Johnny Lee Wilson, A Suspicious Death, and a Psychic Artist: Unsolved Mysteries

On this week’s episode of The Unsolved Couple, we dive into Unsolved Mysteries Season 3, Episode 11, an episode packed with shocking crimes, mysterious deaths, and unexplained psychic phenomena.  The Case of Johnny Lee Wilson – In Aurora, Missouri, a house fire kills wealthy widow Pauline Martz. Johnny Lee Wilson, a young man with intellectual disabilities, confesses to the crime—but was he coerced? Years later, another man claims responsibility, leaving the town divided over Wilson’s guilt or innocence. The Mysterious Death of Kenneth Engie – In Edmore, North Dakota, a barroom fight turns deadly. The next day, Kenneth Engie is found dead in his garage from carbon monoxide poisoning. Accident, suicide, or foul play? We explore the puzzling circumstances and conflicting accounts.  Coral Polge: The Psychic Artist – Journey to England and meet Coral Polge, a woman who creates astonishingly accurate portraits of the dead—many of whom she has never met. Witnesses describe eerily lifelike drawings that blur the line between talent and the supernatural. From coerced confessions to mysterious deaths and uncanny artistic gifts, this episode is a chilling reminder that truth is often stranger than fiction. Join us as we unpack the stories, timelines, and lingering questions that keep these mysteries alive.

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* We’re here to share the stories and spark curiosity, but remember—always do your own digging! Everything we cover is based on public sources, and everyone is considered innocent until proven guilty.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everybody, I'm Sierra, and welcome back to another episode
of The Unsolved Couple. Or recap. We cap one of
your original gateway drugs into true crime.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
That's all, mistress.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
The fact that I'm already saying words wrong is not
a good sign for today. It's we recap. We don't
recap recap.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
I think you're trying to put two words together.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
We recap.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah, yeah, but we.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Well, welcome back to another week, another day, another dollar,
what dollar? Any fun stories to share with their friends?
I've been sharing lots over the last couple of weeks.
We haven't heard from you much.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
I don't have stories to tell. It's exciting. It's an
exciting time right now.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
I knew that this is where it is was going
to go.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
This is exciting to me. It is a wonderful time
of year. Or sports. It's just it's great. You got baseball.
It's coming to an end.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
So there's an overlap for a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah, and the over there's a two month overlap, and
it is glorious.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
It's amazing that Ben's even joining us today.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
It really is. Peyton our daughter asked me the other
day something about sports, and it's like I don't think
you understand if the option was to just sit and watch.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Sports, not all sports, because I asked you the other
night about soccer.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah, no, I'm not watching soccer. I don't understand the sport.
I never played, so I don't I don't appreciate.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
And you played a lot of football.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
I did. It's a kid and and I just I
love football. I love baseball. College is going on, professional
football's going on, and baseball's going on.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
Is there a night of the week where there is
not sports on? No, that's what I yeah know.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
And football you got Thursday, you got college all day Saturday.
This is it's a great time. It's a great time.
My Ducks look great. My cults are now too, and
oh that's exciting. And Diamondbacks are pretty much it's over.
We're close, but I don't think we're going to make

(02:34):
it to the playoffs. But that's okay. So that's my story,
and I think it's great and go.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
And I dropped some football knowledge on you this week,
didn't I. I know, I taught you what a two
point conversion was. Ben didn't know about that.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Oh yeah, that's right, I didn't know. Thank you for informing.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
I just wasn't. I feel like it doesn't happen very often.
So I was trying to explain to Ben that you
don't have to always kick a field goal. There's a
secret option number two.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Let's just make this very clear. I am fully aware
of two point conversions. Sierra, on the other hand, this
was new knowledge to her as a game was on
the other night and they were going for a two
point conversion.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
No, I needed to explain it to you so you didn't.
Ben likes to protend afterwards like, oh yeah, he already
knew that.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
Do you have any great stories? I'm done talking about
my sports.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
No, I don't have any great stories. Sports is kind
of all consuming because I've noticed we're a few days
behind on recording this because Ben is not have the
afternoon time beforehand, but he can watch multiple hours of
sports every week, but finding the few hours to watch

(03:58):
and research this just seems to keep eluding him.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
It's a lot. It's a lot.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
Would you when you literally put in front of me,
would I rather watch football or baseball or Unsolved Mysteries?

Speaker 2 (04:13):
The worst show ever made? I'm gonna take the sport.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
I understand that, But you have a responsibility.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
But if I don't watch, then who will of the sports?
The sports?

Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yeah, I don't know, and then I'll have to drop
all of my football knowledge on you.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
Hey, listen if you want to find a special guest post.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
Just during this two months of the rup of football
and baseball season.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
It's a great idea.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
No, it is not creative. We're the unsolved couple.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
I love this idea.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
Should we be the unsolved thropple where some random stranger
sits in your seat every once in a while and
fills your shoes.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
You can have the handyman that put the bed together.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
Oh that's a good callback. All right, Well let's get
into it. We are recapping season three, episode eleven. Ben
only had one story to cover today. My story was
half the episode. Okay, calm down, Turner, it was so
real quick before we dive into these cases. Don't forget

(05:17):
that wherever you're listening to us right now, to make
sure that you follow and subscribe. That that means it
automatically our episodes are dropped into your feed. Wherever you
are listening, Please make sure to leave a five star
rating and review. It helps more people find the podcast
and keeps us growing which is going to open the

(05:39):
door for us to continue to bring you these mysterious cases.
And then all of the other random podcast ideas I
have about like rescue nine to one one No. No.
If you've done all of those things and you still
want to show a little bit of extra love and support,
there are two links down below in the description notes.

(06:02):
There's the buy me a coffee and then support the
show links send three, four or five dollars five hundred,
five thousand, whatever anywhere in that range.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
So many zeros you want to add.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
Yeah, we don't discriminate against zeros. No, no, And then
that just helps us continue to be able to build this.
I actually have this whole daydream the other day about
building a podcast shed in our backyard that's just always
set up with decorations of unsolved mysteries and trench coats.

(06:35):
I had all mapped out in my like I have
a very vivid wild daydream ability, and I had all
mapped out in my mind.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
So are you going to tell people your good news
or what you did today? You bought a ticket?

Speaker 1 (06:50):
Oh yes, you guys, I bought a ticket to Crime
Con twenty twenty six. It's going to be in Las Vegas,
wherever in world you're listening to this, please buy a
ticket and come and find me. I'm going to be
there with what I'm dubbing. No one's accepted this nickname
yet of the pod Squad, which is like Kylie from

(07:13):
Primetime Crime. We've got like crime out. There's all these
girls in there. We're all going to be there. Come
find us. Say hello, I'm going to have merch that's
only available for free if you find me at crime
Con that I'm going to be handing out. I think
I might design it in the logo in a trench
coat style. I also do have a brand new trench

(07:34):
coat that I'm considering debuting at Crime Con twenty twenty five,
twenty six, Vegas Caesar Palace. What happens in Vegas stays
in Vegas?

Speaker 2 (07:45):
True?

Speaker 1 (07:45):
Does Yeah? Okay? Because crime people get crazy crazy, it's
exciting news. Yeah. Maybe if you guys bug us enough
we can get Ben to come.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
No, that's not gonna happen, right, absolutely not.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
All right, So I will start today with kind of
an odd.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
This one is strained.

Speaker 1 (08:10):
I've got a lot of questions.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
I can have so many questions.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
Excuse me, I can see both sides of this.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
I'll be on this one. I'm completely stumped and I
don't have a you know, usually you walk away from
it even before researching, kind of like, I could you
have maybe your theory a little bit?

Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah, I have no idea. Yeah, we'll get into I
have some thoughts, but I'll recap it for you guys,
and then we'll have a little chat. So three point
thirty pm October fourth, nineteen eighty eight, twenty seven year
old auto repairman Kenneth Egan was found dead in his garage.

