Latest / Devil Town / Real Answers | Chapter 11
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: This podcast is intended for mature audiences.
- 0:03Speaker 2: Listener discretion is advised.
- 0:21Speaker 1: In the search for Kelly Wilson, who's been missing thirty years.
- 0:25Speaker 1: We've talked about a lot of potential suspects, teenage boys,
- 0:29Speaker 1: a former boss, some rich man, maybe even a hired hit.
- 0:34Speaker 1: Well here's another one, a curveball.
- 0:37Speaker 3: He has crossed my mind literally hundreds of times as
- 0:41Speaker 3: whether or not he could be responsible, and I have
- 0:44Speaker 3: maybe changed my mind a dozen.
- 0:46Speaker 1: Town nearly fifteen years ago, February two thousand and eight,
- 0:52Speaker 1: on a lonely highway in East Texas, a state trooper
- 0:55Speaker 1: pulled over a vehicle for an expired registration sticker. When
- 0:59Speaker 1: the state trooper walked up to the car, he found
- 1:01Speaker 1: three people inside, a twenty year old woman named Carol,
- 1:05Speaker 1: her boyfriend who was eighteen, and the driver. His name
- 1:10Speaker 1: was James Dixon Graves Dickie. The state trooper found booze
- 1:15Speaker 1: in the car and a fully loaded twenty two caliber handgun.
- 1:19Speaker 1: When he popped the trunk, there was weird stuff in there.
- 1:23Speaker 1: Three fully loaded handguns, four digital cameras, a camcorder, a
- 1:28Speaker 1: couple of tripods like for filming, an electrical sex toy,
- 1:33Speaker 1: and porno DVDs. This was Dickie's car. Dickie Graves a
- 1:37Speaker 1: Gilmer native living in the nearby town of Lone Star.
- 1:41Speaker 1: Dicky was this schlubby, balding guy in his late forties
- 1:44Speaker 1: with thick glasses and.
- 1:46Speaker 2: A heavy beard.
- 1:47Speaker 1: The young woman in the car with him, Carol, told
- 1:50Speaker 1: the state trooper that she, Dickie, and her teenage boyfriend
- 1:54Speaker 1: were driving to a motel across the state line and Shreveport, Louisiana,
- 1:58Speaker 1: where Dickie was gone to film them having sex. The
- 2:02Speaker 1: young woman riding with Dickie to Louisiana, Carol said that
- 2:06Speaker 1: Dickie had been paying her to perform sex acts since
- 2:09Speaker 1: she was fifteen. She'd seen him pay other women, including
- 2:13Speaker 1: one with severe mental disabilities. Police got a warrant to
- 2:17Speaker 1: search Dickie's house. They found all kinds of whips, masks, restraints,
- 2:23Speaker 1: sex toys, costumes, and pornography involving very young children, all
- 2:29Speaker 1: near children's toys and dolls, and a Cinderella bedspread. In
- 2:33Speaker 1: one video, Dicky coax's the mentally disabled woman into sex
- 2:38Speaker 1: by offering to go get Winnie the Pooh. In two
- 2:41Speaker 1: thousand and nine, Dickie Graves was found guilty of nearly
- 2:45Speaker 1: three dozen charges, including possession of child porn and aggravated
- 2:49Speaker 1: sexual assault and indecency with a child. He was sentenced
- 2:54Speaker 1: to a whopping one thousand, four hundred and forty years
- 2:57Speaker 1: in prison. Dickie had an ex girlfriend and well, she.
- 3:00Speaker 3: Was a little scared. She thought he was stalking her.
- 3:03Speaker 3: He'd be out in the woods at now watching her house.
- 3:06Speaker 1: This is Steve Cowan. He was the district attorney who
- 3:09Speaker 1: prosecuted Dickie. Steve interviewed the ex girlfriend outside her house
- 3:14Speaker 1: on a sweltering summer day.
- 3:17Speaker 3: It was real hot, about one hundred degrees, and I'd
- 3:21Speaker 3: sat out and talked her on the front porch. I
- 3:24Speaker 3: had asked her the open ended question, was he ever
- 3:28Speaker 3: obsessed with anything or anybody? And she said no. I
- 3:36Speaker 3: left the house, I remember, as clear as a bell,
- 3:41Speaker 3: and I went about one hundred yards down the road
- 3:44Speaker 3: and stopped. And when I stopped at the stop sign,
- 3:50Speaker 3: somebody started beating on my side glass. I rode my
- 3:53Speaker 3: window down, and she said, Kelly Wilson, Kelly Wilson. He
- 3:57Speaker 3: was obsessed with Kelly Wilson. I think she is the
- 4:01Speaker 3: one that told me that he had clippings all over
- 4:04Speaker 3: seemed like it might have been the kitchen, all over.
- 4:09Speaker 1: The walls, newspaper clippings about Kelly Wilson all over the
- 4:13Speaker 1: walls of a sex offender's house. I asked Steve about
- 4:17Speaker 1: a rumor going around that Dicky Graves had a shrine
- 4:20Speaker 1: to Kelly.
- 4:21Speaker 3: I don't know about a shrine at his house. He
- 4:25Speaker 3: did seem to have some sort of fascination with that case.
