Small Town Murder - #135 - A Sun Powered Killer in Edinburg, Virginia

Episode Date: September 5, 2019

This week, in Edinburg, Virginia, a troubled man, with a troubled family ends a family feud in a very final, and violent way. When he is finally discovered, his tale of what actually happened is one for record books. A story so fantastical that it's almost hard to believe that someone could think it would work. And it doesn't. But just when you think it's all settled, more crazy rears its head!! This one is a trip!!Along the way, we find out about what a "bed race" might be, we learn that what you've done is often an indicator of what you'll do, and that when you blame someone else for a murder, that person should actually exist!!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. This week in Edinburgh, Virginia, a long and bubbling family feud resolves itself in a very unusual, very violent way, leaving everyone scratching their heads. Welcome to Small Town Murder.

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay! Yay, indeed, Jimmy. Yay, indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I am Jimmy Wissman. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us again on another wild, crazy, outstandingly wonderful edition of Small Town Murder, where we have fun with terrible tragedy.

That's what we're doing here. Thank you, guys. That's what we're doing here. Not the actual tragedy. We're not like, hey, and then this, you know, we're not making fun of the murder scene,

but the things around it. That's what we talk about. It's all tragic. It's all tragic. And a lot of this is just true. So much is tragic to me. It's fine. Thank you guys so much

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Thank you for that. Also, head to shut up and give me murder dot com. Yes. For everything crime and sports and small town murder related. And listen to crime and sports, by the way, if you're not. This week, Dennis Rodman. You all know who Dennis Rodman is. There's really not a whole lot of sports in that one.

Just craziness. So you can hear that and it'll give you an insight into what we do there. Shut up and give me murder. You can get all of your merchandise needs and more importantly, your live show tickets. Next week, we're in California. San Diego is sold out. Sorry, everybody. Is it. Next week, we're in California. San Diego is sold out.

Sorry, everybody. Is it really? Yeah, we looked on a thing. It's sold out. So sorry about that if you couldn't make it to San Diego. But L.A., I think there's some tickets left in L.A. Drive up there. So go to L.A. and see us the next night.

It's on Saturday. We're driving, too. Yeah, next weekend. What is it? What's the date? 13th and 14th? There you go. I think so. Or 14th. One of the two. Whatever the Friday? What's the date? 13th and 14th? There you go.

I think so. Or 14th. One of the two. Whatever the Friday and Saturday is, is when we'll be in San Diego, followed by LA. You know where you can find that? We're bad at this. Shut up and give me murder.com. That's where the ticket's at. We're comedians, not salesmen.

That's the problem. Also, we have a new thing, a voicemail, that you guys can leave voicemails for us with questions, a Sahara Desert fart fact, weird festivals that go on in a town that you know about, questions, things like that. If you've got a, that sounds terrible, anything you want to do, you can leave at this voicemail. Please keep it kind of clean, and don't be weird, because Sarah listens to these, not us.

So, yeah, don't be creepy. It's 602-759-0606. So you can leave and say weird things and whatever you want to do there not too weird not too weird though yeah uh but uh also if you want to be one of our heroes a producer who we're going to discuss with glowing terms every week like we do here you can do that very very easily by going to patreon.com slash crime and sports or heading over to PayPal. You can use our email address, crime and sports at gmail.com. You can make a one-time donation there. And both of those links are readily available. Where, Jimmy?

Over there at shutupandgivememurder.com. It's like a one-stop shop for wonderfulness. It is. It's very convenient. Shut up and give me murder. It's like an online bodega of all of our shit. That's what it is. Yeah.

There's stuff you're like, I haven't seen this in years. Oh, this is stale a little bit, but that's okay. You get it. You get it. And there's weed behind the counter also. It's very interesting. You could also buy dime bags, which you can't from us. Not from us.

Not from us, but we'll smoke one with you. There you go. So anyway, disclaimer quickly. This is a comedy show, so lighten up here. We're comedians. This is what we do here. We're going to make jokes jokes are going to happen we make jokes like about small towns we make jokes about stuff

around a murder we make jokes about a police force that'll like let a murderer go free it's right under their nose for 10 years things like that we make fun of murderers what we don't do when we go out of our way not to do is we try not to make fun of the victims or the victims families because we're assholes but we're not scumbags there you go that's how it works and uh we have a good time with that and we think you're gonna have a good time too if that sounds good to you then buckle up because you're in for a ride and if you think true crime and comedy should never ever ever go together they just don't work then this isn't for you you're probably not gonna like it take a hike there's the door have a good one nice to meet you yeah thanks for giving us a shot uh but you know not gonna work out so you guys go for everybody

else though we're gonna have a good time it's time to stand there wherever you are yeah stand on top of your cubicle shout out your car window yell across the gym shout shut up and give me murder let's do this all right let's go on a trip jimmy i would love it oh let's go let's go we were in colorado last week you're staring at the rockies yeah it was nice i got an email today uh about a guy told me when i was growing up i heard uh my dad used to go hunting and uh the the people that he went hunting with their daughter was murdered horribly and he goes i was going to tell you the story and send you all the stuff to do the show oh no but then i heard last week's show and her parents were very nice people it was it was the buyers oh no oh my god his dad knew the

people oh that's terrible it's horrible but he said he said he heard details that he didn't know really there's that well hey look at that go at that. Way to go. Good work, James. Court documents. It's a wonderful thing here. He doesn't want to read that shit. No, probably not. Nobody does. Sorry. James does.

Sorry. Do I really, Jimmy? I don't know if you want to. I don't know if I want to, but I do. That's the important part. And I did this week. All right. So we're going on a trip.

Great. All the way across, back across the country. We're crisscrossing now. We're going back and forth. We're going to Virginia. Great. Look at us. Going all the way to, back across the country. We're crisscrossing now. We're going back and forth. We're going to Virginia. Great. Look at us. Going all the way to Virginia.

Edinburgh, Virginia. I hope it's Edinburgh. It might be Edenburg. I'm not sure. And I really don't care. But either way. But we're going to call it Edinburgh. The French Festival, Edinburgh?

But not with the H on the end. Got it. It's just Burg, like B-U-R-G. Okay. So it's one of those there. It's in north central Virginia. You know how Virginia makes a big pan? No's got its true okay virginia is like half of a camel oh it's got like its head laying down like a like a like a you know like a panhandle down there and then

on the west side and then it gets like a big lump oh east and okay i know what it looks like yeah that little whale there you go. So that little lump there at the top, that's where this is. It's up near where Maryland and West Virginia connect. Now I'm lost again. Right above Virginia,

the tip of Maryland and Virginia connect here. But I'm sure these people don't want to be associated with West Virginia at all. They're like, no, no, we're by Maryland. You mean we're Maryland

and West Virginia? West for what now? I've never heard of such a place. No, no, we're by Maryland. You mean we're Maryland and West Virginia? West for what now? I've never heard of such a place. No, Maryland, and we're, I don't know anything about West Virginia. We connect to them. No, no, no, no, no. Here it's about two and a half hours to Richmond, Virginia, which is the capital there. An hour and 40 minutes to Washington, D.C.

So pretty close, actually, to that D.C.-Baltimore area. We're going to be there. Which we are going to be there we'll be in dc when in october 13th it's october november october it's october we'll be there in october i think it's the 13th i think so too or the 930 club at the 930 club we hear it's an amazing store that dope venue so get your tickets to that also yeah we'll keep plugging any if any if any place we're going to be comes up we're going to plug it. So enjoy. Until you all visit. No more will come up for the rest of the show.

So that's it. And two hours to Amherst, Virginia, which is episode 57, which is the last Virginia episode we did. Wow, that was a long time ago. Weird, right? Yeah, we did it right in the beginning when we were kind of doing all the states again. And then it got lost in the shuffle. And that was February 2018. Good Lord.

So a long time ago. We weren't even in the studio then. That's how long ago that was. This is in Shenandoah County. Zip code 22824. Area code 540. 0.76 square miles. It's a little town up here. Motto of this town, quote, salt of the valley.

Yeah. There you go. It's the salt of the valley. there you go it's the salt of the valley or uh west virginia west virginia can suck it bitch that's the other one which is very aggressive i feel too aggressive almost for a town motto of what valley of the shenandoah valley oh it's there huh this is yeah shenandoah county this is shenandoah valley got it they're very proud of this very rural hillbilly shit because that's what all the old country songs have shenandoah in it somewhere yeah well it's like uh civil war songs will have shenandoah and like 1800s song 1800s like drinking ditties all had like shenandoah in it you know

what i mean coming down from shenandoah or like drinking ditty drinking whiskey while one guy drunkenly plays the piano and the only woman in the bar sits on it for some reason you know what i'm talking about you know old west bars so yeah uh there was uh obviously native americans were here first the uh they think it was a group of iroquois at the time uh but they were said to have been slaughtered by another group in the uh later 17th century leaving behind this uh this land uh here and uh the uh the name of the the the whole deal has been attributed uh uh of the of shenandoah county has been attributed to like also from back to the indian tribes and they also say it's George Washington, which is a strange thing.

They, they think it was George Washington, possibly naming, naming it in honor of a guy named Skenadoa, Skenandoa, uh, who was in a chief in, uh,

Oneida, New York. And, uh, who, he was an Indian chief and he helped, he helped broker some peace and get some help for the American revolutionary forces from these Indians.

So they think maybe it was from him or it was an older name. He helped broker some peace and get some help for the American Revolutionary Forces from these Indians. They think maybe it was from him or it was an older name. They're trying to track it down, basically, here. The colonial governor here formally purchased the whole valley from the six nations of the Iroquois with a treaty in 1744. So this was actually like a bought. Nobody was forced away from here type of thing. It was probably just bought at a really low price. I'm sure it wasn't. Yeah, I'm sure it wasn't a really fair market value type thing.

But there was no trail of tears from this location is what I'm getting at. That's nice. That feels better, I think, if you're living there. Oh, no. Families weren't torn from here and made to walk hundreds of miles. I'm sure there was an air of threat in the barter. You either take this or... Have you heard of the Trail of Tears?

Kind of like when we bought parts of Mexico. We bought after wars and with wars, and it's complicated. But yeah, there was a lot of technicalities there. I feel like it's the same thing. So this was apparently a good hunting ground and the Iroquois hunted here forever. And by this time, though, there was all sorts of outside raids where natives would come in and attack and things like that. This is 1700.

So this is wild. This is a hunting grounds. This isn't like, isn't like you know dc suburbs or anything so uh yeah the county was established officially in 1772 originally named dunmore county for virginia governor john murray who was the fourth earl of dunmore oh boy so then they were like we broke away from there we're like fuck the fourth earl of whoever the shit. We don't care. We're giving our own stuff here. How did a fucking something or other Earl get a job in government?

How did they allow that? Because the British controlled the... Oh, okay. That makes sense. It's a colony at that point. So, yeah, they would just put their own governors in to control the crazy people who'd come over here the way they look at it. Yeah.

I'm on board now. Dunmore was their last royal governor and was forced from office during the american revolution there you go that's why yeah that's what ended up happening it post revolution yeah yeah no that would be weird then yeah now if your governor was an earl of dunmore put in by the english monarchy why is he our governor? This makes no sense. So very strange. It was they renamed it in 1778 Shenandoah County, and it was settled in the late 1700s. Once it was renamed and the skirmishes had stopped and the British had left and everything like that. A lot of people, a lot of Germans and Swiss people came here. That seemed to be the culture of this for a while. Very good land to grow things

it's a very fertile area the shenandoah valley here for growing for hunting for all this type of thing it's a it's a big deal uh a guy built a gun factory that made guns for the war of 1812 here so there's that um the 1870s here apparently after the civil war this place picked up big time i think because it's because it's proximity probably the capital and everything else and then ground for hunting and yeah and shit exactly it's fertile and livable yeah well this seems like a place where it might be like a good uh like a summer home or like a weekend retreat like rich people in new york go to the hamptons or something i feel like maybe rich people in washington maybe went out to the to the country possibly or some shit like that back then yeah we we don't know it was uh picking and yeah that's what i mean stuff like that they had uh

they have a lot of uh victorian homes there that are still remaining really it's got a lot of historic homes uh we'll talk about that in just a minute here. But yeah, the town itself of Edinburgh was originally named Shryock. Shryock. S-H-R-Y-O-C-K. Not Shryock, like I wanted to say, like it makes sense to say. But it was called that by Prince Bernard of Saxe-Weimar-Eisensock. So they didn't give a shit what he named it, and they renamed it themselves. Smart.

Yeah. The town site here, this is what the town's website says about the town. Really weak website. One of these sites, they built it in 99, and were like, great, leave it alone forever. Nobody touch it. Till the internet collapses. That's our website. It has a bad picture, and then it just says,

Nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in central Shenandoah County, Edinburgh exemplifies the quaint small-town atmosphere of the Shenandoah Valley. It's all spelled right. That's it. Fucking leave it. Leave it. That's what they did. Commas are in the right places. Perfect.

So this place did not break 1,000 people in population. Pretty much stayed around 500 through the entire uh up until about 1975 wow stayed around five i mean from 1860 all the way to there just kind of stayed within a hundred people it kind of flip-flopped a little bit and then finally started getting a little more people didn't break a thousand till 2010 no kidding yeah 1289 people there right now uh up 50 since 1990 so people have been going there and it's a suburb so it's not really it's an hour 40 from dc so it's not really a commute but it's uh it's still a place where these these people commute well these people might have second

homes there and shit like that where the weekend homes this is a this is i see what you're saying yeah this is what i mean nobody's driving to dc for work no no not every day but on the weekend we're going we're going out to you know shenandoah for the weekend yeah shenandoah county for the weekend here more males than females here uh which is kind of fits because the median age here is 32 which is young so usually that's more males when it's a younger thing. The 25-year-old to 34-year-old demographic is off the charts high. Really? I don't know why.

That's not college age. I don't know what's going on there. Also, though, everything else is a little bit low, and then 85 years old and over, super high. Really? I don't know what's happening. Everybody's 27 or 88. I don't know what's going on's 27 or 88 i don't know what's going on i think maybe it's like people moving in they're like i think grandma's gonna

die soon we should have to take care of her and then maybe she'll give us the house old people dying off and young people going there is into the side that's all i can think of it's about average unmarried population and uh divorce rates a little bit high actually here it's you know maybe people who work in in the uh dc in the in any of the political sphere maybe there's a higher divorce rate or longer hours i don't know how that works but it's a little bit high here widowed rates a little high but there's some more old people so that makes a lot of sense uh less single people with no children a lot of single people with children though oh there's a lot of divorces yeah so yeah if you don't mind a couple

of kids you don't mind having to be quiet and making sure the headboard doesn't smack the wall, it's all right. You're good. You can find some people to get with. Race of this town. It's about 85. Incognito bathroom blowies. Yeah.

