True Crime All The Time - Betty Lou Beets

Episode Date: November 5, 2018

Betty Lou Beets had a rough childhood, married young, and suffered physical abuse from a series of husbands. Husband number 5, Doyle Barker, seemingly vanished. Husband number 6, Jimmy Don Beets, disappeared on supposed fishing trip. It would take a few years but eventually police would start to look at Betty Lou.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the facts around Texas Black Widow killer Betty Lou Beets. Was she acting in self-defense as she would later claim or did she murder for money? Betty Lou would gain supporters who felt she did not deserve to face the death penalty.You can help support the show by going to patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

everyone and welcome to episode 103 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime. Mike Gibson, give me, how are you? And I'm doing good, man. How about you? Man, I'm doing good man. Get a shirt made up like that. I know when I hear that. When I hear both man's. Yeah. As I adjust myself with my chair. It's going to be a good episode. Yeah. So now you're admitting you have a chair. Oh, always had a chair. I just went from Wood, Slate it, slot it to your old, your old leather bound, well, not leather. It's like fake leather bound chair. And you got the new chair.

I'm not even going to, I'm not even going to. And I started it. I shouldn't have started it. You brought it up. Let's do our Patreon shoutouts. Let's do that. We had Steph Bennett. Hey, Steph.

Cody Hilton. Hey, Cody Hilton from the Hilton fortune fame. Emily Garten. Hey, Emily. Camihana. Kimi Hana. This is a cool name. Yeah, I do like that.

Lee Alexander. Hey, Lee. Crystal Kitchener. The Kitchener Alaskin family. How you doing? Shea Di Pastino. Di Pastino. Candice Cologne.

Candice Cologne. Smell little good. All of a sudden, she's Italian as well? I just was rolling with it. It's easier. Lisi Rosser. Hey, Lisi. It's too hard for you to switch mid-street.

It is. Really is. Daniel Deans. Hey, Daniel. Elizabeth. Elizabeth. Yorke Morgan. Hey, York.

Michelle Kellems. Kellums. Kyle. Just Kyle? Just Kyle. Maybe it's not Kyle. Maybe it's Kyle. Keele?

Keele. Maybe it's Keele. Yeah, Keele. Michelle Le Bombard. Lombard. Lombard. Would you put a G-E-R on the end of it somehow? Well, at least I didn't go like a Patreon.

I went Labada. Lombada. Yeah. Kim Litfin. Kim. Steph. Just Steph. Susan West. She's not east.

Susanna Moore. Hey, Susanna Moore. Josephine Bernhardson. Hmm. Bern Holston. Holston? Well, I just go. Hey.

Savannah Brooks. Hey, Savannah. Renee Kale. Hey, Renee. Lindsay Hinn. Lindsay. Laura Olenazak. Hey, Laura.

I'm sorry that he messed up your name. And I'll tell you what, Gibbs. I don't know if I've ever been any more unsure of myself in saying a name. Or a W. Thank you. I'm thinking there is multiple silent letters in this last name. So is this Laura.

Waski? Waski. Left everything out with the ending in the beginning. What's at the end? You didn't get any of them right. There's an O in the front of it and a K at the end. Oh. And you said waski.

This is Laura okay. I don't even know where to go from that. She's like, Waski. I guess I need to see it. See, I don't ever see it. I don't ever see the names. I spelled it for you. Yeah, I don't believe you spelled it right.

Don't do the phonics. The phonics is wrong. That's why I said to Jay Silent. So we'll see. Yeah, Silent Jay and Bob. Jenny Stafford. Hey, Jenny. Kim Bookout.

Look out. And then if we go back into the vault, Gibbs. Yeah. This week we selected Buffy Brown. Hey, Buffy. Not only a cool name, but a very long time supporter of the show. So big shout out to her. Appreciate that.

And big shout out. to all the new Patreon supporters and the people that continue to support us month after month. We appreciate it. We had some PayPal support as well. Okay. Grace Brunei. Hey, Grace. Craig Futurer.

Fuderer. Lucas Edmund. Hey, Lucas. Kim Gall. Thanks, Kim. And Jennifer Winkler. Oh, really? Jennifer.

Well, thank you for that. So big shout out to them as well. Awesome. So how was your week, Gibbs? My week was better than your week. That is true. That is true. You know, I mean, came off of a really nice weekend and came back to the office and while I was gone, I got your call.

And I hated to hear the news that you got. Yeah, found out this week that I'm being laid off. Yeah. From a place I've worked at for 15 years. And that's tough. It is tough. I'm sure a lot of our audience has gone through that. Yeah.

And it's, you know, it's part of life nowadays. It is. I was telling somebody, you know, it's not like, it's not like my grandfather's era where, you know, when he latched on somewhere, man, you showed up for work and did what you were supposed to do. You were almost guaranteed that you were going to, you could retire. Oh, yeah. From that place. You get your 30 plus years in. Yeah.

Around here, you know, a lot of it was GM, Fridjadier. Yeah. Um, AC Delco. Sure. Chrysler, all those places. Yeah. places like that. It's not like that today.

And it's, you know, it's not the place that I work. And it's weird because you still work there. I'm still there. Different department. Yeah. We work in different departments, but I'll be there through the end of the year. And then I've got to figure something out. And maybe that figuring out includes more podcasting.

Well, I think it's, possibly. I think it's a good avenue to go. Yeah. It might. Well, someone reaches out to you and says, hey, I got this great job for you, Mr. executive, you know, ability. So we'll see. Yeah.

But either way, something new is happening. Yeah. Well, for sure. That's a guarantee because... It's like when the forest fires come through and burn up all those old trees, you have the rebirth, man. You are the rebirth. Are you saying my life is like a forest fire? Well, it was.

It's out now. Or it is right now. This is the rebirth. I'm reborn. You are reborn and you're going to do great things, man. We'll see. You know, it's one of those things where you get... You know, you feel like you've been punched in the gut, but then also you feel like maybe there's something really good coming.

If anybody can take this, which could be a down downer for a lot of people and turn into something good as you. It's me, man. Oh, absolutely. I stay positive. Believe me, I have a complete faith in your ability to do whatever you set your mind to it. 100% positivity. Yeah. All right, Gibbs.

Are you ready to get into this episode of True Crime All the Time? What if I ever said no? I haven't. I like to ask you because I feel like it's the polite thing to do. Yeah. It probably gets on everybody's nerves. Because they know I'm going to say, yeah. So let me change it up.

Gibbs. Yeah. We're doing this episode. I don't care what you want or what you think. Just stay off my freaking phone. Right. Yeah, man, that's what happens is you get married. It doesn't happen to everybody that gets married.

