Small Town Murder - #109 - A Grim & Deadly Plot in Bonne Terre, Missouri

Episode Date: March 7, 2019

This week, in Bonne Terre, Missouri, a couple's disappearance from their rural property sends their family, and the whole town scrambling. The search continues for longer than it should have taken before tip leads to an awful discovery, and the uncovering of a plot that boggles the mind. Needless to say, people are mad, and that is reflected in the sentencing!Along the way, we find out that abandoned lead mines make the greatest water parks in the world, that some families may just have awful genetics, and if you hide something under enough poop, no one will look for it!!Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman New episodes every Thursday! Donate at: patreon.com/crimeinsports or go to paypal.com & use our email: [e-mail] Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder & Crime In Sports! Follow us on... twitter.com/@murdersmall facebook.com/smalltownpod instagram.com/smalltownmurder Also, check out James & Jimmie's other show, Crime In Sports! On iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. What if you married the love of your life and then stood by them as they developed 21 new identities? What would you do? This Is Actually Happening is a weekly podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events, told by the people who lived them. Listen to the newest season of This Is Actually Happening on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. happening on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. This week in Bonne Terre, Missouri, when a couple disappears from their farm, it sends the whole area scrambling for answers and they end up not liking what they find. Welcome to Small Town Murder.

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I am Jimmy Westman. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us this week. We are excited. We have a crazy episode this week.

Again. Again. The last few, it's been a wild uh it's been a wild year so far i would say wild 2019 for us here and it continues today and this was like i had a choice of a few different ones uh and i the case next week i had to do a little extra research so that's going to be next week it's a case down in georgia uh so we're going to stay in the midwest this week we're going to hang out in there, a little holding pattern from Ohio last week. But never mind all that, but we'll get to a little house cleaning first. Thank you folks so much for everything this week.

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And with that said, we have to do the disclaimer, obviously. This is a comedy podcast. It's a comedy show. We're comedians. Therefore, that's why it's a comedy podcast. All the facts are real. Everything like that, the cases are real. Everything like that. The cases are real.

Everything is real. The only thing is we're going to make some jokes. That's all there is to it. It's going to happen. We're going to make jokes about small towns and police forces and murderers or whoever's stupid in the story. We're going to probably call that out, basically, and make fun of that sort of thing. But what we don't make fun of, what we go out of our way not to make fun of is the victims or the victims' families because we're assholes

but we're not scumbags. That is the truth. That's the truth. Yeah. If that sounds good to you, awesome. You're in the car. Put it that way.

You're in the car. We're on the way to the liquor store. Child safety locks are on. We're going to rob that liquor store. So you're involved at this point.

If somebody accidentally squeezes the trigger and should spray the small Korean woman's brains all over the plastic vodka bottles and the Marlboros behind the counter, you're going to be just as responsible. There will be some in your mouth, too. That's all there is to it. Things can happen. So with that said, I love how we give this disclaimer like we have horrible shit always.

And all we're doing is saying we might make a joke about something that doesn't matter once in a while. So, yeah. So with that said, that sounds good to you awesome if you think true crime and comedy never ever go together this isn't the show for you no it's not i think you should probably take a hike so uh for the rest of you though you should scream out your car windows from the rooftops everywhere from your cubicle if you're in a conservative office going to the bathroom, say quietly into your arm or something, say, shut up and give me murder. Let's do it, Jimmy. Let's go on a trip.

I would love that. Let me say, let's get out of here. Let's get out of Ohio. It's too goddamn cold in Ohio. Logan, Ohio last week. We're not going very far, though. Unfortunately, no. Next week, we're going to head down south, but we're going to stay kind of in the Midwestern

area. We're going to go to Missouri this week. That's Midwest, right? That's Midwest. Yeah, kind of bordering on. That's what Nellie said. Yeah. That's how I know that. Yeah, it in the Midwestern area. We're going to go to Missouri this week. That's Midwest, right? That's Midwest, yeah. Kind of bordering on... That's what Nellie said. Yeah. That's how I know that.

Yeah, it's the Midwest. If I would say that's Midwest, is Missouri and Illinois, that's right in the middle there. Anything south of Missouri? Probably not. Yeah, that's the south. Well, south of Missouri,

you're talking about. That is super south, right? That's the south. Yeah, you're getting like Louisiana and Texas. The state line of Missouri is the south. South's south's that way boy that's missouri over there we're not a part of everybody listen now state line listen here now i'm gonna tell you something boy now listen and by boy he's talking to other white people he just calls everybody boy that's the thing too those people down in certain areas that's's Missouri just washing their hands of that shit in the South.

We are Midwest. Ask Nelly, he'll tell all he is. We do a swing around here. Missouri is a lot like Illinois, too, where it's way different. There's cities, and then there's country, and from the North to the South are vastly different from the East to the West. The state are vastly different from each other. It's pretty weird. So they're trying to be country but at the same time be midwesterns

i suppose well this is in bonterre missouri now how do you think that's spelled jimmy uh b-o-n-t-a-i-r-e no it's not it is spelled b-o-n-n-e yeah second word no e-r-r-e that's not bonnetary it's not bonnetary that is bonterter originally it was bonnetary when it was named by the french but they just call it bonter yeah that is going down to bonter but nope that's not how you pronounce that you're no longer midwesterners uh missouri that is as south as it gets well this place actually is it's south eastern french and just running how you want to say shit yeah they're not going to keep the pronunciation this is in southeastern missouri it's down there this isn't up toward the illinois area this is this is down there it's uh dangerously close to the little pan

handle that kind of comes out of missouri uh this county alone has three pan handles no kidding so i'm fucking worried yeah this episode itself is all panhandled right so there's that it's about an hour to st louis up there it's about four and a half hours to indianapolis and also about four and a half hours to mooresville which was episode 66 which was the old couple uh who murdered drifters which was a fucking awesome episode that's right that was a great episode i enjoyed that one a lot i'm like underneath a haystack that was awesome yeah they had them stacked up like cordwood in the goddamn barn yeah that was a listen to that episode if you haven't that's an awesome episode it's funny too there's an older couple and a farm involved in this episode too every time we go to missouri it's a farm and

remember the first the first missouri episode we did was i think canton we did it for a live show in chicago and it was the one where the guy tried to escape the murder scene on a tractor so missouri you're interesting let's just say that i like that panhandle has gotten it's really engraved and engrossed in our in our audience oh yeah there was a couple that it was a couple or kids no it was somebody oh that's where it was it was a dad and his daughter uh killed the mom and then blamed it on a panhandler. Oh, yeah, in Baltimore. I followed that story from the beginning, too.

But like a panhandler that holds a cap and asks for money. The word panhandler. It sounds like somebody from the panhandle of Florida. I would say so. Making that story up is panhandle behavior, big time. So you should call our audience, the panhandlers. They caught the father and daughter trying to make a run for it down by the Mexican border in Texas, which is amazing. This place is in St. Francis County.

The area code here is 573. It's four square miles, this town. The motto here is, quote, good earth, good people. Oh, boy. Yeah, I don't even have a joke one. That's just no. Good earth, good people. But good God, let's eat.

I don't know what the fuck. Yeah. It sounds like the start of a start of a shitty joke prayer for someone very lazy, but mildly religious. But it's also like kind of like apologizing for almost apologizing for slavery we got good or these was good people good earth good people right yeah well there's the missouri compromise yeah missouri's got a lot of history with fighting over that kind of shit so uh not here though here this they have one focus they had since the beginning of time in

this place well not since the beginning of time but since place. Well, not since the beginning of time, but since the French got here. Great. And that is mining. Oh. Oh, baby, are they into fucking mining here. They dig it, huh? Oh, they dig it, and then they pull it right out of the fucking ground. Did you get that? Unfortunately, I did.

Yeah, it was pretty weak. So it's settled in 1720 by the French after lead ore was discovered there. Oh. So that'll bring people in. Also mild health problems? Issues. Yeah, that's the thing here any any behavior that stems from this area is all going to be based on it's got

to be in the water supply there's so much fucking lead here we'll talk about it uh the it was called la bonneterra which is the good soil in french so they've taken that and called it bonterre just completely ruined uh what they were going for. It was a little close to lobotomy. Yeah. Well, the mines here were inherited by a guy named Anthony LaGrave. Now, there was no settled, like they had no permanent structure homes here. They didn't have neighborhoods or anything like that where they kind of built, like a normal town is.

You know, there's some stuff and then people build houses and put down roots sure sort of thing uh here they basically for years and years and years it was just miners living in a collection of huts and tents like just makeshift it was just a shanty town it's a mining camp of miners yeah but but even on in deadwood they built fucking houses you wouldn't know because you watch the goddamn show. But they built houses. God damn it. They had a hotel that people stayed in. No, everyone didn't just go, all right, I'm done drinking. Take their last shot of whiskey and then go out in a tent in the fucking woods. That's what happened here, though.

They didn't care. So remember Seth Bullock building the house? No, you don't. No, of course. I don't even know who he is. This whole arrangement with the huts and the tents lasted until after the Civil War. And then once the Civil War was over, then everything kind of started to settle down a little bit. And people started to settle in, build a house.

Were they worried that maybe they were going to come through with that scorched earth policy? I mean, yeah, but it was like that. Why build it if they're just going to burn it? True. It was like that for 100 years, though, before that. It was just a problem. Yeah. That's disgusting.

It was just a shit. Imagine the shit rivers flowing from the camps in this of minor shit, too, like whiskey, hard living, eating hard tack and drinking whiskey and shitting that out into the public. Good Lord. That's a canned food. No good. Yeah. No good.

They just came out with canned peaches they tasty uh now bonterre finally was platted as a town in 1880 and uh the county it's in saint francis county is located in what is known as and this is not like just a you know a little nickname it's it's got it's got its own Wikipedia link of this. It's known as the lead belt region. Ugh. That sounds worse than the rust belt. It does.

Which technically would be worse because that's deteriorated metal, but still, the lead belt sounds terrible. It sounds like the thing that the dentist puts on you so your balls don't get nuked when they check your teeth. Exactly. Yeah. It's second only to the Bible Belt. It's like the least desirable belt for me to live in.

It goes rust is number three, lead at number two, and number one with a bullet. For the four millionth straight week, Bible Belt. Tell them, deep voice Casey. Yeah, really. Why'd I do that? That was awesome. There's no no point in that i should have got up high all right so uh yeah this is it's in missouri the lead belt here it is the southeast missouri lead district this is depressing how how long is that belt how long does that fucker stretch i don't know but it's i'm so depressed right now it's through this whole county and kind of the whole southeast.

It's counties in the lead belt. Several counties, St. Francis, Crawford, Dent, Iron County, big shock there, Madison, Reynolds, and Washington County all encompass the lead belt. So it's like the whole southeast region of the state, which sounds awful. It started in 1720, like we said and with the french miners uh they started this it started with a big exploratory mission in 1719 they found lead and then they came back uh they found uh they founded the town of saint genevieve as a river port to transport lead out of the area so So this is all lead, man. The lead was originally used as roofing material until everybody killed each other and died. And then they said, well, I wonder what the fuck's going on.

Is that really what happened? No, that's not. They did use it as roofing material. That's true. They had large subterranean mines. So God knows what's going on under the town. There's probably shit falling in. Horrible things.

Yeah, which is now, we'll talk about this, is now commercially used for recreational scuba diving. The mines now. It's flooded? They flooded them out. We'll talk about it. They had a long active surface lead miners camp, and then they went under, too. It was a bunch of companies, the St. Joe Lead and the Deslodge Lead Company there, all these big companies. The St. Joe Company, I guess, had a hard time the first few years.

And then they brought a different kind of drill into the area, and they went deeper underground. And then they found pay dirt. Miners then, I guess, could work all year round for the first time because before it was in the you know bad weather they couldn't work on the surface but now they're fucking you're underground fuck the forecast i don't care it's always cloudy underground it's always black down here yeah uh they they followed the lead ore as it took them uh 20 miles uh 20 to 40 miles south and north also in different directions and depths of 500 to 1,200 feet. Wow.

1,200 feet below the surface is insanity. Looking for lead. Holy shit. If it's down that far, you know what? I mean- It doesn't want to be found. It does not want to be found. It's hiding.

You hit it well enough and none of us should look for it, I feel like, at that point. I'm trying to figure out what they use that for in nails yeah yeah i'm sure well got it think about this way hard in a roof yeah well yeah no they use the lead as actual as the roofing get out of here like a tin instead of a tin roof they had lead roofs they had a shitload of lead why not is that right for in that area sheet of lead yeah they'd have a lead sheets that were which seems heavy for the kids out there when the rain runs off their mouth open their tongues out catching it jesus christ man 1200 feet below the if they're okay i'm not sure i'm not debating this either way but if they're if if a god started this whole thing and he went we want to have lead in the ground i don't want

anybody to find it and take it out how deep should i 1200 no one's gonna go that far right 1200 feet like who the fuck would dig that far for they don't even know if it's down there yeah fuck it's probably 100 feet's fine he was probably like this shit is dangerous i need to put it real fucking low these hillbillies are gonna find anything that's bad for them so uh as these companies grew the the city grew. It was known as a company town, which back then, these mining towns that were company towns, these guys, they got paid in company script. They only could buy things from the company store with their company money, and they just were basically indentured servants that didn't have a time frame. They probably assumed this was brilliant on their, like the employees. They're probably like, this is great. We get houses and

we get everything but yeah you just don't get any money right you can never leave kind of like a prostitute yeah basically you're kind of like a voluntary prostitute the original bitcoin yeah that's that's kind of what it was and you're just giving it right back to the company yeah no it's it's weird uh they would it was weird too they didn't in most company towns they would build rows of houses like in new york even i remember there's places where there was like factories back in the day where they had like these row houses where all the employees of the factory lived like my grandfather when he was a kid lived in one of these like factory row houses that they're all shitty and

whatever but i mean that's back in the day it was fine these were fucking immigrants and his father was an immigrant so that's why better here than there that's what i mean that's why he lived there it was better than mussolini at the time so it was fine literally came here in the 20s and that's what happened so job in a company else i'm doing great holy shit and there's no fascists this is wonderful the fascists aren't in charge anyway so uh instead the companies the company would lease a lot to these people and they would allow the miners to build the type of home that they wanted yeah so you could build whatever you want so there's no uniformity to anything that's awesome yeah that people just built what we want and they were from different places these miners a lot of them were from overseas great so it was a lot of weird different architecture cool

uh there was a lot of i guess english architecture there because one of the company owners was a fan of it so there was a lot of uh tutoror style buildings and and all that sort of thing that are still there actually they they say it's like kind of like an english square with tudor style buildings which is kind of cool uh the uh bond the bond tear mine operated from the 1800s all the way to 1960 oh when it was finally abandoned and the pumps that kept spring water out of the caves because, you know, when you dig deep, a fucking waterfall flows into there because guess what? There's water under there.

