Small Town Murder - Worse Than Murder - Starkville, Mississippi

Episode Date: February 26, 2026

This week, in Starkville, Mississippi, a marriage that has a lot of bumps, along the way, including one of the children not actually belonging to the husband, explodes in violence, and terrible excuses. Even an appearence on the talk show "Montell Williams" couldn't solve their problems, but a murder ends everything. All signs point to the wife, but she blames it on her teen brother, and the prosecution blames them both, even claiming a strange, incestuous relationship between the siblings! Does the truth ever come out??   Along the way, we find out that no town should attach the word "Vegas" to their name, and expect us to believe it, that daytime talk shows may not be the best alternative to marriage counseling, and that you can only blame so much on others, before you start to look ridiculous!!   New episodes, every Wednesday & Friday nights!! Check us out on VIDEO Wednesday and Friday evenings on Netflix! www.netflix.com/smalltownmurder 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!!

This week in Starkville, Mississippi, when a man is murdered in his own home, nothing is as it seems, including his marriage and the odd relationship between his wife and her young stepbrother. This leads to a twisted plot complete with affairs, lies, and cold-blooded planning. 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 Petrogalo.

I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Whistman. Thank you folks so much for joining us today on another absolutely insane edition of small town murder. It better be. You know they're all crazy by now. Why would we pick it if it wasn't? So it's going to be wild stuff today. We're going to go down and get dirty down in the deep Mississippi south there.

Dirty south. It's going to be interesting. Red Clay. Oh, you know it, my friend. Before we do that, though, definitely head over to shut up and give me murder.com. Get your tickets for live shows. Yes. We have March 6th in Durham and March 7th in Atlanta.

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Screw it all up. Don't you worry about that. Never getting better. It's a good time. So let's that said here. But more importantly, March 6th and 7th, at the Carolina, of theater and the tabernacle, please come to those shows. It's going to be unbelievable.

If you've never seen a live podcast before, our live podcast. Bank it on our live podcast because we do a much better job than anybody that you've ever seen. We're comedians. This isn't a lecture. We're uncomfortable if you're not laughing every little while. So that's it. I assure you it's the most fun you're going to have seeing a live podcast. It's going to be so much fun.

That said, disclaimer time. Yeah. This is a comedy show, everybody. buddy. This is a comedy show. People are also going to die. That's going to happen. But we're comedians, so jokes are going to come out. But you go, how does that work? Any of murder and jokes go together. Well, very easily if you do it the right way. See, we do it nice and tasteful, like, we don't make fun of the victims or the victim's families. Why, James? Because we're assholes. But we're not scumbags. See how that works. It's real easy to figure out. It's not that

it's not that tough. You might think, that's what I mean. There's plenty of stuff to make fun of. There's a make fun of a small town. We're all from somewhere that deserves to be made fun of. We make fun of murderers because what else can we do but make fun of these people? But, you know, if you think true crime and comedy should never, ever go together, we might not be for you. But we might be. We might be. I would say, give it a shot.

But either way, no complaining later. We don't want to hear it. So that said, I think it's time, everybody. Yeah. To sit back. What do you say? It's all clear the lungs here. Arms to the sky.

And let's all shout. Shut. up and give me murder. Let's do this. Okay. Let's go on a trip, everybody, shall we? Let's go. We're going to Mississippi this week.

Yeah. Hope you got on your humidity pants. It's going to be moist. Bring a duck boots. This is Starkville, Mississippi. It's in kind of northeastern Mississippi. Oh. Just off a little bit.

What's up there? Nothing is up there. I mean, what borders is it? Alabama. Hey, goddamn over there. Yeah, it's about two hours and not a lot. Yeah, it's rough. About two hours and ten minutes to Jackson, Mississippi, which I believe is the capital down there.

It's a song that Johnny Cash sung about. Two hours and 20 minutes to Birmingham, Alabama, the other way. So it's kind of right in between the two of them. And it's about two and a half hours to our last Mississippi episode, Edwards, Mississippi, which was episode 630, the Down South Death Demon. Wow. Was that a crazy episode? Mississippi, when you guys decide to kill, you do it all out.

Let me tell you something. This is crazy. This is in... Yeah, they do wild shit down there. Octabaha County? Uh-huh. Okay, T-I-B-B-E-H-A. That's native.

Octavia? Yeah, I'm not sure. Area Code 662. It's got two nicknames, and one of them, we know why, and the other one, no one seems to know why they call it this. Oh. Okay. One is B-B-O. A-R-D, not, I'm so bored

in this town. That was... Not an old norm, Joe. Yeah. Yes, that's what it used to be called. So that's why that's another nickname. But then the other one makes no sense whatsoever because this is a small town where nothing is going on.

Quote, Stark Vegas. What? Stop with anything Vegas. Nothing is Vegas. There's one Vegas. Unless your town was literally built from the ground for vice, It's not Vegas. So stop calling it that.

I don't want to hear Nash Vegas anymore. None of that shit. It's not that whatsoever. And Nashville, there is nothing Vegas about it. There's no games being played. No. You're not fucking hookers. There's no drugs.

You're not allowed to smoke weed there. That's what I mean. And there's no multi-billion dollar things built for you. It's some Hick built a bar. And the Hick didn't even build it. A big fucking corporation bought it, built it, and put their name on it. And merchandises it and licensed. is them money. That's it. But you liked one of his songs in 1997, so now it's Nash Vegas.

That's no, that's not how it works. Get your own identity, everybody. All right. History of this town, 1835, Bordtown was established. That's what this was, as the county, or the county seat of the Octabaha County. And it was renamed Starkville in honor of the Revolutionary War hero, General John Stark, which is, weird because they called it Boredown in 1835 50 years after the Revolutionary War. So that makes no sense. They already knew that guy existed. He was probably dead by then.

A log courthouse and a one-room jailhouse were constructed in 1835. We only got room for one German. Just one. Yeah, that's it. One drunk. We bring them in every night. That just makes me think of like old cowboy movies where they're going to come and like tie ropes to the bars and pull the whole wall down and free them.

Or put the bed sheet on there, piss on it and rotate it until it bends the bars. Either that or throw something to get the key while the dog's sleeping on the floor and the sheriff's got his hat over his face and the keys are hanging there. One of those. The jailhouse had no doors or windows. You go, okay, well, just a dark room. How does that work? That's a shed. Yeah, well, sheds have doors.

How else would you get things out of them? Well, it's got a door, right? No, it has no doors. You were acting like that was fine, and I'm like, no, I don't think you understand the extent of this. No doors or windows. The prisoners had to climb a ladder to the roof and then get let down through a trap door using a rope. That's how they got prison. Oh, it's one room that they just put every button, one room gin pop.

And they're like, climb up. Go ahead and climb it. At gunpoint or something? Because I'd run. Eventually, yeah. It's wild. I never heard about that. In 1875, a fire destroyed 52 building.

which is most of the town. That's all of it. The whole business district was completely destroyed. Gone. Which is interesting here. A guy named McLaughlin was his last name, served as the local head of the Friedman's Bureau and assisted in the establishment

of Black Methodist churches and established a cooperative store for black people at his house. This, of course, enraged everyone so much that the Klan attacked his store and tried to burn it down. This town, by the way, We don't have time to go through.

We can't have anything nice. It's like every five years there's a lynching and somebody whistled at a white lady. It's ridiculous. Like all that history of the South that you've ever heard of that, you know. All the bad stuff? You know, reconstruction bad shit. It's like this town is littered with it from back then. They love it.

A yellow fever epidemic in 1898 resulted in the quarantine of Starkville's railroads by the towns of West Point, Columbus, Artesia, and Koskewiskewarkis. Casacusco, Casacusco. So they said, we don't want any of your shit. It's all infected with the yellow peril here. No good. The yellow epidemic fever, whatever the fuck it's called. So this resulted in a depletion of medical and other supplies. They had nothing and nobody would give them anything.

So then the state had to intervene. And I assume dropped things from a rope because that's just how they do things here. You lower your prisoners. That's how you're getting your IV bags. We don't know anything about this town, so let's find out a little bit about it with some reviews of this town. Let's see what we got here. Here's five stars. I love it here.

I've been living in Starkville ever since last year. My kids love it here, but the police is bad here. We'll pull you over for anything. Lord. Boy, oh, boy. They're really flexing that 47th in education. They really are hard. Boy, boy.

So they will pull you over for anything, Lord. and there's no punctuation there, so they'll pull you over for anything, Lord. Oh, boy. Lord. Three stars. Yeah. Yeah. I love the hometown hospitality.

I love how the community welcomes you with open arms. Except the cops. Well, they're welcoming you by introducing themselves by pulling you over. I love how the community welcomes you with open arms. The things I would love to see change would have to be the roads. So many students and so many potholes. This is on the outskirts of where Mississippi State University is. So a lot of the people that live here are Mississippi State students because it's cheaper to live out here.

So that's kind of how it goes. I don't think they're making the potholes, though. I think that's a whole other issue. And I don't think they're just in the road, right? I just wandering through the roads causing potholes. Here's two stars. There are lots of bad neighborhoods and there's lots of robberies and some shootings here and there. We'll tell you what the crime rate is later, don't you worry, Chief?

Two stars, I grew up in Starkville. There are many genuinely nice people in Starkville. I believe it. When it starts out like that, that means there's a butt coming, I feel like. There's a bad reputation for it. Yeah. And there are a few local restaurants that have delicious food. Other than that, Starkville really doesn't have any entertainment, outdoor or otherwise.

Not much shopping opportunities either. The Knoxia bee refugee, a refuge, someone else, someone else, mention now charges $5 per person to enter. Sounds like an outdoor. Oh, so it's like a, yeah. Yeah. Next time or the last time, he says the let time, I assume he means last. The last time I was there, the trails were overgrown, so there's no real place to hike or camp.

Some people call it Stark Vegas. Why? I have no idea. And he lives there and has no ideas. How are we supposed to know? Ain't nothing Vegas about it. No, he said there is no similarity to Las Vegas at all, all caps. It is a dull, boring little town.

Okay. There must be, it must be dotted and surrounded by really shit towns. There is. They go here for fun. Yeah, MSU is there. Otherwise, nothing would be here. This is the middle of nowhere, pretty much. Two hours between Jackson and, you know, two and a half hours from Jackson and Birmingham.

One star, it's hard to imagine a worse place to live. I love that. I like when you start out hot. That's good. Really let us know where you. how you feel. The only good thing about Starkville is MSU and unfortunately some wretched departments such as landscape architecture managed to mar the town as well. I don't know if the landscape architecture department at the school or at the town. What are we talking about?

Perhaps they planted some trees they don't like. I'm not sure. Well, people in this town, 24,000, 578. Yeah, a lot of that is because of the college. Yeah. There is more men than women. in here, which is odd for a college town. Fellow's trying to get smart around here. 49.7% women. Yeah, they're trying to get smart, but they only have is each other to talk to. If you're looking for a college town, wouldn't you be looking for, if you're a guy, you're looking for a good ratio, and that's not it right there.

Yeah. Imagine going to Northern Mississippi for higher education. That's what I mean, yeah. MSU is a sports school mainly, right? Is it? I don't know enough to know about it. Maybe they have some department that's renowned. but they also have a basketball team.

I think that's the main issue. Their big engineering program down there. Did the – heaters and toilet seats? I think did the basketball team make the tournaments the main concern here, probably? Their engineering department is a lot of duct tape. Not sure.

Median age 27 because of the college again. Family, 37.8% married, again, lower than the national average because of all of the college kids. But 23% are – single with children. So these kids, they're fucking, no choice. Race in this town, 57.5% are white, 36.1% black, I'm sorry, 3.3% Asian and 1.5% Hispanic. We have 48.8% of the people here are religious, which is actually below the national average. But the highest one, not surprisingly, is Baptist with 27%. As we know, Baptists are the kids.

Catholics of the South, as we found out there. 0.0% Jewish. Hmm. Wow, you got a whole college and not one. Not a single, not a one, not, not one Jewish kid walking around. That seems weird. Unemployed really miss that matzabal. If you were, you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah. You'd miss a lot. At least get yourselves a deli something. This is terrible down there. Unemployment here is about average. Median household income here is. because of the college, too. It's lower.

34,391. So about half the national average, essentially. That's not good. And cost of living is a little bit lower. It's only an 81 out of 100. So that's not bad. Median home costs here, $228,100. All right.

Which still seems high. I don't know. Sounds like it. Well, we'll let you decide here with the Starkville, Mississippi, real estate report. average two-bedroom rental here goes for $790, which is low. It's about $500 under the national average. It's incredibly inexpensive. Good for a college town, I would say.

The house is here is one. It's the strangest house I've ever seen. It's not like squared off in the front. It's got like a bow, like a reversed bay window. That's the front door is on this weird thing like that. And there's these two, it's the strangest looking house I've ever seen. It's real weird. Two-bedroom, two-bath.

technically T-Bull for every B-hole. 899 square feet. Small, small lot. A little tiny house. $120,000 for that. God, Jesus. The next one's a three-bedroom, three-bath. Again, T-Bull for each and every bee-hole here.

1480 square feet. It's a brick house. It looks pretty nice, actually. It's got like the nice brick steps up the front. Great. Nice house inside, nice hardwood floors, stuff like that. Could use some updating. It was built in 2008.

Looks like it hasn't been touched since, and I believe there are possibly some broken windows on the side. So you might have to watch out for that. $226,900 for that. And then finally, this thing, which looks like a barn from the outside. It looks like old barn wood on it. It might be reclaimed in Barn Dominium. It's possible, but it's a three-bedroom, three-bath, 2,328 square foot house. Good size house.

That's done lovely on the inside, too. It's really nice. It's on 25 acres of land. Yeah. It's a whole shitload of land. Built to look like patina? Like on an old truck? No.

Yeah, kind of. But it looks, no, it looks like... Is it rustic on purpose? You know what it looks like? You know, in like Disneyland when you're going into like by Splash Mountain and shit? There had Frontierland before they made it, whatever the fuck it is now. And that's everything looked like that. Like the roller coaster and Frontierland?

Sure, sure. That's what it all looks like that. Thunder Mountain. Thunder Mountain. It looks like. Thunder Mountain, like the base of Thunder Mountain. I guess that's, I mean, that was designed and rustic on purpose. So maybe that's what it is.

It's definitely on purpose. Yeah, because it was built in 2023. So it's not. Oh, Jesus. It's reclaimed Barnwood. Totally. $1,000. $1,000.

$5,000. Listen to this, $950,000 price cut, they just had. They took $1 million off of it? This bad boy. Yep. It was $2,025,000 before that. They couldn't get it. Nope.

Things to do in this town. All right. We have the festival here. What is this? The old main music festival. It's going to be good, isn't it? It's at the MSU Amphitheater in Starkville. It's going to be great.

Free admission. Wow. The Moss. Day glow. The Rumble featuring Chief Joseph Boudreau Jr. Oh, boy. Harley Hogue. Yeah, that's a, I think that's a...

We're going to say a country singer. Yeah, it's Harley Hogue. Yeah, obviously, country, yeah. It's definitely not a rapper. I think I've heard of that one, though. Smokey's. Nope. T-W-R-T-Chamberland.

T-W-U-R-T-Camberland. I'm interested. I want to hear it. Stickhouse. Arnie Brenn, the Sharp Sisters. No. Briston Moroni. I take it back.

I don't know that home person. There's no way I know that. No. Bristin Maroni, O.D. Lee, Mississippi Shakedown, Sonic Voyager, Samuel Young, crooked deal, but like somebody's last name with an eye and an H. That's pretty funny. Got a crooked deal. The pink sheets. Uh-huh.

And Robert Brister. It feels like they... Sounds like Bobby Brister. Fucked up. Yeah. Yeah. They had the opportunity to really. have a good show.

But it is free. They did not. Yeah. It's free. I think it's one of those for student type of deals. And there's also the... Charge 10 bucks get good acts. Yeah.

That would help. This is bad. There's also the Del Fest at Dave's Dar Horse Tavern. Okay. We have the... Jesus, these are hard to read. Flathead Ford. Slambo.

Okay. What is this? Parallax. Tashiva. too proud to beg Hope and the local Something I can't even read that Isn't that a salt and pepper

TLC? Who's saying that? Too proud to Ain't too proud to beg That's TLC right No it's a fucking It's like the four tops or something No I mean in the 90s That was ain't too proud to beg

I think it's TLC Well maybe if they copied it from the four tops Yeah of course Yeah that would be Crime rate in this town Property crime is A little bit high About 25% over the national

average, which is what you get in a college town. Yeah. That's drinking in the street and shit like that. Violent crime, murder rape robbery and, of course, assault. The Mount Rushmore of crime, the real problems. Some of those are drinking crimes, too. Well, eventually they can lead to that. It's about one quarter below the national average.

Okay. Pretty safe, but, you know, maybe don't leave your car window open. Some drunken college kid might piss in it or finger his girlfriend in there. Annoying scarmishes. You never know. Let's see here. That said, let's talk about some murder. What do you say?

Let's do it. Let's fucking do it. All right. Let's talk about a lady first. Christy with an eye. With a K? Yeah, with a K and an eye. Christy Lee.

Christy Lee, L-E-I-G-H. Christy Lee. This reminds me of... Very, very southern. Yeah. Christy Lee's very righteous gemstones. Amy Lee, Judy Lee. Fuljum.

