Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to Georgia Focus. I'm John Clark on the Georgia
News Network. After a daring escape from a certain death
in the North Vietnamese prison, followed by years in refugee
camp in Thailand, Savang Fogusi and his family sought safety
and a better life in the United States. That dream
was shattered when their daughter Vang disappeared in October of
nineteen eighty seven. Solving the Murder of Vang Fogusi Evil
(00:26):
Dwells in West Georgia, written by Clay Bryant, who is
my guest on today's program. We were here today at
WTRP LA Grange, Georgia, the Grange. We appreciate y'all, appreciate
Walter having us in here today and showing us around.
I'm here, Todavid Clay Bryant. Clay has written another book,
Solving the Murder of Vying Fogusi. Evil Dwells in West Georgia. Clay,
(00:49):
this one was at the fascinating book. It's absolutely amazing.
Let's talk about that, the Fogusi family.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
The backstory of how the family got here, this fabulous thing.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Oh, it's kind of an epic journey sort of being's daddy.
His name was Savon f over Soyth. He was a.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
American intelligence asset right at to close the Vietnam War,
and he lived just across the border into Laos, And
when the South pitulated and the North Vietnamese were taken over,
they started to round up everybody they thought to be
a collaborator with the South over with the Americans, and
(01:31):
they went the North Vietnamese went into Laos and basically
kidnapped this man and took him back across the militarizedone
and threw him in a pit in the ground, as
they called it a prison pit, and it's about thirty
feet square and about twelve feet deep, and they have
(01:53):
several prisoners in there, and basically you put in there
to start to death. But the news of where he
was quickly filtrated down the jungle path back to his family,
his wife, and she got some money from family members
and some possessions they had, and she went into North Vietnam,
(02:17):
were into the militarized zone and bribed the guard and
got him out of the hole. And she and he
went back into Laos and quickly fashioned themselves a raft,
took their family and floated down the Mekong River all
the way to Thailand, and in Thailand they got into
(02:40):
a refugee camp and they stayed there for four or
five years. And while they were there, they had a
couple of children that were born, and they lost one
to dysentery, a son. And at some point in time,
the Sea or the State Department located him in the
(03:03):
refugee camp because everybody in a refugee camp was trying
to seek asylum somewhere.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
And they verified the fact he had been.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
An American intelligence that set well, they grook got him asylum,
brought him to the United States.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
UH.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
They first landed in San Francisco and into Atlanta, and
they had an arrangement with the First Baptist Church of
Neuni and Georgia to sponsor him and his family.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
And he came UH.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
At the end of this country speaking very little, very
little English. His children spoke nothing but Laotian and French
because you know both had been originally colonized by the
French and h But they stayed here from she was
(03:55):
Viane was in an age when she should have been
in an elementary school, along with their brothers and sisters
till they all graduated from Newton High School. Vane was
the oldest of the crab and when she graduated in
nineteen eighty seven, she graduated with honors, was extremely bright.
(04:16):
All of them had a tremendous work ethic or brother
ended up being a professor at Indiana State University, or
one of the sisters ran one of the biggest graphic
design places in Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Another one was a CPA.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
And they came here with nothing, but the folks in
Newing them were very kind to them and helped them,
especially their teachers and whatnot that came involved in their lives.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Well, she had.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Actually received an academic scholarship that was going to pay
for our college, but she wanted to work an extra
quarter to get her up some money and whatnot. And
she had her boyfriend. And on the morning, I believe
the bell was October the tenth, nineteen eighty seven, she
(05:08):
gets up to go to work and she decides she's
gonna go see your boyfriend down in Moreland, just south.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
And then well, she goes.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Down there, and she goes in a convenience store, comes
back out, and when she comes out, she pulls out
on the road and she immediately got a flat tire.
