True Crime with Kimbyr - Mother & Daughter Murdered After Visiting The Local Carnival: Part 3

Episode Date: July 11, 2025

The final chapter of this devastating mystery is here. In Part 3 of True Crime with Kimbyr, Kimbyrleigha walks us through the chilling conclusion to Angela and Ashley’s story. As the truth is finally revealed, the details are more disturbing than anyone imagined. What was the motive behind such a senseless crime? And how did investigators piece together the final moments of a mother and daughter’s lives? This emotional ending sheds light on a tragedy that Cresco, Iowa, will never forget. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

And it was at this point that Bobby Joe became emotional. She was crying. And this is when she was talking about eight-year-old Ashley. And even though they were thankful to get this information, they wondered if this was truly a woman who was in this toxic relationship or if she had something to do with it. Because remember how Clay said that he saw Angie twice. He went to her house on a date earlier in the month and then again the second time.

And then they end up dead. So the investigators aren't sure what to believe. Could Bobby Joe have been angry when she found out that maybe he cheated on her and then she killed Angel and her daughter? Maybe. Or maybe she told her husband to do it. Anything was possible. But it did seem like Bobby Joe regretted the entire situation and she gave detectives the information on the exact location where the bodies were found. So they knew she was telling the truth about being there out by the lake. Now Clay's charges are upgraded. He's now facing two counts of first-degree murder. In addition, into stealing Angie's vehicle and his bond is set at $1 million as he's awaiting extradition.

The community wanted to know what was going to happen to Bobby Joe? And the attorneys had to let them know that she wasn't arrested, that she had completely been cleared in the crime at that point. But they couldn't say if she did have anything to do with the actual murders. So that's why she wasn't in jail. That did not go over well with this community and sure as hell didn't go over well with Angie's family. They were angry. It was around the same time.

The Angie's family was putting their arrangements together for the funerals. And Clay's mother was sitting in a salon back in Atchinson, Kansas, getting her hair done when the news came on a TV. And another woman in the salon said, oh my God, there's that man from Atchinson who killed that woman and her daughter. Everyone in the salon turned to look at that screen. And that's when Dorothy said she froze.

No one in there knew that the man on TV accused of such a vile crime was one of her sons. And her first thought was it's not possible. Soon, she would be telling the same thing to police. They came to her home to ask her about her son coming over and asking for a shovel. She admitted it was true. She said it was both Clay and Bobby Joe.

They just showed up out of nowhere on July 11th, and Clay said he wanted to dig up some worms to go fishing. Dorothy said that wasn't an odd request. He went fishing all the time, and Dorothy's home, as the detectives looked around, was full of photographs of all of her children. A few of clay smiling in school photos from junior high school and another one of him as a baby. And like a proud mother, she began telling the officers all about her lovely little boy, as if he was still that innocent little baby with a toothless smile in all those pictures that were decades old, pointing out, oh, he's going to be. one and a half in this picture, nonchalantly showcasing her child like he wasn't in jail for murder of a child himself and a mother. It was odd. She didn't leave out that her poor clay was brain

damaged. Her words, lucky to be alive. And I mentioned that earlier and said, unlucky for his victims. I meant poor Angie and Ashley. Dorothy immediately put the blame on Bobby Joe, who she referred to as the manipulator. Dorothy insisted that this was all Bobby Joe's plan. Because they didn't have a car. That was the motive in her mind. Clay was pressured to obtain a car to please Bobby Joe. Dorothy said their car had broken down. They wanted to go to Mexico. And Bobby Joe kept telling Clay, we need a car. We need a car. I don't care how you get it. And then Dorothy broke down, saying how her son called her from jail and how he thinks she doesn't love him. anymore. She told the detectives, I don't know what happened. I don't understand. But I know that

