September 22, 2017 • 45 mins
We talk to the people that know the Widemans and their story the best… the news outlets that have covered the tragedy for years, locals, and family friends. Mixed by: ResonateRecordings.com
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Place your left hand on the bay of Bible and
raise your right hand and repeat after me. I solemnly
swear the jury trying to get defended. The process continued
this weekend in Ferguson and around the country, resisting you.
It makes no sense. If it doesn't fit, you must
equit judge. You are the last line of reason in
(00:29):
this case. Every one of us took out all the
office and we're scorn to uphold the Constitution. From Tenderfoot
TV in Atlanta, this is sworn. I'm your host, Philip
Holloway in Turner County. If somebody's got a problem with you,
they're probably gonna go up and say it to you,
but it's not necessarily going to lead them to kill
(00:51):
an entire family and burn their house down m M.
In the last episode, I spoke to John Dawes, a
cold case expert, who felt that greed and money are
almost always the motivation for murder. Also, the majority of
(01:12):
murders are committed by someone or a group who knows
the victims personally. He said that if this were his
case in his hands, he would typically start with the
family who had something to gain here. Also, because Melissa
was eight months pregnant and nearly ready to give birth.
He said he would definitely look into the father of
(01:32):
our child. In just a minute, Meredith goes to talk
to Ben Baker at the Wiregrass newspaper in Ashburn. But
before we get to that, there was a strange development
in the case. Some very sensitive information came our way.
We cannot share all of it with you, but we'd
like to play you a short clip. M H. Why
(02:15):
am I interested in? What are the alibi that night
for the prime suspect in the murder case? Do you
understand what I'm telling you? They were his only alibi.
Early on in our investigation, we received this phone call
about the Wideman murders. By all accounts, it seemed credible.
(02:40):
The source was close enough to the case that the
story made sense, but disconnected enough that there was no
reason for the individual to lie. We'll get back to
this later, but for now, let's go to the Wiregrass.
It was firing the festival weekend. I don't remember the year,
but that was, of course the whole talk of the town.
(03:01):
The next morning, That's when I found out about it.
I was said the Wideman's were murdered and the house
they were in was burned down. My impression was I
didn't have one. I was just too numb to think
about it. I was too stunned. This has been Baker.
He's been the editor of the newspaper for twenty three years.
When do you think it's set in gradually over the
(03:21):
course of the next few months. It took a while
for me to realize that Tommy Joe was gone, the
other ones were gone. I was more of a friend
to Tommy Joe than his daughter and his wife. And
it was firing festival weekend, and I'm the general runaround
guy at the festival. Something he needs to do it,
and they holler at me to do it. So I
(03:43):
really didn't have time to process it until the week
after the festival, because when we got done with the festival,
then I had to both cover the festival and cover
the Wideman case for the newspaper. All my energies at
that time were directed to getting everything into the paper.
And you've been a reporter for as long as I have,
you learned to distance yourself emotionally from the subject at
(04:05):
hand because you've got a job to do. You just
get it put out and then the next week, Yeah,
that's when he hit me. He was gone, You don't.
Ben's office is in the center of Ashbourne, but the
streets outside aren't exactly bustling. As we said, it's a
very quiet place. There's an eclectic mix of stuffed animal
heads mounted on the walls and services. Inside of his office.
There's also stacks and stacks of papers, periodicals and books.
(04:28):
You can tell Ben's been in the business for a
long time. When you're in my line of business, you
need to know things that don't get published, and people
tell me things. I'm the newspaper editor. I'm also a
minister here and for some reason, people just tell me stuff.
And depending on how and why and when they tell me,
it can be confidential or it can be passed along.
(04:50):
And as I tell people, if you tell me something
as a reporter and it's important, of eventually it's going
in the paper, but it does have to be properly timed.
So I need to know things so that I can
look for stuff and keep some things out of the
paper that simply don't need to be there. Some people
are gonna say, we've got a right to know this, Yeah,
(05:12):
you do. Is your right to know outweighing the good
to the community. In my eyes, been a somewhat of
an expert on Turner County. Being the editor of the
local newspaper, it's his business to know what's going on,
and he's clearly very well connected. I asked him who
he had talked to in regards the Wideman case. Talked
to the e M S Director. I talked to the
(05:33):
fire chief in the Sheriff's department. Was there anyone that
wasn't very willing to talk or they shared with me
on the record everything they could talk about at the time.
And since then there have been many more conversations, many
more conversations as in information that wasn't disclosed before or
(05:53):
wasn't known before. Well, there's been some stuff that wasn't
known that day that were talked about, and there's been
some stuff that I mean, why do you need to
know the caliber gun they were killed with? One? I
asked Ben about the general public feelings in Turner County
regarding the Wideman case. There are some people that swear
they know who did it. You ask them, they'll tell
(06:13):
you the individual's name. Well, how do you know this?
He's just that kind of a person. You've got some evidence,
let's talk about it. You said his car was parked there,
or his truck, or his motorcycle or his bicycle was
parked there that night. Okay, we got something to work with.
You say he was riding around that night over in
that neighborhood. A little bit more tenuous. You just say
(06:34):
you just simply know, because he's that kind of a person. No,
you don't know that. Ben's right about this. Innocent until
proven guilty, and without evidence, people can speculate all day
bodies and then they were shot, and there was some
talk about tire tracks, but there was also the issue
of all the public safety there, so they weren't sure
because the tire tracks, you're gonna be any good. Where
(06:55):
were the tire tracks there in the yard, up the
driveway or just think in the day is right there
at the property. I am not certain if there was
a motive or not. Just beyond Hey, here's the house.
Let's go see who's here and rob women kill him.
You're gonna say that just simply doesn't happen. Oh yeah,
hell it does too. You talked to the sheriff's department,
in the police department, we have smash and grab robberies frequently.
(07:19):
Because we're on the interstate. This might sound plausible, but
to be candid, there's no evidence that this was a burglary.
Local law enforcement and never suggested that they had any
reason to believe that it was. We had a gentleman
who went missing. They found his car. He popped up
in a pond a week later. That's still a mysterious death.
We asked about what the chief of fire had personally
(07:40):
reported to pen what he described to you about the scene.
He said it was bad and the house was burned
completely down by the time they got there, was fully engulfed.
You look around the room in here. You see my
fellow dear, You see my elk on the other side.
I got a bison. I got two little bucks. Over there,
I kill one shot. There's the buffalo skull. I know
(08:02):
people that can come walk through that door right there
and look at this and have a panic attack and
pass out on the floor. You're not prepared to see
this kind of scene. I don't care who you are.
We've got firemen who were in the military, who were
in Vietnam, who were in other places, and they've seen
bodies blowing the pieces you're not prepared to see that
(08:23):
kind of thing. I don't care who you are unless
you're a complete psychopath and you have no human emotion,
emotional connection. You just don't have any empathy whatsoever. Then
you look on it every day and say, huh, I'm
ready for a ham sandwich for lunch. I think we
asked Ben who owned the property now that the house
had been burned down. He told us that to his
(08:45):
latest knowledge, it still belonged to the remaining members of
the Widman family. So we asked who that was. Charles
Henry is here and his sons ship I think they both.
Charles Henry and No lives in Rebecca with Diane, and
I think Chip lives in Rebecca or Fitzgerald all. Are
they still working in the community Chips an insurance salesman.
Charles Henry. I don't know if he's still working or
(09:07):
not an insurance or if he retired. I don't remember
about how many times do you think he wrote about
the Wideman case? Up to about a dozen? I believe
when's the last time you personally wrote something. It's been
several years since I've written about it. Christie used to
work for the those Settle Star would write about it
every year on the anniversary. But she was related to
(09:27):
the family. So unless you're connected to it, you never
think about it. But there's nothing else to report. What
are you gonna say, well, it's still under an investigation. Yeah,
we know that. All that's gonna happen by me reporting
on it now is remind the remaining family that this
is unsolved and it's going to renew the pain they have.
(09:48):
Is the public's right to know that it is not
solved more important than not making that family hurt anymore.
It ain't been solved the minute he gets solved, the
minute they arrest somebody we're talking about on her headline.
In that way, it's newspaper and breaking news. I may
put out a special edition. Sure, its department has got
a pretty high and police department got a pretty high
rate on solving cases. But as our farmer, Sheriff Wesley
(10:12):
five said, a law enforcement man ain't no better than
the information he gets. The only way this thing is
going to be solved, to my way of thinking, is
if somebody comes forward and says, hey, I know about this,
here's some information, or somebody's on their deathbed and they
confess we've exhausted the physical evidence. Fire is an awesome
(10:33):
way to cover your tracks. I had qualms about even
talking to you guys for this podcast thing, but I
have to weigh again respect for the families versus they're
wanting to get some closure on this. Y'all reach a
much different audience than I do. I can write about
this freaking Wideman case every week for the rest of
(10:55):
my life if it's not solved, and it's gonna be
going to the same people. Y'all have a very different
audience than me. You might can reach somebody I can't.
