Latest / Crime and Horror / Her evil plan put her on death row (MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY)

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Her evil plan put her on death row (MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY) · Crime and Horror

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Speaker 1: This story is going to be painful to listen to.
0:02
Speaker 1: It's a horrific tragedy and there's really no other way
0:05
Speaker 1: to tell it without it coming off that way, and
0:07
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Speaker 1: let's get into today's story. In the early nineteen sixties,
0:47
Speaker 1: two high school classmates in South Carolina named Carol and
0:51
Speaker 1: Reggie fell in love with each other. Every day in
0:53
Speaker 1: the halls, they'd hold hands, and they'd laugh with each
0:55
Speaker 1: other and whisper to each other, and then outside of
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Speaker 1: school they were inseparable fight their seemingly perfect relationship. It
1:02
Speaker 1: didn't last long. They both had different ideas about what
1:05
Speaker 1: the future should hold, and so after graduation they broke up.
1:08
Speaker 1: Reggie went on to join the US Navy, where he
1:10
Speaker 1: served for a number of years all over the world.
1:13
Speaker 1: He would at one point get married, but that marriage
1:15
Speaker 1: would end quickly, and then after he got out of
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Speaker 1: the military, he got a job at a railroad back at.
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Speaker 2: His hometown in South Carolina.
1:21
Speaker 1: As for Carol, after graduation, she got married and divorced
1:25
Speaker 1: too twice actually, but it was her second failed marriage
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Speaker 1: that nearly killed her. On February eighteenth, nineteen eighty seven,
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Speaker 1: Carol was living with her ten year old daughter, Ronda
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Speaker 1: in South Carolina when her estranged second husband came up
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Speaker 1: to the door and knocked. Carol opened the door, and
1:40
Speaker 1: her ex husband drew a gun and shot her six
1:42
Speaker 1: times in front of her daughter, before turning around and fleeing.
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Speaker 1: The police would later find his body inside of his
1:48
Speaker 1: car on the side of the road.
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Speaker 2: He had shot himself.
1:51
Speaker 1: As for Carol, the doctors were able to save her life,
1:54
Speaker 1: but the injuries she sustained from the attack were crippling.
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Speaker 1: She was blind in one eye and she had chronic pain,
2:00
Speaker 1: and so her young daughter had to start taking care
2:02
Speaker 1: of her full time. Over the next eight years, Carol
2:04
Speaker 1: steadily improved and regained some of her independence, but in
2:08
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five she had a huge setback. She started
2:11
Speaker 1: feeling ill, and so she went in to see a
2:13
Speaker 1: doctor and the doctor did a blood test and they
2:15
Speaker 1: discovered she had liver cancer. It would turn out the
2:18
Speaker 1: blood that was given to her after the attack, that
2:21
Speaker 1: had been transfused into her body to save her life,
2:24
Speaker 1: it had been tainted with hepatitis C, and so she
2:27
Speaker 1: got hepatitis C without realizing it, and because it had
2:30
Speaker 1: been untreated, it led to liver cancer. Ronda remembers when
2:34
Speaker 1: her mother came home after being given this terrible news,
2:37
Speaker 1: she just sat down and was silent for a minute,
2:39
Speaker 1: and then she just kind of muttered to herself, I
2:41
Speaker 1: just can't get away from this man. He's killing me
2:44
Speaker 1: all over again. But despite being dealt such an unfair
2:47
Speaker 1: hand in life, Carol was determined to not let her
2:50
Speaker 1: injuries or her illness define her, and so she went
2:52
Speaker 1: out looking for a job that could accommodate her physical limitations,
2:56
Speaker 1: and she found it. She was hired as a part
2:58
Speaker 1: time customer service rape for a television cable company. She
3:01
Speaker 1: was very happy about this job and very proud of it.
3:04
Speaker 1: Because it was the first time she was working after
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Speaker 1: the attack, and so for once it felt like her
3:09
Speaker 1: life was going back to normal again. A few years later,
3:11
Speaker 1: in two thousand, when Carol was working at the cable company,
3:15
Speaker 1: her phone rang and she answered it the way she
3:17
Speaker 1: answered every other call, but the voice she heard on
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Speaker 1: the other end she immediately recognized. He introduced himself as
3:23
Speaker 1: Reggie Sumner, and so Carol asked him, are you the
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Speaker 1: Reggie Sumner from nineteen sixty two at Garrett High School
3:30
Speaker 1: in South Carolina, And he said, yeah, that's me, and
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Speaker 1: Carol said, I'm your ex girlfriend.
