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Hell and Gone Murder Line: William Vick Part 3 · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:08
Speaker 1: School of Humans.
0:13
Speaker 2: On January twenty third, twenty twenty three, just six days
0:16
Speaker 2: after William Vick was found dead on his bedroom floor
0:19
Speaker 2: in Clarksville, Arkansas, police did a welfare check on his wife,
0:23
Speaker 2: Lorenda's mother, seventy two year old Martha MacLean. Martha lived
0:27
Speaker 2: in a detached house on the same property with William
0:30
Speaker 2: and Larenda. They found Martha struggling to breathe with drugs
0:35
Speaker 2: including leriiza, PAM, and morphine around her. Martha had overdosed
0:40
Speaker 2: and was close to death, but paramedics administered narcan, a
0:44
Speaker 2: drug that blocks opioids and can be used in the
0:47
Speaker 2: case of overdose. They administered that drug three times, so
0:51
Speaker 2: Martha's breathing improved and she survived. Matt Foster with the
0:56
Speaker 2: Arkansas State Police wrote in his report that when he
0:59
Speaker 2: found Martha, she had a pen and a partially handwritten note,
1:03
Speaker 2: and after he found her, he executed a search warrant
1:07
Speaker 2: for the property.
1:08
Speaker 1: That's when law enforcement found a second.
1:11
Speaker 2: Hand written note, and in that note, Martha confessed to
1:14
Speaker 2: tampering with her son in law William's medication and to
1:19
Speaker 2: killing him. But why why did Martha kill William and
1:24
Speaker 2: what really happened to her.
1:26
Speaker 1: I'm Catherine Townsend.
1:28
Speaker 2: Over the past five years of making my true crime podcast,
1:31
Speaker 2: Helen Gone, I've learned that there is no such thing
1:34
Speaker 2: as a small town where murder never happens. I have
1:37
Speaker 2: received hundreds of messages from people all around the country
1:40
Speaker 2: asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them,
1:43
Speaker 2: their families, and their communities. If you have a case
1:46
Speaker 2: you'd like me and my team to look into, you
1:48
Speaker 2: can reach out to us at our Helen Gone murder
1:50
Speaker 2: Line at six seven eight seven four four six '
1:54
Speaker 2: one four five. That's six seven eight seven four four
1:57
Speaker 2: six ' one four or five, or you can send
2:00
Speaker 2: us a message on Instagram at Helen gonpod. This is
2:05
Speaker 2: Helen go on murder Line. After Martha McLean overdosed, she
2:56
Speaker 2: was stabilized at Johnson County Hospital, where she remained for
2:59
Speaker 2: the next two weeks.
3:01
Speaker 1: Shortly after that, the prosecutor, Jeff.
3:03
Speaker 2: Phillips told William's family that he was getting ready to
3:06
Speaker 2: file murder charges against Martha. I've seen the affidavit for
3:11
Speaker 2: the warrant that was typed up. All the facts are there,
3:14
Speaker 2: but in the version I saw, it's not yet signed
3:17
Speaker 2: or dated. According to the affidavit, Martha was going to
3:22
Speaker 2: be charged with capital murder. So we asked last week,
3:26
Speaker 2: how exactly did Martha gain access to William's medicine and
3:31
Speaker 2: did she give it to him or did she tamper
3:33
Speaker 2: with it and then give it back to Laurinda. What
3:35
Speaker 2: was the exact sequence of events there? In the note
3:39
Speaker 2: she allegedly wrote, Martha said she had altered William's medication,
3:44
Speaker 2: and then she stated at a later date she injected
3:48
Speaker 2: him with a drug that would cause paralysis. We know
3:52
Speaker 2: that William and Martha did not like each other. In fact,
3:55
Speaker 2: William's son will said that Martha hated his father. William's
3:59
Speaker 2: brother Ted.
4:00
Speaker 3: Confirmed that Martha supposedly hated Willie and had to kill
4:06
Speaker 3: him in the past. And you know, Lorenda's even posted
4:10
Speaker 3: on social media sides that, Yeah, my mother hated Willie
4:14
Speaker 3: and I had to take a gun from her not
4:16
Speaker 3: too long before that because she said she was going
4:20
Speaker 3: to shoot him, so I took her, took her gun
4:22
Speaker 3: away from her, give it at William Lorenda's house. It's
4:27
Speaker 3: all just unremarkably bizarre that it's too far fetched.
