Latest / NO FILTER / Episode 13_ What Charlie Childers Saw(M4A_128K)

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Episode 13_ What Charlie Childers Saw(M4A_128K) · NO FILTER

• 0:13
  Speaker 1: There were only ever two pieces of evidence that link
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Lee Clark directly to the death of Brian Bowling, and
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: they were Angela Bruce and Charlie Childers, but Angela Bruce recanted,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: so that leaves only Charlie. Charlie had been watching TV
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: at the Bowling's trailer when Brian was shot, and according
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: to Sergeant Dallas Battle, Charlie told him that right after
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: the shot went off, he glanced at a window and
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: seeing Lee Clark running through the front yard. But is
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: that really what Charlie told Sergeant Battle Because Charlie is deaf,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: and Sergeant Battle didn't have an interpreter with him when
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: he spoke to Charlie, and even with an interpreter, Charlie's
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: ability to communicate is limited.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: He apparently went to the Georgia School of the Death
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: for a couple of years.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, you loved real, but then his parents isolated.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: Him lower down Marsha thought I was down.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Apparently had the ability to speak in high school like Ki.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: He was in the deaf community, and then his parents
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: took him away and he was isolated and regressed. Even
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: though communicating with Charlie was going to be difficult, we
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: had to try. We needed to ask him what he'd
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: seen at the Bowlings trailer that night, but first we'd
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: have to find him. During our initial trip to Rome,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Jaina and I had spent nearly two weeks scouring Silver
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Creek for Charlie and his brother Wayne. We had lots
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: of leads to follow, but all of them came to
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: dead ends. The guy I talked to I was like, so, like,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: why are they moved around so much? And he's like, well,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Wayne has to keep moving and Charlie follows him. I
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: don't know if that means we hadn't given up and
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: finding Charlie, but we run out of ideas for how
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: to track him down. Then, on our second to last
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: day in Rome, we stopped by the visit Phil's Story,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Cain's uncle. I asked him some follow up questions.
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: Y'all ever meet the children's man?
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: We find him?
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, somebody, let's say where they tell me he live? Now?
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: They don't live down there? No more thinking over here
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: on Park Road?
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Where'd you hear that?
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: From across from Ronda's I forget. I was telling somebody
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: about y'all come and talk to me, and they said
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: they don't live there no more. They live over here
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: on off Park Road.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: Let's go drive down.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: It was worth a try anyway, So just Senda and
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Dan and I headed off to track down one last
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: lead on Charlie Childer's whereabouts. See if you can find
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: someone to ask about Charlie stand out there, Let's go
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: to it. Hey, do you guys know Charlie Death?
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: Charlie? Yeah, I'll take back there and you go that way.
• 2:51
  Speaker 5: Yep, back there, Red Carr, thank you.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: I can't believe I just ask some random person and
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: if we knowed death Charlie.
• 3:04
  Speaker 6: He's like, oh yeah.
• 3:06
  Speaker 7: I mean, this is awesome and it's the closest we've
• 3:08
  Speaker 7: gotten to find me.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: I know, I'm feeling excited. Hi. My name is Susan Simpson.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: I'm an attorney and podcaster and previously I hosted the
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Undisclosed podcast.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Hi, I'm just in to Davis and I'm a true
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: crime TV producer. Last year, Susan and I decide to
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: team up and reinvestigate the murder of Brian Bowling. Along
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: with Kevin Fitzpatrick, president of Red Marble Media, we decided
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: to launch Proof. You can listen to Proof like you
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: would any podcast, and you can follow us everywhere with
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: the handle at proof crime Pod and on our website,
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: proofcrimepod dot com.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Just a note for our listeners, this week's episode features
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: an interview with a deaf witness. In order to documented
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: We had Dan there to film and we'll be uploading
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: the video to our YouTube channel later this week. We'll
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: be discussing that video and everything else in this week's
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: episode and this Thursday sidebar, so don't forget to check
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: the video out. Our YouTube channel is at proof crime Pod.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, and welcome to proof The tip we
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: got from Phil's story turned out to be a good one.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: We found multiple people who knew Charlie and they directed
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: us to a house where they thought he might be living.
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: Well, you think, should you just go knock on that door?
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: It's like a one in a million shot? But sure,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: why not?
• 4:45
  Speaker 8: All right?
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: We come back later and we have notebooks.
• 4:55
  Speaker 9: We need a notebook, right, I mean, I it seems.
• 5:06
  Speaker 6: Like someone's all I was left so long.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: If it's just him, though, I would explain it.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: I feel like we're so close.
• 5:15
  Speaker 7: Yeah, we'd have gotten food for them.
• 5:18
  Speaker 8: Have days.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: We didn't make contact with anyone at the house that day,
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: but it really seemed like we might have gotten close
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: to finding Charlie. We updated Kevin on our progress.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Oh and guess who found Charlie. We may have.
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: Oh man, so you know that picture I sent you
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: with the Jesus sign.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we think that's where Charlie and Wayne, or at
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: least Charlie is living right now. It was our last
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: full day in Floyd County. We were supposed to be
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: flying out the following afternoon, but the next morning, before
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: heading out, we went back to the house hoping that
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Charlie are way or both of them might be home
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: right fact.
• 6:03
  Speaker 5: To Wayne and Charlie is, what do we think they're gone?
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: They're gone.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Charlie and his brother Wayne were home. We'd finally found them.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: We spoke to them for a little over an hour
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: before heading back to the car to figure out what
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: to do next.
• 6:25
  Speaker 10: I actually feel like I might throw up because it's
• 6:28
  Speaker 10: like so heart breaking.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: God's So that was that, in his turns, the hardest
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: interview ever done in terms of trying to do it right.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: We didn't get very far before we pulled over to
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: call Kevin and updated him on what had happened.
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: Thank hey, there what's right.
• 6:59
  Speaker 10: We he just had a conversation with Charlie.
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: Can you have a conversation with Charlie?
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, sort of?
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 7:10
  Speaker 6: What did he say?
• 7:12
  Speaker 10: He said that Josh shouldn't be in prison and Josh
• 7:16
  Speaker 10: is mad and he's sorry.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Oh man, Yeah, he has a lot to say. He
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: has things to say. It feels like I kept feel
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: like I'm the failure. Like Charlie clearly knows what he
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: wanted to tell me and I could not.