She has no idea that she's been victimized already. Oh, okay,
they are at some point, just very shortly a guy
pulls up and he says, hey, you know, i'll be
(05:37):
glad to help you. What you want to do, She said,
my boyfriend lives right here down the road and i'd
like to go there, and he.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Volunteered to take her.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Well, he did, and shortly thereafter he comes back and says, hey,
I got a friend of mine and got something.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
We'd fix your tire and get you on your way.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
She'd already call the father, and that was disarming to
her and her boyfriend who he was supposed to getting
ready to work as well, And so she just gets.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
In the car with him and goes back up.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
She never had any really bad experience with anybody around,
you know, everybody's always been kind and benevolent water and
she gets in the car with him. Next time she's
seen there's two years later, when her body's tied to
a tree in Harris County, just south of West Point,
Georgia on off Highway one O three in the Pine
(06:31):
Lake community. As quick as she gets gone, they mount
a tremendous effort to try to find her. There was
some really good descriptive evidence of who she left with
and that kind of thing, and in the book will
show you that. To my I'll never understand why they didn't.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Have a suspect in this immediately.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
But but now, when the body was found in eighty nine,
a friend of mine, agent with the GBI, Gary Rothwell,
started an investigation and he worked on this case. He
got to remember now now it's two years old, and
he worked on the case and did a tremendous amount
of work, really good investigation, and got to the point where,
(07:23):
to my satisfaction.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
It was indictable and triable.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
But the Chattahoochee Circuit District Attorney, they had some things
going on down there with some capital death cases, and
I think what their intention was just to put the
thing off, but in doing.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
So, they allowed what really ended up.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Being a serial rapist murder to stand on the street
a little while longer.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
But Gary got promoted and transferred, and.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
The case went to another agent and he presented it
to the Grandeur, to the District Attorney's office again, and
it didn't fly then, and so it went to the
bottom of the stack. So in two thousand and uh,
I guess it was four. We were trying a case
on another cold case homicide that I'm working that I
(08:15):
worked and had a successful prosecution in him writing the
book back.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Yeah, that way right.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
And but I ran into Gary, he was subpoenaed in
the case, and he asked me how we got down
there while we were trying out of the calu to
circuit trying one inherit and I told him, you know,
the circumstance that brought us down here was actually kind
of similar to the foes side case. The case started,
we thought in our jurisdiction, and uh the district Attorney's
(08:47):
peach Scandalacus and Gray Conger got together and decided that
we could better try the case. We had handled the investigation,
so we were able to do that. And he said, well,
if y'all do that in that case, he said, I
got a case to this day I loose sleep about
and it was the case of Yang PHOBICI oh man,
And I was able to go back and find witnesses
(09:11):
from fifteen sixteen years ago and retraced the steps and
with what Gary had already done and the things that
if firmed back up. We were able to put together
a case that indicted rather easily, and in working this
case we found other cases we think he probably perpetrated
(09:33):
as well. He'd actually begin his sexual preditation in nineteen
seventy one.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Oh my gosh. He was a convicted child rapist, confessed
child rapist that got out of jail and within just
a very short time he was murdering vang PHOBICI.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Eighteen days later he kidnaps, rapes and sodomizes another one
that we discovered it.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
In the case, and that lady actually ended up doing.
She lived, she did, she did, and he he he During.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
This her attack, he told her he was gonna have
to kill it, but she for whatever reason got to
crying about her children and so forth, and he, Uh,
you let her go, and uh turned to loosen in
the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Uh. But some of the things in this case are
just absolutely insane.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
As you know, one of the chapters in the case
called in God's time sometimes just what you have to
depend on.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Uh. There was one thing in particular in the case.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Sometimes these cases for me have just been there's no
explaining how things happened or why, other than it was.
You want to call it providence, divine intervention, or just
dumb luck.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
But I had found and Gary had unearthed a victim
from nineteen seventy one that he had attacked. But when
I went to checking, I knew he had been arrested
in Chambers County, according to an.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Ex wife that he had. You know, I think I
might have told you this.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
If you want the truth, the dirt and everything has
gone wrong in the man's life.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
You checked with the ex wives and nature they'll take
you where you go.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Well, this lady informed us that he had been arrested
down there in seventy.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
One for this crime.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
But I went to the courthouse and looked what should
have been in superior Court, couldn't find anything. Thought maybe
she's just got her locations wrong. I checked Randolph Lee County,
Chambers County, Harris, Troup County, Georgia. Nothing, nothing, never made
any sense, and I thought, well, maybe she just didn't
(11:57):
know what she was talking. Well, as a case, we
had progressed and we were in the.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
Process of the investigation, had arrested him at that point.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Can you say who he was? Can you say his name?
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Her name was Charles Travis Lamley, and it was the
strangest thing. My wife, she was a clerk in the
True County's criminal court and worked in the clerk's office,
and I had one of the ladies that worked with
her was doing some research on ex wives and relationships
(12:31):
that Manly had had in the past, because so far
they were being fruitful in the case, but I never
could find out anything about this other case.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
It was the first case where he'd attacked her at.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Nine point and she called me one afternoon. My wife
did and said, Hey, we're gonna go out to restaurant
out here after and eat supper together.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Ladies in the clerk's office. She said, you'll just.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Meet us out there, and I said, yeah, I'd enjoy that.
So I went out there. One of the ladies, uh,
lady named Gina, had away. She brought her sister in
law with her, and Gina lived down in the valley
in Lynette West Point or Valley or Lynette, Alabama. And
we were sitting there and one of the ladies that
(13:15):
had been doing some research for me and was on
the civil on.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
The civil side, she says, Clay, I got that information
you wanted on Charles Travis.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Manley, and she said, I got it printed and if
you just want to stop by the office tomorrow and
pick it up, got it ready for you.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Well, you know, I of course told her thank you
and what not. I'd gotten up. And you know, it's
little Grange, Georgia. You know everybody.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
And I started talking to some folks in the restaurant.
