February 22, 2023 • 41 mins
Join Janelle and Vicky for this live show at the Dark Matters Podcast Festival! This time, the ladies are talking about Illinois crime. A special thank you goes to Side Street Studio Arts and Ghostly Podcast!
Research links here!:
The National Registry of Exonerations - "Julie Rea"
University of Illinois Innocence Project - "Julie Rea"
Investigating Innocence - "Julie Rea"
abc30 - "Woman details how she survived attack by serial killer Tommy Lynn Sells"
The New York Times Magazine - "She Was Exonerated of the Murder of Her Son. Her Life Is Still Shattered."
Illinois Times - "Answers needed in the Julie Rea-Harper case"
ABC News - "Crime scene analyst discusses blood spatter patterns in Julie Rea case"
Investigating Innocence - "Investigating Women and Innocence"
Herald & Review - "25 years after Jennifer Lockmiller of Decatur was murdered, her killer remains a mystery"
Northwestern Pritzker School of Law - "Alan Beaman"
Medium - "Who Killed Jennifer Lockmiller in 1993?"
Herald & Review - "Photos and documents from the Jennifer Lockmiller case"
NPR - "Quinn Pardons Man Wrongfully Convicted of ISU Student's Murder"
The National Registry of Exonerations - "Alan W. Beaman"
"Beaman v. Freesmeyer"
WTTW - "Illinois Once Again Leads Nation in Criminal Exonerations, Largely Due to Cases Tied to Ex-Chicago Sergeant"
The National Registry of Exonerations - "2021 Annual Report"
Research links here!:
The National Registry of Exonerations - "Julie Rea"
University of Illinois Innocence Project - "Julie Rea"
Investigating Innocence - "Julie Rea"
abc30 - "Woman details how she survived attack by serial killer Tommy Lynn Sells"
The New York Times Magazine - "She Was Exonerated of the Murder of Her Son. Her Life Is Still Shattered."
Illinois Times - "Answers needed in the Julie Rea-Harper case"
ABC News - "Crime scene analyst discusses blood spatter patterns in Julie Rea case"
Investigating Innocence - "Investigating Women and Innocence"
Herald & Review - "25 years after Jennifer Lockmiller of Decatur was murdered, her killer remains a mystery"
Northwestern Pritzker School of Law - "Alan Beaman"
Medium - "Who Killed Jennifer Lockmiller in 1993?"
Herald & Review - "Photos and documents from the Jennifer Lockmiller case"
NPR - "Quinn Pardons Man Wrongfully Convicted of ISU Student's Murder"
The National Registry of Exonerations - "Alan W. Beaman"
"Beaman v. Freesmeyer"
WTTW - "Illinois Once Again Leads Nation in Criminal Exonerations, Largely Due to Cases Tied to Ex-Chicago Sergeant"
The National Registry of Exonerations - "2021 Annual Report"
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
Why they discovered their arrivals. Hello, Hi, everybody, welcome. After
sitting here staring at each other forthe last fifteen minute address the elephant in
the room, so welcome to theBad Taste Crime Podcast. I'm Vicky and
(00:29):
I'm Janelle, and we are heretoday to talk about some murder, some
pre ghosts, get you pumped fromthe what happens before the paranormal experience.
UM. So, for those whoare unfamiliar, we're a bi weekly true
crime comedy podcast variety show. Ispoke, we were saying earlier. Yeah,
(00:57):
this is a spokeshow we look ateverything from murder to fraud to the
food. Food crimes. Crimes isreal big with us, so we have
we have something for everybody. Um, we are just going to jump right
into it today because we got alot to cover. Yeah. But first,
(01:19):
this is that part of the showwhere we say content may not be
appropriate for all listeners. Oh,this is what we're covering today. This
is where you want, yes,because like we have content warningly yeah and
sly Unfortunately you guys are trapped ina room with us. Yeah. But
for those listening at home, wewill be covering some pretty heavy topics today
(01:44):
as you do a little a littlebit of child murder. So sorry,
so sorry, that's all you that, that is all you. Um so,
just a heads up on that.But as we said, we're covering
some Illinois crime today because keep itlocal. There's local, there's also plenty.
I mean, like the options areendless really. Um So, Janelle,
(02:07):
yes, would you like to startus off? Oh? Sure.
So we're gonna go all the waydown south to Lawrenceville, Illinois for this
one, and it's right close tothe Indiana border, and we're gonna go
all the way back to nineteen ninetyseven, I know, all the way,
all the nine back to the nineties. Get your brave hair gel going.
Stuff from the nineties is being consideredvintage now I know which you're lying
(02:30):
a little depressing it like that's mychildhood. Um okay, so get yourself
in that mindset. Okay, Anine place. We're there, saved by
the bell, Okay, But we'regoing to be discussing the murder of Joel
Kirkpatrick. So. Joel was aten year old boy who lived part time
with his mother, Julia Ray andpart time with his father, Leonard Um.
(02:53):
The two met his teens and weremarried quickly, and they divorced in
nineteen ninety four. They shared custodywithal ever since, so a lot of
times he was going in between bothof his parents' houses. His father was
a police officer who was recently remarriedto a circuit court clerk. That in
mind for later, and Julie actuallywas currently back in school to obtain a
(03:16):
PhD in psychology at the University ofIndiana, so she was doing things.
The two had an awful marriage andthey had a really really terrible divorce.
Oh so yeah, and because hewas a police officer, he was doing
some sketchy things and was able tokind of convince the courts to give him
(03:43):
full custody by making up a lotof lies about his wife. Basically,
it's interesting. We were just talkingabout how when we find out somebody as
a police officer, we're kind oflike, no, yeah, which is
a little unfortunate. You know.I would like to say I try not
to judge people, but it justhappens, let's be real. So yeah,
(04:03):
so he was kind of controlling everything, and he had full custody during
the week and she had Joel onthe weekends. So on the weekend of
October thirteenth, was when she wasspending time with him and they were gonna,
you know, have pancake breakfast tofun mom and son things. They
(04:23):
went to bed early, and thenat three o'clock in the morning, Julie
woke up to a blood curdling screamfrom the other room. So she went
into her son's room and as sheentered, she saw a man in a
mask repeatedly stabbing her son. Ohfuck, okay, yeah, zero to
(04:44):
ten, zero to ten. Julieattacked the intruder. She crawled on top
of him like a spider monkey andstarted punching him and kicking him, and
he punched her back obviously, andfled the scene out the back door.
So Julie immediately calls the police,goes to her son's side. He was
(05:10):
dead. On the scene, Shedecides to go into the backyard to see
if she could see where he went. She saw some footprints in the backyard,
so she's like, okay, shepeeks over the fence, but he's
gone, so quickly she goes backinto the house. The police arrive and
they kind of just take over theentire scene. Okay, Joel Kirkpatrick was
(05:32):
stabbed eleven times in his beds.The crime scene was full of blood everywhere,
and there was debris. So inthe kerfuffle that they had, there
was lots of things knocked over,broken glass, there was dirt from shoes.
Since this was a small town andhe's the son of a police officer,
(05:54):
they were really trying to be verythorough to figure out what happened.
They checked every square inch of thehouse. They went through the drains,
the sinks, they even went intothe septic tank, oh my, and
every window, every door. Theywere very very thorough. Can you explain
the septic tank? Thank to me. So if you flush something down the
(06:15):
toilet, it stays in the septicyank. What would be in the septic
tank from the murder? Okay?Yeah? Every everything? Yes, okay,
okay. Um. So they foundunidentified hair and a bloody shoeprint on
a piece of broken glass from thewindow where the perpetrator had allegedly entered,
(06:35):
and they photographed Julie Um just tosee, you know, obviously where the
injuries were, since she was theonly person who saw this intruder Um,
they were skeptical. Unfortunately, frommy start, um. Now on her
shirt. There were flecks of bloodas well. Okay, um, but
(06:56):
just a couple of specs. Butthis would kind of be something that would
come back to haunt her. Now. This is Joel's father, Leonard.
Once he was informed of his son'sdeath, he began to suspect his ex
wife and he went on a crusadeto try to get her arrested, which
(07:19):
I have a feeling he got alarger platform because of his status on the
fact that he married a circuit clerk. Yeah. Yeah, So at first
the evidence was really solidly against Juliebecause there was a lot of things there,
like unidentified hair and a bloody shoeprint. She was barefoot the entire time,
(07:42):
right, still living at her house. Yeah right. No one wears
shoes to bed at three o'clock inthe morning unless they're wasted on accident.