- 4:30Speaker 3: I don't know if they ever linked him to the
- 4:36Speaker 3: case of that just being a suspect. He did on
- 4:42Speaker 3: a TV and appliant repair place just about two blocks
- 4:48Speaker 3: from where the disappearance occurred.
- 4:51Speaker 1: When Dicky's family members searched his repair shop near the
- 4:55Speaker 1: movie store where Kelly was last seen, they found even
- 4:58Speaker 1: more stuff about Kelly.
- 5:00Speaker 3: Had apparently the key to the TV prepair shop building
- 5:06Speaker 3: in Gilmer, and they went into that building and they
- 5:10Speaker 3: told me that they found a box of clippings.
- 5:15Speaker 4: There was a big box of articles about that Kelly
- 5:21Speaker 4: Wilson case, So he apparently was very interested in it.
- 5:29Speaker 1: But Steve also points out that Dicky was the kind
- 5:31Speaker 1: of person who just got really fixated on certain topics
- 5:35Speaker 1: mysteries from the Texas Battle for Independence, for example, and
- 5:39Speaker 1: serial killers such as Ted Bundy and Beat k.
- 5:43Speaker 3: He might have been the type of guy that would
- 5:45Speaker 3: get obsessed about a historic fact or something. So I
- 5:50Speaker 3: don't know whether they ever actually linked him directly to it,
- 5:55Speaker 3: whether he was the person of interest. And I did
- 6:00Speaker 3: occasional come across information and I thought might be useful
- 6:04Speaker 3: to the Kelly Wilson investigator, and I passed whatever I
- 6:07Speaker 3: had onto them. There were a lot of people trying
- 6:10Speaker 3: to solve that case, and as you know, I'm sure
- 6:14Speaker 3: there's dozens of people thought they had it right and
- 6:17Speaker 3: they were wrong. I live in a fat world and
- 6:22Speaker 3: not a speculative world, and trying to imagine ourselves into
- 6:26Speaker 3: the scenario. You know, you're presuming to be innocent, and
- 6:30Speaker 3: he's not here to defend himself. But I did find
- 6:33Speaker 3: him to be smart and methodical, meticulosy, seemed to have
- 6:37Speaker 3: a charming, winning personality, and a lot of people were
- 6:42Speaker 3: taken in by that.
- 6:44Speaker 1: Remember, by this time, Dicky was living in the nearby
- 6:46Speaker 1: town of Lone Star, not his hometown Gilmer.
- 6:50Speaker 3: When the search warrants were done in Lone Star at
- 6:53Speaker 3: his house, some items were seized including a whole lot
- 6:58Speaker 3: of old computer drives and things like that, because I
- 7:02Speaker 3: thought it might track back to Kelly. Wilson say, I've
- 7:06Speaker 3: probably spent a thousand hours on the case of my
- 7:08Speaker 3: home time, because I thought the stakes were high. That
- 7:12Speaker 3: there were five hundred thousand sexual images on his computer,
- 7:18Speaker 3: and you know, we had pictures of people who had
- 7:22Speaker 3: been in his house in some of them incompromising positions,
- 7:25Speaker 3: and I was always curious about, you know, could he
- 7:29Speaker 3: these be Kelly? And so I became familiar with what
- 7:33Speaker 3: she looked like and pretty well eliminated her.
- 7:37Speaker 1: Apparently there was no hard evidence linking Dicky Graves back
- 7:40Speaker 1: to Kelly.
- 7:41Speaker 3: And I wish you well on the investigation. I've always
- 7:46Speaker 3: bill been real unsettled about unsolved murders.
- 7:52Speaker 1: In earlier episodes, we talked about another guy who was
- 7:54Speaker 1: convicted of child porn possession, Joe Henry, the video store
- 7:58Speaker 1: manager who was last seen with Kelly. Joe and Dickie's
- 8:01Speaker 1: businesses were just around the corner from each other. Dickie
- 8:04Speaker 1: repaired TVs, Joe rented movies and repaired VCRs, and I
- 8:08Speaker 1: recently confirmed the video store where Joe was the manager
- 8:12Speaker 1: rented legal porn out of a space in the back.
- 8:15Speaker 2: Did anything you found ever connect with Joe Henry, the
- 8:19Speaker 2: Gilma resident.
- 8:21Speaker 5: No.
- 8:23Speaker 3: No, And that was a curious thing to me too.
- 8:26Speaker 3: I thought maybe that might be a one off.
- 8:29Speaker 1: Just to reiterate, nothing found during the search of Dickie's
- 8:32Speaker 1: house linked back to Joe. I also asked Joe Henry
- 8:35Speaker 1: about Dickie Graves.
- 8:37Speaker 2: Did you know Dicky Graves back in the day?
- 8:40Speaker 6: Dicky?
- 8:41Speaker 2: Oh, that.
- 8:43Speaker 7: Name is Dixon. His name is Dixon. Yes, Jackson was older.
- 8:50Speaker 7: He just knew him when he came in. You ran
- 8:51Speaker 7: a movie or something. He was kind of Uh. I'm
- 8:55Speaker 7: not saying he's crazy, but just a little bit bizarre,
- 8:58Speaker 7: a little bit different. That was rid of all I
- 9:00Speaker 7: knew about him.
