Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
H a Wall Street line, shackle change, Oh weesome, Girdie,
(00:25):
it's calling my name. There is no mercy and it's
been a tentery juice as the huge stream game Wrangle three.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Come here by.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Me to die inside these walls, inside the wild hadn't
went no girl as I.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Hey everyone, and welcome back to Bloody and Gola, a
podcast of one and forty two years in the making,
the complete story of America's bloodiest present. I'm Jim Chapman
and Luck. Before we get into today's episode, just a
couple of announcements. First, one that is really somber in nature.
(01:51):
Woody Everton, who I started this podcast with and is
still to this day a partner in this podcast, is father.
As of this recording, looks like he is going to
be passing away. I'm just gonna read this Facebook post
quickly that what he made says my dad, woodrow Leo
(02:14):
Overton Senior, my mentor, my best friend. Thank you for
everything you have done for me, including making me the
man I am today. I will miss you every day.
Go us with Jesus now you certainly have earned it.
I know you will continue to be with me until
we meet again. In Heaven. Huge prayers for my mom,
who is the strongest and most loving wife anyone could
(02:37):
wish for fifty eight years of marriage, seven children, nineteen
grandchildren and two great grandchildren. Dad, you and Mom have
definitely left your mark in the world. Y'all. My dad
is home in his bedroom, surrounded by love. Last rites
have been given and now we wait for the angels
to bring him home. Thank you for everyone who has
(02:58):
helped us get to the point, and thank you Hospice
for helping us keep him home. And of course, many
prayers to Woody Everton as he and his family go
through this very difficult time. And I'll tell you a
quick little story about mister Lee Overton. Funny to me
(03:19):
that I remember, you know, bits and pieces of your childhood.
And one of the things I do remember is Lee
Overton's commercials that were run on TV back when I
was nine ten years old somewhere around there. He just dominated.
(03:39):
He was an attorney in Baton Rouge, very successful attorney
for many, many, many years in addition to other things
that he did, and he ran more commercials than any
other attorney in town by far. And many years later.
Who knew I would cross path with Woody Everton, and
(04:00):
he mentioned his dad was an attorney and I said, wait,
is your dad Lee Overton And he said yeah, and
I said, I don't know him, but I know his
commercials well. I did have the pleasure of meeting mister
Overton only one time, and that was at a Marti
Gras event in which Woody was He was like the
Master of Ceremonies or whatever you call him, the King
(04:22):
of the Monti Graus Parade or something like that. And
we were on Woody's float and his dad was there,
and look, even at his age then he was still
quite the charmer. So many many prayers to all who
knew in all who loved Lee Overton. And I have
(04:43):
one more announcement today, and that is the Livingston Pair
Sheriff's Office, which both Woody and I have talked about
many times on Bloody Angla. They have kicked off their
own podcast. It's called Behind the Scenes with Sheriff Jason Ard.
My company Vision is consulting on that project. And I'll
(05:04):
tell you what, it's pretty damn good. So if you're
interested in seeing behind the scenes what these sheriff's office
do to catch bad guys, this will be a great
one for you if you're a true crime fanatic, great
podcast for you to check out. You can just search
on YouTube. Behind the scenes we shareff Jason Orden. It'll
(05:26):
pull it up, go check it out. We just dropped
the second episode of that podcast, and let's get into
today's episode. And I'm gonna call this episode the Dog
Lady of Lancing Prison. And in two thousand and six,
Toby Door formerly Toby Young when this was going down,
she made headlines after she helped convicted murderer John Maynard
(05:50):
escape from Lancing Correctional Facility in Kansas, and she did
this by sneaking him out in a dog crate. Now,
Door had been helping inmates train dogs to prepare the
dogs for adoption. This was part of a program she
founded called Safe Harbor Prison Dogs. So let's get into it,
and I'm a start off by telling you a little
(06:12):
bit about Toby. She came from a large family of
seven kids, and she was the oldest sibling. And when
you're the oldest sibling of a large family, you are
typically the one who is the most mature. You get
the honor of helping mom and dad with all those
kids that were born behind you, right, and Toby was
(06:36):
no exception. She was the straight arrow in her family,
the rule follower, and even in high school when her
parents didn't require her necessarily to be home at a
certain time, she really didn't have like what you would
call a curfew. She come home early anyway. She was
just a model child and a model young adult. So
(06:56):
she graduates from Bishop Ward High School in Kansas City, Kansas,
and from there she attended college. She gets her bachelor's
degree in business administration. And she was very smart, graduating
near the top of her class. Now, when she graduated college,
Toby was already married. She had tied the knot at
(07:20):
just twenty years old to her high school sweetheart, and
he was a firefighter in Kansas and actually the only
guy she had ever dated. And she was a spunky lady,
very short, five feet tall, one hundred and thirty pounds,
just an everyday lady. And as the years went on,
(07:41):
on the outside everything seemed fine, but her life in
her marriage was not without the challenges. Toby and her
husband they had a daughter who sadly died at birth.
