Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
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
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guilty in a court of law.All right, welcome back to the safe
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Haven Podcast the Murder of Judith Petty. I am Justin and I am joined
as always by Melissa, and wehave a special guest on today as well.
But before we get to that,Melissa is gonna give us some case
updates real quick. Yeah, sowe have some really good updates to share.
If you are part of our Facebookgroup, you will have already heard
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the exciting news. But we nowhave an assigned prosecutor and investigator on Judy's
case. So this is the firsttime since two thousand and nine that we
know of where someone has actively beenassigned and looking into this case. So
big win for safe Haven crew butalso the Petty family. And we have
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the investigator assigned as Doug Stroum,and he has been awesome so far.
And I expect that to continue andwe are looking forward to working with him
and with that, he is givingus access to all of the case files,
so we are super excited about that. It helps clear up some things
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that we don't know that happened backin two thousand and eight. So the
fact that he's willing to partner withus is only going to make us stronger
and find who killed Judy. Soreally big updates that we wanted to in
case you're not in the Facebook group. If you're not in the Facebook group,
go ahead and join. We justhit over our a thousand today members,
so continue to like and follow uson the podcast and also in our
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Facebook group. Absolutely, And wehad the pleasure of doing a zoom meeting
with Doug yesterday, and I reallylike the guy and he's very open and
he's very honest, very straightforward aswell, which I can appreciate. Some
people can't, but I definitely can. So it was good talking to him.
I trust him, and the factthat he's willing to work with us
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and anybody that we bring on toconsult as well is a very phenomenal and
big step forward for the investigative team. So yeah, I'm very happy to
have Doug involved. Absolutely. Sowith that being said, one of the
we've been hyping you up, Iguess Alan for weeks now, and our
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special guest is Alan. Everyone Allenis our arson expert, or I keep
saying Arson is but our arson experts. Do you want to tell a bit
about yourself? Sure? Like Isaid, my name's Alan Haskins and I'm
I'm the Firesience Program director at BlackRiver Technical College in Pocahontas, Arkansas.
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I've been in the fire service forthirty plus years, either as as a
firefighter, as a as a chiftcaptain, fire chief. Now I'm I'm
teaching firefighters or people how to befirefighters or how to be better firefighters.
And one of the things that weteach in the week go over is is
arson and things along those lines.So that's what I'm doing now and now
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helping you guys. So maybe getsome answers. Yeah, we appreciate it
a lot, not a problem.So you wrote a great opinion article after
so we provided you with just allthe listeners. Now, we provided you
with the fire departments rep or themedical examiner's report, and based on all
of your experience over thirty some years, you took a look at all of
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that and you wrote up an opinionfor us what you think happened or some
things to look at and to consider. So what we want to do is
go through that report first, andthen obviously we have a ton of questions
in the Facebook group that people wantto ask you. We wrote them down
and we will get to all ofthose as we go along. So if
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you want to kind of start youknow, reading, you know, telling
us about the what you found inyour report initially before we get going,
I do have to put out alittle disclaimer for the listeners. Some of
the content we are going to betalking about today will get a little bit
graphic, So if you're not okaywith that, then either there's going to
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be some parts you want to skipover or you might not want to listen.
So I do have to tell youguys that because Alan is going to
be straightforward with us, and wevalue his expertise in this field, so
we need to hear it absolutely.Thank you, justin Yeah, I was
one of the things I was worriedabout, so we can. I just
I just don't want to make anybodyupset or madder than what they need to
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be. So the first part ofit, I'll just I'll read it real
quick after reading and make it themedical examiners report that stated Miss Judas Petty
did not have high concentrations of eitherdrugs or carbon monoxide in her body,
and reviewing the State five Marshal's investigationreport, is my opinion that Miss Petty
was murdered outside of the cellar whereher remains were found. One of the
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things that jumps us out to usright away is, you know, can
you explain to the listeners how youcame to this opinion of her being murdered
outside of the cellar and not inthe cellar or not in the house.
What makes you think that it wasoutside the celler? Okay, Well,
one of the things that I thatwhen you do an investigation like this,
especially when there is a body involvedor a victim, you want to go
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in look at the toxicology report tosee how that victim died. So that
was one of the first things Ilooked at. And her body was burnt
so bad that they only found veryvery little of soft tissue, and soft
tissue is where the toxicological report's goingto come from. So you look at
that and see if there were anydrugs in her system, any toxicans in
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her system, like carbon monoxide,and there were none. She had normal
levels. And all of us justbreathing air around, our vehicles, around
you know, when we're cooking inher house anything like that, you're going
to have very minute levels of carbonmonoxide. And the threshold that she had
in her in her system at thetime was normal. So if she would
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have died from the fire itself,she would have had extremely high levels for
it to have killed her. Andninety nine times out of a hundred,
when somebody dies in a structure fire, it's not from the fire the heat
itself, it's the gases from thesmoke which contains that carbon monoxide. And
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the way carbon monoxide kills us,or kills humans or anybody, your animals,
test animals, whatever, you developwhat's called carboxyhemoglobin, and the carbon
monoxide gets in our bloodstream, andwhat's odd is the cells in our body,
the red blood cells, had ratherabsorbed carbon monoxide as they would oxygen.
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The way the cellular breakdown of itis it will absorb it faster than
it will oxygen. So that's whenyou develop the carboxyhemobob and it it displaces
the oxygen in our bodies, whichcauses us to start out, You'll get
nauseous and headaches, and then itjust goes downhill from there. So I
was looking at someone and some toxicologyinformation before we got on, and around
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sixty to seventy percent is where it'sgoing to be at to be lethal.
