill Jack. So after he left the house with Maddie to drink with a friend, Mick, Caleb, and Miles put a plan into motion.

The plan was for Mick and Miles to wait behind a coal pile and shoot Jack when he got out of his truck. Caleb's job was to guard the back door with a shotgun in case Jack tried to get inside. He went and got the shotgun, loaded him, gave me a pocket full of shells. He took a pocket full of shells and the rest is history.

We was waiting for him to come back and that's what we was all concerned about because we knew once he came back, we all knew it was on. We knew there was no turning back and you could really hear our hearts pounding when he was driving up the driveway. We were scared to death, I ain't gonna lie.

Jack pulled up. He stepped out of the truck. And we made sure we went in first before we started firing. And as soon as Jack got toward the end of his truck and she was inside, I fired him dead in the back. He fell. I reloaded again and fired another one. At that point, they went inside the house to check on Matty and Geraldine, who were both distraught.

We stepped back outside to look on him, see what we were going to do with him. And he was gone, right? We were like, where the hell did he go? And then we kind of looked around, and he was up under the truck, his hand up under the axle. You could see he was slipping away. of the truck, his hand up on the axle. You could see he was slipping away. Then I dragged him out, and Jack asked a question, why are you doing this?

And I replied, you know why. He fired three or four times, if I remember correctly. I ain't going to lie to you. I'm going to be straight honest. When that happened, he came over by the truck. He was standing up there. I pulled out a shotgun, opened up the back door, and I went, boom! I don't know if I hit him. I hit the truck.

No more holes in the truck. I don't know if I hit him or not. But I was so scared he was going to come in the fucking house, dude, and hurt my family again. The guy was sick, brother. The guy was sick. He hated me. I didn't care. I was sick, brother. God, he was sick. He hated me. I hated him too. I paid back the bitch.

Sorry, look at it. Then finally, we went back inside again, and Geraldine was, you know, I'm sorry, you could just see the look of happiness on her face. I'm sorry. She was happy. I think was the look of happiness on her face. I'm sorry. She was happy. I think *** was the one that suggested burying him. Mike says, I know exactly where to go.

After killing Jack, they wrapped his body up in a rug and put him in the back of a pickup truck. They decided that Mick and Miles would bury his body in a remote part of Wayne National Forest while Caleb stayed home to clean up the blood and pick up the shell casings. We drove around forever though, God. I mean, I think we drove around for three or four hours, but I can remember seeing a transmitter tower blinking off in the distance. It wasn't that far off either. I mean, it couldn't have been no more than 500 yards. And he went down over this hill. It was like a little where you could pull off to the side of the road. And in fact, when we dragged him out of the truck, he was in a tarp, right?

And as soon as he hit the ground, he took off. He started sliding down the hill. We had to chase after him. But he stopped when he hit a tree down at the bottom of the bluff. That's where we just had to bury him, right where he stopped. Nick and Miles spent several hours digging the hole for Jack's body. By the time they were done, it was daylight, and they drove into town to wash the hole for Jack's body. By the time they were done, it was daylight,

and they drove into town to wash the blood off of the truck. So what happened after? Did you guys, like, leave town, or what happened? If I remember correctly, they left that day. Where'd you go? We all went to Kentucky. And, well, I went back home, you know, with my brothers and everything, my mom, grandma. The story they told the rest of the family was that Jack got upset, left, and never came home. Nobody believed it, though, as far as you could just see.

Grandma, you know, it was her son. She was like, that don't make sense, you know. I guess they would come and get her, and they would take her down to the Portsmouth Police Department. They found a missing persons report. They finally one day they came and talked to me, and so they said, we know what happened. You know, I'm like, ah, here we go. It took authorities nearly two years to figure out what happened.

When they first spoke with Mick, he wrote out a detailed confession about the murder. Here's part of his statement. That was a very nice family, Mick wrote. They would do anything for a person. But when Jack came into their lives, it was a whole new deal. Jack had that family scared to death. What we did was the only way out for the family. And if you knew Jack the way we did, you would agree that was the only way out for them too. You know, I've never had any feelings of taking someone's life. And after we shot and killed Jack, things in my life haven't been the same for me.