That's why I'm even talking to you today, because you
might can get somebody who knows something. If I thought
you couldn't, I said, I say, you can't talk to you.
(11:18):
You got four people dead. We need some closure, hair, folks.
Somebody needs to be held accountable for this. The person
who did this keeps her mouth shut and takes it
to the grave, never be solved in this life. Person
who did it talks about it sold of course. In
(11:47):
addition to the local newspaper, the case caught the eye
of larger media outlets such as local television stations. Even
though this was a small town crime. It really was
a bone chilling trip homicide, and so it got coverage.
As it turns out, Rebecca is not really far from Albany, Georgia. Albany,
Georgia has a larger media market and it includes a
(12:10):
television station known as w A LB TV. I've got
a friend w A l B KD. Fowler is an
anchor and reporter, and as it turns out, my friend
Cade has covered the Wideman case very closely and has
reported on it many times. I was actually looking on
the g B i's website and they had a list
(12:33):
of cold cases on there, and uh, scrolling through and
and on there it will list the location where the
crime occurred. And I saw Rebecca pop up and I said, Rebecca,
Rebecca that so that's in that's in Turner County. And
this was like in twenty twelve, I believe when I
when I did this story U and I was like,
(12:55):
how did I not know about this? And it has
sort of, you know, not hit my radar. I guess
I just didn't know about it, and I heard a
lot of talk about it, and so that's when I
started looking into and started making some phone calls and
try to, you know, pick back up on it and
see if there was any new leads we could track
down on on our end in terms of trying to
get some people to talk. My name is Kate Fowler.
(13:15):
I'm a reporter an anchor at w A l B.
I started there and in two thousand and seven covered
a lot of crime and uh, you know, specialized in
reporting on on cold cases and stuff because there's a
number of them in South Georgia. Is there still a
lot of public interest this what fifteen years later? Actually
there is. And you know, I'll give I'll give credit
(13:38):
there too to the Sheriff Andy Hester. I mean he is.
He has kept this out in the in the public's eye,
you know, more so than than anyone else that's served
in that office. And I think there's been since this happened.
There were two sheriffs in office prior to Sheriff Hester.
He's made a couple of sell a couple of press
(13:58):
conferences just in the past year or so asking for
more tips on this case. You have three people who
are dead. You know, by all accounts, these were just
people who were you know, good small town folks who
minded their own business. They didn't deserve to die. I
mean this young lady, she was pregnant at the time.
So basically you have four, four lives essentially, you know,
(14:20):
that were lost in this case, and that they shouldn't
be forgotten. So what do we know publicly? If you
can summarize that and give us background on the case
and what we do know, and then what we don't
know and what we still need to know. Rebecca, you know,
it's a small town, probably only a few hundred people
that lived there, squiet people keeping themselves in this house
(14:44):
where the wide Emans live was off of Highway Win twelve,
and it's pretty much one of those locations where you
you gotta be going through it to go through it.
You know, it's just out there in farmland. And so
there was a truck driver that was driving down the
road in the middle of the night. He ends up seeing,
you know, flames coming off the side of the road,
calls an on one one. They respond to it. It's
(15:05):
a it's a house fire. So their homes engulfed in
flames and they finally, you know, put out the fire
and then you know, when the firefighters are going through
and they're digging through the ashes, they realized that, you know,
they're not dealing with just a you know, a house
fire here, They're dealing with the homicide. They found all
three victims inside Tommy, Joe, Deborah, Melissa, and very soon
(15:26):
after determined that they had been shot to them, and
then someone torched the house to destroy the evidence. Did
they find evidence of any accelerate I've asked that question.
I don't think they really went into detail about what
was actually used to start the fire. I think that's
probably something that there they're going to keep to themselves,
(15:46):
at least, I know I asked that question, but you know,
it's been a few years, but I don't think that
they specifically explained what was used to start the fire.
What else have they kept to themselves? I don't know.
I mean, at this point, you know, I'm not sure
they've been you know, fairly open, you know about getting
some information out. I mean, we do know that they
(16:08):
were all, you know, executed there in the home, that
they were shot, and they have told us that much.
And the other thing that they didn't and I will
say this is, you know, despite the fact that so
much was destroyed in that fire, there was really no
evidence to suggest that anything was taken from the home.
I think they were able to gather enough evidence to determined,
(16:30):
you know, this wasn't probably just some random home invasion.
Was there any neighbors nearby that might have seen something?
Not that I know. I mean I think this house
was was really just kind of off the road. I mean,
you you know South Georgia well filled. I mean you've
you've been through there. You drive them along those country
roads and Highway went twelve, you know, going through Turner
Counties about his country as it gets, I mean you
(16:51):
go farmland, farmland, trees, and then occasionally you see a
house off to the side and the house, of course
you know it was destroyed, has been raised since then,
there's nothing there, but not a lot of neighbors. I mean,
I think you had to actually go up a driveway
to get there. The big question that everyone is asking is, uh,
whether they think that it was someone local that did this.
(17:12):
Isn't someone in the community. Is it's someone who you
know knew the family? Tommy Joe he was the he
was the tax assessor in Turner County, and Deborah owned
a bridle shot in Ashbourne. So these are people that
you know, we're you know, fairly well known and fairly
well liked in the community. To my knowledge, they had
they had no enemies and and I mean a tax
(17:34):
assessor is probably not gonna win a popularity contest, you
know when it comes to you know, elected officials or
county officials or whatnot. But no one that I that
I've talked to, you know, over the years of just
talking to people back and forth and even covering this story,
everyone said, you know, he was he was a good guy.
I honestly believe that he didn't have any enemies. And
(17:56):
even so in Turner County, if somebody's got a problem
with either, they're probably going to go up and say
it to you, but it's not necessarily going to lead
them to kill an entire family and burn their house down.
When's the last time you spoke to Sheriff Fester about
this case? I talked to Sheriff Ester, you know, a
couple of days ago. What did he have to say
about it? He has really done a good job in
(18:20):
terms of I think keeping this case in the public eye.
I will say that about him. He is um. You know, Phil,
you've lived in South Georgia. I mean, you know, you
know how it is down here. There's a lot of
red tape, and there's a lot of bureaucracy, but he
is really one of those sheriffs that I think you
can go and sit down and talk to. And I'm
(18:40):
not just being a cheerleader here for Sheriff Fester, but
anytime I've ever needed to reach out to him, he's
been available. In fact, when I set up this story,
I think he had just gotten in office, and he
actually came into office after another the previous sheriff was
arrested for stealing marijuana from the evidence locker and given
(19:03):
it to a church member that he knew had cancer.
So that's how the sheriff before him ended up getting
out of office. So I didn't have any contact with
that guy. So Sheriff Ester comes in and you know,
when I called him and talked to him, he opened
his office to me. We were able to sit down
and have a one on one about this case. And
(19:25):
he also brought in Asan Collins, the case agent at
the time, who was you know, on top of this
case for you know, for several years. And you know,
we sat down and talked about this at length, and
you know, you don't always get that from a lot
of sheriffs, based on some folks I've worked with. I
applaud him for his efforts, I really do. Did he
(19:47):
offer to show you any of the evidence that they
did have. They actually gave me more information that than
I thought they would. You know, I think that there's
certain boundaries they don't want to cross. I get it,
I underst stand that. But to the point of telling
me everything that they possibly could without jeopardizing any sort
(20:07):
of sensitive evidence that you know, could mess up their case,
they gave me as much as as I could have
asked for. At that point. It's pretty well known, you know,
around Turner County that somebody there knows something. This is
a small town in South Georgia. Triple homicides just don't
happen every day. They do sometimes, but it is very
very rare to say that triple homicide's gonna happen in
(20:31):
the middle of the night in Rebecca, where probably the
only nine one one call they get at three o'clock
in the morning might be a cow loose in the
road or car hitting the deer. To say that someone
just randomly stopped at this house probably not likely. Someone
in Turner County probably knows who did this. I'm reading
(20:53):
from in August two thousand five item on the website
for w a LB TV, and it says ex Ashburn
cop KINMA deputy arrested in East Georgia. And it goes
on to say a suspect in an unsolved Turner County
triple homicide is arrested for rape near Savannah, and that
(21:14):
is referencing then thirty one year old Jason Walker. What
do we know about Jason Walker? The answer that I
got when I was looking into this, you know, several
years ago, was that they didn't find any evidence to
indicate that he had anything to do with it. You know,
I know that that he was one of the individuals
(21:36):
that that they looked at. And I do recall that
story now that you mentioned it, but I think you know,
at least to this point, he had been ruled out.
