Small Town Murder - A Mystery Of Stupidity - Pound, Virginia

Episode Date: April 3, 2026

This week, in Pound, Virginia, a man holds his dying wife, as police arrive, claiming he was held hostage inside the home for over 3 hours. He claims they beat him, while a large man sat on him, then shot his wife, as she returned from a karate class. Police have no luck finding clues, until a mysterious phone call to detectives leads them to buried bag of of very strange evidence. Is there a group of home invading killers on the loose, or is there a much more diabolical solution to this case??   Along the way, we find out that some towns just can't allow dancing, that karate is apparently no match for a shotgun blast, and that having a fat man sit on the hostage is the strangest form of home invading!!   New episodes, every Wednesday & Friday nights!! Check us out on VIDEO Wednesday and Friday evenings on Netflix! www.netflix.com/smalltownmurder Donate at patreon.com/crimeinsports or at paypal.com and use our email: [e-mail] Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder, Crime In Sports & Your Stupid Opinions!   Follow us on... instagram.com/smalltownmurder facebook.com/smalltownpod   Also, check out James & Jimmie's other shows, Crime In Sports & Your Stupid Opinions on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts!!

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express. Yay, and Choochoo! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay, indeed. My name is James Petro Gallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wiseman. Thank you so much for joining us today on another crazy edition of Small Town Murder Express,

10 pounds of murder and a two-pound bag, as we like to put it. Wild crazy stories. We're fitting it in there for you. Wild one as usual this week. Before we get to that, head over to shut up and give me Murder.com. Oh, why, James? Tickets for live shows.

Well, merchandise, too, but tickets for live shows are going to be what you want. Our next show with tickets available is May 2nd in Denver. That's going to be awesome. Can't wait for that. Salt Lake City sold out the night before. And then Buffalo sold out on May 29th. But May 30th, Royal Oak, Michigan, Detroit area. Get out there.

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Definitely. Then get yourself Patreon as well. Please do. Don't. Don't, don't, uh... Don't hold yourself back. Don't, uh, don't hold yourself down, really is what we're trying to say here. Patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get all the bonus material.

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So buy our hot dog, everybody. So, yeah, do that. You get new episodes. You get a whole huge back catalog of hundreds of bonus episodes you've never heard before as soon as you subscribe. Then you get new episodes every other week, one crime in sports, one small town murder. And you get how much, Jimmy, do they get? Every inch of this hot dog. Every damn bit of this hot.

Okay, the inch part made it a little weird, but that's fine. For crime and sports this week, we're going to do old-timey articles and ads, and those are hilarious deaths and murders and weird stuff. Then for small-town murder, we are going to do the Corey Richens case. Oh. Which just happened in Utah, a woman who killed her husband and then wrote a book about grief for her children. That's only the tip of the iceberg, man. That is the weirdest. I watched the entire trial and it is bonker stuff.

Patreon.com. Teach your kids out of greed when you murder their dad. That's wild. So now she's even getting sued for his likeness that she used and shit. It's wild. Oh, no. Patreon.com slash crime in sports, just like the name of our other show that you should also listen to.

Oh, yeah. So there you go. Do that. And also you get everything we put out ad free. And Jimmy will mispronounce your name, trying to give you a shout out at the end of the regular show as well. So you can't beat it. That said, I think it's time, everybody.

Oh, boy. Let's get into this. I think it's time to sit back. What do you say here? Let's all clear the lungs, deep breaths, arms to the sky, and let's all shout. Shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody. Okay.

Let's go on a trip, shall we? We've got to, yeah. All right, here we go with my swollen dentist face and everything else. We're going at it. Man, that's tough. My tongue is cut up. It's not nice, but that's all right. We're going to do this.

We're going to Pound, Virginia. Pound Town is where we're going, Jimmy. Everybody, it's time to go to Pound Town. Who's coming? Yeah. Here we go. Where it's for lovers, Jack. Oh, Virginia. Pound Town is certainly for lovers.

That we know. This is in the far western Virginia panhandle over there. I mean, it's near the Kentucky border. This is a very rural area. I'm talking. There is nothing nearby. Like you go for nearest city. The nearest place is Pikeville, Kentucky.

That's really the closest, which is not a metropolis, by the way. Never heard of it. We're 40 minutes from Pikeville, four hours and 20 minutes to Lynchburg, Virginia. Our last Virginia episode, episode 649, which was Murder for My Love, which was pretty self-explanatory by the title. It goes on there. This is in Wise County. Area Code 276. population of this town, 828.

So, nothing. Pretty damn small. Again, nothing. And it's not a small place outside of a big place. It's just a small place in the mountains. It's in the Appalachians. This is some serious rural stuff here. Median household income here.

Now, rest of the country, the average is $69,000. Right. Here it's 26,417 household income. This is, this is. Less than two. a little over two grand a month? That's nothing. This is an old cold town that has collapsed basically. Oh, my God.

Financially. Like, if you've seen American Hollow, the documentary that we did a Patreon about, it's very a similar place. Wow. Because that was Kentucky, so it's right there. Median home cost here, also pretty low. $86,000, which is insane. That's still pretty high for what you're making.

For what you're making, yeah. So there's also the Pound River. There's the Virginia Pound, which was a, I'd believe a monetary unit. And there's also a woman named Virginia Pound. Don't confuse them. She was an actress who went by Laurenne Gray. Virginia Pound.

Yeah, that wasn't her stage name. A little bit of history of this town. The Pound area was explored by a guy named Christopher Gist in 1751. It's said to be the oldest settlement in Wise County. Oh. There's not many people in Wise County either. The nickname of this place is The Pound. The pound.

They say it's stop. They lean into it too. Yeah. Everything is the town of pound. And I wish, I know, what are you going to call it? It's the town of pound, but it sounds silly when you put it like that. It does. It really sounds like someone's rapping it or something.

It's weird. So they say that might be a family name or from a pounding mill built in 1815. Oh. A pounding mill. The county's first post office came there in 1848. So they'd been there 100 years before they got a post office. And then it wasn't incorporated until 1950. So it took another 100 years after they got a post office.

It was the last town in Wise County to incorporate. Yeah, it's a big coal town. They had a bunch of like tough, rugged bars that catered to coal miners only, like across the border in Kentucky. Then the mining went down and everything kind of collapsed. And it's not great. the in the 90s and 2000s here, the, there's a lot of problems in terms of the political setup and the tax base and things like that. So the Virginia General Assembly passed a law that would revoke the town's charter unless improvements were made. Your town is such a shithole.

We're going to condemn your town. You can't be a town anymore. Like we're taking your name away. You're not allowed to be a part of this. No. Like a gang that's like, you know, ripped a patch off somebody's jacket and it was. like, no, you're not allowed anymore. Cut a tattoo off of blood's chest.

The town had closed its police department, failed to pass a budget, and had its wastewater facility taken away by the county. They were just messed up? Yeah. After the coal mining went away, I mean, it's broke. So a law was passed specifically to potentially dissolve the town. But the charter was restored in 2023, so they must have fixed it. This town, by the way, banned.

dancing without a permit since 1981. It is illegal to dance in this town. If you just hear music and feel joy, you're not allowed to have movement to it at all unless you had a permit. You go to City Hall and ask somebody was offended by something, right? Yeah, this is the town

Footloose is based on essentially. This is wild. That's amazing. No gyrating. We ain't no gyratin in our streets. Couple reviews of this town here. Okay, we've never been here. Maybe it's wonderful. Here's Five stars. Pound, Virginia is a small town with some financial issues.

