E6 - The Fire Report

In this episode, Melissa and Justin go over the fire report from when Judy's body was found at the scene of the fire.

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Here on the safe Haven Podcast.Any names mentioned should not be considered as
suspects unless officially stated as such bylaw enforcement. Any opinions during interviews on
this podcast or the opinions of theinterviewee and don't reflect the opinions of the
safe Haven Podcast or the AMU ColdCase Team. Everyone is innocent until proven

(00:25):
guilty in a court of law.On February sixth, two thousand and eight,
forty eight year old Judith Petty lefther grandmother's house to walk to a
library three blocks away to return somebooks. After that, we don't know
what happened. The family searched forher throughout the night into the following morning.

(00:47):
The next day, her father drovethirteen miles to their family farm to
find the entire property engulfed in flames. When the fire was out, that's
when they found Judas remains in theseller. The medical examiner said she was
dead before the fire started. Thelocal sheriff at the time said he knew
it was a homicide and investigated itas such. Now, fourteen years later,

(01:14):
law enforcement says that Judith must havetaken her own life or died of
natural causes, and there's nothing toInvestigate. Welcome to the latest episode of

(01:34):
Safe Haven, the Unsolved Murder ofJudith's Petty, and I am joined as
always by Melissa. How are youdoing tonight, Melissa, I'm good,
justin how are you? I'm doingall right. It's been a long day,
a long night so far. Soyeah, you should tell the listeners
what you were just doing, johI had to play a nine ball playoff
game tonight because by some small,strange, weird miracle, the team I'm

(02:01):
on somehow made it to the playoffs, so I had to do like a
tournament mode. And usually I'm allright, I'm all right. I'm pretty
pretty high ranking. I'm a priorstate champion here in Indiana. But I
took five years off when I startedpodcasting, and that really has affected my
game. So trying to get backto where I was, and it's not

(02:23):
easy. I've only been playing againfor four or five months, so it's
a little rough. I got allthe knowledge, it's just the muscle memory
that I lost. So yeah,we ended up losing, though, but
it was a good season. You'relike a jack of all trades justin.
Well, it was a bad season. We were last place, don't get
me wrong, I was the bestplayer on the team. I was definitely

(02:45):
the by far the best player onthe team because because I'm pretty good.
But yeah, I don't even knowhow we even made it in. We
didn't even get a wild card spot, like we legit made it into the
playoffs. And I'm like, allright, so I guess I have to
play pool today. Cool? Yeah, yeah, well, speaking a pool
that could lead in When you saidthat, I was like, wow,
I had no idea that you weresuch a good pool player. I think

(03:07):
you mentioned that when we were inWest Virginia. But so, I guess
going on pool. That brings usinto one of our updates. We have
a little bit of information. Wefound out that there was no nippin Q
event that night. So again,why do we have Chris suggesting this was
how he remembers clearly picking her upand it being due to this Ring Girl

(03:32):
event. I mean, I don'tknow if he realizes we can check that
stuff, but we can, andthere was no event that night. So
no, I know that we've beenmentioning it for a few episodes now,
talking about this Ring Girl competition.First we thought it was a tough man,
then we heard it was a ringGirl and finally this week we were

(03:53):
able to confirm that there was noRing Girl event that night. So when
I had talked Chris, he hadsaid, yes, the bar closed early
because of this ring Girl competition.And again I said, well what time
did that start? As we talkedabout in the last episode, and He's
like, well, I don't know. You could check it out, and

(04:13):
I said, well I will,but it's so interesting to bank something so
clearly on something that didn't happen thatnight. So I'm not sure why he
said that or if he just clearlydoes not remember that night at all.
I don't know. I could.I think it could go either way,
but I don't know. I'm kindof wishy washy on that, Like I'm
not saying one way or the other. But we are providing the listeners with

(04:36):
the updated information as we know itso correct. Yep. So we know
that there was no NIP and QRing Girl event going on the sixth.
Yes, and we have previously mentionedthe name James Bonnet as well, and
we got in contact with him,Melissa, why don't you tell us how

