MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - A Single Piercing Scream (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Episode Date: April 11, 2022

In 2006, an adult son arrived at his parent’s farm to work for the day. When he got there, he expected to see his father out and about doing chores, but when he looked around the property, he didn't see him. The son decided to go inside the farm house (where his parents lived) to see what they were doing. What he saw on the 2nd floor would haunt him for the rest of his life…For 100s more stories like this one, check out my YouTube channel just called "MrBallen" -- https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @MrBallenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today's story is about a heinous crime that was only solved because one person noticed one very small discrepancy in the case. When you get to the end of this episode, you will be shocked at what that little discrepancy unravels. Also, at the end of this episode, there is an additional plot twist that was only discovered after the case was closed and the trial had ended. So stay tuned to the end. This episode includes graphic content, so listener discretion is advised. But before we get into

today's story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do, and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, please offer to make the five star review button some scrambled eggs for breakfast, but leave an awkward amount of eggshell bits in the eggs. Also, please subscribe to the Mr. Ballin podcast wherever you listen to podcasts

so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Hello, I'm Emily, and I'm one of the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. And they don't get much bigger than the man who made badminton sexy. Okay, maybe that's a stretch, but if I say pop star and shuttlecocks, you know who I'm talking about. No? Short shorts? Free cocktails? Careless whispers? Okay, last one. It's not Andrew Ridgely.

Yep, that's right. It's Stone Cold icon George Michael. From teen pop sensation to one of the biggest solo artists on the planet, join us for our new series, George Michael's Fight for Freedom. From the outside, it looks like he has it all. But behind the trademark dark sunglasses is a man in turmoil. George is trapped in a lie of his own making with a secret he feels would ruin him if the truth ever came out. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to your podcasts or listen early and ad-free on Wanderie Plus

on Apple Podcasts or the Wanderie app. I'm Peter Frank-O'Pern. And I'm Afua Hirsch. And we're here to tell you about our new season of Legacy, covering the iconic, troubled musical genius that was Nina Simone. Full disclosure, this is a big one for me. Nina Simone, one of my favourite artists of all time.

Somebody who's had a huge impact on me, who I think objectively stands apart for the level of her talent, the audacity of her message. If I was a first year at university, the first time I sat down and really listened to her and engaged with her message, it totally floored me. And the truth and pain and messiness of her struggle, that's all captured in unforgettable music that has stood the test of time. Think that's fair, Peter? I mean, the way in which her music comes across is so powerful, no matter what song it is.

So join us on Legacy for Nina Simone. Okay, let's get into today's story. 58-year-old Charmin Stock woke up early on Easter Sunday, April 16, 2006. She was sure she heard the sound of raindrops on the roof of her two-story white farmhouse. She sat up in bed, already worried that her Easter egg hunt that she had planned for her four grandchildren that afternoon would be rained out. But just a second later, her husband of 48 years, Wayne Stock, reached over and gave her a gentle, reassuring pat on her back. Wayne knew how much his wife loved Easter. Don't worry, he told her.

It's not rain. It's just the wind. I checked the weather last night, and it's going to be a beautiful day. At around 6.30 in the morning, the couple got out of bed, and Charmin headed downstairs to the kitchen to make sure that each of the Easter baskets she had put together for her grandchildren were perfect. Then she opened the refrigerator and started prepping food for the big family dinner she was going to make later that day. And as she did this, she looked out the window and just like her husband had predicted, the sun was already

starting to poke through the clouds. Just an hour later, dressed in their best clothes, the stocks were sitting inside Ebenezer United Methodist Church saying hello to their neighbors and friends, catching up on local news, and just really enjoying one of their favorite holidays. The Stocks lived in a tiny town in eastern Nebraska called Murdock. It was the kind of place where everyone knew each other and no one was worried about leaving their doors unlocked. In this tight-knit village of 270 people, Wayne and Charmin were especially well-liked and respected. They were active in the church, mentoring teens and teaching Sunday school. They also served on the school board, and Wayne had served in the Nebraska National Guard. Charmin had spent 17 years as a teacher's aide in the local elementary school,

