Ep 97: The Disappearance of the Murray-O'Hair Family, Part II

Episode Transcript
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(00:38):
Well, hello everybody, welcome backto another episode of All Prime, No
Cattle, a Texas true crime podcast. We are back in the closet.
I don't know when we're gonna getout of the closet, but we are
here in the closet. It isYou said you loved the sound of the
closets, might stay here. Yeah, it works really well. I can
see why voice actors and professionals recordin the closet now. But your toe

(01:03):
is broken, we think may haveprobably yeah, yeah, do you want
to expound on that? You youkicked up trash can? Yeah, I
mean that's pretty much what happened.I kicked a trash can coming around a
corner to do nothing. I wasgoing too fast to do nothing. Yeah,
it's very bruised. Yeah, ithurts pain. But hey, I'm
here dedicated to my craft. Yes, I'm ready to record. And it

(01:26):
is part two of a two parter. So we are. We are at
the climax. We have all thisthis interesting info we have to dig into.
So keep that in mind. Ifyou haven't listened to part one of
this series, go back listen tothat first. Don't start here. You'll
be you'll be very confused. Butyeah, let's do you have like a

(01:49):
quick synopsis that we can go throughreal quickly on what happened in part one.
Absolutely great idea because a lot happenedin episode one. Boy did it
so some of the important details welearned last time. In nineteen sixty three,
Madeline Marie O'Hare founded the organization AmericanAtheists, a group that advocates for
the rights of atheists as well asfor the separation of church and state.

(02:14):
She her youngest son, John Garth, and her granddaughter Robin controlled and ran
the group, as well as severalother similar organizations. In late nineteen ninety
four, the family left for atrip and returned to find that David Waters,
the office manager at the American Atheistsheadquarters, had laid off their employees
and had stolen fifty five thousand dollarsfrom the organization. Waters eventually pled guilty

(02:38):
and was given deferred adjudication and orderedto pay back fifteen grand as restitution.
Madeline was angry about her treatment bythe APD and the DA's office, as
well as waters lacks punishment, soshe wrote an article in her magazine detailing
the theft, as well as watersprevious crimes, and obviously this was not
a simple retelling of the facts.It was written in Madeleine's trademark style,

(03:02):
so it was very stylized, andI'm sure contained a lot of general name
calling and insults of course. Okay, Well, just three months after the
article was published, Madeleine seventy sixyears old and in failing health. John
Garth, who was forty and Robinthirty disappeared. On August twenty eighth,

(03:22):
nineteen ninety five, American Atheist staffmembers showed up to the group's headquarters in
Austin to find a note signed byJohn Garth telling them that the telling them
that the family had been called awayon an emergency and that all employees were
temporarily laid off until their expected return. Throughout the month of September, the
family had kept contact with their staffon John Garth's cell phone. The only

(03:45):
clue as to where the family waslocated during this time was when John Garth
gave them an address for a PObox in San Antonio. The final communication
between the family and staff members cameon September twenty ninth. After the Murrio
Hares were never seen or heard fromagain. Now there were many theories about
the family's disappearance, but the mostcommon conclusion people came to was that the

(04:10):
family had disappeared on their own accord, stealing money from their organizations and fleeing
to New Zealand to escape their legalbattles. However, American Atheists spokespeople claimed
there was no money missing and thateven they didn't know where the family was.
Even still, no one reported theMurrio Hares as missing, and no
one investigated their mysterious disappearance. Iknow we talked about this last episode,

(04:35):
but it is so wild to methat nobody contacted the authorities about them being
missing for this amount of time.It's just crazy, Yeah, it is.
And as far as the American Atheistsgo, I do believe that they
thought they were doing the right thing. They thought they were kind of following
Madeleine's orders, and then when theynever heard from Madeline again, it was

(04:57):
kind of shrugging their shoulders and kindof going, well, we're just gonna
we're going to continue on without herand hope that she's okay. Yeah,
keep the ship afloat, you know, the whole organization has to move forward
as much as it could. Yeah, So nothing happens with this story until
the summer of nineteen ninety six,when an editor at the San Antonio Express
News suggested to reporter John McCormick thathe cover a story about the missing family.

(05:25):
By this time, John McCormick wasalready a respected reporter with an established
career of over two decades, havingwritten hundreds, if not thousands, of
articles covering stories all over Texas.He actually wasn't a native Texan, though
he was born in New Jersey andgrew up in upstate New York. Lifetime
Red Sox ban he became a reporterand moved around the country before coming to

(05:47):
Texas in nineteen eighty five to workfor the Dallas Times Herald. After that
newspaper shuttered its stores in late nineteenninety one, he began working for the
San Antonio Express News the following year. So this was a man with a
very solid career in reporting, andhe's later said that he wasn't thrilled right
away with the suggestion of covering thisstory. He hadn't even heard that the

(06:11):
family was missing, which was inpart due to how quiet the American atheists
weren't being about it. But heshrugged off his initial hesitation and decided to
check it out. He was like, what the hell, At the very
least, I can write an articleabout it, all right, Yeah,
So he headed out to Austin,dug around, talked to lots of people
within the American Atheist Organization, includingSpike Tyson and Ellen Johnson, amongst others,

(06:38):
and around the one year mark ofthe family's disappearance, John McCormick published
his first article on the story.Now, even though a whole year had
passed since the family first left Austin, no one knew anything yet. So
this first article was just a synopsisof the story. Hey, there's this
prominent atheist family that seems to bemissing year and for a year, and

(07:00):
here are some theories about what mighthave happened to them. But this was
the first time an article addressing thefamily's disappearance and any real depth had come
out, and it sharpened public interestin the case. People actually started paying
attention. Yeah, I would imagineit's a very attractive story. There's a
whole family who's been missing for ayear, nobody knows where they are.

(07:21):
Yeah, that's right. And evenmore importantly, as a result of this
article and the public pressure it invoked. It finally prompted William to change his
mind and make an official missing person'sreport with the Austin Police Department in September
of nineteen ninety six. Okay,so now we're on the books. We've
got a miss Jesus. Okay,we're finally compelled to investigate, right,

(07:45):
thank goodness after a year. Yes, well, one of the first things
the APD did was try to locateRobin and John Garth's vehicles. Remember,
Spike Tyson had noticed that they weremissing from the house, and with this
they had some luck. They foundRobin's Porsche sitting in long term parking at
the Robert Mueller Municipal Airport in Austin. Oh. Okay, I was thinking

(08:09):
it was San Antonio, but allright, Austin's Austin. So what does
that tell you? Missing family carleft behind at the airport. It seems
like they traveled somewhere. Yes,And this new discovery just happened to nicely
fit into that preconceived notion that thefamily had willingly left their house. Yeah,
so people are thinking like New Zealandgoing abroad course. Yeah, and

(08:33):
so right from the start, theAPD washed their hands of the entire matter.
Wow, Locating Robin's vehicle was thefirst and last time the APD would
lift a finger in the case ofthe three missing people. Why we're going
to continue this story will go on, sure, but like it's really weird

(08:54):
that the an entire police force andinvestigators would just be like, well,
we wash our hands of this thismoment. But that's exactly what happened.
It is shocking the bungling of thiscase by the Austin Police Department. I
will just come out and say it. And to be clear, this is
not me having this negative opinion.This is everyone who has ever commented on

(09:16):
this case. We'll say that fromthe bottom to the top, this case
was absolutely botched by the Austin PoliceDepartment. It seems flagrant, like very
perfectful, honestly, where we don'tcare, We're not We're at the beginning,
We're at the start of it.So just hold onto your butts,
okay, all right? Thankfully though, John McCormick decided to continue his own
investigation. Now, there was acentral issue to this story, and it

(09:39):
was whether or not there was evidenceof the family stealing money from their organization.
If they had, then it mightsuggest that the rumors were true and
that the family was alive and inhiding. That makes sense. Well,
someone and this was either a colleagueor some sort of anonymous American atheistaffer or
someone else, it's not quite clear, but this person suggested to McCormick that

(10:01):
he looked through tax records of Madeline'svarious organizations to see if there were any
discrepancies reported. And of course,idea. Yeah, And of course,
because they were all nonprofits, theirtax records are available to the public.
Yeah, Okay. McCormick discovered thatin tax filings from the year nineteen ninety
five, one of their organizations,called the United Secularists of America, had

(10:24):
reported a total amount of about sixhundred and twenty five thousand dollars as missing.
And today that's about over a milliondollars. That's a lot of money.
It's a lot of money. Inthe document, the organization stated that
the money was quote believed to bein possession of John Murray, former secretary.

(10:45):
The whereabouts of John Murray and theseassets has not been known since September
nineteen ninety five and is not knownto the organization at this time, so
This was very shocking, especially whenAmerican Atheists officials had been so adamant that
there was no money missing from anyof the accounts the family had access to.
Now McCormick had clear evidence proving thatnot only was there indeed money missing,

(11:11):
but that the organization seemed to believeJohn Garth had stolen it, although
obviously they didn't use that strong oflanguage. Now, of course, McCormick
tried to go back to those AmericanAtheist staffers, Spike Tyson and Ellen Johnson
and get an update, and coincidentally, they basically shut down and stopped talking
to reporters from here on out.Now, well, is it because they're

(11:35):
trying to protect the organization at thispoint they go on the defense. I
imagine, yeah, I think youcould kind of say that, And to
be clear, I'm not ragging onthe American Atheist Organization or Spike Tyson or
Ellen Johnson at all. I thinkthat at first they were trying to do
what they thought Madeline wanted them todo. Sure, and when perhaps they

(11:56):
found that the money was missing orsomewhere along the lines, they realized maybe
Madeline had done something wrong or therewas something else at foot. Especially with
this new report away with this missingmoney coming out. Oh my gosh,
I mean yeah, it's kind ofembarrassing, I'm sure, and they didn't
know what to do about it,so they just stopped talking her to the
media. Yeah. Yeah. Soin December of nineteen ninety six, McCormick

(12:20):
published his second article on the story, this time detailing the information about this
missing money six hundred and twenty fivethousand dollars. Now to some, of
course, this fit the narrative asbefore, proof that the family had misappropriated
money from an organization right before theydisappeared. With McCormick's articles getting the story
traction, more and more reporters beganto join the hunt to find the Murrio

(12:41):
Hares Evan Moore of the Houston Chroniclewas able to track down John Garth's missing
vehicle, his Mercedes Bins Okay,he discovered that the vehicle had been sold
in the middle of September nineteen ninetyfive. A man in San Antonio had
seen the Mercedes advertised for sale inthe San Antonio Express News for fifteen thousand

(13:03):
dollars in cash, and apparently thiswas a very good deal, as the
blue book value of the car wasabout twenty one thousand. Okay, so
fast money, like I'm moving thecar quickly. Okay, yes, absolutely.
The buyer said that he met witha seller who identified himself as John
Garth Murray, but when the reportershowed the man a picture of John Garth,

(13:28):
he said that the man he dealtwith didn't look anything like him.
Okay, so this seems like somebodyelse is involved selling the car. That's
right. And John Garth was avery memorable guy. He stood at about
six foot four. He weighed aboutthree hundred pounds at the time of the
disappearance. He had a big cropof very dark hair, a big dark

(13:50):
mustache, and he spoke with apronounced lisp. You can't miss him exactly.
He sounds he would stick out ina crowd, exactly. The buyer
said. The man he purchased theMercedes's from was much shorter, not even
six foot tall, and he hadlight colored hair, no mustache, no
lisp. It sounds like whoever hasthe family. It sounds like a kidnapping

(14:11):
situation and they are selling off assets. Yeah. I mean, that's a
really good take on the situation.It seems really strange. I mean,
if the family was missing voluntarily,why would he be selling his Mercedes,
his prize possession. Why was heselling it for so much less than in
what it was worth. Why wouldhe have someone impersonate him to sell it?