How far along in her pregnancy was Melissa Wideman at
the time she was murdered, You know, she was eight
months pregnant, so I mean she was she was due
(21:57):
to have that child very soon weeks after this happened.
She would have had a child in Tommy, Joe and
Deva would have been grandparents. Do we know or has
it ever been released who the father of the baby
was That I don't know. The news article references him
as a person of interest. Quote in a March two
(22:20):
thousand two Triple Hannaside and Turner County. He's a former
Ashburn policeman and Turner County sheriff's deputy. It says Walker's
former girlfriend Melissa Whiderman, who was pregnant and her parents,
Tommy Joe and Deborah, were murdered in their home. There's
been some persons of interest that have come up, but
(22:41):
that's just in terms of investigators interviewing these individuals who
either knew the Widerman's or you know, in some way
connected to them. I reached out to both sides of
the family. I called. I tried to reach out to
the Whiteman's side, Tommy Joe's family. I didn't hear anything
back from them. The only family member that I have
(23:04):
been able to contact and you know, speak to me
on this was we had to censor this name for
privacy reasons. It will be mentioned just like this a
few more times in the series, but we'll explain more later.
In the fifteen years since the Widemand murders occurred. There's
been lots of things that have been discussed in the media,
(23:26):
lots of interviews, but the Wideman side of the family
has for the most part stayed silent. However, one name
from the other side of the family has come up,
and it's come up several times based on what I
could find in the mainstream media. There's only been one
widely suggested person of interest in this case, and that
(23:46):
is Jason Walker. But after fifteen years, law enforcement hasn't
been able to find anything linking Jason Walker to the
Widemand murders. So the question is, did Jason Walker have
something to do with this and cover his track or
could there be someone else out there that is responsible
for the Wideman's murders other than the Georgia Bureau of
(24:10):
Investigation or the g b I. The Turner County Sheriff's
Office is the law enforcement agency otherwise responsible for investigating
the Wideman case. But here's the thing about the Turner
County Sheriff's Office. Since the Wideman's were murdered, there's been
four different sheriffs holding office in that county, and that's
(24:30):
really unusual because especially in South Georgia. Once an incumbent
sheriff takes office, they generally don't lose elections unless something happens.
So I want to give you a rundown of who
the four sheriffs were and then go back and give
you some details that I found to be fascinating. In
two thousand and two, when the Wideman's were murdered, the
(24:52):
sheriff was a man named Randy Kendrick. Sheriff Kendrick held
office until two thousand and eight, when he lost his
re election bid to a man named Roy Wiley. Roy
Wiley was at that time the chief of police in
a small town called Sycamore, Georgia. Sheriff Wiley took office
on January one, two thousand nine. Barely halfway through his term,
(25:15):
Sheriff Wiley resigned from office and later pled guilty to
the felony criminal offense of violating his oath of office.
This had to do with tampering with evidence, specifically about
marijuana that he removed from the evidence locker and gave
a way to somebody that brings us to the third
sheriff since two thousand and two. That person's name was
(25:37):
Charles Dean. He had been Sheriff Wiley's chief deputy. He
was appointed by the probate judge to be the acting
sheriff until current Sheriff Andy Hester could be re elected
in a special election to fill the remaining term of
Sheriff Wiley. So I wanted to go back and take
a closer look at the campaign where Sheriff Kendrick lost
(26:00):
to Sheriff Wiley. In a July thirty one, two thousand
and eight media report from w a LB News in Albany, Georgia,
Roy Wiley says he's unhappy with the way the Sheriff's
department has been handled, specifically referencing their budget. And here's
the thing. He says he wants to reopen unsolved death cases.
(26:21):
So did Sheriff Kendrick lose his office because the Wideman
murders hadn't been solved? It sure looks that way, because
to my knowledge, there weren't any other unsolved death cases
pending in July of two thousand and eight, certainly none
as high profile or well known as the Wideman murders.
And according to the Tifton Gazette in December of two
(26:44):
thousand five, Sheriff Kendrick said that officials had recently met
at the gb I office in Perry to take another
cohesive look at the murders of the Wideman family. But
listen to this very interesting direct quote. Sheriff Kendrick said,
as the investigation has never stopped, but I want them
to concentrate on it more than they have been doing.
(27:06):
They can take the case and look into it some
more and follow up on some things. So it appears
that Sheriff Kendrick is being somewhat critical himself of the
g b I. There were two more very interesting quotes
by Sheriff Kendrick. Quote. They agreed that even though the
case is still being worked, an increased concentration is needed.
I wanted to regroup everybody and put a good, steady
(27:29):
pace to it and to look at things from a
different angle. So this makes it clear to me that
in two thousand and five, Sheriff Kendrick really did want
this investigation to move forward. He really did want the
g b I to work harder. He was pushing for
the Wideman case to be solved. I've been in law
enforcement for thirty nine years. I've been the elected chaff
(27:51):
for almost twenty five. I've been very fortunate to have
a career centered here in northeast Georgia. I reached out
to my friend share Scott Berry be elected sheriff of
o'coney County, Georgia, just outside of Athens, Georgia. Sheriff is
a constitutional officer that's elected in each of the counties
in Georgia. The sheriff is the chief law enforce from
(28:14):
Officer Beach Lives counties. Even though there are counties that
chose to fund a county police department and give that
agency the primary investigative jurisdiction, and there's about a dozen
in the state of Georgia, mostly in metro areas. There's
very few in rural Georgia anymore. If you're the perpetator
of crime, I think they view arson as a destruction
(28:37):
of any trace evidence or any or maybe even a body,
or maybe even a gun or whatever weapon was used
in the murder case. They think it may destroy blood
evidence and things like that that maybe stains in the floor,
stains in a carpet, So fires can be used to
destroy those things. It doesn't work all the time, that's
(29:00):
the thing. A lot of times, a lot of that
tracing evidence is still there. It may be hard to find.
You may have to dig to fund it. You may
have to move a lot of burnwood and furniture out
and really dig down to the four boards to get
what you need. But to destroy evidence is a good
reason for an arson. Burning is rarely, rarely, rarely complete
(29:22):
as people think it is. It is very unusual for
particularly a body, for instance, to be burned completely where
there's nothing left. That fire has to be hot, and
it has to be hot for a long time, and
you're not going to find that in a typical house fight.
You have to have additional accelerance, additional fuel to destroy
(29:45):
a body for instance. Now, can it destroy some bloodstains
on a wall, Sure, of course it can. But is
it going to get rid of all the evidence in
a murder case. People might think it will, But fire
is not that good at doing that. No, it can
be successful in making it difficult or impossible, or to
destroy evidence that in and of itself won't stop law
(30:08):
enforcements from solving a crime. Hopefully you've got other leads,
other informants in the community, other ways you can follow
to help you still solve the crime. But will it
destroy physical evidence? Of course it will. You've got to
get people out to talk to everyone that knows your victim.
You've got to do a complete victimology. You've got to
(30:29):
go back into the victim's background. Who are their friends,
who are their enemies, who are their cousins, who just
got out of prison. You've got to start with a
real big circle and work that circle inward, and usually
statistics will bear out that usually a murder victim knows
the murder. So you've got to look first off at
(30:51):
everyone that knows knows your victims. Once you get your
victims identified, you've got to start looking at everyone they
have contact with, everyone that may have a reason or
may have fabricated a reason to commit a murder case,
and you work outwards from there. You've got to start somewhere.
Those first few hours of talking to people, when you
(31:14):
can get them when they're emotional, when you can get
them when they're willing to talk to you, are so
vitally important in a case like that. I asked him
about how important it was to establish a motive in
a crime like this. Ultimately, you want that motive to
show a jury why this person was murdered. A jury
of ordinary people sitting there in a jury box hearing
(31:37):
only what evidence they're allowed to hear. They want to
know why this happened. They want to know the under
underlying reason for that crime. And ultimately, although it is
not an element of the crime, and you're right, we
don't have to prove motive, it is good when we
can prove motive. Not only does it help you work
towards suspects, but a jury he wants that information. The
(32:01):
jury that doesn't have a motive is gonna sit back
in that jury room and you're gonna have a hard
time getting a conviction. You want to be able to
put your suspect in the area of the victim at
the time of the crime. There's so many different ways
to do that. Now with technology. You can do it
with the phone, you can do it with surveillance cameras,
and you do with our witnesses. In a small town
(32:21):
like the town I live in, people know each other.
People will recognize somebody's truck, somebody's car, particularly when you
live in a rural area. I mean, everybody knows what
everybody else drives. They know when a car doesn't belong
down there. So but you've got to get that information early.
