# Until My Last Dying Breath

An episode of [Paper Ghosts: The Texas Teen Murders](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1526682330), 12 Nov 2025, 50 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/fb8d36cf-b165-4399-b277-ae2701747cf3/cbdcaeae-dbd4-40fb-9e81-b38c01815486/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=664846e2-642c-49b7-82d8-ae2701747d14

Phelps teams up with a local private investigator discovering that things are not what they seem in Weatherford, Texas… and learns peculiar new information about the case. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:10] Speaker 1: Hi know, hey, I know, good to meet you to
[0:16] Speaker 1: Laurids should be here in just a second, all.
[0:18] Speaker 2: Right, all right, and then we'll head that way.
[0:21] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[0:22] Speaker 1: So that's where piss Hill is and uh yes, that's
[0:25] Speaker 1: where our famous pists Hill is.
[0:27] Speaker 4: When Weatherford, Texas residents woke up on the morning of
[0:31] Speaker 4: March twenty sixth, nineteen eighty three, and news began to
[0:35] Speaker 4: trickle down about what happened up on ten Top Road, accusations, theories,
[0:42] Speaker 4: and speculation spread immediately.
[0:47] Speaker 1: I mean, at first, my drive for this was, you know,
[0:51] Speaker 1: I can't imagine being a parent and not having answers.
[0:55] Speaker 1: I can't fathom that. And I can't fathom getting to
[0:59] Speaker 1: the point where I just resigned myself over to I'll
[1:02] Speaker 1: never have answers. I will never know who DI is
[1:04] Speaker 1: to my child. I just I can't fathom that me personally,
[1:07] Speaker 1: especially being a mom.
[1:08] Speaker 4: Now, District Attorney Max Smith, who took the lead as
[1:14] Speaker 4: spokesperson for law enforcement, came right out of the gate
[1:18] Speaker 4: and made a promise, we intend to investigate all details
[1:24] Speaker 4: in order to apprehend whoever committed this crime. Forty plus
[1:30] Speaker 4: years have passed since Max Smith made that comment. For
[1:36] Speaker 4: a hardened private investigator like Mel Mitchell, Justice has no
[1:41] Speaker 4: shelf life. When she got involved in twenty twenty two,
[1:45] Speaker 4: A deep seated empathetic nature as a mother putting herself
[1:50] Speaker 4: in Shelley and Vincent's parents shoes drove Mel to fight
[1:54] Speaker 4: for victim's families, like there's just.
[1:58] Speaker 1: No way you There's no way you're going to stop
[1:59] Speaker 1: me from ever finding out who murdered my child. I
[2:02] Speaker 1: don't care. I will do into the dyamond breath I have.
[2:10] Speaker 4: Forty four year old Mel Mitchell has shoulder length black hair,
[2:14] Speaker 4: soft brown eyes set against a clear complexion unstained by
[2:19] Speaker 4: the scorching Texas sun. She doesn't come across like your
[2:23] Speaker 4: typical Texan or at least the big hair and big
[2:26] Speaker 4: belt buckle idea so many have about a Texas woman.
[2:31] Speaker 4: She's reserved, doesn't say much, and comes across outwardly harmless.
[2:37] Speaker 4: Yet spending time with her, I got a sense right
[2:40] Speaker 4: away that there's a steely toughness there, hovering just underneath
[2:44] Speaker 4: the surface. The quiet confidence carrying a nine millimeter handgun
[2:49] Speaker 4: brings to a woman in a tough line of work,
[2:52] Speaker 4: ready to come out should some unsavory type cross her.
[3:01] Speaker 4: Let's go back for a minute. Where did you grow up?
[3:04] Speaker 2: Mel?
[3:05] Speaker 1: I grew up in a little place called Ovilla, Texas.
[3:09] Speaker 4: Ovilla is about an hour and fifteen minutes southeast of Weatherford,
[3:13] Speaker 4: driving along the twenty toward mineral wells and much further
[3:18] Speaker 4: out Abilene and Sweetwater. Growing up in Ovilla gave mel
[3:25] Speaker 4: a solid Texan identity, reminding her how important it is
[3:30] Speaker 4: to keep the ties that bind even into your later years.
[3:35] Speaker 1: It is a super small town, but I ended up
[3:38] Speaker 1: having to go to a little bit larger district over
[3:40] Speaker 1: in Red Oak, and so it was nice. I mean,
[3:43] Speaker 1: we had I think there were like eight hundred in
[3:46] Speaker 1: my graduating class. I mean, so it wasn't super small
[3:48] Speaker 1: by any means, but it was just as small enough
[3:50] Speaker 1: to where you still know the locals and you know,
[3:52] Speaker 1: felt comfort around town.
[3:54] Speaker 4: As I got to Nomel and she talked about Parker
[3:57] Speaker 4: County in general, she brought up something vital to our
[4:01] Speaker 4: understanding of this case.
[4:04] Speaker 1: So you have a lot of very wealthy people that
[4:09] Speaker 1: live out there. There's also a lot of oil and
[4:11] Speaker 1: gas people. You've got a lot of real estate people.
[4:14] Speaker 1: For a long time, it was actually there was more
[4:17] Speaker 1: money poor capita in Parker County than there was DFW
[4:21] Speaker 1: combined for quite a while, just because people wanted to
[4:24] Speaker 1: move out of the city and Weatherford or Parker County
[4:27] Speaker 1: was right on the other side of Fort Worth. And
[4:30] Speaker 1: so if you want to kind of get outside of
[4:31] Speaker 1: Fort Worth but still be close enough to city, then
[4:34] Speaker 1: you go to Parker County. I mean, so the people
[4:36] Speaker 1: are are really nice, down to earth, your typical Texas people,
[4:41] Speaker 1: that's what you want to call us, you know, the
[4:42] Speaker 1: Hallidi Wavy when you drive by. You know, when I
[4:46] Speaker 1: lived out there, you know, you could drive down street,
[4:48] Speaker 1: you knew a lot of people. There wasn't nearly like
[4:50] Speaker 1: the traffic it is now. I mean, it's grown exponentially
[4:52] Speaker 1: since then. But yeah, it's just a usual small town
[4:55] Speaker 1: place where everybody kind of knows everybody everybody's business, you know.
[4:58] Speaker 1: And like I said, it's just a lot of money,
[5:00] Speaker 1: a lot of cattle, a lot of big ranges out there.
[5:03] Speaker 4: Really, where there is money, problems are not far behind
[5:08] Speaker 4: sometimes big ones, and people can get caught up in
[5:11] Speaker 4: the middle without ever knowing why. With a double murder
[5:16] Speaker 4: case like Shelley and Vincent's unsolved for all these years,
[5:21] Speaker 4: myriad theories have developed. Unsolved homicides of two teenagers can
[5:26] Speaker 4: leave a town reeling to fill in the blanks. One
[5:31] Speaker 4: theory I kept hearing from multiple sources that Shelley and
[5:35] Speaker 4: Vincent saw something they shouldn't have wrong place, wrong time.
