True Crime All The Time - Earl Richmond Jr.

Episode Date: June 24, 2019

Earl Richmond Jr. was a drill sergeant in the Army who, after being kicked out in 1990, began murdering single mothers and in some cases their children. Richmond began his murderous way near Fort Dix where he had been stationed and then resumed them in Fayetteville, North Carolina after he moved back to his home town.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the crimes of Earl Richmond Jr. His story includes a man that spent years in prison for a crime he did not commit; a crime for which Richmond is thought to be guilty. We'll detail out that travesty as we talk about the many victims in this case.You can help support the show at 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 136 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. Gibby, how are you? Hey man, I'm good, man. Man, good man. Feeling good, looking good. Love to hear it. How about you? I'm doing great. Yeah? I am living the dream, brother. All right, man. You are pretty, pretty happy. I am very happy. It's like you're on a little high right now or something. high. Well, but yeah. Yeah. We're not downtown Denver, you know. You have to qualify it. Yeah. So we've got a lot of stuff going on. We have a Patreon Q&A episode that dropped yesterday. We do. So we're taping this in advance. I'm saying it dropped yesterday. Yeah. Two separate feeds. One is audio like we've always done.

Yep. The second is something brand new. you and I are trying video. We recorded the whole thing, about an hour and 15 minutes in the studio. Yeah. No editing. And then married our good microphone audio up with the video and released it to our our Patreon folks. So it's something new.

So it's like a bad Japanese movie? Old Japanese movie where the lips sync? I think I did pretty good getting it synced. But we'll see. people will tell us. It's obviously not our milieu. Okay. If you know what I mean.

No. You do not. Video editing, software. I mean, that's not our thing. But video did kill the radio star. Well, it did. Yeah. Did.

But we are putting it out to our Patreon folks. And if they like it, then we'll get, you know, I'll go out and buy a top of the line video camera. If that's what people want, we like to give our, our, our page. We'll make them happy. Exactly. Speaking of that, we have some new Patreon supporters. Okay. We had Kathy Givner jumped out at our highest level.

Givna. Melissa. Hey, Melissa. Patty Murphy. Hey, Patty. Cricket Worell. Ooh, Warad. More Corbett.

Hey, more. Brayda Hale. What's up, Deanna Foster jumped up to $25, higher than our highest level. Man, that's amazing. Mary Bells. Hey, Mary. Catherine Haye. Hey, social media.

All over the place. Oh yeah. She's, I mean, obviously we're probably three weeks behind on Patreon. She's all over Patreon, all over social media. She really is. We had Dia Ridal. Hey, Dia. Sarah Jones jumped out at our highest level. Hey, there's our Sarah Jones. She's everywhere too. Yep. Daisy Garcia. Hey, Daisy. Crystal McHale. Ooh, like McHale's Navy. Lendell Askwith. Erin Uncifer. Jumped out at $25. Higher than our highest level. Jessica Mills. Hey, Jessica. Dana Bush. Dina. Glorious, Lorious.

Want some glorious, lorious? You want some glorious, glorious. I just wanted to say some glorious, glorious, glorious. I assume that came out a little differently than what you meant it, but that's okay. Evans, Pamelea, or Pamela Evans. Well, we have a Pamela Evans on social media, but I don't know. I don't know. I don't either.

Who knows? Alyssa. Hey, Alyssa, yeah, she follows us too. And Brock Mitchell. Hey, Brock. So then, you know, a lot of great support gives, we go back into the vault. This week, we selected Gemma Hind. Jimma, Jimma, jimma.

Yep, been with us a long time. Thank you, Jimma. We had some amazing PayPal support as well. Miriam O'Malley. O'Malley. Alita Hirsch. Hey, Alita. Allison McCormick.

Well, McCormick. Ronnie Jai Kumar. Ooh, Jack Kumar. Yeah, big support. and Jennifer Wormwood. Hey, Jennifer. So all great, right? All new support, continued support.

We love it all. Over the top, man. Yeah, talked about the video Patreon, right? We did. We're going to start doing some more video things moving forward, I think. We may start playing around with YouTube, starting some new things. My mind is racing. Let's put it down way.

Let's do some Myspace. Yeah. You know. I started to count. on MySpace and I couldn't find anybody to be friends with. I know. All right. Gives, right now on TCAD Unsolved.

Yes. We have an episode out on Jessica Chambers. Yeah, we do. Yeah, so we're going to cover that case. It's a very interesting one. A lot of attention over the years towards it. It's a big unsolved case. It really is.

You know, they thought they had the individual, some trials, acquittals. And when it comes to unsolved, I will say, say this, I like those cases. And I hate saying that because at the end of the day, that acquittal results in it still being unsolved. Right. But story wise, it gets really fascinating to me when you are bringing in this person that you believe did it, either they can't convict them or they do and then it comes out later that there's no way they could have done it. Right. Those are, those are for me some very fascinating story. Well, she definitely was a very strong woman to be burnt 90, what, 80% of her body

and still was able to hang in there to give some clues to the first people arrived on the scene. Yeah, it's a, it's a brutal story, but a good episode. All right, you ready to get into this episode of T-Cat, true crime all the time? Let's do it. All right. We are talking about Earl Richard. Richmond, Jr. I don't think Gibbs, this is going to be a case that many people are familiar with.

And sometimes that's great, right? Find these ones that other podcasts aren't doing. People don't know who they are as soon as they hear the name. This guy was a former army drill sergeant who went on to become a murderer. And it's the victims in this case that will leave you hurting for them. You know, Richmond targeted mothers. He targeted single mothers with small children. And in one instance, the children themselves.

No mistake. These are horrible murders committed by a man that was trusted, right? In at least one set of the murders. Trust that he had earned, he had built up over some period of time. But, you know, this is also a story about a man who did some time. for what is most likely one of Richmond's crimes and the toll that it took on him. So I started, you know, the research really focused on this Earl Richmond, as we would normally do.

Right. But when I got into it, I really became fascinated with this other individual that we're going to talk about that was put away for a crime that he didn't commit. that most people believe was committed by Earl Richmond. You know, and is with every case we do, there are so many people impacted, right, by the horrible things that people do. Obviously, you have the, the murder victims.