If you can't wait ten years to get that information,
you want that information while it's fresh, while it's actionable,
(32:45):
and while there's something you can do with it. I
asked him how he felt about dealing with outside agencies
during his investigations. Was it helpful or was it more
detrimental to the case. I've got a lot of feelings
about bringing in outside agencies. Sometimes you really do need
to bring in an outside agency. But if you're gonna
bring in an outside agency, in my opinion, in my
(33:06):
agency where I work in my sheriff's office, you've got
to have a very specific mission for them bringing in
an outside agency, so you have more people drinking coffee
saying now what we do isn't going to help anybody.
They've got to have a very specific mission. As a
law enforcement leader, as the sheriff, I want them to
(33:29):
have a very specific mission. Don't turn over anything to them.
We have something for them to do. We don't turn
over the responsibility for actively work in that case to
another agency. Another agency comes in to assist us, if
there's nothing for them to assist us doing, then we
(33:49):
don't need them there. We take responsibility for our cases
I'm the sheriff of Olconi County. I was elected to
work these cases. I was elected to keep the people safe.
It's my constitutional duty, it's my responsibility, and I don't
delegate that to any other agency. I never turn a
case over to another agency. I never will, never have,
(34:13):
and that's just not gonna happen. I have a hard
time even thinking of a reason why somebody would do that. Obviously,
if you have a case, if a sheriff is given
a case that involves a county commissioner or someone they
have to do business with a regular basis, they may
turn that over to another agency. There may be some
other political reason why you want to turn a case over.
(34:36):
If you don't think it's solvable, or and you want
to have somebody to shift the blame to. You can
all say listen, I call the g b I. They
can't solve a case either, and that gives a chief
or share of some political cover. I can see circumstances
where you'd have a parallel investigation with the g B.
I I'd have to be faced with that circumstance, but
(34:57):
I would take the lead in that investigation, would be
responsible for that investigation. I might with the g b
I come in and help me with that. But again,
a case like that in my county, I think that
we would be more likely to solve it than the
g b I would because we know the people that
live here. I have ninety five employees. At least one
of them knows the victim. It would be impossible for
(35:20):
me to have a case like that where no one
that worked for me didn't know any of the victims
or their family. You bring the g b I in
for a very specific reason, and not to hand them
the case file. Traditionally, a lot of people that are
talked to a deputy shaff or to the sheriff someone
they know, won't talk to somebody they don't know. Won't
(35:41):
talk to somebody that flashes the state badge or a
federal badge. Some people are just funny about who they
talked to, and they want to talk to their sheriff.
They know the sheriff, They elected the sheriff, maybe they
ran against them, maybe they voted against him, but they
still know him, and they're gonna talk to one of
these local deputies as from one of these local peace
officers who live in that county who they see at church.
(36:04):
Who they see at the grocery store, they're gonna want
to talk to them, not an employee from somewhere else.
I have ninety five total employees, and I think the
gb I has about a hundred and fifty hundred, sixty
hundred seventy agents that are working statewide. Now that doesn't
include support staff, their g c I s, their computer people,
(36:27):
doesn't include a lot of things. But that includes agents.
I don't think they have any more than that. If
they have any more than that, and it's just not
a big agency, they don't have a lot of people
to throw it a problem. Okay, So if you're a
local sheriff and you don't have a especially trained arson
investigator either in your office or in your local fire department,
(36:49):
you'd bring in the fire marshal for that service. Correct, Yes,
we bring in the state fire marshal for that. Why
wouldn't you bring in the gb I to do an
arson investigation? The state Fire Marshal is equipped and trained
to do this. He can come to the scene and
you know rather instantly whether or not you've got an
arson or not. They're good at it. The work they've
(37:10):
done for us is phenomenal. It's quick, it's efficient, they
show up, they do what they need to do, and
we've been really pleased with the services we get from
the state Fire Marshal. Again, there aren't many of them either,
but we're lucky to be able to get one pretty quickly. Now,
if we determine we have an arsen, we would make
the decision at that point whether we want the gb
(37:33):
I crime scene people to come collect evidence to prove
the arson. Again, we're talking about a very specific mission
for the g b I. I'm not picked just picking
up this is any kind of outside agency. Again, I
accepted the responsibility when I put my name on the
ballot to be the sheriff of Oakony, Kim and with
that came the duty and the authority and the responsibility
(37:57):
for me to take these cases to their life coal conclusion.
I can ask for help for the FBI, the GBI,
the state Patrol, the game Warden, the fire Marshal, the
corner the medical examiner, the Department Corrections. I could ask
for help from any number of our state partners, but
I never relinquish a case that belongs to the old
(38:21):
County County Sheriff's office. I would definitely need the assistance
to work a crime scene where you have a homicide,
There's no question in my mind, I would definitely need
somebody to come in and help me work that crime scene.
I'm fortunate now that I have my own crime scene tech.
But the g b I has always done a great
(38:41):
job working crime scenes, and they've done it all over
the state of Georgia, and they've done it for me
many times. That's the value of working the crime scene.
You only get one chance to do it right, and
you want to make sure when you do it, you
do it right. The local agency, the local deputies of
local police, they know their community. They most of them
probably grew up there. They know somebody that knows the victims,
(39:05):
they know somebody that may know the suspect. And people
are willing to talk to people they know and trust,
where they're just not gonna talk to outsiders that come in.
You know they're gonna stay for a few days and
then drive off and wave again onto their next big case.
There's a lot of different ways you can work that case,
but you don't quit. That's what you don't do. You
(39:27):
don't quit. You want to get that case. You get
it back out. You look at it and get a
fresh settlevi eyes on it, look at that evidence, all
that evidence in a new light, and go back and
do those interviews again. Go back and find out, Hey,
you know, we tried to talk to this guy three
tons and know what ever actually talked to him. Well,
let's go talk to him. There's gonna be something in
(39:50):
that case file that's been missed, and you've got to
go back and follow up on that, because they might
not call you with what they were told a year ago,
but if you go and ask them, they might tell
you they heard something at the beauty parlor in a
year ago that might help you solve that cutty thank
(40:23):
you wearing which table? Okay? Walker's Barbecue Pet is a long,
narrow barbecue joint in Sycamore, Georgia, right off the railroad tracks.
(40:46):
We visited after lunchtime. There was no one inside, but
the TV in the corner played an old black and
white film. A man named Frosty greeted us, I don't
know what I'm Earlier in the week, I'd called Frosty
to ask if we could speak to him. Been told
he was a local and a family friend that might
be willing to talk to us about the case I
might happen if there were none Once frosting, this is
(41:09):
what was barbeque was sitting more Georgian and I was
born raised him. I've been knowing he's a new devil
of all her life. She drew up. We lived next ord.
These little they've been knowing Tom Joe since he's part
of six team, and I knew what's the understand the
(41:32):
daughter Melissa, Melissa all her life we had a place
in Firdam that they had a place of Firndon. She
always come over and see was we've been knowing. We're
really good friends. And that's base. I want to tell
you that was well, h I mean, they were real
(41:52):
friend they'd like to go out and eat and go
to parties and stuff like that. That was while on
means and to go to Ferndon. Fernandina Beach is in
Florida where Tommy Joe Wideman's mother had a house. That's
where she was the night they were killed. Was that
inside cooking that part of four or five o'clock in
(42:14):
the morning. And my wife was real with their friends
with Tommy Joe. She's passed away and she called me
and she would really, I said, I think I said
the whole everybody and then not finding night who done it?
Why It's hard to believe somebody was just coming by
and done that. Whoever done it had it planning and
(42:37):
for some reason, I do not know. People told about
all the time. They ain't went away at all. I
mean he might go a month from not hearing it.
You hit it's more but Frost, he said, conflicted with
what we've been told at the Wiregrass. It seemed that
some portion of the town may have wanted to move
on from the tragedy, but others simply couldn't let it go.
(42:58):
We talked to the sriff, all three sure about it.
They've been three sure since it's happened. They don't say much,
they said, I don't know, We're weren't on. We all
know no more than what we do. Devil's family has
been trying hard to find out. There's no telling how
much money it's been, trying to find hard vasticators, going
(43:25):
around talking to people like Yah, Horror, that's a person
you need to talk to. He told us that he's
still alive and last he knew living in Fitzgerald. He
has tried hard, he can tell he part of sitting
and talking to you for two of their hours. We
then asked Frosty about the family members alive on the
(43:46):
Wyman's side. His problem. His wife Dan Wyman seesusly were
opened random mine. I don't know charge him? Were that good?
And there's a nephew and now few he's referring to
is Charles Henry Wideman, also known as Chip. His father
was Tommy Joe's brother. Somebody somebody done it. One person,
(44:10):
three people pour. We tried reaching out to Chip but
got no answer. Next time, Solar players in other one
county get bowled off in turn of County get killed off.
