The Disappearance of Jacque Rawson

In this episode KJ tells the story of Jacque Rawson's tragic disappearance linked to her abusive husband, Clay Waller.
KJ covers the investigation, Jacque’s children's resilience, and the vital issue of domestic violence.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, y'all, it's Thanksgiving Eve, and I know what you're thinking.
You don't sound like Kelly.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
You would be right.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
It's Jimothy and I have taken over the mic from
kJ to bring you something pretty exciting.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Now.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
As you know, kJ has a very active and entertaining
Patreon page. For those of you not familiar, kJ drops
all kinds of interesting files on this page. She drops
extra quickisodes, as she calls them, pictures of cases that
she talks about. She even does quarterly gifts for her

(00:37):
top tier supporters, and she often makes those that gives herself,
by the way, she also drops full length bonus episodes.
And what we're doing today is we're bringing you one
of those actual bonus episodes that we put up on
the Patreon. So if you're not a supporter, you can

(00:58):
get a good grind of what you can expect by
joining Unspeakable's Patreon page if you are not already a member. Now,
y'all know how hard that Kelly works, so I forced
her kicking and screening this week to take some time off. Look,

(01:19):
she's got kids still in high school, she got a
husband that doesn't see her as often as.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
He would like.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
I'm sure, and so I'm taking over and I'm doing
the lead up to this episode. You're gonna hear today
because we still wanted to bring you something even though
it's Thanksgiving Eve. We know that you don't want to
go a week without hearing Kelly. To those of you
that are Patreon members, we did drop this in the past.
I don't know if you've listened to this particular bonus

(01:48):
episode on Patreon. If you have no worries, next week,
we're going right back to the same routine that we've
always done with Unspeakable. But if you're not a Patreon member,
you've definitely never heard this episode, so we hope you
enjoy it. We hope you will consider supporting the show
through a membership through Patreon. I mean, it's like two
dollars and fifty cents a week for the opening tier,

(02:10):
and I'm sure anyone out there that is a Patreon
member will say the same thing we do. You definitely
get your money's worth with Kelly's Patreon. From all of us,
thank you for your support, Happy Thanksgiving, and we hope
all of you will enjoy this week's unlocked bonus episode.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Welcome to Unspeakable. A true crime podcast where I tell
stories of real crimes with real victims, whose cases are
so shocking that many are left wondering how is this
even real? I use my experiences in law enforcement corrections,
and combined with my years as a criminal justice educator,

(02:58):
dig deep into complex cases of evil acts, some so
evil many feel they are unspeakable. Warning unspeakable as intended

(03:22):
for mature audiences. If you are easily offended, then I'm
not your girl. Listening discretion is advised. Hey, y'all, it's
kJ here with your bonus episode. I know you've been
waiting on one, and this one I think is just
a crazy one. It got my attention, and then as
I was researching, I said, hell, I need to let
my friends know about it. So we're going to go
together to Saint Genevieve, Missouri, and this is going to

(03:43):
be back in June of twenty eleven. And this was
the home of Jackie Rawson. So Jackie was born in
nineteen seventy one. She was raised in Missouri by her
I just have to say adorable parents. Their names were
Stanley and Ruby Rawson, which sounded like something out of
a of a kid's book to me. I just thought
it was so cute. But she had three sisters, one

(04:04):
sadly had passed away by the time that this story
had taken place. Her name was Patricia, but her surviving
sister was named Cheryl. And I know that she had
three sisters, but in this story, we're going to really
focus on one of her sisters, and her name is Cheryl.
So there was Cheryl and Melissa, and then they also
had a brother named Rob. They were a really tight
knit family, and so much so that this is one

(04:27):
of those families that it's genuine. If you would see
photos on Facebook or if you saw this family together,
it wasn't just for show for other people. This family
absolutely encompassed what it is to be a loving family,
spending time together and devoting being devoting to each other.
So Papaul Stanley, that's what I like the calling Papaul

(04:48):
Stanley was just the cutest dang thing and the type
of man that you just you want to hug him.
He spoke with intention, he loved his kids with all
of his heart, but eventually he would become a paupa.
And that's why I call him Papa Stanley. Even though
all of his kids were nearly grown. He still looked
at them as his babies. They could have been seventy five,

(05:10):
those were still going to be his babies. But Cheryl
had gotten married and she had started a family of
her own. So at that time as this happened, Cheryl
was older. She and Jackie weren't as close as they
had been earlier on in life. This big life change
put a little bit of a gap between them, not
because of anger or frustration or anything, just because they

(05:31):
were on just they were in different places in life.
The age gap between them was big enough too that
that in and of itself made a divide, because Cheryl
was now this married woman, while Jackie was really still
a teen herself. But as the years passed, Jackie would
blossom into an adult. And when I say blossom, I'm
talking about she was beautiful, and she was a go getter,

(05:52):
and she was active, and she would eventually find a
love of her own. Her new love's name was Clay,
and the real relationship was one that was admittedly confusing
for her family. Clay just did not seem like a
good fit to them. And this would be in the South,
where I would say the proverbial bless his heart. Okay,
bless his heart moment coming in and that's what we do.

(06:14):
By the way, if you don't know when, like, I'm
about to be super honest, but I'm going to church
it up a little bit because i don't want to
be mean, but I'm about to say whatever the hell
I want, so, like, you know, an example would be like,
bless his heart. His teeth are so fucked up he
could eat you know, corn through barbar fence. You know,
that's kind of like what a bless her heart is
or bless her heart and she a hope. But we're
praying for all right, so well, bless his heart. Clay
was an asshole with a speech impediment, and he came

(06:37):
off as awkward and he just was very different compared
to Jackie, who had this very easy going spirit, while
Clay seemed a little more I guess uptight in the
way that he interacted with people. And Papa Stanley did
not like him from the get go. Her sister Cheryl
was also less than impressed. But we know this, You

(06:59):
cannot pick who your family members love. You don't get
to choose that for them, So you can have your opinion.
But Cheryl asked Jackie one day, you know, what is
it about Clay that you like? What are you attracted
to about him? And Jackie explaining, Look, it started off
that I kind of felt sorry for him, but it
just grew into more as I got to know him,

(07:20):
and I just kind of, you know, fell for him.
I just I think he's cute. So why don't you
give him some time? You'll warm up to him. Just
let him warm up and you'll see. So Cheryl did
what sisters do, all right, whatever, But she looked at
her sister and thought the world of Jackie. Jackie was
absolutely naturally a beauty, and whether she was in a

(07:44):
baseball cap or whether she was dulled up, I want
you to know she had a light about her that
was just genuine and kind. And she was one of
those people. Oh I hate to say it. I'm not
gonna say she lit up a room. I won't say.
What else can I say? She was one of those
people that you were just naturally a try and you
wanted to talk to because of the essence that she
gave off. And she was a cute little thing too, y'all,

(08:05):
blonde hair, blue eyes, she stood a whole wopping five
foot two and one hundred and thirty pounds. So Clay,
in my opinion, hit the jackpot, and he would be
hard pressed to say he didn't know it because Clay,
let me tell you about him, he's not an ugly man.
I'm not even gonna pretend that he's not ugly. But
he's just not near as attractive as Jackie was. He

(08:26):
has real thin lips, he has a real narrow face,
he's on the thinner side, and he did have a
shaved head. This seems to be just due to that
natural receding hair as men get older. But he's nothing
out of the ordinary and literally nice in a baseball cap.
But it was his personality that people just were sometimes
put off by, and they just would play nice for

(08:48):
Jackie's sake whenever he was around. Well, not long after
they were dating came the big news that would solidify
their relationship for sure, because Jackie was pregnant and the
one you're pregnant, what do you want to do? So
she would get married and they made that official in
nineteen ninety three, and this would also make Jackie an
instant bonus mom, and that she gained a step son