That's, that's always there. Right. But there's so many more victims, right? Family members. In this case, a guy that, you know, took the fall for something that he didn't do, lost years of his life. Yeah, you got him, his family, people around him. Like you said, it spiders out. It does. It really does. So Earl Richmond Jr. was born November 6th, 1961. He grew up in Fayetteville,

North Carolina. This is not going to be a huge childhood to adolescence, to adult story, you know, with tons of background like we do with a lot of killers. We just don't have all that background. So I think we, you know, we'll move forward to a point in time where Earl Richmond, Jr. is grown and has joined the army. But what I will say about his childhood, just quickly kind of summarizing it, wrapping it up in a little bow, it will come out later, you know, as off, as it often does in trials and things like that, that he had a very abusive.

childhood. He suffered from physical and verbal abuse at the hands of an alcoholic father. And one of his sisters has claimed in one trial or another that it's possible that he was sexually abused. Okay. By their father. By the father. Psychologists and psychiatrists that examined Earl Richmond testified at trial that this was a guy that was severely depressed. had a personality disorder and suffered from substance abuse. And they're going to mash all of this together, right? Add that to his troubled upbringing. Probably no surprise that it's going to come up later in trial.

Was Earl Richmond responsible for the things that he did? Because he's going to admit to what he did. The question is going to be, as is the question. in a lot of the cases that we do. Yeah. Was he criminally responsible for what he did? Because of all these other circumstances.

Yep. Yep. Mitigating circumstances that we'll get into. So I mentioned that he was a drill sergeant. Always been fascinated by drill sergeants. I was never in the armed forces. My grandfather was a drill sergeant. And he used to tell me, you know, some of the stories from back.

in the day, it was always something Gibbs that I was unable to reconcile. Because, you know, here's my grandfather. He was a very quiet man. This wasn't a guy that ran around, you know, yelling and screaming all the time. It didn't seem to make much sense to me that he would be put in that position of being a, a drill instructor, a drill sergeant. I get, but maybe he had that other side, right Gibbs. A lot of us have that other side. We know we do. I'm looking at a person across from me right now that has a other side or sides or sides multiple sides. There's the timid, very nice gibby podcast persona. There's that. There's that. Then there is a I will stomp a mud hole in your ass and walk it dry Gibby. I've seen that givy. There's that one.

There's another one. I don't know. You got Rex West. I don't know who they all are. Yeah. You know, it just depends. But that was just something that I always thought about, you know, growing up.

I couldn't believe that, you know, my grandfather could be this R. Lee, Ermi type from full metal jacket. Yeah. I just couldn't. Because you never seen it. I couldn't picture it. Yeah. Man, what a good movie. Full metal jacket.

That was good. I love that movie. I don't know if there has ever been. a role that someone was born to play better than that role that Arlie Ermi had in in full metal jacket. I mean, number one, he was a Marine Corps drill instructor in real life. Yeah, I mean, it was a natural for him. Yes. I mean, he played it so well. So back to Earl Richmond. He was a sergeant stationed at Fort Dix from 1988 to 1980 to 1990. In the In the fall of 1990, he was discharged for misconduct, apparently for taking money from new recruits.

So, you know, I'm the big bad drill instructor. You're the new meat coming in. Give me your money. Pay up. That's what I got. There wasn't a whole lot of detail into it. But that's, that's the way that I'm putting it. The one thing I will say is not having been in any branch of the armed.

armed services. I know one thing. They like their rules. And this is something that I don't understand. If you're a person that doesn't like to follow rules or you like to bend slash break the rules, why are you joining the armed services? Not the place for you. It doesn't seem like it. And we profile a lot of people that have spent time, you know, in the service. A lot of them not very long, right? They couldn't hack it because they broke this rule or that rule. A lot. You would think they would know going in. I'm not a rule person. This is not going to end up well for me. Yeah, I kind of thought, you know, when you see the recruiter that they probably try to drive that point across. Yeah, I don't know how upfront they are. I mean, obviously they want you to come in. They're trying to recruit you,

But just common sense should tell you that there's going to be a rule for everything. If that's not something I can hack, I need to look into doing something else. But it's at Fort Dix that many believe Earl Richmond committed his first serious crime. And it happened on April 15, 1989, when a female Air Force officer and her date were held at gunpoint at a bus stop. in the rain. Fort Dix. I think it's a pretty good size base. It's in New Jersey, eight, nine, 10,000 people, I think. That's a pretty decent size. Yeah, like a small level, like a little city. Yeah. In and unto itself. So what happened was an African American male wearing a jogging suit, robbed this couple and forced the female to perform oral sex on him while he pointed a

pistol at her male friend. So this is a very terrifying situation for both people. The female officer and her date, they were both white. And I think that's important because the authorities pretty quickly pin this on a guy named Richard Stevens. Took him about five days. And they had Richard Stevens who was a civilian working near Fort Dix. he was spotted by a state trooper and the state trooper asked him for his license.

When he gave up his license, the next thing he knows Gibbs, he's being taken to some FBI agents to be questioned about this rape and robbery. And this is why I think the race thing is important. Richard Stevens is African American. And it's been said that he closely resembled Earl R. Richmond, Jr. But other than that, I'm really not sure what evidence they had on this guy. You know, I think this white couple identified him out of a lineup because he did closely

resemble the man that attacked them. But other than the fact that he looked like the suspect, there wasn't much. But it was enough to get a conviction. Wow. Although it did take three different trials. So they kept on going back. again and again until they got what they wanted. Yeah, the first trial ended in a hung jury.

He was convicted in a second trial, but that conviction was overturned on appeal. But at the third trial, they got him for good. He was convicted. He was sentenced to 14 years. And this is the guy that I was talking about, right? Right. Wrongly convicted. He spent the next 40 months in prison.

You know, people say 40 months, you know, a little over. three years. Yeah. That is a shitload of time to spend in prison, to lose. That's a long time. Over three years of your life for something that you didn't do. And who knows what happens to you in that three years while you're at prison? Well, we may talk about it just a little bit. You know, the problem is Richard Stevens didn't have anything to do with this case. Not a thing. Unfortunately, it was something that the authorities wouldn't figure out until 1992. Like we said, He happened to look a lot like Earl Richmond Jr. who by 1992 had murdered four people.