Yeah, the cave. So herex husband was really persistent, and so
to kind of counteract this, Juliesaid that she would take a polygraph test.
(08:03):
So she took two polygraph tests.My game, but though they're not
admissible in court, girl, thisis going to be such a theme.
So she took two of them andshe passed, but that wasn't enough,
so he persistently keeps coming to thepolice and the investigator, saying that she
obviously had something to do with it, and it was because he had full
(08:26):
custody, was his argument. Sothree years go by and nothing was done
really in the case. They weren'treally investigating anyone else. They were kind
of a little bit in limbo withJulie, but due to her husband's persistence
and the connection to the circuit court, charges were eventually brought up against her.
Okay, on October twelve, twothousand, a Lawrence County grand jury
(08:50):
indicted Julie Ray for her son's murder. Now, of course it's a small
town, so it was all overthe newspapers since the murder. She actually
moved to Indiana to be closer tothe University of Indiana where she was still
studying. So she was taken intocustody at Monroe County and then on December
(09:11):
fifteenth and two thousand, Julie waivedextradition to Illinois. Now this was an
exchange for an agreement where she wouldbe released on bond. So oh,
so she was saying she'd not fightthe extradition, so long as she could
be really somebud yes, okay,so she was kind of wheeling and dealing.
(09:31):
She then petitioned to have a changeof venue for the trial because of
her husband's connections she knew exactly,Yeah, so she petitioned to have it
changed to Wayne County in Illinois.Now, if you're not familiar with the
Illinois court system, highly political andinfluenced by money, especially down south.
(09:56):
We are considered one of the mostcorrupt states for a reason. So it
actually took two years before the trialeven started because of all the political kind
of switching that happened. So Juliewould actually potentially be up against a death
penalty. So, if you're notfamiliar, the state of Illinois didn't stop
(10:18):
having the death penalty until two thousandand eleven. Yeah, far too long,
huh yeah. Yeah. So dueto the change of venue and raised
defense team shifting, she spent theentirety of her life savings trying to obtain
like counsel, so it was alittle bit difficult. She ran out of
(10:39):
money, and so after that shewas kind of trying to figure out what
she was going to do, andso she failed a prosy petition okay,
and she was requesting the appointment oftwo capital qualified attorneys to defend her because
she was up for that death penalty. Okay, okay, Now this is
where they really really fucked her.You mean all of that before that was
(11:03):
the gentle fuck. Now this isthe hard fuck. Okay, that was
the warning. Yeah. So theydecided then to remove death penalty from the
table, and so then she wouldn'tqualify for those free lawyers. Wow,
so she was back to square somebullshit. So they were going for life
(11:26):
in prison instead. Okay, Sonow she didn't have that free lawyer that
she was going to get, andnow she was kind of in limbo.
She had no idea where she wasreally going to go, no resources.
But on February twenty first of twothousand and two, the trial open.
She was given a defense lawyer eventually, and it opened in Wayne County before
(11:48):
a Lawrence County Circuit Court judge namedRobert Hopkins and then a jury of six
men and women from that county.Okay, now, the prosecut us,
we're really really big assholes, andokay, put her ex husband on the
(12:09):
stand right away. Of course,they elicited testimony from him that was borderline
illegal, not appropriate because it wasjust him getting on the stand accusing her
basically, Wow, yeah, that'sdefinitely not legal. No, sure,
southern Illinois. So what he's kindof brought forth before the court was something
(12:33):
that was super controversial. And keepin mind Southern Illinois. Again, he
told the jury that his ex wifeactually considered having an abortion when she was
pregnant with Joel. Now, thisis a total political move. She was
actually raised in a really highly religioushousehold. This is southern Illinois, very
(12:56):
very pro life. Was that true? I mean no, okay, okay,
it wasn't. Um. So shegot on the stand and said that
that wasn't true. She adamantly deniedit, but because he was there from
the jump and said it first,it kind of got them thinking. And
because of where it was located,people who have a lot of deeply religious
(13:16):
connections insinuated a lot of things.So it was already not in her favor.
She was kind of on her own. The public defender wasn't that great,
You know, that happens. Ithappens, And it was one public
defender for her and three prosecutors,so it was just totally matched. Yep
(13:43):
um and Unfortunately, Julie was convictedon March fourth, twenty two, and
she was sentenced to sixty five yearsin prison. Oh my gosh. Now,
at the same time, a womannamed Diane Fanning was the Lovely Lady
on the Side, was writing atrue crime book about this motherfucker. Tommy
(14:07):
Line Tommy Linsel actually a very prolificserial killer. Oh um. Cells was
currently in prison in Texas on deathrow for the nineteen ninety nine murder of
thirteen year old Kayleeen Harris and theattempted murder of ten year old Crystal Searles.
Okay, so um. He pickedup these two girls, murdered one,
(14:31):
tried to kill the other. Shesurvived, and that's how they were
able to catch him. Wow.Um. While he was in custody,
he confessed to killing dozens of otherpeople, oh my god, which eventually
would connect to twenty murders. Holysmoke. Yes, so there are other
estimates, however that Cells killed closeto double that amount. Couldn't remember all
(14:56):
of them, you know. Ohmy gosh. Were they all kids?
So yes, they were. Theywere all under the age of eighteen.
Oh no. Now, he killedacross the South and the Midwest, So
he was traveling around a lot,often hitchhiking or often picking up people,
(15:20):
so on the road, constantly traveling, going from job to job, didn't
really have a home. His murdersactually dated all the way back to nineteen
seventy nine, So if you've listenedto our podcast before, we've talked a
lot about freeway systems and murder.Also, hitchhiking was very big back then.
People were like, sure, getin my car. Yeah, yeah,
(15:41):
nothing bad ever happens in a stationwagon. So Fanning was corresponding with
Cells to write the book, andover the past couple of years she was
really getting to understand him and kindof was really getting to know him as
a person and the different things thathe kind of set himself up as,
(16:03):
and the stories that he would tell. And it was in two thousand and
two, right after Julie Ray wasconvicted, when Fanning was watching a twenty
twenty episode which happened to be aboutJulie's case, and something sounded a little
sketchy, okay a little As shelistened to the story Julie recounting the intruder
(16:25):
the methodology of the killing. Fanningsuspected that the killer could be an intruder,
similar to Tommulin, Sells because hedid the exact same things. So,
in June of two thousand and two, Sells his corresponding with Fanning and
starts to describe a murder he participatedin, of killing a young boy in
(16:45):
his bedroom and then being attacked bya woman. Oh my god, does
that sound familiar. Oh my god. So Fanning realizes that he is describing
the murder of Joel Kirkpatrick. Wow, and just from watching yeah, well
connected the dots as a true crimeauthor does. That's impressive. That's impressive.
So she decides to go to Texasto visit him in person. And
(17:08):
this is mid July. He's ondeath row. So she goes down there
and he basically confesses to her thathe murdered Joel Kirkpatrick. Oh my gosh.
Okay. So a year later,her book comes out, and Fanning
is hoping that this book would kindof get the ball rolling and get investigators
(17:29):
to reopen the case. Now,her book is called through the Window because
that was his favorite thing to do, break into houses through the window.
Oh my god. Now, whileshe is doing a lot of press releases
and talking about the book and tryingto get interest in the case. Julie
Ray is appealing left and right.Nothing's happening now. Her case and this
(17:52):
book kind of started getting a littlebit of interest for a particular group downstate
called the Downstate Illinois. Since ProjectOkay and this organization works on wrongthly convicted
people in the state of Illinois,specifically in the South, they were kind
of curious and so they reached outto Fanning to see what she knew,
(18:14):
if there was anything extra she leftout of the book. So they started
to work together to try to getJulie Ray free. In September, Fanning
held a press release about Cells beingthe murderer, like straight up, just
like he confessed yea. And thenlater in two thousand and four, police
eventually did come to him in Texasand interviewed him about the murder, and
(18:37):
he again confessed to killing the child. Eventually, in June, the Fifth
District Appellate Court decided to vacate Julie'sconviction and remand her case for a new
trial. Nice, so the ballstarted rolling. That's good news. Now,
the Chicago law firm Schiff Harden entersinto the scene and they partnered with
(18:59):
the Center her Unwrongful Convictions to defendJulie Race. So now she has a
lot of people on her defense team. That's great. Yeah, and she's
going into her new trial. Andduring this time, she was actually released
on bond, so she wasn't stillin jail. Oh good, so she
was able to kind of have someoneof a normal life for the time being.
