True Crime All The Time - Marvallous Keene

Episode Date: September 10, 2017

Marvallous Keene was the self-appointed leader of a street gang in Dayton, Ohio named the Downtown Posse. During the Christmas holidays in 1992, Keene and his posse would go on a killing spree which shocked the city. The callousness of the murders and the reasons behind them make this story all the more tragic.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the Christimas killings that rocked their hometown of Dayton, Ohio. This is a story about a group of individuals who had nothing better to do than take the lives of innocent people purely for their own amusement and personal gain.There is a True Crime All The Time first in this episode but you'll have to listen to find out what it is (and where it is)!You can support the show by going to Patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact and merchandise information.An Emash Digital Production.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

and welcome to episode 44 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, what's going on? Hey man, how you doing? I'm doing great. I'm on vacation, brother. That's right. I forgot.

You are on vacation mode, but you're in the studio. So you're not really on a full vacation mode. Not full, but this is, you know, this is fun. That's true. So I'm in vacation mode. We're recording. you're happy. All right.

So let's get to some Patreon shoutouts. We have Atlanta Tippett, Heidi Langman, Samantha Woolwind, Fon Olson, and Sarah Skaglierini. Skaggari. I don't even try it. I think I got it. I think I got it. Yeah. I think you do too.

They'll tell me if I didn't. And then going back into the vault Gibbs or as you pointed out, it sounds a lot like a cell door closing. It does. Yeah, we were talking about that on the Patreon recording. Yeah. I mean, we're calling it our vault, but that sounds a lot like you're getting slammed shut in your cell. Yeah. Not a noise I want to hear ever again. Again. So we went back into the vault and we selected Olivia Flick. And Olivia's been with us from very early on Gibbs. Continues to support us month after month. And we appreciate that. We appreciate all the new supporters. We appreciate everybody else that supports us on Patreon, Facebook, Twitter. If you're listening right now, I appreciate you. Yeah,

no doubt about it. Uh, you know, sharing our posts, retweeting. I mean, I mean, we got a great, great podcast family. Couldn't be better. Telling friends at work. I mean, just this, just that, just those things. Very supportive. Yeah. They mean a. world of difference in basically getting us to where we are right now. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know where we are right now, Gibbs. But we're there. But they got us there. Yeah. Hell, they got me through this week. So I appreciate that. It was a rough week and they got me through it. And Gibbs, you did have a rough week. Unbelievably, sorry about the dog. But everybody came out to support you, man. Yeah. It was great. It was like TCAT family just had your back. Yeah. I loved it. I'm going to pitch criminology.

and sex love and murder real quick. If you haven't listened to those two, go out, give them a listen. Got to give a big shout out to Maggie for her writing and research on this episode. And I placed a big order for some new merchandise with the new logo. I know it's been a while, but got T-shirts coming, mugs, mouse pads, maybe a couple other hidden gems coming. So look for that in the store in the next couple weeks. I don't know how long it takes to get here, but I'll even wear it, take it off and send it to you.

I'm sure that will be, but that costs extra. If you want Gibby's essence infused into the shirt, that's $5 more. Hey, best five bucks, but if you want it, you'd be, hmm, smell like Givie. You can get it. Smell like Givy. After a long day at work, coming to the studio, throwing that t-shirt on. Yep. Somebody out there to do it.

I'll put it out there. I just want to see if somebody will now. Somebody's just going to do it. Just to say they're the first ones that did it. I'll just call it Gibby's essence. Gibby's essence. So make sure when you're done listening to this episode, jump over, download this week's unsolved.

It's the case of Maria Ridolf, seven-year-old Gibbs. We're going back to the 50s. Yeah, we weren't even born yet, man. I wasn't for sure. Yeah, whatever. It's got a lot of twists and turns. And it's one that, like we've done a couple of these where cold, cold for a very long time, suspects, solved, and then becomes unsolved.

And be on the lookout for the Q&A episode should drop this Wednesday night. All right. Gibbs, you ready to get into true crime all the time. This week's subject, very close to home. We picked a case from our hometown of Dayton, Ohio. and it's the case of Marvelous Keen. Marvelous. It was absolutely marvelous.

And that's not a nickname. That's this guy's name. Marvelous Keen. They felt confident when he was born. Yeah, they turned out not to be correct. Yeah. Because the guy was anything but marvelous. I mean, you're setting your kid up,

pretty, you know, the name of Marvelous out of the gate. You've got a lot of expectations to live up to. Yeah. Now, his name's actually pronounced Marvellous. But Gibby and I have decided that for the whole episode, we're going to call him Marvelous just because we like it better. Yeah. And we can do that.

We can because it's our podcast. And he's from Dayton, so we're from Dayton. And he's a bad guy. He's a bad guy. So we can change his name up however we want. So Marvelous Keen was born on July 5th, 1973, just about 20 years after Gibbs. Just, I'm just trying to put it in perspective. Come on, man.

Not a lot known about this guy as far as his childhood, his younger years. You know, a lot of times we have tons of information on some of these killers. We know what age they stopped wetting the bed. We know a lot of things. We don't know a lot of that with Marvelous. I'm going to have a hard time saying Marvelous. I know. You kind of want to just say Marv.

I may go with Marv. But that's short for Marv then. I could go with Keene. Oh, yeah. MK. MK. But what is out there about Marvelous Keen has to do with the horrific crime spree that this guy would go on with some cohorts. I mean, this guy was a murderer who carried out his crimes for the sheer sake of robbery.

