November 11, 2024 • 52 mins
Self-made millionaire Lance Herndon was one of Atlanta’s elite in 1996 when he was murdered in his home. Police had a host of suspects, and they soon realized how complicated Lance’s life was. Author Ron Stodghill unravels the story in his book: Redbone: Money, Malice, and Murder in Atlanta.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I've never really seen crime scene photo. This is suddenly
real to me now. The brutality of this murder made
me feel like that actually should be the mission of
yours now in doing the book as so, can you
make him a human being and not like this cliche.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor
in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the
podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,
research for my many audio and book projects has taken
me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down
with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,
(00:58):
and podcasters who have in investigated, and reported on notorious
true crime cases. This is about the choices writers make,
both good and bad, and it's a deep dive into
the unpublished details behind their stories. Self made millionaire Lance
Herndon was one of Atlanta's elite in nineteen ninety six
(01:19):
when he was murdered in his home. Police had a
host of suspects, and they soon realized how complicated Lance's
life really was. Author Ron Stoggil unravels the story in
his book Redbone, Money, Malice, and Murder in Atlanta. This
is a very big question. But from the end of
(01:40):
the Civil War until when this story takes place, which
is nineteen ninety six, what are the changes that happen
in Atlanta after the Civil War? Is Atlanta primarily a
city with white people or is their diversity, you know,
versus where it is today.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
So Atlanta as always, you know it Georgia, you know,
was a big slave state and that population has remained.
The way it was explained to me back then was
that that that like that they had figured out blacks
and whites had figured out a way to kind of
live next to one another. Like they took a lot
(02:18):
of pride during, for instance, the Civil they haven't had
many major major riots there since, you know, way way back,
and they take pride in that that the business community
and the civil rights community had been in kind of
a lockstep and avoided costly mistakes to growing that city.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
And so my impression is.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
That there was a thriving black middle class during that
time all the way even through you know, from emancipation
through Jim Crow, you know, but there was a lot
of clergy, a lot of educators. You amassed that power structure,
(03:03):
and it manifested in a first black mayor, which would
have been Maynor Jackson, you know, and it was upun
you know, during his watch that now you see this
real thriving black community because he was able to use
his perch, you know, in government to steer dollars towards
(03:26):
black citizens and at the airport, you know, and the
construction of it is kind of symbolic of that.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Tell me a little bit about Lance. You've told me
a little bit about what you had called the nuvoreche
kind of these people who who have very affluent jobs
and are now gaining a lot of power in the community.
Tell me how Lance fits into all of this. Tell
me more about him.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
I mean, I thought that Lance was a creature of
that time.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
You know, he was born in New York.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
He had at this sort of computer tech background. So
he was moving into Atlanta as Atlanta was starting to flourish,
and so he was able to get government contracts and
wheel and deal in a city that is populated by
black movers and shakers. But he did it with another
kind of you know, East Coast flair, and that I
(04:21):
would say intersected with the kind of Hollywood, black Hollywood
that Atlanta has become today, you know, with the Tyler
Perry studios and the music presence.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
It is kind of the Black Mecca.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Was He kind of positioned himself to be a prince
of that, you know. In the book, I kind of
call him like a Gatsby figure. He threw great parties,
he knew everyone. That's the public part of Lance.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
So the assumption I have, and tell me if I'm wrong,
is he is intelligent, charming, good looking, popular with women.
Is any of that inaccurate about Lance?
Speaker 3 (05:02):
No, that's probably all an understatement to be.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
A Gatsby figure in Atlanta, I think those are all
probably requirements. What else is there about him, though, that
you found to be intriguing or unique? That has nothing
to do with the crime, but just sort of what
is it about him that you think it was intriguing
to other people too?
Speaker 3 (05:21):
He was known as a very generous guy.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
She was very very well liked by a lot of
people because he listened. You know, this is what I
You know, maybe as a reporter, I'm fascinated. I was
fascinated by that, But you know, he was the kind
of person that if he met you that he would
sort of find out your daughter or son's interest and
(05:44):
you know, and drop a gift by there, you know
what I mean that, Yeah, there's some tickets to a
theater or a game or that kind of very thoughtful person,
you know. And and and you could say he was
opportunistic and machiavellian, you know, but very well liked the
man about town, you know. And I think in a
(06:06):
city of strivers and climbers, there was a lot of
currency in that.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
You said he came from New York. Was he close
to his family? Were they still in New York or
did anybody fall on them down to Atlanta?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Well, his mom moved there with him to Atlanta, you know,
and his dad and mom had.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Split years ago.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
So he was raised by a single mother, being the
son of a single mother who was very strict and
she worked like a lot of jobs, and she would
leave all of these posted notes around the apartment that
would kind of guide him through his day because he
(06:49):
was a latchkey kid, and that fundamentally kind of became
his work ethic and his style of management because he
did to talk to his employees as much as leave tapes,
you know, the night before, so that they would come
in and have their marching orders.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
He just felt like that.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Was if I'm talking to you during the day, then
I'm wasting time and money.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
His mother must have just been over the moon when
he became so successful and successful enough I'm assuming to
support her and bring her down to Atlanta. I mean,
that's a lot about their relationship.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Yeah, no, I mean she lived down the street, you know,
and she was very much the matriarch, you know, she
worried about him, you know. But my impression is that
they were very very close and saw one another daily.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Had he ever been he's forty one when he dies,
had he ever been married or had kids or what
was his general before we get into some of the
heavier stuff here, what was his general approach to relationships
from the time that he was, you know, dating age
up until he ends up dying.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
He couldn't keep a marriage, you know, he'd been married
a couple of times. I think infidelity was the issue,
but he had he didn't have kids prior he had
kids with this this third wife, Jeanine Price, a woman
from Kansas City, and he'd met her. It's kind of
(08:28):
a cool story really, Like, you know, he traveled a lot.
He had gone to Brazil and there's that statue, there
is the Christ, you know, and he apparently was just
there taking pictures and just being a tourist. She also
was there because she was a flight attendant, like a
(08:50):
corporate flight attendant though, and so yeah, they locked eyes
at the bott at the foot of this you know, statue,
and it like they were the only African American people
in the crowd.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
They spoke the same language.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Divine intervention then, right.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Yeah, she was just like, this must be the man
for me.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Well, I think we need to get to the crime
that happens and how it all becomes discovered. Let's just
talk about what led to his depth. Where does it
make sense for you to start, you know, toward that event.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Well, Kate, you're just you know, you're brilliant because your
timing couldn't be better. It's the you know, we just
finished up the Olympics in Paris, you know, and so
Lance was killed. As you can imagine, they found his
body on that like they did the closing ceremonies on Sunday, right,
(09:45):
and they found him on Monday, morning, very very early,
right during the Atlanta Olympics, you know, and so this
is a time in which a city puts itself on display.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
He had enjoyed a lot.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Of those festivities, you know, as you can imagine, he
had tickets to everything, and so he spent a lot
of time. And then they found him one morning on
that Monday morning, bludgeoned to death in his mansion. They
found him in bed. You know, his skull was cracked open,
and he was nude, and there was blood spatter.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
On the wall behind him and on the headboard, and
could you could kind of see that these descending blows
they were about I don't know, twelve or something like that.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Wow, it was clear that it was like some kind
of crime of passion. At least that's what that, you know, automatically,
because they were just like, wow, you know, this this
whatever object, this blunt force object, just descending down and
you could see the spatter on the walls. There were
some carpet and prints, shoe and prints.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
So who was the last person and to see him alive,
which I assume would have been closing ceremonies the night before,
on Sunday night.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
It would have been one of his office workers.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
He had an event coming up that he was sponsoring,
and so one of his employees and he had had
to had an affair with her years prior, all off
and on one right exactly. That became kind of a
big thing because it was such a forensics driven case
(11:31):
and he was such a womanizer, right that when you
look like all of this DNA in his room and stuff,
how do you connect it to anyone?
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Really?
Speaker 1 (11:41):
You know, he has a big inner circle, right, you
know when they're when the police are looking, they're looking
tight first, and he's exposed to a lot besides the
people he's exposed to through business. Then he's got all
of these women around him. And then he goes to nightclubs,
so there are people who know him who he's not
even sleeping with, and so that's a big that's a
big inner circle to deal with.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Right.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
So he has an employee who he's had an often
on again affair with, but he goes home by himself.
It sounds like, is that right that night, that Sunday night.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
He does, except then he calls one of this woman
that he's had been having an affair with, Okay, and
she does come come by I will tell you he
was such a cliche in a way because he was
a black man who really only liked these fair skinned women,
you know, and so entitling the book he loved black
(12:31):
women like with European features, and so like there's this
slang around that down South. It's like a colloquialism, and
they call these kinds of women redbones, like fair skinned
black women, and so that, yes, a Southern slang, and
so that is the title of the book.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
That's it grows from that because that's all he liked.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Wow, okay, and it's.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Kind of offensive, Like nobody really wants wants to be
called a redbone, by the way.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
So let's just think of this as an investigator's point
of view. Who do the police get a phone call
from Monday morning upon the discovery of this body? What
alerts them to begin with?
