November 19, 2025 • 54 mins
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.
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Speaker 1 (00:20):
Hello, Hello, Raymond, This is m William Phelps, Matthew.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Uh, okay, yes, met you.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Okay, how you doing pretty good?
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Are you?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I'm back in the back cleaning the goat.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
Oh yeah, let me see it.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Let me let me go put this up and I'll
just I'll go ahead and talk to you.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
Go ahead, okay, Well yeah, yeah, Well the real man
I'm here going about forty five.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Vincent t Jerina Junior's uncle, Raymond Tajerina, is eighty years old. Raymond, well,
yet he can recall the moment he learned his nephew
had been murdered with the vivid acuity of a man
half his age.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
I used to run all the time, and competition runs
all over the state, and me and my son had
gone to run in Steaveville, which is fifty miles from here,
fifty three miles from here. We heard it on the
news that morning. After we're finished, stupid cops called it
a murdered suicide, even though they didn't find a weapon
or a stupid you know, stupid people just really get
(01:34):
to you, because, I mean, you know, how the hell
can I murder suicide? When you know we don't find
a weapon or nothing.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Like that. You know they were both shocked in the head.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
An unsolved murder has a tendency to affect victims' families
in any number of ways. One is to force them
to think about what happened or imagine what might have happened,
over and over again. It becomes like walking out of
a film before the final scene, or running from the
(02:10):
altar on your wedding day. Your mind is forever trying
to finish the script and rewrite the ending. When Raymond
and his fifteen year old son were driving home and
heard the report of a murder suicide in Weatherford on
the radio, they looked at each other. Something about the
(02:34):
report rattled them.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
We heard about it, and you know, they didn't have
any details and everything.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
And I told my son, I said, let's go to Wellford.
I said, le'supp see about this stuff and stuff like that,
because they kept saying that one of them Hispanic, and
we had no idea that they didn't announce any names.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Right when I got here, I called my sister.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
She had phones, so I called her and said, well
and he'd probably come up here, said Vincent sned I
wanted to talk to you about So we took off
from here and when I took to see him.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
And after that call with his sister, Raymond drove straight
to Weatherford and eventually showed up at the crime scene.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
It was to me it was premeditated murderer.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
It was planned.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
First I thought it was that they weren't the wrong
place at the wrong time, because they did a lot
of drug dealing right there in the spot. But that
wasn't so, because it couldn't have been because the reason
that it was it was ringing that night. Wynn was
born about thirty five or fifty mile an hours so
that night had been and weather for it had been
a real tremendous thunder and light and all this stuff,
(03:49):
so he couldn't have been in the wrong place at
the wrong time.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Raymond had actually studied criminal investigation long ago. He never
followed through, but fashioned himself as someone with investigative intuition,
and his observations on that morning, I'll say, certainly prove
as much. What was most unusual, though Raymond believes he
(04:17):
knows why, is that he and others were allowed to
walk into the crime scene and even look inside the
car where the kids had been found. First thing that
struck him when he studied the interior of the vehicle
were the shell cases.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
He was murdered with a twenty two small colibers twenty two,
but there were hollow points and when they went in,
they went in and they'll be older and came out. Well,
they didn't come out. It was just pattered all inside
his head. It was shot twice and here was shot first.
I want to say my theory, my investigator, and Sue
(04:57):
was shot as Sue was trying to get away. He
was shut in the back of her head. The guy
was sitting in the back seat. He had a gun
and probably made him open the door and all this
stuff with a gun. There was a bootprint in the
back seat, real visible stuff almost major and everything now
and so I looked at it.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
There was shell shell.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Cases in the car and hardly anything else. There was
a little trash, but not trashy trashy like this normal.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
It was real clean. The car was real clean.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Was there blood spatter?
Speaker 3 (05:32):
There was blood spatter on the driver's window. It didn't
blow the window uttering plant at it. On the window.
There was blood splatter from him on my nephew. And
then the other side had blood was not splattered it
was hit was some on the door, but mainly on.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
The bottom part of the door.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
She fell out when she opened the door, and they
shot her right there, and she felt allowed and hit
the i want to say, hit her head and on
the not the armrest, but further.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Down and went and hit her.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Head real hard because it'd imprint real good her head
on the mud.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Of course, a lot of blood.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Was it was described for me what you saw in
the mud.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Okay, an imprint like some uh not like a fist,
but it was a you know, you take a basketball
and just imprint the heck out of it almost like that.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
It looked like a human's face.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Yes, yes, look it wasn't a face. It was the head,
top of the head. She felled it down into the mud.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
And was there blood there too.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yes, there was a lot of blood.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Because whoever was kidding them with, whoever was was helping
him or whatever. I'm sure he had help because they
took her back in the card and put her on
her seat, on the front seat, and then they put
him right next to her, and they put their armser
on on stuff like that. Mike, I don't know, Mike,
(07:04):
it look like they were therefore Mike Lovin or whatever.
You know, how can you say stuff like that that's.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
What they were doing.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
There are so many different versions of the moment the
kids were discovered and what happened before law enforcement arrived.
I think what we can say at this point without
question is that Vincent Senior moved the kids' bodies while
staging the scene, and in doing so, contaminated potential evidence.
(07:41):
The question you'd have to ask is why would he
move the bodies? Was it a moral decision which has
been suggested to me that he didn't want word to
get out that the kids were found in a compromising position,
or was he trying to hide something? And what did
(08:06):
Vincent Senior tell you, your brother about what he saw
when he got there?
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Well, he saw, you know, next to each other and
uh arm around He had his arm around her, and
there were their heads were together, they were both the
head and he you know, he just went freaking, you know,
freaked out. And he loved to sign a lot, you know,
and his son, he had that cursain that every time
(08:33):
he was gonna go out and use my brother's car,
he had to be home by midnight.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
And when that passed, I mean, you know, he said.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
My brother said, I felt something real bad in me,
so I went to look for him.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
I wondered exactly what time Vincent discovered the car. He
was out all night, driving up and down to the
top road and throughout town. By most accounts, he had
not seen the vehicle until sun up. Was the car
there throughout the night or had he just not seen
it because it was dark, Or was the car driven
(09:13):
up there early that morning and left out in the
open so it could be found. I've heard both theories
so far.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Really not suns hadn't come up, but there's enough daylight
so he could see the car.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
He searched for.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Him all night, and when he was coming back home
there he couldn't find him.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
He went to look for some help. You know, my
brother in law.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
When he was coming home back, I said, he was
he saw the car like there. I mean, it was
right on the road this part on the side of
the road. There was a little bit there's a little
heel and you could see the car, or you can
see the little hill somewhere, you know, the road.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
So he saw him.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
He did not see him, which it was at night,
so he couldn't see the car when he when looking
for him, or he would have found him that night.
But he did, said when he was coming back, he
just went out for the car to see it was his, and.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
He thought they had been dead for a while.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Yes, yes, they had been dead for a good while
in the hours.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Raymond makes a good point contradicting one of my original
thoughts that the car wasn't there throughout the night when
Vincent Senior was looking for them. Raymond believes Vincent Senior
would not have seen the car from the road in
the dark. Also his theory about the kids being shot
(10:42):
outside the vehicle, One source, if you recall, said she
saw blood on the telephone pole when she was up
there that morning. The only reason there would be blood
outside the car is if one or both had been
attacked or shot while standing or even running away. Next,
(11:04):
Raymond explained how Vincent Senior told him that as he
drove around, he suddenly got this strange feeling about the kids,
that something horrible had happened. He felt real bad.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Something hit him, like right in your chance or something
like that. Something hit him. And sometimes we.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Get that way, you know, we're hispanic field something like that.
You know, when something terrible like that happens, and I
don't know some kind of since tell you, I don't
know what it is, but we'll do a few things
like that.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
So he felt something like that. That's when he went
to looking for him.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
When Raymond first arrived at the scene, stepping out of
his vehicle, he couldn't believe what was going on within
the immediate crime scene area itself, people milling about, touching
the car, picking up what could be trace evidence off
the ground. Yet he feels he knows why.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
I mean, when they they come out there, I mean
they came like dozens.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
I think they were poorly mishandled. Everything was mishandled.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
And the name Raymond mentions next, I've bleeped out. But
damn it all, it seems every time I turn around
and speak to someone new, the same name pops up.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I don't know if they were trying to cover up,
but what they.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Already knew what had happened, and big here police, the
city of Weatherford police were covering up for who everybody
blames because somebody said that they had seen some cop
cars there during that night. I'm going to say that
came and helped him clean.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Up the message.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Previously on Paper Ghosts.
Speaker 5 (13:11):
The blood on the ground on her side. I didn't
see anything on handside when they were both shot the head.
He was shot for the second tad and I courtant mention.
Sad Out later said he drifted if.
Speaker 6 (13:22):
He had that he got here all the side, but
with the amount of time that he had leased, you
almost experienced a similar thing there, right, Because their com
scene wasn't handled in nineteen eighty three the way it
would be handled today, or or even in nineteen ninety
three for that matter.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
It's just just a different world. Yeah.
Speaker 7 (13:41):
According to Vincent's family, he was show on the right
hand side too, because they all remember his left side
being just really messed up, the eye kind of hanging out,
so it would have been on the right temple as
well for Vincent.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
My name is em William Phelps. I'm an investigative journalist
in the New York Times, best selling off of dozens
of true crime books. This is season five of Paper Ghosts.
