The Misery Machine - James Hicks Part 1 | The Murders of Jennie Cyr Hicks & Jerilyn Towers | Maine's Only Serial Killer

Episode Date: April 20, 2020

This week, Yergy and Drewby discuss the crimes of James Rodney Hicks, arguably Maine's only known serial killer.  On 1 November 2000, Maine's Penobscot County grand jury formally charged confessed killer James Hicks, 49, with the murders of Jerilyn Towers and Lynn Willette. Hicks served six years of a 10-year prison sentence for killing his first wife, 23-year-old Jennie Hicks, who disappeared from the couple's Carmel home in 1977.  Hicks was not arrested for her murder until 1983 and was convicted in 1984. Before his arrest, Towers, 34, of Newport, disappeared after leaving a Newport bar with Hicks. In fact the police investigation into Towers' disappearance prompted the re-examination Jennie Hicks' disappearance and subsequently the charging Hicks with her murder. At the time he was not charged with Towers' death because police lacked adequate evidence. After his release from prison in 1990, Hicks met 40-year-old Willette of Orrington with whom he worked at the Twin City Motel in Brewer. The two eventually lived together at a South Main Street apartment where Hicks now claims he killed Willette 26 May 1996. Though also suspected in her disappearance, Hicks was never charged with her death because of lack of evidence. That is until he was handed a 55-year sentence in Lubbock, Texas, and confessed to the three killings and led authorities to their bodies. Hicks was convicted in Texas of holding a gun to the head of a 67-year-old woman, forcing here to write a check to him and sign over the title to her car, and then write a suicide note. He planned to drug and drown the woman to make it look like a suicide, but she somehow managed to escaped. When he was convicted to 55 years in prison Hicks asked to cut a deal with authorities in Maine whereby he agreed to direct them to the bodies of the three missing in exchange for serving his time in Maine instead of Texas. Back in Maine Hicks located the remains of his three victims after two days of digging around his former home in Etna and at several roadside sites in Aroostook County, Maine. The remains of his former wife and Towers were found 100 feet apart next to the home where he grew up. Willette's remains were found in concrete buckets buried next to the road in Aroostook County. Apparently all the bodies were dismembered and some parts he allegedly tossed in a nearby river. Join Our Facebook Group to Request a Topic: https://t.co/DeSZIIMgXs?amp=1 Support Our Patreon For More Unreleased Content: https://www.patreon.com/themiserymachine PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/themiserymachine Instagram: miserymachinepodcast Twitter: misery_podcast #truecrime #podcast #mystery #documentary 

We're the misery machine. Hey. I'm Drew Big. I'm Yergy. And today we're doing arguably Maine's only serial killer. Only one. James Hicks. He's kind of an asshole.

This was in the 80s is when this started. Oh, 70s and 80s, but yes. Yeah, 70s and 80s. His span of killings last quite a bit. He's definitely a state treasure. So we figured we figured we would cover a local case. Thanks, Marky, for requesting us to do a local case. And thanks to Allison for.

specifically requesting this case, this was not the easiest case to research. We had to dig around a little, didn't we? We did. So Allison requested this back in November. It was a long time coming, but we finally finished it is. So if you're listening on YouTube, please like and subscribe. Really, really helps. But with that out of the way, this is the James Hicks murders. Part one. James Rodney Hicks was born in Etna, Maine. His family was described as being poor, and the father left when Jimmy was very young. James, or Jimmy, as he was called, was reported to have displayed acts of cruelty towards animals

throughout his childhood, as his most serial killers. Around 17, 18, 1969, he meets Jenny Sear, his future wife on a school bus in Carmel, Maine. James Hicks marries Jenny Sear, now Jenny Hicks. The couple moves in with Jenny's parents in the Carmel Etna area. He was like 18 or 19, about 1970. Jimmy and Jenny have a daughter, Veronica. During this time, the couple struggles financially and people describe the marriage as being strained.

