Small Town Murder - #511 - A Deadly Love - Rutledge, Georgia

Episode Date: July 25, 2024

This week, in Rutledge, Georgia, a blazing car fire, in a rural area starts an investigation that unravels some strange relationships, and some seriously cold blooded murder. Teenage love turns stale, once there are 2 kids, and adult responsibilities. A divorce leads to fighting, plots & schemes. The only way to solve this? A terribly planned & vicious attack, that ends up with 2 charred corpses, and a lot of explaining to do!!Along the way, we find out that Hard Labor Creek doesn't sound like very much fun, that sex in the back seat of a car, can be fun, but has consequences, and that when you murder a couple of people, you need a better alibi than "I was at the strip club"!!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. I'm Dan Tuberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast. What's the answer? And what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head? Hysterical, a new podcast from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios. Binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad free on Wondery Plus. This week in Rutledge, Georgia, a burning car in a rural area with two bodies stuffed inside is the start of a twisted tale that began very innocently and somehow ended up with murders that are as cold blooded as they come. 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 Petragallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you folks so much for joining us today

on another wild, crazy adventure we like to call Small Town Murder. We do. And they always end up the same way with death. Yeah, they're always small towns and always murder. And there's always murder, and we will definitely do that today. We have a really twisted, weird, crazy, as usual.

I say that like that's a new, normally it's not, but this week it's just weird. No, it's always weird, and this week is no exception. Before the show, definitely head over to shutupandgivemurder.com, tickets for live shows, September 20th, Minneapolis State Theater. Get in there. Big beautiful theatre and if you sell it out you will beat Chicago and be our biggest show ever. So. I'm excited. Let's do that Minneapolis. Let's together all have a great show. We're so close.

So let's do it. Do it up and then the next night I think there might be a few tickets left for the paths. Very few. Very few. But it's awesome. And then also Boston, Boston, Kansas City, Oklahoma City. I know there's two cities there. And Tarrytown, New York also. A few left there and Phoenix is sold out. So anyway, do that. Shut up and give me murder.com, patreon.com slash crime in sports. All your bonus material. Anybody $5 or a month or above, you get it all. Hold back catalog of stuff you name it it's there hundreds of episodes new ones every other week this week for crime and sports which you'll have access to we're gonna talk about the most penalized hockey games in history there's two games one broke the other's record and all it is is fights so we're gonna watch a

supercut of all the fights and laugh our asses off at Canadians beating the shit out of each other. It's going to be awesome. Then, for Small Town Murder, something we've wanted to do for a while here, Internet Salad. It's our pre-show that you guys never get to hear because we hang out and bullshit for a long time before the show and it's all the stuff. Yeah, we're going to squeeze. Yeah, you see, today you missed a great one today about squeezing old people to see how

long they're gonna live It's all of that stuff. So we're gonna talk go around current events that kind of shit. It's gonna be fun No politics though. Don't worry. I'm not gonna dip in all that shit So patreon.com slash crime in sports and you get a shout out at the end of the show as well Oh, yeah, Jimmy will mess your name all up for you. Don't worry about that Definitely listen to our other two shows crime in sports and of Stupid Opinions as well because they're very good shows and if you're not listening you're missing out. We don't want you to miss out. Yeah we want you to want you to hang out with us so definitely do that.

Disclaimer, it's a comedy show. It is. It is. The stories unfortunately are extra super real. That's the thing. There's nothing made up for comic effect, or, you know, it would be really funny if they said this. None of that stuff. We tell stories with better research than Dateline, but way more funny. That's how we get into our deal here. So what we don't do, though, is we don't make fun of the victims or the victims' families.

Why, James? Because we're assholes. But. But we're not scumbags. That's how that works. So if you'd like to join that party, it's going on and it's a rager. So hang out with us. If you think that true crime and comedy should never ever go together, maybe we're not for

you. Maybe we are though. We might be... You don't know. You don't know. So give it a shot. No complaining later though. There it is.

That said, I think it's time to sit back, everybody. Here we go. I don't care where you are. I want you to take a deep breath, arms to the sky, and let's all shout. Shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, Jimmy. Okay. I got too excited.

I got a heady on that one. That's all right. That's okay. We're jazzing it. Don't worry about it. Let's run it. Let's go on a trip here. We're going to Georgia. And this is a story that goes between Georgia and Alabama as well, so. Oh, we'll dance on the border, huh?

No, no, no, neither are on the border, neither place. That's the thing too. Oh, just shuffle back and forth. They're going back mid-state to mid-state, it's very strange. We're going to Rutledge, Georgia. R-U-T-L-E-D-G-E, Rutledge. Who's that named for?

Well, we'll find out. Don't worry. You think there's no history of this? Come on now. I got stuff. That's obviously a person. Clearly, I was a guy with a farm. We'll talk about it.

It's in central Georgia. This is outside of Atlanta, but not like a suburb. It's kind of like there's the suburbs of Atlanta, and then there is some woods, and then this out there in the middle of nowhere type of deal. So it's about 50 minutes outside Atlanta to give you an idea, which means to drive to the middle of Atlanta, it should take you about seven, eight hours if you've ever been in Atlanta traffic. Somewhere around there, that ballpark. About three hours and 40 minutes to Savannah, Georgia and about an hour to our last Georgia episode,

Milledgeville, which was Evil came to play. That was a really creepy one, I remember that. It's a good one. Go back and check that out. This is in Morgan County, area code 706, and their motto that I've seen in a couple other things is, this is pretty funny. This is what you give to like a child in a tough situation.

Quote, small but special. Sometimes it happens. It happens, man. History of this town. Make your own jokes there. There's so many jokes to be made. Rutledge had its start in the 1840s when the railroad was extended here. That's when things happen here.

Wasn't incorporated till 1871. It was originally placed on the map during the mid 1800s when the railroad laid tracks right through a guy's farmland, Hezekiah Rutledge, which sounds like an 1800s farmer more than anyone else I've ever heard. Hezekiah Rutledge, that's what you'd make up. He wasn't paying attention. They built it right through his land. He went on a vacation for a few days. He came back, went out to till the field,

and he's like, what the fuck is going on? Why is there 7,000 Chinese people on my property nailing in fucking stakes and shit? What's going on? Or was it already done, he didn't see it, and he ran his plow across it and killed two horses? Didn't notice he was just doing some work. All of a sudden he heard,

choo choo, he was like, what the fuck is going on? Going right through my, hey, what's her name? Sally, that's his wife's name, right? Sally, Hezekiah and Sally, Sally, get out of the fucking train in the yard. You're not gonna believe this. You're not gonna believe this shit. Hezekiah's got a filthy mouth, by the way.

I can tell, that's why. So pissed off. Anybody be cursing if you laid railroad tracks across your farm. Walk and stubbed your toe on the tracks. What the, where did this come from? So as a concession they said, well, we'll just name the area after you.

Gee, thanks. They called it Rutledge's Place, and soon it became just Rutledge there. And it was basically a farm and a railroad stop. That's all there was here. And then other people started coming in. A banking company was chartered here after that and all that sort of thing. Now, I guess after the Great Depression, Rutledge became the site of two civilian conservation Corps camps created as part of a public works program by Roosevelt and that was to create Hard labor Creek Park, which sounds fun as shit. That sounds good

Who wants to go throw the frisbee around the hard labor Creek Park? We're go. Yeah, that's gonna be great Now bring the baseball glove too. It's going to be a day. Let's go on over to a hard labor creek park. Hard labor creek. Let's go over to a hard labor creek and drive some railroad spikes. Jesus Christ. That is the worst fucking name for a recreation

area I've ever heard. Hard labor creek. Let's go make out at cancer point. You want to? Me and you in the car, we'll finger each other. Holy shit. The hangman's new water park. It's still part of the Georgia State Park system. Unbelievable. So reviews of this town. There's only one from this actual town and there's one from the town that's close to it that this is kind of a suburb of. Here is Five Stars, the only Rutledge review. I've lived in this city for about half my life. It's not a city,

by the way, Rutledge at all. And it's amazing. I love the parks and homes. They're there, T-H-E-R-E, gorgeous. And I recommend you live here and get or rent a house. And then there is let's see, five, 10, 15, looks like 21 exclamation points, I believe, if I'm a quick. Get or rent a house! Get it! Hard Labor Creek Park! He loves the park.

He likes that one, specifically. And then they say, I love here, and the E's, there are six E's on the end of here. So they love it here. They love here. And then these are from Madison, which is very close by and the quote unquote larger area which is also still pretty small, but not as small as Rutledge. Five stars, Madison is a safe same town.

Safe same. They mean sane? Probably sane. The people are nice and the look of the town. Safe same. They mean sane. Probably sane. Yeah. The people are nice and the look of the town is even nicer. Our school is extremely well. Our school. It's well.

Is extremely well. I love. They heard once upon a time, not to use the word good, always use well in place. Look at that there. I gotta show how smart I am. Superman does good. And how learned you do well. I gotta show how smart I am. Superman does good.

And how learned this school has made me. I love when they compliment the school and sound like a moron doing it. That's like saying how proud they are of the school. That's my favorite thing about town reviews of all time. If this school made you say, this school is well. It says, our school is an extremely well comma one the word one comma and we are a safe town. I don't know what they're talking about at all. I'm worried about any students that come from that school and then the other one

is one star for Madison small town with a small town tone. I don't like a small town. Apparently they don't like a small town tone. Apparently they don't, because they only gave it one star. Oh yeah. Because the rest of it sounds okay, lots of history, not much to do for young adults or teens, which is every small town. Very southern culture, well yeah, you're in rural Georgia,

what do you want, beautiful, beautiful, let's go into Brooklyn and go, all these fucking New Yorkers around here, just that accent, the fucking pizza, I can't take it. It's all a goddamn pizza. Why'd you move here? Yeah. Just pizza everywhere, fucking guineas.

Beautiful landscape, great school district, little to no crime, one star. So they must hate whatever the tone of the town is because the rest of it sounds fine. I don't know what the tone of the town is, that's not good. People in Rutledge, 1105 is the population. What a city!

Very small. And it's drivable to Atlanta, so that's still tiny as balls. Wow. A few more females than males, but not many. It's closer to even than the average is. Median age here is 34, lower than the national average. The five to nine year olds, shitload of them for some reason. Not sure why, but there's a ton of five to nine-year-olds. Yeah. Family, but

it's normal, 50-50 married, so that's the average here. Less people are single with children here too, so it's move out here with their little nuclear family type of deal it seems like here. And let let's see their unemployment rate is 3.3% which you have a huge city right there you should be able to find a job which is very very low median household income here 58,750 a year which is lower it's usually about 69,000 cost of living though 100 is average you know normal here it is 100 so right on right on and the median home cost is 34 though, 100 is average, normal, here it is 100. So, Right on, right at it.

Right on, and the median home cost is $346,800. That's high, right? It's a little under the national average at the moment. Little bit. Fuck man. 95 is the average. That's so expensive. So if we've convinced you, dammit,

this is the only place for you, you wanna figure out whatever the tone is. You want to go to Hard Labor Creek Park and have a great time with the family. We have for you the Rutledge Georgia real estate report. The average two-bedroom rental here goes for $1,450, which is above the national average by a good chunk too, a couple hundred dollars. First house, three-bedroom, two-bath, 1,248 square foot shit shack. That's a decent size house and everything.

His house is a piece of shit. It is falling apart. Looks like the back of the house is probably going to fall in soon. Inside it's a fucking wreck. There's like ugly blue carpet in some rooms and like it looks like somebody did it poorly in 1975 and then never touched it since then. Let it rock. This is like a like an all seasons patio. It is. That's what it seems like. It's a piece of shit. 199,500 bucks for that piece of shit.

Unbelievable. Wow, I hope the studs are good, because that's about all you're gonna keep from it. How many acres? None, none, none. None, just 200 grand for nothing. Yeah, a little yard, that's it. Robbery.

Next up, four-bedroom, three-bath, 5,000 square foot. That's so amazing to me. That's a big house. Every time. That's so many great rooms. So much. 2.58 acres too. So you got a little bit of land.

It's fucking beautiful. It's built in 1903. So when they built a 5,000 square foot house in 1903, it was something. It was beautiful. It's got columns in the front. It's gorgeous. It's absolutely gorgeous Inside it's hard to tell what it's like inside. I guess it's nice, but it's covered in so much decoration

It's it's real looks like if like the way Allison put it was it sounds like it looks like a New Jersey Italian housewife Decorated this fucking what southern style the southern like Carmela Sopranos alter ego in the south. That went and just went back shit. It's a lot everywhere. Um, and that house is $850,000, which is not bad for a huge house on almost three acres in this country. That's if you have 850 to spend. Yeah, that's good. Jesus Christ. There's houses and houses, pieces of shit that are that much money. So here's a five-bedroom six-bath tee ball for each and every beehole baby. 4,321 square feet so again big house but the house isn't really what you're concerned about it's

230.74 acres. That's a lot of acres. That's like a whole town to yourself. You'll see nobody ever. No, you could put up a general store in a main street, no one is ever there, it's great. That's fucking perfect. That's awesome. It's inside, the house is done. You can tell in the last like eight years or so, they had it done top to bottom, everything

is gray. Shit piles of bottom, everything is gray. Shit piles of money. Everything is gray. It's just gray, gray, gray, neutral. Kitchen has like the big... Exposed beams? It's not the exposed beams, the metal tubing through it, like the vents, like vent shafts and shit in it.

Oh, really? Yeah, which looks kind of cool because it looks kind of old school. Oh, do you mean like the AC duct work? Everything, yeah, all that kind of shit you can see. But then the kitchen itself is like this gray HGTV nightmare. So it's kind of weird though. $4,590,000. 230 acres, I mean that's why neither of us have 230 acres.

We're not willing to. Boy, would I love that. Yeah, I mean, sure, it'd be great. Damn it. Except when the first month when the payment is due for that. Oh, there's that. And then at the end of the year when the taxes are due, all that shit, that's going to sting. Things to do here, not a whole lot to do, as you might imagine in a town of 1,100 people.

But they do have the Rutledge Country Fair, not County Fair, the Rutledge Country Fair. It says celebrate the start of summer at their biggest event of the year. This is it right here. This is it. 41st annual held at City Park, at least it's not at Hard Labor Creek, that's better than that. This free event guarantees fun for the whole family. Guarantees it.

Or you're fucking no money back. How do you guarantee fun? That's the weird- It's free. You can't guarantee shit. Those are like a nebulous concept to just guarantee. That's like guaranteeing any emotion. You can't guarantee an emotion.

You know what their guarantee should be is if you show up you'll be there. We're here We'll be open that we guarantee Enjoy live music a fun parade Exciting games for the kids delicious treats from local food vendors and unique handmade goods from local artisans. In other words shit What table a fun parade tables of homemade bracelets is what they just made said Parade isn't float after float of topless women. This is no fun And you'd run out of topless women as 1100 people throwing out gift cards for free blow jobs That's the only way free blow jobs at the place where we hang out topless all the time

Hanging out blow it. They're just handing out blow job tickets. What the hell's going on out there? That's a fun parade. Spend the day in small but special Rutledge, that's in quotes there. Enjoying the park, exploring the shops, and relaxing to the sounds of Morgan County's finest voices.

Who the fuck are they? I swear to God, I searched high and low. I searched for like musicians who were putting this up on their social media as a gig. I could not find who fucking performed there, but I have something better. I did find that they have a summer concert series. Oh yeah. In the same place. So I said, well, who's playing that?

Let's find out that. Cause that's the concert's the that? Let's find out that. Because that's the concert's the only thing that's going on. So that's gotta be a big act, so it's gonna be better. Is it Morgan County's finest? It's Morgan County's finest voices right here. The Alabama Troubadours they had one week. Celebrating. Okay, it's not Alabama, it's the Troubadours.

The Alabama Troubadours, celebrating the music of John Prine, who I've never heard of. Oh really? Oh, John Prine's terrific. Oh really? Yeah, no, you said that like I should've heard. I sort of got John Prine's terrific.

Oh, I'm sure he is, but you said that like, James, you don't know John Prine? No, I don't. But I don't think he has an extensive catalog that you could, I don't- Fill a whole night with, apparently. Yeah, I don't know that that's true. Well, the next week, Diane, Dirt, and Junebug

will be there. Whose music do they play? It just says singer-songwriter. I don't know which is which, but Diane or Junebug. The Justin Kennedy Band, which plays classic to New Country, everything, this country. Doug Deluxe and the Rodeo Clowns. They play... Doug Deluxe and the Rodeo Clowns. Doug Deluxe and the Rodeo Clowns. I hope they're dressed like Rodeo Clowns by the way. I'm trying to process and absorb the words Doug and Deluxe together. It's pretty dope.

That's a pretty good name. It sounds like a rapper, Doug Deluxe, doesn't it? Or just a big fat country man. Yeah one of the two Traditional Western swing they play. Yeah, we have reckless abandoned who plays classic rock Wyatt Espallin Who's a fiddler? We got him July 19th Brian Ashley Jones Brian that's one person not Brian and Ashley Jones, Brian Ashley Jones, and Melanie Jean, they're an Americana duo. Oh, you got a duke with all three of his names

and then a girl too. And then a girl, Brian Ashley Jones and Melanie Jean. That's not her last name, you know her name's Melanie Jean. That's her first name, yeah. That's her first name, Melanie Jean. You just fucking know it. The Mistletoes will be playing on July 26th, which makes all the sense in the world. They'll be doing Christmas in July.

Rockabilly slash Big Band Christmas. Those are not the same things, Rockabilly and Big Band. They acted like those, you know, like those are always merging, Rockabilly and Big Band. Completely different forms of music. It's wild. Campbell Harrison will be there, who's a singer and songwriter. Then August 9th, Blue Velvet Atlanta. I don't know.

Yeah, I guess we just hang in for all of John Prine's catalog. I feel like let's start out on June 7th and sit there and really see what John Prine has to offer. I would say if you're gonna be a cover band though, does everybody who likes country music know who John Prine is? Is he old? If you love, yeah, I think he just died too.