Okay, way below that. Ifyou look at the toxicology report, it's
way below that. The other thingthat they look for was drugs to see
if she might have been drugged,if she might have been on something drinking
anything like that would have shown upin there too. And the good part
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about this is if there is agood part. The soft tissue that they
found was her liver, which youknow a lot of people don't realize it,
but your liver it works kind oflike an oil filter in your engine,
and it filters out all the badstuff and it kind of goes to
that spot and then it goes intoyour indecrine system and he goes into wasting
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it on out. So the otherthing that they found in there was searcherling,
which is an antidepressant, and atthose levels that she had was normal
level for somebody that's on a prescriptionmedicine like that. So I wanted to
ask you, stop you right thereand ask you about that, because one
of the theories back then, orone of the you know, possible solutions,
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was that she was so depressed.She was so depressed she overdosed and
she was out walking and was confused. But based on those levels we've heard,
and also you're confirming that it wasnormal ring, she didn't have anything
that would have caused her to haveany kind of confusion, disorientation, nothing
like that, not that I've seenin the toxicology report. It would have
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shown up if it would have beenthere, and it wouldn't have been something
that somebody would have hid or orwhatever you know, to make you look
like something else. The carbon monoxideitself in for it to be accidental,
you know, like you were saying, you know, she was depressed at
walking around, Maybe she overdosed fromsomething and died. That still doesn't explain
the fire. You know, ifshe died prior to that, she herself
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couldn't have started the fire. Shecouldn't have started it accidentally because she would
have still been breathing after the firestarted, she would have breathed in that
carbon monoxide or those other gases.So by not being there, that tells
me that she was not even fromthe time the fire started until she passed
away. I'm firm I will firmlybelieve that she was killed prior to and
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then her body placed there and thenthe fire started. One of the other
questions that we have a lot rightnow that we're trying to get more information
on is heard being diabetic. Now, would that be something that you would
see in her liver levels as well? Or no, I'm not one hundred
percent share on that. You wouldthink if she was taking some kind of
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diabetic medicine for that insolent, andmight the sugar range might have been you
know, high or low, dependedon where she was at at that point
in time. But still at thatstill doesn't explain the fire in the carbon
monoxide. The key to the wholething with this, by the body where
it's at being killed prior to beingin the fire is the carbon monoxide.
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Because even if she would have beenin some kind of diabetic went into a
diabetic home up right, she keepedover a lantern or something. Let's just
you know say that when you know, if she went into some kind of
a seizure or something and accidentally startedthe fire, there still would have been
the carbon monoxide. So that's whereI'm at with that. Look, I
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got one for you. What isyour opinion of the original fire investigation?
Well there were two. Yes,if you look at the report, there
there were two separate fire investigations.Yes, both of them. If you
have if you have time, ohyeah, that's no problem because I feel
it's important to talk about both ofthem. Absolutely. The first one that
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was done, if you look atthe report, was done by the Wood
County Fire Investigative Team. Yes,I believe the reason that they done it
that way back then was because theythought all they had was a was a
structure fire or a house fire.Reading the report the fire, the State
Fire Marshal's report, mister Petty foundher remains later on that day, after
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they had originally done the initial firereport. If I'm reading it right,
on the ninth, Well, itis on the night this when the State
Fire Marshal's office come in and startedpulling her remains out. So once mister
Petty found that they'd already done theirfire investigation. They thought, hey,
this is this is more than whatwe can handle, so let's get And
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I don't mean that derogatory because theyI'm sure they've done a great job doing
what they were doing. But oncethey found that body, it becomes then
it could turn into a homicide.So they had to get some type of
law enforcement in there to do thattype of an investigation, and that's when
they brought the State Fire Marshals Office. In the first investigation, they only
done the house, and I believethat in their mind, coming from the
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fire service, I believe in theirmind they felt that the house caught on
fire originally and then radiant heat fromit the outbuilding on fire and all these
other things on fire around. Idon't believe that's the way it happened,
but I think that's the way theythought in their mind. And they you
know, where her body was found, for her remains were found was in
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the outbuilding in the basement or inthe you know, in the cellar cart
underneath it, So they had noidea that it was there. So that's
the only investigation that they done.Though, well it's just an outbuilding,
we're not going to worry about it. We're just gonna this is this had
to been where it started at,so that's why they've done what they done.
Then once they brought the state in, I feel like the reason they
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didn't find any burn patterns or anythinglike that was they were concentrated just on
the body and pull inn ehil,Well, it's burnt this bad, right,
and all we're finding is pieces nowof her body. We're gonna have
to sift through this, and that'sall they concentrated on was that one area
where her remains were that if youlook at the pictures, that's where they
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cleaned it all the way back downto the conquering back my opinion of it,
I think they were both good investigations. I just don't know. Especially
on the first investigation. I knowthey weren't looking for a body. They
thought it was just a fire,you know, they thought it was,
you know, somebody. I thinkthey thought somebody come up there and burnt
mister Petty's house. Now, thenonce they found a body in the outbuilding,
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things changed, And I think thoseinvestigators when they come in from the
State at the time, they wereso concentrated on that body that they might
have overlooked or didn't understand some ofthe things that they were looking at,
and that happens. I mean,it just does. Alan. I do
want to kind of talk through thatscenario about her diabetes, because the only
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reason I want to kind of goback to that just for a second is
because that is something we hear alot. Was she in a diabetic did
her sugar crush? Is that whatcausing At the end of the day,
like you said, we still thinkyou still got the fire, So it
doesn't really matter any of that,But that's constantly something that we keep hearing,
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and so we kind of want toaddress that, and we are trying
to look to see, you know, how much inculdent she took, you
know how many times a day.But I don't think would you agree that
that doesn't play a factor in anyof this, would you say that not
the way that with the fire andthe location of her body, I don't
think it plays a factor in anyof it. I really don't. Again,
I mean, you would almost haveto have been there to know exactly
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why she was killed or why shedied. So I just don't see the
diabetes really playing a factor in whatwe're at at this point. She might
have had, you know, sometype of episode during the day, and
that might be why she was walkingout through the farm. I really don't
know, and I think that's someone thing that we really wanted to address
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and look at. So thank you, and I agree, we all agree
with you. We don't feel likethat as a factor into how she ended
up dead, right, I don'tthink so. And you'll see that a
lot with people that are diabetics.We worked accidents before automobill accidents where somebody
was a diabetic and they had anepisode driving down the road and they run
