Witnessed: Devil in the Ditch - Devil in the Ditch | 1. I Would've Remembered a Murder

Episode Date: April 3, 2023

It’s been nearly 20 years since host Larrison Campbell’s 85-year-old grandmother, Presh, was murdered. Detectives say it was probably someone who knew Presh. But in a small Mississippi town, that ...doesn't exactly narrow it down. Campbell starts at the scene of the crime. Unlock all episodes of Witnessed, ad-free right now by subscribing to The Binge. Plus, get binge access to brand new stories dropping on the first of every month — that’s all episodes, all at once, all ad-free. Find out more about The Binge and other podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Campside media. There's a town in Mississippi called Greenville. It's in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, and more than 85% of the homicides that happen here are unsolved. So many of the people who commit these murders aren't in jail. They're in a car driving past your house. You probably stroll by them in the supermarket or see them pumping gas.
Starting point is 00:00:34 That also means the families of these victims have learned to live with not knowing. One of those unsolved murders happened almost 20 years ago. She was a grandmother, a major influence in Greenville and a bit eccentric. Beloved by her family, maybe even the whole town. She drove an old fort with a life-size paper-maché man in her backseat. She was a big Democrat who hosted governors and organized dozens of charities. Didn't seem like anybody had a bad thing to say about her.
Starting point is 00:01:08 Then she was murdered, and nobody ever solved it. You get the feeling that it never will be, that it's been so long it doesn't matter. Well, it matters to me. Because that town, Greenville, Mississippi, is where I grew up, and that family is my family. And it was my grandmother who was found murdered in her son room. And I want some answers. This is a story about what happens when you don't know. Secret submistries metastasize, questions, demand answers. And if the police won't supply them, the mind will.
Starting point is 00:01:49 Suspissions harden into belief. What's true becomes less important than what we believe. Eventually, it's hard to tell the difference. From campside media and Sony Music Entertainment, this is Witnessed, Devil in the The story starts in mid-2003. I was just one year out of college living in New York's East Village. It was the summer of Benefers' first go-round and the big blackout, the one that wiped out the whole Northeastern power grid. I remember that night perfectly. We drank warm bodkas sodas up on my roof and stared in awe at all the stars we could now see in
Starting point is 00:02:51 the New York City sky. But my memory of the day my grandmother died as Markier. I know it was a summer Friday at my office and the only people in were the lolliest workers which I was. So the building was quiet when my phone rang. It was my dad. I can't remember the words he used to tell me she died, but I remember my response. I burst into tears, sobs, really, loud, full-body,
Starting point is 00:03:19 the kind where you can't catch a breath. You were really... You were falling apart. My dad. You just could not accept the fact that she was dead. She had always been so, so alive and particularly the circumstances of her death. Yeah, about those circumstances.
Starting point is 00:03:43 She'd been bludgeoned. Her sister had found her that afternoon lying on her back on the floor of her parlor. There was a dish towel covering her face. My dad, whose son, called to tell me this from the car. He was racing to Greenville, the Mississippi town where my grandmother had lived her entire life. Everyone called her precious, short for precious, which is how she described her grandkids. Later, we'd learn the murder weapon was likely a brass candlestick. And if this is sounding more like a southern Gothic game of clue than a real story, just hang on. In my family, you don't
Starting point is 00:04:18 get tragedy without the absurd. At some point on the call, I realized it was Friday the 13th. at some point on the call, I realized it was Friday the 13th. That just made me cry harder. I'm thinking, look, Larison, I know this is upsetting, but it's upsetting to me too, and I want you to get control of yourself. You had to start making some decisions about coming to Grimble. I wasn't sure if you were going to be emotionally able to do what it took to make those arrangements.
