Morbid - The Galveston 11 Part 1

Episode Date: July 10, 2020

In the first installment of our series about The Texas Killing Fields, we focus on the 11 raped and murdered young girls referred to as the Galveston 11. In Part 1 of this case, Ash goes through Ed Bell's tumultuous life, his confessions and the first murders. Did Ed Bell do it, or is he an Ottis Toole type who likes to involve himself in nightmares that he wasn't present for? Embark Right now, Embark has an exclusive offer just for our listeners! Go to Embark vet dot com now! and use Promo code MORBID to save 15% off your Dog Breed and Health kit. Visit Embarkvet.com and use promo code MORBID to save 15% today. Care/of For 50% off your first Care/of order, go to TakeCareOf.com and enter code morbid50. Athena Club Stop using razors that underdeliver and switch to Athena Club! Sign up today and you’ll get 15% off your first order! Just go to AthenaClub.com and use promo code morbid. Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash KelleyListener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra LallyListener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey weirdos, I'm Elena. I'm Ash. And this is morbid. Morbid in your face. Morbid in your face. All up in your face. Boom. This is an ash-centric morbid.

Ooh, honey, this week is an ash-centric week. It's a tu-pada, ash style. Ash is doing a two-pada. I think I've only ever done. I'm like, I think I've only ever done one two-parter, but I actually just did one. You did. I did.

Lori Vala. And I've done, I think Charlie Manson was a two-partner. Yeah. So you're a seasoned veteran. It doesn't feel like it. I think I've, this, like, Lori Vala was my first deep dive into a two-partner, and then this was like I was on the ocean floor. You were.

You're digging through into, like, the magma. Yeah. Yeah. I'm excited for this on. I'm at the Earth's core. What's the other one? Not real sure. Mantle.

Sure. Is there a mantle in there? There is this mantel. Yeah, I'm there. Yeah, you're there. All right. I think the core is further, so I was saying core. Yeah, I'm not there.

I'm with the mantle. All right, cool. You know, don't overshoot, I guess. So, hey, guys, welcome to our show. Hello. So I think we have just a couple of things we wanted to mention. We just wanted to say that, again, all our live shows that were scheduled in 2020 are in 2021 now. We don't have dates for everything, but we will certainly let you know. I've removed all the old dates from our website. I will update that as soon as I have the new ones. And you should get emails too from whoever you purchase tickets from with new dates. But we'll remind you. Like the venues are going to end up telling you, you know, this has been rescheduled. But you know what? Same here. Why should you have to do work? We're going to let you know as soon as we know. And if you can hold on to your tickets, that's gnarly. Because.

gnarly as fuck you will be able to take those tickets and use them for the new date and we can hang finally to the extreme if you can't though because shit happens 2021 we just who knows i hope it's a better year covid's been a tough one for people it's been tough financially emotionally physically all kinds of good stuff yeah so if you for some reason need to get rid of that ticket you can't hang on to it for then we understand we we hope you can all hang on to your tickets but obviously we understand and if you have to do a refund or whatever you need to do, just contact your venue or the people you bought the ticket from and they can help you. But again, we hope we get to see you all in 2021. All those vices. Yeah, we really do. And we're sorry that, you know, it keeps getting bumped and,

you know, dates are going everywhere. Obviously, it's very much beyond our control. It's very beyond anybody's control at this point. Pandemics are crazy and we have not all really lived through one like this. So, you know, we're all just working with what we can. But, yeah, we know it's frustrating. We're frustrated. Trust me, because we were so ready for a full year of just, like, seeing your faces. Because we got to do, like, too many live shows, which were just warm-ups. And then we went to the fucking Grammarcy and I was like, oh, bitch, this is it. Okay. I got to yell, thank you, New York. I felt like, cool. It was so fun. And it made me be like, all right, let's do this. And I was ready. We had our, like, stage ready to go. We were so excited about it. I have, like, four

fucking pairs of pants in my closet right now that I've just been waiting to wear. That's not an exaggeration. That's real. I've seen them. Yeah. And they are real. And, but you know what? All of this excitement and all this prep that we're telling you about right now, it's going to get even better in 2021. So everything that we thought was going to be rad in 2020, we're just going to just bump it up. Right now we're actually trying to figure out how to do fireworks on stage. Just pyrotechnics. No, we're not going to be bad. Totally kidding. But we're still going to make it, we're going to make it awesome. So if you have tickets and you're like, oh, I don't know, trust me. It's going to be worth it. It's going to be worth it. We're going to put your thing down, flip it and reverse it. We truly are. So, yeah, so that's just the business about tickets. Again, we'll let you know as soon as we know. There's some real bummer news that happened like late, late last night. Yeah, Annie was telling me about it today and I was like, what? Yeah. So I went to.

bed last night and John was up late working because he's been working from home and it's like just craziness with kids. He ends up having to work like late into the night. And he came in and I think I just woke up when he walked in the bedroom and he was like, do you watch Glee? And I was like, no. And I was like, no, but I know Glee. Like I know what Glee is. That's funny. That's exactly the exchange that Annie has. She was like, did you ever watch Glee? And I was like, no, no. Like I did I literally, not a musical kind of gal. I've never watched even a second of it. I don't mind. musicals, I just never got into that show. Yeah. I'm sure it was awesome, but I just never watched it.

People love that show. But I know like the actors who are on it. I know the whole premise. When people say that there's like a glee curse. Well, it's, this is very scary. So he's he told me about Naya Rivera, who's like 33 years old. Yeah. That's young. Really young. That's a year younger than me. Cool. And she's a glee actress. And last night, apparently it was, it was announced. that she had gone out on a lake on a little pontoon boat with her four-year-old son, who's adorable. Oh, my God. Little muffin.

