December 5, 2025 • 21 mins
In the heart of Texas, teens are dying.Suspicious suicides, strange accidents, and brutal murders litter 1980's Parker County. Weatherford, the same town where the series"Yellowstone" was filmed, is hardest-hit. Locals have many theories: the KKK runs rampant... a corrupt sheriff's department... or could the Weatherford Police Department be covering up all of these crimes to protect a sadistic killer?Desperate to keep its deepest, darkest secrets from being exposed, could one sick individual be at the root of it all? Or are the killers working in tandem? M. William Phelps digs in and, after being warned to stay away (or else), he begins to piece together answers in many of these decades-old cold cases.EPISODES AVAILABLE HERE:Https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-paper-ghosts-the-texas-te-70977237/
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-like-it-s-live--4113802/support.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-like-it-s-live--4113802/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm not just a podcaster. I'm a podcast connoisseur. That
means I listen, I study, I pay close attention. But
when it comes to variety, how many times have you
gone to somebody's streaming website and when nope, nope, nope, nope, nope,
nope nope. Okay, now you know why we created ero
dot net a R r oe dot net, seventeen different
(00:22):
styles of podcasts to choose from. Enjoy your exploration. I
got to ask you a question here when it comes
to really digging in the way that chat. First of all,
I'm very proud of you for doing this because I
believe that we are really witnessing a new day of journalism.
But I know how much that I pour into it
when it comes to research and the emotions that are involved.
How when you do a project like paper Ghost, how
(00:44):
are you recovering? I really would like to know what
you do with that energy that you're pulling from out
of nowhere.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Wow, that's a great, great question. Yeah, how am I
recovering from that? Well, there's a decompression process, you know.
After I do something like this and I spend years
with the material, and part of that for me is
obviously I'm a big time reader, so I read a lot.
(01:13):
Another part is I have a lake house that I
built a couple of years ago that I kind of
I kind of shut off the world from and turn
off my phone and go there and kind of zen out,
and you know, I just kind of let I let
everything just kind of filter out of me, you know.
And and it's hard sometimes, it's really hard because we're
(01:37):
talking about real people, We're talking about real lives. Yeah,
you know, And you know, I find that the cases
that stick with me longer are the ones that are
the most frustrating, right and the paper got season five
here Texas team mergers is certainly one of those. The
frustration involved and not getting answers for forty two years,
(02:00):
you know, it's just you know, and we're talking about
a sixteen and fourteen year old victims here, So that
kind of stuff can stick with me longer. But there
comes a point where I have to let go right
right erro I mean, you got to let go, you
got to let go.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Well, that's that's one of the reasons why I dfrag
every day. It's part of that letting go process. I mean,
you've got to sit there and ask yourself the questions
and then question your answers and try to figure out
where the balance is. And so in in experiencing your podcast, dude,
I feel like I'm sitting right there with you and
that you invited me into the circle of creativity.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Oh, thank you. That's that's I'm very grateful for that.
That's that's that's what I'm trying to do. That's what
I'm striving to do as a creator, you know, as
a as an artist, if you will, making the shows
beyond the investigative part is I want you to come
along the journey with me, you know, and I want
to reveal to you what what I'm discovering, you know,
(02:54):
and podcasting is just the ultimate format for me to
do that. You know. For many years, you know, twenty
five years, I've written books, you know, and I've done
a lot of TV and you can't you can't do
that with those mediums, you know. So the podcasting kind
of brought the two together, you know, the book and
the TV work brought it together for me. And I'm
(03:16):
able to, you know, because podcasting is a very intimate thing,
right It's just me and one listener, right, yep. That's it,
that's it, Me Me, Me in two ears. You know,
do you always got to keep that in mind when
you're making a podcast like I do, like these investigative
kind of limited series, you know, you got to keep
(03:37):
in mind it's just you and that one listener. You know,
you're telling them a story, and you know I do
that through different voices and yeah, so.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
How many times? How many times though, when you're recording that,
you know, that script, do you sit there and say, no,
I need to shrug my shoulders a little bit more
because I don't think they felt what I'm really trying
to project right now, because I mean, you do, You've
got this pacing about you. It's like, dang it, why
am I dickted to this guy's presence? Ah?