(08:51):
His body was discovered by his uncle Richard. The cause okay,
pause real quick. I think Americans are the only one
that used the name Richard as a name, because across
the pond, Richard means something else. And I just imagine
when I say Richard, everyone that listens to us in

(09:11):
England and across there is like having a little giggle
in their head.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
That's okay, you guys. I forgot to take my ADHD
medication today so we might go on several side quests together.
I'm excited for you guys to experience this with me.
The cause of death was carbon monoxide poisoning. At first
the death appeared to be a suicide. However, his family
could not believe that he had committed suicide. Authorities did

(09:39):
find some suspicious evidence at the scene. There was one
a fully loaded twenty two caliber rifle found about six
feet from his body. Two a small pool, and again
I don't know how small of a pool, because other
reports I read that it was quite a lot of
blood found on the floor. However, there's no signs of

(10:05):
any sort of physical assault on the body, which also
doesn't add up. And you're going to see why here
in a minute. The gas tank in the truck is full,
and the ignition had been turned off. They're all very weird,
and you're going to see why we're stumped here in
a minute. With this evidence, authorities do take some time

(10:26):
to look into the possibility of foul play, and it
didn't take them long for them to find their prime
suspect who had both motive and opportunity. Kenneth's friend, Curtis
heck Side research. They'd been friends for a long time.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
So they were friends. They were friends, they didn't say that.

Speaker 1 (10:47):
They did not say that.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
They almost may look like they might be enemies because
they both were auto mechanics.

Speaker 1 (10:54):
Yeah, and side research again, I found there's like less
than a thousand people at that time that lived in
this town. It was a town of like eight hundred
and someone. To this day, I think there's like three
hundred people still living in Of course, that's the one
thing I did not write down North Dakota, South Dakota.

Speaker 2 (11:14):
I have no idea.

Speaker 1 (11:15):
Okay, I'll look it up here in a minute, I'll
look it up. What's his name, Curtis Heck, that's the suspect.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
Oh, what's the victim's same?

Speaker 1 (11:25):
Kenneth Egan E and g I E And I apologize
if I'm not saying that right Egee Egan, I know,
all right. So the two men were the last customers

(11:46):
at Kunkle's Bar on the night of October third. When
the female bartender told Kenneth to leave, he said that
he wanted to take her home. However, she informed him
that she was actually going home with Curtis. From the

(12:09):
episode of Unsolved Mysteries, and again, I could not find
anything to prove or disprove this, it seems as if
Kenneth then verbally accosts the bartender, calling her a hussy
or something he called her something ridiculous in the reenactment.

(12:31):
But however, we've got two men, likely intoxicated, heavily intoxicated.
We're going to actually find out that want to take
the same female home. And she denies one and then
picks the other. It seems yet to surprise to nobody.

(12:51):
Physical altercation takes place. Again. They don't tell us how
extreme was this physical altercation. Someone threw a punch and
the other person just like pinned him down and was like, dude,
calm down.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
I don't know, Kenneth what I cannot find this?

Speaker 1 (13:12):
E and G I E G I Okay, yeah, did
you find it?

Speaker 2 (13:22):
We'll see, Okay, yep.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
Where what state? It's right at the top. I think of.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
North Dakota, didn't I say one of those?

Speaker 1 (13:32):
Yeah, okay, it's in a tiny little town in North Dakota.
When Kenneth finally leaves the bar, again highly intoxicated, it
appears that he on purpose put his car into reverse
his truck and backed it into Curtis's truck.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
These guys are extremely intoxic.

Speaker 1 (14:00):
CA yeah and so and he heads home. About an
hour later. Apparently Curtis is still upset about this, so
him and the female bartender, get into his vehicle and
drive to Kenneth's trailer.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
It's got to be what three in the morning.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
Yeah, it happened.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
The fight happened at two in the morning. Yes, the
bar is closing. They were the only two dudes there.

Speaker 1 (14:30):
Yes, yeah, yeah, I'm fully aware at how this makes it,
doesn't He then proceeds to kick Kenneth's truck that or
his car that was parked outside, which was different than
the truck you'd driven at night. So he's got a
car parked outside of his trailer. Kenneth not in the reenactment. Okay,

(14:54):
in the reenactment, it's the same one.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
It appears. I have no idea because by.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
This happens at his house and his car his truck
is parked inside the garage.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
Yeah, but if you his the guy that's the suspect says,
that was a friend's car in the garage, a friends truck.

Speaker 1 (15:15):
Oh got it.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
Yeah, So listen, he shows up at his house.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
To get back out of Yeah, kicks his vehicle.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
That's parked outside.

Speaker 1 (15:27):
I don't know what kind of damage he thought a
drunken kick was going to do.

Speaker 2 (15:31):
But when you're drunk, it doesn't you just think you're
doing something, you are getting him back.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
Yeah, but he hears groaning sounds from the garage, so he
decides to go inside to the garage. So this and
again he lives in a trailer. So I don't know.
If this doesn't seem to be an attached garage, it
seems to almost be.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
I don't know, it could have been the garage. He
does this because the.

Speaker 1 (16:02):
Mechanics and yeah, again they give us none of that information.
And here he sees Kenneth laying on the ground, assumes
that Kenneth is heavily intoxicated and has basically just passed
out on the ground.

Speaker 2 (16:22):
I'm just worried.

Speaker 1 (16:22):
He decides to leave.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
I'm worried. Both of these guys have been driving around.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
Again. The town has like several hundred people in it,
Yet this growing up in Myrtle Creek, this does not
surprise me. Assumes that his buddy is just passed out,
turns around and leaves, and then his uncle finds him
the next morning dead.

Speaker 2 (16:47):
Yeah, from carbon monoxide poison.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
And that's kind of all we got. The police and
the coroner and everyone on that side of this fence
say there is no sign that fout play took place
and that this was again I would say that this
was If you gave me the option between someone taking

(17:14):
their own life and or an accident, I would pick accident.
Where they drew the conclusion that this was intended suicide
is beyond me.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (17:30):
Yeah, and the family is like adamantly that that was
just not the case. So in some of my right
side research, yeah, I did find out that they had
been long term friends, that they owned competitive, competitive businesses.
As far as you have a town of less than

(17:50):
a thousand people and you've got two mechanic shops, I'm
sure that there was some tension there potentially making Again,
I don't don't know, because we don't know. We don't know.
To this day, this town is still quite divided on
whether this was a murder or an accident.

Speaker 2 (18:15):
So is this our update?

Speaker 1 (18:17):
Are you ready for your update?

Speaker 2 (18:18):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (18:19):
Nothing?

Speaker 2 (18:21):
Well, because here's the thing. They raise a lot of
questions in this episode. How could he have killed himself
with they're saying he died from carmenox, So they think
that he was in a clothes garage, left a vehicle
running and died, But then who turned the truck off.

Speaker 1 (18:38):
Yeah, the truck didn't the ignition was off.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
The sheriff is interviewed. He puts the theory that he
turned it on and had it running.

Speaker 1 (18:53):
Maybe he knowed off a little bit while.

Speaker 2 (18:55):
He was then shut it off and but couldn't make
it the fifteen feet to the door and fell and
died from the carbon monoxide poisoning. Yeah, but they also
if they're calling it a suicide, then why did they
also float the theory even the sheriff, I think I
could be wrongful to the theory that he was he was
there with his gun waiting for his friend to show

(19:18):
up for the altercation he knew would happened, but he
didn't show. He shut his truck off and then dropped
his gun and fell and died.

Speaker 1 (19:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
Okay, Well, if that's the case, then that would be
an accident.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
That's the thing why I guess, to me, why is
this even being called a suicide. There's no evidence that
this was intended self harm?

Speaker 2 (19:38):
I don't know, And none of it makes sense. No,
it doesn't make sense because and the fact that they're.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
Like, there's no physical there's no physical signs of a
struggle on the body. Didn't he get into a physical
altercation only like an hour and a half before.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
Yeah, but if you listen to his friend, tell tell
it the victory.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
The person that is apparently the biggest suspect.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
We're getting his So he gets interviewed in this oh yeah,
and he tells his side. He admits that he checked
on him, and so he goes Listen, I was the
last one to see him alive. He's like, if i'd known,
I wouldn't. But I just thought he was passing out
drunk in his garage. Okay. I mean, I don't know
how your weekends go, but mine don't usually go that way. Uh,

(20:27):
but I've heard of some crazy stories of it going
that way where guys are.

