September 13, 2025 • 28 mins
This shocking true crime story follows the twisted 2023 murder case of Tennessee mother Macy Bramlett, whose brutal death exposed a hidden web of family secrets, betrayal, and scandal. From the discovery of explosive camcorder footage in Poplar Street’s quiet neighborhood to the jaw-dropping DNA test that revealed her brother-in-law was the father of her youngest child, every detail gripped Henderson County and beyond. The trial of her stepfather, Pop Bramlett, ended with a life sentence without parole, but the drama didn’t stop there—key figures fled across state lines, arrests continued, and the small Southern town was left haunted by betrayal.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Henderson, Tennessee, May twenty twenty two, a quiet southern town
with just over six thousand residents, known for fried catfish joints,
church potlucks, and the hum of sicada Is on warm nights,
a place where people waved from porches and news traveled
faster than the wind. But on a spring night, a
secret that had festered in the shadows tore that small
(00:20):
town piece apart, leaving the young mother dead and a
family's darkest truth slaid bare. In May of twenty twenty two, Henderson,
Tennessee was deep into its warm spring rhythm, sikett is
humming in the trees, church marque's posting Bible verses, and
kids running through sprinklers after school. In the middle of
it all lived Macy Others, a twenty nine year old
(00:41):
single mother working hard to piece together a safe and
steady life for herself and her two young children, six
year old Coral and four year old Biscuit. Just two
months earlier, Macy had escaped a violent, controlling marriage. She
packed what little she had into trash bags and moved
into her grandfather's small, one story brick house on White Avenue.
The house was old, but tidy, with a creaky screen
(01:04):
door and a narrow front porch where hanging ferns swayed
in the breeze. It wasn't hers, but for the first
time of a long while, it felt like somewhere she
could breathe. Macy worked part time at Soap and Spin,
the only laundromet in town, a squat page building near
the corner of Main Street and Maple. Regular customers knew
her for her careful attention to folding tawbles, squared so
(01:27):
neatly they could have been on a bed bath and
beyond display. The job didn't pay much, but it came
with a steady routine and the occasional free wash cycle
when the owner was in a good mood. She had
small pleasures that carried her through the days, listening to
country gospel on an old portable radio, sipping diet dark
pepper from a giant circle ca cup, and keeping a
dented can of bushes baked beans in her purse for emergencies.
(01:50):
Her friend said she was soft spoken, polite, and quick
to smile, even if her eyes sometimes told a different story.
Before her death, Macy had been quietly making plans. She
talked about saving enough to rent her own apartment, something
close to Coral's elementary school and within walking distance of
the Food Giant grocery store. She had been looking into
(02:10):
night classes at Jackson State Community College, hoping to study nursing.
Her dream, she told a neighbor, was to work at
the local hospital and have a job that could support
her children without relying on anyone else. Yet, even as
she spoke of the future, there were signs of fear.
People noticed how often she glanced over her shoulder when
walking to her car after work, or how she would
(02:32):
lock and relock the door when she came home. She
kept the blind strawn most of the time, even on
sunny days. On the Saturday before she died, Macie took
her children to the Dollar General on Church Street by
snacks and coloring books. The cashier remembered her laughing when
Biscuit picked out a bag of knee and gummy worms.
Later that evening, she was seen pushing both children on
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the swings at Jeene Record Park, her hair pulled back
in a loose ponytail, her flip flops kicking up the
gravel beneath her feet. To anyone watching, it looked like
a peaceful moment, but for Macy that peace would be
short lived. The night of May sixteenth, twenty twenty two,
was warm and humid in Henderson, Tennessee. The air carried
the smell of fried food from the Burger King on
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Main Street, mixed with a faint scent of cut grass
from nearby yards. It was a Monday, and most of
the town had already gone quiet by ten p m.
With the exception of a few cars passing by and
the occasional hum of a motorcycle in the distance. Inside
Burger King, the dinner rush had ended. Only a handful
of customers were still inside, sipping sodas or finishing late
(03:36):
night wobber meals. In the kitchen, the staff was wiping
down counters and tossing out bags of trash. Seventeen year
old cashier dish On Green, a junior at Chester County
High School, stepped out the back door for his usual
smoke break. He leaned against the cool brick wall, the
steady hum of the drive through speaker in the background.
The light from the drive through spilled across the gravel
(03:58):
lot behind the restaurant. That was when Dechon noticed something
unusual near the edge of the lot where it met
the tall grass of the empty field. A figure, small,
still and barefoot, lay face down. She was dressed only
in an oversized T shirt and underwear, her bare legs
pale under the harsh light. At first he thought she
might be passed out. Henderson wasn't a place where you
(04:19):
expected to see someone lying a parking lot. But now
and then, after the County Fair or a long night
at the b F dou Bar, people did strange things.
Dchon hesitated, the cigarette burning down between his fingers, unsure
whether to approach. Then he saw the dark pool beneath
her head, listening in the light. The sight made his
stomach drop. The gravel around her was speckled with smaller spots,
(04:42):
as if she had stumbled before falling. Dischon's hands trembled
as he fumbled for his phone. He called nine one one,
his voice uneven as he tried to explain what he
was looking at. The words came out rushed, and he
had to repeat the location twice. Behind the burger king
near the dumpsters just off Main Street. While he waited
for the dispatcher to confirm help was on the way,
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he kept his distance, leaning back against the wall. He
could hear the buzz of the cicada's growing louder in
the silence inside. A coworker peeked out the back door
after noticing how long he had been gone. Beschon simply
shook his head, his expression making it clear something was
terribly wrong. Within minutes, the sound of sirens began to
cut through the quiet night, Anderson's stillness was about to
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be broken. The Chester County Sheriff's Department pulled into the
Burger King parking lot just minutes after the nine one
one call came in. The red and blue lights from
the patrol cars lit up the gravel and the brick walls,
casting shadows that dance with each flash. Sergeant Ellen Farlowe,
a forty one year old lead investigator known in Henderson
for her sharp instincts and no nonsense manner, was first
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to step out. Behind her was crime scene technician Clorinda
Wrong twenty nine, meticulous and detail driven, carrying a black
kit packed with evidence bags, swabs, and markers. The scene
before them was grim. The woman lay face down near
the edge of the lot, just feet from where the
gravel met the tall weeds of the open field. It
(06:08):
was clear she had suffered multiple gunshot ones. Later examination
would confirm five hits from a twenty two caliber rifle,
one to the stomach, two to the chest, one to
the shoulder, and the final fatal shot directly to her
left eye. Fartle and Wrong moved slowly scanning the ground.
