Small Town Murder - #391 - The Family Death Curse - Vaughan, Mississippi

Episode Date: June 1, 2023

This week, in Vaughan, Mississippi, a well known, and liked family, who appear to have a multi generational death curse, just disappears. This prompts hundreds of law enforcement officers to search for miles around, and has locals on the edge of their seats. When they do find a suspect, the motive is definitely not worth this kind of carnage, but sometimes a little thing can send family against family!! Along the way, we find out that ghost towns can still have some people living there, that you never know who might be mad at you, and that there is no escaping a death curse!!Hosted by James Pietragallo and Jimmie WhismanNew episodes every Thursday!Donate at: patreon.com/crimeinsports or go to paypal.com and use our email: [e-mail] to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder & Crime In Sports!Follow us on...twitter.com/@murdersmallfacebook.com/smalltownpodinstagram.com/smalltownmurderAlso, check out James & Jimmie's other show, Crime In Sports! On Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Wondery, Wondery+, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 in Vaughan, Mississippi, the disappearance of a well-known but possibly cursed local family prompts a massive search that ends up with a very unexpected, tragic, and brutal

result. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you folks so much for joining us today on another insane edition of Smalltown Murder. And man, this is a twisty weird one. So buckle up, everybody, for some Mississippi dirt. It is some fun stuff, some gross stuff, but also fun. There's some grime and some humidity and some moss growing on top of this thing. It's one of those here. Before we get started, very quickly, head over to ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com.

What's there, you might ask? Oh, everything. First of all, merchandise. All the merch you can want. New stuff is up all the time. And tickets to live shows. Now, they're sold out up until August the 12th. August the 12th is Chicago.

Come on out, Chicago. Let's do this. It's going to be Chicago. If you come strong, this will be our biggest show ever. Is that right? Absolutely. So we're very excited, and no better place to do that than Chicago. Oh, Chicago's terrific.

They've been there for us. Thank you, Chicago, for always being there for us, and we can't wait to do that show. And then after that, there's some shows available. A lot of them are sold out. Boston sold out. But you got Dallas. You got Philly.

You got D.C.'s got a few tickets left. Atlanta and Charlotte. Those are your options. So get in there. Shut up and give me murder.com. You also certainly want to go to patreon.com slash crime and sports and get all of your bonus materials there. Anybody

$5 a month or above, a cup of, a mere cup of coffee, and you can have not only the entire back catalog, 200 or so bonus episodes to binge on, but also every other week you're going to get two new episodes, and this week we got a good batch for you.

For crime and sports, which you have access to, we're going to talk about something that has nothing to do with sports we're going to talk about a public access tv show in the new york area that was on from the late 70s to the early 90s called stairway to stardom where people would go on it's like a talent search show yeah and they would go on they're not a lot of talent searched by the way mainly terrible people and you want to hear an indian guy sing new york new york we got you covered put it that way so stuff like that and we're going to play clips and laugh our asses off and talk all about it and what happened to these people and everything and then for small town murder prisoner dating game time maybe it's back four that's right i'm going to pick four bachelors four bachelorettes.

One thing in common that they have. Actually, two. First thing is Jimmy's looking to pick one of each of them. Second thing is they're all incarcerated for violent felonies. Jimmy's going to pick one of each based solely on their pitch, their own profile on their dating

site things for the prison. Then he gets to find out who they are and what they did and how bad of a decision he made. So it's a lot of fun. Check that out. That is patreon.com slash crime and sports. And then Your Stupid Opinions, our new show about reviews of everything from all over the Internet where we make fun of people's reviews. That is coming.

We're looking at targeting June 5th. Monday, June 5th to come out on a Monday morning. So hopefully that will happen on the 5th. Yes, if not the 5th, the next week. But I'm pretty sure the 5th. So let's do that. And that said, I think it's time for the disclaimer. This is a comedy show.

We are comedians. People will die horrible deaths. That happens everywhere. We can't help that. We are. People will die horrible deaths. That happens everywhere. We can't help that. We are going to make jokes, though. Now, here's the thing. We're not going to make jokes about the people murdered. That's not cool.

We go out of our way not to make fun of the victim or the victim's family. Why, James? Because we're assholes, but we're not scumbags. That's how that works. So if that sounds good to you, I think we have a wild show for you with a lot of crazy stuff. If you think true crime and comedy never, ever, ever should go together,

maybe we're not for you. Maybe not. Maybe we are, though. Maybe give it a shot. Either way, no complaining afterwards because you've been warned. So that's how that works. So if that sounds good to you,

you want to hear this wild story, I think it's time that we all sit back, everybody. You got to clear the lungs, arms toward the sky, and shout, shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, Jimmy. Okay. Let's go on a trip. All right. We are going all the way down to Mississippi today.

Hey. Oh, yeah. Mississippi bound. We're going to Vaughan, Mississippi, which is spelled like usually, you know, V-A-U-G-H-N. Put an A between the H and the N. So it's V-A-U-G-H-A-N. Got it. Which made me search around for how to pronounce it.

It's still Vaughan. So I figured. That's how Vince Vaughn spells his name, right? Is that what it is? I don't know. I don't think so. If he did, I think he would just take that A out. It would be a lot easier for people to deal with that.

What about Moe? Does Moe spell? I don't know. No, that was a regular Vaughn, I think. So this is kind of a little over toward the west, but kind of dead center of Mississippi. This is like the belly of the beast of the sip here. It's about 40 minutes to

Jackson, Mississippi. About three hours to Boonville, Mississippi, which was our last Mississippi episode. One of the Expresses, which was the dorm room surprise, which I remember was a crazy one. This is in Yazoo County. Yazoo! Yazoo!

Which sounds like something you scream as you escape this county. Yazoo! I'm! Which sounds like something you scream as you escape this county. Yazoo! I'm out of this place. Yazoo County. 662 area code. Okay. Now Vaughn itself, the weird thing about Vaughn, it's currently considered an abandoned ghost town, quote unquote.

Awesome. There are people around in the zip code of it, and that's what we'll give our stats and stuff from. But the actual town proper, the pictures of it look like it's been abandoned for 300 years, though. All the buildings are falling down, collapsing. It's like, whoa, was there an apocalypse and I missed it? What the fuck? It's like that TV show when people aren't around for 10 years and things are just all fucked. Yeah, 10.

This looks like 50 years from now, this is what it will look like. It's crazy. So it was founded in 1830. Henry Vaughn is who it was named after. He owned a plantation nearby, so they named it after him. Old Hank Vaughn. The place was established on an old stagecoach line. That's why they put it there.

they put it there now the this the only thing that's happened famous here okay was the engineer the famous railroad engineer casey jones oh the baseball player the baseball player of uh of uh grateful dead song fame yeah um the teenage ninja, yeah, all of that. Casey Jones, though, if you listen to the Grateful Dead song, it's driving the train high on cocaine. I'm not sure about the cocaine factor in this. Yeah. But on April 30th, 1900, this is the famous accident that killed Casey Jones. Oh, is that right? Yes, absolutely. Jones. Oh, is that right? Yes,

absolutely. More than 3,000 persons in 1953 gathered to witness the unveiling of a bronze marker at the spot where he died. That's right. And also there was a famous ballad, The Folklore of American Railroading,

and a postage stamp to commemorate the courageous engineer who was killed here in 1900 it says i don't know what made this guy so their songs everybody knows the words casey jones but nobody knows the fuck it's for never right it's so weird but that's he's from here and this is what it is there was a casey jones railroad museum state park that this designated a train though i don't know you have to be terrible at it that's what i mean how how much cocaine must casey jones have taken really how high could you be so um did you put a steering

wheel on it and you jumped the track i don't know so the uh they had a little museum and now it's it's it closed and it's it's closed and it's crumbling. It's fallen into disrepair. It looks like it's just being taken by termites. It's terrible. So reviews of this place. This is for the county, not for the town. There's no reviews of an abandoned town.

It would be nothing here. Okay, moving on. It would be just dots. Yeah, dot, dot, dot. Five stars. moving on it'd be just dots yeah let's see dot dot dot five stars yazoo yazoo county might be a small town well right away what you just said makes no sense the county might be a small town but we don't know okay yazoo county might be full of small towns would be a way to say but it has kind loving people Everyone looks out for each other.

It's very quiet here, too. Well, I imagine. It's abandoned, so it tends to be quiet. Not a lot of voices. Not a lot of voices to carry. Four stars. Wonderful neighborhood where the people are caring and look out for each other. So, so far, this county is a town and a neighborhood, this county.

And we all help each other. We all help each other out. Three stars. Don't blink or you'll miss it. Oh, it's that small. It's a street with nothing on it. Now, this is the county even. The town's even smaller.

This is of the whole county now. The only major eating establishments in our area are wendy's church's chicken popeyes kentucky fried chicken holy shit that's a lot of chicken taco bell pizza hut pizza in whatever the fuck that is mcdonald's and subway local diners are also in the area you've just described every small town in the united states yeah every america reaches in Every single one. Rob's from all of you. That's it.

Two stars is the next one here. Education is not a top priority. Funding is allocated elsewhere. Welcome to Mississippi. Welcome to, well, I have stats too from this. And hey, not sniping on the education thing because I didn't graduate from high school. So I am not anyone who's like, look at these idiots. I sure as fuck shouldn't have.

Yeah. Jimmy by the skin of his ass. Neither of us have ever set foot on a college for any other reason, for any productive reason. For any productive reason. Almost 51% of the population in this zip code where Vaughn is, has a high school diploma. 50%. 50, wow. Wow.

These are the stats. Out of everybody here, it's about half have some high school. Some have, about 10% have no high school. Didn't even go. Didn't even go at all. And the college graduates here is like 10%. So it's low. Now, people in this zip code, 1,293 people in the whole zip code,

and not near really the town. It's about 40% married, which is lower than the normal. Some of these stats are hard to find, so it was weird. It's about 29% single with children, which is about three times the national average. Racially in Vaughn, it is 19.1% white and 80.9% black. And that's it. That's it. Nobody else.

Yeah. It is just Southern town. That's it. Nobody else. Yeah. It is just a southern town. 46.2% of the people are religious, and by far, Baptist is way the top religion. 25% of the people here are Baptist.

Baptists are, as we know, the Catholics of the South. Yeah, you can't find a place without them. And 0.0% Jewish. The unemployment rate is high here. The median household income is $36,484, which is lower by about $20,000 than the national average. Cost of living here, 100 is average, regular. Here it's 76. Housing is a 33, so that's helpful.

Median home cost here, $106,000. Wow. Not very much so incredibly affordable if we've talked you into it i mean hey you know what you can start a whole town over again why not make it your own i can graduate high school rename it who gives a shit rename it small town murder mississippi we have for you the vaughn, Mississippi real estate report. The average two bedroom rental, which I don't know if that exists here or what, but this is in the zip code is $1,080. Um, here is a two bedroom, one bath, 2,200 square foot house. Um, that's a big house to have two bedrooms and one bath, 2200 square foot house. That's a big house to have two bedrooms and one bath. It is, to put it kindly,

an abandoned murder shack is what it looks like. Hell yeah. 2000 square feet of it. It looks like a whole family was slaughtered there and then they closed it off with police tape and no human foot ever sat back on that shack carpeting again. And they were like, for sale on that shag carpeting again.

And they were like, for sale. That's what it looks like. It's falling apart. It's terrifying. There's plastic bags over the windows. Oh, no. There is a tree coming out of the roof. I don't think that's a good sign.

What? When nature has taken back the home. The living room? I don't feel like that. I feel like that's a bad sign. There's a tree moving in. That's not good. I'd like to know where it's growing through. What room has it?

It's fucking wild. That is $28,000 for that. Well, yeah. That seems right. There's a tree in it. There's a tree. Trees are expensive to remove. You know what I'm saying?

When they're outside, they're crazy. That's what I mean. Just in my yard, they had to cut a tree down. I was like, oh my god, are you kidding me? Fuck this. I'm going to get a beaver over here and just hold it and force it to chew the shit out of this thing. A little while, it'll turn to dust.

Eventually, he'll saw through it. Three bedroom, one bath, 1,200 square foot. It's on one acre. It appears to be occupied which is surprising because it looks like just a piece of shit it's a it's a mess um it look it's very old um it's very run down it does not look great 110 000 for that that's the land right that's got to be the land yeah and the house is i mean you could live in it it doesn't have a tree growing through the roof or anything.

That's awful. And then you know what? You don't want to deal with any of these old houses. You're just going to start afresh. Move in ready. Start your own place. 66.85 acres. Just clear it off.

No house, just acres. Do whatever you want. Come live next to, you know, nothing. Wherever you are. $431,3 dollars for that 66 acres 66 acres of land which is a lot of land pool our money and own it to do what with it what am i gonna it's i don't care just have 66 acres of swamp i don't think so um you can have that six is a lot i never want to go near any of it, though. That's the problem.

Just tell people, I got 66 acres down this side. It'd be like, why, would be their first answer. It's in like central Mississippi, right outside of a ghost town. Oh. Let's sell everything we have and just go plant. Oh, you pay taxes on it, too. Great. That's a great point. I don't want to do that no

things to do here not much as you can imagine right uh here is a place that says they're in vaughn just ponies it's called oh okay guess what they have fucking ponies it says pony rides big and small ponies exceptionally pretty pretty and well-behaved. I assume the ponies they're talking about there, not the staff. Photo service available. So take a picture on a pony is something you can do. Or head out. I know this isn't right here, but it's somewhere in the county.

The Yazoo Music Festival 2019. Holy shit, at the Yazoo County Fairgrounds. Oh, boy. Let's do it. Would you like to know the lineup? Here we go. This is the Yazoo County Jazz Band directed by Kimball Funchess. They'll be there. An acoustic duo called Inside Out.

Yazoo Gold will be there. It's all locals. God damn it. Los Brown. The Brown. The Brown. Eden Brent. Forever Alicia. All with a four and then all lowercase, one word there.

Epic Funk Brass Band. It's going to be epic. The Bridget Hathorne Shield. Oh, that's it. Just Bridget Hathorne Shield. Charlie Mars will be there. Bruno can't make it, but he's going to send his cousin Charlie. It's your cousin.

Hey, Bruno. It's Mick's older brother. It's your cousin Charlie. Remember that sound he was looking for? What the fuck is this? I want it to be Mick's older, older brother. That would be amazing. That would be even better um he's really old uh laurie johnson vick allen and selena johnson will be there as well

selena s-l-e-e-n-a s-y i guess it's sylena s-y-l-e-e-n. Selena? Swylena? I guess Selena. Selena. Trying to be clever? No. Now, no coolers. No? No tents. What? No glass. What?

You're welcome to bring your own lawn chairs or blankets and enjoy this marathon of shit. A beer. And enjoy Charlie Mars. Covering both Bruno Mars and Motley Crue songs. Which would be incredible if that's what he did. That would be the best act ever. I'd watch that. Playing grenade in the stylings of Motley Crue.

I would love to hear smoking in the boys room. Followed up by whatever Bruno Mars does while he dances around and gets busted for coke in Vegas. I don't know what he does, but he seems to be happy while he does it. He always looks to be smiling and doing his thing. Uptown Funk and that Grenade song. There's a few of them. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Pretty famous. I guess I do know them if I fucking think about it that hard, I guess. The guy's like five foot three, too. Did you know that? He is tiny. I guess I do know them if I fucking think about it that hard, I guess. This guy's like 5'3", too. Did you know that? He is tiny. How would I know that? I don't know that. Tiny man.

I know nothing about him other than he sings songs, looks happy, and got busted for coke in Vegas. That's all I know. And he loves weed, too, because he's from Hawaii. Well, you just figured that anyway. He's a singer. He's a musician. Of course he's on drugs. Of course he's on drugs.

What are we talking about? I don't care. Those are the people who should be on drugs. I've said that a long time. If you pull a musician over, he doesn't have drugs. Give him drugs. He needs it. Keep bringing out the hits, Bruno.

Get out of here. He thought about heroin because Jimi Hendrix was pretty awesome. Say shit like that to people. You never know. I'm selfish. I want the music. I don't care. Okay shit like that to people. You never know. I'm selfish. I want the music. I don't care. Okay.

He tried to kiss the sky, man. Not tried. He said. He did. Excuse me. Pardon one moment, sir. Whilst I do this. It wasn't I'm going to try.

He said, I'll be back in a second. The man interrupted a conversation interrupted a fucking song for yeah hold on so crime rate in this town um wow property crime very high oh almost double the national average holy bad shit going on a violent crime murder rape robbery and of course assault the amountmore of crime, more than double the national average. Oh, Jesus Christ. It's not good. I don't want the land anymore, James.

No. There's nothing in town except collapsing buildings and apparently people just stabbing each other all over the countryside. I don't like this at all. This sounds terrible. So that said, let's talk about a murder shall we let's do it let's get into it because this is a it's just hairy this whole thing here um yeah let's start out let's go back to a very romantic day okay yeah almost 20 years ago we're gonna go back february 14th february the 14th 2004 oh 2004 which it seems like whenever we're going to talk about something that happened in this town, it should be like 1957. You know what I mean? Right. Should be the Freedom Riders came through and then something like that should start. But 2004, which is very strange.

