RedHanded - Episode 371 - Eddie Lee Sexton Part 2: Feral Family Road Trip

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

Incest runs in the family – and Eddie Lee Sexton’s depravity knew no bounds. From his own  teenage daughters right down to the children he had fathered with his own kin – nobody was safe from him, or the sons he’d raised in his image. With the authorities breathing down his neck, Sexton fled with his miserable menagerie in tow. By the time the law caught up to them, at least two people had been murdered in cold blood. Terrifyingly, Eddie Lee Sexton’s grip over his family was so strong that a conviction was far from certain. This is the story of how the fate of one of America’s vilest men hung on the testimony of a humble librarian.Exclusive bonus content:Wondery - Ad-free & ShortHandPatreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesFollow us on social media:YouTubeTikTokInstagramXVisit our website:WebsiteSources available on redhandedpodcast.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah.

I'm Sruti. And welcome to part two of our series on Eddie Lee Sexton, which has ruined my life. I am so sad. I can't actually promise I won't cry. Well, let it all out if you must. I won't be able to help it. We can cope together. Let's do it. I finished this off last night in the pub at the end of my road because I can't work from home and Mabel would just be like, play with me, look at my monkey.

And I was in there from about half four and the people at the bar were very concerned about me. Duh. Last week, we ended on a bit of a win for Eddie Lee Sexton. Sure, he was arrested for turning his house into a barracks and making threats, but he managed to keep his children, Kimberly and James, in that house with the handless Jesus. And things got even better for him after that. Eddie Lee Sexton was only charged with two misdemeanors and got a suspended sentence, which meant he was out in the world and able to keep

chipping away at his plan to get all of his children back under his control and then over state lines. That would make the DHS's job and the Canton Police Department's job much more difficult. It was extremely unlikely that the FBI would bother themselves with some family court case. Local press loved the story, naturally, but crucially, because children were involved, almost none of the actual details of the Sexton case were published, which made it really easy for Eddie Lee Sexton to push his own narrative. He was just a persecuted dad trying to keep his family together. And it kind of worked.

Sexton managed to garner support from other parents who had found themselves in very similar situations, or so they thought. He's such a predator, like such a parasitic predator, he manages to once again understand the system well enough that he can infiltrate these well-meaning groups and use them for his own ends. Absolutely. Parasitic is exactly the right word. He is lots of things, all of them utterly despicable, but dumb is not one. Oh, absolutely not. So yeah, it all seems mad. So let's take a minute. Social services, as we call them here in the UK, scare a lot of people. On the other hand, we've covered loads of cases on this show

that reveal the truth to be the exact opposite. I have actually personally been told when I was younger, if social services ever come to your house, you do not let them in that door because they will never leave. That's not really what was happening here. So let's put that idea aside. For this case, location is really important. We are in the Bible Belt in the early 90s. The satanic panic had only just started to wind down and people were more aware than ever of false accusations of child abuse ruining adult lives.

Teachers were imprisoned based on memory regression testimony. It was the perfect time for Eddie Lee Sexton to bang on about being wrongfully accused because false imprisonment was far more present in the public consciousness than it had ever been before. On top of that, Eddie Lee Sexton was a Christian man. He could quote scripture with the best of them. So getting conservative locals with a mistrust of the law on side was pretty easy.

But he didn't get everyone. The rumours were still whispered in Canton. One babysitter even told a story of being in 1849 Caroline Street with all of the children when a thunderstorm broke. The kids ran outside as soon as it started. They huddled together and stared up at the angry sky getting soaked by the pregnant rain. When the babysitter asked the young ones what they were doing, they said, Jesus is coming. He's coming to take us away.

But Jesus never coming. He's coming to take us away. But Jesus never would. A day or so after the failed blockade on Caroline Street, Joel Good's aunt, Teresa, saw the not-so-siege on the news while she was out shopping. Her stomach dropped. She knew now more than ever that Joel needed to get away from that family, but she just didn't know how to make it happen. You just feel so helpless. Yeah.

And what's really interesting about that is Teresa actively avoided the news. It was only because she happened to be in a shop that was showing it that she saw it. Given Joel's low IQ, which was 80, and yes, IQ tests do have problems, but that's not now. Teresa thought about having him declared as an incompetent and taking him home with her. Teresa had made her sister, Joel's mother, a promise as she laid dying. She promised that she would look after her sons after

she was gone. But even though getting Joel away from the Sextons was all Teresa wanted in the whole world, she didn't feel like declaring her nephew incompetent was keeping that promise. So as Teresa agonised, she walked back to her car and saw two young men approaching her. Her heart sank as she realised that one of them was Willie Sexton. At first she didn't recognise the much smaller guy by his side, but as they got closer she did. It was Joel.

Not only was he hunched and painfully thin, Joel was black and blue. Willie Sexton said that Joel had been beaten up by their cousins for calling one of them a gimp. Joel insisted that he was all right. But Teresa, of course, didn't believe a word of it. He was clearly not all right. And the Joel she knew would never have said that about anyone anyway. A few days later, Joel showed up at his grandparents' house in hysterical tears, clutching a note in his hands. He had walked 12 miles in the pouring rain after

Pixie Sexton had thrown him out of the car. Littered with spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and plus signs instead of the word and, the crumpled note read, Joel, what I want for Christmas is for you to leave me and the girls to start our life over and you go your way. Then maybe my family can get along without you. Right now no one can do and say anything you being there. Our marriage is over anyway, which it has been for the past two months. Me and you don't get along and neither does the girls. About the baby, you can see it if you want, but as far as raising it, I will raise it. I will raise it with the girls myself. And whatever you do,

don't try anything. Or your family better not try anything, because I have already talked to Dad, and his people said, any trouble, just call them and they will help me. Love, Pixie. I love that. Love, Pixie. Honestly. Joel's whole world had been ripped from him. Because Joel was certain that he was the biological father of Pixie's unborn baby. And Joel already knew that he loved that baby more than life itself. So he was broken. But Joel filed for divorce the next day.

Although it was horrible to see him so distraught, Joel's family were relieved. They had their boy back. Joel's family had always had their suspicions about the Sextons. They'd heard the rumours. Everyone had. And when the sexual abuse accusations came to light, concern and disapproval turned into disgust and rage. Teresa had a horrible feeling that even though Pixie had dumped him, the Sextons weren't done with her Joel.

And as always, Teresa was right. Soon enough, Pixie was back in Canton and Joel went to meet his estranged wife at the mall. After about an hour, Joel called his auntie Teresa and said, Will you hate me if I go back with Pixie? Oh, Joel I know, I know, I know

Teresa had no idea what back meant Did he mean 1849 Caroline Street? Or one of these campsites that kept calling her about litter, noise and overstaying bookings But she didn't ask Teresa just told her nephew We love you, we're just worried. Teresa had a horrible feeling that Joel's life was in danger.

Before the call ended, Teresa told her nephew, don't you ever leave and not tell me again. They will kill you next time. After he hung up the phone, Joel Good went back to 1849 Caroline Street with Pixie. Not long after, Pixie gave birth to her third baby, a boy this time, and she and Joel named him Skipper Lee. Skipper was the nickname that Pixie's older brother Charles went by. We warned you last week about the endless names, and it is very much a continuing theme this week.