And then the case changed venues again. Okay, so she was able
to further remove herself. So itchanged to Clinton County. Prosecutors in the
(19:25):
case tried to make a fuss overthe defense entering into new evidence self confession
of the murder. They were like, no, no, no, no,
this confession has nothing to do withthis case. I mean, that's
kind of the whole point of apost conviction process. Yeah, you know,
recent laws have kind of changed someof these things, which but yeah,
(19:48):
that's kind of the whole point ofa post conviction process is additional investigation
if new things come up, likelike a confession, correcting mistakes. Maybe.
So they tried really hard but tono avail. So the judge rule
that sells statements were admissible in theretrial, and they started the trial in
(20:10):
August of two thousand and five,and by July of two thousand and six,
Julie Ray was found not guilty ofthe murder of her someone. Okay,
so this started in ninety seven yeand two thousand and six, huh
is okay? Wow? Now,unfortunately, Tommy Landsells was never charged with
the murder of Joel Kirkpatrick. Areyou fucking kidding me? Nope, because
(20:32):
Texas, Oh my god, Texasbeing Texas would not allow for Illinois to
question him further about the murder ofJoel Kirkpatrick and also another murder that happened
in nineteen eighty seven that he confessedto, a quadruple homicide of the Darden
family in Ainah, Illinois. Ohmy god, what the fuck? Texas?
(20:56):
Why? What fun? Indeed,so, on April third, twenty
fourteen, Cells was executed by theState of Texas. I'm good he was
already availed for various I guess umand Julie Ray actually received eighty seven thousand
dollars from the state of Illinois forher wrongful conviction. That's impressive, yea,
(21:18):
that is not typical. Eighty seventhousand dollars full exoneration and then she
got remarried and moved to Tennessee,where she currently lives in good homeopathy.
Well so okay, I mean I'mI'm she's happy. Right. Wow,
that is a lot um, butI mean Illinois man. Yeah yeah,
(21:45):
right, well, thank you forthat. Let's heart for Janal, thank
you. I don't so for thoseof you who have never listened to the
podcast before. Um, one ofthe things that we do is we make
sure we don't talk about specifically whatwe're covering, but somehow we managed to
get these themes. I don't knowhow we do this. Yes, yeah,
(22:08):
but I'm going to be talking aboutthe murder of Jennifer Lockmiller. Okay.
Now. Jennifer Lockmiller was born innineteen seventy one Indicatur, Illinois,
to Richard and Norma Lockmiller. Shewas one of five kids and graduated high
school with honors and then went onto attend Illinois Wesleyan University before transferring to
(22:30):
Illinois State University to study journalism innineteen ninety two. This is classic Illinois
State nineties. Look at that scrunchand that hair, girl, isn't it
great? I love that? Yeah. One of her biggest accomplishments was overcoming
and eating disorder that she had battledpretty much all through high school, and
(22:52):
her and her mother, Norma,were able to establish a support group for
eating disorders and she started speaking abouther own condition. Her mom all so
described her as beautiful, brilliant,full of potential. I mean, she
really had like a lot going forher at the time. Now, while
attending the School for Journalism, Jenniferwas able to get a student job at
the Daily Vedet, which is like, this is like the hundred year anniversary,
(23:18):
right, I just loved the vintagestyle of the nineties stuff. So
this was at the beginning of nineteenninety three. Now, Jennifer was friends
with another woman named Morgan Keif,and the two had made plans to get
together in late August. That's whywhen Keith had not heard from her friend
in a few days, and whenJennifer failed to show up to their prior
(23:41):
engagement, she became incredibly concerned.And yeah, this is where you have
to call a landline and oh mygod, yeah, put it in my
planner, I'm coming over, youknow, or yeah, And literally all
she could do was go to theapartment like it's you just gotta show up,
so she decided to go over toJennifer's apartment. When she arrived,
(24:02):
the door was unlocked, so sheentered and she found Jennifer dead. There
was a pair of scissors protruding fromher chest and something tied tightly around her
neck. No police were called immediatelyand they began investigating. When they started
(24:22):
their investigation, they discovered that herbody had started to decompose, so she
had been there for a few days. They were thinking in the range of
two to four days, which wouldkind of match up with the last time
that her friend had spoken to her. She was found partially unclothed, although
there were no signs of sexual assault. A later autopsy would reveal that Jennifer
(24:47):
had died due to strangulation by thecord from her alarm clock. There were
not any indications of force entry,and it didn't appear that anything had been
stolen, which led the authorities tobelieve that the aspect was somebody that she
knew. So very early on inthe investigation, police focused on people who
(25:07):
were close to Jennifer, and particularlymen and ex boyfriends, including Alan Beamon,
Michael Swayne, Stacy, Bubba Gates, Illinois and Larbie John Murray Larbie's
Larbie's not so. Swayne and Beemanwere actually roommates at the time of the
(25:32):
murder, and Swayne was dating Jenniferat the time of her death, but
he was pretty quickly cleared after itwas confirmed he had been working for a
high school bookstore in Elmhurst at thetime of the murder. Gates was also
interviewed by police because he had recentlymoved to Peoria in order to rekindle his
relationship with Jennifer. Okay, yes, They decided to ask Gates to take
(25:57):
a polygraph test, which showed hegave quote erratic and inconsistent answers. However,
this report was not turned over tothe Assistant States Attorney at the time
or the future defense attorneys that wouldwork on the case. Also, don't
they ask like yes or no questions? Yes, how erratic? Can your
(26:21):
yes and no be yeah no,yeah no, no, yeah, yeah
no, no yeah Midwest yeah no, yeah no. Although the polygraph was
inconclusive and really like, we couldtalk about the efficacy of polygraph tests for
hours. Really, that's an entirelydifferent conversation authorities, they decided not to
(26:45):
pursue Gates as a suspect because therewas a check in log at Aporias School
that showed he was working on Augusttwenty fifth, the day of the murder.
So this left Alan Beaman and LarbieJohn Murray. Now, Murray seemed
to be the most promising suspect becausenot only was he Jennifer's marijuana dealer,
(27:07):
but also one of her lovers.Hell, yeah, you gotta get a
discount. Also, that really thatlooks like a stock photo of like it
could be. It looks like somethingI find in a frame at hobby lobby.
Let's look like a murderer to you. No? Oh so uh.
(27:32):
He was a drug dealer and hadprevious runs with police. M He also
had apparent domestic violence issues. Oneof Murray's girlfriends told police that he took
steroids and would become erratic. That'slike the opposite of a weed dealer,
Like there's moly, like mellow andchill. You need something. You gotta
(27:53):
have someone to bring you up andthen someone to bring you back down.
So, when he was interviewed bypolice, Murray first claimed that he had
left town on August twenty fourth,so the day before the murder, but
his girlfriend talked to police and said, no, we didn't leave until the
(28:14):
afternoon on the twenty fifth, Andso he went back to police and was
like, just kidding, we lefton August twenty fifth, so that his
story would match hers. Now,authorities also had Murray take a polygraph,
but they were never able to completeit because he refused to follow instructions.
I thought he was going to gointo a fit of roid rage. They
(28:36):
were not clear on what the notfollowing instructions included, but like maybe now
this is from a later lawsuit againstone of the officers in the case quote.
The examiner later agreed that the refusalto follow instructions could have been intentional.
No, no, yeah, therole of polygraph test I know who'ld
(28:59):
get now. Despite this and hisinconsistent story, police decided to put their
sights on the final remaining suspect,Alan Beaman. Now Beaman was also involved
with Jennifer. Wows a look.Beaman was also involved with Jennifer. The
two had kind of had this likeon and off relationship up until about a
(29:22):
month before the murder. Um theyhad they had gotten into numerous verbal altercations.