And that is F-U-L-G-H-A-M. Now that'll be her married name, as we'll talk about. I believe her name was Edmund. to begin with. Okay, she's born August 27th, 1976. She's from the Starkville area. Her childhood's a fucking mess. It is a mess. Her father, Danny, was gone most of her infancy, never paid child support. Ad a boy. Popped up later on, you know, when she got a little bit older, eight, nine, and was good enough to be around to rape her at age 11 as well, according to her. Jesus, Danny.

Very nice. That's when dad just abandons you, it's bad enough. You know what I mean? Or if he just molest you, it's bad enough. But when he abandons you, then when you finally get to see him, he molests you, that's probably, I think, the worst possible combination that you could lay down on a kid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Justifying why I didn't want you around in the first place.

Yeah, it's fucking horrific. Well, no, that is he, like, just wait until he thought you were attractive to want you around. Like, what the fuck, man? Not good. That's what it would seem like here. Her mother, Carol, Carol Morgan, had multiple marriages, multiple divorces, most involving abusive alcoholic stepfathers who beat the shit out of everyone in the house. That poor lady.

That is not good, man. What is she seen? Oh, yeah. Where'd she come from? I'm sure her dad wasn't a real peach if she'd marrying all these guys. Her dad was a fun. Real upstanding folks. Nightmare, probably an alcoholic abuser, I would assume.

Just of... Tends to land that way. You know. So very... Christy's mother married Christy's... Or married her first husband at 16 years old. Yeah. And then the Christy's dad was one of the successive guys after that.

She got married a lot. Later on, a social worker would say that Christy lacked parental bonding. Grew up around drugs and alcohol and never developed the kind of emotional foundation. foundation that produces a, you know, fully healthy and functional. Well-rounded individual. Emotionally. She has, as you can imagine, with all these stepfathers and all this alcoholism, several half-siblings, as you can.

This is one of those where she probably doesn't even know all of her step brothers and sisters. Christy's really got it rough. She's got it tough. Yeah. One of her half-brothers is Tyler Wayne Edmonds. He's born June 14, 1989. So he's a young guy.

when this is all going on. Edmunds, meaning like the same father maybe, or maybe they all have their moms last name? Yeah, no, no, this is her father's kid. Okay. Yeah, that's her half-brother, her father's son. Now, he lived with his mother mainly, which is probably for the best.

For the best. And a stepfather in the area. We know his parents, there was kind of an acrimonious breakup and shit like that. Oh, boy. It was tough on Tyler. And Tyler's like a little blonde kid, too. He's like one of those little,

like he looks like every mom would Go, look at how cute that little kid is. He's a little blonde kid, you know, one of those with cheeks and shit. The world ain't easy on us, though, when we're poor is we look dirty as fuck. When a blonde white kid, any little bit of dirt on you, you look a scoundrel. Yeah, yeah. You look disgusting. When were you, you were blonde when you were a kid?

Yeah. Yeah. I was blonde right up until I was like fucking 12. Oh, 12. And you started dying your tips like a day. Yeah. I tried to maintain just on the end. my 20s. Look, I'm still blonde.

That's fucking fun. I waited until I was 21 to really, really get after it. You know, after the trended set. That's when you want to do it. Really, once it's, once it's dead and buried, you want to go, okay. I'm going to bring this shit back. Yeah. So he lived with his mother, Sharon, mainly, Sharon Clay and a stepfather, like I said. He had limited contact with his father, Danny's family, which seems like it's probably good. That's good. Yeah. Somebody was looking out for. for the best until Christy connected with him. She was looking for her family, and she connected with him when he was about 10 or 11,

about 99, 2000. Christy connected with him, and they bonded because they came from the same environment, broken homes, tough upbringings. And she, I guess, felt bad for him. And it's a little brother, and a little brother by a good distance of 12, 13 years. So it's protective, you know what I mean?

Her friend said this. This is her friend. Quote, her friend Valley said, quote, she was trashy, just to be honest with you. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I believe she was just pure white trash. That's what her friend said. So that's her pal. Imagine if I described you as that.

Oh, he's just pure white trash. You probably should. Some people are trash and he's just trash. No, but you put, you are like, you're performatively trashy. You're not actually trashy. No, I am 100% from trash. Yeah, so am I, but you're 40 fucking 5 years old. That doesn't matter.

Now I'm not. Yeah. Now I'm bread white trash with a taste for decent booze. Yeah. That's not bad. That's not bad at all. I just wanted fucking food. That's all I'm looking for.

Food and health insurance. I was happy to have that. 1991, Christy gets married. Uh-huh. Okay. She's 15 at the time. Yeah. Let that settle.

Married. Yeah. Married at 15. That's... I can't believe it's legal. It's fucking... That shouldn't be. No.

I can't believe it's legal. This is wild. In the 90s? In 1991. That's unbelievable. She's fucking Arsenio was doing like whoop, whoop, and she's getting married at 15. Like, it's way... Michael Jordan is all the rage.

He barely won a championship. It just happened. Just won us first. It's bananas right now, though, for Michael Jordan. No, dream team's about to happen. I mean, this is like, this is the fucking 90s. They're about to go to Barcelona and blow the lid off this basketball thing. We have discovered turtles that are actually mutants that can do karate.

Do you understand? That's what we've discovered by now. The world is advanced. And a 15-year-old's getting married. And she marries a guy who's 17. Not kidding. At least that's not abusive anyway. At least it's a normal high school relationship.

just, hey, maybe wait, I don't know, 10 years or so. It's a precarious spot to be in in law to be like you can't marry a... But you're both minor. They're both children. Neither of you should be able to get married. That's the point. This is Joseph Thomas Fulgium. Joey, he goes by, born in 74, so two years older.

He's got a brother named Shannon, who he's close with. They work together. And they served in the Mississippi National Guards, 155th Armored Brigade together. Sure. Shannon says about Joey, Joey's a great guy. He never had any enemies. So that's good. By the time he becomes an adult, Joey, he's working at a local car dealership with his brother Shannon. So he's always with his brother Shannon. Good thing she found him. Seems to be a good dude. He seems like a very solid guy. Everybody said the one thing that people said about him. And this is what's odd that she would be attracted to him. Because usually without. You know, this is like after 10 years of therapy, you'd be attracted to the opposite. But at 15, you'd want to marry the guy who's, you know, got a flask in his pocket and is going to backhand you if you say anything wrong in the front seat of the car, that sort of shit.

Yeah, you tend to gravitate to what you've seen. Yeah. So he was, people described him as steady. Everybody said he's not flashy, just very reliable, very steady guy, Joey. Yeah. Which he's going to be, you think she might get bored with that. I mean, it's not going to be exciting. Nope.

Shannon, by the way, as a wife named Kim, just because she'll come up later. So people, one person who knew both Joey and Christy said when Joey met Christy, he was really, really committed. He fell head over heels in love with her. She was a charming person. She was pretty, and she knew how to work her charms. Hmm.

Work her charms. I like that. That's interesting. What does that mean? I knew how to put it out there, make people attract. to her worker charge. Yeah. Her personality, she knows what's attractive about her.

Yeah, or at least knows how to attract others. You know what I mean? How to reel them in. Yeah, probably. And the sad part is a lot of times, too, especially little girls who have been sexually abused when they're younger, they're tapped into that part very early. and so they seem like they're more mature and more alluring than the younger girls or the other girls that are around there. But in reality, they're just, they've been abused and that's why they're tapped into that at 15. I suppose there's two different ways those girls go too because a lot of them also go back the entire opposite where they are just so reclusive and so.

It's like if you're a pastor's daughter, it's the same thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, one way or the other. It's either environment. Any extremes in raising kids is bad. Isn't that fascinating? Yeah. You go extreme one side or the... You don't just run it right up the middle.

It's like you should just be normal or something. Yeah. Yeah. Like you should just be normal or something. Just like not abuse your kids and also not stuff a bunch of fairy tales up their ass either. And, you know, and make that to where they think they're going to hell if they make one false step. Because that's not healthy either. So now, Christy and Joey are going to have some kids, of course.

They have two kids here. Well, three kids actually, but we'll talk about this. Tyler and Darien are their other sons. and then there's a daughter named Haley as well. Yeah. And we'll talk about this. How big are the gaps? We don't know exact gaps here, but it's, that's less relevant than something else about the kids that we're going to talk about here.

Not sure. Now, Christy is not faithful at all to Joey. Really? Not even a little bit. You surprised? She told me, you get together 15. There's no sanctity to marriage. Weird.

Also that you get together at 15 and then go, that's it forever. I'm good. That's it. I'm good at 15. Wow. Imagine, okay, think of the girl, if you had a girlfriend when you were 15 or the girl you liked when you were 15. Imagine you're married to her still. No.

Fuck no. I can think about a girl I went out within 10th grade and go, yeah, I married that girl. That would be crazy. I haven't talked to that girl in 30 years. Fuck, no. Yeah. How crazy would that be? Also, it's crazy.

Everybody think about that right now. It's not far beyond the stretch of reality either that the importance of sex with just one person is torn away after you've been raped by your fucking father. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's absolutely. Sex means nothing anymore. That's, well, it's a tool sometimes too. Or it's a just, I mean, that's, you know, that is just how it works.

That's science of psychology, you know. So anyway, year 2000 comes around. Okay. This is when things get out of fucking control. We've only had... They've married eight years. They've got three kids. Yeah.

Rocky is shit. And it's going to get even rockier because... Wow. And she's only like 23 at this point, too. That's the crazy part. Yeah. Yeah. We've only had this happen like twice in the history of our show where the couple involved in our story went on a goddamn talk show to talk about...

Where'd they go? Montel Williams. They're going fucking Montel Williams, which was like Jerry Springer Light, basically. Montel wouldn't let people fight. Yeah, he'd come in and be like, oh, oh, now, come on now. And he'd have this whole thing, whereas Jerry would just shrugging up. Sort it out right now. I guess throw a chair at him.

I don't know what to tell you. Ah, people are crazy. Hey, they're crazy. And then Jenny Jones would just have you kill the person. See how that works? Jenny would throw him a knife. Yeah, here you go. So they go on.

You look under your chair, each of you, that's a knife. Whatever happens happens. I mean, by the way, that thing that you're really scared of, he wants to do that to you. Don't cut away. Jesus Christ. So on this episode, Christy reveals, this brought Joey on Montel Williams to reveal a secret to him. Oh, no. The secret that this fucking woman brings him on national television to reveal is that Haley is not his child.

Oh, you asshole. His daughter that he's been raising for years is not his. TV is the best place to do that. Not in a fucking Olive Garden or something. I like your whole family to see this. Jesus. I get publicly so we don't make a scene, but, you know, go to a Denny's. Don't do this.

This is crazy. Go to a Waffle House. They're used to that shit. I believe there's a section for that at the Waffle House, right? Does she know? Does she know whose it is? I don't know. Don't they have a reveal your...

Gender reveal. Reveal to your spouse. Paternal reveal. Yeah, paternity reveal. Is it like paternal reveal or smoking? We only have those. By the way, you can smoke and paternal reveal, too. We just don't know if you want that section.

So, anyway, yeah, she got pregnant. She does know the guy. She got pregnant by one of... This is the wild part. Wasn't even her boyfriend, who she got pregnant by. It was her boyfriend's best friend. So she's got a husband and she's got a boyfriend, and she's also banging the boyfriend's best friend.

She's got two boyfriends. Yeah. She's cheating on the guy she's cheating with. She's cheating on the guy she's cheating on with the guy that she's cheating on. It's confusing. It's a vortex of cheating. A vortex of dishonesty is what this is. Yeah, sex means nothing to Christy.

No, so Montel said, your husband agreed to go ahead and what, be the father of this baby? Uh-huh. And Christy said, he said that it didn't matter who she belonged to that he was going to be her daddy. Yeah.

So then Joey finds out that he had a baby, you know, she had a baby with, by the way, the guy that she had a baby with, like the guy, The guy who she was cheating with, Joey knew that guy. I don't know if he knew the friend who fathered this baby, but either way, it's gross. Joey said, doesn't matter. She's mine.

I mean, not legally, but Montel said, that didn't tell you maybe it was time to get a divorce. And Joey said, I did, but I love her. This poor Joey. Both. He is hung up. He loves Christy and Haley. Well, he said a divorce. I mean, I assume he was referencing Christy at that point.

So 2002 during this time, she's dating a guy named Kyle Harvey. Okay. Now, not only is she dating Kyle Harvey, she's also dating Kyle Harvey's friend, Chris Kelly, at the same time. She's dating everybody. So, yeah, when she finds someone to cheat with, she's got to find her vetting process includes, do they have a cute best friend? Yeah. Which is pretty weird. So March 2002, Chris.

Christy moves out of Joey's house or her house with Joey, the marital home here. She and her three children begin living with Kyle Harvey and Jackson. Yeah. Okay. Then November in 2002, I guess this is discovered way later, but Christy wrote a letter addressed to Kyle Harvey. And it was written in November of 2002. And here is part of the letter. Okay.

Kyle, I guess you could tell I was annoyed. You need to get more friends that are more attractive and have bigger penises because that, no. The selection around here is getting thin. It's getting rough around here. I'm sick of being broke and we are over $600 in the hole. Now, if you're Kyle, you'd go, I don't know, maybe talk to your husband. Yeah. I'm not married to you.

Yeah. She lives there with a weekend. $600 is where we're negative. the moment and it's ruining us. We're upside down, 600 in the red. So not good. She said, I personally don't like to struggle. Oh, don't you?

No. Who does? I would do anything to ensure that I don't ever have to struggle. I don't have any money for Christmas and that pisses me off. You make no sense to me. You say you're sick and can't work, but I deal with being sick. I deal with it all the time. She doesn't have a job, by the way.

She's sick, too? She doesn't have a job either. So she's not going to work. If you were that sick, too sick to go to work, you should have gotten up early and gone to see the doctor. Well, then you'd be even further in the hole. Yeah. Yeah. We're already six under.

Yeah. So at this point, she is upset that she's moved out, moved in with this guy, and they don't have, he's not supporting them well enough, apparently. So late 2002 is when, remember Tyler Edmonds, her half brother? That's when he starts hanging out all the time with Christy. He's 20-something now? No, he's 13. Oh, 13 in 2002? Yeah, he was born in 89.

He's in the eighth grade. So he would routine, this is when she went back and forth between Kyle and Joey for a while. So when she was over it with Joey, that's where he lives in that area. Tyler would stay with them, I guess, every other weekend or so. Just all the time be over there. Now, Tyler, from what everybody says, is a sweet kid. Yeah. all of his teachers, the neighbors all say, oh, no, he's a sweet kid, no trouble out of that one.

He's an angel, they say. How fucked is this story that I thought you were about to say he has all of his teeth? At 13. He said all of his teeth, and I was like, oh, does he? Oh, wow. That's so nice of that. Good for him. At 13.

So he was from West Point, Mississippi, and even teachers described him as very polite, and one of those kids that's more comfortable around adults than kids' own age. So an old soul type Kind of kid here He's got no like he never got in trouble at school for anything Never got written up Never got a referral Never got in a fight

Never got sent to the principal's office Nothing He fucking loves Christy You know As you do kind of worship an older sibling Who is that much older than you You just think they're so fucking cool Yeah pretty amazing

And also she's like this connection through his family, his dad that he doesn't see that much. Sure. There's something there. He wrote in a school essay, quote, I love my sister more than I love myself. That's sweet. That's how he feels about Christy.

Christy is his only connection to his father's side of the family. Okay. That's it. His mother did not want him seeing his father. Yeah. Which by the fact that Christy says, Danny molested her, you can understand why.

Yeah, for sure. Christy would arrange visits behind Sharon's back, though. Not cool. With dad? With dad. Yeah, I'll pick you up and I'll act like I'm taking you out for fucking Coldstone and then we'll go see Dad. She's got Danny in her life somehow.

That's fucking crazy. She absolutely, I can't imagine. That's what I mean. She needs, like, a lot of therapy. She loves turmoil. Like years of it. I mean, it's a lot. chaos is her friend.

Chaos is her jam. Yeah. And how is, hmm, what, Tyler, how does he, how does he fall in love with her? It's a sister. It's his older sister.

Yeah, but you gotta see her life's a fucking disaster, right? Not to a 13 year old. I guess not. A 13 year old, if you have a car. Yeah. And like a, and a key that goes in a lock,

you're an adult that's doing great. You don't know that she's 600 in the hole and all that or whatever. She has no idea. Yeah, he's not looking at the fucking checkbook and see. if it balances or not. Nope.

He's just thinking, wow, she's super cool. She seems to have her life together. And she's nice to me and has time for me, even though she has three kids. So she took him to the beach. She would let him stay up late when they were there because he's a child. I mean, he's 12, 13 years old. She, he craved her approval, essentially.

A friend of Tyler's later said, I can't think of the word people use, groomed. I feel like she was kind of. of grooming Tyler to be her little puppet. I can't think of that word. Hold on. Wait. Got it. Groomed. Hold on. I can't think of the grossest word ever. To nail right on the nose.

Yeah. The grossest word ever. I can't think of it. Oh, there it is. Found it. Right here in my pocket. Wow. So by early 2003, Christy isn't doing much. She has no job, no income. She's dicking off. She moved out.

She's moved out and moved in with Kyle and then moved back with Joey several times by now. Wow. Yeah. She's trying at this point to move back in with Joey and reconcile. So she told Kyle during this time, even though she's still banging Kyle on the side. She's not ending her affair. She's just trying to make the marriage work inside here. She's got a side gig with this marriage thing that she's got going on.

