Small Town Murder - #548 - Kill And Let Live - Horseshoe Lake, Arkansas

Episode Date: November 30, 2024

This week, in Horseshoe Lake, Arkansas, murder strikes twice, after a very prominent family is visited by tragic murder, with two members brutally killed, and left to burn in a fire. The culprit is caught, and put in prison, but he was so young when the crime was committed, one member of the victims' family wants to help him. She helps him secure parole, and even gives him a job, at the very place he murdered. Then, she's also murdered!! It's a crazy ride, with a wild ending!!Along the way, we find out that Arkansas loves hot wings, that some people actually do the forgiveness they talk about, and that some people might not be worth the benefit of your doubt!!New 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.

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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, all aboard the murder train pulling away from the station here. We have an absolutely bonkers, this is one of those, sometimes it takes a while to explain, oh it would be crazy. You could explain what happens in this case in two sentences to someone and they'd go, holy shit for real,

it's crazy. So we'll get into all that. 10 pounds of murder in a two pound bag. We'll get into it very quickly though. Before we do, shut up and give me murder.com Get all your merchandise and your tickets to live shows as well two live shows left on the calendar this year That is Terrytown, New York and Boston and they're both just about sold out. So get your tickets right now, New York I mean we're talking, you know a dozen tickets I think are left right this very moment because I just saw and then for Boston There's not many more than that. So get your tickets now and get in there and be a part of the last two shows.

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person will talk all about her shenanigans and how they eventually forced her to sell the team. And then for small town murder, we're going to talk about another terrible person, the Sarah Boone trial, the killer as we found out I watched the entire trial and it's so much more than just that one video it's she there's so many more videos of her being awful and terrible. She loves man she is Ivan Reitman. We will talk constantly constantly she's Scorsese The Scorsese of mental illness, she is. We'll talk all about that.

Patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get all of that and more. So, and you get a shout out at the end of the regular show too. That said, I think it's time everybody. Hey! Let's do this. It's time to clear the lungs.

What do you say? Arms to the sky and let's all shout. Shut up and give me murder. Let's do this everybody. All right. Let's go on a trip, shall we? Let's do that, yeah. We're going to Arkansas. Oh. I love the reaction. Oh, because how many people are like, we're going to Arkansas. Yeah. Finally. What's the real destination? We're going to Horseshoe Lake, Arkansas.

Okay. Horseshoe Lake, it's in Northeastern Arkansas. This is about 40 minutes outside of Memphis. That's a town, huh? It's a tiny town too. There's a lot of little towns here. You'd think 40 minutes outside of Memphis is probably like suburbs or something.

No, no, no, this is rural as rural gets here it's about Memphis on the Tennessee side and then yeah West Memphis on the Arkansas side as you might know from the murders that took place there was that where Martin Luther King was shot in mem when West Memphis I think West Memphis is where the West Memphis three yeah I think Martin Luther Memphis is where the West Memphis three Think Martin Luther King was there too. I thought that was in Memphis like Tennessee though. I don't think I know it was in Arkansas I think it was West Memphis. I don't know I might be wrong. Yeah, I don't know the hell is doing in Arkansas Really This is two hours and 45 minutes to Pleasant Grove, Arkansas, our last Arkansas episode,

which was called Kill Them All. That guy was wild. He went on like a crazy killing spree, wouldn't let his wife have postage stamps. He was a nutcase. This is in Crittenden County, and population of this town, 384. Very small. People. People.

Way more animals, I'm sure. Probably if you put in the goats and cows. They've got to be outnumbered by livestock at that point. Very small. People. People. Way more animals I'm sure. Probably if you put in the goats and cows. They've got to be outnumbered by livestock at that point. I would think so here. Median income here, not a lot. Median household income, $48,827 which is over $20,000 less than the national average and then the median home price here, even lower, $98,200. Oh my god. So this is a really small...

Incredibly affordable. Yeah, and the lake, it's a beautiful lake, and there's a lot of lots available if you want to build a house on the lake. Little bit of history here. It was named after Horseshoe Lake, which is the lake it's on, which is an oxbow lake on the eastern tip of the town.

It's situated in the Mississippi River flood plain at the eastern tip of H town. It's situated in the Mississippi River floodplain at the eastern tip of Horseshoe Lake. And the lake is a huge summer recreation spot. People come from Memphis to, you know, they have little vacation cabins here. It's like if you live in New York, what Lake George is to New York people, to like Hudson Valley people. It's kind of what this is. When they first found this place and started coming here, mosquito-borne diseases would just eat people alive. It was just disgusting. Swamps and everything else. But soon after the War of 1812, they surveyed the land and gave it to soldiers who fought in the war as payment. They're like, you survived getting

shot at. See if you can survive mosquito-ne illnesses in this worst land we have here. The worst piece of Arkansas. Jesus Christ, man. So in 1825, Crittenden County was carved out from another county and they made some townships. And then they ended up making levees and shit so it wouldn't be so swampy. So they make it more inhabitable basically. 20th century hunters and lumbermen got here and then they damned it and it raised the water level by over six feet made a proper lake that you could boat on and

shit like that that way they could float timber directly to the Mississippi River from here floods of 1927 and 1937 completely messed up the entire lake area not great so then they dug a canal to make sure that so there was drainage for in the future. Reviews of this town. There are none, but this is for the town right next door. That's five minutes away that most of the people live in and where these people go for groceries and shit. And that is Hughes, Arkansas Five stars love it here. I've lived here my whole life and never experienced any other place better The people are interesting the scenery is perfect and there's always something to do I believe it interesting is a good way to put it because that could mean anything I could literally mean

anything at all Two stars I grew up in Hughes and it was a great place to live, but around 1990 it started changing. What happened? It was 35 years ago. Today we have less than a thousand people in town with one store. When the state closed the school, everybody moved. People just left.

Not enough kids to populate it so they closed it. People usually don't like leave a nice lake area unless there's something wrong with it, you know what I mean? Usually those things grow. Communities around lakes tend to expand. It's so weird. Three stars, it's an overall good experience. The neighborhood is safe and quiet, but there is no school or job opportunities.

Everything's at least 20 miles away such as grocery stores and hospitals. Oh boy. It's tough. It's a tough place to live if you're living like that. I mean, that's yeah, you have to be retired 20 minutes. You have to be retired and not have any health problems. That's or have any fucking danger at your house. That's what I mean. No, how it just be sitting here on your porch is all you do and look out at the lake. Lazy boy with a seat belt. Oh my God. A couple of things to do here and they both have to do with wings So it's all wing. It's all wing related activities here. First of all in the outskirts of Memphis There is the 23rd annual World Championship hot wing contest and festival. Oh that kind of wing that kind of wing

Yeah, oh because of it. Well, no, don't know why. Why do they do that there? I don't know, they have all sorts of, I don't know, it's a barbecue place. I don't know why they do wings. I mean, there's Nashville Hot Chicken, but that's on the entire opposite end of the stage. And that's not a wing, too. No, right.

Yeah, chicken, so they're gonna have a wing-eating contest and all that kind of thing. They will have bands, including Elevation Memphis, featuring the Tina Turner review. Fantastic. Bunch of people who aren't Tina featuring the Tina Turner review. Fantastic. A bunch of people who aren't Tina Turner singing Tina Turner songs. Whole lot of people there. Uriah Mitchell and Lena Beach will be performing.