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: He has something to say.
• 7:39
  Speaker 5: It's like he's been waiting twenty five years for someone
• 7:42
  Speaker 5: to listen to what he's saying, and.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: I'm asking the wrong questions. It's also very difficult because
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: the way he communicates is open ended, and you can
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: insert your own interpretation and layer your own understanding over it.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: It's really hard to constantly check your questions and makes
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: sure there's no premise there that you're assuming that that
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Charlie's not not there with you.
• 8:06
  Speaker 11: Whatever, whatever he's saying, you can you can support whatever.
• 8:10
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 8:10
  Speaker 12: Yeah.
• 8:11
  Speaker 10: Could be the perfect example of confirmation bias.
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: Like are we reading into what we want him to
• 8:16
  Speaker 5: be saying, but we're communicating by Susan is writing questions
• 8:21
  Speaker 5: and he's answering yes or no. I'm trying to spell
• 8:25
  Speaker 5: out things.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: You know, sign language. She knows the letters, I know
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: the alphabet. It's also hard to totally recapture the conversation
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: because the way he communicates is like sort of interactive,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: and like he'll reference previous writings and point at that,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: then point in another one and loop them together.
• 8:47
  Speaker 11: I should definitely get the interpretance if you could do
• 8:48
  Speaker 11: it tonight. So just take me through you now, so
• 8:51
  Speaker 11: make sure I understand the big place. He says, Josh
• 8:55
  Speaker 11: should be a jail, and he's sorry, meaning that.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: I asked who Brian? Not a great question, and he
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: he kept pointing at Brian, like where I wrote Brian,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: he'd pointed that and then wrote yes. So I wrote
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Brian shot Brian, and he was very emphatic and nodding like.
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: He said yes.
• 9:13
  Speaker 5: It's not clear when, but at some point he saw
• 9:15
  Speaker 5: Brian with the gun pointed at himself, and he tried
• 9:20
  Speaker 5: to tell Brian not to do that, and.
• 9:22
  Speaker 10: Brian shot the gun, which is something no one else
• 9:25
  Speaker 10: has told us.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: At least three different times during our first conversation with Charlie,
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: he told us a story through a combination of gestures
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: and writing notes about seeing Brian with a gun.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: He told a story several times which I'm pretty sure
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: was him saying, I saw Brian get a gun. I mean,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Charlie tried to stop.
• 9:48
  Speaker 5: Brian, hit his hand down and said he don't play
• 9:52
  Speaker 5: with gun like.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: That is absolutely what he's trying to tell us. I said,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: Charlie tried to stop Brian. Yes, Brian and did not listen.
• 10:00
  Speaker 8: Yes.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: And then I asked him I was trying to ask
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: him about the gun, and that I don't know what
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: he was trying to communicate. Brother room, Danny, What do
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: you think that was about?
• 10:13
  Speaker 5: I was confused about that? Is there a brother named Danny? Danny?
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: Do they have a brother named Danny?
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Talking to Charlie was difficult to begin with, but it
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: was made even harder by Charlie's brother Wayne. Charlie had
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: been friendly and happy to talk to us. Wayne had
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: not wanted to talk to us at all. He hadn't
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: wanted Charlie to talk to us either, and the whole
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: time he had hovered nearby, monitoring our conversation.
• 10:45
  Speaker 7: And at one point I texted Dan, well, I was
• 10:47
  Speaker 7: already trying to do that and.
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: Then I texted Dan, like, keep Wayne talking, because Wayne
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: came over at one point and told Charlie to be
• 10:56
  Speaker 5: quiet in.
• 10:58
  Speaker 7: A combination of verbal and physical.
• 11:03
  Speaker 8: Gestures. Yeah, but what do you tell us?
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: He was telling him.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: I said something like, listen, Wayne, I promise you Charlie's
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: not going to get in trouble for anything he tells us.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: And he said, I'm just telling him to tell you
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: the truth. She was a sign for truth, I know,
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: the finger to your lips with the.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Sh Oddly, though, Wayne seemed to alternate between trying to
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: stop us from talking to Charlie too at times actually
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: helping us, offering some assistance, and trying to understand what
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Charlie was trying to say.
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: Wine is saying, he's told you more than he's ever
• 11:41
  Speaker 5: told anybody about this. He wants to tell you, he
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: wants to get it all out.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: After that first meeting with Charlie, we realized two things.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: The first was that we needed to change our flights
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: so that we could come back and talk to Charlie again.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: And the second was that we needed to make sure
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: we had an interpreter with us when we did.
• 12:01
  Speaker 5: So, we have to call the interpreter and see if
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: he's available, because if he is, I feel like we
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: need to get this now, because who knows where Charlie
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: and Wayne will be.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: I said thank you for talking to us, and I said,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: we'll try to come back with Mike Burton, the interpreter,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: and he wrote I am talk. I love you, and
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: underline Mike Burton several times, making it like he was like,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: I love Mike.
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: Burton because Mike Burton taught him how to talk.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Mike Burton is the father of Gola Burton, who'd been
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: interpreter at LEAs and Kane's trial. Mike is an interpreter
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: as well, and he'd offered to help us talk to
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Charlie if we ever found him.
• 12:38
  Speaker 6: Oh here, this is him. Hello, that'd be fantastic. We
• 12:50
  Speaker 6: could pick you up around noon. All right, well, we'll
• 12:53
  Speaker 6: see you then.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: The next day. We have everything in place for our
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: interview with Charlie Childers. It's our last day in room.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Supposed to be already on the way back, but we
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: did some last mental logistical shuffling because this is important
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: and the stars may never align like this again. So
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: we're on our way to.
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: Pick up Mike Burton.
• 13:21
  Speaker 7: I mean when you guys mentioned.
• 13:24
  Speaker 8: Mike. Charlie was very excited.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, man, he was, well, you know, also was
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: excited Wayne.
• 13:34
  Speaker 7: It's true, which is a good sign because, you know,
• 13:37
  Speaker 7: as I've expressed, I'm a little worried about Wayne trying
• 13:40
  Speaker 7: to stop things.
