August 14, 2025 • 45 mins
The upscale neighborhood of Amhurst, a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, was shocked when one of their own is killed while on the phone with 911. Police must quickly piece together a string of robberies that escalated to murder.
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Music courtesy of Blanche
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
When segregation was a law. One mysterious black club owner,
Charlie Fitzgerald had his own rules segregation in the day integration.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
That night, it was like Steven in another world.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Was he a businessman, a criminal, a hero? Charlie was
an example of power.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
They had to crush it.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Charlie's Place from Atlas Obscura and visit Myrtle Beach. Listen
to Charlie's Place wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Hey everyone, welcome to bless this Mess in the Drug podcast.
Don't care who is to say has to Hi? All right,
we're back this week and we are going to Georgia.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Let's do I love it?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Have you been a lot of time in Georgia?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
I have not either.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
We haven't either. We passed through and spent the night
I think outside of Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Well, we did Atlanta on our way to Charleston, but we.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Didn't do Atlanta. We didn't do anything into Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
That's because we left the house per yuge late. We
didn't even have children.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Well, we didn't have any children's excuse. We're probably hungover
or something.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Probably something like that. Drove to Atlanta, didn't get in.
We had to call the hotel to make sure they
didn't give our room away just in case.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
It was on the outside of Atlanta. We didn't even
stay in Atlanta. We just picked a cheap post.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yeah. We didn't even get until one o'clock.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
We were just trying to drive to Charleston. We were
trying to drive to Charleston. Why we didn't fly, I
don't know. I guess we needed a car. Well, we
were going to do oh, we were traveling our way back.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
We're going to do Savannah, and then we stopped in Pensacola.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah, we had to do the Big Hole there so
we could work our way drive our way home. Yes,
because there once you that's when we lived in Louisiana.
So once you get so we did the Big Hole
to Charleston. But like once you go down to Savannah
and then Savannah's out that far from Pensacola, and then
Pensacola is like a five hour.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Drive at that back to the house.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah, so it wasn't that long once you could make
your way back down. It was just the initial But
I'd like to go to Atlanta or like Georgia. Oh,
I guess we have spent some time because savannahs in Georgia.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Yes, okay, yeah, and that's where whenever my son graduated
a boat camp and I went out.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
There, I was in I was up there. I was
in Canada for work. Yes, so I didn't get to go.
But you guys stayed at that and you got to
stay at that old timey car.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
We always stayed at the Thunderbird in the drive in motel.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah, I wouldn't say there, because we stayed down We
stayed in down there by that Mercer House or whatever.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Yeah, we stayed at the Eliza Thompson House.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yeah, that old house that that was.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
A nice place.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
It was.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
I would very much recommend if you're in Savannah stay
at the Eliza Thompson.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Yes, you're right there by the Mercer House, which, if
you don't know, is the famous house from Midnight in
the Garden of Good and Evil. And it was owned
by someone he got shot by like supposedly like his lover,
his lover house boy or whatever. I don't know what
was going, but anyways, there's a movie with John Cusack
called The There's a Book, and then there's a movie
(03:14):
Midnight in the Garden of Ganil. So we went and
ate at the little diners, Yeah, the little diner that
was there. Because the book is on based off a
true story, so obviously the movie is too. So it's
all real locations. So we went and so we could
come out of our airbeing that not Airbnb. It was
an actual like B and B kind of like boot hotel,
the Eliza Thompson House, and we could walk out and
(03:36):
go see the square and go see that house at
night and everything like that. I remember we went out
there and had a drink or something.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
I think the last time I was there, we went
on a tour of it even too.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Oh you did, Yeah, yeah, so we and then we
you can walk down to the like river area or
whatever down there, which was really cool. We decided we
did like Savannah over Charleston because Charleston is very pretty
and everything like that, but it's more bougie bougie, and
Savannah's much more laid back, I felt like, is what we.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Yes, well, we stayed now whatever they call it, in
the Historic District area in Charleston.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
No, in Savannah, well yeah, but in Charleston. We didn't
live far from We didn't stay so far from there
because remember your mom came with.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Us yet met up with us.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yes, met up with us. She found out we were going,
and then she was.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Like, she was already in South Carolina.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
She was already in South Carolina. She found out what
we were doing, and she was not going to miss out,
so she came with us. She switched our our airbnb.
She got that one is like this old historic house
down there.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
And promptly got bronchitis or something.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yes, but anyways, but we did not live. We stayed
close enough where we could walk down to like Charleston.
I'd like to go back to Charleston though, Yeah, and
check it out or whatever, so and we can take
the children. It's like easy. We got this minivan, we
can just go.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
We just love it. Yes, yeah, we gotta get a
We've got to get a roof rack for our.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Next No, Stu thinks we need a big ass thing
on top of the Why do we need one, though.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Because we got to put stuff in there.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
What do we need? They need less stuff now they're
slowly getting less stuff.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
We've got strollers, we got to bring suitcases, we got
to bring still gotta bring diapers. You try and pack
all that in the back of the bank.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
You don't know. But you can get diapers where you're going,
if you're driving whatever. Anyways, can we talk about this case? Okay,
let's go.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
That's I'm just relaying to you what everybody's thinking.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
So okay, okay, well we'll talk about this case, all right.
So so thank you. We we had got some new patreons.
Tommy bought us a couple of coffees. I really appreciate it.
You guys are really coming through.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Just how you dropped one today, Oh I.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Did I dropped. I've been making homemade coffees with my
little recipe I share with you guys a couple of
weeks ago. I make them iced, and the ones I
make it at work even better because at home I
have just an espresso machine, so you know, it's like
the pods that you do. But at work they have
a Nest cafe machine or whatever. And I thought they
used like the pods too or whatever, but no, this
thing uses real espresso beans.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Shut up.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Yes, However, the rest of the coffees are gross because
they use powdered milk and things like that. But the espresso.
So I bring my own milk and cream and the
oat milk from home. I get two shots of espresso
from there because they're fresh ground beans and everything like that.
What happened was I worked for a company and we
bought another company and they have nice coffee machines because
(06:41):
my company would never have Yeah, they would never got
a sice, so we got those when we moved to
this new building. So anyway, so it's so good, but yeah,
I broke. I was putting something down Scooby snacks down
today and I knocked my coffee over when we were
headed out the door. And because I took off work
today and we were heading to take our daughter to camp,
(07:02):
and then we're going to Costco. Instead of buying me
a coffee, it's going to buy me, buy me a
Costco credit because we we got this was our first
time going in really strolling around at the new Costco
that we can see from our backyard. And that was
a mistake because we spent way too much money. So
now we have to eat. We can't buy any more
groceries for the rest of them. It's done anyway, so
(07:23):
thank you so much, really appreciate it, and then check
out write review, subscribe, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok do to always.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
I love the TikTok, always the TikTok, so maybe one
day I'll see it.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
All right, let's go ahead and get into well, you
do see it. Most of the things I share on
TikTok I share to the Facebook and the Instagram page two.
All right, so let's go ahead and get in. This
case out of.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Georgia, Stu.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
And it's a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, Hot Atlanta, Hotlanta.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Yes, drop it and across it.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
So is that what they say?
Speaker 3 (08:01):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
I saw that Drunk History dropping across ye, dropping, drop
and cross. Those are the best ones, the ones out
of Atlanta with the one with the Coca cola. And
there's another one that does another one there if you
ever watched drunk.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
History, watch Asia.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
What's her name Jenny, Oh yeah, Jenny something, and she
does the one. Just google Jenny drunk History and Coca
Cola and it is the best episode. And then there's
another one that's really good out of there. But I
can't remember it was, but definitely check out that that was.
That was my one of my favorites. Like I just
died laugh or whatever. See, I don't even know if
(08:39):
they're funny anymore. You know, they were real funny the
first Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
They were. The one about Claudette Colvin was pretty funny.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Oh that's the one, That's what I'm thinking. Yes, that
one was good too. All right, So we I watched
an episode of the Real Murders of Atlanta on this
for this episode, so we are introduced to Pamela Williams.
Now Pamela Williams was a very ambitious woman. She began
(09:09):
after graduation. She began working at Target as an assistant manager,
and she quickly worked her way up to being a
store manager, which you know, they make, they make some
good chance, which she had to to live in the
neighborhood she was going to live.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Yeah, because I mean you're looking at I don't know,
well at that time, I mean twenty thirteen, you're probably
looking at one hundred and twenty hundred.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
And fifty, yeah, which was a lot of money back then.
I mean today they say.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
A regular Target, a super Target. You might be closing
in on one to eighty or so.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Yeah. So anyways, and that's a lot of money back then.
Like today, I feel like you have to make like
so much money.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Just to be just to keep expensive, just.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
To get by I mean the money that you making,
like sixty thousand dollars a year for a family is
not can't I don't know, you can't cut it anymore.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
I mean, it's just not eating McDonald's. You're gonna have
to do it.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Oh yeah, McDonald's is even like ridiculous, all that happy
meals like seven dollars.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Yeah, I remember whenever you could get like a a
a regular meal for an adult for two fifty three dollars.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Oh well, we're not going back that far.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
I remember.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
I remember they used to have nineteen cent hamburgers and
every Wednesday they had nineteen cent in luffkin nineteen cent
hamburgers and twenty nine cent cheeseburgers, and then you could
buy a bucket of fries. And so after church, my
parents would drive us through and they just like my
brothers always had friends or I had friends, and they
would just buy a bunch of That was like the
(10:34):
night we got fast food or whatever it was. Because
it was nineteen cent. You would never see that happen today.
Never cheese alone to add to amber, Yes, because the
regular hamburger happy meal is not does It's not a
cheeseburger happy meal. The hamburger hap milk. No, they charged
like I think it's like a dollar twenty nine or
something to add cheese to a kid's hamburger.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
That good shitty.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Cheese that they anyways, Okay, I digress, all right, So
she's making she's making good money. She's worked her way
up as a store manager. Pamela was described as loving
and caring and always putting others ahead of herself. She
even donated a kidney to her sister whenever she fell
ill in twenty eleven. So they just yah, So she
was just and so she'd worked her way up. She
(11:19):
was living in this neighborhood called Amherst outside of Atlanta,
which supposedly very expensive neighborhood. They said celebrities would live there.