Speaker 3 (13:12):
So, as I mentioned, you know, like so he had
his office at his home.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
You know, it's a pretty big home in his but
they were blocked off from working upstairs. But the whole
downstairs kind of basement suite was like he had a
few employees in there.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Like four employees, you know.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
So that morning, his habit, his ritual was that, you know,
as an employee, you would arrive to tape instructions and
those tapes were not there that morning, and that automatically
set off some alarms. So of course, the first phone
call they make is to mom, and Mom lives down
(13:54):
the street. So Mom comes over there like, hey, I
don't know, maybe is sleeping really late or something.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
He's been doing all this Olympic stuff, hanging out every night.
And so she goes upstairs and then there's this blood
curdling scream and she's like, my baby, my baby. She
calls nine one one and they try to kind of
talk her down a little bit, and that's how they
were alerted.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
And now I was thinking of suspects. I was thinking, Okay,
if this is an employee, you know it was either
a crime of passion or not an employee, because you
would have known, well, if you're going to murder your boss,
do it like Friday night, because this won't be discovered
for a couple of days. But that's just me thinking
about it. Okay. So Mom calls the police, and the
(14:44):
police show up, and I'm assuming they are shocked because
this is a beautiful house and a wonderful neighborhood, an
effluent man who has a business.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
They could see he was a bachelor though, because by
then his lovely wife had moved out Jane so had
taken a lot of the furniture, and he was just
kind of there. Let's just say that it was minimalism
by then.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
You know, I've gotten used to asking this question on
this show. Do we have competent police on this case
or not?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
I mean, I think that's a good question, you know,
and even these days, I think that question becomes more
and more complex. But the impression that I get from
my reporting is that they don't. These kind of cases
didn't happen that often in Roswell.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
This is Roswell Police who are responding, not Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Yeah, this is Roswell police.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
So they may have been a little over there, like
this was a little over their head maybe, but you know,
I mean committed for sure. Detective Nostalgio, we spent time together.
That was the main guy handling it. I think that
like people question maybe how he went about things, but
I thought he was fairly.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
But you didn't get the impression that race was going
to play a role in this investigation, like it doesn't
so many other investigations.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Yeah, I mean I think that there was a novelty factor.
They knew it was going to be this because this
guy was all attached all the way up to the
district attorney Paul Howard.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
And you know Fannie willis the woman that ended up
prosecuting Donald Trump. Yes, she succeeded maybe Paul Howard, like
the guy, yeah something.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
You know that's the same office. Yeah, that's where he
wound up.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
I did not know Lance was politically connected in that way.
I guess I assumed it was just business. So did
he have friends in politics? Also?
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Very much so?
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yeah, Yeah, I mean, you know, he had a had
he kind of the impression I got was that he
had everybody on kind of speed dials.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
You know, how long had he been here before this happened?
How many years?
Speaker 3 (16:56):
I want to say, a couple of decades?
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Is sha oh? Okay, okay, he is in trench than
in this community. Okay. So the police show up and
then you have Detective Anastasio. Is that how you say
his name?
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yeah, and he reports to the scene and they find
what I had read was he it seemed like he
had been smacked in the back of the head and stunned,
and then everything else seemed to be like really serious
facial injuries. And as you were saying, just you know,
more than a dozen blows to the front of his face,
did he have defensive wounds as far as you know,
(17:31):
or was this.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
No, that's what they figured that he was ambushed, that
he must have been like that he was awakened, and
then it just came crashing those blows came crashing down
before he could even react. What they also found was
he was covered up when that you know, his face.
I think they took like a sheet and covered them up,
(17:54):
as you know, as they moved about the room, and like,
I think they cleaned themselves up and I had to
cover up a few things, and you know, but that
sense from investigators was like they couldn't stand the kind
of look at their work.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Yeah, that's not covering up your crime. I mean, they
know he's going to be discovered. So yeah, that's that's interesting. Okay,
let me ask you a series of questions. Anything taken,
I mean, I know Janine took it sounds like everything,
but I mean it was anything of value taken?
Speaker 3 (18:25):
No, I don't think anything was taken.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
I think what was clear though he had bedside one
of his women, you know, photograph of her in like
a little you know.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Nightgown, and it was it was face down.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
That picture was face down, So that was another thing
like why, you know, was it jealousy?
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Like why is this photo face down?
Speaker 2 (18:50):
And actually just to give you a sense of the
time too, and kind of maybe a slight creep factor,
you might it was in a waterbed. Oh no, right,
which meant like that you couldn't really kept his body
consistent like that rigor mortis didn't set in, so they
couldn't come up with that time of death.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
And the employee, the woman who he had been sleeping with,
off and on, did she give a time when she
if she was the last person besides the killer who
saw him and she wasn't the killer. Did she say
it was like early evening when she left.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Yeah, I think she said she went over there and
she borrowed a computer or something. It really like the
way it played out, it was all circumstantial, by the way.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
So let me ask you, because I don't know this
time period security systems in ninety six and cameras, was
that happening.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
No, No, they weren't.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
I mean not at Roswell, not at the lands Herndon home.
They didn't pull any of that out. Now it's a
good question. I mean, we wouldn't. I wouldn't have had
to write a book.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
No weapons, he didn't have a gun or anything for protection.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
No, I mean, and they never discovered like what the
weapon was. So I'm going to pause here and just say,
I'm working at Time magazine in New York City and
I hear about this story, and I hear about it
from my dad, who was a court TV watcher, you know,
(20:23):
and at that time, the women were testifying in Lance
Herndon's behalf, and my dad was shocked because this was
years later and a lot of the women had married
and moved on, but they had come back.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
And so that was like, well, who was liked so much?
Who is this guy?
Speaker 2 (20:45):
So I just parachute in and I wanted to see
whether there was a book in this, a story in
this then, you know, and I met up in this
early investor first investigation, called the assistant DA Clinton.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Rucker, who's a lawyer, and he had gotten that case.
You know. I talked him into meeting with me.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
He had moved on, and I mean I had been
there two or three days looking through documents, and he
was not meeting with me. And then finally he called
me and said, hey, you know, of course you know
meet me.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
And we met in his office.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
He said this, he said, huh, have you ever seen
the crime scene photos? And I said no, and he
said hold on, and I'd never really seen crime scene
photos and he just kind of were these polaroids and
he just dropped them on the desk in front of me.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
I felt nothing but shame at the moment.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Like it was like I felt like, Okay, this is
suddenly real to me now, like this is more than
just some dramatic or it titillating murder thing like this
he didn't even have, Like the way he died, the way,
like the brutality of this murder made me feel like
(22:07):
that actually should be the mission of yours now in
doing the book, is so can you make him a
human being and not like this cliche and tell the
story about how this story really in the end is
how a person, a black man in the South, who's
(22:27):
a transplant, who has the world at his fingertips, seemingly
how he would die like just some street dude on
the corner like that, Like how do how do those worlds?
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Those emotions? You know?
Speaker 2 (22:43):
And if I could answer those questions like and show it,
then I would have a book that I could be
proud of.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Wow. I mean I have often said True crime is
an excellent vehicle for telling these kinds of stories, not
for the violence entertainment part of it, but just like
what do we learn about ourselves, about our societies, about
whatever it is? You know that we really can sort
of open up a portal to be able to look
into a world, whatever that world is that we are
(23:13):
not familiar with. That's why I love True crime. Let's
get back to Lance's case. So Crime of Passion. So
what is the first thing now that detective Anastasio decides
to do. Of course, interview people, starting with the employees
and his mom and trying to figure out who in
his life might have been targeting him.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Right, So, and I can't remember what the insurance amount was,
but of course the ex wife would have been the
first suspect. So they talked to her, Janine Herndon, and
they had a kid together. She was dating again, so
that proved that one because she was at her alibi.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Was I think she was with her new boyfriend.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
And then they went to the main woman, Kathy Collins,
and that was the woman who was kind of his
the arm candy and is that he would go out
on the town with, and whose whose photograph was next
to his bedside, and she had clothing and you know,
and and she had things at his house, okay. And
(24:18):
then they had Talana Mitchell, that long time employee.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
And confidant and lover.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
And then is the most recent woman that he was dating,
and that would have been Dion ba.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Well, let me ask you about each of these women. Kathy,
the woman in the photograph who he was parading around town,
did she want more from him that he was willing
to give? What did they establish about their relationship?
Speaker 2 (24:48):
I mean, you know, she kind of became a caricature
early on because of how she reacted, you know. And
she reacted like, Okay, while my sugar daddy has just
you know, it's gone, but I've got things in the house.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
How can I get in there?
Speaker 2 (25:10):
She had some bottles of wine, you know, but now
it's a crime scene. So she's very frustrated. So then,
you know, and that frustrated the police, the investigators that
she would even want to push her way through around that.
It was always kind of about Kathy, right, And then
(25:31):
you had Dion, his most recent lover, you know, and
you couldn't really get a sense she was hysterical, but
they almost felt like crocodile tears on some level, right,
So that made him curious. Talana though, had seen him
the night before, right, and was really nervous, and her
(25:52):
ex boyfriend had been in trouble, and she kind of
had a little bit of street in her anyway, So
she showed up with a lawyer, you know, because she
was terrified.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Innocent people call attorneys, they do, that's the smart thing
to do, calling it. I was so my students at
call an attorney, yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
So you know, and that said that they wondered why
she needed an attorney. So these were these were the
various women.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
What was Tilana's reaction? Since it sounds like if he
is emotionally invested in anyone, it's probably her because they've
been together off and on for years, right, and they
work together. And you said that she was as confident,
so she should be the one who has I would
think the most authentic reaction to this man's murder.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
No, I mean, Kate, that's a really good point.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
You know, Like when I was doing my research, it
wasn't easy to get to people Black. True crime wasn't
a thing. It's still not a thing. It's still you know.
