# Bump Monkeys

An episode of [Paper Ghosts: The Texas Teen Murders](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1526682330), 19 Nov 2025, 55 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/fb8d36cf-b165-4399-b277-ae2701747cf3/207e9cbd-5f2f-4c47-8d3a-b38d00080691/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=664846e2-642c-49b7-82d8-ae2701747d14

As Phelps interviews sources connected to the Weatherford teen murders, including law enforcement working the case at the time, two new theories emerge—sending him deep into a dark, dangerous underworld straight out of Breaking Bad. Meanwhile, a victim’s family member accuses his uncle of involvement with the murders. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:20] Speaker 1: Hello, Hello, Raymond, This is m William Phelps, Matthew.
[0:26] Speaker 2: Uh, okay, yes, met you.
[0:29] Speaker 1: Okay, how you doing pretty good?
[0:32] Speaker 3: Are you?
[0:33] Speaker 2: I'm back in the back cleaning the goat.
[0:36] Speaker 4: Oh yeah, let me see it.
[0:40] Speaker 2: Let me let me go put this up and I'll
[0:42] Speaker 2: just I'll go ahead and talk to you.
[0:44] Speaker 4: Go ahead, okay, Well yeah, yeah, Well the real man
[0:50] Speaker 4: I'm here going about forty five.
[0:53] Speaker 1: Vincent t Jerina Junior's uncle, Raymond Tajerina, is eighty years old. Raymond, well,
[1:00] Speaker 1: yet he can recall the moment he learned his nephew
[1:03] Speaker 1: had been murdered with the vivid acuity of a man
[1:07] Speaker 1: half his age.
[1:13] Speaker 3: I used to run all the time, and competition runs
[1:16] Speaker 3: all over the state, and me and my son had
[1:18] Speaker 3: gone to run in Steaveville, which is fifty miles from here,
[1:21] Speaker 3: fifty three miles from here. We heard it on the
[1:24] Speaker 3: news that morning. After we're finished, stupid cops called it
[1:28] Speaker 3: a murdered suicide, even though they didn't find a weapon
[1:31] Speaker 3: or a stupid you know, stupid people just really get
[1:34] Speaker 3: to you, because, I mean, you know, how the hell
[1:37] Speaker 3: can I murder suicide? When you know we don't find
[1:41] Speaker 3: a weapon or nothing.
[1:42] Speaker 2: Like that. You know they were both shocked in the head.
[1:47] Speaker 1: An unsolved murder has a tendency to affect victims' families
[1:52] Speaker 1: in any number of ways. One is to force them
[1:56] Speaker 1: to think about what happened or imagine what might have happened,
[2:02] Speaker 1: over and over again. It becomes like walking out of
[2:06] Speaker 1: a film before the final scene, or running from the
[2:10] Speaker 1: altar on your wedding day. Your mind is forever trying
[2:16] Speaker 1: to finish the script and rewrite the ending. When Raymond
[2:22] Speaker 1: and his fifteen year old son were driving home and
[2:25] Speaker 1: heard the report of a murder suicide in Weatherford on
[2:29] Speaker 1: the radio, they looked at each other. Something about the
[2:34] Speaker 1: report rattled them.
[2:39] Speaker 2: We heard about it, and you know, they didn't have
[2:41] Speaker 2: any details and everything.
[2:42] Speaker 3: And I told my son, I said, let's go to Wellford.
[2:45] Speaker 3: I said, le'supp see about this stuff and stuff like that,
[2:48] Speaker 3: because they kept saying that one of them Hispanic, and
[2:51] Speaker 3: we had no idea that they didn't announce any names.
[2:53] Speaker 2: Right when I got here, I called my sister.
[2:58] Speaker 3: She had phones, so I called her and said, well
[3:01] Speaker 3: and he'd probably come up here, said Vincent sned I
[3:05] Speaker 3: wanted to talk to you about So we took off
[3:08] Speaker 3: from here and when I took to see him.
[3:10] Speaker 1: And after that call with his sister, Raymond drove straight
[3:15] Speaker 1: to Weatherford and eventually showed up at the crime scene.
[3:20] Speaker 3: It was to me it was premeditated murderer.
[3:24] Speaker 2: It was planned.
[3:25] Speaker 3: First I thought it was that they weren't the wrong
[3:28] Speaker 3: place at the wrong time, because they did a lot
[3:30] Speaker 3: of drug dealing right there in the spot. But that
[3:33] Speaker 3: wasn't so, because it couldn't have been because the reason
[3:36] Speaker 3: that it was it was ringing that night. Wynn was
[3:39] Speaker 3: born about thirty five or fifty mile an hours so
[3:42] Speaker 3: that night had been and weather for it had been
[3:44] Speaker 3: a real tremendous thunder and light and all this stuff,
[3:49] Speaker 3: so he couldn't have been in the wrong place at
[3:51] Speaker 3: the wrong time.
[3:55] Speaker 1: Raymond had actually studied criminal investigation long ago. He never
[4:00] Speaker 1: followed through, but fashioned himself as someone with investigative intuition,
[4:07] Speaker 1: and his observations on that morning, I'll say, certainly prove
[4:12] Speaker 1: as much. What was most unusual, though Raymond believes he
[4:17] Speaker 1: knows why, is that he and others were allowed to
[4:22] Speaker 1: walk into the crime scene and even look inside the
[4:25] Speaker 1: car where the kids had been found. First thing that
[4:29] Speaker 1: struck him when he studied the interior of the vehicle
[4:32] Speaker 1: were the shell cases.
[4:35] Speaker 3: He was murdered with a twenty two small colibers twenty two,
[4:41] Speaker 3: but there were hollow points and when they went in,
[4:43] Speaker 3: they went in and they'll be older and came out. Well,
[4:46] Speaker 3: they didn't come out. It was just pattered all inside
[4:49] Speaker 3: his head. It was shot twice and here was shot first.
[4:53] Speaker 3: I want to say my theory, my investigator, and Sue
[4:57] Speaker 3: was shot as Sue was trying to get away. He
[5:00] Speaker 3: was shut in the back of her head. The guy
[5:02] Speaker 3: was sitting in the back seat. He had a gun
[5:05] Speaker 3: and probably made him open the door and all this
[5:07] Speaker 3: stuff with a gun. There was a bootprint in the
[5:11] Speaker 3: back seat, real visible stuff almost major and everything now
[5:16] Speaker 3: and so I looked at it.
[5:18] Speaker 2: There was shell shell.
[5:20] Speaker 3: Cases in the car and hardly anything else. There was
[5:23] Speaker 3: a little trash, but not trashy trashy like this normal.
[5:27] Speaker 2: It was real clean. The car was real clean.
[5:30] Speaker 1: Was there blood spatter?
[5:32] Speaker 3: There was blood spatter on the driver's window. It didn't
[5:37] Speaker 3: blow the window uttering plant at it. On the window.
[5:40] Speaker 3: There was blood splatter from him on my nephew. And
[5:44] Speaker 3: then the other side had blood was not splattered it
[5:47] Speaker 3: was hit was some on the door, but mainly on.
[5:52] Speaker 2: The bottom part of the door.
[5:54] Speaker 3: She fell out when she opened the door, and they
[5:58] Speaker 3: shot her right there, and she felt allowed and hit
[6:00] Speaker 3: the i want to say, hit her head and on
[6:03] Speaker 3: the not the armrest, but further.
[6:05] Speaker 2: Down and went and hit her.
[6:08] Speaker 3: Head real hard because it'd imprint real good her head
[6:13] Speaker 3: on the mud.
[6:13] Speaker 2: Of course, a lot of blood.