And they don't know where she is. The four-year-old said that somebody had reported that the four-year-old had told authorities or whoever found them that, you know, she went in the water and she didn't come back. And to me, that's the most heart-wrenching, horrific thing I've ever heard in my entire life. It's just so strange. Because it's like, what? And he was wearing a life jacket, but her life jacket, I think, was on the boat. Yeah. And at first it was like a search and rescue mission.

And they changed it to a recovery mission. Yeah, like in the middle of it. She's presumed dead now, which is horrific and so sad and so like, oh, it's just such a freak, weird accident. And now it's like, what happened? Yeah, I think there's, I think we're going to find out a lot in the coming weeks. I mean, obviously, it doesn't look good, but I'm, I mean, holding out hope, maybe something happened and she'll be found okay. But, like, I mean, it doesn't look good. But, you know, everyone can hold out hope.

Right. You have to. Right. But, yeah, they haven't found her yet. I just looked it up to see if anything has been announced. But nope, they have not found Naya yet. But so sad. I know.

Such, like, and I mean, by all account, she was like an amazing person, amazing mom, amazing talent. That's like, what happened? What happened? And now that poor four-year-olds, and it's... Well, what a traumatizing situation all around. I hope he has, like, family that he can go be with right now. It seems like he does. It seems like, you know, and they said he's healthy, he's okay.

That's good. So that's good, but man, what a story. Like, what a weird thing to happen. It is. And, you know, we'll update when we find out what's going on, but, you know, once everybody cross your fingers that it's something weird is going on and that she just shows up. that something happened. Weirder things have happened. You never know. I mean, they found Elizabeth smart alive. So that was the shocker of the century. So we all thought she was gone. Exactly. You just

never know. You got a hold out hope. That's all we got. That's all we got here. It's all we have. It really is. So that's a bummer. But I wanted to mention it because I thought it was important. Next, this coming week, we are going to be covering the Vanessa Gien case. So get ready for that, guys. Because I think we have as much information as we're going to get right now. I think we have a good amount for a full episode. Yeah, we definitely want to cover it now. So we'll be covering that. But today, what are we going to be covering? We are covering. And this is like a highly requested case. Sure is. The Galveston 11. Isn't that like the Texas killing fields? It's part of the Texas killing fields. Yeah. Well, the Texas killing fields is a massive. We'll be covering more things with that. But yeah, this is part of it. But this case has the first

body that was ever discovered in the Texas killing fields. Oh, I didn't know that. Actually, we're not going to get into that in part one. It's going to be in part two. But don't worry. But it's okay. So in 1998, this guy, Edward Harold Bell, he sucks. He wrote- He sounds like he sucks. Right? It's a shitty name. He wrote multiple confession letters to prosecutors in not only Galveston, but Harris, which is also like a community, about 11 unsolved murders in Galveston, Texas. Ooh. And he completely admitted he went into detail about many of the victims when as far as to say what they were wearing, what he used to shoot them, like what kind of gun, where it was.

Things that only he would know. It seemed that way, yes. But there's also like maybe he read up like a lot of newspapers. Absolutely. Because when it comes to like clothing and stuff, you could have heard. it. Right. He didn't necessarily say anything that wasn't mentioned at one point. Oh, okay. But all of the things that he mentioned in his letter were never laid out in one place. So he would have had to gather it from many different places. And like he would have had like many newspapers in his jail cell. So there's that.

That would have been like a little bit much. So then he went back and retracted everything that he had said and he claimed that he was suicidal and he thought by confessing to all this, he would be killed by the state. No. It's like it doesn't necessarily work that way. And I feel like you probably knew that. Yeah. And I feel like this is just like a convenient excuse. Well, it sounds like a game of some sort. Sounds like a game. Sounds like he's oddest tooling it and Henry Lucasing it. And it's not cool. It sounds like he's out here wild in because he also said he'd actually never killed anyone. Oh. Which is weird because he was in prison for murder. I was going to say he's like, you know what? It's crazy. I actually never killed a single person.

I actually shouldn't be in here at all. And everybody's like, yeah, but you should, though, because, like, there were multiple witnesses to you killing somebody. Like, bro, come on. But we're going to get into all that. I'm excited. But we got to start at the beginning. Start at the beginning. That's a great place to start.

You know what always is. So, Edward Bell, he was born in 1939, long time ago. Apparently, he was in the Boy Scouts, and I read a few articles that, said he had a pretty typical childhood. All right. It doesn't really seem like that if you're going based off of what he says about his childhood because whatever he has to say was not at all normal. I mean, which could be the truth.

But it could also be him saying, see, this is why I do this. Exactly. It could be like an excuse kind of thing. Here's the validation. It's really hard to take him for what he's worth. Like, it's very difficult. It sounds, he's very much an honest. modest tool slash Henry Lee Lucas. Yes, exactly. So he says that he became a sex criminal at the age of three.

All right. Already I'm starting to think that maybe he's a bullshitter. Like probably. So there's this woman name. Okay, so I think her name is Lease. It's L-I-S-E. Lease. But in the documentary, they call her Lisa, like the narrator does, but then also other people in the documentary call her lease. So I'm like, which is it? So I'm going to call her lease. Let's just call her lease. Cool. So if anybody knows for sure, let us know. Yeah, let me know. Nicely. Nicely. She worked, she was like a journalist, an investigative journalist, and she has all these honors. Like, she has gone to fucking town in her investigative journalism. Good for her. She's a bad bitch. Yeah. So she basically went out to see him in prison because after these, she got her hands on these confession letters and was like, what the fuck? Like, what are you about?

