Latest / The Path Went Chilly / Morris Davis Patreon Summer Sampler

Transcript

Morris Davis Patreon Summer Sampler · The Path Went Chilly

0:29
Speaker 1: Welcome back to this month's Patreon exclusive Miniso.
0:32
Speaker 2: I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and I'm Ashley, and we want
0:36
Speaker 2: to wish all of you beautiful Patreon a safe and
0:40
Speaker 2: happy holiday season. So let's dive right into this month's case.
0:45
Speaker 3: April fifth, nineteen eighty five, Great Balls, Montana. After an
0:51
Speaker 3: orderous place to a pizza parlor from a residential house,
0:54
Speaker 3: one of their drivers, twenty three year old Morris Davis,
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Speaker 3: makes a delivery to that address. Morris is fatally shot
1:01
Speaker 3: eight times in his delivery while it is stolen, but
1:04
Speaker 3: it would turn out the house was vacant and the
1:07
Speaker 3: killer had broken inside to wait for Morris to arrive.
1:11
Speaker 3: The case features some odd twists and turns, including an
1:14
Speaker 3: unlikely series of events involving the potential murder weapon, but
1:18
Speaker 3: the identity of Morris's killer remains unknown.
1:22
Speaker 1: After that, the path went chilly. So on this month's
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Speaker 1: bonus minisod, we're going to be covering a disturbing case
1:29
Speaker 1: from Unsolved Mysteries, the nineteen eighty five murder of Morris Davis.
1:34
Speaker 1: This is a memorable story which has always struck a
1:36
Speaker 1: chord with fans of the show, but unfortunately It's also
1:39
Speaker 1: one of those dreaded segments which is currently not available
1:42
Speaker 1: for viewing on their official film Rise channel on Amazon
1:45
Speaker 1: Prime or YouTube, and that's incredibly frustrating since the case
1:49
Speaker 1: is still unsolved after all these years and could use
1:52
Speaker 1: the additional exposure. The murder of Morris Davis is a
1:56
Speaker 1: particularly senseless crime about a pizza delivery driver who was
1:59
Speaker 1: assigned to deliver an order to what turned out to
2:01
Speaker 1: be a vacant house, where he was ambushed and shot
2:04
Speaker 1: several times. It became apparent that the crime was an
2:08
Speaker 1: elaborate setup in which Morris was intentionally lured to this
2:11
Speaker 1: address in order to be killed, but the motive remains unclear.
2:15
Speaker 1: Since the pizza parlor employed multiple drivers, it's unlikely that
2:19
Speaker 1: the perpetrator could have known for certain that Morris would
2:21
Speaker 1: be assigned to make this delivery. He may not have
2:24
Speaker 1: been specifically targeted and was simply in the wrong place
2:27
Speaker 1: at the wrong time. But while robbery could have been
2:30
Speaker 1: the motive, only a couple hundred dollars was stolen from Morris,
2:34
Speaker 1: So why would the killer go to so much trouble
2:36
Speaker 1: to do something like this. The investigation is headed in
2:39
Speaker 1: a number of odd directions, and it's possible that one
2:42
Speaker 1: of the reasons the original Unsaw Mystery segment is no
2:45
Speaker 1: longer available for viewing is because it's spent a lot
2:48
Speaker 1: of time focusing on a lead which turned out to
2:50
Speaker 1: be quite controversial. But we'll share more details about that
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Speaker 1: when we get there.
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Speaker 2: Okay, so this investigation is already pointing to the idea
3:01
Speaker 2: that someone lured a pizza driver to this vacant house
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Speaker 2: to complete a burglary, but with the intention to also
3:09
Speaker 2: complete a murder as well. But they couldn't have possibly
3:12
Speaker 2: known that it would have been Morris that was coming
3:15
Speaker 2: to deliver the pizza. So are there any leads or
3:18
Speaker 2: evidence that show there's some way that Morris was actually
3:22
Speaker 2: assigned to make this delivery, that someone at the pizza
3:25
Speaker 2: parlor could have known to send him. Or do you
3:28
Speaker 2: think someone just planned the crime and Morris happened to
3:32
Speaker 2: be the one bringing the pizza.
3:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this was probably a random thrill kill
3:36
Speaker 1: of some sort because he whoever did this probably didn't
3:39
Speaker 1: even care which driver was sent. They just wanted to
3:41
Speaker 1: kill somebody. Because the way this pizza place worked, it
3:44
Speaker 1: sounded like, okay, we received the order it's ready, let's
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Speaker 1: give it to the first available driver, and it just
3:50
Speaker 1: happened to be Morris. So I suspect that no one
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Speaker 1: could have known ahead of time that he would be
3:54
Speaker 1: the one going to this address.
3:57
Speaker 2: And you'd also wonder for the perpetrator. You know that
4:00
Speaker 2: they can't carry that much cash on them. I mean,
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Speaker 2: if you think about someone who's delivering pizzas, maybe you
4:06
Speaker 2: would make three or four stops before returning and dropping
4:08
Speaker 2: cash off back at the restaurant. So to me, it
4:11
Speaker 2: almost feels as if the intent was actually the murder,
4:14
Speaker 2: like you said, Robin, possibly a thrill kill of.
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Speaker 1: Some kind exactly because they should have known that he
4:19
Speaker 1: was not going to be carrying that much cash on him.
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Speaker 3: And I feel like to get several hundred dollars that
4:26
Speaker 3: is kind of a win there, because you don't know
4:29
Speaker 3: how much pizza this person's going to be delivering, and
4:32
Speaker 3: it might only be a couple of different deliveries. And
4:35
Speaker 3: this is nineteen eighty five, so how much really could
4:38
Speaker 3: a pizza cost. It's not like today where you can
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Speaker 3: get a couple of pizzas and it's like one hundred bucks.
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Speaker 3: You probably get like two pizzas for thirty bucks, so
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Speaker 3: they'd be lucky to get one hundred dollars. That feels
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Speaker 3: like a lot of work to put in for a
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Speaker 3: hundred bucks, unless it was, like you'd said, Robin, a
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Speaker 3: thrill kill. Or this is somebody who had a substance
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Speaker 3: use disorder and they were looking for some kind of
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Speaker 3: easy mark and any amount of money would have been
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Speaker 3: worth it to feed their addiction. Our story begins in
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Speaker 3: Great Falls, Montana, in nineteen eighty five. Our central figure
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Speaker 3: is twenty three year old Morris Davis Junior, who works
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Speaker 3: as a delivery man at a local pizza parlor called
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Speaker 3: Howard's Pizza. At eight thirty four pm on the evening
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Speaker 3: of April fifth, which happened to be Good Friday, the
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Speaker 3: establishment received an order for a pizza delivery to a
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Speaker 3: residential house on the northwest side of Great Falls. After
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Speaker 3: the pizza was made, it was handed over to Morris
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Speaker 3: for delivery and he left it around nine point fifteen.
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Speaker 3: After an hour and a half passed by, Morris had
5:44
Speaker 3: still not returned, so another driver was sent out to
5:47
Speaker 3: look for him and went to the address of Morris's
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Speaker 3: last delivery. When the driver entered the house, he was
5:54
Speaker 3: shocked to find Morris's body near the front door. He'd
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Speaker 3: been shot nine times with a twenty two calibi weapon.
6:01
Speaker 3: The police were called, and in a cruel twist of fate,
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Speaker 3: one of the paramedics who arrived at the scene was
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Speaker 3: Morris's younger brother, Cliff Davis, who entered the house and
6:11
Speaker 3: let out a scream when he saw Morris's body on
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Speaker 3: the floor. Cliff accompanied his brother in the ambulance to
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Speaker 3: the hospital, but Morris was pronounced dead on arrival.
6:22
Speaker 1: Oh.
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Speaker 2: I just got chills up and down my arms and
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Speaker 2: my neck. This is horrific. You have a young paramedic
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Speaker 2: who's called out to respond to a shooting, and when
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Speaker 2: he arrives it's his own older brother who's been executed.