Yeah, so everyone calls Charles Skipper. We're going to call him Charles because the baby is Skipper. It's so confusing. But Charles, who is Skipper, actually referred to little Skipper Lee as his godson. Yeah, yeah. Cool. So Joel and Pixie brought the new baby to visit Aunt Teresa a few weeks after Pixie gave birth.

Skipper Lee was a healthy, active baby. And he did actually look exactly like Joel. And, as fate would have it, was even born on Joel's birthday. As fate would have it is such a good phrase for the rest of this episode. There are so many things that will just give you chills. U.S. history, presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts.

But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall,

that was no protection. Claudian Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media. To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. But there was something off about Skipper Lee. The baby smelled odd.

Teresa couldn't put her finger on what it was. If she had asked social worker Wayne Welsh, he would have told her that it was the stench of neglect. The very same smell that clung to the walls of 1849 Caroline Street. In 1992, Skipperley's namesake, Charles Sexton, was shipped off to stay with Estella's brother, that's his mum, who was called Tucker, and his wife, who's called Colleen. They didn't live in Ohio, they lived near Charleston in West Virginia.

Tucker had never been an enormous fan of Eddie Lee Sexton. He watched the light drain from his sister's eyes throughout her marriage to him. Still though, Tucker and Colleen were happy to take Charles in. Presumably they didn't know about the accusation of incestual abuse that was being filed against him back in Ohio. Charles got on alright in West Virginia. He was helpful and polite, but just like Michelle Sexton, he had his difficulties and just like his sister they started at night colleen and tucker would hear their nephew speaking really loudly in his sleep when colleen crept up into the spare bedroom to see what was going on charles was sat upright in bed screaming the words stop it over and over again no no thank you no thank you he's in his early 20s

at this point yeah i have another particular fear of people screaming in their sleep when we were in cuba hannah you did uh enjoy the first night we were there screaming, he's here, he's here in your sleep. And I was like, fuck, shut the fuck up. Oh my God. I'm a terrible sleep talker. I haven't slept walked in years. Don't fuck. There was a particular episode in Panama where I was there with my boyfriend at the time and I slept walked into another man's bed and slept there.

That was very difficult to explain. Oh, it was Nicaragua, actually, I beg your pardon. Anyway, back to Charles. Sorry, we're going to get through it. Charles's eyes, as he screamed in his sleep, were glazed in total terror. It seemed that the Sexton stare haunted those who grew up in 1849 Caroline Street, even in their dreams. While he was awake, though, Charles never gave anything away. Apart from once. When he was watching a documentary on the occult with his aunt and uncle, he said,

My dad killed a cat once. But that was it. Colleen and Tucker didn't get the chance to push Charles any further. Soon, the Sheriff's Department found him. Before they managed to arrest him, though, Charles was collected by a couple of his brothers and he disappeared. Eddie Lee Sexton, Estella, Michelle, Charles, Willie, Eddie Lee Jr., Christopher and Kimberly

all made their way to a campsite on the Ohio River called Bushman's Lake, over the state line in Indiana. It was a calculated move that would make it even more difficult for law enforcement to catch up with them. Again, a very unfortunate fact that Eddie Lee Sexton knew all too well. Joel, Pixie, Dawn, Shasta, and new addition Baby Skipper Lee met them there. And all 13 of them lived in a two bedroom trailer. And in that trailer, the rules all changed.

Joel Good was the butt of every joke and the receiver of every punch. But because he was still desperate for approval from his demonic de facto father figure, Joel just took it. Estella found a new lease of life too, a renewed spark in her marriage. And we know this because Estella wrote her husband Eddie Lee Sexton a bunch of love notes. And they said things like, I will love you after death and come back and cut something off you if you end up with someone else. Jesus Christ. Estella, I don't spend too much time on her reasoning in this episode

because I just can't be fucking bothered. She, of course, later claims that she had no choice. She's fucking in on the whole thing, man. Anyway, another one of these love notes to her husband revealed that Estella was pregnant. But no baby ever appeared. Not from Estella, anyway. At Bushman's Lake, Eddie Lee Sexton was preparing for another siege.

He dressed all of his sons in army fatigues, except Willie, who Estella called Little Dick. Sexton ran drills with his boys at all hours of the night. He taught them hand-to-hand combat, hunting, how to break a nose with the heel of their hands and how to garrote someone. Even little Kimberley could break down a gun for cleaning by the age of 10. Eddie Lee Sexton said that he had learned all of this stuff he was now teaching the kids in the army. And the most intense stuff? Well, he had used that to survive in Vietnam. But that's just what Eddie Lee Sexton said. Because he was never in Vietnam.

He was never even in the armed forces. But the Sextons didn't know that. Where he was was in fucking prison. Yeah. Joel, though, was left out of all of the pretend Green Beret games entirely. The Sexton boys beat him up regularly. And he was quite literally the camp punching bag. Whatever she would claim later on,

Estella clearly did know what was going on with Pixie and her husband. And she was mad with jealousy. Screaming arguments could be heard coming from their bedroom on a daily basis. And Estella would openly call her daughter Pixie a whore and flat out refuse to hold little Skipper Lee

and would barely look at Dawn or Shasta. Pixie and Eddie Lee Sexton were not hiding their twisted relationship anymore, and another horrible game emerged. The kisses game. This involved Pixie and her father passing Hershey's chocolate kisses to each other with their mouths in front of everyone,

but especially in front of Joel. Every two weeks, Pixie, Willie and their father would drive back to Ohio to collect all of Eddie Lee Sexton's various fraudulent disability checks. On at least one of these trips, Pixie and her father went at it under a blanket on the back seat as Willie drove on the interstate. When they weren't incesting away on the car cushions, Pixie and Eddie Lee Sexton would talk about Joel Good. Pixie was sick of him, she said, and Willie suggested they put a life insurance policy on Joel and then take him out. Bingo. I could have predicted this is where this was heading.

Initially, Eddie Lee Sexton told Willie that he was crazy. Still, though, the seed was sown and it would germinate over the next few weeks. And I do think that it's probably a seed that Eddie Lee Sexton gave to Willie. Willie is not a person who comes up with his own ideas, as we will go on to find out. Back in the real world, another officer of the law had been assigned to the Sexton case. Stark County Sheriff Detective Steve Reedy. It's written ready. I wish it was ready. I'm detective ready. Yeah. But it's not. I'm afraid. I'm sorry. And Steve Reedy, as ready as he might have been, was stuck. The detective had been approached by Eddie Lee Sexton Jr. over some money that his father had stolen from him.

Although this change of heart wouldn't last too long, Steve Reedy wasn't giving up. He was sure that Eddie Lee Sexton had skipped the state. The FBI were no good either, because as it stood, the Sexton case was a custody matter. Because Michelle had recanted her statements, the FBI wouldn't waste their time on what on paper just looked like a family court proceeding. It was a tough spot to be in. And even now, Steve Reedy racks his brains trying

to think of what he could have done differently. He told Laure Caulfield, author of House of Secrets, quote, maybe if I'd done more, some people would still be alive. Like every, like, official that we've come across, Steve Reedy knows about the fucking Sextons. They're all in the same spot, though they don't have anything they can get him with.