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: Today.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: When we'd mentioned trying to come back with Mike Burton,
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: Wayne had seemed relieved. He told us that he'd been
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: having some trouble with Charlie lately. Charlie had seemed upset,
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: but Wayne had no way of talking to him to
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: find out what was wrong. Having Mike Burton there would
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: give Wayne a chance to talk to Charlie too. We
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: picked up Mike Burton and headed back to Charlie's. On
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: the way, we gave him an update on how our
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: meeting the previous day had gone.
• 14:14
  Speaker 13: Yeah. Well, and I we'll see what happens.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: It's going to be difficult, not as difficult maybe as
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: I was fearing at first. I think I may have
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: been underestimating Charlie's billies a little bit. Not to say
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: he's easy to communicate with, but he clearly had his
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: own sense of mind that he wanted to convey. He
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: wanted to communicate.
• 14:42
  Speaker 13: In the seventies in high school. He was not a
• 14:47
  Speaker 13: high functioning kid, but he was okay.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: He was telling us one story that I want to
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: make sure we actually understood right, that he was emotional about.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: He actually he put my hand in like like a gun,
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: and then he grabbed my wrists and put it down
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: and no, no, no, like saying. We couldn't tell whether
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: he was saying he stopped someone or tried to stop someone.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: When we pulled up at the house, we weren't certain
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: if Charlie would still be there. We knew if he wasn't,
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: we might lose our one shot to ever truly speak
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: to him Charlie.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: For this interview, Recording audio alone wouldn't cut it. Without visuals,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: you wouldn't truly have a record of what Charlie was
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: trying to say. So danced up his camera and I
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: started recording video on my phone. Charlie began sounding to
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Mike even before we asked her first question, and Mike
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: related to us what Charlie was saying.
• 15:56
  Speaker 13: He's talking about the shooting and he's after and he
• 15:59
  Speaker 13: was going to jail, and the police came to him.
• 16:01
  Speaker 13: One of his friends was a cop and told him
• 16:04
  Speaker 13: that no, he wasn't going to jail.
• 16:06
  Speaker 8: And the three the other guys.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: We asked Charlie to tell us again what he'd been
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: trying so hard to tell us the day before, about
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: how Brian had been playing with the gun and Charlie
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: had tried to stop him.
• 16:24
  Speaker 13: The boy that did the shooting, he pulled something out
• 16:27
  Speaker 13: of a drawer, told him, no, don't don't no, don't
• 16:30
  Speaker 13: get that. No, don't get that gun. Said no, no, no,
• 16:34
  Speaker 13: don't get the gun. The boy just playing with it,
• 16:36
  Speaker 13: put it down, told him put it back, put it down.
• 16:41
  Speaker 13: And then the boy later he got the gun out.
• 16:44
  Speaker 13: I told him again no, and then he shot himself
• 16:47
  Speaker 13: in the mouth. The cop kept asking me, did you
• 16:51
  Speaker 13: do it? And I said no, I didn't do it. No,
• 16:53
  Speaker 13: it was somebody else and Wayne and the cops were
• 16:57
  Speaker 13: talking and that he didn't do it. He shot himself
• 17:02
  Speaker 13: in the mouth. I don't know what happened. I didn't
• 17:06
  Speaker 13: see it. I was sitting in there.
• 17:10
  Speaker 8: And I shook him. But Kenneth.
• 17:17
  Speaker 13: And the brother and Mike and all four of them
• 17:19
  Speaker 13: were in there, and then we all went to the funeral together.
• 17:23
  Speaker 13: We holed each other at the funeral. They buried him
• 17:27
  Speaker 13: over in Bartow County, so overre by this parish, and
• 17:32
  Speaker 13: that's where the grave was in that area. And after
• 17:39
  Speaker 13: all the funeral stuff next week, everything quite it down
• 17:44
  Speaker 13: and h it was over with.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Charlie had a detailed memory of Brian beings shot, but
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: his details were all wrong. For instance, Charlie's description of
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: where Brian was buried. He had such a precise memory
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: of it, but Brian was buried in Floyd County, not
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Bartow County like Charlie was saying. And one thing Charlie
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: kept mentioning was a window.
• 18:11
  Speaker 13: The boys were just playing in the bedroom and there
• 18:15
  Speaker 13: was a window on that side. Yeah, I was watching
• 18:21
  Speaker 13: some kind of death program on TV.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: He mentioned a window. What was the context of the window.
• 18:28
  Speaker 8: I turned on the light and.
• 18:32
  Speaker 13: I saw him shoot himself, and I saw Brian shoot
• 18:38
  Speaker 13: himself and the blood went everywhere, and then just like that,
• 18:41
  Speaker 13: he was gone. There was smoke and blood, and I
• 18:46
  Speaker 13: went I was just I was just yeah, exhausty. And
• 18:51
  Speaker 13: then Amanda came and she was shocked when she saw it. Brian,
• 19:00
  Speaker 13: he's the one that got the gun out of the
• 19:01
  Speaker 13: drawer and he did the shooting.
• 19:04
  Speaker 8: I didn't see all of that.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: That's when Wayne interrupted us. He'd been lurking nearby the
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: whole time we've been talking to his brother, but he
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: hadn't wanted to be on camera, so he'd mostly stayed
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: out of the way. But now he had something he
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: wanted to tell us.
• 19:18
  Speaker 13: Hold on, yeah, hold, he's getting out of these He's
• 19:23
  Speaker 13: talking about board got killed my house?
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: Which house? Who got killed at your house?
• 19:33
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 19:34
  Speaker 8: We won't have that.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Well, it helped us to clarify with Charlie who got
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: But who's the what happened in the other shooting?
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: What was the other shooting?
• 19:46
  Speaker 8: Though it was?
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Wayne told us that Charlie wasn't talking about Brian Bowling's
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: death at all. He was talking about a different shooting,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: a different boy who'd been killed. Though Wayne was cagy
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: about the details of this other supposed shooting. I had
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: already been expecting Wayne to try to interfere with the interview,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: so part of me wondered if that's what was going
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: on here, but Wayne was insistent Charlie was talking about
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: a different boy's death.