What now? So she, he agreed to like do an. interview with her in prison. And he told her while she was visiting that when he was three years old, he was outside playing in the backyard. And like his older brother, who was like five at the time, came out and was like, let's go see your girlfriend down the street. Now, already I'm like, what? So they go to see this neighbor girl. And Ed says he remembers wanting to take off this girl's clothes. No. He's three. I'm like, you don't remember that. That doesn't make any sense. Nope. So he did. And his brother left, I guess. A three-year-old took off the, okay.

Apparently. Yeah, so far this checks out. Checks out. He did. And the girl's mom came out and like flipped out. And then he said when his parents found out, he got home and basically his mom just like beat the shit out of him with a stick. And that's when he became a sex criminal.

I'm going to call bullshit on that because of many things. one, three? How do you remember that? Three? Like, three. Because my, again, my girls are four. Right. They don't remember anything from when they were three and that was like six months ago. I mean, I guess this would be like a memorable experience in your life because it's so traumatic, I guess. You wouldn't remember. Like, there's certain things because people will say, and I'm sure people will say that they remember certain things from when they were like three, four, five. Yeah, like little things. But you wouldn't remember something like I wanted to take her clothes off. Right. You don't, you're not going to remember your motivations or your, right. You're just going to remember things that happened. Maybe and maybe.

I mean, three is not when you, you're not making a lot of memories at three. No, I didn't think so. And you're certainly not becoming a sex criminal at three. It's not happening. You just don't, you don't have the capacity for that. Right. One, you don't know what sex is. Your brain is not developed in anyway, really. It's really not. Like, you're still learning what the actual world around you is. Exactly. No. It doesn't make any sense. That's bullshit. And not only is that bullshit, it's really offensive that he's like, yeah, people believe this. Because I'm like, do you really think we're dumb? And it's really just like a really gross yucky story. Like it makes me want to like go take a shower. It shows how gross he is. He, oh, we're going to find out how gross he is. So it also really

like lends itself to this story that he has because he says this was the first memory that he had where he realizes or realize that his actions were being controlled by the program. Again, no. Nope. The program. Three years old. So we're going to find out that Ed talks a lot about this fucking program, which is, according to him, a government program that brainwashed him into doing all the bad things

he did throughout his life. Wow, what a convenient way out of that. So convenient. So convenient. At one point, he legitimately blames FDR. Wowzers. Who like my cat is named after, so that's awkward. And you know, I just, I feel bad for Ed, because apparently he just never had a chance. No, he never did. It's like, okay, that was full sarcasm for anybody that couldn't read that, just so you know. He never had any control over his life path.

No. This is sad if it's true. He also claims that when he was eight years old, he was molested by a cousin at the direction of his own father. That's horrific. And, you know, I, I've heard things that horrific happening so that I'm not going to be like absolutely not like that could have happened. That definitely could have happened and if it did that's horrific and I feel bad for child him. Right. Exactly. Not adult him. And then final thing, kind of, when he was 15 years old, he believed that his father hired a hitman to kill him while they were out squirrel hunting together in the woods. And he said his father wanted to kill him because, quote, the program wasn't working. So, like, his dad set him up with this program and, like, he felt as though it wasn't working,

so he wanted to kill him. This seems like a lot of layers. It's very layered. It's a lot. So in other news, I did go to Texas. He did go to Texas. He went to Texas. He went to college in Texas.

Texas A&M, and he played the trombone in the Aggie marching band. Hey, I get it. He met his first wife in college. This sounds great. Three kids together. So I feel like this really could have been like Ed's chance to really turn things around, have a better future for himself. But that's not at all what Ed did. Ed was arrested at least seven times for things like rape, aggravated rape, indecent exposure and indecency with a child.

Okay, those are all really horrific things. Really horrific things. That's not you're like getting arrested for, you know, petty theft or like having some weed on you back in the day. No. That's really bad. What Ed liked to do was he liked to get naked from the waist down, find young girls who were like in groups together and alone. And he typically he liked people to be like these girls to be younger than like 16. That's really disgusting. Yeah. None of these girls were over 18. That's disgusting. But somehow he always avoided prison time. Like he never got prison time for any of these indecent exposures or these rapes. And he would just walk up to these girls without his pants on and just be masturbating. So many of these weird dudes do that.

It's the weirdest fucking thing. One of the most horrifying things I would ever see is just like a dude Winnie the pooing it. Like just like what? There's nothing good about that. No. Like no, note to all men never think that it's like a good thing to walk into a woman just with a shirt on and nothing from the waist down. And I also just don't understand like the great thrill that you guys. get out of that. It's like, I mean, I'm glad you don't because I would be very upset. But it's the same. But they do. It's, you know what it is. It's not for us to

understand. It's like a control thing. It's a power thing and it's a fear thing. It's a terrorizing thing. They know that by doing that, they one, have put you in a situation that you can't get out of. Right. Because you're just trapped. You're already seen whatever you've seen it. You've already, you've already been traumatized. Right. And then they get this power of just using you. without your permission to jack it's so gross that's well it's like a louis c k thing exactly it's it's it's a rape from a distance it is what it absolutely is well like i said somehow he always avoided prison time which is just fucking mind-loving to me some of these people do man but you also it was the 70s so it's like you know it's like the golden state killer thing right and like when we talked about it on like um our patrons know we've gotten a discussion about the all be gone in the dark right and they talk a lot

about how in the 70s, rape was just... It was like, what did you do to make that happen? It was just a simple assault. Exactly. So instead of going to prison, he would have to complete psychiatric treatments instead. Okay. So I also think, and there's, I'm going to talk about an investigator later on who totally believes this as well, I think that maybe that's when all this program bullshit started

because he realized that he could avoid jail time by being like, I am cooobes. goo nuts. Yep. Like, I think that's when he was like, the program is making me do this because FDR has taken over my brain. A program. Yikes. I think that if he had gone to prison, though, a lot of the girls that we're going to talk about in part one and part two would absolutely 100% be alive today. Absolutely. So, like I said, Ed Bell wrote multiple confession letters. One particular letter talks about, quote, the 11 that went to heaven. That is. So spooky. So spooky. And it's like, you can't, I could not find this fucking letter anywhere. If anybody can find it, let me know. Oh, damn. There's, um, an A&E documentary. It's like a docu-series.