Starting point is 00:04:53 My grandmother's been murdered, and my dad's concern is about my ability to book a flight. I get it. Falling apart is just not how we do in this family. I come from a long line of lawyers and presbyterians. Stoicism and hard work runs deep. We're not the ones with messes. We're the ones other people call when they have messes. I was afraid, in hand-side, after I hung up, I remember thinking, gosh, I hope I wouldn't
Starting point is 00:05:21 too stern. I don't know. I only remember three words from my conversation with him. You said blunt force trauma in that phone call. Well, I wanted you and your sisters to understand two things immediately that she had died from an assault, but that she didn't suffer.
Starting point is 00:05:47 I recently pulled out some old home videos of Prash. Like any VHS tape from the mid 80s, the grainy and the sound goes in and out. My favorite clip is from Christmas 1986. I'm seven years old here, playing with my cousin's new dollhouse. The crystal and silver are out on the table and everyone's stressed like it's a formal event. My mom has on a triple strand of pearls, some powerful 80-shoulder pads, and a haircut
Starting point is 00:06:13 she recently explained was, quote, when we were all trying to look like Glenn Close in fatal attraction. And then, there's Prush. Her black card again slightly a skew, perhaps a size too small. Her grey perm, a bit messy. As the turkey comes out of the oven, Prash walks over to it. Thank you, all of you. Have you ever seen anything any more beautiful than that?
Starting point is 00:06:40 Prash was big on superlatives, especially when food was involved. Things she liked were never good. They were marvelous. The best. Prash often hit the verb hardest in these moments. Have you ever tasted? Have you seen? As though the magic weren't so much in the object itself as experiencing it. Like a lot of grandmothers, she was our family's default child care, but she didn't so much babysit as fold me into her life. If she had to visit a friend in the hospital, so did I. Meeting with the mayor? Sure, just let me get my coloring book. And if the county Democratic Party needed volunteers to send out mailers for Jimmy Carter, then I liked on Phillips, even though I was just two.
Starting point is 00:07:26 We'd have all the great stories about it, the funny ones, the absurd ones. And I think for the longest time, I chose to think about that, rather than to try to figure out the circumstances over death and who was responsible. I didn't want to get engaged in, probably until you started working on this podcast. I also chose not to dwell on the circumstances of her death. But even if I'd wanted to, I couldn't, because I still didn't know exactly what they were. I think we all assumed it would be solved soon, but that usually doesn't happen in Greenville.
Starting point is 00:08:09 Over the last 20 years or so, police solved just under 15% of Greenville's homicides. Precious is not one of those. It's never been solved. And what's the point of debating why it happened when we didn't know what happened? So, I went back to my life in New York. I was 24. It was a big, exciting time for me, full of late nights, and a rotating cast of roommates. The apartment on 10th Street.
Starting point is 00:08:37 Well, it was a walk-up room, and one kind of glorious room on one side and two very small rooms on the other side. No, a Levine, roommate number four, an ultimate Frisbee player with an eye for design. No, I moved into one of those small rooms about six or seven months after my grandmother had died. I do remember you worked for as a world turns. Okay. Yeah. So my first job out of college was working for the daytime soap opera as the world turns.
Starting point is 00:09:06 It was as colorful and weird as it sounds. You were in the writer's room? Is that correct? I was the writer's assistant. Which means doing everything the writers don't want to do, like ordering lunch and sending out scripts, and telling actors are going to have to reschedule their entire vacation because our head writer had decided at 3 a.m. to add them to an episode. I took three days off after the murder. When I got back to the office, a coworker walked up to me and said, I'm so sorry, I heard
Starting point is 00:09:34 what happened to your grandmother. I was embarrassed. Maybe it didn't help that I worked on a soap opera. Our big story that summer was actually a serial killer doctor running loose at the local hospital and killing off secondary characters. That's the kind of murder I was used to. It's like a device to drive story or get rid of a character who'd gotten boring. It wasn't something that happened in my real life. And for a long time, I acted like it didn't. I just don't know about the fidelity of my memory,
Starting point is 00:10:05 but I feel like I would have remembered a murder in there. It feels like a pretty juicy bit of information. I sense that maybe you didn't tell us. In fact, when I went to my college reunion this spring, none of our friends knew I had a grandmother who'd been murdered. I've talked to other friends from that time. None of them remembered it either. I was shocked. I guess I picked up some of that family's
Starting point is 00:10:28 doissism. You know, I lost my brother tragically about 12 years ago. For me, it's not, it's the kind of thing that I wanted people to know when the topic came up, but I didn't want them to feel uncomfortable about it. Maybe we just didn't want to go to that dark place, even though I feel like we had a lot of time together to talk about stuff. You know what's really funny? We get to reunion, everyone's like, hey, great to see you for the first time in 20 years.