(14:33):
And who was this person? Whowas this impostor so, for perhaps
the first time yet here was prettystrong evidence that something else was going on.
Yeah, it's starting to seem fishy. Yeah, but still the APD
continued to shrug their shoulders. Thedepartment. Yeah, the department released a
press release basically saying that it wasn'tagainst the law to be voluntarily missing,

(14:56):
noting, quote, we've already giventhis more to than a case of its
type because of her notoriety. Sothey went ahead and did a press release.
I'm sure for the family and everybodywho cares about them, this is
infuriating because you took the time tomake a press release and write it up,
but you're not seriously going to investigate. You're not going to do your

(15:18):
due diligence. Well, I mean, there's a lot more man because get
this. Then the lead detective assignedto the case went off. He was
Detective Stephen Baker of the APD's Missingperson unit, and in an interview with
Robert Bryce of The Austin Chronicle,he suggested that the Murray o'hares had gone
to San Antonio to purchase themselves newidentities, and then they had left the

(15:41):
country. Quote, that's why I'mof the opinion that they are not dead,
and then there was no foul playinvolved. I still have that feeling.
If somebody wants to show me abody or a crime scene, I'll
be glad to have my opinion changed. Is there any truth to any of
that? Well, let's think aboutit. Why would the family need to

(16:03):
get fake identities for any reason,even to leave the country. They were
not wanted for anything, They hadno charges against them. They were free
and easy to leave the country anytimethey pleased. Why would they have needed
to do that. And you knowwhat they would have needed to leave the
country their passports. That would havebeen an easy thing, but they left

(16:25):
that behind at the house. Sohis explanations don't make sense to people who
actually know what's going on in thecase. Yeah, why would you leave
your passports at home only to goto San Antonio to get fake ones made
so that you can leave the country. That makes no sense. Yeah,
so what's William doing at this point? He kind of seemed apathetic to the

(16:45):
whole thing he put in the missingperson's report, But then we know he's
a strange from the family and distantbut also concerned. So what's going on
with William. Well, by thispoint he was actually very vocal about his
fresh with the APD and the factthat he was now sure that they had
been kidnapped and were dead. Sohe really by this time in the media

(17:07):
heat that's what he was saying.He also seemed resigned to the fact that
he might never know what happened tohis family, saying, quote, I
don't have any more resources, andI don't think the police have any genuine
interest. Were at a dead endunless the press finds them. So he's
frustrated with the lack of investigation fromAustin PD at this point. And also

(17:30):
we know him and his family havebeen at odds completely, so that's a
big statement from him. Yeah,agreed. So even though he was,
like you said, apathetic at thebeginning, he did really kind of change
that around and was I think genuinelyconcerned and frustrated with everything that was going
on. Yeah, but there wasone agency willing to investigate, but for

(17:56):
an entirely different reason, the IRSstill wanted their money. Curious, okay,
Yeah, I was wondering if itwas going to be the FBI and
the IRS. Okay, that makessense if we remember from last time.
The family and the IRS had beenbattling for years before their disappearance, with
the agency ultimately accusing Robin and JohnGarth of owing them one point five million

(18:18):
dollars combined, and they were threateningMadeline herself that she could owe them even
more. Yeah. Yeah, Justbefore they disappeared, the IRS had settled
with a family for first seventy fivethousand dollars and then further decreased it to
thirty five thousand dollars. A nicedeal, right, But did they ever
make those payments from They did not, because, as we know, vanished.

(18:42):
Yeah, they never paid up.And then a year or so later
you have lots of people, includingthe lead detective on the case, talking
about how the family had voluntarily fledthe country and perhaps it was to avoid
paying them the IRS, but themeasly thirty five thousand dollars, so quite
frankly, Jay IRS started to feela little taken advantage of I don't blame

(19:04):
them. They were they were solda false bill of promises. If they
were going to get this money,it's been reduced several times. Yeah,
but also it seems like an opportunitywhere the IRS might be able to break
open the case and figure out wherethey went. Hang, you're good,
you should become an investigator. Well, you know you're talking. That's right,

(19:29):
I almost forgot. Well, so, of course, the IRS relaunched
their investigation into the family, ultimatelyclaiming that they were owed two hundred and
sixty thousand dollars in back taxes.How they came up with this figure,
to be honest, I don't know, but two hundred and sixty thousand dollars
is now what it is. Then, in February of nineteen ninety seven,
the IRS showed up to the family'shome in Austin and seized everything. Now,

(19:53):
a part of the team was IRUsSpecial Agent Ed Martin, who began
investigating as he would any normal runof the mill tax evasion or money laundering
case. So as the I R. S Is starting to get involved,
let's go back to John McCormick,because shortly after he wrote his second article.
He was contacted by a private investigatornamed Tim Young, who was offering

(20:17):
his services. Young had experience trackingpeople down when they didn't want to be
found, and in fact, he'dworked as a private investigator locating people who
had defaulted on payments on high endpurchases like luxury cars. He's like a
dog, the bounty hunter kind ofguy. I guess. So, yeah,
I think that is kind of amaybe he's not dog himself, but

(20:38):
he's dogs like assistant, you know, the person who actually does the investigative
work and track him down, notlike the handhand combat or whatever. Boy,
I want to learn more about thiskind of role in these positions and
hunting people down and figuring things out. Oh well, we're about to hear
it right now. Let's go awhole lesson. Well, let's go.

(21:00):
I'm ready for it. See.Tim Young felt confident he'd be able to
track down the family, and itsounds like at the beginning he really thought
that he was going to find themin hiding somewhere and he was going to
be the one to break the caseand like kind of make his career.
You know. He was kind oflike a hot shot a little bit it's
like a hot shot investigator. He'slike twenty five and like doing his thing.

(21:22):
And then there's McCormick, who's,you know, the old kind of
grizzled veteran reporter, and they've teamedup together and it's just fantastic. I
want a movie to be Yeah.I was about to say, this is
an action like martial arts buddy copmovie that we're pitching right now, pretty
much. Yeah. But Young triedall of the tricks of his trade,
and he was unable to locate ashred of evidence that the family was alive

(21:44):
beyond September nineteen ninety five. Therewere none of the tail till signs,
no activity in any of their bankaccounts, at least since they went missing,
no record of them traveling abroad toNew Zealand or anywhere else for that
matter, and he couldn't ferret outanyone who knew the family who seemed to
have any idea of where they were. However, Young was able to obtain

(22:06):
the records from John Garth's cell phonefrom the person who had taken over his
estate. Young noticed right away thatbefore the family left Austin, the cell
phone wasn't really used that much.It was mostly John Garth communicating with family
or business contacts, but during themonth the family was in San Antonio in
September nineteen ninety five, there wasa flurry of phone activity, with over

(22:29):
two hundred ingoing and outgoing calls.Wow, that's a lot. Yeah.
At the beginning, a slew ofcalls were placed two pharmacies and banks throughout
San Antonio. Too young. Itappeared to be a frantic attempt to get
cash and medication. After leaving Austin, suggesting that whatever this trip to San
Antonio was, it was not planned. Okay, this is starting to make

(22:52):
sense. This is falling in linewith what we've talked about before. Where
if they have been kidnapped, sheneeds medication. And also what are they
trying to get at. They're tryingto get at funds, the accounts,
money. This has all fallen together. Yeah, exactly, And I mean
at least for the medication. Resultis resolved. Well, she needed to
be kept alive for at least acertain amount of time, right, yeah,

(23:15):
so you can get that money.Yeah. Well. Over the weeks,
John Garth had also placed phone callsto airlines, travel agencies, jewelers,
and coin dealers all in San Antonio. So McCormick and Young started going
door to door to these places tryingto figure out what John Garth was up
to, and eventually they struck gold. Literally. They discovered that John Garth

(23:40):
had contacted a coin dealer named CoreyTickner and requested to purchase six hundred and
twenty five thousand dollars worth of goldcoins like dubloons. What are we talking
about here? Like gold coins?No? What? No hooks? Serious

(24:00):
treasure here? No, they weren'tthe bloons. This was an assemblage of
South African Kruegerands, American gold eagles, and Canadian maple leafs. That sounds
like rich people business it is?Or criminal business? Really? Yeah?
Well, I mean that's not obviouslynot everybody who who collects or has gold

(24:21):
coins as a criminal or rich even. I don't know. But the coin
dealers said that John wanted the coinsquickly, but such a massive order would
take time. So John Garth agreedto pick up five hundred thousand dollars worth
of the coins on Friday, Septembertwenty ninth, with a coin dealer promising

(24:41):
John that the remaining one hundred andtwenty five thousand dollars worth would be delivered
the following week. That's a lotof money in coins, man, it
really is. The coin dealers saidthat he met John Garth at a bank
in San Antonio where his identity wasconfirmed. So this time for sure we
know it was John Garth and notan impostor. Interesting. The coins were

(25:03):
carefully counted, put into plastic tubes, put into a large black Duffel bag,
and loaded into the vehicle that JohnGarth was driving. Altogether, this
big bag of coins would have weighedaround one hundred and twenty pounds. That's
so heavy. Yeah, it's alot of weight to be lugging around person.
Yeah, pretty much. So thisadditional one hundred and twenty five thousand

(25:27):
dollars worth of coins ended up beingdelivered to the dealer early over the weekend.
So on Monday, the dealer calledJohn Garth to tell them the good
news and to arrange the transfer,but John Garth never answered the phone again,
not for the coin dealer and notfor anyone. According to the cell
phone records, the last time JohnGarth's cell phone was used was Friday,

(25:51):
September twenty ninth, nineteen ninety fiveat about twelve to twenty four pm.
The same day, John Garth pickedup the coins from the deal. In
other words, he received the goldin the morning and had this short phone
call in the afternoon, and that'sthe last time anyone had contact with the
family. Now, finding out aboutthis purchase of gold coins seemed to answer

(26:14):
the question about what happened to thatmissing six hundred and twenty five thousand dollars
were reported by one of the organizations. Gold coins don't have serial numbers,
and they are completely untraceable, andit's easy to turn them in for cash
for pretty much anywhere. Yeah,they're literally made of gold. They're gold
coins exactly. And you can goto a pond dealer or a bank,
lots of places what will hand youcash whatever the estimated value is that day

(26:38):
or however it works, and they'llgive you cash for your gold coin.
But the real question was what needdid the murrao Hares have for a heavy,
bulky pile of physical gold when theyhad access to this tangle web of
their personal accounts and accounts for theirorganizations and allegedly at least offshore banking accounts.

(27:00):
Yeah, it seems like a weirdlike move for them if they're trying
to move a ton of gold coins, like literally the weight of a human
being. Yeah. So, inFebruary of nineteen ninety eight, McCormick published
another article with this new information.At this point, it's been a year
and a half since McCormick first startedreporting on this story. Just to give

(27:22):
you some sense of the scope oftheir investigation, as well as the amount
of time it took to piece allthese details together. With the story really
heating up, yet another reporter gotinvolved. Valerie Williams from NBC News.
If you remember, John Garth's phonerecords indicated that heat contacted multiple jewelry stores.