[5:43] Speaker 4: In that sense, they could have been collateral damage within
[5:47] Speaker 4: a much bigger story.
[5:50] Speaker 1: One of the things we've been told over and over
[5:51] Speaker 1: again is that they may have witnessed something narcotics related
[5:55] Speaker 1: that they shouldn't have seen and they had to be
[5:58] Speaker 1: taken care of. The other motive was jealousy that Shelley
[6:02] Speaker 1: may have had a relationship with someone prior to and
[6:06] Speaker 1: it was a jealousy thing between you know, the ex
[6:09] Speaker 1: and Vincent.
[6:17] Speaker 4: After the stock market crash of two thousand and eight,
[6:20] Speaker 4: when the employment rate fell off the charts and private
[6:24] Speaker 4: investigation dried up, Mel went back to behind the bar
[6:29] Speaker 4: of a local joint, pulling beers and slinging whiskey. The
[6:33] Speaker 4: thing is, people naturally trust the bartender. They talk, they
[6:40] Speaker 4: open up as the night goes on, and the booze flows,
[6:44] Speaker 4: lips get looser. As it turns out, tending bar is
[6:50] Speaker 4: one of the best moves a private investigator can make.
[6:53] Speaker 4: If she wants to develop sources in a case where
[6:57] Speaker 4: the people with the best information have been afraid to talk.
[7:04] Speaker 1: I decided to go back and barton at a local,
[7:08] Speaker 1: a brand new restaurant out there in Parker County. Back then,
[7:11] Speaker 1: there weren't a lot of options. I mean, so anything
[7:14] Speaker 1: that was new that came into town, everybody went to.
[7:16] Speaker 1: And so I started working out there and it was
[7:19] Speaker 1: crazy as busy, and anybody who knew anybody, and anybody
[7:23] Speaker 1: was politics related. I mean, they all came through the
[7:25] Speaker 1: bar that worked in. So the information alone that was
[7:29] Speaker 1: coming through this location was insane. Like I figured out
[7:34] Speaker 1: and started knowing like who is who, and you know
[7:36] Speaker 1: how they're affiliated to different people, and you know all
[7:39] Speaker 1: the politics at the time. I mean, it was just
[7:41] Speaker 1: it was a great information pipeline to use. I can't
[7:43] Speaker 1: tell you how many people i'd meet, you know, that way,
[7:46] Speaker 1: or if someone found out what I was doing on
[7:48] Speaker 1: the side, then they would kind of be like, hey,
[7:50] Speaker 1: I heard a rumor, and I'm like, oh, what's the rumor.
[7:53] Speaker 4: Then something happened one day in the bar changing everything.
[7:58] Speaker 1: People knew that I could keep my mouth. That's a
[8:00] Speaker 1: really big, big part of it. Of course, and so.
[8:03] Speaker 1: But they had a group of guys that come in
[8:05] Speaker 1: every Friday morning, and their class of sixty six and
[8:08] Speaker 1: sixty seven, and there were used to be about twenty
[8:11] Speaker 1: of them. And anyway, one of them's name is Ronnie Caulflower.
[8:17] Speaker 4: In all the years Mel had known Ronnie before that day,
[8:22] Speaker 4: he had never once mentioned that his stepdaughter Shelley was
[8:27] Speaker 4: one of the two murder victims from nineteen eighty three
[8:31] Speaker 4: up on Tin Top Road. Ronnie and Janetta had been
[8:35] Speaker 4: divorced for quite some time by then, but Ronnie still
[8:39] Speaker 4: lived in Weatherford. He kept a low profile and would
[8:43] Speaker 4: rarely discuss what happened.
[8:48] Speaker 1: I've never heard of Ronnie talking about any of his family.
[8:50] Speaker 1: Like I knew he had been divorced, but I didn't know.
[8:53] Speaker 1: He was very quiet about his private life, and so
[8:56] Speaker 1: I just never heard. And I was like, yo, let me,
[8:59] Speaker 1: let me ask Ronnie and just see if this is
[9:01] Speaker 1: his daughter. So I pulled him aside. I asked him
[9:04] Speaker 1: and he's like, yes, that's my daughter. I was like, well,
[9:06] Speaker 1: you've never said anything about her before. He's like yeah,
[9:09] Speaker 1: I just haven't because I know it's never going to
[9:12] Speaker 1: be solved. There's nothing that you might can do about it.
[9:14] Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, why do you say that. He's like,
[9:16] Speaker 1: because of the local, you know politics, We'll put it
[9:21] Speaker 1: that way. I was like, okay, well you know what
[9:23] Speaker 1: I do you know outside of you know, working here,
[9:25] Speaker 1: And he's like, well yeah, And I was like, well,
[9:27] Speaker 1: do you want me to look into it.
[9:30] Speaker 4: That one serendipitous moment reignited a fire in this case.
[9:37] Speaker 4: For decades before this, nothing new had really been uncovered.
[9:42] Speaker 4: The case was stuck and going nowhere. Law enforcement had
[9:47] Speaker 4: made another run at it in twenty twenty one, yet,
[9:50] Speaker 4: as one current weather for cold case detective told me,
[9:54] Speaker 4: nothing came from that reinvestigation. But now you had a
[9:58] Speaker 4: private investigator, not connected to the case in any way,
[10:03] Speaker 4: stepping in and getting to work for one of the families.
[10:07] Speaker 1: And he's like, if you can, that'd be great, but
[10:10] Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you right now, it's going to
[10:11] Speaker 1: be a rabbit hole. I'm like, well, what do you mean,
[10:14] Speaker 1: He's like, because there's there's a lot more connected to
[10:18] Speaker 1: my daughter's murder than just just my daughter and her boyfriend.
[10:22] Speaker 1: I was like, okay, well let me just let me
[10:25] Speaker 1: see what I can I can.
[10:26] Speaker 4: Do mel of course, asked the first question. Any cold
[10:33] Speaker 4: case investigator would It had been forty years by the
[10:37] Speaker 4: time she stepped up. Surely by now there had to
[10:41] Speaker 4: be boxes of documents from any prior investigation the family
[10:46] Speaker 4: had access to.
[10:49] Speaker 1: Do you have any you know files, do you have
[10:51] Speaker 1: any paperwork? And he's like, well, there's a justice page
[10:55] Speaker 1: on Facebook and it's called you know, Justice for Shelley
[10:58] Speaker 1: and Vincent and run by Shelley's cousin and Laurie. And
[11:03] Speaker 1: he's like, you need to reach out to both of them,
[11:05] Speaker 1: or primarily Laurie. She's once been running the website.
[11:09] Speaker 4: Laurie Kate's who you heard in a previous episode, had
[11:13] Speaker 4: taken over as administrator of the Facebook group.
