Small Town Murder - #38 - The Recipe For A Butcher in Fleming-Neon, Kentucky

Episode Date: October 4, 2017

This week, we look at the tiny, coal town of Fleming-Neon, Kentucky, where horrible people planned out, and executed a seriously cold blooded plot. The brutality was overwhelming, and so was the evidence, but that's only part of the story...Along the way, we find out what happens when a town really wants people to think it's haunted, how many jails you can escape from & still receive parole, and exactly how difficult it is to strangle someone to death!Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie WhismanNew episodes every Thursday!!Please subscribe, rate, and review!Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts!Head to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder!For merchandise: crimeinsports.threadless.comCheck out James and Jimmie's other show: Crime in Sports Follow us on social media!Facebook: facebook.com/smalltownpodInstagram: instagram.com/smalltownmurderTwitter: twitter.com/MurderSmall Contact the show: [e-mail] See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Small Town Murder early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. 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, we look at the coal mining town of Fleming Neon, Kentucky, where the perpetrators of a vicious murder left one victim alive and it came back to haunt them. Welcome to

Small Town Murder. Yay! Yay, indeed, Jimmy. This is a yay occasion. My name is James Petragallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. And it's always a yay occasion when we're here on Small Town Murder.

This is so much fun. We're so excited to be here this week. Thank you guys so, so much for joining us. Are you trying to convince me because I'm beat? No, we were both. Yeah, we did a crazy comedy show last night, a charity show. Great cause and all that, but it was like in a backyard. And it was a little hot.

It was next to a pool. It was a very odd experience. It was confusing because I wanted to party. I wanted to have fun. No, no. You weren't there odd experience. It was confusing because I wanted to party. I wanted to have fun. No, no. You weren't there for that. No, you were there to tell dick jokes, Jimmy.

Dick jokes to nice people set up at nice tables in a backyard who I don't think wanted dick jokes. But we gave them dick jokes, damn it. They were dressed much better than the people at a comedy club. Absolutely. So we're a little tired. I have not slept. I came home, worked on this as I've been doing all week. So we're a little tired, but we're not going to let it get us down.

No. Not at all. We are excited and pumped, and we're going to have a good time with some bad circumstances today. Yes. Bad circumstances being the crime, not the one we're in. This is fantastic. I'd rather not be anywhere else than we are here right now. I want to thank everyone this week for your iTunes reviews. Holy shit, were they big.

So tremendous, guys. Thank you so much. We shot up the charts this week because of you guys. And we went up. It was really great. We went up in the top 100 overall. We were in the top 50 overall. It was amazing.

It's really awesome. And it's because of you guys. And it's because of your listening and your iTunes reviews. They mean the world to us on the business. And obviously, you can see it materialize when we go up the charts. So if you want to help us out, that's a great way to do it. You can get on iTunes if you have not done that yet. Please give us a review.

Give us five stars. We don't care what you say. It doesn't matter. It's not for our ego. We'll take anything. Tell us your favorite color, and we'll say, yes, it's a very good color. It's a great color. It doesn't matter.

It's just the five stars are incredibly helpful, and will keep driving us up the charts and past way more famous people, which is hilarious. Unbelievable. Way more famous at all as compared to us who are nobody. So, you know, it's that sort of thing. That is tremendously appreciated. If you'd like to do a little bit more than that, as a lot of people have, because we

honestly, as much as you see us up on the charts, we have about, I think about $300 in ads we're going to make for the rest of the year off this show. But we're getting bent over good. So if you want to help us out with that, no pressure. You don't have to, obviously. But if you like us and you want to give us a little helping hand, you can do that by going to patreon.com slash crimeinsports. That is our other podcast's name. All that money goes to us.

You should be listening to that podcast as well. You don't need to like sports at all. It's like you don't need to like towns or have any interest in that to do this. Also, another way you can do that is you can go to PayPal and you can use our email address, which is crimeinsports at gmail.com. That's the one. You can make a one-time donation there. And God, I can tell you there are not two more appreciative people on the face of the earth.

Maybe like an orphan or something like that. But unless you're going to hand the money directly to an orphan, what the hell? Give us a shot. You're paying 20 cents a day to sponsor a kid in Africa. That kid doesn't get the money. He just gets food. Maybe not. And books.

We'll definitely get food if you give it to us. Or if you actually come across an African orphan, you can give him the money. That's fine. Or give me the orphan. I'll take care of him. Or you can give Jimmy the orphan. I don't want any more kids. I don't want any orphan kids. You can give him the money. That's fine. Or give me the orphan. I'll take care of him. Or you can give Jimmy the orphan. I don't want any more kids. I don't want any orphan kids.

I have two of my own. I'm good. That's the beige babies thing, man. I'm fine. That's great. Also, very exciting announcement that we're just going to give you a little sneak preview on. We're going to announce it fully next week.

But Chicago. Chicago. Chicago, Illinois. The Windy City? The Windy City. I hope you will all be in town on December 14th because we will. I will be there. We will be there.

James will be there. We'll have details on the exact, on the venue. It's a really great venue. Yeah. It's a great venue on the venue and where you can get tickets next week. Right. But December 14th, we are going to be in Chicago with both Crime and Sports and Small Town Murder.

Both podcasts? What? Both podcasts. One night, two shows. This is crazy. It's going to be awesome, so hopefully a lot of you will want to come and stay for both shows, and we'll just have a blast all night long. It's going to be so much fun. I'm going to get on a plane for this shit. It's going to be great.

We can't wait to see you guys. We're so excited, and more to come after that. We're going to try to hit a bunch of different cities, but Chicago's been our biggest city the whole time we've been doing this, so we want to go there first, because that's where we think we can actually sell a few tickets. Yeah. Let's go there first. We're going to get started.

Before we do that, I have to give the quick disclaimer. We are comics. That's true. We're stand-up comics, as we discussed a moment ago. Whether we're in a backyard or a club, it doesn't matter. We're comics. This is a comedy podcast. The cases are real. The murder is real.

The research is real. You bet. But we do make jokes. It's true. We make expensive towns because who doesn't live in a town that needs to be made fun of? We all do. It's that sort of thing, bumbling police forces, maybe the actual murderer because he's an asshole or she's an asshole, either one.

They're all assholes. Screw them or that sort of thing. But we never, ever, and I mean this, we never try to make jokes at the expense of the victims or of the victims' families. We don't want to denigrate them. We're not about that. Honestly, guys, we've said it before, and it's as true then as it is now. We are assholes, but we're not scumbags. That's not what we're about. We're nice guys, and we're trying our best. But if you're offended by anything at all, it's not that bad. But if you're offended anyway by things, and you might think you'd be

offended by anything, now's the time to turn on back. This is the roller coaster sign where it says last chance. If you're coming on board with us, then we're all walking into the liquor store with our guns out. That's it. So you are just as responsible as we are. Nobody complaining. I don't give a shit if yours is loaded or not. You're in here.

No complaining. You're holding one. Let's go. No complaining. Let's go. Let's go somewhere, Jimmy. Let's head on a trip, shall we? Not to Chicago right now.

We're not going there. Our suitcases are packed. We're heading to Fleming Neon, Kentucky. Okay. Yeah. head on a trip, shall we? Not to Chicago right now. We're not going there. Our suitcases are packed. We're heading to Fleming Neon, Kentucky. Okay. Yeah, Fleming Neon, quite the name. That doesn't make any sense. Fleming-Neon. We'll get to hyphen, I should say.

They hyphenated a town? It's a hyphen. It's a hyphen name. Married two towns? This is a sad place, Jimmy. And I don't mean, I'm not trying to talk shit about Kentucky, because there are places in Kentucky that are pretty cool. Like Louisville's an awesome town.

Party town. There's some cool places in Kentucky. This is not one of them, decidedly. Just by name alone. This is a husk of a town. This is a town that used to have something, and now it doesn't. They were threatening to be Louisville? No, no.

They were threatening to be Scranton, maybe, someday. Someday. Scranton's on that mountaintop. One day. They didn't quite get there. One day there'll be a phony office building with a cast of people based around our fucking town. You know it's going to happen, but not down here. No one is going to do a show about this town ever unless it's a documentary on sad people.

They're possibly suicidal. I love it. It is in the southeast part of the state. The county it's in is on the border of Kentucky and Virginia. It's on the very, very southeast corner of the state. Kentucky is like a long state, correct? Kentucky is a long state right above North Carolina, right next to Virginia, wedged in there. The way I mean long is like, for anybody listening, the mileage of it is longer going east to west than it is north to south.

Yes, yes. And north to south, it's pretty thick at one point, but it's still a little wider east to west. Speaking of Louisville, it is about four hours to Louisville from here. This place is nowhere near anything. You look up closest airports, it's like a small airport in Tennessee. Jesus. And there's like Raleigh-Durham, which is like 180 miles away, is on the list. It's like, holy shit.

It's like a tank of gas. Yeah. It's like a round trip to get anywhere fun. This place is bleak as shit, it really seems like. It's in Letcher County. I think that's how you pronounce it. I've heard it said like that, and I'm not sure. But there's like 150 people live in the whole goddamn county, so it really doesn't, not

that little. But there's not a lot of people who are going to call us on this pronunciation, I'm sure. I'm sure somebody will. Guess what? Don't care. This place is a shithole, and I don't care how it's pronounced. Zip code 41840, area code 606. If some sad, depressed people are calling you with some cold debris on them, you'll

know why. We'll get to that in a moment. It's a small town, 1.7 square miles. It's one of those towns that's just like a little area and that's it. There's shit around it. And we'll find out exactly how this came to be in a second. But no town website that I could find. Nothing.

At all. I could not find a town website. It's not on the budget this year, James. It was deemed, quote, too fancy and half a looten by the town council, I feel. That was what it was. I don't know if that's the official reason. But that's too fancy. We don't want a highfalutin website.

You got to have a computer for that shit. Nah, we ain't doing that. None of that down here. You got to go down to Best Buy. I got to drive four hours to get a computer. Not in Fleming Neon. We don't do that down here. That's not the way we do it.

The history of this town is a sad history. It's not a town. A lot of them are like, what do you think this town started with, Jimmy and your boy, obviously. Coal, you'd be correct. It wasn't even started. It wasn't like a town and then they found coal.

The town was established by the Elkhorn Coal Corporation. This was a town where they found coal and they were like, put some shitty buildings up because we need a place for these. This is our place now. Yeah, we're going to lower some people into the ground and they're going to need a place to sleep. So put them over here.

At least a motel. That is the town. That's literally what it is. Otherwise, there's no natural reason for anyone to be here other than to pull coal from the ground. So that was 1913 when they moved in. Fleming was the location of the mine that they had, the first big mine. And it was named for the president of the coal corporation, George W. Fleming, which is where all great places are named after presidents of coal corporations, I feel like.

That's what you want to do. Scumbags. Anybody in coal is a fucking jerk. That guy's a dickhead. Not the people who are in the ground. If you're a miner, you're making a living. That's fine. That's great.

You're making a living. Sacrificing their bodies. You're doing what you can do to support your family. Good for you, man. But the dickhead that won't do it and hires people and makes them go on the ground, fuck you, man. And puts shitty work conditions up and goes, well, if it collapses, it's cheaper to just pay them off than it is to make the mine not collapse.

Go with us, dickhead. That's what they do. They literally... Yeah. And this isn't a political thing at all. This is just factual. Call mine companies. And this is against their employees.

It has nothing to do with environment. We're not even getting into environmental or anything like that. That is beyond our scope completely. Just basic human rights and human life. They literally will say. They value their fucking company more than they value their employees. Cheaper to pay off a lawsuit than it is to make the mine safe in the first place. Shoring is expensive.

They are not. That's it. Exactly what it is. I paid that family $200,000 and I didn't put up shoring today. Yeah. Asshole. That's what it is to make the mine safe in the first place. Shoring is expensive. They are not. That's it. Exactly. I could pay that family 200 grand and I didn't put up shoring today. Yeah. Asshole. That's what it is. There was a city named Chip that was nearby, but that just kind of folded into, you know,

folded into Fleming and it became kind of the, this is like the center of all the, at this point, the center of all the local coal towns. Got it. So everybody comes there with their company script and, you know, trades it for some hard tech, I assume. I don't know. I don't know why they're buying Civil War era food, but it's possibly happening there. It's Civil War era fucking living.

That's what it sounds like. I mean, that's the kind of job it is. So they would haul the train, they'd take the train, obviously, and haul the coal out of Fleming. It wouldn't be on guys' backs or anything like that. The work conditions aren't that bad, we'll say. And put it on a fucking donkey. Absolutely.

Well, they'd make stops in nearby neon. This is the local tradition, the local bullshit fairy tale lore of how this became. I don't know if it's true or not. But apparently the local tradition is that the conductor would yell instructions to the people climbing aboard the train and say neon. And that's what they would say. So they called the town neon because they figured because the conductor was telling you to get on the train, let's just call the town that. Because we have no creativity whatsoever. Neon is an order from the conductor? Neon is an order from the conductor but spelled like the, you know.