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Wow? Thanks? Yeah, I don't really. I don't really record
stuff more than once. Sometimes I'll sometimes I'll flub a
line and I'll you know, I'll record that line again.
But for the most part, I have a studio in
my house, and I go into the studio and I
sit down and I just kind of I just kind of,
(04:24):
you know, act like there's one person in front of
me I'm telling the story to, you know, like, I
guess it's the what's his name, the painter, Bob Bob Ross.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Oh yeah, yeah, you know, it's simple, make it simple.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Yeah yeah. So I'm just kind of I'm myself real,
I'm not trying to be anybody else but myself when
I'm telling this.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Story, Well, did you come from the world of radio,
because what exactly what you're saying is what people would
share with me back in the nineteen seventies with Arrow,
it's one on one, there's only one person there, put
a picture in front of you, and that's who you're
here in a conversation with. I mean, it sounds like
you came from the world of radio.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Ah, that this is the last place I thought I would. Really, Yeah,
I've never I never considered myself ever going into radio
or doing broadcasting like this, or even podcasting when podcasting
became popular, you know, I kind of just shrugged it off,
you know. And then and then iHeart came to me
(05:25):
and said, hey, we hear that. You know, you know,
you know, you do good work on TV, you write
these books, you're an investigator. Maybe we can get something
going here. And I said, all right, let's try it,
you know, and and I just found it perfect for
what I do, the perfect, perfect place for what I do.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Well. To me, it's the next level of storytelling. I mean,
if Dolly Parton, can you sit there and tell me
that country music was the it was the local newspaper
of its time. The thing is is that podcasting we're
speaking to a generation that's not born yet because they're
going to find it. Dude.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Yes, yes, that's it. That's so true. I mean, this
stuff's forever now, Yeah, it's it's it's it's not like
a book you know that ends up at a tag
sale or in a used book store or whatever it
goes out of print or whatever like that. You know,
TV is very disposable, right, very disposable. Podcasting it's always there,
(06:21):
you know. That's why advertisers, advertisers love it so much.
It's it's always there and new people are finding it
every day, right, And yeah, I just find it. I
find it really really comfortable. I'm very comfortable in this space.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
So when when the story was forty two years ago,
the thing is is that now I have to ask you,
as somebody who takes walks in force and I really
do listen to the universe, is that who tapped you
on the shoulder to go into this story because you
you were pulled into something forty two years ago, dude,
and now you've made it twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yeah. A lot of a lot of the stories that
I do in my podcasting on four Paper Ghosts and
my other podcasts Crossing the Line with m William Phelps,
which is more of a weekly show, a lot of
the stories people write into me, so get I get
(07:17):
ten twenty stories a week. People write into me, and
I take a look at them. If it's something I
think I can make a difference in, I go for it.
With this one with the Texas Team Murder season five.
You know, I had a woman from the town where
this takes place, Weatherford, Texas, where Yellowstone was mostly filmed
(07:40):
the TV show, and she had written into me and
she said, you know, you ought to look into this case.
This is the case that everyone in town has been
talking about for forty years and it needs M. William Phelps.
It needs somebody like you to come in and take
a look at it. So you know, I took a
look at it and I said wow. Said now my
(08:02):
first answer is wow, this is something I am interested in.
My second question in my head is can I make
a difference? And so I do, like a pre investigation
with any of the cases I decide to get into
and I start to talk to people, and with this case,
it just kind of starts opening up. You know, the
cases that don't open up, I kind of move away
(08:23):
from this case just kept opening and opening and opening,
and more people and more people started talking.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
And here we are, Please do not move. We are
just getting started with m William Phelps. Hey, thanks for
coming back to my conversation with M William Phelps. His
podcast is titled Paper Ghosts. First of all, it's season
five and there are fifty five murders. There's a connection
of fives here, and fives are very big when it
(08:51):
comes to numerology. And it's like going, okay, where are
you going with this? Because this is going to serve
as an open door to go to even a bigger
investigation coming up next, because you're prepared for it. Now
you're messing with numerology here.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, I I you know, I never I never go
into stuff thinking how big will this get?