And so here I am poking around and people are like.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Why are you?
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Like why what is the point? And that you're going
to make them look even worse. Then you know, the
trial already made him look and you're gonna like the
family now has got to relive this, you know, and
you know all of that. But you know it was
gonna happen because I was down there and I was
going to try to do a dignity though. Yeah, you know,
(27:18):
I mean, And so I ended up getting them to
talk sparingly, different people at different times over a course
of about three years. Solana was the one that I
knew I needed to get to. I never stopped trying,
and she left. She'd left Atlanta, Georgia. She was married
(27:39):
and living in Colorado. She was a soccer mom by
then in Denver, and so I went out there, though
you know, I flew, I got hold of her.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
At one point she just agreed I met me.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Maybe there was a gesture of offering to just come out.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
It meant that much. I checked into a hotel, you know,
and we.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Spent like two days, and I learned a lot about Lance,
you know, and he became more empathetic. And she, the
way she described him, was all of that was kind
of an act that actually he was a show off,
but you know, it was all power to him. Like
(28:21):
he wasn't great. He loved to be in bed, but
you know, with women, but he wasn't great in bed
and with you know what I mean. And you know,
but he was a frightened little guy, insecure. But she
had come from a small town in North Carolina and
(28:41):
migrated to Atlanta, and she was, you know, attractive and
younger and a little naive and he was very worldly,
and so he kind of took her under his wing,
and she tolerated a lot of like just say, his
peculiar kinds of ways he liked to live, you know,
and and and she participated though by the way, you know,
(29:04):
that's she did, you know, and I got it, you know,
there's no other way to put it.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
But you know, she was carousing too with him.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
You have the challenge that I often have to, which
is you have an unsympathetic in some ways, an unsympathetic victim.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yeah, I mean, like that's what it is, you know,
that's what separates nonfiction from fiction. You know, Like I
would have done this all over again, but there's a
story need, like when you're doing fiction and you have
a choice, like you're going to make a hero a hero,
you know, and this is a book really without many
heroes in it.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
Everyone is so flawed.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Even Clint Rucker.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Who you know is a fantastic prosecutor, he's not without
flaws in this book. And I don't even know how
he pulled it off, to be honest.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Well, let's get to why all of this happened. So
you've got, you know, Detective Anastasio, who has a list
of women that he has to deal with, and it
sounds like he crossed Janine off the list. Is that right?
She had an alibi? Is that what she told me?
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Correct?
Speaker 1 (30:09):
And Kathy had an alibi?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Oh yeah she did too. She was actually flying back
in she wasn't even in town. And it's funny she
actually was dating someone by then, too, Like I think
she was cheating on them. I thought it was starting
to be over right. This is the thing of I mean,
I'm saying, like there's an overall story, a message around
kind of this new class and the compass that you
(30:37):
may have expected that would have grown out of the
civil rights movement and that anchor right there. But how
a drift you know, you were, and how it was
predicted likes by like these black thinkers like W. E. B.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Du Bois, who had like you know, who had his.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Thoughts about materialism and about kind of mimicking white values
in society, you know, and what that was going to do.
And so it really to me Atlanta was at that
point in time a reflection of that.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Well, let's talk about this investigation. There are forensic clues
and there are suspects. How do we end up with
the suspect? Who we end up with? What does Detective
Anastasio end up doing to be able to make an arrest?
Because there was an arrest, thank goodness.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Yeah, yeah, it took him so long and I can't
even it took him a very very long time to
make an arrest. They had a suspect in Dion Ball,
so Lance was coming up on this forty first birthday
party and that was going to be a big big
deal because it's Lance, you know, I mean it's fortieth
birthday party. I think he was in Cape Town and
(31:54):
he had rented like this stretch Mercedes and they paraded
around town with you know.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
But that's the kind of dude he was like.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
He also ingratiated himself with a group of like business people,
like by taking his him out on a lunch on
a submarine.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
I talked to one of the guys and he said, look,
I got this invitation. The jet was like waiting and
they were gonna just we were going down to Florida,
you know, and we went right down there and we
just got on this submarine you know, and we like
right and he said, like I come from a military family.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Oh, and he said, you know it was a white guy.
He was like, like, I like that gift. He said.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
I was like he was said it was amazing. He said,
I will love Lance Herndon forever.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
That's awesome. Yeah, I mean I and I think we
go back to the flawed character. Everybody's flawed some more
than others. You finding those sorts of stories really I
think will drive the book in that you want to
get to the end to find the justice. So with
the investigation, we really start to focus on Dion, who is,
(33:03):
as you described her, his latest girlfriend. Tell me what
you know about Dion since she becomes the main focal
point at this point. What do we know about her?
Speaker 2 (33:12):
A native of Kingston, Jamaica, married to a guy who
was from kind of a very affluent family.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Then they got married and moved to Atlanta and they
had a daughter. He was struggling, though.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
I got the sense, you know that he was a
job as like a pilot. He would go back and
forth between the island and Florida.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
They were living in Miami.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
And then somehow she ended up coming to school and
moving to Atlanta, and he came with her for a minute,
but mostly it was a commuting relationship.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
She ended up working at Marta in the public transportation
in what is it Metro Atlanta, a rail transit authority
or something. Her boss was a friend of Lance Herndon's,
So when Lance sent his invites for this birthday party,
she intercepted it because she was his admin and knew
(34:16):
that Lance was hot stuff and decided she was just
going to piggyback that invitation and go to Lance's forty
first birthday party and that's where he met her and
he was smitten.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
How long ago was that from his death? What was
the time period?
Speaker 3 (34:34):
I would say, like four or five months.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Not smitten enough to dump Kathy Collins obviously, I mean no, but.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
He ended up two times and rite exactly. And that
is what really got to Dion, like she was not.
But Dion started to reveal over through her jealousy kind
of this when she started realized that she was being played,
(35:03):
you know, even though she was married. By the way,
I mean, this gets more and more confusing. I know,
don't ask me. I'm just the reporter in this.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
But she it sounds like she was in love with
him right and she thought there would be a future.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
But he'd also was you know. It was a kind
of a sugar daddy too. He got her a Mercedes.
I think he helped her get a house through this
kind of mentoring relationship. This is how she explained her
relationship with Lance to her husband, that Lance was a
business mentor. During those times in which her husband would
(35:34):
come to Atlanta and she had to explain the house
or the car.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
What does Dion say about that night? Does she say, yeah,
I came to the house, we had sex.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
I don't even think she said we had sex.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
I think she just said I went over there, I
got the computer, and then I had to and then
I came on back. Okay, but it didn't have the
case on it. The computer protective case and another computer
had gone back and forth between those homes because he
loaned that computer to her a few times because she
(36:06):
was a student.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
But again, Lance Hernon.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Was super particular, so he never let that case go.
I mean again, he was a dude that would eat
like his barbecue ribs with like a fork. He didn't
because he didn't want the sauce and his nail beds, right,
I mean, he.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Did everything on a dime.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
He was just military tight, and so that computer at
her home without the case just didn't add up.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
That's the victimology part of it, figuring out what's important
to your victim and what doesn't make sense it's so important. Okay,
So they are collecting physical evidence, including what I remember
being hairs and stuffed under his nail bed to see
what kind of DNA is under there, and it turns
out that they find hairs they think they can match
(37:01):
to her. Right, was it a pubic care Do you
remember that? Yes, but they were having sex, and who's
to say when that hair produced itself and they don't know, right,
And the same thing with under his nails. She could
have said, yeah, we had six a couple of nights ago.
That's why he has my DNA under his nails.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
So they go over there immediately a nostalgia. They go
over there and you know, and knock on the door
the first time, and then she's not home, like, she
doesn't answer, and then I think they come back, and
the neighbor recognizes them, you know, and says, hey, like
you know, she's in there now or something, and she
(37:40):
comes out and she falls into their arms and acts like, okay,
you know, she distraught, but not a tear really, And
so that was a little weird.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
But they didn't have anything.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
So what does Detective Anstossio think happen? I mean, just
if he is trying Pine and Sky trying to figure
out what the argument was about, it seemed clear right
that there was some sort of an argument. She admitted
that she had been there. There was some kind of
an argument. I'm assuming over cheating, maybe over Kathy. So
what does he hide that photo of Kathy every time
(38:17):
Dion comes over? I mean, it's right there, you know,
these days it'd be on his cell phone and it
would be you know.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
That's right, that's right. So one day, I mean, she
starts to Dion is feeling pretty comfortable early on in
this budding romance because she's over there, she's studying, you know,
and I think that they're going to dinner and taking
trips and it's feeling pretty good. And so one day
(38:43):
she shows up unannounced and she sees Kathy like walk
by and Lance didn't let her in the house. You know,
she sees Kathy like in a pajamas or something, just
kind of walk by.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
She's livid.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
She screams and says, let me in the house, Let
me in the house, and Lens is like, I'm not
letting you in the house. And then Lance ends up
having to call the cops on her, and the police
show up and she kind of fights them too, no,
and when they show up, they she can't find her
(39:20):
at first because she's hiding. She's in her own car
on the floor, hiding. So it's starting to get nuts
right around then, so they end up having to.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Arrest her for what trespassing.
