Small Town Murder - Baby-Faced & Deadly - Travelers Rest, South Carolina

Episode Date: February 5, 2026

This week, in Travelers Rest, South Carolina, when women begin to disappear & bodies start to be found, it looks like random acts. Until detectives start to notice that they all have one man in common..., a young man with a troubled past, who may be a serial killer. It all starts with a soldier's wife, going missing near an Army base, then spreads through the south. This young, baby-faced serial killer has no limits to his depravity, and need for violence!    Along the way, we find out that swmap rabbits may, or may not be a real thing, that it isn't ALWAYS the husband, and that sometimes, it's actually a heartless serial killer, with no bottom to his his depravity well!!   New episodes, every Wednesday & Friday nights!! 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!!

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 This week, in Travelers Rest, South Carolina, when women begin to disappear and bodies start to be found, it looks like random acts until detectives start to notice that they all have one man in common, a young man with a troubled past and a new nickname. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay, indeed. My name is James Petrigal. I'm here with my co-host.
Starting point is 00:00:42 I'm Jimmy Wiseman. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us today on another absolutely crazy serial killer-charged edition of Small Town Murder. We have a wild one for you today. Really, really crazy one. We will get to all of that and more. Thank you, everybody for joining us again on Netflix. If you like this, good news for you, there's so many more episodes. 670 more to catch up on.
Starting point is 00:01:06 So go back and listen to those wherever you listen to podcasts. You can get those. Head over to shut up and give me murder.com. What's there, you may ask. Everything. What is there? Merchandise, tickets for live shows, especially. Get your tickets right now to live shows.
Starting point is 00:01:20 If you like the show, I'm telling you, you will love the live shows. They are. It is a comedy show. It's not a lecture. It's nothing like that. We have pictures and all sorts of crazy stuff. So it is really fun. Starting out February 21st in Nashville.
Starting point is 00:01:33 Get your tickets. Nashville. Right now. Then Durham and Atlanta on March 6th and 7th. We have Phoenix is sold out on the 20th. But your stupid opinions still has. some seats left for the 21st. I stand up live.
Starting point is 00:01:47 Do that. Tickets left for Denver. Salt Lake City sold out. Buffalo sold out. Royal Oak, Michigan, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Dallas, San Jose, Sacramento, Terrytown, and Boston. Get your tickets now. Shut up and give me murder.com. Get yourself Patreon, too. Do yourself a favor.
Starting point is 00:02:04 My goodness. Patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get all of the bonus material. Anybody $5 a month or above, you're going to get so. much. First of all, a whole huge back catalog of episodes, hundreds that you've never heard before, bonus stuff. New ones every other week, one crime and sports, one small town murder, and you get it all,
Starting point is 00:02:23 everybody. All of it. This week is no difference for crime and sports. We have a really wild one. Master P's involved in this. It's crazy. What? It's wild. We're going to talk about William Tank Black, who was a coach turned agent turned criminal. Oh, no. Sold some stuff to me. It's a real interesting
Starting point is 00:02:39 story. Then for Small Town Murder, we have been asked so much to do this. It's overwere. We have to. We're going to do the perfect neighbor documentary. Oh, my God. And there's tons of other stuff on YouTube that's a documentary to it. It's on Netflix, the perfect neighbor documentary. It's infuriating.
Starting point is 00:02:55 It's popular demand. We have to do it because we've been asked a lot to do it. So we will do that. Patreon.com slash crime in sports. And in addition to all of that, you also get everything we put out, ad free as well. You bet. Your stupid opinions, crime and sports, small town murder. And in addition to that, you also.
Starting point is 00:03:13 also get a shout out at the end of the show, too. So we're doing all we can possibly do for you. There you go. Patreon.com slash crime in sports. Disclaimer time, everybody. Oh, my God. Got to do it. This is a comedy show.
Starting point is 00:03:26 It is. We are comedians. People are going to die. Jokes are going to get made. Now, you ask, well, how do you do that? See, to me, the way we look at it is anything dark like that, that we need to, like, get some humor out. to get it's just that's why we're comedians because when bad things happen we go oh god and we figure
Starting point is 00:03:46 out a way to make a joke about it that's just how we deal with dark stuff to me someone saying and then her head was cut off and to me that's just that's worse it's creepy and it's kind of weird so we like to do it this way and make it a little light but we never make fun of the victims or the victims families why james because we're assholes but we're not scumbags there you And that's how it works. So if you think that that sounds good to you, wow, are you in for a story? If you think true crime and comedy can never possibly go together, we might not be for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:04:18 But we might be. I would say, give it a chance. I would say, give it a chance. Either way, no complaining later. I'm not going to listen to it. So that said, I think it's time, everybody. What do you say? Let's all sit back, clear the lungs here.
Starting point is 00:04:32 Arms to the sky. Let's all shout. Shut up. and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody. Okay. Let's go on a trip, shall we? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:04:47 Let's do it. We're going to South Carolina this week. Load them up. Here we go. Travelers rest, South Carolina. That's the name of the town? That's the name of the town. So, travelers rest.
Starting point is 00:04:58 So the name of the town tells you exactly what this town was made for. Passing through. Just passing by, not living here at all. Get the hell out. Just go by, stop. Get yourself a buttered roll. Fuck off. We're not dealing with you. A cup of coffee and move on.
Starting point is 00:05:13 Have some of mini stew and get back on your horse. If it was Texas, I'd say some boiled peanuts from that big vat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the weirdest thing ever. This is in far northwestern South Carolina. So out there, more toward North Carolina. It's about two hours to Charlotte over this, and not very far. And about four and a half hours to Myrtle Beach, if you want to go the other direction in South Carolina.
Starting point is 00:05:35 about an hour, about a half hour to Greer, South Carolina, which was our last South Carolina episode, episode 618, Bloody Rose Petals. Remember that one where the woman's body was found with the roses all around or the petals? That was a creepy one. This is in Greenville County, area code 864 and 821. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:05:55 One area code cannot hold this town. It's not enough. The motto here is, they have a motto, this little town, which is hilarious. Get in your element. Okay. I guess that's here. This is your element here.
Starting point is 00:06:08 Somebody's seen the Big Lavalski. Yeah. And they want to spread that to rural northwestern South Carolina. This town is not for Donnie. Nope. So in 1794, the South Carolina General Assembly appropriated $2,000 to construct a wagon road from Greenville, South Carolina into the Blue Ridge Mountains. Oh, yeah. So that's how this town started.
Starting point is 00:06:31 So it went through Asheville, North Carolina, ending in East Tennessee. Tennessee. So they're like, we need stops along the way. And that's kind of it. It was a lot of wagon traffic on it. Nice. People going through here from the coast through Greenville, Travelers Rest was the first well-equipped stop to prepare them for the mountains ahead and all that. So this is like Kingman, basically, if you're Arizona. Extra wheel. This would be Kingman. The last place to really stop and get things before Vegas. Get your good stuff. That's it. Yeah, get your your meth and your tires and dry goods and dry goods so they drove livestock all through the area and all that kind of thing stage coaches would bring wealthy families through from the low country to
Starting point is 00:07:15 the cooler temperatures of northern of western north carolina to spend the summer away this is the people that were going to get away from things essentially it was incorporated in 1959 this town but it was already incorporated in 1891 but that expired I don't know why you would put an expiration date on your town. Those can expire. I guess so. You've got to renew those. Everybody check your town's expiration date.
Starting point is 00:07:41 Look on it. Smell it, open it, smell it, make sure it's not. Your town's like a yogurt. You didn't even know it. Yeah, it's got your 2% in your, that's no good. Towns expired. All expired. So,
Starting point is 00:07:54 hilarious. While unincorporated, most of the area was known as Bates Township in the early 19th and 20th centuries, which is interesting. There is a college nearby, actually two colleges that kind of sandwich it. There's Furman University and there's North Greenville University. So they're both kind of there. So that plays a part in this. Reviews of this town.
Starting point is 00:08:15 We've never been here. Never. I don't know anything about this town. So it would be unfair for us to make our own assumptions. What it? Let's go by what others say. Why don't we? Here's some reviews of the town.
Starting point is 00:08:28 Five stars, a beautiful small community that is family friendly. All right. Good food and beer just down the road, unlike those other non-family friendly towns. So they go, no kids allowed in this town. We got tithy's out. We got food and beer. Yeah. What is that?
Starting point is 00:08:44 We got tities out and beers open. Keep your kids away. Good food and beer just down the road. Great walking and biking paths an hour or so away from the Blue Ridge Mountains and a half hour from Greenville. All right. Here's another five stars. There's a lot of bad reviews here that I could find. Travelers rest is a small.
Starting point is 00:09:02 community where everyone gets together well. Not gets along well. They get together well. Get together well. I'm already leery of this town based on these reviews. I can always find someone I know when roaming downtown. That sounds like a nightmare. That sounds like a nightmare.
Starting point is 00:09:21 You can't even go. It's not to ask you a lot of questions. You can't even go to the store without having a big catch-up session with somebody from high school. No, thank you. Three stars, Travelers Rest is a fast-growing small town. on the outskirts of Greenville. Main Street is growing as new businesses come in.
Starting point is 00:09:38 The Swamp Rabbit Trail, that is not a flattering name that they gave that. Is that a real animal? Swamp rabbi, I assume. Swamp rabbit? There's swamps and there's rabbits. Some of the rabbits must live in the swamp, right? I don't know. That's a good question.
Starting point is 00:09:54 I'm not a zoologist, but it's possible. I don't know if it's real. I don't know if it's real either. There might be a weird South Carolina legend. Yeah. The Swamp Rabbit Trail makes a great point. place to exercise or simply enjoy the beautiful south. Traveler's rest has a lot of potential in the years ahead.
Starting point is 00:10:10 Oh, that's got potential. Not there yet is what they're saying. Three stars, having some problems in the area with car break-ins. Oh, no. I'm going to put it on niche and tell everyone about it. Believe to be young kids because of the items that are being taken. Carrots? Swamp rabbits?
Starting point is 00:10:28 Oh, they're breaking in. All the swamp rabbits are busting in. They go, hey, what's up, Doc? And then that's how you know it's them. This is ridiculous. That's your worst problem, I'd say you're doing okay. Not bad. Kids are stealing change out of your cup holder.
Starting point is 00:10:42 That's not too bad. Pretty decent life. Not bad. People in this town, it's not a big town, 7,670. Yeah, that's very small. Under 8,000, it's kind of out by itself. This is wild. And this has to be a college thing because more, the stats are way more women in are enrolled in college than men are.
Starting point is 00:11:01 Is that right? lately in the last, you know, 40 years or so, that's been the case. So women in this town, 58.4%, which for a town over like 200 people, we've never had it that far out of way. Only six out of ten. That's crazy. Men 41.6%. And the median age here is 21.4.
Starting point is 00:11:23 It's usually like 38. Yeah. So if you're like a 23-year-old guy, there is no reason that you don't move to this town. It's just full of 20. Very far old, babe. Get in there. Full of 21-year-old women that are like, why are there no guys in this town? They're just excited to see you.
Starting point is 00:11:38 Yeah, you're about to get married on spring break. Yeah, if I was 22, I'd be moving there. That's what I'm saying. So family here, 33% married. It's, you know, all those stats. But 24% single with children. So those college kids will get knocked up every once in a while. That's impressive.
Starting point is 00:11:53 That's not bad. Race in this town, 75.6% white, 11.5% black, 2.8% Asian, 8.9% Hispanic. Religion, it is the South. We're going to get a lot of that. 62.3% are religious. And as we know, what's going to be the top one? Baptist, 24.8%.
Starting point is 00:12:15 As we know, Baptists are the Catholics of the South. Omnipresent. They're everywhere. Here, 0.2% Jewish there. It's not a lot of, it's mainly Baptist. Unemployment here, slightly under the national average, which most college town. are. Yeah. Yeah, I guess, yeah, most of them got a little half-ass job or something, right? They seem to
Starting point is 00:12:37 have a lot of jobs. Colleges have a lot of jobs. Median household income here, though, because it's a younger crowd, well below the national average, almost about half. 36,000. Because it's those half-ass jobs, James. Yeah. 36,000, $4.95 is a household income. Yeah. So that's rough. But if you're 22. But student loans, they're going to be all right. They'll be all right. They'll be all right. They're only paying those back at high interest rates. It's no big deal. A couple of stipends. They'll be all right. That'd be right. Cost of living here that we do, 100 is average regular. Here, it's 91. So that's bad. Average. Real close. Median home cost here, $263,300. So that's below the national average. Yeah, that's not bad.
Starting point is 00:13:16 Still steep if your household makes $36,000 a year. Surely. It's a high bar to cross there. So that said, if we've convinced you, damn it, the only place that you could possibly be happy is Travelers Rest South Carolina. You're in luck. because we have for you the Travelers Rest South Carolina Real Estate Report. Here we go. Your average two-bedroom rental here goes for $970 a month. It's lower. That's low.
Starting point is 00:13:51 It's like $200. $300 off. Yeah, for a college town. That's not bad. That's pretty good. Usually they're a little pricier on the rentals and more in demand. House number one here is a three-bedroom, two-bath, 1, 240 square foot. Nice little, like, family starter home.
Starting point is 00:14:05 type of deal. It's brick house on the outside, 0.58 acres, so not land, but a good size yard. But it's a half acre. That's not bad. Yeah, it's a great nice, I mean, there's a nice place to, seems like a nice house to start a family in here. $230,000
Starting point is 00:14:22 for that, though. Not bad. Not bad, but it seems... For half an acre? Yeah, I guess that's, I don't know why. It's pretty great. Because it's in the middle of nowhere, I'm like, I'm not paying that for a house. Middle of nowhere, you feel like, because a lot of times we'll do these and it'll be like, you know, 6,000 square feet and all this, $182,000 because that's the middle of nowhere.
Starting point is 00:14:40 So I feel like I want even more of a discount. Here is a three-bedroom, two-bath, 1767 square feet. So it's on 0.65 acres. So just a little bigger yard. A little bigger house. It looks brand new from the looks of it here. It looks pretty new. Inside is very nicely done, fireplaces and stuff.
Starting point is 00:15:00 $419,000 for that, though. I'm telling you, that's pretty good. For 1,700 square feet in the middle of nowhere? For half an acre, though? I don't know. Half an... Okay, Phoenix has a different... Phoenix acreage, you know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:15:16 Because it's in a city. But if you're in the middle of nowhere, acreage costs nothing. It's free. But are the houses all close to getting... Because that's what matters. If you've only got half an acre and the next guy is six miles away, that's pretty fucked.
Starting point is 00:15:29 No, it's like half acre, half acre, but it seems a little pricey, 419. I'm not paying that to live in the middle of nowhere. in a 1,700 square foot house. Tell you that much. Here's a four-bedroom seven bath. T-bowl, each and every beehole. 55.
Starting point is 00:15:43 Yeah, some neighbors, too. 5,500, 28 square feet. Jesus. It's a big new, built in 2010. It's on an acre and a half. There's a pond. Problem is it's in a golf community. Yeah, that is a problem.
Starting point is 00:15:57 So you're going to have to see golfers. If you can bear the sight. I want to lie to you about their best fucking shot. Oh, yeah. That's cool. Couldn't care less about that. Fishermen and golfers. I don't want to hang out with either of them.
Starting point is 00:16:08 Because they go off to somewhere by themselves and then do feats and then come back. Yeah. There's no audience. There's no audience. It's the problem. I don't need you to report back. It's fine. This house says, the gem of Cliff's Valley, a story of unrivaled views and mountain majesty. There are places that capture the imagination, and then there are those that redefine it. This is the real estate listing.
Starting point is 00:16:31 Redefining. This house, five million four hundred. $495,000 bucks. You better be redefining the rules of gravity for that kind of money. Are you kidding me? That better have some things in it that no other house on the planet has. No, I want a bat cave. I want a bat cave if I'm getting that house.
Starting point is 00:16:49 That's what I want. I want no neighbors for $5 million. With like the bat uniform that like turns in a big tube. I want all that shit. Yeah, my fucking closet better go into a cave. Absolutely. With like water down there. I expect a water.
Starting point is 00:17:04 feature. Yeah. It should come with dancing people, too, like a little chorus line when you go in there, something,
Starting point is 00:17:10 you know. Should be a little undisturbed village. Yes, exactly. $5 million. That's crazy. You can do some anthropological studies on.
Starting point is 00:17:21 That's what we need. Things to do here, the Southern Roots barbecue festival. Yeah. Here it is, everybody, which, I mean,
Starting point is 00:17:29 a barbecue festival, I'm always up for that. Sure. It says it will include over 35 pitmaster and chefs from regions like South Carolina, Georgia, Texas, North Carolina, and beyond. Oh, the Carolinas and further. And Texas.
Starting point is 00:17:44 That's where we know where barbecue comes from. I like how they just leave out like Kansas City, too. They're like, we don't allow them in here. Nope. They don't talk about them. You all can't come. So that's what they have. They have like a gallery of pictures of all these chefs.
Starting point is 00:18:01 And chefs taking head shots is just hilarious to me. Especially barbecue ones. It's all the same guy. Yeah. Guy about 48 pounds overweight with a beard. They all have your beard. A couple of briskets extra in there. A couple of brisket.
Starting point is 00:18:15 And like some of them, I love the ones that like have black and white pictures and they're holding a knife. That's always my favorite one. Oh boy. Like we're cool. Really taking it serious. Yeah. Like Anthony Bourdain in like the kitchen confidential days. But that was before, you know, now this is just every chef does that.
Starting point is 00:18:31 That was what it was cool to do that. Here's a guy just in a hat that says pork grove on it, so that's fun. Pork grove. He's got like fortunes and it says pork grove on his hat there. You're a fat guy. Don't wear anything that says pork on it. I'm sorry, fork grove. That's the name of the restaurant.
Starting point is 00:18:50 Fork Grove, not pork grove. You're a real assail. I'm an idiot. You're fine. Your hat's terrible and your head shot's bad, but you're fine. I'm the one who screwed up. That's my bad. But also don't buy any.
Starting point is 00:19:03 Anything at all that can be misconstrued for pork. That's what I'm saying. It's, there's so, I mean, that's the name of his restaurant, which might could have the pork in it and it'd be fine because that's what he does. But there's so many of the, and there's couples too. That's the other thing. Heidi and Joe Trull, here they are, holding out a cake, even though they're in a barbecue festival. That's a weird one. They're a barbecue that cake.
Starting point is 00:19:26 This guy has like a shovel for some reason. He's just standing there with like his hands on a top of a shovel. I don't know what that denotes chefing. That's how he flips the brisket chains. This guy looks like a bearded member of the Blues Brothers here with his hat. Proceeds, though, it is a good cause. Proceeds benefit I define ink, which is a cleefstra syndrome support. I don't even know what that is.
Starting point is 00:19:49 What is that? Sounds terrible. I don't know. Clefstra. I got the cleef, man. It's bad. That sounds bad. So support that cause because we got to help those little cleefiacs out there. Fix those babies with the cleef.
Starting point is 00:20:01 Last year, too, here's the bands from last year, because they don't know what the new ones are going to be. The Swamp Rabbit Bluegrass Band. Oh, okay. Here we go. We got Daryl Scott. He's just an old man with a guitar sitting there. Kim Richie, a lot of blonde women in cowboy hats, I'll tell you that. Oh, boy.
Starting point is 00:20:22 Kim Richie, Aaron Lee Tasgen. Okay. Looks like 70s Tom Petty. Beth Nielsen Chapman. Brennan Lee, another woman with a cowboy hat, Sweet Meg with two G's, another woman with a blonde woman with a cowboy hat. Getting a pattern that I'm sensing.
Starting point is 00:20:40 I wonder what they play, James. I can't tell. That's the thing. I wish they would be more obvious. Andrew Duhon, dude with a beard and a guitar. Ward, Hayden, and the outliers. A few guys with beards and hats and guitars.
Starting point is 00:20:56 And the outliers. Actually, only one beard, two must. moustaches and a clean-shaven. Christina Murray. Hey, guess what she's holding? Is it a guitar? You got it, Jimmy. Isn't this amazing?
Starting point is 00:21:12 Gabe Lee, a guy standing there with a guitar. A guitar. Aaron Ray Tieri, whose picture looks like he's doing a TED talk. That's a weird one. Amelia Day, who's not holding a guitar. Finally, yeah. Maybe she doesn't even play. She might not have a guitar.
Starting point is 00:21:28 That's the thing. A Skunk Farmhouse Band. That's a guy with a guitar. And Tim TV and the Secret Circus with a K, which look, there's a child on stage. I think that's a kid's show. I don't think that's a country act. So they have... Is it not Mike TV's brother?
Starting point is 00:21:46 No, it's just Tim TV. They have 14 blonde women with guitars, a few bearded guys with guitars, and a kid's something. I don't even know what they were. Crime rate in this town, what we are interested in here. Property crime is more than... and double the national average. What? Which is common for college towns because property crime includes pissing in the street, vandalism, shit that college kids do.