Speaker 1 (20:34):
Well, Ben has been d d before for a bunch
of men out drinking, and you want it does get wild.
It gets wild to the way where Ben had too,
which is breaking girl code. Leave your buddy, because he
refused to like get in the car as everyone was leaving.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
Yeah, I was taking like ten guys home.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
Yeah, and you're like, we're leaving now now.

Speaker 2 (20:56):
I remember I lived in Munsie, Indiana. That's right next
to Ball State and the apartment I lived in was
next to a fraternity guys whatever that, and they had
a rager one night. It was wild, and this was wintertime.
There's snow on the ground, and winter in Indiana is cold. Okay,

(21:21):
I mean you're in the this is.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
In October in the Dakotas. It's also freezing there. And
that was one of the theories is that maybe he
was waiting in the garage and got colds. We turned
the truck on for a little while to try to
warm up. Realized I'm probably not supposed to do that,
because the time when you're intoxicated can be not as
much as you think it is, and went to get out,

(21:45):
had his gun in his hand, fell the gun dropped
and slid across the concrete floor. Okay, all right, anyways
you were saying, yeah, so it's wintertime, ball State fraternity.

Speaker 2 (21:56):
We go out the next morning, leave and it was
wild out there and there is a guy, no joke,
passed out drunk in the passenger seat of a car
with his head out of the window and it's got
to be ten to fifteen degrees, just passed out. I'm like,

(22:19):
did you.

Speaker 1 (22:19):
Guys wake him up? Make sure he was okay?

Speaker 2 (22:21):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (22:22):
Okad see there's any difference, like he'll wake up, he'll
figure it out at some point.

Speaker 2 (22:27):
Maybe I don't know, you know, yeah, anyway, so yeah,
I don't. It was this whole story was weird to me.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
Do you even want to hear something crazier?

Speaker 2 (22:37):
All right, I'm ready.

Speaker 1 (22:38):
I found this on one website. Okay, the movie Fargo
references something similar to this happening, but they say Fargo,
Minnesota instead of North Dakota. That this story is loosely
based on the inspiration or the this story is the

(23:01):
inspiration for that movie. Interesting again, I've never actually seen Fargo,
have you a long time ago? Okay? The cover is
like it's snowy and there's blood on the ground. I
think something like that.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
Or no, it's it's about a murderer who I want
to say. See. I can't remember how it starts. I'll
be honest, I can't remember. I just remember the ending
is spoiler alert someone. No, I'm putting someone in a
wood chipper.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
Oh good night?

Speaker 2 (23:38):
Really yeah, but I don't know if that's how it
was in the beginning. I can't remember.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
Or people are yelling at their radios.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
But I've already said I have a terrible memory and
I want to remember. No, it is about a guy
hiring someone to do something for his walk to his
wife and they end up killing her and it goes

(24:14):
too far and he's trying to now cover it up.

Speaker 1 (24:17):
Yeah that doesn't sound anything like this. Yeah, I don't know.
So long story short there still from my understanding, the
town is still divided. They are still looking for tips
if anyone has heard anything. The problem is is that
since this has been listed as a suicide, that unless

(24:37):
some information. You guys, Ben is drinking water. Now, mind you,
he's having a visceral reaction. Are you aggressively drinking your water?
How does this? This doesn't happen any other time?

Speaker 2 (24:53):
It's just strong water?

Speaker 1 (24:56):
Oh my goodness. So again, if anyone has any tips
or thoughts or whatever potentially that could open up the
investigation for the family, please reach out to the local
authorities there and share that information.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
It's a strange story.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
Yeah, what do you think? I don't think I can
make a decisions.

Speaker 2 (25:14):
Your thoughts.

Speaker 1 (25:19):
That drunk people make stupid, stupid choices. I honestly think
that the guy realized what was happening when he went
in there to like confront his buddy and turned off
the ignition and left.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
I don't know, I'll be honest this one. I it
was completely stumped. Yeah, stumped.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
It could very well be a murder, and it could
very well be an accident, and I can't be clearly.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
Died from carbon monoxide and we do know like vehicles
back in the eighties. Did it was like now.

Speaker 1 (25:55):
Oh, it's still even a fear of mine. I'm crazy
weird about this.

Speaker 2 (26:01):
Much harder nowadays with the cars and the anyways. But
possible the guy died from that. Yeah, but what else happened?
I have no idea. I was beyond I.

Speaker 1 (26:13):
Don't even know if you can take the two people
that were there, that both had motive and opportunity and
means technically that's all you need. You want my honest
thoughts and opinions. It was a small town police officer,
a small town law enforcement who likely didn't have the expertise,
the wherewithal, or even potentially the energy to try to

(26:33):
figure this out, and it was easier just to label
it as one thing and move on.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
Yeah. I don't know, I'm not there's just nothing, at
least from what unsolved mysteries presented to us. There was
nothing to the point where you're like, whoa, what if
you could go? I have no idea. All right, all right,
you're ready for our next story?

Speaker 1 (26:55):
Are ready for this one?

Speaker 2 (26:57):
Okay? So we get started with this story by Robert
Stack in their call center saying they have an interesting
story to tell us that their producer several months prior
had gotten a call. They get hundreds of tips a week,
according to Robert Stack.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
Do you think you're saying that like you think he's exaggerating?

Speaker 2 (27:21):
No, I actually do think they got They probably.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
Think they got thousands, and I bet ninety percent of them.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
Were cuckoo, absolutely, and the other another five percent were lost.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
Can you help me find this person?

Speaker 2 (27:37):
So they said they got an interesting call from a
guy in prison admitting that he had killed someone and
that another guy was doing time for that murder, and
so of course that's going to pique their interests. That
led them to the story and the man called Johnny

(27:58):
Lee Wilson and Aurora, Missouri, who supposedly, back in nineteen
eighty six, had confessed to killing an elderly lady in
their town. But now this man, a different man, is
coming forward and saying he did it, so we get

(28:21):
a little background. A, Missouri is a very small town,
only like seven thousand people.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
I'm sorry, I would like to point out, Nope.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
We're not even going down this road. We're not I
know where you're about to go. I stop it right there, Sierra. Okay.
So Johnny has an IQ of seventy one. Supposedly. We've

(28:51):
had this conversation before I actually looked what a normal
IQ was.

Speaker 1 (28:57):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
They say between the ranges of eighty five and one
hundred and fifteen. I don't know. Maybe okay, no idea.

Speaker 1 (29:08):
So, so he's below the average IQ.

Speaker 2 (29:12):
Yes, he is supposedly mentally handicapped. They say that he
has the emotional Uh, what's the word of maturity? Maturity
of a fourth grader. Okay, So Johnny lives with his
mom and his grandmother. Did you want to say what

(29:32):
you wanted to say or did you get it out?

Speaker 1 (29:35):
No? I didn't get it out because.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
Are you good with it?

Speaker 1 (29:38):
No? I'm not good with it? Go ahead, Okay. For
the dawn of this podcast, we've bet and I have
had the conversation about Missouri versus Massurra. It's Missouri, and

(29:58):
just because there is a man interviewed on this episode
of Unsolved Mysteries. And if I can figure out a
way to slice this in, I will slice it in
right here.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
How would the state of Missouri the state of Missouri?

Speaker 1 (30:17):
And he tells us what Ben, how does he pronounce this?

Speaker 2 (30:20):
Is it one time as Maszura Massurra, but multiple other
people in the in this uh.

Speaker 1 (30:26):
I only need one person for it to be true.
He was a through and through Missouri boy and that's
how he referred to it. I rest my case, thank you.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
The Bible says that the mouth of two or three witnesses,
so I'm going out of the multiple other people anyways,
So Johnny has clearly has a mental restrictions. He was
in high school at the time. I think a senior

(31:02):
lives with his mom and his grandmother, and he was
in special like his whole high school. He was in
special ed classes. Okay, clearly Johnny got picked on at school.

