November 20, 2025 • 29 mins
This week, Georgia covers hitchhike killer James Waybern Hall.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Hello, and welcome to My Favorite Murder. That's Georgia Hartstar,
That's Karen Kilgarriff.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
And this is a solo episode.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
It's a solo episode just me because we're still on
tour as of this recording.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
In recording worlds.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
We're going to New York this week for our last
live show.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
That's right the Brooklyn King's Theater, wrapping it up, saying goodbye.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Yeah, it's going to be crazy and so sad that
last episode. I'm gonna cry. Yeah, I have a book
real quick, can I've been waiting to I've just been
waiting to tell you about this book cause I'm so
obsessed with it and I listened to it for the
tour and I cried. So it's a memoir called A
Mother's Reckoning by.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Sue Kleebold Dylan cl Mother.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yes. Wow, it is the most powerful, intense, beautiful memory
I've ever listened to. It is so powerful. She talks
about grief and shame, loss, and a lot about mental
illness and how we treat it here in the US
and what can be done to change things. And you
(01:21):
know what she knew and what she didn't know and
what she wishes She had known. I was just in
awe of this book.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah, So A Mother's Reckoning. I feel like every parent
of a teenager needs to read this because it's also
about hiding being a teenager and hiding stuff from your parents.
And I think knowing those those signs and knowing and
being able to recognize the little tells that they do
give is so important for parents. And she really hits
(01:51):
on that. Yeah, and takes responsibility for not knowing what
to look for because you don't know what you don't know.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Yeah, And as a parent, that's the wait that I'm
sure is on her. It's just horrible, that idea of
having to take responsibility or for a thing that you know,
if you're the mother, you're going to get blamed first anyway.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Absolutely, And it was like the nineties, so it's just toxic, toxic,
and she talks about all of that. So A Mother's
Reckoning by Sue Clebold, I highly recommend it. Okay, should
we do a quick Exactly Right Media check in? Do it? Hey?
We have a podcast network called Exactly Right Media. Here
are some highlights.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Well, it's very exciting. Our brand new limited series Hell
in Heaven. The finale is now out. This series has
been doing incredibly well. It's a Blanchard House production, they're
the best in the biz. In today's last episode and
contemplates leaving Costa Rica for good. A drug bust changes everything,
and those closest to the Bender family reckon with the
(02:49):
Mystery that Refuses to die. It's an unbelievable series. If
you haven't heard it yet.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
And if you're making your list and checking it twice,
we've got good news. Our holiday merch is now live
in the Merchu. This is some good shit, you guys.
It's exciting every year to pick the stuff. I think
this might be the best year. Visit exactly rightstore dot
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Speaker 3 (03:15):
And while you're out there just doing our bidding, wy,
don't you go over to YouTube and hit like and
subscribe on all of our channels on YouTube at my
Underscore Favorite Underscore Murder and also over it at exactly
Right Media. And please go support our newest always on
legal podcast at Brief Recess. It is going to be
a hit. We talked to Melissa and Michael on this show.
(03:38):
It was so much fun. So go support those guys please.
Oh good, all right, solo, all right, solo.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Okay. This is a real one, and it was suggested
by a murder Reino who emailed in April of twenty
twenty three. I'm just going to read you a little
bit of it. It says Hi. When I was about
nine years old, I was being nosy digging through random
stuff at my dad's house and found a scrap book
full of old newspaper clippings. I asked Dad about it,
and he proceeded to blow my tiny little mind by
(04:10):
dropping the bomb that his uncle murdered a bunch of
people in the nineteen forties and was executed by electric chair,
and goes on and on. I have photos of the
chair where he was executed and his death masks that
are kept at a state museum, and would be happy
to email them in that's okay, good, Thanks for getting
me through my commute to work every day. Abby so
(04:31):
Abby suggested this and I'd never heard of it.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Wow, family murderer.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
It's just crazy disappointing when you haven't heard of a
serial killer, because it just means there's so fucking many.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
There's so many.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
This is a story of highway killer James Wyburn Hall.
The main source for the story is a book called
The Arkansas Hitchhie Killer by Janey Nesbit Jones, and the
rest of the source is going to be found in
the show notes. Okay, So, on January seventeenth, nineteen forty five,
the body of a man named CF. Hamilton is found
on a road in Arkansas. Hamilton is a barber and
(05:04):
also a bootlegger. Though prohibition has long been over and
there are plenty of liquor stores as we know, bootleggers
still do good business in the area.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yeah, you know, get it driving around real fast and
those souped up.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Cars right that homemade liquor and homemade Nascar.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
That's how NASCAR began.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah. So, C. F. Hamilton has been shot with a
forty five caliber bullet and the scene looks like a robbery.
Hamilton is black, and this is Arkansas in nineteen forty five,
so the police officers basically don't investigate the crime much.
And unfortunately this also means that we know less about
him and his life than we know about some of
the other victims who are discovered.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Shortly after, who are White?
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Who are White? About two weeks later, on Fruary first,
another body is found. A deputy sheriff is driving along
a road about eighty miles south of Little Rock when
he sees an abandoned car at the turnoff for a
dirt road, and it's still there and he mix his
return trip about ninety minutes later, so he pulls over
to inspe the car. The glove compartment looks like it's
been rifled through and the papers are strewn on the
(06:04):
passenger seat. The deputy sheriff then looks at the dirt
road and sees two sets of footprints going into the
woods and only one set returning.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
He follows the footprints and after a short walk, finds
the body of a man who has been shot. This
man is identified by police as E. C. Adams. He
has been shot with a thirty eight caliber bullet. Adams
had been on his way to a new job and
a new home at a naval plant where his wife
and newborn daughter were supposed to join him later. After
speaking to his wife, police believe he was killed by
(06:35):
a highwayman or a robber who steals from travelers. She
gives him a long list of the items he had
with him, including razors, a shaving mug, a watch, and
two alarm clocks because he was moving and these items
are all missing from the car when they inspect it.
Captain Earl Scrogan, I am an adult woman of an
(06:59):
adult spelled like you can't help it, just say it no.
Captain Earl Scrogan of the newly formed Arkansas State Police
believes the same highwayman, probably hitchhiking, may have killed both
Adams and Hamilton, even though they were shot with different guns.
They backtrack Adam's route to Little Rock, where they believe
he picked up the hitchhiker, and they alert Little Rock Police.