But I think most people know what we're talking about when we say Black Widow, but just in case, right, it refers to a woman, normally a woman, because that kills their husband or in the case of Betty Lou Beats, multiple husbands for money. Yeah, got to make an income. And that kind of seems to happen in a lot of these Black Widow situations. They run through multiple. multiple husbands. So this episode, I believe, is going to scare some of the men in the audience,

make sure they're keeping their head on a swivel. Like you said, maybe they're going into a relationship. Yeah. Maybe they're thinking about getting married. I want to think twice. I'm not saying, that's you, man. I'm not saying don't get married. I'm just saying choose wisely. Choose. But you know, most of the stories that we do involve men as the killer. Right. Targeting female victims. That just seems to be, if you look at most serial killers, most murders really in general outside of, you know, gang violence and things like that.

But the stories that we profile are a lot of men who target female victims. Right. And because of that, we hear from a lot of our female listeners that the show helps them to keep their head on a swivel. To be cognizant of, you know, who's around them, getting out of cars, be on the lookout. You know, we get voicemails. We get emails all the time. We do.

But this one might be for the guys. Oh, it's definitely for the. After hearing this one. Yeah. And you know what that new relationship feeling is like. Ghibis. It might be a long time for you like it has for me. But it's all sunshine, rainbows.

Oh, honeymoon. Unicorns. Unicorns. Cotton candy. cotton candy. You fall in love. You get married. Hopefully you live happily ever after. But sure, you know going into it. It's going to be a tough road at times. There's going to be bumps. Breakups happen. Right. You know all of that stuff going into a relationship. Yeah. You're going to have your trials and your. What's the one that goes with trials?

The other part. And what is it? You started it. I didn't start this for you. You saw me go blank. Uh-huh. And you're like, I'm going to run with it. I could have said it and bailed you out. Yeah. And I chose not to. Try on. Triba, triba, tributa, do, do.

Tribulations. Yeah. I'll help you eventually, but I had to let you flound her for a little bit. So you have those. You will. But if, you know, you're in love, you work it out, get through them, and move on. But nobody expects to fall in love, get married, and then be targeted by your spouse for money. Right.

That's what we're talking about. Well, you got to have the money first to be targeted. So some people are really safe. No, I get that. But there are women that they don't need a lot of money. That's true. And the old life insurance policy, too. That's what I'm saying, to target.

You know, we'll get into it in this case of Betty Lou Beats. So she was born Betty Lou Dunavant, March 12, 1937 in Roxbury, North Carolina to Margaret Smithwick and James Dunavant. Betty Lou would later talk about and recount that her father was an alcoholic sharecropper. They were dirt poor. She described as a child living in a shack without water, without electricity. When she was very young, the family moved to Virginia where her parents worked in the cotton mills. She had three siblings, an older brother and a younger brother and sister.

Betty Lou had a rough childhood. And I know that's something we say a lot. We say that about male killers as well. Right. But she really did. Well, she started off just living in a shed. Well. With no electric or water.

So that wasn't too enjoyable. You know, dirt poor. But she contracted measles at the age of three. And this caused this very high, prolonged fever. And it left her with permanent hearing loss. And that was very tough on her growing up. especially in school because the hearing loss greatly affected her speech as well. And Betty Lou Beetz would not get any type of hearing aids until she was 40 years old.

Oh, wow. So she went through a large part of her life with this pretty serious hearing loss with no aids of any kind to help her out. She's also made the claim that her father and others, maybe even some other relatives, She said sexually abused her when she was as young as five years old. Okay, that's gross. I did see some varying accounts on this. I saw where she said it was her father.

And then I saw some later interviews where she said she couldn't be sure if it was her father or not. So I don't know that maybe changed over time, but she does believe that she was sexually abused at a very young age. She just has memories or dreams of it happening. I think she's got a little hazy on exactly who it was, but she believes it's somebody in her family. Her two younger siblings were eight and ten years younger than her. So quite a bit.

It's a pretty good sized age gap there. And this is pretty significant because in 1949, Betty Lou's only 12 years old. Her mother was institutionalized. And it was left to Betty Lou to care for her younger brother and sister. Gibbs, that's a lot to ask of a 12-year-old. It is a lot. Because you have to figure these kids are something like two and four, three and five at that time. They're very young.

There's some parents that can't even handle that. Right. So to ask a 12-year-old to take care of these two young kids, it's really a lot. And probably in large part due to this, Betty Lou dropped. dropped out of school after the ninth grade, and she got married at 15 years old. She married her first husband, Robert Branson, in 1952. The next year, by the time she was 16, she had her first child with Branson. This is a daughter that they named Faye.

Betty Lou claimed that this relationship was abusive from the very start. And it didn't last long at first. Within the first year, they separated. the reports that she attempted to harm herself. And after that incident, she and Robert got back together and they moved to Texas. But they would go on to have five more children together and be married about 17, 18 years. I think Robert finally divorced her in 1969. So he's abusive.

And this is something we're going to talk about a lot. You know, she had a rough childhood. She had a pretty rough life, too. We're going to talk about a series of men. And from all accounts, she experienced a lot of abuse in her life. Life was rough for her after the divorce. She was left with a gaggle of kids. I don't know if that's the right word, but.

Gaggle? Yeah. Is it a gaggle of geese? I don't know what you call a bunch of kids. Well, probably a bunch of kids. But she's got a bunch of them. And she's got no marketable skills. Right.

She dropped out of school at the age of. 15. She'd been a homemaker the whole time that she was married to Robert Branson. Now she's got to go out and get a job to support these kids. Add on to that Gibbs the fact of her significant hearing loss and trouble with speech. She's got a lot of things, you know, not in her favor. Right. At this point in her life, he's got a lot of knee walls to get over. What's a knee wall? A wall that comes up to your knee. Oh. Got a hurdle over, jump over. Those don't seem that hard to get over, though.

I mean, you think you can get over right now. A wall that comes up to my knee, I could just step over. I could step over as many as I wanted. You think? You don't know what's on the other side? If you said a wall that comes up to my head, that would be much more challenging. I just have to bring the wall up to your hip. Anything that takes upper body strength.

Mid thigh probably stops you. Changes the whole equation. But if I just have to step over it like Godzilla, I can do that. Yeah, all day long. That's not a problem. Now, Betty Lou says she didn't drink up until the time of her divorce, but she began drinking heavily after it.

Divorces will do that to you, man. They can be very rough on people. Yeah. You know, she said at times she worked two to three jobs, waitressing, cashiering to support the family because apparently Robert wasn't giving her much money. She said that, you know, he would drop by every now and then. give her $50 for the kids, but there would be long stretches of time with nothing. You know, $50 doesn't go that far if you have to feed and clothe five kids.