(27:44):
She followed that lead and discovered asecond bizarre purchase made by John Garth
in San Antonio, a one carrotsolitaire diamond for six thousand, six hundred
and sixty dollars. That's a bigrock. Yeah. The jewelry salesperson said
that he remembered the purchase of thediamond because it was the first time he'd
ever sold a diamond, especially oneof that quality or expense, without the

(28:07):
buyer being interested in it at all. Typically, people want to look at
a diamond for themselves. They wantto view it for the loop, probably
examined multiple ones before they decide whatthey want to buy, right, Yeah,
it's a long drawn out process.Yeah, but he was just kind
of nonchalant about it. Well,what he did was he called in to

(28:29):
confirm that they had what he wantedin stock. He came inside, paid
and left with it. He didn'teven look at it. Wow. Yeah,
so weird. Weird. Also,did he look like John Garth?
Yes, this appeared to be JohnGarth. He fit the description. Okay,
cool. Well, next, ValerieWilliams got a police sketch artist to
work with a man who bought JohnGarth's Mercedes to create a sketch of the

(28:52):
man who sold it to him.She then presented the results of her investigation
on the TV news program Nightline.I don't think Nightlines around anymore, but
do you remember that in the ninetiesand in the program John McCormick and Tim
Young's work was also heavily featured.They aired the sketch during the broadcast in
the off chance that someone might recognizethe John Garth impostor, and somehow it

(29:18):
worked. Really Yeah. Shortly afterthe segment aired, John McCormick received a
call from someone in Florida claiming torecognize the man in the sketch. WHOA
okay, do tell I'm very curious. The caller's name was Bob Frye,
and he said the sketch looked likehis younger brother, Danny Frye. Bob

(29:41):
said that in September of nineteen ninetyfive, Danny Frye had traveled from Florida
to Texas for some sort of job. Bob said that Danny was working with
two other men, one a manwhose name he did not know. The
other man's name was David Waters.Okay, all right, now you know
what that name is. And McCormickhad been so intricately involved in the Murray

(30:06):
o' hair family's business that the namedid ring a bell. Sure, he
knew that he'd been the office manager. He'd pleaded guilty to this big theft,
but this was the first time thatDavid Water's name had come up in
his investigation into the family's disappearance.So you know, he's got like Bimian
being Yeah, larm bell should begoing off exactly. Bob told McCormick that

(30:26):
he wasn't sure what the job exactlywas, but it involved him and the
other men staying at an extended stayhotel called the Warren Inn in San Antonio.
He said that the job must havepaid well because during the first couple
of weeks he was in Texas,Danny had sent thousands of dollars to his
girlfriend back home in Florida. Gotall these gold coins moving around. It's

(30:48):
selling porch. A lot of money, yeah yeah, bank transactions. A
diamond, yeah, a diamond,yeah, my goodness. On September thirtieth,
he had called his daughter from DavidWater's apartment in Austin to wish her
a happy birthday. On the phonecall, he said that the job was
almost finished and he'd be headed homesoon. But Danny never returned from his

(31:11):
trip to Texas and no one hadseen or heard from him since. His
family had filed two missing persons reports, one with the Austin Police Department since
that was his last known location,but Bob said nothing much had been done
to investigate his brother's disappearance. Iwonder if something bad happened to this guy.
Oh you think so, I dowhat It sounds like a Quentin Tarantino

(31:34):
situation. But there was more,Bob said that Danny seemed increasingly nervous and
upset the first few weeks that hewas in Texas. In fact, in
early September, Danny mailed Bob aletter that said that if anything should happen
to him, Bob should go tothe authorities with David Water's name, because
he was the ringleader of whatever theoperation was that he was involved with.

(31:57):
Okay, so maybe things aren't goingtoo well initially, something's gone awry exactly.
But also, this David Waters guy, he's plugged in. He has
a network of underworld people who arewilling to help him out with these types
of criminal activities. You're already you'realways on the money, a detective shade

(32:19):
butter, because that's exactly what happenedfrom here on out. A couple weeks
later, Danny called him, toldhim everything was all right, and asked
him to burn the letter, whichBob did. When Danny went missing,
Bob contacted David Waters to ask himwhere he was. I mean, that
was the only name he had forhis contact in Texas, and Waters,
of course told him that he didn'tknow. Waters did say that he had

(32:43):
some of Danny's things and he askedfor Bob's address so he can mail the
items back home, but Bob saidthat this was just a ploy for his
address because David Waters, along withanother man, showed up to his home,
threatened him with a gun and demandedthat Bob give him the letter or
explain what had been written in it. Oh Man. Bob said that he

(33:04):
spent hours trying to convince the menthat he'd burned the letter without reading it
before the men finally left. Thatsounds very serious, yes, And so
McCormick and young start tracking down allof these new leads. From this tip
that they get from Bob Fry,they saw that the Warren Inn and Extended
Stay Hotel was located in northwest SanAntonio. It was within blocks of the

(33:30):
bank where the gold coins were exchanged, a video store where John Garth had
rended movies the pharmacy that had fulfilledMadeleine's prescriptions. So it checked out that
the Warren Inn could be the locationof where the Murray O Hairs were staying
during that first month after leaving Austin. This is ground zero. This is
the base of operations. Yes,that's what they're thinking. They also started

(33:52):
digging into the background of David Waters. Of course, they were immediately struck
by the nature of the serious violentcrimes that David Waters had been previously charged
with, including murder. Young pokedaround his finances and found out that although
Waters was jobless throughout nineteen eighty five, in September, he'd suddenly purchased himself

(34:14):
a Cadillac with cash and purchased hisgirlfriend, a woman named Patti Joe Stephens,
a new truck. So he's gotthis sudden windfall of cash right around
the same time as Danny Fry did, according to his brother, and around
the same time that the family wentmissing. They also confirmed a connection between
David Waters and this new character,Danny Frye. They found out that Waters

(34:37):
and Fry had actually met each otherand he Florida prison when they were both
doing time. Oh wow. Yeah. However, unlike Waters, Fry was
a small time con man whose convictionswere mostly on drunk driving charges, and
he had no history of violence.They got a hold of Fry's phone records
and saw that Fry and Waters hadcalled each other with increasing frequency in the

(35:00):
months before the family's disappearance, asif they were planning something, and while
looking into David Waters other contacts,paying close attention to his prison buddies that
he'd been in contact with during nineteenninety five, they came up with another
name, Gary Paul Carr. Okay, so these are seemingly just connections that

(35:22):
David Waters had with these individuals fromprison and other convicted criminals who he's now
networking into whatever's going on now.Yes, exactly like Waters, Gary Carr
had a long history of violent crimes. Now, a lot of sources weirdly
gloss over cars early charges. SoI had to go dig in in old

(35:45):
newspapers in Illinois to try to findsome of the details of his earlier crimes,
and this is what I could kindof piece together. In nineteen sixty
six, he was charged with indecencywith a child. In nineteen seventy four,
Gary Carr, along with an accomplice, were involved in a two state
crime spree that included the theft ofat least two vehicles, the armed robbery

(36:07):
of several liquor stores, and threesexual assaults. Don't like that in all
three assaults the victims had been kidnappedat gunpoint. Okay, So kidnapping is
a big part of his criminal record, yes, which it sounds like there's
some kidnapping going on here. Yeah, absolutely, so that if you were
mixing it up in prison, thismight be a guy you might want to

(36:30):
involve and join the team plant Okay, somebody who has some history with it.
Yeah. Well, Gary Carr endedup taking a plea deal and received
a twenty one year sentence, whichhe served in the Illinois State Penitentiary where
he met David Waters. And thisis just a weird detail I found in

(36:51):
Ted Dracos's book Ungodly. But youknow that whole opening sequence of The Blues
Brothers where Jake is being released fromprison. Yeah, oh no, that's
one of my favorite movies. Iknow that scene for sure. Yeah.
Well that was filmed on location atJoliet State Prison. It definitely was,
and it's a historic prison. Wellthat's where Gary Paul Carr was incarcerated,

(37:12):
and he can be seen on screenas one of the prisoners in the background.
No way. Yeah, and thatlike first little opening sequence, And
I don't know, I actually wentback and watched the sequence to see if
I could just I don't know,just to see what I could see,
and it's he's either one of themen that Jake is walking past when he's
being escorted out of the prison.So there's like other prisoners in cells as

(37:35):
he's walking by, or he's oneof them prisoners in the yard. That's
really cool that they filmed it inthe prison with real prisoners prisoners. Wow.
And one of them is this monster, Gary Paul Carr. It's very
crazy. It's very crazy. It'sjust such a weird, little random detail
in this case. Yeah, itis. Gary Carr served the full sentence

(37:57):
for the crime spree, that fulltwenty one years, and he was released.
Guess what in early nineteen ninety five, just a few months before the
family disappeared, Young and McCormick sawthat Car and Waters had become quite friendly
since Car's release, and that therehad also been a lot of communication between
them just before the family went missing. So again, exactly like we said
before, he knew that Gary Carrwas out of prison and had experience in

(38:22):
this and was available for this kindof job. So he did like twenty
one years in prison and then immediatelygot out two months later involved in another
scheme kidnapping situation. Wow. Atthis point, McCormick and Young's investigation had
uncovered plenty of evidence to suggest thatthe family had been kidnapped in Austin by

(38:45):
David Waters, Gary Carr, andDanny Fry and held for a month at
the Warren Inn in San Antonio.During that time, the kidnappers had sold
John Garth's car for the cash andforced him to purchase the diamond as well
as the gold coins. There wasabsolutely no evidence that showed that the family
was still alive after the gold coinswere received. The possibility that this was

(39:07):
voluntary and that the whole family wasliving in secret luxury on an island somewhere
couldn't be entertained any longer. Thiswas obviously a kidnapping and probably a triple
homicide, and if you added missingperson Danny Fry into the mix, you've
got a possible quadruple homicide. Yeah, it sounds like something happened to that

(39:28):
Danny Fry guy. Yeah. Now, McCormick and Young had been working on
this investigation together at this point fornineteen months, and they had worked really
well together, but as the seriousnessof the situation dawned on them, they
found that they had completely different opinionson what to do about it. Young
wanted to go to the police andhand over everything they'd uncovered. He was

(39:52):
convinced that the Austin Police Department wouldtake the case seriously if they would only
look at all of this convincing evidence, but McCormick didn't think it would be
enough to make the police see reason. Instead, McCormick wanted to go public
with the information and publish an articlelaying out the full story. Unfortunately,

(40:13):
this disagreement caused a rift between McCormickand Young, and they decided to go
their separate ways, each moving forwardwith his own plans. Well, that's
too bad. It sounded like theywere breaking ground on this case and uncovering
a lot of things that nobody hadup until this point. It sounds like
a breakup of the dream team,so to speak. Yeah, it was,

(40:34):
and it's really interesting how things endedup working out for both of them.
You see, Young went straight tothe police in August of nineteen ninety
eight. He compiled a letter tothe lead detective on the case, Detective
Stephen Baker. He laid out everythinghe knew. He detailed the cell phone
records, the purchase of the goldcoins, the Warren Inn, and how
the case seemed to be tied toDavid Waters, Gary Carr, and missing

(40:58):
person Danny Fry. He included thefull names, dates of birth, addresses,
driver's license numbers, and other identifyinginformation for all three subjects. This
was literally the entire case handed tothe detective on a silver platter. And
how did that play out? Letme get like, sure, yeah,
they went in and they ferreted outall this stuff and broke the case.