(09:08):
named jac Well The happy times kept on coming too,
and it would be soon multiplied by three, not because
they had more kids back to back, but because Jackie
wasn't having one baby, or was she having two babies.
Jackie was pregnant with triplets. And I'm like, holy shit, Batman,

(09:29):
whenever I found this out. Three babies incoming on a
brand new marriage isn't something that I personally would want.
But what are you gonna do? You're pregnant and now
there's three. But Jackie, she was built for this, even
if she didn't know it. In the moment that she
found out that there were three heart beats, she was
meant for it. She had just excitement and she had

(09:51):
joy that she was bringing all of these kids into
the world. She would have two girls and one boy
that were eventually born to them nine months later. The
family gazed at these children in absolute amazement, at their
tiny little faces. There was baby Avery, Baby Addison, and
baby Maddox, and they were everything that Clay and Jackie

(10:14):
could have wanted, and quite literally more. They just had
an abundance of love and coming home with them, as
you can imagine, that was a task in and of itself.
Three car seats three times, the feedings, three times, the
diaper changes. And I think that you would agree with
me in that I feel only a superhero could do this.
I am convinced, but we all know that superheroes aren't

(10:36):
real and that's why God made a mom. So the
experience of pregnancy and birth would play a crucial role
in the bond between sisters. Because Cheryl and Jackie were
now in the throes of commonality in their lives, they
became very close with that bond of motherhood which they

(10:56):
knew existed, but it just hits different when it actually
comes to life. Cheryl was older, she had experience that
she could impart on her younger sister, and then the
two could also confide in one another, and it was
something that only women, I feel close women have the
ability to share with one another the struggles, the joys,

(11:18):
the ups and the downs, because quite frankly, women don't
talk openly about how damn bad your nipples hurt the
first time you're breastfeeding a baby, and the pain of
the CEA section when you're getting up hourly to feed
a child, not to mention she now has three, and
I know that that had to be emotionally taxing as
well as physically taxing. And this is something that Cheryl

(11:39):
could help ease the mental load with. She could be
a soundboard for her sister that had a closeness that
they could get it all out there, no judgment because
it's your sister. And even if she does get judgy,
it's your sister and she's not gonna leave you. Now.
I know you're like, well, Clay could do that too, sure, y'all.
But as soon as his nipples hurt and he got

(12:00):
up every hour, I'm sure that he could do that
for her, but he didn't. He took a more hands
off approach to being a dad, focusing more on work.
Cheryl understood the fought the fight because she had done it,
and these sisters just became extremely tight. So Clay was
at one point a deputy sheriff in Jackson, Missouri. He

(12:21):
did that for about a year, but it just wasn't
a good fit, and eventually he became a manager at
an insurance firm and he would hold the children, of
course and do the things like that, but really that
nightly routine was up to Jackie. That was considered her job.
And I have to tell y'all, it's triplets. I mean, damn,

(12:42):
one baby is enough to make you crazy, but triplets.
She would be up all night taking care of the triplets.
Yet I want you to know she also herself would
work a forty hour work week after her maternity was up.
That what a woman. That's all I can say. What
a woman. And I have a friend that I worked

(13:03):
with for years and she had triplets, and we spoke
often about how hard that was. I was really amazed,
and so I'd ask her a lot of questions. I'm
not gonna say her name, but I would ask her
a lot of questions about how do you do that?
Like what in the world? And she looked me at
one time. She's a very a meek and mild woman.
She looked at me one time she said, you just
do it. You have no choice. It's like Nike, man,

(13:25):
you just do it, you know. And I was amazed
by that. And it's kind of like, you're right, you
just do it. But y'all so much more than just
do it like she did that damn thing. Three screaming kids,
three birthdays, three Christmases, everything times three. So Jackie would
have three squalling kids in the car and her sister
would be just like overstimulated, stressed to the max. Yet

(13:48):
Jackie handled it with such grace and just a lot
of laughter. Maybe she was laughing to not cry, but
she got it done. She was completely outnumbered, and the
crying absolutely would get out of control, but she embraced
the suck, as they say, I guess in the militaries
where I've heard that, but they just she embraced the
suck and she handled it. And while I'm taking the

(14:08):
time to really give Jackie or high five on this,
it's not without the fact that she had a sprinkle
of resentment to how hard this was. Because at first
she could really chalk it up to the fact that
they didn't quite know what they were doing, you know,
and with time they would kind of balance things out
in her mind. But Jackie found herself pouring so much

(14:30):
into the kids that she was drifting apart from Clay
because at some point they got settled in, but she
was pulling the majority of the load. But it wasn't
without cause, per se, that she spent a lot of
time with her sister at that point. It was because
Cheryl helped her. She listened, and she loved Jackie in

(14:54):
a way that Clay was kind of slack alackin if
you want to be just honest it. But soon enough
it would make sense as to why, because it's really
really hard to devote your time and your energy to
your wife and y'all's triplets when you're out having affairs
with other women, numerous affairs. So Clay did have a

(15:18):
charm in some way because other women were taking him
up on his advances. So Jackie wasn't an idiot. She
knew that this was happening, and she finally confronted him
about it, but he would do what he did. It
was just deny, deny, deny. But Jackie knew better. In
her gut, she knew what was what, and this caused

(15:40):
turmoil in the household, and Jackie finally confided in her
sister that Clay was also being abusive to her, and
not just emotionally. The mental games were absolutely exhausting and
she wanted out of the marriage. She knew, though, that
she had to be smart. With Clay's imposing nature and

(16:00):
his propensity for what she would say, he would threaten me.
Jackie wanted to do things slowly and safely, and so
in her mind. This meant, look, I'm going to play
the game. I'm gonna be nice as long as the
end result is I get this divorce from Clay. And
then came what I guess I would only call a
blessing in disguise, if you know what I mean. Clay

(16:23):
ended up losing his job, so that sounds terrible, but
unable to make their mortgage payments, the house was foreclosed
on and they had to move out. So Jackie and
Clay at this point could see the writing on the
wall as far as their marriage was concerned, and so
the home loss really kind of became a game for

(16:43):
both of them. When they packed up that house, they
each agreed that they were going to get their own place.
So Jackie took the kids and she moved in with
her sister Cheryl and her husband Bob. Clay moved into
a rental home. It was about an hour away from
where the kids were, and this was a friend of
his that owned it, and so he rented it to him. So,

(17:04):
with this big change, Jackie and Clay formally spoke of
divorce and they began making plans officially. So time would
pass and the soon to be divorced couple really did
start going out in their adventures of their now new
separate lives. Each settled into their own routines, and they

(17:27):
each even began their own dating adventures, I guess you
would call it. So they were now both more relaxed
and the heated days of the past were fading away.
Finalizing the divorce was all that was left. So Jackie
was now in a new relationship. And she told her sister,
I'm telling you, this man hung the moon. His name

(17:49):
was Rich, and she adored him, and this is one
of those times it was mutual. She felt like she
had a partner now rather than a dependent. Rich was
kind and he was generous, and he brought just as
much to the table as Jackie did. And she once
even told her sister, Rich feels like home to me.