That tree in that living room was just a sad one. It was just a baby. It just popped through the tile. It was just a baby. It just popped through the tile. It just popped through the tile with a thought to go through the roof. So, wow. That's a strong tree, too, because it had no light for about 20 years until it got through that. That's pretty impressive.

That's pretty impressive. Yeah. So, now, 2004, think about this. We're talking cell phones. Everyone has a cell phone. Right. Most of them have cameras on them social media exists but it's my space and it's not on your flip phone right that's

the best way to describe it does have t zones if you have t-mobile yeah or yeah it was t-mobile then and it that will get you news and that's it that's it nothing if you have like 45 minutes you could check your email maybe you could look at your email but not actually open one or type out a text message because you have to do the number yeah this is t9 three times yeah we all got pretty fast at that but this is pretty good this is flip phones every every phone flipped at this point man this is this is what we're talking about here so um this era now uh on this evening a woman named ernestine banks is driving with her family she's just a driving just having a good time here she drives by a friend of her family here that she drives by their house isn't that

their house there look at that and it's a guy named michael hargan and his wife rebecca that live in this house. Michael's 27. Rebecca's 29. They have a four-year-old son named James Patrick. Nice little family. Yeah, they live in this house. Everybody's happy. So as Ernestine's driving by with her family, they look at the house and they're like, oh, yeah, that's the Hargan's house.

Look at that. Nice. But what they see when they drive by, get a little closer. Goddamn doors open. Well, the front door's wide open, which is fine. It's February. It get a little closer goddamn doors open well the front door is wide open which is fine it's february it's a little chilly for that but front doors open and so was the door to his pickup truck was open oh what the fuck one of the doors to his pickup truck which you know that seems yeah you know but it's not that odd maybe he had groceries and couldn't

you know you're trying to kick it with your leg you're like like, God damn it. I'll go put the groceries down. I'll come back. I'll fucking close the door. But crime's really high around here. So we're going to stop. We're going to do it. Well, it's, I guess so. So they stop.

Well, they stop just because they think, oh, he probably is coming in and out. He's home. He's not only home. He's going to come back out, close his truck door. It'd be rude of me to not stop and say hi. Right. You know what I mean? It's, it's, they're, they're thinking shit.

What if he came out and saw us driving away?'d be like you rude sons of bitches no beep no wave honker wave no holler nothing what the fuck man not a word nothing so they decide mad at me ernestine that what i do to ernestine rebecca did you piss ernestine off jesus christ so they um Jesus Christ. So they decide to stop. They stop, and they look, and they see there's three vehicles at the house, and they step inside. They don't see anybody. They call out, Michael, Rebecca. Nobody answers. They're like, this is weird.

I don't know if they called the kid. They figure it's just him by himself. He comes out with a beer in his hand. He's like, what's up? Mom and dad are doing some shit tonight, so it's just me here at the crib. Mom and dad are naked wrestling right now. Got a Salisbury steak in the microwave and just popped me a Coors Light. So if you're interested, man, cop a squat.

The NASCAR race is starting soon, bud. On half the cherry pie. Yeah. Mississippi State game is starting pretty soon, so grab yourself a seat, buddy. They figure the parents would be home there. So they end up looking in the house, and they're just looking around. Hello, hello. They get a little spooked, and they call the cops because they're like,

no one's in the house, and the house is open, and all their cars all their cars are here this is a little bit weird now they could have gone for a walk yeah so it seemed like a premature call i think it's a personally for me yeah if i you know me would call you know it's really got to be pressing so for this i'd go no one's home maybe i'll close the door on the way out you know there we go in your house fuck man a turkey could have pecked your door lock on your car that's what i mean you never know anything could have happened yeah there's a deer gone by i have no idea there's fox out there they're sly remember that pop a door open who knows so who knows who knows uh but they say no no this is uh you know we should call the cops just to make sure that they haven't been robbed or they're like tied up in the you know somewhere

in the woods or something so they call the cops they are gone they can't been robbed or they're tied up somewhere in the woods or something. So they call the cops. They are gone. They can't find the family. They're not in the home anyway. All their cars are there, though, which is strange. Nothing's missing from the house, including the three cars. Just the people.

Car keys sitting up on the deal there. Rebecca's diamond engagement ring and wedding band are sitting up on her dresser well that's not normal so and some people take them off do they yeah some people if they're tight some people take them off for their fingers some people have weird you better never swelling well maybe she's you better you better tough it out yeah we're in this together there's about a week of the month when things get a little swollen there. That's a good point. If you have a tight ring, you might be like, I'm taking this off tonight. Yeah. So, you know, just for bloating purposes.

So anyway, that's sitting up there. There's money, cash sitting up on the dresser. There's guns there, like his gun collection in his case. And you know what I mean? So like all the things that someone would take immediately cash diamonds and guns these are commodities that you can easily turn into top three top three any cash money jewelry guns anything like that it's the first thing you fucking ask for none of those things are gone so they're like all right um they look in this like there's dishes from the previous

night's dinner or in the sink um the only person home, or the only being home, is the family dog. He's just walking around. Hey, how's it going, everybody? Good dog. He didn't leave. The door was open. He stayed. He was just hanging out in the house.

Does he just leave that door open? It's a nice wind. So they question the dog. They're like, listen, dog. What have you done? What have you done with these people? what have you done what have you done with these people um so yeah the also asthma medication for james patrick was on like the nightstand of his bedroom so they're like okay so they couldn't have gone far if they left all this stuff obviously maybe they went for a long walk but

the night goes on and they don't come home which is interesting so stumper stumper now the cops um walking around a little bit they decide at first they were just like i don't know who knows maybe they took a walk we'll wait a while they don't really look around that hard it looks like there's no robbery or anything so they're like oh whatever so they don't really look around they just hang out then they're get the flashlights out after a few minutes outside and they're just just looking around see if anything's amiss out there they see the there's like a play swing set play thing with the kids. One of his trucks is out there sitting by.

It's like this looks normal. This all looks normal. Then they start looking over and they said that they found some shell casings, which isn't normal in the front yard anyway. Not only outside the house but in michael's truck oh they found some shell casings that have been look like they're just discharged in the truck so then they really get the flashlights and start looking on the ground for things and they notice blood drops now that's yeah that's not good so the blood drops are from all the way from outside the house all the way inside the house they lead from from the outside

you could tell that's where it started and then drips into the house so they notice all that so like okay that's not good now we have missing people and blood drops right um you know they want to find out what the fuck what's going on with these people have michael and rebecca been fighting lately you know what i mean that's one of those like this looks bad for a lot of people here so uh they talked to michael's mother diana hargan and she said she last saw her son uh the night before at her home they came over the house and she came over he came over the house i talked to him about 8 8 30 and she said she talked to him about 8, 830. And she said she talked to her to Rebecca, you know, his wife on the phone at about 1130 that night. And up late chit chatting with the fucking mother in law. Wow.

You were just here. They must have really they must really get along. That's nice. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast. Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly.

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

Or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes. You should tune in to our podcast, Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Morbid. spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well-researched. He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people. With a touch of humor. I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great.

A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother****er lied. Like a liar. Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine

and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes, you should tune in to our podcast, Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

So early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus and the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. So Diana says she fears the worst has happened to the family. She's terrified. Yeah. But she's not going to go, oh, you know, whatever. Obviously, that's how you'd feel. She can't say, ah, they'll be all right. Yeah, they'll be all right. Or I hope my son didn't kill his wife. You know what I mean? Or I hope she didn't kill him or whatever the hell, you know. So state crime and scene investigators now are called because let's face it. I don't think the Yazoo County homicide investigation is probably the top tier or, you know, missing persons investigations.

Probably the top tier thing there is. They go through a strenuous 16 week training course on missing persons. Maybe, but like in the 40s that happened. You know what I mean? Since then. Their first 16 weeks on the job. They're like, when we ever get a murder, boy, it's going to be something. Orientation.

Yeah. So Diana said that she and the other family members spend the time once they found out that they're missing and she can't get a hold of them. She said they're praying and try to make sense of it all and she said she's just terrified so the cop said here this is the crime stoppers director she she said we've gotten a few calls we want to put some closure on for this family well yeah we want to find out where they are are they okay are they not the hargan family immediately offers 25 000 for the safe return of the family just in case that someone kidnapped them or something who knows you know so um despite the reward there's only a couple of tips but nothing much here coming in really it's pretty it's pretty

rough here um so diana and rebecca's parents uh bill and linda and Linda Hertz of Montana, that's where they're from, they end up immediately going on Good Morning America. Really? Oh, yeah, 48 hours. All the news stations, they go on saying, help us find our family. You know what I mean? Sure. Even though there's foul play suspected and everything like that. They found the right course already.

That's good. Yeah, yeah. The whole family's on board. The whole town's on board. They all think that this must be some kind of tragedy. So Diana said, we'll do anything we can to get our kids back, which that seems fair. So how could this, who could have done this? What's happening here?

There's so many, so many questions unanswered so far. Yeah. this what's happening here um there's so many so many questions unanswered so far yeah so right away uh they asked diana has there been any issues between rebecca and michael number one because let's be realistic here 90 of the time when a whole family disappears yeah one of the family one of the parents killed the rest of the family and are now on the run that's usually what it is so yeah let's be honest here so they go listen diane i know this is not easy but have they had any problems and she said no they've been happy they've been doing great everybody's it seems to be idyllic i talked to him the night

before no there's no troubles nobody was fighting or anything like that um so they said okay well have you noticed if any close friends or relatives have been noticeably absent in the last few days since this happened people that you would normally see or talk to especially if something happened have they not talked to you yeah are they backing off that's a good person to talk to and she said quote everybody's been showing up all the family all his friends and then the cops look at each other and say then we got a cold-blooded motherfucker yeah we got a real cold-blooded son of a bitch or she doesn't know what's going on in her son's marriage. Also, that could be it.

So you show up, you have no idea. Now, poor Diana, she's got enough problems. She's in the middle of fighting colon cancer. Oh, my God. She has chemo every Thursday during this. Jesus Christ. Kids missing, families missing, grandsons missing, you know, chemo. She's got to go sit in a chair for hours.

This is brutal. They ask her about that, and she says, that's secondary to what's happening with Michael. It's been a rough few years. No shit. Oh? It's been an even rougher few years than that, once we tell you a little background on that family that we'll get into. They're known as the cursed family. Really?

They're cursed. We'll talk about it. So she said that family and friends are giving her strength. She said, we stay together. Law enforcement doesn't tell you much. It's harder on Rebecca's parents. We can tell. So, yeah, there you go.

Now, they said the dog bowl was left behind. So that's weird. That's all they have to go on. They left the dog, left the rings, left cash, which they don't know if they have more cash, left the son's asthma medication, which seems strange if they were going to be gone at any point. And that's a big deal. He takes it twice a day, James Patrick. So twice a day. They said, quote, that this is a forensic scientist and criminal profiler said that's a huge red flag.

We don't have them following a normal pattern. This is bad. This is going to end badly. Holy shit. That's some ominous shit, sir. He popped up like three days after this is going on and said, this is bad. This is going to end badly. Holy shit.

This is going to give you guys nightmares. No keeping hope alive here. Oh, my God. When you show up, bring your shovels. Like, this is bad. There's a child missing six doses of asthma medication. He's clearly got a severe case of asthma. In the South, where the air will fucking strangle you anyway

yeah the air will cover your face and take you to the ground yeah a big hand made out of made out of pollen like in the like old cartoons with like bees which form shapes it's what the pollen yes it's bad it smothers you oh so let's talk about some people here let's get some background and figure out what the fuck's going on. Right now we've got a missing family, two missing people, almost 30, and a four-year-old that are missing. Right. A lot of scary stuff going on. So let's talk about some people.

Let's start with Ernest here. Ernest Lee Hargan. We have an Ernestine and an Ernest? And an Ernest. Ernestine's out of the story. She's done. She's a neighbor. She drove by, saw it.

She's done her part. She's discovered things. When I hear Ernest, I just picture Jim Varney. I picture Ernest goes to camp. Ernest scares Stu. I picture all the Ernests. So right away, that's who I picture in my head, even though that's not what the guy looks like at all. So Ernest Lee Hargan is his name.

Ernest Lee. Everybody's middle name is Lee, boy. And the women are Lynn. And the women are Lynn. Some of them are Lee, too. He's born September the 16th, 1960. Now, as of 2004, when we started, he'll be described as a, quote,

crystal methamphetamine addicted cattle truck driver. He's doing. Jesus Christ. Those cattle are in trouble every day. Crystal methamphetamine addicted cattle truck driver or cattle truck driver. No, I know. I say this because I know someone is going to tweet us or fucking Instagram. Send us a picture of them driving a cattle truck while listening to the show and not on crystal meth.

That's why I say that, because they all have a good sense of humor. And there you go. Generally, generally, truck drivers in general. Well, I mean, when you spend your life in a truck alone. Yeah. When most of your showers are taken in public, your sense of humor has to. You have to. You know what I'm saying? You got to loosen up a little bit, I feel like. Yeah, when you wait for a gas station attendant to call your number to take a shower. Well, you stand there with a towel in your hand.

You better calm the fuck down. Yeah, chill out. A towel and a bar of soap. Yeah, you know you take one on the chin every once in a while and you're okay with it. You know what I'm saying? You're like, listen, I take my shots and I'm good with that. You got planter's warts on your feet from the showers. No shit. I would assume you wear shower shoes if you're a truck driver. They better. God damn it. If you're not, do it.

Good Lord, I help you. You are brave. You're going to be working the clutch with a stump pretty soon. Brave. You're going to be working the clutch with a stump pretty soon. From gangrene leprosy. So, Ernest is born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on September 16th, 1960. But he spent most of his younger years in this area. And his mother, Eva Heflin, married Charles Hargan in 1965. Now, he is

apparently, Eva had Charles not with a husband or anything, out of wedlock in 1960, which single mother in 1960 was like, oh, the world is ending. I mean, people freak the fuck out for that. So, that was a big deal. And then she married this Charles Hargan guy in 1965. And Charles Hargan adopts Ernest and gives him his last name because otherwise that well, that back then, though, that's also half for you. So you don't look like you have some little bastard child back then. Like, oh, I picked up some floozy in her bastard here.

It's more like, oh, that's your son now. You know what I mean? Yeah. Which is, that's acceptable. Just, you know, I didn't know you had a kid. Well, I do. Here he is. Yeah.

Look at him. He's a good boy. Strong boy. So, but he does. He marries the mom, adopts Charles, and they get married in February. By August, he's adopted. So they do it right away here. They had no other children, these two.

The problem with Charles is, stand-up guy, yes, but he's also a nasty drunk as well. God damn it. Who beats the shit out of everyone in this house. Really? Oh, yeah, yeah. Everyone within arm's reach he beats the shit out of. I guess he feels like he deserves it. He can do whatever he wants.

I own this child. I adopted him. I'm the king of this castle. Of this 50-acre farm, it says. Oh, wow. 50-acre farm in Canton, Mississippi, which is close by. And it's off the Mississippi 16. I guess that's the road or state road or whatever.

God. So by early 1971, Eva, Ernest's mom, files for divorce. She's had enough of this shit. Yeah, she said it's enough. But the way this goes, because he is technically Ernest's son, or he's technically Charles' son, he's adopted. So there's no, like, it's not step. So there's actual custody things that they have to go through and shit like that. So he doesn't just like Charles just doesn't disappear out of earnest life. He's his father. So, yeah, he said Ernest and herself, quote, lived in fear of physical bodily harm

because of Charles' drinking and all that. So, yeah, that's what they say. His drinking causes us fear of bodily harm. She described the household as violent and intolerable. Now, he denied the accusations, Charles. He said, I never get drunk and beat my wife and kid. This is crazy. The court awards sole custody to Eva, which makes sense, not only because just, you know, it's his heart child, but he's actually her physical

child. So it would be really crazy to give him to this guy. That would be fucking amazing. You know how my shit that's crazy well you know what hang on to your fucking butthole jimmy because in 1973 the court reverses its decision and gives custody to charles what the fuck what is happening how because the boy was living with him some of the time and he liked it and it seems like charles also wasn't very strict and i don't think was real on top of shit because he was a drunk so if you're a teenager who lives with charles you can pretty much do what you want whereas i think with eva you actually had to like do your homework and shit like that mom maybe gives a shit mom might give a shit i think that's the problem mom might care that's gonna be an issue maybe at 13

you get a choice in in that state maybe he just had to he just chose to go over there this was a it said the court reversed its decision based on i don't know that is un-fucking-ful it was 50 years ago so the details of it could be washed away long ago here share the same dna no they're not even the same but damn it that's my son but charles treats him like a son yeah just like you he he cares for him he beats him he does all the things he would do to his own flesh and blood jimmy so by 1978 earnest graduates from canton academy which is high school so he graduates high school he does. He's one of the 50% here. In February of 1983, he applies for a marriage license but doesn't marry the woman. So they get a marriage license, but they don't get married, which is hilarious because you get a marriage license pretty close to when you get married.