Speaker 1 (31:13):
This story breaks my heart.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
He rode his bike to school and not too far
from the school, nice lady by the name of Pauline
Martz lived by the school. He would take his bike
there and drop it off and he would ask, can
I leave my bike here, missus Marts, and she'd say yes,

(31:38):
of course, because if he took it to school, the
kids would pick on and vandalize his bike. That just
it just it kills me. I hate that. So Pauline
was seventy nine. She was a friend to the grandmother
of Johnny, and she was they say, like one of

(32:01):
the She.

Speaker 1 (32:02):
Was like the wealth one of the wealthiest members of
the busiest.

Speaker 2 (32:04):
Members of the community. She owned a large business in town,
so she was very well known. Her family was very
well known. Clearly they had been in this town for
a very long time. Yeah, okay. April thirteenth, nineteen eighty six,
around eight pm, first responders, firefighters show up at missus

(32:25):
Marts Pauline's house and it is on fire. It is
up in flames. They try to put it out, is
it's completely engulfed the house. They finally get it out.
They find miss Marts in the house and to make
matters worse, she had been bound with rope inducting. So

(32:48):
this and they find out they find out that this
fire had been started by gasoline. So this is cold
blooded murder, yep. So they start an investigation. Five days later,
they interrogated Johnny. They bring him in for questioning. They
interrogate him for four hours.

Speaker 1 (33:09):
They didn't bring him in, he came in on his own.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
Yes, I know, I'm going to get into that later.
I'm just telling you how. This is how Robert Steck
I know.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
Okay, sorry, this it just breaks my heart.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
I know I'm getting I'm going to get into that.
So they interrogate him for four hours and at the
end they charging with murder because supposedly they had gotten
a confession out of Johnny. Then Johnny's then interviewed and
he said, like, this was a mistake. I made a mistake.

(33:43):
I confessed. I wish I hadn't done it. I didn't
do it. I had nothing to do with this. So
h Robert Stack comes back. He tells us that they
contacted the Lawrence County Sheriff's office and the DA and
they refused to do interviews. So I think it's important
to know that because everything we're going to hear is
all coming from this side of the aisle. You know,

(34:07):
you're not getting to hear from the DA or the
investigators on what they did, how they investigated it, how
they put all the evidence together, and then how they
brought forth, but I don't know if that would really
change this, at least from the facts that we're about
to get. So, so Robert Sick does tell us that

(34:30):
they have the officials transcripts of the interrogation, his court proceedings,
all that, and so all of the reenactment is done
word for word based on those official transcripts. So then
we get Johnny and his mom and his grandmother are

(34:51):
all interviewed. They tell they're like, no, he could not
have done this. He had been recording tapes. He hadn't
been recording tapes with a friend. What that means, I
don't know.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
Do you know what that means recording tapes? I guess
it just depends on whether they were recording like music
from the radio station. So guys, listen up. Children. Back
in the day, if you didn't want to go out
and buy a tape, you could record on your cassette
player and you put a blank tape in there, and

(35:26):
then you'd wait on the radio for the radio to
play whatever song you were hoping that they would play,
and you press record and you could record it. Or
you could have guests recorded movies or TV shows. I'm
going to guess since it was two teenage boys, they
were probably trying sitting around listening to the radio, trying

(35:47):
to record music. Recording tapes would be my guess.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
Yeah, yeah, so that's just what that. He'd been at
the house doing that. Then he went and moded someone's lawn.
His mom picks him up, brings home. Around five o'clock.
Friend came back over. They recorded some more tapes.

Speaker 1 (36:08):
Yeah, he had a been really solid, Alibi said.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
As mom said, he helped him put up some posters
in his room, and then they went to Raymie's I
don't know what that is, but a store in town
to pick up some things, and they mailed like two letters.
And they said when they were leaving the store, it
was around eight o'clock, they saw the sirens and they

(36:32):
stopped by it. It's a small town. I'm going to
guess everybody's curious on what's going on, and they saw
the fire. Supposedly, Johnny got out, he saw a friend
of his from school named Gary Wall, who was eighteen,
also a senior and also, excuse me sorry, also in

(36:53):
special ed classes with Johnny, and Johnny says he just hey,
was like, Hey, Gary, what's going on? Like, well, that's
missus Mart's house that and then he said okay and
he left. So, supposedly Wall, Gary Wall was then questioned

(37:13):
by police, and he tells the police a different story
that Johnny said, hey, Pauline is in that house and
he says, how do you know? And she's bound and
he's like, how do you know? You you must know
something about him. I don't know, he said. Then he

(37:34):
had threatened supposedly Gary. Yeah, so Gary tells that to
the police. Robertick says that Gary took six light detector tests,
which he failed all but one. Now, I you know
my failings about lighting, I put a zero stock.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
I would be presumed guilty immediately because if I was
ever asked to take one, I would say no, absolutely not.

Speaker 2 (38:02):
Yeah, I would never take one. Yeah absolutely. But you know,
take that for what it is. So the day after
they talked to Gary, they that's when they make the
arrest of Johnny. He supposedly confessed.

Speaker 1 (38:16):
Gary, the person sharing the story, takes six lie detector tests.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
That's a lot of lie detector tests, isn't it. You
think they were just doing it untill they got the
results they wanted.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
It does appear that way.

Speaker 1 (38:29):
Yes, I mean, good night. I have never even heard
of and I've listened to a lot of true crime
and lots of people take light detector tests. I never
heard of someone taking six of them in like a
very short amount.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
Of time, mass one and fail five.

Speaker 1 (38:49):
Yeah, that's I don't know. Yeah, Okay, sorry, continue, I
just want to make sure that I had gotten that correct.

Speaker 2 (38:55):
So Johnny is arrested. Supposedly, he confesses they searched the house.

Speaker 1 (39:01):
Do you know much about false confessions?

Speaker 2 (39:05):
Do I know about them?

Speaker 1 (39:06):
Yeah, because it's kind of a weird phenomenon, right, like
you and I sitting here in our house feeling safe.
I would never admit to doing something I didn't do,
especially something heinous.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
So I read a book one time. It's called Murder City,
and it's about the crime in Chicago and the twenties
and police tactics. Yeah, it was a very interesting story,
very interesting book because some of the things the police would, yeah,

(39:41):
beat people or they would keep them locked up for
days on end and keep them awake to get a
confession out of them, because obviously back then the twenties,
and that you're not destined for fingerprints like everything all
crimes were pretty much solved by what one person said
or didn't say, or other what other people said. I'm

(40:04):
not an expert, but so that that's my only background.

Speaker 1 (40:11):
There's been a lot of scientific research done into this
because it's really easy to be like, first off, who
would do something like that? And there's actually, especially when
you're dealing with someone who potentially has the emotional intelligence
of a fourth grader, that you get to a point
where if I just tell these people what they want

(40:33):
to hear, I get to leave and return to the
safety of my home or my parents, X, Y or Z.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
I was gonna get it. That comes up later.

Speaker 1 (40:42):
Yeah, so that's I just I always like to I
don't know, it's to me, it's a very fascinating phenomenon
because there has been a lot of verdicts overturned throughout
the last twenty plus years, knowing what we know now
about the human reaction to stress, signiferiation, food deporation, like

(41:06):
even like being just stuck in the same room for
hours on it. I just find it very fascinating. And
then let alone in a situation like this where you
have someone who has such a low understanding because of
their emotional intelligence, continue.

Speaker 2 (41:22):
So they searched the house. They have a warrant. They
come in and supposedly they find women's underwear and a
bureau and it's room the parents, the mom and grandmother
say no that. The mom says, that's my bureau, that's
my underwear. Like those are minds.

Speaker 1 (41:41):
The police didn't even to listen to anything that they
were saying.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
And according they found some jewelry in the house with
the grand costume costume jewelry. The grandmother says, no, I
use that to make crafts and stuff like, she says
that it's hers. They also found an empty gas can
in the shed, which I'm going to guess if you
went into most sheds, and.

Speaker 1 (42:06):
To his lawnlower which he mowed a lot of people's
lawns in the area for extra money.

Speaker 2 (42:13):
Yeah, so.

Speaker 1 (42:16):
That was all the that's all they.