4:34
Speaker 2: So again we wondered if Martha gave him an injection.
4:39
Speaker 2: Is that something that could have been a realistic possibility,
4:43
Speaker 2: Is that something William would ever have allowed. Ted told
4:47
Speaker 2: us about what the prosecutor told him about the series
4:50
Speaker 2: of events that led to William getting that medicine. According
4:53
Speaker 2: to William's autopsy, he had a combination of drugs in
4:56
Speaker 2: his body. His cause of death was listed as mixed laurazapam,
5:01
Speaker 2: morphine and tramat all toxicity. But apparently William was prescribe
5:06
Speaker 2: some other drugs. Ted said the story that he was
5:10
Speaker 2: told by Larenda was that after William's surgery, William was
5:14
Speaker 2: prescribed steroids, but that Lrenda told investigators that William did
5:18
Speaker 2: not want to take them.
5:20
Speaker 3: I guess she went and got hit them up, came
5:22
Speaker 3: back home. Willly said no, I don't want to take them.
5:26
Speaker 3: Probably be fine, or actually she said he would probably
5:30
Speaker 3: be fine. And then from that's our understanding, and then
5:36
Speaker 3: later on that evening or at some point, he did say, okay, yeah,
5:41
Speaker 3: I think I probably need to take take those steroids.
5:45
Speaker 3: But she had already gave them away. He had already
5:48
Speaker 3: gave them to her mother.
5:49
Speaker 2: Apparently Lorenda's mother, Martha, had a lot of health problems.
5:53
Speaker 2: Lrenda said that Martha had throat cancer and was on
5:56
Speaker 2: hospice care, but Ted said Lrenda said that after Martha passed,
6:02
Speaker 2: so we're not exactly sure what Martha's diagnosis was.
6:05
Speaker 4: Was She's like, Willy didn't even know because I didn't
6:08
Speaker 4: tell him, But my mom's on hospice for froid.
6:12
Speaker 3: Answer.
6:13
Speaker 4: That's never been confirmed that her mom was ever on hospice,
6:19
Speaker 4: but that is what she told me.
6:21
Speaker 3: And I'm like, oh, okay, and she's like dad, but.
6:24
Speaker 4: Willie didn't know that. Nobody knew that my mom was sick.
6:28
Speaker 4: So she's like, so I whenever Willie decided he didn't
6:31
Speaker 4: want the steroids, I gave him to my mom, thinking
6:35
Speaker 4: they would help make her stronger on her week days.
6:38
Speaker 2: Lareenda said, since William didn't want to take the steroids,
6:42
Speaker 2: that she gave them to her mother in case her
6:44
Speaker 2: mother needed them, and then Ted said Larenda told investigators
6:49
Speaker 2: that William was apparently experiencing some pain, some side effects
6:53
Speaker 2: from the tom selectomy, and Lrenda told him that at
6:56
Speaker 2: some point William apparently decided that he did want his
6:59
Speaker 2: meds after all.
7:00
Speaker 3: And then sometime in the middle of the night. This
7:03
Speaker 3: is coming from investigators telling us they're around three three
7:07
Speaker 3: point thirty in the morning. She text her mom and said,
7:11
Speaker 3: you know, Willy said he wants to take the drugs.
7:14
Speaker 3: He wants to take the steroids. And I guess the
7:18
Speaker 3: mom supposedly text back and said, they'll be on your porch.
7:22
Speaker 3: So supposedly she left the drugs on the porch. Lorenda
7:25
Speaker 3: got them, gave them to Willie, and they were laced
7:31
Speaker 3: with tremodol, morphine, and larazaphim high doses of all three
7:37
Speaker 3: of those. And then he appears to have passed out
7:40
Speaker 3: and you know, maybe coming out of the bathroom. And
7:44
Speaker 3: then according to Martha in her confession letter, she said,
7:48
Speaker 3: then she injected Willy with a drug called such methanonium.
