November 26, 2025 • 55 mins
Phelps dives deeper, trying to separate fact from rumor, while new suspects come into play—and a third teen murder rocks the town of Weatherford. But could a noted serial killer be responsible for Vincent and Shelly’s murders?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Parker County, Texas is one of those places where you
can't get away from the people. You heard, the type
of claustrophobic atmosphere that comes of such a tight knit
community where everybody knows everybody's business, where a sidelong glance
in the grocery store or a bless your Heart carries
(00:31):
more weight than outsiders might register. And for families at
the heart of this murder case, as time passed and
law enforcement was no closer to solving Vincent and Shelley's murders,
it all seemed to enhance the pain both families felt.
(00:59):
Did you and Ronnie ever get with Vincent's family and
talk about stuff? No, what happened between the two of you? Anything?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Okay? One day I had been to the police station,
and then I came over to Debbie's, which she was
my Bluebird assistant. She was the lady that the girl
stayed with when we left. So for some reason, they
show up glad to meet you, and the first thing
the mama says to me is Shelley had a cloud
(01:32):
of death over her. What she says, Shelley had a
cloud that has had always had a cloud of death
over her when she would come to our home, she
would have that dark cloud of death on her.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Those remarks stunned Janetta.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
So then she went into telling me, and there's two
things in my head. Okay with this, and that's the
way I've always thought, But there's two things I've never
wanted to hear. Is that she was tortured.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
She was.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
In my head, I don't know. I just have this
vision of they're out there and they're just aggravating her,
just you know, like pushing her, and outside of the car.
And they told me they were outside of the car
in eighty three. The police, Yes, they told me they
(02:40):
were outside of the car.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
That strange conversation with Vincent's mother started playing like a
movie reel in Janetta's mind. Suddenly there were all these
horrific images in her head of what might have happened
to Shelley. So she contacted the Weatherford police.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
And I've told them I want to see some pictures.
I want to see some pictures. And he said, I
got a picture of her shoes. You want to see
her shoes. So he showed me her shoes. Her shoes
were clean, and her clothes were Maddy, How.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Could Shelley's tennis shoes be clean and her clothes muddy
if she was at some point outside the car in
the rain. If you recall from the previous episode, Vincent
Senior's brother Raymond, said he saw an imprint in the
ground next to the side of the car where Shelley
(03:54):
was found sitting inside the vehicle, and he believed Shelley's
head had made that indentation.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
And then that brings up another whole subject. They had
a dedication to a bench at the police station for
Shelley and Vincent. So as Ronnie and I were leaving
after all ceremony and thing was over, as this guy,
deputy come running out and no it wasn't deputy, it
(04:27):
was the chief. Then he come running out and handed
was going to hand me Shelley's clothes, and my brother
stopped him. He said, you are not giving those to her.
You're not giving those no, And so I did not
know that's what was going on. So my brother those
clothes had been at his house since that day. Some
(04:49):
people are saying they were never there, but well, you know,
I don't know then. I don't know what he did
with them. But of course he told me several times.
I've got him, They're okay.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
The idea that the Weatherford Police would give clothing from
a murder victim in an ongoing open murder investigation back
to the victim's family is fundamentally ridiculous. Not only would
it be insensitive, but as far as evidence goes completely incompetent.
(05:22):
Even if they were done lifting any trace evidence or
potential DNA from the clothing, there would be prosecution and
chain of custody issues to consider. I asked current lieutenant
in the Weatherford PD, Johnny Qualls, if he could confirm
the clothing was given back to the family. He said
(05:43):
he had heard the same thing, but had no idea
if it was true. I asked where this evidence is now.
He didn't know. The families of Shelley and Vincent Junior
(06:05):
decided to have a joint viewing of the bodies in
town at a local funeral home two separate rooms, Shelley
in one, Vincent in the other. Same time, people could
walk in, pay their respects, offer condolences to the families,
sit and reflect before leaving. Tell me about that what happens?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Okay, my girlfriend, we were outside. There was two guys
that walks in and one had a black cowboy hat on.
I saw my brother and he asked this one boy.
He went down and he came back, and my brother
stopped him. He said something about him, He said something
about him, you know, And so he stopped him and
(06:56):
he said, did you know Shelley and Vincent? And he
said he just kind of looked at him and walked off.
And the other guy came from Vincent and he said
that they met up at the top, kind of just
shook head and left.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
I spoke to multiple people who were at the viewing,
and they all reported seeing the same two men dressed
tip to toe in cowboy garb, stetson's boots, wranglers. They
walked in, went up to the bodies, did not kneel,
crossed themselves, offer condolences, or say anything to anyone. Instead,
(07:38):
they took a mental picture of the bodies, as if
making sure the kids were dead, and walked out the
front door together. And yet that wasn't the end of it.
Something else happened after they walked out of the funeral home,
something quite bizarre. In fact, I.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Bet it wasn't thirty minutes until my girlfriend and her
husband and everybody were outside and she came in and
she said, Johnny, the church is on fire. The church
is on fire. Said what she said, The church is
on fire, and she said, this black truck when it
started being on fire, this black truck come flying by.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Others reported to me they saw those same two men
walk across the street and into the church just before
the fire started. What do you think that was?
Speaker 4 (08:38):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
To me, it's gotten the light, sending a message. You know,
we did it.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
There you are. Everyone else felt the same way. The
two men who came to the viewing and left abruptly
were the same men who started the church fire. Newspaper
accounts later support the chaotic scene that night and the fire.
(09:05):
The message most came away with afterward was leave it alone,
let it be, go on with your lives and forget
about this.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
But also there was a fire start at Debbie's house
in her back like in her back room.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
You've heard from Debbie earlier in the podcast, the neighbor
who was watching Shelley and her sister that weekend of
the murders. When was this?
Speaker 2 (09:48):
This was during all of the funeral after all?
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Love that really?
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Yeah, so I kind of at that point, I just
I kind of stayed away from Debbie because I didn't
want any problems for her.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
The fire at the church and fire at Debbie's was
only the beginning. There were several more suspicious fires in
town over the next several weeks.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
They set a fire at some house. They tell me
I haven't seen it. They tell me that there was
a fireproof box there that had a note in it
saying you're getting too close to the cauliflower case.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Previously on paper ghosts, it.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Was to me it was a premeditated murderer.
Speaker 5 (10:43):
It was playing.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
He couldn't have been in a long place at the
long time.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
They pulled me in for murder, and then they also
pulled my old brother in murder.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
They pulled you in from murder for who's murder for
those kids.
Speaker 6 (10:58):
I know it's going to throw a loop, but I
kind of feel that her father, Ronnie Cauliflyer, 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 to call back.
My dad always with his brother, he would always say
(11:20):
had he put it, I leave you two to one
that he's involved some form or fashion. Is what my
dad would say.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
My name is. I'm William Phelps. I'm an investigative journalist
and the New York Times bestselling author of dozens of
true crime books. This is season five of Paper Ghosts.
The Texas Team Murders. Cold case investigation involves various stages.
(12:09):
In the early days, you collect information and try not
to allow any of it to steer you in a
particular direction. Talk to people, Listen, follow up. Match what
you are hearing against the known evidence. Allowing people to
tell their stories can bring the truth to the surface
(12:33):
like a sunrise, slow and steady. There had been at
one time some tension between Ronnie Colliflower and Debbie Billingsley,
and to this day they still do not speak. Ronnie
seemed to blame Debbie for allowing Shelley out that night,
(12:55):
when in truth, Janetta had been the one to give
the green light. Still, Debbie was now connected to these
kids forever, and according to Janetta, as you just heard
in the opening of the episode, somebody had set fire
to Debbie's house. Debbie knew one of the first investigators
(13:19):
in the case, Raymond Pritchard. The day of the murders,
Prichard and another investigator stopped by to fill her in
on what had happened and to see if Debbie had
any information.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
And they came in and he sat down and he said, Debbie,
he said, we've got some really bad news. He said,
Shelley and Vincent's bodies were found this morning and they're
both deceased. And I couldn't grasp that, I guess, and
I just looked at him. You know, I was real
confused because I didn't understand how they could just be
(14:03):
gone like that. So I told him everything we had
done the night before, and he proceeded to tell me
that Vincent's father was the one that found him. And
then later that day, Johnetta called me and all she
kept saying was Debbie, you have to help me find her.
(14:26):
And I said what can I do? And she said,
can you come out here to my house? So I
went out there and she just kept telling me she's
sitting in the bedroom and she said. She took hold
of my hands and she said, you got to help
me find her. She said, I can't lose her. You
have to help me find her. And I guess that
(14:46):
was her way of just trying to kind of deal
with it, and some other people came in and I
stepped out into the hallway and Ronnie came in and
told me that I needed to leave. So I didn't
question anything. I just left.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Ronnie Colliflower had been in and out of the house
that morning, one would assume dealing with all that was
going on. In the last episode, you heard Troy Nichelis,
Shelley's cousin, say that his father, Ronnie's brother, was suspicious
of Ronnie. He gave no specific reason, but Troy's father
(15:32):
thought Ronnie knew more than he was sharing. While Debbie
was at the Collieflower house that day, Ronnie came home.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
And Ronnie came in and told me that I needed
to leave. So I didn't question anything. I just left.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
And how was Ronnie when he came in?