It was all about money. Now, it killed five people in total, but you have to classify Keene as a spree killer. Not really a serial killer because this whole crime spree wave, whatever you want to call it, took place between December 24th and December 26th of 1992. And that kind of fits right in with the spree killer. You know, that's somebody who kills two or more victims in a short amount of time at various locations. You know, serial killer, you got that cooling off period that kind of comes in. And so that's why I think you have to classify him as a spree killer,

took place in Dayton, Ohio, like we said, and would become known as the Christmas killings. Holiday cheer. Because you're talking Christmas Eve, yeah, Christmas, and the day after Christmas. Yeah. It's a hell of a time to pick to go on a killing spree. Well.

Not that any time's a good time. What I say? That didn't sound great, but you know what I mean. So at the time, took place, Keene was 20 years old, and he had a 16-year-old girlfriend by the name of Laura Taylor. They'd been spending a lot of time together, getting into quite a bit of trouble, but mostly just trying to have a good time. I've, I've a feeling Gibbs that this guy, that's all he wanted to do. He just wanted to have a good time. And he was going to do whatever he

had to do to afford him the money. To have a marvelous time. To have a marvelous time. So two days before Christmas, he and his girlfriend were staying at this hotel. They had run out of money. So his girlfriend had the idea of robbing somebody to get the money that they needed. And she actually picked a man that she knew. And this was a guy that worked at General Motors, which back then was a huge employer of people in the Dayton market. Yeah, it really was. And, you know, when they pulled out at Dayton, it hurt. Yeah, it was devastating. It hurt a lot of people. But they paid well. So this guy had some money.

He drove a nice car. And Taylor would later say that she knew that this man had no problem spending money on services provided by sex workers. So the plan that she came up with centered around this fact. And her boyfriend, Marvelous, thought that this was a great idea, an easy. way for them to get money. And so he packed up his two guns, which were said to have been Gibbs two 25 caliber handguns. Don't hear that anymore. No, 25 caliber. That's, that's old school. And it's a very, you know, it's a smaller caliber. Right. For sure. So I guess she was going to pose as a sex worker escort, get in the, get in the door and then have a marvelous following behind.

Yeah, that was the plan. But before. Before we get to that, I want to talk a little bit about Keene because he had named himself the head of this gang that he called the downtown posse. And I know Gibbs, you're always talking about wanting a posse. Not this kind. Not this kind. You just want people to follow you around, have your back. I do want like a cool little hand gesture sign thing, you know, like the, you know, like a gang sign? Yeah.

That's an easy way to get killed, man. Can't be flashing gang signs around here. Well, you want you flash it to your other, you know. Posse members. But the people that Keen would recruit for this gang, they're a bunch of misfits. I mean, these are people that are heading down the wrong road in life.

That probably shouldn't be a surprise, right? I don't know how that doesn't fit in. Yeah, I mean, that makes perfect sense. I mean, his girlfriend Taylor had been kicked out of high school a few months before this spree would happen. And like we mentioned, she's only 16 years old. she'd cut off all ties with her parents. And it was said that she was about five feet tall,

had a sweet face that made her look even younger than what she was. So like baby face. Yeah, she had a baby face. So I don't know if she looked 12, 13, 14. Babyface Taylor. She's going to turn out to be. BFT. And Keene was dealing with his own family issues.

He had been staying with his dad out in Los Angeles for about a year and a half. before deciding to move back to Dayton. How bad it is it? You decide to come back to date. Yeah, I don't, you know, I don't know how you make the decision to move from L.A. back to Dayton, but it had to have been bad out there with his father. Now, one thing about Keene is he was dealing with a lot of anger and some trauma because his brother had been murdered about a year before.

So apparently his brother. was involved in some type of attempted robbery gone wrong and he ended up getting killed. So I don't know if that's a precursor to what's about to happen, Gibbs or not, but it very well could be. Could be. So Marvelous was described as being a flashy type of guy. He had a fondness for jewelry. He liked to flaunt that type of stuff. He liked his bling.

So do you. I was getting ready to say just like you do. Look at that thing around your neck. Well, I like the spinner. I have to have the spinner. Yeah. I don't go big flavor, flav clock like you do. What, someone's got to tell the time.

I mean, people at work, what do they think? Keep your own time ticking. You live it. I do. But despite being this kind of over the top, flashy, blingy type of guy, people would later say that he was very polite when he wanted to be. Oh, there you go. It makes it all better.

Well, I don't know. He's got two sides to him. Yeah. Those killers do. Yeah, a lot of people do, right? So the question is, was he just turning it on and off? Was it an act? Or was he a really nice guy sometimes who decided to do something really, really stupid?

Just don't show up the Christmas parties with them. Definitely. All right. So let's get back to two days before Christmas. Keene and Taylor, they leave the hotel that they're staying in, and they walk to the apartment of this man that's, they're going to rob. And you kind of touched on it a little bit, but Taylor had set this whole thing up. She had called the man and promised that he could have an orgy with her and keen.

I think you would just call that a menagerie. Is that what you would call it? I don't know. I think we were pretty, you're actually pretty close with that. I don't think it'd be called an orgy if it's just three people. I don't know all the lingo, so I will take that from you. I thought you belong to some club. So you don't think an origin can be three people? I don't think so. So you think it has to be more than three? Yeah, it has to be more than three.

All right. Like I said. Somebody out there will know and let us know. I think you know because you might just private message it, but they know. You're very adamant about the fact that you seem to know how many the minimum number is. I'm just saying. I'll go with you. Either way.