I've heard. It almost lost its right to be a town. The buildings are starting to crumble. This is a five-star review, by the way. What a crazy sentence. Five stars. Yeah. And the town doesn't get too much business. However, recently there's been a change.

The town began working on tearing down the old buildings and new shops started opening up. I would love to see the town spend the new income from the businesses on repaving roads. Holy. Yeah. Here's five. How many roads do they have with 800 people? It can't be many that are paved to begin with, I would think, right? Here's five stars.

Lived here all my life. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. Sure, we have to leave town for most things, but most of us work in other towns. We can get what we need before coming home. So basically, there's nothing here, but that's all right. We all have to work. How many times have you left work and gotten home and somebody have been, we're out of TV? Well, now I got to go back.

I got to go back to another town. Because I didn't know. Here's one star. There's nothing to do here. We have to travel out to Pikeville, Kentucky, or Wise, Virginia to do all of our errands and for work. It's a very small town in the middle of nowhere. Yeah. And then finally, one star.

I've lived here basically my whole life. Everyone is on meth and in and out of jail. Perfect. Nice. There's literally not a single thing to do. The economy's so bad that they shut down our high school. How do you shut down? Sorry, kids.

I don't know what do you do. Go somewhere else. We can't afford no learning. Nope, no learning around here. Book learning is expensive. This is a really sad excuse for a town, is the final word there. Things to do in this town. Right.

Search old mines for corpses. That's something. Yeah. You could do that. Look for a way out. Yeah, try to tunnel your way out of here. There's also the Red Fox Storytelling Festival. Oh, I know who that is.

Yeah, no, it's not. I don't think it's him. Not that one. 1D, 1X. Red Fox, not Mr. Red Fox. So they do a storytelling thing where they, everybody comes in and they tell children's stories, how the rabbit lost its tail, fairy diddle, which sounds horrible. That sounds horrifying.

I don't like any of this. That sounds like you're going to need a lot of therapy after fairybittle. Layla's Blue Ribbon. Then there's local stories around the red oak tree, murder in the pound, which is what we're going to be doing today. Hey. And stories of Bigfoot. That's literature around here. Bigfoot stories.

Come tell about Bigfoot. Then they have other things. They have a documentary called Justice in the Coalfields about a strike in 1988, fast food women, a documentary about work. workers in the fast food industry. That sounds like a porno. That sounds like fast food women. That sounds like you're getting a shake with that, I think. Music, they have bands.

Strawberry Jam will be there. Yeah. It's a good band name. It's not bad. And Madison Denhard. That's a person. That's another porn name. Now that said, let's talk about some murder here.

Wow, what a place. This is a wild place that we're, everybody understands. where we're settling into here. Tons of sexual connotation and they can't afford it. And they're not allowed to dance. Either. That's why they're having so much sex.

They're not even allowed to dance. They're like, I need to move close to another human. You have to throw these hips one way or another. Oh, so let's go back in time here. To the year they passed the no dancing ordinance, a dark year for pound. 1981 here. Let's first talk about William Jeffrey Cantrell.

His name is, it goes by Jeff. Now, Cantrell, C-A-N-T-R-E-L, seems to be a very popular name around these parts, as we'll get to here. Do you happen to all be related, James? Well, I hope not, based on this relationship, we're going to talk about now. He's 30 years old in 1981. He's born and bred in Wise County. I mean, he's a Wise County boy. He marries in, what is it, 1971, he gets married, okay, to at the time, I believe, about an 18-year-old young lady.

named Judy K. Cantrell. Now, I don't say her name is Judy K. Cantrell because she took his name. Her name to begin with was Cantrell. That makes it easy. So, in a town of less than a thousand, if people of the same last name are getting married, do you assume they're related, correct? They've got to be. And it's not Smith, or Jones.

It's fucking Cantrell. There has to be some distant, at least a cousin, some distant relation here, I would imagine. Oh, they're related. At the very least. I don't even think we're out on a limb to say that. No, I think we're in a very strong branch of the family tree here. I'm not sure. But I couldn't find any information about whether they're related or not.

But their names are Cantrell and they're both from this area. So take your pick. I don't know. Her parents are Evelyn and Ezra Cantrell, which is crazy. So by 81, they live in a house in Wise County, kind of a we'll talk about, on a row off of a road named for her uncle, by the way. And maybe his uncle, too. We don't know.

They're not possible. They have a five-year-old son who was born in 76, so it's 81. They've been married for nine years. Jeff is an engineer for Bethlehem Steel Company coal mine number 26 in Shelby, Kentucky. Okay. So that's what he does. He's a coal guy. So this house here is.

sits directly above the Orby Cantrell Highway. Orby Cantrell is her uncle, and he was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates for 30 years. Okay. So he's like a powerful politician, especially in an area like this. Yeah. That guy is king, you know what I mean? Their name is after him. When you got somebody in your family that's that known around here, you should be able to know if you're related or not, right?

I think they know whether they're related to each other. Now, they have some neighbors around them and some family as well. Yeah. Okay. Right next door is Bill Cantrell. That's, you're going to go, well, who's he related to? He's related to Jeff. That's Jeff's father.

I was going to say, that's his first name, too. So is Jeff a junior maybe? No, this is Bill, is his dad. Right. Jeff's first name is William. William, yeah. There's no junior on him, though. So, I don't know.

Yeah, he could be a William. They're both William, obviously. but I don't think there's a junior. Now, he lives next door, Bill Cantrell. So that's Jeff's dad and, who knows, possibly Judy's uncle. We don't know. Or we have no idea. So they all live around here.

His brother-in-law and sister live like two doors down. And the holler or whatever the hell's going on here. So it's real, everybody kind of lives in a little compound area. Oh, boy. It's strange here. They're all in each other's shit. all the time. They yell across the yard at each other and shit.

Like it's, this is some backwood stuff going on. Tight knit. Yeah, Cantrell's marrying Cantrells. That's tight knit, I would say. Now, two doors down is the brother-in-law, Mack Mullins is his name. Mack is his first name.

Now, how's Judy and Jeff's marriage going? I mean, besides the fact that they share a last name, you think they would share everything, but you never know. Is it cantankerous? It's not going well. The main reason is is because Jeff is sleeping with at least four women

at this point. And some women come in and out, but he's always got a little rotating harem of ladies that he cheats with. Wow. Yeah. One affair with a married woman

had been going on for about a year up until this point. Now he has a ton of nude pictures of this chick. Now this is before this is before it's on your phone You have to actually get a camera You have to get a camera

If it's not a Polaroid You have to like take it somewhere So someone can develop it And some 18 year old kid can whack off To your pictures That's what you got going on at this point Remember summer school? I do.

Yeah, of course. So not only did he have nude photographs He showed them to everybody What? He shows these nude photos You remember that? You know how I'm married and I'm married A man banging a married lady

Right? Yeah. Here's some nude pictures of her I got. That's what this guy's doing. This is correct. Including he shows it to all the guys at work. Yeah. Which seems like a coal mine thing to do.