Clay is a part of me, and he always will be, and I will always love him. She told him that. I guess a mother's love knows no bounds. And neither does a father's, because poor Bert Lucas had lost his eight-year-old little girl. And now he was left with even more questions and answers, especially after hearing what I just told you. He even said, if Clay only he only had, he only had the mentality of a 14-year-old, any 14-year-old would know that it's wrong to take someone else's life. So that's no excuse. But that's what it appeared to be. Another excuse for Clay's violent and vile behavior. Now, his attorney, Susan Flander, had not only proclaimed his innocence, but told the media that she planned to have a doctor confirm that Clay had a neurological

impairment. And he wasn't even capable of forming the intent required for first-degree murder. Bert traveled all the way to Kansas to the exact spot where his daughter and Angie had been left to decompose in that shallow grave. And he planted flowers over that spot. So it wouldn't be remembered as this dark and horrific place, but one of life and beauty like the girls he remembered and loved. He told reporters that it was really hard, but it offered him some closure. He wasn't even able to look at photos of the bodies. He just couldn't. But he said, in the case that this goes to trial, he would make himself look at all the evidence,

just like the jury, or he would make someone else look for him. He said, if I can make someone look and they can tell that it's my daughter, if she's still recognizable, I may look, but if it's bad, I don't want to see it. And I don't blame him because many people don't want to remember their loved ones that way.

And speaking of seeing them the way that they were, when they were found, the medical examiner had completed the autopsy. Dental records confirmed Andy's idea. And for Ashley, the fact that she was lying right next to her mother and she fit the description of the missing person was enough without dental records. But they tested one of her hairs that was found at a blood stain inside of the trunk of Angie's car and both matched Ashley's DNA. The cause of death for both Angie and Ashley was exfixiation by strangulation. And the manner of death was, of course, homicide. Now Clay had been moved to a jail in Iowa. His charges were set.

And again, he called his mother. this time on July 21st. And she relayed this conversation to police. Maybe she shouldn't have. But she said he called me. And he told me he was sorry, and I asked him for what. And he confessed saying, I did it. I killed them.

He told her, I don't know why. I don't know what happened. I just snapped. And Dorothy told the media that she never raised her son to do that. And she was sobbing while she was saying all this. She said, he never heard anyone except himself. I would like to know what in the devil happened. What pushed him to that point? But I'm like, miss, he's been acting out since his early adolescence. And he has hurt people before Angie and Ashley. So what are you talking about? Are you talking about the same person? I feel like

she's so in denial. But she went on to say that he told his parole officer he needed help, that he was in pain. And he was at her house on July 11th, even telling her mom, Something's going to happen to me. I'm going to die from my injuries. And I'm thinking, what injuries he's talking about? The supposed brain damage? He was clearly functioning. And again, it was painful to read about all of these excuses

that she made. But then there was this so-called confession, and it prompted police to go back and interview Clay again. This time, he was in a much more vulnerable state. He knew police to talk to his wife, and then talked to his mother, and he started to break down. and tell them what happened on July 8th. It was absolutely chilling, sickening.

According to Clay's confession, he had gone to Angie's home on the night of July 8th, the very home that he'd visited just days after meeting Angie at the carnival. It seemed like an innocent enough encounter, one that I'm sure Angie could have never imagined would lead to tragedy. The first time he came over, it was just him and Angie,

and they talked, and Angie told him that she was really sore that her, back was hurting, which prompted him to offer her a back massage. We finally know why. She nicknamed him back rub Clay. But the next night he came over on July 8th, Clay explained that eight-year-old Ashley was home, but she was asleep upstairs. However, at some point, she woke up crying from a bad dream. Angie immediately went to comfort her daughter, soothing her from her fears and tucking her safely back into bed. And then later, after she drifted back off to sleep, Clay admitted that he and Angie spent some time together downstairs on the couch. And to warm things up, he asked her if she

wanted a back massage. And she did. And she got on her stomach, face down, lying on the floor with a pillow under her head, and he straddled her from the back, like on her buttocks, and he was giving her a back massage. Eventually, they ended up engaging in consensual intimacy. But as the night wore on, something shifted in clay. He said he suddenly decided, that he would strangle Angie and steal her car and then escape town. So as she was laying her head in like the bend of his arm, like the crook of his arm near his elbow, she was laying her head while he had it propped upon the couch arm.