• 20:15
  Speaker 8: Mock, what you asking is it? Greg Corel? How you
• 20:19
  Speaker 8: talking about Greg?
• 20:21
  Speaker 13: Greg coral core was He's sitting on the side of
• 20:25
  Speaker 13: the bed. Yeah, he's talking about the wrong one, because
• 20:32
  Speaker 13: Brian would he was in the living room when Brian
• 20:35
  Speaker 13: got shot.
• 20:37
  Speaker 8: Yeah, when Brian showed you I was watching TV. I
• 20:39
  Speaker 8: was couldn't living room. He wouldn't say.
• 20:41
  Speaker 13: He's getting he's getting confused here, boy named Greg Core.
• 20:45
  Speaker 12: Got killed at my house.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: Boy night.
• 20:49
  Speaker 7: I mean Charlie seen that.
• 20:51
  Speaker 13: So Charlie is getting confused us Greg.
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: Because when he said he said Brian shot hisself and.
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: Went Brian night, he didn't see it.
• 21:01
  Speaker 8: So all this side is confused.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: After a lot of prompting, Wayne finally started to explain
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: sometime before Brian died, a young boy had been shot
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: and killed at the Childer's house. The gun had belonged
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: to Charlie's uncle, Danny. That's the Danny that Charlie had
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: kept mentioning the first time I'd spoken to him, and
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: we've been confused about But after Wayne explained there have
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: been two different shootings, we finally started to understand what
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Charlie was trying to say. Wayne continued to interrupt, though,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: so I pulled him to the side and struck up
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: a conversation with him while Jacinda kept talking to Charlie.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: So did you ever know the police and tell them
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Charlie had seen something? The report says that you went
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: to them. No, the report says that you came brother.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: So they have and they talked to what they want
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: to talk to you about? Did they ask you what
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: if Charlie had seen anyone? Did you know that Charlie
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: had seen someone? Do you think Charlie saw someone?
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: I can't say for sure.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: What Wayne was saying surprise me. The official story, the
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: one that Dallas Battle gave when he testified a trial,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: is that it was Wayne who first contacted investigators, and
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: he who told them that Charlie had seen someone run
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: by a window outside of the Bowlings trailer. But Wayne
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: insisted to me that this didn't happen. Dallas Battle had
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: called him, he said. In fact, Wayne said that before
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: the police came and talked to Charlie, he hadn't known
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: that Charlie had seen someone outside the trailer. So Wayne
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: was skeptical that Charlie had seen anyone at all. Why
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: was Charlie in court? Do you remember?
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: And he's seen everything, he heard everything.
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: I don't understand how he heard it.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: What did he see?
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 23:11
  Speaker 8: I went inside of the court room with he was
• 23:14
  Speaker 8: on the track.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: A trail. Charlie had said over and over again that
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: when Brian Bowling was shot at the Bowling's trailer, there
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: had been only Kane's story with Brian, only one went
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: in there. Charlie said story was the only one, only story.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: But at times when we were talking to him, Charlie
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: seemed to be saying something different.
• 23:38
  Speaker 13: He said, Josh was in the bedroom when Brian with
• 23:41
  Speaker 13: another guy. I don't know who the other guy was.
• 23:43
  Speaker 8: There were three of.
• 23:44
  Speaker 13: Them in there, Yeah, Josh was, I don't know who
• 23:48
  Speaker 13: the third girl was.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: How does he know there's a third guy?
• 23:51
  Speaker 13: I was looking out the window and then I went around.
• 23:56
  Speaker 8: It happened. I don't know how it happened. What happened.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: If you think Charlie is talking about how Brian Bowling died,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: then you'd naturally start to make certain assumptions about what
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: he's trying to say. Here, if Josh and Brian were
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: in a bedroom, but Charlie saying there's a third guy
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: there too, well that third guy has to be Lee Clark, right,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Except according to Wayne, when Charlie was telling us about
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: the three boys, in the bedroom. He was not talking
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: about Brian Bowling at all.
• 24:26
  Speaker 8: I saw this guy go by the Linda. I don't
• 24:29
  Speaker 8: know who he was. Who was their friend? I guess
• 24:32
  Speaker 8: I know who he.
• 24:33
  Speaker 13: Was, Brian's friend. That was a group of them, you know,
• 24:40
  Speaker 13: and I don't know. You know, I told him not
• 24:43
  Speaker 13: to get that gun. I'm not cheating, sul with my grad.
• 24:48
  Speaker 8: You may stopped rut that.
• 24:49
  Speaker 5: He's getting out confused, he's confused.
• 24:53
  Speaker 8: Go see thanks. Yeah, talking about that? Yeah, cool, not
• 25:00
  Speaker 8: talking about the boy.
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: They're talking about the other.
• 25:04
  Speaker 8: You're talking about the one. You're talking about the one
• 25:08
  Speaker 8: got killed at the eye house. No, they ain't talking
• 25:12
  Speaker 8: about him.
• 25:13
  Speaker 13: He keep coming back, so he's coming back to that. Yeah,
• 25:21
  Speaker 13: I'm not talking about the trailer.
• 25:22
  Speaker 8: I'm talking about my house. Yeah, what happened in there?
• 25:25
  Speaker 8: They don't want to know about.
• 25:27
  Speaker 14: That, Ricky. Ricky was on the telephone.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: I'm not talking about the trailer, Charlie told us, I'm
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: talking about my house. Charlie knew that a boy was
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: also shot and killed at the Bowling's trailer, but that
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: was not the shooting he wanted to tell us about.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: Charlie wanted to talk about the boy who had died
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: at his house. According to Wayne, that had been a
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: boy named Greg Coral.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Can you ask it when Greg? When Greg died? Did
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: you see someone through a window?
• 26:10
  Speaker 8: Yeah? Yeah I did. That's how somebody going by the way.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: We asked Mike to stop interpreting for a moment and
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: to tell us what he thought. Charlie was trying to say, So,
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: what's your understanding of what the.
• 26:23
  Speaker 8: Window was about?
• 26:28
  Speaker 14: For?
• 26:28
  Speaker 13: Like Wayne, he's really making these two stories up here.