Blood spatter marked a faint trail leading from the field
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toward the restaurant, as if the victim had been running.
The path was broken in places by drops on the gravels,
suggesting she had stumbled more than once before collapsing. Yellow
evidence pluck cards were set down one by one to
mark the showcasings. A flashlight beam caught a small partial
footprint near the dumpster, barefoot matching the size of the
victim's own foot. Wrong crouched to photographic from multiple angles
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before carefully pressing a gel left over the print. Near
the body, Officers found fibers stuck to the rough gravel.
They appeared to have come from the oversized T shirt
the victim was wearing. Ron collected the musing tweezers, ceiling
each into a paper envelope. Attention then turned to the
security cameras. The burger King's CCTV system had a clear
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view of the drive through and back lot footage from
earlier that night showed the victims suddenly entering the frame
from the field, barefoot, clutching her arm, blood visible along
her sleeve. She appeared panicked, glancing over her shoulder as
if someone was chasing her, But just as she neared
the drive through lane, the recording froze. The system glitched,
skipping forward nearly thirty seconds, and when the image returned,
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she was already lying motionless on the ground. The missing
segment was crucial, likely capturing the moment of the fable shot.
Farlow made notes in her small spiral pad, her handwriting
quick and tight. She ordered additional deputies to sweep the
field behind the restaurant, searching for footprints, dropped items, or
any sign of where the shooter might have stood. By midnight,
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the seam was cordoned off with yellow tape, the lot
lit by portable club lamps. Workers inside Burger King had
gone home. The hum of the cicadas was replaced by
the murmur of deputies exchanging theories. For Henderson, this was
no ordinary crime, and for Farlow it was only the
beginning of a case that would twist in ways no
one could yet imagine. The first name on Investigator's list
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was one that came as no surprise to anyone who
knew Macy her estranged husband, thirty three year old Dale Ethers.
Dale had a reputation in Henderson that reached far beyond
White Avenue. Once a rodeo clown on the small time circuit,
he had drifted into scrap metal dealing after too many
injuries and too much beer ended his rodeo days. The
locals knew of him as unpredictable, prone to sudden bursts
(08:41):
of anger, and often drunk by noon. His marriage to
Macy had been filled with cruelty. Friends and neighbors had
seen the bruises, though Macy rarely spoke about them. What
she did Chaer painted a disturbing picture. Dale was controlling,
often finding strange and humiliating waste to punish her. One
incident told in hushed tones around town involved Dale forcing
(09:03):
Macy to lick a dead rat he found in their
trailer because she had made what he called mushy peas
for dinner. Another time, after she accidentally burned spaghetti, he
locked her in a large metal dog crate over night
in their living room. By March twenty twenty two, Macie
had finally left him, taking only her children and a
small Duffel bag. She moved in with her grandfather and
(09:24):
cut off most contact, but Dale's strets didn't stop. According
to people close to her, he had been heard saying,
if I can't bleeping have you, I'll bleeping feed you
to the bleeping pigs. It was a line that stuck
in people's minds ugly, menacing, and hard to forget. On
the night of May sixteenth, when Macie was killed, Dale
told Pelissy was in Savannah, Tennessee, attending a mud racing
(09:47):
event at the Hardened County fair Grounds. He even described
the races in detail, mentioning the smell of the engines
and the size of the crowd. But when investigators checked
his cell phone records, the story began to crack. The
record showed his phone pinging him off a cell tower
just three miles from the Burger King where Macy's body
was found at roughly the same time she was shot.
(10:08):
This discrepancy was enough to bring him in for questioning
at the Chester County Sheriff's Department. Dale sat across from
surgeon Ellen Farlowe in a dimly lit interview room. He
slouched in the metal chair, his arms crossed tightly. His
eyes darted toward the one way mirror more than once.
Throughout the interview. He answered in short, clipped sentences. His
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tone carried an edge, almost daring the investigators to press
him harder. He sneered when asked about his whereabouts, sticking
to his story about the mud races despite the fondea.
When Farlow pushed for more details, asking who he was with,
what time he arrived, and when he left, Dale gave
vague answers. He couldn't name anyone who saw him there.
(10:50):
He couldn't produce a ticket stub or any photos. By
the end of the interview, it was clear he wasn't
going to budge from his version of events. Though Dale
denied having anything to do with Macy's death, investigators weren't convinced.
They released him for the time being, but placed him
under close watch. His history of violence, his threats, and
his shaky alibi kept him high on their list of
(11:11):
possible killers. The second person, investigators turned their attention to
someone much closer to Macy, her maternal grandfather and houseman
seventy six year old Leroy pop Bramlet in Henderson. Pop
was something of a fixture for decades. He had taught
high school chemistry at Chester County High known for his
neat handwriting on the chalkboard and his patient explanations of
(11:33):
the periodic table. After retiring, he stayed busy in the community,
serving as a deacon at the First Baptist Church of
Henderson and organizing charity events, most famously his annual turkey
giveaways each Thanksgiving. Pop was also known for his handyman skills.
Neighbors remembered him showing up with a toolbox and a
smile to fix a sagging port swing or a squeaky
(11:55):
screen door, never asking for money. A widower for the
past fourteen years, he lived a in a modest, red
brick home off White Avenue until Macy and her two
children moved in that spring. To most people, he seemed
to adore his granddaughter. He brought her breakfast on Sunday mornings,
often scrambled eggs and toast on a tray, and kept
her aging minivan running, replacing the timing belt himself. In
(12:17):
April without being asked. He had a particular smell about him,
a mix of lemon pledge from his constant polishing of
furniture and the faint, sweet scent of pipe smoke. When
police questioned him after Macy's death, Pop claimed he had
been asleep in his bedroom during the time of the murder.
He said he hadn't heard anything unusual that night and
(12:37):
only learned what happened when deputies arrived at the house.
But almost immediately investigators found troubling inconsistencies. For one, a
test for gunshot residue GSR revealed traces on Pop's right hand.
It was enough to raise serious questions given the victim
had been killed with a twenty two caliber rifle. Even
more concerning, the rifle Pop normally kept mounted above the
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living room fireplace was missing. The empty hooks were clearly
visible when detectives entered the home. When asked about the residue,
Pop remained calm. His voice stayed low and steady, and
he didn't appear rattled. He explained that he had been
cleaning tools earlier that week and suggested maybe the GSR
came from working with old hunting equipment in his shed.
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As for the missing rifle, he speculated it might have
been stolen, possibly during the day when the house was empty.