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Speaker 2: He's been shot nine times. That seems like such overkill,
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Speaker 2: even for someone who's doing this for a thrill or
6:42
Speaker 2: doing it as a robbery gone wrong. Nine times by
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Speaker 2: the second or third shot, I feel like you would
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Speaker 2: be confident that this person was deceased exactly.
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Speaker 1: And Cliff is one of the most the victim's family
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Speaker 1: members in all the cases I've covered, who I've helped
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Speaker 1: most sorry for because I can't think of too many
7:00
Speaker 1: others where a victim's family is summoned to a murder
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Speaker 1: scene and has no idea what to expect, because I'm
7:05
Speaker 1: sure Cliff didn't know ahead of time that Morris was
7:08
Speaker 1: going to be delivering to this address, so he wasn't
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Speaker 1: sure what he was getting when he was going in,
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Speaker 1: and then to see his own brother on the floor,
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Speaker 1: but to still maintain enough composure to accompany him to
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Speaker 1: the hospital and try to do his job. But I
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Speaker 1: can't think of too many other cases in which something
7:22
Speaker 1: like this has happened.
7:24
Speaker 3: And as you worked on cold cases with cold case investigators,
7:28
Speaker 3: so I think you probably have a unique understanding of
7:31
Speaker 3: what it's like for first responders when they come upon
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Speaker 3: a deceased individual, particularly a murder, and then to add
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Speaker 3: the other layers and nuance when you add in the
7:41
Speaker 3: victim's family being one of those first responders, like, I
7:45
Speaker 3: just can't imagine that type of trauma.
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Speaker 2: I can't either. I mean, the reality is is that
7:51
Speaker 2: officers will tell you that they're trained in condition to
7:53
Speaker 2: separate themselves, same with paramedics. I have to separate myself
7:56
Speaker 2: from the situation, but that's not humanly poss if they're vulnerable,
8:01
Speaker 2: and they're sharing how they actually feel when there is
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Speaker 2: a deceased individual, when there's a murder, when there is
8:06
Speaker 2: someone who's hurting, or even the family that you're responding
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Speaker 2: to is hurting, empathy takes over and there is a
8:14
Speaker 2: connection to that case, whether you know the person or not.
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Speaker 2: And then this is someone walking up and seeing their
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Speaker 2: big brother literally just riddled with bullets inside this vacant home,
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Speaker 2: the trauma that would come with that, where yes, I'm
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Speaker 2: supposed to be doing a job, it's supposed to be
8:29
Speaker 2: this clinical kind of task that I have, and then
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Speaker 2: I'm shocked with the idea that this is my brother.
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Speaker 2: And you know that Cliff was pretty confident that his
8:37
Speaker 2: brother was deceased at that point or wasn't going to
8:40
Speaker 2: be able to make it very long. So he's battling
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Speaker 2: that kind of please make this, Morris, please make this,
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Speaker 2: trying to do a job to save him, and then
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Speaker 2: realizing as they're getting to the hospital that his brother
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Speaker 2: didn't make it. I can't even express how much heartbreak
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Speaker 2: that causes when you think about Cliff and Morris and
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Speaker 2: what that dynamic would have been like.
9:01
Speaker 1: So, based on the forensic evidence, investigators theorized that Morris
9:05
Speaker 1: was shot when he first entered the house, but still
9:07
Speaker 1: tried to make a break for it, but when he
9:09
Speaker 1: ran outside, the killer fired another bullet into him, before
9:12
Speaker 1: dragging Morris back into the house and shooting him additional times.
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Speaker 1: On the surface, it appeared that robbery might have been
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Speaker 1: the motive for the crime. Morris's delivery wallet, which contained
9:23
Speaker 1: just under three hundred dollars, was missing, though strangely, Morris's
9:27
Speaker 1: own personal wallet was left behind. However, whoever committed the
9:31
Speaker 1: crime had orchestrated a very elaborate scheme. It turned out
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Speaker 1: the house Morris delivered to his vacant, and the killer
9:38
Speaker 1: went to the trouble of removing a for sale sign
9:40
Speaker 1: from the front lawne. Since the house did not have
9:43
Speaker 1: phone service, the killer went to a nearby payphone to
9:46
Speaker 1: place the order for the pizza before breaking into the
9:49
Speaker 1: house through the back door. He then waited for Morris
9:52
Speaker 1: to arrive, shot him after he entered the house, and
9:55
Speaker 1: then fled with his delivery wallet. Morris was filling in
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Speaker 1: for another driver who had originally been scheduled to work
10:00
Speaker 1: that night, and since the pizza parlor employed several drivers,
10:04
Speaker 1: the killer could not have known with one hundred percent
10:06
Speaker 1: certainty that Morris would be assigned to deliver this order.
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Speaker 1: By all accounts, Morris was a very well liked guy
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Speaker 1: with no known enemies, so it seemed like he was
10:16
Speaker 1: not deliberately targeted and was just a victim of a
10:18
Speaker 1: completely random crime.
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Speaker 2: Holy cow, when you say that this was a highly
10:24
Speaker 2: orchestrated crime, you're not fibbing on that. He literally removes
10:29
Speaker 2: a for sale sign from the front yard, makes a
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Speaker 2: point to get to a payphone to provide the address
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Speaker 2: to the pizza delivery people, and then once Morris comes
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Speaker 2: in and is shot, he tries to run, the shooter
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Speaker 2: shoots him again and then drags him back into the
10:44
Speaker 2: house to continue to shoot him. At what point did
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Speaker 2: you just grab the wallet and run instead of having
10:52
Speaker 2: these just overkill of poor Morris? You had already hurt him,
10:59
Speaker 2: He was already run. It was a vacant house, It
11:02
Speaker 2: wasn't registered to you, There was no phone associated with you.
11:05
Speaker 2: Why would you have to kill the person? You got
11:07
Speaker 2: the money, you injured the person, run, But this killer
11:11
Speaker 2: said no, that's not enough. They actually were waiting for
11:13
Speaker 2: him to come with a home that they had targeted
11:17
Speaker 2: because no one would know who was there. They used
11:20
Speaker 2: the payphone. They then drag a shot wounded individual back
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Speaker 2: into the house to empty what seven more bullets at
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Speaker 2: that point into the body. It's wild. It just blows
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Speaker 2: my mind as so far as what would be the
11:33
Speaker 2: motivation for this.
11:34
Speaker 3: How many bullets does it Guten hold in his clip?
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Speaker 1: A good question. I know that there are six shooters,
11:40
Speaker 1: but I know that this obviously was not one of them,
11:42
Speaker 1: because I'm curious to see if they if he might
11:44
Speaker 1: have reloaded, but when he fired, I'll these shots.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, did he empty a clip? Did he reload?
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Speaker 2: I think it's a pistol. Did it a pistol, Robin?
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Speaker 1: Yes? Twenty two caliber?
11:54
Speaker 2: Is it a revolver? Robins? I know, yeah, no, semi automatic?
11:58
Speaker 1: Possibly they never found the murder weapons. I'm not entirely sure.
12:01
Speaker 3: All they know is a caliber bullet and.
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Speaker 1: He'd been shot nine times with a twenty two caliber bullet.
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Speaker 2: It says anywhere from six to nine for a revolver
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Speaker 2: or ten to twenty for a semi automatic, so.
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Speaker 1: It's possibly fired the maximum if it holds nine.
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Speaker 3: Another question for you, Robin, And this might sound like
12:20
Speaker 3: a stupid question, But what happened to the pizza that
12:24
Speaker 3: he was delivering. Was the piza just left there? Was
12:26
Speaker 3: it taken?
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Speaker 1: They never released that information. It's possible that this is
12:30
Speaker 1: one of those details that they're not releasing to the
12:32
Speaker 1: public to weed out false confessions. We're going to talk
12:35
Speaker 1: about this later in the miniso at about another pizza
12:38
Speaker 1: related murder where the killer did take the pizza away
12:40
Speaker 1: from the scene after they shot the victim. But it
12:44
Speaker 1: doesn't specify in this case.