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (09:11):
I always go I always go into it thinking how
can I service the victims? Families. Number one. Number two
is you know, can I offer anything new? You know,
if I can't offer anything new, then I'm just rehashing
old stuff. I'm not doing it. And number three, are
there people willing to go to a lot you know,
(09:34):
to go go to distance with me and talk about this,
to to to open up and trust me? And you
know all three of those, you know, in this case,
you know began right away from me with this.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
It was Ronald Reagan that said that we are part
of the sound bite generation. And right away, as a broadcaster,
I thought, I need to straighten up my game and
make sure that I don't become what he's talking about.
But what And I'm so impressed by your sound bites
because you allow us as listeners to envision, to embrace,
and to become emotionally involved. It's not one of those
(10:07):
where boom boom, it's just a SoundBite and then you
move on with the story.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah, I you know that kind of storytelling. I'm not
interested in that. You know. If you know, if I'm
going to honor the victims of murder and in this case, kids,
you know, I need to tell their stories. I need
to get you into how devastating. This truly is because
(10:33):
we can't become desensitized to how tragic this stuff is.
And I think within the first minute of the podcast,
you get an idea that the mother of one of
the victims, it's forty two years later and this thing
is still affecting her TODAYEP the same as it did
when it happened. So I wanted to I wanted to
(10:56):
show that. I wanted to want listeners to hear that
from the more immediately that this is real. You know,
this happened. This woman lost her fourteen year old child
to an execution style murder, and you know, forty two
years have gone by, but the pain, it's it's still that.
(11:17):
There's a line I think in the first episode where
I say, whoever said time is a healer never lost
a damn child to murder?
Speaker 1 (11:29):
No, no, no, no, I'm with you on that because
my wife is still trying to get over her mother's
murder and and I wish there was somebody that could
come along and to dig in because I frig I
don't know where to hell to turn around when it
comes to this kind of stuff. And that's why I
think I study the hell out of you is because
I'm going to go. One thing I'm learning in is patience.
I swear to God that's what you're that you're putting
into this project. Paper goes is there's so much patience here.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Oh thank you. I I greatly appreciate that. Yeah. There,
you have to you have to be patient and allow
things to happen. You know. I when I start looking
into stuff, I allow people to come at me the
way they need to come at me. That's why it
takes me a little longer to do stuff then. You know.
(12:13):
You know a lot of podcasts, you know that they
come out so quickly. I you know, when the story's done,
it's done for me. You know, I can't. I can't.
It's this is real stuff. You know. I can't. I
can't say when you know it's gonna be done at
this point, you know. So yeah, it's a you know,
we have become desensitized how tragic murder is. We really
(12:35):
have And you know I need to. I need to.
I need my listeners to hear that you know this
pain is real.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Well, and you're being authentic in the way though, dude,
because I mean I was all over Chad Gpt saying
are we living in more dangerous times today than any
other time. It said, no, no, we need to look
into our own past and see that man, it was
just as bad, if not worse, back then, and you're
proving that true here.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Erro. I can tell you from you know, my work
as an at crime expert, the murder rates, violent crime, rape,
all of that has dropped about fifty percent, wow, from
twenty five years ago. But at the same time, the
reporting of those murders and rapes and violent crimes has
(13:25):
shot up over one thousand percent. So we're just seeing
a lot more reporting about a lot less crime, and
it makes us believe that, you know, we're living in
Roman times, crazy society, right yep, yeah, yeah, and we're not.
It's just the reporting of it.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Do you sit there and never think about who is
the armchair quarterback investigator that you're that you're kind of
subliminally charging up And the reason why is because it's
a podcast like this that people are going to say,
I want to be like this, this is who I
want to be, I want to do this story. I
want to do one like this because I mean, you
you are a pioneer in the way of making sure
that we get the whole story and not a five
(14:07):
minute version.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Yeah, thanks, thanks, Well, I like to say Scooby Doo
yes first, and to honestly, Colombo I went as a
kid my dad, Yes, my dad, My dad would would
loved Colombo, and so I would watch Colombo with him.
(14:30):
And what's great about Colombo is the great thing about
Colombo is within a minute or two of that show,
you know who the killer is, but you you sign
off for ninety more minutes to see how Colombo will
figure it out. Right, So you're riveted by how this
guy is going to get the killer to crack. So
(14:52):
so that's the kind of storytelling, investigative storytelling that I
grew up with. And you know, I just kind of huh,
I don't know, I just got you know, I did
have a mentor, a guy from Manhattan who was you know,
he worked for the CID Criminal Investigation Division of the Army.