(41:21):
Right, No, so what actuallyhappened? So he sent over the letter
and he's like, oh, like, you know, feeling good about what
he'd done, and he immediately almostgets a callback from Detective Bakers. He
was like, oh, good,Victor, he's taken me seriously. Great,
we're gonna have this conversation. Butthe first thing that the detective said
to him was where do you guysget this stuff? Young later told the

(41:45):
Austin Chronicle quote, it was clearto me that he didn't even read the
whole three page letter. He wasstill under the impression that they were sipping
martinis in New Zealand. It wasdisheartening getting that reaction. So still nothing
from the APD. That sucks.So he'd tried going to the FBI at
first, but he was similarly rebuffed. He tried talking to William Murray,

(42:09):
who in turn tried to use hisown political sway to appeal to politicians and
senators. William even pressured then Governorof Texas, George Bush, who was
a personal friend of his, tosend in the Texas Rangers, but the
Austin Police Department ended up convincing theRangers that there was nothing here to investigate.

(42:30):
Really, yeah, I'm pretty surethat there is definitely things here to
investigate. Yeah, there was someonewho would listen, though an ally from
an unlikely place, Special Agent EdMartin of the IRS. You see,
things over at the IRS had beenbopping since they'd relaunched their investigation and seize

(42:53):
the family's house and belongings. Inearly nineteen ninety nine, they held a
public auction to settle the debt.They said that the family owed them everything
was sold off, their record collection, their art, all of Madeleine's journals,
and even the house itself. It'sactually sad the auction only drew in

(43:16):
a Measley twenty five thousand dollars totalon the two hundred and sixty thousand dollars
debt that the IRS claimed, yikes, that's a paltry Yeah, you would
hope that Moore would come in forall that. Well, they definitely hope
so. But IRS Special Agent EdMartin wasn't so sure that the case was

(43:37):
as simple as it had been madeout to be. He'd been paying attention
to John McCormick's articles about the familyand none of it added up to him,
and his own investigation into the Murrayo' hare's complex financial affairs had uncovered
that in the month of September nineteeneighty five, Madeleine, John Garth and
Robbin's credit cards had been maxed outfrom request for cash advances, and money

(44:02):
had been taken from the family's variouspersonal and business accounts, about seventy thousand
dollars altogether. Okay, so moneyis flowing somewhere, it's being withdrawn and
going to somebody's pockets. Yes,And that figure would be in addition to
the five hundred thousand dollars worth ofgold coins, the fifteen thousand dollars from

(44:24):
the selling of John Carr's Mercedes,and the six thousand dollars for the diamonds,
as well as the other little amountshere and there. In his expert
opinion, it all looked like itwas evidence of the family being extorted,
not planning for some getaway. Sowhen Tim Young came to Ed Martin and
asked for his help, he wasimmediately on board. He tried going to

(44:47):
the APD and even the DA's office, but he was stonewalled just like everyone
else. So he decided to goover their heads and begin contacting people from
agencies all over the ATF, theUS Attorney's office, and the FBI,
and he started building a team ofpeople who were willing to help with the
investigation. Meanwhile, McCormick moved forwardwith his article publishing the links between the

(45:14):
Mario Hares and a missing person,Danny Fry, and he named the person
he suspected to be behind it all, David Waters. Okay, cool,
Like we have somebody who is comingforward and being like, David Waters is
at the heart of this. Yeah, basically, I mean he didn't come
out and say David Waters kidnapped andkill these people, but it was certainly

(45:37):
the implication of the article. Atthis point, Waters had spoken to some
reporters about the family and their disappearancebefore, but now that he had been
labeled as a suspect by a respectedreporter. His reaction was not to go
into hiding or try to sue theSan Antonio Express News. It was to

(45:57):
go on his own kind of mediatour. He started basically shopping his story
around to different places. He reachedout to publications like the Dallas Morning News
and the Austin Chronicle. He waseven interviewed in a TV segment for America's
Most Wanted Interesting as he trying toget like a book deal or something at

(46:19):
this point. It's weird that yousay that, because he even wrote,
and I guess self published a twohundred page book about his innocence and how
horrible the family was. He accusedthe family of framing him for the missing
fifty five thousand dollars and said thatthe family was probably also responsible for the
earlier thefts of the computer and othersupplies, as well as the bearer bond.

(46:43):
So he's saying that the family wasinvolved in all of these shady thefts
that it kind of looked like hewas involved with. It takes a lot
of goal to like step forward andpresent these things the way he's doing right
now. That's very bold of himoh, very bold. I mean,
over and over he repeated the samestory that the family had fled to New

(47:06):
Zealand and were in hiding. Infact, he claimed to have proof of
this, documents that he said referenceda New Zealand bank account, letters from
the family that seemed to suggest theirdesire to move to New Zealand, and
receipts from expenses he said were towardsthe planning of this move. The documents
were in fact legitimate. There wereones that he'd stolen during his time as

(47:30):
the American Atheist office manager, andthey'd been helping him. So seeds of
doubt about the family for years now. In fact, back a year or
two before mccarmick's article naming him asa suspect, Waters so convinced Mimi Schwartz,
a respected writer and reporter for VanityFair, that the New Zealand angle

(47:52):
was true, that she traveled toNew Zealand and spent weeks searching for them.
Really, yes, Vanity Fair spenttens of thousands of dollars on this
lead. For Mimi Schwartz to findzero evidence that the family was there,
that's crazy, yes, Well,in late nineteen ninety eight, Waters showed

(48:12):
reporter Robert Bryce that the Austin Chroniclethe same documents, although Bryce didn't seem
nearly as impressed with them. DavidWaters also admitted to knowing Danny Fry and
admitted that Danny had come to staywith him for a while around September nineteen
ninety five, but he said thatDanny had eventually taken off with some other
men and that he had never heardfrom him after that. But soon,

(48:36):
David waters house of cards would fallbecause McCormick was about to make the biggest
break in the case yet. NowMcCormick is a very humble man, and
he later described this whole thing asa complete fluke. But truthfully, this
was just incredible investigative journalism. Hewas glancing through the day's news items when

(48:57):
a short article out of Dallas caughthis i The article was about an unidentified
body that had been found on thebank of the Trinity River in Seagoville three
years earlier. Now, Seagoville isa suburb of Dallas, and it's about
two hundred miles north of Austin andtwo hundred and seventy five miles north of
San Antonio, so a good distanceaway from everything else that's happening in this

(49:22):
story so far. The body wasan adult Caucasian male who had been found
completely nude and whose head and handshad been sawn off and were missing from
the scene. Although the head andhands were removed, presumably to prevent identification,
there was no attempt to hide thebody. It was just kind of

(49:42):
out in the open. Especially weirdbecause it was right on the bank of
the Trinity River, So whoever thekiller was could have just rolled the body
into the river, but they didn't. They left it exposed on the river
bank. Oh man, this seemsextremely brutal. This almost sounds like a
mob hit or something, or likea drug hit. Yeah, I mean,
that's kind of what their assumption wasat the beginning. The body had

(50:07):
no tattoos or scars, and allthe medical examiner could ascertain was that he
had been between thirty five and fortyfive years old. Even with such vague
details, the body hadn't fit thedescription of any missing person from the Dallas
area. The Dallas County Sheriff's Officehad tried working the case, but with
no leads. In the three yearssince the body had been found, the

(50:30):
case had gotten cold. What peakedMcCormick's interest was that the body had been
discovered on October second, nineteen ninetyfive, the same weekend that Danny Frye
had disappeared. So what do wehave like a dead kidnapper at this point,
That's what it's looking like. Yeah, And so in January of nineteen

(50:51):
ninety nine, McCormick published his articleabout how Danny Frye, believed to be
one of the Murray O'Hare's kidnappers,had been found dead and out of all
of McCormick's articles about the case,and he ended up publishing over a hundred
in total, I believe, fromthe beginning to the end. Wow,
but this is the one that directlyled to the solving of the case because

(51:14):
it caused David waters ex girlfriend,Patty Joe Stephens to step forward. All
right, so we have an expartner who is providing more information. It
always seems like that's it always goesthis way, doesn't it. Yeah,
Well, the two were still togetherback in September nineteen ninety five, and
Patty Joe had lived in fear ofDavid Waters ever since, so much so

(51:38):
that she'd been afraid to go tothe authorities, but McCormick's article reporting Danny
Fry's murder and mutilation had confirmed herworst suspicions. She went to the Austin
office of the FBI, where shespoke to Special Agent Donna Cowing. Patty
Joe said that she had the evidencethey needed to catch David Waters all of

(52:00):
the murder of Danny Frye, aswell as find out what happened to Madeline,
John Garth and Robin. Okay,that sounds like a huge break in
the case. Huge break in thecase. But before she agreed to talk,
she asked for police protection in theshort term as well as witness protection
in the long term, because that'show scared of David Water she was,

(52:20):
which made a lot of sense.Yeah, yeah, and that's a responsible
request. I think he sounds likea dangerous guy. Yes. She also
asked for and received immunity from prosecutionfor her involvement or knowledge of any of
the crimes, which ended up probablybeing a smart move for her, but
we'll talk about that a little bitlater. After reaching an agreement, Patti

(52:43):
Joe told her story. She saidthat David had absolutely despised Madeline, but
what had truly enraged him was thearticle she had written about him, particularly
how she'd included how he'd urinated inhis mother's face during his assault on her.
What this was something that he wasreally upset that she had let the
world know about. As far asI'm aware, all of the allegations she

(53:06):
made in the American Atheists magazine,as far as his legal charges were all
true. Patti Joe said that afterhe read the article, he told her
how he wanted to torture Madeleine bycutting off her toes one by one and
then kill her, but only afterhe'd stolen all of her money. Pattie

(53:27):
Joe confirmed that in August of nineteenninety five, Danny Frye and Gary Carr
came to stay with David at hisapartment in Austin. She said they left
together late in the month, andthen over the next few weeks they'd come
back for a short visit or todrop off stuff before leaving again. During
some of these visits, David showedher a perfect diamond and handed her an

(53:50):
envelope with twenty thousand dollars inside.She last saw Danny Frye on September thirtieth,
the same day, he had contactedhis family for the fire time.
She said that all three men showedup at David Water's apartment in Austin,
and Car and Waters seemed totally fine. They were joking around, having a
good time, but Fry seemed quietand withdrawn. She said that she helped

(54:15):
him pack up his suit case forhis trip back to Florida, and then
she left to go run an errandwhen she returned, the men were gone,
and she noticed that Fry's suit casewas still there, but it was
empty. She said, Car andWaters returned later and when she asked where
Danny was, they told her thathe'd left with some friends. A few

(54:36):
days later, she said she noticeda plastic bag near the front door,
and when she looked inside, shesaw a washcloth and three pairs of sneakers,
all covered in blood. She saidshe never saw Danny Frye again,
but she did see David Waters cleaninghis glasses with one of Danny Fry's T
shirts. There's a lot going onhere, for sure, But there's a

(54:59):
moment there where she's talking about adiamond, seemingly the diamond we're talking about
in the case. Yes, okay, all of this seems to corroborate everything
that's been going on, So sheseems like she has good details on the
rest of everything we know about what'sgoing on in the case, the family,
the disappearance, all of it.Yeah, she has like every bit

(55:22):
of missing information that they were lookingfor this whole time. And she also
had additional information about those gold coins. You see, there was one thing
in this whole investigation that really botheredpeople. Where was all this money?
Waters and Car had stolen around onehundred thousand dollars in cash from the family,