But if you know him, you fuckin', you have to really love country music. You gotta know who like little Jimmy Dickens is, like shit like that. It's old. Probably not the best idea to be a cover band of that guy. Well, you know what? He probably wrote, that's the other thing,

he probably wrote a shitload of songs that are crazy famous that nobody even knows that he wrote. It's probably like that. Yeah, you always see that in music though. There's so many people we found out that fucking Nas wrote all Will Smith shit You're like right the fuck is happening an M&M wrote shit piles of dr. Dre Dr. Dre's that you expect you knew that when you For 15 years these changes the whole the and he's changed his whole, the way he writes his bars, whole rhyming stuff. No, he didn't change his whole cadence.

But yeah, you're right. There are a lot of rappers that wrote for other people and fuck, we found out Busta Rhymes wrote a bunch of Bel Biv Devoe songs. That's what I mean, yeah. It's that stuff. You don't know, John Prine probably did that for a lot of very famous songs, and I probably just don't know I know he I can't think of one off the top of my head, but he's a great great singer songwriter fuck shit I think it does one day. He's writing sneak and Uzi on the island in my army jacket lining

Okay, and then the next day. He's like welcome to Miami That was before yeah Parents just don't understand. No, that was before. Yeah. Nas was like fucking 14 when that shit came out. Nas is writing like wild wild west. Yeah, that's what he wrote. That Miami was the big one.

Oh, did he really? He wrote Miami, he wrote that, he wrote all like the getting jiggy with it he wrote, all that shit. God damn it, Nas, you son of a bitch. Yeah. Na na na na na na na. Oh wait, I gotta get back to my stuff. My rhymin is a vitamin held without a capsule. I gotta get back to Will Smith now, hold on. Fucking confusing.

Holy shit. Stick looks sick up in that Boxster Porsche. Yeah, Jesus Christ, what the fuck? Crime rate in this town. What we're interested in here, a property crime is high. It's high. Hell yeah. 1100 people. What are they? What's going on? It's 25% high. Like it's high. That's a lot more. You better get some national artists in here to calm these motherfuckers down. They

are restless. Dig up John Prine and stick them up there. That's what they want apparently. Violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and of course assault, the Mount Rushmore of crime is, I'd like to in the words of Lisa Mona Lisa Vito, dead on balls average is what it is. Dead on balls. Exactly, I mean exactly average to the percent. Wow, just like housing. Fascinating. Yeah, it's wild. So that said, let's talk about some murder here because, oh boy, is this a fucking twisted one Let's get into it this a lot of stuff here comes from a book called death trap written by M William Phillips Oh wonder what the M stands for just go by William Phil or Phelps not Phillips Phelps I'm sorry Oh and William felt makes a huge day. You said oh like that changes everything

No, it does it changes, because it's probably Michael. And he's like, well, now I can't do that. Yeah, it might have to be Michael Phelps. That's probably what it is, honestly. So let's go back to February 16th. We're going back in time. But this is 2002. So cell phones now, yes.

But cameras are just getting on them. No social media. And there's no internet on that phone either. No internet at all on that phone. You got T-Zones from T-Mobile and it sucks. It's not good. I don't even know if that was on phones yet by 2002. It may not.

It may have been. It seems like 2004, five. You know what I mean? Like you couldn't even check your fucking email on a phone back then. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It was a phone texting. Were Blackberries in 2002? Not yet. Not yet. No, this is still LG flip phone. She's back then

This is razors that not even razors didn't come out to like 2006. So you're right. It's Jesus Christ Yeah, this is this is back in the in the day here, you know, so 330 a.m. Okay February 16, 2002, Rutledge, Georgia. And Rutledge, by the way, from this book I'll give you a quote, the town is located approximately halfway between Atlanta and Augusta. They call it a blip on a GPS screen. It's a forgotten place, essentially there to serve its people. Rutledge and Madison are quiet and non-descript wooded areas off Interstate 20 that interlopers might assume are nothing more than lost vast wilderness. Like you wouldn't even know there's a fucking town there if you didn't know there's a town there.

That's what it is. I've seen all the pictures too. It's exactly what it looks like. Out here, good old folks live quietly. They bother no one. Their focus is on working the same land their forefathers have had for generations past Yeah, but your crime rate is so high. Yeah, what else are they bothering somebody? Someone's bothering somebody So this is 330 a.m. Four friends are driving down old Mill Road in Rutledge Okay, they are driving in a Toyota minivan Now you think yeah, you're thinking, man, they must be finishing up a wild night, right?

3.30 in the morning, driving home from maybe Atlanta, they were out partying or something. No, no, they're on their way out at 3.30 in the morning. They're going to party now. No, no, well, you could call it party in a different kind of way. They're going to a chicken show. Quote, unquote, chicken show. Quote unquote chicken show.

Which I said, what is that? Is that like, if you're sexually into chickens or what? But no. I gotta assume that's how you buy them, right? You gotta go to the chicken show. It's not only them in the minivan, the rest of the minivan is filled with cages full of chickens that they're bringing to the show.

They're about to go show the chickens. They're about to show off their prized chickens. So they're out in the middle of nowhere. And this is, you know, it's pitch black out here. It's the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere. There's no real big town. The town might have one, two streetlights in it. You know, that's it.

It's a small area, if you're lucky. Yeah. Yeah. I don't mean traffic lights. I mean streetlights. Like, that's what I was lights. To illuminate the street. Yeah, so there's no light from this, no glow. Towns from far away you can see a glow, not a lot of glow here.

So there are all these guys at 3.30 in the morning and they just woke up and packed chickens into a minivan. So they're all a little, getting their shit together here. One of them notices a bright light in the distance Not not in the sky like an alien, but above the trees With a red and a red orange glow to it. They're like, whoa, what's that about? You know is that has to be a fire or something? so one of them said, you know look over there and everybody looked and

One of the guys said hey, I know the person who owns that land, which that's how rural this is. You just look out at a vast land and you're like, I know the person who owns a bunch of that. Like, oh, okay. That 12 acres, my friend, let's go see him. Just that big swath of land. So they turn around, he says, turn around, turn around,

go back there because he said he was worried that the woods were on fire and his friend might burn and who knows if it could go to his house and burn his house down or some shit. It's the middle of the night. The guy probably doesn't know his woods are on fire. Was there a crime committed? As far as I'm concerned, there wasn't. Guilty by Design dives into the wild story of Alexander and Frank, interior designers

who in the 80s landed the jackpot of all clients. We went to bed one night and the next morning we woke up as one of the most wanted people in the United States. What are they guilty of? You can listen to Guilty by Design exclusively and ad free on Wondry+. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app, Apple podcasts or Spotify.

Divorced beheaded died, divorced beheaded survived. We know the six wives of Henry VIII as pawns in his hunt for a son, but their lives were so much more than just being the king's wives. I'm Arisha Skidmore Williams. And I'm Brooke Zifrin. And we're the hosts of Wondry's podcast, Even the Royals.

In each episode, we'll pull back the curtain on royal families, past and present, from all over the world to show you the darker side of what it means to be royalty. We rarely see Henry VIII's wives in their own light as women who use the tools available to them to hold on to power. Some women won the game, others lost,

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Go deeper and get more of the story with Wondery's top history podcasts, including American Scandal, Legacy, and Black History for Real. So they pull in and they're pulling onto Hawkins Academy Road and they could see dark smoke and flames up there. Oh. They're like, holy shit, this is not a like a two bushes on fire. This is a fucking fire. This thing's already out of control.

Oh yeah, there's, there's, they pull up, there's trees that are already burned to nothing next to this. And what they see is, in the middle of all this, the epicenter of these flames appear to be a car fully engulfed in flames. Shit. Like that's where the woods didn't catch the car on fire, the cars got the woods on fire obviously. So they get out of the van and they said as soon as they opened the door of the van, they felt the heat. It was such a hot fire. get out of the van and they said as soon as they opened the door of the van they felt

the heat. It was such a hot fire. They didn't feel it like push them back and holy shit they had to step back away from the fire. One of them was called, you know, immediately called the sheriff. Probably knew him. You know, hey Bill your land's on fire. So wake up. They call a and they got Deputy Sheriff John Eugene Williams. John Williams, it couldn't be a more common name than that, huh? No kidding, yeah. He takes the call and they said there's a car on fire in the woods near Hawkins Academy Road.

They said get the fire department out here. The woods are burning out of control. This is going to get, you know, we're not going to be able to stop this. Get out here. So they do. The deputy explained out in this area, he said there's get out here. So they do. The deputy explained out in this area, he said there's nothing out here. He said, quote, it's rural.

And they said there's a car on fire out here at Hawkins Academy Road. And he was like, wow, that's way out there. He figured it was kids. He was like, he's fucking pain in the ass kids. Went out in the woods to fuck around and drink and do whatever they do out there. Because Hard Labor Creek is probably closed so you got a lot of places to go. There's a curfew on that

Yeah, you know that's hardcore. Yeah lights out. They call it actually it's not even curfew They said it was you know Friday night going into Saturday morning So that makes sense would be kids out probably a bunch of kids went out, got shit faced, and then, you know, somebody had an old rusty car, they decided they'll take it out in the woods and torch it, you know what I mean? Because people do that, they shoot it all up, target practice. Yeah, or are you tired of paying the car payment, shit like that. Yeah, yeah, but they figure it's probably just some kids took a junker off their property and put it out there or something.

So he said, you know, get the fire department out there though. And they didn't want the forest to be like an uncontrollable fire. So, you know, he said, okay, the deputy gets his jacket on heads out there. And the I guess it's located on Athens Highway, the sheriff's department about 20 minutes from the fire scene. So nothing's close either. No, 20 minutes away is, that's a distance. That's a real distance. So yeah, I guess it's, interstate 20 goes on there, there's route 11 also, and you could see like

how somebody might've got there. They were thinking about, you know, how they drove out there, and they could kind of see from town they might drive this way or that way. They said this road, the deputy said, there's very few houses on it, it's fairly isolated. So and it is, it's way out there. And it's about 3.50 a.m. when he arrived and the fire department was already there and they already got most of the fire out. Great. He got there, yeah, the trees look like they're

out and they're just kind of still putting shit on the fire It's the wood goes out easier than like plastic plastic burns. Yeah hot and long Wires or shit like that. Yeah car seats. Oh my god. Yeah Shit that fall shit burns inside of oh my god. You can't get that to be put out fucking oh so yeah, it was the fires under control and The trees were burned all around it. The car was giving off a horrible smell of burned plastic and everything else. So yeah, he gets out of the car. The deputy says to the fire guy, anybody in that vehicle?

Yeah. Anything? Anybody? And they said it was hard to tell, but they could tell. They look like a Pontiac from the burnt up, it was so hot that it melted the license plate off the car. Yeah, but in a fire, everything looks like a Pontiac. Everything looks like a Pontiac.

Useless. They find out, piece of shit, a defunct piece of shit, they find out it's a 2001 red Pontiac Grand Dam. That's what it was originally. Oh, they suck, but they're not done. They don't suck that bad. It was white now. It wasn't red because all the paint had bubbled off of it and burned off of it. So that's what they figured out. It was parked nose first toward what looked like a gate to let cows or horses into a big area of steel. Yeah, of a pasture and more woods.

onto the, into a big area of steel. Yeah, of a pasture and more woods. So it's, I guess everything around it is charred, charred, charred. It looks like somebody dropped napalm on this fucking place. Like it's, everything in this circle is just blackened to nothing. So it's wild here. They said the trees looked really weird

because they were like skeletons. They were so burnt out. You ever see those husks of trees? Scary looking. So as the deputy here walks toward the scene, he could see that, you know, obviously a pile of melted car. And he said, Jesus Christ, obviously the burn so much. He's like, this is not this, this isn't an accident. A car didn't catch on fire Wasn't an engine fire or like Anthony soprano AJ fucking was on some leaves and it caught fire under the cars none of that bullshit It's a catalytic converter lit up. Yeah It's a good way to get rid of an Xterra though

Those are they're popular again people. I know I see them all around and shit. Yeah Probably good for that. So they said that a car fire normally will just burn itself out unless there's some serious accelerant involved. And so the entire inside and outside of the vehicle were completely destroyed, blackened, charred to nothing, and still smoldering. The seats are completely gone, burned to nothing, burned to ash. And it's just a frame, basically. Seats are completely gone, burned to nothing, burned to ash.

It's just a frame, basically. So they get everything under control, and everything here, and he asked again, have you seen, is there anybody in the car? Was there anybody, anything in the car? Did somebody come here and kill themselves or something? Who knows? So they don't know. They said that, you have no idea.

He said he's seen movies. Somebody might have driven a car out here, put a body in it. But they said, no, ain't nobody. The guy said, no, ain't nobody in there. And he said, good, that's, I don't have to deal with that shit. But they do say, he said, but it looks like somebody

just slaughtered some beef or had some deer meat or something in the trunk, the fire guy says. What kind of... Okay, that's a bizarre answer. Yeah, and who puts a deer in the trunk of a Grand Am? That's a strange way to transport live... If you hit something and just threw it in the trunk, whatever, but slaughtered it in the trunk?

What is that? I guess maybe you slaughtered ahead of time. You're bringing it to somewhere I don't fucking know what they're trying to say So the cop says alright Well, let's take a look at that and he thought maybe it was you know poachers possibly something like that Cuz it wasn't seasoned or something someone trying to he said maybe someone trying to steal from this guy who owns all these There's a cow gate. So maybe a cow do they try to steal a cow? Then he's like who the hell would bring a Pontiac Grand Am

to steal a fucking cow? Never doing that. We'll put it in the trunk, like that's not a good idea. So he's like, that's what he said, I've seen people do dumber shit than that, so maybe, who knows, it might be someone who's not from around here, he doesn't know you can't put a cow in a trunk.

You don't realize how big a cow is till you walk up on one, maybe somebody's like, let's steal a cow, yeah, look at them, they don't realize how big a cow is till you walk up on one something Maybe somebody was like let's steal a cow. Yeah, look at them They don't why not but I could do it then you get near it. No, oh this thing's so bad It's so how the fuck Jesus crew. You're the size of the car 500 feet away look like you fit in the trunk. Just ride you home. I guess never mind I'll leave the car come back for it later. Just ride you back heavier than the think he's heavier than the car, fuck. Oh yeah, that's, oh Jesus Christ, cows are so fucking big. They're terrifying.

Are they a ton? I don't know if they're that much. 1,500 pounds? They look like they may be, what, 800 pounds? 900 pounds? I bet they're bigger than that, a horse is 800 pounds. Is it? Wow. Yeah.

A big horse? What kind of horse are you talking about? Ah, a good size horse, no, that's bigger. That's gonna be 1,200 pounds size horse, no, that's bigger. That's going to be 1200 pounds for sure. Jesus. Absolutely. Yeah. Wow.

These animals are terrifying. I bet horses go from 6 to 1200. I bet that's about right. Probably about 6 to 1200 in that range. What do you want? I bet a cow's about the same. A cow, cows have so much mass though. If a cow wasn't so calm, we'd be so scared of them.

Think about that. Oh, we'd be so fucked too if those were vicious? Oh my god. Like if they bit and charged, you'd be like, oh my god. If every cow behaved like a rodeo bull, we'd all be fucked. We'd be fucked. We'd be in so much trouble. We wouldn't be eating much beef, I'll tell you that much.

Shit would be really expensive. We'd all drive much bigger cars, just in case. Never know. So as he goes toward the fire, he can smell flesh burning at that point. Oh no. You know, something, cooked meat is what he said. It was very gamey though, didn't smell like beef.

But mixed with gasoline and chemicals and accelerant. Electric fires, yeah. And electrical wires, who the hell knows? Seats and electrical wires who the hell knows seats and plastic and who the fuck knows but still it's sound it's didn't smell good so he goes over to the trunk and they said the plastic light housings on the end of the car you know the tail lights are melted completely away gone the trunk was propped open with a tool that's a you know fireman's crowbar there the license plate had fallen off but it was on the ground.

They figured out actually whose it was because it fell with the numbers down. Oh, very nice. It was able to keep some shape there on the ground. So the sheriff goes in for a look here. The back seat of the car burned to ash, spring coils popping up, obviously. So there he could, from the inside, he could

see into the trunk of the car a little bit easier. And he said it was something bulky and large and all burnt up inside the trunk. And there looked to be a blanket or comforter of some type underneath. Have none of these motherfuckers seen Dateline? They've never seen, no, they never have. It's 2002 also, so they were, they didn't have quite the experience yet. The news hadn't reached them that sometimes cars get lit on fire with perhaps a body. Perhaps a... Well, that's what he thought at first, because he literally said he'd seen

the Sopranos, and he thought maybe... That's what he said. He thought maybe somebody... That was his first thought, but he was like, no, I'm in Rutledge. This isn't fucking... This isn't New Jersey. This isn't Long Branch. This is Rutledge. This isn't fucking, you know, this isn't New Jersey. This isn't Long Branch. This is Rutledge. So he said he could see that he could look in and give him a closer look and he said he could see it. And he said he yelled to the fire chief, these are human beings, not an animal. Plural. Oh my God. Plural. So they sat there for a minute like,

holy shit, this is insanity. They thought it was one large thing and it's two. He said once you stood there for a while, you could see the outline of two dead people, dead and charred people. What was left of the arm of one person, they said. He said he couldn't tell if it was a male and a female or a man and a child.

He couldn't tell. Couldn't tell. He said I knew one was male, but I couldn't tell if the other was a female or a child. It was much smaller. So that's what he says. Now these bodies in the car, they said there's a good chance that this was done to try to cover up some murders. And they said the mob did this type of thing. And in the bookie, they go on to say that, yes, the mob does it, but they're usually a little cleaner about it than this. Yeah, this is, it's fascinating that they do that.

Because how hot must it get to get rid of a body, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. How hot must it be to get rid of a car and body? That's right, yes. All you're doing is bringing attention to this. Yeah, when the mob stuffs somebody in the trunk of a car and bodies. That's right, yes. All you're doing is bringing attention to this. Yeah, when the mob stuffs somebody in the trunk of a car, they generally don't set it on fire because that draws attention to that.

