Small Town Murder - Double Life, Double Murder - Newton, Kansas

Episode Date: February 21, 2026

This week, in Newton, Kansas, when two women from very different backgrounds, and lifestyles both end up brutally killed, no one could imagine that it could be the same killer, responsible for both. The killer isn't who they think he is... he's not even who his wife thinks he is! The only thing everyone is sure of is that he's a horrible, cold-blooded murderer!!     Along the way, we find out that any place can have its fair share of meth, that you should NEVER argue with a restaurant server, and that when you lead multiple lives, you shouldn't make all of your identities murderers!!   New episodes, every Wednesday & Friday nights!! Check us out on VIDEO Wednesday and Friday evenings on Netflix! www.netflix.com/smalltownmurder Donate at patreon.com/crimeinsports or at paypal.com and use our email: [e-mail] Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder, Crime In Sports & Your Stupid Opinions!   Follow us on... instagram.com/smalltownmurder facebook.com/smalltownpod   Also, check out James & Jimmie's other shows, Crime In Sports & Your Stupid Opinions on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts!!

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Go to eat IQbar.com and enter code bar 20 to get 20% off all IQ bar products plus free shipping. Again, go to eat IQbar.com and enter code bar 20. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express. Yay! And choo-choo! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay, indeed. My name is James Petrogallo. I'm here with my co-host.

I'm Jimmy Wiseman. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us today on another episode of Small Town Murder Express, all aboard the murder train. Yeah. Pulling away from the station, we have a wild one for you today. As usual, when are the Expresses not crazy? What are the regulars not crazy? They're all crazy.

They're murder. stories. Just the thought of how it started. Going to be crazy right there from the start. Before we get into that, very quickly, definitely. Head over to Shut Up and Give Me Murder.com. What's there? Get your tickets for live shows, everybody, including, well, it's going to be this weekend if you're listening to this. Right now. Right

when it comes out. Nashville, February 21st. Go. Get in there. If there's still tickets left, also March 6th in Durham, March 7th in Atlanta. Let's go. Get in there, get those tickets. And then at the March 21st, your stupid opinion show. Phoenix at Stand Up Live. Come out and see us. Shut up and give me murder.com.

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We're going to do dead cyclists part two. Yeah. Who knew that cycling is the most dangerous sport that's ever existed? It's crazy. There could be a sport that's literally like catapulting people to see how much farther they would go. And it would be less dangerous than cycling. It's insane. The guys that train it and do it like for a hobby, they're brave, brave people because I see them constantly in traffic.

Oh, they're going to get killed. Out of their minds. Out of their minds. Then for small town murder. Let's get into some conspiracy talk and some what happened talk. We're going to talk about Kurt Cobain finally and what happened there. I've had a lot of people asking about that. And we've had a new investigator, a new private investigator come in recently and have some stuff.

So we're going to talk about it. New theory, right? New theory. Well, not really a new theory. Just kind of, I guess we'll talk about it during the show. It's all that small town murder. Do that, definitely. That is patreon.com slash crime in sports.

And you get all the shows we put out. Crime and Sports, your stupid opinion, small-town murder, all ad-free with your Patreon. Add-free. Add-free. And on top of all that, you even get a shout-out at the end of the regular show. So you get that too. You get everything. Patreon.com slash crime in sports.

We're crazy. We're giving it away. We can't have inventory on the shelves. That's what it is. Just take it all. That said, I think it's time everybody to sit back. I think it's time to clear the lungs here. Let's do that here and let's get ready to shout arms to the sky and let's all shout.

Shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody. I was so excited. I know you are. You were jumping it. I like it. I like enthusiasm. Let's go on a trip, shall we?

We're going to Kansas this week, which is something that you don't normally hear people say. No, not free. I'm going to Kansas. Why? What's going on there? I was trying to get back. Yeah, exactly. This is Newton, Kansas, and I don't care how they say it.

I don't care if it's Newton or Neaton or whatever they want to say. You're like a fig Newton. It's Newton, it's in central Kansas. It's about a half hour outside of Wichita. About two hours and 45 minutes to our last Kansas episode in Prairie Village, Kansas, episode 633, brilliant brutality. That was a wild one, too. Kansas, you guys, you seem mild on the outside, but let me tell you something.

You got some stuff going on over there. Anything five. Yeah. This is in Harvey County, area code 316. Population here, not too tiny, actually. No. No. No.

576. Wow. So not like Nebraska a couple weeks ago or was a bunch of, you know, 400-person towns. Median household income here, 59,000, 586, which is about 10,000 below the national average, not too outstanding, but the median home cost is well below the national average at $143,600. Yeah, if you want to live in rural Kansas, no problem. Easy to do. A little bit of history.

It was founded in 1871, named after Newton, Massachusetts. Oh, so it's definitely Newton. Definitely Newton. Yeah, but you never know here. I mean, that's the thing. We found out people said El Dorado. I mean, anything's possible. It was home of some of the Santa Fe Railroad stockholders.

It was Massachusetts, so they named it Newton there. In August of 1871, the gunfight at Hyde Park occurred. Awesome. Where eight men were killed. That's a big gunfight. That's a gunfight. Holy shit. That's not a gunfight.

That's a battle. That's a... Yeah, that's a small military skirmish. That's a lot, man. The incident began with an argument between two local cops. Two cops. Two cops. Billy Bailey and Mike McCluskey.

Yeah. And anyone else with an alliterative name is welcome to jump into this as well if they happen. Michael McDonald. Yeah. If there's like a Ronnie Ronaldson, get on in here, buddy. We're ready for you. This is amazing. Because of this, Newton became known as bloody and lawless and, quote, the wickedest city in the West.

Wow. That's awesome. That sounds cool of shit. Dodge City's in Kansas, isn't it? Yeah, it is. It is. Yeah, Dodge City. But this was, I mean, Dodge City had Wyatt Earp and people shooting people, but you didn't have cops starting major gun skirmishes with each other.

That's wild. So there's that. Shortly after incorporation in 1872, the council passed an ordinance prohibiting the running at large of Buffalo or other wild animals. Running at large, like through the town square? I don't know if it's to make them go a certain direction so you can shoot them. I'm not sure if that was part of it. Oh, right, because there aren't like ranchers for Buffalo. That shit's wild.

To drive them like by like, because people would be on like a train car and just sit and shoot Buffalo. So sometimes they would hire people to drive them by. Now this place has 3.5 stars on niche as far as reviews go. Oh, not bad. So let's find out what the hell these people think about this bad boy here. Here's five stars. It's a quiet town. Good for raising kids.

Yeah. I would just like to see less meth problems here, but I guess that's everywhere. That's a five-star review. I just want a little less meth-y. Five stars, you know, the meth. It happens. Three stars. Newton is a great size.

Well, he'll be happy to hear that. Size isn't everything. He'll be happy to hear he's a great side. It doesn't mean he's huge. It just means he's right. You know what I mean? Not so small that you know everybody's business, but small enough to make connections when you're outrunning errands.

There are four grocery stores and decent options for eating out. That's good. One star lived there for 10 years. It's crime and meth infested. Yeah. That's a little less well. That's what we heard a minute ago. Yeah.

You can't order from Amazon because there's a 50% chance that your packages will be stolen by attics. 50%. Isn't that just roll the dice 50%? Isn't it always 50%? When I lived at the place down the street from the methadone clinic, it was. I would have killed for 50-50 odds. I was not getting what they sent. Never.