Starting point is 00:22:12 Yep. Shit like that. Violent crime, murder rape robbery, and of course assault, the Mount Rushmore of crime, is a little more than half the average. So that's almost, that's low. So that's what I mean. A lot of these college towns have that huge property crime rates, low violent crime rates. That said, I think it's time to get into some murder here. What do you say?
Starting point is 00:22:33 Let's do it. Let's do this. Okay. All right. We're going to start in 1987. Okay. Let's start with two people we're going to talk about. Michael Vineyard here, okay?
Starting point is 00:22:45 Like a wine. Like the wine. Vineyard is what it is. Michael Vineyard or Vineyard, however you want to say it. I don't know how he pronounces it. He's, you know, in 21 in this era here. He's got a wife named Parenthood. Patsy Diane Vineyard.
Starting point is 00:23:02 Sure. Some newspapers have it as Diana, but more have it as Diane. So I'm going with Diane here. She's born May 1, 1967, so she's 20 years old here. Now, they're from Knoxville, Tennessee. And Michael decided about a year before, about 86, he decided to join the Army because he couldn't find work anywhere. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:23:23 The mid-80s were tough, especially in smaller cities and towns. It was going bad. So they had known each other. about a year of the vineyards and they got married. That's the thing we noticed with the, the army couples, especially like older back in the day. Yeah. They will get married because they get more money and better housing. A lot more.
Starting point is 00:23:43 Yeah. So they're like, you see these guys constantly are getting married like in the first year of enlistment or right before they get it, which if you're getting married so you'll get a like a two bedroom instead of a one, you have lost the plot, man. Yeah. That's going to be a crazy marriage later. There's a lot of people that do it, though. I know. Just in a relationship, they'll get married just because it gets extra. Let's get married.
Starting point is 00:24:06 We get more money. Especially a guy that got into the service for the money, for the job. Couldn't find a job, exactly. So they got married Brown when he joined the service. And they moved to Sackett's Harbor, New York in 1987. What the fuck is that? It's Fort Drum is what it is, an army base here. Fort Drum.
Starting point is 00:24:27 Michael is a soldier there, obviously. and he's in the, oh, they move into an apartment too. Number 506 is the apartment of the shipyard apartments on Monroe Street next to the Water Tower. Sounds lovely. Doesn't it just sound like, I see a lot of exposed pipes and brickwork, you know. It's like Soho down there. The shipyard next to the water tower. Next to the water tower.
Starting point is 00:24:52 That is scenic. Yeah. So anyway, that's where they are. Now, in May of 1987, Michael has to go to do two weeks of specialized field training. Yeah. So he has to do that. So he leaves and obviously leaves Patsy home. She doesn't come with for the training.
Starting point is 00:25:11 And, you know, back in the apartments here. Now, he comes home, though, from his training on May 21st of 1987 and can't find her. Oh. She's not there. So he's like, shit, did she leave me already? Where the hell is she? But there's no note. He contacts her family.
Starting point is 00:25:31 Nobody's seen her. Nobody's talked to her. All right. He asks around and basically she was seen sunbathing on May 15th or 16th outside the apartments. That's the last time anybody really saw her had a track on her. So that was almost a week ago. She's up by the water tower. So he's reporting her missing at this point.
Starting point is 00:25:51 He's like she's got to be missing. You know, there's no other way. They put out a missing. person's thing. They say she's five foot tall, 115 pounds, or 5-4, 115, brown eyes, brown hair with a scar below her right knee. Small lady. Oh yeah, a little
Starting point is 00:26:05 thin. She's very pretty too. And June 8, 1987, so this is, you know, two weeks later, a little over two weeks later. Yeah. There is a body that floats to the side of Lake Ontario. Oh,
Starting point is 00:26:21 shit. Okay. The police describe it as a badly decomposed female body found floating in the Black, in Black River Bay off of Stores Harbor Road in the town of Houndsfield at about 9 p.m. A resident of a summer cottage was looking for firewood. Yeah. And found a woman, a badly decomposed woman floating in the river. See, don't look for anything. Just buy a cord from a guy down the road. There's a cord down there. Hopefully he doesn't like slip a dead body into it. But when you're looking for things, when you're jogging, when you're driving and seeing a bag and they're curious about it,
Starting point is 00:27:00 none of this stuff is good. You should leave it alone? It's always terrible. It's never going to be a good thing, I don't think. Never. Hey, everybody, just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you a better way to feed your dog with Ollie. Ollie.com.
Starting point is 00:27:14 O-L-L-I-E dot com. Oh, you know. Well, who gives you more love than your dog? You know what I mean? I have three dogs. They're all awesome, Frankie Benny and Oscar. and what are they going to do? They hang out with us while we're watching TV.
Starting point is 00:27:27 They're doing things. They're not judging us for what we're watching or what we're doing. They should, but they're not. They're kind enough to not do that. So let's reward them with some great, great food. And this is the way to do it with Ollie. Celebrate the one that you love. Your puppy in this February by giving them the best, highest quality ingredients with
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Starting point is 00:29:29 Just going to take a quick break from the show and tell you what you should be feeding your cat with smalls. Smalls.com. Oh, get in there. I love my kitty. Brandy. Brandy, she likes to dominate things. She thinks she's running things around here. She's a certain time she likes to eat.
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Starting point is 00:31:20 you get 60% off your first time. order plus free shipping when you head to smalls.com slash STM. One last time, that's 60% off your order plus free shipping when you head to smalls.com slash STM. Now back to the show. Never. So this poor person looking for firewood, it makes a much more startling discovery. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:31:41 Good news, bad news. I found some wood. Got a lot of firewood. Had to move a corpse to get it. So the investigators don't know the identity and they're not really guessing until they perform an autopsy because it's a it's summertime and it's been in the water. So that's not good at all. The medical examiner was on scene where the body was recovered.
Starting point is 00:32:03 The problem is it's not just it's not just Patsy that's missing here. There's a bunch of women missing? No, there's another woman that they don't know. It's a woman from Watertown who may have drowned in the Black River. So they're like shit and nobody could find her, which drains. into Lake Ontario at the bay where the body was recovered. This is a woman who was a year and a half missing. So you should be able to tell the decomposition between a year and a half and a week and a half.
Starting point is 00:32:33 Today. You know, that should be a difference, but they said that this woman, Arlene Soluri, was despondent over her health. And in December 8, 1985, she disappeared. And her car was found abandoned near the Mill Street Bridge over the Black River. So they think she that's where she killed her. self. So they were like, it would make sense if it was her, except obviously we should be able to tell a year and a half. Is that how fast we decompose from in a week that we look like we've been dead a year and a half? That's what I mean. I think they're, you know, they have to make a positive
Starting point is 00:33:06 ID, but it's pretty obvious here. So Michael at this point, Patsy's husband, he's told of this, and he's, you know, he was told she was last seen by a neighbor's sunbathing. And so he's asked by the media and he says, I won't know anything until tomorrow. I've got to wait, basically, saying they told me they need to do proper identification. There's nothing I can do about it. Yeah. He said he is convinced, though, that Patsy did not leave on her own because their relationship was strong and there was no indication that she intended to leave for an extended period of time. All right. Which honestly means nothing because guys have no idea. You could be together. We're pretty dumb. We could be together for 25 years and you're
Starting point is 00:33:50 wife will be like, this marriage is terrible. And we're like, what? I thought it was great. We have no fucking idea. I've been wanting to leave for 12 years. You have them? What? Really?
Starting point is 00:34:01 I thought we were the happiest people in the world. That's how dumb guys are. Yeah. We let's live together in 14 years. So it took you two years. I just thought you were, you said you had some cramps at one point. They just figured you were. Said you had a headache.
Starting point is 00:34:14 I was letting it be. Figured you'd tell me when the cramps went away. I don't know. I don't know. to tell you. It's a long headache. Yeah, but he's, they're young and they just got together. So at that point, you might, you might, there might be some warning signs if you've only been together a year, you know what I mean? Hopefully, yeah. So he said it just doesn't make sense. And her car was parked in front of the apartment, too. So she didn't even take her car. She just
Starting point is 00:34:36 went off on foot. The doors were locked and a light was on when he got home. All of her clothing was intact in the closet, which is another, it's not like she packed up all her shit and left. Her car and her clothes are there. Stamped envelopes with checks that she wrote. on May 14th are on the counter that she didn't get to mail yet. So she was paying bills. And then she was seen again on the 16th sunbathing and that's it. So Michael said he thought in his mind he knows what happened. He said Patty was lured away by somebody that she knew casually probably, said that person
Starting point is 00:35:12 could have told her that he had been injured in the field and she was at a hospital or something. Maybe it was somebody she knew when she was going to visit. He said she grabbed her purse and jewelry and left a light on and maybe went with the acquaintance. There's no signs of a struggle, nothing like that. So eventually they identify Patty in the next couple days, or Patsy, I'm sorry. And it's Patsy in the river that they pulled out. It's pretty bad, too. They label the death a sexual homicide as well.
Starting point is 00:35:43 Oh, Jesus. This is not good. She was so badly decomposed that they could not determine the exact cause of death. That's not good. That's really bad. That's bad. They said apparently probably most likely drowned or strangled, but the autopsy was inconclusive. And they're waiting on further tests too.
Starting point is 00:36:07 But they've got evidence of sexual encounter. That they're pretty sure of based on the state of the way they found her. There's no injuries that can be found. No bullet wounds, no knife wounds, no broken bones. Okay. None of that. So, and it was believed she was carrying a purse and was wearing or carrying the jewelry that she always wore as well. And that's not on her body.
Starting point is 00:36:27 None, none there. So they're saying, if we can find the purse and the jewelry, we might be able to find whoever did this, basically. Unless they just discard it. But they never do. They never seem to. They keep it as a trophy. They sell it to, at 87, they sell it to a pawn shop or some shit. Yeah. They set it out on a motel bed and beat off to it.
Starting point is 00:36:44 It's all crazy. That's what they do. They cover it in jizz on a nightly basis. It's your new jizz receptacle. So when he's got a, Michael has some speculations, he thinks. He thinks that she was kidnapped, although the state police were treating it as a missing person. So he said, no, she is, I think she's kidnapped. And the police are like, well, we don't know.
Starting point is 00:37:10 Which, I mean, if she's dead in a river, it seems like somebody. that's not. Tensions took her. I mean, one way or no. Yeah. In the end, she ended up that way. Right. Where she ended up is not somewhere she probably wanted to be, right?
Starting point is 00:37:23 Yeah, exactly. And when she left the house, that wasn't where she expected. So she could have left the house, done something and then done something legitimate that, you know, she wanted to do. And then somebody grabbed her. You don't know. So by August of 1987, they really don't have much on this at all. One acquaintance talked about Patsy saying she missed her and she said that she, and her husband were regulars at the Presbyterian church in town.
Starting point is 00:37:49 And she said she said she enjoyed so much having her man by her side in church. Yeah. It doesn't sound like a lady that would take off right away. Yeah, rarely. She's telling her girlfriends how much she loves her husband. That's usually a good sign that she likes her husband. So one lady at a country store in town, a grandmotherly lady described in the paper here, said, she came in here, nice girl, but we don't know what.
Starting point is 00:38:14 happen. No one seems to want to talk about it. It's a little strange and it's a little scary too. Yeah. Yeah. It's a small town. So there's a state trooper on the on the case here, Dick Ladoo. Oh, Dick Ladoo over here. He's been a state trooper for 14 years and he said that this is the toughest case he's ever encountered. Yeah. He said over the last few months, him and his investigators have put in hundreds of hours and they're still at square one. They got nothing. Yeah. So Dick tells this reporter and we'll get to the reporter's name in a second because it's almost as good as Dick Ledoo. Lado is a dope last name.
Starting point is 00:38:52 It's, I'll get to it. I want to water down the contents. Trust me, we'll get to the Dick jokes here. Don't worry. Dick LaDone. Dick LaDone, yes. Dick told me that his, this is what the reporter's saying, Dick told me that his cop's gut told him the same thing that day as it did when he went to
Starting point is 00:39:11 Sacketts to interview Michael Vineyard after he reported his wife. missing. I still don't have a real feeling for what happened to her, Dick explained. Dick has no feeling for her. It's a problem. He just can't feel anything. What about that gut? Dick's like, if I just take this off, it'll feel better. I'm like, no, Dick. He said, officially, we call this a suspicious death. We've got nothing one way or the other. He said, there's three possibilities. I love when the, when cops give you the absolute obvious. Yeah. Three possibilities. He said, usually when a young person dies, it's one, it's an accident, two, it's suicide, three, it's murder. How many other ways is there to go?
Starting point is 00:39:51 What are you talking about? Too long-term illness, which she probably didn't have and then fell into a river. Her cancer caught up with her and then she just fell into a river because she was so weak. Is that what you're saying? Is it the other options? What are we? Yes, those are the three. Accident, murder.
Starting point is 00:40:08 What was the other? Suicide. Yeah. It's never natural, I guess. No. not for a young person. That's what he could probably say. It's rarely natural.
Starting point is 00:40:15 It's probably not natural when a 20-year-old girl is found in the river. That's probably not natural death is what we're saying. So he said that the reporter said people that he asked in the village thought that Patsy was murdered. And her husband thinks she was murdered, obviously. Old Dick Ladoo, though, being a careful detective, must not take any such big leap. His card has the blanks ready to be filled in. So Dick is on the case, don't you worry. He has a template.
Starting point is 00:40:44 He just fills it in. Dick, yeah, Dick is tumessent and ready to go. He's going. So they said if there was an accident, the guess is that maybe this, you know, Patsy would have went to the river with some friends, maybe. Yeah. That's what young people do. Yeah. And they said, some of her friends said she was afraid of the water.
Starting point is 00:41:04 They said maybe she fell into the lake from one of the harbor steep cliffs. Okay. But they said, A, there'd be her friend saying, we were at the cliffs that day. We saw her fall in. Or even if they had their backs turn, they'd go, one minute she's there, one minute she wasn't. That would be the last time we saw her rather than sunbathing. And two, there's no broken bones. And they say falling from that height, she'd have broken bones.
Starting point is 00:41:25 She'd have broken bones. She'd have hit rocks. And if you don't have broken bones, you have some sort of head contusion. Because that's, you'd have to go unconscious. Totally. They said if it were a suicide, they said no motivation has been. revealed so far. And this reporter keeps referring to this, not as Detective Ladoo or Trooper Ladoo. They keep referring to him just as Dick, which is hilarious. Dick understands how it is
Starting point is 00:41:50 for young military wives. I bet he does. If anyone understands the plight of a young military wife, it's Dick. Dick gets it. He understands. And that is the short name for a, for a detective, too. That's fun. Yeah, he's a dick, all right. This dick over here, he knows what's up. Dick understands how it is for young military wives, especially wives, away from home for the first time with nothing to do but wait for their husband to come home from maneuvers. Yeah. And they said, but people always said the vineyards or vineyards, however you say it, acted like honeymooners because they were honeymooners. They just got fucking married. They're very excited.
Starting point is 00:42:28 They said, Dick goes on to say that Michael's kidnap theory is one of several possible scenarios. Oh. Yeah. So this reporter says, Dick and a colleague went to Knoxville to talk to family and friends of both husband and wife. We picked up a few leads, but not too much, Dick said. That's good. You don't want to pick up too much with your dick.
Starting point is 00:42:48 That's bad. You don't want that. I picked up some shit. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has been very helpful. In fact, I'm still getting reports from them. Yeah. Cleared it all up. Cleared up all my dick stuff.
Starting point is 00:43:00 He said the trip did clear up a rumor circulating in the village about Patsy's past. What was the rumor? Investigators were able to determine that she had been involved in a nude photography session when she was 14. Ah, you mean child porn production? Yes, you mean Roman Polansky was visiting her. What are we talking about? This is not good. This is bad.
Starting point is 00:43:25 We confirmed it? Yes, because the photographers were arrested for it. Oh, good. For doing kiddie porn, for Christ's sake. And Patsy appeared as a witness. these men were given probation and the troopers here don't think that this old case
Starting point is 00:43:40 from six years ago from people who didn't even do prison time they're going to come back to haunt and kidnap and murder her probably I don't know if you got six years of frustration because you're a pervert you might take it out on her you think they didn't go right back
Starting point is 00:43:54 to what they were doing right to find another kid dude there's I read about all this and the bonus episodes we did for Dean Coral reading about how some of these pedophile, these guys would get caught with thousands of pictures and videos, all this disgusting shit and they'd go right back to doing it.
Starting point is 00:44:12 Like, as soon as they got bailed out, they'd be right back to being perverts and scumbets. So Dick, who grew up in Watertown, thinks the answer may be in Sackett's Harbor, you know, where this happened. He said, it's such a small town. How could she just slip away? Someone had to have been, had to have seen her going out. It's hard to believe she just disappeared. Somehow she got from point A, the apartment to point B, the bay.
Starting point is 00:44:39 Yeah. He said, say she was walking, which lots of people of cars do when they're going somewhere. Someone had to have seen her. Maybe it's someone who doesn't realize they've got something that could help us, but maybe it's just some little thing that someone thinks is unimportant that could open up the investigation. We've got to thoroughly investigate every little lead. Dick is thorough. But a lady walking down the street doesn't fucking stand out as weird.
Starting point is 00:45:07 Why are you going to? No, especially in a town full of army wives. You know what I mean? Yeah, you probably don't even notice it. No, I wouldn't think so. You wouldn't, yeah, especially if it was just somebody getting into a car, if it was a friend, if it was an acquaintance. If she's screaming and someone's like holding or ripping her by the hair, then you notice. But otherwise, you probably wouldn't.
Starting point is 00:45:25 They said detectives got confusing impressions from people in the village about Patsy. Dick says she was observed. She was a very pretty girl, but some people said she sometimes walked alone and others said she never went out without a friend with her. So they got completely conflicting information that helps them not at all. He says, we're not sure which it is. She's out by herself all the time. Another one says, oh, she was so careful. She always called me to go with her.
Starting point is 00:45:53 How the hell do you fix that at this point? How do you know which one is true? And he said the purse, which contains a checkbook with eight blank checks. and pennies and bank key cards. Okay, so a J.C. Penny and a bank key card, like an ATM card, and a driver's license, and her jewelry are missing. They did extensive searches in the area, in the water, and on land, and haven't produced a clue, according to Dick. That's what the article says. It would make his day and maybe his year if someone found the purse or the checkbook.
Starting point is 00:46:23 Michael is considering asking for a hardship discharge from the Army. He's having a hard time. That's not just like right out of the gate. If your family is murdered, you get the fuck out of here? I think if your young wife who lived on base is murdered, you go so you want to take like at least a leave, right? So you're not involved in this anymore, obviously. You have shit to heal from.
Starting point is 00:46:48 And also, I can't have a dude whose wife was just murdered or is dead for that matter. Yeah, we don't know. Underquestion, I can't have that guy operating a fucking rifle. That's the other thing. You can't have him operating a rifle. And you don't know if he had something to do with it or not at this point. There's another point. That's another thing.
Starting point is 00:47:04 I mean, obviously, he was away on drills. So he's the farthest thing from a suspect. And we're not, he had no reason to do it. Well, he doesn't physically do it. But who knows if he had anything at all to do with it. We don't know. That's what you mean. You got to be as a, as a hitman.
Starting point is 00:47:20 As a boss. Yeah. Yeah, you have to at least think about that. as a possibility because you look at the people closest to first. That's just how it is. So they said the crime doesn't really happen in this area, the Sackett's Harbor area. They said that the last major crime was when the oldest resident at the time was 91 years old and was sexually attacked in her home.
Starting point is 00:47:40 Oh, God. Who picks out the oldest woman in town and says, I'm going to go over there and fuck with her. That's gross. Fucking gross and disturbing. The last murder happened in 1980, and it was just two soldiers. or a soldier that killed his wife in the barracks, which is gone. So the guy who wrote this,
Starting point is 00:47:58 his name is Dick Case. Is everybody named that? C-A-S-E, Dick Case, which sounds like a fucking insult. Hey, yo, Dick Case, what are you doing? Look at this Dick Case over here. It sounds like a total thing that somebody in, like, Jersey would call somebody. This is where you put your dick at night
Starting point is 00:48:15 before you go to bed. Put it in my dick case. For later. Save it. Keeps it nice and clean. Put my retainer away. I put my dick in this. This case.
Starting point is 00:48:23 Dick in there. So they interrogate the soldiers who weren't at the training because most of the soldiers were at this training that Michael is at these maneuvers. Now, one of these soldiers that they have a particular eye on for a second is a guy named Leslie Eugene Warren. Leslie is. His parents blew it. They should have named him Dick. He's the only guy in the story. L-E-S-L-E-Y is how you spell Leslie.