Like the fucking. Like the gaseous signs. Oron is an order from the conductor, but spelled like the, you know. Like the fucking. Like the gaseous signs. Or the shitty car. Or the shitty car. Exactly. That's an order to get on a train is neon? Neon, apparently. I don't know how you got on trains in coal country in 1913 at all, but apparently they

said neon and you went, all right. And that was that. So those are the two towns. Dress on the train, Martha. Let's go. In 1977, they merged the two towns and made fleming neon municipal incorporation by the state assembly if that's not exciting i don't know what the fuck is shitty tradition is born hyphenate shit hyphenate i hate that shitty town names

oh this is worse when it's a town i feel like uh they have they they they boast there's nothing here at all but there's certain sites that are like they boast haunted Fleming Neon. See the most haunted sites in Fleming Neon. So I'm like, okay, maybe this is interesting. Maybe there's some shit here. Some history, something. Nothing. No.

Nothing in the town. Just the closest was 17.4 miles away. That was haunted? That was a haunted place. Something 20 miles away. 20 miles away. They got a thing up the road there. It's haunted.

I don't know. What are we doing? Go on down the road a piece away. They got a thing up the road there. It's haunted. I don't know. That's the, what are we doing? Go on down the road a piece. There's some haunted shit up there. Yeah, this was University of Virginia's College at Wise. College at Wise is believed to be home to a ghost. According to legend, she's the spirit of a young woman who appears to be hanging from the pipes in Bowers-Sturgill Hall where she committed suicide.

Okay. So it's one of those. That always baffles me, the haunting shit where somebody committed suicide. Yeah, they're sticking around. And that person didn't want to be here. No, they're sticking around. They're not stuck. They're here for a long haul.

They're not stuck. They're here for a long haul. They're going to hang right here. By the way, if that's actual reality, that's the worst fucking outcome to suicide. That is. You're stuck in the place you hated. Now you're here forever. Forever.

Fuck you. How do I commit myself twice? In that shitty state you're in. Oh, Jesus. The second closest site is in Norton, Virginia, and it is a cemetery, which is pretty high. It's a Laurel Grove Cemetery. It's a good place to have some sort of lore. Yeah, it's said to be haunted by something that makes the temperature very cold after

midnight. Shadowy figures move around. It's a goddamn cemetery. I think people are just... This place is... After midnight, y'all, it gets cold down here. Watch out now. The sun is gone, dickhead.

That's what makes it get cold. This is the town from Nothing But Trouble. That's what this is. No, it's not in reality, but this is the town from Nothing But Trouble. It's Exit U.R.A. With Dan Aykroyd with a dick nose and all that and Chevy Chase and Debbie Moore and the Fat Cousins and John Candy and all that shit.

That's what this town is. I swear to God, if you get arrested in this town, they'll bring you to Dan Aykroyd with a dick nose and he'll make you eat weird hot dogs with too much mustard. And it smells like Sao Paulo. It's so strange, this town. It really freaks me out. When I was a kid, I thought that sentence meant that Sao Paulo inanish meant shit i didn't realize that was a city in south america

like oh that's because i was a dumb kid so for like eight years so i was like 14 i was saying sao paulo i'd tell my friends that that meant shit in spanish there's a bunch of kids running around speaking wrong Spanish because of you. Getting weird looks from, because you grew up in Phoenix in high school, getting weird looks from Mexican people going, what the fuck are you talking about, white boys? They were like, gringo.

This town, as you might imagine, the alumni, not very illustrious from this town. There are three people listed who I've never fucking heard of. Two of them are singers, Martha Carson and Gene Chappell. Awesome. Which sound just made up.

But that Martha's got a hot piece of ass. Oh, Martha, you know it, especially if she's Martha, she's from the 40s, you know it, man. Yeah. And Johnny Cox, who's a professional basketball player

for the Chicago Zephyrs. So that tells you how fucking long ago that was. So right there, not exactly too exciting of a place here. People in this town. Population, not surprising, not very high. I'm not surprised, really. It's 728 is the population.

And I'm surprised there's that many, if we're being perfectly frank here. It had 1,200 in 1980. So that's a lot. That's a big decline since 1980. In 20 years? 30 years? 35 years it's gone down. I mean, that's almost a half. I mean, it's like 40% of your population gone. That's huge. I feel like that is with the decline of the coal industry that probably drove jobs out and drove people away. And the last 10 to 15 years too with like the electric

industry, anybody that's burning coal is not allowed to really use it much anymore. It's a different setup and these people have had to go to a better place, hopefully, I hope. Unless they just all killed themselves and they're all hanging from pipes and haunted shit. In colleges somewhere. Median age of this town is 35 and a half, which is about two years younger

than the average. Regular numbers for male-female, it's about 50 50 51 49 something like that uh the married population a little less than normal here a little few more single people a few more single people few more widowed people more divorced people than usual uh married with no children half the usual amount yeah but married with children is above so they are fucking and they are not protecting themselves at all. They're like, well, screw it.

We're married. Let's have some kids down there. Good for them, everybody, I guess. Good for you guys. Sure. Race of this town, it's a white town, as you would imagine maybe in a rural Kentucky town. It's probably going to be pretty white. And it is.

94.71% white. That's white. 4.09% black. And that's it. And 1.20% Hispanic. That's white. 4.09% black. And that's it. And 1.20% Hispanic. Wow. That is it. 0.0% Asian.

Not even a restaurant for these poor people. No one can have the glory of beef and broccoli in this town at all. It's really kind of depressing if you think about it. Brutal. Religion. I would expect this to be a religious place. Kentucky's kind of a Bible-thumping kind of place. Not here.

Only 25% identify themselves as religious here, which is half the normal average. This is probably the lowest we've had, even in northern and northeastern cities and everything else. It's basically just Christian is what it is. There's no main denomination. Everything is other Christian

or hardly, not even 1% Catholic. They don't want no Catholic. They do not like Catholics in the South, I feel like. There's not a lot of Baptists, as I would imagine, down there either. It's just that those Catholics are a bit too honest for us. They want Chinese food once in a while.

That's the problem. And they tend to tell it like it is. Like your grandma. They get real honest sometimes, those Catholics, unless they're hiding That's the problem. And they tend to tell it like it is. Like your grandma. Yeah. They get real honest sometimes, those Catholics, unless they're hiding a little boy in the closet. You never know. That happens, too. It happens from time to time.

0.0% Jewish, 0.0% Muslim, as I would expect in a small coal mining Kentucky town. In this town, politically, voting-wise, 19 and a half percent of the people are Democrats. Yeah. Seventy seven point seven seven percent Republicans. Jesus. The rest are independent. Those 19 percent do not speak up. No, no, no.

They don't say that shit in public. No, I don't know. That's the five black guys. And like, I feel like, you know, I don't know who else. You are quiet. Yeah. That's what that is. Unemployment rate here is 12 percent, which is more than double the national average.

That's way high. Even in a horrible recession, even in 2008, shit didn't get that bad. That's 75 people. That's 750. That's a lot. That's a lot of people here. Job growth is actually negative here. Everywhere else, it's positive.

In different increments here, it's negative job growth. This is what happens when you adapt to what's going on right now and you have no forethought for the future. You don't plan for anything later. You just stick with... This is like if today... This is kind of why towns ebb and flow and die and move and people go to cities and then go back to towns.

It's because you put people in charge with zero forethought. That too. They were just extracting. That's all. Once it was all extracted. Let's write the earth. That's good. Now, household income here, very low, $20,781 is the median household income.

Normal is almost $54,000. So that's way below that. The jobs here, pretty much blue collar, 0.0% legal, engineering, computer science, arts, media, all that sort of thing. Computers. Zero, zero. God damn. Sons of bitches.

We ain't letting none of them in here. Of course there's no computer jobs. Nobody can even design a fucking website at Town Hall. Yeah, that's more than double the construction extraction jobs, as you would expect down there. Production, transportation, material moving jobs, also higher, that sort of thing. The overalls, we do cost of living 100 being par being average uh overall here is 79 which would seem high there's some

things that are high health care is high uh that sort of thing but housing is a 25 good christ super super cheap on the housing average median home cost there is 46 100 that is super low very cheap but you that has to be because you're not making much money there, it seems like. Half the houses, 50% of the houses are between $20,000 and $60,000 in value. So that's what it tells you right there. That's a lot of the houses in that low-value range. We have convinced you. I don't know how we wouldn't have convinced you to move to Fleming Neon, Kentucky.

We've really put a good solid argument out there. We have. We have the Fleming Neon, Kentucky real estate report. Let's get to it. A two-bedroom apartment there on the average is about $622. I thought you were going to say $62. It's about $62. They say if you clean

up a little, they'll charge you a couple bucks less. You know how it goes. I only found in every real estate site on the internet, I found one house in the town of Fleming Neon for sale. There's only one for sale. One is at 297 Hog Howell Road. Hog Howell. Hog Howell Road.

It is a three bedroom, one bath house for $32,000. My God. That is very, very inexpensive. How many bedrooms? Three bedrooms. Three bedrooms, one bath. One bath. And $32,000.

It looks like a place you would hole up and wait for the ATF to come get you. That's what it looked like. It looked like a place where you and your buddies would stockpile your weapons and wait for the federal government to come a-knocking. I feel like that's where we're at here. To come remove them from your cold, dead hands. That's exactly it. The closest thing to an otherwise house is there's one in Jackhorn, Kentucky, which is

a three-bedroom two-bath 1960 square foot house for seventy nine thousand dollars you gotta find a murder there because that's that town sounds like an insult it does yeah jackhorn uh seiko i think it is or seiko kentucky s-e-c-o uh four-bedroom two-bath 1920 square foot house for forty eight thousand five hundred dollars which again excessively cheap uh Things to do in Fleming, Neon, Kentucky. It's just a, it's so funny. How did you actually find this without a fucking website? Well, this is exploring.

This is why I haven't slept in days here. This is what we're doing. But I found one site that has, like, it's clearly something that the town put out. Like, here's our statement about our town, and it says, quote, Fleming Neon Kentucky offers a bevy of can't-miss things to do, from attending special events

to getting involved in the arts and learning about local history, to dining at independent restaurants and staying active in area parks. Check out the following articles to get an inside look at how Fleming Neon Kentucky will keep you entertained. There is no fucking corresponding articles to that. There's no links.

There's no following anything. There is shit to do. Nothing. Their Facebook page, nothing in the things to do. Literally says nothing here. Wow. Nothing here to see. Nothing to see here.

Move along is what it should say when you pull in. Whoever put that statement out said- Full of shit is what they are. Yeah. They said, what's a word that says a lot? Can y'all say a lot? How do y'all say it? Bevy?

Bevy? All right. Wouldn't it be hysterical if we said bevy? I don't know what that shit means. We'll all know, but they won't know. They won't know why we're saying that. Does bevy mean nothing at all? There's literally nothing to do there.

It's quite, not even a goat race to get into. Jesus. Nothing. The crime, our area of interest here, property crime, burglary, larceny, theft is exactly average. It's within like 1% of average. Interesting. Exactly on the money. Violent crime here, murder, rape, robbery, assault, slightly higher than average

here, actually. It's about 10% higher than average, which in a small town like that is not a whole lot of actual crimes, but definitely, I guess, a higher rate, I would say. So in a town like that, though, if one guy gets killed or one lady gets killed it's like holy shit you know that should happen you know that's not an accident uh and let's talk about some interesting people in this area here let's start with a fella named benny lee hodge okay let's talk about him he sounds like a winner

doesn't he yeah winner right it's a guy you trust with your kids it's a very simple name absolutely he's born uh august 9th 1951 in Hamblin County, Tennessee. He has had quite the interesting life growing up. Just a fairy book, a fairy tale. This is a story you should read your daughter at night before you go to sleep. His mother, Kate, was married to around six different men. We're not sure exactly. Around six different people.

None of them were stable. Mostly alcoholics. There was also three girls. So she had you know, she had she had girls and Benny. She married her fourth her fourth husband named Billy Joe Hodge. Yes. Which that's yeah. Yes. Billy Joe

Hodge sounds like he'll drink a little and slap the kids around. I feel like he was this was when Benny was eight years old and then he took his last name. They were pretty much, like I said, all alcoholics, drug addicts. Most of them were physically abusive to Kate. You know, the whole deal. Kate likes a dangerous man.

Kate probably had a terrible childhood and has a psychologically, you know, has some draw to these people. You got a job, I'll fuck you. I don't think any of these guys have jobs, actually. This is the thing, too. They're all just alcoholic, drug addict, pretty much losers that sit at home and beat her up and smack the kids around and shit.

She probably, who knows what happens with people's lives. It's programmed. If you have this terrible, abusive upbringing, you get programmed of that's the people I need in my life. Also, too, whenever you've had a shit life or had it rough, any semblance or not even semblance, it's just like a... It's not like she went to therapy. Right.