I would have loved 50-50 odds. It was just everything's getting stolen, period. And you had a fence like around your patio? Yeah, it didn't matter. Your whole house was closed in. Didn't matter. Opened it up, take my shit. It happened all the time.

Horrible things go on there. I think of it as the vortex of despair. Wow. A vortex, whether the wickedest city in the West or the vortex of despair. Write that down. Wow. The vortex of despair is awesome.

That's amazing. The PD is awful as well, corrupt to the bone. The sheriff's department is great, and it's a pretty little town. There's definitely good people there. There is so many complaints about this police department in these reviews, too. Here's another one, one star. The Newton PD is very corrupt. No help in any way if you call them for help.

You will more than likely catch a charge of some kind. they will twist anything and everything to say that to say then hold you up in court for a year over nothing. That sounds like that happened to this person. We're arresting everybody. That's not a like this could happen. Right. It did happen. This is a year.

This is by far the worst place in Kansas called the cops on myself asking for help and they arrested me, tried to take my kids and are now charging my wife saying we have no contact with each other. We have five kids and not even the DCF took our kids. So why the hell does Newton think that they can so over that town? There's no punctuation in that entire review, by the way. Called the cops on myself and I face contact. I don't know. There's a lot going on there. Another review says a corrupt little town indeed filled with residents who lie, cheat, and steal from those who work hard to maintain their lives and try their best,

only to be knocked down time and a time again by the very law that tries to live by to protect and serve. Really? They're crying for help, James. We've got to help them. Holy shit. Newton. You guys exist in America. What is going on?

Cops are shooting at each other. Things to do in this town. The Sand Creek Summer Days Festival, D.A. Z.E. Sand Creek. Of course. Sand Creek. That's what they're doing. They're having concerts and food.

and rides and, you know, bullshit, basically. They call it, though. They call it, quote, good old Midwestern family fun. Okay. Okay. Is Kansas Midwest? Yeah. Yeah, it's the plains, but it's still the Midwest.

Yeah, especially eastern Kansas, definitely, I would say. There is a skateboard competition, which I didn't expect. That's pretty good. There's a kickball game, a community kickball game, apparently. There's concerts. There is a live mural. a cardboard regatta. What is that?

We've talked about this before. You make shit out of cardboard and float it. Make little boats at a cardboard. Oh, like a boat? Okay. All right. Yeah, one of those things. As you say, regatta sounds water, right?

Yeah, that's like a boat race type of deal. Okay. 1230, the Great Brain Freeze. Oh, no. It's all local. Yep, and then the headliner is the Bethel performing arts. So probably kids singing here. That's not great.

Oh, there's a couple others, too. The Hall and Oates Project. Okay. Cover band. Then there's a Toes in the Ice Competition. I don't know what that is. It's in the middle of the summer. And then the Yacht Groves Band.

I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. Yeah. A bunch of Yacht Rock. bunch of shit yacht rock. So there you go. That said, let's talk about some murder. What do you say? Hoohy. Good. Let's get into this. Okay. If not, I'm going to kill somebody. Yeah,

I'm, I got to get out of this town, man. This place sucks. This place is rough. It's the wicket, the vortex of despair, Jimmy. What do you want? Let's talk about a lady first here. Here is Rhonda Lou Schmidt with a D.T. Schmidt. Yeah. Later on, she'll be Crebel, but we're going to go with Schmidt for now. She's born August 21st, 1957, born in Newton. She's Newton born and raised. Born and raised. Vortex of despair, poor lady.

Her parents are Robert and Mary Lou Schmidt. She grew up here. She attended local school here. Like every other kid in this town, basically. She goes to college and meets a young man named Von Andros Schmitt. What? Von Andros Schmidt. Yeah.

That guy is, yeah, that's a man. I'll tell you something. Or I'm sorry, Kreeble. Did I say Schmidt? Yeah. Wait, what? Crebel. Von Kreeble.

Wow, that is. And I'm thinking, that doesn't sound right. Too many Schmitz. Too many Schmitz. Too many Schmit. This is all about Schmidt today. All about, it's a totally different movie. So about Schmidt.

So Crebel here, Van, Von Andros Kreeble. They start dating in the late 70s when they're in college. They get married in 1980. So she's now Ronda Lou Crebel. And could you get a more German name than Von Andros Schmidt? Good Lord. He's going to be like, he's going to have like a monocle. Yeah.

He's going to be like the guy after Glass Joe and Tyson's Punch Out. That's what he's going to be. That guy. So anyway, there you have a Midwestern life, man. He works in Wichita. Okay. Half hour away, as we talked about. They have three daughters and, you know, it's a happy environment. These two like each other. Ronda and Vaughn like each other. Beautiful. They get along. They seem to everybody says all the kids say they had nothing but fun and activities and always laughter in the house, everybody said. Love it. Yeah. Like all the friends that would come over. Kids' friends would be they like going over there because it was like a happy house. Yeah. Real happy house. Wait until he has to pay for three weddings. He's not going to be happy. I'm not going to be happy about that. Yeah.

It's like, luckily, that was then. That'll be going away by the time they're adults. Good. So, Rhonda was a stay-at-home mom so she could be with the kids. She also worked in nurseries. She taught Sunday school, helped with preschool programs. She was into the Christian women, the Christian women's club. Sure.

And all that kind of thing. What's on gig in Wichita? What's he do? Not sure exactly what he does, some kind of business. But he's doing okay. Yeah, he seems to be doing all right here. The family doesn't seem, they don't seem to have any financial pressures or anything like that that we know of anyway. Yeah.

People always describe Rhonda as a really nice and kind person. Sure. A Midwestern lady who has three kids and wants to be a mom and she's a very nice lady. Does Sunday school shit. Yeah. Yeah. Nice lady. Yeah. She, they said her wedding was beautiful and they talked about how, you know, the holidays at their house were wonderful and full of laughter and all that kind of shit.

That's nice. Mid-May 1994 here. Let's go there. There is a Christian's women's – I want to call it Christians Women Club, and that's not how it is. Christian Women's Club meeting at a restaurant. This is at the Newton Inn. So they're all gathering. That's the restaurant, and they're going to have a big meeting here.

They hold regular meetings there, and they're normally given a reduced rate for their meals because they're a regular thing. That happens. standing arrangement, whatever. For some reason, on this day, the restaurant gave them a bill for full price. Okay. Rhonda was not having. She was not having this shit. Apparently, she's in charge of dealing with that.

Yeah. Not happening. Yeah, not today. You're not getting me. So according to what happened, people, according to people at the inn and according to other people that were there, Rhonda asked to speak to the manager about the bill, which seems reasonable. Yeah. I mean, there's a bill.

a bill issue. That's what you talk to. This is wrong. Let's talk to the manager. So they said the manager just he just stepped out. He's not here right now. So they sent over a waiter to the table to deal with it. You deal with it and figure out what's going on. Now this waiter's name is Matthew Murphy. What

happens is an argument between this waiter, Matthew Murphy, and Rhonda. They have a big old, big old fight about this bill. I don't understand. This needs no escalation. Like from his point of view, These are regular customers.

They come in all the time. It's a bunch of church ladies. Let's not have a screaming argument. And from their point of view, we come here all the time. Let's not act like assholes. So neither of these people have any motivation to fight. It makes no sense why they're fighting, honestly. Apart from this guy wants a bigger tip because the bill's bigger.