[6:15] Speaker 1: Was it was described for me what you saw in
[6:18] Speaker 1: the mud.
[6:18] Speaker 3: Okay, an imprint like some uh not like a fist,
[6:23] Speaker 3: but it was a you know, you take a basketball
[6:25] Speaker 3: and just imprint the heck out of it almost like that.
[6:29] Speaker 1: It looked like a human's face.
[6:31] Speaker 3: Yes, yes, look it wasn't a face. It was the head,
[6:34] Speaker 3: top of the head. She felled it down into the mud.
[6:39] Speaker 1: And was there blood there too.
[6:42] Speaker 2: Yes, there was a lot of blood.
[6:44] Speaker 3: Because whoever was kidding them with, whoever was was helping
[6:47] Speaker 3: him or whatever. I'm sure he had help because they
[6:51] Speaker 3: took her back in the card and put her on
[6:55] Speaker 3: her seat, on the front seat, and then they put
[6:58] Speaker 3: him right next to her, and they put their armser
[7:01] Speaker 3: on on stuff like that. Mike, I don't know, Mike,
[7:04] Speaker 3: it look like they were therefore Mike Lovin or whatever.
[7:08] Speaker 3: You know, how can you say stuff like that that's.
[7:10] Speaker 2: What they were doing.
[7:17] Speaker 1: There are so many different versions of the moment the
[7:20] Speaker 1: kids were discovered and what happened before law enforcement arrived.
[7:25] Speaker 1: I think what we can say at this point without
[7:28] Speaker 1: question is that Vincent Senior moved the kids' bodies while
[7:34] Speaker 1: staging the scene, and in doing so, contaminated potential evidence.
[7:41] Speaker 1: The question you'd have to ask is why would he
[7:44] Speaker 1: move the bodies? Was it a moral decision which has
[7:49] Speaker 1: been suggested to me that he didn't want word to
[7:52] Speaker 1: get out that the kids were found in a compromising position,
[7:57] Speaker 1: or was he trying to hide something? And what did
[8:06] Speaker 1: Vincent Senior tell you, your brother about what he saw
[8:09] Speaker 1: when he got there?
[8:10] Speaker 3: Well, he saw, you know, next to each other and
[8:14] Speaker 3: uh arm around He had his arm around her, and
[8:18] Speaker 3: there were their heads were together, they were both the
[8:21] Speaker 3: head and he you know, he just went freaking, you know,
[8:26] Speaker 3: freaked out. And he loved to sign a lot, you know,
[8:29] Speaker 3: and his son, he had that cursain that every time
[8:33] Speaker 3: he was gonna go out and use my brother's car,
[8:38] Speaker 3: he had to be home by midnight.
[8:41] Speaker 2: And when that passed, I mean, you know, he said.
[8:43] Speaker 3: My brother said, I felt something real bad in me,
[8:46] Speaker 3: so I went to look for him.
[8:49] Speaker 1: I wondered exactly what time Vincent discovered the car. He
[8:54] Speaker 1: was out all night, driving up and down to the
[8:56] Speaker 1: top road and throughout town. By most accounts, he had
[9:01] Speaker 1: not seen the vehicle until sun up. Was the car
[9:05] Speaker 1: there throughout the night or had he just not seen
[9:08] Speaker 1: it because it was dark, Or was the car driven
[9:13] Speaker 1: up there early that morning and left out in the
[9:16] Speaker 1: open so it could be found. I've heard both theories
[9:21] Speaker 1: so far.
[9:23] Speaker 3: Really not suns hadn't come up, but there's enough daylight
[9:26] Speaker 3: so he could see the car.
[9:28] Speaker 4: He searched for.
[9:29] Speaker 3: Him all night, and when he was coming back home
[9:32] Speaker 3: there he couldn't find him.
[9:33] Speaker 2: He went to look for some help. You know, my
[9:35] Speaker 2: brother in law.
[9:36] Speaker 3: When he was coming home back, I said, he was
[9:39] Speaker 3: he saw the car like there. I mean, it was
[9:42] Speaker 3: right on the road this part on the side of
[9:45] Speaker 3: the road. There was a little bit there's a little
[9:47] Speaker 3: heel and you could see the car, or you can
[9:51] Speaker 3: see the little hill somewhere, you know, the road.
[9:54] Speaker 2: So he saw him.
[9:56] Speaker 3: He did not see him, which it was at night,
[9:58] Speaker 3: so he couldn't see the car when he when looking
[10:00] Speaker 3: for him, or he would have found him that night.
[10:03] Speaker 3: But he did, said when he was coming back, he
[10:05] Speaker 3: just went out for the car to see it was his, and.
[10:09] Speaker 1: He thought they had been dead for a while.
[10:11] Speaker 3: Yes, yes, they had been dead for a good while
[10:14] Speaker 3: in the hours.
[10:21] Speaker 1: Raymond makes a good point contradicting one of my original
[10:24] Speaker 1: thoughts that the car wasn't there throughout the night when
[10:28] Speaker 1: Vincent Senior was looking for them. Raymond believes Vincent Senior
[10:33] Speaker 1: would not have seen the car from the road in
[10:37] Speaker 1: the dark. Also his theory about the kids being shot
[10:42] Speaker 1: outside the vehicle, One source, if you recall, said she
[10:47] Speaker 1: saw blood on the telephone pole when she was up
[10:51] Speaker 1: there that morning. The only reason there would be blood
[10:56] Speaker 1: outside the car is if one or both had been
[10:59] Speaker 1: attacked or shot while standing or even running away. Next,
[11:04] Speaker 1: Raymond explained how Vincent Senior told him that as he
[11:08] Speaker 1: drove around, he suddenly got this strange feeling about the kids,
[11:14] Speaker 1: that something horrible had happened. He felt real bad.
[11:19] Speaker 2: Something hit him, like right in your chance or something
[11:23] Speaker 2: like that. Something hit him. And sometimes we.
[11:27] Speaker 3: Get that way, you know, we're hispanic field something like that.
[11:31] Speaker 3: You know, when something terrible like that happens, and I
[11:35] Speaker 3: don't know some kind of since tell you, I don't
[11:38] Speaker 3: know what it is, but we'll do a few things
[11:41] Speaker 3: like that.
[11:42] Speaker 2: So he felt something like that. That's when he went
[11:44] Speaker 2: to looking for him.
[11:46] Speaker 1: When Raymond first arrived at the scene, stepping out of
[11:49] Speaker 1: his vehicle, he couldn't believe what was going on within
[11:53] Speaker 1: the immediate crime scene area itself, people milling about, touching
[11:58] Speaker 1: the car, picking up what could be trace evidence off
[12:03] Speaker 1: the ground. Yet he feels he knows why.
[12:09] Speaker 3: I mean, when they they come out there, I mean
[12:11] Speaker 3: they came like dozens.
[12:13] Speaker 2: I think they were poorly mishandled. Everything was mishandled.
[12:18] Speaker 1: And the name Raymond mentions next, I've bleeped out. But
[12:22] Speaker 1: damn it all, it seems every time I turn around
[12:26] Speaker 1: and speak to someone new, the same name pops up.
[12:32] Speaker 2: I don't know if they were trying to cover up,
[12:34] Speaker 2: but what they.
[12:34] Speaker 3: Already knew what had happened, and big here police, the
[12:39] Speaker 3: city of Weatherford police were covering up for who everybody
[12:44] Speaker 3: blames because somebody said that they had seen some cop
[12:48] Speaker 3: cars there during that night. I'm going to say that
[12:53] Speaker 3: came and helped him clean.
[12:54] Speaker 2: Up the message.