[11:18] Speaker 1: So I called Laurie up and I had a long
[11:21] Speaker 1: conversation with her, and I was like, hey, I know
[11:23] Speaker 1: you're working with his cousin the All's website. I kind
[11:25] Speaker 1: of looked up that it had been up for about
[11:27] Speaker 1: I think a year, maybe year and a half, and
[11:30] Speaker 1: it had a couple of you know, posts here and there,
[11:33] Speaker 1: and there's a couple of people would say, you know,
[11:34] Speaker 1: a couple of things on it, but it really wasn't
[11:37] Speaker 1: up and going. Really, I mean, it wasn't generating any leads.
[11:42] Speaker 4: And it became that chance encounter, an unplanned conversation between
[11:47] Speaker 4: Mel and Ronnie and Mel inevitably contacting Laurie Kates that
[11:53] Speaker 4: ultimately revived this case in a way nothing else had
[11:58] Speaker 4: up to this point. For the first time, maybe since
[12:02] Speaker 4: the case began back in nineteen eighty three, people would
[12:06] Speaker 4: start talking again and change the entire course of the
[12:11] Speaker 4: investigation previously on paper ghosts.
[12:28] Speaker 5: Johnny, she was shot, her invents it. We're both shot.
[12:33] Speaker 5: Of course, I just lost it. It's not real.
[12:38] Speaker 6: This is not real and not mine, Shelley, No, you know,
[12:43] Speaker 6: and it's just like a oh, I cannot even tell
[12:46] Speaker 6: you what it feels like.
[12:47] Speaker 4: And then I heard it again.
[12:48] Speaker 1: I heard like a thunder noise, and then I heard
[12:52] Speaker 1: what sounded like a gunshot.
[12:54] Speaker 4: And then I think I may have heard it maybe
[12:57] Speaker 4: one or two more times.
[12:58] Speaker 7: And then that was it.
[13:00] Speaker 8: That we were always told never say when it gets dark,
[13:03] Speaker 8: because that was known to be wherethy KKK would come
[13:06] Speaker 8: and do their nightly things or whatever meetings. So if
[13:10] Speaker 8: you were in the wrong place at the wrong time,
[13:12] Speaker 8: then you would get caught in that.
[13:15] Speaker 4: My name is em William Phelps. I'm an investigative journalist
[13:19] Speaker 4: in the New York Times, bestselling author of dozens of
[13:22] Speaker 4: true crime books. This is season five of Paper Ghosts
[13:28] Speaker 4: the Texas teen Murders. After the initial shock of finding
[13:48] Speaker 4: his son Anne Shelley Cauliflower shot to death had passed,
[13:52] Speaker 4: if only for a brief moment, Vincent Tjerina Senior did
[13:57] Speaker 4: not know what to do next. His son had been
[14:00] Speaker 4: murdered so brutally, he had witnessed the aftermath of the
[14:05] Speaker 4: crime scene firsthand, an unimaginable horror apparent finding his child's
[14:13] Speaker 4: brutalized body, his eye dislodged from its socket, blood spatter
[14:18] Speaker 4: on the ground and inside the car. Family members gathered
[14:24] Speaker 4: at the Tea Gerina household to console one another, anticipating
[14:29] Speaker 4: facts about what had happened. With so many rumors already
[14:34] Speaker 4: spreading around town, the Tea Jerinas stayed close and tight,
[14:39] Speaker 4: waiting for law enforcement to brief them. Of course, you'd
[14:44] Speaker 4: expect a massive investigation, with yellow crime scene tape flapping
[14:49] Speaker 4: in the wind, roads blocked off, and a man hunt
[14:53] Speaker 4: underway for a suspect. As Weatherford police spared no expense,
[14:58] Speaker 4: spread out and began rounding up anyone that looked good
[15:02] Speaker 4: for it. Somebody had to have information. Piss Hill was
[15:08] Speaker 4: a hot spot on Friday nights. There had to be witnesses.
[15:15] Speaker 4: As you've already heard, Robert Hardin was the first officer
[15:19] Speaker 4: on the scene, and what he has to say begins
[15:22] Speaker 4: to paint a picture of just how chaotic and loose
[15:26] Speaker 4: this investigation became from the moment it started. And I
[15:30] Speaker 4: don't think at this point this is by the fault
[15:34] Speaker 4: of anyone in particular, more than it was a small
[15:38] Speaker 4: department ill equipped to deal with a double homicide of
[15:42] Speaker 4: this magnitude.
[15:46] Speaker 3: Of course, I was never questioned about what I found
[15:49] Speaker 3: when I got out here before, I had no the
[15:51] Speaker 3: investigat yourself from or asked me about anything other than
[15:53] Speaker 3: the fact that I.
[15:55] Speaker 7: Reverse from there.
[15:55] Speaker 3: And I understand that ain't even been totally different, man.
[15:59] Speaker 3: I mean, well, as far as far line knew, I
[16:02] Speaker 3: was your first person here inside, Vince, he was here.
[16:07] Speaker 2: Did you write a report.
[16:10] Speaker 7: Just my regular report and got the call.
[16:15] Speaker 2: And did when in the report? Did you put what
[16:17] Speaker 2: you saw at the scene and all of that.
[16:19] Speaker 3: No, we're right out here. I turned it over to
[16:23] Speaker 3: the car the police station.
[16:31] Speaker 4: In a later interview with one of the first homicide
[16:34] Speaker 4: detectives on the scene that morning, he states the crime
[16:39] Speaker 4: scene was quote screwed up. There were people walking around everywhere.
[16:44] Speaker 4: What's more, he claims it was another officer, Patrick Mahoney,
[16:50] Speaker 4: who showed up on the scene first, not Robert Harden.
[16:55] Speaker 4: I asked Harden what he did next after reporting to
[16:59] Speaker 4: the SEEN and turning it over to several Weatherford police investigators.
[17:06] Speaker 7: I didn't have any any connection anything that happened.
[17:11] Speaker 4: And what was the talk around the the PD about
[17:14] Speaker 4: what had happened? Were there are rumors going around the
[17:17] Speaker 4: PD or talk about what might have happened?
[17:19] Speaker 2: Who could have been responsible?
[17:23] Speaker 8: Uh?
[17:23] Speaker 7: Yeah, they were talking.
[17:24] Speaker 3: I'm sure I wouldn't. I mean I would be involved
[17:28] Speaker 3: in any conversation, right, I would have thrown One night
[17:31] Speaker 3: there was one of a little low look thet pubs.
[17:35] Speaker 3: I didn't you know what they didn't didn't figure out
[17:40] Speaker 3: I had anything you have over them?
[17:43] Speaker 2: Well, that's wow. But you remember the blood on the.
[17:46] Speaker 4: Ground, that picture, there's a picture of it.
[17:50] Speaker 2: I've seen a picture of it.
[17:51] Speaker 3: They were blood on the ground on her side. I
[17:54] Speaker 3: didn't see anything on his side.
[17:56] Speaker 2: And he was shot in the head as well.
[17:57] Speaker 3: Yeah, he was shouting the head. He was shouting the head,
[18:02] Speaker 3: trying to remember. I know they were both shot in
[18:07] Speaker 3: the head. He was shot in the second time, and
[18:11] Speaker 3: I figured both shots from where the cars shutting, Like say,
[18:14] Speaker 3: I have been told to build a car parked over
[18:16] Speaker 3: on the other side of the building, and I had
[18:19] Speaker 3: been moved over here, and of course in thenc fad out.