I'm sorry, guys, I did not go on the zillo.
I didn't have time to look at what's going on now.
But I can't imagine it's any cheaper, because I'd think
pretty sure Atlanta at this point, like any big city,
(11:40):
housing prices are insane. You know these days, you can't
you can't move half these places in any big city
and even live in like a crappy house for less
than Yeah. When that used to be, you know, a
very nice home. Nowadays in like a lot of these
big cities, it's hard to get inside the city limits,
(12:01):
like to get a nice house for cheap. But anyway,
so she lived in this nice area. So if you're
from Atlanta and you know what Amherst is, let us know.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
On November thirtieth, twenty thirteen, at around eight pm, a
call comes into nine to one one, and this is
from a woman who says someone is trying to break
into her home. The nine to one one operator is
talking her through the situation, and she says that she
can hear them entering the home and that she has
gone up to hide in the closet. As she's waiting
(12:32):
on the phone speaking nine to one one, she starts saying, help, help, help, Yeah,
it was real.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
They played the nine one one call and it was
very just sad and disturbing because she's she's just she's
kind of like in a low hush. She's like, my
dog is crying down there, Mike, because she had like
a poodle and he was whimpering at the back door
and stuff. So she's worried about her dog. She can
hear these people coming in and now she's up in
the closet waiting and just need someone because she can
hear them getting closer to her.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
And then she starts saying help, and a gunshot is
heard by the None one one operator and the phone
goes silent. Just four minutes later, the police do arrive
on the scene. They are able to gain entrance into
the backyard through a gate and there they see signs
of forced entry through the back door. Police enter through
(13:20):
that door and are prepared to come across a suspect.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Still, Yeah, because there's I mean, they heard a gunshot,
like a gunshot, and it's only been four minutes, so
the likelihood of them possibly being in the house still
is high.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Yeah, they think they're going to run into somebody. They
make their way through the home, they clear it and
they don't see anybody. They make their way up the
stairs into the master bedroom where they find Pamela in
the closet. She's unconscious, she's still breathing, however, the gunshot
wound is to her forehead, so she's in critical. She's
basically critical. Medical personnel rush Pamela to the nearest hospital,
(13:59):
which was Great Memorial, and they try to save her life.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
You know that hospital sounded familiar. I feel like it's
like the big hospital in Atlanta. I've heard Grady Memorial.
You know, there's a lot of celebrities that live in Atlanta,
so maybe that's why I've heard it.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
I don't know. I don't know what much about Atlanta. Okay,
Coca Cola's there, the Braves are there.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
The Atlanta child murders were there, the Falcons, oh the
oh you know what else happened there? Is that remember
that guy that that poor security guy that got with
that Richard, Yeah at the at the Olympic Games or whatever,
and then it come to find out it wasn't him anyways. Okay, So,
as doctors are working to say Pamela's life at the hospital,
(14:40):
crime scene detectives began processing this scene. They noticed that
the person or persons that committed the crime took the
time to clean up the bullet casing after they shot Pamela.
They also noticed that around the room there were valuables
lying in plain sight, but none of them were taken.
So they're trying to figure out what could be the motive.
Was it just like a burglary gone wrong? Was it
(15:01):
a targeted attempted murder because they did come into the home,
and it's almost like they went straight to Pamela. So
if they were trying to rob the home, I mean
she'd already if they knew she'd already called Nomber one,
they would have just fled because if they had no
intention of killing her, but it almost seemed like they
knew she was on the phone, they just did it anyways.
(15:21):
So with little evidence to go on inside the home,
they begin asking, you know, Pamela's immediate neighbors, the ones
right next door, if they saw anything, but they said
that they hadn't seen anything. They knew Pamela lived alone,
but they and so there was no activity going on.
There was nobody else coming or going.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Yeah, I don't know what's going on outside our house.
We'd do it.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
We spend a lot of time in our house. No,
but we spend a lot of time watching the neighbors,
specifically those neighbors. We are are you kidding me, Stewart?
How many times we come on this podcast been like, hey,
I think the nag we do think the neighbors are moving.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Well, it's just because we show up. But I mean,
if something's going on outside, like if you.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Heard a gunshot were to live close, but if she
she lived in a fancy neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Not ten feet apart, they're like ours.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
We we would like we can literally hear the other
people eating dinner like.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
It's it's on top we have. I don't hear a
lot of things.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
I know I'm exaggerating, stew Okay, I'm exaggerating, but we
live on top. We would hear a gun shot.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
If it was in a house actually there we have.
There was outside I might, but well.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Are they supposedly heard gunshots in this neighborhood. I don't know,
you know, if anything came from them, but it was
other parts of the neighborhood. We live in the wild
West over here, guys.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Okay, it's I mean, if somebody was out on the
street shooting, I would hear that. But if somebody was
shooting somebody in their closet and their master bedroom closet
next door, well no, definitely.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Not out, but definitely not in her neighborhood. She's upstairs
in a closet in these big houses that are further apart,
they're probably not going to hear it. So nobody came out.
But the point is is that neither one of her
neighbors came out and saw anything. They didn't have anything
to go on. So this was also twenty thirteen, So
this is four cameras, everybody having a ring doorbell, you know,
looking at.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Whoever's I think it was Amazon came here.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Okay, oh that was the other We just recorded to
shoot the poos. So that happened on shoot the poostoo
was looking at his phone. I'm like, what are you
looking at? And he looked concerned and it was Amazon. Oh,
because they're bringing the sheets.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Somebody was at our front door and I was like,
there's nobody at my front door, what's going on.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
We finally ordered new sheets because our poor child has
been using you know, you know when you have your
first child, you go crazy and you buy everything. We
bought fancy like sheets and everything. Those things are so stained.
They are clean, but they are stained because it's like children,
you know, they get nasty stuff on everything. But the
other night he's.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Like poo, pooh, and.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
It was it's not poop, it's just stained. So I
was like, I'll get you some new I don't know, yeah,
I'll get you some news sheets, buddy. So he got
new dinosaur sheets. He's pretty excited about. But then, of
course we had to buy the four year old new
sheets too, because then it was like a whole ordeal
that she didn't get new sheets, but he also got
Mickey Mouse sheets.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Okay. Police ask friends and family if anyone in Pamela's
life might want to harm her, but they can't think
of anyone that she said.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
She's like a nice person. You know.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
She had just begun dating a man. So they went
and checked on him because the fella is always going
to be the first suspect.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Of course, but and usually the correct suspect.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Yeah, because they're checking him because they think it's somebody
that knew her, because it seemed like a personal killing,
like they came in directly killed her and then left
and didn't take anything. However, Pamela and this fella had
not been dating very long and he had a pretty
solid alibi, so they were able to rule him out
as a suspect almost immediately. They looked into her workplace
(18:48):
to see if anybody there had any grievances against her
since she was a manager, but there didn't seem to
be any animosity from any of the employees. Towards Pamela,
at least not enough for them to go and kill
her anyone.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Yeah, nothing, some.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
You didn't you know what?
Speaker 2 (19:05):
You know what though, whenever I worked, so I was
like I worked at a restaurant before my current when
I was in college the second time, and there was
a kid there. I was terrified of him and he
was a terrible worker, but all of us agreed nobody
was going to fire him. I just put him in
the corner on everyone who was shift and let him
roll silver work because I was afraid of him because
(19:25):
he was a little unstable stup.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
You didn't want to be the one no.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
And I'm usually I was the bitchy one that would
run people off if they wouldn't work because I ain't
got no time, I'm not going to do your work
and everything like that. Like I was old and in
college and hungover half the time. I was just trying
to get through life. I'm like, I have time. So
there was a lot of young people that came in.
I would we had some real I had some real
concerns about the youth of America while I was working there,
because one girl someone called in and said they wanted
(19:51):
a a pizza, a pepperoni pizza, only pepperoni or whatever.
So what do you think would come on the pepperoni pizza?
Speaker 3 (20:00):
No cheese?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
What Stuart is kidding? He already knows the story. The
girl took everything off. They said they wanted pepperoni pizza,
and so she took off everything from the pizza and
send it back. So every time there was someone would
call in an order something, she would only put the ingredients.
She would remove the cheese and the sauce and the
sauce because the system automatically, when you were you were
(20:23):
doing the pizza, it would have cheese and sauce, and
you could change marion Ardelfredo if that's what they wanted,
or if they wanted not moztril cheese, you could switch
to cheddar or take it off or I guess if
they specifically asked for that. But every time they'd call
in an order, she would just take all the cheese
and the sauce off and just put the vegetables or
the pepper meat. It's like. And then her parents came in.
(20:44):
I was she got so she ended up quitting midshift,
and this is what's wrong with America. The parents came
in and returned her shirt and picked up her paycheck.