Jimmy finishes his senior year of high school at the age of 23 and begins working at a local woodmill. Jimmy ends work at the woodmill and begins working in construction and joins a labor union. Then in 1974, the couple applies for divorce. According to tragedy in the North Woods, one of the primary reasons was Jimmy's infidelity. The couple decided to stop the divorce proceedings after discovering, Jenny was pregnant. Later that year, Jimmy and Jenny's son Sean is born. So it should be noted that tragedy in the North Woods is a novel written specifically about this case. I have it. I've read some of it. It's pretty good. They do change names around to kind of protect some of the people that are still

around, but it is a good resource if you want to know more. I wonder why they change the names considering you can just look online and look at documentaries and all the names are there. Right. There's interviews with them too. Yeah, so they completely changed Veronica and Sean's name to something completely different. I don't understand why. Like you said, there's interviews online. It's not hard to find anybody who people are, especially in Maine. Yeah, absolutely. It's very, very small. I was talking to somebody recently. You know, the whole seven degrees of Kevin Bacon. Yes. Okay. Your bacon number. Yeah, your bacon number is not to Kevin Bacon, but just to people in general. I was having this conversation with Holly that you know people and the degrees of separation between other people you know is. very, very thin. Everyone I meet always seems to know somebody else I know. So in July 1977, James Hicks, his wife and their two children, Veronica age six, and Sean H2, we're living in a trailer park in Carmel. So Carmel is a small town. If you're going up I-95 towards Bangor, it's a few small towns before you get to Bangor. And it's pretty rural. Like, it's either, you know, people who are like poorer or people who have their summer camps around

the lake, but there's a lot of trailers. So, generally, was known for being a loving, responsible mother. She was employed the Pinobscot Nursing Home and Brewer as a kitchen worker and had begun studying for a certification as a nurse's aide. Jenny was described by her employer as a reliable and motivated worker and one who appeared enthusiastic about the prospect of furthering her education. James Hicks worked as a laborer for construction company in Woodland, Maine. So we went and looked on Google Maps where Woodland was. and this was up in a roostock county past caribou. This is far north. It is very far north. This is like six or seven hours from here in the same state as that.

So that's quite a hike to go to your daily job. I mean, people don't realize how big Maine is and how long it takes to get there. There are Mainers that haven't gone to other parts of the state and will not do so for their entire lives. I've never been to Northern Maine and I've met people from Eastern Maine that I've not even been 100 miles west. So this is just how things are here. Yeah, I went to Prescott one time, and I think we covered that in a much earlier episode. I think so. This sounds familiar. Yeah, but there's not much up there. There's potato fields. There is this kind of scalable version of the solar system that I think you made Preskile put up there. I don't know. It's very

strange. I know there's kind of like a dead strip mall. Yeah, there's dead strip malls even in Lewis and Auburn here. theater but I mean I want to see northern Maine just because I feel like I owe it to myself being a manor to see it and how so many Mainers are secluded. I actually want to see this in its entirety because the difference between Northern Maine, Central Maine, Southern Maine are vastly different. And I can't stress that enough. And you're probably not going to take that seriously until you see it yourself. I know I didn't. Yeah, there's parts of Northern Maine that aren't even named. Yeah. There's nobody there. Yeah, there's maybe three people, if and,

anyone lives there and their their townships and they're labeled by numbers numbers and letters. So I passed one. It was like now entering ZYQ9, whatever. Yeah, no, this is real. There's uncharted territories in our state. Like I said, you can definitely throw a body up there. Stop. Stop. In order for Jenny to continue working, she asked Susan Matley, a 15-year-old girl from Massachusetts

to move in with them and care for the children. Susan accepted the offer and became the Hicks' living babysitter in June of 1977. The arrangement seemed to suit everyone involved until James Hicks made sexual advances towards Susan on July 17, 1977. Susan told Jenny about the incident the following day, and I still can't believe you keep giving people ideas to hide bodies in Maine. Why? As if, why? I want people to commit murders. I want people to come up here and dump bodies. I'm pretty sure people come up from out-of-state and dumb bodies here.

I am very convinced of that. I mean, why wouldn't they? It's perfect opportunity. And unlike other states, you don't get pulled over if you have out of state plates. I'm not saying every state is like this, but I know in Washington state people were telling me that if I drive around with a faraway license plate for too long, cops will pull me over and ask what's going on. Because apparently, once you relocate to Washington State, you have a certain number of days to get your license plate changed or it's a thousand dollar fine. I don't know. Don't ask me. I would like to think if you were driving around up in the townships and some sort of statey or sheriff saw you and you had like Massachusetts plates, they'd probably pull you over. You think so? I don't think they would. So they have nothing better to do up there. I suppose, but I guess I haven't. People from out of state up there are only trafficking heroin. That's all they're doing. That's a good point. I don't know. I haven't heard any stories about towny cops, just stateies. Around here, most towny cops are nice, except for like Lewiston. But I don't consider.

that town. On July 18th, Jenny, along with Veronica, Sean and Susan, went to visit Jenny's sister, Denise Clark. Veronica asked if she could stay with her aunt during Ms. Clark's vacation. Jenny and Ms. Clark agreed that it would be fine if Veronica spent the night. Jenny indicated that she would bring some of Veronica's clothes to her the next day. Jenny also told her sister that she would drive her to the dentist when she arrived with Veronica's belongings. Before leaving her sisters, Jenny declared her dissatisfaction with James Hicks. She told her sister that James would be moving out the next week and that if some reason he did not leave, she would move out. She declared that she would never leave the children with him.