I don't know if you can even get maybe and feed all five kids at Taco Bell for 50 bucks. No clothes though. Well, today, but I mean, we're talking back in a, you know, 6970, you can get a bunch of tacos for 50 bucks. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, like 25 cent taco a night. Yeah, tacos used to be like for five, not even $5, for $2 at Taco Bell when I was a kid. Yeah.

It seemed like you could get the whole menu. Yeah, you did. Like things were like 10 cents or 15 cents. You felt good about it. Makes me feel very old, but. Well, you are old. Now you can't even hardly buy anything with change anymore at Taco Bell. No.

Were things like $1.50, $1.89 or something. Got to break a 10 or 20. Now, eventually some of the kids. kids left, married. One of her daughters married at the age of 15, just like Betty Lou did. And some of them, she shipped off. Some went to live with their father. Some she sent off to live with other people. At one point, all she had was her youngest, Bobby. And I think he was about three at the time. Okay. But Betty Lou wouldn't be single for long. And this is something that we're going to hear time and time again. She met a man named Billy York Lane.

and they married the very next year. Now, to say that this was a tumultuous relationship would be probably understating it by quite a bit. Billy was extremely abusive to Betty Lou to the point that she had to get a restraining order against him. Gibbs three months into the marriage. Really? You know, that's not good. It's not good.

I've heard people say weeks within their marriage, the husband comes back and just, just a, you know, somebody different. Really? Yeah. See, yeah. Now, you would think there's a honeymoon period. There's normally some period of time where you're in that honeymoon phase after a marriage. Now, I know it ends in some marriages earlier than others, but I thought three months was

very quick. You're talking about weeks. Weeks, months, man. I didn't know the restraining order phase could come that quickly in a marriage, but I guess it can. Yeah. Some people just want to go through the motions, you know, say they're married. It just seems strange for me to somebody would change so quickly after saying I do.

Or did they change? Were they that person before? And just put a good... And either the other person went through with it anyway thinking that they would change? I don't know. Yeah, start telling. I mean, what does the words I do change that quickly within a couple of weeks? But for Betty Lou and Billy, I mean, this marriage must have been pretty bad from the word go.

To get to that point within that short amount of time that you're filing a restraining order within three months of the marriage, it was so bad that they divorced the same year they were married. That's bad. It is bad. But apparently the abuse didn't end with the divorce. The next year, Billy and Betty Lou were involved in an altercation. where he broke her nose. The year after that, Betty Lou says that Billy threatened to kill her. And this was not a good idea on his part, Gibbs, because Betty Lou didn't take that very well,

which I don't think most people would, but she took it to a whole other level. She shot Billy Lane twice in the back for threatening to kill her. But he survived. And there are some varying stories on this one. probably something I'm going to say a lot because, you know, you have Betty Lou's account on things. You have other people's accounts. Betty Lou said that Billy was upset after seeing her at a bar with another man. There are some stories that she was intentionally egging him on, right? She would find out where he would be at night. She would go to that bar. She would flirt and

dance with men in front of him. That's why I say there's varying stories on this. She continues with the fact that he followed her home and threatened to kill her. Now, Billy's story at the time was that she called him on the phone and begged him to come over. And when he did, he found her holding a gun. But either way, either way it happened, he ended up with two bullets in his back. That part's not in dispute. And that's not good. Because the police were called, Betty Lou told them her story of the events and said it was self-defense.

but they didn't buy it. And they arrested her. And she was set to stand trial for trying to kill Billy when all of a sudden Gibbs, he stepped in. And Billy Lane signed an affidavit saying he had threatened Betty Lou, threatened her life, and that it was her story that was true and not his. So with that, they reduced her charges. And she pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of misdemeanor aggravated assault is a big difference from attempted murder it's a huge difference she walked away from the shooting after paying a hundred dollar fine and fifty dollars in court costs wow so that's it 150 dollars and you're out the door scott free versus she was on trial for attempted murder and if convicted would have went away for a very long time yeah but that's

not even the biggest shocker of this whole part. These two get remarried, not long after all of this happened. I think that's always crazy. And it's probably very hard for you to believe, but this second time around lasted about a month. Shocker, I mean, I get some people do remarry. Probably didn't need to get divorced the first time. They just needed to work through something. Sure. But what they were describing, they needed to be divorced and stay. And never see each other ever again. And never see each other ever again. Yeah. He's extremely abusive. She shot him twice in the back.

I think you just go your separate ways after that trial. Yeah. If your life, if your marriage could be on Jerry Springer, probably need to move on and not come back. Right. They didn't have any kids together. So they could have just separated and said, hey, you stay on this side.

I'll stay on that side. Right. Yeah. Billy Lane died in 1982 from natural causes. But you have to wonder about, him changing his story. Yeah. You know, did he do it because that was the truth and he had a change of heart. He didn't want to see her go to prison or was it what he needed to do to get back with her? I really don't know. I don't know what the truth is. I don't either. Yeah. But I find it very interesting.

All right, Gibbs, let's take a quick break to talk about our sponsors. And the first one I want to talk about is ExpressVPN. You and I told. You and I told. You and I. talk about gruesome crimes, murders, kidnappings, and those type of things worry people. But you know what doesn't and should worry a lot of people is cybercrime. In just a few seconds, you can become a victim. Some hacker with the right know-how can easily intercept your data, steal your passwords, get your personal information. So to protect myself online, I started using ExpressVPN. And it's so easy to use. It runs in the background. It takes one click to turn it on. And ExpressVPN secures and gives you anonymity while browsing the internet. It hides your

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order. That's homechef.com slash teacat for $30 off your first order. Home Chef.com.com.com for $30 off your first order. homechef.com slash teacat. So a year after this, Betty Lou is working in a topless bar and she's got a new man in her life. It's a man named Ronnie Threlcold. And Kim's, we have to talk about this. This woman could pick up men seemingly at the drop of a hat. Really? I mean, it seems to me she was never very long without a man or life.

You're good luck that. That I never go very long without a man in my life? And you can pick them up this like that. Well, now you're just making me blush. I know. Get your cowboy hat on, your boots. You sell it. Oh, I can sell it.

Yeah. If I need to sell it, I can sell it. Mr. Ryanstone cowboy. But she could. I mean, she could pick up men very easily. Now, I'm not sure how good she was at judging the character of these men, because it does seem like she had a bad picker, but she had no problem finding men, you know, finding a man at all.

She married Ronnie, and that marriage lasted about five years. But it hit the skids literally in 1978 when she tried to run him over with her car. If you're going to run somebody over, you better be really good at it. And not just try. Yeah, you can't try. You have to actually. Don't try. Do it.