12:46
Speaker 3: Because it would seem to be odd to take the
12:49
Speaker 3: pizza and just take the delivery wallet, but to leave
12:52
Speaker 3: his personal wallet behind. Did he have any money in
12:55
Speaker 3: his personal wallet?
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Speaker 1: That's another detail that they haven't specified. But I think
13:00
Speaker 1: that if his wallet had been empty or had very
13:02
Speaker 1: little money, they might have mentioned that. But they keep
13:05
Speaker 1: saying how it was very strange that had been left behind,
13:08
Speaker 1: which makes me think he did at least have a
13:10
Speaker 1: decent amount of cash in there.
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Speaker 3: The investigation failed to uncover a solid suspect and remained
13:17
Speaker 3: at a total standstill for three years before a very
13:20
Speaker 3: strange series of events occurred. On May eleventh, nineteen eighty eight,
13:25
Speaker 3: a man was pulled over in another town in Montana
13:28
Speaker 3: and arrested for driving in a stolen vehicle, which he'd
13:31
Speaker 3: taken from a friend in Oregon. The suspect had also
13:35
Speaker 3: stolen a twenty two caliber semi automatic pistol from his friend,
13:39
Speaker 3: and a receipt for the gun was found in his
13:41
Speaker 3: pocket for a pawn shop in Great Falls, which was
13:43
Speaker 3: located one hundred and eighty miles from where he was arrested.
13:47
Speaker 3: The Great Falls Police Department recovered the gun from the pawnshop,
13:51
Speaker 3: but then remembered how Morris Davis had been shot to
13:54
Speaker 3: death with a twenty two caliber weapon, so on a whim,
13:57
Speaker 3: they decided to send the gun to the ballistics lab
13:59
Speaker 3: for ten To their astonishment, there turned out to be
14:03
Speaker 3: a complete match to the bullets from the crime scene,
14:07
Speaker 3: and the stolen gun was determined to be the same
14:09
Speaker 3: murder weapon which killed Morris. The suspect who had stolen
14:13
Speaker 3: the vehicle in the gun was investigated and cleared of
14:16
Speaker 3: any involvement in Morris's murder, so the focus now turned
14:20
Speaker 3: towards the gun's original owner in Oregon, who'd purchased the
14:24
Speaker 3: weapon prior to April of nineteen eighty five. This man's
14:28
Speaker 3: name has never been released publicly, but he agreed to
14:31
Speaker 3: be interviewed in silhouette on Unsolved Mysteries in order to
14:34
Speaker 3: conceal his identity. The show also digitally altered his voice
14:38
Speaker 3: when he spoke and referred to him by the pseudonym Rick.
14:43
Speaker 2: So this person gets pulled over. They've stolen a car
14:45
Speaker 2: from a friend, and I'm assuming this quote, Rick is
14:49
Speaker 2: the one who calls in says, my friend stole my car.
14:52
Speaker 2: When they discover him, he has a receipt where he's
14:55
Speaker 2: dropped all of this stuff off at the pawn shop,
14:57
Speaker 2: and they link at that weapon back to Morris's death.
15:01
Speaker 2: So of course you're going to go back to Rick
15:05
Speaker 2: quote end quote and say that you know you were
15:09
Speaker 2: linked to this murder. Explain yourself, where was the gun
15:12
Speaker 2: at the time. Does Rick have an explanation as to
15:15
Speaker 2: what would have happened with that weapon if he was
15:17
Speaker 2: not in possession of it at the time of Morris's murder.
15:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm about to explain that right now. And this
15:22
Speaker 1: is where things get really confusing. Your head is probably
15:25
Speaker 1: going to explode when I tried to explain what happened here.
15:28
Speaker 1: Let's do that, Okay, So Rick denied any involvement or
15:32
Speaker 1: knowledge of Morris's murder, and claimed that in April of
15:35
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five he had a newborn son, so he
15:38
Speaker 1: was keeping the twenty two caliber pistol safely stowed away
15:41
Speaker 1: in a hall closet between some blankets. The problem is
15:44
Speaker 1: that nobody else besides Rick and his wife knew the
15:47
Speaker 1: gun was kept there, and he did not recall it
15:49
Speaker 1: ever going missing. During this time period, Rick was thoroughly
15:52
Speaker 1: investigated by the Great False PD, who determined that he
15:55
Speaker 1: had rock Slid alibi at the time of Morris's murder
15:59
Speaker 1: and they had no reason to believe he was involved
16:01
Speaker 1: in the crime. So on the surface, it seemed like
16:04
Speaker 1: someone else had stolen the gun from Rick's closet, traveled
16:07
Speaker 1: the Great Falls to shoot Morris, and then returned to
16:10
Speaker 1: Oregon to somehow place the gun back inside his closet
16:13
Speaker 1: without anybody noticing. This lead baffled the hell out of
16:17
Speaker 1: everyone for years, but it turned out there was a
16:19
Speaker 1: logical or illogical explanation for the whole thing. The Great
16:24
Speaker 1: Falls PD simply screwed up the ballistics tests. In nineteen
16:28
Speaker 1: ninety five, some new ballistic tests were performed and guess
16:31
Speaker 1: what this time, the bullets which were fired did not
16:34
Speaker 1: match the bullets from the crime, which meant that Rick's
16:37
Speaker 1: gun from Oregon was not actually the murder weapon used
16:40
Speaker 1: to shoot Morris Davis. So, unfortunately, this whole series of
16:44
Speaker 1: events turned out to be one of the strangest red
16:46
Speaker 1: herrings in history. The investigation went right back to square one,
16:50
Speaker 1: and after nearly thirty nine years, no one has ever
16:53
Speaker 1: been charged with the murder of Morris Davis. So I
16:56
Speaker 1: guess you could say the path went chile.
17:01
Speaker 2: How do you perform an improper ballistics test? My question
17:06
Speaker 2: for you is were these striations on the bullet and
17:09
Speaker 2: the markings on the bullet were they true matches or
17:12
Speaker 2: is it a personnel problem when they were interpreting the
17:16
Speaker 2: striations on the bullet or is it just that actually
17:19
Speaker 2: the test was performed in an incorrect way, actually making
17:23
Speaker 2: similar mark That doesn't make any sense to me.
17:26
Speaker 1: I'm still confused it by it myself. But they seem
17:29
Speaker 1: to have the great false PD a lot of faith
17:31
Speaker 1: in the results of these tests, because this was the
17:33
Speaker 1: main reason the case got national exposure and unsolved mysteries,
17:36
Speaker 1: Because this was a big mystery. How did this gun
17:39
Speaker 1: from this guy's closet in Oregon somehow get used in
17:43
Speaker 1: a murder of a guy in Montana and make it
17:45
Speaker 1: back into his closets. So for years no one could
17:47
Speaker 1: explain that. And like I just said, it was not
17:50
Speaker 1: until the mid nineteen nineties that they decided to double
17:52
Speaker 1: check and realized, oh, these don't match. After all, this
17:55
Speaker 1: is not the murder weapons. So I have no idea
17:58
Speaker 1: why this was screwed up so badly that I would
18:00
Speaker 1: definitely rank this as one of the worst blunders I've
18:02
Speaker 1: ever seen in a police investigation.