Speaker 3 (39:33):
I don't think he even opened the door.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
I think he just thought, like, there's a lunatic outside
my house, you know, and I'm not going to open it.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
And so that is the story he went with. So
when it was.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Time for court and this is it, you know, he
had softened his relationship and said, look, honey, I'm sorry,
I'm going to come. I'll make an appearance and we'll
get this thing dropped. The theory is that they make
love that night, as you mentioned, and then she goes
downstairs while he's sleeping and goes onto his computer to
(40:10):
look at his calendar. That court date was supposed to
be that next day or something, and you know, and
Lance his notes really detailed always he had scheduled stuff
out for three years in advance.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
Wow, that's how organized Lance. Herning was.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
That appearance wasn't on the calendar that he was planning
on helping.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Her, So she was going to show up and maybe
get arrested or something.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Who knows, right, So that's apparently what sets her off.
And she goes upstairs while he's sleeping, and you know,
and then there's this theory and again we don't know
what this murder weapon was, but Lance turned and the
guess is really good clip Rucker prosecution stuff. You know
that during all of this time he had ordered an
(41:02):
exercise machine Oka and arrived in a big box and
it was kind of a StairMaster or something, and that
Lance was gonna like.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
Put it together, you know, and he had a crescent wrench.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
So suddenly, even though they never find the murder weapon,
it's consistent with this crescent wrench that apparently Lance had.
The question is like LANs just doesn't even seem like
the type of person that would ever like build his
own staremaster anyway, you know. But yeah, I mean the
housekeeper said that she had consistently like they continue to
(41:39):
bring her. So did you see the crescent ridge that day? Yes,
I did, sir, Like they put something together.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
So how does Dion explain all of this when she
goes to trial. Is she just saying, listen, I don't
know I left him and we didn't even have Saxon.
That was the end of it. Or does she take
then she take the stand at all?
Speaker 2 (41:58):
No, she didn't take the step. You know, it was
mostly that he just yes, she did. She never took
the stand. The first trial there was some leading the witnesses.
It compromised the trial, and then the second time there
was a hung jury. And then by the third trial,
so many people had died, so many things had happened,
(42:22):
so much had moved on that like, she just pled
guilty and I think she ended up with ten years.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Wonder what the original charge was, if it was like
manslaughter or second degree murder or something like that. Yeah,
it was manslaughter, Okay, manslaughter because they said it was
an act of passion and not premeditated. I'm assuming, well, okay,
so they didn't think it was a she found out
she well, I guess she knew already that he had
been cheating on her and she kind of forgave it,
(42:50):
and so it must have been something different, and so
that they think, and she never admitted that, right.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
Well, he started kind of pulling away, you know, and
that freaked her out, and apparently she became more aggressive
and more I will not be denied.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
So she ends up being well, no, she's not convicted,
she's she takes a plea bargain and how long did
she serve her she's still in prison.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
No, she's out now, Wow.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Husband divorced her. I gotta assume yeah, okay, any idea
what she's doing now?
Speaker 3 (43:23):
No, I'm wondered. You know.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
It was like so she was interesting too, because I'm
into this book. I've talked to as many people as
I can talk to.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
You know, I'm having a hard time, but I.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Continue to try to write letters to her to see
whether I can talk to her.
Speaker 3 (43:41):
In prison in prison, and it's not happening. Every time.
I'm like, and I'm putting the best letters.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
I mean, I spent some time writing these letters, and
they would just come back rejected. And so one day
I'm sitting at the office and I get a call
from a guy named Charles middle Stat and Charles Middlestead
had been retained by He was an investigator himself, but
the defense investigator. And so he said, look, I've been retained.
(44:11):
I've got to like, I've got no time to prepare
for trial, and I need some help, like, and I
understand you've been on this thing for two three years.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
Can you like talk to me and just get me
up to speed on this case?
Speaker 2 (44:27):
And I say, well, yeah, I don't know, like can
you get me Dion?
Speaker 3 (44:33):
And he says, well, let me call.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
You back, and and you know, and I'm thinking, I
just want Dion, because like, how can I do this book?
Speaker 3 (44:42):
How do am I like? You know what I mean?
Like she's a live Like what am I like? It's
just a hole.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
He calls me back and he says, yeah, He's like,
but I'm gonna have to be in the room, you know,
and that and it comes with all of these rules.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
But I just took what I could get.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
So he flies New York and I talked to Charles
like we developed kind of a little buddy like friendship
kind of around that, you know, because I help him out.
And then I fly to Atlanta on different weekend. Then
we go to the Fulham County jail and she's sitting there,
you know, and when I walk in, she's kind of
(45:21):
got a little smirk. And I didn't know what to
wear that day, but I decided to wear a suit,
not a not a tie, but just a suit. So
when I walk in there, she says, oh, you look
different than your photograph and you look important.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
She said that.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
Before I sent her a picture, I was just different,
different appeals and stuff. So I would send her a
casual picture like I'm a guy, I'm a regular guy,
just you know, and that thing didn't fly.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
I should have had a smoking jacket on and a pipe.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
Yeah, the appearances thing.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
That's kind of her character. Man, it's like she's a
little haughty.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
Well you should have thought about that, ron because look
who she was attracted to exactly.
Speaker 3 (46:04):
It made perfect sense.
Speaker 1 (46:06):
So what was she like? I mean, did you find
her to be some manipulative? Was it shocking to you
once you got to know her that she would have
beaten this man to death? That's really what we have
to get back to.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
You know. And I say this with all like and
I'm not being coy or cute. It's hard to be
that surprised by much.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
I mean, first of all, you're in the orbit of
a lot of people who like are kind of different from.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
Lance to everybody around them.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
So like you're talking about like a select a group,
a little culture where there's in order to protect whatever
they have, there's a desperation that I think could.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
Like lead to violence.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
Yeah, you know, I think that if you want to
protect something bad enough, you'd be surprised at who's capable.
I mean, I definitely felt like this personal pride.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
Like, how dare you? I'm not going to be used
by you?
Speaker 1 (47:10):
But what did she want from you? Wasn't she in
the middle of appeals when you were doing that?
Speaker 3 (47:15):
Yeah, she wanted nothing from me.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
She was just doing that as like because her the
lawyer told her to. I got a half hour out
of it, and that was it. And I made it
like and it became a device, you know, I made
it my prologue and my epilogue. I just split the
moment up and I think, like bookends.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Yeah, you need to have those. And we don't know
where she is now. And what do you think if
we think now about Lance, what do we think The
legacy is not the right word he You know, he
had founded a company, he had been a boss, he
had influence. He obviously contributed to the culture of Atlanta
(47:56):
and to this upper echelon of the community that was
still building itself. So where do you think his story belongs?
I know, cautionary tale is what I bet you're thinking.
But at a deeper level, this is someone who accomplished
a lot and look at what flipping happened to him.
How much more could Lance have accomplished had this not happened,
(48:17):
you know.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
I mean, I think that there's a model now for
what modern success looks like for African Americans in Atlanta,
and you can see it in the culture now. It's fully,
fully evolved into that which is kind of like it's
(48:39):
got this glitzy, glamy Southern Hollywood, Southern Hollywood.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
And I think he ushered in that era. He was
the first sighting.
Speaker 1 (48:50):
But he was also the kind of the victim of
what a lot of people would say success and hubris
and arrogance and all of that stuff. I mean, not
to say he's blame for this, Yeah, I mean, I
think it's an interesting story to fit into the history
of the city and particularly the history of the black
community in this city.
Speaker 2 (49:09):
Yeah, you know, and then it affirms that other thing
now that we've talked about, which is like people are
kind of people. So you end up with this kind
of like it's the same story you're going to find
in Cape.
Speaker 3 (49:22):
Cod or anywhere in the world. You know, when it
comes to power.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
And money and greed and hubrisk, we're all vulnerable.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
I agree. I mean, I feel like I've said this before,
murder is centered on human emotions which don't change. The
reason people kill now is the same reason they killed
in the fourteen hundred and fifteen hundreds thirty seven. Ady,
I mean, it's all the same. It's the things that
are based on that's fear, anger, which is part of
fear usually envy, you know, and just sort of like
(49:53):
self preservation to a certain extent. So I think Lance
falls into that. Like I said, there's no amount of
money that could protect him from a crescent wrench. It
sounds like an angry woman just.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
To speak to your cautionary tale.
Speaker 2 (50:07):
In the end, he was kind of in that courtroom alone,
so to speak, the spirit of Lance, because guess what,
none of those powerful friends, none of them wanted to
be anywhere near that hot mess that he had created.