But something like that does tend to sour, you know, relationship pretty quickly. there were newspaper articles from back during that time period that kind of talked about the incident saying that really the only thing that saved Ronnie was number one the sound of the engine and apparently they were on gravel so maybe some peel out he heard the gravel he had just enough time to dive out of the way so not shockingly betty lou and ronnie divorced in 1979 but later that same year, she met and married a construction worker named Doyle Wayne Barker. Gibb, she's not even really going calendar years between marriages. So, Doyle, there's a southern name. Is it? Yeah. Doyle, you don't hear that up north. That's definitely a southern name.

I didn't know that. Yeah. Now you know. Now I learned something on this episode from you, Gibbs. We get like five people. I'm going to get 100 emails. I'm up in Minnesota and you. York. My name is Doyle. Doyle is a northern name. What are you talking about? Now, the next year in 1980, Betty Lou was involved in a serious car accident. And she suffered what were called severe head injuries.

And you have to wonder, Gibbs, as much as you and I talk about head injuries. Now, normally we're talking about those in someone's childhood, but you have to wonder, do these have anything to do with some of the. crimes that are later getting ready to occur. Could be. You have to ask the question. Because in 1981, October of 81, Doyle Barker vanished off the face of the earth, never to be heard from again.

Now, what Betty Lou told friends and neighbors was that they had a fight and Doyle took off. But how he left was somewhat of a mystery since he didn't take his truck. He left his truck behind. No guy leaves his truck behind. No, no man leaves his truck behind. That's like a soldier leaving a man behind. Yeah, or leaving that one piece of bacon on the plate. You don't...

Nobody does that. You always eat the last piece of bacon. I eat mine and then I take my kids bacon. Yeah, and they drop it on the floor. And I call it... And I call it a bacon tax. Bacon tax. I like that.

One from you, one from you. Yeah. Everybody pays a bacon tax. But I get it. You know, a man leaves a marriage. fine. Is he going to leave his truck? No. No. That should have been a red flag right there. He's going to take his truck and his dog. If he has a dog, he's going to take that too. If he picked the dog out. Now, he really vanished because Betty Lou shot him three times in the head with her 38 caliber pistol.

Then she called her daughter Shirley to come over. Don't call me Shirley. Don't call me Shirley. Don't call me Shirley. But she did call Shirley. Yeah. Said, hey, come over to the house. Help me bury Doyle's body. And they did. They buried it in the backyard in a pit that Betty Lou already had a crew dig. Wow. It was already ready. I think she told them that she was building like a barbecue pit or something. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So she had this construction crew come out and dig a pit. It was already there ready. She knew what she was going to do. She did, man. So after they buried Doyle's body, they built a stone paddy. radio over the gravesite. Oh, so you couldn't dig it up later. Yeah, exactly.

Pretty smart. Now, I will say that's a phone call that you really don't want to get, Gibbs. You know, hey, if you have time, can you swing by and help me bury a body in my backyard? For the right friend, you might do that. Well, I was getting ready to say, I kind of know firsthand. My wife has said stuff about it. We really wish you would stop calling at all hours of the night. Well, you're asking me some of these same types of questions.

You do have the truck. I do have a truck. You're right. So it does help. If there's ever a phone call between like two and five, my wife automatically says, is that Gibby? She knows this me. And what is he up to? What is he up to now?

Again. Again. Now, about eight months after she murdered Doyle, at some point in between, she had divorced him, she married again. Eight months later, right? She's fast. This time she married a man named Jimmy Don Beetz, a retired Dallas fire department captain whom she'd met at a bar where she was a waitress.

And I know it's taken us a while to get there because this woman did have a lot of husbands. But obviously it's from Jimmy Don where she got her final last name, the name that she's known by. Right. I also think it's kind of strange, right? And I know we're in Texas. Got Betty Lou and Jimmy Don. And I'm going to get some hateful emails from Texas.

Okay. Because apparently I don't know if it was last episode or the episode before compared Texas to Georgia. What? And got some strange emails about that. I don't remember even doing it. You can't mess around the SEC world. That's Big 12 versus SEC. I'm saying you need to let Texas be, let Georgia be.

be don't don't be putting them up against each other i don't even remember doing it but apparently i did i don't remember what you said i probably said oh don't say that you did i think i actually somebody said that in the email yeah give me tried to slow you down but uh you you said it jimmie don't moved into the house i think it was a trailer but yeah that betty lou had shared with doyle right so she kills doyle buries him now she's remarried brings this guy into the trailer that that the two of them shared before. And at one point, Betty Lou asked Jimmy Don to complete some projects around the trailer. Now, we're in Gun Barrel City, Texas, which seems like a strange name for a town, gun barrel, but it's about 60 miles south of Dallas. And you know how much I love Dallas.

It's one of my favorite cities. Another place you get to wear your boots. And not even because of that. There is just something about Dallas. I love that city. Well, maybe somebody down there has a job for you. Maybe. Maybe. That's a very unique town name, though. Gun barrel city. Gun barrel city. Nowhere else but Texas. Can I imagine there being a gun barrel city? I just Googled it. There's five other gun barrel cities. All in the upper, like New York and Chicago. Or I'm not telling the truth. I can guarantee you there is not a gun barrel city in New York. Yeah. Because if there was, somebody would have already changed it. That's true. Can't have it say gun barrel. That's not good. In New York. Nope. All right, got off track there. So Betty Lou is having Jimmy Don do some projects.

The first project is she wants a shed built on the stone patio that just happens to be covering Doyle Barker's body. Because as Betty Lou put it, they needed a place to store things that were cluttering up the house. So that's how she got Jimmy Don to build this shed. Then later on, she had. she had him build a wishing well out in the front yard because Betty Lou thought it would spruce up the place. Now, you know there's people on this podcast right now that have those little wishing well landscaping things in the yard.

That's fine. Okay. I'm not saying anything about it. Do you like them? I'm not saying anything about it. This is a faux wishing well. Right. Right.

A fake faux quasi, whatever you want to call it. She's called quasi. Quasi. Yeah. You're right. It's a decorative, landscaping, wishing well. Yeah. It's not functional.

No. Nobody's going to walk by with their dog and throw pennies in there. Be funny if they did. It would be. I would. Every day I went by just to make the neighbor like, Gibbs, come on. I don't even think there's water in this one. Probably not.

They're probably one of the fake ones. Yeah, because I think later on we'll talk about she plants some flowers in or something. But it's some very very. eerie foreshadowed in this story. No way, right, that Jimmy Don could have known he was building a shed to cover up the burial site of Betty Lou's fourth husband. Right. That she murdered.

And no way that he could have known that when he was building this ornamental wishing well, that this would very soon in the near future become his burial site. because he built this thing. Right. Just days before he was killed. And like I said, Betty Lou even planted some flowers in the wishing well. Oh, she went all out.