[13:08] Speaker 1: Previously on Paper Ghosts.
[13:11] Speaker 5: The blood on the ground on her side. I didn't
[13:14] Speaker 5: see anything on handside when they were both shot the head.
[13:17] Speaker 5: He was shot for the second tad and I courtant mention.
[13:20] Speaker 5: Sad Out later said he drifted if.
[13:22] Speaker 6: He had that he got here all the side, but
[13:25] Speaker 6: with the amount of time that he had leased, you
[13:28] Speaker 6: almost experienced a similar thing there, right, Because their com
[13:31] Speaker 6: scene wasn't handled in nineteen eighty three the way it
[13:33] Speaker 6: would be handled today, or or even in nineteen ninety
[13:37] Speaker 6: three for that matter.
[13:38] Speaker 2: It's just just a different world. Yeah.
[13:41] Speaker 7: According to Vincent's family, he was show on the right
[13:43] Speaker 7: hand side too, because they all remember his left side
[13:46] Speaker 7: being just really messed up, the eye kind of hanging out,
[13:50] Speaker 7: so it would have been on the right temple as
[13:51] Speaker 7: well for Vincent.
[13:53] Speaker 1: My name is em William Phelps. I'm an investigative journalist
[13:57] Speaker 1: in the New York Times, best selling off of dozens
[14:01] Speaker 1: of true crime books. This is season five of Paper Ghosts.
[14:08] Speaker 1: The Texas teen Murders, a recurring theme which came up
[14:23] Speaker 1: time and again as I dug deeper into this case
[14:27] Speaker 1: became the drug trade, not that the kids were doping
[14:31] Speaker 1: or were friendly with dopers, but how widespread the production
[14:36] Speaker 1: and use of methamphetamine was in Parker County at this time,
[14:42] Speaker 1: and how it could have been the genesis of the
[14:45] Speaker 1: murders during those days. Immediately after Vincent and Shelley's bodies
[14:51] Speaker 1: were discovered, Weatherford police seemed to think the same thing,
[14:55] Speaker 1: because the focus quickly went to the meth trade as
[15:00] Speaker 1: a potential motive. It's possible this is a legitimate question
[15:05] Speaker 1: law enforcement posed in their search for an explanation. What
[15:10] Speaker 1: is also possible is that throwing that drug trade element
[15:15] Speaker 1: out into the public early on would keep people from
[15:18] Speaker 1: being overly concerned about the double murder of two teens
[15:22] Speaker 1: happening in their backyard. I don't think it's any secret
[15:26] Speaker 1: that the general public feels safer when a murder is
[15:30] Speaker 1: written off as drug related, which can feel confined to
[15:33] Speaker 1: a space like another world which the average suburban family
[15:38] Speaker 1: is not a part of. It also brings race and
[15:41] Speaker 1: social status into it all, perhaps even convincing people to
[15:46] Speaker 1: care less about solving it.
[15:49] Speaker 8: I kind of like my name to stay back, you know,
[15:53] Speaker 8: still alive. I'm going to start off by telling you
[15:56] Speaker 8: that Arker County isn't Maybury.
[16:00] Speaker 9: I was born and raised there.
[16:02] Speaker 8: I wouldn't want to go to town today at sixty
[16:06] Speaker 8: three and even get pulled over in that town.
[16:10] Speaker 1: This name you just heard bleeped out, just like you
[16:13] Speaker 1: heard censored previously, has been mentioned as being connected to
[16:17] Speaker 1: the murders by at least a dozen people I have interviewed.
[16:23] Speaker 1: Many still fear accusing this man of having played a
[16:27] Speaker 1: role in the murders. Yet I have seen zero material
[16:31] Speaker 1: evidence connecting him to the murders and have to wonder
[16:35] Speaker 1: if it is a mere rumor exacerbated by the power
[16:39] Speaker 1: of social media and time, and it's vitally important to
[16:44] Speaker 1: me not to docs someone based on suggestion or the
[16:49] Speaker 1: rumor mill alone. I am going to call her Christine,
[16:54] Speaker 1: a source I connected with. She was deeply embedded in
[16:59] Speaker 1: the drug culture of Weatherford and Parker County back in
[17:02] Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three. Knew most of the players and also cooked,
[17:07] Speaker 1: used and sold meth. Although I myself have been sober
[17:11] Speaker 1: from alcohol now thirty years, I understand this world and
[17:17] Speaker 1: knew many of the same types of people Christine will describe,
[17:23] Speaker 1: So I am no stranger to this crowd and how
[17:26] Speaker 1: they rip and run. With that in mind, I got
[17:31] Speaker 1: right into it with her. Did they see something they
[17:36] Speaker 1: shouldn't have seen? I mean, because they were executed, So.
[17:40] Speaker 8: Yeah, I'm gonna say that's probably what happened exactly.
[17:45] Speaker 9: I think a lot of the cops were in on it.
[17:48] Speaker 8: And you still got one comp that's there in town
[17:50] Speaker 8: that he was in on all this stuff too. Some
[17:53] Speaker 8: of the main players that I recalled that was always.
[17:58] Speaker 9: Badgering, oh there they are, or they would follow you.
[18:01] Speaker 9: Well we would, you know, we'd end up following them,
[18:04] Speaker 9: so we'd chase them.
[18:06] Speaker 10: You know.
[18:06] Speaker 9: It was sort of a can't mouse, but they wanted
[18:09] Speaker 9: to come at you.
[18:11] Speaker 1: Christine goes on to tell me that everybody believed most
[18:15] Speaker 1: law enforcement were on the take, and some even controlled
[18:20] Speaker 1: the drug trade. Then she drops a woman's name she
[18:23] Speaker 1: knew personally, whom others have also mentioned to me. This
[18:28] Speaker 1: person was always in trouble and frequently arrested for drugs.
[18:34] Speaker 1: Though it seems once she hooked up with a cop,
[18:37] Speaker 1: her life you could say, well it got a hell
[18:41] Speaker 1: of a lot easier.
[18:42] Speaker 8: And now I'm going to go on to tell you
[18:44] Speaker 8: some more story that whenever I would get.
[18:46] Speaker 9: Turn in jail, and that was always in there.
[18:50] Speaker 11: Well, she would screw through the balls, which was I'm
[18:55] Speaker 11: not sure it was title, but he was at to
[18:57] Speaker 11: SHARE's office then too, with screw through the bars.
[19:01] Speaker 9: I sit there and watch them. And she's been to
[19:03] Speaker 9: prison a whole bunch.
[19:05] Speaker 12: I've never been to prison. Thank God, I got some
[19:09] Speaker 12: sense about myself. She was at my cousin's house when
[19:12] Speaker 12: my cousin died. I think she overdosed her. So I
[19:17] Speaker 12: would never say never to that one.
[19:20] Speaker 9: She was weird. She was bizarre.
[19:23] Speaker 8: I'm not saying that I wasn't, but she was the
[19:26] Speaker 8: one that maybe couldn't handle it.
[19:28] Speaker 9: Maybe she needed to quit that stuff, but she was
[19:30] Speaker 9: weird as hell.
[19:32] Speaker 1: I'm trying to get what you're saying. You're saying that
[19:34] Speaker 1: maybe she could have done something to the kids.
[19:37] Speaker 9: I think she fits in there somewhere. I've always thought that,
[19:41] Speaker 9: and that's my thought. I thought. I don't think it's
[19:44] Speaker 9: a rumor around town. That's a deal that me and
[19:47] Speaker 9: you are talking about.
[19:51] Speaker 2: It is.