And I'm sure it hasn't been for Miles and Caleb. You have these weird dreams. Can't think right. But as time goes by, it clears up little by little. But not all of it. I can see myself not wanting to do things like I used to. It's just a different life to live with. Although Miles, Maddie, Caleb, and Geraldine could finally live in peace after seven years of fear, beatings, and whatever else Jack put them

through, they are free to live their lives the way they want to. But you gotta understand this much. I ain't no murderer. I don't intend to be one either even though I have killed a person But that was the only chance that I could see of getting something done about jack You must understand it had to be done We had a purpose to do what we did and I sure do feel bad about it. We had no choice All I want to do is get this out in the open So I can go on living a normal life because I feel that after all this is over with, I'll be able to go on without any problems. But I want you to understand, we're not cold-blooded, and I don't want to be thought of as that.

Just investigate it, and you'll see I speak the truth. Even with Mick's confession, the lack of a body made it difficult to build a case. So they asked Mick to take them where they buried Jack, out in Wayne National Forest. They took us all down to Portsmouth, just did a little drive along. But we ended up going down there with them, driving the back roads, and I just knew something wasn't right, because those back roads had been reworked. They did a lot of road work back there, and I just knew something wasn't right because those back roads had been reworked. They did a lot of road work back there, and it just wasn't the same because I couldn't find that spot for nothing. Yeah, this is a hell of a story.

It's crazy. It's crazy as fuck. I found documents in the box about Jack's murder and noticed that an attorney named Rick Faulkner represented Mick on the case. I have no reason to doubt making Caleb's account, but I hope to get additional clarification from a third party. So I gave Rick a call and asked him if he remembered Mick's case.

If this was the Halloween killing and it was at South Webster, Ohio, I'm pretty sure that's McWhorter. I got it. I remember the case now. Once you do a homicide, you don't forget it. So what's McWhorter got to do with you? Kid was bound to lose the way he was brought up. When we got him, he was a nice kid.

He didn't have an ax to grind with the world, but bad shit seemed to happen around him. He would have been maybe 18, 19. McWhorter was a follower. This guy that was a victim was not a good guy, and that was pretty well uncontroverted. He was a bad guy, no question about it. And the way he was treating this little girl, she was young.

He pimped her out to local guys. The whole thing was about what he was doing with the daughter and how mean he was to the kids. And they were all scared to death of him, roughed him up pretty bad. It was certainly one of those brought upon by a very emotional circumstance. It wasn't justifiable, but it was certainly understandable. Even law enforcement understood why they killed Jack. As Caleb said, they went through seven years of hell. Given the pattern of abuse they were subjected to,

I could see why they did what they did, although I don't condone it. And so far, it sounds like Mick has been truthful about why they killed Jack his public defender Rick was able to confirm it almost to a tee all these years later they jumped up from behind the coal pile shot him didn't kill him let him bleed out they pulled him out from underneath the truck rolled rolled him up, put him in the back. It was the middle of the night because it was close to midnight when they got over to the gas station with him rolled up in a rug, laying in the back of a pickup truck. And they were going to take him out in the forest and bury him.

And then they come up with the idea that one of them knew where there was a well and they'd just drop him in the well. And then Grandma found out where he was and started talking to him about the ghost was walking the ridge out there someplace. And I rode with the deputies out there with the kid for a couple of weekends. We're trying to place it from the boy's memory because they had driven out there in the middle of the night on Halloween because he was very, very specific where they came from. And there's only three ways up on

top of that ridge. And we went through literally a half a dozen different cations of wells. And we got into one that seemed to fit his description because there was a radio tower not too far he described. Well, there's only one radio tower out there. It's at a place called Roe. We made a serious effort because it's in an area that I had originally grown up in. And so we knew from his description as to where all this was. And we knew that there were wells out there because if you walk those hills and ridges, you got to be aware that there's wells out there that you could fall into. be aware that there's wells out there that you could fall into. So we knew where this little community of roe had been located. When we was up there looking, we went through several of these wells, got down in this well and dug it up and there was trash and such in it and they found

some bones. Turned out the bones we found were bovine in nature. We never did find the body. So that body's still out there somewhere? Somewhere. I don't think he was ever found. So the discrepancy between Mick's account and Rick's is that Mick told me that they buried Jack, but when he went with law enforcement to search for the body, he told them they dumped him in a well. Rick seemed to think the body was in an old well. So what I gathered, without Mick stating it explicitly, is that he had no intentions of leading them to Jack's body, so he made up the story about the well. Even though they didn't recover Jack's body, Nick was charged with aggravated murder.

He felt bad about it, but he gave a confession and statement and then did a plea on it because we pled him to a manslaughter. They didn't have anything really to put him except a testimony to co-defendants. They didn't have a body. You know, it's very rare that you can convict somebody, but you can without a body as long as they're clear that he's dead. He did, I don't know, a couple of years, not a lot of time. Given the circumstances of Jack's murder, Rick was able to get the courts to throw out the aggravated murder charge if Mick pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter, which carried a sentence of three to ten years.