[18:22] Speaker 3: Later Vincent said he addressed the kid after he got here.
[18:25] Speaker 4: In talking to Robert Harden further, I found out that
[18:29] Speaker 4: his understanding was that the Monte Carlo was first spotted
[18:33] Speaker 4: across the street by the school building that used to
[18:36] Speaker 4: be there, and he had no idea who moved it.
[18:41] Speaker 4: In that same interview with the lead detective, he says
[18:44] Speaker 4: he believed the kids were killed where the vehicle was
[18:48] Speaker 4: found on top of Piss Hill, in other words, right
[18:52] Speaker 4: there in the parking lot. He also thought that the
[18:56] Speaker 4: blood on the ground, which I have seen a crime
[18:58] Speaker 4: scene photo of, ripped off the door before the door
[19:03] Speaker 4: was shut. But one of the most confusing pieces of
[19:06] Speaker 4: early information was when he noticed that Vincent Junior's belt
[19:11] Speaker 4: was on backwards and both kids were sitting up holding hands.
[19:17] Speaker 4: Remember Harden says Vincent Senior admitted to him that when
[19:22] Speaker 4: he first got there, he moved their bodies, effectively restaging
[19:28] Speaker 4: the scene and quite horrifically. Vincent Senior even tried putting
[19:34] Speaker 4: his son's eye back into the socket.
[19:39] Speaker 3: I had up til after all, after after, and I
[19:45] Speaker 3: heard all these tails and the first line I heard
[19:51] Speaker 3: vetting move the deal was a drug. Without that, I
[19:54] Speaker 3: heard the other side of the ledo.
[19:58] Speaker 4: Several details I kept hearing early into my investigation and
[20:03] Speaker 4: was still trying to verify. Was that Shelley's body on
[20:07] Speaker 4: her right side looked as though it had been dragged
[20:11] Speaker 4: through a briar patch. That her clothing was dirty and muddy,
[20:15] Speaker 4: but oddly, her tennis shoes, placed almost methodically perfect inside
[20:21] Speaker 4: the vehicle on the floorboard, were clean and had no
[20:25] Speaker 4: dirt or mud on them.
[20:28] Speaker 2: Do you remember her having any scratches on her and
[20:31] Speaker 2: he bruises on her or anything like that?
[20:33] Speaker 7: Oh, I got here.
[20:35] Speaker 3: All I won't do to turn They weren't all alive,
[20:40] Speaker 3: were the Dad reserve? I mean, hey, you know, I
[20:45] Speaker 3: mean I didn't really look playing that much. Well, I
[20:48] Speaker 3: knew I wouldn't have much to do.
[20:51] Speaker 4: I was curious about Vincent Senior's demeanor because in my
[20:55] Speaker 4: research I hadn't come across any information that he'd been
[21:00] Speaker 4: hysterical or upset in the way you might expect. And
[21:05] Speaker 4: if we're looking at this objectively, after learning that he
[21:09] Speaker 4: might have staged the scene, Vincent Senior had to be
[21:13] Speaker 4: considered a person of interest.
[21:17] Speaker 7: I'm gonna hate you upset. You know, he didn't. He
[21:20] Speaker 7: didn't want to tell you why, right, I didn't have
[21:24] Speaker 7: any reason to expect.
[21:27] Speaker 2: I mean, he was out looking for them, right.
[21:28] Speaker 4: So the idea being, why would a guilty man, knowing
[21:37] Speaker 4: what he'd done, then go in search of the kids?
[21:41] Speaker 4: Makes no sense. He kills them and then alerts law
[21:45] Speaker 4: enforcement to where they are.
[21:47] Speaker 2: Now the car here? Would it have been easily visible
[21:51] Speaker 2: from the road at night?
[21:53] Speaker 7: Well, yeah, of course that road wasn't near big thing, now,
[21:57] Speaker 7: you know. Grab.
[22:01] Speaker 4: I pointed to Tin Top Road, down a short decline
[22:05] Speaker 4: from where Harden and I stood in the same spot
[22:09] Speaker 4: where the Monte Carlo was found.
[22:13] Speaker 2: If you're driving by.
[22:14] Speaker 4: You could see the car here, yeah, if you were
[22:17] Speaker 4: looking like Vincent Senior.
[22:19] Speaker 2: He was looking. But I guess he came by here earlier.
[22:21] Speaker 2: The car wasn't here.
[22:23] Speaker 7: You know, and I've heard it it was parked behind
[22:26] Speaker 7: the building.
[22:27] Speaker 2: Did they bring Vincent in and question him that night
[22:30] Speaker 2: or morning? They never questioned him, Jesus.
[22:36] Speaker 4: I wondered if the inside of the car was spattered
[22:40] Speaker 4: with blood, if they were killed inside the car with
[22:43] Speaker 4: twenty two caliber hollow points, as I have heard, they
[22:46] Speaker 4: would have to be visible blood spatter and a hell
[22:50] Speaker 4: of a lot of it.
[22:52] Speaker 3: What But I'm went the blood inside the car and
[22:59] Speaker 3: blood still dripping out of the car, and that's why
[23:02] Speaker 3: I can't figure out. You know, I don't know how
[23:03] Speaker 3: long it takes blood to congeal. But if it had
[23:07] Speaker 3: been very, very long, and I think it would have been, jail,
[23:11] Speaker 3: wouldn't still run them out of the car dripping out.
[23:15] Speaker 7: Of the car, you know when I got here. If
[23:17] Speaker 7: it had just been an hour, if it be well,
[23:21] Speaker 7: I mean I've.
[23:21] Speaker 3: Heard that they thought it happened further, you know, for
[23:26] Speaker 3: three hours or four five or even.
[23:28] Speaker 2: More right in midnight someone something like that.
[23:31] Speaker 1: Yeah, and.
[23:34] Speaker 7: I don't know the bodies have been moved before I
[23:36] Speaker 7: got here.
[23:38] Speaker 2: It's hard to believe they would be targets of this murder.
[23:40] Speaker 3: Yeah, unless unless, like I said, I you know, when
[23:44] Speaker 3: I first saw the car, I thought it was a
[23:46] Speaker 3: drug dealer's car.
[23:49] Speaker 2: See now that makes the most sense, right, That makes
[23:52] Speaker 2: the most sense. That the car was mistaken for a
[23:54] Speaker 2: drug dealer. The drug dealer had to hit on them.
[23:56] Speaker 8: That's what.
[23:57] Speaker 7: And you know, I've thought that for a long time.
[23:59] Speaker 7: That may have been the case. You know, sure.
[24:04] Speaker 3: Now I heard one of these meetings if somebody said
[24:06] Speaker 3: that they shut the two d after's car up there,
[24:10] Speaker 3: and that was and the way they talked after it
[24:12] Speaker 3: must have been an hour maybe two hours before I
[24:15] Speaker 3: got there before. As I know, they never are disfactor.