Speaker 4 (15:57):
He was angry. I stepped out into the hallway. He
come in the hallway from another room 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. And that's when it dawned
on me. He did not know that she had given
(16:18):
me permission for Shelley to go. I never said anything.
I just left and that was too hard of a
time to try to explain anything, and so I just left.
And I don't know exactly when he found out that
she had told me it was okay.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Debbie took on the responsibility of being Shelley's adult babysitter
for that weekend and could make the call if she
chose to. Ronnie Will agreed to have Debbie watch the
kids knew this. Of course, Debbie was not about to
miss the funeral just because Ronnie had an issue with her,
(16:58):
so she went anyway. While she was up at the
casket paying her respects viewing Shelley's body, something struck her
about the condition of Shelley's remains.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Shelley had scratches all over her arms and her rot side.
I didn't see the left side, but both arms were scratched,
her hands were scratched, and her right side was scratched
up on her neck. And I questioned Johnetta. I said,
where did these marks come from? And she said, I
don't know. They won't tell me anything.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
In speaking with Janetta, it's clear she loved Debbie and
had no issue with her. After all, Debbie had fallen
on her sword during that traumatizing period right after the murders,
taking responsibility for allowing Shelley out on the date, never
revealing to Ronnie that Janetta had given the okay.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
And we stayed in touch for a while, and then
later on she just kind of like cut all ties
with me. And I don't know if it's because she
couldn't face Ronnie to tell him that she had said
it was okay. I don't know, and so I just
let it go. And then the next thing I knew,
she had left and moved away from Weatherford and her
and Ronnie had completely split up.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
When I said earlier, bizarre things began to happen. It
wasn't just those fires and Ronnie acting suspicious in those
early days after the murders, and what were people saying.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
I talked to the detectives multiple times. A couple of
other guys came up told me they were with the
Weatherford Police Department and needed to speak to me. They
showed me a badge. I let them in, We talked,
I told them what I knew.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
They left in the aftermath, BE contacted the investigator she
had been speaking with at the Weatherford Police Department to
find out why they had sent different investigators to her house,
and he.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
Says, Debbie, those are not policemen. He says, don't talk
to them anymore. Then another guy came said he was
with the Texas Rangers, had a badge, and I believed him.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Debbie had given Shelley fifty cents, two quarters and a
piece of paper that night. She had written her phone
number and address on the paper, explaining to Shelley that
if she ran into any trouble, call and Debbie would
come right out to get her and not ask any questions.
Debbie says, the Weatherford Police Department found those quarters, but
(19:56):
the piece of paper with her address and phone number
was miss.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
I got very scared, and especially knowing that someone had
taken that piece of paper with my name and phone
number on it, because the corners were still in Shelley's pocket,
but the paper was gone. So we moved from where
we were, and then about a year later we completely
left Weatherford. I didn't feel safe there.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
What were people saying around town about who could have
done this?
Speaker 4 (20:33):
Oh, there was multiple, multiple scenarios. The talk around town
was Shelley and Vincent come up on a drug deal
and got killed out of way Another rumor was that
the one that killed them, they were the one dealing
the drugs and they killed them, that they were killed
at a different location, their bodies brought back where they
(20:55):
were found and their bodies were positioned in the car there.
And another rumor was that Vincent killed her and then
killed hisself.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
You know.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
Another one was there was infatuated with Shelley and wanted
her and he wasn't gonna let Vincent have her because
Vincent was Mexican. That was the words they used back then.
There was just all kinds of rumors and at different
points it kind of, you know, like you didn't know
what to believe because the police weren't telling me anything.
(21:26):
As a matter of fact, it wasn't too long after
the police, the two detectives that were working that case
were taken off of it and moved to different One
was let go and one was moved to the probation department.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
And why do you think that was?
Speaker 4 (21:41):
I think because they knew who did it and they
weren't going to let anything come of it. Weldon Kennedy
on a meatpacking plant there in Weatherford, and they used
to traffic a lot of drugs and people from Mexico
into Weatherford, and from Weatherford up through Oklahoma and on out,
and they weren't going to let anything become of it.
And that's what really gave me credence to believe that
(22:05):
had something to do with it. I never had anything
put in my hand that said, here's the proof. But
as time went on and more that was talked and
more that was said, I do believe it. I do
believe that both had something to do with their deaths.
Not going to sit here and say that they pulled
the triggers or they did what. I don't know that.
(22:27):
I had gone over to the sister's house with a
friend of mine one time. This was years later. We
went in his sister made a cup coffee and we
were sitting around talking and came in and sat down
at the table, and I knew who he was, but
he didn't know who I was. I told my friend,
I said it's time for us to go. I just
(22:48):
couldn't be in the same room with him. She didn't understand,
and so when we left, I told her what the
deal was and she says, oh, no, she wouldn't have
had any anything to do with that. There's no way
get out in his house for six months to a
year after those kids were killed, because he was too
afraid to come out. And I said, yeah, he was
(23:10):
afraid because he was part of it. Oh no, no, no, no,
he's totally innocent. And I said, well, I don't believe that,
but that's what his sister had told her, and so
she fullheartedly believed that.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Debbie ran into the guy whose name I censored, the
same one you've heard many of my sources mentioned. Not
long after that visit to his sister's house.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
We went back by there one time to drop some
stuff off, and I didn't get out and go in,
but come out to the in the garage, to the van,
and he says, Debbie, he said, I have to tell
you I didn't have anything to do with Shelley and
Vincent's murder. He said, I didn't have anything to do
with it. I am totally innocent. I didn't have anything
(24:10):
to do with it. And he just kept saying that
over and over, and he started crying, and he says,
you have to believe me. I didn't have anything to
do with it. And I said, if you didn't, who did?
Do you know who did? He never would say he
knew or he did not know. I said, if you
didn't do it or have anything to do with it,
who did? And he never would answer me, So I
(24:34):
don't know if he knew and was just afraid for
his own luck. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Ronnie COYLEI Flower, was not someone I would even consider
a person of interest in what is a growing list
of suspects. Why would Ronnie, if he knew anything, agree
to hire mel Mitchell, a private investigator, to look into
the murders all these years later. At face value, that
(25:17):
would make no sense if he was involved, Not to mention,
he loved Shelley and had brought her up as his
own daughter from the time she was a toddler. But
I still needed to talk to Ronnie and ask questions
only he could answer. Several people had mentioned his brother
(25:39):
as someone I needed to look into, that his brother
had connections back to the names I have been censoring
in the podcast, and that his brother was the best
meth cook in the county. I don't believe Ronnie's brother
(26:00):
was ever a potential suspect, but he could have information
about the case, seeing that he knew all of the
main suspects very well. While I was in Weatherford. Ronnie
seemed to be circling me, showing up at various places
I had been or coincidentally in the same area. I
(26:24):
was mel Mitchell and Laurie Kates, the Facebook administrator of
the Justice page who had first reached out to me,
told me Ronnie was very hesitant, but he had finally
agreed to meet me at my hotel and allow me
to interview him. So I waited, and then I got this.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
When I mentionaged you, you had a feeling that he
might back out.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
Sure that he took off and his friend went out
the back to try to.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Get him, and he had already left his friends a lot.
Speaker 7 (26:59):
What the call.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
We don't understand, you know, we don't know he was
going to go with you and then.
Speaker 5 (27:04):
He backed out.
Speaker 8 (27:06):
Did tell his friends about meeting with you? What before
I'd even talked about it or came over there.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
They said that he is said, well, he didn't he
didn't know what a podcast was.
Speaker 8 (27:21):
And you know, was thinking about meeting. So hopefully it's
just because he had a few beers.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Maybe hopefully that's.
Speaker 8 (27:32):
What it was. But anyways, I just wanted to let
you know that he staged.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
People report to us that there were two individuals, two
males that came in. Yeah, I guess most people didn't recognize.
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, or they introduce themselves,
(28:23):
We're gonna say hi, like hey, we knew Shelley, we
knew Vincent.
Speaker 8 (28:27):
But they didn't do any of that.
Speaker 5 (28:28):
They just kind of whenever they're looked in the caskets
and kind of met in the middle and then left.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
I met mel Mitchell one morning in front of the church,
which had been set on fire during the viewing of
Shelley and Vincent's bodies. We talked out front. I had
her go step by step through what she had found
out about the viewing. And those two cowboy characters seemingly
(28:53):
straight out of Central Casting, as if they had stepped
off the set of the iconic am see crime drama
Breaking Bad.
Speaker 5 (29:03):
Apparently they kind of peeled out or sort of kind
of making a scene a little bit in front of
the funeral home and then sped off. So a lot
of people kind of felt that was off, more suspicious,
didn't know why they would act that way. Literally right
across the street, like you saw, just how closed that the.
Speaker 8 (29:22):
Church and the funeral home are.
Speaker 5 (29:23):
I mean, right there, someone set fire to that church
and it was It's in the newspaper, is Arson, and
so no one knows who set that fire.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
It's kind of like a threat, right, So two cowboys
show up and then a church catches on fire.