Starting point is 00:10:58 Oh my God, what are you up to? I would immediately tell them exactly what I was working on. My grandmother was murdered right after we graduated from college. It's kind of ripped our entire family apart and so I'm going back and I'm trying to figure out what happened. Interesting thing about, you know, the way that you're telling people now is it sounds very professional, but it's deeper than that obviously.
Starting point is 00:11:21 And this is something that is like personal. And so it sounds a little bit like you've separated yourself from the kind of intense emotional aspects and it makes it easier to talk about just something to think about. Do you all know where you're going for dinner? We're going into town and then we're going to go see... Almost 20 years later, as the world turns has been canceled, I became a journalist, moved back to Mississippi, and then back to New York. I have kids now, and just as Benefer
Starting point is 00:11:53 rekindled their unfinished business from 2003, I'm going back to that same year to understand what happened to my grandmother and our family. I wanted to learn what not knowing had done to us, because this is every bit a family murder story. From the victim to who called the police, even who a lot of people say might have killed her. Uncover from CBC podcasts brings you award-winning
Starting point is 00:12:24 investigations year-round. Infiltrate an international network of neo-Nazi extremists. Branted with racist language. Discover the true story of the CIA's attempts at mind control. Their objective was to wipe my memory. Or dig into a crypto-king's mysterious death y un $4billion missing. ¡Dos hay propios audidades en este caso! En este caso, con episodios de un poco,
Starting point is 00:12:49 un cover es tu casa para la reportación de la industria y la historia de la historia. Fíjate un cover donde tienes las podcastes. como por qué los vostezos son contagiosos, pero MailChimp no. MailChimp analiza los datos de millones de correos electrónicos para ofrecer recomendaciones personalizadas para mejorar el contenido de tus correos electrónicos, segmentar tu público, entre muchas cosas más, adivina menos y vende más con intuity mailchimp. La marca número 1 en email marketing y automatización. Empieza hoy mismo en MailChimp.com. Vas a vender a tus públicos de marcas competidoras of competitors in global numbers of clients in 2020-2022. I visited Prussian Greenville a few weeks before she was murdered. It was the last time I saw her.
Starting point is 00:13:36 My grandfather died a few years earlier, so for the first time ever, it was just the two of us in that big old house. Prussian never rolled out the red carpet for guest. You were lucky if she changed the sheets in the guest room, but she was thrilled I was there. And once again, she folded me into her life. We went to the bank in the grocery store where she picked up a cart and of caramel-caribu.
Starting point is 00:14:00 She could polish off a whole pint in one sitting. It was, after all, the best ice cream you've ever tasted. Presh had no time for rules or conventions. She drove with her legs crossed, left foot on the gas, and I never saw her wear a seatbelt. In her back seat was, of course, Roger. Roger was the life-sized man I'd made out of paper mache in 7th grade. He rode everywhere with her. She called him her boyfriend. But for the most part we sat on the couch in her sunroom during crosswords, and then as the sun started to set, drinking the boxed wine she kept in a glass crough in her fridge.
Starting point is 00:14:39 So when we talk about the crime scene, especially the sunroom where her body was found, I can picture everything as it was that visit. I decided to start there in that room. Pressure's body lay there until 12 o' 1 a.m. when she was moved to Jackson for the autopsy. The first time I got a copy of the report was the spring. The first time I got a copy of the report was this spring. It's a tough read. Not so much for what it says, but for where it sends my mind. In between descriptions of her head wounds and the weight of each internal organ, it lists her clothes, a white button up blouse, cacky pants, white ankle socks.