Following that, they did have two sons who grew up
happy and healthy. And it was in two two thousand
and four that Toby gets diagnosed with thyroid cancer, so
(08:06):
she had to have her thyroid removed, and later on
she would say, this is the moment she realized that
there had to be more out there for her. She
was married, but she wasn't in love and she described
her marriage as very quote hollow. Now, at the time
of her diagnosis, she had been married twenty six years.
(08:30):
So during her recovery from thyroid cancer, she saw a
TV show and that TV show focused on dog training
inside of prisons, and at this time in her life,
she was working at a vet clinic and she had
a huge affinity for dogs in particular and dog rescues,
(08:51):
so she decided she wanted to start a dog rescue
program where she would train the dogs and then she
would offer those dogs up for a She named the
new business quote Safe Harbor. And it was just shortly
later that a warden for Lancing Correctional Facility in Kansas
(09:11):
City contacted her about the program. I'm talking within days
of her getting it started, and he asked her if
she would like to use inmates at his facility to
train those dogs. Lancing had been considering a similar program
like that, so the inmates that would eventually be released
(09:31):
from the facility would have something they could use upon
release as it relates to training. And they also felt
like it would help these guys on the inside not
buck up so much, if you will. And this sounded
like a great idea to Toby obviously, so she made
an appointment to pitch the board at that prison on
(09:53):
her new business and they absolutely loved the idea, and
the next thing you know, Safe Harbor has a prison contract. Now,
this was in January of two thousand and five. Now,
this was an extremely successful program. In the eighteen months
that Toby was involved in the program before what would
(10:15):
happen happened. Toby rescued over one thousand dogs by having
them trained by convicts, and at that point those dogs
would get adopted by families. They figured out the formula
was if the dogs were already trained, it was easier
to get people to adopt these dogs. And in addition
to all of that, people wanted to support something like
(10:38):
prisoner reform.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
Now.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Eventually it became the largest dog program in the country,
over one hundred convict dog handlers and eighty to one
hundred dogs were being trained at any given time. The
dogs were even allowed to stay with the handlers in
their cells during training, which made the program I am
very sought after among the convicts. Sadly, about a year
(11:05):
into the program, Toby's dad was diagnosed with bladder cancer,
which took over quickly and he sadly passes away. And
it was around that time that a convict by the
name of John Maynor. He noticed that something was off
with Toby and he showed some concern, which, due to
(11:27):
everything that was falling apart at this time for Toby,
her dad dying, her marriage was just routine at best,
it didn't take a crystal ball to see that attention
would possibly be something that could create an issue. Now
this time, Toby was forty eight years old and John
(11:48):
was twenty eight. So let's talk quickly about John Maynard. Now.
Growing up, you could say John Maynord was the total
opposite of Toby. While Toby was a straight arrow, John,
by the age of thirteen, was already causing trouble. He
had been arrested for trespassing, burglary, vandalism, and at sixteen
(12:10):
he was charged with aggravated assault, allegedly pulling a saught
off shotgun on a group of people. This was in
nineteen eighty five, and because of his lengthy record, Maynard
was automatically waved to adult court, where he faced three
counts of aggravated assault in one count of illegally possessing
(12:30):
a firearm. These are all felonies. However, the aggravated assault
charge was eventually dismissed when a witness did not show
up in court, but Maynard was still found guilty of
illegally possessing assault off shotgun. So he does do some
jail time. Now he gets released from jails following a
(12:50):
short stant for possessing that shotgun, and that's where his
life would take a dramatic turn. On June thirteenth of
nineteen ninety six, a guy by the name of Donald
England was shot at six point thirty five PM while
sitting in his park car outside a haircut shop in Kansas.