I think it's seven, six or seven parts. I watched the whole thing twice. Because I was like, holy fuck. And they, they quote from this letter a lot, but then I tried to find it. Like in its entirety. Yeah. I was like, where is it? I'll have to look for it. But he writes a poem about these girls. And he, that's where the title comes from. It's the 11 that went to heaven. Oh, that's terrifying. So fucking creepy. In these letters, he specifically talks about some of, like, like actually specifically names some of these girls, or he'll be like, the two from Dickinson or like the two from here, like this one had this color hair and like this color jackets. And it all lines up. So it's like, I feel like it's just too convenient that you would like remember all of that from a newspaper.

Because the way he writes about it is like he was there. Yeah, it seems like the way. It seems like the way he remembers it is how you really do remember situations. Exactly. This one's, you know, Nancy. I remember Nancy, but this one had brown hair and I can't remember anything. Right. This one, I remember her jacket. You know what I mean? Like it's how you naturally remember things. Right. Because a lot of times, even if you do have a photographic memory, he would have remembered all the names, I feel like. Exactly. You know? Yeah. So he specifically talks about killing 15 year olds, Debbie Ackerman and Maria Johnson, as well as seven other girls. 15 years old 15 and that's not even the youngest that we're going to talk about

Maria and Debbie were last seen in front of a Baskin Robbins ice cream shop on November 15th their friend Cindy Thompson worked at this Baskin Robbins. So it was a holiday from school. It was like a teacher's meeting or something like that. So everybody was off from school. Everybody was kind of just like doing different things. And this was like a little surf town. So like people were going to the beach.

You're going here or they're everywhere. It's like a fun-ass day. Absolutely. So Cindy remembered that everyone was off from school. Everybody was kind of like congregating in the Baskin Robbins. And she was friends with Maria and Debbie. And she was like, oh, like, what are you guys doing today? And they were like, our plan for the day is to hitchhike to Houston, which that really

wasn't like abnormal. It was the 70s. That's just kind of what you did. Like now you'd be like, what? And by the way, sorry, I don't know if I said it. This was 71. Oh, 71. Yeah.

So like primetime hitching. Absolutely. And she was like, okay, cool, like, have fun, like, see you later. Like, primetime hitchhiking and primetime worst time to hitchhiking. Yeah, exactly. That's why, I feel like that's why so many crimes are unsolved from the 70s, because it's like you just, anybody could have been fucking passing through and you just got in their car. Oh, that definitely had a lot to do with it being such a dangerous decade, was just availability of victims. Exactly. Yeah.

So Cindy remembered that Maria was wearing a white top and red pants and the last. last time she saw Maria and Debbie, they were getting into a white van. Oh, no, never. Never. Never. The white vans, man. She said that the driver was 100% a man. She didn't see his face, but she saw his arm. And she was like, it's definitely a dude. And she was like, Maria and Debbie seemed to recognize this guy because they were talking to him for like a little bit before they got in. And then they got in and they were off. And that's the last time she ever saw our friends. Because two days later, Maria's body was found in the Turner Bayou. Her hands were bound.

She was naked from the waist down. And then the day after that, Debbie's body was also found in the Turner Bio, the same or the bio. The Bayo. The bayou the same way. Now, Bell has like a bunch of different stories about seeing Debbie and Maria that day that he goes with. The first story that he told was that he led them to the water after

raping them. He stood on the bridge and he had them like walk into the water like kind of waiting in and shot them both with a 357 magnum while they just stood there in the water like facing away from him. My God. And they were shot. Like that's exactly how they died. So he knew that and he knew that where they were found. And he describes standing on the bridge. And it's like it all adds up. Yeah. So that's the first story that he told. He later said that. That wasn't true. And he had actually never heard of those girls. Dude. It's like, so we go from you're standing on the bridge shooting them and then you never knew them. After raping them. After raping them. And now you just didn't know them at all. You never knew them. Then his most recent story is that,

and this is right before he died that he told this story, was that, oh, he did in fact pick them up from the Baskin-Robbins ice cream store. And they told him that they were sick of high school boys and they wanted a real man. Nope. And I'm sorry. If you see what he looks like, back in the day, it was like, they definitely wouldn't have gone to him if that's what they wanted. And I doubt that, like, that just never happened. No. I don't even doubt it. It just didn't happen.

Well, and it's, it's classic. It's, they wanted it. They wanted me. That's what it is. They wanted it. It was so desirable. Look at me. And he said, after he finished having sex with them, he dropped them off at a theater.

Oh, so, such a gentleman. It's like, it's so weird that you dropped them off because, like, they were found dead that day later. Yeah. So, no one saw them at a theater. Doesn't make any sense. And did he drive a white van? He did drive a white van at the time. And the van was later burned, FYI.

Oh, that's fine. Yeah, literally nothing else. Like, I could find nothing else about that, just that it was later burned. Just burned. And repainted. Repainted first, then burned. And it's not out of this world to think that Debbie and Maria would have known who Ed Bell was because Debbie and Maria were both super into surfing and water skiing.

They were both, like, really good at water skiing. And they would have known him from the. the surf and dive shop that he co-owned. Oh. With this guy named Doug Prunes. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. High there.