(55:42):
along with the five hundred thousand dollarsworth of gold coins. Sure now,
at first, Waters and Car hadseemingly been brazen with her spending.
According to Patty Joe, the menhad spent thousands purchasing vehicles, fancy clothes,
and a luxuriant stay at the FourSeasons hotel. But after this initial
spending spree, the two had continuedliving very frugally. In fact, Waters

(56:07):
was in trouble for not making therestitution payments to American Atheists back from the
theft from you know, several yearsago, and he was about to be
evicted from his apartment for non payment. So it certainly didn't look like they
were sitting on piles of money.Everyone involved in the investigation was completely perplexed

(56:27):
by this, and in fact,it was one of the reasons why the
case took so long to solve.Well, Patty Joe had the explanation.
The reason why Waters and car actedlike they didn't have five hundred thousand dollars
worth of gold coins was that theydidn't. The coins had been almost immediately
stolen from them. Oh wow,yeah, okay, all right. Patty

(56:52):
Joe said that after the men obtainedthe coins, they asked her to rent
a public storage locker to keep themin, and she did, renting locker
number sixteen forty at a place calledBurnett Road Self Storage in Austin. She
also purchased a master Lock brand padlockto use on the locker. She said
the men cashed in about eighty thousanddollars worth of the coins before David dropped

(57:15):
the rest off of the loot andthe storage locker. They returned less than
two days later to retrieve the coinsto find out that someone had picked the
lock and taken them. Whoa justboom, half a million dollars worth of
gold gone it's so much money.It's so much money, and it's so

(57:37):
insane. And do you want toknow what happened to the money? Yes?
How did they pick the lock?Who knew? Like so, someone
must have known that they were holdingthese coins at this location. It seems
like an inside job. It absolutelywas not. This was a completely random
event and it is so bizarre.And we know these details because the FBI

(57:59):
of eventually tracked down the people responsiblefor the theft. This is what happened.
That makes it so much more interesting, I know. It turns out
that a random group of thieves fromSan Antonio came up to Austin looking for
stuff to steal. They happened tohave a skeleton key for the particular kind
of padlock that Pattie Joe had purchased, and their m was to go to

(58:22):
storage facilities and public lockers, openup whichever locks they could with that skeleton
key they had, and take whatwas inside and run. Now that either
keep the stolen goods for themselves orsell them. On this day, the
group drove up to Austin and randomlychose the very same storage facility Burnett Rode

(58:42):
Self Storage to rob. Once inside, they used the skeleton key on the
lock on number sixteen forty and discovereda very heavy black bag. Without even
looking inside, they grabbed the bagand took off. There's was the only
locker secure with a type of lockthat could be opened with the type of
key that the thieves had the skeletonkey you were talking about, and thus

(59:08):
their locker in the whole place wasthe only one that was robbed. What
luck I mean for them? Oh? Absolutely so. The group of thieves
stopped at a Burger King parking lotto evaluate their leader's haul. They saw
that the bag was filled with plastictubes that looked like gold coins. A
million dollars of gold coins. Yeah, geez. They drove back home to

(59:31):
San Antonio. They got a bookon queen collecting and confirmed that the coins
were indeed real research. Yes.They split up the gold three ways,
and over the next two years,each spent his share lavishly on rental houses,
new cars, electronics, trips tovegas, strip clubs, guns like

(59:54):
you name it. These people werebuy him. By the time the FBI
tried at these three thieves down,over four years had passed and the gold
was long gone. Only one ofthe coins was ever recovered. One of
the men had a twenty four carrotCanadian maple leaf fashioned into a necklace for

(01:00:14):
his aunt, who then handed itover to FBI. Oh wow, yeah,
that's crazy. Yes, so bizarre. Well, finally Patti Joe told
the FBI about how she'd heard themen talking about renting a storage unit,
so they had the storage locker forthe gold coins. This is a separate,
larger storage unity and this was aroundthe end of September nineteen ninety five.

(01:00:37):
She knew that they went there witha spray canister. She gave the
canister over to Agent Colleen, whoran tests on it that confirmed the presence
of bleach. Why would you needto spray bleach inside a storage locker?
The only reason they could think ofwas to try to destroy blood evidence.

(01:01:00):
By this time, Agent Cowling,who was the one who was doing all
the interviews with Patty Joe Stephens,she had gotten in touch with I R.
S. Agent ed Martin, andshe joined up with the team that
he was building to actually investigate thisfamily's disappearance. Oh man, superteam,
were you here? We go?Yeah? And I just want to say
this team also included people from theDallas County Sheriff's office. Like they were

(01:01:22):
involved from as soon as McCormick wentto them with the idea of Danny Fry
as their unidentified murder victim. Imean, they were in it from the
start, and they continued working inthe case to the very end. Well,
they got a search warrant for thestorage unit that Patti Joe said the
men had used. At first,it seemed like there was nothing to find

(01:01:45):
until they removed a section of thealuminum flooring where they found a tiny speck
of blood. William provided a DNAsample for comparison, and the FBI lab
confirmed that the spot on the floorwas a mixture of Madeline and John Garth's
blood. Their suspicions became that thefamily had been either killed or dismembered inside

(01:02:09):
that storage unit, perhaps to easein the transport of bodies. Yeah,
that's what it sounds like. Thereseems like there's been dismemberment with other people's
bodies in this case already exactly DannyFry. Yeah. Well, they knew
that the warrant inn was the bestbet for the place where the family had
been held in captivity for an entiremonth, so they went to the hotel

(01:02:31):
and dug through their files. Inrecords dating from September nineteen ninety five,
they found an application for a unit, along with vehicle logs and other receipts
listing the names of David Waters andGary Carr. Okay, so this is
like the net closing upon these twomen. With all of this information in

(01:02:54):
hand, Ed Martin got a warrantapproved, and a big team from several
agency rated David waters apartment on Marchtwenty fourth, nineteen ninety nine. Now,
the searching covered books and other itemshe'd stolen from the family while he
worked for them, but no realphysical evidence connected him to their disappearance.

(01:03:15):
However, they did find one hundredand nineteen rounds of ammunition, along with
the pictures of himself shooting a gun, adding gun range. As a convicted
felon, it was against the lawfor him to possess ammo or even shoot
a gun. They eventually discovered thathe had also sent a gun to his
brother back in Illinois, another federalcrime for a convicted felon to move firearms

(01:03:38):
across state lines. Yeah, youcertainly can do that. Yeah. So
finally, David Waters was arrested.Yeah, he's been finally apprehended. He
was charged with violating the terms ofhis deferred adjudication from way back from when
he had the theft from the AmericanAtheist Organization. This was violating the terms

(01:04:01):
of non payment, but for alsofor being in contact with a family which
he was prohibited from. He wasslapped with all of these new gun charges
as well on top of the violationof the deferred adjudication charge. For violating
the terms of his deferred adjudication,he was sentenced to sixty years in Texas
State prison. Now he almost certainlywouldn't have had to serve the full sentence.

(01:04:26):
He'd probably be paroled in twelve tofifteen years. But that's still a
pretty long time. Twelve to fifteenisn't isn't happy? You're not happy with
that, right. For the guncharges, he was sentenced to an additional
eight years in federal prison. Thecharges were stacked instead of concurrent, so
he'd have to serve out that deferredadjudication sentence here in Texas and then he'd

(01:04:49):
move on to federal prison. Forthe weapons charges, Yeah, they're separated
federal versus state exactly, But eitherway, this meant that authorities had the
time to continue pursuing the Murrao haircasewith David Waters safely behind bars. Yeah,
they have him. He's in thebooks at this point. He has
a sentence that he has to serve. So now we can work on everything

(01:05:12):
else that's going on and figure outwhat really happened to the family. Geez,
please tell us, I hope wehave a resolution to what happened to
the family. With David Waters behindbars, they then go to the next
person who seemed to be responsible orinvolved in the disappearance, Gary Carr.
At this juncture, federal agents stilldidn't have enough to get a search warrant

(01:05:34):
or an arrest warrant on him,so they decided to just show up at
his apartment and see if he wouldspeak to them, and he agreed.
They told him how they knew hewas connected to David Waters and how they'd
found his name on documents at theWarren Inn, the location where it looked
like the family had been held,but Carr shrugged everything off. He said

(01:05:57):
that yes, he was with Madeline, John Robbin and David Waters at the
Warren Inn, but he said thatthe family had hired him and David to
be there. He said that thefamily was planning on fleeing the country and
they'd hired David to assist them withthe arrangements, and David had hired him
on to help with security. Sothis is very clearly a manufactured alibi that

(01:06:23):
he had worked with David Waters toportray. That's what it sounds like.
It sounds like it's matching up withkind of the ideas that we've heard about
the family fleeing the country, allthat kind of stuff. Yeah, just
after he gives this explanation, theagents asked to do a security sweep of
the apartment and they discovered a revolveron the nightstand in the bedroom and later

(01:06:45):
a second gun. A second gun. Wow, there's a lot of guns.
Oh yeah. So same thing forCar. Of course, as an
ex convict, he cannot have weaponsin his possession and he was arrested.
Carr's previous conviction combined with a newfelony of the possession of two firearms,
meant that he was going to goaway for life, and so to try

(01:07:08):
to save himself, Car decided tostart talking. Okay, so we're getting
to the heart of it right now. Yes. Now, while he maintained
that he and David Waters had beenhired on to help the family escape,
he said that the situation between themand the family devolved. He said that
eventually Waters killed the whole family andburied them all in a remote ranch called

(01:07:31):
Cooksie Ranch, ninety miles west ofSan Antonio, near Campwood. He said
that he of course had nothing todo with the murders himself, but he
did know the location where the bodieswere buried because Waters had taken him there.
Months later, Car drew up avery detailed map of exactly where he

(01:07:51):
claimed that the bodies had been buried, and so, in April of nineteen
ninety nine, Ed Martin Donna Cowing, along the team in of Texas Rangers,
FBI agents, and other law enforcementagents, descended upon Cooksie Ranch.
With Car's map in hand. Theybrought out cadaver dogs, used ground penetrating

(01:08:12):
radar, and helicopters with infrared sensors, as well as completed foot searches of
the entire property. They were ableto find pretty much the exact location that
Gary Carr had marked as the burialsite. Oh wow, really yes?
And yet the three day search cameup with absolutely nothing. After all that,

(01:08:33):
after all that, I thought wehad the location, Yeah we did,
but no bodies somehow, So withno bodies, the US Attorney's Office
was forced to proceed with the casesthey did have against David Waters and Gary
Carr. By this time, Carrhad stopped cooperating completely, and without the

(01:08:54):
bodies being found, any deal hewas hoping for was taken off the table.
Anyway. He was offered a twentyyear sentence if he agreed to testify
against David Waters, but he refused. He stuck to his story that he
was only there for security at thevictim's request. Carr was ultimately charged with
kidnapping, extortion, money laundering,and two other counts, and his trial

(01:09:17):
began in May of two thousand.Some of the star witnesses against him were
his ex wife, who very muchlike Patty Joe Stephen's, had lots of
evidence against him about, especially alot of his spending during this time.
There was also Ellen Johnson of theAmerican Atheists who came to testify against him.