And then Eddie Lee Jr. shows up and he's like, right, fraud, we can get him. And that's why he pushes so hard. Soon enough, though, Detective Reedy would have a little bit more to work with. Eddie Lee Sexton's favourite child, Lana Sexton, the Futur-Tron, had started talking. By this stage in our story, Lana was in her eighth

foster home, and due to her behaviour, it was very obvious to the DHS that Lana was a victim of extensive sexual and physical abuse. And soon, the ritualistic element of her torture would come to light. To her new foster parents, Tabitha and Ted Fisher, Lana Sexton seemed to be a contradiction in terms. She was mature and juvenile all at once. She spoke to adults as if they were her peers, but also played with Barbies 24-7 and used the

word penis in every other sentence. Things took a turn when Lana's brother Charles turned up in her playground and told Lana that he would be back with their father. After that, Lana thought she saw Eddie Lee Sexton everywhere. And who knows, maybe she did. Because he definitely did go to the kids' schools. He definitely did stalk them, essentially.

But Lana's new foster parents tried to reassure her that she was safe. But Lana told them, You don't understand. There is nothing he can't know. He can talk with us anywhere. He's Satan. He has special powers. Trying to understand, Tabitha started a kind of ritual

of her own with Lana, but a positive one. Every evening just before bed, Tabitha would sit with Lana in her lap and they would talk. And during these sessions, Lana told Tabitha things that her new foster mother couldn't even imagine, let alone totally believe. Tabitha and Ted have never fostered a child before. Oh, wow. I thought the way that reads is like people who are very experienced in fostering incredibly troubled children. No, they had 20 hours of training.

Oh, wow. I mean, some people, I guess, just have it innately in them. Yeah, they went into it. They couldn't have children themselves. They're very young also. They went into it. They couldn't have children themselves. They're very young also. They went into it because they couldn't naturally have their own children. And they were like, we want to help the ones who really need it. I'm so glad that there are bright spots of people like Tabitha and Ted in this story that is otherwise relentlessly crushing.

And the time has come to revisit the Futuratrons that we talked about last week. The tall tale that Eddie Lee Sexton would quite openly discuss with his houseguests at 1849 Caroline Street. Like a lot of things in the Sexton hellscape, the Futuratrons were a commercial endeavour. Sexton often spoke about a multi-million dollar deal that he had made with Burger King and Wendy's. Fuck's sake. To sell his and Lana's image as a marketing ploy.

What I understand from the totally indecipherable ramblings of an incestuous pedo madman is the following. Sexton and Lana would dress up in superhero costumes and appear at various fast food outlets as a publicity stunt, like The Hamburglar and Ronald McDonald, but in space or on steroids. So he tells people he's like, if he owes someone money or like whatever, he's like, oh, no, it's coming. It's coming. I've just done this deal with Burger King andendy's and we're going to be the new face of them basically is what he says of course that makes total sense lana showed tabitha the mark on her hand that made her a future tron lana and her father had even traveled to new york and florida to have meetings with people about the future trons although Although Lana didn't go to these meetings,

her father took a lot of photographs of her with him and I don't even want to think about where those images ended up. Lana also often told Tabitha about being dressed up in white and dancing around by candlelight as her father watched. She also had stories that were nothing short of body horror. Lana showed Tabitha a large scar at the base of her spine. She said that she had actually been born with a conjoined twin sister. According to Lana, her father had separated the two of them when they were born and killed the other one. And Lana whispered to her foster mother, That could have been me. born and killed the other one. And Lana whispered to her foster mother,

that could have been me. Lana also reconfirmed Charles raping her in the bathroom that day and also her father hitting her mother in the stomach. But her explanation was beyond belief because she said it was so that the baby would die and I had to drink its blood. Tabitha asked if Lana had ever seen the baby and Lana said that she had. Chopped up on a tray. After only a few weeks in the Fisher's house, Lana became convinced that her father knew that she was talking about him and what he had done.

Tabitha would hear Lana talking late into the night, and when she asked her who she was speaking to, Lana said, I'm talking to the voices. Night after night, Tabitha would find Lana crammed between the wall and her chest of drawers, crying, I'm not allowed to tell.

He wants me. He told me he wants me. He is Satan. It's worth putting in here how, before we go on, that the Fishers were extremely Christian, and I do think that has some bearing on what happens next. The Fishers felt like something dark had descended upon their house, and no amount of praying seemed to shift it.

Lana's night terrors continued. She would see her father standing at the end of her bed and one night she stared out of the window, mesmerised by a phantom of her grandmother, the owner of the handless Jesus statue, standing in a bloody white dress. Grandmother Sexton was saying to Lana, Come with me.

Some nights Lana would writhe and convulse as if she was being pummeled by an unseen force, screaming, He's killing me. That was the last straw. The fishers went to the police, and Lana underwent a medical examination, and the evidence was undeniable. Lana Sexton had been penetrated. She agreed to testify. Steve Reedy headed a task force

and started to get everything collected for a grand jury indictment against Eddie Lee Sexton. They had never had tangible evidence of sexual abuse like this before. This was their shot. But as the case was built in the sheriff's department, things were getting worse under the Fisher's roof. One night just before Halloween, after Lana had been put to bed, she started making a strange whining sound that her foster mother Tabitha had never heard before. When Tabitha went upstairs, Lana launched at her, kicking and screaming as Tabitha wrestled

her foster daughter to the mattress. Lana bellowed in a deep voice, you're not getting her, you're not taking her, she's mine. Then Lana spoke in her normal voice, saying, help me, mummy. I gotta go, mummy. He's got my throat. Then the deep voice was back, saying, fuck Jesus. Lana then spat in Tabitha's face, saying, I love you, but you know too much, and I'm going to have to kill you and them myself. The fishers took Lana to a psychiatric ward on the 18th of October.

Oh, my God. I mean, it's DID. That's what's happening. Because, you know, we've looked over it before. It is between the ages of seven and nine that when that sustained abuse happens to you, that's when it happens. It's a really specific thing. And that's why it's so rare. And that's exactly what lana's been through fucking hell it is terrifying and i'm not a religious person but i can honestly say if that was happening i don't know that i wouldn't believe she was actually possessed and i think that's genuinely what they did believe but fucking good on them for taking her to hospital and not a priest absolutely when they dropped lana off at Absolutely. had the same dreams and the same flashbacks on the same nights. Some have speculated that these traumatised children had been triggered by the impending doom of the approaching Halloween,

but I am not so sure. The day before the underage Sexton children had been taken into custody of the DHS, their father told them, if you talk, I will see you in your dreams. It's almost like, I know we talked about this on the, um, I will see you in your dreams. it's DID, whatever. I know some people still disagree with that as a diagnosis. We don't know, we're not psychiatrists. But it almost feels like he's conditioned them to the point that if they are ever in the outside world being questioned and too much stress and pressure is being put on them, that they just mentally collapse because that's how he's created them. And it is staggering. A man like this,