Starting point is 00:15:23 I remember those cacky pants. They're a last-decised waistband. I can picture her white keds on her feet. I remember seeing them lined up beside her couch on that last visit. Under type of death, there's a little X beside violent or unnatural. The medical examiner noted one blow to the back of the head, possibly from it hitting the floor. One or two more blows to the head, possibly from a hitting the floor. One or two more blows to her face, this with a heavy object, maybe wood or metal.
Starting point is 00:15:51 The detectives wrote in their notes that she had a single black bobby pen in her hair. And all I picture is her that morning, standing in the bathroom mirror, sliding it into place. And I wonder what she was thinking about. That kills me. These are images that I'm creating. I never went to the crime scene. We didn't have an open casket. The last time I saw pressure with my eyes, I was giving her a hug in her driveway. My great-ance experience was very different. She was at the crime scene. Do you remember the last time you saw her? The day she was killed. In fact, she found her sister's body. She and Presh were close, especially in terms of geography.
Starting point is 00:16:38 They lived on the same street just a couple of blocks apart. They spoke on the phone daily and saw each other almost as often. That day they had plans. They were, a hairdresser at the salon whose husband had just died. My great aunt says she had been expecting Prash to pick her up around 3.30 that afternoon. So earlier that morning, she gets some errands done. She runs down to Dattles, a dress shop to pick up a blouse, then swings by the grocery store next to it.
Starting point is 00:17:09 It all takes about 45 minutes. When she gets home, she makes a few calls, then eats lunch with her son who lives with her. When she's done eating, she calls Prush. Who doesn't answer? Which my aunt thought was odd enough that she tried Prash and some of Prash's friends several more times over the next three hours trying to track her down.
Starting point is 00:17:30 And what y'all doing between lunch and sitting on the couch around three? I got ready for the comb, get me. And I waited and waited for her to pick me up. And she didn't comb and didn't come. She doesn't show. And I think I'm going to go to the house and see what's holding her up. So precious sister says she tells her son to wait at the house in case precious happens
Starting point is 00:18:00 to arrive while she's gone to check on her. So I went over the iron. She was lying on the floor So I went over the eye and she was lying on the floor with a rag over a face. She finds precious face is covered with a dish towel. For a minute, precious sister says she's confused. Is she doing some type of workout? Big on exercise and you know, had you if you were able to call it that. And I said, what in the life are you doing on the floor? And I took the call, so I went by face. She was saying, I was substandard.
Starting point is 00:18:37 You can imagine. And I called the ambulance service. And I said, my sister has been killed. And she has all the flow come immediately. I know it was in the evening time and we were about to get off and it was a Friday. Ricky Spratlin, now retired from the Greenville Police Department, then Lieutenant Chief of Detectives, and one of the first officers on the scene. It was really storm outside. It was terrible. When I pulled up some of the guys that I already got there before they had then roped off
Starting point is 00:19:16 as much as they thought what the crime scene could be. And I saw all the cars and I saw the house. I didn't know who lived there right off the bat. Then I saw the car that had a mannequin in the back seat. And I had seen her riding around, and that mannequin just kind of flopping around. And I said, oh, I know this lady. Precious house sat on two corner lads, right in the center of Greenville.
Starting point is 00:19:42 Her driveway also ran the length of the property, making it more or less a shortcut between the neighborhood and a busy foreland street. We could sit at the kitchen table and watch cars cut through all the time. A thicket of Eli Agnos and Hydrangeas made it easy to forget how centrally located you were. From the outside, it was probably the most visible and accessible home in Greenville. They'd been directing me out to the back of the house, showing what they first found. I noticed that there was a lawn chair, with a newspaper and a coffee cup.