Sure. Terry quote Harmonica Bean will be performing. I wonder what he plays. Then Sean Bad Apple. Sean Bad Apple. Yeah. Delta Joe Sanders will be there. Delta Joe. I think that is Neon Deon's cousin Delta Joe. And then also what is this Memphis Funk and Horns and then

Earl the Pearl. I don't know if that's Monroe. I'm sure it's not. It's gonna show up finger rolling in there. I don't know what's going on here. And then locally there is the inaugural Crittenden County Hot Wing Festival and Cook-Off. May as well. Like we can co-op what they're doing up there. Hot Wing Eating Contest, live entertainment, there'll be DJs. Sure.

Don't tell you who, but DJs. And then there will be a cake walk. I don't know what that is. Yeah, I've heard of them. Do they walk on cake. I assume Yeah, I think it's a walk and at the end you get a cake you get is it hot or hot coals involved There's got to be no there's no there's no broken glass. There's no Oh, it's a walk and then they give you cake slices

I don't know if you get a cake or a cake slice. There's also cornhole So there's that cake and get corn, there's also cornhole, so there's that. Walk to cake and get cornhole. Get yourself some cornhole. Also, Area 51 will be playing there. Yeah. What do they play? Well, I'll tell you what they play. They bring you a high energy show playing classics from Sticks, Journey, Van Halen,

Boston, and more. You get it. You just name those bands. You get what they're playing. 76 to 85 fucking rock. You get what they're playing. 76 to 85 fucking rock. That's what they're playing. Members of Area 51 have had the honor of playing with artists like Jimmy Jamison, spelled like Jimi Hendrix, Mickey Thomas, Steve Cropper, Charlie Hun, and Larry Raspberry. Oh, if they played with Larry Raspberry, I'm there They played with all of those guys. Yeah

I don't know who those people are. I know we're gonna get lots of comments with people. You don't know Larry raspberry. Holy shit I don't know Billy blueberry either. Yeah picture of them at the fucking, you know, Ronnie strawberry show last week Let's talk about some murder. What do you say? Please do. Let's get away from this crazy shit and talk about something somehow less murderous. Yeah.

Jesus Christ. God, fuck, I hate it. I want Connie Cantaloupe to perform really bad. So let's talk about some murder. Let's start in 1996, shall we? Okay. 1996, let's talk about a lady who was an older lady at this point. She's going to be about 75 years old in 1996. Sally McKay, M-C-K-A-Y McKay.

Now she is the daughter, she's a very prominent citizen in this area. So much so that she doesn't live here that much. That's how prominent she is. She's too prominent, too prominent to live here all the time. She is the daughter of Grace Snowden, her mother, and her father is Colonel Robert Snowden. Oh, a very big deal and a very rich man. And so yeah, that's this family there. He was a prominent farmer and a member of one of the county's oldest families like they go back to hardcore Civil War shit like one of the the uncles was like, you know, it like one of Stonewall Jackson's main guys and all that kind of shit, so Snowden here the father Colonel Bob

once bought the popular Peabody Hotel in Memphis and then sold it like three hours later to Somebody else he middleddled. He probably made some cash for no work for taking it to one guy and handing it to another. Just middled it. Somebody he heard tell of a guy that needed a hotel. I said, well, shit, I'll buy it. I got it. And now it's a little more than you were going to pay for it before. So yeah, that's this deal here. So that's where she comes from, Sally, very prominent people. Sally's going to have a couple of daughters, Katie and Martha. Martha's born in 1957. I don't know when Katie is born here, but now Martha talks about later on,

there's an interview with her in 2015 with the daughter Martha called Lady of the Lake. Okay? Martha is the Lady of the Lake? By 2015, Martha was the Lady of the Lake. And she told Memphis Magazine that growing up on Horseshoe Lake had been just wonderful. She said, I felt like I was royalty with the big house and servants.

Yeah, you were living in another era. You were living in a hundred years before you era is what you were living in. And you were living in an era that sounds incredible. Yeah, I mean, yeah, but she was like the big house. We had a man that sang Zippity Doo Dah to us. Like she's co-opting Disney movies now. She's living the end of the end of Splash Mountain. Exactly, yeah.

That's where it came from. Everything was fresh from the garden, fresh eggs and all, and we even had a peach orchard. We got to swim every day and it was just ideal. That's her childhood. So she really had quite the childhood. Sally ended up, the mother now, when Martha's a kid, Sally ended up marrying, I don't know what happened to Colonel Bob, but I don't know if he died or whatever happened here, but Sally ended up marrying a professional actor from New York named David McKay.

That's how they're the McKay kids. That's why she's Martha McKay. So after a few years of living in Horseshoe, they moved away to San Francisco and other places on the West Coast, taking the children with them. I'm sorry, the Colonel was Sally's father. I'm sorry.

So yeah, that's, I don't know what happened to Martha's dad here, I guess. So anyway, they moved to San Francisco and other places on the West Coast, you know, just moving around to where actors live. Chasing Hollywood dreams, yeah. And this is what Martha said, Mother would bring us back for the summer and leave us

here. Mother. Yeah. How many people you know call their mom Mother? No. None. I've never known anyone wealthy enough to call their mom Mother. And they don't say like...

Mother would bring us here. Yeah, that's crazy. And just bring us here. Yeah, that's great And just leave us here. It was just wonderful I felt like royalty and then she said both my grandparents just love having a house full of kids and they showed it So mom would just drop the kids off with the grandparents at the lake in the summer and then go back to touring the West Coast With her actor boyfriend. What a great life Not bad Now Martha is gonna end up moving to the West Coast with her actor boyfriend. What a great life. Not bad. Now Martha's gonna end up moving to the West Coast as well because she kinda lives out there,

so she just spends summers at Horseshoe Lake. 1994, this house, it's called the Snowden House, we'll talk about. Now the Snowden House was Colonel Roberts' house, but later on they turn it into a big bed and breakfast type place. Sure. It's a wedding venue. It's a one of those type of places. It's a New England's full of that shit. Tons of those. Yeah. It's like a 6000 square foot house on the lake. It's called the Snowden house is what they call it. And the family

lives in another house, like, you know, a hundred feet away. Like they have a bunch of houses on the property that they live in, and there's the Snowden house. In 1994, the Snowden house actually was a location for the movie The Client, the John Grisham book that was turned into a movie. Yeah, well, The Client was a little kid, right? I wanna say, was it Julia Robertson or something?

I don't know, I don't know. I think The Client was. Might be thinking Aaron Brockovich, I don't know. I remember the movie, but it was a kid. There was a kid involved in that movie. Yeah, the kid was the client, right? Yeah, exactly. And like something's wrong with him

or he's a victim of something. Yeah, some kind of murder bullshit, murder mystery bullshit, I don't know. It's a book. This is not a mystery, that's what happens here. Now 1996 comes around. Sally, Martha's mom, the mother, as she was called here.

May Treyarch, yeah. Sally is also, for some, as she was called here. Sally is also, for some reason, she's a certified public accountant. Really? And also a part-time antiques dealer. Farting around. I mean, you gotta have hobbies. I guess so, yeah.