She went all out. So it was talk about August 6, 1983. Betty Lou called the police to report her husband, Jimmy Don Beetz, missing. And what she said to police was that he had gone out night fishing, which is very plausible. Yeah. I love the night fish.

It is fun. on a nice night out. Mm-hmm. But he never returned home, right? This is what she tells police. The reality of it is that Betty Lou shot Jimmy Don twice in the back of the head killing him. Boom, boom. Double tap.

Double tap. But not only that, but she had told her son Robert beforehand of exactly what she was going to do, her entire plan. Then she even listed Roberts' help to help her bury the body. Right. Right. And where did she bury it? Underneath the ornamental wishing well. Because that's what she does. That the man she just killed had made or, you know.

Sentimental value? Three days earlier. There's sentimental value in putting your, the husband you just killed underneath the wishing well. Well, you're going to put it that way. But she's, you know, obviously she planned ahead. She planned ahead with the barbecue pit. She planned ahead ahead with the wishing well. These things didn't happen spur of the moment.

No. And it's going to be important. When we talk about later on down the road, why she says some of these things happen. So she's killed her latest husband, Jimmy Donne. And then she and her son Robert took the fishing boat to Cedar Creek Lake and put it on the water and just let it, you know, drift. Inside the boat, Betty Lou dumped some of her husband. nitrogen glycerin tablets that he took for his heart. The idea was to make it look like he had a heart attack while he was out fishing and he fell into the water and drowned. So there's all these agencies

that begin the search for Jimmy Don, but they don't find him. Well, we know where he is and we know why they don't find him. Right. But what they do find on August 12th is his boat, a drift on the on the lake. Inside they find the heart pills. They find his fishing like. And, you know, he's fishing like, and a life vest. They also find his eyeglasses, which is something that raised some suspicion with police. So they called Betty Lou down to the marina where they found the boat. I guess it had washed up or drifted, you know, next to the marina. Right.

They had her identify the boat and the things in the boat as belonging to her husband. They continued to search for his body for a number of weeks, but they never found it. And then two years went by. No discovery of the body. Really no further information about what happened to Jimmy Don. But during this whole time, right, the community comes out in support of Betty Lou. You got to think about what happened to this woman, Gibbs. She had a man who, a husband who ran off on her, totally left her.

She gets remarried very quickly. Now all of a sudden, this husband has vanished as well. Tending. Poor Betty Lou. Poor Betty Lou. Right? Things aren't going well for her. That's what... Keep the husbands around. That's what a lot of people in the community are thinking at first. But at a certain point, as people would do, they start to wonder. And a lot of it comes from how she's acting. You know, she starts asking people questions very early on about how she can get her hands on her husband's insurance money.

his retirement benefits very quickly, right? And that always raises some suspicion. It always has to. At one point, she even apparently burned his house to the ground. I never get that. How does that help out? To try to collect insurance money. It normally doesn't because firefighters and, what do you call it, investigators, fire investigators? Investigators. Yeah. Arson investigators. Yeah, they determine it's arson. This funny thing about insurance companies, they don't like to pay out. No, they don't. When it's determined that you burned your house down on purpose. I mean, they don't like to pay out anyway.

No. Sorry for those of you that work for an insurance company, but that's kind of their whole business model. We like to collect the premiums, not so much into the paying out of claims. But then all of a sudden, Gibbs out of the blue, police got a tip from a conference. confidential informant, claiming to know what happened to Jimmy Don Bates. The source said that he was killed and they pointed the finger at Betty Lou. Pretty quickly, police began to look in her direction. And then not long after that, another tip came in, essentially saying the same thing.

And it's the timing of these tips that's almost, it's almost eerie. Because it was just right before Betty Lou was set to. get all of the money from Jimmy Don's estate, you know, that she had been desperately trying to get for a couple years now. She's just about ready to get her hands on it and people drop the dime on her. Man, teacher. But that was it for investigators, right? They get a warrant to start digging at the Beets property based on the information that they got. And investigators unearthed the remains of Jimmy Don Beetz, which were in a blue sleeping bag, about four feet deep underneath the foe wishing well. Now I'm calling it foe. You are calling it foe. But that's where they found it.

So obviously they got some really good information, right, from the tipsters. Because then they found and dug up the body of Doyle Wayne Barker from underneath the shed. Right. He was also buried in a matching blue sleeping bag. So they found two 38 caliber bullets in Beats. And they found three 38 caliber bullets in Barker. Ballistics matched all five bullets to a gun from the Beats residents. And Betty Lou Beetz was arrested that very same day. It's not looking good for Betty Lou.

Not looking good. BLB. Not looking good for BLB. She was charged and indicted for the murders of, of both Doyle Barker and Jimmy Don Bates. And she told the judge at her bond hearing that she didn't kill either man. And she had no idea, Gibbs, how their bodies ended up buried on her property. I got no clue.

Just happened. They didn't give her a bond. They shouldn't have. They weren't going to let her out. But what also happened was they charged Betty's daughter, Shirley, in connection with the death of Doyle Barker. Well, I get that for sure. The trial of Betty Lou Beats began October of 1985. It didn't last all that long.

The prosecution presented their theory that she murdered her husband, Jimmy Don, to get her hands on over $100,000 in insurance money and retirement benefits. Well, sometimes you got to do what you got to do to get that money. Really? Because it really sounds like you're condoning this. Oh, no, no, no, no. You just said, sometimes you got to do what you got to do. If I was in her shoes.

Again, you're condoning what she did. If I was in her shoes. And I was a bad person. And you were a bad person. Yes. But you talked about a lot of money, right? And I'm not saying $100,000 is not a lot of money, but it's not millions of dollars. And I think people kill for a lot less than what most of us consider

to be a lot of money. I don't really think it takes all that much in some cases. No. For people to get greedy and kill other people. You see what happened in the Lord of the Rings? Over that little ring, man. You're really stretching it now, Gullum. Yeah.

But the prosecution went on to say, Betty Lou took that 38 caliber pistol, shot beats in the back of the head while he was sleeping. Wow. And Betty Lou's own son, Robert, testified at her trial that she told him she was going to kill her husband while he was sleeping and that Robert should leave the house for a couple of hours. Hmm. So this is your own son.

Right. Not Jimmy Don's son, a son by, you know, from another marriage. Right. Now, Robert said that he didn't know for sure that she would kill him, but he suspect. I don't know what that says about your mom. I wasn't sure if she was joking or not, but you know what? I was pretty sure she was going to kill him. I think so.