- 9:02Speaker 2: So you didn't know about Dicky being involved in some
- 9:04Speaker 2: of that shady stuff back in the day.
- 9:06Speaker 7: No, that he was never brought up to me, you know,
- 9:10Speaker 7: But I now let me tell you, I think James
- 9:14Speaker 7: brought him up one time about I think he had
- 9:19Speaker 7: mixed with James's wife or girlfriend or something. Is that,
- 9:23Speaker 7: you know, I mean that kind of deal. But I
- 9:24Speaker 7: don't know that had nothing to do with anything. Basically,
- 9:28Speaker 7: he was just talking about that.
- 9:30Speaker 1: Okay, this is just a weird little Gilmer thing. James
- 9:33Speaker 1: is James York Brown, the local cop who was falsely
- 9:36Speaker 1: accused of murdering Kelly Wilson and a satanic ritual in
- 9:39Speaker 1: the woods outside of town. Dickie always resented James because well,
- 9:44Speaker 1: James stole one of Dicky's girlfriends. And it turns out
- 9:47Speaker 1: the girlfriend, her name is Debbie, was with James Brown
- 9:51Speaker 1: on the night Kelly disappeared. She provided his alibi. Now
- 9:55Speaker 1: that's small town romance. But here's another wrinkle. About a
- 10:00Speaker 1: decade before Dicky's arrest and conviction for sex crimes, the
- 10:04Speaker 1: police received an anonymous letter, a letter alleging that Kelly
- 10:08Speaker 1: Wilson was buried under the house where Dicky lived back
- 10:11Speaker 1: when Kelly vanished from Gilmour in nineteen ninety two. At
- 10:14Speaker 1: the time, Dickie lived just minutes from Kelly's house. His
- 10:17Speaker 1: family sold the house in nineteen ninety six, four years
- 10:20Speaker 1: after Kelly's disappearance. Fast forward to the year two thousand
- 10:24Speaker 1: and four. Jennifer Dean remember her, She was a high
- 10:29Speaker 1: school friend of Kelly's. Out of the blue, Jennifer's husband
- 10:32Speaker 1: gets a call from the Gilmer police chief.
- 10:35Speaker 6: He is telling him that he's received an anonymous letter
- 10:40Speaker 6: and it is saying that possibly Kelly is buried under
- 10:45Speaker 6: our current home, which the home was owned by that
- 10:49Speaker 6: van Dickie Graves at the time when she went missing.
- 10:53Speaker 1: The anonymous letter sent to the police alleges that Kelly's
- 10:56Speaker 1: body would be found underneath her own friend's house, a
- 11:00Speaker 1: house owned by Dicky Graves at the time Kelly was
- 11:03Speaker 1: last seen. Of course, Jennifer and her husband authorized the
- 11:07Speaker 1: police to search for Kelly. It was time to start
- 11:11Speaker 1: digging from imperative entertainment. I'm Wes Ferguson. This is Deviltown.
- 11:36Speaker 1: This is chapter ten, Part two, real evidence. So Jennifer
- 11:41Speaker 1: Dean hasn't seen her friend Kelly Wilson in like fifteen years.
- 11:45Speaker 1: Now she's being told that Kelly might be buried underneath
- 11:49Speaker 1: her property.
- 11:50Speaker 6: I mean like they had abi jackets on, They had
- 11:54Speaker 6: tables set up in my grandmother in law's driveway, which
- 12:01Speaker 6: just it sits next to our house, and they put
- 12:04Speaker 6: on these suits, I guess to keep from you know,
- 12:08Speaker 6: contaminating some sort of scene. If they found anything, they
- 12:11Speaker 6: had cadaver dogs. It was a whole deal. And I'm
- 12:15Speaker 6: at home. You know, I've got a couple of little
- 12:18Speaker 6: kids too, and I'm just like, wow, I can't believe
- 12:20Speaker 6: this is actually happening. This is this is surreal. And
- 12:25Speaker 6: they went everywhere, and at the end of the day,
- 12:27Speaker 6: you know, Chief Grunning told my husband that, yeah, that
- 12:31Speaker 6: they had the dogs had maybe hit on a couple
- 12:34Speaker 6: of places under the house and then another place out
- 12:37Speaker 6: because garage. It was a detached garage which she'd kind
- 12:41Speaker 6: of turned into like a little workshop, and you know,
- 12:45Speaker 6: they'd like to come back with I don't know what
- 12:49Speaker 6: or who or if they bring more equipment or what
- 12:52Speaker 6: to look a little further.
- 12:54Speaker 8: I guess they dug a little under the house. They
- 12:55Speaker 8: didn't find anything.
- 12:58Speaker 6: They ended up taking up a big patch of concrete
- 13:01Speaker 6: in the backyard and outside that little garage and there
- 13:05Speaker 6: was nothing there.
- 13:08Speaker 8: So it basically nothing turned up.
- 13:11Speaker 2: The FBI's here, they're digging up. I mean, are you thinking, like,
- 13:15Speaker 2: oh my gosh, like Kelly is is here.