Um, but there was no evidencethat Beamon had ever like attacked her
or used violence against Jennifer in anyof those instances. Beaman's alibi was that
he had recently moved back in withhis parents in Rockford, Illinois about so
(29:51):
he had just moved back to Rockfordand Rockford's about two hours away from Blooming
Blooming to Normal. So, whilethe execution was building their case, they
decided to stage a time trial tosee if it was possible for Beamon to
drive from Rockford, commit the murderand then make it back in time to
(30:11):
be witnessed by his mom at theirhouse. Was taking ninety taking ninetieth's that
quick, so this is again fromthe later lawsuit. The state's theory was
laid out as follows. Quote.Beamon drove from Normal on August twenty fifth,
excuse me, drove two Normal onAugust twenty fifth, after visiting a
(30:32):
bank in Rockford at ten eleven am, killed Jennifer at noon, and then
drove back to Rockford, where hewas observed by his mother in his room
at two fifteen pm. Beamon's whereaboutswere accounted for in Rockford at all times
on August twenty fifth, except betweenten eleven and two fifteen PM. Police
(30:52):
officer Freesemeyer was able to establish Beamon'sability to drive to normal and back during
that time by driving over the speedlimit through throughout the trip. However,
he also claimed that Beaman could nothave driven from the bank to his parents
home to place two phone calls atten thirty seven am, phone calls which,
if they had been placed by Beamon, proved indisputably that he could not
(31:15):
have also driven to normal to killJennifer because the bank was too far in
the bank to home. Time trial, though, Freesemeyer took the more trafficked
route and followed all speed limits.Okay, so there's some problems with this
time trial. You know, stillBeaman was the one that they decided to
charge with the crime. Now theentire time, Beaman maintained his innocence and
(31:41):
honestly was like counting on his alibito prove that he couldn't have done it.
Meanwhile, the prosecution argued jealousy asa motive and claimed he was the
only one who had motive ventability tocommit this. Okay, the four big
ones, I don't think so,yes, um So. Before the case
(32:01):
went to trial. Prosecuting attorney's fileda motion in limity, which essentially just
means it's stuff that happens before thecase goes to a full trial in front
of a jury. A fancy lawyer. Yeah yeah, um, it's it's
stuff they decide before it's in frontof a jury. So they filed this
motion and limited in lemony to excuseany testimony or discuss discussion of other relationships
(32:22):
that Jennifer had with other men outsideof Beamon and swayin claiming that they didn't
have anything to do with the case. Then not trying to say that he's
jealous. Yeah, no one,yeah, okay, um. And that's
part of the reason why they keptSwain and is they had found fingerprints of
(32:43):
both Beamon and Swain on the clockwhich they were both staying over at her
apartment. So someone's got a hitsnooze, yes, exactly. So they
also asked um that the defense notbe able to present evidence of alternative suspects
unless they can prove that it wasn'tspeculative. Now keep in mind, the
(33:06):
defense at this point had not beengiven any of these reports of the polygraphs,
any of these reports in relation toMurray's investigation as far as like prior
domestic violence issues and his record.So they didn't have any reason at the
time to believe that they had anythingother than speculation, which is unfortunate.
Yeah, So the motion was granted, oh boy, and the case went
(33:31):
to trial in March nineteen ninety five. In April nineteen ninety five, Beaman
was found guilty and received fifty yearsin prison. He did file direct appeal
that he lost two to one,although the dissenting judge, Robert W.
Cook wrote that he would have overturnedthe conviction due to lack of evidence.
(33:51):
It's sketchy. Oops. Yeah.So Beaman began his post conviction process,
which involved vast reinvestigations. I knowwe talked about that earlier, a lot
of appeals. Specifically, he workedwith the Northwestern University Center on Wrongful Convictions
with attorneys Jeffrey or Dangan and KarenDaniel, who were able to discover this
(34:15):
evidence that the state failed to handover, and they also discovered the extent
to which the jury was misled aboutthe timeline of events on the day of
Jennifer's murder. The appeal made itsway all the way up to the Illinois
Supreme Court, where Beaman's attorneys claimedquote, Beaman was denied due process of
law by the States failure to correctDetective freeze Meyer's testimony that it was not
(34:38):
possible for the petitioner to arrive hometo make the telephone calls on the morning
of the murder. His trial attorneyswere ineffective because he failed to investigate and
present available evidence tending to prove thatpetitioner made calls from his residence on the
morning of the offense, and hisright to do process of law was violated
by the States failure to disclose materialinformation ab out John Doe, which is
(35:00):
what they were calling one of theformer ex boyfriends who was a viable alternative
suspect. So in May two thousandand eight, the Supreme Court released an
opinion we love those yeah, whichactually, honestly, it was really interesting
because they they sift through all ofthis information really with a fine tooth column.
(35:21):
They want step by step through everythingthat the state presented and was like,
here's why it sucks, Here's whythis evidence sucks by the Illinois States
Supreme Court. So they released anopinion and they found that the state did
indeed violate Beaman's due process, andhis conviction was vacated and remanded back down
(35:45):
to the lower courts. Now,at this point, the state's attorney has
an option. It's not just likeover when it gets remanded. The states
attorney has an option to retry orto dismiss the case. And in January
two and nine, they announced thatthey were dropping all charges against Beaman.
(36:05):
He then shuck, I know becausea lot of time, let's be real,
like a lot of times prosecutors donot want tomit their mistakes. Yeah,
police do not want to himIt theirmistakes. There are so many times
where they're like, we still thinkhe's guilty, even though there's very obvious
evidence. Yeah, to the contrary, like someone could have killed them in
front of him, You're like,NOA, NOA, I don't think so.
Still Yeah. He then filed fora certificate of actual innocence, which
(36:30):
sounds like something you probably shouldn't haveto do. But even though you get
your conviction overturned, the and andeven if it's like vacated and dismissed,
all of that will still show upon your record. If they run a
background check, it'll still show thatyou were charged with murder, but it
can be problematic out of context.Yeah, trying to apply to this party
(36:52):
is okay, I did not committhe actual murder. So what the certificate
of actual innocence does is it essentiallyremoves the conviction entirely from your record and
indicates that you should not have arecord. The certificate of actual innocence was
granted in April twenty thirteen, andjust for good measure, in twenty fifteen,
(37:15):
as then Governor Pat Quinn was leavingoffice, he decided to grant Beaman
an innocence pardon, which honestly waslargely seen as more of a symbolic gesture,
but still nice. Yeah, Imean, like all the right things
that should be happening, well ata little late after the fact. So
(37:37):
Alan Beaman in total spent thirteen anda half years in prison for a murder
he did not commit. Yes,Now, Jennifer Lockmiller's murder unfortunately still remains
unsolved and open. What Yes,do I know what happened to Murray?
I have no idea. I couldnot find anything outside of this murder investigation.
(37:59):
So there's so many other boyfriends whatI don't know. They just were
like I guess that's fine. Themost recent article I could find about the
case was from twenty eighteen, whereNormal Police Chief Rick Bleischner said, quote,
at this point, we consider itan inactive case. If new information
comes forward, that would change andwe would follow up on it. Yeah.
(38:25):
So just to end, I'm thatbig. Yeah, it's interesting that
we both kind of covered wrongful convictions, although it's kind of hard to like
not throw a rock at one inIllinois because, yeah, because there's so
many. Yeah. Yeah, andwhen I bring this up to people,
they almost don't believe me that,like, Illinois is one of the largest
(38:50):
offenders, Right, So I dowant to kind of like lay out the
track record that Illinois has with wrongfulconvictions. Give us the stats. Yeah,
So, the National Registry of Exonerationsreleases an annual report. They have
not released the one for twenty twentytwo, but for last year's twenty twenty
one was incredibly telling. So intwenty twenty one, Illinois had thirty eight
(39:15):
exonerations, twenty more than any otherstate. Yeah. This also made it
the fourth year in a row thatIllinois has led the nation. One.
I guess I was gonna saying,I guess if we need to be number
one in something, but like couldit just not be that, but also
just get it write it this waythough I'm gonna do a halfass here.
(39:37):
Someone has to. Maybe we're doingmore due diligence to overturn that than other
states. Yes, but also wehad a bigger mest to clean up because
according to the Report Illinois, theIllinois ranking continues to be driven by cases
tainted by misconduct of corrupt police officers, led by Sergeant Ronald Watts of the
(39:59):
Chicago Police Department, who planted drugson people after they refuse to pay bribes.