Let me show you a picture of this lady. I'm banging. Hold on. Well, what happens in the mind? That's Bob's life. Well, yeah. What happens down below the earth stays down below the earth? She also showed the pictures even to Judy's own brother.

Say what? Even to his brother-in-law. He's like, hey, man. I'll see a picture of my girlfriend. Aren't you married to my sister? I mean, well, yeah, but still. Okay. He told his cousin Randall Dean Donahue while displaying these photos.

He said that if anything happened to mine and Judy's marriage, I'd marry that woman. As soon as she got divorced because she's married too. She's already married, man. What are you talking about? That takes another thing to happen for you to get married. Yeah, you need a lot of moving parts to work for you there. So some of the employees at the coal company said that he would read the men notes that his wife would put in his lunchbox. His wife would put, Judy would put notes in his lunchbox.

And Gary Smith, one of the people here that he worked with said sometimes he'd read it. Sometimes he'd pass it around to the guys. She wanted him to hurry up and get home. She couldn't wait for him to get home. Last night was great, that sort of thing. How does he doing so much? This guy's dick works overtime. I'm not sure how many hours he puts in in the mind, but his dick is working overtime.

It's clocking in as soon as he clocks out. I'm telling you, man, she's leaving notes for, man, you really knocked my socks off last night, and he's passing it around to the fellas like it's Vietnam, and he got a letter from his sweetheart. Like, I don't know what's going on here. Smith said that Cantrell seemed proud of the notes. He said, if they were my notes, they'd be personal, as what this guy said. but he was passing it all around. I'm not telling anybody.

Yeah. Now, the thing is, too, both Jeff and the woman that he's sleeping with, is cheating with, they both say they're committed to their marriages. Like, they're not like making a plan to be together or anything. She's like, well, I can't leave my husband and kids. And he's like, well, I can't leave my wife and son. And they're like, all right, well, let me take another. Hold on, spread them a little wider, click.

That's what's happening. Do that V thing. You do that? Yeah, there you go. Point to your butthole. Perfect. I want to see it. If it's honest and open, you've still got to honest and open to other people about this.

They're honest and open, but there's on the peripheral. So Jeff told people that he wanted to make his marriage work. Yeah. So at the same time, he's showing nude photos of the woman he's banging to everyone who will look at it, including his wife's brother. Right. Which is crazy. So we've set up the situation here. I mean, this is, he's going around cold dust on his face, you know, putting his dick into anything that we'll have it at this point.

I can't believe it. And taking pictures of it. So let us go to December 8, 1981. Okay. That night, Judy is attending a karate class. Uh-huh, yeah. Which, I don't know where you'd find a karate class in this area. I can't believe they have that much.

It's a karate studio here. Variety of classes to take. I can't believe. Maybe it was in. Pikeville. I'm not sure. She can't be nearby, right? I wouldn't imagine so, but she's taking a karate class. That's what she's been doing. So she's coming home that night from a karate class.

About 9 p.m. Mac Mullins, Jeff's brother-in-law there, the guy who lives a couple doors down, he said he heard two loud booms around 9 p.m. I thought they were fireworks or some kind. Somebody lighting off some shit. It's the mountains. You know, fireworks, guns. There's all sorts of shit exploding at any time. Yeah. There's a primer. being hit somewhere. Could just be the sinkhole forming, too. You never know.

It could just be the ground collapsing below you. It could just be a pocket of flammable gas that caught a spark. You never know. Whatever caused that nothing but trouble movie to go on. That could be happening all around you. So he called to his father-in-law, who was Bill, Jeff's dad. And Bill dismissed the noises. He heard him too, but he said the noises sounded like firecrime.

actors are coming from the direction of a neighbor who works on guns and shoots all the time. He said so he probably does this a lot. Yeah. So, you know, shit's blowing up all the time. And Bill also said, quote, I was watching television. I didn't think anything more about it. So there you go. He's watching TV.

He doesn't care about explosions happening nearby. I just turned up the Jeopardy a bit louder. Yeah. I don't think Jeopardy is what these people are watching probably. I'll take things that it didn't happen tonight for a thousand, Alex. Yeah, that's something. So about 915, Jeff calls his parents' house. He calls Bill.

And he's kind of in a tizzy, basically. Yeah? He says, someone's broken in and he needs help. Oh, my. Yeah. Now, the noises that they heard, the booms, happen about 905 p.m. according to Bill, and he said they were about three to five seconds apart. Boom.

Three seconds, five seconds, and another boom. So Jeff called, told him. his mother that he'd been robbed. Someone broke in and robbed them and he needed help. So the Bill said that he, quote, went out on the porch and heard Jeff screaming and crying in a loud voice. They've shot Judy. They've shot Judy.

Oh my God. Yeah. So Bill calls Mack Mullins and says, let's go over there. Now he's next door. Just go over there. And call. Dude's too. Hey, Mac. Come on over. Somebody's been shot. I'm going to need a

pal. Yeah, I got to have a buddy for that. So, yeah. Anyway, everyone converges on the house. Somehow, Mac Mullins gets there first. I don't know how Bill is. Adaboy. Awfully slow to get off the couch for they've shot Judy. So he's like, but hold on a minute. Let me see it with the, it's the double jeopardy. So it's, this one's important. They've shot my daughter-in-law. What they wager? Let me find out. Now, did they do it in the form of a question is the real thing? So, Mac, I mean, this is horrible, obviously. Mac gets there. When he arrived at the scene, he said at the foot of the steps leading up to the house, Jeff was holding Judy in his arms.

Right out front. Right out front. And wailing. Judy, my Judy. You know, all that kind of shit. So Bill said he drove from his residence along the gravel road. He lives next door to his son's house and saw his son cradling Judy saying, oh, baby, oh, baby. And he said, get my camera.

Hold on. Her boobs showing. Yeah. Teddys out. Mac Mullins had already arrived there and he walked over there from his house. They call the police. That seems like the right thing to do. Even in the mountains, you call the police.

And Officer Mullins is dispatched at 9.18 p.m. He had been patrolling Route 23, which was the main highway. That's the Orby Cantrell Highway. Right. And he saw no vehicles parked on the shoulder, no intruder, no, like, people leaving. the air at a high rate of speed, no, nothing like that. And there's not a lot of ways in and out. Yeah. You go down to the highway.

Nothing going on. Nothing going on. Duke boys didn't jump over the gully. Nothing happened. So the rescue squad is there when he arrives. He arrived about 9.30 and there's already EMTs on the scene. And Judy is lying in the driveway at the foot of the brick steps. It's a five brick step, a little stoop, basically.

Yeah. She has been shot twice with a. 12-gauge shotgun at close range. Wow. That is in the neck and head. Three to five seconds apart, too. Boom and boom. Yeah, that's one on the ground, finish them off.

What the fuck? Yeah. So, yeah, this happened on the front steps by all the evidence. It looks like she was walking up the front steps to her house after karate class. And, you know, a chopper, a well-placed roundhouse isn't going to save you from a shotgun blast, unfortunately. and there you go. So 28 years old, dead in the front yard. Hey, everybody.