The Texas teen Murders, a recurring theme which came up
(14:23):
time and again as I dug deeper into this case
became the drug trade, not that the kids were doping
or were friendly with dopers, but how widespread the production
and use of methamphetamine was in Parker County at this time,
and how it could have been the genesis of the
(14:45):
murders during those days. Immediately after Vincent and Shelley's bodies
were discovered, Weatherford police seemed to think the same thing,
because the focus quickly went to the meth trade as
a potential motive. It's possible this is a legitimate question
law enforcement posed in their search for an explanation. What
(15:10):
is also possible is that throwing that drug trade element
out into the public early on would keep people from
being overly concerned about the double murder of two teens
happening in their backyard. I don't think it's any secret
that the general public feels safer when a murder is
written off as drug related, which can feel confined to
(15:33):
a space like another world which the average suburban family
is not a part of. It also brings race and
social status into it all, perhaps even convincing people to
care less about solving it.
Speaker 8 (15:49):
I kind of like my name to stay back, you know,
still alive. I'm going to start off by telling you
that Arker County isn't Maybury.
Speaker 9 (16:00):
I was born and raised there.
Speaker 8 (16:02):
I wouldn't want to go to town today at sixty
three and even get pulled over in that town.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
This name you just heard bleeped out, just like you
heard censored previously, has been mentioned as being connected to
the murders by at least a dozen people I have interviewed.
Many still fear accusing this man of having played a
role in the murders. Yet I have seen zero material
(16:31):
evidence connecting him to the murders and have to wonder
if it is a mere rumor exacerbated by the power
of social media and time, and it's vitally important to
me not to docs someone based on suggestion or the
rumor mill alone. I am going to call her Christine,
(16:54):
a source I connected with. She was deeply embedded in
the drug culture of Weatherford and Parker County back in
nineteen eighty three. Knew most of the players and also cooked,
used and sold meth. Although I myself have been sober
from alcohol now thirty years, I understand this world and
(17:17):
knew many of the same types of people Christine will describe,
So I am no stranger to this crowd and how
they rip and run. With that in mind, I got
right into it with her. Did they see something they
shouldn't have seen? I mean, because they were executed, So.
Speaker 8 (17:40):
Yeah, I'm gonna say that's probably what happened exactly.
Speaker 9 (17:45):
I think a lot of the cops were in on it.
Speaker 8 (17:48):
And you still got one comp that's there in town
that he was in on all this stuff too. Some
of the main players that I recalled that was always.
Speaker 9 (17:58):
Badgering, oh there they are, or they would follow you.
Well we would, you know, we'd end up following them,
so we'd chase them.
Speaker 10 (18:06):
You know.
Speaker 9 (18:06):
It was sort of a can't mouse, but they wanted
to come at you.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Christine goes on to tell me that everybody believed most
law enforcement were on the take, and some even controlled
the drug trade. Then she drops a woman's name she
knew personally, whom others have also mentioned to me. This
person was always in trouble and frequently arrested for drugs.
(18:34):
Though it seems once she hooked up with a cop,
her life you could say, well it got a hell
of a lot easier.
Speaker 8 (18:42):
And now I'm going to go on to tell you
some more story that whenever I would get.
Speaker 9 (18:46):
Turn in jail, and that was always in there.
Speaker 11 (18:50):
Well, she would screw through the balls, which was I'm
not sure it was title, but he was at to
SHARE's office then too, with screw through the bars.
Speaker 9 (19:01):
I sit there and watch them. And she's been to
prison a whole bunch.
Speaker 12 (19:05):
I've never been to prison. Thank God, I got some
sense about myself. She was at my cousin's house when
my cousin died. I think she overdosed her. So I
would never say never to that one.
Speaker 9 (19:20):
She was weird. She was bizarre.
Speaker 8 (19:23):
I'm not saying that I wasn't, but she was the
one that maybe couldn't handle it.
Speaker 9 (19:28):
Maybe she needed to quit that stuff, but she was
weird as hell.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
I'm trying to get what you're saying. You're saying that
maybe she could have done something to the kids.
Speaker 9 (19:37):
I think she fits in there somewhere. I've always thought that,
and that's my thought. I thought. I don't think it's
a rumor around town. That's a deal that me and
you are talking about.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
It is.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Indeed, one of the many rumors I have heard. Was
it shocking around town that the two kids had been
ordered executed shot?
Speaker 9 (20:02):
I don't think I was surprised, how come?
Speaker 8 (20:06):
Just knowing the tyrants around town, knowing that they probably
fell into the wrong place at the wrong town.
Speaker 9 (20:12):
It was a dark town. And boy, if you ever,
if you ever knew a little.
Speaker 8 (20:18):
Bit, it's just a scary town. It is a lot
of us kids were hound drugs.
Speaker 9 (20:28):
I think there was more. Eve Honey was cut up
and has parted out around Parker County.
Speaker 8 (20:36):
I don't know if it was had anything to do
with some of the big people around there with.
Speaker 9 (20:40):
Job or what.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
When I hear stories like this within the context of
an unsolved double murder, I need to consider that gossip
about this case was rampant back in the day and
still is. If those statements cannot be backed up with
two or even three additional sources, they have to go
(21:05):
into the questionable column. Christine has every reason to dislike cops.
She was a criminal on their shit list. That's inherent bias.
So I listen and later consider whether to include or
exclude the information. All that being said, what she tells
(21:28):
me next is kind of remarkable.
Speaker 8 (21:31):
We all used a little little dope, even the ones
you wouldn't think was using dope in town.
Speaker 9 (21:40):
You know, we smoked cigarettes, smoked lids. But then when
they are caught on.
Speaker 8 (21:50):
And then there was quite a few cops in town
that you would see one with a horse trailer full
of weed. And I want to tell you all these
people that I'm talking about, after these kids were killed,
it's sort of like they like disappeared.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Tell me about what you remember about that weekend March
twenty fifth, twenty sixth, what happens.
Speaker 8 (22:15):
What I remember is I was kind of doing my
own things, staying in Fort Worth so that I would
stay out of Weatherford. But what happens whenever I came
back into town, they pulled me in for murder, and
then they also pulled my little brother in for murder.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
They pulled you in from murder, for who's murder?
Speaker 9 (22:37):
For those kids.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
My source, Christine explains that she and her brother were
hauled in for the murders of Vincent and Shelley during
those early days after their bodies were found on Pis Hill.
I had so many questions. Number one, why her why
her brother? Were they just rounding up the local known
(23:07):
drug crowd and questioning them or did they have a
viable reason to drag them in?
Speaker 9 (23:15):
And they questioned us.
Speaker 8 (23:17):
I didn't get polygraphed. But whenever they asked me who
I thought it was. I told him it was a tyrant.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Back up a little bit for me. So you're living
outside of Weatherford and the kids are murdered, and when
and how does it happen? Where are you? What happens?
Speaker 4 (23:38):
You know?
Speaker 9 (23:39):
That would be hard for me to say.
Speaker 8 (23:40):
I was probably hard in hell, but I'm gonna guess
I was probably in Fort Worth.
Speaker 9 (23:45):
He was selling drugs, my ex husband, the piece of
shit that he was.
Speaker 8 (23:51):
Anyway, we stayed more in Fort Worth so that we
wouldn't get in trouble because we.
Speaker 9 (23:55):
Did know what Parker County was. And I say Parker County,
that's Weatherford.
Speaker 8 (24:00):
I just remember I would come into town, but I
would get right back out because I knew always up
to no good with the use and sales of drugs.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
How do they latch onto you for the murder of
the two teenagers, Vincent and Shelley.
Speaker 9 (24:15):
They just picked us up from the house. I think
I was at.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
My mother's so they pick you up.
Speaker 8 (24:22):
I think it was because I was a smart ass
in town. I just didn't tolerate them. I was respectful,
yet I never would give them any information. Would ask
you to sell his dope.
Speaker 9 (24:35):
Or you're going to go to jail, you.
Speaker 8 (24:37):
Know, all that type of stuff. So we had already
had conflict.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
I had heard the same accusation from others. If he
wanted you to you either sold or cooked for the guy,
or he was up your ass all the time, and
you would eventually go down in a big way. And
how long after the murders were you pulled in?
Speaker 9 (25:04):
It was right away.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
So they come to your house, they handcuff you. I mean,
what happens?
Speaker 9 (25:11):
They said they needed to question me. They took me
down to the city for questioning.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
What kind of questions did they ask you?
Speaker 9 (25:18):
Did you kill the kids? Do you know anything about it?
Top deal?
Speaker 8 (25:23):
We heard you did it, we heard you were involved,
those kind of questions of it was like they were
trying to jam you up, admitting that you had done
the crime.
Speaker 9 (25:34):
Whenever I hadn't done the crime. I wouldn't kill kids.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
What evidence did they have that they were able to
drag you into this?
Speaker 10 (25:43):
It was just who we were in Wetherford. I see,
you know, I wasn't precious by no means. I just
did what I wanted to do, and I didn't care
what somebody else thought about it.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
How did you ultimately get out of that? When did
they let you go?
Speaker 13 (26:00):
Well, they asked me, they let us Lada let me
go right away. After they questioned me and they said,
who do you think it is?
Speaker 9 (26:11):
And I said it's I said, it's who it is.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
What did they say to that?
Speaker 8 (26:17):
I don't remember the exact expression or reply.
Speaker 9 (26:22):
That's been so many years ago.
Speaker 8 (26:24):
I remember they treated you like, oh yeah type situation,
like yeah, oh yeah, right. I think they just was
questioning him because they didn't know. I don't think they
knew who it was, okay, And to be quite honest,
I remember it was just something that you kind of
(26:45):
knew that it was.
Speaker 9 (26:47):
Just did I know that? To be true? No, I didn't.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Why would he have a motive to kill the kids?
What would be the motive?
Speaker 9 (26:55):
He was selling drugs himself, He was getting the dope.
Speaker 8 (27:01):
And then he would get his little hon yaks, the
ones that were just playing users, not sellers and users.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
When you say he was selling dope, who do you mean? Okay,
so what mode of would he have to kill the kids?
Because Vincent wasn't selling dope, right, I mean now, I
think they.