(44:34):
We've learned a lot about how this case appeared in
the public eye, and we've learned a little bit about
how it was handled. And more than one person has
told us that the scene seemed to have been cleared
very quickly. We'll continue our investigation by getting to the
center of local Turner County law enforcement. We'll also talk
(44:54):
to someone that, besides the g B, I may know
this case the best. Next time on Soorn
Place your left hand on the bay of Bible and
raise your right hand and repeat after me. I solemnly
swear the jury trying to get defended. The process continued
this weekend in Ferguson and around the country, resisting you.
It makes no sense. If it doesn't fit, you must
equit judge. You are the last line of reason in
(00:29):
this case. Every one of us took out all the
office and we're scorn to uphold the Constitution. From Tenderfoot
TV in Atlanta, this is sworn. I'm your host, Philip
Holloway in Turner County. If somebody's got a problem with you,
they're probably gonna go up and say it to you,
but it's not necessarily going to lead them to kill
(00:51):
an entire family and burn their house down m M.
In the last episode, I spoke to John Dawes, a
cold case expert, who felt that greed and money are
almost always the motivation for murder. Also, the majority of
(01:12):
murders are committed by someone or a group who knows
the victims personally. He said that if this were his
case in his hands, he would typically start with the
family who had something to gain here. Also, because Melissa
was eight months pregnant and nearly ready to give birth.
He said he would definitely look into the father of
(01:32):
our child. In just a minute, Meredith goes to talk
to Ben Baker at the Wiregrass newspaper in Ashburn. But
before we get to that, there was a strange development
in the case. Some very sensitive information came our way.
We cannot share all of it with you, but we'd
like to play you a short clip. M H. Why
(02:15):
am I interested in? What are the alibi that night
for the prime suspect in the murder case? Do you
understand what I'm telling you? They were his only alibi.
Early on in our investigation, we received this phone call
about the Wideman murders. By all accounts, it seemed credible.
(02:40):
The source was close enough to the case that the
story made sense, but disconnected enough that there was no
reason for the individual to lie. We'll get back to
this later, but for now, let's go to the Wiregrass.
It was firing the festival weekend. I don't remember the year,
but that was, of course the whole talk of the town.
(03:01):
The next morning, That's when I found out about it.
I was said the Wideman's were murdered and the house
they were in was burned down. My impression was I
didn't have one. I was just too numb to think
about it. I was too stunned. This has been Baker.
He's been the editor of the newspaper for twenty three years.
When do you think it's set in gradually over the
(03:21):
course of the next few months. It took a while
for me to realize that Tommy Joe was gone, the
other ones were gone. I was more of a friend
to Tommy Joe than his daughter and his wife. And
it was firing festival weekend, and I'm the general runaround
guy at the festival. Something he needs to do it,
and they holler at me to do it. So I
(03:43):
really didn't have time to process it until the week
after the festival, because when we got done with the festival,
then I had to both cover the festival and cover
the Wideman case for the newspaper. All my energies at
that time were directed to getting everything into the paper.
And you've been a reporter for as long as I have,
you learned to distance yourself emotionally from the subject at
(04:05):
hand because you've got a job to do. You just
get it put out and then the next week, Yeah,
that's when he hit me. He was gone, You don't.
Ben's office is in the center of Ashbourne, but the
streets outside aren't exactly bustling. As we said, it's a
very quiet place. There's an eclectic mix of stuffed animal
heads mounted on the walls and services. Inside of his office.
There's also stacks and stacks of papers, periodicals and books.
(04:28):
You can tell Ben's been in the business for a
long time. When you're in my line of business, you
need to know things that don't get published, and people
tell me things. I'm the newspaper editor. I'm also a
minister here and for some reason, people just tell me stuff.
And depending on how and why and when they tell me,
it can be confidential or it can be passed along.
(04:50):
And as I tell people, if you tell me something
as a reporter and it's important, of eventually it's going
in the paper, but it does have to be properly timed.
So I need to know things so that I can
look for stuff and keep some things out of the
paper that simply don't need to be there. Some people
are gonna say, we've got a right to know this, Yeah,
(05:12):
you do. Is your right to know outweighing the good
to the community. In my eyes, been a somewhat of
an expert on Turner County. Being the editor of the
local newspaper, it's his business to know what's going on,
and he's clearly very well connected. I asked him who
he had talked to in regards the Wideman case. Talked
to the e M S Director. I talked to the
(05:33):
fire chief in the Sheriff's department. Was there anyone that
wasn't very willing to talk or they shared with me
on the record everything they could talk about at the time.
And since then there have been many more conversations, many
more conversations as in information that wasn't disclosed before or
(05:53):
wasn't known before. Well, there's been some stuff that wasn't
known that day that were talked about, and there's been
some stuff that I mean, why do you need to
know the caliber gun they were killed with? One? I
asked Ben about the general public feelings in Turner County
regarding the Wideman case. There are some people that swear
they know who did it. You ask them, they'll tell
(06:13):
you the individual's name. Well, how do you know this?
He's just that kind of a person. You've got some evidence,
let's talk about it. You said his car was parked there,
or his truck, or his motorcycle or his bicycle was
parked there that night. Okay, we got something to work with.
You say he was riding around that night over in
that neighborhood. A little bit more tenuous. You just say
(06:34):
you just simply know, because he's that kind of a person. No,
you don't know that. Ben's right about this. Innocent until
proven guilty, and without evidence, people can speculate all day
bodies and then they were shot, and there was some
talk about tire tracks, but there was also the issue
of all the public safety there, so they weren't sure
because the tire tracks, you're gonna be any good. Where
(06:55):
were the tire tracks there in the yard, up the
driveway or just think in the day is right there
at the property. I am not certain if there was
a motive or not. Just beyond Hey, here's the house.
Let's go see who's here and rob women kill him.
You're gonna say that just simply doesn't happen. Oh yeah,
hell it does too. You talked to the sheriff's department,
in the police department, we have smash and grab robberies frequently.
(07:19):
Because we're on the interstate. This might sound plausible, but
to be candid, there's no evidence that this was a burglary.
Local law enforcement and never suggested that they had any
reason to believe that it was. We had a gentleman
who went missing. They found his car. He popped up
in a pond a week later. That's still a mysterious death.
We asked about what the chief of fire had personally
(07:40):
reported to pen what he described to you about the scene.
He said it was bad and the house was burned
completely down by the time they got there, was fully engulfed.
You look around the room in here. You see my
fellow dear, You see my elk on the other side.
I got a bison. I got two little bucks. Over there,
I kill one shot. There's the buffalo skull. I know
(08:02):
people that can come walk through that door right there
and look at this and have a panic attack and
pass out on the floor. You're not prepared to see
this kind of scene. I don't care who you are.
We've got firemen who were in the military, who were
in Vietnam, who were in other places, and they've seen
bodies blowing the pieces you're not prepared to see that
(08:23):
kind of thing. I don't care who you are unless
you're a complete psychopath and you have no human emotion,
emotional connection. You just don't have any empathy whatsoever. Then
you look on it every day and say, huh, I'm
ready for a ham sandwich for lunch. I think we
asked Ben who owned the property now that the house
had been burned down. He told us that to his
(08:45):
latest knowledge, it still belonged to the remaining members of
the Widman family. So we asked who that was. Charles
Henry is here and his sons ship I think they both.
Charles Henry and No lives in Rebecca with Diane, and
I think Chip lives in Rebecca or Fitzgerald all. Are
they still working in the community Chips an insurance salesman.
Charles Henry. I don't know if he's still working or
(09:07):
not an insurance or if he retired. I don't remember
about how many times do you think he wrote about
the Wideman case? Up to about a dozen? I believe
when's the last time you personally wrote something. It's been
several years since I've written about it. Christie used to
work for the those Settle Star would write about it
every year on the anniversary. But she was related to
(09:27):
the family. So unless you're connected to it, you never
think about it. But there's nothing else to report. What
are you gonna say, well, it's still under an investigation. Yeah,
we know that. All that's gonna happen by me reporting
on it now is remind the remaining family that this
is unsolved and it's going to renew the pain they have.
(09:48):
Is the public's right to know that it is not
solved more important than not making that family hurt anymore.
It ain't been solved the minute he gets solved, the
minute they arrest somebody we're talking about on her headline.
In that way, it's newspaper and breaking news. I may
put out a special edition. Sure, its department has got
a pretty high and police department got a pretty high
rate on solving cases. But as our farmer, Sheriff Wesley
(10:12):
five said, a law enforcement man ain't no better than
the information he gets. The only way this thing is
going to be solved, to my way of thinking, is
if somebody comes forward and says, hey, I know about this,
here's some information, or somebody's on their deathbed and they
confess we've exhausted the physical evidence. Fire is an awesome
(10:33):
way to cover your tracks. I had qualms about even
talking to you guys for this podcast thing, but I
have to weigh again respect for the families versus they're
wanting to get some closure on this. Y'all reach a
much different audience than I do. I can write about
this freaking Wideman case every week for the rest of
(10:55):
my life if it's not solved, and it's gonna be
going to the same people. Y'all have a very different
audience than me. You might can reach somebody I can't.