(18:10):
And I know what she meant by that. It's a feeling.
And if you are in love, if you are happily married,
you know what it is. It's when you are tired
at the end of the day and you go home
and you open the door and that face that greets
you instantly just melts away the stress of the day.
Or it's the person, y'all. I'm tough. Okay, I'm big mouthed,

(18:35):
I'm all of those things. But damn it, we all
have our days. And I know for a fact, when
I walk in that back door that that big old
cuddle bug of mine, I'm gonna crawl right up in
his lap like I'm two years old, because I'm a
husband's girl. You know, some people are daddy's girls. I'm
a husband's girl, and he's gonna make me feel better.
And that's what it means when someone feels like home.
I get what she meant by that. Finally, things she

(18:57):
felt were going the way that they should have from
the get go. She had three beautiful kids from her
ex to be, and for that she was very thankful.
But they were now five years old and they were
looking forward to kindergarten, and she had her new love.
Things were finally falling into place, and Clay too had
a new girlfriend. She took well to the children. She

(19:18):
would watch them and care for them, just as you
would expect any dating partner to do, especially when the
kids are already known to be in the mix. It
wasn't like she started dating them and didn't know all
these kids were there. So it was memorial day weekend
in twenty eleven when the exes would meet up for
the final signing of the divorce agreement. So, while the
girls had been with Jackie and Cheryl, her son Maddix

(19:40):
had spent the night with his dad, Clay. So Jackie
and Clay made plans that they would meet up together
at the attorney's office to sign the documents and then
she would go back to his house to pick up
their son. So it sounds good, we have a plan.
The morning of the signing, Jackie told the girls, look,
mama's going to be back soon. I just gotta go
get Maddicks. I got to go do some paperwork and

(20:01):
then I'll be back. And the girls were sad. They
kind of give her a hard time. Mama, no, stay
with us, Please don't go. Can we go with you?
Can we ride with you? All that stuff your kids
do when they're little, and bringing your kids to your
divorce finalization isn't something a mom probably would want to
do with her children. And so her sister Cheryl said, no,
I'm gonna I'll watch them. It's no big deal. So
Jackie kissed the girls by and she said, look, I'll

(20:22):
be back shortly. You'll be good. So, while Jackie was
driving to Clay's house, she did call her sister and
they had chit chatted. I'm sure it was a mix
of joy and bittersweet for the finalization, as well as
some nervousness, but it was gonna be fine, and Jackie
was right, was gonna it's fine. It went fine. She

(20:44):
called Cheryl again when they left the attorney's office. Look,
I'm gonna be going to Clay's. I'm gonna get my son.
I'll be back in just a little bit. Well, three
hours passed and Jackie never made it back home. Now
she's an adult, of course, but the plan never involved
a three hour gap before returning to the house. So

(21:04):
Cheryl started calling Jackie to check in with her. No answer, Well,
this turned into full force blowing up Jackie's phone because
Jackie was not going to ignore Cheryl. She knew that,
especially she's got her kids, She's not gonna ignore me. Well,
she didn't answer, So Jackie's boyfriend even tried to call
her and he was unable to get her, and this
again totally not normal for Jackie to avoid both of them.

(21:27):
Jackie had even called Rich and told him, look, I'm
pulling up at Clay's house and when I get done here,
you know, I'm heading back to the house. And that
was at four pm. When they hung up that she
was in Clay's driveway, so they knew that it had
been three hours. But by eight pm, Cheryl's just beside herself.

(21:50):
She decided to call Clay himself, like one on one
to say, is Jackie there? Did Jackie leave time? You
know exactly what time did she leave because she didn't
say she was going anywhere else. But frustratingly, Clay wouldn't
answer the damn phone. But be clear here, there was
no love lost between these two, and Clay wasn't obligated
to answer Cheryl's calls by any means, but Cheryl continued

(22:13):
to call because she couldn't get a hold of her sister.
So when he wouldn't answer the phone, Cheryl then texted
him and says, look, if I don't hear She actually
called him by his name, Clay Waller. If I don't
hear from my sister in the next ten minutes, I'm
going to the police. This is ridiculous. You were the
last person with her. Well. When she sent that text,
he called right back and said, what is going on?

(22:35):
What are you talking about? So she explains, well, Clay
didn't seem convinced that it was that serious of an issue,
but sister Cheryl was not playing around. See, Clay wasn't
nearly as alarmed, and so when Cheryl got even angrier
now that Clay was like, what are you talking about?
Not a big deal, she almost became irate. So she

(22:58):
had at some point directly accuses him and says, I
think you did something to my sister, which he did
not take too kindly to. Clay was clear that the
last time he had seen Jackie was at the lawyer's office,
and then they discussed that they were gonna let Maddox
stay with Clay a few more days. So you need

(23:19):
to calm the hell down. But Cheryl didn't believe them.
She did not believe him. But what was she gonna do.
I mean, Jackie can make those decisions, it's her son.
So irritated by Cheryl's accusation, he then cut the conversation short.
He said, if I see her, I'll give you a call,
and he hung up the phone. So, seeing that Clay
really didn't have much to go on, but knowing that

(23:41):
Jackie would not dodge her calls like this, Cheryl made
good on her promise about going to the police. She
took the two daughter triplets that she had and she
went and brought them to her parents' house. So the
grandparents said, look, we'll watch them. She told them, I
think we have a problem. When you watched the girls.
They said, no problem, and she had it straight to
the police department, but it would take her an hour

(24:01):
to get there. So when she arrived, she explained what
the situation was and she told them directly, I think
Clay had something to do with it. She was very specific,
even directly saying, I think he killed my sister. Well,
I think we can all agree. Off the top, that
seems like a bit much, okay, like she's just missing
for three hours here, four hours, But the more she spoke,

(24:25):
combined with the fact that the divorce literally was confirmed
that day, police listened even though it had only been
a couple of hours. And I want to say kudos
to them for this, because they could have said she's
an adult, wait and give it twenty four hours, but
they didn't. They also didn't just make this a missing
person report. They went after this with more aggression than

(24:47):
you typically hear. And I think that's amazing, that's awesome.
That's absolute community policing there to take these complaints seriously.
So they agreed and said, look, we're going to send
an officer to go speak to Clay and we'll let
you know as things progress. And so this guy's name
this ended up being they did pull the FBI in
this one as well, and so this guy's name is

(25:09):
going to be Special Agent Ritter. He was assigned to
investigate Jackie's disappearance. And when he went and he spoke
to Clay, the story Clay gave was basically the same.
He says, Look, we met up at a drug store
around I guess eleven o'clock ish. We went and we
had lunch, he said. We split up after we had
lunch until about three pm. And that's whenever we met

(25:31):
back up at the attorney's office. So, with more pressure,
I guess to what exactly went on, he said, Okay,
whenever we left the attorney's office, Jackie was supposed to
bring me a key because it went to our post office,
our PO box. So she said she would drop the
key at the house. And so but the Sun was

(25:52):
going to stay the night a few more nights, but
she arrived. She did come to the house. He was
more well, and I guess to talk to the agent
because the agent, specially agent wasn't directly saying you killed
somebody or you know whatever. So he said, she brought
the key to the house. I don't know exactly what
time it was. I was a little bit later. He said.
We did start talking. It was mainly over a bankruptcy

(26:14):
issue that we were still trying to mitigate. And he
said that discussion got into kind of a heated argument
because we couldn't come to an agreement on it. Jackie
got pissed off. She stormed out the front door. So
he said, well, what did you do then? Where you know?
That's where'd she go? And he said, well, I kind
of realized in that moment, once I calmed down that

(26:34):
this had just gotten out of control. He said, I
went outside. She didn't see her in the yard or anything.
I got in my truck and I went driving down
the little the road right there I was gonna. I
figured she just was blowing off her steam. I went
to go get her, but I looped around. I went
down the road and came back and she she wasn't there.
So when I came back to the house, by the
time I got back, her car was gone. So she

(26:56):
might I don't know if she was over in the wood.
I don't know what she was doing, but she made
it back to her car and her car was gone. Okay,
it was stupid, And he then got pretty upset at
that point and was like, do you think I should
keep trying to call her?

Speaker 1 (27:08):
Like?