Well, Matt's not even the guy that did the survey. No, it's just a guy they sent over to try to smooth things over. He's just been here the longest. He's kind of like a assistant manager-ish. two type deal. So whatever, front of house type of guy. So anyway, they ended up arguing, Rhonda's yelling at him. From what I understand, I know if she's yelling, but she's, you know, explaining her situation.

The Matthew Murphy had to recalculate the bill. So he said, okay, yeah, that's the deal. He goes back. He fixes the bill. From what I understand, from what all the people in the kitchen said, when he got back into the kitchen, he was just teeming with rage over the shit. Yeah. Just angry as fuck at these people. The agreement we came to was not in his, he was not happy with it.

He just wasn't happy that he had to deal with the whole situation. So one of the baker who worked at the restaurant said that Matthew came back shouting what a bitch she was. What a fucking bitch this lady is that I had to deal with, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Take it easy, Matt. They said he slammed down books and like slammed a coffee mug down. He was very upset. another woman who worked at the inn said that she heard Matthew talk about Ronda several times during the Christian Women's Club meetings, not favorably. So this isn't the first time he's dealt with Ronda and does not like Ronda.

He does not like this gathering here. It does not care for this shit at all. They probably tip like shit. I'm sure. It's probably a standard 10% or some bullshit like that. So I get it. And it's the same people every week. And it's a kiss their ass.

Standard 10 on a reduced bill, which is even. more bullshit. I'm putting out just the same amount of work for way less money. This is fucking dumb. And I bet they want everything to be just right all the time. So, I mean, that's fine. But I get it. I've been a waiter.

So I understand. It's the fucking hard. It's the worst to deal with people like that. But understandable. But he is extra upset. This is one of those things that just happens in a table. Yeah. And you deal with it and you walk away and you go,

move on. And you go to the next table. But this apparently, he's done eating. the crow, James. He's done swallowing his pride. He's full. And that's what it is. It was that he felt like she embarrassed him. So he was upset about that. Okay. So about a week later, Friday, May 20th, 1994. Rhonda takes her two oldest daughters, an eight-year-old and a six-year-old. The six-year-old's name is Natalie. On a field trip to Wichita. She goes on, it's a school field trip. She's a chaperone. Her youngest daughter, who is like pre-school age, is dropped off at grandma's house. So there you go. About two to 220, somewhere in there,

Rhonda returns home to her house in Newton with six-year-old Natalie and Natalie's five-year-old friend. Okay. So we got two little kids. The eight-year-old had returned to class with her schoolmates

and the youngest is still at Grandma's. So it's Rhonda, little six-year-old Natalie and a five-year-old friend. Rhonda's scooping the girl's ice cream. What a great day for these kids. They got to go on a field trip. They're getting mid-afternoon ice cream.

This is awesome. So they're sitting in like a booster seat type high chair situations because five, six-year-old girls are still pretty small. And they're eating ice cream and they're having a good time and cartoons are on and all that kind of shit. Now, about 320 to 330, somewhere in there, approximately, the friend's mother here arrives at the home to pick up her daughter. She knocks on the door, rings the doorbell, nobody answers. Oh. Rhonda's cars in the driveway. The front door is unlocked.

No one locks their doors in this town, by the way. Yeah. It's a non-locker town. Yeah. So she figures maybe Rhonda took the girls to the store or something or whatever. So, you know, they're not here at the moment. So she just goes home. She starts calling the house to see when she get back. Every couple minutes she calls and no one ever picks up.

She calls again. She calls again. You know, she's just waiting. So by 3.30, in the 3.30, to four o'clock time period. This woman is now starting to get a little bit worried. Yeah, it's been an hour and I'm looking for my kid. It's your five-year-old, too.

If it's a 14-year-old, you go, who knows, maybe there's a kid's five. You want to know exactly where a five-year-old is at all times. So she contacts Rhonda's husband Vaughn. Oh, Von Andros Kribal here. He's over there in Wichita. He's in Wichita. It's about 30 miles away. Now, Vaughn says, well, I'm 30 miles away.

You're closer than me. but let me call some family members that are close in the area and see if they can go over. So they call up a cousin here that lives nearby. And his name is Kevin. Some sources have him listed as a different name, but I think it's Kevin. It doesn't really matter. So at this point, before Kevin gets there, the eight-year-old daughter arrives home from school. Oh.

She finds the house locked now. now it's locked. Front doors locked, which it's never locked. So she's like, what the hell? So she just shrugs and goes over to it.

Yeah. Yeah, she goes over. She goes over. What the fuck is this? What's this fucking bullshit? What are you locking fucking doors now? Ma, come on.

Nobody gives me a goddamn key around here. I got nothing over here. I don't got a garage door open. I got no key. Fucking people breaking my fucking cool yon's over here. I'm trying to get in the goddamn house. I want that to be all that you said. Trying to get.

the house over here, you fucking... Well, what are you mooks let me in or what? Come on. Feeding my sister, the fucking ice cream at noon. Jesus Christ. Everybody's eating ice cream. What am I doing standing in the yard like a fucking jerk off? That's what I'm doing.

Like a fucking jerk. This poor, so yeah, she shrugs, goes to a neighbor's house. She made a fucking jerk out of me. He made a jerk at him. So she goes to a neighbor's house, this kid, the eight-year-old. Now, somewhere between 4 o'clock and 425, Kevin. arrives. Okay.

The cousin or some relation that he is. He has a key. Oh. He might, he's the, you know how you always give it to him, but not the kid that comes home? Well, you don't give an eight-year-old a key to a house. You don't? Fuck no. This is just going to end up on a playground somewhere on the ground.

Kids are not responsible to hang on to things that are important like a key. I wouldn't give an eight-year-old chapstick. That's not coming back to the house. It'll be gone by the time they get home. Both of my kids have had keys to my place since the divorce. The one was eight, one was ten. Okay, I could see. They wouldn't give them those.

They've done all right. They beat the shit out of a couple of phones. They don't do anything now, though. They get them going on an iPad. Kids used to go like run around outside and shit. That's the key's getting lost. They've broken like seven goddamn phones, but they got the key. You can give a couch kid a key.

That's fine. You can't give like a playground kid a key. That's not going to work out. A couch kid. I'd have lost a key in three seconds when I was a kid. So Kevin arrives. He lets himself in. He yells for Rhonda.

Nobody answers. He notices her purses on the counter. He's like, okay, that's a good sign. She must be close by if her purse is there. And her car is here. Her keys and her wallet and everything are right where they should be. Yeah. And we know that because he dumps her purse out.

Which is a strange move, correct? Is that odd? Usually you look at the purse. You wouldn't dump it out like that's weird. Yeah. So it's very strange. She's just not here for some reason. He's looking around.

Then he hears something. He hears faint, muffled crying. Yeah? Like little tiny voices of crying. He's like, what the fuck is that? Is that where is that coming from? Like if you heard like an animal outside and a tree, you'd be like, what's, what is that? So he hears it coming from upstairs.

So he runs upstairs and follows the sound to the room that it's coming from. and it appears to be coming from behind a closet door. He opens the closet door. There's two little girls in there. There's a six-year-old Natalie and her five-year-old friend are sitting in the closet together. Yeah.