7:53
Speaker 3: That is a drug that they use in an er room.
7:57
Speaker 3: Only it is not a drug that gets you know,
8:00
Speaker 3: put on the streets for you know, drug abusers or
8:02
Speaker 3: anything like that. It's literally the drug that they use
8:06
Speaker 3: for they COVID patients or people who they just totally
8:10
Speaker 3: put under and incubated. It basically collapses your lungs and
8:13
Speaker 3: then they're breathing for you. That's like an antesthesiologists, medicine
8:17
Speaker 3: for when they put you totally under. Martha took the
8:21
Speaker 3: rap for it all. She said that in her confession letter,
8:26
Speaker 3: supposedly Martha went upstairs and injected Willie with the messmonium
8:33
Speaker 3: in his left side lower extremities. I believe, which would
8:38
Speaker 3: be pretty accurate because where he fell and they found him,
8:43
Speaker 3: when you walk up the stairs to his bedroom, his
8:46
Speaker 3: left side would be facing that stair line, so that stairway,
8:50
Speaker 3: so it would be that would be you know, sounds
8:53
Speaker 3: plausible that someone would stab him there.
9:01
Speaker 2: William's family was bothered by Lorenda's actions right out after
9:05
Speaker 2: William died. Remember William's daughter Ashley said that she was
9:10
Speaker 2: shocked to get the call when her father had already
9:13
Speaker 2: been dead for two days. Ted said that Ashley wasn't alone.
9:17
Speaker 2: Ted said that after William died, to his knowledge, Lareenda
9:21
Speaker 2: didn't call anyone in William's family.
9:23
Speaker 3: Not only was that, but Lareinda didn't call any family,
9:27
Speaker 3: not even my brother's children, not even my niece or nephew.
9:32
Speaker 3: She waited my niece and nephew didn't find out that
9:35
Speaker 3: their father had been murdered for two days and the
9:39
Speaker 3: second they found out. Of course, they call Lareenda and
9:43
Speaker 3: she was like, yeah, yeah, he's dead.
9:47
Speaker 2: After receiving the shocking news that William was dead, his
9:51
Speaker 2: family at first thought that it might have been a
9:53
Speaker 2: complication from his recent surgery.
9:56
Speaker 3: The first thing that goes through our minds is, you know,
9:58
Speaker 3: maybe a you know, a possible tom selectomy, something went wrong.
10:04
Speaker 3: But we just it was to believe because my brother
10:06
Speaker 3: was in this was in very good shape. He was
10:09
Speaker 3: put together well, he was you know, he was muffled up.
10:13
Speaker 3: He was in good shape. He wasn't in poor health.
10:15
Speaker 3: He didn't drink and in smoke.
10:18
Speaker 2: Ted told us up front he hadn't talked to his
10:20
Speaker 2: brother in over four years. They got into an argument
10:23
Speaker 2: after Ted alleges that William began to take money out
10:27
Speaker 2: of their parents' accounts that William had access to. Because
10:31
Speaker 2: of that, they were estranged at the time of William's death.
10:35
Speaker 2: So it wasn't until later that Ted learned that William's
10:38
Speaker 2: body was in rigor mortis when he was found. According
10:41
Speaker 2: to the autopsy report, the rigor mortis was fixed in
10:45
Speaker 2: the extremities.
10:46
Speaker 1: Obviously, as we.
10:47
Speaker 2: Have discussed many times on this podcast, estimating time of
10:51
Speaker 2: death is very difficult and depends on a lot of factors,
10:55
Speaker 2: but in general, fixed rigor mortis and extremities means that
10:59
Speaker 2: the body would have been lying there for several hours
11:02
Speaker 2: as a very general estimate, possibly between six and twelve hours.
11:07
Speaker 2: Because of that, Ted believes that Lreinda was trying to
11:11
Speaker 2: create a narrative to explain why she waited so long
11:14
Speaker 2: to check on William. As we said last week, Lreinda
11:18
Speaker 2: explained that she had not checked on William in several
11:20
Speaker 2: hours because she was letting him rest. She also told
11:24
Speaker 2: investigators that she was staying in her own room, separate
11:27
Speaker 2: from William because she was feeling sick and worried that
11:30
Speaker 2: she might have COVID.