[19:51] Speaker 1: Indeed, one of the many rumors I have heard. Was
[19:57] Speaker 1: it shocking around town that the two kids had been
[20:00] Speaker 1: ordered executed shot?
[20:02] Speaker 9: I don't think I was surprised, how come?
[20:06] Speaker 8: Just knowing the tyrants around town, knowing that they probably
[20:10] Speaker 8: fell into the wrong place at the wrong town.
[20:12] Speaker 9: It was a dark town. And boy, if you ever,
[20:15] Speaker 9: if you ever knew a little.
[20:18] Speaker 8: Bit, it's just a scary town. It is a lot
[20:23] Speaker 8: of us kids were hound drugs.
[20:28] Speaker 9: I think there was more. Eve Honey was cut up
[20:33] Speaker 9: and has parted out around Parker County.
[20:36] Speaker 8: I don't know if it was had anything to do
[20:37] Speaker 8: with some of the big people around there with.
[20:40] Speaker 9: Job or what.
[20:43] Speaker 1: When I hear stories like this within the context of
[20:47] Speaker 1: an unsolved double murder, I need to consider that gossip
[20:52] Speaker 1: about this case was rampant back in the day and
[20:55] Speaker 1: still is. If those statements cannot be backed up with
[21:00] Speaker 1: two or even three additional sources, they have to go
[21:05] Speaker 1: into the questionable column. Christine has every reason to dislike cops.
[21:11] Speaker 1: She was a criminal on their shit list. That's inherent bias.
[21:18] Speaker 1: So I listen and later consider whether to include or
[21:22] Speaker 1: exclude the information. All that being said, what she tells
[21:28] Speaker 1: me next is kind of remarkable.
[21:31] Speaker 8: We all used a little little dope, even the ones
[21:35] Speaker 8: you wouldn't think was using dope in town.
[21:40] Speaker 9: You know, we smoked cigarettes, smoked lids. But then when
[21:47] Speaker 9: they are caught on.
[21:50] Speaker 8: And then there was quite a few cops in town
[21:53] Speaker 8: that you would see one with a horse trailer full
[21:57] Speaker 8: of weed. And I want to tell you all these
[22:00] Speaker 8: people that I'm talking about, after these kids were killed,
[22:03] Speaker 8: it's sort of like they like disappeared.
[22:07] Speaker 1: Tell me about what you remember about that weekend March
[22:12] Speaker 1: twenty fifth, twenty sixth, what happens.
[22:15] Speaker 8: What I remember is I was kind of doing my
[22:18] Speaker 8: own things, staying in Fort Worth so that I would
[22:21] Speaker 8: stay out of Weatherford. But what happens whenever I came
[22:26] Speaker 8: back into town, they pulled me in for murder, and
[22:30] Speaker 8: then they also pulled my little brother in for murder.
[22:34] Speaker 1: They pulled you in from murder, for who's murder?
[22:37] Speaker 9: For those kids.
[22:44] Speaker 1: My source, Christine explains that she and her brother were
[22:49] Speaker 1: hauled in for the murders of Vincent and Shelley during
[22:52] Speaker 1: those early days after their bodies were found on Pis Hill.
[22:58] Speaker 1: I had so many questions. Number one, why her why
[23:04] Speaker 1: her brother? Were they just rounding up the local known
[23:07] Speaker 1: drug crowd and questioning them or did they have a
[23:11] Speaker 1: viable reason to drag them in?
[23:15] Speaker 9: And they questioned us.
[23:17] Speaker 8: I didn't get polygraphed. But whenever they asked me who
[23:22] Speaker 8: I thought it was. I told him it was a tyrant.
[23:26] Speaker 1: Back up a little bit for me. So you're living
[23:28] Speaker 1: outside of Weatherford and the kids are murdered, and when
[23:34] Speaker 1: and how does it happen? Where are you? What happens?
[23:38] Speaker 4: You know?
[23:39] Speaker 9: That would be hard for me to say.
[23:40] Speaker 8: I was probably hard in hell, but I'm gonna guess
[23:43] Speaker 8: I was probably in Fort Worth.
[23:45] Speaker 9: He was selling drugs, my ex husband, the piece of
[23:50] Speaker 9: shit that he was.
[23:51] Speaker 8: Anyway, we stayed more in Fort Worth so that we
[23:54] Speaker 8: wouldn't get in trouble because we.
[23:55] Speaker 9: Did know what Parker County was. And I say Parker County,
[23:59] Speaker 9: that's Weatherford.
[24:00] Speaker 8: I just remember I would come into town, but I
[24:02] Speaker 8: would get right back out because I knew always up
[24:06] Speaker 8: to no good with the use and sales of drugs.
[24:10] Speaker 1: How do they latch onto you for the murder of
[24:12] Speaker 1: the two teenagers, Vincent and Shelley.
[24:15] Speaker 9: They just picked us up from the house. I think
[24:19] Speaker 9: I was at.
[24:20] Speaker 1: My mother's so they pick you up.
[24:22] Speaker 8: I think it was because I was a smart ass
[24:25] Speaker 8: in town. I just didn't tolerate them. I was respectful,
[24:29] Speaker 8: yet I never would give them any information. Would ask
[24:34] Speaker 8: you to sell his dope.
[24:35] Speaker 9: Or you're going to go to jail, you.
[24:37] Speaker 8: Know, all that type of stuff. So we had already
[24:39] Speaker 8: had conflict.
[24:46] Speaker 1: I had heard the same accusation from others. If he
[24:50] Speaker 1: wanted you to you either sold or cooked for the guy,
[24:54] Speaker 1: or he was up your ass all the time, and
[24:57] Speaker 1: you would eventually go down in a big way. And
[25:01] Speaker 1: how long after the murders were you pulled in?
[25:04] Speaker 9: It was right away.
[25:06] Speaker 1: So they come to your house, they handcuff you. I mean,
[25:09] Speaker 1: what happens?
[25:11] Speaker 9: They said they needed to question me. They took me
[25:13] Speaker 9: down to the city for questioning.
[25:15] Speaker 1: What kind of questions did they ask you?
[25:18] Speaker 9: Did you kill the kids? Do you know anything about it?
[25:22] Speaker 9: Top deal?
[25:23] Speaker 8: We heard you did it, we heard you were involved,
[25:26] Speaker 8: those kind of questions of it was like they were
[25:30] Speaker 8: trying to jam you up, admitting that you had done
[25:33] Speaker 8: the crime.
[25:34] Speaker 9: Whenever I hadn't done the crime. I wouldn't kill kids.
[25:38] Speaker 1: What evidence did they have that they were able to
[25:41] Speaker 1: drag you into this?
[25:43] Speaker 10: It was just who we were in Wetherford. I see,
[25:47] Speaker 10: you know, I wasn't precious by no means. I just
[25:51] Speaker 10: did what I wanted to do, and I didn't care
[25:53] Speaker 10: what somebody else thought about it.
[25:56] Speaker 1: How did you ultimately get out of that? When did
[25:59] Speaker 1: they let you go?
[26:00] Speaker 13: Well, they asked me, they let us Lada let me
[26:03] Speaker 13: go right away. After they questioned me and they said,
[26:09] Speaker 13: who do you think it is?
[26:11] Speaker 9: And I said it's I said, it's who it is.
[26:15] Speaker 1: What did they say to that?
[26:17] Speaker 8: I don't remember the exact expression or reply.
[26:22] Speaker 9: That's been so many years ago.
[26:24] Speaker 8: I remember they treated you like, oh yeah type situation,
[26:29] Speaker 8: like yeah, oh yeah, right. I think they just was
[26:33] Speaker 8: questioning him because they didn't know. I don't think they
[26:37] Speaker 8: knew who it was, okay, And to be quite honest,
[26:43] Speaker 8: I remember it was just something that you kind of
[26:45] Speaker 8: knew that it was.