And there's also gravity. Yeah, exactly. Things happen. They had pumps that kept the water out so the miners didn't flood and die. They turned those off in 1960 and it flooded with water. They turned those off in 1960 and it flooded with water. So it filled with an estimated billion gallons of water. Wow.

And has 26 miles of navigable coastline down there. No kidding. Underground. Yeah. 26 miles. 26 miles of coastline. Yeah. Because there's this giant mine that they did for 100 and something years. So they kept building and digging and digging and going deeper and farther.

And now it's a giant, you know, like a sea down there, basically. Let me tell those Asian kids that got lost that there's a much better place. Oh, this place would be... This is like the last scene in the Goonies before they pop out. This is where the pirate ship was.

That's what this whole thing looks like, pretty much. It's fucking amazing. It really is pretty cool to look at. Since 2005, Missouri has conducted all of its executions in Bonne Terre at the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic, and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre. Since when? Since 2005. So this is Death City for Missouri is exactly what this is. That's awesome.

Death City, Missouri. Yeah, it's crazy. So there's a lot of historic buildings. The Bonterre Depot, the Bonterre Mine, St. Joe Lead Company Administration Building are all on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1890, there was 3,700 people here. And today, there is 7,138 people here. Not really booming. So not really booming. We'll talk about it, though.

Their population's up 77% since 1990. Okay. So people have moved here a lot. And I don't know if maybe the death house moving here would... It's kind of cool. People would come. Plus, there's more employees then. And they stopped with the lead.

They stopped with the lead, so people are living longer and not murdering each other as much. I have a resident review quickly before we do the stats here. Resident review. This is a two star review. Quote, there is a very diverse population and nobody is afraid to make their opinions known. There are very few strangers. You mostly see the same faces throughout town. Most are friendly and will make an interest in you, which doesn't sound right.

Make an interest in you. Which doesn't sound right. No. Make an interest in you. It sounds like they're going to shit on you. Yeah. Or something else worse. Something horrible. Something horrible in you.

For you, that's just them saying hello. I make an interest on you. I make interest in you. That sounds like... Inside of you, I make my interest. That sounds like

somebody who knows English is their second language. That's what I mean. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. That's brilliant. I make my interest. That sounds like somebody who's English is their second language. That's what I mean. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. That's brilliant. I make inside you. No. Why?

Why I don't make inside you? That is horrific. Jesus, the shawarma man comes. That's a very southern way of saying that they want to talk to you. Totally. It sounds terrible. It's fucking hilarious. So median age here is 32.9.

So young. That's five years younger than normal. Male and female population. The male population is 66%, which is usually like 51% female. So we've never seen anything this out of whack unless there was like 200 people in the town. And with almost 10,000 people here. There's 7,000 people. That's still a pretty good sample size to where that's 7,000 people. Oh, it's seven.

That's still a pretty good sample size to where that's way out of whack. I thought it was nine. My listening skills really dropped off right there. They really fell apart. The 25 to 44-year-old demographic is way high, and everything else is low. Everything else is under the average. But 25 to 44-year-olds, way more than normal. Married population, usually 50 50 here.

It's 33 percent single with no children, though. Usually it's 10 percent. Here it is. Two point three one percent. So there's a lot of single people with children. So it's not a lot of, I guess, marrying happening here, but a lot of kid having. Yeah. So that's a problem. Race of

this town, or is it? Or is it just hot? Race of this town is about 76% white, 20% black. That's a pretty high for a small town. That's not bad for what we covered. It's usually 2%, so good

for you. 0.42% Asian. We'll take some blacks we keep them damn asians out of here the mines are closed understand tell the asians the mines are closed they ain't welcome no more we we flooded them all you can't come in so yeah there's that 0.63% Hispanic. So it's black and white. Yeah. That's it.

There's nobody else here. Religion in this town, it's usually 50-50 here. 44.7, so 45% of the people here are religious. Yeah. The majority of the religious people, 21% of them, or the plurality, I guess it would be, would be are Baptist. All right. So this is South, and as we know,, would be our Baptist. All right. So this is South, and as we know, Baptists are the Catholics of the South.

So, yeah, there's also almost 5% Catholic down there, some Pentecostal, some Fire and Brimstone people here. Someone put a scary on Sunday. Yeah. Oh. You got to be scared to watch the afternoon football game properly. You got to go home scared. You want to watch them Chiefs?

Let me scare the living shit out of you first. Then go home. That's why they're such a good crowd. They're petrified. They're so happy to be alive and out of church and not being smited by an angry God. That's why they're known as a good crowd down there. 1.3% Mormon. Yeah. So they're coming. There good crowd down there. 1.3% Mormon. They're coming. There's a few. They came in through

the mines and came on up from there. 0.0% Jewish, 0.0% Muslim. You can't even pronounce this shit right. No thank you. 25% of the people here voted Democrat in the last election for president and 70% Republican here.

It's a conservative area as it's a small kind of farming mining x mining town and they can fuck off with the midwestern shit this is the south this is the south yeah it's way down in the south so much south oh and everything you will talk about too it's it's this is a southern area definitely uh unemployment rate here you're going to see some confederate flags i feel like around this area unemployment rate 3.8 percent which is kind of right on the money of national average at the moment uh median household income in the country it's 57 000 right now they just reconfigured these uh here it is 50 654 so okay so pretty close a lot of the jobs are, there's construction jobs, kind of more than normal, but less manufacturing jobs than normal. 20% of the jobs here are retail trade because it's a tourist spot because of this giant mine.

So that's a lot of this whole thing. And little keychain electric chairs. Little keychain electric chairs. Come on and see the death house. It's actually lethal injection. Little keychain syringes. What's in it? We don't know.

Just don't taste it. So, yeah. Yeah, it's real. Don't touch that. What are you talking about? Also, health care, social assistance, that sort of thing. I don't know if that has something to do with the prison or what, but those are a lot of the jobs here. Public administration.

Also a big time job for this place. Cost of living, $100,000 being average, regular, normal. Here, cost of living is $81,000. That's not bad. Under $100,000. Not too bad. And everything is pretty close to normal except for housing, which is $50,000 out of $100,000. So median home cost here, $97,400.

That is cheap. That's pretty cheap. That's pretty cheap. That's very cheap. Most of the houses that I'm looking at here, over 50% are under $100,000 in worth and value. So that's a lot. I see there's really not any houses over half a million dollars in this area, really. Not at all. In value, anyway.

And if we've convinced you oh boy where else could you go but bonterre missouri we have for you the bonterre missouri real estate report your average two-bedroom rental in this place in bonterre is 810 dollars yeah it's normally about 1200 so it's a little bit under but still not enough i don't feel like because you could get a to warrant buying a yeah doing that instead of buying unless your credit's completely fucked that's what i feel like that is i found a two bedroom two bath 1511 square foot house it needs some work i'm not gonna lie to you so it's definitely not updated or anything like that but fifty seven thousand five hundred dollars pretty decent you can make it work with that i

found a three bedroom two bath nicer house been updated everything's nice you don't have to like fumigate the whole thing first thirteen hundred sixty square feet one hundred thirty nine thousand nine hundred dollars for that not bad at all then i found this one house four bedroom four bath yeah it's like two-story brick really nice house beautiful 3032 square feet 369 900 that seems like a deal which is pretty reasonable if it wasn't in bonterre missouri i mean if you have to be there if you have to and you got some cash that's the thing too yeah things to do here uh is the number one and pretty much only is the bonter mine oh uh their big what they're touting is quote become a deep earth explorer oh that sounds deeper i don't want to be a deep a flat earth or a deep earth or i don't want to

explore shit no uh they say it's one of america's top 10 greatest adventures uh according to national geographic magazine what that's what they're touting top 10 greatest's one of America's top 10 greatest adventures, according to National Geographic magazine. What? That's what they're touting. Top 10 greatest adventures. One of the world's largest man-made caverns, founded in 1860, is one of history's earliest deep-earth lead mines. The world's largest producer of lead ore until it closed. The mine has five levels.

They talk about where the levels are and what they do. They said the mine is a constant 65 degrees never affected by weather uh there's all sorts of different levels and they have boat tours 500 000 watts of stadium lighting above the water's surface views of the abandoned shafts and equipment below it's also home to the largest freshwater scuba diving venue in the world you know with all that said yeah that's pretty cool i think i'd like to how do you get a boat down there who the hell know you build it down there i mean there's they got mining equipment down there you gotta be able to get a boat i'd like to see this uh also the space museum is there it's a little space museum it's pretty pretty self-explanatory.

Shouldn't that be in Florida or Texas? Yeah, but some astronaut was from, they have a flag that some astronaut had. It's a long story. They built a museum around it. Get your shit together, Houston. Come on. Yeah, get it together, guys. Crime rate, what we're interested in here. Property crime is about 25% under the average.

So it's pretty safe to leave your windows open in your car, maybe, it's uh just for a couple of minutes but violent crime murder rape robbery and assault don't forget that one the mount rushmore of crime is about 20 higher than the national average so which kind of makes sense when you have a 66 male population yeah you're probably gonna get a few more volatile yeah a few more assaults and things like that it's just a more more dudes more punching i would say more dudes more problems more it's especially with money with assaulting and violence and shit like that well anytime they drink that anytime you get a bunch of people together and there's alcohol involved oh yeah there's always two dudes that that pop off especially if it's just a bunch of dudes yeah that's the other thing right and the majority dudes which is every goddamn bar yeah yeah and if there's not enough bunch of dudes. That's the other thing. Right. And the majority dudes, which is every goddamn bar.

Yeah. Yeah. And if there's not enough women. Ideally, you want to have a 50-50 ratio of women and men. And that way, dudes are trying not to be dicks because they actually think maybe they can hook up with one of these chicks because there's enough of them. So even the guys. Just enough. It's right down the middle.

Yeah. Even the guys who know that women don't like them. They're like, if I'm not a complete asshole, I might be able to pull something out of this because there's a lot of women here. Like, this is not bad. I'm going to be on my best behavior. Yeah.

You know? Let's talk about a murder. Oh, boy. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime,

part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well-researched. He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people. With a touch of humor. I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother f***er lied. Like a liar. Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal. Or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes.

You should tune in to our podcast, Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller,

available exclusively on Wondery Plus, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group.

Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth.

With an all-star cast led by Emmy nominee Sanaa Lathan and Star Wars' Kelly Marie Tran, Chinook is available exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Let's talk about a couple of murders here, some interesting murder action. Let's talk first about a couple named Charles and Grace Lewis. Okay, they're in the 90s. We're going to go back to the 90s for a second when this takes place here.

They're they're a nice older couple 67 and 62 years old. Charles is the older one. Grace is his wife. Grace has really bad arthritis. She has her hands are everybody said they're like, yeah, they're really like claws. Basically, she's all, you know, real bad arthritis. So she has health problems resulting from her arthritis. Charles is in good health.

He's kind of a heavy set, kind of jovial older guy. He likes to dick around on the farm. You know, he's got some cattle there and shit like that. You know, not a big deal. They're not, this farm isn't their source of income or anything like that uh grace's family uh grace's family left the farm to her it belonged to grace's family and they uh we'll talk about it but they they just kind of went there on the weekends and they ended up retiring there eventually so wouldn't that be great they're just kind of you yeah i hate it it's filthy and stinky and it's kind of cool to just have like a farm or a ranch that you just go to on the weekends yeah play cowboy and go the fuck back home yeah is

there uber eats there i like delivery stuff i really like delivery i like to do that a lot i'm very yeah i need very lazy you need help help. I need things. I'm willing to pay for it, but I need it. I can't just sit in the middle of nowhere. I'll chip you off a sawbuck. Just don't make me make shit. Here's the thing. I like to cook, but I'm not going to kill the cow to get the meat to cook it. I mean, yeah, it's great.

I'll eat it, but fuck, man. That's a lot of work. I think the biggest animal that I might kill to eat would be a chicken. I think up above that, nope. Can't do it. I'm not a big... I don't know that I could kill a deer. Dude.

A deer alone, they're adorable. I don't think I could do it. My grandmother tells these stories about in Italy, they have... Every family, I guess, would like... Over the course of the year, a family, you'd have a goat that you'd raise for a year. Okay? And then you would kill the goat. No.

And it would be a big thing. Each family would, but they would stagger them, so everybody would kill their goat at a different time. So everybody didn't kill their goats at once. And then whatever family would give, they would share everything with their goat. And then the next month, the next family would kill their goat and share all their goat shit with other people which i don't know everybody had goat all the time but they talk about it's like the oh the pet goat and we love the goat and we raise it for a year and then we cut its throat and we rip it apart and everybody's happy we have a party and i'm like whoa but is it like is everybody participating in the murder of

the goat oh it's a fucking event like little tommy comes murder of the goat? Oh, it's a fucking event. Like little Tommy comes out there and stabs his neck? Yeah, I know, it's a ceremony. It's a ceremony. They all, no, they all do, because they take it apart. I mean, they take the fucking intestines out, and they do shit with that, and they use the whole thing. We're talking, you know, literally fascist Italy in the 30s, like in a brutsi in the

hills and shit. I couldn't do that. Yeah, it's a brutal lifestyle. And I love goats. They're fucking, they're so cute. They're pretty adorable. I want to hug them all the time. Every time I see, you can pick them up so easy.

They're so light. They fucking reek, though. I can't do it. That's why I said I won't eat anything that comes out of a goat. Cheese or milk, or if you smell the goat, you won't eat anything that comes out of the inside of it. There is a... Might be where that smell's coming from. An insult of a goat's ass isn't there there's something about a goat's ass

it should be there's a goat fucker there's all kinds of horrible insults and it's because the goat is not typically a clean animal it's known as a filthy kind of dickish animal so yeah but i love them but they're cool as shit so uh now grace here uh grace was born in Missouri in 1931. She's lived in Missouri pretty much her whole life here. She is a member of the Methodist church in town there. She's also, she does a little bit of preaching at the church. Nothing crazy. She's kind of like, she'll fill in.