If you're cool with that, then you're fine. This town's for you. If you like those, like, maybe you can get caught sex sessions then do it if you like one of you having to interrupt sex because of a lego wedged in your in your spinal cord then yeah it's fine so uh the of a child that you have no fucking parental no responsibility over that's the good part no responsibility that's the word so uh race this town 85 white so pretty white for uh you know virginia dc that's there's you know plenty of other races down there but it's pretty white 4.3 black so i have a little bit well under

the 12.3 national average 0.3 asian so none of those there and 0.0 percent native american i guess that treaty works jesus christ goodbye all gone now wow not that that's good it's wow uh we have uh eight percent hispanic here so it's it's pretty white it's a white town uh about 50 religious right on the normal line and there's a lot of people from a lot of different places so there is all sorts of different it's 10 lutheran 10 methodist a little bit of baptist a little bit of catholic you know that sort of shit 0.0 jewish though nothing and 0.0 muslim nothing so no just all all sorts of christian faiths and a little tiny bit of m, like 1%, which is also Christian.

Same thing. So Shenandoah County here, the electorate, the elections, last presidential election, 26% voted Democrat, about 69% voted Republican, about 6% Independent. So this tends to skew a little bit more in the conservative area. And there's a lot of families. It's a little more affluent. There's some religion. As we'll talk about. Well, this area is not really affluent, but around that, it's hard to explain here.

Well, this area is a little bit trashier. Because if you go like a half hour to the east, it's like drivable to dc and baltimore and shit like that it's it's a whole other thing it explodes that median income is over a hundred thousand dollars it's all that sort of thing but here uh unemployment rates about three percent which is uh low actually but the income is low as high as low also uh normally it's about fifty eight thousand dollars here it's forty three and a000. Here, it's $43,500. So it's a low income. All the low income demographics are all high. That's the household. That's the whole household. Yeah. Wow. They're all high. A lot of people make under $40,000 a year. It's almost 50% make under $40,000

a year. And all of the over $100,000 a year demographics, all those brackets are all very low. So people don't make a lot of money here. It's one of those things. I'm familiar. Yeah, definitely. Manufacturing is 24% of the jobs. It's usually 10% of the jobs. Construction is more than its usual share of the jobs.

So it's that kind of economy. The healthcare jobs are about average, but not a lot of white-collar jobs, scientific jobs, professional and financial, things like that. It's in the toilet. It's in the toilet, yeah. You better be able to make something or lift something and put it over there. And then you can make a meager living. I mean, it's a job, but it's harder to live here and have some sort of white-collar job. So overall cost of living here, $100,000 is regular average par.

Here it's $95,000. So it's kind of in the ballpark. Everything's sort of normal. Housing is a $90,000. So not that crazy, but not that low either. Median home cost here is $181,800. So I mean, for the low income, though, that's a little bit... It's a struggle.

It's tough. It's hard to own that. Yeah. 29% of the houses here were built before 1939. 29%. 29%. Normally, it's like 8%. Yeah.

Almost a third of them. Almost a third are built. So, these are a lot of old houses, a lot of Victorian. There's houses from the 1800s. Jesus. And then there's just old shitty houses, too, that just are still there for some reason. So you get a mixture. Because it costs too much to level it and build a new one.

That's pretty much what it is. And if we've convinced you to go take a look, we have for you the Edinburgh, Virginia Real Estate Report. your average two-bedroom rental here is about 824 dollars which is kind of below their market range for houses which is good i found a three-bedroom two-bath house here it's a shit bot so i'm not gonna lie to you dilapidated looking deck uh it's it's frightening it's a it's a redo uh 960 square feet. It's at auction, though. 88 grand. I bet you can get it cheaper. That's what I mean. So this place, if you need a

place, I found another one here. It's a three-bedroom, two-bath, 1248 square feet. It's set back in the trees. The picture of it on Zillow, not in a good way, either. Not like, ooh, that's leafy back there. It looks like what goes on it on Zillow. Not in a good way either. Not like, ooh, that's leafy back there. It looks like our...

What's some questionable shit going on? What goes on in there is what it looks like. Why do you need so much cover, fuckers? It's poking out. It's very frightening. The roof. And in this little bit of house that you can see poking out through the trees, you can see the roof is not correct. It's messed up in some way.

It's ominous. Tree people live there. $144,082. That seems too much. It2 dollars it was too much this little gem it looked like it was too much then i found a three bedroom three bath very nice modern 3131 square feet very nice clean house this is like you know if you wanted to have a nice whatever house this is it for your family 315,900 bucks that's about what that's going to cost there so it's it's pricey area it's a you know not not super pricey but if you want something nice all the nice houses are are pretty expensive there the crappy houses are if it needs work you can afford it you can probably get it if it doesn't

you probably can't and maybe you maybe you'll know how to fix it because all the jobs here in construction and shit so that could be maybe it's a good cycle i'm not sure beneficial to you things to do here then the only thing to do let's be honest here is the 39th edinburgh old time festival o-l-e apostrophe okay wait yeah you pick one either either it's old or it's o-l with an apostrophe or it's old right which would the the apostrophe takes the place of the d or the e right either one of those what are you fucking apostrophes therefore it's in place of a letter so wow i don't know what they're doing who the hell put that on the poster and didn't get it checked this is right off the website brother this is they put this up themselves how they spell time this is

their own no the regular time it It's not a Y, thankfully, because I was expecting that. It's going to be held September 20th through the 22nd. So get your shit ready. Right now. Enjoy music, arts, crafts,

parade, entertainment, and great food. Now, the activities. Yeah. Obviously, we're going to need activities. Pioneer breakfast. I don't know what that means.

Does it mean you eat in the woods? You got to go shoot it? No, you got to shoot it. You eat in the woods. It's a squirrel. You have to wipe your ass with a pine cone when you're done. I don't know what that means i mean you eat in the woods you gotta go shoot it no you gotta shoot it you eat in the woods it's a squirrel you have to wipe your ass with a pine cone when you're done i don't know what how what that means uh is it squirrel between two pine stakes what is that do you get attacked by a band of native americans if you wander too far away from the camp how does it work here

what's the pioneer breakfast do you get smallpox what's the pioneer part of it uh bed a bed race yeah what i have no idea what a bed race is this is already who can come quickest come on now stick it in we're having a bed race they couldn't call it anything more than that you know there's kids here there's kids around they put it behind like just some dividers like like the porn in an old video store a bed race i don't know what that is who could get into bed first or do you drag a bed behind you like a tractor pull are they on wheels and you run those fuckers down the street oh maybe that's what it is with someone in it yeah oh now you're rightfully holding the sides bed knobs and broomsticks big sleep cap on with a ball on the end.

That would be hilarious. That I want to see. I would pay to watch that. I'm going to be very honest with you. I would buy that. A fun run. A children's festival. Just a festival of children. These are all of our children.

Everyone line the children up. We're having a festival. Line the children up. There they are. Here's all of them. Jump in the air or something. Do something. They're watching. Calisthenics, kids. Let they are. Here's all of them. Jump in the air or something. Do something.

They're watching. Calisthenics, kids. Let's go. We have an old, old time. Not an old time. Not an old apostrophe. An O-L-E time. But no apostrophe this time.

Old time sing along. I don't know if we're going to sing about the Shenandoah Valley like we previously. It's all drinking ditties. A square dance. All right. Which I assume goes on during the old time sing along. Yeah. A beard contest.

Okay. That's when you know you're in a place where you shouldn't be. Right. There's a beard contest. There's a contest for who did it the best. This isn't for me. This isn't for me. That's every day if you've got a beard. If you have a beard, you're in a contest every fucking day.

You can just look at two beards and go, that beard's more beardier. That's more beard. Yeah, it's not a real contest. I don't know what the contest is. Do they count the hair? That sounds like an ESPY award. You know what I mean? Best baseball team.

Well, who won the fucking World Series? We'll figure it out. Stupid awards. MVP. They already gave those out. The leagues themselves gave those out. What are we doing? Why is this an award show?

And until Pittsburgh's Kiesel shaves that fucking thing he's got on his face, there should be no beard contest. The man wears it. He puts a chin strap through it. That's insane. He wins. He wins. This is why I gave this extra time, these things to do, because there's so much here. Children's all-time sing-along square dance, beard contest, duck race.

Okay. Right, so they make ducks race, and they wander to the side a little bit. I mean, there's a duck race where it's like rubber duckies that have numbers, and you pick those, and then fucking put it into something that flows. A Civil War dance. No. Why? And how?

What the shit does that mean? Does that mean that black people aren't allowed to dance with white people what does that mean does that mean you dress in civil war paraphernalia and you wear your beard from your beard content what does that mean you bring a musket force a woman to do it with you that's what i mean do you do you drag a woman off after you've clubbed her with your musket how does this work i don't understand this at all an antique autos and motorcycles deal that's cool i'll watch that old timers ball games but not old timers like like catfish hunter yeah not like raleigh fingers is gonna come out and throw the just our old p we got here's all of our kids

now let's watch our old people play sports what the the hell is happening in this? This is the only thing they're doing all day. Old-timers baseball game. It's just people. Literally, the old people. It's just your grandpa. That's it. There's no old, there's no. He's never played in his life.

No one else is coming. Just, Grandpa, you want to play? You're playing first base. Grandpa, you ever played baseball? Well, no. No, well, get up and shortstop. You're up. I think you can catch a screaming grounder.

You're on deck, fucker. We watch your house. Wow. Yeah. Maybe you'll get beaned. We're coming for that house. Coming for that inheritance. An author's tent.

A Civil War encampment. Wait, no. I guess they're just sitting around. It's like a reenactment, but not of a battle. Just of them waiting to go to a battle. It's a camp. Here's some tents and a fire and some guys eating hardtack and cleaning their muskets and writing letters.

Dear Shirley, that's what you're looking at? That sounds awful. It's a museum exhibit. A hay wagon rides. Antique taxi rides. Carriage rides. Apple butter boiling, in case you ever wanted to do that basket weaving antique tractor show and much more how much more could you have that's enough how much in the past are you holy shit they're celebrating everything that's happened

well not quite yet but now they have because also they've added to this an old time sock hop as well. A special Saturday night dance featuring vintage music by the Silver Tone Swing Band. Whoever's left alive after the old timers baseball game comes over to here. If it's got silver in the name of the band, you know it's not good. It's not positive. It's terrible. It's all old shit. It's bad. There's a it's all old shit it's bad

there's a dance demonstration learn the stroll okay couple with the best 50s outfits will be crowned king and queen of the sock hop you don't want to be the loser in that competition then you're just dressed like an idiot uh so you gotta drag that bitch in the poodle skirt home yeah oh live swing band music all night till 930 till the break of 930. It doesn't say at the time, but I assume it's till 930. And the this festival received the Edinburgh Heritage Foundation's Marianne Williamson Award, which celebrated the it means that there. I don't know what that means exactly. It's the fourth recipient of the award. It seems to be things that are good in Edinburgh't know what that means exactly. It's the fourth recipient

of the award. It seems to be things that are good in Edinburgh. They give that award to I'm not sure. Crime rate in this town. What do you want to bet

John Travolta and Uma Thurman win that contest every year? Oh, every single year. Ah, this dick showed up again. Oh, here he is. Fucking grooving. Jesus Christ. Hide the Hide the Christ. Hide the...

Hide the heroin. Hide the masseuses. Anyone in... And that. Is there any males under 25 who know how to give a massage? Run! Now! I heard there was a kids' festival.

Unless you're into that, then stay. I heard there was a kids' festival. I heard there was a festival. that then stay i heard there was a kid's festival there was a festival hey so property crime is about 40 under the national average so pretty safe there and violent crime murder rape robbery and of course assault don't forget it please the mount rushmore of crime is about one-third under the national average also so a lot of safe things going on here this is a this is small town usa here from what we've described, as you can tell. Kind of, you know, southern small town.

This car is a 57 Chevy. This is ridiculous. Yeah, it's a little rusty, but it's a 57 Chevy. Smoke comes out when you first step on the gas. And the Beach Boys are screaming through the speakers. Oh, God. 409 only. That's it.

On loop. On loop. Once in a while, they throw in that Barbara Ann. Help me Rhonda once in a while. Barbara Ann. Is that them? Yeah, that's them. That's them.

Let's talk about a murder, shall we? All right. Because we have one. Damn it. Great. That's it. We talked about that. Have a good one.

See you around. God, that'd be great. Wouldn't it? River talk with Jimmy and James. Talk about a town with a river that runs through it and we just go home. We could have talked about that festival for 45 minutes. I want to fucking be there narrating. I had so much to say that I was like, I can't do it.

We can't. There's not enough time. I want a Joe Buck and Troy. Oh, man. So do I. So bad. Let's let's talk about a man first. Let's talk about to use the term loosely.

A gentleman. Yes. There's not much of a gentleman. Let's talk about until they use the term loosely a gentleman yes there's not much of a gentleman let's talk about william joseph burns yeah okay sounds like an upstanding bill burns bill burns bill joey bill joe burns here william joseph burns now uh he's born in april of 1966 uh now he has a lot of trouble from the b. He's a troubled soul, we'll say. And he bounces around a lot. He's in Maryland for a while. And he's in West Virginia.

He's in Virginia. And this is this area where, like I said, all these states all come together. So if you move 10 miles that way, you're in West Virginia. And then you move 20 miles over there. Now you move to Maryland. And you move. So it's weird. We live out west.

And to move to another state is a giant thing. Oh, it's a thing. There, it and like to move to another state, a giant thing. Oh, it's a thing there. It's like to move to another state's not a big thing because you're only moving 20 miles here or 20 miles there. It's just a pain in the ass to change your car registration. Jersey, New York and Connecticut being the tri-state area. Yeah. Yeah.

That's right. Yeah. Yeah. You're fucking mine. We're right here. Well, we're all butted up against. I'm sure that's probably the tri-state area there or something i have no idea everybody's got their own tri-state area there's a tri-state for dealers commercial for sure for every single tri-state there is for

you know idaho montana wyoming it's a tri-state yeah whatever utah and then tennessee's all we're the oct state oh yeah jesus 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 af 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+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

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 one and watching along with part two as it airs on Max, starting April 21st.