Speaker 2 (42:17):
Was the evidence they had. And I mean they're doing
the search the day after they arrested him anyways, right.
So anyway, so he was examined by a man by
the name of William Logan who's a medical doctor psychiatrist
to see if he could stand trial. And you get
it is clear. The guy is interviewed and He's like, listen,
he goes, you interview these people to five. They can

(42:39):
stand trit they're mentally competent. Johnny was not. He didn't understand.
They asked him, Hey, the police, Reggie, your Miranda rights.
Do you understand that? He goes, yeah, well, what is
miranda rights? It's the right, it's the difference between right
and wrong. He didn't understand the gravity of what he'd

(43:03):
been charged with. He didn't understand what was going on.
He didn't even understand its rights.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
Kid had to be so scared.

Speaker 2 (43:11):
Yeah, So so I'm getting intimate. I'm looking at them,
and I got a lot. I got several pages announce here.
So he he's determined by that doctor psychiatrist not fit. Yeah.
He's examined by two others and another one says, no,

(43:33):
you're not fit. But a court appointed psychiatrist said, hey, yeah,
he's able to. So of course they just take that
one and they send him to try. They send him
to trial. Kind of his attorneys, his court appointed attorney
tells him, hey, listen, you need to plead guilty because
to avoid the death penalty. According to this judge, this

(43:56):
judge likes to give the death penalty and according to
your confession and the evidence they have, which is one
of them is the it's going to be the testimony
from Gary Wall saying you said those things at the fire,
You're going to be found guilty and you're going to
be You're going to get the death penalty. So he

(44:18):
then goes to court and again this is the official
transcript from the court. Judge asks him, why are you
pleading guilty? And he says, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
Why. The judge did not say time out. We cannot
proceed with this is beyond me, he says.

Speaker 2 (44:38):
The judge asks why are you wanting to enter such
a plea and he says, I don't know. We get
an attorney on there and he says, listen, I've gone
through these transcripts. The judge asked if he knew what
if he knew what he was doing, and Johnny said no.
But for some reason, he's continued to be coherb are

(45:01):
let on or cross examined by the judge to the
point where he does plead guilty and the judge accepts it.
And even this attorney says that it should have just
stopped right there. The judge, you are the judge said,
you will see you and we'll see you at trial
in two weeks. Yeah, I can't accept this plea. This

(45:23):
guy doesn't understand the plea coming that he's putting in.
He doesn't even understand the consequences of what he's doing.

Speaker 1 (45:29):
So do you know what it means when someone's found
not competent to stand trial? Do you understand, like, then
what happens after that? What is supposed to happen?

Speaker 2 (45:39):
No?

Speaker 1 (45:40):
No, So when someone is found not competent to sound trial,
but they're still arrested for a crime they committed, everything
is put on hold, and the state is supposed to
at that point provide treatment and resources to rehabilitate or
to get that person to the point where they can't.
It doesn't just end. I'll be on now. Maybe that

(46:02):
could that stay could be put on there for years.
It may even be put on there for the rest
of this person's life. They may never get to that point. However,
it is up to the state to then get this
person to the point. So the fact that like they
literally refused to acknowledge that he wasn't and then blatantly

(46:24):
ignored signs warning times that judge should have been held
very accountable for this.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
Yeah. I mean, I don't know what he was thinking,
but from the or at least from the transcripts, it
doesn't look good.

Speaker 1 (46:37):
No.

Speaker 2 (46:38):
So February eleventh, nineteen eighty eight, a man by the
name of Chris Brownfield comes forward and says, hey, guess what.
I actually committed that crime. He's actually serving a life
sentence in Kansas for accessory to murder. He heard about it.

(47:02):
I actually found out side research. He'd heard about it
from a bail bondsman who worked in that area, and
he'd committed a crime killing an older lady, was a
senior citizen. Yeah, an hour away across the state line
in Kansas, and found out that this Johnny kid had

(47:24):
been convicted. And he's like, oh, man, and they actually
interviewed him. He's like, listen, I'm really bad. The kid
didn't do it well.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
He said something along the lines like his mom and
his grandma were a big part of his life.

Speaker 2 (47:39):
So I heard this boy was raised by his grandmother.
I was raised by my grandmother. I just felt sorry
for him, so I wanted to come forward and say
he did it, And come to find out he has
committed crimes with similar em Os. According to some people
that he tells the story that, hey, listen, we heard
this lady had him in an unnamed accomplice. He doesn't

(48:04):
want to rat it whoever he was with. And I
do find it interesting how he tells the story. Yeah,
heard that she had money there. They broke in. They
tied her up with rope and duct tape and tried
to rob her. He was outside this brown field, was
outside looking through the garage or something, and his accomplice

(48:26):
dumped gasoline and started the fire. And according to him,
he asked, where's the old lady? And I left her inside.
She was getting lippy with me, so he said. We
tried to go rescue her, but the fire was too big,
so we left. Okay, take that for what you want.

Speaker 1 (48:45):
I would say he's at least now trying to do
the right thing retroactively.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
So the sheriff pretty much dismisses Addie thinks it's just
an escape plan. Not quite sure how you're trying to
escape with someone else. I don't know it. Supposedly, you know,
divides the town. But we uh. At the end of
the day, Johnny is still in jail. That's where we

(49:11):
get d Wampler. He's an attorney. Yeah, it's a wambler
or Wampler.

Speaker 1 (49:21):
He Wampler is my guy, right, my Missouri guy, right, Missouri.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
Yeah. He picks up the case and I was like, listen,
we got to get this guy out.

Speaker 1 (49:34):
So I think he brought up a good point that
a bare minimum, if this kid had been allowed a trial,
no jury would have found him guilty. Like that's his point,
is not even that this guy, yes, he is innocent. However,
at bare minimum he deserves a new trial.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
So this is where he gives us more details of
actually what went at, of what happened. And again this
is according to him, Johnny's attorney. So you're hearing it
from this side and this side only. He says, the
police actually tricked Johnny into the police station they went
to the day they interviewed him. He was at the

(50:13):
movies and Johnny had lost a wallet several days before.
They pull him out and say, hey, Johnny, didn't you
lose a billfold? That's what they call it, and he
says yeah. He goes, well, I think we found it.
Why don't you come on down to the station. Well,
that's not why they brought him down. To the station.
That's where then they lock him in.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
This they got him down there without the mother or
grandmother present.

Speaker 2 (50:38):
But he is an adult at the time. I understand,
I understand what you're about to say.

Speaker 1 (50:45):
But the entire town knew he.

Speaker 2 (50:47):
Was I agree. I agree, But technically, by law they
don't technically have to bring I think that's a whole
different story.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
I hope. But don't you want law enforcement to be ethical?

Speaker 2 (51:03):
Choice one hundred percent want them to be ethical.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
These are just thoughts I was having why I was
getting more and more enraged while watching this.

Speaker 2 (51:11):
I agree. And here's the thing. If you're going to
question someone about something, then just question about don't don't
lie to him, just say, hey, listen, man, well have
a few questions for you. Come on down. So they
begin to interrogate him. They pretty much tell him like again,
these are all transcripts from the interrogation, Hey listen, what

(51:34):
if I told you someone there's an eyewitness that says
you were there. I wasn't there. And Johnny continues to deny,
deny his innocence, and that they even that that doctor
comes back on. It's like, listen, due they told him
if he just confessed he could go home. He goes,

(51:57):
what do you if you're the mental state of an
eight or nine year old, you think you're in trouble,
you just want to tell him what people want to
hear to be able to get out of trouble and
go home. And Johnny is interviewed and he even says,
I just thought if I confessed, I'd be able to
go home. Yeah, that's what a kid believes that you

(52:17):
tell him. And he even says, and I thought this
was interesting. He says, Listen, these guys he's not in
the right state of mind or mature enough to know
that he is allowed to leave. He thinks he is
stuck there. He doesn't understand his rights that he doesn't
have to answer questions. He can to say, listen, stop interviewing,

(52:40):
I'm done, I'm not answering.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
I want a journey. I'm leaving.