He was waiting for his ex wife to get her haircut.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
Now.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Witnesses said that England was sitting in the passenger seat
two young white males. They walk up and they actually
get in the car. England then gets shot with a
stolen small caliber semi automatic handgun. He gets out of
the car, and witnesses said he may have tried to
kick one of the assailants before he got shot in
(13:35):
the chest. After the shooting, the assailants sped away in
the car of the guy they just shot, and witnesses
who saw this they actually started pursuing the vehicle, but
they backed off after at least one shot was fired
at them. The abandoned car was found a few hours
(13:55):
later behind a school, and about a week later a
comes in and the tipster actually named two individuals who
had been seen in the vicinity of the homicide. Within hours,
the police pull over a truck with Tennessee plates and
four white males get out. One of them takes off
(14:19):
running as soon as he gets out of the vehicle,
and that man was John Maynard. The other occupants they
get hauled into jail. They write out Maynard and eventually
he gets caught and when it was all sudden done,
Maynard was charged and convicted of first gree murder and
he gets sentenced to life in prison, no parole. That's
(14:41):
in April of nineteen ninety nine, and Maynard looked the
part of a convict. He was five foot nine one
hundred and ninety pounds, very muscular, and had the word
hooligan in three inch letters tattooed across his stomach. So
in October of tw two thousand and five, Toby meets
(15:02):
John Maynard and he actually becomes somewhat of her convict bodyguard.
And Toby explained this in an interview, saying, quote, there
came a time when I was inside the prison when
I heard some I mean I would just walk around
the prison by myself, not accompanied by an officer at all,
(15:23):
and I heard some inmates make sexual comments under their
breath as I walk by, their kind of cat calling her, right.
It made me a little bit nervous. I looked around
and I realized, this is a huge prison. There's a million,
maybe not a million, but it seemed like a million
inmates in there, and I was vulnerable. So I shared
(15:46):
this with the warden's office, that I wasn't comfortable just
walking around inside the prison without an officer or some protection.
So they told me to always be sure I was
accompanied by one of my dog handlers, because the dog
handlers wouldn't let anyone say anything to me or cost
me in any way. So just don't walk through the
(16:08):
prison alone. Just make sure when you come to the
gate you meet up with one of your dog handlers
and ask someone to walk with you the whole time,
the warden's office told her, and she goes on to
say I did that for about a year and it
worked fine until one day I was walking with two
of my dog handlers and I came upon another dog
handler who wanted his girlfriend to adopt his dog. And
(16:31):
I ran into this inmate, and it had been about
eight weeks since he asked me if he could adopt
his dog, and I said to him, hey, when is
your girlfriend gonna pick up your dog? Because I've got
a lot of dogs lined up waiting to come in
here and I need that space. And he got mad
at me and started screaming at me, and he put
his fist up and he was in my face and
(16:52):
he was yelling at me and cussing at me and saying,
you know, you let everyone else wait for their dogs.
I don't know why you're being this way with me.
