True Crime Campfire - Labyrinth: The Murder of Re'mano Campbell

Episode Date: May 22, 2026

I don’t know about you, campers, but I like to have emergency plans for any eventuality. For example, what if I find myself in the center of a maze with only my wits to get out? What would I do? Of course, the secret to escape a maze is to keep your hand on one wall while you walk and eventually, you’ll find yourself at the exit. This case is a little bit like a maze. Every time the investigators thought they had a break in the case, they found themselves at yet another dead end, but luckily, they kept pushing forward and eventually found sunlight. This story is about betrayal and loss and family. For elevated essentials without the luxury price tag, visit Quince--use our code for free shipping and 365-day returns: quince.com/campfire Join us live at Wet Hot Bad Magic Summer Camp in Equinunk, PA, September 10-13th! Visit ⁠badmagicproductions.com⁠ for more info and to buy tickets. Tickets are on sale now for CrimeWave 2.0! Visit crimewaveatsea.com/CAMPFIRE to get your discount code for $100 off your cabin and a private meet-and-greet with us! The cruise is Feb. 8-12, 2027. Sources: Military Justice For All: https://militaryjusticeforall.com/tag/remano-campbell/#:~:text=Remano%20served%20seven%20years%20in,after%20his%20home%20caught%20fire. AL.com: https://www.al.com/live/2014/04/prosecutors_allege_boyfriend_o.html https://www.al.com/live/2014/03/iraq_combat_veteran_killed_in.html The Cinemaholic: https://thecinemaholic.com/remano-campbell-murder-where-are-eugenia-campbell-and-alexander-williams-now/ Investigation Discovery's "Diabolical," S2 E8 Follow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfirehttps://www.truecrimecampfirepod.com/Facebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/truecrimecampfire/?hl=enEmail: [e-mail] MERCH! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, campers, grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. I don't know about you campers, but I like to have emergency plans for any eventuality. For example, what if I find myself in the center of a maze with only my wits to get out? What would I do? Of course, the secret to escape a maze is to keep your hand on one wall while you walk and eventually you'll find yourself at the exit. This case is a little bit

like a maze. Every time the investigators thought they had a break in the case, they found themselves at yet another dead end, but luckily they kept pushing forward and eventually found sunlight. This story is about betrayal and laws and family. This is Labyrinth, the murder of Romano Campbell. So, campers, for this one, were in Pritchard, Alabama, a tree-shaded suburb just outside of Mobile. October 12, 2011. Patricia Campbell and her daughter were out searching for a daycare for two of Patricia's grandbabies. While they were out and about, one of the granddaughters said she had to use the bathroom, so they stopped by the family home on the way to their next appointment. Patricia's daughter and granddaughter went inside to use the restroom, but just a few moments later, they both came stumbling outside,

calling for help. The house was on fire. Just in the short time they were in there, they'd almost been overcome by smoke. This was the home that Patricia had raised all seven of her babies and some of her grandchildren in. The fire department arrived and did their best to quell the flames. One by one, as news of the fire spread, Patricia's children arrived to gather around her and comfort her in her time of need. All except one. Her oldest, Romano, or Ray Ray to his friends and family, wasn't answering calls and hadn't arrived. That was very unlike him.

strangely enough, across town Romano's wife, Eugenia, was wondering the exact same thing. Where was Ray Ray? In the late afternoon on the same day, Eugenia placed a call to dispatch, requesting a police officer to her house. She said her husband's car was in the driveway, but his trunk was open and their front door was wide open with the keys left in the door. The responding officer went inside and saw a pair of legs sticking out from behind the couch. there he found the body of a black man with gunshot wounds to the torso. Later autopsy would find that there were 16 gunshots fired to this man's body. A license found in a backpack at the scene identified the man as Romano Campbell.