Speaker 2 (52:44):
Yeah, so he feels trapped. And what do kids do
when they feel trapped. They either lie or they say
what they think people want to hear so they can
get out of trouble.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
You're trying to also appease somewhat of authority.

Speaker 2 (52:59):
So side research too, well, I'll get into it about
in my update. Okay, so they even like literally they
there's a part resist. He asked him a question, and
Johnny answers, it, I can't remember, but I just wrote

(53:21):
this down. The detective goes wrong, guess trying him as
he's like trying to confess to it.

Speaker 1 (53:29):
He says, yeah, there you said the many red flags
in this. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:34):
Then we get interviewed. We interview a former former deputy
of Lawrence County, Dustin Toler. He says, hey, man, he
started looking into it when he was there, and I
was like, there actually was no evidence. The jewelry was
the grandmothers, the underwear was the mothers. There was a
gas can found at the crime scene, the gas can edge, yeah, there,

(53:59):
and there was no way to tie which one was which.
Also it was never released to the public, but there
was a stun gun found at the crime scene, and
without prompting, supposedly the Brownfield guy that had confessed.

Speaker 1 (54:15):
He said that they used said he used.

Speaker 2 (54:17):
A stunt gun and lost one on that day. When
Johnny was asked about the stunt gun, he didn't he
thought it was a razor.

Speaker 1 (54:25):
He didn't know what a stun gun was or what.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
It was, so anyways. All right, so then we learn
May eighth, nineteen eighty nine. I told her that Wambler attorney,
he had filed for a new trial and it was denied.

Speaker 1 (54:47):
Denied.

Speaker 2 (54:49):
They they said that he'd already confessed, and they did
did say that Brownfield was not a credible witness.

Speaker 1 (54:56):
Okay, but the men with the mental capacity of it
a fourth grader is.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
So in September nineteen ninety they filed an appeal with
the Missouri Appellate Court. It was also denied. So that's
where unsolved mysteries leaves us. You know, he's still trying.
He's been serving for.

Speaker 1 (55:17):
Four years up to that first like wrong, wrong, full
conviction case we've had on unsolved mysteries. Isn't it like
someone pleading? I guess we had.

Speaker 2 (55:27):
We had the guy that ran away to Africa, that
stayed away for years.

Speaker 1 (55:32):
Oh yes, yes, yeah, but he was trying to get
a heart transplant surgery.

Speaker 2 (55:37):
He was trying to get out of prison. Yeah, he technically,
and there wasn't a whole lot of evidence that he wasn't.

Speaker 1 (55:44):
No, there was no evidence that he wasn't kuilty.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
Yeah, anyway, so that's where sol mysteries leave us. Are
you ready for your updates? Yes, okay, I'm gonna give
this to you. Nineteen ninety one the case one before them,
Missouri Supreme Court upheld the conviction, so he stayed in jail.
This so his attorney finally in nineteen ninety three asked

(56:13):
the governor to review the case and said, listen, can
you please look at this.

Speaker 1 (56:17):
They should have never even gotten that far.

Speaker 2 (56:20):
So it went before the governor, and the governor was
Mel Carnahan at the time. Carnahan then turned to a
former prosecutor and attorney by the name of Joe Bednar
asked him to look at the case. And so Joe

(56:40):
took an entire year and he looked over at the
entire case, and he was pretty pissed at what he found.
He said, in like one hundred pages of the interrogation,
he said, fifty pages of them were literally leading questions.
They would ask him a question and he'd give an
answer and they'd be like, no, try again. It was like,

(57:02):
it's what was she wearing? It was maybe, I think
he said something like, it was a white and bluish blouse.
He goes, I'll take bluish maybe, what do you think
maybe was a blue and green blouse, and Johnny said, yeah, okay,
it was things like that. They were just feeding him
stuff and feeding him details to that point. So Joe

(57:26):
Bennar took it to the governor, and the governor in
September of nineteen ninety five pardon Johnny and said absolutely
that this guy is not going And he literally and
he stated this. He was coursed. His confession was coursed.
He's innocent. Not it is a big deal that he

(57:48):
wasn't just giving clemency. Yep, he was. The governor said no, yeah,
So Johnny got out of jail. He did nine years,
nine years, but in September of nineteen ninety five he
was released from prison. He did then turn around and see.

Speaker 1 (58:05):
I hope he sued the pants off of them.

Speaker 2 (58:08):
He did sue, and again they fought and.

Speaker 1 (58:13):
Thought over what he took nine.

Speaker 2 (58:17):
They thought, well, we're still doing within the scope of
our job. We thought we did.

Speaker 1 (58:22):
You were not.

Speaker 2 (58:22):
Anyways, I read.

Speaker 1 (58:26):
Some of these I need to calm down a little bit.

Speaker 2 (58:28):
I read some of the verdicts of like the court
that ruled on it, it wasn't kind and they paid
out six hundred and fifteen thousand dollars to Johnny.

Speaker 1 (58:43):
They got lucky on that number.

Speaker 2 (58:45):
They did get I was a little surprised by that number.
It was kind. But this was in two thousand and three.
It took till two thousand and three. It took years litigation.

Speaker 1 (58:54):
That's bullsh is that it took that long.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
So I read an article from twenty seventeen, so it
is a little older, you know, eight years ago. Someone
who's a local paper. We should probably put it in
the notes. It's a very good article, okay. And it
just was what what is Johnny? What do I say?
Johnny Lee Wilson?

Speaker 1 (59:19):
Yeah, what is he doing now? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (59:21):
And he still lives with his mom in Aurora, Missouri,
in a small in the town that ye in the
town he was convicted and and he was asked, why
do did you come back to the town. He goes,
it's this is my home. I grew up here. Wow,
she's I he or she? I don't know who wrote

(59:42):
the article. Was said that he didn't really want to talk.
They talked on the porch. His mom is still alive.
She was seventy nine at the time.

Speaker 1 (59:51):
I'm sure he's like, I learned my lesson from talking
to people. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (59:55):
She said, Listen, we just want to leave the past
in the past. Clearly they do not want to be
bothered about this anymore. They just want to move on.
And I can respect that. Yeah, he guess what he
does for a living.

Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
Mo's lawns.

Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
He mos lums. He has a little lawnmowing business.

Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
Suppose, well, if anyone lives within twenty miles of this town,
you should be hiring this guy to mow your lawn.

Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
And they'll say so. He in the article says he
went down to the local barbershop and was questioning people,
and a lot of people in the town were like
that guy. What happened to Johnny is terrible, he because
and he's had zero run ins with the law since
he's been out. He had zero runnings with the law before.

Speaker 1 (01:00:40):
What were the consequences of the people in charge.

Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
I don't know the consequences. They got sued for six
hundred and fifteen thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
Yeah, everyone has any knows insurance, so that doesn't do
Jack Scooty Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
But he's living or he was hopefully. I'm sure his
mom now is older. Yeah, I'm not sure. If she's
passed away. I didn't hear's thing. I didn't want to.
I looked on I got on Facebook, yeah, to see
if he was there, but I doubt he does. He
just owns a little lawn moaning business, lives in the

(01:01:12):
same little house with his mom. Clearly wants to live
a quiet and be left alone life, and I can
respect them. Yeah, it is terrible that this happened to him.

Speaker 1 (01:01:24):
I'm really thankful for insulting. This is a huge deal
that un mysteries picked this up, because first off, shame
on the investigators, but secondary that first judge, shame on him,
and then third for the appellate in the Missouri Supreme Courts.
In every judge or panel of judges, ben anyone could

(01:01:46):
have looked, could have spent one day looking over the
records and saw plenty of room at bare minimum, to
grant him a new trial, let alone get to the
where to exonerate him. It was you didn't have to
dig deep. It wasn't hard.

Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
Well, at the end of the day, the right thing happened.
Probably it took way too long it did.

Speaker 1 (01:02:13):
It took away to him. But it is unfortunately, for
better or worse, once you are found guilty, it is
far harder to prove yourself innocent. And while that works
in every case where someone is actually guilty, it does
make it extremely difficult for the cases that wrongful convictions happen.