Investigators noted his composure. He didn't seem defensive, nor did
he rush to deny every possibility. Still, the combination of
the residue, the missing firearm, and his proximity to Macy
on the night of the murder kept him high on
their list of persons of interest. Deputies searched his home, garage,
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and shed for signs of the missing rifle, ammunition, or
other evidence tying him to the scene. They also began
quietly asking around town, speaking to church members and old
neighbors about Pop's recent behavior. While most people described him
as generous in god oddly, a few mentioned he had
been quieter lately, keeping to himself more than usual in
the weeks leading up to Macy's death. For now, Pop
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remained free, but the investigation into his possible role was
far from over. By late May twenty twenty two, investigators
had turned their attention to thirty eight year old Randy Millstone,
Macy's brother in law married to her older sister, Julie.
Randy was a big man, standing well over six feet
tall and weighing close to two hundred and fifty pounds
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with a solid bill that came from years of lifting
weights and coaching youth football. His buzz cut was always
sharp and dark. Tribal tattoos curl over his forearms, visible
whenever he wore his favorite cutoff T shirts. Randy was
a familiar face in Henderson, both for his work and
his opinions. He spent his week days managing the sporting
goods section at the local Walmart, where he talked fishing
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reels and shotgun shells with regulars. On weekends in the fall,
he could be found on the sidelines of youth football
games at the Henderson Civic Center fields, yelling plays to
his team of ten year olds. He was known for
his outspoken personality on Facebook, often posting long rants against
what he called liberal nonsense and bolkness. In one strange
post from earlier that spring, he even claimed rainbow trout
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were gay fish and should be avoided. Her remark that
sparked a wave of laughing emoji reactions and mild outrage
in the comet section. Outside of work, Randy enjoyed hunting
trips in the woods near the Kentucky border, grilling Benison
burghers in his backyard and traveling to regional gun shows
in places like Paducah and Nashville. His circle of friends
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mostly came from the hunting lodge in the Walmart break room.
Randy's relationship with Macy had been rocky for years. They
often clashed at family gatherings, especially after Macy's decision to
divorce her husband Dale. Randy saw it as a betrayal
of family unity, and more than one relative had overheard
him accusing her of breaking everything apart. Those tensions, once private,
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now bloomed large for police when Sergeant Ellen Farlow brought
Randy in for questioning jeans and a faded University of
Kentucky t shirt. At first, he denied any romantic or
sexual involvement with Macy. He kept his arms crossed and
leaned back in his chair, answering questions in short, clipped sentences,
But when confronted with the camp quarter footage recovered from
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Pop's house, his posture shifted. After a long pause, Randy
admitted the relationship had happened, calling it a mistake. He
insisted it had ended years ago and claimed it had
no connection to her death. Investigators pressed him for his
whereabouts on the night Macy was killed, Randy said he
had been at home watching the NBA Playoffs Game seven
between the Boston Celtics and Miami Heat while drinking beer
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and messaging friends. But when police checked his cell phone records,
location data showed his phone pinging near the intersection of
County Road fourteen and Lively Road, less than two miles
from Macy's home, around the time of her murder. His
TV streaming logs also showed no record of the game
being watched that night. With his alibi falling apart and
his secret relationship with Macy exposed, Randy shifted in the
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interrogation chair, avoiding thy contact. The evidence against him was growing,
and a quiet hum of the overhead fluorescent lights in
the interview room only made the tension sharper. On May thirtieth,
twenty twenty two, two weeks after the killing, the investigation
into Macy's death took a dramatic and disturbing turn. It
was a cloudless Monday Afternoonman Henderson, the kind of bright
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day when the sunlight bounced hard off the hoods of
parked cars, and the air was thick with the smell
of Honeyseveral Sergeant Ellen Farlowe and two deputies returned to
Lorroy Pop Bramlett's home on White Avenue for a deeper search.
This time, they weren't just looking for the missing twenty
two rifle. They wanted anything letters, hidden, cash, odd keepsakes
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that might point to a motive. Pop's small brick house
was neat, with every surface dusted and polished. Drawers were organized,
kitchen counter spotless, but in the hallway closet behind stacks
of folded towels and extra bedlons, Deputy mark ingram spotted
something out of place, a black hard shell camquarder case
coated with a thin layer of dust. Inside was an
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older model Sony handicam, the kind popular in the early
two thousands. The battery was still charged. Farrell slid it
into playback mode. The grainy footage flickered to life, showing
a bedroom She recognized the guest room in Pop's house.
Within seconds, the scene became naughty, leaving the deputies stunned.
On camera, Pop was engaged in an act with none
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other than Randy Millstone, Macy's brother in law. The implications
hit Fartle immediately. Henderson was a town where church attendants
was almost expected where reputations were currency. A secret like this,
especially involving a respected church deacon and a married man
within the family, would have been devastating if it became public.
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But the shock didn't stop there. As investigators reviewed Macy's
personal belongings, they found another bond shell. DNA testing prompted
by an anonymous tip, confirmed that Randy Millstone was the
biological father of Macy's youngest child, four year old Biscuit.
The match traced back to a one night drunken encounter
between Randy and Macy a family fish fry in the
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summer of twenty seventeen, an event that had been held
at a cousin's property just outside of town. Witnesses from
that night recalled beer coolers lined up by the grill,
kids running barefoot through the grass, and Randy leaving early
with a barely coherent Macy. Macy had never told anyone
about Biscuit's true paternity, not even her closest friends. According
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to journal entries later found hidden beneath her mattress, she
had kept the secret out of shame in fear of
tearing the family apart. This new information reshaped the investigation,
pop now had not just one secret to protect, but two,
his sexual relationship with Randy and Randy's paternity of biscuit.
If Macy had discovered both, the threat of exposure could
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have been a powerful motive for murder. Farlow carefully logged
the camcorder into evidence and sealed the recordings. The footage
and the DNA results transformed the case from a search
for a faceless killer into a tangled family scandal that
touched nearly every corner of the victim's life. The pieces
were falling into place, but what they revealed was darker
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than anyone in Henderson could have imagined. By the start
of June twenty twenty two, investigators believed they had enough
evidence to close in on the killer. On June third,
after nearly a month of calming through witness statements, DNA tests,
and hidden recordings, police concluded that Loroy Pop Bramlett had
fired the fable shots that ended Macy's life. The turning
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point came when detectives pieced together a disturbing discovery from
the weeks before her death. Two weeks earlier, Macy had
stumbled upon a hidden camcorder a tuck behind folded towels
in the linen closet of the Henderson home she shared
with her grandfather. On it was footage recorded months earlier
showing Pop and her brother in law, Randy Millstone, in
an encounter inside the guest bedroom. The room's wallpaper, dated,
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floral bedding, and the sound of a box fan in
the back round made it instantly recognizable to Macy. Her
private journals, later found under her mattress, revealed that she
was deeply disturbed by the recording. She had written about
feelings of betrayal and disgust, and how the man she
had trusted for most of her life had been hiding
something she saw as a deep violation of their family's
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moral boundaries. She also expressed suspicion that Randy was not
only having a secret relationship with Pop, but was also
the biological father of her youngest son, Biscuit. That suspicion
was later confirmed by DNA tests showing Randy had fathered
the boy during a one night drunken encounter with Macey
in twenty seventeen at a family fish fry in the
backyard of her aunt's house. On the night of May fifteenth,
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twenty twenty two, just hours after posting an upbeat Instagram
story showing her kids playing in the yard, Macey confronted
Pop in the kitchen. According to investigators, the argument escalated quickly.