She'll tell you the word. She'll say it down. She knows how to say grace. She knows all of them. All of it down she knows how to say grace she knows all of them all of it down there uh now uh charles here charles lewis her husband he is charles lewis the third oh boy uh here he is also a member of the church uh he is a lay minister at the cedar fork methodist church layman like a lay minister he's not licensed i guess maybe that's probably what that means or not whatever the fuck he's just kind of not not exactly the one but he's he'll do he's just

an annoying guy who tells you shit that you didn't ask him to tell you he's an annoying guy that knows the shit out of the bible great here he comes again are you are you i'm just a lay preacher oh thanks continue then i thought wow are you gonna pass the test or not that's what happened at least if preacher is your is your occupation people know what's coming at them when you see you coming this guy they're like hey it's charles how's it going how's everything on the farm and he's like not bad i mean according to ezekiel 25 like huh where the fuck did that come from charles thought we were just having a good time i'd like you to know that i am a lay preacher i'm a lay preacher now that's uh he's also a member of the nra of course of course he is and a uh and uh lay preacher he's a veteran of

world war ii oh and goddamn hero he's from the he was in the navy my grandfather was in the navy in world war ii good for him uh yeah so uh he's a yeah he's a god he fought hitler for christ's sake well he's in the navy so he probably fought the japanese but either way he he got guys that fought him yeah he got him there there was guys in europe in the navy too but he gave him a ride there he gave him a ride there and who knows what the hell he did but he gave all the heroes a ride he helped load bombs that shot at there you go that shores of places i'm sure did lots of other stuff people are going to say you know in world war ii and they're we get it the navy did a lot of shit yeah and he did a bunch too good for him uh they have uh they have three sons and two daughters so they

end up having a nice family five kids they're married in the 1950s and have five kids and uh and they're in the midwest there so it's a it's a very kind of uh black and white sitcom 50s type of thing leave it to beaver situation going on here. Very stereotypical. Yeah. The couple, once Grace ended up inheriting the farm, they would use it for weekend getaways for about 20 years. They'd go out there to the weekend to the farm and that sort of shit. And then finally, Charles, in 1985, he retires.

Finally, Charles, in 1985, he retires. They were living outside of St. Louis, and Charles retires from an accounting firm that he worked at in St. Louis there in 1985, and they move to the farm. So their weekend retreat has become their life. They're very happy on the farm. Everybody likes them. They're known as the nicest people in the world. They're very as the nicest people in the world. They're very, very sweet. They talk about, the neighbors talk about how Grace,

who would come over with her arthritis and having a hard time walking, would show up at their doors with jars of green beans that they just jarred from their farm, just as given to their neighbors. They said she could barely walk, but she was coming to give you things. And very, very nice. Everybody liked Charles, too, regardless of his lay preaching.

They still said he was a very nice guy and helped people out and was a really, really good dude that everybody liked. And then so they lived there from 1985 on the farm until September of 1993 when they disappear into thin air. Yeah. Can't find them. Was this around the time that Missouri flooded? They were taken away in one of their many Missouri floods basically 18 times a year. So, yes, is my answer. There was a big flood, though, where like the the the arch.

Oh, yeah. like 30 feet up was yeah in the 90s yeah that was around this time it was around this time it probably i think it's 94 possibly then i was thinking somewhere around there it might be 92 somewhere 92 to 94 was a giant flood but uh not affected this area but they disappear okay i mean where the fuck are they in the mines where'd they go maybe he went to take the test he went to take the taste like i'm done telling people i'm a lay preacher i want to drop those three letters just be a goddamn preacher i want people to run out of the room when they see me coming because i feel bad sneaking up on them like i am now a lot of them go oh shit the preacher's coming run shit he never shuts up uh so they just disappear in the thin air. Not like them at all.

They're reliable. They have a farm, for Christ's sake. They're retired. Yeah, they're retired. Animals need to be fed and shit like that. They have things to do. Responsibility. Plus, they don't do that.

They are very entwined in the community. They both are active in the church. They have a big family with five kids and all the neighbors that they talk to there. They don't disappear. They're reliable. If they're going away for a weekend, the entire town knows that they're going away for a fucking weekend. They've been talking about it for two goddamn months. The Lewis's are gone this weekend.

In case you didn't know. And they're just that's what they're discussing at the gas station in town. You know, the Lewis's went out of town. Did they? That's right. I heard about that. His neighbors wake up and celebrate. Today is the Lewis's first day of town did they that's right i heard about that his neighbors wake up and celebrate today is the lewis's first day of unbelievable isn't that wonderful they have a

little parade they see him off and everybody in town waves bye lay preacher bye lay they put a banner down in the mind so everybody knows i want everyone to know so they disappear and obviously people are concerned uh police talk to the family family because it's their daughter who contacts the police. She said she was speaking to Grace on the phone on September 21st, 1993. That's mom. That is mom. She's speaking to her mom on the phone. And this woman said to her daughter, said that Grace abruptly ended the call, but not in a panic or anything like that.

She said, i have to go i think i just heard gunshots i'm gonna go look and see what's going on and she casually hung up the phone now this it sounds for me and you were like fucking crazy that's crazy this is like a rural area a ranch and a farm and the property is also a very popular hunting ground got it and it's the beginning of the fall. Okay. So this is deer hunting, coming into deer hunting season and it is not abnormal to hear gunshots

everywhere around here. Just hunters. That is horrible. That sounds terrifying. Every time you're in your yard, you might just get hit by a stray bullet. This is a man that was in the war. Yeah.

How does he not just like duck and cover every goddamn day? He doesn't have PTSD. He's got just like, I got used to it. You know how it is. Sometimes bullets whiz by your head. They hit you. They hit you.

You know, he's a very takes it as it comes. So this was not normal. This was it was normal. I mean, so it wasn't a big deal. No, it wasn't like, oh, my God. Mom said there was gunshots. I'm going to call the SWAT team. It was just like, oh, OK, I'll see you later, Mom.

You know, go check that out. It's so weird, too. You have to either be in like a really shitty inner city place or the middle of nowhere to be used to gunshots. You either have to be in the woods or in the middle of the fucking projects to be used to gunshots and they have to not bother you. In a booming metropolis

or that does not describe anything you've ever seen it's so fucking weird those are the only people any everybody in the middle is concerned by gunfire at least a little bit so uh the next day so nobody thought anything daughter hung up the phone and that was that so uh no suspicious. The next night, though, Charles and Grace Lewis are supposed to meet their other daughter in a town called Farmington for dinner

and they never showed up. Oh. And this is not at all like them. They will show up. You know, think about how reliable these people are. He's an accountant

that was in World War II and he runs a farm and he's a preacher. This is a square son of a bitch yeah there's a lot of plaid in that closet his top is so flat it's not even funny plaid suspenders absolutely plaid button-down shirt with suspenders is what i see this man wearing you know just to make sure those pants and a belt yeah happy day it's a nice night like we're going out we're celebrating i will put on the bowl of time i'm will put on the bolo tie. I'm going to put on the bolo. I will do it. There's a scorpion on it.

Yeah. You know how it goes. It's my special tie. He dusts it off. It's been 14 years since I had this thing on. This is a real scorpion. It is. They glazed it and put it in an inlay.

Inlay is what we call that. Look at the tassels coming off the bottom. They're done in exquisite. So fast. Handmade fashion. I're done in exquisite handmade fashion. I wish they can do that. Look on our site, smalltownmurder.com. You can get bolo ties. You can't get bolo ties.

We're not going to sell bolo ties. We'd sell one. And it would be a joke. Ridiculous. So we'd hang it from their rear view. Somebody would buy it and send it to us. Weird like that thanks so uh yeah the uh the next day though like i said they don't show up so uh they their their daughter who was waiting for dinner uh drives over to their house to see what happened and found the lights on

good sign uh and the back door unlocked okay that's normal for them so they walk in uh they find can't find grace or charles anywhere nowhere but they do find the living room telephone has been unplugged which is strange but the basement telephone is still plugged in there is a pot of beans soaking on the stove they're soaking beans getting ready to boil getting ready to do yeah so there's a pot of beans soaking on the stove. Lights on, back door unlocked. Everything looks normal. Nobody anywhere.

Except nobody's here and the phone's unplugged. Right. So it's a very strange scene. They look around. This is weird. The items that were missing, how they knew this, I have no idea. But the items that were missing were a six pack of root beer what how do you how do you know someone else's soda inventory down to a fucking six pack who know i have no idea

what's in my mother's fridge soda wise none that's like walking into a place and just going well here's a bunch of shit that's not here yeah i don't know that they ever had it but you know what else is not here there is not a backhoe i'm not finding a fancy movie style popcorn machine that's what i'm not finding i'd like to see one i do not see an oversized football helmet full of cottage cheese not at all i haven't seen it nowhere i've seen it nowhere so they're uh yeah that's so they somehow know i don't know if uh my dad always keeps a six-pack of root beer in a special place or what that's an interesting very very strange also two five gallon cans of gasoline are gone uh that's not there and the vcr is gone uh also but the tv is there, but the VCR is gone.

And several spare keys. Okay. Now, this is 93, by the way. This isn't like 83 when a VCR was 1,200 bucks. We're in the $99 VCR era, so this is not a high-end item is what we're getting at. For all this child knows, this kid, probably not a child, probably an adult, For all this child knows, this kid, probably not a child, probably an adult, for all this son or daughter knows about their parents, they may have just gotten rid of that shit because it was obsolete. Well, 93, there's about $122 worth of shit missing.

It's not a huge get. And none of it together makes any goddamn sense. No, no, no. We're going to pour the root beer into the VCR. And then put the gasoline inside the VCR. And then we're going to put the keys inside there. And then we have just like nothing. And if I shake it up. And I can shake it and you can hear noises.

And then I could possibly watch NASCAR. That's the formula for NASCAR, chemically. That's the chemical compound for NASCAR. A six-pack of root beer, two five-gallon cans of gasoline, an old VCR, and several spare keys. Well, you see, if you pour the root beer and the gasoline into, that's like an additive in the gasoline. You pour that into the VCR, and I don't know which one of these keys will start that VCR. I'm not positive. But it will be fast as shit i'm just seeing the chemical compound with the little things and all

that i want to see that drawn up for nascar but that was different jesus christ so uh there was no everybody said there was no indication of any problems the day before people had seen them they were in town at the grocery store and they went to the pharmacy people saw them they were acting completely normal they didn't say they were going anywhere they weren't fighting or anything like that uh some of the some uh neighbors saw them driving home in their car and said they were honking at the people they knew and waving at everybody like normal this is a nightmare this town to have some fucking to have some old lay preacher fucking honking and waving at me all the time i would blow my fucking brains out if i had to live here i cannot be honked and waved at say his first name again it's grace and what it's grace and

charles yeah so old chuck chuck is grace in the back you didn't even honk would you honk now do a u-turn and drive back around and honk and wave and then flip another one and come back. You didn't see Ted in his front yard. He was watering his petunias. Would you honk the goddamn horn? Now he thinks you don't like him. He's going to call us impolite and he's never going to put a dollar in the collection plate again. Last time I went over with the pickled green beans, when I dropped them off, his wife said,

y'all drove by the other day. I didn't hear a single beat. Not even a beat, not a wave. I didn't see a hand coming out a window. I get it was cold out, but still. My question is, everything they stole, the pot of beans was probably worth half of what they stole. It's probably a lot of beans, I'm thinking.

You should have just taken the beans with them. So the police ended up they you know they end up investigating because this is not normal all the all the children are concerned it's this isn't just like uh they would do a silver alert nowadays for this type of thing and nobody would pay attention nobody would they go what who cares about an old man in an ultima that sign off what's the next where's the accident why is this freeway back up stop showing me missing elderly and tell me where the act how much fucking further am i sitting in this we've talked about it before

too every time i see one of those i'm always like what if they just don't want to talk to their kids today and they wanted to go fucking to the casino for a day and next thing you know the swat team's gonna come in and drag them away yeah it's like i'm fine okay. Sitting in sweatpants in a strip club getting a lap dance. The sheriff's going to burst in and be like, get over here, Ted Paul, whatever I just said your name is. I'm an adult and I have my own car. Why am I not allowed to leave without notifying people? What the fuck is going on?

It's the first month I got my SSI. I was in a war. I was in a fucking war and I can't just drive where i want you motherfuckers so i want to force a girl for five dollars to rub her butt cheeks on my boner i was in a war i've earned that i've earned that and you got your fucking kids calling 9-1-1 god damn it jesus christ i fought the nazis and then the koreans too and i can't even take a ride to the foot now bullshit so uh police officer here said when they arrived at the at the farm which is a 460 acre property wow that's big that's all you lost there that's the thing and the police show up and they

go shit this is a four we have to search 460 because the first place you're going to look for them missing people is on their own property obviously that's the most where they're most likely to be so shit they're like okay well search the entire farm first uh they found uh like the same thing unlocked door lights uh lights left on also in the kitchen is on the table is grace's purse on the table so there's a vcr gone phone unplugged six pack of root beer and some spare keys and some gas cans but her purse is left behind inside her purse is 295 dollars in cash yeah and several prescriptions because she's an old woman who's got arthritis and all sorts of pain killers in there is crazy

painkillers and cash money yeah this is like a you know a drifter's dream purse here i found it i hit the jackpot that ain't that ain't the motive no well also they find when looking around the the uh the property is they can't find their truck either. There's a truck missing. Truck missing, but Grace left a purse. But there's a purse there. Also, it's going to be difficult. We'll talk about this.

They're pretty sure the couple didn't leave in the truck. The truck's a 1988 white GMC four-wheel drive pickup with a camper shell. All of this is missing. License plate number mj8 763 by the way well done just in case a nice truck it's a nice truck not bad uh now they said that this is a clue that that something is awry because grace is so arthritic she cannot climb into this truck okay only charles uses this truck oh so alone alone he never rides he tours around the farm and shit like that and then they have another vehicle they use but she's too arthritic to even

get into this truck okay so there's no way everyone's saying there's no way that they climbed in this truck and left voluntarily that's that's not an issue here so uh yeah that's that's interesting uh police combed the entire farm on foot, just going through the whole farm. That's so much land. It's 460 acres. Highway Patrol helicopter also searched the area while they did that. They did the whole thing. They were really looking hard.

And the police officer, who was the lead guy here, said, quote, Just to add to our dilemma, torrential rains washed all our hopes to find tire tracks or footprints away, even if there were any. We're really puzzled about this one. Apparently that night, the night after they disappeared, after the gunshots happened, between then and when they missed dinner, it was a torrential rainstorm. Fuck. That washed any trace evidence of whatever could possibly be happening away. So they're really, really puzzled. The county sheriff here said again, quote, one of our problems is we don't have very much to go on.