On the same day, Jenny agreed to bake a cake for Linda Elston, who is a close friend of hers, and to deliver it the next day. Sometime after making the above-described commitments, Jenny, James Hicks, Sean and Susan, had dinner together at the Hicks's trailer. During dinner, James Hicks apparently sensed that Jenny was upset over something, but he was uncertain whether Susan had mentioned anything to Jenny about it. sexual advances. He questioned Jenny and she responded they would discuss things later. James moved to kiss his wife, but she would not let him. Showing displeasure with Jenny's reaction, he threw

his dishes into the sink. Susan left to go on a date for the evening and did not return until 4 a.m. During the early morning hours of July 19th, the neighbor of the Hicks's heard Jenny Hicks screaming, a man swearing, and a small child crying. The neighbor specifically recalled that Jenny screamed, oh stop, Jimmy, please stop, or stop, you're killing me. The Hicks's trailer then became quiet, and she noted that there was a light on inside. Soon thereafter, the neighborhood noises that resemble the sound of wood being chopped or sawed. When Susan Matley returned to the Hicks' trailer at 4 a.m., she perceived that something was wrong. As she entered the living room, she found James Hicks sitting in a chair watching television,

and Jenny lying on a love seat with her head down on its wooden arm. Jenny's hair covered her face, and Susan noted that her body was in an awkward position for sleeping. James Hicks told Susan that Jenny was asleep, but Susan feared that Jenny was not well. Susan remembered seeing Jenny wearing a blue fuzzy bathrobe at that time. After Susan went to her room and got into bed, she heard slippers scuffing across the floor and then heard the trailer door open. Susan was afraid to investigate what she had heard. She hit her head under the covers and eventually fell asleep.

So some things I want to fill in is that when she came in and found those two on the couch, James Hicks was watching a TV and it was just pure static. Like he was just dead-eyed just staring at the TV, almost like he was possessed according to her. And when she went to bed, he came into a room and stood there for a little bit and stared at her. And she pretended to be asleep. And then after a while, he left and apparently took the body with him. And she thinks that he was contemplating, killing her, which thankfully he did not.

In contrast to the above scenario, James 6 maintained at the trial that he and his wife had gone for a drive on the evening of July 18th to talk things over and that they went back to the trailer to continue the conversation. According to James Hicks, the outcome was that he would move out of the trailer the next weekend. He further testified that Susan returned at approximately 11 p.m. that night. James 6 recalled that Jenny had even spoken to Susan. He added that he and Jenny took Sean to bed with them, and when he got ready for work the next morning at 4.30 a.m., Sean and Jenny were still in bed. James Hicks supervisor, who lived in the same trailer park as the Hickses,

had occasionally traveled to work with him. He testified that they left for the Woodland site at 5.308. which allowed ample time to stop for coffee and to be to work by 7.30 a.m. On July 19th, sometime before 6 a.m., James Hicks called Linda Elston and asked if Jenny was with her. Mrs. Elston had not seen Jenny that morning. He mentioned that he had attempted to reach Jenny at the trailer, but there was no answer, and he needed to tell her where to find the keys to the truck. Susan testified that she never heard the phone rang and awoke only when she heard Sean crying in the doorway of his parents' room.

Susan continued testifying that she looked in the trailer for Jenny, but Jenny was gone. She had left her glasses and purse on the kitchen table, and the truck was parked in the driveway. James Hicks normally drove the truck to work rather than take the Hicks' car. Susan knew that it was odd for Jenny to have gone somewhere without her glasses. Jenny's vision was extremely poor, causing objects to become progressively blurred beyond a distance of 10 inches

when she did not wear her glasses. I know that feeling. Susan testified that she found Jenny's second pair of glasses and addressed her drawer and determined that none of Jenny's clothes. except the blue fuzzy robe Jenny had been wearing when she was seen lying on the love seat appeared to be missing. James Six returned from work sometime between 3.30 and 4 p.m. He asked Susan where Jenny was, to which Susan replied that she had not seen Jenny all day. Susan told him that Jenny had left without her glasses, but he expressed no great concern and stated that Jenny only needed her glasses for reading and driving.