So, but I don't want to get ahead of ourselves. We'll talk about it in the timeline. We'll get back to Richard Stevens a little bit later. I was just so fascinated by this man in what he went through, really through no fault of his own. For the simple fact, it kind of reminded me of the, um, uh, the, um, the, um, the, um, the first Stephen Avery conviction. Yeah. Now, he's been 18, I think it was 18 years, but he was essentially convicted because he looked

very, very similar to the man that actually committed the, the rape and the assault. Yeah. Add on to that, you know, some hinky stuff that happened. But he did look a lot like that guy that ultimately did it. Kind of reminds me of that movie, you know, the hurricane. Oh, about the boxer? The boxer. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, mistaken identity, I don't know, we'll get into it more. But to think about you could lose your freedom because you happen to look like someone else, that's a scary thought. And, you know, we all kind of look like somebody. Sure. Everybody's got a doppelganger or a bizarro Jerry. So there's some other furgies out there floating around.

I thought you said furries, but yeah. Well, there's always furries floating around. There's furries. You have the furry tracker on your iPhone. It sounds like a dating app that lets you know when other furries are near. It's right. Yeah. Right now, the head of furry organization is like, we ought to develop that.

Yeah. That would actually be a good app. That would be a good thing. All right. Back to Earl Richmond. He raped a 17-year-old girl in April of 1989 at a motel in Wrightstown. This is very close to Fort Dism. Dix and keep in mind, right, this is the very same month that the rape and robbery occurred at

Fort Dix that we just talked about that would later be attributed to Earl, but got an innocent man put in prison. Then we fast forward to 1991. By this time, Earl is out of the army, but still apparently in the area around Fort Dix, this is when he began to, to murder. His first murder victim was 24-year-old Army specialist Lisa Ann Nadeau. Lisa was a single mother of two children. She had a three-year-old girl and a seven-month-old boy. Lisa had been at Fort Dix for about two years. So she lived on base, but I think it's important Gibbs to describe what this housing was like. So Lisa and her children, they lived in like a townhouse apartment.

Right. So you have a bunch of these in a row. But each one has its own entrance, right? Not like an apartment where there's, you got to be buzzed in. Separate entrances to all the townhouses. So everybody had their own, uh, exterior entrance. Yeah. Front door like front door.

Roe housing. Yeah. I would say that like that, right? Lisa was a finance clerk on the base and her body was found on Friday, April 5th by a worried neighbor and a babysitter. So the babysitter became very worried when Lisa didn't drop off her children that morning as she normally would as she headed to work. So the babysitter drove over, got this neighbor. When they got into Lisa's apartment, they found her dead. She was hogtied.

She had been viciously beaten with a hammer, stabbed, and strangled. Wow. Yeah, an extremely brutal murder. A lot of rage there. But incredibly, both of Lisa's children were found inside the apartment unharmed. So obviously, the police are called and investigation is launched. They interview a lot of men on the base, right? They're questioning them.

but no arrests were made. They offered a $5,000 reward that was later raised to $25,000. Then in 1992, some type of, it was described as a payroll scam, was discovered at Fort Dix, said it may have cost the military as much as a million dollars. Really? Yeah, so someone was siphoning off money out of the payroll. after that was discovered, investigators began looking into that, this payroll scam, as a possible motive for Lisa's death.

Because remember, she worked in the finance area. Right. She was a finance specialist. My assumption is she probably had something to do with payroll. And a million dollars is not a small amount of money. It is not. You and I have discussed this on more than one occasion. people are killed for far less than a million dollars every single day yeah i remember we did one not too long

ago i think it was uh three dollars and fifty cents or something so that might be the all time low we've had but right because i remember you making uh pretty serious stink on that one yeah three dollars and fifty cents is that what somebody's life is worth yeah really uh crazy so i you know i i get where investigators would look at this and say say it's been a couple years, but maybe it was going on back then. Maybe Lisa found out about this payroll scam. She was going to blow the whistle. And someone silenced her. But they could never put anyone away for her murder. Now, after the murder, what we know is that Earl Richmond left the Fort Dix area and moved back to his hometown of Fayetteville, North Carolina.

in November of that year, he would kill again. This time his victim was very well known to him. Earl was a family friend to 27-year-old Halisa Stewart Hayes. He was really good friends with her ex-husband, Wayne, but remained friendly with Halisa and her two kids after the divorce. Right? That happens all the time. You make friends, you stay friends with both.

Sometimes that doesn't happen and you got to pick aside. It sounds to me as though in this case he was able to stay friends with both. And apparently he had even dated one of Halisa's sisters. So very much like Lisa Nadeau. Halisa Hayes was a single mother trying to make it. She was raising two children, an eight-year-old boy named Philip and a seven-year-old girl named Darian, which is. is a very cool name.

Darian. Darian for a girl. I've never heard that. I like it. The family lived in the sunshine mobile home park in Fayetteville, North Carolina. It's a happy place. It's a lot of sunshine.

Sunshine. Your home is somewhat mobile. Yeah. Everything's happy, happy. You're in Alabama. You're in North Carolina, but... Did you say we're in Alabama? I just said Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Oh, why are I thinking Fayetteville, Alabama? I don't know. Is there a... There's not... even a Fayetteville, Alabama. I think there is. There's a Fayetteville, Arkansas. Maybe that's what I'm thinking of.

Because that's where the University of Arkansas is. Oh, yeah. You got us in Alabama. I got it as in Alabama. It was during the early morning hours of November 2nd. So again, let's say three o'clock in the morning on the second or really, really late on the first, depending on how you want to look at it. Right.

Because people are still drunk from the night before. and especially in this case. But it was on November 2nd technically that Earl made his way to Halisa's trailer. He had left a pretty big party to go to her house and Gibbs, he was trashed. And we will talk a little bit later, but I mean, we're talking about a ton of alcohol, crack cocaine. Oh. I mean, he was really blipsed. He really partied it.

Yes. Okay. But again, he's not a stranger, right? This was a family friend knocking on the door. So even though it's very early in the morning or very late, depending on how you want to look at it, Halisa let him into the house. Now,

they had sex early that morning, at least once, most likely twice. But the question of whether one or both was consensual is definitely going to come up. It's going to be a big point. At some point, Earl became enraged and strangled Halisa to death. He then went down the hall and grabbed eight-year-old Philip, took him into a bathroom

where he stabbed this boy Gibbs about 40 times. Wow. With a pair of scissors. Just kind of think about the rage you got to have to do that. Yeah, I mean, and it was described as the head, the neck, the back. I mean, he really, this was a lot of stab wounds. And then he took an electrical cord from, you know, some type of appliance there in the bathroom. And he wrapped it around this little boy's neck a bunch of times to ensure that, you know, he would die.