Bye-bye. The Official Jinx Podcast. Listen on Max or wherever you get your 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.

to tell you a little bit more about Daily Harvest. DailyHarvest.com. Oh, you know it, Jimmy. They're so good. This summer, you do all the barbecuing and the eating out, and that's the thing. You go out of town, we'll go on tour, and we'll go, and you end up eating out and eat a lot of stuff. You feel like an animal. You feel like an animal, but now you want to get back to the habit of eating what's

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They are. They're so good. The bowls are amazing. And they take, like, no are. They're so good. The bowls are amazing. And they take no time. That's what's so great about it. So quick. They take no time. And you're like, this is delicious.

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smalltownmurder for 25 off your first box at dailyharvest.com that's dailyharvest.com and now back to the show william joseph burns born in in April of 1966. He's in trouble a lot. He has problems. He's just one of these guys. He's a drinker. So that's a problem right away. We've had so many people who that's a lot of their crime issues come from alcohol.

It's a catalyst for terrible behavior. It's a catalyst for terrible, especially if you're a person who doesn't control it right if you're a person that can drink and then go home and be fine and then go to work the next day and then go out on friday night and drink hey great more power to you thank you very much some people it's just all the time and he's one of these guys that gets into crime young and early and has a lot of juvenile issues. And then by 1987, he begins his really just a lot of arrests over a 10-year period. It's unwinding. And it's shit that he's just a dirtbag. He's breaking in.

Well, let's go over the list here. I have a list of his greatest hits. January of 1987. So he's only 20 years old at this point. Not even 21 years old uh he is arrested for burglary and stealing in daylight what i don't know you got to do that after dark yeah i guess broad daylight you know it's more of a like in broad in broad fucking daylight he just did that no that's extra i'm sorry horse shit you didn't even how could you think you were gonna

brazen motherfucker the balls on you to think you were gonna... Brazen motherfucker. The balls on you to think you were gonna get away with that in broad daylight. No. No. That's extra. Charge him with an extra. Write that down. It's extra.

That's what time of day? Broad daylight. Noon? Shit, no. So that's extra. That's amazing. And also felony theft he's charged with. So right away, that's a felony. A fresh felony at 20. That's not wonderful. That's amazing. And also felony theft he's charged with. So right away, that's a felony.

A fresh felony at 20. That's not wonderful. That's January 87. So maybe he's learned his lesson. Let's find out. The whole year of 87 goes by. Things are fine until December of 87 when he's arrested again. This is worse than stealing in daylight.

This is more brazen. Misdemeanor battery, which is okay. That happens. Who knows what the circumstances were. But also a third-degree sexual offense. I don't know what that is. It's hard to find any information on a crime. A misdemeanor or something from 1987 in Virginia.

But yeah. The first one was battery? Is that what you said? Misdemeanor Battery. So I don't know if he groped somebody, grabbed somebody. That's usually... It had a sexual connotation to it.

Yeah, a sexual offense. I don't know if he whipped his cock out and smacked somebody with it or grabbed somebody's ass. We don't know what he did. But it's a sexual offense and he's arrested for it. Anyway, so March 31st, 1990,

so that's three years go by, he is arrested for battery anyway so march 31st 1990 so that's three years go by he is arrested for battery and resisting arrest okay so again you know it's it's now we're getting a little bit of violence in here at least battery july 4th 4th of july look at this i understand celebrating you got to celebrate the the independence of your country with crime that's what you do you break and enter a storefront on the fourth of july that's what he gets celebrate celebrate your freedom by giving it up by getting celebrate your freedom by what's more of an act of freedom than breaking into some place and stealing shit that's not yours that's freedom now that's freedom what's more free than that what's the root word of freedom sir it's more free than that? What's the root word of freedom, sir? It's free.

Free. This shit's free. All free. Right. Yeah, I broke the window, but shit was free after that. Nobody asked me to pay for it. So my idea, that's free. So breaking and entering on a storefront.

So that's a pretty brazen. To break into an actual place of business and steal, that's a definite. On the 4th of July. On the 4th of July. The fireworks are going. They'll never hear the window breaking. of like a an actual place of business and steel that's an actual that's that's a definite july on the fourth july so weird the fireworks are going they'll never hear the window breaking that's what i feel like it was it's one of those things like uh the godfather 2 all right gotta shoot him all the fireworks are going on november 1st 1991 he's arrested for battery some more battery april 29th 1992 he's really consistent i'll give him that that's one thing yes every year or so he checks in yeah some of these guys they go off the reservation for a couple years disappear i don't

know where they are do a great life and then like i can't take a job for a while this guy's like no no i'm gonna check in with the with the police force piece of shit i'm gonna stay it is he still the captain i'll tell you what take me in yeah'm going to put my arms behind my back and we'll talk about it. So April 29th, 1992, he is arrested for breaking and entering on a storefront again, destroying property valued at $300 or less. That is two counts of that and disorderly conduct in a public place. I don't know if all of those go together or what, or if he, at different points in the night, just was disorderly by breaking things valued at $300 or less and then broke into a store.

Or if he broke into the store, stole shit valued at $300 or less and then broke it in a disorderly way. I'm not positive. Damn it. Fuck. So I really love to understand what happens, as you know from that joke I have.

The whole thing's got to come tying together. It does. Or does or else you're frustrated oh it drives me nuts when i see those charges an all-day event did he just do shit all day was this all at once that's a lot to do at once and it really is so uh uh may 8th 1992 so this is you know a week and a half later not even he's arrested for destroying property valued at $300 or less. So then a few months later, September 7th, 1992, he's arrested for battery. And then September 21st, 1992, he's really picking up the pace here.

I feel like his drinking is escalating or something. He's arrested for battery and disorderly conduct in a public place. Okay, he is a destructive drunk. He gets drunk and hits things and breaks things and has dumb ideas he's like i'm gonna go break in there and take something this is an early 20s man who was just angry as fuck angry out of control and whatever so that's

september 21st october 1992 he is charged with reckless endangerment and assault and that's a different thing than battery yeah so now we're talking about jail time shit like that so uh he is uh eventually found not guilty of reckless endangerment on this one but he is found guilty of assault later on okay and i think he ends up going to jail for this as well as we'll talk about november 22nd 1992 which is probably when he would be out on bail i I would think, something like that. He's arrested for breaking and entering on a storefront twice. Two counts of that. My God!

And break in with intent to commit a felony at this point. Okay. So you tie that in with the fact that you just got arrested for assault. Just a little bit ago. And then you're putting all this in together, you're going to end up with jail time if you're a shithead like him with a long record of escalating records of battery breaking,

battery breaking, and then he's escalated to this point, intent to commit a felony and assault. So now he's shitty. Now he's done here. So I would think he's probably going to be in jail for a while and I think that because you don't hear from him again in the police reports from 1992 to 1997.

Five years. So it's late 1992, early 1997. Okay, so four and a half. Yeah, so three, four and a half. It's very rare that a guy that does all of that just cleans it up. That, to me, feels like jail for a couple years, parole for another year and a half or something, or probation. That's what that feels like to me. So he kind of kept a little bit clean, probably, I'm sure,

cut his drinking down, probably in jail, came out. They probably made him do alcohol programs or something. And he, you know, re re immersed himself in a society. And then that never sticks. Never. It's sometimes. I mean, but it's once in a while. I think never is an appropriate word.

I mean, I know lots of people who have been in bad shape and kicked out of that shit. And lots. A lot. Yeah. I know a lot of people who have been in bad shape and kicked out of that shit. Lots? A lot. Yeah, I know a lot of people who fucking are disasters. I know a lot that are disasters. We're in fucking showbiz, Jimmy. We've known, how many comedians have you known who have literally been half dead and now they're fine?

I don't know that they're fine. They're alive and not doing the same shit they're doing before. I mean, good God. They're doing other things things supplementing for that you know what i mean true but it's gonna break yeah that's gonna change because that shit's boring i have known those people but all they always you know people are gonna give a shit for that but there's a there's greg fitzsimmons who had he just was like horrible problems yeah he was a violent he said he was a violent he's a terrible person he's a terrible alcohol don't say

he was a terrible now he's a great guy no that's what i mean drinking yes he's a terrible person he's a terrible alcohol don't say he was a terrible now he's a great guy no no that's what i mean drinking yes he's a and coking so totally nice man yeah he wrote a book about it so i'm not saying he's the type of guy where he just said i'm not doing this anymore and just didn't do it and hasn't done shit in 25 years and he's fine yeah we'll eat a weed cookie i'll tell you that i'm sure he will trust me because i gave him one and then he forgot his set i opened for him you sabotaged greg fitzsimmons no he had he forgot to set and it was hilarious. I opened for him. You sabotaged Greg Fitzsimmons. No, I was talking about it

and he was like, oh, hey, cookies, that sounds good and so the next day I just brought him one and I was like,

brought you a cookie and then, so he ate it before the show for some reason. Ah, it looks delicious. He thought it would go, he thought it would go away

and then he said, oh, dad, I'm on vacation. It didn't kick in until he said, I'm on stage and I'm up there

for about 10 minutes and I didn't remember a goddamn thing I had to say. My mouth was dry. It didn't kick in until he said, I'm on stage and I'm up there for about 10 minutes. And I didn't remember a goddamn thing I had to say. My mouth was dry. I didn't know where I was. And I'm contractually obligated to be up here for an hour. He got off and he goes, did any of that make sense? That's what he asked me. I go, what do you mean?

He goes, that cookie kicked in hard, real hard. I only ate half of it, but it really. Sorry to blow up Greg Fitzsimmons' spot, but what a nice man and uh david tell horrible alcoholic terrible things in his life and he's great and it happens i mean people do and then i know people in regular life who've done it too and they sometimes it's through a program sometimes it's on their own they every study they do basically anything you could do has about a five percent chance of working okay literally that makes sense about five percent of the people that i know that have had problems are doing okay well whatever program like if you do na or alcoholics anonymous when they do when they

don't keep records but when they actually did like a study on it a formal study there's about five percent is their effectiveness rate so that's what the court's mandating people to go do something that's five percent effective. 95% failure. Ridiculous. It has the same exact, exact, exact rate of success as doing nothing. As literally on your own. Now, people will go, hey, my uncle went, and I understand. Some people it works great for, and it fits them.

But whatever thing makes you stop is what you do with substances. It's because you're chemical, and you're chemical, right? Everybody's different. We're all individuals. Well, there is're chemical, and you're chemical, right. Everybody's different. We're all individuals. Well, there is no standard, this is how you quit this, and then you're fine. It doesn't work like that for every person is what I'm getting at here. So who knows? It has nothing to do with any of this, and I'm sure I just pissed people off for no reason. And we just took a long way to go to make a bunch of people mad.

Yeah, so that's what we do here, everybody. Sing along, meand me and walk to piss off everybody but you know it's true though and i'm trying to figure because i think this guy is one of these guys yeah i think he's one of these guys that has a problem from an early age and i think he he tries to start and stop with it and he probably i gotta get my shit together and he gets a job and probably has a job for three months and holds it together and then he goes off the reservation again and he's you know breaking and entering in broad daylight right one of those deals so november 22nd 1990 uh that was the one we did already so then april 17th 1997 okay so you

know a few years later he's arrested for second degree assault and disorderly in a public place okay that sounds like our guy again that's william joseph burns that we know right back to that we've come to know and admire here so uh well it brings us all the way up to september 20th 1998 so this is uh their whole this is give you the kind of a an overview here on september 20th 1998 he is drinking like a like a monster at at his trailer in Baker, West Virginia. Yeah. So right away, life is not going well. He's getting hammered as shit during the daytime hours, by the way. Yeah.

It was like two in the afternoon. He is broad daylight. Broad daylight. Yeah. He's hammered in his trailer at Baker, West Virginia. So right away, life is not wonderful. He lives there with his wife, who, this is his wife's name, Penny Marlene Cooley Burns. Oh, Penny.

Penny Marlene Cooley Burns. I don't know. Jesus. Wow. Burns is his last name. Burns is his. She hyphenated it. Penny Marlene Cooley.

Yeah. That's who he married. I like that Penny Marlene is very, very, very strong, proud woman. I'm going to hyphenate this one. Yeah. Cooley Burns. Penny Marlene Cooley Burns. You ain't doing none of this without me.

I need to keep the Cooley in there. Very proud of my Cooley roots. Yeah. So he's there. He lives with old Cooley Burns. Penny Marlene Cooley. And she has two sons. They're not his kids, but they live there as well.

The Cooley. The Cooley family. The Cooleys and the Burnses. The Cooley boys. The Cooley boys the boys this is conrad cooley and cooter cooley of course it's cooter cooter curly cooley so uh they live here all in this trailer in baker west virginia right away this sounds terrible yeah fucking not good this just does not sound good it's uh it feels sticky yeah i feel it's too humid in there i just know it's humid in there i feel it living in a trailer with your

wife and somebody else's kids they don't have good air conditioning i know it it's just not great and he's drinking in the afternoon hard oh life is good jimmy life is great this is a nice day so a good day jesus apparently uh he was trying to make some home repairs around the trailer. And apparently, he's not good at it. Or he's hammered. You know what I find? If you're really drunk, you're not as good at things you normally are good at. Especially not rivets.

Yeah. It's pretty... You know how they really... Driving? You can say that? People drive every day. They drive great. Give them 10 beers.

They don't drive so well anymore. It's weird. They make laws about it and everything. It's super crazy. I feel like it's the same for home construction. Tend to need a much wider lane. Yeah, that's all. Now, if they had drunk, there's big theories about that.

A drunk lane with bumpers on it. So apparently here, he's pissed off about this he's messing up home repairs and he's becoming over the course of the day angrier and angrier with penny because he's bad at home it's her fault it's her fault yeah every time he messes something up he starts yelling at her for something i was only taking my last name alone i could fix this fucking toilet it's because your goddamn kids keep pissing all over the toilet seat. That's why. A takooter, you son of a bitch.

I've told you so many fucking times not to piss on that dang toilet. Boy, if I could catch you. Your eight-year-old shit's like an adult. His toilet's so backed up. He leaves the damn skid marks like he dropped it from a goddamn airplane. Gotta be kidding me. All in the toilet. Big old skid mark on there.