She told Kyle she's about to inherit three. $300,000 from her grandmother. Her family's got that kind of cash. Apparently, grandma saved up some cash, and she's not doing well. She's about to kick off, and Christy's rubbing her hands together going, she's going to hand it right to Christy. That's right. Divorce papers were filed between her and Joey at some point, but nothing was followed through on.

Christy was living part-time with Kyle and Jackson, part-time in Longview, which is an area right outside of Starkville with Joey. She was looking at houses near Jackson, too, and telling Kyle that she'd pay for a house with her grandmother's inheritance. So she has some plates spinning, like one on her foot and one on her like nipple. She's got a story about the plan, though. Yeah. She does. Shannon, who is Joey's brother, he really summed it up, I think, perfectly.

He said, quote, he loved her for some crazy reason. Ha! Just kept coming with it. Yep. She cheated on him, lied to him, humiliated him, made a jackass out of him in front of Montel Williams. That's good. That's, I mean, you come back and file then, right? As soon as they say cut, we're filing. Yeah.

We're done at that point. I don't even know that I'm sitting through this segment. That's the other thing. He sat there the whole time and was like, I just want to make it work. And it's like, what are you talking about, dude? Like a nice guy, obviously, but too nice for his own good. I mean, you got to have some sort of. Yeah, the woman broke to me that my child ain't my child.

It's over. It's over. Regardless of the venue from which she passes that information. It doesn't matter. No. I'm not sticking around. Denny's or Geraldo. It's still happening the same.

Couldn't give a fuck. Don't give a shit. Sally, Jesse, eating my ass. I'm leaving. That's it. So March 2003. Yeah. Christy is spending even more time with Tyler.

Tyler's hanging around more and they're getting pretty close here. During the same time, too, it looks like Joey's mom got married. I found an announcement in the paper and it says, yeah, Ruth Cash and him, okay, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, Joey and Shannon, the brothers gave their mother away. It has to be them. Has to be them. And she looks like she got married to a guy that is maybe half her age, possibly, but from the picture. Really?

It looks like, I'm not sure. The guy in the picture looks like he could be her son. Maybe he just does a lot of indoor work. I'm not sure. He looks pretty goddamn young. It's weird. Okay. So also in now in April of 2003, Christy calls Joey's job to ask about his life insurance.

Oh? Yeah. How much and who's the beneficiary of this life insurance? Now, the person who took the call told her that Joey had signed a privacy statement and they couldn't allow, they weren't allowed to discuss it with anyone but him unless he gave written permission. That's the way that we keep people from getting murdered. That's kind of our murder. We call it a murder block. It's just a little piece you stick in there.

It's the clause in our contracts that keep our clients safe. Keep us from having to pay out constantly, if you know what I mean. It's really for our own good. I don't want anybody to know how valuable they are, dad. No. May of 2003, Christy and the kids move back in to Joey's. And this is supposed to be permanent. She says they're going to try to make it work.

It's going to happen. This is the first week of May in 2003. Okay. Friday, May 9th, 2003. Shannon, Joey's brother. Yeah. They said he worked with Joey at the car dealership. And they were paid every Friday around lunchtime.

That's when they got their check. So they said that day, May 9th, it was a Friday, and Joey cashed his paycheck for about $1,020 and had put his money in his wallet. Yeah. A week? I don't have any idea if it's a week or a month. So no way of knowing that. $1,020 he's got and he puts it in his wallet. He and Joey had planned to attend an air show on May 10th the next day, Saturday.

Now, while that's going on here, Kyle, remember Kyle, Christy's boyfriend, he's saying that he and Christy had planned a trip to the Mississippi Gulf Coast for Mother's Day weekend that weekend. It's Mother's Day, and she's going to spend it with her boyfriend and the kids on the Mississippi, Mississippi Gulf Coast. She's a mom. Nothing says, Mom, like put the bottoms of your ass cheeks in everybody's face this weekend. about his face and head down with your boyfriend to the Gulf. Yeah. I don't care. You could be a mom and hang your ass out all you want.

But if you're doing it with your boyfriend, that's the issue. Not your husband. You're trying to live. Yeah. You're trying to start anew with your husband, right? Yeah, that's how it looked like. Now, she said, don't worry about it. I'll pay for the trip.

Oh, because he said, I can't afford that. Remember, you were just complaining that we don't have any money. Well, six on dough underwater. She said, I'll pay for it. even though she is completely unemployed, has no job. We don't know where he's like, I don't know where she's getting money, but fine. Of course it is. So I guess Christy picked up her brother, Tyler, 13 years old, on Friday night,

and she had later called Tyler at 6 a.m. the next morning, 6.30 a.m. to say she was on the way. Now, here's what happened. The night before, Friday night, Joey's stepfather, who he's like a real dad to him type of thing. his name is David Knoll. Apparently, the two boys, Daryan and Tyler, routinely spend Friday nights with him over at his house. All right. That's a normal thing. So David Nol said he picked up Tyler and Daryan, not Tyler Edmonds, the brother, Tyler the son. It's confusing, sorry.

Everybody in Mississippi names their kid fucking Tyler. Tyler's a very popular. Very popular. Yeah. Yeah. He picked them up between four and four-thirty people. PM on Friday, March, or Friday, May 9th. He said that Christy and the three kids and Tyler Edmonds, not Tyler's son, were at home at the time.

So he went to pick her, pick them up. She was home with the kids and her brother. Christy said that she's going to pick up Tyler and Darien early the next morning because she's taking them on a trip that weekend to the coast. Right. Cold Coast. So that night, we got Joey and brother Tyler and Chris. all in the house together.

That's who's left. They get subway. Yeah, got to have some subway. 2003, that was a big, big time for them. Eat fresh, motherfucker, $5 foot long. That shit is crushing. Yeah. So they get subway.

Joey ends up going to bed at some point. Christy's up on the computer, dicking off. At some point in the evening, she tells Joey to go sleep in the kids' bedroom, which is the master bed. They give the master to the kids. I guess they share it. It's biggest. Everybody stays there.

So, okay, the next morning, David, Joey's stepfather with the kids there, says that Christy called him between 4.30 and 5 in the morning. So why even have the kids over? Like, what's the point? She's getting up early for this, Ron. Yeah, it makes no sense. You think she'd say, you know what, next weekend? Yeah.

Because we're going to leave at 4.30 in the morning. So why don't I just keep the kids? This is stupid to send them. there for an hour. Want to wake up at 4.35 in the morning? Fine. Take them. Get them ready. So Saturday morning comes and she arrived a little after 5 p.m. to pick up Darien and Tyler. Wow. Son Tyler. Yeah. Christy then calls Kyle, the boyfriend, on Saturday morning and informed him that she was on her way to Jackson, which we know is about two hours away. She, her two children, and Tyler, the brother. So three kids, Tyler. Tyler. Darian, Haley, and brother Tyler and Christy,

were all waiting at Kyle's apartment when he got home from work on Saturday morning at 10.30 or 11 a.m. That's either the worst shift in the world or he works part-time. I'm not sure. Either that or he worked from 30 in the morning on Friday night, which would be weird. Kyle says then they went down to the coast. He said that Christy had a large amount of cash on her.

Yeah. She was paying for everything with cash and having a good old time down there. Great. Having a blast. Saturday, May 10th, 2003 at 11 a.m. Shannon, Joey's brother, calls Joey up because they're going to the air show. What are we doing? What's the plan? Joey didn't answer the phone calls.

Shannon called around 11, 11.30. So then Shannon said he went by the house about noon to say, what the fuck? We're supposed to go to this air show. He knocks on the door. Joey doesn't fucking answer. He's like, what an asshole. Joey, yeah. Yeah, Jesus Christ.

We got tickets to this air show. This is crazy. Go see the Blue Angels. What are we doing? So, Christy, which she's doing Saturday, she's hanging out with Kyle and the kids at the beach. They're having a good old time. Kyle says that Christy's paying cash for everything, food,

their hotel room, souvenirs. Yeah. And she's not like being cheap either. The kids say, Mommy, she buys it. I mean, it's easy. So there they are, Christy and Kyle and everybody in the kids, and they spend Saturday night on the kids. coast and they return to Jackson Sunday evening. That's the plan. Okay. Now, Sunday comes around

May 11, 2003, Shannon still can't get a hold to Joey, which is not like Joey. He always talks to Shannon. So he skipped the air show all together, huh? He skipped it, no call, no show. Just no call, no air show, nothing. So he ends up breaking into the house to see if Joey's in there, which is wild. He cuts the screen on Joey's living room window. And I was like, holy shit. That is crazy. What are you?

Some kind of cat burglar on your night in addition to selling cars? What's going on here? I've never, I've broken into my family's houses before, but never destroyed the fucking house. On the way in. You find an open window, you know, do this shit.

So he gets in at 5.30 p.m. And he finds Joey lying face down in a bed and sees blood. Yeah. So he just calls 911. He doesn't even look into what he calls. 911 right away, as you should do. He calls 911. On the call, he's very under control and very matter of fact.

Like, he's trying to hear him breathing and being like, I'm going to be a calm person that gives the facts that are necessary and not a hysterical 911 person. You know what I mean? Also, I've just broken into a home where there's now a dead body. Where there's a dead body. I look real guilty. I mean, it is his brother, so it looks less guilty. So the sheriff said just matter of fact is the way he sounded that something happened and to his brother and he felt like he knew who did it.

He's on 911 saying not only I think my brother's dead, but I think I know who killed him as well. I already cracked the case, guys. And she said, you need to look into his wife, Christy, right away. So they get to the scene. This is the crime scene here. And the chief investigator for the county sheriff's department received a call to head there, homicide. So he found Joey lying face down with a gunshot wound to the head. Now, he searched the home for evidence but found no shell casings anywhere.

So that's a good fact. At least you know what kind of gun it was or you know what kind of gun it isn't anyway right away. Or the person cleaned up the crime scene. You know they're a pro. Either one. He also said he couldn't find Joey's wallet anywhere. Okay. So robbery could be a motive here.

And he said the carpet in the living room had the faint outline of a computer sitting. There was still a monitor and a keyboard, but no actual tower. And there's an outline on the carpet of where a tower was. It's been there a while. Absolutely. And the house is ransacked besides that. Drawers are open. Shit's knocked over.

Looks like a robbery. So Joey's body here that we found, this is tough. It's an entrance wound located at the back of his house. head and they extract a small caliber bullet about a 22. They're pretty positive, but it is here. They say that his death occurred approximately 36 to 48 hours before he was found. So that would put him Friday night at some point. Oh, wow.

I would imagine after the subway sandwiches. We knew he was alive at a certain point. You know what I mean? And then we know he's not. So they determined through autopsy that it was about 30. 46 to 48 hours. Still got that sweet onion chicken terriaki in there. Yeah.

You could definitely check his belly for toppings on this one. He ran it right through the garden. He got the full veggie. So he describes also that he was in a pretty advanced state of rigor. And there was a very foul odor caused by decomposition because it's been a couple of days. And it's May in Mississippi. It's crazy how fast it happens, man. We are not long for this world.

Oh, we are. Soon as we die. It's all falling apart. We're melting. Like a tomato. As soon as it turns, it's rapid. Not even a tomato like a banana. Yeah.

Good for about three hours and then it's garbage. As soon as you see some color on it, it's about to be real bad. It's bad. Speaking of bad, this is pretty bad. Discoloration of Joey's skin and tissue around his face and chest and separation of the skin from the under tissue. So, got the sloughing happening. Oh, no.

We're talking 48 hours of decomp. Just, it's bad. The entrance wound of the bullet, the location where the bullet fragment had lodged just behind and to the left of his left eye, and the pool of blood that had since separated into serum and clotted blood cells under Joey's head as well. Okay.

They said the bullet entered the back of his head and moved slightly downward toward the left eye, traveling the full length of the cerebral hemisphere. So as bad as it could be. Like a stab wound to your brain. All the way through. Like an ice pick. Yeah.

He said the wound was a 22, and they discovered a 22-calibre short round that he said that could have been shot, that the shot could have been fired as close to 24 to 24, or 12 to 24 inches away. So 1 to 2 feet away. Yeah. And, yeah.

22 mags. Yeah, which is. crazy. So shot in the back of the head. They were looking at everything. They were unable to find, like I say, the wallet, no shell casings. Yeah. Anything back, Presario. But they said the house appeared to be ransacked by home invaders. They even took the Dell. Yeah. Christ. He said they took away our gateway. Yeah, with the cows spots. He said it actually, this is the lead investigator. It actually looked like someone had come in and shot Joey in the back of the head, then robbed the house of certain items.

Right. So here's what we know. Here's the breakdown of facts from everything here. Sometime between late Friday night and early Saturday morning, the medical examiner said it couldn't have been too late Saturday. It had to be pretty early in the morning. Joey was shot once in the back of the head. They believe with a 22 caliber bolt action rifle.

That's what they believe. Oh. So the shot is fired at close range. They said he never moved. He was sleeping. Laying down. That's crazy. They said, quote, didn't look like he ever moved when he got shot, in my opinion.

That's what they say, the lead investigator. They say also a bolt action rifles a single shot weapon that doesn't eject shell casings unless you put a new one in. Exactly. And there's no casing or rifle on the scene either. Okay. His wallet is missing, and they know he cashed his $1,020 paycheck earlier that Friday. And it looks like the computer's been taken as well. Now, they go around and they really, honestly, for a rural Mississippi murder in 2003, they do a really thorough crime scene.

Not bad, huh? Really good. Yeah, the county of officials must know what they're doing. They said that these security lights around the house, they have security lights around the perimeter. But that four of the bulbs were unscrewed on their perimeter. Yeah. Which prevented them from automatically turning on. Yeah.

So we'll find out later if there's any way to find out who did that because there is. And it's interesting. So now where is Christy while all this is going on? The golf comes. Well, she's on her way back. Yeah. Her phone rings. Uh-huh.

And Tyler remembers brother Tyler. Yeah. not son Tyler, says, quote, heading back, Christy's phone rang and people were calling her left and right. She just got this look on her face. She said they found Joey dead. That's what he said later. So detectives need to talk to Christy, number one, because it is her husband. Right.

And number two, because the victim's brother on the 911 call said, you need to talk to his wife first. Call Christy. Yeah, call Christy or somebody she's fucking or somebody like that. So they locate Christy at her mother's house in Little Rock, Mississippi, which there's a Little Rock Mississippi, apparently. I don't know why. It's right there. Right there. So the sheriff said we started looking for Christy and we found her.

We found her in Little Rock, Mississippi at her mother's house. I sent men to Little Rock, Mississippi and talk to her that night. So, okay. But before they actually go there to talk to her, she shows up voluntarily at the sheriff's case. office here. Oh, so she beat him to the office. She's going to take a polygraph. She's very cooperative. She's crying. My poor Joey, oh, my God. We've been married since I was 15. We've met in fucking biology class for Christ's sake. I'm still drunk. I've been listening to Toby Keith all weekend. God, Jesus Christ. I'm so sad about this now. I know. No more salt, you know. I'm not looking for

that loss shaker of salt anymore. It's gone. I don't care. Hung over. Still got mud cake to my thighs. So then this is the whole thing. She's like, I don't know what happened. I, you know, Jesus is so terrible. Yeah. And then about an hour into questioning, it goes from, oh, this is terrible. I don't know what happened to.

Let me tell you what happened to him. Okay. She knows. Yeah. She says Tyler did it. Oh. Not son, Tyler, brother Tyler. Okay.

So, yeah. She said, this is terrible. I want to protect him because he's my little brother. He's been through a lot, you know, and he's only 13. But he killed Joey unintentionally. It was an accident. Oh. He said he was playing with the rifle.

And he accidentally shot it. And he didn't mean to. Yeah. You know, he said. Took it with him. Yeah. He said, so me wanting to protect him. Yeah.

You know, he's my older, my older sister. Sure. I tried to make it look like a robbery. So maybe people wouldn't look at poor Tyler. You know what I mean? Oh, she is not doing good. And they said, well, where's the murder weapon and shit like that? And she said, oh, on the way down on the coast, we disposed of it.

We threw it in the bayou. We just threw, yeah, it's in with the gators now. Good luck getting it. But, yeah. It's in a swamp. She said she threw the gun in a ditch along the highway. God, Jesus. It was never found.

So. Okay, so she went from, oh, my gosh, what happened? My poor Joey. You guys aren't piecing this together fast enough, so I'll fix it for you. Let me get your shit. I wanted you to go ahead and blame Tyler and he didn't. So anyway, Tyler did it. She said he was holding it up the gun, pretending like he was going to shoot Joey.

You know, like you do for fun. You know like you do for fun when you always point your guns at me and pretend you're going to shoot me? And then I laugh and then we have a good time and smoke a joint. You know that happens all the time? Right in your eye. No, it's fun. It cracks me up every time. It's hilarious.

I go do that thing. And then you do it and we laugh and laugh. So fun. So acting like she was going to shoot Joey or he was going to shoot Joey and the gun just accidentally went off. No, it didn't. He pulled the trigger. That's what happened. That's what happened.

Then she says, okay, tell you what, later on, she goes, it actually wasn't that. New story. Yeah, she said, again, she goes, and I wanted to protect his memory too, but Joey was a abusing me and the kids something terrible. Yeah? Which has never been brought up, never said. No one ever thought it. Not at all.