When they put someone in the trunk of a car, that's so they're not found for a few days for a while, which gives them no time of when they were killed or disappeared, so nobody needs to have a solid alibi. And then they'll eventually be found, which is what they want, so everybody knows that that guy fucked up and got killed and stuffed in a trunk and he got killed in a mob way so yeah maybe guys that are connected we don't fuck with them yeah than anybody when

they want to disappear someone they chop them up and throw them somewhere that's not not they don't do this this is this is like in a literal literal flair there's bodies over here hey look yes remember the the bodybuilder guy we had for crime and sports that yeah His girlfriend set the girl on fire out in the in the middle of the Vegas desert It was like you could see that for 1200 miles around you. That's ridiculous Yeah, the only light is that car on fire? Bright light you could see from the strip for Christ's sake. So they said that, yeah, this is obviously fucking horrible here. So they get a forensic team in there and going through everything and they get a guy in and

he's looking for anything. DNA. Yeah. Can't really probably find fingerprints on the vehicle since every surface is burned to nothing and melted away. So he looks back and he was he's looking in the guy says her legs, you know, he said this is a woman he thought were bent back around back behind her. Oh my god. So it was a woman, a very small woman, very petite. He said it was no, no, no, no,

it was actually the fire that did that. They said it would be Jesus. They said that the the victim closest to the back seat of the car had been placed in the trunk first, is what they figured, because they would be placed in from the outside. Then the guy said his legs, talking about the male, come up and then bend back around the thigh area, the right side of the body. He said, he noticed that both of the victim's arms and legs were discernible if you looked closely, you could see, make it out. He said the same was true with regard to other parts of their bodies. The back of the male's calves were the same way as the female's, bent flush against the backside of his thighs. So like you put your legs under you to sit on something.

But sideways. They said they were definitely crunched up together, then placed in the trunk basically there. They said, yeah, that's how it went. And they said that's how he thinks that they were killed somewhere else and brought here. Because if they were killed, they wouldn't be in the trunk in those positions unless they were stuffed into those positions to make them fit. They had to be dead already, right?

Yes. So they think, okay, that's what we're working with now, which is a very helpful thing, where unless they were stuffed into those positions to make them fit. They had to be dead already, right. Yes, yeah. So they think, okay, that's what we're working with now, which is a very helpful thing, where this took place. So they comb the scene and the trunk and everything like that. They find the comforter underneath the bodies that hadn't been completely consumed by the fire because they were on top of them. Sure, sure. Yeah, that'll stop the fire.

That helps. You might get some trace evidence off of that, a fiber, a hair, a DNA, something. So with the help of a bunch of other investigators, they remove the body of the male and place him in a body bag. On the male victim's left hand was a wedding band. So that's something. As they zip the guy up, he also notices what appears to be a hole in the man's wrist that looks like it's probably a bullet wound. It's a big hole that goes all the way through his flesh and burned away around it. The male victim, they said maybe it held his hands up to block a bullet or something like

that. That's possible. So maybe there's a bullet fragment somewhere around the car. Looking at the female victim, he notices what he called defects in the body, meaning not that she had a big fat ass or something, meaning that they're not insulting her looks, saying that there's in the dead body, eventually finding out that they were also bullet holes that they found. She had a wound in her lower back. So with the comforter they have they take that out they have the bodies and body bags they said that they

found a sheet of paper towel near the car a sheet of paper towel with the imprint pattern of a little boy and a little girl that's whatever the you know is printed on the paper towel. Oh got gotcha. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the decoration. The corner of the paper towel was burned, but a majority of it was still intact. So that's something. They take that. They also found what looked to be an engagement ring inside the trunk, but the diamond was gone, like a woman's engagement ring with a diamond. But it was gone.

It was underneath where the female's body was placed. There's all sorts of debris in the trunk. Then they found two duffel bags as well. One with partially burned clothes. The other looked to have a bunch of court documents in it. So they said maybe that the murderers had hoped these duffel bags would be incinerated with the rest of the evidence. Maybe that was part of why they were there. Then they say, okay, this crime scene is too constricted. We have it, we got to spread out.

Because it was windy that day. And he's like, it's super windy and if we're finding paper towels and stuff like that, other evidence like that. They have some other shit off in the woods. Yeah. Could be blown around the woods. So they took down the crime scene tape and made a much bigger circle here. And so they said they needed to expand everything.

He ordered, the crime scene guy ordered approximately 200 yards on either side of the vehicle to be roped off, which is a long fucking way. 200 yards? Two football, yeah, two football fields. 500 feet in each direction, 600. It's a lot, yeah. So from side to side total, it would be 400 yards. Two football fields. Yeah, two football fields. If I were to feed in each direction, 600. I don't know. It's a lot. Yeah.

So from side to side total, it would be 400 yards. Right. Because it's 200 on each side of the car. So that's a lot, man. So they said they were going to rope all that off. That would be the new crime scene. They said that's that. So they said they were going to do a grid-like search of the ground for anything.

And they said anything. Cigarette butts, gum, footprints, stuff. Lee press on nail that fell off, a piece of paper, an earring. You find it. We're fucking grabbing it. TJ Maxx receipt. I don't give a shit. We don't give a shit what you got.

Yeah. Whatever jumped out. So they said that maybe somebody was sloppy. They seemed to think that fire would get rid of everything. Maybe they didn't quite get rid of everything. So they said even if they tried to clean it up, maybe they didn't quite get rid of everything. So they said, you know, even if they tried to clean it up, you know, maybe they left some shit. Murderers aren't great at murder all the time.

That's the thing. You know, yeah, a lot of times things don't go as planned. They don't go as planned. Even if they planned this, something may have fucked up. And sometimes they're too dumb to plan it correctly. That's the other problem that happens here. So they say that they have the, some things, like I said, paper towels and things like that. The wind is getting worse and worse and worse here. And the guy said you only really get,

you don't get a lot of shots at a crime scene. Once you say, okay, it's good, that's it. It's contaminated because everyone's going to trample it. You get one try. That's it. You get one try. And homicide detectives in a lot of books I've read, they'll say like there's these cases where they're like, fuck, they're so mad. They just said, oh yeah, all right, it's fine, and turned it over to everybody and said, I should have done this and I should have done that. And you can't remake it. It's just the way it is.

It's all contaminated now. So this guy finishes up his work, the forensics guy, and he's walking around looking for more stuff. He finishes his work at the car. At one point, he locates and photographs a.44 caliber Magnum Remington shell casing. Nice work. About 10 to 15 feet from the rear of the vehicle. Okay, so where it exited the gun.

He said it was very odd though because a 44 would have blown the male victims wrist off not put a hole in it is what he says. It would have blown bone apart and shit so that's a little bit strange. So they said maybe two weapons two different guns we don't know here so they're just trying to put things together. They continue to search they found a spent bullet an actual projectile, that was mushroomed over on the top inside the trunk. So it like hit something and mushroomed over.

Then they found a cigarette butt, a Marlboro light. Oh, that boy. So we got the Marlboro lights. Yeah, so they got Marlboro, so they're looking for a 44 caliber Marlboro light smoking son of a bitch. They're looking for Jimmy Wissman in 2002. Yeah, except with very fancily stenciled paper towels. You wouldn't have bought those. The cheapies.

So it turns out Rutledge, in the last 10 ten years somehow this has happened a lot here And they're like are we like a dumping ground for fucking murder now really yeah, they said that it's very very strange They said there was an elderly woman abducted and beaten with a tree branch What just left there beaten to death with a tree branch? She was dead Yeah, they just took her out there beat her to death with a tree branch What kind of monster does that? I don't know it's a who the fuck sets two people in a car on fire that's crazy. All this is crazy. Two teenage runaways boys who kidnapped a paper girl, kidnapped a young girl delivering newspapers and left her mutilated body off the interstate in this area.

Dead too! Oh, mutilated! Oh my god! Taken apart. They were seeing what was inside of her, basically. It was horrible. This place is frightening! It's terrible and terrifying. And then three teens who tortured and eventually killed a runaway girl as well in this area. I hate this place. So...

Yeah. or runaway girl as well in this area. I hate this place. So yeah, so but they said, and this is a quote from the book, dead bodies popping up every now and then was no reason for alarm locals knew. Huh? I'm alarmed. The old lady with the tree branch alarms me. Then we're finding dead teenagers all over the place. I'm very alarmed. You people are insane.

Yeah. You're okay with this. of the place, I'm very alarmed. You people are insane. Yeah. If you're okay with this. But they said it's basically, it's not like it's, you know, nothing they're doing wrong, it just happens to be between two major cities, between Atlanta and Augusta. We happen to be so safe that even murderers feel safe

to bring the victims in. They know that no one's gonna see it, so let's talk about some people here, all right? And we'll eventually find out who the hell we're looking at. Okay, let's talk about some people here, all right? And we'll eventually find out who the hell we're looking at. Okay, let's talk about Alan Jeffrey Bates, B-A-T-E-S. And Jeffrey is G-E-O-F-F-R-E, which I'm like, FFRE? I've never seen that before. Well, that's how you spell the giraffe from Toys R Us too.

Oh, is it? Man, I guess that would make sense. He's born in 1972 though. Did that giraffe exist? You know, I'm not sure. I don't know when Toys R Us became a thing. I don't think so. He's born January 22nd, 1972 to Philip and Joan Bates.

And they have three boys in their family. And everybody's super close and everybody's happy. And they are, the book calls them, one of those wholesome, old fashioned, southern Christian families who believed strong ties, loyalty, respect, support and admiration for others were what mattered more than anything else in life. That's what somebody said about their family. Someone said that about their family in a book.

Wow. Can you imagine your family being described by that post, you know, with some time, with some like hindsight, 20 years to look back on it? No, definitely not. Those are all good words. Those are nice. They were animals.

They never fucking, that would be more accurate for me. Alan Bates grew up, he's the middle child, by the way, of the three boys, and his brother Robert, they both attended Shades Valley High School here off of Route 31. This is in Alabama, by the way, near the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. Alan is like every parent's dream as a high school kid.

Just every parent's fucking wet dream. He's great in school, popular, seems to be well adjusted. He's voted class president, freshman, sophomore, junior year. He got a three-peat on the president. He's doing such a good job, throw it at him again. He's getting important.

I imagine he had term limits there. No, no, no. So senior year he couldn't get it. We'll talk about senior year. Senior year is a whole different thing. Really? Three years running, which is absolutely crazy. He is also an honor student and all that kind of shit. He's also one of those really polite to adult kids,

ma'am and sir and, you know, can I help you mow the lawn and shit like that. He's a, Eddie Haskell-ish. I was like that too, because my friend's parents called me Haskell. Yeah, of course they did. What are you up to, Eddie? I'm like calm down. I just, Mr. K, he's a dumb-

You're Eddie Haskell on this show. Are you kidding me? The things you sometimes say that you're real upset and care about, I'm like, motherfucker, if we weren't on this show, you'd be laughing your ass off, right? Don't give me that shit. Don't try to be nice for people. Yes, I keep people from hating me. Just be yourself. It's much more fun. Yeah, I just didn't want my friends' parents to know that I was going to corrupt their kid.

Like they weren't just a scummy. That's what you're like now. I love you. I didn't want my parents to know that I was gonna corrupt their kid Like they weren't just a scummy. That's what you're like now They knew I was showing him bad shit. No, I was the same way too I was polite because I think if you're half intelligent you go well don't don't be obvious here. Don't let them know yeah Trying to hide what I'm doing here a little bit Jesus Christ. Don't let them know we're drunk. Yeah Seriously look cool, okay Trying to hide what I'm doing here a little bit. Jesus Christ. Don't let them know we're drunk. Yeah Seriously look cool. Okay You smell like vodka, oh my eyes both open the same amount. Okay good. Let's give it a shot Yeah, it's a good way to tell one eyes 10 is 10% more closed. You're like, what the fuck have you been doing?

So but Alan, I mean, like, every, he's the, back then especially, and not even back then, it's 2000, or 1989 or something, but this is like, this is the guy you want your daughter to marry, all the parents down there. He's a church guy, he's all. Good kid. Good kid here. He's an active member in the parents down there. He's a church guy, he's all. Good kid. Good kid here.

He's an active member in the church as well. Alan played drums in a few different bands, including gospel and Christian bands. That's what he was playing mainly here. His father, Philip, said, Alan picked up an interest along the way in technical theater and was responsible for his senior class having a stage production

at Shades Valley, which they hadn't had in years. But he was, well, what the hell, what's the drama department then? He joined it. Okay, that's weird. But he was interested in the lights and the sound and the set design and the behind the scenes thing that make a theater production go. He wasn't interested in the drama, but he loved that. Yeah. Jesus Christ superstar. that make a theater production go. He wasn't interested in the drama, but he loved that. Yeah, Jesus Christ superstar. Yeah, well back then they were like, no, he likes technical things though.

He's like, he likes manly things. He likes, you know, electricity and likes. One of them actor gays. Yeah, he ain't one of them actor queers I see all the time. Ain't none of that, none of that, no, no, no. I heard in Shakespeare they got two boys playing Romeo and Juliet. Not my boy. Ever seen Tombstone?

Them people get off the stage. Boy, that feller. Not my son. So you love that. One friend, Marley, a new Allen and the Bates boys, all forever, said that they would sit and eat in the auditorium because he liked being close to the stage. So they'd eat sit and eat in the auditorium, because he liked being close to the stage. So they'd eat their lunches in the auditorium. She said, Allen and I were raised like brother and sister.

He loved the theater. Even then in high school, he just felt so at home there. He may have been playing the gospel stuff, because that's probably the best way to get yourself on stage every week. Yeah, well, I mean, how many famous singers, especially R&B singers from the South, they all started in the church, every one of them.

I mean, that's just how you, the first places you sang in public back then. I think Questlove did that with the drums. I think that's true. It's probably possible. I wouldn't be surprised. A lot of people. So he meets a girl, okay? This is between junior and senior year. This is a young girl named Jessica Callis

C-a-l-l-i-s and She had not like she's Callis. She sounds rough. She's rough this one. She's not rough at all She's a girl from Hoover, which is right around here. It's right outside, Birmingham And she's the total opposite of Alan. They're a rom-com couple. Oh and she's the total opposite of Alan. They're a rom-com couple. Oh, love that. He's buttoned up and worried about stuff and she's viewed everybody called her goth.

And this was in the 80s. Really? So she's basically Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice is what she is. Big Duran Duran fan. Exactly, you know what I mean? Dresses in a little bit of black. Hey, I'm Michelle Beetle.

And I'm Peter Rosenberg. Hey Peter, tell the people about our new podcast. Right. It's called Over the Top. And we cover the biggest topics in sports and pop culture using Royal Rumble rules. That means we'll start with two stories, toss one out on its ass, and dive into the other stories with ruthless aggression. Oh, but it never stops because every 90 seconds after that. My God, whose music is that? Another story comes down to the ring. Rinse and repeat until we arrive at the one most important thing on planet earth that week.

Follow Over The Top on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Over the Top ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus. For the record, this is not a wrestling podcast. No, no, but it is inspired by wrestling. Isn't everything inspired by wrestling, Beatle? Fair point. I'm Dan Tuberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York.

I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad. I'm like, stop f***ing around. She's like, I can't. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast. Like doubling and tripling and it's all these girls. With a diagnosis the state tried to keep on the down low. Everybody thought I was holding something back. Well you were holding something back intentionally.

Yeah, yeah, well, yeah. No, it's hysteria. It's all in your head. It's not physical. You're, oh my gosh, you're exaggerating. Is this the largest mass hysteria since the witches of Salem? Or is it something else entirely? Something's wrong here. Something's not right. Leroy was the new dateline and everyone was trying to solve the murder. A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios.

Hysterical. Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus. From Wondery, I'm Indra Varma, and this is The Spy Who. This season, we open the file on Oleg Penkovsky, the spy who defused the missile crisis. It's 1960, and the world's on the brink of nuclear war. However, one man in Moscow is about to emerge from the

shadows with an offer for the CIA. His name is Oleg Penkovsky. As a Cold War double agent, Penkovsky wants to supply the US with the Soviet Union's greatest nuclear secrets. But is this man putting his life on the line to save the world? Or is he part of an elaborate trap? Follow the Spy Who on the Wondery app or wherever you listen to podcasts, or you can binge the full season of the spy who defused the missile crisis early and at free with Wondery Plus. They said, though, even in the groups known to be like the goth groups,

she wasn't even really accepted in that one, in those groups either. She's just kind of weird apparently. But somehow they get along and compliment each other perfectly, which is very strange. Because they have nothing in common, but they really like each other, which is cool. So Jessica's the oldest of three children.

I mean, that's it too. They both come from three kids' households. Hers was a broken home though, not quite as, she doesn't have the family life that he has by any means. That's tough. No, no, definitely not. She would go to church a lot too. She's a church girl, but different church.

It's a different church here. It's a little bit more loose of a church. The Bateses go to a very like fire and brimstone, you know, women do this and men do that. And you know, she's going to like non-denominational, she's going to the Presbyterian church. So it's a little looser than like Baptist or, you know, barbecue and fellowship and some pie. Yeah, that's it. Just tell everybody how great Jesus is. Hey, Jesus is a good guy. This is a hell of a pie you made here.

I'll tell you something. So that's kind of what it is. And yeah, apparently Jessica said her dad, George, was a real asshole, she told everybody. She used to, he would beat the hell out of her and bruise her up and all that kind of thing. And she said though, weak wouldn't go by without her parents getting into some sort of brutal, you know, huge drunken argument where somebody hits somebody else and her mother would be

crying and her dad would take off shit face to go get drunker. Wow. So, yeah, that's, that's kind of how her family life is. So you can get the goth thing a little bit out of that, you know what I mean? Yeah, you got some depression and some living on the fringe because you feel like you don't have it as good as everybody else. True. You also might wear sleeves to cover things like bruises.

Oh, is that right? That's what I'm thinking. And then you end up, well, I might as well wear black, so I look, don't come near me type of shit. Yeah. Who knows? Wear an undershirt under, a long sleeve undershirt under the t-shirt kind of thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like that. Go do some 90s grunge shit. So her mother, Diane, was a church treasurer at one time, so they were very interested in church. They end up getting a divorce, Diane and George, luckily for Jessica here. And the second husband was apparently much more chilled out than the Trunkey McDad pants over there, the first guy.

So he was an actor, his name is Albert Bailey. He was an active elder on the council of the church. So he's hot, hot shit. Real involved. Oh, real involved. Yeah, he knew Jesus personally. Sure. Yeah, it was there that, I guess, when this all happened, she was baptized here and all

of that kind of thing, I guess, like, rebaptized here. She, I guess, their religion was different. This is what's crazy. They're both Christians. They both go to church on Sunday, but Alan and Jessica's religions are completely different even though they're the same religion. I know they're not exactly the same. I don't know every detail of it, but we both love Jesus.