Instead of making her come back, I would have made
my child go back in there and be like, you
want that money, you must go back in there and
return your shirt, get your paycheck. You know, why are
you looking at me like that? Okay, you wouldn't have
(21:05):
made our children that quit midshift because there a dumb ass.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Yes I am that parent. I'm like, well, you shouldn't
have done that. And I guess it hurts, don't it. Yeah,
So he's like the little man slammed his finger in
the drawer the other day whenever he was slamming it,
shut o tooty, Yeah, and he got his pinky cot
in there, and it was it all. Well, that's what
you get.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Stuart, poor little guy. Anyways, Yeah, you're at easy. My
point was My point was there was a time that
there was one one person that I was like, we're
just gonna not We're just gonna let him go on
his own time when he decides he doesn't want to work,
work because I'm scared of him. He seemed like the
kind that would come back in and like shoot up
the store.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Yeah, customers, employees, everybody.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Yeah, just take them all out, so we let him
hang around as long as he wanted.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Well. Police received the fingerprints that they pulled from the
crime sayne, but they either belonged to Pamela or they
were inconclusive, so there was no forensic evidence to go
off at the crime scene. Unfore Trinately, this case did
turn from an attempted murder case to a murder case
when Pamela was removed from life support at the hospital.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Yeah, she was on life support for about six days
before they there just wasn't anything else they could do
about it. So as police are able to canvass out
further into the neighborhood, they start to talk to more
of you know, the broader subdivision. They did find multiple
witnesses that said that they saw multiple shadowy figures running
(22:29):
through the neighborhood that evening, So they didn't necessarily see them,
but they just saw saw images of people, yeah, running
through through different parts of neighborhood. Police now believed that
multiple people were involved with Pamela's murder. Now as they're
following the clues of the witnesses in the neighborhood, they
determined that the perpetrators ran through a wooded area onto
(22:50):
a trail that was within the neighborhood. But this trail
actually didn't lead out of the neighborhood. It actually led
deeper into the neighborhood. And so this to police made
them think that.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Possibly somebody in the neighborhood or did this.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Yes, because police also arrived just four minutes after that
nine on one call, and they never saw anybody driving away,
like I think there was probably only if it was
a nice neighborhood. That means that there was probably only yeah,
one or two entrances, maybe just one entrance, and they
would have seen someone flee in the neighborhood. But the
fact that they were running on this trail and they
were trying to get deeper into the subdivision meant that
(23:27):
they didn't care about getting out of the subdivision. So
they're thinking that it's someone who lived there, or one
of them lived there, and they're very familiar with the neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Now that the police believe the perpetrators are actually living
inside the community, they start looking in any property crimes
within the area. They discover that from twenty eleven to
twenty thirteen, there are roughly seventy five petty burglaries within
the Amherst community.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Now, I'm wondering how big this community is because if
there were seventy five burglaries in our size neighborhood, I
mean who knows.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
I mean you have to see the moms or whatever pace.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Maybe that maybe that would be maybe that would be
something that HOA could actually be useful for as letting
everybody know there's like huge crime. I mean, we hear
about things. I guess they're probably there probably are seventy
five burglaries over two years in this neighborhood now that
I think about it. We get a lot of these
like teenagers coming in and trying to get in people's cars.
They say, you know, they'll be like, hey, someone's trying
to get in cars last night and you locked your cars.
(24:26):
They were on the street. So yeah, I would say
there's probably seventy five between in this neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
In last this is the Amherst community.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
I know it's a nice neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
Yes, you're saying we're not in a nice well, I
mean it's okay, we're in a rental community.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
I think sometimes yes, we've we've we've it's turned into
a more of a rental community. So it's less like
family homeowners.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
It's more transient.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
People living in the home, so they don't just don't
care about the neighborhood as much. I mean, we're we're
basically but let's be honest, we're we're the homeowners, but
we're basically glorified rendards because we're just killing time.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Don't well, we can get That's what we hope.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
As we hope. That's what I keep telling about.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Word like, hey, and whenever you're ready to move, We're ready.
Look how good I did last year.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Doesn't somebody else want me?
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Don't you have somebody else you need to move to
this area to learn, train or.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Something built some character.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Back to our story, none of these burglaries had escalated
into any level of violence that Pamela's burglary ended in.
They continue to look at any types of crimes that
occurred near this neighborhood in the past two years, and
they were able to find one that occurred on January thirteenth,
twenty thirteen, which was five miles from where Pamela Williams lived.
(25:53):
A woman named Melissa Burke, who was a retired Army veteran,
was home alone in bed when she heard the doorbell ring.
She ignores the doorbell, thinking that they will go away,
kind of like we do here at the house when
we know those salespeople are out, thinking that they're gonna
call their panels Solar panels. But they keep ringing the doorbell,
so she goes down to look out the window to
see who it is.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yes, Melissa is married, but her husband was out of
town that evening.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
As she's looking out the window, she sees a young
male walking away and doesn't think much of it. Shortly
after this, she hears a noise from her bedroom and
discovered that they are breaking into her bedroom window. She
hides in the closet. She calls nine one one, hoping
that they're not going to find her. She says she
stared at him, made eye contact with the guy because
(26:40):
the guy opened the closet. Yeah, found her. She makes
eye contact with him and couldn't believe that he was
so young.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Yeah, that's she kept saying. She just kept thinking, or
she said that afterwards, She's like, I just couldn't believe
how young he was holding a gun, you know, pointing
it at me.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Yeah. He fires the first shot at her, and she
thinks he's going to stop, but he continues until he
basically unloads the gun on her. As she's lying there,
she sees two other young men walk into the room
and one of them says, let's get out of here,
and they take off.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
I think in total it was twelve times that he
shot her. Yeah, wow, yeah, don't quote me on the
twelve times that. I'm pretty sure she said he shot
twelve times. He just basically unloaded the gun until.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
It I mean, did she know or did she lose count?
And they told her after the fact.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Well they told maybe they said twelve. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
It was a lot.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Yes, he kept clicking until there was nothing less.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Basically, she's lucky to be alive. Yes, it's a miracle.
As police arrive on the scene, they see the getaway
vehicle driving away, so they pursue them in a chase.
They ended up crashing the vehicle and taking off on foot.
They were unable to catch the perpetrators, and the vehicle
that they were driving was actually stolen, so they get
no information from the vehicle. They did recover her cell
(27:58):
phone near the vehicle. This phone belonged to a young
man by the name of James Calhoun, James was a
known criminal. He had a history of burglaries. They asked
him about the Melissa case.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Yeah, they brought him in to talk to him. But again,
his phone was just found near the stolen car, so
there's not in it. There's plausible deniability.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Oh I lost it. I was out for a walk,
cause that's someone stole it somebody's store.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
But they stole this car, I guess.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Yes, exactly. So he did not any involvement and without
any additional evidence, they couldn't hold him. Fortunately for Melissa,
after several months in the hospital, she was able to
survive her injuries.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Yeah, like four to five months. She couldn't. She couldn't
do anything, and she had like PTSD from it. So
she said, you know, they she would have liked to
give them information, but she said, I couldn't even hear
a doorbell ring without going into like, you know, panic
or whatever, because that's what she you know, last remembers
people ringing doorbells and things like that. So she just
(28:59):
wasn't any to be able to help the investigation along
for at least four or five months before she could
even talk to police.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Yeah, and because of that, she was not able to
help police identify if it was in fact James Calhoun
right afterwards, when it would have been the freshest in
her mind because she was in such a bad state
because of her injuries, so she wouldn't have been able
to at the time. She wasn't going to be able
to look at photo lineups or anything and definitively say no,
(29:31):
what if she saw anybody that she recognized.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Police start blasting the crime all over the news, hoping
to get some leads from the public because the public
is concerned at this point because there's just random people
running in, breaking into people's homes and shooting them. So
they received a call on December fourth, twenty thirteen, from
the parents of Jonathan Banks.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Now.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Jonathan's father told police that Jonathan had just recently come
to him asking for a large sum of money to
get away Quickly, his parents inquired as to why he
needed to get away, and he just wouldn't tell his parents.
After they told him that they wouldn't give him any
of this money to help disappear, they did not see
him for several days and couldn't get a hold of him.
(30:12):
So and then that's when they started seeing all these
reports of Pamela's murder. Well, Jonathan's parents said that he
had been involved in burglaries before and they were concerned
he was involved with this one as well.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Yes, Jonathan, mister Banks lived in the Amherst community, so
his parents were well to do as well.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Yes, that's what I was about to say, stude. Jonathan
had previously lived in the Amherst subdivision and he had
recently been released from jail.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Now.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Police tried to locate Jonathan to question him about question
him about Pamela's murder, but were unable to find him.
So his parents are just trying to come forward and say, hey,
they were doing the right thing. Hey, our son is
sketchy as fuck. Oka he lived in this neighborhood, he's
been in jail. We are concerned, and frankly, you guys
(31:01):
just look at him. Yeah, he's so good for the
parents for being like, you know, because some parents would
not turn their child in, but he's like the mom
said that she she heard Pamela's story and she said,
I just can't even imagine what she went through and
if my child had something to do with it, then
he needs to be He needs to.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Be ammed up and locked up. And less than a
week later, they receive another major tip from a person
who says they spoke to three people Jonathan Banks, James Simms,
and James Calhoun.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Which we've heard James Calhoun before and Johnthan Banks. So
James Simms is our new new.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Person, and these three admitted details to the murder drink.
The informant tells police that James Calhoun and James Simms
were leaving out of the back gate of Pamela's home
when Jonathan Banks shows up and he's like, oh, hey,
maybe I'll go in there and see what I can steal.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Yes, and this is the witness or informant or whatever
they called him, relaying the story that was told to
them by the three.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Yes, that's when Jonathan Banks says, he is startled by Pamela,
so he.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Just shoots, and he said he called it a panic shot.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Yeah, he just oh my god, points the gun in
a direction, pulls the trigger and runs away. Police know
that this is not what happened because of Pamela's womb,
she had a what do they call it a contact press.
The weapon was actually pressed to the front of Pamela's fo.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Yes, it was pushed into her forehead and that's what.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
When the trigger was pulled. Yes, so they know that
this story is crap.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
So with all of this information and a corroborating witness,
they were able to obtain a warrant to apprehend all three.
They are all charged with burglary and murder and all
three pleaded not guilty. They were not able to currently
tie the three suspects to Melissa Burks attempted murder because
they do believe that this is probably the same group,
(33:03):
because it's almost identical.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
Yeah, because the police really think that Calhoun, the James
Calhoun guy, was involved and both for sure, but they
weren't sure about the other two.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
No, they think they were all involved to they.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
Thought they were all in Well, they knew the one.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Well, yes, obviously that James Calhoun had a tie to
Melissa Burks because his phone was found out there. Yes,
but they've been running these they've been running around doing
this bullshit.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
For however long, well like two years.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
So while they are looking for a hard evidence to
tie these three suspects to Pamela's murder, they're actually able
to tie them to about one hundred burglaries in the
area due to them going to basically the same pawn
shop and pawning items that they had stolen. So my
question is this is again like a thing why. I've
read some other things about this, and I don't understand
(33:50):
why these guys weren't in jail.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
No, because at a pawnshop you gotta like take a
picture and leave a finger print or leave your ID
whenever your pond stuff. Whenever. We used to take the
cans that we took that we collected at our house
and took them down, I had to show the guy
the idea at the real cycling center just to turn
in recycling stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Yeah, so I don't understand why it took so long
to get these guys, why they weren't in jail longer,
why they were loose at all, Because they.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Were just, yeah, seventy five burglaries. You would think that
the police would check the pawn shops for the items.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
That are But I think they did tie them to
I think they did get them for some of these.