Starting point is 00:48:47 Leslie Eugene Warren. So they talked to him. he says nothing that arouses any suspicion or anything like that. They basically set up an interview room at Fort Drum and questioned 150 soldiers. So it was more like just a process of getting them all in and out. I don't know. I don't know how you can really concentrate on one person if you have that volume of interrogations to do. And they said there was not one shred of evidence ever suggested at that point that Leslie Warren was the perpetrator
Starting point is 00:49:21 of anything. But he's an interesting guy and it bears looking into. Leslie Eugene Warren was born October 15th, 1967. So he's 20 years old at this point. He was born in Candler, North Carolina, which that becomes important later. He is the son of Douglas Eugene Warren and Phyllis Gene West. His mom, Phyllis is from Texas. Now, Douglas is a severe alcoholic.
Starting point is 00:49:49 Oh, his dad? His dad. Severe alcoholic seems to have a hard time holding down a job. Okay. Whatever jobs he can find, kind of moves from job to job. Sure. Not doing the banish, just a horrible alcoholic. And Phyllis' mother, everybody says, was just overwhelmed by everything. From the kids to the husband, because he's an abusive maniac.
Starting point is 00:50:12 She's overwhelmed. They have, in 1970, his brother, LaRan is born. Loran Ray Warren is born. He'll come in later on. So this family is dysfunctional as shit. Dad is a violent alcoholic and very, like, he put people in the hospital in the family. What's he do for work? Whatever he can.
Starting point is 00:50:38 Oh, boy, he's that kind of alcoholic. Whatever menial job he can find. Yep. Yeah. He physically abused Phyllis. He physically abused the children. everyone was in constant fear of him coming home. Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:50:50 One of those things. By 1971, the family's mobile home caught on fire. So it's bad enough that you're living with an abusive alcoholic father, but you also live in a trailer and that trailer catches on fire. Talk about no fucking look. Imagine if you're Phyllis, you're like, my life is a shit show. It's just a storm ever gets better. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:51:09 It's a cloud of diarrhea, my whole life that just is coming. Every day. Like a hurricane. fucking from the Gulf. It's crazy. So it almost killed Phyllis and one of the kids. They, multiple sources said that Douglas, the father, may have intentionally set this fire, too. Oh.
Starting point is 00:51:33 Which is crazy with his wife and kids in the trailer. Nothing was ever proven, but everybody suspected him because he's kind of an asshole. That's crazy. a relative of Douglas here. I think it's one of his brothers said Doug was the type of man that would give you the shirt off his back, even if it left him
Starting point is 00:51:55 with none. But Leslie's mother ran rough shot over Douglas, and life with her was beyond contentious. So according to Douglas' relatives, she shouldn't complain about getting the shit beaten out of her so much and the fact that he burns their home to the ground.
Starting point is 00:52:11 Like, that should be, we should let that go. She's out of control. and everything she does. Talk about a ballbreaker. Jesus, I mean, can't even get drunk and beat the kids anymore without the wife complaining about it. Yeah. That's crazy.
Starting point is 00:52:24 So that's not what we hear from anyone else. Everybody else says, mom tried her best, but she's overwhelmed and dad was a nightmare. So that's how this goes. The brothers here, also, Phyllis, mom openly favors Loran over Leslie. Open. Just, it's not even, they said it's not subtle.
Starting point is 00:52:45 at all, just hardcore, I like him better. Ron's the baby? Yeah, three years younger. They said Phyllis would just shower him with attention and then would treat Leslie like, get away from here. Right in Les's face. Right in his face. And part of it was Leslie had behavioral problems.
Starting point is 00:53:04 Oh. But we're not sure if this caused the behavioral problems or if this is because of his behavioral problems. We're not sure. Because this will cause a behavioral problem. It'll certainly contribute to it. A kid will get attention. That's the thing.
Starting point is 00:53:20 One way or another. They'll figure it out. They'll fucking get it, whether it's good or bad. Whether you give it or don't. Yeah. It'll happen. 1973, Phyllis finally divorces Douglas. Finally.
Starting point is 00:53:31 She's had enough. She's had enough. She's awarded full custody of the children and got a restraining order against her ex-husband. Oh. And this is in 73. So you had to show up with like your nose broken and your eye, both eyes black to get a fucking restraining order. This has got to be weaning. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:53:46 It's crazy. Douglas, shockingly, didn't take this well. No? That's weird. Abusive guys usually don't like it when you say, hey, stop being so abusive. They usually hate that. It's strange. Weird thing.
Starting point is 00:53:58 So he stalked her. Stop beating your wife. How'd you find out? Yeah. She told everybody. That's, well. Well, you know. He stalked her. He harassed her.
Starting point is 00:54:07 He'd show up uninvited to places she was. You know the drill. Oh, boy. Yeah. But he didn't give a shit about the kids. He'd stalk Phyllis, but couldn't care less about the kids. He could pass them on the street and barely give him an acknowledgement. Like, he didn't care, which is crazy.
Starting point is 00:54:24 It's wild. And so dad, Douglas here said that he had some problems after the divorce and didn't see much of Leslie after that. He said, quote, I really didn't know him. We were separated when he was three or four. And, you know, I didn't see him much after that. So that's basically said, I abandoned my son at three. Which is terrific That's three
Starting point is 00:54:46 That's Jesus Christ It's not good I guess There's a lot of People said that Douglas never wanted The kids
Starting point is 00:54:55 And that's why he beat the shit Out of him Nice But he married his wife On purpose And he beat the shit out of her too So I think he just likes
Starting point is 00:55:01 Beating the shit out of people And being an abusive dick I think he needs Things To have people close by So that he can do that And yeah Gotta be with an arm's reach
Starting point is 00:55:10 Yeah I'll say you're gonna beat The shit out of him That's hard harder to do it if they're next door. One of the relatives said his father was pretty bad to him, talking about Leslie. He never had anything to do with him unless he was busting his butt for something.
Starting point is 00:55:25 So now dad has nothing to do with him, and he's in a house with mom who dotes on younger brother and doesn't like him. Fun. So it's not too great. He's having some basically signs of some future red flags popping up here. In September of 74, he began attending the Emma Elementary School in Candler, and there's problems a lot.
Starting point is 00:55:48 He's constantly fighting with other kids in class. Yeah. Which he's an abused kid. That's what they do a lot. Right. You know what I mean? You ever look back on kids now, think about kids from like the third, fourth grade
Starting point is 00:56:01 who acted certain ways, and you go, oh, God, I wonder what was going on in their house. At the time, you just think that kid's an asshole. Yeah, yeah. Now I think, oh, God, he couldn't have just been an asshole. He was nine. He had someone made him an asshole, you know? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:56:15 Well, I guess, I mean, back, I don't think I, I don't even think I even considered it being a product of a household. I just considered them a fucking jerk. Yeah. If you're a child, a child is an independent entity. You don't think of them in terms of their parents and their house or any of that. You think of them in terms of they're here in front of me being a douchebag and trying to start a fight with me for no reason. This behavior is unacceptable. Looking back now, I look back and go, oh, man, they must have been going through some bad.
Starting point is 00:56:42 shit at home. I wish I knew that then and could have gone up and been like, so your dad hit you a lot, huh? You know? So he didn't want to learn. Yeah, I mean, I get, there's several kids that I wish I could go back and be like, when it's offered, don't try the meth. Don't try the meth. Well, yeah, you'd have to go back even further to the point of, oh, so far. Yeah. When your uncle comes over, when you're eight, run away and hide in the closet because he's going to have fucking wandering fingers and shit like that. You know, you know, know, when your mother leaves you somewhere, call the cops. Like, there's a lot of tips for those kids.
Starting point is 00:57:18 But really, don't try the meth. Don't. And then when you get to the point where you're like, this sucks, how can I possibly feel better? Ooh. That's bad. Don't do that. Don't do that. That's where it ends right there.
Starting point is 00:57:31 You know how they did bad things to, you're going to do worse things to get more meth. That's even worse. Isn't that nuts? Doesn't that sound crazy to you? I assure you, I've seen the news. So Leslie doesn't want to learn anything. Yeah. He doesn't want to participate in sports or activities.
Starting point is 00:57:49 Okay. Doesn't want to do anything. He's bullied relentlessly. Yeah. Yeah, the kids are, we're playing kickball. Don't want to play. All right. Shit like that.
Starting point is 00:57:57 He's getting bullied a lot. His first and second grade teachers both later said that their, that the mother, Phyllis, had told them that there had been a lot of abuse in the house and that the kids have been abused a lot. Oh, boy. To kind of explain his actions a little bit here. The school referred him to a clinical psychologist named William Matthews who tried to help whatever early 1970s child psychology was. Yeah. Tried to help him a little bit.
Starting point is 00:58:26 And a lot of people tried over the years to help with him. By 1981, he's entering high school, Leslie, Irwin High School. And things are not better at this point. No? No, they're not at all. He started arguing violently with his mother. now he'll say, you like Le Ron better, and he'll express that. Terrible in school, hanging out with the wrong crowd, just an angry.
Starting point is 00:58:50 You can say his background and you can predict this is what he's going to do. I mean, it's A plus B at this point. By 1982, he's 14 years old, and now he starts doing horrible things, as we'll talk about. This is crazy. He started mailing anonymous letters. two other kids, other teenagers, threatening rape on them at 14. 14 years old.
Starting point is 00:59:21 Just how many? Several? Several rape letters he wrote to young ladies around town. Okay, they're all ladies. Yeah, yeah. He wasn't saying, like, hey, Bob, I'm going to rape you good. Like, it wasn't like that. It was, you know, I'm going to scare women.
Starting point is 00:59:35 Targeted, yeah. Yeah. He also begins committing burglaries and smoke. and weed and doing some coke as well. Okay. Which at 14 in 1982, that's pretty impressive that you even found some Coke. It's very early on Coke.
Starting point is 00:59:50 Little early on the Coke. He's a ground floor kind of guy here. He was arrested for vandalism and expelled from school. The authorities order a psychological evaluation. All right. Good. He's sent to Brofton Hospital, which is a psychiatric
Starting point is 01:00:06 facility. And their diagnosis is conduct disorder. schizoid personality disorder and depression. At 14. At 14. A lot going on here. He's exhibiting some very severe mental health issues. And antisocial things.
Starting point is 01:00:24 And there's a lot going on here. Uh-oh. A psychiatrist described Warren as, quote, unsocialized. It's like a puppy you've never taken around other dogs. Not housebroken. Bark at people and try to bite the mailman and shit like that. Unsocialized. Someone who.
Starting point is 01:00:40 had not adequately learned social norms, lacked basic social skills, and exhibited chronic pessimism, which is fine. That's, that's, that's, that's my family. Chronic pessimism is a, that's actually a good quality, right? That's, well, we only say that because that's what we are, is chronic pessimists. So, does, we're like, yeah, you're just looking out for yourself. Yeah, totally. I mean, a chronic pessimist is like base floor is no.
Starting point is 01:01:04 Like, the baseline is, uh-uh, let's, let's re-examine that. That's not going to work. Yeah. Oh, it's all going to be bad. But for him, everything turns out bad. So how would you not be a pessimist? Yeah. Like, oh, it's better now that dad left.
Starting point is 01:01:17 Well, maybe not. Now he won't pay attention to me at all. The trailer almost burned down. So it's like, who knows? So anyway, he undergoes treatment. It supposedly helped. The doctor said he's all shiny and new now. Here you go.
Starting point is 01:01:31 Oh, geez. He enrolled in the Anka High School in September of 82. New fresh start, clean slate. Rebuilt. Yeah. 33 days that lasts that last. Uh-oh. Not that.
Starting point is 01:01:43 Yep. And he only attended 10 of the 33 days that he was enrolled. Perfect. Not good. The help did nothing. October 82, his mother found weed in his room. All right. And they argued and Phyllis threw him out for the night.
Starting point is 01:02:01 Okay. How old was he now? 15, 16? He's no, he's just turned 15. Okay. You can't. can't say leave the house for the night. You throw the weed away and you keep the kid.
Starting point is 01:02:13 Yeah. You make him stay in his room. You take away any shit that he has that's cool. That's what you did. Or force him to smoke the whole bag. Yeah. Luckily in 1982, the best he could have is a Kaliko vision. So there's not a lot to take away.
Starting point is 01:02:25 I'll take away your... Is Atari out yet? Yeah, yeah. You're 13-inch black and white TV and you're Atari with the ET game. I'll take that away from you. No more Lucy for you. No more pitfall or fucking jungle hunt for you, my friend. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:02:39 Said, no, Lucy. Yeah, that's for me watching. Because that for my late nights. Black and white TV. That's what I did. That's what was on in the middle of the night when we were kids. If you woke up at 2 a.m., you know, in 1987, it was all night with Lucy. That's all it was on.
Starting point is 01:02:55 So, anyway, they argued she threw him out. The next day, Leslie returns to the house while his mother's gone. And he brings a gun. Leslie. Now he's got a gun. To mom's house. Where do you get a fucking gun? Who knows?
Starting point is 01:03:11 That's the thing. Who knows? Wow. Gun, coke. He's a pretty resourceful teenager. Very. If he could steer this towards something positive, he could like start a business and shit.
Starting point is 01:03:20 Like he could do something. He knows some adults that are bad guys somewhere. Or really shitty kids, one of the other. Yeah. So the next door neighbor is a woman named Betty Presley. And she's home alone. Presley saw Leslie come home? Presley saw Leslie.
Starting point is 01:03:36 And now she's thinking this. This isn't the bestly. This is bad. It's the worstly. So Leslie breaks into the house with a gun. Yeah. Drags this poor woman into the basement at gunpoint. Mom's home.
Starting point is 01:03:52 Tied her up. Yeah. And holds her at gunpoint. Wow. We don't know what he's planning on doing, but he's got the next door neighbor, Betty, tied up in her own basement at gunpoint. Oh, it's not his mom. He went to the neighbor job. No.
Starting point is 01:04:04 Betty Presley, yeah. Right. It's different. Yeah. Went to her house. Yeah, otherwise, I wouldn't even mention Betty Presley. She had nothing to do. Right.
Starting point is 01:04:11 I thought he was going home and Betty Presley is witnessing him go home. Got you. No, no, no. She's in her house. He breaks into her house, drags her into the basement, ties her up, holds her at gunpoint. Got it. Which is above a beyond. That's far.
Starting point is 01:04:25 Yeah. Then, can you imagine that? Jesus. So then a friend of Betty shows up looking for her. He couldn't find her, this guy. So he searched the house. He was looking for. She's supposed to be there.
Starting point is 01:04:39 He ends up going in the basement. And when he gets in the basement, he sees Leslie Warren holding his tied up friend at gunpoint in the basement, which is horrifying. So this guy tries to attack Leslie because he sees he's a child, basically. He's not a very big guy anyway. So he attacks him. And there's a struggle. And Leslie shoots the guy. Wounds or murders?
Starting point is 01:05:07 shoots him and then he fled. So the bullet misses the vital organs. He survives. And the friend is able to free Betty and Betty is able to call the police. Okay. Now, he's the kid next door. She knows who he is. She knows who he is.
Starting point is 01:05:22 This is not a planned out thing. This is terrible. He's very dumb. So he's arrested immediately. It's the kid next door. Easy. So during the interrogation, he admitted to everything. Okay.
Starting point is 01:05:34 Said what he did and did all of that kind of thing. So he's awaiting trial in the county detention center. And while awaiting trial, about a month after he's arrested, he attempts to hang himself in his cell. Okay. So all the things he's doing are not 15-year-old things. No, this is very 45-year-old with a couple of crimes that the cops don't know about. Yeah, and a bunch of credit card debt. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:06:01 That he really, you're like, oh, yeah, American Express? Yeah. We'll see about that fucking monthly interest, right? I'll cure that shit right now. So he was transferred here to a psychiatric hospital where they said his mental health improved. Did well. Now, he is convicted of kidnapping and attempted murder. Those apply, yeah.
Starting point is 01:06:25 That's a lot. I'm convicted. Yeah, but he's a juvenile and he's only 15. Six, eight months. So he receives a very minor sentence rather than adult prison. he gets, he's sent to the Juvenile Evaluation Center in Swana Noah. Yeah. Okay.
Starting point is 01:06:41 So he's at Juvie. Which I'm sure is not a cakewalk. Oh, no, that's awful. I've known kids that are in Juvie. It sucks, but it's not adult prison. Right. You're not going to get, you know, a fucking split in half by a 48-year-old angry man. That's helpful.
Starting point is 01:06:56 So at Juvie, he remains there until October of 85. Okay. And multiple shrinks evaluate him and multiple diagnosis. are made different, of course, all over the place. Multiple treatment plans are attempted. And there is one particular counselor that is making progress with him. Oh, it's working. It's just one.
Starting point is 01:07:17 Her name is Jamie Hurley, J-A-Y-M-E-Hurley. Sure. They seem to be making progress. One of the other staff psychologists said about Leslie, he was kind of a quiet, loner, intelligent, polite, well-mannered, and sincere. And he is intelligent, too. That's the other thing that pisses me off here. He's got the cogs to work it.
Starting point is 01:07:41 He just doesn't have any belts to make them roll. It's really weird how many. I mean, it's a psychiatrist's job, but it's fascinating when they can find several qualities that are very positive. You put those on a Tinder profile, and that guy will get dates. Yeah. I mean, if you evaluate somebody for weeks at a time, you're going to find the bad. You're going to find the good.
Starting point is 01:08:00 I mean, everybody's a sphere. Nobody is a one-dimensional. He's an attempted murdering kidnapper, though, and to have those qualities is dangerous. People said Ted Bundy was decent to watch a football game with. You know what I mean? You know, it doesn't mean he's a good guy. Charismatic as fuck, yeah. So this person went on to say, Jamie noticed him because he was brighter than most.
Starting point is 01:08:22 He liked to read and had some pretty adult-level novels. Oh. So he was, she just saw him as a smarter kid that could do better than this, basically. So this is Jamie Denise Hurley. She's born February 6, 1951. She would bring him books and tell him that you can do it and, you know, try to encourage him. She thought he had potential, basically. She believed in his intelligence and she trusted him enough to give her, or to give him
Starting point is 01:08:51 her phone number and tell him to stay in touch after he left. She said, I'd like to hear what you're up to later, you know, stay in touch, tell me when you're going to college and all that kind of thing. Which seems weird. I mean, it's in the 80s. So it's a landline, so it's not like it's... Exactly. It's just a landline.
Starting point is 01:09:08 And so he's released from Juvie and he bounces between family members. For almost two years, he lived with his uncle Carl. And his uncle Carl is the one that said his dad just busted his butt for everything he did and didn't want anything to do with him. And Carl said, so he lived with him for almost two years in South Carolina. And Carl said, we never had any problems with him. Oh. So he gets out. And for two years, it seems to have worked.
Starting point is 01:09:32 Or at least Carl's the antidote. Something, yeah. And it might just be he has a male role model that he actually, that might be the gap that's filled in. I mean, mom is great. And mom could be mom. But sometimes a kid, sometimes psychologically kids are missing a piece of something or other. And that might have been the thing he was angry about. We don't know.
Starting point is 01:09:52 So April of 1986, he's 18 years old. And he decides he's going to join the army. Yeah. joining the army and he was stationed at Fort Benning in Georgia. And he gets in the army and he does great. Yeah. He's thriving. He's being watched over every second of every day.
Starting point is 01:10:11 Structure is important. Some people in structure, they do great. Some people in structure, they do worse. It depends. Yeah. I'm bad in structure. I can't be stared at every day all day. Can't do it.
Starting point is 01:10:23 Can't do it. I won't do it. I won't do it. I won't do it. I won't do it. I won't do structure is terrible for me. I will be unproductive. Not to be a dick.
Starting point is 01:10:29 either. I'm not going to be good at it. You leave me the fuck alone. I'll do great. Or at least serviceable. I mean, I'll get things done. Do enough to not get fired. Yeah. Yeah. But I'll get things done at my pace. If you watch me, you'd fire me. Both ways. Either way. Yeah. If you leave me alone, I'm still going to do the quality of work that you're going to fire. Exactly. See, I'll do better if you leave me alone. Yeah. I'll definitely do better work. Yeah. If you saw it, you'd want to fire me. It's still not going to be up to snuck. Let's not be real. Let's not be crazy here. So he's stationed in Fort Benning, Georgia, and doing well.
Starting point is 01:11:05 Then he meets a young woman named Tracy Bradshaw and marries her. Oh. They're going to have a couple of kids. They have a son, Joshua in 1988, January of 1988. Then he's going to have a second child, not too far after that that we'll talk about. Look at Les. Outgrowing it. He's doing great.
Starting point is 01:11:24 Carl, Uncle Carl, says, I was pretty proud of him when he went into the service. I thought he was getting straightened out. Great. Late 1986, he's assigned to the 10th Mountain Division and transferred to Fort Drum in New York. And this was actually, they said, a good posting. The 10th Mountain Division, I think that's the thing that we went over on a live show. Yeah. The band, the 10th Mountain Division.