You can flush it five, six times. It just scrapes off little layers, but you can still see it. What's he eating? God damn it, boy. This whole is plastic. What are you feeding that boy? Porcelain. What the hell do you think this is buckingham palace

jesus stop letting him eat that pioneer breakfast don't let him do it jesus we think this is buckingbird palace he wouldn't get it right what's wrong with me there's no way he knows ham no oh thank you at disneyland boy so uh he apparently just becoming ragefully at this poor woman who's done nothing wrong so literally she's done nothing wrong no she has nothing to do with the home repairs he's poor at what he's trying to do when he's angry at her for it so apparently uh he has assaulted her several times in the past yeah this is a normal thing if he's doing all this assaulting on the outside imagine when he's doing at home behind closed doors think about that all these public place batteries right he's doing what's happening when he's drinking at home and there's no cops or anybody to keep him in line

so he's abused his wife on several occasions so she says uh i think i've seen this this play before and uh i'm gonna get the fuck out of here because uh i'm gonna take off right now because he's just gonna be pissing off more and more and drink more and more by the end of the night he's gonna beat me up so have a good one smart she leaves uh she's concerned with her safety obviously packs up conrad and cooter she packs up connie and cooter in she packs up connie and cooter in the car and connie and cooter in the el camino and they take off so uh she had left him once before when she was drinking uh at another time uh she's left him before uh so this is like her new she's discovered this is the best thing to do right when he's drinking and he's getting angry i get out of here

there's a final time sometimes well that's the. The best thing to do is not to be with this guy. If you've got to leave once, maybe the best move is not to come the fuck back. We've talked a lot about this cycle of feeling trapped. It's horrible. It's a terrible, horrible thing. And I think she's trapped in this cycle, especially because, obviously,

I don't think they have a lot of money. If he is angry at his inability to repair his trailer properly drinking in the afternoon and he's yeah i don't know september 20th what day of the week this is yeah there's a five out of seven chance that it's a fucking weekday uh yeah it probably is as a matter of fact so that's what i mean she i feel bad for penny because obviously i mean she's obviously had another relationship with her two boys. And we don't know what the resolution is. Dissolved.

But now this is a terrible situation, especially with your kids and everything like that. So she does leave the residence. She had left once before, but unfortunately, she went back. The first time she left, she went to her mother's house, which is in Edinburgh, Virginia. And she stayed there for a few days and then came home i'll go here let him cool off and come home which is you know obviously he'll never drink again clearly i'm sure he's fine now uh so he she leaves her home here on the 20th and uh she doesn't go to her mother's house this time though no on september 20th this time she changes her mind and she takes a uh she takes a different

route completely different uh and she ends up going to her friend's house yeah instead what's his name no no it's a couple it's a couple uh she's going for solace and refuge not for not for whatever uh she just wants away from him and somewhere safe i can just see the the the unfolding of this story. Oh, with the, yeah, no, no, not that. When she pops over to another dude's house. Yeah, no, no, no. When she's fighting with him.

When he's drunk and angry. That ain't going to help. It's not going to go well, probably, when he. But a couple's house, that's a smart move, too. Yeah, she goes there for safety and protection and, you know, and probably just, she needs to, I'm sure, unload a little bit of this whole thing. She goes to her friends to be friends. People don't understand.

Yeah. It's Amanda and Leonard Funkhauser, which is like... They're the cool people. Funkhauser, like on Curb Your Enthusiasm, which makes me so happy to hear that. It's so round and town over at their house. Oh, yeah. They have the most fun. Lenny Funkhauser has this huge karaoke machine, and it's got all the tracks loaded.

It's one of those kind of houses. Yeah. They're having a ball. Blender drinks all the time. Yeah It's one of those kind of houses. Yeah, they're having a ball. Blender drinks all the time. Get over here and sing Love Shack with me. They have a movie theater popcorn machine. It's great. Then you sing Love Shack.

It's fantastic. Now, on the way over to their house, Penny stops. I don't know why she stops so many times but she stops uh multiple different times to call her mother um i don't know if she couldn't get a hold of her mother and then she had to keep trying or what it was but she wanted to get a hold of her mother to tell her mother where she was going okay uh because she didn't want her mother to be concerned right because i think this guy i think everyone's a little afraid of him i am and i yeah that's what mean. And I think if the mother called there and Penny's not there, I think maybe the mother would have gotten scared a little bit.

So she says that she tells her mother that she left him. She left old Bill Burns here, and she's going to be staying over with the Funkhausers. And so if you need me, I'll be over there. I'm safe. Don't worry about me. Also, let her know if will you if burns comes to your house don't fucking let him in billy b shows up he's pissed off he's drunk and don't

let him in because he's just going to be trouble for you and broad daylight don't open the door you know how he is about broad daylight he's just sitting there waiting for the sun to come up like a like a reverse vampire or werewolf sitting there just like come on there it is he can't wait drool coming there it is starts growing a beard pops a beard to celebrate goes out on the prowl so uh but penny is never able to reach her mother uh at all and so she calls several times can't get a hold of her mother and then even after she arrives at the funk house's house she calls her mother again and she still can't get a hold of her mother she's like god damn it she hadn't talked to her mother in a

couple days so she didn't know what her mother's plans were yeah but she just was pissed off that she couldn't tell her mother where she was she wanted to let her know i think she also wanted to be like i did it i left type of thing that's what i'm the kind of gleaning from this like celebratory phone call no i don't know if what I'm kind of gleaning from this. Celebratory phone call. I don't know if celebratory, but kind of like, I'm sure the mother would be relieved. Yeah, be proud of her. Yeah, you're gone, you're going to your friend's house, good, make her, she'll probably sleep better that night, knowing that she's at the Funkhouser's house.

How bad do you want to just call it the Funkhouse? Funkhouse, baby. Heading on over to the Funky House. We're going to play Funky Town, we're going to sing funky town we're gonna sing it karaoke rocket our place of earth wind and fire right now do you remember hey we're gonna funk it up tonight funky baby funky at the funk houses so around midnight of this night now penny still not been able to reach her mother nothing like that.

Around midnight, Burns shows up at the Funkhouser's house. Really? Yeah. Can you imagine this scene? Showing up drunk and screaming in the front yard. He's bringing the trailer to the neighborhood over here, to the Funkhouse. She's in there singing Picture with Mr. Lenny. Yeah.

He knocks on the door and apparently he is semi together yeah enough you know he's not raging and raving and throwing things and acting like a maniac on the front lawn he comes up around midnight who knows if he's sobered up by now or whatever uh comes up and says uh uh you know i'd like to talk to penny and they all kind of stay by everybody's kind of like whatever and he asked penny to come home with him and he's trying to be nice and all this and she says no i'm not fucking going home with you it's going to happen again and again and again and again and i'm done have a good one asshole and that's that she closes the door she goes back inside good for you penny god damn it sweet good job so burns stands out there for a minute and what are you

going to do after a while you can either kick the door down and drag her away by the hair which is probably not a smart move no or you can leave those are your options so he leaves okay which good job on your part as well that's the correct move whatever you've done in the past terrible and all i'm glad you're you're making a better decision this time not to try to kick the door down or set the house on fire and this is where some of our stories would turn and he went to the gas station and got a bunch of up a gas can filled up a gas can and came back and lit the house on fire from the outside killing five small children that would be sitting there with a gun waiting for people to come out come out i'll fucking dare you sitting

sitting in his car just sitting out the driver's side window with the rifle aimed at him waiting to pick him off as they come while an old person who lives nearby jots down his license plate number to catch him that's our normal show so jesus christ so he leaves and then he comes back an hour later okay not that would be a red flag yeah you came at midnight right and i said no now it's 1 a.m. Night's over. Right. I know how you operate. You're all about broad daylight.

This is. It's the next day now. It's out of character now. This is getting weird. He remains out. He comes back and they won't let him in this time. She says, go away. I already said I'm not coming home.

Get the fuck out of here. Right. So he says, OK, but he doesn't go home. He instead just stays in his car in the driveway in the driveway from one o'clock in the morning till sunrise for the remainder he's waiting for the morning yeah he needs daylight he can't kick the door in until he's got the strength he doesn't break and enter until broad daylight he's solar you know he's a solar operated he's a solar operator that's how it works he. He's fueled by alcohol and solar power.

He's got to have both, I feel like. It's one of those things. He's very green. It's like when you have to mix in a dirt bike or whatever. Whatever it is, you have to mix the fuel. It's the oil and fuel. Yeah, that's what it is with him. I feel like it's the same thing.

He's a two-stroke. Yeah. And then he goes out and he has photosynthesis. The alcohol helps the photosynthesis. Good Lord. That's solar power. So, Jesus Christ. Solar power criminal.

This is amazing. We've never had a solar power criminal before. This is pretty impressive. Who could tell? So, he sleeps in the car. Or, I hope he sleeps in the car. I hope he didn't just sit there awake staring at the house because that's sitting on the hood just drinking a 30 pack just just rubbing his crotch not to have his dick out no just rubbing over his pants

just staring at it angrily rubbing over his pants he's got a nut on either side of the seam just rubbing down the center that's right it's more of a self-soothing thing you know like a kid sucks his thumb than it is anything else it's not sexual that's the thing you gotta understand it's like being patted on the back by your mom it's a kid it's soothing very soothing so yeah he's out there now the funk houses they go to leave for work the next morning like normal people and they go to leave and they see this guy is outside their house still and they didn't want to leave penny alone in suckers they think that's what he was waiting for he's probably waiting for us to leave and then he can go sweet talker or and or threaten her and she'll end up back at the house by two o'clock this

afternoon and that's that so there you go we don't want to leave her alone for fear of her safety so uh leonard funk hauser takes Penny to work with him. So now he's got a tag along. He's got a ward. Yeah, that's what I mean. Hi, how you doing? Yeah, how you doing? How was your weekend?

No, no, she's a battered woman. I just take her with me. A battered wife that I, yeah. Not my wife. God, no. I haven't touched my wife. She's great. Amanda's at home.

She's doing fine. She's got a solar powered assailant. She lives in a trailer. It's really awful. He can't repair anything and he can only do crimes during the day it's a long story so look i did we didn't bring cooter with us though who's cooter never mind okay conrad shit christ i have no idea penny grab a chair go to my cubicle so that penny file this shit file something please this is uncomfortable so they're doing this here they. He takes her to work with him.

Jesus Christ. So then he says, Leonard says that Penny ends up at his suggestion. Penny goes on a commercial truck run to Ohio and Pennsylvania with a friend of Leonard's. This is weird. I don't understand. I guess her kids are going to stay there. Leonard says, look, tell you what,

this guy's acting crazy. Yeah. You've got a lot on your plate, a lot on your mind. He won't leave you alone. My guy here, creepy friend that drives a truck. He's going to be dry.

Yeah. You do some long haul. That'll make you feel better. Do some long haul. Weird. Yeah. You can stop at one of those big shitty truck stops. No,

you'll take a shower in there. Ever wanted to take a shower at the gas station. Well, you can stop at one of those big shitty truck stops. No, you'll take a shower in there. Ever wanted to take a shower at the gas station? Well, now you can. Now you can. You ever seen a shower stall in a giant? Oh, it's absolutely lovely. I'll tell you what. Fantastic. And you see people coming out of those and you're traveling.

God, how could you? You see them coming out and you go, did you shower? Did you get nude? You don't even appear to be. Wait, you got nude at the gas station? You're going to have to do it again, sir. You are still dirty. Yeah, I got to hose you down when you get outside.

Super weird. But I guess to go from Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, it's probably a few day trip. So this is probably three, four days. And he probably said, this will get you out of town for three, four days. That guy's going up there anyway. Just take a ride. clear your head you can think and you know he also it's all a light-hearted 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****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.

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. This guy won't be able to find you while you're driving through Ohio, which is smart.

It's kind of like she's going into the drunkard protection program. i guess they would i mean she would be the drunkard so she's on a battered woman protection program she's going into a pretty sweet program it's i they should have those see some sites they should fucking have those honestly it's a tour why don't they have that a battered woman protection agency no battered woman like a they have a witness protection program where they can change your name put you somewhere else they should do is change the name change your name put you somewhere else under a thing get you a job get you a whole deal well i mean just set up the whole set up your whole life right yeah if it's somebody who has skills anyway i don't understand if they're let's say you have a job doing you're a manager because prisons make money i guess yeah

yeah i guess so but it's fucking horrible yeah for prisons though you gotta have victims can we have a battered woman relocation it'd be nice i would like that it'd be real nice kind of sucks that they have to leave right but just in case if it's a situation like this maybe we should just get a shithead relocation program maybe a shithead relocation program problem is though we have one of those they have jails to relocate them to but if they haven't done anything enough then they're not shitheads and then that's the problem but we know he's a shithead that's the thing can we have perceived possible we know you're a shithead relocation program how do you do that every time you fuck up we put you somewhere new shithead island yeah that's where it is that i i love that idea i love shithead island so uh you know what you know where put it? It doesn't have to be an island. No.

Do Omaha. They're not using it. Just put them there. They're not using it at all. You know, you take all the shitheads, and then you take dogs. You don't have to put dogs down that have bit people. You just put them with the shitheads. Yeah, there you go. It's the shitheads and the shithead dogs and the shithead animals that have attacked people.

And then when they... Just put them in there. Oh, and then when the dogs get old and lose their bodily functions these guys have to clean up shit for their whole life there we go now that's gonna be something now you got a job that's something okay hey everybody just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you a little bit more about rothys rothys.com rothy's.com the amazing comfortable wonderful shoes it's no surprise that rothy's has over 1 000 nearly perfect reviews they're stylish sustainable comfortable washable really the perfect flats for life on the go jimmy yeah and we don't know

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It's really sad to look at. Oh, he's and he's 15. He can barely even he just drags his lower half. It's so sad. Do you want to cry every time you look at it? Oh, he can't hold his bladder at all. He just leaves a trail of piss behind him as he drags that makes you cry fucker you hit a woman why are you sorry stop crying stop hitting people especially women so he ends up going she ends up going i mean penny's going on the road trip there now uh uh she's there on the road trip for a few days kind of uh out of commission so that's good penny's safe at

this very moment now uh september 21st the next day uh penny's sister linda uh she uh ends up going over to her mom's house in edinburgh uh about noon on the 21st so this is the next day uh linda arrives there and uh uh the uh her mother's theresa and she arrives there and her mother's Teresa. And she arrives there and notices that the screen on the kitchen door is pushed in. And so she's like, that's weird. And then she sees that a window pane in the kitchen door has been broken. It's probably one of those doors that has the... Yeah, several of them. Yeah, we can just break a little pane.

When the Freddy's hand came through and sucked somebody in. Exactly. Yeah. There you go. One of those. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. One of those. So one of those has been broken. So Linda enters the house because she doesn't know what's going on here. She yells for her mom, but she doesn't hear an answer.