James Six then left the trailer for about one or one half hours and returned home to tell Susan that she and Sean were going to his mother's house. Apparently, he had previously stopped at Jenny's parents' house to ask if they had seen Jenny. He explained to them that she had left without taking the kids or her glasses. They had too not heard from their daughter. Upon arriving at his mother's house, James Hicks left Susan and Sean and went somewhere with his brother George for about two hours. When James Hicks, Susan and Sean went back to the Hicks's trailer later that evening, Susan noted that the light had been turned on and Jenny's glasses had been taken. James Hicks commented that Jenny must have been at the trailer while they had gone and left with her glasses.

Approximately four days after Jenny's disappearance, Jenny's father noticed that James Hicks was scratching his arms. He claimed he had contracted Poison Ivy at work. According to James Hicks supervisor at the Woodland site, it was highly unlikely anyone could have come into contact with Poison Ivy on that job. Approximately one week after Jenny Hicks' disappearance, Linda Dennifer, who had known Jenny for a couple of months, received a telephone call from a woman who identified herself as Jenny.

The caller asked Mrs. Donifer to convey a message to James Hicks that he was to bring her clothes and that he knew where to find her. The caller refused to divulge her whereabouts and simply repeated the same message. Ms. Zennifer believed that the woman became irritated and could not end the conversation fast enough. Ms. Dunifer never gave the message to James Hicks, but instead described the strange call to Linda Elston. Similarly, Mrs. Elston never mentioned the call to James Hicks. James Hicks, however, sometime thereafter went to see Linda Elston to ask about the call that Jenny had made to her request. that she get a message to him about some clothes. James Hicks made the same inquiry to Wayne Elson sometime in 1983.

And further asked whether he knew anything about the state police investigation into Jenny's disappearance. A couple of months after Jenny was last seen, James Hicks, his brother George and Wayne Elston, were riding in a vehicle in Bangor when suddenly James, who was driving, began to pursue a car that had passed them traveling the opposite direction. According to Elston, James Hicks has exclaimed that he had seen Jenny in the other car. James recalled that it was either his brother or Elston who had seen Jenny. On different occasions, James Hicks represented to others that Jenny had cashed checks after July 19th,

that she had been sending Christmas presents to the children regularly, and that she was even providing child support. Bank records revealed that Jenny had not cashed any checks after July 19th. She also never picked up her last paycheck from the nursing home. James Hicks' mother recalled that he had told her it was Jenny's handwriting on two Christmas presents that were anonymously delivered in 1977. At trial, he denied ever making such a representation to his mother. A number of times, James Hicks told Jenny's family and friends that he had seen and talked with Jenny in Newport.

He described that she was in the car that had pulled up behind his truck and flashed its lights. According to Hicks, he walked back to the car and talked to Jenny, who said that she was fine was staying with a man seated in the car with her. She allegedly told Hicks that she'd be traveling to Florida soon and that she had wondered how the children were. According to Jenny's mother, Myra Sear, sometime between October 1978 and February 1979, she spoke with James Hicks and asked whether he had heard from Jenny.

Hicks told her that she was living in Florida. Mrs. Sear said he was lying and responded that Jenny was really living in New Hampshire. Mrs. Sear further challenged James Hicks and said, I think you killed her and hid the body, to which he said, you'll never prove that. So she was reported missing eventually, and Deputy Timothy Richardson goes to Jimmy and Jenny's home and questions James Hicks, Jimmy Hicks in this case. You'll hear us go between Jimmy and James. Or just Hicks. Or just Hicks. Or the defendant. Or the defendant. Because we're like pooling info from so many different sources. Affidavits, notes we've taken, documentaries. A lot of the

stuff here was scattered around. So James Hicks admitted to pushing his wife around but never hurting her. So he left to go to work and Richardson unsuccessfully finds any evidence of foul play. No body was found, no murder weapon, and nothing. However, Jenny's mother, Myra had commented that he had put her in the hospital before. Oh, I did not know that portion. He had some very big, large, like, square class ring, like the big Jostens ones. Yeah. And he punched her square in the back so hard she had to go to the hospital. He left a mark in her. Good Lord. No, I didn't know that. Yeah. He did investigate the apartment after James Hicks left for work. I don't know how he was able to investigate that without a warrant, but he questioned Susan Matley, the living babysitter, and she claimed that James Hicks had not allowed her to leave the trailer for four whole days.