It's a hint of love and she's in. And she's not even just like just a little bit in. She's all in. Yeah. No, it's true. No, you're right. If you're completely robbed of every human feeling, anytime anybody shows you a little No.

Because I know plenty of guys like that, too. I know. Plenty of girls like that. You know, fucking comics I know like that. It's disgusting. Oh, every fucking one of them. That's a completely needy, weird little breed, though. Let's say comics don't belong in normal society.

That's why. We should be locked up in cages and released at night. That's it. It's dark out. Let them out. Okay, fine. We shouldn't be allowed out during the day. We really shouldn't.

It's just a waste of daylight on us. It really is. What a waste of warmth. Waste of warmth. School records here showed that Hodge, old Billy, old Benny, Billy, I almost called him, but Billy was Billy Joe, but not the stepfather, the son here, Benny Lee Hodge. Benny was average intelligence. He had average grades while he was a young kid in grade school.

Apparently, this Billy Joe Hodge, even for 50s Tennessee, like 50s rural Tennessee standards, apparently he was particularly abusive, a particular ass kicker and an asshole on the kids. Unbelievable. Yeah, Hodge's grades, Benny's grades, we'll just call him Benny. Yeah. Benny's grades declined when he was a teenager, started stealing, you know, 12, 13 years old. He's stealing. He got arrested as a kid.

Yeah. There was a, he was arrested and there's a records from the state of Tennessee Department of Corrections and it's the youth services division. It says, quote, the child is basically a good boy, but has been before the court for several thefts, including at age 13 and 14 years. So he's already a well-known thief and just – I mean he's probably – you're acting out. You're trying to get out of the house. I get it. And the legal system called him a general good boy.

A general good boy. They're like he's not – he's basically a good boy is what they said. That's legal jargon. The child is, quote's basically a good boy, is what they said. That's legal jargon. The child is, quote, basically a good boy. I think when you go in the youth court, it gets a little more wishy-washy. It's a little dodgy. Go easy with the legal terminology, you know what I mean? He's a good boy.

Let's go. He's basically a good boy. He's funny. He just steals shit constantly. I want that written in some fucking court document for a man that's like 60. That would be funny. He's basically a good boy. I got to say, later on, court documents won't be so kind to him.

Let's just say he's basically a good boy, especially when he's 15 years old and he is sentenced to a juvenile detention facility for stealing three wristwatches. So that got him time. But this is like his eighth offense ofes. So that got him time. But this is like his eighth offense of stealing. So that's the thing. The police report called him a piece of shit that time. They said this boy is basically a shithead. They said this boy is a jackass.

He's a jackhorn. And we don't like him at all. He's a real jackhorn. He's a real jackhorn, this fucking kid. I'm not fond of him at all. But this place can't hold him. You can't hold Benny down in a juvenile detention facility. He escapes the detention facility.

He's caught after a little bit in return. He ends up getting a furlough, but he refuses to go back. They let him out for like a weekend thing, and he just never goes back. They said he was AWOL. He ends up getting, so he ends up staying out. They don't catch him, except a few months later, he gets arrested for assault on his stepfather. He finally, eventually it's going to turn around on that guy.

And eventually he said, all right, motherfucker, you want some? I'm 16. I'm big enough now. You're drunk. I think you're a little tipsy. I think I can land a left hook on your chin. Let's do this shit. Let's get it on.

At worst, I'm going to knock you over. You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, think about this. He's been beaten by this asshole his whole life. For so long. And he comes and kicks his ass one time and then he gets arrested. Motherfucker, I'm an escapee.

Do you really want to fight me? Well, he gets arrested. And by the way, the other like, how do you give somebody a furlough in the legal system after they've escaped? Like he he took the time to cut razor wire and now you're just going to open the door. We've seen crazier shit than this. We've seen people adults escape and then get and then get house arrest and furloughs and things like that, and then they escape out of the furlough. It's just bananas.

This kid worked so hard to get the fuck out, and then you're going to put him back in and then give him furlough. That's nuts. And then he's back in for assaulting his stepfather. He's in there until he's 18. So they put him back in for two more years for assaulting his stepfather. And I bet he went to jail with a smile on his face that night. Yeah, no doubt. That's right.

God damn it. I belong here. Where's my bunk? Perfectly happy to be here. Basically, the system had nothing for him. They couldn't help him back then either. We're talking in the 60s. They weren't helping some rural kid who's getting his shit beat out of him by his stepfather.

Basically, if you're on this path, you're on that path. It's good luck. Wasn't Manson in Ohio and he spent his whole childhood in correctional institutes? Oh, all over the place. It was up there in the Midwest. In the Midwest. That's the thing. There was no correction done at all on him because he'd get out and on

his way. It's like a Carl Panzeram. Look at Carl Panzeram. You look at that whole thing and they made him. I mean, he was look at that whole thing, and they made him. I mean, he was kind of a loon, but they made him what he was by far. Like, if he didn't go to those facilities, shit might have been different for him. And that's kind of the deal of being here. And the children's facilities, they're kind of mean to him. They're kind of not great to him.

Oh, yeah. Well, back then, they were terrible to them. Yeah. Well, even he's basically a good boy, they say. And then they send him there, and bad shit happens to him. He's released from custody around 18, 19. He works menial jobs because he's been fucking juvie on and off since he was 13. Yeah, he also starts doing a lot of drugs at this point.

He gets into anything he can get his hands on. There's some heroin. There's some cocaine. He gets married at 19, which is always a good decision, I feel like. And they have a child soon after that. Oh, my God, no. Oh, yeah. They have a child named Sharon.

So that's good. You want to have this guy have a daughter, too. Now, at age 20, this is all before 20. Age 20, he's arrested and pleads guilty to burglary and grand larceny and gets a three-year prison sentence. So now he's in jail for three years at 20 with a new baby and a wife. Unbelievable. His life's a goddamn disaster, I would say here. So he's sentenced to prison at age 20, 1971.

He goes there. After four days of being incarcerated, he escapes. He goddamn escapes again. Four days. This guy's good. I'm running this shit. I'm getting out of here. How many jail escapes have we covered?

How fucking easy is it? No doubt. Put locks on the goddamn doors? Yeah. Put a guy by every fucking door? Yeah. and then just you can't move from here. Don't move. That's fucking crazy. Okay, we got all our door

guys. Now let's staff the rest of them. Most important thing is a guy by the door so they can't fucking get out. That's the most important guy. Everybody else is really kind of second class. It doesn't matter at that point. If you hire one guy, just put him by the door. Put him by the door. Get the door and make sure they don't get out. Put the guy at that location. Have him glance up at a window every once in a while while he's at it too. Put him by the door. Get the door and make sure they don't get out. Put the guy at that location.

Have him glance up at a window every once in a while while he's at it, too. Just do that, please. That would be fine. Keep his ears out for some filing, and that's where he needs to be. Absolutely. So he's paroled in 73 because he seems like a guy who's going to be on the straight and narrow and have a good path in life. He's paroled in 73, so by 74, he's caught and convicted of armed robbery.

Good Christ. So, I mean, he's not getting it, I don't think, here. He's sent to Brushy Mountain State Prison, and he's there for more than nine years. Whoa. That's no shit. He's there until the early 80s. Yeah. Of course, right away, though, he escaped, of course,

too, when he was in there. Never been in a jail. He hasn't escaped yet. Nothing can hold him. Can't hold him. Then he gets caught back again. But they release him on parole in 82. They're like, you know what? Let's give him a chance here. Nothing can hold him. Can't hold him. Then he gets caught back again. But they release him on parole in 82. They're like, you know what? Let's give him a chance here. Let's give him a chance. It might have been one of those things, too, where they were like, let's get him on

parole so we can keep an eye on him for a while first. Then he'll violate and be back in. Let's just not release him free and clear. Then we have to actually catch him doing shit now. Justice served. Absolutely. He gets married twice more in this time, from 82 to 85. And he starts working in a

bar in Tennessee. So he's an ex-con with two ex-wives and kids and prison sentences working at a goddamn bar in Tennessee. What is he doing there? Holy shit. Working, doing nothing. Just jerking off, doing drugs, doing bartender shit. Really? He's a bartender? He's a bartender. He's working at a bar. Holy shit. That's a bartender. He's working at a bar. Yeah.

Holy shit. He's working at a bar. That's what I mean. It's unbelievable. Someone trusts this guy with money. He meets a couple of guys here who he shouldn't have met. This is one of those situations where it's like, God damn it, bad cocktail. Bad cocktail.

These people should have never come in contact with each other. They would have all done bad things, but together they're worse. And now there's three of them. It's a dickhead Voltron. It really is. And it's terrible. And we can't have it. Together they're worse.

And now there's three of them. It's a dickhead Voltron. It really is. And it's terrible. And we can't have it. He meets a guy named Donald Bartley and a guy named Roger Epperson at this point. Okay. So they start becoming cool and hanging out and being a little kind of a little group here at this bar in Tennessee.

They go all around, though. They'll travel around for things, different things. They like to go out and party, do things. You know, they're men about town. What southern boys do. Yeah, they're southern gentlemen, you'd figure. They're like Doc Holliday, these guys are going out there. Got a big hat. Frederick fucking Chopin, they say, and they go, no, that happens all the time.

Right? Down there. These guys, that's what happens at the bar. One of them's drunk, probably up or sitting, he goes, Frederick fucking Chopin. I got two guns, one for each of you. But it's classy. Spinning a shot glass with a handle. It's all very classy, though. You get it, how it works? sending goes frederick fucking chopin i got two guns one for each of you that's it yeah he's but it's classy spinning a shot glass with a handle it's all very classy though you get it how it works just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you about our sponsor blue apron blue apron the number one fresh ingredient and recipe delivery service in the country and that's

for a reason it's because it's delicious. Take it from me. Take it from Jimmy. We do this ourselves. We get Blue Apron. We get it every week. The box comes to our house full of good stuff, everything you could possibly need for your recipe. All these meals take under 40 minutes to prepare.

Unbelievable. Anything you could want, anything that comes in there, any little weird spice that you don't have, it's like, oh, this calls for that, this recipe. There it is. It's in the box. It's the exact amount you need. It is beautiful. The meats are delicious. The vegetables are perfect. This month's upcoming meals, check

it out. Cheesy chicken and black bean enchiladas with salsa verde. That sounds delicious. Shrimp marinara with spaghetti, spinach, and parsley. Maple gravy smothered pork chops with stewed collard greens and sweet potatoes. I can't wait for this. I'm really excited for this. Get started as soon as possible. The food is delicious We'll be right back. Home-cooked meals with Blue Apron, so don't wait. That's blueapron.com slash small. Blue Apron, a better way to cook. And now back to the show.

So June 16th, 1985. Let's bring a couple more people into this mix. Let's talk about Edwin Morris and Bessie Morris, a married couple. Edwin is 65 years old. Bessie is 69 years old. Nice couple. Nice retired couple. They live in Greyhawk in Jackson County, Kentucky.

They're in their home just hanging out, you know, doing their thing. Benny Hodge and Roger Epperson, they go to their door. They go to the Morris' door. Benny is armed with a.38 caliber handgun. And Roger has a 9mm pistol. They're at the door. What ended up happening is they ended up going in. Bartley's also there, though.

Epperson and Benny go inside. Bartley stays outside to keep a lookout. He's able to see some shit through the patio door, though, and he knows what's going on. Through this, apparently they get in there, and Benny and Epperson take their guns out, obviously, to show him. They then knock Mr. Morris to the floor.

65-year-old man, that's really nice. Then from outside, Bartley heard shots going off, following which they said Benny and Epperson came running out of the house with, quote, a sack full of money and their pockets stuffed with more money. So they come running out of this house with money. They get out of here. They count it all up and realize they stole $35,000 in cash from these people. Oh, my God. In the 80s? In the 80s from this old retired couple. Now, I think we're in don't – from a later thing, we're in don't trust the bank country down here is where we are.

We're in I ain't putting my shit in the bank. Fuck that. Back in the Depression. Man's wearing a suit. He's stealing. Exactly. This is like we just keep our cash in our house under our mattress type of thing, and that's what these people were apparently doing. How these guys knew that they would have $35,000. Where would you think?

You're just wandering around rural Kentucky, and you think they must have tens of thousands of dollars in cash in their house. You have to know something, but we never find out any connection to this. Really? Any connection that they might have knew of them or about them or anything. Who knows if they heard a guy. Roger knew him. Or, you know, I worked on this house over here and I saw they had a lot of money. I put up some drywall and in that drywall I saw something.

That's a roofer thing to do, I feel like. A roofer would do that, not a drywaller. A drywaller has some respect, but a roofer, shit, no. He would steal a goddamn... He'd steal it right out of their pockets without them knowing it, I feel like. Sorry, roofers, but you know, you might not be a scumbag. Look at the guy next to you putting on the tar. He's a fucking scumbag, and you know it.