She accused him of hiding behind his reputation as a
respected church deacon and community volunteer while engaging in behavior
she saw as shameful and destructive. She reportedly threatened to
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take the recording to the Henderson County Sheriff's office the
next day. Pop, then seventy six. Panicked detectives believed that
in a mix of fear, shame, and desperation to protect
both his secret relationship with Randy and the paternity truth
about Biscuit, he decided to silence her. Some time after midnight,
while Macy was in bed, Pop retrieved his twenty two
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hunting rifle from above the fireplace in the living room.
When Macey left her bedroom to use the hallway bathroom,
Pop fired once, hitting her in the shoulder. Startled and bleeding,
she ran from the house barefoot and in nightclothes, cutting
through the backyard, passed the chainling fence, and into the
empty field behind the Burger king on East Main Street.
Witnesses later recalled seeing the figure running under the yellow
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glow of the parking lot lights. That night, Pop followed,
and near the far end of the field, he fired
the final shot. Word of his arrests spread quickly through Henderson,
a small Kentucky town already buzzing that week with talk
of the Kentucky Derby and the latest season of Stranger
Things streaming on Netflix. The trial of Leroy Pop Bramlet
began in late August twenty twenty three in the Henderson
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County Circuit Court, drawing steady crowds of locals, reporters, and
true crime podcasters who had followed the case since Macy's death.
The courtroom, with its wood paneled walls and faint smell
of old books, became the center of attention in town.
Outside television trucks from Louisville and Evansville lined the street,
their satellite dishes pointed skyward. Prosecutor Laura Ken forty two,
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a veteran with a reputation for being both methodical and relentless,
laid out the state's case over five days. She described
Pop as a man who had built a public image
of generosity and religious devotion, but had a secret life
that he was willing to kill to protect Jeurors were
shown the recovered camcorder footage, Macy's handwritten journal entries, and
photos of the field behind the East Main Street Burger
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King where she was found. The defense, led by William
Chalmers fifty seven, countered by portraying Pop as a frail
elderly man to its simply panic during a heated family dispute.
They argued that the shooting had not been planned and
that Pop's decades of community service should weigh heavily in
his favor. Testimony came from law enforcement officers, forensic experts,
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and even Randy Millstone, who admitted to his relationship with
Pop but disdanced himself from the murder. The jury listened
to evidence about ballistics, the DNA tests that confirmed Randy
as Biscuit's father, and the timeline of the shooting. By
September fourteenth, the case went to the jury. The deliberations
lasted less than three hours. Shortly before four o'clock PM,
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the courtroom was called back to order as the clerk
read the verdict guilty of first degree murder. There was
a collective intake of breath from the gallery. Several members
of Macy's family held hands tightly while others wiped their eyes.
Sentencing took place the following week. Under Kentucky law, a
first degree murder conviction carries a possible death sentence, but
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prosecutors had opted to seek life without the possibility of parole.
Judge Evelyn Marks fifty nine delivered the sentence on September
twenty first, twenty twenty three. Leroy pop Bramlet would spend
the rest of his life in prison. Outside the courthouse,
the air was still warm for late September, and the
sounds of high school football practice drifted from nearby Henderson
(25:17):
County High That same week, the news cycle was filled
with updates on the United Autoworkers strike and viral TikTok
videos of Oliver Anthony's song rich Men north of Richmond.
In Henderson, though, conversations stayed fixed on the trial that
had exposed family secrets, shattered trust, and closed a chapter
that had haunted the community for over a year. In
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the days after pop Bramlet's sentencing, life in Henderson County
began to return to a cautious normal, though conversations about
the case lingered in coffee shops, barber shops and church
parking lots. The courthouse lawn, which had been crowded with
reporters and onlookers for weeks, stood empty again, except for
a few tourists taking photos of the old stone building.
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Randy Milstone, whose involvement in the scandal had been laid
bare during trial, quietly left Tennessee before the end of September.
By October, public records showed he had resurfaced in Idaho
under a new legal name. There, he began coaching the
youth lacrosse team in a small town near Cordelaine, far
from the community that once knew him as a respected
(26:20):
family man. Local sports blogs in Idaho later noted his arrival,
but did not mention his connection to the high profile
murder case in Kentucky. Back in Henderson County, other names
from the case found themselves in new headlines. Dale Ethers,
a distant cousin of Macy, who had testified briefly for
the defense, was arrested in November twenty twenty three on
(26:40):
unrelated animal cruelty charges. Authorities said deputies discovered neglected livestock
on his rural property during a routine welfare check. The
story appeared on local stations, alongside reports of early Black
Friday sales at Walmart and coverage of Taylor Swift's record
breaking eras to her movie release. Serge and Farlow, who
had led the investigation from the beginning, remained with the
(27:02):
Henderson County Sheriff's office. In interviews with regional news outlets,
he spoke about the emotional toll the case had taken
on law enforcement. He continued working other major crimes, including
a string of catalytic converter thefts that had hit local
auto shops that fall. For Macy's family, the end of
the trial did not mean the end of the grief.
In late September, relatives gathered for a small memorial at
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the Riverside Park Pavilion, the same place where they had
held her some Biscuit's fifth birthday party years earlier. Friends
brought home made casseroles and desserts while children played on
the swings nearby. The Bramlet House on Poplit Street, where
investigators had found the camp quorder that unraveled the family secrets,
remained vacant. By the end of the month. A for
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sale sign was posted in the yard, the grass overgrown
and the blind still drawn. While national news in September
twenty twenty three was focused on the US government budget
stand off and record breaking heat waves across the South,
Henderson's residence knew their biggest story had already been written.
The murder of Macy Bramlett, the trial of her stepfather,
and the tangled webb of family betrayal would be remembered
(28:08):
for decades as one of the county's darkest chapters.