- 13:19Speaker 6: I just couldn't imagine that if that becomes a reality,
- 13:23Speaker 6: that she's been buried under our house or on our
- 13:26Speaker 6: property or something all this time, that I just I
- 13:30Speaker 6: don't know.
- 13:30Speaker 8: I couldn't even take myself there.
- 13:33Speaker 5: It was.
- 13:34Speaker 8: It was a sweet little home. We loved it.
- 13:37Speaker 6: But that would have really kind of rocked the world
- 13:42Speaker 6: if that's what had happened in it, you know, revealed
- 13:45Speaker 6: some things about what happened to her that would that
- 13:48Speaker 6: would definitely be something I want.
- 13:50Speaker 5: But it's crazy.
- 13:53Speaker 1: Not long ago, I got my hands on some letters
- 13:55Speaker 1: that Dicky Graves sent from prison to an East Texas
- 13:58Speaker 1: woman who was interested in Kelly's case. In the letters,
- 14:02Speaker 1: Dicky denied ever knowing Kelly Wilson. Like so many potential
- 14:07Speaker 1: suspects in this case, Dickie died in twenty fifteen, leading
- 14:11Speaker 1: to yet another dead end. However, Jennifer says the cadaver
- 14:16Speaker 1: dogs alerted on a couple of spots the police decided
- 14:19Speaker 1: not to dig up. She has no idea why they
- 14:22Speaker 1: avoided those spots, but she still owns the house. Jennifer
- 14:26Speaker 1: can't help but wonder what the cops might have missed.
- 14:29Speaker 1: She's even been in touch with private investigator Amanda Gamble
- 14:32Speaker 1: to see about a new search of the property, anything
- 14:35Speaker 1: to bring Kelly home. Like Kelly's other friends, Jennifer has
- 14:39Speaker 1: spent countless hours sifting through the details of the case
- 14:43Speaker 1: weighing the clues, looking for answers. We keep talking about
- 14:47Speaker 1: a party, the party Kelly was supposed to go to
- 14:50Speaker 1: after she got off work. If there was a party,
- 14:54Speaker 1: Jennifer would have known about it, right, But Jennifer is skeptical.
- 14:58Speaker 1: What teenagers throw a party on Sunday night.
- 15:01Speaker 8: It wouldn't have.
- 15:02Speaker 6: Been anything going on in Gilmour for the most part,
- 15:04Speaker 6: and that was kind of weird.
- 15:06Speaker 1: There are details from the night that Kelly disappeared that
- 15:09Speaker 1: continue to stick with me that don't have answers. If
- 15:13Speaker 1: the party happened at all, something tells me this wasn't
- 15:16Speaker 1: a big blowout. I picture a handful of kids passing
- 15:19Speaker 1: the time on some back road, a quiet, out of
- 15:22Speaker 1: the way place they won't get caught drinking or passing
- 15:25Speaker 1: around a joint. And Yet, if Kelly was going out
- 15:29Speaker 1: at all that night, wouldn't she have brought along her
- 15:31Speaker 1: purse and her bottle of vodka? Those were both found
- 15:35Speaker 1: in her car the next morning. I guess someone could
- 15:38Speaker 1: have returned the purse to her car later. Unfortunately, as
- 15:42Speaker 1: I mentioned before, police didn't treat the car like a
- 15:44Speaker 1: crime scene. They didn't even bother to collect fingerprints. You
- 15:49Speaker 1: also have to remember it was kind of cold that
- 15:51Speaker 1: January night, and Kelly was in cut off jeene shorts.
- 15:55Speaker 1: Wouldn't she have wanted to change into something warmer before
- 15:58Speaker 1: heading out? And if it also finds it a little
- 16:01Speaker 1: strange that Kelly hadn't told her family where she was going.
- 16:05Speaker 8: I didn't come home all night long.
- 16:08Speaker 6: My mom would have known there'd been some major red flags.
- 16:12Speaker 6: Compare that to a lot of other kids, and that
- 16:14Speaker 6: wasn't necessarily normal. So what you know that might may
- 16:18Speaker 6: point back to, yes, that she was she was doing
- 16:22Speaker 6: some grown up stuff. I guess you could say, who knows,
- 16:26Speaker 6: But for the rest of us, that would have kind of,
- 16:29Speaker 6: you know, our parents would have been like, yeah, that's
- 16:31Speaker 6: not this is not okay.
- 16:34Speaker 1: That brings us back to another theory, that Kelly was
- 16:37Speaker 1: mixed up with an older man or men, someone who
- 16:40Speaker 1: maybe drove a dark luxury car, someone who'd given Kelly
- 16:44Speaker 1: lots of cash.
- 16:46Speaker 2: So you hadn't heard anything about her going to the
- 16:49Speaker 2: parties with the.
- 16:50Speaker 8: Older men, So that was.
- 16:55Speaker 6: I don't know, I guess shocking to hear. Honestly, I
- 17:00Speaker 6: don't know. So on one hand, I'm kind of like,
- 17:04Speaker 6: wouldn't we know. I mean like we were partying with
- 17:07Speaker 6: Kelly and we weren't like judging. I mean, we were
- 17:11Speaker 6: all up to no good for the most part, just
- 17:14Speaker 6: having fun.
- 17:15Speaker 8: But why wouldn't she tell us?