Obviously they had criminal records for burglaries.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
But it doesn't sound like it took Oh yeah they did.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
They did, but it didn't I don't think they tied
them to this amount of burglaries where it was on
this scale is what it seemed like. So this helps
the point of this though, is it helps the DA
paint a picture that these are not just like mischievous
kids because it again like we didn't mention in ages,
but they're like nineteen twenty twenty three like that age group.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
They're y yeah, and the physical evidence they have of
them at the house is well, we're.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Going to talk about that. We're going to talk about
that too. You're always jumping ahead, Stu.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Okay, well, you know, I just know things so cause
you I know how to irritate you.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Yeah, you do know how to irritate me. So the
point of the hundred burglaries that they're able to tie
to them is to show that these are not just
like kids run around doing silly things or whatever. These
are hardened criminals that are on a path to what
now is murder. So the prosecution will have an uphill
battle because there is little to no forensic evidence, like
(35:26):
Stu said, tying these three to the burglary and murder.
In October twenty sixteen, the trial begins, but they were
actually allowed to bring Melissa to the stand, and while
she's to tell her story because they said, basically, she
is Pamela. She's lived the same exact thing as Pamela,
except for Pamela died and she's got a miracle, you know,
(35:48):
survived or whatever. So she's able to tell her story.
And actually she said that the defense attorney actually called
her Pamela twice on accident and whenever she was cross
examining her, which did not help them.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
No, I mean I would if I was one of
the three kids, I'd be like, hey, I got ineffective counsel.
He's he's killing me.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Well the choice of words to it, well, yeah, probably.
Well the kids were a little shits too. They said
they were laughing in there and everything like that.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
They did not Well, yeah, they all went on trial together,
and they would come in the courtroom and they just
sitting next to each other, laughing and joke and laughing.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
They were sitting next to each other, they were at
different tables.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Well, I mean they were close enough.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
To smile at each other, still laugh, crack up and anyway,
So while she's on the stand, she was able to
identify James Calhoun as her attacker. She said the minute
she saw him, she knew that was him. She was
also able to tell, like we said, the almost the
identical story of what happened to pam which really pulled
on the jury's heartstrings. They played that night on one
(36:48):
call over and over again from Pamela and everything, and
then when you add Melissa's story on top of it,
it really painted picture of what these three had done
to her.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Yeah, what they were CAPA. I'm just surprised that the
judge let in and whenever they couldn't tell.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Yes, I'm very surprised. I mean do I okay, let
me just finish this up and then we'll talk about it. So,
after two days of deliberation, all three men were found
guilty of burglary and murder. James Simms and James Calhoun
were sentenced to life in prison with the chance of parole,
and Jonathan Banks, who they believed was the trigger man,
was sentenced to life without the possibility possibility of parole, which, Okay,
(37:25):
I don't understand. I'm just gonna tell you this. I
understand just throwing these three away because they're bad news
and they've been burglarizing and armed robbery and things like
that they.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
Should already be did they do the two shootings. Yes, probably, but.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
I don't understand how you just have. They really didn't
have any hard evidence to time to the scene. They
had the witness that said that they which they did
provide a lot of details that only they would have
known about how they committed it, so that was damning.
They had the parents that turned him in. But Melissa
I d James Calhoun as the one who shot.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Her, but after the fact, while she's in there.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Yes, but I'm saying, she pointed, it would have been
almost more convincing if she if Jonathan Banks had been identified,
because I just don't feel like two of them would
go to this. I could see one of them being
a psychopath, like Jonathan Banks is the crazy person, and
he shot both women. But now we have one shooting
one lady and then the other one shooting the other lady.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
I don't see how that's par patch they're all psycho paths.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
Probably well anyways, I just I can't I really can't believe.
I mean, I'm glad they're in prison. They definitely need
to because they I.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Mean, if they're all laughing and joking at their court
trial for murder that their faces, they.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Don't care about anybody. They only care about themselves. And
what's crazy is because at least the Jonathan Banks and
I think one of the other ones, they had like
a really their parents had were lived in that nice
neighborhood and everything, but that probably had all sorts of opportunities,
and they just started their parents said, they just he
started running around with the wrong and next thing you know,
he's out here fucking robbing.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
People and murdering Pamela.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
I know. So anyways, I think it's just I guess
it is like the Jonathan Banks, if he's the one
that killed Pamela, he full on like put the gun
to her head and pulled the trigger. The other one
just kind of shot at the other lady a bunch
of times. Yeah, and so maybe it wasn't as cold blooded,
I guess, But still I don't know these I don't
(39:27):
know how. It is kind of crazy me. I was
surprised they got the conviction. Do I think they did it? Yes?
Do I think they need to be in jail for
life because they're gonna hurt somebody else, Yes, But it
is kind of crazy with the level of evidence they had.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
Now, do we know if burglaries and the Amherst community
dropped off after this, we.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Do, but I'm sure they did. I'm sure there was
a drastic decline in burglaries. So anyways, that is our
episode for this week. Sue, do you have a yelling Jesus?
Speaker 3 (39:55):
I do? I do? Okay, distraugh, Yes, local news coming
to us from Lake and McHenry County Scanner.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
And you said this was Allison sent us this one.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
No, this is a difference. Oh okay, we'll get hers
next time.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Oh we'll get her. The battery is dying on the laptop,
so we'll get yours next week, Alison, we promised.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
Driver distracted by eating Taco Bell loses control, causing rollover
crash near Fox like.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Me, try my nachos Bill Grandi with no beans on
the way out.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
From what I can tell, this is in Illinois with my.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Don't forget the ballhab blast ladies.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
Yes, well that was actually one of the comments that
they were making fun of somebody with their Baja.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Blast the ball. I'd never had a ballhah blast, but
because I like Taco Bell, but i'd never had like
that was drinks are not really my thing, but I
got that ballhaw blast. I'm like oh, yeah, this is
see where it's yeah, this is where it's at.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
A driver suffered minor injuries after he told the sheriff
that he was distracted eating Taco Bell, causing him to
lose control and roll over his car on Route twelve
Fox Lake. The Lake County Sheriff's Office, Fox Lake Police Department,
and Fox Lake Bar responded to around one oh five
a m.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
That's a perfect time for taco Bell.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
Sunday to the area of Route twelve and State Park
and unincorporated Spring Grove for a vehicle crash with an injuries.
A lot of details there. Drink, oh drink, Where were
you on that? Deputies arrive and found a single vehicle
rolled over just south of State Park Road on Route twelven.
How many times were we going to say Route twelve?
Speaker 2 (41:32):
They want you to know it was Route twelve.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
They do because it's in here again. Lake County Sheriff's
Deputy Chief Christopher Cabelli said it would determine that a
nineteen ninety nine Toyota four Runner. That's the good four
und Those are.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Good, solid vehicles, No wonder he was hardly injured.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
The driver told deputies he was eating taco bell while
driving and was distracted by the eating of the taco bell.
The toyota revered to the right side of the road
struck a guard rail as the driver was distracted by eating.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Okay, we get it there.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
I don't know what.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Someone doesn't know how. Someone had to hit a word
count for this story and they couldn't quite get there.
So they mentioned the road and distracted by eating. They're like,
distracted by eating, that's three words. If I say it
ten more times, that's thirty words, and that'll get me
to what my editor asked for.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
The toyota rolled over onto its side after hitting the
guard rail, Cabelli said. The driver, twenty nine year old
spring Grove Man, suffered minor injuries in the crash. He
was a valued weighted by paramedics, but declined transport to
the hospital.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
But did his taco bell make it?
Speaker 3 (42:35):
We don't know. Somebody had the transport.
Speaker 2 (42:39):
He's like, I gotta get I.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
I gotta finish eating this twelve pack of tacos I
just got.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Oh, the twelve pack of tacos.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
Taco would get them Dorito Supreme ones. The driver was
the sole occupant of the toyota and no other vehicles
were involved. They did not cite the driver because he
was an idiot lost his taco bell and his car.
It doesn't say that, but they didn't cite him because
he was the only.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
The real crime is that he lost the taco bell.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
That he was he should have been because you gotta
pay for the guardrail. If you tear up a guardrail,
you gotta pay for it.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
So it is he's been suffering enough too, and he'll
suffer again whenever that taco bell makes it through.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
Yeah, probably sound like you should have probably got a
DW if he's out there.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
I know, if you're at one o'clock in the morning
eating taco ordering taco Bell, you've probably you've been on something. Yes,
because that was the only time we we used to
get the Uber run through like taco Bell or water like.
I remember that one time I bought. We had been
drinking and we ran through the Taco Bell with the
Uber driver or whatever or the taxi or whatever might
(43:43):
have been a taxi at that point. You know, you
could really go off course with them. Yes, Uber's really
like point A to point B.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
Yeah, I got I got more fare.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
The taxi's like yeah, right up. That fair this drive through. Anyways,
I remember we ordered like fifty dollars for the taco bell,
and then I got home and I was like passed out,
and then I couldn't even eat the taco bell. Yes,
I got none of the taco bell.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
And then it's terrible the next day in the market.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
Yeah, Taco bell doesn't do well the next day. You know,
it's a definitely It's not like Chinese food where you
can eat it the next day and it actually tastes better.
Taco bell is a eat eat it fresh type of thing.
So anyways, I completely understand this man and what happened.
Maybe he's eat Trinathan Nacho's bell grande.
Speaker 3 (44:19):
What it's for it?
Speaker 2 (44:22):
Anyways? All right, well that is our episode for this week.
Don't forget rate Review. Subscribe five stars only Patreon. You
get twenty four hours early and ad free. You also
get the weekly Shoot the Pooh right now we're doing
and Instagram, Facebook, TikTok buy me a coffee. Thank you.
(44:42):
Everybody really appreciate it. And I think that is all.
Stew Do you have anything else?
Speaker 3 (44:47):
I do not?
Speaker 2 (44:48):
All right, we better go for this laptop die buy
everyone say bye to buys.