She said, yeah. And so I had told Tyler that. And Tyler waited until Joey went to sleep. And then Tyler crept into the bedroom and picked the rifle up. Now it's an assassination. And shot him because she had told Tyler that she had her father's 22. And she said, you know, and then Tyler just took that and ran with it. And crept and slept.

Wow. That's it. So she signs a two-page statement. Uh-huh. And that's that. It's not recorded this statement, by the way, not video or audio recorded. How long was it? Not sure.

But it took an hour for her to get to the story. Yeah. And she told another story. Yeah. And then she told another story. So three, four hours, I'm thinking here. Yeah, yeah. Now, in another room, they have Tyler.

He's 13. And when I say 13, he's a young 13. You know, there's, think about junior high, okay, middle school. There are kids who shave every day. Yeah. And there are kids who don't have a single hair in their armpit at 13. The same fucking grade, same age, same everything. It's just 13 is some people.

And he's a shelter. 13. Yes. And some people have gone through puberty and some haven't. And he looks like there is not a pub on this kid if you fucking went over him with a jeweler's loop. There is not a fucking pub anywhere to be found. Like he looks very blonde and very young and very,

He looks like he's 10, for Christ's saying. Real young. So it's interesting. So he's sitting in there. Now, the investigators had contacted his mother, Sharon, to ask her to bring Tyler in. Because he can't go there himself. He's fucking 13. He can't get there.

Load the kid up. Yeah. So Sharon later said, I told them they could talk to Tyler as long as I was present only because he was a minor. Yeah. Good answer. But that's not what happens, though. No? After a while.

No. Sharon and Tyler arrive at the sheriff's office here. Sharon is present for a while. Tyler is denying any knowledge of any murder. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know. I didn't do anything. He says, I spent the weekend at the beach with my sister.

I don't know what happened to Joey. What do you want for me? Yeah. So it's at this point they asked to take mom outside and talk to her for a second. Okay. So take Sharon outside and they go, listen. we need to speak with Tyler not in your presence because what he's telling us

doesn't match up to what Christie told us. Now, rather than saying maybe Christy's a liar, they're like, we want them to both have the same story, essentially. Yeah. And maybe he's, maybe he'll divulge a little more if mom's not there because he doesn't want to, that's what it really is. You don't want to rat yourself out in front of your mom.

And that's what it really is. Because if you see interrogations all the time, that happens a lot where they tell, they'll tell kids that. tell the adults like, listen, he's not going to talk in front of you. Right. So that's what they do, basically. So, but they tell her that, you know, we just want to make sure the stories match and whatever.

So she stays out. And then another deputy leads Tyler into the interrogation room alone at this point. So now it's a 13-year-old with experienced homicide detectives. How many? Deputies. There's at least two guys in the room. And any more than one is overwhelming to a 13-year. Yeah.

Remember when like the vice principal would talk to you as a 13 year old? Even that was like, whoa, this is heavy, man. Like these guys are homicide detectives. And then you're going to talk to the principal and the vice principal when you're really in trouble. Yeah. Wow. This room. I hate it here.

So here's the interrogation. So they're telling him, Christy said that you did this. That you did it. Yeah. So Tyler said. said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That didn't happen. And the deputy gets down in his face, and Tyler says, he said, are you calling me a liar boy?

In a real Mississippi way? I hate that so much. I know. And he said, I'm not calling you a liar, but I don't think my sister would say that. Okay. So they say, you want us to prove what she said? Yes. You did it.

And he said, okay. And they said, all right, fine. and they bring Christy into the room. They bring Christy into the room. What? This is not being recorded, mind you. This is, I've never heard of this before. Has anyone ever heard of this before?

No one's ever heard. We'll bring in the other, usually they're in the other room singing. You don't put them together. Not only do they put them together, they leave the room with no, no surveillance whatsoever on them. No cameras, no audio recorder, nothing. They leave the room. And let her talk it out. What the fuck?

Dude. Never heard of that before. Unprecedented. This is wild. We've done, this is episode 677. Never heard of this once. Why would you do that? Ever.

Look, y'all two stories aren't jiving. Y'all sit and think it over until it does. We'll be back. You'll come up with a story and then y'all tell us what it is and we'll just charge you both is how it works. Go ahead and knock on the door and we'll figure out who. Who's culpable? Wow. So she talks to them and then knocks on the door.

They let her out. Then the detectives re-enter and turn the cameras on. They had cameras. Oh, they have cameras, yeah. Well, why don't... Because that's for a statement, not the shit leading up to it. Yeah. That's why now most jurisdictions, when you watch an interrogation, the camera's on before they walk in the room.

They turn it out from the outside. and when they walk in, even that's on film. Them sitting there waiting for the cops is on film, drinking a bottle of water for 45 minutes. That's all part of it now to make sure the environment's right. I guess Saturday Live doesn't film the table read, so you got to get the story straight and then fucking lights camera action. That's right.

They don't want to waste film here too. No. We're talking about tapes back then. The county has a limited budget, if you understand. We got a limited budget down here on tapes. You got the tape over it. Yeah, so they said, or this is what he says, Tyler. Tyler says this.

We went. I came home because I didn't go to school Friday. Christy was in Jackson and she was supposed to pick me up. She'd been talking about doing it for a while because of the way. And then they cut him off and said, doing what? Yeah. Talking about doing what? He said, killing Joey.

Oh. Because, well, she kept talking about it. I didn't actually think she was serious. She came and picked me up and I took that old gun. We went over to her house. We waited for Joey to get home. She was happy. They went and took a bath together.

What? That is sick. She's been plotting this for a long time and she wanted to, yeah, disarm him. And also gave him a back rub. So she wanted to get him nice and relax so we go to sleep. Yeah, yeah. How about I fuck you in the tub and rub your back. You're going to feel great.

Good night. Yeah. She said, he said, me and Christy went and got subway. After we ate, she got on the computer. I fell asleep on the wall on the floor. She woke me up and told me to get in Tyler's bed. Imagine being woken up to that. You're like, I am Tyler. What are you talking about? Yeah. He's so confusing. She had set the alarm clock, woke me up. We went into his room. Okay. Yeah. He says, I didn't. seriously think it would work. And she was behind me. And she put her hand on the trigger and put my hand on the trigger.

And she kind of squeezed my hand because we didn't think it would work. We did it together. That's what he said, together. Okay. Yeah. Okay. He said, I had the gun like this. She had her hand on my stomach. I just closed my eyes and did it and it went off.

Oh, boy. He said, I looked at him and saw that it actually. hit him, then I just ran out of the room. So they were asking him a few more questions, and they said, what about the items that were taken? And he said, she took the computer and some stuff to make it look like a robbery.

Oh, boy. So this is when his mom comes back in. Okay? And his mom says, Tyler, when she comes in, because this is still on film. And the officer says, do you want him to stop talking to

to us. Uh-huh. She said, I want to be here with him. This is my child. Now, she had told them, I don't want you questioning them without me. Right. But then they kind of got her out of the room for a minute, and then they went ahead and did something that she didn't know they were going to do.

And not just did something they didn't. Brought Christy in. Yes. And this kid is not, is a, can't overemphasize this enough here. How underdeveloped he is. Yeah. 13 is not 16. 13 is not 17. 13 is not 15. 13 is fucking a child, man. That is a small. That's a eighth grade.

And 13 is so different for so much. There's a lot of boys that have sex at 13 because it's like they're 16. There's boys that thinking about sex at 13 is crazy because they're like fucking nine. No, they're playing with Legos and action figures and shit. That's what I think that 13 is, I'm telling you 13, you can be a 16, 13 or you can be a 16, 13 or you can be a 10.13. He's a 1013 is what it looks like. So the mother then says, Tyler, do you know what you're, I mean, you're telling them the truth, right? Yeah. And he nods his head. And they said, they're not making you say stuff that you don't want to say. No. Shakes his head, no.

Then the mother says, look at me. What's wrong? What do you mean what's wrong? She has no idea what's happened in here, by the way. She doesn't know what he said? No. She has no idea. Oh, boy. So she said, what's wrong? And he said, I'm telling the truth.

And she said, okay, what's the truth? Again, she doesn't know. And he says that me and Christy did it. So then she says, Tyler, y'all killed him? Uh-huh. And he starts crying at that point, sobbing. And she says, this is the most mother thing. whether you forgot to take the garbage out or murdered your step sister's husband.

Either way. I guess. This is the mother. Yes. Go ahead. What was she going to say? Hell's wrong with you. No.

Tyler. Tyler Wayne. She brought his middle name into it. Tyler Wayne. The hell's wrong with you, boy. She said, did you for real do it? Are you just telling them that? Uh-huh.

And he said, we done this. Oh, God. She said, are you sure you did this? Oh, God, Jesus. Ma. And he said the most Southern boy response ever. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am.

And the mother said, Tyler, what is going on? You're a fucking child. I was cleaning up your Spider-Man Underwuse off the floor fucking two days ago. What's going on? Now this is happening? What's going on? Why'd you do it? He said, she made me do it.

Uh-huh. Okay. So, Tyler and Christy are charged with capital murder. Oh, boy. Tyler's being charged as an adult at 13. That story ain't adult murder. No. And your brain isn't developed enough at 13 to do anything adult.

That's why no matter how smart you are at 13, you're not allowed to drive, drink, join the military, vote by a lottery ticket because you're not developed enough to make a decision that can affect you for more than. It's five minutes. But you can get married in Mississippi. But you can get married in Mississippi or be charged with capital murder. Mississippi should just let all the kids drive when they're 10. Might as well. What the fuck? Give him three years of fun before he goes to prison for the rest of the side.

Yeah. I mean, at 13, they're up for old fucking capital murder. Wow. So here are some evidence, by the way, that definitely ties Christy to this whole thing. One is they did print examination. on the light bulbs that were unscrewed outside the house, and Christie's print was on one of the light bulbs. Oh, on the floodlights, yeah.

On the floodlights. Now, the person at the lab at the police lab said that they would not expect to find a well-developed print on a light bulb that had been on for an extended period of time. It'll evaporate. Right. The heat will burn it off. He said so that shows me that these were recently unscrewed, like very recently and haven't been on since. And not turned back on since, right.

Exactly. Then they found out that a guy, the guy who dealt with the life insurance for the National Guard unit, he testifies later on and we'll talk to the cops now and says that Joey had two life insurance policies. Oh, two. First one was worth $55,000, and Christy is the beneficiary for that. Yeah. The second policy is worth $255,000. Around $300,000. And Christy was originally the beneficiary, but in the last couple months, Joey had changed the beneficiary to his mother. Ah. I love when people are like, you know what? Just in case. Nothing feels better.

That is fucking great. Because we see this all the time. Imagine killing someone expecting to get insurance. And not only did the whole plot go awry and you're sitting in a jail cell. But on top of that, they tell you, you weren't even the fucking beneficiary, stupid. And you broke. And you broke. Even if you got away with it, you weren't getting dick out of this.

That's amazing. Lauren Wallow, you dumb bitch. Oh, exactly. Same exact thing. Yeah, she thought she was the beneficiary. So they also, they find Tyler's cousin, okay? His first cousin, Randy Simpson. Yeah.

Now, old Randy said that he went to Tyler's house just about every day. Yeah. And that two 22 calibers had been in Tyler's house prior to Joey's death, but that the older 22 was currently missing. Two guns. Two guns. He said that the 22 was a single shot bolt action and that Tyler wasn't strong enough to pull back the firing mechanisms. That's how small 13 he was. He is not strong enough to shoot this gun.

A bolt action, right? That's like the easiest. thing to do. But he can. He's not strong enough. Not strong enough to do it. So that tells you exactly what kind of kid Tyler is, not a big one. And that tells you why they didn't rack it either, because it's a one, once you fire it,

it's done unless you're putting another one in. Exactly. You're not going to pull that action. Totally. Especially if you run out of the room. Yeah. Yeah. So it's at this point that, remember Kyle Harvey, Christ's boyfriend, he starts finding

things out that he didn't know about. Oh? Now. He was told us, he was sold to build a bill of goods by. Christy like everybody else. She told him that she was not only in the middle of a divorce. You know, they were going to be together and she was going to pay for stuff. But also, she had claimed that she had a miscarriage of their baby after telling him that her tubes had been tied after her third child.

Oh, what? So that's something. Now, Kyle had broke off his friendship with Chris Kelly, his best friend who was also fucking Christy. after he discovered that Christy and Chris were sleeping together. Yeah. And that's just terrible because you can't be a couple if your names are Christy and Chris. That's ridiculous. That's not even more.

You meet someone. Oh, you're Chris. We can't. Fuck, no. I don't find you attracted at all. Then they talk to her dad. Remember old Danny Edmonds? Yeah.

That is Christy and Tyler's dad. The man accused of molesting her when she was younger. We don't know if it's true, but that's what she said her whole life and, you know, makes sense for who her mother attracts. Sure, sure. Now, so Danny said this, quote, she asked me for a gun. She wanted to kill Joey. Yeah.

He, what? I asked her why, and she just said he was mean to her and the kids. I told her, just leave him. Logical? And she said, no, he's got a life insurance policy. Jesus fucking Christ. Then, Christy said, Seriously, let me get your gun and I'm going to do something for you.

So they said, well, what was she going to do for you? Yeah. And he said, quote, she was going to buy me a new Cadillac. Ah, a new Cadillac. That'll do it. Give me a gun and I'll give you a Cadillac. That's a pretty good trade. She said, she said to him, quote, I want him dead.

And then he's got a life insurance policy and the kids would get 300 grand and that I would get 200 grand. Meaning Christy said that. Yeah. to get $200 grand. And she said, and if you'll keep your mouth shut, you'll get a Cadillac. That's an expensive car for 2003.

That's what I mean. So Danny said he never believed her that any of this was really thought she was just, but, just yapping. And so he didn't report it to anybody. But when Joey turned up dead, he called his brother,

who's a police officer, as soon as he found out, was like, Christy tried to get a gun and said he was using it. So dad spilled it long before anything. As soon as it became public, Joey was dead and dad heard it, he told a cop and the cops were already looking at her. Wow.

That was her dad and the brother saying Christy before his, you know, anyone, he'd even had an autopsy. They were already. A lot of people saying her. So Tyler and Christy are both in jail at this point. Yeah. Okay. May 14th, 2003. There is a jailer, so this is just a few days later.

A jailer in the sheriff's department here said that both Tyler and Christy, they were arrested and that she had a conversation with Christy at the jail. She said, Christy knocked on the window and asked if I would give Tyler a letter that she had written to him. That's not how that works, by the way. That's not how the jail kite system works is through the fucking, through the jailers, through the lords. That's not how it works. That's a whole prisoner system that you can do. but you got to have some respect, I guess, and maybe she doesn't have that yet. So I said I couldn't, but she said it was really important.

I took the note from her, but I never gave it to Tyler. Who did she give it to? I took it and read the contents of the letter with a fellow deputy. That's evidence, stupid. Don't be. Jesus Christ, I understand you just work in the jail, but come on, man. How's some common fucking shit. We had a good laugh about it.

Let me throw it away. I just tossed it in the garbage. Actually, I burned it because I figured, you know, I don't want to make no more. recyclables. Yeah. So anyway, here's some excerpts from the letter. Quote, Tyler, I know you're scared, but you can't say what they're telling you to say. It's a trick.

We have to make them understand it was an accident. They're saying, she's saying they're trying to trick you. Yeah. We can both get out of this if we can make them understand it was an accident. Oh, boy. You know we didn't plan it. You know it was an accident. we didn't mean to kill Joey.

Please read. That's why she gave it to the CEO was so they would see that. She said, if you tell them it was an accident, they can't send me to the electric chair. So save me. They're not allowed. Yep. She said, they can't punish me for an accident. Don't you see that?

No, I'm 13. I don't know the law. I barely know. Why'd you bring me in on this? Yeah. Jesus Christ, I barely fucking read Romeo and. in Juliet last year in school. I don't know any of that.

I just still don't understand it. He said, she said, if you say what they want you to say, then you committed murder, then you committed murder. You will go to jail and so will I. Think, not only about your life, but about mine as well.

Oh. I'm all you have. Oh, here we go. Don't listen to what your father. Don't listen to your father. He doesn't love you. I love you. Uh-oh. This is manipulative.

Very manipulative. She said, listen to me. This will work out for the best. I love you so much. Everyone else will say, I planned it because you were there. If you say what your mom told you, you will go to jail for 15 years, but that's a long time. You will be here a long time if you tell them it was intentional. So, Tyler then changes his story.

Yeah. He asks investigators. He wants to talk to investigators, and he's got a different story. Now, they note that he's changing his story in the notes, and he's got a new story. He said, when they brought her in to talk to him when he was in the interrogation room, he said, my sister was in an orange jumpsuit and shackles and handcuffs, and to be quite frank, it scared the shit out of me. He said, she was just sniffling and crying.

She said, oh, my God, Tyler, they're going to kill me. I'm going to get the electric chair. You have to help me. And I'm like, I don't. I can't help. What am I supposed to do? And she said, he goes on to say, then she promised me because I'm a minor, nothing will happen to me. And I'll get a slap on the wrist.

And then she won't get the death penalty. But if he doesn't do this, then they'll kill her and she'll never be able to see her kids again. And then they won't have a mother or her father. Right. So I decided right there to do exactly what she told me to do. He said, this is a person that, you know, I'm the closest to in the world. and that loves me the most and wants to help me. And so I'm begging me, save my life.