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Email Bob at libson.com to learn more. That's B-O-B-L-I-B-S-Y-N.com. Two shotgun blasts. Her karate bag is near her feet. Her house keys are on the steps. She's just about to open the door and dropped them. Now, the shotgun here was on the grassy landing near the corner of the house at the top of the steps.

It belongs to Jeff. He keeps it inside the house. It's Jeff's shotgun. So somebody broke in, got the shotgun and shot her. And shot her. But yeah. And where's he? And left him and hauled ass.

Well, he's got a, he said he was kept in there for a long time as we're going to find out. So there's two spent shell casings, one on the landing and one still in the ejector slot of the shotgun. Oh, it didn't come out. So Jeff is lying behind her and he's being attended to by medical personnel as well. A rescue squad member named Cecil Boland. said that Jeff was hyperventilating when he arrived. His blood pressure was elevated, but he didn't recall seeing any bumps or bruises or cuts or anything on him.

Okay. Now, so they find Judy's karate bag there. They find her keys, the shotgun, the shells. They also find a knife in a leather case as well, which is interesting. Now, inside the house, the kitchen cabinets and drawers are all open. All open. So either a poltergeist has came or some.

somebody's been rifling through shit. We don't know. I love when they do that. That's so fun. That a ghost is just like, I just want to look like I've been looking for those vice scripts that are in a cabinet somewhere. Just want to go through your junk drawer and see if you got a charger for an iPhone 4. I don't know why.

I don't even have an iPhone 4 anymore. I just want to see if you had it. Yeah, treat your kitchen like Monty Hall just asked for a bobby pin. That's exactly right. Yeah. That's what everyone's junk drawer is. So there's Christmas presents unwrapped in a bedroom. because this is December.

So there was Christmas presents wrapped. Now they're unwrapped. Women's clothing hanging from open drawers. So everything's been going on. They were wrapped and this person unwrapped them all. Unwrapped the gifts to see what they are. The words, fuck you are written on the television screen.

Oh. I believe in dust because I can't get, has to be in the dust because I can't find out if it's like in marker. There's no mention of that. So it's written on the television screen. They said the letter K is rendered in an unusual way. They described it as looking like a V with a slash mark down the front. That's what somebody made.

So a weird looking K that goes too deep. Yeah. The V part of it. Judy's wedding rings were on a counter by the sink. And there was camera equipment visible in an open cabinet above the refrigerator. These are things of value. That seems valuable. Yeah.

And that are in the open. Two men's watches were on top of a dresser in plain sight untouched. Jeff reports the following items have been stolen. Now, not rings and watches, but $450 in cash. A clock. Who steals a clock? When you get a clock? Yeah.

There's a camera on the clock. Take the clock. Yeah, take the watches. They're clocks. Those shits are expensive. They're clocks. A 38 caliber pistol. Oh.

A movie camera. 1981 style, who knows, 16 millimeter, who knows. Jewelry of various, you know, persuasions, a pocket knife, a hairdryer. They stole the hairdriar, but left watches and rings. What? Who takes the con air? Christmas presents, a comb, money from his bill fold, his pocket watch, and a, I don't know what this is, a Plextron. I don't know what a Plextron is, but it's 1881.

Sounds like technology. It sounds like something. So they brought in a tracking dog about three hours later in rain and snow and still brought this tracking dog in. And the dog found a scent leading from the back of the house to a boundary fence around a field on the Cantrell property. That's great. Yeah, it's really good. But the scent ended there at the fence. It didn't continue off the property.

No, they got helicoptered out. The dog turned around and came back to the house. Well, yeah, once you get there, you jetpack it from there. Then you can fly. Then you can fly. Now it's time to fly. That's why we didn't see any getaway cars. Looking for two guys in a jetpack, everybody.

You got to run to get the momentum up and then you hit the thrusters and pop up and away, babe. Yeah, you ever been on a plane? It's not from a seated position. It's not a helicopter. It doesn't just take off from the gate. You got a good pace going. You got a taxi. You got a taxi.

So the dog turned around, came back to the house. Now, in that field, they found some of the stolen items. Oh. So things just fell off of them. As you jetpacked, that thrust will... Yeah, yeah. Things will fall off of you. It'll jerk things out of your pockets.

Yeah. There's no trail leaving the property, no vehicles seen on the highway, no vehicles hurt on the road, and no fingerprints at all on the shotgun. Oh, wow. Okay. Now, a palm print inside the house belonged to neither Jeff nor Judy, but there's no other prints anywhere else. Just a random palm print, which in 1981 was as useful as... Nothing. Absolutely.

as you found like a pringle on the front step. That is the equivalent of an evidence paperweight. Doesn't matter. Nothing. So a soil sample from the bathroom window sill matched soil behind the house. But they checked, too, it didn't match anything on Jeff's shoes. Okay. So to make sure it wasn't Jeff climbing in the window.

Jeff got locked out of the house or some shit. Yeah. There's a broken drinking glass on the kitchen floor that is consistent with the story Jeff will tell, but also, you know, consistent with just. just a broken glass too at the same time. So basically what his story is, that three men were in the house for over two hours. Wow.

And essentially, they left, they disappeared into the night and assumingly really with nothing of value because everything has been found in the field and things haven't been taken. So really, they just came in, shot Judy, will tell you what they did to Jeff and then jetpacked off the scene and are gone. held Jeff for two hours, and then shot her and then hold ass.

Yeah, for over two hours. So at the hospital, Norton Community Hospital, Jeff is conscious on arrival, blood pressure back to normal, superficial scratches on the face, minor swelling of the forehead where there was a small bruise, x-rays all negative for broken bones, no concussion, nothing like that. Their diagnosis was acute hysteria. He's tripping. He's tripping man.

Yeah. That's it. So they gave him Valium intravenously. Which sounds awesome. What? You can do that? That sounds like it's probably really good. You calm down right the fuck now.

Right now, you're calm. That is awesome. Valium, I didn't even know it came in a liquid form. You can liquefy anything. Yeah, I guess so. Drugs, people, you can cook it, liquefite, anything could be shot into your veins if you really want it to be. That is awesome.

You got to really want it. it is the thing, Jimmy. Now, by the following day, the swelling's gone and the cuts are nearly healed. So all very superficial stuff. Judy at the time said that they said she was hit, fired at close range from no more than 15 feet, which is close for a shotgun. Yeah. That's pretty close for a shotgun. Within 15 feet? Dude, that's, everything is hitting you. Yeah, you're getting all the pellets at that point. And they said it was two blasts to her chest and neck. Okay. Which makes me. makes it seem like chest is where you go for, you know, mass, center mass, and then down, and then you go for the neck.

So this, they said she would have been dead real quick. Right now. Real quick. Yeah, she didn't last long. She probably never saw it coming or if she did. It was only for a second and she was gone. So at least that's the chin's suffer. Even if it tears up in, even if it doesn't tear up internals, it's going to tear so much off

you. You're just going to bleed out so fast. Mm-hmm. Horrible. It's a lot. So there's a witness, a neighbor woman. on the road that said she heard Judy Cantrell's car past her house 9 o'clock 905 somewhere around there. She looked out the window, quote, as she always does when cars go by.