He worked for customs. Uh. You know, he he was
(15:15):
big time.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
He busts a lot of big cartels. Columbian guy. And
we became friends early in my career and I was
kind of thinking about writing about him, and so he
taught me. You know, I was a journalist. When I
met him, and when I left him a couple of
years later, I was an investigative. He taught me how
to investigate people. Wow yeah, wow.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
So now what do you do in a situation because
I just did this story on iHeartRadio, and that is
is that we interpret what our lives used to be.
And because if you didn't write it down and document
it perfectly, it's the interpretation of what you went through.
So then when I look at you, I'm going, how
does he how does he know the difference between truth
versus rumor if we're all giving our interpretation of what
(15:57):
we did in that time period or what we learned.
Did I ask that question? Right?
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Yeah? Yeah, no, I get it. Well in this case,
particularly the Texas teen murders. You know, when when I
speak to five ten people and those people don't know
each other, right, and they're telling me the same thing, Well,
then I know that I'm close, very very close to
the truth, because you know, they didn't get together before
(16:26):
they spoke to me and say, you know, we got
to get our story straight. You know, one didn't know
I was speaking to the other. So when you start
hearing the same thing, rise to the surface from various
forms of different sources. You know, you're getting at the
truth here in this case. You make a really great
point that you know, are people remembering stuff correctly? Right?
(16:50):
And so I just backed that stuff up with other
sourcing and and and get at it, come at it
from a different way and say, yep, you know this
person they got it right. You know, they they remember
this correctly. You know, I mean, how do we remember
something from forty two years ago? I mean, it's but
you know, but then again, when trauma is involved, you
(17:12):
tend to remember you know, uh uh but details.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Yeah, well, you're shaking you're shaking me up with this
with this podcast only because the last time that I
was involved with a story like this was when Wayne
Williams was doing what he was doing down in Atlanta.
And then when you when you give me paper Ghosts,
all of a sudden, it shakes me up on that story.
But it makes me dig deeper into your story because
I'm going, what the hell and and and and there's
just so much going on at one time, but you
(17:38):
you really do put it out there in a way
to where we can go one person, one story at
a time.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Yeah, and each voice lends itself to the next yes, right, yes,
and and then I try to be with my voice
over with my narration. I try to be the person
in the middle saying, well, you know that didn't happen.
You know this happened, or no, that person's not telling
the truth. This is the truth, you know, so and
this is what I found. You know, you know, you know,
(18:08):
I never accuse anybody of anything in my podcast. I
you know, I say, look, allegedly, this is what this
person did, because you know what ten people are saying it,
you know, And and in this season in particular, you know,
you got some higher ups here. There some high people
involved that have a lot of power or had a
(18:31):
lot of power at the time. And you know when
you get people in power situations, you know that goes
right to their head. And you add add millions of
dollars involved in it, and all bets off, you know. See.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
My biggest fear of all the time is what do
you do when you pop a microphone in the in
front of a person who is unprofessional and doesn't know
what that microphone is about, ready to do because they
to me, they become actors. Then I say, no, don't
give me an actor answer. I need to have a
real one here.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
That that's a really that's a really great point that
brings up something from me. So you know, I had
I had an investigative series on uh Investigation Discovery, uh
uh uh Dark Minds three seasons. I you know, I
investigated cold case serial murders. And what I found was,
(19:22):
you know, you go inside someone's house, you set up
all the lights, set up the camera, you sit down,
and they you know, that is intimidating. But I found
with podcasting they forget about that mic pretty quickly, and
so you're just talking. Now, now you're just talking. There's
no camera, there's no lights, there's there's this mic that
(19:45):
becomes invisible, and now you're just having a conversation. And
and I found that people open up a hell of
a lot more with podcasting than than definitely with you know,
making a documentary for television.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
God William R. Murrow to make sure that somewhere in
that path that they created for all the broadcasters and newspeople,
that they start honoring journalists like yourself because you're doing
exactly what he set out to do. But we had
no podcast back then. It was called television.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Yeah. Yeah, well, hey, I appreciate that. That's very kind
of you. I just you know, I get up every
morning and try to do give a thousand percent. I
try to I try to do the best work I
can possibly do that day and then move on to
the next day. And I'm just grateful for all the
people who came forward, you know, dozens and dozens of
(20:37):
sources for this season. I mean, it made it what
it is.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
You know, you got to come back to this show
anytime in the future. Twenty minutes with you is not enough.