Speaker 4 (44:51):
Do Tell't you know it's bad to be superst Spink
nothing a little sins working and my head is bringing
it hurting and a shack o. It's worrying.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Bou things I can
When segregation was a law. One mysterious black club owner,
Charlie Fitzgerald had his own rules segregation in the day integration.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
That night, it was like Steven in another world.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Was he a businessman, a criminal, a hero? Charlie was
an example of power.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
They had to crush it.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Charlie's Place from Atlas Obscura and visit Myrtle Beach. Listen
to Charlie's Place wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Hey everyone, welcome to bless this Mess in the Drug podcast.
Don't care who is to say has to Hi? All right,
we're back this week and we are going to Georgia.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Let's do I love it?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Have you been a lot of time in Georgia?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
I have not either.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
We haven't either. We passed through and spent the night
I think outside of Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Well, we did Atlanta on our way to Charleston, but we.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Didn't do Atlanta. We didn't do anything into Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
That's because we left the house per yuge late. We
didn't even have children.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Well, we didn't have any children's excuse. We're probably hungover
or something.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Probably something like that. Drove to Atlanta, didn't get in.
We had to call the hotel to make sure they
didn't give our room away just in case.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
It was on the outside of Atlanta. We didn't even
stay in Atlanta. We just picked a cheap post.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yeah. We didn't even get until one o'clock.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
We were just trying to drive to Charleston. We were
trying to drive to Charleston. Why we didn't fly, I
don't know. I guess we needed a car. Well, we
were going to do oh, we were traveling our way back.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
We're going to do Savannah, and then we stopped in Pensacola.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah, we had to do the Big Hole there so
we could work our way drive our way home. Yes,
because there once you that's when we lived in Louisiana.
So once you get so we did the Big Hole
to Charleston. But like once you go down to Savannah
and then Savannah's out that far from Pensacola, and then
Pensacola is like a five hour.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Drive at that back to the house.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah, so it wasn't that long once you could make
your way back down. It was just the initial But
I'd like to go to Atlanta or like Georgia. Oh,
I guess we have spent some time because savannahs in Georgia.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Yes, okay, yeah, and that's where whenever my son graduated
a boat camp and I went out.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
There, I was in I was up there. I was
in Canada for work. Yes, so I didn't get to go.
But you guys stayed at that and you got to
stay at that old timey car.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
We always stayed at the Thunderbird in the drive in motel.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah, I wouldn't say there, because we stayed down We
stayed in down there by that Mercer House or whatever.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Yeah, we stayed at the Eliza Thompson House.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yeah, that old house that that was.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
A nice place.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
It was.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
I would very much recommend if you're in Savannah stay
at the Eliza Thompson.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Yes, you're right there by the Mercer House, which, if
you don't know, is the famous house from Midnight in
the Garden of Good and Evil. And it was owned
by someone he got shot by like supposedly like his lover,
his lover house boy or whatever. I don't know what
was going, but anyways, there's a movie with John Cusack
called The There's a Book, and then there's a movie
(03:14):
Midnight in the Garden of Ganil. So we went and
ate at the little diners, Yeah, the little diner that
was there. Because the book is on based off a
true story, so obviously the movie is too. So it's
all real locations. So we went and so we could
come out of our airbeing that not Airbnb. It was
an actual like B and B kind of like boot hotel,
the Eliza Thompson House, and we could walk out and
(03:36):
go see the square and go see that house at
night and everything like that. I remember we went out
there and had a drink or something.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
I think the last time I was there, we went
on a tour of it even too.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Oh you did, Yeah, yeah, so we and then we
you can walk down to the like river area or
whatever down there, which was really cool. We decided we
did like Savannah over Charleston because Charleston is very pretty
and everything like that, but it's more bougie bougie, and
Savannah's much more laid back, I felt like, is what we.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Yes, well, we stayed now whatever they call it, in
the Historic District area in Charleston.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
No, in Savannah, well yeah, but in Charleston. We didn't
live far from We didn't stay so far from there
because remember your mom came with.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Us yet met up with us.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yes, met up with us. She found out we were going,
and then she was.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Like, she was already in South Carolina.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
She was already in South Carolina. She found out what
we were doing, and she was not going to miss out,
so she came with us. She switched our our airbnb.
She got that one is like this old historic house
down there.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
And promptly got bronchitis or something.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yes, but anyways, but we did not live. We stayed
close enough where we could walk down to like Charleston.
I'd like to go back to Charleston though, Yeah, and
check it out or whatever, so and we can take
the children. It's like easy. We got this minivan, we
can just go.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
We just love it. Yes, yeah, we gotta get a
We've got to get a roof rack for our.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Next No, Stu thinks we need a big ass thing
on top of the Why do we need one, though.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Because we got to put stuff in there.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
What do we need? They need less stuff now they're
slowly getting less stuff.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
We've got strollers, we got to bring suitcases, we got
to bring still gotta bring diapers. You try and pack
all that in the back of the bank.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
You don't know. But you can get diapers where you're going,
if you're driving whatever. Anyways, can we talk about this case? Okay,
let's go.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
That's I'm just relaying to you what everybody's thinking.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
So okay, okay, well we'll talk about this case, all right.
So so thank you. We we had got some new patreons.
Tommy bought us a couple of coffees. I really appreciate it.
You guys are really coming through.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Just how you dropped one today, Oh I.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Did I dropped. I've been making homemade coffees with my
little recipe I share with you guys a couple of
weeks ago. I make them iced, and the ones I
make it at work even better because at home I
have just an espresso machine, so you know, it's like
the pods that you do. But at work they have
a Nest cafe machine or whatever. And I thought they
used like the pods too or whatever, but no, this
thing uses real espresso beans.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Shut up.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Yes, However, the rest of the coffees are gross because
they use powdered milk and things like that. But the espresso.
So I bring my own milk and cream and the
oat milk from home. I get two shots of espresso
from there because they're fresh ground beans and everything like that.
What happened was I worked for a company and we
bought another company and they have nice coffee machines because
(06:41):
my company would never have Yeah, they would never got
a sice, so we got those when we moved to
this new building. So anyway, so it's so good, but yeah,
I broke. I was putting something down Scooby snacks down
today and I knocked my coffee over when we were
headed out the door. And because I took off work
today and we were heading to take our daughter to camp,
(07:02):
and then we're going to Costco. Instead of buying me
a coffee, it's going to buy me, buy me a
Costco credit because we we got this was our first
time going in really strolling around at the new Costco
that we can see from our backyard. And that was
a mistake because we spent way too much money. So
now we have to eat. We can't buy any more
groceries for the rest of them. It's done anyway, so
(07:23):
thank you so much, really appreciate it, and then check
out write review, subscribe, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok do to always.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
I love the TikTok, always the TikTok, so maybe one
day I'll see it.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
All right, let's go ahead and get into well, you
do see it. Most of the things I share on
TikTok I share to the Facebook and the Instagram page two.
All right, so let's go ahead and get in. This
case out of.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Georgia, Stu.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
And it's a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, Hot Atlanta, Hotlanta.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Yes, drop it and across it.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
So is that what they say?
Speaker 3 (08:01):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
I saw that Drunk History dropping across ye, dropping, drop
and cross. Those are the best ones, the ones out
of Atlanta with the one with the Coca cola. And
there's another one that does another one there if you
ever watched drunk.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
History, watch Asia.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
What's her name Jenny, Oh yeah, Jenny something, and she
does the one. Just google Jenny drunk History and Coca
Cola and it is the best episode. And then there's
another one that's really good out of there. But I
can't remember it was, but definitely check out that that was.
That was my one of my favorites. Like I just
died laugh or whatever. See, I don't even know if
(08:39):
they're funny anymore. You know, they were real funny the
first Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
They were. The one about Claudette Colvin was pretty funny.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Oh that's the one, That's what I'm thinking. Yes, that
one was good too. All right, So we I watched
an episode of the Real Murders of Atlanta on this
for this episode, so we are introduced to Pamela Williams.
Now Pamela Williams was a very ambitious woman. She began
(09:09):
after graduation. She began working at Target as an assistant manager,
and she quickly worked her way up to being a
store manager, which you know, they make, they make some
good chance, which she had to to live in the
neighborhood she was going to live.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Yeah, because I mean you're looking at I don't know,
well at that time, I mean twenty thirteen, you're probably
looking at one hundred and twenty hundred.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
And fifty, yeah, which was a lot of money back then.
I mean today they say.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
A regular Target, a super Target. You might be closing
in on one to eighty or so.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Yeah. So anyways, and that's a lot of money back then.
Like today, I feel like you have to make like
so much money.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Just to be just to keep expensive, just.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
To get by I mean the money that you making,
like sixty thousand dollars a year for a family is
not can't I don't know, you can't cut it anymore.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
I mean, it's just not eating McDonald's. You're gonna have
to do it.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Oh yeah, McDonald's is even like ridiculous, all that happy
meals like seven dollars.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Yeah, I remember whenever you could get like a a
a regular meal for an adult for two fifty three dollars.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Oh well, we're not going back that far.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
I remember.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
I remember they used to have nineteen cent hamburgers and
every Wednesday they had nineteen cent in luffkin nineteen cent
hamburgers and twenty nine cent cheeseburgers, and then you could
buy a bucket of fries. And so after church, my
parents would drive us through and they just like my
brothers always had friends or I had friends, and they
would just buy a bunch of That was like the
(10:34):
night we got fast food or whatever it was. Because
it was nineteen cent. You would never see that happen today.
Never cheese alone to add to amber, Yes, because the
regular hamburger happy meal is not does It's not a
cheeseburger happy meal. The hamburger hap milk. No, they charged
like I think it's like a dollar twenty nine or
something to add cheese to a kid's hamburger.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
That good shitty.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Cheese that they anyways, Okay, I digress, all right, So
she's making she's making good money. She's worked her way
up as a store manager. Pamela was described as loving
and caring and always putting others ahead of herself. She
even donated a kidney to her sister whenever she fell
ill in twenty eleven. So they just yah, So she
was just and so she'd worked her way up. She
(11:19):
was living in this neighborhood called Amherst outside of Atlanta,
which supposedly very expensive neighborhood. They said celebrities would live there.
I'm sorry, guys, I did not go on the zillo.