We have covered we have covered thissome of this and it was like
a whole sweeping like hundreds of people. Like it's crazy the amount of people.
So they're still like trying to rectifythat in Illinois. Nationally, in
(40:19):
twenty twenty one, forty eight percentof exonerations involved homicide, which is staggering
many and the average exonree spends elevenand a half years in prison for crimes
that they didn't commit. Some thingsto think about. This is something that
I know, this is something thatJenn and I are both really passionate about
because like anytime you have humans involvedin a system, like, there's going
(40:44):
to be imperfections. But y'all likethe one wrongful conviction is too many?
Yes, yes, um, sothat is the case. The Murder of
Jennifer, the Unsolved Murder of JenniferLockmiller, Illinois welcomes you. Yeah.
Um, and that really has beenour episode. That is our episode.
(41:05):
Yeah. So if you enjoyed whatyou heard today, you can find more
episodes just like this at Bad TasteCrime podcast dot com. Maybe see a
therapist too. Yeah, why youenjoyed that so much? Yeah, we
don't have a problem. We're fine. We're fine. It's you're fine.
Um. We also want to saythank you to Side Street Studio Arts for
(41:28):
putting on Dark Matters and Ghostly forrunning our sound. Thank you guys very
much. Um, you've been alovely audience. You've been audience. Yes.
Uh, this has been the BadTaste Crimecast. We will see you
in two weeks. Goodbyeye. Whilethey discovered upon their rearivals
Why they discovered their arrivals. Hello, Hi, everybody, welcome. After
sitting here staring at each other forthe last fifteen minute address the elephant in
the room, so welcome to theBad Taste Crime Podcast. I'm Vicky and
(00:29):
I'm Janelle, and we are heretoday to talk about some murder, some
pre ghosts, get you pumped fromthe what happens before the paranormal experience.
UM. So, for those whoare unfamiliar, we're a bi weekly true
crime comedy podcast variety show. Ispoke, we were saying earlier. Yeah,
(00:57):
this is a spokeshow we look ateverything from murder to fraud to the
food. Food crimes. Crimes isreal big with us, so we have
we have something for everybody. Um, we are just going to jump right
into it today because we got alot to cover. Yeah. But first,
(01:19):
this is that part of the showwhere we say content may not be
appropriate for all listeners. Oh,this is what we're covering today. This
is where you want, yes,because like we have content warningly yeah and
sly Unfortunately you guys are trapped ina room with us. Yeah. But
for those listening at home, wewill be covering some pretty heavy topics today
(01:44):
as you do a little a littlebit of child murder. So sorry,
so sorry, that's all you that, that is all you. Um so,
just a heads up on that.But as we said, we're covering
some Illinois crime today because keep itlocal. There's local, there's also plenty.
I mean, like the options areendless really. Um So, Janelle,
(02:07):
yes, would you like to startus off? Oh? Sure.
So we're gonna go all the waydown south to Lawrenceville, Illinois for this
one, and it's right close tothe Indiana border, and we're gonna go
all the way back to nineteen ninetyseven, I know, all the way,
all the nine back to the nineties. Get your brave hair gel going.
Stuff from the nineties is being consideredvintage now I know which you're lying
(02:30):
a little depressing it like that's mychildhood. Um okay, so get yourself
in that mindset. Okay, Anine place. We're there, saved by
the bell, Okay, But we'regoing to be discussing the murder of Joel
Kirkpatrick. So. Joel was aten year old boy who lived part time
with his mother, Julia Ray andpart time with his father, Leonard Um.
(02:53):
The two met his teens and weremarried quickly, and they divorced in
nineteen ninety four. They shared custodywithal ever since, so a lot of
times he was going in between bothof his parents' houses. His father was
a police officer who was recently remarriedto a circuit court clerk. That in
mind for later, and Julie actuallywas currently back in school to obtain a
(03:16):
PhD in psychology at the University ofIndiana, so she was doing things.
The two had an awful marriage andthey had a really really terrible divorce.
Oh so yeah, and because hewas a police officer, he was doing
some sketchy things and was able tokind of convince the courts to give him
(03:43):
full custody by making up a lotof lies about his wife. Basically,
it's interesting. We were just talkingabout how when we find out somebody as
a police officer, we're kind oflike, no, yeah, which is
a little unfortunate. You know.I would like to say I try not
to judge people, but it justhappens, let's be real. So yeah,
(04:03):
so he was kind of controlling everything, and he had full custody during
the week and she had Joel onthe weekends. So on the weekend of
October thirteenth, was when she wasspending time with him and they were gonna,
you know, have pancake breakfast tofun mom and son things. They
(04:23):
went to bed early, and thenat three o'clock in the morning, Julie
woke up to a blood curdling screamfrom the other room. So she went
into her son's room and as sheentered, she saw a man in a
mask repeatedly stabbing her son. Ohfuck, okay, yeah, zero to
(04:44):
ten, zero to ten. Julieattacked the intruder. She crawled on top
of him like a spider monkey andstarted punching him and kicking him, and
he punched her back obviously, andfled the scene out the back door.
So Julie immediately calls the police,goes to her son's side. He was
(05:10):
dead. On the scene, Shedecides to go into the backyard to see
if she could see where he went. She saw some footprints in the backyard,
so she's like, okay, shepeeks over the fence, but he's
gone, so quickly she goes backinto the house. The police arrive and
they kind of just take over theentire scene. Okay, Joel Kirkpatrick was
(05:32):
stabbed eleven times in his beds.The crime scene was full of blood everywhere,
and there was debris. So inthe kerfuffle that they had, there
was lots of things knocked over,broken glass, there was dirt from shoes.
Since this was a small town andhe's the son of a police officer,
(05:54):
they were really trying to be verythorough to figure out what happened.
They checked every square inch of thehouse. They went through the drains,
the sinks, they even went intothe septic tank, oh my, and
every window, every door. Theywere very very thorough. Can you explain
the septic tank? Thank to me. So if you flush something down the
(06:15):
toilet, it stays in the septicyank. What would be in the septic
tank from the murder? Okay?Yeah? Every everything? Yes, okay,
okay. Um. So they foundunidentified hair and a bloody shoeprint on
a piece of broken glass from thewindow where the perpetrator had allegedly entered,
(06:35):
and they photographed Julie Um just tosee, you know, obviously where the
injuries were, since she was theonly person who saw this intruder Um,
they were skeptical. Unfortunately, frommy start, um. Now on her
shirt. There were flecks of bloodas well. Okay, um, but
(06:56):
just a couple of specs. Butthis would kind of be something that would
come back to haunt her. Now. This is Joel's father, Leonard.
Once he was informed of his son'sdeath, he began to suspect his ex
wife and he went on a crusadeto try to get her arrested, which
(07:19):
I have a feeling he got alarger platform because of his status on the
fact that he married a circuit clerk. Yeah. Yeah, So at first
the evidence was really solidly against Juliebecause there was a lot of things there,
like unidentified hair and a bloody shoeprint. She was barefoot the entire time,
(07:42):
right, still living at her house. Yeah right. No one wears
shoes to bed at three o'clock inthe morning unless they're wasted on accident.
Yeah, the cave. So herex husband was really persistent, and so
to kind of counteract this, Juliesaid that she would take a polygraph test.
(08:03):
So she took two polygraph tests.My game, but though they're not
admissible in court, girl, thisis going to be such a theme.
So she took two of them andshe passed, but that wasn't enough,
so he persistently keeps coming to thepolice and the investigator, saying that she
obviously had something to do with it, and it was because he had full
(08:26):
custody, was his argument. Sothree years go by and nothing was done
really in the case. They weren'treally investigating anyone else. They were kind
of a little bit in limbo withJulie, but due to her husband's persistence
and the connection to the circuit court, charges were eventually brought up against her.
Okay, on October twelve, twothousand, a Lawrence County grand jury
(08:50):
indicted Julie Ray for her son's murder. Now, of course it's a small
town, so it was all overthe newspapers since the murder. She actually
moved to Indiana to be closer tothe University of Indiana where she was still
studying. So she was taken intocustody at Monroe County and then on December
(09:11):
fifteenth and two thousand, Julie waivedextradition to Illinois. Now this was an
exchange for an agreement where she wouldbe released on bond. So oh,
so she was saying she'd not fightthe extradition, so long as she could
be really somebud yes, okay,so she was kind of wheeling and dealing.