[24:19] Speaker 3: I dispassed that dispatched for shift fartner than that too.
[24:22] Speaker 3: You And as far as I'd ever heard, they never
[24:28] Speaker 3: had an't report before the shift aft to the control
[24:32] Speaker 3: call over here.
[24:33] Speaker 7: So I don't know or I hadn't.
[24:35] Speaker 3: I mean, the the only reason I thought they might
[24:37] Speaker 3: have been took patrol call up here to report somewhere.
[24:39] Speaker 7: Said they show.
[24:45] Speaker 4: Robert Harden had just told me that two hours before
[24:49] Speaker 4: he even arrived, two patrol cars were reported up on
[24:55] Speaker 4: the top of Pissel part in back of the Monte Carlo.
[25:00] Speaker 4: Vincent and Shelley had been murdered in it's vitally important
[25:29] Speaker 4: to have a complete understanding of this crime scene and
[25:33] Speaker 4: where it is located. The layout establishes so many different
[25:38] Speaker 4: points of view you will hear from witnesses I have interviewed.
[25:45] Speaker 4: So I asked mel Mitchell to describe the scene from
[25:48] Speaker 4: the point of view of driving up to it. If
[25:51] Speaker 4: you are thinking about this like me, something isn't adding up,
[25:57] Speaker 4: particularly the car being right there out in the open
[26:01] Speaker 4: for everyone to see, almost as if it's on display,
[26:07] Speaker 4: like say, somebody was trying to send a message. With
[26:14] Speaker 4: so many other teen deaths within the county, which we
[26:17] Speaker 4: will get into as we move forward, you have to
[26:20] Speaker 4: wonder if the entire crime scene, not just the kids' bodies,
[26:25] Speaker 4: was staged.
[26:27] Speaker 1: Well, if you go down I twenty and you exit
[26:33] Speaker 1: onto Tent Top Road, there's a kind of a gravel
[26:37] Speaker 1: area on one side of the road because it meets
[26:41] Speaker 1: there's a Cleveborn Avenue that basically comes out onto Tent
[26:46] Speaker 1: Top Road. So on one side you've got the old
[26:49] Speaker 1: municipal power plant, and then on the other side you've
[26:52] Speaker 1: got you've got where the old consolidated school building used
[26:56] Speaker 1: to be. The gist of the area is still the
[26:58] Speaker 1: same back then. It's just you're just miss seeing the
[27:00] Speaker 1: building is pretty much what it is. And so a
[27:03] Speaker 1: lot of kids back then they'd go up and down
[27:04] Speaker 1: Main Street cruising. We all know how that was for
[27:08] Speaker 1: some of us not so old people. Would you know,
[27:12] Speaker 1: you go and stop in into Sonic halfs and drinks,
[27:14] Speaker 1: see your buddies, and then move on down to next
[27:16] Speaker 1: area on the road. I mean, I've heard there could
[27:18] Speaker 1: be up to seventy five hundred kids up there on
[27:20] Speaker 1: a Friday Saturday night. And so the cops that come
[27:24] Speaker 1: by and just like, you know, hey, make sure you're
[27:26] Speaker 1: not having any fights going on, like that was their
[27:28] Speaker 1: big thing is just don't have fights, you know, just
[27:31] Speaker 1: keep it under control. Kind of toned down, mellowed out,
[27:35] Speaker 1: so it wasn't a place where there was a lot
[27:38] Speaker 1: of privacy.
[27:41] Speaker 4: There's no place to hide up there where the car
[27:43] Speaker 4: was found. It's all out in the open, no obstructions.
[27:49] Speaker 4: If Vincent Senior had driven by there at all throughout
[27:52] Speaker 4: the night as he searched for the kids, which is
[27:55] Speaker 4: what Vincent Senior began telling everyone, he would have seen
[27:59] Speaker 4: the vehicle, no question about it.
[28:04] Speaker 1: I mean to be honest. I mean, if you're gonna,
[28:06] Speaker 1: I guess you want to make out your girlfriend, you
[28:07] Speaker 1: might would have to drive behind the consolidate school building,
[28:10] Speaker 1: or maybe there were some trees across the stream on
[28:12] Speaker 1: the municipal side that might give you a little bit
[28:14] Speaker 1: more privacy.
[28:15] Speaker 4: And if I'm Officer Robert Harden, I'm driving up there
[28:19] Speaker 4: that night, what do I see when I get up there?
[28:22] Speaker 1: So he blues, it looked like they've just kind of
[28:24] Speaker 1: been pulled in, like off the road facing east with
[28:28] Speaker 1: the headlights on, and so it wasn't that hard to
[28:30] Speaker 1: see it from the road. I mean, it's just kind
[28:32] Speaker 1: of like you're driving on the roads just right there.
[28:34] Speaker 4: Then Mel gives me a peculiar detail about the crime scene.
[28:38] Speaker 4: I hadn't heard no keys. Oh that's interesting. I didn't
[28:43] Speaker 4: know that. So the headlights were on, which means it
[28:49] Speaker 4: couldn't have been there longer than an hour per se.
[28:52] Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know what the bowery life is on
[28:54] Speaker 1: the Monty Carlos back then, but yeah, I assume hour
[28:56] Speaker 1: maybe two that you could just keep your headlights on
[28:59] Speaker 1: and train the battery.
[29:00] Speaker 4: Sure, as we move forward, I want you to build
[29:09] Speaker 4: a crime board in your mind like the ones you
[29:13] Speaker 4: see on TV. You'll begin to place all of these
[29:17] Speaker 4: various scant, seemingly minor details on that board, the contradictions,
[29:24] Speaker 4: the different stories, the conflicting facts times, what people hear
[29:28] Speaker 4: and see, because all of it will begin to tell
[29:32] Speaker 4: a story. As I began to do this literally in
[29:37] Speaker 4: my office and would soon implore mel Mitchell to help
[29:41] Speaker 4: me out, it became abundantly clear that several people are
[29:45] Speaker 4: either lying or misremembering things. So what is the assumed
[29:53] Speaker 4: time of death?
[29:55] Speaker 1: Anywhere between say ten thirty to one am is what
[30:02] Speaker 1: we're guessing.
[30:05] Speaker 4: And what time does Harden get there?
[30:07] Speaker 1: He gets there around five forty five ish, because he
[30:12] Speaker 1: was just about to get off his shift that morning
[30:14] Speaker 1: at six am when a call came out that Vincent
[30:17] Speaker 1: Senior had found them and he needed to go up there.
[30:19] Speaker 4: Come to find out, just after Vincent Senior found them
[30:23] Speaker 4: and staged the scene, he rushed to a neighbor's house
[30:26] Speaker 4: to call nine to one one. Well, then someone had
[30:30] Speaker 4: that car for most of the night because the lights
[30:33] Speaker 4: could not have been on right, So after they were murdered,
[30:38] Speaker 4: someone had possession of that vehicle. I believe so, Yes, Otherwise,
[30:43] Speaker 4: the keys would have been in it, and they just
[30:44] Speaker 4: want to clarify that. Robert Harden assumed that they were
[30:49] Speaker 4: shot from the driver's side, but that's that's impossible because
[30:53] Speaker 4: she's shot on the right autopsy says right hand side, and.