11:32
Speaker 3: Well, things weren't adding up, and then all of a sudden,
11:34
Speaker 3: you know, Lorenda, we hadn't talked to in years. She
11:37
Speaker 3: calls my wife Michelle, and she starts talking. And we're
11:40
Speaker 3: sitting there and I'm being quiet because if I talked,
11:44
Speaker 3: she's probably going to hang up. But that already pretty
11:47
Speaker 3: much suspected something really weird. But she just started saying
11:51
Speaker 3: things that weren't adding up. I mean, she was like, yeah,
11:55
Speaker 3: me and Willie both didn't feel well. I thought I
11:58
Speaker 3: had COVID. We were sitting on the couch and then
12:04
Speaker 3: we went upstairs to try to get and sleep, and
12:07
Speaker 3: then she's like, I couldn't sleep, so I came back downstairs.
12:11
Speaker 3: I decided to go get my mom and still grocery shopping.
12:16
Speaker 3: You know, I don't know who's going to go get
12:18
Speaker 3: their seventy two year old mother when you think you
12:22
Speaker 3: have COVID and go grocery shopping with her. And she's
12:26
Speaker 3: a nurse, so it snows damn well. She probably should
12:29
Speaker 3: stay quarantined for a bit. And during that phone call,
12:33
Speaker 3: she told us that nobody knew this, and my brother
12:36
Speaker 3: didn't supposedly even know that. Supposedly her mother was on
12:39
Speaker 3: hospice at that time, and then supposedly when she came back,
12:45
Speaker 3: he didn't go upstairs to check on my brother at all.
12:49
Speaker 3: She just mealed around the house. Supposedly ended up going
12:53
Speaker 3: into a room downstairs and trying to go to sleep, arrest,
12:59
Speaker 3: take a nap. Bill didn't go check on my brother,
13:03
Speaker 3: didn't check on until about eleven thirty that night, twelve
13:07
Speaker 3: fifteen hours later, probably.
13:10
Speaker 2: When Loreinda went to check on William at around eleven PM,
13:14
Speaker 2: that night she found him dead on the bedroom floor,
13:18
Speaker 2: and then as we discussed, she called the corner. Something
13:22
Speaker 2: else that Ted funds strange is with the layout of
13:24
Speaker 2: the house.
13:25
Speaker 1: He said, the bedroom where.
13:27
Speaker 2: William was found was upstairs and it was an open loft.
13:30
Speaker 2: Ted believed that it would have been difficult for Lrenda
13:33
Speaker 2: or anyone else to miss signs of his brother being
13:36
Speaker 2: in distress.
13:37
Speaker 3: His house was very small, and his bedroom was not
13:42
Speaker 3: a typical bedroom. It was more of a lost and
13:47
Speaker 3: open loft was like a mezzanine. There was no wall divided.
13:52
Speaker 3: You know, if he was upstairs just talking normal, anybody
13:57
Speaker 3: downstairs could hear him. So she, you know, her claiming that,
14:02
Speaker 3: I mean, if my brother was to have went up
14:04
Speaker 3: there and collapse, first of all, she would have heard
14:07
Speaker 3: him fall. Thing of all, I highly doubt if he
14:10
Speaker 3: didn't make any noises. You know.
14:13
Speaker 2: At the time, Lorenda had a friend named Linda who
14:16
Speaker 2: was visiting her, but the friend wasn't staying with William
14:19
Speaker 2: and Lrenda. She was staying in a hotel. So supposedly,
14:23
Speaker 2: on Sunday, January twenty second, Lrenda's mother, Martha, confessed to
14:27
Speaker 2: Larinda and her friend and gave both of them a
14:30
Speaker 2: handwritten confession letter. Ted wonders why they didn't immediately take
14:35
Speaker 2: that letter to police. He said, they did not show
14:38
Speaker 2: that letter to anyone until the next day, Monday, January
14:42
Speaker 2: twenty third.
