November 12, 2025 • 49 mins
Phelps teams up with a local private investigator discovering that things are not what they seem in Weatherford, Texas… and learns peculiar new information about the case.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Hi know, hey, I know, good to meet you to
Laurids should be here in just a second, all.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Right, all right, and then we'll head that way.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
So that's where piss Hill is and uh yes, that's
where our famous pists Hill is.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
When Weatherford, Texas residents woke up on the morning of
March twenty sixth, nineteen eighty three, and news began to
trickle down about what happened up on ten Top Road, accusations, theories,
and speculation spread immediately.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
I mean, at first, my drive for this was, you know,
I can't imagine being a parent and not having answers.
I can't fathom that. And I can't fathom getting to
the point where I just resigned myself over to I'll
never have answers. I will never know who DI is
to my child. I just I can't fathom that me personally,
especially being a mom.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Now, District Attorney Max Smith, who took the lead as
spokesperson for law enforcement, came right out of the gate
and made a promise, we intend to investigate all details
in order to apprehend whoever committed this crime. Forty plus
(01:30):
years have passed since Max Smith made that comment. For
a hardened private investigator like Mel Mitchell, Justice has no
shelf life. When she got involved in twenty twenty two,
A deep seated empathetic nature as a mother putting herself
in Shelley and Vincent's parents shoes drove Mel to fight
(01:54):
for victim's families, like there's just.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
No way you There's no way you're going to stop
me from ever finding out who murdered my child. I
don't care. I will do into the dyamond breath I have.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
Forty four year old Mel Mitchell has shoulder length black hair,
soft brown eyes set against a clear complexion unstained by
the scorching Texas sun. She doesn't come across like your
typical Texan or at least the big hair and big
belt buckle idea so many have about a Texas woman.
(02:31):
She's reserved, doesn't say much, and comes across outwardly harmless.
Yet spending time with her, I got a sense right
away that there's a steely toughness there, hovering just underneath
the surface. The quiet confidence carrying a nine millimeter handgun
brings to a woman in a tough line of work,
(02:52):
ready to come out should some unsavory type cross her.
Let's go back for a minute. Where did you grow up?
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Mel?
Speaker 1 (03:05):
I grew up in a little place called Ovilla, Texas.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Ovilla is about an hour and fifteen minutes southeast of Weatherford,
driving along the twenty toward mineral wells and much further
out Abilene and Sweetwater. Growing up in Ovilla gave mel
a solid Texan identity, reminding her how important it is
(03:30):
to keep the ties that bind even into your later years.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
It is a super small town, but I ended up
having to go to a little bit larger district over
in Red Oak, and so it was nice. I mean,
we had I think there were like eight hundred in
my graduating class. I mean, so it wasn't super small
by any means, but it was just as small enough
to where you still know the locals and you know,
felt comfort around town.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
As I got to Nomel and she talked about Parker
County in general, she brought up something vital to our
understanding of this case.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
So you have a lot of very wealthy people that
live out there. There's also a lot of oil and
gas people. You've got a lot of real estate people.
For a long time, it was actually there was more
money poor capita in Parker County than there was DFW
combined for quite a while, just because people wanted to
move out of the city and Weatherford or Parker County
(04:27):
was right on the other side of Fort Worth. And
so if you want to kind of get outside of
Fort Worth but still be close enough to city, then
you go to Parker County. I mean, so the people
are are really nice, down to earth, your typical Texas people,
that's what you want to call us, you know, the
Hallidi Wavy when you drive by. You know, when I
lived out there, you know, you could drive down street,
(04:48):
you knew a lot of people. There wasn't nearly like
the traffic it is now. I mean, it's grown exponentially
since then. But yeah, it's just a usual small town
place where everybody kind of knows everybody everybody's business, you know.
And like I said, it's just a lot of money,
a lot of cattle, a lot of big ranges out there.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Really, where there is money, problems are not far behind
sometimes big ones, and people can get caught up in
the middle without ever knowing why. With a double murder
case like Shelley and Vincent's unsolved for all these years,
myriad theories have developed. Unsolved homicides of two teenagers can
(05:26):
leave a town reeling to fill in the blanks. One
theory I kept hearing from multiple sources that Shelley and
Vincent saw something they shouldn't have wrong place, wrong time.
In that sense, they could have been collateral damage within
(05:47):
a much bigger story.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
One of the things we've been told over and over
again is that they may have witnessed something narcotics related
that they shouldn't have seen and they had to be
taken care of. The other motive was jealousy that Shelley
may have had a relationship with someone prior to and
it was a jealousy thing between you know, the ex
and Vincent.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
After the stock market crash of two thousand and eight,
when the employment rate fell off the charts and private
investigation dried up, Mel went back to behind the bar
of a local joint, pulling beers and slinging whiskey. The
thing is, people naturally trust the bartender. They talk, they
(06:40):
open up as the night goes on, and the booze flows,
lips get looser. As it turns out, tending bar is
one of the best moves a private investigator can make.
If she wants to develop sources in a case where
the people with the best information have been afraid to talk.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
I decided to go back and barton at a local,
a brand new restaurant out there in Parker County. Back then,
there weren't a lot of options. I mean, so anything
that was new that came into town, everybody went to.
And so I started working out there and it was
crazy as busy, and anybody who knew anybody, and anybody
was politics related. I mean, they all came through the
(07:25):
bar that worked in. So the information alone that was
coming through this location was insane. Like I figured out
and started knowing like who is who, and you know
how they're affiliated to different people, and you know all
the politics at the time. I mean, it was just
it was a great information pipeline to use. I can't
tell you how many people i'd meet, you know, that way,
(07:46):
or if someone found out what I was doing on
the side, then they would kind of be like, hey,
I heard a rumor, and I'm like, oh, what's the rumor.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Then something happened one day in the bar changing everything.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
People knew that I could keep my mouth. That's a
really big, big part of it. Of course, and so.
But they had a group of guys that come in
every Friday morning, and their class of sixty six and
sixty seven, and there were used to be about twenty
of them. And anyway, one of them's name is Ronnie Caulflower.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
In all the years Mel had known Ronnie before that day,
he had never once mentioned that his stepdaughter Shelley was
one of the two murder victims from nineteen eighty three
up on Tin Top Road. Ronnie and Janetta had been
divorced for quite some time by then, but Ronnie still
(08:39):
lived in Weatherford. He kept a low profile and would
rarely discuss what happened.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
I've never heard of Ronnie talking about any of his family.
Like I knew he had been divorced, but I didn't know.
He was very quiet about his private life, and so
I just never heard. And I was like, yo, let me,
let me ask Ronnie and just see if this is
his daughter. So I pulled him aside. I asked him
and he's like, yes, that's my daughter. I was like, well,
you've never said anything about her before. He's like yeah,
(09:09):
I just haven't because I know it's never going to
be solved. There's nothing that you might can do about it.
And I'm like, well, why do you say that. He's like,
because of the local, you know politics, We'll put it
that way. I was like, okay, well you know what
I do you know outside of you know, working here,
And he's like, well yeah, And I was like, well,
do you want me to look into it.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
That one serendipitous moment reignited a fire in this case.
For decades before this, nothing new had really been uncovered.
The case was stuck and going nowhere. Law enforcement had
made another run at it in twenty twenty one, yet,
as one current weather for cold case detective told me,
(09:54):
nothing came from that reinvestigation. But now you had a
private investigator, not connected to the case in any way,
stepping in and getting to work for one of the families.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
And he's like, if you can, that'd be great, but
I'm going to tell you right now, it's going to
be a rabbit hole. I'm like, well, what do you mean,
He's like, because there's there's a lot more connected to
my daughter's murder than just just my daughter and her boyfriend.
I was like, okay, well let me just let me
see what I can I can.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
Do mel of course, asked the first question. Any cold
case investigator would It had been forty years by the
time she stepped up. Surely by now there had to
be boxes of documents from any prior investigation the family
had access to.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Do you have any you know files, do you have
any paperwork? And he's like, well, there's a justice page
on Facebook and it's called you know, Justice for Shelley
and Vincent and run by Shelley's cousin and Laurie. And
he's like, you need to reach out to both of them,
or primarily Laurie. She's once been running the website.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
Laurie Kate's who you heard in a previous episode, had
taken over as administrator of the Facebook group.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
So I called Laurie up and I had a long
conversation with her, and I was like, hey, I know
you're working with his cousin the All's website. I kind
of looked up that it had been up for about
I think a year, maybe year and a half, and
it had a couple of you know, posts here and there,
and there's a couple of people would say, you know,
a couple of things on it, but it really wasn't
up and going. Really, I mean, it wasn't generating any leads.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
And it became that chance encounter, an unplanned conversation between
Mel and Ronnie and Mel inevitably contacting Laurie Kates that
ultimately revived this case in a way nothing else had
up to this point. For the first time, maybe since
the case began back in nineteen eighty three, people would
(12:06):
start talking again and change the entire course of the
investigation previously on paper ghosts.