(09:31):
She then petitioned to have a changeof venue for the trial because of
her husband's connections she knew exactly,Yeah, so she petitioned to have it
changed to Wayne County in Illinois.Now, if you're not familiar with the
Illinois court system, highly political andinfluenced by money, especially down south.
(09:56):
We are considered one of the mostcorrupt states for a reason. So it
actually took two years before the trialeven started because of all the political kind
of switching that happened. So Juliewould actually potentially be up against a death
penalty. So, if you're notfamiliar, the state of Illinois didn't stop
(10:18):
having the death penalty until two thousandand eleven. Yeah, far too long,
huh yeah. Yeah. So dueto the change of venue and raised
defense team shifting, she spent theentirety of her life savings trying to obtain
like counsel, so it was alittle bit difficult. She ran out of
(10:39):
money, and so after that shewas kind of trying to figure out what
she was going to do, andso she failed a prosy petition okay,
and she was requesting the appointment oftwo capital qualified attorneys to defend her because
she was up for that death penalty. Okay, okay, Now this is
where they really really fucked her.You mean all of that before that was
(11:03):
the gentle fuck. Now this isthe hard fuck. Okay, that was
the warning. Yeah. So theydecided then to remove death penalty from the
table, and so then she wouldn'tqualify for those free lawyers. Wow,
so she was back to square somebullshit. So they were going for life
(11:26):
in prison instead. Okay, Sonow she didn't have that free lawyer that
she was going to get, andnow she was kind of in limbo.
She had no idea where she wasreally going to go, no resources.
But on February twenty first of twothousand and two, the trial open.
She was given a defense lawyer eventually, and it opened in Wayne County before
(11:48):
a Lawrence County Circuit Court judge namedRobert Hopkins and then a jury of six
men and women from that county.Okay, now, the prosecut us,
we're really really big assholes, andokay, put her ex husband on the
(12:09):
stand right away. Of course,they elicited testimony from him that was borderline
illegal, not appropriate because it wasjust him getting on the stand accusing her
basically, Wow, yeah, that'sdefinitely not legal. No, sure,
southern Illinois. So what he's kindof brought forth before the court was something
(12:33):
that was super controversial. And keepin mind Southern Illinois. Again, he
told the jury that his ex wifeactually considered having an abortion when she was
pregnant with Joel. Now, thisis a total political move. She was
actually raised in a really highly religioushousehold. This is southern Illinois, very
(12:56):
very pro life. Was that true? I mean no, okay, okay,
it wasn't. Um. So shegot on the stand and said that
that wasn't true. She adamantly deniedit, but because he was there from
the jump and said it first,it kind of got them thinking. And
because of where it was located,people who have a lot of deeply religious
(13:16):
connections insinuated a lot of things.So it was already not in her favor.
She was kind of on her own. The public defender wasn't that great,
You know, that happens. Ithappens, And it was one public
defender for her and three prosecutors,so it was just totally matched. Yep
(13:43):
um and Unfortunately, Julie was convictedon March fourth, twenty two, and
she was sentenced to sixty five yearsin prison. Oh my gosh. Now,
at the same time, a womannamed Diane Fanning was the Lovely Lady
on the Side, was writing atrue crime book about this motherfucker. Tommy
(14:07):
Line Tommy Linsel actually a very prolificserial killer. Oh um. Cells was
currently in prison in Texas on deathrow for the nineteen ninety nine murder of
thirteen year old Kayleeen Harris and theattempted murder of ten year old Crystal Searles.
Okay, so um. He pickedup these two girls, murdered one,
(14:31):
tried to kill the other. Shesurvived, and that's how they were
able to catch him. Wow.Um. While he was in custody,
he confessed to killing dozens of otherpeople, oh my god, which eventually
would connect to twenty murders. Holysmoke. Yes, so there are other
estimates, however that Cells killed closeto double that amount. Couldn't remember all
(14:56):
of them, you know. Ohmy gosh. Were they all kids?
So yes, they were. Theywere all under the age of eighteen.
Oh no. Now, he killedacross the South and the Midwest, So
he was traveling around a lot,often hitchhiking or often picking up people,
(15:20):
so on the road, constantly traveling, going from job to job, didn't
really have a home. His murdersactually dated all the way back to nineteen
seventy nine, So if you've listenedto our podcast before, we've talked a
lot about freeway systems and murder.Also, hitchhiking was very big back then.
People were like, sure, getin my car. Yeah, yeah,
(15:41):
nothing bad ever happens in a stationwagon. So Fanning was corresponding with
Cells to write the book, andover the past couple of years she was
really getting to understand him and kindof was really getting to know him as
a person and the different things thathe kind of set himself up as,
(16:03):
and the stories that he would tell. And it was in two thousand and
two, right after Julie Ray wasconvicted, when Fanning was watching a twenty
twenty episode which happened to be aboutJulie's case, and something sounded a little
sketchy, okay a little As shelistened to the story Julie recounting the intruder
(16:25):
the methodology of the killing. Fanningsuspected that the killer could be an intruder,
similar to Tommulin, Sells because hedid the exact same things. So,
in June of two thousand and two, Sells his corresponding with Fanning and
starts to describe a murder he participatedin, of killing a young boy in
(16:45):
his bedroom and then being attacked bya woman. Oh my god, does
that sound familiar. Oh my god. So Fanning realizes that he is describing
the murder of Joel Kirkpatrick. Wow, and just from watching yeah, well
connected the dots as a true crimeauthor does. That's impressive. That's impressive.
So she decides to go to Texasto visit him in person. And
(17:08):
this is mid July. He's ondeath row. So she goes down there
and he basically confesses to her thathe murdered Joel Kirkpatrick. Oh my gosh.
Okay. So a year later,her book comes out, and Fanning
is hoping that this book would kindof get the ball rolling and get investigators
(17:29):
to reopen the case. Now,her book is called through the Window because
that was his favorite thing to do, break into houses through the window.
Oh my god. Now, whileshe is doing a lot of press releases
and talking about the book and tryingto get interest in the case. Julie
Ray is appealing left and right.Nothing's happening now. Her case and this
(17:52):
book kind of started getting a littlebit of interest for a particular group downstate
called the Downstate Illinois. Since ProjectOkay and this organization works on wrongthly convicted
people in the state of Illinois,specifically in the South, they were kind
of curious and so they reached outto Fanning to see what she knew,
(18:14):
if there was anything extra she leftout of the book. So they started
to work together to try to getJulie Ray free. In September, Fanning
held a press release about Cells beingthe murderer, like straight up, just
like he confessed yea. And thenlater in two thousand and four, police
eventually did come to him in Texasand interviewed him about the murder, and
(18:37):
he again confessed to killing the child. Eventually, in June, the Fifth
District Appellate Court decided to vacate Julie'sconviction and remand her case for a new
trial. Nice, so the ballstarted rolling. That's good news. Now,
the Chicago law firm Schiff Harden entersinto the scene and they partnered with
(18:59):
the Center her Unwrongful Convictions to defendJulie Race. So now she has a
lot of people on her defense team. That's great. Yeah, and she's
going into her new trial. Andduring this time, she was actually released
on bond, so she wasn't stillin jail. Oh good, so she
was able to kind of have someoneof a normal life for the time being.
And then the case changed venues again. Okay, so she was able
to further remove herself. So itchanged to Clinton County. Prosecutors in the
(19:25):
case tried to make a fuss overthe defense entering into new evidence self confession
of the murder. They were like, no, no, no, no,
this confession has nothing to do withthis case. I mean, that's
kind of the whole point of apost conviction process. Yeah, you know,
recent laws have kind of changed someof these things, which but yeah,
(19:48):
that's kind of the whole point ofa post conviction process is additional investigation
if new things come up, likelike a confession, correcting mistakes. Maybe.
So they tried really hard but tono avail. So the judge rule
that sells statements were admissible in theretrial, and they started the trial in
(20:10):
August of two thousand and five,and by July of two thousand and six,
Julie Ray was found not guilty ofthe murder of her someone. Okay,
so this started in ninety seven yeand two thousand and six, huh
is okay? Wow? Now,unfortunately, Tommy Landsells was never charged with
the murder of Joel Kirkpatrick. Areyou fucking kidding me? Nope, because
(20:32):
Texas, Oh my god, Texasbeing Texas would not allow for Illinois to
question him further about the murder ofJoel Kirkpatrick and also another murder that happened
in nineteen eighty seven that he confessedto, a quadruple homicide of the Darden
family in Ainah, Illinois. Ohmy god, what the fuck? Texas?