14:43
Speaker 3: Lorenda had a friend come down on a Saturday or Sunday,
14:47
Speaker 3: and sometime during Sunday, Lrenda's mom confessed to both of
14:52
Speaker 3: them gave them the letter of confession. Well, they said
14:55
Speaker 3: on that letter all Sunday night, they didn't call the police.
14:59
Speaker 3: They didn't call nine one one allegedly the next day,
15:04
Speaker 3: and I say, allegedly it's in it's in a Statement's
15:07
Speaker 3: in statements. They get in a vehicle, Linda and Larenda,
15:14
Speaker 3: and they go to an attorney. It's not said what attorney.
15:19
Speaker 3: It's not said where, whether it was in Clarksville where
15:23
Speaker 3: he was killed, or whether it's Russellville where the Colk
15:26
Speaker 3: County Prosecutor Jeff Phillip's office is. Nonetheless, that attorney advises
15:31
Speaker 3: them to take it to the prosecutor's office. So at
15:34
Speaker 3: that point Larinda decides, I don't want to go. So
15:38
Speaker 3: the friend drops Larinda off at a hotel, which we
15:42
Speaker 3: are assuming it's the hotel of the friends. Because she's
15:46
Speaker 3: in town. You stay in town to support Larenda. So
15:50
Speaker 3: Linda drops off Lrenda at the hotel. Linda takes this
15:54
Speaker 3: note into the prosecuting Attorney's office. Again, don't know if
15:58
Speaker 3: it's in Clarksville because his office isn't in Clarksville, or
16:02
Speaker 3: if it's in the Russville department, but it does get
16:04
Speaker 3: to just up somehow.
16:07
Speaker 2: Eventually Agent Foster talked to Larinda, but Lrenda said she
16:11
Speaker 2: hadn't been able to reach her mother, Martha. She said
16:14
Speaker 2: that Martha was not answering phone calls. She wanted officers
16:17
Speaker 2: to do a welfare check on Martha.
16:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, whichever office, whether it was Farceville prosecuting office or Russaville,
16:24
Speaker 3: Larenda just shut it down and said, I want a
16:28
Speaker 3: health and welfare on my mother. So she pretty much
16:31
Speaker 3: refused to talk until she had a health and welfare
16:34
Speaker 3: on her mother. So they're like, okay, So the state
16:38
Speaker 3: police goes out to my brother's property. Martha isn't opening
16:42
Speaker 3: the door. They kick in the door. They find her
16:45
Speaker 3: laying down, laying on the floor with a pen in
16:48
Speaker 3: her hand. Supposedly that's what the affidavit says from Matt Foster,
16:51
Speaker 3: the investigator, a note and the confession letter. Another confession letter.
16:57
Speaker 3: I suppose she wasn't dead, she was alive.
17:00
Speaker 2: Martha was in the hospital for two weeks. Eventually she
17:04
Speaker 2: was stable enough to be trained. Ted says that that's
17:07
Speaker 2: when the family got another call from the prosecutor's office.
17:11
Speaker 3: Well, it got to the point where Jeff Phillips calls us.
17:14
Speaker 3: We have a family meeting and it's about an hour long,
17:17
Speaker 3: and we do have it recorded. He tells us that
17:21
Speaker 3: Martha confessed to it in a letter. He tells us
17:24
Speaker 3: that he has to release Martha to somebody. We're like,
17:29
Speaker 3: what she confessed? Why can't you arrest her? And he said,
17:35
Speaker 3: we don't have the facilities to keep her. And he says,
17:39
Speaker 3: so we have to release her to somebody. My niece
17:41
Speaker 3: literally is like, well, or at least her to me.
17:43
Speaker 3: He's like, it has to be family. He's like, oh,
17:46
Speaker 3: She's like, well, I'm family. He's like, no, that'd be
17:48
Speaker 3: a conflict. Okay. So he's like, I think I have
17:52
Speaker 3: to release her to Lorenda. I said, wait a minute,
17:57
Speaker 3: you're going to release Martha to confessed murderer to Lrenda,
18:02
Speaker 3: who he told us in that family meeting that he
18:06
Speaker 3: suspensed Larnda as the prime suspect, as the mastermind, literally
18:12
Speaker 3: nicknamed her the black widow. So he tells us that
18:15
Speaker 3: he's going to release Martha to Lorenda. I said, Jeff,
18:20
Speaker 3: she won't live the weekend. That was a Friday, I believe, Yeah,
18:26
Speaker 3: I don't know, but he said that he was going
18:28
Speaker 3: out of town, but he would ride up and arrest
18:30
Speaker 3: Affid David and have her arrested, and he didn't need
18:34
Speaker 3: to be in town, that they could just go arrest her.