(07:23):
About a week later, on February ninth, a meat truck
driver named Doyle Mulhern leaves on his typical route but
doesn't make it to any of his stops, and it's
very out of character of him, so people begin searching
for him immediately, and a grocer who's also the mayor
of the town of Stuttgart, Arkansas, finds his truck at
the edge of town. You gonna say something, just.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
That the grocer would know that the meek guy didn't
show up totally and be like, that's very not like him,
and what's happening?
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Like the first person, Little Rock's a tiny town now
that back then forty five it was probably just like
everyone knew everyone.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Right, and this is outside of little right, right, so
that's probably the big town totally.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
I mean, yeah, God, that's sad.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah. The next day, two fishermen find Doyle's body about
twenty five feet away from the highway. The state police
determined that he's also been shot with the thirty eight
caliber bullet, and the money from all of his collections
that day is missing. While retracing his steps, the state
police speaks to another driver whose route route route is
the reverse of Doyle's. What do you say route right?
Speaker 3 (08:26):
I think, well, it's like route sixty six in the song.
But then if I was reading it, I think i'd
say route yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Same. The two men usually wave when they pass each
other in their trucks, but this driver says that on
the day Doyle died, he didn't wave at him and
seemed distracted that he had a passenger with him. The
passenger was a young man with wavy red hair. Can
you imagine the state you're in your driving past, You're
trying to signal to the guy that you always wave
(08:54):
to that you know that something is wrong, so you
don't wave.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Like it's the absence of the normal thing that's gonna
hopefully let that guy.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Know totally and like make him pay more attention so
he can give information.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
It's so upsetting and also just that idea of like
there was their gun in his ribs. I mean, like
how this threat of Yeah, there's so many of those
stories that we've heard over the years of like a
girl in a car with someone trying to get the
cops attention or whatever.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
That's why I love this that there's the hand gesture
that you couldn't do now that we all know and
all should know, we're you just kind of hold up
four fingers with your thumb on the inside of your palm.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
I'm in danger.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
I'm in danger.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Amazing. Well, in early March, a man named J. D.
Newcombe Junior is reported missing. He's the state's chief boiler
inspector for the Department of Labor.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
I know, I don't even I mean, boilers are a
big deal.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Back then, they needed to be inspected a lot.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
And they needed people to be at certain levels of
boiler inspection. Sure, because you had to be able to
come and be like this one is about to blame.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
I can tell something's wrong with it.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
So he was the chief, he.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Was a guy, and it was a prominent position. Yea
had been on his way back to Little Rock when
he disappeared, and he was known to offer rides to hitchhikers.
So fucking ominous, right because like we always think of
like hitchhiking as being so dangerous.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yeah, but this is like the mid forties.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Yeah, so it's like I bet you it's like after
the Depression, people being used to people just hey, look,
I'm just trying to get on place to the other.
I mean, like doing a favor for your fellow man, right,
h probably the thinking totally totally.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
On March eighth, a badly burned body is found in
the back of a burned osmobile, which matches Newcomb's car.
The car is found in a clearing, and from the
way the blood has sprayed backward, it looks like it
was driven quickly before crashing. Dental records determine that the
body is Newcombs, and police find that his wristwatch is missing,
as is his blue gray overcoat. The police ask the
(10:50):
public for tips. A bus driver reports picking up a
young man near where the car was found, and the
driver says that the man was wearing an ill fitting
blue gray coat. The driver can't remember where the man
got off, but that his bus was headed to Little Rock.
On March sixteenth, a woman calls the state police and
tells them a man she knows had loaned his car
back in February to a friend who had business with
(11:12):
a bootlegger outside of Little Rock. The car's owner kept
a forty five caliber pistol in the car, and when
the car was returned, two rounds were missing from it.
Remember the guy in the beginning of the story was
a bootlegger. The man who owned the car had heard
about the murder of CJ. Hamilton, the black man, who
was a barber, and fearful that he would be implicated,
(11:33):
sold the gun. Oh, didn't call it in. Sold it.
So this woman calls it in thankfully and is.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Like, hey, hey, missing piece here.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Yeah, I don't want this guy to get away with it.
The woman says that the person who borrowed the car
is a cab driver named James Wyburn Hall. The state
police bring this information to the Little Rock police who
take James in for questioning. James has wavy red hair
like the person that was spotted in the truck. When
police searched james wallet, they find out receipt from a
parcel service, and the parcel service had delivered a package
(12:04):
to Little Rock from Camden, Arkansas, near where Adam's the
man with the new navy job, had been found. Police
go to the address from the parcel receipt, which belongs
to a woman named Coreen Franklin. Franklin admits that she's
a friend of James, and she produces the contents of
that parcel that had been sent Razors, a shaving mug,
and an alarm clock. So it looks like James had
(12:26):
nailed himself through this woman stolen items from Adam's car.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
So basically making federal witnesses out of the postal service.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Right, Basically, this a woman who's name and address are
on it.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Yeah, they're just like, here's my things. Yeah, and the
government's now involved because.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
It's the oh my god, surprise, surprise, federal fucking poor
man's trademark.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
You just trademarked your murdered cash.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Basically, yeah, we just proved that it was yours, kind
of put a name on it.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Yeah, I took these. Don't give them to anybody else.
Just one alarm clock, not both.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yeah, I don't know what he liked to sell items.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Right, I thought you would have too, because whoever originally
had them, like needed to to wake up. Oh you
know remember before the before you could snooze your alarm.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Yeah, you'd have to put one like in the hallway
because otherwise you would not get a drunks. Remember when
those alarm clocks came out that jumped off. They had
wheels and they'd jump off your dresser and like roll
around the house. You'd like chase it to wake up.
Couldn't sneeze snooze it, So you couldn't snooze it, and
you had to chase it to turn it off.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
We need the commercial for that.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Brilliant right. And there was one that was like a
boggle machine like a puzzle that you had to put
back together.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
So to be able to snooze it. Yes, incredible. There
was a real oversleeping problem in the eighties nineties.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Sounds like, yes.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
So police also searched James's room at a boarding house
where he's been living for the last few months. Man,
boarding house is just like give me the creeps.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
It's to you know, a lot of back then, especially
yeah Trangent. Know, hey, do you not want anyone to
know your name? Is your last name Smith? For some reason?
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Did you just get off a box car? Yeah? Come here?
Speaker 2 (14:07):
What's that blood on your neck? A small fine mist
of blood on your cheek.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
And at this place they find JD. Newcome's missing watch
and a blue gray overcoat that matches the description of
the one he had been missing. They also find a
box of thirty eight caliber bullets and a thirty eight
caliber pistol. It turns out that the Little Rock police
had just arrested James a few weeks prior for assault
when he badly injured another man in a fight, and
they also tell their colleagues at the Arkansas State Police
(14:33):
that they had questioned James six months earlier about the
disappearance of his own wife. When the police go back
to James with the evidence from the package and from
his room in the boarding house, he says, quote, Okay,
I'll tell you all about it. I killed them all.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Oh my god, straight up drink style. I killed them all.