(04:57):
that went? Yeah, So Ididn't try to find James Bonnet for a
couple of weeks now, because ofcourse we thought that he closed the bar
really to go to this ring Girlcompetition. So I finally got a hold
of his son, who's also aJames Bonnet, via Facebook and so I
was talking with him. He wasvery nice in the beginning, just trying

(05:18):
to, you know, get itahold of his dad for me. And
as he was messaging me with hisdad, showing him my messages and that
I wanted to talk to him,just out of the blue he said to
me that his dad told him totell me by and blocked me. And

(05:41):
I have to say, this ismy first block in this case. But
I'm not saying, we're not sayingJames had anything to do with this or
not, but of all the peopleto block or not want to talk,
which just came out of left fieldfor me, just because he really didn't
know what I was even wanting toask him. You know, my two
questions were did you close early?And was Judy in the bar? And

(06:01):
I didn't even get to those withoutbeing blocked and no longer communicating with me.
So I just wanted to update everyoneand throw that out there. And
it was just a really odd response, because everyone in a house has been
very open and talking. Yeah,and I'll be the first one to say,
you know, I've been blocked beforewhile I was doing investigations into unsolved

(06:26):
murders and stuff like that. Andfor the listeners, like I said,
you can take it with a grainof salt. You know, we're not
sure why, we don't care.I've had people block me just because they
don't want anything to do with it. They don't want their name associated with
it, whether they were potentially involvedor not. Some people just don't want

(06:47):
the attention or the drama or theirname dragged through the mud. Because when
you're doing the things that we're doing, as soon as we throw a name
out, whether it be negative orpositive, that name is forever associated with
the case, whether negative or positive. Like I said, so, I

(07:08):
have been blocked several times during investigations, which it really doesn't bother me too
much. I'm actually more surprised whenpeople are willing to talk. So some
people just don't want to be associatedwith it, don't want their name out
there because unfortunately we have a societythat they'll get a name and then they'll

(07:29):
go and start doxing people and that'snot right. You know, we don't
want any of our listeners to bedoing that. That's not on you to
assume somebody is involved in something whenthey might not be. So we did
want to throw that information out therethough. Yeah, and it's just you
know, if anyone knows James andwants to talk on our behalf and we're

(07:51):
not law enforcement, I'm just youknow, we're just looking for information about
that night and you know, we'llpass all this information onto law enforcement who
can follow up if needed. Butit was just an interesting reaction, just
something I didn't expect, you know, from the bartender when we look at
everybody else in this case, youknow what I mean. So it was
just an odd response. But definitelywe can move on. Then those are

(08:15):
our two big updates so far.Well. And I mean it's a good
update to have because we've mentioned himbefore and we literally asked a listeners say,
hey, if you know this guy, can you have him reach out
to us? So having his nameand doing this update was was an important
thing. And going on that,we are going to have our Arson expert

(08:37):
on next week and he is goingto follow up with what we're going to
do today in this episode, sowe wanted to start with the reports that
we do have. We do havethe fire report, and because it was
undetermined, we're allowed to publicly putit out there. So Alan himself,

(08:58):
who was the arson expert, hehas three pages already of questions and notes
because we sent him every single picturethat we had. We sent him the
fire report. And we ask youlisteners after this episode, if there are
any questions that you have for him, go into the comments and ask the
questions, and not to be rudeor anything like that, but if you're

(09:22):
just gonna state your opinion of whatyou think, try to keep that in
a separate post so we can keepeverything organized under one thread so we know
where everything is at. So ifyou do have questions, we will create
a separate thread that literally just asquestions for the arson Expert and place your
questions there. If you have acomment of what you think happened or whatever,

(09:46):
put that under a different thread fromtheories. And I'm not, like
I said, I'm not trying tobe rude about it, but it's we
have a lot of information. Wehave almost a thousand people in the group
who are all talking, so wetry to keep everything thing is organized as
we can because we already have somuch stuff going on with this case right
now. We do, and wehave a lot of interaction on the Facebook