As I was coming back to the table, Uh, the ladies.
Sister in law met me and she said, Clay. She said, well,
she called me mister Bryan and her name was Betty
and she said, because it ain't introduced me to Gene's
(14:02):
sister in law.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
And I said, Charles Manley.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
She said yes, And I said I think he very
likely committed a very serious crime that I'm looking into.
And she looked me straight in the face and said
he assaulted me in nineteen seventy.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
It was a rictu. It does everything. Every time I
tell it story, I get chilled.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
There's no explaining that I never laid my eyes on
this woman, had no idea who she was.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
And I found out what had happened. Why I couldn't
find it.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
He went into Chambers County Jail, and I don't know
why this happened.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
I have my suspicions.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
But he stayed in jail for a couple of months,
and at some point the district attorneys that he had
actually come in and pled guilty, oh gosh, to assault
aggravated assault.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
With intense of rape.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
But within just a few days they let him come
back into court before judge and withdraw that plea and
plead to a to a misdemeanor, charged him one hundred
and thirty dollars and send him back out the door.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
And within six months he's committing you'll read that in
the book. Read another ridiculously serial sex crime. It's crazy.
And as quick as he.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Got out of jail for that one, he's caught committing
another crime. Goes back to jail, gets out, and within
six months he's killing this young lady. Yeah, eighteen days later.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
I'll never understand how once you read the book.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Yeah, you got to read this book.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
The book is.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
It starts out with an investigation that should have ended
this reign of terror, but it didn't.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
And then it picks up with an investigation that.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Is stellar that Gary Roth will conducted, and then, through
you know, the luck of the draw, he gets promoted
and transferred and it falls back down in the bottom.
I'm on the stack again, and it's nearly twenty years later.
Gary hands it to me and we're able to move forward.
We convicted him, he was awarded life in prison without parle,
(16:11):
and he did twelve or fourteen years before he's succumbed
to cancer.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
But stories, it's a fascinating story.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
It is a fascinating story. You know. When I write,
I don't flower things up a lot.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
You know, I make it closer to the point and
give me the facts.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Ma'am right.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
That's what I like about that. You do right that way,
and I like it it quick and to the point
and out of there.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Yeah, and a good thing about it.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
You know, most folks at write true crime, they write
it off of reports and what other folks you tell
them when I write, I get so emotionally involved in
the case. You know, folks, everybody says, you know, you
don't want to get emotionally involved in the case.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
You if you don't.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
When you're looking at a twenty year old case, it's
played there like a brick. If you don't get emotionally
involved and pick up some of that baggage, that the
people that are left behind.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Are carrying you will ever, you will never see them through.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
And but in this case, I will never forget the
relief that that family felt in that courtroom that day
when that jury came back and with a vertical guilty.
And that was a long time incoming, a long time,
and and and and talking to them, they also thought
that maybe the initial investigation and this was not the case,
(17:29):
was hampered by the fact that you know, they were
foreigners and this and that that wasn't the case at all.
She was very loved by the community up there. And
again there were there were things that came along, and
it's in the book, and I don't want to disparage
anybody else's investigation.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
But what happened to the PHOTOSI family.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Well, I told you about the children. They continued to
live in Union. And that's the girl that went to
Atlanta and worked for a multinational graphic design company. She
graduated from University Georgia with a degree in graphic design.
(18:08):
And she worked for them, and they did work for
like Coca Cola and full Motor Company, and she him
and she started her own business and she does consulting work.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Now she's semi retired brother went and she was.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
He was a professor of art at Indiana State University
and the other sister was a CPA.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Did the family the parents still living?
Speaker 3 (18:32):
They are as of about a year ago.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
They were and it was, like I said, it's just
an epic journey that ended in tragedy with her.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
And of course it's just to.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Think that somebody fled half way around the world to
escape certain death and oppression comes here and this happens
to your child.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
You get these cases, there's some they're amazing cases. Why
do you say they're all in this area, in this
general area? Why do you think it falls on you?
I think that you're meant to do it. I don't know.
I'm not saying a lot of history. Let me saying
it will fall on you.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Well that every place has got them. Yeah, And I
just I enjoy I don't know if it enjoys animal.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
I thrive on the fact that when somebody thinks they've
gotten away with something this atrocious and to be able
to put your hand on the shoulder and say, son,
come with me. There's no words to describe it. Yeah,
I get so emotional about you know what happened to
these folks and what their families have gone through, and
(19:41):
you know, hell, it's torture and to be able, you know,
And I think I may have told you before. Folks
talk about closure. They ain't no such thing as closure.