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Speaker 2: We dated in high.
3:35
Speaker 1: School, and so it was this incredible reunion, this totally
3:38
Speaker 1: chance phone call, and for the next hour or so,
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Speaker 1: they just chatted on the phone about everything from their
3:43
Speaker 1: kids to their relationships they've.
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Speaker 2: Been into, what they're up to now.
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Speaker 1: I mean, they had a lot to catch up on
3:48
Speaker 1: since they hadn't seen or heard from each other in
3:50
Speaker 1: nearly forty years, and so before they hung up, they
3:53
Speaker 1: realized they lived near each other.
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Speaker 2: And so they made plans to get together in person.
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Speaker 1: Ronda would say her mother when she came home that night,
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Speaker 1: was like a sixteen year old girl all over again.
4:02
Speaker 1: She talked endlessly about how great Reggie was and how
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Speaker 1: good looking he was, and how excited she was about
4:08
Speaker 1: their upcoming date. And so a couple of days later,
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Speaker 1: Carol and Reggie have this date, and when Carol comes home,
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Speaker 1: Ronda would say it was obvious her mother had fallen
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Speaker 1: head over heels in love with Reggie all over again.
4:19
Speaker 1: And luckily Reggie had fallen in love with Carol too,
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Speaker 1: because less than six months later they got married and
4:24
Speaker 1: became mister and Missus Sumner. Within a year of their marriage,
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Speaker 1: they decided to sell their home in South Carolina and
4:30
Speaker 1: moved to Jacksonville, Florida, to retire. Even though caring for
4:33
Speaker 1: her mother for all those years had been quite difficult
4:36
Speaker 1: for Ronda, she said she was very sad to see
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Speaker 1: her mother go, but at the same time, she was
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Speaker 1: really happy for her because it seemed like she had
4:43
Speaker 1: found the one. Over the next couple of years, Ronda
4:45
Speaker 1: stayed in touch with her mother, speaking to her almost
4:47
Speaker 1: every single day on the phone. But in July of
4:50
Speaker 1: two thousand and five, Ronda's mother stopped answering her phone.
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Speaker 1: At first, Ronda wasn't that concerned, but after twenty four
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Speaker 1: hours of not hearing from her mother or from Reggie,
5:00
Speaker 1: she did get concerned because even though Reggie was able
5:03
Speaker 1: to care for Carol, he wasn't in the best shape himself.
5:06
Speaker 1: He had debilitating diabetes and he had recently broken his
5:09
Speaker 1: leg and so was largely confined to a wheelchair, and
5:12
Speaker 1: so if they were to leave their house for an
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Speaker 1: extended period of time, they wouldn't do it without asking
5:16
Speaker 1: for help from Ronda.
5:18
Speaker 2: And so over the next couple of days, Ronda.
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Speaker 1: Incessantly called her mother and called Reggie, but she never
5:24
Speaker 1: got through to them, and so finally, after almost seventy
5:27
Speaker 1: two hours of not hearing from them, she decides to
5:29
Speaker 1: just hop in her car and drive the four hours
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Speaker 1: to Jacksonville to check on them personally. When she got there,
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Speaker 1: she saw her mother and Reggie's car was not in
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Speaker 1: the driveway like it normally would be, and so Ronda
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Speaker 1: went up to the front door, and she knocked, and
5:41
Speaker 1: she's yelling for her mom, but nobody's coming to the door,
5:44
Speaker 1: even though lights are on inside the house, and so
5:46
Speaker 1: Ronda eventually tries the handle of the door and it's opened,
5:49
Speaker 1: and so she opens it up. She steps inside. She
5:52
Speaker 1: yells again for her mom and for Reggie, but no
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Speaker 1: one yells back. And then she sees their beloved dog, Mikey,
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Speaker 1: that they brought everywhere with them was in the house,
6:01
Speaker 1: and so she's thinking where would they have gone without
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Speaker 1: bringing Mikey? And so Ronda continues to walk through the
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Speaker 1: house into the kitchen, and when she gets there, she
6:08
Speaker 1: sees on the table are two plates of food where
6:11
Speaker 1: the food looks like it's a couple of days old,
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Speaker 1: and it's just sitting on the plate like they had
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Speaker 1: been eating it and then just abandoned it there. And
6:17
Speaker 1: then in the sink are all these dirty dishes, and
6:19
Speaker 1: then on the stove are half cooked pots of food.