18:05
Speaker 2: Tell me about it. And this is the part with
18:07
Speaker 2: junk science where you have you know, yes, there's a
18:10
Speaker 2: actual ballistics protocol that allows for good testing, but when
18:14
Speaker 2: you have physical evidence being interpreted by human beings, which
18:18
Speaker 2: I'm assuming is what went wrong here, it opens up
18:21
Speaker 2: the floodgates to say, based on someone's human eye and
18:25
Speaker 2: the way that they examine evidence, you can say these
18:28
Speaker 2: two things match, lead to rick and actually pin a
18:32
Speaker 2: crime on somebody who had a newborn baby and a
18:35
Speaker 2: gun locked in a closet at the time. So had
18:37
Speaker 2: they not done a thorough investigation and gone back to
18:40
Speaker 2: re look at his evidence to say that these bullets
18:42
Speaker 2: actually did not match. It's possible that someone could have
18:45
Speaker 2: been falsely accused and arrested and served time, and Morris's
18:49
Speaker 2: murder that they, you know, that didn't have anything to
18:51
Speaker 2: do with it. So it's frustrating that we do have
18:55
Speaker 2: human beings who were relied on to make these kind
18:58
Speaker 2: of decisions, which is their career, which I know ninety
19:01
Speaker 2: nine percent of them pick very seriously. But to me,
19:04
Speaker 2: that's the only explanation. It would have been human error
19:06
Speaker 2: in interpreting the results, and when examined several years later,
19:09
Speaker 2: they said, uh, oh, we made a mistake.
19:11
Speaker 3: And in nineteen eighty five, what did ballistics testing look like?
19:16
Speaker 3: Would it have been like fingerprint comparison matching where there's
19:20
Speaker 3: a lot of subjectivity because you have somebody who's just
19:23
Speaker 3: like matching points because there wouldn't have been access to
19:26
Speaker 3: computer programs like there are today to be able to
19:29
Speaker 3: compare all of those points that is far more accurate
19:33
Speaker 3: than our human eye is. So do either of you
19:36
Speaker 3: know what ballistic testing looked like in nineteen eighty five?
19:40
Speaker 1: Not really, No, I'm assuming it was pretty primitive, But
19:44
Speaker 1: I personally think this might have been a case of
19:46
Speaker 1: confirmation biased because the recovery of this weapon from the
19:50
Speaker 1: pawnshop took place three years after Morris's murder, and they
19:54
Speaker 1: had had pretty much zero leads during this time, and
19:56
Speaker 1: they were thinking, well, it's another twenty two caliber weapon,
19:59
Speaker 1: which is kind of like the weapon in Morris's murder,
20:01
Speaker 1: So maybe they just wanted it to match so badly
20:04
Speaker 1: so they could solve this case that they maybe just
20:07
Speaker 1: misinterpreted the results of the testing and that's how this happened.
20:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that tho striations and the way you
20:13
Speaker 2: would indicate would be like you were saying, Jules, I
20:15
Speaker 2: would think that it would be very similar to saying
20:17
Speaker 2: we're going to match different points. And then that does
20:20
Speaker 2: leave a huge you know, I don't know. It allows
20:24
Speaker 2: for so much subjectivity and interpretation, and when you say
20:27
Speaker 2: can these two match? Do these two things match? You
20:30
Speaker 2: do get that confirmation bias where someone wants to help
20:33
Speaker 2: and they want to see something that may not be there.
20:37
Speaker 1: Well, needless to say, I'm always really bothered by these
20:40
Speaker 1: completely random and senseless crimes where an innocent person is
20:44
Speaker 1: murdered for something as small as a couple hundred bucks,
20:47
Speaker 1: and because of the randomness of these crimes, it's often
20:50
Speaker 1: very difficult to figure out who is responsible. In this
20:53
Speaker 1: particular case, I have a feeling the perpetrator just wanted
20:56
Speaker 1: to kill someone and didn't even care who it was.
20:59
Speaker 1: Ibbery was the primary motive. I think there would have
21:02
Speaker 1: been simpler ways to go about it, and if this
21:04
Speaker 1: person had simply pointed their gun at Morris and told
21:07
Speaker 1: him to hand over his money, Morris probably would have
21:09
Speaker 1: complied without any resistance. The fact that the gunman would
21:12
Speaker 1: commit major overkilled by shooting Morris nine times and didn't
21:16
Speaker 1: even bother taking his personal wallet makes me think he
21:19
Speaker 1: was more interested in committing a thrill kill than a
21:21
Speaker 1: simple robbery. Since Morris was not originally scheduled to work
21:25
Speaker 1: that night and the perpetrator couldn't have been certain he
21:27
Speaker 1: would make the delivery, this was probably not a personal
21:30
Speaker 1: killing and Morris was just a victim who was in
21:32
Speaker 1: the wrong place at the wrong time.
21:35
Speaker 2: For me, it seems like anybody who carries money the
21:39
Speaker 2: policy with your employer would be given to somebody. Right.
21:42
Speaker 2: It's nothing is worth losing your life over, and it's
21:45
Speaker 2: especially not a pizza delivery man, But I mean anybody
21:49
Speaker 2: someone collecting money from banks, someone taking large amounts of
21:52
Speaker 2: money from one institution to another. If someone confronts you
21:56
Speaker 2: with a gun and says I'm going to kill you
21:58
Speaker 2: or give me your money, you give them your money.
22:00
Speaker 2: Morris had no need to defend those three hundred dollars
22:04
Speaker 2: with his life, especially while he's employed a pizza delivery service.
22:08
Speaker 2: So I think you're right, Robin. It seems like this
22:11
Speaker 2: person wanted to hurt somebody, and that to me, robbery
22:16
Speaker 2: really wasn't necessarily even the motive, because unless they were
22:20
Speaker 2: some really, really sick addict who was sober enough to
22:24
Speaker 2: plan removing a for sale sign, finding a vacant home,
22:28
Speaker 2: going to a payphone, and making a delivery, all that
22:31
Speaker 2: is so planned and clear minded that it would be
22:35
Speaker 2: hard for me to think that this was an addic
22:37
Speaker 2: so strung out that that money was that important to them.
22:40
Speaker 2: So for me, it almost feels like hurting the person
22:44
Speaker 2: dragging them back into the home, unloading the rest of
22:46
Speaker 2: your magazine into them, that that was the priority for
22:49
Speaker 2: this person, and they happened to get three hundred dollars
22:51
Speaker 2: when they did it, they left his own personal wallet
22:55
Speaker 2: that could have been so that they couldn't get caught
22:57
Speaker 2: and didn't have a driver's license or credit cards with
22:59
Speaker 2: his name or something on it at the time. But
23:01
Speaker 2: to me, money was not the priority.
23:04
Speaker 3: I agree, And don't you both think that it's possible that? Okay, So,
23:08
Speaker 3: say he had his work related pizza delivery wallet in
23:12
Speaker 3: one of his front pockets. Say he was shot and
23:14
Speaker 3: he fell on his back, and maybe his personal wallet
23:17
Speaker 3: was just in his back pocket and the killer didn't
23:19
Speaker 3: even know to look for it.
23:21
Speaker 1: That is true. Yeah, Like, we don't even know if
23:24
Speaker 1: this person had a vehicle, if they had any transportations,
23:27
Speaker 1: so they may have felt, well, I fired gunshots, I
23:29
Speaker 1: have to get out of the area as quickly as
23:31
Speaker 1: possible in case neighbors heard them. So after finding the
23:34
Speaker 1: delivery wallet, he just didn't bother checking the personal wallet
23:37
Speaker 1: and just ran out of there as quick as he could.
23:41
Speaker 3: Sadly, before the days of color id, GPS and the Internet,
23:45
Speaker 3: it wasn't uncommon for people to place sony orders like
23:47
Speaker 3: this in order to lure delivery people to locations where
23:50
Speaker 3: they could be robbed or harmed. For another example of
23:53
Speaker 3: a crime like this, there's the murder of Travis robson
23:57
Speaker 3: a twenty one year old delivery driver at a Domino's
23:59
Speaker 3: pizza outlet in Billings, Montana, on December thirteenth of nineteen ninety.
24:05
Speaker 3: Travis was shot to death while attempting to deliver a
24:07
Speaker 3: pizza to an address which turned out to be an
24:09
Speaker 3: abandoned house, and this time the killer wound up stealing
24:13
Speaker 3: a grand total of thirteen dollars and forty cents from
24:17
Speaker 3: Travis's delivery wallet, as well as the pizza. What's particularly
24:21
Speaker 3: creepy is that the Unsolved Mystery segment about Morris Davis's
24:25
Speaker 3: murder had aired only a week earlier, on December fifth.