If you were the copy he was talking to or
whoever it was, that's feeling in your stomach or what
do you mean?
Speaker 1 (14:58):
All? Yeah, Also, he's twenty four years old at this time.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
That's like a child, a child with probably like kind
of evil eyes.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
I mean, well, okay, let me tell you about him.
James Wayburn Hall is born in nineteen twenty one in
Happy Valley, Arkansas. He's the fourth through eleven children, though
one dies in infancy and from childhood on, James is
nicknamed Red because of his red hair.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
You know, every man in my dad's family's nickname, right,
they all call each other that.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
I always forget your dad has red hair, because I've
never seen him with red.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Hair, not since the late eighties. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
So, his father, Samuel Hall, is a farmer and also
a preacher in the local church. And as we've heard
time and time again, James's childhood contains two of the
common threads we wind up seeing in the childhood of
serial killers, abuse and head trauma. From the outside, the
Halls appear to have a pretty idyllic life. The children
are looked after by a caring grandmother. James, his siblings,
(15:53):
and his cousins roam the outdoors together most days, but
behind closed doors. James's father, Samuel, is abusive, and he
focuses most of his anger on James. In his early teens,
James starts leaving the home for long intervals, finding work
on farms. When he's fourteen years old, he's hitting the
head with a metal fence post, although the stories that
(16:14):
he ran into it or it fell on him were
not sure. It knocked him unconscious for about an hour,
and some people who know James say that he was
never himself again after this, although some people also say
the fence post story is completely made up in that
it was actually James's father who gave him the head trauma.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Oh my god, I know.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
So around the same time, James drops out of school
and starts riding the rails to Oklahoma and Kansas doing
farm work. He was six foot five, so he was
very large man. He had wavy red hair, and he
also had a limp that made him very recognizable and
people called him Big Jim.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Just the idea of like it's one thing to get
a head injury, you know, by chance, have your father
give you a head injury that changes your life forever
totally is like you know, we love to talk about trauma,
but that's next level.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
That's so horrible.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
James meets his first wife in nineteen thirty eight, a
woman named Walsey McKee. James is seventeen and Walsey is
two to five years older, according to different accounts seventeen.
They get married, doesn't last long, and he blows in
and out of town. She doesn't see him often. They
have two children, but the first die shortly after being born.
(17:30):
The second is a healthy boy born in nineteen forty three,
but James and Walsey divorced shortly after he's born. James
is then drafted into the army, but after six weeks
of basic training, he's given a dishonorable discharge for quote indifference.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Oh no, yikes, dead eyes. That's very full metal jacket vibe.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
I think within six weeks getting discharged for that means.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
They were like, we can't Yeah, we missed this guy
in the mental health evaluation. Something's going on, right, Yeah,
that's a year.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
James winds up in Little Rock, where he meets his
second wife. Listen to this name, Fayne Clemmens, Fayne.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Mayne, Alabama. You say Arkansas, Arkansasne.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Heyne, Syrene, come on over here, come here, let me
do your hair, Let do your roots. She goes by
Fay and they meet in December of nineteen forty three.
He's twenty two years old, and by March of nineteen
forty four, they're married, and Fay is very different from Walsey,
his first wife. When James gets the urge to travel,
she wants to come with him, He doesn't want.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Her to, uh, because it's true love right.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
So by the summer of nineteen forty four, just a
few months after their marriage, Faye confides in her family
that she doesn't think she can stay married to James,
and the family thinks that he's being abusive towards her.
On Thursday, September fourteenth, James is back in Little Rock
after another period on the road, and he takes Fay
and a friend of hers dancing at a club called
the Rainbow Garden, Oh. They leave the club at about midnight,
(19:00):
at which point the friend says he and Fay began
fighting as James, Fay, and the friend walked to the car.
Fay tells James that she wants to leave him and
moved to California. He slaps her across the face, and
they all get in the car, and when they drop
the friend off at her house, Fay and James are
still fighting. And that is the last time anyone besides
(19:20):
James cees face alive.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Oh that friend, I know, so sad.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
I know when your friend is dating someone or married
to someone that you know is fucking terrible.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
And you're like, she's about to get beaten up, and
I'm getting out of the car.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
What do I do?
Speaker 1 (19:34):
What would you do?
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Go get a guy that's six foot six? I mean,
that's the problem with like someone big in abuse. Those
kinds of bullies are hard to fight if you don't
have anybody around to fight them.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Yeah, they don't like they don't listen to reason or
women or women reason meeting women. Three days later, some
of Faye's cousins come by to see her. James tells
them that she left him three days before. The cousins
tell face parents about this, and they come to look
for her. Of course, Fay's clothes are all in the closet.
It doesn't look like she's gone anywhere, but they give
(20:07):
it some time, hoping that maybe Fae she said she
wanted to go to California. Her friend heard that maybe
she just fucking booked it, and they're about to hear
from her, but when a week goes by, they go
to the Little Rock police. James tells the police that
he last saw his wife on the night they came
back from the Rainbow Garden, that she left her California
blah blah blah. So shortly after that, James moves out
(20:28):
of the apartment he and Fay had shared and goes
out on the road again. We don't know James's exact
route between September and December nineteen forty four. We do
know of several murders of middle aged men in this
time period in Kansas and Oklahoma that some people will
later tie to James similar emos. In the next few months,
James stays closer to Little Rock and commits the four
(20:50):
murders from the beginning of our story that will eventually
lead to his arrest, And that brings us to where
we started in the story and him saying, yes, I
killed them all. Yeah, find confesses to those murders. He
tells police that the first murder was only supposed to
be a robbery. He says that he had intended on
stealing the whiskey from Hamilton, and that James ended up
(21:10):
shooting him with that forty five caliber pistol and then
using Hamilton's gun, which he stole from the car to
commit the rest of the murders. When the police asked
James where Faye's body is, James says he took her
to remote road along a riverbank and beat her to death.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Oh my god, I know.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
James brings the police and several press photographers to the site,
but they can't find anything. Then a woodcutter named Cecil Foster,
who lives nearby, walks over. Cecil tells the police that
he found part of a skull a few weeks back
and that he thought it washed down the river and
he took it home. He says he also saw what
he thought was part of a jawbone on the river bank.