and now she operated a small business out of her house making specialty wedding cakes. In addition to the 1,000 acres of land Charmin and Wayne owned and farmed, the Stocks also had a successful business growing and selling hay. At 9 40 a.m., the organ music started and the congregation quieted down. As the couple waited in silence for the greeting from their pastor, Wayne and Charmin bowed their heads and gave thanks for all their blessings. On their way out of the church that morning after the service, Pastor Joe Wacker asked the Stocks what they were up to for the rest of the day to celebrate the holiday. As Charmin told him excitedly about her Easter egg hunt that she had planned for her grandkids, Pastor Joe smiled. People like Charmin and Wayne were the

glue that held their families and communities together. And in a few hours, under a partly sunny sky, Wayne and Charmin were out in the backyard of their home chatting with their married children and in-laws and watching their four grandkids look along the edge of the barn for the brightly colored eggs that Charmin had hidden as soon as she had gotten home from church. barn for the brightly colored eggs that Charmin had hidden as soon as she had gotten home from church. Andrew Stock, the son who would one day take over the family hay business, was spending Easter with his fiance's family, but he had told his parents that he would be by their place that evening to pick up his dog. Andrew had just gotten a new puppy, and that morning he had dropped it off with his parents so that they could look after it for the day. So at around 8pm that night, just as the Stocks had put away the last dinner dishes and picked up

the house, they heard the sound of Andrew's truck in their driveway. It had turned into such a beautiful and clear and mild evening that the three of them decided to just stay outside on the back deck and chat for a bit. Sharman told Andrew all about the Easter egg hunt and how much the grandkids loved it. Then Andrew and his dad spent a few minutes chatting about hay prices and what needed to be done around the farm. Andrew told his father that he'd be back over the next morning to work in their hay office. And then Andrew picked up his tired puppy that had fallen asleep in the kitchen. He got back into his truck, he waved to his parents, and then he headed back down their driveway to the main road. As he looked in his rearview mirror, he waved to his parents, and then he headed back down their driveway to the main road.

As he looked in his rearview mirror, he saw his mom and dad turn towards their front door, take each other's hands, and step back inside of their house. The next morning, Andrew got up early, he grabbed a cup of coffee, and he headed outside to his truck. He drove the roughly 30 minutes to his parents' house, pulling into the parking area just outside of the office building for their hay operations, which was a small standalone structure set a ways back from the farmhouse. His mom and dad were both early risers, and his dad liked to get started on his chores right after breakfast. So as Andrew walked toward the hay office, he thought it was odd when he glanced over in the direction of the farmhouse and saw his father's truck still parked outside where he had left it the night before.

So before going into the office to start his day, Andrew decided to go check the garage that was near the Hay office and see if maybe his dad had just decided that morning to drive his wife's car instead of his own truck. But when Andrew went inside the garage, his mom's car was still there. Andrew suddenly felt like maybe something was wrong. The quickest way to get in touch with his parents from where he was was just to call them on the office phone rather than walk or drive all the way across the property to the farmhouse. So quickly, Andrew left the garage and went into the Hay office building and picked up the phone to dial their number. However, when he put the phone to his ear, his sense of worry rapidly turned into alarm because there was no dial tone coming out of the phone. It was disconnected. And Andrew could

not think of a single reason why his parents would have disconnected their landline. It made no sense. So Andrew, now panicking, rushed out of the office, hopped in his truck, and sped across the big property to his parents' farmhouse. At two minutes before 9 a.m., Andrew knocked loudly on his parents' side door. When he didn't hear anything, he turned the knob and discovered that the door was unlocked. He stepped inside and immediately called out to his parents, but the house was quiet. And the kitchen, where he could always find his mom and a fresh pot of coffee, was empty. Andrew began to pray out loud that his parents would be okay as he walked from the kitchen