Speaker 5 (12:28):
Johnny, she was shot, her invents it. We're both shot.
Of course, I just lost it. It's not real.
Speaker 6 (12:38):
This is not real and not mine, Shelley, No, you know,
and it's just like a oh, I cannot even tell
you what it feels like.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
And then I heard it again.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
I heard like a thunder noise, and then I heard
what sounded like a gunshot.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
And then I think I may have heard it maybe
one or two more times.
Speaker 7 (12:58):
And then that was it.
Speaker 8 (13:00):
That we were always told never say when it gets dark,
because that was known to be wherethy KKK would come
and do their nightly things or whatever meetings. So if
you were in the wrong place at the wrong time,
then you would get caught in that.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
My name is em William Phelps. I'm an investigative journalist
in the New York Times, bestselling author of dozens of
true crime books. This is season five of Paper Ghosts
the Texas teen Murders. After the initial shock of finding
(13:48):
his son Anne Shelley Cauliflower shot to death had passed,
if only for a brief moment, Vincent Tjerina Senior did
not know what to do next. His son had been
murdered so brutally, he had witnessed the aftermath of the
crime scene firsthand, an unimaginable horror apparent finding his child's
(14:13):
brutalized body, his eye dislodged from its socket, blood spatter
on the ground and inside the car. Family members gathered
at the Tea Gerina household to console one another, anticipating
facts about what had happened. With so many rumors already
(14:34):
spreading around town, the Tea Jerinas stayed close and tight,
waiting for law enforcement to brief them. Of course, you'd
expect a massive investigation, with yellow crime scene tape flapping
in the wind, roads blocked off, and a man hunt
underway for a suspect. As Weatherford police spared no expense,
(14:58):
spread out and began rounding up anyone that looked good
for it. Somebody had to have information. Piss Hill was
a hot spot on Friday nights. There had to be witnesses.
As you've already heard, Robert Hardin was the first officer
(15:19):
on the scene, and what he has to say begins
to paint a picture of just how chaotic and loose
this investigation became from the moment it started. And I
don't think at this point this is by the fault
of anyone in particular, more than it was a small
department ill equipped to deal with a double homicide of
(15:42):
this magnitude.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
Of course, I was never questioned about what I found
when I got out here before, I had no the
investigat yourself from or asked me about anything other than
the fact that I.
Speaker 7 (15:55):
Reverse from there.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
And I understand that ain't even been totally different, man.
I mean, well, as far as far line knew, I
was your first person here inside, Vince, he was here.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Did you write a report.
Speaker 7 (16:10):
Just my regular report and got the call.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
And did when in the report? Did you put what
you saw at the scene and all of that.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
No, we're right out here. I turned it over to
the car the police station.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
In a later interview with one of the first homicide
detectives on the scene that morning, he states the crime
scene was quote screwed up. There were people walking around everywhere.
What's more, he claims it was another officer, Patrick Mahoney,
who showed up on the scene first, not Robert Harden.
(16:55):
I asked Harden what he did next after reporting to
the SEEN and turning it over to several Weatherford police investigators.
Speaker 7 (17:06):
I didn't have any any connection anything that happened.
Speaker 4 (17:11):
And what was the talk around the the PD about
what had happened? Were there are rumors going around the
PD or talk about what might have happened?
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Who could have been responsible?
Speaker 8 (17:23):
Uh?
Speaker 7 (17:23):
Yeah, they were talking.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
I'm sure I wouldn't. I mean I would be involved
in any conversation, right, I would have thrown One night
there was one of a little low look thet pubs.
I didn't you know what they didn't didn't figure out
I had anything you have over them?
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Well, that's wow. But you remember the blood on the.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
Ground, that picture, there's a picture of it.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
I've seen a picture of it.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
They were blood on the ground on her side. I
didn't see anything on his side.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
And he was shot in the head as well.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Yeah, he was shouting the head. He was shouting the head,
trying to remember. I know they were both shot in
the head. He was shot in the second time, and
I figured both shots from where the cars shutting, Like say,
I have been told to build a car parked over
on the other side of the building, and I had
(18:19):
been moved over here, and of course in thenc fad out.
Later Vincent said he addressed the kid after he got here.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
In talking to Robert Harden further, I found out that
his understanding was that the Monte Carlo was first spotted
across the street by the school building that used to
be there, and he had no idea who moved it.
In that same interview with the lead detective, he says
he believed the kids were killed where the vehicle was
(18:48):
found on top of Piss Hill, in other words, right
there in the parking lot. He also thought that the
blood on the ground, which I have seen a crime
scene photo of, ripped off the door before the door
was shut. But one of the most confusing pieces of
early information was when he noticed that Vincent Junior's belt
(19:11):
was on backwards and both kids were sitting up holding hands.
Remember Harden says Vincent Senior admitted to him that when
he first got there, he moved their bodies, effectively restaging
the scene and quite horrifically. Vincent Senior even tried putting
(19:34):
his son's eye back into the socket.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
I had up til after all, after after, and I
heard all these tails and the first line I heard
vetting move the deal was a drug. Without that, I
heard the other side of the ledo.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
Several details I kept hearing early into my investigation and
was still trying to verify. Was that Shelley's body on
her right side looked as though it had been dragged
through a briar patch. That her clothing was dirty and muddy,
but oddly, her tennis shoes, placed almost methodically perfect inside
(20:21):
the vehicle on the floorboard, were clean and had no
dirt or mud on them.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Do you remember her having any scratches on her and
he bruises on her or anything like that?
Speaker 7 (20:33):
Oh, I got here.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
All I won't do to turn They weren't all alive,
were the Dad reserve? I mean, hey, you know, I
mean I didn't really look playing that much. Well, I
knew I wouldn't have much to do.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
I was curious about Vincent Senior's demeanor because in my
research I hadn't come across any information that he'd been
hysterical or upset in the way you might expect. And
if we're looking at this objectively, after learning that he
might have staged the scene, Vincent Senior had to be
(21:13):
considered a person of interest.
Speaker 7 (21:17):
I'm gonna hate you upset. You know, he didn't. He
didn't want to tell you why, right, I didn't have
any reason to expect.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
I mean, he was out looking for them, right.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
So the idea being, why would a guilty man, knowing
what he'd done, then go in search of the kids?
Makes no sense. He kills them and then alerts law
enforcement to where they are.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Now the car here? Would it have been easily visible
from the road at night?
Speaker 7 (21:53):
Well, yeah, of course that road wasn't near big thing, now,
you know. Grab.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
I pointed to Tin Top Road, down a short decline
from where Harden and I stood in the same spot
where the Monte Carlo was found.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
If you're driving by.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
You could see the car here, yeah, if you were
looking like Vincent Senior.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
He was looking. But I guess he came by here earlier.
The car wasn't here.
Speaker 7 (22:23):
You know, and I've heard it it was parked behind
the building.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Did they bring Vincent in and question him that night
or morning? They never questioned him, Jesus.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
I wondered if the inside of the car was spattered
with blood, if they were killed inside the car with
twenty two caliber hollow points, as I have heard, they
would have to be visible blood spatter and a hell
of a lot of it.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
What But I'm went the blood inside the car and
blood still dripping out of the car, and that's why
I can't figure out. You know, I don't know how
long it takes blood to congeal. But if it had
been very, very long, and I think it would have been, jail,
wouldn't still run them out of the car dripping out.
Speaker 7 (23:15):
Of the car, you know when I got here. If
it had just been an hour, if it be well,
I mean I've.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Heard that they thought it happened further, you know, for
three hours or four five or even.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
More right in midnight someone something like that.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Yeah, and.
Speaker 7 (23:34):
I don't know the bodies have been moved before I
got here.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
It's hard to believe they would be targets of this murder.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Yeah, unless unless, like I said, I you know, when
I first saw the car, I thought it was a
drug dealer's car.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
See now that makes the most sense, right, That makes
the most sense. That the car was mistaken for a
drug dealer. The drug dealer had to hit on them.
Speaker 8 (23:56):
That's what.
Speaker 7 (23:57):
And you know, I've thought that for a long time.
That may have been the case. You know, sure.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Now I heard one of these meetings if somebody said
that they shut the two d after's car up there,
and that was and the way they talked after it
must have been an hour maybe two hours before I
got there before. As I know, they never are disfactor.
I dispassed that dispatched for shift fartner than that too.
You And as far as I'd ever heard, they never
(24:28):
had an't report before the shift aft to the control
call over here.
Speaker 7 (24:33):
So I don't know or I hadn't.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
I mean, the the only reason I thought they might
have been took patrol call up here to report somewhere.
Speaker 7 (24:39):
Said they show.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
Robert Harden had just told me that two hours before
he even arrived, two patrol cars were reported up on
the top of Pissel part in back of the Monte Carlo.