Speaker 8 (29:40):
I would think it'd be a long intimidation line. Sure. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
As we talked outside, Mel decided to go into the
funeral home and ask if they kept records dating back
to nineteen eighty three. Generally speaking, when the body is
prepared for a wake and funeral, the embalmber notes abnormalities
and details the condition of the body. Its standard practice
(30:11):
in the industry. Nearly everyone who had seen Shelley's body
that Mel and I had spoken to said the same thing.
The right side appeared to show evidence that Shelley had
been dragged through a brier patch, scratched and bruised. This
(30:31):
is significant in my view. If true, it could change
the entire dynamic of the motive a drug hit if
you will, that wrong place, wrong time motive would generally
be quick in execution, but if Shelley had been beaten
or dragged, it could point to a more sexual motive.
(30:55):
Stranger Still, that autopsy report left on the door step
of Shelley's cousin never mentions scratches or bruises on Shelley's body.
I'll be going through that report in a future episode,
but it's quite scant on any specific detail and seems
(31:16):
to tell only half the story. Even those attending the
view and were shocked to see how obvious it was
that Shelley's body had injuries on the right side of
her face and arms. Getting notes from the embomber might
clear it all up and give us some sort of
understanding of those alleged injuries on Shelley's body. As mel
(31:43):
went into the funeral home, well I waited outside that.
Speaker 5 (31:48):
It was, But when the families reached out to them,
they told both families that all those reports were sent
over to the.
Speaker 8 (31:56):
Sheriff's apartment or to Parker County, Okay.
Speaker 5 (32:01):
So they're not able to get the reports from Emmy's
office because apparently they sent all the original copies of
the tops reports.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
There are parts of this case, and I am unsure
if they can even be considered related or not. Born
strictly out of social media, the new age town hall
for spreading information and more destructively misinformation, I have learned
to take what is reported on social media about murder
(32:32):
investigations with a very skeptical eye. In the early days
of the case, there were three names synonymous with being
connected to the murders, accusations of which were generated by
town gossip and the rumor mill. It got so bad
(32:53):
several people took to the pages of the editorial section
of the local newspaper to voice their concerns over accusing
these men, whose names I have been censoring throughout simply
because they have never been charged in the case. I
asked Weatherford Police Department Lieutenant Johnny Qualls, the current cold
(33:16):
case investigator looking into the murders, his thoughts about this, So,
how do you even begin to look at that? Because,
as you know, and I know, one of the worst
things about a cold case is all those rumors, especially
now with the Internet, So you get all of this
misinformation and you have to sift through it all to
(33:39):
find the facts right and I don't think record keeping
could have been that great in a town like small
town like Weatherford back then. So you have that element.
So how do you manage that?
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Yeah, you just have that. Well you just said it.
You know, you have to really focus in and hone
in on the facts, and you have it's almost it's, uh,
you know, we don't have the advantage of going back
in time and and making that a more organized operation.
That's not a knock on any of those folks. That's
a part of that either. It's just like we don't
we can't go back in time and and fix any
(34:15):
of that or preserve anything that maybe they didn't think
or know to to preserve back then it might be
important today. So you really have to have to set
out on a fact finding mission of like, what are
the things that we know for sure, for sure or
at least fairly certain of that happened. And then uh,
and then you almost have to take your up I
(34:37):
don't know, maybe like a virtual reality and walk walk
your through itself through what that crime scene might have
looked like, and consult with experts on you know, whether
it's splits ladder or various other things and sure out
their opinions, but also not discount you know, the investigative
opinions and those very too, by the way, you know,
(34:57):
we have the general public with various opinions, and and
then we have various investigative opinions on top of that.
So but but go back and talk to we. We
did do that. We talked to you know, the original
case agent and various other people that were that there
were still around, that were still in that part. We
were fortunate that, you know, a lot of those folks
were still around and able to kind of fill in
(35:19):
some of those blank spots for us as far as
you know, well, what happened here, Why do we think
this happened here, or or why do we not know
this information?
Speaker 1 (35:31):
So you found the victims, so there must have been
physical evidence obviously, and you have to determine if there
was a sexual assault or a rape right motive right.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
Unfortunately, none of that, none of that stuff has panned
out for us so far. And I was told, I
was told. I was told before I ever started looking
at it. When people learned that I was looking at
that case that and I say that I was that
it was a team effort that we were looking at
that case.
Speaker 8 (35:57):
Uh, there was.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
A comment made to me. It is like, you know,
basically it was from someone that kind of knew the
state of all that stuff. I think, but you know
before I did. And it's like, good luck, you know,
so kind of like we shot. They do these uh
they do these little I don't remember exactly what all
goes into that equation, but they do these little solvability things,
you know. Uh, they looked at Okay, let's look at
(36:20):
all the cold cases we have. Let's do a solvability thing. Uh,
you know, give them a solvability score. And uh. And
I was told I never I never thought what those
seats looks like or anything like that. But I was
told by someone that was a part of that process
that that the that that one, the double homicide of
those kids was just like essentially, they feel like.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
It was solvable. So when Mel returned from speaking with
the funeral home, she was optimistic. They did keep detailed
records and had those files from nineteen eighty three. What's more,
(37:03):
each embomber took copious, comprehensive notes regarding the condition of
each body. The director of the place said she'd look
for the file and those notes and call Mel as
soon as she found them. That was hopeful those notes
could clear up some information and, depending on what was
(37:26):
in the report, answer several questions. As you heard in
the last episode, after forty plus years, Shelley's autopsy report,
which nobody had been able to obtain through the Freedom
of Information Act or by any other means, shows up
inside the storm door of Shelley's cousin. I wondered if
(37:49):
Mel had any idea where this autopsy report came from
and why now? Also why was it given to Troy
nichelis Shelley's cousin, mainly because he was not one of
the relatives most invested in the case publicly? So how
(38:12):
do you get the autopsy report? Because records in this
case have been hard to come by, and all of
a sudden you get a copy of an autopsy report,
How do you get it? Where does it come from?
Who dropped it off?
Speaker 5 (38:23):
Ellwood had given me some documents before he passed. I
was able to briefly see him quickly after we'd spent
some extensive time together, you know, over the summer. First
with me, I spent quite a bit of time with him,
interviewing and talking with him, another time I went out
there and saw him with Laurie. You know, I had
a little bit of time to swing by and say
hello again, and that's when he was able to give
(38:45):
me a few documents.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
If you recall, Elwood Hohertz was the police chief at
the time of the murders. I asked mel about something
I had heard and if she had verified it with Hurts.
Right after Shelley was murdered, there were undercover officer's place
in the high school.
Speaker 5 (39:09):
So I had asked Elwood about that, because according to
some of Shelley's family, there was some officers placed in there,
possibly one to learn about narcotics that's going through the
high school.
Speaker 8 (39:23):
Also maybe to mail names.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Vincent's stepsister here of.
Speaker 8 (39:27):
Ursus stepsister friend had just been murdered.
Speaker 5 (39:30):
So when I asked Elwood about it, he had said that, yes,
he had had a couple because the narcotics was such
an extensive issue that they were trying to find out
where it's coming from, you know, any kind of information
that might get them to kind of quell a lot
of the narcotics.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Back then, nothing came out of it, no leads, no
new names, no new information. I was getting the feeling
that this drug can sounded good on paper fit into
a possible murder narrative. But beyond rumor and speculation, there
wasn't much actual evidence of it, at least none that
(40:12):
I could see any merit in at the time. And
it needs to be said, two things can be true
at the same time, so nothing can be discounted until
it is. For example, how many people eyewitnesses can put
the two most popular names connected to the murders by
(40:36):
rumor at the scene near the time we know the
kids were up on Piss Hill. Mel gives me two names.
Speaker 5 (40:48):
Of course, some of the people that were across the street.
You know, they're talking about a vehicle that you know
may have appeared to be that way. But more importantly
in Ellwood, he actually talks about we discussed like he
was driving the car.
Speaker 8 (41:01):
I knew that. You know, there's another person that we
believed that was there as a.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
She mentions somebody connected to Weldon Kennedy, the sausage.
Speaker 5 (41:11):
King, because when we started looking into this case, there
were always two names that were brought up every time
was And when I talked to Elwood about it, He's like, yeah,
we had done a polygraph on and he felled two
questions and you know, when I wanted to go back
and question some more, I was like, no, brought the
turning in.
Speaker 8 (41:30):
She's like, you'll never talk to him again, and we
never did. And so he had told me He's like, yeah,
well I believe that he was the.
Speaker 5 (41:38):
Driver, okay, And he kind of kind of was like, well,
I can't really prove that, you.
Speaker 8 (41:44):
Know, hung out together. And I'm like, okay, well I
have others that can stay that they did.
Speaker 5 (41:48):
He's like, oh, well that's the case, then we've been
driving and probably have been the shooter.
Speaker 8 (41:56):
Okay. So he, coming from.
Speaker 5 (41:58):
The police chaf wasn't denying these two people at the scene.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
So the police chief at the time told mel Mitchell
he believed those two men were behind the murders, but
because of their connections to political and law enforcement officials,
they were told to stop investigating them as persons of interest.
(42:34):
What would be their motive? Is this a thing about Hey,
they just rolled up on them and they wanted to
rape Shelley, and so they did what they did. They
got rid of Vince and raped her.