I didn't have time to look at what's going on now.
But I can't imagine it's any cheaper, because I'd think
pretty sure Atlanta at this point, like any big city,
(11:40):
housing prices are insane. You know these days, you can't
you can't move half these places in any big city
and even live in like a crappy house for less
than Yeah. When that used to be, you know, a
very nice home. Nowadays in like a lot of these
big cities, it's hard to get inside the city limits,
(12:01):
like to get a nice house for cheap. But anyway,
so she lived in this nice area. So if you're
from Atlanta and you know what Amherst is, let us know.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
On November thirtieth, twenty thirteen, at around eight pm, a
call comes into nine to one one, and this is
from a woman who says someone is trying to break
into her home. The nine to one one operator is
talking her through the situation, and she says that she
can hear them entering the home and that she has
gone up to hide in the closet. As she's waiting
(12:32):
on the phone speaking nine to one one, she starts saying, help, help, help, Yeah,
it was real.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
They played the nine one one call and it was
very just sad and disturbing because she's she's just she's
kind of like in a low hush. She's like, my
dog is crying down there, Mike, because she had like
a poodle and he was whimpering at the back door
and stuff. So she's worried about her dog. She can
hear these people coming in and now she's up in
the closet waiting and just need someone because she can
hear them getting closer to her.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
And then she starts saying help, and a gunshot is
heard by the None one one operator and the phone
goes silent. Just four minutes later, the police do arrive
on the scene. They are able to gain entrance into
the backyard through a gate and there they see signs
of forced entry through the back door. Police enter through
(13:20):
that door and are prepared to come across a suspect.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Still, Yeah, because there's I mean, they heard a gunshot,
like a gunshot, and it's only been four minutes, so
the likelihood of them possibly being in the house still
is high.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Yeah, they think they're going to run into somebody. They
make their way through the home, they clear it and
they don't see anybody. They make their way up the
stairs into the master bedroom where they find Pamela in
the closet. She's unconscious, she's still breathing, however, the gunshot
wound is to her forehead, so she's in critical. She's
basically critical. Medical personnel rush Pamela to the nearest hospital,
(13:59):
which was Great Memorial, and they try to save her life.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
You know that hospital sounded familiar. I feel like it's
like the big hospital in Atlanta. I've heard Grady Memorial.
You know, there's a lot of celebrities that live in Atlanta,
so maybe that's why I've heard it.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
I don't know. I don't know what much about Atlanta. Okay,
Coca Cola's there, the Braves are there.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
The Atlanta child murders were there, the Falcons, oh the
oh you know what else happened there? Is that remember
that guy that that poor security guy that got with
that Richard, Yeah at the at the Olympic Games or whatever,
and then it come to find out it wasn't him anyways. Okay, So,
as doctors are working to say Pamela's life at the hospital,
(14:40):
crime scene detectives began processing this scene. They noticed that
the person or persons that committed the crime took the
time to clean up the bullet casing after they shot Pamela.
They also noticed that around the room there were valuables
lying in plain sight, but none of them were taken.
So they're trying to figure out what could be the motive.
Was it just like a burglary gone wrong? Was it
(15:01):
a targeted attempted murder because they did come into the home,
and it's almost like they went straight to Pamela. So
if they were trying to rob the home, I mean
she'd already if they knew she'd already called Nomber one,
they would have just fled because if they had no
intention of killing her, but it almost seemed like they
knew she was on the phone, they just did it anyways.
(15:21):
So with little evidence to go on inside the home,
they begin asking, you know, Pamela's immediate neighbors, the ones
right next door, if they saw anything, but they said
that they hadn't seen anything. They knew Pamela lived alone,
but they and so there was no activity going on.
There was nobody else coming or going.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Yeah, I don't know what's going on outside our house.
We'd do it.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
We spend a lot of time in our house. No,
but we spend a lot of time watching the neighbors,
specifically those neighbors. We are are you kidding me, Stewart?
How many times we come on this podcast been like, hey,
I think the nag we do think the neighbors are moving.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Well, it's just because we show up. But I mean,
if something's going on outside, like if you.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Heard a gunshot were to live close, but if she
she lived in a fancy neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Not ten feet apart, they're like ours.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
We we would like we can literally hear the other
people eating dinner like.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
It's it's on top we have. I don't hear a
lot of things.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
I know I'm exaggerating, stew Okay, I'm exaggerating, but we
live on top. We would hear a gun shot.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
If it was in a house actually there we have.
There was outside I might, but well.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Are they supposedly heard gunshots in this neighborhood. I don't know,
you know, if anything came from them, but it was
other parts of the neighborhood. We live in the wild
West over here, guys.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Okay, it's I mean, if somebody was out on the
street shooting, I would hear that. But if somebody was
shooting somebody in their closet and their master bedroom closet
next door, well no, definitely.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Not out, but definitely not in her neighborhood. She's upstairs
in a closet in these big houses that are further apart,
they're probably not going to hear it. So nobody came out.
But the point is is that neither one of her
neighbors came out and saw anything. They didn't have anything
to go on. So this was also twenty thirteen, So
this is four cameras, everybody having a ring doorbell, you know,
looking at.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Whoever's I think it was Amazon came here.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Okay, oh that was the other We just recorded to
shoot the poos. So that happened on shoot the poostoo
was looking at his phone. I'm like, what are you
looking at? And he looked concerned and it was Amazon. Oh,
because they're bringing the sheets.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Somebody was at our front door and I was like,
there's nobody at my front door, what's going on.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
We finally ordered new sheets because our poor child has
been using you know, you know when you have your
first child, you go crazy and you buy everything. We
bought fancy like sheets and everything. Those things are so stained.
They are clean, but they are stained because it's like children,
you know, they get nasty stuff on everything. But the
other night he's.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Like poo, pooh, and.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
It was it's not poop, it's just stained. So I
was like, I'll get you some new I don't know, yeah,
I'll get you some news sheets, buddy. So he got
new dinosaur sheets. He's pretty excited about. But then, of
course we had to buy the four year old new
sheets too, because then it was like a whole ordeal
that she didn't get new sheets, but he also got
Mickey Mouse sheets.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Okay. Police ask friends and family if anyone in Pamela's
life might want to harm her, but they can't think
of anyone that she said.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
She's like a nice person. You know.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
She had just begun dating a man. So they went
and checked on him because the fella is always going
to be the first suspect.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Of course, but and usually the correct suspect.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Yeah, because they're checking him because they think it's somebody
that knew her, because it seemed like a personal killing,
like they came in directly killed her and then left
and didn't take anything. However, Pamela and this fella had
not been dating very long and he had a pretty
solid alibi, so they were able to rule him out
as a suspect almost immediately. They looked into her workplace
(18:48):
to see if anybody there had any grievances against her
since she was a manager, but there didn't seem to
be any animosity from any of the employees. Towards Pamela,
at least not enough for them to go and kill
her anyone.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Yeah, nothing, some.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
You didn't you know what?
Speaker 2 (19:05):
You know what though, whenever I worked, so I was
like I worked at a restaurant before my current when
I was in college the second time, and there was
a kid there. I was terrified of him and he
was a terrible worker, but all of us agreed nobody
was going to fire him. I just put him in
the corner on everyone who was shift and let him
roll silver work because I was afraid of him because
(19:25):
he was a little unstable stup.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
You didn't want to be the one no.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
And I'm usually I was the bitchy one that would
run people off if they wouldn't work because I ain't
got no time, I'm not going to do your work
and everything like that. Like I was old and in
college and hungover half the time. I was just trying
to get through life. I'm like, I have time. So
there was a lot of young people that came in.
I would we had some real I had some real
concerns about the youth of America while I was working there,
because one girl someone called in and said they wanted
(19:51):
a a pizza, a pepperoni pizza, only pepperoni or whatever.
So what do you think would come on the pepperoni pizza?
Speaker 3 (20:00):
No cheese?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
What Stuart is kidding? He already knows the story. The
girl took everything off. They said they wanted pepperoni pizza,
and so she took off everything from the pizza and
send it back. So every time there was someone would
call in an order something, she would only put the ingredients.
She would remove the cheese and the sauce and the
sauce because the system automatically, when you were you were
(20:23):
doing the pizza, it would have cheese and sauce, and
you could change marion Ardelfredo if that's what they wanted,
or if they wanted not moztril cheese, you could switch
to cheddar or take it off or I guess if
they specifically asked for that. But every time they'd call
in an order, she would just take all the cheese
and the sauce off and just put the vegetables or
the pepper meat. It's like. And then her parents came in.
(20:44):
I was she got so she ended up quitting midshift,
and this is what's wrong with America. The parents came
in and returned her shirt and picked up her paycheck.