Speaker 9 (27:24):
Were just doing the parking I'll be kissing if I
was givesing. We called that his heel there where it was,
and it was. It was in the same parking lot
with a school. There was an old school.
Speaker 14 (27:38):
It was in.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
One after the other, six seven, eight. So many people
I've spoken to paint this picture of law enforcement being
involved in the drug trade and the kids coming upon
some sort of deal, seeing something they should not have.
But I am still uncertain about hanging my hat on
(28:04):
this theory. There are just too many unanswered questions and variables. Still.
The truth is, the Weatherford Police Department and all the
way up to the Attorney General's Office have denied my
requests for any reports or witness statements from nineteen eighty three.
(28:25):
This substruction has forced me to talk to everyone myself
forty plus years later. And if there's one obstacle in
cold case investigation you consistently face, it's that time has
a way of adding texture and heft to stories. People
(28:46):
can talk conspiracy, cover up, the cops did it all
day long, And yet I always begin with a basic
Okham's razor premise that murder is uncomplicated. The simplest answer,
the one that makes the most sense, is the answer,
and in this case, the potential is there that the
(29:09):
uncomplicated resolution making the most sense is that law enforcement
is corrupt and behind it all. Sometimes within a reinvestigation,
you need to ask tough questions you know will not
sit right with victims' families, but it is necessary if
(29:29):
your goal is to get at the truth for the
sake of argument, to say the girl was raped. Would
that bring up any other names for you?
Speaker 2 (29:38):
There is?
Speaker 8 (29:39):
I call them bump monkeys because they always just said
they were sort of like wimpy with the hamburger.
Speaker 9 (29:47):
Can you front me today and I'll pay you faddy
tap deal.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
That comment about bump monkeys is interesting because I have
been told by several sources that Shelley was raped and that,
as you have already heard, she had scratches which I
have not confirmed as of yet, along the right side
of her body, as if she had been dragged through
(30:12):
a briar patch. So an obvious theory could be a
few bump monkeys. Dudes Jones and for a fix hanging
around piss Hill looking for dope came upon the car
as Vincent and Shelley were hanging out. They got into
it with Vincent killed him and then raped Shelley before
(30:33):
murdering her, all because they wanted dope. So there wasn't
like a sexual deviant in town that everybody knew about. No,
basically from what I'm getting from you, as you think
they saw something up at the hill they shouldn't have seen. Yeah,
or possibly they saw it down on North Maine while
(30:55):
they were cruising and somebody followed them.
Speaker 9 (31:01):
I haven't thought of that theory.
Speaker 8 (31:03):
I think they've pulled up while something was probably going on.
Speaker 9 (31:06):
If it's had to give the situation.
Speaker 14 (31:29):
Hey, try.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
How are you doing.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Nice to meet you, Nice to meet your girlfriend.
Speaker 14 (31:35):
Basically, Hi, good morning, Bessie.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Nice to meet you.
Speaker 14 (31:42):
Come on and have a seat.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Yeah, yeah, so yeah, thanks for coming man.
Speaker 14 (31:49):
I appreciate it, no problem. I'm glad you're getting involved.
She's said a lot about you.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
With the help of mel Mitchell and Laurie Kate's I
met one of Shelley Colliflowers close cousins. He's an old
school Texan, speaks his mind, doesn't hold back, and doesn't
give two shits about what anybody thinks or has to
say about him.
Speaker 14 (32:14):
My kind of guy. My name's Troy Nichelius. I'm from Dallas, Texas.
Shelley was my cousin.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Like all of Shelley's family, Troy wants to see action,
accountability and expects law enforcement to provide the family with
updates and answers. And they haven't done any of that
throughout forty plus years, he says. In Troy's view, they've
had enough people telling them that the guiding theory of
(32:49):
the case involves big names in town at the time,
and those people need to be brought in and questioned.
Yet nothing has been done in that regard. And where
did you grow up?
Speaker 14 (33:07):
Troy durre in Dallas, Texa's actually Garland.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Garland, Texas. And tell me about growing up in Texas
at that at that time. What were you like as
a kid?
Speaker 14 (33:16):
Troy started out in the high school with rodeo and
stuff like that, and graduated high school and kind of
went downhill a little bit and then started getting it
all back together and done a lot of things in life.
You know, got to travel to over forty eight part
of Canada. Oh wow, wow, I love to ride.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
So oh you got a Harley, Oh yeah, So tell
me a little bit about the rodeo. What was your
experience like with the rodeo.
Speaker 14 (33:45):
Never really got any good, but we had a lot
of fun was doing bull riding and high school we
called it shoot doggings.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Shoot dogging.
Speaker 14 (33:53):
They you bring them out of the shoot and go
so far and throw them down fastest winds.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
And so tell me about the family. Big family, small family.
Speaker 14 (34:04):
Medium sized family. Most of them lived down around Meridian, Texas, Clifton, Texas.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
And so how were.
Speaker 14 (34:11):
You connected with Shelley? How does that My father and
her mother or brother and sister kind of sort of
grew up together. We didn't spend a lot of time
with each other because they live in elsewhere, you know,
so holidays and summertime, trips to grandparents' house and stuff,
so we got to spend a little bit of time together.
(34:32):
Shelley always got along with everybody. It was easy going,
a happy girl, you know. Like I said, we didn't
get to spend a whole lot of time together. But
whenever my mom and us kids would go down to
Meridian to see other family as well, you know, and
if they were there, we hung out for the day
(34:53):
or the weekend. Not much to do in that little town.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Troy sketches up familiar portrait of a family in flux,
a family getting together and sharing stories, but also a
family drifting apart. He has some rather bold views about
the murder of his cousin and has pretty much kept
them to himself until now. As we spoke two things,
(35:19):
Troy mentions send me in a new direction, even if
that direction rings a familiar bell. Troy got involved in
Shelley's case after being thrust into a rather strange situation
as he began to ask questions and poke his finger
into people's chests. Have you heard things about Weatherford?
Speaker 14 (35:41):
Heard a lot of things about Weatherford? What have you heard?
Just the problems with the law, and that you know
covers everybody, court law whatever. As a young child, never
went and like I said, I kind of got messed
up in life, sure years ago and had things nothing
pertaining to this, but just about how the law was
(36:05):
that kind of.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Stuff, How did the law work there? Did you hear
crooked good old Boys club?
Speaker 14 (36:12):
Yeah you could say that I didn't hear it that
a way, but yes, heard a lot more about that
since this has been going on, talking to people over
the telephone and stuff like that. Sure, Sure, I know
back in the wilder days I know, a lot of
stuff come through this area.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
What kind of stuff?
Speaker 14 (36:30):
The drugs?
Speaker 1 (36:32):
What kind of drugs?
Speaker 14 (36:33):
I don't really know. The speed wasn't really on what
I was into, but I know a lot of people
that were coming to this area to do their pickups, yes,
and from who and stuff I can't couldn't say.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Troy clarified that by speed, he's referring to math. Do
you recall hearing about what happened to Shelley and Vincent?
Speaker 14 (36:56):
I got there the day after it happened. You know,
wasn't hearing a lot because we're considered kids at that time,
even though a senior in high school, and I remember
hearing my father and his brother that had talked about,
you know, word is that the man that owns the
town and didn't know it back at the time, knew
(37:19):
he owned a sausage plan or a processing plant. Really
couldn't say what kind of plant it was, but it
was to do something with animals, that he owned the
town that somehow he was involved. And then again they're
talking at that time about the law being involved. Can't
(37:42):
really finger pinpoint to any certain person, you know, and
just being straight up about it, but it was you
know the man that owns the town, his people are involved,
and the law.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
That man, Weldon Kennedy and his sausage processing plant is
a threat. I began to hear from several people I interviewed.
By the time I sat down with Troy in early
twenty twenty five, I still wasn't certain how a sausage
factory in Weatherford and its wealthy businessman owner could be
(38:15):
connected to the murders of two teens in town. The
year following the murders, nineteen eighty four, Weldon Kennedy was
convicted of alien crimes, as the local paper put it,
thirty one charges relating to transporting and harboring undocumented workers
human trafficking. He was bringing in illegal aliens from Mexico
(38:39):
and hiding them out in his plant, basically making them
work to pay off debts. A nice word for it
is indentured servitude. We've all heard this disgusting narrative before,
but Kennedy has been accused of other crimes as well,
big bad things. So I asked mel Mitchell, who has
(39:02):
spent years running this part of the case down, to
explain the connection between this guy and these murders. Had
the kids somehow stumbled upon his human trafficking operation that night.
Was I back to square one, a motive that makes
perfect sense, wrong place, wrong time.
Speaker 7 (39:26):
Kennedy's Sausage company is owned by Weldon Kennedy, and it
was probably one of the bigger employment companies in that
time period back you know, and I know he owned
a couple of other businesses, but I know that was
like a larger place of employment for people in Weatherford.
Looking at court cases, well, to have been convicted of
(39:46):
quite a few different crimes of a time period, and
those also included the illegal immigrants that he was having
brought in from you know, from Central America, Mexico then,
so he was hiding them in the facility. There's like
a specially a false wall from what we understand, and
so you can move it back and I could hold
maybe I've heard up to eleven people in it. But
(40:08):
that's also where we may have had a stash of
illegal alcohol. He had also been rumored to be gun
smuggling human trafficking, you know, obviously narcotics. We believe he
is also involved in our togics trafficking. So he kind
of had his fingers in pretty much everything.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
What you just heard private investigator Mel Mitchell explain opened
up a vein in this case, taking me further down
into a rabbit hole than I could have ever expected.