So she walks into the house and walks all around, walks into her mother's bedroom and discovers her mother dead on the floor. She is wearing only a bra. Her face is partially covered by a mattress that had been pulled from the bed, like a mattress got pulled from the bed kind of on top of her head, sort of, there. Her lower dentures were lying on the floor about four feet away from her, and there was a washcloth on the floor like under her underneath her leg i know things like that uh the bedroom was incomplete just it's a mess it's a

mess tatters disarray there's clothes everywhere there's bed sheets all over the place comforter and all that kind of shit because then the mattress is pulled over so it's a it's a mess and her and her mom is dead so obviously she calls 9-1-1 so she went and got lunch yeah i thought about it a little while so it's a real weird thing i just saw that's so strange i guess i should call someone i don't know should i go to the movies i mean she'll still be dead when it's over i have to bury her what is the protocol for this oh man i'm gonna have to do a lot of stuff do something maybe i'll just wait i'll pretend i didn't find her and i'll wait till someone else finds somebody oh no and then it's

their responsibility to clean it up so uh she calls the cops obviously this has to be a horrible thing i can't even imagine finding your mother like that and especially in christ no especially in that state yeah of of you know i don't want to find my mom dead of a heart attack. That's what I mean. But in this state, it's obviously not a natural state. No, the humiliation. That's the other thing. The Assistant Chief Medical Examiner for Northern Virginia District Medical Examiner's Office.

Christ, that's a long title. Our business card has to be just a sheet of legal pad paper. Hi, I'm Francis Patricia Field, Assistant Chief Medical Examiner for the Northern District Medical Examiner's Office. Now roll up my business card. just a sheet of legal pad paper hi i'm francis patricia field assistant chief medical examiner for the northern district medical examiner's office now roll up my business card here you go and takes a paper airplane out of it and throws it at you they perform an autopsy and they they find that penny's mom here had multiple injuries about the head including abrasions and bruises on the right forehead. So that's to being punched.

That's pretty standard with that or falling, hitting your head, being pushed beside the right eyebrow on the white part of the eyeball on the right and left jaw lines on the neck and the right cheek, chin and mouth. She also had large bruises on her upper chest and lower neck. Basically from her mid chest up is a giant bruise. Somebody's just punching, punching, kicking, stomping. Yeah,

just absolutely ragefully. Yeah, this is insane. This is crazy shit here. Her upper lips were bruised. Her inner lips, I'm sorry, were bruised.

So like there was a lot of shots to the face. Also, the doctor said that the injuries to her gums and lips were consistent with her dentures having been in place at the time of the assault. Oh, Jesus. So, they think that a blow knocked the dentures out of her mouth four feet. It's like a boxer's mouthpiece, basically, which is horrible and had to really... That shit's glued in that's what i mean that's you guys that takes force to knock a shoot them out of somebody's mouth like that also she sustained 24 fractured ribs 24 fractures in her ribs wow 20 i don't think

you even have 24 ribs you might but you do you do but 24 fractures to her ribs so this this it's like she got took a beating it's like she got run over by a car 12 times basically what it is in her bedroom while she had no clothes on right uh the the doctor here determined that the cause of death was blunt force trauma to her chest with a rupture of the heart oh god so it was so forcefully stomping on the chest that it ruptured her heart heart tore think about that oh good lord think about that think about fucking beating beatings you've seen people fall people get they never you never hear i never heard of mike tyson rupture on somebody that's what i mean you know this is crazy to to just to be that violent on someone that it ruptures their heart is insane granted

mike tyson wasn't fighting elderly people luckily but he wasn't fighting elderly women i'll bet he could though i'll bet he wasn't fighting a 71 year old woman because that's how old this woman is i imagine it doesn't take much to rupture a 71 year old i don't know i think it does still fuck yeah that's it's still your whole skeletal structure i I mean, it's fragile. She only had four. But I mean, she only had 24 fractured ribs, though. She didn't like her whole sternum wasn't broken in half. That's a good point. You know what I mean? The compression of it had to be

intense. I hate that I want to know. I know. That's the thing. It's awful. I hate that I have to think about that to know. That's the other thing here. Jesus Christ. And compression of the neck as well. Like strangling? strangling contributing cause of death like hitting and breaking and punching and uh yeah uh and and stomping and that sort of thing there's also a uh uh a tearing inside the the heart there that's what this was the rupture

causing blood to spill out of the heart into the chest cavity so she basically drowned in her own blood in her in her heart she remember she is a tough woman in the first place to take that yeah who could be so mean to her that's fucking horrible they they thought that uh they think that a broken rib probably punctured the heart from all this the compression of it though driven into it is usually broken ribs, punctured lungs, not the heart. That's that's so much force. They said, although direct force applied to the chest in a way that would leave such distinct bruising like this could have also ruptured. So he could have just been literal force to the chest or she or. Yeah, that's I mean, I'm doubting this physical attack is unless it's, you know, a barbell.

Yeah. Unless it's Sally McNeil from Crime and Sports, you know, could bench press 400 pounds. I don't know. Mandy Malone could do this. Mandy Malone could do this. She wouldn't. That's the thing. She's a nice she's a nice lady.

So they said bleeding is rapid when the heart's ruptured, obviously. So they said the death probably occurred within two or three minutes of the heart being ruptured. So that's a beating to sustain and then drowning in your own blood for two to three minutes. So, wow, that is horrible. So let's find out where Burns has been. Maybe. Let's do that. On September 20th here, this is the day this all happened. Before he went, because remember, he shows up at the Funkhousers at midnight.

Between 10.30 and 11 p.m., he went to his friend's house. He went to a woman named Hazel Buckley's house. Why is he at a woman's house? While he was there, he told her he wasn't hitting on her. He gets there, and he told her that he, quote, had done something really bad. This is at 10.30 at night on the 20th uh so he said that uh he said he would uh he told this person that i'm gonna need to account for my whereabouts uh i need to say where i was i need an alibi from about 7 30 tonight to about midnight

i'm gonna need an alibi so i was here cool are we good with that i'm here i'm here from 10 30 to 11 but as far as you know i got here at 7 30 i didn't leave till midnight great cool thank you have a good one so he takes off uh buckley here once she hears about everything that's going on she contacts the police and asks to assist in any way that she can because she's not a monster right and you know uh anybody would do this at this point uh and they they videotape all of that so uh she ends up basically uh uh arranges a meeting between her and burns that they end up videotaping later on to where you know he says basically the same thing and tries to where she's like when did you say you

needed an alibi again he's like from 7 30 to midnight i was here okay cool so there's establishing videotapes yeah they the police did they set up a whole thing and had him did did a little sting a little sting operation there get him to say some shit out loud yeah uh so now back to the back to the murder scene here back to the scene of the death uh now uh linda the woman uh penny sister who found her mom's body she called 911 the police and everybody arrived like you would imagine here uh larry green is the sheriff of shenandoah county of course he is of course larry green the sheriff boy i picked jackie gleason and smoking the band and is all i can think of here and he decided to set up a uh quote traffic canvassing detail to find out if any drivers had traveled through the area where where Teresa's house was between 7 p.m. and 1130 a.m. on the 20th and the 21st.

So between the night of the 20th and the morning of the 21st, the sheriff was moving a flare around the roadway on the right by the right by Penny's mother's house here. And a vehicle approaches him. right by Penny's mother's house here, and a vehicle approaches him. And the sheriff says that he was, quote, was in the center of the road walking with the flare, and of course that stopped the car, and he approached the driver's side. And it's Burns in the car then, okay?

This is that night. This is the 20th. This is the 21st, I'm sorry, that night. So Burns stops and sheriff and before the sheriff could even say, who are you? What are you doing here? Whatever. Burns asked, what's going on? That's my mother-in-law's house.

So he was like right away and everything. And so the sheriff realized that it's his mother-in-law. He asked him, well, shit, can you speak with our, we're trying to put together something. So if you know her, can you speak with our people and let's try to put something together here. So they said that they would explain what happened to the mother-in-law. He's like, that's my mother-in-law. What happened? So they're going to tell him, oh, she was killed, basically. So then he walks over to a nearby police cruiser, Burns does, and gets into the front seat.

You don't just get into the front seat of a cop car unless you're invited. You don't just pop into somebody's cop car. That's just not okay. Unless it's a ride-along. Yeah, that's really weird to just walk up to a cop car and just open the seat and pop right in while someone's sitting in there that didn't invite you.

Really weird. So it's at this point that this police officer who's in the car informs Burns about the death and all of that. And he actually gives him his Miranda's at this point that this police officer was in the car, informs Burns about the death and, uh, and all of that. And he, he actually gives him his Miranda rights at this point and says, I don't know if you're whatever. I don't know anything about it. So before I talk to you about anything, I'm, I'm going to read you your rights just to

make sure, which is smart. I don't know if you're a suspect or not. If you come out and say, oh, well, I, well, I stabbed her in the face. I didn't know if that was anything or I was just stomping on her. Something like that. You know, it needs to be Miranda. I also obviously knows that a lot of these times a huge percentage of them is somebody close to the. Absolutely. And somebody that might be inserting themselves.

I mean, obviously, a relative might come up to the house and go, hey, what's going on? Also, that also happens all the time. So Burns, though, tells this this police officer that he has not been in this woman's house in the last five days or even within the last year haven't been over there so okay don't know what you mean uh he says he did drive by her house that earlier that day though he says between 1 a.m and 1 30 a.m the morning of the 21st. So that would be after when he's at the Funkhouser sleeping. That's when that is. A year that you've never been to your mother-in-law's house?

I don't know how that would be. They don't live in the same town. They live in West Virginia. She lives in Virginia. But you'd still go to your mother-in-law's house at some point, I assume here. Now, he says, though, he just turned around in the driveway and then went to the Funkhouser residence. He said, I just went there, figured she wasn't there, and then turned and then went to the funk house residence he said i just went there figured she wasn't there and then turned around and went to the funk house

that's his thing but he already knew where she was sure at the funk house she had no reason to go there so uh uh yeah so uh now he's admitted to being at the crime scene which is you know exactly what they want out of him so they're like and that's about the time they think the murder occurred so they're like hmm here uh they say why don't tell you what just so everyone feels better why don't you come down to the sheriff's department get fingerprinted yeah which there should be plenty on record he's been arrested yeah how many times but you were at the funk house's house why oh because your ex-wife who is her or your wife yeah you said but you went lady's daughter but just turned you guys were having a fight that night. Okay.

That's weird. We're going to get some fingerprints on you. How's that? We should have a chat. I mean, the sun wasn't down, so that's in your favor. The sun was down, so that's in your favor. That's in your favor, is what we're saying. You got no energy.

You got no energy, so we're not thinking you did it then. So he says okay, and he drives his own vehicle to the sheriff's department. He's fingerprinted. While he's there, they again advise he drives his own vehicle to the sheriff's department. He's fingerprinted while he's there. They again advise him of his Miranda rights. So that's twice in the last hour. He's been advised Miranda rights while he's there. He they question him a little bit. He says that he had been Burns here, says he's been he was at a gas station near near Teresa Cooley's residence at about 2 52 a.m uh so he was there and again

at about 6 35 a.m he was at this gas station there uh both on the morning of the 21st why you would go to a gas station twice four hours apart in the middle of the night that's bananas i don't know yeah uh but what he ends up doing is he says he has receipts for the items he purchased at that gas station because he keeps all the receipts because he's on probation and needs to account for everywhere he goes. So this is how he can build his timeline of where he is. He also the police also talk with him about the about a physical evidence recovery kit. And Burns agrees to go to the hospital so that samples of his hair and body fluids could be obtained for the kit yeah i don't want this guy's hair or his body fluids well nothing in this guy's body whatsoever being that job oh you poor bastard pluck i'm time to

pluck your pubes yeah nope yeah nope not me i gotta uh i gotta run this this uh i gotta run this cucumber not cucumber uh q-tip plunger. Up your dick. And after I'm done with that, I'm going to rip your pubes out. And bend over and cough. Yay. So they accompany him to the hospital. They take the samples.

Now, some time goes by here, and a few days go by. They took samples. They have no evidence or anything like that. They have samples, and they're just waiting. So they've got to let him go. They let days go by. They took samples. They have no evidence or anything like that. They have samples and they're just waiting. So they let they got to let him go. They let him go home. This is until September 26th. This goes by.

So four or five, four days now, five days. Now, Burns talks to the police officer by telephone here, and he agrees to bring the receipts that he had talked about to the sheriff's office that night around 8 p.m. He's like, oh, yeah, yeah, sure. I'll bring you those receipts that he had talked about to the sheriff's office that night around 8 p.m he's like oh yeah yeah sure i'll bring you those receipts because they're like we're really trying to make sure and you know exclude people say tell people we just need to really exclude everybody so we got to get those receipts so we can exclude you you know well it doesn't exclude you at all it puts you closer to the residents now you've been there three times he said you were there once now you've been by there three times so it's worse for him but uh so september 26th here he goes back to the

office that at 8 p.m and they give him his miranda rights again by the way you're giving this voluntarily blah blah blah they interview him again this time they talk to him for a while this is what i don't get why would you do this this time he goes you know now that i think about it i did say that i got there and i turned around and I went to the gas station twice and all that kind of thing. But I, you know, thinking back on it, I actually went in the house that night. I was actually there. Now, I'm sorry. I don't know what I was.

See, that's the thing. That's crazy. Well, it gets crazier. That's the thing. You thought it was crazy, but it's about to get much crazier because I was over there. And the problem was, I didn't want to tell you this before for penny's feelings you know what i mean i went there and by the time i got in and i did break into the house now i broke in i wanted to get in there that's a fact i went yeah nobody let me in and i'll tell you why nobody let

me in actually because when i had gotten there what had happened was i went into the house and i'll be damned if there wasn't a black guy in the house already murdered my mother-in-law standing over her body just looking at her shut the fuck up i swear to god that's what he said. This is a story? He says he went to the house, broke in, and there was a black man. Listen, you know what? I was going to go in there and beat the living shit out of her for birthing this bitch of a wife I got. And then wouldn't you know it?

Jamal did me a favor. That N-word stole my thunder. What the fuck kind of story is that? That is so much. That is like so a black. What? There was an enormous black man just pummeling her. A black man.