That's my thing. Oh, my God. Imagine living somewhere where a car going by is something you got to get up and look out the window for. Hey, it's a car, everyone. The kids come running. What kind is it? Is it blue? Oh, man.

I wanted to see a blue one today. That's about a 72 Cordoba. Oh, my God. Who gives a shit? That's how rarely cars drive by. She said she saw Judy's vehicle. She said that's the first vehicle she heard on the road all evening. So no intruder's coming or going.

That is a positive reason to do that shit. I mean, you always have her. She's the neighborhood surveillance camera, I guess. She said she here heard no other vehicles until the rescue squad arrived. Okay. All right. Now, the palm print, like we said, so they said there's handwriting on the TV, soil on the bathroom window sill that matches the soil behind the house, broken glass on the kitchen floor, palm print that doesn't match either of the residents, no fingerprints on the shotgun or the shell casings or any of the items found in the field either. Oh. Any of the stolen items.

For sure, right? Has to. So they don't get a story from Jeff, a complete and total story because he said, oh, my head's a little story. because he said, oh, my head's a little whatever. They don't get a story from him until New Year's Eve. How long is that? A week? Three weeks.

Oh, it was December 8th. Yeah. So this is now December 31st. Uh-oh. That's a long time. But I guess then the holidays were coming, so it's a small town police department. I can't imagine they had the full detective unit going during the holidays. He's got to put up lights, man.

He's got so much to do. He's got relatives coming from Kentucky. It's a lot going on. So December 31st, he provides a handwritten statement to police. He describes the attack in very vivid detail. Three men break in, you know, all of this thing. He said he arrived home at 6.40 p.m. entered the kitchen. Didn't turn the light on, as people do, when they go into a dark room.

640 in December means dark outside. As fuck. You can't see any. You're going to knock a glass off the table and break it. Well, that's not what his story, though. He didn't turn on the light. He said he was immediately struck over the head with a hard object. Okay.

And seized by three men who forced him to the floor. All right. Okay. The object he's hit with is a glass. Oh, he said he was hit with the glass. Yeah. Now, he passed out, he said. He said when he came to, he was face down on the linoleum floor with his hands and legs tied with his own

insulated underwear, by the way. It's long johns. They tied them. The done tied me with my long johns. They tied me with my duck boots, my duck pants. Oh my God. Insulated underwear means like it's warming. Yeah, long johns.

So you wear that under shit when you go when you go hunting at five o'clock in the morning. You call that insulated? Is that what those are? Yeah, yeah. It's like, I think so. Like a thermal type thing. Almost like this. Almost like my shirt a little bit.

But yeah. That's, I think that's just any... Insulated usually means it's got like a layer in between two layers. Oh, it might. Yeah, it could. It could be thicker or... That's some thick shit. Thick shit.

Yeah, he's getting tied up with one of those. And he said what happened after that was the largest of the men, who was a big fat guy, sat on him. Oh. So he said he woke up to being sat on. He said for what seemed like two or three hours. So all the rest, this was their way of subduing the hostage was the other two guys ransacked the house while the fat ones. one sits on him. Hey, big guy.

Have a sit. That is really low-tech robbery skills there. Sit on him, will you, fat boy? Okay, fine. Okay, so he said the men beat him repeatedly. They hit his head. They banged it on the floor, broke the drinking glass on the back of his head, kicked him in the stomach.

They just beat him up. He said, no one spoke to him, nothing. They ransacked the house. They stole things. Then he heard Judy's car pull into the carport. Oh, no. And he said he screamed, Judy, Judy, trying to warn her. Tried to warn her off.

And he said, they hit her over the head again. They hit him over the head again. Shut up. Yeah, shut up. And that guy continued to sit on him. He then said he heard two shotgun blasts about three seconds apart. He said at that point, the men gathered up all their stolen goods that they had and kind of panicky in a panicky fashion.

And I don't think they expected her to come home and ran out the back door. He said he It's a story He said he freed himself from the underwear Yeah As best he could Hopped up to the phone Turn the light on

Called his parents Went outside and found Judy dead And that's when they all Found him out there My baby Judy, she's dead Yeah That's what happened And he's got superficial scratches

On his face A small bruise on the forehead And some veins full of Valium At this point That's what he got on Yeah Yeah So he said

That's what's going on He had a little reddish place on some scratches is what one of the EMTs described it as. There's going to be a lot of questions with that story. There's a lot of questions there. Yeah. So she now Jeff's girlfriend, they talk to her. They find out what they just ask around about Jeff. They're like, could you talk to his girlfriend?

The one he shows me titty pictures of all the time. She said that, yes, she and Jeff were, you know, a thing. Fucking. He said that she was all, he was also involved with other women. Oh, boy. She ain't the only one. And she confirmed the nude photographs existed and that, yes, she knows he shows them around. She's heard.

At this point, by the way, they break up. She's done with him. She's like, this is just too much for me. You made the police come talk to me. This is wild. Yeah, I can't be doing this. Now, they do the autopsy on Judy and they find, obviously, the two shotgun wounds. Then they bury her.

Then they exhume her for a second autopsy. Oh, this poor lady can't fucking rest. Nope. They won't even let her rest here. They said they needed additional information on shot trajectories and patterns. They didn't do that before? Apparently not. They were just like, yep, those are gunshots.

She sure is dead. And they're like, we should have probably done like more work on her, right? Did you stick some pencils in that to see which way they came from? Where is she buried? God damn it. Like, this is sad. This poor woman, man. This is horrifying.

And they wanted, they said they thought they could gain more information on the distance from which the shots were fired because they thought that was. was important. So they grant the request to exhume her. Jeff didn't want her exhumed. Like, why are you doing that? And there's like, there's a law that says basically your spouse owns your body, essentially. And if your spouse doesn't want you exhumed, then you need like a court order for it. So they have to get like a, you know, a warrant and all this type of shit.

This is from a newspaper. The exhumation apparently concluded after nightfall. Mrs. Clella Minor of the minor funeral home said Wednesday night, at the copper casket holding, said Wednesday night, the copper casket holding Mrs. Cantrell's body would be kept at the funeral parlor until they take their body and bring it back.

So they got her used casket they're waiting for. All right, April 17, 1982. So months have gone by. Four of them. Four months have gone by. Jeff's been cooperative. He's been talking to the cops whenever they need him to talk. Great.

He's been, you know, walking around. People are giving him adults. and his poor guy's wife is dead and everything like that. He maintains his story. You know, it's all he can do. Everything's fine. And they have no evidence to the contrary to say that he's lying other than his story is absolutely ridiculous. Other than that.

Fucking crazy. Other than the jetpack robbers. And how'd the fat one get off the ground with the jet pack? How'd that happen? He had two. He didn't even talk. He had two for a month. Well, here's the other question.

Give me a boost and they had to get below him. Why did they murder a lady? and leave your dumb ass here. Yeah, that's what I mean. Did she go into a karate stance? And they're like, oh, no, she knows the deadly arts. She's dangerous. She knows the crane, y'all.

Oh, damn it, y'all. I don't know what happened. So, Officer Roy Nixon gets a phone call on this day. A man calls. It's a man's voice. It's the Wise County Police Station. He claims to have been involved in the murder. Oh.