Starting point is 01:11:47 There's a band in it. There's a band that was playing a festival somewhere. And that's what I think it is, the 10th Mountain Division Band. So apparently this is a good posting. Was that a story? And it was up there too. Wasn't it in Jersey? Was it in Woodbridge?
Starting point is 01:12:00 It was Jersey. Yeah, it was a Woodbridge Township, I think. So this is one of the Army's most deployed units, and it's known for mountain and cold weather readiness. God damn. So Leslie's looking great. Then May 15th comes around. We have Patty or Patsy Vineyard disappearing. And Michael and Leslie are soldiers together.
Starting point is 01:12:24 And this is at the Company A of the First Patriarch. Italian 22nd infantry at Fort Drum. So Warren, they find out, or Leslie Warren, did not go on the same exercises that Michael did that day in the Army. Okay. Remember, he was sent away. He was gone. Yeah. Leslie was still at the base and Michael was sent away, the husband, Patsy's husband.
Starting point is 01:12:49 We don't know why he was excused. It could be injuries, could be, who knows. We don't know. It had laundry to do. We don't know why they would let him out. of it, but he was excused for some reason or another. Michael comes home on May 21st, finds his wife missing, the checks are dated, all that kind of thing. They question more Leslie Warren, but he's one of 150 soldiers in the investigation. So he was never considered a serious
Starting point is 01:13:18 suspect. They looked at his past and said, oh, Christ, he shot a guy, tied a woman up in the basement and all that. But he's also now in the army, and this is what we do in the army. We turn fuck-ups around and turn him into soldiers, and that's what we did. So he's fine. And that's, like, if you're the Army to say one of these guys did it as like, well, what we do doesn't work is what you're saying. You know what I mean? You send a kid here. We'll straighten them out.
Starting point is 01:13:40 And it's like, well, not quite. So they don't, I'm sure they don't with bad publicity if one of the soldiers did it, too. It can't be good publicity. Oh, God. That's maybe the worst, right? Yeah. It's got to be terrible. Was it Fort Bragg?
Starting point is 01:13:50 Fort Hood? There was another fort recently. Where was, I don't remember. I don't remember. I don't remember. Gian? Yeah, it was Gian. Okay. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I think it's Texas. I don't remember.
Starting point is 01:14:03 It doesn't. Yeah, I don't know either. That's a good question, though. I'm not sure. So the police here, they think that Patsy is an unlikely victim for a violent crime because of her lifestyle and attitude. She's not somebody who's... What's her lifestyle? Yeah. It's very calm and very tame. Yeah. People who are like, oh, she goes to the bar every night or she goes here or she's got and boyfriends or something. That's like there's more opportunity for people to get her,
Starting point is 01:14:29 is what they're saying, whereas she stays home as a husband doesn't really do much, kind of hangs out. One of the detectives said it was felt that her killer was in all likelihood an acquaintance familiar with Patsy's vulnerabilities and aware that her husband was of necessity away on required military training exercises. So somebody with intimate knowledge about her life? Has to know her well and has to be able to get her to come with them and all that kind of shit. So the town reacts horribly to the murder. Sure.
Starting point is 01:15:03 This Sacketts Harbor. I'm going to read from this article. This is Dick Case's article here, how it starts. In Sackett's Harbor, the mom and pop in Sackett's Harbor County. I'm sorry, Sackets Harbor Country Store on Main Street, down the line from the battlefield. The Bay and Puddle Ducks Boutique. The store has drinks in the cooler, a modest meat counter, and 18 12 tricorn hats on sale for 450. There is a piece of paper taped to the front window that just doesn't fit into the mood
Starting point is 01:15:34 of a peaceable small town dozing next to a great lake in the middle of summer. The piece of paper is a New York State Police Information request flyer regarding the suspicious death of Patsy Diana Vineyard. The flyer carries a picture of Patsy. It's been there a while. Okay. Yeah. It's just, it's so non-sumption.
Starting point is 01:15:55 just none, you know, it doesn't fit in this town. It's so, you know, incongruous to what the town is. A piece of paper. They found the body within a week and a half, though, right? This is information regarding her suspicious death that they're looking for. By 1988, Warren starts fucking up. Yeah. And it's dumb shit.
Starting point is 01:16:15 He is convicted in the army for stealing a pair of his platoon sergeant's boots. Why would you do that? Don't they give you boots in the Army? Yeah, you got your own. Those are issued, right? They give you some. It's not like this guy bought some sweet boots and we've got to have those. They're all.
Starting point is 01:16:35 Yeah. You're trying to make him leave. Don't know why he did that. Just wanted him to get wet feet. Yeah. You know, put some water on the floor, stole his boots and ran away, giggling. I don't know. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:16:45 Then he disappeared from base from February 21st to February 25th, 1988. Yeah. So now he's AWOL and he stole his platoon. sergeants. His direct commanding officers fucking boots, which is dumb. Boots. Yeah. He's arrested by military police on February 25th, 1988.
Starting point is 01:17:05 So they bring him back and he goes AWOL again. Military police, pick him up again. Bring him back. Yeah. He's court-martialed and sentenced to 75 days of confinement. He's fined and demoted from specialists to private first class. Not good. So they kick him back down.
Starting point is 01:17:24 So that's bad. I think that's a pay cut. That's a respect cut. It's everything. And your pension cut? Everything's cut. Everything. That's bad.
Starting point is 01:17:32 So April 28, 28, 1988, he was ordered to continue his service at Fort Benjamin Harris and Indiana. So when he got out, they said, all right, now get your shit together and go there. He said, okay, and then went AWOL again. Didn't go, yeah. Instead of going to Fort Benjamin Harris in Indiana, he goes to New York City, which is basically the same thing. Yeah. You know, real similar places you're going here. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:17:59 After this is just a summer of debauchery he has. In the city? Absolute debauchery. Yeah. Just this is wild. He lives in like fucking abandoned buildings and like, you know, $8 motels that are rented by the hour. He's a mess. He's just any kind of woman he comes.
Starting point is 01:18:23 can pay to do anything to him he'll do. He gets really into crack. He's like, I've been hearing about this crack on the news. This is 88. Crack's pretty new. Yeah. All I keep hearing is crack, crack, crack, crack, crack. I got to try it.
Starting point is 01:18:38 This is a need to. Don't try the crack last. No, I got it. I think I've heard such good things about it, though. On the news, those people seem to really like it when they're, you know, all addicted to it and everything. So that's what he does. June 17th, 1988, the Army says we've had enough, and they finally, rather than arrest him and bring him in again, they just dishonorably discharge them. Oh, boy.
Starting point is 01:19:01 You're gone. They said disorderly conduct and desertion. Goodbye. They don't like that, generally. It's kind of hard to be in the Army when you're not in the Army, like at the Army. Not much of a team player, which is kind of what the Army's all about. It's all every. You've got to be at the Army to be in the Army.
Starting point is 01:19:18 That's the problem. General. If you're away, it's not going to work. So, 1989, he goes back down to the Carolinas. Remember, he's born down there. He lived down there with his uncle and all that. He completes a three-month truck driver training program. Okay.
Starting point is 01:19:35 You just know he saw a three in the morning commercial and was like, trucking school, huh? Yeah, I'd like to make my own money on the open road. That sounds pretty good. I think I can do it. I think I could do it. He gets a job with AMCAM transport service, which is a Anderson, South Carolina-based trucking company. Sure.
Starting point is 01:19:53 The personnel and safety director said that Leslie was a presentable applicant when he got his job and that his job performance was satisfactory. Okay. He's a trucker. Presentable applicant is fine. You show up in the morning and you drop it off later. Can you drive and read a clock? Yes.
Starting point is 01:20:11 Great. There you go. You got it. So he was trying to get clean. He was also, he's married with a kid, remember, during this. Right. So he's also now trying to reconcile. with his wife, who he knocked up again and now she's pregnant.
Starting point is 01:20:25 Oh, shit. So it looks like he's really got to get his shit together. That would be great. He's still only 21 goddamn years old, too. That's the other thing. So youthful. Holy shit. So youthful.
Starting point is 01:20:38 He said that loggingly. That's hilarious. It's just, I wish I could do that youthful. He has it all. He's fucking up so bad for such a young man. So much. So he's trans, he's working for the AM cam.
Starting point is 01:20:51 This is a company that transports goods in 48 states and Canada, obviously, the name. And he works there from May until September 1989 when, according to the company, he left of his own accord. He just up and quit. Deserted? Deserted again. He's a deserted. When you quit a trucking job, thank fuck they don't call that deserting, too. Imagine if any shitty job you quit, they called a desertion.
Starting point is 01:21:17 It was a crime. I wish I had the chance. I deserted Taco Bell when I was 17. That was what I did. My major act of desertion. Quitting must feel fucking great. It does. Feels fantastic.
Starting point is 01:21:31 I can't imagine. It's great. Especially if you quit right before you're going to get fired, that feels even better. Oh, God. I win. Can't get me. I know what you were going to do. You said you had to talk to you later.
Starting point is 01:21:45 I know what that is. I just leave at lunch. Fuck you. He said, let me talk to you at the end of the day. And I said, nah, I'm going to go now. I've been to this rodeo once or twice. I don't think so. I'll be going now.
Starting point is 01:21:58 So he described, the guy at the company, described Leslie as quiet and reserved, nothing outstanding, just average. Okay. Nothing stood out. So anyway, here he is. He's married to Tracy. He's got two kids coming now. It's a mess. Let's introduce someone else into this complete mess.
Starting point is 01:22:18 August 25, 1989. This is Velma Faye Gray. Velma Faye. She goes by Faye from what I found here. Faye Gray, born May 14th, 1947, so she's 42 at this point. She's from Travelers Rest. So she lives and works. She works at Furman University, which we mentioned earlier.
Starting point is 01:22:43 She's a typesetter at Furman. She's got a daughter and a son that are teenagers, late teenagers. ages. Her son's about to go into college. Her daughter's already in college. And so she's also, in addition to this, she's a cool lady. She sounds cool of shit. Not only does she have all this, she's also divorced, you know, just divorced with the kids. She also sings in a band. Really? Do we know what kind of band? Not sure. We assume there's a guitar and a guy with a beard, so we probably say what it is in this area. But it's called The Reflections, the band.
Starting point is 01:23:19 Sounds like a Motown band. Yeah. Sounds like you should be dancing in a line and sync. So, and her brother's in the band as well. Oh. Yeah. So on this day of August 25th, 1989, the reflections appear. They go to Ash, they drive all the way to Asheville, North Carolina.
Starting point is 01:23:39 Wow. To do a show. They have a gig at the Elks Club in Asheville. Okay. Like a lodge, one of those? Yeah, one of those lodges, exactly. and apparently they're a popular band on this circuit. There's a guy named Tiger Summit,
Starting point is 01:23:56 who's a member of the Elks Club here, and he says that that night of the 25th of August, he saw Faye Gray singing with the band from about 9 p.m. This is a Saturday night to about 1 a.m. There's a long set. God damn. That's a four-hour set. Hopefully there's a lot of breaks, but Jesus Christ.
Starting point is 01:24:13 So the band members left the building at around 1.15 a.m. and this is after Tiger Summit was the guy who locked the doors so he knows when they left he says
Starting point is 01:24:23 the band was very friendly they were very jovial he said that you know there were no problems none of them were fighting
Starting point is 01:24:30 or there was no acrimony with anybody everybody was happy they had a good time there's I guess five people in the band there's gray
Starting point is 01:24:38 there's her brother and his wife and then two other men oh okay now one person a woman named Velma who's
Starting point is 01:24:47 saw the band that night at the Elks Club said she was curious after overhearing Faye comment about getting harassing telephone calls. So she was at the, he's dropping. And she said that one of the men in the band suggested she get an answering machine. This is 88. Not everybody has an answering, any kind of answering machine. So they're sitting in between songs talking about how she's getting harassed and one of the
Starting point is 01:25:12 guys says, just saw an answering machine. It's easy. You don't have to pick up the phone for anybody. Screen your calls. Stop listening to heavy breathing. Let him do it on a tape. Yeah, there you go. And then you can just erase it, hit the delete button.
Starting point is 01:25:23 Or then you got evidence. Either way. Either way. She said she didn't want to because her mother would have difficulty with it. She's older and she doesn't know how you do this type of shit. So I'm not going to put my 80-year-old mother into an answering machine. She said that the guy, Tiger Summit, said that he had seen the reflections perform about six times. Wow.
Starting point is 01:25:43 So she's like a groupie at this point. Yeah. He said that Fay was the lead singer. And she seemed to be in good spirits that night because the next day her youngest child was leaving for college. And she was excited about that for him. He was going to, I think like a Bible college or something like that. Oh, they said the Reverend Grady Hall of Hendersonville, the Hendersonville Upward Kelly Memorial Baptist Church in Hendersonville, which is Gray's Childhood Church, said, he said his daughter, Delorsonville. Morris is married to
Starting point is 01:26:19 Faye's brother and is a member of the reflections as well. That's complicated. Oh, that's the lady. Yeah. That's another lady. Okay. Now, we know that she's driving home. Now, normally the band all drives together, and then they'll stop at the diner afterwards or some shit.
Starting point is 01:26:35 But she wants to get home because she has to get up in the morning to send her young son, not young son, her son off to college. Yeah. So she got to go to work. Yeah. So she has to drive all the way from Asheville. and she's driving a a 1985 Mazda RX7
Starting point is 01:26:52 which is a hot shit little car hot fucking ride that's a cool little car that rotary motor that's a dope car I love those RX7s with the pop-up headlights
Starting point is 01:27:00 yeah I love those fucking that shit's like 3540 grand today you can't get those I was just thinking man I should I love to get one of those I wonder how are they expensive
Starting point is 01:27:09 they're expensive they're like an old like 300 Z or something that's one of those yeah or 280 240s they're all any of those all that shit is
Starting point is 01:27:16 that But anything cool. And 85 cars, 40 years old. It's a collector's item now. Yeah, but most of them are shit and they're worth nothing. But there was like four cool models of cars that were out in the 80s. That's the problem. There wasn't a lot of them.
Starting point is 01:27:29 You know what I mean? But that's like having, in 97, having a 57 Chevy. It's a 40-year-old car. Except that was an iconic car. And an 85 Chevy is not an iconic car. The RX-7 sure is. The RX-7, that's I mean. But there's like three cool cars from that era.
Starting point is 01:27:44 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you look at 1965, there's like 30 cool cars. Oh, there's so many. There's like three from 1985, maybe. And that's pushing it. I can't tell you enough. I've been looking because I'm born in 81. I want a cool car from 81.
Starting point is 01:27:58 There is fucking nothing. No. 81 is maybe the worst year for cars. That's a shit. That's a real shit for. Every car sucks. Every car sucks from that year. Even like the Camaro's and the vets.
Starting point is 01:28:10 That sucks. We're like 130 horsepower. They're like a lawnmower. It's not great. Literally 180 horse. Power Camara. Fuck you. That's horrifying.
Starting point is 01:28:19 So back to her driving home here. She's ready to send the kid off to college. She took her own car so she could bypass all the other shit. So anyway, she said she was doing this. One of her bandmates said she wasn't afraid of the darkness, which is a weird way to put... The dark. She doesn't mind driving at night. She wasn't afraid of the darkness.
Starting point is 01:28:41 She'd embrace the darkness, man. She wasn't scared of Charlie Murphy. Well, yeah, exactly. Darkness is. So, yeah, that is old ridiculous. He said she wasn't afraid to do what she did. She wanted to get home quicker than the rest of the group did. All right.
Starting point is 01:28:59 Maybe it sounded like a real cowboy who was like going around. I don't care if that's Indian country. I'm going to ride my horse right through it. Like, what the fuck? She's going to drive it with her headlights off. She's not afraid. No, she's wild Bill Hickok over here. So somewhere along White Horse Extension Road, which is between five and ten miles from her home, she gets almost home.
Starting point is 01:29:23 It's in traveler's rest. She wrecks her car. Oh. She hits something and fucks her car up. Oh. So she's stranded on the side of the road. And from what witnesses say, because there are several witnesses that saw her stranded on the side of the road, they said they saw an 18-wheeler pull over, a train. a tractor trailer pull over
Starting point is 01:29:45 and the driver offering to help. Yeah. So they figured, oh, everyone, all the other people said up, someone's already helping. I'm good. I'm good. I kept driving. So August 27, 1989, the next day, two fishermen are out
Starting point is 01:30:03 near the Highway 9 bridge. This is within eight hours of her leaving the gig, by the way. Yeah, yeah. And they find Faye Gray's body floating face down at 7.10 a.m. Under the bridge.
Starting point is 01:30:18 Under the bridge downtown. Oh, boy. That's it. That's what happened here. So this is it's literally 1.15 they left the gig. So it's less than six hours later she's found. This is about 30 yards
Starting point is 01:30:32 off the south shore of Lake Bowen, which is just east of South Carolina Highway 9 bridge. They said that she was wearing shorts with a black print on a white background and a tank top. And she was wearing several pieces of jewelry, including a necklace, a cluster ring,
Starting point is 01:30:51 and a watch when she's found too. So robbery doesn't seem to be the motive here. Yeah. Say said, here's the other disturbing part. Her hands are tied behind her back with shoelaces. Oh, boy. So this is, that is, when you see that. This is not a good, yeah, it's not a good sign.
Starting point is 01:31:08 Yeah. And she appears to have been beaten in the face. Jesus. That's horrifying. She died of asphyxiation. Yeah. And they believed she was strangled. She'd also been sexually assaulted.
Starting point is 01:31:20 Good Lord. So tied up, rape, beaten, strangled. This is horrifying. There's a monster on the loose. Yeah. This is Ted Bundy shit is what this is. Yeah. This is bad stuff.
Starting point is 01:31:31 This is Green River killer shit here. Yeah. So now her brother recalled how, you know, we were just at this gathering. I don't understand. had this show and beautiful night. It makes no sense. He said that they went in two separate cars just after they finished playing. He said she left first, but they passed each other on the road and she blinked her lights at him.
Starting point is 01:31:55 So she was out driving. She made it out of town. He said he never saw her alive again. That was it. Fuck. Her cousin Shirley said that Faye was a kind, happy, go lucky person who always tried to cheer others up. She said, this is something that happens on the next. news. It doesn't happen to you. She was just a doll. She doesn't pick up hitchhikers. This had to be
Starting point is 01:32:18 forced on her because she's not that careless. The only thing I can see is that somewhere between here and Asheville she stopped for coffee and somebody got in the car with her. So that's the cousins thing. Maybe she stopped somewhere and, you know, stay awake and maybe somebody was down on their luck and gave her a sob story and talked to her and giving him a ride. And that's how this happened. Now, her job, everyone is horrified there. The Furman spokesperson, said she was extremely popular. Obviously, we're very saddened and shocked. I don't think it's sunk in here yet.
Starting point is 01:32:49 She was a very nice lady, congenial and outgoing. Now, you think with this, at least there's a car here. Right. So a car can hold physical evidence more than a body. Right. Just where has she been between the car and the bridge? Right. And if somebody was in her car, they'd leave some evidence.
Starting point is 01:33:08 So their car is something they're looking for. They end up finding her car a couple days later. Not where she left it, though. Oh. Not where she got in the accident. They find it in a remote area of Greenville County. The left side is damaged. So you can see she hit some side.
Starting point is 01:33:24 Maybe she fell asleep at a guardrail. We have no idea. The passenger window was down and the gas tank lid was open. License plate was missing. That's interesting. Somebody siphon the gas out of the goddamn thing or what? They tried to make a fire or something. So a man is arrested.
Starting point is 01:33:41 that stole the car. Scott Lee Stroud is his name. He's a young guy in his 20s. He is from Traveler's Rest. He's charged with grand larceny of an auto after he surrendered to the sheriff's department. They say they have, basically, they have two suspects in this case so far,
Starting point is 01:34:01 and he's one of them. A search of the area found her car, and they said the car, though, did not produce any new information in the death. They said the site, which had previously been searched, is about four miles from where she lived here. Why did Scott have the car? Is he given an explanation? That's the thing.
Starting point is 01:34:22 Well, according to a statement issued, he said he saw the abandoned car off the White Horse Road extension about 100 feet from U.S. 25. And he just got in it. He said the keys were in it. Yeah. We've got far too many of these shows. If I see anything that's valuable and belongs to it, I'm not touching that. Not touching it. I'm not putting my fingerprints on that.
Starting point is 01:34:41 He knew he was stealing it. He wasn't saying like, oh, I just need a ride, but he said it was just abandoned. I never assumed the person was missing. No. Maybe they got taken by aliens. We don't know. Maybe they don't need this anymore. But he said that he stood there and he watched it for a while.