She's a member of obviously this big family. She would spend much of her time at the lake managing the property, the Snowden House. So that's what she was doing by the 90s. Also around here she has relatives, her nephew, this is Martha's cousin, Sally's nephew. It's one of Sally's sibling's sons. Sally's sibling's son, say that five times fast too much. This is Joseph Lee He goes by Baker Lee Baker. He's born in 1943. He's a musician and apparently a In Memphis in the blues scene. He's a very well-known guy back then. Yeah. Yeah, he stays a high school teacher also So he's not making any money, but he's very well known for his his skills here

He played Baker is a great name for fucking music. Lee Baker, that sounds like a Memphis-y name. He played backup for the blues guy Furry Lewis. He played for him. Furry. F-U-R-R-Y. Like Huey Lewis but he's Furry Lewis. But he's Furry Lewis and was around well before Huey I think.

He's also playing with his own band band Lee Baker and the Agitators. The Agitators. We make problems. He was a key member of the furry Lewis band here from the 1960s and also in Malik and Mudboy. Bands as Malish? Malik? M-O-L-O-C-llish Malik M. Oh Loch malik malik malik also mud boy in the neutrons

That's good, and he performed on albums by big star Alex Chilton and Jim Dickinson. I don't know any of these people I don't know any of those either. I don't know many like local Memphis blues people. I guess I don't many like local Memphis blues people I guess. It's got to be what that is right? It has to be yeah in that scene they're big people but we don't know them. So in August of 1996 a big fire breaks out at his house where he lives with his wife and three children. On the Snowden property? It's a hundred yards away from the Snowden house or a hundred feet away it's very close by but it's a blaze of a fire. I mean, guts this house. It really screws it up. He had lived there with his wife, Carol, and their three sons for 30 years or 20 years. And a year earlier, the house had been burglarized. Oh, somebody broke in stole a bunch of shit. But now it's just been burned to the fucking ground. And

it's arson too. Somebody did it on purpose. By the time the volunteer firefighters got to the house it was too late to save it. It was so hot that it melted the paint on one of the fire trucks. Oh Jesus! That's how hot the fire was going. A truck that showed up to fight it. A truck full just water everywhere. Yeah. There's a lot of water between that and the truck. Fucking paint melted off of it. Yeah the community they only had three fire trucks and one of them has a side that is definitely, you could use a paint job. So that's August of 1996.

So there's an arsonist loose or something going on here. September 10th, 1996, 10.30 a.m. I guess Lee Baker was over at Sally's house because his house was burned to the fucking ground. It's gone. Yeah. Yeah. But there was just those two in the house and a fire breaks out in the house in that house now to that house too. It's about 30. I would say so. So they come in. We'll talk about how they put it out and everything, but they come in and put it out and rush inside to see if people are in there and they find both Sally McKay and Lee Baker shot to death inside the house.

Oh no. Inside of a burning house. Yeah. So they don't think those wounds are from the fire obviously. So they're generally not a little concerned here so they're like holy shit this is fucking crazy and also the car is missing Sally's car is missing but she's in the house shot to death in a burned house so they're very confused then at 1115 a.m. so about 45 minutes after the first alert for the

fire happens a neighbor who is traveling a gravel road about a mile and a half west of the house finds her car. And it is over, it's wrecked and overturned. Flipped, Jesus. Flipped, it's on its roof and it looks like it bashed into something before that happened. God, man. And it's still running.

A mile and a half away. Mile and a half to the west. That's a great fuel pump, Jesus. Not bad, right? Still going. Upside down. So mile and a half away mile and a half to the rest fuel pump not bad right still going So it's a guy named Bobby couples of Hughes is who ended up finding the bright red late model Toyota Camry Wrecked and I was on its side not on its Still very bad. That's pretty good

So couples he drove to Bonds Marine to see if the boat shop's part owner might know who this car belongs to. So I found a red car over at its overturn, you know anybody around here that drives a red car. And this guy said that, oh, I do know who it belongs to. I think that's Sally McKay's car. So these two jumped in the car and headed for McKay's house because the couple's guy knew Sally McKay too. They all did. Everybody knows her around there. She's the lady who owned Snowden House. They all know her. And there's only a few hundred people here. That guy knows everybody. Well, they own tons of property. So half the people in this town rent their house from Sally McKay. So they all know her. She's either a

landlord, an employer. She employs tons of people to do stuff around these properties. So as soon as they saw the car, the guy that from the Marine shop, he knew it was quote Miss Sally as the residents called her because she's the rich lady who gives them jobs. So they all call her Miss Sally. This guy said I had never seen her down this road. And so I don't know why he should be down here. Now this guy is also, he happens to be a volunteer fireman and a member of the local rescue squad. So he ends up at the fire anyway.

So he ends up going there. He said when he gets there, Lee's truck was backed up next to the back door with the tailgate open. That's weird. Like somebody was putting it up to load shit in it. Or loading. This guy said, I ran around the house and put my hand on the window and I could feel the heat. So then they drove back to the boat repair shop to have someone call the local fire department. And that's how

the fire got found originally. Yeah. So the trucks arrived. The two men were using, when the trucks arrived, those two guys were using a winch to pull the GMC Sierra that belonged to Lee Baker away from the house. And they tore off the screen door and tried to go in. They said much of the fire was limited to the living room and the kitchen area of the home. One volunteer firefighter, Beth Baldwin, who runs the Horseshoe Lake Grocery and Cafe. She was the one who sounded the alarm and got the other nine volunteer firefighters out there to it. And she said,

when we put the hoses down, we didn't see any flames. When we opened the door, that's when the flames broke out. It was a matter of minutes and we had it out though. Yeah, we see back draft. Yeah, so the fire was needing some oxygen. right? That's why that's what that's what kind of saved the house from completely, you know being a huge blazing fire Yeah, so they said they had it out very quickly. So they were happy about that They said but you could smell that they got there too late More than that you could smell burning flesh. Oh shit. That's what you could smell That's the problem. No, and when they open the door and put everything out they go you can smell burning flesh here

There's a person here. There's something here. Yeah, or a big dog or something. Yeah They said the one of the firefighters said I was hoping for the best that you're going to save someone the bodies were just burned So bad. Oh, no So someone started this fire where the bodies were on purpose so bad. Oh no. So someone started this fire where the bodies were on purpose to try to burn these bodies up. So that's that's fucking bad. Others they laid the bodies on the carport and covered them up when they took them out. Someone one of the firefighters who's lived in known lived here his whole life and known Sally for 25 years,

said quote, quote, I don't care if you're black or white or whatever, if you was in trouble, if you needed help, and you went to Miss Sally, you could have got it. Lee was like that too, he was the same way. In all my years, I've never seen anything like it. You don't wanna forget it, but then again, you don't wanna remember it. Miss Sally would help anybody.

Would help anybody, and she did she did apparently so many people worked for her She had everybody on the payroll because if someone needed a job and they need a little extra income She would hire up she'd find a job for them in her in her staff or whatever So yeah now Baker's wife this poor lady Because her own house had been completely destroyed a month ago. They said they lost everything they owned in that fire. Oh shit. She said that quote. She doesn't even have a picture of her husband. I got nothing. She said she doesn't even have a picture of her

dead husband. Oh my God. This is pre digital. So this is physical pictures and they've all been burned and they didn't have any chance to take new ones and now he's dead. So she said, I literally don't even have a picture of my husband. Imagine just, she lost everything in a month. She never gets fucking Alzheimer's. She's got her pictures in her head of him. I mean, shit, even if you're fine after 20 years, you start to forget, you forget, you forget what someone looks like.

You know what I mean? Golly. We usually don't because we have pictures, but. Yeah, makes it easy. Yeah. If you didn't see your mother for 20 years and never saw a picture of her, and then you had a sketch artist draw her, I bet it wouldn't look exactly like her, you know what I mean? Probably not, yeah.