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Speaker 1: And Ronda knows her mother is an extremely tidy person
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Speaker 1: and she never would have left her house with dirty
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Speaker 1: dishes and food out on the table, and so red
6:29
Speaker 1: flags are going up for Ronda.
6:31
Speaker 2: But what ultimately sealed.
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Speaker 1: The deal for her was when she turned and looked
6:34
Speaker 1: on one of the counters, she saw the cell phone
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Speaker 1: that Reggie and Carol shared was still sitting there, along
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Speaker 1: with Carol's purse, and then next to that was both
6:42
Speaker 1: of their medications, which was Reggie's insulin and Carol's liver
6:45
Speaker 1: cancer medication, both of which were life saving and needed
6:49
Speaker 1: to be taken every single day. There's no way they
6:51
Speaker 1: would have left the house without those things, and so
6:54
Speaker 1: Ronda immediately calls the Jacksonville Police Department and she files
6:57
Speaker 1: a missing person report, and before long, the missing couple's
7:00
Speaker 1: story is all over the news and all of the
7:03
Speaker 1: networks are asking people if they have information to come forward,
7:06
Speaker 1: but no one came forward, and so the only lead
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Speaker 1: the police had was to track down the Sumner's car,
7:11
Speaker 1: which was missing from their driveway when Ronda shut up
7:14
Speaker 1: at their house. So the police shared the description of
7:16
Speaker 1: their vehicle all across the state, and very quickly they
7:19
Speaker 1: got a hit. The car had been found abandoned in
7:22
Speaker 1: a Florida town about one hour west of Jacksonville.
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Speaker 2: It had been parked in this semi forested, very secluded.
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Speaker 1: Area off of a dirt road, and there was nothing
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Speaker 1: inside of it, but they saw the battery had been
7:33
Speaker 1: taken out, leading some of the officers to speculate that
7:36
Speaker 1: perhaps the Sumners really had just driven away from their
7:39
Speaker 1: home without telling anybody and then ran into car troubles,
7:42
Speaker 1: but that theory would quickly be thrown out the window.
7:44
Speaker 1: When five hours later, the Jacksonville Police received a very
7:48
Speaker 1: strange phone call. The man who called in said he
7:50
Speaker 1: was Reggie Sumner, and he said he had seen the
7:52
Speaker 1: news about him and his wife being missing and that
7:55
Speaker 1: that was just totally not true, that in reality, they
7:57
Speaker 1: had left, but they were just fine and they'd back soon.
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Speaker 1: The police are immediately suspicious of this person. They don't
8:03
Speaker 1: think it's Reggie Sumner because, for one, he sounds like
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Speaker 1: a young man, and Reggie is a sixty one year
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Speaker 1: old and so the voice didn't really line up, and
8:11
Speaker 1: just the way he was talking about this disappearance like
8:13
Speaker 1: it was no big deal, that also just didn't really
8:16
Speaker 1: make sense. And so one of the officers asked, Reggie,
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Speaker 1: are you with your wife Carol? And he said, yep,
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Speaker 1: I'm with her.
8:21
Speaker 2: Here she is.
8:22
Speaker 1: And so a woman hops on the phone who says
8:24
Speaker 1: she's Carol Sumner, but she sounds far too young to
8:27
Speaker 1: be Carol Sumner, who's sixty one. This sounds like a eighteen,
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Speaker 1: nineteen twenty year old girl, and she too, just reiterates
8:33
Speaker 1: that everything's just fine and they've gone out for a
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Speaker 1: couple of days.
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Speaker 2: There's nothing to worry about and.
8:37
Speaker 1: You know, you police can stop looking for us. And
8:39
Speaker 1: so after this call ends, the police at this point
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Speaker 1: are convinced that this simply cannot.