Speaker 3 (50:22):
Okay, all of this.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
This affection that he was getting from the city was gone.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
Yeah, but the women showed up for him. You said
they did.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
They really did.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
And there's something redemptive about Lance turning through that because
they made themselves look cheap by telling those stories, even
in another era. But to get that truth out, you know,
they were willing to take that hit.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
If you love historical true crime stories, check out the
audio versions of my books The Ghost Club, All That
Is Wicked and American Sherlock and Don't Forget. There are
twelve seasons of my historical true crime podcast, Tenfold More
Wicked right here in this podcast feed, scroll back and
give them a listen if you haven't already. This has
been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alexis
(51:27):
a Morosi. Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This episode
was mixed by John Bradley. Curtis heath is our composer,
artwork by Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen
Kilgarriff and Danielle Kramer. Follow Wicked Words on Instagram at
tenfold More Wicked and on Facebook at Wicked Words Pod
This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I've never really seen crime scene photo. This is suddenly
real to me now. The brutality of this murder made
me feel like that actually should be the mission of
yours now in doing the book as so, can you
make him a human being and not like this cliche.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor
in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the
podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,
research for my many audio and book projects has taken
me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down
with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,
(00:58):
and podcasters who have in investigated, and reported on notorious
true crime cases. This is about the choices writers make,
both good and bad, and it's a deep dive into
the unpublished details behind their stories. Self made millionaire Lance
Herndon was one of Atlanta's elite in nineteen ninety six
(01:19):
when he was murdered in his home. Police had a
host of suspects, and they soon realized how complicated Lance's
life really was. Author Ron Stoggil unravels the story in
his book Redbone, Money, Malice, and Murder in Atlanta. This
is a very big question. But from the end of
(01:40):
the Civil War until when this story takes place, which
is nineteen ninety six, what are the changes that happen
in Atlanta after the Civil War? Is Atlanta primarily a
city with white people or is their diversity, you know,
versus where it is today.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
So Atlanta as always, you know it Georgia, you know,
was a big slave state and that population has remained.
The way it was explained to me back then was
that that that like that they had figured out blacks
and whites had figured out a way to kind of
live next to one another. Like they took a lot
(02:18):
of pride during, for instance, the Civil they haven't had
many major major riots there since, you know, way way back,
and they take pride in that that the business community
and the civil rights community had been in kind of
a lockstep and avoided costly mistakes to growing that city.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
And so my impression is.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
That there was a thriving black middle class during that
time all the way even through you know, from emancipation
through Jim Crow, you know, but there was a lot
of clergy, a lot of educators. You amassed that power structure,
(03:03):
and it manifested in a first black mayor, which would
have been Maynor Jackson, you know, and it was upun
you know, during his watch that now you see this
real thriving black community because he was able to use
his perch, you know, in government to steer dollars towards
(03:26):
black citizens and at the airport, you know, and the
construction of it is kind of symbolic of that.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Tell me a little bit about Lance. You've told me
a little bit about what you had called the nuvoreche
kind of these people who who have very affluent jobs
and are now gaining a lot of power in the community.
Tell me how Lance fits into all of this. Tell
me more about him.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
I mean, I thought that Lance was a creature of
that time.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
You know, he was born in New York.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
He had at this sort of computer tech background. So
he was moving into Atlanta as Atlanta was starting to flourish,
and so he was able to get government contracts and
wheel and deal in a city that is populated by
black movers and shakers. But he did it with another
kind of you know, East Coast flair, and that I
(04:21):
would say intersected with the kind of Hollywood, black Hollywood
that Atlanta has become today, you know, with the Tyler
Perry studios and the music presence.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
It is kind of the Black Mecca.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Was He kind of positioned himself to be a prince
of that, you know. In the book, I kind of
call him like a Gatsby figure. He threw great parties,
he knew everyone. That's the public part of Lance.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
So the assumption I have, and tell me if I'm wrong,
is he is intelligent, charming, good looking, popular with women.
Is any of that inaccurate about Lance?
Speaker 3 (05:02):
No, that's probably all an understatement to be.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
A Gatsby figure in Atlanta, I think those are all
probably requirements. What else is there about him, though, that
you found to be intriguing or unique? That has nothing
to do with the crime, but just sort of what
is it about him that you think it was intriguing
to other people too?
Speaker 3 (05:21):
He was known as a very generous guy.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
She was very very well liked by a lot of
people because he listened. You know, this is what I
You know, maybe as a reporter, I'm fascinated. I was
fascinated by that, But you know, he was the kind
of person that if he met you that he would
sort of find out your daughter or son's interest and
(05:44):
you know, and drop a gift by there, you know
what I mean that, Yeah, there's some tickets to a
theater or a game or that kind of very thoughtful person,
you know. And and and you could say he was
opportunistic and machiavellian, you know, but very well liked the
man about town, you know. And I think in a
(06:06):
city of strivers and climbers, there was a lot of
currency in that.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
You said he came from New York. Was he close
to his family? Were they still in New York or
did anybody fall on them down to Atlanta?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Well, his mom moved there with him to Atlanta, you know,
and his dad and mom had.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Split years ago.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
So he was raised by a single mother, being the
son of a single mother who was very strict and
she worked like a lot of jobs, and she would
leave all of these posted notes around the apartment that
would kind of guide him through his day because he
(06:49):
was a latchkey kid, and that fundamentally kind of became
his work ethic and his style of management because he
did to talk to his employees as much as leave tapes,
you know, the night before, so that they would come
in and have their marching orders.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
He just felt like that.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Was if I'm talking to you during the day, then
I'm wasting time and money.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
His mother must have just been over the moon when
he became so successful and successful enough I'm assuming to
support her and bring her down to Atlanta. I mean,
that's a lot about their relationship.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Yeah, no, I mean she lived down the street, you know,
and she was very much the matriarch, you know, she
worried about him, you know. But my impression is that
they were very very close and saw one another daily.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Had he ever been he's forty one when he dies,
had he ever been married or had kids or what
was his general before we get into some of the
heavier stuff here, what was his general approach to relationships
from the time that he was, you know, dating age
up until he ends up dying.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
He couldn't keep a marriage, you know, he'd been married
a couple of times. I think infidelity was the issue,
but he had he didn't have kids prior he had
kids with this this third wife, Jeanine Price, a woman
from Kansas City, and he'd met her. It's kind of
(08:28):
a cool story really, Like, you know, he traveled a lot.
He had gone to Brazil and there's that statue, there
is the Christ, you know, and he apparently was just
there taking pictures and just being a tourist. She also
was there because she was a flight attendant, like a
(08:50):
corporate flight attendant though, and so yeah, they locked eyes
at the bott at the foot of this you know, statue,
and it like they were the only African American people
in the crowd.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
They spoke the same language.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Divine intervention then, right.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Yeah, she was just like, this must be the man
for me.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Well, I think we need to get to the crime
that happens and how it all becomes discovered. Let's just
talk about what led to his depth. Where does it
make sense for you to start, you know, toward that event.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Well, Kate, you're just you know, you're brilliant because your
timing couldn't be better. It's the you know, we just
finished up the Olympics in Paris, you know, and so
Lance was killed. As you can imagine, they found his
body on that like they did the closing ceremonies on Sunday, right,
(09:45):
and they found him on Monday, morning, very very early,
right during the Atlanta Olympics, you know, and so this
is a time in which a city puts itself on display.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
He had enjoyed a lot.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Of those festivities, you know, as you can imagine, he
had tickets to everything, and so he spent a lot
of time. And then they found him one morning on
that Monday morning, bludgeoned to death in his mansion. They
found him in bed. You know, his skull was cracked open,
and he was nude, and there was blood spatter.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
On the wall behind him and on the headboard, and
could you could kind of see that these descending blows
they were about I don't know, twelve or something like that.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Wow, it was clear that it was like some kind
of crime of passion. At least that's what that, you know, automatically,
because they were just like, wow, you know, this this
whatever object, this blunt force object, just descending down and
you could see the spatter on the walls. There were
some carpet and prints, shoe and prints.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
So who was the last person and to see him alive,
which I assume would have been closing ceremonies the night before,
on Sunday night.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
It would have been one of his office workers.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
He had an event coming up that he was sponsoring,
and so one of his employees and he had had
to had an affair with her years prior, all off
and on one right exactly. That became kind of a
big thing because it was such a forensics driven case
(11:31):
and he was such a womanizer, right that when you
look like all of this DNA in his room and stuff,
how do you connect it to anyone?
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Really?
Speaker 1 (11:41):
You know, he has a big inner circle, right, you
know when they're when the police are looking, they're looking
tight first, and he's exposed to a lot besides the
people he's exposed to through business. Then he's got all
of these women around him. And then he goes to nightclubs,
so there are people who know him who he's not
even sleeping with, and so that's a big that's a
big inner circle to deal with.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Right.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
So he has an employee who he's had an often
on again affair with, but he goes home by himself.
It sounds like, is that right that night, that Sunday night.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
He does, except then he calls one of this woman
that he's had been having an affair with, Okay, and
she does come come by I will tell you he
was such a cliche in a way because he was
a black man who really only liked these fair skinned women,
you know, and so entitling the book he loved black
(12:31):
women like with European features, and so like there's this
slang around that down South. It's like a colloquialism, and
they call these kinds of women redbones, like fair skinned
black women, and so that, yes, a Southern slang, and
so that is the title of the book.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
That's it grows from that because that's all he liked.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Wow, okay, and it's.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Kind of offensive, Like nobody really wants wants to be
called a redbone, by the way.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
So let's just think of this as an investigator's point
of view. Who do the police get a phone call
from Monday morning upon the discovery of this body? What
alerts them to begin with?
Speaker 3 (13:12):
So, as I mentioned, you know, like so he had
his office at his home.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
You know, it's a pretty big home in his but
they were blocked off from working upstairs. But the whole
downstairs kind of basement suite was like he had a
few employees in there.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Like four employees, you know.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
So that morning, his habit, his ritual was that, you know,
as an employee, you would arrive to tape instructions and
those tapes were not there that morning, and that automatically
set off some alarms. So of course, the first phone
call they make is to mom, and Mom lives down
(13:54):
the street. So Mom comes over there like, hey, I
don't know, maybe is sleeping really late or something.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
He's been doing all this Olympic stuff, hanging out every night.