Starting point is 01:34:57 Nobody came to get it. And he was like, I guess I'll just take it. It must be mine now. Anything you see out there, if nobody touches it for an hour, it's just yours now. Whatever that is. Just stand by and watch it. Yeah. Houses, cars.
Starting point is 01:35:11 things, whatever, businesses. You can take over something. We walk away. Yeah. Ever wanted to run an insurance company? Just stand outside. If you don't see any activity for an hour, it's yours now. Plan a flag outside.
Starting point is 01:35:22 Walk away. So he said he drove the Mazda around for about an hour and then dumped it in a field off Allen Road where they found it. Yeah. He is cleared as a suspect in the murder. He has alibis for all this and we'll find out the witnesses that saw the trucker talk to her, Don't identify him. He just found an abandoned vehicle and took it and has terrible luck.
Starting point is 01:35:46 He's a thief with awful luck, essentially. He deserves that. Yeah. The cops said they're looking for a trucker because a witness saw a tractor trailer driver, pull up and park near them now. And detectives believe she was taken from her car after this accident, and that's what happened here. Looking for a trucker.
Starting point is 01:36:06 The family, her family, offers a $3,000 reward and then raises it to $5,000. $5,000 for any information. Wow. Which feels like that should be what the police are doing, not the family shouldn't have to do that. You know what I mean? Yeah. In 85, they're taking a dead ass serious. That's a lot of money, yeah.
Starting point is 01:36:23 So the police, they end up questioning, guess who? Les. Leslie Warren. Yeah, absolutely. Bless who. He's questioned early on, too. Yeah. He's a truck driver.
Starting point is 01:36:35 Right. We were in the, he's possibly in the area. He told the cops, though, that he didn't. stop at all in South Carolina that night. Just didn't stop. And they were like, okay, sure. But then a witness reported seeing a truck pull off the road, like we said.
Starting point is 01:36:51 Now, the truck belonged to, they knew the company name on the truck, which is Amcan Trucking. Yeah. Which is, obviously, so they're like, well, somebody from your company, and you're in South Carolina that night, and he said, I never stopped. Okay. So the
Starting point is 01:37:09 cop said all of the drivers were questioned. and he happened to be one of the drivers. Just like all the soldiers were questioned, and he happened to be one of the soldiers. Just a simple coincidence. So the Asheville police called the Spartanburg Sheriff's Office because they knew that Leslie had ties to that area, and they said that gave South Carolina authorities
Starting point is 01:37:27 more reason to look specifically at him rather than just as one of the truckers they had talked to. Sure. So now it's all like, we don't trust this guy. Then May 25th, 1990 comes around. So this is a year later in Asheville, North Carolina. Remember where he's... Where she was at.
Starting point is 01:37:47 Yeah. Where she was at and did that show. This is Jamie Denise Hurley. Remember her? Do I? Yes, she is the kind woman who at the juvenile detention center saw potential in Leslie in books. Give him his phone number.
Starting point is 01:38:03 He said, yeah, keep in touch and all that kind of thing. Now, a little bit about Jamie here. She is a graduate of UNC Asheville as a degree in. psychology. Wonderful. A caring, lovely woman, respected and liked by coworkers. She said she has her plants and her cats and her students and she's passionate. She would cook holiday dinners for the troubled teenagers at the evaluation center. They said giving many of them their first family holiday meal they've ever had and shit like that.
Starting point is 01:38:33 One of her co-workers said, for some, this was the first time they ever had that and that they ever sat down to a set table and passed dishes. Wow. So, yeah, she had worked at the center from 76 to 88, so until very recently. Sure. And during that time, she had tried to help Leslie Warren because he was smart. And she encouraged him to stay in touch. Her friend and other psychologist said there was no kind of romantic involvement at all, but he manipulated Jamie to the point where she trusted him.
Starting point is 01:39:07 As professionals, all of us missed any kind of warning signs. on him. Oh, nobody recognized anything weird. No, they just thought he was a smart, good kid that just didn't have any guidance. So they were going to help him out.
Starting point is 01:39:20 Okay. That's it. So, okay, Jamie ends up disappearing from her home in Asheville. Oh, no. On this day.
Starting point is 01:39:30 Now, she was last seen at a grocery store, and then she went home, and then she disappeared. Her car's in the driveway. House lights are on, doors locked, and her cats are inside.
Starting point is 01:39:41 Yeah. And her co-worker said, when I saw those cats, I knew Jamie was in trouble, meaning her cats aren't being tended to do something wrong. Yeah. Yeah, she's not here and they are. If she goes somewhere, she takes them with her. She's not going to do. No, no, no, that they're not cared for. She's just never going anywhere.
Starting point is 01:39:58 Yeah. Yeah, she's, her cats are cared for. If you walk in and the cats are rare, we don't have any food, then something's wrong with Jamie, basically. So they end up talking to who, you may ask. Les. Leslie. Yeah. How many missing presumed dead women have you been questioned in the disappearance of, Jimmy?
Starting point is 01:40:18 Oh, shit. I mean, we're both in our 40s. We've been around a little bit. It's a bit of life experience by now. Yeah. Life experience. I think I'm still right at zero. I was going to say, I can't think of three different women I've been questioned about that.
Starting point is 01:40:30 I can't think of one as a matter of fact. Right on zero. Very strangely, I'm going to go at zero for me, too. Him, this is three. Most of the girls I've ever been interested in have got, they got a lot of shit going on. Plenty of people wanting to kill them. Plenty of potential suspects there. They weren't just me in their lives.
Starting point is 01:40:51 Yeah, they got other shit going on. They're not worried about me. So Asheville Police Captain Ted Lambert here said that he learned that Leslie had been at Jamie's house the day before. So anybody that's been around anytime soon, anytime recently they want to talk to. He's coming around, huh? Coming around. And they found out that she had been his counselor too. And they're like, that's weird.
Starting point is 01:41:20 In February of 1990, a couple months earlier, Warren, Leslie Warren, had called Jamie for the first time in years. And he told her that he needed help and she agreed to meet with him. And we feel like this is the culmination of that. Yeah. So, yeah, this is interesting. Now, he is jailed for some minor charges at this point as well, and they're suspicious of him. But he refused to say anything or any of that kind of shit. There's no.
Starting point is 01:41:50 There's a very boring conversation? Conversation. I don't know. Yeah, she helped me out a lot. Well, did you do anything to her? No. I don't know. Yeah, I talked to her because she helped me.
Starting point is 01:42:01 Yeah, that's all he would say. She gave me her number. Told me to call. That's it. Yeah. just gave me your number. I was called. Seems like it's a, you know, explanation.
Starting point is 01:42:09 So May 28, 1990s, taken back in for questioning again. And the police say, can we search your van? He's got a 1968 Chevy van, which that's van right there. Yeah. Yeah, that's not bad. He let police search the van. And when they search the van, they find one of Jamie's favorite purses in her, in his van. He still has it?
Starting point is 01:42:34 He has it at all. He has her purse. That's not good. And her favorite one. Yeah. Now he's got, so he's a suspect. Things look suspicious. He popped up.
Starting point is 01:42:46 He's got, she's missing, and he's got her purse and his van. Not good. This is at least, you got to hold this guy for a minute, right? Yeah. They have some physical evidence. They have a connection. They know each other. But they have nobody.
Starting point is 01:43:00 So they literally say, no body, no crime. Nobody does cry. They were like, we can't do anything about it. We don't even know if she's missing. We don't even know she's dead. So how are we going to charge the guy with anything? So during. I'm so glad that's out the window, right?
Starting point is 01:43:16 What, if they're. The nobody no crime. That's all over. Because now there's DNA and shit. Back then, the physical evidence was so whatever. But now it's like if you find a big blood puddle of somebody's DNA on the ground, it's probably dead. Big blood puddle and their fucking bank account hasn't moved. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:43:33 probably dead. Now, during the interrogation, he said he, quote, might need a lawyer, which is not asking for a lawyer legally. He just might need one. He just might need one. You go, I might need a lawyer. They go, well, if you want a lawyer, ask for a lawyer, otherwise, I'll keep talking to you because that's not asking for a lawyer. Well, they're not going to say that out loud, but yeah, I might need it. You know what I mean? You might, yeah. So they said, uh, they keep questioning him here. And as they keep questioning, he says, okay, fine, I know what happened to her. I didn't killer though. Oh. He said we were hanging out, we were partying, and she overdosed. Oh. This woman has no history of drugs. Jamie does drugs. Oh, she's a hardcore. Yeah. That's why all the kids like her.
Starting point is 01:44:19 He said that we were partying and she died of a drug overdose. And he said, I fucking panicked because she died of a drug overdose. So I just took her and dumped her body in the French Broad River. So if you look in there, you'll find her, but I just dumped her body in the river. I panicked. I was like, what do I do? I pushed her out of the van. Now she's in the red. That is like the worst thing to say.
Starting point is 01:44:41 That's his story. So you're like, Jesus, that's either true or the truth is so much worse. Holy fuck. Wow. So they arrest him, but not for that, not for disposing of a body, not for you're full of shit. We think you murdered her. None of that.
Starting point is 01:44:58 He's arrested on a misdemeanor larceny charge for having her purse. and a traffic offense of not having his registration right on his van. We'll deal with the other shit. But this is it here. So that's so they can hold him for a minute and have some bail that he has to raise that he doesn't have at the moment. This is when they search the river. Their goal is search the river, find the body, charge him before he gets out on bail, essentially. So they all hands on deck, a helicopter, boats, divers, you name it.
Starting point is 01:45:31 French Broad River. Nashville police captain said they began to search the river and they were receiving information that she would be found there. They declined to say where the information came from. We know it's Leslie. But he said that they will continue the search for her body, quote, until we find her. Oh. That's what they said. The Captain Dean Crisp.
Starting point is 01:45:53 That's a cool name. I'm Captain Crisp, which is Captain. They were going to call Captain Crunch Captain Crisp. And they were like, it doesn't have that pop to it. Captain Crisp, I don't like it. Crispy, serious. I mean, they got the cookie crisp. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:46:08 Crunch feels more hardcore, doesn't it? Yeah, it's crunch, not crisp. Yeah, that's right. This guy said that the sheriff's department is committed to the search until evidence or information takes us someplace else. So either we find her or someone tells us she's not here, we're going to keep searching. They had the- Until Sergeant Snap tells us to stop. Oh, but then you don't want to mess.
Starting point is 01:46:32 with Captain Crackle, he is tough. He is tough. And Chief Pop is nobody to be trifled with. So the Sheriff's Department's mobile emergency tactical team, their underwater investigative unit, Search is underwater. The search had divers covering a lot of the same ground. They covered the day before.
Starting point is 01:46:52 They're combing the banks. They said it's basically murky water that you can't see a foot in front of your face. So they have to go over it. Yeah, so you've got to look over it again and you get it again. Inch by inch. Things move to underwater. Oh, underwater, yeah.
Starting point is 01:47:03 If you searched here before, tomorrow, it could have a body there. Yep, things can be moved. Things can be dislodge. Could be caught in a log now. Sure. Anything can happen. And the sergeant here said, we want to triple and quadruple check the ground we covered before we move on. We have to be absolutely certain.
Starting point is 01:47:20 So divers charged in a pendulum search pattern. Yeah. doing a grid pattern using ropes to divide the river in a section. So this isn't willy-nilly fucking around. They said, we basically have an inch-by-inch search, Captain Crisp said. That's just so funny. They said that he added that the grid pattern allowed divers to search between 10,000 and 15,000 square feet of river bottom a day. That's a lot.
Starting point is 01:47:49 That's a lot. They said they concentrated their efforts about 50 feet downstream from where police information indicates. the body entered the water. He said, I dumped her off here, so, like, we think she'd be about here based on patterns and whatever. They found nothing. Well, actually, 10,000 square feet a day is not that much, is it? Not when you have 40 people doing it.
Starting point is 01:48:12 Right. That's not much at all. That's, you got it's slow going. Yeah. So they find nothing. Nothing. For days. After five days, they said, there's nothing here.
Starting point is 01:48:23 We searched every inch of this fucking place. So on June 6th, 1990, now Leslie's bail is $25,000. Yeah. But somehow, if you pay a $1,000 bond, you can get out of that. I don't know how that works. That's not 10%. But his grandfather pays the bond and gets them out. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:48:42 Because they don't have enough evidence to charge him with anything. They should have enough. He said he dumped a body in the river, whether they find it or not. He said, I mean, I said, I guess, I mean, yeah, but you. I could say. Yeah. A lot of people say that. they killed people.
Starting point is 01:48:56 And they did, and they didn't. They didn't do shit. I have to have some kind of evidence. And he's a mental patient that sees a psychiatrist. There's probably somewhere along the line. Somebody going, he's just fucking crazy. Yeah, but he doesn't have like any real mental, other than his like teenage evaluations when he was 13. There's not really any mental illness on his jacket here at all.
Starting point is 01:49:18 He was, the army didn't find any. You know what I mean? So I don't even know if they would know about that or any bad thing about that. And, I mean, who knows? They just might think he stole the person was trying to make it sound better. I don't know. So he gets out and he's going to hang out with his family, with his wife and his two kids. Up in New York?
Starting point is 01:49:40 He's got a baby. No, no, no, they're down there. His wife and two kids. They're with him. So Tracy and the children, he said, let's take a drive. Let's take a drive to the National Fort, the PISCA, P-P-I-S-K-P-I-S-E. S-G-A-H. Pizga?
Starting point is 01:49:58 Yeah. That's the best one I can come up with. PISGA. PISGA. Yeah. I'm going to go Pizga? Pizga? It's probably, who knows?
Starting point is 01:50:09 That National Forest here. Yeah. And he brings the family, his wife, and his two kids to a spot. Isn't that nice? Yeah. You think he's going to say, let's put down a blanket and have a picnic. I brought some fried chicken. It's in a basket in the trunk.
Starting point is 01:50:22 Yeah. You know. It's a nice little foldable. basket. Instead, he looks to his wife and longingly looks into her eyes and he said, I killed that Jamie woman and this is where she's buried right where we're standing. Stop it. She's like, huh? Why did you say that? What the fuck? Holy shit. Then he calls his mother later and tells his mother, Phyllis that, hey, remember when I was in the army and that lady went missing and they questioned me, Patsy? I killed her. Why? Why?
Starting point is 01:50:55 He tells his mom that. So on June 8th, his mom calls the cops. Phyllis calls the cops and says, my son said that he killed a lady up in New York that was killed and all this type of shit. Yeah. So the cops are like, holy shit. So now they're like, hey, do you notice that all of these murders we've talked to him for? Right. That's when they start connecting it because they're like New York.
Starting point is 01:51:19 So they call New York up. And they talk to them. And they're like, okay. And then they're like, but he was taught. Holy shit. He's been talked to for three fucking murder so far. Yeah. This is scary.
Starting point is 01:51:29 So now he's a prime suspect, but he's still not under arrest. Yeah, because you've got to prove something, right? You got to have some sort of evidence. Someone's mom calling up and saying, he said he did something bad, isn't enough to arrest someone for murder. So that's wild. So the Asheville Police Department contacted the Spartanburg Sheriff's Department seeking background information on Leslie. And they started to compare the Jamie Hurley and the Velma Faye Gray case. together.
Starting point is 01:51:57 July 10th, 1990, Leslie takes off. He's gone. He's going to run. He was scheduled to appear in court on the theft charge for Jamie's purse. But on July 11th, he stole a black and gray Kawasaki motorcycle and took off. Wow.
Starting point is 01:52:14 Fucking renegade over here. Those don't, the thing... They go fast. That is true. But they go fast to a very short distance. Unless you got a helmet on. If you got a helmet on, they can't see shit. I mean, they can't imagine this guy's thinking of far.
Starting point is 01:52:29 A man of your size on there or whatever. It seems like a car would be more of a... Yeah. They go fast as shit just for a very short distance. They don't go near as far as a car. He needs to keep putting gas in them. That's the problem. Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 01:52:40 He also changes his name, uses the name Brian Haley Dunn Collins, which is names of a bunch of his half-brothers that he just put together. just amalgamation of all this shit. And that's crazy. He heads to High Point, North Carolina on his bike. We'll talk about what he's doing there. He ends up with a different bike by the time he gets there, which is crazy. He must have, that one's out of gas, dumped it off.
Starting point is 01:53:09 So July 18, 1990, there's another call to the cops from a very unexpected source. It's Loran. Oh, his brother. The brother, his little brother. Loran contacts to the police and he said, I have to tell you of a crime I did. Oh, Loran did a crime. Loran.
Starting point is 01:53:28 He said, I helped my brother Leslie bury Jamie Hurley's body. What? And he said, I'll tell you exactly where to find it. It was in the... Why does LeRond feel guilty? The Piscan National Forest. Yeah? I think maybe his mother,
Starting point is 01:53:45 because Phyllis probably talked to him. Your brother did this and then probably it went from there, I would think. Yeah. Yeah. It's, they said the terrain was brutal,
Starting point is 01:53:54 rocky, remote, and infested with poisonous snakes, by the way. Oh, nice. That's lovely. They killed, in their investigation,
Starting point is 01:54:02 they killed at least six venomous snakes while they were doing this. Oh, Jesus. Jesus Christ. I just picture a guy unloading a service revolver at the fucking ground
Starting point is 01:54:10 hoping he hit something. Probably with a shovel, though, right? They probably just taking the heads off of these fucking things. That's what I saw my friend do in Arizona with a rattlesnake. He took a giant
Starting point is 01:54:20 shovel it just cut its head off. I was like, whoa. It's scary. And they don't like, I mean, they keep telling the movies and stuff, things just die. But those things just keep flipping around. No head. He started digging a hole.
Starting point is 01:54:32 And I was like, what are you doing? He goes, got to bury the head. I was like, what are you talking about? He goes, it'll bite you for like two hours. I was like, are you kidding me? How long have you lived in the desert? What do you? Snoopy's brother?
Starting point is 01:54:42 What's happening? And the venom's not in that body. It's right there in the jaws, babe. It's all there. So you had to bury that. Where A1 sauce gets you, right there. weird thing. He had a, he made a thing with a rattle. I was like, this is weird. So anyway, they dig up and they end up finding Jamie Hurley's body. It is there. It's there. Buried in a shallow grave, 210 feet from the paved road.
Starting point is 01:55:09 Is it where they were standing? It's right where he was with his wife and it's right where his brother said it was. She'd been buried naked, covered with rocks, and a large engine part on top of her, too. And then buried. So this is pretty crazy here. Now, where the hell is Leslie? Because now they have a body. Yeah, where did he run off to? Now it's time to put the cuffs on and where the fuck is he.
Starting point is 01:55:34 Well, we've known where he is. He moved in with a friend of his. Oh, yeah? An old acquaintance named Terry Quinby, who's a woman. Terry Quinby has a couple of kids and shit, by the way, at her house that this guy's going to in High Point, North Carolina where we went. She's a cocktail waitress, and her brother had played softball with Leslie. That's how they know each other. Beer League, yeah.
Starting point is 01:55:58 Beer League softball. Brought him a getaway. Yep. And Terry Quinby said, sure, you can sleep on my couch. I don't mind. I only have a couple kids in the house and everything. Feel free. Whatever.
Starting point is 01:56:09 Yeah. So he rolled into town on a Honda's. Honda Vulcan 750 motorcycle Wow with only a duffel bag rolled up like Lorenzo Llamis
Starting point is 01:56:20 in there just like a vest with no shirt on open flapping in the breeze no helmet like the guy that dates Aaron Brockovich yeah totally this is fucking ridiculous
Starting point is 01:56:32 so anyway I guess they knew his Leslie and his wife and kids also used to live next to Terry's sister and a trailer in Asheville. All right.
Starting point is 01:56:44 That's how this all. They all know each other. It's all some big trashy finger fucking. So Warren just shows up. At this point, too, he's got a crazy hairdo. Not crazy, but it's like he's got like lines shaved in the side. It's all spiky and he dyes at different colors. It's strawberry blonde now, but it's going to be orange later.
Starting point is 01:57:03 It's weird. What year is this? 89, 90. Yeah. Yeah. He's doing some punk rock shit here. He told Terry that he was, quote, just past. and through as you do on your Vulcan 750 with your duffel bag strewn over your shoulder.
Starting point is 01:57:19 Yeah, piece of shit. So she slept on the couch, he slept on the couch, and he's, Leslie was nice to her and her two young children. Oh. And he, uh, within a week befriended all of Terry's friends and just ingratiated himself to the whole plan here, all area. And, uh, Terry said everybody that met him liked him. All they did was sit around and barbecue and drink. beer. Well, it's really hard to dislike people when you're just drinking and eating barbecue. I'll like anybody if they keep handing me beers and ribs and shit. I'll eat that all day.