I seen calligraph. I can't remember the name of the movie. Caligula? Caliglia. What is it? Collegliola. Can't say it. Oh, that's staying in, man.

This is bad. That's staying in. Caliglia. Caligula. I got you. Good stuff. Either way, whether it was a monagetois, an orgy, or some other scene from a movie that Gibby can't pronounce. There you go.

The scene is set, right? It's all about sex. and they're drawing this guy into a trap, all built around the idea that he's going to get to have sex. Now, the couple enlists another person to join them in this endeavor. So now we might be getting into orgy then. I don't know.

Because we're into four. We're into four. Her name was Heather Matthews. Now, she was 20 years old, had just gotten out of prison, and was allegedly addicted to crack cocaine. None of the three of these people had a car, Gibbs. Well, if you're in the crack cocaine, you probably sold it for crack cocaine.

So the three of them walked to this guy's house and this man's name was Joseph Wilkerson. So he lets them into the house. They have a drink. Joseph goes back into a bedroom with Taylor thinking that he knows what's about to happen. Party time. and just a few minutes later, both marvelous and Heather come into the room as well. So I don't know if it meets your criteria, Gibbs, but I think we're close. Now, keep in mind, one of these girls is 16 years old.

So. Oh, put on the brakes, man. Yeah. I mean, not that you and I are saying any of this is right, but one of these girls is 16 years old. It looks like 12. Yeah, and looks even younger. So Joseph starts to take off his clothes to get down to, what he thinks is getting ready to happen because what he thinks is getting ready to happen

requires the removal of one's clothes and the two girls and I'm calling them girls gives because they are young now Heather's 20 but Taylor's only 16 years old they pretend like they're getting ready to take their clothes off as well. Keen starts to take his pants off I mean this is a hell of a scene you got to wrap your head around but he doesn't he quickly pulls him back up and pulls out his gun. This little 25 caliber pea shooter he's got. So he pulled a little pea shooter out of his pants? He pulled a gun out of his pants.

Keen tells Joseph to get on the bed and he has Taylor and Heather tie him up. And once tied up, he has the two girls search the house for anything of value. They end up stealing a microwave, a TV, a cordless phone, a curling iron. Wait a minute, this is the 90s? Yeah. So the microwaves were still pretty big. Yeah, bigger than they are today, I guess. There was no flat screens then, so the TVs were big and heavy.

Tubes, yeah. Yeah. I'm just trying to picture these 16, 20-year-old girl, grabbing the big TV, grabbing the oversized microwave. But that was a lot of fun because they had no car. But at least those things were worth money. Well, back then, more than they were, yeah. But a curling iron and a blow dryer? Yeah.

You're not getting much out of that. But if you're living out of a $5 a night hotel. That's true. You got to do something. You might get a buck for a blow dryer. Yeah. But you're right. They didn't have a car, but they ended up stealing Wilkerson's car.

And they put all of the items in that. And as Keene was talking to Joseph Wilkerson, he found out that the man kept a gun in his garage. It was a 32 caliber handgun. So Keene went to the garage. to get this gun, he comes back into the room and he shoots Joseph in the chest with Joseph's own gun. That's ain't right. It's not right, man.

It's not right to shoot somebody, but you don't take their gun and then shoot them with it. I don't know. It'd be like stabbing me my own K-bar. I can just see the look on your face, man. Yeah. You'd be flabbergasted. I would be flabbergasted. You'd be discombobulated.

It would be that too. Now, one thing that Keen did is he took a bunch of blankets from the room. He piled them up on Joseph Wilkerson to try to muffle the shots. Was he going on point blank? Well, he would have had to have. He would have had to put him, I would think, the muzzle pretty close to the... Otherwise, it won't work. To the sheets to do any real muffling.

Yeah. And still even then, it's still going to be pretty loud. Yeah. Because the two girls, they hear the gunshots. They come back in the room. and they would later say that Wilkerson wasn't dead at this time. He was shaking, but he was still alive. But the 32 caliber wouldn't fire again.

So Keen handed over one of his 25 caliber guns to his girlfriend Taylor, the 16-year-old, and she shot Joseph Wilkerson in the head. These are the kind of people we're dealing with, Gibbs. Wow. 16, baby face, killer. Takes the gun, probably without much thought and shoots a guy right in his head. And don't forget, she pre-planned this whole damn thing. So after Wilkerson was dead, the three left in his car with the stolen items that they had taken.

So they drive the stolen car to a crack house that was run by this guy that they knew. and he let them sleep there until later that day. But they decided that they're not done causing trouble because they had one robbery, one murder under their belts, and they didn't want to stop. So by this time, they had picked up Heather's boyfriend. So now there's four of them in the posse. And Heather's boyfriend was a 17-year-old named Demarcus Smith. And he's going to join them on this crime spree.

And Smith had his own criminal issues. He was wanted by police for parole violations. So like we talked about Gibbs, everybody in this group, they got a lot of negative things going for them. Not much in the positive column. All right, Gibbs, we have to take a quick break to talk about our sponsor, Audible. Now, Audible has the best audio book performances, the largest library, and the most exclusive content. You'll feel something when you listen. Our listeners can learn more by going to audible.com slash true crime.

Now, right now, Gibbs, I'm listening to a book called The Nightstocker. Fascinating book about Richard Ramirez. I know we're going to do him in an upcoming episode. So our listeners can start a 30-day trial and get their first audible book for free. All you have to do is go to audible.com slash true crime. That's audible, a-u-d-I-B-L-E-L-com slash. True crime. T-R-U-E C-R-I-M-E.