Speaker 5 (42:45):
By all accounts, was gay. So and of course you
know how it was in the eighties, Like you just
didn't talk about that because right After's murders basically has
dropped off the face of earth, like he left town
for a little while and then he came back and
just became a reclue.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Crime is America's great industry, even referred to more bombastically
as the Great Empire. And it seems to me that
throughout the plains of Parker County, Texas, back in the
nineteen eighties, an empirical criminal syndicate was not only active
(43:48):
within the fabric of everyday life, but a lot of
people in high positions were turning a blind eye. Several
things bothered me about what I was hearing on my sources.
For one, the amount of fires connected back to the murders,
one of which Weatherford Police Department Chief Elwood Hohertz in
(44:11):
nineteen eighty three came out and said publicly was set
to cover up evidence connected to the murders. Number two,
this sausage guy Weldon Kennedy. Mel Mitchell had run this
thread down over the past several years and looked at
Kennedy and a possible connection to the murders. I could
(44:34):
see it, but wasn't yet sold on a human trafficker
being involved in the murders of two local teens. I'd
need more context, additional links, some sort of evidence beyond
people talking. Moreover, as we will begin to explore in
(44:54):
the next episode, Vincent and Shelley were not the only
teens in Parker County during the same general time period,
and so when you have multiple murders, all with similarities,
you'd have to start thinking serial killer. In Texas during
(45:16):
the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties was a hotbed for
serial killers. So how would Kennedy and his crew, if
you will, be connected to any of the area murders
of young people.
Speaker 5 (45:34):
I've had numerous people tell us that, I mean, on
his side, I've heard more it's like more immigrant related.
I've heard numerous people that had work there that they
would not eat any of the meat because there's a
possibility that he may have gotten rid of a couple
of bodies through meat grinder. That's not the first time
I've heard that story. Obviously I didn't work there, but
(45:55):
I'm just going by some of the locals that had
worked there, had worked in the meat processing area.
Speaker 8 (45:59):
They had just said there was.
Speaker 5 (46:00):
Up to five people that had been placed in her
meat grinder at some point in time. It's a lot
of locals when it actually eat some of the meat,
the meat products.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Is he still alive now now.
Speaker 8 (46:13):
He passed away several years ago.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Who runs the place now? Well?
Speaker 5 (46:17):
That one I believe had burned down, So I'm not
sure if, like when you're reading this stuff, you see
just how many fires there are. It seems like everything
burns down within this a this time period. I get
it when you have a couple of house fires here
and there, But when you have the amount of house fires,
(46:38):
or for instance, when Shelley had her viewing and right
across the street the church, you know, caught on fire
from the funeral home, I don't know if you could
take it as almost like a warning, because I mean,
I know that was arson, you know, And you have
other key places that eventually burn down. There's like a
hardware store that had like burned down later. You've got
(46:59):
that a a handover which we still cannot get any
kind of you know, solid lead on exactly who lived
there at that time.
Speaker 8 (47:06):
The murders.
Speaker 5 (47:08):
There's evidence in that house fire those connected to the kids' murders,
as well as a couple of other cases that were
found within that home that burned down, And they also
said that there was a warning to PD and to
others to you know, to basically back off essentially.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
And this is because of evidence.
Speaker 8 (47:26):
You think, I think there was evidence in the home
or whoever is living there.
Speaker 5 (47:29):
I also had evidence as well and decided, Okay, the
best way to get rid of evidence is obviously to
burn it.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
It seems like if you're covering up a couple of murders,
up two young people, it seems like the extreme is
met here, like this thing like gets out of hand,
or is there a bigger thing at play here that
they're covering up besides just the murders.
Speaker 5 (47:53):
I don't know, because I've been repeatedly told by some
people that were in SO and departments that have since retired,
that had told me repeatedly over time with just different people.
They're like, there's bigger things at play here than you
can imagine, and there's a reason why they have to
keep it suppressed because it's not apparently it's not just
(48:15):
about these two kids.
Speaker 8 (48:16):
It supposedly goes I.
Speaker 5 (48:18):
Guess a lot deeper and higher than just what these
two kids murders represents, and so we're constantly trying to
dig deeper in and thinking, Okay, well, how much more are.
Speaker 8 (48:29):
We looking at?
Speaker 5 (48:30):
I mean, how much deeper is it going to get?
Or how much higher? When it comes to politics? I mean,
I don't know, but I've been repeatedly told that that
there's a much bigger picture here than just.
Speaker 8 (48:41):
These two kids.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
As the investigation into Shelley and Vincent's murders seemed to
stall in the years after their deaths, with still no
real solid lead in the case or even any serious
persons of interest, the unthinkable happened in Weatherford again. So
(49:10):
did you live in Weatherford?
Speaker 4 (49:11):
Yes? I lived at Weatherford for about twenty five years.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
Really when did you get there?
Speaker 7 (49:16):
In the mid nineteen seventies.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
In July nineteen eighty seven, nineteen year old Wendy Robinson,
a classmate of Shelley in Vincent's is living her best life,
studying at Weatherford Junior College in hopes of becoming a teacher,
spending her summers in Weatherford with friends, playing tennis and
hanging out at what locals called the Wall, a popular
(49:42):
spot in town along the backside of Lake Weatherford, where
teens would go to drink, hook up, sunbathe, and swim. Notably,
Wendy bears a striking resemblance to Shelley. Long flowing, thick
brunette hair, round face, soft, gentle eyes, prominent lips, and also,
(50:04):
as Shelley's autopsy noted quote, fully developed. As if older
than her years.
Speaker 7 (50:13):
She had just finished her first year of Weatherford College.
She was a very pretty girl. She was about one
hundred and twenty pounds, about five foot four. She had
been active in the tennis team in high school. I
don't think she played in college. But she was personable,
very attractive, young gal.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
And so you would have known about the Shelley Vincent murder.
Speaker 7 (50:40):
Yes, that was a big deal as far as nothing
like that had happened to Wetherford before.
Speaker 1 (50:45):
And it must have shocked everybody.
Speaker 4 (50:46):
Oh it was, it was so senseless.
Speaker 1 (50:49):
Patricia Springer started her journalism career over forty five years
ago in Weatherford as a beat reporter for the local
radio station, which she and her then husband owned. Patricia
has written books and appeared on television. She has been
reporting on Wendy Robinson since the summer of nineteen eighty seven.
(51:13):
She has a mass every known document from Wendy's case.
Wendy Robinson, how do you lock onto that?
Speaker 7 (51:22):
Because I knew the family pretty well. Linda, Wendy's mother,
and I were tennis partners at a women's tennis league,
and so I was pretty close with Linda.
Speaker 4 (51:31):
I knew Jim pretty well. And when Wendy went missing.
Speaker 7 (51:35):
Then I contacted them, of course, and just followed along
the story what happens. Wendy had gone to Lake Weatherford
to a place called the Wall, and that's where kids
wit and sunbathed, and that was July eighth of nineteen
eighty seven. She went down there to sunbathe. She was alone,
(51:56):
and she didn't come home, and so they Jim to
her dad, called the police and reported her missing. I mean,
they couldn't imagine where she was. They called all of
her friends, anything to try to find her, and no
one in Seni her. She had plans with a friend
that night and she didn't show up. The friend called
(52:18):
her house, and no one in sen her. So it
was just a mystery of where she had gone.
Speaker 1 (52:24):
As Wendy Robinson turns up missing, sparking new concerns in
Parker County, the Weatherford Police Department seems to catch a
break in Shelley in Vincent's case. As it turned out,
about a month after Shelley and Vincent's murders, sadistic serial
killer Oddist Tool was arrested. Toole also committed many arsons
(52:52):
as a way to misdirect investigators and cover up his crimes.
He had also teamed up with Henry Lee Lucas, another
barbaric serial murderer who frequently prowled around Texas in search
of victims. Between them, they had confessed to murdering over
(53:15):
one hundred victims. One of those confessions Tool made was
for the abduction and murder of Adam Walsh, America's most
wanted host, John Walsh's six year old son, who Tool
says he decapitated in the years after Shelley and Vincent
were murdered. Out of Nowhere, Tool steps forward and claims
(53:39):
to have committed the murders on Piss Hill that night.
It could make sense based on the locations. Tool and
Lucas were known to have prayed on victims, so the
Weatherford PD sent a detective to Jacksonville, Florida, where Oddist
(54:02):
Tool was being held on separate charges to interview him
about the murders of Shelley and Vincent. Please check out
my weekly podcast, Crossing the Line with m William Phelps,
where I delve into a new missing person and cold
(54:23):
case murder each week on the iHeart app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your favorite shows. Coming up. In
the next episode of Paper Ghosts.
Speaker 7 (54:38):
There is a man that worked on that ranch that
found her Bobby laying there. He had gone to enter
the ranch and that's when he discovered her. It was
in the middle of nowhere, there were no houses around
or anything.
Speaker 5 (54:52):
They were classmates, and I know that with hers. I
know that her seat was pushed all her back in
her and it sounded as though there isn't a lot
of evidence in her vehicle either.
Speaker 7 (55:09):
Her father had confessed to her that he it was
part of the murderer. And then that's when they went back,
and so all of a sudden he came to the forefront.