Speaker 2 (27:08):
Is this legit? Do you think I really should keep
trying to call her. She's not answering me when I
try to get in touch with her, But I mean, hell,
they just literally got divorced. She was not obligated to him,
just like he wasn't obligated to her. And at that
point the cops kind of like, well, I mean, you
can do what you want, bro, I can't tell you
not the caller, but we're looking for her. So if

(27:28):
you do get a hold of her or she does
answer you, please let us know. He's like, no problem,
I will I feel awful, you know, Please let me
know what I can do. So no closer to finding Jackie.
Police did put out a bowlob on'll look out for her. Vehicle,
which was a blue hounted pilot as well, as they decided,
this does seem to have some exigent circumstances here, we

(27:49):
need to really stay on this. So they brought together
a group of officers and detectives, and this group they
called the Major Case Squad. These guys were considered to
be the best of the best in their agencies and
their disciplines, and if she could be located, they would
be the ones who could do it. They had the
most skilled, the most time in and all of that. Well,

(28:09):
luck would have it, they ended up locating her car.
It was on I fifty five going northbound, so where
they found it, it was pulled over on the side
of the interstate comfortably like normally, like if someone were
to pull over, but she was not in the car,
and clearly the cause was very easy to find. She

(28:30):
had a flat tire and this is common this, I mean,
it happens. So they're going, well, maybe she got a
ride with someone, Maybe someone pulled over to help her
with a flat and then they ended up giving her
a ride. But the problem with that thought frame was
that she had a cell phone, so that wasn't seeming
to be what would have happened. She could have Why
would you take the risk with a stranger rather than

(28:51):
call your sister or shit, I mean, call your ex husband,
if you have to, hell, your boyfriend, call somebody, not
take that risk with a stranger. So the Major K
squad was of the impression that she was more likely
kidnapped or something of that nature after she got the
flat on the side of the road. So the vehicle,
you can imagine, was now a potential crime scene and

(29:14):
the only evidence to go on. So police decided to
tow her vehicle back to the station to do a
better look at it visually as well as forensically. So
they're thinking, as we all know, because we're true crime fans,
but maybe there was some trace evidence that could further
unlock an explanation about what happened or where she went.
But another agency was also brought in at this time.

(29:36):
This would be the Missouri Highway Patrol and they were
the ones that really came in and took a close
look at the vehicle with them. Specifically, they focused on
her flat tire and something stood out to the inspector
as he looked at the vehicle initially, So a rim
is obviously designed to be protected by the tire. It's

(29:56):
never meant to make actual contact with the road's surface.
So when you a flat and then it's ridden, even
just for a little bit over to the side to
pull over, you commonly see somewhere on the rim. I mean,
the rim can bend, it can warp, it can crack,
just because of that added stress and just the impact
from driving, especially if you're at higher rates of speed

(30:18):
like an interstate and then you pull over to those
rough surfaces. It happened on an interstate, So what was
odd to that inspector off the top was that the
rim was in perfect condition. There were no crack, scratches,
nothing of that nature. So they take the tire itself
and look at it very closely, and it would explain
why the rim was in perfect condition. It's because the

(30:41):
tire had not been punctured by a nail or just
a blowout or something like that. The tire had been cut.
It looked as though the car had come to a
stop with a full tire and then it was cut
with a knife. So the scene at this point, they felt,
was a stage scene where the vehicle was found well
with no known enemies to mention nor any further indication

(31:04):
of a kidnapping or any random act of violence. They're
gonna go back to the last person who was with
her or who saw her, and Clay was admittedly that person,
and he had even told him that they were in
an argument. So police returned to his home and they asked,
do you mind if we just come in and we
look around, just to clear you and make sure that

(31:25):
there's no nothing that might could help us with this,
And he says, give me just a second, and he
walked back in the house. Well, when he went back
in the house, he grabbed his phone, and that's whenever
he called his attorney. And look, I'm not trying to
be judgy here, but where's my damn gavel? Because why

(31:45):
the hell you got an attorney on demand after you
just divorced someone less than twenty four hours ago, and
then that said X wife now goes missing. That seems
weird to me, but I'm not going to judge regardless.
After being on the phone with that attorney, Clay told
the police, know, my attorney said not to let you

(32:07):
come in. I don't want to give you permission for this.
I'm sorry, but you're just gonna have to have a
warrant to come in my house. And the police were like,
all right, bet So by that afternoon they had obtained
one as well, as I told you that the FBI
came in to assist in this search for Jackie. So
with that warrant, they went back and they took possession
of Clay's truck, and they brought that truck back to

(32:29):
the station for processing as well. And when they opened
the doors just to start, it was blatantly obvious that
there was blood on the interior handle of the door
on the driver's side. And this was like a lot
of blood, very visible, strangely obvious and visible if you're

(32:52):
used to any crime scene you ever look at. And
something honestly that like one would have expected to at
lead some to have been attempted to have been cleaned up,
considering the police had already been by the house earlier.
If there was blood all over your truck, you would
think you would have tried to at least clean it up,
But there it was. So the blood was swabbed and

(33:13):
it was sent to the lab for processing. Meanwhile, Clay's
house was being searched, and nothing in the home seemed
obviously a miss. It wasn't necessarily the tidiest home that
I had ever seen, but it was like nothing obviously
broken or disheveled, or there's no broken sheet rock or
anything that looked like there had been a fight. In
the hallway you walk down it, there was children's play mats,

(33:35):
there were toys. It just gives that vibe of a
single man who has three kids and the mess to
prove it. But on June sixth, so this is a
few days later, they did a second search of Clay's house,
and upon further inspection they realized something. When they were
looking at the hallway where those kids play mats were

(33:56):
in the hallway, they picked them up, and that's when
they noticed that there was a missing patch of carpet
underneath them. And I know, right now, we're all jumping
up there it is there, it is, But hang on now,
remember this was a rental and it could have been
that way when he moved in. So you can't just
jump to these conclusions. So the police didn't until shortly

(34:20):
thereafter the homeowner confirmed to them that carpet did actually
used to be right there, and in fact was missing
from the time that they gave the home over to
Clay for his use, but ultimately there was no Jackie
found in the home, so they brought in CSI to
come do their thing assess if there was any blood
that wasn't readily seen by the naked eye, or any

(34:42):
fluids or anything of that nature. So the police were
still looking for Jackie in other places too that they
thought maybe she would be This is kind of sad,
but they looked at the local ponds right there. There
was two ponds real close by to the house. They
sent divers to go dive for her. Nothing, and days

(35:02):
just continued to pass. There was seriously no sign of
Jackie anywhere. But she would never have left her children ever.
And I know we hear this all the time in
true crime, but I believe someone when they tell me
someone would never leave their children, I believe them just
as much as when someone tells me, man, she never
took care of her kids. Ever. I tend to believe

(35:23):
that there's truth to that. People don't just throw those
accusations out willy nilly unless they have a vendetta against somebody.
But everyone said Jackie would have never left her children.
This also is not someone who would have avoided phone
calls from their family, especially not for days and something
they thought happened to her. So as the hours and

(35:44):
the days passed, this was looking more and more grim.
So the blood samples that were sent off to the
crime lab came back and when detectives read the report,
they were genuinely surprised by this. It was not human blood. Zero,
it was not. Matter of fact, they were able to
pinpoint this blood specifically, it was fish blood of a

(36:05):
big head carp There's no doubt this was not blood
from a human. Even stranger was that police took possession
of Clay's phone to go through it to see what
they could find, and they found videos in that phone.
Clay took them of himself spreading the blood in his truck.