Would you let him date your daughter? No, you wouldn't. Shit, no, you wouldn't. So, exactly. Shut up and listen. Okay. So, keep your roofing going and fucking listen that guy's killing it that guy owns the business he's doing great people laying the shit down and

tarring it's not great those people away it's not yeah especially away from our kids damn it uh they also get a diamond cluster ring you know like a big kind of old lady diamond ring off of bessie's fucking finger i'm sure it's off of bessie's finger a set of diamond earrings they get right off her goddamn ears. Possibly. They get a.38 caliber handgun. Later on, they disassembled the 9mm. They wiped everything clean of prints, and they threw them off a bridge into the Daniel Boone National Forest.

There's a river that goes through there. They throw it into there. Then they burned, I guess Benny had a lot of bloodstains on him, so they burned his shirt and shoes for the bloodstains. Get rid of that. So they were trying to cover it up and do that. Now, when the bodies are found, Edwin Morris' body is found lying on the kitchen floor. This is terrible here. See, it's one thing to go in.

Obviously, I'm not saying go in and kill people, but if you're going to gonna go in and kill people i feel like there's a respectful way to do it there's a respectful way to be a piece of shit you know what i mean there really is i mean honestly this is not the way this is this pisses me off because if you listen to episode seven when i tell you about how i got a sick sense of humor from my great-grandmother's funeral right this is like what happened to my great-grandmother this piss pisses me off. People breaking into old people's fucking homes looking for fucking money, and what they did is they tied them up. And this is exactly what they did to her. So it pisses me the fuck off that people would do this to helpless people who are old and

might have money. Who you're about to kill anyway. Why torture them? And my grandmother didn't even have any fucking money. That was the other thing either. She believed in banks. So, you know, she was from New York, not fucking rural Kentucky. So she had, yeah, she believed in the banks and it was all in there, I'm sure.

Or I don't know if she had any fucking money at all, but it doesn't matter. Anyway, these poor people, they find him lying on the kitchen floor, gagged with his hands tied behind his back and a pillow laying nearby. Bessie Morris's body was found on a bed in the bedroom, hands tied behind her back, her feet tied together. Also a pillow found nearby with her. The medical examiner said that Edwin Morris had been shot twice, once in the forehead and once in the right side of the head. He said they were unnecessary. One was fine.

Either one would have done the trick, he said. One bullet was recovered from his head. The other one had passed through his head. He also said that even if the bullet wounds hadn't have killed him, he would have suffocated from the gag they put on him anyway. So they were just torturing this guy here. Now, Bessie Morris,

also two gunshot wounds, this time in the back, both of which were fatal. They said both of which would have ended up being fatal, but neither one was fatal quickly. So she suffered. She laid there tied up in her bed. And bled to death. Suffering, which is fucking horrific, and these people are heartless assholes for this.

A ballistics expert says that one of the two bullets recovered from one of their bodies was definitely a.38 caliber, and the other one was either a.38 or a.357 Magnum. Couldn't tell it was a little damaged. They're pretty close in size. Both bullets had been fired from the same weapon. He said either could have been a.38 or a.357. Two additional bullets were recovered from a crawl space under the kitchen floor right near where Edwin Morris' body was found. And a third in the box spring of the mattress where Bessie Morris' body was. They even missed.

They fired down. They fired down and missed. And missed. And missed. Because who knows? They were probably trying to get out of the way or Bessie Morris is by. So they even missed. They fired down. They fired down and missed. And missed. And missed. Because who knows? They were probably trying to get out of the way or whatever. Assholes. They fired five shots at him and four at her, or three at her, which is.

Only hit him with two. Only hit him with two in the head. And hit her with two. And one with. That's unbelievable. From right there. Yeah. From right there.

Right there. And you still missed. Yeah. They're not good. They wouldn't have done well in a mob movie. No. They just go over and shoot people in the head. Really, just awful shit here.

This is weird here, this little detail here. Ballistics expert testifies that all of these were 9mm Luger bullets, which appear to have been fired from a semi-automatic pistol, and at least two of the bullets were fired from the same weapon, and the third could have been, but it was inconclusive with the testing. Both pillows found near the bodies had large holes with gunshot residue, so they used it as a silencer. They literally muffled it with the pillow and did it like that. So it's very odd that the.38s all found their mark and all the 9mms missed.

Yeah. Interesting, that little detail there. That is clever. That seems on purpose, to miss three shots, to miss twice, bite by someone's head. That seems like you don't. Right fucking there. Right there. That is clever. That seems on purpose to miss three shots to miss twice right by someone's head that seems like you're right fucking there and you're just a chicken shit and you can't do it. Absolutely. Now Benny's wife, a woman named

Sherry, Sherry here she's a winner too, this Sherry she was a... The third one? The third one. She was a prison guard at the Brushy Mountain State Prison. Winner. Winner. Winner. Yeah. What she would do is she would come on to these guys.

She looked at this as her Tinder. You know what I mean? What a bitch. She'd go by the cells and be like, walk right, walk left. That's what she was fucking doing. It's ridiculous. All right, pull it out. Yeah. She would also sell them drugs.

Oh, God, what a bitch. So she'd get to know them. She was just not great. She's a scumbag. Yeah, she would. And it's funny, too. In this one thing in the court, they said that she would seduce the criminals. I'm like, I don't think there's much seduction there.

I think she basically said, I'll fuck you. And they were like, I'm in prison. Yes. Oh, my God. You don't have to have. She hangs her foot over the bars and goes, take a gander, boy. She didn't even have to do that. How's it look?

She could roll her sleeve up and they'd be like oh my god skin skin it's they're in prison and guess what else i got uh christ what a pick i hate her but she found the one she liked the most and that's all benny hodge here she found them and uh yeah he was by the way that that uh nine year sentence he served that was off of a 29 year uh he was almost 30 years out of that out of that robbery absolutely man they would uh yeah they would it's weird too like people in the prison kind of like knew that they were kind of hooking up and like even like the guards kind of it was all like rumored around they would be making out all around the place uh yeah it's it's it's pretty damn gross here so so vile uh so when

they got out they moved in together and this is when she was like helping him rip people off and shit. She was like, you know, she's a scumbag. Yeah, she's a scumbag too. That's the thing. She was probably working right next to him at that bar in Tennessee. You know what I mean? Now, what he tells Sherry here, Benny tells Sherry that they entered, that Bartley and he entered the home. Not Epperson.

that Bartley and he entered the home, not Epperson. Bartley says that Epperson and Benny went in the house, and Benny tells his wife it was me and Bartley, and Epperson stayed outside and played lookout. I tend to believe that because he was just telling his wife. Benny just didn't seem to give a shit. He was just telling his wife what happened. He's telling somebody that's a scumbag that he trusts. Yeah, and he said that they entered the house and he shot Edwin Morris.

He said he did it. Benny said that he shot Edwin Morris when Morris reached for a gun on top of the refrigerator. That's the.38 they stole. He said that's when there was a scuffle and he shot him in the head from that. That's how that happened. He then says Bartley took Bessie Morris into the bedroom and shot her, is what he says. He says when Bartley emerged from the bedroom, Benny

asked him if Mrs. Morris was dead, and Bartley replied that he thought she was, where he said, well, that's not good enough. So, you know, Benny went back in there and shot her again to make sure. Like, let's, come on here. What are we doing here? His wife Sherry also says later on that Benny is the one who carries a.38, not anybody else.

He carries a.38. That's the one that they pulled out of all the bodies. And Bartley usually has a 9-millimeter handgun, which is the one that he didn't shoot anybody. She also talks about later on that Benny gave her the diamond ring and earrings, and she ended up going and selling them to some – Yeah. You know, hocking them in Tennessee somewhere. Go to the next state and hock them, and nobody would care in the 80s. They wouldn't – you know, they have those pawn shop cards, like, in the wire that Lester Freeman has to fill out because he crossed the bosses back when he was on the street doing homicide.

God damn it. Watch the fucking wire. Okay. So it's like that sort of thing, but I don't know if they had those in the 80s or whatever. They were that state to state or whatever. Police, for this horrible crime, they compile a list of suspects, obviously. They have at least eight suspects for this that they're thinking of, which I don't know how many enemies these— They're like eight different guys for this?

How many enemies do these people have? No kidding. They usually go around. Who wouldn't like these? They ask the questions. Do they have any enemies? Anybody you might know? Oh, everyone hated this old couple.

This old man was salty. They must have been assholes. Yeah, what is going on here? What did they do? What the fuck did these people do? Also, they pulled 15 fingerprints and three palm prints suitable for comparisons from the home, but none of them matched Epperson, Benny, or Bartley, or anyone else that the police had as a suspect.

Who the fuck knows? We don't know how well they cleaned. Where do these handprints come from? How many people they let in their house? The guy who fixed the boiler, the guy who installed this. Who knows who they're letting in? They got a lot of money. They can hire anybody for anything.

Yeah, they got 35 grand cash sitting around. They're doing well here. Investigators also looked around. There was rumors of men cashing in thousands of dollars in silver coins that were also missing from the Morris' residence as well. They're just checking around. There was rumors of men cashing in thousands of dollars in silver coins that were also missing from the Morris's residence as well as that. So they're just checking around. They're checking around any robbery in the area, anything that might sound similar. Yeah.

So that was June 16th, 85. That whole murder happened here, the double murder. Now, August 8th, 1985. This is just after 9 p.m. This is in Fleming Neon. Three weeks later. Two months later. Almost. June, July,on. Three weeks later. Two months later. June, July, August.

June 16th. Holy shit. Six weeks. Yeah, six weeks later basically here. So it's just after 9 p.m. The home of Dr. Roscoe J. Acker we're at here. He's a very successful physician. He does very well to do.

He's 78 years old. He practiced for more than 40 years in Fleming Neon. He does very well to do. He's 78 years old. He practiced for more than 40 years in Fleming Neon. He's recently retired. His office, and this is his home office too, he has an office in his home, and it's like one of those kind of old-timey setups here. For a long time, he was the only doctor in Fleming Neon. He was Doc Hollywood. He was the town doctor.

They came to him, and, yeah, the doctor gave you a Coke if you thought you were having a heart attack, and you go back to your shanty, and that's that. You go mine the was the town doctor. They came to him and yeah, the doctor gave you a Coke if you thought you were having a heart attack and you go back to your shanty and that's that. You go mine the coal the next day. Stop chewing your daddy's chow, boy. That's it right there. But this, he had in his house, his office was used to film a scene for the movie

Coal Miner's Daughter. Oh shit. With Sissy Spacek and Tommy Lee Jones. This is the country we're in down here. This is exactly where we are. This is, picture the Coal Miner's Daughter, if you've seen it. If you haven't, you should probably see it. It's a pretty damn good movie. It won awards, didn't it? I think so. Picture that. I haven't seen it in a long time, but it's

very good. Anyway, this is the country we're looking at here, basically. Even in that movie, when they're talking about this era, it's very much like guys are marrying 14-year-old girls and forcing themselves on them and shit like that. It's a crazy fucking time down there.

Anyway, so he's down there. She's in his house. Dr. Roscoe, Jay Acker, he is there. He's also, the doorbell rings, and his daughter's in the house. His daughter's 23 years old. Her name is Tammy. She took a semester off college

the last semester. This is August 8th. She's scheduled to go back to college the next day. She's set to go back to college the next day and do her thing. She's packed up and leaving town. Packed up, leaving town, ready to go, do her thing. Going to bed early, jumping in the car and driving early. Pretty much it. She's probably like, who's ringing my goddamn doorbell

at 9 o'clock? This late at night, I've got to go to bed. Yeah, she answers it and she calls to her dad that there's two people from the FBI there that want to talk to him. So he's like, I better talk to those people. I don't know why they're coming at 9 o'clock at night, but whatever. They run some weird hours down there at the FBI. Oh, boy. Well, I guess so. Highfalutin sons of bitches down there.

They're out there running around looking for 10 dudes. Oh, boy. I must be one of them. I better answer. So, yeah. So Dr. Acker them. I better answer. So, yeah. So Dr. Acker here, he comes down. He answers it. He talks to them for a second.

He sees that one of the men has a black briefcase. And basically what they do, he invites them in. One of them has a black briefcase. And one man grabs Tammy and walks. Carrie kind of drags her from the kitchen into the next room. So he's obviously a little bit freaked out by that. They have weapons, and they force him physically to lie down on the floor. They tie his hands and feet, put a gag in his mouth, and put a sheet over his head.

Okay. Then they beat him. This is a 78-year-old man. Okay, this is ridiculous. The FBI's got some weird tactics for interrogation. This is strange. I don't know. You haven't even told me why you're here yet. I don't know what's going on.

Swipe the goddamn sheet. What case do you want information for? Jesus. They're going to waterboard me now? What's happening? Put a sheet over my fucking head? What they're doing is making him, this is why I say they know things, because what they're doing is making him give them the safe combination.