There was hardly any evidence at what we think is the crime scene. So they have no idea. They're just like two old people disappeared in the thin air with their truck and their six and their root beer. And we have no idea what the fuck is going on. No money and three sodas a piece yeah that's that's this is this is a problem no purse yeah and in a truck she can't get into right uh they said they're not even sure what type of crime if any is on their hands they don't know anything they said they're classifying it as a missing persons case and shrugging their shoulders

at this point because they really don't know what's going on. The sheriff then said, quote, we suspect foul play, but we have very little evidence to back that up. My gut feeling is they've been abducted and removed from the farm. So obviously it's a pretty good gut feeling there, chief. Wow. I can see why you're sheriff. Good job. Jesus Christ. Way to deduce.

You've done great work. You've done a break sir fantastic work sir uh so they're just missing truck gone root beer gone everything is gone uh they're missing they're they they keep searching they search the whole farm they're not there and fan out from there what do you do from there yeah you ask around did you see anything happen nobody knows nobody saw shit nobody's seen shit nobody knows anything all the neighbors who are up each other's asses and honking and waving at each other like nobody's seen a fucking thing they know nothing about this whole thing okay six weeks go by oh my god

six weeks go by that's too long it's that's a long time uh and uh finally their truck is found where burned it's completely burned out. It's a man scouting for deer. Found the pickup truck on a Saturday afternoon, you know, scouting for deer in a wooded area about 200 yards off Highway T between Highway A and Route 185 in Washington County, which is about 75 miles southwest of St. Louis. This is about 30 miles northwest of the farmhouse from where the Lewis has disappeared. The sheriff here said, quote, this sheriff's a genius, by the way. He is the master of the obvious, this man. Quote, whoever left the truck here obviously was trying to hide it.

Really? Deep into the woods, fucking burned down a truck. Do you think he was trying to hide it? I thought it was for sale and he was trying to get attention to it. What the fuck are you talking about? Really? Jesus Christ. I see him getting out of the car,

scratching his chin, looking at that truck. Yeah. Stood there for like 20 minutes. Looked at it from all angles. Went to the back. Then his deputy goes, what do you think?

I think they're trying to hide it. I think they're hiding it. And the deputy goes, what do you think? I think they're trying to hide it. I think they're hiding it. And the deputy goes, oh, yeah. He nudges the other deputy and he goes, Sheriff, you know what he's doing. He really, you know, I thought they were just trying to see shit at night.

We're lucky to be working under a man of this stature. Let's just say we're going to learn a lot. He's talking again. Take notes, Jackson. Take notes. Take notes, Jackson. I like that a lot. So, yeah, trying to hide it.

Apparently, they deduced that an inflammable liquid had been poured inside the cab of the pickup and ignited. I don't know why. Inflammable. Is that flammable? Shouldn't it be flammable? It said in the court that it's inflammable. Either way, this is a liquid.

Maybe it was the root beer. It was the root beer. That's why they, the root beer is excessively flammable. I don't know if you know that, but it is. It's like gasoline, really. You can do that thing where you spit gasoline out of the torch and blow. You can do that with root beer. Try it.

That's why you have to put ice cream in it. To just cool that negate. It settles it. It cools off that heat. The dairy. It really stops the combustion. It's like oil and water. One cuts the other, really.

That's how it works. They said that's where it started, though, inside the cab of the pickup. That's where it was lit. The sheriff, in true fashion, has no idea how long the truck has been there and uh has no idea who put it there that's what he says so yeah i smelled it you know and uh it still smells like smoking fire i'm gonna say it's not drivable let's just say that i think it's totaled that's my masters of deduction i'm not a a an insurance evaluator i don't work for state farm you are not in good hands here if i had to guess uh oh it's burnt

melted you don't even know it's a truck i'm gonna say it's total probably just a thought my description of the truck to a crisp go to the daughter they go to the five kids good news and bad news now bad news yeah let's always start the bad news bad news is still have no idea where your parents are it's been six weeks good news is you can go ahead and file a claim on that truck because it's totaled out i'm gonna go ahead and say so you're gonna get yourself three four grand for that puppy i'm just saying split it amongst yourselves do whatever you want jackson just following around just writing it 30 35 100 three four everything he says jackson fucking writes down everything every word

the macaroni and cheese is good today okay he's wise you never know when a nugget's gonna fall you never know write it all down i might use that one later man so from this area the sheriff and a team of about 35 other people including his deputies washington county sheriff's deputies and volunteers combed the woods around this area looking for evidence of the lewises or anybody that would have left the truck here the truck got here maybe they were taken from here and drug out of the lewises or anybody that would have left the truck here the truck got here maybe they were taken from here and drug out of the truck or or whatever uh among the volunteers was three of the five children of theirs uh which was a big deal uh one of their daughters said quote finding the truck is a start i guess it limits the search which uh not really i'm questioning

where the fuck are those other two? Yeah, where are the parents? Oh, the other two? One lives in Texas. I don't give a shit. One lives in South Texas. Yeah, I don't know what that was. We found a truck. You need to get up here and bring your Timberlands.

Who knows how arthritic the kids were, too. They might have been just overcome. This daughter, Karen, was 22, so she might have been the healthy one here. She says the worst is still not knowing what happened. Their other daughter, Karen, was 22, so she might have been the healthy one here. She says the worst is still not knowing what happened. Their other daughter, Mary, she was the one who was talking on the phone with Grace when she heard the gunshots. She said she's clinging to hope that her parents are still alive. She said, quote, it's a scary hope, though, because you wonder if they're suffering if they are alive,

especially because Grace's prescriptions are back there so they're all very worried about that that she's gone six weeks seemingly if she's alive with no medication she might just have two balls on her wrists at this moment she could be in so much pain and uh uh her the daughter karen said quote you almost hope selfishly that they're in heaven oh Oh, Jesus. Which is fucking bleak. It's dark. That's some dark. My Christ. That's grim, Karen.

That is, Karen. Karen, you've given up. I got news for you. That's grim, Karen. I'm sorry. Calm down, Karen. I feel like they say that to her a lot. I feel like she says shit a lot and they just go, Jesus, Karen, that's fucking grim, man.

That's grim, Karen. that's fucking grim, man. That's grim, Karen. Like, come on, man. Just call her grim Karen. Grim Karen. I really feel like that's like all the time. Like fucking Karen, man. Hey, Karen, stop with the heaven talk. We haven't even seen a drop of blood yet.

Jesus, they could be fine. Who knows if they sold this truck to a drifter and then took the money and went down to the islands for a couple months. We don't know what's going on down there. Your mom might be out in Key West right now watching news coverage, laughing her arthritic hands off because you're fucking talking like she's dead. It's Grim Karen again. She's being grim again.

Man, you're grim, Karen. Chuck, the reapers on tv their son michael lewis not the author i don't know not probably the guy who wrote money ball yeah uh he says uh carl lewis yeah that's carl lewis that's that's awesome there was a michael runner too though right yeah yeah michael i don't know it doesn't matter yeah i just mixed two runners together and made a michael runner too though right yeah yeah michael i don't know it doesn't matter yeah i just mixed two runners together and made a michael lewis yeah yeah you did at the same time as as carl lewis there was another guy too but he got like busted for all

sorts of shit probably before everybody else did right because they all end up getting busted anybody who does anything well athletically they're not doing it naturally if you break a record it means that you'd found something new you found a new drug to take because otherwise that's what people can do they're going to test your blood and figure out what's in there that you're not allowed to have in it fucking superman no get out of here so michael the son he said quote there's nothing you can put your finger on to explain any of this there's no reason for them to be kidnapped they had a large farm but not that much money and they weren't even kidnapped they had a large farm but not that

much money and they weren't even robbed they had no enemies that i or anyone else know of okay so and then the uh the sheriff again mr captain obvious he says just his quote is uh this one is baffling thanks sheriff appreciate that there was a long pause and lots of chin stroking. Yeah, he did that, and he looked, and he went, fire. That happened. It's baffling. Jackson's like, fire, dot, dot, dot, baffling. One F or two F, y'all? I don't know how you spell that.

He says, quote, there are just too many questions that don't have answers. Why are they missing? If someone came and didn't kill them or hurt them why take them away from the farm someone evidently doesn't want us to find them and robbery is not the motive someone evidently doesn't want us to find them how did you get that where did you deduce that from the fact that they're missing for six fucking weeks maybe jesus fucking christ that is a man just showing you his card yeah that's all the time there's a man nudging the player next to him going yeah you know what which card should i turn in here what do you think what do you think should i hit this or what he's the equivalent of a movie that's

just all exposition yeah just all fucking just we went this, and then I did, no subtext whatsoever. He's all text, baby. Holding nothing to the vest that only the killer would know. He's just saying, I don't know shit right now. Imagine the five kids gathered while this guy tells them information. Everything he says, they all shrug and look at each other like, is this fucking guy for, he's in, should we hire somebody? How do we do this?

Can we hire a new police chief or whatever could somebody else get involved here this is fucking insane here uh he has been by the sheriff here uh has been in law enforcement for 14 years and uh he says this night has given him this case has given him sleepless nights after 14 years 14 years and he's the sheriff and he's the sheriff should take like 30 shouldn't i don't know if you have a degree in criminal justice if that drives you up the line or sometimes these i'd probably not hear in big cities they like sometimes with a law degree they like a chief or something but but if he went into sheriff if he went into law

enforcement like that was his career path at like 20 22 22. That man is in his 30s. Yeah. That man's the sheriff in his 30s. His dad might have been the biggest pig farmer in town. We have no idea the politics of small southern Missouri lead belt town. I have no idea. The politics of root beer are thick and many. A&W and dad's Warren down there, which i can't imagine looking to the 30 year old for

for guidance like you know what i mean yeah that's like the highest authority in this case he might be 37 or something who knows but i don't want that guy you want an older guy with a beer belly fuck yeah you want that guy well he says quote you just get so involved that you'll think of something in your sleep and then you'll sit up the rest of the night trying to figure out what it means. For him, though, it's not like a clue. He just thinks of like normal shit in his sleep and tries to figure out what it means. He just heard a word and he was like, what does shunt mean? Are we sitting there?

Is that dirty? Can I say that in public? Sounds dirty. Shant sounds. You know, I heard that in a Disney movie too many times. And it sounds too much like past tense of shit. I think it does. And I don't even have to tell you what shant means.

But really, my hang up right now is, what is the symbolism of the beans on the stove that's got to be symbolism every time someone puts beans on a stove there's like a dun dun dun moment of like a ever closer close up in his face and he looks out of one eye and he's like there's beans on the stove pintos are red what were those were those kidneys were those kidneys? Were those black? Black eye? Somebody get me the case file one more time. You crack an A&W in his presence. He just stares at the can for hours at a time. Just five more where that one came from.

He's like, damn it. The root beer is the key to this whole thing. I don't know what. Something tells me. My intuition tells me the root beer. Is that a goddamn Barks? It's the K to everything. It's a Barks. That one's got caffeine in it. they're old people why would they want caffeine

oh no now christmas of 1993 they're still gone no christmas is comes around now so their parents have been missing for months uh their daughter says quote the not knowing is really the hardest part we do hope they're alive but then we wonder what kind of condition they must be in. It's just awful. So she reiterates her other thing and just adds, like, after three months, four months, imagine three months. You don't even know. They tried to just go on with life as normal because they're missing. So they're in this weird limbo.

They're in this strange limbo of they're missing this strange limbo of they're missing but we haven't found any evidence of foul play so they might be alive so let's just pretend like they're going to walk in the door any minute yeah and that's what they do uh they try to maintain the traditions do you buy them a gift i think they did they spent they spent a day singing christmas carols and drinking eggnog they cut a tree from the farm and decorated it and put it up in their house just in case they came home so that way they'd have a christmas tree uh they had all the grandchildren there five children and eight grandchildren came over to the house and put the christmas tree up and sang carols and shit and

pretended like it was a normal christmas like they were there uh instead of uh they put that they put a uh a big yellow uh big yellow ribbon around the old around well around the metal gate actually around the around the lead gate in the front of the property yeah it's a little less but i don't know how many oak trees there are uh now the missouri highway patrol was offering a reward for information about the vcr this is what they put out they're like this is the only it's the only thing trackable the car's gone yeah gas cans are pretty yeah there's no that's probably a 50 year old gas can there's no serial number on it yeah it's probably could have been made 40 years ago they're old gas cans sitting in a house um nothing else is really that traceable but a vcr is a different deal so they're looking for a gold

star vcr gold stars the brand it's a shit one too you had that one yeah i had one too that's a bad vcr that thing will eat your fucking tapes and you'll have to keep twisting that knob yeah the tracking isn't gonna work and you're just watching it flutter i had a shit vcr that actually ripped the tape no i have and i used to do it all the time, but that's all I had. Rentals and everything? Anything. So I couldn't rent anything, really. So what I would do is I have unscrewed a plastic video cassette casing, unscrewed it, taken

the tape out, cut with an X-Acto knife, thin, fucking thin, thin strips of scotch tape that fit just over it and taped it back together you have and put it and then put a piece of tape back i was fucking poor it's either that or i didn't have that tape anymore so it was happening i have done that and it would just be a when it passed through that spot on the tape it would just be kind of blurry for a minute like a bad tracking thing it was jesus yeah that's that's you didn't like patch in porno films like fight club no i should have done that i didn't even think of it i could have i didn't even think of it watching uncle buck i was doing like old school video editing like they're real to real type shit so uh yeah that's what they're looking for uh the the missing vcr

uh they said they're they make an announcement They're saying it may have been purchased by an unsuspecting person in a flea market or garage sale, some sort of secondhand thing. So they're saying, check your VCRs. If you've bought just some VCR secondhand and it's a gold star, check the serial number. This might be that. And then we could try to trace it back. They say the location of the VCR may be the key to finding the Lewis's is what they announce. A substantial reward is available for any information leading to the location of the Lewis family. How much is that?

So that's they do not say they just say a substantial amount. I think the kids have all pitched in. I think this family does OK monetarily. OK, so there's there is money here. So a substantial reward. So keep that in mind. Beer floats for life. Yeah.