And so I looked over at my two dog handlers
for help, and they were just looking at their feet
because they didn't want to confront this guy. And I
just knew I was gonna get hit, and this guy
outweighed me by one hundred and fifty pounds. I didn't
(17:13):
know what to do. And so then I looked past
this guy who was confronting me, and I saw John
Maynard kind of swaggering his way in the yard, and
he walked up and I just heaved a sigh of
relief because I knew now was safe, because nobody was
gonna mess with John Maynard. And Maynard said to him,
(17:34):
go on back to yourself, Toby, let me walk you
to the gate. When I got outside the prison, I
just fell apart and I called my contact at the
Warden's office and said, I'm never going back in that
prison again. There's no way I will do this. This
isn't safe. And I'll run Boom, I'll run the prison
dog program, but I'm not going in the prison. I'll
(17:55):
run it from the outside. She goes on to say,
on Monday morning, this part Erson, my contact in the
Warden's office called me back and said, now, when you
come up to the prison, you just Paige Maynard. So
when I got to the prison, I call and I'd
say Paige Maynard to the gate, and he'd come to
the gate and meet me, and he'd walk me to
every dog I needed to visit and just stay there
(18:18):
through my training sessions. That was too much time to
be spending together with John Maynard. And I can see
how that would create quite the problem, and I'm sure
you can too. Now, this is not a woman who
did not know better as it relates to manipulation. Toby
was actually required to take classes at the prison specifically
(18:39):
tailored toward convict manipulation. Now, in addition to being a
bodyguard to Toby, John was also one hell of a
dog trainer. He had trained over twenty five dogs personally
by this point in time, and Maynard was well respected
even by the correctional officers, who would describe him as
(19:00):
someone who was very charismatic. So John is around Toby
all the time. They talked constantly, and John at some
point starts flirting and Toby at some point starts flirting back,
and this goes on for several weeks. And it's at
(19:20):
this point of time that, according to Toby, she falls
in love with John Maynard and vice versa. And it's
during this love affair that the two decide that in
order to be together John Maynard needs to escape prison,
which is convenient for him, right, So they hatch a
(19:42):
plan and in an interview, Toby was asked about the
night prior to that escape, and she said this quote, Well,
the night before the escape was so tense. There was
so much riding on every single thing falling into place
the next morning, and I did a prison Dog news
letter every week for the Prison Dog program. I emailed
(20:04):
it out and it went to thousands of people all
across the country, and I felt so compelled to finish
that task. The escape was on a Sunday, and Sunday
is the day I sent out the newsletter. So I
stayed up late on Saturday night writing the newsletter for
that week, and I sent the newsletter out. So I
didn't finish that job until after midnight that night, and
(20:27):
my husband went to bed. He said to me, well,
I'm going to bed. And he walked up the stairs
to go to bed, and I looked at him and
said goodbye, and I thought, oh, crap, I said goodbye.
He's gonna pick up on that. He's gonna ask me.
Why would I say goodbye, He's just going to bed.
I should have said goodnight, but I said goodbye, but
(20:49):
he never said anything. He just went up and went
to bed, and then I thought, Okay, I'm doing the
right thing. Then I can't even believe he did not
notice that slip of the tongue. She goes on to say,
that's all I said was goodbye. Then I got up
the next morning and it was snowing and the van
(21:10):
was sliding in the snow. And on any other normal day,
I would have canceled the adoption event because it wasn't
worth getting out in that weather. But I couldn't cancel
this adoption, so I got there early because I was
nervous and I didn't know what else to do. So
I got there and my dog handlers were all lined
up behind the fence with their dogs, and it was
(21:31):
a cold day. The winm was blowing. Nobody wanted to
be outside, and they were all standing behind the fence
with their dogs, and they were just kind of stomping
their feet and looking at the gate and waving at me, like,
hurry up, open the gate and get these dogs and
let us go back to our rooms and be warm.
But I couldn't open the gate until I saw the
(21:53):
farm wagon there because if I lighted all the dogs,
and then we just brought the farm wagon. It would
be under more scrutiny because it would be the only
thing happening, and we needed to have the chaos of
all the dogs getting loaded in the crates and jumping
around and barking, and then this crate gets loaded in
at the same time. And I'm gonna get to what
(22:13):
crate that is. And while I'm waiting there, I'm thinking,
where's that farm wagon? Why isn't it here? Why is
he late? He knows how important his timing is. I
had just about decided I was just going to open
the gate, load the dogs, and I was gonna leave
and go to this dog adoption. And he was on
his own. Whatever was gonna happen, he was gonna have
(22:35):
to deal with it, because I couldn't wait anymore. Just
as I thought that, I looked up and that farm
wagon came around the corner. And when I saw it,
I gasp out loud because the weight on it was
so heavy. The tires were nearly flat, and I thought,
how does no one notice that? I mean, a couple
of dog dishes and some leashes aren't gonna make enough
(22:56):
weight to make those tires flat like that, but nobody nutted,
nobody said anything. So I opened the gate, told the
inmates to start putting their dogs in the crates, and
I went around and opened the side door of the van,
and two or three guys had pulled the wagon down
and they picked up the crate, slid it in, shut
the side door. I walked around to the back of
(23:17):
the van to make sure all the dogs were in
the crates and the crate doors were shut, closed the
back doors to the van, and I took the adoption
papers from the handlers, got in the truck and left.