Vincent and Shelley had been murdered in it's vitally important
(25:29):
to have a complete understanding of this crime scene and
where it is located. The layout establishes so many different
points of view you will hear from witnesses I have interviewed.
So I asked mel Mitchell to describe the scene from
the point of view of driving up to it. If
(25:51):
you are thinking about this like me, something isn't adding up,
particularly the car being right there out in the open
for everyone to see, almost as if it's on display,
like say, somebody was trying to send a message. With
(26:14):
so many other teen deaths within the county, which we
will get into as we move forward, you have to
wonder if the entire crime scene, not just the kids' bodies,
was staged.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Well, if you go down I twenty and you exit
onto Tent Top Road, there's a kind of a gravel
area on one side of the road because it meets
there's a Cleveborn Avenue that basically comes out onto Tent
Top Road. So on one side you've got the old
(26:49):
municipal power plant, and then on the other side you've
got you've got where the old consolidated school building used
to be. The gist of the area is still the
same back then. It's just you're just miss seeing the
building is pretty much what it is. And so a
lot of kids back then they'd go up and down
Main Street cruising. We all know how that was for
some of us not so old people. Would you know,
(27:12):
you go and stop in into Sonic halfs and drinks,
see your buddies, and then move on down to next
area on the road. I mean, I've heard there could
be up to seventy five hundred kids up there on
a Friday Saturday night. And so the cops that come
by and just like, you know, hey, make sure you're
not having any fights going on, like that was their
big thing is just don't have fights, you know, just
keep it under control. Kind of toned down, mellowed out,
(27:35):
so it wasn't a place where there was a lot
of privacy.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
There's no place to hide up there where the car
was found. It's all out in the open, no obstructions.
If Vincent Senior had driven by there at all throughout
the night as he searched for the kids, which is
what Vincent Senior began telling everyone, he would have seen
the vehicle, no question about it.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
I mean to be honest. I mean, if you're gonna,
I guess you want to make out your girlfriend, you
might would have to drive behind the consolidate school building,
or maybe there were some trees across the stream on
the municipal side that might give you a little bit
more privacy.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
And if I'm Officer Robert Harden, I'm driving up there
that night, what do I see when I get up there?
Speaker 1 (28:22):
So he blues, it looked like they've just kind of
been pulled in, like off the road facing east with
the headlights on, and so it wasn't that hard to
see it from the road. I mean, it's just kind
of like you're driving on the roads just right there.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
Then Mel gives me a peculiar detail about the crime scene.
I hadn't heard no keys. Oh that's interesting. I didn't
know that. So the headlights were on, which means it
couldn't have been there longer than an hour per se.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Yeah, I don't know what the bowery life is on
the Monty Carlos back then, but yeah, I assume hour
maybe two that you could just keep your headlights on
and train the battery.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
Sure, as we move forward, I want you to build
a crime board in your mind like the ones you
see on TV. You'll begin to place all of these
various scant, seemingly minor details on that board, the contradictions,
(29:24):
the different stories, the conflicting facts times, what people hear
and see, because all of it will begin to tell
a story. As I began to do this literally in
my office and would soon implore mel Mitchell to help
me out, it became abundantly clear that several people are
(29:45):
either lying or misremembering things. So what is the assumed
time of death?
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Anywhere between say ten thirty to one am is what
we're guessing.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
And what time does Harden get there?
Speaker 1 (30:07):
He gets there around five forty five ish, because he
was just about to get off his shift that morning
at six am when a call came out that Vincent
Senior had found them and he needed to go up there.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
Come to find out, just after Vincent Senior found them
and staged the scene, he rushed to a neighbor's house
to call nine to one one. Well, then someone had
that car for most of the night because the lights
could not have been on right, So after they were murdered,
someone had possession of that vehicle. I believe so, Yes, Otherwise,
(30:43):
the keys would have been in it, and they just
want to clarify that. Robert Harden assumed that they were
shot from the driver's side, but that's that's impossible because
she's shot on the right autopsy says right hand side, and.
Speaker 8 (30:58):
So is he.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
He You wish 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 4 (31:11):
And the window was rolled up correct. Mel Mitchell has
interviewed over one hundred people involved in the case, including
former law enforcement at the time of the murders. The
information she has gathered, compared with some of the information
first officer on scene, Robert Harden, gave me, entirely contradicts
(31:36):
one another. It's almost as if a group of people
are purposely confusing and conflating the situation. And if that
is true, the obvious question is why.
Speaker 9 (31:53):
It wouldn't be fair to say that we didn't have
I mean, we obviously had a crime scene that was
worked out there, but with aut of time that elapsed,
you almost experience a similar thing there, right because the
com scene wasn't handled in nineteen eighty three the way
it would be handled today, or even in nineteen ninety
three for that matter, just just a different world.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
In all my years of investigating cold cases, where information
is expected to be in conflict and often mistaken or
even forgotten, I do not think I've run into a
case with more opposing details. And one of the reasons
for that is the lack of documentation available from the
earliest stages of the investigation. Here once again is the
(32:42):
current cold case investigator working for the Weatherford Police Department,
Lieutenant Johnny Qualls, reiterating the lack of control over that
crime scene.
Speaker 9 (32:56):
Policing and all that stuff. He evolves like everything else,
and uh, and it's just it, just it. You know,
I'd be lying to you if I said I didn't
lose sleepover it. It frustrates you, and you find yourself
it's not fair. It's it's not fair to be angry
or mad at some of those folks that just didn't
know any better. But you find yourself being angry and
(33:17):
mad at him in those moments nonetheless, because it's like,
you know, if you had just.
Speaker 7 (33:21):
Done this, then we would have this.
Speaker 4 (33:23):
Robert Harden says he wasn't the first law enforcement officer
on scene. Information that's in dispute. There are those reports
of two patrol cars spotted on the scene in the
hours before he arrived. So what Harden sees when he
gets there is not an accurate depiction of the crime scene,
(33:45):
which will later be borne out by the facts.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Was there blood inside the car unas?
Speaker 7 (33:51):
Huh were small? Kelvin?
Speaker 8 (33:53):
Ye?
Speaker 7 (33:54):
Yeah, I didn't. Family, they found three shils.
Speaker 4 (34:02):
I confirmed this with someone who inspected the vehicle not
long after the kids were found in the back seat.
On the floorboard of the vehicle, three shells were located,
along with a used condom stuffed into the seat.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Did Vincent appear to be shot from the back.
Speaker 8 (34:29):
After?
Speaker 7 (34:30):
I can't? You know, I can't. I can't remember.
Speaker 4 (34:34):
Gruesome scene though, Oh yeah, I'm I didn't ask me
like I've a report or anything, but found nobody asked
you questions after even years after, even after him. According
(34:54):
to Harden, he was never formally interviewed, not ever, which
is be beyond suspect to me. What's more, both kids
were shot behind their heads, which I confirm after getting
my hands on an autopsy report that showed up under
extremely odd circumstances. In late twenty twenty four, here's Mel
(35:20):
Mitchell once again.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
We believe that they were shot with twenty twos, and
so depending on you know, which twenty two were talking about.
We know that twenty two is usually when it enters
the body just kind of bounces around. So I don't
know if with his injuries, if they had found the shell,
like the actual you know, bullet fragment like inside his brain,
(35:44):
or if it exited. But I haven't heard of any
kind of you know, bullet holes in the car, And
like that's one of the first questions to ask, is, hey,
were the windows intact? Did you find anything on the
car door that might show there was a bullet that
hit it? None of that, So I'm assuming it probably
didn't exit, But I don't know for a fact.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
Every indication that I've seen read spoken to people about
is that they had to be executed outside of the
vehicle and staged inside the vehicle. What are your thoughts
on that.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Well, we do know that there was two huge pools
of blood next to the passenger side when they were discovered,
because Vincent was pushed all the way back as seat
was pushed all the way back. You know, he obviously
didn't drive that, but we also knew that the kids
were staged in a position that wasn't well known. I
don't know if I want to disclose that on this
(36:36):
because it could obviously probably help catch Smody. They could say, yes,
we know this is how they were, this is how
we position them. But we do know that wasn't the
way that Robert would have seen them, because we know
that Vincent Senior had actually positioned them himself when he
found the bodies, and so they were positioned to where
Vincent's head was kind of back against the headrest, but
(36:59):
there was blood flowing down on the backside of his
seat and then down to the floorboard. And then Shelley
she was either kind of leaning against him or she
was kind of leaning on the side of the car door,
like her head just kind of resting on that, because
we believe there's some blood flowing down the right side
of the car door. But yes, there's a good possibility.
(37:19):
We firmly believe that she, especially Shelley, was shot outside
the car because some of the people had interviewed that
were there helping kind of clean the scene and get
the bodies they had said that they it looked like
Shelley had possibly bled out somewhere else.