(10:07):
group. So if you haven't joinedyet, you definitely want to join.
There's lots of good conversation discussions goingon regarding the case, and so the
more absolute lines together the better.Now, the Facebook group has been outstanding,
and I can't thank everybody enough forcoming and joining and sharing your ideas
and thoughts and speculations or theories orall of that stuff. Like, the

(10:31):
information has been priceless and it helpsus out quite a bit, So we
do appreciate those conversations. So,according to the fire report, on February
ninth, two thousand and eight,Brad Hartley, who was the investigative officer,
was notified of a fire which occurredon or about February seventh, two
thousand and eight, when Judy's remainswere discovered. Brad traveled to the scene

(10:56):
and met up with Terry Hefner,who was chief of Waverley Volunteer Fire Department,
to discuss the situation. On Februaryninth, so it was two days
after mister Petty discovered the fire onthe morning of February seventh, when the
investigation of the fire and Judy's remainson the ninth actually started from Waverley Fire

(11:20):
Department. The report states, theWood County Fire Investigation Team conducted an investigation
and search of the main structure ona previous date. Unfortunately, nothing had
been located during this search. Sowhat do you think about that, Melissa,
Well, I find it interesting whenyou see it laid out that it's

(11:41):
two days after the fact, sothat just kind of lines up with what
we said. So Judy goes missingon the sixth, they show up on
the seventh, there's a fire,but they can't do anything, and then
you've got the eighth that's when Ibelieve that the Wood County Fire Department was
looking. And then on the ninthis actually after she was found on the

(12:03):
eighth. The ninth is when BradHartley and his team show up. So
you've already had two different agencies involvedin kind of at this scene trying to
collect evidence. So you have againmany people who are present and not contaminating
the scene. I don't know ifthat's what was going on, but they
unfortunately, we're not able to recovermuch on those dates. So when Brad

(12:26):
was there, he did request fora second investigator to show up at the
scene, who was Jason Baltic.He was the assistant fire marshal, and
we did meet up with Jason whenwe were in town. He met us
out at the property and he wasreally helpful in being able to provide us
some more things to consider in regardsto the fire. To be fair,

(12:48):
though it's been fourteen years, hewas the assistant, he wasn't the main
investigator. So we had all thephotos with us. We are showing him
the photos. He walked around theproperty. He was trying to recall some
different things that happened back then.But again he would say, it's just
been so many years and he's obviouslybeen investigating a lot of fires. But
it was nice to meet him inperson, be able to hear his thoughts

(13:13):
looking back on that day. Andunfortunately the fire had destroyed the main house,
the shed, and a motorcycle thatwas not in use. So there
was some other farm equipment near thehouse in the cellar that was burned.
Of course, because it was allin close proximity to each other. Again,
I know there were some questions inthe Facebook group about the house,

(13:37):
it was not no one lived there, so the Petties did not live there.
There was nobody renting it. Itwas not abandoned. It was just
fake it. So again there wasno electricity that Justin had mentioned previously.
It was a property that they wouldgo and mister Petty would try to clean
up and keep as good as hecould, make it look good as he

(14:01):
could. I would say, ifthat, if that makes sense. But
it's a huge property, huge property, and mister Petty is he's a tough
guy, but it's a lot ofwork to keep that whole property looking good.
But he definitely tries, oh absolutely, especially for a man at his
time, in his early seventies.I know, I know. And again
he just drove Remember when we sawhim drive up in that big red truck.

(14:24):
Were you there? No, Iwas not there that day. So
he's like almost while he's in hiseighties and he's I don't know how tall
he is. He's so thin andhe's driving this big red truck and it's
like, how can you see overthat? But you know, he gets
out and he's you know, littlecompared to the truck, but he's adorable

(14:45):
anyway, definitely. So, aswe mentioned, you know, Judy's remains
were located in the cellar area.So the seller was about fifteen by twelve
and it actually had two levels,so there was a top level and then
a bottom level. There was adoor to enter if you're on the first
level, so there was a doorthat you could open and go into the

(15:05):
cellar. Now on the outside ofthe cellar, we're going to post photos
and I think we've done it beforewhen we were there of the cellar and
the stairs, but we're going toshow you going down the stairs kind of
the inside area of where Duty isfound at that time of the fire.
So one of the things I thinkis important here is that if you think