(21:50):
Cecil looks in the spot and it's like, see it's
still there. James himself, who's there to show them where
her remains are, says, quote, that's Fay al right, and
points out the characteristic front tooth in the job oone
so sinister.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
It's so gross.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
And also this idea that they and maybe It wasn't
him particularly, but that idea of like I'm going to
get the press to come to right, It just is
all those ways that I think back then nobody knew.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
You're feeding right into the psychopath plan and the ego.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
Let's let him control this.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Yeah, oh so awful.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
James ultimately confesses to killing Fay and the four other men,
and to multiple other murders. When he was seventeen. In
nineteen thirty eight, he killed a woman in Salinas, Kansas.
He kills a man in San Marcos, Texas in nineteen
forty four, and then he admits to killing ten migrant
workers from nineteen thirty eight to nineteen forty four in Arizona,
(22:51):
and then he'd offer up some clues and declined to
talk about them. He also says he killed a Bible
salesman in Texas because of his itinerant lifestyle. It if
several more murders. There are at least three similar murders
in cities where he was likely to have been, but
there isn't enough evidence to charge him.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Still, this is so oddest tool yes, like but real
but real? But then also can they prove it's real?
Speaker 1 (23:15):
It sounds like he's not making this shit up.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yeah, you know, I mean.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Like it all fits the m o oddest tools. Shit
was all like right all.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Anywhere they brought him.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
He was like, yes, he right, but god, it's just
so I know, it's so evil, it's so scary.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
And he's twenty four, yeah, like with red hair, and
it is like, hey, can you give me right?
Speaker 1 (23:34):
I'm a friendly guy. Can you give me a ride?
Speaker 2 (23:36):
I have a limb fun times. Oh, Bible salesman, I
love bibles.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Oh, and twenty four, which imagines like what would if
he hadn't been caught right then that woman hadn't called
and said this gun that my friend had, I think
it's the murder weapon. If she hadn't called in, what
would he have like ramped up to when he was
like thirty and thirty five?
Speaker 3 (23:54):
You know, I mean maybe he would have gotten the
car and then been like, it'll be faster if I'm
picking people right like that?
Speaker 2 (24:01):
I mean, who knows?
Speaker 1 (24:04):
True crime. James is arigned in the spring of nineteen
forty five. He's charged with first degree murder only for
the killing of Fay, his wife, because this is thought
to be the strongest case against him and it's a
possibility that he'll get the death penalty in this case,
so they want to try this one first. James's trial
begins on the same day Germany surrenders and World War
(24:24):
two ends in Europe, and because of that the case
didn't get as much national attention. But still there are
murderinos back then. The courthouse is packed to the gills
for the two day trial. Two days. That's it.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
On the first day of the trial, James takes back
his confessions and instead pleads not guilty by reason of insanity.
Blah blah blah. James's first wife, Walsey, testifies at the
trial and brings their two year old son. James's entire
relationship with Fay, her murder, and at least four others,
but likely many moore have all taken place within less
than two years. Two years, James has found guilty and
(25:02):
sentenced to death. He was executed a few days before
his twenty fifth birthday in the electric chair on January fourth,
nineteen forty six. Fay's father attends the execution and says, quote,
may God have mercy on your soul. I can't yeah
end quote. And that is the story of the hitchhike
killer James Weyburn Hall.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Literally have never heard anything about this.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Oh, thank you to Abby for sending this in. She
says that he was her grandmother's older brother. Mmm. I know.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Wow. Oh yeah, because there's ten kids or by the
time nine kids yep with him.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Wow. Yeah, that's a big one.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Yeah. Should we do a quick horay tour?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Hoay tour?
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Hoay?
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Okay, do you have one in mind?
Speaker 1 (25:50):
No?
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Go, well, I mean the experience of this tour has
been so incredible and the murdering notes have just shown
up in every way possible everyone we've asked them to.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
So my hoay, I think would just be all of
our listeners, all the people that have like actually gone
to the shows, told their stories. We've had some incredible hometowns,
just incredible like participation. Yeah, it's been so cool to
be able to be out there with people and have that.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
When you kicked that stuffed animal and back into the audience.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Though, you guys, we had a gift of a very large,
very scary sized stuffed animal thrown at us onto the
stage from the dark, and it scared everybody but especially
me and Georgia. So I then kicked it back out
into the audience, and the audience went and sang, that
was a pretty good one.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
That was good.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
What about I think there's also the very first night
of Denver Night one night show one. I don't think
I expected the volume and the reception. Getting a reception
like that was such a lovely gift from that Denver.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Audience, totally nothing like I had completely forgot like what
that felt like, what it sounded like, how incredible and
overwhelming it was. And I'm going to miss that after.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
New York because it's very magical to be able to
get something like that from a room full of people.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Yeah, it's life affirming. You forget that, like people are
listening when you're recording in a studio, and then to
walk out there and be like, there you are.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
These are all the people that are not emailing in
complaints in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
They like it.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
They like it. They want you to have to have animals.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
And we say no, no, thank you, no, thank you, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Thank you for everyone who's calm, Thank you for all
the incredible gifts you've given us. I think we're going
to go through them in a video for the fan
called soon.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Oh Yeah, we're going to go through.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
We're going to unbox our boxes of gifts that we
basically get to go through like raccoons real fast and
then have to box.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Up and ship home.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
I can't wait.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Yeah, it's going to be really good. That was a
great story. This is a great solo.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
Thank you for your patients as we are on wrapping
this tour up, which has been an incredible amount of
work for our team on the podcast team. So thank
you to the MFM production team led by c Molly Smith,
the great producer, Yeah, and everybody.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Else for us to leave and not worry about what's
going up.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
She was on it, and our supervising producer Jess Kek
who worked with Molly, and they basically made the grids
that made it all possible. Right, Thanks to everybody for
making all of these things that we're able to do simultaneously.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
It's only because we have this incredible staff.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Totally. Yeah, thanks guys.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Thanks guys. Well, stay sexy.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
And don't get murdered. Goodbye, Elvis. Do you want a cookie?