(36:28):
So this is strange, no doubt, but why he did
it was even stranger. Get this, He filmed himself and
he did it intentionally using his cell phone, and he
was narrating it as he did it, and in the
video he was talking about I'm spreading fish blood on
my truck because I'm going to catch these shady ass

(36:49):
police who are trying to pin something on me with
my ex wife's disappearance, but I'm gonna get them because
this is obviously fish blood. So people are fucking weirdsometimes. Okay,
we all know it, and he is people, Clayes people.
But he was trying to set up the police. But
they were honest, they were legit. They admitted, Okay, it's

(37:10):
not Jackie's blood, it's fish blood. So anyway, that's moving
on here. He also had called Jackie four days after
she went missing, and he left her a voicemail. He
was clearly upset in this voicemail. He was borderline crying,
call us back, where are you. He was also interviewed

(37:30):
by the media in those same days that they're searching,
and he expressed to them how sad this whole situation
was and he wanted it to be resolved soon. He
missed his kids, he wanted to find Jackie. He wanted
this to be fixed, whatever it was, He wanted it
to come to a conclusion, and all of this would
be under intense scrutiny whenever CSI alerted that they actually

(37:57):
did find some blood spatter in that of Clay's home,
and I'm talking lots of very small specs of blood
and I'm gonna put pictures on Patreon for you. You
know this, so you can go check it out. I
got a lot of photos for you. So when they
find this blood and it's positive for Jackie, now we're

(38:17):
kind of like in a rot row situation. Now you've
got some explaining to do. So Clay was brought in
for an additional interview, and basically the blood in the hallway,
he explained, was the result of an accident in the
kitchen and it was not a big deal. So that
blood was swabbed and it was sent off to the
lab to verify one hundred percent that it was Jackie's blood.

(38:42):
So Clay's home had a basement which detectives would scour
in this search, but they did not find anything. So
they're standing back in a group kind of addressing the situation,
the lack of evidence, and that this is just bizarre.
So as they're standing back, a detective noticed in the lighting,

(39:05):
just the way that the light hit, that there was
a layer of dust on the basement floor. Because it's
a basement, it's not mopped or anything, but the way
the light hit, he could tell that there was a
disturbed path in the dust and that path led to
an opening to a crawl space under the house. Now,

(39:28):
don't get too excited again. Quit jumping. I know you
quit playing with me. I know you quit jumping. You're
going all right. You're thinking what I was thinking, And
I was thinking what the detectives were thinking. And they
were thinking that Jackie was in that crawl space. If
I'm lying, I'm dying right now. You know you were
thinking that. So they suit it up and a detective

(39:49):
crawled into this very compact crawl space under the house
and there was nothing right there in the entryway, but
he kept crawling. He continued to crawl under nderneath this house.
But what he really came to the conclusion of was
to hide her body in this location would have been
an insane undertaking, no pun intended. This was not an

(40:14):
easy place to maneuver alone. Nonetheless, if you had a
body and you were trying to get underneath this house
and pull someone with you, I'm talking flat and narrow
space with not a lot of movement area, but a
lot of movement forward and up and over things like
piping and just it was a huge undertaking, and just

(40:38):
trust me on that. But the detective kept crawling and looking,
but nobody was found or smelled or anything like that,
but something was recovered of immense potential value. They found
a rolled piece of carpet tucked between the joists, but
it was way far back in the house, so the

(41:01):
carpet piece was brought out of the cross space, and
when they opened it up they did see some staining
on the underside of it in a few spots, so
this was sampled and yet again was also sent off
to the crime lab for testing. But now began the
waiting game. Believing now that Clay was way more involved
in this than he said, police decided to get exact

(41:24):
locations and times of Jackie and Clay's whereabouts together that
he said that they had in that last day that
she was seen, and this included that drug store and
an ATM that he had mentioned that she stopped by,
because if this was true and he was telling the truth,
there would be video evidence at some point of them together,

(41:45):
and sure as shit, against what I would have believed,
the surveillance video at the drug store did in fact
show Jackie with Clay, very unexpected. The police really didn't
believe that they would find it, and Jackie looked good.
She was fitted in this fitted white, cute little tea.

(42:05):
It's tucked in. She's got on her jeans, some cute
little wedges on. When they meet up and she comes
into frame at the pharmacy area, He's seated in a
waiting area. He's got on his khaki short it's a
gray T shirt. Very casual and calm. He even smiled
whenever she walked up. And it was around eleven am
that all of this was caught on camera. Two hours later,

(42:27):
she was seen at an ATM. It's on surveillance camera
the video of her getting cash, which later on would
be realized she was getting cash for Clay. He needed
some cash, and that ATM video was the very last
video of her ever, but it did back up what
Clay was saying. This is where another stop that Clay

(42:51):
made later in the day would become interesting to investigators.
It was nothing crazy, but later on Clay went to
a toy store. This was a few hours after Jackie
was last seen, and what caught investigator's attention was that
Clay was in different clothing. He was now in a
white T shirt, an orange baseball cap, and blue jeans.

(43:13):
But people change clothes. That's not crazy, they do. But
I will tell you it was eye catching because the
damn hat was so neon. It was like a hunting
orange hat, you know, the color was Why was he
at the toy store though they wanted to know, Well,
he had pulled up to meet his girlfriend who was
watching Maddox, just like he said, and Clay and Jackie's son,

(43:37):
just as he had also said, was going to stay
with him a few more days. And Maddox got in
the car with his dad. So I'm not sure at
this point in the story or in this investigation, if
Clay's regular truck vehicle the one that had the cart
blood on it. I'm not sure if that had been
returned to him or not by police, and I wasn't
really able to verify that. But either way, I will

(43:59):
tell you that Clay was in a different vehicle at
this point in time. He was now in a small
white truck. It looked like a little Nissan or something.
It had a bed on it, It had a few
things in it. There was like this gray trash can
and some other little junk or whatever. But it was
what he was towing that really got their attention, because
he was towing a small boat. Here we would call

(44:22):
it like a john boat or a Bette or whatever.
But it's a small aluminum boat and it's got a
little eight horsepower Johnson motor on the back. So what
they did was they kind of followed him through town
on security cameras and surveillance, and they found that he
took that boat to a car wash later that very

(44:43):
same night. When he got out, he's using four h
nine cleaner and he's meticulously cleaning this boat. It was
not just a spray down for fish guts, like he
really cleaned it. And hey, I'll be the first to
tell you, after we go fishing, we go clean the boat.
That's fishing one. I grew up like that. You go,
you spray off the boat, you get all the guts

(45:04):
out of it so it doesn't dry on the deck
and make your boat a mess and all that kind
of stuff. That's just what you do. But the attention
to detail had investigators wondering why he was being so
careful when he was cleaning, because the boat wasn't overly gross,
it just was look normal. So on a hunch, the

(45:26):
boat was released. A picture of the boat was released
to the media to see had anyone seen anything in
the local area concerning a boat like this one. And
as you just crowdsourcing is amazing. People are amazing. The
things that you see on the daily that just seems
so unimportant sometimes are the very thing that are all

(45:49):
the importance. And this would prove it because a man
and a woman called in onto the hotline and said, yeah,
they both said they saw a very similar boat on
the Mississippi that day and they said it was floating
next to a remote area that had the sandbar, and
it was known as Devil's Island. So police do what

(46:10):
they you think they're gonna do. They load up and
they get a bunch of searchers. They had canines, they
had everything, and they went out to that island to
go search and see if they could find Jackie. They
were convinced that Clay was involved, but we all know
the old adage, no body, no case. And guess what

(46:32):
they found nothing, absolutely nothing. So over the next few
weeks they put a tracker on Clay's truck because they
wanted to see what was he doing. Now, they didn't
say this, but I'm gonna say this. Oftentimes people who
do things to other people will go do drive bys.