Starting point is 00:20:18 Just playing there. So then they took me into the sun ring, which nothing was locked. And that's when I saw them. Okay, so then they took me into the sun room, which nothing was locked. And that's one of the sounds. She was laying on the floor. She severed a blunt force trauma right on the front forehead area. The hole at left was bad enough that officers first thought she'd been shot. They began to examine her surroundings.
Starting point is 00:20:42 Most of her house appeared in order. A few feet behind her body was the breakfast room where she displayed a lot of her silver in China. That room was totally undisturbed. The only sign of disarray was her purse. It was open on the table above her, its contents spilling onto a wooden chair below. Coins and address book and empty bank envelope.
Starting point is 00:21:04 Investigators began to look for a murder weapon right away. Well, he looked at it work, trying to find what the weapon was, but she had a lot of stuff in that house. Press wasn't much of a housekeeper, and she loved antiques. Every surface was covered with something glass or brass or silver. In a drawer in the kitchen, Ricky Spratland finds a small hammer. The kind you used to hang a poster on the wall. He sends it to the State Crime Lab for DNA testing. I knew she had had a lot of candle holders and things around and I looked at one and I said, you know, it could have been used and we weren't going to have neglected it and send it off.
Starting point is 00:21:42 That's on the table next to her purse. And scattered around her body on the terracotta tile floor, droplets of blood. The person walked through the blood splatters. In the kitchen, he finds a bloody shoe print on the floor right below the drawer where Presh kept her dish towels. That's where he begins looking for fingerprints. I was especially able to be interested in the drawer where the dish towels were. Later he'll dust that drawer for prints and the drawer where you found the small hammer. They turn their attention to the yard.
Starting point is 00:22:12 Detective Spratland finds another shoe print in the garden. By that time the sky is black and the air is humid and thick. He covers it with a shoe box to protect it from the rain. Later they'll make a quick plaster mix at the scene and pour it into the print to make a cast. This, too, will go to the State Crime Lab to be compared against any potential suspect's shoes. So how is there for outdoors? Laurie Bridewell. Now a circuit judge, but in 2003, she was a full-time city attorney. And why she matters here is she was also a part-time police officer in K9 handler. She lived right across the river in Arkansas.
Starting point is 00:22:47 The evening of Precious Murder, she happened to be in the neighborhood. I do remember it just like yesterday. I'm leaving my father's house and when I drive out, I see people, you know, all of this commotion in front of her house and I see games who is standing in, they are in front of the house. Games, one of the many family lawyers. And I know something has happened and I don't know what and so I stopped. I went up to games and that's how I found out what was going on.
Starting point is 00:23:18 And I first told games about my dog. Cole or Belgian Shepherd. So in true small-town fashion, Laurie offers to run across the bridge shark and saw, grab her dog, and let him sniff the scene. The police, I guess, were fine with it. I got him, came back, arrived, I think, about maybe five o'clock, six o'clock, something like that.
Starting point is 00:23:43 We had disadvantage of having a thunderstorm had come through and left a lot of standing water. In fact, a second muddy shoe print had been washed away before police could get a good photo or a cast. The Laurie wasn't concerned with those prints. Coles job was to zero in on objects the killer might have dropped.
Starting point is 00:24:01 They can discern between something in the natural vegetation and something that's man-made. And that thick cluster of trees that separates her yard from Main Street call alerts to a single silver key. You could tell that this key was a key to a car. Laurie drops a latex glove over it and alerts detectives. By this time, the state crime lab is on the scene,
Starting point is 00:24:25 and investigators add the key to the growing list of evidence they'll send off. Friends and neighbors had started gathering in the street outside Precious House, and my family began making their way to Greenville. Well, my first reaction when I heard about Precious Martyr was that your daddy would never be okay. My mom, she and my dad were living two hours away in Jackson when Precious killed. My mother's precious murder was that your daddy would never be. Okay.