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the U.S. Army conducted a secret experiment by releasing bacteria over San Francisco to test how a biological attack might spread without alerting the public? These might sound like conspiracy theories, but they're not. They're well-documented government operations that have been hidden away in classified files for decades. I'm Luke Lamanna, a Marine Corps recon fan, and I've always had a thing for digging into the unknown. It's what led me to start my new podcast, Redacted Declassified Mysteries. In it, I explore hidden truths and reveal some eye-opening events like covert experiments and secret operations that

those in power tried to keep buried. Follow Redacted Declassified Mysteries with me, Luke Lamanna, on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen ad free, join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. So obviously they're gonna search, somebody did this. Had to, yeah. Obviously. Because at first they thought, oh no, these two people died in this fire.

And then they noticed they had gunshot wounds all over them and they said, okay, maybe not. Now we got to search. So now it's frantic because now a bad accident is one thing, but a fucking guy murdering prominent people and setting their houses on fire seems like a more pressing matter. So yeah, for the area, people that everybody likes. And likely been trying for a minute because a month ago a house burned down here. Somebody likes to take shit and that house was robbed too.

So they think that maybe this is a connection to that. Escalation. They're saying that they don't know of any connection at this point. They said that they don't know if the deaths were related to a fire about a month ago and they said, you know, because no one was injured in that fire. So they're not sure. So they search the surrounding fields. They use people on horseback. They have tracking dogs from the state prison nearby. They get a helicopter from Memphis to come in to help them. And they're searching everywhere for any sign of another person. And the search is called off about three o'clock though.

They don't find anybody and they don't think they're going to find anybody. I think whoever it has got away. So this is obviously the biggest thing that's happened around here in a long time. Since they damned up the fucking lake, this is the biggest thing. This is the biggest thing since the flood of 37. Big deal.

Larry Raspberry's been here. Oh, Jesus, we had Sally Strawberry here two months ago. So they had state police and county deputies turned Horseshoe Lakes Fire volunteer fire department into a into an investigation center. Yeah. They just spread everything out on the floor. They're chasing down possible leads there. Yeah. A state trooper and a polygraph examiner was there to interview people as well.

They had like a just a parade of people going in and out getting fingerprinted polygraphed basically anyone that lived around there. So they said that they're they have no suspects at this point. But one of the people people they question is a 20 year old named Edrick Smith, E D R I C K Smith. He's 20 years old. He's got a bit of a checkered past. He's got some boy arrests and never murdered anybody or burn a house down. But he's lives in the area and he's got a bit of a pass up a few times. Yeah. So he's an of the right, you know, ilk of people you want to talk to. And he said about this, I'm

there at my house and I'm with my daughter and I see four or five cars pull up on the side they came to get his ass they were like who has a criminal record within 20 miles of this fucking house and then they bum rushed everybody he said they got my thumbprint they got my palm print and they took a piece of hair and they gave me a polygraph test okay so thumb and palm tells you that that that they're looking to match a thumb and a palm. Yeah, they've got a fingerprint somewhere. That tells me a lot. He said they were aggressive. They said, we think it's you. We think it's

you. Oh my. Yeah. He said, it's fucking not me. No. And he said that they were searching for whoever quote killed the lady and they told him somebody's gonna go down for this They have to this is too important here. I mean, yeah in this town if we don't catch this person No one will ever sleep at night So we got to catch this person the family theory and the cops are kind of also thinking it Possibly is that it might have been more than one person involved

yet to control both of them and And burn a house that you've got to able, yeah, it's gotta be two. Well, I mean, you could just shoot them. So I don't know why they thought, but they said that, this is a family relative, I think this is one of Lee's friends, said it took more than one person to kill him. They would have put up a struggle, I know that.

So they're thinking it would be more. The town freaks out This is like you not this is like holy shit because now they think someone's not only killing people burning houses down This is a terrifying thing so residents are carried everyone's walking around carrying huge guns with open Yeah, talking to their neighbors is with giant like a huge hunting rifle 12 gauge on your shoulder Yeah, they they said they nobody got any sleep one of the residents locally said neighbors just with giant like a huge hunting rifle. The 12 gauge on your shoulder. Yup. They said they, nobody got any sleep. One of the residents locally said, it's just scary.

A lot of people didn't get much sleep last night. When the sun went down, there weren't hardly any vehicles on the streets. Yeah. People are just sitting on their porches with their shotgun waiting. Went and got a holster for my.30-06. A hip holster. Yeah, a hip, I needed it. Hip holster for a Rem30-06, a hip holster. I needed it. Hip holster for a Remington.

You're just looking out in the dark. Somebody lights up their cigarette. You're firing at them. Fire, pal! It's you! I see a flame. You're dead. So, yeah, the people who, from the grocery there, the grocery and cafe said, I've never

saw so many people with firearms. The peaceful life is what I moved out here for. I got tired of Memphis. We're out here to get away from this. Yeah, Memphis is where that's at. Murder and fucking armed murdered people. So weeks go by with no arrest. What?

As you can imagine, this is not settling well with anybody who lives here. Weeks go by, in early October, they finally put a reward out. It's a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest, and that's what they're doing. They said that investigators with the sheriff's department said they have worked diligently in gathering evidence in this matter, and obviously they have who gots at this point. Now we have $10,000 since the rest of it didn't work. They said in the event that two or more people provide substantial information leading to an arrest, then the reward fund would be prorated and paid in percentages to the individual supplying information.

You better hurry and bring the information you got or face the consequences of 20%. It's a race against time here. I mean someone else is gonna come first and then what happens Yeah, and with this and with the society arming up like fucking Deadpool Oh, they don't shoot the guy before we get information or each other thinking who knows that's I mean some like I said somebody lights a goddamn Cool out in the yard and he's getting blown away because he's got a fucking lighter on him So enter Travis Santay Lewis. S-A-N-T-A-Y is Santay. That's his middle name. Travis Lewis. He's born in 1980. He is 15 years old at this time. He's also Eldrick Smith's younger brother as well. The guy who got aggressively brought in there and said we think it's you. It's this guy's younger brother. Okay, he's 15 Travis the police come and arrest him on October 5th

1996 they pull up to his house and pull him out of his house. He's a 10th grade. He's a sophomore at Hughes High School He's a baby. He's a kid He's a sophomore at Hughes High School. He's a baby. He's a kid. He's also a student of Lee Baker in high school. Lee Baker's his English teacher, I believe. Okay, that's one thing. He's a 10th grader and a student in English from Lee Baker.

And also, his grandparents rent their home from Sally McKay. Okay. So in this town, everybody knows everybody. Yeah, he's a student of one. He's connected to both of them, yeah. And a tenant of another basically. So that's what's going on here. So the investigation leads them to Travis

who lives on one of the properties on the fucking estate. He lives on the lake with these people in a rented house. So Travis and Lee Baker's two sons were good friends from school. They all knew each other. And he denied knowing anything about the murders when they brought him into the police station. He even passed a polygraph test.