Instead of making her come back, I would have made
my child go back in there and be like, you
want that money, you must go back in there and
return your shirt, get your paycheck. You know, why are
you looking at me like that? Okay, you wouldn't have
(21:05):
made our children that quit midshift because there a dumb ass.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Yes I am that parent. I'm like, well, you shouldn't
have done that. And I guess it hurts, don't it. Yeah,
So he's like the little man slammed his finger in
the drawer the other day whenever he was slamming it,
shut o tooty, Yeah, and he got his pinky cot
in there, and it was it all. Well, that's what
you get.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Stuart, poor little guy. Anyways, Yeah, you're at easy. My
point was My point was there was a time that
there was one one person that I was like, we're
just gonna not We're just gonna let him go on
his own time when he decides he doesn't want to work,
work because I'm scared of him. He seemed like the
kind that would come back in and like shoot up
the store.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Yeah, customers, employees, everybody.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Yeah, just take them all out, so we let him
hang around as long as he wanted.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Well. Police received the fingerprints that they pulled from the
crime sayne, but they either belonged to Pamela or they
were inconclusive, so there was no forensic evidence to go
off at the crime scene. Unfore Trinately, this case did
turn from an attempted murder case to a murder case
when Pamela was removed from life support at the hospital.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Yeah, she was on life support for about six days
before they there just wasn't anything else they could do
about it. So as police are able to canvass out
further into the neighborhood, they start to talk to more
of you know, the broader subdivision. They did find multiple
witnesses that said that they saw multiple shadowy figures running
(22:29):
through the neighborhood that evening, So they didn't necessarily see them,
but they just saw saw images of people, yeah, running
through through different parts of neighborhood. Police now believed that
multiple people were involved with Pamela's murder. Now as they're
following the clues of the witnesses in the neighborhood, they
determined that the perpetrators ran through a wooded area onto
(22:50):
a trail that was within the neighborhood. But this trail
actually didn't lead out of the neighborhood. It actually led
deeper into the neighborhood. And so this to police made
them think that.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Possibly somebody in the neighborhood or did this.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Yes, because police also arrived just four minutes after that
nine on one call, and they never saw anybody driving away,
like I think there was probably only if it was
a nice neighborhood. That means that there was probably only yeah,
one or two entrances, maybe just one entrance, and they
would have seen someone flee in the neighborhood. But the
fact that they were running on this trail and they
were trying to get deeper into the subdivision meant that
(23:27):
they didn't care about getting out of the subdivision. So
they're thinking that it's someone who lived there, or one
of them lived there, and they're very familiar with the neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Now that the police believe the perpetrators are actually living
inside the community, they start looking in any property crimes
within the area. They discover that from twenty eleven to
twenty thirteen, there are roughly seventy five petty burglaries within
the Amherst community.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Now, I'm wondering how big this community is because if
there were seventy five burglaries in our size neighborhood, I
mean who knows.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
I mean you have to see the moms or whatever pace.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Maybe that maybe that would be maybe that would be
something that HOA could actually be useful for as letting
everybody know there's like huge crime. I mean, we hear
about things. I guess they're probably there probably are seventy
five burglaries over two years in this neighborhood now that
I think about it. We get a lot of these
like teenagers coming in and trying to get in people's cars.
They say, you know, they'll be like, hey, someone's trying
to get in cars last night and you locked your cars.
(24:26):
They were on the street. So yeah, I would say
there's probably seventy five between in this neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
In last this is the Amherst community.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
I know it's a nice neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
Yes, you're saying we're not in a nice well, I
mean it's okay, we're in a rental community.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
I think sometimes yes, we've we've we've it's turned into
a more of a rental community. So it's less like
family homeowners.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
It's more transient.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
People living in the home, so they don't just don't
care about the neighborhood as much. I mean, we're we're
basically but let's be honest, we're we're the homeowners, but
we're basically glorified rendards because we're just killing time.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Don't well, we can get That's what we hope.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
As we hope. That's what I keep telling about.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Word like, hey, and whenever you're ready to move, We're ready.
Look how good I did last year.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Doesn't somebody else want me?
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Don't you have somebody else you need to move to
this area to learn, train or.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Something built some character.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Back to our story, none of these burglaries had escalated
into any level of violence that Pamela's burglary ended in.
They continue to look at any types of crimes that
occurred near this neighborhood in the past two years, and
they were able to find one that occurred on January thirteenth,
twenty thirteen, which was five miles from where Pamela Williams lived.
(25:53):
A woman named Melissa Burke, who was a retired Army veteran,
was home alone in bed when she heard the doorbell ring.
She ignores the doorbell, thinking that they will go away,
kind of like we do here at the house when
we know those salespeople are out, thinking that they're gonna
call their panels Solar panels. But they keep ringing the doorbell,
so she goes down to look out the window to
see who it is.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yes, Melissa is married, but her husband was out of
town that evening.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
As she's looking out the window, she sees a young
male walking away and doesn't think much of it. Shortly
after this, she hears a noise from her bedroom and
discovered that they are breaking into her bedroom window. She
hides in the closet. She calls nine one one, hoping
that they're not going to find her. She says she
stared at him, made eye contact with the guy because
(26:40):
the guy opened the closet. Yeah, found her. She makes
eye contact with him and couldn't believe that he was
so young.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Yeah, that's she kept saying. She just kept thinking, or
she said that afterwards, She's like, I just couldn't believe
how young he was holding a gun, you know, pointing
it at me.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Yeah. He fires the first shot at her, and she
thinks he's going to stop, but he continues until he
basically unloads the gun on her. As she's lying there,
she sees two other young men walk into the room
and one of them says, let's get out of here,
and they take off.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
I think in total it was twelve times that he
shot her. Yeah, wow, yeah, don't quote me on the
twelve times that. I'm pretty sure she said he shot
twelve times. He just basically unloaded the gun until.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
It I mean, did she know or did she lose count?
And they told her after the fact.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Well they told maybe they said twelve. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
It was a lot.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Yes, he kept clicking until there was nothing less.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Basically, she's lucky to be alive. Yes, it's a miracle.
As police arrive on the scene, they see the getaway
vehicle driving away, so they pursue them in a chase.
They ended up crashing the vehicle and taking off on foot.
They were unable to catch the perpetrators, and the vehicle
that they were driving was actually stolen, so they get
no information from the vehicle. They did recover her cell
(27:58):
phone near the vehicle. This phone belonged to a young
man by the name of James Calhoun, James was a
known criminal. He had a history of burglaries. They asked
him about the Melissa case.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Yeah, they brought him in to talk to him. But again,
his phone was just found near the stolen car, so
there's not in it. There's plausible deniability.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Oh I lost it. I was out for a walk,
cause that's someone stole it somebody's store.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
But they stole this car, I guess.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Yes, exactly. So he did not any involvement and without
any additional evidence, they couldn't hold him. Fortunately for Melissa,
after several months in the hospital, she was able to
survive her injuries.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Yeah, like four to five months. She couldn't. She couldn't
do anything, and she had like PTSD from it. So
she said, you know, they she would have liked to
give them information, but she said, I couldn't even hear
a doorbell ring without going into like, you know, panic
or whatever, because that's what she you know, last remembers
people ringing doorbells and things like that. So she just
(28:59):
wasn't any to be able to help the investigation along
for at least four or five months before she could
even talk to police.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Yeah, and because of that, she was not able to
help police identify if it was in fact James Calhoun
right afterwards, when it would have been the freshest in
her mind because she was in such a bad state
because of her injuries, so she wouldn't have been able
to at the time. She wasn't going to be able
to look at photo lineups or anything and definitively say no,
(29:31):
what if she saw anybody that she recognized.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Police start blasting the crime all over the news, hoping
to get some leads from the public because the public
is concerned at this point because there's just random people
running in, breaking into people's homes and shooting them. So
they received a call on December fourth, twenty thirteen, from
the parents of Jonathan Banks.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Now.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Jonathan's father told police that Jonathan had just recently come
to him asking for a large sum of money to
get away Quickly, his parents inquired as to why he
needed to get away, and he just wouldn't tell his parents.
After they told him that they wouldn't give him any
of this money to help disappear, they did not see
him for several days and couldn't get a hold of him.
(30:12):
So and then that's when they started seeing all these
reports of Pamela's murder. Well, Jonathan's parents said that he
had been involved in burglaries before and they were concerned
he was involved with this one as well.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Yes, Jonathan, mister Banks lived in the Amherst community, so
his parents were well to do as well.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Yes, that's what I was about to say, stude. Jonathan
had previously lived in the Amherst subdivision and he had
recently been released from jail.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Now.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Police tried to locate Jonathan to question him about question
him about Pamela's murder, but were unable to find him.
So his parents are just trying to come forward and say, hey,
they were doing the right thing. Hey, our son is
sketchy as fuck. Oka he lived in this neighborhood, he's
been in jail. We are concerned, and frankly, you guys
(31:01):
just look at him. Yeah, he's so good for the
parents for being like, you know, because some parents would
not turn their child in, but he's like the mom
said that she she heard Pamela's story and she said,
I just can't even imagine what she went through and
if my child had something to do with it, then
he needs to be He needs to.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Be ammed up and locked up. And less than a
week later, they receive another major tip from a person
who says they spoke to three people Jonathan Banks, James Simms,
and James Calhoun.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Which we've heard James Calhoun before and Johnthan Banks. So
James Simms is our new new.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Person, and these three admitted details to the murder drink.
The informant tells police that James Calhoun and James Simms
were leaving out of the back gate of Pamela's home
when Jonathan Banks shows up and he's like, oh, hey,
maybe I'll go in there and see what I can steal.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Yes, and this is the witness or informant or whatever
they called him, relaying the story that was told to
them by the three.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Yes, that's when Jonathan Banks says, he is startled by Pamela,
so he.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Just shoots, and he said he called it a panic shot.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Yeah, he just oh my god, points the gun in
a direction, pulls the trigger and runs away. Police know
that this is not what happened because of Pamela's womb,
she had a what do they call it a contact press.
The weapon was actually pressed to the front of Pamela's fo.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Yes, it was pushed into her forehead and that's what.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
When the trigger was pulled. Yes, so they know that
this story is crap.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
So with all of this information and a corroborating witness,
they were able to obtain a warrant to apprehend all three.
They are all charged with burglary and murder and all
three pleaded not guilty. They were not able to currently
tie the three suspects to Melissa Burks attempted murder because
they do believe that this is probably the same group,
(33:03):
because it's almost identical.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
Yeah, because the police really think that Calhoun, the James
Calhoun guy, was involved and both for sure, but they
weren't sure about the other two.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
No, they think they were all involved to they.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
Thought they were all in Well, they knew the one.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Well, yes, obviously that James Calhoun had a tie to
Melissa Burks because his phone was found out there. Yes,
but they've been running these they've been running around doing
this bullshit.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
For however long, well like two years.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
So while they are looking for a hard evidence to
tie these three suspects to Pamela's murder, they're actually able
to tie them to about one hundred burglaries in the
area due to them going to basically the same pawn
shop and pawning items that they had stolen. So my
question is this is again like a thing why. I've
read some other things about this, and I don't understand
(33:50):
why these guys weren't in jail.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
No, because at a pawnshop you gotta like take a
picture and leave a finger print or leave your ID
whenever your pond stuff. Whenever. We used to take the
cans that we took that we collected at our house
and took them down, I had to show the guy
the idea at the real cycling center just to turn
in recycling stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Yeah, so I don't understand why it took so long
to get these guys, why they weren't in jail longer,
why they were loose at all, Because they.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Were just, yeah, seventy five burglaries. You would think that
the police would check the pawn shops for the items.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
That are But I think they did tie them to
I think they did get them for some of these.