(46:53):
They'll go and I don't mean like mow them down,
Papa ba. I mean they'll go drive by if they've
buried a body, or they'll go close to it area
to see if anyone's there, or if there's any type
of disturbance or if someone might find something. So what
they found was that Clay was going to these random
places and parking and he would stay there for long

(47:14):
periods of time before he would leave. So when they
would see that place he would stay, police would then
go and they would go search those areas, but they
would find nothing. And that's when they realized Clay was
messing with them. Clay was literally fucking with them. He
thought it was amusing the way they realized it was

(47:35):
because one they didn't find anything, but two, Clay would
then show up at those areas later on while they
were there and hank his horn, being like too too,
like I see you, I see you following me, and
then he would flip them off when he drove by,
super brazen, super butt holy in of him, if that's
even a word. But some people are jerks, and I

(47:58):
guess he was feeling targeted, and so he wanted to
let him know quit fucking with me, I see you. Well,
the courts were not amused by this when all of
this started going into the court system. As far as
the kids are concerned, the courts did not think that
he was playing very well, and they ended up awarding
custody of the kids to Jackie's sister, Cheryl. And that

(48:21):
should tell you something. The bio dad is not giving
custody over the sister of the kids. They didn't think
that this was cool. And again, mad kudos to the
court here because even if they show up, even if
they end up being wrong, the kid's best interests based
on Clay's behavior, was put first and that's the way

(48:42):
it should go. Well, when that happened, Clay got pissed,
I mean pissed, and he took to the internet to
voice this. Now, mind you, Cheryl already believed he had
killed her sister. She had told multiple people this and
so on Joel Uly twenty sixth, She was horrified when

(49:04):
she received a call from a friend of hers who
was like, Cheryl, look, I'm really scared for your safety.
And Cheryl said, what do you mean, why what's going on?
And that's when that friend told her, look, Clay wrote
some stuff online and it's kind of alarming. I mean,
he's saying that he's gonna hurt you. So she jumps
online to go look at it, and her heart dropped

(49:25):
because the threat appeared as a post on a very
website dedicated to following the developments of her sister's disappearance,
and the threat was found underneath a discussion that was
entitled police search for missing Jackson woman. And this is
a direct quote of what was written by Clay. It says,
you are dead. I promise if those kids get hurt.

(49:48):
Your fault, accident, nobody's fault. You're dead. Your dad wanted
to threaten Clay. I know he's all talk, but I'll
get you five, ten, twenty five years from now. You
have it coming. So while the statement in and of
itself didn't directly say I am Clay and I am

(50:08):
saying this, Cheryl immediately called the police to say, look,
you know, I just have a this is HEILM. There's
no one else that would write that to me. So
they decided, you know, let's look into this. You're right,
you can't be threatening people like that, and they were
able to find that that threat originated from a computer
located in what was called the Plaza Pawn which was
a pawn shop in Cape Girardo, Missouri. So they executed

(50:32):
a search warrant and sure enough got to that computer,
and they searched that computer. They combined the search of
the computer with the surveillance, the surveillance cameras in Plaza Pond,
and they did in fact verify Clay was there and
he was the sole operator of that computer at the
time that the threat was posted. So while he thought
he was being a little covert badass, he really had

(50:55):
just fucked up big time. This became a federal crime,
a federal crime. So four months after Jackie disappeared, he
was arrested and he was charged with the federal charge
of threatening the sister's life. So he was indicted for
knowingly transmitting via the Internet a communication containing a threat

(51:17):
to injure or kill. So he knew he was cooked.
He knew it. So he pled guilty to the federal
charges and they gave him five years for it. Now
that said, it's exciting. Good he's behind bars. But Jackie
still had not been seen or heard from by her sister,
who was still adamant Clay did something to her. But
the police. Their hands are tied. We don't have any

(51:39):
proof of this. It sounds and it's kind of like
we will leave you, but we have to prove it.
And Clay, on the other hand, still maintained I did
not do anything to Jackie, and he really professed I
am like literally being victimized here. He said, this is
not right. I'm being unfairly jacked around. And he said,

(52:00):
I even have an idea of who probably did this,
did something to Jackie, and he even named names. So
investigators ask, all right, well, if someone did something to
or you believe that, who is it? And he gave
up the name of a man named Gary. And Gary
was a guy that they both knew, and Clay said,

(52:20):
I am afraid of Gary Stead. It's fucking scary. So
you're doing all this to me, why don't you go
check these other people? He said, I even think I
can prove it. But there was an issue with that
because police had already ruled that out. Clay doesn't know
everything that they're doing. They had already ruled this guy out,
and so they knew that that was a lie and

(52:42):
that Clay was just trying to turn attention away from himself.
But Clay would not budge. He maintained his innocence and
he said, this is ridiculous. Okay, sure the threat, I'm cooked,
but leave me the hell alone. So the stained samples
from the carpet hidden in the crawl space of Clay's
home did eventually come back and were confirmed positive for

(53:06):
Jackie's blood bingo. She had been in that house and
was a source of bleeding, and so they were going
to interrogate Clay again, so Special Agent Ritter interviewed him
with more direct and pointed questions, starting with where was
your son when Jackie came over that day? Wasn't she
supposed to pick him up? And Clay said no, he

(53:27):
was with my girlfriend when Jackie came by, and neither
my son nor my girlfriend were at the house when
Jackie came. So when asked if Jackie had been injured
in the house, Clay again said, yeah, I told y'all,
but it's not a big deal. All right, we'll explain
it to me. Then, what happened specifically, And he said
that they were both in the kitchen and that he

(53:48):
stood up quickly. He was like bent over at the
at the fridge. He stood up quickly, and Jackie was
walking over towards him to ask him something, and when
he stood up quickly, the back of his head hit
Jackie's nose, and so it made her nose start bleeding.
So she put her hands underneath her nose to catch
the blood, and then she went running down. She ran

(54:09):
out of the kitchen, she ran down the hall, and
she went to the bathroom to help stop the nosebleed.
He said, I followed her, I helped her clean up
the blood. It's not a big deal. You're making this
like I've done something and I haven't. But then when
he was confronted, okay, well what about this carpet that
we found in a crawl space underneath your house, he said, yeah, okay, fine,

(54:31):
I removed the carpet. I reduced its size, I cut
it up, and I put it in the crass space
because I did not want the homeowner that I'm ruining
the house from to find it and think that something
wrong had happened in the house. Okay, So I cut
it had blood droplets on it. Look what's happening right now,
and so I wanted to get it out of the house. Well,

(54:52):
after more talk, Clay, who was in a relationship and
had a girlfriend as well as Jackie, who was in
a relationship and had a boyfriend also, and then admitted
something that he had withheld previously, and he now said, Look,
the reason she came back to the house was because
we were gonna have one final bang, as he put it,
like one last who rale. We were gonna have sex together.

(55:12):
And that's the reality of why she came there. My
son wasn't there, my girlfriend wasn't there, and that's what
we planned to do. So at this point we're asking
ourselves if I am so she divorced you and then
slept with you the same day, that's is that really
like what your argument it is right now? And I
kind of laughed at it, because, dude, if you were

(55:33):
the last man on Earth, I believe Jackie would have
made peace with extinction before sleeping with you. And I
have the receipts to back it up. So here's exhibit
A of why I think that. Unbeknownst to Clay, Jackie
had been documenting just how terrible he was, because investigators
had found a journal on her work computer and they

(55:55):
were eye opening as to everything that she had been
enduring over the last year, but not vocalizing to many people.
She told a little bit to her sister, but this
was in her own computer, her own writing, And it
turned out that Clay had been very verbal about an
anger that he had with her. So when she initially

(56:17):
went to her sister's home after their marital home was repossessed,
he told her these are her words, not mine. You
think you're safe up there at your sister's, well you're not.
I'll just wait for you to have to go to
town and I'll get you going to the grocery store.
And Jackie was afraid of this, y'all. She would not
sit on the couch at her sister's house without the

(56:40):
curtains being closed because she was so afraid that he
was gonna snipe her from the woods through the window. Well.
At first, whenever her sister was hearing this, her Cheryl
laughed at it. She was like, Clay's a fucking douche.
He's just running his mouth. Okay, there's probably weren't her words.
She's classier than me, but that's how I would have
said it if I was her sister. But he's just
running his mouth. Okay, It's just whatever. He's an idiot.