Well, I bet he was allowed to do that because Susan let him in. I was a teenager. I mistakenly allowed two police officers into my mom's apartment, and they questioned me without my mom there for hours. Can't you just tell them to leave? I didn't know that I could. Yeah, they like to... I was like 15 and they were like sitting there questioning me at my kitchen table for quite some time. Yeah, they really like to throw their power around and make you think you have no choice because they're police.

Yep. Can we talk about this? We can talk about it, absolutely. Just give me the quick rundown. I didn't know you were. No, quick rundown. So when I was 15 years old, a freshman in high school was the same year the Collin Bine shooting happens. And as you know, we talked about in many different episodes.

Yergy was very goth teenager. Yeah, still got the Jason adult. But around then it became some sort of witch hunt, and everyone was accusing the goth person at their high school of going to shoot the school up. So I, for a few hours, was questions about whether or not I was going to blow up the school or shoot up the school, and they were asking really indirectly. And for a very long time, I had no idea why they were there. Yeah, that's why.

Wow. They had to tell me why they were there. And, like, literally for six months, I got harassed by the police. And it took my mom getting a very prominent Lewiston defense lawyer to write a letter to the school and the police department for them to like leave me alone. Wow. That's kind of insane. And I don't know if this really happens now. I mean, I'm sure it does to people of color. But you don't really hear this happening to, you know, kids dressing goth anymore. I don't think there's a satanic panic anymore. Well, I mean, yeah, look at what happened to Brandon Thong Savant. So you don't really hear things like, you don't hear things like that happening nowadays. Right. But it was the same time period,ish. Right. That's what I was alluding to. It's funny. The kids who threatened to shoot up the school in my school, one came with a gun after telling somebody he was going to shoot it up and the police intercepted him. And he was more of like a kind of a stoner type. He was kind of like a gearhead. He kind of hung around with those crowds. And then another person who, I think he was the only one that threatened to shoot it up. There were people who made bomb threats and those were stoners. Yeah, they're all stoners. And then people who did make bombs. But, but. But there were works bombs.

They weren't actually explosives. They were chemical bombs. It was actually like two prep kids and one of them was fourth in her class. And they set them off near the school. It was just nuts to me. So like the people who you thought would have been behind this, it wasn't. It wasn't. It was the opposite people. Wow.

Yeah. But again, I went to a nightmare land for school. So anyways. Anyways, back to this. Yeah. So Susan Matley decided to leave Maine to live with a friend in Ohio. Susan's friend encouraged her to call the police about any information. However, she refused to do so.

So this is where the investigation goes cold. They have no leads, no evidence, and they cannot find Jenny. So five years later, we're now in the small main town of Newport, Maine. Newport is, I'd say, if you're driving from here up I-95 to Bangor, I called the halfway point. That's usually where you stop to get gas or go pee. Yeah. If you're going to Acadia National Park, you always stop in Newport. There's a big rest area there with fast food and all that.

But people usually don't go to Newport. They pass through Newport. Yeah, I've gone pee there. I've stopped at the subway, gassed up. I think there is a really tasty seafood restaurant there, but that's really about it. Yeah. So during this time, James Hicks stops at a bar called the Gateway Lounge in Newport. Which is no longer operating, I think, but the building's still there?

The building's still there. Like in different videos, part of what we saw was an investigation discovery documentary that's on YouTube. And it's some sort of bar, but they kept luring out the name or getting just below where the name on the sign was. So the building is still there and operational as something. I just don't know what it is. Maybe sometime we can take a road trip up there and see what it is. Search bars in Newport. I'm sure there will map it.

I'm sure there won't be many results. so we can narrow it down pretty quickly. Yes. So while at this bar, he meets a young woman by the name of Geraldine Towers. Was she young? She was young-ish. I thought she was in her 30s. I mean, it's still young.

Yeah, okay, fair enough. Don't make us old. She was the mother of three children. Well, when you say young, you think like a teenager to 21. Right. So she was a woman in her 30s that had two children. Sometimes read three children. Two or three children.

Different sources had different information here. What happens when you go after small town or not widely covered murder cases? Right. So she ordered her favorite drink. Hicks offered to pay for the favorite drink and they were getting shoddy and they ended up leaving together. Some sources state they went swimming. The bartender who was a woman by the name of, let's see here, was it Macbeth? Judy Macbeth.