That's why I'm even talking to you today, because you
might can get somebody who knows something. If I thought
you couldn't, I said, I say, you can't talk to you.
(11:18):
You got four people dead. We need some closure, hair, folks.
Somebody needs to be held accountable for this. The person
who did this keeps her mouth shut and takes it
to the grave, never be solved in this life. Person
who did it talks about it sold of course. In
(11:47):
addition to the local newspaper, the case caught the eye
of larger media outlets such as local television stations. Even
though this was a small town crime. It really was
a bone chilling trip homicide, and so it got coverage.
As it turns out, Rebecca is not really far from Albany, Georgia. Albany,
Georgia has a larger media market and it includes a
(12:10):
television station known as w A LB TV. I've got
a friend w A l B KD. Fowler is an
anchor and reporter, and as it turns out, my friend
Cade has covered the Wideman case very closely and has
reported on it many times. I was actually looking on
the g B i's website and they had a list
(12:33):
of cold cases on there, and uh, scrolling through and
and on there it will list the location where the
crime occurred. And I saw Rebecca pop up and I said, Rebecca,
Rebecca that so that's in that's in Turner County. And
this was like in twenty twelve, I believe when I
when I did this story U and I was like,
(12:55):
how did I not know about this? And it has
sort of, you know, not hit my radar. I guess
I just didn't know about it, and I heard a
lot of talk about it, and so that's when I
started looking into and started making some phone calls and
try to, you know, pick back up on it and
see if there was any new leads we could track
down on on our end in terms of trying to
get some people to talk. My name is Kate Fowler.
(13:15):
I'm a reporter an anchor at w A l B.
I started there and in two thousand and seven covered
a lot of crime and uh, you know, specialized in
reporting on on cold cases and stuff because there's a
number of them in South Georgia. Is there still a
lot of public interest this what fifteen years later? Actually
there is. And you know, I'll give I'll give credit
(13:38):
there too to the Sheriff Andy Hester. I mean he is.
He has kept this out in the in the public's eye,
you know, more so than than anyone else that's served
in that office. And I think there's been since this happened.
There were two sheriffs in office prior to Sheriff Hester.
He's made a couple of sell a couple of press
(13:58):
conferences just in the past year or so asking for
more tips on this case. You have three people who
are dead. You know, by all accounts, these were just
people who were you know, good small town folks who
minded their own business. They didn't deserve to die. I
mean this young lady, she was pregnant at the time.
So basically you have four, four lives essentially, you know,
(14:20):
that were lost in this case, and that they shouldn't
be forgotten. So what do we know publicly? If you
can summarize that and give us background on the case
and what we do know, and then what we don't
know and what we still need to know. Rebecca, you know,
it's a small town, probably only a few hundred people
that lived there, squiet people keeping themselves in this house
(14:44):
where the wide Emans live was off of Highway Win twelve,
and it's pretty much one of those locations where you
you gotta be going through it to go through it.
You know, it's just out there in farmland. And so
there was a truck driver that was driving down the
road in the middle of the night. He ends up seeing,
you know, flames coming off the side of the road,
calls an on one one. They respond to it. It's
(15:05):
a it's a house fire. So their homes engulfed in
flames and they finally, you know, put out the fire
and then you know, when the firefighters are going through
and they're digging through the ashes, they realized that, you know,
they're not dealing with just a you know, a house
fire here, They're dealing with the homicide. They found all
three victims inside Tommy, Joe, Deborah, Melissa, and very soon
(15:26):
after determined that they had been shot to them, and
then someone torched the house to destroy the evidence. Did
they find evidence of any accelerate I've asked that question.
I don't think they really went into detail about what
was actually used to start the fire. I think that's
probably something that there they're going to keep to themselves,
(15:46):
at least, I know I asked that question, but you know,
it's been a few years, but I don't think that
they specifically explained what was used to start the fire.
What else have they kept to themselves? I don't know.
I mean, at this point, you know, I'm not sure
they've been you know, fairly open, you know about getting
some information out. I mean, we do know that they
(16:08):
were all, you know, executed there in the home, that
they were shot, and they have told us that much.
And the other thing that they didn't and I will
say this is, you know, despite the fact that so
much was destroyed in that fire, there was really no
evidence to suggest that anything was taken from the home.
I think they were able to gather enough evidence to determined,
(16:30):
you know, this wasn't probably just some random home invasion.
Was there any neighbors nearby that might have seen something?
Not that I know. I mean I think this house
was was really just kind of off the road. I mean,
you you know South Georgia well filled. I mean you've
you've been through there. You drive them along those country
roads and Highway went twelve, you know, going through Turner
Counties about his country as it gets, I mean you
(16:51):
go farmland, farmland, trees, and then occasionally you see a
house off to the side and the house, of course
you know it was destroyed, has been raised since then,
there's nothing there, but not a lot of neighbors. I mean,
I think you had to actually go up a driveway
to get there. The big question that everyone is asking is, uh,
whether they think that it was someone local that did this.
(17:12):
Isn't someone in the community. Is it's someone who you
know knew the family? Tommy Joe he was the he
was the tax assessor in Turner County, and Deborah owned
a bridle shot in Ashbourne. So these are people that
you know, we're you know, fairly well known and fairly
well liked in the community. To my knowledge, they had
they had no enemies and and I mean a tax
(17:34):
assessor is probably not gonna win a popularity contest, you
know when it comes to you know, elected officials or
county officials or whatnot. But no one that I that
I've talked to, you know, over the years of just
talking to people back and forth and even covering this story,
everyone said, you know, he was he was a good guy.
I honestly believe that he didn't have any enemies. And
(17:56):
even so in Turner County, if somebody's got a problem
with either, they're probably going to go up and say
it to you, but it's not necessarily going to lead
them to kill an entire family and burn their house down.
When's the last time you spoke to Sheriff Fester about
this case? I talked to Sheriff Ester, you know, a
couple of days ago. What did he have to say
about it? He has really done a good job in
(18:20):
terms of I think keeping this case in the public eye.
I will say that about him. He is um. You know, Phil,
you've lived in South Georgia. I mean, you know, you
know how it is down here. There's a lot of
red tape, and there's a lot of bureaucracy, but he
is really one of those sheriffs that I think you
can go and sit down and talk to. And I'm
(18:40):
not just being a cheerleader here for Sheriff Fester, but
anytime I've ever needed to reach out to him, he's
been available. In fact, when I set up this story,
I think he had just gotten in office, and he
actually came into office after another the previous sheriff was
arrested for stealing marijuana from the evidence locker and given
(19:03):
it to a church member that he knew had cancer.
So that's how the sheriff before him ended up getting
out of office. So I didn't have any contact with
that guy. So Sheriff Ester comes in and you know,
when I called him and talked to him, he opened
his office to me. We were able to sit down
and have a one on one about this case. And
(19:25):
he also brought in Asan Collins, the case agent at
the time, who was you know, on top of this
case for you know, for several years. And you know,
we sat down and talked about this at length, and
you know, you don't always get that from a lot
of sheriffs, based on some folks I've worked with. I
applaud him for his efforts, I really do. Did he
(19:47):
offer to show you any of the evidence that they
did have. They actually gave me more information that than
I thought they would. You know, I think that there's
certain boundaries they don't want to cross. I get it,
I underst stand that. But to the point of telling
me everything that they possibly could without jeopardizing any sort
(20:07):
of sensitive evidence that you know, could mess up their case,
they gave me as much as as I could have
asked for. At that point. It's pretty well known, you know,
around Turner County that somebody there knows something. This is
a small town in South Georgia. Triple homicides just don't
happen every day. They do sometimes, but it is very
very rare to say that triple homicide's gonna happen in
(20:31):
the middle of the night in Rebecca, where probably the
only nine one one call they get at three o'clock
in the morning might be a cow loose in the
road or car hitting the deer. To say that someone
just randomly stopped at this house probably not likely. Someone
in Turner County probably knows who did this. I'm reading
(20:53):
from in August two thousand five item on the website
for w a LB TV, and it says ex Ashburn
cop KINMA deputy arrested in East Georgia. And it goes
on to say a suspect in an unsolved Turner County
triple homicide is arrested for rape near Savannah, and that
(21:14):
is referencing then thirty one year old Jason Walker. What
do we know about Jason Walker? The answer that I
got when I was looking into this, you know, several
years ago, was that they didn't find any evidence to
indicate that he had anything to do with it. You know,
I know that that he was one of the individuals
(21:36):
that that they looked at. And I do recall that
story now that you mentioned it, but I think you know,
at least to this point, he had been ruled out.
How far along in her pregnancy was Melissa Wideman at
the time she was murdered, You know, she was eight
months pregnant, so I mean she was she was due
(21:57):
to have that child very soon weeks after this happened.