After that, Mick never saw his cousins or Geraldine again. The last time I saw them, Portsmouth County Jail, that's the last time I saw them. They were called in as witnesses to the grand jury. That's the last time I saw them. That's the last I heard or anything new about them, you know. Mick's cousins avoided charges for the murder and didn't know what happened to Mick until I connected with Caleb a few years ago. You know he was at a man's field for like three years Over the 85 mother Yes, from 88 through 91. I don't wish nobody the boy is innocent I swear man

So how did it turn out that James is the one that got in trouble not you? I don't know I asked why the God man. I do't know. I swear to God, man, I do not know. We went, they kind of got us. We came all the way back to Ohio. And that's all the way back to Southwest. So we went to court. I remember sitting in there. And it was just, the one person on the end of the table was asking questions.

The prosecutors was actually on their side, but they just told me to go home. Why James got blamed, I don't. I told the whole truth, nothing but the truth, Ben. And why James got, I didn't know James got in trouble. Not until you got a hold of me. What his lawyer told me was that he made a deal that as long as you and didn't get in any trouble that he would take the fall for it. He took the blame, huh?

I just love what he did. I just love he knew what we were going through, man. He's innocent on the 85. We all had parts of it, not just him. I live with it every day. Think about it. It made me a better person, baby. Made me love more.

Made me realize what you got. Tell my story. I did not know. I'm so sorry. Learning about the circumstances surrounding Jack's murder gave me a new perspective on Mick. It turned out that he wasn't manipulating my mom at all. What he told her about the murder when they first met was true. What he did wasn't right, but he did it to protect his family.

So he operates in a moral gray area. He's willing to make sacrifices to protect the people he loves, even if it involves violence. If they didn't kill Jack, Matty could have ended up dead. But what does this mean for his role in Cindy Kozad's murder 10 years later? Do you think that Nick would kill someone, kill a woman, for no reason? I do not. I think that the only reason Mick would have

fired a shot would be if he thought she was already dead and he was doing it to save us. He did what he had to do so that he felt like we were safe. That's the only way it makes sense to me, knowing Mick the way that we knew Mick. Even my Aunt Tammy felt that Mick was trying to protect us. Was he forced to? Because I don't think Mick would have done it otherwise. I think he was in a situation that he didn't know how to get out of, and the only way to save his life, your life, your sister's life, and Carrie's life, was to do what Tim was telling him to do. your life, your sister's life and Carrie's life,

was to do what Tim was telling him to do. I think he did it to protect you guys. Like a sacrifice. Yes. His life for yours. I found a news article in the box where Mick is quoted saying that Tim had threatened to kill me, my mom, and my sister if he told anyone about the murder. He even echoes this sentiment in his interview

with Detective Wade Lawson. I can't lie. I can't tell him I did this. I'm sorry I didn't shoot her. Well, I know it may look like that's how you want it, but I didn't shoot. He wanted me to. He threatened me.

He threatened to fuck out. He said, you know what's going to happen if you don't. I may not be no angel, but I did not shoot that girl. I got a woman I love very much and two kids that he ain't mad, but I love them. So if Mick did shoot Cindy, did he do it out of fear that Tim would harm my family? If he was coerced by Tim, is he equally responsible for Cindy's death?

Ultimately, that question was decided by a jury at his trial. But he didn't kill her. I can't convict this person when he didn't kill her. We were looking at the same facts differently. That's when the truth becomes a more abstract idea. The verdict was read, and I don't think either one of us thought that that was going to happen. Thank you. Written, produced, and edited by Thrasher Banks, with additional writing by Meredith Stedman and Dennis Cooper. Produced by Meredith Stedman and Dennis Cooper. Executive producers are Donald Albright and Payne Lindsey.

Consulting producer and video production by George Miller. Supervising producer is Tracy Kaplan. Artwork by Byron McCoy. Original music by Makeup and Vanity Set, with additional music by Thrasher Banks. Mixed by Cooper Skinner. Thank you to Oren Rosenbaum and the team at UTA, Beck Media and Marketing, and the Nord Group. Special thanks to Tori Ross, Caitlin Kaboski, and Thrasher's mom, Carrie. For more podcasts like Lords of Death, search Tenderfoot TV on your favorite podcast app

or visit us at tenderfoot.tv. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to this episode of Lords of Death. This series is released weekly, absolutely free. But if you want an exclusive ad-free binge, sign up for Tenderfoot+. Check out the show notes for the link to subscribe.