toward the stairs that would lead to the second floor. As he walked up the stairs, he did what he'd done since he was a child. Without thinking, he dragged his right hand along the wall. And as he did, he felt something a little bit rough under his fingertips. When he turned to see what it was, he saw dark red smears and little red spots all over the wallpaper. And when he got to the top of the stairs and could see into the second floor hallway and master bedroom just beyond, Andrew saw something that would haunt him for the rest of his life. Andrew turned around and ran back down the stairs out to

his pickup truck where he frantically grabbed his cell phone and dialed 911. Twelve minutes later, the ambulance arrived. The medics pushed past Andrew and they went into his parents' house and headed up the stairs. When they reached the top, where Andrew had been standing 15 minutes earlier, they found Andrew's father, Wayne, lying in a pool of congealed blood. Just beyond Wayne, through the open master bedroom door, the medics could see another body. It was Wayne's wife and Andrew's mother, Charmin. She was lying on her back on the floor next to the bed.

Her legs were outstretched towards the door, and a telephone receiver was still on her back on the floor next to the bed, her legs were outstretched towards the door, and a telephone receiver was still in her hand like she had been trying to place a call when she died. Although the medics sprang into action looking for any signs of life on either of them, they knew their attempts were futile. It was immediately clear to them, as it had been to Andrew, that Wayne and Sharman were both dead. By the time police arrived, just eight minutes Charmin were both dead. By the time police arrived, just eight minutes after the ambulance had pulled up to the house, Andrew was on the phone with his brother and sister, telling them that something horrible had happened to their parents, and they needed to get out to the farmhouse as fast as they could. His sister, Tammy, remembered

thinking at the time that whatever had happened, her brother must be exaggerating. The sleepy little town of Murdoch where they lived had to be one of the safest places in the world, and Tammy knew her parents were in good health. She had just spent the day before Easter Sunday laughing and talking with them, so they had to be just fine. But as she left work and climbed into her car, Tammy found herself repeating a prayer over and over again. The good Lord protects us. The good Lord protects us. But only a few minutes later, she would arrive at the farmhouse and would learn that both of her parents had been murdered. Tammy and her two siblings, Andrew and Steve, weren't the only people who were shocked and horrified by what had happened to Wayne and Sharmanmin Stock. Local police had never seen anything like

the grisly crime scene they discovered inside the farmhouse, and as word spread throughout Murdoch, the Stock's neighbors and friends also reacted with total disbelief. The investigation into the murders was immediately assigned to the local sheriff's office, but the sheriff knew he did not have the manpower or the experience to deal with this kind of a crime. So before he even left the crime scene that day, he called the state police and the nearest Nebraska Crime Scene Investigation Unit and asked them for help. Both organizations agreed and promised to have some of their people in Murdoch within the hour. The commander of the Crime Scene Investigation Unit was a man named David

Caffode, a criminal profiler and legendary crime scene investigator who had a reputation for finding forensic evidence that everyone else had overlooked. While investigators from the sheriff's office started to conduct interviews with friends and family of Wayne and Charman, David walked into the Stocks farmhouse for the first time. After examining the crime scene and looking at the few pieces of evidence police had collected, which included a few firearm shell casings, a red and silver marijuana pipe, and a small LED flashlight, David Caffode quickly reached two conclusions. The first was that the attack must have been personal, that the attackers knew the stocks. He based this largely on the fact that violent crime was so rare in Murdoch. Also, the farmhouse did not appear to

have been ransacked, which made it highly unlikely that it was a robbery gone wrong. The second conclusion David came to was that there likely had been two killers. He based this on a host of factors, including the positioning of the bodies and the blood spatter on the walls. On his way off the property, David told the state and local police that he believed this was a revenge killing carried out by two young men. He told the investigators that they should be looking for men who had a grudge against Wayne or Sharman or both, or who were at or near the Stock property in the last 24 hours. Since Andrew Stock had been the last person to see his parents alive,

police quickly brought him in for questioning. But after only a few hours, they could tell he was not involved. There was absolutely no history of any trouble between him and his parents, involved. There was absolutely no history of any trouble between him and his parents, and there was no financial motive since Andrew was already in line to inherit the family hay business. But police could not say the same thing for another member of the Stock family, Andrew's cousin, 28-year-old Matt Livers, who was the son of Wayne Stock's brother. Several relatives had told investigators that Matt had a history of conflict with Wayne and Sharman, who were his uncle and aunt, including a disagreement over who would inherit a house that belonged to Wayne and Sharman. So, at about 11 p.m. on April 17th,