You're not like – The day of. Yeah. You don't get that yeah you don't usually get like six months in advance right so i don't know what happened between getting the paperwork and like but sarah i think with us it was like five hours between four hours between getting the license and getting married so i i guess it's like uh you're supposed to get it i guess after you ask the person so maybe that person. So maybe he jumped the gun and got it and then asked. And then she was like, no.

I don't know. I think both people have to sign for it, though. They got a marriage license. I don't remember if that was the case. You need both people. I think it's like a submarine. You both have to turn the key on. They can't just give you a license to marry someone without their consent, I don't think.

That would be crazy. That'd be wild wild wouldn't it yeah i don't i don't can you do it yeah no you need to see their id make sure they're of age all those type of things there's that make sure they exist who they say who they say they are it's got to be a social security number involved go down there and give my name and my dog's name and then go get married you can say i'm getting marriage license for me and charlize they're on you can say that tomorrow you know what i mean and that's not because i mean you're getting married they kick you the fuck out and then go ask her maybe like she's like six two bro get out of here charlize i got it i got the paperwork i just need you to sign it come on what's that now no what do you mean no no what the fuck i got the license it's right here it's a black and white sweetheart what are we talking about veijan calligraphy come here

jesus so two years later 1985 he finally does get married to a different woman though okay completely different woman uh geneva or Jean Eva. Geneva. It's spelled Jean Eva. Jean Eva Lynn Mowdy, which his mother's name is Eva. So, you know, maybe there's something to that. Jean Eva Lynn Mowdy. They have a son in 1989, I believe he's born. 1988, named James Philip Hargan.

So they end up with a son as well. So everybody's JP, James Patrick, James Philip Hargan. So they end up with a son as well. So everybody's JP, James Patrick, James Philip. So apparently the great grandfather, the grandfather in the family was named James. So that's why everybody names their kids James. Now, they show that they are having financial problems here by 1993. problems here by 1993. They're having issues, including defaulting on a $1,281 loan from Tower Loan of Mississippi. Okay.

Which sounds like a check. Yeah, that sounds like a check cashing place or something. Tower Loan? That doesn't sound like a regular bank, right? No, it doesn't. No. It sounds like somewhere you go with your car title in your hand. Right. Doesn't sound good at all.

So they end up getting a divorce here in 1993 during this mess oh boy but the weird part is he immediately by march of 1994 march 17th 1994 he gets a marriage license again because i found this in the paper he gets a marriage license and he's supposed to marry a woman named Gwendolyn Alice Manor, whose address, by the way, is 103 Coon Hunters Road in Brandon, Mississippi. Yikes. So Gwendolyn Alice Manor. But he doesn't marry this girl. What is this?

He gets a license, doesn't marry her, but that same year marries a different woman. What is going on? That's how he does things. I feel like he gets that license in his hand and he's like, it's real now. Shit, do I really want to do this? No, no, I don't like her. But I do want to get married, though. You know, I just feel it.

I want to walk down the aisle, just not with her. Marriage sounds so good. Oh, just put this one. I'm not sure. So he marries a woman named Lisa Ainsworth of Taylorsville, Mississippi. She's a veterinarian. Oh. Yeah.

She owns her. She has a veterinary clinic that she runs and shit. Like, he's well above his weight. He's fucking punching here. Swing it. This is ridiculous. Swing it for the fences. That's what you got to do, though.

You got to ask him. Otherwise, you'll never get i mean ask them to marry you you never know shit give it a look see why not you miss a hundred percent of the shots you don't take i'm telling you so there's a custody battle with his ex-wife yeah that he had the kid with uhest here. There's a battle here where he is described as an unfit parent who was abandoned his child by the mother. OK, by Gene Eva. Now, at one point during the hearing, this is incredible. This is a child custody hearing. This is not a murder trial. This is not anything. Okay. At one point, he stood up in court, Ernest, in the middle of a proceeding, pointed at the judge, and shouted at the top of his lungs, You self-centered son of a bitch! To the judge. It's like you think you're in charge of everything.

Like you just think you make decisions that affect all of our lives and we have to abide by it or something. That's what you think, don't you? Like you're presiding over my life. Like you got some kind of power entrusted to you by the state. Something like that. Some bullshit, right? All high and mighty up there on that chair. Wearing a silk robe.

Think you're a pharmacist or something sitting all high up above us hell no buddy stop looking down on me you self-centered son of a bitch is what he screamed which is amazing judge so-and-so you self-centered which is that can't happen often in this man's courtroom, I would imagine. So he was found immediately in contempt and tossed in jail for the night as well because, you dumb fuck, what do you expect? So the judge, Ray Montgomery, he remembered the incident years later and said, that was the only time I can recall that ever happening. I told him, what a weird fucking thing to do. I could see yelling at your ex. You fucking bitch.

You fucking drunken asshole. I could see that. You lying sack of shit. There's a lot of passion built up between people in a divorce, but not the judge. Even if you think that of the judge shut the fuck up it's gonna cost you a lot people who chop up 30 people know to not talk you could they'll yell at the lawyer they'll talk shit then the judge says it yes sir yes your honor yes sir your honor yes sir what are you doing it's the judge they can really have a lot of say they it's their decision

fucking idiots literally up to them wow um so he said i told him it was not an affront to me but it was an affront to the entire court oh you've made a mockery of the judicial system yeah so that's what it is uh in 1994 what ends up happening is they give custody to neither of these people which is a i didn't know there was a third option here. I didn't know there was a third option, but apparently. And they give instead custody to, here we go. Now, Ernest's mother has died by now. Okay.

So they give custody to Ernest's stepfather. What? And Ernest's stepfather's wife. This state. stepfather and earnest stepfather's wife who are this state this is he's adopted this and then this one's stepfather and then just give him to whoever who cares that guy has no fucking legal guardianship over this child apparently he was the one that the kid stayed with a lot and the kid liked him a lot and he said i'd love to take the kid in and there there you go that's why he's like great as long as neither of these two get him you know what terrific these two are assholes so next you'd give it a shot now you don't you don't want to curse at me do you okay

then take the kid hey stepfather the yeah his stepfather the father's stepfather so that's like father twice removed because he wasn't even the first guy's real kid this is crazy i don't know what's going on stepfather number two is what this guy is unreal unreal so as far as earnest goes let's talk about what he's doing as an adult here uh david tadlock who owns tadlock stockyards in Forest and Bay Springs, he said that Ernest worked for him for about five years and then left a couple years left in like 2002

to start his own business. The business ended up failing for Ernest. Not a great businessman, but he described him, Tadlock said he was a dependable, talented ranch hand who was great with the children and possessed the skills of a master mechanic and electrician.

Oh. He's one of these guys that has no formal training, but he's very good mechanically, and he's been working with his hands his whole life, and he knows how to do shit. Period. Those guys are so fucking impressive that can just strip a car and put it back together, and they just know how everything works? Because some of that shit's very difficult. It is.

But the problem is when you mix meth into the equation, when there's any math problem, you look this plus this, this divided by that. If you put meth in there, the whole thing is now not going to be the same. It's not going to add up to the same shit. So that's the problem with him. He starts getting a little flighty because he's doing meth and then he ends up driving cattle trucks and uh the meth he starts doing more meth to be able to stay awake doing his cattle truck runs longer yeah because obviously that's safe to have a trucker with i can get all the way kentucky tonight 40 000 pounds of cattle behind him jesus christ now tadlock said that he often accompanied Ernest to pick up cattle from

Ernest's dad, Charles. Adopted dad. Whatever. His dad. We'll just call him his dad. His dad, Charles. He would do that. He did say about this, about the relationship between Charles and Ernest, Tadlock said, quote, they were always fussing, carrying on with each other.

Fighting? No, no, no. that means fighting each other that means fighting down or fussing means they're they're fighting he said charles said to me my gosh can you imagine what this place is going to go to once earnest lee gets it it's like uh like it was going to do nothing when earnest lee got it so he was like can you imagine this place is going to go to shit when my ne'er-do-well dumb fuck son runs it? That's what he was saying to Tadlock. When I die, this shit's going to go to hell in a handbasket. By the way, everyone, and I mean everyone, calls him Ernest Lee.

Not Ernest. Ernest Lee? Ernest Lee? Not Ernie. Ernest Lee. That's what everyone calls him. So, yeah. Now, Tadlock said Ernest Lee was a hard worker, but worker but quote he couldn't be still meth does

that to people it makes you a little generous it's a real hear of a calm stoic method he does meth then he just sits there stoically and ponders the world's problems it's crazy he figured out how peace in the middle east though i think the plan could work you know i think if we sit israel and palestine down together i really feel like we could work this out it's got a real malleable swagger to it yeah you know it is he said he couldn't be still he didn't like to do the same thing every day yeah he's one of those guys which that i completely get that's my that repetitive shit is so boring yeah so annoying. I have a hard time with that. He also said, though, that Ernest was well-mannered, well-liked, and everyone in town likes Ernest. Everybody thinks he's a good guy.

Tadlock said, quote, he was a cowboy, but he wasn't no rhinestone cowboy. He was the real thing. Real McCoy. He was a real cowboy. Someone in Mississippi calls you a real cowboy. You're a cowboy. That's some shit right there. Not a rhinestone.

Not, not. Quote, he wasn't no rhinestone cowboy. That's the quote. He wasn't no rhinestone cowboy. He was the real thing. Yeah. That's how that shit went. That's some dress them ups.

No, not at all. So they, he, Tadlock said about the dad, Charles and Ernest Lee, though, they were never too close to each other, you know? Mr. Hargan would always laugh and say, I wonder what this place is going to be like when Ernest Lee gets it. So that's what seems to be happening. Now, by January of 2004, Ernest Lee is having more and more trouble with his dad here. So Christmas was the big Christmas was going to be the big kind of either we're going to make up or break up type of thing with him and his dad here. That was it. And apparently in January, late January, Charles dies. Oh, no.

He's old and sick and he died. After Christmas. Yes. He's old and sick and he died. After Christmas. Yes. Now, one of the relatives said, quote, I do know that Charles called Ernest Lee before Christmas and told him he had until Christmas to come up there and make peace. So he said, you get up here and make peace with me before Christmas, goddammit.

I'm dying. He told him I'm dying. He said Charles knew he was dying, but Ernest Lee didn't come. He didn't come up, man. Didn't call him, didn't come up, didn't even say Merry Christmas, nothing. What the fuck? Let him die. And they said the whole thing came from something very stupid.

The stepfather here, Glancy is his last name, Glancy, the stepdad who took the son, he says, quote, it was some silly little thing about working cattle, the way they were driving them. That's all. That's what this whole fight was about. You got to put them three wide in the trailer, not too wide. Four. Damn it.

We're making money. I'm on meth and I'm going to get as many there as I can. Uh, this guy also said that, uh, Ernest Lee did not go to his funeral. Really? Didn't go to his dad's funeral or nothing. Just said, fuck him. So, problem is, he maybe should have showed up at Christmas

because 13 days before his death in January, Charles changed his will completely excluding Ernest Lee from everything, giving him nothing. Giving him nothing and instead leaving the 50 acre farm to his great nephew michael hargan son of a bitch and his wife rebecca uh-oh so that's what ends up going on here so um yeah that's that's rough that was right after christmas he said i'm gonna give him till christmas he didn't show up i think it was january 3rd is when he

changed the will so as soon as the office opened for the new year for his lawyer he said change i'll hold out until then and then i'll die on the fifth yeah now the farm acreage was valued at 175 000 and the farmhouse was valued at 45 000 so it000 there. But the property was mortgaged for nearly $177,000. So you're getting $50,000. You're getting something to the Farmers Home Administration records there. Now, on March 6, 1997, back a little bit, Charles had signed over the deed of trust to the FHA for three loans all made in the same day. They kind of did a home consolidation thing. The loans were to be paid off by 2012.

That's how that was. So that's how that goes. Now, a little bit about Michael, our disappeared man. Now that we know. We know he's got a farm now, a 50-acre farm. Lots of farms. A nice little house and a missing family. So he grew up.

He's a horse guy, too. He's, again, grew up. Farms and ranches. too. He's a, again, grew up. Farms and ranches. This area has a lot of ranches and farms. He milked cows. He rode horses and all that kind of thing. He's a goddamn cowboy. Yeah.

Tons of woods and fishing holes and hunting and fishing and all that shit, man. I just had a hiccup in the middle of hunting. Yeah. What was that? That was a hiccup. Hunting and... This and gotcha. That was weird. weird i'm not even gonna cut that out because that was terrible my body rejected me i really want to go fishing guys welcome to the small town of chinook where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper in this new

thriller available exclusively on wonderyery 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. I understand that anybody who's paid attention

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We'll be revisiting all six episodes of Part 1 and watching along with Part 2 as it airs on Max, starting April 21st. Bye-bye. The Official Jinx Podcast. Listen on Max or wherever you get your podcasts. In May of 1980, near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and seemed unwell. She insisted on driving him to the local hospital

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You can listen to Generation Y ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus. So that's what he did. His friend here, or one of his best friends, Kelly, said, we used to ride this old car around in the pasture. It didn't have brakes, and we weren't old enough to be driving anyway, but we would use the trees to stop it. Oh my God!

That sounds like so much fun. Oh, I would love to do that when I was 13. Doesn't that sound like fun yeah but yeah what the fuck the fact that they're allowed to do that you mean yeah their parents would go you're running into trees with a car you fucking idiot doesn't even have brakes jesus christ they're like i'm riding around that old car again. Doesn't have brakes, but we got oaks. Wow. Used to use the trees to stop it.

That's crazy. He said, we used that car as a fishing pier a couple of times when we ran it off the pond by accident. So they ran it into the pond by accident. So then they just stood on it, used it as a fishing pier, which is pretty fun, I say. Genius, yeah. Not bad. Now, a little more on this family, and I'm telling you the background because you'll notice why in a minute here. It's remarkable, this background here.

His dad's name is Dan Haywood Hargan. Everyone calls him Haywood, okay? Now, Haywood and Diana, Michael's mother, had three children. OK, now Haywood and Diana, Michael's mother, had three children. Haywood Jr. Yeah. Dan Haywood Jr. died in 1974 after only living one day. Oh, one day old died. So, yeah. Now, at the time here, he's born in 77, Michael, and his sister was born in about 1980. He's got a sister named Jennifer that's born in 80. So there's that. So they run a small grocery store in town here in Vaughan called the Fowler Road Grocery. So that's what Dan does for a living.

That's how the family makes their living, and the kids come and work. The mom works there. Everybody works there. Now, a little bit about Rebecca. He met Rebecca while they were both attending college. They were both at community college. Michael was there to learn about construction. He was taking construction courses there, which is good to know.

I didn't know you could get that in college. I thought that was just on the job. Yeah, there's programs they have because i know they have construction schools yeah so they have programs and i assume too in like a more rural area the community college would probably have some kind of construction civil engineering and shit like yeah of course but like the actual construction i thought that was just you know grab a shovel motherfucker i think i think it's probably like law school like you learn all the laws and shit but then like you have to proceed. Like they teach you how to measure. They teach you what all the tools are probably, what all the tools.

That way when you go there, someone asks you for a tool, you don't go, huh? You know what fucking tool it is at least. You can measure fucking three and four, six, whatever. You can do it. You know, three and three sixteenths will come out on your tape measure. So she's going to school to be a physical therapist, Rebecca. Okay. So they all said Rebecca was very independent.

But everyone loves Rebecca here. She was born, she was, when her mom went into labor, they couldn't even get to the hospital and she gave birth in the living room. Oh, Jesus. So Rebecca's antsy. She wants out. She is. Let me out. Oh, Jesus. Peach cobblers and shit. A lot of cobblers going in there. They all said Michael and Rebecca were like polar opposites. They said she'd never been on a horse before she met Michael,

and Michael grew up wrestling calves and running horses and fishing off. Michael's inseminated one. Yeah, he's inseminating things. He's fishing off abandoned cars. Right. Totally different. Sitting on the hood of a fucking satellite in a river yeah so shit eventually it's one of those you know it's one of those squire wagons those country squire wagons with

wood paneling and shit on the side yeah it's got wood on it yeah it's definitely a woody so rebecca ended up loving horses and they even had had horses, Rebecca and Michael. They had two horses, Cody and Diamond. Beautiful. Were their horses. They said, this is one of her relatives said, before, Rebecca would have gone riding, if she went riding on a horse, in a black sweater and black pants. She said, the last time I saw her ride, she was wearing Wrangler jeans, a Carhartt jacket, and cowboy boots.

Oh, that's Michael. She got into it, yeah. She said, Michael pretty much converted her to Wrangler jeans, a Carhartt jacket, and cowboy boots. Oh, that's Michael. She got into it, yeah. She said Michael pretty much converted her to Wranglers. And then her mother said she doesn't like to get dirty, but she would go ATV riding with Michael. And his goal was to put as much dirt on Rebecca as possible. That was the aim of the game. Oh, yeah.

That's very nice. They said she grew up in Missouri. I said Montana earlier. I meant Missouri. Until 1989. And then the family moved to Jackson, Mississippi after her father Bill was transferred. And a friend of Rebecca's introduced Rebecca and Michael, a mutual friend, at an August 1992 football game at Benton Academy where Michael went to school, high school. So they said it was true love, the one friend said.