24:29
Speaker 3: Given the similarities between these two crimes and the fact
24:32
Speaker 3: that they both took place in Montana, investigators wondered if
24:36
Speaker 3: this was a copycat crime or if the show might
24:39
Speaker 3: have inspired Morris's killer to strike again. While only one
24:43
Speaker 3: week after Travis was killed, two suspects, twenty two year
24:47
Speaker 3: old Billy Lamond and eighteen year old Randall Lyon Shows
24:51
Speaker 3: were arrested for his murder, and they eventually pled guilty
24:54
Speaker 3: and received lengthy prison sentences. The two men were never
24:58
Speaker 3: connected to Morris's murder, and it's highly unlikely that they
25:01
Speaker 3: were involved, given that they still would have been kids
25:04
Speaker 3: back in nineteen eighty five, but it is creepy to
25:07
Speaker 3: think that they might have gotten the idea for their
25:09
Speaker 3: crime from watching Unsolved Mysteries.
25:12
Speaker 2: And again, you had a young kid, you had Travis,
25:15
Speaker 2: who is only twenty one years old, murdered as a
25:18
Speaker 2: pizza delivery man, And you're right, it's very possible that
25:22
Speaker 2: this is a copycat crime motivated by the high exposure
25:26
Speaker 2: that they were getting on Unsolved Mysteries in nineteen ninety
25:29
Speaker 2: I remember Unsolved Mysteries and Rescue nine one one being
25:32
Speaker 2: like the hot shows back to back that I would
25:35
Speaker 2: love tuning into. It was really popular, and so at
25:39
Speaker 2: the time for an eighteen and twenty year old to think, hey,
25:42
Speaker 2: we could get a lot of notoriety by doing something similar.
25:45
Speaker 2: That's an easy crime to get away with that I
25:48
Speaker 2: could see that inspiring these two zero part of me
25:52
Speaker 2: thinks that they could be linked to Morris's because they
25:54
Speaker 2: would have been thirteen and eighteen at the time of
25:57
Speaker 2: Morris's murder, and that just seems like such a large scale,
26:01
Speaker 2: elaborate killing for these two young kids to do.
26:05
Speaker 1: And stories like this just make me very grateful that
26:08
Speaker 1: in this era of constant food delivery that they're much
26:11
Speaker 1: more better safety measures in place, that you can now
26:14
Speaker 1: look ahead of time to make sure you're not delivering
26:16
Speaker 1: food to an abandoned house, and you have all sorts
26:18
Speaker 1: of protections like GPS, and you have cell phones and stuff,
26:22
Speaker 1: so we have less of these crimes where delivery people
26:24
Speaker 1: get lured out to these remote locations for the express
26:27
Speaker 1: purpose of killing them.
26:29
Speaker 3: Anyway, Morris's family had reached out to Unsolved Mysteries for
26:33
Speaker 3: two years to get his case featured on the show
26:36
Speaker 3: before they finally agreed to produce a segment with so
26:40
Speaker 3: little evidence to work with. I think the primary reason
26:43
Speaker 3: Unsolved Mysteries might have been interested in the story was
26:46
Speaker 3: because of the weird series of events involving the twenty
26:50
Speaker 3: two caliber pistol which was stolen from Oregon. Robin will
26:54
Speaker 3: tell you that when he first watched this segment back
26:56
Speaker 3: in the day, he was left completely baffled by the
26:59
Speaker 3: whole situation and just could not figure out how this
27:02
Speaker 3: gun could have traveled from Oregon to Montana and back
27:06
Speaker 3: to Oregon again if it was used in the crime.
27:09
Speaker 3: But when Robin learned that the original ballistics test had
27:12
Speaker 3: been botched. He felt like banging his head against a wall.
27:15
Speaker 3: I mean, my god, how much time and resources were
27:19
Speaker 3: wasted investigating this false lead. You had to feel bad
27:22
Speaker 3: for the man known only as Rick, the gun's original
27:25
Speaker 3: owner from Oregon. It must be pretty terrifying to learn
27:29
Speaker 3: that a gun you owned was used to kill someone
27:32
Speaker 3: in a different state and you can offer no explanation
27:35
Speaker 3: for how this happened. I think the main reason the
27:38
Speaker 3: original Unsolved Mystery segment is no longer available on their
27:42
Speaker 3: official channel is because it focuses so much on Rick.
27:46
Speaker 3: Even when it's mentioned that Rick has been cleared as
27:48
Speaker 3: a suspect, Morris's brother Cliff still openly directs suspicion towards
27:53
Speaker 3: him as he just cannot understand Rick's gun, as he
27:57
Speaker 3: just cannot understand how Rick's gun could have been used
28:01
Speaker 3: in the crime without him knowing about it. Thankfully, Rick
28:05
Speaker 3: wasn't railroaded and falsely implicated in a murder that he
28:08
Speaker 3: had nothing to do with. But then, how frustrating must
28:12
Speaker 3: it have been for Morris's family to find out this
28:15
Speaker 3: lead was a giant red herring and the investigation had
28:19
Speaker 3: reached a dead end.
28:20
Speaker 2: Again, Rick is incredibly lucky. Everything would have pointed to
28:25
Speaker 2: him at the time right that the Great Rapids Police Department,
28:29
Speaker 2: they thought that they were doing a fantastic or Great
28:32
Speaker 2: Falls sorry, Great Falls Police Department thought that they were
28:36
Speaker 2: doing a fantastic job by linking evidence, which they were.
28:39
Speaker 2: They were paying attention to different crimes. It could have
28:42
Speaker 2: been related, and they were able to show that ballistics
28:45
Speaker 2: matched a gun found at Rick's house, and with that alone,
28:50
Speaker 2: they could have implicated Rick in the murder of Morris.
28:54
Speaker 2: The reality is, back in the eighties and nineties, there
28:57
Speaker 2: wasn't an ability for a lot of extra check and balances.
29:01
Speaker 2: Once Rick would have gotten convicted of the crime based
29:03
Speaker 2: on faulty science, proving that he's innocent would have been
29:07
Speaker 2: nearly impossible. We've seen that in multiple cases throughout the
29:11
Speaker 2: United States. And the reality is is that this was
29:14
Speaker 2: all for nothing. You had the family convinced that you
29:17
Speaker 2: had to lead in the case. You had the United
29:21
Speaker 2: States wondering what happened while they watched this unsolved mystery segment.
29:25
Speaker 2: And even though Rick was cleared, I guarantee you if
29:28
Speaker 2: anyone knew his identity or was able to link somebody
29:32
Speaker 2: to this case and say, oh, I think that's quote Rick.
29:36
Speaker 2: You know that there would be suspicion around him, even
29:38
Speaker 2: though years later the results showed that this test was faulty.
29:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are many documented wrongful conviction cases in which
29:46
Speaker 1: someone was sent to prison based on faulty ballistics evidence,
29:50
Speaker 1: particularly back in the nineteen eighties and seventies before a
29:53
Speaker 1: lot of this stuff was kind of exposed as a
29:56
Speaker 1: junk science. And I think Rick is just lucky that
29:59
Speaker 1: he did not live in Great Falls or anywhere else
30:02
Speaker 1: in nearby Montana. So they figured, well, we can place
30:05
Speaker 1: him in Oregon in April of nineteen eighty five, so
30:07
Speaker 1: we can't pin this crime on him. But if he
30:09
Speaker 1: had lived closer than it is very possible he would
30:11
Speaker 1: have been charged and sent to prison. However, the investigation
30:15
Speaker 1: did eventually uncover another individual who seems like a fairly
30:18
Speaker 1: solid suspect in Morris's murder. On October sixth, nineteen eighty six,
30:23
Speaker 1: eighteen year old Susette Pritchard was working an overnight shift
30:26
Speaker 1: alone at a Great Falls convenience store when she was
30:29
Speaker 1: murdered by someone who came in and stopped her twenty
30:32
Speaker 1: four times before stealing three hundred dollars. The case went
30:36
Speaker 1: unsolved for eleven years before police received information from a
30:39
Speaker 1: prison informant about an innate named Donald Dubray. Dubray had
30:44
Speaker 1: an extensive criminal history and was serving a twenty seven
30:47
Speaker 1: year sentence for rape at Montana State Prison, where he
30:50
Speaker 1: had apparently bragged about being responsible for Susette Pritchard's murder.