Their birthdays and there's Christmas, and there's holidays and special occasions,
and every.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Time one of those crossed your mind, they're there.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
And at least you get the finality of knowing getting
in the answer and that somebody was held accountable.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
And to me, that's and this guy was up walking
around for years afterwards.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
If you look at the violent offender report from other places,
there are actually some other.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
Crimes that he was over the road truck driver.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
There are some other places where some crimes were committed
that were very similar to hers, very similar in places
where he was at the time. Of course, didn't have
any evidence other than speculation. But if you look at
a Oriental girl kidnapped out of a laundromat three blocks
from where he's getting fueled.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
That day, you can bet he had something to do it.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Yeah, yeah, it'd be my money.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
But if you look at his history, it is from
nineteen seventy one till he goes to prison in two
thousand and five, I think it was.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
It's just he's either in jail committing around.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
The cancer got him.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Well, it, along with some of these others, absolutely then
the highlight of my professional career. And I'm proud of
the work that I was able to do and the
work that other people did as well. You know, here
off the work he did make the case. I had
to go back and redo it simply because the time
and you know time sometimes in these old cases, it
(21:24):
can be your friend or your foe.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
And a lot of times, like in the book that
I'm writing now.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
People's morals change as they mature and they get a
little more of appreciation for their own mortality, I think,
and they start saying, this.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Is the truth.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Yeah, yeah, And that's the case and the one that
i'm right now, and that will have you back for
that one too.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
But we got that one, and we got another one
in the end.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
If we don't pick up another one, we'll probably have
at least five.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
It's a fascinating book, and it's by Clay Bryant, who
I'm talking with the day. It is solving the murder
of Vang Fergusai it's it's it's remarkable. It's a bookselling Well,
you doing any book signings anything?
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Well, we have done several book signings and public speakings
and whatnot with it, and been on podcasts from the
West Coast to the East Coast. Crime Capsule out of
New Orleans, a guy named Benjamin Morrison murdershef book club
in Connecticut with a lady by the.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Name Jill McCracken.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Z On seven and out of Atlanta, lady named Cheryl McCallum.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
She heads up a thing called the Cold.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Case Investigative Research Institute, and she and I have become friends,
and she has helped me on a couple of cases,
even publicizing on a podcast some unknowns that uh in
cases that I'm currently working on.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
And we've just been very, very lucky.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Do people come to you, call you up, or write
you an email with a cold case now that they say,
he will you take a look at this one or
something like that?
Speaker 2 (22:58):
To be honest, I want to say all the time,
but fairly often, really fairly often. I've had folks. Had
a lady call me one time that her daughter disappeared
the last time she was seen, and it kind of
ironic went with the old song. She was standing on
the corner in Winslow, Arizona.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
Yeah, and the lady speculated that the person she was
in a relationship with probably killed her and trive it
into the desert out there, And which sounds kind of
logical to me.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
But I have folks call me all of all the time,
and you know, a lot of a lot of police agencies.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
They don't want anybody coming in and meddling in their business.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
And I won't do that unless somebody ask me from
a from you know, from a professional standpoint that you know,
I'd be glad to give my opinion about anything and
look at something.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
But you know I ain't gonna go and be an
ambulance chaser, right. You know.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Well, the book is called Sawing the Murder of Vain
FOGUSI Evil Dwells in West Georgia's by Clay Brant. Get
that book, Get this book. It is it is something,
it's it's I look at that picture on the front
of that book and that book, and I see her
I just everywhere.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
She was a very kind and aesthetic person. She had.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
It was such a tragedy that you know that this
young lady's life came to that type of end.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
I can't even imagine what she suffered to the point
that she was killed.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Anywhere we could go anything.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yeah, yeah, Amazon dot Com, Barnes and Noble got them,
uh CVS, Charism, uh.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
In Lagrange, the bookstore here, our local bookstore. Pretty good books,
pretty good books, pretty good, pretty good books.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
And they carried and with a couple of hardware store
courts hardware carism here in town too. But we are
have been pretty lucky in the book all, all of
the three that have been published and sold pretty well,
and we've had had them have They've all been featured
on I think forty eight hours Investigates, Bill Curtis's Cold
(25:01):
Case Files and two or three episodes of Discovery i D.
But if you if you google Cold Case Clavela, it'll
tell you about the books and where they can be
found and.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Some of those television shows.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
That's Clave Bryant, author of Solving the Murder of Ving
fogus I, said a special thank you to our affiliate
w t r P and the Greens and Walter Douglas
for hosting us today. For questions of comments on today's program,
you can email me John Clark at Georgeanewsnetwork dot com.
Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you next week right
here in your local radio station on Georgia Focus
Welcome to Georgia Focus. I'm John Clark on the Georgia
News Network. After a daring escape from a certain death
in the North Vietnamese prison, followed by years in refugee
camp in Thailand, Savang Fogusi and his family sought safety
and a better life in the United States. That dream
was shattered when their daughter Vang disappeared in October of
nineteen eighty seven. Solving the Murder of Vang Fogusi Evil
(00:26):
Dwells in West Georgia, written by Clay Bryant, who is
my guest on today's program. We were here today at
WTRP LA Grange, Georgia, the Grange. We appreciate y'all, appreciate
Walter having us in here today and showing us around.
I'm here, Todavid Clay Bryant. Clay has written another book,
Solving the Murder of Vying Fogusi. Evil Dwells in West Georgia. Clay,
(00:49):
this one was at the fascinating book. It's absolutely amazing.
Let's talk about that, the Fogusi family.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
The backstory of how the family got here, this fabulous thing.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Oh, it's kind of an epic journey sort of being's daddy.
His name was Savon f over Soyth. He was a.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
American intelligence asset right at to close the Vietnam War,
and he lived just across the border into Laos, And
when the South pitulated and the North Vietnamese were taken over,
they started to round up everybody they thought to be
a collaborator with the South over with the Americans, and
(01:31):
they went the North Vietnamese went into Laos and basically
kidnapped this man and took him back across the militarizedone
and threw him in a pit in the ground, as
they called it a prison pit, and it's about thirty
feet square and about twelve feet deep, and they have
(01:53):
several prisoners in there, and basically you put in there
to start to death. But the news of where he
was quickly filtrated down the jungle path back to his family,
his wife, and she got some money from family members
and some possessions they had, and she went into North Vietnam,
(02:17):
were into the militarized zone and bribed the guard and
got him out of the hole. And she and he
went back into Laos and quickly fashioned themselves a raft,
took their family and floated down the Mekong River all
the way to Thailand, and in Thailand they got into
(02:40):
a refugee camp and they stayed there for four or
five years. And while they were there, they had a
couple of children that were born, and they lost one
to dysentery, a son. And at some point in time,
the Sea or the State Department located him in the
(03:03):
refugee camp because everybody in a refugee camp was trying
to seek asylum somewhere.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
And they verified the fact he had been.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
An American intelligence that set well, they grook got him asylum,
brought him to the United States.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
UH.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
They first landed in San Francisco and into Atlanta, and
they had an arrangement with the First Baptist Church of
Neuni and Georgia to sponsor him and his family.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
And he came UH.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
At the end of this country speaking very little, very
little English. His children spoke nothing but Laotian and French
because you know both had been originally colonized by the
French and h But they stayed here from she was
(03:55):
Viane was in an age when she should have been
in an elementary school, along with their brothers and sisters
till they all graduated from Newton High School. Vane was
the oldest of the crab and when she graduated in
nineteen eighty seven, she graduated with honors, was extremely bright.
(04:16):
All of them had a tremendous work ethic or brother
ended up being a professor at Indiana State University, or
one of the sisters ran one of the biggest graphic
design places in Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Another one was a CPA.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
And they came here with nothing, but the folks in
Newing them were very kind to them and helped them,
especially their teachers and whatnot that came involved in their lives.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Well, she had.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Actually received an academic scholarship that was going to pay
for our college, but she wanted to work an extra
quarter to get her up some money and whatnot. And
she had her boyfriend. And on the morning, I believe
the bell was October the tenth, nineteen eighty seven, she
(05:08):
gets up to go to work and she decides she's
gonna go see your boyfriend down in Moreland, just south.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
And then well, she goes.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Down there, and she goes in a convenience store, comes
back out, and when she comes out, she pulls out
on the road and she immediately got a flat tire.