I just don't understand why. Why so many times, you know, why stab so many times? Why wrap the cord? Eight year old. Why? Not needed. Or was it needed? And I asked that question because if you look at the very first case, and we're going to talk about these cases more in depth when we get to the trial.

But in the case of the murder of Lisa Nadeau, kids were very young, three-year-old, seven-month-old. And I'm not sure that there's been any link between them and Earl to where he would feel the need that he needed to silence them. these kids knew who he was right he was a family friend my assumption and it's an assumption because i didn't find it anywhere in the research is that he was worried that they knew he was over at the house and once he killed their mother he felt like he had to kill them as well that's that's kind of where my mind went during the research it's one way to not justify it but makes sense of it yeah yeah i mean obviously nothing justified it like you said, it's horrible.

Right. So after he murdered eight-year-old Philip, Earl walked down the hall to seven-year-old Darien's bedroom, and he strangled her to death with the electrical cord from a curling iron. Now, the bodies were not discovered for two days. And it was only after Halisa's father became worried because he couldn't get in touch with her, right? One day goes by, you're worried probably, but, you know, maybe you just

give it a little bit longer. That second day, you don't hear from someone that you're used to hearing from on a very regular basis. And Lauren Bells are going off. Going off for sure. Yeah. So I think like any father would, he made the drive to her trailer and had to break the door in. No one answered. And you just cannot even imagine, right? A father's anguish at discovering this scene, This scene that we've just talked about, your daughter and your two grandchildren are dead and not just dead. Obviously, they've been murdered in an extremely horrific way. Just to see that, man, it would just be devastating, the nightmares you would have, you know, because these are loved ones, right? These are people that he adored.

I think it would break you. Yeah. I don't know how else to describe it. I think it would break you forever in some way. You know, some people would just want to immediately go out and get that revenge. Well, we know you would. You would want to go Liam Neeson. Absolutely.

Use this certain set of skills that you've cultivated over the years. Cultivated. Cultivated. Good choice. I know. But you have to find the person, right? Right now, you have just uncovered the scene. That's why I have friends in the right places.

Yeah, unlike the movies, though, you're not going to get a call magically on your cell phone telling you that something's happened and come get me if you can. Chase me down? Yeah. Yeah. That's not going to happen. No. Because these people, they just kind of meld into the darkness. Yeah.

That's what they do. You just got to be able to go darker than them. So obviously, this is a big murder in Fayetteville, North Carolina. police begin investigating the crime. But again, just like with Lisa Nadeau, no suspects were arrested. But Earl Richmond, Jr. was interviewed early on. As a family friend, he would be interviewed. And he said, you know what, I wasn't even at the home all weekend.

But he didn't stop there. Earl even tried to shift blame towards another suspect. Halisa's ex-husband and his very good friend. Wayne Hayes. Earl said that he thought maybe Wayne had been at the house that weekend. I guess if you're right in the middle of it and you're concerned for your well-being, it's not a bad strategy. Hey, sometimes you've got to do what you have to to save your bacon, man. No, I agree. I think that self-preservation instinct becomes very strong when you're sitting across the table from a police investigator. Very strong. Very strong. But by the same token, it's not best friend material, right, to throw your, your very good friend under the bus and say,

you know what, could be this guy. He could have had something to do with it. Yeah. You would do that. No, I wouldn't do that. That's not, that's not good friend material. No, it's not. But it worked, right? Police began to focus on the ex-husband Wayne Hayes, as well as another man who was Halisa's current boyfriend at the time of the murders. We know Gibbs. It's always the husband. always or the boyfriend or that person or the ex yeah right it's got to be one of those or this random guy that walked up through the door and if not those three then it's got to be somebody random yeah in this case wrong right but to me the most egregious thing that earl did after the murders and this blew me away was that he served as a pallbearer for halisa philip and daring no way

Can you believe that? I mean, the balls on this guy. That's, it's wrong on so many levels. To show up to the funeral, grieve with everyone else, shed a tear, and then to be a pallbearer the whole time, knowing that everything you're witnessing, everything that each person there is experiencing was brought about by your actions. Yeah, you cause this. The whole thing?

Yeah. Every level. of it. I mean, you have to be a sociopath, right? Only a sociopath could do something like that. The man had to have had no conscience whatsoever about what he had done and all of the people that it affected. But like we said, at the same time, he's in self-preservation mode. So what else can he do? He can't not show up at the funeral. That would make him look strange. But he didn't need to that far with it. Right. He didn't have to be a pallbearer. Yeah. He has to go through the motions. He has to show up to the funeral, maybe cast some aspersions against, you know, towards other people.

Asperions. Put them into the suspect range. But you're right. I think the for some reason, I don't know why, but choosing to be a pallbearer seems like extra low for some reason. Oh, definitely messed up. But it all came crashing. down on Earl about three months after the murders. And it was actually his own sister that gave police the clue that they needed. So in an interview, his sister told the authorities that she had dropped Earl off near Halisa's home after the house party that night or that early morning, however you want to say it. Right. So you know light bulbs are going off all over the precinct. The whole station must have been flickering. At this point,

point, police sprang into action. And the first thing they did, really, one of the first things they did, was request the rape kit. And eventually, they were able to match the DNA from the seaman to Earl Richmond, Jr. It's not good for Earl Richmond Jr. It's not good for him at all. So they bring him in for another interview, right? They've interviewed him a number of times, but this one isn't going to be like the ones before. You know, this time, they're going to confront him with the, what I would call a Perry Mason bombshell. Perry Mason.

I know. I loved Perry Mason. I used to watch Perry Mason all the time. Yeah. And black and white, no doubt. But, you know, the Perry Mason bombshell to me is this DNA evidence that the semen found inside the victim belongs to you. And of course, Earl tries to deny everything for a little bit.