[26:47] Speaker 9: Just did I know that? To be true? No, I didn't.
[26:50] Speaker 1: Why would he have a motive to kill the kids?
[26:53] Speaker 1: What would be the motive?
[26:55] Speaker 9: He was selling drugs himself, He was getting the dope.
[27:01] Speaker 8: And then he would get his little hon yaks, the
[27:05] Speaker 8: ones that were just playing users, not sellers and users.
[27:09] Speaker 1: When you say he was selling dope, who do you mean? Okay,
[27:14] Speaker 1: so what mode of would he have to kill the kids?
[27:18] Speaker 1: Because Vincent wasn't selling dope, right, I mean now, I
[27:23] Speaker 1: think they.
[27:24] Speaker 9: Were just doing the parking I'll be kissing if I
[27:29] Speaker 9: was givesing. We called that his heel there where it was,
[27:32] Speaker 9: and it was. It was in the same parking lot
[27:35] Speaker 9: with a school. There was an old school.
[27:38] Speaker 14: It was in.
[27:42] Speaker 1: One after the other, six seven, eight. So many people
[27:47] Speaker 1: I've spoken to paint this picture of law enforcement being
[27:52] Speaker 1: involved in the drug trade and the kids coming upon
[27:57] Speaker 1: some sort of deal, seeing something they should not have.
[28:01] Speaker 1: But I am still uncertain about hanging my hat on
[28:04] Speaker 1: this theory. There are just too many unanswered questions and variables. Still.
[28:11] Speaker 1: The truth is, the Weatherford Police Department and all the
[28:15] Speaker 1: way up to the Attorney General's Office have denied my
[28:19] Speaker 1: requests for any reports or witness statements from nineteen eighty three.
[28:25] Speaker 1: This substruction has forced me to talk to everyone myself
[28:31] Speaker 1: forty plus years later. And if there's one obstacle in
[28:34] Speaker 1: cold case investigation you consistently face, it's that time has
[28:41] Speaker 1: a way of adding texture and heft to stories. People
[28:46] Speaker 1: can talk conspiracy, cover up, the cops did it all
[28:50] Speaker 1: day long, And yet I always begin with a basic
[28:54] Speaker 1: Okham's razor premise that murder is uncomplicated. The simplest answer,
[29:01] Speaker 1: the one that makes the most sense, is the answer,
[29:05] Speaker 1: and in this case, the potential is there that the
[29:09] Speaker 1: uncomplicated resolution making the most sense is that law enforcement
[29:14] Speaker 1: is corrupt and behind it all. Sometimes within a reinvestigation,
[29:20] Speaker 1: you need to ask tough questions you know will not
[29:24] Speaker 1: sit right with victims' families, but it is necessary if
[29:29] Speaker 1: your goal is to get at the truth for the
[29:33] Speaker 1: sake of argument, to say the girl was raped. Would
[29:35] Speaker 1: that bring up any other names for you?
[29:38] Speaker 2: There is?
[29:39] Speaker 8: I call them bump monkeys because they always just said
[29:44] Speaker 8: they were sort of like wimpy with the hamburger.
[29:47] Speaker 9: Can you front me today and I'll pay you faddy
[29:49] Speaker 9: tap deal.
[29:51] Speaker 1: That comment about bump monkeys is interesting because I have
[29:56] Speaker 1: been told by several sources that Shelley was raped and that,
[30:02] Speaker 1: as you have already heard, she had scratches which I
[30:05] Speaker 1: have not confirmed as of yet, along the right side
[30:08] Speaker 1: of her body, as if she had been dragged through
[30:12] Speaker 1: a briar patch. So an obvious theory could be a
[30:16] Speaker 1: few bump monkeys. Dudes Jones and for a fix hanging
[30:20] Speaker 1: around piss Hill looking for dope came upon the car
[30:25] Speaker 1: as Vincent and Shelley were hanging out. They got into
[30:29] Speaker 1: it with Vincent killed him and then raped Shelley before
[30:33] Speaker 1: murdering her, all because they wanted dope. So there wasn't
[30:41] Speaker 1: like a sexual deviant in town that everybody knew about. No,
[30:46] Speaker 1: basically from what I'm getting from you, as you think
[30:48] Speaker 1: they saw something up at the hill they shouldn't have seen. Yeah,
[30:53] Speaker 1: or possibly they saw it down on North Maine while
[30:55] Speaker 1: they were cruising and somebody followed them.
[31:01] Speaker 9: I haven't thought of that theory.
[31:03] Speaker 8: I think they've pulled up while something was probably going on.
[31:06] Speaker 9: If it's had to give the situation.
[31:29] Speaker 14: Hey, try.
[31:32] Speaker 2: How are you doing.
[31:32] Speaker 1: Nice to meet you, Nice to meet your girlfriend.
[31:35] Speaker 14: Basically, Hi, good morning, Bessie.
[31:38] Speaker 1: Nice to meet you.
[31:42] Speaker 14: Come on and have a seat.
[31:45] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so yeah, thanks for coming man.
[31:49] Speaker 14: I appreciate it, no problem. I'm glad you're getting involved.
[31:52] Speaker 14: She's said a lot about you.
[31:55] Speaker 1: With the help of mel Mitchell and Laurie Kate's I
[31:59] Speaker 1: met one of Shelley Colliflowers close cousins. He's an old
[32:03] Speaker 1: school Texan, speaks his mind, doesn't hold back, and doesn't
[32:08] Speaker 1: give two shits about what anybody thinks or has to
[32:12] Speaker 1: say about him.
[32:14] Speaker 14: My kind of guy. My name's Troy Nichelius. I'm from Dallas, Texas.
[32:22] Speaker 14: Shelley was my cousin.
[32:26] Speaker 1: Like all of Shelley's family, Troy wants to see action,
[32:30] Speaker 1: accountability and expects law enforcement to provide the family with
[32:35] Speaker 1: updates and answers. And they haven't done any of that
[32:39] Speaker 1: throughout forty plus years, he says. In Troy's view, they've
[32:46] Speaker 1: had enough people telling them that the guiding theory of
[32:49] Speaker 1: the case involves big names in town at the time,
[32:53] Speaker 1: and those people need to be brought in and questioned.
[32:57] Speaker 1: Yet nothing has been done in that regard. And where
[33:06] Speaker 1: did you grow up?
[33:07] Speaker 14: Troy durre in Dallas, Texa's actually Garland.
[33:10] Speaker 1: Garland, Texas. And tell me about growing up in Texas
[33:13] Speaker 1: at that at that time. What were you like as
[33:16] Speaker 1: a kid?
[33:16] Speaker 14: Troy started out in the high school with rodeo and
[33:20] Speaker 14: stuff like that, and graduated high school and kind of
[33:25] Speaker 14: went downhill a little bit and then started getting it
[33:28] Speaker 14: all back together and done a lot of things in life.
[33:31] Speaker 14: You know, got to travel to over forty eight part
[33:34] Speaker 14: of Canada. Oh wow, wow, I love to ride.
[33:37] Speaker 1: So oh you got a Harley, Oh yeah, So tell
[33:41] Speaker 1: me a little bit about the rodeo. What was your
[33:42] Speaker 1: experience like with the rodeo.
[33:45] Speaker 14: Never really got any good, but we had a lot
[33:47] Speaker 14: of fun was doing bull riding and high school we
[33:50] Speaker 14: called it shoot doggings.
[33:52] Speaker 1: Shoot dogging.