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off the road, hit a tree, or they hit somebody else or something
like that. You can directly affectthat cause to that. But something like
this, where there's a fire involved, and especially with there not being any
carbon monoxide in her system, Ijust don't see it that as playing a
factor in it. That's great.So let's go on to the next part
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of your report. So you talkabout the seller and the dimensions. Can
you go out with us? Yeah? Sure. I said that the description
of the cellar was that it wasa twelve by fifteen and it was six
and a half foot deep. Thisis a ground structure, and it was
laid out north to south, andher body or her remains were found in
the southeast corner of that structure.And if you look at the picture,
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if the folks can see the pictureon the Facebook page, if they look
down the stairs and just of theright of the stairs was where she would
have been found at. So herbody was in the southeast corner, and
it was laying in a east tosouth orientation with the head being towards the
east and the feet being towards thesouth. That also tells me that she
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was placed there because if you thinkabout and we teach this in the fire
service and in law enforcement teaches thesame thing. If you have to drag
a victim nine times out of team, you pick them up from the shoulders
and with the head, or yougrab them by the arms and pull her
you know, their hands over theirarms and drag them. You don't drag
them the other way. The normalreaction for somebody is to pick somebody up
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like around the shoulders or by thearms. So that tells me in my
theory is that they drugged her headfirst down the cellar and then would have
laid her down right there, andthen I think they found like a fairly
opened spot on the floor and laidher down right. Okay, so she
was about right justin. That wasone question that I had, was her
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body dimensions and how tall she wasand how much she weighed and all that,
because that also plays an effect onthe fire. And I'll get into
that room in a little bit aswell. Yeah, she was about five
foot five, about two forty five. So would you think that one person
could pull somebody? I mean,so what makes you think she was maybe
pulled down the stairs and not maybekilled in the cellar? Well, I
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don't know that. I mean,that's what I mean. I mean,
they could have You know, you'regoing on the position. He's going on
the position of her body, correct, Yeah, I'm going strictly on the
position of where she was like atbecause what makes sense to me in my
mind. I hate the soundest way, but if I was going to do
it, that's the way I woulddo it right now. And sometimes whenever
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you get into these investigations, that'sthe way you got to play out what
makes sense, right, And thatmakes sense to me that they would have
pulled her head, you know,pulled her down that way, and just
when they come in they just laiddown. It's like gravity doing the work
though too, right, because ifyou're going down the stairs and you're going
backwards. Yeah, and you knowwe say that all the time, which
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is why we go on location becauseuntil you put yourself in those positions or
in that scene, it speaks toyou. But then you get a feel
for you have to think what didthey do? What was going through their
money? And that's a very goodobservation or point that you made, is
that if she was dragged that waygoing down the stairs, that makes it
a lot easier for one person orso because you have you've got the gravel.
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Yeah. The fact that she wasright at the bottom of the stairs
too, it's like they didn't takethe time to drag her to the back.
They just pulled her down the stairsand like took her to the left.
She was two hundred and forty fivepounds. They would have dragging her
any for they just got her tothat point. You just stopped right there
with yeah, you know. Sothat's why I developed that process or that
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thought in my head. Was theway that was. I mean, you
kind of got to play it out. If you're looking at this and reading
through that, if you've got tokind of picture how this is all going
going about. And then the lastsentence that I wrote there was I believe
then an excellerant was poured in thatsame area, possibly on her and the
surrounding contents of the cellar, andignited. So here's where it gets to
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some of the stuff that I don'treally want to talk about, but it's
necessary. When a human body catcheson fire the fat. It's just like
when you're cooking on a grill orwhatever and you see fat running out,
it flames up. The same thinghappens with our human bodies. And I
believe that that's where a lot ofthis come from. And it takes so
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much heat to get that going andeverything. So that's why I believe what
happened. And right there, andI think one of the pictures that I
sent you where I circled it andblew there was like some marks on the
floor. What can happen in thoseareas right there, especially when if you
pour out an excellerant, it willleave those marks on the floor from that
exceller and those are called poor patterns. They can also be construed sometimes as
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ventilation. Patterns where the air was, where the fire was pulling air into
it, and it got hotter rightthere. But I believe in my mind
that's what happened. She was placedthere and they poured some tope of an
exceller and out and started it inthat area. If I'm understanding, you're
right. So you're saying because youknow it was somebody who is heavier or
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has more you know, weight tothem if you will, doesn't necessarily have
to be somebody heavier. Just Imean, all of us have body fat,
and that body when when it burns, you're burning like that, that
fat and will render and run outand catch on the bottle. So okay,
And again as somebody's heavier, thatcould be cause I know there have
been documented cases where an extremely obeseperson had gone into a crematorium and they
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had a really really large fire fromthat inside that crematorium. So that that's
what happens. Okay. So youthink that an acceller was used arm June
or in that area, Yes,I do believe it. The reason I
say that is in that same areaon the east wall, in the south
wall, there are marks on theconcrete that appear to be fire marks called
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spowlling. So what that is,that's a phenomenon that happens in structure fires,
whether there's concrete around, whether it'sthe floor or on the wall.
Concrete, no matter how old itis, always contains some level of moisture
like water. So what happens iswhen that temperature gets too and exceeds two
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hundred and twelve degrees fahrenheit, whichis the boiling point of water, it
converts that water to a steam.Well water does not compress, so that
steam starts expanding and it blows thesurface of the concrete off or causes it
the fracture. And if you lookat those pictures, you can actually see
those spots, and I believe that'swhat that is just by looking at the
pictures. And I've seen it intime again here at our facility where we
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have our burn building out back whenwe when we train firefighters, we have
actually had some of the concrete inour in our burn building actually spawl and
look like this. And I cansend you guys pictures of it if you
would like to show you what I'mseeing is in compare it to those pictures
and see if it's if you ifyou agree with me on it. But
you see a lot of that spawlingin that one corner, and I looked
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set. I mean, I've lookedat the pictures of the basements and they
went around, you know, kindof I don't see it in other places.
So that tells me that it burnta little bit longer in that area
by the time frame. So whathappens. You know, a lot of
investigators, the way that they goto and find a point of origin is
is they'll go from the least burntspot to the most burnt, where it's
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burnt the most. That is whereit burnt the longest, and that usually
is where your point of origin is. And that kind of tells me where
her body was found. That's wherethe point of origin was. To get
a body going and to cause afire of that damage, they're going to
have to have some type of anaccelerant there that got her on fireplus other
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parts or other fuels there on fireas well. Does that make sense?