The mother, Rebecca's mother, Linda, said, I asked her if she and Michael were dating. She told me, we're going to let that Michael thing go along. Then Michael started coming to our house. I don't know what that means. Go along? What does that mean? Like, we're going to let it unfold or it's over? We're going to let it linger.

I don't know. What does that mean? That's a Southernism that I don't understand. So either way. I'm going to go along. He started coming over. So no matter what she said, the result was she went out with him more. Sounds like something Blaine from Love After Lockup would say.

It says, I'm going to let her go along. What does that mean, Bl go along what does that mean blaine what what does that mean but with blaine you wouldn't know if that's a southernism or just a crackheadism we know you know just a just a dipshit yeah is this just a fucking guy who's done too many drugs and has brain damage speaking or is this a southernism that more people know around him does the person he's talking to understand him put it that way there it is so she uh the uh apparently rebecca ends up moving back to missouri with her family in 1993 to to tend to ill relatives the whole family oh no she said that um i guess michael ran behind the car he was so sad when they left She said he followed us as long as he could before he had to turn around.

Very sad. Probably kept up as long as he could. Kept up. Poor little fella. Just holding the collar in his hand. That's all I could think of. Poor little fella. Oh, man.

Well, you couldn't think I. Oh, God. Oh, God. Well, you couldn't think I. No. Oh, God. Oh, God. No. No. So she ends up coming back to be with him, though, which is nice because he could use the support. Because on April 22nd, 1994. Okay.

Remember I said they own a grocery store? Dad works the grocery store. Three men, Forrest Branch, 37, Ronnie Joe Wright. Jesus, that's a very Mississippi name. Ronnie Joe. That's a very truck stop robbing name. Yeah. Ronnie Joe Wright, 32, and James Wesley Jackson, 47 years old.

That's a lot of age swing there. Apparently, Ronnie Wright, along with Jackson and Branch, drove from Canton to Yazoo County, and Branch was driving. He said on the way to Yazoo County, they planned to do a robbery and discussed how they're going to carry it out. Branch said that he and Jackson had a gun and Wright didn't have a gun. So the plan was for Branch, because he's the driver, he's the wheel man here, to wait in the car while Jackson and Wright went into the store. Wright was supposed to buy cigarettes and distract Dad here, distract Dan Hargan, Heywood Hargan. Jackson was supposed to ask for change, and while the cash drawer was open, Jackson's supposed to pull the gun and rob Heywood. That's the plan.

haywood that's the plan so branch said that all three of them knew that the gun would be used in the robbery but um it's not they all made an agreement unless he pulls a gun out nobody's shooting anybody we don't fire at all we don't fire so uh they passed the store three times that morning looking for the right opportunity for it to be empty and when they finally passed by and it was empty they pulled into the parking lot. Wright entered the store first and Jackson followed. Branch remained outside. And he's the wheel man, so he's sitting out there. So he didn't know exactly what happens until he hears gunfire in there. Oh, no.

A driver of a truck pulls into the parking lot in the middle of this. Guy drives in with a truck in the parking lot. He said he heard four or five gunshots. He jumped right back into his truck, backed out, and drove away as fast as he could. He said he saw one male sitting in the car by the gas pumps as he was leaving. He looked back as he's driving away and saw two more males running out of the store. One resembled Ralph Macchio, and the other they thought was possibly either way both very northern that's all they could say yeah it's a friend uh they jumped

they jumped in a in a buick skylark a 63 buick skylark and uh we're seen peeling away from that exiting the scene they did have a can of tuna that we know no you know in reality it sounds just like that but it's in reality that they saw him running out of the store this guy the truck driver drove directly to the county supervisor's office he looked for the first like official building he could find found one jumped out the call was made to the sheriff at that point sheriff goes and investigates they find haywood hargan there dead behind the counter from four gunshots oh god he was shot four times you know what they got you know what they robbed him on 12 bucks 114 dollars sons of bitches in 94 that's not a lot of money it's still not a lot

of money 114 but it's gas money to get to wherever that's ridiculous so branch gets arrested first and he implicates the other two right um a man who lived near the store corroborated the testimony of Branch is why they believed him, saying that they had passed the store three times that morning. This guy sitting out on his porch had watched them pass by. That's a strange car. Don't know that one. That's that same same strange car. So they took, Madison County deputy took swabs of their hands for gunpowder residue and said only Wright's hand had gunpowder residue on it. It was located on the back of his right hand. So they said, obviously, that means he fired a gun or was right by one when it was fired. Wright's statement was taken when he was arrested. He admitted riding to Yazoo County with Jackson and Branch. He denied knowing about the plan to rob the store and denied they had ridden by the store three times. He claims he just went in for cigarettes.

And he said that the other guy said he was going to buy a soda pop. And when he heard the gunshots, he was so scared he dropped. He dropped his soda pop. And oh, no. Then they took off here. So they end up getting for the trigger man life without parole. Yeah. And the other two get life sentences with parole.

Okay. That is not the small town murder here. No. At all. That's just a part. That's just background. That's some color. So my God, Michael is only 17 at this point when his dad is killed.

So his dad's dead. His dad's dead, yeah. And then later on, it's rough. Later on when he's missing, his mom has colon cancer. His dad's dead. A lot going on. His brother died when he was one day old? Yeah, his brother.

Yeah, yeah. Michael wasn't born yet, but his brother never made it past that. And he's the only son. So they all say that he is now the man of the house. Like, he adopts his dad's role in the community, his dad's role in everything. He's his dad now. You're in a grocery store now. That's it.

He's his dad now. So his aunt, Catherine, said it was so much for him to take on after losing his daddy. You have to admire him for that, but that's the kind of person he is. that but that uh that that's the kind of person he uh that's the kind of person he is so december 1995 that same year or the next year obviously uh michael and rachel get married okay or rebecca rachel i said they get married i said rachel for some reason they get married um here uh december 95 following a long distance relationship because she was in Missouri. And then she came back and they both graduated from Holmes Community College. Now the grocery store. Right.

Rather than keep it a grocery store, Michael converts it into a home that they live in. Because they already own it. They own it. So why not? So he converts it into a home because he knows construction. He's a construction worker. So that's what he does. So he converts it into a home because he knows construction. He's a construction worker. So that's what he does. So he converts it into a home and they live there.

That's their home. So they said one of the guys down the street said, quote, this is Jeremy Littleton. He lives down the road. Said he could remember buying candy and bread and chips in the store. And then it closed out of nowhere after the murder. He said a few years later the son came back and made it into a house and said it was a nice house they said uh house with a gas pump house they had to knock that old gas pump out from in front of it a house where cartons and new ports are still 32.95 as set up on the window so uh michael is employed at a

construction firm called warren excavation and he's been there for more than four years at this point. In 2004, he's doing fine. Rebecca works as a physical therapy assistant at Tyler Holmes Hospital in Winona. And the couple and their son, they like to go out with relatives. They go out to eat with other couples during their free time. Rebecca's favorite restaurant is? Chick-fil-A. Olive Garden.

Olive Garden. Okay, yeah. She likes terrible Italian food. In 94, that shit was all the rage. Their cannelloni was fantastic. No, it's nothing they've made's ever been good, besides their salad and breadsticks. It's always been terrible.

But in 94, it was great. Nope, still bad. Italian food still existed that was good in 94. You're acting like there wasn't Italian food that was good. Except in 94, it was pretty good. 94, you know, in 94, we didn't know any better. That was the thing. That's what it feels like.

You didn't know any better. You did. I think the vast majority of the country hadn't seen the Food Network or any great cooking shows. Ever met an Italian person? Or met an Italian person. I forget that. You know what? That's actually, you're actually right.

I forget that we're in like six places in the whole country. We don't exist very much. It feels- You may feel like it's every day to you. Well, I'm from a place where we're very prevalent, but outside of this- You may feel like Italian culture is every day to you. That's what it is, but it's really New York, Philly, Boston- That's about it.

Chicago. A little bit in San Francisco, I guess. Yeah, we were there, San Francisco. Used to be in Louisiana, ran away from there. The gators chased you off. A little bit in the Northwest in San Francisco. Drop of Seattle. Yeah. A couple bit in the northwest in San Francisco. Drop a Seattle. Yeah.

A couple there. That's Detroit, maybe. Probably a couple in Detroit, I would say. Yeah, because they had unions and stuff. They were like, let's change this pizza thing up a little bit. Yeah, that's all. So, you know what? You're right.

What the fuck does she know? So, now their son, then they have the son, James Patrick, who's born in 2000. So, this is what they do. They go out, then they have the son, James Patrick, who's born in 2000. So this is what they do. They go out. They go to the other. As middle-of-the-road, just salt-of-the-earth American couple as it gets. Average people. He works hard.

She works hard. They have a son. They pay their bills. They go out on Saturday night with some other couple from the construction site to the Olive Garden. You know what I mean? You can't be more normal than that. They all live in the house as of 2004, obviously. Michael and his friends said that Michael never considered leaving the area.

He always wanted to stay here. They said people who live in this community wanted so much for Michael, but Michael had what he wanted. He had his family, and he had the life that he wanted. People like Jed Clampett, they were like, get away from here. They were like, you're smart. You should go do something. You should get out of this ghost town.

And he said, I like it. I like it. Yep. He said, I got what I want here. Their friend said, you were just blessed to know them. Your life was just better having them around. Nice people. So February 14th, 2004 is when Ernestine drives by.

Not Ernest Lee, Ernestine. And they're gone. And like we said, asthma medication, rings, money, guns, shell casings out by the car, blood drops leading into the house, all of that shit. casings out by the car, blood drops leading into the house, all of that shit. So once they get the crime scene, the state investigators in there, they found signs that pointed to violence

inside the house as well. They found blood on the floor. They found a bullet hole in the wall. How did they miss that? Didn't see a bullet hole. It's 22. Oh, okay. 22 bullet hole. Yeah, it's small. It's small, especially if okay. 22 bullet hole. Yeah, it's small. It's small, especially if it's like up in a corner, if a gun got shot up that way or something.

And they weren't looking. And also more casings, more.22 casings. So they have all the casings are.22 caliber that they found outside and inside all appear to be from the same gun. So we have a one-gun scenario here. So it looks like one person is what they're thinking here. So the county sheriff said that law enforcement officials were investigating it as a missing persons case. That's what they're saying.

But relatives are saying, no, it's a kidnapping. You should investigate that. They go, we don't know whether it's a missing person. We don't know whether it's a parasite. We don't know whether it's a fight. We don't know. We don't know it's a missing person. We don't know whether it's parasite. We don't know whether it's, we don't know. We don't know what's a kidnap. We have no idea what's going on. So about 10 officers from the State Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks Department.

The game warden. Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks. They searched the whole Vaughn area including the big black river for clues which is named after the big black penis which is a local legend i feel like that river is going to be impossible to see through yeah that's probably named there for that for a reason so uh the sister this is michael's sister jennifer you know his only living sibling here, she said that the sheriff's office said that the deputies were canvassing the county in search of clues. She said they just don't have any direction to go in. They even had a yellow single-engine plane just flying around looking for shit.

Just looking around, seeing if you see a family of three just wandering through a pasture because that's what we're looking for basically um the sister said though there's nothing for them to go on they have no clues um no leads nothing's missing so they don't really have if at least if one of his trucks was gone he could try to trace that they don't even know who they're what they're looking for other than three people you might have seen hopefully so um they said that uh the weird thing is this happened on a saturday saturday was valentine's day by tuesday they allow the police finish processing the whole house as a crime scene and allow the relatives back in the house done with the house we don't need it anymore. That seems wild to me. And then a few

days after that, like two days later, Bill, who is Rebecca's father, Bill Hertz, allows the media to tour the home. What the fuck? So everybody's trampling all over that shit here. So there's an expert here, a guy who's a criminal justice

guy expert. He says that blood drops and bullet holes in the home indicate foul play, and he thinks law enforcement should have kept the house sealed off until they're found one way or the other. This guy says this is a great blunder. You don't know what happened until you find the family. Absolutely. You don't know what happened until you know what happened. Yes, but somebody else, a guy named Michael Clay Smith, who's a criminal justice professor at the University of Southern Mississippi, he said that he thinks investigators might already know what happened to them, and that's why they're doing this. Okay.

Which turns out not to be the case at all. They don't have any fucking clue. That's the only reason to do this. If that's not the reason, then you better steal the fuck back off. And even then, you can't even now. It's all over now. You already lost it. No, yeah. Once you fuck it, it's fucked.

Once it's compromised, it's compromised. Yeah. Once you drop some oil in the milk, it's not milk anymore. Right. You know? It's over now. So they said that they're trying to determine a motive. They're trying to determine who.

They still don't even know who did what to who. Like we said, Rebecca could have killed the two guys and be traipsing through the woods right now. No idea. She could have had a boyfriend pick her up. She could be in Nevada. We have no clue. Michael could have done that. He could be in Mexico right now with some skanky man at a truck stop and wanted to run away with.

We have no idea. So they also get bloodhounds out there to scour the whole property. It's a lot. So who saw him and who saw him when? Who saw any of these people? A close family friend who works for the family told relatives that he ate breakfast with Michael early Saturday morning, the day of the disappearance. This is important. They said that Michael handles financial matters for the man.

He's not a financial advisor, by the way. He's just a smart guy. He's like, I'm meeting with, uh, my financial guy. So is he a, he's a construction worker. He does all my finances. Oh, okay. Sure. Um, why not?

CPA and Caterpillar boots. He's a genius. Pretty damn smart. He is, I'll tell you what, it's pretty damn smart. He is. I'll tell you something. He handles all the matters though. This is a guy who lives on the property that, uh, the,

the farm property that, uh, that Charles Hargan gave to him in the will. So that's where this is the tenant on that property. Um, so this guy said, quote, they want to know what Michael said and how he acted just because Michael was seen.

Doesn't mean the others were okay at that point. Maybe he just didn't know about it yet. That's what one of the cops says. Great point. Just because he was out doesn't mean the others were fine. Then he could have, you know, whatever. So they said that they need to eliminate relatives, close family members, and acquaintances as suspects before they can start considering strangers. They said said we need

to know who the hargens were and who they hung out with uh they also said that uh they should be careful because there's a lot of talk that this has something to do with the robbery from 1994 okay this crime expert says you have to go with what's at the scene, not some fantasy. Now, the reason that is is because the week before this happened, one of his father's killers was up for parole. Oh, shit. Okay. One of them, they were Branch. It was the Branch guy, Forrest Branch. The wheel man?

Yes. He was convicted of armed robbery. He ended up going to parole the week before, and the other one's also up for parole like the next month. And then the one is ineligible forever. So anyway, apparently Michael had gone to the parole hearing to, you know, don't let him say don't let him out, doing a family, family whatever the week before and they're saying that this guy as they'll go into is linked to a uh he's a part of a street gang on the outside and they think the street gang killed his family for showing up and getting this guy denied parole that's another thing to link into this so they have they're like we have literally zero clue it's anybody from the guy who killed his dad and his street fans to one of them to their father we have no fucking clue to a stranger coming through town anything anything so they said um they they don't they don't know so anyway this guy gets denied parole too the week before oh shit so yeah now they have a vigil

the family has a big vigil where they pray and sing and light candles and plead a god and everything else the the uh reverend george butler said come by vaughn mississippi lord we need your help come on by hold on i got i got a couple of things to take care of i'll be there about 9 9 30 is that good so they search and search and search the mississippi department of public safety spokesman warren strain said at least three fbi agents are joining the task force created to investigate this disappearance it expands bloodhounds going beyond the five mile radius yeah surrounding their home they're taking a they started there and they're just going out as far as they can they have local news programs and all this type of shit the sheriff says at one point that

dogs picked up the scents of rebecca and james patrick they said where they had a dog pick him up but he didn't know where the scent led the dogs it turned out to be nowhere turned out to be just stopping so they don't know i smelled it for a sec, maybe, yeah. The problem is a dog's very reliable, but you can't go, you sure? Was that? You don't know. Talk to me. What did it feel like? I mean, I get it, but, you know, there's no, like, you can't debrief the dog.

He just looks at you and he's like, I don't know. What else do you want me to smell? He has no sense of the past, really. That's the problem. Do I get that ball now? Scratch my ears. Scratch my ears. Scratch my ears. Come on. So by the middle of the week, they have more than 100 federal, state, and local officers from seven agencies participating, including the FBI, Yazoo County, Madison, Atala, Holmes, Smith, and Covington counties as well.

That's what happens when a four-year-old is missing. And the whole family. Yeah, they're just all hands on deck here. So police, they have to talk to everyone the whole family. Yeah, they're just all hands on deck here. So police, they have to talk to everyone in the family. They talk to Ernest. And he's one of the main guys in the circle they want to look at immediately because they said he just, of the property, the month before, literally a month earlier, he just got this property. Right. So they're like, well, you were the guy.