No, she was already dead. Oh, it was already over. He came in and he said, black man just standing over her corpse. Exactly how you found her. Bruised up on her face, all that shit that's how she was but with him standing over like job well done and so holy shit okay story what now yeah do the cops look at each other and go just that shit that's replay that tape i swear i didn't hear that right when you have somebody saying shit like that, you just let.

Really? Wow. Get out of here. Tell me more. Holy shit. I got to know more. Fascinating. You want to know more because this is crazy.

That's what I would do. I'd stare him straight in the face and go, fascinate us. Now. Not about his story that he just fucking said that. He's trying to pull us off now. Okay. Now you've told the police that you've changed your story. Yeah.

First you went there, turned around. Then you went there, turned around and went to the gas station twice. Then you went there, were actually in the house, broke into the house. But black guy beat you to it. Like this lady's just besieged by people who want to break into her house and kill her like she's just damn it that's the most amazing i don't know how she lasted 71 years think about it how'd she last this long without being all these people they're coming over the walls at her jesus christ man i've got kids that do dumb shit and then i go you can't do that and

they go but i didn't and then they tell me some bullshit story never this this is amazing he told police officers this he didn't say it to his dad now he from getting yelled at nine and go fingers crossed you think i won't bro i didn't break the lamp? This guy absolutely broke the lamp. And then he goes, ah. Eh? Imagine that pause where he's sitting there. Mm-hmm. And they're like, so you got a description of this man?

Black. Just real black. That's all I know. Exhausted from pummeling an old lady. And black and just out of breath. And he was wearing big boots. Now, what do you think he and he was wearing big boots now what do you think he said he did next though what do you think i mean he breaks in he sees that what happens then yeah what do you do what do you do what do you think what would you what let's have a prediction

did he jerk off james okay well this is what ends up happening this is what he says he says that he breaks in sees this guy standing there. He then killed the black man. He killed him. Yeah. Murdered him. There's no suspect anymore. He said, I fucking murdered him.

I took care of it. He said, I killed him. Yeah. Obviously, you break into somebody's house to kill him and he's already killed your killee. You're going to kill that son of a bitch. Obviously. I'm here for killing. Clearly.

Yeah. And it's only me and you it's so i'm gonna kill somebody it looks like it's you so yeah so he says he killed wow kills this man yep and obviously to defend his blood is nowhere in the house this man's blood by the way i was just gonna ask that nowhere in the house how'd he do it he bloodlessly and efficiently like a stealth ninja assassin killed this man that's the thing he's he do it he bloodlessly and efficiently like a stealth ninja assassin killed this man that's the thing he's he said i didn't want to tell y'all about my assassin past i didn't want to tell y'all but i am a ninja i am in fact a ninja i went behind him

when he didn't see me and i did one of those quick neck break things. And I went, pa-pang, and his neck snapped and broke. I showed up, saw him standing over her. I threw the smoke bomb. Oh, that's what I did. I did a roll across the floor, and then I cut his head off with a samurai sword, bloodlessly. That's the art of being a ninja. You can cut that, and no blood comes out. When you're real fast, the body internalizes the blood that's how it is that's how you know you're a ninja that's how you know finally do it when you could give you your ninja

that's how it went and a couple of them star thingies you throw so he says that not only did he kill this man yeah which he did he killed this man but then he disposed of the body as well he then left left his mother-in-law there didn't call the cops or anything to say my mother-in-law but left her there took this man away and disposed of the body why why why did he dispose of the body not to save himself from possible prosecution because obviously it gets way crazier oh it gets are you kidding me why did he do it wow it gets way jimmy buckle the fuck up because this is funny for a minute and then it's going to be not so funny i'll tell you when it's not so funny so he says He says that he did this because he felt bad and didn't want his wife to know that her mother was raped and murdered by a black man. Because that would kill her.

Oh, it would destroy her. That would kill her. Not the rape and the murder? No. Right. But that she was raped and murdered by a black man. Oh, wait a minute. Okay.

Police officers got to ask right now how'd you know she was raped okay well yeah that's the thing yeah well he was standing over i mean he obviously had a sex craze pantsless sex crazed look in his jungle eyes you know how it goes with those black men who kill white women and stand over their bodies and wait for you to come kill them you know how that goes it happens all the time i'm more shocked he was standing over her with his jungle lust i seen it in his eye it was mixed in with the malaria but i could see it what the fuck is wrong with this asshole no he was she was right his dick was out i think this is the most racist thing anybody's ever ever done here uh yeah so then he said that uh he didn't want her to know

that so okay buckle up this is going to be this is a little a little explicit for a minute here but it's so ridiculous and explicit at the same time i don't even know what emotion to feel about it uh he says that in order to make his cover up more you know feasible and not and keep his wife from this terrible knowledge that a black man had done these horrible defilings to his mother, to her mother. He said in order to do this, he cleaned the woman's vaginal area with soap and water, masturbated. Okay. Hold on.

Yeah. Okay. That's what I mean. I don't. He had a makeshift douche and then go on. And then masturbated yeah and then took his finger and no inserted it into her wow and then smeared it all over the bed what the fuck is he talking about that's what he said that police police department silence even like the first floor typewriters are like y'all hear

that shit i i don't know but then they said well that's interesting but uh what about the semen we found in the other cabin oh no and he said i didn't touch her anus that's what he said i didn't put it in her anus that must have been just somebody else came before the black guy probably that's all i can imagine maybe i put too much in it drizzled um yeah so at this point they're all going tell us more yeah so you killed him so this is his story is the black man was there i killed the black man took him out disposed of him i can't take you to his body right now though because i don't know where it is right that was they said well where's his body that would have been and he was like i don't know i you know i took him i just dumped him it was dark you know how i am about the sunlight i need the lat to really operate i was really running down

on power you know that goes so uh yes after all this killing and everything so he did that killed this guy disposed of him said oh my god the dishonor in this her my poor wife is can't know that his mother her mother had this done to her by a black man i got it this is horrible it'll be better if she thinks it's me that did it so let me let me clean her up masturbate and then insert my own jizz into her that is horrific i don't even know how to so and then they were like so so what do you and so he's supposed to like send him go. So no charges. He said, so I'll be seeing y'all.

Those receipts are good because he came in and talked with receipts. Right. That was the point. Those receipts all y'all need now. All right. Y'all have a good one. Grab his keys. What?

I'm a superhero, y'all. Yeah. So at this point, they're asking him more questions of this in the realm of he's starting to think they don't believe him. Right. Weirdly enough. Yeah. How could you not believe him?

So. I've never heard a more what the fuck defense in my life. This is the most. This is the craziest. I've never heard a crazier. How do you start there and end there? That's what I mean. None of it makes any sense.

You can't even. And then the other thing is, if you killed him and you had that's what none of it makes any sense you can't even and then the other thing is if you killed him and you had a body and said here he is right that would be one thing right he has no big i don't know where he is i just killed him dumped him and he could be anywhere there's no he just he goes you know how the black people are around here they just pop up and disappear and you know how it is y'all get it you know how it is y'all get it y'all get it so at this point he goes i don't like the tone y'all are taking are y'all y'all calling me a liar acting like i some kind of liar so i'm here i'm gonna have to i need to speak to an attorney i think at this point because y'all are asking a little too personal now he called now he calls for i'm gonna have

to talk to an attorney i don't like the personal questions you're asking me at this point after i just told you all this i told you i beat off yeah onto my mother-in-law yeah before i set up a crime scene like an artist so he says that the uh they terminate the interview obviously because he asked for an attorney they said well if you want an attorney then we won't talk anymore and he says he needs to use the bathroom. So he goes and uses the bathroom, comes back, and they said, tell you what, you're under arrest. Let's just not even worry about any more questioning. Let's just lock you up now, you fucking idiot.

Don't worry, we'll get you a lawyer. It's okay. You'll get one eventually. You're going to be in for the trial. He'll find you in jail when you're there. So he came there. He's arrested. He has nothing else to do about that.

He's just arrested. He says that the police officer told him if he wants to talk to anyone, a lawyer, if you want to talk to us, whoever you want to talk to, inform, tell the jailer that you need to fucking talk to us and the jailer will get a hold of us. We'll come on back here and talk to you. So the next day, September 27th, the policeman receives a call from the jailer saying this guy wants to talk to you more. So he does. This police officer returns to jail. Again, informs him of his rights. Every time he talks to him, he informs him of his rights.

What did you have for lunch today? Just to let you know. You have the right to remain silent and yada, yada. So, yeah, he says, you know, yes. Did you ever want to speak with me? And he said yes. And there's a tape transcript and all that. So he it's at this point after he's read his rights and there's a tape recording.

Byrne says, I got something to tell you. Oh, boy. I got something to tell you. I feel bad about something. I lied to you. I know it's going to come as a shock to y''all but there wasn't a black man in the house that night i know you know i know y'all been looking for him left and right all in the weeds and the woods and bushes like and i just want to tell you you could call the search off i didn't kill

them black man there was nobody there i made that up they're like. We were. It's been an exhaustive search for this man. So he says, here's what I did. I broke into the house by putting my hand through the screen door and then I broke the window pane by the door. Obvious there. We know. He says, but definitely she was dead when I broke in that part. I wasn't lying about. There was no black man there that I could blame it on.

But when I broke in, she was just like, you found her there. You know, he said. So he said, based on that, I figured probably Penny did this. Yeah. Yeah. Her daughter probably came over because in his mind, he said, you know, she leaves me. She usually goes to her mom's. And then she went to her mom's and her mom probably told her, what's wrong with you?

Go back to that man. Get back to your husband. Wonderful's wonderful yeah and so she then beat her to death and raped her as you do to your mom when you're a daughter her daughter beat her and raped her with my semen and she is a vicious she smeared it all over the bedspread man it's disgusting absolutely so penny did this is now his so penny did this and he said that uh he said that he knew that and he said i can't oh penny she's got kids yeah i can't let penny get in trouble for this he said so i needed to lead the police to me away from penny yeah because i just felt bad for her and everything so i said what i did is i then masturbated he's gonna stick with that part i then masturbated and i took my finger and i put it in her so it would lead to me see that's i planted evidence

see because i'm smart okay that's the problem with rape is that it leaves your fucking name all over nope no no he masturbated he's gotta leave that part of the story in it whatever someone else but him killed her and the only way to cover it up is by masturbating all over the place i'm sorry i don't even want to laugh because it's horrible it's ridiculous it's the most ridiculous how does he think anybody's this is no disrespect this is no disrespect to miss cooley because i mean this poor woman suffered horribly and honestly it's no disrespect for her but jesus christ man how the fuck are you gonna tell a police officer this is what you did come on man jesus christ what the and it's not that he's it's not even that he's telling anybody this. What's the crime to leave to me?

Because, yeah, he's got to have a story. This ain't it. This ain't it. This ain't the story. So a forensic scientist here analyzes everything and said that the presence of semen was in both vaginal and anal swabs from the victim and based on the results that it's 1.6 million

times more likely to have come from burns than any other randomly chosen Caucasian individual. So him. 100 million more times more likely that it's him than a black person. And 18 million uh more likely than him than uh that it's him than a black person 100 million and 18 million times more likely that it's his bad then it's him than a hispanic okay so it's

100 million times more likely than it's him than his that his imaginary black guy which i think is hilarious it's the farthest away so uh that's how racist he is he chose yeah that's how racist he is. He chose. Yeah, that's how racist Penny must be. Yeah. How racist much? I mean, not to be a dick, but if he if it would have broken her heart. Oh, I mean, maybe she's not really. But he said that she is like she don't like black people. So I said, you know, that's maybe he said that maybe Penny doesn't give a shit at all.

Who knows? But he's got a pain route to be a monster. Yeah, exactly. And also the sperm from the anal swab was even more accurate it is uh 500 he burns is 540 million times more likely than a black person to have done this so it's more him than a black person so it's him is what i'm saying i don't know how if i put that yeah put that right the whole deal the preponderance of it, but it's a lot. It's him.

So they also found sperm on the sheet and pillowcase recovered from there. They found all this type of thing, and they did all the physical evidence on there. The state says, why don't we go ahead and go for the death penalty on this one? Yeah. Because he's an asshole, and fuck this guy. So yeah, he's arrested. He's charged with first degree murder at first at first and then uh uh he is uh after he's indicted by the grand jury of two counts of capital murder uh then uh then there was another this is a very complicated legal thing in the

beginning that they're going to do some wrangling over how do you get two out of one victim well they do that all the time but there's yeah it's more of a matter of whether he was indicted on what charge and when he was indicted because apparently on capital murder you have to be indicted there has to be a formal indictment but on first degree murder there's a little more murky in terms of how they do the legal shit of it so this is all very very legal and probably very uh very specific to virginia as well because every state is different so uh yeah it's a matter of uh uh he says that the commonwealth's failure to uh give him a preliminary hearing deprived him of his due process rights but the hearing you're

just standing there so i don't know what he was going to get out of that but uh yeah they said he wasn't arrested on the charges of capital murder he's arrested on the charge of first degree murder the capital murder charges were brought by direct indictment so they're they're saying he doesn't know what he's doing but they're they they keep at it he also says the indictment was uh was wrong because uh he was charged in one count with three separate offenses of capital murder and the indictment was confusing and call he called and caused a quote multiplication of issues we're going to find out that he's very easily confused by the way yeah and his stories and the fact that he thinks people are going to believe him we're going to start to make a lot more sense when we do a psych eval on this guy

because uh he is not bright we'll put it that way uh wow no No? No, no, no, no, no, no. The story that he just told is not a red flag for that? Very strange. So the original indictment had two counts charging him with the commission of capital murder. The first count that he committed capital murder in the commission of a robbery, and the second count alleged that he committed capital murder in the commission of a rape. So those are both two different death penalty statutes, basically, you're getting out of that. Yeah. So he did it both two different death penalty. Oh, I see. You're getting out of that. Yeah. So he did it in two different ways.

So the the that all goes on and they end up they end up letting it go anyway. It didn't matter if they say, yeah, even if it was multiple, you're fine, basically. But it was a big court battle for that. It went on for a long time. Also, he's saying that he wants to suppress evidence. The motion he has a motion to suppress all of his statements to law enforcement. Well, fuck yeah. Because they are terrible.