That story also lends to doing what she told is the whole reason that you're here. That's another thing. Now, according to Tyler, this is what happened. They had headed back to the house. Christie had woke him up early, told him to gather a child and put them in the car and start the engine. She also told him to put the home computer, not the monitor or keyboard, just the computer in the trunk. He said he sat in the car messing with the radio waiting for Christy. While he waited, he heard a pop from inside the house.

He said he didn't think anything of it because the cat, Christy has a cat that knocks things over. What the hell do you knock over? They exploded. But Christy comes out, closes the trunk, hands Tyler a wallet, and tells him to put it in the glove box, and he does. That's it. Now, the cops don't make a video or any recording of this at all. that story is he's free right

he goes home waiting in the car and she came out here's the money and he said all right and they went down to the gulf that's that story they basically say

well we don't believe any of that back to yourself oh that's not fair so then they didn't even record it like I said they didn't even they noted on the report that he changed his story they didn't even note the details

they just said bullshit's bullshit so there's another thing now prosecutors this is way out there, and we don't know if this is true, but the prosecutors were pushing this angle, even in court, that there may have been a sexual relationship between Christy and Tyler, that Christy may have, you know,

13-year-old Tyler? Try him with her wares, basically. Oh, boy. Yeah. So he is going to be tried as an adult, like we said. Mississippi law mandates that anyone over 13 charged with a crime carrying a life sentence must be tried in circuit court,

not family court as an adult. So will they give Tyler Bale? Where is he going to go? Who's going to pay it? Where's he going to go? Well, even if he can pay it, though, if you don't, it's not like he's going to run to South America. He's 13 years old. He's from here.

His whole family's from here. They have no money and nowhere to go. So what, you know what I mean? It's not like they're, he's not, what we would call a flight risk, a normal, like a, a regular old flight risk here. But they refuse any bond for him. He's a danger to society, James. Yeah. His attorney said that he was trying to convince the judge said Christy used her influence over him and coerced him to falsely confess. Jesus Christ. You know, what the fuck? The defense attorney believes that he should be allowed to post a bond because the boy doesn't have a police record. He won't run away before his trial because his mother still lives in West Point.

where's he going to go? They said that his case... The case has been subject of numerous local media reports. Everyone knows who he is. It's not like he can run away. But the circuit judge denies bail for him, which is insane.

13-year-old bad boy, James. That's it. And his aunt and uncle, they're kind of, they call themselves, I guess, aunt and uncle, these neighbors, said they would take him in. This is ridiculous.

This is Anita Higginbotham. Is that? the second one we've had? That's that we just had a Higginbotham. Yes, we just had one. So that's her and her husband, Larry, say they can't understand why they won't set bail for an eighth grader. This is ridiculous. That's their neighbor. She said, I would take, I would let him back in our house. He's trustful. He'll show up to court. And she said that he spent so much time in her home, quote, we've treated him like family. He would help around the house. He's a lovable person. Yeah. Her husband, Larry said that he promised Tyler that they would get whatever the boy wants if he gets out of jail. He says, quote, we'll go to Pizza Hut and do whatever else you want.

That's the Holy Grail. I will stuff crust your ass off. Man, you could probably still get the buffet back then, so you have no clue. The breadsticks, man. That sauce was fire. Man, they're breadsticks, I will say. Pizza Hut is garbage, but their breadsticks are fucking good. They're so cheesy.

I don't know what those, yeah, I don't know what that chemical is, but it's good. It's tons of fake cheese. That's what it is. And it's goddamn good. He said, pizza hut and do whatever else you want. Then this person goes on to say, he said he wants to go to Walmart. That's how limited. That's how limited this boy is an experience.

As he says, when I got out of jail, boy, someday, I'm going to meet a Walmart, boy. I'm going to look all through the sections, man. You don't even know. I'm going to get me some oil, some 10-20. Well, new shirt and efficient home. It's all going to happen. My brother was from Arkansas, and the little town he stayed in in Arkansas, boys would ditch school to go to Walmart, James.

Yeah, well, Arkansas is where it's from, right? Yeah, it's from Arkansas. I think that counts as credit, actually, in schools in Arkansas. It's just local pride, you know. It's just supporting small business. That's what it is. They look at that as that's a positive. They'll give you credit.

But they go to Walmart to play the new video games. They just sit there for hours in the video game department playing the new video games. Jim, he said. Earthworm Jim came out. We sit here and beat this motherfucker. We never leaving this Walmart. He said he wants, he said he wants to go to Walmart. He liked to go there and look.

Yeah, that's what that is. Going there to look. Going shopping. Just perusing. Dreaming one day. I'm going to have some nice shit from Walmart. Get me some wranglers. So those closest to Tyler say they can't believe he would

kill anyone. They said he's a well-mannered teenager who enjoys helping people and going to Walmart. That's what is one. Jesus. He just wants to help people and go to Walmart. Leave the kid alone. Let's go to Walmart and have some breadsticks. The Reverend of the Bible Baptist Church in West Point, I'm sure they're very forgiving of minor interactions. He said he has never given us any trouble.

And this reverend said he baptized Edmonds and he's been going there his whole life. and he often visits him at the jail. He said he's just holding out hope that he'll get out. There's nobody in jail as young as he is. No. So basically, his lawyers are trying to get a federal judge to decide whether a bond should be set for him. Yeah. Rather than this, you know, local guy here, a circuit court.

So Christie was also held without bail since her arrest, obviously, here. And Christy doesn't like jail. No? No. Isn't that weird? Very few guys in here to fuck. Yeah. Remember she said, I don't like to struggle.

Yeah, I don't like to struggle. And there's no lack of dicks in here. It's really not fun. Not allowed to leave for the Gulf Coast for the weekend. No. So in 2004, she tries to escape. What? She tries to fucking escape the county jail.

She absolutely does. Hasn't even gone to trial yet. Nope. She's arrested for that. And two other men have been charged with aiding her and her escape attempt. So she manipulated two other guys into trying to help her escape fucking jail. Unbelievable. Wow. That is amazing. So she's caught, obviously. She's also found with contraband cell phone as well. Sure. Yeah. So she's pretty fucked here. Yeah. That's how she planned it. Yeah. How

else she going to plan it? Now, Tyler's mom, Sharon Clay, this woman just wants to, I feel bad for her because, A, she was in a relationship with the father from what we understand or what's been told allegedly about him, but she is a single mom at this point who's working hard to support her kids. She liquidates her 401k, sells her house, ends up getting divorced from her, from her husband, who's mad at her for all this, and basically goes into debt for the rest of her life to pay for his legal defense. To defend Tyler. Everything she can.

401K gone. Credit cards maxed out. Anything she sold her house. I mean, she... Worked her whole life to be in this position, and she gave it all. for defense of this. To try to help her son, which is, what a good mom. Very admirable.

Yeah, but holy shit. So during Tyler's trial, his attorney is a guy named Jim Wade, W-A-I-D-E, who is referred to as a legendary North Mississippi criminal defense lawyer. Yeah. A friend of Tyler's family said he has the reputation for being a bear, just going after it. I knew that if anybody in North Mississippi was going to give Tyler his best chance, it would be Jim Wade. Yeah, I do love the South when they say shit like that.

Yeah, he's a bear. He's a bear. For being a bear. For being a hairy, hairy gay man. A big hairy man who has some jizz in his fur. He gets after it. He gets after it. Boy, I'll tell you what.

Every Friday Saturday night. Uh-huh. Tils him down and just fills them dry. Tyler's best chance for sex with a hairy man is Jim Wade. We found out. So the prosecution, their main thing is, look, we have a videotape confession. Yeah. And they on purpose didn't videotape him recanting it because then that could have been brought in for the defense.

Yeah. So all they have for a videotape is him saying, I did it and nothing else that they can say. And also they have some scientific evidence that they're going to present. Yeah. Okay. So they bring up deputy James Lindsay. he described removing Sharon, his mother, from the room at the sheriff's direction, and telling Tyler that Christy had blamed him. Then bringing Christy in for what he called a 22nd private talk with Tyler. This deputy testified that Tyler then waived his rights again on video and said he wanted to tell the truth. Wow.

Also, the deputy Tommy Whitfield, he testifies that, this is crazy, Sharon, Tyler's. mother, quote, continuously interfered with the interrogation. He's 13. She just want to be present. She should be in the, never mind knocking on the door, what's going on. She should be in the room saying, don't fucking answer that. That's what she should do. She's essentially his attorney at that point.

That's crazy. 13-year-old just sit there and tell you things. Wow. And that he and Lindsay separated her because Tyler's initial story that Joey waved goodbye didn't match Christie's account that Joey was already dead. when they went to the car. So that's why. That's why that he shouldn't have his rights

because they don't believe him. Yeah. We don't believe you. You have the right to all these rights unless we don't believe you. And then it's all out the window and it's a dirty pool till the end. Wow.

Then they bring in Dr. Stephen Hayne. Now I'm going to be careful about what I say and I'm going to go by things because there's been lawsuits about this guy. Okay. Oh? He was at the time Mississippi's most prolific forensic pathologist. He was the guy. He was the expert in the state. He performed about 1,500

autopsies a year in a state that had about 1,500 cases needing autopsy. He's the guy. He's always the guy testifying, always for the prosecution, and never helps the defense what he said. Never. Never. In Tyler's trial, he testified that based on his analysis, of the bullet's trajectory and the wound in Joey's head, he could determine that this is fucking insane. Two sets of hands

had been on the gun when it was fired. What? He said he could determine by the trajectory of the bullet that two people pulled the trigger simultaneously. How? Show me the...

What? Show me the information. Does he say what information led him to that? I don't do. This is like, this was like, I guess maybe of jurors, like, this was like when CSI was new. So like, oh, they do magical shit. They know everything. You know what I mean?

Like maybe that's what it was or whatever. But two people pulled the triggers. He said it's just a trajectory from calculating the trajectory. I know that two fingers pulled the trigger. One finger's force is not strong enough to activate the primer that sends that bullet on its way. Well, if it did, it would have been an inch to the left, see, it goes this way. It would have.

You can tell the wiggle. That's a technical term. I call it. I call it the dual finger wiggle that it does. It gets in there. It gives a little one of these and it's just kind of off. This one just went, therefore I know two fingers pulled that. It's a double finger thing.

See, now there was too much force for that bullet to go any other way. See, now that's right. What the fuck would he's, how would he justify saying something as dumb as that? the trajectory. Now, on cross-examination, I know, I'm like, what the fuck? I don't know. Who, yeah, dude, I'm with you. So on cross-examination, the defense attorney must have been like salivating to get it

this guy. What school'd you go to that taught you that? Jesus. He said, well, I could not exclude one person completely now. But, however, quote, I would favor that a second party would be involved in that the positioning of the weapon. it would be consistent with two people involved. I can't exclude one, but I think it would be less likely.

I cannot imagine. Again, we've done this 676 times. And for every case we do, I read 40 cases. So I've read thousands and I've never, ever, ever, ever heard of anybody saying this is a scientific thing. That's a crazy thing to say out loud, right? It seems like it. trajectory, meaning the aiming of the weapon had to be two people. But if the way they're saying it was held, yeah.

Makes no sense. One guy can aim that gun any fucking, he can hold it above his fucking head. Anything. Put it between his legs. Hey, fire one off there. Hold it with his butt cheeks for Christ's sake. It's fucking great. The whole thing's crazy.

It's insanity. Silly thing to say. Behind the back. You know, hey, look at me. I'm fancy. I didn't go to college. Maybe he's got some more information that he needs to tell us. I'm not a scientist.

No. But that is his, that's his explanation. There's no like, well, based on this any, like a chart with numbers on it, where you can calculate it. None of that. He just goes trajectory. It's two people. It's obvious. Okay. So they bring in Marcus Sullivan, who's a father of Tyler's friend. And he said that a phone call came on May 14th, 2003. Now, that's the same day they were in, they were already in jail and all that. That's when Tyler recanted his story. So he said Tyler called the house, asked had I heard about Joey and I said I had. There was a pause and I asked him, did you do it? And he said, yes, sir. Oh, boy. Again, he's so polite. I'll say that. Yeah.

So what you're supposed to do. The defense presents their case and Tyler testifies. He's got to. He's got to. Because they have everything is going against him and they need to put his, before he gets too old to look this cute, they need to put his ass up there before he starts growing a goatee

and tell them how innocent he is. Or it gets a prison tattoo to fit in. Yeah. So Tyler is going to testify, like we said, because honestly he has to. So he's up on the stand. Yeah. And he is recanting his confession, obviously,

saying none of that's true. And he gave the story we gave before. I was outside. And, you know, she came out, told me to put a wallet in there. So on cross-examination, when asked by the prosecutor if he lied in his videotape statement, he said, yes, sir, I did. And they said, and how did you lie? And he said, by saying I had something to do with the murder of Joey Fulgium.

And they said, why did you lie? And he said, to protect my sister. Okay. There you go. So they questioned him then about the letters he and his sister tried to illegally pass back and forth at the jail. Right. And, you know, if she had tricked him to lie to protect her.

And the, he said, this is Tyler, just because someone you care about does something to hurt you, that's no reason to love them any less. So they're like, well, why were you exchanging notes with her and shit after she forced you to confess to a murder you didn't commit? Yeah. What up with that? And that's his answer was, listen, I still loved her. She's still my sister. Of white trash. We stick together.

Man, well, I guess so. Yeah. Or they hold grudges for no reason for 40 years. Yeah. If you kill my hog, I'll fucking slaughter your whole family. No, if your grandfather killed my grandfather's hog. That's not even you. Yeah.

He said that Christy had admitted to him that she shot Joey, promised nothing would happen to him because he was only 13, begged him to take or share the blame so she could avoid the death penalty and maybe raise her children. He said he was outside. Heard Heard the pop and only learn later what happened, though. So this is all kind of up in the air. Now, closing arguments, the DA, Patricia Favor, she tells the jury that Tyler was fully aware of and in control of the decisions he made. Fully aware.

She said he knows right from wrong. What he did was wrong. That's all there is to it. Okay. The defense here, they argue the confession is false. It's a product of fear and manipulation by not only the police, but Christy also. And that the trial judge refused to admit Tyler's recantation is later when he came in. Right.

They only let in the first one. They didn't let that in as evidence, which is kind of ridiculous, I think. Why is that more true than this? It's still him talking. Because it makes our case better. Yeah. That's why the judge is not supposed to be neutral. Yeah.

Yeah. So the jury only heard the confession. They never heard Tyler say he lied. Now, the defense in their closing said there's no fingerprint evidence linking Tyler to anything. They did not do any gunshot residue testing. There's no blood evidence linking Tyler to the scene. He said the entire case was a videotape. Right.

And this pathologist's opinion about two people shooting someone based on a trajectory. So he said, that's really what you got. Some wild, wild statement. Some wild scientific fucking, you know, hypothesizing. Yeah, yeah. And a videotape made by a pressured 13-year-old by both the cops and his sister. Okay. The jury deliberates for six hours.

None of them remember being 13. No, so they're talking about it. Six hours a long time. Now, when the judge opened the verdict, the defense attorney, Jim Wade, said he saw something he'd never forget. after watching that. He said, when the jury verdict was returned, I saw a smile on the judge's face

when he looked at the verdict. It had been clear to me throughout the trial that he believed that Tyler was guilty and wanted him convicted. I've never seen a judge smile. No, no matter what, even if they're,

even in the Sarah fucking Boone case, the judge kept his mouth and, you know, yeah, that poker face the shit out of that. Even Laurie Valo broke this judge's balls non-stop for a whole fucking trial and insisted on representing herself, didn't know the... Even he didn't fucking give a shit away.

This guy smiled and he has found guilty of capital murder. A 13-year-old is about to face the worst part of prison. And so now they can't send him to the death penalty, no death penalty because he's so young, but the judge

says to him here in sentencing, you, 8th grader, Youngster. You kid who's late for math class may fuck off life with parole. He'll be eligible for parole at age 65. What? Yes. Forty.

Forty two years. 50. 50. Holy shit, man. Yeah. He's 14 years old at this point. What is? This is insanity.

Yeah. He's certainly the one that did all this. It's all him, man. So this is Tyler on going to jail. He's a child. I mean, he's a fucking child. He says, quote, they pushed my mom out and they put me in handcuffs in a padded cell. There's no toilet, no bed, just a little hunch of concrete on the floor.

The death penalty would be so much better than sitting here 24 hours a day for the rest of my life. A 14-year-old said that. Yep. Now, his mom, Sharon, on her first visit, said, quote, I'll never forget. He was crying. When I went to leave, he was screaming, Mama, please don't leave me here.

It was horrible. Yeah. Imagine having to leave your kid there. Like you're dropping off a fucking kindergartner to preach. Pick you up at two. Yeah. Don't leave me here. I don't know these people.

I don't know these people. Oh, and there's people trying to stab me also. That's also bad. There's no fruit cups. No. They've all got shives. It's all bad. Tyler is sent to one.

Walnut Grove, which sounds pleasant. It doesn't sound bad. It sounds great, but it's actually America's worst juvenile prison. Is that right? Yes. From what I understand, this is a for-profit facility. What? I've read books about people going undercover as guards in for-profit facilities.

And I've also read books where they're not, where they're state run, not for-profit. And the difference is remarkable in this. pays the same amount of money. That's the fucked up part. They pretty much pay the same amount of money. It's just everybody gets way less everything, services, medical care. Yeah. And the state washes their hands of liability of everything.