He began to slowly make a fist and tighten his arm, tighten his bice up and pull it towards him, strangling her. She yelled at him and asked, what are you doing? Cut it out. And Clay yelled, I'm going to kill you and steal your car. Angie fought to keep calm. She asked him if she could get a glass of water and she was desperately hoping for a chance to escape. And then she saw an opportunity.

She need him right in the groin, hoping that this would incapacitate him long enough for her to run. But Clay recovered fast, faster than she anticipated. And in his confession, Clay was breaking down. He was crying. I don't know if they were genuine tears. But he was recalling those horrific moments.

He said, I don't know what I was thinking. I wrestled her down by the front door on the floor, and I finished what I started, I guess. And then he described gripping Angie's throat tightly with his hands and choking the life from her. Terrified that she was going to somehow regain consciousness, Clay said, he took a sweatshirt, and he tightly wrapped the arm of the sweatshirt

around her neck and left her to die on her living room floor. But the nightmare didn't end there. Clay said he climbed the stairs quietly, entering the room where eight-year-old Ashley was sleeping peacefully unaware of the horror that had just unfolded downstairs. He insisted she didn't scream, she didn't fight, nothing. She just never woke up. Why? Because he wrapped a pair of pants around this little girl's neck, tightening the fabric

until she stopped breathing. You are so cold. I'm just in disbelief, and after committing these unspeakable acts, he just returned to the fairgrounds with the car and retrieved his wife. And the rest the detectives knew. When news of this confession got out, Angie and Ashley's loved ones didn't understand it. They said, Angie would have gladly handed over the keys to her car from that keeping her and her daughter's life. It was senseless. Angie's best friend, Lisa, who grew up with her,

Wish she would have known more information about this guy, Clay. But there was no way she could have ever imagined he would kill her friend. She can't believe the heartlessness saying that Clay thought they were nothing, that he didn't realize just how special these two people were that he took from them. Angie's aunt echoed the sentiment saying that Ashley and Angie were so special and Angie would have given her shirt off her own back to someone in need because she didn't want anyone to suffer. They had no enemies. There was just no reason that Clay could give for what he had done.

He was just cold-blooded. And on July 27th, sadness settled over Cresco even more, as 200 friends, neighbors, and family members gathered at Assumption Catholic Church to say goodbye to Angela Haik and her daughter Ashley Lucas. Every seat was filled, and the mourners crowded closely together, standing quietly and trying to find space wherever they could. The number of people there that day spoke volume,

about the lasting impact that Angie and Ashley had on their small community. And outside of her home, they had a memorial, flowers alongside pinwheel spinning in the summer breeze, and stuffed animals placed there in memory of Ashley. Each item was an expression of love and remembrance, showing just how deeply this community felt this unimaginable loss. And inside the church, memories were flowing freely during the funeral. friends and family were sharing stories about Angie's bubbly personality, her vibrant spirit, her infectious laughter, and the kindness that defined her. But the most moving of all were the

reflections of her role as a mother, her devotion to Ashley. It was something that everyone knew and admired. Their bond was precious, undeniable, and unforgettable. And now they would be together forever in death. They were finally at peace. But the case was far from being over. During the investigation, there were more things linking Clay to the crime. If his confession wasn't enough, they had answering machine messages that were left on Angie's machine in his voice from a payphone. There were those entries in her diary. And then they searched the apartment that he was staying at, his brother's house, and they found personal items like her driver's license, her social security card and documents related to her car. There were also items in the apartment complex garbage can, like the garbage bin outside that belonged to Angie.

There was a latent fingerprint and palm print impression, as well as semen stains, recovered from Angie's home that matched Clay's DNA and fingerprints. But now his defense was claiming the confession he made should be suppressed and not admitted in court that Clay had asked for an attorney. He was given a phone book to look for one, but after hours and hours and none of them called him back, the investigators showed him more and more incriminating evidence. And he ended up speaking. But they claim that is coerced. The thing is, he actually made his confession the next day. So there was a period where he could have cooled down, thought about things, but he chose to speak. So the prosecution was arguing it should come in.