Starting point is 01:57:51 You kidding me? I'll sit around on a picnic table, eat beer, drink beers and eat cheeseburgers with somebody for sure. With anybody. Yeah. Pretty much. Shit. Until the cheeseburgers run out, you're a good time. Yeah. And the beer. So one thing that Leslie had said to Terry stuck in her mind, he told her that he and a girlfriend had been. A good time. And the beer. So, so one thing that Leslie had shooting cocaine. Which right away, I'm like, so you can get the fuck out of my house with my two kids. Right away, because even if you aren't going to be shooting cocaine in my house, you probably have hepatitis or something, get the fuck out.
Starting point is 01:58:24 It's a brave thing to do. Why they're just, yeah. Kick someone out for having hepatitis, but if they're doing it from shooting cocaine and might be doing that more, the combination globally fuck off. So he said that she filled her dose in a needle and injected it and then overdosed. Oh. So he said he panicked and threw her body in the French Broad River again, which is what he told the cops. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:58:49 Why is he telling people all this stuff? Well, the cops let him go when he told him that. So I think I don't know why you'd bring that up to her at all, though. That makes no sense. Now it's just very impressive. But they're drinking every night. So I think maybe after 10 beers and a bunch of brisket, you might get hamdiggled. And then you run out of things to talk about.
Starting point is 01:59:07 And then you just go, I killed somebody one time. Let me tell you about a dougal. dead body. That's what you do. So he said, and he told her too, that he had told the cops the story and that they accepted the story and clearly they didn't arrest him or put him in jail because here he is. I'm not guilty of nothing. Yeah, he said the cops know about it. That doesn't make me a bad guy that I did that.
Starting point is 01:59:28 No, it's fine. Later on, when she found out that the cops had made a search of the French Broad River and then her body was found later on, Terry Quimby was a little freaked out here. The story about the river was something, but also Terry said that he had even accompanied her to the magistrate's office that week on a matter that she had dealt with. So her thoughts were, well, if he was on the run, he wouldn't be, he would be afraid to go to the magistrate's office. He wouldn't want to go near anybody with a badge. So she didn't think anything of it. Then July 15, 1990 at Cedro Park, C-E-D-R-O-W, C-D-R-O-W, C-D-R-I guess. I don't know.
Starting point is 02:00:09 Cedro Park is the Radisson employee picnic. Radisson hotels from the area. Their company picnic is that a, is it the Cedro Park? Nowadays, they'd never give you a picnic. You'd be lucky to get a $10 Amazon card for Christmas from these fucking people are definitely not having any picnics. I don't think any of them do anything. Does a company picnic anymore?
Starting point is 02:00:33 Well, no, they've lowered. So I'm not going to get into the economics of it. But it used to be you needed right off. you did nice things for your employees, you made nice buildings, you made things that last. And now it's just put a cardboard thing up and fuck these disposable people. They've also passed some laws where that shit, it's a financial thing where your employee has to pay the taxes on it. It's not a tax deductible for the company anymore. A bonus, not for a picnic.
Starting point is 02:00:59 You can't, you can't any reward. You don't have to claim pizza night on your taxes that they gave me a three domino's pizzas at the office. I don't know. I am not an accountant. Neither of us are. I have never been more positive that if your company buys your pizza, you don't have to go tell your accountant to put that on your taxes. I'm pretty sure about that. I think it has to be monetary or a product.
Starting point is 02:01:25 Domino's has a two for $5.99. So just put that on there. Put that on there. You owe an extra 80 cents for Domino's that night. I'm not sure. I don't know. I know if it's a monetary thing. If there's a dollar value, then you have to be able to pay taxes on.
Starting point is 02:01:41 Some hot dogs at the park. I can't imagine that that's going to be a IRS. But then there's the opportunity of being off-site now the liability of the insurance if somebody gets hurt there now. It's fucking crazy, man. Everything's a mess now. You can't give employee anything. Good thing we don't have employees. Well, we have a few.
Starting point is 02:02:04 Yeah, yeah, but they're not. We have employees. Yeah, they don't. We keep them close, though. They're all outside. Not enough to have a picnic. Yeah, a weird picnic. Be like four of us standing there, five of us standing around.
Starting point is 02:02:16 Hey, how's it going? One of them is my wife. Sarah, just me, you, Sarah, two researchers and Richie. Standing in the front yard. That's it. Me and Scott and Richie, all just standing around. Don't step in bed his shit. Yeah, hey, watch out for that.
Starting point is 02:02:30 So anyway, they're at this picnic. Yeah. At the picnic, Terry Quinby introduces Leslie to a young, lady named Catherine Johnson. Yeah. Catherine Noel Johnson. She goes by Kat. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:02:43 She's 21 at the time. Or just, yeah, just turned 21. Yeah. They start talking. They're playing softball. They're drinking beer. Everything seems normal here. Drinking beer at the Radisson Company picnic.
Starting point is 02:02:55 Radisson Company picnic. See? One of those people get a DUI and then Radisson is responsible. Maybe that's what happened. I don't see a lot of them anymore. Impossible, yeah. So she's from Guilford County, North Carolina. She's born June 1st, 1969.
Starting point is 02:03:12 Her parents are Bobby and Ann, and she is a graduate of High Point Central High School and was currently here a student at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, UNC. And she's employed by the Radisson as well. She works at the gift shop at the Radisson. And it's a gift shop at the Radisson back of the day. All right. Yeah. Well, people used to buy newspapers. and coffee and shit like that before they had them in your room and everything's on your phone.
Starting point is 02:03:39 It's probably just a shitload of cigarettes there. And cigarettes. In North Carolina. Cigarettes, pregnancy tests, things of that nature, things you need right now. Yeah. So, yeah, she was employed by the Radisson and she was a regular churchgoer. She has a brother named David. She's 21.
Starting point is 02:03:57 And everybody says she's real sweet, real friendly and real full of life as a pretty 21-year-old often is. And she's described. by Terry Quinby as a sweet girl who loved animals and dreamed of being a veterinarian. Oh. Very nice. Now, her parents, Bobby and Ann, were vacationing in California, so Catherine was staying at their home in High Point and were planning to return on Monday to Chapel Hill for classes. Yeah, yeah. So around 4 p.m., several people from the picnic, after the picnic started breaking up, they said, we can't let this party stop.
Starting point is 02:04:31 No. We're going out, Radisson style. Let's keep it going. And they just, they were out. Radisson's cut the funding, but we'll cut it. We'll pay for it on our own now. We will do it. Now, Quinby was a bartender, by the way, at the Radisson, which they had a bar at the
Starting point is 02:04:47 Radisson, too. Right. And Johnson, by the way, it's summer school going on right now and all that kind of thing. So anyway, 4 p.m., picnic breaks up several people, including Leslie and Kat and Terry, everybody. They go to the Applebee's on North Main Street. Let's keep this party going. Applebee's. So they do that.
Starting point is 02:05:10 During this, Leslie talks to Terry Quimby's brother, Freddie. Freddie Quimby. Yeah. Freddie Quimby. And he says, and I quote, this is about cat, I'm going to have her tonight. Watch, you'll see. I bet you right now that I'll have her by the end of the night. How old is he?
Starting point is 02:05:30 21. Okay. Yeah. or 22 at this point. Sorry. I'm going to have her by the end of the night. And age appropriate, but still perverted. Gross phrasing, but sure.
Starting point is 02:05:44 It's what every man thinks. But when you say it to a guy, when you whisper it to someone else, it becomes gross. Every man is thinking that all the time, ladies, by the way. If you wonder, what's he thinking? He's thinking, I'm going to have her tonight. Watch, you'll see. I bet you right now, I'll have her by the end of it. That's what they're thinking.
Starting point is 02:06:00 Whether they say that or not, it says a lot about their character in class. We've got to try to tamp that down in our brains, but we can't help it. Biologically, that's what happens. That's not our fault. That's why there's people walking around right now and the earth isn't barren. It's because we're like, I'm going to have her tonight. So, yeah, some different level of education and classy way of phrasing it. Oh, phraseology aside.
Starting point is 02:06:28 Some people say it much worse. in their head. But the others say it much better. But in the baseline, I'm a have her. That's, I'm going to have her. That's the basic thought of a man at all times.
Starting point is 02:06:39 I'm going to have that watch. You'll see. Yeah. Then they don't. Now, after Applebee's, the group went to the Terry's sister's Robin's house.
Starting point is 02:06:51 Yeah. For dinner, which they just left Appleby. What's wrong? What's wrong? An empty stomach? The tato skins aren't enough for you. The riblets are no good. What's your problem?
Starting point is 02:07:00 We're just here for drinks only, and then we're going to go somewhere else and eat. Around 9 o'clock, they moved over to Terry's house. Yeah. And Leslie and Kat sat out on the porch together. Yeah. Ain't that nice. Yep. Everybody said they were hitting it off, Kathy and Leslie.
Starting point is 02:07:18 Wow. Well, Leslie was. Yeah. They were hitting it off. And he offered her. He said, you want to go for a ride on my motorcycle? Oh, my. Which they have been drinking for 12 hours, by the way.
Starting point is 02:07:29 Hop on my shadow. Hop on my Vulcan. Grab that duffel bag, would you? Grab the duffel bag. All right. Would you sling that over your shoulder? Helmet. Shit, no.
Starting point is 02:07:40 Oh, I'll mess up your pretty hair. What's you talking about? So, anyway, they get on the motorcycle. She agrees to it. Yeah. And they ride off. Now, she must have some attraction to him, I would assume. Something, yeah.
Starting point is 02:07:53 If you're hanging out away from the group on the porch and you don't have to, like, he didn't want to her. Curious. And I don't know. Most women don't get on a motorcycle with a guy they don't like it all or are. We'll put it this way. I don't know if it's attracted, but she's not afraid of him. There it is. She's not intimidated, afraid.
Starting point is 02:08:11 You don't get on a guy you're afraid of's motorcycle at midnight and go off into the darkness alone together when all your friends are at the house that can protect you. So she's got to feel comfortable with him. So he must have made a decent impression. So when they drove away, they said, Terry said they just went for a motorcycle ride. and they never came back. Huh. They never came back. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:08:34 Does she have a car there? I don't think so. I don't think. Oh, she does. She has a car there. She absolutely does. That'll come up. So anyway, Terry said they, you know, they had had some drinks, but she thought they
Starting point is 02:08:45 weren't really drunk and thought, you know, Leslie was a nice guy. They must have been hitting it off. Okay. Later on, Leslie Warren comes back to Quinby's house. All by himself. Just to leave his motion. motorcycle there and get in Kat's car and drive it away. Oh.
Starting point is 02:09:05 Okay. And then when Terry awakened on Monday morning, Leslie was asleep on her couch. That's all she knows about it. Leslie told Terry that Kat had to get up early to leave for Chapel Hill and that he left her car in a motel, or he left her in a motel room with a wake-up call. I dropped her off, told them to make sure to wake her up. And Terry said later on, this is much later, what freaks me out is I could have been next. I mean, they say he knew all those girls too. It's so hard to believe.
Starting point is 02:09:37 He was so normal. What the fuck? Everybody says normal average. He knows how to blend in. July 20th, 1990, the police get a warrant for Velma Faye, Greys for the arrest for her murder. Uh-huh. Because they know what happened here. A warrant on Leslie for that.
Starting point is 02:09:59 Yeah, exactly. Thank you for clarifying. That helps a lot. Thank you. Yeah, got a warrant for Faye for her own murder. For her own murder. They said, damn, this lady is crafty, boy, I'll tell you. We're going to lock her ass up.
Starting point is 02:10:10 I'm saying, I'm like, that's not right. It's a warrant for her, not for her arrest. So they swear out the murder and kidnapping warrants against Leslie in connection with the death. And they say, we think that the kidnapping and murder of Velma Faye Gray was a crime of opportunity, we think he saw her on the side of the road and saw that as an opportunity to do what he did. Yeah. This would be terrifying because think about this.
Starting point is 02:10:34 This is somebody just on the base that he knows is alone. Yeah. This is a woman that he's known for a long time and has a history with with Jamie Hurley. This is a random lady he sees on the side of the road and picks up. Yeah. There's no, like, if he sees a woman and there's an opportunity to do this, He does it. Or did he hit her car and she pulled up?
Starting point is 02:11:00 That's even scarier that he's just like, what if he's driving down the road in that truck and his dick's just hard and he waxed into that RX7? If you're in an 18-wheeler and you graze an RX-7, it's going to not be drivable. It's going to be explode. It's going to be a fucking mess. Those are tiny cars. Very fragile car. Yeah, from what I understand and what witnesses said, she was alone with the car for a while
Starting point is 02:11:23 before he pulled up. She like grazed a guardrail or something and pulled over. It seems like she probably fell asleep. It's the middle of the night. Probably fell asleep, drifted into a guardrail and said, ah, fuck, I messed my RX7. Damn it. This could have been worth 35 grand 40 years from now. I'm really blowing it.
Starting point is 02:11:38 Screwing everything up. Yeah. So they were closing in on Leslie through phone records. They're using a trap and trace device on Tracy Warren's phone, his wife. He keeps calling his wife to check in. And they trace the calls from high point to the Spartanburg area, which is where he's calling. So they know he's in high point. But they don't know where because he's not connected to this Terry Quinby in any way that
Starting point is 02:11:58 they could figure out. July 21st, 1990 at 244 p.m. Okay. I guess Terry Quinby's sister called from Asheville to tell her there was a press conference about the guy that's sleeping on your couch right now, that they're looking for him. And there's a nationwide manhunt for this guy because he's a fucking murderer. And he's on your couch right now?
Starting point is 02:12:22 He's on your couch. get your kids out of there. So they're like, holy shit. Now, Terry Quinby said about three minutes after she hung up, a high point police officer called the house. Okay. And said, is Eugene Warren there? He just called say, hey, is Eugene Warren there? Now, he uses the name Leslie, so she didn't recognize the name Eugene and just said, no, I don't know who the fuck that is.
Starting point is 02:12:47 There's nobody that by that name here. Bye. Hung up. A moment later, she said. Oh, shit. That's wrong. That's his name. But the officer said before they hung up, go to the door.
Starting point is 02:12:59 Your house is surrounded. There'll be a policeman at your door in a second. We were just calling ahead of time seeing if, you know, maybe we could get him to just walk out. Yeah, we know he's there. We just want you to know that we're here. Yeah. We see his Vulcan, you know. So she said she walked to the door with Leslie following her.
Starting point is 02:13:16 And when Leslie saw the officer, she said Leslie walked outside. The officer held him at gunpoint, told him put his hands. on his head and he did. Wow. And he said, Warren was a real calm, cool, and collected, did as he told. They handcuffed him and took him away. He's been here before.
Starting point is 02:13:35 So they, he was sleeping on the couch when this happened. So he also just woke up. And she was freaky. Yeah, she was, Terry was freaked out as I'm sure. Yeah. She said, what freaks me out is that I could have been next. I mean, they say it's hard to believe. I don't understand.
Starting point is 02:13:53 She came out with that. She said, I'm still in shock. I won't think about it. I'll just put it out of my mind. It's too hard for me to believe. I will just pollyanna the fuck out of this thing. I don't care. See that sand?
Starting point is 02:14:05 Where's my head? Firmly. I'm just not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. Well, when I think about it, it makes my skin crawl, my stomachache, my shit liquid. Yeah, I don't like liquid shits. Think about my kids being in the same house with a serial killer. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:14:22 You know, it makes me upset. I'm not thinking about it. I've made up my mind. You know what? Forget it. So when he's arrested and searched, the police find a set of keys, which he claimed were his. Yeah. And they later discover the keys were to Kat Johnson's car.
Starting point is 02:14:39 Oh, he's still got him. He likes trophies. This is bad. So they arrest him, obviously, for Velma Faye right now. But he's also being questioned by all three law enforcement agencies before being, they're everywhere. Now they have a, for Velma Faye, they have a witness. A witness said that she saw him approaching, approaching a woman's Velma Faye's wrecked car hours before the body was found floating. She said she saw him approaching the wreck car, but at the time, she couldn't identify him
Starting point is 02:15:14 from photographs, but later on, she identifies him from seeing him. As a physical being. Yeah. As a physical being. He was off duty as a truck driver at the time of the murder, and the company said if he was driving an Amcan truck, it was unauthorized. He stole a fucking truck to do this. Think about that. Is it his own truck and he's got a part somewhere? No.
Starting point is 02:15:36 No, it's their truck. He took their truck somewhere. He just took it. He said it's unauthorized use. So, I mean, if it was his truck, it's always authorized. What is that? He wasn't on duty. He just grabbed a truck and had it out.
Starting point is 02:15:47 All right. So they announced a big pending process. press conference and they said we're going to have a big press conference. It deals with the murder cases that have interests in many agencies. George Jackson, who's the brother of Fay Gray, said that anytime he hears news about the case, he feels anxious. He said he won't feel comfortable until someone is convicted. I like this guy, by the way. Later on, he has some good quotes. I like this guy. This is George Jackson, the brother. George said that he was told last week investigators were looking into a new lead and his sister's death. He didn't know what the lead was, except that it involved
Starting point is 02:16:20 Hendersonville in some way. So anyway, he is suspected of, in addition to being arrested for Velma Faye, he is suspected of of Jamie Denise Hurley's murder and also the New York murder of Patsy Vineyard. They don't know anything. Cats in a motel room for all we know at this point. Yeah, waiting on that wake-up call. That's just still waiting on it. Now, all three deaths have been termed a sexual high.
Starting point is 02:16:50 homicides. So we know exactly what this is. This is a kidnap, rape, strangle murder thing here. They said that Asheville police generated an important lead that prompted them to call New York State Police, but they won't divulge the information to the media at that point. They just said he was in all three places in each time of the murder. There are similarities among three murders, but we can't say anything more about that. They said he has no history of violent crime, but has a juvenile record. His juvenile record, they don't realize that's where the violent crime is. Retied a lady up in the basement held her at gunpoint and shot her friend. And shot a guy. Yeah. That's very much scary. Incredibly violent. Yeah. And that's a 15-year-old.
Starting point is 02:17:29 He just didn't plan that out. If he planned it out, that would have been horrible. And never did it before. So at some point, you'll learn how to do it. Absolutely. He's held on no bond. Okay. The district court said, I would not have entertained a motion for bond. Because in my mind, with all the allegations, no bond is appropriate. Right. Fair. The police chief from Asheville defends letting Leslie go when he had a dead woman's purse.
Starting point is 02:17:58 And he said she was dead and he rolled her into a river, but they couldn't find her body. How do you defend that? What's defensible? It kind of makes sense. He said, our system of jurisprudence says that on minor charges, a person has the right to have a bond. We did not have a body and we did not have a murder charge at that time. You can't just hold a person because if we find something, you might be in trouble. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:18:20 That makes sense. I mean, it sucks. You could hold them a long time. Not that long on minor terms. No, no, I mean, before you. Yeah. You'd have to hold somebody for a very long time sometimes before you find anything, if anything ever. That's what, yeah, you got to let them go.
Starting point is 02:18:34 And that's a problem here. They did say that they were cooperating with New York and Fort Drum investigation because that, you know, that's a part of everything. because they're saying they found out he served at Fort Drum when that happened and all that makes fucking sense. They said his mindset is such that he will kill again. This is a New York State Police Lieutenant who specializes in investigations of serial killers. This is Ed Grant, Lieutenant Ed Grant. He said, somebody not named Dick or Crisp, I'm kind of disappointed. Not bad.
Starting point is 02:19:06 He said, it's a good name. It's not bad. His mindset is such that he will kill again. These kind of homicides are considered to be motiveless murders. there's no apparent motive. He has a mindset that causes him to be compelled to commit this kind of sexual homicide. It's its own motivation for people like that. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:19:24 Okay, got you. For Green River or for Ted Bundy, for people like that. The sex is the motive. It's the motive. It's the power. It's the sex. It's the killing. It's the I decide when you die. It's the I decide when this happens.
Starting point is 02:19:34 I decide what kind of your sex we have. Yeah. Yeah, the motive is the fucking crime itself. That's wild. Yeah. The motive, they get off on the sexual. at nature and the killing of everything. So they bring him in and they sit him down right away.
Starting point is 02:19:49 This is by not, they start questioning him at 9, 10 that evening. So they had just, they arrested him six hours ago. Okay. They let him sit for a while. He waves his rights. Okay. And says he'll talk. He confesses to four murders.
Starting point is 02:20:02 Four. They only know about three. They're like, blah, blah, blah. Then he confesses to some more they don't know about. Six, eight, ten. All together, he confesses to eight murders in this session. Eight murders. Today.
Starting point is 02:20:14 Okay. Right now. They're like, wow, this guy's horrible. He killed three people. And then he's like, hold on one minute. I got something. I'm better than you think. Better than you think.
Starting point is 02:20:23 So he confesses to Patsy Vineyard, Velma Faye Gray, Jamie Hurley, and Kat Johnson, who they don't even know is missing. No, she's dead. Yeah. They don't know anything about that. So then they kept pushing him further. They said, I bet there, I think there's more killings.