They know he has a safe and they know he has some shit in it. This is the first say they know things, because what they're doing is making him give them the safe combination. They know he has a safe, and they know he has some shit in it. This is the first thing they did. Grab Tammy, drag her away, tie him up, and beat him and ask for the safe combination. I don't know if they saw the safe or what, but they wanted that goddamn combination, and it was pretty quick. At this point, there's a third man there, too, seen in the doorway of another room. They force Dr. Acker to open the safe. He then at that point feels something on his neck tighten,

and that's it, he blacks out. So these people, saying they're FBI agents, end up getting out of here with this, and this is a crazy amount of money. This is what I mean, they have to know shit. They get out of here, this is in cash. $1.9 million in cash. What?

One point. This is like the Lufthansa heist, for Christ's sake. This doctor is killing it. Yeah. This is Jimmy Conway and Ray Liotta here. Why do you have that near you? Because he's famous around town for not believing in banks. Everybody knows he hates the banks.

He doesn't believe in banks. You don't believe in banks? Think about it. Shut your fucking mouth. He's 78 years old. He was born in 1907. Yeah. He was a young man hates the banks. He doesn't believe in banks. You don't believe in banks? Think about it. Shut your fucking mouth. He's 78 years old. He was born in 1907. He was a young man during the Depression. He knows what's going on.

He probably could have lost a bunch of money in the Depression, or his parents did, or something. He didn't believe in banks. I got $1.9 million. I don't want that to disappear. He kept his hole. And they took that in cash. They took $1.9 million in cash, plus a bunch of jewelry, guns.

You will break a sweat getting that out of a house. Guns, jewelry, everything. It is, at the time, the largest private cash heist in the history of the United States. And it's not now? From a home. From a home. I think something surpassed it since then. Holy shit.

But it's the largest cash heist ever from a private place, private residence. And as a hillbilly from fucking Kentucky, with that kind of money, you should never be caught. No. The ability to live a menial lifestyle. Oh, God damn, yeah. I mean, granted, you're splitting it three fucking ways now because you're a dipshit. Jesus Christ. Good God, you're over 600 grand apiece here.

Oh, that's so much money. 633,000 bucks apiece. That's pretty good. That's so much money. You could live forever down there. A house costs fucking $30,000 down there. You could live forever down there. You go to the bar in Tennessee, you get shit hammered, and you come home.

What are you doing? You could get shithoused on like $35 down there. Oh, yeah, I'm sure. So anyway, Dr. Acker luckily was not killed by this. Really? They thought they killed him, but they did not. He comes to. Yeah.

He gets his hands and feet loose, struggling on the ground. Where's Tammy? Has no idea what's going on. Yeah. He runs. First thing he does is run's Tammy? Has no idea what's going on. Yeah. He runs. First thing he does is run towards Tammy's room as soon as he gets them. He was going. He said he had them off his feet and he was still getting them off his hands as he was

running to Tammy's room because he was obviously very concerned. In a hurry. He found her lying on the corner of the bed. Oh, fuck. He called her name and went to lift her up and saw that there was a butcher knife. Oh, God. Protruding out of her back. Fuck.

And at that point, he says later on, he knew she was in God's hands and she was in a bad place at that point. And a doctor knows. She was, not only was it sticking out of her back, it was stuck to the floor. Oh, fuck. Through her back. So that is, that's the kind of force. All the way to the wood. A butcher knife, yeah.

All the way to the wood. Yeah, she was over by the corner of her bed and all the way to the wood yeah she was over by the corner of her bed and all the way to the wood on that so oh my god it was 12 stabs with the butcher knife 12 so they hacked this poor girl up man they hacked this poor girl up and then stuck it all the way to the floor as an exclamation point and left it in there like that the anger that it takes in a force to do it's like they had to stand on that fucking knife. That's what I mean. Yeah, that's not easy to do.

That is not easy to do at all. So, I mean, that's horrible, man. Unbelievable. So he has to go see that now. I don't even know what you do then. How do you feel? You just woke up from being strangled and then you come on to your daughters. It's incredible.

Oh, by the way, everyone's going to be pissed off at this more than that. But in the whole melee here, they also stabbed the family dog to death, too. Did they really? They killed the dog. They knifed up the dog. They stabbed the dog to death, too. What the fuck? This is fucking horrible.

What kind of dog was it? They did not say that. Oh, thank God. I'm kind of happy about that. All they just call it the family dog. But they stabbed the family dog and the daughter and tried to kill a nice 78-year-old physician who's probably saved

half this town's life 20 times. Wow. You can't get a more horrible scene than that for any amount of money. That's ridiculous to do that. It's not necessary. They could have... He opened the safe. Tammy had nothing to do with that.

They could have taken her away, tied her up, threw her in her closet and left her there and gone out, beat up the old man, got the money, left the sheet on his head and took the fuck off. You got cash that's untraceable. You got $1.9 million. Yeah, man. I mean, get it together, man. And they end up killing all these people.

I'm not saying go rob people, but you don't need to kill someone like this. Don't do it needlessly. He didn't have a gun like the other guy even where he could say, well, I wasn't going to kill him, but then he grabbed a gun. So after this, the FBI becomes involved on this because – Now we got the FBI involved. Well, because they pose as FBI agents. They don't like that. That's a problem.

They're like, hey, you can't be posing as FBI agents and killing people. Right. So they immediately focus on Epperson, Benny, Hodge, and Bartley. Okay. So they immediately focus on Epperson, Benny, Hodge, and Bartley. Right away, those are the three guys because they are suspected of robbing drug dealers in eastern Kentucky. They're basically a little robbery crew. So this is what I mean. They know what they're doing. They come in.

They're dressed up like that's why they have their FBI shit. They have fake badges because that's what you do to get a drug dealer to open the door. Yeah, to get drug dealers shut up. And then you steal all their shit. And that's what they're doing. They're running around. This is like some rural, he's basically rural Omar. Like from The Wire, where he robs people and stands them up.

I think I told you to watch The Wire before, possibly. So they're looking at them. They can't find these three guys. They can't find them. They finally track them down in Florida. What? They get all the way to Florida. Federal agents. We want a beach. we want a beach we want a beach damn it uh federal agents also get they they talk to jackson county about the morrises and they're like this sounds eerily familiar and similar

and so they they keep uh putting it all together here uh the police they got they got blood bullets hair uh everything but this is before really DNA testing, so there really wasn't anything they could do with any of this ship, but they had it all sitting there. Now, August 17th, 1985, all three men are arrested in Ormond Beach, Florida by FBI, so they're not

fucking around here. Where's Ormond Beach? I don't know. I did not look that up. I have this deep sinking feeling that it's near Jacksonville. I was going to say, I guarantee you it's in the panhandle. I guarantee you it's not near Miami. It's not near Miami. No, no, this isn't Florida. It's not Fort Lauderdale.

No, no, no. They are up there. This is a shit area of Florida. It's just west of Jacksonville. It's beautiful. It's like Monticello. I think it's episode 11 like we did. I feel like that's where they were hanging out here.

They grow watermelons. It's going to be good down there. So, yeah. How do you spell Ormond Beach? I'll Google the shit out of that. O-R-M-O-N-D Beach. O-R-M-O-N-D? Yes.

So they end up getting, they find them here. They say two of these men also were suspects in a Rome, Georgia, in a Rome, Georgia robbery where two men came to the door posing as IRS agents. So they're looking at all of this, but they're all being held without bond at that point. Ormond Beach Police and about 10 members of an FBI special weapons team captured Benny and I'm sorry, captured Bartley and Hodge, Benny, as they walked out of their apartment and they ended up getting Epperson a few minutes later about two miles away in Daytona Beach. So it's near Daytona Beach.

I was just going to say that. It's in this hillbilly as Daytona Beach. It is. And listen to what he was doing, too. Listen to how they caught him. They caught him two miles from, like I said, driving a brand new 1985 Corvette. Weird. That he just bought three hours earlier.

Wow. With $25,000 cash. Cash. Cash money on the table. Straight cash, homie. Another good fella's thing. Don't go around flaunting your money. Don't do that.

Big dummy. They're flaunting shit. So this is a fucking mess. The agent said that it appeared they were getting, it appeared by everything that they were just about ready to abandon the apartment. They had been renting it for about a month, so they feel like they were about to go on to the next place. They're going to be charged with the Fleming Neon murder, and they're going to get into the Morrises later. But they're definitely going to go for the stabbing of Tammy D. Acker right now because that's when they have witnesses.

They got a bit of proof. They got Dr. Acker there that's not happy. They're each being charged with capital homicide, attempted murder, first degree burglary, armed robbery, and capital homicide is minimum penalty of 20 years and maximum penalty of the death penalty. First degree is minimum 20 years. Minimum penalty

20 years. I don't know why that is. Maximum of death though, which is a little more heavy. They also were searching their apartment. They searched the Corvette. They had the other two guys' own cars too that they bought down there for cash. Idiots. The whole thing. They had several guns.

They had machine guns. Really? A large amount of cash in the apartment. It was a fucking mess, basically. It's just a complete mess. They're returned to Kentucky a week later. They get them out of there. And surprise, surprise, one of them feels like he wants to talk about this a little bit. He's like, you know what? Maybe I'll discuss what's going on here.

You guys got a bit more information and proof than I'd like y'all to have. Maybe I'll start being honest. What do you say? And it's Bartley. Bartley's the one. And Bartley's the one who was trying to say he was outside and this one was outside. So this all makes sense here. He would say how they would go around to these places.

They would rent campsites under false names. And they would get a borrowed van and gloves and shit like that. Like they would rent a van two counties over and they would have gloves and concealer identities. said that Bartley's, like I said, said that Epperson and Benny went into the home while he stayed outside and looked as a witness, as a lookout. And he said, you know, much like on the wire when they're looking for cops or Omar, either one. So he's a co-defendant on this, but he's going to be tried kind of a separate deal because he's got a special deal with this whole deal. He tells police that he came to Dr. Acker's house about three days earlier and scouted the house, basically. He told everybody that he told Benny and Epperson that they went to the house. And he said they were dressed in suits the whole deal.

He tells them about the whole thing. He said Dr. Acker let them in the home. whole thing uh he said uh dr acker let them in the home uh bartley said that he tied tammy acker up in the back bedroom and then came back to the kitchen where he was the one who choked dr acker with the cord which didn't kill him yeah uh and then he said that they both thought dr acker was dead he says later on also that tammy begged him not to hurt her or her dad also she's begging don't hurt me and also don't hurt my dad because i care about him too because he's an old man yeah he's an old man. Yeah, he's an old man.

I'm going to college. He's fucking paying for it. Let me be. That cash you're stealing, that's for that. He also says that, he says that Epperson asked Benny, quote, which one do you want, brother? And that Benny replied, it don't matter to me. I'll take the girl. And then he said that Epperson tossed Benny tossed benny a knife the butcher knife which i

don't buy that all right you're not tossing a butcher knife to anybody and then he said uh that was that and he went in there and killed him uh so they said afterwards they were discussing everything and what they got and he said that ben and bartley said that benny said uh quote well i know the girl is dead because the knife went all the way through her to the floor so the fact that he knows all this and he's trying to pit i feel like he stabbed this girl to the floor that's why he knows that and he's trying to pin it on him yeah that's what it sounds like to me but i don't know so in this you think at this point you we have brought the scum level it fucking boil boy it's at a boiling point the scum of this whole thing. Let's enter, if possible, a scummier person into this whole thing.

And he's not even a criminal yet. He's not a criminal yet. He's a criminal, but he's not an actual convicted felon yet here. This is a guy named, he's an attorney. I was going to say lawyer. Named Lester Burns. God damn it. And this, whenever people hate attorneys, I love, this is, I have a, I have kind of a,

I have a jokey thing with this always. Like, I think it's hilarious when people are always ripping on attorneys. But if they need a fucking attorney, they love attorneys. They're like, my attorney's the best. He's the best. So people don't hate attorneys. They hate other people's attorneys. They love their attorney because their attorney saves them money, keeps them out of jail, gets them out of some deal business thing they did.

They like their lawyer. They're attorneys that affect their life. Exactly. So it's one of those things. But people who hate attorneys and like lying scumbags and making shit, internet jokes about it, hacky shit, this is the guy they're talking about. This is the guy they mean, and this guy deserves all of their derision. Absolutely all of it here.

So these three idiots seek out this Lester Burns to defend them on the murder and robbery charges. OK, well, two of the idiots after a while because Bartley flips. So he's a Kentucky lawyer. What the hell? And he finds the case very, very tempting, he said. Now, the lawyer, first of all, he's charging an exorbitant amount of money. He said he tells Epperson's wife that he wants four hundred thousand dollars. Wow. Now. OK. And she says, no, I'm not going to do that. She says he leans

close to her and warned that Epperson would surely be executed without his legal knowledge. And he told her, quote, you may end up being the instrument that sends Roger to the chair. So guess what ends up happening? She figures it out. She finds the money. Yeah. Then he was lining up like a whole defense team of high-priced people, like an OJ situation, that he gets a cut of all of their shit. Wow. He takes a cut.