Speaker 4 (37:40):
Anytime you have victims murdered in one location and staged
in another, especially two people, one of whom is male
one female, you have to consider two or more suspects
being involved. In addition, mel also believes, same as others
(38:01):
I've spoken to, the car was definitely moved from another
location to the place where it was found.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
There wasn't a lot of blood for her, so they
do believe that there's possibility that she probably was placed
in the car and shot outside, which maybe she was
shot where that the blood was on the ground.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
And there was also a report you got from someone
about maybe a face in print in the mud as well. Right.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
One of the family members was very adamant that when
he had gone up there to look around himself, he
really felt like he saw a face like imprint in
the dirt, like next to the blood pools, and he
really thought it was Shelley's face. He's like, it still
kind of haunts me where I can just still see
his face in like the gravel.
Speaker 4 (39:08):
For Janetta Colliflower Smith, those early days as the investigation
unfolded still play like a film inside her head. Within
the first few days, a Weatherford Police Department investigator who
would become the collieflower point person, visited their home and
(39:29):
explained to Janetta and Ronnie what to expect in the
coming days and weeks.
Speaker 6 (39:35):
You know, we're gonna find you, Johnny. You know, we're
gonna handle and but you know, at that moment, it's
you can't even think of stuff.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
You just and for days for us, I mean, it
was he lied to you.
Speaker 5 (39:50):
You know, that's where I go. This is what I mean,
this is what drives me nuts.
Speaker 6 (39:56):
And they I don't know why they had to tell me,
but he said that it shot one of Vincent's eyes
completely out well, and so of course that puts it
into you know, I think it's silly, and.
Speaker 5 (40:16):
You know, everything was just so that's where I'm at.
Speaker 4 (40:23):
You could understand a car accident, right, definitely, you could understand, Okay,
it's a tragedy, but this is murder.
Speaker 6 (40:31):
And these are kids, good kids, you know, if they
didn't run around, you know, if they didn't run around
with bad kids, they all the people that they ran.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
It was good kids.
Speaker 6 (40:43):
I mean, they didn't run around with gang type kids
or club type kids. You know, these kids did nothing
to anyone. They did nothing to anyone.
Speaker 4 (41:02):
What are you hearing in the beginning when you when
you kind of I don't know how to put it,
but come come out of the fog maybe a week
later or two weeks.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
What are you hearing?
Speaker 4 (41:11):
I mean you must because grief goes from stages to
anger to depression.
Speaker 7 (41:17):
We all know that.
Speaker 4 (41:19):
So when you come out of it and you're in
you know, my god, who did this? So what are
you hearing about that?
Speaker 8 (41:26):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (41:26):
I lived at the police station.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Tell me about that.
Speaker 6 (41:30):
You know, I would go daily, Okay, what do you know?
Tell me you know what's going on? Well, we're working
on it, and we're looking at some people. And that's
basically all that I would get. It's, you know, until
one day on down the line, I come in and
(41:50):
I say, okay, what's going on?
Speaker 5 (41:54):
You know what's going on? Johnny? We've been told we
can't question, we can't question.
Speaker 8 (42:04):
That.
Speaker 5 (42:05):
It's the mayor. Something to do with the mayor and then.
Speaker 6 (42:13):
Chief of horts he said, Johnny, it's the mayor, and
we can't because they will own us. We can't question
this person anymore. Are they will own us.
Speaker 4 (42:29):
So he's basically telling you that they're.
Speaker 5 (42:31):
Hot for in this, that he is a hot suspect.
Speaker 4 (42:38):
That's suspect. She mentions, whose name I redacted, was related
to a top law enforcement official at the time and
was in law enforcement himself. He also drove a county
issued cruiser, and Janetta is told investigators have been blocked
from questioning him. They have to stop investigating because of
(43:02):
the mayor.
Speaker 5 (43:04):
They got scared. It takes my daughter's life. You know,
I'm scared too. They didn't deserve it.
Speaker 4 (43:13):
As I began to dig into this thread in twenty
twenty four, several things begin happening. One, someone in law
enforcement is secretly feeding information to family members, who then
turn around and pass that information along to me. And two,
(43:34):
I begin to hear about a sausage plant, a well known,
very wealthy business owner and human trafficker allegedly involved in
the drug trade, who is deeply connected to and in
bed with those names you have been hearing me leep out.
(43:54):
I asked whether for Police Department Lieutenant Johnny Qualls, who
is one of the cold case to de actives looking
into the murders today, what he thought initially when he
looked at the case.
Speaker 9 (44:06):
You just want to approach it with a fresh set
of eyes and be open minded. And so many theories,
so many persons of interest.
Speaker 4 (44:15):
I don't know that I've ever.
Speaker 9 (44:17):
Seen anything like it, or that I ever would again.
I don't know if some of that had to do
with them being teenagers and Weatherford. We also got to
understand whether it was a much different community. We're still
a small town in some ways, but in nineteen eighty
three we were much more rural. We hadn't experienced as
much groff as we had to do. So it really
was one of those deals where everybody probably knew everybody,
(44:39):
and then we had two teenagers shot to death, and
you know, I think both of them were fairly popular
in high school and fairly well known and cruising the
boulevard of South Maine, and so everybody knew. Everybody had
a theory. Maybe that's the best way.
Speaker 4 (44:53):
To say that I am not naive or ignorant. I
know when a cop is kind of yanking my chain.
But I left it there with Lieutenant Qualls for the
time being and played it off like I was just
stepping into the case and didn't know much. Soon I
would go at him hard and find out why there
(45:15):
is all this odd secrecy and shuffling of the facts
surrounding this case. Talking to him, I wondered about Vincent
who found the kids, and if he was ever looked
at as a serious suspect.
Speaker 9 (45:35):
Yeah, that was one of the names that was thrown around,
just but I mean if almost anyone name in Weatherford
was thrown around, you know, just to give you an idea.
The initial part of it was just getting the case
report and sifting through all that, and then we we
does we sometimes right around that same time period, we
(45:57):
got with our property. So it was almost kind of
kind of similar to records, is like going back to
property and be like, hey, here's this case number. Why
do we still have that's associated with this case, and
what does that evidence look like.
Speaker 4 (46:10):
In those years before nineteen eighty three, law enforcement needed
a bloodstain the size of a nickel in order to
extract enough DNA to even consider scientific profiling, and even
at that large, DNA databases like we see today were
in the earliest stages of development. In addition, the first
(46:36):
FBI crime lab to assist in forensic profiling wasn't opened
until nineteen eighty eight. So the tools to catch killers
in nineteen eighty three were extremely limited. We're talking fingerprints
and trace evidence, witness statements, and interviewing suspects. Of course,
(46:56):
when you had a case such as this one where
the victims were shot to, ballistics could help. Yet ballistics
were only as good as having both parts, the gun
and the bullet.
Speaker 9 (47:10):
Like you said in nineteen eighty three, I don't know
that anyone's thinking about DNA, but but maybe we have
something in here that we can resubmit.
Speaker 4 (47:19):
This has become one of my big questions in the case.
Has law enforcement used modern technology extracted any DNA from
the available evidence and sent it out to all the
databases that exist today.
Speaker 9 (47:36):
I can't go into into great detail about what those
things are. I can tell you that things were resubmitted.
We we we did. We took a close look at
at all those all those things. You know what still
exists today? Out of those things, what can we potentially
help give us a lead?
Speaker 4 (47:56):
Which brings me to several utterly vital questions I need
to chase down immediately. Why in the hell haven't some
of those items been resubmitted? Where are they? And who
is responsible? For maintaining the chain of custody for the evidence.
(48:20):
Please check out my weekly podcast, Crossing the Line with
m William Phelps, where I delve into a new missing
person and cold case murder each week. Wherever you get
your favorite shows coming up In the next episode of Paper.
Speaker 9 (48:38):
Ghosts, bos to me, it was a premeditated murderer.
Speaker 3 (48:44):
It was planned.
Speaker 7 (48:45):
First, I thought it was that they weren't the wrong
place at the wrong comic because they get a lot
of blood dealing right there.
Speaker 6 (48:52):
It was a dark town and boy, if you ever
if you ever knew a little bit, it's just a
scary town.
Speaker 9 (49:01):
It is a lot of us kids whore hound drugs.
But what happens They pulled me in for murder.
Speaker 4 (49:08):
For who's murder for those kids.
Speaker 3 (49:11):
The word is that the man that owns the town
and knew he owned a sausage plan or a processing plant.
Speaker 5 (49:19):
That somehow he was involved.
Speaker 7 (49:22):
Then again they're talking at that time about the law
being involved.
Speaker 4 (49:33):
Paper Ghost Season five is written and executive produced by
me and William Phelps. Script consulting by iHeartMedia Executive producer
Catherine Law. Production by tac Boom Productions, Audio mastering and
mixing by Brandon Dicker. The series theme number four four
(49:54):
to two is written and performed by Thomas Phelps and
Tom Mooney.