Why didn't he give the property to you type of thing? I know you let's have a chat yeah they question him they polygraph him as well they do all this shit um they search 160 acres that belongs to his father-in-law as well oh belongs to his wife lisa's father uh but they found nothing there as well so now earnest i guess earnest went out to dinner the night of february 15th so the next day after the disappearance he went out to dinner with his wife lisa okay they go out to a nice um nice dinner here uh a nice mexican food dinner oh yeah um so during this yeah it must have been who knows it's a sit Taco Bell, though. It's the nicest one around. And it's Valentine's Day weekend. So they put candles out now during this dinner before they order. He tells her, quote, this is what she says, quote, he said, I went to see Mike. Things got a little out of hand. Mike, things got a little out of hand. She said, quote, I said, Ernest Lee.

I said, Rebecca's going to be calling. In other words, like you guys got in an argument, and now Rebecca's going to be calling me to try to smooth it over. Great. He said, no, I got them, all three. That's what he told her. I got them, all three. So she then goes on to say, quote, he didn't eat. We ordered food, but we couldn't eat. Okay. Then she goes on to say that he, later on, he'll say that she'll say about her husband, Ernest Lee, that he'd been sexually

molested as a child and has some emotional problems she said yet he's intelligent and skilled and a role model for for children and he comes in and tells you he killed three people you just can't understand it unless you've been there fascinating this shit's wild she doesn't say shit to anybody about it though really keeps it under her fucking hat so that's a just tells the cops tells nobody that's later she'll come out with that i'm just tells the cops tells nobody. That's later. She'll come out of that. I'm just giving you the story of how it happened and chronological order. But yeah. So the theory is here.

They think that based on the blood evidence, they think that the cops think that Michael was killed at the home. And that his wife and son were alive when they were taken away. Oh, that's fucked up. Possibly all in the same car. The Yazoo County District Attorney said, we're confident that Michael didn't leave the scene alive. So they think he was dead. Now, they go to Ernest Lee's house,

and they end up finding about, Jesus Christ, an ounce of meth and an altered AR-15 assault rifle, altered to be automatic. Oh, shit. A fully auto AR and an ounce of meth. Giant bag of meth. Which you can't have two items and objects that should be farther away from each other than those two things. You know what I'm saying?

You keep those things way far away from, like gasoline and flames, you keep those far away from each other. If you own both of those things, you should have to also own two properties, one to keep one at each. Yeah, far away in different states because, no, I don't want those things being put together at any fucking point so they're going to arrest him as they go to the house you know because they're searching everybody shit they're going to arrest him and um he's got to make an initial appearance in court on meth and

gun possession charges so march 1st 2004 in the early morning they searched the home of tony moran who is a local logger and an acquaintance of Ernest Lee, buddy of Ernest here. Ernest Lee's initial appearance is delayed because they're doing something here. OK. Officials travel a mile down the road just past the Covington County line where they stay for the rest of the day. They block off the entrance to this bash Blackwell Road off Mississippi 37, where this Moran guy has 27 acres. News reporters are told to keep their distance from what they're doing. A few miles up the road, two Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol helicopters land in a field, and the people on them run to the search site. These are bad signs.

At 1235, a white van with a horseshoe-shaped crest on its side exited the road after having arrived 40 minutes earlier. The mayor who was there confirmed that the van belonged to a local funeral home. Oh, shit. Yeah. But Department of Public Safety spokesman Warren Strain said the funeral home. Oh, shit. Yeah. But Department of Public Safety spokesman Warren Strain said the funeral home vehicle was only delivering a tent to shelter searchers from the rain, which is actually not true. Right.

It was there for a reason. Only residents were allowed to go on the road until late afternoon when even some homeowners weren't allowed to go to their houses to get past the barricade. Is that right? They were kept out. As the day goes on on more and more residents come cars line the side of the highways um it turns into a like a it looks like a like a street party like a street festival uh kids are playing tag and run and all the adults are gathered kids

are playing cheerleaders are practicing they literally had cheerleader practice on the side of the road by where they're searching for people's corpses unbelievable because that's everybody was watching uh it was about 40 people there watching yeah which is a lot in this town they said uh this is a tale this is a resident of taylorville she said you have to understand in a place like this there isn't very much to do right so when they're looking for corpses you go you go take a gander basically she said we heard they were going to pull some bodies out and we wanted to see it that's what you said why would why would you want why would you want this lady jeanette duckworth brought her teenage son and daughter to watch come on kids let's see the let's see the corpse of a four-year-old, hopefully. That won't damage you or nothing.

But God damn it, stop watching them movies that have boobs in them. You know what I mean? I feel like Jeanette probably wouldn't let her kid watch a lot of movies. Her priorities are a bit fucked. So, yeah, they said that all they saw were a few officers standing beside their squad cars on the other side of the road. She said she was hoping for the best. She was hoping they weren't dead and buried, but in case they are,

I'm here for it, so don't you worry. She said, quote, look, I got kids too. I'm just out here because I'm nosy, her son said. At least he's honest. Yeah, he's like, I'm just nosy. Shit, I don't know. Residents say this is the biggest thing to happen here since a man was hanged in the 1950s,

and then the rope broke, so they let him live. It's the biggest thing. Remember when old Jethro, they tried to hang him, and they used that old goddamn rope they used to keep the donkey on the barn for a long time? Shit, all the weather. That thing wouldn't last. That donkey was 100 years time. Shit, all the weather. That thing wouldn't last. That donkey was 100 years old. He wasn't running nowhere. That thing snapped.

They just let old Jethro walk away. Although that is a much better story. You don't want to. A weathered broken rope and the man just gets to go home. This isn't going to be the same happy ending, people. No, no. Out there looking for bodies and they just pop out of the ground and go tried to get us but we're still alive we was hiding yeah this isn't

no so another woman that lived up the road said we've never seen anything like this happen in smith county we just want to show support for lisa ainsworth one of the sweetest women in the world these counties are all like intertwined People from all these different counties. Ainsworth, who's Ernest Lee's wife, she's a veterinarian. This woman said she took all of her pets to her veterinary clinic, so she likes her. Barbara Ainsworth said,

that's her mother, Lisa's mother. She said that she lives on that road right there and that she'd been able to freely go past the officers all day until about 4 p.m. when they shut it all down she said I get then they wouldn't let me in I guess I'm just going to be stuck out here for a while that is uh not good that she lives there yeah puts a tie to him to that road that's not that's not good and is on his buddy's property is the property they're searching. So about 7.45 p.m. is when a stream of law enforcement officers, local officials, and crime scene investigation vans all left the scene and let everybody back. So the bodies.

They found what they want or were stumped. They found the bodies in there. Oh, boy. The bodies were buried in a 27-area wooded area owned by the friend of Ernest Lee. 27 acres? 27 acres of woods, yeah. The bodies were stacked on top of each other. Oh, for heaven's sake.

Stacked on top of each other. Just some dirt, a little bit of dirt, and some rusted tin from a burned barn that was nearby. Oh, that's fucked. That's what he laid over them to make the ground even and then just put a little dirt on top of that. That's what they found. That's how they found them. Holy shit.

The mother was holding the son still. Of course she was. Of course she was. Michael was shot in the left side of his head. Part of his jaw had been broken and front teeth had been knocked out okay and more than one gunshot to him as well rebecca was manually strangled and beaten over the head oh my her skull was fractured jesus she also had a non-life-threatening gunshot wound to her arm which is like you listen to what i'm saying or you're you know what i mean

um yeah uh little james patrick was manually strangled with a belt and his skull was also fractured beaten over the head and strangled with a fucking belt that's disgusting that's that's how they found these four fucking people stacked stacked in the ground with some rusted burned up shed shit on top of them disgusting um a total and we'll find out exactly how he did it so a total of a hundred thousand dollars had been offered as a reward to the case officials said they don't know whether anyone's going to get that at this point uh mississippi crime stoppers offered one thousand dollars for information leading to finding them gee a whole grand a whole thousand wow one large yikes and yazoo county officials said they would pay twenty five hundred dollars

for information leading to an arrest and conviction of the disappearance well then why is murder wow that doesn't rate? Fuck. Meanwhile, the Hargan relatives, a guy named James Bailey, who's just a friend of the family who owns the Brandon Autoplex, he offered a total him, he offered $70,000 mixed with the relatives. They got up $96,500

for the safe return of the family. If they're like missing, kidnapped, bring them back. We'll fucking pay your ransom or whatever. So he said that he had hoped for a different outcome. The guy who put up 70 grand. He said, I feel terrible for the family. I know they've been through a lot. At least they found them and it didn't drag out for months.

True. Now, Ernest Lee, who's already, you know, in in deep shit for having an automatic weapon and a giant fucking sack of meth. He is now going to be charged with murder as well. He's going to be charged with three counts of capital murder and he's held without bond here. And the, at this point, the district attorney said he's leaning towards seeking the death penalty on

this one as well. He's being held at what they call an undisclosed location because they're afraid the town will rise up and come there and murder him. So not good. They said that the family was killed and disposed of within 24 hours. They weren't like held and tortured or anything said at least the district attorney said we've got an incredibly strong case that will absolutely lead to the conviction of Ernest Lee Hargan. He says the evidence is basically overwhelming. We had everything we needed in our case against Ernest Lee Hargan prior to today. Our case was very strong.

The discovery of the bodies in terms of prosecution of Ernest Lee had no dramatic impact on that. We already had him minus the bodies. We had him fucking dead to rights fucked in the ass. Now, his mother, Rebecca's mother Diana said that he, quote, he may have the same last name,

Hargan, but Hargan blood never ran through his veins. Jesus. Cold-blooded. Jesus. It was not a Hargan that killed a Hargan family. It was whatever runs through him. I don't know what that is. I can't understand him.

Oh, because he's adopted. Because he's adopted. She's rubbing that in his face. Yeah, Charles brought him in. That's what she said. That's not his. He's whatever mongrel fucking seed that he sprung from. Wow.

So, yeah, they have uh so they're all together that's uh michael's mother not rebecca sorry so that's diana hargan and her and rebecca's parents end up doing press conferences together and all that kind of shit just to say um you know this sucks now jack glancy he is earnest lee's stepfather and the current custodian and guardian of Ernest Lee's child here. He said he watched in disbelief as all this happened. He said, I would have bet my life that he wouldn't have done that. Well, most people I would feel like that. He said, though, he said he's glad that his wife is already dead so she wouldn't have to see this oh my said quote she's better off not being here that's a harsh thing to say but it's true

yeah so some evidence they have one is uh ernest lee's car his 1974 corvette they have that they've cool car and a farm truck they seize from him as well. He most likely drove the Corvette to the house and then they think the truck and then transported the bodies in the Corvette, which we'll explain is very difficult. Yeah. And they said the truck was probably used to take the family to the woods where they were found. OK, so Jesus Christ, they, we had information that we thought. So they said, how did you find the bodies? And the cops said, well, we got information that we thought was reliable, so we went there.

And they also were looking for the murder weapon, which they still haven't found. They said the weapon supposedly has been thrown out. That's because once they get Ernest in there, he's talking. And Ernest, before he even gets to jail, he's talking. talking is that right when he gets arrested for the meth and the gun they know everything he tells them where the bodies are that's why they had that's why it wasn't just a few people with dogs they had everybody there because they knew that's where the fucking bodies were because he told them he also told them where he threw the gun but he threw it in the big black river and they're not finding it it's a black river it's a black river you and they're not finding it. It's a black river. It's a black river.

You're going to need magnets. It's not happening. So I don't think they have that technology in Mississippi in 2004. Magnets? I think that's still considered the work of the devil, I believe. Right? The river runs, where it turns black, it's downstream from where they parked that car. That's what it is.

It's just oil done leaked out. Now, the mayor, Ron Walker of Taylorsville, not even there, he's in Smith County. He said he knew Ernest Lee. He called him quiet and cordial, and he said he knew Ernest Lee through his wife, through Ernest Lee's wife, Lisa, who's the veterinarian. She said, quote, Lisa, he said, Lisa is the the vet in town and she and her family are very well known her family is well respected hard working people I'm sorry they're having to go through this how about the dead people that's probably worse sounds like somebody's trying to game on Lisa once wow I mean she's a pretty young lady i always thought they uh they call michael an easygoing construction worker with a quick wit and generous personality his aunt said all you had to do was

say you needed something and michael was scouting around to find it um they said that um they doted on their son the one relative said rebecca was like an angel sent from heaven she was always loving always willing to help they said that they called him James Patrick after the great-grandfather because Michael wanted to carry on the legacy because he noticed there wasn't a lot of Hargens left and he wanted that legacy to start over again with this kid so when they take Ernest Lee into court to be arraigned for this Michael's's first cousin, who is also his cousin, they're all cousins, so I don't know, second cousin, third, whatever the fuck it is, but his cousin Louise is there,

or Louie, I guess. Yeah, I think it's Louie. Louis? Louis yelled as he entered the courtroom. He yelled at him. He said, quote, You you bastard did you kill my family over the will come on earnestly which to me that's the part that killed me come on earnestly come on man shit and he used the full fucked up my Thanksgiving. He even said earnestly, even though he's shouting it.

Didn't want to shorten it up. Come on, earnestly. Come on, earnestly. Now, how do they know anything other than they suspecting things? The fact is that when they, Jesus Christ, when the cops arrested him for the meth and the gun, as they're driving, he said he wanted to talk to him right now. He wants to give a statement. He wants to say something.. He wants to say something, something he needs to say.

So pull over. So they pull over in a Kmart parking lot. Yeah. Now I'm going to give some life advice here for you people out there. All of you. This is for the young people. I'm not saying we know anything more about the world than anyone else, but if you're like 1920,

maybe listen to us. We've had a little couple of life experiences. I made some mistakes, made a mistake or two never ever make any life-altering consequential statements to anyone in a kmart parking lot that's never going to work out well for you never there bad decision i guarantee you if it's that urgent bad decision first of all i dare you to find a Kmart parking lot. If you find one, that's the other thing.

It's going to be terrifying in there. Yeah. Because it's going to have all weeds growing through the parking lot concrete and shit. Yeah, the tree in the blue light. Yeah, it's not good. It's not good. So he pulled over and he said that he claimed to have stuffed. He said that, okay, this is what he said.

He said that when he went over there, they got in a scuffle and he said that he shot him. He claims that Michael was still alive when they left the house, but they don't think that was true at all. So he stuffed, Jesus Christ, he stuffed Michael in the Corvette seat. Now, in the front seat. These Corvettes I know are very fucking small, these models. This one's a 74? 74. So it's the next model from mine.

Mine's 71s last year. So it's the next body style of mine. But very similar to mine. It's basically mine. And by the way, I don't have like, I'm not some fucking rich asshole with a fancy, it costs less than a used Toyota Camry, this fucking thing. Seriously, a 71 that I got. So the 74s, all they have is like the rounded back rather than my, mine kind of almost comes up like a tail almost. But this is just like it's rounded down.

Otherwise they're very similar. Yeah, and just less stylized. More kind of smoothed out a little bit so it's not a lot of room in the front seat as you know no it's a it's a fucking airplane cockpit it's nothing it's two seats cockpit that's it the storage space there is oh god it's a little bump in the back you could fit a large pizza in it you could put a six pack in a pizza that's it yeah and you'd have a hard time you couldn't fit the pizza actually because you can't get the pizza through the seats right you'd have to like move the seat forward to put the pizza in hope it doesn't mush yeah it wouldn't work very

well and then the six-pack has to be laid on its side yeah you have to lay it on the side obviously jesus come on guys what are we talking about here? Not sitting up. Not sitting up. So he talks to them, and then he said he, quote, helped what he called the still alive Rebecca and James Patrick into the car. So where did they go? They all sat in the passenger seat together. Get the fuck out of here. Exactly. You could only do that if they were not conscious

or they were all dead yep you couldn't stuff live three live people in the front seat of a 74 fucking corvette you just physically impossible to do he pushed somebody into the floor crumpled somebody in the seat and dropped a baby on top of him yep he said once he got to where he was going. Oh, my God. He said that he strangled both of them with a leather boot lace. OK, he strangled the boy and the and Rebecca. So this was totally his idea, by the way, to pull over and confess. The investigator said that the two other investigators, the people transporting him, were like, what the fuck? Basically, what are fuck, basically? What are you talking about? And he said, no, I want to do it now.

They said he'd been warned repeatedly that no plea bargain is ever going to emerge if you give a full voluntary statement here. And the one guy said, I told him no one's going to make a deal. Like, we haven't talked about that yet, so you might want to wait a minute. And he said that, no, he wanted to to do this and the investigator said they were talking about light things they were talking about college sports and shit trying not to even get into it he was just like i want to tell you i killed the boy it was like what the fuck so he said he's uh after arriving back in taylorsville with the three bodies in his corvette he said that he had michael in like upside down because he said his foot was

kicking him in the back. Like he had to lean forward because Michael's foot was in back of his neck dangling over and then stuffed the mother and son in there too. Somehow he said that he, uh, on the way out there, he tossed the 22 pistol, then transferred the three bodies to the bed of his

one-ton pickup truck and drove to the burial site where they found them he was doing fine if he had a 74 corvette and a one-ton pickup the guy's got $200,000 in cars yeah his wife's a veterinarian you'll get over it who cares 120 probably i guess yeah you're gonna you need a more a mortgage to an 80 percent mortgaged farm who gives a shit right you know what i mean so who cares they said he said by the way he didn't strangle them till they got to the burial site impossible impossible exactly because he said he they were the way he was saying it it was fucking ridiculous he even added to that's how they knew he was telling the truth about the burial site and everything, because he said Rebecca's arms were around her child when she died. And that's how he buried them, too.