Yeah, that does. So howlong would you say or is it hard
to say that this fire would haveto burden you for judy to be you
know, the remains that were recoveredwhen a body is legally cremated. The
crematorium usually runs anywhere from eighteen hundredto twenty one hundred degrees fahrenheit, and
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for the body to be completely burntup is one to two hours. But
at that you're still going to haveparts left skull, beef, pelvis,
things like that. And if yougo in and look, that's very interesting
to me because if I go inhere and look at the medical examiner's report,
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the parts that they look that skull, teeth, parts of the pelvis,
you know that there were other placesother bones that were there as well
too. But that's really really interesting. So that kind of tells me that
that fire reached eighteen hundred to twothousand degrees in that spot. But here's
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what else happened. As that fireconsumed the rest of that building, everything
fell in on top of her.And what happened is is all that stuff
fell in on top of her andit got the burning and it was just
like in a pit. So itwas there, it was containing that heat
throughout there in that one spot righton top of her body, and it
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just consumed everything up. And ifyou look at the fire report, they
did not go in and try toextinguish the fire. It was basically allowed
to just burn itself out. Sowhen it burned itself out, it said
they're smoldered for hours, and itconsumed her body up. I hope that
answers your question on the length oftime. So and also another thing on
length of time. That's another thingthat I didn't put in my opinion was
(26:06):
you can have a fairly good sizedhouse, especially if it's an older house,
and the conditions are just right,you can set that thing on fire
and have it on the ground.I mean from start to finish on the
ground in about an hour an hourand a half. It doesn't take long.
And there's plenty of videos on YouTubethat you can look up the fire
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departments that are doing that for training. They'll set the house on fire and
just let it burn itself out,because you can actually get a lot of
good training from just watching these thingsburned, because you can see where it's
drawing air from, or how it'sbeen like, or how it's doing this,
or how it's doing that, howthe fire spread from one place to
the other, and it just actuallyit'll consume itself and be on the ground.
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Now you'll still have that small roomgoing on where all that to bring
us fell in on top of itself. Yeah, it'll be going on for
hours, maybe even a day ortwo, you know, and that so
that's basically what happened here, Ibelieve as it just fell in on top
of her and consumed her up.That seller had like aluminum roofing, Is
that right? Just sind it waslike aluminum roofing. Yeah, yeah,
(27:11):
that cordgated ten. I saw thatin the pictures laying around there. So
that will you that you've seen mean email of the day asking me about
that, will hold the heating becauseit's pushing down on top of the metal,
will always do that. In factthat we'll reflect it at one point.
So overall what you're seeing is basicallybecause everyone has these questions, right,
(27:33):
how long? What if I haveto burden? Not that long?
A right? No, because allthe positions were correct, right all the
I hate to use this term,but it would be. What happened here
was an absolute perfect storm to getrid of a body. Honestly, if
you go back and you study usand look through all of our textbooks and
everything, and one of the worstways to cover up a murder is to
(27:59):
burn in the house because nine timesout of ten, the body is still
there, some parts of the bodyis there, you know, even in
this case. But they got reallyclose. I mean, I mean,
I'll be honest, they got reallyclose to burning everything completely up. And
they had, I believe, withthat falling in on top of her,
they had lower temperatures than the eighteenhundred degrees that it takes, but the
(28:22):
time was longer of it playing thereon top of her. So they had
a whole day almost of that smolderand on top of her body that it
could have, you know, burnup and burn up and burn up before
anything was done. And if youlook at the report, they were allowed,
you know, they allowed it todo that. They didn't try to
put it out. Yeah, onthat note, I'm not doing this because
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I come from the fire service,so they'll take it her on way.
But in defense of the fire department, if you listen to what mister Petty
says, I watched one of GM'svideos, you know, kind of done
some research on all this and backget some some information on it. He
said, the fire department got thereand wouldn't go up the hill because they
needed a four wheel drive Okay theirdefense. Probably and I haven't got the
(29:11):
you know, the report and didn'thear the page out. But when they
were paged out, they were pageto a structure fire more than likely.
When he mean he would have calledthem and told n I'm on one,
Hey, I've got my house isburnt down, I need some help.
Well, the dispatcher would have gotit on the radio and told them how
you need to go to a structurefire, whatever the address is, and
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they would have responded in a pumpertruck, which would not have gone up
that hill at that So they Iunderstand, you know a little bit about
why they didn't go up there,but but yeah, that's I believe that's
why. Yeah, I they didtake the brush trucks off. I think,
do you know when they take tookthe brush trucks up? And do
you have a like a time frameon when the brush trucks actually went up
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to the note? Off the topof my head, I don't have a
time And oh it was, Idon't have off the top of my head.
No, I don't want to saysomething that's not correct. One,
I didn't know what it took.It was. Still at this point we're
taking quite a bit of water,you know, to put it completely out.
But so people were wondering, thoughthis type of fire, would you
(30:17):
be able to see this fire fromabsolutely And another question that I had that
we we're talking about the time framea while ago. One of the other
questions that I had that I wasgoing to ask you guys, and this
is a good point to ask it. Mister Petty said that he had gone
up there several times during the nightlooking for her. Do you know the
(30:37):
last time he was there, heremembers about eleven thirty or midnight. Okay,
so the fire would have had tohave happened between that point and when
he found her, because that topof a fire is going to put out
a very very large glow, andit's gonna I mean, you're gonna know
that it's a fire. You're gonnasee it even at night. You're gonna
(31:00):
see the smoke plume, and you'regonna see a large glow. I have
actually been paged out in rural areasbefore the structure fires around this time frame
after midnight or so that we haveseen it for miles away. So you
know, that's something I do believewould have happened that he would have seen
that or somebody would have seen itif they were looking for it. So
(31:23):
and most of the time, andI'm not saying this is what happened in
this case, but a lot oftimes our sins are going to be in
the way hours of the morning,from like after midnight, two three,
four o'clock in the morning, becausemost people are asleep, they're not out
looking for that that sort of thing. And that's what we're kind of thinking
too, is you know, nobodyheard anything, nobody saw anything, And
(31:44):
the thought is it had to bein the middle of the night. Their
neighbors on the back property would haveseen it if they were awake. They
didn't see anything. But mister Pettydidn't drive up to the house or up
to the driveway, so you didn'tsee anything, didn't notice anything. Just
because it's such a long driveway,you cannot see anything. So that would
be interesting if it was more inthe middle of the night and by the
(32:06):
time he showed up, that's howhe found it, because it wouldn't have
taken long from what you're saying,right, I'm thinking two or three hours
at the most from start to finish, and well until it's down to the
point that mister Petty found it,which was, if I understood him correctly,
it was on the ground and itwas just like one or two beans
left or the floor of the house, And so that tells me that it's
on the ground at this point.Yeah, everything was on the ground at
(32:29):
that point. And going back,you think that the soether was started first
and then I and all of that. It probably went to the house.