14 hours after the gruesome discovery at the Stock's farmhouse, a state police investigator and a sheriff county investigator brought Matt into the local police station for questioning. Although Matt admitted to arguing with his aunt and uncle, he denied any involvement in their murders. Four hours later, when the police had not been able to find anything that connected Matt to the crime, he was allowed to return to the house he shared with his girlfriend in nearby Lincoln, Nebraska. In the meantime, other investigators had gotten a description of a light tan sedan car that a paper carrier had seen early on the morning of the 17th, parked near a fence between the Stocks property and an adjacent cemetery. The paper carrier also

told police that this same car had passed him getting very fast in the general vicinity of the Stock's home the night before. State and local investigators soon found a car that matched that description. It was a 1998 Ford Contour that belonged to a man named William Sampson, whose 21-year-old brother, Nicholas Sampson, happened to be the cousin of Matt Livers. On April 20th, three days after the killings, the Crime Scene Investigation Unit conducted a thorough examination of the Ford Contour. Although they did not find any physical or forensic evidence that linked the car to the stock murders, they did discover that the car had recently been thoroughly cleaned and wiped

down. So even without hard evidence, the fact that officers could draw a connection between a potentially suspicious vehicle and Matt Livers, and that Matt was the only suspect police could identify who had a personal motive for hurting Wayne and Charmin, investigators tightened their focus on Matt. They kept him under surveillance, they examined the trash he removed from his home, and they questioned his friends and his co-workers. Then, on the morning of Tuesday, April 25th, which was eight days after the Stocks had been killed, investigators brought Matt Livers into the station where they gave him a lie detector test. After the test, they brought him into a room for another round of interrogation. Despite Matt repeatedly saying he had nothing to do with the murders, no one believed him. And at

the conclusion of this 11-hour straight interrogation session, police would tell Matt that he failed his lie detector test. Shortly after hearing this, Matt Livers confessed that he and his cousin, Nicholas, had in fact killed Wayne and Charmin Stock. The Stock children were devastated all over again. Not only had they lost their parents, but now members of their own family had admitted to committing the murders. They did not want to believe it, and aside from Matt's confession, there still was no hard evidence actually linking Matt or Nicholas to the killings, and so some of the family actually held out hope that maybe there had been a mistake. But that would change on May 8th,

three weeks after Wayne and Charmin were found. Known for his thoroughness, the legendary crime scene investigator David Caffode ordered a second examination of the inside of the Ford Contour, ordered a second examination of the inside of the Ford Contour, and this time he conducted the search himself. After going over the car interior one inch at a time, David discovered a single speck of blood underneath the dashboard. DNA testing showed that the blood belonged to Wayne Stock. This was the official nail in the coffin for Matt and his cousin Nicholas.

They were both promptly charged with murder and sent to jail to await trial. While the residents of Murdoch breathed a sigh of relief knowing the killers were now behind bars, the police announced publicly that the bloody crime that had sent fear and shockwaves through the town and that had made headlines in the national press had been solved and the case was closed. Or rather, it would have been closed if it hadn't been for a single question raised by a young investigator named Christine Gabig who worked in the sheriff's crime lab that had analyzed the evidence collected at the scene of the Stock murders. Two days after the discovery of the marijuana pipe and LED flashlight that police had found outside of the Stock's house on April 17th, just hours after Andrew had discovered his parents' bodies, police, who were doing a final sweep of the crime scene, found a man's gold ring

on the floor out of sight in the Stock's kitchen. The ring did not belong to either Wayne or Sharman, but the team investigating the murders did not think the ring could be connected to their case. They decided it was more likely that the ring had just been dropped in the kitchen sometime in the past by any number of visitors or family members, and no one had found it until now. But to Christine, the ring was a loose end that needed to be tied up. She knew Charmin ran her cake business out of her kitchen. And after asking around, it turned out Charmin had a reputation for being a perfectionist who kept her kitchen immaculately clean at all times.