Speaker 1 (55:26):
Paper Ghost 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
(55:47):
to two is written and performed by Thomas Phelps and
Tom Mooney.
Parker County, Texas is one of those places where you
can't get away from the people. You heard, the type
of claustrophobic atmosphere that comes of such a tight knit
community where everybody knows everybody's business, where a sidelong glance
in the grocery store or a bless your Heart carries
(00:31):
more weight than outsiders might register. And for families at
the heart of this murder case, as time passed and
law enforcement was no closer to solving Vincent and Shelley's murders,
it all seemed to enhance the pain both families felt.
(00:59):
Did you and Ronnie ever get with Vincent's family and
talk about stuff? No, what happened between the two of you? Anything?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Okay? One day I had been to the police station,
and then I came over to Debbie's, which she was
my Bluebird assistant. She was the lady that the girl
stayed with when we left. So for some reason, they
show up glad to meet you, and the first thing
the mama says to me is Shelley had a cloud
(01:32):
of death over her. What she says, Shelley had a
cloud that has had always had a cloud of death
over her when she would come to our home, she
would have that dark cloud of death on her.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Those remarks stunned Janetta.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
So then she went into telling me, and there's two
things in my head. Okay with this, and that's the
way I've always thought, But there's two things I've never
wanted to hear. Is that she was tortured.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
She was.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
In my head, I don't know. I just have this
vision of they're out there and they're just aggravating her,
just you know, like pushing her, and outside of the car.
And they told me they were outside of the car
in eighty three. The police, Yes, they told me they
(02:40):
were outside of the car.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
That strange conversation with Vincent's mother started playing like a
movie reel in Janetta's mind. Suddenly there were all these
horrific images in her head of what might have happened
to Shelley. So she contacted the Weatherford police.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
And I've told them I want to see some pictures.
I want to see some pictures. And he said, I
got a picture of her shoes. You want to see
her shoes. So he showed me her shoes. Her shoes
were clean, and her clothes were Maddy, How.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Could Shelley's tennis shoes be clean and her clothes muddy
if she was at some point outside the car in
the rain. If you recall from the previous episode, Vincent
Senior's brother Raymond, said he saw an imprint in the
ground next to the side of the car where Shelley
(03:54):
was found sitting inside the vehicle, and he believed Shelley's
head had made that indentation.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
And then that brings up another whole subject. They had
a dedication to a bench at the police station for
Shelley and Vincent. So as Ronnie and I were leaving
after all ceremony and thing was over, as this guy,
deputy come running out and no it wasn't deputy, it
(04:27):
was the chief. Then he come running out and handed
was going to hand me Shelley's clothes, and my brother
stopped him. He said, you are not giving those to her.
You're not giving those no, And so I did not
know that's what was going on. So my brother those
clothes had been at his house since that day. Some
(04:49):
people are saying they were never there, but well, you know,
I don't know then. I don't know what he did
with them. But of course he told me several times.
I've got him, They're okay.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
The idea that the Weatherford Police would give clothing from
a murder victim in an ongoing open murder investigation back
to the victim's family is fundamentally ridiculous. Not only would
it be insensitive, but as far as evidence goes completely incompetent.
(05:22):
Even if they were done lifting any trace evidence or
potential DNA from the clothing, there would be prosecution and
chain of custody issues to consider. I asked current lieutenant
in the Weatherford PD, Johnny Qualls, if he could confirm
the clothing was given back to the family. He said
(05:43):
he had heard the same thing, but had no idea
if it was true. I asked where this evidence is now.
He didn't know. The families of Shelley and Vincent Junior
(06:05):
decided to have a joint viewing of the bodies in
town at a local funeral home two separate rooms, Shelley
in one, Vincent in the other. Same time, people could
walk in, pay their respects, offer condolences to the families,
sit and reflect before leaving. Tell me about that what happens?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Okay, my girlfriend, we were outside. There was two guys
that walks in and one had a black cowboy hat on.
I saw my brother and he asked this one boy.
He went down and he came back, and my brother
stopped him. He said something about him, He said something
about him, you know, And so he stopped him and
(06:56):
he said, did you know Shelley and Vincent? And he
said he just kind of looked at him and walked off.
And the other guy came from Vincent and he said
that they met up at the top, kind of just
shook head and left.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
I spoke to multiple people who were at the viewing,
and they all reported seeing the same two men dressed
tip to toe in cowboy garb, stetson's boots, wranglers. They
walked in, went up to the bodies, did not kneel,
crossed themselves, offer condolences, or say anything to anyone. Instead,
(07:38):
they took a mental picture of the bodies, as if
making sure the kids were dead, and walked out the
front door together. And yet that wasn't the end of it.
Something else happened after they walked out of the funeral home,
something quite bizarre. In fact, I.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Bet it wasn't thirty minutes until my girlfriend and her
husband and everybody were outside and she came in and
she said, Johnny, the church is on fire. The church
is on fire. Said what she said, The church is
on fire, and she said, this black truck when it
started being on fire, this black truck come flying by.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Others reported to me they saw those same two men
walk across the street and into the church just before
the fire started. What do you think that was?
Speaker 4 (08:38):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
To me, it's gotten the light, sending a message. You know,
we did it.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
There you are. Everyone else felt the same way. The
two men who came to the viewing and left abruptly
were the same men who started the church fire. Newspaper
accounts later support the chaotic scene that night and the fire.
(09:05):
The message most came away with afterward was leave it alone,
let it be, go on with your lives and forget
about this.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
But also there was a fire start at Debbie's house
in her back like in her back room.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
You've heard from Debbie earlier in the podcast, the neighbor
who was watching Shelley and her sister that weekend of
the murders. When was this?
Speaker 2 (09:48):
This was during all of the funeral after all?
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Love that really?
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Yeah, so I kind of at that point, I just
I kind of stayed away from Debbie because I didn't
want any problems for her.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
The fire at the church and fire at Debbie's was
only the beginning. There were several more suspicious fires in
town over the next several weeks.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
They set a fire at some house. They tell me
I haven't seen it. They tell me that there was
a fireproof box there that had a note in it
saying you're getting too close to the cauliflower case.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Previously on paper ghosts, it.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Was to me it was a premeditated murderer.
Speaker 5 (10:43):
It was playing.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
He couldn't have been in a long place at the
long time.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
They pulled me in for murder, and then they also
pulled my old brother in murder.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
They pulled you in from murder for who's murder for
those kids.
Speaker 6 (10:58):
I know it's going to throw a loop, but I
kind of feel that her father, Ronnie Cauliflyer, 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 to call back.
My dad always with his brother, he would always say
(11:20):
had he put it, I leave you two to one
that he's involved some form or fashion. Is what my
dad would say.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
My name is. I'm William Phelps. I'm an investigative journalist
and the New York Times bestselling author of dozens of
true crime books. This is season five of Paper Ghosts.
The Texas Team Murders. Cold case investigation involves various stages.
(12:09):
In the early days, you collect information and try not
to allow any of it to steer you in a
particular direction. Talk to people, Listen, follow up. Match what
you are hearing against the known evidence. Allowing people to
tell their stories can bring the truth to the surface
(12:33):
like a sunrise, slow and steady. There had been at
one time some tension between Ronnie Colliflower and Debbie Billingsley,
and to this day they still do not speak. Ronnie
seemed to blame Debbie for allowing Shelley out that night,
(12:55):
when in truth, Janetta had been the one to give
the green light. Still, Debbie was now connected to these
kids forever, and according to Janetta, as you just heard
in the opening of the episode, somebody had set fire
to Debbie's house. Debbie knew one of the first investigators
(13:19):
in the case, Raymond Pritchard. The day of the murders,
Prichard and another investigator stopped by to fill her in
on what had happened and to see if Debbie had
any information.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
And they came in and he sat down and he said, Debbie,
he said, we've got some really bad news. He said,
Shelley and Vincent's bodies were found this morning and they're
both deceased. And I couldn't grasp that, I guess, and
I just looked at him. You know, I was real
confused because I didn't understand how they could just be
(14:03):
gone like that. So I told him everything we had
done the night before, and he proceeded to tell me
that Vincent's father was the one that found him. And
then later that day, Johnetta called me and all she
kept saying was Debbie, you have to help me find her.
(14:26):
And I said what can I do? And she said,
can you come out here to my house? So I
went out there and she just kept telling me she's
sitting in the bedroom and she said. She took hold
of my hands and she said, you got to help
me find her. She said, I can't lose her. You
have to help me find her. And I guess that
(14:46):
was her way of just trying to kind of deal
with it, and some other people came in and I
stepped out into the hallway and Ronnie came in and
told me that I needed to leave. So I didn't
question anything. I just left.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Ronnie Colliflower had been in and out of the house
that morning, one would assume dealing with all that was
going on. In the last episode, you heard Troy Nichelis,
Shelley's cousin, say that his father, Ronnie's brother, was suspicious
of Ronnie. He gave no specific reason, but Troy's father
(15:32):
thought Ronnie knew more than he was sharing. While Debbie
was at the Collieflower house that day, Ronnie came home.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
And Ronnie came in and told me that I needed
to leave. So I didn't question anything. I just left.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
And how was Ronnie when he came in?