(15:26):
about the Wizard of Oz movie,you know, this just came to me
what I was writing this is,you know how the outside the tornado's coming,
you know, the big cellar doorand Dorotheast trying to open it.
So they actually had one of thosedoors, but it was not on at
the time in two thousand and eight, so all anyone had to do is
walk down the four or five stepsto be in the lower level of the

(15:48):
cellar. So there was no bigdoor that had to be open or anything
like that. It was just youwould walk down to the cellar and then
right at the bottom of the stairsto the right kind of or straight ahead
is where her remains were found.So anything more to that, justin that
you want to add that you foundinteresting. No, that was pretty that

(16:10):
was pretty cut and dry right there. I think it was in the fire
report thirty two feet from the houseto the cellar. It was a little
bit of distance. I mean aswe get further in the report. The
specifics of the fire report aren't thatbad. They laid out the property in

(16:30):
feet height, They gave wind gusfor the night, everything like that.
So you know, according to thereport, there were no burn patterns due
to the extreme damage to the structure. But our arson expert Alan, he
believes there are burned patterns near whereher body was found, and he refers

(16:52):
to this as spawling. This iswhen concrete is heated to above two hundred
and twelve degree which results in theconcrete to fracture, And when he comes
on he will talk more about that. But he feels they may have been
referring to v pattern burns. Theonly way these patterns would occur is if

(17:17):
there are walls or a ceiling.So we will be posting photos from the
fire that the family took to helpgenerate more questions for Alan when we do
that thread in the group about youknow, any questions you might have for
him, so you'll be able tovisually see what we're all looking at.
So that'll probably help you guys comeup with some kinds of questions or you

(17:41):
know, spark your curiosity. Iwould imagine. Yeah, it was helpful
when he circled things for us,do you know what I mean? Like
we've all seen these pictures so manytimes and we know that they're like,
what's that? What's that? Andthen he's circling and red and blue and
he's like this and this and this, and you know a lot of red
circles which are flags for him thathe'll talk about. But definitely, he

(18:06):
is already a great resource because we'relearning so much from him already that I'm
so excited to talk to him.Oh and he's very interested. Yes,
I'm very interested in it. Andhe's already given us a lot of information
and questions that he has because hedoes definitely have an opinion that is for

(18:26):
sure. He's a very nice guyand easy to talk to though. Yeah,
And I think one of the thingswe can say to Justin is that
so far, everything he's looked outand he'll probably go into this more next
week, is he does believe thatthis was a fire set to cover up
another crime. So everything that he'severything, and that just confirms that what

(18:48):
we've already known, right, whatthe family knows, what they said back
then. But I think again,it's just another solid evidence that she was
dad before the fire and this firewas purposely set cover up another crime.
I'm one hundred percent. I'm surewe're all on the same page that the
fire was set to cover up thecrime. And I mean, if you
still might have questions about why itwould have been set, I mean to

(19:11):
get rid of evidence, point blankperiod. I think we even talked about
that in the first episode and theinterview with the Petties and everything like that.
Yeah, Yeah, I saw somecomments in the Facebook group, you
know, going around about you know, the why and how or you know,
was it an accident or was itsuicide? And you know, will
definitely explore those in future episodes aswell to explain why it wouldn't be those

(19:36):
things. We don't feel that way. Yeah, I mean, there wasn't
even electricity there. I mean,there's no spark to be generated, you
know what I'm saying. There's noon hand accelerant either, So you know,
there's that we do know. Therewas a lot of debris and items
that obscured them from finding Judy rightaway. Now, per the rep vegetation

(20:02):
between the two structures was intact.Both investigators agreed that radiant heat was not
a source for fire travel between thetwo structures, no other causations could be
eliminated. The seller, like Ihad mentioned, was about thirty two feet
from the house. Chief Heffner didconfirm that wind gus were about thirty three

(20:25):
miles per hour during the period ofthe fire that could have traveled from one
structure and caused the fire of theother structure as well. The end result
of all of this was that thefire cause was undetermined, like I had
said, And that's why we're allowedto talk about this publicly, right So,

(20:48):
yeah, and so it's kind ofwhich fire started first. Where I
would love to hear what Allen hadto say, you know, was the
seller where Judy was the first fire, and just by circumstance with the wind
that night and the wind, youknow, the way that the wind was
blowing, did the house then catchon fire or was it both set separately?
Yeah, I mean I'm curious tosee which direction the wind was blowing.