She has no idea that she's been victimized already. Oh, okay,
they are at some point, just very shortly a guy
pulls up and he says, hey, you know, i'll be
(05:37):
glad to help you. What you want to do, She said,
my boyfriend lives right here down the road and i'd
like to go there, and he.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Volunteered to take her.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Well, he did, and shortly thereafter he comes back and says, hey,
I got a friend of mine and got something.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
We'd fix your tire and get you on your way.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
She'd already call the father, and that was disarming to
her and her boyfriend who he was supposed to getting
ready to work as well, And so she just gets.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
In the car with him and goes back up.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
She never had any really bad experience with anybody around,
you know, everybody's always been kind and benevolent water and
she gets in the car with him. Next time she's
seen there's two years later, when her body's tied to
a tree in Harris County, just south of West Point,
Georgia on off Highway one O three in the Pine
(06:31):
Lake community. As quick as she gets gone, they mount
a tremendous effort to try to find her. There was
some really good descriptive evidence of who she left with
and that kind of thing, and in the book will
show you that. To my I'll never understand why they didn't.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Have a suspect in this immediately.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
But but now, when the body was found in eighty nine,
a friend of mine, agent with the GBI, Gary Rothwell,
started an investigation and he worked on this case. He
got to remember now now it's two years old, and
he worked on the case and did a tremendous amount
of work, really good investigation, and got to the point where,
(07:23):
to my satisfaction.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
It was indictable and triable.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
But the Chattahoochee Circuit District Attorney, they had some things
going on down there with some capital death cases, and
I think what their intention was just to put the
thing off, but in doing.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
So, they allowed what really ended up.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Being a serial rapist murder to stand on the street
a little while longer.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
But Gary got promoted and transferred, and.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
The case went to another agent and he presented it
to the Grandeur, to the District Attorney's office again, and
it didn't fly then, and so it went to the
bottom of the stack. So in two thousand and uh,
I guess it was four. We were trying a case
on another cold case homicide that I'm working that I
(08:15):
worked and had a successful prosecution in him writing the
book back.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Yeah, that way right.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
And but I ran into Gary, he was subpoenaed in
the case, and he asked me how we got down
there while we were trying out of the calu to
circuit trying one inherit and I told him, you know,
the circumstance that brought us down here was actually kind
of similar to the foes side case. The case started,
we thought in our jurisdiction, and uh the district Attorney's
(08:47):
peach Scandalacus and Gray Conger got together and decided that
we could better try the case. We had handled the investigation,
so we were able to do that. And he said, well,
if y'all do that in that case, he said, I
got a case to this day I loose sleep about
and it was the case of Yang PHOBICI oh man,
And I was able to go back and find witnesses
(09:11):
from fifteen sixteen years ago and retraced the steps and
with what Gary had already done and the things that
if firmed back up. We were able to put together
a case that indicted rather easily, and in working this
case we found other cases we think he probably perpetrated
(09:33):
as well. He'd actually begin his sexual preditation in nineteen
seventy one.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Oh my gosh. He was a convicted child rapist, confessed
child rapist that got out of jail and within just
a very short time he was murdering vang PHOBICI.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Eighteen days later he kidnaps, rapes and sodomizes another one
that we discovered it.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
In the case, and that lady actually ended up doing.
She lived, she did, she did, and he he he During.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
This her attack, he told her he was gonna have
to kill it, but she for whatever reason got to
crying about her children and so forth, and he, Uh,
you let her go, and uh turned to loosen in
the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Uh. But some of the things in this case are
just absolutely insane.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
As you know, one of the chapters in the case
called in God's time sometimes just what you have to
depend on.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Uh. There was one thing in particular in the case.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Sometimes these cases for me have just been there's no
explaining how things happened or why, other than it was.
You want to call it providence, divine intervention, or just
dumb luck.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
But I had found and Gary had unearthed a victim
from nineteen seventy one that he had attacked. But when
I went to checking, I knew he had been arrested
in Chambers County, according to an.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Ex wife that he had. You know, I think I
might have told you this.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
If you want the truth, the dirt and everything has
gone wrong in the man's life.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
You checked with the ex wives and nature they'll take
you where you go.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Well, this lady informed us that he had been arrested
down there in seventy.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
One for this crime.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
But I went to the courthouse and looked what should
have been in superior Court, couldn't find anything. Thought maybe
she's just got her locations wrong. I checked Randolph Lee County,
Chambers County, Harris, Troup County, Georgia. Nothing, nothing, never made
any sense, and I thought, well, maybe she just didn't
(11:57):
know what she was talking. Well, as a case, we
had progressed and we were in the.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
Process of the investigation, had arrested him at that point.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Can you say who he was? Can you say his name?
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Her name was Charles Travis Lamley, and it was the
strangest thing. My wife, she was a clerk in the
True County's criminal court and worked in the clerk's office,
and I had one of the ladies that worked with
her was doing some research on ex wives and relationships
(12:31):
that Manly had had in the past, because so far
they were being fruitful in the case, but I never
could find out anything about this other case.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
It was the first case where he'd attacked her at.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Nine point and she called me one afternoon. My wife
did and said, Hey, we're gonna go out to restaurant
out here after and eat supper together.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Ladies in the clerk's office. She said, you'll just.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Meet us out there, and I said, yeah, I'd enjoy that.
So I went out there. One of the ladies, uh,
lady named Gina, had away. She brought her sister in
law with her, and Gina lived down in the valley
in Lynette West Point or Valley or Lynette, Alabama. And
we were sitting there and one of the ladies that
(13:15):
had been doing some research for me and was on
the civil on.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
The civil side, she says, Clay, I got that information
you wanted on Charles Travis.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Manley, and she said, I got it printed and if
you just want to stop by the office tomorrow and
pick it up, got it ready for you.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Well, you know, I of course told her thank you
and what not. I'd gotten up. And you know, it's
little Grange, Georgia. You know everybody.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
And I started talking to some folks in the restaurant.
As I was coming back to the table, Uh, the ladies.