- 17:17Speaker 6: But then again, if that was actually happening and we
- 17:20Speaker 6: didn't know, well, then there was there was this other
- 17:23Speaker 6: side of things that was going on and we didn't
- 17:25Speaker 6: know about it. I don't know what other girls, though,
- 17:28Speaker 6: would have been participating in that if none of us
- 17:33Speaker 6: were proposition to participate in I'm making myself sound terrible,
- 17:38Speaker 6: and I really wasn't that bad, you know what I mean?
- 17:41Speaker 8: Does that make sense?
- 17:43Speaker 6: There were two or three or four girls that were
- 17:45Speaker 6: getting paid to have sex with older men.
- 17:48Speaker 8: Who who else would it be? I don't know.
- 17:51Speaker 1: This too opens up more questions. What about a random stranger,
- 17:56Speaker 1: some sketchy guy who just happens to drift through Gilmer
- 17:59Speaker 1: that night, He sees Kelly, he wants her, he takes her.
- 18:04Speaker 1: A lot of people have wondered about this possibility. Here's
- 18:07Speaker 1: Sergeant Brown's son, Josh, who was a kid when Kelly disappeared.
- 18:12Speaker 5: I've got a theory. I don't know if it holds water.
- 18:16Speaker 5: What was a big serial killer that come through East Texas.
- 18:21Speaker 1: Josh is referring to Samuel Little, who confessed to killing
- 18:24Speaker 1: nearly one hundred women between nineteen seventy five and two
- 18:28Speaker 1: thousand and five, a lot of confessions that turned out
- 18:31Speaker 1: to be bogus. Little died a couple of years ago,
- 18:35Speaker 1: follow his tracks.
- 18:36Speaker 5: He was there about the same time.
- 18:39Speaker 1: I'm skeptical that it could have been Samuel Little or
- 18:42Speaker 1: any other stranger. I mean, the killer had to have
- 18:44Speaker 1: been someone who knew Kelly. Remember he or they even
- 18:49Speaker 1: went to the trouble of returning Kelly's car key to
- 18:52Speaker 1: her family, which means that he knew where she lived.
- 18:56Speaker 1: And let's go beyond that, what cold blooded serial killer
- 18:59Speaker 1: even takes the risk of returning the key. No, Kelly's
- 19:03Speaker 1: abductor would have to be someone who, in a weird way,
- 19:07Speaker 1: was still conscientious enough to give the keyback. As you
- 19:11Speaker 1: can see everyone say for Lee, Harvey Oswald has had
- 19:15Speaker 1: something whispered about them over the course of the thirty
- 19:18Speaker 1: years since Kelly's disappearance. That's disturbing, but it also shows
- 19:22Speaker 1: how this small town still has not let this story
- 19:25Speaker 1: go so many years later. For me, still more questions,
- 19:30Speaker 1: what about the bank deposit. A random criminal with no
- 19:34Speaker 1: ties to Kelly or the video store would have surely
- 19:37Speaker 1: kept the money for himself instead of dropping it off
- 19:40Speaker 1: at the bank. Did Kelly get a ride to the
- 19:43Speaker 1: bank from someone she trusted?
- 19:46Speaker 6: I've always thought that it had to be somebody she knew.
- 19:50Speaker 8: I just don't see Kelly.
- 19:52Speaker 6: She was friendly, but she wouldn't stupid, you know, Like
- 19:55Speaker 6: she wouldn't just get in the car with I mean,
- 19:58Speaker 6: she'd have to be forced into a But eight o'clock
- 20:02Speaker 6: Sunday night, right there on the square, that's a big gamble.
- 20:07Speaker 8: That's a huge gamble. And I don't think it was
- 20:10Speaker 8: coincidence their tire was slashed.
- 20:12Speaker 6: I think that that was part of what happened.
- 20:16Speaker 1: I don't know about the slash tire. What about her
- 20:19Speaker 1: tire getting slashed two nights earlier? And remember a girl
- 20:23Speaker 1: who worked with Kelly at the video store also got
- 20:26Speaker 1: her tire slashed the previous night. Private investigator Amanda Gamble
- 20:32Speaker 1: has been working a different angle, and Amanda has an announcement,
- 20:38Speaker 1: where are we now with the search for Kelly compared
- 20:40Speaker 1: to maybe like when you started this search almost a
- 20:44Speaker 1: year ago.
- 20:45Speaker 5: We have uncovered.
- 20:48Speaker 9: New evidence that has never been released before by individuals
- 20:56Speaker 9: that didn't talk in the past that are now feeling
- 21:00Speaker 9: more comfortable to come forward and talk.
- 21:02Speaker 5: Even since the podcast has started. We don't have just
- 21:06Speaker 5: kind of a general location anymore.
- 21:10Speaker 9: We actually have more of a specific area and a
- 21:13Speaker 9: physical location of where she could possibly be buried.
- 21:18Speaker 2: So you think you have this location, I mean, this
- 21:21Speaker 2: is huge. This is something that you know you had
- 21:25Speaker 2: mentioned to me early on, but I was trying to
- 21:28Speaker 2: be really careful not giving away too much. What can
- 21:32Speaker 2: you tell us about this location that you have.