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Speaker 2: Be Carol and Reggie.
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Speaker 1: But to make sure, they call in Ronda and they
8:48
Speaker 1: have her listen to the recording of this conversation with
8:50
Speaker 1: the so called Reggie and Carol, and right away.
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Speaker 2: Ronda says, that's not my mom and that's not Reggie.
8:55
Speaker 1: And so at this point the police assumed that these
8:58
Speaker 1: two people who called in pretend to be the Sumners
9:01
Speaker 1: probably had something to do with the disappearance of the
9:04
Speaker 1: real Sumners. And so while they waited for the trace
9:06
Speaker 1: on this phone call to come back, which would give
9:08
Speaker 1: them information about who was calling in from where, the
9:11
Speaker 1: police decided to investigate another angle. The police looked at
9:15
Speaker 1: the Sumners' bank statements and they saw their bank card
9:18
Speaker 1: had been used at an ATM in South Carolina after
9:21
Speaker 1: the Sumners had been reported missing. And so they called
9:24
Speaker 1: that bank and they asked for the CCTV footage from
9:26
Speaker 1: that ATM, and when they watched it, they saw that
9:29
Speaker 1: it was not Carol or Reggie Sumner withdrawing funds. It
9:32
Speaker 1: was some unknown man in his early twenties. Right after
9:35
Speaker 1: this discovery of this unknown man, the trace from the
9:39
Speaker 1: phone conversation with the imposter Sumners came back, except it
9:43
Speaker 1: was tied to a fake name at a fake address,
9:45
Speaker 1: so that wasn't helpful to the police in their investigation. However,
9:49
Speaker 1: when they went through this cell phone's call logs, which
9:51
Speaker 1: they got with the phone trace, they saw whoever owned
9:54
Speaker 1: this cell phone had recently placed a call to a
9:57
Speaker 1: car rental company in South Carolina, and so the police
10:00
Speaker 1: call this car rental company and they speak to the
10:02
Speaker 1: manager and they're able to figure out that somebody using
10:05
Speaker 1: this cell phone number had indeed called and had rented
10:08
Speaker 1: a car, and the car they rented matched the description
10:12
Speaker 1: of the car the unknown man was driving in the
10:14
Speaker 1: ATM surveillance footage. But this car had been rented to
10:17
Speaker 1: a woman. Her name was Tiffany Cole. The rental company
10:20
Speaker 1: told police that all of their cars had satellite tracking
10:23
Speaker 1: information built into them, and so police were able to
10:26
Speaker 1: use that information to track Tiffany's rental car to a
10:29
Speaker 1: motel in South Carolina. The initial thought was that maybe
10:33
Speaker 1: the Sumners are being held against their will in this motel,
10:36
Speaker 1: and so very Quickly a police force was organized, and
10:39
Speaker 1: on the morning of July fourteenth, so six days after
10:42
Speaker 1: the Sumners were listed as missing, they arrive at this hotel.
10:45
Speaker 1: They go to the front desk, they find out what
10:47
Speaker 1: room Tiffany is in. They get the key and they
10:50
Speaker 1: go up and they open the door. The Sumners were
10:52
Speaker 1: not inside. Instead, there were three young adults sitting there.
10:55
Speaker 1: It was twenty four year old Tiffany Cole, her boyfriend
10:58
Speaker 1: twenty three year old Michael James J. Jackson, and his
11:01
Speaker 1: friend nineteen year old Alan Wade. Also in the room
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Speaker 1: were dozens of bags of recently purchased merchandise like computers
11:08
Speaker 1: and video games and clothes and perfume. And also they
11:11
Speaker 1: discovered the key to the Sumner's vehicle and Reggie Sumner's
11:15
Speaker 1: prized coin collection. The police brought all three back to
11:19
Speaker 1: the police station and put them in separate rooms to
11:21
Speaker 1: be interrogated. At this point it was obvious to police
11:24
Speaker 1: that these three had something to do with the Sumner's disappearance.
11:27
Speaker 1: They had all these things in the room that tied
11:29
Speaker 1: them to the missing couple, and so now the police
11:32
Speaker 1: as they interrogated them, it was not so much about
11:34
Speaker 1: connecting them to the Sumners as much as it was
11:37
Speaker 1: about helping.