That's all it is. Yeah. And they don't ever have any liability either while they end up because they end up fucking up so much that they end up getting constant lawsuits against them because they put untrained guards that make barely any money in with these people. The one I read about in Louisiana, the guy was saying how people that. that were guards there were just waiting for a spot at Walmart to open up so they could quit. We've talked about this before. Tell you, that Walmart is such a fun place. It's a magnet, man.

You got to go there. Employment and video games. Come on, man. That's all there is. So this is where they send him. It's the largest juvenile prison in the United States. A for-profit facility that houses kids as young as age 13 alongside inmates up to age 22. Nice.

Which is, yeah, you don't want those people. in the same fucking place. The guard to inmate ratio is one to 60. 60 inmates for every one guard. The recommended ratio is 10 to 1.

10 guards or 10 inmates to 1. 60. You don't even have that in high school, man. It's 30 to 1. And everyone's complaining about that. Yeah. Because it's not good. And most of those kids don't fucking break the law.

They're not, haven't been sentenced. fucking, you know, felons. So here's some specific areas of criticism from lawsuits, audits, court records, and Department of Justice investigations. Staff sexual misconduct and failure to protect. The DOJ called it, quote, among the worst that we have seen in any facility anywhere in the nation with respect to misconducts occurring at least monthly. Female staff, nurses and officers, engaged in integrated.

course, oral sex, exposure, and inappropriate touching. Molesting kids is what that is. Fucking examples include a nurse continuing sex in a restroom while yelling at an interrupting officer. Hey, get out. I'm getting railed in here. Fuck off. I'm trying to commit crimes in this room with children.

Where's that news story? Why isn't that fucking front page? You don't hear about this shit because it's in a prison. I'm telling you. Also, a staff providing cell phones money and contraband to the inmates, which is how everything gets into every fucking jail. I think it gets in. No effective prevention training or reporting despite felony laws for minors or victim support.

Staff also failed to report allegations to supervisors or authorities. If they walked in a nurse fucking a kid, they just go, oh, my bad. I'll come back later. Sorry to interrupt. Wow. An excessive use of force by staff. They set a clear pattern of using force as a first resort rather than a last resort violating constitutional standards. And like I said, these are all allegations.

Some of them proven some not. This included beatings, kicks, stomps, chokes, drags, and slamming handcuffed or defenseless youth. Excessive pepper spray, entire cans into emptied into cells from my. minor issues like bucking the food flap or slow compliance. Like slamming it? I guess. Whatever you're doing to a food flap isn't worthy of being fucking, you know, a whole can of food flap generally on the outside anyway?

Well, it's got to open. Yeah, I guess so. You know what I mean? Yeah, they don't give it inside. That way you could probably cut your wrist on it if it opened inside. I guess you'd hammer it back at them. I don't know. I don't know.

Maybe popping it open to talk to people. Oh, that's probably what bucking it is. Yeah, probably. flipping it for making, making noise about something. Yep. Reporting and investigations were inadequate or falsified, meaning boilerplate language, no injury photos, no medical reviews. You could be, dude, you could have the amount that has to be wrong with you for you to get medical care and a for-profit prison is they have to find you dead. They're going to find you unresponsive.

Pretty much. That's it. Yeah, you're not getting anything otherwise. videos and youth interviews confirmed routine overuse of force. Only minimal discipline occurred despite 160 logged incidents with many unreported. That was from December 2009 to November 2010. They had 160 logged incidents. That's where this kid is spending 50 years.

Yep. Oh, failure. Yeah. 52. Until he's 22 and then they send him somewhere else, right? To a worst place probably. A place with more dangerous people who are more experienced criminals. Yeah.

Failure to protect from youth on youth violence and sexual assaults. Deliberate indifference to serious risks with inadequate supervision, poor classification and proliferation of weapons, shanks from light fixtures, etc. Frequent stabbings, beatings, and gang-related assaults. 91 emergency transports for violence in one year. One year, 90 people. Ninety one, including brain damaging incidents, sexual assaults, at least six were criminally referred involving shanks to the throat during rapes, knife point fucking kid on kid rape here. Staff sometime enabled the attacks unlocking cells for gang hits, that's an allegation, obviously,

or ignored them due to low oversight, gang activity was rampant. Child aaws. Yeah. Wow. Good Lord. Inadequate mental health care and suicide prevention. Deliberate indifference to serious needs with grossly insufficient staffing, which is basically, wow. Point eight, point zero eight psychiatrists and 1.25 psychologists for 1,200 kids.

Wow. Yeah. No help. No help. just a quagmire of misbehavior that's not going to ever get fixed. It's just a big, a big fucking cesspool. They throw the kids in and collect their fucking dirty profits. That's all it is.

And let it get worse. We don't care. Yeah, that's my opinion anyway on for profit prisons because, you know, we can't make a blanket statement like that without saying opinion and allegedly. But this is, it's fucking gross. Let's just put it that way. If these are the allegations and these are the reports coming out of these places, you got to fix that.

You got to fix that. No crisis sensor intervention therapy, chronic care or proper suicide protocols, erratic medication, long delays in evaluation, meaning months, poor monitoring and misuse of isolation. Multiple suicide slash attempts. One youth was found cold to the touch with rigor after a delayed response. Cold to the touch. You know how long that takes? I don't know. I'm tough on crime.

Wow. Yeah. And you could, that's the fucked up part. A politician could put a fucking commercial. long going, when I put them away, they kill themselves. We don't even find them to their cold. And they'll get cold to the touch. He'll get voted in for that. Check. That's insane. Staff lack training, self-harm was under tracked. Inadequate medical care, deliberate indifference to serious needs. Intake exams are incomplete. No proper equipment. Youth standing

in bare rooms, no full checks. Sick call access, delayed or blocked by staff. Chronic conditions, high blood pressure untreated. What, Jesus Christ, Mississippi, you got to watch what you're eating down there. You got teenagers with high blood pressure for Christ's sake. Wow. Sometimes high blood pressure isn't just diet. It's just environment and how you're fucking, your body's responding to, yeah. But also, the life expectancy is like 18 years lower than the rest of the country there

because they eat fried shit 24 hours a day. And pour gravy on it. And poor gravy on fried shit. Yeah, they'll like fry the gravy too. We got a fried. It's fried gravy right there. You know what that is? It has a nice crust and then it oozes out.

It's like a gravy ball. It pops. It sounds great. I love a gravy popper. Don't think I wouldn't. Yeah, if I was 16 and indestructible, I'm 45 in a mess. Oh, I'm not eating that now. Jesus Christ, I'll stay up all night fucking count in my heartbeats if I ate that now.

Yeah, like I'm too stoned going. Yeah, except it might, it's not just your mind playing tricks on you. It might actually be. I might die. It might die. Untreated medication errors and missed doses, no quality assurance or pediatric expertise, grievances, universally cited, access failures, emergency spikes that went unanalyzed. Also inadequate training and staffing and supervision, a 2005 state audit found a 60 to one guard to inmate. ratio, or inmate to guard ratio, not the recommended 12 or 10 to 12 to 1, worsening with

population growth and GEO takeover. I think that's the company. Officers supervised 128 to 256 youth at once. Panic buttons failed. Keys were missing in areas like education and showers went unmonitored. So they don't have the people for this, the staff for this. You can't run a prison. If you don't have enough fucking people.

are room for these shit of this shit. No. What is happening? I don't know. If you don't have the personnel, you don't have a prison. You don't have a prison. It's just the way it goes. I went to Jersey mics the other day, James.

They didn't have bread. I said, you don't have a sandwich shop. You don't have a place. That's what it is. If you don't have the ingredients, you don't have the building. You go to McDonald's and they say, we're at a beef. You go, all right, well, see you later. I guess that's a wrap, huh?

You don't have a hamburger stand. What are you talking about? You don't know shit. Okay. They said that all that. Panic buttons failed, everything like that. Inadequate training on force, misconduct, mental health, or juvenile needs, life safety systems sabotaged or broken. Also, gang affiliations among staff.

Yeah, gangsters running the place? Yep. Deliberate indifference to staff gang ties, e.g. unit managers affiliated with gangs, which leads to favoritism, weapon provision, targeted assaults on non-affiliated youth and conflicts of venture. Yeah, that's why they're saying they're letting people do things. They're opening doors for gang hits, they said. They said the ethical failures and broader operational failures are they have for-profit incentives, basically. Operators, they're allegedly cutting corners on staff, training, and services to maximize profits from per diem payments,

which are $14 plus million a year from the state. Also under reporting and cover-ups. They said a lot of shit is covered up. Corruption ties. The FBI in their Operation Mississippi Hustle exposed kickbacks in the MDoc private prison contracts, Mississippi Department of Corrections, private prison prison contracts, including Commissioner Chris Epps and others, though this post-dated peak juvenile critiques. Yeah.

Also, high rate of injury. fights, assaults on staff attempted suicides, many nonviolent offenders exposed to adult-like brutality. Right. This is ridiculous. In 2010, a Department of Justice investigation found systematic, egregious, and dangerous practices. Oh. Finding that staff had sex with incarcerated youth guards, brutally beat inmates and used excessive pepper spraying as a first response, all the gang stuff. Just terribly, terribly mismanaged.

A federal judge called it, quote, a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts. I think that sums it up in fucking six words, no? What do you do in that situation? How does a federal judge allow this shit to keep going? That's what I mean. That company should be stripped of their, if this is true, and that's what they find,

then a company that has that found about them should have their ability to be a company that does this stripped away. They would close... It ceased to exist. Again, they would close your Jersey mics if it was in this bad shape. They would fucking shut it down.

If you walked in and there were stabbings by the bathroom and the meat had bugs crawling all over it and the staff was raping you. They'd probably shut the doors, right? If you walk in and the sandwich guy says, what up blood? Yeah. They're probably not going to. What up blood? Get them pants off and then put a shank to your neck.

I think they would close the fucking place down. What's that you claim? That's not welcome to Jersey Mikes. No, it's not. Can I get you one of our world famous subs? Wow. Tyler said there are things that I saw an experience that I don't think any child should ever have to experience. Yeah.

Yeah. His mom and his lawyer are not giving up, though. That's good? This is when she sells her house and everything like that. Sharon's just going to go bankrupt, yeah. Yeah. She says she'll stay, she went into debt and she'll carry it for the rest of her life and she doesn't care. Oh, boy.

She said, Tyler's defense was pretty expensive, but I had liquidated everything I had and I'll be in debt for the rest of my life. It's about saving my child's life. And when you go to save your child's life, what's your child's life worth? What's your child's life worth? It's a good class. I guess your house. I guess everything. And his lawyer, because he keeps getting paid, never stops fighting.

Motions for a new trial are denied by the circuit court and the state court of appeals. Tyler's case became the subject of a lot of public debate. Yeah. And also a lot of state lawmakers were talking about new laws because they felt the sentence was too harsh for a 13-year-old. Right. Now, 2006, Christy is going to be sentenced for her escape attempt. Remember that? We haven't even sentenced to trial.

She hasn't even been to trial yet. Wow. No. For the escape attempt, you ma'am may fuck off four years and extra years in prison, consecutive onto whatever she gets. Right. And then possessing contraband in prison, she gets eight years for that. Dang.

What? What? than trying to escape, which seems insane, right? It doesn't seem right. Yeah. But that's, so that's consecutive also. So that's 12 years, and that'll be run consecutive to anything else that she gets. I guess it makes sense because without the contraband, the escape doesn't exist.

I suppose. Well, you could try to escape with it. People escape before cell phones all the time. That particular contraband facilitated this. I don't know. If I'm just sitting to myself with a cell phone, that's eight years. That seems like a lot. thing. If it doesn't couple up with an escape, then it shouldn't be more.

But I don't know. And this isn't like an extra charge of contraband used in the furtherance. It's just possessing contraband. So they just gave her the max, I feel like, is what it was. Probably. I assume not everybody gets that for having a cell phone. Eight years is a long time. Christy, for her trial, the judge removes himself from presiding over the trial because he was the guy who did the Tyler case and said some really heavy-duty things apparently at the end of the trial. Oh, really? About, you know, what a piece of shit he was and how Christie was also.

Basically, they were just a cabal of shit. Yeah. And so they were like, you can't have that guy oversee her trial. He already decided she's a piece of shit. Like, we can't do that. So he recruits himself, which is good. Yeah. He already judicially called her a piece of shit.

Yeah, you've been adjudicated a shit. pile. What do you expect? So the, her trial is going to be moved out of this county, a judge rules, because of all the publicity from Tyler's trial. The judge granted the change of venue after prosecutors didn't object either. They said that there would have been impossible to do it, to get a jury. So the prosecutors knew it too. There's a list of four proposed counties that they can go to, whatever. Now, during her trial, here we go. Here is the evidence against her.

Okay. Fingerprint on a recently unscrewed security ball. That's bad. Missing wallet with $1,000 cash and the missing computer, supporting the robbery element of capital murder. And the $1,000 she blew it down there on the Gulf Coast. That's fucked up. Yep.

Blewer dead husband's money. The whole paycheck. All of it. Pissed it away on her boyfriend. Insurance policies and her inquiries. and her inquiries therein. Her father's testimony about a gun request and a Cadillac

bribe. Her boyfriend, Kyle's testimony about her having tons of cash while she's unemployed when they're in the Gulf. Her family testimony, or his family, Joey's, meaning Shannon,

about the paycheck, Danny on the gun request, her own statements blaming Tyler for this murder, which he wouldn't have done that unless she put him up to it, and letters and circumstantial evidence tying her to the planning and cleanup.

that one from Kyle about she's getting a bunch of money. And also the letter he tried to, she wrote to Tyler in jail. So they have a lot on her. She's going to plead, right? Oh, by the way, death penalty on the table. No, no, we're going to trial. Going to trial, death penalty.

She may be a gal, but she got a hell of a set of balls. She got a set of fucking cliunes on this one, huh? Wow. Cousin Randy takes to stand. This is Tyler's cousin Randy. Remember the kid who said that there was guns and Tyler couldn't pull it back? And he told about the two-twenty-two-caliber rifles that there was only one after that. And he said the one, the older model, came up missing just about the time that Joey was killed.

That gun was never found, is what Randy says. So I think we know what the murder weapon was. Now, the trial court permits the state to present evidence of a possible romantic relationship between Christy and Tyler. Really? Yeah, we don't have proof of this or anything. What's the evidence? Said it happened.

I don't know. Rumors in their words. I mean, she fucks everybody, so, you know, is that the thing? I mean, she fucks everybody else she knows. That's not a, that's not evidence. She failed to object. Her side failed to object to that at the time, by the way, also, which is interesting. They object later when they have a witness name, Vanessa.

Davis come up and answer the state's questions regarding the relationship with her brother. They're an alleged romantic relationship. This Vanessa Davis said that she had, Christy had come to her about a gun as well. She said that Christy wanted to shoot a stray dog and asked her and request for her a gun for her to do it. Why is she going to shoot a stray dog? She's diabolical and that proves it then. I mean, you're just going to shoot a random asses. dog that walks by?

I don't even know this dog. She'll kill anything. Dude, I want to shoot this stray dog. Wow. So over a hearsay objection, Davis testified that about a month prior to Joey's death, Christie had complained about a stray dog and asked Davis for her grandmother's gun to shoot it. So they further objected later on when the state asked Davis how many times she had requested the gun. It's overruled.

Davis responds three times. That dog is causing some trouble. Christy argues that the statements constituted inadmissible, inadmissible hearsay, and if inadmissible that their probative value was outweighed, or if admissible, the probative value was outweighed by the prejudicial effect. But they testified that, this Davis testified, that Christy and Joey, quote, were supposed to be getting back together and working things out. And then the state asked, okay, but what did Christy tell you? and she said that, you know, she was, it wasn't going to work out, basically. Uh-huh. So she said, it wasn't going to work out.

Can I get your gun to shoot a stray dog? Yeah. Well, what about your relationship? Ah, fuck it. Fuck it. This dog's got to die. Wow, he's got to go. Now, during the closing arguments, the prosecution here says, talking about the light bulb

fingerprints, says, quote, nothing I have heard has led me to believe that she was the kind of person who would expend the time or the effort it took to replace one of these security lights. The testimony I've heard over the past two days suggest that she would have waited for someone else like Joey or her brother to do it for her. So she wasn't just out changing light bulbs because they blew out. She wouldn't do that. Yeah, like she would tell someone else to do it. Then he says a quote from Christy, quote, this is from that letter. I personally don't like to struggle. I would do anything to ensure that I don't ever have to struggle. He said, those are Christy Fulgham's words, not mine. I told you yesterday that it was all about

the money, and I think you can see that's what I meant. Then he goes on to quote her more, and it's in her handwriting. Yeah. It's in her handwriting. To struggle maybe an inconvenience, but it's something that we all have to do, the prosecutor said. Christy Fulgum had to have someone provide for her to take care of. of her. She would run off to see other men, live with them, and live it up. And then when she had spent all of the money, all of their money, she would come back.

She always came back to Joe. She's like Sharon Stone and Casino, essentially. Yeah, yeah. She's up getting some old guy to do Coke all weekend, and then she goes back home with Bobby Dee. God damn it. So Clark reiterated a point that he had made earlier in the trial

that in order for Christy to live off of her estranged husband, she had to live with him. He said to Put, oh, to this defendant, Joey Fulgham's life was worth $305,000 of life insurance plus $1,000 cash. Then he goes back through the evidence that they had and admitted, been admitted in the testimony and everything else. And he said, the crime must be considered a capital murder because Christy killed Joey while in the act of robbing him in his wallet of $1,000 in cash. The defense attorney states in his closing that, you know, that the closing of the prosecution's arguments, they're trying to. confused the jury by claiming that Christy was trying to steal Joey's wallet when he was killed.