Yeah. The state fire marshals,they said, and they report that they
didn't believe that it was started fromThey believe it was two sets or more.
I don't believe. So I've seenfires before that were I mean,
(32:52):
this, this shid or this outbuildingwas thirty two feet from the house.
So one of the rule of likewhen we when people ask us if they
can burn some brush piles or anythinglike that, it's fifty feet away from
any structure, so you know whenyou're within that range. I do believe
that radiant heat or high enough.I do believe radiant heat would be high
(33:15):
enough that it could transfer enough heatto that house to set it on fire.
The motorcycle that was there, I'mone hundred percent of believing that that
was radiant heat could burn it.And the one tree that they were showing,
I do believe it was radiant heatas well. Now, I believe
the radiant heat from the house washigher than what the shed was, but
(33:37):
I do believe the shed was highenough to set the house on fire.
And I have seen before they're youknow, one of the things that they
said was they didn't believe that itspread from the shed to the house because
the vegetation was still standing in betweenthe two. I've seen it jump before
without doing that. We see ita lot on wildfires, jumping all across
(33:58):
highways and stuff. You know,fires can do that. Fires can do
some really really crazy things that peopledon't. Yeah, and I believe the
wind, that wind and that nightwas going from the right to the left,
so from the cellar to the house, the wind, the wind is
going to push that as well.That heat, you know, that radiant
heat. There's three waves that firecan spread through like that. It's convection,
(34:22):
conduction, and radiation. And Ibelieve this was radiation heat that come
off of that. And I've seenhouses before literally melt the siding and and
shingles and everything else. From onehouse to the other without, you know,
and not even scorched the ground underneathit. Now might be some people
out there that listen to this it'san all us full of craft and think,
(34:43):
you know, but but but I'veliterally seen it. I mean,
yeah, one of the things thatwe are wondering, and we kind of
already mentioned this before when we're talkingabout her position, and I think it
makes sense known maybe we answered ourown question, but that the seller did
have two levels. They had thetop level where there was a door and
(35:04):
you could go in, and thenthere was the cellar with the stairs down
on top of that. And soone of the thoughts was, you know,
is it possible becaudn't. We won'tknow until we're there, but or
if we were there, but thatshe was in on the top floor and
then it burned and she dropped down, and that would explain the skull fracture.
(35:25):
But my only problem with that theoryis she would have went straight down,
not over to the right by thestairs. But again, what's your
thoughts on that? I don't believe, So, I mean it's anything's possible.
I mean, when I throw thatout the window, anything's possible.
I don't believe it happened that waybecause if you look in the in the
(35:47):
accident report or in the investigation,they had to remove the bris off the
top of her remaind You still ifshe was in the top floor, you
still could have that, but therewould be more of debris under her remains
then there were on top of it. That was yes, sad, It
makes it absolutely sense. Yeah,but yeah, I mean, I believe
(36:07):
that there would have been more debrisunder her. But if you're looking at
report, it says that they actuallyhad to pick stuff off. And I
believe, if I remember Pay's statementcorrectly, he saw it like underneath stuff.
It's like one bonu something. Sogetting to the skull fracture, what
do you think about that? Isit possible? We've heard many different things.
(36:30):
The families heard many different things.One of the things that they've heard
is that her had filled with somuch fire exploded. Well, it wouldn't
have filled with heat. Yeah,well it could have. So if you're
reading again in the in the medicalreport, you'll see where they talk about
bones being twisted, fractured and allthat from the heat. It will do
(36:52):
that. So again, our bodiesare made up of mostly water, so
the water has, you know,we'll start doing things to the bones and
causing it to move around and anddo all that. So I do believe
it would to a point. Butfrom what I read in the Medical Examiner's
report, especially from the Smithsonian wasit was smaller fragments. I'm not going
(37:16):
to say the fire did didn't doit, but I'm gonna say it's not
likely fair enough. What would youthink would do could be uh, forced
trauma, you know, all thathammer, you know, anything fist.
I mean, if somebody's pounded,they're stopping you know, somebody's head enough.
(37:37):
Yeah, that's what I mean.You know you're kicking. But if
you listen to like some of theFBI things, was somebody that that inflicts
that much trauma on somebody, they'reusually pretty mad at him for something,
you know that they just keep youknow, I don't know. I mean,
they may hit her one time andand she just kept you know,
(37:58):
didn't die, you know, theyjust kept on and kept on until they
knew she was dead. One ofthe things that I wasn't wondered about,
and I don't I don't know ifthere was any rain in between six seventh
and eighth do you know, umthere wasn't any rain, but there was
no um I think on the eighththrough the overnight. Okay. One of
the things that I was wondering aboutwas if this was blunt force trauma or
(38:22):
if there was some type of bodilydamage that would have caused bleeding. And
it was done outside and not insidethe cellar, you would think there would
have been some blood on that grassand stuff because it wasn't burnt up between
the cellar and the house. Thereshould have been some somewhere or somehow,
(38:42):
especially if they drugged. It's justmy my thinking, you know. And
I don't know if they even thoughtto look for that at the time.