So we got a killer here. He tells the officers, I can prove I was involved in the murder because I can tell you where some evidence is. Oh, he's got some. So they go, okay. He said there's a flower box near the pound hardware store

in the town of pound. You want to go there? Pound town. Go to Poundtown. So Nixon's like, is this a prank call? Yeah, we've heard this. No, no, no, for real. It's 4.45 p.m.

So Nixon said it was a prank call. man's voice and he identified himself as being one of the persons who broke into the Cantrell house. He said I would find all the evidence I needed to convict the man who killed Mrs. Cantrell and that he would turn state's evidence after he was arrested. But he won't tell you who he is. Okay. At this point in time.

So they head on down and Officer Donnie Ray Mullins, I don't know if any relation to Mack Mullins. I don't know why there's only two goddamn names in this fucking town. But another one. Ray. Donnie Ray, cousin of Mac possibly. Probably. He's listening on the other line. And he has known Jeff Cantrell for 20 years, just in personal matters, just from around.

And he'd spoken to the phone, on the phone with him several times. Sure. And he recognized Jeff's voice immediately on the phone. Right now. Yeah. He said that he was definitely Jeff. He said it was very similar to Jeff Cantrell's voice on the phone. So a voice could be mistaken.

though. You never know. Maybe this guy is really good at his Jeff Cantrell impersonation. That's all. You never know. You know what? If Jaymore called me as Christopher Walken, I'd be convinced that Christopher Walken called me today. If I called you as John Wayne Gasey, you'd believe me. Except that he's dead. So, police head to the hardware store. All right? By the way, Patreon, there's John Wayne Gacy. You'll understand it. We did a whole song. It's pretty amazing. It's pretty good. It's pretty good shit. You definitely want to hear that. Police head to the hardware store. In the flower box, under some freshly disturbed soil, they find a white plastic bag taped with yellow tape. Yotsie. They open it.

Yeah. A 38 pistol, similar to the one Jeff has reported stolen, is in there. He doesn't have that anymore, right? No. A dark blue ladies nightgown that belonged to Judy Cantrell. Why was that taken? A pair of pink women's underwear that belong to Judy Cantrell. And two old photos of Judy Cantrell are in this.

Okay. Very strange. It's a very interesting evidence bag. Yeah. So they identify the gun as the gun that was stolen. It's his. And the gun, the undergarments, the pictures, no fingerprints on anything, by the way. Nothing.

Nothing. So who could have buried that stuff? Who the fuck would? Well, there's a guy who went to high. high school with Jeff Cantrell. And he said three days earlier, April 14th, he had seen Jeff run across the street near the pound hardware store at 11 o'clock at night. Yeah.

Yeah. Just a scurrying? Just to scurrying along. He said that he saw him, quote, just kind of standing around near pound hardware on the night of April 14th. Everyone's, there's always someone watching. The hills certainly have eyes in this goddamn town. At least these hills.

Out the window somewhere. So that was three days earlier. This guy said as he walked across the street, he had his head turned away from me. But after I drove past him, I looked back at him and he was looking straight at me. It was Jeff Cantrell. So not only that, you know how he wrote a handwritten story to the cops? They didn't even just say it and type it up. Well, that handwritten thing has a K that's written very unusually.

In a V with a slash. A little slash coming out of it. Wow. Oh, he writes it. Oh, I can see it now. You can see it. It's just bad penmanship, man. Yep, just shit. He works in a coal mine. How much writing do you have to do? You know, like, honestly, not even being a dick. I'm just saying it's not an office job. He's probably not doing a lot of writing.

He doesn't know not everybody does that. Nope. So they go, gee, that looks just like the K on the TV. Yeah. It's a very unusual way. So they think about it. And they're like, he said he got home at four and was attacked for two and a half hours. and his wife got in there and the two loud booms and then he freed himself somehow and all that kind of thing.

He's seen burying evidence and the phone call came to us, sounded a lot like him. These jetpack criminals make no sense. Why'd they leave him alive? Why would they leave him alive to tell this story? So two days later on April 19th, 1989, the grand jury goes ahead and indicts him

for first degree murder and use of a firearm and commission of a murder. Jeff is in deep shit. Fuck. Yeah. So he goes to trial in his opening statement, his attorney said here about the prosecution. He said in his opening statement, Mr. McAfee, the prosecutor, said they were going to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Jeff Cantrell killed his wife. You're being asked to find him guilty and send him to prison for life on circumstantial evidence. The prosecution started with nothing and they've gone downhill. They got no, they got who got. What he's saying here. Okay. He said not a single piece of evidence in this case. links Jeff Cantrell to this crime. The mere fact that Jeff Cantrell was there that night does not mean that he killed her.

The Commonwealth cannot prove its case. Okay. And he also said, by the way, this week would have been their 10th wedding anniversary. Jeff's real sad about it. This week is there? Oh, boy. So, yeah, he argued that the prosecution alluded to the presence of an eyewitness account of his appearance at the hardware store. But he said, we have an eyewitness as well as documented.

evidence that will show Jeff Cantrell was in bed at his parents' house the night of April 14th. Oh. He was in bed. The witnesses are his parents, which are not the strongest witnesses in this case. Those people are certainly willing to lie for you. I would think so. So they also bring in his girlfriend, talks about the affairs. They bring in cousin Randall Dean Donahue talks about the photos and says, you know, Randy Dean.

And he said that, you know, Randy Dean. he talked about, he said, if anything happened to our marriage, I'd marry this woman. Jeff's sister testified about the affairs. It's a lot. Yeah. Now, a cop here said that this one cop said that Cantrell was cooperative throughout the investigation, and adding his contacts with the defendant in the past led him to believe that he was a good man. Okay.

He's a good man. He said, the only thing I've ever heard was a rumor years ago that Cantrell had stolen something while in high school. And he's also been arrested for littering. So he was like, I didn't think he was arrested. Arrested. That's some hard. You got litter hard.

No dancing, no littering. That's what we do in this town. He was dancing. Shit falling all out of his pockets. That's why they banned dancing. You drop things. It makes you litter for Christ's sake. Then you litter more.

Now, during cross-examination here, the prosecutor sought to dispel the notion that Cantrell's head had been struck by a blunt object or glass. He asked a doctor, if a man had been struck over the head with a glass, wouldn't he have some kind of head injuries? And the doctor said, quote, he may or may not. Depends on how tough you are, man. I mean, you know, he said it would depend on whether he was struck with the sharp end or blunt end of an object, the shape and position of the head and other things.

So a glass, if you hit someone with the bottom of the glass, obviously that would be more of a blunt force. if you hit him with the top of the glass, it would break easier. It wouldn't be as, that makes sense. Depends on which end of the beer bottle you're hit with. Because sometimes in the movies, you get hit with the Miller Light and you turn right around and throw punches. And sometimes you collapse to the ground.