(20:56):
Why? What fun? Indeed,so, on April third, twenty
fourteen, Cells was executed by theState of Texas. I'm good he was
already availed for various I guess umand Julie Ray actually received eighty seven thousand
dollars from the state of Illinois forher wrongful conviction. That's impressive, yea,
(21:18):
that is not typical. Eighty seventhousand dollars full exoneration and then she
got remarried and moved to Tennessee,where she currently lives in good homeopathy.
Well so okay, I mean I'mI'm she's happy. Right. Wow,
that is a lot um, butI mean Illinois man. Yeah yeah,
(21:45):
right, well, thank you forthat. Let's heart for Janal, thank
you. I don't so for thoseof you who have never listened to the
podcast before. Um, one ofthe things that we do is we make
sure we don't talk about specifically whatwe're covering, but somehow we managed to
get these themes. I don't knowhow we do this. Yes, yeah,
(22:08):
but I'm going to be talking aboutthe murder of Jennifer Lockmiller. Okay.
Now. Jennifer Lockmiller was born innineteen seventy one Indicatur, Illinois,
to Richard and Norma Lockmiller. Shewas one of five kids and graduated high
school with honors and then went onto attend Illinois Wesleyan University before transferring to
(22:30):
Illinois State University to study journalism innineteen ninety two. This is classic Illinois
State nineties. Look at that scrunchand that hair, girl, isn't it
great? I love that? Yeah. One of her biggest accomplishments was overcoming
and eating disorder that she had battledpretty much all through high school, and
(22:52):
her and her mother, Norma,were able to establish a support group for
eating disorders and she started speaking abouther own condition. Her mom all so
described her as beautiful, brilliant,full of potential. I mean, she
really had like a lot going forher at the time. Now, while
attending the School for Journalism, Jenniferwas able to get a student job at
the Daily Vedet, which is like, this is like the hundred year anniversary,
(23:18):
right, I just loved the vintagestyle of the nineties stuff. So
this was at the beginning of nineteenninety three. Now, Jennifer was friends
with another woman named Morgan Keif,and the two had made plans to get
together in late August. That's whywhen Keith had not heard from her friend
in a few days, and whenJennifer failed to show up to their prior
(23:41):
engagement, she became incredibly concerned.And yeah, this is where you have
to call a landline and oh mygod, yeah, put it in my
planner, I'm coming over, youknow, or yeah, And literally all
she could do was go to theapartment like it's you just gotta show up,
so she decided to go over toJennifer's apartment. When she arrived,
(24:02):
the door was unlocked, so sheentered and she found Jennifer dead. There
was a pair of scissors protruding fromher chest and something tied tightly around her
neck. No police were called immediatelyand they began investigating. When they started
(24:22):
their investigation, they discovered that herbody had started to decompose, so she
had been there for a few days. They were thinking in the range of
two to four days, which wouldkind of match up with the last time
that her friend had spoken to her. She was found partially unclothed, although
there were no signs of sexual assault. A later autopsy would reveal that Jennifer
(24:47):
had died due to strangulation by thecord from her alarm clock. There were
not any indications of force entry,and it didn't appear that anything had been
stolen, which led the authorities tobelieve that the aspect was somebody that she
knew. So very early on inthe investigation, police focused on people who
(25:07):
were close to Jennifer, and particularlymen and ex boyfriends, including Alan Beamon,
Michael Swayne, Stacy, Bubba Gates, Illinois and Larbie John Murray Larbie's
Larbie's not so. Swayne and Beemanwere actually roommates at the time of the
(25:32):
murder, and Swayne was dating Jenniferat the time of her death, but
he was pretty quickly cleared after itwas confirmed he had been working for a
high school bookstore in Elmhurst at thetime of the murder. Gates was also
interviewed by police because he had recentlymoved to Peoria in order to rekindle his
relationship with Jennifer. Okay, yes, They decided to ask Gates to take
(25:57):
a polygraph test, which showed hegave quote erratic and inconsistent answers. However,
this report was not turned over tothe Assistant States Attorney at the time
or the future defense attorneys that wouldwork on the case. Also, don't
they ask like yes or no questions? Yes, how erratic? Can your
(26:21):
yes and no be yeah no,yeah no, no, yeah, yeah
no, no yeah Midwest yeah no, yeah no. Although the polygraph was
inconclusive and really like, we couldtalk about the efficacy of polygraph tests for
hours. Really, that's an entirelydifferent conversation authorities, they decided not to
(26:45):
pursue Gates as a suspect because therewas a check in log at Aporias School
that showed he was working on Augusttwenty fifth, the day of the murder.
So this left Alan Beaman and LarbieJohn Murray. Now, Murray seemed
to be the most promising suspect becausenot only was he Jennifer's marijuana dealer,
(27:07):
but also one of her lovers.Hell, yeah, you gotta get a
discount. Also, that really thatlooks like a stock photo of like it
could be. It looks like somethingI find in a frame at hobby lobby.
Let's look like a murderer to you. No? Oh so uh.
(27:32):
He was a drug dealer and hadprevious runs with police. M He also
had apparent domestic violence issues. Oneof Murray's girlfriends told police that he took
steroids and would become erratic. That'slike the opposite of a weed dealer,
Like there's moly, like mellow andchill. You need something. You gotta
(27:53):
have someone to bring you up andthen someone to bring you back down.
So, when he was interviewed bypolice, Murray first claimed that he had
left town on August twenty fourth,so the day before the murder, but
his girlfriend talked to police and said, no, we didn't leave until the
(28:14):
afternoon on the twenty fifth, Andso he went back to police and was
like, just kidding, we lefton August twenty fifth, so that his
story would match hers. Now,authorities also had Murray take a polygraph,
but they were never able to completeit because he refused to follow instructions.
I thought he was going to gointo a fit of roid rage. They
(28:36):
were not clear on what the notfollowing instructions included, but like maybe now
this is from a later lawsuit againstone of the officers in the case quote.
The examiner later agreed that the refusalto follow instructions could have been intentional.
No, no, yeah, therole of polygraph test I know who'ld
(28:59):
get now. Despite this and hisinconsistent story, police decided to put their
sights on the final remaining suspect,Alan Beaman. Now Beaman was also involved
with Jennifer. Wows a look.Beaman was also involved with Jennifer. The
two had kind of had this likeon and off relationship up until about a
(29:22):
month before the murder. Um theyhad they had gotten into numerous verbal altercations.
Um, but there was no evidencethat Beamon had ever like attacked her
or used violence against Jennifer in anyof those instances. Beaman's alibi was that
he had recently moved back in withhis parents in Rockford, Illinois about so
(29:51):
he had just moved back to Rockfordand Rockford's about two hours away from Blooming
Blooming to Normal. So, whilethe execution was building their case, they
decided to stage a time trial tosee if it was possible for Beamon to
drive from Rockford, commit the murderand then make it back in time to
(30:11):
be witnessed by his mom at theirhouse. Was taking ninety taking ninetieth's that
quick, so this is again fromthe later lawsuit. The state's theory was
laid out as follows. Quote.Beamon drove from Normal on August twenty fifth,
excuse me, drove two Normal onAugust twenty fifth, after visiting a
(30:32):
bank in Rockford at ten eleven am, killed Jennifer at noon, and then
drove back to Rockford, where hewas observed by his mother in his room
at two fifteen pm. Beamon's whereaboutswere accounted for in Rockford at all times
on August twenty fifth, except betweenten eleven and two fifteen PM. Police
(30:52):
officer Freesemeyer was able to establish Beamon'sability to drive to normal and back during
that time by driving over the speedlimit through throughout the trip. However,
he also claimed that Beaman could nothave driven from the bank to his parents
home to place two phone calls atten thirty seven am, phone calls which,
if they had been placed by Beamon, proved indisputably that he could not
(31:15):
have also driven to normal to killJennifer because the bank was too far in
the bank to home. Time trial, though, Freesemeyer took the more trafficked
route and followed all speed limits.Okay, so there's some problems with this
time trial. You know, stillBeaman was the one that they decided to
charge with the crime. Now theentire time, Beaman maintained his innocence and
(31:41):
honestly was like counting on his alibito prove that he couldn't have done it.