His poor mom was already losing all her earthly possessions and now she was about to get the worst news a mother could possibly get. What in the world was happening in Pritchard, Alabama? Over at the murder scene, investigators immediately noticed a few interesting things about the scene. First of all, the sheer number of gunshot wounds that Romano suffered indicated overkill. Whoever shot Romano knew him and had some kind of vendetta against him. One of the detectives indicated that this was the most gunshot wounds he'd ever seen on one victim in his entire career. Second, there was nothing missing from the scene.

If this was a burglary gone wrong, Romano and Eugene. his house was right for the pick-in. There were TVs, there were games systems, jewelry, valuables all over the place in plain sight, but all of it was untouched. Well, there was something missing from the crime scene. It seemed like whoever had shot Ray Ray had taken the time to pick up most of the shell casings from the gun. The forensics team only found two or three of the casings. A burglar wouldn't have taken the time to pick those up, especially after being interrupted by the homeowner. Immediately, the Pritchard PD were suspicious of the timing of the murder and the fire across town. Was it possible that the two incidents were connected?

I mean, it seemed likely. As with any death of a married person, their spouse is the first person the authorities are going to question, so Eugenia was brought in for questioning. They wanted to know why she wasn't home the previous evening and how often she saw her husband. Romano worked on an oil rig, which had him working two weeks on, two weeks off. She told investigators that he called her about 15 minutes prior to her arriving home and they spoke for a bit. She and Romano's four children were staying at her sister's house that night. The next morning, she called him, but he didn't answer his phone. It wasn't until that afternoon that she started getting worried and had her sister drive her home to check on him, where she found the front door wide open and called the police. When pressed about

why she didn't stay at her own house, especially to see her husband who'd been gone for two weeks, she said that her home had been burglarized while Romano was out of town. There was a police report substantiating that, you know, that the house had been broken into, and that nothing was taken. Except now, she told the detectives an extremely chilling little detail. Something had been taken. Romano's gun was missing. This gun just so happened to be the exact kind of gun used to kill Romano,

which is like, obviously not good, right? I don't know any kind of burglars that were. would break into a house, steal a single gun, break into the same house again just to kill a guy unless they knew the guy and the motive is murder. So the suspect pool had to have been getting pretty shallow, right? Oh, for sure. Unfortunately, the investigators didn't have a whole lot to go on. No one really seemed to have any beef with Ray Ray. He was a decent dude, and unless more evidence surfaced or someone talked, the police didn't really have anything, right? You'd just, Virginia had an alibi. Everyone in Romano's circle had alibis. The case was very quickly going cold. The family had no real choice but to start picking up the pieces. They held Romano's funeral about a week after his death. And as far as funerals goes, it kind of looked like a barn burner. Like there's video of it and like you can see it looked like he was loved, right? Oh yeah. Big time. His mom was the efficient and everyone was singing.

and like hugging each other and crying. Everyone except Eugenia. It's something we say all the time on this show that everyone handles grief differently. But like, Eugenia was weird. Like I said, people were singing and crying. But Eugenia was genuinely creepily smirking through the entire thing. And she'd hold a handkerchief up to her face, but one of Romano's sisters observed that she didn't actually shed any tears.

In fact, Eugenia joked that she didn't have any tear ducks left in her eyes to cry. Huh. Weird. Romano's family was kind of used to Eugenia's turbo weirdness. In fact, it was par for the course for her. You know, that's a new one for me. I need to use that the next time somebody makes me watch the notebook. Oh, I can't cry.

I don't have any tear dots. I just love that there's people in your life that are like holding you at gunpoint making you watch Nicholas Sparks movies. I actually have a couple of people who hold me hostage with terrible movies. Not that the notebook is a terrible movie. It's just not my cup of tea. No, I'm going to, no, you got to watch like terrible, like, slasher movies with Whitney. That's how you get, that's how you lure. That's all I want to watch is horror movies.

That's how you lure her to your lair. is with that. And thrillers. I also like psychological thrillers. Yeah. Romano met Eugenia Singleton at a performing art school in 1998, which is maybe where she got her acting jobs.