(57:03):
But after months of hearing what he was saying, Cheryll
really kind of was taken issue with it, and she said,
I think you should go to the police with this,
but Jackie insisted that going to the police was just
gonna make things worse, so she just continued to document
it so she would have it in her back pocket
if she needed it. So here are some journal entries

(57:25):
from her computer. On December third, she wrote, I told
him that I was filing for divorce, and Clay responded
that he had a feeling one of us would not
be around to watch our kids grow up. The very
next day, she wrote, Clay threatened me again. He asked
why I didn't just take the gun out of my car,
put it in my mouth and in myself so he

(57:46):
could raise our kids. On February sixteenth, she wrote, Clay
told me he thought many times over the summer about
killing himself and our kids so that I could start
my new life. He also said he was afraid that
we won't see our kids grow up. He stated that
he was starting to hate me and he will get
me someday. There might be a knock on the door,

(58:08):
and when I opened the door, I'll get blown away.
On March eighteenth, Clay told me I didn't deserve to live,
and he wished he had a gun so he could
blow my head off. That day, he told me that
a divorce would be my death sentence. March twenty third,
Clay called me at seven am. He was threatening me
and yelling at me. I met him at the airport.
He told me that divorcing him was a death sentence.

(58:30):
He would get me and if he couldn't get to me,
he will kill our kids. He would take them for
a week in fishing trip, and then he would personally
tell me they drowned, just so he could see my face.
In June, she wrote, Clay was angry and told me
never to keep his kids from him. He ran through
the garage saying he was gonna get his gun out
of his truck, but I stopped him before he got it.

(58:51):
The kids came out to the garage and they went
over to him and tried to comfort him. That one
right there really hurt too. I mean, I know the
rest of these are very scary, but to know that
those babies were in the middle of all this turmoil
is just heartbreaking. In July, she wrote in a rage.
Clay started packing his bags. As he walked out, he
hit my head against the wall and knocked pictures off.

(59:12):
I thought he was done packing, so I locked the door.
He then kicked in the door and told me he
was going to get his gun so I could blow
my head off. The kids and I all ran outside.
He got his gun out of his truck and tried
to drag me by the hair into the house. I
got away from him and I was getting ready to
run to a neighbor's house. He took the bullets out
of the gun and then threw it at me. We
then went inside and talked I still have the gun.

(59:35):
July seventeenth, Clay took the kids camping. Before they left,
he had me take a picture. He later told me
that he had me take that picture because he planned
to kill them that weekend, because he knows that would
be the only way to hurt me the most. On
October twenty seventh, Clay asked me if we were going
to get back together or not. I told him I
still had trust issues. He stated that we could get

(59:55):
divorced and he could get along with me, but he
will not stand for another man in his kid's life.
I told him that would not be a problem. He
then told me that if I thought in a couple
of years that I could get a man and think
everything would be okay, I'm wrong. He said. He would
kill me, the kids, and himself. I said, so you're saying, so,
what you're saying is that you would kill all of us,

(01:00:16):
and he said yes. So I wanted to give you
all of those insights to what she was dealing with silently,
because I think a lot of women are go through
this and they stay silent because they think that it
will get better. But this does not seem to be
getting better. Over that year. But finally, as the divorce

(01:00:36):
was now happening, Jackie had gotten to a point that
she was tired of fighting him. She was just she
wanted it over with. And she even had told her
sister that she and her new boyfriend were about to
move in together. They were planning on making that big step.
She just trusted in this new boyfriend so much, and
she knew that this was going to be great. And
three days before she disappeared, she told her sister that

(01:00:58):
she told Clay about it, and she said, and specifically
to her sister, I just can't do it anymore. If
he's gonna kill me, he's gonna kill me. I can't
live like that anymore, because that's not living. And that
was a direct quote from something that her sister had written.
She was done tiptoeing around Clay and his threats. And
yet two years would pass without Jackie being found by

(01:01:23):
the police. Despite all of their searches over and over
everywhere they could go, they could not find her. Two
more years would pass. They did believe by this point
that she was dead, but her body was somewhere unknown. Well,
the positive blood evidence in the carpet, combined with the
eventual positive ID for Jackie's blood spatter on the wall

(01:01:45):
in the hallway of Clay's home, in conjunction with his
anger and threats that were pulled from the computer and found,
those by now had just they determined, this is enough,
we have enough for us to directly accuse him of
murdering Jackie. So Clay Waller was charged with the first
degree murder of Jackie and tampering with evidence. But the

(01:02:07):
story is not close to being done. Clay Waller may
have been charged with that first degree murder, but her
parents wanted her body and they wanted to bury her.
They wanted her back, and so they said, we are
willing to accept a plea deal in exchange for her body.
So the deal was presented. If Clay pled guilty to

(01:02:29):
second degree murder and would lead them to her body,
they would only go after twenty years for her murder. Well,
he did not accept. He waited right up until the
trial was about to start, just like in this coburger
situation with those college kids killed in Idaho. He waited

(01:02:51):
until the very last minute, right before the trial was
going to start, I guess, hoping that something would happen
and the charges would be dropped. But he accepted the
plea deal. It was then that he took police right
back to that original sandbar at Devil's Island that they
had already searched so many times. But the police were

(01:03:12):
not convinced he was telling the truth. They had searched
it over and over, and then once they got there,
Clay couldn't pinpoint where her body was. He was in handcuffs,
he had on his jail suit and all of that,
but he couldn't find her body. He couldn't tell him
where she was. He did say though there basically point
out this fifty square yard area and he said, I

(01:03:34):
know she's buried here somewhere, And they said, okay, well
you know what did you do? Tell us what happened? Well,
I buried her and then I covered it with fertilizer
so that it would it would break down. But they
weren't finding her. I mean, he said it. But they
just weren't finding her until an astute detective asked him
a question. He said, wait a minute, how much fertilizer

(01:03:56):
did you put? Because to this detective, if he put
a ton of fertilizer, that would kill vegetation around where
her body was. And he said, I put a lot whatever,
I don't know what the exact amount was, set up
a lot. So looking around, the detective step backs and
he looked around, and sure enough, he saw an area
where three trees were close together. But one of those

(01:04:17):
trees was dead as a doornail, and there was no
obvious reason as to why the other two on either
side were fine. So they decided to focus on that area,
and wouldn't you know, right there they found the body
of Jackie under a pile of logs and debris. When
they dug up under where that dead tree was. The

(01:04:39):
first thing that they found was her knee, and she
still was in her blue jeans, although she was now
a skeleton so it had gotten dark. The following day
they went back and there they hand dug up the
body of Jackie Waller. She was confirmed to be dead,
but at least she was recovered. So as part of

(01:05:01):
the deal, Clay also had to admit and tell them
what exactly happened that day, and so they did have
his confession on video, and he set the wheels in
motion to kill her when they first started talking about divorce,
that very first talk after they lost the house, and

(01:05:21):
he said, if you take those kids, I'm going to
kill you. This confession was so cold, so flat, and
he directly said, she asked for a divorce, and I
knew that she was going to die soon. He even
dug her grave the day before she would die. So

(01:05:44):
he lured her to his house with the fact that
he said Maddox was going to be there, come over
and pick him up. And he says then in that
confession that when they went in the house, they decided
that they were going to have sex that one last time,
which we can all say is bullshit. We know it's bullshit, whatever,

(01:06:05):
but that's what he said. Then he says, that's when
we got in a fight by accident in the kitchen
and he's stuck too the nose, accidental, hitting her in
the face with his head and making her nose bleed.
But this is when he adds that she then started
provoking him, saying that he wasn't gonna get much time

(01:06:25):
with their kids whenever people find out that he beats her.
So he said that made him mad, and that's when
he hit her in the face one time, and then
he pressed his forearm into her neck until she stopped breathing.
He claimed it was spur of the moment, and that's
what happened. But that's when the police looked up at
him and said it was spur of the moment, and

(01:06:47):
he said yeah, and they said, you already told us
you dug her grave the day before. In that instant,
the dumb ass realized, Fuck, he didn't even think about it.
What an idiot, So he's lying to the plea agreement. Well,
her autopsy would also come back and prove that he

(01:07:09):
was lying, because Jackie's skull had multiple fractures. The fractures
were to her face area and to the skull, and
he stood by the fact that he said he only
hit her once. Ray Charles could see that this guy
was never at this point going to fully admit responsibility
for her murder and what he did to her, because
what he did was he brutalized her. But he would

(01:07:30):
never come completely clean. But do you remember when I
told you that they focused on that little boat whenever
he was pulling it and he went to the car wash. Well,
obviously they were correct that he did use that boat
to go out there to pre dig her grave. Come back.
Then he brought her back out in the boat and
he dumped her in the grave. But this is the kicker.