Like that was the whole crux of this is I'm going to steal your wallet. And he said, no, so she shot him. He said that Mr. Clark mentioned repeatedly this case is all about money. Okay, let's go with that. What money? The money in the wallet? And then he said, why would Christy kill Joey over $1,000 in cash if she was already receiving cash payments from him and Ray Woods, her daughter Haley's father for child support. Because she wants more. That's why. It's not enough.

Because more money's more money. He said that even if Christy Fulgium had killed her husband for his insurance money, that still wouldn't constitute capital murder, but the lesser charge of murder. Okay. Sure, but she took a thousand and the computer. That's it. And it was premeditated. She'd been doing this for a while.

She'd been asking the bar and then he goes on to say, if someone was playing, planning a murder, do they go around saying, hey, can I borrow your gun? Hey, can I borrow your your gun? That's the prosecution stance. Well, no one said she was good at planning a murder. They just said she's doing it. People are terrible at murder. That's why we have 677 episodes of this because they're not good at it. Just because she's dumb as shit. Doesn't mean she's innocent. It's fucking stupid. So the final statements by the prosecution now, they say greed. That's what this case is all about. It wasn't just about the insurance money. She didn't have to. steal the wallet and the $1,000, but she just couldn't help herself. Her greed is why you are here.

She couldn't leave without the thousand dollars. She can sit there and cry all she wants. And this is a Southern woman saying to, she can sit here and cry all she wants. You know that's how it sounds. But the bottom line is she killed her husband in his own bed in his own house while he slept. And then she went and spent every dime of his money. This whole paycheck. Everything. She spent all that money. And all along, her husband and the father of her kids, two of them anyway.

That's my thing there, was laying dead in a pool of his own blood. She may have killed him for the insurance money, but she may have killed him for the insurance money, but she killed him for the money in his wallet as well. And that's why she's guilty of capital fucking murder. I added the fucking two. Okay. verdict comes in here 45 minutes of deliberation for this one. Oh, that's fast.

That is how long it takes to fill the forms out. They hate or love her. Hate her or love her. She is found guilty of capital murder, obviously. Now, sentencing comes around. Death penalty, sitting there like a big fat meatball. Just waiting.

Okay, she calls four mitigation witnesses. A psychiatrist named Mark Webb, her mom, Carol. her longtime friend Sarah Ferguson. Yeah, we both went, isn't that somebody? That's the Duchess and the Epstein files. Oh, that's Prince Andrew's ex-wife. That's Prince Andrews, ex-wife.

She sucks. Remember when we were kids? The only thing we knew about her was they would always show, like, on the National Inquirer or whatever, the tablides. There'd be black bar pictures of her topless on a French beach. And they're like, I don't want to see her ginger ass on. What are we doing? They were redacting her titties for years.

Titties redacted. Not for legal reasons. They just weren't very good. They're just British. They're just British royalty tities. No good. No good. Covered in freckles.

So they also a licensed social worker, Adrian Dorsey kid. Okay. Now, Webb testified he's the psychiatrist that he performed a psychiatric assessment. of her inside the county jail. Okay. He said that Christy suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and panic disorder with dependent personality traits. Okay.

He said that he based his opinion on information from her, namely that she was raped by her biological father when she was 11. One of her stepfathers was an alcoholic who abused her mother and that one of her mother's boyfriends had neglected her. Okay. Mom testified Carol Moore. Morgan. She said that Christy's biological father was absent during her infancy and that he never paid child support and testified about their frequent moves and that she was married and divorced several times in addition to having various male friends whom she and Christy had lived with throughout her formative years. And that two of her husbands were abusive alcoholics. Rotating door of bad men. Just bad people. Her friend, Sarah Ferguson, testifies that Christy,

Often came over to her house as a teenager because Christy's stepfather was, quote, scary and mean. Oh? She also introduced various pictures of Christy's children and testified that Christy was a good mother and her children were important to her. Finally, the social worker. The state objected to her testimony saying she's a licensed social worker. She's not a psychiatrist, not a psychologist. And I don't believe. And everything she would be testifying to would be hearsay.

and I'd like to object to any testimony that she has at this time. So they're saying she's just going to say what Christy told her, and she's not a psychiatrist or psychologist to do that. So that would be just any other normal person doing hearsay at that point. It's just another friend. The court overrules the objection. Okay. So they called her and questioned her in regards to her qualifications as a licensed social worker.

when Christie said that when they tried to have her be an expert in the field of social work, the state asked the court whether she was being accepted strictly in the area of social work and not psychiatry or psychology. And the court said yes. And the state said, okay, no objection to social work. And she was accepted as an expert in the field of social work. All right. She said she'd been hired to complete an intensive social history of Christy, which had involved reviewing documents, interviewing numerous people and having three meetings with Christy.

Sure. The state then objected when the social worker was asked, Miss Kidd, did you reach any conclusions or make any observations in completing your intensive social history? The state argued that she is not authorized to give opinions in the areas set forth in her report. She's a social worker, not a psychiatrist. Sure, sure. The court sustained the objection and allowed Christy to make an offer of proof outside the presence of the jury. So this turned into a get the jury out, sidebar. In her proffer, she testified this social worker to four observations that she made,

which was the lack of parental bonding, substance abuse by her mom and her stepfather's, lack of a biological father's input. Did you need to put it like that? Jesus Christ. Does that, why? Why? Why every time? Do they say the worst word? Why?

Why every time we do this? Do they say the worst fucking way to put anything? After a woman's been raped. Well, I mean, allegedly. Yeah. Yeah. We don't have any evidence of it.

We just have her claims. But still, those claims had already been laid out and made. Father's input is what we're doing? Can't say that. Wow. And that, of course, the love for her children. The court ruled that her testimony was not such a high degree of expertise and skill that it was outside the knowledge of a lay person and that the jury could arrive at these conclusions.

based on evidence already admitted. So they allowed her to interest. That was all outside the jury. Yeah. So they allowed this social worker to introduce into evidence drawings, cards, and letters made by Christy's children. That's pretty much what she testified to. So this goes to the jury. In Mississippi, the jury is the only people that can pronounce a death sentence.

Uh-huh. So it goes to the jury. They deliberate for 58 minutes. Okay. It's not very long. Are they deciding how they want to do it? It takes longer to figure out what you're having for dinner most nights. This is wild.

And they say, you, ma'am, I'll get the gavel for, you ma'am may fuck off death by lethal injection. Yeah. She got the death penalty. And they don't want to do it. Like, that's too easy. Yeah. They're like lethal injection. Yeah.

She will be only one of four women on Mississippi's death row, by the way. Wow. So that's a nice little environment. They can do each other's hair. Yeah. It could be good. It could be, you know, like a slumber party almost. They'd rather tie her down and let Ole Miss trample her as they enter the vehicle.

Like naked gun and shit. We only get to do it. That's not fair. Over and over. From the blind side to stomp on her. That's what we need. How about that? Get Sandra Bullock too.

Fuck it. 2007, Tyler Appeals. Okay. Now, in letters to the court, his parents, or I'm sorry, Joey's parents expressed how, that man, obviously, how their death has affected them. And they said, my hope is that God will keep Christy and Tyler in jail until they die of natural causes. Jesus Christ, he's a third. That's what Joey's mom wrote. And cash.

I think she's the one who married the young guy. Okay. Or young-looking guy. Defense attorney Jim Wade said several issues would be attacked on Peel. on appeal, including that experts on false confessions were not allowed to testify. They excluded them and that Tyler's mother was not present when he gave his confession and that certain evidence was excluded during the trial. Okay.

Now, the court's Mississippi Supreme Court said, quote, no physical evidence linked Edmonds to the crime. Right. Then said, we find Dr. Haynes, he's the guy who said, trajectory means two people. Double rifle guy. We find Dr. Haynes' conclusion that two persons pulled the trigger simultaneously, scientifically unfounded and unreliable. Unbelievably ridiculous. The court also ruled that the trial judge improperly excluded evidence of Christie's motives, her abuse allegations, her life insurance inquiry, her attempt to get a gun, and her statements about wanting Joey debt.

None of those came in. Oh, my God. Okay. So they overturn his conviction. They overturn it and they order a new trial. Oh. Problem is the court did not throw out his confession. Okay.

That is still allowed to be brought into a second trial. Sure. They said, which is really the only evidence is what the defense attorney said and he urged his client to do whatever. So the Supreme Court also cited discrepancies and testimony and throughout the conviction because they say Edmonds didn't get a fair trial. Yeah. Yeah. They say the state's theory of the two. guns. That was, they said, quote, they put on this doctor and let him say that from looking

at the bullet hole, he could see that the likelihood that two people were holding the gun, which is totally ridiculous. This is one of those two people, one trigger gunshots. Dude, it could have been a set up on a trip wire holding the fucking trigger and you wouldn't know it. You would have no idea based on trajectory whatsoever. A hole is a hole, man. Wow. The presiding judge writing for the Supreme Court said that the only evidence, that was involved in the murder was Christie's allegations and a disputed confession. This judge said Tyler had absolutely no motive to kill Joey other than to please Christy. Tyler had no expectation of financial gain from Joey's death.

Christy, on the other hand, had the means, the motive and the opportunity to kill Joey. He also said the trial judge erred by excluding the testimony of Danny Edmonds, Christy's father, who told law enforcement that she asked him for a pistol because she wanted Joey debt. That wasn't allowed in his trial. That was only allowed in Christie's trial, which is silly. So they did not address the confession, though, other than to note that it was disputed, Judge Oliver Diaz wrote separately in the ruling that circuit court judge James Kitchens Jr. erred when he allowed the confession.

He said the sheriff acted improperly and violated the state's youth court act when he barred Edmund's mother from the room before a three-hour interrogation. He writes, on the videotape, just as he finishes confessing, one can see Tyler's mother force herself into the interrogation room. Because she just popped in. They didn't get her. She just said, how long are they going to keep my kid in there? Yeah. To find that her son had confessed to murder. In a heart-wrenching scene, Tyler tells his mother that he and Christy, quote, did it all while sobbing head and hands unable to stand.

And he says, unfortunately, this case provides a disheartedly. example of the double standard applied to expert testimony in criminal cases, meaning they took the prosecution's expert seriously, but not the defense. How did that defense attorney, with how much fucking everything of Sharon's life that she gave him, how did he not say there's zero evidence that he did it? All you got is a stupid confession. And they allowed her to come in this room and talk to him before he said that. No, they did.

They did. That was their whole, that was the whole defense. The jury was like, yeah, fucking put him away. The jury watched the video of him saying he did it. That's it. That's what they based it on. Well, that day when he came in, he said he did it. And then when he found out he's in trouble, now all of a sudden he didn't do it.

That's how they look at it. After a criminal came in. An adult criminal came in and told him what to say. Fucking cuffs and shackles. Yeah, told him what to say. Talk to a coat of crazy. Now they say Tyler has a big decision to make. Yeah?

They said that their plea? Well, they're saying that he could, he's still not even 18 yet at this point. Yeah. So they're saying that he's sitting down with his defense attorney in the coming weeks to prepare for a new trial. Yeah. They said that the most difficult choice will be likely to be whether to accept a possible plea deal or take his chances in court. What do you do? He's 17.

He's been in the worst prison for three fucking years. Yeah. And he faces another five decades of it. Now he's got face tattoos and shit to try to not get stabbed. So they, the lawyer said there were, they, There will be enormous pressure on Tyler to engage in some type of plea bargain as to avoid that life sentence, that mandatory life sentence. No, don't do it, Tyler. He worries about the ramifications of a teenager making such important decisions.

17, you're going to, that's a poof. That's a bummer, too, because at 17, you look more menacing, especially 17 that's been in prison for four years. You've been through puberty now. Yeah. That's all. And he's been a fourth of his life in prison. and probably looks like dog shit, probably has bad skin. He's going through puberty too.

He's probably got acne. Jail? Jail acne, that's got to be way worse than public school acne. There's no clear a sill in jail. Neutrogen ain't helping his ass out. So the defense attorney said it's putting me in a very interesting dilemma. I do not believe at age 13 that Tyler was capable of making decisions like that. Didn't have the capacity to.

But at the same time, there's no clear state law that says he doesn't. make those decisions. So it's been a really interesting pickle. Now, what they do, though, is they free him on $75,000 bond coming up for the trial since his shit was overturned and he's a fucking child. So they said, let's let him out. And he has nowhere to go. He's not a flight risk. They measure flight risk on do you, all it is do you think that'll show up again. Yeah. And ability to leave. Yeah. Capital murder. It's different, but it's also different because you have more motivation to run. But if you're 13 and you have nowhere to go, you're not going anywhere. So reaction from the Fulgham family, Joey's parents or Joey's brother said, we're living it all over again.

Of course, I'll have to retestify to finding my brother dead in bed. We don't want to relive this year after year. They also believe that Tyler's confession recorded on videotape proves his guilt. They want him just to stay there. They hate him. They say he offers details that only the killer could know and that the attempt to throw out the confession will only lengthen their pain and suffering. Shannon's wife, Kim, said, you put your faith in the justice system and then it's all blown away. So, will the defense go to the Supreme Court to get the confession thrown out?

The lawyer said that the U.S. Supreme Court rarely intervenes in such issues. He said he's handled four cases where the Supreme Court has stepped in to decide questionable circumstances. He says this case has far stronger grounds for the court accepting than any of those other before that I've had accepted. So I do think there's a substantial chance they will hear it. They don't hear it. They reject the fact that they reject hearing it, basically. Yeah.

So the confession stays. Okay. Okay. Here are some of the people in the community here piping up. Here is Katie Porter of California. Of Loxley, Alabama. Yeah. She says an injustice needs to be corrected and this child needs to go home to his mother.

Now here's a whiteboard and let me show you a math equation that proves that. She's an administrator for kids in court.net, which was calling for an end to prosecuting minors as adults. All right. And Tyler's great uncle, Kenneth Higginbottom of West Pointe. I knew the Higginbothams were related to him in some way. Says he thinks if his nephew had been an adult, he would have been treated differently. He said Tyler was just a. scared 13-year-old kid.

Why hold on to the confession of a scared 13-year-old? Now, Tyler has offered a deal. Oh, boy, what's the deal? Plead guilty to manslaughter. And he could walk free in less than a year. He'll be out in less than a year if he pleads guilty to manslaughter. What does that tell you, though? That tells you the prosecutor.

Yeah. The prosecutor knows he's got fucking nothing. No. And this is the West Memphis three. This is all those where they make you do an Alfred plea so you can get out so they can save some face and you can't file a lawsuit against them. That's why it's mainly what it is. So the defense attorney says if he take in the mad slaughter plea, he would have been out of jail in just a few months.

Whereas if he goes to trial and is convicted, he gets life in prison. So Tyler said, fuck you. Take me to trial. At a boy. I'm in a sitting. I'm going to prove it, he says. Oh, I'm so scared. I know.

In Mississippi, Jesus Christ. I'm terrified for it. this boy. Bend over, taking the ass and walk out the door in a couple months, man, because this is fucking Mississippi. I mean, good Lord. 2008, Tyler's second trial. Wade calls Christy to the stand.

Now, this is strategic. Oh. Because they know she's going to take the fifth. Yeah. But they want to parade her in. Yeah. Her prison go. Her death row prison garb.

Yeah. Yeah. Shackles that. Look at her. Look at how much older she is. Look at her go up there. Bad woman. pleading the fifth. They have to give the jury someone to blame.

And if she's not in the courtroom, then it's only on Tyler. Give them their boogeyman. She takes the oath and declares the fifth and says she'll take the fifth every question. So even on death row, she won't say shit. But the jury gets to see her. Then they play the Montel video. Oh. That gets let in for the first time.

She looks like an asshole. Look how much of an asshole she was before she murdered anybody. Even not murdering. You still want to put her in jail, don't you? They said it was just evidence of who Christy was and the level of manipulation she was able to create, basically, and the affairs and the brazenness with which she just fucks over her husband and doesn't care. They call Danny, Dad, who testifies about the gun request and the Cadillac bribe. He wasn't allowed to testify in Tyler's trial either. Then they call a pathologist, a new pathologist, who says that there is no scientific.

scientific way to determine how many people pulled a trigger from a bullet wound, which everybody sitting out there right now. You knew that, right? I mean, honestly. It has ever fired a gun knows that. If you're listening or to or watching a true crime podcast, you've, this is outside of the bounds of anything you've ever heard before, I'm sure, correct? Tyler then testifies again. Okay. Okay. They say, Tyler, you were present in the courtroom when a statement you gave the police was shown to the jury. That's the confession. He says, yes, sir. They said, did you lie when you gave that statement? Yes, sir, I did. This sounded a lot like the first trial. Yeah. They said, and how did you lie? And he said, by saying, I had something to do with the murder. Why did you lie to protect

my sister? Now, this time, rather than that being on cross, that was on direct. His lawyer asked him that shit. Get that shit out of the open so it doesn't look like the defense or the prosecution is pulling it out of him. Then on cross, they said there's only one person in this courtroom who's an admitted liar, and that's the person sitting over there between his two lawyers later on, said his whole defense is, I'm a liar. That's his defense. I'm a liar.