11:37
Speaker 2: Them find the Sumners.
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Speaker 1: At first, all three of them either didn't talk or
11:42
Speaker 1: were totally uncooperative, but under intense questioning, Tiffany cracked a
11:47
Speaker 1: little bit. She said that they had robbed the Sumners,
11:50
Speaker 1: but nothing more. They didn't do anything else besides rob them,
11:53
Speaker 1: and there had been a fourth person involved in the robbery,
11:57
Speaker 1: nineteen year old Bruce Nixon, who was friends.
11:59
Speaker 2: With Alan Wade.
12:00
Speaker 1: Bruce lived nearby, so the police quickly rounded him up
12:03
Speaker 1: and brought him in for questioning, and unlike the other three,
12:06
Speaker 1: Bruce immediately caved, and the story he told about what
12:10
Speaker 1: happened to the Sumners brought many of the police that
12:13
Speaker 1: were involved in this investigation to tears. He said, it
12:16
Speaker 1: all started with Tiffany. Tiffany used to be neighbors with
12:20
Speaker 1: the Sumners back when they still lived in South Carolina.
12:23
Speaker 1: Tiffany had a pretty rough upbringing and her father was
12:26
Speaker 1: permanently sick, and so the Sumners kind of took her
12:29
Speaker 1: under their wing and looked after her and built a
12:31
Speaker 1: very close relationship with her and kind of treated her
12:34
Speaker 1: like she was one of their daughters.
12:35
Speaker 2: Anything she needed.
12:36
Speaker 1: If she needed money, food, anything, they would give it
12:39
Speaker 1: to her. For example, in two thousand and one, right
12:41
Speaker 1: before they left for Florida, they sold a car to Tiffany,
12:45
Speaker 1: but they sold it for basically nothing because they knew
12:47
Speaker 1: she didn't have any money and she really needed a car.
12:50
Speaker 1: Four years later, in June of two thousand and five,
12:53
Speaker 1: Tiffany was partying in Jacksonville, Florida, with her new boyfriend
12:56
Speaker 1: Michael James Jackson. When they got kicked out of the house,
12:59
Speaker 1: they play and on staying in for the night, and
13:01
Speaker 1: so now they don't have a place to stay, they
13:03
Speaker 1: don't have any money, and that's when Tiffany remembers the
13:06
Speaker 1: Sumners had moved to Jacksonville and they would always help
13:08
Speaker 1: her out if she needed anything. And so the two
13:10
Speaker 1: of them drive the Sumner's house in the middle of
13:12
Speaker 1: the night. They haven't called them, and they just knock
13:14
Speaker 1: on the door totally uninvited, and Carol comes to the
13:17
Speaker 1: door and when she opens it, she sees Tiffany and
13:20
Speaker 1: immediately she's like, Oh, my goodness, I haven't seen you
13:22
Speaker 1: in so long. Come in, Come in, Who were you?
13:25
Speaker 1: Oh Michael, great to meet you. Come on inside, I'll
13:27
Speaker 1: get your food. We'll get you fed.
13:28
Speaker 2: What do you need? What can we do for you?
13:30
Speaker 1: And so that's when Tiffany explains to them that their
13:32
Speaker 1: plans had kind of fallen through and they didn't have
13:34
Speaker 1: a place to stay that night, and would it be
13:36
Speaker 1: possible to stay with them? And so Carol and Reggie
13:39
Speaker 1: right away say, absolutely, no problem, Tiffany, Michael, you guys
13:42
Speaker 1: are guests here. You're welcome stay as long as you want.
13:44
Speaker 1: And so that night Carol cooked a big meal for
13:47
Speaker 1: them and they all sat down at the table and
13:48
Speaker 1: at some point Carol and Reggie talk about the sale
13:51
Speaker 1: of their house in South Carolina, and somehow it came
13:54
Speaker 1: up that they had made ninety nine thousand dollars in
13:57
Speaker 1: profit from this sale, and they were so happy about
14:00
Speaker 1: it because now they could really retire comfortably. And so
14:03
Speaker 1: as soon as they said that, Tiffany and Michael shot
14:06
Speaker 1: glances at each other because they knew they had to
14:09
Speaker 1: come back and rob them. The next morning, Carol and
14:11
Speaker 1: Reggie got up early. They made coffee, and they made breakfast,
14:14
Speaker 1: and they were hoping that Tiffany and Michael would stick
14:16
Speaker 1: around for the day and spend some more time with them,
14:18
Speaker 1: but Tiffany and Michael were very quick to want to leave.