Starting point is 00:24:45 My mom. She and my dad were living two hours away in Jackson when pressure was killed. Pretty much a blur. My dad again. I can remember your mother saying, you loved her so much. So, at that point, I think we both decided we needed to pack a suitcase because we were going to be there for several days. I remember pulling up there and there were lots of cars and I got out and somebody grabbed
Starting point is 00:25:15 me. And Tolde and precious sister was over at one of the neighbor's houses. She wasn't doing well. It was pretty much a basket case. She was kind of shaking. It was, she looked the most nervous I've ever seen her look. She had just found fresh dead. I mean, it flashes in your brain.
Starting point is 00:25:33 I mean, there you are. And you keep seeing the body. You know, whereas we just have, we just miss her. We don't have that grisly, horrifying image stuck in our brains. And the way her body was left was a big clue for detectives. She was placed where she wouldn't look so bad or feed her together. And there was an initial rag over her face. That tells me right there who ever did it, newer and can stand as they're looking like that. That's some of the training I've had.
Starting point is 00:26:12 If you see something like that, that's going to be your first clue to keep in your notes and your mind. I'm Adam McCay, Director, Writer and most importantly, Podcast Host. In the first season of our show, Death at the Wind, we explored a series of tragic deaths from the wild world of 80s basketball. This season we're going back further to the 50s, the aftermath of World War II, and a series of tragedies in Hollywood will tell stories of trailblazing actors who lived fast and die young. I hope you'll join us on Death on the Lot.
Starting point is 00:27:13 Our family wasn't alone in grieving crash at her funeral. One former governor attended, as did people she knew from the beauty salon and the supermarket check out. Sometimes it's easy to focus on the important people she befriended, but I think she just befriended a lot of people. Some of them were important. I'd guess at least 600 people attended the funeral. My mom said 700. I've even heard a thousand.
Starting point is 00:27:34 Anyway, it was a lot. My memories of the service were short, impressionistic. It was held at the first Presbyterian church right across the street from Precious House. That church was just as much a fixture of my childhood as she was. I know the smooth mahogany pews and their maroon velvet seat covers, the Tuscan columns and vaulted white ceilings. It's nice, but as far as churches go, understated, which is sort of the Presbyterian vibe. I remember walking into the sanctuary and seeing rows of people against the back walls because
Starting point is 00:28:06 there were no more seats. The minister making a joke about precious perpetual cup of coffee during the homily. And then when we left the service, walking outside and seeing dozens more standing in the heavy midday heat. The kind where the air is so dense, you can feel the next thunderstorm, even when the sky is clear. But I remember nothing about how I got to Greenville or when. Another one of those big gaps for me. What I do recall is a night a bunch of us spent getting very, very drunk with my cousin, Cordelia. Me, you, little claw, my sisters, all sitting around the table in Betty's kitchen.
Starting point is 00:28:45 Oh girl, yes. And then we went out to get some cigarettes, real late at night. Yeah, we did. Oh shit. Well, my mother, we stayed up to like three o'clock in the morning. This is a night before the funeral. My mother was so pissed off at me. I mean, here I am, a grown woman with children at home.
Starting point is 00:29:07 Why didn't have my children with me? That's probably why I was having such a good time. And, but we just, oh God, we were telling so many stories and just laughing. She almost didn't wipe me up with fume. Oh, mm-hmm. Passive aggressive? Oh, yes.
Starting point is 00:29:21 Ha-ha-ha-ha. Oh! Yeah, we did have a good time. We did, that was, I mean, that's actually really, ironically, my clearest memory of the weekend. I initially told Cordelia I'd keep this part off the record because there was mention of cigarettes. And even now at age 43, I do not want my mom to find out I'd smoked back in the summer
Starting point is 00:29:42 of 2003. But if you're gonna dig around in the past, secrets are gonna come out. And this one's as good a place to start as any. Like a lot of folks in the Mississippi Delta, my family's great at throwing down, laughing, telling stories, doing things that become stories. So that night was the one part of the weekend that made sense. The sad moment got shoved into a box without a label and forgotten. What I don't know about that night is if or how we talked about the murder,
Starting point is 00:30:11 but I do know that once benign details about precious life suddenly seemed very important. Like the fact that precious rarely locked her doors. This had never struck me as a big deal before. Quark of her forgetfulness more than anything. And even if she did lock her doors, it didn't keep people out. During that last visit I had with Prash, there was a stream of visitors all day to have a chat over coffee, to bring her something to ask if she had work. And she'd invite anyone in. She was open and curious and knew everyone. We wondered if that openness was making it harder for detectives to nail down a suspect.