Starting point is 02:20:36 You're not telling us about. And they said, this would be a good time to come clean. And he says, I'll tell you everything I did about every. thing ever, basically. Oh. Here we go. He says he and Patsy Vineyard, he claims they were having an affair. Oh, really?
Starting point is 02:20:52 Now, we don't know if he's claiming that they had an affair before this, and it was an ongoing affair or if the affair started at this point. We have no idea if that's sure or not. And just based on the fact that he's a douchebag, I'm going to say probably not. And Patsy seemed to be very happy in her marriage, you know. He said they used drugs. They went out and parry. and used drugs.
Starting point is 02:21:15 Yeah. He said, then he raped and strangled her. Okay. So for some reason, it's important for him for the A part of the story to be Patsy had some involvement in her own. Look, she was telling the line of fucking crazy life. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:21:33 So then, you know, but then he'll say, I rape and strangled. He didn't say we had consensual sex. Yeah. He said we raped her and strangled her, which is crazy. Please don't put that on a, please don't isolate that. So we did. Yeah. He threw her body into the black river near Sackett's Harbor and it floated downstream a month later.
Starting point is 02:21:52 The detective said that, you know, they said that Leslie told him that he couldn't recall what he was thinking when he killed some of these people, though. He brings up someone they didn't know anything about. Mary. Yeah. All we know about her is Mary. That's her name. This is from, he said, from August 88 in Campo, South Carolina. He said she was a Hispanic woman, and I only know her name's Mary.
Starting point is 02:22:17 Huh. He said that Mary, he said, I think she was a Mexican immigrant, and he claimed to have met her in 88 during his summer of fun there when he was, when she was a, he said she was a prostitute in New York, and they did drugs together and had sex and did all that shit. And then he ran into her again down in the Carolina. Yeah. And decided he had to kill her, obviously. He said that they had sexual relations. and then she just died while they were sleeping. They fell asleep and she just died in her sleep.
Starting point is 02:22:48 No drug overdose, no nothing. Just apnea like a motherfucker. I don't know. So apnea. Just died in her sleep. Yeah. I mean, the timing this guy has is terrible. Boy, does he fuck, huh?
Starting point is 02:23:01 Man, he fucking death. He throws it down. Man, he claimed must have been a drug overdose. I know she was using drugs. So then we had sex and she must have just died. And they said, well, what the hell did you? do with her. Yeah. And he said, I took her to a peach orchard in Camp of Bella, South Carolina, and I fucking buried her. That's what I did with her. Good Lord. Police searched for her body,
Starting point is 02:23:22 but never found it. We don't know her real name, and we don't know anything about it. So we don't know if that's true. Right. Seems like an odd thing to make up, but certainly very odd to make up. And that feels like on the off chance that they found his body, I'm going to say this story. Maybe. Yeah. That could be it. Then summer of 1989. he says there was another issue. This was a man named Ronald. Oh? He only knows him as Ronald.
Starting point is 02:23:48 He said that a male hitchhiker, he picked him up on the road. He said all the time, truck drivers would pick somebody up to keep his company. We're bored. And he said he killed Ronald and buried him somewhere in Tennessee, but he doesn't remember where. He said, I don't really know anything about him except that he was a hitchhiker. And his name was Ronald. And he's somewhere in Tennessee. I don't really know where it was.
Starting point is 02:24:09 I don't know Tennessee that well. All right. So there's that. They go, well, we don't know where to even look for that. It's like 500 miles wide. That could be any. Yeah, it could be anything where, you know, off, any road particular off of, anything. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:24:23 So Velma Faye Gray now, he said he was coming up on White Horse Extension Road, five miles from her house, saw her car wrecked, said, I pulled over. Do some fish. He said that she asked for a ride to call for help and that he said, sure, hop on in. in. Yeah. And so she hopped in the tractor trailer, and this was to a convenience store, which was a short distance away. So it wasn't even a long ride.
Starting point is 02:24:50 Yeah. He said, they got there. And he said, before she could get out of the truck, I grabbed her and I choked her. And he said he later placed her body in the trunk of his car and drove to Lake Bowen in Spartanville. Uh-huh. He said he tied her hands behind her back with shoestring once he reached the lake, which bullshit. Oh. Why would you tie a fucking corpse's hands?
Starting point is 02:25:15 You tied those hands so you could rape her. That's why you tied her hands. Right. He's leaving out so much of that. He didn't say anything about rape? Nothing. He leaves that out. She's getting out and I choked her?
Starting point is 02:25:26 Why? I just choked her to death and then put her in a car trunk. Then when I got to the lake, I decided to tie her hands up with your bullshit. Yeah. So according to the statement, he was going to attach something heavy to the body so it would stay at the bottom of the lake, but he said, quote, couldn't find anything to waiter with. Okay. So he just said, fuck it, let her float.
Starting point is 02:25:47 Okay. Interesting. Then he says, I got a couple more that you don't know anything about. He said, there's two men in Asheville, North Carolina in 1989. He said, there's a drug deal gone wrong. All right. He said, I killed him. Dead.
Starting point is 02:26:03 Two men. Don't know their names. Don't know nothing, but they're dead up there. They said, okay. What about Jamie Hurley? Now, this confession repeatedly contradicts itself. Yeah? Yeah, he must.
Starting point is 02:26:17 Usually, there's something about this that doesn't sit right with him, that he feels like he did something wrong here, that he's not real proud of this one, you could tell. He said that they were doing cocaine together when she died of an overdose. Now, I don't know if this is because she was so nice to him before. He must get some real strong shit because everybody seems to not do well with his coke. No, they dropped dead. He's not mixing it stepping on it very well.
Starting point is 02:26:41 He's getting pure shit. And he's like, just stick that in your vein. That'll be great. Just jam it in there. You'd be all right. So Jamie's friends and family insisted she never used cocaine. Right. Never did drugs.
Starting point is 02:26:52 She's a psychologist, all this type of shit. They said the evidence also clearly points to strangulation. So that's the issue there. So then he said, they said, so you buried the body? He goes, well, I buried it, but my brother, Le Ron, helped me bury the body. that's true. Pardon? So there's somebody else.
Starting point is 02:27:12 We brought someone else into this? That's interesting. And he also admitted that the Percy had was Jamie's and that he did strangle her. He eventually admitted to strangler. Okay, she didn't I have a drug overdose, but she was, she overdosed and then I strangled her. It gets a combination of the two. Really, she was so far overdosed that there was no coming back and I figured. I just said, we'll put her out of her misery.
Starting point is 02:27:34 Do some out. Do, yeah. Oh, then buried her in a shallow grave. the Candler area where he's from. Remember that? Where he's born? So they drove to the remote, rocky area of the National Forest, dug a shallow grave and a snake-infested
Starting point is 02:27:49 terrain, covered the body with rocks and an engine part. He said he felt remorseful. So he left a marker so he could find the grave again, quote, so he could return later. That is not remorse. That is. That's not remorse. That's pride.
Starting point is 02:28:05 That's checking your traps. That's fucking. Bundy returned later, Green River returned later. The people that return later, return later to do gross shit. To relive. Yes. To relive it. Then he brings up Kat Johnson, who like I said, they don't even know about.
Starting point is 02:28:22 He said after Applebee's, we went to dinner at Terry's sister's house, went to my, went back to Terry's house where I was sleeping on the couch. We sat on the porch. They drove around a while on the motorcycle. By around 1130, they were doing that about an hour later. He returned to get Catherine's car, and he told people that she couldn't drive so they were getting a motel room at the townhouse motel. But he said, you know, she was already dead, though. Yeah, we know. They said, what happened to her?
Starting point is 02:28:52 And he said, well, we went on them off for a motorcycle ride and took her to an abandoned soccer field, raped her and strangled her with her own bra. Good Lord. Gumbag. Holy shit. he then said he stuffed her body into the trunk of her own car, and it's currently parked in the downtown High Point parking garage right next to the Radisson Hotel where she works, if you want to go find it. Still in there.
Starting point is 02:29:21 So that's that. He signed at 12.09 a.m. So this only took three hours for him to sign a written confession to eight murders. So they immediately go to the parking garage here. and they discover her in the trunk of her own gray Renault Alliance. Remember those? She, the poor girl had a Renault. That's terrible.
Starting point is 02:29:45 In England, that's a good car. It's fine. In America, that thing was not a good car. In parking garage downtown High Point, just like he said, the car was parked on the second floor of the parking garage, and it was right where Warren told them it would be. After opening the car and finding the body, they sent the car with the body to the state medical examiner.
Starting point is 02:30:05 office, obviously, to look it over for forensics. Now, she was in the trunk. She was naked. Mm-hmm. And her bra was wrapped around her neck. He just, wow. So pretty sure he told me. Just left her as he left her.
Starting point is 02:30:23 That's it. No, doesn't give a fuck, man. Just dispose. That's fucked up. To him, to him now it's garbage, I don't that I need to dispose of. So his fingerprints were found outside the driver's side door, outside on the driver's side door. outside on the driver's side door. His right palm print was found on the outside of the trunk.
Starting point is 02:30:39 Okay. And that's right. And they searched the soccer field that he said he raped her, that field. And they found her shoes near an unmown grass embankment. So they find her. Did not lie. He did not. When he told the truth, 100% on it.
Starting point is 02:30:56 The autopsy revealed areas of hemorrhage indicating strangulation by pressure to the neck, which is exactly what he said. esphyxia due to strangulation. She was decomposing because it's been a couple of days and it's fucking June in North Carolina. And she was identified
Starting point is 02:31:15 positively by dental records. Then they question about another murder. They're like, oh, you gave us some. We got one to talk to you about saying that there's a what is it? Easley is where this is?
Starting point is 02:31:32 What's her name here? Snyder, Daisy Ruth Moore Snyder of 42 years old saying that she was reported missing and her body was found December 3rd, 1988 by a hunter in a wooded area near the intersections of South Carolina 130 and South Carolina 183. She was found nude with a shotgun blast in the upper right chest, which that's not his style. That's not him. That's not it. Guns or you either use guns or you don't. Some people use guns sometimes. Some people just don't use guns.
Starting point is 02:32:03 He would use a gun as an intimidation tactic and then shoot a man, but that's it. Exactly. But this is, I mean, you know, think about all the serial killers. Yeah. Either they use a gun or they don't. Right. And the gun destroys what's so beautiful. Do you know what I mean?
Starting point is 02:32:24 Yeah. In their mind, yeah. Yeah. And they strangle. And they strangle. They think of that as like, I'm preserving this. Preserving. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:32:30 Yeah. That I can come back later and do what I want. So gross. It's a crazy way to think. It's a psychological thing there, though, the way that they end it all. There's a reason why certain killers kill certain ways and some killers
Starting point is 02:32:43 kill other ways. And even where they kill, as we'll talk about at the end, we have a little thing to go over. But this woman, her clothing was found scattered in the area, and they believe she was sexually assaulted as well. And strangled and shot there as well.
Starting point is 02:32:57 Blood and semen were taken from the woman's body, and also they took Leslie's blood, on and see him and to see what was up here. And they end up clearing him of that one. Yeah, that don't match. So they were hoping they said that they actually had it. They said it's a tough case, but we'll go for with what we have, which is very little.
Starting point is 02:33:17 In other words, it would have been so much better to just say, you did it. It was him. Yep. So they said that they haven't linked him with any other unsolved crimes, but since you know, he's confessed all this, he expects police departments are going to, quote, look this guy over pretty carefully.
Starting point is 02:33:32 the police chief says. Ted Lambert with the Asheville Police Department said that Leslie had confessed to killing many more than four people, but some of the unsolved crimes he claimed have never been substantiated. By the way, they also charged Loran. Yeah, because that's not good, Loran. He is placed under a $2,000 bond with a charge of helping him hide the body. He came with his wife and his mother to court and all that kind of thing and charged with an accessory after the fact. Right.
Starting point is 02:34:02 And saying he helped bury the body in a shallow grave. He ends up having the charges dropped in exchange for testimony against his brother. Oh, that's nice. Which is why they charged him to begin. Yeah. Yeah. Now, what about the Patsy Vineyard case? Because we haven't talked about that.
Starting point is 02:34:17 Sure. The prosecutor said that he was not prepared to call the case closed yet until he reviews the evidence, even though a person said that he did it and did exactly where she found it. He said, I'm not in a position to say I have a prosecutable case until I sit down with them and see if there's enough to get a warrant. Also, let's see what they're going to do with them down there and see if I need to waste the money doing this. Yeah. That is what that is. Now, Michael Vineyard, Patsy's husband.
Starting point is 02:34:47 At the time when this is all going down, he's a truck driver living in Tennessee at that point. Okay. And he said, he vaguely remembered Leslie as a quiet guy because I said, did you know this guy? and he said, yeah, we had met, Leslie had met Patsy at picnics and stuff like that. We all knew each other. There wasn't that many guys. Sure. He said that Leslie saw me every day for a year and never gave me any sign of what happened.
Starting point is 02:35:14 He said, if I knew then what I'd know now, it would have been different. Yeah, you probably wouldn't have had a beer with him. You'd probably have picked the shit out of him. That's exactly right. You'd have fucking stabbed him with a barbecue for him. you fucking knew that. He said he was stunned when New York police showed up at my door a week ago. He said, I have the greatest respect for the New York police. They stayed on the case when I thought it was hopeless. I mean, it's been three years. Right. He said he, you know,
Starting point is 02:35:42 he just remembers him keeping to himself. He said he was a quiet soldier, Leslie Warren, attached to a mortar platoon. He said he kept to himself. I never associated with him. We never had words, but I did think he was a troublemaker. Right. That's a understatement. the year. Jesus Christ. So they said that he had been interviewed along with everybody else, and a spokesman for the Watertown Police Department said that he was not considered a suspect in the three-year-old investigation until he admitted to it just now. Michael said, it just kind of stunned me. They stayed on the case when I thought it was hopeless. So that's interesting. Terry Quinby said, he's such a nice guy. It's just so hard
Starting point is 02:36:23 for me to believe he did all this. Terry. He did it, ma'am. Good Lord. What does it take for you to open your goddamn eyes, Ter? Holy shit. Wow. Yeah. And she said, she said he was just a friend that I let him stay. She said, I'm still in shock. I don't get it.
Starting point is 02:36:40 She just doesn't understand. And then I introduced him to this woman at a, she feels responsible for Kat. Kat would be alive and it wasn't for him staying there. Now, that's not Terry's fault. She thought she was being a nice guy helping her, or nice lady helping a friend. But didn't he work at the Radisson, too? I mean, he knew Cat. he was going to see her.
Starting point is 02:36:59 Leslie didn't work at the Radisson. Didn't he not work there? No, he just got there. He just pulled into his Vulcan with his dothel bag and he's just at the party? He's just hanging out at the party because they're like, we're going to this picnic. You should come. Right. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:37:11 You know, so you don't have to sit on my couch. All our friends like you. So remember, he's got, by the way, he has several girlfriends around the areas too in addition to his wife and kids. One of them was Branya McCarsen-Owenby, who dated him from June 89 to 10, January 90. She said she was with him just hours before he killed Velma Gray. She was with him that day. That night. She said she spent countless hours alone with him. He'd send her roses. He fixed her frozen water pipes. He brought a drawing kit for her six-year-old son. She said there were plenty of opportunities for him to hurt me, but he didn't do it. Maybe he loved me like he said
Starting point is 02:37:50 he did. That's what you need to take away from all of this is, I hope he liked me. What are you kidding? He's fucking murderer. Maybe he loved me. He told me he did. I think you love me. You know what? Maybe I should have got a little more into him. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:38:06 Wow. We don't know why. He didn't kill her, but Ted Bundy didn't kill his girlfriend. You can't kill everybody. You can't kill everybody. Some people don't. Seems like,
Starting point is 02:38:16 and I'm going, I keep saying Ted Bundy because it's a very similar thing here. His thing was he'd meet some people and he would classify them as normal world people. that I'm going to associate with this. Not rapable. Then he would see some people and he'd be like, rape and kill target.
Starting point is 02:38:33 I can do that, which is fucking. Well, if you're rape and murder everybody around you, you get caught. You get caught. Well, Ted had those moods. That's what. Remember like his little brother talking about how he was with him in Utah, and Ted was just like, you have to go home early.
Starting point is 02:38:50 I'm taking you to the airport. And then he ended up killing people like that night. He was just so horny. He had to go. Yeah. So if he didn't have the urge, She were safe. If he had the urge, and he wasn't going to kill his girlfriend because he knew that, he'd be the first suspect in that.
Starting point is 02:39:02 So anyway, Jamie's friends here, Jamie Hurley, the counselor, her coworkers Luan Gibson, Catherine Jenkins, they were devastated. They say, she said that I didn't understand that Leslie was one of the students she knew and had made a difference for and she trusted him. Yeah. The group said, quote, this is Luan Gibson. We identified with the golden girls. We used to say we'd get a house at the beach and we'd always have rock and roll and we'd never be old. We really feel robbed. Our lives have been changed forever now that we don't have her to grow old with.
Starting point is 02:39:39 You people all need families, too, I think. That's the other thing. You should probably grow old with your families of some kind, whoever it is. I think four single dudes in a house sounds fun when they're 60s. Good God. What's it called? prostate manner. What the fuck kind of,
Starting point is 02:39:57 that would be the worst show of all time. Four old men living in a house. There would be, somebody would be murdered so fast. Grump the old men. It's just colorectal exams every other week.
Starting point is 02:40:13 What'd you do today? Well, I've got to get the prostate looked at again. Well, I just went today. Well, I got to go tomorrow. Me too. You need a ride. Sure do.
Starting point is 02:40:20 Because my prostate hurts too bad to even drive. Boy, I'll tell you what. Can't even sit down. I can't even sit right now. I want to lay in the back seat while you drive. So Velma Faye's family had put up a reward. Remember that?
Starting point is 02:40:35 Apparently it gets claimed now because it's a charge of murder has been charged. And two Greenville women and a North Carolina woman each received $1,000 rewards for providing information. The women, they said they knew about the vehicles linked. It was the witnesses that saw him in the area and all that kind of thing. Now, this brings up a jurisdictional problem because you have three different states and four different jurisdictions all saying, well, you'll get them first. Police to fuck it all up. So that's the thing. So in late 1990, high-ranking law enforcement officials from all three states met to try to make a deal on this.
Starting point is 02:41:15 And the decision is he should first be extradited to South Carolina for the Velma Gray murder and then to North Carolina. for Herley and Jamie Hurley and Kat Johnson. Easiest one to solve. Well, that one, yeah, they have witnesses that linked him to her car and the truck and all that's very simple. And they said New York case can wait because it's the oldest
Starting point is 02:41:35 and it's largely circumstantial. It's largely just him saying that he did it. Other than that, they don't have a lot of evidence on that one. And if he gets the death penalty in any of these cases, there's really no need to even bother to driving up there.
Starting point is 02:41:48 So that was the strategy, it seemed like from New York State to begin with. And they're like, yes, we're done with that guy. God. Not our problem. Yay.
Starting point is 02:41:56 The extradited him of South Carolina in August of 91. His defense attorneys, of course, request a psychiatric evaluation, which they complete, and they find him mentally competent to stand trial. Terrific. 93. Flemma Faye Gray trial. The prosecutor says that he had no eyewitnesses to the slaying,
Starting point is 02:42:15 but promised to create a full and complex jigsaw puzzle with other witnesses. Yeah. As he was seen with her. The public defender said that some of the pieces in the state's puzzle might be missing and urged the jury to see Leslie as innocent until proven otherwise. Okay. There. Katie Manchester Parker is 24 years old.