14:21
Speaker 1: They said, thank you very much, we've got to hit
14:22
Speaker 1: the road, and so they left, and as soon as
14:25
Speaker 1: they get in the car, they start planning how they're
14:27
Speaker 1: going to come back and rob the Sumners and get
14:29
Speaker 1: their hands on that.
14:30
Speaker 2: Ninety nine thousand dollars.
14:32
Speaker 1: One month later, on the evening of July eighth, after
14:35
Speaker 1: all robbery preparations have been made, Bruce Nixon and Alan
14:38
Speaker 1: Wade show up at the Sumner house and they knock
14:41
Speaker 1: on the door. When the door opens, it's Carol, and
14:43
Speaker 1: she doesn't recognize either of them, but being as kind
14:46
Speaker 1: and generous as she was, she said, hey, boys, you
14:48
Speaker 1: know what can I do for you? How can I
14:50
Speaker 1: help you? And this was exactly what Bruce and Alan
14:53
Speaker 1: were expecting based on what Tiffany told them.
14:55
Speaker 2: She said this couple would be very easy to exploit.
14:58
Speaker 1: And they tell her that their car broken down and
15:00
Speaker 1: they needed to use her phone, and so she's a
15:02
Speaker 1: little bit skeptical, but ultimately she says, sure, come on in,
15:05
Speaker 1: and so Bruce and Allen go inside the house. The
15:07
Speaker 1: door shuts behind them, and as soon as it does,
15:09
Speaker 1: one of them draws a fake gun that looks very
15:12
Speaker 1: real and pointed it at Carol while the other one
15:14
Speaker 1: began tying her up with cord and with duct tape,
15:17
Speaker 1: and so Carol begins screaming and making a bunch of noise,
15:19
Speaker 1: and Reggie, who's in the garage out of sight, he
15:22
Speaker 1: hears her. He comes running in to see what's going on,
15:25
Speaker 1: and he sees these two men who immediately attack him.
15:27
Speaker 1: And Reggie's got a broken leg and he's already pretty
15:29
Speaker 1: weak in frail, and so he doesn't put up much
15:31
Speaker 1: of a fight, and before long he and his wife
15:34
Speaker 1: were all taped up and restrained on the couch, and
15:36
Speaker 1: they were having duct tape wrapped around their heads until
15:39
Speaker 1: everything was covered except for a slit underneath their nose
15:42
Speaker 1: so they could breathe. And so, with the couple completely
15:44
Speaker 1: under control and at the mercy of their captors, one
15:47
Speaker 1: of the men texted Michael, who was down the road
15:50
Speaker 1: with Tiffany inside of Tiffany's rental car, and the text
15:53
Speaker 1: just said all clear, And what that meant was Michael
15:56
Speaker 1: could now come up and help them rob the house.
15:58
Speaker 1: And so Tiffany stays down the road in the rental car,
16:01
Speaker 1: Michael makes his way up, he goes inside, and he,
16:04
Speaker 1: Bruce and Allen proceeded to ransack the house. And while
16:07
Speaker 1: these three men are moving room to room taking all
16:09
Speaker 1: of their valuables, Reggie and Carol are probably thinking to
16:12
Speaker 1: themselves that, you know what, this is awful. We're getting robbed.
16:15
Speaker 1: But after they take whatever they take and they leave,
16:18
Speaker 1: will be fine. We'll recover. But when these three men
16:22
Speaker 1: finished taking all of their valuable items, they decided that
16:25
Speaker 1: they would also take Reggie and Carol.
16:27
Speaker 2: So they stood the couple up.
16:28
Speaker 1: And they marched them into the garage and they put
16:30
Speaker 1: them in the trunk of their own car. At this point,
16:33
Speaker 1: Bruce left the Sumner's house and went down the road
16:36
Speaker 1: and got in Tippany's rental car, and Michael and Allen
16:39
Speaker 1: they got into the Sumner's car, and the two cars
16:42
Speaker 1: met up on the road and then drove forty minutes northwest,
16:45
Speaker 1: just over the border into Georgia, where they found this
16:48
Speaker 1: access road and they went down it until they reached
16:50
Speaker 1: this very secluded section of forest. This was not just
16:53
Speaker 1: some random spot in the middle of the woods in Georgia.