So the four are walking down the street. Kean's got a gun on him. DeMarcus Smith has a gun on him as well. And as they're walking, they see a young woman named Danita Gwlett. She's hanging out at the payphone, mining her own business. There's no reason for these four individuals

to mess with her at all. Payphone. That's a payphone. You've used many a payphone. your day. But these four don't care who their victims are at this point. They've only got robbery on their minds. And so Keene and DeMarcus pull their guns out, hold Danita at gunpoint, and they make her take her shoes off. Now, remember Gibbs, this is December 24th in Dayton, Ohio. Yeah. Chances are, it's cold as you know what. Snow on the ground. I don't know if there was,

but it's cold. So for some reason, they thought it was a good idea to make her take her shoes off. They end up shooting her. They take her shoes. They take her jacket. And the four of them leave Danita's body laying on the sidewalk. And Taylor walks away wearing her coat. And DeMarcus is holding her shoes as they walk on. Danita had been shot five times. And when the police show up to the scene, there's a tremendous amount of blood all over the place. They find nine shell casings on the ground. And there were witnesses to this. I mean, they're doing this out in the middle, you know, of a street, right, right on the edge

of the street. So witnesses say that they saw two African American males running away from the scene, getting into a dark red car. So we mentioned the nine shell casings. Police found that these all came. from 25 caliber blazer bullets. Blazer bullets. Yeah, it's a brand.

Yeah. And it's a real cheap brand that a lot of people use for, like, let's say, target practice. It's not a brand that you would use as personal defense ammo. It's not a brand that most people, I wouldn't think, would use if they were going to try to kill somebody. Not dependable? It's a cheaper brand of ammo, for sure. When you say cheaper, I mean, what does that mean? Less expensive? Well, no, I mean, why is it cheaper? So does that mean, they're less reliable? No, not at all. I mean, not to my knowledge. I've used Blazer before. I mean, they fire. But what we're talking about is like a jacketed bullet. You and I talk about in a lot of cases where hollow point bullets are used, right? That's what you use in your self-defense ammo. That causes a lot more damage.

because the bullet expands once it gets inside the body. Most people would use this blazer type ammo or cheaper type ammo for target practice. Use it to shoot somebody. A lot of times it's going to go right through them. Because it's jacket. Yeah. Full metal jacket. Full metal jacket.

That's my second movie. Your second movie reference of the episode. That's right. I'm just happy that you got the title right. Now, you didn't get too far into the movie, but just. I always get full metal jacket and hamburger. Hill, all that mixed up? Or is that the same movie? No, it's not the same movie. It's two different titles. How can it be the same movie? I don't remember if they were fighting on Hamburger

in full metal jacket. There was a movie called Hamburger Hill, I think. I thought there was. I don't remember. It's been a while. Anyway, the name of the movie you got right. Let's just keep it at that. But, you know, talking about the bullets, I think it was somewhat of an important clue for police because it says something about the type of person that did the shooting, right? They used cheap ammo. And they used ammo that, at least in my opinion, not to say that you can't kill somebody with it, obviously you can. It's just hollow point ammo is much more effective.

Let's just put it that way. But it's more expensive. Well, it doesn't really matter if you're pumping five bullets at a time. No. So this downtown posse led by Marvel. Keeen had taken their second victim. And now they've added two more people to the posse as well. And these were two more teenagers.

They've got a 16-year-old girl named Wendy Contrill and her 18-year-old boyfriend Marvin Washington. Ooh, we got a marvelous and a Marvin. We've got a lot of names going on here. These two teenagers, they joined this group after the first two murders had already occurred. And they're hanging out, they're partying, probably celebrating Christmas in some kind of strange posse way. And Heather Matthews at this point, she's dealing with the fact that she'd gotten into a fight with her ex-boyfriend, a man named Jeffrey Wright, who was 28 years old. So during this fight, Jeffrey Wright storms out of this apartment that they're all partying in. And the four that were involved in the murder of Danita, they're going through the stuff that they had taken from her.

You know, we mentioned the shoes. They had also taken her bag. And when they empty out her bag, they find 50 cents. 50 cents. Yeah. So imagine that Gibbs. They murdered a young woman who I believe was a mother. Yeah.

Had a young child for 50 freaking cent. terrible, man. It's like $3.25 in today's dollar. A pair of shoes and a coat. Yeah. But I got your money conversion. I skipped over it to finish my point. Yeah. I like that. It still holds true. 50 cents back then, $3.25 today. You shouldn't murder anybody, but you sure as hell shouldn't murder somebody over $3. No. 50 cents or whatever it is. Use coat. Use pair of shoes. Come on, man. That just doesn't make any sense. Yeah. You know, I get these stories where I don't condone it, but I get it where people murder somebody

because they're about to inherit $5 million. Okay. In my head, I understand the logic behind that. It's horribly wrong. Yeah. But I get it. It's a shitload of money. But to kill somebody for 50 cents or for a pair of gym shoes or...