18:36
Speaker 3: Once he wrote up his affidavit, he released her to Larinda.
18:40
Speaker 3: She was dead like five hours later.
18:43
Speaker 2: According to Ted, Martha's cause of death was drug overdose.
18:48
Speaker 2: We don't have access to Martha's autopsy report, but Ted
18:52
Speaker 2: says he's been told that the manner of death in
18:54
Speaker 2: Martha's case is listed is undetermined. The prosecutor announced that
19:03
Speaker 2: he was pursuing murder charges. It's William's mother, seventy two
19:07
Speaker 2: year old Martha McLean, But then Martha McLean died very suddenly.
19:12
Speaker 2: After Martha's death, the prosecutor's office released a statement. It
19:17
Speaker 2: said that before official charges could be filed Martha McLean
19:21
Speaker 2: had died in hospice care. Ted said that he was
19:25
Speaker 2: outraged after Martha died. He said that he spoke to
19:29
Speaker 2: Jeff Phillips after the fact and that the prosecutor told
19:31
Speaker 2: him he was not aware of how serious Martha's medical
19:35
Speaker 2: issues were. But Ted said he has trouble reconciling that.
19:39
Speaker 2: He pointed out that even if Martha was more physically
19:42
Speaker 2: capable than some people believed, that Martha had admitted to
19:46
Speaker 2: attempting to take her own life. So Ted believed that
19:49
Speaker 2: was a sign that she obviously had mental health issues,
19:53
Speaker 2: and he also questioned the prosecutor's logic of releasing the
19:56
Speaker 2: suspect in a murder investigation to someone whom Jeff Phillips
19:59
Speaker 2: had allegedly implied could be a co defendant in future.
20:04
Speaker 2: Another question I had, why would Martha have so many
20:08
Speaker 2: drugs in her home, so much access to them, and
20:11
Speaker 2: so much knowledge about how they worked, enough to be
20:14
Speaker 2: able to tamper with someone else's medication. Ted started posting
20:18
Speaker 2: information on a Facebook page, Justice for William Vick. Some
20:22
Speaker 2: people have commented online and said that Martha apparently considered
20:26
Speaker 2: herself some kind of amateur veterinarian, so for that reason,
20:30
Speaker 2: they said she kept drugs around so she could perform
20:33
Speaker 2: veterinary surgeries on animals, including one commenter claimed de skunking skunks.
20:39
Speaker 2: We also know that Martha did have various health issues,
20:43
Speaker 2: though we don't know if she was terminal or not.
20:45
Speaker 2: Either way, her being seventy two years old and having
20:48
Speaker 2: issues could explain why she had certain drugs in her home.
20:52
Speaker 2: Because William's family felt the legal system wasn't making progress
20:55
Speaker 2: on murder charges, they started to take a look at
20:58
Speaker 2: the fraud angle.
20:59
Speaker 1: They started following the money.
21:02
Speaker 2: As I often say in my other podcast, Red Collar,
21:04
Speaker 2: where I cover the fraud cases that lead to murder.