Jesus Christ, man. He said that he never intended to use the gun, which he said he threw into the Big Black River, nor did he mean to harm Rebecca and James Patrick. He said after he killed Michael, he said he didn't michael he said uh he didn't know any quote he didn't know any other way to go about it yeah he said they were home so what else do i do gotta kill everybody i guess uh he then also drew a map to the bodies which imagine what that map looks like so do they believe it happened like that i doubt doubt it. Not quite. Yeah, they picked apart that a little bit. They pointed to the 22 shell casings and blood splattered all over the walls of the home. State pathologists testified later saying that both Rebecca and James Patrick suffered head injuries that gave them skull fractures.

Both of them. Yeah, that happened at the house. That would have left them both incapacitated and would have been lethal in what he called tens of minutes. So not an hour. Yeah. Yeah. They said that he strangled them anyway, though. Yeah.

They said that he admitted to hitting Rebecca with the hand that was gripping the.22 pistol before leaving the home. Once they hit him with this information, he goes, yeah, I guess I did hit her with my pistol. He pistol whipped her. Pistol whipped her, yeah. In the skull. Broke her skull my pistol he pistol whipped her pistol in the skull broke her fucking broke her fucking skull did the same to the kid right to a jesus christ four-year-old man that the skull's barely sealed by that that's crazy that's fucking disgusting man so they said the prosecution's strongest piece of evidence is a statement that he made to them in the Kmart parking lot. And they need to figure out if that's going to be allowed into, you know, into evidence. That's going to be a big deal here.

So the reason he gave the statement is what he's saying is that he said to them, hey, I'll tell you this, but I don't want my wife being prosecuted. You keep her out of this and I'll tell you what happened. And they don't charge Lisa with anything, even though she knew about this shit the next day not even obstruction i'm sorry technically you knew about this shit the next day you're an accessory after the fact at this point i know you didn't do it all but you kept counties worth of people searching and working yeah for nothing when you could have solved this so she should be charged with something in my opinion that's just you know at minimum obstruction solved this. So she should be charged with something, in my opinion. That's just, you know. At minimum obstruction.

In my stupid opinion, she should be. She should probably be charged with some kind of, I don't know what the laws are in Mississippi to that, but something. So, yeah, that's the big deal. But that was the thing is he didn't want her to be prosecuted. And they said, yeah, sure, why not? They did say, the prosecutor said, said sure it's unusual how it was taken in the parking lot of a kmart yeah that's not normal on the way it was a few blocks from

the district attorney's office normally we wait till they get here we turn a camera on we flick a fucking recorder on we do it real formal like you know what i mean they sign a form waiving their rights you guys just pulled over in an abandoned kmart parking lot and he spilled the beans like teenagers going to smoke a joint and this is what you get um and we were going to the to the da's office to talk about a different case where we would slowly meander into this yes get some paperwork signed and exactly this is going to be a whole day. This is going to be something.

Once he saw they were taking his cars, he was like, uh-oh, they know. So his defense attorney at the time, and we'll talk about him later because it's funny, he says, it's going to be a tough case, but it won't be as black and white as the prosecution is leading people to believe. Yeah, I'm going to muddle the motherfucking ass. Yeah, it's's gonna be difficult now what really happened from the evidence uh they figure out is and what earnestly eventually will go yeah sure he arrived before daylight that morning 4 a.m 5 early um in his corvette and banged on the door. This must have been after he came home from having breakfast though.

Right. Because he, because he, yeah, he had breakfast with the guy with the financial stuff. So he said that Michael, I guess Michael had slipped his boots on to answer the door. Yeah.

Okay. Uh, they got in a fight apparently. Okay. This is where Michael tried to get to his truck where he kept his gun yeah michael was going out to try to get his gun because he had a gun and they were fighting so uh some of his teeth were found some of michael's teeth were found near the open door of the vehicle so he got blasted in the face with the pistol pistol whipped right there yeah and then earnestly shot him in the head right there by the truck with the 22 caliber um then he goes inside and stalks through the house because didn't

know any other way to go about it as he put it stalks through the house he found rebecca he shoots her in the arm right away to get that'll get your attention i suppose shoots her in the arm to get her attention then beats her about the head and chokes her but doesn't kill her. Okay. Just chokes her for a while. Then he choked the boy unconscious. Yeah. Didn't kill him right then but choked him unconscious.

He threw Michael's body into the Corvette seats, torso on the passenger side. So his legs were here so what he does is when he sits he just lifted michael's legs behind him and sat him behind him as he drove wow okay he then uh threw rebecca's unconscious body on top of michael's corpse and then stuffed uh james pat Patrick just on top of her. Okay. Gets behind the wheel with his dead cousin's feet in his back here. Yeah. Drives 100 miles to Taylorsville.

100 miles. 100 miles. Imagine getting pulled over like that. Oh, my God. What do you say, even? The chances he just took. You just roll the window down. You put your arms out with your wrists together.

Yeah. That's what you do because what are you going to do? This looks bad. It's exactly what it looks like. Yeah. Let me explain. It's not something. Get the fuck out of here.

Let me explain. So he ditched the pistol. The Rebecca and James Patrick were still alive when he arrives. He strangles them both. He tells police later on that he cinched a leather strap around the boy's neck and walked away. And that Rebecca died with the child in her arms. He said, quote, the baby didn't even cry. It's a tough fucking kid, man.

Well, you cracked his skull too first. He had a skull fracture. So he wasn't conscious. That's why he didn't cry. He's a tough fucking kid man well you cracked his skull too first he had a skull fracture so he wasn't conscious that's why he didn't knock him out yeah and he piled the bodies up hauled him down the road to the isolated field buried them together covered it with several pieces of rusted tin yeah so obviously people have huge reactions to this shit. People freak the fuck out. Michael's mom, Diana, she said, maybe pride was our sin that caused this to happen. Huh? Huh? What the?

How the fuck did you make it that? She said, we were so proud to be Hargens. This family did anything and everything for friends, family, or even strangers in need. Yeah, I think that's the opposite of karma is what she just described. Yeah. in need yeah i think that's the opposite of karma is what she just described yeah i mean i know pride is in religion and all that but i mean being good shouldn't we're too damn nice yeah being good shouldn't line you up for this i don't think no in any universe so do you think he said the baby didn't even cry to try to make them judge him less and think less of him

being a piece of shit i i maybe but i i he by that point dude he was saying how he strangled this i think he was just like didn't even cry like i wanted to go he was almost like yeah who cares um the whole thing is very matter of fact too his confession because later on they go in a tape or a long one. It's just real matter of fact. Just, yep, did that, did that. And, you know, didn't even cry. Oh, my God. Anyway, when's lunch? He's real. Now, Lisa says this is bullshit.

His wife said Ernest never expected anything from his father. The will never bothered him one way or another. So that's not anything. Then why did he do it, Lisa? That's what I'm saying. She's saying I don't think he did, even though he told her he did and knew they were dead, knew how they died, and knew where they were buried

well before they were found. He did it, Lisa. He did it. So, there's an old lady in town who says, quote, it's sad to know something like this can happen in a small town like Taylorsville. Oh, let me tell you about 300 and something more.

We got a lot. We got almost 400 of these puppies now at the Expresses. She said, we hope that eventually they could still find the family alive, but now the worst has happened. Another woman here who lived about a mile and a half down the road a couple years back from the Hargan family

said she didn't know the Hargans, but she said she always suspected someone close to them must have killed them. She's an amateur detective here. I knew it. She said, I figured it had to be somebody they knew because there was no forced entry. Yeah, she's like a true crimer here. This is one of our listeners. She's in the Reddit thread.

She's like, there's no forced entry. Now, listen, I was looking at the spatter patterns, and honestly, I cross-stitched the spatter patterns just so I could get a better. That's what our listeners would do. I'd be like, you guys are awesome. I made placemats out of it. That way I could study it more and really figure it out. We have smart listeners that would say that because there's no forced entry. Every night we stare at the placemats, and we all have theories.

It's good for the kids it's fun she says but i wouldn't think it would be a relative that's kind of crazy that's wild yeah um kathy atkinson was a woman who knew michael uh michael hargan she said her husband did backhoe work with him when they were young she said it's awful i can't imagine anyone doing this much less a family member and she's one of the people who when they were looking for the family all the people in town had blue ribbons tied on their mailboxes for james patrick here um she uh she lives a few miles from the home she said even though earnest lee wasn't blood he's still in the family well tell that to tell that to fucking Diana. She said, Jesus. Now, earn a stepfather again.

Clancy is Clancy guy. He said they worked together at the Leaf River Veterinary Clinic the same day he was arrested. Michael Ernest Lee was arrested. He said the last time he saw a stepson, Ernest Lee, was at the animal clinic owned by his wife, Lisa. He said that at that day, Ernest was relaxed working on his Corvette. Wow. I don't know what. How do you do that?

The fucking work he was doing on it. Go out there and change out a battery or something. I just got a couple of plugs here. He said that, yeah, he used to take the family. He said that that's the car. He said, quote, he was joking around, carrying on on like normal that's the part i can't deal with he said for two weeks that was he was the normal person that i know this guy said that he's not sure if he's going to visit his stepson in jail but he said i will pray for him okay he said i'm just

kind of in shock i feel more sorrow than i do anger. It's totally baffling. He said, I can't imagine a motive for such a crime, but probably drugs played a part in this. He said. And the family farm, man. It's obvious. Yeah. Well, he said he drove a truck two or three years ago, and he had to take pills to stay awake, and he got hooked. So, yeah, they talk about that, but his stepfather says Ernest Lee could not have cared less.

He didn't care anything about the property or the farm and didn't want it anyway. He says the same thing that his wife says. That's what I mean. What is it? Is it just meth? What the fuck? A cousin of theirs said Uncle Charles kind of took the place of Mike's dad, meaning Ernest Lee's dad took Mike's dad's place when Mike's dad was murdered.

And Mike took the place of Ernest Lee. It's not the land. It's probably just jealousy. That's what this guy says, a cousin. He's just a better man than him, and that makes him upset? It makes more sense, I guess. I look at him, and my dad likes him. I don't know. he's not on meth right

covered in cattle shit right i don't know he's successful he went to college he went off he left he came back you know yeah it's it's he's just the all-american boy and i'm a all-american meth head hasn't been a custody battle for any of his children yet so michael's mother diana said earnest that's the when she gives the whole again reiterates in another way um i don't know what runs through him i can't understand him all that he ain't one of us he ain't one of us tadlock the former boss of earnestly said i trusted earnestly in my business and enough to send him into other people's houses. He got along well with everybody.

It just don't add up to me. But if the evidence is there, I don't have any mercy on him. He said, by the way, he never showed any signs of drug use while he was working for me. He was a good employee with a good work ethic. Did everything double time. It was great. No drug use. Everything real fast. Yeah.

Double time. It was great. No drug use. Everything real fast. Yeah. He said that Tadlock hired Hargan to haul his cattle at the stockyard for four straight years. He said, I couldn't see any flaw in anything he did. If he liked you, he'd do anything in the world for you.

It seems to be a complete aberration in his personality and just a complete, just one day he did this out of nowhere. But to be able to kill a child cold-bloodedly, bro, this isn't just I got mad so I shot him a couple times and said, oh, shit, and then ran away. That I could go, fuck, maybe you were just pissed, you were on meth, there was a fight, your adrenaline was going, but then to go, where's that wife and kid? You're a sick fuck at that point. And to do it so close and like bare handed.

Did he bring only one bullet? Two bullets? What the fuck, man? Yeah, he shot her in the arm and then I don't know what the fucking deal was. I guess he figured it was easier to strangle and less loud. I don't know. Another woman who knew Ernest Lee called the allegations unbelievable and said, this is not the Ernest Lee I remember. Well, I hope not.

What would it be? That's just like I remember him killing kids, bashing women's skulls in. That's just how I remember him. Yep, he's doing that for years. The fuck? Another cousin said it's mixed emotions because even though he's not a blood relative, he was still considered

a member of our family. It's hard for me to say whether I would want him put to death or not that's the other thing these are all his relatives their relatives so the farm goes on here anyway the um a bunch of people not only in the family but in the town just start working their farm for them really just start working michael and rebecca's farm because no one else is there to do it. So one person says there's no way to single out any one person. It just makes you feel so good to know there are still some good people in the world. There may be a lot of bad people in the world, too.

But right now I know more good than bad. So they said they were taking over his work on the farm. They said we're feeding the cows bailing hay there's fences that need fixing and we have to help with the work so they just dove in and said everybody take a little piece of this deal here it's a shit load of work to do yeah um they were uh worried also about his grant michael's grandmother i guess hasn't been in good health either and she's been kind of shaky now since everybody disappeared she's been in worse health um it hasn't been hasn't been in good health either. And she's been kind of shaky now since everybody disappeared. She's been in worse health. Hasn't been hasn't been going well for them.

So Ernest is assigned an attorney here. OK, they assign him Wesley Evans to represent him now because they do that a lot. There's a pool of attorneys where they're they are assigned to them. So Evans said that he was surprised to learn about this while watching television that night that he had been appointed no one even called him to tell him he was watching tv and said this guy and he's like that's me fuck nobody nobody tell him he's gonna be i have to work tomorrow now this is bullshit he said he would rather not handle such a high profile case not his style he. He said, I really don't.

A lot of lawyers would be like, awesome profile. But he's like, no, I'm kind of a low key guy. He said, I don't really like it. But hey, it goes with the job. I'd rather keep a low profile. That's my personal preference. It's not really I'm not really concerned about publicity. I just want to make sure my client gets good representation.

Yes. So before the trial can begin, there's like a year delay, obviously, with everything. Diana dies. Michael's mother. Oh, damn it. Dies of colon cancer here. So that's brutal. Michael's sister, Jennifer, here says, quote, God is a weird way of working sometimes.

She said, but we're strong enough to get through it, saying it was terrible her mother didn't get to see the end of this. Now, they're talking about the death penalty, but they're worried no one in town will vote for the death penalty or no one in the county because they haven't done it in a long time down in this area. So they triple murder with a four year old seems to be right up the alley. That's the thing. That's the thing. They said James Patrick's death is the one that really pisses people off because that's not necessary he's four he could have nothing to do with this no you could have just closed his door to his room and he wouldn't have known shit like this is disgusting so here's a woman of taylorsville marie autry just a nice nice christian

woman from taylorsville she said take a baby's life he didn't even get a chance to see any life ernest lee didn't have any feeling at all. He should definitely get the death penalty. That's what a lot of people feel. There's the foreman. Rebecca's uncle is a Catholic priest, though. Oh. And he spoke against capital punishment for Ernest Lee because he doesn't believe in it, period.

So there was that. because he doesn't believe in it, period. So there was that. He said that the district attorney did say that if the family as a whole makes a request to not do the death penalty, he will honor it. He'll listen to the family. Yeah. But he said they have not come to me with that. I certainly appreciate and understand the Catholic Church's position

with regard to the death penalty. My prosecution cannot be determined by the desires of the catholic church and will not be yeah this is to the to the laws of the state not just the church yeah which are determined by the desires of the evangelical church duh jesus this is this is mississippi our laws are made by that church not yours stupid you can go back to boston with all that shit by bloodthirsty evangelicals down here thank you very much that's right feller it's a joke obviously shut the fuck and be offended by that jesus christ if you got this far and that offends you you're a sick fuck i'll tell you that right now they strangle the four-year-old that's all fine hey don't make a joke about me no that's bullshit you know you're wrong if that's what you're thinking right now so that's harry connick's dad about it that's what we're saying exactly it's

it's that shit so yeah um it's fine i mean this is this is one of those that would cause a lot of anger and a lot of people you could get people who don't believe in the death penalty are as you know fucking granola hippie as you can you go he broke the skull his four-year-old strangled him with a fucking lace stuffed him on top of his mother so you'd go i'll kill that motherfucker myself it's one of those things again again in a hole like um the amount of of uh vitriol he took out on this child is crazy. That's the thing. But they said, though, they don't know because we quote, we haven't had any real bad killings here like what happened in a lot of states.

One of the residents said so. We have they said the people in Yazoo County are fairly level headed and objective, and I think they'd be willing to listen to the evidence and respond accordingly. They said, I think just this is another resident. I think just murdering Michael was absolutely uncalled for. But the entire family was just too much. Yeah. Well, hot take. That was just over the line.

He said, it's I'm normally very lenient. And I guess I just feel strongly about this young community-minded couple that was well liked in the community it's just a tragedy see that's what i mean people who are normally against it'd be like oh but what he did to that fucking kid i'd like to bash his skull and i really would um this one person here said uh that a lot of people in the area that he's talked to really want to see him get the death penalty he said not only are they for the death penalty they're for torture before the death penalty so during all this lisa divorces earnestly yeah i'm sure yeah which is hilarious because she was fine with it when they were at dinner right yeah well they ate whatever the fuck they ate sitting at at El Pollo Loco having a fine time. And then so Lisa divorces him.