Or for the sheer... Just a kill. fun of it. Yeah. That's almost like what these people were doing. But I want to point out the fact that it was 50 cents. It just makes it even more tragic than it already was somehow. Couldn't get a decent hit of crack for that. Yeah, I don't know what crack prices were back then, but I know you do in the 90s. That was a rough, rough decade for you. No crack here, man. But at some point, Jeffrey Wright, Heather's boyfriend, comes back to the party. He wants to talk to Heather. He's upset about the fight that they had and he grabs Heather by the hair and drags her

into the bedroom. This is the story that would be told. And Demarcus Smith ran after him. They start to fight and at one point Jeffrey runs out of the apartment with DeMarcus chasing him and DeMarcus starts firing a gun at him. And Jeffrey at one point lays down on the ground to try to escape this fire, trying to like say hey stop i give up demarkas smith walks right up to him stands over him and empties every bit of ammo left in the gun into geoffrey right but apparently demarcis smith was no sharpshooter because he ends up shooting geoffrey in the leg four times and wright's able to run to a neighbor's house so he was shot in the leg four times but he's still able to run so it must have been a really bad shot man Well, I don't know if runs the right.

He's able to get there. Maybe he's one leg in it. Hopping. Maybe he's hopping it. But he gets there. The neighbor takes him to the police station and he actually survives this. But Taylor, the 16 year old, she also had an ex-boyfriend named Richmond Maddox that she had problems with. And you got to think, Gibbs, this 16-year-old girl is a schemer.

She planned the murder of. of Joseph Wilkerson. And now she has her sights set on Richmond Maddox. Number one, she has issues with him. Yeah. Number two, he has some money. And number three, he has a car. And she's pretty streetwise.

It sure sounds like it to me. And it's on Christmas Day, the police show up at the scene of an accident where a truck had smashed into a tree in front of a house. An African-American man was found dead in the driver's seat. And initially, it looked like he had been killed as a result of the car crash. But when they get into the hospital, doctors find a 32 caliber bullet in his head. And when police identify this man, it turns out to be 19-year-old Richmond Maddox,

the ex-boyfriend of Laura Taylor. And as police are questioning witnesses about what. happened. One witness said that they saw two black males standing near the truck after they heard the crash happened. They said the two men walked away, got into a car further down the street. What would come out later, Gibbs, is that the two men were Keene and DeMarcus Smith. They walked back to the car where Heather was waiting for them. And it had been 16-year-old Laura Tate. Taylor riding in the truck with her ex-boyfriend Maddox. She had shot him in the head while they were driving, causing the truck to crash into a tree.

She robbed him, escaped from the truck, but was hurt and limped off. That was the second person. She shot in the head. Yeah. She's killed two people. Yeah. So, I mean, we're talking about marvelous here, but his 16-year-old girlfriend was a piece of work, too. And later that day, Marvelous Keene would go back to the home of Joseph Wilkerson.

He would steal some more stuff from his house and also take his second car, which was a Pontiac. But these people are not done with this spree because the next day, the day after Christmas, they take the two cars out and they're looking for more people to rob. They tried to rob somebody in an ATM. That didn't work out for him. and then they went to a gas station where they ambushed a young woman who was putting air into the tires of her car. Keene and DeMarcus got out of the car. They started shooting at this woman as she's putting air in her tires. But again, Giz, I don't think these people are very good shots. They don't hit this woman, thankfully, and she runs away without a scratch on her.

But what Keene and Smith do is they steal her car. And this is all happening like one after the, the other. Because that didn't work out, their next plan is to rob a store. Because at this point, all I think they care about is getting as much money as they can. And the store that they decide to rob was a small convenience store called the Stop Mini Market, only had two workers inside. Laura Taylor was the first one to go into the store. She wanted to case it, check it out, see what was going on. She bought a pack of gum. She made some of the store. She made some of the store. She made some small talk with a woman behind the counter. And this was a 38-year-old woman named Sarah Abraham.

She had an 11-year-old daughter. And as they're talking, Laura Taylor asked Sarah Abraham about some juice that she wanted to buy. And somehow, Taylor didn't have enough money to pay for this juice. And a 71-year-old man named Jimmy Thompson was a regular at the store, he actually spotted her the money to buy this juice. So here's a good Samaritan doing something nice for who I assume Gibbs he thought was a nice girl, a young girl that needed a little extra money.

No way could this guy have known that this is a cold-blooded killer, a 16-year-old killer that is buying juice and gum in the process of staking out this convenience store. So eventually, Marvelous Keene and DeMarcus Smith come into the store with their guns. Now, Sarah Abraham was working behind the cash register. And her family actually owned this store. And as Keene and Smith come in, Keene orders her to open up the register. All that's inside is $40. She hands it to Keen.

And he immediately shoots her in the mouth, in the head. he also shot at two other people. There was another customer in there that got wounded. And then there was the other worker at the store a helper. But both of these guys would survive and would end up testifying at trial later on. Unfortunately, Sarah Abraham, she died several days later. Because it sounds like she suffered some pretty serious gunshot wounds. Yeah.

What happened to the 71 year old guy? So the 71 year old man. Gibbs. He survives, thankfully as well. Yeah. But he did so by pretending that he was shot, fell down and played dead. That's survival instinct right there. It's like 101, man. Play dead. Play dead. But it worked because they didn't come after him and he survived. So with the witnesses, police were able to get pretty good descriptions of the people that had committed the crime, as well as the car that they had used to get away from the scene. And the shell casings that they found in the store would match exactly the ones that they found

at the scene of Danita's murder. So that's why we kind of made a big deal about that. It's tying these two in together. So at this point, Gibbs, police are starting to put together the fact that the descriptions of all these different crimes that have been happening over the last. two or three days, they're matching each other. So they're starting to realize that they've got, you know, the same people are out committing these robberies and murders and, and all this mayhem. But Gibbs, something was happening inside this group dynamic. The pressure was starting

to mount, especially on Marvelous Keene and DeMarcus Smith. They were getting paranoid that there were way too many people that knew what had been going on. And they started to think that someone was going to go to the police and turn them in. I mean, they were switching up the cars they were driving. They were parking them in different places. They were switching the license plates back and forth between the two cars. They were getting, and rightfully so, they should be paranoid, right? The police are probably starting to close in on them because they've been doing a lot of stupid shit. And they were especially paranoid about Wendy and her boyfriend Marvin Washington. Because remember, they weren't a part of the first couple of murders, but they knew about everything that had happened.