Speaker 2 (28:40):
This has been an exactly right production.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Our senior producer is Molly Smith and our associate producer
is Tessa Hughes.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Our editor is Aristotle Ascevedo.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
This episode was mixed by Leona Scolacci.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Our researchers are Mary mclaschan and Ali Elkin.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Email your hometowns to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
And follow the show on Instagram at My Favorite Murder.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Podcasts or wherever you get your.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Podcasts, or you can watch us on YouTube. Search for
My Favorite Murder, then like and subscribe. Goodbye,
Hello, and welcome to My Favorite Murder. That's Georgia Hartstar,
That's Karen Kilgarriff.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
And this is a solo episode.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
It's a solo episode just me because we're still on
tour as of this recording.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
In recording worlds.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
We're going to New York this week for our last
live show.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
That's right the Brooklyn King's Theater, wrapping it up, saying goodbye.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Yeah, it's going to be crazy and so sad that
last episode. I'm gonna cry. Yeah, I have a book
real quick, can I've been waiting to I've just been
waiting to tell you about this book cause I'm so
obsessed with it and I listened to it for the
tour and I cried. So it's a memoir called A
Mother's Reckoning by.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Sue Kleebold Dylan cl Mother.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yes. Wow, it is the most powerful, intense, beautiful memory
I've ever listened to. It is so powerful. She talks
about grief and shame, loss, and a lot about mental
illness and how we treat it here in the US
and what can be done to change things. And you
(01:21):
know what she knew and what she didn't know and
what she wishes She had known. I was just in
awe of this book.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah, So A Mother's Reckoning. I feel like every parent
of a teenager needs to read this because it's also
about hiding being a teenager and hiding stuff from your parents.
And I think knowing those those signs and knowing and
being able to recognize the little tells that they do
give is so important for parents. And she really hits
(01:51):
on that. Yeah, and takes responsibility for not knowing what
to look for because you don't know what you don't know.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Yeah, And as a parent, that's the wait that I'm
sure is on her. It's just horrible, that idea of
having to take responsibility or for a thing that you know,
if you're the mother, you're going to get blamed first anyway.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Absolutely, And it was like the nineties, so it's just toxic, toxic,
and she talks about all of that. So A Mother's
Reckoning by Sue Clebold, I highly recommend it. Okay, should
we do a quick Exactly Right Media check in? Do it? Hey?
We have a podcast network called Exactly Right Media. Here
are some highlights.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Well, it's very exciting. Our brand new limited series Hell
in Heaven. The finale is now out. This series has
been doing incredibly well. It's a Blanchard House production, they're
the best in the biz. In today's last episode and
contemplates leaving Costa Rica for good. A drug bust changes everything,
and those closest to the Bender family reckon with the
(02:49):
Mystery that Refuses to die. It's an unbelievable series. If
you haven't heard it yet.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
And if you're making your list and checking it twice,
we've got good news. Our holiday merch is now live
in the Merchu. This is some good shit, you guys.
It's exciting every year to pick the stuff. I think
this might be the best year. Visit exactly rightstore dot
com for all the new items from your favorite shows
and be sure to order by Sunday, December fourteenth to
guarantee holiday delivery.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
And while you're out there just doing our bidding, wy,
don't you go over to YouTube and hit like and
subscribe on all of our channels on YouTube at my
Underscore Favorite Underscore Murder and also over it at exactly
Right Media. And please go support our newest always on
legal podcast at Brief Recess. It is going to be
a hit. We talked to Melissa and Michael on this show.
(03:38):
It was so much fun. So go support those guys please.
Oh good, all right, solo, all right, solo.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Okay. This is a real one, and it was suggested
by a murder Reino who emailed in April of twenty
twenty three. I'm just going to read you a little
bit of it. It says Hi. When I was about
nine years old, I was being nosy digging through random
stuff at my dad's house and found a scrap book
full of old newspaper clippings. I asked Dad about it,
and he proceeded to blow my tiny little mind by
(04:10):
dropping the bomb that his uncle murdered a bunch of
people in the nineteen forties and was executed by electric chair,
and goes on and on. I have photos of the
chair where he was executed and his death masks that
are kept at a state museum, and would be happy
to email them in that's okay, good, Thanks for getting
me through my commute to work every day. Abby so
(04:31):
Abby suggested this and I'd never heard of it.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Wow, family murderer.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
It's just crazy disappointing when you haven't heard of a
serial killer, because it just means there's so fucking many.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
There's so many.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
This is a story of highway killer James Wyburn Hall.
The main source for the story is a book called
The Arkansas Hitchhie Killer by Janey Nesbit Jones, and the
rest of the source is going to be found in
the show notes. Okay, So, on January seventeenth, nineteen forty five,
the body of a man named CF. Hamilton is found
on a road in Arkansas. Hamilton is a barber and
(05:04):
also a bootlegger. Though prohibition has long been over and
there are plenty of liquor stores as we know, bootleggers
still do good business in the area.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yeah, you know, get it driving around real fast and
those souped up.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Cars right that homemade liquor and homemade Nascar.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
That's how NASCAR began.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah. So, C. F. Hamilton has been shot with a
forty five caliber bullet and the scene looks like a robbery.
Hamilton is black, and this is Arkansas in nineteen forty five,
so the police officers basically don't investigate the crime much.
And unfortunately this also means that we know less about
him and his life than we know about some of
the other victims who are discovered.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Shortly after, who are White?
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Who are White? About two weeks later, on Fruary first,
another body is found. A deputy sheriff is driving along
a road about eighty miles south of Little Rock when
he sees an abandoned car at the turnoff for a
dirt road, and it's still there and he mix his
return trip about ninety minutes later, so he pulls over
to inspe the car. The glove compartment looks like it's
been rifled through and the papers are strewn on the
(06:04):
passenger seat. The deputy sheriff then looks at the dirt
road and sees two sets of footprints going into the
woods and only one set returning.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
He follows the footprints and after a short walk, finds
the body of a man who has been shot. This
man is identified by police as E. C. Adams. He
has been shot with a thirty eight caliber bullet. Adams
had been on his way to a new job and
a new home at a naval plant where his wife
and newborn daughter were supposed to join him later. After
speaking to his wife, police believe he was killed by
(06:35):
a highwayman or a robber who steals from travelers. She
gives him a long list of the items he had
with him, including razors, a shaving mug, a watch, and
two alarm clocks because he was moving and these items
are all missing from the car when they inspect it.
Captain Earl Scrogan, I am an adult woman of an
(06:59):
adult spelled like you can't help it, just say it no.
Captain Earl Scrogan of the newly formed Arkansas State Police
believes the same highwayman, probably hitchhiking, may have killed both
Adams and Hamilton, even though they were shot with different guns.
They backtrack Adam's route to Little Rock, where they believe
he picked up the hitchhiker, and they alert Little Rock Police.
(07:23):
About a week later, on February ninth, a meat truck
driver named Doyle Mulhern leaves on his typical route but
doesn't make it to any of his stops, and it's
very out of character of him, so people begin searching
for him immediately, and a grocer who's also the mayor
of the town of Stuttgart, Arkansas, finds his truck at
the edge of town. You gonna say something, just.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
That the grocer would know that the meek guy didn't
show up totally and be like, that's very not like him,
and what's happening?