I don't know. He was definitely interested in her, but he knew that if he wanted to go study with a girl, he had to bring her home to make sure she was up to Mama Patty's standards. Eugenia was an excitable and flirty girl, and Romano was going. for her. When he brought her home, Eugenia mined her peas and cues around Patricia, always saying,

yes, ma'am, no ma'am, and keeping her head down. Yeah, see, that's a red flag for me. I get suspicious when people are that, like, deferential to somebody that they're trying to impress. Like, it's one thing to just be polite. But when you're meeting your boyfriend's mom and you're all head down, yes, ma'am, like, that makes me suspicious. Like, you're hiding something. You know what I mean? Yeah, because that is not who Eugenia was. Like you said, like it's, be you. And if that's not good enough for your boyfriend's mom, sorry. Yeah. And be polite, but you don't have to be all like crawling on your belly. That's weird. And that makes me think you're trying to slip one past me. And Patricia was interviewed like a million times about this case. I don't think that's what Patricia wanted either. Like,

you could tell Patricia. Patricia is definitely likes respect, but I don't think. Patricia needs to be like, you don't need to roll over and show your belly. She just, she just needs someone to, you know, be polite to her. Yeah, she seemed like a very warm person, actually. Like, I don't think you'd need to be scared of her. No. She seems like she'd be easy to get to know. So why not just be like, oh, hey, you know, Romano's mom, it's great to meet you. But, you know, yeah. Yeah. Patricia never had any concerns about the relationship, at least at first. A few months after the relationship began, though, Patricia noticed that Romano didn't have any money when he usually would have like a healthy amount of cash from his paycheck. And Romano and Patricia were close particularly.

And his sister kind of pointed out like they grew up together because Patricia had him very young, which I think was like a really prescient point. Like I think that's kind of a, they were very close. and they had kind of a more sibling relationship than a mother's son relationship. Sure. Yeah, that happens a lot, I think, with teen moms and their kids. And so, you know, she was in his business quite a bit. So that's why she could be like, hey, where the fuck is your money at? So she asked where his money went and he was honest and he said, hey, Eugenia is in a bit of trouble.

She's pregnant and she's going to get an abortion. and I'm taking responsibility. I'm pointing up the cash. And that would not do, according to Patricia, who is deeply religious. She set up a meeting with Eugenia's mom to help run interference before the procedure could be done. A 24-year-old burning alive inside his own apartment. Police waited outside for 38 minutes. Was this an accident? A suicide? A specific section on both wrists unburned. Hours earlier he tell his parents that if his wife found out he was leaving, she would go ballistic. That's our episode, She'd Go Ballistic, the suspicious death of David Elmquist. This is Crime Salad. I'm Ashley.

I'm Ricky. Search for Crime Salad wherever you listen. From the parents behind Law and Order comes a mystery the whole family can enjoy. Patrick Picklebottom Everyday Mysteries. Step into the whimsical world of Patrick Picklebottom, a precocious 11-year-old, with a love for reading and an uncanny ability to solve mysteries. Inspired by the beloved children's book of the same name, this podcast vividly brings Patrick's tales of deduction and everyday adventures to life

as he unravels baffling enigmas and solves clever cases. Patrick Pickle Bottom Everyday Mysteries is perfect for kids and is just as entertaining for grownups who love a good mystery. The whole family can listen now wherever you get your podcasts. Eugenia's mom was not concerned. In fact, she told Patricia that Eugenia wasn't pregnant at all. No, no, no, no. Not to worry, she said.