And DeMarcus Smith was sure that Marvin Washington had told the police that he was the one that shot Heather's ex-boyfriend. So the pair, Keene and Smith, they invite Marvin and Wendy over for a drink, tell them that they're going to take a drink. Tell them that they're going to take a drive around town. Now, I have to mention Gibbs that Wendy is pregnant. And at this point, they have another person with them by the name of Nicholas Woodson. So they all drive to a liquor store. And at some point, King tells everybody in the car that he wants to go to the cemetery to see his brother's grave. After this, they leave, they drop Woodson off at his house and they drive to a gravel pit.

And it's here that Washington and Contrill are ordered out of the car. They're grilled about whether or not they've snitched. And they're telling Keene and Smith that no, they haven't gone to the police. They haven't told them anything. They were forced to walk behind some gravel, you know, in this gravel pit out of sight. And it was there that Keene shot Wendy and DeMarcus. Smith shot her boyfriend Marvin Washington. And Gibbs, this Nicholas Woodson guy, he would turn out to be a major part of this story

because he was so scared of this group and what they had been talking about that he ended up calling the police. Now, he hadn't participated in anything that I know of, but he told police that the gang had talked about robbing and killing people. they said they wanted him to participate in future crimes. So the police having come down for an interview, but he doesn't want to do that. So what police do is they take down all of the info that he's giving them.

And when they go back and retrace some of the crimes that have happened over the past few days, his info is right on the money. He also shares the names of all the people involved, the makes and models of all the cars that have been stolen and he knew the name of one of the people that had been killed. And the police were so worried for the safety of this guy that they sent a cruiser out to find him. But he must have wised up at one point thinking,

you know what, I better go to the station. So at the same time they're looking for him, he turns up at the station and he has one more crucial piece of information to give police. and it's that the posse is now currently driving around in a black Dodge Shadow. A police officer would spot the car on December 26th. When he called in the plates, he found out that they belonged to another car. So he knew right away the plates had been switched, right?

We talked about them. They'd been playing this game. While the officer was trying to figure out this situation, the Dodge Shadow drove away. He radios it in. as well as the fact that he believes inside the car are the suspects that they're looking for for these different murders. About two blocks into this chase, DeMarcus jumps out of the car and runs away. So the officer can't worry about him.

He's got to worry about the Dodge Shadow and getting the three people that are left inside this car. Eventually, other officers and unmarked cars come to help out. They block the car in. everybody surrounds the Dodge Shadow and at this point the three left in the car they know they're caught.

They got no way out of this and they actually give up without a fight. Police would find a gun under the driver's seat. Keen is found wearing a necklace which had belonged to Wendy and a jacket which belonged to Danita.

So he likes girls' jewelry and clothes? I guess. I don't know how that even that jacket probably even fit him but yeah, he was mappling. He's wearing a girl's necklace and a woman's jacket, which both belonged to people that he killed. And on top of that, in his possession is a pocket knife, which belonged to Joseph Wilkerson. Police would catch up with DeMarcus. He was holed up in a house.

They arrested him. And they would find DeNita shoes in a closet in this house. So they're just finding all kinds of evidence, Gibbs. to put these people away. And this is a house that I guess the group had been staying with. And the woman that owned the house said that she was so afraid of these people. They all had guns. But she was able to tell police that her son who had been hanging out with this group,

I guess they'd been staying over at this house for whatever reason, Gibbs. Her son had been given a traffic violation ticket driving around in a Red Buick, which Keene loaned him, and they were able to trace this back as the car that belonged to Joseph Wilkerson. So they have Heather Matthews, Laura Taylor, Marvelous Keene, and DeMarcus Smith, all in custody. They interrogate them all separately. Laura Taylor, the 16-year-old, she won a lawyer. I think this girl was very cunning. I think she had a lot of street smarts.

I think you called her street-wise, right, Gibb? So she's smart enough to say, I want a lawyer. But the other three, they just opened up. They told police exactly what had happened during, you know, the three-day crime spree. None of them showed any remorse for what they had done. Now, Heather would say that she never came. killed anyone, and she struck a deal to tell the police everything so that she could avoid the death penalty. Laura Taylor and DeMarcus Smith, they were both minors, so they couldn't get the

death penalty. So everyone besides Marvelous Keene would be tried and convicted and get sentences in excess of a hundred years. But now we get to Keen. The grand jury indicted him on eight counts of aggravated murder, two counts each for Wilkerson, Washington, and Cottrell, one count each for Gwlett and Abraham, and the two Wilkerson counts Gibbs, they each carried six different death specifications. The indictment also included six counts of aggravated robbery, one count of aggravated burglary, one count of burglary, two counts of kidnapping, two counts of attempted aggravated murder and all of these counts carried a special firearm specification, right? Meaning that they were all carried out with a firearm.

So this guy's looking at serious, serious counts against him. Now, Keen waived his right to a jury trial and instead chose to be tried by a three-judge panel. They ended up finding him guilty on every count. But what the panel did is they ended up merging the murder counts for Joseph Wilkerson, Marvin Washington, and Wendy Cottrell. So it actually ended up being a total of five. And the panel sentenced Marvelous Keen to death on each of these five counts. He tried to appeal his conviction twice, but was denied both times and the sentence was upheld. So in 2009, Marvelous Keene was 36 years old and getting ready to be executed.