again, I know he's not stupid, but having had this amount of immense power and having been able to get away with it for so long, despite the fact that everybody knowing what he was like. But I genuinely think that's what the Futurotron thing is about. And the reason he says that to everybody who walks in his door is they're like fucking hell he's nuts it's the bait and switch that's what i said last week yeah yeah but don't look don't

look at don't look at this look look at me pretending that i'm the hamburglar in space solana and james were the only sextons left in the foster system matthew had run away and been picked up by his brothers and taken to the Bush Lake campsite in Indiana. In their cramped and squalid conditions and run ragged by military-style drills in preparation for an FBI raid that was obviously never going to come, the Sexton camp was restless. The patriarch was becoming more and more paranoid. Not a single child went to school. Unworried about noise drawing attention to the fact that

there were way more people in that motor home than there should be the adult started to drug the children to make them sleep again all his tactics are like he's such a wannabe cult leader but he's like too lazy to look outside his own family if if that's the right word. He doesn't want outsiders. No, that's true. That's why he has so many fucking children. Yeah, because even the whole dressing up in white and dancing, it's very like... Children of God.

It's very like the children of God. And also very much like that Australian cult we covered, the family. And then you have this obsession that Eddie Lee Sexton has with the FBI raiding him. It's like he is projecting his future of the end of his quote unquote cult with the likes of Ruby Ridge and Waco. That's the level he thinks he is at. Completely. And I think that really speaks to his narcissism and sense of grandiosity. And so does the bit you're going to say next. Yeah, because... Eddie Lee Sexton kept reminding his children and his wife that he was the chosen one

by pointing again to the Futurotron mark on his hand and telling them all the time, I am destined for the life in the hereafter. The ground surrounding their motorhome was littered with crude pentagrams, and someone even uncovered a cassette tape under their camp, full of satanic chants. Perhaps some demonic force told Eddie Lee Sexton that he was losing his grip. He decided to move everyone on. More state lines were put behind the Sexton clan

and they moved way down south to Florida. The Sextons that didn't fit into the malevolent motorhome left Indiana in a car with a bumper sticker that read, God, guns and guts made America. Let's keep all three. That's another thing he really plays on. I'm an American. My rights are being violated.

Because that appeals to fucking Bible Belt Americans. Yeah, and again he is not a stupid man. He understands that after you have an incredible scandal like the Satanic Panic situation where teachers were being imprisoned, parents were being imprisoned for crimes that had clearly never

ever happened. It's like he knows, A, go big or go home. Go so big that anybody who makes these accusations against you is going to sound nuts. Also say nuts things. So if anybody looks at you, they just think you're crazy. And so he understands with the satanic panic, the pendulum has swung the other way. So he just needs to really, really double down and dig his heels into the fact that the state, the government is trying to take my rights away. They're turning my children against me. They're trying to take my children away from me. He understands that that is in the consciousness of the public at this point. And he manipulates

it once again, very successfully for his own ends. Absolutely. He does not believe he is the devil. No. And he keeps going on about America and freedoms and rights. I'm like, well, the law in America is that you can't rape your fucking kids. So obviously it's all just a ruse, a ploy under which he uses to manipulate everybody's perception of him. And it is so shockingly successful for such a long time. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now

exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me. And it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy.

You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down.

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Only Michelle Sexton stayed behind. The rest of them headed to Pasco County, Florida, famous for mosquitoes, the KKK, and also the home of Eddie Lee Sexton's brother Dave. Dave was the one who took Sherry Sexton and her son in, after Wayne Welsh paid the Caroline Street House a visit months before. It was in the Sunshine State that Eddie Lee Sexton decided he was once more going to attempt to move things along. The press hadn't worked, so this time he resolved to go all the way to the top. Embodying Walter White, Sexton recorded a three-hour and nine-minute videotape. He told the camera that his constitutional rights were being violated,

his children were being abused in foster homes, and it was all because his daughter Michelle and his brother Otis had hatched a conspiracy to bring him down. Once this mammoth production was wrapped, on her father's orders, Pixie Sexton posted copies to the President of the United States of America, William Jefferson Clinton, and to the Attorney General. All right, time for some good news. Because on the 20th of September, the DHS was awarded permanent custody of all of the minor Sexton children. Which, as I said last week, is so hard to do.

Yeah. Steve Reedy was thrilled. But in order to pin this fucker for good, Steve had a long way to go. Social worker Wayne Welsh was ready to help, and he tracked down Michelle Sexton one more time. By this point, Michelle was married, but she was miserable.

She still agreed, however, to give another statement. She redacted her recantation and added more stories from inside the walls of 1849 Caroline Street. And I know I said it was some good news, and it kind of was a bit before, but brace yourself. Because this is what Michelle said. Once when she had refused to perform oral sex on her father, he had knocked her into a coffee table, chipping her tooth.

Eddie Lee Sexton had held wedding ceremonies for Lana and Kimberly. The girls were dressed in white and taken up to their parents' bedroom for what Sexton called their honeymoon. Eddie Lee Sexton's mother is something to do with this because he's her favourite, that's very obvious. She's the one that appears to Lana and the Jesus statue is hers. He only brings it back to the house after she dies. I don't know what it is, but it's something to do with her.

She sexually abused him. I'm putting it out there. Like, that's what happened. And now I've got some actual good news. Lana's testimony, her medical examination and Michelle's turn to the light meant that the grand jury indictment against Eddie Lee Sexton for rape and sexual abuse went through. Eddie Lee Sexton was now wanted for four counts of rape and four counts of sexual imposition. And the FBI, having received

the Patriot paedophile tapes from the Oval Office, were ready to throw their hats into the ring as well. The Bureau actually managed to get hold of Estella Sexton and told her that they should hand themselves in. If they didn't, a federal warrant for their arrest would be issued. And did Estella hand herself in? Did she absolutely fuck? She rings them and she's like, yeah, yeah, well, we'll hand ourselves in. Oh, actually, it's raining. We're not going to come. She does a lot of stuff like that. She had no intention of handing either of them in. She was far too busy writing love notes to her hellish husband on the road. Soon the Sextons had landed in a campsite in the cute-sounding Little Manatee State Park.

But absolutely zero cute things were happening. Money and resources were low, and Eddie Lee was away quite a lot of the time. Collecting those checks. Yeah. So the mice started playing hard. Pixie and her brothers were off their nuts almost constantly. Boozing, huffing petrol, doing any drugs they could find, stealing, and setting shit on fire. But most of all, they made Joel Good's life a living hell.

He was beaten almost constantly. When they got bored of that, the Sexton siblings went hostile on him. Now, we're not going to tell you everything. We just don't have the time. But here are some snippets. Joel was made to swallow a goldfish whole and sodomised with a funnel as hot sauce was poured into his intestines Later on everyone would blame everyone else for these atrocities

but our ringleader money is squarely on Pixie Sexton Absolutely None of them deny that these things happened They're all just saying, oh it was them, it was me No one takes responsibility None of them deny that these things happened. They're all just saying, oh, it was them, it was me, blah, blah, blah. Like, no one takes responsibility. I fucking know in my heart it was Pixie Sexton. So while all this was going on, baby Skipper Lee,

because yes, remember, there is a baby there while all this is happening, barely crossed his mother's mind. And then when he got poorly in early October 1993, Pixie just fed him NyQuil until he fell asleep. He was pale, cold and listless. He is a baby! Skipper Lee was not even one year old and he went from sleeping 17 hours a day to not sleeping ever at all.