Starting point is 00:30:49 Turns out it did. I really thank you somebody that knew her. I do. Somebody who knew her, but who? Was it someone who knew her casually, or was it someone who knew her well? Maybe that someone was here in the room, mourning among hundreds of others at the funeral. No one's ever been arrested for precious murder. I need to be explicit about that.
Starting point is 00:31:13 No one's been charged or even formally accused. But people still talk, still speculate. And when you have someone so well-liked, loved even, the number of people who had conflict with them gets very small. Who could get so angry or so desperate that they would commit murder? One other thing I remember from the funeral is where I sat. My dad was up front with his sisters and some of my cousins. I was in the middle of the second row, my mom and sisters to my left, and an assortment of other family to
Starting point is 00:31:51 my right. One of Precious favorite songs had always been this little light of mine, so my dad and aunts included it in the service. And then in a move I never expected from the pragmatic lawyers, asked everyone to hold hands while we sang it. For those of us who could picture Prash dancing in our kitchen to it, one finger up in the air, it was sweet and sad, maybe a little silly. But I think of it now, and the memory is darker. I was holding hands with my mother on my left and one of my cousins on the right. And as extreme and bizarre as this sounds, some of my family was already wondering,
Starting point is 00:32:30 is it possible? Could he have something to do with pressure's death? This is the story of my family and our family murder. And a corner of the deep south, where murderers don't get solved. It's about jealousy and a century old sibling rivalry. It's about what makes someone seem guilty and who you choose to believe. It's about secrets and even psychics, where a town becomes its own criminal justice system.
Starting point is 00:32:59 Their common reaction is like, I think he killed his aunt. Even the local reporter. We knew he did mean to do it. He didn't do it. Who in the world do you talk to? No, my son was a come. You described yesterday your sort of research as an obsession. He did this. We don't really have any evidence.
Starting point is 00:33:21 He just had to look like he was just not. So yeah, I did it. What would have been my motive? The fingerprints weren't run until that summer, a year later. Did you ever have a moment where you thought, my gosh, what if he did do this? No. No.
Starting point is 00:33:43 They're not going to release the case. So why did you want, why do you want to do this story? I... I want to have permission to ask these questions. Devil in the Ditch, Add Free, right now by subscribing to the Benj, our new podcast channel. Not only will you immediately unlock all episodes of this show, but you'll get Benj access to an entire network of other great true crime and investigative podcasts. All Add Free. Plus, on the first of every month, subscribers get a Benj drop of a brand new series.
Starting point is 00:34:21 That's all episodes, all at once. Unlock your listing now by clicking subscribe. At the top of the witness, devil in the ditch show page on Apple Podcasts or visit GetTheBenz.com to get access wherever you get your podcasts. Witness is a production of Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment, Devil in the Ditch was reported and hosted by me, Larison Campbell. Lindsey Kilbride is the senior producer, and Shiba Joseph is the associate producer. The story editor is Sean Flynn.
Starting point is 00:34:58 Studio recording by Ewan Lai Trumuen and Shiba Joseph. Sound design mixing and original music by Garrett Tiedemann, additional music by APM and Blue Dot sessions, additional field recording by Johnny Kaufman and Ambreel Crutchfeld, fact checking by Ben Kalen, special thanks to Emily Martinez and our operations team Doug Slaywen, Alia Papers, Destiny Dingle, Ashley Warren, and Savina Mora. The executive producers at Campside Media are Josh Dean, Vanessa Gerberiades, Adam Hough and Matt Shere.
Starting point is 00:35:40 you

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.