I almost said April O'Neill. April O'Neill. Do you know who that is? I know who April O'Neill is. I watched Ninja Turtles. Okay, good, good, good. Anyway. So she went and saw them leave the gateway lounge and walking out of a convenience store.

So from what they said, Hicks offers towers a ride to a Newport swimming hole. After they finished swimming, Towers enters Hicks car from the front and Hicks strangles her from behind. Based on his confession in the year 2000, he claims he kept Towers remains in the trunk of his car for two weeks and then dismembered and buried the remains in a field on his property. So no one actually, the only person that saw them leave together was the bartender. And so because of this, just the swimming hole incident and all of that came from Hicks confession. Right. Yep. So basically what had happened with this, and I'm just saying this now, I'm kind of jumping ahead a little bit.

But what we have here is a situation of if James Hicks is just like, well, I never met this lady. I never left with her. I don't know who you're talking about. It's basically his word versus the bartenders. And he would have got away with all of this. Yeah. This is the crazy part. This is the murder that fucked everything up for him because...

Mostly because he has a fucking big mouth. Yeah, he loves talking to the police. There's been multiple times where he's talking to the police and whatever girlfriend he's with at the time tells the police to leave or get him a lawyer or something like that. Yeah. But he never thinks to do it himself. He doesn't seem very smart. And he has a lot of girlfriends. You will see throughout this story, James Hicks is some sort of playboy here.

And all these really youngish women are like flocking all over him, even when in friggin' prison. Yeah, even in prison, even when they know that he's had a shady past history, that he's been remarried several times. He, whenever he's with somebody, he seems to have multiple side pieces as well. It's kind of ridiculous because I don't know. Like the minute one disappears, there's another one already there. Yeah, I can see how he could be attractive, but he was always so unkept and didn't take care of himself. So I don't know what his fucking appeal was. Is he Bangor handsome?

I don't know. I haven't spent enough time in Bangor. And when I did, it was around punk kids. So it's kind of hard for me to say, I would think that that whole, are you attractive for Northern Maine is up past Bangor. I'd like to think there's probably decent looking people in Bangor equivalent to people in Lewiston Auburn. Yeah.

I'm thinking he's more. like a roostick county handsome yeah but anyway okay all right anyway so geraldine's mother june tibbitts contacts the newport police stating her daughter had not been seen since october 16th and this is when officer james rickricks responds to the call so after interviewing gerald's mother and stepfather officer rickr discovered the towers had been known to leave unexpectedly for short periods of time however she would always let someone know where she was going it's kind of weird when you have when you have kids but you know who knows who knows who knows Yeah, I don't know the situation.

Tower's mother and stepfather run a local ad in the newspaper seeking information about Jerilyn's whereabouts. Two days after Jarreland's disappearance, Corporal Eugene Robinson joins Officer Ricker in the investigation. Nathan Small of Scowhegan reports to Tower's parents' newspaper ad and claims to have a special ability of finding missing people and contacts Robinson. Small also claimed Towers was dead and her body was floating in the river in Bingham in Somerset County. After a plane surveyed the river, nobody was found. So this person was probably a psychic, just trying to cash in on this. However, Officer Robinson does receive an anonymous phone message claiming a Gary Hicks was the last person seen leaving with Towers at the bar. After interviewing bar patrons, Robinson discovers that individual was James Hicks.

And it should also be noted that the bartender, who was the one to report James Hicks leaving with Jeryl and Towers, She was getting threatening phone calls at the bar saying she is a big mouth and somebody's going to shut it. Yeah. And stuff like that. And they, for some reason, can't trace phone calls in 1982? I don't think so. I guess not. So they couldn't.

I mean, not in time. Press Star 6.9 wasn't until the 90s. That's true. So they couldn't do anything about that at the time. And they assumed it was James Hicks, but there was no way they could prove it. Man, what a time. What a time to be alive when you could just get away with. anything. That's what it feels

like. Whenever I look at days of yield and past, I'm just like, man, people got away with everything. Getting away with murder in Northern Maine in the fucking 80s. And also when you see all these people now... He wasn't even hiding bodies in a roostock county like I always always suggest people too. He was hiding on his goddamn property.