Speaker 4 (15:57):
He was angry. I stepped out into the hallway. He
come in the hallway from another room 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. And that's when it dawned
on me. He did not know that she had given
(16:18):
me permission for Shelley to go. I never said anything.
I just left and that was too hard of a
time to try to explain anything, and so I just left.
And I don't know exactly when he found out that
she had told me it was okay.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Debbie took on the responsibility of being Shelley's adult babysitter
for that weekend and could make the call if she
chose to. Ronnie Will agreed to have Debbie watch the
kids knew this. Of course, Debbie was not about to
miss the funeral just because Ronnie had an issue with her,
(16:58):
so she went anyway. While she was up at the
casket paying her respects viewing Shelley's body, something struck her
about the condition of Shelley's remains.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Shelley had scratches all over her arms and her rot side.
I didn't see the left side, but both arms were scratched,
her hands were scratched, and her right side was scratched
up on her neck. And I questioned Johnetta. I said,
where did these marks come from? And she said, I
don't know. They won't tell me anything.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
In speaking with Janetta, it's clear she loved Debbie and
had no issue with her. After all, Debbie had fallen
on her sword during that traumatizing period right after the murders,
taking responsibility for allowing Shelley out on the date, never
revealing to Ronnie that Janetta had given the okay.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
And we stayed in touch for a while, and then
later on she just kind of like cut all ties
with me. And I don't know if it's because she
couldn't face Ronnie to tell him that she had said
it was okay. I don't know, and so I just
let it go. And then the next thing I knew,
she had left and moved away from Weatherford and her
and Ronnie had completely split up.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
When I said earlier, bizarre things began to happen. It
wasn't just those fires and Ronnie acting suspicious in those
early days after the murders, and what were people saying.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
I talked to the detectives multiple times. A couple of
other guys came up told me they were with the
Weatherford Police Department and needed to speak to me. They
showed me a badge. I let them in, We talked,
I told them what I knew.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
They left in the aftermath, BE contacted the investigator she
had been speaking with at the Weatherford Police Department to
find out why they had sent different investigators to her house,
and he.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
Says, Debbie, those are not policemen. He says, don't talk
to them anymore. Then another guy came said he was
with the Texas Rangers, had a badge, and I believed him.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Debbie had given Shelley fifty cents, two quarters and a
piece of paper that night. She had written her phone
number and address on the paper, explaining to Shelley that
if she ran into any trouble, call and Debbie would
come right out to get her and not ask any questions.
Debbie says, the Weatherford Police Department found those quarters, but
(19:56):
the piece of paper with her address and phone number
was miss.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
I got very scared, and especially knowing that someone had
taken that piece of paper with my name and phone
number on it, because the corners were still in Shelley's pocket,
but the paper was gone. So we moved from where
we were, and then about a year later we completely
left Weatherford. I didn't feel safe there.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
What were people saying around town about who could have
done this?
Speaker 4 (20:33):
Oh, there was multiple, multiple scenarios. The talk around town
was Shelley and Vincent come up on a drug deal
and got killed out of way Another rumor was that
the one that killed them, they were the one dealing
the drugs and they killed them, that they were killed
at a different location, their bodies brought back where they
(20:55):
were found and their bodies were positioned in the car there.
And another rumor was that Vincent killed her and then
killed hisself.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
You know.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
Another one was there was infatuated with Shelley and wanted
her and he wasn't gonna let Vincent have her because
Vincent was Mexican. That was the words they used back then.
There was just all kinds of rumors and at different
points it kind of, you know, like you didn't know
what to believe because the police weren't telling me anything.
(21:26):
As a matter of fact, it wasn't too long after
the police, the two detectives that were working that case
were taken off of it and moved to different One
was let go and one was moved to the probation department.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
And why do you think that was?
Speaker 4 (21:41):
I think because they knew who did it and they
weren't going to let anything come of it. Weldon Kennedy
on a meatpacking plant there in Weatherford, and they used
to traffic a lot of drugs and people from Mexico
into Weatherford, and from Weatherford up through Oklahoma and on out,
and they weren't going to let anything become of it.
And that's what really gave me credence to believe that
(22:05):
had something to do with it. I never had anything
put in my hand that said, here's the proof. But
as time went on and more that was talked and
more that was said, I do believe it. I do
believe that both had something to do with their deaths.
Not going to sit here and say that they pulled
the triggers or they did what. I don't know that.
(22:27):
I had gone over to the sister's house with a
friend of mine one time. This was years later. We
went in his sister made a cup coffee and we
were sitting around talking and came in and sat down
at the table, and I knew who he was, but
he didn't know who I was. I told my friend,
I said it's time for us to go. I just
(22:48):
couldn't be in the same room with him. She didn't understand,
and so when we left, I told her what the
deal was and she says, oh, no, she wouldn't have
had any anything to do with that. There's no way
get out in his house for six months to a
year after those kids were killed, because he was too
afraid to come out. And I said, yeah, he was
(23:10):
afraid because he was part of it. Oh no, no, no, no,
he's totally innocent. And I said, well, I don't believe that,
but that's what his sister had told her, and so
she fullheartedly believed that.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Debbie ran into the guy whose name I censored, the
same one you've heard many of my sources mentioned. Not
long after that visit to his sister's house.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
We went back by there one time to drop some
stuff off, and I didn't get out and go in,
but come out to the in the garage, to the van,
and he says, Debbie, he said, I have to tell
you I didn't have anything to do with Shelley and
Vincent's murder. He said, I didn't have anything to do
with it. I am totally innocent. I didn't have anything
(24:10):
to do with it. And he just kept saying that
over and over, and he started crying, and he says,
you have to believe me. I didn't have anything to
do with it. And I said, if you didn't, who did?
Do you know who did? He never would say he
knew or he did not know. I said, if you
didn't do it or have anything to do with it,
who did? And he never would answer me, So I
(24:34):
don't know if he knew and was just afraid for
his own luck. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Ronnie COYLEI Flower, was not someone I would even consider
a person of interest in what is a growing list
of suspects. Why would Ronnie, if he knew anything, agree
to hire mel Mitchell, a private investigator, to look into
the murders all these years later. At face value, that
(25:17):
would make no sense if he was involved, Not to mention,
he loved Shelley and had brought her up as his
own daughter from the time she was a toddler. But
I still needed to talk to Ronnie and ask questions
only he could answer. Several people had mentioned his brother
(25:39):
as someone I needed to look into, that his brother
had connections back to the names I have been censoring
in the podcast, and that his brother was the best
meth cook in the county. I don't believe Ronnie's brother
(26:00):
was ever a potential suspect, but he could have information
about the case, seeing that he knew all of the
main suspects very well. While I was in Weatherford. Ronnie
seemed to be circling me, showing up at various places
I had been or coincidentally in the same area. I
(26:24):
was mel Mitchell and Laurie Kates, the Facebook administrator of
the Justice page who had first reached out to me,
told me Ronnie was very hesitant, but he had finally
agreed to meet me at my hotel and allow me
to interview him. So I waited, and then I got this.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
When I mentionaged you, you had a feeling that he
might back out.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
Sure that he took off and his friend went out
the back to try to.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Get him, and he had already left his friends a lot.
Speaker 7 (26:59):
What the call.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
We don't understand, you know, we don't know he was
going to go with you and then.
Speaker 5 (27:04):
He backed out.
Speaker 8 (27:06):
Did tell his friends about meeting with you? What before
I'd even talked about it or came over there.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
They said that he is said, well, he didn't he
didn't know what a podcast was.
Speaker 8 (27:21):
And you know, was thinking about meeting. So hopefully it's
just because he had a few beers.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Maybe hopefully that's.
Speaker 8 (27:32):
What it was. But anyways, I just wanted to let
you know that he staged.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
People report to us that there were two individuals, two
males that came in. Yeah, I guess most people didn't recognize.
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, or they introduce themselves,
(28:23):
We're gonna say hi, like hey, we knew Shelley, we
knew Vincent.
Speaker 8 (28:27):
But they didn't do any of that.
Speaker 5 (28:28):
They just kind of whenever they're looked in the caskets
and kind of met in the middle and then left.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
I met mel Mitchell one morning in front of the church,
which had been set on fire during the viewing of
Shelley and Vincent's bodies. We talked out front. I had
her go step by step through what she had found
out about the viewing. And those two cowboy characters seemingly
(28:53):
straight out of Central Casting, as if they had stepped
off the set of the iconic am see crime drama
Breaking Bad.
Speaker 5 (29:03):
Apparently they kind of peeled out or sort of kind
of making a scene a little bit in front of
the funeral home and then sped off. So a lot
of people kind of felt that was off, more suspicious,
didn't know why they would act that way. Literally right
across the street, like you saw, just how closed that the.
Speaker 8 (29:22):
Church and the funeral home are.
Speaker 5 (29:23):
I mean, right there, someone set fire to that church
and it was It's in the newspaper, is Arson, and
so no one knows who set that fire.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
It's kind of like a threat, right, So two cowboys
show up and then a church catches on fire.
Speaker 8 (29:40):
I would think it'd be a long intimidation line. Sure. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
As we talked outside, Mel decided to go into the
funeral home and ask if they kept records dating back
to nineteen eighty three. Generally speaking, when the body is
prepared for a wake and funeral, the embalmber notes abnormalities
and details the condition of the body. Its standard practice
(30:11):
in the industry. Nearly everyone who had seen Shelley's body
that Mel and I had spoken to said the same thing.