Eugenia just puts little pillows under her shirts. Your son was just tricked. That's all. Oh. That's it, is it? The way her mom just described it was that Eugenia was always running around and doing this too. So it wasn't like this was just

to scam poor Romano out of his money. It's possible she liked the attention because she was doing this at school. Oh my God. If she did it often enough to have specific pillows she did it with, it can't have just been a one-off thing. Like she had pregnancy

pillows. Like obviously, this is just speculation, but God, right? Jesus, Murphy. Her mom didn't even bat an eyelash. Like, oh, That's just eugenia. She's always running some kind of horrifying scam. Isn't she a rascal? Lord, have mercy. So Romano, of course, furious and heartbroken, ended his relationship with Eugenia. Good call. He graduated high school and joined the army where he was able to see the world. He served in several posts all around the world, including Germany.

He did two tours in Iraq and survived a freaking IED explosion before retiring and returning home. But there was something about Eugenia. One day when Romano was home on leave, his mom was reading the marriage announcements in the paper. And lo and behold, her son's name was printed there in black and white along with Eugenia's. My God. When she confronted him, he told her that Eugenia had made amends with him. She'd apologized and said she missed him. He wanted to settle down and was, as Patricia put it, craving that family life.

And that makes me so sad. He was so young at this point. And it felt like he really was just like, well, Eugenia is the best I'm going to ever get. So might as well. He deserved so much better than Eugenia. And I think it's possible, too, that, you know, after surviving that IED explosion, like there may have just been some vulnerability there.

And Eugenia just, you know, swept right in as manipulators tend to do. So Patricia Skagit. scheduled another meeting with Eugenia's mom. And Eugenia's mom said, well, y'all are a religious family. I hope you can do something with her. I hope you can change Eugenia because she's very manipulative and she's a compulsive liar and maybe she'll be something different with y'all. But if I were you, I would run while I can. Jesus, lady, that's your daughter. Yeah, this mom 100% had her daughter's number. And let me tell you, when your own mom warns somebody away from you, you need to be

to reevaluate your life choices. It's too bad Romano didn't run screaming right there. Like, oh yeah, she's not pregnant. She's just pretending to scam your son out of money. Oh, she's getting married? Well, hopefully it'll change her fundamentally as a person. If not, good luck. She sucks. And I understand that at a certain point, it's too late. Like, your kid is the person they are. But at that first meeting with the fake pregnancy, like, Eugene was just 16. So there was definitely time for intervention. Yeah.

And that attitude is just so crazy to be. Oh, oh, yeah. She just, she uses my live laugh, love pillows from the front room. Isn't that so creative? Our daughter's gifted. She's highly gifted. We must not try to clip her wings. But also, she's a demon child, so you better have some holy water ready.

I have to wonder if this lady's only. interaction with religion was like watching the exorcist. Like Patricia's going to call in the battle priest or some shit. I don't know. But whatever it was, it didn't work. Discipline your kids. Y'all don't hope the in-laws are going to do it. Ashtag TCC unsolicited. I do have to say, though, that I don't think, no offense to Patricia, because I do think Patricia was just trying her best, but the constant, like, well, we got to meet with the in-laws. probably didn't help this woman's impression that, well, Patricia's going to

fix it. Because Patricia probably did think she was going to fix it. Like, Patricia was like, this will not do. We're going to fix it. But because if anyone was going to fix it, it was Patricia, but I think it was out of Patricia's hands. So Romano and Eugenia would go on to have

four kids, and by the time of his death, they were all under the age of 12. Still just babies. It's so sad. And that brings us back to the investigation, which was still cooling. The best lead that the investigators had was the connection between the fire at Patricia's house, the theft at the Campbell House, and the murder. The arson investigation wrapped up and found that it was an electrical fire. No, seriously, it was a freak accident that just so

happened to strike on the worst day of this family's lives. I cannot even imagine. This is like some kind of genetically modified mutant bad luck. If anybody deserves to win the lottery, 12, times it's the Campbell family. Jeez, Louise. Did they have GoFundMe's in 2011? I don't think so, but if they did, I hope everyone in the world donated. Because can you imagine? On the same day, it's just absolutely horrific. So now we know the fire's not connected. Romano's murder case went ice cold. The investigators didn't have any answers, but Patricia and her family weren't about to let that stop them. They picked up where the detectives left off and started their own investigation. and they pretty much immediately decided it was Eugenia.