Henderson, Tennessee, May twenty twenty two, a quiet southern town
with just over six thousand residents, known for fried catfish joints,
church potlucks, and the hum of sicada Is on warm nights,
a place where people waved from porches and news traveled
faster than the wind. But on a spring night, a
secret that had festered in the shadows tore that small
(00:20):
town piece apart, leaving the young mother dead and a
family's darkest truth slaid bare. In May of twenty twenty two, Henderson,
Tennessee was deep into its warm spring rhythm, sikett is
humming in the trees, church marque's posting Bible verses, and
kids running through sprinklers after school. In the middle of
it all lived Macy Others, a twenty nine year old
(00:41):
single mother working hard to piece together a safe and
steady life for herself and her two young children, six
year old Coral and four year old Biscuit. Just two
months earlier, Macy had escaped a violent, controlling marriage. She
packed what little she had into trash bags and moved
into her grandfather's small, one story brick house on White Avenue.
The house was old, but tidy, with a creaky screen
(01:04):
door and a narrow front porch where hanging ferns swayed
in the breeze. It wasn't hers, but for the first
time of a long while, it felt like somewhere she
could breathe. Macy worked part time at Soap and Spin,
the only laundromet in town, a squat page building near
the corner of Main Street and Maple. Regular customers knew
her for her careful attention to folding tawbles, squared so
(01:27):
neatly they could have been on a bed bath and
beyond display. The job didn't pay much, but it came
with a steady routine and the occasional free wash cycle
when the owner was in a good mood. She had
small pleasures that carried her through the days, listening to
country gospel on an old portable radio, sipping diet dark
pepper from a giant circle ca cup, and keeping a
dented can of bushes baked beans in her purse for emergencies.
(01:50):
Her friend said she was soft spoken, polite, and quick
to smile, even if her eyes sometimes told a different story.
Before her death, Macy had been quietly making plans. She
talked about saving enough to rent her own apartment, something
close to Coral's elementary school and within walking distance of
the Food Giant grocery store. She had been looking into
(02:10):
night classes at Jackson State Community College, hoping to study nursing.
Her dream, she told a neighbor, was to work at
the local hospital and have a job that could support
her children without relying on anyone else. Yet, even as
she spoke of the future, there were signs of fear.
People noticed how often she glanced over her shoulder when
walking to her car after work, or how she would
(02:32):
lock and relock the door when she came home. She
kept the blind strawn most of the time, even on
sunny days. On the Saturday before she died, Macie took
her children to the Dollar General on Church Street by
snacks and coloring books. The cashier remembered her laughing when
Biscuit picked out a bag of knee and gummy worms.
Later that evening, she was seen pushing both children on
(02:52):
the swings at Jeene Record Park, her hair pulled back
in a loose ponytail, her flip flops kicking up the
gravel beneath her feet. To anyone watching, it looked like
a peaceful moment, but for Macy that peace would be
short lived. The night of May sixteenth, twenty twenty two,
was warm and humid in Henderson, Tennessee. The air carried
the smell of fried food from the Burger King on
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Main Street, mixed with a faint scent of cut grass
from nearby yards. It was a Monday, and most of
the town had already gone quiet by ten p m.
With the exception of a few cars passing by and
the occasional hum of a motorcycle in the distance. Inside
Burger King, the dinner rush had ended. Only a handful
of customers were still inside, sipping sodas or finishing late
(03:36):
night wobber meals. In the kitchen, the staff was wiping
down counters and tossing out bags of trash. Seventeen year
old cashier dish On Green, a junior at Chester County
High School, stepped out the back door for his usual
smoke break. He leaned against the cool brick wall, the
steady hum of the drive through speaker in the background.
The light from the drive through spilled across the gravel
(03:58):
lot behind the restaurant. That was when Dechon noticed something
unusual near the edge of the lot where it met
the tall grass of the empty field. A figure, small,
still and barefoot, lay face down. She was dressed only
in an oversized T shirt and underwear, her bare legs
pale under the harsh light. At first he thought she
might be passed out. Henderson wasn't a place where you
(04:19):
expected to see someone lying a parking lot. But now
and then, after the County Fair or a long night
at the b F dou Bar, people did strange things.
Dchon hesitated, the cigarette burning down between his fingers, unsure
whether to approach. Then he saw the dark pool beneath
her head, listening in the light. The sight made his
stomach drop. The gravel around her was speckled with smaller spots,
(04:42):
as if she had stumbled before falling. Dischon's hands trembled
as he fumbled for his phone. He called nine one one,
his voice uneven as he tried to explain what he
was looking at. The words came out rushed, and he
had to repeat the location twice. Behind the burger king
near the dumpsters just off Main Street. While he waited
for the dispatcher to confirm help was on the way,
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he kept his distance, leaning back against the wall. He
could hear the buzz of the cicada's growing louder in
the silence inside. A coworker peeked out the back door
after noticing how long he had been gone. Beschon simply
shook his head, his expression making it clear something was
terribly wrong. Within minutes, the sound of sirens began to
cut through the quiet night, Anderson's stillness was about to
(05:25):
be broken. The Chester County Sheriff's Department pulled into the
Burger King parking lot just minutes after the nine one
one call came in. The red and blue lights from
the patrol cars lit up the gravel and the brick walls,
casting shadows that dance with each flash. Sergeant Ellen Farlowe,
a forty one year old lead investigator known in Henderson
for her sharp instincts and no nonsense manner, was first
(05:48):
to step out. Behind her was crime scene technician Clorinda
Wrong twenty nine, meticulous and detail driven, carrying a black
kit packed with evidence bags, swabs, and markers. The scene
before them was grim. The woman lay face down near
the edge of the lot, just feet from where the
gravel met the tall weeds of the open field. It
(06:08):
was clear she had suffered multiple gunshot ones. Later examination
would confirm five hits from a twenty two caliber rifle,
one to the stomach, two to the chest, one to
the shoulder, and the final fatal shot directly to her
left eye. Fartle and Wrong moved slowly scanning the ground.
Blood spatter marked a faint trail leading from the field
(06:28):
toward the restaurant, as if the victim had been running.
The path was broken in places by drops on the gravels,
suggesting she had stumbled more than once before collapsing. Yellow
evidence pluck cards were set down one by one to
mark the showcasings. A flashlight beam caught a small partial
footprint near the dumpster, barefoot matching the size of the
victim's own foot. Wrong crouched to photographic from multiple angles
(06:52):
before carefully pressing a gel left over the print. Near
the body, Officers found fibers stuck to the rough gravel.