That's good. At 15 too, he passed a polygraph test. At 15, his parents are allowing him, yeah. An arch criminal where,graph test at 15 is not like he's allowing him Yeah, an arch criminal where you know, well, yeah, he's been in the system for so long. Of course he can pass a polygraph Yeah, he's not Ted Bundy. You know what I mean? So the police learned that that young Travis here was suspended from school on the day of the murders. Oh They were like, okay, he was off three day Yeah, cuz otherwise, you know if he's at school, it's a pretty good alibi murders. So they were like okay he was off that day yeah because otherwise you

know if he's at school it's a pretty good alibi yeah but he wasn't so they said come on in for a second polygraph test and then he failed that polygraph oh no which I'm not listen if you brought me in for one I know I didn't do it and I passed and they're like we still don't believe you we're gonna bring you in again I might be more nervous now because like but if I passed once and they're making me do it again, they really think I did this and they might be trying to make sure I did it. You know what I mean? Or they know that they asked me questions that were not incriminating and now they've got some that are.

Well, they asked, did you kill Sally and Lee? And he said no, and they said, okay, that's not a lie. So that's, you know, that's the first thing they fucking asked him. Okay, but perhaps he's convinced himself that he didn't kill them. Or maybe he didn't kill them. Maybe somebody else did so he can say that and not be... Who knows? Who knows? But now he failed. Now after some questioning for they... Get them in the box for a few hours here. He admitted, okay, I was the one who burgled Lee Baker's home last month, or in August.

The one that burned down, yeah. The one that burned down. But he said, I didn't kill anybody and I didn't burn that house down, a friend of mine did. And then he also said that I was at the house where Sally and Lee was, but I didn't do anything. My friend killed them, not me. Oh my God. I was there to rob the house. Okay, but.

And they came and found us robbing the house, so my friend killed them and tried to burn the house down. Okay, we are on a great path now. That's, yeah, now we're feeling like we're going somewhere. Yeah. So they said, okay, he makes a statement so that confirms his presence at the scene. Not good. Not good. And later on, they find his hair and DNA inside of the car that was overturned, Sally's car, because he's 15 and not a great driver. So he can't

drive. He wrecked it. He hurt himself, yep, wrecking it. So then they also recovered his fingerprints from the driver's side door as well. Oh, it. So then they also recovered his fingerprints from the driver's side door as well. Oh, Jesus. No other fingerprints or DNA from this mystery friend, by the way. No hair, fingerprints or DNA. Meanwhile, his DNA hair and fingerprints are all on it. So whoever's whoever's in that car is leaving some physical marker. And yeah, this guy, it's only him. So they suspect based on what he said, saying that Sally and Lee surprised them and his friend killed them they think well he was probably robbing the house Sally and Lee came home surprised him.

He shot them and tried to cover it up basically. And also the neighbors noticed the fire so fast that it didn't get to really burn any of the evidence or anything away and they could tell very easily that they'd been shot. Also the neighbors noticed the fire so fast that it didn't get to really burn any of the evidence or anything away and they could tell very easily that they'd been shot. So I mean they would have had to have been burned to char to not be able to find them. They'd have been burned to dust. And they'd still find the bullets under them that were in their bodies that are now burned out of them.

They'd still find bullets there and wonder where they came from. That guy that killed and burned his entire family in Scottsdale that's still on the run, they knew what happened. Oh, God, yeah. They knew those babies' throats were slit, and that house was an inferno. Yep, there's very, yeah. It's hard to get rid of that evidence.

The forensic science and the forensic anthropology they can do and all that kind of shit is so advanced. It's so hard to get rid of it. It's hard, man. Yeah, it's really hard. You have to burn them, you have to incinerate them to dust Yeah, and even then you better hope there was no poison because they'll get it from the fucking find it from the blood We'll find a bone chunk in the list. Yeah

So then they get a dive team from Shelby County, Tennessee To assist the Arkansas State Police and the sheriff's departments of the county to search for the gun They believe was used in the killing because they don't have that yet. So they are doing this. They figure it's in the lake probably because why not? And they can't find the fucking gun anywhere in the lake. They dragged the lake. They really everything.

Yeah, you name it. They're trying to divers are out there looking for this gun. They can't find it. So a cousin of Travis here said family members are shocked that he's been charged with this crime and that they think he's a murderer The one family member said his grandparents are really tore up when I saw his mother She was taking it pretty bad either your 15 year olds being charged with a double murder. Yeah crazy. That's weird So they're gonna end up within the next year and a half here when he is going to end up pleading guilty to this by the way. Wow.

Pleads guilty to two counts of first degree murder. What about his friend? No friend. No friend. He'll never, he'll always say there was a friend. But he won't ever say who it was. He won't say who it was and there's no evidence of the friend. But he'll never confess to this murder. He always says he didn't do this murder, but he still pleads guilty. He doesn't, well the death penalty was on the table here they were saying, even though

he was a minor, so I don't know how that would have worked because I don't know, I can't remember exactly when that law was passed, We just did a thing about it. But also the family, and led by Martha the most, is very anti, they feel bad for this kid, Martha especially. He's 15 years old, the family's known his family for a long time, they rent to the grandparents, he's a student of Lee's, and they don't understand this whole thing, and Martha believes him that he wasn't the killer

also. Really? Absolutely. So they kind of plead for leniency, especially Martha. Martha pleads for leniency for the kid and so he says another man killed the two people. So and the families are okay with the guilty plea. The prosecutor said the families felt it would be traumatic to go through a trial. It was a reasonable disposition. So just accepting it. Yeah, they're okay with it and they think it's such a young kid too. I mean, what are we going to do here? Try to really screw him to the wall.

He's going to get a lot of years anyway. So the judge here, David Burnett, accepts the plea deal and sentences him to, you, sophomore, may fuck off 28 and a half years for murder and an additional five years for burglary and theft charges, but that will run concurrently with the murder, and he will be eligible for parole in a little over 20 years. Uh-oh. Yeah, so there's that in his 30s.

So Martha ends up coming back from California to run the house. Yeah. Now it's her responsibility to run that. It's a business now. So she does. And in 19 and she ends up buying the house from her family because it went into a trust with a bunch of people or whatever. Um, in addition to this, there's it's a thousand acres of Lake front property that with the Snowden house, which is the big mansion is the centerpiece. Her longtime friend said she loved that house. And when they her mother was killed in it, she said Martha was devastated and like we all were. And you know, she wanted to get

the house back up. So she does and runs it as a bed and breakfast and a wedding venue. So much so Memphis magazine does a huge long spread on her called Lady of the Lake. And it's kind of a luxury bed and breakfast now. And she says my grandparents were world class travelers and they had seen an antebellum plantation home in Louisiana. And that's supposedly what my grandmother plant pattern this home after. Yes. She said, Oh boy, doesn't that remind you of slavery? Let's go ahead and fucking build a yesteryear. Let's build a fucking slavery

tribute home. Shall we? So they did. So too. Yeah. They talk in this article. They say two centuries ago, Horseshoe Lake was nothing more than a tight bend in the Mississippi River. The New Madrid earthquakes of the 1811 and 1812 changed all that. I didn't know anything about that. The upheaval shifted the main channel of the river eastward leaving an oxbow lake that became a haven for creatures that swam, flew, slithered and crawled. Awesome. Yeah, yeah, it just left a little tributary with nothing connected, but not connected to anything. So it's a lake now. So that's kind of cool here. And there's also four

smaller lakes and ponds. They said over the years, a few families settled in the area. And eventually there was cotton plantations here too, was there. But the Snowden family, they were kind of really, they were the ones that really were buying up this land. As we know, they ended up with a thousand acres of it. The original plan was to renovate the home. This is what Martha wanted to do when she came and took it back over and renovate it and make it her private residence and then open up the house and grounds for wedding receptions and parties and special events.