[33:53] Speaker 14: They you bring them out of the shoot and go
[33:57] Speaker 14: so far and throw them down fastest winds.
[34:01] Speaker 1: And so tell me about the family. Big family, small family.
[34:04] Speaker 14: Medium sized family. Most of them lived down around Meridian, Texas, Clifton, Texas.
[34:10] Speaker 1: And so how were.
[34:11] Speaker 14: You connected with Shelley? How does that My father and
[34:15] Speaker 14: her mother or brother and sister kind of sort of
[34:19] Speaker 14: grew up together. We didn't spend a lot of time
[34:21] Speaker 14: with each other because they live in elsewhere, you know,
[34:25] Speaker 14: so holidays and summertime, trips to grandparents' house and stuff,
[34:30] Speaker 14: so we got to spend a little bit of time together.
[34:32] Speaker 14: Shelley always got along with everybody. It was easy going,
[34:37] Speaker 14: a happy girl, you know. Like I said, we didn't
[34:41] Speaker 14: get to spend a whole lot of time together. But
[34:44] Speaker 14: whenever my mom and us kids would go down to
[34:48] Speaker 14: Meridian to see other family as well, you know, and
[34:51] Speaker 14: if they were there, we hung out for the day
[34:53] Speaker 14: or the weekend. Not much to do in that little town.
[34:58] Speaker 1: Troy sketches up familiar portrait of a family in flux,
[35:02] Speaker 1: a family getting together and sharing stories, but also a
[35:06] Speaker 1: family drifting apart. He has some rather bold views about
[35:11] Speaker 1: the murder of his cousin and has pretty much kept
[35:14] Speaker 1: them to himself until now. As we spoke two things,
[35:19] Speaker 1: Troy mentions send me in a new direction, even if
[35:23] Speaker 1: that direction rings a familiar bell. Troy got involved in
[35:29] Speaker 1: Shelley's case after being thrust into a rather strange situation
[35:33] Speaker 1: as he began to ask questions and poke his finger
[35:37] Speaker 1: into people's chests. Have you heard things about Weatherford?
[35:41] Speaker 14: Heard a lot of things about Weatherford? What have you heard?
[35:44] Speaker 14: Just the problems with the law, and that you know
[35:48] Speaker 14: covers everybody, court law whatever. As a young child, never
[35:53] Speaker 14: went and like I said, I kind of got messed
[35:56] Speaker 14: up in life, sure years ago and had things nothing
[36:01] Speaker 14: pertaining to this, but just about how the law was
[36:05] Speaker 14: that kind of.
[36:05] Speaker 1: Stuff, How did the law work there? Did you hear
[36:10] Speaker 1: crooked good old Boys club?
[36:12] Speaker 14: Yeah you could say that I didn't hear it that
[36:15] Speaker 14: a way, but yes, heard a lot more about that
[36:17] Speaker 14: since this has been going on, talking to people over
[36:21] Speaker 14: the telephone and stuff like that. Sure, Sure, I know
[36:24] Speaker 14: back in the wilder days I know, a lot of
[36:27] Speaker 14: stuff come through this area.
[36:29] Speaker 1: What kind of stuff?
[36:30] Speaker 14: The drugs?
[36:32] Speaker 1: What kind of drugs?
[36:33] Speaker 14: I don't really know. The speed wasn't really on what
[36:37] Speaker 14: I was into, but I know a lot of people
[36:40] Speaker 14: that were coming to this area to do their pickups, yes,
[36:44] Speaker 14: and from who and stuff I can't couldn't say.
[36:48] Speaker 1: Troy clarified that by speed, he's referring to math. Do
[36:53] Speaker 1: you recall hearing about what happened to Shelley and Vincent?
[36:56] Speaker 14: I got there the day after it happened. You know,
[37:00] Speaker 14: wasn't hearing a lot because we're considered kids at that time,
[37:04] Speaker 14: even though a senior in high school, and I remember
[37:06] Speaker 14: hearing my father and his brother that had talked about,
[37:12] Speaker 14: you know, word is that the man that owns the
[37:16] Speaker 14: town and didn't know it back at the time, knew
[37:19] Speaker 14: he owned a sausage plan or a processing plant. Really
[37:24] Speaker 14: couldn't say what kind of plant it was, but it
[37:26] Speaker 14: was to do something with animals, that he owned the
[37:30] Speaker 14: town that somehow he was involved. And then again they're
[37:37] Speaker 14: talking at that time about the law being involved. Can't
[37:42] Speaker 14: really finger pinpoint to any certain person, you know, and
[37:46] Speaker 14: just being straight up about it, but it was you
[37:49] Speaker 14: know the man that owns the town, his people are involved,
[37:52] Speaker 14: and the law.
[37:55] Speaker 1: That man, Weldon Kennedy and his sausage processing plant is
[37:59] Speaker 1: a threat. I began to hear from several people I interviewed.
[38:04] Speaker 1: By the time I sat down with Troy in early
[38:07] Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, I still wasn't certain how a sausage
[38:11] Speaker 1: factory in Weatherford and its wealthy businessman owner could be
[38:15] Speaker 1: connected to the murders of two teens in town. The
[38:19] Speaker 1: year following the murders, nineteen eighty four, Weldon Kennedy was
[38:23] Speaker 1: convicted of alien crimes, as the local paper put it,
[38:27] Speaker 1: thirty one charges relating to transporting and harboring undocumented workers
[38:34] Speaker 1: human trafficking. He was bringing in illegal aliens from Mexico
[38:39] Speaker 1: and hiding them out in his plant, basically making them
[38:42] Speaker 1: work to pay off debts. A nice word for it
[38:46] Speaker 1: is indentured servitude. We've all heard this disgusting narrative before,
[38:53] Speaker 1: but Kennedy has been accused of other crimes as well,
[38:57] Speaker 1: big bad things. So I asked mel Mitchell, who has
[39:02] Speaker 1: spent years running this part of the case down, to
[39:06] Speaker 1: explain the connection between this guy and these murders. Had
[39:10] Speaker 1: the kids somehow stumbled upon his human trafficking operation that night.
[39:18] Speaker 1: Was I back to square one, a motive that makes
[39:20] Speaker 1: perfect sense, wrong place, wrong time.
[39:26] Speaker 7: Kennedy's Sausage company is owned by Weldon Kennedy, and it
[39:30] Speaker 7: was probably one of the bigger employment companies in that
[39:35] Speaker 7: time period back you know, and I know he owned
[39:37] Speaker 7: a couple of other businesses, but I know that was
[39:39] Speaker 7: like a larger place of employment for people in Weatherford.
[39:43] Speaker 7: Looking at court cases, well, to have been convicted of
[39:46] Speaker 7: quite a few different crimes of a time period, and
[39:49] Speaker 7: those also included the illegal immigrants that he was having
[39:53] Speaker 7: brought in from you know, from Central America, Mexico then,
[39:57] Speaker 7: so he was hiding them in the facility. There's like
[40:01] Speaker 7: a specially a false wall from what we understand, and
[40:03] Speaker 7: so you can move it back and I could hold
[40:05] Speaker 7: maybe I've heard up to eleven people in it. But
[40:08] Speaker 7: that's also where we may have had a stash of
[40:10] Speaker 7: illegal alcohol. He had also been rumored to be gun
[40:15] Speaker 7: smuggling human trafficking, you know, obviously narcotics. We believe he
[40:20] Speaker 7: is also involved in our togics trafficking. So he kind
[40:23] Speaker 7: of had his fingers in pretty much everything.