Right. But like a lot of people, he can only hold out for so long. At a certain point, I think Gibbs, he just, he just understood that the evidence was way too overwhelming. And there was no way for him to combat it. Or explain it or, yeah. He's going to try, but he does begin to confess, even though he's going to try to explain it later on.

Right. I always like that, right? Everybody confesses. And then later on, they say, you know what? I really didn't do it. And I don't tell you why. Yeah. And here's why that semen was mine.

And it's some elaborate, you know. I was sitting way on the other side of the room. It fell down. I don't know where you're going. I don't know. I was going somewhere with it, but I thought maybe not the right time. Yeah, I was probably going to be inappropriate. But people can can put their own spin on it.

they can definitely put their own spin on it. So he starts talking to police, telling them about showing up at Halisa's house that early morning. Again, bombed out of his gourd. He told police that the two of them got into an argument. And it was around the fact that she had this new boyfriend. Earl didn't like the fact that she was flaunting this new boyfriend in front of his friend, Wayne.

This is what he's telling the police. At some point, he says they had consensual sex early on. And then later on, after this kind of argument got really heated, he says they had sex again. But he says this time it was, in his words, forceful. Oh, well, forceful make up sex. And I'm using my air quotes here, but that's not good. Anytime you say forceful, I mean, that's almost. a euphemism, but you, you know, people know what that means. Yeah. I mean, you forced yourself

onto somebody. That's rape. That's exactly what that is. He says Halisa hit him with something, which you would expect from somebody that is being, get the heck off of me, sexually assaulted against their will. When he got hit, he knocked her down. He says Philip came into the room. He scooped him up, ran to the bathroom, stabbed him with the scissors numerous times in the head and body, and strangled him. He then went into little Darien's bedroom, sat her up in bed, and strangled her with a cord. Then he went back to the master bedroom and strangled Halisa to death. So, I mean, this is not too much different, right, than what some of the other accounts were. But one thing that I haven't talked about is Earl said that before he left the trailer, he poured rubbing alcohol on Halisa's vaginal area.

Okay. Now, why would someone do that? It's really only one reason, right, Gibbs? Because you know you've done something wrong. Yep. And you're trying to cover your tracks, whether it's going to work or not, you think it is. He thinks it's going to work. But they got him.

You know, they charged him with. with the rape and murder of Halisa and the murders of Philip and Daryan. And he's going to go on trial. But before this can happen, in April of 1992, authorities connected him with the murder of Lisa Nadeau. Which is good? Yeah, he was their prime suspect as early as, and maybe even before, but definitely by April of 1992.

He was the prime suspect. But they didn't charge him with the murder. or until October of 1992. So that's quite a span. You know, I assume they're building their case, but a lot of people had an issue with that, that it took them that long to actually charge him because now we get back to Richard Stephen, right? Right.

Earl is charged in October of 1992. Well, miraculously, the other thing that happens in October of 1992 is that the charges against Richard Stevens were dismissed. His attorneys had been seeking a new trial based on new evidence and it's thought that he would have definitely received this new trial. So instead of retrying him, the state dismissed all the charges. And they specifically talked about the resemblance between Stevens and Richmond and said that now because of Richmond's known crimes.

Right. right? They didn't know about Richmond in the beginning, but now they do. No, they do. We do not feel that we can go forward in good conscience to a jury and argue that Mr. Stevens is guilty of that crime beyond a reasonable doubt. So he's a free man. He's, he is. And legally innocent, although the prosecution stopped short of saying that he was exonerated.

So again, I think that's why a lot of people. have an issue with the fact that the authorities thought Richmond murdered Lisa as early as April, but they didn't charge him until October because, you know, all of this plays into them believing that, you know, it was probably him at the time and not this Richard Stevens that committed the other rape and robbery. But you have to talk about this Stevens guy, right? gave up 40 months of his life, was charged with a horrible crime that, you know, Gibbs, tarnished not only his name, but his entire family's name as well. Anybody in his circle, you know?

I'm sure he lost some family support. I bet you he lost a ton of friends. And you know, impacted him the rest of his life, every part of it. Oh, it did. There's no doubt about it. You know, how does someone get that back? Well, I think it's tough because there's just going to be some people that might just believe you were guilty anyway. We know for a fact that there are people that believe the minute you are charged, you had something to do with whatever you were charged with.

Yeah. There's a percentage of people that believe that. There's some level guilt there. Yeah. So some of that you can't get back. you're definitely never going to get back the 40 months. And this is what really gets me. I talked about the fact that they didn't have a lot to really convict this guy.

It's the discrepancies that came out later that really blew my mind. So for one thing, the female officer that was assaulted reported that her attacker was circumcised, right? She was forced to perform oral sex on this person. Richard Stevens was not circumcised. That seems like a very big thing to me. The attacker held the pistol in his right hand. Richard Stevens was left handed. Not as big, right?

People can switch hands. But most of the time, people use their dominant hand. Right. At the time of the attack, get this. Richard Stevens was missing three of his front teeth. Yeah. Something that if you've ever seen somebody that's missing three of their front teeth. You're not going to forget it.

You're not going to forget that. All you got to do is hop on the news around here. I mean, I swear, whenever there's something going on around Dayton, Ohio. Yeah. The first thing they do is go find people that are missing three or four teeth. Let's just cast the worst possible light we can on the city. On the city, yeah. Can we not find people that have most of their teeth?

Because the people that I interact with every day have the majority of their teeth. But the people on the news, they find the ones that don't. I think that's the only people that are willing to talk to the news or something. I don't know. I'm going to get a bunch of hate mail from people that are missing a bunch of their teeth. Well, but maybe the flip side of it is, you'll pick up some tennis. Maybe. But think about that.

Richard is missing three of his front teeth. These aren't even back teeth. These are three teeth in the front. Not once in their description of the attacker, does the couple mention this at all? That blows me away. Yeah. you think they would have something to say about that. Maybe they only saw him missing one of the three.

Maybe. You're at least going to say that. It is definitely a look you won't forget. Well, I think if I'm held at gunpoint by a damn jack-a-lantern, that's like the first thing I'm going to relay to the police sketch artist. Did you say jack-a-lantern? Yeah. The guy looked like a jack-a-lantern.