They appeared to have come from the oversized T shirt
the victim was wearing. Ron collected the musing tweezers, ceiling
each into a paper envelope. Attention then turned to the
security cameras. The burger King's CCTV system had a clear
(07:12):
view of the drive through and back lot footage from
earlier that night showed the victims suddenly entering the frame
from the field, barefoot, clutching her arm, blood visible along
her sleeve. She appeared panicked, glancing over her shoulder as
if someone was chasing her, But just as she neared
the drive through lane, the recording froze. The system glitched,
skipping forward nearly thirty seconds, and when the image returned,
(07:35):
she was already lying motionless on the ground. The missing
segment was crucial, likely capturing the moment of the fable shot.
Farlow made notes in her small spiral pad, her handwriting
quick and tight. She ordered additional deputies to sweep the
field behind the restaurant, searching for footprints, dropped items, or
any sign of where the shooter might have stood. By midnight,
(07:56):
the seam was cordoned off with yellow tape, the lot
lit by portable club lamps. Workers inside Burger King had
gone home. The hum of the cicadas was replaced by
the murmur of deputies exchanging theories. For Henderson, this was
no ordinary crime, and for Farlow it was only the
beginning of a case that would twist in ways no
one could yet imagine. The first name on Investigator's list
(08:19):
was one that came as no surprise to anyone who
knew Macy her estranged husband, thirty three year old Dale Ethers.
Dale had a reputation in Henderson that reached far beyond
White Avenue. Once a rodeo clown on the small time circuit,
he had drifted into scrap metal dealing after too many
injuries and too much beer ended his rodeo days. The
locals knew of him as unpredictable, prone to sudden bursts
(08:41):
of anger, and often drunk by noon. His marriage to
Macy had been filled with cruelty. Friends and neighbors had
seen the bruises, though Macy rarely spoke about them. What
she did Chaer painted a disturbing picture. Dale was controlling,
often finding strange and humiliating waste to punish her. One
incident told in hushed tones around town involved Dale forcing
(09:03):
Macy to lick a dead rat he found in their
trailer because she had made what he called mushy peas
for dinner. Another time, after she accidentally burned spaghetti, he
locked her in a large metal dog crate over night
in their living room. By March twenty twenty two, Macie
had finally left him, taking only her children and a
small Duffel bag. She moved in with her grandfather and
(09:24):
cut off most contact, but Dale's strets didn't stop. According
to people close to her, he had been heard saying,
if I can't bleeping have you, I'll bleeping feed you
to the bleeping pigs. It was a line that stuck
in people's minds ugly, menacing, and hard to forget. On
the night of May sixteenth, when Macie was killed, Dale
told Pelissy was in Savannah, Tennessee, attending a mud racing
(09:47):
event at the Hardened County fair Grounds. He even described
the races in detail, mentioning the smell of the engines
and the size of the crowd. But when investigators checked
his cell phone records, the story began to crack. The
record showed his phone pinging him off a cell tower
just three miles from the Burger King where Macy's body
was found at roughly the same time she was shot.
(10:08):
This discrepancy was enough to bring him in for questioning
at the Chester County Sheriff's Department. Dale sat across from
surgeon Ellen Farlowe in a dimly lit interview room. He
slouched in the metal chair, his arms crossed tightly. His
eyes darted toward the one way mirror more than once.
Throughout the interview. He answered in short, clipped sentences. His
(10:29):
tone carried an edge, almost daring the investigators to press
him harder. He sneered when asked about his whereabouts, sticking
to his story about the mud races despite the fondea.
When Farlow pushed for more details, asking who he was with,
what time he arrived, and when he left, Dale gave
vague answers. He couldn't name anyone who saw him there.
(10:50):
He couldn't produce a ticket stub or any photos. By
the end of the interview, it was clear he wasn't
going to budge from his version of events. Though Dale
denied having anything to do with Macy's death, investigators weren't convinced.
They released him for the time being, but placed him
under close watch. His history of violence, his threats, and
his shaky alibi kept him high on their list of
(11:11):
possible killers. The second person, investigators turned their attention to
someone much closer to Macy, her maternal grandfather and houseman
seventy six year old Leroy pop Bramlet in Henderson. Pop
was something of a fixture for decades. He had taught
high school chemistry at Chester County High known for his
neat handwriting on the chalkboard and his patient explanations of
(11:33):
the periodic table. After retiring, he stayed busy in the community,
serving as a deacon at the First Baptist Church of
Henderson and organizing charity events, most famously his annual turkey
giveaways each Thanksgiving. Pop was also known for his handyman skills.
Neighbors remembered him showing up with a toolbox and a
smile to fix a sagging port swing or a squeaky
(11:55):
screen door, never asking for money. A widower for the
past fourteen years, he lived a in a modest, red
brick home off White Avenue until Macy and her two
children moved in that spring. To most people, he seemed
to adore his granddaughter. He brought her breakfast on Sunday mornings,
often scrambled eggs and toast on a tray, and kept
her aging minivan running, replacing the timing belt himself. In
(12:17):
April without being asked. He had a particular smell about him,
a mix of lemon pledge from his constant polishing of
furniture and the faint, sweet scent of pipe smoke. When
police questioned him after Macy's death, Pop claimed he had
been asleep in his bedroom during the time of the murder.
He said he hadn't heard anything unusual that night and
(12:37):
only learned what happened when deputies arrived at the house.
But almost immediately investigators found troubling inconsistencies. For one, a
test for gunshot residue GSR revealed traces on Pop's right hand.
It was enough to raise serious questions given the victim
had been killed with a twenty two caliber rifle. Even
more concerning, the rifle Pop normally kept mounted above the
(13:00):
living room fireplace was missing. The empty hooks were clearly
visible when detectives entered the home. When asked about the residue,
Pop remained calm. His voice stayed low and steady, and
he didn't appear rattled. He explained that he had been
cleaning tools earlier that week and suggested maybe the GSR
came from working with old hunting equipment in his shed.
(13:20):
As for the missing rifle, he speculated it might have
been stolen, possibly during the day when the house was empty.
Investigators noted his composure. He didn't seem defensive, nor did
he rush to deny every possibility. Still, the combination of
the residue, the missing firearm, and his proximity to Macy
on the night of the murder kept him high on
their list of persons of interest. Deputies searched his home, garage,
(13:44):
and shed for signs of the missing rifle, ammunition, or
other evidence tying him to the scene. They also began
quietly asking around town, speaking to church members and old
neighbors about Pop's recent behavior. While most people described him
as generous in god oddly, a few mentioned he had
been quieter lately, keeping to himself more than usual in
the weeks leading up to Macy's death. For now, Pop
(14:07):
remained free, but the investigation into his possible role was
far from over. By late May twenty twenty two, investigators
had turned their attention to thirty eight year old Randy Millstone,
Macy's brother in law married to her older sister, Julie.