Now, this was like the place to be in Gavleston because everybody was into water sports, water skiing, like surfing, and they sold all that stuff there. And it's like, I just picture like this little beach town, like, summer vacation where like you're all hanging out at like the surf and dive shop. Like I'm thinking of the movie Jaws. I mean, I'm thinking of it too because it's like, yeah. So that's where they were and he fucking co-owned it. So it's like, yeah, he definitely, they ran across each other's paths on multiple occasions.

And Doug Brun said that he actually, this is so weird. I'm like, how did you co-own something with this guy? He said he didn't know him very well. It's like, all right. I don't know. I feel like that's a little bit of distancing. He was like, I just know that he came around the store a lot. And he told me that he needed somewhere to sell his dive equipment.

And I was like, yeah, sell it here. And it was like, but how did he become a co-owner? I was going to say that's a jump. You should have a lot of discussion about that. He was probably just like a chill surfer dude. And he's like, yeah, sure. Honestly, it makes sense. You want to co-own it?

He's like, do you listen to the beach boys? All right. Cool. This other guy that worked there named Jimmy Summerfield said that Ed was always coming and going and he knew that Ed was a con man of sorts. And he was always up to something. He was like, I knew that guy was up to something. He was wily, that one.

Yeah, he was a wily coyote. So Debbie and Maria were not the only pair of friends to go missing from Galveston and turn up in a gruesome manner. Okay. Next pair, we're going to talk about 13-year-old Sharon Shaw and 14-year-old Rhonda Renee Johnson. Man. So they went missing on August 4th in 1971. Okay.

So Rhonda went by Renee. Renee was like super into music and surfing. A lot of these girls were into surfing because they lived in Galveston. Which is probably how he was picking them out too. Yeah, exactly, because they probably hung out at the surf shop. And she loved to hang out with her best friend Sharon. Sharon was the younger one of the two, but everyone says that she was the leader. And she had this confidence about her.

Like, she knew what she was doing. Good for her. And she had big dreams of becoming a pro surfer. And she talked about this all the time. She was like, I'm going to run away to California when I'm old enough and I'm going to be like a pro surfer. Oh. So she and Renee wanted to go to the beach one day, probably to go surfing. Likely. So their friend Glenda Willis drove them out to the beach in Galveston and then she was like, I got to get to work. Like are you guys? Like I think she hung out there for a

little bit. And then she was like, I got to go. Like are you guys coming? And they were like, nope, like we're good. We're going to hang out longer. Okay. So it was just the two of them there together. And Glenda ended up being the last friend to see them alive. Oh, imagine. I always think of that. The poor people that end up being like, all right, see you later. One, it's like you run into so many people like that in this story, obviously. And it's like the last people feel so much guilt because they're like, I just should have never left them alone that day. They think of every little possibility.

Like maybe if I stayed or maybe if I had made them come with me. Right. And it's like, of course, it's natural. It's human. It's just what you do. It's like survivor's guilt. It just makes me so sad that those people have to live with that extra layer. Yeah, it is sad.

So they went missing August 4th. They weren't found until February 1972. Ooh. And it was August 4th, 1971. Ooh. So it took a very long time for their bodies to be discovered. Yeah. Sharon's remains were found first by a man fishing at Taylor Lake.

All in all, they found 29 of her bones. And with her bones, they found pieces of tied up black twine. Ooh. Then Renee's skull was found in upper Taylor Lake. So they're kind of the same deal. Like one, they just like drifted apart because of the currents probably. Yeah. And they had to use dental records to identify Renee. Wow. Yeah. So in his letter, Ed Bell had said that he tied Debbie and Maria up. So this kind of explains the ties that are found with Sharon, Sharon's body. Exactly. It was also noteworthy now that there's two separate. of friends to go missing, they have similar interests like water surfing, water surfing. You know water surfing. Water skiing and surfing. And it's like, it's weird that like two girls go missing at a time. Like, that's a weird thing. Yeah. The main thing that people hold on to is that Ed, like for this case, is that Ed Bell referenced a blonde and a brunette in his confession letter. And many people think that

the blonde and brunette killed together that summer were Sharon and Renee. Oh, okay. So a few years later, we're going to flash forward to September of 74. There was another pair of girls to go missing together. Yeah, somebody take note. Yeah, I'm like, how, well, the other thing is these are like, not all of these are in Galveston, and there's so many police communities and jurisdictions and they don't want to work with each other. They never want to share information. Especially in the 70s.

They were like, it was like a, like a competition. Oh, yeah. They all had huge mustaches, lots of mutton chops, and they were like, nope, not sharing. Like, holding everything close to my chest. Also, probably going to do the most minimal amount of searching for these kids. I'm going to do the absolute least amount of work. Like, I am corrupt as fuck. So September 74, another pair of girls goes missing from Dickinson this time. Now, Dickinson is not that far away from Galveston. It's like a 25-minute drive. Okay. And that's also a town that was mentioned by Ed. Bell in his confession letter.

Ah, yes, I remember you saying that. He references killing two Dickinson girls. Okay. So these girls were 12-year-old Brooks Bracewell and her best friend Georgia Geer, who was 14 years old. Come on. It's like 12 years old. 12 years old, dude.

Ridiculous. My God. So Brooks and Georgia knew each other because they lived in the same neighborhood and they were like inseparable, like they were best friends. So another group of. best friends. Oh, that's awful. So Brooks was a tomboy and Georgia loved a good adventure. So they were like a match made in heaven. Absolutely. Brooks's stepbrother said that the last time he saw them, they said that they were going to hitch a ride to school because they were like, fuck waiting for the

bus. It was at the bus stop that he last saw them. And then along the way, they ended up deciding that they wanted to have an adventure together. They didn't feel like going to school. Of course they did. And it was a Friday. Who feels like going to school? Not me. And it's the 70s again. Yeah, carefree. Nobody cares. I'm going to hitcher. I'm going to hitcher. I'm going to a ride to wherever. Truancy? Whatever. Don't go the fuck.