I gotta have more. I'm sorry, I'm gonna be I'm
gonna be selfish here. I need more.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
I need more. Thanks, Sarah, I appreciate that. It's been
really really great talk to you.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Will you'd be brilliant today.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Okay, all right, thank you. Take care.
I'm not just a podcaster. I'm a podcast connoisseur. That
means I listen, I study, I pay close attention. But
when it comes to variety, how many times have you
gone to somebody's streaming website and when nope, nope, nope, nope, nope,
nope nope. Okay, now you know why we created ero
dot net a R r oe dot net, seventeen different
(00:22):
styles of podcasts to choose from. Enjoy your exploration. I
got to ask you a question here when it comes
to really digging in the way that chat. First of all,
I'm very proud of you for doing this because I
believe that we are really witnessing a new day of journalism.
But I know how much that I pour into it
when it comes to research and the emotions that are involved.
How when you do a project like paper Ghost, how
(00:44):
are you recovering? I really would like to know what
you do with that energy that you're pulling from out
of nowhere.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Wow, that's a great, great question. Yeah, how am I
recovering from that? Well, there's a decompression process, you know.
After I do something like this and I spend years
with the material, and part of that for me is
obviously I'm a big time reader, so I read a lot.
(01:13):
Another part is I have a lake house that I
built a couple of years ago that I kind of
I kind of shut off the world from and turn
off my phone and go there and kind of zen out,
and you know, I just kind of let I let
everything just kind of filter out of me, you know.
And and it's hard sometimes, it's really hard because we're
(01:37):
talking about real people, We're talking about real lives. Yeah,
you know, And you know, I find that the cases
that stick with me longer are the ones that are
the most frustrating, right and the paper got season five
here Texas team mergers is certainly one of those. The
frustration involved and not getting answers for forty two years,
(02:00):
you know, it's just you know, and we're talking about
a sixteen and fourteen year old victims here, So that
kind of stuff can stick with me longer. But there
comes a point where I have to let go right
right erro I mean, you got to let go, you
got to let go.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Well, that's that's one of the reasons why I dfrag
every day. It's part of that letting go process. I mean,
you've got to sit there and ask yourself the questions
and then question your answers and try to figure out
where the balance is. And so in in experiencing your podcast, dude,
I feel like I'm sitting right there with you and
that you invited me into the circle of creativity.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Oh, thank you. That's that's I'm very grateful for that.
That's that's that's what I'm trying to do. That's what
I'm striving to do as a creator, you know, as
a as an artist, if you will, making the shows
beyond the investigative part is I want you to come
along the journey with me, you know, and I want
to reveal to you what what I'm discovering, you know,
(02:54):
and podcasting is just the ultimate format for me to
do that. You know. For many years, you know, twenty
five years, I've written books, you know, and I've done
a lot of TV and you can't you can't do
that with those mediums, you know. So the podcasting kind
of brought the two together, you know, the book and
the TV work brought it together for me. And I'm
(03:16):
able to, you know, because podcasting is a very intimate thing,
right It's just me and one listener, right, yep. That's it,
that's it, Me Me, Me in two ears. You know,
do you always got to keep that in mind when
you're making a podcast like I do, like these investigative
kind of limited series, you know, you got to keep
(03:37):
in mind it's just you and that one listener. You know,
you're telling them a story, and you know I do
that through different voices and yeah, so.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
How many times? How many times though, when you're recording that,
you know, that script, do you sit there and say, no,
I need to shrug my shoulders a little bit more
because I don't think they felt what I'm really trying
to project right now, because I mean, you do, You've
got this pacing about you. It's like, dang it, why
am I dickted to this guy's presence? Ah?
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Wow? Thanks? Yeah, I don't really. I don't really record
stuff more than once. Sometimes I'll sometimes I'll flub a
line and I'll you know, I'll record that line again.