(01:07:52):
Do you remember me mentioning that there was a gray
trash can in the back of the truck. Well, Jackie
was in it. Use that trash can to transport her body.
He rode out there with her body and then he
dumped her in the grave before he buried her. And
then he did add that he said a few words
for her after her burial, and he said, I just

(01:08:14):
told her I just wanted a family. Don't you feel
sorry for him? Guys? He just wanted a family fuck man.
They should have put a bullet in him right then.
The triplets, now that all of this was revealed, had
to be told, Yes, your mom is actually dead, she's

(01:08:35):
not coming back, and your dad did it. So you
can imagine how emotional that must have been for everyone involved.
You know, at least the kids had hope that maybe
mom would come back one day, but now it was over.
And not only was it over, but your dad, your
own dad, was responsible for stripping away the most amazing

(01:08:55):
bond that they would ever have in their life. Their mother,
the woman that grew them, the woman that loved them,
the woman that stayed up all night feeding and changing
and doting on them while their dad did nothing for them.
She hid the fact that he was threatening her, She
hid the fact from them that he was a horrible

(01:09:17):
human being, all to protect their little hearts. And now
the truth came out. They had lost both of their
parents now in the most tragic and brutal of ways.
But while his three children were now crying, sobbing for
the loss of their mother, the realization it would never

(01:09:38):
she was never coming back, Clay was busy on the
phone at the jail, and as you all know those
calls are recorded. Those calls are recorded at the jail,
and he showed no remorse for what he had done.
And I want to tell you exactly what he said,
so you don't have to take my word for it.
He was on the phone with a family member. It

(01:10:00):
was a male family member who said, dude, you've got
to be apologetic. Man, you have to be and Clay's
exact words a direct quote here, were I'm not I'm
gonna stand up in court and I'm gonna tell them
all to go fuck themselves. Why should I care what
they're going through if they don't care about what I'm
going through. And the family member says to him, you're

(01:10:23):
not the victim here, Clay, and Clay's response was, it
happened two years ago. I just want to move on.
I'm sorry. I'm going to jail. That's it. And in
regard to serving the time that he was going to
serve for it, he commented, when I walk out of
them doors, they can do nothing more to me. Because

(01:10:44):
remember he took the twenty year plea deal, and he
was going to walk out wrong. Wrong. You know why
he's wrong because he's too fucking stupid to know he
doesn't know everything. And guess who knew more than him,
the prosecutors and the police. Because the area of the
sandbar where he took her, it crossed the state line.

(01:11:09):
The sandbar was in Illinois. He murdered her in Missouri,
and that, my friends, makes us a violation of the
Interstate Domestic Violence Act. And that makes that a federal
charge punishable in federal prison by thirty five years. And
those thirty five years would take effect after the twenty

(01:11:30):
years for the murder conviction of killing Jackie, as well
as the five years he got on the threat conviction
for Jackie's sister Cheryl. Got him, got him, And this
is one of those stories where I almost have to
just smile. Got him. You thought you played everybody, and

(01:11:52):
you got played, sir. I love it. And about those kids,
those kids are us so strong. They were so strong.
They were little kids, and they had the strongest words
for him in court. Of course these are in kids' terms,
but I want you to listen. I want you to
listen to this piece. That was a recorded statement made

(01:12:15):
by Maddox and he recorded it for his dad and
they played it in court for him. I want you
to hear this little boy talk to his dad.

Speaker 1 (01:12:24):
Cute dad, thank you, you'd be crazy you.

Speaker 2 (01:12:32):
Killed her mind? Be pray kid, you betcher you're a
big bad Do you know that I love you, my dad?
I know thinking from my kind of life, we don't
like you anymore. This is the last thing you'll hear
of me. Okay, by how do you love that? Guys?

(01:12:55):
It's one of those times where that little boy he
felt it, he meant it, and he was right a
little fella, and he got it right. One of the triplets,
Little Avery told her aunt, my dad should stay in
jail because my mom is going to be dead or
whole life. And it just what a frickin' knife to

(01:13:16):
the heart, you know, But she's right. These kids are right.
So you're wondering, well, how did Clay react to the
message from his kids? You know? Was he crying? Did
he drop his head? Nope? Zero reaction none because this
wasn't about his kids. He didn't care about his kids.
He wanted to kill Jackie because he couldn't have her,
he couldn't own her, and he got what he wanted

(01:13:38):
to kill her. That's what he did. When Cheryl got
up to speak in that victim impact statement about her sister,
and y'all, it's so passionate, it's so everything you would
hope a sister would say and more. And she never
broke eye contact with him, even though he wouldn't look
at her. I'm putting that on Patreon for y'all two
so y'all can listen to it because I want you to.
But he never looked at her, He never shed a tear,

(01:14:02):
he never even You could have given him a ham
sandwich and he would have had the same reaction. Nothing. Instead,
he was handcuffed, He was taken to prison, and he
decided to spend his time while he was there, at
first writing a book. If you're wondering what the name
of it is, it's called If you take my Kids,
I'll kill you. What a guy? What a guy. So,
while Clay continued to rot in prison, I now have

(01:14:25):
the privilege of giving you an update, Cheryl and Bob
raised Jackie's children for her. They adopted them all in
twenty thirteen. They didn't go to foster care, they didn't
get split up. Cheryl didn't say I can't do it.
Cheryl said these are my kids now, and she adopted

(01:14:45):
them and she did such a good job. Those kids
did so well. They remember their mama as kind and
loving and the caring woman that she was. They were
only five years old whenever this happened, but because of
the love of their aunt Cheryl and their uncle Bob,

(01:15:06):
those memories will not fade. Why because they have hung
her photos on the walls in their home. They talk
about Jackie all the time. They share photos and stories
about her all the time. They make a point to
celebrate Jackie's birthday every year with her kids. They have
made sure that they knew their mama and they will

(01:15:28):
continue to know their mama and love their mama. And
in the years since their mother's brutal death, I can
tell you this, Jackie, my friend, your kids have done
you nothing but proud. All three of your kids excelled
in school. They also excelled in sports, mainly tennis. All

(01:15:51):
three of your kids graduated Farmington High School, with Addison
even signing with a college for sports. All three of
your kids are good kids. Avery is now going to college,
hoping to get her certifications in dental hygiene. Addison is

(01:16:13):
in college wanting to be a data analyst. She loves
math and Maddox is in college doing pre dentistry and
he wants to go into orthodonics. I cannot help but
feel that in the long run, in some way, Jackie
will have one. Her kids have no communication with their
biological father, although he's tried. They said no, thank you.

(01:16:37):
They don't have time for helm. They're too busy making
their mama proud, and they're too busy chasing their dreams
to entertain such a waste of space. All right, y'all,
that's your bonus. I'm already working on the next one.
I hope you enjoyed it, and I'll catch y' all
on the flip