And one night, as the various Sextons were crammed into their motorhome hovels, baby Skipper Lee was screaming up a storm. Pixie kept giving him more and more NyQuil, but the little baby boy wouldn't stop. There are a lot of versions of what happens next. Just like with the Joel torture, there's a lot of buck passing and a lot of denial. So I've decided the best thing to do is to give you the iteration of events that I believe. As Skipper Lee was bawling his ill baby eyes out,

Pixie heard her father's voice coming from the room he shared with Estella, saying, Shut that baby up or I will. In response, Pixie slapped her baby across the face twice, once with the palm of her hand and one backhand, something she did often. It usually shocked Skipper Lee out of crying, but not this time.

So mother of three, Pixie Sexton, put her hand over her baby son's mouth until he stopped crying. And then Pixie Sexton went back to sleep. When the morning came, Pixie was the one screaming. Just one word. Over and over. Dead. In case you don't have a head for dates I'm going to tell you something. Lana and James Sexton

had been taken from entirely different living situations into the same psych ward back in Ohio the night skipper Lee died. Whether you believe in that sort of stuff or not, that one's quite difficult to shake. When he heard Pixie screams, Charles Sexton, the baby's namesake, pulled the mucus from Skipper Lee's mouth and attempted to revive him with crude CPR. But it was far too late. Baby Skipper Lee had already changed colour. Joel Good looked on in horror as Eddie Lee Sexton emerged from his marital bed,

totally calm, and told everyone that a hospital visit or official funeral was completely out of the question. They would just bury Skipper Lee's body in Little Manatee State Park. It was Sid's, Sexton said. There was nothing they could have done. It's sad, but it happens all the time.

So Pixie dressed the tiny body that was already cracking with rigor mortis. And then she put her baby, that she had smothered to death, in a duffel bag. And all she had to say for herself was it just died. It. She always refers to

Skipper Lee as it. The duffel bag was weighed down with a brick and sunk in a peat bog within the park. The only thing baby Skipper Lee took with him into the next world was a single red rose in a black plastic tube. Wherever he went, we can only hope that it is better than the few months he spent on Earth. Joel Good was inconsolable. He kept asking, why does it have to be me? Why does it have to be my son? He thought that, at the very least, his baby deserved a proper burial. Eddie Lee Sexton turned to his son Willie, his loyal henchman, and said, If he keeps this up, we're going to have to take him out.

And before we go on, a note on Willie. Obviously, you know, Pixie has gone through unimaginable abuse. I do not have a scrap of sympathy for her. Willie Sexton is the only one I feel bad about. I feel sorry for him. He is so developmentally handicapped. I'm going to give you an example that I can't stop thinking about. When he's questioned by police, right, they ask him where Joel lives. And he says, oh, I think with his grandparents, but I don't know if it's his grandparents or his brothers. He doesn't understand that brothers have the same grandparents.

He's a big guy, like Eddie Lee Sexton uses him because he's big, but I think he was diagnosed with the developmental ability of an 11-year-old and he's in his 20s. So that is who we're dealing with. A week and a bit after Skipper Lee died, the day before Halloween 1993, Joel Good decided he was going to take things into his own hands. He and Pixie went to the Manatee County Public Library searching for information. It was Willie Sexton who drove them there. The librarian on duty that day was Gail Novak. And the picture you have in your head of an early 90s librarian is totally correct, apart from she's not old, she's young.

Pixie and Joel asked Gail where they could find information on SIDS. Joel was barely intelligible and Pixie looked like she hadn't slept in days. But Gail still pointed them in the right direction. As Gail pulled the references, Pixie kept repeating a few sentences. Kind of like a story, but disjointed and odd, like she was learning lines or perhaps trying to convince herself of something. Pixie kept saying, We are camping. We had a baby. It died. It's the second baby I've lost this fall. The old man is the father. We have a baby in the car.

Gail had no idea what to make of this exceedingly odd couple, so she kept her distance, but a watchful eye. While in the library, Joel used the payphone in the hall twice. First he called the campsite, and then he called someone about a headstone. When he returned, Joel told Pixie that he was going back to Ohio to give Skipper Lee a real funeral. When Gail Novak heard this, she thought, thought my god there is a dead baby so she rang security and told them there are people here with a dead baby but security were having none of it and they actually threatened gail with a fine for bothering them with a stupid prank and hung up she's a librarian she's not a teenage boy why would she be prank calling you i think they

they think the students are pranking her and she's too stupid to figure out what it is. I see. Eddie Lee Sexton had, of course, been in hot pursuit. He showed up about 30 minutes after the rest of them and asked Gail for books on Native Americans. As she showed him where they were, Eddie Lee Sexton stood uncomfortably close to Gail. He also dismissed the books that Gail Novak recommended to him as being the wrong kind of Indian. He says something like, no, I want the Boy Scout ones, the ones with names like running and jumping. And then he turned his attention to Willie Sexton, who had just ambled in.

And Gail heard Sexton tell his son, the grave is ready for tonight. Gail watched as Sexton, who she called the old man in her police interviews, go back to his truck, where he pulled out a machete and a shovel. Gail couldn't quite see what the man was doing, but it looked like he was digging next to his truck. Then he pulled a bundled shawl from the bed of his pickup. Gail made her way over to Pixie and slipped her a battered woman flyer. Pixie looked at her and said that she had to have sex with a man at the campsite and when she came back the baby was dead. Eddie Lee Sexton, back from his digging, rushed over to Pixie

and slammed her head into a computer table shouting, you better get your story straight. Willie tried to explain to his father that Joel was going back to Ohio. Eddie Lee Sexton hissed back at him. The only way he's going back to Ohio is in a body locker. Another military reference means body bag, that Eddie Lee Sexton probably stole from Good Morning Vietnam. Gail Novak watched as they all left

her library. She was too scared to call security again. But she wouldn't forget the inebriated man, the battered woman, the violent older man obsessed with Native Americans, the digging or the bundled shawl anytime soon. Now what we're about to tell you next is another one of those parts of this case that has been told many times by many people in many different ways. We are going to tell you the most likely turn of events.

Back at the campsite, Willie asked Joel to go for a walk in the woods with him. Once they were out of everyone's sightline, Willie grabbed Joel from behind and wrapped a length of twine with twigs wrapped around either end around Joel's throat, just like his dad had shown him. Joel fell to the ground and let out a loud yell, the last sound he ever made. There were a few minutes of struggle, and then Joel Good went limp. Willie, in his own words,

went all paranoid, and tried to give Joel CPR to make him come back alive. Then Neddy Lee Sexton made his way to the woods with a shovel. There was a picnic at the Sexton campsite that night. Blood relatives only. No outsiders. Eddie Lee Sexton told his family that Joel had been picked up by his Aunt Teresa in a red Nissan, and that he was going back to Ohio for good. So they didn't need to worry about him anymore.