Sister in law met me and she said, Clay. She said, well,
she called me mister Bryan and her name was Betty
and she said, because it ain't introduced me to Gene's
(14:02):
sister in law.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
And I said, Charles Manley.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
She said yes, And I said I think he very
likely committed a very serious crime that I'm looking into.
And she looked me straight in the face and said
he assaulted me in nineteen seventy.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
It was a rictu. It does everything. Every time I
tell it story, I get chilled.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
There's no explaining that I never laid my eyes on
this woman, had no idea who she was.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
And I found out what had happened. Why I couldn't
find it.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
He went into Chambers County Jail, and I don't know
why this happened.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
I have my suspicions.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
But he stayed in jail for a couple of months,
and at some point the district attorneys that he had
actually come in and pled guilty, oh gosh, to assault
aggravated assault.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
With intense of rape.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
But within just a few days they let him come
back into court before judge and withdraw that plea and
plead to a to a misdemeanor, charged him one hundred
and thirty dollars and send him back out the door.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
And within six months he's committing you'll read that in
the book. Read another ridiculously serial sex crime. It's crazy.
And as quick as he.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Got out of jail for that one, he's caught committing
another crime. Goes back to jail, gets out, and within
six months he's killing this young lady. Yeah, eighteen days later.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
I'll never understand how once you read the book.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Yeah, you got to read this book.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
The book is.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
It starts out with an investigation that should have ended
this reign of terror, but it didn't.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
And then it picks up with an investigation that.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Is stellar that Gary Roth will conducted, and then, through
you know, the luck of the draw, he gets promoted
and transferred and it falls back down in the bottom.
I'm on the stack again, and it's nearly twenty years later.
Gary hands it to me and we're able to move forward.
We convicted him, he was awarded life in prison without parle,
(16:11):
and he did twelve or fourteen years before he's succumbed
to cancer.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
But stories, it's a fascinating story.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
It is a fascinating story. You know. When I write,
I don't flower things up a lot.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
You know, I make it closer to the point and
give me the facts.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Ma'am right.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
That's what I like about that. You do right that way,
and I like it it quick and to the point
and out of there.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Yeah, and a good thing about it.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
You know, most folks at write true crime, they write
it off of reports and what other folks you tell
them when I write, I get so emotionally involved in
the case. You know, folks, everybody says, you know, you
don't want to get emotionally involved in the case.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
You if you don't.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
When you're looking at a twenty year old case, it's
played there like a brick. If you don't get emotionally
involved and pick up some of that baggage, that the
people that are left behind.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Are carrying you will ever, you will never see them through.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
And but in this case, I will never forget the
relief that that family felt in that courtroom that day
when that jury came back and with a vertical guilty.
And that was a long time incoming, a long time,
and and and and talking to them, they also thought
that maybe the initial investigation and this was not the case,
(17:29):
was hampered by the fact that you know, they were
foreigners and this and that that wasn't the case at all.
She was very loved by the community up there. And
again there were there were things that came along, and
it's in the book, and I don't want to disparage
anybody else's investigation.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
But what happened to the PHOTOSI family.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Well, I told you about the children. They continued to
live in Union. And that's the girl that went to
Atlanta and worked for a multinational graphic design company. She
graduated from University Georgia with a degree in graphic design.
(18:08):
And she worked for them, and they did work for
like Coca Cola and full Motor Company, and she him
and she started her own business and she does consulting work.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Now she's semi retired brother went and she was.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
He was a professor of art at Indiana State University
and the other sister was a CPA.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Did the family the parents still living?
Speaker 3 (18:32):
They are as of about a year ago.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
They were and it was, like I said, it's just
an epic journey that ended in tragedy with her.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
And of course it's just to.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Think that somebody fled half way around the world to
escape certain death and oppression comes here and this happens
to your child.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
You get these cases, there's some they're amazing cases. Why
do you say they're all in this area, in this
general area? Why do you think it falls on you?
I think that you're meant to do it. I don't know.
I'm not saying a lot of history. Let me saying
it will fall on you.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Well that every place has got them. Yeah, And I
just I enjoy I don't know if it enjoys animal.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
I thrive on the fact that when somebody thinks they've
gotten away with something this atrocious and to be able
to put your hand on the shoulder and say, son,
come with me. There's no words to describe it. Yeah,
I get so emotional about you know what happened to
these folks and what their families have gone through, and
(19:41):
you know, hell, it's torture and to be able, you know,
And I think I may have told you before. Folks
talk about closure. They ain't no such thing as closure.