[30:58] Speaker 8: So is he.
[31:00] Speaker 1: He You wish on the right hand side too, because
[31:01] Speaker 1: they all remember his left side being just really messed up,
[31:05] Speaker 1: the eye kind of hanging out, So it would have
[31:07] Speaker 1: been on the right temple as well for Vincent.
[31:11] Speaker 4: And the window was rolled up correct. Mel Mitchell has
[31:17] Speaker 4: interviewed over one hundred people involved in the case, including
[31:21] Speaker 4: former law enforcement at the time of the murders. The
[31:26] Speaker 4: information she has gathered, compared with some of the information
[31:30] Speaker 4: first officer on scene, Robert Harden, gave me, entirely contradicts
[31:36] Speaker 4: one another. It's almost as if a group of people
[31:40] Speaker 4: are purposely confusing and conflating the situation. And if that
[31:46] Speaker 4: is true, the obvious question is why.
[31:53] Speaker 9: It wouldn't be fair to say that we didn't have
[31:56] Speaker 9: I mean, we obviously had a crime scene that was
[31:58] Speaker 9: worked out there, but with aut of time that elapsed,
[32:01] Speaker 9: you almost experience a similar thing there, right because the
[32:05] Speaker 9: com scene wasn't handled in nineteen eighty three the way
[32:07] Speaker 9: it would be handled today, or even in nineteen ninety
[32:11] Speaker 9: three for that matter, just just a different world.
[32:16] Speaker 4: In all my years of investigating cold cases, where information
[32:20] Speaker 4: is expected to be in conflict and often mistaken or
[32:24] Speaker 4: even forgotten, I do not think I've run into a
[32:28] Speaker 4: case with more opposing details. And one of the reasons
[32:32] Speaker 4: for that is the lack of documentation available from the
[32:36] Speaker 4: earliest stages of the investigation. Here once again is the
[32:42] Speaker 4: current cold case investigator working for the Weatherford Police Department,
[32:47] Speaker 4: Lieutenant Johnny Qualls, reiterating the lack of control over that
[32:53] Speaker 4: crime scene.
[32:56] Speaker 9: Policing and all that stuff. He evolves like everything else,
[33:00] Speaker 9: and uh, and it's just it, just it. You know,
[33:03] Speaker 9: I'd be lying to you if I said I didn't
[33:05] Speaker 9: lose sleepover it. It frustrates you, and you find yourself
[33:08] Speaker 9: it's not fair. It's it's not fair to be angry
[33:12] Speaker 9: or mad at some of those folks that just didn't
[33:15] Speaker 9: know any better. But you find yourself being angry and
[33:17] Speaker 9: mad at him in those moments nonetheless, because it's like,
[33:20] Speaker 9: you know, if you had just.
[33:21] Speaker 7: Done this, then we would have this.
[33:23] Speaker 4: Robert Harden says he wasn't the first law enforcement officer
[33:27] Speaker 4: on scene. Information that's in dispute. There are those reports
[33:33] Speaker 4: of two patrol cars spotted on the scene in the
[33:36] Speaker 4: hours before he arrived. So what Harden sees when he
[33:40] Speaker 4: gets there is not an accurate depiction of the crime scene,
[33:45] Speaker 4: which will later be borne out by the facts.
[33:49] Speaker 2: Was there blood inside the car unas?
[33:51] Speaker 7: Huh were small? Kelvin?
[33:53] Speaker 8: Ye?
[33:54] Speaker 7: Yeah, I didn't. Family, they found three shils.
[34:02] Speaker 4: I confirmed this with someone who inspected the vehicle not
[34:06] Speaker 4: long after the kids were found in the back seat.
[34:10] Speaker 4: On the floorboard of the vehicle, three shells were located,
[34:15] Speaker 4: along with a used condom stuffed into the seat.
[34:20] Speaker 2: Did Vincent appear to be shot from the back.
[34:29] Speaker 8: After?
[34:30] Speaker 7: I can't? You know, I can't. I can't remember.
[34:34] Speaker 4: Gruesome scene though, Oh yeah, I'm I didn't ask me
[34:40] Speaker 4: like I've a report or anything, but found nobody asked
[34:45] Speaker 4: you questions after even years after, even after him. According
[34:54] Speaker 4: to Harden, he was never formally interviewed, not ever, which
[34:59] Speaker 4: is be beyond suspect to me. What's more, both kids
[35:04] Speaker 4: were shot behind their heads, which I confirm after getting
[35:09] Speaker 4: my hands on an autopsy report that showed up under
[35:13] Speaker 4: extremely odd circumstances. In late twenty twenty four, here's Mel
[35:20] Speaker 4: Mitchell once again.
[35:22] Speaker 1: We believe that they were shot with twenty twos, and
[35:25] Speaker 1: so depending on you know, which twenty two were talking about.
[35:30] Speaker 1: We know that twenty two is usually when it enters
[35:32] Speaker 1: the body just kind of bounces around. So I don't
[35:35] Speaker 1: know if with his injuries, if they had found the shell,
[35:39] Speaker 1: like the actual you know, bullet fragment like inside his brain,
[35:44] Speaker 1: or if it exited. But I haven't heard of any
[35:46] Speaker 1: kind of you know, bullet holes in the car, And
[35:48] Speaker 1: like that's one of the first questions to ask, is, hey,
[35:50] Speaker 1: were the windows intact? Did you find anything on the
[35:53] Speaker 1: car door that might show there was a bullet that
[35:55] Speaker 1: hit it? None of that, So I'm assuming it probably
[35:58] Speaker 1: didn't exit, But I don't know for a fact.
[36:02] Speaker 4: Every indication that I've seen read spoken to people about
[36:06] Speaker 4: is that they had to be executed outside of the
[36:10] Speaker 4: vehicle and staged inside the vehicle. What are your thoughts
[36:14] Speaker 4: on that.
[36:15] Speaker 1: Well, we do know that there was two huge pools
[36:18] Speaker 1: of blood next to the passenger side when they were discovered,
[36:22] Speaker 1: because Vincent was pushed all the way back as seat
[36:25] Speaker 1: was pushed all the way back. You know, he obviously
[36:27] Speaker 1: didn't drive that, but we also knew that the kids
[36:29] Speaker 1: were staged in a position that wasn't well known. I
[36:34] Speaker 1: don't know if I want to disclose that on this
[36:36] Speaker 1: because it could obviously probably help catch Smody. They could say, yes,
[36:41] Speaker 1: we know this is how they were, this is how
[36:42] Speaker 1: we position them. But we do know that wasn't the
[36:44] Speaker 1: way that Robert would have seen them, because we know
[36:47] Speaker 1: that Vincent Senior had actually positioned them himself when he
[36:53] Speaker 1: found the bodies, and so they were positioned to where
[36:56] Speaker 1: Vincent's head was kind of back against the headrest, but
[36:59] Speaker 1: there was blood flowing down on the backside of his
[37:02] Speaker 1: seat and then down to the floorboard. And then Shelley
[37:05] Speaker 1: she was either kind of leaning against him or she
[37:08] Speaker 1: was kind of leaning on the side of the car door,
[37:11] Speaker 1: like her head just kind of resting on that, because
[37:13] Speaker 1: we believe there's some blood flowing down the right side
[37:16] Speaker 1: of the car door. But yes, there's a good possibility.