So the last place that they were seen together was the El Rancho Motel. The motel, strangely enough, like, picturing a motel for, like, as a place for kids to hang out seems bizarre. But this particular motel was where the kids hung out. All right. There was a room with, like, a pool table, a bar and, like, some other random games. Oh, that makes sense. Like a game room. Yeah, exactly.

I picture kind of almost like an arcade. Yeah. Maybe they had Pacman. It's got the billiards table. It's got, yeah, all that jazz. So people would come there after school, especially on the weekend. So it wasn't unusual that they cut school, went there, hung out. Like, they might have gone to, like, the corner store or something before that.

But they definitely were lasting at this motel because Brooks's older sister, Sherry, went there with her friends after school on Friday. Okay. And she saw Brooks and Georgia. And she's like, what the fuck are you guys doing here? Because they're younger. Yeah. Everything was wrapping up. People were heading home.

And Brooks and Georgia were like, hey, Sherry, can we grab a ride? with you and your friends. Now, Sherry obviously regrets this to this day. She had come with like two or three of her guy friends and she was like the older sister. This is her little sister. She's like, nope, you guys found your way here, find your way home. Oh, that's a tough one. There like wasn't technically room for them in the car anyways. Yeah. But it's like, but of course she's, she probably hung on to that. Right. And then one of her guy friends who was in the car at the time says he remembers turning around and looking at them and either, I don't know if it was George or if it was Brooks, but he saw one of them like put their thumb in the road, like they were going to hitch your ride home.

And that's the last, like he was like, it is burned into my memory. That is the last image I have of them. Can you imagine? Because you know whatever car they got into is that was the one. That's who it was. So it's like you just watched it happen. It's awful. And of course nobody could ever know. That's the thing. You don't know. And everybody. everybody who goes missing or is murdered, they saw someone last. There's always going to be that last someone. And it's like, if you're unlucky enough to be it, it's like it's not your fault, man. No, of course not.

The shittiest thing about this is not only the fact that Sherry has all this guilt, but also the police treated Brooks and Georgia's case like they were runaways. Oh, of course they did. Now remember, this is a 12-year-old and a 14. year old and their family was like no like these are not runaway girls like i think um brooks had had literally 28 cents in her pocket yeah and they had they didn't like they ditched their bags before school they didn't have bags or anything they weren't runaways you would think they would bring a bag with them right um the family hung up their own wanted or excuse me missing posters but can i talk

you can their own their own missing persons posters because the police didn't even as far as to do that. Wow. So when they were finally found, it was in a ditch near an oil patch in Alvin, Texas. Oh, wow. So their remains were found in a ditch. And remains had been found there in that ditch previously, about two years after the girls went missing, but not all of them. Like, it was only like some remains that were never identified. Oh, okay. And then years later, like two more years later, Matt Wingo, he was the sheriff in, I think it's Brazoria County. He was the sheriff at the time. And he was like, I want to go back out there and see if there's more. Yeah. So there was more. And during that, like, shady investigation, they actually did take dental records, luckily. Like, that's like the only thing that they did do.

So when Matt went out there and found the rest of the remains, they had to, again, use the dental records. Yeah. To confirm. that it was Brooks and Georgia. Yeah, and that all the remains were together. And they were all together, exactly. They were babies, man. All these kids are babies. Like, literally, like, one of these girls was 12 years old.

12 years old. It's the saddest thing ever. And the other thing that, this is like a haunting little piece of information, Brooks's last known outfit was a golden sweater and plaid pants. Oh. And fragments of the gold sweater were wrapped up within the remains. Oh. Which I was like, that reminded me of like the lovely bones for some reason.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that movie will fuck you up. This case will fuck you up. Everything. And also that's like got like such a 70s vibe. So it does. It makes you think of it.

It's from the 70s. It is. I think it's set in the 70s. Yeah. So at this point, we have three sets of missing girls that turn up murdered in either in Galveston or like 25 minutes away. Yeah. So it's like clearly.

We have a serial killer. Yeah. Working in the same area. And if you think of it, four of the six girls had ties to the surfing and diving community, which we knew that Ed had strong ties to. And he confesses and stands by the fact that he did see Debbie Ackerman and Maria Johnson on the last day they were alive. Yeah.

So it's like, okay, this is perfect. Like, why don't we have anything? It's like, the whole thing is so frustrating when you think of it. And the other thing is, so we know that he co-owned that ski and, or water skiing and like surf shop. He also lived by a ski school. He lived like a few blocks away and it was a ski school that four of the girls who were like into the water sports, they went there all the time. Yeah, it's like he's got opportunity. He's got everything. It's right there. So he wasn't a suspect at the time though because I don't even think anybody knew of him at this point. Yeah, people just didn't

know who Ed Bell was. Right. They had no idea. But in 1972, which was a couple years before Georgia and Brooks went missing. But I just wanted to talk. about everybody first. There was a man arrested in connection to one of these cases. So that was the case of Rhonda Renee Johnson and Sharon Shaw. Okay, the second set of-of- Yes, the second set of girls, exactly. So there was a lot more pressure on this specific case because Renee's grandpa was Roy Johnson and he was a city councilman at the time. Oh. He also went on to become the mayor. Oh, So he had a lot of say-so. Yeah.

He was getting like real pissed off that it didn't seem like anything was coming from the investigation that was being done. He's like, what the fuck is going on? Yeah. So at the time, this police officer, David Coburn, was doing the investigation. And the sheriff at the time was, or excuse me, at the sheriff, the police chief was JC Norman. Okay.