Joel wasn't in Ohio, of course. Joel Good never left Manatee State Park. But in Ohio, things were moving along. Detective Steve Reedy had received a tip. Yet another one of Eddie Lee Sexton's brothers rang Steve Reedy to say that Eddie Lee, Willie and Pixie Sexton had paid him a visit quite recently. And while they were there, Eddie Lee Sexton had made two phone calls and Orville Sexton, who is this brother, had the presence of mind to hold on to his phone bill.

Detective Steve Reedy was over to Orville Sexton's house like a shot. The first call that Eddie Lee Sexton had made had been to his brother Dave Sexton, the one who lived in Florida. And the second call had been to Little Manatee State Park. It was the bullseye that Reedy had been waiting for. Detective Steve Reedy had no idea that anyone had died, let alone a baby. But Teresa, her funny feelings were back.

She was standing with her family in her kitchen on Thanksgiving and she said out loud, I think Joel is not with us anymore. The FBI moved into the Floridian camp in surveillance vans and arranged daily reconnaissance flyovers. The Sextons needed to be kept in the dark until the Bureau could make their move. And in the dark they certainly were. The Sextons had actually been keeping quite busy

since they eliminated any foreign DNA from their motorhomes. Eddie Lee Sexton had a new target, an elderly retiree called Ray Hesser. He had made his money, sold his company, bought a shiny new Winnebago, and now he was ready to see the world. And Ray's wanderlust had brought him, unfortunately, to little manatee.

And the Sextons saw him a mile off and hatched a plan. Willie would befriend Hesse, Pixie would seduce him, and then they would kill him, steal his money, steal his identity and his shiny Winnebago and drive off into the sunset. The 14th of January 1994 was the day that they, in Eddie Lee Sexton's own words, pull it down. But Ray Hesser knew something was off. He told the strange siblings that he would meet them at a different campsite later that afternoon.

He waited until Pixie and Willie were out of sight, and then Ray Hesser drove squarely in the other direction. I will point out, so Pixie's the one that goes and pays for the campsite, right? She goes to the office every week and she gives them the cash. And the people who work there are like, she was pretty but she fucking stank. And she's like all over Ray Hesse

who's just trying to enjoy his retirement. She's also nuts. That too. But you know, one out of three. Yeah. That same afternoon, Eddie Lee Sexton,

Estella, Pixie, Kimberly, and Christopher were all in the car heading to Sun City to pick up some shopping. At 1.36,

they pulled into the car park of the supermarket, but before they could get out, the car doors were flung open by the FBI and all of the adults were arrested. Kimberly and Christopher were taken back to Ohio and put into care.

The Sextons back at Little Manatee were brought in for questioning. Sherry Sexton, although now an adult and mother, still had that Sexton stare, and she admitted that her father had sexually abused her since she was 13. She also agreed to a blood test for her son, Little Bear.

Blood was taken from Dawn and Shasta too, and Charles Saxton admitted that he had once sodomised Little Lana and confirmed all sorts of other horrors that went down in 1849 Caroline Street. When the Sextons were asked where Joel Good was, every single one of them, children included, said that he had gone back to Ohio and that a woman in a red Nissan had picked him up.

I do think that some of them genuinely didn't know. Oh yeah, no I'm sure. I believe it. Because otherwise, why not just tell them? He lies to them for a reason because he knows he can. After these interviews were concluded, Detective Steve Reedy went straight to Teresa because she was Joel's closest relative

back in Canton. He asked her if she had any idea what Red Nissan the Sexton's might be talking about. Theresa was stumped at first, but then it dawned on her. They were talking about her. They meant her. But Theresa never had a Nissan. She had a red Mazda, quite a similar looking car, but it had been totaled ages ago. The dam was well and truly cracked. The red Nissan never existed. So the pick-up story just could not be true.

Steve Reedy started to think that Teresa was right. Joel Good wasn't missing. He was dead. And Steve Reedy was going to find him. Presented with this revelation, Charles Sexton, in his 20s, after prolonged questioning, eventually snapped. He not only confirmed that Willie had murdered Joel, he told Steve Reedy about baby Skipper Lee.

And he said that he could show Steve Reedy where both of them were buried. Which he obviously does because he wants immunity. Because he's admitted to the rape of Lana. And also, Lana's confirmed it, Michelle's confirmed it. A bunch of the other Sextons have told the same story. So this is not noble of Charles. He's saving his own arse. Steve Reedy called the sheriffs down in Florida the next day.

And sooner than he could blink Charles Sexton was on the first plane journey of his life Detective Steve Reedy was nervous this was an expensive mission if it was all for nothing it would be his neck on the line his mind racing

he turned to Charles Sexton and told him I've never lied to you and I won't. But if you're making this up, I'm going to kick your ass. He is so worried. Yeah. So when the pair of them got to Little Manatee, hordes of police were already there. Charles Sexton headed into the woods with the canine unit. Yeah, Reedy doesn't go with him because they don't want to crowd the scent. So it's just Charles and the canine unit. Yeah, Reedy doesn't go with him because they don't want to crowd the scent, so it's just Charles and the canine unit that go. Yeah, meanwhile Reedy paced in anticipation, sure that it would all come to nothing. And then a thumbs up came from one of the dog handlers.

In a peat bog, the dogs had uncovered a red rose in a black plastic tube. This wasn't just a sexual assault case anymore. This was a double homicide. Willie Sexton was the first on the grilling list. Authorities found him hiding in Dave Sexton's motorhome and Steve Reedy compared the interview that I'm going to tell you about to talking to an eight-year-old. Willie Sexton couldn't count back from 20, and he had absolutely no concept of the trouble he was in. He's

the only major player, as I said, that I have any sympathy for. And also, because he doesn't understand, it also means he's a lot less likely to lie. And I really don't think he did. Willie confirmed that Pixie had killed her baby and that he had buried Skipper Lee's body with his father, and they both checked the site for rotting corpse smell for the next seven days. They needn't have worried. Pete is an astonishingly good preservative.

Admitting to the murder of Joel Good did take Willie a bit longer, but in time he did And he said it was all Pixie's idea In her interview Pixie was totally deadpan Her eyes were dead It was like there was no one there at all They gave the Sexton clan another name in the DHS office The Flatliners

Yeah When it came to baby Skipper Lee Pixie confessed that she had given him NyQuil. But she said she did not intentionally smother him. I would say 85% of me thinks that is true. I'm not sure that she intentionally smothered him, but I just don't think it matters. Yeah, I don't think she intentionallyed it, but when Skipper Lee died, I don't think she cared.

Nah. Pixie denied any knowledge of Joel's murder. All she said was that she heard Joel's cry from the woods and went to see what was going on. And that was when she saw Willie strangling Joel.

Back at the camp, the plastic-encased rows was all that had been found. Charles Sexton had failed to deliver the goods, so Willie Sexton was taken down there, and he very quickly showed the police the correct spot. Joel Good's body was hidden in the peat bog. I'm not going to say buried, because it was just three inches below the surface, and the twine garrot was still around his neck. Baby Skipper Lee was found very close by, entombed in the duffel bag. His dummy was still in his mouth.