[40:31] Speaker 1: What you just heard private investigator Mel Mitchell explain opened
[40:36] Speaker 1: up a vein in this case, taking me further down
[40:39] Speaker 1: into a rabbit hole than I could have ever expected.
[40:44] Speaker 1: It seems that Kennedy was connected to the same man
[40:48] Speaker 1: whose name I've been censoring throughout the podcast, someone high
[40:53] Speaker 1: up in law enforcement. So now you're looking at the
[40:56] Speaker 1: potential of a hardcore, convicted criminal, Weldon Kennedy involved in
[41:02] Speaker 1: enormously profitable federal crimes. It's not crazy to think that
[41:08] Speaker 1: a guy like this wouldn't have thought twice about taking
[41:12] Speaker 1: out two kids who randomly stumbled upon his operation or
[41:19] Speaker 1: ran into one of his soldiers. Jimmy Freeman was a
[41:23] Speaker 1: deputy for the Sheriff's department back in the day and
[41:26] Speaker 1: had a lot to say about what was going on
[41:29] Speaker 1: inside that department, a department that kept a close eye
[41:35] Speaker 1: on what was going on around Weatherford.
[41:40] Speaker 4: I'm from Minerales, right west to Weatherford, and it's a
[41:44] Speaker 4: smaller town than Weatherford. Just as soon as I was
[41:47] Speaker 4: in a school, I went to work for the State
[41:49] Speaker 4: of Texas down in Huntsville on what's going to college
[41:53] Speaker 4: down there? Get Huntsville and I started working for the
[41:57] Speaker 4: penitentiary and the game mordens and the highway patrols when
[42:01] Speaker 4: I was just a young man and stayed there, stayed
[42:05] Speaker 4: there for ten eleven years, and went from there when
[42:11] Speaker 4: I come When I left there and come up here,
[42:13] Speaker 4: I went to work for the Sheriff's Department and stayed
[42:16] Speaker 4: here another six or seven years here in Parker County
[42:20] Speaker 4: with the Sheriff's Department. And I finally got out and
[42:23] Speaker 4: started doing anything and everything, building houses, building barns, building senses.
[42:28] Speaker 1: When he went to work for the Sheriff's department, Jimmy
[42:31] Speaker 1: says he saw and heard things which were hard to
[42:34] Speaker 1: believe at first, and almost as if on Q that
[42:39] Speaker 1: name I have been censoring throughout, it comes up again.
[42:45] Speaker 4: Well, it was okay at first when I first, when
[42:48] Speaker 4: I first went to work for him, but then all
[42:52] Speaker 4: of a sudden changed the laws as he went as
[42:55] Speaker 4: he went down the road, and there's not but one
[42:58] Speaker 4: law ever been made. And he wanted me the very
[43:03] Speaker 4: first time, there was a man that was asleep on
[43:06] Speaker 4: the side of the road.
[43:07] Speaker 2: I got the call, so I went.
[43:08] Speaker 4: I went out there and found the man. He was asleep.
[43:11] Speaker 9: There was an empty whiskey bottle.
[43:13] Speaker 4: In the back and wanted me to give him a
[43:16] Speaker 4: d w I, And I told I can't give him
[43:20] Speaker 4: no d w I. I said, I didn't see the
[43:22] Speaker 4: man driving. He's sleep in the damn car.
[43:33] Speaker 1: A seemingly small corruption operation soon turned into what Jimmy
[43:37] Speaker 1: saw as a much bigger one as time went on
[43:40] Speaker 1: and he kept his mouth shut and his eyes open.
[43:45] Speaker 4: Then I found out two or three times that he
[43:48] Speaker 4: had some people's deal cars and tear them apart, take
[43:51] Speaker 4: them apart, and sell all the parts different places and
[43:54] Speaker 4: stuff like that. It just rocked on, and he was
[43:59] Speaker 4: not the man I thought he was.
[44:01] Speaker 2: When I went to work for him.
[44:03] Speaker 1: I asked him about the production and distribution of methamphetamine.
[44:09] Speaker 1: Had he ever discovered anyone in law enforcement involved?
[44:15] Speaker 4: And I knew where there were some places down here
[44:17] Speaker 4: at Millsap, that there was put some cooks down there
[44:21] Speaker 4: when he finally quit up under, but he moved.
[44:25] Speaker 2: They moved.
[44:25] Speaker 4: He moved down there. And he had two places in
[44:28] Speaker 4: mills Oup, both owned by the county, and.
[44:30] Speaker 1: These were places where they cooked methamphetamine.
[44:35] Speaker 9: Yes, yes, so was involved.
[44:40] Speaker 1: In the process of the cooking or distribution or was
[44:44] Speaker 1: he overseeing.
[44:45] Speaker 2: All of it? All of it?
[44:47] Speaker 4: And like I said everything. He had to cook all
[44:50] Speaker 4: this stuff, and they distributed and put it down. Rex
[44:54] Speaker 4: Cobble Weldon Kennedy.
[44:58] Speaker 1: Rex Cobble, known as the marijuana kingpin of Texas during
[45:03] Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies, and also as Jimmy Freeman, seems to
[45:08] Speaker 1: suggest the general within what was known as the Cowboy Mafia,
[45:14] Speaker 1: a large group of very wealthy drug smugglers. Cobble was
[45:19] Speaker 1: later indicted and convicted on ten counts ranging from racketeering
[45:24] Speaker 1: to misapplication of bank funds. Rex Cobble and Weldon Kennedy,
[45:29] Speaker 1: Jimmy says, we're at the top, whereas the other man, Well,
[45:35] Speaker 1: I'll let Jimmy explain.
[45:37] Speaker 4: A little man up against Rex Cobble and in wild
[45:43] Speaker 4: and Kennedy.
[45:44] Speaker 1: Okay, the sausage guy they.
[45:46] Speaker 4: Were, he was it was like about four or five
[45:50] Speaker 4: counties when Rix Cobble was. He was worldwide, and Weldon
[45:55] Speaker 4: Kennedy was four or five states, if not more.
[46:00] Speaker 1: I needed to wrap my mind around exactly what Jimmy
[46:04] Speaker 1: Freeman was telling me that this high ranking member of
[46:08] Speaker 1: law enforcement and Weldon Kennedy were allegedly at one time
[46:14] Speaker 1: major meth distributors in Parker County, and beyond. Jimmy wasn't
[46:20] Speaker 1: the only source telling me this. I had heard it
[46:23] Speaker 1: time and again from law enforcement whistleblowers and others living
[46:27] Speaker 1: in the area, many of whom had actually worked for
[46:31] Speaker 1: the two of them. But what's even more astonishing is
[46:35] Speaker 1: two people closely connected to Kennedy and that law enforcement
[46:40] Speaker 1: official NW Vincent and especially Shelley very well. These types
[46:58] Speaker 1: of cold case, where information can feel scattered and fragmented,
[47:03] Speaker 1: require patience. I've learned over the years to trust the process,
[47:10] Speaker 1: keep talking to people and keep asking the right questions,
[47:14] Speaker 1: and if there is a greater truth to be found,
[47:16] Speaker 1: it will somehow rise to the surface all on its own.
[47:22] Speaker 1: Speaking to Jimmy Freeman felt like I could see the
[47:25] Speaker 1: sun rising just over the mountains, with peaks of light
[47:29] Speaker 1: finally starting to emerge. Shelley's cousin, Troy, wasn't finished talking,
[47:36] Speaker 1: and what he tells me next sends things and yet
[47:40] Speaker 1: another direction. So what are you hearing from the family.
[47:46] Speaker 1: I mean, obviously everyone's distraught. Do you remember how it
[47:51] Speaker 1: was for family back then?