So to tell you what happened, on February twelfth of
two thousand and six, Toby showed up the prison in
(23:38):
a usual white cargo van. She was going to pick
up these dogs that were trained to bring them to
go get adopted right and as luck would have it,
there was a metal dog crate that the prison wanted
to get rid of. And she had this conversation with
the staff a few days before this incident, which is
how her and Toby planned it. To get rid of
(24:00):
the metal crate because you could take it apart and
use the metal as shanks. The problem was it was
very heavy, and so Toby said, well, why don't I
get John to carry the crate to my vehicle, And
that gave John a reason to be there when she
(24:21):
left the prison, and guess what, he just got inside
the crate, and that's how they made their escape. They
drove right out of the front of the prison, and
it's not too long before the prison figures out John
had escaped, or how he escaped, or who he escaped with,
and they start digging into Toby Young's life and they
(24:44):
discover that she had gathered up at least ten thousand
dollars in cash. And keep in mind, she's still married
at this point, so no doubt her husband helped them
discover that. They also discovered that Toby had taken two
guns from her home, she had bought a vehicle, and
she had rented a storage space in the area, all
(25:06):
without her family's knowledge. She even bought hair dye and
an electric razor prior to the escape, and obviously that
is to alter appearances, right, And they're on the run,
Bulletins go out everything you would expect, and they make
it to Tennessee, and as Toby described it later, they
(25:29):
drove all night to get to a lakeside cabin in Tennessee,
and Toby had reserved that cabin under a made up name.
John hadn't been outside the prison at this point since
he was nineteen years old. She was quoted as saying
John was really interested in eating fried chicken and a
lot of foods. He wasn't able to get inside of prison.
(25:52):
And he played the guitar, and I brought my mandolin
with me, and so he played music and we just
talk a lot. And that lasted for a day or two,
and then John said, you know, I don't just want
to stay in this cabin. I want to get out
and go see things. Let's go do stuff. And I
thought to myself, well, you told me we had to
(26:13):
stay hidden. We couldn't be out doing things. And he said, well,
nobody's gonna find us. They aren't going to have any
idea where we are. I want to go to Nashville.
Let's go to Nashville and look at some guitars. And
so after that first day, almost every day we went
somewhere and did something, kind of like we were on vacation.
(26:34):
So Toby vnaged them like hiding out this whole time,
and John who had been locked up since he was nineteen.
He's wanted to experience freedom. They would actually find out
later the police that they even went to an Imax
movie in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and wore wigs when they went.
It's around this point that they decide they want to
(26:55):
go to Barnes and Noble bookstore, and it's at that
bookstore that Toby buys John a buck and it's actually
called where the Red fer Graves have read that book.
Amazing book, it's a classic. So she buys that form
and they leave the bookstore and at this point they
(27:16):
knew what kind of vehicle that the two were in,
and the way they knew that was they found out
she had bought another vehicle and they had that description.
So they leave the Barnes and Noble get in the vehicle,
and it just so happened sheer luck. Two marshals were
also at Barnes and Noble, US marshals that were hunting them,
(27:40):
and they noticed the vehicle pulling out, so they radio
and police set up a roadblock. And it's on a
highway and there's a big hill. The way Toby described it,
they came up this hill and as they were going
down the hill. Right in front of them are a
hundred police carps of all different types. So it's at
(28:02):
that time that John turns to Toby and he says,
what do we do? And Toby says, you need to
pull over, So he's gonna do that, and at the
same time he's decided I'm gonna pull over. This is
according to Toby. A police car gets in front of
them and like slams the brakes to try to stop
the couple. This in turn pisses John off, allegedly, and
(28:27):
he says, fuck that, I'm not pulling over, and he
decides to make a run for it. The cops pursue
and the chase is on and police are trying to
box them in. Eventually, John loses control of the vehicle
and they crash into a tree, and while they're knocked out,
they're not hurt. Beyond that, they're very fortunate in that way.