• 26:32
  Speaker 13: I don't know how you separate these two stories. He
• 26:38
  Speaker 13: certainly got them all.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: I had still been talking to Wayne off to the side,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: keeping him away from Charlie. That's when he made this question.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: And this one was actually helpful.
• 26:53
  Speaker 8: I lave young tracking out and everything. I'll go ahead
• 26:59
  Speaker 8: of taking that now.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: Let him show you.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: Wayne has a good point. If we want to know
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: what Charlie saw, we gotta take him plot to the house.
• 27:12
  Speaker 6: Is that possible.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: About We all climbed into the van with Charlie and
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: headed to the Bowlings trailer. On the way there, we
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: asked Mike Burton how interpreting for Charlie had gone.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: It seems like y'all are conversing pretty well.
• 27:39
  Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, I mean he has his son language is
• 27:44
  Speaker 8: we would call it sloppy, but it's understanding. Yeah, understanding.
• 27:49
  Speaker 13: I'll say this, Maybe the little bit I've seen him
• 27:53
  Speaker 13: in the last few years has helped me understand him.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: Moore, Mike Burton was just as lost as we were,
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: though when it came to unraveling Charlie's conflated memories.
• 28:05
  Speaker 13: I mean, that's fascinating that he's got these two stories
• 28:09
  Speaker 13: totally mixed up.
• 28:10
  Speaker 8: Yeah. Yeah.
• 28:11
  Speaker 13: And the detail and the second story, the blood splattered it.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Sounds like he saw something.
• 28:20
  Speaker 13: Yeah, I mean he's talking about the fistle in the mouth,
• 28:23
  Speaker 13: the brains being splattered on the walls, the way he
• 28:27
  Speaker 13: talks about the bed and the book chairs, and he's
• 28:31
  Speaker 13: got a lot of detail.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: In that for him twenty seven.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: He also seems really concerned about like that he might
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: have been in trouble or he thought that he oh yeah,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: at extremely Well, I'm confused about why he thought that
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: he could ever be in trouble for either of these shootings.
• 28:46
  Speaker 13: Well, that's back to being devil now. People often get
• 28:49
  Speaker 13: blamed the things they don't do. Charlie probably has been
• 28:55
  Speaker 13: blamed for a lot of things through the years.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: I wonder Charlie's so yeah, being the fallow guy.
• 29:02
  Speaker 8: I mean, I see you have him so many times.
• 29:05
  Speaker 13: Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's put it on death guy.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: When we got to the Bowlings trailer, Mike Burton interpreted
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: for Charlie as he explained to us who had lived there.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: All right, that's the trailer.
• 29:30
  Speaker 8: Rocky lived here, but he's dead now. Yeah.
• 29:33
  Speaker 13: Ryan lives in my old home over there, my mother
• 29:37
  Speaker 13: and father home. Yeah, Brian's mother and father's home fraid
• 29:43
  Speaker 13: over there. You lived over there, and Brian lived over
• 29:47
  Speaker 13: here with his mother and father. So who this was
• 29:52
  Speaker 13: Rocky's house.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: As he was talking, Charlie was pointing towards the various
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: location he was describing. When talking about where Rocky Bowling,
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: Brian's father had lived, he pointed at the Bowling's trailer.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: When speaking about his own parents, he pointed across the
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: highway towards the house he'd grown up in, And when
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: he talked about Brian, he turned around and pointed up
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: the hill to Caine's Story's trailer that Charlie said is
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: where Brian had lived. At the time, this hadn't made
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: any sense to us Brian had lived here. At the
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: trailer where we were standing. He hadn't lived up the
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: hill where Cain's story and his family had their trailer.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: So we asked Charlie if he knew someone had been
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: shot at this trailer. Yes, he said, Ricky's brother. Then
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: Charlie took us around to the backside of the trailer
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: and walked up towards the window of the bedroom where
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: Brian had been shot.
• 31:00
  Speaker 8: That was the one where they were on the telephone.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right there, which window was Brian's window.
• 31:10
  Speaker 13: It wasn't Brian, and Brian didn't live here. Hen't had
• 31:13
  Speaker 13: nothing to do with this. It was Ricky.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: So what what is he showing us back here?
• 31:20
  Speaker 8: Yeah, Ricky's brother. That was his room.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: Charlie insisted over and over that Brian had not died
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: at this trailer. That had been a different boy that
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: died here.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: He knows Brian was killed though, right, he said.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: Ricky was killed over there. Tell him, I mean, we
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: should just tell him Brian was killed here.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Brian died here, Brian died here. No, Brian died at
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: this house.
• 31:45
  Speaker 8: Ricky brother killing himself right here. Brian died in my house,
• 31:54
  Speaker 8: shot himself in the mouth.
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: Does he know, we want to talk about the night
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: Brian died in this trail.
• 32:02
  Speaker 8: Oh, that happened at my house.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Someone tell him Brian Bowling died in this house.
• 32:09
  Speaker 8: No, he didn't, He died in my house.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: We couldn't figure out why Charlie was so certain that
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: Brian had died at Charlie's house, or why he believed
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: Brian had lived up the hill behind the cemetery where
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: Caine's story lived. We wanted to make sure that Charlie
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: actually knew who Brian Bowling was, so we showed him
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: a photo of Brian taken not long before he died.
• 32:37
  Speaker 8: Brother the phone.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah where did he died here?
• 32:49
  Speaker 8: Yeah? Yeah, I loved him.
• 32:51
  Speaker 13: Took his brother shot at himself, he was on the phone.
• 32:59
  Speaker 13: Brian shot himself over at mind.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: It took us a while before we finally understood what
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: Charlie had been trying to tell us. Our questions had
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: been all wrong. We were the ones causing the confusion,
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: because when Charlie was talking about Brian, he was not
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: talking about Brian Bowling. The boy that Charlie calls Brian
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: was another boy altogether, a boy who had been killed
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: at the Childer's house. But Charlie had known a second
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: boy who'd been shot and killed. This boy had also
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: been a good friend of Charlie's, but Charlie told us
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: he had forgotten his name. Charlie identified him as Ricky's brother,
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: but he was talking about Brian Bowling.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: So when Ricky's brother died, here.
• 33:46
  Speaker 8: Was he here?