The right side appeared to show evidence that Shelley had
been dragged through a brier patch, scratched and bruised. This
(30:31):
is significant in my view. If true, it could change
the entire dynamic of the motive a drug hit if
you will, that wrong place, wrong time motive would generally
be quick in execution, but if Shelley had been beaten
or dragged, it could point to a more sexual motive.
(30:55):
Stranger Still, that autopsy report left on the door step
of Shelley's cousin never mentions scratches or bruises on Shelley's body.
I'll be going through that report in a future episode,
but it's quite scant on any specific detail and seems
(31:16):
to tell only half the story. Even those attending the
view and were shocked to see how obvious it was
that Shelley's body had injuries on the right side of
her face and arms. Getting notes from the embomber might
clear it all up and give us some sort of
understanding of those alleged injuries on Shelley's body. As mel
(31:43):
went into the funeral home, well I waited outside that.
Speaker 5 (31:48):
It was, But when the families reached out to them,
they told both families that all those reports were sent
over to the.
Speaker 8 (31:56):
Sheriff's apartment or to Parker County, Okay.
Speaker 5 (32:01):
So they're not able to get the reports from Emmy's
office because apparently they sent all the original copies of
the tops reports.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
There are parts of this case, and I am unsure
if they can even be considered related or not. Born
strictly out of social media, the new age town hall
for spreading information and more destructively misinformation, I have learned
to take what is reported on social media about murder
(32:32):
investigations with a very skeptical eye. In the early days
of the case, there were three names synonymous with being
connected to the murders, accusations of which were generated by
town gossip and the rumor mill. It got so bad
(32:53):
several people took to the pages of the editorial section
of the local newspaper to voice their concerns over accusing
these men, whose names I have been censoring throughout simply
because they have never been charged in the case. I
asked Weatherford Police Department Lieutenant Johnny Qualls, the current cold
(33:16):
case investigator looking into the murders, his thoughts about this, So,
how do you even begin to look at that? Because,
as you know, and I know, one of the worst
things about a cold case is all those rumors, especially
now with the Internet, So you get all of this
misinformation and you have to sift through it all to
(33:39):
find the facts right and I don't think record keeping
could have been that great in a town like small
town like Weatherford back then. So you have that element.
So how do you manage that?
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Yeah, you just have that. Well you just said it.
You know, you have to really focus in and hone
in on the facts, and you have it's almost it's, uh,
you know, we don't have the advantage of going back
in time and and making that a more organized operation.
That's not a knock on any of those folks. That's
a part of that either. It's just like we don't
we can't go back in time and and fix any
(34:15):
of that or preserve anything that maybe they didn't think
or know to to preserve back then it might be
important today. So you really have to have to set
out on a fact finding mission of like, what are
the things that we know for sure, for sure or
at least fairly certain of that happened. And then uh,
and then you almost have to take your up I
(34:37):
don't know, maybe like a virtual reality and walk walk
your through itself through what that crime scene might have
looked like, and consult with experts on you know, whether
it's splits ladder or various other things and sure out
their opinions, but also not discount you know, the investigative
opinions and those very too, by the way, you know,
(34:57):
we have the general public with various opinions, and and
then we have various investigative opinions on top of that.
So but but go back and talk to we. We
did do that. We talked to you know, the original
case agent and various other people that were that there
were still around, that were still in that part. We
were fortunate that, you know, a lot of those folks
were still around and able to kind of fill in
(35:19):
some of those blank spots for us as far as
you know, well, what happened here, Why do we think
this happened here, or or why do we not know
this information?
Speaker 1 (35:31):
So you found the victims, so there must have been
physical evidence obviously, and you have to determine if there
was a sexual assault or a rape right motive right.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
Unfortunately, none of that, none of that stuff has panned
out for us so far. And I was told, I
was told. I was told before I ever started looking
at it. When people learned that I was looking at
that case that and I say that I was that
it was a team effort that we were looking at
that case.
Speaker 8 (35:57):
Uh, there was.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
A comment made to me. It is like, you know,
basically it was from someone that kind of knew the
state of all that stuff. I think, but you know
before I did. And it's like, good luck, you know,
so kind of like we shot. They do these uh
they do these little I don't remember exactly what all
goes into that equation, but they do these little solvability things,
you know. Uh, they looked at Okay, let's look at
(36:20):
all the cold cases we have. Let's do a solvability thing. Uh,
you know, give them a solvability score. And uh. And
I was told I never I never thought what those
seats looks like or anything like that. But I was
told by someone that was a part of that process
that that the that that one, the double homicide of
those kids was just like essentially, they feel like.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
It was solvable. So when Mel returned from speaking with
the funeral home, she was optimistic. They did keep detailed
records and had those files from nineteen eighty three. What's more,
(37:03):
each embomber took copious, comprehensive notes regarding the condition of
each body. The director of the place said she'd look
for the file and those notes and call Mel as
soon as she found them. That was hopeful those notes
could clear up some information and, depending on what was
(37:26):
in the report, answer several questions. As you heard in
the last episode, after forty plus years, Shelley's autopsy report,
which nobody had been able to obtain through the Freedom
of Information Act or by any other means, shows up
inside the storm door of Shelley's cousin. I wondered if
(37:49):
Mel had any idea where this autopsy report came from
and why now? Also why was it given to Troy
nichelis Shelley's cousin, mainly because he was not one of
the relatives most invested in the case publicly? So how
(38:12):
do you get the autopsy report? Because records in this
case have been hard to come by, and all of
a sudden you get a copy of an autopsy report,
How do you get it? Where does it come from?
Who dropped it off?
Speaker 5 (38:23):
Ellwood had given me some documents before he passed. I
was able to briefly see him quickly after we'd spent
some extensive time together, you know, over the summer. First
with me, I spent quite a bit of time with him,
interviewing and talking with him, another time I went out
there and saw him with Laurie. You know, I had
a little bit of time to swing by and say
hello again, and that's when he was able to give
(38:45):
me a few documents.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
If you recall, Elwood Hohertz was the police chief at
the time of the murders. I asked mel about something
I had heard and if she had verified it with Hurts.
Right after Shelley was murdered, there were undercover officer's place
in the high school.
Speaker 5 (39:09):
So I had asked Elwood about that, because according to
some of Shelley's family, there was some officers placed in there,
possibly one to learn about narcotics that's going through the
high school.
Speaker 8 (39:23):
Also maybe to mail names.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Vincent's stepsister here of.
Speaker 8 (39:27):
Ursus stepsister friend had just been murdered.
Speaker 5 (39:30):
So when I asked Elwood about it, he had said that, yes,
he had had a couple because the narcotics was such
an extensive issue that they were trying to find out
where it's coming from, you know, any kind of information
that might get them to kind of quell a lot
of the narcotics.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Back then, nothing came out of it, no leads, no
new names, no new information. I was getting the feeling
that this drug can sounded good on paper fit into
a possible murder narrative. But beyond rumor and speculation, there
wasn't much actual evidence of it, at least none that
(40:12):
I could see any merit in at the time. And
it needs to be said, two things can be true
at the same time, so nothing can be discounted until
it is. For example, how many people eyewitnesses can put
the two most popular names connected to the murders by
(40:36):
rumor at the scene near the time we know the
kids were up on Piss Hill. Mel gives me two names.
Speaker 5 (40:48):
Of course, some of the people that were across the street.
You know, they're talking about a vehicle that you know
may have appeared to be that way. But more importantly
in Ellwood, he actually talks about we discussed like he
was driving the car.
Speaker 8 (41:01):
I knew that. You know, there's another person that we
believed that was there as a.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
She mentions somebody connected to Weldon Kennedy, the sausage.
Speaker 5 (41:11):
King, because when we started looking into this case, there
were always two names that were brought up every time
was And when I talked to Elwood about it, He's like, yeah,
we had done a polygraph on and he felled two
questions and you know, when I wanted to go back
and question some more, I was like, no, brought the
turning in.
Speaker 8 (41:30):
She's like, you'll never talk to him again, and we
never did. And so he had told me He's like, yeah,
well I believe that he was the.
Speaker 5 (41:38):
Driver, okay, And he kind of kind of was like, well,
I can't really prove that, you.
Speaker 8 (41:44):
Know, hung out together. And I'm like, okay, well I
have others that can stay that they did.
Speaker 5 (41:48):
He's like, oh, well that's the case, then we've been
driving and probably have been the shooter.
Speaker 8 (41:56):
Okay. So he, coming from.
Speaker 5 (41:58):
The police chaf wasn't denying these two people at the scene.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
So the police chief at the time told mel Mitchell
he believed those two men were behind the murders, but
because of their connections to political and law enforcement officials,
they were told to stop investigating them as persons of interest.
(42:34):
What would be their motive? Is this a thing about Hey,
they just rolled up on them and they wanted to
rape Shelley, and so they did what they did. They
got rid of Vince and raped her.