And they're bawling, crying. Kevin's like, what's wrong? And all Natalie can get out is the bad man hurt mommy. Oh, boy. That's not good. So Kevin calls 911 right away. and the dispatcher tells him,

hey, stupid, get the girls and get the fuck out of the house, number one. You don't know. Don't touch anything. Don't, yeah, whatever you do, don't dump anybody's purse over. That's very important. Don't touch anything.

And get out of the house with the kids. Yeah, I already licked everything. Yeah. Well, my DNA's on everything. So they go wait outside. And so that's where he stopped is that bedroom, got the girls, went out as soon as 9-1-1 told him to get out.

He went out and he went out in the front. yard basically in the middle of the day. At about 4.30 p.m., Newton Police arrive. There's a detective Walton here who's going to be kind of overseeing this whole thing. Hey, everybody, just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you just a better way to eat with Goodchop. Goodshop.com. Absolutely.

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They open the door and they find Rhonda. And she's dead. She's dead. She's on the bed. She's bound, gagged, and a blood. mess. Really? I mean, it's horrible.

The blood soaking her hair and the bed, blood spatter on the walls. Really? Pictures are covered. It's terrible. One eye is swollen shut. Wow. Her clothes are partially removed. Now, they said the room wasn't ransacked.

There was a few drawers open, but not full on ransacking. All right. Ronda's wrists and ankles were tied behind her with panty hose. So they hog tied this poor woman with panty hose. Her own panty hose that were taken from a drawer. Her mouth was sealed with white masking tape from a roll found in the dresser. This is weird. Yeah.

A white tube sock was knotted around her neck as a ligature. Her right eye was swollen and discolored. Bruises inside were inside of her mouth and on her legs. There's pieces of torn underwear next to her body. So everything that has been used on her came from inside. from here, yeah. This room. Then bring anything home.

Yeah. Didn't know. There's no, nobody brought anything here. The panty hose, her tape, her socks, all this shit. Wow. Now, they find that Rhonda was struck in the head 13 times with a heavy blunt object. Who, hey. It said something like a mallet.

Okay. So this is a brutal. Absolutely. Whatever. Yeah. Brutalize this woman. I mean, this is overkill. This is ridiculous.

Her skull is fractured in every way. you can imagine. God damn. So this is a small town and shit like this doesn't happen. Church lady dead on the bed with her kids in a closet very often. So the county attorney shows up to the scene. Really? Yeah, they're real interested.

Mary McDonald, she shows up and said this has to be somebody very bold that did this. The county attorney is on site. On site. Yeah, they are. She knows this is going to be her case. And she wants to get a feel for it. And like I said, this doesn't happen all of it. time.

Sure. You hear something like this and it's not just, you know, two crackheads stabbed each other to death or something or, you know, two cops had a shootout like back in the day. But they said this had to be such, it's broad daylight. Yeah. Beautiful day. There's ice cream. Yeah.

Residential neighborhood. Two children in the house. Like this is a particularly bold person. Very brave. And the kids saw him and the kids are alive. That's the thing. That's strange. So they said this had to be.

someone who did this before or someone who knew her and had a specific reason to be here. There's got to be something. So outside, they find some evidence because inside, they're not finding a whole lot of evidence that it's only shit that was in the house. So there's not a lot to connect it to except in the house. But outside, they find right beneath the living room window scattered all throughout the grass below the living room window, cigarette butts, tons of them. Tons of them.

A bunch of cigarette butts. This is a big picture. Somebody's sitting there a while, huh? Yeah. This is a big picture window that looks directly into the house. Yeah. So it's Richard Ramirez style, basically. Just watching and smoking.

Watching, smoking, stalking. And nobody in the Crebel house smoked. There's no ashtrays or anything. It's not a smoking house. So someone stood out there smoking for a long time. It's an interesting choice, right? To be watching something while smoke? Because, I mean, that's a halo of scent that you're given off.

scent. You can see it. You know, it's an odd choice. You can see and smell that for strange thing. I mean, quite a ways. I would say so. I mean, in 1994, you're going to smell smoke coming from a lot more places. It's a good point. It's a great point.

Now, grocery store. Everywhere. Yeah. Under the bed, and this almost gets missed actually, but it's found kind of the last sweep of the bedroom, they find a pair of aviator-style sunglasses with teardrop shaped

lenses. Now, they go and they make sure, they said, does this belong? Because they figure it's probably Vons or somebody, but doesn't belong to anybody in this household. So they're like, okay, this is the only outside thing that we found in the house is this, these sunglasses. So then they need to know what happened, and the only person who can give an insight to what happened is a six-year-old. Yeah. And luckily, a six-year-old is a lot more together than a four-year-old. going to ask the six-year-old questions and they'll give you a narrative.

Yeah, and they'll give you some shit that they don't realize that they're giving you some shit and but they're giving you everything. You know what I mean? It might be a rambling narrative. Yeah. It might be a rambling narrative too or there might be a bab-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-pbbbbbbbbbbbb. You might have to tell them to slow down. Yeah, you got to chase them. They'll have it.

Oh, yeah. They'll get it. For sure. No, it's like a cat. You have to like, hey, come over here. No. Oh, yeah. Get me back.

Yeah. So they, Natalie says shortly after 3 p.m. There was a knock at the door. All right. Nobody, this neighbors come over all the time and stuff. So knocks on doors aren't a big deal around here.

Not a big deal. No, she said nobody, we wouldn't even ever check the peephole. Most of the houses, most of the houses don't even have a peephole, they said in this town. Wow.

People just open the door. Whoa. So. That's crazy. I don't even do that. Isn't that wild? I didn't even come near the door thanks to the fucking. No.

Doorbell apps. No. No. And even if I didn't have a doorbell app, it's, I'm not expecting anybody. Don't really care who's at the door. I'm not answering it.

Whatever you got, leave it there and go away. I'm not answering you. If I know you, you would have told me you're coming. Otherwise, I don't need this. So Rhonda had told the girls keep eating and she'll be right back.

She walked to the front door, opened it, and returned to the hallway. Natalie said this time, followed by a strange man. She described him as tall, thin with dark hair under a red baseball cap with a fish symbol on it. And they're like a fish like a bass or a fish like this. Like a Jesus fish?

They ended up figuring out it's a Jesus fish. Ha! I'm getting real fucking good at guessing. It's Jesus fish. Yeah. Well, I mean what other kind of fish is it going to be, though, honestly. I mean, it could be a lot of things. It could be like a bait shop hat or something. Yeah, it could have been the fucking the fish hat from the sandlot.

Yeah, yeah. But I think we all know. What's going on in Kansas? It's a Christian. It's a Christian fish. So also he was wearing sunglasses. Aviators. Yep.

Jesus fish sunglasses. The girls had never seen him before. And Rhonda didn't introduce him like, oh, this is, you know, my friend Bill or whatever the hell. So she walked, I guess, Natalie said she didn't even stop when she came back in, Rhonda, with the man. She just walked straight toward the back of the house toward the master bedroom with the guy behind her. So Natalie said, and this is a six-year-old talking, something felt weird. Yeah. About it.

And her mom would never just do that. Her mom would say, hey, I'm doing this or hey, you know, whatever. So she said that whatever, she's six and she just forgot about it. She kept eating ice cream, basically. And you don't think your parents are in any kind of peril or anything like that when you're six. It's like, oh, it's my mom. She'll take care of it. I got ice cream, you know, whatever. So she, does this. Now, they say that, you know, she just told the girls to keep eating the ice cream and walked away. So it's interesting. Now, between 310 and 320, Natalie finished her ice cream and decided she wanted to go outside to play. Okay. So she walked down the hallway toward her mother's bedroom, but didn't see her anywhere. So she just said, instead, she saw the strange man standing

alone in the hall. When they asked her, like, what's his expression like? She said she couldn't figure it out. She was hard to read. It was a weird. He didn't look mad. He didn't look happy. He didn't look anything.