His family is so funny. Like his mom and his sister got on investigation discovery, and they, first of all, their clothes were so beautiful. And they were just, they were looking through windows and they were performing their own investigation. And we stand. They were, they are honorary campers. Eugenia wasn't nearly as furious as they were with the lack of answers,

from the police. She wasn't at all left wondering who took her children's father away from them. She didn't seem like she wanted answers at all. Obviously, the Campbells are a close-knit family, and they tried calling Eugenia to stay in touch, but the number they had for her was disconnected. The very next day, after they tried calling her, Patricia and one of her daughters stopped by Eugenia's house to check on her, only to find that the house was completely empty. There was no sign of Eugenia or the four kids. They did find trash bins overflowing with Romano's clothes, as well as torn pictures of him. They also found the flag that was draped over his casket during his funeral, burned and thrown in with the garbage.

Oh, my God. And also, way to stay under the radar, girl. Really? Jeez, Louise. Like, they can't help themselves, these people. No. They just can't conceal, like, the hatred that they have. Mm-mm.

Unbelievable. So you have a woman whose husband was murdered with his own gun. She acts strangely at his funeral. She doesn't have any sort of sense of urgency to get his murder solved. And then she skips out in the middle of the night with her children, destroying any physical memory of her dead husband's legacy in the process. Now, campers, does that seem like the actions of an innocent woman to you? I don't know about you guys.

But that doesn't strike me as innocent. But, hey, what do I know? No. I'm sure it's fine. So again, Patricia's going to fix it. Okay. Patricia will fix it. Patricia will fix it. She honestly should have a show called Patricia'll fix it. I believe she could fix all my problems, no doubt, like after seeing her in those interviews. For sure. And so she and her daughter drove by Eugene's mom's house.

And Eugene's mom was like, I don't know where she is. I want nothing to do with her. Okay. Sweet. Nice. Goodness gracious. What had ended up happening was Eugenia had taken her kids to move to Biloxi, Mississippi, about an hour away. No one in Romano's family would know where she or the kids were for two years. Wow. Sometimes with cold cases, all it takes for a break is one tiny piece of evidence, one little detail missed in the first go-round or one witness coming forward.

One of the detectives got a call from the mobile case. County Jail in regards to the Romano Campbell murderer from a suspect there for a theft charge. The man was Michael Riley, Romano Campbell's brother-in-law. He was married to one of Ray-Ray's sisters, I think. He had a nuclear

piece of goss for the detectives. Michael was having an affair with Eugenia prior to Romano's death. Ooh. The audacity of this woman to fuck

your sister-in-law's husband is bug nuts insane. I cannot get over it. I'm not joking. I had to rewind this part of the show four times. And then I had to Google it to make sure I was understanding the relationship correctly. Like, what on earth is wrong with these people? It's not like they lived in a small town where you had like pickings of 10 guys, okay? They lived in Mobile, Alabama, okay? Yeah. And then, after having the absolute ladyballs to fuck this man, she asked him if he knew anyone that could kill her husband for her.

Oh, boy. At first, he was like, oh, she's fucking with me. But eventually, she just kept saying stuff like, I just want to kill that bastard. And I just want to kill that son of a bitch. Then she told him that Romano was beating her and that she was scared. And Michael was like, well, if he's hurting you, you should leave him and offer to help. But she told him that she was staying with him for the kids.

Okay, pause. Okay, that does not make any logical sense. She wants to stay with him for the kids' sakes, which is something that abuse victims absolutely say. But in the same breath, she's trying to take out a hit on him. And there's no proof whatsoever that Romano had ever been abusive in their relationship. No one who'd seen them together indicated any kind of physical or verily. abuse or even bad vibes on either side. And these were people who were very close.