They look real bad. Those are the worst statements ever. Any statement that said, I jerked off and then put it on my finger inside of a dead person after they were murdered by another, that's not going to fly in court. I'm sorry. That's the worst thing you could do i forced my my i manually forced my seat up my mother-in-law corpse after by the way after copulate after taking it out manually oh yeah yeah yeah it's bonkers and i just found the body so how are you i don't understand how he could have gotten around wow he is there's a lot of things that's one of the things i don't understand i guess if you're an innocent man and you didn't do this how can you be horrified you would be your mother horrified

in the situation she was in sad horrified freaked out get 9-1-1 is she okay you wouldn't be like well i better jerk off and i better cover it up well penny's gonna be sad she's gonna penny clearly did this she's gonna be in so much ridiculous i better get this out uh also physical evidence including dna testing results uh seized from his person in residence and all documents obtained from him uh he contends also that the roadblock that they set up was unconstitutional and that his statements were not voluntarily made, thus violating his Miranda rights,

that his fingerprints, hair, and samples of bodily fluids were not voluntarily provided, and that search warrants issued for his personal property at Shenandoah County Jail and his residence were based on misleading information. And, uh, no. He just wants his whole case thrown out yeah he's

like this is crazy you guys i'm i'm gonna lose can you not have all of that so hold on a minute all i did was jerk off on my dead mother-in-law and digitally insert it into her that's all i did now you're saying you're making like a federal case out of this and shit. Like, come on now. It's a felony. He is better off talking about I am solar powered, you guys. Yeah, I don't. There's no way I could have done this. Shut down. He says that the roadblock there doesn't pass any constitutional standards because the roadblock was established at the discretion of law enforcement officers.

And there's no plan regarding the time and place of the roadblock and there's no neutral criteria for carrying out a roadblock. That's what they said. They said that no, the roadblock was to ask people questions. You voluntarily stopped at the roadblock, spoke before they even spoke to you, and then voluntarily walked and jumped in the front seat of a police cruiser.

I would say that's all as voluntary as you get there. There's no, they said there was no, he says that him stopping was a stop and seizure of him. That's what he says. But you did it yourself. You stopped, man. That's the thing here. So it's not an,

they decide that it's not an unconstitutional infringement to roadblock, that they brought up cases, obviously, to cite to say that. Yeah, they said he established the roadblock because a brutal homicide had been recently committed in the area of the roadblock and because law enforcement officers did not know the identity of the perpetrator or whether that person was still in the area. Makes sense. The purpose was to canvas drivers who were passing through the area to see whether they had seen anything or heard anything. All very reasonable. Dead person. You seen anything?

Heard anything? No. Great. Have a good one. Fine there. And also Sheriff Green chose the location of the roadblock and directed it that it be conducted between the hours of 7 p.m. until 11 a.m. the next morning on the 21st and 22nd because he believed that the crime had been committed between those hours of there. So he wanted to see if the people who normally pass by there

on their way home from whatever they do, maybe they would have seen something out of the ordinary. That's actually thinking. It's actually pretty fucking smart. I see why he's in charge here. You know, you're the sheriff for a fucking reason. You were thinking. That's smart. He also directed those vehicles to be stopped.

And the operators asked if they were if they were through that section during those times. And if they were, did they see anything of a suspicious nature in and around the victim's house? That's it. If the drivers inquired what had happened, they were to be told that an incident had occurred and they were not to receive specific information. That's that's it there. So they weren't there spreading shit around or anything like that uh yeah they aren't sitting out there saying there's a dead woman with jizz everywhere it's everywhere you know anything about i've seen any black guys wandering a wandering uh so yeah he's saying also burns here he's making the argument that is

with the hair and the samples and the bodily fluids that were taken were were uh he says the kit that he gave all his shit to at the hospital that he went there voluntarily uh he says was not voluntarily intelligently or freely given here uh they said that the court did not agree with that and they admitted everything there uh he says this is amazing he says that he asked several questions about how bodily fluids would be obtained and they said uh they said that he didn't understand what they were talking about and now and the police officer says that while burns was waiting at the hospital burns stated that his stomach was hurting and that he would have to leave and come back later if the medical personnel did not hurry so uh yeah he

said that so he he had he said he knew he could leave and come back and he just sat there so he says that uh burns went in the examination room uh and uh the uh the medical personnel asked him to remove his underwear and he stated that he did not know his underwear would be taken and uh and uh at that point they said well you know if you don't want to do this you don't have to. We can stop now. And he said that he wanted to go ahead and get it over with. And then they ended up taking all of his pubes and shit like that. And so, yeah, it all gets in there.

Now, also, while awaiting trial, Burns writes several letters to his wife, Penny. Oh, boy. Because I'm sure that's who she wants to hear from. Yeah. They contained just littered with incriminating statements, obviously. Really? What do you think? He's going to be smart about what he's an idiot.

He didn't write and say, see what I've done for you? I've covered up your crimes. I've covered up your crimes. It was now they think it's me. Ha, ha, ha. I literally covered it in my jizz. It was so hard to do it, but I did it. Incriminating statements and differing versions of what happened, like just many different other stories that didn't all different, all in writing.

Penny, of course, immediately turned these letters over to the police. Obviously, constantly. They had the letters examined by a handwriting expert to make sure it was him and all that so they could be admitted into court. to make sure it was him and all that so they could be admitted into court and uh he filed a motion to exclude the letters saying that uh this is saying that it was uh uh he was saying it was protected because it was between him and his wife yeah but there's not that's not how the law works i wasn't talking to y'all yeah it's pretend wife can't testify against her husband it's like that kind of shit but it's like no that's not the law you have no idea what you're talking about yeah that's a civil thing and it's very specific for the law. You have no idea what you're talking about. That's a civil thing. And it's very specific for anything criminal.

And you have no idea what you mean. You know, if she wants to testify, she testify against anybody. She fucking wants to. Anybody can. So the trial begins on the second day of trial during the playing of the audio tape of his statement on the 26th when he was describing the black guy and the disposal of the body and all that. His counsel moved in the middle of this tape while this story was going on, while everyone's looking around going,

are you fucking hearing this? While they're doing exactly what we were doing and what you were doing with your headphones at work going, I wish somebody heard this because this is crazy. Exactly what everyone was doing in court including his lawyer his lawyer stood up in the middle of it and said i'd like to move to have him evaluated for competency to stand trial literally was like i don't think talking to him and then hearing this this fucking guy is not right in the head am i am i the only one who

thinks this or what and the judge was like i think that might be a good let's do that so uh yeah and he's like what y'all think i'm y'all think i'm dumb that's yeah that story is very it's a good story it's a at least it's entertaining if nothing else it's a good story if y'all saw that in the movie you'd be like this was worth the price of action i'm a writer see uh also his counsel said that burns here had told him that he didn't want to participate anymore and he wanted to just leave the courtroom and go to jail. So he's like, I can't do anything with it. He's telling them crazy stories. He doesn't even want to be here.

Like, I'm supposed to fucking defend this guy. What are you talking about? So, yeah, the court questioned Burns about his wish to leave the courtroom. And he said that he did not want to remain in the courtroom, even though the court advised him about the importance of him being there one of those things the jury's not going to like it if you're like not even here right it's one of those deals it's gonna look bad too uh yeah it's gonna look as bad as that story of yours yes court then decided to take a recess for about an hour and 20 minutes after the recess burns did return to the court and uh

his counsel said that he has burns has changed his mind he now has a willingness to remain in the courtroom throughout the proceedings but uh he is having the problem was that burns wanted to leave because he said he was having trouble understanding what was happening and he was frustrated and that's why he wanted to leave because he didn't know what was going on and he didn't understand anything that was happening uh so oh billy oh boy i can tell you what's happening it's at this point where his lawyer again moves can we please just have him looked at for the love of god jesus take this fucking just cretin off my this drooling mumbling stuttering cretin off my hands i can't take it anymore not that you hear his fucking story yeah

he's clearly an idiot it's jesus please so the council here uh quoted from a doctor's report from june 10th 1999 while he was in jail that stated that burns's quote capacity to assist in his own defense is marginally intact like he's fucking borderline he's borderline like i can't have this please get him checked out so the court then called the jail nurse to testify as a witness before they made a decision here and this nurse bonnie bonnie sager she explained that the medications that have been described to treat burns's anxiety and depression and help him sleep and she stated that she'd given burns his medicine at noon that day and that the jail record showed that Burns had been receiving his medications. And so then she also described him, Burns,

as having occasional mood changes when he became angry. That's weird. Your mood changes when you become angry. Super weird, right? Occasionally. As a human? Weird. From time to time they're worse? I think you can take any human and to say occasional mood

changes when they become angry i think that's pretty fair yeah that's that's fair it's called human nature so then the court denied the motion uh to do that and did make the following uh relevant findings on june 23rd 1999 a doctor determined burns's competency had been restored based on the medication he'd been given and shit like that basically like he was a little wacky when we got him but now he's doing fine another administered an intellectual test to burns the results showed he had a verbal of 73 verbal iq of 73 and uh so that's forrest gump level that's not good at all. That's Gump level. Yeah. And a performance IQ of 86. Okay. Making his full scale IQ 77.

I got a big problem with that. 77 is very low. Yeah. That's literally. He's a functioning idiot. It's Forrest Gump is what we're talking about. Right. It's very much.

Oh, boy. He's not very smart here. Now, a psychologist from Central State agreed that he suffered from depression need a medication but she also found during the course of the treatment that she thought he was malingering and making the shit up and uh also that he was acting crazy not dumb and uh acting for a period of time i said there's letters from him at least one letter where he admits to acting uh he says where he wrote in his wife that he was putting on a show to act like he was crazy. Not stupid.

He thinks he's smart. Right. That's the thing. That's how you can tell someone who's really stupid or crazy. Right. Because he thinks that story's fucking believable. Yeah. He might be stupid because he thinks he's smart.

Right. You know what I'm saying? But I don't think he's crazy because he's acting. But he's not acting stupid. He's still an idiot. In his mind, he's like, I'm so smart, I'm going to trick them all. That's what he's thinking. So, yeah.

Also, the doctor appointed to his mental health expert, and he'd given notice that he wasn't going to use him, Burns, the mental health expert. So he said he wasn't going to do that. They said he had prescribed medication. In order for him to be competent and stand trial, he must be given medication. This is what the doctor wrote in the report, as needed and prescribed. We have evidence from the jail nurse that he's being fully furnished all of his medications. They said his conduct and trial until that morning, until his statement there, was alert and attentive. The doctor saw him numerous times talking with counsel.

Certainly, he took notes at other times. During the course of the trial, he has him numerous times talking with counsel. Certainly, he took notes at other times during the course of the trial. He has taken notes and interacted with counsel. All the things I would expect him to do as a defendant in this case. They said he did get visibly upset as his statement was being played. And there could be they said that could be from anything. That could be that he's mad at himself, that he knows he's an idiot, that all sorts of different shit. mad at himself that he knows he's an idiot that all sorts of different shit uh he'd also may be that hearing it today he perceives it as being harmful to his case and it could be depressing to anybody for that so it's normal for him to get upset uh so they're basically saying look i don't

think he's he's uh crazy he's just a little dumb yeah that's basically what it is uh many of the they talk about the letters here that he he wrote and he said the letters here to the psychiatrist, and he's making them part of the record. Many of the letters were challenging officers' statements as to what he told them and how he was treated, which are the exact statements that were being played there today. He was saying that they were lying about it, and then the statements were exactly what he said, because they transpired it. record they just they transpired they transpired it jesus christ all my god damn it they transcribed it right from the tape yeah so he said also uh there's a number of things in the

letters but uh they said it would uh it would indicate that he did indeed the proceeding he did indeed understand the proceedings against him and he understood how important his own statements may be in the case against him. So he says that. So basically, it's they let him they let him go. So during the closing argument of this penalty phase here, the Commonwealth, the Virginia attorney here, state's attorney, argued that that this woman, poor woman, he killed Cooley was, quote, a modest private person who had an animal enter her life. Now, at that point, Burns' counsel objected and said, you know, and said this, quote, excuse me. He objected. So then the prosecutor said, excuse me, a person acting like an animal, excuse me.

And so the judge said, all right. And then he said, a person acting with depravity of mind and then the other uh burns his attorney said uh i have a motion and i'll make a motion after he finishes note my objection they go through all this and then finally the prosecutor says excuse me ladies and gentlemen i don't mean to characterize him as an animal but i will character him as a human being with the depravity of of a a person who acted in a vile, horrible, inhumane way to an innocent person. Makes sense. They were very, very much going again. Later on, he's going to appeal based on the fact that he was called an animal in the closing statement, which I think is much less relevant.

They could have said way worse, man. It's much worse. Yeah. After what you did? I mean. Way worse. Yeah. Animal is good.

You know what? And yeah, he did it because way worse yeah animal is good you know what and yeah he did it because this is this is he's convicted obviously he's found guilty obviously dodge you have to be whatever you have to be the iq of his yeah they do find him not guilty of forcible sodomy meaning fellatio oh so they said he didn't put it in her mouth apparently or he didn't so that's what they're saying there boy wow you're a real fucking prince what a charm i'm not an animal all class didn't fuck her face all class wow at the penalty phase now this is for the death penalty this is for all the marbles everybody uh the commonwealth presents evidence with regard to his issue of future dangerousness

to establish this they introduce his prior convictions for felony theft breaking and entering everything in broad daylight malicious malicious destruction of property resisting arrest battery assault disorderly conduct and third degree section of sexual offense we talked about all those yep in addition here uh hazel buckley yeah uh the woman he went and saw that night that's his ex-girlfriend what and uh his ex-girlfriend is now testifying against him okay says that burns over the course of a two-week period one time had anally raped her nine times oh my god in two weeks nine times in a two-week period. That's like once every day almost. That's horrific.

That is insanity. Horrific. That poor woman. This woman also stated that she did not report those incidents because Burns had threatened her and her daughter. Yeah, of course he did. This doesn't look good when you've done the same shit and now you've killed a woman doing the same shit. And now these are a bunch of 12 people can go kill that motherfucker and they will so not great this looks real bad that right there is why he was able to do what he absolutely it's an escalation man it's you have to grow no that's what i mean it has to grow

it has to grow uh he offered evidence of mitigation here members of his family testified uh they about about abuse he suffered as a child, said his father was an alcoholic and used to abuse him, and that he did not do well in school. So, I mean, good Lord. Guess who else, sir? Yeah, I mean, sorry. An inmate testified that Burns is a really good guy.

Around jail, he's been a peacemaker around there. He says a shift supervisor at the Shenandoah County Jail also testified that Burns was respectful and had never become violent during his incarceration there. He says, uh, a ship, a ship supervisor at the Shenandoah County jail also testified that Burns was respectful and had never become violent during his incarceration there. Oh, let's give him a medal. And you know, maybe he can be like a mayor of a small town. No.