He also testified that when he returned to the house, he saw Jimmy Don Bede's body in a sleeping bag and his mother asked him to bury it under the wishing well. He went on to tell the jury about how his mother instructed him to take the fishing boat to the lake the next morning. morning, remove the propeller, and, you know, set it adrift on the water. It's not good when your, when your son's rolling over on you like that. No, it's not good at all. So no loyalty there. But it wasn't just him. Betty, one of Betty Lou's daughter, Shirley, also testified for the prosecution that her mother told her she planned to kill Jimmy Don a couple of days before he was reported missing. And she said her mother called her around midnight on August. 5th saying that she needed to talk. She asked her daughter to come to the house. But by the time that

Shirley got there, Betty Lou said that everything had been taken care of and she could go back home. So essentially, I've already killed him. He's buried under the wishing well. We don't need you anymore. Just go on. Just go on back home. Go on back home. The prosecution brought forward a a bunch of witnesses that testified about things that Betty Lou said and did in her attempts to collect Jimmy Don's life insurance and his pension benefits after he was legally declared dead. There was testimony that she sold his boat. Now, I don't know what you make of some of that, Gibbs. If somebody really did go missing.

Now, we know that's not what happened here. Right. But if somebody really did go missing, that wouldn't be all that strange. Right? If they were legally declared dead, their spouse would do all of these things. Exactly. Underneath that same umbrella. Yeah. Yeah.

The problem is they, you know, Jimmy Don didn't go missing. They found him under her wishing well. So the fact that she was doing all this stuff doesn't make her look all that great. Not at all. And Betty Lou took the stand during her trial. We know that's not something that happens all the time. No. I tried to find some audio of it and I couldn't.

But she testified that. her son Robert and her husband had a huge argument that night. It was actually her son who shot Jimmy Don in the back of the head. So you've got the son telling on his mother. You got the mother throwing her own son under the bus. But the problem is this is really all the defense had to hang their hat on. At least they got a hat to hang. They got a hat to hang. But it's all around saying, you know, it wasn't Betty Lou, it was Robert, it was Shirley, it was the kids. But when Betty Lou was questioned on the stand, she had no answers or explanations for why her fourth husband was also found dead on her property with the same exact type of bullets in his head

that were found in her fifth husband's head. I'm not sure what you could even make up, Gibbs to explain that. I can't even imagine what people will come up with. Another of Betty Lou's daughter's Faye testified for the defense. She said that she never heard her brother or sister talking about helping to bury the bodies. She never heard her mother talk about planning to kill anyone. She said, I know my mom didn't do it. She never laid a finger on me when I was growing up. And I know down deep in my heart she is innocent. I mean, what are you going to say about your mom? unless you know for a fact she did it. But if you're loyal, you're loyal.

And then even then, you're really going to roll over on your mom? You're going to keep that story straight as long as you can. But what if your mom rolls on you and you didn't do it? Then the shit comes out. The gloves come off. Yeah, the loyalty deals over. So then the prosecution gets to their closing arguments. And this is where they tell the jury that, I don't know if this is where they told them for the first time,

but this is really where they hammered it at home. that Betty Lou was also charged in the death of another husband. And the prosecutor said, quote, Betty Lou turned Henderson County into a killing ground. Wow, that's a pretty big statement. It is. The defense closed their arguments with, again, telling the jury that it was Betty Lou's son, Robert Branson, that killed Beats. The defense attorney said to the jury,

It would not bother Robbie a bit to see his mother locked up in prison or laid out on a table with a needle in her arm. They really were going after her son as the one that killed Jimmy Don. They wanted them. But we talk about this, Gibbs, a lot. I mean, what else are they going to do to try to save her? It's her trailer. Two bodies are found buried in her yard.

The ballistics all match up to her gun. I mean, at that point, as a defense team, you're grasping at straws. They don't have a lot of options. No, they really don't. The jury deliberated for six and a half hours before returning a guilty verdict. And apparently the night of the verdict after it was red that night, Betty Lou was hospitalized. She got down that night? She got down.

Betty Lou. That's actually pretty good. I like that. Yeah. I was wondering if you were going to do a Betty Lou. Lou reference. There was a few. At some point.

I saved it up. You saved that one up. And then the Monday after the verdict, it was time for sentencing. So again, the jury has to deliberate some more, but it only took them about 30 minutes. You know, they're weighing the decision and they came back with a recommendation of death by lethal injection. So I think Gibbs, based on that, they were pretty convinced through the trial that, that she was guilty.

They didn't have to give her the death penalty. No. I think they were pretty damn sure that she killed both of these men. So they wanted her to have it, yeah. Now, Betty Lou was indicted but never tried for the murder of her fourth husband, Doyle. And again, maybe it's because she already had the death penalty, death sentence. What are they going to do?

They're going to give her another life sentence, another death sentence. Right. They probably figured why go through all that. Yeah, why spend the county's money? So she goes to death row. And this is years after her trials and everything. She's in prison with people like Carla Faye Tucker. Yeah.

Darla Routier. Ooh. This is pretty famous female killers. But Betty Lou began talking about how she killed her last two husbands in self-defense because she was being physically abused. Now, she had never made these statements before. But because of this, all of a sudden, she has a lot of people that are coming to her aid, trying to help keep her from being executed. And the national media picked this up.

It became a huge story. And then even more people, right, came to her defense. All this time, her attorneys were appealing. And their appeals were based on the fact that she was a woman who had been battered, raped, and tortured throughout most of her life. They also said that she suffered from brain damage. From that. From the abuse.

The physical abuse that she suffered. And they said she had battered wife syndrome. And because of all that, she should not be put to death. Not only not be put to death, I think they were trying to say that. Come on on out of prison. Yeah. That she shouldn't have been found guilty because it was self-defense.

But on top of that, they were saying, you know, that she shouldn't be put to death. Now, she did get a stay in 1990 for a little while, but eventually, you know, her appeals ran out. Her execution was scheduled for February 24, 2000. And just hours before her execution, you know, both George W. Bush and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected her appeals for a stay. So she's done.

She's got no other options after that. Lathene. She didn't order a special last meal. and she didn't make a final statement when they strapped her to the gurney in the death chamber. Apparently she didn't even make eye contact. Really? With, you know, any of her victim's families who were there to watch her die. The papers were pretty graphic about her execution.

They said she coughed twice, gasped, sputtered, but that she was smiling as she drifted off into unconsciously. It's kind of strange to think that you would be smiling. She was pronounced dead at 6.18 p.m. 10 minutes after the drugs were administered. Yeah. And she was only the second woman to be put to death in Texas since the Civil War. Really? Yeah. Do you know who the first was?

Since the Civil War. Since the Civil War. Who was the first woman to be put to death in Texas? In Texas. I don't know. We did the story. Carla Faye Tucker. Yeah, oh yeah. That was our Patreon episode.

Yeah, I didn't mean to trip you up. You were probably thinking it wouldn't be her or I wouldn't be asking you about it. Or you should have thought it is her because Ferguson's going to try to trick me. Yeah. That's what you should have been thinking. She was the first one ever to put on the- She was. And I think we, I'm pretty sure we talked about it in the episode.