I mean, at least Romano, very close with his family. You know, like you feel like somebody would probably get a hint of something. Michael had an alibi for the time of the murder. Probably the best alibi you're ever going to get. He was in jail. So the detectives now had someone to focus in on, Eugenia. She reported the crime. She reported the burglary.

She reported the missing gun. The war is over and both sides lost. Kingdoms were reduced to cinders, an army scattered like bones in the dust. Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world, praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight. But in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins. This is old school adventuring at its most cruel. Your torch ticks down in real time. And when that flame dies, something else runs.

to finish the job. This is a brutal rules light nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make. This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s and man, it is so good to be back. Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the Shadow Dark every Thursday night at 8 p.m.

Eastern on YouTube.com slash the Glass Cannon with the podcast version dropping the next day. See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark. Look, there are a lot of celebrity interview podcasts out there, but there's only one Happy, Sad, Confused. I'm Josh Horowitz, and yeah, I'm the host of the show, so I'm a little biased, but truly Happy, Sad, Confused is the place for nerdy and intimate conversations with all your

favorite actors and filmmakers. From Andrew Garfield and Scarlet-O-Hanson to Christopher Nolan, casting what-ifs, backstage stories, and much more. Listen to Happy Say It Confused on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you can. get your podcasts. The detectives started out their investigation by combing through Eugenia's phone records. They figured that if she had the hutspot to ask Romano's own brother-in-law to kill the guy, she probably asked somebody else too.

Since she had an alibi, she didn't pull the trigger, but maybe somebody did it for her. Now, remember how Romano called his wife right before he got home the night he died? Investigators found that Eugenia called someone directly after that. When they subpoenaed the number, it traced back to a burner phone. So unfortunately, that was a dead end. But they did have the rest of her phone records. So they started checking all of her contacts out. And campers, they hit a treasure trove of booty calls.

Now, we don't slut shame in this house, okay? And we never will. But is it fair if we're a little like slut in awe? Because our girl, Eugenia, was slamming ass all over the tri-state area. If it moved, she'd try and get her leg of. over it. She was like a horny T-Rex from Jurassic Park. I sense movement.

So, overall, the investigators found four additional men that Miss Eugenia was getting freaky with, plus the man from the burner phone. An interesting fact about burner phones, when you buy them, you can choose to give a first and last name at the point of purchase, and our man did. The name he gave

was Frank Williams. So not exactly Saskia Hamilton, or anything, but it's a start, right? Most of the men Eugenia was involved with were giving her money, and she was telling each of them a sob story about her terrible marriage. It always comes back to money with Eugenia, doesn't it? The investigators brought in all of Eugenia's lovers and got their alibis and their DNA,

and they were all able to be ruled out as suspects, except Burner Phone Man. They hadn't been able to track him down at all. They just had a name, a pretty common one at that, that. It seemed like the case might be getting cold again until the police got another call, this time from a pay phone, from a man who said he knew who killed Romano Campbell. The guy said he lived in Biloxi, Mississippi, and he wanted to know if the detectives could meet him at a gas station near where he was so he could tell him his story.

The detectives hopped in their car and drove the hour or so to Biloxi to hear this guy out. He said he knew this guy who'd always be fighting with his girlfriend. When his girlfriend kicked him out, the informant would let him stay on his couch. One time, the guy and the informant were drinking and chatting, and the guy was hammered, and he told the informant that he had to get back in good with his girlfriend, because his girlfriend was about to inherit a bunch of insurance money from her husband's death. He said, her husband was killed over in Alabama. The informant asked how he knew all this, and the guy said,

well, I'm the guy who killed him. The informant added a little bit of information that confirmed he was telling the truth. He said he unloaded the whole clip into the guy. That little tidbit hadn't been released to the public, and so was information only the killer would know. When asked for his friend's name, the informant told detectives that it was Alexander Frank Williams. Alexander Frank Williams was taken into custody without incident, and before he was put into the police car, his mother was able to talk to him. She encouraged him to tell the detectives everything, and so he did. It's not clear what exact learning disabilities Alexander Williams has been formally diagnosed with, if any,