And when the dust settled, the two were taken into
(28:50):
custody by police, and the police learned more details, obviously
regarding the escape. They learned the two had been planning
it for months and that John had actually lost twenty
five pounds to fit inside that dog CRP. They learned
about the cabin that the couple had stayed in and
(29:11):
it was inside a campground between Chattanooga, Tennessee and Knoxville, Tennessee.
And they go ahead and they charge Maynard with aggravated
escape and Young is charged with aiding and a betting
a felon. This is on February twenty fourth of two
thousand and six, and they were on the run for
a total of twelve days, actually a long time to
(29:34):
be on the run. So on February twenty seventh, Toby
Young she makes her first court appearance along with Maynard.
This is in Athens, Tennessee, and they waive extradition to Kansas,
and in Kansas they have separate hearings, and she told
reporters outside of the courtroom that she was sorry, and
she said she had always been a law abiding citizen.
(29:56):
She couldn't explain why she helped Maynard escape in the
dog and she said, I haven't even figured it all
out yet. My whole life, I've always done good things.
I've never even had a speeding ticket. I don't know
anything about this court stuff. She went on to tell
reporters she enjoyed the two weeks with Maynard. She declined
to say she had a romantic relationship with Maynard, but
(30:19):
Camp Grind employees that the police interviewed said they were
routinely sitting close in the truck, and incidentally they did
find sex toys in that cabin as well, so apparently
they were romanic, even though she didn't necessarily want to
say that. So long story short, Toby Young gets sentenced
(30:41):
to twenty seven months in jail, which she eventually serves
her time. Now in the meantime, her husband, of course,
files for divorce, and her oldest son he chooses to
keep his distance from her and their relationship is just shot.
She would say about prison, quote, you know, I was
teen arified to go into prison. I had spent a
(31:02):
lot of time on the inside of men's prisons, and
I knew how violent it could be. But I discovered
the woman's prison is a lot different. It just isn't
nearly as violent. It's more like high school drama on steroids.
But there were times inside prison where I found relationships
with other inmates to be the strongest relationships I've ever
(31:22):
had in my life. People that really cared what happened
to me. And people that tried to help me in
any way they could, so she had like a good
run in prison. She actually also said in an interview
that I saw that prison was like a break for her.
She said, my whole life, I had to take care
(31:43):
of other people, my entire life, and in there I
had no responsibility, and she said I felt like I
needed that. So on May twenty third of two thousand
and eight, she does get released from prison, and after
she was released, she goes to live with her mother
back in cans A City, but everyone knew what she
(32:03):
had done, and she said that other people would point
at her in restaurants. So she eventually finds a job
in Boston and she moves to Boston. It was there
that she met her future husband, Chris, and sadly, her
youngest son. He died from cancer about a year after
her release. And what about John, So he ended up
(32:26):
with an additional ten years added to his sentence, which
means absolutely nothing happened to him because he was already
serving life without parole. So it's been nearly twenty years
since Toby's release from prison, and since that time that
she's been released, she's now a public speaker an author
(32:47):
and a podcast host. Believe it or not, as I
told you, she did remarry and about ten years ago
her and her husband actually went to visit John in prison. Now,
in twenty twenty four, John Maynard actually died in prison,
and try as I might, I cannot find any information
(33:10):
on how John Maynard died. But life definitely meant life
to John Maynor because he died inside of that prison.
And that is what I have for you today. I
hope you enjoyed it. Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Again.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Prayers to wood he Overton and his family as they
go through a very difficult time. And until next time.
For Bloody Angola, a podcast one hundred and forty two
years in the making, the complete story of America's bloodiest prison.
I'm Jim Chapman, Peace.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
A wall Street line, shackle change, Oh gesome girdie. It's
calling by the name, there is no.
Speaker 4 (34:18):
Mercy and this being a tentery juice as the hill
Stream game rangold of three.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
I'm here behind.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
By me or die inside these walls, inside the wild
and when no girls I know, it's so bloody angle,
(35:00):
ohbody bl