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Like the first person, Little Rock's a tiny town now
that back then forty five it was probably just like
everyone knew everyone.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Right, and this is outside of little right, right, so
that's probably the big town totally.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
I mean, yeah, God, that's sad.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah. The next day, two fishermen find Doyle's body about
twenty five feet away from the highway. The state police
determined that he's also been shot with the thirty eight
caliber bullet, and the money from all of his collections
that day is missing. While retracing his steps, the state
police speaks to another driver whose route route route is
the reverse of Doyle's. What do you say route right?
Speaker 3 (08:26):
I think, well, it's like route sixty six in the song.
But then if I was reading it, I think i'd
say route yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Same. The two men usually wave when they pass each
other in their trucks, but this driver says that on
the day Doyle died, he didn't wave at him and
seemed distracted that he had a passenger with him. The
passenger was a young man with wavy red hair. Can
you imagine the state you're in your driving past, You're
trying to signal to the guy that you always wave
(08:54):
to that you know that something is wrong, so you
don't wave.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Like it's the absence of the normal thing that's gonna
hopefully let that guy.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Know totally and like make him pay more attention so
he can give information.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
It's so upsetting and also just that idea of like
there was their gun in his ribs. I mean, like
how this threat of Yeah, there's so many of those
stories that we've heard over the years of like a
girl in a car with someone trying to get the
cops attention or whatever.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
That's why I love this that there's the hand gesture
that you couldn't do now that we all know and
all should know, we're you just kind of hold up
four fingers with your thumb on the inside of your palm.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
I'm in danger.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
I'm in danger.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Amazing. Well, in early March, a man named J. D.
Newcombe Junior is reported missing. He's the state's chief boiler
inspector for the Department of Labor.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
I know, I don't even I mean, boilers are a
big deal.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Back then, they needed to be inspected a lot.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
And they needed people to be at certain levels of
boiler inspection. Sure, because you had to be able to
come and be like this one is about to blame.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
I can tell something's wrong with it.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
So he was the chief, he.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Was a guy, and it was a prominent position. Yea
had been on his way back to Little Rock when
he disappeared, and he was known to offer rides to hitchhikers.
So fucking ominous, right because like we always think of
like hitchhiking as being so dangerous.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yeah, but this is like the mid forties.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Yeah, so it's like I bet you it's like after
the Depression, people being used to people just hey, look,
I'm just trying to get on place to the other.
I mean, like doing a favor for your fellow man, right,
h probably the thinking totally totally.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
On March eighth, a badly burned body is found in
the back of a burned osmobile, which matches Newcomb's car.
The car is found in a clearing, and from the
way the blood has sprayed backward, it looks like it
was driven quickly before crashing. Dental records determine that the
body is Newcombs, and police find that his wristwatch is missing,
as is his blue gray overcoat. The police ask the
(10:50):
public for tips. A bus driver reports picking up a
young man near where the car was found, and the
driver says that the man was wearing an ill fitting
blue gray coat. The driver can't remember where the man
got off, but that his bus was headed to Little Rock.
On March sixteenth, a woman calls the state police and
tells them a man she knows had loaned his car
back in February to a friend who had business with
(11:12):
a bootlegger outside of Little Rock. The car's owner kept
a forty five caliber pistol in the car, and when
the car was returned, two rounds were missing from it.
Remember the guy in the beginning of the story was
a bootlegger. The man who owned the car had heard
about the murder of CJ. Hamilton, the black man, who
was a barber, and fearful that he would be implicated,
(11:33):
sold the gun. Oh, didn't call it in. Sold it.
So this woman calls it in thankfully and is.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Like, hey, hey, missing piece here.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Yeah, I don't want this guy to get away with it.
The woman says that the person who borrowed the car
is a cab driver named James Wyburn Hall. The state
police bring this information to the Little Rock police who
take James in for questioning. James has wavy red hair
like the person that was spotted in the truck. When
police searched james wallet, they find out receipt from a
parcel service, and the parcel service had delivered a package
(12:04):
to Little Rock from Camden, Arkansas, near where Adam's the
man with the new navy job, had been found. Police
go to the address from the parcel receipt, which belongs
to a woman named Coreen Franklin. Franklin admits that she's
a friend of James, and she produces the contents of
that parcel that had been sent Razors, a shaving mug,
and an alarm clock. So it looks like James had
(12:26):
nailed himself through this woman stolen items from Adam's car.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
So basically making federal witnesses out of the postal service.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Right, Basically, this a woman who's name and address are
on it.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Yeah, they're just like, here's my things. Yeah, and the
government's now involved because.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
It's the oh my god, surprise, surprise, federal fucking poor
man's trademark.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
You just trademarked your murdered cash.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Basically, yeah, we just proved that it was yours, kind
of put a name on it.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Yeah, I took these. Don't give them to anybody else.
Just one alarm clock, not both.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yeah, I don't know what he liked to sell items.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Right, I thought you would have too, because whoever originally
had them, like needed to to wake up. Oh you
know remember before the before you could snooze your alarm.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Yeah, you'd have to put one like in the hallway
because otherwise you would not get a drunks. Remember when
those alarm clocks came out that jumped off. They had
wheels and they'd jump off your dresser and like roll
around the house. You'd like chase it to wake up.
Couldn't sneeze snooze it, So you couldn't snooze it, and
you had to chase it to turn it off.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
We need the commercial for that.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Brilliant right. And there was one that was like a
boggle machine like a puzzle that you had to put
back together.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
So to be able to snooze it. Yes, incredible. There
was a real oversleeping problem in the eighties nineties.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Sounds like, yes.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
So police also searched James's room at a boarding house
where he's been living for the last few months. Man,
boarding house is just like give me the creeps.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
It's to you know, a lot of back then, especially
yeah Trangent. Know, hey, do you not want anyone to
know your name? Is your last name Smith? For some reason?
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Did you just get off a box car? Yeah? Come here?
Speaker 2 (14:07):
What's that blood on your neck? A small fine mist
of blood on your cheek.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
And at this place they find JD. Newcome's missing watch
and a blue gray overcoat that matches the description of
the one he had been missing. They also find a
box of thirty eight caliber bullets and a thirty eight
caliber pistol. It turns out that the Little Rock police
had just arrested James a few weeks prior for assault
when he badly injured another man in a fight, and
they also tell their colleagues at the Arkansas State Police
(14:33):
that they had questioned James six months earlier about the
disappearance of his own wife. When the police go back
to James with the evidence from the package and from
his room in the boarding house, he says, quote, Okay,
I'll tell you all about it. I killed them all.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Oh my god, straight up drink style. I killed them all.