Their birthdays and there's Christmas, and there's holidays and special occasions,
and every.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Time one of those crossed your mind, they're there.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
And at least you get the finality of knowing getting
in the answer and that somebody was held accountable.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
And to me, that's and this guy was up walking
around for years afterwards.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
If you look at the violent offender report from other places,
there are actually some other.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
Crimes that he was over the road truck driver.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
There are some other places where some crimes were committed
that were very similar to hers, very similar in places
where he was at the time. Of course, didn't have
any evidence other than speculation. But if you look at
a Oriental girl kidnapped out of a laundromat three blocks
from where he's getting fueled.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
That day, you can bet he had something to do it.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Yeah, yeah, it'd be my money.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
But if you look at his history, it is from
nineteen seventy one till he goes to prison in two
thousand and five, I think it was.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
It's just he's either in jail committing around.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
The cancer got him.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Well, it, along with some of these others, absolutely then
the highlight of my professional career. And I'm proud of
the work that I was able to do and the
work that other people did as well. You know, here
off the work he did make the case. I had
to go back and redo it simply because the time
and you know time sometimes in these old cases, it
(21:24):
can be your friend or your foe.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
And a lot of times, like in the book that
I'm writing now.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
People's morals change as they mature and they get a
little more of appreciation for their own mortality, I think,
and they start saying, this.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Is the truth.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Yeah, yeah, And that's the case and the one that
i'm right now, and that will have you back for
that one too.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
But we got that one, and we got another one
in the end.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
If we don't pick up another one, we'll probably have
at least five.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
It's a fascinating book, and it's by Clay Bryant, who
I'm talking with the day. It is solving the murder
of Vang Fergusai it's it's it's remarkable. It's a bookselling Well,
you doing any book signings anything?
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Well, we have done several book signings and public speakings
and whatnot with it, and been on podcasts from the
West Coast to the East Coast. Crime Capsule out of
New Orleans, a guy named Benjamin Morrison murdershef book club
in Connecticut with a lady by the.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Name Jill McCracken.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Z On seven and out of Atlanta, lady named Cheryl McCallum.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
She heads up a thing called the Cold.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Case Investigative Research Institute, and she and I have become friends,
and she has helped me on a couple of cases,
even publicizing on a podcast some unknowns that uh in
cases that I'm currently working on.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
And we've just been very, very lucky.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Do people come to you, call you up, or write
you an email with a cold case now that they say,
he will you take a look at this one or
something like that?
Speaker 2 (22:58):
To be honest, I want to say all the time,
but fairly often, really fairly often. I've had folks. Had
a lady call me one time that her daughter disappeared
the last time she was seen, and it kind of
ironic went with the old song. She was standing on
the corner in Winslow, Arizona.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
Yeah, and the lady speculated that the person she was
in a relationship with probably killed her and trive it
into the desert out there, And which sounds kind of
logical to me.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
But I have folks call me all of all the time,
and you know, a lot of a lot of police agencies.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
They don't want anybody coming in and meddling in their business.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
And I won't do that unless somebody ask me from
a from you know, from a professional standpoint that you know,
I'd be glad to give my opinion about anything and
look at something.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
But you know I ain't gonna go and be an
ambulance chaser, right. You know.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Well, the book is called Sawing the Murder of Vain
FOGUSI Evil Dwells in West Georgia's by Clay Brant. Get
that book, Get this book. It is it is something,
it's it's I look at that picture on the front
of that book and that book, and I see her
I just everywhere.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
She was a very kind and aesthetic person. She had.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
It was such a tragedy that you know that this
young lady's life came to that type of end.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
I can't even imagine what she suffered to the point
that she was killed.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Anywhere we could go anything.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yeah, yeah, Amazon dot Com, Barnes and Noble got them,
uh CVS, Charism, uh.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
In Lagrange, the bookstore here, our local bookstore. Pretty good books,
pretty good books, pretty good, pretty good books.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
And they carried and with a couple of hardware store
courts hardware carism here in town too. But we are
have been pretty lucky in the book all, all of
the three that have been published and sold pretty well,
and we've had had them have They've all been featured
on I think forty eight hours Investigates, Bill Curtis's Cold
(25:01):
Case Files and two or three episodes of Discovery i D.
But if you if you google Cold Case Clavela, it'll
tell you about the books and where they can be
found and.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Some of those television shows.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
That's Clave Bryant, author of Solving the Murder of Ving
fogus I, said a special thank you to our affiliate
w t r P and the Greens and Walter Douglas
for hosting us today. For questions of comments on today's program,
you can email me John Clark at Georgeanewsnetwork dot com.
Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you next week right
here in your local radio station on Georgia Focus
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Intentionally Disturbing
Join me on this podcast as I navigate the murky waters of human behavior, current events, and personal anecdotes through in-depth interviews with incredible people—all served with a generous helping of sarcasm and satire. After years as a forensic and clinical psychologist, I offer a unique interview style and a low tolerance for bullshit, quickly steering conversations toward depth and darkness. I honor the seriousness while also appreciating wit. I’m your guide through the twisted labyrinth of the human psyche, armed with dark humor and biting wit.