Yeah, that's good. Okay. But I'm not even done, right? Stevens was at a motel on the night that this attack happened with his girlfriend. He called to order a pizza around 9 p.m., which was about 30 minutes prior to the attack. And there's a record of the call. And when they looked at the timeline, it was very iffy as to whether someone could even make it to the area where the attack occurred in that amount of time. Not to mention the fact, Gibbs, that his girlfriend verified that the two of them were together in that motel the entire night.

So again, I, you know, it just, it blows my mind how someone without a felony record. This guy didn't have a felony on his record. He had some misdemeanor, some little stuff, but no felonies. Nothing to lead you to believe that he could do anything wrong. Yeah. How does this guy end up being convicted in this scenario? Well, other than the fact that he looked like the guy. Right.

But you mentioned it, right? Discard Richard Stevens for life. I found some articles. He's been pretty open about the humiliation of investigators photographing his penis to be used at trial. Not sure why at that point the circumcised versus non-circumcised didn't come into play. Yeah. for those of you that have not seen it, it's very different. You're talking about difference between a circumcise and non?

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Oh, yeah, huge difference. Huge difference. It's something you won't forget, like being robbed by a jack-o-lander. Same thing. Well. Yeah, and we're laughing about it, but I think because you just can't imagine that this whole thing made it through three trials. Yeah.

And none of this stuff came up where somebody said, you know what, that might be some reasonable doubt there. Yeah. She said his penis looked like this. He doesn't have a penis that looks like that. No. No, this one's wearing a hood. Yeah. He's got the hood on.

He also has talked about what it was like to be in prison for rape. You and I have talked about that before. Yeah. That puts you near the bottom of the totem pole, right? I think just above hurting children. Not making any friends. No, he said he was fearful at all times because of, you know, how the other prisoners viewed his crime. They wanted to get at him.

Now, what I couldn't figure out is whether or not they did get at him. I don't know if he would be that open to talk about that. But that's a whole other level, you know, of not only do you lose 40 months. Right. Those 40 months could have been very brutal. Yeah. Well, you could have lost your life. Yeah.

Or, you know, have been subjected to repeated sexual assaults by, by men. It could have been very rough. So back to Richmond, right? Richmond went on trial first for the murder of Lisa Nadeau. This was in March of 1993. And what was strange about this trial is that both sides agreed that he killed Lisa and his defense team gives they even went out of their way to really paint all of the gruesome details yeah his defense team because at the same time they were arguing that he was insane

so obviously there was a a method to what they were doing he was insane at the time he killed her and therefore not legally responsible they also tried to introduce this theory that he was invited inside the home by Lisa for the purpose of sex, but then things got out of hand. The prosecution pleaded with the jury in their closing arguments not to accept this insanity defense. You know, they said, no, this man is just a cold-blooded killer. And that's all there is to it. He's cutting dry.

Yeah, he didn't snap that night. He went there to kill. He knew what he was doing when he set out. for sure. Yeah, and that's exactly what the 12 jurors decided. They also decided that Lisa, no way, invited him in. He broke in. Right. And murdered her. So he got a life sentence for her murder and justifiably so. But he didn't go on trial for the murder of Halisa and her children until May of 95. It was a couple of years before that trial was going to start. But he didn't go on trial. Now, he's in prison for life already.

Sure. But he's going to be tried here. And his defense team mounted something pretty similar. You know, they focused heavily this time on the fact that he was so intoxicated with alcohol and crack. We know what Whitney says about crack. He's whack. That there's no way that Earl Richmond could have formed the thoughts of pre-neutral. meditation, right? So they're, they're not really saying he's insane. They're saying that no way in

his state could he have thought about it ahead of time that he was going to kill Halisa and the children. But it didn't matter, right? A jury heard everything. They convicted him in North Carolina for the three murders. And he received three death sentences. He was also convicted on the one count of rape and received a consecutive 683 year life sentence. It's a long time, man. Right. It is. But I found it very odd.

683 years, long, long time. That's a long time. But to call it a life sentence, obviously it is. Nobody lives to be 683 years. Or rump skin. Why not just say life with no pearl? Or whatever his name was. You know, where do you come up with the, I'm sure there's a formula, but 683 years is very

specific. Yeah. just say you're never going to get out. We're never letting you out. We're going to bury you here at the prison cemetery. So we fast forward 10 years. It's 2005. Earl Richmond's execution date is drawing closer and closer.

And I started to think about this Gibbs, and I kind of wanted to hear your thoughts on it. What is it like, do you think, for an inmate who's been on death row for quite a number of years? You know, you and I often talk about the days leading up to the execution, you know, the final meal who visited the final minutes of that person's life. But what's it like to sit in your cell and, you know, for a year before that, tick off the days. I'm going to be killed in 361 days. Right. Do the countdown?

Yeah. I just, I don't know why I started to think about that because you know. Unless your situation drastically changes in X number of days, you are going to die. It's a done deal. Do you start spending your money, what little money you get on your account? So you're buying extra noodles, extra ding-dongs, ho-hos, whatever? Yeah, you're ding-dongs and ho-hoes. And what do they call those?

Zingers. Maybe some zingers. No, it's like those big cakes. Um, Oh, he's talking with Drake's? No, not Drake's coffee cake from Seinfeld.

Yeah. You think you get that in the prison canteen? You may never know. Oh, can I get that great, Drake's coffee cake? Yeah, no.

No, you're buying all these confections. What I see on Netflix when I watch my prison shows. Yeah. Is that they'll smash them all together. Oh, they make a prison cake. Yeah,

like make a big cake out of it. Yeah. But I can't think of the honey bun. That's what it is. Oh, they get the honey buns. Honey bun because it's like a bigger thing. It's like a baby.

is it? Use that as the base. Well, but you know, you're going to have to get, why wouldn't you splurge, right? You're not going to leave any money on this account as your days draw closer. No. You're going to eat a bunch of ramen noodles. I'm going to get a sugar rush. I'm going to buy every package of Twizzlers they have. But like most death row inmates, right? Richmond had attorneys who were fighting for him in the weeks before his execution date, his attorneys filed a motion that his death sentence was unconstitutional. Because it was based on hearsay evidence. That got rejected. Then the governor of North Carolina at the time, guy by the name of Mike Easley, he actually set down with both the prosecution and the defense

team before making his decision on whether or not to commute Earl's death sentence. I found that fascinating. I don't know how many governors actually do that. I think they would maybe flip through the file, look at all the pertinent information. Right. But to actually have a meeting with the prosecution and the defense, I found that odd.