Who cares? You know what I mean? But instead, Jessica had told somebody that Alan was brought up in the Church of Christ, which is not my church. I mean, it's Christian, but you know, the basic tenets are different than mine. Yeah, Church of Christ is very strict. It's very strict. She said that hers was more of like a just a liberal more church as far as the rules go. She said in the whole theory different views on how girls should be treated, especially within the confines of the church. I disagreed vehemently with Alan's family on their church." So that's what she had told people back then.

But regardless, they become a couple. Sure. Pre-senior year. And six days a week we spend together. Yeah. And she's cute. She's the type she has like kind of like in the book even it's described as like pudgy cheeks, you know, she's cute yeah cute chick so yeah you know she's not like oh my god falling over hot but she's cute and he likes her so he's into it and he just something about her he said she's got a flair you know what I mean so anyway Marley the friend of his that they ate lunch together, said that Jessica did not like her at all. Didn't want her hanging out with Alan.

Yeah. She said, Jessica hated my guts. I'm just nodding to him. As soon as she transferred to the school, Jessica, she transfers here for her senior year. To his school. To his school. And she made sure that it was, I mean-

Marley stays the fuck away. Everybody, everybody, everybody said- Really? She demanded attention, Jessica. She was one of those people. And her friend said that she latched onto Alan pretty quick and pretty hard and pretty heavy. She loved the fact that Alan was a band guy.

She liked that he was in a band. She's into that. So play that gospel music, baby. Funky gospel music, white boy. White boy. So as they became closer, Jessica pulled Alan aside one day, according to Marley, and said, you have to stop hanging out with Marley. Never speak to her again. Even though they've known each other since they were babies and they've never

had any romantic relationship, she thinks one is going to just pop out of nowhere here. There's also, this is still a new relationship and we're in our teenage years and we're giving each other ultimatums already? That's so fucking weird. And if you've known someone since kindergarten and you haven't hooked up yet and you're in your

senior year, it's literally never gonna happen. You're brother and sister, it's not that vibe. This is harder than a friend zone. This is way deeper than a friend zone. Remember in Orlando, we did the live show, remember the lady, the girl who I know who came in and said hi to us and stuff. Known her since kindergarten and it's like,

I would fuck you before I would fuck her. I've just known her, you know what I mean? She's like a sister. Well yeah, yeah. There's at least one woman on this planet that James would fuck me before. Yeah, well it's not, nothing wrong with her, it's just, when you know somebody since you're five,

you're like, you know, you give her a noogie first before you, it's like, we're just not like that, that's weird. I get comedian friends, same thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. Just, I would gladly go down on you before going down on you. Well, with comics, it's just because

I know how damaged they are, so it would have nothing to do with any of that. I just know to stay the fuck away, because I understand. She's like, we relate on so many different levels of personal, it's so bizarre. It's not even, there's no sexual tensions there at all. It's just, oh my God, you're such a sister.

And she thinks the same thing. I'm like a brother. Some people are like that. So that's how Marley is like, man, this is really weird though, that she doesn't want, she said it was never anything in that way. It's just, why can't I hang out with them? And then Marley said, I got a really bad read of her.

I mean, everybody that knew her got a really bad read of Jessica. You could just tell that she carried with her a negative energy. Yeah, Jess, let's just be friends. Isn't it more fun to have a bonfire with three people than two people? Well, I mean, yeah, maybe she'll have a boyfriend

and they can hang out, I don't know, whatever. Like they can be couples chilling or whatever the fuck it is. I don't know, she said that Jessica had this dark aura about her though that just, you felt like she didn't want people around. And they said that she was aggressive and different, and different and aggressive in,

like outside of Birmingham, Alabama, to we don't know what that would be in terms of, you know, other places and how aggressive that would be or anything like that. But one thing Jessica will put out, that's one thing she'll do. Really? Not all the girls down there will,

and she definitely will. One former high school classmate said, quote, she was fun. Would she know exactly what that means she said you know and I'm sure that was appealing to Alan yeah a 17 year old with a girl who suck his dick yeah that's really appealing it's fucking awesome so went out back the barn and she took my zipper down she's great this is my is my best friend. Oh boy, I love it. So before any of that school stuff happened, when they were just, this is before she transfers into the school, this is before the end of the summer,

the Bates family took vacations on the Gulf Coast all the time and they'd stay on the beach at a condo they rented from a friend. So that's what they do. Yeah, it sounds gross, yeah. Oh good, I get to use my friend's shitter, excellent. On the Gulf Shore. On the Gulf Shore.

So during the summer before his final year here, weeks after they had met, Alan told her that he wouldn't be around for a while because him and his family were going on vacation. They go down to the coast every year, they spend a couple of weeks, so I'll see you when I get back. He said he likes it. So Vacation is perfect. They gears him up for the upcoming school year. Absolutely told her not to worry

It'll be will be just like we were now just like we are now and I get back. It's all cool See you later Bama college students. I'll be back. I'll be back. Don't sweat it. Oh no, they won't fuck me. I'm 17. They're looking for- I'm just gonna stare at them and tug in my friend's bathroom.

Gonna see you all. I'm gonna make some memories, we're gonna call it. So he wanted to continue and he told her that, he let her know where they were going. Yeah, we go here. Didn't give her the exact address or anything. That'd be weird. But he just said, we're going to this beach.

So they said goodbye. That was that. So one morning, Alan and his brother wake up. And they go out, and they stand on the balcony at the condo. And they're looking at the beach. No. And no one else is awake. It's early, early.

It's just after sunrise. No one in the house is awake. And no one's at the beach that early. So he sees a couple people at the beach though, and he said, what the fuck, he's looking, he's staring at two people sitting out in the beach, out in front of the condo, and he's like, that's really weird, and he looked,

he says, it can't be, it can't be. He said to his brother, he goes, that's Jessica. Oh boy, and it was, she heard her friend came down there Forgetting Sarah Marshall Don't show up for a vacation, what are you doing? So Alan said no way you gotta be kidding me He said what the fuck he said why is she here? It's a 260 mile trip. It's not down the street Oh my god It's like in Phoenix if you went to San Diego and someone just showed up

Yeah it's a four hour ride It's a fucking drive It's almost four hours of driving, they said. So Jessica and her friend, when they got there, they didn't know where they were staying. They just knew the beach they were staying at, the general beach. She was just gonna plant her ass in the sand and wait?

No, they found, they got there, they just drove up and down the coastline in the town she knew they were going to until she found their van. She knew what the Bates family van looked like and she literally drove up and down the fucking shoreline until she found the van in a parking lot. There are positives about that, I'm sure. Wow.

But I can't find them. Yeah, that she'd be a great homicide detective or something, but not, this is not a girlfriend. This is crazy. No, that's so dangerous. It'd be like, what the fuck is happening? Yeah, unless you're a, wow, that's really good detective work, I guess, if that's what you're looking for.

I guess I'll never go missing. No, and it was parked with shitloads of other cars in a big lot like they had to like go through each lot car by car to see the shit. Like panning for gold. So after they found the vehicle they went out to the beach because they said this is the parking lot for those condos so they must be in there so they went to the beach slept on the beach and said that I'm sure Alan and his family are in one of the condos and they'll end up at the beach and said that I'm sure Alan and his family are in one of

the condos and they'll end up at the beach eventually today so I'll just wait till he comes down and runs into me at the beach. He'll be throwing a football out here later. I'll be intercepting his frisbee later that's where if she never told him I mean she never told him they at this point they said they weren't even really officially dating they were just kind of seeing each other. Yeah, you know what I mean? So and she wasn't invited But they say he fucked her though. Once you get the thing. He thought that was casual And she said this isn't gonna be a casual affair my friend. This is uh, I'll be seeing you down the shore Yeah

I'll be seeing you down at the shore, sir. I'll be seeing you down at the shore, sir. Make sure you're not touching any other walls. Yeah. So Alan and his brother went down there, and Alan said hi, and she said hi, and Alan said, why don't you guys come to lunch with us? And his brother said about Alan, he was a teenager, and he was flattered.

Because when you're 17, you don't know that's dangerous. Yeah. That's the thing. When you're 17, you're like, she was, that's how good my dick is. She loves it. She drove four hours for this dick, man. She got, she probably followed it like Bugs Bunny would follow the scent of a pie on a windowsill, like she just knew where my dick was. That's how good it is.

That's how you don't know as you're a teenager. You don't know. And you don't think of this little girl's dangerous to you. You're like, it's just weird. She stopped at a flying J on the way and was like, you've been here. They gassed up here. I can smell it. I can smell it. This direction. She's like a tracker. Yeah. She's like Siri with like a horny Siri. That's how he looks at it.

So I guess Kevin said they didn't stay with us or anything like that. She just came down for that day. They drove back that night. She spent the day with them and then went, okay, and left. I'm going back home. Just so you know, I'll find you. I will find you, I know where you are.

And he said he was like all like, yeah, that's right, yeah, this shit can't get enough of me. Like he was all like, yeah, you know, that's what happens, man, you know, they dip their waters in Bates Lake and that's what, you're toe in the waters and you gotta come back for more. That's what happens.

You know, ha ha. She thought, yeah, this is good shit. So he thought it was, you know, he thought of it as like it was a special thing, you know what I mean? Yeah. Kevin said it was shocking to him more than anything that she could just, that she had this freedom as a teenager to just do whatever she wanted. That was even more, like her parents just let her take off. That's pretty cool.

Staying at the beach that night, be home tomorrow, like that's crazy. Now, her friends said that a lot of times people saw her intentions and they misunderstood her. They would misunderstand her. And well, they said the reason is, is because she had a habit of putting others before herself. So they said, where friends were concerned, this is a friend of hers, Jessica was very selective and only associated herself

with those who were good role models. I'm saying, which is a very, doesn't sound like her personality, but that's what her friends are saying. So they said that she had a lot of independence with her home life and she was more mature than the average kid. And a lot of that's her home life,

you know what I mean? Sure. So she said that a classmate of hers said that her honesty was sometimes misconstrued as arrogance or rudeness. Okay. Okay, that's, yeah, she's plain spoken basically. She'll tell you what she feels and she doesn't mean it in a rude way, she's being honest. So she came across, they said that's just the way she spoke

and kind of came across as crass and maybe a little snotty even though she wasn't trying to be. Okay. So they said that a lot of times people just said, well, her fam, she's got it tough, you know, and her dad left and they just beat her up. She's been through some shit, yeah. She's been through some shit.

So they said once you got to know her though, there was no mistaking the fact that she was just a different type of person than a lot of the people around there. She's just through some shit. So they said once you got to know her though, there was no mistaking the fact that she was just a different type of person than a lot of the people around there. Sorry. It just sounds cool. It sounds like to me. She's like, fucks and like, you know,

has like cool fucks and has like cool band T-shirts and shit. Like if you're 17, you want to hang out with this chick. You don't want to hang out with, you know, the rest of them. So a former friend said that she, at the time, said that she hadn't talked to her in a while, but called Jessica that summer. And Jessica said, I met a friend, I met a guy, he's really something, I really like

him. And it's just great. She said he's something and she laughed. And then her friend said, what is it? What's so funny about meeting a guy? Like, why are you laughing? And she said, well, quote, we're sneaking around and messing around in my car. And she thought it was kind of like, you know, she was like, he giggling that they were having

sex all the time in her car. Yeah. Yeah. She thought she liked him and she, you know, she was basically saying like, yeah, you know, he keeps coming back, wants to have more sex over and over again. So I think he likes me. In that crazy. Isn't that weird and She had no trouble with this Apparently she when she met him she was seeing somebody else and having sex with another boy and a lot of

The her friends said that yeah, she got around when it came to that She if she met a guy and liked him she had sex with him and that was it So she said that but Alan she met a guy and liked him, she had sex with him. That was it. So she said that, um, but Alan, she seemed to want a relationship. So she made, she dumped the other guy and was focused on Alan. Wow. Um, so when they get back from beach vacation, school starts and, um, you know, they're hanging out together and, um, he wants to get in. This is a senior year so he's got to buckle down for college and all that. So one friend said they were on the verge of breaking up, they weren't really dating at the time. Okay, so, cause he was focused on shit.

Alan didn't run for senior class president. Didn't even run. Didn't run, he might've just said, you know what, three years is a good run, and I'd like to, you know. It's up to you guys now. Yeah, I'm going to magnanimously hand the reins over to someone else and you know, bring some new blood and fresh ideas.

Yeah, people have been running against me for three straight campaigns and I feel like maybe there's ideas out there. So dominating and I feel bad about it. I feel bad. Let's give somebody else a chance. It'll look good on their college transcript. You know what I mean? Yeah.

So he meets Jessica. After this, he's still hanging out with Jessica. About six weeks after they meet though, here, that's when, okay, they met, they have the summer, he goes down to the beach, they fuck around there, they're banging in a car, school starts, he doesn't run for president. This is six weeks after they met, so time has gone by real fast. One day in school, Alan takes Marley aside, his friend Marley, who's not supposed to be talking to him, and says, Jess is pregnant. Oh, yeah, forgot about that part of it. Oh, yes. Dear God, we're not being safe about this.

No, fuck no, no. Oh, boy. Yeah, and Marlee said she wasn't really shocked about it. She said, I was surprised, but not shocked. Well, I'm not surprised by it. That's not that. No, we know how sex works and how babies are made. I know how babies are made.

I got two of those. I had a health class in seventh grade that told us all about this shit. At this age though, this is, you know, I'm, look man, I did it too. It's, it's not, you don't realize how fucking easy it is to make a child when you're 17. It's so easy. No, you figure, well, my, I, I'm a fuck up at everything. My jizz can't be that good. That can't work. How would I, I barely, I barely do my day job well enough to get paid and not get fired. How am I going to make a child? I can't make it. Come on. It's so easy. It happens. And

Alan was good at everything. He should have known that it was. Yeah. Yeah. Even a sperm would be good at things. So he called Marley up and Marley said, Alan was such a good person. He was always going to do what needed to be done. He said Alan had made a decision about the whole thing. Alan told Marley that, look, I know I'm not supposed to talk to you, but this is ridiculous, I'm gonna talk to you. You know, he said, but maybe now we should not talk

for a while, me and you, he said to his friend. For at least 18 years, or nine months. Yeah, somewhere around there. Well, actually seven months. We didn't know she was, she missed her period. She's this far? I think she's like two months pregnant. Yeah, she's gotta be.

Yeah, Marley said, I felt really, really bad. I hadn't sat down with him and truly told him how I felt about Jessica and the whole thing. So I said something about her that got back to him, and it hurt him, and I feel really bad about that. Oh, no. So he was like, look, I heard you were talking shit, and it's made it worse, and she heard you were talking shit.

But she hated me to begin with because she didn't trust the relationship I had with Alan. So she's like, it doesn't matter if I said anything or not. She still hated me. But now this was an excuse that she made. Like, now she's talking shit about me. Yeah, now it's an Alan. And this Marlee said, we were just all young. It's stupid

We were all 17 years old. It's fucking ridiculous. And now there's a baby coming into this and all this shit So the Bates family agrees though that we're gonna have this baby and we're gonna work this out So Jessica said she was gonna do it and she said she didn't care what anybody thought about it She's gonna have her baby, and Alan agreed, and his family agreed, and everybody agreed, so there's that. Oh my. Kevin Bates, the brother, said she set her sights on Alan

the moment after she met him and wanted to have him, and that was it. Also, he could have put a condom on, as you know what I mean, so. Yeah, dude. We can't blame somebody for being a receptacle at this point You know what I'm saying? Like it's there's enough blame There's enough blame and jizz to go around here when it comes to teenage pregnancy. Everybody's horny. It's fine. No one's whatever so

Alan after this becomes more withdrawn from his family and He was always like he'd go to his mother and father with everything any kind of even problems with a girl He'd go to them and you know, that's and he was always like, he'd go to his mother and father with everything, any kind of, even problems with a girl, he'd go to them and that's how he was. And now- He's kind of feel like a failure though to him. Well, yeah, he was on this road and now he's literally making wedding plans at this point.

Jesus. And that kind of thing. So he always felt comfortable going to these people and now he doesn't. So they felt space between them. Alan is distracted at school. You know, the fact that he's how can I have a baby is a lot when you're going to fucking math class. So yeah, the mom tried to get the dad Philip to talk to Alan and

find out what was going on. He said he was fine. I'm you know, I'm fine mom. He pulled the institutionalized I'm fine and I'll work it out on my own. Just get me a Pepsi. He's like, it's all good he went full suicidal tendencies with this shit and But obviously he's feeling pressure from Jessica now when he tells his family about the baby He said he told his friends. He couldn't sit down and tell them about it He thought that would be a little too hard to do. So he wrote a long letter and left it on his dad's desk for him, explaining everything.

Does he think that's better, Al? Hey, there you go. Kevin, his brother, said it was a very apologetic letter. Alan was saying, sorry for bringing this on, sorry for making this mistake, and that he was raised, he knew he was raised better than this, but he was raised better than this, but he was also taking full responsibility,

saying, well, make things work, is one of the quotes he said he remembered from it. Mom wasn't sold on this because she didn't like Jessica, Joan, his mother. Didn't like Jessica, no. She said something about her she didn't like, and she didn't know if she wanted to have a grandchild and have this chicken.

Perhaps it's the part where she's fucking your son. Maybe, that's what it is. It's probably just the dark lipstick she doesn't know if she wanted to have like a grandchild and have this chicken. Perhaps it's the part where she's fucking your son. Maybe that's what it is. It's probably just the dark lipstick she doesn't like. You know what I mean? I don't know. But she said she couldn't help Alan at this point and she didn't know what to do. So she just supported her son. That's all she could do.

He said that Alan's letter said that, you know, I guess Jessica was impregnated some weeks before and didn't know how to he didn't know how to tell the family. He thought a letter was the best way to address it. He said he understood the values his mother and father had always instilled in him, but he was entirely prepared to take full responsibility for the pregnancy and the baby's due in March of 1990, by the way.

Golly. He said, I'm gonna provide for the child and the child's mother. And that's what it's going to, I'm going to be a guy here. So I'm going to be a man. Al, Al knocked her up on the beach at Gulf shores. I guarantee it. Probably are in her car there.

Yeah. Anything they absolutely or one of the other times they were fucking in the car. Who knows? So March, I feel like that's Deep down inside is exactly where that happened. All of this. In July at some point. In July, yeah. It's exactly where the baby was made.