but we do know that his adoptive mother described him as simple and slow, and that if you gave him $10, he'd give you back $20 as change. Alex wasn't a helpless lamb here, okay, and he was deemed competent to stand trial, but I don't think any of us are remiss in being disgusted in this next part. Okay. When he was 23, he told his mom, Gloria, he met a girl, and that he was smitten. He told her that this woman reminded him of his mom, and she told investigation discovery, he said, she's just like you, you know, she's just nice.

And why this didn't set off more red flags than a communist parade for her, we'll never know, but she was so excited that her son had met someone. He told her that the woman's name was Eugenia Campbell, and the two started dating seriously. Eugenia went to Gloria's church and was upfront about still being married to Romano, but said they'd be divorced soon. She told Gloria she wasn't happy in the marriage. Alex made her happy. He wasn't complicated. She liked that, I bet.

Yeah, I was going to say, I'm sure she did. Gloria acknowledges how vulnerable Alex was in her interview. He'd pretty much just do whatever you'd tell him. He was always trying to please. Did anyone else just hear a wolf howling in the distance, or was that just me? Eugenia confided in Alex that she was tired of being beaten, and that's why she was looking for a way out of her marriage. The day after Romano's murderer, Alex went to his mom and asked if she heard about Eugenia's

husband's death. Gloria was shocked, but not suspicious of anything. In fact, she told him, that could have been you. Thank God you weren't there. Soon enough, Alex and Eugenia were living together in Biloxi and had a child of their own. Once he was arrested, partially at the encouragement of his mother, Alex told the police the whole sordid tale. He'd been dating Eugenia for some time. Sometimes she'd come to him wearing an ace bandage around her wrist or acting scared, telling him that she and her husband were fighting and that

Romano was hurting her. She told him that she was trying to get help from the police that they just weren't helping. They didn't believe her. She told Alex that she believed Romano was going to kill her. He told detectives that Eugenia asked Alex to kill Romano several times before finally he got worn down and agreed to do it. The first thing they did was stage the break-in nine days before Romano's murder. Then, on the evening of October 11th, she let Alex into the house, gave him the gun, and left him there to wait for Romano to get home. He waited for hours. Just waited. Finally, 15 minutes before Romano arrived, Eugenia called Alex to let him know Romano was on his way in the early hours of October 12th.

Then, as Romano led himself into his own home, while he was reading his mail, Alex, shaking, fired Romano's own gun at the man until it fired no more. He told police he shot until the gun stopped. And as for the missing shell casings, he held a bag over the gun, so the casings fell into the bag. The man, the son, the brother, the father, lay dead at his feet. He then called Eugenia to let her know the job was done. When it came time to put the grabbis on Eugenia, she easily admitted to her part, but shifted the blame.

She told the authorities that Alex was possessive and the whole thing was his idea. Okay, lady, sure. For the record, no one believed her. And I think we should add also that, you know, she said, oh, I tried to get help from the police and they didn't believe me. That never happened. Like, she didn't call the police. She never asked for help. She's making it up.

Yep. Yep. A liar through and through. Yep. Both Alex Williams and Eugenia Campbell were sentenced to life in prison for their parts in the murder of Romano Campbell. Is that justice? For Eugenia, certainly. I hope she wroughts and I hope she's having a bad day today and for every day for the rest of her life. Oh, yes. For Alex, I'm actually very curious about what the community thinks. I do think he's culpable and certainly deserve some kind of punishment. But Christ, he's certainly some kind of victim as well, is he not? Does he deserve the same exact sentence as Eugenia? I'm not sure. Campers, what do you think?