And so she goes upstairs and then there's this blood
curdling scream and she's like, my baby, my baby. She
calls nine one one and they try to kind of
talk her down a little bit, and that's how they
were alerted.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
And now I was thinking of suspects. I was thinking, Okay,
if this is an employee, you know it was either
a crime of passion or not an employee, because you
would have known, well, if you're going to murder your boss,
do it like Friday night, because this won't be discovered
for a couple of days. But that's just me thinking
about it. Okay. So Mom calls the police, and the
(14:44):
police show up, and I'm assuming they are shocked because
this is a beautiful house and a wonderful neighborhood, an
effluent man who has a business.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
They could see he was a bachelor though, because by
then his lovely wife had moved out Jane so had
taken a lot of the furniture, and he was just
kind of there. Let's just say that it was minimalism
by then.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
You know, I've gotten used to asking this question on
this show. Do we have competent police on this case
or not?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
I mean, I think that's a good question, you know,
and even these days, I think that question becomes more
and more complex. But the impression that I get from
my reporting is that they don't. These kind of cases
didn't happen that often in Roswell.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
This is Roswell Police who are responding, not Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Yeah, this is Roswell police.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
So they may have been a little over there, like
this was a little over their head maybe, but you know,
I mean committed for sure. Detective Nostalgio, we spent time together.
That was the main guy handling it. I think that
like people question maybe how he went about things, but
I thought he was fairly.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
But you didn't get the impression that race was going
to play a role in this investigation, like it doesn't
so many other investigations.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Yeah, I mean I think that there was a novelty factor.
They knew it was going to be this because this
guy was all attached all the way up to the
district attorney Paul Howard.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
And you know Fannie willis the woman that ended up
prosecuting Donald Trump. Yes, she succeeded maybe Paul Howard, like
the guy, yeah something.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
You know that's the same office. Yeah, that's where he
wound up.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
I did not know Lance was politically connected in that way.
I guess I assumed it was just business. So did
he have friends in politics? Also?
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Very much so?
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yeah, Yeah, I mean, you know, he had a had
he kind of the impression I got was that he
had everybody on kind of speed dials.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
You know, how long had he been here before this happened?
How many years?
Speaker 3 (16:56):
I want to say, a couple of decades?
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Is sha oh? Okay, okay, he is in trench than
in this community. Okay. So the police show up and
then you have Detective Anastasio. Is that how you say
his name?
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yeah, and he reports to the scene and they find
what I had read was he it seemed like he
had been smacked in the back of the head and stunned,
and then everything else seemed to be like really serious
facial injuries. And as you were saying, just you know,
more than a dozen blows to the front of his face,
did he have defensive wounds as far as you know,
(17:31):
or was this.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
No, that's what they figured that he was ambushed, that
he must have been like that he was awakened, and
then it just came crashing those blows came crashing down
before he could even react. What they also found was
he was covered up when that you know, his face.
I think they took like a sheet and covered them up,
(17:54):
as you know, as they moved about the room, and like,
I think they cleaned themselves up and I had to
cover up a few things, and you know, but that
sense from investigators was like they couldn't stand the kind
of look at their work.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Yeah, that's not covering up your crime. I mean, they
know he's going to be discovered. So yeah, that's that's interesting. Okay,
let me ask you a series of questions. Anything taken,
I mean, I know Janine took it sounds like everything,
but I mean it was anything of value taken?
Speaker 3 (18:25):
No, I don't think anything was taken.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
I think what was clear though he had bedside one
of his women, you know, photograph of her in like
a little you know.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Nightgown, and it was it was face down.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
That picture was face down, So that was another thing
like why, you know, was it jealousy?
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Like why is this photo face down?
Speaker 2 (18:50):
And actually just to give you a sense of the
time too, and kind of maybe a slight creep factor,
you might it was in a waterbed. Oh no, right,
which meant like that you couldn't really kept his body
consistent like that rigor mortis didn't set in, so they
couldn't come up with that time of death.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
And the employee, the woman who he had been sleeping with,
off and on, did she give a time when she
if she was the last person besides the killer who
saw him and she wasn't the killer. Did she say
it was like early evening when she left.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Yeah, I think she said she went over there and
she borrowed a computer or something. It really like the
way it played out, it was all circumstantial, by the way.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
So let me ask you, because I don't know this
time period security systems in ninety six and cameras, was
that happening.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
No, No, they weren't.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
I mean not at Roswell, not at the lands Herndon home.
They didn't pull any of that out. Now it's a
good question. I mean, we wouldn't. I wouldn't have had
to write a book.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
No weapons, he didn't have a gun or anything for protection.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
No, I mean, and they never discovered like what the
weapon was. So I'm going to pause here and just say,
I'm working at Time magazine in New York City and
I hear about this story, and I hear about it
from my dad, who was a court TV watcher, you know,
(20:23):
and at that time, the women were testifying in Lance
Herndon's behalf, and my dad was shocked because this was
years later and a lot of the women had married
and moved on, but they had come back.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
And so that was like, well, who was liked so much?
Who is this guy?
Speaker 2 (20:45):
So I just parachute in and I wanted to see
whether there was a book in this, a story in
this then, you know, and I met up in this
early investor first investigation, called the assistant DA Clinton.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Rucker, who's a lawyer, and he had gotten that case.
You know. I talked him into meeting with me.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
He had moved on, and I mean I had been
there two or three days looking through documents, and he
was not meeting with me. And then finally he called
me and said, hey, you know, of course you know
meet me.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
And we met in his office.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
He said this, he said, huh, have you ever seen
the crime scene photos? And I said no, and he
said hold on, and I'd never really seen crime scene
photos and he just kind of were these polaroids and
he just dropped them on the desk in front of me.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
I felt nothing but shame at the moment.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Like it was like I felt like, Okay, this is
suddenly real to me now, like this is more than
just some dramatic or it titillating murder thing like this
he didn't even have, Like the way he died, the way,
like the brutality of this murder made me feel like
(22:07):
that actually should be the mission of yours now in
doing the book, is so can you make him a
human being and not like this cliche and tell the
story about how this story really in the end is
how a person, a black man in the South, who's
(22:27):
a transplant, who has the world at his fingertips, seemingly
how he would die like just some street dude on
the corner like that, Like how do how do those worlds?
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Those emotions? You know?
Speaker 2 (22:43):
And if I could answer those questions like and show it,
then I would have a book that I could be
proud of.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Wow. I mean I have often said True crime is
an excellent vehicle for telling these kinds of stories, not
for the violence entertainment part of it, but just like
what do we learn about ourselves, about our societies, about
whatever it is? You know that we really can sort
of open up a portal to be able to look
into a world, whatever that world is that we are
(23:13):
not familiar with. That's why I love True crime. Let's
get back to Lance's case. So Crime of Passion. So
what is the first thing now that detective Anastasio decides
to do. Of course, interview people, starting with the employees
and his mom and trying to figure out who in
his life might have been targeting him.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Right, So, and I can't remember what the insurance amount was,
but of course the ex wife would have been the
first suspect. So they talked to her, Janine Herndon, and
they had a kid together. She was dating again, so
that proved that one because she was at her alibi.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Was I think she was with her new boyfriend.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
And then they went to the main woman, Kathy Collins,
and that was the woman who was kind of his
the arm candy and is that he would go out
on the town with, and whose whose photograph was next
to his bedside, and she had clothing and you know,
and and she had things at his house, okay. And
(24:18):
then they had Talana Mitchell, that long time employee.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
And confidant and lover.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
And then is the most recent woman that he was dating,
and that would have been Dion ba.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Well, let me ask you about each of these women. Kathy,
the woman in the photograph who he was parading around town,
did she want more from him that he was willing
to give? What did they establish about their relationship?
Speaker 2 (24:48):
I mean, you know, she kind of became a caricature
early on because of how she reacted, you know. And
she reacted like, Okay, while my sugar daddy has just
you know, it's gone, but I've got things in the house.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
How can I get in there?
Speaker 2 (25:10):
She had some bottles of wine, you know, but now
it's a crime scene. So she's very frustrated. So then,
you know, and that frustrated the police, the investigators that
she would even want to push her way through around that.
It was always kind of about Kathy, right, And then
(25:31):
you had Dion, his most recent lover, you know, and
you couldn't really get a sense she was hysterical, but
they almost felt like crocodile tears on some level, right,
So that made him curious. Talana though, had seen him
the night before, right, and was really nervous, and her
(25:52):
ex boyfriend had been in trouble, and she kind of
had a little bit of street in her anyway, So
she showed up with a lawyer, you know, because she
was terrified.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Innocent people call attorneys, they do, that's the smart thing
to do, calling it. I was so my students at
call an attorney, yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
So you know, and that said that they wondered why
she needed an attorney. So these were these were the
various women.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
What was Tilana's reaction? Since it sounds like if he
is emotionally invested in anyone, it's probably her because they've
been together off and on for years, right, and they
work together. And you said that she was as confident,
so she should be the one who has I would
think the most authentic reaction to this man's murder.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
No, I mean, Kate, that's a really good point.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
You know, Like when I was doing my research, it
wasn't easy to get to people Black. True crime wasn't
a thing. It's still not a thing. It's still you know.