Hi know, hey, I know, good to meet you to
Laurids should be here in just a second, all.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Right, all right, and then we'll head that way.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
So that's where piss Hill is and uh yes, that's
where our famous pists Hill is.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
When Weatherford, Texas residents woke up on the morning of
March twenty sixth, nineteen eighty three, and news began to
trickle down about what happened up on ten Top Road, accusations, theories,
and speculation spread immediately.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
I mean, at first, my drive for this was, you know,
I can't imagine being a parent and not having answers.
I can't fathom that. And I can't fathom getting to
the point where I just resigned myself over to I'll
never have answers. I will never know who DI is
to my child. I just I can't fathom that me personally,
especially being a mom.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Now, District Attorney Max Smith, who took the lead as
spokesperson for law enforcement, came right out of the gate
and made a promise, we intend to investigate all details
in order to apprehend whoever committed this crime. Forty plus
(01:30):
years have passed since Max Smith made that comment. For
a hardened private investigator like Mel Mitchell, Justice has no
shelf life. When she got involved in twenty twenty two,
A deep seated empathetic nature as a mother putting herself
in Shelley and Vincent's parents shoes drove Mel to fight
(01:54):
for victim's families, like there's just.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
No way you There's no way you're going to stop
me from ever finding out who murdered my child. I
don't care. I will do into the dyamond breath I have.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
Forty four year old Mel Mitchell has shoulder length black hair,
soft brown eyes set against a clear complexion unstained by
the scorching Texas sun. She doesn't come across like your
typical Texan or at least the big hair and big
belt buckle idea so many have about a Texas woman.
(02:31):
She's reserved, doesn't say much, and comes across outwardly harmless.
Yet spending time with her, I got a sense right
away that there's a steely toughness there, hovering just underneath
the surface. The quiet confidence carrying a nine millimeter handgun
brings to a woman in a tough line of work,
(02:52):
ready to come out should some unsavory type cross her.
Let's go back for a minute. Where did you grow up?
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Mel?
Speaker 1 (03:05):
I grew up in a little place called Ovilla, Texas.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Ovilla is about an hour and fifteen minutes southeast of Weatherford,
driving along the twenty toward mineral wells and much further
out Abilene and Sweetwater. Growing up in Ovilla gave mel
a solid Texan identity, reminding her how important it is
(03:30):
to keep the ties that bind even into your later years.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
It is a super small town, but I ended up
having to go to a little bit larger district over
in Red Oak, and so it was nice. I mean,
we had I think there were like eight hundred in
my graduating class. I mean, so it wasn't super small
by any means, but it was just as small enough
to where you still know the locals and you know,
felt comfort around town.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
As I got to Nomel and she talked about Parker
County in general, she brought up something vital to our
understanding of this case.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
So you have a lot of very wealthy people that
live out there. There's also a lot of oil and
gas people. You've got a lot of real estate people.
For a long time, it was actually there was more
money poor capita in Parker County than there was DFW
combined for quite a while, just because people wanted to
move out of the city and Weatherford or Parker County
(04:27):
was right on the other side of Fort Worth. And
so if you want to kind of get outside of
Fort Worth but still be close enough to city, then
you go to Parker County. I mean, so the people
are are really nice, down to earth, your typical Texas people,
that's what you want to call us, you know, the
Hallidi Wavy when you drive by. You know, when I
lived out there, you know, you could drive down street,
(04:48):
you knew a lot of people. There wasn't nearly like
the traffic it is now. I mean, it's grown exponentially
since then. But yeah, it's just a usual small town
place where everybody kind of knows everybody everybody's business, you know.
And like I said, it's just a lot of money,
a lot of cattle, a lot of big ranges out there.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Really, where there is money, problems are not far behind
sometimes big ones, and people can get caught up in
the middle without ever knowing why. With a double murder
case like Shelley and Vincent's unsolved for all these years,
myriad theories have developed. Unsolved homicides of two teenagers can
(05:26):
leave a town reeling to fill in the blanks. One
theory I kept hearing from multiple sources that Shelley and
Vincent saw something they shouldn't have wrong place, wrong time.
In that sense, they could have been collateral damage within
(05:47):
a much bigger story.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
One of the things we've been told over and over
again is that they may have witnessed something narcotics related
that they shouldn't have seen and they had to be
taken care of. The other motive was jealousy that Shelley
may have had a relationship with someone prior to and
it was a jealousy thing between you know, the ex
and Vincent.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
After the stock market crash of two thousand and eight,
when the employment rate fell off the charts and private
investigation dried up, Mel went back to behind the bar
of a local joint, pulling beers and slinging whiskey. The
thing is, people naturally trust the bartender. They talk, they
(06:40):
open up as the night goes on, and the booze flows,
lips get looser. As it turns out, tending bar is
one of the best moves a private investigator can make.
If she wants to develop sources in a case where
the people with the best information have been afraid to talk.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
I decided to go back and barton at a local,
a brand new restaurant out there in Parker County. Back then,
there weren't a lot of options. I mean, so anything
that was new that came into town, everybody went to.
And so I started working out there and it was
crazy as busy, and anybody who knew anybody, and anybody
was politics related. I mean, they all came through the
(07:25):
bar that worked in. So the information alone that was
coming through this location was insane. Like I figured out
and started knowing like who is who, and you know
how they're affiliated to different people, and you know all
the politics at the time. I mean, it was just
it was a great information pipeline to use. I can't
tell you how many people i'd meet, you know, that way,
(07:46):
or if someone found out what I was doing on
the side, then they would kind of be like, hey,
I heard a rumor, and I'm like, oh, what's the rumor.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Then something happened one day in the bar changing everything.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
People knew that I could keep my mouth. That's a
really big, big part of it. Of course, and so.
But they had a group of guys that come in
every Friday morning, and their class of sixty six and
sixty seven, and there were used to be about twenty
of them. And anyway, one of them's name is Ronnie Caulflower.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
In all the years Mel had known Ronnie before that day,
he had never once mentioned that his stepdaughter Shelley was
one of the two murder victims from nineteen eighty three
up on Tin Top Road. Ronnie and Janetta had been
divorced for quite some time by then, but Ronnie still
(08:39):
lived in Weatherford. He kept a low profile and would
rarely discuss what happened.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
I've never heard of Ronnie talking about any of his family.
Like I knew he had been divorced, but I didn't know.
He was very quiet about his private life, and so
I just never heard. And I was like, yo, let me,
let me ask Ronnie and just see if this is
his daughter. So I pulled him aside. I asked him
and he's like, yes, that's my daughter. I was like, well,
you've never said anything about her before. He's like yeah,
(09:09):
I just haven't because I know it's never going to
be solved. There's nothing that you might can do about it.
And I'm like, well, why do you say that. He's like,
because of the local, you know politics, We'll put it
that way. I was like, okay, well you know what
I do you know outside of you know, working here,
And he's like, well yeah, And I was like, well,
do you want me to look into it.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
That one serendipitous moment reignited a fire in this case.
For decades before this, nothing new had really been uncovered.
The case was stuck and going nowhere. Law enforcement had
made another run at it in twenty twenty one, yet,
as one current weather for cold case detective told me,
(09:54):
nothing came from that reinvestigation. But now you had a
private investigator, not connected to the case in any way,
stepping in and getting to work for one of the families.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
And he's like, if you can, that'd be great, but
I'm going to tell you right now, it's going to
be a rabbit hole. I'm like, well, what do you mean,
He's like, because there's there's a lot more connected to
my daughter's murder than just just my daughter and her boyfriend.
I was like, okay, well let me just let me
see what I can I can.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
Do mel of course, asked the first question. Any cold
case investigator would It had been forty years by the
time she stepped up. Surely by now there had to
be boxes of documents from any prior investigation the family
had access to.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Do you have any you know files, do you have
any paperwork? And he's like, well, there's a justice page
on Facebook and it's called you know, Justice for Shelley
and Vincent and run by Shelley's cousin and Laurie. And
he's like, you need to reach out to both of them,
or primarily Laurie. She's once been running the website.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
Laurie Kate's who you heard in a previous episode, had
taken over as administrator of the Facebook group.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
So I called Laurie up and I had a long
conversation with her, and I was like, hey, I know
you're working with his cousin the All's website. I kind
of looked up that it had been up for about
I think a year, maybe year and a half, and
it had a couple of you know, posts here and there,
and there's a couple of people would say, you know,
a couple of things on it, but it really wasn't
up and going. Really, I mean, it wasn't generating any leads.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
And it became that chance encounter, an unplanned conversation between
Mel and Ronnie and Mel inevitably contacting Laurie Kates that
ultimately revived this case in a way nothing else had
up to this point. For the first time, maybe since
the case began back in nineteen eighty three, people would
(12:06):
start talking again and change the entire course of the
investigation previously on paper ghosts.