And so Christine's thinking to herself, you know, how is it possible that Charmin is in this kitchen all the time, constantly cleaning it up and constantly making sure it's perfect? How does she not find this ring when we found it within a couple of hours of being in her house? It just didn't make any sense. Christine decided she would try to track down the owner of the ring to see how it wound up in the stock household. When she looked at the ring, she saw there was a jeweler's mark on it, as well as an inscription that said, Love Always, Corey and Ryan. The inscription was distinctive because it was on the outside of the ring rather than the inside of the gold band. It took a while,

but finally, in mid-May of that year, Christine was able to trace the jeweler's mark to A&A Jewelers in Buffalo, New York. Christine picked up the phone and she called the number for the store, and it would turn out, had she waited even a few hours longer to make that call, she likely never would have figured out who this ring belonged to. Because the day Christine called that jewelry store was literally the day they were going out of business. Mary Martino, who was an employee at this jewelry store was literally the day they were going out of business. Mary Martino, who was an employee at this jewelry store, was about to disconnect the phone line when the phone rang.

She picked it up and without even waiting for an answer, she told the caller, who was Christine, that they were shutting down the store for good and, you know, best of luck to you and she was about to hang up. But Christine butted in and said, please, I'm a police officer and I need your help finding the owner of a ring that you sold. It's involved in a homicide case. Mary was very surprised to hear this and also pretty excited. The idea of assisting in a murder case was kind of thrilling. So Mary spent the next three days and two nights in the jewelry store's warehouse tracking down the order for that gold band. Four days later, Mary called Christine back and told her that the ring had been shipped to a Walmart in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. Seventy phone calls to Wisconsin later, and Christine

had found the ring's owner, a man named Ryan who lived two full states away from Murdoch, Nebraska. The ring had been a gift from his ex-girlfriend, Corey. Christine could just about see Ryan shaking his head on the other end of the line. He said, I have no idea how my ring got to Nebraska. It turned out that Ryan's ring had been inside the glove compartment of his red Dodge Ram pickup truck, and that truck had been stolen in Wisconsin compartment of his red Dodge Ram pickup truck, and that truck had been stolen in Wisconsin on April 15th, 500 miles away from Murdoch, Nebraska, and two days before the

murders of Wayne and Charmin Stock. And then Ryan's truck had been found abandoned a few days later on April 18th in Louisiana, three states away from Murdoch, Nebraska. And the people who police believed had stolen Ryan's truck, 17-year-old Jessica Reed and 19-year-old Greg Fester, were already in police custody in Wisconsin. On June 6th, roughly two weeks after Christine made this discovery about the ring, the same two investigators who had gotten Matt Livers to confess to the murders of Wayne and Charmin Stock arrived in Dodge County, Wisconsin and conducted separate interviews with Jessica and her boyfriend Greg, who'd been accused of not only stealing Ryan's pickup truck, but also going on a four-day crime spree over that Easter weekend that took them

from Wisconsin to Louisiana. And needless to say, investigators were shocked at what the teenaged couple told them. They claimed that they knew who killed Wayne and Charmin Stock, and it was not Matt Livers and Nicholas Sampson. Based on those interviews with Jessica and Greg, and new evidence that police would uncover over the next five months, the police would come to the same conclusion as the teenagers. Matt and Nicholas were innocent. They did not kill Wayne and Charmin Stock. The following is a reconstruction of what actually happened to the Stock couple. But before we get into the rest of the story, I'd like to talk to you about today's sponsors. Okay, back to the story.