Interestingly though, Skipper Lee's toxicology report showed that there was no alcohol in his system, which doesn't match the NyQuil story. NyQuil has alcohol in it. And if he is being dosed so consistently and so often over such a long period of time, which is what everyone says, even Pixie herself, why isn't it there? We don't know. We'll never know. It's just a thought experiment.

Joel Good's blood, though though absolutely brimming with alcohol. Skipper Lee's cause of death was determined to be suffocation and both of them father and son were buried in Canton next to Joel's own parents. Skipper Lee was laid to rest cradled in Joel's arms.

Finally the authorities had what they needed. It was go time. Of course the trial of Eddie Lee Sexton is the big one He called it that himself But the DHS, the police, the sheriff's office and now the big boys at the FBI had to make the most bulletproof case they could So they got all of the other trials they could out of the way first

Every conviction strengthening their narrative they could. So they got all of the other trials they could out of the way first, every conviction strengthening their narrative. Estella Sexton was sentenced to six years in prison in October that year for evading a federal arrest warrant. Her husband was interviewed shortly after, where he compared himself to Jesus. Big surprise. For he too, apparently, was condemned to death for something he had never done. In 1996, Estella was put on trial again, this time for the whole sexual abuse shebang, based on testimony from her own children. She was charged with 31 counts of rape, complicity to rape, child endangerment, and gross sexual imposition. Estella's only argument was that she was so terrified of Eddie Lee Sexton

that she had no other choice. But we're not having it, and neither were the jury. And Estella Sexton got life. She died in 2017, after 23 years in prison. Until the day she died, Estella sang the same old tune though

walk a mile in my shoes and then you'll understand I don't want to put your shoes on Estella because I'm gonna get Ruka's warts trench foot gangrene and I'll go insane because you are she just is the perfect like reflection of Eddie Lee Sexton because again she does all of the minimizing she shifts the blame she blames him for everything she takes absolutely zero responsibility or shows any remorse for anything she did to her own children yeah and I took this out because if you want to read all of the testimonies that happen at Estella's trial, all of the trials, they're in House of Secrets. She was doing it too, independently. And there's

pages of testimony. Next stop in Operation Clear the Decks Before the Big One was Pixie Sexton. Pixie presented a particular problem for the long arm of the law. They needed her to testify against her father at the big one. But she'd also killed her own baby. Accident or not, offering Pixie immunity in return for a court testimony was out of the question. But without her, there was every possibility that Eddie Lee Sexton could walk. Even a plea deal was really, really pushing it. Especially when you consider that if Joel Good had never met Pixie Sexton, he would still be alive.

Imagine being Steve Reedy and having to go to Joel's family, saying, Pixie's got a plea deal, I am so sorry. Eventually, a plea deal is what happened. Pixie did go to prison, but for the lesser charge of manslaughter in the case of Skipperley. She was paroled after two years. No one came to pick her up from prison. When the blood results came back for the next Sexton generation,

the speculation that Canton residents had shared between themselves for decades was finally proved to be true. Dawn, Shasta and Little Bear were all fathered by their own grandfather, Eddie Lee Sexton. The body of little Skipper Lee was never tested for paternity. What was the point of forcing Joel Goode to suffer another indignity? So that is why Sherry Sexton gets sent off with Little Bear when Wayne Welsh shows up. Because Eddie Lee Sexton's like, they're going to test that baby.

Yeah, absolutely. Get it to Florida. Get it out of Ohio. Yeah. And as if this wasn't all horrible enough, the worst was still to come. Because Dawn and Shasta, who were just little girls at this point, were examined. And it was confirmed that they had both been penetrated anally. And judging by their almost non-existing control of their bowels,

it was happening a lot. Evidently, depravity ran between brothers too. Dave Sexton, the brother who lived in Florida, who Sherry had lived with, was the exact same. His grandson was also his son. Perhaps that's what the Futurotrons were about, creating a totally pure bloodline. Ptolemy style. Deep breaths, everybody. In custody. This is the bit that i might cry in custody willie claimed that his father had been sodomizing him regularly since he was nine and it had continued all the way up until little manatee state park it was so obvious that willie was terrified of his father

his defense managed to pass a motion that father and son be tried separately. Under psychiatric observation, Willie was diagnosed with depression, psychosis and PTSD. He heard voices talking about Joel and he had seizures. Willie didn't understand the concept of a plea deal or even how being imprisoned worked. He called his uncle Otis from Hillsborough County Jail and asked, Uncle Otis, will you be able to take me out?

God. In the end, it was decided that Willie Sexton had the functional capacity of an 11-year-old. He was not insane, but he wasn't competent enough to stand trial. He was sent to a psychiatric hospital where he was assessed every six months. When the big one finally came in October 1994,

Eddie Lee Sexton rolled into the deposition for the murder of Joel Good in a wheelchair, wearing sunglasses. The prosecution were quietly confident. They had managed to get a guilty verdict on the conspiracy to murder Ray Hessler for Sexton. And it had been an encouraging dry run. Sexton changed his plea after the first witness and got 30 years.

Yeah, that's the only reason I included Ray Hessler is that he's quite an important peg in the web. And the prosecution had another ace up their sleeve. The defence's argument was simple. Otis had cooked the whole incest thing up. Pixie had never had sex with any of the family members. Sherry and Willie had sex with each other all the time. And Eddie Lee had nothing to do with

any of that or to do with the murder of Joel Good. Willie and Pixie had planned and executed the murder of Joel Good to cover up their roles in the death of baby Skipper Lee. But almost every single Sexton child that grew up in 1849 Caroline took the stand for the prosecution and all in all there were 27 witnesses. Eddie Lee Sexton had two witnesses compared to these 27 his sister Jean who I'm not even going to bother with and

Eddie Lee Jr. who had changed his allegiances once again. He'd spent the run up to the trial making threatening phone calls through his brothers and his sisters, asking, are you with us or against us? When Pixie took the stand, she spoke so quietly that the mic had to be adjusted several times,

and she told her story all over again, adding that she'd heard her mother and her father discussing how they were going to kill Joel because he knew too much. And she closed her statement with, I hate my father for what he did to me. More sextons came and more sextons went. They didn't say anything we didn't already know. But if you want to get into the minutia of this trial,

we would highly recommend reading the book House of Secrets. The prosecutor had a bunch of witnesses, but the flatliners were just not that convincing. A lot of them gave confused witness statements. They mixed up dates and times and contradicted themselves. And this was a death penalty case, so the stakes couldn't have been any higher. But then came the ace. An incredibly nervous librarian. Gail Novak. Not even the FBI knew

of her involvement in the case. Gail came forward herself. Fucking love Gail. Yeah. On the stand, Gail told her story of that day before Halloween the year before. But she was so anxious, she sounded quite paranoid. And no one could make any sense of the digging out in the car park either.