So, and this was a seven-man police force. And David had never worked a murder before. Oh, that's good. So it was like, obviously, that's probably why like not much was being done. Everything seems legit. So Roy Johnson is like, fuck all of you. You're all fired. He basically makes it so that almost the entire police force is like fired.

And he brings in these new dudes. So the new dudes that he brings in are Don Morris as police chief now and his assistant, Tommy Deal. Okay. These are cool names. I'm not going to lie. Tommy Deal. Like Tommy Deal? Like, okay.

Yeah. Wait until you find out what happens. Oh, man. Tommy was the one who took over this investigation of like what happened to these girls primarily. What do you know? Nine days of investigating this case, he's already got a suspect, made an arrest, and got a confession. Wow. Tommy Deal. Tommy Deal making deals. He is. He's the real deal. Sounds pretty perfect, right? Sure does. Not so much. I bet it is too. Oh, it's pretty perfect. All right. So Michael Lloyd's self was a peeping Tom with a, and this is a quote, a stunted mental growth.

Okay. So gather from that what you will. Just take from it what you will. Exactly. He was a gas station attendant and he typically worked the night shift. Okay. Glenn Price was like another city councilman at the time. And he was the one that called Don Morris and tipped him off that maybe Michael Self had

something to do with Renee and Sharon's murders. Okay. He's like, you might want to look into this dude. And what do you have it? Don Morris already knew Michael Self and didn't fucking like him. Oh. Because Don Morris was like a security guard at like an apartment complex at one point. And he always would see Michael Self like looking up girl's skirts as they were walking up.

Yeah, he was peeping Tom like 100%. Not a good dude. No. And he also had once threatened to throw Michael in jail because he thought that Michael was stealing gas from fire trucks when he was working as a volunteer firefighter. Okay. So he already had a vengeance against him. So let's remember that. The morning of June 9th, Don and Tommy went out to the gas station and talked to Michael,

ask him a few questions, and he agreed to go in for more questioning later that morning. So he goes down to the police station and they show him pictures of Renee and Sharon. And he's like, oh, yeah, I recognize them, but I don't know them personally. That was enough for Don and Tommy to literally slap the cuffs on right then and there. They were like, oh, like, that's all we needed to know is that you know them. And he's like, what the fuck? Like, that doesn't make any sense. So he's literally like, I've seen them before.

And they're like, well, you did it. You did it. Perfect. And they did get him to confess. He actually confessed multiple times. But he later said that he was forced to confess by Don Morris, who took five bullets out of his gun, which had like six bullets total. Yeah.

And basically played Russian roulette with him and was like, I'm going to blow your brains out unless you write down everything I tell you to write down. Wow. And he also, I guess, like, held him up against the wall and was, like, poking at him with his, like, police stick. Damn. So that's how Michael says. That's why he confessed because he was, like, being tortured. Being tortured.

Exactly. Which, not for nothing. We've seen that happen. A false confession. It made me think of the West Memphis three. It immediately made me think of that. I feel like any false confession will make me think of that. So.

Which quick little side note, John Mark Byers died. Right? I forgot that we didn't mention that. So that's crazy. We're not going to go into it or anything, but like, whoa. But like, whoa. Whoa, guys. Okay. We'll talk about it later. Yeah, we'll talk about it on the beginning of the next episode. Yeah. So there is a problem with the confessions. I'm shocked. Again, it's weird. It's there's already a problem because there's multiple different different different ones. Like, that's not usually what happens. Yeah. And it seems like, so there's two different written confessions. And it seems like the first one was kind of written. And it seems like the first one was kind of written. written and he was like, okay, like this makes sense. And then the second one was written and it fitted, it fit the, like the details more. It fits the narrative better. If it's the narrative, exactly. So the first one was written on June mine, June 9th, the day that he was arrested. And then the second one was written three days later on June 12th. So like I said, like it's a big issue that the second one was written to fit more of the details. And then a couple of the other. issues are that in the first confession, Michael says that he disposed of the girls' bodies in the El Lago Lake, but that's 20 miles away from the Taylor Bayou, which is where they were actually found. So it's like, okay, that's weird.

So already, it's like, uh, it's like, nope, that doesn't make any sense. And then in the second confession, he's like, oh, yeah, it was the Taylor Bayou. Like, I just messed that up. He's like, oh, you know what? Yes. Yeah, totally. Absolutely. Makes sense, makes sense.

And then in one of his confessions, he says that he picked the girls up from Sharon's house, but that was impossible because, like, nobody saw him do that. Yeah. And also, at the time he he says he picked them up, they had already been reported missing. Yeah, this isn't looking good. No. Um, so that makes literally no sense. And finally, he says that he choked them, but there was no evidence to support that. Yeah. So that was him just being like, eh? I guess that's how I did it. I choked him. I guess so. So there's no evidence against him. Like, there's no physical evidence at all. It was just, I think everyone was really happy to have an answer. And the community was like, we just need somebody in jail for this.

It's the same exact thing as the West Memphis three. Exactly. You just need to nail someone so you can go, we got him. It's like a comfort thing. Yeah. So Michael Self, so weird, he was actually only convicted of Sharon's murder, even though there was like no evidence at all, but they could only get him on that murder. Wow.

And he spent the rest of his life in jail. Wow. The rest of his fucking life in jail. I don't think he did it. That's shocking. David Coburn also doesn't believe that Michael did it because he says that he saw Don Morris do this exact like Russian roulette thing to make another inmate do whatever he wanted them to do. So this is like his thing. This is his thing. And then Tommy and Don became even more unreliable because it came out that the entire time that they were working on this case and also for years after, they had been committing a string of bankruptcy. robberies around Texas. Tommy and Don. But like doesn't Don Morris and Tommy deal? Like you were not born to be police officers. No, you were born to be outlaws. Born to be wild. You were born to be

wild. So they weren't exactly like your hometown heroes that everybody thought they were. No, definitely not. They actually, they both got released from prison after they like served their time. And then Tommy got put back in prison when he pretty much immediately robbed another bank as soon as he got up. He just can't help himself. And it's weird. Tommy deal. He's Tommy deal. Well, he says that Don Morris is like the one that like made him get into it. Of course. And he's like, but it's like cool, but then Don stopped and you didn't. So it's like really doesn't matter. It's like also nobody believes you at this point because you was a liar. You's a liar, time of deal. A liar. So, but let's get back to Ed Bell.