A simple warrant and they're able to search his property with like fucking dogs and stuff. Carrying bodies in his car. And some of them were shallow graves. Some of them were just strewn about. Fuck. It's just crazy to me. So yeah, when you look at Green River killer he was caught way later, like DNA evidence has caught so many killers so far later that you just wonder how many people

were really getting away with killing people in small town nowhere. Because these are the high profile cases that we got people with DNA. Right. Like James Six may have killed more people. I'm not going to touch on that till like way later, but. But it is possible. He has gone through two murders so far. Yes. But he legitimately does qualify as a serial killer as. As a you'll see as we go on. Yes. So Officer Robison questions James Hicks at his home in Etna, Maine. So Etna, I'll try to like explain where a lot of these places are. So if you're going past, or you're going up, rather, I-95, Etna is past Newport, I believe past Carmel or they're right near each other before you start getting into the Hamden-Herman area right before you hit Bangor. So it's on the highway about 10 minutes outside of Bangor. Again, another really small town.

Etna spelled E-T-N-A, not A-E-T-N-A like the... insurance. Yeah. So he denies being at the bar on October 16th and says he knows nothing about Geraldine's disappearance. So Officer Robinson meets with a bartender after hearing rumors that she recall seeing Hicks leave with towers the night of the 16th, the night they supposedly went swimming according to Hicks later on in his confession. So she provides a physical description. Officer Ricker goes to James Hicks again back in Etna and questions him following the interview with the bartender. So before going into Hicks's home, the officer discovers Hicks first wife Jenny had been missing for more than five years after talking to the Etna Postmaster. And during

that interview, Hicks is uncooperative, denies being at the gateway lounge. And Hicks live in girlfriend because he has another, returns home from work, request an attorney, ask the police to leave. But this is not before Hicks blurts out, you think I killed my first wife. Yeah, right. I was going to touch on the fact that there's some over, there's some conflicting information because yeah. This makes it sound like he went to his, they went to his home twice. According to one of the officers, they interviewed him at the bar first because he came back the next night and the bartender called the police and asked them to come down. So they came down. They interviewed him. He's like, yeah, I was at this bar, but I don't know this woman you're talking about. I didn't

leave with her. So it's kind of... There's a lot of different parts to this. I never read or saw anything that said he denied being at the bar, just that he denied ever meeting this woman. And I don't know about the Etna Postmaster thing, but I do know that he did blurt out. to a cop. You think I killed my first wife and the cops like, why I didn't even know he had a first wife? And this is where Detective Dick Richel of the main state police gets involved. Or Ritchell? I think it's Rischel. It's either Richael or Ritchell. He was retired at the time, but he was contacted by Ricker since there were no leads in the Towers case and the possibility of a single or a double homicide. So Detective Ritchell discovers Susan Matley, who is James Hicks and Jenny's

living babysitter. She was living in Pepper. Massachusetts. So he discovered her because he talked to James Hicks' sister. Star. Star, yes, her name is Star, and asked only about the babysitter because somebody told them that they had a living babysitter at the time. So to back this up just a little bit, they decided to like go to the Pinov Scott County Sheriff's Office to see if there was a file on Jenny and there was nothing. So they had to completely start back from the beginning again. There was like a walk in the beat, going through the trailer part, looking for clues. Yeah, because there was minor lip in there like, oh, missing person, but there was nothing in the way of documentation or evidence or anything like that.

So it was almost just she didn't even exist. Yeah. So where they found out about the babysitter was the neighbor in the adjoining, not really adjoining, but next door neighbor in the other trailer, had heard all of the commotion the night of the murder. And that's when Susan the babysitter got brought up. When talking to Starr, James Hicks's sister, he asked her just about the babysitter. And she's like, well, I think I have a letter from her because they used to correspond. And so that's how he got the name Matley.

So he searched for Susan Matley and found out she was living in Pepperel, Massachusetts, start searching around Pepperel, and finds she's working at a convenience store there. He walks in the convenience store on her shift and says, Are you Susan Matley? And the first thing she said was, are you here to talk to me about Jenny Hicks? And so during the interview, Susan Matley recalls the night of October 19, 1977, claims she saw Jenny lying an awkward position in Hicks living room. Matley also claims to have heard shoes being dragged across the floor.

and hears James Hicks presumably drive away in his pickup truck. So with this information, Detective Ritchell, Rachel, takes case to, Rachel sounds better, but I think they said it was Ritchell, whatever. I'm making it German. Of course you are. Rachel. Rachel takes case to the grand jury and an indictment is issued for the murder of

Jenny Sear Hicks against James Hicks. He is arrested and charged for murder. He's arraigned before a Pinaub-Scott County judge in Bangor, Maine, denies murdering his wife and pleads not guilty. So the court appoints counsel. Hicks then changes counsel a month later. And then jury selection begins four months later. This is March of 1984.