Speaker 5 (12:28):
Johnny, she was shot, her invents it. We're both shot.
Of course, I just lost it. It's not real.
Speaker 6 (12:38):
This is not real and not mine, Shelley, No, you know,
and it's just like a oh, I cannot even tell
you what it feels like.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
And then I heard it again.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
I heard like a thunder noise, and then I heard
what sounded like a gunshot.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
And then I think I may have heard it maybe
one or two more times.
Speaker 7 (12:58):
And then that was it.
Speaker 8 (13:00):
That we were always told never say when it gets dark,
because that was known to be wherethy KKK would come
and do their nightly things or whatever meetings. So if
you were in the wrong place at the wrong time,
then you would get caught in that.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
My name is em William Phelps. I'm an investigative journalist
in the New York Times, bestselling author of dozens of
true crime books. This is season five of Paper Ghosts
the Texas teen Murders. After the initial shock of finding
(13:48):
his son Anne Shelley Cauliflower shot to death had passed,
if only for a brief moment, Vincent Tjerina Senior did
not know what to do next. His son had been
murdered so brutally, he had witnessed the aftermath of the
crime scene firsthand, an unimaginable horror apparent finding his child's
(14:13):
brutalized body, his eye dislodged from its socket, blood spatter
on the ground and inside the car. Family members gathered
at the Tea Gerina household to console one another, anticipating
facts about what had happened. With so many rumors already
(14:34):
spreading around town, the Tea Jerinas stayed close and tight,
waiting for law enforcement to brief them. Of course, you'd
expect a massive investigation, with yellow crime scene tape flapping
in the wind, roads blocked off, and a man hunt
underway for a suspect. As Weatherford police spared no expense,
(14:58):
spread out and began rounding up anyone that looked good
for it. Somebody had to have information. Piss Hill was
a hot spot on Friday nights. There had to be witnesses.
As you've already heard, Robert Hardin was the first officer
(15:19):
on the scene, and what he has to say begins
to paint a picture of just how chaotic and loose
this investigation became from the moment it started. And I
don't think at this point this is by the fault
of anyone in particular, more than it was a small
department ill equipped to deal with a double homicide of
(15:42):
this magnitude.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
Of course, I was never questioned about what I found
when I got out here before, I had no the
investigat yourself from or asked me about anything other than
the fact that I.
Speaker 7 (15:55):
Reverse from there.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
And I understand that ain't even been totally different, man.
I mean, well, as far as far line knew, I
was your first person here inside, Vince, he was here.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Did you write a report.
Speaker 7 (16:10):
Just my regular report and got the call.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
And did when in the report? Did you put what
you saw at the scene and all of that.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
No, we're right out here. I turned it over to
the car the police station.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
In a later interview with one of the first homicide
detectives on the scene that morning, he states the crime
scene was quote screwed up. There were people walking around everywhere.
What's more, he claims it was another officer, Patrick Mahoney,
who showed up on the scene first, not Robert Harden.
(16:55):
I asked Harden what he did next after reporting to
the SEEN and turning it over to several Weatherford police investigators.
Speaker 7 (17:06):
I didn't have any any connection anything that happened.
Speaker 4 (17:11):
And what was the talk around the the PD about
what had happened? Were there are rumors going around the
PD or talk about what might have happened?
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Who could have been responsible?
Speaker 8 (17:23):
Uh?
Speaker 7 (17:23):
Yeah, they were talking.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
I'm sure I wouldn't. I mean I would be involved
in any conversation, right, I would have thrown One night
there was one of a little low look thet pubs.
I didn't you know what they didn't didn't figure out
I had anything you have over them?
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Well, that's wow. But you remember the blood on the.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
Ground, that picture, there's a picture of it.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
I've seen a picture of it.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
They were blood on the ground on her side. I
didn't see anything on his side.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
And he was shot in the head as well.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Yeah, he was shouting the head. He was shouting the head,
trying to remember. I know they were both shot in
the head. He was shot in the second time, and
I figured both shots from where the cars shutting, Like say,
I have been told to build a car parked over
on the other side of the building, and I had
(18:19):
been moved over here, and of course in thenc fad out.
Later Vincent said he addressed the kid after he got here.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
In talking to Robert Harden further, I found out that
his understanding was that the Monte Carlo was first spotted
across the street by the school building that used to
be there, and he had no idea who moved it.
In that same interview with the lead detective, he says
he believed the kids were killed where the vehicle was
(18:48):
found on top of Piss Hill, in other words, right
there in the parking lot. He also thought that the
blood on the ground, which I have seen a crime
scene photo of, ripped off the door before the door
was shut. But one of the most confusing pieces of
early information was when he noticed that Vincent Junior's belt
(19:11):
was on backwards and both kids were sitting up holding hands.
Remember Harden says Vincent Senior admitted to him that when
he first got there, he moved their bodies, effectively restaging
the scene and quite horrifically. Vincent Senior even tried putting
(19:34):
his son's eye back into the socket.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
I had up til after all, after after, and I
heard all these tails and the first line I heard
vetting move the deal was a drug. Without that, I
heard the other side of the ledo.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
Several details I kept hearing early into my investigation and
was still trying to verify. Was that Shelley's body on
her right side looked as though it had been dragged
through a briar patch. That her clothing was dirty and muddy,
but oddly, her tennis shoes, placed almost methodically perfect inside
(20:21):
the vehicle on the floorboard, were clean and had no
dirt or mud on them.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Do you remember her having any scratches on her and
he bruises on her or anything like that?
Speaker 7 (20:33):
Oh, I got here.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
All I won't do to turn They weren't all alive,
were the Dad reserve? I mean, hey, you know, I
mean I didn't really look playing that much. Well, I
knew I wouldn't have much to do.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
I was curious about Vincent Senior's demeanor because in my
research I hadn't come across any information that he'd been
hysterical or upset in the way you might expect. And
if we're looking at this objectively, after learning that he
might have staged the scene, Vincent Senior had to be
(21:13):
considered a person of interest.
Speaker 7 (21:17):
I'm gonna hate you upset. You know, he didn't. He
didn't want to tell you why, right, I didn't have
any reason to expect.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
I mean, he was out looking for them, right.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
So the idea being, why would a guilty man, knowing
what he'd done, then go in search of the kids?
Makes no sense. He kills them and then alerts law
enforcement to where they are.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Now the car here? Would it have been easily visible
from the road at night?
Speaker 7 (21:53):
Well, yeah, of course that road wasn't near big thing, now,
you know. Grab.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
I pointed to Tin Top Road, down a short decline
from where Harden and I stood in the same spot
where the Monte Carlo was found.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
If you're driving by.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
You could see the car here, yeah, if you were
looking like Vincent Senior.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
He was looking. But I guess he came by here earlier.
The car wasn't here.
Speaker 7 (22:23):
You know, and I've heard it it was parked behind
the building.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Did they bring Vincent in and question him that night
or morning? They never questioned him, Jesus.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
I wondered if the inside of the car was spattered
with blood, if they were killed inside the car with
twenty two caliber hollow points, as I have heard, they
would have to be visible blood spatter and a hell
of a lot of it.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
What But I'm went the blood inside the car and
blood still dripping out of the car, and that's why
I can't figure out. You know, I don't know how
long it takes blood to congeal. But if it had
been very, very long, and I think it would have been, jail,
wouldn't still run them out of the car dripping out.
Speaker 7 (23:15):
Of the car, you know when I got here. If
it had just been an hour, if it be well,
I mean I've.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Heard that they thought it happened further, you know, for
three hours or four five or even.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
More right in midnight someone something like that.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Yeah, and.
Speaker 7 (23:34):
I don't know the bodies have been moved before I
got here.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
It's hard to believe they would be targets of this murder.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Yeah, unless unless, like I said, I you know, when
I first saw the car, I thought it was a
drug dealer's car.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
See now that makes the most sense, right, That makes
the most sense. That the car was mistaken for a
drug dealer. The drug dealer had to hit on them.
Speaker 8 (23:56):
That's what.
Speaker 7 (23:57):
And you know, I've thought that for a long time.
That may have been the case. You know, sure.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Now I heard one of these meetings if somebody said
that they shut the two d after's car up there,
and that was and the way they talked after it
must have been an hour maybe two hours before I
got there before. As I know, they never are disfactor.
I dispassed that dispatched for shift fartner than that too.
You And as far as I'd ever heard, they never
(24:28):
had an't report before the shift aft to the control
call over here.
Speaker 7 (24:33):
So I don't know or I hadn't.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
I mean, the the only reason I thought they might
have been took patrol call up here to report somewhere.
Speaker 7 (24:39):
Said they show.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
Robert Harden had just told me that two hours before
he even arrived, two patrol cars were reported up on
the top of Pissel part in back of the Monte Carlo.