So she, she recruited, I don't know where she got her money from but she recruited some restoration expert and an interior designer and all these people. It's gotta be the actor right? I don't know this well the whole family seems to have old money so I don't know what's going on. Yeah seems to be. They have early 1800s German oil lamps suspended from elaborate chains in the ceiling. All this type of shit. They have the bathrooms got new Calcutta gold marble countertops. Oh, Jesus Christ.

They added heated flooring. She said the kitchen was a major challenge because it had been used as a restaurant and the walls were just covered in gook. Gook. Not goop. Gook. Scunge as we found out from a live show that would be. Yeah. So we just took them down and exposed the bare pine walls. The yellowed asbestos ceiling tile got the same treatment. She retained the original metal Geneva cabinets from the 40s

and added zinc countertops. So they just really spruced it up. She said I just I needed to bring the home up to the 21st century and She also put in air conditioning. She said otherwise we had all these you know window units She said these giant box air conditioners were hanging out every window the kitchen the side porch is everywhere It was horrible and you can imagine the expense and in the basement. I found a gas guzzler of a furnace It was costing a lever a thousand000 a month to heat the place. Golly! Jesus, and that's in the 80s or late 90s. And that's 6,000 square feet.

It's a giant house. It's a big house. And it's hot in the summer, man. That's a hot area in the summer and then cold in the winter. So that's rough. So they said it's a three story, 6,000 square foot home that described as stately and elegant with luxurious architectural details that include a grand marble floored entrance with sweeping staircase, antique crystal chandelier and a Carrera marble fireplace, all of which are heirlooms from one of the original family homes in Memphis

Carrera marble in the 90s that just became real popular now. Wow That's in the mainstream But really rich upper crust fucks knew a lot of shit that we never heard of until you know Until like fake rich people came along now and well until yeah Instagram people and shit like that until people with mortgages that could just put off paying for that Yeah, now 30 years from now. I figured I'd second mortgage my house to put some Carrera marble in instead. All right That's a good idea. I love a HELOC. That's wonderful Jesus Christ, so they said that

From the website here from the Snowden house website. They said it's perhaps the lakes most impressive property Functioning in recent years as a bed and breakfast and as Memphis's premier wedding venue So this is a place This is a place if you live in Memphis and you want to go have like a country like a wedding in this big grand Thing you come here. You do it. It's only 40 minutes away. Now back to Travis Lewis. He's in prison while Martha is doing all this and he is he wants parole once 20 years comes up. Yeah, I'd like to go home late, you know, 2016 I think is when he's up for parole. And so there is, you know, somewhat for and Martha supports this parole fully.

Yeah, she supports the parole. A first cousin of Martha, Dottie, said that, yeah, that Martha befriended him while he was in prison. She used to go visit Travis in prison, send him letters. They were like pen pals and everything. And she said that she was just, she thought he was a decent guy visit Travis in prison, send them letters. They were like pen pals and everything. And

she said that she was just, she thought he was a decent guy and a young guy who, for whatever reason, made a mistake and she doesn't think he's even the murderer. She thinks he's just a kid who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and ruined his life basically. So she feels bad for him. And she's probably got a small connection to him because what she's missing He's the last person that saw them alive that too Something maybe maybe she he can give a detail, but she doesn't think he killed him She doesn't think he killed her so even if he didn't kill him he was there and yeah

He's the last person to see him to her knowledge So Martha by the way Martha is also a Buddhist and very much She has a very live-in-let very kill and let live in this case attitude real kill and let live attitude you know what I mean yeah yeah that goes yeah that's yeah she's a Buddhist and you know that makes sense I guess from the award winning Masters of audio horror. I see a face right up against the window. Bleach white, no hair, black eyes, a round hole for a mouth.

It's flat, Taylor, it's completely flat. I don't know what that is. I don't know what kind of a head is flat. Comes the return of Dark Sanctum. What is that coming under the door? It's blood. Seven original chilling tales inspired by The Twilight Zone and Tales from the Crypt. Get back in your car.

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have urgent. It just happens to all of them. I'm journalist Luke Jones and for almost two years I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn Trials I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique lonely Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple podcasts or Spotify. It's really the goal of what everybody's goal should be is that because you're just You're literally trying to make the world a better place regardless of people's mistakes And we should probably all be so so kind and now and her friends said as a big-time Buddhist

She believed in forgiveness, which I think what religion isn't forgiveness is a big thing Is there any religion there were they're like the whole, the whole point is to smite your enemies, that's the point, there's no religion that says that. The whole point is to sin and just die. Sin and die and if anyone fucks you over, you fuck them back harder. That's a lost book of the Bible I don't know anything about, yeah.

Somebody sins against you, you sin harder. You sin harder, you show that, you wanna see what a sin is? I'll fucking show you what a sin is and then you You lay them to waste. Yeah for sinness She actually She actually, you know takes all this forgiveness shit to heart. Yeah and forgives this guy She loves it a family friend sent a name Frank Bird drove her to the state penitentiary to see

Him. Yeah, and said I told her I didn't think it was a good idea, but she didn't answer me. She just straight ahead. They said that you really shouldn't hang out with this guy and shit like that. So 2018 comes around and she is one of the main petitioners for his parole. Oh boy. Being the daughter of the victim, of the main victim here and all that, they take that seriously.

Sure, sure. And the fact that he was 15 when it happened also, and she gives a sob story for him also, then they're like, well, fuck, if the family can forgive him, I guess we'll let him out. We have to, as the state, yeah. So they parole him. She not only gets him paroled, she offers him a room in the bed and breakfast I guess we'll let him out. We have to as the state. Yeah. So they parole him.

She not only gets him paroled, she offers him a room in the bed and breakfast and gives him a job as a groundskeeper. Wow. She moves him in and gives him a fucking job. Like she's trying to put him back on his feet, which is amazing. And he was like, well shit, yeah.

I mean, there's not a lot of job offers for, you know, what experience do you have? Well, let's see, I've been in prison since I was 15, so not much. It's tough going, yeah. I'm pretty good at lighting a fire. Outside of that, I don't really have much. So they said, the friends were still shocked

that she would bring him in that close. They were like, you know, what the fuck? At one point, her family friend said, we had said to her, just stay away from him. It's a bad juju type of thing but she wouldn't do it. She had to do it and she wrote letters to him in prison and wrote letters to the parole board for years saying this guy's gonna come up for parole soon look at him this guy. She's like a scout like a parole scout. This guy he's tearing it up in the minors you really want to see this guy. He's got a great scout. This guy, he's tearing it up in the minors. You really want to see this guy.

He's got a great left. Oh my god, it's amazing. So they said, the family said, we were contacted every time he came up for parole. None of us would okay it except for her. And she would not only okay it, she was all for it. What is going on with this? That is so Buddhist. She wants to make a difference in somebody's life here. She felt bad he was so young,

and she honestly believed that someone else did it because that's what he said, and she believed him wholeheartedly. And the sheriff said, I think it was her mission to find out what happened to her mother and to find out if someone else was involved and who that was. So they think that might have also been a reason.

Maybe if she can get this guy to trust her, he'll tell her what really happened and then she can get some closure and maybe find the person who really killed her mother also. So Martha hires him, kind of quietly gives him a job working on the property because his mother, Gladys, is a housekeeper there for years. Martha hired his mother Gladys is a housekeeper there for years. Yeah. Martha hired his mother Gladys as a housekeeper because she had a stigma on her because her son is a murderer. So she felt bad. She hired her. So she said, OK, now he's a groundskeeper and he works alongside of his mother, who's a housekeeper.