Randy was a big man, standing well over six feet
tall and weighing close to two hundred and fifty pounds
(14:28):
with a solid bill that came from years of lifting
weights and coaching youth football. His buzz cut was always
sharp and dark. Tribal tattoos curl over his forearms, visible
whenever he wore his favorite cutoff T shirts. Randy was
a familiar face in Henderson, both for his work and
his opinions. He spent his week days managing the sporting
goods section at the local Walmart, where he talked fishing
(14:50):
reels and shotgun shells with regulars. On weekends in the fall,
he could be found on the sidelines of youth football
games at the Henderson Civic Center fields, yelling plays to
his team of ten year olds. He was known for
his outspoken personality on Facebook, often posting long rants against
what he called liberal nonsense and bolkness. In one strange
post from earlier that spring, he even claimed rainbow trout
(15:12):
were gay fish and should be avoided. Her remark that
sparked a wave of laughing emoji reactions and mild outrage
in the comet section. Outside of work, Randy enjoyed hunting
trips in the woods near the Kentucky border, grilling Benison
burghers in his backyard and traveling to regional gun shows
in places like Paducah and Nashville. His circle of friends
(15:33):
mostly came from the hunting lodge in the Walmart break room.
Randy's relationship with Macy had been rocky for years. They
often clashed at family gatherings, especially after Macy's decision to
divorce her husband Dale. Randy saw it as a betrayal
of family unity, and more than one relative had overheard
him accusing her of breaking everything apart. Those tensions, once private,
(15:54):
now bloomed large for police when Sergeant Ellen Farlow brought
Randy in for questioning jeans and a faded University of
Kentucky t shirt. At first, he denied any romantic or
sexual involvement with Macy. He kept his arms crossed and
leaned back in his chair, answering questions in short, clipped sentences,
But when confronted with the camp quarter footage recovered from
(16:16):
Pop's house, his posture shifted. After a long pause, Randy
admitted the relationship had happened, calling it a mistake. He
insisted it had ended years ago and claimed it had
no connection to her death. Investigators pressed him for his
whereabouts on the night Macy was killed, Randy said he
had been at home watching the NBA Playoffs Game seven
between the Boston Celtics and Miami Heat while drinking beer
(16:39):
and messaging friends. But when police checked his cell phone records,
location data showed his phone pinging near the intersection of
County Road fourteen and Lively Road, less than two miles
from Macy's home, around the time of her murder. His
TV streaming logs also showed no record of the game
being watched that night. With his alibi falling apart and
his secret relationship with Macy exposed, Randy shifted in the
(17:02):
interrogation chair, avoiding thy contact. The evidence against him was growing,
and a quiet hum of the overhead fluorescent lights in
the interview room only made the tension sharper. On May thirtieth,
twenty twenty two, two weeks after the killing, the investigation
into Macy's death took a dramatic and disturbing turn. It
was a cloudless Monday Afternoonman Henderson, the kind of bright
(17:25):
day when the sunlight bounced hard off the hoods of
parked cars, and the air was thick with the smell
of Honeyseveral Sergeant Ellen Farlowe and two deputies returned to
Lorroy Pop Bramlett's home on White Avenue for a deeper search.
This time, they weren't just looking for the missing twenty
two rifle. They wanted anything letters, hidden, cash, odd keepsakes
(17:46):
that might point to a motive. Pop's small brick house
was neat, with every surface dusted and polished. Drawers were organized,
kitchen counter spotless, but in the hallway closet behind stacks
of folded towels and extra bedlons, Deputy mark ingram spotted
something out of place, a black hard shell camquarder case
coated with a thin layer of dust. Inside was an
(18:09):
older model Sony handicam, the kind popular in the early
two thousands. The battery was still charged. Farrell slid it
into playback mode. The grainy footage flickered to life, showing
a bedroom She recognized the guest room in Pop's house.
Within seconds, the scene became naughty, leaving the deputies stunned.
On camera, Pop was engaged in an act with none
(18:29):
other than Randy Millstone, Macy's brother in law. The implications
hit Fartle immediately. Henderson was a town where church attendants
was almost expected where reputations were currency. A secret like this,
especially involving a respected church deacon and a married man
within the family, would have been devastating if it became public.
(18:49):
But the shock didn't stop there. As investigators reviewed Macy's
personal belongings, they found another bond shell. DNA testing prompted
by an anonymous tip, confirmed that Randy Millstone was the
biological father of Macy's youngest child, four year old Biscuit.
The match traced back to a one night drunken encounter
between Randy and Macy a family fish fry in the
(19:10):
summer of twenty seventeen, an event that had been held
at a cousin's property just outside of town. Witnesses from
that night recalled beer coolers lined up by the grill,
kids running barefoot through the grass, and Randy leaving early
with a barely coherent Macy. Macy had never told anyone
about Biscuit's true paternity, not even her closest friends. According
(19:31):
to journal entries later found hidden beneath her mattress, she
had kept the secret out of shame in fear of
tearing the family apart. This new information reshaped the investigation,
pop now had not just one secret to protect, but two,
his sexual relationship with Randy and Randy's paternity of biscuit.
If Macy had discovered both, the threat of exposure could
(19:52):
have been a powerful motive for murder. Farlow carefully logged
the camcorder into evidence and sealed the recordings. The footage
and the DNA results transformed the case from a search
for a faceless killer into a tangled family scandal that
touched nearly every corner of the victim's life. The pieces
were falling into place, but what they revealed was darker
(20:12):
than anyone in Henderson could have imagined. By the start
of June twenty twenty two, investigators believed they had enough
evidence to close in on the killer. On June third,
after nearly a month of calming through witness statements, DNA tests,
and hidden recordings, police concluded that Loroy Pop Bramlett had
fired the fable shots that ended Macy's life. The turning
(20:34):
point came when detectives pieced together a disturbing discovery from
the weeks before her death. Two weeks earlier, Macy had
stumbled upon a hidden camcorder a tuck behind folded towels
in the linen closet of the Henderson home she shared
with her grandfather. On it was footage recorded months earlier
showing Pop and her brother in law, Randy Millstone, in
an encounter inside the guest bedroom. The room's wallpaper, dated,
(20:57):
floral bedding, and the sound of a box fan in
the back round made it instantly recognizable to Macy. Her
private journals, later found under her mattress, revealed that she
was deeply disturbed by the recording. She had written about
feelings of betrayal and disgust, and how the man she
had trusted for most of her life had been hiding
something she saw as a deep violation of their family's
(21:17):
moral boundaries. She also expressed suspicion that Randy was not
only having a secret relationship with Pop, but was also
the biological father of her youngest son, Biscuit. That suspicion
was later confirmed by DNA tests showing Randy had fathered
the boy during a one night drunken encounter with Macey
in twenty seventeen at a family fish fry in the
backyard of her aunt's house. On the night of May fifteenth,
(21:39):
twenty twenty two, just hours after posting an upbeat Instagram
story showing her kids playing in the yard, Macey confronted
Pop in the kitchen. According to investigators, the argument escalated quickly.