If you were the copy he was talking to or
whoever it was, that's feeling in your stomach or what
do you mean?
Speaker 1 (14:58):
All? Yeah, Also, he's twenty four years old at this time.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
That's like a child, a child with probably like kind
of evil eyes.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
I mean, well, okay, let me tell you about him.
James Wayburn Hall is born in nineteen twenty one in
Happy Valley, Arkansas. He's the fourth through eleven children, though
one dies in infancy and from childhood on, James is
nicknamed Red because of his red hair.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
You know, every man in my dad's family's nickname, right,
they all call each other that.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
I always forget your dad has red hair, because I've
never seen him with red.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Hair, not since the late eighties. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
So, his father, Samuel Hall, is a farmer and also
a preacher in the local church. And as we've heard
time and time again, James's childhood contains two of the
common threads we wind up seeing in the childhood of
serial killers, abuse and head trauma. From the outside, the
Halls appear to have a pretty idyllic life. The children
are looked after by a caring grandmother. James, his siblings,
(15:53):
and his cousins roam the outdoors together most days, but
behind closed doors. James's father, Samuel, is abusive, and he
focuses most of his anger on James. In his early teens,
James starts leaving the home for long intervals, finding work
on farms. When he's fourteen years old, he's hitting the
head with a metal fence post, although the stories that
(16:14):
he ran into it or it fell on him were
not sure. It knocked him unconscious for about an hour,
and some people who know James say that he was
never himself again after this, although some people also say
the fence post story is completely made up in that
it was actually James's father who gave him the head trauma.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Oh my god, I know.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
So around the same time, James drops out of school
and starts riding the rails to Oklahoma and Kansas doing
farm work. He was six foot five, so he was
very large man. He had wavy red hair, and he
also had a limp that made him very recognizable and
people called him Big Jim.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Just the idea of like it's one thing to get
a head injury, you know, by chance, have your father
give you a head injury that changes your life forever
totally is like you know, we love to talk about trauma,
but that's next level.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
That's so horrible.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
James meets his first wife in nineteen thirty eight, a
woman named Walsey McKee. James is seventeen and Walsey is
two to five years older, according to different accounts seventeen.
They get married, doesn't last long, and he blows in
and out of town. She doesn't see him often. They
have two children, but the first die shortly after being born.
(17:30):
The second is a healthy boy born in nineteen forty three,
but James and Walsey divorced shortly after he's born. James
is then drafted into the army, but after six weeks
of basic training, he's given a dishonorable discharge for quote indifference.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Oh no, yikes, dead eyes. That's very full metal jacket vibe.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
I think within six weeks getting discharged for that means.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
They were like, we can't Yeah, we missed this guy
in the mental health evaluation. Something's going on, right, Yeah,
that's a year.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
James winds up in Little Rock, where he meets his
second wife. Listen to this name, Fayne Clemmens, Fayne.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Mayne, Alabama. You say Arkansas, Arkansasne.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Heyne, Syrene, come on over here, come here, let me
do your hair, Let do your roots. She goes by
Fay and they meet in December of nineteen forty three.
He's twenty two years old, and by March of nineteen
forty four, they're married, and Fay is very different from Walsey,
his first wife. When James gets the urge to travel,
she wants to come with him, He doesn't want.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Her to, uh, because it's true love right.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
So by the summer of nineteen forty four, just a
few months after their marriage, Faye confides in her family
that she doesn't think she can stay married to James,
and the family thinks that he's being abusive towards her.
On Thursday, September fourteenth, James is back in Little Rock
after another period on the road, and he takes Fay
and a friend of hers dancing at a club called
the Rainbow Garden, Oh. They leave the club at about midnight,
(19:00):
at which point the friend says he and Fay began
fighting as James, Fay, and the friend walked to the car.
Fay tells James that she wants to leave him and
moved to California. He slaps her across the face, and
they all get in the car, and when they drop
the friend off at her house, Fay and James are
still fighting. And that is the last time anyone besides
(19:20):
James cees face alive.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Oh that friend, I know, so sad.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
I know when your friend is dating someone or married
to someone that you know is fucking terrible.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
And you're like, she's about to get beaten up, and
I'm getting out of the car.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
What do I do?
Speaker 1 (19:34):
What would you do?
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Go get a guy that's six foot six? I mean,
that's the problem with like someone big in abuse. Those
kinds of bullies are hard to fight if you don't
have anybody around to fight them.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Yeah, they don't like they don't listen to reason or
women or women reason meeting women. Three days later, some
of Faye's cousins come by to see her. James tells
them that she left him three days before. The cousins
tell face parents about this, and they come to look
for her. Of course, Fay's clothes are all in the closet.
It doesn't look like she's gone anywhere, but they give
(20:07):
it some time, hoping that maybe Fae she said she
wanted to go to California. Her friend heard that maybe
she just fucking booked it, and they're about to hear
from her, but when a week goes by, they go
to the Little Rock police. James tells the police that
he last saw his wife on the night they came
back from the Rainbow Garden, that she left her California
blah blah blah. So shortly after that, James moves out
(20:28):
of the apartment he and Fay had shared and goes
out on the road again. We don't know James's exact
route between September and December nineteen forty four. We do
know of several murders of middle aged men in this
time period in Kansas and Oklahoma that some people will
later tie to James similar emos. In the next few months,
James stays closer to Little Rock and commits the four
(20:50):
murders from the beginning of our story that will eventually
lead to his arrest, And that brings us to where
we started in the story and him saying, yes, I
killed them all. Yeah, find confesses to those murders. He
tells police that the first murder was only supposed to
be a robbery. He says that he had intended on
stealing the whiskey from Hamilton, and that James ended up
(21:10):
shooting him with that forty five caliber pistol and then
using Hamilton's gun, which he stole from the car to
commit the rest of the murders. When the police asked
James where Faye's body is, James says he took her
to remote road along a riverbank and beat her to death.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Oh my god, I know.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
James brings the police and several press photographers to the site,
but they can't find anything. Then a woodcutter named Cecil Foster,
who lives nearby, walks over. Cecil tells the police that
he found part of a skull a few weeks back
and that he thought it washed down the river and
he took it home. He says he also saw what
he thought was part of a jawbone on the river bank.