It seems that Kennedy was connected to the same man
whose name I've been censoring throughout the podcast, someone high
(40:53):
up in law enforcement. So now you're looking at the
potential of a hardcore, convicted criminal, Weldon Kennedy involved in
enormously profitable federal crimes. It's not crazy to think that
a guy like this wouldn't have thought twice about taking
out two kids who randomly stumbled upon his operation or
(41:19):
ran into one of his soldiers. Jimmy Freeman was a
deputy for the Sheriff's department back in the day and
had a lot to say about what was going on
inside that department, a department that kept a close eye
on what was going on around Weatherford.
Speaker 4 (41:40):
I'm from Minerales, right west to Weatherford, and it's a
smaller town than Weatherford. Just as soon as I was
in a school, I went to work for the State
of Texas down in Huntsville on what's going to college
down there? Get Huntsville and I started working for the
penitentiary and the game mordens and the highway patrols when
(42:01):
I was just a young man and stayed there, stayed
there for ten eleven years, and went from there when
I come When I left there and come up here,
I went to work for the Sheriff's Department and stayed
here another six or seven years here in Parker County
with the Sheriff's Department. And I finally got out and
(42:23):
started doing anything and everything, building houses, building barns, building senses.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
When he went to work for the Sheriff's department, Jimmy
says he saw and heard things which were hard to
believe at first, and almost as if on Q that
name I have been censoring throughout, it comes up again.
Speaker 4 (42:45):
Well, it was okay at first when I first, when
I first went to work for him, but then all
of a sudden changed the laws as he went as
he went down the road, and there's not but one
law ever been made. And he wanted me the very
first time, there was a man that was asleep on
(43:06):
the side of the road.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
I got the call, so I went.
Speaker 4 (43:08):
I went out there and found the man. He was asleep.
Speaker 9 (43:11):
There was an empty whiskey bottle.
Speaker 4 (43:13):
In the back and wanted me to give him a
d w I, And I told I can't give him
no d w I. I said, I didn't see the
man driving. He's sleep in the damn car.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
A seemingly small corruption operation soon turned into what Jimmy
saw as a much bigger one as time went on
and he kept his mouth shut and his eyes open.
Speaker 4 (43:45):
Then I found out two or three times that he
had some people's deal cars and tear them apart, take
them apart, and sell all the parts different places and
stuff like that. It just rocked on, and he was
not the man I thought he was.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
When I went to work for him.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
I asked him about the production and distribution of methamphetamine.
Had he ever discovered anyone in law enforcement involved?
Speaker 4 (44:15):
And I knew where there were some places down here
at Millsap, that there was put some cooks down there
when he finally quit up under, but he moved.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
They moved.
Speaker 4 (44:25):
He moved down there. And he had two places in
mills Oup, both owned by the county, and.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
These were places where they cooked methamphetamine.
Speaker 9 (44:35):
Yes, yes, so was involved.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
In the process of the cooking or distribution or was
he overseeing.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
All of it? All of it?
Speaker 4 (44:47):
And like I said everything. He had to cook all
this stuff, and they distributed and put it down. Rex
Cobble Weldon Kennedy.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Rex Cobble, known as the marijuana kingpin of Texas during
the nineteen seventies, and also as Jimmy Freeman, seems to
suggest the general within what was known as the Cowboy Mafia,
a large group of very wealthy drug smugglers. Cobble was
(45:19):
later indicted and convicted on ten counts ranging from racketeering
to misapplication of bank funds. Rex Cobble and Weldon Kennedy,
Jimmy says, we're at the top, whereas the other man, Well,
I'll let Jimmy explain.
Speaker 4 (45:37):
A little man up against Rex Cobble and in wild
and Kennedy.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Okay, the sausage guy they.
Speaker 4 (45:46):
Were, he was it was like about four or five
counties when Rix Cobble was. He was worldwide, and Weldon
Kennedy was four or five states, if not more.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
I needed to wrap my mind around exactly what Jimmy
Freeman was telling me that this high ranking member of
law enforcement and Weldon Kennedy were allegedly at one time
major meth distributors in Parker County, and beyond. Jimmy wasn't
(46:20):
the only source telling me this. I had heard it
time and again from law enforcement whistleblowers and others living
in the area, many of whom had actually worked for
the two of them. But what's even more astonishing is
two people closely connected to Kennedy and that law enforcement
official NW Vincent and especially Shelley very well. These types
(46:58):
of cold case, where information can feel scattered and fragmented,
require patience. I've learned over the years to trust the process,
keep talking to people and keep asking the right questions,
and if there is a greater truth to be found,
it will somehow rise to the surface all on its own.
(47:22):
Speaking to Jimmy Freeman felt like I could see the
sun rising just over the mountains, with peaks of light
finally starting to emerge. Shelley's cousin, Troy, wasn't finished talking,
and what he tells me next sends things and yet
another direction. So what are you hearing from the family.
(47:46):
I mean, obviously everyone's distraught. Do you remember how it
was for family back then?
Speaker 14 (47:53):
Oh, everybody was really tore up. It just took us
all by you know, major surprise. I mean, Shelley wouldn't
have done. From what I know of Shelley throughout the
you know what, sixteen seventeen years there, she was sweet, innocent,
didn't want problems, never caused any problems that I knew
of or mayby besides, you know, sneaking out of the
(48:14):
house or something other. I don't maybe a little smart
mouth talking or something other. That's about all I knew
of up until this happened. And then I can remember
my dad and his brother talking about it. Aunt Johnny
at the time wasn't really in a position to be talking,
you know, being all upset and stuff. But yeah, it
was pretty tough on the family. And it's a shame
(48:37):
that a lot of her family has passed away and
we've never gotten anywhere.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
You know.
Speaker 14 (48:42):
I think of her from time to time, and now
that you know, forty plus years has gone by, it's
lessen that every day. I guess you could say that
you'd stopped, I would stop and think of her. I know,
back in the day, you know, at my age, that
was all I could think about for a long time,
you know, just trying to close your eyes and picture
of what really happened that night, you know, I know,
(49:05):
Vincent he was from hearing the family talk. He was
a well liked guy. I knew a lot of people,
of course, knowing how Shelley is, you know, like I said,
she was a good kid as far as I'm concerned,
never really done anything wrong.
Speaker 1 (49:19):
I mentioned earlier that there were two things Shelley's cousin Troy,
told me, both of which sent me scurrying down into
a deeper part of this investigation. One was the implication
that convicted human trafficker Welding Kennedy had some sort of
connection to the case. The other is more recent, much
(49:42):
more Actually, something strange happened to Troy one evening in
late twenty twenty four when he got home from work.
He stepped out of his truck, walked toward the front
door of his house and found a surprise waiting for him.
Speaker 14 (50:03):
There was an envelope laying on the front ports there
in between the front door and the screen door, and
I didn't think much bad it, picked it up, went
on in the house, you know, kind of did my
normal get home routine there, and then opened it up.
And it was who brought or delivered this still today
(50:24):
have no clue, but it was the copy of the
autopsy report, Onshelley.
Speaker 1 (50:30):
And what'd you do?
Speaker 14 (50:32):
I read it and then made a few phone calls.
Speaker 1 (50:37):
Both families had been lobbying for records in the case
for the past four decades, to no avail, not a
witness statement, photograph, not even a damn police report. They
had been told it was an open case and whether
for police department cannot release records. They had been told
(50:58):
all the records were lost in a flood. They had
been told a truck pulled up and took everything to
the local garbage dump. So nobody knew what the hell
to believe anymore. And now suddenly an anonymous person slips
Shelley's autopsy report into Troy's door in November twenty twenty four.
(51:22):
What message is this person trying to send? And why now?
What did you feel after reading it?
Speaker 14 (51:39):
Numb out to a point confused, you know, and then
really confused on how did somebody find word to put that?
Who was it? And who knows me that had that?
It's really strange.
Speaker 1 (51:57):
Why hadn't they mailed it instead of taking the risk
of being caught dropping it off? Why Troy, he was
not even one of the more public family members out
there speaking about the case. What could be in that
report that meant so much at this point in the investigation.
I asked him about it all, and what Troy tells
(52:20):
me next, well, is something completely out of left field.
Speaker 14 (52:26):
I know it's going to throw a loo, but I
kind of feel that her father, Ronnie Califlyer, was involved
in it, or at least knew of something going on.
I've tried contacting him through his daughter, called, left messages,
text message, Facebook. I can't get him the call back.
My dad always with his brother, he would always say,
(52:48):
had he put it, I lay you two to one
that he's involved some form or fashion is what my
dad would say.
Speaker 1 (53:15):
Whatever platform you get your favorite podcast sign, please check
out my weekly series Crossing the Line with em William Phelps,
where I delve into a new missing person and cold
case murder each week. Coming up in the next episode,
Paper Ghosts and.
Speaker 15 (53:36):
Some other people came in and I stepped out into
the hallway and Ronnie came in and told me that
I needed to leave. He was angry, very and he
said I need you to leave and I said, okay,
I can do that, and he said, no, I want
you out of my house now.
Speaker 7 (53:54):
And one person went to Vincent's side and kind of
looked in on the casket. The other person went to
Shelley's side, looked in on the casket, and then kind
of met up in the middle. And people are kind
of looking at them, thinking okay orre they introduce themselves,
They're gonna say hi, but they don't do any of that.
They just kind of whenever they're looked at the caskets
and kind of met in the middle and then left.
Speaker 16 (54:12):
Wendy had gone to Lake Weatherford to a place called
the Wall. She was alone, and she didn't come home,
and so they called the police and.
Speaker 9 (54:24):
Reported her missing.
Speaker 1 (54:29):
Paper Ghosts Season five is written and executive produced by
Me and William Phelps. Script consulting by iHeartMedia, executive producer
Catherine Law, Production by toc Boom Productions, Audio mastering and
mixing by Brandon Dicker. The series theme number four four
(54:49):
to two is written and performed by Thomas Phelps and
Tom Mooney.