I'm interested to hear too because, you know, the more you research the story, the more you look into it, the more you do get the sense that this was targeted. Like she met this guy and she knew that he was vulnerable and, you know, like people pleasers, not the word. Like his mother said, if you gave him $10, he'd give you 20 back, you know, and he would just do whatever anybody told him. And so I think she met him and just knew he was ripe for the pick-in. And that doesn't absolve him, of course, but it certainly tells us a lot about her, whether we can take some culpability off of him or not. It tells us a lot about her at the very least. So, yeah, I'm interested to hear what you all think, too. Get in those comments and tell us, do you think he should have gotten the same sentence as she did?

And like I said, we couldn't find any kind of pretrial information about whether he was tested. Because again, if he was, fair enough, but I couldn't find any information. Yeah. But I do think this next part is interesting. He did say about the night Romano died. He wanted to call his mom while he waited. But Eugenia called him repeatedly and ordered him to stay put. Would not let him, would not let him do anything, but stay put.

Yeah. Is that true? I guess we'll never know, but it does match up with his people-pleasing ways. and like we said, get in the comments. Let us know what you think, campers. And you wonder, too, if he had talked to his mom, would this have happened? Mm-hmm. The fact of the matter is, Eugenia Campbell robbed five children of their parents.

Just for the sake of greed. And while that is not a unique motive here on True Crime Campfire, still earns you the massive hosebag of the week award. Congrats, Eugenia. You earned it. Now, before we go, don't forget about our team. two amazing live shows coming up. First, we've got wet hot bad magic summer camp, September 10th through the 13th, an amazing four-day festival at an actual summer camp in Equinunk, Pennsylvania, hosted by Dan and Lindsay Cummins of Time Suck and Scared to Death, two of my all-time absolute

favorite podcasts. If you've never listened, you are sleeping on both of them. Scared to Death is absolutely terrifying. And I'm hard to scare, but some of those stories are just, and Time Suck is just fascinating and dance hilarious. He's a comedian. Anyway, listen, and we will be performing live alongside them and the podcast's astonishing legends in addition to a roster of awesome stand-up comedians and local bands. It is going to be a blast. We cannot wait. Go to bad magic productions.com for more info and to buy tickets. And then we've got our true crime cruise, Crime Wave 2.0, February 8 through 12th, 2027. If you want to come to the Bahamas with us and some of the biggest true crime and paranormal podcasts in the world, like case file, true crime garage, last podcast on the left,

and scared to death, here's what you got to do. Tickets are on sale now, and they are going fast. So if you want to go, make sure you get over to crimewaveatc.com slash campfire and book your cabin ASAP. You'll get $100 off, plus a private meet and greet with us. The great thing is you can pay all at once or set up a payment plan and pay it off over time. So get on it, Jall. That's crimewaveatc.com slash campfire. So that was a wild one, right campers? You know, we'll have another one for you next week. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire. And as always, we want to send a grateful shout out to a few of our lovely Patreon supporters. Thank you so much to Kim, Killian, Jamie, Kelly, and Cody. We appreciate y'all to the moon and back. And if you're not yet a patron, you're missing out. Patrons of our show get every episode ad-free, at least a day early, sometimes more, plus tons of of extra content like patrons only episodes and hilarious post-show discussions. And once you join the $5 and up categories, you get even more cool stuff. A free sticker, a rad enameled pin or fridge magnet while supplies last virtual events with

Katie and me, and we're always looking for new stuff to do for you. So if you can, come join us at patreon.com slash true crime campfire. Oh, please, not that music. That music gives me nightmares from my childhood. Could we get something a little bit lighter? Some lighter music here. Are you a fan? of true crime TV shows.

And what about Unsolved Mysteries? The show that jumped started all of our love of true crime. I'm Ellen Marsh. And I'm Joey Taranto. And we host I Think Not, a true crime comedy podcast covering some of the wildest stories from your favorite true crime campy TV shows all the way to Unsolved Mysteries. Baby, you will laugh, you will cry. You'll think about true crime in a whole new way, and you'll also ask yourself,

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