Obviously they had criminal records for burglaries.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
But it doesn't sound like it took Oh yeah they did.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
They did, but it didn't I don't think they tied
them to this amount of burglaries where it was on
this scale is what it seemed like. So this helps
the point of this though, is it helps the DA
paint a picture that these are not just like mischievous
kids because it again like we didn't mention in ages,
but they're like nineteen twenty twenty three like that age group.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
They're y yeah, and the physical evidence they have of
them at the house is well, we're.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Going to talk about that. We're going to talk about
that too. You're always jumping ahead, Stu.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Okay, well, you know, I just know things so cause
you I know how to irritate you.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Yeah, you do know how to irritate me. So the
point of the hundred burglaries that they're able to tie
to them is to show that these are not just
like kids run around doing silly things or whatever. These
are hardened criminals that are on a path to what
now is murder. So the prosecution will have an uphill
battle because there is little to no forensic evidence, like
(35:26):
Stu said, tying these three to the burglary and murder.
In October twenty sixteen, the trial begins, but they were
actually allowed to bring Melissa to the stand, and while
she's to tell her story because they said, basically, she
is Pamela. She's lived the same exact thing as Pamela,
except for Pamela died and she's got a miracle, you know,
(35:48):
survived or whatever. So she's able to tell her story.
And actually she said that the defense attorney actually called
her Pamela twice on accident and whenever she was cross
examining her, which did not help them.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
No, I mean I would if I was one of
the three kids, I'd be like, hey, I got ineffective counsel.
He's he's killing me.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Well the choice of words to it, well, yeah, probably.
Well the kids were a little shits too. They said
they were laughing in there and everything like that.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
They did not Well, yeah, they all went on trial together,
and they would come in the courtroom and they just
sitting next to each other, laughing and joke and laughing.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
They were sitting next to each other, they were at
different tables.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Well, I mean they were close enough.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
To smile at each other, still laugh, crack up and anyway,
So while she's on the stand, she was able to
identify James Calhoun as her attacker. She said the minute
she saw him, she knew that was him. She was
also able to tell, like we said, the almost the
identical story of what happened to pam which really pulled
on the jury's heartstrings. They played that night on one
(36:48):
call over and over again from Pamela and everything, and
then when you add Melissa's story on top of it,
it really painted picture of what these three had done
to her.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Yeah, what they were CAPA. I'm just surprised that the
judge let in and whenever they couldn't tell.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Yes, I'm very surprised. I mean do I okay, let
me just finish this up and then we'll talk about it. So,
after two days of deliberation, all three men were found
guilty of burglary and murder. James Simms and James Calhoun
were sentenced to life in prison with the chance of parole,
and Jonathan Banks, who they believed was the trigger man,
was sentenced to life without the possibility possibility of parole, which, Okay,
(37:25):
I don't understand. I'm just gonna tell you this. I
understand just throwing these three away because they're bad news
and they've been burglarizing and armed robbery and things like
that they.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
Should already be did they do the two shootings. Yes, probably, but.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
I don't understand how you just have. They really didn't
have any hard evidence to time to the scene. They
had the witness that said that they which they did
provide a lot of details that only they would have
known about how they committed it, so that was damning.
They had the parents that turned him in. But Melissa
I d James Calhoun as the one who shot.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Her, but after the fact, while she's in there.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Yes, but I'm saying, she pointed, it would have been
almost more convincing if she if Jonathan Banks had been identified,
because I just don't feel like two of them would
go to this. I could see one of them being
a psychopath, like Jonathan Banks is the crazy person, and
he shot both women. But now we have one shooting
one lady and then the other one shooting the other lady.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
I don't see how that's par patch they're all psycho paths.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
Probably well anyways, I just I can't I really can't believe.
I mean, I'm glad they're in prison. They definitely need
to because they I.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Mean, if they're all laughing and joking at their court
trial for murder that their faces, they.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Don't care about anybody. They only care about themselves. And
what's crazy is because at least the Jonathan Banks and
I think one of the other ones, they had like
a really their parents had were lived in that nice
neighborhood and everything, but that probably had all sorts of opportunities,
and they just started their parents said, they just he
started running around with the wrong and next thing you know,
he's out here fucking robbing.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
People and murdering Pamela.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
I know. So anyways, I think it's just I guess
it is like the Jonathan Banks, if he's the one
that killed Pamela, he full on like put the gun
to her head and pulled the trigger. The other one
just kind of shot at the other lady a bunch
of times. Yeah, and so maybe it wasn't as cold blooded,
I guess, But still I don't know these I don't
(39:27):
know how. It is kind of crazy me. I was
surprised they got the conviction. Do I think they did it? Yes?
Do I think they need to be in jail for
life because they're gonna hurt somebody else, Yes, But it
is kind of crazy with the level of evidence they had.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
Now, do we know if burglaries and the Amherst community
dropped off after this, we.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Do, but I'm sure they did. I'm sure there was
a drastic decline in burglaries. So anyways, that is our
episode for this week. Sue, do you have a yelling Jesus?
Speaker 3 (39:55):
I do? I do? Okay, distraugh, Yes, local news coming
to us from Lake and McHenry County Scanner.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
And you said this was Allison sent us this one.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
No, this is a difference. Oh okay, we'll get hers
next time.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Oh we'll get her. The battery is dying on the laptop,
so we'll get yours next week, Alison, we promised.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
Driver distracted by eating Taco Bell loses control, causing rollover
crash near Fox like.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Me, try my nachos Bill Grandi with no beans on
the way out.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
From what I can tell, this is in Illinois with my.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Don't forget the ballhab blast ladies.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
Yes, well that was actually one of the comments that
they were making fun of somebody with their Baja.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Blast the ball. I'd never had a ballhah blast, but
because I like Taco Bell, but i'd never had like
that was drinks are not really my thing, but I
got that ballhaw blast. I'm like oh, yeah, this is
see where it's yeah, this is where it's at.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
A driver suffered minor injuries after he told the sheriff
that he was distracted eating Taco Bell, causing him to
lose control and roll over his car on Route twelve
Fox Lake. The Lake County Sheriff's Office, Fox Lake Police Department,
and Fox Lake Bar responded to around one oh five
a m.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
That's a perfect time for taco Bell.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
Sunday to the area of Route twelve and State Park
and unincorporated Spring Grove for a vehicle crash with an injuries.
A lot of details there. Drink, oh drink, Where were
you on that? Deputies arrive and found a single vehicle
rolled over just south of State Park Road on Route twelven.
How many times were we going to say Route twelve?
Speaker 2 (41:32):
They want you to know it was Route twelve.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
They do because it's in here again. Lake County Sheriff's
Deputy Chief Christopher Cabelli said it would determine that a
nineteen ninety nine Toyota four Runner. That's the good four
und Those are.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Good, solid vehicles, No wonder he was hardly injured.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
The driver told deputies he was eating taco bell while
driving and was distracted by the eating of the taco bell.
The toyota revered to the right side of the road
struck a guard rail as the driver was distracted by eating.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Okay, we get it there.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
I don't know what.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Someone doesn't know how. Someone had to hit a word
count for this story and they couldn't quite get there.
So they mentioned the road and distracted by eating. They're like,
distracted by eating, that's three words. If I say it
ten more times, that's thirty words, and that'll get me
to what my editor asked for.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
The toyota rolled over onto its side after hitting the
guard rail, Cabelli said. The driver, twenty nine year old
spring Grove Man, suffered minor injuries in the crash. He
was a valued weighted by paramedics, but declined transport to
the hospital.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
But did his taco bell make it?
Speaker 3 (42:35):
We don't know. Somebody had the transport.
Speaker 2 (42:39):
He's like, I gotta get I.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
I gotta finish eating this twelve pack of tacos I
just got.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Oh, the twelve pack of tacos.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
Taco would get them Dorito Supreme ones. The driver was
the sole occupant of the toyota and no other vehicles
were involved. They did not cite the driver because he
was an idiot lost his taco bell and his car.
It doesn't say that, but they didn't cite him because
he was the only.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
The real crime is that he lost the taco bell.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
That he was he should have been because you gotta
pay for the guardrail. If you tear up a guardrail,
you gotta pay for it.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
So it is he's been suffering enough too, and he'll
suffer again whenever that taco bell makes it through.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
Yeah, probably sound like you should have probably got a
DW if he's out there.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
I know, if you're at one o'clock in the morning
eating taco ordering taco Bell, you've probably you've been on something. Yes,
because that was the only time we we used to
get the Uber run through like taco Bell or water like.
I remember that one time I bought. We had been
drinking and we ran through the Taco Bell with the
Uber driver or whatever or the taxi or whatever might
(43:43):
have been a taxi at that point. You know, you
could really go off course with them. Yes, Uber's really
like point A to point B.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
Yeah, I got I got more fare.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
The taxi's like yeah, right up. That fair this drive through. Anyways,
I remember we ordered like fifty dollars for the taco bell,
and then I got home and I was like passed out,
and then I couldn't even eat the taco bell. Yes,
I got none of the taco bell.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
And then it's terrible the next day in the market.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
Yeah, Taco bell doesn't do well the next day. You know,
it's a definitely It's not like Chinese food where you
can eat it the next day and it actually tastes better.
Taco bell is a eat eat it fresh type of thing.
So anyways, I completely understand this man and what happened.
Maybe he's eat Trinathan Nacho's bell grande.
Speaker 3 (44:19):
What it's for it?
Speaker 2 (44:22):
Anyways? All right, well that is our episode for this week.
Don't forget rate Review. Subscribe five stars only Patreon. You
get twenty four hours early and ad free. You also
get the weekly Shoot the Pooh right now we're doing
and Instagram, Facebook, TikTok buy me a coffee. Thank you.
(44:42):
Everybody really appreciate it. And I think that is all.
Stew Do you have anything else?
Speaker 3 (44:47):
I do not?
Speaker 2 (44:48):
All right, we better go for this laptop die buy
everyone say bye to buys.
Speaker 4 (44:51):
Do Tell't you know it's bad to be superst Spink
nothing a little sins working and my head is bringing
it hurting and a shack o. It's worrying.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Bou things I can
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