Let's do it. So at this point you're probably like, okay, yeah, like he's a pretty solid suspect and he's like definitely a shitty individual. But like, does that make him a murderer? I think it does. I think so. But if you don't, I'm going to need you to hold on to your butt. All right, holding on to it. Well, you don't even need to, but like somebody else might. I'm holding on, though. Okay. So August 24th, 1978, Ed Bell was doing what he does best, being a big old motherfucking creep. He was driving around in his red pickup truck looking for a group of girls to expose himself to.

God, Ed. As one does. God, Ed. He ended up in this, like, super nice neighborhood in Pasadena. He parked his car in the middle of the street, stripped. from the waist down, got out of his car and just began masturbating right there in the middle of the fucking neighborhood. My God. If only someone would walk by dudes who do this with hedge clippers and just go, shnip. Yeah. Seriously, that's what they need. And then just keep on trucking. Just keep going.

Just be like, have a nice day. Well, somebody did try to save the day here. So it was former Marine Larry Dickens. Yes. His mom lived in that neighborhood and he was just there to mow the lawn for her that day. What a good dude. Oh, my God. And he brought his three-year-old daughter with him. Oh, so I hope he fucked this guy up. So the family saw what was going on because Larry's like out there mowing the lawn. And Dorothy's like, what the, that's the mom? She's like, what the fuck? Like, there's this naked dude jerking off in the middle of the street. So she calls the police and she's like, my son is going out there. Like, he's going to try to detain this guy and like make it so young girls don't see this dude fucking jerking off in the street. So he tried to get Ed Bell to cut the shit. Larry

he goes over and he's like, what the fuck are you doing, dude? And he reaches into Ed Bell's truck to take his keys to make sure that, like, he can't get away once the cops get there. Well, Ed Bell was fucking pissed. He, like, Larry wasn't able to, like, reach him or anything or he was, like, trying to, like, get away with the keys. So Ed Bell reaches in to his truck and pulls out a pistol and shoots Larry in the chest four times. No. Now, Larry was 26 years old. No. Larry was able to get back to his driveway after being fucking shot that many times and his mom came like running out. He collapses onto her and Ed Bell walks up to him again, shoots him again while he's laying in his mom's arms, then calmly walks back to his fucking truck. He tosses the pistol back in, grabs a hunting rifle, walks back over.

And at this point, like, I think Larry had like gotten up again to like or turn. to get away, like the mom went inside to, like, get the daughter. He shot him in between the eyes with a hunting rifle. I am beyond words. Like, this all happened because you wanted to get out of your fucking car and jerk off and broad daylight. And this guy was like, no, you can't do that. So you shot him, like, multiple fucking times.

And as he's laying in his mother's arms, like, you're the most evil fucker. Not only that, like he literally shoots him all he's in his mother's arms, then goes back and gets a hunting rifle to shoot him again. Wow. So obviously, Larry Dickens died, unfortunately. But I feel like he died a hero. Yeah. Oh, fuck. That sucks.

Bell was able to hop in his car and fucking get away. What? So he wasn't super familiar with the area, though, and he ended up driving down a dead end road, like the fucking moron that he is. Dumbass. He was arrested. But he posted his $125,000 bail and skipped bail and escaped to Panama for the next 14 years. Man, you know what? You tell him this story is very 2020 of you.

It is very 2020. The next 14 fucking years. That's bullshit. And that's not even it. That's where I'm going to leave you, but that's not even the end of the fucking story. Back. So in part two, I'm going to get a little more. more into like Ed's potential crimes. I think they're all his fucking crimes. Ed did it. He did. His

weird ass life. I'm going to tell you all about that. I'm going to tell you about the rest of the 11 because I've only told you about six. So we have a ways to go. We have five more. We have five more. All these girls that I'm going to talk about in part two disappeared by themselves. Oh, that's different. And they met, a lot of them met the same fate of being let out to like water or something like that and being killed in the middle of nowhere. What a terrible, terrible way. And especially like a lot. Like, obviously you don't want to die no matter what, but I feel like, like, being alone must be a whole mother. Yeah, it's like the whole fucking thing is awful.

Oh, gosh. Yeah. So that's what we're going to get to in part two. Wow. Motherfucker escaped. I hate that story. I know. And we're not even done with it yet.

I hate it. Well, I feel like there's a lot that we can post to the Instagram for this one if you want to go check that out. Yeah, because that's bonkers. Insane. You can follow us on Instagram, though, at Morbid Podcast. Hit us up on Twitter. A Morbid Podcast. Send us a Gmail. That is where listener tales go. Don't send them anywhere else or else we won't see them.

We will not see them. And that's a bummer because we want to see them. Morbid Podcast at gmail.com. And make sure you put listener tail and then a fun little title. Yes. And we hope you keep listening. We hope you keep it weird. But that's the way that you get out of your car in the middle of the broad daylight and you start jerking off because that's just not okay. And honestly, I hope that you end up shot if you do that. Yeah. And you know what if you do that? I'm going to come out of nowhere with some head. Clippers and just go chomp. Yeah, keep it that weird.

We will keep it that weird. I'm going to keep it that weird. Bye. Bye.