The Omen statements for the murder trial against James Hicks for the murder of his wife, Jenny Hicks begins. Susan Matley is the only witness. Nobody is ever produced. Hicks does not confess and a murder weapon is never discovered. So that's really all they had going for him. And despite this, after a nine-hour deliberation, the jury returns a verdict of manslaughter. At the time, it was known as murder in the fourth degree, which, of course, he did it.

He later confessed and all that. But the fact that you could convict somebody, nobody, no murder weapon, practically hearsay, seems rather scary to me. I think so, too. It's very scary. I mean, we know somebody. I've covered the case in another part. podcast before and I do believe we'll cover it eventually to hear. Yeah.

And we're a little bit more comfortable with it where we knew someone who is currently put away in prison for murder where there was no body. I mean, he did later say where the body was. However, he was basically convicted on hearsay. Yeah. No murder weapon. No DNA evidence. No.

Nothing. No confession. Just hearsay. Nobody saw anything. There were no witnesses. it was just, oh, I think he did it. Basically. Yeah.

So, but yeah, I'm sure we'll do that one in the future. I want to. Yes. I really do. So he's convicted and he basically at this point serves six years in prison for this. He marries a Linda Marquis in Thomaston State Prison in Thomaston. Linda asserts James Innocence, according to tragedy in the North Woods.

They have known each other for seven years. So they knew each other prior to him going to prison, I assume. Mm-hmm. They get married a year into. his into his bid and he's released in 1990 he's about 36 37 at this time and is described to have been a model prisoner now during this time while he's in the thomaston state prison which is actually no longer they leveled that everybody who goes to state prison for the most part now that would normally yeah would normally go to thompson goes to warren which is the supermax but during this time he was

locked up with geraldine tower's brother yes who was he had an attempted murder and kidnapping charge and he was telling people, I'm going to kill James Hicks. And the warden set it up. They gave the green light on it, which is something I don't really hear happen in prisons, but they basically told him, well, look the other way, allegedly. And they set up a meeting between the two. Yeah. And so they were talking, and he kept saying, you killed my sister,

and James Hicks just denied it, denied it, denied it. Yeah, he was talking about all the different ways you could kill somebody while you're in that prison. I guess you could throw them off the root pretty. easily out the kitchen window pretty easily. Yeah. Drowning, just strangulation in the showers. Yeah. There was a lot of different ways that he could have done it, but he never did do it.

He let him be and Hicks was released from prison. However, make a little mental note about him because he's going to come up later on too. He is a very important part in this story in bringing James Hicks to justice finally. But this is probably where we should stop it. Right. This is, this ended up being a much bigger story than we thought it would be. Yeah, because this isn't just, I know we've been doing shorter cases lately where there's one or two people killed or there's not enough complicated information, but there's a lot more that happens here. And I think this has to be broken up into a second part.

Yeah, there's like a lot of complicated information, a lot of conflicting information and a ton of different sources to kind of put this together. Yeah. So part two next week. Part two next week. All right. So let's close this out. if you're listening on YouTube, please like and subscribe. We've really been gaining momentum lately, and I'm so thankful for that.

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But if you just search the Misery Machine and then click on groups, you'll find us. And you can find out what we're releasing a little bit ahead of time. But yeah, next. week is going to be more James Hicks and we just got another request lately which we have to look into but sooner you request the sooner we'll be able to get into it but yeah do anything else I don't have anything else uh we're gonna go work out now yeah yeah we are pretty lazy and we're probably going to go I don't know it's kind of nice like 59 degrees out it was supposed to rain and snow today yeah it's probably going to take advantage of it and go to the beach because we have the next four

days off so I uh I want to go to as many cool things we can do and take advantage of the cheap gas right now yeah gas was straight oil futures negative 30 a barrel get gas folks this is quite the opportunity right now to fill your car up I think it's still a dollar 84 over at cumbees is it yeah if you and it's like a dollar 40 over at Walmart if you want to deal with that which I don't because it's probably all covered in COVID well it depends on the time of day just bring hand sanitizer and shit yeah there's some in the car yeah so but anyways all right we'll see you next week All right, bye, love you. We love you, bye.