21:07
Speaker 2: When someone dies and there's a suspicious death, one question
21:11
Speaker 2: investigators should ask themselves, in my opinion, is who stands
21:15
Speaker 2: to profit from this person's death. In the case of
21:18
Speaker 2: William Vick Ted believes that the answer is Laurinda. We
21:24
Speaker 2: talked about William's life insurance policies. He had taken out
21:27
Speaker 2: two policies before his death, for a total of eight
21:29
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty thousand dollars. So I'm going to go
21:32
Speaker 2: back just a minute and take a closer look at
21:35
Speaker 2: that series of events. On September nineteenth, twenty twenty, William
21:39
Speaker 2: applied for a life insurance policy through Farmers and in
21:43
Speaker 2: that first policy, which was for five hundred thousand dollars,
21:47
Speaker 2: in the event of William's death, Lrenda would receive fifty
21:50
Speaker 2: percent of that policy, and each of William's children, will
21:54
Speaker 2: and Ashley would get twenty five percent each. Ashley told
21:58
Speaker 2: us that her father had talked to her about that
22:00
Speaker 2: life insurance policy before he died. Then, on February twenty third,
22:04
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, William submitted another application for a second
22:08
Speaker 2: life insurance policy, this time for three hundred and fifty
22:12
Speaker 2: thousand dollars, again with the same setup. In the event
22:15
Speaker 2: of his death, Larenda gets fifty percent, each of the
22:17
Speaker 2: kids get twenty five That policy was issued in March
22:21
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty two, but there was a change in
22:24
Speaker 2: those life insurance policies, a big change. On July seventh,
22:28
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, Farmers got a form asking that the
22:32
Speaker 2: insurance policy beneficiaries be changed, and the same thing happened
22:37
Speaker 2: with the second policy, So in a nutshell, after those
22:41
Speaker 2: policy change forms were filed, this meant that Laarnda would
22:45
Speaker 2: receive one hundred percent of both policies the entire eight
22:49
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Ashley and William were listed
22:53
Speaker 2: as fifty percent contingent beneficiaries, meaning that if Larenda was
22:57
Speaker 2: unable to accept the insurance for some reason, like she
23:01
Speaker 2: died or turned it down, that is the only way
23:03
Speaker 2: they would see any of that money. After William's death,
23:09
Speaker 2: the insurance company had a problem because in Arkansas, as
23:12
Speaker 2: in many states, there's something called the slayer law. What
23:15
Speaker 2: it means is that if someone dies and their suspicion
23:18
Speaker 2: that a beneficiary of the life insurance policy could have
23:21
Speaker 2: been involved, the insurer will pay out the policy, but
23:25
Speaker 2: normally they leave the money with the court until the
23:27
Speaker 2: state decides what to do. According to court documents, that's
23:31
Speaker 2: what happened here. Farmers wanted to pay out the policy,
23:35
Speaker 2: but they said the decedent's manner of death has been
23:38
Speaker 2: determined to be homicide and upond information and belief Lrenda
23:43
Speaker 2: is a suspect in the decendent's homicide. That is straight
23:46
Speaker 2: from court papers. So the insurance company seemed to be
23:49
Speaker 2: saying they could not pay out the claim due to
23:52
Speaker 2: the Arkansas slayer law. According to court papers, Farmers was
23:56
Speaker 2: claiming the case wasn't adjudicated, so they actually couldn't figure
24:01
Speaker 2: out whether the Arkansas slayer law meant Larenda couldn't receive
24:04
Speaker 2: the benefits or not. And because they couldn't figure out
24:06
Speaker 2: if Lrenda could get the money, therefore they could not
24:09
Speaker 2: figure out whether Ashley or William would get a payout.
24:13
Speaker 2: So Farmer's New World Life Insurance Company filed an unopposed
24:16
Speaker 2: motion to interplead the proceeds of the two life insurance policies.
24:20
Speaker 2: In other words, they wanted to combine them together and say, hey,
24:24
Speaker 2: we're out of this. So the insurance company wanted to
24:28
Speaker 2: pay out the eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars minus
24:31
Speaker 2: six thousand to cover their attorney fees and deposit the
24:34
Speaker 2: rest of it in the registry of the court.
24:36
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what happened.
24:38
Speaker 2: Now that money eight hundred and forty four thousand dollars
24:41
Speaker 2: is with the Clerk of Court in the Western District
24:43
Speaker 2: of Arkansas. It's frozen there for now in a disputed
24:47
Speaker 2: ownership funds account. This is a situation that happens a
24:53
Speaker 2: lot to families. It's actually something I never thought about
24:56
Speaker 2: that much until I started investigating suspicious deaths and started
25:00
Speaker 2: doing this podcast.
25:01
Speaker 1: It's not clear what's going to happen to that money.