So, March 20th, 1990, they have a baby girl. And it was the first time that, by the way, they get married before that, January 26th, 1990. Jessica and Alan. Seven months prego, yeah. Get married. Oh yeah, she waddles down the aisle. She's born, baby's born two months later, and this was the first time that the families

had got together since the wedding. They don't really like each other very much. And they got along, but they're a little, you know. Your son did this to my daughter, well your daughter did this to my son. It's kinda, yeah, they're both kinda eyeballing each other. Your kids, this to my daughter, well your daughter did this to my son. Yeah, they're both kind of eyeballing each other. Like, our kids have ruined each other's lives, essentially. You've raised a piece of shit.

Me? Yeah. What about you? They're blaming people. Meanwhile, there's a cute baby and shit. And they're like, look at it. Look what happened. So Albert, her stepfather, explained

that he's a handyman and a local contractor. And Jessica said, if it was a deck to be built, he could build it. If it was a water heater needed to be replaced, he could do it. He's a very handy guy. And Albert said, look, if Alan needs work, because I know that it's hard to find a job when you're this age, I could throw him some hours here and there and help him out on the side. Oh, he's got side work with me.

I could always use somebody. So that was nice. Your hand needs operating. Hell always use somebody so that was nice yeah that was nice you know it's okay so he embraced the whole thing Alan he wanted to be a father and wanted to be a husband and all of that they they live with his parents though so that's you know I can't afford to do all that so they decide to move though by April 1990 so the next month of having a baby. A month. The brand new baby.

All right. Yep. And they're moving into, they're moving to Hoover, which is where she's from, because they're moving into Jessica and her step, her stepmother Albert's house. Okay. Jessica's mother and stepfather, stepfather. Yeah. I guess because they're moving and they're leaving

Them the house to like pay for selling them the house or whatever It's convenient though because the mom can help out with the baby and all that kind of shit They live they live with the parents for a month And then there was a big fight between Jessica and her mother and they were back at the Bates' house. Okay. They end up back there. Now we wait till they move out? Yeah, and she said at one point they said Jessica was acting different when they got back. She pulled Joan Bates aside one day after they moved back in and said, listen, you are not to answer the phone if my mother calls.

You cannot invite my mother over to this house. I will say when she can see her granddaughter. So you don't make any plans with my mom. She's out. Yeah, in your own house. Out. So I guess it was a little bit volatile there and that kind of thing. So Alan graduates from high school in June of 1990. Wow!

A married man. A married father. Married father. He enrolls in fall classes at the University of Montevallo, which is 35 miles south of Birmingham, Alabama. And that's good for her too. And they said that Jessica liked this because her friends, or his friends said she didn't like anyone who was close to Alan. She felt threatened by anyone in his family, any of his close friends, and she basically wanted to pull him away from his whole life. Yeah, so they needed a home at this point, so his dad, Alan's dad, Phillips,

bought a fixer-upper house for them, Jessica and Alan. Yeah, good, nice parents. It's a 100-year-old ranch-style house that needed lots of work. He bought it, but Alan makes the payments on it. That's how it works. So he'll kind of get it, and that's how it goes. Alan, though, is determined to get a college degree and get a decent job and be able to

raise his family right. So he's going to class, he's studying, he's doing landscaping, construction, handyman stuff on the side. Yeah, he's just anything he can. He's also still playing in a gospel quartet. How do you have time? I don't know, but they make money. They get paid for gigs. So he does it and he likes it. Jessica did not like this though at all. No. She would yell at him all the time about all the groupies and all the girls that were screaming for his attention.

All the groupies at the gospel quartet. All the groupies and all the girls that were screaming for his attention. All the groupies at the gospel quartet. All the groupies screaming amen and hallelujah. Amen, yeah. That's what they're screaming and she's like, that's probably just for Alan. They mean Alan, not Aiden. I hear them say hallelujah. Hallelujah, I know what they're up to. And I guess that when he's out, he's going to school, he's doing gigs. there's girls in all these places, and she's sitting at home with a newborn baby feeling insecure about herself, which is really understandable. Sure, yeah. It's understandable.

She accused him, anytime he talked to any female of any stripe or sort, she accused him of sleeping with her every time. For God's sake. Yeah, she's very jealous. And like we said, there's also postpartum shit involved in this so a 17 year old girl sitting at home alone with a baby while her husband's out playing gigs and you know it's not I guess she feels very useful. Yeah yes so Joan and Philip, his parents, Alan's parents, they move in 1991. Philip takes a job in Georgia and moves to Atlanta

okay, so he's an engineer and You know, he said that their family mom had worked while he went to school to be an engineer Okay, and then he you know took over and said that you know He likes to he pays all the bills and does everything because his wife took care of him when he was going through school. Beautiful. Yeah. So in 1992, he retires and relocates the family to Marietta, Georgia outside of Atlanta

where he goes to work for an engineering firm. He'd worked for Bell South for 29 years. A telephone company. Yeah, he goes to work for an engineering firm and by 2000, all three of the kids are grown and out of the house and all that. So that's what happens to them over the next few years. Empty nesters.

Later on. So by 1992, Alan's trying to find his way. He's going through college. He's really, really wants to work in the theater. Really? Yes. He's also not happy with Jessica. He is upset that Jessica has, as he put it to somebody,

let herself go. So in the last year and a half, she's basically just sits on the couch, watches soap operas, and gets fatter, is what he said. You know what I mean? Perhaps she's a stay at home mom. There might be a little bit of depression in there as she stays home alone and all that.

You certainly contribute to this, Alan. Yeah, you gotta understand that. So November, also weight gain comes from this. November 16th, 1992, they have another baby. Yeah, dude, she's not fat, she's pregnant again. She's fucking pregnant. Stop having sex with her for five minutes and maybe. Or at least bag it up or take it out.

Yeah. Come on, man. Jesus Christ, get a pill, something, do something. So after all of this here, now she's even more, has more anxiety after this baby as well and all of that. So for the next two years, basically Alan is miserable and he wants to get away from Jessica but he has two daughters and he wants to try to make it work. So his one friend said he loved his girls more than he hated his marriage, so he wanted to stay.

Okay. But he was never, never happy with Jessica at all. Then by 1994, Alan finds out Jessica was having an affair. Oh, Jessica! So now he's like, okay, now I'm out. Now I got an excuse that no one can look at me and say I'm a bad guy. You know, I'm done with this shit.

And that's it. That lends to the old thou doth protest. You know what I mean? She's screaming about you're untrustworthy. No, bitch. It's you. She's the one. And maybe she's doing that, trying to gain some, I don't know, I'm sure there's a psychological thing, but you can't be doing that and expect the result to be good

So a lot of times when there are people are accusing it's because they it's a lot. Yeah, it happens often. Yeah, so Jessica here would alienate Apparently he left and now she would alienate him from the kids. That's her goal as well So yeah, she's mad. She said that he deserted her and deserted the kids and he was the one who left and all that kind of thing. She doesn't say because I cheated on him, which is very upset. She's also says that he's a bad father and her goal is to make him look like a bad father in the eyes of the kids here. Their divorce is finalized January of 1995 and he said you can take the house we live in, the Montevallo house, until

the kids are adults and I'll pay for it. I'll pay the fucking mortgage basically. So not bad. So they give and she can have the kids. Alan gave the complete blessing for her to be the main caregiver of the kids and all that kind of thing. Alan had no trouble relinquishing that. He thought in his mind kids belong with their mother, especially if the mother wants to have them, and that he's also got a lot of shit going on. So and he thought that she was at least a good mother. Maybe she might be a pain in the ass as a wife, but she's a good mother, you know. So she she was a little bit different though here.

Some things started to happen. At one point, after they're broken up, she would get very upset with him and try to keep the kids from him. Routinely this was, allowing him visitation when she said so, even if they had plans. She'd go, well now I changed my mind. After a month of being divorced,

he was already going crazy, because he would call, she wouldn't answer, he'd leave a message, no one would call back. When he finally got to see or talk to the kids, he'd ask the kids if their mother or grandmother had given them his messages. I'd called 100 times and they'd say, no, we didn't know you called at all.

Oh, God. Jessica would take things as far as sending the kids to sit on the front porch with their bags. Yeah? Telling them that dad's on his way, knowing that they had no plans for him to pick them up that day. And then she would- That is fucked up.

She would have them sit out there for hours and wait. Oh my God. And then she would go, well, I guess he doesn't care. See, he's not coming. He doesn't care about you. That's why he's not coming. He's supposed to show up. And that's what happens.

That's sick, dude. That's some sick shit, yeah. And that's her friend said that she did that. Like, that's, that was like her, haha, that'll show him type of deal. Somewhere in here in the next couple years, she has another baby from an unknown man. Okay. We don't know who the fuck impregnated her, but somebody knocked her years, she has another baby from an unknown man.

We don't know who the fuck impregnated her, but somebody knocked her up and she has a baby. So now she's got three kids. Now the house, she left the house and moved into a new house without notifying Allen at all, that she moved where the kids were moved. You can't do that. And he had to pay the mortgage then.

He didn't even know she was gone, but he still had to pay the mortgage until the house was sold. even know she was gone, but he still had to pay the mortgage until the house was sold. And so he was like, what the fuck, you gotta tell me that. Finally, he meets a new woman here in the mid-90s, okay? In 1995, he meets Tara T-E-R-R-A Klug, K-L-U-G-H. Could be Clough, but I'm going with Klug, I think. She's born in 1971, Tara, so they're a similar age.

She's a nice, pretty, smart girl, very mature, very calm, very the opposite of Jessica. Yeah. Yeah. Sure thing is what she is. That's exactly right. So she, you know, they worked, I guess she was working, he was working at the Alabama Theater and she started working there as well and that's how they met in something he's interested in.

Couple of theater nerds. Yeah. Yeah, little kiss under the stage. Under the bleachers there. She's the granddaughter of a former Alabama State Representative Ed Simpson of Clemson, I guess. Big fan.

Oh no, that's South Carolina, that was there. Okay, so huge fan, huge fan. She's very career minded, just like him, and Alan was in charge of everything technical that happened on the stage at Alabama Theater. That's what the technical director said. He was responsible for all that kind of shit. And this guy who ran the place said that you know, he was responsible for all that kind of shit. And this guy who ran the

place said that Alan was, he thought the world of Alan, thought he was a great guy. Terra goes to the Alabama theater as part of a restoration team to put together, put together by the Department of the Interior, because for old theaters to fix them up. So the team traveled from DC to Birmingham to document the theater for the Library of Congress, the before and after. It's a pretty cool job. She was living near Washington DC working for the government and you know in one of its historic American buildings and structures programs. Awesome. Tara had grown up in Clemson, South Carolina. She went to, she studied to pursue her art degree. She even went to London to study art for a while.

So. Studying abroad. Completely different than, you know, Jessica's kind of a smaller town girl who never left, got pregnant at senior year of high school and stayed. And this girl's like worldly, into art, knows theater. Fuck small town, world. Worldly, yeah, she's been to fucking England.

Her minor was in mathematics, so theater and math. And she's smart. yeah, she's been to fucking England. Her minor was in mathematics, so theater and math. And she's smart. Yeah, she's very smart. She went to Hollis University in Roanoke, Virginia. She spent four years as an architectural historian for the Historic American Building Survey and then became a project historian for the Alabama Theater. Very cool. One of her goals was to begin work on her master's degree in arts in historic preservation, which she was into. That was her main passion, was historic preservation. So she wasn't really interested in a relationship.

She was interested in her career. And she is very private and that kind of thing. And she doesn't really go out with a lot of guys But as soon as she met Alan her friend said that she just fell in love with him immediately What does Alan do? I'm telling you Alan is a swinging dick man. He's doing real well here Her father said about Tara I had never really gotten the impression from her that she was serious about anybody that is until she met Alan Of course, there were others along the way, sure,

but they usually tripped over their bootlaces if given enough time, and so that was it for them. But Alan, he was different. Sounds like a wedding toast. It really does, that fucking absolutely does. So they were friends at first, and then they became, gotten a romantic relationship here, and they started talking to each other,

and he would listen to her, and she would share things that she didn't share with other people. Uh-oh. And then, at one point, when she was supposed to be leaving, because the project was over, she said, you know, I really see potential here with you.

I'm quitting my job. She quit? She's quitting her job and her career in Washington, D.C., and all this shit to be with him here in Alabama. Wow. quitting my job. She quit. She's quitting her job and her career in Washington, D.C. and all this shit to be with him here in Alabama. Wow. That's how much she likes him. That's like that's a lot of like boy. That's something. So she didn't want to do that. So she as they moved on to other parts of the South, Tara would

would have was gonna have to leave and she didn't wanna do it. So this is his brother, Alan's brother Kevin said, she's a beautiful, strong spirit who just made my brother shine. She's the perfect combination or companion for him, sorry. It made us realize we were looking at an adult relationship for Alan and there couldn't be a better situation for him. Yeah.

So one night, he's still got Jessica and the kids that he's battling with here. So it's not like all is peachy. One night in 1998, Jessica's supposed to drop the kids off at Alan's apartment. So she does. She shows up with the kids there, instigates an argument with him. Before she left, she hit him, scratched him and shoved him down the stairs. He him down the stairs. He fell down the stairs of his apartment. So she went to jail. Well no.

God Jesus. A friend of Alan's said his face was bloodied. She messed him up good. One of Alan's friends happened to be there here, and so was Alan's mother. Joan was there as well. so there was witnesses here, and they were like, they both said she was crazy. They said she had this crazy look in her eyes, and she just looked so fucking enraged and hateful.

After the attack, she didn't leave, she just stood there. By the time the cops got there, she had scratched herself all up in the face, they said, because she had no marks on her before, and then they all went inside, and then the cops came, she had scratched herself all up in the face they said because she had no marks on her before and then they all went inside and then the cops came and she scratched her she must have done it to herself they said and she said the second as soon as the cop got out of the car she goes she started saying look what he did to me look what he did to me oh my god yeah so and this is there's two witnesses we don't we're not going on, you know, he said she said there's witnesses that saw this So the police figured out they ended up finding blood against a brick wall

They found out that she had scrubbed her body up against a brick wall to create the appearance of cuts Wow They found cat like skin and fucking like fresh skin and blood on a wall that she like scraped herself up on They're like, there's a piece of her tattoo Wow skin and blood on a wall that she like scraped herself up on. So they're like, there's a piece of her tattoo. Wow. Um, Alan, by the way, in addition to being scratched up and battered, he broke his arm in the fall as well. Good Christ. So this is pretty fucked up. He files charges. Good at this point. Now, by the way, she's working as a dispatcher for the Birmingham police department at this time

period. Oh yeah. where she meets a guy. She meets a guy named Jeff Kelly McCord. Jeff McCord. What's his name? That's what I'll do. He is a cop with the police department. Of course he is. Yep. Why, stop you derp bag,

stop trying to fuck the dispatch girl. I'm always trying to fuck the dispatcher. She called him Kelly after his middle name for some reason, but Jeff is what everybody else calls him. He's a a quiet guy kind of oafish people say a bit of a bit of a kind of a big dummy but she liked him because he was easily manageable because he's dumb she can kind of guard a guide him around so yeah she liked him she liked that he was a cop that gave her a sense of protection and also that she found out that Jeff was pretty naive and she could talk her talk him into some shit here

So his friend said basically she fucked his brains out and he was putty in her hands That was that yeah, Jessica can throw a good one at him and he's like I like her doesn't care That's OK. So Alan, and also Alan is getting serious with Tara at this point. Everybody's getting serious. And Jessica said that she thought she needed to settle down so in the eyes of the court, if he's taken her to court for custody of the kids,

she could appear to have a stable environment. So if she gets married, that'll help, is what she looks at it. And 96, 98, like there's nothing more in the court's eyes. Somebody that's married to law enforcement, you look like an angel. Oh, look, it's a police officer. Yeah, nuclear family like a motherfucker. So, and she knew at this point social workers would probably be poking around and seeing what she had going on.

Yeah, toss your ex down the stairs, they got questions. They got a couple of questions they want to know about. So June 2000, Alan and Tara get married. Great. That's nice, right? That's pretty June. They have a June wedding and everything. What a beautiful.

That's beautiful. Later that same month, another June wedding takes place. Jessica marries Jeff. Not to be outshined. This is the outside. Nope. I will steal your thunder like a motherfucker You're cohabitating and married guess who else is they also just had a kid together Jeff and Jessica So that's right. That's another reason. Oh, yeah, she has four now

Four kids four two with Al and one with unsub as we'll call him unknown subjects and then One with Jeff so far. And then Detective Dum Dum. Detective fucking dipshit over here, yeah. So, Deluxe Dave and his Detective dipshits. Unsub and Detective Dum Dum. Detective Dum, Deluxe Dave and Detective Dum Dum

is a band I wanna watch. Oh man. So yeah, the weird thing is the McCords now, Jessica and Jeff, pull their mailbox out of the ground of their new home and their mail is not delivered there. So it's weird. So they have no, their mailing address is a PO box and nothing can come to their house. It's very strange.

So Jessica now and Alan, their battle for the kids is growing and getting more heated here. Jessica makes excuses to shorten Alan's visitation time and places, you know, says you can't do this, you can't do that while you're with the girls and all that kind of shit. Limitations. And Alan at first tried to go with it.

Go along to get along, yeah. Maybe if I just go along for a while, she'll loosen up and she'll punch herself out basically No, she won't exactly and also for the sake of the family court then he could finally and he could say look She said this I tried to go along with it. I tried to go along with shit She doesn't want to get along with me. So Jessica then get, she gets a lesson in court orders here. Oh yeah? Yeah apparently she didn't think court orders were a big deal. Oh is that right? Yeah because she's refusing Alan parenting time which he has court orders allowed to have. So she would basically, the way she would do it is he would come to pick them up and no

one would be at the house. She just wouldn't be home. So he'd sit in the driveway for an hour, no one would come and then he'd leave because what are you going to do? Then other times he would come to pick them up and find other people living in the house saying those people move, they don't live here anymore. And he doesn't have the fucking address of where they're supposed to be. So then he can't get to see them that day. Imagine that.