[47:53] Speaker 14: Oh, everybody was really tore up. It just took us
[47:56] Speaker 14: all by you know, major surprise. I mean, Shelley wouldn't
[47:59] Speaker 14: have done. From what I know of Shelley throughout the
[48:03] Speaker 14: you know what, sixteen seventeen years there, she was sweet, innocent,
[48:08] Speaker 14: didn't want problems, never caused any problems that I knew
[48:12] Speaker 14: of or mayby besides, you know, sneaking out of the
[48:14] Speaker 14: house or something other. I don't maybe a little smart
[48:17] Speaker 14: mouth talking or something other. That's about all I knew
[48:20] Speaker 14: of up until this happened. And then I can remember
[48:24] Speaker 14: my dad and his brother talking about it. Aunt Johnny
[48:28] Speaker 14: at the time wasn't really in a position to be talking,
[48:31] Speaker 14: you know, being all upset and stuff. But yeah, it
[48:34] Speaker 14: was pretty tough on the family. And it's a shame
[48:37] Speaker 14: that a lot of her family has passed away and
[48:39] Speaker 14: we've never gotten anywhere.
[48:41] Speaker 2: You know.
[48:42] Speaker 14: I think of her from time to time, and now
[48:44] Speaker 14: that you know, forty plus years has gone by, it's
[48:47] Speaker 14: lessen that every day. I guess you could say that
[48:50] Speaker 14: you'd stopped, I would stop and think of her. I know,
[48:53] Speaker 14: back in the day, you know, at my age, that
[48:56] Speaker 14: was all I could think about for a long time,
[48:59] Speaker 14: you know, just trying to close your eyes and picture
[49:01] Speaker 14: of what really happened that night, you know, I know,
[49:05] Speaker 14: Vincent he was from hearing the family talk. He was
[49:07] Speaker 14: a well liked guy. I knew a lot of people,
[49:10] Speaker 14: of course, knowing how Shelley is, you know, like I said,
[49:12] Speaker 14: she was a good kid as far as I'm concerned,
[49:16] Speaker 14: never really done anything wrong.
[49:19] Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier that there were two things Shelley's cousin Troy,
[49:23] Speaker 1: told me, both of which sent me scurrying down into
[49:27] Speaker 1: a deeper part of this investigation. One was the implication
[49:33] Speaker 1: that convicted human trafficker Welding Kennedy had some sort of
[49:37] Speaker 1: connection to the case. The other is more recent, much
[49:42] Speaker 1: more Actually, something strange happened to Troy one evening in
[49:49] Speaker 1: late twenty twenty four when he got home from work.
[49:53] Speaker 1: He stepped out of his truck, walked toward the front
[49:56] Speaker 1: door of his house and found a surprise waiting for him.
[50:03] Speaker 14: There was an envelope laying on the front ports there
[50:07] Speaker 14: in between the front door and the screen door, and
[50:11] Speaker 14: I didn't think much bad it, picked it up, went
[50:13] Speaker 14: on in the house, you know, kind of did my
[50:16] Speaker 14: normal get home routine there, and then opened it up.
[50:20] Speaker 14: And it was who brought or delivered this still today
[50:24] Speaker 14: have no clue, but it was the copy of the
[50:28] Speaker 14: autopsy report, Onshelley.
[50:30] Speaker 1: And what'd you do?
[50:32] Speaker 14: I read it and then made a few phone calls.
[50:37] Speaker 1: Both families had been lobbying for records in the case
[50:40] Speaker 1: for the past four decades, to no avail, not a
[50:45] Speaker 1: witness statement, photograph, not even a damn police report. They
[50:51] Speaker 1: had been told it was an open case and whether
[50:53] Speaker 1: for police department cannot release records. They had been told
[50:58] Speaker 1: all the records were lost in a flood. They had
[51:01] Speaker 1: been told a truck pulled up and took everything to
[51:04] Speaker 1: the local garbage dump. So nobody knew what the hell
[51:10] Speaker 1: to believe anymore. And now suddenly an anonymous person slips
[51:15] Speaker 1: Shelley's autopsy report into Troy's door in November twenty twenty four.
[51:22] Speaker 1: What message is this person trying to send? And why now?
[51:35] Speaker 1: What did you feel after reading it?
[51:39] Speaker 14: Numb out to a point confused, you know, and then
[51:45] Speaker 14: really confused on how did somebody find word to put that?
[51:49] Speaker 14: Who was it? And who knows me that had that?
[51:53] Speaker 14: It's really strange.
[51:57] Speaker 1: Why hadn't they mailed it instead of taking the risk
[52:00] Speaker 1: of being caught dropping it off? Why Troy, he was
[52:04] Speaker 1: not even one of the more public family members out
[52:07] Speaker 1: there speaking about the case. What could be in that
[52:11] Speaker 1: report that meant so much at this point in the investigation.
[52:16] Speaker 1: I asked him about it all, and what Troy tells
[52:20] Speaker 1: me next, well, is something completely out of left field.
[52:26] Speaker 14: I know it's going to throw a loo, but I
[52:28] Speaker 14: kind of feel that her father, Ronnie Califlyer, was involved
[52:32] Speaker 14: in it, or at least knew of something going on.
[52:35] Speaker 14: I've tried contacting him through his daughter, called, left messages,
[52:41] Speaker 14: text message, Facebook. I can't get him the call back.
[52:44] Speaker 14: My dad always with his brother, he would always say,
[52:48] Speaker 14: had he put it, I lay you two to one
[52:52] Speaker 14: that he's involved some form or fashion is what my
[52:56] Speaker 14: dad would say.
[53:15] Speaker 1: Whatever platform you get your favorite podcast sign, please check
[53:19] Speaker 1: out my weekly series Crossing the Line with em William Phelps,
[53:23] Speaker 1: where I delve into a new missing person and cold
[53:26] Speaker 1: case murder each week. Coming up in the next episode,
[53:33] Speaker 1: Paper Ghosts and.
[53:36] Speaker 15: Some other people came in and I stepped out into
[53:38] Speaker 15: the hallway and Ronnie came in and told me that
[53:41] Speaker 15: I needed to leave. He was angry, very and he
[53:46] Speaker 15: said I need you to leave and I said, okay,
[53:49] Speaker 15: I can do that, and he said, no, I want
[53:52] Speaker 15: you out of my house now.
[53:54] Speaker 7: And one person went to Vincent's side and kind of
[53:56] Speaker 7: looked in on the casket. The other person went to
[53:59] Speaker 7: Shelley's side, looked in on the casket, and then kind
[54:01] Speaker 7: of met up in the middle. And people are kind
[54:03] Speaker 7: of looking at them, thinking okay orre they introduce themselves,
[54:06] Speaker 7: They're gonna say hi, but they don't do any of that.
[54:08] Speaker 7: They just kind of whenever they're looked at the caskets
[54:10] Speaker 7: and kind of met in the middle and then left.
[54:12] Speaker 16: Wendy had gone to Lake Weatherford to a place called
[54:16] Speaker 16: the Wall. She was alone, and she didn't come home,
[54:20] Speaker 16: and so they called the police and.
[54:24] Speaker 9: Reported her missing.
[54:29] Speaker 1: Paper Ghosts Season five is written and executive produced by
[54:33] Speaker 1: Me and William Phelps. Script consulting by iHeartMedia, executive producer
[54:39] Speaker 1: Catherine Law, Production by toc Boom Productions, Audio mastering and
[54:45] Speaker 1: mixing by Brandon Dicker. The series theme number four four
[54:49] Speaker 1: to two is written and performed by Thomas Phelps and
[54:53] Speaker 1: Tom Mooney.

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