[37:19] Speaker 1: We firmly believe that she, especially Shelley, was shot outside
[37:23] Speaker 1: the car because some of the people had interviewed that
[37:26] Speaker 1: were there helping kind of clean the scene and get
[37:30] Speaker 1: the bodies they had said that they it looked like
[37:33] Speaker 1: Shelley had possibly bled out somewhere else.
[37:40] Speaker 4: Anytime you have victims murdered in one location and staged
[37:45] Speaker 4: in another, especially two people, one of whom is male
[37:50] Speaker 4: one female, you have to consider two or more suspects
[37:55] Speaker 4: being involved. In addition, mel also believes, same as others
[38:01] Speaker 4: I've spoken to, the car was definitely moved from another
[38:05] Speaker 4: location to the place where it was found.
[38:09] Speaker 1: There wasn't a lot of blood for her, so they
[38:14] Speaker 1: do believe that there's possibility that she probably was placed
[38:18] Speaker 1: in the car and shot outside, which maybe she was
[38:20] Speaker 1: shot where that the blood was on the ground.
[38:23] Speaker 4: And there was also a report you got from someone
[38:25] Speaker 4: about maybe a face in print in the mud as well. Right.
[38:30] Speaker 1: One of the family members was very adamant that when
[38:33] Speaker 1: he had gone up there to look around himself, he
[38:36] Speaker 1: really felt like he saw a face like imprint in
[38:41] Speaker 1: the dirt, like next to the blood pools, and he
[38:44] Speaker 1: really thought it was Shelley's face. He's like, it still
[38:46] Speaker 1: kind of haunts me where I can just still see
[38:48] Speaker 1: his face in like the gravel.
[39:08] Speaker 4: For Janetta Colliflower Smith, those early days as the investigation
[39:14] Speaker 4: unfolded still play like a film inside her head. Within
[39:20] Speaker 4: the first few days, a Weatherford Police Department investigator who
[39:25] Speaker 4: would become the collieflower point person, visited their home and
[39:29] Speaker 4: explained to Janetta and Ronnie what to expect in the
[39:33] Speaker 4: coming days and weeks.
[39:35] Speaker 6: You know, we're gonna find you, Johnny. You know, we're
[39:38] Speaker 6: gonna handle and but you know, at that moment, it's
[39:43] Speaker 6: you can't even think of stuff.
[39:44] Speaker 4: You just and for days for us, I mean, it
[39:48] Speaker 4: was he lied to you.
[39:50] Speaker 5: You know, that's where I go. This is what I mean,
[39:54] Speaker 5: this is what drives me nuts.
[39:56] Speaker 6: And they I don't know why they had to tell me,
[39:59] Speaker 6: but he said that it shot one of Vincent's eyes
[40:03] Speaker 6: completely out well, and so of course that puts it
[40:09] Speaker 6: into you know, I think it's silly, and.
[40:16] Speaker 5: You know, everything was just so that's where I'm at.
[40:23] Speaker 4: You could understand a car accident, right, definitely, you could understand, Okay,
[40:28] Speaker 4: it's a tragedy, but this is murder.
[40:31] Speaker 6: And these are kids, good kids, you know, if they
[40:35] Speaker 6: didn't run around, you know, if they didn't run around
[40:38] Speaker 6: with bad kids, they all the people that they ran.
[40:42] Speaker 2: It was good kids.
[40:43] Speaker 6: I mean, they didn't run around with gang type kids
[40:46] Speaker 6: or club type kids. You know, these kids did nothing
[40:53] Speaker 6: to anyone. They did nothing to anyone.
[41:02] Speaker 4: What are you hearing in the beginning when you when
[41:04] Speaker 4: you kind of I don't know how to put it,
[41:06] Speaker 4: but come come out of the fog maybe a week
[41:10] Speaker 4: later or two weeks.
[41:11] Speaker 2: What are you hearing?
[41:11] Speaker 4: I mean you must because grief goes from stages to
[41:15] Speaker 4: anger to depression.
[41:17] Speaker 7: We all know that.
[41:19] Speaker 4: So when you come out of it and you're in
[41:21] Speaker 4: you know, my god, who did this? So what are
[41:25] Speaker 4: you hearing about that?
[41:26] Speaker 8: Oh?
[41:26] Speaker 5: I lived at the police station.
[41:28] Speaker 2: Tell me about that.
[41:30] Speaker 6: You know, I would go daily, Okay, what do you know?
[41:34] Speaker 6: Tell me you know what's going on? Well, we're working
[41:37] Speaker 6: on it, and we're looking at some people. And that's
[41:41] Speaker 6: basically all that I would get. It's, you know, until
[41:46] Speaker 6: one day on down the line, I come in and
[41:50] Speaker 6: I say, okay, what's going on?
[41:54] Speaker 5: You know what's going on? Johnny? We've been told we
[41:58] Speaker 5: can't question, we can't question.
[42:04] Speaker 8: That.
[42:05] Speaker 5: It's the mayor. Something to do with the mayor and then.
[42:13] Speaker 6: Chief of horts he said, Johnny, it's the mayor, and
[42:19] Speaker 6: we can't because they will own us. We can't question
[42:23] Speaker 6: this person anymore. Are they will own us.
[42:29] Speaker 4: So he's basically telling you that they're.
[42:31] Speaker 5: Hot for in this, that he is a hot suspect.
[42:38] Speaker 4: That's suspect. She mentions, whose name I redacted, was related
[42:43] Speaker 4: to a top law enforcement official at the time and
[42:46] Speaker 4: was in law enforcement himself. He also drove a county
[42:51] Speaker 4: issued cruiser, and Janetta is told investigators have been blocked
[42:57] Speaker 4: from questioning him. They have to stop investigating because of
[43:02] Speaker 4: the mayor.
[43:04] Speaker 5: They got scared. It takes my daughter's life. You know,
[43:08] Speaker 5: I'm scared too. They didn't deserve it.
[43:13] Speaker 4: As I began to dig into this thread in twenty
[43:16] Speaker 4: twenty four, several things begin happening. One, someone in law
[43:22] Speaker 4: enforcement is secretly feeding information to family members, who then
[43:28] Speaker 4: turn around and pass that information along to me. And two,
[43:34] Speaker 4: I begin to hear about a sausage plant, a well known,
[43:38] Speaker 4: very wealthy business owner and human trafficker allegedly involved in
[43:44] Speaker 4: the drug trade, who is deeply connected to and in
[43:48] Speaker 4: bed with those names you have been hearing me leep out.