30:55
Speaker 1: After an extensive investigation uncovered evidence to implicate Tobray in
30:59
Speaker 1: the crime, he was charged and convicted of robbery, felony, theft,
31:03
Speaker 1: and murder. He received a life sentence for the murder,
31:06
Speaker 1: plus an additional twenty years for robbery and ten years
31:09
Speaker 1: for felony theft. If that wasn't enough, a state district
31:12
Speaker 1: judge ordered that five thousand, one hundred and fifty dollars
31:15
Speaker 1: be garnished from Dubray's prison wages in order to pay
31:19
Speaker 1: restitution to the Pritchard family for the expenses they had
31:22
Speaker 1: incurred from Sussette's funeral.
31:24
Speaker 2: Okay, so when you talk about the link to Morris's,
31:28
Speaker 2: she's this little girl is obviously killed and overkilled for
31:32
Speaker 2: three hundred dollars. Do you really think that Debray is
31:36
Speaker 2: the one who would have been tied to Morris's crime. Though.
31:41
Speaker 2: I mean, you have a stabbing and you have a shooting,
31:44
Speaker 2: you have overkilling both, you have three hundred dollars in both.
31:47
Speaker 2: But what do you guys think is the possibility that
31:50
Speaker 2: there isn't actually a link.
31:52
Speaker 3: It's a different victimology, for sure.
31:55
Speaker 1: It is like the method is different. But the main
31:57
Speaker 1: reason I think they were interested in Debray is because
32:00
Speaker 1: it took place in Great Falls, only one year after
32:02
Speaker 1: Morris was murdered, and just kind of a similar mo
32:05
Speaker 1: where you stab just a regular worker several times or
32:08
Speaker 1: shoot them several times, only to steal a couple hundred dollars. So,
32:12
Speaker 1: even though they didn't have anything conclusive showing that he
32:15
Speaker 1: could have committed Morris's murderer, he definitely was worth looking
32:19
Speaker 1: at as a suspect.
32:21
Speaker 3: Ash Like, you looked at enough cold cases, don't you
32:24
Speaker 3: think that, Like stabbing and shooting is very different, and
32:26
Speaker 3: you're looking at completely different victimology, and this one almost
32:30
Speaker 3: reeks more of desperation, whereas the other one is a
32:33
Speaker 3: lot more organized.
32:36
Speaker 2: Yes, that's exactly what I was about to say. You
32:38
Speaker 2: also have a male and female victim there's a lot
32:40
Speaker 2: of differences here. The three hundred dollars to me, seems
32:43
Speaker 2: to be the only thing and the level of overkill.
32:46
Speaker 2: But when you shoot someone, you have the luxury of
32:49
Speaker 2: having that distance between you and a sense of power
32:54
Speaker 2: without having to exert physical power. When you are going
32:57
Speaker 2: to go stab someone, there is an intimacy to that.
33:00
Speaker 2: Once you insort of blade into someone's skin and then
33:03
Speaker 2: you do it twenty four times, you think about the
33:07
Speaker 2: psychological power control, the sometimes sexual motivation, the desperation, and
33:12
Speaker 2: the rage that would come with that type of killing.
33:15
Speaker 2: It's different than this idea of almost toying with someone
33:18
Speaker 2: and being more cowardly in the way you execute someone.
33:22
Speaker 2: By being able to stand away from the victim, to
33:24
Speaker 2: close your eyes, to not have to really look at
33:26
Speaker 2: what you're doing, and to have that kind of gap
33:29
Speaker 2: in intimacy between the victim and the perpetrator. You have
33:33
Speaker 2: a female who's at work and is killed very quickly
33:37
Speaker 2: and radically with this twenty four stab wounds. I agree
33:41
Speaker 2: that that's more opportunistic and not as planned as the
33:44
Speaker 2: person who decided to take a for sale sign out
33:47
Speaker 2: of the yard to find a vacant home to make
33:50
Speaker 2: a call to this address to get the person in
33:52
Speaker 2: to shoot him, let him run, shoot him again, drag
33:56
Speaker 2: him back into the home to shoot him another seven times.
33:59
Speaker 2: There's just so much more of like a well thought
34:02
Speaker 2: out ability to separate yourself from the victim and to
34:06
Speaker 2: complete this crime. In the pizza murder versus this girdl
34:10
Speaker 2: who's at work, who's stabbed twenty four times.
34:13
Speaker 3: It's overkill versus like overkill in both cases in that like,
34:17
Speaker 3: you know, shooting someone nine times, you don't need to
34:20
Speaker 3: do it that many times obviously to get your desired result.
34:24
Speaker 3: And then to stab someone twenty four times feels like
34:26
Speaker 3: a loss of control. It feels like a classic organized
34:30
Speaker 3: offender in the pizza murder, that the murder of Morris
34:34
Speaker 3: versus a disorganized defender in the case where you're murdering
34:40
Speaker 3: eighteen year olds, who's that Pritchard and Debray is stabbing
34:44
Speaker 3: her twenty four times? It feels opportunistic, It feels messy,
34:47
Speaker 3: It feels like he loses control of his emotions and
34:51
Speaker 3: almost of his physical body, because to stab someone twenty
34:54
Speaker 3: four times takes a lot more energy than to empty
34:57
Speaker 3: a clip into somebody.
34:59
Speaker 1: Do you think It's might have been different though, just
35:01
Speaker 1: because Susette was a woman, Because maybe with Morris he
35:04
Speaker 1: was a larger man, it was more impersonal. He just
35:06
Speaker 1: wanted to shoot him from a distance, whereas if he
35:09
Speaker 1: was a misogynist, I mean, we know he was already
35:11
Speaker 1: in prison for rape. Maybe he just hated women so
35:14
Speaker 1: much that he wanted to change his mo and like
35:16
Speaker 1: unleash all these stabbing wounds on this poor girl.
35:19
Speaker 2: That is definitely possible. When you look at stabbing, there's
35:23
Speaker 2: an argument of does it, how so have a sexual
35:25
Speaker 2: component to it? So does that provide a different level
35:29
Speaker 2: of control and harm to the victim that excites the perpetrator.
35:34
Speaker 2: So it is possible knowing that there's a more vulnerable
35:38
Speaker 2: and smaller, less aggressive victim that might not be able
35:42
Speaker 2: to fight you back, that you might attack them in
35:44
Speaker 2: a different manner.
35:46
Speaker 3: You just open yourself up to making a real mess
35:50
Speaker 3: on your physical body, your clothes, but also to stab
35:53
Speaker 3: someone twenty four times. Not only will you have the
35:56
Speaker 3: blood of the victim on you, you're likely going to bleed
35:58
Speaker 3: on the victim because that knife is going to get
36:01
Speaker 3: real slippery, the chance of it slipping onto his hand
36:04
Speaker 3: and cutting him pretty good chance. I would say to
36:06
Speaker 3: stab somebody that many times, but I guess this is
36:10
Speaker 3: a time before DNA, so the consideration would be like, okay,
36:14
Speaker 3: so what's the most They could do? Blood type analysis,
36:17
Speaker 3: which doesn't really It can like rule you in or
36:20
Speaker 3: rule you out, but you're not going to be able
36:22
Speaker 3: to pinpoint exactly who is like say they were TYPO,
36:26
Speaker 3: who's a Type O contributor, just that you can't eliminate
36:29
Speaker 3: this person as a suspect. Say Debray had TYPEO, you
36:32
Speaker 3: can't eliminate him, but it could be any number of
36:35
Speaker 3: the seventy percent of the population that has OH positive
36:38
Speaker 3: blood well. In May of twenty sixteen, Debray was found
36:43
Speaker 3: dead in his prison cell at the age of fifty five.