Like, yeah, I got you this gig, and he's taking 10%. He's like their road manager. Yeah, their shit road booker. So that's what it is. Now, a lawyer is not supposed to accept a fee if he knows that the money comes from ill-gotten gains. I mean, who has it? Where the fuck else are they going to get $400,000? Drug dealers have lawyers and, you know, monsters of lawyers we know with this.

So that doesn't matter. But Whitey Bulger had a fucking lawyer. That's what I mean. Everybody has a good lawyer. John Gotti had good lawyers. Everybody has a lawyer. Now, the wife, Benny's wife, Sherry, that we talked about, she complained. And apparently Burns yelled at her and had a huge tirade and made a big thing of histrionics

and did the whole deal until finally she relented and gave him the money. So, yeah. So they all have this high-powered lawyer. Now, $400,000, that should get you off, right? You're going to be fine. It should. Absolutely. That's a lot be fine. It should. Absolutely. That's a lot of money.

No doubt. June 20th, 1986, Epperson is convicted and sentenced to death. Whoa. So fuck him. $400,000 to get you killed. $400,000. You're going to be that instrument that sends him to the chair. Well, he's gone anyway for $400,000.

And this guy, don't give a shit. Because I wrote a check. Now, we're not going to get into the Epperson trial because it's kind of the least interesting of the two. Bartley doesn't have it. He has a separate plea because he testifies against them. And he testifies in the Epperson trial. Bartley does. But he does not testify in the Benny Hodge trial at all.

No, and Epperson doesn't either. But they have all of his information but not his testimony in this thing. So they go to trial. And this is the crazier trial that has more twists and turns. So we'll talk about Benny's trial here. In Benny's trial, some people testify against him that you might imagine. His ex, Sherry, testified everything we said earlier. She said that shit on the stand.

Yeah, all that stuff. Well, he told me he went in and killed her and blah, blah, blah. So he said he had the 38. And the medical examiner came up and said, all these people were killed with 38. So it didn't look good for him at all in that case. So she testifies. Tom Haynes, who's a responding EMT, testified to the horrible state he found Tammy Acker in and all that sort of shit.

That's damning. That's damning. Maybe the most damning of all. Well, let's talk about Haynes' testimony for a second. He testified that he went to the back room where Tammy was to check her to see if she had any life signs. She had no vitals. Her legs were – she was in a fetal position basically, bound in a fetal position. Her hands were tied behind her back.

And he said it looked like she had a banana around her neck. She had some sort of strangulation like they were holding her in place or something like that. So he said he untied the bindings on her hands and her wrists and legs and found the giant knife and saw that. Yeah, it's horrible. Also, a Kentucky State Police detective also submitted tons of photographs, including a really graphic photograph of Tammy with a butcher knife sticking out of her back all

the way that looked like some Halloween shit that you wouldn't even think is real. Detective Fleming of this, Detective Fleming of the Fleming neon police force, he said that— He's a nephew or a grandson of that man. Probably. He probably is. He said he went to—he saw the autopsy, and he took—they submitted autopsy photos also from there that shows bruising and stab wounds and injuries to her neck just to show they didn't just

stab her no they tortured this girl they beat her yeah it's horrible they said that her cause of death was caused by a hemorrhage from stab wounds to the right lung and the flowing blood from the lung to the chest cavity she fucking drowned which caused her lung to collapse exactly she drowned on her own blood 12 puncture wounds

all together like we said. He determined there was two small knife wounds in the front of the body, and he said they were caused when the knife went all the way through her. So that wasn't the only one. Twice they stabbed through her. Twice. That's unbelievable, man. Maybe the most damning testimony comes from Dr. Acker himself. Really?

Who gets up on the goddamn stand like a fucking man and talks some shit here. He gets up there, shows the jury a photograph of Tammy, not dead, and says she was going to college tomorrow. The next day, she was going back to college. This is unnecessary, and I can't imagine being on the jury when some poor old man's talking to you about they tried to strangle him, stole $2 million from him, and fucking stabbed his daughter 12 times.

I consider myself a man, but if a dude tells me that story in court— Dude, I'm hugging him. I'm crying. I'm going to hug that guy. I'm sorry, man. I'm going to hug him through tears. Yeah, it's unbelievable. Also, too, out of this, there's a guy named Lawrence Smith.

He testifies that he was in jail in Orange County, Florida in August of 85 when Hodge was there and that Hodge was in the cell next to him for two or three weeks. This was before they extradited him back. He says that this Smith fellow here says that, testifies that Hodge told him he killed the doctor's daughter by stabbing her and that one or both of his friends attempted to kill the doctor, but the doctor didn't die. Smith says that Hodge told him they robbed the doctor of over $1.5 million.

He also testified that the doctor and his daughter could identify at least one of them, and they weren't going to leave any witnesses alive. He quoted Hodge as saying, quote, the smart thing to do is kill all witnesses when you commit any crime so nobody can testify against you. I guess, but I mean, it's not the best thing to do.

The best thing to do is don't commit crimes. You can just chill back and not commit any crimes. That'd be terrific. Everybody would be happy with that. The best thing to do is don't commit crimes. You could just chill back and not commit any crimes. That'd be terrific. Everybody would be happy with that. The best thing to do is get a goddamn job and be a functioning member of society. Hey, now we're talking. There we go. There we go.

Be a functioning member of society. Why not? He also testifies to Smith that Benny said he took all the money to where he met a woman and they spread the money out on the bed and he said they made love on top of the money. Of course they did. On top of the money. He met a fucking crack whore in jacksonville daytona beach yeah and banged her on doctor's money i want to bang on the money and she was like all right now the money's getting chewing fucking she's like well i get off my shift in a half hour but after that it was i picture juicy fruit for some reason i don't know why some southern ass juicy fruit for some reason. I don't know why. Some southern ass juicy fruit.

No. Fuck. This is the worst fucking thing. I can't believe this. This is the worst people. He fucked her on the money. That's what he tells this guy. Who knows if that's true or if that's his version of bragging.

That's his version of bragging. I don't know what he's saying here. Benny does not testify for himself in either the guilt or penalty phases at all. Epperson doesn't testify. During the closing argument, Benny's shitheel attorney, one of the ones that Asshole hired, he claimed that Tammy was killed by Donnie Bartley, not him. It wasn't Benny. It was Donnie Bartley.

Case goes to the jury, and Benny Hodge is found guilty on all counts, obviously. I would say there's not a lot. He's a career criminal. He's probably the best for it. This is the guy that needs no reforming. He needs to be put away. Forever. Forever.

Let's just do that. He's convicted of robbery, burglary, attempted murder, and murder in the Letcher Circuit Court. During the penalty phase, the parties agreed to a stipulation that was read to the jury as part of the instructions here. They didn't present any witnesses or evidence. Neither side did during the penalty phase. The court told the jury, quote, now it's stipulated by and between the Commonwealth and Benny Lee Hodge that Benny Lee Hodge has a loving, supportive family, a wife and three children, has a public job work record and lives and resides permanently in Kentucky. That's all they agreed to say to them here here so so yeah he's a great man we'll find yeah we'll find out about him here uh hey guess

what sentenced to death good yeah uh late 1986 yeah i had to throw that in these are good ones yeah good sentence for him yeah this i don't feel bad for this guy at all late 1986 here's some more good news lester burns is disbarred. Really? He's fucking disbarred. For what? Absolutely. He went to federal prison in 87, this guy. Absolutely. I hope he got raped.

He was charged with trying to defraud. I picture him like the guy in Boogie Nights sitting down in prison getting slapped in the face. He was charged with trying to defraud insurance companies of $1.1 million by handling a lawsuit based on a phony traffic accident. What a fucking asshole. More than a dozen people, including several public officials, were also charged in this case. He was also indicted in a separate case, this one's familiar, for helping transport $175,000 of the $1.9 million in stolen money from R.J.

Acker, Dr. Acker in 85. He helped transport this money uh he represented epperson and yeah and he lined up the defense attorneys for the other guy he ended up pleading guilty and was sentenced to eight years in prison my god damn and uh and the judge cut it down to seven years in prison and uh burns's response to all this i messed up didn't i yeah that's what he said damn right yes you did asshole everything for money you scumbag now let's go to the fucking if you're gonna be a lawyer how about you do it for the right reasons how about you do it for the justice system for for good a living but just don't be a scumbag making a living there's a difference between making a living and robbing people that

rob i mean you can make a living and not be uh you not be do illegal shit and i mean we're not robbing anybody i feel like so you know we're not making a living either but we're not robbing and not do illegal shit. I mean, we're not robbing anybody, I feel like. So we're not making a living either, but we're not robbing anybody for that matter. He's robbing people that robbed and did horrible shit, and he's trying to get the money from horrible shit. Yeah, to keep for himself. What a scumbag. So first appeal here. We'll do with Benny's appeal, and we'll do the Epperson shit in the middle here.

But Benny's appeal here, he is appealing on the grounds of deficient performance of counsel. He says that they didn't present any mitigating evidence, even though there's a shitload of it from his childhood, if we've learned about mitigating evidence. Now they looked into this mitigating evidence. And let's, do you want to hear a couple of mitigating evidence here? I'd like to hear what he believes are mitigating circumstances. Well, now that he knows – now we know he's an asshole, we can kind of be happy this happened to him, I guess. Well, maybe not because he was a kid.

But the mother reports that she was beat while she carried him by her husband. So, I mean, that was – in the womb, she's being beat. This is just the beginning here. The natural father threatened to kill her. The whole deal, this father never paid child support. She never had food stamps. She said she was too proud, so she just found another guy to marry who was a complete drunkard. They would stay with the step-in-laws.

They were bootleggers, these people. Yeah, they would stay there, so they were staying with a bootlegger family. Then there was Billie Jo Hodge, who she called a monster, would beat her and the kids really bad, extremely abusive, wouldn't allow her to show affection to Benny at all. Billy Joe killed Benny's dog in front of him. Oh, God. See what I mean? This is all cyclical shit here.

Billy Joe threatened to kill the mother and pulled guns on the mother in front of Benny. Yeah. Then they said as abusive as Billy Joe, the stepfather was to everybody else. He was the most abusive to Benny. He would get very, very angry if the mother did anything with the son because she was jealous. He Billy Joe.

What he was. He was jealous of the love. Absolutely. He was jealous that you're paying more attention to him than me. I'm your husband. You're supposed to. He's a fucking baby, you dick. It's fucking ridiculous here.

So there's that. Billy Joe beat the mother so badly that she miscarried a child from a beating. Yeah, after this whole thing, that's when the school stuff was. They would go to the bootleggers' house all the time to hide from the stepfathers. He's going to the bootleggers for protection. Like, at least they're not beating me up over here. His half-sister reports that Benny's nose was rubbed in his own feces. Oh, Christ.

Yeah. What? How do you do that? She said by the stepfather. Like, how? Did he shit his pants? I don't know. I guess.

Or shit somewhere he wasn't supposed to and got it rubbed in it. She said that Benny tried to protect her from beatings that she got from the stepfather. She said that Benny was completely abandoned. They would hide him at times, the stepfamily, the people that would hide him from their own relatives here. They would do that. But they were also extremely dysfunctional. As we said, they were bootleggers and shit like that. As we said, they were bootleggers and shit like that.

Hey, guys, just going to take a real quick break from the show to tell you about an upcoming show of ours that you might want to come see in Hollywood at the Hollywood Improv. What's the date on that, Jimmy? That is October 7th at 8 p.m. with Dan Cummins. We are coming soon. Do you feel like it, Danny? Oh, your pun. That was a terrible pun, but it's okay. soon. Did you feel like it? Oh, your pun. That was a terrible pun, but it's okay.

It's going to be us and Dan Cummins from the very popular and amazingly funny good friend of ours, Time Suck Podcast, that you should also be listening to. Get out there. It'll be the three of us doing comedy. One show. One show only. Only one show. One night only. One night only. Very limited availability in

Hollywood, California at the Improv. And where might they get those tickets, Jimmy? Hollywood.Improv.com. Hollywood.Improv.com. October 7th, 8 p.m., me, James, Dan Cummins. Probably that order. That sounds like a night. Guys, I hope to see you there.

If you can't make it, tell your friends in L.A. Let's pack the place with Time Sucks, Small Town Murder, and Crime and Sports fans, and let's make it... And let's make it a night to remember for everybody let's have a good time we're going to be hanging out we'll come talk to everybody that comes after the show it's going to be a good time no one will be turned away from socialization hope to see you there guys and now back to the show and this was uh backed up by relatives, acquaintances, everybody. People in the community just knew, oh, yeah, he was that kid that was going to beat the shit out of all the time. And that's why he was stealing shit.

She said the sister said that the stepfather hated everyone. Once again, most of all, Benny. He was an alcoholic, didn't support them. He died from alcohol abuse. The whole thing is a mess, Billy Joe. The stepfather controlled the money. Everyone lived in poverty because. The whole thing is a mess. Billy Joe, the stepfather, controlled the money. Everyone lived in poverty because he wouldn't give anybody any money. They could all hear

the beating of their mother constantly because they lived in a small house and she was constantly beating him. They said there was no way to... He was constantly beating her. He was constantly beating her and him, beating everybody. So, just a... This is obviously a disastrous thing. Still, you can't kill people and shove knives all the way through their body to the floor and steal $2 million.