- 21:36Speaker 5: I won't release the exact area.
- 21:40Speaker 2: And you still think there was a group of guys
- 21:45Speaker 2: that took Kelly out to some like a pasture, and then.
- 21:49Speaker 9: I think there's more than one person involved for sure.
- 21:53Speaker 9: I don't know about necessarily the pasture. I think that
- 21:58Speaker 9: it is going to be wooded area.
- 22:01Speaker 2: And so you're you're still looking at like a few
- 22:04Speaker 2: different locations then.
- 22:07Speaker 10: Nope, just one.
- 22:24Speaker 1: Here's more from my conversation with private investigator Amanda Gamble.
- 22:28Speaker 1: I asked how she can be so sure of the
- 22:30Speaker 1: location for Kelly's body. Do you know that because of
- 22:33Speaker 1: like confidential informants? How do you know this is the place.
- 22:36Speaker 5: Well, one would be a confidential informant.
- 22:39Speaker 9: And when is since you had started the podcast, we
- 22:42Speaker 9: actually had an individual come forward that was actually blatantly
- 22:50Speaker 9: told where the location was, why the person that had
- 22:58Speaker 9: buried Kelly, And so we've got to you know, really
- 23:04Speaker 9: validate that information, and so far we've been able to
- 23:09Speaker 9: validate it.
- 23:11Speaker 6: Well.
- 23:11Speaker 2: I mean, that would be so amazing for Kelly's friends
- 23:16Speaker 2: and her parents to finally have closure and know at
- 23:21Speaker 2: least know where their daughter is.
- 23:23Speaker 5: Right, yes, definitely.
- 23:27Speaker 9: When this happened, you know, I was a child just
- 23:30Speaker 9: like you are. And over the years, you know, this
- 23:33Speaker 9: has always been something that has I hate to use
- 23:37Speaker 9: the word haunted, but it has, it's haunted everybody in
- 23:40Speaker 9: Northeast Texas and beyond talking with her mother.
- 23:48Speaker 5: Weekly, you know, sometimes daily.
- 23:51Speaker 9: That is one thing that I know both of her
- 23:54Speaker 9: parents want is to know what happened where she's at,
- 23:58Speaker 9: to be able to have that closure and be able
- 24:00Speaker 9: to have a place to like their daughter's risk.
- 24:03Speaker 2: I've talked to you and I've talked to Kelly's friends
- 24:07Speaker 2: about these kind of powerful men and Gilmer, older men
- 24:12Speaker 2: that might have been involved in this. Do you still
- 24:14Speaker 2: think I mean, is that the direction you're going still
- 24:18Speaker 2: thinking that it involved these kind of older like maybe wealthier,
- 24:22Speaker 2: more powerful men and Gilmer.
- 24:24Speaker 9: At this time, would I be willing to put that
- 24:29Speaker 9: on this stand, you know, in front of a jury.
- 24:34Speaker 9: Not completely, But do I see that being a significant
- 24:39Speaker 9: part in the fact that it has not been solved
- 24:44Speaker 9: in thirty years?
- 24:45Speaker 5: Yes?
- 24:46Speaker 2: Is there anything more that you can reveal about that?
- 24:50Speaker 9: Not at this time, but all of that information will
- 24:56Speaker 9: soon be going to law enforcement.
- 25:00Speaker 2: When do you think that you'll have enough information that
- 25:04Speaker 2: you can come forward with it to long and give
- 25:08Speaker 2: it to I think you said the FBI.
- 25:10Speaker 9: Right, I am gonna give a lot of that to
- 25:13Speaker 9: the FBI.
- 25:14Speaker 5: I will.
- 25:15Speaker 9: I do plan on talking to Gilmer police, probably within
- 25:19Speaker 9: the next few weeks, and then I very well may
- 25:24Speaker 9: also contact the Texas Rangers.
- 25:27Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Amanda is asking for people to speak up. If
- 25:30Speaker 1: they know anything about Kelly's disappearance.
- 25:33Speaker 5: They should come forward.
- 25:35Speaker 9: I mean, at this point in time, the way that
- 25:38Speaker 9: I really what I want to get through to people
- 25:44Speaker 9: is that Number one, you don't need to have that
- 25:48Speaker 9: fear factor. I feel like there was so much fear
- 25:54Speaker 9: instilled in then thirty years ago. Coming forward with the
- 25:59Speaker 9: information that you have that is going to be able
- 26:03Speaker 9: to give a family closure.
- 26:05Speaker 5: Some of the people.
- 26:07Speaker 9: That were, you know, higher up then, or people that
- 26:11Speaker 9: were trying to conceal the truth, they're also dead. Don't
- 26:16Speaker 9: be afraid to tell the truth. Don't be afraid to
- 26:19Speaker 9: come forward with information that can give a family closure.
- 26:23Speaker 9: Her mother and her father are both close to seventy,
- 26:27Speaker 9: if not already in their seventies.
- 26:29Speaker 5: They deserve justice for their daughter. Kelly deserves justice.