Oh, let's imagine that. Yeah. Who the fuck? Hey, who are these kids? Those aren't my kids, what's going on? John Candy and Summer Rental. Popping into the wrong house. Hey. So then Alan again takes it before a judge and says,

hey, I got a court order. The judge lectures Jessica and says, do not interfere with his custody time or you're gonna be held in contempt. That's the way it works. So this happened repeatedly. He goes to the judge, the judge says, do not interfere with his custody time or you're going to be held in contempt. That's the way it works. So this happened repeatedly. He goes to the judge. The judge says, I've told you five times. Why do you keep doing this again and again? Finally, he's shelled out all this money for lawyers and all this type of shit. He's sick of the whole thing. Jeff and Tara moved to Maryland now. Really? Yes, they moved to Maryland and he'll

come back. She'll go work in DC. Yeah, and he'll come get the kids and pick them up with a plane and do all that kind of shit. So they end up moving and Jessica, he keeps coming back for hearings though, for custody stuff. Really? He wants his kids. He wants to take the kids to Maryland if at all possible. Jessica just stops going to the hearings. She just stops showing up for them. He's told her ten times, she didn't listen, no consequences, so she just says, fuck it, I'll just not show up. What are they going to do? Jessica at this point gets fired from the Birmingham Police Department in 2000, by the way. Following a physical attack on Jeff. What? At work?

At work. Oh man. Not good. Fired by police chief Mike Coppage for being absent without leave and a physical attack on Alan Bates. That was for the, not even on her, I thought it was on Jeff, it's on Alan. Okay, it's on Alan, that thing down the stairs. And in the termination letter, it said, you went to the home of your ex-husband and you admitted you hurt him to keep him

from hurting you. So they said, you can't do that. So November 2000, Alan's going to court asking that his wife be held in contempt for denying him visits with his children. Right. So less than a week later though, the summons for Jessica was returned to the court as undeliverable because she had moved and no one knew where she was. Oh my god. So the judge then reschedules hearings several times in the next year as they try to find out where she is and serve her with the papers. He's not seeing his kids this whole time.

Oh my god. As a father, I am panicked. It's horrified. Yeah he's horrified and he keeps going back there and he's spending all this money on lawyers and all this shit and nothing's helping. So October 2000 the judge found her, found Jessica in contempt of court and ordered that she be jailed for ten days for not showing up for hearings even though she had received a summons for this last one. Then they can't find her again to make her actually do it. Yeah, so now she's got a warrant, yeah?

Well finally, yeah, in December of, this is October 2000, finally in December of 2001 she's arrested. So over a year later, she's arrested on a contempt of court charge in order to serve, you ma'am may fuck off ten days in jail. Yeah. So he was like, Jesus Christ, this is fucking crazy just to see my kids, you know what I mean? Repeated orders from a judge. I thought that's also, she even refused that mandated weekly telephone calls with him. Nothing. What is happening?

So he decided he's filing for full custody at this point. Now she serves her sentence around Christmas. She's let out on the 24th to do Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with her family and then taken back into jail on the 26th. That's fun. Now she, by the way, she knows the court's not going to do shit. She can't allow him to take the girls because she needs the child support, by the way. So she needs to have custody of the kids. Yeah. They have a bunch of debt and she's unemployed now and

it's not working out. Now, while she's in jail serving her 10 days, she spent that 10 days productively. She spent it reading, which is productive. That's good. She read a murder mystery. Oh, and soldier of fortune. And began forming a plan in her mind after reading a murder mystery. And this would be a plan where she would never lose custody of her kids. So Bates, Alan's asking the court to give temporary custody of his daughters. So Bates, Alan's asking the court to give temporary custody of his daughters. The custody fight comes back in January in

court again and the judge ordered that the two girls could not be home-schooled while the case was pending. That was a part of it, was they had to stay in the school, whatever. So he ordered both parents to provide their phone, their phone, phone, home phones and cell phones and addresses to each other at all times, court order. You each have to know where each other is because you have to be able to get a hold of the kids. So the order stemmed from the girls being transferred

to different schools to keep their father from finding them. She would pull them out of school and put them in a different school if he knew where the school they were going to. It's fucking ridiculous. So February 15th, 2002, sounds familiar, that date? That was a date where they were going in to do depositions for a trial that was to take place on March 5th to figure out custody of these kids.

Day after Valentine's Day, no love lost. No love lost no love loss here So Alan and Tara flew into Birmingham International Airport They rented a car the couple was you know They wanted to get there because they were gonna get there and pick up the kids their whole thing was they were going to Hoover pick up the kids from Alan and our Alan and and I'm sorry from Jessica and her husband here and Jeff and then they were going to sorry, from Jessica and her husband here and Jeff. And then they were going to meet Alan's parents in Atlanta

and hang out with them. So that's what that was. So Alan was in Birmingham that Friday. He gave his versions of the events at the deposition. Jessica did the same thing. And the plan was to pick the kids up at 6 p.m. at their home, at the McCord house here. So that's what they're gonna do.

And they were shocked that Jessica said this was okay. Like they were blown away that this was approved by. Finally she's just, yeah. She's letting me take the kids for a whole weekend to my parents' house, like in another state away from her. It just, it was crazy. So. So it's so far-fetched to be a normal person at this point.

Yeah, it's so, just strange. They're shocked. So the deposition ends about 3.3030 and Alan and Tara go to a restaurant in downtown Birmingham and eat some food and they're just trying to kill time till 6 o'clock basically till that happens. Now 10 p.m. comes around and at 10 p.m. Joan Bates, Alan's mother, starts worrying that she hasn't heard from Alan yet. He was supposed to pick the kids up at 6pm. He always calls when he's on the way from a long trip like this, and I never got a call

from him, and if he picked the kids up at 6pm, it's now 10pm, he should be here by now. So they're starting to get a little bit worried about this. Here they're looking out the window, looking for headlights, doing all that kind of shit. They thought maybe Jessica changed her mind and he's staying over there trying to fight with Jessica and get the kids, or maybe Alan could have had the kids and then took off to get away from Jessica or something. We don't know.

They said Marietta, where he was, was about a two and a half hour drive from Birmingham. So they're like, he definitely should have been here now. They said even if the deposition ended super late at five, which it ended at 3 30 we know, pick the kids up by six, get on the road and into Marietta by at the latest 9 30 if you stop. They said sometimes they stop for fast food maybe or something. Kids have to piss every five minutes who knows. Yeah, you get on the road at 6 p.m. somebody's got to eat dinner. Yeah, well Philip and Joan, the parents had, they were expecting them around nine and Joan had dinner waiting on the table and everything

and they didn't show up. Alan was never late. He never forgot to call. He's Mr. Studious. You know what I mean? So they're alarmed here by now. They get no phone call and they're like, okay, this is getting ridiculous. So Philip calls Alan, no response. He tries calling Tara, no response. He's like, what the fuck? So it just, and it wasn't even that it rang and rang like earlier in the night. Now it just, it says this phone is not in use at this time. Remember that old message that someone had their phone off that would say this phone is not in use or the user is out of our service area or whatever the fuck it would say. So Phillips said, I'll call Jessica. Okay. Yeah, he didn't like calling her, but you know, he said, you gotta do it.

He said that he didn't like the husband either. He didn't like Jeff. He said they were crass people. They were shitty people. But crass, crass people. So 1045, or they call them and she says, no, he don't know anything about it. He never showed up. She answers though. They end up, no, he's don't know anything about it. He never showed up. She answers though.

They end up, no, she doesn't answer the first time. Sorry. So 1045, they decided it's time to call law enforcement. So he said he didn't know if the cops would be any help, but he couldn't stand to just stand there and do nothing, the dad said. So he called the Pelham Police Department to see if Jeff McCord had clocked in because that's her husband. That's where he works.

Detective Dum Dum in? Detective Dum Dum? No. They said he works second shift so he should be there and Friday nights he's working. So he should be reachable by phone or radio and maybe he knew something. They said no he's not here. He took the night off. So like let's know help.

So he called the Hoover police department and wanted to know if there had been any reported trouble over at Jeff and Jessica McCord's house. Gave him the address, did you get any calls to this house? They said maybe it was a family squabble. No calls, no nothing. So he said fuck. So the Hoover PD told him that they didn't have any report. They said we'd send an officer over there to check things out if you want. And he said, please do. That's how excited they have, yeah. Yeah, and they said this was, they called it an overdue motorist call.

And it happened, they said, it happens all the time. We'll go check on them. Overdue motorists, okay. Like yeah, they never showed up. Oh, it's a welfare check. Welfare check. So they show up, Scott McDonald, this officer is dispatched to the house

here on Myrtlewood Drive. And he's been told to check things out. They said that maybe Alan and Tara had broken down or maybe they were staying at the McCords for the night while the car was being repaired, which would be very weird. They pull up in front of the house, guy grabs a flashlight, he said the house looked deserted. Walks up to the front porch and there was the windows,

they had the panels, you know, little squares, windows on your front door were covered up. It looked like with towels or sheets from the inside. So he said, that's weird. I said, it gave the windows a real weird look like someone was trying to block the view of the inside of the house from anyone looking in, or maybe there was work going on, paint or something, whatever. It didn't look like they live like this. This looked like a temporary thing. It's set up. Yeah. So he shined the light back and forth to the windows on the side.

Same things. Everything's covered. So it might Set up, yeah. So he shined the light back and forth to the windows on the side, same things, everything's covered so it might be painting or something. So back on the porch he sees a handmade sign written in magic marker that says, we're having some problems with our front door, please come around to the back door. So he rang the doorbell a little bit more in the front and then goes around the back door and he said, fuck it. So he knocks hard on the door, no answer, nothing, stares into the house, doesn't see anything. Yeah. Doesn't see, hears nothing. So he goes into the driveway,

notices there's no vehicles in the yard or anything like that. Walks towards the garage to see, you know, maybe there's a car in there. He looks in and those are covered up by towels too. Oh, all the glass in the garage is covered up? Yeah, it's all covered up too. So then, 3.30 a.m., a red Grand Am is found in Rutledge, Georgia by the four friends going to the chicken show, which we know all about here. February 16th, so that two and a half hours after that car is found, Philip Bates, Alan's dad,

said I had done all I knew how to do and I went to bed for a few hours in the night, like at two o'clock in the morning. He said in the morning he made coffee and he said he saw the clock, said six o'clock in the morning, he still hadn't heard from Alan. Not a word from anyone. So he called his son's and Tara's phones again and got no nothing. You know, went and said they're not available. So he said, shit, something's going on here. So he said he had to file a missing persons report. So he does.

He calls the cops and he thinks about calling the cops and he said he knew the first answer they would have was, you know, what were they driving, what were they doing? He said he had no idea. He just said he knew they were going toward over here because they rented a car. So he said he called around, he starts looking around, he starts calling every rental place at the Birmingham airport to see if they would tell him if he rented a car. He started with Avis because it's A. It's the top of the phone book. He said, I told them who I was and what I was trying to do and my concern. The agent was helpful and wanted to help. Philip asked have you rented a car to my

son Alan Bates and if so could you give me the color, make and model, maybe a description of it so I could file a missing persons report. And he said that he was getting his shtick down because he knew he was going to have to say this to five different rental car companies. The guy said, hold on a minute, and then said, I need to get my supervisor. I guess we can release that info. I don't know if we can. Yes. He was like, what the fuck?

So the manager came on the line. Philip told him everything, and the manager made a suggestion and said, sir, I was told to give this number out to anyone calling here regarding that rental What and so he said okay? He took the number down and he called it and it was the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Oh my god. What the fuck is going on here, and he said that's when I knew that was it He said that's when he fucking knew it so the police here. They're doing the same thing. He's doing basically true They just did it faster. They tracked down.

How about that? They had the VIN, so they called it in and it was registered or it was to Avis, so they called Avis and they knew that way. And GBI's like, if anybody calls about this car, let us know, we're gonna try and track down kin of these two people. It's exactly what it is.

Or they don't even have IDs on these people. They don't even have IDs, that's why they're wondering. Maybe they can put it together with somebody looking for it, maybe they can do that. So that's what they're wondering. Now when they got ahold of the rental car company, that's when they found out that that car was rented to Alan. So now they're worried that it's Alan in the back there,

but they also haven't talked to Jeff or Jessica, so maybe it's them, they have no fucking idea. So anyway, they said once we identified the car, this is the cop talking, Williams, who got there first, once we identified who the car was most likely contained, obviously the victims could not be identified formally, and once we talked to the Bates family and found out that Tara and Alan Bates were overdue,

we focused on where they were last seen. And everything goes to Birmingham. Yep. Now they're gonna go there. Autopsies, okay. Outside of the bodies here, he conducted an external examination, took photographs, X-rays,

where they'd been shot and all that kind of thing. They wrote in the report that Alan's body exhibited extensive charring from head to toe and has a pugilistic attitude with the right arm flexed at the elbow, he's gonna throw a punch, I guess that would be, and left hand at the wrist. They say pugilistic attitude, or as it's more frequently called, pugilistic posture, is a common occurrence

found in victims of fatal fire. The body, as it heats up, is exhausted of most of its fluids, it loses fluids, mainly water, causing a restriction in the muscle tissue causing your hands go off. Yeah, to tighten up, which curls the tips of the fingers, the tips of the toes, ankles, elbows, and any other place in the body where there's a movable joint. Some say the body, when it's presented this way, takes on a boxer's position, reasoning being behind that, you know, the hands and wrists and elbows are flexed and curled like they're crazy. Yeah. They said also it's mistaken sometimes as a pre-death attempt to shield oneself from

an attacker. They'll see that and think that they're covering up when they're not. It's just how their hands went. So they noticed that Alan's right forearm was burned away approximately five inches distal to the elbow. Burned away. The lower extremities contracted are contracted at the knees and ankles with almost complete disarticulation at the knee and ankle joints. So completely gone. To look at a body that's been burned like this, they said, you know, is not easy. They said there's the charring of soft tissue, the doctor said, about Alan's body. Also, it's most severe on the anterior portion of the face and right side of the head. Any exposed section of his face that wasn't on the laying down.

So, Terra's extremities, her arm was partially partially burned the other was totally completely burned away Her arm burned off Her skin is completely burned away with some charred muscles and soft tissues The doctor opened both bodies and removed the organs And he would find wounds and use probes to figure out the trajectory of possible Projectiles and they said that there's wounds in her back, bullet wounds here. They said were in Tara's back that were consistent with an exit as opposed to entrance wounds. So came from the front, out the back.

They said there's a second bullet wound a little bit closer to the armpit area, directly underneath the position in the body where the arm connects to the shoulder socket. They said Tara was shot, it looked like, as she lifted up her arm, probably as she tried to defend herself. Shield it, yep. Shield. There. They said a third wound the doctor found was located in Tara's chest and a fourth in the flank or near the belly area of the side of the hip. Four bullet holes they find in her. Oh, boy. From the evidence available and all of this type of thing, trajectory Four bullet holes they find in her. From the evidence available and all of this type of thing, trajectory patterns and everything, they said it appeared to the doctor that Tara was shot four times, each hitting a different area of her body

as she tried to protect herself and fell to the ground. They said her killer approached with a weapon, began firing, and didn't stop until she was dead. That's what it looked like here. In the end, they said obviously both are a homicide. Both of them have multiple gunshot wounds of the torso and upper extremity, and that's that. They said it was close range, more than likely, and they obviously put their arms up to defend themselves. And they said that one or two of the bullets

would have been fatal in and of themselves without immediate medical attention, and they each had four wounds in them. So seems like a lot. So they head to Birmingham. They go to Pelham, Alabama here, obviously, and they're looking for, well, a second agent goes off to Marietta to interview the Bateses. So they're trying to find them here. They want to talk to Jeff.

That way they can track down Jessica and find out if and when she saw or heard from Alan the night before. So they said the one police officer said, primarily, we selected an interview with Jeff McCord first because we knew where he was supposed to be, which was at work. He had swapped shifts with another officer early in the week and was scheduled to be working that Saturday covering for another cop. After speaking with the chief of the Pelham Police Department, they understood that the best way to approach Jeff was to arrive at Pelham, at the department, before his 3 p.m. shift started and the chief said that no one would tell him that anyone was there to interview

him and you know, you can ambush him. So yeah, they said they wanted to figure this out. They get this. They also want to talk to, they also talked to a friend who the Bates has visited that day after the deposition. They had time to kill. So they questioned, a friend of theirs said,

we were just sitting and chewing the fat. And he was saying that they were talking about the court hearing regarding the custody of his children and Tara complained about the car they had. She said they weren't happy with the size of the car. They hated it. It was a small car. The Grand Ams are small. Yeah. Yeah. So they can't find Jeff and Jessica. They finally find them apparently at home and they say, oh yeah, we've been out all night. That's why, and we'll have an exact description of where they went, where they said they were.

But they said we went to the movies, we went out to dinner, we had a romantic night. It was after Valentine's Day. Went to the movies, went to dinner, went to a strip club. Oh. Oh yeah, then went on a long drive, and then spent the wee hours of the morning up until sunrise

At like a makeout point waiting for the Sun to come up very romantic Wow She's 19 again. Just fucking crazy. She said it was one of her old hangout spots from her teen years Yeah, yeah sucked a lot of dicks up there. They had to push aside sophomores and get fingers out of them the fucking Got there then they said they stopped at Home Depot there. They were first in line at the door when they were open. They were just waiting at the door to pick up some supplies so Jessica's stepfather could work on their house that day. They said both of them were tired.

They said they put their keys down on the kitchen table, scrolled through the caller ID, and said, oh man, Philip and Joan keep calling. What the fuck's going on? So and she said that it must be Alan, she thought, because Alan, she said, hadn't shown up at the house to pick up the kids. So maybe that was him calling to give his excuse of why he wasn't coming. So she called up the household. So she called up Philip and Joan here, the parents of Alan, and said hello. And she could hear voices in the background. She didn't know it was the Georgia Bureau of Investigation talking to them, but so they're

talking and they began, they were there to get all the information down. She said, is Alan there? Can I speak to him? And Philip said, I wish I could let you, but I don't know where he is. And she said, what do you mean? And he said, I can't find him. And Jessica said, oh, oh my gosh. She said, oh, that's startling. She thought it was so Alan was super responsible. He's the do-gooder. He never let it what the hell's going on here. Philip said, I'm on the other end with someone important, Jessica. I'll have Joan call you back. You're not important, by the way, is what that says.