But for the most part, I have a studio in
my house, and I go into the studio and I
sit down and I just kind of I just kind of,
(04:24):
you know, act like there's one person in front of
me I'm telling the story to, you know, like, I
guess it's the what's his name, the painter, Bob Bob Ross.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Oh yeah, yeah, you know, it's simple, make it simple.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Yeah yeah. So I'm just kind of I'm myself real,
I'm not trying to be anybody else but myself when
I'm telling this.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Story, Well, did you come from the world of radio,
because what exactly what you're saying is what people would
share with me back in the nineteen seventies with Arrow,
it's one on one, there's only one person there, put
a picture in front of you, and that's who you're
here in a conversation with. I mean, it sounds like
you came from the world of radio.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Ah, that this is the last place I thought I would. Really, Yeah,
I've never I never considered myself ever going into radio
or doing broadcasting like this, or even podcasting when podcasting
became popular, you know, I kind of just shrugged it off,
you know. And then and then iHeart came to me
(05:25):
and said, hey, we hear that. You know, you know,
you know, you do good work on TV, you write
these books, you're an investigator. Maybe we can get something
going here. And I said, all right, let's try it,
you know, and and I just found it perfect for
what I do, the perfect, perfect place for what I do.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Well. To me, it's the next level of storytelling. I mean,
if Dolly Parton, can you sit there and tell me
that country music was the it was the local newspaper
of its time. The thing is is that podcasting we're
speaking to a generation that's not born yet because they're
going to find it. Dude.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Yes, yes, that's it. That's so true. I mean, this
stuff's forever now, Yeah, it's it's it's it's not like
a book you know that ends up at a tag
sale or in a used book store or whatever it
goes out of print or whatever like that. You know,
TV is very disposable, right, very disposable. Podcasting it's always there,
(06:21):
you know. That's why advertisers, advertisers love it so much.
It's it's always there and new people are finding it
every day, right, And yeah, I just find it. I
find it really really comfortable. I'm very comfortable in this space.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
So when when the story was forty two years ago,
the thing is is that now I have to ask you,
as somebody who takes walks in force and I really
do listen to the universe, is that who tapped you
on the shoulder to go into this story because you
you were pulled into something forty two years ago, dude,
and now you've made it twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yeah. A lot of a lot of the stories that
I do in my podcasting on four Paper Ghosts and
my other podcasts Crossing the Line with m William Phelps,
which is more of a weekly show, a lot of
the stories people write into me, so get I get
(07:17):
ten twenty stories a week. People write into me, and
I take a look at them. If it's something I
think I can make a difference in, I go for it.
With this one with the Texas Team Murder season five.
You know, I had a woman from the town where
this takes place, Weatherford, Texas, where Yellowstone was mostly filmed
(07:40):
the TV show, and she had written into me and
she said, you know, you ought to look into this case.
This is the case that everyone in town has been
talking about for forty years and it needs M. William Phelps.
It needs somebody like you to come in and take
a look at it. So you know, I took a
look at it and I said wow. Said now my
(08:02):
first answer is wow, this is something I am interested in.
My second question in my head is can I make
a difference? And so I do, like a pre investigation
with any of the cases I decide to get into
and I start to talk to people, and with this case,
it just kind of starts opening up. You know, the
cases that don't open up, I kind of move away
(08:23):
from this case just kept opening and opening and opening,
and more people and more people started talking.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
And here we are, Please do not move. We are
just getting started with m William Phelps. Hey, thanks for
coming back to my conversation with M William Phelps. His
podcast is titled Paper Ghosts. First of all, it's season
five and there are fifty five murders. There's a connection
of fives here, and fives are very big when it
(08:51):
comes to numerology. And it's like going, okay, where are
you going with this? Because this is going to serve
as an open door to go to even a bigger
investigation coming up next, because you're prepared for it. Now
you're messing with numerology here.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, I I you know, I never I never go
into stuff thinking how big will this get?
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (09:11):
I always go I always go into it thinking how
can I service the victims? Families. Number one. Number two
is you know, can I offer anything new? You know,
if I can't offer anything new, then I'm just rehashing
old stuff. I'm not doing it. And number three, are
there people willing to go to a lot you know,
(09:34):
to go go to distance with me and talk about this,
to to to open up and trust me? And you
know all three of those, you know, in this case,
you know began right away from me with this.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
It was Ronald Reagan that said that we are part
of the sound bite generation. And right away, as a broadcaster,
I thought, I need to straighten up my game and
make sure that I don't become what he's talking about.