Also, let's good. He does great there. Let's keep him there. He can leave the old timey day parade. Let's go. No, sorry.

On cell block C. Don't get the fuck out. They say he thrives in prison he loves it great you sir yeah may fuck off death penalty for you no no you're done mister you're done now he appeals obviously because you have to and uh he appeals with a few different things that will go through quickly we're not going to spend an exhaustive amount of time on the appeals process because it goes on forever yeah uh first of all there's uh basically the uh they talk about different he talks about uh he claims that the problem of police concealed exculpatory evidence

is pervasive he's basically saying that the cops are holding exculpatory evidence not even the prosecution but the police themselves weren't giving all of all of their shit to the prosecution uh he says proof that says he did not do it no there's no none of that then let's move forward it's there's no nothing like that what evidence that did they hold that said he did not rape beat and spread his jizz all over the place if he didn't do the first part but if he just showed up literally saw a dead body it was like i better jizz on over the place. If he didn't do the first part, but if he just showed up, literally saw a dead body, he was like, I better jizz on it and put my...

It's almost worse. That's enough. It's almost... Let's still kill that guy. It's just as bad. I want that guy just as dead as the guy who killed the woman first. Who did it, right.

So, yeah. He says that... Yeah, he goes through all this shit about the police investigators and whether they were under oath at the right times. It's very technical. Also, jury selection. He claims that the court erred by precluding him from asking questions to the jurors about

their true feelings about the death penalty. Kept using the words true feelings. And he says during one of these jurors here, he his counsel asked whether any of them had any particular particularly strong feelings for or against the death penalty and the court sustained an objection to the question because it wasn't asked in a response to a juror's specific answer to a previous question which is the only time you can ask that it's so complicated this death penalty shit it's so ridiculous way do we get into it more uh he also challenges the whole process is crazy.

The court's decision to strike a juror for cause here. I guess the juror, she was improperly struck, he says, because she expressed some doubt about the death penalty. And this which is fine. The death penalty questions that they ask them are stupid because of this. If you ask me, are you for or against death penalty? I say, I don't know, case by case. Then they go, there's an old lady beaten to death horrifically, heart tore, and she was raped. What do you think about the person that did that?

Fucking got him for sure? Let's kill him. Let's kill him. But the problem is, and we'll find out why it doesn't really work out like that and why this there's a why it's so like just why the whole the whole thing just it's not a it's not a process that can be streamlined and done well that's the problem here whether we want to kill these people or not we can want to drag them all behind a truck but there's just saying you asked me as a juror and yeah that's just a human logical question you're answering but you're not getting into the legalities and costs and all that and the actual problem of it.

And neither of us are. We're not trying to get into that right now. Why bring that up on appeal? Because my opinion of the death penalty is going to change when you give me all that fucking evidence. That's the other thing you're going to have here. That's true, too. And he also asserts that the trial court erred in emitting evidence of certain photographs of the victim's body and they always do this and it never works they always say nope they'll put in whatever the hell they want they need to set up the crime scene they need to show

everything uh also testimony about his probation status and prior acts of violence he's like this is ridiculous he objected to the statement uh i guess his his uh i mean you punch people for 20 years and then they think fuck he probably old kill an old woman yeah what's that's what i'm saying uh now in the the guilt phase the references to his probation status with his receipts and everything brought all that shit up anyway so it didn't matter he objected also uh he's objecting to the statement made uh made by buckley buckley his ex-girlfriend who he raped nine times in two weeks uh uh she said that he said that he had done something quote worse than his drug runs and it was worse than

anything he had ever done that's what she testified to and he's saying that that he never said that and that's what he's saying there that's that's false uh he said his comment to buckley reflects his awareness of the seriousness of his crime not only does it make him guilty but it also says that he understands what the hell he's talking about he understands the seriousness of everything he also argues the court erred in allowing into evidence his wife's testimony concerning prior episodes of violence and threatening conduct and his tendency to become sexually aggressive

when he consumed alcohol. However, the court allowed that always in there. The court allowed the evidence only for the purpose of showing why Penny left her residence on September 20th. All of it's relevant there. Also, the jury heard the court's ruling in open court and Burns did

not request the court to give a jury a more explicit cautionary instruction so they're saying yeah uh he said that they find no error in the court's admission of this testimony it's probative value to explain why she left makes sense also now he tries to do the marital communications thing which is fucking hilarious and uh it says uh quote this is the goddamn law uh quote husband and wife shall be competent witnesses to testify for or against each other in all civil actions provided that neither husband nor wife shall without the consent of the other be examined in any action as to the any communication privately made by one to the other while married nor shall either be permitted

without such consent to reveal in testimony after the marriage relation ceases any such communications made while the marriage subsisted. He says that that means that she can't say shit about those letters. And he was in prison. They can take whatever they want. They'll take whatever they want. And they do. Yeah. He also says that he against the passion, prejudice and proportionality. He says that they fired the jury up so much in passion with this lady that, of course, they were going to give him the death penalty.

They called him an animal, for God's sake. And they said also that the he said that the jury's decision will, quote, send a message, which is another thing. Like they call them an animal and they they're trying to use him to send a message to all the other killers. And that's whatever uh also the big one his competency his goddamn competency uh he argues that the is uh disproportionate because of his borderline range of intellectual functioning the physical and sexual abuse he suffered as a child and his incompetence to stand trial at one time he continued to need medications during his trial for symptoms of anxiety and

depression uh he does though they say failed to address the fact that he broke into entered the home of his elderly mother-in-law raped and sodomized her and killed her by breaking her ribs in 24 places rupturing her heart he also wants the court to ignore his lengthy criminal record and his repeated attacks on buckley that's what the appeals court says so basically he wants us to think he's a nice guy and he's all stressed out and everything, but he's perfectly fine raping and sodomizing and beating people. So also, finally, we've approved the imposition of the death penalty for a defendant with significantly lower IQ than Burns.

That's disturbing. Significantly lower than him they've approved the death penalty for. Wow. I'm sorry. If yourq is 62 i don't care how horrible of a crime you did you're an idiot yeah and we shouldn't kill you no you're too stupid to lock you up for fucking ever fuck yeah because you don't understand the the what's you don't understand the difference between right and wrong and that person can't

be on the fucking street in the appeal of atkins versus the commonwealth of virginia an iq had a defendant defendant had an iq of 59 and they killed him on 59 fucking real whoa that is way too low here uh so they said in a based on a review of similar cases uh uh uh tercy i've been called her theresa earlier twice it's tercy elizabeth cooley i am so sorry i called her theresa twice it's Tercey Elizabeth Cooley I am so sorry I called her Teresa even though I knew it was Tercey that's the that's the mother that's the murder that's the victim her name is Tercey Elizabeth Cooley and I called her Teresa Elizabeth Cooley earlier Tercey is not an average name I

apologize we're beyond it it's fine now sorry so uh well I you know it's shit feel bad so they said based on similar cases go fuck yourself. So from 2005 to 2015, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that Burns had presented sufficient evidence of intellectual disability to warrant a trial on that issue. So a separate hearing on this now. uh however burns exhibited continuing signs of severe mental illness and a court-appointed mental health expert determined that he was actively psychotic spawning more uh and after all this the this made they fought about this from 2005 2002 all the way up to 2015 for 10 years they fought back and forth about his competency to stand trial whether he's too stupid, all of this shit. 2015, he is returned.

Basically, he was in Central State Hospital. He's returned to Marion Correctional Treatment Center as a result of worries by the corrections officials that he was trying to escape. They said that they granted this whole deal. They said Burns had been faking chest pains that led on more than one occasion to transfer to a hospital so they think he was setting up some kind of like going a few times to see what the routine was so he could escape basically uh so they uh transferred him back there uh this would allow him he also needs to he has to be transferred to be participate in a hearing uh and his intellectual disability cases as well so he's got So he's a very busy guy in jail here.

Yeah. Assistant Attorney General here also filed a motion asking the courts here to restore Burns' competency to be shifted back to, basically, he said, can we have it in the hospital? Can we have his hearing? We want to say that he's competent and get this over with, basically. But anyway, they ended up not doing that.

The facility wasn't designed that way. They said Central State is not a facility that's designed to run as a secure prison environment. So he said, if you want to have a crazy, unsecure prisoner here, you can't do that, basically. Not happening. So he's waiting to be executed and as he's waiting on december 29th 2017 governor terry mccullough the governor of virginia says in a statement that burns quote has long suffered from severe mental illness and is not likely to be restored for to competence and that quote he has not showed signs of stabilizing

while in custody. He said there is no doubt that Mr. Burns committed an unimaginably heinous crime. He will not evade punishment. He will be incarcerated for the remainder of his life. They commute his sentence to life.

Commuting Mr. Burns' sentence to life without possibility of parole brings finality to these legal proceedings. It assures the victim's family that Mr. Burns will never again enjoy freedom, but without the torment of post-trial litigation. And it all allows the Commonwealth to devote its resources toward other cases. In my view, this is the only just and reasonable course.

Basically, the way they do this, they talk about this whole thing. They said that they could, in 2002, this is after he's sentenced in 2001 to death. In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in that Atkins versus Virginia case of the 59 IQ that executing people with intellectual disabilities violates the

Eighth Amendment's cruel and unusual punishment. So the Supreme Court of Virginia subsequently held that Burns's claim of intellectual disability was not frivolous. And that's how it kept getting sent back because they that case was challenged and it makes precedent. So during those proceedings, Mr. Burns again showed signs of severe mental illness. The Supreme Court ruled that Burns had a constitutional right to be competent for adjudication for

his for his intellectual disability claims. So they said for you to even go to a hearing about your disability, you have to be competent to do that. Yeah. Otherwise, you won't know what's going on. So basically, the governor said this whole thing has been a fucking a mess, basically. And there's no point in doing this for another 15 years and costing a shitload of money there. another 15 years and costing a shitload of money uh there now uh this uh somebody who's running for governor next yeah uh says that uh quote he tweeted i should say he didn't say he tweeted the malingering william burns escapes justice for his horrific crimes and tried to make it a

political thing rather than the fact that it's just silly so he says it's an idiot man you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna die on that hill that's the thing that's and well and i'll tell you how much it costs too and you're gonna go holy shit considering virginia you know i'm sure they could use the money in other places the governor continued to say i have determined that the continued pursuit of execution of mr burns is no longer in the best interests of the commonwealth as for now there's no lawful way to impose the death sentence on mr burns and there's no clear path for that ever being possible. To do so would require returning Mr. Burns to competency, which experts believe is unlikely to occur. So he said, as governor,

it's my responsibility to ensure the Commonwealth carries out the death penalty in accordance with the requirements of the Constitution, which forbids cruel and unusual punishment. And he talks about his intellectual capacities and all that sort of thing. He also noted that Virginia has spent more than three hundred fifty thousand dollars in treating, transferring, monitoring and litigating just whether he has the mental capacity to conduct a trial on whether he has the intellectual capacity to be executed. Wow. Not for the trial. Wow.

Not for everything else. Oh, that shit costs more. Oh, that's way more. Way more. Yeah. Not to actually get him executed. $350,000 to find out if he's not an idiot. Just to find out if he's not.

No, not to find out if he's not an idiot. To find out if he's not an idiot enough just to have a hearing to find out if he's an idiot. That's how much they've spent they didn't even spend 350 000 to have a hearing to find out if he's an idiot just to try to find out if he could have a hearing so imagine if they did have a hearing it's going to be another million dollars for you commonwealth yeah he's an idiot in the end the state's in for five million for this fucking idiot put him in jail who cares and people go well it costs 35,000 a year to house him i don't care who cares not this much this is crazy it's so much so and that's addition to what it costs to actually keep him there right and so uh yeah so he's life without

parole he's done uh please one thing don't take it out on a man there's there's so many complete opposite man named William Joseph Burns who comes up when you Google this guy like crazy. William Joseph Burns, the former foreign service officer. He he was the ambassador of the United States to the Russian Federation from 2005 to 2008 under secretary of state for Political Affairs from 2008 to 2011, and United States Deputy Secretary of State from 2011 to 2014. That's a really important job.

My God. Super important. And also now he is currently president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. So, yeah, he went to Oxford. He's a genius. He went to oxford and he speaks arabic french russian and english don't take it out on him probably did not ever smear jizz i sure hope not could you get a more opposite man than that to that so uh yeah that's small town murder wow uh yeah sorry tercy elizabeth cooley not theresa jesus that's so horrible and

i apologize for that with everything that i have i think we've done but uh yeah i don't even know what to say about that story that was one of the as i was reading the story i'm like this is just the whole revenge factor with the mother-in-law i found that interesting enough and then once i got to his story i was like are you kidding me me? We have to do this episode. Yeah, the story alone is crazy and then his story is way next level. What? It really takes it up a couple of notches here. Are you sure, sir? Holy shit.

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Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you all so, so much. Congratulations. Appreciate you. As well as all of our Patreon supporters. You guys fucking do. You guys make this possible.

So thank you. We can't thank you enough honestly we really really appreciate every goddamn thing you do for us and we try to bring you craziness every single week to try to you know offset that so that goes for the donations to everything this show that we put on it again if you want to give us a dollar we want to earn two that's it what's always our thing we always want to give you more than you pay for so thank you guys so much for for taking care of us appreciate the hell out of you what if somebody wanted to find you and tell you that they appreciate you jimmy you can find me at wisman sucks whisman sucks on twitter instagram snapchat uh whatever you send it whether it's a thank you or uh or just uh words that you need need help with your

week whatever it is thank Thank you so much, and I look forward to hearing from you. Where can they find you? You can find me at JimmyPIsFunny or just copy and paste my last name from the show description because you're not going to spell it correctly, and do it that way.

Let's do that, and we'll find each other. It'll be wonderful. How's that sound? Good to you, Jimmy. Good. If that sounds wonderful, then we are going to call it a week.

Yes. We cannot wait until next week and next week and next week call it a week yes we cannot wait till next week and next week and next week and next week and we'll see everybody next week in california but there's a show between now and then yeah either way it doesn't matter everybody until next week it's been our pleasure We'll see you next time. seamlessly crafted from recycled water bottles, they're ultra comfortable as soon as you slip them on. You'll quickly discover why BuzzFeed calls them their forever shoes. Check out all the amazing styles right now at rothys.com slash town. Go to rothys.com slash town to get your new favorite flats, comfort, style, and sustainability. These are the shoes you've been waiting for.

Head to rothys.com slash town today. 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 and Apple Podcasts. Before you go,

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