Hello, Hello, Raymond, This is m William Phelps, Matthew.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Uh, okay, yes, met you.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Okay, how you doing pretty good?
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Are you?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I'm back in the back cleaning the goat.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
Oh yeah, let me see it.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Let me let me go put this up and I'll
just I'll go ahead and talk to you.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
Go ahead, okay, Well yeah, yeah, Well the real man
I'm here going about forty five.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Vincent t Jerina Junior's uncle, Raymond Tajerina, is eighty years old. Raymond, well,
yet he can recall the moment he learned his nephew
had been murdered with the vivid acuity of a man
half his age.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
I used to run all the time, and competition runs
all over the state, and me and my son had
gone to run in Steaveville, which is fifty miles from here,
fifty three miles from here. We heard it on the
news that morning. After we're finished, stupid cops called it
a murdered suicide, even though they didn't find a weapon
or a stupid you know, stupid people just really get
(01:34):
to you, because, I mean, you know, how the hell
can I murder suicide? When you know we don't find
a weapon or nothing.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Like that. You know they were both shocked in the head.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
An unsolved murder has a tendency to affect victims' families
in any number of ways. One is to force them
to think about what happened or imagine what might have happened,
over and over again. It becomes like walking out of
a film before the final scene, or running from the
(02:10):
altar on your wedding day. Your mind is forever trying
to finish the script and rewrite the ending. When Raymond
and his fifteen year old son were driving home and
heard the report of a murder suicide in Weatherford on
the radio, they looked at each other. Something about the
(02:34):
report rattled them.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
We heard about it, and you know, they didn't have
any details and everything.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
And I told my son, I said, let's go to Wellford.
I said, le'supp see about this stuff and stuff like that,
because they kept saying that one of them Hispanic, and
we had no idea that they didn't announce any names.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Right when I got here, I called my sister.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
She had phones, so I called her and said, well
and he'd probably come up here, said Vincent sned I
wanted to talk to you about So we took off
from here and when I took to see him.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
And after that call with his sister, Raymond drove straight
to Weatherford and eventually showed up at the crime scene.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
It was to me it was premeditated murderer.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
It was planned.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
First I thought it was that they weren't the wrong
place at the wrong time, because they did a lot
of drug dealing right there in the spot. But that
wasn't so, because it couldn't have been because the reason
that it was it was ringing that night. Wynn was
born about thirty five or fifty mile an hours so
that night had been and weather for it had been
a real tremendous thunder and light and all this stuff,
(03:49):
so he couldn't have been in the wrong place at
the wrong time.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Raymond had actually studied criminal investigation long ago. He never
followed through, but fashioned himself as someone with investigative intuition,
and his observations on that morning, I'll say, certainly prove
as much. What was most unusual, though Raymond believes he
(04:17):
knows why, is that he and others were allowed to
walk into the crime scene and even look inside the
car where the kids had been found. First thing that
struck him when he studied the interior of the vehicle
were the shell cases.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
He was murdered with a twenty two small colibers twenty two,
but there were hollow points and when they went in,
they went in and they'll be older and came out. Well,
they didn't come out. It was just pattered all inside
his head. It was shot twice and here was shot first.
I want to say my theory, my investigator, and Sue
(04:57):
was shot as Sue was trying to get away. He
was shut in the back of her head. The guy
was sitting in the back seat. He had a gun
and probably made him open the door and all this
stuff with a gun. There was a bootprint in the
back seat, real visible stuff almost major and everything now
and so I looked at it.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
There was shell shell.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Cases in the car and hardly anything else. There was
a little trash, but not trashy trashy like this normal.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
It was real clean. The car was real clean.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Was there blood spatter?
Speaker 3 (05:32):
There was blood spatter on the driver's window. It didn't
blow the window uttering plant at it. On the window.
There was blood splatter from him on my nephew. And
then the other side had blood was not splattered it
was hit was some on the door, but mainly on.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
The bottom part of the door.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
She fell out when she opened the door, and they
shot her right there, and she felt allowed and hit
the i want to say, hit her head and on
the not the armrest, but further.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Down and went and hit her.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Head real hard because it'd imprint real good her head
on the mud.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Of course, a lot of blood.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Was it was described for me what you saw in
the mud.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Okay, an imprint like some uh not like a fist,
but it was a you know, you take a basketball
and just imprint the heck out of it almost like that.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
It looked like a human's face.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Yes, yes, look it wasn't a face. It was the head,
top of the head. She felled it down into the mud.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
And was there blood there too.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yes, there was a lot of blood.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Because whoever was kidding them with, whoever was was helping
him or whatever. I'm sure he had help because they
took her back in the card and put her on
her seat, on the front seat, and then they put
him right next to her, and they put their armser
on on stuff like that. Mike, I don't know, Mike,
(07:04):
it look like they were therefore Mike Lovin or whatever.
You know, how can you say stuff like that that's.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
What they were doing.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
There are so many different versions of the moment the
kids were discovered and what happened before law enforcement arrived.
I think what we can say at this point without
question is that Vincent Senior moved the kids' bodies while
staging the scene, and in doing so, contaminated potential evidence.
(07:41):
The question you'd have to ask is why would he
move the bodies? Was it a moral decision which has
been suggested to me that he didn't want word to
get out that the kids were found in a compromising position,
or was he trying to hide something? And what did
(08:06):
Vincent Senior tell you, your brother about what he saw
when he got there?
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Well, he saw, you know, next to each other and
uh arm around He had his arm around her, and
there were their heads were together, they were both the
head and he you know, he just went freaking, you know,
freaked out. And he loved to sign a lot, you know,
and his son, he had that cursain that every time
(08:33):
he was gonna go out and use my brother's car,
he had to be home by midnight.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
And when that passed, I mean, you know, he said.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
My brother said, I felt something real bad in me,
so I went to look for him.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
I wondered exactly what time Vincent discovered the car. He
was out all night, driving up and down to the
top road and throughout town. By most accounts, he had
not seen the vehicle until sun up. Was the car
there throughout the night or had he just not seen
it because it was dark, Or was the car driven
(09:13):
up there early that morning and left out in the
open so it could be found. I've heard both theories
so far.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Really not suns hadn't come up, but there's enough daylight
so he could see the car.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
He searched for.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Him all night, and when he was coming back home
there he couldn't find him.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
He went to look for some help. You know, my
brother in law.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
When he was coming home back, I said, he was
he saw the car like there. I mean, it was
right on the road this part on the side of
the road. There was a little bit there's a little
heel and you could see the car, or you can
see the little hill somewhere, you know, the road.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
So he saw him.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
He did not see him, which it was at night,
so he couldn't see the car when he when looking
for him, or he would have found him that night.
But he did, said when he was coming back, he
just went out for the car to see it was his, and.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
He thought they had been dead for a while.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Yes, yes, they had been dead for a good while
in the hours.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Raymond makes a good point contradicting one of my original
thoughts that the car wasn't there throughout the night when
Vincent Senior was looking for them. Raymond believes Vincent Senior
would not have seen the car from the road in
the dark. Also his theory about the kids being shot
(10:42):
outside the vehicle, One source, if you recall, said she
saw blood on the telephone pole when she was up
there that morning. The only reason there would be blood
outside the car is if one or both had been
attacked or shot while standing or even running away. Next,
(11:04):
Raymond explained how Vincent Senior told him that as he
drove around, he suddenly got this strange feeling about the kids,
that something horrible had happened. He felt real bad.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Something hit him, like right in your chance or something
like that. Something hit him. And sometimes we.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Get that way, you know, we're hispanic field something like that.
You know, when something terrible like that happens, and I
don't know some kind of since tell you, I don't
know what it is, but we'll do a few things
like that.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
So he felt something like that. That's when he went
to looking for him.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
When Raymond first arrived at the scene, stepping out of
his vehicle, he couldn't believe what was going on within
the immediate crime scene area itself, people milling about, touching
the car, picking up what could be trace evidence off
the ground. Yet he feels he knows why.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
I mean, when they they come out there, I mean
they came like dozens.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
I think they were poorly mishandled. Everything was mishandled.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
And the name Raymond mentions next, I've bleeped out. But
damn it all, it seems every time I turn around
and speak to someone new, the same name pops up.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I don't know if they were trying to cover up,
but what they.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Already knew what had happened, and big here police, the
city of Weatherford police were covering up for who everybody
blames because somebody said that they had seen some cop
cars there during that night. I'm going to say that
came and helped him clean.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Up the message.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Previously on Paper Ghosts.
Speaker 5 (13:11):
The blood on the ground on her side. I didn't
see anything on handside when they were both shot the head.
He was shot for the second tad and I courtant mention.
Sad Out later said he drifted if.
Speaker 6 (13:22):
He had that he got here all the side, but
with the amount of time that he had leased, you
almost experienced a similar thing there, right, Because their com
scene wasn't handled in nineteen eighty three the way it
would be handled today, or or even in nineteen ninety
three for that matter.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
It's just just a different world. Yeah.
Speaker 7 (13:41):
According to Vincent's family, he was show on the right
hand side too, because they all remember his left side
being just really messed up, the eye kind of hanging out,
so it would have been on the right temple as
well for Vincent.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
My name is em William Phelps. I'm an investigative journalist
in the New York Times, best selling off of dozens
of true crime books. This is season five of Paper Ghosts.