The trial comes up here. The jury is a jury of nine women and three men. Nine women and a dead four-year-old, sir. You are in bad shape. And the men, too. They're going to want to kill you themselves, too. But the nine women are going to really be pissed off at you. Well, the thing is, women and children are things that you generally...

They get off the boat first. Right, right, right. You let them... But he doesn't... He has zero regard for anybody. The husband, the women, and the children. Everybody's in danger around him. Especially a four-year-old is wild. So they let his

Kmart statement be taken in, which then allows them to also allow his later tape statement in as well, because that was all the same thing. So he's fucked, basically. The district attorney says, quote, Michael was beaten all over his body from head to toe. He had bruises all fucking over him. They said that Ernest Lee began to sob and buried his face in his hands as they described the child's murder oh now he's sad about it did say he didn't cry to uh to try to make him i really believe it maybe yeah he said that the guy on the on the stand said that

hargan told them that the baby didn't even cry and they that was the jury was like they said autopsy results to be admitted into evidence show this child's skull was also fractured evidence of the brutality of the killings the district attorney entered two wills into evidence one from 1995 in which charles named ernest lee the beneficiary then the revised will saying oh wait never mind give it to him this is for motive purposes here uh the mississippi bureau of investigation agent stan sisk testified that ernest lee hargan told officers he shot him and then led investigators to the body it's really really really hard to say you didn't do it after you led them to the fucking body and told them you did it oh no here's a

map he drew in crayon on the back of a denny's placemat you know it's fucking he did it um one of their cousins here will alexander he is a cousin uh first cousin of michael and second cousin of earnest lee he testified that michael idolized earnest lee growing up oh god because he's older than him he's a few years older than he's 17 years older than him he thought he was cool you know what He's 17 years older than him. He thought he was cool. You know what I mean? When he was a kid, he was a young man. He probably thought he was a cool guy. They said that

another one, Leanne Hargan, who is Michael's first cousin, said she was not in favor of the death penalty before the trial started, but it's changed when she saw the pictures of the family buried there she said he covered them with tin and left them there to rot yeah that corrugated shit tin that

people use as roofs out there fucking rusty that's what they that's what they threw on top of these bodies that's disgusting he discarded them he did not bury them no he discarded them exactly great way to put it and the hole was probably already there, for Christ's sake. He's lazy. Lazy. Where's a good meth head? At least dig a hole, for Christ's sake. So the defense. What do you do if you're the defense attorney here?

You go, Jesus. Oh, boy. All right. All right. You got to pump yourself up. Come on, guys. We can do this. Every movement you've made until now. He's like, why did I go to law school?

I could have done so many other things medical school i mean there's a lot i lost school huh fucking idiot i could have a jingle on on afternoon tv chasing ambulances that'd be better than this shit should have went to like massage therapy school that would have been at least i wouldn't have to deal with this massage envy has relaxing music it's better than this it has to be this sucks i gotta talk about these this shit and convince people he didn't kill a four-year-old this fucking blows so the defense uh he are they argue number one that the confession was coerced oh it's in a parking

lot in a kmart how can that be voluntary knows what they said to him yeah so you don't know what happens in a kmart parking lot if it was best buy Buy, I could give it to you, but I can't with Kmart. Sorry. He said that maybe they could have proven they're trying to prove that something illegal occurred that would have made the confession inadmissible, but it didn't work. was murdered, Michael had gone to the parole hearing for Forrest Branch, one of his father's killers. They argued that Branch was a highly regarded member of a street gang and that Michael's quest to keep him behind bars and the parole board's ultimate decision not to grant Branch parole, that's probably the cause of the murders. They probably did it. You know, a defense attorney also argued that Hargan, Ernest Lee, had been coerced to tell the investigators he killed the family. He said that he said that Michael Hargan's father was killed on the same site a decade earlier when the building was a store. And then you think it's a coincidence that days before he's killed, he goes to the parole hearing for the man who killed his father in that exact spot.

They knew where to go. Yeah, but he knew where they were at. He knew where to go. You know what? What I'm going to need you to do here, Jerry, is there's certain things you've heard. I know you forget about those for a minute and listen to what I have to say and ignore the drawing. I have to say and ignore, ignore the drawing, ignore how he knew all the wounds and exactly what happened. The child was strangled twice, once with his hands and once with a belt.

Just ignore all of that. That inconsequential. Isn't this a cooler story, though? They're pissed because he went to a parole hearing so that the gang is the, quote, black gangsta disciples. And the gang is the, quote, black gangsta disciples. So the black gangsta disciples came to the Hargan house, kidnapped them all, drove to this remote location because the black gangsta disciples know the rural fucking back streets where people's farms are real well, as all street gangs do, and buried him. It's a much cooler story, isn't it? Doesn't that sound like the plot to a summer blockbuster is what it sounds like. Yeah, doesn't that sound fun?

Doesn't that sound more fun than a guy upset about a will? Who wants that? Pick your own narrative, everybody. Choose your own adventure. Fuck it. I don't care. Turn to page 38.

Sounds like something I'm going to call blockbuster and ask if they've gotten stuck. Yeah, that sounds pretty good. Can you hold on for me? I'll be there in five minutes. Was Tupac in that or was that the one with the guy from Onyx? Which one was it? Was it Steven Seagal or is that a Tupac movie?

Yeah, I can't remember. Which one? So the investigators said they found no evidence connecting that convict or the black gangsta disciples or anything to do with that. Those people, that group of people with with the murders here, and they have long ruled them out as suspects. So they said that the defense attorney said law enforcement officers received tips. These are just phone tips, anonymous phone tips that two or three men were seen in the morning of the attack arguing with Michael Hargan outside of his home. Oh, but we know that wasn't true because the evidence says it wasn't. So who cares?

OK, they said that. Listen, then the defense attorney says, I need you to put aside your emotions. He literally says is put aside your emotions and consider that prosecutors were not forthcoming with the facts think about that he's referring to foreign is what he calls foreign dna which makes it sound like it's from pakistan and it's smuggled in fuck it's here for nuclear secrets doesn't it that's what it sounds like foreign dna it's got a turban on and it's going to blow up your family. It's smuggled here in an artifact from Jerusalem. Yeah, you know that is.

He referred to foreign DNA, which was found on a baseball cap. Prosecutors said Ernest Lee had left at the crime scene and to tips that law enforcement didn't investigate aggressively. So he's saying there was also, Ernest Lee's DNA was in the hat, but there was also foreign DNA. So it must be, he didn't do it. Other people did it. There's more DNA on his hat. Listen, you think it's bad,

then we're upset about the murder, sure. But this man had a hat taken from him too. So everybody's been hurt here. Let's just call it a wash and go home. What do you say, y'all? And it's DNA with a wink and a nod. What do you say, y'all? And it's got DNA with a wink and a nod. You know what we mean.

You know how that goes. It's got a hat with jizz on it somewhere. It's a jizz hat. So this jizz hat. The jizz hat did it. The jizz hat. You find the owner of this jizz hat, you find your killer. I rest my case. Sits down.

People just look around at each other. What the fuck? So the lawyer then said, they're going to ask you to execute that man, but they won't tell you everything. Okay. The prosecution, quote, mentioned something about foreign DNA. I didn't make that up. Came from their witnesses. That's what he says, quote, unquote.

I didn't make that up. The reports about the van. Eyewitnesses saw a van with three white males. I did not make that up. That's what he says, quote unquote. Well, if your alternate suspect is the black gangsta disciples, something tells me there aren't three white guys in that fucking gang just a just a thought just based on my limited knowledge the the word black does not insinuate what they wear yeah let's let white guys in i'm sure that won't change it so you're you're getting in a van now is involved there's no van we know where the bodies were a fucking van is not involved in this so and the only black guy that drives a van is mr t yeah the at isn't real and they're not real and most of them are dead so this goes to the jury yeah uh nine women three men they deliberate for an hour and a half which

is just enough time to fill out the guilty forms for three murder charges, basically. There. So now for the murder of Michael, he's found guilty of simple murder. Oh, OK. This is different now. All right. The and the other ones are capital murder because he did the other two murders to cover

his tracks for that murder. So the other two are the death penalty eligible ones oh rebecca and james patrick and michael is the the aggravator starter yeah starter to get aggravated later on um after he's found guilty the assistant district attorney said it's all the evidence was overwhelming we could have convicted him without his statement yeah clearly now um the michael's sister said quote jesus it's the worst thing i've ever seen in my life it's the worst thing most people have ever seen in their life meaning all the pictures and the details if this doesn't warrant the death penalty i don't know what does um betty douglas who's a friend with earnest lee said that uh she wanted to see him

convicted but not executed. She said, I'm just shaken. I guess I'm really sad. I don't think I'm much of a death penalty advocate. And I came to feel that way maybe through this, maybe seeing all the tragedy and all the people that were hurt. And it's going to bring and it's not going to bring anybody back. Right. She said, but I yet I know what rebecca and michael's family's been

through too i'm just glad it's not me who has to make those decisions so sentencing comes around there's a woman outside the court for this i gotta show you a picture of her her name is darla thrasher let me see darla yeah roll over i'll give you this quote for you she says quote my temper wouldn't let me go in that building she said said. I would have had to say something to him, meaning earnestly. If they bring back the hanging tree, it might stop a lot of this. No, it doesn't. That's not going to happen. It has nothing to do with it.

I thought he was going to get away with it. That's the thing. If you think you can get away with it, you're not concerned with what it is. Hanging trees don't scare the shit out of me. She's standing outside with this sign, with the worst sign. What is that? Well, that's a picture bunny of hargan yes with with those are supposed to be horns but they look like red bunny ears i guess he's the devil his eyes are colored red she's a bad artist she he is hanging from a tree looks like she had

her four-year-old draw this and it says hargan with an arrow pointing to him as if we didn't know who she was referring to that's important and he's looking at whoever's drawing wow yeah looking right at you and it says hang him high we don't care he's just taking up our air with three exclamation points that is a terrific sign, Darla. And Darla looks exactly how you'd expect Darla to look. Yes, she does. Blonde hair, 50s, looks like she's chewing her face. That's the one.

Blonde hair, dark roots. You know it. You know her. Fuck. So during sentencing, Linda, who is Rebecca's mother, she testified that Rebecca was small as a baby and looked just like her, meaning her mother and her. She became, she said, quote, she became a second mother to my other daughters. She said that my daughter's a very strong spirit, a hard worker.

Michael was a wonderful husband, wonderful son-in-law. She says her family does not believe in the death penalty. She told the prosecutor, do what you're going to do. Just do what you want. I'm not going to make that decision. That's up to you. So he went for the death penalty. She told the prosecutor, do what you're going to do. Just do what you want. I'm not going to make that decision. That's up to you. So he went for the death penalty. She said, Ernest Lee should experience many years of terror. The same terror James Patrick

experienced. He saw his mother die. She wants him tortured. She wants him to sit in prison and rot, because that's worse. I want you guys to take about six inches of skin off him every day. Just a piece a chunk. Or just in prison and rot because that's worse i want you guys to take about six inches of skin off him every day just a piece a chunk or just in prison prison sucks you killed a four-year-old good luck enjoy you know what i mean so the defense now has to come with some shit and they're like okay here we go they bring in colleagues employers who said that he's a great guy nice guy

non-confrontational quiet guy guy, super nice guy until he became hopelessly addicted to meth. One of his friends said, quote, I feel like he could help us if he was in prison for the rest of his life. What the fuck is he going to do? Anyway, he said that I think there's a lot he could do for a lot of people. Now, the jury deliberates for four hours on this one, so it's a little longer here.

They do this. They hand down the sentence, and it is, you, sir, may fuck off death penalty for you. Yes. Yeah, if there ever is one. Dude, he did bad things to a four-year-old. This is the one. I mean, you say, like, well, I mean, if there's a kid kid involved and that's when everybody's like, yeah, well, you know, shit.

It's fascinating. We're not death penalty. We're not enthusiasts. We're not like, we're just like, yeah, this guy I'd like to drag behind a fucking truck for a while. Most people, you don't know if they did it or not. And he got nothing out of it. That's the other thing. When there's sexual element, you can see like the motivation. There no motivation this i sometimes i see like i'm mad what's worse

it's hard to decide what's worse that it's at least horrific at least the guys who killed michael's father got 114 out of the fucking shit this guy got nothing so nothing the da says quote i'm not going to be happy to see earnestly Hargan suffer the death penalty, but he earned it. Yeah. He did. A juror here, Barbara Samuel, she said that she listened, the jury in the room listened twice to his taped confession in the Kmart parking lot. She said that he sounded so matter of fact in his description of the murders.

He showed no remorse. I have children. This will stay with me forever. Just the recording of it disturbed them, of him talking about it because he didn't give a fuck. Now, the family here, Rebecca's mom,

said justice has been served. They gave him the death penalty. And her husband, her dad, you know, Rebecca's dad, said he probably deserves to die. Pretty cruel what he did. That's an understatement, sir. Yeah, that's he's being nice.

So Jennifer, who is Michael's sister, said after the verdict was given, just seeing the pictures of her brother's family in their makeshift grave and reliving the details and demise was really difficult. But it's a good verdict, a great verdict. One of his lawyers, Ernest Lee's lawyer, said, I'm disappointed. My client has just been sentenced to death. So he's sent to death row at Parchman, which is a prison and a bad prison down there. Michael's sister, Jennifer, six months after Ernest is convicted, she dies of an accidental overdose of sleeping pills at age 26 poor jennifer dude this family is fucked in the last dad murdered haywood jr dead after a day michael murdered diana the mother colon cancer jennifer dead of a whole family's dead and the son everybody's son had

four years old had vicious asthma before he was killed this fucking this family's poor family's cursed man that's they call them wrong they call them the cursed family and shit like they had to be this is crazy like what the fuck dental overdose what what what god did he they piss off 2 000 years ago 5 000 years ago to make this happen so he's on death row in parchment he's in a notorious unit unit 32 which is notorious for violence and bad shit going on they store very violent people here there's a bunch of gangs and death row is here so it's a lot of bad people in one area so august 28th 2007 he's been in there for like a year somebody Somebody heard something, huh? Well, after feeding time, I like how they call it feeding time.

Sort of like the fucking caged animals. Yeah, I picture like those little pellets you give hamsters or whatever. I guess one of the officers, Benford, made a viewing check and everything was quiet. Ernest Lee was cleaning the tear. He's mopping. He's the mopper, okay? Like Dahmer. He's mopping. He's the mopper, okay, like Dahmer. He's mopping.

So Hargan here, obviously sentenced to death. He's on death row, but that's his job is to go mop. So after monitoring everything, this officer, Benford, went to retrieve her isolation logs, the logs that tell you what people are doing. They have to check on them and go, this time sleeping, this time write it down. They have to just say, in case one of them drops dead in there that they were paying attention. So after a few minutes, this Benford heard a clack sound like a broom or mop hitting the ground. Yeah. She's like, who's slacking?

She turned around and looked in a cell behind her and noticed that a prisoner named Jesse Wilson was not in his cell anymore. Oh, he's loose. So she immediately called for help, this Benford. Then she noticed Wilson stabbing Ernest Lee. Oh, shit. Stabbing him up. Benford was attempting, they said that Ernest Lee was attempting to defend himself against Wilson as Wilson was raining down stabs with a homemade shank, obviously.

So Benford said that Wilson had a shank which appeared to be a metal object with tape wrapped around it um one of the officers walter hicks was escorting a different offender in when he heard the radio call that there was an incident he arrived on the scene wilson still stabbing earnestly he tells wilson to stop stabbing him and he does he drops the shank and stops um and returned to his cell sure no that's they do done you got now that's it hands up not fighting that's another charge fuck it yeah so officer hicks went to check on earnestly and he noticed there was wounds on his head back neck chest and all over the place he was stabbed 30 times over 30 30 times, all over his face, head, and body.

Okay? Paramedics arrived to help him, but he ultimately dies of his wounds. Jesus. Bled out on a death row tiered floor. That's how he died. While mopping. While mopping. They then escorted Wilson to a holding area where Wilson told the officer that he, quote, saved the state millions of dollars because you're going to kill him anyways.

That's what he said. Anyways with an S. Yeah. That's what he said. So this guy, by the way, was a mess anyway. This Wilson was originally sentenced here for grand larceny. What? In 2000.

for grand larceny. What? In 2000. And he was still in in 2007 because since his incarceration, he received 98 disciplinary infractions. Wow. These were major infractions. No minors in there.

No got caught with a cigarette. This is all major. 64 of the infractions were violent acts. He had stabbed three different correctional officers since he's been here jesus christ this guy is fucking dangerous after this they sent him to supermax in colorado yeah that place with the documentary where that guy killed the guy yelling white power over that that's where he ended up going my My God. He's going to love it there, though, this fucking guy. Yeah, he's going to fit right in. This is fucking great.