36:46
Speaker 3: John Cameron, the Great Falls police detective who solved Susant
36:50
Speaker 3: Pritchard's murder, has publicly expressed his suspicions that Debray might
36:54
Speaker 3: have also been responsible for killing Morris Davis, since the
36:58
Speaker 3: crime took place in Great Falls only a year earlier,
37:01
Speaker 3: and both cases involved a victim being brutally murdered over
37:04
Speaker 3: a robbery of only a couple hundred dollars. Traffic tickets
37:08
Speaker 3: placed to Bray in Great Falls shortly before and after
37:10
Speaker 3: Morris's murder, and during this time period he had also
37:14
Speaker 3: committed a robbery in the town of Browning and shot
37:16
Speaker 3: another victim with a twenty two caliber weapon. For years,
37:20
Speaker 3: Cameron corresponded with Debray in prison and hoped that he
37:23
Speaker 3: might get him to confess to killing Morris, but this
37:26
Speaker 3: never happened. Now we have to concede that Detective Cameron
37:30
Speaker 3: is a bit of a controversial figure and has faced
37:33
Speaker 3: criticism for his tendency to develop tunnel vision in cases
37:37
Speaker 3: and focused too much on certain suspects. Following his retirement,
37:41
Speaker 3: Cameron published a book about serial killer Edward Wayne Edwards
37:45
Speaker 3: and attempted to link him to pretty much every famous
37:48
Speaker 3: murder in the past several decades, such as the Black Dahlia,
37:52
Speaker 3: the Zodiac Murders, Jimmy Hoffa, Adam Walsh, the West Memphis Three,
37:57
Speaker 3: John Manny Ramsay, Lacy Peterson, Reach the hall Bock. And
38:01
Speaker 3: I think it goes without saying that not everyone agrees
38:04
Speaker 3: with Cameron's assessment.
38:06
Speaker 2: I think that when you look at this Detective Cameron,
38:09
Speaker 2: he's doing what Edward Wayne Edwards himself did he's trying
38:13
Speaker 2: to get kind of this notoriety and excitement around these
38:18
Speaker 2: tragic cases and linking them to one person. It doesn't
38:21
Speaker 2: make sense.
38:23
Speaker 1: Edward.
38:23
Speaker 2: Wayne Edwards himself claimed to have all these connections to
38:26
Speaker 2: these different famous crimes. But there's just, to my mind,
38:30
Speaker 2: no way. There's such different murders, there's such different locations,
38:34
Speaker 2: there's such different mos. And then you have this idea
38:37
Speaker 2: that you know, Detective Cameron almost effec and goes well. Obviously,
38:41
Speaker 2: if he's linked to all these types of diverse murders,
38:44
Speaker 2: he could also be linked to you know, this murder itself.
38:49
Speaker 2: It's just it's crazy. When you look at Debray, he's
38:51
Speaker 2: doing the same thing. He's saying, Debray killed this person.
38:54
Speaker 2: Debray did this crime. Yes, these are all very different
38:57
Speaker 2: mos and different locations, but I can link them. You
39:00
Speaker 2: could do that with almost any criminal who has multiple offenses.
39:04
Speaker 2: You could start placing them in locations. You could start
39:07
Speaker 2: looking at the method that they use to kill someone.
39:10
Speaker 2: There's only so many mos, there's only so many victimologies,
39:14
Speaker 2: there's only so many locations to commit crimes. And so
39:18
Speaker 2: if you want to find someone and pin them to
39:20
Speaker 2: a certain crime without evidence supporting that. It's easy to
39:24
Speaker 2: do as a puzzle piece, right, just to find these
39:27
Speaker 2: random facts and say, oh, see, you know peace number
39:31
Speaker 2: A in this case and Peace number F in this case.
39:33
Speaker 2: They all fit together. But it doesn't to me when
39:37
Speaker 2: you look at these. Debray is not someone who I
39:40
Speaker 2: would say has a diruct connection to Morris, even if
39:43
Speaker 2: he was in that location at the time.
39:46
Speaker 1: Yeah. I kept remembering when I was researching this and
39:48
Speaker 1: I saw Cameron's theory about Donald Debray, and I was thinking, oh,
39:51
Speaker 1: this kind of makes logical sense. Maybe he's onto something here.
39:54
Speaker 1: But then I heard about the Edward Wayne Edwards theory
39:56
Speaker 1: and how he's pretty much a laughingstock in the True
39:59
Speaker 1: Crime Commune because of it. Because you look at the
40:01
Speaker 1: Black Dollia and Teresa hallback, those crimes took place sixty
40:05
Speaker 1: years apart, so I do not believe an offender is
40:07
Speaker 1: going to be killing and committing these famous murders that
40:10
Speaker 1: far apart. So that has really affected his credibility.
40:14
Speaker 3: I think he overshot with that theory for sure. It's
40:17
Speaker 3: sort of like the Smiley Face killers. Those guys I
40:20
Speaker 3: believe overshot as well. And so you lose a lot
40:23
Speaker 3: of credibility when you try to lump too many things
40:26
Speaker 3: together and just make it fit. But even before hearing
40:30
Speaker 3: about Cameron's controversial connection to Edward Wayne Edwards and trying
40:34
Speaker 3: to group all of those murders together and him being responsible,
40:38
Speaker 3: I still just in my gut didn't feel like the
40:40
Speaker 3: victimology and the mo O lined up enough. Yes, there
40:44
Speaker 3: was three hundred dollars that connected it, but I just
40:46
Speaker 3: feel at my very core that these are two very
40:49
Speaker 3: different offenders. One that's really opportunistic and disorganized, one that's
40:54
Speaker 3: very cold, calculated and organized.
40:57
Speaker 2: I'm with you, I think that it's way too much
40:58
Speaker 2: of a stretch, way too much stretch in this case.
41:01
Speaker 1: However, in twenty thirteen, Morris's brother Cliff actually posted a
41:06
Speaker 1: couple of times on the Unsolved Mysteries message board at
41:08
Speaker 1: the sitcoms online forum which I'm always referring to. Cliff
41:12
Speaker 1: claimed that he also corresponded with Donald Dubray in prison,
41:16
Speaker 1: and that he provided very specific details about Morris's murder
41:19
Speaker 1: and the house where it took place. At one point,
41:22
Speaker 1: Debray apparently told Cliff that he was president at the
41:25
Speaker 1: house that night, but he was not the shooter, but
41:27
Speaker 1: in spite of this, Dubray never did take responsibility for
41:30
Speaker 1: the crime, and no evidence ever linked him to it.
41:33
Speaker 1: Some other investigators have expressed skepticism over the idea of
41:37
Speaker 1: Dubray being Morris's killer, but if what Cliff posted was true,
41:40
Speaker 1: he certainly seems like a compelling suspect. I definitely see
41:44
Speaker 1: the parallels between Morris's case and the murder of Susette Prichard.
41:48
Speaker 1: Dubray staffed Susette a total of twenty four times, which
41:50
Speaker 1: is major overkilled, to say the least, much like how
41:53
Speaker 1: Morris was shot nine times. It sounds like Susette's murder
41:57
Speaker 1: was something of a thrill kill for Dubray and robbery
41:59
Speaker 1: was the secondary motive, And you can also say the
42:02
Speaker 1: same thing about what happened to Morris. Unfortunately, I'm not
42:06
Speaker 1: sure if there is any DNA evidence available in Morris's
42:09
Speaker 1: case which could posthumously link Dubray to the crime. But personally,
42:13
Speaker 1: my gut does tell me that Dubray might be the killer,
42:16
Speaker 1: and if and if so, then it's sad that he
42:19
Speaker 1: went on to murder someone else. But he did finally
42:21
Speaker 1: get locked up and spent the last chunk of his
42:23
Speaker 1: life in prison, so justice was ultimately served. But if
42:28
Speaker 1: you happen to have any information on the murder of
42:30
Speaker 1: Morris Davis, please contact the Great Falls Police Department at
42:34
Speaker 1: four zero six seven two seven seven six eight eight.