- 26:36Speaker 9: And instead of everyone being so afraid to speak up,
- 26:39Speaker 9: don't be afraid because you don't know how many more
- 26:44Speaker 9: people have gone through what Kelly went through. You don't
- 26:46Speaker 9: know how many more people are victims. To me, Kelly
- 26:49Speaker 9: would want them to come forward. She'd want the truth
- 26:52Speaker 9: to be told. What's done in the dark always comes
- 26:56Speaker 9: to light. We don't get to say when the life
- 27:00Speaker 9: gets turned down necessarily, but it will come out.
- 27:05Speaker 2: It seems like we're right on the corner, right on
- 27:08Speaker 2: the edge.
- 27:09Speaker 9: That's right. The wheels of justice turned slow. That's something
- 27:13Speaker 9: I'm sure a lot of people have hired in it,
- 27:15Speaker 9: and it's the chories.
- 27:17Speaker 5: I do believe there are some higher ups that.
- 27:20Speaker 9: Probably did have involvement in it or the cover up
- 27:25Speaker 9: of it.
- 27:26Speaker 5: I mean, definitely the cover up of it.
- 27:28Speaker 9: But why would they fill the need to cover it up?
- 27:31Speaker 1: And where are the police in all this? Remember the
- 27:34Speaker 1: theft of Kelly's case files from the police station. Was
- 27:37Speaker 1: that an inside job? From the details we know, that's
- 27:41Speaker 1: certainly plausible. And what about that random guy I met
- 27:45Speaker 1: by the railroad tracks?
- 27:46Speaker 2: Jared?
- 27:47Speaker 1: He said, a man from Gilmer got the charges dropped
- 27:49Speaker 1: against three guys he'd arrested in exchange for murdering Kelly.
- 27:54Speaker 1: I asked my producer to bleep the man's name because
- 27:57Speaker 1: Jared seems so unreliable. Also, I want to add that
- 28:00Speaker 1: I don't believe his claims about Kelly being on hard drugs,
- 28:05Speaker 1: but I'll just say it. Jared named a former cop.
- 28:08Speaker 1: There is another story I heard from Amanda. Supposedly, Kelly
- 28:12Speaker 1: and two of her friends were cruising around one night teenagers,
- 28:16Speaker 1: drinking and driving when they got pulled over by a
- 28:18Speaker 1: law enforcement officer. Kelly's two friends quickly tossed their drinks
- 28:23Speaker 1: out the window. When the cop walked up to the
- 28:25Speaker 1: girl's car, he didn't knock on the driver's window. He
- 28:29Speaker 1: went to Kelly's door, She followed him back to the
- 28:32Speaker 1: squad car and was gone for a while. Then she
- 28:35Speaker 1: came back, her drink still in her hand, laughing because
- 28:38Speaker 1: her friends had tossed out their drinks. It was very
- 28:41Speaker 1: dark that night, and Amanda says Kelly's friends didn't see
- 28:45Speaker 1: the officer who pulled them over, and Kelly never said
- 28:48Speaker 1: what she was doing with the cop when he called
- 28:50Speaker 1: her back to his squad car. Did the cops pursue
- 28:53Speaker 1: these leads? Would they have led to information that solved
- 28:57Speaker 1: the case.
- 29:00Speaker 5: That's the thing to me.
- 29:01Speaker 9: If they truly wanted to solve it, it had then
- 29:03Speaker 9: been solved. There's no way in hell that we have
- 29:06Speaker 9: found out all the information that we have found out
- 29:09Speaker 9: in the short amount of time. I mean, if you
- 29:12Speaker 9: look at it, it's a short amount of time compared
- 29:15Speaker 9: to thirty years that we have found out that they haven't.
- 29:19Speaker 9: But the reason is is because we constantly are working
- 29:23Speaker 9: on it. We constantly are calling, We're trying to find out.
- 29:27Speaker 5: They're not. They're sitting on it, going, well, let's see
- 29:30Speaker 5: it now thirty years.
- 29:32Speaker 1: To be fair, we really don't know what the cops
- 29:35Speaker 1: are doing to find Kelly. If anything, because they never
- 29:38Speaker 1: would talk to me. So Amanda and I have been
- 29:42Speaker 1: picking apart the Kelly Wilson case for several months now.
- 29:47Speaker 1: There are more details I wish I could share, but
- 29:49Speaker 1: I just haven't been able to confirm them yet. I
- 29:52Speaker 1: really feel like we could be close, but I also
- 29:54Speaker 1: think I should tap the brakes just a little. In
- 29:58Speaker 1: my many conversations with Amanda, I've marveled at her ability
- 30:02Speaker 1: to dig up information to get people to open up
- 30:05Speaker 1: and reveal secrets they've locked away for decades. But I've
- 30:09Speaker 1: also found that Amanda tends to be far more certain
- 30:11Speaker 1: than I am about the clues we uncover, and her
- 30:14Speaker 1: certainty can pivot to a different scenario a totally different
- 30:18Speaker 1: suspect in a flash. Was Kelly silenced because she uncovered
- 30:23Speaker 1: a drug ring or a poorno cabal? Was she the
- 30:26Speaker 1: victim of a botched abortion. Who was the older man
- 30:29Speaker 1: in the black luxury car? Was there some kind of
- 30:32Speaker 1: freak accident, an overdose?
- 30:34Speaker 2: We just don't know.