Yeah. I got the important people on the phone. Yeah, not here. Joan calls back and says, Allen and Tara are both missing. They haven't come to George as planned. Where are the children? I hope they didn't disappear with the children. And Jessica says, they're at my mom's house. And so Joan says, well, they haven't shown up and they're not here. And Jessica says, well, they're not here either. And so Jessica thought that Joan had a bit of an accusatory tone and felt like Joan

was kind of condemning her a little bit, coming down on her. Yeah, well, I'm out of here right now, Joan. Yeah, like, why'd you even call me if you're just gonna fucking yell at me here? So yeah, she said then Jessica said that Joan said, you've harmed them. They're missing. Where are they? She was crying. So Jessica said, no, I don't know what you're talking about. She said, please let me know, Joan, what's going on when you find out. I would need to tell the kids something. Because

they're expecting to you mean picked up? Yeah, she's expecting them never to be found or at least. Yeah, so as she spoke, she could hear Philip in the background giving. Jessica's address to somebody. Oh, so she stops what she's saying and asked Joan, why is he

giving out my address? What's going on? Why is he giving out my mom's address? Tell me Joan and Joan wouldn't answer. She said, please, Joan, why is he giving out my address? What's going on? Why is he giving out my mom's address? Tell me, Joan, and Joan wouldn't answer. She said, please, Joan, let me know when you do what's going on. So the police talked to Jeff at work, and he didn't seem too concerned about it.

He told the officers that Alan and his wife never showed up to pick the girls. He said that they just continued, him and his wife continued with their belated Valentine's Day plans after dropping the kids off with With the mom he even produced two ticket stubs to a showing of Lord of the Rings They went and saw a movie for sure. He's got stubs And that's that movies like what 16 17 hours long so that covered the whole cover the whole night

I think it's real long. We just left we just yeah, they just He just left so when police spoke with Jessica at her mother's house she gave the same story saying that she had called Alan's cell phone once left a message saying where the fuck are you you never returned the call so we went on I went on with my night tired of his his shit. Jeff, by the way, is called in by the chief of police to have like a disciplinary chat about what's going on here and he refuses to answer any questions, so they fire him. Done, that day, fucking out. You can't plead the fifth to your boss, pal.

No, yeah, no, not at all, because they have a thing, I don't know if it's in every state, but I know like in Maryland they have a thing, I don't know if it's in every state, but I know like in Maryland they have a thing where the cops administratively have to tell, have to answer, but none of that is allowed to be used in court against them. That's administratively. It puts our department under a microscope, makes us lose our credibility. And unfortunately, that's the only thing we've got.

That's it. So he is shit-canned from the department. So they have two unemployed people. Next day, February 17th, the cops get a search warrant to search the McCord home. And no one was home so they forced their way in. And they said that it seemed as if someone had attempted to quickly remodel the family room. Really? Very quickly. They observed new floor tiles, new wallpaper covering the walls, but they said it was clearly had been done in a rush. It was not aligned at all.

Somebody just slapped it up as quick as possible. And they said when they removed the wallpaper, it was an obvious bullet hole in the drywall underneath it. So like, well, that'll do it. Yeah. Then they discovered a small amount of blood on the coffee table. It's a glass coffee table, which glass will hold blood real well. It's not like Woodward will soak into it, you know?

So they said that, okay, they got a bullet and blood found in the home. That'll link them to something. The same gun they said that shot Bates also fired a bullet that was found in the cord McCord's garage Oh bullets Apparently house apparently fired from the den area through the sheetrock and went to the garage Also a new piece of new piece of contact paper had been placed over another bullet hole a piece of paper of the same print Was found crumpled in a paper bag somewhere else in the house.

That paper had a bullet hole that matched the hole in the wall. So they took one down, put another one up. They also discovered here they get, so with this information, they get search warrants and warrants for arrest for Jeff and Jessica. So they said they tracked them down to a friend's home and it was later learned that they couldn't find them for a couple days because they went out of state. They went to Florida for a while and then came back. Wow.

Yeah, so they said they went quietly when the police arrested them. They arrest them on two counts of first-degree murder. When they arrest them, they find out something too when they process them and everything. Jessica's pregnant again. Oh my God, this woman. Number five. Jesus Christ.

If anyone doesn't need five kids, it's her. That's her, yeah. So the Bateses here, Alan and Tara, their memorial for them is in Maryland where they had been living and they worked for a theater production company together. They had a joint memorial service, which is sad as fuck.

They had the memorial service in, which is sad as fuck. They had the memorial service in Georgia. The father said they did everything together, so it's appropriate we do this together. That's so sad. I mean, we probably shouldn't have to, but. No. Now, they said they're unwilling to talk about

any plea deals with Jessica at all. They said they're not interested in that at all. But Jeff, if he's willing to fucking spill the beans, maybe. Jeff though said that he knew he was going to prison and didn't want to be labeled as a snitch in prison. You're already a cop. What's the difference? Yeah, they hate you anyway, bud. Well, you're in PC either way. Yeah, you're in a lot of trouble with that. They put the cops and the snitches in the same wing. So what's the fucking difference? Who cares? People want to stab you more in jail? Who gives a shit? And if you are convicted of what this is, a cop that did that shit, you're going to

be in a lot of trouble in there, bud. You're fucked. Just snitch. So Jessica has her baby in jail. Yeah. Nice. So that was a nice shower. Oh, yeah.

Her attorney argued that she should be released from jail to await trial with her newborn baby. Two counts of second degree murder. Four gunshots each and set the car on fire. She's got more kids than murder charges, so let her out. That's fine. So she says, come on. Let her out.

Why not here? So he assured the judge that she would show up for trial. She'll be here, you can trust her. She's not going anywhere. The judge said the children are an anchor for her to stay. What greater incentive to keep a woman close by than to put her brand new baby near her? Oh my god.

She's got a baby there, yeah, it's perfect. So that's, by the way, insane. Alan and Jessica's kids are in the custody of Bates his parents now during the trial Thank fuck So they've heard her lawyer also pointed out that the McCords returned to Birmingham from Florida days after the murder Knewing they were gonna be arrested and he said they didn't go to Argentina This went to Florida and he said also that Jessica Poses no danger. This is fucking amazing. Quote, she has no criminal record. He said she's innocent of the murder

against her husband, but even if she weren't, there's no indication that she's a threat to the general public. He actually said, quote, that person that she's mad at is dead now. She has no motive to kill anyone else. Oh, okay, well then fucking go out. Well, we're sorry. What about the unsub? Yeah, what about that? We're sorry, Jesus Christ.

Our bad. The prosecutor argued that she's a flight risk because she's shown a total disregard for the legal system her whole life here. She broke the law when she ignored court orders about visitation. She was twice found in contempt of court, spent time in jail for that. He said she's continued to thumb her nose at the law through this entire situation. She's been irresponsible and unaccountable her entire fucking life.

Well, her lawyer said, listen, just release her on bond and put an ankle bracelet on her and send her to her house. That way she's not going anywhere. How about no? The prosecutor said, she murdered not only her ex-husband, but his new wife. She put their bodies in a rental car, took it to a field in rural Georgia, and set it on fire. Need I say more?

It's a bad woman, man. Judge says, no, no, you don't need to say more. You're not going anywhere. So at her trial Jessica's trial Brandi Lynn Burnett testifies. She was in the Shelby County Jail with Jessica in December 2001 when she was there on her contempt charge and she talked non-stop Jessica did about her custody battle with Alan while she's in jail because that's why she's in there. She said that while she was in there this woman testified quote, she said she was going to get them back even if even if she had

to kill them. That's it. So yep another witness Kathy Turner a longtime friend of Jessica and Alan said that Jessica called her days before the murders and was upset that Alan would have the children that weekend. Turner said that Jessica told her she was going to, quote, set him up when he came to pick up the girls and make it look like he had attacked her. She tells other people, imagine,

the thought to even do that's fucking crazy. And then to carry it out's crazy, but to tell your friend, I'm gonna set him up and make it look like he beat me up so he gets arrested, that's fucking crazy. Unbelievable strategy. It's crazy to just admit that to another human being and not expect them to never wanna talk to you again because you're a dirt bag.

That's some balls, man. I guess she is pretty honest. The defense attorney asked why. Well, why didn't you call Alan Bates and warn him? balls man I guess she is pretty honest. The defense attorney asked why well why didn't you call Alan Bates and warn him? Yeah. And the guy in this this witness Kathy Turner said that she thought it was just idle threats she thought she was just talking shit. So do you ever talk to someone who's recently divorced or any kind of custody battle? It's all kinds of shit. Yeah. Think about it.

I've been with you this whole time while you got a divorce and all that kind of shit If I wrote down everything terrible you've said and said it out loud in a court of law, it would sound awful You know this guy he's a monster how she's still alive It sounds like he wanted to gutter years ago. Is she in the courtroom? Let's hope so. Otherwise, she's buried in the desert Then they talk about physical evidence. Now, I guess Jeff's stepfather discarded the sofa where they had been shot on apparently. And we'll find out exactly what happened here because don't worry. Prosecutors said that the McCord's black sofa, they brought it into court and showed that they took care to clean up after the shootings. An agent with the

GBI said that chemical tests turned up bleach and the prosecutor said where it appeared to have been wiped clean and she said yes. Hoover police detective sergeant Peyton Zarzor, that's some kind of name, said the investigators found a piece of wadded up wallpaper in a brown grocery sack. When they opened up the piece of paper That's when they found the bullet hole that matched the hole in the den wall That section of the wall had been covered with newer wallpaper of the same design, but in a messier way This guy also said that some of the tiles on the den floor had obviously recently been replaced Wow

Replacing tiles as had the carpet on the den stairs. He said it was new. They said that they tried to find their old carpet. They said they searched through 26,000 tons of trash at the Shelby County landfill but never found the old carpet. Wow. That's fucking wild. A firearm specialist with the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences said that the markings on the bullets recovered from Bates and the single bullet recovered from the home were ballistically matched. And they said these marks can be likened to a human fingerprint. It's the same fucking gun.

Jessica's going to testify. Really? Oh yeah, she's got some shit to say. She takes the stand and says she's the real victim in all this. Is that right? That's right, it's all me. She said that my ex-husband was trying to take my girls

away from me, making me a victim. She cried saying how Alan was not the nice guy that he portrayed himself to be every minute of his life since he was three. That every other person who has seen he said no, she's the only one who saw his dark side. Oh, that's it. Just that just her. She told jurors that she and her husband that night went to two movies.

We'll talk about which ones one is Lord of the Rings, a strip club, watched a romantic sunrise, you know, fucked each other in a car, then shopped at Home Depot, and we couldn't have been killing anybody because that's what we were doing, it's impossible. She's on the stand for four hours here. She said she was very composed, super composed, and you know, everything's fine.

She said that when her husband didn't show, she and her ex-husband, her and her new husband, left the kids and her mothers and went to the Carmike Theaters on Lorna Road. They arrived just before 7 p.m. to see Lord of the Rings. After that movie was over, they went, let's sneak into another. They were playing teenager that night.

We're gonna finger each other in the woods, we're gonna fuckin', you know. Snuck into another movie? Snuck into a second, they snuck into the late showing of Black Hawk Down Jesus a couple of real uplifters there Do you imagine a movie Plus Black Hawk Down is over two hours, too. That's a fucking long movie It's a long talking about like five and a half hours a movie fucked up to it

That's bad for that after Lord of the Rings? Yeah. She said that she left the theater to get Pepto-Bismol. She went to a pharmacy. She just made her, turned her stomach. She had to watch all those fucking soldiers die. Yeah, she had to watch people get exploded. She went to a pharmacy about two miles away and called her mother from a pay phone there

to check on the children. After the movies, they went to check on the children and decided to leave them at the parents' house because they were sleeping already. Why interrupt them? That's when they went to South Side there and then Jeff McCord talked his wife into going to the Playlate Club,

which is a downtown strip joint. Dirty. Talked her into it, because I would never do that myself. And she even said, this is a downtown strip joint. Talked her into it because I would never do that myself. And she even said, this is great, quote, I had never been to one and I wouldn't recommend it. He thought it would be amusing to see my reaction. Okay. She's never been? She's acting like she's so prude now. She said it was not my cup of tea and seeing my

husband obviously enjoying it was also not my cup of tea. And seeing my husband obviously enjoying it was also not my cup of tea. You've got five children. You understand. Jesus. They're lucky she didn't stab a dancer though at this point. As crazy as fucking she is. Is your dick hard right now? I'll kill that bitch.

Get over here, peppermint. You're going down. So she said that then they went to a water tower in Pelham to watch the sunrise, which is where kids go to get blowjobs. Did they stay at the bottom or did they go all the way to the top? I think they stayed at the bottom. Yeah, yeah. She said, we sat there and sat and talked.

We drove there and sat and talked and watched the sun come up. When we were dating, we never spent all night out or anything like that. So this was like their night to be young again. By then it was just before 6 a.m. and she said Jeff persuaded her or she persuaded Jeff to go to Home Depot since they were already out and needed supplies to remodel their downstairs den.

They looked at carpet, she said, but couldn't agree on one. So they purchased only a carpet knife in anticipation of agreeing on a carpet later that day. Just buy the knife, fuck it. Just buy the knife, fuck it. Once home, she said she saw the number of Alan's parents on the caller ID and she called them

and was told they were missing. She said she was very upset about it. Which she said her and her husband, you know, what could they do? They just continued remodeling their house. I mean, what are they going to stop for the day? She said, they worked on the house and took a trip to Jefferson County to dump, to the Jefferson County dump to throw away old toys, a broken car seat, and a carpet from their den.

So they had searched 26,000 tons of the wrong fucking dump. Oh, damn it. She went to Jefferson County. They went to Shelby, I believe, was it, county they said the wrong fucking dump. Oh, damn it. She went to Jefferson County, they went to Shelby, I believe, was it, county they said, something like that. So that is very fucking interesting there. So she said, yeah, we just dumped out our old shit and that's all we were doing, you know, nothing crazy.

She said that the defense attorney then asked her, this is her own lawyer, did you kill Allyn and Tara Bates? And she said, no, I didn't. Which is good, she used a contraction, that's a good thing. But no one believes her anyway. Then the prosecutor though, because that was all her lawyer questioning her. And then the prosecutor came on

and her story doesn't quite hold up as well. It fell apart a little? Yeah, they asked her about a call she made to Alan Bates his cell phone at 6 45 p.m She testified earlier that she didn't that he often didn't show up when he was supposed to and Said I learned a long time ago calling him up and griping about it isn't gonna do any good So on the voice message which was played in court. She said where the hell are you we're waiting We've got plans for a movie tonight She said, where the hell are you? We're waiting, we've got plans for a movie tonight.

Okay, and the prosecutor said that the fact of the matter was their lifeless, dead, bullet-riddled bodies were down on the couch in your den when you made this call to set up some sort of alibi. Isn't that true? Oh my God. And she said, no, of course not. And they asked her, well, why did you keep your movie stubs? Yeah, why would you keep your movie stubs? That's not normal.

Yeah, why would you keep those? He also said that, why'd you drive two miles into the middle, in the middle of a movie to get medicine when it was available at the pharmacy within 100 yards of the theater that was open then? Right there. Why would you drive two miles? She's, you know what her answer was? This is the worst answer.

I like the other store better. I don't shop at that shopping center. You're in a movie. Get your fucking Pepto and go back in you weirdo. I don't shop there. Also she they then the prosecutor said in reality you concocted the an acid story after you learned the police had phone records of you calling your mother from that pay phone. And she said that she didn't see, that's not true. They said, well, when you went to the strip club, did you see anybody, like a uniform security people working there, like a bouncer, but like in a security outfit

working there? And she said, no, not at all. No, I didn't see anybody. So then they get the bouncer out there who works at the strip club. This is Shelby. He's Shelby County Sheriff's Deputy, Kevin Wilson. Oh, he does this off duty in uniform, off duty on titty is what that is.

And he works the front door security. So he checks every single fucking ID of everybody that comes in there. They see, you see him and he sees you and law enforcement. He recognizes law enforcement. He'd know if a cop was in there Well, not only that he knows Jeff McCord Yeah from police work and from the fucking hundred other times that Jeff's been to the strip club So he would definitely know if Jeff was here. This guy said nobody gets in the club without me seeing them and They said were they there that night and he said I

know Jeff wasn't there because I know him so that's Jeff knows he wasn't there too Jeff knows he fucking wasn't there as well so the prosecutor said in closing she's got to have control she's like a willful child who is going to have her way she thinks that what Jessica wants is the only standard what Jessica says is the only truth. What Jessica says is the only truth. What everyone else says or wants is completely irrelevant to her. And the defense says no it's not. That's their closing. That's not true. Are not. February 15th, 2003 is the verdict and exactly right there on the day to the day is the verdict. That happens so often.

It's almost like it's on purpose. It's wild, but it's never on purpose. Verdict comes in guilty of two counts of first degree murder. Sentencing comes around. Death penalty is on the table here. Yeah. It's two people in a car. This is savage.

It's fucking horrible. Yeah. So during the sentencing phase, Jessica said she's sorry or she never said she's sorry She instead proclaimed her innocence still from oh, you can't do that, babe Her testimony focused on her children and I would never do this because I love my children my children my children my children Now before the jury jury goes in they decide what they want to do They come back they give it to the judge and the judge says is there anything you'd like to say? And she says, nope, I'm good.

Okay, you ma'am may fuck off life in prison without parole. Oh, it's over for you. Banged her hard, and that was a seven, five vote, by the way. Oh, not even unanimous. Five was for the death penalty. Oh, shit. Those are the only two sentences for that crime,

or life without or death penalty. And so she almost got the death penalty. She's fucking lucky. So as she's leaving court, a reporter asked if she would like to comment on anything that's happened. And she said, quote, Any words?

Not hardly and leaves. Not hardly, yeah. The strangest, is that the weirdest thing to say? Not hardly and leaves. Not hardly. Is that the weirdest thing to say? Not hardly. For rural trash, she's got some real upper crusty language. She does. For a crass broad as they call her. So the reaction, the attorney, her defense attorney says that he didn't think that the prosecutors proved their case at all. Besides the blood and the bullets and the fuck and everything else. The other 12 people in the room, they believed.