Keep in mind that money is important to people and more important than other things a lot of times when we get into this. Okay. So with this reward, large substantial reward for any information with a VCR, all of a sudden out of nowhere in september 1994 a year later these people have been missing for a year a year and in a year the kids are wondering where they are and all the police have is if you have a gold star vcr that you've bought please please tell us because that's literally all they have to go on is this vcr so uh a man named bruce williams calls the police department and he says I know who did this whole thing I know who's

responsible for it I am the one who had the VCR and we sold it to a pawn shop so that's I know where this came from he implicates he implicates the he implicates his brother-in-law in this crime

his wife's brother. So he says it's a man named William Ruson. And he says William and William's brother, Robert, together did this. And there's another person, too, that's involved, which is interesting. And he said that they then gave the VCR to Roussan's sister and Bruce Williams, and they sold the VCR to a pawn shop. And so where's my reward? I figure that's why. It's funny how the reward always moves people.

It really does. It's like, I mean, it's family, but I mean, that's a thousand bucks. I wonder what Billy and Bob did to him. Well, let's find out here what Billy and Bob did here. Now, he calls this a September 15th, 1994, he calls. He says that, yeah, he thought the call was anonymous, too. He didn't say who he was. He didn't say, my brother-in-law gave me the VCR.

He just said a guy named William and his brother Robert Rouson had the VCR, and it was eventually sold to a pawn shop. And that's all he says and hangs up. But I don't know if he thinks there's no, like, they'll never know it's me, but they know it's him. They traced the call back to him, back to this Bruce Williams. And you live in a town of 7,000 people today. Then there was less there. Yeah, there was less. It's up 77% since then.

The lady taking the phone call is probably like, is that youuce yeah bruce bruce bruce and he just hangs up real fast no no it ain't me click it's the famous it's not me right thing what athlete did that i can't remember i don't remember i do remember that yeah that was like he was the one that made that famous where he said it's not me he's like a six foot eleven fucking guy so uh yeah so they trace the call to bruce williams and then they go to talk to him they go hey stupid right uh you called yeah dummy uh what's happened with that vcr and uh they get information here uh they end up talking to robert roussan and uh they end up talking to him and getting a little more information. He's one of the people that Bruce Williams implicated, but not to William.

They try to find William Roussan. They try to find him at a woman named Mary Lamming's farm where William is living with his girlfriend. Also, his 16-year-old son at the time lives there. Brent is his name. At the time lives there. Brent is his name. Now, the Bruce Williams tells the police where they can find Robert and William and also where they can find the Lewis's. He tells them where they are, where the bodies.

He knows where they are. He says, you go to Mary Lamming's farm, you'll find the Roussons and you're going to find the Lewis's there as well. So the police go there. They do find the couple. They find Charles and Grace. well so the police go there uh they do find the couple they find uh charles and grace they are in a shallow grave uh covered with concrete and a pile of horse manure on the farm yeah they think i don't know if they thought that would throw dogs off if they put a pile of manure on top of it like no one's gonna look under the shit wow who looks under the shit pile okay nobody and grace is they found him there though yeah yeah it's uh it's awful it's fucking terrible under shit yeah like i mean and then karen's like i knew they were under shit like jesus that's grim karen fuck i told you guys

but i so uh i've got so many questions you're gonna answer them all so i'm not even gonna ask them but like no shoot and we talk about all the time how like there's all these weird circumstances that happen after a murder and you and you go but what's the what's the protocol yeah i'll tell you what one protocol is not do not desecrate a body by putting horse shit on top or cow concrete and manure so cow shit yeah so yeah they put a layer of concrete so they concreted over these people to make like a foundation for the shit pile and then put a shit pile on top thinking no one's gonna go under a shit pile through concrete to find these people when if they're looking hard enough the law does that the law doesn't go ew poop gross and run away they fucking can't search

here you guys they just bulldoze it out of the way and then they fucking search don't we searched everywhere but of course not under the we didn't search under the poop sergeant sheriff sheriff i am stroking his chin going not searching under the poop are we gonna get them yeah there is shit there you guys and the sheriff goes you know what don't search the poop it is gross you're right and jackson never search poop nope search poop always he's always had murder weapon in poop jackson's just writing it's a thing of how not to get caught for a murder he's dextering it yeah that's all he's doing manual for dexter hide murder weapon in poop okay he's two two o's all right so uh yeah they're found there uh this is where the russon where

william russon and brett and brent are living brent is his son uh so the police arrest robert who is william's brother and they also arrest Brent, the 16-year-old son, based on what Robert told them, and we'll talk about that in a second. They go to arrest William at the farm. They arrest Robert somewhere else, and then they go back to arrest William. The farm is at the end of a winding gravel road. It is miles from the highway. It's just out there.

It's near Old Mines, Missouri. When they get there, so you can see cars coming from forever. It's one of those where you can hear it's coming up the gravel. I mean, you could probably hear it forever, too. You hear cars? Do you see flash? Is that flashing lights coming over? Yes.

So if there's a bunch of police cars coming, you know they're coming. Apparently, William climbed out of a window and flees into the woods behind the home. Okay. He takes off into the woods. He could have just gone through the door. He had time. Nope. Jumped out the window.

Apparently, he waited until they got there. Jesus Christ. The sheriff says here, he's a brilliant man, I got to say this, Sheriff. Quote, he saw the cars coming and he realized they probably wanted to do business with him. You think? Good call, Sheriff. You think that's why he i figure he just went i really gotta go deer hunting right now and just jumped out the window and fucking ran into the i got a feeling right i got an itch for hunting i i sense one close you think he was

running yeah i feel him i just he sits there like holding his temples together he's like there's deer there's deer afoot and he just jumps out the window. He says, it's what happens. Y'all hungry? It's a gift. I'll be right back. It's a gift and a curse. It's a gift, but you got to run when it calls. You know what I mean? When nature calls, you got to go.

So they have to look for him. They say that he should be considered armed and dangerous. Yeah, obviously. And the sheriff says, quote, I don't think I'd take any chances with this guy. Jesus, sheriff. Jesus fucking Christ. And especially if he's got poop on him, stay far away from him. Because that smells.

That is gross. He's armed, dangerous, and possibly poop-encrusted. So there's a lot of, there's a lot. That's going to be the name of the show. Armed, dangerous, and possibly poop-encrusted. I feel like that needs to be the title of the show. You're going to put poop in the title? No, we're not going to put poop in the title.

That would be the greatest title ever, but we can't do it. You could go fecal-encrusted. That's worse, I think. That's less playful. It's less whimsical. Poop is sort of whimsical. Poop can be fun, almost. There have been a lot of people that have come here to visit, and they're like,

I've heard that that Salt River is a really great place to tube. Should I do that? And I'm like, they close that once a year because the fecal count is really high. And they go, yeah, you're right. No, fecal sounds scientific and like a cause of death. He was overwhelmed with fecal matter. That's why he died. That sounds whereas poop is like he'd never be like oh he

pooped himself to death that's funny see he died of a fecal illness that's not as fun that's that's gross he pooped his poop done killed him hilarious right i have made people not to because i said fecal you're right you're right that's what happens so william uh is on a poop encrusted four day four days four days he's on a journey he runs into the woods and they chase after him and can't find him for four days uh four days finally uh uh they get near it uh there's uh they surround a barn and they find him in there he tries to escape from the barn there's a brief foot pursuit and then finally uh he is apprehended he is uh tackled as he runs through the woods he's found armed with a 22 uh a 22 rifle and a large knife he's carrying a rifle he's carrying a rifle it's probably got

like on a strap i would assume on his back i would hope so he's got a rifle and a large knife on him so he's not fucking around either he's out there trying to survive uh he's advised of his miranda rights obviously uh he said he he understood his rights but he wants to make a statement oh great i know my rights but i'm i'm gonna go ahead and go against everything granted me by the constitution and go ahead and just throw that out the window because i'm sure that that wasn't given to me for a reason those rights i'm sure that's not advantageous to me in any way i'll just talk to you i had some shit stupid yeah uh he tells this police officer that he was involved in the murders and he could lead them to the bodies and all that sort of thing uh they said

yeah now we know about the bodies thanks we already We already got them. Yeah. They questioned him for about one and a half hours. So not a long time. During the interview, he made a shitload of statements that are all incriminating that he just waved aside those Miranda rights. Nope. Nope. No, thanks. And implicated himself in the murders.

This interview was not recorded. Oh, this is 1993 in a small town in Missouri. Tape recorders exist. They exist, but it's not like national standard to document everything like it is now. So they just got Jackson taking notes? Now they have audio, video. They have everything.

Every time you talk to somebody, that way you know what everybody says. But then they didn't do that. So he said that they took it. Also, while they're interviewing him at 9 p.m., they take about a one hour break. During the break, they give him a sandwich so he can eat. And paramedics treat his feet because he's been running in the woods for four days. He's got all sorts of blisters and cuts and shit.

Pulling the shakers out of his fucking legs. Oh, can you imagine? Oh, God. living in the woods on the run for four days? The South has crazy bugs. Bugs. Insane bugs. Snakes. Yeah. Fucking animals.

The South is not meant to be inhabited. No. It's just like living here in the desert. It's clearly the Earth is trying to shake you from it. It does not want you here. But out in the desert during the day there's really nothing out no it's at night where it's fucking scary well in the south though it's it's 24 hours a day well here it's the sun that's the deadly thing even the even the fucking the the lizards are

hiding from it during the day so that's why but uh yeah so uh they give him that they give him they treat his feet they give him a sandwich uh. The officers then ask him if he wants to make a recorded statement. They say, well, you've told us shit not recorded. Care to put it down on tape? And he said, sure. Sounds good. I'd love to repeat what I said again. Once again, I'm not very smart.

So at 10, 10 p.m., after they come back from the break, they conduct a taped interview with him. And once again, prior to the interview, they conduct a taped interview with him and uh once again prior to the interview they do say you know read him as miranda writes again and they say you don't have to say shit just so you know right no whatever you're about to say is completely voluntary and not we don't need you to say it and he went no problem start that bitch up let's go barks in here yep he uh he stated uh. He stated, they also said that if he ever wants to quit this conversation, he can stop talking at any time. He can ask for an attorney. They basically told him, don't say anything, dummy.

And he went, no, really, I have stuff to say. I'm really smart. So, yeah, he made incriminating remarks that were consistent. The same things he said in the unrecorded part of the interview. He just repeated the same thing again. The taped interview concludes at about 11 p.m. So, I mean, he's there for a little while. They give him a sandwich.

They treat his feet. They record a statement. And that's the interview. Normally, that's a 14-hour process. At no time prior to or during the interviews did William ask for counsel or indicate that he didn't want to speak or any of that. No one threatened him. No one made him any promises. They didn't say, hey, we can knock your charges down for you. They didn't say anything. They basically said, don't talk. And he ignored it. William indicated that he understood what

was happening. He had no mental impairments. I'm not crazy. He even said, I don't know. They even said, are you like, did you drop out of school in the second grade? He said, no, I'm lettered. He said, I can read. They gave him all the outs. They gave him every out. He said he has, in his own words, no mental impairments, no educational limitations.

They made him repeat all this shit. He said, although his feet were injured, that he wasn't in any pain. He had no overwhelming physical pain that was overcoming his mental state or any bullshit like that. His responses were responses to the questions here. Now, let's talk a little bit about William before we talk about the case. Let's find out who we're dealing with. Yeah. Because this is just a guy who ran through the woods and we know nothing about him.

He's scary. He's a scary guy. Scary dumb. Well, we'll talk about he's scary. Everything. Now, William, how does he know the Lewis's? And is this a random thing? It's not.

He knows the Lewis's. He's known the Lewis's since 1975. William was born in 1956 in 1975 he met the lewises at their farm and did a little bit of work for them so he's known them back then since he was 19 this is in between jail stints for william because he is in and out of jail his whole adult life i don't even know how he had time to father a son, the 16-year-old Brent, because he's always in and out. November of 84, he's convicted for multiple counts of check fraud in Texas, is what I found on some records checks.

Also has prior convictions, and this is in Texas, Missouri, and the state of Washington as well. Convictions for rape, assault, escape from custody, and unlawful possession of a firearm, and then also fraud and check fraud as well. So this is this guy's record. Not a good guy. Not good at all.

But the Lewis's have always helped him out in between his stints in prison. In 1989, William escaped from a prison farm. William escaped from a prison farm he was on a prison farm in Missouri and escaped and ran to the Lewis's farm where Charles Lewis found him hiding in the barn

living there on the run being a fugitive so Charles helped him hide out Charles let him stay there I feel like Charles is one of those guys especially being such a christian guy and a minister and all that i feel like he's one of those guys it's like nobody can judge you but the lord okay i feel like he's one of those guys probably good at your heart that would be like i don't judge right you know what i mean i just my job i look it's a good lord just

the big man upstairs because i just i see a man in front of me. Yeah. And that man needs food and a place to stay. Have a sauce or milk. That's it. Puts it down on the ground. William gets down. He starts licking at it. That would be amazing. But I wish he had.

I feel like that's Charles's type of deal. I feel like he's just like, well, I don't judge. You know what I mean? You say you're a good man and you're here and I'm here to help you. Like, I feel like he's one of those type of guys. So he lets him tell you about Ecclesiastes. Yeah. Maybe something else.

I am a lay preacher. I am. I don't know at all. I know quotes. I'm just not sure where they're from. So look in there. If I attribute them to, you know, somebody, it might be somebody else. It might be Luke.

Might have been Paul. Who knows? Yeah. So he lets him hide out there. Charles gave William food, clothing, and shelter. Let him stay at his home while he was a fugitive. And then when William was leaving the farm to continue his escape and continue running, the Lewis's even gave him $20.

They gave him money on top of it. They gave him clothes, food. They sent him away like he was a kid going away to camp. Here's some extra clothes here's a pair he had a picnic basket there yeah a little with the so you know the checkered white yeah red thing he opens it up oh muffins he's got stuff i love them blueberries and some beans that were soaking on the stove hey root beer excellent so they also gave him 20 and they sent him on his way. It's unbelievable how nice they are. They're very nice people.