Meanwhile, the prosecution argued jealousy asa motive and claimed he was the
only one who had motive ventability tocommit this. Okay, the four big
ones, I don't think so,yes, um So. Before the case
(32:01):
went to trial. Prosecuting attorney's fileda motion in limity, which essentially just
means it's stuff that happens before thecase goes to a full trial in front
of a jury. A fancy lawyer. Yeah yeah, um, it's it's
stuff they decide before it's in frontof a jury. So they filed this
motion and limited in lemony to excuseany testimony or discuss discussion of other relationships
(32:22):
that Jennifer had with other men outsideof Beamon and swayin claiming that they didn't
have anything to do with the case. Then not trying to say that he's
jealous. Yeah, no one,yeah, okay, um. And that's
part of the reason why they keptSwain and is they had found fingerprints of
(32:43):
both Beamon and Swain on the clockwhich they were both staying over at her
apartment. So someone's got a hitsnooze, yes, exactly. So they
also asked um that the defense notbe able to present evidence of alternative suspects
unless they can prove that it wasn'tspeculative. Now keep in mind, the
(33:06):
defense at this point had not beengiven any of these reports of the polygraphs,
any of these reports in relation toMurray's investigation as far as like prior
domestic violence issues and his record.So they didn't have any reason at the
time to believe that they had anythingother than speculation, which is unfortunate.
Yeah, So the motion was granted, oh boy, and the case went
(33:31):
to trial in March nineteen ninety five. In April nineteen ninety five, Beaman
was found guilty and received fifty yearsin prison. He did file direct appeal
that he lost two to one,although the dissenting judge, Robert W.
Cook wrote that he would have overturnedthe conviction due to lack of evidence.
(33:51):
It's sketchy. Oops. Yeah.So Beaman began his post conviction process,
which involved vast reinvestigations. I knowwe talked about that earlier, a lot
of appeals. Specifically, he workedwith the Northwestern University Center on Wrongful Convictions
with attorneys Jeffrey or Dangan and KarenDaniel, who were able to discover this
(34:15):
evidence that the state failed to handover, and they also discovered the extent
to which the jury was misled aboutthe timeline of events on the day of
Jennifer's murder. The appeal made itsway all the way up to the Illinois
Supreme Court, where Beaman's attorneys claimedquote, Beaman was denied due process of
law by the States failure to correctDetective freeze Meyer's testimony that it was not
(34:38):
possible for the petitioner to arrive hometo make the telephone calls on the morning
of the murder. His trial attorneyswere ineffective because he failed to investigate and
present available evidence tending to prove thatpetitioner made calls from his residence on the
morning of the offense, and hisright to do process of law was violated
by the States failure to disclose materialinformation ab out John Doe, which is
(35:00):
what they were calling one of theformer ex boyfriends who was a viable alternative
suspect. So in May two thousandand eight, the Supreme Court released an
opinion we love those yeah, whichactually, honestly, it was really interesting
because they they sift through all ofthis information really with a fine tooth column.
(35:21):
They want step by step through everythingthat the state presented and was like,
here's why it sucks, Here's whythis evidence sucks by the Illinois States
Supreme Court. So they released anopinion and they found that the state did
indeed violate Beaman's due process, andhis conviction was vacated and remanded back down
(35:45):
to the lower courts. Now,at this point, the state's attorney has
an option. It's not just likeover when it gets remanded. The states
attorney has an option to retry orto dismiss the case. And in January
two and nine, they announced thatthey were dropping all charges against Beaman.
(36:05):
He then shuck, I know becausea lot of time, let's be real,
like a lot of times prosecutors donot want tomit their mistakes. Yeah,
police do not want to himIt theirmistakes. There are so many times
where they're like, we still thinkhe's guilty, even though there's very obvious
evidence. Yeah, to the contrary, like someone could have killed them in
front of him, You're like,NOA, NOA, I don't think so.
Still Yeah. He then filed fora certificate of actual innocence, which
(36:30):
sounds like something you probably shouldn't haveto do. But even though you get
your conviction overturned, the and andeven if it's like vacated and dismissed,
all of that will still show upon your record. If they run a
background check, it'll still show thatyou were charged with murder, but it
can be problematic out of context.Yeah, trying to apply to this party
(36:52):
is okay, I did not committhe actual murder. So what the certificate
of actual innocence does is it essentiallyremoves the conviction entirely from your record and
indicates that you should not have arecord. The certificate of actual innocence was
granted in April twenty thirteen, andjust for good measure, in twenty fifteen,
(37:15):
as then Governor Pat Quinn was leavingoffice, he decided to grant Beaman
an innocence pardon, which honestly waslargely seen as more of a symbolic gesture,
but still nice. Yeah, Imean, like all the right things
that should be happening, well ata little late after the fact. So
(37:37):
Alan Beaman in total spent thirteen anda half years in prison for a murder
he did not commit. Yes,Now, Jennifer Lockmiller's murder unfortunately still remains
unsolved and open. What Yes,do I know what happened to Murray?
I have no idea. I couldnot find anything outside of this murder investigation.
(37:59):
So there's so many other boyfriends whatI don't know. They just were
like I guess that's fine. Themost recent article I could find about the
case was from twenty eighteen, whereNormal Police Chief Rick Bleischner said, quote,
at this point, we consider itan inactive case. If new information
comes forward, that would change andwe would follow up on it. Yeah.
(38:25):
So just to end, I'm thatbig. Yeah, it's interesting that
we both kind of covered wrongful convictions, although it's kind of hard to like
not throw a rock at one inIllinois because, yeah, because there's so
many. Yeah. Yeah, andwhen I bring this up to people,
they almost don't believe me that,like, Illinois is one of the largest
(38:50):
offenders, Right, So I dowant to kind of like lay out the
track record that Illinois has with wrongfulconvictions. Give us the stats. Yeah,
So, the National Registry of Exonerationsreleases an annual report. They have
not released the one for twenty twentytwo, but for last year's twenty twenty
one was incredibly telling. So intwenty twenty one, Illinois had thirty eight
(39:15):
exonerations, twenty more than any otherstate. Yeah. This also made it
the fourth year in a row thatIllinois has led the nation. One.
I guess I was gonna saying,I guess if we need to be number
one in something, but like couldit just not be that, but also
just get it write it this waythough I'm gonna do a halfass here.
(39:37):
Someone has to. Maybe we're doingmore due diligence to overturn that than other
states. Yes, but also wehad a bigger mest to clean up because
according to the Report Illinois, theIllinois ranking continues to be driven by cases
tainted by misconduct of corrupt police officers, led by Sergeant Ronald Watts of the
(39:59):
Chicago Police Department, who planted drugson people after they refuse to pay bribes.
We have covered we have covered thissome of this and it was like
a whole sweeping like hundreds of people. Like it's crazy the amount of people.
So they're still like trying to rectifythat in Illinois. Nationally, in
(40:19):
twenty twenty one, forty eight percentof exonerations involved homicide, which is staggering
many and the average exonree spends elevenand a half years in prison for crimes
that they didn't commit. Some thingsto think about. This is something that
I know, this is something thatJenn and I are both really passionate about
because like anytime you have humans involvedin a system, like, there's going
(40:44):
to be imperfections. But y'all likethe one wrongful conviction is too many?
Yes, yes, um, sothat is the case. The Murder of
Jennifer, the Unsolved Murder of JenniferLockmiller, Illinois welcomes you. Yeah.
Um, and that really has beenour episode. That is our episode.
(41:05):
Yeah. So if you enjoyed whatyou heard today, you can find more
episodes just like this at Bad TasteCrime podcast dot com. Maybe see a
therapist too. Yeah, why youenjoyed that so much? Yeah, we
don't have a problem. We're fine. We're fine. It's you're fine.
Um. We also want to saythank you to Side Street Studio Arts for
(41:28):
putting on Dark Matters and Ghostly forrunning our sound. Thank you guys very
much. Um, you've been alovely audience. You've been audience. Yes.
Uh, this has been the BadTaste Crimecast. We will see you
in two weeks. Goodbyeye. Whilethey discovered upon their rearivals
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