[43:54] Speaker 4: I asked whether for Police Department Lieutenant Johnny Qualls, who
[43:58] Speaker 4: is one of the cold case to de actives looking
[44:01] Speaker 4: into the murders today, what he thought initially when he
[44:05] Speaker 4: looked at the case.
[44:06] Speaker 9: You just want to approach it with a fresh set
[44:08] Speaker 9: of eyes and be open minded. And so many theories,
[44:13] Speaker 9: so many persons of interest.
[44:15] Speaker 4: I don't know that I've ever.
[44:17] Speaker 9: Seen anything like it, or that I ever would again.
[44:20] Speaker 9: I don't know if some of that had to do
[44:22] Speaker 9: with them being teenagers and Weatherford. We also got to
[44:26] Speaker 9: understand whether it was a much different community. We're still
[44:29] Speaker 9: a small town in some ways, but in nineteen eighty
[44:31] Speaker 9: three we were much more rural. We hadn't experienced as
[44:34] Speaker 9: much groff as we had to do. So it really
[44:36] Speaker 9: was one of those deals where everybody probably knew everybody,
[44:39] Speaker 9: and then we had two teenagers shot to death, and
[44:43] Speaker 9: you know, I think both of them were fairly popular
[44:45] Speaker 9: in high school and fairly well known and cruising the
[44:48] Speaker 9: boulevard of South Maine, and so everybody knew. Everybody had
[44:51] Speaker 9: a theory. Maybe that's the best way.
[44:53] Speaker 4: To say that I am not naive or ignorant. I
[44:57] Speaker 4: know when a cop is kind of yanking my chain.
[45:01] Speaker 4: But I left it there with Lieutenant Qualls for the
[45:03] Speaker 4: time being and played it off like I was just
[45:06] Speaker 4: stepping into the case and didn't know much. Soon I
[45:11] Speaker 4: would go at him hard and find out why there
[45:15] Speaker 4: is all this odd secrecy and shuffling of the facts
[45:20] Speaker 4: surrounding this case. Talking to him, I wondered about Vincent
[45:28] Speaker 4: who found the kids, and if he was ever looked
[45:31] Speaker 4: at as a serious suspect.
[45:35] Speaker 9: Yeah, that was one of the names that was thrown around,
[45:37] Speaker 9: just but I mean if almost anyone name in Weatherford
[45:44] Speaker 9: was thrown around, you know, just to give you an idea.
[45:47] Speaker 9: The initial part of it was just getting the case
[45:50] Speaker 9: report and sifting through all that, and then we we
[45:53] Speaker 9: does we sometimes right around that same time period, we
[45:57] Speaker 9: got with our property. So it was almost kind of
[46:00] Speaker 9: kind of similar to records, is like going back to
[46:02] Speaker 9: property and be like, hey, here's this case number. Why
[46:04] Speaker 9: do we still have that's associated with this case, and
[46:08] Speaker 9: what does that evidence look like.
[46:10] Speaker 4: In those years before nineteen eighty three, law enforcement needed
[46:15] Speaker 4: a bloodstain the size of a nickel in order to
[46:18] Speaker 4: extract enough DNA to even consider scientific profiling, and even
[46:25] Speaker 4: at that large, DNA databases like we see today were
[46:30] Speaker 4: in the earliest stages of development. In addition, the first
[46:36] Speaker 4: FBI crime lab to assist in forensic profiling wasn't opened
[46:40] Speaker 4: until nineteen eighty eight. So the tools to catch killers
[46:44] Speaker 4: in nineteen eighty three were extremely limited. We're talking fingerprints
[46:49] Speaker 4: and trace evidence, witness statements, and interviewing suspects. Of course,
[46:56] Speaker 4: when you had a case such as this one where
[46:58] Speaker 4: the victims were shot to, ballistics could help. Yet ballistics
[47:04] Speaker 4: were only as good as having both parts, the gun
[47:08] Speaker 4: and the bullet.
[47:10] Speaker 9: Like you said in nineteen eighty three, I don't know
[47:12] Speaker 9: that anyone's thinking about DNA, but but maybe we have
[47:16] Speaker 9: something in here that we can resubmit.
[47:19] Speaker 4: This has become one of my big questions in the case.
[47:23] Speaker 4: Has law enforcement used modern technology extracted any DNA from
[47:29] Speaker 4: the available evidence and sent it out to all the
[47:33] Speaker 4: databases that exist today.
[47:36] Speaker 9: I can't go into into great detail about what those
[47:40] Speaker 9: things are. I can tell you that things were resubmitted.
[47:44] Speaker 9: We we we did. We took a close look at
[47:48] Speaker 9: at all those all those things. You know what still
[47:51] Speaker 9: exists today? Out of those things, what can we potentially
[47:54] Speaker 9: help give us a lead?
[47:56] Speaker 4: Which brings me to several utterly vital questions I need
[48:00] Speaker 4: to chase down immediately. Why in the hell haven't some
[48:05] Speaker 4: of those items been resubmitted? Where are they? And who
[48:10] Speaker 4: is responsible? For maintaining the chain of custody for the evidence.
[48:20] Speaker 4: Please check out my weekly podcast, Crossing the Line with
[48:24] Speaker 4: m William Phelps, where I delve into a new missing
[48:27] Speaker 4: person and cold case murder each week. Wherever you get
[48:31] Speaker 4: your favorite shows coming up In the next episode of Paper.
[48:38] Speaker 9: Ghosts, bos to me, it was a premeditated murderer.
[48:44] Speaker 3: It was planned.
[48:45] Speaker 7: First, I thought it was that they weren't the wrong
[48:47] Speaker 7: place at the wrong comic because they get a lot
[48:50] Speaker 7: of blood dealing right there.
[48:52] Speaker 6: It was a dark town and boy, if you ever
[48:55] Speaker 6: if you ever knew a little bit, it's just a
[48:59] Speaker 6: scary town.
[49:01] Speaker 9: It is a lot of us kids whore hound drugs.
[49:05] Speaker 9: But what happens They pulled me in for murder.
[49:08] Speaker 4: For who's murder for those kids.
[49:11] Speaker 3: The word is that the man that owns the town
[49:14] Speaker 3: and knew he owned a sausage plan or a processing plant.
[49:19] Speaker 5: That somehow he was involved.
[49:22] Speaker 7: Then again they're talking at that time about the law
[49:27] Speaker 7: being involved.
[49:33] Speaker 4: Paper Ghost Season five is written and executive produced by
[49:38] Speaker 4: me and William Phelps. Script consulting by iHeartMedia Executive producer
[49:43] Speaker 4: Catherine Law. Production by tac Boom Productions, Audio mastering and
[49:49] Speaker 4: mixing by Brandon Dicker. The series theme number four four
[49:54] Speaker 4: to two is written and performed by Thomas Phelps and
[49:58] Speaker 4: Tom Mooney.

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