But what And I'm so impressed by your sound bites
because you allow us as listeners to envision, to embrace,
and to become emotionally involved. It's not one of those
(10:07):
where boom boom, it's just a SoundBite and then you
move on with the story.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah, I you know that kind of storytelling. I'm not
interested in that. You know. If you know, if I'm
going to honor the victims of murder and in this case, kids,
you know, I need to tell their stories. I need
to get you into how devastating. This truly is because
(10:33):
we can't become desensitized to how tragic this stuff is.
And I think within the first minute of the podcast,
you get an idea that the mother of one of
the victims, it's forty two years later and this thing
is still affecting her TODAYEP the same as it did
when it happened. So I wanted to I wanted to
(10:56):
show that. I wanted to want listeners to hear that
from the more immediately that this is real. You know,
this happened. This woman lost her fourteen year old child
to an execution style murder, and you know, forty two
years have gone by, but the pain, it's it's still that.
(11:17):
There's a line I think in the first episode where
I say, whoever said time is a healer never lost
a damn child to murder?
Speaker 1 (11:29):
No, no, no, no, I'm with you on that because
my wife is still trying to get over her mother's
murder and and I wish there was somebody that could
come along and to dig in because I frig I
don't know where to hell to turn around when it
comes to this kind of stuff. And that's why I
think I study the hell out of you is because
I'm going to go. One thing I'm learning in is patience.
I swear to God that's what you're that you're putting
into this project. Paper goes is there's so much patience here.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Oh thank you. I I greatly appreciate that. Yeah. There,
you have to you have to be patient and allow
things to happen. You know. I when I start looking
into stuff, I allow people to come at me the
way they need to come at me. That's why it
takes me a little longer to do stuff then. You know.
(12:13):
You know a lot of podcasts, you know that they
come out so quickly. I you know, when the story's done,
it's done for me. You know, I can't. I can't.
It's this is real stuff. You know. I can't. I
can't say when you know it's gonna be done at
this point, you know. So yeah, it's a you know,
we have become desensitized how tragic murder is. We really
(12:35):
have And you know I need to. I need to.
I need my listeners to hear that you know this
pain is real.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Well, and you're being authentic in the way though, dude,
because I mean I was all over Chad Gpt saying
are we living in more dangerous times today than any
other time. It said, no, no, we need to look
into our own past and see that man, it was
just as bad, if not worse, back then, and you're
proving that true here.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Erro. I can tell you from you know, my work
as an at crime expert, the murder rates, violent crime, rape,
all of that has dropped about fifty percent, wow, from
twenty five years ago. But at the same time, the
reporting of those murders and rapes and violent crimes has
(13:25):
shot up over one thousand percent. So we're just seeing
a lot more reporting about a lot less crime, and
it makes us believe that, you know, we're living in
Roman times, crazy society, right yep, yeah, yeah, and we're not.
It's just the reporting of it.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Do you sit there and never think about who is
the armchair quarterback investigator that you're that you're kind of
subliminally charging up And the reason why is because it's
a podcast like this that people are going to say,
I want to be like this, this is who I
want to be, I want to do this story. I
want to do one like this because I mean, you
you are a pioneer in the way of making sure
that we get the whole story and not a five
(14:07):
minute version.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Yeah, thanks, thanks, Well, I like to say Scooby Doo
yes first, and to honestly, Colombo I went as a
kid my dad, Yes, my dad, My dad would would
loved Colombo, and so I would watch Colombo with him.
(14:30):
And what's great about Colombo is the great thing about
Colombo is within a minute or two of that show,
you know who the killer is, but you you sign
off for ninety more minutes to see how Colombo will
figure it out. Right, So you're riveted by how this
guy is going to get the killer to crack. So
(14:52):
so that's the kind of storytelling, investigative storytelling that I
grew up with. And you know, I just kind of huh,
I don't know, I just got you know, I did
have a mentor, a guy from Manhattan who was you know,
he worked for the CID Criminal Investigation Division of the Army.
He worked for customs. Uh. You know, he he was
(15:15):
big time.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
He busts a lot of big cartels. Columbian guy. And
we became friends early in my career and I was
kind of thinking about writing about him, and so he
taught me. You know, I was a journalist. When I
met him, and when I left him a couple of
years later, I was an investigative. He taught me how
to investigate people. Wow yeah, wow.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
So now what do you do in a situation because
I just did this story on iHeartRadio, and that is
is that we interpret what our lives used to be.