A 13-year-old liar. Weird, right? Ask a 13-year-old how many times you jerked off this week. They're a lie to you. If he says zero, lock him up. He's lying. Lock him right up. He said, folks, someone who will lie to protect his sister.

will lie to protect himself. Okay. The defense closing said, is there any physical evidence? Is there anything other than this child's words? No, there isn't. Just this child's words. Think about that.

This is a 13-year-old child. The prosecutor made a very emotional argument like he knows what happened. Well, he wasn't there. And he doesn't know what happened. But I know this. He said, one day, we're all going to stand there before God and we're going to give an account.

If I were sitting on this, jury, I'd a lot rather be up there telling God I voted that child not guilty than tell him, I bore false witness against my neighbor. Okay. The Bible. Usually it's the prosecution that does that and it gets like brought up an appeal. I've never heard of the defense doing it before. That's a new one.

But hey, you know what? Throw some shit at the wall. His whole strategy seemed to be flip the script. Yeah. Do what they were going to do. Exactly. Yeah, he fucking B-Rabbit 8-miled them. Yep.

So verdict here. Yeah. Four hours of deliberation. Oh. That's a long time. Yeah. And it comes in. Uh-huh.

Judge reads it. Found him not guilty. Oh, he did it. He's found not fucking guilty. He got to him beat Mississippi? He beat Mississippi. Wow. Wow.

Tyler later says, I can still hear the court. clerk's voice in my head as clear as day when she read the verdict and said not guilty. Wow. I can remember hearing that and then just wanting to get out of there. I just wanted to leave. That was probably the first time. No shit. I went out of jail.

As soon as I said, do you go, may I leave now? Are we good? Not guilty. I'm going. I'll sign whatever you need to. Stop me, bitch. I'm leaving. On the way out, though, is when I'm signing it.

Wow. He said, I just wanted to leave. That was the first time, probably the first time that I just absolutely just. because the whole weight of the world had just been lifted off of me. Sharon, as mom said, I've been relieved. I've been praying for this for almost six years. She's been paying for it too.

Paying and praying. She said and it's been torture, as I can imagine. Well, the good news, Sharon, is whoever you sold your house to, it's not worth a goddamn thing. Yeah, it's 2008. So she's like, hey, sold it right in the nick of time. I would have lost that all. I'd rather give it to a defense lawyer to get my son

off than just lose it in the market. Just give it back to the bank. Because some dickheads were short and stuff somewhere on Wall Street that I don't know about some hedge fund fact fucking. Do it something that I don't know. Jackasses made fucking billions of dollars off of this shit. Good. My son got out. Yeah.

Fat cats there. So the defense attorney said, I told Tyler this morning, my life is coming to it. My life is coming close to its end and his life is just beginning. So he has all the potential in the world. Now that this burden's lifted, there's no telling. what this young man will accomplish. December 2008. Yeah.

Christy writes Tyler a letter. What? Okay. This is Tyler's quote about it. Quote, there was a letter, and it was an apology letter. Oh. She didn't even say what she was sorry for. It literally said, I'm sorry for dot, dot, dot.

Well, you know what I'm sorry for. She didn't want to put it in writing. Couldn't you through all this shit that you didn't do? And that just pissed me off. It made me so angry. Like you wait five and a half years, two trials later. Now you want to say you're sorry? Yeah, I would say.

Gross. 2010, Christy Appeals. Really? Yes. Now, okay, the court documents show that during the trial's sentencing phase, the bailiff left his Bible in the jury room. Why are you taking your Bible to work while you have a badge on? Why? Why do you have a Bible on you at work?

He left it where? in the jury room. Okay. Why is that there? Yeah, I don't know. Put it in your locker, leave it in your car. Put it in your shirt pocket.

Stick it up your ass. I don't care where you put it. Your job is a law enforcement. It has nothing to do with this whatsoever. So anyway, when he returned for it, one of the jurors asked if the group could keep it. And then 15 minutes later, the jurors came back with a death sentence. Oh, my God.

Yeah. Well, they all praise for forgiveness that they're about to kill somebody? It says an eye for an eye right here. I read it. So, I mean, so the office, James Lapin, with the Offensive Capital Defense Council, argued that the circuit judge did not individually question jurors about the presence of the Bible. He asked the jurors as a group if the presence of the Bible affected their decision, and they all said it didn't. But he didn't individually ask them. Okay.

So as we know, you have a much different response. if you're asked something just you or in a group. You might go with what the group says. Sure. So this lawyer went on to say prejudice is presumed with the Holy Bible. We don't know the Bible was used. We don't know that we don't know what the, that the Bible wasn't used. We can assume it was used.

The attorney general said what he did by questioning the jurors about whether they could render a fair verdict regardless of the presence of a Bible. So it doesn't matter because they said they would be fair. He said there's no evidence. that it improperly influenced the jury. You don't check your morals at the door. You can certainly bring them in the jury room with you. Okay, but this isn't a biblical court.

It's a court of law. So you want them to look at laws, not the Bible's laws. You don't know what these fucking, with 12 Mississippians are in a room with a Bible. Yeah, that tells me somebody in the room was like, if we're going to do it, we better fucking get right with the. Yeah. Wow.

They said a handful of death penalty cases have been overturned in the past two decades, because the judge is considered the Bible to be illegal outside reference material, meaning if somebody made a reference. So the judge questioned whether something's so common in our society carries a presumption of prejudice. So, yeah, they do say that, well, you don't know what they read. The one lawyer said the Old Testament refers to an eye for an eye. The New Testament speaks of forgiveness. So who fuck knows?

It depends on what part of the Bible they were into. So the judge said that many courts have held there was a presumption of that. influence when external elements are brought into a jury room, but he said the only way to know what happened with the Bible was to ask the jury. He said, I think it's unlikely that if the Bible was asked for by a juror that it wasn't used. That's fair. Questions about the Bible were among 38 possible errors cited by these defense attorneys. Prosecutors here, you know, there's all sorts of different shit that we'll talk about here. They talk about that the lawyers argued that Joey had abused her and she suffered from PTSD and that, you know, all that kind of shit.

The Supreme Court heard arguments issued a statement that Joey's family continues to suffer because of his death. So they get that too. The one lawyer said here that there are no winners when a wonderful caring son and father like Joey Fulgium has taken away from his family at such a young age, all for an insurance policy and a paycheck. and it's even more difficult for a family to forgive when they have not been requested by those responsible to do so, meaning she didn't ask them to forgive her either. So she argued that there was that court erred permitting the state to present evidence of a romantic relationship between her and Tyler. However, they found that they did not object to it at the time. They didn't object to it to later on. They also said in the sentencing phase of a capital murder, the stakes are life and death.

the defendant is permitted to introduce virtually any relevant and reliable evidence touching upon their background and character, meaning they should have let that social worker say everything she wanted. Her death sentence is thrown out. Just remanded for resentencing? Resentencing. Okay. Okay. No new trial. Now, she could still be sentenced to death again, just under different circumstances.

But the Fulgums at their request, the family's request, said, please, don't do this because they have to have a big jury thing. So they have to come in. They have to testify. They have to cry about Joey. And so we can't do it again. We just went through, we've gone through three trials already. But it's capital murder.

So anything opposite would just be life without, right? So as part of this, they offered her to be resentenced to life without parole. So we never have to deal with this ever again. Exactly. And as part of the agreement, she signs an affidavit, forfeiting all. all rights to future post-conviction relief. No more appeal. This is the Brian Koeberger deal that people were mad about and it's like gone.

Yeah, it's over. Poof. Like it never fucking happened. That's what it is. So, then just smokescreen. Yeah. They said, so the death penalty had to be handed out by a jury is why the family doesn't want a jury trial, kind of their only thing.

So you, ma'am may fuck off life without parole. Never see you again. Yeah. Eat Dicks. Now, Tyler's exoneration was one of several cases that exposed Dr. Stephen Haynes' testimony. At least three other convictions relying on his opinions were overturned

from this. Mississippi removed him from its list of approved pathologists. How about that? He sued the Innocence Project for defamation, claiming they damaged his reputation and the case was settled out of court.

That's why I'm just alleged, alleged. His testimony about two sets of hands was obviously the biggest load of shit I've ever heard. That's my mind. My opinion, sorry. My non-scientific opinion is that's scientifically a load of shit is with that big steaming. I've fired guns before and that seems fucking stupid.

Very. It seems that. So what happened to Tyler here? Tyler said, quote, there's a part of me that believes the only reason she came back into my life was because she was planning. There's part of me that believes she knew what she was going to do and that maybe she got close to me just to use me as a scape coat. as a scapego. There's part of me that honestly believes that.

Oh, that's so fucked up. She may have gotten in touch with him in the first place. Yeah. Just to get him mixed up in this. She seems fucking diabolical. Yeah. That she would, dude, the whole, the Montel, the other guy with the dog. It's.

And she uses everything at her disposal to manipulate everybody in her life. Any and everybody. She's an asshole. Yeah. She's, yeah, I'm telling. I mean, I get that she had a bad upbringing. But once you're an adult. your bad upbringing doesn't matter anymore.

You just got to deal with that every day. Yeah. That's your problem. Not everybody else is. Now you have to make your kids not like that. That's your goal. That's it. It's a bummer.

I assure you, it sucks every day. It sucks, but that's life. You got to deal with it. So after his acquittal, Tyler tried to go home, but he said, quote, I left Mississippi because I didn't know where else in Mississippi I could go where I could be anyone other than Tyler from the 5 o'clock news. Everybody hated him. They all know him.

Yeah. It's a huge. This is a huge story. And a lot of people think he got off easy and they think he should have been, got the death penalty. I mean, that's, that was a popular opinion down there. He said, 35 year old kid today. Yeah. Yeah.

Now he is. Yeah, he's 36, 37 this year. He said, I changed. This is what happened with my life and I needed to figure out who I was. Yeah. He graduated as an EMT from East Mississippi Community College. Wow. He then moved to Arizona.

What? Absolutely. Let's be pals, Tyler. We could have walked, he's not there anymore, we could have walked past Tyler several times and not even known it. He worked for the Department of Defense there. Oh. Then this, the next couple of things I'm going to read you sounds like mad libs. Yeah.

I mean, you already started it pretty crazy with the DOD. The DOD, yeah, but he moved to Arizona, worked for the DOD, whatever, that's fine. But then it gets weird. He was diagnosed with leg cancer. cancer. I didn't know that was a thing. I have never in my life heard of leg cancer. That seems really vague.

Leg. That's, calf, isn't that an ad, like a total madlib? Like, fucking, I have leg cancer.

Okay. Then he returned to Mississippi to be near his family, and he went into remission from leg cancer. So that's great. It would hate to get out of prison and then die from leg cancer. That'd be the worst fucking thing ever. Did he come back? No,

no, no. Not yet. Anyway, He then opened up a tobacco shop again. Brother, you've got cancer tobacco shop. In Columbus, I believe, Mississippi or Georgia, one of the two, with backing from a local car dealer named Carl Hulk Hogan. I added the Hulk part, but Carl Hogan. There's a picture of him in the newspaper there standing in his tobacco shop in the Little Woods Shopping Center.

Yeah. Then, after he realized that's a terrible business and, you don't make any money. He moved to Florida and started, I could give you a trillion guesses, and you'd never guess the business he started at all. Well, I know it's not a dispensary. No, it's not, for sure. Nope. What do you think? Is it a blueberry farm or a fucking cranberry field?

An embroidery business. What? He's in bruntlet. I had leg cancer, so I moved and opened a tobacco shop and then moved to Florida to have an embroidery. business. This is fucking wild. It's wild. He's also an activist. He became an activist for juvenile justice reform. He should be the guy

most asking for that. Speaking at the Mississippi Public Defenders Association and advocating for laws requiring attorneys to be present whenever a minor is interrogated. No child should be put in the room with two homicide detectives or two cops at all.

They know what they're doing and they don't. That's not fair. No child left behind with homicide investigators. Let's call it that. Yeah, deputies anything. Shit, with the cops. Children should not be allowed to legally speak to a police officer without an attorney present, period, Tyler says. I hear some people say without a parent or an attorney. It needs to be an attorney because even parents don't know how to navigate the system.

No, they don't know. My mom doesn't know. The mother didn't know not to go outside and leave him there. And she was trying her hardest, her damnedest to do the best for him. Tyler sought compensation under Mississippi's wrongful conviction law. The state refused arguing his false confession constituted fabricating evidence. I'd take that shit to the Supreme Court, right? Well, a judge agreed with them and he got nothing. So he appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court, which in 2017, that late date reversed the denial and sent the case.

back again. How about that? Tyler was eventually awarded $135,000. I guess 40 grand a year. You should get him way forward to that. He said, child in that fucking environment. Dude.

Oh. He said, this is the only opportunity that I have to stand up for myself today and say, you are wrong. This is what you did to me. And he said, he wanted the money. He's not taking a dime of it. It's all for his mother.

Yeah, give mom my fucking shit back. Yeah. He said, considering that my mom literally gave up everything that she had, her life, her house, her husband, or financial security, getting the compensation from the state means everything to me. It's my opportunity to say, let me help you out in a way that I probably won't ever have the opportunity to do otherwise. Yeah, and if you don't do it, fast, Brett Farv's going to take it. Oh, it's down there.

Who else was the other one? There's another guy just involved in that shit, too. I don't know. I don't know. It doesn't matter. Allegedly Brett Farv, by the way, because he sues everybody. Yeah. So Christy's attorney then does an interview in 2014 and says, I still get contacted by people in New York and L.A. that want to do a documentary on that case.

Luckily, the Supreme Court set aside her death sentence and sent her back for sentencing due to some defects in the sentencing phase of her capital murder. He said that death row cases involving women are always catching the public eye. He said, I think that's why this Michelle Byram case, which we've done that case, by the way, gets a lot of interest. Christy Fulgim's case got a lot of interest. I believe that the statistic is somewhere around 70% of violent crimes that involve women involve a member of their immediate family as the victim. Women don't kill strangers generally unless a boyfriend made them like rob a liquor store or something. They kill husband, babies, and they cut babies out of women. That's it.

That's what they do. He said whether it's a boyfriend, husband, stepfather, whatever. Death throw cases are the most challenging for everybody. He said, I don't believe there is a fair way to. have a death penalty in America. If a juror stands up and expresses that in no circumstances, would they ever vote to give the death penalty, that person is excluded for cause off that jury. See, I think that's bullshit.

Yeah. A jury of your peers means 12 people that have all different opinions. You can't, a jury that only is willing. Yeah. Yeah. A jury, it's only people that want to kill you or that are willing to kill you. That's what I mean. That's fucking crazy.

Sway that person under no circumstances. that it's so horrible that they need. Show that person that says under no circumstances. Show them fucking crime scene photos and see if they'll find a circumstance. And if you can't, life in prison is fine. That's what I'm saying.

We don't need any, we don't need to grease the rails for the death penalty at all. You know what I'm saying? Bloodthirsty people on a jury either. It's fucking crazy. He said, so the fact that the state gets those jurors

struck for cause, but I have to use one of my 12 preemptory to get rid of the person who believes the death penalty is the appropriate remedy. in every case, that's the inequality. And it is. That's not equal.

That's a great argument. He said, and I don't know how to fix that. It's almost like he's a lawyer or something, this guy. Yeah, I mean, he knows a law. Didn't you go to law school about this man? Right. Oh, God. Joey's family here says they never got what they wanted, and that's the truth.

Shannon says the only thing our family's ever wanted to know is the truth. There's no way we can bring my brother back. Joey's dead and gone. we don't want to punish somebody else just to seek revenge. We just want to know the truth. Now, the sheriff, Sheriff Brian, B-R-Y-A-N, in case you want to drop him a line, says, the truth is the first statement. Oh.

After all this, he's just, no, he said, that's exactly consistent with everything that we found at the scene of this crime. Tyler told the truth and he got away with it. And look, I don't begrudge him that. Maybe he'll make a good life. Maybe you'll have a really happy life, and I hope he does. I'm just going to go ahead and call him a murderer while it's happening. I don't begrudge him.

I don't begrudge him. Forget him away with it. In 2014, there was an episode of Blood Relatives, which this was the third season. I've never heard of this, and it went more than at least three seasons, called Southern Hell with, like, Bell, B-E-L-L-E, but H-E-L-E. Southern Hell. Oh, yeah. So there's that directed by people and written by people. never heard of. Excellent.

Christy currently is the MDoc inmate number 117-337 and remains incarcerated serving a life without parole plus four years for attempted escape plus eight years for contraband. Oh, she's got all that tacked on to the end of it.

She will fucking die in prison. She's at the CMCF facility, whatever that is, and she's fucked. So there you go, everybody. There is Starkville, Mississippi. and a hell of a fucking wild story. That is twisted shit, my friends.

That is one of the weirdest things we've ever covered. I don't think he, I don't even think he was in the house. I think he was, I think he was being honest when he said he heard the pop. Yeah, I think he was in the car. That's it. Now, my only question is, though, how did she get the gun from his house where his cousin comes in? I'm not positive that he didn't bring the gun. Yeah.

But if she didn't, she wouldn't have had to tell him we're going to kill Joey. She could have said, there's a stray dog I want to shoot. And he would have went, all right, sure, I'll bring it. I just brought it with him. Yeah, it's possible. That's my only question. But otherwise, I don't think he did the shooting. It's from, no, no, no, from his mom's house.

Oh, because he lived with his mom. He didn't live with that. Danny refused to give. Right, that's right. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, there you go. Figure it out on your own. I'm not sure.

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