Back on Saturday, April 15th, 2006, the day before Easter, 17-year-old Jessica Reed and her 19-year-old boyfriend, Greg Fester, left their small apartment in Horicon, Wisconsin to take a road trip west so they could go see the ocean for the first time. Jessica, who had once been a high school honor student and cheerleader, had dropped out of high school following her parents' divorce. She had started using drugs and began dating Greg, who had a long history of drug and alcohol abuse, as well as an extensive criminal record. Greg was also in and out of treatment for psychiatric disorders. The young couple didn't have a car of their own, so they began their road trip by

stealing and then abandoning two different vehicles. Apparently, they hadn't liked either of them. They also broke into an empty house and stole a 12-gauge shotgun, ammunition, and an envelope full of cash. They eventually reached a farm where they saw Ryan's red Dodge pickup truck, and the couple thought that vehicle was perfect for them. So Greg hot-wired the truck, and he and Jessica hopped in and started to drive west. As they drove, they got high on marijuana, cocaine, and dextromethorphan, which is a stimulant found in cough medication. Eventually, Greg turned the

truck and headed southwest to the bordering state of Iowa. It was around this point that the couple stopped talking about wanting to go to the ocean to go see it for the first time. Now they were just solely focused on trying to rob as many people as they possibly could because they wanted money, and it seemed like they kind of enjoyed it. So on their way through Iowa, they robbed two more houses, vandalizing the first and stealing another shotgun, ammunition, and $300 from the second house. Then on April 16th, Easter Day, the couple crossed from Iowa into Nebraska. As the day wore on, the towns they passed through were located very far apart, separated by miles and miles of cornfields or empty tracts of flat land. At this point,

they started arguing about what houses they should rob next. Jessica thought they should just take the next thing that comes along because of how far apart everything was. But Greg, who was starting to feel jumpy and irritable as he came down from his massive cough medication high, rejected all of Jessica's suggestions. Feeling annoyed, Jessica just started to ignore him. Jessica had already searched the glove compartment of this truck for money when they first got in and she hadn't found any, but now that she was bored and kind of angry with Greg, she just reached down and opened the glove compartment again to see if, you know, maybe she had missed something.

Feeling around in the back of this glove compartment, Jessica found a man's gold ring with an inscription on the outside of the band that read, Love always, Corey and Ryan. Jessica, whose shoulder-length blonde hair, childlike face, and small frame made her look more like she was 14 rather than 17, slipped the ring onto her thumb. It was way too big, but she liked it and decided to wear it anyway. As she and Greg drove west across Nebraska and day turned into night, Jessica told Greg he really needed to stop being so picky about what house they were going to rob. There just weren't that many choices. And so finally, in the early morning hours of April 17th, as they drove down another long rural road, Greg suddenly put on the brakes. He could see a white two-story farmhouse with several outbuildings

scattered around it set back from the road. All the lights were out, and from his perspective, he couldn't see any vehicles parked anywhere nearby. And so to him, that meant no one was home. He turned to Jessica and told her this was it. This was the house they were going to rob. He switched off the headlights of the truck and then he turned down the Stocks driveway and began moving towards their farmhouse. As they got closer, he told Jessica to grab one of the shotguns just in case there were dogs on the property. And he grabbed the other, making sure both of them were loaded.

Then, after he parked the truck in front of the farmhouse, he stuffed a few more shells into the pocket of his jacket and told Jessica to get out of the truck. Crouching down and trying to make as little noise as he could, Greg walked toward the side of the house looking for a way to get inside, and he didn't have to look for very long because within a couple of minutes, Greg found an unlocked window leading into the laundry room on the first floor. He lifted the screen and crawled through the opening into the house. Then he opened the back door and let Jessica inside. They didn't stay long on the first floor of the house before heading upstairs, but they did stay long enough that while passing through the kitchen,

Ryan's gold ring on Jessica's thumb slipped off and rolled out of sight somewhere on the floor. Jessica either didn't notice or didn't try to look for it. The pair quietly made their way up the stairs, but before reaching the top, they stopped. Very clearly, they could hear the sound of someone upstairs snoring. This house was not empty. Without discussing what they were going to do, Greg, who was in the lead, simply just kept on walking up the stairs, and Jessica followed. The couple moved down the second floor hallway to the master bedroom at the end of the hall where Wayne and Charmin were fast asleep.