The Texas teen Murders, a recurring theme which came up
(14:23):
time and again as I dug deeper into this case
became the drug trade, not that the kids were doping
or were friendly with dopers, but how widespread the production
and use of methamphetamine was in Parker County at this time,
and how it could have been the genesis of the
(14:45):
murders during those days. Immediately after Vincent and Shelley's bodies
were discovered, Weatherford police seemed to think the same thing,
because the focus quickly went to the meth trade as
a potential motive. It's possible this is a legitimate question
law enforcement posed in their search for an explanation. What
(15:10):
is also possible is that throwing that drug trade element
out into the public early on would keep people from
being overly concerned about the double murder of two teens
happening in their backyard. I don't think it's any secret
that the general public feels safer when a murder is
written off as drug related, which can feel confined to
(15:33):
a space like another world which the average suburban family
is not a part of. It also brings race and
social status into it all, perhaps even convincing people to
care less about solving it.
Speaker 8 (15:49):
I kind of like my name to stay back, you know,
still alive. I'm going to start off by telling you
that Arker County isn't Maybury.
Speaker 9 (16:00):
I was born and raised there.
Speaker 8 (16:02):
I wouldn't want to go to town today at sixty
three and even get pulled over in that town.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
This name you just heard bleeped out, just like you
heard censored previously, has been mentioned as being connected to
the murders by at least a dozen people I have interviewed.
Many still fear accusing this man of having played a
role in the murders. Yet I have seen zero material
(16:31):
evidence connecting him to the murders and have to wonder
if it is a mere rumor exacerbated by the power
of social media and time, and it's vitally important to
me not to docs someone based on suggestion or the
rumor mill alone. I am going to call her Christine,
(16:54):
a source I connected with. She was deeply embedded in
the drug culture of Weatherford and Parker County back in
nineteen eighty three. Knew most of the players and also cooked,
used and sold meth. Although I myself have been sober
from alcohol now thirty years, I understand this world and
(17:17):
knew many of the same types of people Christine will describe,
So I am no stranger to this crowd and how
they rip and run. With that in mind, I got
right into it with her. Did they see something they
shouldn't have seen? I mean, because they were executed, So.
Speaker 8 (17:40):
Yeah, I'm gonna say that's probably what happened exactly.
Speaker 9 (17:45):
I think a lot of the cops were in on it.
Speaker 8 (17:48):
And you still got one comp that's there in town
that he was in on all this stuff too. Some
of the main players that I recalled that was always.
Speaker 9 (17:58):
Badgering, oh there they are, or they would follow you.
Well we would, you know, we'd end up following them,
so we'd chase them.
Speaker 10 (18:06):
You know.
Speaker 9 (18:06):
It was sort of a can't mouse, but they wanted
to come at you.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Christine goes on to tell me that everybody believed most
law enforcement were on the take, and some even controlled
the drug trade. Then she drops a woman's name she
knew personally, whom others have also mentioned to me. This
person was always in trouble and frequently arrested for drugs.
(18:34):
Though it seems once she hooked up with a cop,
her life you could say, well it got a hell
of a lot easier.
Speaker 8 (18:42):
And now I'm going to go on to tell you
some more story that whenever I would get.
Speaker 9 (18:46):
Turn in jail, and that was always in there.
Speaker 11 (18:50):
Well, she would screw through the balls, which was I'm
not sure it was title, but he was at to
SHARE's office then too, with screw through the bars.
Speaker 9 (19:01):
I sit there and watch them. And she's been to
prison a whole bunch.
Speaker 12 (19:05):
I've never been to prison. Thank God, I got some
sense about myself. She was at my cousin's house when
my cousin died. I think she overdosed her. So I
would never say never to that one.
Speaker 9 (19:20):
She was weird. She was bizarre.
Speaker 8 (19:23):
I'm not saying that I wasn't, but she was the
one that maybe couldn't handle it.
Speaker 9 (19:28):
Maybe she needed to quit that stuff, but she was
weird as hell.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
I'm trying to get what you're saying. You're saying that
maybe she could have done something to the kids.
Speaker 9 (19:37):
I think she fits in there somewhere. I've always thought that,
and that's my thought. I thought. I don't think it's
a rumor around town. That's a deal that me and
you are talking about.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
It is.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Indeed, one of the many rumors I have heard. Was
it shocking around town that the two kids had been
ordered executed shot?
Speaker 9 (20:02):
I don't think I was surprised, how come?
Speaker 8 (20:06):
Just knowing the tyrants around town, knowing that they probably
fell into the wrong place at the wrong town.
Speaker 9 (20:12):
It was a dark town. And boy, if you ever,
if you ever knew a little.
Speaker 8 (20:18):
Bit, it's just a scary town. It is a lot
of us kids were hound drugs.
Speaker 9 (20:28):
I think there was more. Eve Honey was cut up
and has parted out around Parker County.
Speaker 8 (20:36):
I don't know if it was had anything to do
with some of the big people around there with.
Speaker 9 (20:40):
Job or what.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
When I hear stories like this within the context of
an unsolved double murder, I need to consider that gossip
about this case was rampant back in the day and
still is. If those statements cannot be backed up with
two or even three additional sources, they have to go
(21:05):
into the questionable column. Christine has every reason to dislike cops.
She was a criminal on their shit list. That's inherent bias.
So I listen and later consider whether to include or
exclude the information. All that being said, what she tells
(21:28):
me next is kind of remarkable.
Speaker 8 (21:31):
We all used a little little dope, even the ones
you wouldn't think was using dope in town.
Speaker 9 (21:40):
You know, we smoked cigarettes, smoked lids. But then when
they are caught on.
Speaker 8 (21:50):
And then there was quite a few cops in town
that you would see one with a horse trailer full
of weed. And I want to tell you all these
people that I'm talking about, after these kids were killed,
it's sort of like they like disappeared.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Tell me about what you remember about that weekend March
twenty fifth, twenty sixth, what happens.
Speaker 8 (22:15):
What I remember is I was kind of doing my
own things, staying in Fort Worth so that I would
stay out of Weatherford. But what happens whenever I came
back into town, they pulled me in for murder, and
then they also pulled my little brother in for murder.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
They pulled you in from murder, for who's murder?
Speaker 9 (22:37):
For those kids.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
My source, Christine explains that she and her brother were
hauled in for the murders of Vincent and Shelley during
those early days after their bodies were found on Pis Hill.
I had so many questions. Number one, why her why
her brother? Were they just rounding up the local known
(23:07):
drug crowd and questioning them or did they have a
viable reason to drag them in?
Speaker 9 (23:15):
And they questioned us.
Speaker 8 (23:17):
I didn't get polygraphed. But whenever they asked me who
I thought it was. I told him it was a tyrant.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Back up a little bit for me. So you're living
outside of Weatherford and the kids are murdered, and when
and how does it happen? Where are you? What happens?
Speaker 4 (23:38):
You know?
Speaker 9 (23:39):
That would be hard for me to say.
Speaker 8 (23:40):
I was probably hard in hell, but I'm gonna guess
I was probably in Fort Worth.
Speaker 9 (23:45):
He was selling drugs, my ex husband, the piece of
shit that he was.
Speaker 8 (23:51):
Anyway, we stayed more in Fort Worth so that we
wouldn't get in trouble because we.
Speaker 9 (23:55):
Did know what Parker County was. And I say Parker County,
that's Weatherford.
Speaker 8 (24:00):
I just remember I would come into town, but I
would get right back out because I knew always up
to no good with the use and sales of drugs.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
How do they latch onto you for the murder of
the two teenagers, Vincent and Shelley.
Speaker 9 (24:15):
They just picked us up from the house. I think
I was at.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
My mother's so they pick you up.
Speaker 8 (24:22):
I think it was because I was a smart ass
in town. I just didn't tolerate them. I was respectful,
yet I never would give them any information. Would ask
you to sell his dope.
Speaker 9 (24:35):
Or you're going to go to jail, you.
Speaker 8 (24:37):
Know, all that type of stuff. So we had already
had conflict.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
I had heard the same accusation from others. If he
wanted you to you either sold or cooked for the guy,
or he was up your ass all the time, and
you would eventually go down in a big way. And
how long after the murders were you pulled in?
Speaker 9 (25:04):
It was right away.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
So they come to your house, they handcuff you. I mean,
what happens?
Speaker 9 (25:11):
They said they needed to question me. They took me
down to the city for questioning.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
What kind of questions did they ask you?
Speaker 9 (25:18):
Did you kill the kids? Do you know anything about it?
Top deal?
Speaker 8 (25:23):
We heard you did it, we heard you were involved,
those kind of questions of it was like they were
trying to jam you up, admitting that you had done
the crime.
Speaker 9 (25:34):
Whenever I hadn't done the crime. I wouldn't kill kids.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
What evidence did they have that they were able to
drag you into this?
Speaker 10 (25:43):
It was just who we were in Wetherford. I see,
you know, I wasn't precious by no means. I just
did what I wanted to do, and I didn't care
what somebody else thought about it.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
How did you ultimately get out of that? When did
they let you go?
Speaker 13 (26:00):
Well, they asked me, they let us Lada let me
go right away. After they questioned me and they said,
who do you think it is?
Speaker 9 (26:11):
And I said it's I said, it's who it is.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
What did they say to that?
Speaker 8 (26:17):
I don't remember the exact expression or reply.
Speaker 9 (26:22):
That's been so many years ago.
Speaker 8 (26:24):
I remember they treated you like, oh yeah type situation,
like yeah, oh yeah, right. I think they just was
questioning him because they didn't know. I don't think they
knew who it was, okay, And to be quite honest,
I remember it was just something that you kind of
(26:45):
knew that it was.
Speaker 9 (26:47):
Just did I know that? To be true? No, I didn't.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Why would he have a motive to kill the kids?
What would be the motive?
Speaker 9 (26:55):
He was selling drugs himself, He was getting the dope.
Speaker 8 (27:01):
And then he would get his little hon yaks, the
ones that were just playing users, not sellers and users.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
When you say he was selling dope, who do you mean? Okay,
so what mode of would he have to kill the kids?
Because Vincent wasn't selling dope, right, I mean now, I
think they.