And so here I am poking around and people are like.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Why are you?
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Like why what is the point? And that you're going
to make them look even worse. Then you know, the
trial already made him look and you're gonna like the
family now has got to relive this, you know, and
you know all of that. But you know it was
gonna happen because I was down there and I was
going to try to do a dignity though. Yeah, you know,
(27:18):
I mean, And so I ended up getting them to
talk sparingly, different people at different times over a course
of about three years. Solana was the one that I
knew I needed to get to. I never stopped trying,
and she left. She'd left Atlanta, Georgia. She was married
(27:39):
and living in Colorado. She was a soccer mom by
then in Denver, and so I went out there, though
you know, I flew, I got hold of her.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
At one point she just agreed I met me.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Maybe there was a gesture of offering to just come out.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
It meant that much. I checked into a hotel, you know,
and we.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Spent like two days, and I learned a lot about Lance,
you know, and he became more empathetic. And she, the
way she described him, was all of that was kind
of an act that actually he was a show off,
but you know, it was all power to him. Like
(28:21):
he wasn't great. He loved to be in bed, but
you know, with women, but he wasn't great in bed
and with you know what I mean. And you know,
but he was a frightened little guy, insecure. But she
had come from a small town in North Carolina and
(28:41):
migrated to Atlanta, and she was, you know, attractive and
younger and a little naive and he was very worldly,
and so he kind of took her under his wing,
and she tolerated a lot of like just say, his
peculiar kinds of ways he liked to live, you know,
and and and she participated though by the way, you know,
(29:04):
that's she did, you know, and I got it, you know,
there's no other way to put it.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
But you know, she was carousing too with him.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
You have the challenge that I often have to, which
is you have an unsympathetic in some ways, an unsympathetic victim.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yeah, I mean, like that's what it is, you know,
that's what separates nonfiction from fiction. You know, Like I
would have done this all over again, but there's a
story need, like when you're doing fiction and you have
a choice, like you're going to make a hero a hero,
you know, and this is a book really without many
heroes in it.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
Everyone is so flawed.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Even Clint Rucker.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Who you know is a fantastic prosecutor, he's not without
flaws in this book. And I don't even know how
he pulled it off, to be honest.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Well, let's get to why all of this happened. So
you've got, you know, Detective Anastasio, who has a list
of women that he has to deal with, and it
sounds like he crossed Janine off the list. Is that right?
She had an alibi? Is that what she told me?
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Correct?
Speaker 1 (30:09):
And Kathy had an alibi?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Oh yeah she did too. She was actually flying back
in she wasn't even in town. And it's funny she
actually was dating someone by then, too, Like I think
she was cheating on them. I thought it was starting
to be over right. This is the thing of I mean,
I'm saying, like there's an overall story, a message around
kind of this new class and the compass that you
(30:37):
may have expected that would have grown out of the
civil rights movement and that anchor right there. But how
a drift you know, you were, and how it was
predicted likes by like these black thinkers like W. E. B.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Du Bois, who had like you know, who had his.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Thoughts about materialism and about kind of mimicking white values
in society, you know, and what that was going to do.
And so it really to me Atlanta was at that
point in time a reflection of that.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Well, let's talk about this investigation. There are forensic clues
and there are suspects. How do we end up with
the suspect? Who we end up with? What does Detective
Anastasio end up doing to be able to make an arrest?
Because there was an arrest, thank goodness.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Yeah, yeah, it took him so long and I can't
even it took him a very very long time to
make an arrest. They had a suspect in Dion Ball,
so Lance was coming up on this forty first birthday
party and that was going to be a big big
deal because it's Lance, you know, I mean it's fortieth
birthday party. I think he was in Cape Town and
(31:54):
he had rented like this stretch Mercedes and they paraded
around town with you know.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
But that's the kind of dude he was like.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
He also ingratiated himself with a group of like business people,
like by taking his him out on a lunch on
a submarine.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
I talked to one of the guys and he said, look,
I got this invitation. The jet was like waiting and
they were gonna just we were going down to Florida,
you know, and we went right down there and we
just got on this submarine you know, and we like
right and he said, like I come from a military family.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Oh, and he said, you know it was a white guy.
He was like, like, I like that gift. He said.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
I was like he was said it was amazing. He said,
I will love Lance Herndon forever.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
That's awesome. Yeah, I mean I and I think we
go back to the flawed character. Everybody's flawed some more
than others. You finding those sorts of stories really I
think will drive the book in that you want to
get to the end to find the justice. So with
the investigation, we really start to focus on Dion, who is,
(33:03):
as you described her, his latest girlfriend. Tell me what
you know about Dion since she becomes the main focal
point at this point. What do we know about her?
Speaker 2 (33:12):
A native of Kingston, Jamaica, married to a guy who
was from kind of a very affluent family.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Then they got married and moved to Atlanta and they
had a daughter. He was struggling, though.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
I got the sense, you know that he was a
job as like a pilot. He would go back and
forth between the island and Florida.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
They were living in Miami.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
And then somehow she ended up coming to school and
moving to Atlanta, and he came with her for a minute,
but mostly it was a commuting relationship.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
She ended up working at Marta in the public transportation
in what is it Metro Atlanta, a rail transit authority
or something. Her boss was a friend of Lance Herndon's,
So when Lance sent his invites for this birthday party,
she intercepted it because she was his admin and knew
(34:16):
that Lance was hot stuff and decided she was just
going to piggyback that invitation and go to Lance's forty
first birthday party and that's where he met her and
he was smitten.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
How long ago was that from his death? What was
the time period?
Speaker 3 (34:34):
I would say, like four or five months.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Not smitten enough to dump Kathy Collins obviously, I mean no, but.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
He ended up two times and rite exactly. And that
is what really got to Dion, like she was not.
But Dion started to reveal over through her jealousy kind
of this when she started realized that she was being played,
(35:03):
you know, even though she was married. By the way,
I mean, this gets more and more confusing. I know,
don't ask me. I'm just the reporter in this.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
But she it sounds like she was in love with
him right and she thought there would be a future.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
But he'd also was you know. It was a kind
of a sugar daddy too. He got her a Mercedes.
I think he helped her get a house through this
kind of mentoring relationship. This is how she explained her
relationship with Lance to her husband, that Lance was a
business mentor. During those times in which her husband would
(35:34):
come to Atlanta and she had to explain the house
or the car.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
What does Dion say about that night? Does she say, yeah,
I came to the house, we had sex.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
I don't even think she said we had sex.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
I think she just said I went over there, I
got the computer, and then I had to and then
I came on back. Okay, but it didn't have the
case on it. The computer protective case and another computer
had gone back and forth between those homes because he
loaned that computer to her a few times because she
(36:06):
was a student.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
But again, Lance Hernon.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Was super particular, so he never let that case go.
I mean again, he was a dude that would eat
like his barbecue ribs with like a fork. He didn't
because he didn't want the sauce and his nail beds, right,
I mean, he.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Did everything on a dime.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
He was just military tight, and so that computer at
her home without the case just didn't add up.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
That's the victimology part of it, figuring out what's important
to your victim and what doesn't make sense it's so important. Okay,
So they are collecting physical evidence, including what I remember
being hairs and stuffed under his nail bed to see
what kind of DNA is under there, and it turns
out that they find hairs they think they can match
(37:01):
to her. Right, was it a pubic care Do you
remember that? Yes, but they were having sex, and who's
to say when that hair produced itself and they don't know, right,
And the same thing with under his nails. She could
have said, yeah, we had six a couple of nights ago.
That's why he has my DNA under his nails.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
So they go over there immediately a nostalgia. They go
over there and you know, and knock on the door
the first time, and then she's not home, like, she
doesn't answer, and then I think they come back, and
the neighbor recognizes them, you know, and says, hey, like
you know, she's in there now or something, and she
(37:40):
comes out and she falls into their arms and acts like, okay,
you know, she distraught, but not a tear really, And
so that was a little weird.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
But they didn't have anything.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
So what does Detective Anstossio think happen? I mean, just
if he is trying Pine and Sky trying to figure
out what the argument was about, it seemed clear right
that there was some sort of an argument. She admitted
that she had been there. There was some kind of
an argument. I'm assuming over cheating, maybe over Kathy. So
what does he hide that photo of Kathy every time
(38:17):
Dion comes over? I mean, it's right there, you know,
these days it'd be on his cell phone and it
would be you know.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
That's right, that's right. So one day, I mean, she
starts to Dion is feeling pretty comfortable early on in
this budding romance because she's over there, she's studying, you know,
and I think that they're going to dinner and taking
trips and it's feeling pretty good. And so one day
(38:43):
she shows up unannounced and she sees Kathy like walk
by and Lance didn't let her in the house. You know,
she sees Kathy like in a pajamas or something, just
kind of walk by.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
She's livid.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
She screams and says, let me in the house, Let
me in the house, and Lens is like, I'm not
letting you in the house. And then Lance ends up
having to call the cops on her, and the police
show up and she kind of fights them too, no,
and when they show up, they she can't find her
(39:20):
at first because she's hiding. She's in her own car
on the floor, hiding. So it's starting to get nuts
right around then, so they end up having to.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Arrest her for what trespassing.