42:38
Speaker 1: That's four h six seven two seven seven sixty eight
42:41
Speaker 1: eight Jules Ashley. Any final thoughts on this case.
42:46
Speaker 2: Now, I don't know what poor Cliff had actually communicated
42:49
Speaker 2: with Debray about, but he is another victim in this
42:52
Speaker 2: crime as a whole. Cliff was the one who responds
42:56
Speaker 2: to the emergency cause a paramedic and finds out his
42:59
Speaker 2: brother had been killed in this home that's vacant, and
43:03
Speaker 2: he rides alongside his brother trying to help resuscitate him
43:07
Speaker 2: and losing him as they arrive at the hospital. And
43:10
Speaker 2: then you see for decades you have him being a
43:14
Speaker 2: lead person fighting for answers in this case. Somehow poor
43:18
Speaker 2: Cliff gets connected to Debray. I in my gut, so far,
43:22
Speaker 2: with what we've heard today, don't feel like there's a
43:24
Speaker 2: link between these two. But if he is communicating with Debray,
43:28
Speaker 2: and if Debray's the kind of person who brags about
43:32
Speaker 2: his crimes, who wants to be more notorious than what
43:34
Speaker 2: he is. That he wants to be this grandiose killer
43:37
Speaker 2: or criminal, and he needs attention. He has found in
43:41
Speaker 2: Cliff somebody who will correspond with him from prison, so
43:45
Speaker 2: it's a friend to him. It's someone that he's sunk
43:48
Speaker 2: his hooks into and he's able to say, I have
43:50
Speaker 2: a bite into this guy. He's going to communicate with
43:53
Speaker 2: me again. I'm going to give him a tiny lead,
43:55
Speaker 2: and I'm going to give him another piece of information
43:57
Speaker 2: and another piece of information. Debray to me, when you
44:01
Speaker 2: look at his crimes, unless he has multiple crimes, I
44:04
Speaker 2: haven't heard. He's not typically committing murders with other people.
44:08
Speaker 2: Very rarely do two people kill and both of them
44:10
Speaker 2: stay silent for decades. I just can't imagine Debray being
44:16
Speaker 2: this kind of character who's going to say, I'm actually
44:18
Speaker 2: going to help provide relief to Cliff. I'm going to
44:20
Speaker 2: give him peace of mind and help him. Because he
44:23
Speaker 2: doesn't do that. He doesn't ever give any kind of
44:26
Speaker 2: concrete evidence that gives Cliff justice. So to me, Cliff
44:30
Speaker 2: is another victim again at Debray's hands, by being someone
44:34
Speaker 2: that is communicated with over and over and over again
44:37
Speaker 2: and provided information and details that might seem valid and real,
44:42
Speaker 2: and instead he's really being played with by someone who's
44:45
Speaker 2: a sick criminal.
44:47
Speaker 3: I agree. I think that Cliff is such a victim
44:50
Speaker 3: in this story, and I cannot imagine what it would
44:53
Speaker 3: be like being a first responder going into a murder scene,
44:57
Speaker 3: which is incredibly grizzly. There has to be blood everyone where,
45:00
Speaker 3: and then you find out that it's your own brother,
45:03
Speaker 3: and then, like Ashley said, to basically be tortured by Debray.
45:07
Speaker 3: I personally, like I said earlier, in my gut, don't
45:10
Speaker 3: feel like he's responsible. I think there are some commonalities there,
45:14
Speaker 3: but it just feel like it's a different offender profile.
45:17
Speaker 3: The removal of that for sale sign, the dragging his
45:21
Speaker 3: body back in the taking of the wallet, it just
45:24
Speaker 3: feels so planned out and that the robbery was just
45:26
Speaker 3: a secondary part of it, whereas I feel like Debray's
45:31
Speaker 3: motives robbery might be the primary motive unless it's a woman,
45:35
Speaker 3: and then there could be a sexual component to it.
45:38
Speaker 3: So I just think that this is a different offender,
45:42
Speaker 3: and I really wish that Debray would have given an
45:44
Speaker 3: answer one way or another, just so that Cliff would
45:48
Speaker 3: know definitively if it was Debray and if he had
45:52
Speaker 3: anything to do with the murder of his brother. But
45:54
Speaker 3: clearly that just hasn't happened. And I really hope that
45:57
Speaker 3: if anybody has any information about who killed Morris Davis,
46:02
Speaker 3: they'll come forward now because the landscape has changed considerably.
46:06
Speaker 3: It's been so many years. It's been nearly forty years
46:09
Speaker 3: at this point.
46:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, I still have vivid memories of watching the Unsolved
46:13
Speaker 1: Mystery segment when originally aired, and I know during Cliff's interview,
46:17
Speaker 1: he talked about Morris being just a wonderful guy who
46:19
Speaker 1: was so full of life, and they say that all
46:22
Speaker 1: the time about victims on true crime shows. But then
46:25
Speaker 1: the segment actually shows this adorable photograph of Morris holding
46:28
Speaker 1: up this golden Labrador puppy to his face and like
46:31
Speaker 1: smiling with it. And I found out that Morris's nickname
46:35
Speaker 1: was Bear because he was described as being like a
46:37
Speaker 1: giant teddy bear. So he really did sound like an
46:40
Speaker 1: incredibly special guy who was beloved by his family members
46:43
Speaker 1: and all of his friends. So it was just a
46:45
Speaker 1: complete shock to everyone that he would be murdered in
46:48
Speaker 1: such a brutal fashion and was probably just a random
46:51
Speaker 1: victim who was in the wrong place at the wrong
46:53
Speaker 1: time because he happened to be assigned to deliver pizza
46:56
Speaker 1: to this abandoned house by someone who just probably wanted
47:00
Speaker 1: to commit a thrill kill. And of course we had
47:02
Speaker 1: so much time wasted on this lead, involving the Bosch
47:06
Speaker 1: ballistic tests and the gun belonging to Rick and Oregon,
47:09
Speaker 1: which I think hampered the investigation. And I do think
47:13
Speaker 1: that the Donald Dubray theory is compelling, but it could
47:17
Speaker 1: just be I have no idea what Cliff spoke to
47:20
Speaker 1: Debray about what information he might have shared. But like
47:23
Speaker 1: Ashley says, convicted killers, when they're no they're going to
47:26
Speaker 1: be in prison for the rest of their life. They
47:28
Speaker 1: like to toy with people because they have nothing left
47:30
Speaker 1: to lose. So it's possible he was doing that with
47:32
Speaker 1: Cliff and Detective Cameron, and maybe he had nothing to
47:36
Speaker 1: do at all with Morris's murder. And if he did,
47:39
Speaker 1: it's going to be hard to prove it after all
47:41
Speaker 1: this time, since he has since passed away. But I
47:44
Speaker 1: remember Cliff when he made those message board posts on
47:46
Speaker 1: sitcoms online. He was actually pretty flattered that people were
47:49
Speaker 1: still talking about this case all these years later, and
47:52
Speaker 1: that people still remembered Morris and wanted to see justice
47:56
Speaker 1: for what happened to him. And I'm hoping that can
47:58
Speaker 1: still happen someday if it wasn't Braith, and perhaps his
48:01
Speaker 1: killer is still alive and out there somewhere and could
48:04
Speaker 1: still be charged and convicted of this crime. But it'll
48:08
Speaker 1: be difficult because I don't know if there's much forensic
48:10
Speaker 1: evidence to work with. But maybe somebody heard an individual
48:14
Speaker 1: bragging about murdering a pizza delivery guy back in nineteen
48:17
Speaker 1: eighty five, and if that's what happened, that they can
48:19
Speaker 1: come forward with information and hopefully lead to a resolution
48:23
Speaker 1: in this case.