Just kind of, whatever. Just blank. Blank. She said he did have blue eyes. She remembers that. Oh, so the glasses are off now. Glasses are off. So she says, where's my mom?

And he doesn't answer her. He just stares at her. Oh. So Natalie peeks past him into the bedroom and sees Rhonda on the bed with her hands and feet bound and her mouth gagged with tape her mother's trying to talk to her but can't because of the tape so she's oh my god and i'm sure she's saying run the fuck away get out of run get out of the house go to the neighbors but she can't so at that moment the man there's this imagine that uncomfortable moment of yeah oh shit what's going on the kids saw it what's happening

so the girl must have been terrified in that moment i assume and Rhonda, Jesus Christ, even more terrified, the man grabs Natalie and carries her down the hallway. Imagine the fear Rhonda's feeling for everything right now. He also then grabbed the five-year-old friend, brings them both upstairs, and shoves them both into a closet in Natalie's room, and slams the door. So that's why they're in the closet. That was a lot of anxiety. Yeah.

So about 315 to 325 here, they're in the closet, and the girls hear sounds. They hear heavy thuds. Oh, God. It's like something hitting something else. They said they heard seven or eight bangs. They said they thought it was that Rhonda was being shot. They thought their mother was being shot because they just heard these loud. That loud.

Yeah. She was not being shot. The gunshots were the sound of the impact. That's how hard. Wow. Somebody was beating this poor woman. So the investigation, there is pressure. This town wants this crime solved yesterday.

Yeah. Fucking mom with her kids in the house, getting brutalized in her own fucking bed on a weekday afternoon, for Christ's sake. Like this is not happening here. So they freak out and really, really do. So they start with the people closest to her, obviously, to try to, you know, eliminate people. Obviously, Kevin, the guy who found the body or found the situation. Vaughn, we're going to talk to. Sure.

All of that. It's usually someone who knew the victim. Now, Vaughn is the easiest to clear because he was at work 30 miles away. No way he could have done it. There's witnesses and he's there. He's at his desk. Now, Kevin, though, or whatever his name is,

his story is odd. And that's strange. He said he entered the house. He saw Ronda's purse and emptied it on the counter, which again, weird thing to do when you're checking. Started roaming. Yeah. Let me see what she's gotten here first.

he's a nursing student. Oh. But like there's no like, I better see if anyone needs medical help. None of that crosses his mind. Sure. Later, when asked about why he didn't go check on Rhonda immediately, he said, quote, an angel stopped me from opening that bedroom door. That's his actual quote to a man with a, there's a person with a badge sitting across from him,

asking serious questions about a dead woman. and he said, an angel stopped me from opening that door. You just pistol whip that guy, right? For that, we're going to be adults now. And we're all going to be very serious now. There's an exorbitant. Is that an word? Exorbitant.

A lot of people believe that. I get it. And a lot of people aren't sitting in a homicide interrogation room. Because you can believe whatever you want. Yeah, I know. In this room. We're serious people. You can say, oh, there's angels and this and that.

In this room we deal in... We deal in facts and blood evidence and fingerprints. We deal in evidence and proof. Yeah. So I don't think so. You can't say that. So they said, you're going to take a polygraph there, Chief. What are you saying about that?

So he says, okay, when asked what he thought of his cousin, Rhonda, his one-word answer, what do you think it was? Oh, God. Did he quote Matthew and say she's a bit? Nope. They said one word answer, sexy. What? My dead cousin is very sexy. I don't, I, this guy is not good at being interrogated.

No, it's not a person in my family that describes this. Sexy. If they said too, that's not like after 10 minutes that came out too. Well, what does she look like? I mean, she's attractive. Would you call her, say, she's sexy, I guess. No, that was just, what's your thoughts of your cousin? Sexy. was her first thought.

This is one word answer. It wasn't. She's nice. She's a good mother. She's a good person. She's pretty sexy, too. No, it's sexy.

I mean, even if he's, his relation to her is through Vaughn, that's still a fucked up answer. Still a weird answer, man. And I think he's her cousin, too. That's the even weirder part.

When asked if he killed her, he said, quote, if I killed her, I must have blacked out. Which is a terrible. answer because you weren't even, you're supposed to not even be there. So I've only, I've only heard that as an answer in times when somebody killed somebody. Yeah.

Because they don't want to say no on the polygraph and have it go. Yeah. So police put him at the top of the suspect list, I would say. Yeah. He gets a lawyer and he's not cooperating anymore. Really? Absolutely. So.

Well, yeah, he said, I wouldn't cooperate either if I'd fucked up and gave. Those two shit-ass answers. Well, if I was a lawyer, I'd go, never answer a question again, first of all, ever. I don't care what the question is. Your wife has any questions for you. Call me. How many gallons on pump 10? You call me up, and I'll talk to the clerk.

You don't need to talk to the cashier. I'll take care of me. You're going to fuck it all up. Hello, lawyer, do I want fries with that? Good call. Yeah, thank you. Good call. Just don't tell him you killed anybody when you biggie-sized that shit.

I don't know. I'm supposed to black down. What the fuck? You jackass. So Detective Walton didn't think he's the guy, though. No? You just thinks he's a fucking weirdo? No, yeah.

Well, it makes sense, too. I think he's an idiot, obviously. Yeah. You're a complete jackass. Let me tell you that. I don't think you're a murderer. And the reason is Kevin is known to the family. Natalie knows who Kevin is.

Oh, right. Yeah, she's seen him. And they went back and they said, could it have been Kevin? And she said, no, I did not know this man who was in the house. Kevin came in later. That's a different guy completely. And this is 1994.

So like at the very, very beginning. But today, with those glasses, brother, this shit's over tomorrow. Exactly. So they said that the one thing that investigators know about children and they could be unreliable, but the one thing they are reliable about is do you know this person? Yeah. They know whether they know someone or not. And she said, I don't know that person.

sure shit, no Kevin. So there's that. Just give some stupid fucking hands. They go, what about your uncle Kevin? And she's like, oh, he's a dip shit. Don't get me wrong. He's dumb. He's dumb as fuck.

I'm not going to lie to you. I don't ask him for help on my home. No, I'm sex and I feel a little bad for him. Let's put it that way. So technology is not where it is now in 1994. There is DNA technology, but you need like blood, like a pool of blood. You need like a, you know, a, you know, a, you know, a, of, a, fucking a whole

like a like a like a fimbled of semen you know what I mean you like the whole load yeah to like hair you need it like with the root attached shit like that um so over the next five years that'll change drastically but at this point yeah it's kind of a nightmare so the sunglasses are their only piece of physical evidence and uh they were suggested subjected to super glue fuming which is to get fingerprints off if you've ever seen beverly Hills Cop too. Eddie Murphy will explain it to you using a turtle aquarium and a matchbook. You remember that scene now, don't you?

I love when it casually explains crime scene shit and in this movie. He just looks at it. So no usable prints. And the fuming process complicates shit because the chemical residue from the superglue. coats the lenses and potentially degrades anything underneath them. There's also the panty hose, tape, sock, and other bindings all useless. There are no fingerprints going to be on a sock and they have nothing on that, basically. The cigarette butts outside the window, nothing there either.