Speaker 9 (27:24):
Were just doing the parking I'll be kissing if I
was givesing. We called that his heel there where it was,
and it was. It was in the same parking lot
with a school. There was an old school.
Speaker 14 (27:38):
It was in.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
One after the other, six seven, eight. So many people
I've spoken to paint this picture of law enforcement being
involved in the drug trade and the kids coming upon
some sort of deal, seeing something they should not have.
But I am still uncertain about hanging my hat on
(28:04):
this theory. There are just too many unanswered questions and variables. Still.
The truth is, the Weatherford Police Department and all the
way up to the Attorney General's Office have denied my
requests for any reports or witness statements from nineteen eighty three.
(28:25):
This substruction has forced me to talk to everyone myself
forty plus years later. And if there's one obstacle in
cold case investigation you consistently face, it's that time has
a way of adding texture and heft to stories. People
(28:46):
can talk conspiracy, cover up, the cops did it all
day long, And yet I always begin with a basic
Okham's razor premise that murder is uncomplicated. The simplest answer,
the one that makes the most sense, is the answer,
and in this case, the potential is there that the
(29:09):
uncomplicated resolution making the most sense is that law enforcement
is corrupt and behind it all. Sometimes within a reinvestigation,
you need to ask tough questions you know will not
sit right with victims' families, but it is necessary if
(29:29):
your goal is to get at the truth for the
sake of argument, to say the girl was raped. Would
that bring up any other names for you?
Speaker 2 (29:38):
There is?
Speaker 8 (29:39):
I call them bump monkeys because they always just said
they were sort of like wimpy with the hamburger.
Speaker 9 (29:47):
Can you front me today and I'll pay you faddy
tap deal.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
That comment about bump monkeys is interesting because I have
been told by several sources that Shelley was raped and that,
as you have already heard, she had scratches which I
have not confirmed as of yet, along the right side
of her body, as if she had been dragged through
(30:12):
a briar patch. So an obvious theory could be a
few bump monkeys. Dudes Jones and for a fix hanging
around piss Hill looking for dope came upon the car
as Vincent and Shelley were hanging out. They got into
it with Vincent killed him and then raped Shelley before
(30:33):
murdering her, all because they wanted dope. So there wasn't
like a sexual deviant in town that everybody knew about. No,
basically from what I'm getting from you, as you think
they saw something up at the hill they shouldn't have seen. Yeah,
or possibly they saw it down on North Maine while
(30:55):
they were cruising and somebody followed them.
Speaker 9 (31:01):
I haven't thought of that theory.
Speaker 8 (31:03):
I think they've pulled up while something was probably going on.
Speaker 9 (31:06):
If it's had to give the situation.
Speaker 14 (31:29):
Hey, try.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
How are you doing.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Nice to meet you, Nice to meet your girlfriend.
Speaker 14 (31:35):
Basically, Hi, good morning, Bessie.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Nice to meet you.
Speaker 14 (31:42):
Come on and have a seat.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Yeah, yeah, so yeah, thanks for coming man.
Speaker 14 (31:49):
I appreciate it, no problem. I'm glad you're getting involved.
She's said a lot about you.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
With the help of mel Mitchell and Laurie Kate's I
met one of Shelley Colliflowers close cousins. He's an old
school Texan, speaks his mind, doesn't hold back, and doesn't
give two shits about what anybody thinks or has to
say about him.
Speaker 14 (32:14):
My kind of guy. My name's Troy Nichelius. I'm from Dallas, Texas.
Shelley was my cousin.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Like all of Shelley's family, Troy wants to see action,
accountability and expects law enforcement to provide the family with
updates and answers. And they haven't done any of that
throughout forty plus years, he says. In Troy's view, they've
had enough people telling them that the guiding theory of
(32:49):
the case involves big names in town at the time,
and those people need to be brought in and questioned.
Yet nothing has been done in that regard. And where
did you grow up?
Speaker 14 (33:07):
Troy durre in Dallas, Texa's actually Garland.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Garland, Texas. And tell me about growing up in Texas
at that at that time. What were you like as
a kid?
Speaker 14 (33:16):
Troy started out in the high school with rodeo and
stuff like that, and graduated high school and kind of
went downhill a little bit and then started getting it
all back together and done a lot of things in life.
You know, got to travel to over forty eight part
of Canada. Oh wow, wow, I love to ride.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
So oh you got a Harley, Oh yeah, So tell
me a little bit about the rodeo. What was your
experience like with the rodeo.
Speaker 14 (33:45):
Never really got any good, but we had a lot
of fun was doing bull riding and high school we
called it shoot doggings.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Shoot dogging.
Speaker 14 (33:53):
They you bring them out of the shoot and go
so far and throw them down fastest winds.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
And so tell me about the family. Big family, small family.
Speaker 14 (34:04):
Medium sized family. Most of them lived down around Meridian, Texas, Clifton, Texas.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
And so how were.
Speaker 14 (34:11):
You connected with Shelley? How does that My father and
her mother or brother and sister kind of sort of
grew up together. We didn't spend a lot of time
with each other because they live in elsewhere, you know,
so holidays and summertime, trips to grandparents' house and stuff,
so we got to spend a little bit of time together.
(34:32):
Shelley always got along with everybody. It was easy going,
a happy girl, you know. Like I said, we didn't
get to spend a whole lot of time together. But
whenever my mom and us kids would go down to
Meridian to see other family as well, you know, and
if they were there, we hung out for the day
(34:53):
or the weekend. Not much to do in that little town.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Troy sketches up familiar portrait of a family in flux,
a family getting together and sharing stories, but also a
family drifting apart. He has some rather bold views about
the murder of his cousin and has pretty much kept
them to himself until now. As we spoke two things,
(35:19):
Troy mentions send me in a new direction, even if
that direction rings a familiar bell. Troy got involved in
Shelley's case after being thrust into a rather strange situation
as he began to ask questions and poke his finger
into people's chests. Have you heard things about Weatherford?
Speaker 14 (35:41):
Heard a lot of things about Weatherford? What have you heard?
Just the problems with the law, and that you know
covers everybody, court law whatever. As a young child, never
went and like I said, I kind of got messed
up in life, sure years ago and had things nothing
pertaining to this, but just about how the law was
(36:05):
that kind of.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Stuff, How did the law work there? Did you hear
crooked good old Boys club?
Speaker 14 (36:12):
Yeah you could say that I didn't hear it that
a way, but yes, heard a lot more about that
since this has been going on, talking to people over
the telephone and stuff like that. Sure, Sure, I know
back in the wilder days I know, a lot of
stuff come through this area.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
What kind of stuff?
Speaker 14 (36:30):
The drugs?
Speaker 1 (36:32):
What kind of drugs?
Speaker 14 (36:33):
I don't really know. The speed wasn't really on what
I was into, but I know a lot of people
that were coming to this area to do their pickups, yes,
and from who and stuff I can't couldn't say.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Troy clarified that by speed, he's referring to math. Do
you recall hearing about what happened to Shelley and Vincent?
Speaker 14 (36:56):
I got there the day after it happened. You know,
wasn't hearing a lot because we're considered kids at that time,
even though a senior in high school, and I remember
hearing my father and his brother that had talked about,
you know, word is that the man that owns the
town and didn't know it back at the time, knew
(37:19):
he owned a sausage plan or a processing plant. Really
couldn't say what kind of plant it was, but it
was to do something with animals, that he owned the
town that somehow he was involved. And then again they're
talking at that time about the law being involved. Can't
(37:42):
really finger pinpoint to any certain person, you know, and
just being straight up about it, but it was you
know the man that owns the town, his people are involved,
and the law.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
That man, Weldon Kennedy and his sausage processing plant is
a threat. I began to hear from several people I interviewed.
By the time I sat down with Troy in early
twenty twenty five, I still wasn't certain how a sausage
factory in Weatherford and its wealthy businessman owner could be
(38:15):
connected to the murders of two teens in town. The
year following the murders, nineteen eighty four, Weldon Kennedy was
convicted of alien crimes, as the local paper put it,
thirty one charges relating to transporting and harboring undocumented workers
human trafficking. He was bringing in illegal aliens from Mexico
(38:39):
and hiding them out in his plant, basically making them
work to pay off debts. A nice word for it
is indentured servitude. We've all heard this disgusting narrative before,
but Kennedy has been accused of other crimes as well,
big bad things. So I asked mel Mitchell, who has
(39:02):
spent years running this part of the case down, to
explain the connection between this guy and these murders. Had
the kids somehow stumbled upon his human trafficking operation that night.
Was I back to square one, a motive that makes
perfect sense, wrong place, wrong time.
Speaker 7 (39:26):
Kennedy's Sausage company is owned by Weldon Kennedy, and it
was probably one of the bigger employment companies in that
time period back you know, and I know he owned
a couple of other businesses, but I know that was
like a larger place of employment for people in Weatherford.
Looking at court cases, well, to have been convicted of
(39:46):
quite a few different crimes of a time period, and
those also included the illegal immigrants that he was having
brought in from you know, from Central America, Mexico then,
so he was hiding them in the facility. There's like
a specially a false wall from what we understand, and
so you can move it back and I could hold
maybe I've heard up to eleven people in it. But
(40:08):
that's also where we may have had a stash of
illegal alcohol. He had also been rumored to be gun
smuggling human trafficking, you know, obviously narcotics. We believe he
is also involved in our togics trafficking. So he kind
of had his fingers in pretty much everything.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
What you just heard private investigator Mel Mitchell explain opened
up a vein in this case, taking me further down
into a rabbit hole than I could have ever expected.