But then there was another motion for a change of venue. Because of all the publicity this case was getting in the small town of Cresco, but the judge did allow them to move the trial. And it ended up in Alamaki County about 75 miles away. And Clay wanted his wife, invoke her marital privilege, which would prevent a spouse from being forced to testify against the other one in court. The judge said, it would consider it once a trial began, which was scheduled for April 4th of 2002, about nine months since the murders, and just days away from what would have

been Ashley's ninth birthday on April 12th. Her family was hoping that the trial would be over by then. The defense was going with, of course, the diminished capacity argument due to what they referred to as a severe car accident in 1995 when Clay was 18 years old that left him in a coma for three days and caused permanent brain damage that he did not have the mental capacity for premeditation, which is necessary to convict a person a first-degree murder. But the judge did allow his wife's testimony to come in. She was actually the very first witness to testify against him. According to those that knew Bobby, she met Clay five years before the murders.

She actually married him while he was still in jail on another charge. They started living together, and then their financial situation got very dire. They started writing bad checks, and they were hoping to flee the country to Mexico. But then their car broke down. And that's about the time the carnival came into town, and they decided they were going to join it, so that they could make it to Texas and cross the border into Mexico. They were telling this to people for months. They find out that on July 6th, Bobby Joe and Clay actually called Bobby Joe's sister,

and said they'd been fired from the carnival, and they needed money to get back home. Instead of giving the money, Bobby Joe's sister and her husband drove to go get them. But when they got there, they didn't want a ride. And they figured out they weren't fired. They just wanted extra money. This is also when Bobby Joe confided in her sister

and her sister's husband that Clay cheated on her with some woman in town. And they were going to break up over it. But all of this was said by other people, not in court. When Bobby Joe herself took the stand, she told the jury about the night of July 8th, that Clay was gone all night. And she was waiting up for him,

and he didn't come home until six in the morning. Well, home the fairgrounds. And when he came back, she saw him driving a stolen gold car. She explained how he pulled in, and he told her to pack up all their belongings and get in the car with him. And it was while they were driving that he told her he had to get rid of a couple of bodies.

She told the court that she objected to all of this, but then he was, retaliated by actually taking the cigarette lighter from the car and burning her with it. Bobby Joe explained they continued driving and ended up in Angie's house. And when they walked in, she saw Angie on the floor and Ashley was lifeless right next to her. They then loaded them into the trunk of Angie's car and they drove to Kansas to bury them in the shallow grave. She seemed to be very cooperative on the stand until the defense attorney started cross-examination and they accused her of lying and asking her why she didn't run away when they

stopped for gas on their way to Kansas. And why she spent a week with Clay at his brother's apartment, she had all that time to go to police. Her answer was, I was scared, okay? She yelled this back at them. The defense then wanted to drive home the point that the investigators told Bobby Joe that as long as she cooperated

against her husband, she wouldn't be charged with the murders. She admitted that she understood that that was the agreement. This was to try to impeach her, this was to try to discredit her account of what happened. But one of the hardest parts, for the family members to listen to, was when the forensic expert Dr. Eric Mitchell came to the stand. He was the forensic pathologist that did the autopsy, and he talked about how there was a sweatshirt

tied tightly around Angie's neck and the leg of a pair of blue jeans around Ashley's. He described this was exphyxiation due to ligature strangulation. He said this was done with what he described as a simple loop like you would use to tie your shoelaces, but they were tied so tightly, It restricted the airway of the victims. And there was no clothing on Angie's body at all, except for the white sweatshirt around her neck.

That's how she was found. And what was even more sickening was that the lower portion of Ashley was also unclothed. She was wearing a t-shirt and the jeans around her neck. Midway through Clay Thomas' trial, a chilling silence overtook this entire courtroom because they played Clay's recorded confession. His voice was just echoing throughout this entire room,

as he was recounting very calmly these horrific details of what happened to Angie and Ashley in their final moments. Ashley's father, Bert, was just sitting there. He was shaking. His hands were on his face. His face was buried down into his hands as he was leaning over, and his tears were just streaming down his face uncontrollably. You could tell this man was overwhelmed by grief, by anger, and the pain of having to hear, how his daughter's life had been taken. Everyone in the courtroom was seeming to struggle with all this raw emotion and the impact of this confession.