I don't know, no missing person'scase. I mean, at that point,
everyone's trampling over everything. No one'slooking for anything, you know,
mister Petty saying my daughter is missing. The houses on fire, nobody knows,
(39:04):
and an unexpected surprise to them.They just basically stumbled upon the crime
scene. It's what happened. AndI heard mister Petty say that they had
the dogs there and the dogs keptgoing between the house and the shed,
the shed and the house back andforth. And that's another thing. That
made me wonder about the blood beingin there somewhere. You know, if
the dogs were getting back and forthlike that, could that be what they
(39:28):
were hitting on? Because I mean, I've worked with dogs before. I'm
missing persons and stuff and Cadiver dogand honestly the one that the case that
we worked, I wasn't overly impressedwith them, but I do know that
they do work, you know,from town, you know, so yeah,
they can. I wonder too,because they didn't pick up you know,
(39:49):
her send, probably because her remainswere so decompressed that you know,
decomposed. They didn't pick her senseup, but they were you know,
kind of hitting multiple places. Andthat's why mister Putty then went over to
the seller because nobody else is reallypaying attention to them. And then he
went over and happened to look downand then you know, they didn't know
if it was an animal or human, right it remains, So I mean,
(40:14):
yeah, that's that's where I'm atwith it, you know. So
I wondered that, you know,if somebody did or they didn't here,
I didn't see it in the reportanywhere that you know, somebody looked for
anything. And from what I readon the police side of this, it
was kind of a really messed upinvestigation because they somebody just kind of passed
(40:36):
the buck onto somebody else, andsomebody else and somebody else because another another
in defense of them on that case, not really a defense explanation as to
why that happens. I know herewhere I'm at in Arkansas, it is
really really easy to prove arson.But it's really really, really really hard
to prove who did it or toget a conviction on it. And you'll
(40:59):
see a lot of you prosecutors andstuff that won't take an arts in case
because they're like, who did it, Well, we think we know who
did it. Well, I can'tgo I can't prosecute somebody, I think.
So there's a lot of people thatjust like I won't even mess with
it. And last there is abody like what we have here, and
I think that's what happened was well, we'll found a body. Well,
(41:21):
now we've got to step up theinvestigation. And that was you know,
after the fact, and then theykind of weren't working together and there was
a lot of different things going on. But some of the questions in our
Facebook group that I'll just kind ofthrow out now and see do some excellerance
burn hotter than others? Was oneof the questions in the group. That's
kind of a tough question. Butthe short answer of it is not really
(41:45):
to get an exceller to burn hotter. You just need more of it.
The more that you have there,the hotter it's going to be. Now,
I do know in certain situations youcan pour an exceller and out in
a house in small amounts and lightit on fire and it will burn itself
out before it sets the house.Talk fire. We have what we call
fiload inside of a structure in thefire service and fishing back there listening that's
(42:12):
in the fire service. They knowwhat I'm talking about when we talk about
fiload, and that's the contents ofthe building. Couches, love seats.
I believe mister Pettie said he hadlike stacks of oak flooring in there now
in other things, you know,So that's all a heavy fieload in that
building as well. So what yougot to try to do, and I
hate to say this because I'm goingout ideas for arsonists, but what you've
(42:36):
got to do is put enough excelleringin there to get that on fire and
to speed up the process. NowI could just put paper in there and
sets the paper on fire and hopethat it sets everything else on fire.
But I do believe that they usesome type of an excellerant with her body
in there, and and they gotthe rest of the stuff on fire in
(42:57):
that basement and then it just spreadsstraight up and it come down talk over,
bally over. It could be hotterthan another. There is probably,
But to have any data and haveany actual numbers that I can tell you,
I don't not off the top ofmy head. I mean, there's
so many things out there that peoplecould use. The most common are going
to be your hydrocarbons like gasoline,basal fieldcare, sing stuff like that,
(43:20):
because it's the most common. Andwe do want to say that we did
find out a couple of things aftertalking with Doug yesterday. So for the
listeners to know, there was electricityout at the house, so that's something
that we were not sure of thatwe had heard there was no electricity.
There was electricity to the house,but not the seller, So I don't
know if that's here or there,but there was electricity, and for me
(43:43):
that makes more sense why Judy mayhave been going out there, because before
we are wondering there's no electricity,what she get to do when she gets
out there. Maybe she was goingout there to hang out in the house.
That was her plan. She justhave times where she would just go
out there and stay for a littlebit, just to get away from everybody.
Or does she no, never,this has never been. She loved
(44:05):
to walk, but she would walkaround in town. Um, so this
is very unlike her. Yeah,this, this would be a thirteen mile
walk for her from where she Yeah, I started, and that that kind
of bow in my mind that shewould be. I mean, I'm not
walking that far. Just doesn't needto go visit. I don't know anybody
(44:25):
that. I mean, I'm suresomebody would, but I'm not. If
I'm a two hundred and forty fivepound diabetic, I'm not walking that far.
Absolutely, basically, don't be extremelyhard for somebody to walk that far.
I don't know if you saw thevideo, but it's thirteen miles and
it's a horrible road no matter whichway you go, the terrain, the
(44:47):
road, there's nowhere to walk,it's dark out, all of those factors.
But so we don't know her purposeof her motive for wanting to go
out there now that there's electricity.Maybe she was gonna hang out up there,
spend the night, stay for afew hours. Another thing that I
noticed in the in the autopsy reportor in the findings was they found toes
(45:08):
from a steel tooled boot. Yes, hers, I don't know if you've
ever walked the steel toe boots beforeI have. Thirteen miles is going to
be a chore that's going to hurt. I think she was wearing hiking boots
with the steel toe. Steel.Those are not the most comfortable comfortable shoes
to wear with steel toes. Imean, it's right, and they're colder
(45:29):
in the winter too, are theyreally? Yeah, that steel gets cold,
cold, really cold. Part didyou get that cold? Oh yeah,
I guess absolutely. Why do youeven have the steel toe? I
guess I don't understand. Well,that's that blue collar life, you know.
Um So back to my original thoughtwas that we do have electricity in
(45:52):
the house, not the seller.The other thing I mentioned earlier to you,
Ellen, is that there was aaccelerance available. So that was one
of the questions in the Facebook group, was their excellerance. We found out
there was so mister Petty had themore cycle, probably had some gas in
it, or gas cans or thehe had a weed eater a lot.
Well, it's a farm, Imean, if anybody's ever grew up on
(46:15):
a farm, I mean, you'regoing to have that stuff laying around everywhere.
Yeah, definitely. Do you thinkbased on all of that, that
someone actually took the time to pourexcellerans on her or it just starts They
just started a fire? I believe. All right, let's think about this
again from the front of perspective ofthe person that had done this. Yes,
(46:36):
I'm wanting to get rid of theevidence. There's three or four reasons
that somebody burns or does that commencedarson. One is to collect on insurance
money. That's one of the thingsthat we say in the fire services.