We did. It's all coming back. Yeah. I know they all blend together, but it is strange, right? We did Carla Faye Tucker on Patreon. on she was the first, then comes Betty Lou Beetz. She's in the same prison. She's the second woman after Carla Faye Tucker to be put to death in Texas since the Civil War.

Texas don't mess around. Well, they did for a while. It was quite a long time between the Civil War and when Carla Faye Tucker was put to death. But now they don't mess around. Yeah, they don't mess around. And to your point, the execution of Betty Lou Beats, if I remember, correctly was the second in two days. They had just put somebody to death the day before. Okay. They said, hey, we got this equipment out. Yeah, let's not put it away. Yeah. Let's just go

ahead and get this over with while we got the whole team here. Do they normally do them that? I don't think they normally do them that quickly back to back like that. Maybe. And maybe it's just the dates fall. Yeah, maybe it's just the way that the dates fell and it just happened to be that somebody else was scheduled. They interviewed Jimmy's son. James, and he said about the execution, it's not going to bring him back. I realize that. I'm not for the death penalty and I'm not against the death penalty. But I do feel in this case, justice was served. If Betty Lou felt like she was abused, and that's a big if, these are his words, she could have walked away. Yeah. She didn't have to shoot a guy in the back of the head as he was

sleeping. So there's a couple of things there, right? I mentioned that Betty Lou. started to come out and talk about the fact that she was abused by these two men that she killed and that the reason why she killed them was because it was self-defense. You can tell Jimmy's son didn't believe it. He didn't believe that his father had abused Betty Lou. But there is no doubt in my mind Gibbs that Betty Lou Beats was the victim of domestic violence. In the case of her first three husbands for sure. Right. We talked about it. It's pretty well documented. I mean, her kids have talked about it. A lot of people knew it, witnessed it, can corroborate it. But it's the issue of domestic violence with her last two husbands, the ones that she murdered, that to me is very,

it's less clear. I don't know if it's not clear at all. I couldn't find really any information to substantiate what Betty Lou claim. Other than the one she made herself right after she was locked up. She believes she was and at least one of her daughters believes that she was abused saying there's no way my mother would have done this had she not been afraid for her life. But then you look at the other side of that equation, there's a lot of people that said it just didn't happen. You know, people that recounted Betty Lou told them Jimmy Don Beats was the best.

thing that ever happened to her. Right. Was the best man that she'd ever been with. Jimmy's son for sure has contradicted any claims of abuse made by Betty Lou at the hands of his father. And he points to a lot of friends that have come forward saying that they heard it directly from Betty Lou. The 11 months she spent with with Jimmy Don were the happiest of her life. So it didn't seem like she was telling anyone if she was if there really was abuse in the home. And I'm not saying there wasn't. I just couldn't find any evidence of it. And, and, you know, let's not forget at trial, she tried to blame two of her children for the murder of Jimmy Don. Yeah. She didn't say it was self-defense. No. She tried to put the

blame on her own two children. If she was being abused, why didn't she offer that up? Exactly. I mean, I think that's what a lot of people, you know, the question that a lot of people ask. Now, we know Gibbs from doing these cases, it's hard to ever know the full truth in any of these cases that we do. No. You can do as much research as you want. There's no way to ever know exactly in some of these circumstances what happened. Yeah.

But what I can say is from what I gathered during the research, it does seem to me as if she was abused by most of her husbands that she had early on in life. And I think she suffered some very terrible abuse. I really do. But I also think that the two husbands she actually murdered, she did so out of greed. And not because she was defending herself. I just couldn't find anything to support it. And again, there was a lot of witness statements that refuted it. There was one mention of Betty Lou telling one of her kids that Doyle Barker abused her. But even her kids came out and said that they were shocked by her saying that because they never saw it. Right.

They really liked him. They never saw any signs that there was something going on. So I don't want to downplay the abuse angle because it was there in her life. And she went through a lot. But I just think towards the end, she was out for money. And it seems as if she used what had happened to her really happened to her. in her past to later justify these murders after she was already in prison. Again, you have to look at it as somewhat strange that the claims of abuse against Barker

and Beats never came up in her 1985 trial. So obviously she never told her defense attorney about it. They would have used that. They would have. Yeah. They would have brought that up as at least if not a defense, some type of mitigating. factor or circumstance or something. It seems as if she didn't even start talking about it until after she was already in prison.

But that's it. That's the case of Betty Lou beats. Betty Lou. Betty Lou. She had a rough life. And not just, you know, we talk about people having a rough childhood killers. And a lot of them do. I think most of her life was extremely rough.

Yeah. And hard. But she took the life. of, you know, two men, and then she was put to death. Yeah. She got what she deserved is what I look at it. But on that note, we have voicemails. Oh, I like voicemails.

So we can do those. Let's do it. Hey, I just wanted to give you a fantastic compliment, which is, you know, well deserved. You guys are doing a fantastic job with Ed Kemper. I've heard shows and some podcasts in the past to cover him all too quickly. I'm so glad you're doing a multiple part. It is sad, but a fascinating insight because you're right, all the material and the fact that he is, I think, open and honest, you never know if they're lying. But I feel like he's, hey, it is what it is.

And I just feel like the way he puts it out there. And even when they're lying, you know, what they learn from these serial killers and what they take away from the interviews, it's all so valuable information for maybe catching future people to do this. So it's very important to break it apart. I think a lot of people, why would you listen to that crime podcast? You know, it's bigger than the subject matter. I do think it's about being alert, being aware, keeping your head on the swivel occasionally. I'm a very positive person, but I'm also very aware of what out there, and your show is very respectful of, unfortunately, these victims,

but it is, I think, informational as well as entertaining, and you just are doing such a great job best I've ever heard covered on Kemper already. and you guys are just the best. I just love you. And I have another little box I'm sending you. We need some poker chips and some beef jerky coming your way. So thank you, thank you. And I will talk to you later.

Gibbs, that was just an amazing voicemail. Appreciate that so much. I just heard beef jerky. No, that was a nice beef jerky. Yeah, it really was. We love to hear that kind of feedback. And you and I have talked about it. Gibbs, we're very proud of the, the,

Ed Kemper two-parter. Yeah. A lot of work went into it, a lot of research. I think it turned out really well. But you hear her say, you know, head on a swivel. Yeah. Was I talking about that earlier in the episode, right? We were.

That we get these type of calls and we get emails from people, especially women, saying that the show is helping them to, I don't even know how to say it. Maybe just be more alert, be more aware. And it's not just our show. People listen to a lot of crime shows or or the date lines or the TV shows. It's not about necessarily the goariness of the the crime. I like what she said. It's it's about breaking it down.