Oh, hey, guys. Let's get it on, fuckers. He's going to love it. It's like Con Air. Yeah, that's what I mean. This is where I belong. Yeah. So this guy said that, wow, the prisoner who's stabbing here told the cops that he had received a scroll, quote unquote,

that he had received a scroll, quote unquote, indicating that some offenders on his tier were out to get him and another inmate named LaMarcus Hilliard. The scroll and the weapon in question were intended to go to another inmate, but went to Wilson instead. Okay. Wilson informed the officer that Ernest Lee himself dropped it off. So Ernest Lee dropped, he's saying, claiming that Ernest Lee dropped off a scroll, a piece of paper, but they roll it up like a scroll because it's easier to pass rather than folding it. So he said he dropped off a scroll with these are people that are pissed off at you and

a weapon. And then this guy saying he used the weapon on Ernest Lee, the same guy who dropped it off. So the messenger. Apparently so. And then this guy saying he used the weapon on earnestly, the same guy who dropped it off. Huh. So. Killed the messenger. Apparently so. An officer, Avon Latham, who was on Unit 32, testified he was working the night in question. He said that he transported Wilson from his cell to a holding cell.

He said that Wilson said Hargan was not the inmate he intended to stab. Oh, my God. Just bad luck. I'm stabbing somebody tonight. I don't know who. If you're not out, the mop guy will do. The Hargan curse got him. Dude, it's a curse.

I'm telling you. The whole thing's a fucking curse. It got him too yeah they told him the Wilson the the you know the stabber stabber told the officer about the crime he committed and said that they said well why Hargan I mean you couldn't have just did you even know him you couldn't have stabbed me goes well he was an asshole too I still he wasn't the guy I was after but Hargan would handle food and not wash his hands afterwards so he could get it too yeah that's what he said i saw him not wash his hands so i mean yeah wow imagine if you could do that like mcdonald's just stab a 17 year old in the face because they didn't wash enough so he then further reiterated that i don't know what you're mad about i saved money by fucking killing this guy what do you

care he literally he said i don't know what you're pissed off about here so um the investigator got a call to come to unit 32 and obtained the shank in question and uh including also got uh pieces of wilson's cell door that had been cut out to allow him to escape this place sucks yeah what kind of jesus christ they said. This is a jail. This is a max security. He said, after securing the scene, the investigator went to the electronic surveillance operation center and viewed the video of the incident to determine exactly how it took place. Surveillance video showed Wilson's cell door moving a few hours before this. So they didn't notice this for hours that he could come in and out of his cell.

They also showed that Wilson opens the door, comes out of his cell, walking down the hallway and just runs into Hargan and Hey, start stabbing you. The forensic pathologist who did the autopsy said that they located 37 stab wounds on Hargan on earnestly and obviously determined it was homicide. on Hagen, on Ernest Lee, and obviously determined it was homicide. The DA who put Ernest Lee in jail forever and for death said, quote, I thought pretty much Ernest Lee got what he deserved and the type of death he had was appropriate for the pain he inflicted.

I'm not encouraging anybody to do that, but I'm not sad it happened. You can't say that if you're the district attorney. You can think it. You can say it to your friend at lunch. But you can't say that if you're the district attorney. You can't encourage vigilante prison justice. We can't have that. That's not part of it.

That's costing us more money when that happens. Stop. If he wanted to be funny, he could have just said something like, he owed us a debt and he paid it. So I don't know. That would have been fine. Fine. Yeah.

But he went another level. I'm not encouraging anybody to do that, but I'm not sad it happened. Says to me, go ahead and stab people in jail. I'm not sad it happened. Get the fuck out of here. So in court, Wilson, they bring in the guy who stabbed him. They bring in a psychiatrist who say he is bipolar and has, quote, intermittent explosive disorder. As a layman, I would agree with that.

From where we sit, I'd go, yeah, that's what I would call it. Certainly. They find him guilty of murder. Yeah. And he is sentenced to, you, sir fuck off life in prison he's in there for stealing something and he never got out ever went in 2000 for stealing some shit never got out he just went in and just upped his sentence every day yep so that's fucked man so there's some prison reform that they want to come from this they said that that Unit 32, Wilson, had ties to the Latin King gang.

And they said Hargan had no known gang ties, anything like that. But they were going to make some changes to the way the department screens to root out gang influence among corrections officers. That's the problem. The officers are members of these fucking gangs. And that happens a lot. Yeah. Or if it's in a place where they're from, they know some of these guys from the street.

They know from the neighborhood. It's very easy for them to go, hey, if you sneak this in for me, I'll give you a few bucks. And then you got them on the on the hook. So they said two parchment correction officers were fired earlier that month because they had ties to the gangster disciples, which is the gang that Hargan's father's murderers were in here. They said there. And that's this area is where they get a lot of their officers.

And a lot of their officers are because they can't find better jobs because they're poor, which is why they're in a street gang. So this is what you end up with here. So the commissioner vowed to spend millions of dollars to make improvements. They added an X-ray and drug detection machine to the metal detector that guards must pass through. So extra security for the guards. Just now thought of that. An additional 50 security cameras would be installed at the prison.

And approval to spend $1.8 million to add full metal doors to replace the open bars on the cells. And guards will be prohibited from bringing food or drinks onto the unit as well because they can sneak shit in there and they said i think what we're doing in supermax is we're taking some bad folks and we're making them even worse we're making them even meaner he said the biggest regret was building the supermax unit at parchment that's one of the supervisors. He said, this is, this is fucked. We don't,

they're just to have this. Yeah. Cause this is the third prisoner murdered in the last year. Oh my God. So they said, this is too much. Like we can't, we can't have this shit.

It's not working. Cause then there's a lot of money. This, even if you don't give a fuck about the people, it costs a lot of fucking money. Um, so the one guy said that one of the people in charge said yeah the aclu's up our ass this isn't even about them we fucked up the

consent decree to consent decree to get federal dollars we didn't have our prison up to standard so fuck the aclu we're screwed so um then so there in there the murder house double twice murder house twice intended burn that fucking thing to the ground. Yeah, yeah. That is a cursed house. Apparently, as of a few years ago, it still sat empty, surrounded by barbed wire. Wow. They put fences with barbed wire around it to keep out gawkers.

Yeah. Like they changed OJ's address. It's one of those yeah the the john benet house is the only house on the street with fucking fencing that totally they said quote this is from an article on a recent afternoon the place was eerily still a large hawk swooped down onto the dead grass behind the house the leaves of a few cedar trees the only green in the dull winter landscape it's like a giant cemetery monument to them diana hargan once wrote of the site The leaves of a few cedar trees, the only green in the dull winter landscape. It's like a giant cemetery monument to them, Diana Hargan once wrote of the site.

Just down the narrow road, Catherine Hargan, Alexander, can stand on her front porch, look through the pecan trees, across a field, and see the home in the distance. Somehow it comforts her. This land has been in her family for generations. Quote, sometimes I tear up and I have to stop and think, what am I or who am I tearing up about? We've lost so many. So many. So many. And then Rebecca's sister, Elizabeth, we'll give her the last word here.

She said, for two years, we've spent our time being angry. The anger has been targeted at Ernest Lee. This is after he's dead. Now my time will be spent remembering Rebecca, Michael, and James Patrick. So that, everybody, is Vaughn, Mississippi. And one fucking hell of a crazy, twisted, wild story. That shit was crazy. It had roots. I can't believe... Yeah.

I can't believe it ended. Yes. Yeah, you think it's good. What now? What now? I want more. Yeah. It's one of those. It's got roots like a tree in an abandoned house. Yeah, it absolutely more. It's one of those. It's got roots like a tree in a abandoned house. Yeah, it absolutely does. It's fucking crazy. So there you go, everybody.

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All the shows through July and all that, they're all sold out right now. The next show you can find tickets for is going to be Chicago, August the 12th. That's going to be our biggest show ever if you guys come fill us up. So come with it, Chicago. I know it's a few months away, but get your tickets in there because a lot of other places are sold out. Boston sold out in November. And D.C. is almost sold out, and that's in November too. We have Dallas in December.

We have, which is also selling a lot. We have Charlotte, Atlanta and Philly. Those are the shows that you can get tickets for. Everything else is sold out. So shut up and give me murder.com. Get your merch while you're in there too,

as well. And you definitely want Patreon because it's good shit. Do you want to hear more? I think so. You want bonus episodes, anybody $5 a month or above. You get access to hear more? I think so. You want bonus episodes? Sure. Anybody $5 a month or above. You get access to everything.

All the bonus stuff we put out. And there's over 200 episodes or almost 200 episodes in the back catalog of those that you can binge immediately. And then you're going to get two new ones every other week. One crime and sports. One small town murder. And you get it all. Right. And this week, which you're going to get for crime and sports, we're going to talk about Stairway to Stardom, which is a public access television show in New York on in the 80s.

And it's a crazy talent search show. Want to hear an Indian guy sing New York, New York? Of course you do. Of fucking course you do. We're going to play all sorts of crazy clips of people's terrible singing and talk about the hosts, which is funny too. It's so much fun. Can't wait for that then for small town murder prisoner dating game time the all violent felon edition no good decisions here we line up four young men four young ladies well they don't have to be young they're of all ages you never know people four people four bachelors

four bachelorettes they They have two things in common. One, Jimmy is choosing amongst them. And two, they are all incarcerated for violent felonies. I'm going to read Jimmy just their profiles, what they're pitching to you as a dating person. And he's going to pick one of each based on that.

Then comes the fun part because we get to find out what they did and exactly how terrible of a decision Jimmy just made. Patreon.com slash crime and sports. Prisoner fucking dating game. It's on, baby. We can't wait. What else do you get?

You also get a shout out. At the end of the show, it's going to come up in one second. But before the shout outs, keep an eye out. We're looking at June 5th, hopefully, as our launch day for Your Stupid Opinions, and they won't come out a week early either. They're just going to come out every week, not like the other two. It's going to be on Monday morning, so we're hoping Monday, June 5th in the morning, you'll have

that show, if not the next week. It's a business thing just to work out when the feed is set up and all that. We have the show ready. It's just, we've got to do that. So, that'll be a lot of fun. Check that out. And now I think it's time. Jimmy. All right.

Tell me the names of the people, please, please, please, who would never stack my family on top of me and bury me. Please, Jimmy, hit me with that list right fucking now. This week's executive producers are Travis Nunez and his wife Lola's third anniversary. Congratulations. Congratulations. You stuck it out. Hey.

Three years. That's successful already. That's almost two decades. That's great. Catherine Cokra, happy birthday. Hey, you made it. Three years. That's successful already. That's almost two decades. That's great. Catherine Cokra, happy birthday, and thank you so much. Conchra. Catherine Conchra. To you.

You're amazing. Thank you truly. Well, happy birthday with your unpronounceable name. Very, very kind donation. Also, Larry Butterfast and his glorious beard. He's not going to make it to a show this year because we're not in San Francisco. Oh, damn. We're not in SoCal or anywhere on the West Coast, really.

We're in just San Diego. San Diego. That's right. Christine Lee Gomez. She's on vacation in the DR. Enjoy yourself. And not to bring you down too much, but one of the strongest people I have ever met in my entire life.

Allie Grimes passed away, and it super affected me the last few weeks you guys i created a gofundme for her and ezra because she was traveling to phoenix to get treatment for her cancer and she was incredibly young but the strong she was so sweet she passed away but thank you guys so much for donating yeah remember we met i remember yeah absolutely yeah we met them in Sacramento? Oh, I remember. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I remember them well. Absolutely. She had murder pants on. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They were cool as fuck. They were really cool people. But you guys gave her and Ezra much more time together than they would have had. So thank you. It's fucking amazing. You guys are great people. And Ezra, you're in my thoughts. Other producers this week. Long Duck Dong and his Argyle sweater.

The handsome Gorilla Monsoon. Rabbi Shmulevich's renewed vows with shit of pearl. Peyton Meadows. Georgia Lipton. Scott Attenazio. Janice Hill. Mason Whitlock. Becca Lafferty.

Renee Mazier. Catherine Watts. Alex Carroll. Lexis. Wheaton. Cody, aka Timmy, Martin Henderson, Michael Jaspers, Alex Keyes, Brian Kimball, Tabitha Cates, Helen Larson, Matt Brandon, Dan Rutkowski, and Sheehan, Kyle Hamlin, Connor Cox, Ezra Kuchmal, Elizabeth Carbonaro, Carbonaro, Carbonaro, hey, that's a dish, Jessica Seeley, Bradley Freeman, Jasmine H., Yasmeen, maybe, Caitlin with no last name, Ryan Bender, Matthew Duhlman, Lily Brandstrom, yep, Becky Johnston, Christina Hendrick, Hendrick, Hendrick, Herdick, Herdrick, Robert LeBow, Becky Johnston, Christina Hendrick, Robert LeBeau, Scott Mitchell, V with no last name, just the letter V, Jacob Brown, Nicole with no last name, Rebecca Ramirez, Jeremy Real, Les Levine, Megan Kenyon, Trey Spencer, Lauren H, Jessica Lloyd, Nico Sanchez, Michael Robinson,

Spencer, Lauren H., Jessica Lloyd, Nico Sanchez, Michael Robinson, Susan Mazur, Jacob Murney, Ruth Cottrell. Yep. Jen Gay, Zoloft Pony. That's fun. Levi Cleland, Ray Lopez, Abby Rogers, Mitchell Lawson, Nico Sanchez, Jen McSee, Crystal Slaughter, Miranda with no last name. Amanda with no last name. Sarah Millington. Saray?

What did I do? That's a misspell. That's Sarah Millington. Michelle with no last name. Caitlinah millington saray what did i do that's uh it's a misspell that's sarah millington uh michelle with no last name caitlin harris monique herself saray if she wants monique archuleta colton hoffman rachel wellman uh frank frank schwartz calvin fishburne renee garner natalie brown ochoa 88 d daily d yeah d daily 94 asia andrews drew ski yuke andrews yuke Iowa88, DDaily94, Asia Andruskiuk, Zach Ballinger, Linda Loves Linda, Emily RRC, Mason Newton, Jeremiah Bankston, Tom Farah, Nick Germans Giant Sch you. Hope Moore, Brant Graham, Dawana. Dawana Dooley, Travis Durrett, Clarissa with no last name, Jen H., Monica with no last name, Tiffany Raina Robinette, Blanca, Bianca. It's Bianca.

Pet Chew. Pet Q. Amber Schultz, Tina Rodriguez, Sherry Stone, Brian Meacham, Sage Atterbury, Tom with no last name, Mr. Shatterall, Luminous Brandon, Kimberly Pratt, Platt, it's just an L, Michelle Dyer, Jennifer Schellenberg, Amy Boswell, Elizabeth Purcell Snyder, Marcy Campbell, Marty Lopez, Nick Haupt, Martine Harris, Nicole Borisoff. Or Martin, one of the two. Could be. There's an E on the end. That's definitely Martine, right? Okay, okay the end. That's definitely Martina, right?

Okay, okay, okay. It might be Martina, and I typed an E, and it should be an A. Yeah, that's possible. Who fucking knows? I think it's possible. They're wonderful people. You know who you are, motherfucker. Nicole Borosov.

I think I said that. Bob Reed. Brandy Maddox. Jordan Kornreich. Kornreich? Jackie Mack. The Reich of Korn. Holly Chase.

Bartender Joe Boo needs a refill. Joe Boo. Who's Joe Boo? Oh, yeah. Fucking Major League. Fuck you, Joe Boo. Yeah, they say fuck you, Joe Boo. Ryan Dunn.

Austin Riblet. Jeremy Armand. Emily Jedlicky. Rachel Johnson. Red Knotts 420. Jade Linton. Laurel. Lauren Montgomery, Courtney Yeoman, Yeoman, Yeoman, Jody Bates, that's an easy one.

That is Jody Bates. Kimberly Miller, Chandler Christofferson, Amy Fitzgerald, Lauren Regan, Jesse Booth, Kenneth Coulter, Missy with no last name, Chet Hawley Jr., Ramon Andrade, Tracy Hansen, So Real. That's a good one, I guess. Melissa Daly, Karen Aronson, Pat Schluesterata, School Astra, Huey Francis, Don with no last namey. Hooey. What? All right. Don would know last name. Ashley Kahn.

Kahn, maybe. Sylvia Olivares. Brianna Hoffer. To Cousin. Pauly Crinklecuts. Hey. Maybe it's your cousin. I don't know.

Pauly Crinklecuts. Carl Hess. Lord Connor. Denise Carter. Heroes would know last name. Misty Bailey. Jimmy Faust. Kate and Kate's mom, Tyler Michael Burrows.

Tyler with no last name. Michael Burrows, Joshua Richard, Lisa with no last name, Lance Zeppelin, Michelle Mandel, Faith Steveson. Kate Sanders, SW, Rebecca Wood, Botters, Botters, Wani, Botters, Wani. That's got to be a, what is that? Is that a miss? All right. Donna, Donna Ogden, Abby Smith and all of our patrons. Obviously, you're amazing.

Thank you. Thank you, folks, so much for all that you do for us. Honestly, we can't do anything without you. We appreciate it. Thank you, Patreon people. You are the fucking shit. And we hope you love we hope you love what we're putting out for you. We really do, because we love doing it yeah so thank you for doing all that and if you want

to follow us on social media and say hi you can do that very easily head over to shut up and give me murder.com look in the links they're there there's links to everything you can follow the show while you're at it get tickets grab a t-shirt do it all and keep coming back because until next week everybody it's been our pleasure. 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.