16:56
Speaker 1: This was a pre selected spot that Tiffany and the
16:59
Speaker 1: others had been to two days earlier to prepare it,
17:02
Speaker 1: and what they had done to prepare was to dig
17:05
Speaker 1: a grave for the Sumners. Michael and Allen in the
17:08
Speaker 1: Sumner's car, drove up right next to the grave site,
17:11
Speaker 1: while Tiffany and Bruce came up right behind them, And
17:13
Speaker 1: once they had all stopped, they got out of the
17:15
Speaker 1: car and they went right behind the Sumner's car and
17:17
Speaker 1: they popped open the trunk. It's believed the temperature inside
17:20
Speaker 1: of that trunk was well over one hundred degrees and
17:23
Speaker 1: so Reggie and Carol were sweating profusely, and the sweat
17:27
Speaker 1: had caused their restraints to slip off their wrists and
17:30
Speaker 1: slip down off their face, and so the two of
17:32
Speaker 1: them were found holding onto each other and crying and praying.
17:35
Speaker 1: Seeing how weak they already were, the group decided they
17:38
Speaker 1: did not need to put new tape around the wrists
17:40
Speaker 1: or their face. They weren't going to go anywhere, and
17:43
Speaker 1: so they grabbed the two and they pulled them out
17:44
Speaker 1: and dumped them on the ground. It was probably around
17:47
Speaker 1: this time that the Sumners realized Tiffany was one of
17:50
Speaker 1: these four people that was doing this horrible thing to them,
17:53
Speaker 1: and I can only imagine the heartbreak they experienced. This
17:56
Speaker 1: girl that they took in under their wing, that they
17:59
Speaker 1: thought of as a daughter, was betraying them in such
18:01
Speaker 1: a heinous and horrible way. But there was no time
18:04
Speaker 1: to feel upset about it, because as soon as they
18:06
Speaker 1: were dumped on the ground, Michael grabbed Reggie and kind
18:09
Speaker 1: of threw him over to the side and said, sit down,
18:11
Speaker 1: don't move, I'm going to kill you and your wife.
18:13
Speaker 1: And then the others grabbed Carol and dragged her away
18:16
Speaker 1: from her husband over to the edge of the grave,
18:18
Speaker 1: where they literally ripped the jewelry off of her face
18:21
Speaker 1: and off of her body, and then after all the
18:23
Speaker 1: jewelry was gone, they pushed her into the grave. Then
18:26
Speaker 1: they walked over to Reggie and dragged him over and
18:28
Speaker 1: threw him in with his wife. As soon as the
18:30
Speaker 1: couple was in the grave together, they repositioned themselves so
18:33
Speaker 1: they were both sitting up, one in front of the other,
18:35
Speaker 1: with Carol behind Reggie, and she threw her legs and
18:38
Speaker 1: her arms around Reggie, just kind of clutching onto him,
18:41
Speaker 1: and she buried her head into his back and she
18:43
Speaker 1: began crying. The original plan apparently had been to take
18:47
Speaker 1: the Sumners and put them in this grave and pretend
18:50
Speaker 1: like you were going to do something to them, to
18:52
Speaker 1: scare them into giving up all of their information, all
18:55
Speaker 1: of their banking information, and anything else that was valuable.
18:58
Speaker 2: And it worked.
18:59
Speaker 1: And so as Carl is crying into Reggie's back, Reggie
19:02
Speaker 1: is pleading with the group. He's pleading to them, let
19:04
Speaker 1: me give you everything I have. Whatever you need, it's yours.
19:07
Speaker 1: And so Michael said, give me all your ATM bank
19:09
Speaker 1: card numbers, give me your pin numbers, everything, And so
19:12
Speaker 1: Reggie did. He gave him all the information he could
19:14
Speaker 1: possibly give to him. And then, for some reason, despite
19:17
Speaker 1: the fact that at this point the group has taken
19:20
Speaker 1: everything of value from this poor couple, they have extracted
19:24
Speaker 1: all the valuable information they could possibly get from them,
19:27
Speaker 1: despite that, they decide that that's not enough. They need
19:31
Speaker 1: to kill the Sumners, and they need to kill them
19:34
Speaker 1: in the worst way imaginable. They need to bury them alive.