That's interesting. Then out of nowhere, this is in 2018. So that's interesting. Then out of nowhere, this is in 2018, in 2020, early 2020, Gladys comes to Martha and tells this about her own son. She says, just stay away from Travis because he's going back to his old ways. His old ways, what, when he was 14? Yeah.

What, he's doing biology homework? What are you talking about? Let's go back to old ways. Trying to learn the Pythagorean Theorem. Yeah, no, he's fucking, he's watching Doug and shit. Like, he's just doing like all sorts of 90s weird teen shit. Going back to his own ways, I caught him with a mad magazine. Yeah, it was weird.

Jerking off to a Playboy from 92. It was strange stuff. I don't like it. He's a Pamela Anderson penthouse he had. I was like, this is weird. Makes me feel awkward in 2015. It's strange stuff. I don't like it. He's a Pamela Anderson penthouse he had. I was like, this is weird. Makes me feel awkward in 2015. It's very strange. He's 39 years old, now it's odd.

So she ends up firing him, not because of what the mother said either. She still kept him on, but apparently at one point, she sold a chandelier for $10,000 cash. Okay. Which she kept in the house. Yeah. Okay, now Travis stole the $10,000.

He was there when she came home with the money and knew about it and then the money vanished like that night and he was the only one who had access to it. So she had to fire him over that. She's like, okay, I gave you, you killed my mother for Christ's sake. Like I'm pretty forgiving. Give me a to fire him over that. She's like, okay, I gave you, you killed my mother for Christ's sake. Like I'm pretty forgiving. Take a mile for a holy shit. Yeah. This is

a kill me once. Shame on me. You know what I mean? But shame on you. So he's, yeah. She said, so they said Travis happened to be there that day. This is a, a Martha sister. Then the money did, the vanished. She fired him after the money disappeared. So he's gone from the house. That's early 2020. March 25th, 2020, as if the world wouldn't have enough fucking problems at this point. Yeah, that was a bad time. Bad time here. The Snowden house is located by the way, this is right next to where her mother was murdered in the other house. This is the Snowden house. So her mom's murder house is right there too.

And it's still standing because it didn't burn down. It didn't burn down all the way. Well, she's in the regular Snowden house here, and the police get a notification from a silent alarm at that house. She has an alarm next to her phone, that's in her phone, like the house thing, that is a direct alarm to the police that something's going on. So they get, but it's a silent alarm,

doesn't set off a big, you know. Nobody knows that it's happening, yeah. Except for the cops. So the cops zoom to the house, and they run to the house, and when they open up the back door, oh, here's a quote from the sheriff deputies today responded to an alarm at the historical Snowden house in Horseshoe Lake Two deputies arrived found an open back door and upon a clearing in the house

Located a possible suspect. Yeah who jumped from an us upstairs window Down to the lawn and ran to a vehicle and drove across the yard He then got the suspect then got stuck in the yard in the vehicle because it's muddy and marshy Well, the suspect then jumped from the car and ran and jumped into the lake He was observed going under the water and never came back up. What? The suspect jumped in the lake and drowned himself or just couldn't swim and made a bad decision. Or found a pipe and went somewhere else? No, it's not Super Mario. Whoever this is isn't Luigi. He didn't go find a pipe. He went you get, how do you get, you can't drown yourself?

Apparently you can if you can't swim. I don't know if the guy couldn't swim or what. He never came back up. So rescue teams from the sheriff's department in Game and Fish, they're using sonar equipment to try to recover this person. Anyway, we'll get to that in a second. As those cops are chasing this guy, more cops show up and they find, quote, the body of a female deceased inside the house.

They found Martha inside the house, murder, I mean, brutally murdered, stabbed and bludgeoned, stabbed, stabbed many, many times and bludgeoned with a hammer. Destroyed, destroyed. She's at the top of the stairs this is there was an obvious thing going on here this person did not know that an alarm was pressed at the top of the stairs near a bag filled with her belongings along with a bloody knife oh boy so this person dropped the shit if they were dragging out the body because she is wrapped in blankets as well. Oh my god. So he's dragging whoever this is is dragging her and a bag of her shit

and her knife and then heard cops are here and went oh shit and just ran and jumped out the closest window. That's what happened. So yeah there's a cloth bag on top of a nearby chair complaining containing several valuables and a bloody kitchen knife as well Because there was a utility light knife on the floor next to her So they said it was determined that the intent was to steal these items however it was not determined whether the intentions were to burglarize the home and if she was killed in the process of this intention a Process or if this intent if the intention was to murder her and then

they just opted to steal the items. So is this a murder because of a burglary or a burglary because of a murder? While I'm here, I might as well take some shit. Which begot what? Which, yeah, exactly. So they end up dragging the lake using sonar, finding the body of the perpetrator. Get the fuck out of here. They found him in the lake. They pull him body of the perpetrator. Get the fuck out of here. They found him in the lake

They pull him out of the lake. Yeah, it's Travis Lewis. Of course it is It's fucking true. They were like, holy shit. The cops didn't think that I mean we just told the story But the cops are like, are you fucking kidding me? What's that all again? Yeah, you fucking asshole They pull him out. They do a talk screen on him too. Turns out he had cocaine and Methamphetamine in a system. Yeah so he got all methed up to go steal some shit and She was there and he killed her didn't realize she set off a silent alarm thought he had time to start robbing the house What the fuck did he think was gonna happen? I don't know

I don't know. I don't know if he tried to go in the lake and hide behind a... I don't know what his plan was. Clearly this was not... he didn't think whatever his dismount was in his head, it didn't include two cops showing up in the middle of what he was doing. Did he think there was gonna be like a straw under there that he could just hide and scream? I was about to say it. He had like a scuba. I think he thought there was pipes like you did. I think we're dealing with a... Where's the pipe? Where's the pipe? He says, shit, there's a pipe.

Send me to World 8! I wanna go where there's coins. Send me somewhere. I think he was fucking like a yogi bear that he was just gonna breathe through a reed and let the bees pass. I'm not sure what happened. What the fuck is he doing? That's what the fuck he did. It's crazy. Wouldn't he go to the bottom and just like,

grab a hold of some roots and try to wait it out? I don't know, he's trying to hide under there. I don't know if maybe he couldn't swim. Maybe that too. But if you grew up on a fucking lake, you'd think you'd know how to swim. You'd think so, but maybe not. Maybe he'd been in prison for 20 years,

and then he's been here, you'd think he'd have figured it out. I don't know. Is that like Viking? I don't know Like we said Someone had to have thrown him in that lake and went heirs that way motherfucker. He was born in 1980 He's like our age. They would have done the same thing to him. They did to us So I feel like he'd know how to swim at this point I don't know what happened to this kid, but he is just he's fucking See yeah at first you're like, oh must just be so something must have happened. Who knows he's 15 now

It's like you're just evil. You're fucking evil monster You're a fucking monster and you always were and it came out early in you apparently was like drawn back to the site to do It again and that to the same people, that's fucking insane. And Martha trying to be nice, talk about no good deed goes unpunished. Jesus Christ, this is fucking horrible. This is an example of never do anything nice for anyone ever. Forgiveness for schmiveness, fuck him.