She would have had a child in Tommy, Joe and
Deva would have been grandparents. Do we know or has
it ever been released who the father of the baby
was That I don't know. The news article references him
as a person of interest. Quote in a March two
(22:20):
thousand two Triple Hannaside and Turner County. He's a former
Ashburn policeman and Turner County sheriff's deputy. It says Walker's
former girlfriend Melissa Whiderman, who was pregnant and her parents,
Tommy Joe and Deborah, were murdered in their home. There's
been some persons of interest that have come up, but
(22:41):
that's just in terms of investigators interviewing these individuals who
either knew the Widerman's or you know, in some way
connected to them. I reached out to both sides of
the family. I called. I tried to reach out to
the Whiteman's side, Tommy Joe's family. I didn't hear anything
back from them. The only family member that I have
(23:04):
been able to contact and you know, speak to me
on this was we had to censor this name for
privacy reasons. It will be mentioned just like this a
few more times in the series, but we'll explain more later.
In the fifteen years since the Widemand murders occurred. There's
been lots of things that have been discussed in the media,
(23:26):
lots of interviews, but the Wideman side of the family
has for the most part stayed silent. However, one name
from the other side of the family has come up,
and it's come up several times based on what I
could find in the mainstream media. There's only been one
widely suggested person of interest in this case, and that
(23:46):
is Jason Walker. But after fifteen years, law enforcement hasn't
been able to find anything linking Jason Walker to the
Widemand murders. So the question is, did Jason Walker have
something to do with this and cover his track or
could there be someone else out there that is responsible
for the Wideman's murders other than the Georgia Bureau of
(24:10):
Investigation or the g b I. The Turner County Sheriff's
Office is the law enforcement agency otherwise responsible for investigating
the Wideman case. But here's the thing about the Turner
County Sheriff's Office. Since the Wideman's were murdered, there's been
four different sheriffs holding office in that county, and that's
(24:30):
really unusual because especially in South Georgia. Once an incumbent
sheriff takes office, they generally don't lose elections unless something happens.
So I want to give you a rundown of who
the four sheriffs were and then go back and give
you some details that I found to be fascinating. In
two thousand and two, when the Wideman's were murdered, the
(24:52):
sheriff was a man named Randy Kendrick. Sheriff Kendrick held
office until two thousand and eight, when he lost his
re election bid to a man named Roy Wiley. Roy
Wiley was at that time the chief of police in
a small town called Sycamore, Georgia. Sheriff Wiley took office
on January one, two thousand nine. Barely halfway through his term,
(25:15):
Sheriff Wiley resigned from office and later pled guilty to
the felony criminal offense of violating his oath of office.
This had to do with tampering with evidence, specifically about
marijuana that he removed from the evidence locker and gave
a way to somebody that brings us to the third
sheriff since two thousand and two. That person's name was
(25:37):
Charles Dean. He had been Sheriff Wiley's chief deputy. He
was appointed by the probate judge to be the acting
sheriff until current Sheriff Andy Hester could be re elected
in a special election to fill the remaining term of
Sheriff Wiley. So I wanted to go back and take
a closer look at the campaign where Sheriff Kendrick lost
(26:00):
to Sheriff Wiley. In a July thirty one, two thousand
and eight media report from w a LB News in Albany, Georgia,
Roy Wiley says he's unhappy with the way the Sheriff's
department has been handled, specifically referencing their budget. And here's
the thing. He says he wants to reopen unsolved death cases.
(26:21):
So did Sheriff Kendrick lose his office because the Wideman
murders hadn't been solved? It sure looks that way, because
to my knowledge, there weren't any other unsolved death cases
pending in July of two thousand and eight, certainly none
as high profile or well known as the Wideman murders.
And according to the Tifton Gazette in December of two
(26:44):
thousand five, Sheriff Kendrick said that officials had recently met
at the gb I office in Perry to take another
cohesive look at the murders of the Wideman family. But
listen to this very interesting direct quote. Sheriff Kendrick said,
as the investigation has never stopped, but I want them
to concentrate on it more than they have been doing.
(27:06):
They can take the case and look into it some
more and follow up on some things. So it appears
that Sheriff Kendrick is being somewhat critical himself of the
g b I. There were two more very interesting quotes
by Sheriff Kendrick. Quote. They agreed that even though the
case is still being worked, an increased concentration is needed.
I wanted to regroup everybody and put a good, steady
(27:29):
pace to it and to look at things from a
different angle. So this makes it clear to me that
in two thousand and five, Sheriff Kendrick really did want
this investigation to move forward. He really did want the
g b I to work harder. He was pushing for
the Wideman case to be solved. I've been in law
enforcement for thirty nine years. I've been the elected chaff
(27:51):
for almost twenty five. I've been very fortunate to have
a career centered here in northeast Georgia. I reached out
to my friend share Scott Berry be elected sheriff of
o'coney County, Georgia, just outside of Athens, Georgia. Sheriff is
a constitutional officer that's elected in each of the counties
in Georgia. The sheriff is the chief law enforce from
(28:14):
Officer Beach Lives counties. Even though there are counties that
chose to fund a county police department and give that
agency the primary investigative jurisdiction, and there's about a dozen
in the state of Georgia, mostly in metro areas. There's
very few in rural Georgia anymore. If you're the perpetator
of crime, I think they view arson as a destruction
(28:37):
of any trace evidence or any or maybe even a body,
or maybe even a gun or whatever weapon was used
in the murder case. They think it may destroy blood
evidence and things like that that maybe stains in the floor,
stains in a carpet, So fires can be used to
destroy those things. It doesn't work all the time, that's
(29:00):
the thing. A lot of times, a lot of that
tracing evidence is still there. It may be hard to find.
You may have to dig to fund it. You may
have to move a lot of burnwood and furniture out
and really dig down to the four boards to get
what you need. But to destroy evidence is a good
reason for an arson. Burning is rarely, rarely, rarely complete
(29:22):
as people think it is. It is very unusual for
particularly a body, for instance, to be burned completely where
there's nothing left. That fire has to be hot, and
it has to be hot for a long time, and
you're not going to find that in a typical house fight.
You have to have additional accelerance, additional fuel to destroy
(29:45):
a body for instance. Now, can it destroy some bloodstains
on a wall, Sure, of course it can. But is
it going to get rid of all the evidence in
a murder case. People might think it will, But fire
is not that good at doing that. No, it can
be successful in making it difficult or impossible, or to
destroy evidence that in and of itself won't stop law
(30:08):
enforcements from solving a crime. Hopefully you've got other leads,
other informants in the community, other ways you can follow
to help you still solve the crime. But will it
destroy physical evidence? Of course it will. You've got to
get people out to talk to everyone that knows your victim.
You've got to do a complete victimology. You've got to
(30:29):
go back into the victim's background. Who are their friends,
who are their enemies, who are their cousins, who just
got out of prison. You've got to start with a
real big circle and work that circle inward, and usually
statistics will bear out that usually a murder victim knows
the murder. So you've got to look first off at
(30:51):
everyone that knows knows your victims. Once you get your
victims identified, you've got to start looking at everyone they
have contact with, everyone that may have a reason or
may have fabricated a reason to commit a murder case,
and you work outwards from there. You've got to start somewhere.
Those first few hours of talking to people, when you
(31:14):
can get them when they're emotional, when you can get
them when they're willing to talk to you, are so
vitally important in a case like that. I asked him
about how important it was to establish a motive in
a crime like this. Ultimately, you want that motive to
show a jury why this person was murdered. A jury
of ordinary people sitting there in a jury box hearing
(31:37):
only what evidence they're allowed to hear. They want to
know why this happened. They want to know the under
underlying reason for that crime. And ultimately, although it is
not an element of the crime, and you're right, we
don't have to prove motive, it is good when we
can prove motive. Not only does it help you work
towards suspects, but a jury he wants that information. The
(32:01):
jury that doesn't have a motive is gonna sit back
in that jury room and you're gonna have a hard
time getting a conviction. You want to be able to
put your suspect in the area of the victim at
the time of the crime. There's so many different ways
to do that. Now with technology. You can do it
with the phone, you can do it with surveillance cameras,
and you do with our witnesses. In a small town
(32:21):
like the town I live in, people know each other.
People will recognize somebody's truck, somebody's car, particularly when you
live in a rural area. I mean, everybody knows what
everybody else drives. They know when a car doesn't belong
down there. So but you've got to get that information early.
If you can't wait ten years to get that information,
you want that information while it's fresh, while it's actionable,
(32:45):
and while there's something you can do with it. I
asked him how he felt about dealing with outside agencies
during his investigations. Was it helpful or was it more
detrimental to the case. I've got a lot of feelings
about bringing in outside agencies. Sometimes you really do need
to bring in an outside agency. But if you're gonna
bring in an outside agency, in my opinion, in my
(33:06):
agency where I work in my sheriff's office, you've got
to have a very specific mission for them bringing in
an outside agency, so you have more people drinking coffee
saying now what we do isn't going to help anybody.