And because if you didn't write it down and document
it perfectly, it's the interpretation of what you went through.
So then when I look at you, I'm going, how
does he how does he know the difference between truth
versus rumor if we're all giving our interpretation of what
(15:57):
we did in that time period or what we learned.
Did I ask that question? Right?
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Yeah? Yeah, no, I get it. Well in this case,
particularly the Texas teen murders. You know, when when I
speak to five ten people and those people don't know
each other, right, and they're telling me the same thing, Well,
then I know that I'm close, very very close to
the truth, because you know, they didn't get together before
(16:26):
they spoke to me and say, you know, we got
to get our story straight. You know, one didn't know
I was speaking to the other. So when you start
hearing the same thing, rise to the surface from various
forms of different sources. You know, you're getting at the
truth here in this case. You make a really great
point that you know, are people remembering stuff correctly? Right?
(16:50):
And so I just backed that stuff up with other
sourcing and and and get at it, come at it
from a different way and say, yep, you know this
person they got it right. You know, they they remember
this correctly. You know, I mean, how do we remember
something from forty two years ago? I mean, it's but
you know, but then again, when trauma is involved, you
(17:12):
tend to remember you know, uh uh but details.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Yeah, well, you're shaking you're shaking me up with this
with this podcast only because the last time that I
was involved with a story like this was when Wayne
Williams was doing what he was doing down in Atlanta.
And then when you when you give me paper Ghosts,
all of a sudden, it shakes me up on that story.
But it makes me dig deeper into your story because
I'm going, what the hell and and and and there's
just so much going on at one time, but you
(17:38):
you really do put it out there in a way
to where we can go one person, one story at
a time.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Yeah, and each voice lends itself to the next yes, right, yes,
and and then I try to be with my voice
over with my narration. I try to be the person
in the middle saying, well, you know that didn't happen.
You know this happened, or no, that person's not telling
the truth. This is the truth, you know, so and
this is what I found. You know, you know, you know,
(18:08):
I never accuse anybody of anything in my podcast. I
you know, I say, look, allegedly, this is what this
person did, because you know what ten people are saying it,
you know, And and in this season in particular, you know,
you got some higher ups here. There some high people
involved that have a lot of power or had a
(18:31):
lot of power at the time. And you know when
you get people in power situations, you know that goes
right to their head. And you add add millions of
dollars involved in it, and all bets off, you know. See.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
My biggest fear of all the time is what do
you do when you pop a microphone in the in
front of a person who is unprofessional and doesn't know
what that microphone is about, ready to do because they
to me, they become actors. Then I say, no, don't
give me an actor answer. I need to have a
real one here.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
That that's a really that's a really great point that
brings up something from me. So you know, I had
I had an investigative series on uh Investigation Discovery, uh
uh uh Dark Minds three seasons. I you know, I
investigated cold case serial murders. And what I found was,
(19:22):
you know, you go inside someone's house, you set up
all the lights, set up the camera, you sit down,
and they you know, that is intimidating. But I found
with podcasting they forget about that mic pretty quickly, and
so you're just talking. Now, now you're just talking. There's
no camera, there's no lights, there's there's this mic that
(19:45):
becomes invisible, and now you're just having a conversation. And
and I found that people open up a hell of
a lot more with podcasting than than definitely with you know,
making a documentary for television.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
God William R. Murrow to make sure that somewhere in
that path that they created for all the broadcasters and newspeople,
that they start honoring journalists like yourself because you're doing
exactly what he set out to do. But we had
no podcast back then. It was called television.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Yeah. Yeah, well, hey, I appreciate that. That's very kind
of you. I just you know, I get up every
morning and try to do give a thousand percent. I
try to I try to do the best work I
can possibly do that day and then move on to
the next day. And I'm just grateful for all the
people who came forward, you know, dozens and dozens of
(20:37):
sources for this season. I mean, it made it what
it is.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
You know, you got to come back to this show
anytime in the future. Twenty minutes with you is not enough.
I gotta have more. I'm sorry, I'm gonna be I'm
gonna be selfish here. I need more.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
I need more. Thanks, Sarah, I appreciate that. It's been
really really great talk to you.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Will you'd be brilliant today.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Okay, all right, thank you. Take care.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.