It seems that Kennedy was connected to the same man
whose name I've been censoring throughout the podcast, someone high
(40:53):
up in law enforcement. So now you're looking at the
potential of a hardcore, convicted criminal, Weldon Kennedy involved in
enormously profitable federal crimes. It's not crazy to think that
a guy like this wouldn't have thought twice about taking
out two kids who randomly stumbled upon his operation or
(41:19):
ran into one of his soldiers. Jimmy Freeman was a
deputy for the Sheriff's department back in the day and
had a lot to say about what was going on
inside that department, a department that kept a close eye
on what was going on around Weatherford.
Speaker 4 (41:40):
I'm from Minerales, right west to Weatherford, and it's a
smaller town than Weatherford. Just as soon as I was
in a school, I went to work for the State
of Texas down in Huntsville on what's going to college
down there? Get Huntsville and I started working for the
penitentiary and the game mordens and the highway patrols when
(42:01):
I was just a young man and stayed there, stayed
there for ten eleven years, and went from there when
I come When I left there and come up here,
I went to work for the Sheriff's Department and stayed
here another six or seven years here in Parker County
with the Sheriff's Department. And I finally got out and
(42:23):
started doing anything and everything, building houses, building barns, building senses.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
When he went to work for the Sheriff's department, Jimmy
says he saw and heard things which were hard to
believe at first, and almost as if on Q that
name I have been censoring throughout, it comes up again.
Speaker 4 (42:45):
Well, it was okay at first when I first, when
I first went to work for him, but then all
of a sudden changed the laws as he went as
he went down the road, and there's not but one
law ever been made. And he wanted me the very
first time, there was a man that was asleep on
(43:06):
the side of the road.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
I got the call, so I went.
Speaker 4 (43:08):
I went out there and found the man. He was asleep.
Speaker 9 (43:11):
There was an empty whiskey bottle.
Speaker 4 (43:13):
In the back and wanted me to give him a
d w I, And I told I can't give him
no d w I. I said, I didn't see the
man driving. He's sleep in the damn car.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
A seemingly small corruption operation soon turned into what Jimmy
saw as a much bigger one as time went on
and he kept his mouth shut and his eyes open.
Speaker 4 (43:45):
Then I found out two or three times that he
had some people's deal cars and tear them apart, take
them apart, and sell all the parts different places and
stuff like that. It just rocked on, and he was
not the man I thought he was.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
When I went to work for him.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
I asked him about the production and distribution of methamphetamine.
Had he ever discovered anyone in law enforcement involved?
Speaker 4 (44:15):
And I knew where there were some places down here
at Millsap, that there was put some cooks down there
when he finally quit up under, but he moved.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
They moved.
Speaker 4 (44:25):
He moved down there. And he had two places in
mills Oup, both owned by the county, and.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
These were places where they cooked methamphetamine.
Speaker 9 (44:35):
Yes, yes, so was involved.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
In the process of the cooking or distribution or was
he overseeing.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
All of it? All of it?
Speaker 4 (44:47):
And like I said everything. He had to cook all
this stuff, and they distributed and put it down. Rex
Cobble Weldon Kennedy.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Rex Cobble, known as the marijuana kingpin of Texas during
the nineteen seventies, and also as Jimmy Freeman, seems to
suggest the general within what was known as the Cowboy Mafia,
a large group of very wealthy drug smugglers. Cobble was
(45:19):
later indicted and convicted on ten counts ranging from racketeering
to misapplication of bank funds. Rex Cobble and Weldon Kennedy,
Jimmy says, we're at the top, whereas the other man, Well,
I'll let Jimmy explain.
Speaker 4 (45:37):
A little man up against Rex Cobble and in wild
and Kennedy.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Okay, the sausage guy they.
Speaker 4 (45:46):
Were, he was it was like about four or five
counties when Rix Cobble was. He was worldwide, and Weldon
Kennedy was four or five states, if not more.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
I needed to wrap my mind around exactly what Jimmy
Freeman was telling me that this high ranking member of
law enforcement and Weldon Kennedy were allegedly at one time
major meth distributors in Parker County, and beyond. Jimmy wasn't
(46:20):
the only source telling me this. I had heard it
time and again from law enforcement whistleblowers and others living
in the area, many of whom had actually worked for
the two of them. But what's even more astonishing is
two people closely connected to Kennedy and that law enforcement
official NW Vincent and especially Shelley very well. These types
(46:58):
of cold case, where information can feel scattered and fragmented,
require patience. I've learned over the years to trust the process,
keep talking to people and keep asking the right questions,
and if there is a greater truth to be found,
it will somehow rise to the surface all on its own.
(47:22):
Speaking to Jimmy Freeman felt like I could see the
sun rising just over the mountains, with peaks of light
finally starting to emerge. Shelley's cousin, Troy, wasn't finished talking,
and what he tells me next sends things and yet
another direction. So what are you hearing from the family.
(47:46):
I mean, obviously everyone's distraught. Do you remember how it
was for family back then?
Speaker 14 (47:53):
Oh, everybody was really tore up. It just took us
all by you know, major surprise. I mean, Shelley wouldn't
have done. From what I know of Shelley throughout the
you know what, sixteen seventeen years there, she was sweet, innocent,
didn't want problems, never caused any problems that I knew
of or mayby besides, you know, sneaking out of the
(48:14):
house or something other. I don't maybe a little smart
mouth talking or something other. That's about all I knew
of up until this happened. And then I can remember
my dad and his brother talking about it. Aunt Johnny
at the time wasn't really in a position to be talking,
you know, being all upset and stuff. But yeah, it
was pretty tough on the family. And it's a shame
(48:37):
that a lot of her family has passed away and
we've never gotten anywhere.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
You know.
Speaker 14 (48:42):
I think of her from time to time, and now
that you know, forty plus years has gone by, it's
lessen that every day. I guess you could say that
you'd stopped, I would stop and think of her. I know,
back in the day, you know, at my age, that
was all I could think about for a long time,
you know, just trying to close your eyes and picture
of what really happened that night, you know, I know,
(49:05):
Vincent he was from hearing the family talk. He was
a well liked guy. I knew a lot of people,
of course, knowing how Shelley is, you know, like I said,
she was a good kid as far as I'm concerned,
never really done anything wrong.
Speaker 1 (49:19):
I mentioned earlier that there were two things Shelley's cousin Troy,
told me, both of which sent me scurrying down into
a deeper part of this investigation. One was the implication
that convicted human trafficker Welding Kennedy had some sort of
connection to the case. The other is more recent, much
(49:42):
more Actually, something strange happened to Troy one evening in
late twenty twenty four when he got home from work.
He stepped out of his truck, walked toward the front
door of his house and found a surprise waiting for him.
Speaker 14 (50:03):
There was an envelope laying on the front ports there
in between the front door and the screen door, and
I didn't think much bad it, picked it up, went
on in the house, you know, kind of did my
normal get home routine there, and then opened it up.
And it was who brought or delivered this still today
(50:24):
have no clue, but it was the copy of the
autopsy report, Onshelley.
Speaker 1 (50:30):
And what'd you do?
Speaker 14 (50:32):
I read it and then made a few phone calls.
Speaker 1 (50:37):
Both families had been lobbying for records in the case
for the past four decades, to no avail, not a
witness statement, photograph, not even a damn police report. They
had been told it was an open case and whether
for police department cannot release records. They had been told
(50:58):
all the records were lost in a flood. They had
been told a truck pulled up and took everything to
the local garbage dump. So nobody knew what the hell
to believe anymore. And now suddenly an anonymous person slips
Shelley's autopsy report into Troy's door in November twenty twenty four.
(51:22):
What message is this person trying to send? And why now?
What did you feel after reading it?
Speaker 14 (51:39):
Numb out to a point confused, you know, and then
really confused on how did somebody find word to put that?
Who was it? And who knows me that had that?
It's really strange.
Speaker 1 (51:57):
Why hadn't they mailed it instead of taking the risk
of being caught dropping it off? Why Troy, he was
not even one of the more public family members out
there speaking about the case. What could be in that
report that meant so much at this point in the investigation.
I asked him about it all, and what Troy tells
(52:20):
me next, well, is something completely out of left field.
Speaker 14 (52:26):
I know it's going to throw a loo, but I
kind of feel that her father, Ronnie Califlyer, was involved
in it, or at least knew of something going on.
I've tried contacting him through his daughter, called, left messages,
text message, Facebook. I can't get him the call back.
My dad always with his brother, he would always say,
(52:48):
had he put it, I lay you two to one
that he's involved some form or fashion is what my
dad would say.
Speaker 1 (53:15):
Whatever platform you get your favorite podcast sign, please check
out my weekly series Crossing the Line with em William Phelps,
where I delve into a new missing person and cold
case murder each week. Coming up in the next episode,
Paper Ghosts and.
Speaker 15 (53:36):
Some other people came in and I stepped out into
the hallway and Ronnie came in and told me that
I needed to leave. He was angry, very and he
said I need you to leave and I said, okay,
I can do that, and he said, no, I want
you out of my house now.
Speaker 7 (53:54):
And one person went to Vincent's side and kind of
looked in on the casket. The other person went to
Shelley's side, looked in on the casket, and then kind
of met up in the middle. And people are kind
of looking at them, thinking okay orre they introduce themselves,
They're gonna say hi, but they don't do any of that.
They just kind of whenever they're looked at the caskets
and kind of met in the middle and then left.
Speaker 16 (54:12):
Wendy had gone to Lake Weatherford to a place called
the Wall. She was alone, and she didn't come home,
and so they called the police and.
Speaker 9 (54:24):
Reported her missing.
Speaker 1 (54:29):
Paper Ghosts Season five is written and executive produced by
Me and William Phelps. Script consulting by iHeartMedia, executive producer
Catherine Law, Production by toc Boom Productions, Audio mastering and
mixing by Brandon Dicker. The series theme number four four
(54:49):
to two is written and performed by Thomas Phelps and
Tom Mooney.
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