What happened next, only Greg and Jessica can understand. Greg pushed open the master bedroom door and made no attempt at concealment. Instead, he reached out and flipped the switch on the wall, flooding the bedroom with light. The sound of the door opening and the sudden brightness caused Wayne to wake up, completely alert, his adrenaline flowing even though he had not consciously processed the threat that he and his wife were now facing. Wayne, who was this very stocky and strong-looking guy, began violently trying to rip his covers off so he could get up and confront these people that were in the room with him. And so as Wayne is doing this, Jessica

screams at Greg, do something! As Wayne stood up on the bedroom floor, Greg raised his 12-gauge shotgun and he fired a shot into Wayne's kneecap. Even though Wayne's knee was destroyed with bits of bone and flesh poking out of this huge hole where the shot had passed through, Wayne dove toward Greg, shouting as he tried to grab the gun out of Greg's hands. The struggle took them out of the bedroom and into the hallway where Jessica had retreated to, and as the two men wrestled on the ground, Greg yelled at Jessica, shoot him! Jessica didn't hesitate. As Wayne looked up at her, she aimed the shotgun right at his face, and then she fired a single shot

into his right eye. A second later, Greg was back up on his feet, he reached down, picked up his shotgun and he aimed it at Wayne's head and he fired another shot. This time literally blowing off the back of Wayne's skull and sending blood spatter all over the stairway wall and creating a silhouette outline of where Jessica, now covered in blood, was standing with her gun in her hands. As soon as Wayne had stopped moving, Greg and Jessica turned their attention back to the master bedroom. They calmly walked back inside and saw Charmin standing next to the bed, crying and screaming hysterically as she desperately tried to call 911 for help.

Greg walked across the room until he was standing directly in front of Charmin, who by now was so scared she was just standing there whimpering with the phone in her hand. Greg raised his shotgun until it was level with Charmin's face. Then Greg fired another shot. Despite the shotgun blast blowing off most of Charmin's face, she did not die right away. As Jessica and Greg turned to leave the master bedroom and head back downstairs, Charmin let out a single piercing scream of pure agony that echoed through the house.

Covered in blood with that scream still ringing in their ears, Jessica and Greg stumbled back outside, dropping ammo and shell casings along with an LED flashlight onto the driveway as they headed for the truck. When they pulled open the doors to the vehicle and clambered inside, their red and silver marijuana pipe rolled off the seat onto the driveway. Greg gunned the engine, and the Dodge Ram pickup truck went speeding away from the Stocks farmhouse.

After hearing Jessica's stunning confession that she and her boyfriend, not Matt Libbers and Nicholas Sampson, had committed those heinous murders, law enforcement officers in Wisconsin soon discovered more evidence in Jessica's home that linked the teenage lovers to the Stock murders. One piece of evidence was Jessica's journal. On April 22nd, five days after she and Greg had killed the stocks, Jessica had made this entry in her diary. I killed someone. He was older. I loved it. I wish I could do it all the time. If Greg doesn't watch it, I'm going to leave one day and go do it myself.

Police also discovered a letter Jessica had written and left for Greg at their apartment. discovered a letter Jessica had written and left for Greg at their apartment. It was folded up in a cigarette box that also contained a spent 12-gauge shell casing from the murders. In the letter, she wrote, and this bullet, well, Bunny, it's the only thing left, and I loved it, but that's something we will talk about one day. But even after Jessica and Greg had confessed to the murders, and even though investigators from Wisconsin as well as Nebraska now had a treasure trove of evidence linking the teenagers to the crime, Matt Livers and his cousin Nicholas Sampson still remained incarcerated. Armed with Matt Livers' confession and the speck of Wayne Stock's blood inside the Ford Contour, state and local investigators were sure that Livers and his cousin must have had something to do with this crime.