(01:09:39):
Patty Joe Stephens herself testified, aswell as all three men who had
stolen the gold coins from the storagelocker. So that's basically how we get
the details of what happened. Yeah, so we have a pretty good idea
about everything that happened, how ittranspired, but we're still waiting for the
convictions that we need now. Forthe defense, they also called a few

(01:10:00):
witnesses who claimed to have seen Madeline, John Garth and Robin alive and well,
one claimed she served them drinks ata bar in San Antonio and the
other claims he'd seen them at arestaurant in Romania. What yes, And
this was actually kind of common.There were several sort of almost like Elvis
sightings around the world of Madeline,John Garth and Robin That of course helped

(01:10:27):
to encourage people with this idea thatthey were still alive. But in the
end, the jury found Gary Carrguilty of everything except for kidnapping. Now,
obviously the way this worked was kindof strange because you have to ask
how the extortion and money laundering whichhe was convicted for, how that took
place if there wasn't also the kidnapping, which he was not found guilty for.

(01:10:53):
But that is what the jury found. Yeah, it's weird he is
convicted, but at the same time, Like, how this all transpire?
What's the truth of the matter.Well, the good thing is that either
way, Gary Carr was sentenced totwo terms of life imprisonment. Okay,
Gary Carr is he's out of here, he go, he go. Meanwhile,

(01:11:14):
David Waters had also been charged withfive counts, including kidnapping, extortion,
and robbery. Yeah this jerk,Well, his case was also set
to move forward for trial. However, something kind of strange happened. You
see, by this point he'd alreadybeen serving his sentence in the Texas State
prison system, and shockingly, hedidn't seem to like it very much.

(01:11:36):
Oh you don't say, I betyou don't. Yeah. Well, I
mean, as we know, Texasprisons have the reputation of being pretty bleak,
especially in comparison to federal prisons,which are usually regarded as having better
accommodations. They're more clean and havebetter food and medical help for prisoners.

(01:11:57):
Poor him. That last part wasespecially important to Waters, who by this
point had been diagnosed with hepatitis c. Oh. Okay, that is a
serious disease that you don't want tobe stuck in the Texas prison system with
that going on. Yeah, exactly, and if he was found not guilty
on the kidnapping and extortion charges,that meant he'd have to continue serving his

(01:12:23):
sentence here in Texas for at leastthe next decade or so. And he
did not want to do that.Yeah, he didn't have time. Yeah.
So after all that, David Watersfinally decided to talk in exchange for
a deal that would allow him totransfer to federal custody. And so in
January two thousand and one, heled authorities back to Cooksie Ranch in shackles,

(01:12:47):
taking them exactly to the same locationthat Carr had sent them to two
years before, but this time thedogs hit on something. The person leading
the recovery team was famed forensic anthropologistdoctor David Glassman. And of course,
JA and I are anthropologists. Wegot to do a little anthropology shout out.

(01:13:10):
Sure. At the time, hewas the chairman of the anthropology department
at Southwest Texas State University. Ibelieve he also started the forensic department there
at that university, a huge likeLeviathan of the forensic anthropology world. Really
cool guy. And he actually broughtalong a whole team of students to help

(01:13:31):
with the excavation and This was avery large excavation. We're talking several bodies
at this point. They're trying tofind him. Yeah, And after some
digging, doctor Glassman and his teamdiscovered the bodies of three individuals buried in
a single grave, basically placed allone on top of each other. Yeah,

(01:13:53):
it was a male and two females. Identification was simple. One of
the bodies had a prosthetic steel hip, and Madeleine had had her hip replaced
a few years before her disappearance.The serial number on the prosthetic matched the
one listed in Madeline's medical records.Later, a combination of DNA and dental

(01:14:15):
records would confirm the identification of Robinand John Garth's bodies as well. Finally,
after five and a half years,the Murio hairs had been found.
All three bodies had been dismembered afterdeath, with their legs sawn off just
below the hip joined and again thiswas most likely to aid in the transport
of their bodies from the stores thewar from the storage unit yes to the

(01:14:41):
location at Cooksie Ranch where the bodieswere ultimately buried. The bones also looked
slightly burnt, as if they'd beenexposed to a short but hot fire.
Madeline and Robin's bodies had no obvioussigns of trauma, and doctor Glassman concluded
that they had both been annually strangled. So, just to be clear,

(01:15:02):
it doesn't look like any of them, especially Madeline, suffered the torture that
David Waters had been fantasizing about.At least according to Patty Joe Stephens,
we didn't see that their bodies actuallyshow no evidence of trauma, which is
why it's believed that they were manuallystrangled, so at least hopefully a quick

(01:15:23):
death, or as quick as possibleunless you figure in the month of captivity
leading up to their murders. Sure, yeah, that whole torment. Unlike
Madeleine and Robin's bodies, John Garth'sbody did have signs of trauma. He
had multiple hairline fractures around his skullconsistent with blunt force trauma, and a

(01:15:45):
plastic bag was wrapped around his head, almost like a suffocation implement perhaps,
but we actually will talk about whythat bag was wrapped around his head a
little bit later. Okay, Butthere was another find out in that remote
ranch. The team discovered an extrapair of hands and a skull with one

(01:16:08):
bullet hole in the back. DNAtesting confirmed that these belonged to Danny Fry.
Oh wow, Okay, so wefound the missing skull on the hands.
Yeah. The remains of the MurrayO Hairs were cremated and buried together
in an unmarked grave at a nondenominational cemetery in Austin on March twenty third,

(01:16:29):
two thousand and one. Amongst theattendees was the US Attorney who prosecuted,
who prosecuted, car I, RS, Agent Ed Martin, FBI agent,
Donna Howling, and William Murray,so basically all of the big names
in this story. Although William broughtalong a preacher for support, no prayers
were set over them, per Madeleine'sexpress wishes. A few months after the

(01:16:53):
recovery of the bodies, David Waterswas sentenced to twenty years in prison and
exchange for locating the missing family andpleading guilty to extortion. The sentence was
again stacked with his previous charges,but he was allowed to transfer to federal
prison, which was what he wantedin the first place. However, it
didn't really end up mattering much inthe end, as David Waters died from

(01:17:16):
lung cancer and federal custody just twoyears later. Okay, so he's gone.
He's gone. Well, I guesswe don't have to worry about him,
that's right. I mean, he'sout of here. Yeah. Although
we don't know every bit of thestory, enough was gleaned from the evidence
and Karin Water's own statements to getan idea of how the kidnapping and murders

(01:17:39):
took place. David's position as theoffice manager for American Atheists had clued him
into how much money the family hadaccess to, as well as their significant
legal troubles, and quite frankly,he thought that organization would be right for
the picking. He began stealing things, including the documents who would show reporters

(01:17:59):
to try to prove that they wereheaded to New Zealand. He probably stole
the fifty five thousand dollars, originallythinking that the family was about to lose
their irs battle and that Johnson lawsuit, and that his little theft would get
lost in the shuffle. He alsoknew that there was significant bias against Madeline
and the family in law enforcement andin the general public, which would play

(01:18:23):
into his favor, and of coursethat's exactly what happened. We don't know
exactly how long David thought about kidnappingthe family, but he began seriously planning
it sometime after Madeline's article about himcame out. He first contacted his old
prison buddy Gary Carr with his ideato kidnap and extort the family. Waters

(01:18:45):
and Car decided to get Danny Fryinvolved as well. Danny, again was
a very non violent small time criminal, unlike Waters in Car, and he
was described as being generally very likableand friendly. In fact, Waters and
Car chose him specifically because they thoughthis demeanor would put the family at ease.
Waters admitted to investigators that they plannedto kill him from the very start.

(01:19:11):
They already marked them as somebody thathad to go. Yep, it's
cold, very cold. The kidnappingitself mostly took place on the morning of
Sunday, August twenty seventh, sothe day before that note was found by
the rest of the staff. Madeleineand John Garth were at the American Atheist
headquarters when Gary Carr and Danny Fryknocked on the front door, posing as

(01:19:33):
deliverymen. They pulled out guns andsubdued and subdued the mother and son and
then let David Waters inside the building. Robin arrived soon after and was similarly
taken. The men drove the familyto their home in a rented van and
told them to pack their belongings fora few weeks away from home. While

(01:19:55):
they were at the house, Robinmade Madeleine a sandwich, which was later
found sitting PARTI eaten on the needkitchen table. Yeah, you had mentioned
there were some food left out,that's right, And of course in the
mix of them trying to pack upsome belongings and everything, they ended up
for getting Madalin's medications. The mendrove Robin's Porsche to the airport in an
attempt to fool police that the familyhad fled, which we know later worked

(01:20:19):
in their favor. They then drovedown to San Antonio and ultimately to a
two bedroom apartment at the Warren InnHotel. For the next month, Madeleine
and Robin were forced to stay inhiding inside the apartment, always watched by
at least one of the men.John Garth had been allowed much more freedom.

(01:20:40):
He was the one making the arrangementsfor Madalin's medications and was allowed to
go to the video store and writtenmovies for them, go to the grocery
store for food, and of coursearranged the cash advances and the purchase of
the gold coins and all of thoseother things. He even went on a
quick trip to New Jersey with GaryHorror to help with the transfer of the

(01:21:00):
funds needed to purchase the gold andtheir free time. The family was allowed
to cook, watch movies, andplay card games and video games. There's
no evidence that John Garth, Madeline, or Robin tried to contact authorities or
tried to escape. Most people believedthat John Garth truly believed that once he

(01:21:23):
delivered the gold coins to their abductorsthat he and his mother and his niece
would be set free, which iswhy he was so compliant. Yeah,
but it sounds like they were convincedthat they were going to be okay at
the end of it. They reallywere, But that's not the case.
They had no idea what was comingfor them. Yeah, but the month

(01:21:44):
of captivity must have been particularly torturousfor Robin. From David Water's statements,
the family was absolutely terrified of GaryCarr, and he continually threatened Robin with
sexual assault as a way to gether to comply to his demands. Now,
according to some sources, these wereonly threats, but according to others,

(01:22:06):
including Ted Dracos's book, Ungodly,Car would take her to the other
room and force her to perform oralsex on him, telling her that if
she told her mother or John Garthwhat he was doing, that he would
kill them all. So, justan absolutely horrific situation all around. Wow.

(01:22:31):
I mean it's it's dark and itsucks, and this is horrific.
But also it kind of lines upwith their past behavior and their criminal convictions
that they've had before. Yeah,it absolutely did. I mean Waters himself
he had been charged with burglary,forgery, all of these sort of charges
related to stealing of money, andhe had also been previously charged with murder.