The defence thought that they had Gail pinned. There was no way that Pixie Sexton would reveal so much information about dead babies to a stranger, they argued. Detective Steve Reedy was worried. The authorities had been sweating bullets about the Sexton siblings' believability in court. But perhaps Gail Novak had been the least believable witness of all. The jury deliberated for two hours and 35 minutes. It was squeaky bum time. Steve Reedy and co were sure that the jurors had totally disregarded the state's case. But they hadn't. In the case of the murder of Joel Good, Eddie Lee Sexton was found guilty in the first degree.

And even better than that, it was Gail Novak that swung it for the jury. She was the only witness at that trial that was not a family member. She wasn't emotionally involved. She had no reason to lie. But there was still one more step. The jury had to deliberate again. Did Eddie Lee Sexton deserve a life sentence, or did he deserve death?

Which, because he was being tried in Florida, meant the electric chair. Eddie Lee Sexton deserve a life sentence or did he deserve death? Which, because he was being tried in Florida, meant the electric chair. Two hours later, the jury were back with a vote of seven to six. Eddie Lee Sexton was headed for the chair. Yeah, it's one vote. If it had been six, six, he would have got life. His sister Jean told the press on her way out, if everything you heard is true, Estella should be sitting on his lap. Steve Reedy, Wayne Welsh, Glenn Goh and anyone else that had been involved over the years let go a huge sigh of relief. For them it might have been

over, but for the people who grew up in that house on Caroline Street the torment would never end. Two years later in 1997 Willie Sexton was tried for the murder of Joel Good. He claimed that his father had held a gun to his head and forced him to kill Joel and who knows maybe he did. Charles Sexton was never charged with anything. Eddie Jr took himself into a police station one day wanting to be sectioned. They said no and he went to prison for armed robbery in 1996 and served 12 years. When James Sexton was 25, he burned his roommate to death as he slept on the couch. At trial, James Sexton claimed that he thought he was burning his dad. Sherry Sexton miscarried twins after testifying at trial

and was hospitalised with depression several times. Little Bear was taken into care. Pixie's children were also taken from her and she developed severe anorexia and never stopped hearing her father's voice. We have no idea where those children ended up. In 1997, Eddie Lee Sexton won an appeal on the basis that he was on trial for murder and not for sexual abuse. And of course, all of the testimonies that came from his children

had talked about the sexual abuse and he claimed that this had inflamed the jury. And unbelievably, the man who had been convicted of Manson-esque mind control was indeed granted a brand new trial. The fact that they managed to get him for first degree when he didn't actually do the murder is extremely impressive. But, yeah. Also dangerous. Yes, quite.

So this time round, Willie Sexton testified against his father and accepted a sentence of 25 years for murder in the second degree. And this second jury came to the same conclusion as the first. Guilty again. And death again. Upon his sentencing, Eddie Lee Sexton turned to his attorney and said, that's life. But Eddie Lee Sexton never met old Sparky because he died in his cell in 2000 from heart disease. I'm sure everyone listening has a lot of questions. We do too.

Firstly, why? Why the incest? Why the sexual abuse? Why the satanic rituals? The most obvious place to go is Eddie Lee Sexton had an insatiable need for control. But we also think it's more than that. Something happened in that cold town in Virginia, and probably for generations before that. But what exactly the Sexton secret is, we'll never know.

Lowell Colford makes a really good point in the book he's like I want to know who was the first one that said it was okay interestingly though incest especially in Ohio as I learned is a lot more common than we want to believe the Kinsey report documented

that one in a hundred women had had sexual contact with their own fathers. And that that kind of abuse was much more rampant in impoverished homes. And incest is all over the Old Testament as well. According to Leviticus, the only people who are off-limits sexually are your in-laws. And don't get me started on Lot's daughters, because I'll be here all day. Now the second question is one that I asked in episode one. Why were some daughters allowed to bear children

whereas others had their babies beaten out of them? Well, it's not good news. Several sexton children, mainly James, Lana and Michelle gave accounts of unborn foetuses being chopped up placed on a baking tray and eaten by the family for dinner. Anna and Michelle, gave accounts of unborn fetuses being chopped up, placed on a baking tray and eaten by the family for dinner. According to James Sexton, unborn babies taste so much like chicken that for the rest of his life he couldn't eat poultry. James and Michelle and even Willie all had stories about miscarried fetuses being buried

wherever the Sextons went. So maybe Pixie was telling the truth when she told librarian Gail Novak that they had a baby in the car with them. We have it in writing that Estella was claiming to be pregnant at Little Manatee Park, but no baby ever appeared. Perhaps that was what was bundled in the shawl that Eddie Lee Sexton buried next to his truck that day. After all, the shawl would be a very odd thing

for Gail to lie about. We mentioned all the way back at the top of the show last week where I was a different person that all the Sexton children were very close in age. In her first five years with Eddie Lee Sexton, Estella gave birth every year. And then the age gaps got bigger. And then, at the age of 37,

Estella Sexton stopped having babies. Why did she stop? She was evidently fertile and certainly still of childbearing age. Or maybe the real question we will all be thinking about tonight when we can't sleep is, did Estella stop having babies? How many more Sexton fetuses are buried out there? All over Ohio, Indiana, Florida, and who knows where else. According to James Sexton, one of the unborn babies lies outside 1849 Caroline Street, right under the statue of Christ, the handless statue. James's father would often tell him if he misbehaved.

He would sleep in the ground with the dead baby. In the Gospel according to Luke, as the King of the Jews died on the cross at Calvary, the sun darkened and the Temple of Jerusalem ripped apart. With his last breath, the Saviour of Man cried, Father, into your hands I commend my spirit. But at 1849 Caroline Street, Stark County, Ohio, God had no hands to give. Which, look, the Sexton children,

I don't doubt that some of the things they say might not be true. Abused children do lie, etc. Their sense of reality is also totally warped. Quite. I can't explain the shawl. I don't know why Gail Novak would lie about that. And the pattern of Estella's pregnancies is questionable. And if we believe Michelle, Sherry at least once miscarried because she was kicked.

Yeah. And as for all the stuff with them talking about the newborn babies on trays being baked and eating them. I don't know if I believe it, but I also could believe that Eddie Lee Sexton just chopped up a chicken, put it on a tray, put it in the oven and told his children that they were eating babies. Oh, me too. I really feel like with Eddie Lee Sexton, it screams of a man who, like we said, the context of the time is very important. It's immediately after the satanic panic. He would have been watching all of that. He would have been absorbing all of the stories that came out of it. It feels to me like a man who became obsessed with the satanic panic, the perverse, diabolical, demonic accusations that were coming out of that,

mixed together with this obsession, this grandiose obsession he has with cults and cult leaders and the going out in a blaze of glory with the FBI raiding you etc and then chuck in God knows how many generations of trauma incest and sexual abuse and God knows what happened to him presumably at the hands of his mother and that seems to be where we get to with him. Yes, absolutely. I don't even have the words, but I do think that is the best ending I've ever written. Very good. Well done.

Thank you. It was very good. So that's it, guys. That is the two-parter on Eddie Lee Sexton to wrap up our midway point for the month of October because the next two weeks we'll be coming to you with our story swaps. So we will see you then

for some more horrible shit probably. Bye. Bye. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either. Until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life.

I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.

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