They've got to have a very specific mission. As a
law enforcement leader, as the sheriff, I want them to
(33:29):
have a very specific mission. Don't turn over anything to them.
We have something for them to do. We don't turn
over the responsibility for actively work in that case to
another agency. Another agency comes in to assist us, if
there's nothing for them to assist us doing, then we
(33:49):
don't need them there. We take responsibility for our cases
I'm the sheriff of Olconi County. I was elected to
work these cases. I was elected to keep the people safe.
It's my constitutional duty, it's my responsibility, and I don't
delegate that to any other agency. I never turn a
case over to another agency. I never will, never have,
(34:13):
and that's just not gonna happen. I have a hard
time even thinking of a reason why somebody would do that. Obviously,
if you have a case, if a sheriff is given
a case that involves a county commissioner or someone they
have to do business with a regular basis, they may
turn that over to another agency. There may be some
other political reason why you want to turn a case over.
(34:36):
If you don't think it's solvable, or and you want
to have somebody to shift the blame to. You can
all say listen, I call the g b I. They
can't solve a case either, and that gives a chief
or share of some political cover. I can see circumstances
where you'd have a parallel investigation with the g B.
I I'd have to be faced with that circumstance, but
(34:57):
I would take the lead in that investigation, would be
responsible for that investigation. I might with the g b
I come in and help me with that. But again,
a case like that in my county, I think that
we would be more likely to solve it than the
g b I would because we know the people that
live here. I have ninety five employees. At least one
of them knows the victim. It would be impossible for
(35:20):
me to have a case like that where no one
that worked for me didn't know any of the victims
or their family. You bring the g b I in
for a very specific reason, and not to hand them
the case file. Traditionally, a lot of people that are
talked to a deputy shaff or to the sheriff someone
they know, won't talk to somebody they don't know. Won't
(35:41):
talk to somebody that flashes the state badge or a
federal badge. Some people are just funny about who they
talked to, and they want to talk to their sheriff.
They know the sheriff, They elected the sheriff, maybe they
ran against them, maybe they voted against him, but they
still know him, and they're gonna talk to one of
these local deputies as from one of these local peace
officers who live in that county who they see at church.
(36:04):
Who they see at the grocery store, they're gonna want
to talk to them, not an employee from somewhere else.
I have ninety five total employees, and I think the
gb I has about a hundred and fifty hundred, sixty
hundred seventy agents that are working statewide. Now that doesn't
include support staff, their g c I s, their computer people,
(36:27):
doesn't include a lot of things. But that includes agents.
I don't think they have any more than that. If
they have any more than that, and it's just not
a big agency, they don't have a lot of people
to throw it a problem. Okay, So if you're a
local sheriff and you don't have a especially trained arson
investigator either in your office or in your local fire department,
(36:49):
you'd bring in the fire marshal for that service. Correct, Yes,
we bring in the state fire marshal for that. Why
wouldn't you bring in the gb I to do an
arson investigation? The state Fire Marshal is equipped and trained
to do this. He can come to the scene and
you know rather instantly whether or not you've got an
arson or not. They're good at it. The work they've
(37:10):
done for us is phenomenal. It's quick, it's efficient, they
show up, they do what they need to do, and
we've been really pleased with the services we get from
the state Fire Marshal. Again, there aren't many of them either,
but we're lucky to be able to get one pretty quickly. Now,
if we determine we have an arsen, we would make
the decision at that point whether we want the gb
(37:33):
I crime scene people to come collect evidence to prove
the arson. Again, we're talking about a very specific mission
for the g b I. I'm not picked just picking
up this is any kind of outside agency. Again, I
accepted the responsibility when I put my name on the
ballot to be the sheriff of Oakony, Kim and with
that came the duty and the authority and the responsibility
(37:57):
for me to take these cases to their life coal conclusion.
I can ask for help for the FBI, the GBI,
the state Patrol, the game Warden, the fire Marshal, the
corner the medical examiner, the Department Corrections. I could ask
for help from any number of our state partners, but
I never relinquish a case that belongs to the old
(38:21):
County County Sheriff's office. I would definitely need the assistance
to work a crime scene where you have a homicide,
There's no question in my mind, I would definitely need
somebody to come in and help me work that crime scene.
I'm fortunate now that I have my own crime scene tech.
But the g b I has always done a great
(38:41):
job working crime scenes, and they've done it all over
the state of Georgia, and they've done it for me
many times. That's the value of working the crime scene.
You only get one chance to do it right, and
you want to make sure when you do it, you
do it right. The local agency, the local deputies of
local police, they know their community. They most of them
probably grew up there. They know somebody that knows the victims,
(39:05):
they know somebody that may know the suspect. And people
are willing to talk to people they know and trust,
where they're just not gonna talk to outsiders that come in.
You know they're gonna stay for a few days and
then drive off and wave again onto their next big case.
There's a lot of different ways you can work that case,
but you don't quit. That's what you don't do. You
(39:27):
don't quit. You want to get that case. You get
it back out. You look at it and get a
fresh settlevi eyes on it, look at that evidence, all
that evidence in a new light, and go back and
do those interviews again. Go back and find out, Hey,
you know, we tried to talk to this guy three
tons and know what ever actually talked to him. Well,
let's go talk to him. There's gonna be something in
(39:50):
that case file that's been missed, and you've got to
go back and follow up on that, because they might
not call you with what they were told a year ago,
but if you go and ask them, they might tell
you they heard something at the beauty parlor in a
year ago that might help you solve that cutty thank
(40:23):
you wearing which table? Okay? Walker's Barbecue Pet is a long,
narrow barbecue joint in Sycamore, Georgia, right off the railroad tracks.
(40:46):
We visited after lunchtime. There was no one inside, but
the TV in the corner played an old black and
white film. A man named Frosty greeted us, I don't
know what I'm Earlier in the week, I'd called Frosty
to ask if we could speak to him. Been told
he was a local and a family friend that might
be willing to talk to us about the case I
might happen if there were none Once frosting, this is
(41:09):
what was barbeque was sitting more Georgian and I was
born raised him. I've been knowing he's a new devil
of all her life. She drew up. We lived next ord.
These little they've been knowing Tom Joe since he's part
of six team, and I knew what's the understand the
(41:32):
daughter Melissa, Melissa all her life we had a place
in Firdam that they had a place of Firndon. She
always come over and see was we've been knowing. We're
really good friends. And that's base. I want to tell
you that was well, h I mean, they were real
(41:52):
friend they'd like to go out and eat and go
to parties and stuff like that. That was while on
means and to go to Ferndon. Fernandina Beach is in
Florida where Tommy Joe Wideman's mother had a house. That's
where she was the night they were killed. Was that
inside cooking that part of four or five o'clock in
(42:14):
the morning. And my wife was real with their friends
with Tommy Joe. She's passed away and she called me
and she would really, I said, I think I said
the whole everybody and then not finding night who done it?
Why It's hard to believe somebody was just coming by
and done that. Whoever done it had it planning and
(42:37):
for some reason, I do not know. People told about
all the time. They ain't went away at all. I
mean he might go a month from not hearing it.
You hit it's more but Frost, he said, conflicted with
what we've been told at the Wiregrass. It seemed that
some portion of the town may have wanted to move
on from the tragedy, but others simply couldn't let it go.
(42:58):
We talked to the sriff, all three sure about it.
They've been three sure since it's happened. They don't say much,
they said, I don't know, We're weren't on. We all
know no more than what we do. Devil's family has
been trying hard to find out. There's no telling how
much money it's been, trying to find hard vasticators, going
(43:25):
around talking to people like Yah, Horror, that's a person
you need to talk to. He told us that he's
still alive and last he knew living in Fitzgerald. He
has tried hard, he can tell he part of sitting
and talking to you for two of their hours. We
then asked Frosty about the family members alive on the
(43:46):
Wyman's side. His problem. His wife Dan Wyman seesusly were
opened random mine. I don't know charge him? Were that good?
And there's a nephew and now few he's referring to
is Charles Henry Wideman, also known as Chip. His father
was Tommy Joe's brother. Somebody somebody done it. One person,
(44:10):
three people pour. We tried reaching out to Chip but
got no answer. Next time, Solar players in other one
county get bowled off in turn of County get killed off.
(44:34):
We've learned a lot about how this case appeared in
the public eye, and we've learned a little bit about
how it was handled. And more than one person has
told us that the scene seemed to have been cleared
very quickly. We'll continue our investigation by getting to the
center of local Turner County law enforcement. We'll also talk
(44:54):
to someone that, besides the g B, I may know
this case the best. Next time on Soorn
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