Vincent and Shelley had been murdered in it's vitally important
(25:29):
to have a complete understanding of this crime scene and
where it is located. The layout establishes so many different
points of view you will hear from witnesses I have interviewed.
So I asked mel Mitchell to describe the scene from
the point of view of driving up to it. If
(25:51):
you are thinking about this like me, something isn't adding up,
particularly the car being right there out in the open
for everyone to see, almost as if it's on display,
like say, somebody was trying to send a message. With
(26:14):
so many other teen deaths within the county, which we
will get into as we move forward, you have to
wonder if the entire crime scene, not just the kids' bodies,
was staged.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Well, if you go down I twenty and you exit
onto Tent Top Road, there's a kind of a gravel
area on one side of the road because it meets
there's a Cleveborn Avenue that basically comes out onto Tent
Top Road. So on one side you've got the old
(26:49):
municipal power plant, and then on the other side you've
got you've got where the old consolidated school building used
to be. The gist of the area is still the
same back then. It's just you're just miss seeing the
building is pretty much what it is. And so a
lot of kids back then they'd go up and down
Main Street cruising. We all know how that was for
some of us not so old people. Would you know,
(27:12):
you go and stop in into Sonic halfs and drinks,
see your buddies, and then move on down to next
area on the road. I mean, I've heard there could
be up to seventy five hundred kids up there on
a Friday Saturday night. And so the cops that come
by and just like, you know, hey, make sure you're
not having any fights going on, like that was their
big thing is just don't have fights, you know, just
keep it under control. Kind of toned down, mellowed out,
(27:35):
so it wasn't a place where there was a lot
of privacy.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
There's no place to hide up there where the car
was found. It's all out in the open, no obstructions.
If Vincent Senior had driven by there at all throughout
the night as he searched for the kids, which is
what Vincent Senior began telling everyone, he would have seen
the vehicle, no question about it.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
I mean to be honest. I mean, if you're gonna,
I guess you want to make out your girlfriend, you
might would have to drive behind the consolidate school building,
or maybe there were some trees across the stream on
the municipal side that might give you a little bit
more privacy.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
And if I'm Officer Robert Harden, I'm driving up there
that night, what do I see when I get up there?
Speaker 1 (28:22):
So he blues, it looked like they've just kind of
been pulled in, like off the road facing east with
the headlights on, and so it wasn't that hard to
see it from the road. I mean, it's just kind
of like you're driving on the roads just right there.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
Then Mel gives me a peculiar detail about the crime scene.
I hadn't heard no keys. Oh that's interesting. I didn't
know that. So the headlights were on, which means it
couldn't have been there longer than an hour per se.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Yeah, I don't know what the bowery life is on
the Monty Carlos back then, but yeah, I assume hour
maybe two that you could just keep your headlights on
and train the battery.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
Sure, as we move forward, I want you to build
a crime board in your mind like the ones you
see on TV. You'll begin to place all of these
various scant, seemingly minor details on that board, the contradictions,
(29:24):
the different stories, the conflicting facts times, what people hear
and see, because all of it will begin to tell
a story. As I began to do this literally in
my office and would soon implore mel Mitchell to help
me out, it became abundantly clear that several people are
(29:45):
either lying or misremembering things. So what is the assumed
time of death?
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Anywhere between say ten thirty to one am is what
we're guessing.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
And what time does Harden get there?
Speaker 1 (30:07):
He gets there around five forty five ish, because he
was just about to get off his shift that morning
at six am when a call came out that Vincent
Senior had found them and he needed to go up there.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
Come to find out, just after Vincent Senior found them
and staged the scene, he rushed to a neighbor's house
to call nine to one one. Well, then someone had
that car for most of the night because the lights
could not have been on right, So after they were murdered,
someone had possession of that vehicle. I believe so, Yes, Otherwise,
(30:43):
the keys would have been in it, and they just
want to clarify that. Robert Harden assumed that they were
shot from the driver's side, but that's that's impossible because
she's shot on the right autopsy says right hand side, and.
Speaker 8 (30:58):
So is he.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
He You wish 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 4 (31:11):
And the window was rolled up correct. Mel Mitchell has
interviewed over one hundred people involved in the case, including
former law enforcement at the time of the murders. The
information she has gathered, compared with some of the information
first officer on scene, Robert Harden, gave me, entirely contradicts
(31:36):
one another. It's almost as if a group of people
are purposely confusing and conflating the situation. And if that
is true, the obvious question is why.
Speaker 9 (31:53):
It wouldn't be fair to say that we didn't have
I mean, we obviously had a crime scene that was
worked out there, but with aut of time that elapsed,
you almost experience a similar thing there, right because the
com scene wasn't handled in nineteen eighty three the way
it would be handled today, or even in nineteen ninety
three for that matter, just just a different world.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
In all my years of investigating cold cases, where information
is expected to be in conflict and often mistaken or
even forgotten, I do not think I've run into a
case with more opposing details. And one of the reasons
for that is the lack of documentation available from the
earliest stages of the investigation. Here once again is the
(32:42):
current cold case investigator working for the Weatherford Police Department,
Lieutenant Johnny Qualls, reiterating the lack of control over that
crime scene.
Speaker 9 (32:56):
Policing and all that stuff. He evolves like everything else,
and uh, and it's just it, just it. You know,
I'd be lying to you if I said I didn't
lose sleepover it. It frustrates you, and you find yourself
it's not fair. It's it's not fair to be angry
or mad at some of those folks that just didn't
know any better. But you find yourself being angry and
(33:17):
mad at him in those moments nonetheless, because it's like,
you know, if you had just.
Speaker 7 (33:21):
Done this, then we would have this.
Speaker 4 (33:23):
Robert Harden says he wasn't the first law enforcement officer
on scene. Information that's in dispute. There are those reports
of two patrol cars spotted on the scene in the
hours before he arrived. So what Harden sees when he
gets there is not an accurate depiction of the crime scene,
(33:45):
which will later be borne out by the facts.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Was there blood inside the car unas?
Speaker 7 (33:51):
Huh were small? Kelvin?
Speaker 8 (33:53):
Ye?
Speaker 7 (33:54):
Yeah, I didn't. Family, they found three shils.
Speaker 4 (34:02):
I confirmed this with someone who inspected the vehicle not
long after the kids were found in the back seat.
On the floorboard of the vehicle, three shells were located,
along with a used condom stuffed into the seat.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Did Vincent appear to be shot from the back.
Speaker 8 (34:29):
After?
Speaker 7 (34:30):
I can't? You know, I can't. I can't remember.
Speaker 4 (34:34):
Gruesome scene though, Oh yeah, I'm I didn't ask me
like I've a report or anything, but found nobody asked
you questions after even years after, even after him. According
(34:54):
to Harden, he was never formally interviewed, not ever, which
is be beyond suspect to me. What's more, both kids
were shot behind their heads, which I confirm after getting
my hands on an autopsy report that showed up under
extremely odd circumstances. In late twenty twenty four, here's Mel
(35:20):
Mitchell once again.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
We believe that they were shot with twenty twos, and
so depending on you know, which twenty two were talking about.
We know that twenty two is usually when it enters
the body just kind of bounces around. So I don't
know if with his injuries, if they had found the shell,
like the actual you know, bullet fragment like inside his brain,
(35:44):
or if it exited. But I haven't heard of any
kind of you know, bullet holes in the car, And
like that's one of the first questions to ask, is, hey,
were the windows intact? Did you find anything on the
car door that might show there was a bullet that
hit it? None of that, So I'm assuming it probably
didn't exit, But I don't know for a fact.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
Every indication that I've seen read spoken to people about
is that they had to be executed outside of the
vehicle and staged inside the vehicle. What are your thoughts
on that.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Well, we do know that there was two huge pools
of blood next to the passenger side when they were discovered,
because Vincent was pushed all the way back as seat
was pushed all the way back. You know, he obviously
didn't drive that, but we also knew that the kids
were staged in a position that wasn't well known. I
don't know if I want to disclose that on this
(36:36):
because it could obviously probably help catch Smody. They could say, yes,
we know this is how they were, this is how
we position them. But we do know that wasn't the
way that Robert would have seen them, because we know
that Vincent Senior had actually positioned them himself when he
found the bodies, and so they were positioned to where
Vincent's head was kind of back against the headrest, but
(36:59):
there was blood flowing down on the backside of his
seat and then down to the floorboard. And then Shelley
she was either kind of leaning against him or she
was kind of leaning on the side of the car door,
like her head just kind of resting on that, because
we believe there's some blood flowing down the right side
of the car door. But yes, there's a good possibility.
(37:19):
We firmly believe that she, especially Shelley, was shot outside
the car because some of the people had interviewed that
were there helping kind of clean the scene and get
the bodies they had said that they it looked like
Shelley had possibly bled out somewhere else.