And here's the other thing. You were beaten by that man. You can't take that shit out on other people. I get that that's why you're doing it. I get you're a disaster. All of us in society still can't have you out there and just be like, well, we'll just let him go and he can stab some people because he had it tough. His dad kicked his ass. you out there and just be like, well, we'll just let him go and he can stab some people because he had it tough.

His dad kicked his ass. I mean, I feel bad and I wish in the middle of this somebody would have ripped Billy Joe out of the fucking house and give him an ass kick and that would have been wonderful, but it didn't quite happen. So, yeah. Wish you had a.38 when you were eight, you know what I mean? I wish you would have shot your stepdad, but you didn't. That would

help, man. So, like I said, everybody family, everybody control, uh confirmed this i guess the big thing uh was the dog it really messed benny up that he killed the dog in front of him what the fuck did you do sir he would use a belt buckle to beat him with wrap his belt around his hand with the buckle and beat him with that uh unbelievable the whole thing here uh did you ever got molested by him so he knew his sister was getting molested. I picture that happening.

I mean, there's more, too. I mean, I'll leave it at this. It's enough. He had a horrible childhood. We'll leave it with they made him rubbed face in his own shit. I think that's enough right there to really give the idea. I saw one of my friends get hit with a belt buckle. And if you see that and you're not part of that household, there's worse shit going on

in that house. Oh, yeah. That's what's on the surface. And I saw that when I was like eight and I was just like, man, that was fucked up. That's above the water. Yeah. Imagine what's below it, man. That's bananas, baby.

You see a duck. That's a duck sitting there. Those legs are kicking hard under that water. I've looked for that kid on Facebook since and I haven't seen it. I can't imagine what the fuck happened to that family. That's so bad. That's a duck sitting there. Those legs are kicking hard under that water. I've looked for that kid on Facebook since, and I haven't seen it. I can't imagine what the fuck happened to that family. That's so bad. That's so bad. I feel bad for that kid, really.

There was a doctor and a psychiatrist that obviously testified on his behalf, saying of the domestic violence, it's as bad as any I've ever seen. No doubt. Obviously, I think it doesn't get much worse unless he killed somebody. bad as any I've ever seen. No doubt. Obviously, I think it doesn't get much, unless he killed somebody. Yeah. He said as a child, this environment would have caused, quote, hypervigilance, always waiting for the next shoe to fall.

He would have been on guard in a constant state of anxiety the whole time he was in the company of this man. He said it was abnormal for children to do that. Kids generally don't have worries about life or limb or shit like that. They just kind of worry about candy. Yeah. When's the next fun time? Yeah. That's what you're usually looking forward to yeah my son once told me that uh he was really really concerned about monsters like super concerned about i was like okay yeah i know man it's rough like that was okay like he

was but he was like he meant it though he's like i talked about monsters dad and i was like shit man i don't know like that's how he said it like though. He was like, I talked to you about monsters, Dad. And I was like, shit, man, I don't know. Like, that's how he said it. Like, these fucking monsters every day. You really got to have a chat about these. They're all over the freeway when I can't get through. There's traffic. It's been like, that's how he was talking. Like, it was a real pain in his ass more than anything.

I was like, okay. It's a real inconvenience these days, Dad. Unreal. That's what happened here. So this doctor also testifies. Another doctor testifies that the juvenile incarceration period was really bad because it was even worse. He comes from an abusive

environment and he's put in another one. He basically said, this psychiatrist, that he was double betrayed by his family and the society and everything else which, yeah, that's fine. I don't disagree. Not at all. But yeah, it says they basically summed it up by saying, quote, they destroyed his ability to have any kind of faith in the world that he is ever going to be safe.

Which, yeah, that's terrible. Then they said the rage has to go somewhere. They figured he would either commit suicide or lash out. One of the two. Has to go somewhere. This is not lashing out. No, no, no. This is fucking murder.

This is vicious. You put together a calculated robbery crew to go around steal as much cash as you can that's not lashing out this isn't lashing out is being at a at your shit job where you're serving tables and your boss tells you to do something and you tell him to go fuck himself and you smash a beer mug in his head that's that's that's lashing out this is not lashing out. This is fucking calculated-ass cold-blooded murder. That's not lashing out. It is. So they end up saying also, too, he has PTSD from all this and all this kind of deal.

So after all this, there's a ruling on this. I'll read the ruling here. Although the court has found that Hodge's counsel's performance was deficient because of a lack of investigation and not a strategic decision, Hodge's criminal history would almost certainly have been revealed to the jury during the presentation of the mitigating evidence. The unsympathetic portrait of Hodge may very well have outweighed the sympathy created. This is particularly true when it comes to the vicious nature of the assault on Tammy Acker. Order and judgment here.

Hereby ordered and judged, the defendant's motion to vacate the conviction and sentence is denied. You, sir, take a fucking hike back to jail with you. That was a long way to go for, sir, this isn't lashing out. This isn't lashing out. I'm sorry. We gave a much better explanation than that fucking judge did. Absolutely. But, but, but, but, but, they both get new trials.

Really? They both get new trials. Okay. Based on a bunch of different factors, they both end up getting new trials. Really? They both get new trials based on a bunch of different factors. They both end up getting new trials. Because of that shitty lawyer. Because of shitty lawyers and because once he went to jail and all that, there was a lot of shit in the water where they feel like they needed to clean it up. So they have a retrial.

Benny's retrial has moved to Warren County. Get it away from the publicity, obviously, in that small area. Warren County, get it away from the publicity, obviously, in that small area. And a lot of it, too, the reason for the overturning was not only the things we discussed with the lawyer that added into it, but also the prosecutors admitted that they erred by not questioning jurors about pretrial publicity. They didn't ask them, do you know anything about this case? Have you seen it in the news and shit like that? Therefore, they said they got a biased jury that knew about it and that sort of thing. So that was worth a new trial, apparently.

So, yeah, they have the new trial. Now, Hodge, by the way, it doesn't even matter because the year before this new trial, he was convicted in the Morris's. Kill slangs anyway. So he got sentenced again for that. He's not a shit freak anyway. He's got double death and it's all good here. So anyway, after all this, they give him a new trial again.

But guess what? Same people testifying. It's the same testimony. It's the same fucking trial. It's the same trial with overwhelming evidence and pictures of horribly slain women and things like that. So guess what he is? Convicted, given the death penalty again. Him and Epperson take a fucking hike over here.

Appeals denied in 2001. In 2006, there's another Epperson take a fucking hike over here. Appeals denied in 2001. In 2006, there's another Epperson appeal. In this appeal, he has 32 arguments from this whole thing. Wow. Yeah, he was really trying to get on this. This was the robbery. This was he's appealing the Edwin and Bessie Morris murders because he was convicted, too. He was tied to Benny in that one.

And the judge here says Epperson received a fundamentally fair trial devoid of any state or federal constitutional federal violations so he says nothing bad was it came from none of those 32 arguments hold any fucking water you're saying you're not guilty which isn't this isn't an argument for appeal right now it has to be legal shit you should wait but i didn't do this. Listen, there's too much evidence. Yeah. Well, Epperson's attorneys argued at a hearing that flawed instructions to the jury by the trial judge, failure of the prosecution to disclose the whereabouts of a prospective witness, and four years, this was four years before the trial, which was stupid,

and evidence introduced of a co-defendant's death sentence from a different case. They found out in his case that they had put Benny Hodge they convicted him of death so that made them more likely to go oh well if he's guilty then I guess this guy is too so anyway this was that they threw out his conviction and they ended up doing that with him too and he ends up getting it

confirmed my opinion just real quick I respect and it's going to sound shitty the way I say this, but hold in. I promise. It makes sense. You're not going to go Andrew Jackson on here. No, no, no.

I respect the Night Stalker and his opinion after his conviction more than anybody's. If you're going to do shit to this level and kill people that are fucking, for all intents and purposes, innocent and have done nothing fucking wrong to this right. Definitely nothing to you. If you're going to go out and find somebody that you're going to fucking murder, when you're convicted of it, when you're walking out, the only thing I want to hear from you when you're convicted and sentenced to death is, I don't know, death comes with this fucking anyway. Yeah. That was his word. It's part of the job. Death was part of the territory. I don't give a shit. Yeah. Well, he was That was his words. It's part of the job. Jeff was part of the territory.

Yeah. I don't give a shit. Yeah. Well, he was a Marvin motherfucker, too, so that helped also. But stop grasping at straws and trying to save your own life when you fucking did something horrible. If you do something horrible, pay the fucking... Yeah.

When you're going into it, know the consequences. That's all. That's all I'm saying. Just like they say in The Wire. Yeah. It's all in the game. Exactly. That means...

Whatever the fuck that means. It's in the game, baby. That's it. That's what Omar would say. Boy, do I gotta fucking watch that show. It's a game, baby. That's it right there. You know what I mean whatever the fuck that means it's in the game baby that's it that's what i'm why do i gotta fucking watch that game baby that's it right there you know what i mean we have four references to it i mean i'm really putting the pressure on you here today i'm putting the screws listen i got all the way through it's always sunny i've seen every fucking episode now that's beautiful and i can't wait to get into the wire oh it's so good you're gonna

that's my point though it's just if you're to do this shit, when you're convicted and caught, just be like, yep, did it. Where's the fucking death chamber? Because that's what I deserve. That's what you deserve. Yeah. So anyway, I agree 100 fucking percent. You should definitely be like, yeah, take it.

Be a gangster about it. Yeah. It's all in the game, baby. Be a man. Be a man about it. Run until the wheels fall off. We should be, you know what? We should all look up to Omar a little more. Let's just say that.

Let's just say that. And Richard Ramirez. Yeah, let's just do that. Now, they're raising a lot of DNA questions now because they gathered all that evidence, and now there's DNA stuff. So now they're like, hey, maybe we can do that. Epperson's raising a claim that he'd like DNA testing performed on the knife. I didn't do it.

And on the power cord and all things like that. So they end up doing a lot of DNA testing on everything. And it's basically hairs is what they're doing the testing on because it was all victim's blood. So they were doing hair testing and they found that none of the hairs, that the hairs didn't match any of the three men, which means jack shit. Nothing. Because that doesn't mean they didn't do it. That just means that other people were in the house with that hair. Just means that hair belongs to somebody else. And if you have all different fingerprints and palm prints you're

probably gonna have some hairs too right so they probably don't and by the way there's a dog and it's hard to get all that shit out of the house and that's the other thing it might have had it on him and whatever the whole deal here so october 24 2010 a judge in southern kentucky uh is going to decide about the d evidence that turned up. They ended up testing it and all this. But basically, he says, quote, the DNA results could have easily been used to point away from Roger as a suspect, particularly in light of the fact the police had information about other suspects that they did not investigate.

That's what his lawyer is saying. OK, that's his attorney, Epperson's attorney, David Barron. But everybody else is saying, yeah, just because it excludes him from the hairs doesn't mean it excludes him from the house. You're making way too big a fucking deal about this. If there was a shitload of someone else's blood on one of the victims, that would be a different story. That's a problem. We got to find that guy, not any of these three guys. That would be different.

But hairs is pretty much bullshit. His lawyer, though, says Roger Epperson may be an innocent man on death row. He's being very dramatic about it. 2011, the ruling here. Judge cites overwhelming evidence of guilt in a ruling that DNA testing would not have changed the outcome of his trial at all. And it doesn't matter. And so take a hike, Dale Epperson. Good for you, dickhead.

And also Benny Lee Hodge can eat a dick, too. Go ahead. Go ahead, Dale. The judge said, quote, the hair taken from the body of a victim did not match Epperson's hair is entirely consistent with this verdict, just the same as the fact that a number of unmatched fingerprints recovered from the scene did not dissuade the jury from finding Mr. Epperson guilty. There's more. There's a guy saying he tried to strangle me and stab my fucking daughter. I feel like that weighs more than whose hair is that? You know what I mean?

Who's that one hair? Yeah, but there's a guy did it. That guy fucking did it. He tried to strangle me. Yeah, but there's fingerprints in the house. October 12th, 2012, where they're trying to get more hearings on this on these on this DNA testing. There's a judge, a circuit court judge named Martin McDonald who goes batshit on video at this David Barron guy.

He cuts off Barron and yells at him. He calls him unethical. He calls him a backseat driver. He says, quote, you're making a mountain out of a molehill rather than being a real trial lawyer he calls him. He said, wow, this is amazing. said this is amazing he says this

in court he says quote if you ever call me again on my cell phone i'll strangle you you understand this is a judge uh baron the lawyer interjects and says i apologize judge goes on though he just ignores him i'm telling you you were unethical it was improper and then you go to the supreme court and complain because i told you you were i told you we were plowing ahead with this thing and you complain about information that you have had improperly obtained through your unethical ex parte contact with the court. Now, that is out of bounds, that this is all totally out of bounds. And if you ever do it again, I will send you to the Bar Association and try to get your bar license yanked. Do you understand?