Nowadays, you can get your DNA, no problem, but in 1994, they're useless. Yeah, you'll know who his fucking grandfather is. Yep. So the medical examiner found signs that this was an interrupted, sexual assault. Oh. So that's why the underwear are torn and all that. He was about to, and bruising was consistent with the assault, but there's no DNA evidence

like semen. So they're like, he didn't finish. He got interrupted by the girls. By the girls. And they said everything that he had used came from inside the home. He brought nothing. There's no plan. It doesn't have a kill kit or anything like that.

No murder weapon to trace. No, he didn't purchase anything that you could track a guy. two later on. Nothing. So they have... But he's been smoking there and watching, so he knew the girls were there. He knew the girls were there, but I don't know if he thought that they would just stay away. Yeah.

And he would, I don't understand it. So months go by. Tips trickle in. A lot of people think it's the relative. It's that Kevin guy, but the cops are like it's not. So every few weeks, people call in with a name and a memory of I saw a guy in a red hat near the neighborhood and whatever. and everything went cold. Nothing was worth of shit.

People started like kids can't go to school on their own anymore. Parents have to walk them. The unlocking policy is over in this town. Oh, boy. Everybody's locking them up, closing them down. It's all about, it's wild. Everyone's just talking about what kind of alarm systems are getting and arming themselves. Then there's a woman named Lois Gibson.

She is a sketch artist and by all accounts, one of the best on earth. Apparently. She held the, or in 1994, she held the Guinness World Record for most identifications by a forensic artist. I did not know that was a record.

That might be the most impressive record of all time. Fuck your long fingernails. Yeah, fuck you and your, your creepy mustache that twirls around 17 times. Over 1,000 criminals were identified through her sketches. Wow.

It's pretty goddamn good. Yeah. There was actually one guy who was a murderer who saw his sketch on the news and turned himself in. It's too good. I'm never getting away with this. You nailed me. He's like, fuck, that's me, man.

Jesus Christ, shit. Who was it? The night stalker? Yeah. Well, that was by smell. We found a guy who smells like a goat. It must be him. It was crazy that the whole thing.

Yeah. The sketch, he's the only person on earth that that sketch looked like. It was crazy. Can't look like anybody else. So she was from this area, apparently. She moved to L.A. to be a model and a dancer, this sketch artist. She was attacked and almost killed by a rapist. Wow.

So she went back to school to get a Bachelor of Fine Arts from University of Texas, then went to the FBI Academy Forensics Artist Course and became the Houston PD's Forensic Sketch Artist in 82. She sounds amazing. She's pretty badass. So she sits down with Natalie, this Lois Gibson. She uses an FBI sketchbook, catalog of hundreds of features. facial features, 250 sets of eyes, 250 sets of noses, mouths, faces, shapes, hairlines, jaws. And they flip through all this shit looking for the features, right?

So they build it piece by piece, starting with the hair and hair line and working down to the chin and jaw bone. That's how she does it. She said she was careful with Natalie reminding her it's okay. If she didn't know something, don't, you know, just add them not sure of that. We'll figure it out. But Natalie remembered everything. Wow. She said, long hair, dark and long enough to reach the ears, red baseball cap, gaunt face, and the eyes were a piercing blue.

And that's a lot. So she said that children are often better witnesses than adults, this Lois said. She said adults second-guess themselves. They overthink it. Children just tell you what they saw. There it is. There it is. So the sketch is everywhere.

It's on grocery stores, the post office, you name it, all over telephone. holes, it's everywhere. Tips are pouring in, none of the lead anywhere. For more than a year, nothing happens. Jesus. September 16th, 1995, Janetta Jody McCown, she goes by Jody. She's 30 years old. She works the streets, is what she does here, in Wichita on South Broadway.

She got into a car with a John in the early morning of September 16th, 1995. Now, she has, Jody has a life. She's not like a, she's not homeless or anything like that. She's got a boyfriend that she's very as a stable relationship with. It's just how she pays for it all. It's just, yeah, that's what she's doing at this moment. So she had a friend, another girl on the street here who watched out for her. They looked out for each other.

One get in a car, the other one would jot down the license plate number. And we've had this happen multiple times on the show. And I mean, the pretty woman kit, that's what she did. And we've had it a few weeks ago on a show. that happened. So anyway, her friend wrote down the license plate number. This was a man who approached Jody and offered $200 for an overnight stay, which was more than she even charges for that. Really? Yeah. So it's a little strange. And her friend told Jody not to go, but Jody said, it's $200, I'm going. Yeah. So she wrote down the license plate number. Now, Jody had also told

her friend about a man who had been hanging around who was sitting in a car parked outside her friend's apartment looking for cocaine at one point. So that was the night before Jody disappeared. So there's been a creepy guy hanging around. So they have the license plate number. This Jody never comes back. She disappears. Gets in the car and never comes back.

But they have the license plate number and her friend calls the cops and says, my friend disappeared. There's a license plate number. So they train. race the license plate. It comes back to a man named Matthew Murphy. Stop it. Matt. Remember Matt? Matt, you fuck. Can I get you another refill on that iced tea? It's, uh, yeah. Yep, um,

who the police quickly discover is not even Matthew Murphy. What? It's actually a guy named Chester Higginbotham. What a wild name. That's why I went by Matthew Murphy. Why did he do that? We'll talk about it. He lives in Newton, Kansas. Matthew Murphy, by the way, isn't just some bullshit identity. He has a driver's license, a marriage certificate. He works at his job under Matthew Murphy. He's married under Matthew Murphy? His wife calls him Matt. His coworkers call him Matt. Everybody calls him Matt. No one knows his name is Chester Higginbotham. Chet, what's going on, buddy? Okay. So they had to, he, this was such a big identity that he had just two separate identities, but it's the same person. So he's

born in 1965. He's been to prison before. He's had a messed up childhood, too. He tried to commit suicide at eight. And his alcoholic mother died when he was 13. And before he died, she would lock him in closets for long periods of time. Yeah, because that's what you do. Including during an entire Christmas vacation. He was locked in a closet. A two-week vacation from school. He's locked in a closet. Locked in the closet. He's got a lot of petty, crimes theft, car theft, burglary. He was currently on parole for burglary and forgery. Wow. Well, he was at the time of Rhonda's death, but not anymore.

So the real Matthew Murphy was a young man in Arizona who died in November 1989 by being struck by a car when he was on his bicycle. He was a guy from... He was a guy from Tempe. The driver was a church pastor who was having a diabetic episode and lost control of car. Oh, fuck. A few months later, A driver's license was issued under Matthew Sean Murphy's name and date of birth bearing a photograph of Chester.

So he stole his identity. Wow. So they go to Chester's house. He's not home, but his wife, Vicky, is there. While they're talking to Vicky, Chester pulls up. Or, yeah, Chester pulls up. Fake Matthew, yeah. Fake Matthew.

He approaches the officers, appears cooperative, offered to come to the station. Yeah. They search his home and storage shed that he rented nearby, where he would, keep cars that he worked on. They were looking for signs that Jody had been there. They're only investigating Jody at this point. That's the only thing they were thinking about right now. So his wife, Vicki, was born and raised in Newton, and she had no idea that his name was

Chester Higginbotham whatsoever. None. And he's made himself like 10 years younger by doing this too. Absolutely. They met because she was a convenience store clerk when he started coming in, going by Matthew Murphy, buying soda and snacks and shit. and she said that he flashed a smile that, quote, just did it for her. Really?