(01:22:56):
And of course Gary Carr himself hadbeen previously a charge with aggravated kidnapping
and sexual assault. Yeah, andyou know he he gets out of jail
for that and immediately does this tothe Muryo Hair family. It's wild.
I mean, it's it's like asuper team of criminals, like, yeah,
to pull this off the yallains,Yeah, for sure. On September

(01:23:19):
twenty six, the group moved outof the Warren Inn and into a Laquinta
Inn. They would later explain thatthey did this because they knew that they
were about to kill the family.And at the Laquinta Inn they had doors
on the bottom floor where you couldback a van right up to them to
where you can move the bodies fromthe hotel room into the van without people

(01:23:43):
being able to see you, andthis was the reason why they moved locations.
Three days later, John Garth retrievedthe gold and delivered it to Waters,
who then drove up to Austin andput the gold in the storage locker.
He then drove back to San Antonio. While he was gone, Danny
Fry and Gary Carr bound the family'swrists and ankles. Madeleine apparently tried to

(01:24:06):
protest, but the kidnappers told themthat they were going to leave the family
tied up at the hotel to givethem time to get away with the gold.
So right like, the entire situationhad revolved around the kidnappers getting this
gold, the family believed, oncethey get this gold, they're going to
let us go. Once the goldwas handed over to them, Waters took

(01:24:28):
off to go partially cash out someof the gold as well as put it
in that storage locker, and bythe time he came back, everybody was
prepared for the murders that were aboutto ensue, so they thought they were
going to be okay up until thispoint. Yes. In fact, Madeleine
and Robin were scared and worried aboutwhat was going on because it felt weird,

(01:24:50):
like they were being separated and beingput into bindings, you know,
like prepared for something, yes,and so they were really nervous and scared.
But John calmed them down and toldthem that everything would be okay soon.
So this sort of settled everybody down, and the kidnappers tied the women

(01:25:12):
to their beds and then they tookJohn to the second bedroom. When Waters
returned from the trip to Austin,after he had dropped off the gold and
the storage locker, the murders began. They targeted John first, eager to
get rid of the person who couldput up the biggest fight. They jumped
him and began smashing his head intoa night table several times while he desperately

(01:25:35):
tried to fight them off. Thiswas most likely the cause of the skull
fractures that we saw in the skullwhen the bodies were recovered. Okay,
from hitting the nightstand over and over. Oh yes. They then held him
down and suffocated him. John's headwas bleeding from the multiple bashes against the

(01:25:57):
nightstand, and so they put theplastic bag around it to catch the blood
so they wouldn't leave evidence behind.So it wasn't a suffocation thing. Was
it was a collection of blood issue. Well, it's kind of not sure.
Again, Doctor Glassman couldn't find specificevidence to show how John Garth died.
There was obviously all of the bluntforce trauma around his head, but

(01:26:19):
it could have been suffocation. Itcould have been blunt force trauma and the
resulting blood loss from those injuries.It could have been any of those things.
There was a lot going on withhis death, Yeah, exactly.
The men then went into the bedroomwhere Madeline and Robin were tied up.
Waters said that Fry helped him strangleMadeline while Gary Carr strangled Robin. After

(01:26:44):
the family was dead, they wrappedthe bodies with sheets from the hotel and
loaded them into the van. Theydrove to the storage unit that they had
lined with plastic sheeting. Neither Watersnor Fry could bring themselves to dismember the
bodies. So Gary Carr offered todo the job for twenty five thousand dollars
per person, to which they agreed. So he's giving he's getting a seventy

(01:27:06):
five thousand dollars boost for being theone too just remember the bodies, jeez.
And they're just negotiating about this likeon the fly pretty much, yeah,
because apparently, I mean, accordingto what Waters was kind of saying,
like Carr was kind of laughing atthem like, oh yeah, you
guys can't even deal with cutting upthe bodies. I'll do it fine for

(01:27:27):
twenty five thousand each end. Theywere honestly like okay, like they weren't
even worried about it because they somuch didn't want to be the ones cutting
up the bodies. I mean,nobody does really, but it's still weird
how brazen he is of offering todo it, Oh, Gary Carr,
Yeah, for a set number ofvalue for you know, twenty five thousand

(01:27:49):
dollars a person, And then theyall just went yeah, yeah, Well,
Gary Carr honestly seemed like a realmonster, I mean all perhaps even
more than David Waters. Almost likeDavid Waters was like the idea guy,
but then Gary Carr is like themuscle or the actuator, like the person

(01:28:09):
who is getting it done. Yeah, kind of, I think that would
be an okay assessment. But GaryCarr was also the one who was I
think a little bit more vicious.You know, he obviously has the sexual
assaults, the sexual nature of thecrime, the real violent crimes on his
record. Exactly. Yes, SoGary Carr cut the legs off of each

(01:28:30):
body and they were stuffed into fiftygallon steel drums. The next day,
Waters and Car told Danny Fry thatthey needed his scout areas to dump the
bodies, and they drove him tothe river front area in Seagoville. While
Fry's back was turned, someone shothim in the head at point blank range.

(01:28:51):
Waters initially said that Car killed Fry, but eventually he did admit to
the murder himself. Okay, holdon, and so David Waters shot Fry,
yes, and then what happened?And then Gary Carr was the one
to remove his head and hands,just like he had removed and dismembered the

(01:29:11):
bodies of the Yeah. Yeah,but is there any extra information like why
they cut him out at this point, at this juncture, and then well
not to no pun intended, butthen like cut him out. Well,
it seems like, first of all, it was they hired him on because
they knew that he was like anice, friendly guy. He was he
would make the family more at ease, sure, and he would serve his

(01:29:34):
purpose. But they also knew thatthey could kill him right away when everything
was done, from what they saidin their statements, because Deanny Fry had
a tendency to be a kind ofa big drinker and he was also a
big talker. Part of their worrywas that he was going to then turn
around, you know, haven't exactlyhe was going to spill the rings beans,

(01:29:57):
he was going to tell somebody andthen everything thing was lost to them,
and that's why they decided to killhim. Yeah, he was a
loose end. Yeah, Okay.Of course they not only cut off his
head and hands, but they werealso removed all of his clothes and anything
else that could have identified him.They hoped, incorrectly that this would prevent
the body from being identified. Now, it should be noted there are a

(01:30:19):
couple inconsistencies in waters story when itcame to the murder of Danny Frye.
First, there was so little bloodat the scene where the body was found
that investigators had thought that the bodyhad been killed and dismembered elsewhere. But
Waters said, no, the bodywas both shot and dismembered at the location

(01:30:43):
he was found. There's no evidenceof this other than what David Waters said.
Okay. Second, the medical examinerconcluded that Danny Frye had been dead
only about twelve hours when he wasfound on October second, but Waters was
insistent that he was killed on thethirtieth, two days before the body was
found. And they really tried tohammer David Waters on both of these points

(01:31:10):
when Danny Frye was murdered and wherehe was murdered, but Waters really stuck
to his story even though it didn'tfit with the evidence. So these are
two points where we kind of questionexactly what we were told by David Waters.
Yeah, but we don't. Wedon't think it really transpired any I

(01:31:31):
mean, ultimately they killed him andthey dismembered it, yes, exactly,
But it does seem like there's somethingthat they're covering for about this murder with
Danny Frye that was never really fullyexplained, and it's just a very strange
point. We don't know what thetruth is really, we just know what

(01:31:53):
the scientific evidence proves. And thenwhat David Waters says, I wonder what
actually really transpired. Yeah, Idon't know. Well, after killing Danny
Fry, Car and Waters drove backto Austin, loaded up the drums with
the family's bodies, and headed downto Cooksie Ranch. They dug a shallow
grave and dumped at the contents ofthe drums into the hole, along with

(01:32:15):
Fry's head and hands. They pouredgasoline on the grave and let everything burn
for a while before covering the bodiesback up with dirt and returning to Austin.
That's why there was burn evidence onthe bodies. That's right, just
like a little bit of a chard, not enough to do much of any
damage as far as destroying evidence.From what Waters and Car said later,

(01:32:40):
the whole thing from getting the goldto marrying the bodies took three days,
and they were on a solid methbender the whole time, where they just
weren't sleeping. They were just doingmeth and killing all these people and doing
all these things. And I justwant to bring this up because I think
this is just a fascinating aspect ofthis case. Naturally, David Waters had

(01:33:03):
a lot to say about his exgirlfriend, Patti Joe Stephens. Okay,
the X that spilled the beans.Oh, yes, she spilled the beans
and she absolutely brought this case home, Like the only reason why this case
was prosecuted was because of Pattie Joe. Yeah, I'm sure he has all
kinds of negative things to say abouthe does it, He does, certainly.

(01:33:24):
He said that she wasn't just aperson on the periphery, but that
she was a willing accomplice who waswell aware of the entire scheme, the
kidnapping and the murders. Oh wow. He said that not only did she
help him rent the storage locker,that she received money and a new truck
in the scam, and that shehad been the one to locate and get

(01:33:46):
access to the burial location at CooksieRanch through a customer at her work.
Those were all true. That isexactly what happened. Oh. David said
she even came up with an ideato call and page him all the time
while the kidnapping was going on inSan Antonio in order to pose as fake.

(01:34:09):
Additional complices to scare the family intobelieving their kidnapping was part of a
larger operation. That part we don'tknow. It is true, That's what
David Waters is saying. Yeah,but did any of this result and charges
against her? No, absolutely not. Remember she had that immunity agreement drawn

(01:34:30):
up before she even started talking.And agent Calling amongst others, have said
that they believed her version of thestory where she was doing these things but
she didn't know it was involved witha kidnapping and murder and all of these
other things. She was just helpingout her boyfriend and for whatever he was
doing. You know, she wasn'tactually intricately involved and knew what was going

(01:34:55):
on but soon and you know,I don't know, it sounds like you
would know, like all this stuffthat's going on. It sounds it sounds
like you would be more intrinsically connectedwith the details of what's going on than
you're letting on. Well, Imean, it's just an interesting part of
the story. I don't know thatfor sure. I don't want to say
for sure that she was a badpart of this group, because she did

(01:35:20):
end up helping so much. AndI do think she was an abused woman
in a abusive relationship with David Waters. So there's, you know, again,
a very very nuanced understanding of whatwas going on. I just wanted
to bring that out because I thoughtit was really interesting. Oh it is.
And we hear this a lot frompeople who end up getting deals where

(01:35:40):
they get immunity and then it's like, oh, but were they actually involved
directly? Yeah, in the crime? Yeah, so who knows. Weird.
It's a weird like chasing the Taleof the Jaguar. You're hunting,
right, like, you're you're tryingto get to this ultimate conclusion where you
find the murderer and you find everyonewho's involved, but you might be making
plea bargains and agreements early on withother people who might be more involved than

(01:36:05):
you think they are. Yeah,exactly. And I will say Patty Joe
ended up going into witness protection,she changed her name, moved out of
the state, and I don't know, just went on and lived her life
and hopefully she's doing okay, andhopefully she also didn't actually have anything to
do with these parts. Yeah.Well, one of the other biggest mysteries

(01:36:28):
of this case is what happened tothe family's dogs. So remember please,
Well it's nothing bad, but rememberthat the families dogs went missing, and
the family's dogs had been left behindat the house. Yeah, there was
all of these situations where they're tryingto take care of the dogs and then
suddenly months later the dogs went missing, and a lot of people believed that

(01:36:54):
this was an indication that the familywas alive. Yeah, what're those dogs
at? Well, now that weknow that the family had been in fact
murdered before the dogs ever disappeared,we don't know. No one knows who
took the dogs, and they werenever seen or heard from again. What

(01:37:14):
Yeah, so the dogs were justa weird part of this story. Nobody
knows what happened to them. Someonejust came and took them. Yeah,
I mean, I guess. Butnone of the people involved any idea about
where the dogs went. No,there was absolutely no evidence to suggests that
any like waters were car or fryor anybody had anything to do with these

(01:37:36):
dogs. We don't know. Isn'tthat so weird? I mean I thought
the dog disappearance was weird to beginwith, you know, like that was
such a weird thing, and itkind of like played into the whole family's
disappearance and maybe trying to skip townand all that kind of stuff. But
yeah, I know, And that'swhat's so ironic about it is that was

(01:37:56):
such a clue to people. Ohwell, there's certainly still live. But
no, in fact, we haveno idea what happened with those dogs,
so strange. I don't know.I'm so hurt that we don't. I'm
sure there were sweet little babies.Well, there is a tiny little bit
of an update on Gary Carr's sentencingthat I think it's important for us to

(01:38:18):
mention. Sure, recently federal lawchanged and life sentences are no longer considered
constitutional for the two charges that GaryCarr was convicted for, so he was
able to appeal his sentencing in twentytwenty one. Just last year, Carr

(01:38:38):
was re sentenced to fifty years inprison, with the twenty one years he's
already served counting towards that sentence.Now he's in his seventies currently, so
even with this change or reduction insentencing, he will still spend the rest
of his natural life in prison.Good. Yeah, And finally, John

(01:39:00):
McCormick, let's do a little updateon him. He is still writing for
the San Antonio Express News, andwe talked about how John McCormick's work factored
into the resolution of this case.But we also have to give credit to
investigator Tim Young, i RS AgentEd Martin, and FBI agent Donna Cowen
because they had such incredible diligence insolving this case when other people did not

(01:39:26):
want to and did not care.Yeah, but no, you're right.
Ultimately it came down to a smallgroup of people that really gave everything they
had for this case to come toa resolution. Everybody else didn't seem to
care. The Austin PD wasn't goingto investigate it. They weren't going to
find a resolution to this case.Yeah, that's true, and we of
course need to give credit to theother reporters who tracked down leads as well.