The defense team then stepped forward with their own and very different argument. They claimed that Clay suffered from significant brain damage due to that serious car accident. And according to them, his brain injury was so severe, it impaired his judgment, his impulse control, and it made him unable to fully grasp the consequences of his actions.

And with his defense, they hoped to capture. out on his mental capacity, especially at the time of the murders, obviously, and that would potentially reduce his culpability in the eyes of the jury. But could damage like this really explain something so calculated and methodical? A murder this cold? Well, it raised doubts. And when the prosecution laid out everything, it took less than two hours for the jurors to deliberate.

And they came back with a verdict. Guilty on both counts, a first-degree murder. And each one of those counts was a mandatory life-sense. sentence in prison without the possibility of parole. The verdict came just a day before Ashley's ninth birthday. And her father, Bert, said he could finally sleep now. He was going to miss the hugs the most because he got one every single day. And he remembered the last day he ever saw his daughter. He said he put sunscreen on her before she left for that canoe trip. She gave him a hug and she said, see you later, dad. I love you. And you wanted everyone to know that you never realized.

when it could be the last time you see someone that you love. He told reporters that he was going to celebrate Ashley's birthday with his family at Silver Lake in Minnesota, where they used to feed the geese together on vacation. And as for Angie's family, they made a statement through their attorney, and they wanted to say that they thank God for giving them Ashley and Angela in the first place,

even if they only had them for a brief amount of time. They thanked the team of prosecutors and the community for all their support. And during the sentence, hearing, Bert actually addressed Clay. He said, I hope you rot in hell. And the victim impact statements were full of emotion. They explained all the pain that Clay caused just so many people and the lives he stole away.

And Bert went on to say that because of you, I had to do the unthinkable. I had to bury my daughter six feet underground. And many friends and family talked about how traumatized they were and how they could never forgive Clay for what he had done. The judge then turned to Clay and asked, is there anything you want to say before you're sentencing?

And he kind of like touched the corner of his mouth a couple times, but then he declined to say anything. And then the judge told him that he needed to start taking responsibility for his actions, that he showed a lack of remorse, and he doesn't even consider him being human because he doesn't feel bad for what he did. There were people in this courtroom that would look at him and say, you have nothing to say for yourself or what you've done,

but he never spoke, but his mom did. She talked to him before his sentencing and she told the media that she wished to God, this never happened. And she felt so sorry for the family, but added, I know the pain they're going through. Which I personally found, Kimber personally found,

to be very insensitive. She knows the pain they're going through? She went on to reiterate the defense's argument that he suffered from diminished capacity, from his head injury. And she says, he doesn't even know half of what's going on, but that can't be true.

But at least he can never hurt anyone again. And he tried to appeal, but they were denied. Years later in 2016, the 39-year-old was in the news again for apparently trying to violate his cellmate in prison. Yep.

He tempted to force himself another inmate, claiming the inmate owed him $2 that he let him borrow. When the inmate refused, he started to choke him. And when the inmate was calling for help from the cell, he was like, I'm not scared about killing anyone. This is what Clay said. I'm not scared about killing anyone. I'm already serving two.

consecutive life sentences. So his cellmate was attacked. He sustained injuries to his neck. He also sustained injuries down below in the southern region because of the attack. And when they tried to bring disciplinary actions against clay, he said, oh, my cellmate's injuries? Oh, that's from him shaving. And the other ones, that's from really tough toilet paper. He wipes you hard. But you know what? I have heard enough. I really don't want to end this video talking about this monster. So let's bring the story back to the most important people. Angie and Ashley, they did nothing wrong, except trust a man who came off as charming and generous

only to find themselves dead at his hands over nothing. Two innocent lives taken far too soon. So please remember them and please be safe. These videos are not to fill you with fear. That's not their purpose. Instead, they're to arm you with the knowledge to protect yourself. and also to love everyone around you,

give them your time because you never know when it is your last goodbye. I'll see you in my next video. Bye.