Maybe it's not. Maybe they do it in a lot of places. It's just the due diligence that they have to do. Either way, he didn't commute it. So, you know, he heard what they had to say, but. It's like, yeah, that guy's guilty. Yep. Let's play golf.

Let's play golf. His attorneys also attempted to, argue that Earl Richmond had received inadequate representation by his original trial attorneys. And this is one gives you know that everyone on death row has to try, right? Has to be done. His appeal attorney said that his original lawyers failed to present expert evidence that Earl Richmond was unable to form intent to kill on his victims that night because of how wasted he was. They just kept going back to this, you know, and, and now's the time to say, like,

really what he had. So they pegged it as 20 beers, a fifth of some type of liquor, and smoking a bunch of crack cocaine. Just throw that in there at the end. Well, yeah, on top of it. Yeah. I mean, any one of those would probably kill me. But 20 beers, a whole fifth, and some crack rock. crack rock that is a lot i mean i'm not an expert seems like a lot of shit to take all one time and one night i know that's just a normal friday night for you oh early friday early you might do that twice on a on a fun night most likely i'm ready to go after we record man if i if i eat too many m&ms i get in a strange mood i can't be messing around with all that other stuff you get you get the night sweats i do yeah um so his attorney

he said that besides being under the influence of all of that, which is a, is a bunch, he flew into a rage when Halisa hit him. Okay. I don't even have to argue with that. He still killed these people. Yeah. I guess that's what I'm struggling with. You know, you can say it wasn't premeditated, I guess.

Um, but I don't see where it excuses what he did. He had no restraint. The fact that he drank too much. Well, shit, that was your fault to begin. with. You allowed the alcohol drugs to influence how you react to things. So, you know, you know what you were doing when you decided to sit down and have that 10th, 12th, 20th beer. 20th beer. So I'll swallow some crack down with it. You know you don't swallow crack, right? I'm pretty sure you smoke it. Yes, I don't do crack. That's the one thing. Yeah. Yeah,

because Whitney said it'd make you whack. Yeah. I didn't want to be whack. Yeah. As far as I know, you do not swallow crack rocks. I think you put them in a pipe and smoke them. I just make sure it's delivered and I get money. That's all you care about. That's all I care about. But again, right, none of this hit home with anyone. There was no judge, no court that overturned anything.

And like I mentioned, governor failed to commute Richmond's sentence. He was set to be executed on May 6, 2005. And it was that day that Earl Richmond, Jr., his death sentence was carried out by way of lethal injection. He was 43 years old. His attorneys came out after and they talked to the media and they said, you know what, Earl was a changed man. That old Earl, the one who had committed all those terrible crimes, he died in prison

years ago. This is what they said. This Earl, the one that the state just put to death, had changed. He found religion. He was truly sorry. for his victims. And Richmond even had this handwritten note that he wanted his attorneys to read afterwards. And it said, I am a new man, not in the eyes of man, but in the eyes of our creator.

I am free. And I like to talk about some of this stuff, Gibbs, just because it's something we hear a lot. We do. Just right before or after someone has put to death. And again, I'm sure sometimes some of this is true. But I always go back to the fact that, to me, right or wrong, it does not change the fact that Earl Richmond Jr. murdered two women, murdered two children, and a jury of his peers sentenced him to die. If he cleaned his life up after that in prison, well, good on him.

Yeah. But you got to pay for what you did, man. Got to pay the piper. And whether you believe in the death penalty or you think somebody should rot in jail for the rest of their life, either way, you've got to pay that price. Pay the piper. I also part, the other thing is part of me thinks it's way easier to be a better person in prison. Oh, of course it is. You have a lot of time on your hands.

Yeah. You are not out running the streets at 3 o'clock in the morning. What are you going to do? I mean, you could kill other inmates, I guess, if you really wanted to. I mean, besides the whole watching your back, what's your, what's not my back that I'm worried about. I got to be honest with you. You got to watch both sides, actually. Yeah.

But besides that, what's your biggest concern for the day? You don't have to get up and go to a job, you know? Well, you might. You might have to work in the kitchen or something else. You know what I'm saying. I just think it's easier for people to find religion. to change their ways, you know, to quit drinking, to quit drugs. Although there is a lot of drinking and drugs in prison, much easier, I think, to quit than on the street. Could be wrong. It's my opinion.

But the one thing I will say, to his credit, it does appear as though he, you know, he did change. Also in his final statement, which was read by his attorney, Richmond expressed his deepest apologies to the families of his victims. And he said, said this, quote, my actions have crushed the dreams and hearts of many families. My heart cries out to heal your pain and suffering. It is my wish and prayer that my death will release you from the torment and pain that has accompanied you since the time of your losses. I understand why you hate me. It is not my wish to ask you to forgive because that would be selfish. God is well aware of my sins and shortcomings in how much of a hurdle they have been in my life.

I realize that I have caused pain and suffering to those I love. God has changed my heart, my mind, and my spirit, which has multiplied my contrition. May God comfort you all. Again, they're just words, but like I like to say, he could have said F you and... Yeah, he could have. And he didn't. He needed to say what he had to make himself feel good so he could convince himself maybe he was going somewhere better.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's always the real question. Is that it? Or did he really want to give some solace to the family? And that's the part I can never figure out. Is it yet another selfish move to make himself feel better right before death? I don't know.

Yeah. And I guess maybe the thing that jumped out at me the most was this guy didn't take a last meal, which I don't know how often that happens. Just said no? No. said he didn't want any special medication, you know, during his execution. And he didn't want a last meal because according to him, my victims got no last meal. And that is something you and I have said before. I've never heard a condemned man or woman say that. I don't believe. So that did

kind of resonate with me because you and I have said that. Why should this guy get the lobsters? when they didn't get nothing. And he's saying, I'm not going to take it because I didn't allow them to have one. So, you know, make of it what you will. Now, the district attorney was not as moved by the experience of both witnessing Richmond's execution and hearing his statements afterwards. In his statement, he said, we are grateful to the state of North Carolina. for carrying out the execution of Earl Richmond Jr. The manner of his execution pales in comparison to the brutal and horrific murders of his three North Carolina victims.