Speaker 3 (39:33):
I don't think he even opened the door.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
I think he just thought, like, there's a lunatic outside
my house, you know, and I'm not going to open it.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
And so that is the story he went with. So
when it was.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Time for court and this is it, you know, he
had softened his relationship and said, look, honey, I'm sorry,
I'm going to come. I'll make an appearance and we'll
get this thing dropped. The theory is that they make
love that night, as you mentioned, and then she goes
downstairs while he's sleeping and goes onto his computer to
(40:10):
look at his calendar. That court date was supposed to
be that next day or something, and you know, and
Lance his notes really detailed always he had scheduled stuff
out for three years in advance.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
Wow, that's how organized Lance. Herning was.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
That appearance wasn't on the calendar that he was planning
on helping.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Her, So she was going to show up and maybe
get arrested or something.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Who knows, right, So that's apparently what sets her off.
And she goes upstairs while he's sleeping, and you know,
and then there's this theory and again we don't know
what this murder weapon was, but Lance turned and the
guess is really good clip Rucker prosecution stuff. You know
that during all of this time he had ordered an
(41:02):
exercise machine Oka and arrived in a big box and
it was kind of a StairMaster or something, and that
Lance was gonna like.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
Put it together, you know, and he had a crescent wrench.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
So suddenly, even though they never find the murder weapon,
it's consistent with this crescent wrench that apparently Lance had.
The question is like LANs just doesn't even seem like
the type of person that would ever like build his
own staremaster anyway, you know. But yeah, I mean the
housekeeper said that she had consistently like they continue to
(41:39):
bring her. So did you see the crescent ridge that day? Yes,
I did, sir, Like they put something together.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
So how does Dion explain all of this when she
goes to trial. Is she just saying, listen, I don't
know I left him and we didn't even have Saxon.
That was the end of it. Or does she take
then she take the stand at all?
Speaker 2 (41:58):
No, she didn't take the step. You know, it was
mostly that he just yes, she did. She never took
the stand. The first trial there was some leading the witnesses.
It compromised the trial, and then the second time there
was a hung jury. And then by the third trial,
so many people had died, so many things had happened,
(42:22):
so much had moved on that like, she just pled
guilty and I think she ended up with ten years.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Wonder what the original charge was, if it was like
manslaughter or second degree murder or something like that. Yeah,
it was manslaughter, Okay, manslaughter because they said it was
an act of passion and not premeditated. I'm assuming, well, okay,
so they didn't think it was a she found out
she well, I guess she knew already that he had
been cheating on her and she kind of forgave it,
(42:50):
and so it must have been something different, and so
that they think, and she never admitted that, right.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
Well, he started kind of pulling away, you know, and
that freaked her out, and apparently she became more aggressive
and more I will not be denied.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
So she ends up being well, no, she's not convicted,
she's she takes a plea bargain and how long did
she serve her she's still in prison.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
No, she's out now, Wow.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Husband divorced her. I gotta assume yeah, okay, any idea
what she's doing now?
Speaker 3 (43:23):
No, I'm wondered. You know.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
It was like so she was interesting too, because I'm
into this book. I've talked to as many people as
I can talk to.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
You know, I'm having a hard time, but I.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Continue to try to write letters to her to see
whether I can talk to her.
Speaker 3 (43:41):
In prison in prison, and it's not happening. Every time.
I'm like, and I'm putting the best letters.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
I mean, I spent some time writing these letters, and
they would just come back rejected. And so one day
I'm sitting at the office and I get a call
from a guy named Charles middle Stat and Charles Middlestead
had been retained by He was an investigator himself, but
the defense investigator. And so he said, look, I've been retained.
(44:11):
I've got to like, I've got no time to prepare
for trial, and I need some help, like, and I
understand you've been on this thing for two three years.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
Can you like talk to me and just get me
up to speed on this case?
Speaker 2 (44:27):
And I say, well, yeah, I don't know, like can
you get me Dion?
Speaker 3 (44:33):
And he says, well, let me call.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
You back, and and you know, and I'm thinking, I
just want Dion, because like, how can I do this book?
Speaker 3 (44:42):
How do am I like? You know what I mean?
Like she's a live Like what am I like? It's
just a hole.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
He calls me back and he says, yeah, He's like,
but I'm gonna have to be in the room, you know,
and that and it comes with all of these rules.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
But I just took what I could get.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
So he flies New York and I talked to Charles
like we developed kind of a little buddy like friendship
kind of around that, you know, because I help him out.
And then I fly to Atlanta on different weekend. Then
we go to the Fulham County jail and she's sitting there,
you know, and when I walk in, she's kind of
(45:21):
got a little smirk. And I didn't know what to
wear that day, but I decided to wear a suit,
not a not a tie, but just a suit. So
when I walk in there, she says, oh, you look
different than your photograph and you look important.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
She said that.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
Before I sent her a picture, I was just different,
different appeals and stuff. So I would send her a
casual picture like I'm a guy, I'm a regular guy,
just you know, and that thing didn't fly.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
I should have had a smoking jacket on and a pipe.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
Yeah, the appearances thing.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
That's kind of her character. Man, it's like she's a
little haughty.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
Well you should have thought about that, ron because look
who she was attracted to exactly.
Speaker 3 (46:04):
It made perfect sense.
Speaker 1 (46:06):
So what was she like? I mean, did you find
her to be some manipulative? Was it shocking to you
once you got to know her that she would have
beaten this man to death? That's really what we have
to get back to.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
You know. And I say this with all like and
I'm not being coy or cute. It's hard to be
that surprised by much.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
I mean, first of all, you're in the orbit of
a lot of people who like are kind of different from.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
Lance to everybody around them.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
So like you're talking about like a select a group,
a little culture where there's in order to protect whatever
they have, there's a desperation that I think could.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
Like lead to violence.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
Yeah, you know, I think that if you want to
protect something bad enough, you'd be surprised at who's capable.
I mean, I definitely felt like this personal pride.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
Like, how dare you? I'm not going to be used
by you?
Speaker 1 (47:10):
But what did she want from you? Wasn't she in
the middle of appeals when you were doing that?
Speaker 3 (47:15):
Yeah, she wanted nothing from me.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
She was just doing that as like because her the
lawyer told her to. I got a half hour out
of it, and that was it. And I made it
like and it became a device, you know, I made
it my prologue and my epilogue. I just split the
moment up and I think, like bookends.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Yeah, you need to have those. And we don't know
where she is now. And what do you think if
we think now about Lance, what do we think The
legacy is not the right word he You know, he
had founded a company, he had been a boss, he
had influence. He obviously contributed to the culture of Atlanta
(47:56):
and to this upper echelon of the community that was
still building itself. So where do you think his story belongs?
I know, cautionary tale is what I bet you're thinking.
But at a deeper level, this is someone who accomplished
a lot and look at what flipping happened to him.
How much more could Lance have accomplished had this not happened,
(48:17):
you know.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
I mean, I think that there's a model now for
what modern success looks like for African Americans in Atlanta,
and you can see it in the culture now. It's fully,
fully evolved into that which is kind of like it's
(48:39):
got this glitzy, glamy Southern Hollywood, Southern Hollywood.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
And I think he ushered in that era. He was
the first sighting.
Speaker 1 (48:50):
But he was also the kind of the victim of
what a lot of people would say success and hubris
and arrogance and all of that stuff. I mean, not
to say he's blame for this, Yeah, I mean, I
think it's an interesting story to fit into the history
of the city and particularly the history of the black
community in this city.
Speaker 2 (49:09):
Yeah, you know, and then it affirms that other thing
now that we've talked about, which is like people are
kind of people. So you end up with this kind
of like it's the same story you're going to find
in Cape.
Speaker 3 (49:22):
Cod or anywhere in the world. You know, when it
comes to power.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
And money and greed and hubrisk, we're all vulnerable.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
I agree. I mean, I feel like I've said this before,
murder is centered on human emotions which don't change. The
reason people kill now is the same reason they killed
in the fourteen hundred and fifteen hundreds thirty seven. Ady,
I mean, it's all the same. It's the things that
are based on that's fear, anger, which is part of
fear usually envy, you know, and just sort of like
(49:53):
self preservation to a certain extent. So I think Lance
falls into that. Like I said, there's no amount of
money that could protect him from a crescent wrench. It
sounds like an angry woman just.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
To speak to your cautionary tale.
Speaker 2 (50:07):
In the end, he was kind of in that courtroom alone,
so to speak, the spirit of Lance, because guess what,
none of those powerful friends, none of them wanted to
be anywhere near that hot mess that he had created.
Speaker 3 (50:22):
Okay, all of this.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
This affection that he was getting from the city was gone.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
Yeah, but the women showed up for him. You said
they did.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
They really did.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
And there's something redemptive about Lance turning through that because
they made themselves look cheap by telling those stories, even
in another era. But to get that truth out, you know,
they were willing to take that hit.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
If you love historical true crime stories, check out the
audio versions of my books The Ghost Club, All That
Is Wicked and American Sherlock and Don't Forget. There are
twelve seasons of my historical true crime podcast, Tenfold More
Wicked right here in this podcast feed, scroll back and
give them a listen if you haven't already. This has
been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alexis
(51:27):
a Morosi. Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This episode
was mixed by John Bradley. Curtis heath is our composer,
artwork by Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen
Kilgarriff and Danielle Kramer. Follow Wicked Words on Instagram at
tenfold More Wicked and on Facebook at Wicked Words Pod
Host
Kate Winkler Dawson
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