Speaker 5 (42:45):
By all accounts, was gay. So and of course you
know how it was in the eighties, Like you just
didn't talk about that because right After's murders basically has
dropped off the face of earth, like he left town
for a little while and then he came back and
just became a reclue.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Crime is America's great industry, even referred to more bombastically
as the Great Empire. And it seems to me that
throughout the plains of Parker County, Texas, back in the
nineteen eighties, an empirical criminal syndicate was not only active
(43:48):
within the fabric of everyday life, but a lot of
people in high positions were turning a blind eye. Several
things bothered me about what I was hearing on my sources.
For one, the amount of fires connected back to the murders,
one of which Weatherford Police Department Chief Elwood Hohertz in
(44:11):
nineteen eighty three came out and said publicly was set
to cover up evidence connected to the murders. Number two,
this sausage guy Weldon Kennedy. Mel Mitchell had run this
thread down over the past several years and looked at
Kennedy and a possible connection to the murders. I could
(44:34):
see it, but wasn't yet sold on a human trafficker
being involved in the murders of two local teens. I'd
need more context, additional links, some sort of evidence beyond
people talking. Moreover, as we will begin to explore in
(44:54):
the next episode, Vincent and Shelley were not the only
teens in Parker County during the same general time period,
and so when you have multiple murders, all with similarities,
you'd have to start thinking serial killer. In Texas during
(45:16):
the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties was a hotbed for
serial killers. So how would Kennedy and his crew, if
you will, be connected to any of the area murders
of young people.
Speaker 5 (45:34):
I've had numerous people tell us that, I mean, on
his side, I've heard more it's like more immigrant related.
I've heard numerous people that had work there that they
would not eat any of the meat because there's a
possibility that he may have gotten rid of a couple
of bodies through meat grinder. That's not the first time
I've heard that story. Obviously I didn't work there, but
(45:55):
I'm just going by some of the locals that had
worked there, had worked in the meat processing area.
Speaker 8 (45:59):
They had just said there was.
Speaker 5 (46:00):
Up to five people that had been placed in her
meat grinder at some point in time. It's a lot
of locals when it actually eat some of the meat,
the meat products.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Is he still alive now now.
Speaker 8 (46:13):
He passed away several years ago.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Who runs the place now? Well?
Speaker 5 (46:17):
That one I believe had burned down, So I'm not
sure if, like when you're reading this stuff, you see
just how many fires there are. It seems like everything
burns down within this a this time period. I get
it when you have a couple of house fires here
and there, But when you have the amount of house fires,
(46:38):
or for instance, when Shelley had her viewing and right
across the street the church, you know, caught on fire
from the funeral home, I don't know if you could
take it as almost like a warning, because I mean,
I know that was arson, you know, And you have
other key places that eventually burn down. There's like a
hardware store that had like burned down later. You've got
(46:59):
that a a handover which we still cannot get any
kind of you know, solid lead on exactly who lived
there at that time.
Speaker 8 (47:06):
The murders.
Speaker 5 (47:08):
There's evidence in that house fire those connected to the kids' murders,
as well as a couple of other cases that were
found within that home that burned down, And they also
said that there was a warning to PD and to
others to you know, to basically back off essentially.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
And this is because of evidence.
Speaker 8 (47:26):
You think, I think there was evidence in the home
or whoever is living there.
Speaker 5 (47:29):
I also had evidence as well and decided, Okay, the
best way to get rid of evidence is obviously to
burn it.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
It seems like if you're covering up a couple of murders,
up two young people, it seems like the extreme is
met here, like this thing like gets out of hand,
or is there a bigger thing at play here that
they're covering up besides just the murders.
Speaker 5 (47:53):
I don't know, because I've been repeatedly told by some
people that were in SO and departments that have since retired,
that had told me repeatedly over time with just different people.
They're like, there's bigger things at play here than you
can imagine, and there's a reason why they have to
keep it suppressed because it's not apparently it's not just
(48:15):
about these two kids.
Speaker 8 (48:16):
It supposedly goes I.
Speaker 5 (48:18):
Guess a lot deeper and higher than just what these
two kids murders represents, and so we're constantly trying to
dig deeper in and thinking, Okay, well, how much more are.
Speaker 8 (48:29):
We looking at?
Speaker 5 (48:30):
I mean, how much deeper is it going to get?
Or how much higher? When it comes to politics? I mean,
I don't know, but I've been repeatedly told that that
there's a much bigger picture here than just.
Speaker 8 (48:41):
These two kids.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
As the investigation into Shelley and Vincent's murders seemed to
stall in the years after their deaths, with still no
real solid lead in the case or even any serious
persons of interest, the unthinkable happened in Weatherford again. So
(49:10):
did you live in Weatherford?
Speaker 4 (49:11):
Yes? I lived at Weatherford for about twenty five years.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
Really when did you get there?
Speaker 7 (49:16):
In the mid nineteen seventies.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
In July nineteen eighty seven, nineteen year old Wendy Robinson,
a classmate of Shelley in Vincent's is living her best life,
studying at Weatherford Junior College in hopes of becoming a teacher,
spending her summers in Weatherford with friends, playing tennis and
hanging out at what locals called the Wall, a popular
(49:42):
spot in town along the backside of Lake Weatherford, where
teens would go to drink, hook up, sunbathe, and swim. Notably,
Wendy bears a striking resemblance to Shelley. Long flowing, thick
brunette hair, round face, soft, gentle eyes, prominent lips, and also,
(50:04):
as Shelley's autopsy noted quote, fully developed. As if older
than her years.
Speaker 7 (50:13):
She had just finished her first year of Weatherford College.
She was a very pretty girl. She was about one
hundred and twenty pounds, about five foot four. She had
been active in the tennis team in high school. I
don't think she played in college. But she was personable,
very attractive, young gal.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
And so you would have known about the Shelley Vincent murder.
Speaker 7 (50:40):
Yes, that was a big deal as far as nothing
like that had happened to Wetherford before.
Speaker 1 (50:45):
And it must have shocked everybody.
Speaker 4 (50:46):
Oh it was, it was so senseless.
Speaker 1 (50:49):
Patricia Springer started her journalism career over forty five years
ago in Weatherford as a beat reporter for the local
radio station, which she and her then husband owned. Patricia
has written books and appeared on television. She has been
reporting on Wendy Robinson since the summer of nineteen eighty seven.
(51:13):
She has a mass every known document from Wendy's case.
Wendy Robinson, how do you lock onto that?
Speaker 7 (51:22):
Because I knew the family pretty well. Linda, Wendy's mother,
and I were tennis partners at a women's tennis league,
and so I was pretty close with Linda.
Speaker 4 (51:31):
I knew Jim pretty well. And when Wendy went missing.
Speaker 7 (51:35):
Then I contacted them, of course, and just followed along
the story what happens. Wendy had gone to Lake Weatherford
to a place called the Wall, and that's where kids
wit and sunbathed, and that was July eighth of nineteen
eighty seven. She went down there to sunbathe. She was alone,
(51:56):
and she didn't come home, and so they Jim to
her dad, called the police and reported her missing. I mean,
they couldn't imagine where she was. They called all of
her friends, anything to try to find her, and no
one in Seni her. She had plans with a friend
that night and she didn't show up. The friend called
(52:18):
her house, and no one in sen her. So it
was just a mystery of where she had gone.
Speaker 1 (52:24):
As Wendy Robinson turns up missing, sparking new concerns in
Parker County, the Weatherford Police Department seems to catch a
break in Shelley in Vincent's case. As it turned out,
about a month after Shelley and Vincent's murders, sadistic serial
killer Oddist Tool was arrested. Toole also committed many arsons
(52:52):
as a way to misdirect investigators and cover up his crimes.
He had also teamed up with Henry Lee Lucas, another
barbaric serial murderer who frequently prowled around Texas in search
of victims. Between them, they had confessed to murdering over
(53:15):
one hundred victims. One of those confessions Tool made was
for the abduction and murder of Adam Walsh, America's most
wanted host, John Walsh's six year old son, who Tool
says he decapitated in the years after Shelley and Vincent
were murdered. Out of Nowhere, Tool steps forward and claims
(53:39):
to have committed the murders on Piss Hill that night.
It could make sense based on the locations. Tool and
Lucas were known to have prayed on victims, so the
Weatherford PD sent a detective to Jacksonville, Florida, where Oddist
(54:02):
Tool was being held on separate charges to interview him
about the murders of Shelley and Vincent. Please check out
my weekly podcast, Crossing the Line with m William Phelps,
where I delve into a new missing person and cold
(54:23):
case murder each week on the iHeart app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your favorite shows. Coming up. In
the next episode of Paper Ghosts.
Speaker 7 (54:38):
There is a man that worked on that ranch that
found her Bobby laying there. He had gone to enter
the ranch and that's when he discovered her. It was
in the middle of nowhere, there were no houses around
or anything.
Speaker 5 (54:52):
They were classmates, and I know that with hers. I
know that her seat was pushed all her back in
her and it sounded as though there isn't a lot
of evidence in her vehicle either.
Speaker 7 (55:09):
Her father had confessed to her that he it was
part of the murderer. And then that's when they went back,
and so all of a sudden he came to the forefront.
Speaker 1 (55:26):
Paper Ghost 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
(55:47):
to two is written and performed by Thomas Phelps and
Tom Mooney.
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