25:04
Speaker 2: If the legal case is adjudicated, the court rather the
25:08
Speaker 2: insurance company, will be responsible for paying it out. But
25:11
Speaker 2: this process could go on for years because this is
25:14
Speaker 2: an open investigation. Ted and some other members of his
25:17
Speaker 2: family believed that the criminal investigation in stalled and that
25:21
Speaker 2: the only way for them to move forward and try
25:23
Speaker 2: to get justice was to follow the money and see
25:26
Speaker 2: if they could get anywhere.
25:27
Speaker 1: With fraud charges.
25:28
Speaker 2: They were very suspicious of those life insurance beneficiary changes.
25:33
Speaker 2: They believed that Lorenda had done that without William's knowledge,
25:36
Speaker 2: and that she may have forged signatures on those change
25:40
Speaker 2: documents and on other documents. I want to say again,
25:44
Speaker 2: there is absolutely no proof of this. Lorenda has not
25:47
Speaker 2: been arrested or charged in connection with William's death. We're
25:51
Speaker 2: simply following the investigation and trying to follow the steps
25:55
Speaker 2: that his family took. Ted started a Facebook page called
26:00
Speaker 2: Justice for William Vick. He started putting out information there.
26:03
Speaker 2: Lorenda was posting on social media. Well on one post
26:07
Speaker 2: She stated that just because she may not be processing
26:10
Speaker 2: grief like other people or in a way that people
26:12
Speaker 2: perceived as normal, didn't mean she wasn't feeling it. Again,
26:16
Speaker 2: she completely denies any wrongdoing. She has never been arrested
26:21
Speaker 2: or charged in connection with William's death. The family was
26:24
Speaker 2: asking questions. The life insurance money was frozen by the courts,
26:28
Speaker 2: and another issue that Ted had with Larinda was the
26:33
Speaker 2: plot of the land and the house itself, the one
26:35
Speaker 2: where Laurenda and William lived. In August of twenty twenty,
26:40
Speaker 2: William and Lareinda obtained a quick claim deed from.
26:43
Speaker 1: William and Ted's father.
26:45
Speaker 2: This meant basically that their father transferred the title to
26:48
Speaker 2: William and Larinda, which presumably meant that after William died,
26:53
Speaker 2: Larinda would own the land and the house. But Ted
26:56
Speaker 2: claims his father did not agree to sign that document.
27:00
Speaker 2: Ted filed a lawsuit against Laurinda for fraud. In the
27:03
Speaker 2: summer of twenty twenty three, basically six months after William died.
27:08
Speaker 2: Ted and some other members of the family were going
27:10
Speaker 2: to court to try and get that lamb back. But
27:13
Speaker 2: there was another huge twist in this case coming because
27:18
Speaker 2: on September twenty ninth, twenty twenty three, nine months after
27:21
Speaker 2: William Vick was found dead on the bedroom floor, police
27:25
Speaker 2: once again rushed to a scene at William and Lorenda's
27:27
Speaker 2: home in Clarksville.
27:29
Speaker 1: This time it was a house fire.
27:32
Speaker 2: Before the case made it to court, William and Lorenda's
27:36
Speaker 2: house burned to the ground. I'm Catherine Townsend. This is
27:41
Speaker 2: Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line is a
27:44
Speaker 2: production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written
27:48
Speaker 2: and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts.
27:51
Speaker 2: Special thanks to Amy Tubbs for her research assistance. Noah
27:55
Speaker 2: camer mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song is
27:58
Speaker 2: by Ben Sale. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr,
28:02
Speaker 2: and l. C.
28:03
Speaker 1: Crowley.
28:04
Speaker 2: Listen to Helen Gone Out free by subscribing to the
28:07
Speaker 2: iHeart True Crime Plus channel.
28:08
Speaker 1: On Apple Podcasts.
28:10
Speaker 2: If you are interested in seeing documents and materials from
28:13
Speaker 2: the case, you can follow the show on Instagram at
28:16
Speaker 2: Helen gonpod. If you have a case you'd like me
28:19
Speaker 2: and my team to look into, you can reach out
28:22
Speaker 2: to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six
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Speaker 2: six seven eight seven four four six one four five.
28:37
Speaker 1: School of Humans,