Just from behind that counter, boy. That's all that can get it. In the glow of that green light giving you a total, that'll be $7.42. That little light coming over there. Dang, those partly why to just reflect that 738. Man, tell you what. So they dated for like six months. He proposed.

They got married. She said everything was great, but then after a few months, he turned into a different person. An angry drunk, apparently. All right. She tells everybody and others that know her say, Vicki's very meek, so she never pushed back, which is why he looked for someone like that. That's why he lights her. Yeah.

Yeah. She told police that two nights before Jody disappeared, Chester went out with a friend. He was supposed to be back by 10, 30, or 11. That time came and went. She got worried, so she got in her car and drove to the storage shed, the place she knew Chester hung out sometimes doing work on cars. Yeah. She pulled in and Chester came out rushing out to greet her, she said.

As they talked, she could see through the car windshield in his car that there was a person in the front seat. A blonde female slumped over and not moving. What? Yeah. She asked Chester, hey, who's your friend? He said, oh, it's a friend of a friend. Uh-huh. Which is not, if that's your wife, if I told Sarah, okay.

Yeah. She was looking for me, and she came looking for me and found me, and there's some blonde chick slumped over in my car. I was like, oh, it's a friend of a friend. That wouldn't be the last question about that that we were talking about. Is your friend's lap where she slumped over? Why is she there? And why is she doing that? He said she had too much to drink, so I'm taking her home.

In the shed. All right. Okay. Vicky said the woman didn't move the entire time she's there. Didn't look up, didn't shift. didn't breathe as far as Vicky could tell. So Vicky left without asking any more questions. She is meek.

Wow. That is beyond me. Wow. I mean, he could be fucking, he could be balls deep in a chick in the living room. And he'd be like, oh, it's a friend of a friend. And we're doing this. Just go in the bedroom. I'll be there in a minute.

She'd be like, okay, this is crazy. So Chester came home about 15 minutes later. They went to bed and never discussed it again. She never brought it up again. I've never been. in a relationship that that wouldn't come up 12 times a day for the next 10 years. Until you had a satisfactory explanation for that, that's going to keep coming up. Yeah.

And unless... There will be no sleep that night. Unless a gift shows up for her that I needed that person to participate in me procuring said gift. Yeah. Yes. Dude, totally. So she didn't want to say anything there. Onina home is full of surprises.

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Most plans range between $499 to $11.99 a month your first year. Terms apply on covered repairs. Now, police go to the storage shed, hoping to find Jody's body, but they don't. By the way, Jody's blonde, too, so that helps. So they find items that made it a little more suspicious. They found nylon, rope, duct tape, and zip ties in a storage shed. None of which are two zip ties can be, but most of them aren't too useful for auto repair. No, if you can hold something in place for a minute.

You're a shit mechanic. You're not doing it right. So this is, and the detective that saw this was like, oh shit, bindings, tape, things that could be a ligature. This is pretty scary. Yeah. Also, they find out that Chester, well, not find out, they're there. This is three blocks from Ronda, by the way. Oh, her house is right down the road?

Yeah, he was. He used to, he used to be, at the time, he lived in a halfway house three blocks away from Rhonda. He had moved to Newton and took a job as an assistant manager and a waiter who sometimes managed the local inn, and he had to walk past Rhonda's house every day on his way to work. He happened to be a smoker, James? Let's find out about that. So they ask him about his identities, and Chester, it's ridiculous. He said that he changed his name from Higginbotham to Murphy because his ex-wife had witnessed a gang-related murder in Arizona and they had been placed in a government witness protection program.

There would be documentation about that, right? Not really. It's a federal, that's a closed doors. Not a local police force. I'll know they're not going to be able to get that. But his ex-wife, his actual ex-wife, said, I knew him as Chester Higginbotham. He changed his name when they moved to Oklahoma. She said, I've never witnessed a murder and I'm definitely was never in the witness relocation

program. I don't know why he's doing this. All a lie. Yeah. Chester admits he picked Jody up that night. He said he gave her $50 for, you know, for go-around. He said they drove around and then he dropped her off at the bus station in Wichita. Yeah.

Problem is, first of all, she lives in Wichita, so where is she going? And second, the bus station wasn't open at the time that he claimed he dropped her off there. When confronted about, well, Vicki, your wife said you had a blonde woman slumped over in the car. He said, no, no, no, that wasn't Jody. That was a different chick. Who? That was who? A different woman.

Yeah. So they were like, so you had two different blonde women in your car on the same night. And he goes, absolutely. Oh, okay. Sure. So they go, you're under. Yeah. You're under arrest for solicitation and prostitution.

Anyway, that you are under arrest. That's where you can hold you for a minute. Sure. Because we don't want to let you go, but we can't charge you with anything yet. So October 11th, 1995, Jody's body is found. decomposed and on the side of a rural road east of Newton. Severe decomposition. Identification was difficult.

Her wrists and ankles were hog-tied behind her. The cord nylon consistent with the type found in Chester's storage shed also. That was used for that. The mouth was taped. Uh-oh. And from what appeared to be the same role found in the shed, the torn edge matched when they put them together. He hasn't even used that tape since. then? Nope. So they said it was asphyxiation. Yeah. The pose of the body, bound, gag, beaten, and discarded.

Basically identical to how Rhonda was found, except in a house instead of on the side of the road. Sure. Detective Walton works both cases and said when he saw Jody McCown's body, he said, holy shit, this is Rhonda. This is fucked up. Oh, without him. It's the same killer. Without him, it doesn't connect. Doesn't connect. Wow. Both found with ligature. hand and feet tied behind the back. They both have their mouths sealed. They both had indicators of sexual motivation

without completed sexual assault. They were both controlled using materials found at the scene or brought in by the killer, improvised restraints rather than a pre-purchased thing or a kill kit or something like that. And both women were familiar to Chester before this happened. So with Ronda,

Chester was interrupted, the children, the doorbell, the phone, all that shit. So he had to kill her quickly and get out of there. With Jody, he had as much time as he wanted. Right. He had her alone. No, he took her to the storage unit he had all night is what he thought.

And then Vicky showed up and fucked that one up too. Now, the sketch is identical to him. The only difference is he has shorter hair now. But it's a fucking match. Wow. I mean, it's him. So, please go back to Vicky. Yeah.

And they say, your husband's suspected of two murders now. Uh-huh. And he said, let me ask you this. What kind of cigarettes does he smoke? Bingo. And it's the same kind, same brand found outside the window. That is a problem. That's a problem.

When you got yourself a taste for a specific cigarette, it's going to get you every time. Yep, they said, did he wear sunglasses? And she said, yeah, aviators. God, this man does not change shit, except his name. They also found out he came to work the weekend after the murder with a swollen eye. Oh, she got him. She got him. Yeah, she's fighting back.

And also, when the composite sketches of the murder suspect were published in newspapers, Chester's co-workers at the inn said that he made numerous comments that the police didn't know who they're looking for or what they were doing and they'd never find the real killer. Oh, my God. October 25, 1995. This is two weeks to the day after Jody's body is found. Vicki's marriage to Chester is an old, my judge. She's done. She said that the marriage was a fraud.