Now, on the day before his execution date, he was given a medical evaluation. They checked his veins. They made sure that there would be no problem giving him the lethal cocktail of drugs that would end his life. At 4 p.m., the night before he was scheduled to be executed, Keene got to. his last meal. And we've got to go through this, Gibbs. You know how I am with these last meals. Oh, yeah. He got a porterhouse steak cooked medium with A1 steak sauce. Stop. That ruins it right there. Well, I even get it medium, man. If you're going to put A1 on it. Oh, what would you get it? No, I get it medium. Just no A1. Oh, yeah. The A1 is ridiculous. Yeah, I'll put no A1 on no steak.

A pound of deep fried jumbo shrimp, French fries, onion rings. Was he not worried about his you know, cholesterol levels? I don't think at that point he was. Dinner rolls with strawberry preserves, two plums, a mango, a pound of white seedless grapes, two bottles of Pepsi,

two bottles of A&W cream soda, and German chocolate cake. It's a lot of food, man. Well, it's a lot of food and it's bullshit. I hate it. Right. I know we've said it on other episodes before.

They've changed it a lot, but this was 2009. I should have gave him something that looked like German chocolate cake. But was made out of what? Feses? Yeah. Like that... And you bite into it?

Yeah. Like that movie, uh, The Help and the Chocolate Pie. I've never seen that. Oh, they serve... My family loves it. They serve up a nice chocolate pie that has human feces mixed in with it. Yeah.

All right. And I know this guy's getting ready to be put to death, but to allow him this extravagant meal, it just pisses me off every time we talk about it. Because his victims didn't get their last meal. They didn't get to have a porterhouse steak and with all the trimmings. You know what they should get? They should get that one hot dog in that one Seinfeld episode when Kramer opens that one theater that's been in the hot dog machine for like 20 years.

That's what they should get. Or just the hot dog at the Speedway that's been there overnight. I was going to say, that's just about as bad. Yeah. Keen did not want to meet with any of his family members before he died. And it was said that none of his relatives would be there when he was put to death. He didn't want him to. Or they didn't want to.

Or both. Or I don't give a shit. Either one. He ain't so marvelous anymore anyway. Yeah. There were nine people from the victim's families there to watch him die. and he didn't say any I'm sorrys. He didn't give any explanations as to why he did what he did.

Now, Wendy Cottrell's mother, Donna, she stood up when Keen entered the death chamber. He didn't acknowledge her, wouldn't even look at her as he lay on the gurney. When he was asked if he had any last words, he said, no, I have no words. He stared at the ceiling, closed his eyes, gave a slight sigh as the drugs were administered that stopped his heart. Marvelous Keene was pronounced dead at 1036 a.m. July 21st, 2009. Marvellous Keen was put to death this morning 17 years after he killed five people during a 1992 murder spring.

Sonuasu has the story from Lucasville, Ohio. Marvellous Keen took his last breath at 1036 this morning with no family members, only his two defense attorneys there to witness the execution. Now, media witnesses tell us he appeared expressionless and silent. In fact, when asked if he had any final words, we're told Keene said, quote, I have no words. The execution of Marvellous Keene has been carried out. The time of death was 1036 a.m. And unlike some other executions I've seen, it seemed to happen very, he seemed to be silent very quickly.

He was pretty much completely stoic. looking up at the ceiling didn't really look left or right or make any visible motions. Marvellus Keene stayed calm in his final hours. He declined to pray with a reverend on standby and made only one phone call to his stepfather in Dayton. They spoke for two and a half hours. Keene spent the rest of his last night talking to his attorneys. He asked for a pill to relax his nerves and he was quiet. He spent the evening basically watching television in the late afternoon hours.

he did write what appeared to be a letter. We don't know to whom that was. But staff say he was also restless, pacing in his cell, standing on the bed. In the early morning hours, he ate some fruit, he showered, and asked to speak to his attorneys again before it was time to head into the death house. After 16 years in prison, the time had come. Witnesses say staff inserted two ivies into Keene's arms, and he still appeared calm. He took one deep breath, as he was.

being strapped down, continued to kind of purse his lips throughout. Only one time did I see him. He lifted his head at one point a little bit and kind of looked to his left, but he didn't appear to look at any of the victim witnesses or his attorneys for that matter. The state administered three drugs through the ivy. One put him in a deep sleep, another stopped his breathing. The third stopped his heart. It was the moment of justice for seven victim representatives who came all the way to Lucasville to watch. As the state of Ohio carries out, it's 29th execution since 1999.

It can't be an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth justice. Otherwise, as the saying goes, we'd all be blind and toothless. Prison officials say keen-handed an envelope filled with personal papers to his attorneys and requested that the rest of his personal property be destroyed. His body will be transported to the House of Wheat funeral home in Dayton as per Keane's request. You know that old saying, Gibbs, we'd all be toothless. We've all heard that one.

Toothless. All right, Gibbs. So that's the story of marvelous, marvellous, Keene. Not so marvelous anymore. Nope. Not so Marvelous either. He's nothing. He's gone.

Gone. Yeah. And this is one, you know, again, whether you believe in the death penalty or not, I don't lose any sleep over this one. I'll say the same thing. I'm not losing no sleep. This guy killed people for the sake of killing people. 50 cents.