She accused him of hiding behind his reputation as a
respected church deacon and community volunteer while engaging in behavior
she saw as shameful and destructive. She reportedly threatened to
(22:02):
take the recording to the Henderson County Sheriff's office the
next day. Pop, then seventy six. Panicked detectives believed that
in a mix of fear, shame, and desperation to protect
both his secret relationship with Randy and the paternity truth
about Biscuit, he decided to silence her. Some time after midnight,
while Macy was in bed, Pop retrieved his twenty two
(22:22):
hunting rifle from above the fireplace in the living room.
When Macey left her bedroom to use the hallway bathroom,
Pop fired once, hitting her in the shoulder. Startled and bleeding,
she ran from the house barefoot and in nightclothes, cutting
through the backyard, passed the chainling fence, and into the
empty field behind the Burger king on East Main Street.
Witnesses later recalled seeing the figure running under the yellow
(22:45):
glow of the parking lot lights. That night, Pop followed,
and near the far end of the field, he fired
the final shot. Word of his arrests spread quickly through Henderson,
a small Kentucky town already buzzing that week with talk
of the Kentucky Derby and the latest season of Stranger
Things streaming on Netflix. The trial of Leroy Pop Bramlet
began in late August twenty twenty three in the Henderson
(23:07):
County Circuit Court, drawing steady crowds of locals, reporters, and
true crime podcasters who had followed the case since Macy's death.
The courtroom, with its wood paneled walls and faint smell
of old books, became the center of attention in town.
Outside television trucks from Louisville and Evansville lined the street,
their satellite dishes pointed skyward. Prosecutor Laura Ken forty two,
(23:29):
a veteran with a reputation for being both methodical and relentless,
laid out the state's case over five days. She described
Pop as a man who had built a public image
of generosity and religious devotion, but had a secret life
that he was willing to kill to protect Jeurors were
shown the recovered camcorder footage, Macy's handwritten journal entries, and
photos of the field behind the East Main Street Burger
(23:52):
King where she was found. The defense, led by William
Chalmers fifty seven, countered by portraying Pop as a frail
elderly man to its simply panic during a heated family dispute.
They argued that the shooting had not been planned and
that Pop's decades of community service should weigh heavily in
his favor. Testimony came from law enforcement officers, forensic experts,
(24:13):
and even Randy Millstone, who admitted to his relationship with
Pop but disdanced himself from the murder. The jury listened
to evidence about ballistics, the DNA tests that confirmed Randy
as Biscuit's father, and the timeline of the shooting. By
September fourteenth, the case went to the jury. The deliberations
lasted less than three hours. Shortly before four o'clock PM,
(24:35):
the courtroom was called back to order as the clerk
read the verdict guilty of first degree murder. There was
a collective intake of breath from the gallery. Several members
of Macy's family held hands tightly while others wiped their eyes.
Sentencing took place the following week. Under Kentucky law, a
first degree murder conviction carries a possible death sentence, but
(24:56):
prosecutors had opted to seek life without the possibility of parole.
Judge Evelyn Marks fifty nine delivered the sentence on September
twenty first, twenty twenty three. Leroy pop Bramlet would spend
the rest of his life in prison. Outside the courthouse,
the air was still warm for late September, and the
sounds of high school football practice drifted from nearby Henderson
(25:17):
County High That same week, the news cycle was filled
with updates on the United Autoworkers strike and viral TikTok
videos of Oliver Anthony's song rich Men north of Richmond.
In Henderson, though, conversations stayed fixed on the trial that
had exposed family secrets, shattered trust, and closed a chapter
that had haunted the community for over a year. In
(25:39):
the days after pop Bramlet's sentencing, life in Henderson County
began to return to a cautious normal, though conversations about
the case lingered in coffee shops, barber shops and church
parking lots. The courthouse lawn, which had been crowded with
reporters and onlookers for weeks, stood empty again, except for
a few tourists taking photos of the old stone building.
(26:00):
Randy Milstone, whose involvement in the scandal had been laid
bare during trial, quietly left Tennessee before the end of September.
By October, public records showed he had resurfaced in Idaho
under a new legal name. There, he began coaching the
youth lacrosse team in a small town near Cordelaine, far
from the community that once knew him as a respected
(26:20):
family man. Local sports blogs in Idaho later noted his arrival,
but did not mention his connection to the high profile
murder case in Kentucky. Back in Henderson County, other names
from the case found themselves in new headlines. Dale Ethers,
a distant cousin of Macy, who had testified briefly for
the defense, was arrested in November twenty twenty three on
(26:40):
unrelated animal cruelty charges. Authorities said deputies discovered neglected livestock
on his rural property during a routine welfare check. The
story appeared on local stations, alongside reports of early Black
Friday sales at Walmart and coverage of Taylor Swift's record
breaking eras to her movie release. Serge and Farlow, who
had led the investigation from the beginning, remained with the
(27:02):
Henderson County Sheriff's office. In interviews with regional news outlets,
he spoke about the emotional toll the case had taken
on law enforcement. He continued working other major crimes, including
a string of catalytic converter thefts that had hit local
auto shops that fall. For Macy's family, the end of
the trial did not mean the end of the grief.
In late September, relatives gathered for a small memorial at
(27:25):
the Riverside Park Pavilion, the same place where they had
held her some Biscuit's fifth birthday party years earlier. Friends
brought home made casseroles and desserts while children played on
the swings nearby. The Bramlet House on Poplit Street, where
investigators had found the camp quorder that unraveled the family secrets,
remained vacant. By the end of the month. A for
(27:46):
sale sign was posted in the yard, the grass overgrown
and the blind still drawn. While national news in September
twenty twenty three was focused on the US government budget
stand off and record breaking heat waves across the South,
Henderson's residence knew their biggest story had already been written.
The murder of Macy Bramlett, the trial of her stepfather,
and the tangled webb of family betrayal would be remembered
(28:08):
for decades as one of the county's darkest chapters.
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