He wouldn't hurt me, I've helped him, I've done this. My mom isn't, his mom's employed by any, nope. Fuck him. Fuck him. Fuck him, keep him in prison, nope. So he's, I get it, 15 years old, and because here's the thing, and it's very similar. My great grandmother, as we know, was murdered,

as I've said a lot, she was murdered, and the woman who did it was a crackhead who was there trying to steal shit, who was 20 years old at the time it happened. She was very young, had a young child, like all this shit. And she comes up for parole all the time and always gets denied. And I think about it in my head, I'm like, okay, that was almost 35 years. Yeah So there's a lot of difference between 20 and 55 and I have the same thoughts I'm like shouldn't isn't it about isn't about time like I feel like them But then I read this and I go maybe fuck them

You know I'm saying what am I supposed to do here go with God honey, I don't give a shit anymore I don't want anything to do with you, nor your fucking bullshit. What I'm saying is I get where Martha's thinking because I've had these thoughts too where I'm like, Jesus Christ, I barely remember when I was 20 years old. If someone said, you're still being going to be held for, outside of kids, you're still going to be held for accidents you had when you were 20 or mistakes you had when you were 20, or mistakes you made when you were 20, I would be like, wow, I barely remember those things happening. Yeah. And that lady's child has filed taxes so many times by now.

Oh god, yeah, they're fucking 35 years old. Yeah. I mean, that's crazy. That's fucked, but I don't know, fuck them. That's what I mean, maybe it's fuck them, I don't know. That's what I usually say. I'm usually a fuck them person, but I'm trying it's fuck them. I don't know. That's what I usually say I'm usually a fuck-em person, but I'm trying to be nice and I don't know. You try to you try to have some fucking decorum and some Sympathy. Some human decency. Yeah

Fuck them. Fuck them. Maybe it's fuck them. I don't know. You're gonna come back and finish the family Yeah, that's what I mean. What we let this lady out. She comes and kills who now? I don't know me man I don't know. I can't do this alone. I don't know, me, man, I don't know. I'm not probably not. I can't do this alone. I don't go to Florida very often, but you never know. I don't wanna do this alone. It'll be a real quiet show.

Jimmy's like, I'm not doing research or writing shit down or reading to you. Welcome to Jimmy waits for another friend.com. Jimmy's show is called Please Read To Me. That's what it's called. Somebody tell me a story. On this episode of Jimmy waits for a friend, still waiting. Still waiting.

Hey guys. See you next week. Something bad must have happened to somebody and I'd love to tell you about it, but still waiting. See you next week. Maybe next time. Jesus Christ. So neighbors said they were shocked to have another murder happen here because it's so outside of these three murders, nothing's ever happened here. It's just Travis.

Yeah. One said we locked our doors and remained inside and prayed for the best. How about, I don't think, I think it's one guy and he's drowning in the lake. I think we're good now. Yeah. Um, the neighbor said, it's just a scary thing that's happened. We're praying for the family. The sheriff said I met her a few times about Martha and she was a nice, interesting lady, which means some whack job from California. That's what that means.

I don't know. Some fucking hippie. I don't know what the hell she was doing. He's already living. Fuck him. What a dick. She really restored know what the hell she was doing. He's already living, fuck him. What a dick. She really restored that place back to its original beauty. It's such a tragedy and well, mind-boggling, that a 15-year-old would commit these murders and then, you know, allegedly come back and do something so horrible again.

I think we can take the allegedly off. He served time for it, man. He ran away from the corpse, jumped out a window, and drowned himself. I'm pretty sure he killed her, too. I don't think there's anybody else involved. And he was convicted in the other one, so... Yeah, pled guilty. Yeah. You can take the alleged off once someone pleads guilty, number one. I don't think he's going to sue you, man. No. And I think he'd have a pretty good case if he did. If his family decided to sue us for saying he murdered Martha, I think we're going to

rock your shit in court. I think we're going to win. You got nothing. So no one else was there, and he was convicted. And he was convicted in the other one, so... Yeah. if he did. If his family decided to sue us for saying he murdered Martha, I think we're going to rock your shit in court. You're fucked. You got nothing. So no one else was there and he fled from there and then drowned himself. Drowned himself. I've never drowned myself in fear of anybody else. Never, never. So the sister said, we're all in disbelief. We're all just in disbelief. Martha didn't deserve to be killed.

She didn't deserve anything that happened to her. No, she didn't. Right. She was being as kind and as forgiving. I can't believe how kind she is. I mean, if you're a religious person, that's pretty Christ-like, quote unquote, would be to say, to embrace the person

that did this to your family and try to find something good in them. But Buddha would high five the shit out of that lady. Well yeah, her corpse anyway. That's the problem. Buddha would be like, oh shit, another one? I've high-fived so many corpses. Maybe I should reconsider my philosophies on this forgiveness shit.

They're the reincarnation people, right? Yeah, no, no, that's Hindu is reincarnation. Damn it. Yeah, Buddhism I think is reincarnation too. Is it? I think they have a system. I don't know, it's like be like water people, right? Yeah, there's a different thing where like,

I think Hindu is like you literally like are, but there's karma, so karma would be you'd come back as something better or something worse because Buddhism does that too. Whoa, that's true. Buddhism has, yeah, if you're shitty, then'd come back as something better or something worse, because Buddhism does that too. Buddhism has, yeah, if you're shitty, then you come back as a shittier thing, and then you can work your way up to a person again.

Yeah, you better be a good pig. Apparently that's the ultimate reward of karma is to be a person, which to hate yourself and have just fucking be unsure and eat your mind alive, that's the best? I alive. That's the best. I think a dog is the best. See the way my dogs live? Holy shit.

You don't know that, you're a dog. You're just loving it. You don't even know you're gonna die because you're a fucking dog. That's what's great. You have no idea it's gonna happen someday. That's fucking awesome. That's what I wanna be.

Some of them gotta know, right, at the end there? My dogs have no idea that anything bad could happen. They think life is just a fucking... My Vaughn's got arthritis in his back. He knows it. And he's still so thrilled though. He's so happy. He's so happy.

I came over, he was jumping my dogs. I don't care. He wiggles that arthritis all over the place. Yeah, Frankie had fucking cancer all over. She had an open leg wound. You came over, she's like, oh God, jumping all over. She had open leg wound. You came over. She's like, oh God, jumping all over you. She doesn't care.

She doesn't give a shit. She didn't care. Maybe it is a dog. Anyway, I think a dog is the best. A dog if you're owned by someone who likes dogs, I guess. I hope Travis comes back as a tumor on a dog. There you go, Trace. That gets cut out and thrown away in the biohazard bag.

So there you go, everybody. That is Horseshoe Lake Arkansas and that's a fucking crazy story. You gotta live fuck him now. You have to I guess, I don't know. Well if somebody, put it this way, you don't have to live fuck him but if someone kills your mother, maybe fuck that person. Fuck him, fuck that one.

It kills your mother, that's bad I guess probably. Outside of that maybe you can forgive but's bad, I guess, probably. That guy's no good. Outside of that, maybe you can forgive, but maybe not. I don't fucking know. If you do forgive, you may be murdered by a future drowning victim. Watch out. That said, hope you enjoyed that show. If you did, please tell everybody about the show. Tell the world.

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Great. Set airs up. Enjoy. Aquatops when I was two. Let's see. Whatever it takes. Do that. Also follow us on social media.

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to go. So that said, 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 on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey. Dracula, the ancient vampire who terrorizes Victorian London. Blood and garlic, bats and crucifixes. Even if you haven't read the book, you think you know the story.

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