Yeah, sometimes you just die. You just do poop, you're out cold. A lot of variables. They bring in an EMT saying he was in a state of hyperventilation. He was breathing rapidly. In the field, we have no way of knowing if they're in shock or not, so we have to treat it like they are. They bring in Jeff's boss.

to talk about shit and he called him a very good and steady worker but he said he's also told me about all of his extramarital affairs he was having he said he told me about three or two or three women he was going out with he mentioned that there was an open marriage

basically is what he was saying like my wife knows about it but doesn't give a shit he's just living his life and she's like go do it baby that's fine baby bring home that coal money but I don't think that's true I think he's obviously lying probably

So they said, didn't Jeff Cantrell tell you he was having guilt feelings about one of those affairs? And this guy said, no, he didn't. He said, but it bothered me that he had them the affairs at random, just whoever he ran into, he would plow. He didn't give a shit. They bring in a neighbor who lives near the intersection of Route 23, which is the road leading up to the scene. He testified that the only vehicle he had seen also was Judy Cantrell's. Yeah. But Jeff's relatives say they saw suspicious vehicles, two of them,

parked beside Route 23 not far from their homes several times in the weeks preceding the murder. So you say basically they were casing it for weeks. This is the big score, everybody. We're going to get a nightgown and some fucking... A grandfather clock. And a clock. They testified that they had seen a white car and a red and a red and a red and white pickup truck parked in the wide part of the shoulder on Route 23 where Jeff Cantrell sometimes met persons. with whom he was sharing a ride.

Okay. He said they were, quote, setting where you couldn't see them from either house. Oh, yeah. And he said, after that, after the death, he never, after Judy's murdered, they never saw them again, though. Yeah. The backwoods sit, the set. They set.

Yeah, they don't sit. They set. Exactly. Now, Jeff's sister said she had seen the vehicles more than once. And on one occasion, someone driving the truck followed me to aerobics class. They sure have a lot of classes in the small town. A lot of athletic endeavors for women to get into. You got a jazercise around here?

That's nice. This isn't bad at all. This isn't too shabby. There's hot yoga right down from here. It's excellent. She said she didn't report the activity to the sheriff's department until after the murder. And then her husband Mack, the brother-in-law, said that his wife had told me about the two vehicles two or three weeks before the murder. Jeff testifies because he kind of has to.

Not really, though, because they don't really. have a ton of evidence. They already got a story. What do you need to testify to? That's it. My written one statement, that's what it is. Under direct examination from his attorney, he admits to four affairs during his marriage. He admitted to show... On the stand? On the stand. That's his own attorneys. They've got to get that out of the way. Because otherwise, they're going to rip him a new asshole on cross about what a scumbaggy is. He admitted to showing the nude pictures. He said he showed him to other people. He said there was an ongoing relationship right up to Judy's death. And he said, That was something I'm very ashamed of and regret very much.

It was real immature on my part to show pictures of her around and brag. It's a great word to you, sir. That's all you can do. So the verdict comes in here. Oh, boy. It's a hung jury, mistrial. Stop it. Hung jury.

They say, I have no evidence. Hung jury. Are you serious? Swear, that's it. The only guy that benefits from this. And the only guy on site. I left a But a fat guy sat on him, Jimmy.

They were confused. Yeah. Somebody in that jury said, ever had a fat guy sit on you though? Because you can't get up. My cousin Jalilil. He was fell Jalil. I don't know.

There's not a lot of Jalililis in this area, I don't think. Not a ton of Jaliel. My cousin, Rameel. What was his last name, Robinson? Rameel Robinson, my cousin, the NBA players. My cousin Anthony Peeler was sat on me Yeah

Oh God Jesus that's funny He doesn't sat on me on Easter And I couldn't get up Until God damn Memorial Day Until after the ham was cold I couldn't even do it So May of 1983

They have another trial It is literally the exact same trial Exact same evidence Two years later A year later A year later So exact same trial Exact same evidence witnesses

you name it. It's a photocopy of the first one. This time they have a verdict, though. Oh. Yeah. So is it going to be over with? We'll find out. He is found guilty of first-degree murder and use of a firearm.

Got him. Well, maybe. The judge says, you, sir, may fuck off. Life plus one year. That's for the gun. The gun is one year. So it's life plus one year. That's what he gets.

So he appeals in 80s. And this is directly from the appeal. The appeals court says the conviction was built on a cracked foundation. How? Carl McAfee, who was the prosecutor, was actually a private attorney retained by Judy's parents for $10,100, which an 81 in this area, that is a fuckload of money with the explicit goal in Judy's father's own words of getting Jeff Cantrell convicted. So he was simultaneously representing Judy's family in a civil custody action to take Jeff's child away from him. He told the jury openly that he was employed by Judy's parents to assist the Commonwealth. I am employed to get that man.

To get him, yeah. In closing arguments, by a private entity, not even by the state. In closing arguments, he told them that he was speaking as a special prosecutor for the family of Judy Cantrell. He ran the case. They say in the appeals document, he wasn't assisting. He was leading. He examined most of the witnesses. He made and responded to most of the motions and objections.

He gave closing argument. That's the lead attorney. That's it. That's everything. They said the actual Commonwealth's attorney was present throughout and took an active role, but McAfee was the lead attorney. He's the guy. They said the Virginia Supreme Court examined this arrangement and used the phrase overwhelming probability of conflict of interest. Overwhelming, absolute conflict.

He's hired, but yeah, the prosecutor has to look at it completely unbiased and decide what the right path is. Not, I'm going to get him. That's the way our justice system can operate above board 100%. And you can't. Yeah. In this situation, you can't be not above board. This is small town murder. Yeah.

This isn't happening in, you know, in a large county with a large city in it probably. It's not going to happen like that. So, yeah, they said that the duty to administer criminal law impartially is essentially a judicial one, the duty to represent his civil clients with undivided fidelity and zeal pulled in the other direction. They said, you can't serve as one, as both things. So the Supreme Court also found it was error to exclude one of the doctors, a forensic pathologist from Tennessee, who would have testified that 10 to 20 percent of head blow cases, there's no visible. external injury. Okay. The prosecution had been hammering Jeff's lack of serious injuries in closing arguments.

They said if you hit somebody hard enough to knock them down, you're going to leave something. And the judge had prevented the defense from putting up an expert to counter that claim. So this is reversed and remanded back again. To resentencing or retrial? Retrying. Get the fuck out of you. The conviction is reversed. So Jeff goes free.

a while. He remarries. You know, how you do. Swinging dick. This guy's... He's a lady. He's a lady. Wild oats to sew. Yeah. Then he discovers something. Hidden in the house, in the walls, basically. Letters concealed in various places in his home. He was cleaning out the home before selling it. Yeah.

He finds three letters dated July 16th, September 5th, and October 19th, 1980s. These are letters from Judy's boyfriend. Oh, she was cheating too. She's out there cheating too. I'd look at that karate instructor first and foremost because they're flexible, you know what I mean? He writes a lot of letters and she hides them in the walls like a World War II refugee. Like you're hiding money in the Depression. Cantrell, Jeff said that his former attorney had advised him to make a thorough search.

of his house before selling it, and when he found the letters and poems and a card, said, I should keep them in my possession and keep quiet about them. Keep quiet, too. He produced three love letters signed with the initials PSC, probably a Cantrell, I imagine, and a different Cantrell, as well as a Valentine and some love. Probably Stephen Cantrell. You never know, probably some Cantrell. That is, probably some Cantrell, as well as a Valentine and some love poems, a

dressed to his wife. The letters to Judy my fair spoke of wonderful nights at your house while Jeff was away. What? The letter writer expressed a wish that she could, she could learn to love him more than her husband and son, but said that he was reconciled to being, quote, your second man. Oh my. This is basically Corey Richon's boyfriend. Yeah. That's what he is. Cantrell said he would turn the letters and notes over to the sheriff's department at the end of the trial to see if they would, the third trial, to see if they would help track down his wife's real killer. Once we get done with my bullshit, they can go track it down.