And this is because they had known him 15 years earlier and had seen him just, I mean, fleeting here and there. He's been in prison, out of state and everything else. Every once in a while, he'll stop by the farm and they always help him out a little bit. And maybe that's why they help him is because they've known him since he was 19 so to them it's like oh here's this troubled kid yeah that we've been seeing and that's what it is too i feel like that's what it is uh now uh on the day of his arrest here now like we said he has a 16 year old son brent who's arrested as well in this whole mess and we'll find out why and also his brother robert who's his younger brother is involved in this now uh when he's arrested on videotape william says that he uh he says that he was asked he claims he was asked

twice to kill the lewises uh but that he only went to their farm that day to steal cattle is what he said uh he said his teenage son lost control and shot both of them he had nothing he didn't shoot them okay he was asked twice to kill him we'll find out by who okay uh but he said i was asked twice to kill the lewises and i didn't do it right because i never wanted to kill them that's how little i want them dead is i was asked twice politely to kill them and i refused uh i only went there that day to steal their cattle that's it that's an awful which strange reason this is 1993 not 1893 he's going to rustle cattle he's going literally to rustle some cattle uh here off the farm with his boy with his boy and his brother

it's a family affair he said that's all they were going but he said at some point he said his teenage son brent lost his mind and shot them both and killed both people. So then him and William and his brother tried to cover it up to help his son. Damn it, Brent. Obviously. And then they stole a VCR. Now they got to lay concrete. Yeah, no shit.

Now, he says this whole thing. He was released from. William had just gotten out of prison. The Lewis's were killed in September of 1993. William got out of prison in June of 1993. He was released from prison. William says he returned to the farm to thank the Lewis's for their kindness and, quote, rekindle their friendship. In other words, have more people that will give me things that I need.

You could sure use some free shit right now. Yeah, I could sure use people to rob and some free shit, but I can take advantage of these nice people. So on the videotape here, William Rusin claims that Charles Lewis approached him several months before the murders and asked William to kill him and his wife. What?

He said, will you kill us both? William said in his own words here, he says, quote, she was sick, talking about grace, ailing real bad. He was wanting to put grace out of her misery.

And if she was put out of her misery, he didn't want to go on by himself. So his story is that Charles Lewis here offers, begs him to kill Charles and his wife, Grace, as a mercy killing. Euthanize us.

Euthanize us, basically. Will you come and do this? It's a fletch situation is what's going on here. If you want to, I think that's the legal term. It's known as a fletch situation. So, you know, still not legal to do. And that's his claim. Now, he says weeks after he said

no to this he said i can't kill you guys you know i like you guys and you know i could never do that he says weeks later their oldest son the lewis's oldest son charles the fourth gotta name them after each other charles the fourth offered william fifty,000 to kill Grace and Charles. He said that the son wanted the couple. Now, this is a totally different. This isn't a mercy killing. Dad doesn't even know this. Dad doesn't know.

This is what I mean. Two separate. This is separate occasions. Dad wants a mercy killing, and then the son doesn't give a shit about mercy. He just wants the farm. He says that it was a dispute over a family business and uh charles said i'll give you fifty thousand dollars to kill my parents so in his claim he's been asked twice in a two-month period to kill a elderly couple who everybody likes by two totally different people with

different motives one including the including the actual people this is a really hard story to swallow here but it's so far-fetched to go is this true the first one though you might go oh that's interesting that's very then he then he throws in that curveball at the end with the sun then you're like all right i got a second here i understand how many people want these people dead right fuck man uh now william said he agreed to do it at that point but he never received any money from charles the fourth other than one one hundred dollar bill as like a down payment which is not enough on 50 grand what is that yeah that's that's a millionth of a percent that's nothing yeah that's you don't take that the other part is like uh you're not gonna get

any money because there's no murder. There's nobody dead at this point. You've just got two people that are missing. You've got to produce bodies to get an insurance. You need death certificates. Sometimes they'll pronounce you dead without the body. But in this case. Usually it's like if you're lost at sea or something.

Not if you're missing from the farm. Right. There's not any clue that there's a dead body anywhere or that somebody's dead. This is just people are missing. They didn't even have blood. No. So it would have been ridiculous. This is a terrible plan.

Yeah. So what actually happened on September 21st, 1993? Oh, I'd love to know. I would love to know here. Okay. Let's find out what I do know, but I'd love to tell you and everyone out there. So it was Brent, the 16-year william's son william and william's brother robert uh they met and discussed stealing cattle from charles and grace lewis they had a

little cattle rustling uh i don't know powwow here uh so charles lewis here uh they were living on the farm obviously the russans devised the plan to go to the farm and steal the cattle so they set out to the farm uh on the way they discussed the possibility of killing the lewises uh they agreed that quote if it had to be done it had to be done like they were they said you know we want to steal these cattle and just get out of there but if they put up a stink about it or if they you know catch us yeah we're not going to jail. William's like, I ain't going back. Which, you know, he's been in and out.

He just got out in June. Right. He's three months removed from that shithole. Yeah. He's none of, hey, maybe I should get a job or anything like that, I noticed. Just how can I steal cattle from these people? They would have probably hired him to work or something. They probably would have helped him, which is work or something like he could have probably they

probably would have helped him which is the annoying part rather than just this short-term gain of yeah a couple of cattle right so uh apparently they they they were driving out there uh apparently the three of them drove past the lewis farm and uh at that point william pointed out the cattle that they would be stealing he said okay there's where the cattle are because those are the other two haven't been on the farm a lot. So there's the cattle. We're going to get those. And this is the plan.

So William parks the truck about two miles from the farm. Two miles. Hold on. We're going to walk two miles to this shit? I'm going to be exhausted for this heist. Well, you wonder why there's a truck missing at the farm. So there you go. What, are we going to be exhausted for this heist. Well, you wonder why there's a truck missing at the farm. So there you go. We're going to ride

the fucking cows back? But the smart thing is they do know that everybody honks and waves and if you drive there, everyone's going to see. Good point. Everyone's up each other's asses

in this town. If you parked at their house, everyone knows it. There was this truck and this license plate and you know how these people are in the middle of nowhere. I saw three gentlemen

get out of it. And they'd have a license plate number and a make and a model and the bumper sticker said you know honk if you fart and it's a fucking it's ridiculous so uh yeah they parked two miles away uh william gets out of the truck and removes a 22 caliber rifle that belongs to his girlfriend who's the owner of that farm mary lamming. Okay. He loaded the rifle, loaded the.22. He said at the time, quote, in case anyone's home. So they'd like to get out without running into the Lewis's. Cattle and no Lewis's.

Cattle, no Lewis's. So then William and his son, Brent, argued over who would carry the gun. They argued over it. They really did this. They really disagreed about it. Brent said that he was, quote, man enough to do whatever needed to be done and that he would use the gun if he had to. So he should be able to carry it. He's 16, goddammit.

I'm old enough to be the trigger man in a murder conspiracy. Well, I've been to prison, and I will beat the living shit out of you. I've been convicted of rape. I think I'm the murderer here. I will rape you. Who's the murderer? Who's got rape convictions? Hi, mister.

Not you. What's your highest conviction? How many rapes have you been convicted of? Rapist right here, pal. I'll kill them all. Documented. That's worse. Right.

God damn it. So they argued over this. William says, apparently tells Brent that he's not man enough to do it. And that's when he says, I'm man enough to do whatever needs to be done. And I'm going to carry the gun. And William said, no, you're not carrying it. And eventually, though, after arguing and when you're walking for two miles, you can have a long argument. This shit can just go on and linger.

And finally, he just said just said fine you carry it then to brent and he gives him the gun he just gave into the teenager he wore him down and uh he does warn brent that if anything does go down and if they kill these people uh that uh if they were to get caught they would definitely fry is what he told his son so they're gonna fry us if this happens so he he knows that they're fucked if they get caught for killing these people. So they hike through the woods to the farm where they waited for cover behind a tree. There's a fallen tree and they all get down like military style behind the tree and observe the farm between three o'clock and four o'clock. They're there hiding behind this tree.

Charles and Grace return home uh they were out they returned back to the farm in the afternoon in the afternoon uh charles goes out charles lewis goes out and starts to mow the lawn doing some chores uh mrs lewis here grace goes inside and speaks on the phone to their daughter who she's talking to and uh on the phone and while charles is mowing and uh brent apparently said that he apparently everybody said brent grew tired of waiting and said that he wanted to do it uh so brent is ready to rock and roll here but brent i'm tired of waiting i'm gonna kill him now we're not here to kill yeah Brent. Yeah, well, Brent has other ideas, apparently. So William told Brent to wait until William and Robert had secured the house. He said, let us go in and get everything locked down, and then you come in, and if we need to shoot anybody, we can shoot people.

But let's not just go running around firing shit off here. So William headed to the front door, and Robert made his way to the back door. So they're closing in on these people uh before they arrived at the two doors mr lewis who was mowing charles saw brent and yelled out to brent uh they heard this the two men and went to see what was going on and as they're going uh brent fired at least six shots at this point at Charles Lewis. Charles Lewis died as a result of multiple gunshot wounds that happened right there while he was mowing the lawn. So he was hit with all the six shots. All six.

So these guys deer hunting, they're good shots. Well, a.22 long rifle like that, it's real easy to hit shit. They are so accurate. Plus, they're good shots, these people. So, I mean, a moving target in the lawn from however far away hits them with all six, though. Not too shabby, I guess, for a shot. Now, Mrs. Lewis is speaking on the phone with her daughter, as we know of. She tells her daughter she heard gunfire.

I got to hang up, which, like we said before, she wasn't too worried about it. It was probably hunters. on fire i gotta hang up which like we said before she wasn't too worried about it probably hunters uh as poor mrs lewis and think about poor mrs lewis she is she's just uh twisted with yeah with with uh arthritis she's basically in rigor this poor woman uh she exits the house through the front door just to see what's going on and brent starts firing at her. Oh, my God. Shoots her several times. The bullets break both of her arms. Oh, fuck. Shoots her in the arms, breaks the bones in both of her arms, but does not kill her.

So she runs back into the house with broken arms. Oh, God. Number one, the pain and the fear, obviously, is horrible. Well, she's used to it. She's probably like, this doesn't even hurt. No, that's what I mean. Apparently, William follows her in and takes a garment bag from a coat rack, like a big suit bag, basically, and puts the bag over Grace's head and the upper part of her body, picks her up, and carries her outside.

She's still alive. And broken arm. Broken arm, bleeding everywhere, shot multiple times. She's still alive. And broken arm. Broken arm, bleeding everywhere, shot multiple times. He basically treats her like a suit and hurls her over a shoulder and takes her outside. He goes outside and places her on the ground. She's alive and scared, I imagine.

At this point, William turned to Brent, his 16-year-old son, mind you, and told him, quote, finish her off. Oh, my word. I don't even know what to say about that. His 16-year-old son, mind you, and told him, quote, finish her off. Oh, my word. I don't even know what to say about that. The cold-bloodedness of let's finish off in cold blood this poor old woman. As she's just lying on the ground. As she's dying on the ground and in so much pain. But to tell your 16-year-old son to finish her off is next level of sick. Yeah. I don't even know what the fuck. I't know which is worse is this his words my mind this this is everybody yeah this is

we'll talk about it but brent brent spills the beans too brent is they he is not uh like much like his father he's ready to talk and he's 16 and doesn't know much and he spills it like Dassy. I mean, but true in this case. Yeah, so at this point, finish her off, which is fucking disgusting. That's just sickening. It's one thing in the heat of whatever. It's obviously still sick and whatever, but to have someone there and just go finish her off and do it

is disgusting. At the end of Full Metal Jacket, I get it, but this is way different. If he just sniped half your platoon, it would be a different... If Grace had sniped half his whole family from the house and then they finally got him, finish her off.

That would be fine. But that was, yeah, full metal jacket. So Brent puts the gun up and fires one shot into the side of her head and kills her. So at least put her out of her misery, but good Christ. So the three of them head and kills her so i at least put her out of her misery but good christ

so the three of them wrap the bodies in a tarp and tie it up with rope so the tarp stays closed william tells them they should pick up all the shell casings from around the house and around the yard and clean up the blood stains as well as best as they can in the house because grace ran back in the house the broken house and bled out all over everything so they do all that they clean the house up real nice and no one knows no one's the wiser gunshots aren't don't stand out in this neighborhood and uh no one sees shit so they clean everything up and they end up placing the bodies near a shed uh on their property on the lewis's property and And they leave and return later.

Their plan is return later to get the bodies and the cattle. That's the plan. So go and take off. So now all three of them, Brent, William, and Robert, return that night, and they bring another brother with them, Jerry Roussan. God, Jesus. He comes along for

the ride here uh they all return to the farm they load the bodies into the into the lewis's truck the the white the gmc that's missing they load the bodies in there they take two cows uh two cows a vcr some jewelry a six pack of root beer, two gas cans, and a saddle. That's their haul. That's it. That's it. And two dead elderly people. Two people are dead over that shit.

Over that. A couple of cows and a six-pack of soda and a fucking gold star VCR that eats your tapes and makes you have to pay exorbitant fees to blockbuster video in 1993. So they then return. They take all of this to the farm that william's living on mary lamming's farm uh on the return trip brent was just bragging about the murders to jerry brent was because jerry's you know he's new to this he's new to this yeah so he was telling him how you know i went up and killed this guy and shot her in the head and he's real bragging he thinks this is the greatest thing in the world.

He's like fucking Old Dog from Menace to Society. He is a piece of shit. He's showing the videotape. There's no videotape here, but if you've seen Menace to Society, you know what I'm talking about. So once they get to the farm, apparently all the men dig a hole, and they bury the Lewises in a shallow grave by the barn. After they place the bodies in it they pour concrete over the bodies uh cover that all up once that's smoothed up they pile it up high with manure and they burn rags uh they burn the rags they use to clean the blood from the lewises

house on the farm so they tried to get rid of as much evidence as possible and they did a good job yeah the police said they had nothing no evidence no idea if that dude didn't tell them no they'd have no fucking clue uh so they said they disposed of the lewis's property in various ways on the night of the murders they drank the soda they actually had to say what'd you do with the soda we drank it all right and then jackson wrote it down drank soda drank the bark so they drank soda the cows were later sold at auction. So they sold off the cows. Robert gave the VCR to their sister and brother-in-law, Bruce and Barbara Williams, which was the whole reason why they got caught, because they gave a VCR. They gave them the VCR the day after the murders.

And Williams sold the VCR to a pawn broker about eight months later so that's how that whole thing happened uh they also buried william buried uh the the lewis's personal items and uh that they took that's little things buried that and then he gave their listen to this shit this is crazy this is some serial killer shit here he gave he saved all the jewelry he stole and gave the jewelry to his girlfriend he didn't give it to her all at once he gave it to her on holidays on special occasions over the whole year valentine's day oh here's a bracelet for you sweet your birthday i found you a nice necklace he gave him to her on special occasions he saved them as like oh here's my gifts for the

next year look at this i don't have to buy that bitch shit i got murder trophies that's what serial killers what an asshole that is fucking sick and then they they all uh the four of them were the ones that hid and burned the truck so oh god i hate him yeah this guy's an asshole this whole family it just they all suck fucking horrible people yeah william's the worst of all none of the other ones have rape convictions also in addition to this horse shit so uh 1996 comes around two years of this being in in court and limbo and pre-trial motions and all that sort of shit 1996 brent the son uh who's at this point 18 years old. By the way, they charged him as an adult with the murder right away, even though he was 17. He pleads guilty.