Starting point is 02:42:35 She and her three friends were driving home when they spotted Gray standing near the intersection of White Horse Road, Road Extension, and U.S. 25. Yeah. She said, she was crying, Gray. And she said, quote, she kept saying, I wrecked my car. I wrecked my car. And then this woman said the group saw would appear to be a truck driver had stopped near the wrecked car
Starting point is 02:42:57 and was walking toward gray. So she remembers her and her friends assumed the driver was helping and so they drove off. She testified the truck driver was Leslie Warren, but they bring up that she had failed to spot him when shown a large group of photographs
Starting point is 02:43:13 of truck drivers shortly after the slaying. Yeah. And she said that she's seen Warren since the death on television. that is true. So that's kind of shaky. But it was his truck and all that. Then a pathologist testifies that Gray had bruises on her face, back, shoulders, upper arms, hands, wrists, and feet. That's horrifying. Hands, wrists, and feet. That's, oh, my God. It's the whole body. It's fucked up, man. He said that an injury to her neck was consistent with throttling,
Starting point is 02:43:44 strangulation, or a small concentrated blow. They said, Dr. John Wren said that she died from lack of oxygen, which could have occurred under different scenarios, including drowning and strangulation. So this is a six-man, six-woman jury here. And he's found guilty of this, obviously. Clearly, you know what the fuck here? Sentencing comes around and the judge says, you sir, may, oh, wait, hold on I got there. You, sir, may fuck off life in prison with the possibility. of parole. With time credit, first time served since his arrest, he'd be eligible
Starting point is 02:44:26 for parole in 20 years, which is way too young. Yeah. Forty-five, you could still be, who boy. Now, why do you say, why didn't they go for the death penalty if that's on there? Well, it was taken off the table. The prosecutors hoped to seek the death penalty, but the judge
Starting point is 02:44:42 ruled the evidence wouldn't allow it. This really pissed off George Jackson, Velma Faye's brother, who said, quote, I consider him like a rodent. I'd like to squash him. He doesn't need to exist. He just shouldn't live. Like a swamp rabbit. Just a swamp rabbit under your foot there. Yeah. Which any brother would feel like that. Fuck yeah. You'd kill my sister. I would love to just rip your little head off and throw it in the fucking river too. Um, he said about the whole thing about the case being over, part of its relief
Starting point is 02:45:12 and part of its bitterness. The bitter part is why they threw out the death penalty. We all deserved felt that he deserved to die. Well, they would have got thrown out in appeal anyway. because it wasn't right. That's why. But we get how you feel, and it sucks. So the Gray family puts out, by the way, in the Greenville News newspaper, a quote card of thanks, it says at the top. These are nice people. Yeah. These are classy people. The family of Velma Faye, Velma Faye Gray, wants to thank all of our friends' neighbors for the support they gave, the children. I won't mention their names. Also for the food, flowers, cards, and especially for all the prayers and kind words of sympathy.
Starting point is 02:45:50 We would also like to thank all the law enforcement people who have worked so hard for us. We thank God for helping us not to hate the one that took the life of such a sweet mother, daughter, and sister as Velma Faye was. Community came through, yeah. That's nice. 1995 is the Jamie Hurley. And they're going to have to go forward because 20 years ain't shit. That ain't shit.
Starting point is 02:46:12 He pleads guilty to this one. Pled. Pled, which is shocking. Yeah. He pleads guilty to first degree murder, too, which is wild. He gets no break on that. They said they have his confession. They have Lehran's testimony about helping bury the body, the location of the grave,
Starting point is 02:46:30 matching his description and his brother's description. So he just pleads guilty. This was, by the way, on her birthday. Oh. On Jamie Hurley's birthday, he pears guilty, which is pretty good. They said he stood handcuffed in front of the judge, showed little emotion as he pled guilty. They told him that the judge said this is a mandatory minimum of life in prison and you could be sentenced to death still for this. Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 02:46:55 Right. And he said, doing it. I got it. Yeah. Also pleads guilty to stealing. Pleads guilty to larceny for the theft of us, not for the purse. For a theft of a set of rings valued at $8,000. Where the hell were they?
Starting point is 02:47:10 On the hands? Somewhere. He stole it from somebody. Who knows? He gets around this guy. You know what I mean? The judge told him he could receive the maximum of 10 years in prison for the larceny. At sentencing, they said that here the defense attorneys present extensive testimony about his abusive childhood, mental health issues, psychiatric diagnoses. They argued for life in prison.
Starting point is 02:47:35 Psychiatrist said he suffered from multiple disorders that caused violent behavior. He said Warren did not totally understand what he was doing at the time of the killings and also said that he would. probably rather be executed than talk about his mental illness. Or anything really specifically and honestly. Yeah, that's what I mean. Or you just talk about fucking random murders that he made up in his mind. There's also a Dr. Bruce Welch here who says that he highlighted again, troubled history, starting in adolescence, linking it to mental health evaluations.
Starting point is 02:48:09 They tried to establish mitigating factors such as impaired capacity due to psychological issues. All sorts of shit. They talk about when he was in the, you know, in an institution and all that kind of thing. They talk about his abuse, his beatings. And they also say he did so much cocaine. But it feels like he is so much. He knows that what he did is so scummy. And that he feels, he's embarrassed by it.
Starting point is 02:48:35 And he doesn't want to say it. So he's got to qualify it in a tone of like they were bad pieces of shit like me. And not they deserved it, but, you know, they died. And I was just trying to give him a respectable barrier. Like they say when a crooked cop gets killed, they go, you play in dirt and you get dirty. That's what he's trying to say. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:48:56 No, not how it works. That's not what it was. They're saying, oh, and also he did so much coke that he really didn't know what he was doing because he was out of his mind with coke craziness. And, you know, they said he's a person who's detached from his emotions and appears cool and aloof. They said that he's a heavy cocaine user, smoked marijuana and drank alcohol around the time he killed Hurley. He said he was taking enough cocaine on his own account
Starting point is 02:49:20 that he would be an overdose to the average person. But during cross, they said, who told you he did that much coke? And they go, well, he did? That's advantageous to him. So what are you going to do? Yeah, they said that's bullshit. It's all self-reported and everything like that.
Starting point is 02:49:39 Yeah, they talk, they go all the way back to, they're going back to threatening letters of rape back in the day. Yeah. theft, vandalism, all this type of shit. By the way, part of his broader defense was that he's only 22, and he's very smart. They say his IQ's around 120, which is smart. That's pretty good, yeah. Ted Bundy was like 124 or something.
Starting point is 02:49:59 So that's in, sure, that's in the area of, that's above average. We'll say that much. That's above average. He's a military service, work history. He's been abused. Come on, everybody. They even bring in his first and second grade teachers to talk about mom coming in to talk about the abuse in the home.
Starting point is 02:50:16 It's a lot. Wow. The judge says, you, sir, may fuck off death. Death penalty. In South Carolina or North? North.
Starting point is 02:50:28 That is North Carolina. No, no, that's South Carolina. That's the one on the side of the road. That's Velma Faye. 1996, North Carolina, Kat Johnson trial. We're going to keep going? We're going to keep going.
Starting point is 02:50:42 Absolutely. Let's get another one on him here. They try to say that he was too intoxicated to form the intent required for first-degree murder. I mean, he killed a woman, put her in a trunk, and told a man she's going to be mine. I mean, there's plenty of. There's a lot. There's plenty there, right? But he was so messed up.
Starting point is 02:51:00 But the problem, I don't know why you would plead guilty to the other one, but not plea guilty to this one. You admitted to it and told them where the body was in the trunk in the car and she's naked with a bra. I mean, you're toast, man. Yeah. Your confession lines up perfect. And you put her in a trunk and the shoes are back at the soccer field, therefore being you knew that it was wrong. Oh, yeah. You knew you had to put her in a trunk. You didn't just leave her out there and went, I did that. See, did a good job, right? Right. Raped her, killed her good. You tried to cover it up. So the verdict comes in, 25 minutes of, 25 minutes. That is. That's quick. I don't even know how you fill the form out fast.
Starting point is 02:51:36 Never heard of any of them faster in 25 minutes. They always say for a murder trial, it takes like 45 minutes just to fill the form out. So I don't know. They must have got a cut. I got this. I've done this before. I've done this before. Don't worry. So they find him guilty of first-degree murder, premeditated, deliberated, first-degree murder. In the sentencing phase here, the victim's family spoke.
Starting point is 02:51:59 Ann Johnson, Catherine's mother, said, not only has her future been taken away, never again will she fill an empty place at the table. Never again will the phone ring, and I hear, hi, mom, I love you. Now, all of this is ended by someone she only knew for a few hours, did not fight. did not hate. This isn't an enemy of hers. This is just some stranger, some asshole. Her best friend said there's no more celebrations. We should have been celebrating our weddings, graduations, and the birth of our children. You have taken the most precious thing you took her life. And the judge says, well, you, sir, may fuck off. Death penalty again. He got two. Fuck you. Yeah. He's collecting them. Stack them up. Yep. He's got almost got
Starting point is 02:52:41 of working on a full house at this point. So the prosecutor said the swiftness of the jury's verdict and then recommendation shows what they thought of the horribleness of the murders. If there ever was a case where the death penalty was appropriate, this was it. Yeah. So does he got to serve 20 years and then the death penalty? Yeah, well, he's got the 20 and then he's up for parole, but none of that matters because he's got two death sentences.
Starting point is 02:53:07 So the New York prosecutors announced they would not pursue charges at this point. We'll hang back. You know, you guys seem to got that. They said, well, he remained in the prime suspect in the murder of Vineyard. He would not be tried due to his death sentence in North Carolina. The New York Deputy District Attorney said he appeals this on several issues. In 1998, he appeals the North Carolina death penalty. Really?
Starting point is 02:53:31 Saying that his confession should have been suppressed because he had asked for a lawyer in an earlier investigation. Very quickly, I'll go through this. He's arrested at 244 p.m. by High Point Police, taken to the police station until Asheville Police arrived around 630. An officer of the Asheville Police Department took him back to Asheville. Although they had asked the Asheville police to notify the lawyer when they arrived in Asheville, he was never contacted. Which, by the way, again, like I remember in the homicide book, they were saying, even when you ask for a lawyer, when the lawyer gets there, or not you ask for a lawyer. If a lawyer shows up for you,
Starting point is 02:54:13 let's say your mom got you a lawyer and they show up, unless you ask for that lawyer, they're not letting him in. They don't have to tell you he's out there. They don't have to do shit. He can be out there going, I want to see my client.
Starting point is 02:54:24 They're like, no. He didn't ask for you. That's how they do it a lot of times. So it's anyway, they said that they never were contacted when he was interviewed at 9, 10 p.m. after he was advised of his rights without ever invoking the Fifth Amendment
Starting point is 02:54:39 to have his counsel present. The detective questioned him about everything, and he started talking shit about murders and all this type of shit, and then signed a statement. How is that bad, basically? He said at one point that he was given Miranda warnings when they talked to him again a couple days later. He was given Miranda warnings and waived his rights.
Starting point is 02:55:00 During the interview, someone poked his head in the door and closed the door when he made an arm motion at him saying, go on and leave us alone. So he doesn't even want anybody else in the room. He said, then he pointed, he said, my lawyer and continued talking. So Warren's lawyer was there, tried to come in the room. He said, fuck off. And said, that was my lawyer.
Starting point is 02:55:22 And they kept talking. Okay. That was, and he was identified as his lawyer. They say, no. They argued also that the prosecutor's closing arguments were improper, including calling him a coward who only attacked women. And he said, that sounds totally. Totally. Yes, you are an adjudicated coward. It's definitely supported by the evidence, but don't say that tonight.
Starting point is 02:55:48 2009, he makes maybe the strangest appeal of all time. What's that? North Carolina passed the Racial Justice Act, which allows death row inmates to argue their sentences were influenced by racial bias in the criminal justice system. Warren, who is white as fuck, and all the women he killed are white as fuck, filed a petition for them. this. Why? That's the point. It was just another one he could file because all the other, everything else failed. This makes no sense. Just a fight. Yeah. Whatsoever. So it's denied and they're like, that's ridiculous. A local newspaper said, quote, Leslie Warren shouldn't be let off death row unless everyone is. Ah, he should be the last guy we let
Starting point is 02:56:26 out of death row. It's a bad guy. Yeah. Bad guy. Also, they talk about these serial hunting grounds, serial killer hunting grounds. Criminalologist Michael Newton compiled the stories of 544 serial killers, in 1990s hunting humans and encyclopedia of modern serial killers. He said most are territorial.
Starting point is 02:56:46 They stalk a specific area like a neighborhood city set of highways. Think I-5 killer Ted Bundy Green River, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wing-Gacy, all these guys.
Starting point is 02:56:55 Anyone you can think of. He said one-third are nomadic, meaning transients who wander around the country, killing him, just popping them. And if you were stationary, killing only in one place,
Starting point is 02:57:05 like a nursing home, a hospital, somewhere like they. that. They said that a lot of these would be considered different things. They considered Warren to be nomadic. Yeah, because he's got areas that he feels familiar with, but he moves so much that then he gets familiar with that area and then he does some shit there. Wherever he is. Now, there is a book written about this. Wensley Clarkson wrote a book called Romeo Killer in 2004, which details all of this. And they say one day at 12.01 a.m.
Starting point is 02:57:35 in the not too distant future. Leslie Warren will be taken from his holding cell in the death house of the state penitentiary and they talk about killing him. They cover his trials but focus more on the biography
Starting point is 02:57:44 than shit like that they say. 2014, an investigation discovery show called Baby-faced killer is going to air. Oh. That's his nickname. Does he look young? He's got a, he's 22
Starting point is 02:57:56 when he has a round, kind of chubby face. A cherub face. He does. He looks like a teenager when he's arrested. Part of the network's handsome devil's
Starting point is 02:58:05 series. Jesus. Why would you do? What the fuck? That'll feature Leslie Eugene Warren, who's charged in the murders. It's a one-hour documentary. According to the network's promotional materials, handsome devils focuses on literal lady killers,
Starting point is 02:58:21 men whose natural charm belies their intent to harm. Like Wade Wilson. Exactly. Women can't help but fall for the baby-faced good looks of Leslie Warren. But the young man from North Carolina is not at all what he seems. His innocent charm masks his clever disguise of a murderous mind. High Point police officer Jeff Pate, who was involved in his arrest, when interviewed for this, he's like, I don't see why they say that.
Starting point is 02:58:48 He said, to say he was handsome or women found him attractive, I don't know that I would have made that description of him. And charming? He was intoxicated the first time I met him. And the second time, he just appeared to be friendly. I don't know that I'd call him charming, but he also didn't have horns on his head. and his head wasn't spinning around. He just seemed like a regular person. He's not that hot.
Starting point is 02:59:09 Yeah. If you're not a monster with like snarling teeth, then you're a handsome devil apparently. There's no in between here. So on death row, he remains on death row, Central Prison in Raleigh, North Carolina. As of 2026, there's been no executions in North Carolina since 2006 due to legal challenges. And there's a lot going on there if you want to check that out.
Starting point is 02:59:31 So there you go, everybody. That is Travelers Rest South Carolina And a whole lot of shit And the baby face is my God That's a lot of man I don't think he killed any of the guys I really don't think so either
Starting point is 02:59:45 I think he killed I can see him if he just wanted something Yeah Maybe so he didn't seem like a misogynist He's like I kill guys too you know Yeah I think it makes him look like a pussy You know what I mean like a giant coward piece of shit
Starting point is 02:59:56 If he's only killing and raping women Yeah totally Shut up and Give Me Murder.com Is where you go For all your tickets to live shows. February 21st, Nashville is where we start out. March 6th, March 7th, Durham, and Atlanta. Get your tickets right now, right now, and also your stupid opinions on March 21st in Phoenix, and then there's stuff for the rest of the year. Get on there. Shut up and
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Starting point is 03:00:59 This week, no different. This week we are going to talk about many things. here we have for small town murder we're going to talk about the perfect neighbor documentary that everyone's been telling us to talk about and then for crime and sports we're going to talk about william tank black who was in coach turned agent turned criminal he sold a business to master pee the whole thing's crazy we'll talk all about that patreon dot com slash crime and sports plus on top of that you get all of our shows crime and sports your stupid opinions and small town murder all ad free ad free it's crazy and on top of all of that
Starting point is 03:01:33 Yeah. My God, you also get a shout out at the end of the show, which is right goddamn now. Jimmy, hit me with the names of the most wonderful, spectacular sons of bitches who keep this show going and never, ever email us complaining that we said their father was a murderer. Hit me with him right fucking now. Is that good producers? Wow. I just fucking said that without ours. How did you do that with me?
Starting point is 03:01:58 First thing you've had to read in two hours. Yeah. Gary Howard, checking in in Winslow, Arizona. Gary. On a corner with who was the guy. I mean, that was the Eagles that sang it. Who was the guy that was up there? Was it Jackson Brown? I think it was.
Starting point is 03:02:16 Maybe, yeah. Yeah. All right. Destily Sassman. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. And Carol Braun checking in from. Hey, nice to hear from.
Starting point is 03:02:25 She's been around for so long. She's such a sweet lady. Thank you so much, Carol. You're terrific. Other producers this week, Liz Vasquez's been around forever. Peyton Meadows been around forever. Joanne Tinkler, been around forever. Happy Hour in Splendora, Texas.
Starting point is 03:02:40 Got himself a new house. Got himself a fucking mortgage. Good for you. Not in Spadaforra, Texas or whatever, I hope. Splendora? I don't even know where that is. Ryan Bender been around a while. Janice Hill been around around.
Starting point is 03:02:53 Todd Robertson, thank you all so much. It means the most to us. Jimbo Kelly, Bob Marcus, Michelle would no last name. Christopher Bearing, Ian Nicholas, Michael Milichovich, Mellevich, Mellevich, Caleb Cheney, Karen Fisher, Todd Polford, Jimmy Likes, Quentin with no last name, Daniel and Raven, Merrifield, AP Custom Woodworks. I don't know what that is. Nikki Saka, Elijah Craig, Cody Krieger, Riley Duffy, Connie Bassard, Heather with no last name, L.A. Bands, Cheryl would no last name, Shannon would no last name, Darcy Kossie. Justin Bader. Jacob Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z. Gary T. Amanda Chase, Chase, Chas. Al-S-S-E-A-A-A-A-A-L-S-E. Ah, it's just a fucked-up way to spell Allison. A-I-L-S-E-N-N-E? That's not Allison. Your mom's so mean to you, Ms. McLean. Unbelievable.
Starting point is 03:03:53 Ashley Cobb, Clifford Carlson, Linda Summers. Jess would know last name. Heidi Suc-Haw. Sucko. Amy Albert. Kit would know last name. Jess Burke. Mimch. Minge? What? Minge. It's probably Mengey, but whatever. Dylan would no last name.
Starting point is 03:04:12 Kim Mando, Dave Housley. Joanna Bates. Oh, that's Jonna Bates. Carrie Topin. Chris Bailey, Julie Sandquist. Barb Holliman, Karen K. Betty Green, Anna Burdall, Nicholas DuPont. Jessica would know last name.
Starting point is 03:04:28 Amy would know the last name. Searcy, Melinda Wong, Stacey J, Adam Russell, Jenny Shep, Dolores Chavez, Scott Peralt, Amanda L, Bridget Barron's, Nicholas Grant, M.K. Sills, Silas, what is that? Sills. Jennifer Rice, Anna Yancey, Jessica Polanco, Arthur Flynn, Michael Galderisi. Amy would know last name. True Country, I doubt it. William Vannevee. Vagneti? Vagnet. William's last name is Vagnetti.
Starting point is 03:05:02 Wow. That's wild. It's probably Vignetti, right? You don't pronounce the G. Vigina. Elena, Alenda, Vargas. I'm baffled by Vagnetti. Craziness, bliss.
Starting point is 03:05:19 Will Brown. Robert Steers. You know what they say about Steers. Emma Wendbiggler, Marine Curtin, Lady Shaman. C. Morehead, David Patterson, Lynette L. Jain, Jen Crone, Karen Kennedy, Jennifer Wicker, Peyton would no last name, Tristan Poust, Melissa Steinbrunner, Jamie Heime, Ferraro. Maybe it's Jamie. Ashley Lewis, David Thomas, Cody Holland. Erica Geis, like Beatle, James. Beetle Geis. Don't say it three times. Sierra Don't say it three times. Sierra Donovan and everybody that patrons is show. you're the fucking best people on the planet and thank you so much. See you in Nashville.
Starting point is 03:06:01 Thank you so much, everybody, for all that you do for us. Thank you for everything. If you want to follow us on social media, head over to shut up and give me murder.com and you'll see drop-down menus to take you everywhere from tickets to social media to everything like that. Keep coming back and hanging out with us
Starting point is 03:06:16 week after week after week. We're not going away. No. So keep coming back and doing that. And until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure. Bye. Hey, everybody, listening to Small Town Murder out there. Hi. Good to see you out there. I'm here with Jimmy, too.
Starting point is 03:06:50 And this is an ad, but not an ad for a product. This is an ad for tour dates. Yes, come see a live show, the 2026 tour. All the tickets are for sale right now, starting out with February 21st in Nashville, March 6th in Durham, March 7th in Atlanta. Phoenix is sold out. We do have tickets, though, to your stupid opinions on the 21st of March. Salt Lake City sold out. Denver has tickets. Be there on May 2nd. May 29th, Buffalo sold out. Royal Oak, Michigan, May 30th. We have September 18th, Milwaukee, September 19th, Minneapolis.
Starting point is 03:07:23 October 3rd in Dallas, October 16th in San Jose, October 17th in Sacramento, November 13th in Terrytown, November 14th in Boston. Come see us. The live shows are spectacular. Come join all of the other STM people. You're going to meet so many people. You're going to have fun. Make some new friends. Like crazy. And make some new friends. Come out. see us. Shut up and give me murder.com is where you go for those tickets. Get them right now while they're hot. See you on the road.

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