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
But I look at it like the appellicord the Supreme Court.
If you just think they first off, you don't they
probably don't know a lot right at least. All I'm
saying is that at the end of the day, you
do have to trust the system. That the system, you

(01:03:00):
have to be very careful on redoing the whole system.

Speaker 1 (01:03:05):
I'm not asking for anyone to redo the whole system.
I'm saying that first judge did not hold his oath
in that court.

Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
Well, I thought the attorney brought up a very good
point when they when he could not put in a
true verdict, it should have stupped there and that it
was a massive failure on that judge.

Speaker 1 (01:03:30):
And that's what I'm saying. And at that point then
it makes it far harder to prove your innocence once
you were behind. And the thing is then to me,
if this is the case, then what are the point
of the appellate in the Supreme Court, in the state
and federal if not to try at some level to

(01:03:51):
correct injustices when they were done within your own branch
of power, and the injustice was originally done by that judge,
we and the other judges who have a higher office
are supposed to try to mediate and correct that behavior.
You're right, it's supposed to, because if not, then what

(01:04:11):
are they doing?

Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
But no one has said it's perfect and it was
unfortunate because when it is not perfect, people's lives are
changed forever. And this man's life was changed forever for
nine years. Yeah, because they even said he had to
be put in protective cussing and out of general population

(01:04:34):
because he was not capable enough of care of protecting himself.

Speaker 1 (01:04:40):
Yeah. And that's my thing is if this guy was
found not guilt or not potentially even incumbent to send
trial at bare minimum, why was he not put in
some sort of I don't know, we could go that's
a different podcast for different days. I'm grateful he's out.
I'm grateful. Six hundred thousand dollars isn't squat. But it

(01:05:03):
seems like he has chosen to move on and make
the best of his life and find happiness where he can,
and I wish him nothing but the best. I hope
he continues to find success in what he does.

Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
I'll leave you with this, and I think everyone should
be happy to hear this. Wait, hold on, let me
find it. Give me just a second. You don't have
to cut some of this out.

Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
But no, we'll sit here and wait because I haven't
been This is going to be prophetic? Is that a word? Prophetic?

Speaker 2 (01:05:44):
We're hey, this is what the persists. I asked him,
if he's bitter. This is Johnny's answer. Okay, no, my
life is great. There you go.

Speaker 1 (01:05:57):
Okay, let's end that story on that. Let's be like Johnny.

Speaker 2 (01:06:02):
Clearly he's got a better attitude he does one.

Speaker 1 (01:06:05):
Okay, are you ready for the party to really kick off? Now?
I have got an incredible story for you. On a
scale of one to ten, Ben, how are you? How
excited are you for this?

Speaker 2 (01:06:24):
Like? Negative one?

Speaker 1 (01:06:27):
All right? So we have a woman joining us by
the name of Carol Pologue. I think Polge, definitely, that's
not I say pol Polge. I don't know. All right.
But March of nineteen ninety two, hundred people are gathered

(01:06:55):
in a room, having purchased a ticket at fifteen dollars
a pop to watch Carol draw. No, yeah, they have,
that is why they are there. So that back then
is a total of about three thousand dollars. In today,

(01:07:15):
adjusted for inflation, about seven thousand, four hundred dollars. I
just thought that that was an important piece of information
to start the story with. Carol is a British artist
who has been blessed with supernatural abilities. She can, in fact,

(01:07:40):
draw portraits of dead people without ever having seen them
before their demise. She claims that the spirits work through
her to help make the drawings. In ninety eighty four,

(01:08:00):
a photographer named Peter Cook met with Carol. She was
able to accurately draw his deceased grandmother, Minnie Rose, who
died in nineteen sixty two. She was also able to
guess her name correctly and accurately describe things that she
did in her life. She also, according to Peter, drew

(01:08:25):
his mother Emily, who passed away in nineteen seventy eight. Now,
how did this phenomenon, this supernatural gift, if you will
come to Carol, was she born with it? Has she
always had this ability? No, in fact, she had not.

(01:08:48):
She first learned about her talent her gift. Shortly after
World War Two, she met with a psychic medium who
told her that she would become a famous psychic artist,
and within a few years she had honed in on

(01:09:09):
her ability to tap into the supernatural and connect with
spirits to accurately draw deceease loved ones. At one point
she had made over ten thousand accurate drawings.

Speaker 2 (01:09:28):
Ten thousand or one hundred thousands.

Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
We're going to get to the one hundred thousand numbers, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:09:32):
I just remember the one hundred thousand number being thrown
out a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:09:36):
Lorraine was also another woman who met Carol in nineteen
eighty nine. She precisely a rah Sisslee No drew the
portrait of Lorraine's aunt. Now, mind you, she had passed
away when Lorrain was six. However, she had perfect memory

(01:10:00):
of her aunt. That was me being sarcastic, and the
drawing had helped her remember her aunt. Harol has gone
on to help many many deceased people's family members feel
better about their loved ones passing and helped many believe

(01:10:24):
that there is life after death.

Speaker 2 (01:10:29):
That's what upsets me about this whole story. That's what
takes me off about this whole story.

Speaker 1 (01:10:37):
Okay, are you ready for your update?

Speaker 2 (01:10:41):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:10:41):
Okay, and then we can get into it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:43):
Sure.

Speaker 1 (01:10:44):
She passed away in two thousand and one at the
age of seventy six years old.

Speaker 2 (01:10:50):
Rip.

Speaker 1 (01:10:51):
She wrote many books of what she sold and profited
off of, and did classes of what she profited of,
and ended up drawing over one hundred thousand spirit portraits,
many of which she profited off.

Speaker 2 (01:11:09):
Shocking.

Speaker 1 (01:11:10):
Yeah, So here's my thoughts after watching this and doing
some actually doing quite a bit of side research on
this lighting. I believe in psychics, but I do not,
and I have said this on I think every single episode.

(01:11:31):
I do not believe genuinely people who have this gift
or ability use it to make a profit. Maybe from
time to time, they do, Maybe I don't. I just
do not see you exploiting people and some of the hardest,

(01:11:52):
darkest times of their life to make money off of
them by preclating, precating to their fears and the unknowns.
I cannot tell you what this woman made off of this,
but this was her entire livelihood was this. But I
can tell you that at that one event she had

(01:12:15):
a sold out auditorium of two hundred people en off
that one activity alone made three thousand dollars and in
today's money, seventy four hundred.

Speaker 2 (01:12:24):
Bucks his thing. I don't have a problem with people
finding something to making money off of it, but.

Speaker 1 (01:12:32):
If anyone can hear anything, we've got a thunderstorm overhead.

Speaker 2 (01:12:35):
But I do have a problem with making it off
of it and his thing. At the end of the day,
I'm going to guess she was never proven to be
off rart, so I can't call her.

Speaker 1 (01:12:46):
I will post some of her pictures. You guys, her
pictures are not beautiful works of art. They're very basic.

Speaker 2 (01:12:54):
It's a pencil strong human.

Speaker 1 (01:12:57):
Being, and they're very time period esque, and it would
be I could look. I actually looked at one of
them and I was like, oh, that looks like my
great grandmother.

Speaker 2 (01:13:06):
That's the problem I have. If you look at her pictures,
they are very generalized of I mean, it's a man
with a mustache from the early nineteen years.

Speaker 1 (01:13:15):
Yes, he's got a high collared shirt on or has.

Speaker 2 (01:13:19):
Done in a certain way. I'm like, okay, yeah, but
that's very reminiscent of the time. Yeah, And I'm going
to guess, and here's the thing. I'll give her this.
She is very talented at drawing portraits of people.

Speaker 1 (01:13:32):
Right Like, she does the worst job than the character
to people at the county Fair.

Speaker 2 (01:13:38):
Those have more kids, comparing it to myself because I
can't draw a period in the story, and we'd.