19:39
Speaker 1: For hours, the group slowly shovelfull by shovelful filled in
19:43
Speaker 1: this hole, with Reggie and Carol sitting at the bottom
19:46
Speaker 1: begging for their lives.
19:47
Speaker 2: But the group didn't care at all.
19:48
Speaker 1: They just kept shoveling dirt down on top of them
19:51
Speaker 1: until the dirt and mud had gotten up to their
19:53
Speaker 1: necks and the weight of the dirt was pressing in
19:56
Speaker 1: on their chests and was making it really hard to breathe.
19:58
Speaker 1: And so as Carol and Reggie are feeling this happening
20:01
Speaker 1: to them, they can feel themselves being crushed under this weight.
20:05
Speaker 1: Their cries for help become more and more desperate, but
20:08
Speaker 1: more spaced apart, because they're breathing at this point is
20:11
Speaker 1: so labored. It's so hard to get a full breath
20:14
Speaker 1: that they're conserving their.
20:15
Speaker 2: Air at this point.
20:16
Speaker 1: And then at some point, as the dirt crept closer
20:19
Speaker 1: and closer to their mouths, they had to tilt their
20:21
Speaker 1: heads up to try to get a good breath of air.
20:23
Speaker 1: But when they did that, they began shoveling dirt directly
20:26
Speaker 1: onto their faces, causing them to choke and gag. They're
20:29
Speaker 1: inhaling this and it's becoming nearly impossible to catch a breath.
20:33
Speaker 2: They're dying at this point, and.
20:34
Speaker 1: So finally another layer of dirt was thrown on top
20:37
Speaker 1: of them and they disappeared under the soil, but their
20:40
Speaker 1: sounds didn't go away. They continued to whimper and make
20:43
Speaker 1: sounds as more and more dirt was put down, until
20:46
Speaker 1: finally they had filled in the hole and they begin
20:48
Speaker 1: packing the dirt down with the backs of their shovels,
20:51
Speaker 1: and they could hear underneath the soil still the sounds
20:54
Speaker 1: of this couple dying. This was a slow and horrible death.
20:58
Speaker 1: After the killers were done, they left the site and
21:00
Speaker 1: they took the Sumner's car and they dumped it in
21:03
Speaker 1: Florida where it was ultimately found, and then they all
21:05
Speaker 1: piled into the rental car. They went to an ATM
21:08
Speaker 1: and pulled some of the Sumner's money out, and then
21:10
Speaker 1: went on a spending spring. Here is a photo of
21:12
Speaker 1: Tiffany celebrating just hours after killing the very people that
21:17
Speaker 1: had taken her in and treated her like a daughter.
21:19
Speaker 1: After their autopsies, the medical examiner explained that both Reggie
21:23
Speaker 1: and Carol had Dirk packed into their nose, into their
21:26
Speaker 1: mouths and their throats and their stomach and in their lungs,
21:29
Speaker 1: meaning their actual cause of death was being buried alive
21:33
Speaker 1: in exchange for telling investigators what happened and for leading
21:37
Speaker 1: them to the gravesite where the Sumners were. Bruce Nixon
21:40
Speaker 1: was spared the death penalty and given a life sentence,
21:43
Speaker 1: as for Michael, Allen and Tiffany, they were all sentenced
21:46
Speaker 1: to death.
21:46
Speaker 2: So that's going to do it. Guys. If you found
21:48
Speaker 2: the secret.
21:48
Speaker 1: In today's episode, let us know in the comments what
21:50
Speaker 1: it is and where you found it. So give us
21:52
Speaker 1: the timestamp and if you're the first to do that,
21:54
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21:57
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21:59
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22:19
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22:35
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22:37
Speaker 1: So whether I see you on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, reddit, YouTube,
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Speaker 1: or some combination, just know that I really appreciate your
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Speaker 1: support and until next time, that's going.
22:44
Speaker 2: To do it. See you