They believed it. Yeah. This lawyer said, we're heartsick for Jessica and her family, but certainly we respect the jury's verdict and we've got to live with it, so we'll just pull ourselves together and get ready for Monday's sentencing hearing. This was before, obviously that she he also said that quote I didn't think it was expected but we hoped for it and she's pleased she was very relieved as anybody would be she didn't get the death penalty he said she's concerned about

her children she maintains her innocence and has maintained her innocence she looks forward to her appeal then he goes on to say the death penalty is wrong in any case and in this case it's no exception. So we're very pleased and relieved that she is delivered of that possibility of being killed. She gets her turn, she gets to turn her attention now to her appeal and hopefully one day she'll have a new trial and a more favorable outcome. No, I don't think it's happening. Also if this was a man that did this to his ex-wife and her new husband, he would be drugged down the street.

Oh yeah, yeah. And deservedly so. Absolutely. And we'd be thrilled about it. You can't say she doesn't deserve it, man. Now what about Jeff here? That's the issue. What's going to happen?

Jeff, they're trying to work, they tried to work a deal out with Jeff. The prosecutor said, I think there's going to, because in this trial coming up, they said, is that this going to be the same layout? Do you have the same evidence? And he said, I think there's going to be some factual differences, but the physical evidence is what it is. And that's what we used in Jessica's trial. They'll probably use the same evidence in Jeff's trial. So neither side discussed the possibility of a plea. The prosecutor said he hasn't heard from Jeff's lawyers concerning such a plea and doesn't even think that the state would entertain it anyway. He said there would be at least have to be some discussion between us and the DA's office with whether of us offering them or them offering. And there's been no discussions.

Now, one of their friends, actually two of their friends, get sentenced for perjury in the last trial. Who lied? And there's been no discussions. Now one of their friends, actually two of their friends, get sentenced for perjury in the last trial. Who lied? Yeah, apparently a friend of theirs will spend a year in a work release program for lying to a grand jury during the investigation. Trying to give him a fucking alibi or some shit? Yeah, yeah.

Michael Upton of Montevallo here will be given, he got 10 years in prison, but split the sentence to work release followed by five years of supervised probation So five years of work release and five years of probation Five years of sleeping in jail and working during the day which is Just kill me now. Can I just do I I don't know. No joy then? Three years? Yeah. The prosecutor had asked this guy to serve, asked that he serve at least several years in prison,

but his attorney said it was a little stronger than we expected, we were hoping for straight probation. Five fucking years of work. Five years. He lied to grand jurors when he denied knowing about the existence of a public storage facility where Jessica McCord may have hidden bloody evidence connected to the killings. The prosecutor said that he testified in two grand jury sessions and repeatedly changed his story as to whether

or not he knew about the storage unit. So yeah, that's that. Jessica's mother, Diane, will also stand trial for perjury on the charges that she lied to give her daughter and son-in-law an alibi during the night of the killings. Because she did. She said, oh yeah, they stopped by here, they were hanging out, it's all fine. So finally, Jeff pleads guilty and spills his fucking guts and tells exactly what fucking happened blow by blow. Yeah.

So they said that that was the direction, this is the lawyer, the prosecutor said, that was the direction Alan and Tara were going to be headed. It was supposed to look like a carjacking and a murder. That was the plan. Really? Because they were headed that way anyway toward Marietta, so the plan was, looked like they got carjacked, but like it's fucking Deadwood in 1877.

Highwaymen took them over, carjacked them, but then they decided they didn't want to take the car and they stuff them in the trunk of their car and burn them. So they did what to them for what? To rob them? They said that Jeff drove the rental car following his wife to the I-20 exit in Morgan County where they searched for a place to dump the bodies. They chose an area near an underdeveloped tract of hunting land basically, and the prosecutor said

they just tried to find an isolated spot. Yeah, they're just trying to get out of the eye shop. And this one, where it is, like you go through town and come out, this is where you end up. Now investigators looked into the landowner of the property who lived just south of Birmingham and has ties to Jeff McCord. What?

But they said it turned out just to be a coincidence. He dumped the bodies on land that he didn't know a guy that he knows fucking owns. How crazy is that? Wow. And those guys in the chicken show and Jeff know the same fucking guy. You know guys, you are two degrees

from the chicken show, man. That's wild shit yeah two degrees away from a chicken show explanation. He said we investigated that angle thoroughly and there was no connection. Wow. He said the sheriff's investigators pulled up one piece of circumstantial evidence that was used at trial against Jessica, the scrap of paper towel that had blown across the road. The pattern of towel matched the paper towels found in the kitchen of the McCord home as well. They said they believe paper towel was used to light the car on fire. Probably. Yeah. Also the bullet, all of that stuff. And they said that this was the prosecutor said this was not a spur of the moment thing. It had been planned for several weeks. What they did was Jessica talked to Alan and said, hey, come on in.

Oh, god damn it. They showed up and she said, yeah, yeah, no, come in. She said, wait one second. The kids are getting, they want to do something for you. The kids are doing a show thing they have for you. They've been practicing for you. What? So you get wait outside for a second.

They said, okay. They said, okay, come in and sit on the couch. And so then Jessica went down the hallway and said, I'm going to go tell the kids that it's time now and they're come out and do their performance Why are you bring the gun in? She went down the thing said they're sitting on the couch Jeff came out and fired four fucking shots in each of them Oh boy based on the pattern It looks like and he said he shot Alan first which would make sense because he's the bigger threat shot Alan first That's why she was in a ball basically covered up because there was

gunshots coming at the person of the couch next to her and gunshots in a living room are fucking loud loud and a 44 forget it whoo so she crawled up in a ball yeah and he blasted her too and then he said they took them they took them out in the trunk they put their car the bodies in the trunk of their car followed him over there and looked for a spot and they said it just looked like a place where nobody would see a fire So fucking messy so lazy and then they said they had to replace tiles and carpets and all this shit cuz there's blood everywhere. Yeah So a lawsuit happens. Oh, by the way, he's sentenced to you, sir May fuck off life in prison with parole.

Okay. With parole, because he gave up how it happened. So the parents, all four of the parents, Tara's parents and Alan's parents, all bring a $150 million wrongful death lawsuit against Jessica and Jeff. Really? Yeah, they have no money, but this is for a specific purpose. It's meant to keep the McCords from profiting from their crimes.

Oh. It's to make sure that if there's ever any income from a book or a movie, that the money will be preserved for the children in their estate, in the estate, rather than going to the wrongdoers. Yeah. So yeah, any dime they make goes to them.

Anything made outside of like, you know, sweeping, they make 12 cents a day or some shit whatever that is so Yeah, that's how that goes the girls their girls the the Bates girls live with the parents with Philip and Joan They stay with them That's fucking wild. So she's accused They basically said and Jeff confirmed, she came home from jail after reading that book with just a hot poker up her ass

to kill these motherfuckers. What a crazy fucking way to do it too. Wow, and 2004, Jeff agrees and settles with the family and agrees to forfeit any profits from everything that happens to him, because he has no choice. 2017, the Alabama Board of Pardons and Parole refuses a parole for Jeff here. He's 47 at this point. He's only 47 years old. That was in 2017. He was 47. He's only 50 something today. The early 50s. Then in 2022, he was eligible again, but I can't

find anything on it. so they might have pushed it back another year or he might have just quietly been rejected. But I didn't see holy shit murdering assholes out of prison. Yeah there's no way he's out. No way he's out. So that is Rutledge Georgia and really Hoover Alabama too if you want to get technical about it but the fact that it happened in Georgia and it was like kind of a fire and all that shit and they were supposed to be in Georgia made of Georgia But two actually scumbags man two terrible fucking people

It's amazing how terrible people find each other sometimes that they're just like wow, you're a scumbag too. So am I I'm an awful person And definitely not taking sides on the marital disputes because you know what relationships? We don't know what the fuck happens between the two of them We have no fucking idea so I don't care about that at all that's not a matter of that, but you can't kill people That's the problem so there you go if you enjoy this show at all including this episode or any other episode sure Definitely tell the world about it number one social media number two tell your fucking friends Just tell your friends. hey great show to listen to. Also you can certainly give us a review on whatever app you're listening on which helps a lot too. Give us five stars. Say

something nice about the show. Doesn't matter what you say. Say what your favorite flavor of jelly is. I like strawberry personally. There you go. Raspberry is pretty good with some butter on the toast first. Not bad. Butter? No. You don't do it? That's some no that's some hillbilly shit. It's butter. Yes. No, I don't do it. That's some no That's some hillbilly shit. That's why you die when you're 58. That's why Cuz you put butter on everything can't do that. Yeah So do that definitely give us a review follow us on social media very easy to do that We are at small town murder on Instagram at small town pot on Facebook at murder small on Twitter

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It's just all about crazy, old-timey crimes. So check that out. It's a good introduction to the show. Fascinating crimes. Fascinating shit, yeah. So check that out. Also listen to your stupid opinions if you haven't. It's a good introduction to the show. Fascinating times. Fascinating shit, yeah, so check that out. Also, listen to your stupid opinions if you haven't. I should have to, yeah.

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Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports though. Anybody five dollars a month or above, you're gonna get a whole back catalog of wonder. That's a whole hundreds of episodes you've never heard before. New ones every other week, we do one crime and sports and one small town murder and we just give you all of it for $5 or above.

Cup of coffee, we say, take all of this shit, fuck coffee. So this week what we have for crime and sports, we're gonna talk about the two most penalized games in hockey history. We're basically going to do a super cut of two games worth of constant fighting, and it's hilarious to watch these toothless Canadians beat the shit out of each other for an hour. It's going to be so much fun. Then for Small Town Murder, we're going to do one we've been looking forward to, Internet

Salad we call it. It's so much fun. It's our pre-show and our post-show show and we're going to record it for you and listen. So this is us talking about tons of shit, our lives, personal shit, current affairs, making jokes, I'm smoking weed, shit's a little more off color. It's really funny and we always laugh and go, God, I wish people could hear this. This would be a very fun show. So now you can hear it. Check it out there, patreon.com slash crime and sports. Oh, and there's more Yeah, you get a shout out at the end of the show, which is right fucking now Jimmy

Hit me with the names of the most wonderful goddamn people who keep us in business and keep the lights on I need to hear them right fucking now. This executive producers are Kimmy Wolf, Lauren Kell and her murder cats Michael Hannah and Lacey. I want I don't know if those are actual cats or Murder cats. She named her cats people names. I don't know if those are actual cats or. Murder Cats. Does she name her cats people names? Is that what she's doing? Maybe, a lot of people do, yeah.

Michael, Hannah, and Lacey. And yeah, yeah, I think maybe, it's possible. My dogs are Beni, Frankie, and us. That's true, yeah, yeah, yeah. My dog is named after a wonderful black linebacker. I love him to death. Yes, he's good. Jerry Mann, Randy Hall, and his wife, she gave no name, evidently, just tell Randy Hall that

I love him and she said my husband, so I'm assuming. Hey, your wife loves you. It could be your husband, Randy. Your spouse loves you. And he said his dick is rock hard, get home. Jay Cheechores. Cheechores? It's C-I-C-H-O-R-Z. Cheechores? Cheecherones. Cheecherotic.

Thank you, Jay. You're amazing. Other producers this week are Matt Villanueve, Happy Birthday, Janice Hill, Kevin Wicken, Patrick McCracken, Leonard Capri-o-levee. What the fuck? Capri-a-love. Leonard, you're terrific too. You look like you just were looking at the moon and it melted in front of you. It just exploded. That's what it looked like. You're like, oh no, what the fuck?

That's no good. I don't understand and I'm horrified. Both things at once. Hannah Stone, Cathy Fountain, Jane M, Erica Tyler, Cheer Up Bitch, Natalie Garnett, that's not, I wasn't saying that to, somebody just wrote that. And I have to say that, so thank you. Natalie Garnett, I said that, Jordan Myers, Win 79, Win like the fucking hotel in Vegas. Nicole Benson, Ben with no last name. Erica Mundin, Dennis Brent, Ryan Lumpkin, Brooke Skinner, Tony Cook, Greg Richardson, Jennifer Backy, Hallie Hallie, Hallie Hallie,

Hallie Martin, Kay Mezey, Van Blarkham. I don't know, all right. Linda Loveless's Throat. She's an equal lady. Well, all right. Melissa Barnett, Melinda with no last name, Judy with no last name, Kelly Jones, Valerie Oldford, Sandra Hegemony, Mel D., James Nixon, Chugachoo, Mary Koo, Kayla Weatherby, also Tee, and also Jen Corican, Tyler Tyler Ewing Nicole with no last name Sarah Jerome

Bradley Kane Lindsey Carpenter B with no last name just the letter B Paige Melton John Thomas Kathy with no last name Zach Elvis Lisa Davies Jack with no last name Jeff Fortescue like barbecue Fortis Nicole Chapman Shelby Coleman Ian Lynch, Jerlof de Corte, Corey, Jerlof de Corte. Sounds like he runs like a small country we didn't know exists, you know what I mean? Sounds like a brand of great shoes. Got the Jerlofs. Outside of Montenegro or some shit like some weird. Ah, Jesus. Cory Oreshiba. Toby Kowal. Cowell maybe.

Andrea Colban. Simona Martinez. Nikki Miller. Kristi Meeker. Oh, it's Meeker. I just held shift too long and I got the E capitalized also. That's what happened. Meek meek meaker. Amanda Lunig, Eddie DeLeon, Brian Brian Bean,

Tyler Middleton, Estella Estella, Estella Santos, Estella is. All right. David Harvey, Spiral of Vertigo, Seda Bushroy, Noel Busby, the the Geppetto, Jamon, Jamon, Jamon, right? Jamon? Jamon-gee? Jamon, not you. Oh, Jamon.

Wait, how is Jamon-gee spelled? That's what Michael Jackson needs to say all the time. Jamon, yeah. He's named after Michael Jackson's throwaway words. This show brought to you by Michael Jackson's moan. His brother, you know it. He's got a brother named that, so it's... Thomas would know last name.

Jacob would know last name. Danielle Thompson. Kathleen Kellyhair. Joey Girl 38. Car Car. Carly, shut up, bitch. I think it's cheer up, bitch. Smith. I think so, but that's fine. Little more aggressive, but fun. Shut up, bitch. That's what therapists would say.

Doctors would give you cheer up, bitch. Therapists would say, shut up, bitch. Desiree Grothis, Sarah Smith, it's husband, whatever. Taylor C., Sean Hackett, Brianna Bird, Kena Kin, Nancy Olson Hernandez, Cindy would know last name, Mickels would know last name, Kelsey Belkass, Bill Case, Josh Sugg, Cindy would know last name, Mikkels would know last name, Kelsey Belkass, Belcase, Josh Sugg, Kaitlin would know last name, Alan Sweeting, Seth Schaefer, Gap7, oh boy,

Pru, Pierce, Pru, what a great name, that's a British one, right? Chris Salas, the lady from the Bake Off. Yeah, she's wonderful, God, I love her. Yeah, she's great. Doesn't like shit. No, she's wonderful. God, I love her. Yeah, she's great. Doesn't like shit. No, she hates everything. But she tells you that she hates it in the sweetest way.

A, Lebrasseur, Daniel Grima, Anna with no last name, Phil McCracken, obviously. That's a real person. Mouse with no last name. Tammy Henderson, Carson Shuck, Clint with no last name, Courtney McGee, John Binsfield, Emily Fielding, McIntyre with no last name, Clint with no last name, Courtney McGee, John Binsfield, Emily Fielding, McIntyre with no last name, Thomas with no last name, those are both actual last names, Christian Marlette, Thomas McDonald, Greg Hoskins, Ashley Johnson, Lauren Donahue,

Nick Holt, Carly Simon, probably not. Yeah, I'm sure it is. We're vain too, sweetheart. Sing about us. We got it. We can use it. Yeah. You could write a new song, just the absolute opposite. You're so humble.

That's us. I don't give a shit what you say. We could use the pub. Just say whatever you want. You could call me a piece of shit, Carly. I don't care. You're a piece of shit. They're pieces of shit.

I think I found corn in them. I'd be like, great, good. Fine. Corn and peanuts and black olives. Tatiana would know last name. Eli Cook, Dietrich Forcht. Anwar would know last name, maybe Anwar. Grunter, Newcastle, Australia. Lucid Comatose, that doesn't make any sense. Joe Busfield, Brian Cunningham, Evie, or Evie, Langley, Mark Mathis, and then Matea, with no last name, Michael Gonzalez, Michael Rowe, wow, two mics in a row. Look at that.

Eddie Romero, Dre, with no last name, Marie, with no last name, because we'll never forget about you. Brandon Walton, Sam Richardson, Jay Rizel, four, Elm Chanted, Jordan Gentry, Hannah Cox, Jerry would know last name, Jackie Tague, Lily Sankey, Elaine Johnson, Pepesh. Oh boy, I just put that word back out of me. They gave you a gasp, Pepesh.

So you had like a bubble come up. I just pushed Elaine's name right out of my chest. Hannah Swan, Jordan Stare, Andrea Smith, Katie Brock, Jane Dans, Kristen B, Term SD. All right, Christine Curie, Lucas Oden, Auden maybe, Jamie Hodge, Sharon Fain, Richard Lance, Aaron Dixon, Ben Clark, Frederick Goodrich, Dustin A. Keensie would know last name, Thomas R. Ryan Mendoza, Jade Lepinski, Austin would know last name Thomas R. Ryan Mendoza Jade Jade Lupinski Austin would know last name cult Straca Kate striker Kate that's an eye Steve how Hugen in David Bowerd Adam Wright Jeremy for a gozi what yeah for gozi that's a gross one Kate Wynn Finnegan CS Shelley.S. Shelley, Judge Malley, Stacey Flock, Stacey Spalding, two Stacey's in a row, Alexandra

Schmitz, Chad Hickey, Allison Casper, Sydney's period, or Sydney's period. I don't know what to do. Sydney's period. Brought to you by Sydney's period, the letter A and the number four. Christina with no last name, Hannah Wiles, Ashley Hawking, Victoria Yivisaker, Shelby Chavez, Matt and Megan Spangler and all of our patrons. You guys are fucking incredible. Thank you everybody so much for everything that you do for us.

Honestly, we hope you enjoy the show. We hope you enjoy everything you put out. You want to follow us on social media. Super easy to do that. Just get on ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com. There is links to everything there. So keep coming back and seeing us. Tell all your friends.

And until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure. Bye. If you like Small Town Murder, you can listen early and ad free now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen early and ad free now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen early and ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.