(01:39:49):
If there were multiple people involved inthis, it's just not the people
you would have thought. Not theAustin Police Department, who had like this
was their case, completely fungled everything. Yeah. And finally, if you
were concerned about John McCormick and TimYoung's relationship after their disagreement, that kind

(01:40:09):
of split them apart and they wenttheir separate ways. Never fear. The
two have spoken about each other alot, and they give each other heaps
of praise. It's very clear thatthey only have the utmost respect for each
other, and they both believe thatthey did a great thing in working on
this case and resolving it good.Well, I'm glad they resolved everything and

(01:40:31):
they're on good terms with each other. That's great. And you know,
we talked about super villains in thiscase. With the bad guys, they
really seemed like an evil pact ofvillains. And then they're all the good
forces that were really working on thiscase when nobody else wanted to. And
it was really like the Avengers,you know, at one point with a
super team. And I mean thiscase had everything from gold coins, jewels,

(01:40:58):
high money, thefts, embezzlement,possibly fleeing the country. I mean,
what did this case not have?And there was even excavation of human
remains in this case. Yeah,the excavation and recovery of the bodies I
thought was a really interesting part ofthis case. You and I have archaeological
background, and I have actually doneexcavation of human remains, but only in

(01:41:19):
an archaeological context, So I'd bereally interested to see some of these distinctions
between a excavation and recovery based onforensic material versus how we do it in
the archaeological world. I thought thatwas just sort of an interesting point and
I would like to learn even moreabout this case as far as doctor Glassman

(01:41:41):
and his work goes. Yeah,maybe one day we'll get to do some
of those kind of things and expandour excavation repertoire from archaeologists to forensic scientists.
Well, very good. I'm surelisteners you can tell why this turned
into a two parter. I don'tthink you originally planned for it to be
one, but there was just somuch material that we had to go through,
and it was all really fascinating andimportant to understanding the truth of this

(01:42:05):
case and as much as we cantell really happened. Yeah, and yeah,
it was a long story, somuch to get through. Hopefully here
from here on out, we're goingto be maybe decreasing the amount of research
and pressure that we do for eachepisode. That way, we were able
to actually put them out, youknow, a little bit more on schedule.

(01:42:27):
Yeah, I'm sure you all wouldappreciate the hat. Yeah, the
big episodes, they are big fora reason. They take a lot of
time and effort behind the scenes,and then even when you were recording them.
I mean, this original recording startedover a couple hours, and now
we've cut it down. I thinkit was like three hours. It was
like three hours originally, so we'vewe've cut this one together. Well,
I've got a hankering for some goodnews. I was just about to ask

(01:42:50):
when you know, we've talked abouta lot of endangered species on this show,
but I have, yeah, fromsea turtles to differ and animals that
are that are rare in Texas thatare still being found. And we're going
to talk about some some flora inthe good news. Oh excellent, So
that'll be up right after this.Okay, Aaron, give me your general

(01:43:26):
thoughts on trees like them? Yeah, who doesn't. I guess if you're
running into one at high speed,they're not very friendly, but you know,
otherwise they're great. They make theearth a nice place to live,
that clean the air, they're goodfor the environment. Well, we all
like trees, but did you knowthat there has been a recent groundbreaking discovery
when it comes to a particular treethat scientists thought had gone extinct. Well,

(01:43:49):
right, here in Texas, thisdiscovery has been made. Oh yes,
in our own Big Ben National Park, a particular oak tree thought to
have been lost to us long agohas been located and identified. Therefore,
it is no longer extinct. Soaccording to Southern Living dot com and KSAT

(01:44:09):
News, which are the sources forthis good news, a team who represents
a coalition of more than ten differentscientific institutes found a lone Quarcas tartifolia Quarcas
quarcus okay or quercus. I don'tknow. It sounds like a star trek
Deep Space nine immediately thought of quartfrom DS nine. Yeah, it's his

(01:44:30):
cousin, Quarcus Starfolia tartifolia. Well, this particular tree was found and located
back late in May of this year. Now, unfortunately, the tree is
in quote unquote poor condition. Itstrunk was scarred by evidence of recent fire
damage. There's been a lot ofwildfires in Big Bin and it looks like

(01:44:53):
some of those fires reached this reallyrare tree. And it also showed signs
of severe fungal infection, which isnot good for this particular species. And
because of that, scientists deemed itan immediate need for conservation. Corcus tartifolia
was first described way back in thenineteen thirties. In fact, the last

(01:45:13):
living specimen of this tree was believedto have died in two thousand and eleven.
It is also considered one of,if not the rarest oak trees in
the world. I don't know,I've seen pictures of it. It doesn't
it's not like it's pink or anything, or you know, there's anything striking
about it. It just kind oflooks like an oak tree. But it
is the rarest in the world.How does an oak tree become extinct?

(01:45:36):
I mean, how does that even? I guess they'd just like anything else.
I am, yeah, Well,I think there's several threats that attack
certain species of trees, and alsoglobal warming erosion. Different micro environments and
ecoregions in our state are changing andshifting, Like we just had a dust

(01:45:57):
bowl in human memory. That's wherea huge region of Texas turned into a
giant ash tree. Basically that canaffect several species of plants and animals.
So they just found this one tree, just one tree. There's no more
in Big Bend. Well, theydon't know that yet. So there's there's
kind of some some more information aboutthat now. The head of the Rare

(01:46:17):
Plant and Conservation Department of San Antonio'sBotanical Garden, Michael Eason, told KSAT
News quote, it is not everyday that one finds a presumed extinct species.
We've been given a second chance toconserve this species, this plant.
It is an opportunity we will notwaste. So what they're currently doing,

(01:46:39):
in kind of conjunction with working withthe National Park Service is to reduce the
immediate wildfire threat to the tree andpossible other trees in that area. So
they're doing wildfire prevention and conservationists arealso planning a return trip to search for
acorns and an attempt to propagate thisrare tree. Well, that's what I
was going to ask next, isit's still producing like nuts or whatever.

(01:47:00):
There might be other of these oaktrees out there in that region that obviously
Big Bend is a very tough terrainto get through. A lot of times
you have to go into certain areasvia horseback and like ATVs and stuff like
that. So the search continues forother Quarcus tartifolia and ones that are bearing
ripe acorns that they can propagate.But Wesley Knap, the chief botanist of

(01:47:24):
Nature Serve who also participated in thisexpedition, said in a statement to KSAT
News quote, In many ways,this tree is an ancient relic. Due
to the changing climate, the worldis completely different now than when it evolved.
It is incumbent upon us to learnfrom it protect it while we still
can in order to inform future conservationefforts. They also added in this article

(01:47:46):
that across the planet, oak trees, specifically oak trees serve as a massive
ecological anchor that clean air, filterwater, sequester carbon dioxide, support countless
fung guys and insects as well asbirds and mammals, and when one of
this species is lost, it onlyputs more stress and danger on other species

(01:48:08):
that are in the region. Inthe area, absolutely everything is in a
relationship with each other in major Soyeah, that kind of stuff is important.
So do they have any estimation onhow old this tree is? This
tree looks like it could be overone hundred years old. Oh wow,
okay, yeah, and that wouldmake sense with you know, it was
first noted in the record in thenineteen thirties this type of tree, but

(01:48:31):
the last one that they saw thatit was dead was in twenty eleven.
So it's a pretty sizeable tree.But they're hoping there are other ones like
it in the area that they cansay. They're also looking at doing things
with where you cut a piece ofthe tree off and you graft it to
other trees to propagate the tree thatway, and hopes that they might bear

(01:48:53):
acorns at some point so then youcan start growing whole new trees. Interesting,
okay, Yeah, and will alsogo into the if they do find
these acorns, they're going to gointo the World Seed Bank to maintain all
of the world's flora species. Yeah. Nice, Yeah, awesome. That's
an excellent bit of news. Imean, usually these days when it comes

(01:49:15):
to nature, you're here and allsorts of really bad news. So that's
a nice, little special bit ofinformation about nature. Yeah, and you've
kind of become the plant lady atthe new house. You have all your
plants. Should I should grow acaucus if you got to get your hands
on one. They're really rare.Apparently, got to go down a big

(01:49:35):
bend, go get me a caucus. I think that's our gonna end.
Gonna go get me a caucus,all right, folks, this is the
after show where we think our patronsfirst up, Let's remind you of our
social media places where we can befound. We can be found on Twitter

(01:49:56):
at ACNC podcast and on Instagram atAll Crime, No Cattle, and you
can join our Facebook group at ACNCPosse Discussion Group. Yeah, we also
have a website that has links towhere you can pick up merch from us.
And if you want to support theshow in another way, you can
always go to our Patreon site.It's patreon dot com slash All Crime,
No Cattle. We have four differenttiers on there. You can listen to

(01:50:18):
episodes without ads, you can geta bunch of extra bonus episodes on there
that you can listen to. Andyeah, we also have abilities to get
stickers, buttons, all kinds offun stuff and shout outs. And of
course those shout outs every episode haveto go out to our Texas Rangers,
our highest tier. They are theproducers, are special producers to each episode

(01:50:41):
of the show. We love them, we adore them. They are the
magic that makes the machine work.So thank you so much to all of
our Texas Rangers, which include andare limited to Amanda Mattaford, Angel Moody,
Don Maloney, Gail Parker, JamieGray, Jennifer Magnolia, Jessica Lafy,
Leah Dardy, Lisa Layton, MickeySweet, and Sarah Nicholson. Thank

(01:51:06):
you guys so much. You're awesome, big high five from across the podcast
Boom awesome. Thank y'all so muchfor sporting the show. And we will
be back as soon as possible withanother episode. Yeah, we've got more
Patreon only stuff coming, more regularepisode stuff coming, and we will be
hard at work as per usual,and we hope you guys have a good

(01:51:28):
rest of your month. Stay cool, don't get caught in any wildfires.
Those are all over the state rightnow. Keep an eye out for those
extinct trees. Yeah, watch outfor carcus and we'll see you next time.
Thank you all, and always remembercrime is bigger in Texas, y'all.
Audios, goodbye,

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Ep 97: The Disappearance of the Murray-O'Hair Family, Part II

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