Doesn't do a trial. Brent pleads guilty to two counts of first degree murder. Two counts. He does not get a good deal. He didn't even get second. He got first. Two counts of first degree murder and is sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. That's a deal?

That's his deal. We're not going to give you the death penalty. And if you fucking go through with this, you're the trigger man. You're getting the death penalty. These are nice people. You're fucked. And he said, okay, all right. I'll take it.

Life without. So you know what? Good for you. Fuck off, Brent. Wow, what a shitty fucking worthless life he was. 16 years. 16 years, that's all he got out of this. Yeah.

He contributed nothing. That's to say, you know he couldn't have contributed anything to society in the first 16 years. He's not Mozart or something. So, I mean, he did nothing, and then he murdered two nice people, and now he's sitting in jail for the rest of his life. If he was, that's the case of holy shit what a great abortion that would have been that's why i'm pro-abortion and i don't mean pro-choice i mean pro-abortion yeah pro fucking no yeah you stop having that all of you every that goes for all

of you stop having kids i don't care if you can take care of them or not be mandatory for five years we just stop there's too many of you. Everybody stop for a minute. Stop. There's too many people and too many of this asshole. Yeah, that's what I mean. So this, wow. So finally, William is up for trial. Robert also pleads guilty, but he's going to testify against William, so they're holding

his sentencing until after the trial, because if they give him too good of a deal, they can use that against him. So this trial comes, the whole thing here there's two and a half days of trial uh for william yeah uh the jury was picked in a different county and then transported here so they have the they have the case actually in saint francis county where it took place yeah but it's uh the jury is from another county because it got a lot of publicity yeah they just bust them in got it so robert rather than change a venue they're just bringing them over yeah they're just busting them in so it's a change of venue without changing the

venue beautiful so uh yeah i think it's probably so that county won't have to pay for it oh that's smart there's a lot of things with pay for it where they bill each other and all right whenever there's a change of venue there's always a money situation because trials cost money. You've got sheriffs, deputies that you've got in the courtroom that you've got to pay, all this shit. It's probably cheaper to just bust at this point. So Robert testifies against William. Robert pleaded guilty to second-degree murder because he's testifying. Now, William does not testify, but he really doesn't have to because they have quite a

detailed videotape statement saying what happened for the reasons don't matter because that you can take out uh you know they asked me to hire they tried to hire me and all that just just take the part he said we went there and killed them that's it and that's all that really matters and so that's pretty much what they have they play that that for the jury on the tape. William claimed twice that, like we said, he was asked to kill them. And so that makes the jury think he's a liar. Also, then he said his teenage son lost control in closing arguments at the trial. Defense attorney Robert Wolfram conceded that there is definitely enough evidence to convict his client of second degree murder. Second degree, though.

But he said William was not the shooter and should not be convicted of first-degree murder. That's not right. He shouldn't be up for the death penalty if he's not the trigger man, is what they're saying. I don't know. When you say the phrase, finish her off, first-degree, son. To your 16-year-old. It's not like another adult. This is a person you have dominion over.

Right. You know what I mean? This person looks to you for guidance in life, and you just told him to murder a woman. Sorry. That's pulling the trigger, in my opinion. That's murder one, baby. Yeah. The jury finds William guilty of two counts of first-degree murder.

So there's that. Sentencing comes around, and this is a fucking, as you can imagine, this is a... That's grim, Karen. I mean, this is a fucking, they have a lot of family members and grandkids are all there, and the fucking kids are all testifying. All the neighbors are saying, what a sweet woman Grace would come with the beans all crippled up with the arthritis, and then, oh my God.

Karen's sitting in the back going, he's getting the death penalty. He's getting the death penalty. He's just, I know what's going to happen. Karen, he's got a family too. His head's going to catch on fire when they put him in the electric chair. Jesus, going, he's getting the death penalty. He's getting the death penalty. I know what's going to happen. Karen, he's got a family too. His head's going to catch on fire when they put him in the electric chair. Jesus, Karen, it's grim. He's got a family. Fuck, Karen, man.

God damn it. You are a vicious woman. Jesus, Karen, calm down. So the state presents testimony from the family members of the Lewis's, obviously about the impact of the deaths on the family, that they were the center of the whole family. William presents the testimony also for mitigating of his friends and family members saying he's not a bad guy. I wonder if they got the lady he raped in there to talk about that. Maybe maybe get her up there.

How polite was he during this? Right. Yeah. Let's say, was it was he a jesus was it was it a nice christian right jesus christ man so the prosecutor says uh after this uh in his closing the defense has asked you for mercy and what they are hoping for is weakness i'm sorry it's a hard choice weakness is something we can no longer afford do your duty thank you folks he's asking for the death penalty and uh the judge uh he's the jury recommends their thing and then the judge has uh his say and he says to william you sir may fuck off uh death penalty for you all right so

they're gonna get him on this and uh it makes you really have to do something heinous for us to be excited about yeah that's what it is we are not death penalty people so you don't get to murder old no not in this way no and you don't do it after you're we already know you're a shit bag you spent most your life in prison all the time we had a shit and then you're raising a shitty kid who wants to kill people you're a piece of shit you're a piece of shit and you made another one yeah so uh the jury they recommend sentence of death they found statutory aggravating circumstances these are the aggravators uh that he was convicted of rape in the second degree and assault in the second degree before uh that the murder was committed while he was engaged in the

unlawful homicide of charles he's set it's he's sentenced to death for Grace's murder because it has to be a particularly vicious thing. And Grace, with broken arms, it's basically to put a bag over her head, carry her out and instruct someone to finish her. I'd say that's wanton disregard. That's the law. So I would say that's pretty vicious. And the jury agrees, and so does the judge so uh there was that uh and uh plus it was in the commission of the charles lewis murder right

so it was a particularly vicious murder done in the commission of a robbery and murder right so it's just doubled up for him and they weren't there for anything other than this yeah the whole point of going there was to do horrible things. That's absolutely right. They also find an aggravator that he directed his son to murder her. That's not good. That Grace's murder involved depravity of mind because she was killed after being rendered helpless, which she was never not helpless. She's an old woman, but even worse with broken shot arms. And also the murder was committed while he was engaged in a robbery. They also recommended the sentence

of death for Charles Lewis too, because that was in the commission of a robbery. So they said, let's kill him. Fuck, he's so nice, we'll kill him twice. So they found four aggravating circumstances with his murder. Obviously, most of them are the same. They sentence him to death for the murder of Grace Lewis,

but the judge sentences him to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for Charles. So the jury recommends death twice. The judge gives him death once. So that's how that works. Once is enough. Once is enough. Because it's like, you know what?

That's fine. On appeal, the Charles thing could be argued, whether its sentencing is correct. But on the other one, fuck you. So the reaction to this, Mike Lewis, who was the Michael, the son of the Lewis's, he said, quote, it has been a long time coming. Now, I guess I don't have to worry about him getting out and hurting somebody else, which is a perfect thing he should say to that. Did the sheriff say that, too? No, the sheriff.

The sheriff did not say that the sheriff said that boy ain't gonna lack needles and we're done with him really so uh he appeals obviously there's several appeals automatic appeals in 96 and then later appeals in 2006 and then later in 2010 we'll talk about uh in his appeals he alleges the trial court erred in in sustaining the state's challenge uh to call basically jesus christ how do i put this in easy terms the jury uh we don't we've gone through this a million times there was jurors who said that uh that they couldn't do the death penalty uh they would never convict somebody on the death penalty and uh they would need extra evidence somebody on the death penalty and uh they would need extra evidence we've gone over this a hundred times you have to miss those people yeah well you have to be willing to say basically the law in most states is you have to be willing and

federally is you have to be willing to say that you uh would if you had to if the evidence presented itself to where it was you thought that was the right thing you would be willing to whatever give the person the death penalty uh so uh the one of the jurors stated quote uh there would have been no doubt at all before he would vote there would have to be no doubt at all about the murder before he would vote to impose the death penalty and uh would probably require more proof of guilt in a case in a capital case than in a regular case isn't it fascinating that uh it's it's like uh eye for an eye like the the the bible belt is typically like super for yeah the death penalty that is fascinating to me yeah they they yeah there's they're like we like the part of the

bible that says be nice and then we also like the part that says fucking kill people if they they picking shoes out of the old testament what they want you get across with me like it's over them jews had a couple things right in that old testament i'll tell you that right now they had a couple things right we we done fixed it up later on but that old one has still got a couple things worth looking at. It's just interesting. Yeah. You can't kill a baby until it kills somebody.

Then we'll kill it. Don't you worry. That's fucking awesome. Yeah. So this juror stated a number of times that he could follow the law, but also stated that he was not sure that he could give the death penalty. He was just like a normal person should be. He was like, I don't know. That's pretty heavy to sentence someone to death.

I don't know if I could do it or not. So this is basically what they appeal on is that there's a couple different jurors that are wishy-washy. Now, he also alleges that the trial court aired an overruling emotion for judgment of acquittal on charles lewis's murder because he said there was insufficient evidence to prove that he deliberated his death well if you're going there and you're bringing a gun and you're saying we're gonna do what we have to do that's deliberating i'm sorry you're you were you're open to murder you you fucking negotiated it. Yeah. You're part of it. Yeah.

With your kid. Yeah. Yeah. He also objects to the admission of previous crimes. He argues he got arrested for smuggling drug paraphernalia from Belize to the United States at one point. So they brought a pipe home. So, yeah.

Well, no, it was a bunch of shit to sell. Oh. It was like a shipment of stuff. Oh. So, yeah, well, no, it was a bunch of shit to sell. Oh, like a shipment of stuff. Oh, and so there's quite they told the jury that he was convicted of this and he is arguing the semantics of whether he was like actually smuggling the paraphernalia or not, which means nothing in terms of whether he killed these people and whether they want him to die for it. want him to die for it uh he also contends that the trial court erred in admitting over the defense's objection seven photographs of the victims uh crime scene photographs sorry those go in uh they were uh too gruesome he said they had one that depicted a big blue tarpaulin uh which they were which the lewis's were wrapped in and buried and still wrapped they were they wrapped in it when they buried him uh and uh that depicts the depicts the Lewis's bodies after they were recovered.

Then they undid the tarp, and there's pictures of them wrapped in plastic wrap, which they also wrapped them in plastic. They'd been in the ground for about a year, so they're pretty decomposed as well. So these pictures are graphic. They said, the court says, quote, although upsetting and unpleasant to view,

the photograph showed the condition and location of the Lewis's body and assisted the jury in understanding the pathologist testimony, which is true. Furthermore, the exhibits tended to corroborate the testimony of Robert Ruson, one of the state's key witnesses with respect to the facts of the case, which is true. which is true. This shows that one of the pictures shows a gunshot wound to Mr. Lewis's head. And they said the exhibit was relevant to show the injury sustained by him because that's backing up their pathologist. The other ones were showing gunshot wounds to Mrs. Lewis showing that she was shot in the arms.

And then later on. Yeah. So also the garment bag that was over her head, all that's allowed in there. Also, he claims that while he was interviewed, while he initially, when he confessed in the beginning, he says that the police kept him and he was exhausted because they kept him there without food for a long period of time.

You were there an hour and a half. He was only in custody for two and a half hours and an hour of that was spent eating and getting medical treatment. Right. So, sorry sorry you got a pedicure and a sandwich yeah you're fine yeah you practically got recruited to nambla you had a pedicure a sandwich and you were there long enough to watch fletch it's that's it yeah sorry and go oh shit damn it i fucked this all up so he's in prison and he's still appealing later on. He's got one more thing we'll talk about very briefly.

In 2001, Robert Roussan, the brother, is released from prison. What? How? How? What? Okay. 1996, he pleaded guilty to second degree murder. In five years, he's out of prison.

How did they do that? Five years because he testified against his brother in guilt. But that's not enough. That is not enough. 2001. Yeah. That is insanity. Especially when you consider you can't have a thing where three people went and did something,

one of them gets the death penalty, and the other one gets five years. Right. That's entirely different. I don't care who testified. That's crazy. April 22, 2014 is the day before the scheduled execution. Is that guy still out? Robert's on the streets.

He's been out for 18 years now. He's probably reviling. I would assume so. He's somewhere. Now, so they're going for clemency from the governor at this point. They also have appeals on the table, and this is what we'll talk about in a second, his other appeals but it's governor jay nixon declines his request for clemency and uh says that uh uh that he thought the sentence was appropriate for william's alleged role as the mastermind

behind the cold-blooded plot that led to the lewis's slayings fair enough also that same day he's having a bad day here william earlier in the the day, the U.S. Supreme Court turns down William's request to delay his execution. All the efforts here hinged on the drugs, the execution drugs, as we've talked about a hundred times with all these different states. But this was the time when there was a real gray area and what was going on so missouri with and a bunch of other states just used a different compound of execution drugs from unnamed pharmacies this has been going on remember the whole thing with the english drugs and all that sort of thing we're not telling you shit they just said we got enough drugs to kill them so we're good we're going forward the court said all right fuck it yeah You're gone. Let's do it.

So they do that. The U.S. Supreme Court was trying to kind of stay out of this whole thing and let the states kind of sort out their own death penalty bullshit. A death penalty information center person said, quote, the U.S. Supreme Court really wants to avoid this issue, which it sees as a matter for individual states. But there are basic constitutional issues at play here of due process, and there's a clear contradiction among the rulings handed out at the state level. Then the Supreme Court may have to step in because it was a mess. Some states were halting it. Other states were saying, we'll just get shit from wherever. Some state Supreme Courts were saying that's fine, and some were saying it's not fine.

There has to be some uniformity to killing people, I feel like. It's kind of a big deal. Kind of a big deal. In the most powerful and widely viewed as one of the smarter countries, we should probably do this right. Yeah, let's just get it right, or not do it at all. One of the two. So he ends up, everything is a go for his execution.

Yeah. He has a last meal. Oh, yes. He has a last meal. Fried chicken. No. What does he do? It's a bacon cheeseburger.