We trust that Earl Richmond Jr.'s execution has provided some measure of justice for his victims and for the citizens of the state of North Carolina. Okay. So there's a lot of posturing, right, on both sides. It has to be. But that's it. That is it for the case of Earl Richmond Jr. This one, it didn't go exactly the way I thought it would go.

You know, I think as you and I got into the research, for me especially, that whole Richard Stevens thing kind of jumped out of me. Yeah, I think it almost became like a subplot. That avenue really, yeah, you really chased that avenue. I did. Yeah. I did. And maybe that caused me to leave out some of the.

the things that we would normally talk about with the killer, but I found it fascinating and I wanted to talk about it. Yeah, it was definitely intriguing. It needed to be heard. I think so too. All right, we have some voicemails. You want to hear those? No. Okay. Well, screw you and I'm shutting it off. I just wanted to see what happened. Yeah, let's hear. All right. Let's hear. This is Heather Hunter. I just wanted to call in and tell you guys what a huge fan I am. I started listening to your podcast a couple months ago. I just did a podcast search as the first time I actually started listening to podcast. And I was hooked almost immediately as I had searched several of them that I just didn't find as interesting. I also wanted to

recommend doing maybe a study on a gentleman named Marcus Wesson. Well, I don't know if you would describe them as a gentleman. But that whole story is kind of messed up. I read a book on it. And like the West Memphis 3, I've been kind of, I kind of do some research on it. And just I found it interesting. I thought you guys would be interested in looking it up. Anyway, thank you so much for helping me get through my day.

I have a two-hour commute both ways. And listening to your podcast really helps me get through it. So thanks. Bye. Thanks, Heather. Yeah, thank you. Wow, two-hour commute both ways. Yeah. It's a long drive. That's like walking to school uphill both ways in the snow. I know I hated that, man. That was brutal. It was brutal. I don't know why kids today don't have to do it like we did back then. It's tough. But I will say Marcus West and I checked is definitely on the list and he is no gentleman. He's a bad, bad dude.

Then what we're doing. Hi, Mike and Gibby. My name is Hordiana Leonard. I'm from. Columbus, Ohio. I want to say that your podcast is awesome. I am completely new to it, and I've kind of been binging your podcast lately on my drive around Columbus and the Delaware area. I just got done with the Randy Crest episode, and Gibby had me dying because when you guys were talking about the fight marks on the victim's penis and Mike just kept going

on with the episode without skipping a beat when Gizzy explained, what about the bite marshal on the penis? I just died laughing because I was thinking the same thing. I was like, how could I not stop for a second and focus on the fact that that happened? But anyway, I love the podcast. I've tried to turn a couple people onto it, but they don't understand my love a podcast. And, yeah, so thanks a lot for what you do. Thanks for the podcast. Have a great time.

Keep your own time sticking. Bye. But what about the bite marks on the penis, Gibbs? Yeah, what about it? What about it? Yeah. So the one thing I'm noticing, hearing a lot from people that are just finding the show, which is awesome. It is.

Loving it. Yeah. It means we're growing. And the numbers prove that out. So we really appreciate that. I'm glad we're getting some more, hearing from more local. Sea bus. Yeah, just up the road.

Hey, Mike. Hey, Gibbs. I decided to leave this voicemail because I'm. I'm a huge fan of your show. I guess I'll introduce myself. My name is Kaylee. I'm 15, and I'm a listener in Arkansas. A fun fact about me is that I'm actually wanting to study to be a forensic pathologist,

which means I'll be doing all the autopsies and stuff to help solve cases like this. But I think of it as a civil service, I mean, a lot of people doing forensic pathology actually are needing to go into retirement, but a lot of people just aren't interested in doing that part of forensic sciences. But I'm sorry, I'm a little nervous. I hope you guys have a fantastic day and I'll be looking forward to your next episode. Bye. Okay, she said she was a little nervous, Gibbs. The whole time I'm thinking for a 15-year-old, she has her, you know what, together. Yeah, she did. She knows what she wants to do and she sounded very well spoken. I think she's going to be amazing. Yeah, she's not too bad. I mean, I probably could explain some.

You can't even get this sentence. I could. All right. Hey, thank you for that. Yeah, no, we appreciate it. Study hard. Stay in school. Crack is whack.

That's right. Hey, guys. This is Stacy Henry. I listen to true crime all the time and true crime all the time unsolved. And I love both podcasts. And I'm listening to Ed Dean part one right now. And I just wanted to tell you guys one thing. The guy that plays the bad guy in Red Dragon,

His name is not Ralph Fines. It's race finds. Thanks. You just got schooled. I did. And I wanted to play this voicemail because people always think, oh, you only play the good ones.

I don't. I play them all. I found it very informative. I did not know what the guy's name was. I didn't know how it was said. I've never heard it said. I just always see it in the credits. So, given the fact that it's spelled like Ralph,

I just assumed it was Ralph. I just knew him as the guy that played in Harry Potter. or played von der mold or whatever what who the bad guy and harry pot no no no say it again you know don't know about no say no i do the name that should not be spoken the name that you can't say is what that's how it should have been but so that was great for me because now i'll never make that mistake again yeah allegedly hopefully allegedly we're see hi mike and goby mike ferguson is my favorite bye wow that was just a mic drop was that like one of your kids no to be And this is dead serious.

I have no idea who that is. Yeah. She didn't leave her name. But I think she's just trying to balance out all the gushy, gushy team gibby stuff you get. And I appreciate it. She had a really bad accent. She had a bad. Terrible accent.

So you've written her off now. Oh, just no, no, no. Because, we appreciate it. Bad accent. Bad accent. I thought she was very eloquent, very well spoken. Yeah. All right, if we had mailbag.

Yeah, let's do it. One thing in the mailbag, but it was huge. Came from our good friend Katie O'Connor. Kay O'Connor. Yeah, exactly. Sure. This was a huge package. I'm talking loads of beef jerky, Australian licorice.

Oh, that's her favorite. Actual signs for the studio. Studio signs. Multiple studio. One of them has a, like a basket, a basketball hoop on. it really yeah i haven't i haven't hung anything up but very cool big thanks to kate awesome thank you katie we appreciate it you're awesome but that's it that is it for another episode of true crime all the time so for mike and gibby stay safe and keep your own time ticking