(21:11):
I think that would probably help usout with that as well. Right,
I don't know. Off the topof my head, I thought it
was moving from right to left whenwe were there, but I'm not sure.
That's definitely something we can look at. Yeah, which would have been
from the house to the cellar.I mean we also have to take into
consideration that couldaver dogs going from thehouse to the cellar and back and forth,

(21:33):
which could suggest that she was possiblymurdered in the house and then taken
to the cellar afterward something of thatnature. It's hard telling, really,
it is. It is. Andso I think once we can kind of
hear more from Alan on what hethinks with the fire and how hot And
actually my biggest question I don't thinkwe're going to be able to really get

(21:56):
a timeline on this is how longthis fire had to go, because for
to be how mister Petty found iton the next day, But everything was
so dry in the wood was sodry that you know, everyone's saying it
would have only been a few hoursmaybe to get to that. I think
you guys are really gonna like whatAllen has to say because he has no

(22:17):
qualms about stating his opinion on wherethis went wrong. So right, and
you know, this episode is pretty, as Justine said, pretty pretty cut
and dry. There isn't a lotof discussion to be had. We wanted
to present this information first, breakit down based on what the fire reports
say, then generate questions, postsome photos that we have that the family

(22:38):
took, and then have the expert, you know, Alan, who has
a ton of ideas and thoughts onthis already, be able to walk it
through more in a discussion fashion,so that you know we can. Yes,
we have a ton of questions forhim. He has three pages for
us. We have just as muchfor him. Yeah, and we wanted

(23:00):
to put this out first so youguys could get the information and you can
ask him questions as well. Butwe figured having Alan on after we did
this Shore episode would be a goodcompliment because that'll generate more conversation and more
questions and more more thought yep.Absolutely, So that's all that I have.

(23:21):
All right, Oh absolutely, Andnext week's episode when he comes on,
it's going to be substantially longer.So yes, it will because it
all allow us to ask him somuch. And he says he has lots
of questions for us, and Iwas like, welcome to the club.
We all have questions on this case, and yeah, what was done or
didn't? Yeah? Absolutely? Allright, Well all right, well Melissa,

(23:42):
appreciate it, my pleasure and alwayshave a good week. Oh yeah,
definitely get all your Christmas shopping done. No, I just got my
tree up. Have you got yourtree up? No? The only Christmas
decor I have anywhere in my residenceis the leg lamp from a Christmas story.

(24:03):
That's the only decoration I put.Really, that's literally a tree.
No, absolutely not. Why myboys are old enough now they don't care.
I don't know. It's freaking Scrooge. I guess I don't know.
Justin Scrooge. I mean the leglamps enough. That speaks to itself.
Everybody knows exactly what's going on withthat. And they're like, this guy

(24:25):
is festive, and it's like,yes, yes I am. I don't
need a tree, a tree tree, so you do even have lights?
No? Now, so why Ican't be now, I'm not gonna be
bothered by that. Halloween is myfavorite holiday anyway, I go all out
for that. But what do Ido with presents? My kids are teenagers?

(24:48):
They want money? I still makemy daughter did the tree today together?
Yeah? They do. They dodecorate the tree with their mom and
stuff. She's my boys' mom isvery very festive, and like there's this
whole night where they bake cookies anddo decorations and do the tree and everything.
And my boys sometimes partaking that,but they know with me, it's

(25:11):
just like we really just don't wantto do that. Yeah, it's like
you know what, I don't eithergo to down and we got the lampp
pretty much. Yeah, Fragilie,just bring me some cookies. Awesome.
Yeah, it's good times. Okay, all right, Well until next week,
Melissa. I'm sure we will bein contact throughout the week and I

(25:33):
will talk to you later. Allright, But the