The insurance papers and the mortgage papersget to rhyme in together, and that's
that's one reason people start a fire. This wasn't the case, Nope.
(46:59):
The other one is just to watchit burn. I mean, there is
a psychological thing out there where people, you know, they get sexually sell
by watching fire. Pyromania is thename of it, you know. And
then there's the other reason that's tocover up something, to cover up crime.
And I do believe that that's whathappened here. So in that case,
(47:19):
I want to get rid of thatevidence, and I'm gonna pour that
excellerant on that evidence to burn itup. So I do believe that's what
happened. I do believe he pouredor she or whoever poured that excellerant on
top of her and maybe made atrail back away from it and let it
and let it go down into thebasement and ignit it. I do believe
(47:42):
that's what happened. I agree.Is that possible that one of we've heard
this and don't laugh, Ellen,but it's crazy what we hear sometimes.
Is it possible that this was anexplosion. I'm not gonna laugh at that,
because I do believe there was anexplosion. But it wasn't in the
(48:02):
house. There wasn't in the inthe shed, there in the outbuilding.
There was definitely an explosion in thehouse. And if you will go back
and I can show, I'll hearin a little bit, I will tag
the picture and extend it to gainthere is a picture of an LP tank
that's got a brupture on the sideof it, and it's a fairly large
LP tank that was inside the house. Now what we call in the fire
(48:24):
service, that's called a bloody andthat's a bowling liquid explanding vapor explosion.
So what happens is it gets sohot that it starts bowling the liquid inside
and it ruptures and explodes. Sothat could be where a lot of the
damage from the house come front too. If there is an explosion in that
cellar, it's going to go upand out. Where's her body going to
(48:50):
be laying at? If she's puttugging on that door and it blows up
and out, where is she goingto be laying at? Exactly out of
the audible there's no way for herto get back down in there. That
and all the debris from the firewas in a concentrated area as well.
That that building on top of itwould have been up and out as well,
and you would have had less burnthan what you have. When you
(49:14):
have a fire and is going toblow, you're gonna have some fire post
explosion, but it's going to beout and about everywhere. It's not going
to be righting on top of herbody. I think that I don't even
think that's clausible. I agree.The other question I have is, what
about suicide that gets thrown out alight even though she was dead before the
(49:37):
fire, is a possible she startedthe fire and then killed herself. I'm
not going to say no, butthere would have. She would have had
to have done something that would havebeen an instantaneous death, like a gunshot.
She would have had to shot herself. She should have had to have
done it in the bottom of thebasement, the pistol whatever would have been
laying there with her. And theother part of that is they went in,
(50:01):
They're in the autopsy report and doneX ray scans for bullet fragments and
bullet racing and what's called bulletsmere thatwould have all shown up somewhere in that
skull. So I don't believe thatwas the case either, Right, I
agree, And it just helps tohave you on from all of our Yeah,
run through all of these scenarios rightand talk them through, because these
(50:24):
are questions that our listeners have,that we have that can only move us
closer to getting to the truth ofwho killed Judy. And if you think
about that though. The different typeof weapon might explain why her skull was
fragmented like it was. But therewas no bullets from here. There was
no weapon there. The weapon wouldhave been there unless somebody come in and
(50:45):
took it and took it out ofit. But it wasn't fair. I
mean, she's not going to shootherself and then go throw it away and
then come back and die. Imean, it's doesn't work that way,
right, Or they could be somethingaround the property, you know, like
the seller had a lot of stuffin it. There was a lot of
opportunity for things, or if itwas an accident, you know, somewhere
(51:07):
else. And you know, Ithink you can rule out accidental or suicide
simply by going back to the toxicologyreport of not being any carbon monoxide.
One of the things that I thoughtabout that did cross my mind, and
this is another reason I asked aboutthe blood tracing on the outside, the
stab wounds or somebody like cut herthroat or something. Yeah, the only
(51:28):
way that you could have tell thatat this point was looking at the bones
and look for knife marks on thebones or something state. But the ribs
weren't there. There weren't enough ribsthere to you know, for like a
stab wound or something or like youknow, around her throat or something that
were you know, most of thetime it would go down to the vertebrae.
That vertebrae was gone. So whoknows at this point. But I
(51:50):
just don't. I don't see itbeing accidental. I don't see it being
suicide. I just really don't.Strangulation maybe hitting the head made it wasn't
an overdose to talk string show,there was no drugs there. Stabbing maybe
I just think that's where we're atwith it. I mean, I don't,
I don't see it being any otherway, right, And we agree,
(52:14):
we agree it's helpful. I lovebeing able. I don't know about
you, Justin, but I lovetalking to you and hearing your different thoughts
and scenarios and and walk these throughbecause we do it all the time,
and we've been over this, youknow, so many times. But it's
nice to have somebody new come inwith your expertise and look at this all
right. So we hope this episodehas been helpful to everyone. We've loved
(52:37):
talking with you, Alan. Wehope we can have you back for a
future episodes, So thank you somuch for joining. And I will share
the photos that you shared with mewhere you circled certain things so that the
viewers listeners can see what we're talkingabout in the areas that you're speaking about.
Well, I'll remember on the pagetwo. So if any of them
have any questions, they can andI'll check it. Tell them just to
(53:00):
pour him on there and if it'sall right with you guys, tell him
just to ask away and I'll tryto absolutely perfect. Allen, you're fielding
all questions now, everybody, anyquestions the fire, Allen's going to take
over the Facebook page and answer them. I'm just I'll just tag you,
Allen. I mean seriously, Imean I'll be more than happy to help
(53:21):
with this. I mean, anyanything you guys mean, just just letting
me know if if anything else comesup, as you know, as Doug's
doing his investigation, if you tellme say, is this is this possible?
You know? Could this have happened? Could you know? And even
Doug tell him, and I thinkit wants to get ahold to me.