Yes or no? The lawyer says, I do understand, but I have to clarify one thing. The judge says negative be quiet and he's then he turns to epperson and he and he speaks directly to him as he's being brought out of the court and he says have a safe trip back that's what he tells him about that uh everybody uh the the lawyer says may i ask you one more thing your honor may i request clarification on one thing the judge judge says, negative. And then he says, I want you to be quiet.

Thank you. That's his response. Then there's like some chilling out for a little bit here. I love dickhead judges like that. Oh, God. Guys that are pissed. There's some chilling out for a second here, you know what I mean? Then he goes off again out of nowhere. He says, quote, I would appreciate DPA sending lawyers who actually are trial lawyers, not

some backseat drivers. And that's what I'd appreciate. You've never been in the trial lawyers, not some backseat drivers, and that's what I'd appreciate. You've never been in the heat of battle in one of these cases, and now you're criticizing lawyers that are actually real lawyers that do the work, the dirty work, the down-in-the-trenches work. That's what I find distasteful and disgusting about this whole business. Wow. Holy shit, that's amazing. That's amazing. So early the next year, 2013, Judge Martin McDonald is removed from a death penalty case in which he's threatened to strangle a lawyer who called him on his cell phone.

That is a fucking angry man. Yeah. You know, yeah. I want to play golf with that old man. Yeah. The person who, you know, the final ruling on tossing him off the court said, quote, no one's life should be in the hands of Louisville Judge Martin McDonald, which may be right. I love him, but I'm not saying that he's probably the best guy for the job. Let's just say that.

His career may be dwindling. That might have been his final, you know. He's a broken man. Like in Half-Baked, he's like, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. You're cool, I'm out. That might have been his thing at that point. And he pointed at the bailiff when he said it because that guy stopped somebody from stabbing him once. Oh, Jesus Christ. Everybody else can fuck off.

Fuck off. So November 2014, they grant Epperson the right to file his appeal as a pauper. So now he has no money anymore and that sort of thing. and that sort of thing. 2015, Epperson ties his appeal to another guy's case, Brian Keith Moore, who was convicted of a 1979 robbery, kidnapping and murder, and sentenced to death. They're getting together to challenge the basis of the method of execution. They're saying the three-drug execution method isn't good you know, unconstitutional and that sort of thing here.

But what they do is the court ends up saying, quote, holding that in holding that indefinite unavailability of drugs used in lethal injection protocol rendered its challenge to protocol moot. So he basically said, we can't even get those fucking drugs. So what you're saying doesn't matter anyway. We're going to find another way to kill you later. We'll take care of it. Then just go sit in the room for a while yes it's ordered that uh these are these complaints from the plaintiffs are dismissed with prejudice that means no fucking doing this bull horse shit again here uh action is dismissed and stricken from the court's docket that is we are having none of this shit here none of this shit uh poor betty morris and edwin morris are buried at the Hayes Morris Cemetery

in Jackson County, Kentucky. And these assholes are on death row waiting to die. So hopefully, fingers crossed, I don't care if they choke on a sandwich. I don't give a shit how it happens, but I'd like something bad to happen to these people because I think they deserve it. Whether it's state,

I don't care. I don't give a shit. We could put them in a it. An inmate. I don't give a shit. We could put them in a dunk tank full of acid. I don't give a shit. We'll figure it out. That would be great. That'd be fun. That's brilliant.

That'd be a fun way to kill people. That'd be a fun way to kill people who kill people like this. And raise money for charity. Complete piece of shit people like this. Five dollars and you could throw an apple at a fucking button and try to dunk this fucker in acid. That's it. That would be awesome.

That's amazing. So I think we've got a small town murder. We've done something in acid. That would be awesome. That's amazing. So I think we've got a small town murder. We've done something. We've made the world better. That's awesome. If you agree that we make the world better, I know what you can do. You can. You can get on iTunes.

There it is. You can give us five stars. Doesn't matter what you say. It just helps us on the business end so much. Or you can get on Patreon.com slash Crime in Sports or PayPal using our email Crime in Sports at gmail.com slash crime in sports or paypal using our email crime and sports yes at gmail.com we have an amazing list of amazing wonderful producers this week our credits for the week here i'm excited for that yeah we're going to do that but if you want to get a hold of us you can do that in several different ways on twitter we're at murder small facebook.com slash small town pod

or the email crime and sports at gmail.com. That's the one. We have a list of just people that keep us alive. Yeah. Like we said, they bring the coal to the train. We'll happily shovel it, but they keep bringing the coal. No doubt. And they've done it this week.

Jimmy, hit us with our amazing list of cool people who keep us alive. Real quick, this week was pretty fucking incredible in terms of people stepping up. So I had a shit week. I lost my aunt this week and we were supposed to play in a golf tournament that benefits cancer. Yeah. And my aunt died of cancer, like a lot of cancer. And so I had to deal with that. But we missed the golf tournament because of that.

She got it at Costco. It was bulk. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She bought it. Bulk cancer. She got a pallet full. Yeah, it was good. She's efficient. Very efficient. We missed the golf tournament, which I'm so fucking sad about. Yeah, it was good. She's efficient, very efficient.

We missed the golf tournament, which I'm so fucking sad about. Yeah, I'm really sorry we missed that. It's terrible. I feel terrible. Missing that golf tournament and then my aunt dying of cancer is like forgetting to go run a 5K for fucking Alzheimer's. Yeah, exactly. It really is. I feel like such a piece of shit.

But, I mean, I just did not feel up to it. And so we missed it. And my apologies to BobKGolf.com if you want to donate to their charities. And it's a doctor that died of cancer. So it's fucking horrible. And one of our listeners actually invited us. So sorry we didn't make it. Thank you for inviting us.

That's why we didn't make it. Yeah, it was a – we had a rough, Jimmy had a rough one. I couldn't move my head. A lot of these people know about it because they communicate via Twitter or Snapchat or whatever. Starting with the list is Angela DiGiorgio. Damn it. Right out of the gate, I fuck up a name. That's easy.

That's an easy one. I wrote it and I was like, I'm going to kill that one. That's an Italian standard right there. Not only did I kill it, I fucking murdered her name. I'm so sorry. Italian Jones is what you just did. Right. All right. Angela DiGiorgio, Rebecca Lieber, Dana Grayson.

Oh, Dana. He's the best, man. That's our guy. I love Dana Grayson. He's fucking amazing. Yeah, man. Delaware's coming soon, Dana. I promise you that. Promise you. Very soon. And we'll get into Boston sometime soon. You have to come hang with us, Dana. I promise you that. Promise you. Very soon. And we'll get into Boston sometime soon. You have to come hang with us, Dana. I'm buying you beers.

No doubt. Bradley Harker. Jill Krauth. It's got to be Krauth. Matthew Junick. No, that's not Junick. That's Jelinek. Is that a W or an L?

No. Oh, I think it's Jelinek. I feel like such a dick. I said Jelinek. You're trying. Okay. Catherine Little. Jessica Leitke. Kathleen Cassidy, Helen Banton, Alexander Chadwick,

Wilson Effects, LLC. That's an LLC. I don't know what the fuck that is. Hey, look at you guys. All organized. If you need something from Wilson Effects, find them and give them your business. Daniel Napier, Jeffrey Gullar, Sidney Bartholomew, Laura Rackicot, I don't think that's how you say it. I'm doing it horribly.

Yeah, I think you're really mangling it. You're stabbing it 12 times and pinning it to the floorboard right now, I feel like, is what you just did. Parker Adelson, Chrissy Ann Costaldi again. Oh, Chrissy Ann Costaldi. She is the sweetest fucking person. Thank you so much. Every week it's something. Yeah, we're blown away, honestly.

I get a notification and it's a number that I'm just like, you've got to be shitting me. How nice of a person are you? God, I can't tell you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. You're terrific. Christopher Azcarga. Aaron D. Tanner. Megan. No last name, just Megan.

Lauren Ashby. That's a dude, by the way, Lauren. Rob Bridgewater. Julia Rawlinson. Catherine Earl Mahoney. Kristen Rice. Jane Greaser. Joe Seligman. She's up in Portland. Joe Fasho she's terrific Chris Coles Sherry Rice

Chelsea Cheeks Chandel Whitney Nick Laycock Katie Subcheck and I know how to say Subcheck we know that name because we have a friend

with that exact same name exact same spelling which is fucking incredible Eric Subcheck we can spell Subcheck actually which is amazing I can fucking spell that

and pronounce it Katie what do you think about that Elizabeth Luby Devin Murch up in New York. He's a terrific kid, and he's near your area where you're from. Oh, cool, cool. He's a good dude. Elizabeth Long, Stephanie Slaza. Slaza.

S-Z. No. No. Yeah, those are redundant sounds you got there. Slaza. Sorry. Anzati. That's a first name or a last name.

Anzati. I don't know. Melissa Small. And she wears one. She's a first name or a last name. Anzatti. I don't know. Melissa Small. And she wears one. She said that, which is kind of funny. Brianna Ryan. Melinda V-A-H. Varadian.

V-A-H? Yeah, that's the start of them. Varadian, I guess. Okay. I don't know. I'll buy that. Tommy Story. Sold.

Diana Ward. Kevin Wilson. Maria Macklin. Corey Brocks.. Tommy Story. Sold, Jimmy. Diana Ward. Kevin Wilson. Maria Macklin. Corey Brocks. Carly McGillivary. Oh, damn it. McGillivary. McGillivary.

There you go. Dana Bader. Lil Buckaroo. I like that one so much. Lil Buckaroo. That's so awesome. That's nice. Carol Malik.

Terry Hlutsky. Hlusky. Hlusky. Hlusky. Hlusky. H is silent?. Hluitsky. Hluitsky. H is silent. Are we saying? I'm guessing. Let's guess the A.

Hey, guess what? Your H is silent now. Run with that. Or your L is. One of the two. Something's got to be silent there. Radic Kret. Dita Vasquez.

Jean or Jean. Seguin. Seguin. Seguin. Seguin. These are so difficult. They are. Why am I so bad at this?

Well, it's hard. Names are tough. Siren Camilla Johnsgar. Parker Adelson. I already mentioned him, didn't I? I think so. Maybe. Althea Fong.

Carlos Santiago. Hey, Althea's cool as shit, too. Parker just fucking, I think he donated twice. Oh, thank you. Carlos Santiago. Nick Gable. Lane Ellaby. Susan Rourke. Ryan Colo. Tal, thank you. Carlos Santiago, Nick Gable, Lane Ellaby, Susan Rourke, Ryan

Callow, Talia Ramirez, and the last three are so easy. I love it so much. Mark Melbourne, Scott Gold, and Jaime Infantes Ward. Oh, I like that. Thank you all so, so, so much for being such supporters of this. We can't do it without you.

No, we can't. Without you, we would be... It would really honestly be difficult to produce a show every week without you guys., we can't. Without you, we would be, it would really honestly be difficult to produce this show every week without you guys. And that's why you guys are our producers and thank you all so much.

You guys just sat through the credits of the end of the movie and you did it because these people are fucking awesome. Thank you guys. You don't give a shit

about a key grip of Dark Knight, but you give a shit about these people. We care about these goddamn people. What if one of these fine people

or one of the fine people listening right now wanted to get a hold of a podcast host like yourself? How would they do that? You can find me at atwismansucks, W-H-I-S-M-A-N sucks on Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat. Find me, play along. I love it.

I can't get enough of you guys. I have like 90 notifications on my phone right now that I have to check. And I'll respond to each and every one of them. So thank you guys so much. And I am atjimmyp is funny. I will do my best to respond to each and every one of them. So thank you guys so much. And I am at Jimmy P is funny. I will do my best to respond to each and every one of them. But when I do research days, I'm behind like two days

of where I'm separated from the world and then I'm buried too far. And I don't and I'm sorry. I never if you don't hear from James, don't worry. I don't either. Yeah, I'm sorry. It's not it's not.

I love you guys. And I want to respond. And I try and I sit there and I do as much as I can. And then I have to I have to go back to murder. So I'm sorry. We're trying to shut up

and give you murder here. But I follow me and I'll try to interact as much as I possibly can then I have to go back to murder. So I'm sorry. We're trying to shut up and give you murder here. But follow me and I'll try to interact as much as I possibly can and I'll tell you you're a great person. That'll help. That's something. But that's it for us guys. We've had so much fun this week as usual talking about horrible horrific things and guess what? We're going to be right back here.

Damn right we will. Right back here next week. So until then, until next week, it's been our pleasure. Bye. Bye. 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, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper.

In this new thriller, available exclusively on Wondery Plus, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family.

But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. With an all-star cast led by Emmy nominee Sanaa Lathan and Star Wars' Kelly Marie Tran, Chinook is available exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.