• 33:48
  Speaker 13: I heard the gunshot. I jumped up and then I
• 33:52
  Speaker 13: took out went straight home.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: When Ricky's brother died, here was he in the living room?
• 33:59
  Speaker 6: Ye?
• 34:00
  Speaker 13: I was in the living room. I heard the guy shot. Yeah, yeah,
• 34:04
  Speaker 13: I was scared. I heard the shot. Had startled me
• 34:07
  Speaker 13: and I got out of here.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Now that we knew how to ask about the right shooting,
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: we turned to the most important question that we had
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: for Charlie. On the night Ryan Bowling was shot, On
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: the night Ricky's brother was shot, Charlie had been sitting
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: in the living room with the trailer. We were standing
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: next to Charlie. We asked, did you see a boy
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: through the window running past the trailer. Charlie, you told
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: the police you saw a boy through a window.
• 34:40
  Speaker 8: No, I didn't.
• 34:42
  Speaker 7: No.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: The police thought you told them about a boy that
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: you saw through a window.
• 34:50
  Speaker 13: They must have misunderstood. I didn't see anything out the window.
• 34:57
  Speaker 13: I was just watching TV and talk go with my brother.
• 35:01
  Speaker 13: So I really don't know. It's not my fault. I
• 35:04
  Speaker 13: didn't have anything to do with it. I got out
• 35:06
  Speaker 13: of here.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: No one thinks it's your home.
• 35:12
  Speaker 8: Oh.
• 35:17
  Speaker 13: Ricky's brother was on the telephone and he shot himself
• 35:21
  Speaker 13: and they started a little loss, and I just got
• 35:23
  Speaker 13: out of here. I don't know a thing about him.
• 35:25
  Speaker 13: By running, I didn't see anybody. I didn't see anybody.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: Did the police ask you if you saw a boy.
• 35:32
  Speaker 13: Over Brian's over at my house? Not here?
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: So you never saw a boy here outside?
• 35:42
  Speaker 8: Nope, nope, nothing never, nope. No way to.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: Be absolutely certain that Charlie understood the question we were
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: asking him, I re enacted with the prosecutor claimed Lee
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: Clark had done on the night of the shooting and
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: ran through the Bowling's front yard. Had Charlie, I've seen
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: anyone running where I had run? So, Charlie, you never
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: saw someone run up through here.
• 36:06
  Speaker 6: Never.
• 36:08
  Speaker 13: I testified in court about what happened over there, not here.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: So everything you said in court about seeing a boy
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: out a window was about what happened over there.
• 36:19
  Speaker 8: Yep.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when you were in court, did you tell the
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: court about the shooting that happened here at this house?
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: No?
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: What shooting did you tell the court about over.
• 36:34
  Speaker 8: There at my house? I never know what in this one.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: If all of this sounds confusing, well yes it is
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: extremely so. At the trailer, Charlie could see how confused
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: I was and how hard I was trying to make
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: sense of everything. He came over and tapped me on
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: the shoulder, asked him, showing the first photo of the phone.
• 36:56
  Speaker 8: Friend, you are right.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: I'm just trying to understand.
• 37:04
  Speaker 8: I'm just gonna say. You know, we're confused. We thought
• 37:10
  Speaker 8: that you saw a boy through the window. No, no, no, no,
• 37:16
  Speaker 8: and the police.
• 37:18
  Speaker 13: God, you said that boy was coming here, so the
• 37:22
  Speaker 13: police got him. They're wrong. They're just wrong. Police are wrong. No,
• 37:28
  Speaker 13: the police just misunderstood. That's not what happened. But they
• 37:32
  Speaker 13: thought that you saw him, so they rested him and
• 37:35
  Speaker 13: now he's jail.
• 37:40
  Speaker 8: No that's not it. That's not it. No, No, this
• 37:47
  Speaker 8: is two separate instance.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: Charlie. The police thought that you saw a boy run
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: up through here. No way, the police. No, he sent
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: a boy to prison because police have just made a mistake.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: After talking to Charlie, Susan and I had been left
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: with many questions. There was a lot that we didn't
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: yet understand, but we both felt certain about one thing.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: You never saw a boy. Okay, thank you, Charlie, thank you,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: thank you. I'm sorry to bring us all up for
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: you again, I.
• 38:30
  Speaker 8: Think maybe before, I think the police made a mistake.
• 38:36
  Speaker 8: Someone needs to talk to their boss. I think they were.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: After we dropped Charlie back off at his home, we
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: talked to Mike Burton about how the interview had gone.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: I like charlie suggestion that so I talked to the
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: cops boss.
• 38:55
  Speaker 13: Well, I was pretty astute. Actually, he said several things
• 38:59
  Speaker 13: today that I was a little bit surprised that he
• 39:04
  Speaker 13: was sophisticated, I think and his language. Now, let me
• 39:08
  Speaker 13: assure you his language is not that sophisticated, but his
• 39:12
  Speaker 13: thinking processes and what he was what he was intended
• 39:16
  Speaker 13: to say.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: We had been able to communicate with Charlie more than
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: we'd expect it going into the interview, but at the
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: same time, because of our assumptions about what Charlie had
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: been trying to tell us, it took us a long
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: time to finally hear what Charlie actually had to say.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think we're kind of guilty of exactly
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: what the police were doing in a way. Like yesterday,
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: we thought we were understanding maybe more than we were.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: We understood parts of it, we didn't listed in the
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: bigger contexts, right, we didn't.
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: Understand there two deaths by gun.
• 39:51
  Speaker 8: No, I didn't either, any camp.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: I thought, this is so confusing, Like we knew he
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: was saying Brian killed Brian, but we didn't know that
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: he thought Brian was the boy that I had his house.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: So the whole, like our whole framework for questioning him
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: was just wrong.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: After talking to Charlie and Wayne, we had some of
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: the context we'd been missing, but there was still a
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: lot we didn't understand.
• 40:14
  Speaker 7: I mean, is there any way to look up at
• 40:15
  Speaker 7: least the case of this school. Yeah, Like, was it
• 40:20
  Speaker 7: deemed the suicide was what happened?
• 40:23
  Speaker 8: I mean he did.