I'll be glad to you know,talk to him and go over thank you,
yep. And he's already going todo that. He's very excited to
(53:43):
listen to this episode and they sendhim your opinion that you wrote up,
so he will be contacting you,and I'm very excited about that, so
that you both can talk and strategizeand kind of our whole thing is to
go forward and to get answers formister and missus, Petty and Judy and
the Putty family. So thank youfor joining us, and we look forward
to to talk him soon. Thankyou, Thank you, Alan, We
(54:06):
do appreciate it. Man, thanksfor taking the time. All right,
all right, well, all right, Mike there you guys. So,
Melissa, what'd you think about Alanand what he had to say. I
loved him. I absolutely We've beenwaiting for him forever to come on,
and I was so excited we finallygot to chat with him, and I
just felt I could have talked tohim for hours. Yeah. That was
(54:30):
the best part for me. IsI was just listening to him talk and
then any questioned I could think of, really it was he answered it as
he kept going. That's why Iwas like pretty quiet the whole time.
I was like, He's answering allthe questions that I had so I'm good
here. Yeah, he was sogood, and you know his report,
and I think the one of thethings that I just loved about the interview
(54:52):
with him was that he was ableto walk us through different scenarios so different
you know, ops and possibilities,and also discount things of probability likelihood.
So I think that's really good helpful. He definitely went through the percentages factor,
which is a big thing that I'mI'm on like, I always play
(55:12):
the percentages. I don't want tosay play the percentages, but there's more
probable things than other things, ifthat makes sense. And the explosion now
absolutely not an explosion. And itwas funny because when when we were talking
to him about it, he's justlike, oh no, no, there's
(55:34):
no way. But his knowledge wasextremely helpful. I think I think the
listeners are going to really appreciate that. And you know, for the listeners
again, I know you heard probablyheard some graphic details that you didn't want
to hear. I gave the disclaimerbeforehand, and Alan even said, this
is the stuff I don't want totalk about right now, but that information
(55:58):
is crucial for us knowing more aboutthe case and more about the fire.
So I appreciate him being very respectfulabout that, but you know, we
got to have that information as well. We do. And I found his
theory or his idea of her beingtaken in down the stairs. I thought
that was made a lot of sensewhen you look at it that way.
(56:20):
Oh definitely. I also took awaythat this fire didn't have to burn along
and so I know everyone's wanting thehours that it would take. He said
one to two, because it wasreally like we've all said, the perfect
storm for a fire and the killeralmost got away, but he didn't.
We still have evidence, we stillhave facts that proved she was dead before
the fire, and we're going tofollow it through. Yeah, it was
(56:44):
just a great interview, and Alanis very easy to talk to and he's
like said, the knowledge is priceless. I don't know. I thought it
was a great interview. I didtoo. I will have to have him
back, definitely have him back.I'd like to hear the feedback from and
stuff like that about what he thinksas well. Yeah, in the future,
I'd really like to have Alan backon Yeah, as we get more
(57:07):
into this, I would love tohear what he has to say as we
continue the investigation and working with Doug. And you know, the other thing
we wanted to do real quick wasI made a post in the Facebook group,
but we also want to put itout here on the podcast that we
made a mistake. And I thinkit was two episodes ago when we were
(57:28):
discussing the alternate theory of Judy's routeand we mentioned that Grandma Wilson had dementia.
So we were wrong. That's notcorrect, that's not accurate. As
everybody can imagine, we talked toa lot of people, a lot of
family, a lot of community,and you know, we heard this information.
We thought it was credible, youknow, that cool, thank you,
(57:52):
and it wasn't. And that happens. You know, it's fourteen years.
Everyone has a different perception. Now, could Grandma Wilson had some confusion
but still been alert and oriented.Sure, but she was never officially diagnosed
with dementia, as the family knows, So we wanted to put that out
there. I agree. I agreethat caused a little bit of a stir
and I mean, I can understandwhy, but that's the evolution of an
(58:16):
investigation. You're going to find outsometimes information that not might not be one
hundred percent accurate. But that's whywe do what we do and why we
correct ourselves and why we give updates. You know, we're more concentrated on
information regarding Judy, people who sawher, people with information about her and
(58:38):
stuff like that. So and Idon't mean that in a disrespectful way,
but that's how it is. Yeah, so that was a mistake. We
corrected it, we've apologized, andyou know, we'll just keep moving forward.
And we're humble enough, you know, to say, yeah, it's
not right, but listeners should knowthat as we keep involving as justus and
said, things are going to change, just like the electricity. We thought
(59:01):
there was no electricity. Doug nowconfirms that there is. So things change.
That's just part of the investigation alot. That's why this is a
real time investigation because you're listening.This is not prerecorded. We record these
episodes three days before I release them, and we are constantly getting information and
(59:21):
tips throughout the rest of the week. So this is legitimately a real time
investigation. So you guys are learningthings as we're learning things, and we're
learning things every day. Yeah,we are. So we are both sick
if you guys, if the listenerscan hear it in our voice or and
justice, but we are, weare, We're dedicated. Yeah, the
(59:45):
last couple of days we're off,it took about everything I had to do
that Zoom called Doug yesterday. Iwas sitting here just like miserable, and
as soon as it got over,I was like, I'm going back to
bed, and that's exactly what Idid. So they're so, yeah,
we're both really sick. I gotyou can hear it in my voice.
But also there's many times where wewere talking to Allen had to mute myself
(01:00:07):
because I'm coughing or blow my nose, and so you know, this just
goes to show and justin sick too. We got on and did an interview
with Alexa from w TAP today andwe will do what is needed, you
know, to get justice for Judy, and it just shows our level of
dedication to you know, making surethat we find out what happened and give
(01:00:27):
answers. Is this means a lotto us, and we will do what
needs to be done. And Ijust need you know, everyone to know
that this is not, you know, something we take lightly. Everybody by
now already knows the information for thetipline for the tipp email, and now
we do have another number that goesdirectly to Doug as well. So yeah,
(01:00:50):
joined the Facebook group Share the podcast. The more people listening, the
better. I actually gave an updatein the group. I think it was
last week that this podcast in Judy'sCase is now being heard in all fifty
states along with ten other countries.So we're trying to get that word out
and we're getting a lot of tipsand that's always a good thing. Yep.
(01:01:15):
Absolutely, so stay tuned and we'llbe back next week. All right,
talk to you later, Melissa.But I feel better, one remained.