He said he's kept him sealed in a plastic case in case they might contain fingerprints. One letter stated the writer had, quote, destroyed all our pictures except the juicy ones. Dude, everyone in this town is way ahead of the curve here. Except the juicy ones. Well, it's pound town, all right. You betcha. This is the town only fans started in. They're so horny.

They're so horny and they need pictures. And refers to this letter refers to keeping joint diaries about their affair. Another refers to items marked in a Hustler magazine to give them something to look forward to. They were going to send the pictures to Hustler. Oh. All those magazines would have like a, you know, regular girl feature where people would send in pictures of the girlfriends or whatever. submission by, yeah, the girl next door thing. Yeah, exactly.

Cantrell said he had no idea who wrote the letters to his wife, but he thought they might have some bearing on her murder. Trial number three. Unbelievable. Now everyone in the whole county really knows everything about this story. So they have to move it to Russell County. Yeah, I mean, there wasn't a lot of people to begin with, and they're related to half these people.

So they get a third jury. The initial, original indictment was null. processed, null-prost, which means dismissed without prejudice because Cantrell had been arguing it was tainted by the prosecutorial misconduct. So they had to re-indict him. And they do. They re-indide him. So he argues double jeopardy now since they re-indicted him on the same charge. But he wasn't, he wasn't acquitted. So no. Exactly. They said the Virginia Court of Appeals said no, Jeopardy hadn't attached to the third trial because the jury hadn't been impaneled and sworn when they got rid of the indictment. If they had got rid of the,

indictment after that, then it could be considered that. So the trial proceeds. It goes on. They said that Cantrell had reason to believe his wife had found the evidence. This is the prosecution of his affair that he had admitted about and became angry enough that he shot her when she returned home and then became hysterical when he realized what he had done. Yeah, because seeing murder will fuck you up.

Seems thin and motive, though. Like, she got mad at the affair, so he shot. shot her after karate class. Not even like it escalated. It makes sense. She didn't get in the house yet. He's had several affairs. She probably is caught on to more than one of them.

It's not going to be, he's dealt with this before. I would think. The defense suggested enough scenarios, this newspaper article said they suggested enough scenarios to supply a season's worth of television scripts for a show like Dallas. That, yeah, Judy had broken off with her lover and was blackmailing. him and that the man was searching her house with accomplices to recover potentially scandalous photos. So that's

the three guys. That's a story. It's not a bad story. Diaries or videotapes mentioned in the letters, maybe that's what he got, and that he shot her out of jealousy and fear that she would recognize him or in a panic when she arrived back home. So

same story from Jeff, same evidence minus these letters or plus these letters, everything else. The defense also presents a similar robbery in town on December 10th, 81, which is two years later, or two days after the robbery, where three masked men held up and robbed a man and his family that night. So that's something.

Those robbers were never identified. Okay. Interesting. Now, they said that they had Judy's love letters, like we said. They get put in there. They talk all about that, and, you know, Judy, my fair. and on the juicy letters and hustler and all that kind of shit. And the verdict comes back this time again.

And he is found a guilty again. Yes. This time more guilty again. First degree murder, use of a shotgun in the commission of a murder. This time his sentencing is way different, though. Really? Really? Way to you, sir.

May fuck off. 23 years in prison. Really? Which is 22 plus one for the gun. What is the... So he's going to do 10, 11 years? Yeah, what is the thought on that? That judge apparently took a liking to him, took a shine to him.

I'm not sure why the... He was impressed by his sexual prowess. He said, man, that man's got a mighty penis. I'm going to... This boy throws dick 22 years. We can't hold a mighty penis in a cage for that long. Our prison won't hold it for that long. We're going to guess at 22.

We put it in. He picked the lock with the third. That thing is good. I'll take it. If he beats that against the wall long enough, he might just be free tomorrow. You never know. You seen Shawshank? Tim Robbins had a humongous penis.

That was the whole point. It's like a fire hose. All he had was a rock hammer. What do you think we call that hawk? That's right. There's a rock hammer if I ever saw one. That's I ever saw one. That's why it's from pound.

He pounds away on that. So the aftermath, Joyce Parker, who operates Joyce's restaurant, said, People still do talk about it. She said the talk is down after the third trial. Most of those you ask in the stores are on the street. Won't admit to following the trial in detail. But they said they all suspect that he's got to be guilty. We treat it like a Danielle Steele around here.

We don't want nobody to know we're reading it, but we're reading it. He must be guilty. So the mayor said that was just one unfortunate thing. We very seldom have any break-ins or robberies. The biggest crime rate around here in this town is drunks. You know small towns. They get somebody down to the funeral home that's been run over with a car or shot or something like that. Everybody in town goes to the funeral, as they know her.

Their lawyers want evidence of other break-ins. They say they want all of this. They say there's a crime spree, including robberies and burglaries, and this is a big part of it. and they need this to demonstrate further convincing evidence to the jury that William is innocent as he has claimed throughout the investigation. Nobody else has been shot in these robberies, just one person? That's the thing. It's nobody else has been murdered. Right.

No one else has been sat on. None of this should have. And why would you murder a woman and leave her husband? Makes no sense. Who would do that? It makes no goddamn sense. It really doesn't. You hear her coming.

You can just jet out the back. They didn't take anything from her. That's the thing. Is that like shoot her and robber? They just shot her and left. And what they did take, they left it at the property line before they jetpacked or or turned right the fuck back and went back in the house. Why not drag her inside, tie her up with some longshons too.

It makes no sense. Leave her alone. More appeals federal habeas corpus was the last procedural door available to a state prisoner who's exhausted all the state appeals. That didn't quite work out though. He tries to go on the Fourth Amendment. It was rejected because the shotgun and other items near Judy's body were in plain view during a lawful emergency response. He tried to say that the shit that was on the front lawn, they illegally searched.

It's like, no, they would have seen that. It was sitting in the fucking front lawn. It's laying right there as we try to do chest compressions without a chest. And they said it's the plain view doctor and doesn't require the police. That police have no idea that evidence exists, only that they know it's in a specific location in advance and tend to seize it. So anyway, this is the Fourth Circuit affirmed the court in February 1990. All avenues exhausted.

Yeah. He's staying in prison. He maintained his innocence throughout all the appeals, throughout everything. He said the real intruders, three men, fat guy on my back, glass on my head. Yeah. That's it. Judy is buried in flat gap, Virginia. Is there any place that doesn't sound sexual?

No, that's why. they're so horny though they named now we know why they named it all this shit. God damn. She's buried at the Benjamin Balling Cemetery. So there you go, everybody. I mean, he got out. Yeah, he must have got out pretty damn soon after that. I tried finding him, could not track him down.

Don't know. He should be about 75 years old. Yeah. About 75 years old. And if a 75-year-old starts showing you nude pictures of women might be Jeff Cantrell. You never know. Not positive. But there you go, everybody.

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