• 40:25
  Speaker 7: Seem to go into it in detail, as far as
• 40:29
  Speaker 7: opening the drawer, saying no and shake.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: Once we had gotten back from Floyd County, we called
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: Kevin to update him on our interview with Charlie.
• 40:43
  Speaker 11: Charlie saw someone commit suicide in his house.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: It's hard to if he's describing a suicide or a
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: gun accident, but he described how the boy took a
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: gun out of a drawer and Arlie's there and he's like, no, no, no, no, stop,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: don't do that, don't do that. But the boy or
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: young man doesn't listen or intentionally kills himself. And Charlie
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: seemed to like the way he was explaining it. It
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: was a shot in the mouth.
• 41:17
  Speaker 8: Jesus Christ. Okay.
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: Kevin asked the obvious question, who was the boy who
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: died at the Childer's house.
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: We didn't have an answer for him.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: All we know about it is that it happened. Both
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: Charlie and Wayne agree it happened one at their house
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: and Rotmore Highway. Two it occurred before Brian Bowling's death.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: And three, according to Wayne, it was the death of
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: someone named Greg Coral. Now, unfortunately Wayne could not spell
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: a name for me, and the way the Southern acent
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: pronounces Coral leaves a lot of possibilities about what that
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: would actually be. A few weeks later, on another zoom
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: call with Jasinda and Kevin, I told him I finally
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: had an update. I knew who the boy had been.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: In the end, I had to go through the Social
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: Security death Index and look up every male who died
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: under the age of twenty in Floyd County from like
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy to like nineteen eighty five.
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: How long did that take you forever?
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: Was that a cross from reference with the newspaper articles
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: that I could find the document their deaths. So in
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: the end I finally stumbled across Jerry Ronnie Quarrels, who
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: at twelve died of a gunshot.
• 42:40
  Speaker 8: And that was it.
• 42:42
  Speaker 11: So by going through like this enormous list of the
• 42:46
  Speaker 11: people who were killed, you pieced together who it was.
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: You know, that's mental right.
• 42:51
  Speaker 8: That it worked.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: Evening On December twenty ninth, nineteen seventy six, twelve year
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: old Ronnie Quarrels was shot while at the Childer's home.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: The similarities between Ronnie's death and Brian's are striking. Both
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Ronnie and Brian have been sitting on a bed hanging
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: out with friends when they were shot in the head.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: Both boys initially survived and were transported to the hospital,
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: but were pronounced at the following day. Charlie and Wayne
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: Childers have been present in the house when both shootings occurred,
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: and in the minutes leading up to both shootings, Charlie
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: had been in a different room watching TV. But there
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: was one huge difference between the two shootings. So here's
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: from the Romans Tribune article. Now, this is allegedly Charlie talking.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: I walked in the bedroom where the boys were playing
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: and saw Ronnie looking at the rifles and the gun case.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: The glass doors were open, and I was afraid the
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: boys might get the guns out and hurt themselves. I
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: motioned him away from the gun case and closed the
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: glass doors, and he returned to the bed to play checkers.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: The drawer of the gun case was partially opened, and
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: I saw our handgun there and it's holster. I took
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: it out of the drawer and removed the clip from
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: the bottom of the handgun. I felt nothing in the gun,
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: and I shook it to make sure it was empty.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: A mistake. The gun went off.
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: It was Charlie Childers who killed Ronnie Quarrels. It turns
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: out the gun had been in Charlie's hand when it
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: went off, or at least that's what the coroner's inquest
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: had concluded. On the night Ronnie was shot, he and
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: a boy named Joe Highfield had been visiting the childers.
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: Wayne had been playing with Ronnie and Joe. Charlie, who
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: was several years older, had also been home. According to
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: an article about the inquest, quote, the three younger boys
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: were playing a game of checkers on the bed when
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: the accident occurred. End quote. We hadn't realized it when
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: we'd spoken to Charlie, But this matched exactly with what
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: Charlie had been telling us.
• 44:56
  Speaker 5: But that night, who was in Bryan's bedroom playing with Friden?
• 45:03
  Speaker 8: The three guys and they're.
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: Playing Three boys sitting on a bed playing a game.
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: Charlie had been talking about Ronnie Corals all along, not
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: Brian Bolling. The third boy Charlie had mentioned had nothing
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: to do with Brian's death. After learning what had happened
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: to Ronnie, many of the things that Charlie told us
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: that we hadn't understood finally clicked into place.
• 45:39
  Speaker 8: Brian's brother. It was man blaming me. Kenna said stay away. No, no,
• 45:49
  Speaker 8: his brother.
• 45:50
  Speaker 13: They said, no, you stay over here, you love get
• 45:52
  Speaker 13: out of here, pulling away. Don't want you to fight, No,
• 45:56
  Speaker 13: don't fight anybody.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: Brian Bolling didn't have a brother, but Ronnie Corals did.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: His brother's name was Greg, and it made perfect sense
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: now why Greg would have been angry and blaming Charlie.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: He had the names confused, which is why we thought
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: he was talking about Brian Bowling. But if you ignore
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: the name confusion, everything else Charlie says is right. To
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: find out more about Ronnie, we talked to his mother, Shirley.
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: So what happened is Ronnie won't need to go over
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: there and music they were all in oh there where
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: Charlie and Wine were at their house, So then he
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: went over there, and of course that's the last time
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: I ever saw him alive. He got shot there in
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: the back of the head.
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: When Charlie had told us where Brian lived, he had
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: pointed up the hill to the trailer on the hill
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: behind Pleasant Hope Church in nineteen ninety six. That's where
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: Caine's story had lived, which is why when we spoke
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: to Charlie we thought he'd simply been confused and gotten
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: Brian's home and Kine's home mixed up. But after talking
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: to Ronnie's mother, we realized that Charlie had been right
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: all along.
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: Well, that's where we'd lived it behind the Pleasant Hope Church.
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: And Ronnie had been buried in a cemetery in Bartow County. Again,
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: just like Charlie had told us, every time Charlie had
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: been talking about Brian, he'd been describing Ronnie quarrels. Rather
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: than have the police investigate the shooting, the case was
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: given to the coroner, who held a coroner's inquest. Today,
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: coroner's inquests don't happen often, but a few decades ago
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: it's how many cases were resolved in Floyd County. The
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: coroner would impanel a jury, present evidence, and leave it
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: to them to decide the cause of death.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: Did you testify it the coroner's jury?