- 30:36Speaker 1: For what it's worth, Amanda is convinced that Gilmer police
- 30:39Speaker 1: were pursuing the wrong suspects. She believes the guy Kelly
- 30:43Speaker 1: had been dating, Chris Denton and his cousin Brent Ward
- 30:47Speaker 1: are innocent in Kelly's disappearance. Also, for what it's worth,
- 30:51Speaker 1: I have not seen or heard any concrete evidence linking
- 30:55Speaker 1: Kelly's boss Joe Henry to the crime. Like his friend
- 30:57Speaker 1: Philip Williams.
- 30:58Speaker 7: Said, he had to be in wrong Blaze at the
- 31:02Speaker 7: wrong death.
- 31:03Speaker 1: Amanda doesn't tell me everything she hears. But even though
- 31:06Speaker 1: we seem to be getting closer, so much still feels
- 31:10Speaker 1: like conjecture. Remember, everyone is innocent until proven guilty. This
- 31:17Speaker 1: is the last episode of Deviltown for now, although I'll
- 31:20Speaker 1: continue to follow the case and I hope I'll be
- 31:23Speaker 1: back soon with good news. I can't help but think
- 31:26Speaker 1: about all the other interviews I've done, reading old news
- 31:30Speaker 1: clips and case files, everything I've learned about Kelly. There
- 31:34Speaker 1: are still little details that I'm not sure I'll ever
- 31:37Speaker 1: really understand. I do know this, Kelly was coming of
- 31:41Speaker 1: age in a world of men, men and boys who
- 31:45Speaker 1: were not often held accountable for the harm they caused family, friends, neighbors.
- 31:51Speaker 1: So many people would rather blame an imaginary cult or
- 31:54Speaker 1: some other conspiracy for crimes that lay at the feet
- 31:57Speaker 1: of our own sons or brothers. I named this series Doubletown,
- 32:02Speaker 1: because I'd always been so interested in how Gilmer got
- 32:05Speaker 1: swept up in the satanic panic, how the case of
- 32:08Speaker 1: a missing girl was lost amid shocking allegations of cannibalism
- 32:12Speaker 1: and sacrificed babies, How left to run wild conspiracies and
- 32:18Speaker 1: falsehoods can ruin innocent lives. The real evil, as I
- 32:23Speaker 1: see it, is that one or more of these men
- 32:26Speaker 1: from Gilmer, maybe someone you've seen at church on the
- 32:29Speaker 1: town square or even the yamboree in the fall, This
- 32:33Speaker 1: man got away with Kelly's murder, and so many in
- 32:37Speaker 1: town avert their eyes in her last photographs, Kelly Day
- 32:42Speaker 1: Wilson is forever seventeen. She's a high school senior who
- 32:46Speaker 1: works hard, loves to dance, has so many friends and
- 32:50Speaker 1: loved ones. Five years after Kelly was last seen on
- 32:53Speaker 1: the town square in Gilmer, Texas, her dad Robbie, had
- 32:56Speaker 1: her declared legally dead. It was a messy step to
- 33:00Speaker 1: collect a modest life insurance policy. Nobody bothered to tell
- 33:04Speaker 1: Kelly's mom, Kathy until this year. In the eyes of
- 33:08Speaker 1: the law, Kelly isn't just missing, She's dead. If she'd lived,
- 33:14Speaker 1: she would have been forty eight years old. Remember Kelly's
- 33:17Speaker 1: friend Michelle. She's the one who moved in with Kelly's
- 33:20Speaker 1: family when she had a baby during their junior year
- 33:23Speaker 1: in high school. These days, Michelle is left to wonder
- 33:27Speaker 1: what life would have been like if Kelly was still here.
- 33:31Speaker 11: Thought she would have been a great person. She was
- 33:34Speaker 11: just so happy and full of life. You know, I
- 33:37Speaker 11: just see her getting married and being extremely happy, extremely successful.
- 33:42Speaker 11: She was very smart. I don't remember what she wanted
- 33:46Speaker 11: to do for a living. I wish I did, but
- 33:49Speaker 11: I don't. And I just feel like she would have
- 33:53Speaker 11: been highly successful and probably had kids like me and
- 33:59Speaker 11: I don't know kids, probably would have been friends if
- 34:01Speaker 11: she still lived around here. I'm still close to a
- 34:04Speaker 11: lot of my friends in high school, and our kids
- 34:07Speaker 11: have been friends. My kids ended up babysitting their kids
- 34:09Speaker 11: because you know, I've started my family so early.
- 34:12Speaker 5: But I just feel like she'd be one of us.
- 34:17Speaker 5: I guess.
- 34:24Speaker 1: Deviltown is a production of Imperative Entertainment. It was written
- 34:27Speaker 1: and created by me Wes Ferguson. Executive producer is Jason Hoak.
- 34:31Speaker 1: Audio engineering and editing by Shane Freeman and Jason Hoak.
- 34:35Speaker 1: Original score is by Robert Ellis recording by Austin Sissler
- 34:39Speaker 1: at east Side Studios. If you like the show, leave
- 34:41Speaker 1: a review, and don't forget to tell your friends thanks
- 34:44Speaker 1: for listening.