Speaker 1 (01:13:44):
Like to know that she's a better drawer than he is. Absolutely,
they're not in great detail. Her skill set is not insane.
If you saw a drawing like this and someone was
trying to charge you money for it, you would not
pay for it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:55):
Give you a buck. Yeah, But I'm going to guess.
If I sat around and I drew one hundred thousand
photos and then I took those, I bet I could
match them to portraits. Especially if I could match them
to any portrait from any timeframe from the entire universe

(01:14:20):
and world, I bet I could find someone that looks
like that person. I had a massive problem because when
they were showing pictures side by side, so they showed
multiple pictures of her drawing and then the picture of
the person, I saw so many flaws in it. Yeah,

(01:14:42):
like one of them the nose was way smaller than
the real picture, and one the ears were disconnected, and
the real life they weren't the lines one of them.
I don't know how they said this was about, Like
the eyes were so much further apart in one phot
then the other one. The nose was so much bigger

(01:15:03):
there was Yes, it's a round face. I just could
not quite understand how you came to this conclusion that this, sure, sure,
there's similarities. Yeah, but if you took a picture of
me and another forty year old white guy with a

(01:15:23):
beard with a beard, you could probably find similarities between
us two.

Speaker 1 (01:15:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:15:31):
I just I flabbergasted at it. How this eves even
come to be? This is my other problem. Now you're
getting me riled up. She literally stated in this that
one of the reasons she was doing this was to
prove that there is life after death. And I have

(01:15:51):
a problem with that. You're using this supposed gift to
give people a faith. Yeah, I don't like that one bit.
I just don't face should be rooted and truth and personal,
not based upon someone else's ability and someone else telling you,

(01:16:16):
look at what I can do, you should believe in
this because of what I can do. I have a
massive problem with that. Don't like people trying to use
their thing to get people to believe in something. Yeah,

(01:16:36):
now you have me wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:16:40):
I would just like to point out the time period
of this and the fact that World War One and
then World War Two brought a lot of people's family
members left for war, never came home. They might not
have never even gotten official report or their remains back

(01:17:01):
to be able to do a proper burial. I think
there was a lot of people on the cusp of
those trying to find some sort of peace in solitude
in a very hard time post back to back wars.
I think there are people that took advantage of that

(01:17:21):
and play caated to it. I if this brought some
people some peace and resolve, I guess I can't take
that away from them, but I don't This woman didn't
seem genuine to me. She seemed like a snake whale salesman.

Speaker 2 (01:17:40):
I mean, you already know how I feel about psychics.
My feeling on psychics is very clear.

Speaker 1 (01:17:46):
Yeah, and I just I left. I thought this was funny.
It's a little light hearted. Her pictures I was expecting,
like beautiful works of art, detailed so that it was
very clear that you could not deny that that was
that person. I did not see that I looked online
through hundreds of her photos or her drawings. They all

(01:18:09):
look like the very basic, bare minimum of a.

Speaker 2 (01:18:13):
I could go through her photos and find I bet
I could find one that looks like my grandparents on
both sides. Yeah, and say that that's very similar or
familiar with my grandparents one hundred percent. Yeah, I could. So.

Speaker 1 (01:18:29):
Okay, guys, well that is season three, episode eleven. We
had a wrongful conviction overturned. We have a mysterious death,
and a psychic drawer, a drawing, psychic artistet and so yeah,
I hope you guys enjoyed that. Send us any of

(01:18:50):
your thoughts or opinions on any of these cases that
we've talked about today. You can find us and connect
with us on social media via TikTok and Instagram on
so Couple Pod, you can email us at Unsolved Couplepod
at gmail dot com. We also have a Facebook group
Unsolved Couple Podcast Discussion Group, and last off Spotify, you

(01:19:11):
can leave comments. I do read those and respond to
them on each episode. Okay, Ben, here's a fun question
for you to lighten things up just a little bit
before we sign off for the evening. Afternoon daytime, whenever
you're listening to this. I was thinking about this the
other day. I love nachos. They're one of my favorite foods,

(01:19:33):
but they're hard because you can't take them home when
you go out for nachos, and you and I cannot
share nachos because the toppings. So what constitutes your perfect nacho?
What can you give us your perfect nachos? And then

(01:19:58):
I want to give you myne just to see how
vastly different they are and how we disagree on some
fundamental basics of nachos.

Speaker 2 (01:20:07):
Nachos Okay, chips, obviously cheese, but I could go either way.

Speaker 1 (01:20:15):
Oh, you can go either way on the cheese.

Speaker 2 (01:20:17):
Yeah, like a grade of cheese that's melted.

Speaker 1 (01:20:19):
Or like what we're at a restaurant and you're going
to accept that for nachos.

Speaker 2 (01:20:24):
I don't know. It just depends, it really does. It depends,
and it depends on how you do it. So but
I don't I'm not the biggest fan of like the Belveda.
I like it, but not too much.

Speaker 1 (01:20:38):
If it's too heavy, then it's the worst person to
eat nachos with.

Speaker 2 (01:20:42):
You, guys. If there's too much, it's I don't like
I like a combination of them bowls. Right, there has
to be a meat on there, steak, chicken or super
hot salsa. I love spicy salsa, jalapenos, guacamole, and.

Speaker 1 (01:21:04):
Caso case on the side.

Speaker 2 (01:21:07):
Nope, drizzle the case on the like we get this.

Speaker 1 (01:21:10):
Green hat case so different than the nacho cheese of course.

Speaker 2 (01:21:15):
Okay, like the green hats chili caso that we get.

Speaker 1 (01:21:19):
Yeah, that's so good.

Speaker 2 (01:21:23):
But absolutely positively, if you touch my nachos with sour cream,
all he is about to come.

Speaker 1 (01:21:37):
The wrath of ben comes back.

Speaker 2 (01:21:39):
Hate hate, hate sour cream. I don't want to near it.
I don't want to smell it. I don't want to
see it. You got me mm hmm zero. Yeah, don't
even come near me with that stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:21:55):
Okay, you're not.

Speaker 2 (01:21:57):
You suck by the way, I don't care. They're delicious.

Speaker 1 (01:22:00):
Hey, I am very particular. First off, chip to topping
ratio has to be on point. If you show up
to my table with a pile of chips that cannot
adequately be the same as the toppings, I'm already annoyed.
I agree with you, Okay, we're on the same page. There.

(01:22:20):
If also you drop off an order of nachos at
my table. And I'm at a restaurant and there's melted
treaded cheese on there, I'm gonna be annoyed. That is
that is for at home. I call it, uh trailer
park not shows. And I can say that because I
ate them wall living, you know, dumpster not shows is
a different thing. Trailer park notchos are simply tortillas, shredded

(01:22:45):
cheese microwaved, and then you dip it in salsa. That
is like what I ate as a kid growing up
in yeah the backwoods. Yeah, but not at a restaurant.
I better see some nacho cheese on there, and it
better be significant too much. And then I like a

(01:23:08):
very saucy ground beef because it spreads.

Speaker 2 (01:23:11):
Better get the ground beef out of here, steak or chicken.

Speaker 1 (01:23:15):
Nope, ground beef. And then I like dice, tomatoes, green onions, olives,
sour cream, just making my mouth water right now. I
want these nachos so bad.

Speaker 2 (01:23:35):
Olives are disgusting.

Speaker 1 (01:23:36):
Yeah, Ben, and I absolutely, And I hear saying I
can't finish a plate of nachos myself, and yet I
can't ever order them when I go out with them
because we can't share them and you can't take them home.

Speaker 2 (01:23:48):
No, you can't, you can't.

Speaker 1 (01:23:49):
You have to eat them there.

Speaker 2 (01:23:52):
Well, they're terrible.

Speaker 1 (01:23:54):
It was that you get soggy, you're out of luck.
Chilies has figured it out if you can find someone.
Chili's has Lisa and our old menu. They have a
Nacho's where every single chip is filled and it's got
like their caso, their beans and cheese, and then they
can do the shredded cheese because their caso dip has

(01:24:16):
beans and cheese. I think it's ground beef. It might
be chicken, our steak, and then a single jalapeno. You
get sour cream on the side and you dip it
in there and each chip has its own top beings,
individual perfect amount that. Yeah, okay, cool, it's a good

(01:24:36):
place to relave off them. I hopink I heard that.

Speaker 2 (01:24:40):
Let's get out of here, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:24:42):
Make sure to join Ben and I next week when
we recap another episode of Bye