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: Yes?
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: What'd they ask you about?
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: I guess they just wanted to know if I thought
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: it was accidental, And I told them what I've told you,
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: that Charlie loved Ronnie, who would never have heard him
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: on purpose. And I don't know who else was there
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: or what else might have haden, but I don't think
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: Charlie would ever have hurt running.
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: Did Charlie seem worried that he was going to get
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: in trouble?
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: Yes, he was tear faend he was how did it
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: express that he was afraid because he couldn't communicate. I
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: think is why he was so afraid. The police had
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: taken him in. He didn't know what was happening or
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: what would happen to him.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: The corner's jury concluded that Charlie Childers had accidentally killed
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: Ronnie Quarrels. No further action was taken in the case.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: But all of this is very different from what Charlie
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: and Wayne had told us. Charlie had said over and
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: over again that the boy who died at his house
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: had shot himself after Charlie had tried but failed to
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: stop him. And Wayne told me that Charlie hadn't even
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: been in the room when the shooting occurred.
• 48:48
  Speaker 8: And he wasn't a thing but very cool.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: So he wasn't even there when Greg Carrel was shot.
• 48:53
  Speaker 8: Yeah, he was.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: Indeed, when we spoke to Charlie, he never once indicated
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: that he had been the want to shoot the boy
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: in his house, despite the record what he'd supposedly testified
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: to at the coroner's inquest. Charlie seemed oblivious to the
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: fact that, at least according to the official record, he
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: had been the one who killed Ronnie.
• 49:18
  Speaker 8: Please, said what happened here? And I said, I don't know.
• 49:24
  Speaker 8: He shot it himself. I felt, I know.
• 49:27
  Speaker 13: I said I didn't have anything to do with it.
• 49:29
  Speaker 13: Wasn't me, it was them, and said okay, and they
• 49:33
  Speaker 13: said it's all right. Please talk to them for a
• 49:36
  Speaker 13: whole talk to them. Asked me if I did had
• 49:40
  Speaker 13: anything to do it, and I said, no, it was
• 49:42
  Speaker 13: all Brian.
• 49:42
  Speaker 8: He did it. Yeah. Yeah.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: I told Ronnie's mother that the version of events I
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: had heard from Charlie and Wayne seemed to be at
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: odds with the official record. I found the articles that
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: said that he shot him. I was kind of shocked
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: because that's not what I understood Charlie to try to tell.
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: So that's the story that was told at the time,
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: is that he had unloaded the gun and he shook
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: it and there was still a bullet in the chamber.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: And when I spoke to Wayne, told me he was
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: not in the house when your son died.
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: Who was playing checkers with Ronnie.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: He didn't mention that, he just said I was not
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: there in the house. I don't know what happened.
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: I was told that he and Ronnie were sitting on
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: the bed playing checkers, and that Ronnie was laughing. He said,
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: I've got you now, and he jumped the last man
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: that Wayne had and then about that time he got
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: shot in the back of the head.
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: So Ronnie had just won the game. Not everyone was
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: so confident though, that Ronnie's death had been an accident.
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: There had been doubts about whether Charlie had truly been
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: the one holding the gun when it went off. Did
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: you think the police took the investigation seriously when this happened.
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: My husband at the time didn't think so. He didn't
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: think it was an accident. We wound up getting divorced
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: over it because I did not want to prosecute Charlie.
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I just Wayne was so insistent. He wasn't there
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: at all, and all the reports say he was.
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: Wayne.
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: I think they're still very protective of each other, Wayne
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: and Charlie.
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: And now I think Charlie's protective of Wine. You think
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: Charlie's he's the older brother.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: Not long after Ronnie Quarles died, Charlie Childers left the
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: George To School for the death. His mother isolated him
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: from the deaf community, effectively cutting off his ability to
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: communicate with the outside world. Forty five years later, Ronnie's
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: death still weighs heavily on Charlie's mind, so much so
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: that when a group of strangers showed up at his doorstep,
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: he thought that is what we wanted to ask him about.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: He tried to tell us all about it. I don't
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: know what happened to Ronnie Quarrels. The only other witness,
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: the third boy in the room when the shooting happened,
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: has since passed away. But after talking to Charlie with
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: the assistance of Mike Burton, here's what I am confident.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: On the night Brian Bowling was shot, Charlie didn't see
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: anyone outside running by the Bowling's trailer, and there is
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: no remaining evidence whatsoever that Lee Clark had anything to
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: do with the death of Brian Bowling. Next week I'm
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: Proof and the final episode covering our investigation in this case.
• 52:25
  Speaker 8: My name is Craig Burns.
• 52:27
  Speaker 13: I am returning a call to you, and I am
• 52:30
  Speaker 13: going to see in what limited capacity I can try
• 52:35
  Speaker 13: to help you.
• 52:37
  Speaker 12: If these boys would have been big football player, quarterback,
• 52:41
  Speaker 12: well known, they wouldn't never want jail. But these just
• 52:44
  Speaker 12: took the red Nick Bull's country board. That's what that was,
• 52:47
  Speaker 12: you know what I'm saying. So they didn't stand out
• 52:50
  Speaker 12: in the public eye, you know. And uh yeah, Isaiah
• 52:54
  Speaker 12: for pits off for a long time.
• 52:57
  Speaker 13: I didn't heard about it later on then they may
• 53:00
  Speaker 13: have Vin heard malin the email.
• 53:02
  Speaker 8: You know, the victim Namplant.
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: Already don't know.
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: You've been listening to Proof a podcast by Red Marble Media.
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: We'll be back next Monday for episode fourteen. Send us
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: your questions at proofcrimepodat gmail dot com. We'll respond during
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: our bonus episodes proof Sidebar on Thursdays. Kevin Fitzpatrick is
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: our executive producer. Our logo was designed by Drew Hosski
• 53:36
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• 53:40
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• 53:44
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• 53:49
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• 53:52
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• 53:55
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• 53:58
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• 54:01
  Speaker 1: That's all for this week.
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: Thanks for listening.