Why did it happen? Yeah. What would you look for if you were in that same situation? Yeah. Would it give you an extra moment? Would you be quicker to diagnose something that was going on that in your head, you know's not right because you've been listening to all these all these shows but again appreciate the voicemail.

Hey, Mike and give me. My name's Morgan. I'm a big fan of yours true crime podcast. I'm a student at the University of South Carolina. Go Game Cox. I'm calling in with a suggestion for the podcast. I've just recently started reading up on a pee we Gaston. He's a serial killer from South Carolina.

He's also known as the meanest man in America. I would love to hear a podcast on him. Thanks, guys, for all that you do. Keep your own time ticking. All right, Morgan, we appreciate that. Peewee Gaskins is definitely on the list. You and I have talked about him a number of times. We have.

He's been on the list from the very beginning. We just haven't done him yet. And I don't know how he can be the meanest man in America because the meanest man in America is sitting across the table from me. It's a fact. It's true. What are you looking at that way for? We're looking at me.

Because you're so nice on the podcast. And then like I say, we get off, we shut off the mics, and then you just get so upset and you throw me up against a wall and you just become this completely other person. I know. Throw the chair around. Yeah. It's like a W.W.E match up in here. I'm like John Sicata, whatever is he? I don't know. I don't watch Cicada. John, Sena. John Cicada. Is he like a singer? Is he like a singer? Isn't there like a singer named Sakada? I don't know.

We go with John Sina. You got Sakata out of Sina. It could be the rock. Why wouldn't you say the rock? You know how much easier that is? I just thought about it. Actually, I didn't even need to say the. Just say, rock?

Rock. Everybody knows what you're talking about. Yeah. Just smell what I'm cooking. I think John Sakata was a singer. Oh, he is. Actually, I think he is. We're going to have to look that up afterwards.

Yeah. But no, everybody knows I'm joking about Gibbs. And everybody that knows him knows he, he is a gentle soul until you piss him off. Hey, Givie, this is a tanya dancer. If you want me to hold you closer,

I will. So just keep your own time. Check you, Gibby. Bye. So, sorry, I can't help but laugh.

So I always listen to the voicemails through the computer. Right. And of course, I hear this one and I laugh. It cracks me up. Yeah. And,

but the first thing that goes through my head is I cannot wait for Givie to hear this one. Yeah. And so I'm, looking at your face the whole time that the voicemail is playing and just judging your reaction to it. It was good. Thank you.

It was very creative too. It was very creative. Hi, Mike and I can give you. This is Grace in Seattle, Washington. I am just calling to say how much I like your guys' podcast and to give my mom a shout out for turning me on to it. Hi, Mom. Keep doing what you do.

I found out of some of my favorite. stories from you guys. So looking forward to more episodes. Thanks so much. Well, that's awesome. Thanks, Grace and thanks Grace's mom. I know, but she didn't say her mom's name. Maybe she didn't think her mom wanted her name out there. Well, it's Grace's mom. It is Grace's mom. I mean, everybody knows who it is now. Yeah, I mean, so it's out there. It's just saying. Hey, guys, it's Dusty from East Texas. I just had to call y'all and tell you, y'all cracked me I'm so bad the other day. I was listening to the podcast, and Mike, you compared Texas, to Georgia. And in my head, I said, did he just compare Texas to Georgia? And then that's when

Gibby chimed in and said, did you just compare Texas to Georgia? You're going to make everybody Texas. Congrats on the 100 episodes. That's amazing. I love listening and I'm sure everybody else does too. Thanks, guys. Bye. So obviously Gibbs, that's where I got that from. Yeah. I forget where I get stuff from, but the earlier conversation we had about me hearing about comparing it, and I don't even remember doing it. Clearly you did it. And you don't remember me doing it or correcting me. I don't remember getting on me. What I said two minutes ago. No. But we always love to hear from Dusty. Yeah, we do. And yeah. So comparing one state to another doesn't necessarily mean it's bad, right? Well, unless you're in Texas, you don't want to be compared to Georgia in any way.

I got to remember how you did it. I don't, yeah, I got to go back and listen to. Because I like all the States. Oh, you're very down the middle. I love them. They all got something good about them. Why are you using your Southern accent? I don't know. When you say that. It just kind of happens. And then when you try to do it, it doesn't sound like a Southern accent. It doesn't sound like a Southern accent. It's a whole other different type of thing. Yeah. All right. That's it for voicemails. We got some cool mailbag stuff. I love when we get stuff in the mailbag. So our buddy Jill Miller from Chicago sent us our favorite dukes sausage dukes shorty sausages shorty sausages but she sent the best kind the hot and spicy

saracha made them bolder cordoradal and they're great and Gibbs was eating some earlier you probably heard it yeah during the pot i was trying to be quiet but maybe i wasn't and then a superfan you know jill's a super fan we had another superfan lottie lottie from i'm pretty sure denmark if i get that wrong she's going to be upset with me. Norwegian area? No, what do you call that? Do you think Denmark and Norway are the same place? No.

What do you call that area up there? Scandinavian? Scandinavian. Yeah. The Norwegian area of Denmark. The Norwegian. Yeah. Finland.

Sorry, I get a kick out of that. All that area, you know, that general. That general area. Yeah, you can circle it with a little pen on the globe. But Lottie went a little nuts. She sent us a cornucopia. Ooh. of nature's treasures.

A lot of them, Danish. She sent us a book on how to be Danish, I think. Can't wait to read that. I know. How to be Danish. Could tell me how to speak Danish? No, I leaf through it. It was like how to do certain things that they do.

Oh, that's cool. I like that. I like to know what other cultures do. I know. And then she sent you a boatload of Twizzlers. Oh, man. Because you said that was your favorite. It is.

Thank you. And she just couldn't send one kind. She had to send strawberry. Awesome. And cherry. Oh, well, thank you. And a bunch of each. And then she sent just a...

Anaga, you got like a... Like you said like Gibbs, bring a truck. Yeah. Yeah. Bring a, you better bring your own... 55-gallon drum of licorish. Back up your truck for this amount of twizzlers. And then just a ton of stuff from, you know, her homeland.

Sox and tea... Her homeland has socks? Yeah, and they're special socks. And apparently, they say drink less water, drink more beer. Oh. But I don't think it's in English. So she had to tell me what it was.

Oh, okay. But it's cool. It looks like very finely made socks. That sounds like, why wouldn't you want to drink more beer than water? Yeah. And a whole bunch of chocolate and some... Like chocolate. Hot stuff.

Hot stuff. Hot stuff. All right. But we appreciate all that. We do. We really do. Absolutely do. Thank you.

But that's it. That is it for another. episode of true crime all time. Yeah. So from Mike and Gibby, stay safe and keep your own time ticking.