(21:50):
Cecil looks in the spot and it's like, see it's
still there. James himself, who's there to show them where
her remains are, says, quote, that's Fay al right, and
points out the characteristic front tooth in the job oone
so sinister.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
It's so gross.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
And also this idea that they and maybe It wasn't
him particularly, but that idea of like I'm going to
get the press to come to right, It just is
all those ways that I think back then nobody knew.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
You're feeding right into the psychopath plan and the ego.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
Let's let him control this.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Yeah, oh so awful.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
James ultimately confesses to killing Fay and the four other men,
and to multiple other murders. When he was seventeen. In
nineteen thirty eight, he killed a woman in Salinas, Kansas.
He kills a man in San Marcos, Texas in nineteen
forty four, and then he admits to killing ten migrant
workers from nineteen thirty eight to nineteen forty four in Arizona,
(22:51):
and then he'd offer up some clues and declined to
talk about them. He also says he killed a Bible
salesman in Texas because of his itinerant lifestyle. It if
several more murders. There are at least three similar murders
in cities where he was likely to have been, but
there isn't enough evidence to charge him.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Still, this is so oddest tool yes, like but real
but real? But then also can they prove it's real?
Speaker 1 (23:15):
It sounds like he's not making this shit up.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yeah, you know, I mean.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Like it all fits the m o oddest tools. Shit
was all like right all.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Anywhere they brought him.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
He was like, yes, he right, but god, it's just
so I know, it's so evil, it's so scary.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
And he's twenty four, yeah, like with red hair, and
it is like, hey, can you give me right?
Speaker 1 (23:34):
I'm a friendly guy. Can you give me a ride?
Speaker 2 (23:36):
I have a limb fun times. Oh, Bible salesman, I
love bibles.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Oh, and twenty four, which imagines like what would if
he hadn't been caught right then that woman hadn't called
and said this gun that my friend had, I think
it's the murder weapon. If she hadn't called in, what
would he have like ramped up to when he was
like thirty and thirty five?
Speaker 3 (23:54):
You know, I mean maybe he would have gotten the
car and then been like, it'll be faster if I'm
picking people right like that?
Speaker 2 (24:01):
I mean, who knows?
Speaker 1 (24:04):
True crime. James is arigned in the spring of nineteen
forty five. He's charged with first degree murder only for
the killing of Fay, his wife, because this is thought
to be the strongest case against him and it's a
possibility that he'll get the death penalty in this case,
so they want to try this one first. James's trial
begins on the same day Germany surrenders and World War
(24:24):
two ends in Europe, and because of that the case
didn't get as much national attention. But still there are
murderinos back then. The courthouse is packed to the gills
for the two day trial. Two days. That's it.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
On the first day of the trial, James takes back
his confessions and instead pleads not guilty by reason of insanity.
Blah blah blah. James's first wife, Walsey, testifies at the
trial and brings their two year old son. James's entire
relationship with Fay, her murder, and at least four others,
but likely many moore have all taken place within less
than two years. Two years, James has found guilty and
(25:02):
sentenced to death. He was executed a few days before
his twenty fifth birthday in the electric chair on January fourth,
nineteen forty six. Fay's father attends the execution and says, quote,
may God have mercy on your soul. I can't yeah
end quote. And that is the story of the hitchhike
killer James Weyburn Hall.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Literally have never heard anything about this.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Oh, thank you to Abby for sending this in. She
says that he was her grandmother's older brother. Mmm. I know.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Wow. Oh yeah, because there's ten kids or by the
time nine kids yep with him.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Wow. Yeah, that's a big one.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Yeah. Should we do a quick horay tour?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Hoay tour?
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Hoay?
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Okay, do you have one in mind?
Speaker 1 (25:50):
No?
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Go, well, I mean the experience of this tour has
been so incredible and the murdering notes have just shown
up in every way possible everyone we've asked them to.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
So my hoay, I think would just be all of
our listeners, all the people that have like actually gone
to the shows, told their stories. We've had some incredible hometowns,
just incredible like participation. Yeah, it's been so cool to
be able to be out there with people and have that.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
When you kicked that stuffed animal and back into the audience.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Though, you guys, we had a gift of a very large,
very scary sized stuffed animal thrown at us onto the
stage from the dark, and it scared everybody but especially
me and Georgia. So I then kicked it back out
into the audience, and the audience went and sang, that
was a pretty good one.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
That was good.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
What about I think there's also the very first night
of Denver Night one night show one. I don't think
I expected the volume and the reception. Getting a reception
like that was such a lovely gift from that Denver.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Audience, totally nothing like I had completely forgot like what
that felt like, what it sounded like, how incredible and
overwhelming it was. And I'm going to miss that after.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
New York because it's very magical to be able to
get something like that from a room full of people.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Yeah, it's life affirming. You forget that, like people are
listening when you're recording in a studio, and then to
walk out there and be like, there you are.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
These are all the people that are not emailing in
complaints in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
They like it.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
They like it. They want you to have to have animals.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
And we say no, no, thank you, no, thank you, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Thank you for everyone who's calm, Thank you for all
the incredible gifts you've given us. I think we're going
to go through them in a video for the fan
called soon.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Oh Yeah, we're going to go through.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
We're going to unbox our boxes of gifts that we
basically get to go through like raccoons real fast and
then have to box.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Up and ship home.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
I can't wait.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Yeah, it's going to be really good. That was a
great story. This is a great solo.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
Thank you for your patients as we are on wrapping
this tour up, which has been an incredible amount of
work for our team on the podcast team. So thank
you to the MFM production team led by c Molly Smith,
the great producer, Yeah, and everybody.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Else for us to leave and not worry about what's
going up.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
She was on it, and our supervising producer Jess Kek
who worked with Molly, and they basically made the grids
that made it all possible. Right, Thanks to everybody for
making all of these things that we're able to do simultaneously.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
It's only because we have this incredible staff.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Totally. Yeah, thanks guys.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Thanks guys. Well, stay sexy.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
And don't get murdered. Goodbye, Elvis. Do you want a cookie?
Speaker 2 (28:40):
This has been an exactly right production.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Our senior producer is Molly Smith and our associate producer
is Tessa Hughes.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Our editor is Aristotle Ascevedo.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
This episode was mixed by Leona Scolacci.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Our researchers are Mary mclaschan and Ali Elkin.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Email your hometowns to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
And follow the show on Instagram at My Favorite Murder.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Podcasts or wherever you get your.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Podcasts, or you can watch us on YouTube. Search for
My Favorite Murder, then like and subscribe. Goodbye,
Hosts And Creators
Georgia Hardstark
Karen Kilgariff
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