It wasn't until the FBI and lawyers for Matt and Nick stepped in that investigators in Nebraska finally stopped insisting that Matt and Nicholas were also involved in the murders. Lawyers for Matt Livers produced evidence that his confession to killing his aunt and uncle had been coerced, and that he had recanted that confession the day after he made it. It would turn out Matt Livers had an IQ of 63, which meant he was developmentally disabled, and videotapes of his interrogation showed police feeding him the information they wanted him to tell them. Until finally, after 11 hours of badgering and threats of facing the death penalty, unless he cooperated with police, Matt agreed that he had committed the murders. And when he was pressed by police to name his accomplice,

he chose his cousin because Nick had access to a car that matched the description of the light tan vehicle that police said they spotted near the Stocks farmhouse on the morning before the murders were discovered. And even though Matt had been told by police that he failed his lie detector test, in reality, it's likely the results had been misread or misinterpreted. During the first week of October 2006, Nicholas Sampson, who had been incarcerated for the last five months, was released and the state dropped all charges against him. Two months after that, in December, Matt Livers, who had been locked up for the last seven months, was also released and had his charges dropped as well. In January of 2007, Jessica Reed and Greg Fester both pleaded guilty to two counts each of second-degree murder. Before

her prison sentence was announced, in a written statement submitted to the judge in her case, Jessica Reed pleaded for mercy, saying that the sound of Charman Stock's final piercing scream, after her face had been shot off, still woke Jessica up at night. The judge was not moved. On March 19, 2007, Jessica Reed and Greg Fester were both sentenced to life in prison. But before it was all over, there would be one more twist. In late 2007, the FBI got a tip that the legendary crime scene investigator, David Caffode, most likely planted that single speck of Wayne Stock's blood that had been found during the second search of the Ford Contour. Prior to that blood being found, the only thing police had connecting Matt and Nicholas to the crime were their confessions. And so David planting that blood is what ultimately put them

behind bars. On June 2nd, 2010, three years after Jessica and Greg went to prison, and four years after the state of Nebraska finally dropped all charges against Matt Livers and Nicholas Sampson, David Caffode was sentenced to 20 months to four years in prison for falsifying evidence in the stock murder investigation. And in October 2013, faced with civil lawsuits filed by Matt Livers and Nicholas Sampson, the state of Nebraska awarded a two and a half million dollar settlement to be split between the two men in compensation for their treatment at the hands of Cass County law enforcement officers during the investigation of the Stock murders. As for Andrew Stock, who discovered his parents' bodies on the morning after Easter 2006, justice may have been served, but his family will never recover from their loss.

Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin Podcast. If you got something out of this episode and you haven't done this already, please offer to make the 5-star review button some scrambled eggs for breakfast, but leave an awkward amount of eggshell bits in the eggs. Also, please subscribe to the Mr. Ballin Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon, Google, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. This podcast airs every Monday and Thursday morning, but in the meantime, you can always watch one of the hundreds of stories I have posted on my YouTube channel,

which is just called Mr. Ballin. If you want to get in touch with me, please follow me on any major social media platform and then send me a direct message. My username on all these platforms is the same. It's just at Mr. Ballin and I really do read the majority of my direct messages. Lastly, we have some really cool merchandise, so head on over to shopmrballin.com to have a look. So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, Prime members. You can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today.

And before you go, please tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. In May of 1980, near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and he seemed really unwell. So she wound up taking him to the hospital right away so he could get treatment. While Dorothy's friend waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to grab her car to pick him up at the exit. But she would never be seen alive again, leaving us to wonder, decades later, what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott?

From Wondery, Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and so many more. Every week, hosts Aaron and Justin sit down to discuss a new case covering every angle and theory, walking through the forensic evidence, and interviewing those close to the case

to try and discover what really happened. And with over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime listener. Follow the Generation Y podcast on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.