Speaker 4 (37:40):
Anytime you have victims murdered in one location and staged
in another, especially two people, one of whom is male
one female, you have to consider two or more suspects
being involved. In addition, mel also believes, same as others
(38:01):
I've spoken to, the car was definitely moved from another
location to the place where it was found.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
There wasn't a lot of blood for her, so they
do believe that there's possibility that she probably was placed
in the car and shot outside, which maybe she was
shot where that the blood was on the ground.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
And there was also a report you got from someone
about maybe a face in print in the mud as well. Right.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
One of the family members was very adamant that when
he had gone up there to look around himself, he
really felt like he saw a face like imprint in
the dirt, like next to the blood pools, and he
really thought it was Shelley's face. He's like, it still
kind of haunts me where I can just still see
his face in like the gravel.
Speaker 4 (39:08):
For Janetta Colliflower Smith, those early days as the investigation
unfolded still play like a film inside her head. Within
the first few days, a Weatherford Police Department investigator who
would become the collieflower point person, visited their home and
(39:29):
explained to Janetta and Ronnie what to expect in the
coming days and weeks.
Speaker 6 (39:35):
You know, we're gonna find you, Johnny. You know, we're
gonna handle and but you know, at that moment, it's
you can't even think of stuff.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
You just and for days for us, I mean, it
was he lied to you.
Speaker 5 (39:50):
You know, that's where I go. This is what I mean,
this is what drives me nuts.
Speaker 6 (39:56):
And they I don't know why they had to tell me,
but he said that it shot one of Vincent's eyes
completely out well, and so of course that puts it
into you know, I think it's silly, and.
Speaker 5 (40:16):
You know, everything was just so that's where I'm at.
Speaker 4 (40:23):
You could understand a car accident, right, definitely, you could understand, Okay,
it's a tragedy, but this is murder.
Speaker 6 (40:31):
And these are kids, good kids, you know, if they
didn't run around, you know, if they didn't run around
with bad kids, they all the people that they ran.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
It was good kids.
Speaker 6 (40:43):
I mean, they didn't run around with gang type kids
or club type kids. You know, these kids did nothing
to anyone. They did nothing to anyone.
Speaker 4 (41:02):
What are you hearing in the beginning when you when
you kind of I don't know how to put it,
but come come out of the fog maybe a week
later or two weeks.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
What are you hearing?
Speaker 4 (41:11):
I mean you must because grief goes from stages to
anger to depression.
Speaker 7 (41:17):
We all know that.
Speaker 4 (41:19):
So when you come out of it and you're in
you know, my god, who did this? So what are
you hearing about that?
Speaker 8 (41:26):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (41:26):
I lived at the police station.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Tell me about that.
Speaker 6 (41:30):
You know, I would go daily, Okay, what do you know?
Tell me you know what's going on? Well, we're working
on it, and we're looking at some people. And that's
basically all that I would get. It's, you know, until
one day on down the line, I come in and
(41:50):
I say, okay, what's going on?
Speaker 5 (41:54):
You know what's going on? Johnny? We've been told we
can't question, we can't question.
Speaker 8 (42:04):
That.
Speaker 5 (42:05):
It's the mayor. Something to do with the mayor and then.
Speaker 6 (42:13):
Chief of horts he said, Johnny, it's the mayor, and
we can't because they will own us. We can't question
this person anymore. Are they will own us.
Speaker 4 (42:29):
So he's basically telling you that they're.
Speaker 5 (42:31):
Hot for in this, that he is a hot suspect.
Speaker 4 (42:38):
That's suspect. She mentions, whose name I redacted, was related
to a top law enforcement official at the time and
was in law enforcement himself. He also drove a county
issued cruiser, and Janetta is told investigators have been blocked
from questioning him. They have to stop investigating because of
(43:02):
the mayor.
Speaker 5 (43:04):
They got scared. It takes my daughter's life. You know,
I'm scared too. They didn't deserve it.
Speaker 4 (43:13):
As I began to dig into this thread in twenty
twenty four, several things begin happening. One, someone in law
enforcement is secretly feeding information to family members, who then
turn around and pass that information along to me. And two,
(43:34):
I begin to hear about a sausage plant, a well known,
very wealthy business owner and human trafficker allegedly involved in
the drug trade, who is deeply connected to and in
bed with those names you have been hearing me leep out.
(43:54):
I asked whether for Police Department Lieutenant Johnny Qualls, who
is one of the cold case to de actives looking
into the murders today, what he thought initially when he
looked at the case.
Speaker 9 (44:06):
You just want to approach it with a fresh set
of eyes and be open minded. And so many theories,
so many persons of interest.
Speaker 4 (44:15):
I don't know that I've ever.
Speaker 9 (44:17):
Seen anything like it, or that I ever would again.
I don't know if some of that had to do
with them being teenagers and Weatherford. We also got to
understand whether it was a much different community. We're still
a small town in some ways, but in nineteen eighty
three we were much more rural. We hadn't experienced as
much groff as we had to do. So it really
was one of those deals where everybody probably knew everybody,
(44:39):
and then we had two teenagers shot to death, and
you know, I think both of them were fairly popular
in high school and fairly well known and cruising the
boulevard of South Maine, and so everybody knew. Everybody had
a theory. Maybe that's the best way.
Speaker 4 (44:53):
To say that I am not naive or ignorant. I
know when a cop is kind of yanking my chain.
But I left it there with Lieutenant Qualls for the
time being and played it off like I was just
stepping into the case and didn't know much. Soon I
would go at him hard and find out why there
(45:15):
is all this odd secrecy and shuffling of the facts
surrounding this case. Talking to him, I wondered about Vincent
who found the kids, and if he was ever looked
at as a serious suspect.
Speaker 9 (45:35):
Yeah, that was one of the names that was thrown around,
just but I mean if almost anyone name in Weatherford
was thrown around, you know, just to give you an idea.
The initial part of it was just getting the case
report and sifting through all that, and then we we
does we sometimes right around that same time period, we
(45:57):
got with our property. So it was almost kind of
kind of similar to records, is like going back to
property and be like, hey, here's this case number. Why
do we still have that's associated with this case, and
what does that evidence look like.
Speaker 4 (46:10):
In those years before nineteen eighty three, law enforcement needed
a bloodstain the size of a nickel in order to
extract enough DNA to even consider scientific profiling, and even
at that large, DNA databases like we see today were
in the earliest stages of development. In addition, the first
(46:36):
FBI crime lab to assist in forensic profiling wasn't opened
until nineteen eighty eight. So the tools to catch killers
in nineteen eighty three were extremely limited. We're talking fingerprints
and trace evidence, witness statements, and interviewing suspects. Of course,
(46:56):
when you had a case such as this one where
the victims were shot to, ballistics could help. Yet ballistics
were only as good as having both parts, the gun
and the bullet.
Speaker 9 (47:10):
Like you said in nineteen eighty three, I don't know
that anyone's thinking about DNA, but but maybe we have
something in here that we can resubmit.
Speaker 4 (47:19):
This has become one of my big questions in the case.
Has law enforcement used modern technology extracted any DNA from
the available evidence and sent it out to all the
databases that exist today.
Speaker 9 (47:36):
I can't go into into great detail about what those
things are. I can tell you that things were resubmitted.
We we we did. We took a close look at
at all those all those things. You know what still
exists today? Out of those things, what can we potentially
help give us a lead?
Speaker 4 (47:56):
Which brings me to several utterly vital questions I need
to chase down immediately. Why in the hell haven't some
of those items been resubmitted? Where are they? And who
is responsible? For maintaining the chain of custody for the evidence.
(48:20):
Please check out my weekly podcast, Crossing the Line with
m William Phelps, where I delve into a new missing
person and cold case murder each week. Wherever you get
your favorite shows coming up In the next episode of Paper.
Speaker 9 (48:38):
Ghosts, bos to me, it was a premeditated murderer.
Speaker 3 (48:44):
It was planned.
Speaker 7 (48:45):
First, I thought it was that they weren't the wrong
place at the wrong comic because they get a lot
of blood dealing right there.
Speaker 6 (48:52):
It was a dark town and boy, if you ever
if you ever knew a little bit, it's just a
scary town.
Speaker 9 (49:01):
It is a lot of us kids whore hound drugs.
But what happens They pulled me in for murder.
Speaker 4 (49:08):
For who's murder for those kids.
Speaker 3 (49:11):
The word is that the man that owns the town
and knew he owned a sausage plan or a processing plant.
Speaker 5 (49:19):
That somehow he was involved.
Speaker 7 (49:22):
Then again they're talking at that time about the law
being involved.
Speaker 4 (49:33):
Paper Ghost Season five is written and executive produced by
me and William Phelps. Script consulting by iHeartMedia Executive producer
Catherine Law. Production by tac Boom Productions, Audio mastering and
mixing by Brandon Dicker. The series theme number four four
(49:54):
to two is written and performed by Thomas Phelps and
Tom Mooney.
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