And got 50 cents out of one of these killings. It's just horrible to think about. A pair of shoes they didn't even wear. They were in the closet. Took somebody's mother away from them over 50 cents, a pair of shoes and a jacket. Yeah. That puts it into perspective, really. If you think about it that way, it sure does.

You know, we talk about this a lot. Taking a human life is horrible. Taking a parent or away from their child, taking a brother or sister away from their sibling, away from their parents. All that stuff is horrible. But when you think about these murders, they were the definition of senseless. Yeah. All right, Gibbs.

So before we go, we got some voice. Males. Let's play those. Hey, Mike and Gibby. It's Alia from Sydney, Australia. Love the podcast. Great to listen to. I've listened to all the episodes

and I just thought I've shared with you about peeping Tom you guys weren't sure or you said I weren't sure where it comes from but it's linked to the story of Lady Godiva whose husband was imposing a heavy tax on the townspeople so she negotiated with him to if she rode through the town naked

would he reduce the taxes now all of the townsfolk really loved her because she was very kind to them so they all had an agreement that they wouldn't watch her ride through the town naked and they all stood firm on that agreement except for one man called Tom who peaked through his shutters and that's where the saying of peeping Tom comes from. Anyway, keep up the great work and we look forward to your next cast.

Thanks. Goodbye. All right, Gibbs. Now that's a great voicemail and let me tell you why. Not only does she love the show, she's got a cool accent. Love the accent. Love the accent. And we learned something that we didn't know. I always love when I learned something.

Well, and it's easy for you to learn something that you don't know. No, I'm just kidding. She said, you might not know this. She could have just said, Gibby don't know. We know that you guys don't know this because you don't know a lot of things. No, but that really was a cool voicemail

because I really didn't know the story. I mean, I heard of Lady Godiva. No, I know who Lady Godiva is. Yeah. I didn't know that's where the peeping Tom thing came from. So very cool. Now we know. Now we can't say we don't know anymore.

You would have peeked too. Probably. Yeah. Hi, Mike and Givie. This is Carmen from Ludington, Michigan. I actually emailed you guys a few weeks ago because I had quite a list of suggestions or big episodes that I wanted to hear about. And I was just wondering, I had a few more for you. The first one is a local case about the disappearance of Catherine Phillips, also known as Baby Kate. You may have seen it. The mother of Baby Kate was on Dr. Phil, not long after she disappeared. So it's possible that you may have seen that. Some other ideas I had were the white house farm murders and the Defeo murders. Thank you again for creating a great show. Keep up the good work and keep your own time picking. Thanks. Bye. So some great episode suggestions, Gibbs. And I definitely have your email. I have all the emails. I keep them in a folder. Why are you shaking your head? No. You stop. I swear I do. I have a folder where I keep all the

emails of case suggestions. You print them out and put them in this folder. The problem is the email folder is overflowing. And now, I will tell you this, I liked all those suggestions. The one that I really like is the Defeo case. You know, you want to talk about movies, right? We're talking about the Amityville horror. What led up? The Defeos were the people that lived there before.

The Lutz's bought the house. Hi, Mike and Gibby. This is Alyssa from New York City. Hi, Mike and Gibby. This is Alyssa from New York City. I just wanted to tell you that I'm absolutely obsessed with listening to your podcast. I teach kindergarten all day, so it's very nice to actually listen to some murder episodes because sometimes that's what I feel like I want to do during the day.

So it's nice to get it out through podcasts instead of real life on little six-year-olds. So not really. That's a joke. But thanks to you guys are awesome and you're so funny. I'll be laughing to myself during your guys. this is little banter back and forth and people look at me like I'm crazy. But yeah, you guys are great. Thanks for everything.

All right. Love the voicemail from Melissa. You know, it's funny, Gibbs, because a lot of times I like to listen to kindergarten podcast to break up all the murder research. Yeah. So it's basically we're flip-flopping. I'm just thinking that if your kid is in her class, get them out now. Don't listen to him, Melissa.

I can just imagine Gibby in that kindergarten class, little Billy Madison action. Hey now. You got the kiss to teacher. He did. I'm not sure why you're saying that since Alyssa just sent that voicemail in, but it's very forward of you. I was just thinking on the movie.

All right, everyone. That is the case of Marvellous, marvelous keen, and another episode of true crime all the time. So for Mike and Gibby. stay safe and keep your own time ticking. Here's a little Easter egg with some outtakes from this episode just to see who makes it all the way to the very end. And as Keene was talking to Joseph Wilkerson, he found out that the man kept the gun in his garage. It was a 22 caliber handgun.

So Keen went to get the gun and this is what he used to kill Joseph Wilkerson. says 32 caliber. That's what I said. You said 22 caliber. But I'll say it again. And then when I edit it, I'm going to text you. Yeah. And say, you son of a bitch.

You said 22 caliber. We'll see. And if I'm wrong, I'll put the whole thing on Patreon. And you said 22 caliber. Prove that you're right. Either way, I'm putting it on Patreon. And we'll see who's right. I'm 50-50 on this one alone.

All right, let me do it again. So as Keene was talking to Wilk, As Kean was talking to Wilkerson, he found out that he kept a gun in his garage. It was a 32 caliber handgun. So Keen went to get the gun. He comes back to the room and he uses this 32 caliber his own gun to kill. No. And he uses this 13 caliber handgun to kill Joseph Wilkerson.

So after Wilkerson was dead. the three leave with his car and all the stolen I and all the stolen stole them stole them. So after Wilkerson was dead, the three left in his car with the stolen items that they had taken.