She didn't even know his real name. She's not even married. Yeah. It's not even him on a fucking certificate. 96 is the trial for Jody because the evidence was more recent and everything's cleaner and more recent. So they can't get him for the death penalty because apparently when this happened, Kansas didn't have the death penalty reinstated quite yet. So she's going to seek the hard 40 sentence, which is a minimum of 40 years without parole. Is that worse?

Hard 40 is brutal. So they build the case on the rope, the tape, the zip ties, the matching duct tape. They also have the drawings. They found drawings in his residence, Chester's residence, of women, including a drawing of a vagina and drawings that bore resemblance to Jody, including a matching tattoo that she had. What? Yes. Skeeter tattoo, drawing vaginas. Vicki testifies about the blonde in the car, the...

The bus station lie. Chester admitting he picked Jody up that night. The defense, all they had to argue was inconsistencies. It's not even what the vagina looks like. That's a look at it. I mean, he's got the clit on the bottom. You can't have that. That's crazy.

It's all upside down. You'll be so confusing. The verdict is guilty of first-degree premeditated murder and kidnapping. God damn. The judge says, you, sir, may fuck off hard 40. 40 years mandatory for the murder plus consecutive

49 months for the kidnapping. Okay, so another four years. So another four years. He's got a hard 44 this guy's got. He appeals in 98, but they affirm it, no reversible error.

By the way, late 90s, DNA technology is coming a long way. Bingo! Now they can extract all sorts of shit and the aviator sunglasses now have a match. They can almost tell whether or not you can draw a vagina by your DNA. Right there. He'd be piss poor drawn a vagina.

Let me tell you. So it's a one in 5.5 billion. It's Chester. Oh, fuck. It's you, buddy. Unless there's some guy in Pakistan somewhere that did it. Yeah. Somewhere.

So the psychological reports are that he is consistent with a anti-social personality disorder, calculated manipulation, lack of empathy, ability to maintain a convincing facade while committing horrific acts. His childhood had severe abuse, abuse locked in closets, beaten, subjected to horrible treatment. Yeah, yeah. Shit that turned someone into this, you know. Right. Yeah.

So 1999 is the trial for Rhonda. He wants it moved. He wants the venue change, but they say it's going to be in Harvey County. The prosecutor's case is DNA. all over the place. The sunglasses. How the fuck to your sunglasses, get under the bed unless you were there. That's it.

Also, the evidence, they, the prior crime scene evidence, because they bring in his conviction for Jody to show how he tied the girls the same, these women and did the same thing to them. The bondage signature, the binding, the gagging. Detective Ken Landwer of the Wichita Police Department said that the murders bore a signature of bondage. By the way, this is a guy who ended up was on the BTK case. Oh. This guy.

Yeah. The defense challenges the DNA because back in the late 90s, people just didn't know what it was. Yeah. So you can just be like, that's all bullshit. And people, you know, if they, because maybe they don't believe in science is what he thought. So the similarities between the two murders, the timeline. This is the defense's whole thing is there's a timeline that doesn't fit. He says, 4 a.m. that day, this is the defense attorney.

Higginbotham rode his bike to the restaurant. At 1128 a.m. He cashed his paycheck, later paid his rent. Records at the halfway house indicate that he had checked in at 245 p.m. And didn't leave until 4.45 p.m. And then he went somewhere for about 30 minutes. So he said, how could he have murdered her between 2.30 and 4.15 p.m.? He said, I will ask you how it's possible for Mr. Higginbatham could have done what he's accused of doing in the time frame.

Well, there's lots of ways, but it doesn't matter because there's DNA evidence that he did it. Right. He could have much more believe that he fudged his entry time going in. Sure. You probably written down with your initials or something rather than the fucking DNA is wrong. Vicky identified two pairs of sunglasses introduced as evidence that he wore all the time. When one came out, she said, oh, my God, he had sunglasses just like that. So that's that. Oh my God.

She also confirmed at the time of Rhonda's murder, he was wearing a red hat with the Christian Jesus fish on it. The fish. The jury finds him guilty of premeditated first-degree murder and kidnapping in the most obvious way possible here. He wore his favorite shit to the murder. To the murder. That's all the stuff that he had on because he wasn't planning. He just, I'm going to stop by. I think he saw her in the window when he was walking by and was like, look at this bitch.

Smoked a few cigarettes. They did his thing. Yep. So it's crazy. During sentencing, the Kreeble family members, Rhonda's family, said that we understand you were raised in a shit environment, but it doesn't give you the permission to treat others that way. Right. Everybody else agreed. I mean, Jesus, the poor kids had to, the kids were given their impact statements. It's fucking horrible. They showed. Given a crazy statement? Yeah. They showed a video presentation that Kreeble's family made. splicing together snapshots of the woman with her children and husband with the words from the song, We Are the Survivors, the national theme to the support group, parents of murdered children playing in the background.

You just go, I give up, man. This is the people version of the ASPCA. Fuck. Yeah. The defense attorney says, what type of environment could be so horrible that an eight-year-old would want to commit suicide? I just wonder sometimes where we go wrong. And the judge said that's all handy and dandy and nice and everything, but this is an especially heinous, atrocious and cruel crime. Yes.

And says, we know that the first blow didn't put her out of her misery. You did more. You, sir, may fuck off hard 40 again. Double hard 40s? Hard 40s? Hard 80. A hard 49 months after that, too. So he's got a hard 88 right now.

Hard 88 and over a half. That's rough. Also, pay $21,272 in restitution. Holy shit. Rhonda's sister said about the wife, they wanted to say, well, we're not mad at Vicky. Yeah. This is how nice these people are.

They care that she feels bad. Like, these people lost, this is nice people. Vicki's so meek. She said she was deceived like many others. She thought she married Matt Murphy. She could have been a victim. She could have been killed, too. Isn't that the name of one of the best DAs in the history of DAs?

What? Matt Murphy. Isn't that his name, the guy from L.A.? No, that was that. Wasn't that that asshole from the story in Northern California, the cop who didn't believe the people who were kidnapped? I think his name was Matt Murphy. I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure. That may be another name too, but I think Matt Murphy.

The American nightmare documentary. Is he blonde? I don't remember. It doesn't matter. We're almost done here. So we're way off the subject. 2001, he appeals for Ronda stuff. Doesn't matter.

He can keep on fucking off. Chester is at the, was at his last I saw, Lansing Correctional Facility in Kansas, served about 30 years of his consecutive sentences. He's not going to be eligible, eligible for parole, pretty much ever. Oh, up to now he served 30 years.

Yeah, he's got 30 years. He's still got 58 to go. Still got a long time to go. Oh, shit. So there you go, everybody. There is Newton, Kansas. Wow. One bad, bad guy.

Great job, James. That's a fucking horrible story. Great job. I'm real sad now. Terrific. I want to know what Kevin thinks about it. I know. Jesus.

Wasn't sexy, Kev? Don't ask Kim. He'll just say something completely wrong. Hey, Kev, what do you think of 9-11? My dick was hard. I mean, Jesus, why do I say that? What is wrong with me? Why do I say it's so sensual?

Weird shit about dead people. So, anyway, shut up and give me murder. Head over there, get your tickets for live shows. If you're listening to this right when it comes out, February 21st, Nashville, still some tickets available on that Saturday night. March 6th in Durham, March 7th in Atlanta, March 21st in Phoenix for your stupid opinions. And there's way more than those two. Get on shut up and give me murder.com. Get on whatever app you're listening to this on.

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