Not bad. Beef to the end for this guy. I like it. A kill for beef and a die for beef. Bacon cheeseburger, onion rings. Uh-huh. Goes against fries. Goes with the onion rings.

And a slice of pecan pie. Yeah. Like every Southern murderer has. Everybody in Missouri onion rings. And a slice of pecan pie. Like every southern murderer has. Everybody in Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi. That's pecan pie. Slice of pecan pie. You betcha. So they bring him into the chamber. No special drink?

No special drink. Just that. I think it's just water. I thought it was a root beer. Wank. Root beer. Wank, wank. Can I get a root beer and a float?

Karen's like, I bet he's drinking root beer. I'm like, Jesus, Karen. Jesus. You grim bitch bitch how could you do that fucking grim bitch man come on karen there's a reason why we don't invite you to thanksgiving anymore you're fucking grim karen wow you wonder why every year we buy you a sickle for Christmas? Grim. Grim bitch. We alternate between a sickle and a big robe every year. A big black fucking robe. His last words, he's wheeled out on the gurney, is quote,

my trials and transgressions have been many, but thanks to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, I have a new home in his heavenly kingdom. See, that pisses me off. Religion, you know, is not my thing anyway, but that pisses me off. Religion, you know, is not my thing anyway, but that pisses me off to give an asshole like this to actually,

if he actually thinks that, for him to actually go out with a warm thought in his heart sucks. Fuck that guy. Without religion, he's like, oh, shit, I lived a terrible life, and now they're going to fucking kill me. This sucks. Instead, he's like, well, it's all good. New home in my heavenly kingdom.

Even though it's not true, he doesn't, well, it's all good. New home in my heavenly kingdom. Even though it's not true. He doesn't know that. He might believe it. Do you think he thinks that the saying is trials and transgressions? Because that's not the saying. Yeah, no, it's yeah. Well, it is tribulation, sir. That would be shit happening to you.

Transgressions are things you have done. That's a good point. I think that's him going, I've been a shitty guy. Yeah. But Jesus don't care. Listen, I've been on trial. Jesus loved me anyway was he was he talking about his trials of like the world trying yeah i think all the trials that he's been through it's like my rape my murder trials all these trials a lot

of trials both literal and figurative that's what he should have added in there now up to this point missouri has executed one death row inmate each month since november of the previous year so they've been on a roll here get to work texas and they're and this is in april and uh they have another one scheduled for may of that year only texas with seven executions since that time has more executed inmates than missouri's four in 2014 florida is also tied for second with uh four so i gotta tell you missouri florida it's a foot race you gotta keep killing people because texas has a three-game lead right now you're not gonna make the playoffs i'm just telling you that right now you're gonna be short of the playoffs you're gonna be on the outside

looking in while texas takes home the trophy and they all get big fucking lethal injection rings thinking about next year what are you gonna do what are you gonna do missouri so uh yeah he uh uh it's the uh 74th person killed uh in missouri put to death since 1989 are they getting him in the town too it's in the same town it's a in Bonneterre. It's Bonneterre. Bonneterre. Only Texas, who has 515 at this point since 1989, Oklahoma 110, Virginia 110, and Florida 85 have executed more people since the death penalty was re-legalized in 1976. They have... That's a thousand people. Too many.

Five hundred and what? Fifteen. They are... It's not even close including the mentally challenged and the fucking people whose lawyers fell asleep in court this is why we're not okay with that is dangerous i don't like this mess that's not okay so uh michael lewis uh finally here after the uh michael lewis is the son he was there to witness the whole thing uh by william russon was mouthing words to his family who was there his brother-in-law or his brother was there

uh not the brother i think the other brother was there uh was mouthing words and at 1201 they gave him the injection by 1210 he was dead uh that was that michael lewis who is the great the lewis's son said quote and this is a very sane this is he's this is a very sane man we'll put it that way he's not karen at home no blood lust in his heart yeah karen's not around for this uh he says quote i draw no real satisfaction for mr roussan's incarceration or execution for neither can replace or restore the moments lost with my parents or give my sons back the grandparents they never got to know beautiful that's how you should feel about shit like this you shouldn't be like good i'm gonna piss on his grave kill him harder that's that's

creepy you're as bad as him then so uh uh the the lewises are buried in the uh bella fontaine cemetery in st louis Missouri, where they lived for many years before they retired. Both of them are buried there together, obviously. And that is Bonterre, Missouri. Christ. And one fucked up tale. You betcha.

Of insanity. Jesus. What the hell? How do you get there? I just can't get there. I can't. I can't. But I mean, the guy's a criminal he's

a he's a criminal and that's how they think they he's preying on something to benefit every day anyone who's convicted of like a rape like that is you know you you're capable of anything i feel like at that point and at that point you probably just think why leave people living they just tell on you so that's when you start killing he really turned bad in four months like yeah now on on rape charges yeah and then it took four months for him to go fuck it we're killing fuck it we're killing fuck yeah and that was the charge those were the charges that he was in prison for when he escaped and the lewis's helped him right he was released from that he came back to them and then killed them this is pretty fucked up so what that tells you is don't be nice to people ever.

The world's a shitty place. Especially if you catch them hiding in your barn. Call the police. That's it. The world's a shitty place. Cower behind your bed with a loaded weapon. That's grim, Karen. That's fucking grim.

If you like that and you're not, Karen, please, please get on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, whatever it is. Give us a review. Five stars would be great. Just tell us you're following instructions or directions or whatever. You can do it on any podcast platform you listen to. If it's possible to leave a review, please do it. Help us out. It really helps drive you up the charts.

So it's kind of a business thing. So if you could do that. Also, go to ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com. First and foremost, for tickets to the live show in Nashville, April the 14th at Zaney's. We are telling you these tickets are going to be gone very soon. And it's going to be so great. If you're listening to this a few days after it comes out, they might not. They're probably gone.

You can check, but they're probably gone. So really buy those tickets immediately if you want to come to the show. You can't wait for that. And we're going to have so much fun we had a blast there last time and the show we have lined up is a killer too it's a comedy festival there's gonna be all kinds of people yeah it's gonna be fun you're gonna have all sorts of people to hang out with and meet and it'll be a good time so come on down and see us there no extra charge for a festival it's a normal price of a of a ticket so uh yeah we won't rip you off, ever. We're going to give you, our goal always with a live show is let's give them more show than

they paid for. We want people to walk out and go, man, fuck, that was a great, I got a deal. Do we owe them more? That's what we want. Do we owe them more? Literally, that's what we want you to feel like. We don't want you to feel like, nah, or, fuck, that was kind of a rip. The good show, but man, that was expensive. No, we want you to be like or that fuck that was kind of a rip the good show but man that was expensive no we want you to be like fuck man i feel i feel bad right i feel like they just

i laughed more than i should have for that amount of money so that's what we do come out and see us also on the site get your merchandise get your t-shirts to wear to the show leggings ringtones yeah available uh should be available as you're listening to this i'm not sure if they're not keep checking over the next because it says it takes 24 to 48 hours to activate. We're in that window. They don't give you a lot of information on how really difficult that shit is. It's hard. That's a nightmare.

It was a pain in the ass. So Small Town Murder theme song and the Crime and Sports theme song are both up right now for Ringtones. You can get your merchandise there. You can follow us on social media very easily. We are small town murder on instagram at murder small on twitter and at small town pod on facebook so follow us up there that way when we announce live shows yeah you won't be left behind because that's almost half the tickets or a third of the tickets went because we announced them on social media right and you know if you weren't following you wouldn't even know about that you're hearing about it now and the tickets

are gone already so follow us on social media we don't bombard you with bullshit no we don't post 20 times a day we post episodes and maybe one or two things every couple weeks we don't do much we won't clog up your feed uh so do that and if you want to be an even bigger hero yeah one of our goddamn saviors one of the people we love so much our producers who we're going to talk about in just a second here you can do that excessively easily and you can even do it right from shut up and give me murder.com you can head to patreon.com slash crime in sports or head over to paypal and use our email address which is crime in sports at gmail.com and listen to crime in sports because if you're not you're

missing out yeah you're not going to catch everything you're not going to catch it all and we have to tell you now we have to give you these producers because they're so awesome and we love them so much so jimmy i mean bury me under a pile of manure of producer names please hit me with them this week's executive producers are ben Spencer, Cody Beretta, Jason Yoakum, Jennifer Lamb, Candace Kennedy, Howard Wilson, Dane Ford, Paul Powell, Laura Milczarek, and Rob Murray. Thank you guys so much for everything you guys do for us. Thank you, guys. We really appreciate you.

Thomas Smith, Matt Dietrich, Sam Wade, Christopher Hart, Hannah Simmons, Erica Teofilo, Sarah Davis, Michael Dretz, Michael Deegan, Trey Valkenar. Oh, that's the Valkenar III. They call him Trey, kind of like that politician guy. What's his name? Which one? Trey, the guy that got voted out. You know who I'm talking about. He's the third.

That's why they call him Trey. I get it. I'm on board. You know who I'm talking about. I know who you're talking about. He's the third. That's why they call him Trey. I get it. I'm on board.

Melanie Knights, Bryn Fields, Lance Robillard. Robillard. Yeah, Robillard. Hmm. Hmm. Yep. You said it a bunch of times. You had to get it on one of those, I think.

Justin Miller, Durso, Helen, and young man Huxley. Jesse Hartman, Janice Hill, Whitney Leonard, Haley McGivern, Shalima Althaus, James Miller, Kim Jisu, which sounds like a delicious meal. It does. Tina Russell, Macature Workshop, Lisa Coltrane in support of displaced cubs, Hillary Marsh, Anthony Cannella, Jeff Carbonneau, Kelly Jo joe may which is easy that's my mom's name and not the may part you get on each i get you barry with no last name gary howard patrick hagerty tiffany townsend kelly higby and michael head thank you nicholas palmero uh chelsea morgan

spare change inside ben cousins okay we'll take it sean ship uh wash it right off and put it with the rest neil campbell tyler gwil uh michael gio gio giovannetti yes uh g that's probably right uh ashley box you do it better hey eric like hey eric mikey g what are you doing this fucking guy's giving us money oh what's wrong with you you got better things to do with your fucking money give it to us this fucking guy eric langenecker kimberly jay peyton meadows lauren demirath uh phil phil mccrevis phil mccrevis oh you son of a bitch thank you bart simpson steve chanel uh clay clay thorson he He donated twice. Thank you, Clay. Thanks, Heavy Metal Scientist Man. Kevi Gapner. Yeah, yeah, that was Steve.

Steve. Kevi Gapmeyer. Gapmeyer. I think. Mary Faust. Sean Loring Smith. Dana Papalia. Sarah Hart.

Rachel Meisenheimer. Charlene Ramler. James Stokely. Kelly Thirsk. Thirsk. Damn it. Kelly Thirsk, Jesse Lortz, Jeff McAvoy, Thomas Gwilmett, There we go. Thomas Bennett. No, Michael Bennett. Jesus Christ. Michael Kennedy. Brendan Ables. Julie Stoltz. Sarah Huskins. Elizabeth Negro.

James. No, Jamie loves Jimmy. That's what it is. Rachel Stora. Susan Gable. I'm such an idiot. Allison Huntley. Reagan Shalkley.

Jamie. No, Jackie Edmondsonson edmiston uh oldest charm iron tree uh craftworks he's a police officer by the way oh cool and he's fantastic thank you he enjoyed your uh your story about wanting to to spin around with a nightstick it's a fantasy it has to be it fucking has to be they all want to do it how do you not at a uh at a domestic yeah they all they all would love to to clear it up in case you didn't hear at a domestic where no one is the aggressor right both people are just white trash assholes throwing food at each other and yelling and arguing and wanting the police to intervene and solve it steven

growney uh kyle go dirt uh Jesse Herrera, Matt... Okay, this one I wrote out long because I wanted to do it right. Madalena Maria Neva... God damn it. Madalena Maria Neva, Bonavento... God damn it, Knight! That wasn't bad. That was close. Almost. Almost. Nancy

Graham and Jeff Beck, you guys are the goddamn best. Thank you. Thank you everybody. You guys are the best. Most amazing you. Thank you, everybody. You guys are the best, most amazing people, and we can't thank you enough for everything you do for us. The stuff you send to us and just words of encouragement. Also goddamn funny. And money you give

us, and we just thank you guys for being there for us, and we can't wait to thank you guys at the live show, so please come out to that. And Jimmy, what if they wanted to thank you before the live show? How could they do that? You can find me at WismanSucks, W-H-I-S-M-A-N Sucks, on Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. And, again, I don't want to push too many posts or tweets.

I try my best not to tweet too much. But I love hearing from you guys, and I look at every tweet. I let you know that I saw it one way or another. Yeah, we'll like it like i do my best to make sure that you guys know that i see what you sent so thank you very very much where can they tell you uh you can find me at jimmy p is funny or uh copy and paste my last name from the show description so you don't get all confused with vowels that are should be other ways around and things like that i picked up the mail and the guy dropping the the mail guy he gives me an envelope and he goes, James per. And I go, Pico de Gaia.

Yeah. Just give me it. Whatever. Just hand it over. Fine. That's my guy. That's what happens. So if you're that person just goes, oh, fuck.

Just copy and paste from the show description. Just abandon ship. Find me there. And I definitely won't clog up your feed. I'll post the I'll retweet and post episodes. And then I will every once in a while if I'm really angry at something i'll say it but other than that i'm not going to be like hey look at this article this puppy that's covered in soap suds i'd never do that so you can definitely well yeah yeah i just i won't clog your feed with that shit though so follow us there and uh

that said guys crazy episode thank you guys for everything and uh man this is uh it's been interesting. And until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well-researched.

He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people. With a touch of humor. I just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother lied. Like a liar. Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal. Or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes. You should tune in to our podcast, Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. In May of 1980, near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and seemed unwell. She insisted on driving him to the local hospital to get treatment. While he waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to grab her car to pick him up at the exit, but 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 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 to discover what happened. And with over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime

listener. Follow the Generation Y podcast on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Generation Y ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. I understand that anybody who's paid attention to the media would have to come to the conclusion that I killed my wife. Hi, my name is Zach Stewart-Pontier. I'm one of the filmmakers behind The Jinx, and I'm excited to bring you The Official Jinx Podcast. We'll be revisiting all six episodes of Part 1

and watching along with Part 2 as it airs on Max, starting April 21st. The official jinx podcast, listen on max or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, prime members, you can listen to small town murder early and ad free on Amazon music. Download the Amazon music app today, or you can listen early and ad free with Wondery plus an Apple podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.